Where to find Nashville avant-garde » Theatre Intangible

Help Radio Free Nashville Broadcast Citywide!

Where to find Nashville avant-garde No Responses »

Oct 132013

WRFN’s 2005 barnraising. Photo by futurequake.com

DJ, programmer and board president Scott Sanders has grown to love his idyllic countryside commute to Radio Free Nashville, the Pasquo, Tennessee low-power FM station 30 minutes southwest of Nashville. He uses the time to finalize the set list for his next Hold the Funk radio show. Every October, Scott trades the regularly-scheduled golden age funk for a monthlong celebration of gospel music. Last week, he used his commute to preview songs on dozens of gospel CDs strewn over the passenger seat — CDs such as the box set Goodbye, Babylon and selections from the archival record label The Numero Group. It’s all about finding connections between the songs, the same topic, a lyric, similar fuzz guitar sounds, Scott told me as we talked over a beer last Saturday at Craft Brewed Nashville.

If you want to hear Scott’s show in Nashville, you’re probably out of luck. 107.1 WRFN’s 100 watt signal isn’t powerful enough to reach the entire Nashville area. On top of that, the frequency is plagued with interference from a higher-wattage station in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

In 2005 Scott, a number of other future DJs, and volunteers from the media advocacy group Prometheus Radio Project — one all the way from Japan — erected the small studio building in rural Pasquo. In April of 2005 after eight years of planning and licensing, they turned on the transmitter and signed onto the airwaves. (Learn more about WRFN’s history in this barnraising video.)

The subsequent eight years have been enormously successful. As a Pacifica Network affiliate, WRFN broadcasts popular syndicated shows like Democracy Now, Project Censored and Counterspin. They produce quality local programming like Angie Dorin’s Cat Beast Party, which was recently dubbed the Best Radio Show Hardly Anyone Can Hear in the 2013 Nashville Scene Best of Nashville issue. There are specialty music shows, talk shows, local music spotlights, a fitness show, a dog-training show and an upcoming film review show that only covers movies streamable on Netflix.

But that success is choked by a tiny coverage area. For the last eight years, this has been a simple fact of life, nigh-impossible to change under strict FCC regulations.

Until now.

A few years ago, the FCC opened up a window to apply for a few available translators in the Nashville area. Translators augment a signal’s coverage by rebroadcasting on another frequency. A friend of WRFN said what the hell and applied, thinking he had no chance to be granted a license.

By some stroke of good fortune, he was granted a license, and he generously agreed to use the translator to expand WRFN’s signal to all of Nashville. The only remaining obstacle is the significant cost of equipment involved in the expansion.

WRFN recently launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise the $20,000 needed to make the expansion a reality. I’d like to encourage you to donate as much as you can afford. Nashville lost its only citywide community station when Vanderbilt University’s WRVU sold its FM license in 2011. A citywide WRFN would fill the dire need of a community-driven, non-profit, socially-conscious radio station in Nashville.

Before Theatre Intangible was a podcast, it was a show on 91.1 WRVU Nashville. I spent many late-night hours in WRVU’s on-air studio, and I know how big of a loss that’s station’s FM signal was to Nashville. Many DJs felt disenfranchised with Vanderbilt Student Communications’ duplicitous handling of the FM sale. I have heard Vanderbilt alumni say time and time again that they refuse to donate money to their alma mater because of WRVU’s gutting. While that sends a strong message to the university, reallocating your donation to WRFN’s expansion would send an even stronger message. Many disenfranchised WRVU DJs have already found success on WRFN, including Angie Dorin with Cat Beast Party and, for a time, Pete Wilson with Nashville Jumps and myself with Theatre Intangible. By donating to WRFN, you are supporting a station focused on community outreach. Anyone can be a DJ. Scott Sanders told me he believes WRFN is a tool for the people to express themselves. It’s not about siphoning money to some big corporation. It’s about education, advocacy and exploration. WRFN DJs can be as creative as their imaginations allow. There’s no red tape. No ad dollars influencing content.

Radio Free Nashville’s IndieGoGo currently has 40 days left , and they need your help to reach the $20,000 goal. If we let this opportunity pass, there’s no telling when Nashville will have another chance at a citywide community FM station. Show your support by donating today.

