Next Big Nashville is a four-day music festival spread across more than 10 music venues in town, including Exit/In, Mercy Lounge, The 5 Spot, The Rutledge and even honkeytonk bars on Broadway like Tootsie’s and Paradise Park. The festival was co-founded by former Belmont student Jason Moon Wilkins along with Movement Nashville head Ethan Opelt as a way to promote Nashville’s underground music scene.

The festival, which kicks off on Wednesday Oct. 7 and runs until Sunday, has cut back slightly from last year—several venues like Limelight and 3rd & Lindsley are no longer part of the festivities—but has expanded to include larger name bands from outside the Nashville local music community like Lucero, The Black Angels and Phosphorescent.

Though more attention has been given to the big-name out-of-towners, Belmont grown music also makes up a significant portion of the line-up. At least 8 bands at the festival feature Belmont students or alumni, including: Future, Kopecky Family Band, Lorien, The Deep Vibration, Steve Moakler, Darla Farmer, Michael Ford Jr. & Apache Relay and Tyler James.

More than 140 bands will perform at this year’s Next Big Nashville, including How I Became the Bomb, Jemina Pearl, Ten Out of Tenn, Heypenny and Dixie Whiskey.

Wristbands good for unlimited access to the festival’s concerts can be purchased for $40 online at www.nextbignashville.net and in record stores like Grimey’s and The Groove. Students also have the option of buying VIP badges for $50 online after using the coupon code “UNSTNBN08”. VIP badge perks include preferred entrance to shows, access to panels and VIP parties, as well as a goodie bag. Otherwise, each show will cost between $10 and $15 at the door.

In last month’s issues of Paste Magazine, an article declared that, along with fellow Nashville singer/songwriter Katie Herzig, Brooke Waggoner was one of 25 artists to watch. Waggoner, a classically trained pianist, has the incredible ability to pull apart the most seemingly simple melody and arrange the resulting tune into dozens of different ways. There’s no shortage of piano playing singer/songwriters in the world, but Waggoner’s songs make her look more like a composer than the average piano-playing songwriter.

Waggoner demonstrated these skills on her latest release, “Heal for the Honey”, which featured a veritable orchestra of local musicians. In her Next Big Nashville performance, however, she brought things back to basics with a stripped down solo performance. It would have almost been intimate, had Cannery not taken inappropriate times to remind the audience of their smoke machine.

Unfortunately, Waggoner’s performance brought up one of the frustrations of Next Big Nashville—there’s no telling when these shows will actually begin. Waggoner was scheduled to begin at 9:45 but apparently started early at 9:30. By the time I managed to park at Cannery and make my way inside, she was already finishing up her set. But even with only two and a half songs, I could tell that I had cause for my disappointment.

When going to see a Forget Cassettes show, it’s important to remember that Forget Cassettes in 2008 is completely different from Forget Cassettes in 2006. They may as well be two entirely different bands at this point, despite the fact that the band has always been directed by Beth Cameron. In the past, the band gained notoriety for energetic, but contemplative art rock songs. “Quiero, Quieres” and “Patience, Beth” off the band’s 2006 album “Salt” are great examples of what made the band famous outside of Nashville.

But now, you could never tell that the band was once inexorably linked with …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Their performance at the Rutledge was weighed down by melodramatic Gregorian chant, which slowly plodded forward over the top of Cameron’s piano playing. They’ve become more PJ Harvey or Rasputina than Yeah Yeah Yeahs, instead choosing a dark, ethereal mood over sporadically aggressive catharsis.

It’s hard to separate the new band from the old band, mainly because it’s the same band. It’s even harder to convince an old fan that change is a good thing, even in the face of the fact that Cameron is still a talented songwriter and the band is just as talented as they were six years ago.

