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Holiday Drink: White Harvest Punch
It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring… except a couple drunk kids hopped up on the holiday punch. I hosted a small dinner with my friends last weekend before we all parted for our respective holiday plans. Joe Feys made his infamous short ribs with a cauliflower mash that will appear on Listen! It’s Vetrano soon, but when Cassadee Pope brought her favorite holiday drink I knew I had to share it with my ‘Listen!’ readers. So, after I consumed the rest of the bowl of delicious goodness and then cured my epic hangover, I bring you the White Harvest Punch recipe that…
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Nashville Gift Guide
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably rushing around for those last minute gift ideas for your significant other, co-workers, friends and/or family. I spend eleven and a half months scratching my head thinking of what to get the people closest to me for the holly, jolly time of year and then, in the final hours before Santa’s impending arrival, get stuck creatively and land on those little pieces of plastic: the dreaded gift card. So, in an effort to be more creative and support local businesses, I’ve compiled some great Nashville-based brands that make perfect holiday gifts and tell your loved one that you’ve done more than pursued the…
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Feys Lift: No Tree? No Problem!
Ok so you’re probably going, “is this a Noxema commercial or what?”… but it’s actually my new column for Listen! It’s Vetrano, which you will have the pleasure of reading (or skipping) for the months… years… millennia to come. So since we’re gonna be here together for a while, let’s get introductions out of the way. My name is Joe and I love design. I hope you do too, or at least will let me help – or force- you to every couple of weeks. I love a challenge. Speaking of challenges, that brings me to my first topic: the Holidays (insert “ahhhhhs” or “ ughhhhhs” here). About a week…
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Rise & Grindr: Once I Went Black
Nickname: Bojangles Date: First How We Met: Grindr Rating: 6/10 After my dating disaster with Shark Week and still no word from “Joe,” I took the week to regroup and focus on work. I had a lot going on and with so many new dating apps to choose from, I realized how easy it can be to get trapped into hours of browsing, flirting and ultimately sexting with local men. I welcomed the break, but by the week’s end I was getting antsy (code: horny) and I started striking up conversation with the men who’d been awaiting responses. Bojangles was a slender black man who had been messaging me consistently for the past couple…
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Rise & Grindr: My Date With Shark Week
Nickname: Shark Week Date: First How We Met: Scruff Rating: 3/10 After a great first, first date with “Joe” [see ‘Meet Joe Black’], we spent the rest of the week talking about and plotting our Saturday night follow up. Unfortunately though, “Joe” got called into work last minute and had to cancel our second rendezvous. This wasn’t exactly the kind of ‘blow off’ I had in mind for the evening. “Joe’s” texts were short and he didn’t reschedule, which left me feeling a little turned off. But, whether my first-date was just annoyed at the thought of work on a Saturday or I was being thrown back in the ocean, I started looking to the…
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Rise & Grindr: Meet Joe Black
Nickname: “Joe” Date: First How We Met: Grindr Rating: 9/10 I did it. I went on my first gay, Grindr-initiated, homosexually-charged date. If you missed how this first man-on-man meeting came to be, check out the first part of my story here [see ‘Waking Up’]. After a few days of talking to “Joe” online, we coordinated our full schedules to meet on Wednesday for dinner. I originally had a work meeting planned, but moved it to an early happy hour in order to fit in the only normal guy to engage me with real conversation on Grindr. Since downloading the app last weekend, I’ve occasionally used it to see who else is…
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Rise & Grindr: Waking Up
Over the weekend I celebrated my 29th birthday. And like most birthdays before, I spent it with my friends, catering to their needs, dancing in a smoky bar and double fisting my gifted cocktails just as quickly as they were being poured. The next morning, I woke up hungover… a year older… and alone. Something I vowed I would change when I moved from my cozy Midwestern upbringings to the Bible thumping South nearly four years ago. It’s probably clear where this story is heading from the graphic above (and if that isn’t the case, you’re too young to read the content of what’s to come), so I’ll cut right…
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Taylor Swift Pops on ‘1989’
When Taylor Swift hinted at a departure from her country beginnings earlier this year, it was no real surprise to most of her die hard fans or critics. Especially following the wide reaching ‘Red‘ album, which premiered on Tragic Kingdom two years ago and featured a wider range of musical influences than her previous sugar coated country chart-toppers. In true Swift form though, she took her 80’s dance pop inspiration to the limits – and perhaps even beyond – on her fifth and most recent effort ‘1989‘. The synth driven beats and pounding drums provided by pop-music masters like Max Martin and Ryan Tedder mixed with Swift’s new take on vocal production make for the singer’s most mature…
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Five Knives’ Sugary New Sound
In 2012, the Nashville based electronic punk rockers Five Knives won me over with their unique and fresh sound in a blossoming EDM (electronic dance music) market. It wasn’t long after their Nashville debut that the band, led by fiery frontwoman Anna M’Queen and includes Nathan Barlowe, Zach Hall and Shane Wise, landed a deal with Red Bull Records and hit the road with their debut EP ‘The Rising‘. After a slew of catchy singles, video premieres and a stint on the Vans Warped Tour, the band got started on their highly anticipated debut full length record, due in February. On Tuesday, M’Queen and her male bandmates released the new single “Sugar,”…
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Take 5: Cassadee Pope
As part of the newly launched YouTube channel, some of my favorite features from my music blog Tragic Kingdom are coming to life. Take 5 has been one of the most shared and commented on posts from Tragic Kingdom, so when I launched ‘Listen! It’s Vetrano’, I knew it had to carry over. And with the addition of the new channel, I decided to put your favorite stars in the Take 5 hot seat. Up first? Pop-rocker turned country sweetheart turned V for Vetrano BFF, Cassadee Pope. Cassadee is widely known for her time in the punk-rock band Hey Monday and the hit NBC series The Voice, in which Pope took first place. Since the show, her album…
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Iceland: What To Do In That Other Nordic Nation
North of the UK and West of Norway is the nation of Iceland. They are Nordic people so they have a history linked to the Scandinavian parts of Europe. A country of just around 334,000 people, it’s not that well-known. Well, the things that are well-known about it are its wildlife and the geological wonders it has. It’s a landscape of geysers and hot springs that shoot up hot water sometimes over a hundred feet into the air. There are waterfalls surrounded by luscious green foliage. And as you look outward toward the coasts you can see huge icebergs floating around. The sea animals that find Iceland as a safe…