Tonight at Third Man Records Light and Sound Machine: ICE 07-18-2013

Visual Arts, Where to find Nashville avant-garde No Responses »

Jul 182013

Heads up. The next installment of James Cathcart and Ben Swank‘s Light and Sound Machine experimental film series at Third Man Records is tonight.

Tonight’s film is ICE:

Directed by Robert Kramer, USA, 1970, presented on 16mm film

Guerrilla filmmaking in every sense, Kramer’s independent/underground, cinéma-vérité/science-fiction boundary-crosser used a budget of only $12,000 to produce an ambitious imagining of America in the throes of armed insurrection. The story is set in a vaguely defined future (which, à la Godard’s ALPHVILLE, looks just like the present) in which an unpopular U.S. war in Mexico provokes a left-wing uprising. Concerned with the nuts-and-bolts of revolutionary action and the debilitating effects of infighting among radical groups, ICE is in many ways the fictional equivalent of Chris Marker’s A GRIN WITHOUT A CAT. 16mm. (MR)

I pulled that quote from the Belcourt and Third Man sites. Tickets will be available at the Third Man door, but I recommend you buy in advance via the Belcourt website.

The Light And Sound Machine
Co-presented by Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre
Robert Kramer’s ICE
7pm, July 18th, 2013, $10 ($8 Belcourt members)
Third Man Records
623 7th Ave S – Nashville, TN 37203

Fort Houston and the Nashville Art Scene Need Your Help!

Brick Factory, Fort Houston, Visual Arts, Where to find Nashville avant-garde No Responses »

Apr 282013

Fort Houston’s woodshop

Nashville’s art scene has been exploding the last few years, and with expansion comes growing pains. The new Fort Houston creative facility (formerly Brick Factory and Zombieshop) in the NoHo arts district needs your help! They’ve been making enormous strides since they began renovations in November. They now have a full-service woodshop with brand new equipment, a print shop, a mechanical shop, an art gallery, a moped-service shop, a classroom/meeting room, performance stage and 30-plus shared and dedicated work desks. As with all business remodels, the renovations and code clearances are taking longer than originally anticipated. Once they finalize these issues, Fort Houston will be able to hold more events with the confidence that they won’t get shut down on a code technicality. You can help.

The Nashville Arts Coalition recently sent out a list of things we can do to help our growing arts community, including a letter-writing campaign to the mayor, your council district representative, (and in Fort Houston’s case, district representative Sandra Moore). In these letters, specifically mentioning Fort Houston and the NoHo arts district (NOrth of Houston St) will be a MAJOR help.

[UPDATE 05/02/2013. There was some confusion about whether or not the letters should address the city codes. They should not. My original letter was vague, and I updated it below, excising the bit about the codes. If you haven’t sent yours out yet, don’t mention the codes. Just tell a story about an art organization in Nashville and tie it in to budgeting dollars for Nashville arts funding.]

As an example, I’m including the letter I wrote to Mayor Karl Dean at the end of this blog post.

Stage and multi-use area

Here are some excerpts from the Arts Coalition e-mail:

1. Send a handwritten note to the mayor thanking him for his support for the arts.

His address:
Mayor Karl Dean
100 Metro Courthouse
Nashville, TN 37201

2. Send handwritten notes to the councilperson

in the district(s) where you do business and where you live plus all At-Large members and Budget and Finance Committee members thanking them for their support/reminding them of the role the arts play in Nashville’s cultural vitality.

[Fort Houston’s council member contact info:

District 17 Council Member Sandra Moore
916 Benton Avenue
Nashville, TN 37204

(615) 386-9246
sandra.moore@nashville.gov]

Full list of Metro Council Members and addresses.

3. Get board members (and other arts enthusiasts) to write as well.

4. Attend Jen Cole’s budget presentation at Metro Council on May 14 at 5 p.m. (arrive by 4:45 p.m.)

Metro Courthouse, Second Floor, One Public Square.

Parking is available in the garage under the public square

(entrance on James Robertson Parkway).

5. Attend the public hearing on the budget in June (date to come).

6. Get involved in NashvilleNext meetings.

It is important that the voices of artists and arts organizations are included in all aspects of the city’s plan for the next 25 years.

