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1. Here' S To The Freakin Weekend Cast

Photo: Lance ConzettLet’s not beat around the bush. Freakin’ Weekend VIII — the last hurrah for local blog and label Nashville’s Dead’s annual pre-SXSW celebration of parochial punk gone national — was pretty weird. And that had a lot more to do with a situation that brewed outside The End (which hosted FW shows Thursday and Friday) and Exit/In (which hosted Saturday night’s closer) in the days running up to the three-night mini-fest than it did with what went down on either club’s stages.

Here’s what we know. In recent weeks, rumors started circulating in whispers, and eventually on social media, that somebody had leveled a serious accusation against Freakin’ Weekend co-founder Cy Barkley. The rumors dogged the festival in its final days. And that’s all we know. We don’t know any details of the allegation. We don’t know when the allegation was lodged. We don’t even know if an allegation actually has been lodged. Everything we know is second-, third- or fourth-hand, from people close to the festival. And none of them seem to know any more than we do. We’re not saying nothing happened. We’re saying that our best efforts to find a legitimate source for the allegation have thus far been fruitless. Combine this with a social-media backlash against the festival for its white-male-dominated lineups, and the heat got to be too much for some bands. On the eve of the festival, Freakin’ big draws like Mom and Dad and Pujol, the latter of which was due to headline Friday, were dropping off the bill.

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That sent organizers into triage mode. On Wednesday, Nashville’s Dead posted a statement stressing the festival’s dedication to fostering a safe, inclusive environment. The statement also mentioned that ND had “seen some changes in our organization,” noting that “Cy Barkley is no longer associated with the Freakin’ Weekend and Nashville’s Dead.” Oof. Reached by the Scene, Barkley and a rep for Nashville’s Dead both declined further comment. The missive begged more questions than it answered, and more internet drama ensued. By Thursday, enough bands had pulled out that the two day shows — a hallmark of previous Freakin’ Weekends — planned for Fort Houston had been scrapped.

Music BandPhoto: Lance Conzett

For years, Freakin’ Weekend was a festival that brimmed with wide-eyed joy over local kids coming of age amid the power of uninhibited rock ’n’ roll. It was where bands that formed in high school got out the basements and onto actual club stages. It was the brainchild of Nashville’s Dead co-founder Ben Todd, a local musician, advocate and tastemaker who was the linchpin for all things Freakin’ Weekend, until he took his life in 2013. He was 24. Todd lived for being the ringleader at great rock shows where everybody was always stoked, and he asked little of people in return. We all thought that’s because he was just a nice guy, and he was. A month after Todd’s death, JEFF the Brotherhood closed Freakin’ Weekend IV surrounded by dozens of kids in their early 20s, banging their heads and crying their eyes out, making for a moment on the Exit/In stage that was worthy of the Ryman. The festival, the scene, had lost its leader, but not its spirit.

But by 2017, that had changed.

Photo: Lance Conzett

As a heavy storm rolled in on Thursday evening, so did more cancelations. By showtime, the lineup was down to a regular ol' three-band bill, and that's exactly what it felt like — no different from any other Thursday night at The End, with a good touring band and a couple of popular locals. There was no handmade festival banner strung up behind the stage. There was no hipster king emceeing festivities in jest. The room was full (at the beginning of the night, at least), but certainly nowhere near the elbow-to-elbow, at-or-maybe-exceeding-capacity crowd that's come out for Freakin' Weekend in the past. Overall, the vibe was decidedly businesslike, a far cry from the giddy excitement, that “Is this really happening?” glee that we've come to associate with this fest.

That didn't stop the bands from playing their hearts out. Still riding the rush from releasing their new album Chew in February, a deluxe edition of The Paperhead (augmented by a sax player and Skyway Man's James Wallace on keys) kicked things off around 10 p.m. The fuzzy, spacey feel of glam has crept into their concoction of psych and folk. The disjointed “Love You to Death” near the end of the set dissolved into a jazzy, discordant jam that went on maybe a hair too long, but was fun nonetheless.

Savoy Motel played next, and they tilted toward the bristly, snotty side of their knowingly hip funk-punk balance — perhaps juiced by a brush with Death a few weeks back. With her bell-bottoms rolled up to the knee on her kick drum leg, Jessica McFarland attacked the kit and her mic with a snarling fury we haven't seen since her old band Heavy Cream, and guitarist (and Nashville's Dead co-founder Dillon Watson) channeled his inner Robert Fripp with white-hot lead lines fused together by effects pedals.

