Music City Monday: Let the Weirdos Cook
Slow Accordion, improvised music, and the Nashville rooms that let great musicians get weird
The first time I saw Matt Glassmeyer perform, I watched a grown man crawl around on the floor playing children’s toys.
At another point, prescription bottles filled with beans were passed around the audience as shakers. There were dancers. Samples. Radio frequencies. David Williford improvising on multiple saxophones.
I left completely inspired, but I couldn’t really tell you what I had just seen.
It wasn’t exactly a concert. It was an experience.
It’s not so much that I couldn’t look away, I just didn’t want to. My inner monologue kept repeating “What is happening right now?”
At one point I sort of came to and looked around the room. Everyone else looked the same way. Completely locked in. Facing forward. Nobody was drinking. We weren’t even in a venue. We were sitting in a studio, and somehow everyone looked stoned.
We weren’t just consuming what was happening. We were contributing to it. The energy in the room was palpable.
That’s an emotional response to music too.
So, who the hell is Matt Glassmeyer?
Once I learned Matt’s name, I started noticing it everywhere. Weirdly, often outside Nashville.
And the more I tried to figure out who this guy was, the more mysterious he became.
I’d find clips. I’d find projects. I’d find him playing with some of my favorite musicians on earth. Then I’d learn he made his own saxophone mouthpiece.
Wait. What?
Oh, and he doesn’t just play horns and percussion. He plays Wurlitzer. Really well.
Oh, and he has multiple weird experimental projects.
Hold on, now he’s playing with Viktor Krauss?
Who is this guy?
Even the press seems to have trouble explaining him. Relix recently described Matt’s playing on another record as having “a feel reminiscent of electric Miles Davis.”
Which, sure.
But I also think music writers eventually reach for Miles Davis when what they really mean is: this shit is weird as fuck, but highly musical.
And I mean that as the highest compliment.
Which brings us to Slow Accordion
Sunday • Vinyl Tap • 7-9:30pm
First things first: there is no accordion.
There is Oliver Wood on guitar, Ted Pecchio on bass, Mark Raudabaugh on drums, and Matt Glassmeyer on modified Wurlitzer and percussion.
Slow Accordion’s debut record was made by four musicians sitting in a circle at Matt’s home studio and improvising straight to four-track analog tape.
No overdubs. No predetermined songs.
They just played.
The final track even captures the tape literally running out.
Before I try to explain why I love this, put this on: "71" by Slow Accordion
And this is exactly the kind of thing I want more of in Nashville.
Before I lived here, I didn’t necessarily think about improvised music this way. I’m a picky listener. I’ve listened to a lot of music. I like things tight.
Improvisation made me think of noodly guitar solos and weird rhythms. Musicians individually showing you everything they know how to do.
But living in Nashville has changed my ear.
Because I genuinely believe we have some of the best musicians in the world living here. That’s not hyperbole to me.
These are players who spend their lives touring the world, making records, backing artists, becoming first calls and influencing the musicians coming behind them.
And many of them are also deeply curious people.
So what happens when you take musicians operating at that level and remove the assignment?
Something changes.
Great improvisation isn’t four musicians individually trying to impress you. It’s four people listening so closely to each other that eventually you stop thinking about the individual instruments at all.
The music blends.
That’s what makes it surprisingly accessible. You don’t have to love jazz. You don’t have to love experimental music. You don’t even have to understand what they’re doing.
You can just absorb it.
And there’s something almost meditative about that.
Nerd Note 🤓
Matt plays tenor sax using a reedless mouthpiece he invented himself.
Because apparently playing the saxophone normally wasn’t enough.
As for the record, I’m not going to try to describe every song to you.
But if you want a three-track tour through Slow Accordion, I’d start with “’71,” “Lento,” and “Mettle.”
“’71” opens the record and almost feels like they decided to make a cool ‘70s rock record before immediately getting bored and wandering somewhere stranger.
“Lento” starts with Ted Pecchio on bass, and damn is he smooth with it. You feel his playing in your chest like that first sip of something warm when you’re cold.
Then try “Mettle.”
Three very different entry points into a record that, by definition, nobody knew they were making until they made it.
More Matt. Different room.
FRIDAY • Random Sample
Matt Glassmeyer and Viktor Krauss share a bill with Ben Garnett + Cameron Knowles this Friday at Random Sample.
And Random Sample deserves its own little love letter.
It’s not really a venue. It’s a communal art space with rotating exhibitions, experimental music, film screenings and a free Radical Library.
I once went there for a screening of Persona and somehow ended up in a room with about ten of the coolest people I’d met in Nashville. During intermission, we wandered around looking at art and browsing the library.
Like... what?
This place is so dope.
It’s also clearly not designed to be some giant moneymaking operation. Spaces like this exist because people believe a city needs them.
And music that doesn’t fit neatly anywhere needs rooms willing to let it be weird.
We’re lucky Random Sample exists.
We should act like it.
Make Bands Big Again.™
Wednesday • Living Waters
Open Jam 6 PM • Daydrinkers 7 PM • FREE
Then there’s basically the opposite musical experiment.
Instead of four people improvising in a circle, let’s put a ridiculous number of musicians onstage.
Tyler Jaeger & The Daydrinkers are back Wednesday at Living Waters, and I will keep yelling about this project because what Tyler has built is genuinely special.
The night starts with an open jam at 6.
And I mean open.
Last time I went, William Leathers from the Nashville Symphony showed up to jam. There were professional musicians playing alongside college students. I watched a young woman studying trumpet get up there among all these dudes and absolutely have her moment.
What a bad bitch.
That’s the thing I love about this night.
If you’re growing up as a musician in Nashville, the access can be incredible. You can find yourself playing next to people you’ve studied, listened to, or watched on enormous stages.
Then at 7, the big band takes over.
This month includes Steve Patrick, and if you know Nashville horn players, you understand what that means. Every freaking trumpet player in town seems to materialize when Steve is around.
But Tyler’s concept has always been bigger than assembling a stacked band.
He wanted Nashville to have a place where people could experience a live big band for free.
Musicians get to go hard on music they actually want to play. They meet other players. Young musicians get access to veterans. People in the neighborhood get a recurring place to hear world-class music without buying a ticket.
That leads to more musicians meeting.
More playing.
More ideas.
More music.
That’s how you build a scene.
And because Nashville is Nashville, there’s a fun little thread connecting this week’s picks:
Mark Raudabaugh, who’s behind the kit with Slow Accordion, is also drumming with The Daydrinkers.
Of course he is.
Welcome to Nashville.
Make Bands Big Again.™
See You in the Room
Music City Monday isn’t meant to tell you everything happening in Nashville. There are too many shows and too many great musicians for that.
It’s about pointing toward the people, projects and rooms making us curious.
This week, go hear something you can’t predict.