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Oct 252012
 

I occasionally host out of towners at my Nashville residence, and more often than not, I’m asked, “What’s fun here?” I never feel like my extemporaneous answer is an accurate representation of what I love about this city. So I decided to make a list.

Absent are big ticket attractions like the Lower Broadway honky-tonks or Bluebird Cafe. These are well represented in your standard city guides, and while they may be fun for first-timers, they get old quick.

On the other hand, I do include other touristy attractions, such as the Country Music Hall of Fame and Ryman Auditorium. This list is motivated less by notoriety and more by originality and fun factor.

I’m writing this list now instead of later because CSICon (Center for Inquiry’s yearly convention) and Geek Media Expo are happening this weekend in Nashville. I wanted to provide attendees a local’s guide to the city. Since this blog is primarily about improvised experimental music, you might not know that I’m a huge science geek and a big fan of Center for Inquiry’s magazines Free Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer and podcast Point of Inquiry. In fact, CSICon is just about the only thing that would lure me away from the incredibly fun Geek Media Expo. I truly wish I could attend both.

This list is a work in progress, and I’ll continue to update it as I remember old favorites and discover new ones. Feel free to post your favorite places in the comments section. And now, on to the list!

 

My Favorite Nashville Places: A Local’s Guide for Visitors

 A list by Tony Youngblood.

 

Belcourt Theatre 

The Belcourt Theatre is bar none my favorite place in Nashville. Why? In a town with a population around a half million, it’s a given that you’re going to have a cool record store, a unique comic book shop, great restaurants, bookstores, and so on. But not many cities the size of Nashville have a cinema half as wonderful as the Belcourt. (I can only think of two that come close: St. Louis’s Tivoli Theatre and Baltimore’s Charles Theatre.)

I could talk about the theatre’s rich history (it opened in 1925 and housed the Grand Ole Opry BEFORE the Ryman), but really, it’s the film programming that sets the Belcourt apart. Sure, many cities have a Landmark-style “independent” theatre that play one or two new release indies a week. But the Belcourt’s film choices are positively inspired. Consider that this week alone, on just two screens, the Belcourt features 21 films, including a live taping of RiffTrax riffing “Birdemic,” seven cult horror films screened back to back, six new documentaries, and two Universal classic monster double features. There’s also a live production of “Rumpelstiltskin,” a midnight showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and a viewing party of the third presidential debate hosted by Tennessee politicians. Top that off with at least one Q&A with an actor and at least one live Skype conversation with a director. And that’s just what’s happening Monday, October 22nd through Sunday, October 28th 2012. Last week, they showed the original silent “Phantom of the Opera” with a live score by the Alloy Orchestra. Pick any other week and the programming is just as exceptional.

Gaspar Noé signed the Belcourt’s fire extinguisher. Harmony Korine called it his favorite theatre. I’ve seen more concerts here than I can remember, including Lucinda Williams, Henry Rollins, Iris Dement, Loudon Wainwright and Robyn Hitchcock. And did I mention they have local beers on tap?

With Nashville’s recent national buzz, I’m seeing celebrity “best of” lists crop up everywhere. But everyone seems to overlook our real treasure, a theatre that’s by all rights too good for a town this size. I’d place it in the company of Los Angeles’ New Beverly, New York City’s Film Forum, and Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse.

Belcourt offers free parking in the pay lot adjoining the theatre, however, many people accidentally pay before they discover this. The code to get free parking is printed on the movie ticket. Park your car in the lot, note the parking space number, buy your movie ticket, and then go to the parking lot ticketing machine. Stick the parking ticket in the dashboard of your car, and you’re set.

Hillsboro Village

The Belcourt Theatre is located in Hillsboro Village, a fun neighborhood full of eclectic shops, great restaurants, and art galleries. While you’re there, check out Bosco’s Brewpub (IMHO the best local beer), Taps & Tapas (my favorite veggie burger), The Dog of Nashville (quick service and great veggie hot dogs), Pangaea Boutique, the world famous Pancake PantryBookmanbookwoman used bookstore, and Davis Cookware. Just don’t let the Davis brothers lure you into a conversation. You’ll be there for hours.