Some mid-set banter was the only real acknowledgement of the diminished bill — at first they tried to play it off in character as flippant punks, but then they just thanked everyone for coming out and sticking around. In lieu of the honorary emcee, the King of Freakin' Weekend, who usually gets crowned on opening night, a pal came up to the mic and introduced the last band.

Ranch GhostPhoto: Lance Conzett

Miami's Jacuzzi Boys, veterans of multiple Freakin' Weekends all the way back to FWII in 2011, emerged from a cloud of fog to cap the first night of the final fest. They went on shortly before midnight, and laid out a buffet of raucous, poppy, surf-tinged riffage (plus a gnarly cover of Nick Lowe's “Heart of the City”) for the remaining 50 or so patrons, who finally started dancing a little (and even moshed a bit during “Glazin'”). The band dedicated “Planet of the Dreamers” to Ben Todd.

Friday night at The End kicked off with Ranch Ghost guitarist Andy Ferro, who played a solo set of story-song psych folk. Accompanied by Mitch Jones on organ and adorned in a sparkling silver space poncho, Ferro issued some pretty solid, mellow, Barrett-y tunes. The first stage-diving and crowd-surfing of weekend was inspired by the raw uptempo tunes of Music Band, who started their set with a pair of 'old ones' from last year's Wake Up Laughing. They followed those with five brand-new songs (admittedly bumpy in places) that sounded like Seger and The Boss run through a nervy pop-punk filter. Set-closer 'Celebration' saw a pair of fake house plants — which, apparently, Music Band had brought with them — take a crowd-surfing journey through the venue.

For many of the kids who were at The End on Friday night, Freakin' Weekend represents their coming of age. When Todd started Freakin' Weekend in the basement of a weird house he rented in 2009, some of these kids hadn't even graduated to double digits. A set from reunited-for-just-one-show teenage punks Jawws felt both like a cathartic moment — the ceremonious final show, which brought Conner Sullivan back into the fold after he left the band prior to their breakup — and a frustrated rebellion against the 'uninclusive boys’ club' accusations lodged against the festival.

JawwsPhoto: Lance Conzett

Those accusations clearly were interpreted as threats to a monolithic figure in some of these young peoples' lives. One girl, who thrashed against the foot of the stage throughout the show, wore a 'Don't Fuck With My Weekend' T-shirt. People raged and crowd-surfed in a fierce flurry that cried out against the suggestion that this festival that had been so important to their growth as teenagers was actually problematic. And just as people wept over the loss of Todd when JEFF closed Freakin' Weekend IV, when Jawws ended their set, people wept over the symbolic end of their childhood.

Providing sonic contrast to the Black Flaggy, Circle Jerky noise of Jawws, Silk and Suede delivered the night's first and only dose of synth pop. More Cure than Clash, more Depeche Mode than Danzig, more INXS than Nuggets, the duo delivered slick, hooky ’80s grooves that made absolutely zero sense on a bill after Jawws. It was somewhat interesting, honestly, but the band’s technical difficulties and New Wave vibes cleared the room within a few songs. By the time Ranch Ghost laid into their hazy, stoney, summery psych jams, the crowd had dissipated a bit from the critical mass that had seethed and surfed along to Jawws. Even so, they sounded practiced and tight, riffing through a swirl of ’60s sounds that ended an at-times wild and raucous night on a pleasantly lysergic note.

JawwsPhoto: Lance Conzett

Here' S To The Freakin Weekend Cast

As The Spin rolled up to Exit/In for the final night of the final Freakin' Weekend, it almost felt fitting that this was one of the few shows we walked through snow to get to this winter. Three days in and the vibe was still chilly as we entered to the sound of Daddy Issues kicking off a set of two-chord Bratmobile homages about weirdos in lust and misfits in love. 'So much has happened and changed, I don't if we're supposed to be here,' frontwoman Jenna Moynihan bantered. 'Of course you are!' shouted a voice from the crowd. Once again, it felt more like a normal Saturday night out at Exit/In than a FW show, let alone the last FW show. And it was a show Daddy Issues considered canceling.

