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Daily Archives: December 3rd, 2011

Happy Hour: Watch Where You Step!

9 February 2009 | 5:38 pm
Author: Christy Frink

  • We can’t really imagine what 17 loads of chicken poop must smell like, but apparently it was bad enough to shut down the entire Rhea County school system early today. [WZTV]
  • The guy who barged into a Knoxville church a few months ago and killed two people was sentenced to life in prison. He claimed he did it because he “hated liberals and gays.” [Tennessean]
  • Costs continue to rack up for the TVA since someone told them they need to find ways to not ruin the environment. If they comply with the US District Court’s mandate to clean up coal plants near the NC border, they’ll have to find some way to come up with $1.8 billion. [Tennessean]
  • Speaker of the House Kent Williams, the Republican that everyone started hating when he pulled the proverbial rug from beneath the Tennessee Republicans last month, got kicked out of the Republican Party today. Which brings the House total to 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and Kent Williams. [WTVF]

Photo by ArcheiaMuriel.

We can’t really imagine what 17 loads of chicken poop must smell like, but apparently it was bad enough to shut down the entire Rhea County school system early today. [WZTV] The guy who barged into a Knoxville church a few months ago and killed two people was sentenced to life in prison. He claimed [...]

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Fiction Family At The Belcourt On January 30 [Guest Posts]

9 February 2009 | 3:46 pm
Author: Morgan Levy
Guest post by our friend Jon Arnold. Jon has been a guest blogger for Nashvillest in the past, writing about CREMA’s Coffee Classes.
I found out I had tickets to the Fiction Family show about two hours before it started.  I collected my wife and hurried over to the Belcourt, where I found a few co-workers (music business people) standing in line to get in.  We exchanged some pleasantries, discovered I was on the meet-and-greet list, and headed inside.
As the show started I realized I had seen Thad Cockrell once before, for a label showcase my wife’s company had put on.  He’s great, really; a hometown mixture of country — REAL country, mind you — and some deeply complex lyrics about love.  Basically, he’s comprised of a lot of what’s right with music in this town.
He performed a short but respectable set with a competent group of musicians behind him.  The crowd was familiar, polite, but were really there to see Fiction Family; you could start to feel the anticipation in the room growing.  Between sets we stood talking up friends for a while, but quickly quieted down when the theatre lights dimmed.
When Jon Foreman, Sean Watkins, and the rest of the band entered the stage, Foreman smiled and greeted the audience with, “Hello! Tonight we are your Fictional Family!”
It was true: that night, we did not watch Jon Foreman deliver epic rock anthems from the stage, or Sean Watkins perform brooding, heartfelt bluegrass. Instead, we saw smiling, affable musicians just up there having a good time and not worrying about impressing us, the crowd.
Their set was tight, with a musical ability that was nothing short of effortless, and yet it never felt like we were watching a “show.”  It really did feel like we were watching someone play songs with some friends in a living room, especially during the point in the set when Foreman invited the crowd up on the stage.
With people seated all around them, Fiction Family played a well-rounded set of their own material (including a Nickel Creek song and a solo Foreman tune) and a slew of covers.  We heard some Radiohead, Arcade Fire, but the true culmination was Sean’s solo cover of “Pink Triangle”, a song about unrequited lesbian love by Weezer.  Foreman sat on the ground and just chuckled through the whole tune, which Watkins played totally straight-faced.
Fiction Family’s music is light, sure, but the content of the songs can be pretty intense.  Twice, Foreman made light of that fact by asking the crowd to give it up for the topic of the song:
“Let’s hear it for murder!!” …which later gave way to, “Let’s hear it for the darkest day of your life!”
They always carried a little half-smile about everything, despite the fact that this Sean-Jon pair seems really quite world weary and worn. Keep in mind they’re both barely thirty and have been performing music professional nearly half their lives; a project like this must be a welcome relief.
After performing most of their album, they closed their set with their single, “When She’s Near”, a great amalgamation of their distinctly different styles.  Their encore was quality and ended with the album closer, “Look For Me Baby,” a rollicking bluegrass tune played on a banjolin.  And then, just like that, it was over.  The band bowed and left the stage, and everyone on the stage just sort of got up and started walking towards the exit.
My wife and I met up with our friends and walked into the precarious Belcourt basement, where a sweaty and grinning Foreman explained how glad he was to have so much fun on stage. He loved pulling some of the crowd up there with him and felt that it was such a great change of pace.  Watkins was busy getting things ready to leave and never stayed still, similar to how he behaved on stage (I could not get a clear photo of that guy for anything!).
Overall, the show was totally not what I expected: two guys known for their emotionally charged music get up on stage and have a good time for two hours. That being said, it’s obvious the emotion is still there, mostly in the form of the lyrics.  As we left and braved the cold night, the words of their songs is what bounced around in my head. Some of these songs betray their upbeat nature and point to severe emotional strife; I mean, just look at these lines from “War in My Blood”:
My baby’s soft and sweet, somewhere between a flower and a gun
Where my girl is now, someday that’s where I want to be from
But love is a dollar that’s already spent, love is a song that we’ve sung
There’s war in my blood, love ain’t the tune in my lungs
So here’s my consolation:
It takes two to go to war, and only one to fall in love.
Photo (and more here) by Jon Arnold.