Nashville Farmer’s Market

Just north of downtown, the Nashville Farmer’s Market is the best place to buy locally grown fruits and vegetables. But it’s also teeming with unique restaurants, an international market, a flea market, a gardening store, and a shop that sells hundreds of hot sauce varieties.

Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Cuisine

You don’t have to be a vegetarian to enjoy the meat-free Indian cuisine at Woodlands. In fact, you won’t even notice what you’re missing. Woodlands specializes in southern Indian cuisine, a departure from your standard red curry fare. The restaurant is hidden inside an unassuming apartment complex a few blocks from the Parthenon. It’s my favorite Nashville restaurant.

Monell’s Restaurant (Germantown location)

At Monell’s, your party is seated is seated right beside other parties at a long bench-style table. Before you can even ask for a menu, a waitress hands you a bucket of Southern-style green beans and tells you to pass it around. Then she hands you a bucket of fried chicken. Then rolls, corn bread, corn, mashed potatoes, turnip greens (you get the idea) until all the bowls have made multiple rounds. Your fellow diners may be strangers at the beginning of the meal, but you’ll be on first name basis by the fourth request to pass the pitcher of sweet tea. Monell’s is a Nashville institution, and you can’t leave town until you’ve experienced it.

Monell’s has four locations, and all are not equal. I recommend the Germantown location, just north of Downtown.

Cafe Coco – Late Night Eats

If you want to grab a bite in Nashville at 2am on a Monday night, you don’t have many options. Luckily, the slim pickings are delicious.

The only 24 hour restaurant worth mentioning is Cafe Coco in the Vanderbilt University area. They serve cafe style food, burgers, and plenty of vegan/vegetarian options. The downside of being the only good 24 hour restaurant in town (and being close to a university) is that the late night lines often go out the door.

Cafe Coco also hosts my favorite open mic night Tuesday and Thursday nights. Unlike the Bluebird and just about every other open mic night in town, you won’t be subjected to bad country song after bad country song. Cafe Coco’s open mic is known for it’s openness to all styles of music and an appealing weirdness that pervades the whole affair. When I first moved to Nashville, I played the Cafe Coco open mic every week and met friends there that I still hang out with. I can’t guarantee you’re going to like every act, but you will be entertained.

Athens Family Restaurant servers Greek and American food 24 hours a day Thursdays through Saturdays. On other nights, they’re open from 7am to 10pm. The place is very popular among the college crowd. Be wary of the vegetarian items on the menu. The last time I was there (which was admittedly a long time ago), the cook told me that almost everything contains chicken broth.

Other quality late night (but not 24 hour) restaurants include Mafiaozas and M.L Rose Craft Beer & Burgers. Both have good beer selections and delicious vegetarian options.

McKay Used Books, CDs, Movies & More

This warehouse-sized used bookstore has to be seen to be believed. If you love the thrill of discovery or just want to kill an afternoon, go to McKay’s. You won’t leave empty handed. Really, it’s HUGE.

Parthenon

Did you know Nashville is the Athens of the South? That moniker inspired the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition to construct a full scale replica of the Athens Parthenon. The 1897 Parthenon was only designed to last the duration of the exposition, but the building was such a hit that the city reconstructed it with permanent materials. The Parthenon is just about the best free activity in Nashville. Countless bad country music videos have been shot among the columns. Inside the Parthenon is a pay museum, which features plastic replicas of the Parthenon Marbles (hey, it’s cheaper than seeing the originals at the British Museum) and a breathtaking 42 foot statue of Athena.

Also, our Parthenon has a roof. Zing!

