.music music everywhere.

Hello everyone!  It's been a busy week and a half!  We've had family from out of town come in and, well, life hasn't been quite the same since.  Ha!  Finally getting back into the swing of things here at home.  I had no intentions of being away from this cozy corner for as long as I have so, my apologies.  Hope you all have been doing wonderful! 

As most of you know, I live in Nashville, Tennessee, "Home of the Grand Ole Opry."  There are benefits to living in Nashville.  The most obvious would be that this place truly lives up to its name MUSIC CITY, USA, especially in the month of June.  Specifically, this week!  I was reminded of some of the cool things that make this town unique when I received a copy of Anthropologie's June catalog.  The theme was "music" and to help them set the mood, they asked the folks over at Nashville's very own, Hatch Show Print, the country's longest running print shop, to help design the cover.  Loving the nostalgic, this place is too cool not to share with you all.  Here's an excerpt from Anthro's "In Our Own Words" about their experience:

"Established in 1879 by brothers Charles and Herbert Hatch, Hatch Show Print is thought to be the oldest continuously operating letterpress print shop in the country. Hatch is best known for their collaborations with musicians; they've worked with everyone, from Elvis Presley to Elvis Costello and anyone in between. Their motto is “preservation through production”—meaning, they pull from the same staggering collection of wooden typefaces and hand-carved images to create today's posters as they did to make minstrel show flyers at the turn of the 20th century. 

We teamed with Hatch in the hopes that they'd lend a bit of their rock poster prowess to the cover of our catalog. Chris, our production manager, and e, our catalog designer, helped develop the cover concept. To say that they enjoyed their time spent among the Hatch staff would be putting it mildly. 

“It was really clear that they all were just in love with their work,” Chris said of the Hatch staff. “They were all very excited about each project they were developing, and they clearly loved to create.” . . .

[Our] kinship revealed an unexpectedly common ethos between our two companies. We share the belief that every customer should walk out of our doors having had an experience—a tangible, sensory-delighting encounter between themselves and our craft, between the real and the imagined, the present and the past. 

As for us, we walked out of Hatch's doors with our heads still full of the rhythmic click-clacking of centuries-old presses. The tangy, metallic scent of ink still filled our noses, and we could still picture it smudged across the busy hands of the staff, themselves youthful practitioners of an age-old craft. Though their clients are modern—from up-and-coming bands to newlyweds and corporations—their product bears a human touch that the convenience of the electronic age often leaves behind. . . "

An enormous gig taking place as we speak, sits on a 700-acre farm right outside Nashville, actually more like 60 miles southeast, in Manchester, TN.  Bonnaroo, America's new Woodstock, can be likened to UK's Glastonbury Festival.  This event is truly rockin' & rollin' with names like Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Nine Inch Nails, Snoop Dogg, Neko Case, Wilco. . . and the list just keeps going!  If you don't mind sitting in traffic for hours, love live music. . . and camping. . . this art and music fest is a can't-miss.  Fingers crossed and stars aligned, our family plans to make it out there next year.  Rock. . . on.

What Bonnaroo is to the rocker, the CMA Music Fest is to the honky tonk.  Taking your attention back to Nashville, another music festival attracts crowds of Country music fans from all over the world.  People come here to listen to up-and-coming musicians but especially to hear, and hopefully meet, some of their favorite musicians.  What was once known as "Fan Fair" had its name changed to CMA Music Festival when its location moved from the Tennessee State Fairgrounds to what is now known as LP Field, the coliseum where Tennessee's favorite football team, the Titans, play their home games.  The streets of downtown Nashville are swarming with visitors, some donning the stereotypical cowboy hat, torn blue jeans, with a t-shirt sporting the face of their favorite country music star.  On a mad dash to pay my water bill on the north side of town, I had to plow straight through the center of downtown during the start of rush hour traffic.  What was I thinking?!  Waiting for the traffic light to turn green in order to cross Broadway, your ears were filled with a young lady's cracking voice as she sang her heart out to a southern gospel tune, blaring over a loud speaker.  The police are everywhere, directing the traffic of folks carrying Hard Rock Cafe bags and Nashville's own impatient motorists.  After driving through an obstacle course, which involved at one point driving around a man who had decided to just stand in the middle of 3 sets of traffic lights, I finally made it, with less than one minute to spare, to the Metro Water Services office.  Water bill is paid.  And now. . . the trip home.  

I wonder, if we sat on a satellite over looking middle Tennessee, would we see musical notes floating up into the stratosphere?  Probably not.  But wouldn't that be cool?!  Hope your weekend is full of wonderful tunes and delightfully loud singing in the shower!