Guest post by our friend Jon Arnold. Jon has been a guest blogger for Nashvillest in the past, writing about CREMA’s Coffee Classes. I found out I had tickets to the Fiction Family show about two hours before it started.  I collected my wife and hurried over to the Belcourt, where I found a few [...]

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You Tell Us: What Are Your Valentines Plans?

9 February 2009 | 11:28 am
Author: Morgan Levy

Consider this your official reminder that Valentine’s Day is this Saturday. What are your plans? Any tips on restaurants that are great for Valentine’s dinners around town (or better yet, places where we can still get a reservation)? It seems like there’s nothing quite as awesome as that one time Sigur Rós played the Ryman on Valentines Day, but is there anything fun we should know about? And if you’ll be spending the evening getting your drink on, well, let us know that too.

Photo by aussiegall.

Consider this your official reminder that Valentine’s Day is this Saturday. What are your plans? Any tips on restaurants that are great for Valentine’s dinners around town (or better yet, places where we can still get a reservation)? It seems like there’s nothing quite as awesome as that one time Sigur Rós played the Ryman [...]

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Bright & Early: Everyone’s A Star Edition

9 February 2009 | 9:19 am
Author: Christy Frink

Good morning, Nashville. We feel like it’s safe to say that we left our mark on the Grammy’s last night. Sure, Miley and Taylor were no Stevie Wonder and the Jonas Brothers, but Robert Plant and Alison Krauss walked home with five Grammy’s including Best Album and Best Record. Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Sugarland, and Keith & Nicole all made appearances, and even Kid Rock showed up and managed not to embarrass us too much. All in all, it was a pretty decent night for the folks who call Music City home.

  • Free at last. Teenage hooligans all around Metro are rejoicing with the latest budget cut which removes electronic ankle monitors from the juvenile justice system completely. Guess they’ll just have to stick with the good old-fashioned ball ‘n’ chain.
  • Sinking ship. The feds are now freezing $5M in grants to Metro Nashville Public Schools because someone found out that they used their last grant for $1.6M illegally. Par for the course.
  • Bits & pieces. Metro Action Commission is running out of money to bail us all out of our sky-high electric bills … This is what happens when you go to a BBQ joint to interview people about pork barrel spending … The TVA may be lowering rates soon … Gov. Phil is all set to give the State of the State address today.

Photo by Chad Lunn.

Good morning, Nashville. We feel like it’s safe to say that we left our mark on the Grammy’s last night. Sure, Miley and Taylor were no Stevie Wonder and the Jonas Brothers, but Robert Plant and Alison Krauss walked home with five Grammy’s including Best Album and Best Record. Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Sugarland, and [...]

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