United Records Pressing

Very few large scale vinyl record plants still operate in the United States, but Nashville has one of the best. United Records gives tours Fridays at 11am, and you shouldn’t miss it. For one, watching people and machines turn beads of plastic into grooved discs is really fascinating. For two, the plant has history:

When the current URP plant opened in the 1960s, it was a very different time in the South, Nashville included. In the early 60s there were hardly any restaurants or hotels in Nashville that would offer their services to African Americans. With top clients like Vee Jay Records and Motown being run by people of color, the company was in need of accommodations for their clients and created what we now call the “Motown Suite,” an apartment located above the factory. The Motown Suite which is still viewable to guests touring the plant, displays the same furnishings that these execs were offered including a common room with a bar, a turntable, enough seating to entertain guests, a full bathroom, a double occupancy bedroom, a kitchen equipped with an old push button stove and other novel 60’s decor. URP still uses the kitchen as a meeting room, with our staff sitting at the same 60’s dinette set that Motown, Vee Jay and other label executives and artists used.

The Atriums of the Opryland Hotel

The Opryland Hotel is kind of like a Las Vegas mega-hotel without the slot machines but with the confusing floor plan. Sure, it’s garish, but it also has beauty. The hotel features four large atriums full of teaming plant life and maze-like passageways. The Cascades atrium even has its own river.

Don’t park in the overpriced Opryland Hotel parking lot. Take the exit for the Opry Mills Mall and park for free near the big Styrofoam boulder. Follow the path to the hotel, and it’s actually a shorter walk than some of the pay lots.

Fort Negley

Did you know Nashville was the first U.S. city to legalize prostitution? During the Civil War, so many soldiers were contracting STDs in Union-occupied Nashville that the military decided to license prostitutes in order to enforce bi-weekly medical examinations. That’s just one of the many Civil War factoids you’ll learn at Fort Negley, the largest of the Union-built Nashville forts. The free walking tour takes you to the top of the now-in-ruins hillside fortification. The view is spectacular.

Station Inn

If you absolutely insist on seeing live country music, the Station Inn is the place to do it. The Tuesday night Doyle & Debbieshow always sells out, so make reservations.

Stadium Inn “Wrastling”

Not to be confused with the slightly-more-prestigious Station Inn, the Stadium Inn is a, shall we say, budget hotel with a secret in its basement: a wrestling ring. The Friday night wrestling is as grass roots as it gets. The room is so intimate, you’ll probably get flicked with wrestler sweat. Although the audience is comprised mostly of colorful heavily-accented locals, the hipster crowd also represents, due in part to musician-turned-wrestler Josephus Brody and Stadium-shot music videos from Caitlin Rose and Lambchop.

Climb Nashville

This indoor climbing facility features over 12,000 square feet of climbing surface on walls 40 feet high. I used to have a membership, and it’s an absolute blast. If you’ve never climbed before, worry not. A first-timer’s package includes a 20 minute introductory class and all the equipment you need. Just be sure to bring a partner, so you can take turns belaying and climbing.

Drinking Nashvilly

Are you new to Tennessee? If so, let me prepare you for a very peculiar state law that will leave you baffled the first time you go to a liquor store. Alcoholic beverages containing below 5 percent alcohol cannot be sold in the same building as alcoholic beverages containing 5 percent or more alcohol. In practice, this means that liquor stores have a partition in the center and separate doors and registers for the beer side and the liquor side. If you’re a craft beer fan, that means you’ll have to make two purchases: high alcohol beer on one side and low alcohol beer on the other. State law also prohibits the sale of wine in grocery stores. Crazy, I know.

If you’re from a big city, you’ll likely be underwhelmed by Nashville’s beer selection. We can’t get Three Floyds, Bells, Dogfish Head, Lost Abbey, Founders, Goose Island, Russian River, Alesmith, etc. But if you’re from a smaller town (or you just aren’t a beer snob like I am), you’ll be satisfied with what we have. Nashville has several breweries, including Yazoo, Jackalope, and Blackstone. My favorite local beer is made at Bosco’s Brewpub; but unfortunately, you can’t buy Bosco’s beers in stores or other bars.

