Nashville for Free

With the insane heat wave we’ve been suffering from I was concerned that this year’s Tomato Art Festival would be completely unbearable, so Meryem and I decided to cross the river bright and early before the heat really set in. It was about 9:15 when we got there, and we lucked out with a sweet parking spot and even sweeter cloud cover.

Sadly, the cloud cover didn’t last, but we managed to keep cool with a pretty steady supply of free bottled water. There was also a lot of free food, much of it sugary or tomato-y (duh). There were a lot of great vendors set up, from local organizations, to clothing, to, of course, art.

There were also plenty of free, non-food items available. Tote bags, Yelp swag, tomato-shaped stress balls, and more were available for nothing more than your email address. I even got a free Jameson Pint Glass from Village Pub, who was giving away all kinds of free stuff for answering trivia questions. Luckily, I’m a master of Cincinnatian trivia, and while walking past their booth I overheard the question “who starred in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?” George Clooney! Meryem, our resident gardening fiend, won one for knowing that a tomato plant can produce 15 tomatoes in a season. Go us!

As always, it was a fun, packed festival, and it wasn’t too too hot outside. Though to be honest, I was shocked to not see more food trucks. However, I was excited to see a new pizza place opening in 5 Points, 5 Points Pizza. Good luck to them! And congratulations to the Tomato Art Festival for another great festival.

-Emily

New Faces Nite at The Basement (August 2nd, 2011) by Kate Cauthen, featuring Bridget & The Squares, Wilder Embry & Carolyn Flood, A Fire With Friends, Anna Haas, and The John King Band. More photos here.

Check out New Faces Nite for FREE everyday Tuesday at The Basement!

8 off 8th at Mercy Lounge (August 1st, 2011) by Kate Cauthen, featuring Benjamin Olson & The Fragile Apples, Jessica Campbell, Heather Davis, Lane Abernathy, The Horror Vaccui, Charles Fields, and Jerry Castle.

Well, the jury’s still out on how secret the party really was. Though Monday night was nowhere to be found on the tour’s schedule, Skrillex tweeted that he was heading to Nashville about 20 hours leading up to the show, and 12th and Porter spilled the beans at around 3pm. Needless to say, they packed out the cafe room way before Skrillex even set foot on stage.

There was some sort of list; I was lucky enough to know the kind and talented dj/blogger over at Nashville Nights (check it out, seriously) who threw me on there, but the show was open to the public as well. Just about everyone that showed up before 11:30 got in, waiting in varying lengths of line throughout the night. Regardless of how you got in or how your found out or how difficult it was to abandon all of your closest friends to get a chance to see a private show with Skrillex, it was totally worth it.

Skrillex, for those unawares, is one of the biggest names in Dubstep these days. A kid born out of the hardcore scene (From First to Last), he transitioned bigtime into the dance scene, of which Nashville has a great one. In the middle of a tour with Porter Robinson and Zedd, it was his day off but he played a show nonetheless. Zedd started the night off with some electro hip hop, and Skrillex–coming out for just over thirty minutes–went right through all of his best mixes and let Porter Robinson finish the night out.

The place was packed, and it was so hot inside that coming out to a 90 degree night was a welcome relief. Nashville’s full of surprises, and it’s always great to be a part of it!

When this summer began, I was mainly thinking of the green in my pocket. Yet, at the beginning of July, I find myself thinking much more about the green of my thumb than greenbacks. Every day when I return home from work, I grab an empty milk jug with holes punched in the top from my balcony, fill it with water, and spend 5 or 15 minutes watering, grooming and loving the jungle growing on my terrace.

I did not initially think that I would be growing so much on my balcony, but one thing led to another and I currently have a healthy heap of basil, one large, blooming tomato plant, a bell pepper plant which rivals the tomato for size, several sprigs of mint, overflowing catnip, some struggling thyme and rosemary, and a hanging planter of parsley. There is nothing I have done this summer that has brought so much joy for so little money.

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You may not have realized this, but today is the blog’s second birthday. Back when I started this website the Twitter account was going strong at about 2500 followers. Today we have 9200. Holy crap, I’m floored.

This hasn’t been a journey made by one person. Hilary and I dreamed up the idea of Nashville for Free one night in the dorm rooms at Belmont University. We started a pitiful Facebook group that still kind of exists (though I’m certainly not in it) and now it’s a website that gets more page views per month than I have dollars in the bank. It hasn’t been an easy journey here, I’ve made friends, lost friends, gotten to know the city I live in more than I ever expected to, and have spent many hours researching and blogging. To be honest, running this website made truly fall in love with Nashville, and it’s thanks to you all.

My readers, you’ve been supportive through the good times and the dry times, whether I could write about free Chipotle or Conan shows at Third Man, or if my only blogable material involved tacos at Jack in the Box or the Belmont Chamber Orchestra. You guys kept reading. And we kept blogging.

I want to thank not only each and every person who reads this blog, but everyone who’s contributed to it. Matt, Hilary, Kate, Meryem, Rachel, Katie, Jessica, Michelle, and Lance. Thank you all. I hope you have as much pride in this blog as I do. You deserve it.

-Emily

The forecast on Saturday was looking less than ideal. Hell, the weather forecast last week looked bad as far in advance as you could see. Thankfully this Saturday weatherman was wrong, because Meryem and I were intent on checking out the Green Wagon’s block party.

We rolled on down to the party at about 2pm and the weather was simply beautiful. The block party itself was pretty small, but I had an excellent crepe and bought some dishwashing detergent and Meryem hit up a sweet yard sale and bought some wine glasses. I feel like I always make the mistake of getting to parties too early as I’m pretty positive that things didn’t pick up until a little later. I don’t even think that Mas Tacos had arrived yet when we were there, which was an incredible bummer. Still, it was a pretty fun party, and there was plenty of other excellent food to be had.  (more…)

When I got my Ohio drivers license I was never told that as an Ohioan I would be expected so spread the Good Word concerning ice creams of the Buckeye state, but it seems like that’s exactly what I’ve been doing this week. If you don’t understand my passion concerning the Ohio delicacy recently brought to Nashville by the name of Jeni’s then you weren’t there to get free scoops Thursday night.

Fellow blogger Matt Kraatz and myself wondered over to East Nashville pretty much the moment we got off work, so we were there an hour early – 6pm. We didn’t really want to be those people who line up an hour early – especially since Jeni’s was hosting some sort of private party, so we headed over to Rose Pepper to enjoy their happy hour, get some food, and kill some time. Still, we were antsy to finish dinner and get some free ice cream with weird names.

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In honor of RC Cola and Moonpie’s tandem celebration, Nashville for Free’s newest blogger Meryem Dede and founder and EIC Emily Harris took the mile drive through Tennessee to attend one of the South’s largest festivals of sugar-filled traditions. Housed in Belt Buckle, Tennessee, this year’s 17^th annual RC Cola/Moonpie Festival was filled with deep-fried gooey goodness, local artisans, live entertainment and some first-class people watching. For the first time ever, Nashville for Free has decided to commemorate this most festive of events with a dual post.

Meryem: The festival was about Moonpies and RC Cola, but in reality the showcase of the celebration was Bell Buckle itself. With a whopping population of 391, Bell Buckle is the quintessential small town. The main sponsors of the festival were the only stores in the town and there were attendants who had been attending since the event’s first year. I would have liked if the festival was a little more clearly organized, but with the small-town atmosphere and easygoing nature and attitude of those in attendance, it didn’t really matter if the parade ran on time or the ½ hour cloggers only performed for 10 minutes.

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