Lucy's Record Shop Concert Calendar 1992

What began as a quest to create the best complete list of the bands, artists, and event at Nashville's legendary Lucy's Record Shop, since as far as I know no one else has done this, has mushroomed into a multi month series of posts. I'm not going to go in depth on the history of Lucy's as this has already been done multiple times. I'll provide some links to that data momentarily. If you delve into those resources you will find information that is contradictory sometimes. That's to be expected. I've found history is rarely, if ever, 100% accurate. I'm going to do my best to be as factual as possible using old Tennessean concert listings, Lucy's concert calendars, and other resources about all of the known shows at the venue. 

So many different bands played there and I'll share videos of their music, sometimes maybe even from Lucy's stage. I enjoyed the Lucy's Podcast series, but for me it barely skimmed the surface of the place. It's like a Zen puzzle that can't truly be answered. Lucy's Record Shop is praised to the high heavens yet I sometimes feel it's still undervalued. The sheer fact that an all ages music venue could last for a little over 5 years during the 90's in Nashville is an absolute miracle. A local minister tried to stop clubs from having occasional all ages shows in 1989. Future Lucy's partner Donnie Kendall helped plead for all ages concerts in front of the Metro Beer Board.

July 26, 1989 Tennessean

Metro Legal upheld that all ages shows were legal, but this was for regular clubs. All ages venues only had been tried repeatedly for years and always ran afoul of fuddy-duddies who would bring the Metro codes teams in tow. Lucy's ran shows for a little over a year before they were almost shut down for a codes violation related to lack of bathrooms. But they persevered and got the work done. 

The way this will typically work is I will go over one month per post. Later, at the very end I'll put up one grand list. This might sound like a trickle of information, but some months are just jam packed. If you know more about the bands, concerts, or perhaps were one of the artists that played Lucy's then, by all means, feel free to comment or contact my email, which can be found in my blogger profile. If you have stuff to add like flyers or just stories I'm more than happy to add what you give me at my discretion. Finally, before we get to chopping wood, I want to point out that I'm putting this data out there without any input from Mary Mancini or Donnie & April Kendall who owned and booked Lucy's Record Shop. Mary is a busy lady. Donnie has had some health issues. I really don't want to bother them. If they happen to read this and want to correct any calendar errors that's fine. I'm just doing this for fun. It also sounds really punk to be unauthorized and non-definitive. 

"A Dog's Life" written by Jim Ridley for the Nashville Scene is a great history lesson even if the date of the first show is off by a few days. If you don't want to read the article (and you really should since the late Jim Ridley was a masterful writer) here is the capsule summary. Mary Mancini moves to Nashville, opens a record store named RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) in 1992. She has this awesome sweet Weimaraner named Lucy that everyone who visits the store loves. The name of the store gets changed to Lucy's Record Shop. Mary was friends with They Might Be Giants. They come by before a 328 gig and play in the store. This would be September 30, 1992. Sometime a while after this Donnie Kendall comes by and notices the room in the back of the shop and feels it would be ideal to put on punk concerts. He and his wife April form a partnership with Mary and the rest is history.

There are a couple of videos on YouTube with Mary you can also watch: 

TN 101: History of TN Music

We Own This Town interview with Mary

Mary did a series of entertaining podcasts in 2022 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the opening. 

We shall begin with They Might Be Giants. As mentioned before Mary knew them so they came down to the store and did an afternoon in-store appearance before playing at 328 Performance Hall later that night on September 30, 1992. It had to be that day even if the They Might Be Giants wiki has them playing on March 4, 1995. Why do I say it's September 30, 1992? First of all I took my friend Jenny to the show at 328. If it had been 1995 I would have taken my future wife Mo instead. They Might Be Giants also came back to Lucy's after the September 30 show for an afterparty. I knew Mary well enough by then that I received an invite. I drove by there with Jenny after a great concert at 328, but decided not to go in and mingle. My innate shyness was worse in those days. 

Fast forward to December 1992 and I found the first listing for an in-store acoustic appearance at Lucy's by Freedy Johnston appearing on Saturday December 5 at 3 pm.  Jim Ridley's story on the end of Lucy's has the first "official" concert being on December 3rd with Impetuous Doom, Vomit Spots, Hemophilia, and Utter Contempt for Society, but that's probably not right. He notes the turnout of only 30 kids on a Sunday afternoon. December 3, 1992 was a Thursday. I would guess that Sunday December 6, 1992 was the first Lucy's Record Shop "House O' Pain Migraine Matinee." However, perusing old Tennessean issues even makes that cloudy as there are different listings for this same date. Mellitus, Infection, and the Ted Bundys are shown playing December 6th, but another edition of the paper has the bands from Jim's Nashville Scene story.  So I'm going with that as the first concert. Impetuous Doom would go on to be a Lucy's staple. Vomit Spots were a punk band from Mobile, Alabama.

Impetuous Doom recorded the next year

Vomit Spots live on Blab Music Television 1988

Setlist.fm has Royal True playing Lucy's on December 9th, but I couldn't find a listing for this in local Nashville media. If you know if this concert actually happened let me know. 

December 13th was a Migraine Matinee I definitely attended as my pals in the band Jack who made the first of 18 Lucy's appearances were playing on this Sunday afternoon with Staring at the Sun while terrific pop punk rockers the Teen Idols headlined. Shadow Den is listed on December 16. There were a couple more Migraine Matinee's in December. The Fed, KY and the Jellies, and Godplow who were from Alabama at this time, before relocating to Minneapolis (although Discogs says Maryland) play on December 20th. The last show of the year features the Lucy's debuts of Lethargic and Madison, Alabama death metal titans Skeletal Earth. The last band on that bill was one listed as Meducsa which seems like it could be a misspelling of Medusa.

Skeletal Earth live at Crown Skatepark 1992

30-Sep-92        They Might Be Giants                                                                

3-Dec-92         Supposed to be the first show, but I think the date can't be right - should be the 6th                                                                                 

5-Dec-92         Freedy Johnston in-store acoustic performance 3PM                                                                                    

6-Dec-92         House O' Pain Migraine Matinee: Mellitus, Infection, Ted Bundys 2PM $4                                                                           

6-Dec-92         House O' Pain Migraine Matinee: Vomit Spots, Utter Contempt For Society, Hemophilia, Impetous Doom 2PM $4    

As you can see there are 2 December 6 dates with different bands. I vote that the Impetous Doom show was on the 6th.                                                                               

9-Dec-92         Royal Trux per setlist fm com                                                                        

13-Dec-92       House O' Pain Migraine Matinee: Staring at the Sun, Jack, Teen Idols 2PM $4                                                                                 

16-Dec-92       Shadow Den 9PM                                                                               

20-Dec-92       House O' Pain Migraine Matinee: The Fed, KY and the Jellies, Godplow 2PM $4                                                                             

27-Dec-92       House O' Pain Migraine Matinee: Lethargic, Skeletal Earth, Meducsa 2PM $4