Nashville has it’s own distillery: Corsair Artisan Distillery, and from what people tell me, the tour is amazing.

The best beer bar by a longshot is The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium located beside the historic Union Station Hotel and the Frist Center.There are well over 60 beers on tap, and that’s just what’s on tap!

Other bars with good selections include 12 South Taproom, M.L. Rose, and the Beer Sellar.

The greatest concentration of bars and clubs would be 5 Points in East Nashville. It’s also the best place to go hipster spotting.

The best place to get cocktails is Patterson House, a very un-Nashville bar with speakeasy aspirations. They don’t have a sign, so write down the address. Even their website is an ode to minimalism: http://www.thepattersonnashville.com/

Frist Center for the Visual Arts

Nashville lacks an art museum with a permanent collection on the level of say, Art Institute of Chicago, but the Frist Center’s weakness is also its strength. The museum’s two floors of exhibition space rotate new exhibits every few months. That means we occasionally get incredible exhibits, such as Chihuly at the First and the current (at the time of this writing) German Expressionism from the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Cheekwood Botanical Gardens

Completed in 1932 by the Cheek family, inventors of Maxwell House coffee, this limestone mansion and sprawling botanical garden makes for a  peaceful stroll on a Sunday afternoon. The mansion houses an art gallery with rotating exhibits.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum / RCA Studio B tour

I’m not a fan of modern country music. But luckily, neither is the Country Music Hall of Fame. This massive museum pays homage to real country music, American legends like Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Chet Atkins, Kitty Wells, Roy Acuff, and more. And if you’re a gear head like myself, you’ll also see vintage recording equipment, scuffed-up Martin guitars, Nudie suits, and plenty of memorabilia.

A tour bus departs from the museum hourly for a tour of the legendary RCA Studio B. This is the studio where Elvis cut over 200 records, Don Gibson cut “Oh Lonesome Me,” Dolly Parton cut “I Will Always Love You,” and Roy Orbison cut “Only the Lonely” and “Crying.” Seeing all those vintage Ampex tape recorders got me all tingly inside. The coolest part of the tour is when the guide lets you play the Steinway grand piano heard on so many country hits, including Floyd Cramer’s “Last Date.” (If that doesn’t ring a bell, click the link and prepare to say, “Oh that song!”)

Other Nashville Recording Studios

If you’re a recording fan, Nashville is the town for you. There are so many great recording studios here, it’s mind boggling. And most are happy to give you a tour if you call and ask. Some of the studios here include the newly-restored Quonset Hut where Patsy Cline recorded “Crazy” and Bob Dylan recorded “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35,” Quad Studios where Neil Young recorded “Heart of Gold,” Blackbird Studio where the White Stripes recorded Icky Thump, Oceanway Studios, The Tracking Room, and hundreds more.

Grimey’s Records

Frequently listed among the best independent record shops in the United States, Grimey’s should be the first stop for all you tangible media music fans out there. Below Grimey’s is The Basement, one of the best rock n’ roll music venues in Nashville.

Ryman Auditorium

The mother church. Home of the Grand Ole Opry during its golden years. One of the greatest concert venues in the world. The daytime tour is pretty fun and informative, but the best way to see the Ryman is by attending a concert. I’ve seen Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, The Pixies, The Shins, Tom Waits, Rufus Wainwright, Bright Eyes, Regina Spektor, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and plenty more. The acoustics are great for lower-volume bands, but, contrary to popular opinion, loud rock n’ roll tends to sound muddy and echoey at the Ryman. Bring a pillow or cushion for the unforgiving church pew seating.