When The States changed their name to We Were the States last year, it confused just about everyone. I lost track of how many people wondered out loud if the band had broken up and changing the name on their MySpace page was a passive way of closing the curtain on their band. In the end, it turned out that they didn’t want be confused with the Brooklyn band of the same name and when “We Are the States” turned out to be too self-aware a name, they went the opposite direction. Now, with all that confusion out of the way, the band can go on doing what they’ve always done: playing catchy rock songs loaded down with distorted fuzz guitar.

We Were the States are devoted disciples of the Pixies’ trademark loud, quiet, loud rock and roll cadence. They’re nothing if not energetic and show great promise of improving and impressing in the future.

Something about the Clutters’ performance at last year’s Next Big Nashville didn’t sit right with me. The band had performed as a three piece due to the departure of organ player Ali Tonn, a return to the foundation of the band. But by now, they had two albums with Tonn’s influence under their belt and the removal of her pop counterpoint to the band’s garage punk roots left a serious deficit that need to be filled.

Enter Wurlitzer piano player Todd Kemp to save the day. The band went without an organ player for a while and it’s unclear when Kemp joined the band, but he is a welcome addition. But, that isn’t to say that he is an exact replacement for Tonn. What Tonn’s organ brought to the Clutters’ music was a bright, piercing Farfisa organ sound which cut through the wall of distorted guitar and bass. Kemp’s Wurlitzer has a more traditional piano sound which tends to meld into the rest of the sounds more. Maybe it was just The End’s mixing, but I found myself having to listen for the piano in some songs because it had a tendency of disappearing into the mass of noise. That being said, Kemp strikes me as a more capable pianist who adds more than catchy organ riffs sprinkled throughout.

Although the band works as a trio and could have easily soldiered on without the keys, their performance at The End blew last year’s show at Exit/In away because the band feels more complete.

By midnight, Next Big Nashville was starting to wind down across the city, but not at Next Big Nashville. How I Became the Bomb arrived on stage shortly after midnight, decked out in a set of new costumes. Before, the band looked like they had fallen out of a Devo video, but now the band looks like they’ve come from another planet to kill Superman with glitter and purple.

I can only assume that the band’s wardrobe change is timed to coincide with the release of their next album, which is rumored to hit the internet later this month in a series of installments. Although the album has yet to be officially announced, that didn’t stop the band from packing their set almost entirely with new songs. Some of them like “Harvest” and “Danger Lady” are familiar from the band’s recent shows, but many are entirely new. In fact, the only two songs to grace the band’s setlist were “Killing Machine” and “Secret Identity” off their 2006 EP.

These new songs don’t resemble a grand shift in sound like Forget Cassettes, though. The band is still playing the same synth-pop tunes that place heavy emphasis on odd electronics like keytars and vocorders. There’s a lot to like about this band and they haven’t done away with any of it. Most notably, lead singer Jon Burr is as expressive a singer as ever and Ricky Bizness’s bass lines are infectious and surprisingly complex for a pop band. The band’s yet to be titled forthcoming release is one of local music’s most anticipated records. But it isn’t at the top. That designation belongs entirely to the next band.

Several people were turned away at the door for being under age, with the bouncer at the door pointing to some hastily scribbled signs stating the party’s age requirement. But, before hitting the door, no one knew that the party was 21+, even when the show was still at City Hall.

It became immediately apparent inside that the ruling wasn’t being actively policed. A small smattering of black X’s were sprinkled into the crowd milling about before the Features took stage, and those people remained inside unmolested until they chose to leave. Nothing about the decision to keep non-drinkers outside made much sense.

“There wasn’t even any logical reason to keep us out,” wrote Tennessee Tech student Kassi Thomas in a Facebook note, “They were serving the same drinks as they were 3 hours earlier when we were there to see Brooke Waggoner.”

But sometimes, you can’t argue with City Hall (or, in this case, Cannery Row), and many of those would-be attendees wound up going home early. Which is a shame, because arguably the biggest band of the festival was about to play.

The Features were named Nashville’s favorite local band in a poll conducted by the Nashville Scene, and for good reason. They’re a holdover from the days of Spongebath Records, which propelled a wealth of Middle Tennessee’s most talented musicians, including Matt Mahaffey of Self, into relative stardom. After a turbulent year or so on Universal Records, the band returned to self-production and has slowly built up local hype for a new record.

