Day 34: Nashville, TN
Welcome
Yesterday we played a show in Nashville, Tennessee.
It would have great to start the day with some sightseeing. Just up the road from our hotel was a full-scale replica of the Parthenon, as well as a full-scale bench built for Taylor Swift to sit on and read her book. It is also great to have a morning without any activities and that’s what we had yesterday, staying in bed and ticking off a few pieces of work until it was time to head out for our early afternoon appointment.
Except for Tristan, that is, who had been invited to Nelson’s Drum Shop, a local music store of some repute, to try out some vintage drum sets and record a video for their YouTube channel. He has been good enough to do a thorough write-up of this experience so I’ll let you enjoy that now.
I was thrilled to be invited along to do an in store demo at Nelson Drum Shop, a Nashville institution for lovers of vintage drums and cymbals. They regularly entice touring drummers to visit the shop to film demonstrations of the sets they have in stock. A set that immediately caught my eye upon entering was a German made 1960's Trixon Luxus kit in Gold Sparkle. 
It's no secret I am a big fan of these Trixon drums, the majority of the tracks on Jump Rope Gazers were recorded on a set like this. The bass drums especially sound fantastic thanks to an adjustable internal muffling system that gently presses a strip of heavy gauge canvas against the inside of the head from the bottom to the top. Trixon are best known for their whacky Speedfire sets and various drum series that feature conical shells. 
To this outfit I paired a 1950's WFL Snare drum in Red Sparkle. When it was still on the snare shelf, this drum appealed to me for its novel size of 15" (instead of the common 14"), as well as my admiration of the old method of creating a sparkle finish on drums from this era. Before the popularisation of wrapping drums with a durable plastic sheet as is common practice on modern drums, glitter was adhered directly to the drum shell. This was then followed up with layers of epoxy varnish and what must have been a tedious sanding and buffing process to bring it to a gloss finish. The depth of the sparkle is stunning, the dimensionality of sparkle on drums made this way is impossible to replicate with a thin wrap. After my little moment appreciating the crafstmanship I was relieved to hear that the drum sounded as good as it looked. 
I picked out a particularly sweet sounding set of Istanbul 14" Traditional Hi Hats, a 18" 50's Ziljian A series ride, and a new 20" Zildjian Kerope ride. Their cymbal selection was so vast I deliberately decided I would just commit to the first sounds I liked. With the drum and cymbal selection finalised, the cameras were set rolling and I played some ideas in a corner of the shop while other patrons also tested various drums around me. I am ashamed to admit I left the drum shop with only a few necessary tour consumables; two new pairs of sticks and some new heads for the toms of my drum set. Having been away from home for so long, my suitcase is already full to bursting with other miscellaneous items I have picked up while travelling so in an unusual display of restraint I pulled myself away from the shop just as Bryan from the National turned up to pick out his own set to demonstrate. 
Art can be very contextual. The three pieces that I had walked right past several times the previous evening without batting an eyelid now spoke to me deeply as they hung above the three urns of coffee, the dark roast, dark roast, and decaf, that are the backbone of this hot drinks station. The format is a single colour print on plexiglass, held in a black frame with a discrete hexagonal pattern as a backdrop, this impression of a honeycomb perhaps suggesting that our hotel is a hive, and we are the worker bees consuming our stored energy source, an Arabica dark roast.
Breakfast was a maple glazed Dunkin donut that presented itself at the right moment, and served its purpose well, meaning that I wouldn’t have to do our radio session on an empty stomach.
We headed across to Clinton Street, just west of Nashville’s downtown, and found that our appointment was inside the old Marathon Motor Works, a large brick building that was used for automotive manufacturing for only a handful of years in the early 20th century. The Lightning 100 radio studio is on the second floor and as we walked the corridors on our way up, we passed old machine shop equipment that has been placed around as a reminder of the building’s heritage. We went live on the air at 2pm and played three songs in the tiny live room, a trio of desk-mounted broadcast mics shared amongst us in a setup that felt a lot like being in the bFM studio back home in Auckland.
The Ascend Amphitheatre is sited on the south bank of the Cumberland River, a beautiful location on this prime piece of Nashville’s waterfront. A large green lawn looks down onto an outdoor stage, and beyond that is the downtown skyline which would get silhouetted by the setting sun as evening fell. We came straight from the session, arriving at this venue to find everyone from The National’s crew in an extremely good mood after a couple of days off and a pleasant afternoon working outdoors. White noise was hissing out of the PA, as their sound engineer went through his pre-show checklist, making sure the huge racks of suspended speakers were fully functional. Around the edges of the grounds the bars were gearing up for a busy night with pallets of giant beer cans being sorted into coolers full of ice.
Looking out from the back of the amphitheatre at the Cumberland River and the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge
There were cranes working at the construction site up the hill and they provided just the right amount of entertainment as we soundchecked in this large outdoor bowl. The sound was pinging off every building and hard surface in the area and sending an echo back to us on stage, making Gabe’s job considerably more challenging. There was plenty of time for us to play and rehearse so that’s what we did, leaving the stage a few minutes before the gates opened and people began trickling in and securing their spots on the lawn.
The amphitheatre was still fairly empty when we walked out to play at 7.45pm, but there were a solid group of keen punters up in front of the stage. We performed our set while behind us the sun performed its setting, a sight that I imagined to be spectacular with dazzling rays reflected between the rows of skyscrapers. Then we were off the clock, and we were able to sit on the grass and enjoy the music for the rest of the evening.
Tristan has been an extremely busy man. As well as writing a segment about Nelson’s Drum Shop he has edited together a video of our time Nashville, Tennessee.