9/10-13/08 Next Big Nashville 2008

Apologies to the 190 bands I did not see this weekend, September 10-13, the third year of Next Big Nashville (NBN)…

Apologies to the 190 bands I did not see this weekend, September 10-13, the third year of Next Big Nashville (NBN). Approximately 200 artists performed this year, surpassing 2007’s tally of 147.  Each venue boasted lineups that displayed a specific sound (for example, 3^rd & Lindsley kept it pretty “singer/songwriter” all weekend) or showcased a particular record label (i.e. Infinity Cat at Exit/In Friday, Grand Palace Records at the End Thursday). The NBN planners wisely parlayed that like-minded acts playing in sequence at the same venue would reduce what otherwise would be an unfortunately looped process of driving, parking (paying for parking), and walking. Bonnaroo fans were probably missing the short walks required for transport from the “Which” tent to the “Other” tent, and unlike Austin, TX’s South by Southwest, the connecting space between NBN venues is stilling functioning as a metropolitan area. Cake Bake Betty starts in five minutes so you’re cutting through Vanderbilt’s campus, trying to save time?  Police, traffic lights and Vandy football fans could care less…

NBN attracted a myriad of artists, listeners, label reps, journalists, etc. but the festival really caters to the music junkie-the punctual patrons who feed on the mystery of an opening act-sometimes missing the headliner altogether.  NBN contained plenty of seasoned opening acts (cherished rockers The Features currently open for pseudo-Nashvillians Kings of Leon) and the festival also boasted rare finds of flea market proportions, acts like The Glib, Eureeka Gold, and Shoot the Mountain who preceded bands of relative success, such as Pink Spiders, Butterfly Boucher, and Superdrag.  Although NBN might have hoped that Nashville heroes like The Features or How I Became the Bomb might repossess their hype this weekend and be to Nashville what, say, Nirvana was to Seattle, more compelling were the rising Nashvillians with less scar tissue, neither signed nor dropped by a label, illusions intact.

Exemplars of this preciousness included Cortney Tidwell whose band includes members of Lambchop, a veteran Nashville indie-collective, not to mention Ms. Tidwell herself, a preternatural diva whose urgent tonal-pogo is, like freedom of expression, a double-edged sword. Ms. Tidwell’s Joanna Newson-ness is matched by her band’s new-age spaciness, comparable to ‘90s Brit-rockers Portishead or The Sundays. They joined NBN amidst a tour with another already-big-Nashville band, Silver Jews.

Meemaw wins the award for Youngest Band, an ironic accolade considering the singers’ deep, hoarse and abrasive harmonies. The drummer (a petite female), plays like Tommy Ramone, often using the tom rather than the hi-hat to sustain their songs’ rapid tempo.  Often competing to outdo the abrasive energy of their label-mates Jeff of Infinity Cat Records, the better effects come on a moderate track like “Blue in the Blacklight” which is like a Rolling Stones song if the band had come of age during New Wave. Meemaw’s stage presence is a triangle of cool:  as composed (left guitarist, male), as bawdy (white Ray-Bans, male) and as androgynous (drummer, female).

Lots of analogies could fit to explain the elation one feels when a container of some sort, otherwise thought to be empty, bears a little more contents, the likes of which are savored deeply for their restorative properties.  Astrologists experience this perhaps when discovering a star or stoners when they find a misplaced stash; for me it was watching the Magic Wands. The container is the ‘80s, a decade that hitherto has been mined to detriment, but Friday night at Cannery an alloy melded of shoe gaze and drum machine produced by a skinny-dude and a blondie felt like a swirling heart-to-heart.  If one drinks their 80’s black, the less-hit myspace tracks “Heartbreak Whirl” and “Kaleidoscope Hearts” make fast of Galaxie 500, and prove that for the heart, depth of vibration always beats amplitude. “Teenage Love” normalizes “We Will Rock You” drums to hold up jangling guitar, eventually muting to allow a talking-rap of sorts.  It’s like Talking Heads “Seen and Not Seen” against the second half of Blondie’s “Rapture.”   First single “Black Magic” calls to mind Pixies’ “All Over the World.”

If by “Big,” the promoters of Next Big Nashville are alluding to what band might next sell gobs of records (for instance Paramore, of Franklin, Tenn., recently sold their millionth), the analysis hereto has little to report. Festivals make you miss a lot of music, much of which is said to be good, and much of which you knew was going to be good before going. A handful of the Nashville faves were disappointing-these are the bands I didn’t know could feel so “Big.”