There’s something very fanatical about the Features’ fanbase. The band’s long awaited second album, “Some Kind of Salvation”, isn’t available for purchase until the end of September, but a mistake made by digital music online shops Amazon and Lala resulted in the album falling into the hands of diligent fans months in advance. New songs like “Baby’s Hammer” and “Foundation’s Cracked” turned into boisterous sing-a-longs led by fans who have committed the songs to memory.

Unlike How I Became the Bomb, who largely excised old material from their set in favor of giving crowds a taste of new material, The Features kicked off their set with “Circus”, the organ fueled rollercoaster which closed their 2004 major label release “Exhibit A”. Other old songs like “Exorcising Demons” and “Me & The Skirts” were thrown in as well, but an outsider would have never known the difference based on the crowd’s energy. The best they could do is identify what makes these new tunes different from four years ago, namely the new emphasis on cutting bass lines, as performed by founding member Roger Dabbs, and away from loud, expressive organ rock.

But, with all that being said, the 45 minute Features set was completely typical of the band’s usual performances. Singer and guitarist Matt Pelham was typically a stone wall who only seldom addressed the audience and, while the band performed admirably, they didn’t blow me away like they did with a long set this summer at Mercy Lounge which allowed them to break out old, once thought retired, songs like “Armani Suede”. Worse yet, the crowd was large, but not by typical Cannery Ballroom standards. It certainly wasn’t the mass of people it would have been had the show remained open to 18, 19 and 20 year-olds.

It’s been a year since I first saw the youthful dynamo that is Kindergarten Circus at last year’s Next Big Nashville and, if anything, the band has only gotten louder and more impressive.

Kindergarten Circus funnels a clear influence from blues rock bands The Who, The Kinks and early White Stripes through gritty, raw garage punk. This band is all about crashing distorted guitars punctuated by blistering blues-inspired solos. There’s a good reason why the boys in the band gushed about their adoration for The Clutters in a questionnaire on Janet Timmons’ “Out the Other” blog last year. Closing your eyes, it’s easy to forget that the members of the band are only 17, 16 and 15.

Although the elder singer and guitarist, Dillon Watson, is still the focal point for the band, bassist Logan Sissom and drummer Aaron Browning have grown as musicians and stand-out on their own as well. The band is like a rusty freight train, barreling down the tracks with no hopes of stopping. That is, until something breaks and the whole thing is derailed for a bit. Whenever Watson had to stop to change tuning, the momentum collapsed and they had to work to build it back up again.

The teenage trio is the best reason why Nashville is sorely in need of an accessible all ages venues without the baggage associated with RCKTWN.

Following Kindergarten Circus as the Grand Palace showcase were Velcro Stars, a band that has somehow become more famous for being a springboard for other bands like former drummer Andy Spore and How I Became the Bomb and, now, current bassist Jonathan Brock and Shoot The Mountain.

“Basically, if you start a band and join Velcro Stars around the same time, your other band will f—in’ blow up,” joked singer/guitarist Shane Spresser after introducing Brock as “Nashville’s newest celebrity.” Why Velcro Stars haven’t been launched into the stratosphere of local rock fame is a mystery, but maybe it has something to do with how completely “un-Nashville” they are.

Although Velcro Stars are based in Murfreesboro, their sound comes straight from Athens, GA. Keith Pratt and Spresser wail through light-hearted pop songs in the style of Robert Schneider, The Apples in Stereo and, on a larger scale, the Elephant 6 Collective. Somehow, Athens has becomes the national headquarters for bright, happy tunes.

Consider Velcro Stars as an ambassador from Athens, bringing the fire of twee pop down from Olympus to whoever will listen.