Other Places to See Non-Country Music

Most Nashvillians don’t equate Nashville with country. I never see a ten gallon hat unless it’s on a tourist. In fact, we’re starting to become known for our burgeoning garage rock and punk scenes, due in no small part to Jack White and the Black Keys moving here. In 2011, Rolling Stone said our city had the best music scene in the country. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far (better than Austin, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and L.A.?), but it is a great time to be a live music fan in Nashville. Bands like Pujol, Jeff the Brotherhood, Caitlin Rose, The Ettes, Natural Child and Turbo Fruits are breaking into the big time. If you want to see live music while in town, forget the honky-tonks. Instead, check out our emerging rock scene at venues like:

_______________________________
That’s my list for now. Coming soon: Nashville Zoo, Downtown Public Library, 12 South, Zanies Comedy Club, Eastland Avenue, and Hillwood Strike & Spare.

Oct 082011
 

Theatre Intangible - Helpless

With our recent pick by the Nashville Scene as Best Podcast, I figured we might attract a few new listeners. (Hi, new listeners!) With 68 podcasts to choose from, where to start? Worry not. Here are 15 episodes that represent us at our best, weirdest, funniest, or most interesting. We’ve included highlights and milestones, including the first episode of our previous incarnation ~Ore~ Prefab Audio Extrapolations (from way back in 1998!), the infamous Dave Cloud episode which got us kicked off WRVU, and our very first podcast (hopefully I’ve gotten a little better at the intros since then).

There’s plenty more to come. We have literally dozens of episodes in the bag and several exciting ideas in the works. As always, if you want to be a part of a future episode, send an e-mail to tony@theatreintangible.com, with what you would like to try. Ben Folds and Jack White, I’m talking to you. 😉

And now to the list:

The Progenitor

Prefab Audio Extrapolations

Before ~Ore~ Theatre Intangible, there was ~Ore~ Prefab Audio Extrapolations, my college free form radio show (with co-host DaveX) broadcast at Southern Illinois University student station WIDB. Breaking Bad‘s Bob Odenkirk hosted a comedy show at the same station during his college years. The name of our first episode would become the subtitle of the series: Prefab Audio Extrapolations. Broadcast October 15th, 1998, the episode features years and years of field recordings and audio experiments by myself, my brother and my cousin, crystallized into 48 minutes and combined with television recordings, dorm-banter, unscreened-calls, and warped-up beat records.

The Most Orchestral

Dracula Improv

On October 18th, 2009, seven of us got together and created a new soundtrack to the 1931 version of Dracula. Featuring such varied instruments as Theremin, Rhodes keyboard, saxophone, flute, musical saw, autoharp, and wind chimes, the episode positively leaks lushness. If you like, you can sync it up with the film. We tell you how in the intro. If you’re a fan of melody over dissonance and structure over chaos, this is the perfect starter episode for you.

The Dirtiest (Musically)

Degenerates

For this 2007 WRVU-era episode, we explored generation loss by running sounds through multiple generations of recording. The result is the nastiest, dingiest, dirtiest show we’ve ever done. And it’s also pretty, in a broken music box kind of way.

The Dirtiest (Verbally)

Get It On with Dave Cloud

AKA The Show that Got Us Kicked Off WRVU. For an hour and eight minutes, Dave Cloud flirts with callers, reads from dirty magazines, takes long smoke breaks, and espouses rock star wisdom while a first class backing band lays down the groove. There’s a censor key in the WRVU control room that deletes the last three seconds from the broadcast signal. On this episode, I was using it nonstop. Despite that and the 1am broadcast time, a listener complained. The GM previewed the archived version which bypassed the censor key, and the rest is history. Contained herein is the uncensored version in all its mad, dirty, spasmodic glory.

The First Podcast

2nd Annual Halloween Extravaganza

Selecting the episode to be forever known as podcast 001 was no easy feat. Ultimately, I chose this continuation of the Halloween Extravaganza from the previous year. Featuring extended interviews with haunted house proprietors around Nashville and a near-record of 10 performers, this episode was the most ambitious and most difficult podcast to date. It was also the first of  the audio documentary episodes. If you like a good story (or a chill up your spine!), this is the episode for you.

