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Stomp your boots with the wild, mixed-age crowd at this multi-level club, a favorite with enthusiastic line dancers. 615-902-8200; www.wildhorsesaloon.com; 120 2nd Ave S, Nashville; admission $10-45; 11am-1am Tue-Thu, from 5pm Mon, open later weekends

USEFUL WEBSITES

www.visitmusiccity.com

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LINK YOUR TRIP www.lonelyplanet.com/trip-planner

TRIP

56 Memphis Music Tour

57 48 Hours in Nashville

59 Tennessee Oddities opposite

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Return to beginning of chapter

TRIP 59

Tennessee Oddities

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WHY GO Think Tennessee’s all about big-hair country music and rural mountain towns straight out of a Dolly Parton ballad? After a day of indie rock and pink bouffant wigs in Nashville, and a trip out to the world’s most famous whiskey distillery, you’ll be singing a different tune.

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TIME

2 days

DISTANCE

115 miles

BEST TIME TO GO

Mar - Jun

START

Nashville, TN

END

Lynchburg, TN

ALSO GOOD FOR

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In Nashville, non-country music types will find a home on Elliston Place, an artsy enclave near the Vanderbilt University campus. In the middle of rapidly gentrifying Midtown/West Nashville, this hip little street is home to tattoo parlors, vintage clothing shops, coffee bars and a variety of restaurants and cafés - from haute Asian bistros to vintage student dives. At night, Elliston Place is your best bet for indie and rock music. Exit/In has been featuring great live rock and comic performances since 1971 - a then-unknown Jimmy Buffet was a popular early act, as was the young Steve Martin.

For new and used records, Grimey’s, a couple of miles away on 8th Ave South, is known for its selection of CDs, vinyl and DVDs, including hard-to-find independent releases. Down the back stairs is The Basement, its exposed pipes hung with tapestries and old Persian rugs like an art student’s cellar apartment. Up-and-coming indie acts play cheap shows most nights; bigger-name acts occasionally pack the tiny subterranean space.

For a spot of shopping, the 12th Ave South area, a couple of miles south of downtown, has an eclectic mix of boutiques, antiques shops, and home and garden stores, in a leafy, semi-residential neighborhood. Housed in a squat, 1970s bungalow with a retro, stone facade, Katy K’s Ranch Dressing holds the mother lode of kitschy, oversized belt buckles, vintage cowboy boots and pink bouffant wigs - perfect for the rockabilly drag queen in us all. Also check out new men’s and women’s clothes designed by Katy K, aka Parsons-educated ex-New Yorker and store owner Katy Kattelman. On a hot day (or even on a cold one) the upscale ice pops at Las Paletas are an incredible treat, in flavors like chocolate-chili and hibiscus. It’s tucked away in a small shopping complex not far from Katy K’s.

For dinner, it’s time to take a trip to a crumbling strip mall in the North Nashville badlands. Here, at Prince’s Hot Chicken, the line often snakes out the door. Go up to the hole in the kitchen wall and order a medium-hot leg quarter, extra bread and a side of baked beans. You may have to wait up to an hour, but it’s worth it for the most incredible cayenne-laced fried chicken, fried up in an ancient cast-iron skillet and served with two slices of grease-soaked white bread and a couple of pickles. The medium-hot is pleasantly painful; extra-hot is like chomping down on a live wire.

Heading downtown on Broadway takes you into the heart of the country music world - an explosion of honky-tonks, rib joints and cowboy boot stores. Even if you’re not a fan, it’s fun to see the neon and glitz and awed tourists. Here, the Union Station Hotel rises like a castle over Broadway. This Romanesque building was Nashville’s train station back in the days when train travel was a glamorous affair. Timetables for trains that chugged out of the station 100 years ago are painted over the reception desk in the 65ft vaulted lobby.

In the morning, head southwest out of the city for breakfast at the Loveless Cafe. Yeah, you can get cheaper biscuits and eggs elsewhere,