Messages

Some of you requested help with messaging. Your authentic voice is always the most compelling, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

Thank them for their support of the arts and Metro Arts funding.
Tell a story at the heart of your mission that shows why Metro Arts funding matters (or include a press clipping highlighting your important work).
Discuss the role the arts are playing in Nashville’s status as one of America’s most creative cities.
Funding for Metro Arts is an investment in the vitality of our city.

Here are a few facts if you need them:

In Nashville last year, more than 3 million citizens accessed the arts through Metro Arts funded partners, direct events and projects.
Metro Arts grantee organizations provide jobs, vital education and a competitive edge we need to continue to be at the forefront of America’s creative communities.
Nearly 80% of the Metro Arts budget goes to grants that support art education and public access to art. Jen Cole and Metro Arts Commission are great stewards of limited dollars.
A new NEA study indicates that kids in the lowest socio-economic cluster who have regular, quality arts exposure are twice as likely to graduate from high school and go to college. Metro Arts helped more than 1 million young people participate in the arts last year alone.

Any questions? Contact Nashville Arts Coalition.

Configurable gallery space

Here’s my letter to the mayor:

__________________________

April 27th, 2013

Mayor Karl Dean
100 Metro Courthouse
Nashville, TN 37201

Dear Mayor Dean,

I’d like to thank you for your continued support of the arts in Nashville. During the past 7 years, I’ve seen the local art scene expand at an unbelievable rate. As a local musician, podcaster and blog writer, I can tell you our city is not the place it was in 2006. Nashville is rapidly developing a reputation as one of America’s most creative cities. We have amazing new performance venues such as Jack White’s Third Man Records, Marathon Music Works, The High Watt and The Stone Fox. We have a vibrant visual arts scene with an incredible downtown art crawl the first Saturday of every month. Nashville Arts Magazine and ArtsNash.com spotlight local artists. We have community workshops and creative spaces such as Fort Houston Nashville, Hacker Consortium and the Middle Tennessee Robotics Arts Society empowering people to make things for themselves. In September of this year, The Adventure Science Center and Make Nashville (of which I am a member) will host the city’s first ever Maker Faire. The Nashville Film Festival and the Belcourt Theatre help spotlight our growing film community. Nashville’s indie rock scene continually brings us national coverage, and for the first time in a long time, tourist and new residents are flocking here for more than just Country Music. It’s an exciting time to be an artist in Nashville.

I truly believe the national attention Nashville has been receiving is due to the cumulative effort of passionate individuals building things for themselves. The Fort Houston creative space in the burgeoning NoHo (NOrth of HOuston St.) arts community is one such example. Two years ago, a handful of dreamers recognized Nashville’s lack of community workshops and creative spaces. So they built one themselves. With very little money, they founded Brick Factory Nashville in the Cummins Station complex. Brick Factory quickly became a vital space for cutting-edge and experimental art and music performances. I worked with the Brick Factory founders to put on the 2012 Circuit Benders’ Ball, a daylong celebration of hardware hacking, art, music and the creative spirit. The event featured electronics workshops for all ages, interactive art installations and a dozen multimedia performances. We received positive press in local and national media, including a Nashville Scene article, which I am including with this letter.

In November of last year, those same dreamers relocated to a larger space on Houston Street behind the Chestnut Building. (Both Fort Houston and my own residence lie within Sandra Moore’s District 17.) Combining forces with the mechanical shop Zombie Shop Nashville, they rebranded themselves Fort Houston. In just five months, they turned a vacant and aging warehouse into a full-service creative facility with amenities including a woodshop with brand new equipment, a print-making shop, a mechanical shop, an art gallery, a moped-service shop, a classroom/meeting room, performance stage and 30-plus work desks. They host workshops ranging from aerial dance to 3D printing to homebrewing.

Mayor Dean, I firmly believe that with your support, the NoHo arts community can become to Nashville what SoHo is to New York City. The area currently houses Zeitgeist Art Gallery and Architecture Firm, the 100-plus-year-old Chestnut Building artist studio complex, Infinity Cat Records, the 60-plus-year-old United Records Pressing, Ovio Arte, Threesquared Art Gallery, Seedspace Art Gallery, Louis Cage Glass-Blowing Studio, The Adventure Science Center, Nashville Sounds Stadium, Fort Negley historical park and so much more. I know you are an enthusiastic supporter of Metro Arts funding, and I thank you for that. I was present at the Marathon Music Works Wanda Jackson show when you spoke to the crowd about the importance of Nashville’s arts community. Thank you for everything that you do.

