Despite the fact that there’s been a thriving Nashville rock scene for better than four decades, there’s still the widespread notion that the ‘Music City’ is more country music than not, an oversight not helped by the glut of country-flavored celebrity tourist-trap bars on Lower Broadway. It’s a bit of an illusion, actually, as the best country artists (i.e. ‘Americana’) are everywhere
but in Nashville. The money-making genre’s corporate infrastructure of offices and studios in the mid-city enclave known as ‘Music Row’ is a sterile construct, cranking out assembly-line music that is homogenized by producers and record labels to appeal to the largest number of middle-aged, middle American housewives as possible.
Rock ‘n’ roll has always had a rough slog in Nashville, Elvis Presley’s adventures in RCA Studio B notwithstanding. There was little or no local rock scene in the city during the mid-‘70s apart from R. Stevie Moore and his friends, who altogether combined for something like 100 different bands. But Stevie split town for Jersey and D.I.Y infamy after releasing 1978’s
Phonography album, and it would take another year or so before bands like David Olney & the X-Rays, Cloverbottom, File 13, and CPS (Committee For Public Safety) would pick up the torch and start lighting stages like Springwater or the long-gone Phranks ‘n’ Steins on fire.
If rock music received a less-than-friendly reception from the “powers that be” on Music Row, punk rock was disdained, if not overlooked altogether. Still, as writer Charles “Cat” Taylor documents in
Music Row Rejects, his extensive discography and history of the city’s punk scene, punk has been an integral part of the city’s rock scene since the 1980 release of Cloverbottom’s
Anarchy In The Music City 7” vinyl EP. A profusely-illustrated 104-page “bookazine” (not quite a book, not quite a zine),
Music Row Rejects is a welcome guide to the city’s often overlooked punk scene, which has run not-so-quietly beneath the more mainstream rock ‘n’ roll currents for decades.
It took me six years of research and writing to put together my 600+ page doorstop of a book,
The Other Side of Nashville, An Incomplete History & Discography of the Nashville Rock Underground 1976-2006, which was published in 2012, so I know all too well the risks of taking on a project like
Music Row Rejects. Taylor took on an immense task and acquits himself nicely. His efforts were helped, no doubt, by his own participation in the city’s ever-evolving punk rock scene over the years as the lead singer for two popular punk outfits, Rednecks In Pain and Fun Girls From Mt. Pilot, as well as a contributor to the
House O’ Pain zine and indie record label.
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| Cloverbottom |
With Music Row Rejects, Taylor documents the scene with an impressive discography of close to 200 recordings by a 100 or so bands (I’m guessing), providing release info and track lists (when available) for a wealth of punk, hardcore, and punk-pop records, CDs, and cassette tapes that represent the scene as it existed from 1980 through 1997. In many instances, he has tracked down band members to provide their perspective, or at least share some rowdy stories of their rock ‘n’ roll daze. Taylor fills it out with cool graphics like show posters, band photos, and such. It’s a fun read, and I can’t imagine the book being much more comprehensive, as there are dozens of bands that I’ve never heard, and I was covering the scene at the time for numerous publications (including my own music zines).
The Nashville punk scene’s halcyon days can be assigned to the tenure of Lucy’s Record Store circa 1992-1998, where popular bands like Jack, Fun Girls, Java Christ, and Teen Idols were booked by Lucy’s owner Mary Mancini and House O’ Pain’s Donnie and April Kendall (who had been promoting “Migraine Matinee” all-ages shows at the local club Pantheon) alongside touring national acts like They Might Be Giants and Guided By Voices. But Taylor also digs back into the early ‘80s with entries for early punk outfits like the aforementioned Cloverbottom and CPS as well as like-minded bands such as the Resistors, Placid Fury, and the Ratz.
By the late ‘80s, bands like the popular hardcore gang F.U.C.T., Rednecks In Pain, Caustic Solutions, Tommyrot, and Zero Hour, among others, were making exciting and adventuresome music and setting the stage for the Lucy’s Records era. Taylor ends
Music Row Rejects right around the time that Lucy’s closed down, which did seem to be a sort of death knell for an independent punk scene at the time. Although other all-ages clubs would open and close throughout the 2000s and since, never again was the scene as much a community than it was at Lucy’s. Two Nashville punk/hardcore bands broke out from the local scene, Teen Idols and Today Is the Today making records for indie labels with significant distribution and worldwide reach.
Cat Taylor’s
Music Row Rejects is more than a mere discography of the city’s punk scene, the author providing a narrative of the scene’s creative aspirations. Many of the bands listed in the book released but a lone single or cassette, but a surprising number of them managed to produce a small, albeit impressive catalog of music, often releasing it themselves on tape or seven-inchers that have since become pricey acquisitions for well-heeled punk collectors. More than a Discogs/eBay wish list for punk rock fans,
Music Row Rejects is an invaluable reference and history of a Nashville punk scene that persevered despite the obstacles presented by the city’s staid music industry. (self-published, released January 2026)
Get yer own copy o’ Music Row Rejects, email Taylor at catidball@gmail.com or check out their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/musicrowrejectszine If you’re in Nashville, get you a copy at The Great Escape, Phonoluxe Records, Vinyl Tap, or Grimey’s Music...you’ll be glad that you did!
