Tornados, and hail, and music, oh, my!

So, as the dust had partially settled in my house after a hectic weekend of unpacking and situating, I decided it was time to head out on the town to get a little of why I’d moved here in the first place: music! Ignoring the fact that I was broke and still jobless, gig-less, and generally prospect-less, I hopped in the car and headed over to what may be the hippest bar for music in town, The Basement, which is helmed by the witty music patron Mike Grimes, who also owns the adjoining Grimey’s New and Pre-Loved Music, which Rolling Stone declared to be “the best record store in Nashville”. Tuesday is generally “New Faces” night at The Basement, where an assortment of up-and-coming artists and acts play short sets back-to-back. When I arrived, a Nashville-via-Texas songwriter, Mando Saenz, was having a CD release show. He was good, and his tunes were catchy and moody in the right ways, but the real highlight for me was that he had veteran country/roots-rock guitarist Kenny Vaughn playing with him that evening, who I hold in very high regard. Kenny’s regular gig is with Marty Stuart, but he’s played and recorded with a veritable who’s who among the alternative-country scene. This is also very indicative of the kind of thing that happens every night in Nashville: show up someplace, and you’re likely to see, unexpectedly, somebody very good and relatively famous playing for free. Also likely: half the crowd will be folks whose records you own. I think this may take some getting used to. Another thing indicative of the scene in Nashville: yes, there are thousands of extremely talented people making great music. And for every one of those talented people making great music, there is another not-so-talented person making, well, rather passable, unmoving music. Just like anywhere, I suppose. After a number of sets that were enjoyable, but perhaps not particularly memorable, I caught a set by a former Bostonian, who I remember from his Soda-Pop Records days (this won’t mean anything to anyone who hasn’t lived in Boston, but it was a very cool little institution for Boston area music in the early 2000s), named Brett Rosenberg. His attitude and songwriting were spot on—his two most memorable tunes were “Illegal immigrant Girlfriend” (refrain: “she’s my illegal immigrant girlfriend, doing the jobs American girls won’t do”) and “Divorce” (sample lines: “I put regular coffee in the decaf carafe, now that its over she wants half” and “I put the futon mattress on a hard wood floor, she’ll keep banging the guy next door”).

The most interesting part of the evening came when they turned the bar TV to the local news channel so we could all watch the massive thunderstorm system that was sweeping towards us across the state, tornados and massive hail in tow. Proprietor Grimey suggested that we’d be safe in his club since it is located--you guessed it--in a basement. So there I sat, drinking the local Yazoo beer, enjoying some music, expecting that when I returned home the roof would be gone from the house and I’d go back to living in the Extended Stay America where I crashed when I first arrived. Upon leaving, I found my car still in the parking lot, and generally the city looked as it did before I had “gone underground” in the subterranean music club. My house was fine, and generally it appears as though Nashville came out relatively unscathed from the tornados warpath. From the looks of the news coming in from Memphis and Arkansas, they were not so lucky.

It appears I’ll be heading out tonight for some more tunes, and it looks as though I’ll have a similarly full calendar next week—but, hell, that’s why I came here, ain’t it?