Real Time Disaster

Helpless

I was getting the kinks out of a computer program that read real-time Twitter messages in a robotic voice for an upcoming live improv at PodCamp Nashville. The local publication Metromix called for an interview and asked if they could take pictures for the story. So we quickly assembled a cast of musicians in my basement to record what was essentially a photo-op. I decided to give the Twitter reading program a test run. As we set up the equipment, we learned of an 8.8 magnitude earthquake that had just hit Chile. The world was still in shock from the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti the previous month. I plugged the keywords “earthquake” and” tsunami” into the Twitter reader, and the resulting narration became the backbone of the show. Some of the tweeters posted on-the-scene reports, and some joked about the impending tsunamis. Others prayed for the areas affected. Some called out to loved ones. The musicians responded to the real time news with a nuanced and emotional performance, perhaps our most moving episode.

The First Scoop & Loop

Pit of Roar

This WRVU episode was the first of what I eventually called Scoop & Loop, a technique about catching prerecorded moments and evolving them into something bigger, live and off-the-cuff. I wanted to try out two cd turntables my brother gave me, and I had no one scheduled for that week’s show. So I recorded a bunch of samples, culled auctioneer recordings from FreeSound, and burned it all onto two cd-rs. Cody Bottoms met me in the studio, and we ran the samples through loops and effects. This episode was the genesis for my solo Scoop & Loop project Adventure Bomb.

Stars Aligning

Rust Bubble

Instrument-builder extraordinaire Tim Kaiser had just finished a blistering set at the 2010 Circuit Benders’ Ball. The final bill for the night was Theatre Intangible live, with whoever we could enlist from the previous performances. We were lucky enough to get Tim Kaiser, Lola Koeune, 1/2 Mang, Jeremy Walker, and my old co-host DaveX. The result was pure magic.

The Prettiest

Stone in Stream

A 15 foot loop of half-inch tape stretched from my reel to reel recorder to a pole in the middle of my basement. The tape loop, which kept layering over itself due to a covered erase head, gives this episode a devolving quality — a sharp contrast to the pretty psyche folk being laid down by Kyle and Kelly of Lylas and their friends. In fact, this is the prettiest episode to date.

World’s First iPhone Band

I, Phone

Six tech-savvy performers loaded their favorite music apps on their iPhones and went to town. Despite the fully digital palette, this episode has a very organic feel. To my knowledge, it’s the first all-iPhone performance.

The Sound of Tape

The Sound of Teeth

Maybe it’s because we recorded this episode live to 1/2″ tape that is sounds so damn warm, so damn . . . analog! I think it had more to do with the incredibly talented musicians, including nuanced jazz drummer John Westberry. This was the second episode we recorded live to tape and the first of which to premiere on this podcast. DaveX narrates remotely via a voice recorder in Illinois. He just had his wisdom teeth removed, hence the name.

Outsider Legend

The Gospel According to Gary Mullis

While a DJ at WRVU, I often played cuts from the 2 volume compilation Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music. My favorite track was Gary Mullis’ “Recitation About Roy Acuff,” a spoken word country western love letter to Acuff and the Ryman Auditorium. Gary performed with more heart and earnestness than I’ve ever heard before. So you can imagine my excitement when Austin Cliffe from CMKT4 told me Gary was coming to Nashville for his yearly Ryman sojourn! We replaced his normal country western band with a free jazz quartet. The result is one of our best episodes: recitations on life, love, and the Ryman Auditorium.

The Wonderful World of Circuit Bending

FauxBeAnt Art Fair

Band and hacker collective Thriftsore Boratorium asked me to cover the Cincinnati experimental music festival FauxBeAnt Art Fair. I wound up recording the whole show and interviewing many of the participants. The result is a great introduction to the art of circuit bending with many of the genre’s best and brightest. The Tim Kaiser episode makes a great companion to this one.