'This was not a decision we made easily,' the band wrote on its Facebook page, 'but as the only women on Saturday's bill, we think we can do more good for the Nashville scene by performing, sharing our songs with the community and hopefully serving as a reminder of the inexhaustible power of women than we can by not performing at all.'

Daddy Issues — who donated their take from the show to RAINN, a charity that works on behalf of survivors of sexual abuse — dedicated a song to said survivors, along with a denouncement of racism and sexism.

By the time Atlanta power trio Omni was onstage — delivering a set of catchy, jangly tunes with hooks betraying a record collection full of top-notch Midwestern '80s college-rock LPs and vocals reminding of the the undying influence of The Fall's Mark E. Smith — it was starting to feel like the FW was getting back to one of its main missions: exposing us to regional ass-kickers we haven't heard of yet.

Photo: Lance Conzett

As Freakin' Weekend VIII reached its 11th hour, Diarrhea Planet, Nashville's all-time most aggressively positive punk outfit, not to mention a nationally known presence that opened early Freakin' Weekends in their earlier days, felt like the only band that could restore seven years worth of good vibes and great memories before kissing the festival goodbye on a positive note. And they did, closing a cathartic set of their own oldies with a cover of Bruce Springsteen's 'Born To Run,' lead vocals courtesy of Music Band's Harry Kagan. It was a call back to Freakin' Weekend IV, when the band covered the Boss classic as a tribute to Todd. The song served the same function this time around, not only ending the festival with six minutes that felt like full-on classic Freakin' Weekend, but reminding the FW family of fans and bands that sometimes we've gotta get out while we're still young.

UPDATE 6:30 p.m.: Portions of this post have been edited.

Writers & Publishers

from the album Know It All 路Copyright: Writer(s): Alessia Caracciolo, Andrew Wansel, Samuel T. Gerongco, Terence Lam, Tillman Coleridge, Warren Felder, Robert Gerongco, Isaac Hayes Lyrics Terms of Use

Advisory - the following lyrics contain explicit language:

I guess for now you've got the last laugh

I'm sorry if I seem uninterested
Or I'm not listening, or I'm indifferent
Truly I ain't got no business here
But since my friends are here
I just came to kick it
But really I would rather be at home all by myself
Not in this room with people who don't even care about my well being
I don't dance, don't ask
I don't need a boyfriend
So you can go back, please enjoy your party
I'll be here

Somewhere in the corner under clouds of marijuana
with this boy who's hollerin' and I can hardly hear
over this music I don't listen to
And I don't wanna get with you

So tell my friends that I'll be over here
Oh oh oh here, oh oh oh here
Oh oh oh I asked myself, 'What am I doin' here?'
Oh oh oh here, oh oh oh here
And I can't wait 'til we can break up out of here

Excuse me if I seem a little unimpressed with this
An antisocial pessimist
But usually I don't mess with this
And I know you mean only the best and your
Intentions aren't to bother me, but honestly I'd rather be

Somewhere with my people, we can kick it and just listen to
Some music with a message
(Like we usually do)

And we'll discuss our big dreams, how we plan to take over the planet
So pardon my manners

I hope you'll understand that I'll be here
Not there in the kitchen
With the girl who's always gossipin' about her friends
Oh tell them I'll be here
Right next to the boy who's throwin' up
'Cause he can't take what's in his cup no more

Oh God why am I here?
Oh oh oh here, oh oh oh here
Oh oh oh I asked myself, 'What am I doin' here?'

Oh oh oh here, oh oh oh here
And I can't wait 'til we can break up out of here
Hours later congregatin' next to the refrigerator
Some girl's talkin' 'bout a hater, she ain't got none
How did it ever come to this?
I should've never come to this
So holla at me, I'll be in the car when you're done
I'm stand-offish, don't want what you're offerin'
And I'm done talkin', awfully sad it had to be that way
So tell my people when they're ready that I'm ready
And I'm standin' by the TV with my beanie low
Yo, I'll be over here
Oh oh oh here, oh oh oh here
Oh oh oh I asked myself, 'What am I doin' here?'
Oh oh oh here, oh oh oh here
And I can't wait 'til we can break up out of here
(Oh oh, oh oh)

Song Discussions is protected by U.S. Patent 9401941. Other patents pending.