Thank YOU, thank YOU, thank YOU. Hello Again! Welcome to another wonderful collaboration between East Side Story and The Post. Let me be the first to officially, whole-heartedly welcome you to the recap and recording of the 150th epic edition of East Side Storytellin’! Like the 149, I repeat … 149, previous shows East Side Story has put together, we all decided to take a break from our busy schedules all over town in order to sit back and relax and get everyone cultured up just right in the form of a Nashville writer reading from original prose, followed by an amazing local musician performing and talking about their original music, and then a round-up creative conversation with all featured guests of this event to talk about their individual journeys and personal ties to Nashville. Without further ado, fulfilling the entertainment portion of your day, this is the recap and recording of East Side Storytellin’ 150. Let us begin, again.
The first featured artistof the night is an author, editor, educator, meanderer, and unicorn. He is a Nashville native. He is also the acquisitions editor for Upper Rubber Boot Books, shout out Joanne. He is the founder and editor of PoemoftheWeek.com, founder and editor of The Floodgate Poetry Series, producer and host of Writers In Conversation, producer of There I Was: Poems & Stories from a Life of Daring-do, and professor of creative writing at Colorado Community College. Basically, if you’re keeping tabs, he is a founder, editor, producer, host, teacher, and writer. For this extraordinary show, he was a featured reader. Packed with poems and stories, new and old, on phones and notebooks and paper, it was an honor to finally get Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum to do this show.
Andrew, a veteran host and event coordinator in his own right, was a pro from the start. He set up his readings perfectly by describing a last second audible change because of there being a child in the audience. Instead of using his freedom of speech to the limit, he hid the adult content in between his prose and poetic memories. It was like a Pixar movie that was leaning more towards humor for the parents so it was fantastical for me and other parents in the audience. I specifically want to point out the laughter and build-up that you’ll notice when he talks about Sharon Stone in the movies when he was a child. A good writer will take you where they were talking about, and I’m pretty sure everyone in the room of age was in the movie theater with Andrew and friends and their shocks of puberty.
Andrew told another poem that was related to childhood, and it involved stepping on a hive of bees and the repercussions (physically and nicknames) that followed. It reminded me of the movie My Girl, but this time the sweet little boy survived. Not only did Andrew survive, but he let the crowd know that he is having a hard time grasping his upcoming 38th birthday this Friday, April 5. It is exactly the same day and one year later than my own birthday, something I forget until Facebook reminds me on that day (and can’t we all agree that that is the best thing about Facebook that unites us all and actually has a purpose?), but Andrew mentioned it a few times out loud as he jumped in and out of his published book and notebook to read short and longer poems that were equally as brilliant as the next. No matter what length or from Andrew uses, he is spot on with verbiage and texture with the flow of his memories and creativity. That is something that comes from practice, experience, and … quite honestly, it comes with age. He ended his set with a phenomenal poem called On Earth that I wanted to and felt compelled to listen to a second and tenth time again after I heard it live. You can do the same as me, and more, with the recording below. It will help you and Andrew (and me too) gain even more insight and perspective with each passing day and year we are fortunate to experience here on Earth.
Our featured music of the night is a self-described lyrical poet and chanteuse (meaning a female singer of popular songs, especially in a nightclub). This night, she was the featured musician in the best Nashville coffee/tea/smoothie shop there is. She loves to make sounds and songs that blend and connect our present with our past, like Etta James meets Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone meets Alicia Keys, or Sam Cook meets Leon Bridges. Born and raised as a first generation Tennessean in Music City, I believe I first met her while she made visual art, studied under, and interned with our mutual friend and brilliant painter in his own right, John Cannon (shout out to The Idea Hatchery). Emily Justin, like the description of her music I mentioned before, is an old soul with a new voice on the scene. Her personal motto is “Keep yourself joyful and you will bring joy to others.” At 18 years old, I was more than excited to introduce the youngest featured guest on our show to date AND the past, present, and future of music in Nashville, Emily Justin.
Emily started with a lot of adrenaline. Specifically, her first song was called Adrenaline, on top of having a lot of positive energy out of the gate. With her set list penned on her arm, a tradition she has stuck with from her early days of playing shows, and which I adore, Emily has a gift of writing and sounding decades older than she actually is. She not only creates stories and situations that are fiction to her timeline, she conveys them in a way that makes you believe they happened in your story as well. I almost can’t explain it. She has that something extra that I’ve only really heard in the past 20 years in soulful rock music like one of my favorites in Joss Stone.
Growing up in a family of professional music and homeschooled education, you can instantly tell that Papa and Mama didn’t raise no fool. Emily has been taking notes on performing and creating beautiful music pretty much since she could talk, read, and write. She prefaced a few stories that it’s obvious that she is a big fan of Shakespeare, but it’s one thing to be a fan of Shakespeare and another to take brilliant stories to an entirely new level. Her take on Romeo and Juliet with R & J and Rose are mind-blowing and spirit-moving, to say the least. A new soul with an old voice, I can’t say it any better than that. That, and this is a name and face and sound that you better get used to because you’re going to see her and hear her for many moons to come. I can only imagine what Shakespeare would have written about Emily and her art. Lucky for us, we get to listen to and enjoy this performance and many more to come for a long time.
Then I had the two Nashville native unicorns (of which I did not plan or know about until writing for the show once booked) literally share a mic and share more stories about what they love about what has changed in Nashville over the past ten years and what they loved about growing up here. Whether it was learning music from Emily’s parents or learning that you can actually make a living being a poet like Andrew did from Bill Brown and other teachers in high school, both Emily and Andrew always speak from the heart and are open to help others via their experiences and lessons learned and pure talent too. They are a breath of fresh air, especially when their humor shines even more light on their tremendous talents (as you can see in the photo below). I don’t want to keep you any longer from enjoying the recording below because that is where the true treasure of this show lies. Once again, I feel like a better person after meeting and listening to these two artists than before the show happened. See if you experience something similar.
So, here it is, enjoy the edited recording of East Side Storytellin’ 150, the night at The Post East where two Nashville natives (aka unicorns) by the names of Emily Justin and Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum shared the past, present, and future of Nashville art and poetry with all of us. This recording took place on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, 3 days before Andrew’s epic 38th birthday (I’ll celebrate with him in spirit, but next year in person). Enjoy and share this recording with everyone you know and don’t know. It’s that good. They will all thank you. I promise.
Before I say goodbye for this round of fun, I’d like to give a big round of thanks for Emily and Andrew for sharing their stories, talents, and time with us.
You can read more of Andrew’s writing here- www.andrewmk.com
You can listen to more of Emily’s music here- emilyjustinmusic.com
You can listen to this show, edited, soon, alongside the previous shows too, on our website, www.eastsidestorytn.com, at our In Our Own Words Tab – see here – www.eastsidestorytn.com/in-our-own-words
I’ll keep the gratitude going for Tom Eizonas, my lovely wife and most talented artist in Emily Harper Beard (efharper), and everyone that came out live to support the show … and to everyone who has helped continue to spread the word and support the show online afterwards.
Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to give one last shout out to Tonya and Chris for making The Post so welcoming and positively life-changing for the East Nashville community at large.
Our next show will be
East Side Storytellin’ 151
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
at The Post (1701 Fatherland Street) at 7pm
reading- Phillip Jones
singing- Stuffy Shmitt
That said, that’s all for East Side Storytellin’ 150 and another fabulous event at The Post with East Side Story at the helm. Thanks for coming out and sharing the good word and giving some love to all of these great Nashville artists and our creative ideas. Please remember to be nice to one another out there. I repeat, please remember to be nice to one another out there. Thank you and goodnight.
Much love,
mE