the hum / By Bob Doran

East Nashville

(May 17, 2007)  I’d never really heard of East Nashville before reading something on songwriter Amelia White’s webpage about one of her songs showing up on a double-disc compilation called The Other Side: Music from East Nashville . Amelia is not strictly from Nashville — she moved there from Boston a few years back to make her way in the music world, and lately she’s been on the road with her guitar about half of any given year playing finely crafted alt. country/neo folk songs. When I tracked her down Monday she was in Portland. By next Monday, May 21, she’ll he here in Humboldt for a gig at the Pearl Lounge with her friend Lila Nelson , a songwriter/deejay/etc. we’re all hoping won’t be moving to Nashville (or Portland) any time soon.

So, I asked Amelia, what is East Nashville? A part of town? A state of mind? “It’s both. In my opinion it’s the best part of Nashville. East Nashville is a little like Portland, more liberal and funky, and I’d say there’s more left-of-center artists. A lot of painters and musicians have settled there. And there are a few venues over there — not all of the underground spots, but a few of them. The rent is a little cheaper and all these little studios are popping up. I made my record Black Dove in East Nashville and I finished seven songs out of what will probably be 12 songs from my new record over there too. You just walk down the street, knock on the bass player’s door and say ‘Come on over, We’re ready.’ It’s pretty cool.”

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By chance “Black Doves,” the title track from her last album, was the very song that appeared on the Music from East Nashville album mentioned above. It’s a song about the war, one with a subtle message.

“I actually wrote that song really fast,” said Amelia. “It was the night before the war started, I was sitting watching TV, pretty much in horror, seeing men and women get sent off, hugging their wives or husbands or mothers or babies.” (She sighs audibly.) “That song is totally from the perspective of the one left behind, feeling the war from that point of view as opposed to some political agenda. I was hoping it would be a short-lived thing — the war, that is. It really bums me out that it’s dragging on for so long. People are so out of touch with thinking about it, about all the people who’ve been killed over there.”

I had to assume that the sentiments in the song are more from the East Nashville side of town. “Actually greater Nashville did go blue in the last election,” she noted, “but there’s definitely a red side to Music Row. You see what the Dixie Chicks went through. But you know, people are starting to take risks.” And she figures speaking your mind doesn’t always lead to being blackballed. “As a matter of fact, I think the little bit of political flavor expressed in the Black Doves album kind of gave me a distinction in Nashville. I’m proud of that. I just feel anything you can do to make people think helps.”

So she’s still writing songs with messages. “This new one I wrote has sort of a personal sexual freedom message in a pretty cool way. Again, it says it in a way that doesn’t hit you over the head, but I hope it will make people think. It has this line in it, ‘Everybody loves the ones they love. We’re all at the end of somebody’s chain. Why should anybody care, why should anyone explain?’ Then the verses have the stories of these different freaks, like a bartender who wants to become a woman. It’s got a bit of everything in it. That one seems to be hitting people; I’m kind of happy about that. That’s what songs are supposed to do.”

Are you ready for a long, wild rock ‘n’ roll weekend? It starts Thursday at the Alibi with Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, a psychedelic punk metal noise band from Japan better know by the acronym DMBQ . Those who have seen the band in action, and particularly the lithe lead guitarist/screamer Shinji Masuko, may find it hard to believe that Shinji founded DMBQ 20 years ago. That’s right, in 1987.

Opening the show: Akimbo , a band from Seattle offering a blistering blast of hardcore punk metal, the kind with roaring Satanic vocals. From an e-mail exchange (see it at whoareyouwhatdoyoudo.blogspot.com) I get the sense that the band is both thrilled and apprehensive about touring with DMBQ, “the most insane live band that has ever lived. We are going to have to resort to all kinds of ridiculous shenanigans to make up for our comparatively lackluster snore fest of a show,” says bassist Jon.

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