The Tomatoes Are Coming! The Tomatoes Are Coming!
Our annual Tomato Art Fest issue is coming soon. And if you’d like to be in it, there’s still time. The East Nashvillian is the media partner for the festival, and our Tomato Art Fest issue is traditionally our most sought-after edition of the year both in print and online. In addition to the TAF special section, this year’s issue will include the “Go-To Guide” booklet for the festival — which includes the schedule, lineup, and passbook — and will be distributed as the exclusive directory at the official Tomato Art Fest information booth. Questions/ad needs? Contact us at sales@theeastnashvillian.com.
Get in a Rainbow Groove with the 31st Annual Pride Parade and Festival
Nashville puts on its rainbow best this week to celebrate Pride and the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Greenwich Village that set the movement in motion. In honor of those early Pride activists, this year’s festival brings back the Nashville Pride Parade after an eleven-year hiatus, along with a two-day festival in Public Square Park June 22 and 23 and Pride-themed events all over town, including the East Side.
The parade kicks off Saturday, June 22 at 10 a.m. at Broadway and Eighth Avenue and ends at Broadway and Second Avenue. Grand Marshals are The Students of Stonewall and members of the Just Us program from The Oasis Center, and Grand Marshal Honorees are Joseph Interrante, retiring Nashville CARES Executive Director, and country music artist Ty Herndon. The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Entertainment headliners include TLC, Cakes da Killa, and Madame Ghandi, along with a host of other talent. Vendors, drag shows, a dance tent, music on multiple stages, including one sponsored by WXNA, will keep Public Square grooving all weekend.
The party spills over to the East Side at The Lipstick Lounge, of course, which always has a Pride vibe and will have Rojo & Co featuring Lilla McCann and Wendy Christopher on Friday night and brunches on Saturday and Sunday. The Basement East hosts the Sweet Tea Dance, the official closing bash of Nashville Pride, starting at 4 p.m. on Sunday, with DJ Tore. Full-on party mode and additional entertainment will be underway by 6 p.m. To see the full Pride line-up and to get event tickets check out Nashville Pride.
Local Clubs Facing Fines for Posters
Long a promotion staple and an art form of the music scene, flyers advertising upcoming shows and local entertainment venues are not welcome on Nashville’s utility poles. And Nashville club 
owners are facing fines if band flyers mentioning the venue appear on any of those poles. Citizen complaints have led to a crackdown enforcing an existing Metro code ban on utility pole flyers, threatening businesses with fines of $50 per poster. Before fines are placed, businesses are given the opportunity to take down the posters. Todd Sherwood, owner of The 5 Spot, alerted East Nashvillians in a post on the East Nashville Facebook page earlier this week. “Thanks to all the concerned citizens, music venues are being charged $50 per flyer on telephone poles with the name of the business on them. It has been a law for a long time, but now being enforced due to a few persistent complainers to codes. Please do those small businesses a favor and go see a show, buy a few drinks, and have a good time. Maybe take some flyers down for us as well. You might miss having live music venues in the neighborhood when they are gone.” For more on how club owners citywide feel about the ban see The Tennessean.
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Fieldhouse Jones Nashville Hotel to Open in July
Another addition to East Nashville’s boutique hotel line-up is set for a grand opening this July, well in time for Tomato Art Fest. In addition to its 93 guest rooms with varied designs and layouts, Fieldhouse Jones — located at 811 Main St. — will offer amenities for both guests and Nashville natives. The lobby, dubbed Assembly Hall, will feature locally-sourced food and drink at an all-day bar and coffee shop in a space full of eccentric antiques, found objects, and original furniture from around the globe and offered for sale by partner Architectural Artifacts. A rooftop cocktail bar, Neon Mango, will offer views of downtown Nashville. Games like ping-pong and bocce will also be available.
Fieldhouse Jones is the boutique hotel brand of Bedderman Lodging, a Chicago-based company which also operates Fieldhouse Jones Chicago. The Nashville project represents more than $20 million in investment and was undertaken with local developers Adam Leibowitz and Afshin Yazdian, according to the Nashville Business Journal.