Shuttles are a great idea. In theory, you can travel from Cannery Row to anywhere you want in 20 minutes or less. Shuttles keep you from having to burn gasoline speeding down West End. They protect you from the horror of trying to find parking at the Rutledge. They put every show at your fingertips, allowing you to hop all over town, collecting stamps until the back of your hand is overcome by a splotch of colored ink.

In theory.

For the most part, the shuttle service does everything that it advertises. Unless, that is, you’re hoping to cross the river to see what’s going on at The 5 Spot or LimeLight. When I got on the dark shuttle from Exit/In in hopes of seeing Dukes of DaVille without having to figure out where LimeLight was, I was eventually informed of this limitation. Although, the driver did offer to drop me off with the understanding that he wouldn’t be coming back.

Tempting as a long walk across James Robertson Parkway is, I wound up at Cannery instead. But before my shuttle arrived at Cannery Row, I was treated to a high-speed winding tour of Nashville’s venues from the comfort of a dark shuttle in which I was the only passenger. On my eventual ride back to Exit/In, the driver told me that fewer people have been riding compared to last year. She confided to me that “it makes driving hard with an empty bus.”

The Pink Spiders have had a rough couple of months. Founding members Jon Decious and Bob Ferrari left the band and trashed remaining member Matt Friction in a tell-all interview with the Nashville Scene. The band’s still struggling to get their nearly scrapped third album out in stores after being unceremoniously dropped from Geffen, all while attempting to recapture lightning in a bottle with a band full of new members.

In all truthfulness, I hadn’t planned on seeing the band play after seeing a tired, egotistical performance by the band at last year’s festival. But after a wayward journey via shuttle, I stuck around to see how the new Pink Spiders faired. What was most immediately noticeable was that they’ve apparently done away with the costumes, finally casting off the tired gimmicky image they’ve foisted upon themselves. Matt Friction had a good thing going with Silent Friction and The Pink Spiders are virtually the same band, except with more ego than most people are comfortable with.

If the band can reinvent itself as a band first and not an image, then maybe they can move past their dismal recent history and win back some of the fans they’ve spurned. Until then, they’re playing adequate Kinks-inspired garage pop songs and there’s nothing wrong with that.

After another shuttle ride across town, Glossary had already taken stage at The End. After witnessing the historically phony Pink Spiders, it was a culture shock to see a band that was nothing if not genuine. Glossary played a stripped down set of Americana tunes rooted deep in Southern tradition. This is a band that’s playing music only because it’s in their nature to write and record these songs.

That sentiment was best reflected when they released “The Better Angels of Our Nature” last year for free online with only a limited pressing of CDs sold in stores and direct from the band. Unfortunately, their set was over before I knew it, after only a handful of songs. But even though I was only able to see the band play three or four songs, I can say with confidence that they put on one of the best shows of the night, if not the festival. The band isn’t riding the cusp of local fervor like How I Became the Bomb or The Features do, but they still put on a show made up of reliable, good ol’ fashioned tunes.

One of the beauties of Next Big Nashville is that, from time to time, you’ll stumble across a band that you’ve never heard of before. Sometimes they’re playing across the street at a time when you’ve got nothing else going on. More often, they’re a band preceding the band you showed up to see in the first place. Dead Confederate, an import from Georgia, is one of those bands.

The band’s lighting was strikingly minimalist. All of the overhead lights were shut down and replaced, instead, with bright white can lights which would burst and dim like flash bulbs. The result was a band quite literally appearing larger than life, with their shadows dwarfing them on the walls. This same trick was attempted by Mother/Father in December when they opened for the Protomen, but they didn’t quite pull it off. Dead Confederate has the sound and presence necessary to use a moodier rock aesthetic.

Dead Confederate blends shades of Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine into a shoegazer wall of sound. Everything about the band lends well to the kind of ethereal, psychedelic sound that they presented at Next Big Nashville. Dead Confederate is a band worth keeping an eye on, just like Wax Fang was last year.