Loops and Strings

Attrition

This may be the best sounding episode to date. “Thrash violinist” Joey Molinaro, cellist Sarah Robey, and violinist Lawrence Crow carves notes onto the sand as a tape loop washes them away. I like the idea that the players try to leave their impression on the tape, but the tape gradually distorts and erodes their attempts to fight time. This is just one of those right people, right place, right time kinds of episodes, one of my favorite to date.

Hostage Situation

Return to WRVU

For our 50th podcast, we returned to WRVU for one last episode. Technically, I was permanently banned from the premises, but my station key still worked! Things got a bit out of hand when we got a call from VSC Board Member Dick Shell and a dj trainee hiding in the control booth became our “reluctant” guest. Many in the Save WRVU community didn’t find our episode lampooning the inanity of the VSC very funny. They preferred the accommodationist route and thought our satire would only fan the flames. They didn’t like our Dick Shell twitter account and were told in no uncertain terms to “cut it out.” As Mark Anundson and I knew from our previous dealings, the VSC were going to do whatever they wanted. A few months later, they announced the sale of WRVU to an NPR Affiliate. In the light of recent events, this episode sounds downright prescient.

Oct 062011
 

 

Well, that was a nice surprise! The Nashville Scene Best of Nashville edition was released today, and we won something!

BEST PODCAST WE DON’T HOST: THEATRE INTANGIBLE
Tony Youngblood’s Theatre Intangible has the dubious honor of being the target of VSC’s first shot across WRVU’s bow. Thanks to an allegedly indecent show featuring Dave Cloud, the experimental noise program was dropped from the airwaves and its hosts banned from the station. Since then, Theater Intangible has found new life online with episodes featuring live local experimental artists like Hobbledeions and, in their very special 50th episode, a “hostage situation” inside WRVU itself. LANCE CONZETT

If this is your first time visiting us, welcome! I’ll be writing a “TI starter pack” episode list later in the day. Here are two podcasts mentioned in the article: Get It On With Dave Cloud and Return to WRVU: 50th Podcast Spectacular.

Thanks to The Scene, all of the show participants over the last four years, our partners, and most especially, to our listeners! Seriously this wouldn’t have happened without the talent and enthusiasm of the Nashville music community.

Congratulations to galleries OPEN LOT, GALLERY F, and ZEITGEIST who have all partnered with us in the past. They won the following:

MOST REVELATORY GALLERY SHOW: THIS RIDICULOUS FIGHT AT ZEITGEIST GALLERY

BEST ARTISTIC REACTION TO A NATURAL DISASTER: JAPAN AT GALLERY F.

BEST PHOENIX-LIKE REBIRTH OF AN ART COLLECTIVE: OPEN LOT

BEST CROSS-DISCIPLINARY PROGRAMMING: GALLERY F.

BEST CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL SERIES: ZEITGEIST/AIA MIDDLE TENNESSEE’S INDETERMINACIES

And congrats to my climbing partner Kristen Skruber for making the best dang bagels in town!

BEST BAGEL: BAGEL FACE BAGELS

Jan 062011
 

Tonight I was very fortunate to appear on the Nashville geek culture podcast Cinegeek, where we discussed the inevitable demise of tangible media, nipples on Barbie Dolls, The Walking Dead, and more! Check it out here and if you like it, subscribe to CineGeek in iTunes. It’s my favorite Nashville podcast!

It’s the beginning of 2011, and you know what that means! Best of 2010 lists are everywhere! I’ll be posting my best of 2010 films on The Film Talk blog tomorrow evening (Update: Part One is here.) DaveX posted his favorite recordings from 2010 over at Startling Moniker. (Check out our interview with DaveX and his Circuit Bender’s Ball performance here.)

To top it all off, I’ll be posting my 10 favorite Theatre Intangible podcasts from 2010 later in the week. What are your favorite?