For your convenience, I am also sending an electronic version of this letter to mayor@nashville.gov.

Sincerely,

Tony Youngblood
Editor, TheatreIntangible.com

Enclosures (1): Circuit Benders’ Ball at Brick Factory, 9/29/12, Nashville Scene

Meeting room and workshop area

Greg Pond’s Arduino workshop

Sunday at Zeitgeist: Robert Bond & Denny Jiosa Indeterminacies – 04/28/2013

Concerts, Visual Arts, Where to find Nashville avant-garde No Responses »

Apr 262013

This Sunday, Zeitgeist Gallery will premiere the first Indeterminacies in their new NoHo (NOrth of HOuston St.) building at 516 Hagan Street. (Technically Zeitgeist is just south of Houston, a stone’s throw from Noa Noa/Theatre Intangible Studios.)

The Sunday program features Robert Bond & Denny Jiosa performing with Chinese middle school students via a Skype call. Very cool stuff.

Here are the details from the Facebook event page:

As part of the evening’s program, Robert will be joined by the Fran Zinder’s Ma’anshan No.2 Middle School class via internet video feed for a cross cultural, improvisational set featuring music by Robert mixed into the poetry, prose and songs presented by young Chinese students half a world away. Officials from the Natl. Committee on US-Chinese Relations and the US Consulate in Beijing will be joining us, again via internet link, for this performance.

Here’s a link to the school in Google Maps.

Robert Bond is a recording artist, producer and composer whose career has spanned continents and musical genres. He is a graduate of Indiana University School of Music where he studied both jazz and classical music. While at IU, he also studied table drumming, including a master class with Ustad Alla Rakha, the legendary accompanist of Ravi Shankar.

Working to empower the next generation of musicians, Robert has taught at Lavelle School for the Blink in New York, for M.Y. Young Audiences, as artist in residence for Fundacio “la Caixa” in Spain, for the Osher Lifelong learning Institute at Vanderbilt University, and as Adjunct Professor at Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt, teaching recording skills and studio performance.

Robert founded a learning platform in technical, performance and business skills for young musicians called The Total Artist Concept. Creative producing concepts, audio engineering and technology, studio performance and critical listening, along with business and relationships are explored in an intensive workshop setting.

Decidedly not geared toward purists, guitarist/composer Denny Jiosa’s music blends cool Wes Montgomery-esque jazz with elements of rock & roll, gospel, R&B, and blues, growing out of his extensive experience as a wide-ranging Nashville session musician and producer.

His first solo recording, Moving Pictures, appeared in 1995; it was followed by 1996’sInner Voices (which contained the radio hit “Lights of the City”), 1998’sJazzberry Pie, and 1999’s Among Friends. Jiosa’s music has proven especially popular with new adult contemporary and smooth jazz radio formats.

In June of last year, Fran Zinder was recruited by the National Committee on United States – China Relations. She accepted placement at #2 Middle School in Ma’anshan, Anhaui, China. She teaches English and American Culture to Senior 1, 2, and 3, which correspond to U.S. 10th, 11th and 12th grades. In addition to her teaching duties at #2 Middle School, Ms. Zinder participates at the school with Chinese teachers in a dance classes, regularly assists Chinese English teachers and is a debate coach, working with students several hours every school night to prepare for the national debate competition at the end of April. Ms. Zinder takes Chinese painting classes twice a week at a local university, and is a volunteer at the Ma’anshan Senior Center. Welcomed into the city with banquet invitations from the mayor of Ma’anshn, high-ranking government officials and city business leaders, she felt she had truly “arrived” when she saw herself on the advertising video that plays on the city buses.

Robert Bond & Denny Jiosa Indeterminacies
Zeitgeist Gallery [NEW LOCATION]
516 Hagan Street, Nashville, TN 37203
Sunday, April 28th, 2013, 7:30pm, free show

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