Next Big Nashville poses some problems for some bands. Generally, the sets are shorter and bands are at the whims of the person running the soundboard. More than one band was cut off short by Bruce at The End without any negotiation for two more songs. So, what’s a theatrical band like the Protomen, who employ elaborate make-up, costumes and framing devices in their live shows, to do? I had assumed that they would have simply dialed back the theatrics, but this assumption was completely and utterly wrong.

The Protomen started their Mega Man inspired rock opera three years ago with a self-titled album about a freedom fighting robot who attempts to get revenge for his brother, who was apparently killed in an assault on fascism. As time progressed, the band has swelled to include a four person chorus, all while holding down their songs with 8-bit tunes upgraded to fit the energetic rock & roll fury put forward by the band’s two guitarists. They’re larger than life and know it, which is immediately obvious from their live performances.

In 2009, the band will finally release their second act. Because the new album is so close, they dismantled their usual setlist to mash together old songs and new. The band has such power over the crowd that although it was approaching 1 a.m. midway into their set, no one seemed ready to leave. That’s the sign of a great live band.

The film tells the story of Patrick and Carol Darling, twin brothers living in suburban Tennessee. In their first summer after graduating high school, their lives are irreparably damaged by the disappearance of their friend and, in Patrick’s case unrequited love interest, Wendy. Along for the ride are Beetle, their younger brother, and Addy, their childhood friend. A handful of secondary characters fill out the cast like Addy’s friend from boarding school, Anne Haran, a troublemaker named Rody and Brian, Wendy’s boyfriend.

After the search for Wendy is called off, Carol and Beetle stumble across her reanimated corpse, tied to a couple of trees in the cicada swarmed woods surrounding their town. Carol and Patrick decide to bring her back home and, in a bout of unclear logic, try to revert her to the girl she once was. What ensues is a treatise on life after death, on more than one level.

“Make-Out with Violence” is no more a zombie movie than “The Lost Boys” is a vampire movie. Certainly, both are drenched in horror elements and both revolve around otherworldly creatures to progress the plot, but in this film, the word “zombie” isn’t used once in the entire film. Instead, Wendy’s condition is described as “returning” or “dying again.” But, more often than not, the fact that she’s undead isn’t mentioned at all. The fact that Wendy is a zombie takes a backseat to the expressions of grief by the main characters.

Grief is a hell of an emotion, and it makes people do strange things. While some characters grow together, Patrick’s personality slowly warps into a Norman Bates psychosis, obsessed with a dead woman and unable to move on with his life. In some ways, the film is much like “I Love Sarah Jane,” an Australian short film that took home an award from this year’s Nashville Film Festival for best narrative short. The Australian film takes a look at the emotional impact of a loved one dying and becoming undead, told from the central conflict of a young boy’s love for his neighbor Sarah. However, the frustration and bizarre fascination with the undead subject which Patrick is afflicted by is shown on a much wider scale.

Although the movie is full of character moments from these four central characters, other plot points are left flapping in the breeze. What happened to Wendy between her disappearance and reappearance in the woods is never made entirely clear, for instance. In some cases, characters are introduced and drop off the face of the earth once they’re no longer useful—Rody leaves the film after his duty as comic relief is fulfilled and only returns once at the very end.

From a technical standpoint, though, aces all around for the movie. The Deagol brothers spent four long years making “Make-Out with Violence” and the effort they and the rest of the crew put into it shows. The lighting is striking and you only very rarely get the awareness that comes along with watching a low-budget movie. The tense moments are palpable and the editing deftly brings some very funny comedy before plunging the audience right back into a void of nervous despair.

But the movie’s strongest suit, even among its already impressive qualities, is its soundtrack. The Non-Commissioned Officers were formed by Eric Lehring, who played Patrick and co-write the movie, and other members of the cast and crew to provide an actual soundtrack to the film and not just a score. To give the film continuity, the band tackled different styles of music, wrote songs for characters that could be deconstructed into themes and eventually wound up with over a dozen tunes that not only fit the scenes but stand up on their own when performed live. If a soundtrack album were released, it would be just as successful as the movie itself, if not more.