Quick Bits
–Setsun Pop-up Wine Bar will have a grand opening Sunday, June 23 at 700 Fatherland St. in the Sky Blue Café building. Former Tree House Chef Jason Zygmont will be serving up a small menu of petite plates like raw oysters, beef tartare and ricotta agnolotti, along with a festive selection of wine and bubblies. The new restaurant is owned by Zygmont and partner Ray Melendi, and will be open regularly Fridays through Mondays, 5:30-10 p.m. Check out the menu and wine list at Setsun.
–Music power duo The Smoking Flowers (East Siders Kim and Scott Collins) will have a release show for their new album Snowball Out of Hell at The Basement, 1604 8th Ave. S., starting at 9 p.m. on Saturday, June 22. They’ll be appearing with Zach Schmidt and Indianola. For more on the band, see our feature by Tommy Womack here. For more on the event, see the Facebook event page or check out The Smoking Flowers online.
–Make Music Nashville is a free, city-wide day-long festival held each June 21, the longest day of the year. It features free concerts, impromptu sidewalk shows, sudden front-porch jams, and free music lessons all over town. In honor of the day on the East Side, two local music non-profits are gathering forces to sponsor a free multi-artist showcase at Center 615 Suite G1, 615 Main St., Friday, June 21, 6-10 p.m. Music Neighbors and Helping Our Music Evolve (HOME) will host Ardenne, Karizma aka Lord Goldie, Catalina, and WRD, bringing in a blend of styles from pop R&B, hip-hop and soul to Latin, jazz and funk. See the Facebook event page for more.
–A San Francisco-based hospitality company is setting up office space in East Nashville. The Nashville Post reports that Sonder USA Inc will lease 4,500 square feet at 600 Main St. Sonder was seeking a location from which to manage its hotel-like services offered downtown in the Mastrapasqua Building. The Main Street property is owned by Nashville-based attorney Talbott Ottinger and developer Chris Dawson as 600 Main Partners LLC.
–A number of new laws and policies are set to go into effect statewide beginning on July 1, the start of Tennessee’s fiscal year. Among them are a total ban on cell phone use while driving, a bathroom bill that challengers say tramples on rights of transgender people, and a law penalizing voter registration efforts. For more on the changes coming next month, see NewsChannel5.
–Americanafest has issued some updates for those who want to participate in festival events. If you are organizing a special event with the festival, contact sales@americanamusic.org to let organizers know. They’ll reach out by July 1 to get more information. Those artists who applied for showcases by the March 24 deadline will hear from the selection committee by July 15. Decisions on panel ideas submitted by May 31 will be made shortly as well, though a specific date has not been specified. Would-be panelists can contact Danna Strong, danna@americanamusic.org for more information.
–The local economy is doing well, as Nashville’s construction-crane-filled skyline attests. But many Metro employees can’t make ends meet on their salaries, and Metro budget shortfalls are forcing spending cutbacks in departments, programs and services citywide. If the economy is doing so well, why is Nashville in such rough financial shape? For some answers, check out this article from The Tennessean.
–The Nashville Civic Design Center is sponsoring CityThink: An Affordable Housing Game Night at Center 615, 615 Main St., on Tuesday, July 25, 5:30-7:30 p.m. The group will present The Affordable Housing Toolkit 101 report, a companion presentation slide deck, and the Game of Rent, “a gamified teaching tool for building empathy and understanding about housing,” according to the Facebook event page. “Roll the dice and be dealt a hand, then make the most of your situation in a race to find an apartment you can afford,” say the game’s creators. Good luck with that in East Nashville. For more, see the Facebook event page.
–Fine-dining folks need a little downtime now and then, and the folks at Margot Café and Bar are no exception. The crew is going fishing on Cape Cod, which means Margo is going to be closed from 1 p.m. on June 24 through June 27, just long enough for us to miss them. We hope they enjoy a well-deserved mini-vacay.