After the 8:45 p.m. screening of the film ended, the Non-Commissioned Officers performed on stage for the last time; this time not for a need for fundraising but instead out of celebration for a job well done. No, “Make-Out with Violence” isn’t the perfect movie. It has its flaws, but harping on them does a disservice to the enormous feat that the filmmakers accomplished. The fact that this is the Deagol Brothers’ first feature production makes all of the issues with the movie—loose ends, a middle that meanders somewhat, disappearing characters, etc.—a non-issue.

This is the kind of movie that will be picked up for screening at the Belcourt or the Nashville Film Festival and it is worth seeing for everyone except, perhaps, the squeamish who might find some of the gorier moments objectionable. But, then again, with a title like “Make-Out with Violence” most people should know what they’re getting themselves into.

On Wednesday Sept. 10, at least for a few days, country music gets forcefully kicked out of the limelight when Next Big Nashville takes over nearly every major music venue in the city to showcase Nashville’s most diverse and eclectic bands which don’t fall under the vast umbrella of country music. Everything from indie rock to hip-hop, but absolutely no commercial country, will be sprawled across over two dozen venues and former Belmont student and Next BIG Nashville founder Jason Wilkins is the man to thank for it.

“We have done such a great job over the years of making the word Nashville synonymous with Country Music that we now have to remind everyone, including ourselves, that we are a multi-faceted city with a multi-faceted scene and a multi-faceted music industry,” says Wilkins about the goal of the festival.

Chase Gregory, guitarist for Lórien, echoes that sentiment, “There’s always that everlasting, horrible pigeonhole that people put Nashville into–being only country music. I kinda thought that before I came down here, but now I realize what a great rock scene there is and even some other genres as well.” Lórien will be performing as part of that rock tradition at The Anchor on Thursday at 9 p.m.

Although the inaugural Next Big Nashville festival was born out of an article Wilkins wrote for the Rage, its roots go as far back as his tenure at Belmont.

“I’m a compulsive listmaker and mixtape guy,” explained Wilkins, “so the original Other Showcase and the Best of the Best, which I also helped create, was really a way to make a live mixtape for a larger audience than say, the girl I had a crush on from the Classical Music department. Over the years various things I’ve been involved with from CD compilations to festivals to radio to print have been a part of this desire to share music with people in this way and NBN is definitely that as well, but on a much grander scale.”

Next BIG Nashville was originally a weekend affair on Cannery Row, featuring 33 bands pulled from various corners of Middle Tennessee. The event was a stunning success which resulted in 17 of those bands landing record deals. When the next year rolled around, the festival had to grow in size, almost out of necessity. In 2008, the number of bands increased to nearly 150 and found itself under international scrutiny by magazines and newspapers like The Independent, NME and the Dublin Herald.

Although many elements of this year’s version of the festival are the same—the shuttles are returning (although Wilkins called last year’s experience “a bit of a disaster”), Reel Big Nashville again kicks off the festival with a local film (this time, the zombie romance “Make Out with Violence” featuring music by Non-Commissioned Officers), festival goers once more get to reap the benefit of discounts at places like Grimey’s, The Groove and Local Honey—there are some stark changes with the festival, particularly the inclusion of the conference.

“We talked about doing [a music conference] last year but did not want to do it in half-measures. This year we were able to secure the perfect venues – the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum – and an amazing group of panelists,” said Wilkins.

“It has been a great opportunity to shine a light on all the different kinds of music business being done in Nashville from management for major rock acts to recording for famous indie rockers to new digital businesses cropping up all over the place. It’s exciting to get a number of these people in the same room together.” The conference pivots around the theme of “21st Century DIY” and a keynote address by noted piano rocker and Belmont neighborhood resident Ben Folds. Although Folds is a Nashville dweller and, therefore technically a local artist, you won’t see him behind the piano at Exit/In.

The tricky part of holding a festival of local music comes in selecting the bands. In previous years, festival sign-ups were conducted through informal submissions and invites from the festival promoters. 2008 saw a shift towards using SonicBids, an online service which connects bands with promoters. Beyond the bands which signed up online, invitations were extended to a number of established locals like Kings of Leon, Paramore, Matt Wertz and Mat Kearney but all four were unable to perform.

But, even with increased transparency, some artists have criticized Next BIG Nashville for their booking decisions. Brandon Jazz, singer for Armed Forces, wrote an open letter to the festival which argued that a “smaller and smaller circle of people have been appointed the taste-makers of town.” Jazz vowed to collect 600 signatures to prove that the “voice of the people” was being squelched by “social fascism.”

Wilkins responded saying, “I have expected to hear more criticism of this sort due to the emotional nature of this process but people have been amazingly supportive. I think that’s because most of them realize that there is no secret backroom music business answer to the Masons. No group of cigar chompers sitting around dispensing fame at their whimsy. That’s a very naive and fantastical view of the music business.”

Wilkins does understand Jazz’s frustration, though. When not running in circles making sure Next Big Nashville goes off without a hitch, Wilkins is a working musician who will be one of 10,000 artists to apply for South by Southwest this year.

“The only sure way to get selected is to make it impossible for the event not to select you,” advises Wilkins. “Get some reviews, play some shows, get some fans genuinely excited about your band, find a way to make a dent. Now, more than ever, that responsibility lies in the hands of the artists, not any perceived kingmakers.”

In the end, due in part to a poll held on the Next Big Nashville blog, Armed Forces were given a slot in the festival. Other artists performing this year include Superdrag, The Features, Biscuits & Gravy, Charles Walker and the Dynamites, The Protomen, Brooke Waggoner, Six Gun Lullaby, Cortney Tidwell and Dukes of Daville.

For musicians, entertainment is almost beside the point. “Getting to see all these great musicians and all these great bands can be really inspiring,” says Chase Gregory about the festival. “[Next Big Nashville] kinda gives you that extra push to keep going, keep trying to get better at what you do.”

And when 3rd & Lindsley closes its doors on Sunday night, signaling the official closing of Next Big Nashville 2008, where will Wilkins and the others behind the festival go from there?

“To bed,” says Wilkins. “And after that who knows. I hope you ask me the same question next year.”

Now in its third year, Next BIG Nashville has ballooned from its humble beginnings in 2006 as a simple showcase over a weekend at Mercy Lounge. Last year saw its line-up of bands quadruple in size from 36 to 147 and in 2008; the number has grown to over 250 artists performing in over 18 venues across town. Beyond the shows, NBN has added on an entire music conference featuring panels, exhibitors and demonstrations hosted by the Musicians and Country Music halls of fame.

Only artists with some kind of connection to Nashville are allowed onto the festival’s roster, although that connection can include “personal history, business connections or musical endeavors,” allowing in bands like Louisville, Ky., rockers Wax Fang, who held their CD release show at The Basement and have often supported local bands like The Protomen and Glossary (both are performing in NBN 2008 as well).

Bands involved in this year’s NBN include The Features, Superdrag, Space Capone, Brooke Waggoner, Kindergarten Circus, How I Became the Bomb, The Dynamites, Forget Cassettes, The Pink Spiders, Cortney Tidwell, Caitlin Rose and dozens of others. Belmont is represented as well by bands like Biscuits and Gravy, Six Gun Lullaby and Lorien.

Festival wristbands are on sale at TicketsNashville.com for $35 each in advance or $45 for walk-ups. Wristbands allow entry to all Next BIG Nashville venues and showcases, exclusive after-parties, discounts from festival partners like Grimey’s and free subscriptions to music magazines like Paste. The VIP badge, $100 in advance and $125 for walk-ups, includes all the perks of the wristband, plus free swag and access to VIP receptions.

Of course, if you’re not interested in the entire festival, individual tickets can be bought at the door of your show of choice, but be aware that the people who shelled out more cash get priority if the show hits capacity.