This is the Lucy’s origin story. Host and shop owner Mary Mancini sits down with Don & April Kendall of House O’ Pain, also known as the other two “tolerant, accessible adult role models” who ran the place, to talk about how, with a whole lot of love, luck, and perseverance, they turned a small, independent record shop into a safe harbor and an essential destination for local and touring punk and indie bands.

How did two high school band-playing goofball rule-followers discover punk, scooch their trombone and tenor sax over just a little to make room for a bass guitar and drum kit, and end up headlining at Lucy’s? By bending the rules, of course.

Christine Hall found Lucy’s to be a safe space and her story has a happy ending, but the safety she found inside didn’t always prevent her from acting out her trauma in dangerous and self-destructive ways on the outside.

In the mid-90s, Jon Sewell was a fish-out-of-water mischief-maker at a private conservative all-boys school. He was called “Johnny G” by the older kids and “Troublemaker” by the headmaster. Then he discovered Crass and an anarcho-punk was born.

Join Smilin’ Jay McDowell, guitar-player-turned-upright bassist from the small town of West Lafayette, Indiana, as he takes you on his journey from watching and playing in bands in the back room at Lucy’s to traveling the world with BR5-49.

Host Mary Mancini sits down with Christine Doza who published her first ‘zine, Upslut, in 1993 to distribute to her classmates and out a predatory male teacher. After hearing from Christine it won’t shock you to know that her essays have been taught in universities or that the Riot Grrrl-inspired Upslut, which she also sold at Lucy’s and distributed around the world, is in the permanent collection of both the Seattle Public and Columbia University Libraries.

Dr. James Noble is a BFD neurologist at Columbia in New York City with his own non-profit, Arts and Minds, and a seat on the board of the Michele Obama-adjacent Hip Hop Public Health. But as a college student in the 90’s, Jamie Noble hung out at Lucy’s Record Shop to feed the love of live music that’s clearly part of his DNA.

It wasn’t easy being gay in Nashville thirty years ago. Join host Mary Mancini as she talks to Michele Crow about her personal experiences, digs into the compelling history of Nashville’s gay bars and nightclubs, and reveals what it's really like when a gay bar and a punk club try to co-exist.

They played in a trailer in the middle of some scary woods, slept on the nasty floor of a club, and blew up snack cakes on a dusty back road with Steve Albini. This was life in the 90s for Montgomery, AL, noise-punk band bert. Guided by the mighty Book Your Own Fucking Life ‘zine, bert had all the resources they needed to put out their own records, connect with people who loved music as much as they did, and play tons of shows throughout the South and Southeastern U.S..

In 2019, music writer Randy Fox discovered a long-forgotten nugget of info - sixteen years before Lucy’s opened its doors at 1707 Church Street in Nashville it was home to another record store called Buckley’s. Randy insatiable curiosity and an unbridled enthusiasm brings this story to life. It starts in Kentucky and his discovery of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, zigs into the history of mid-20th century radio & record shops, and zags to the use of urban planning as a tool for white supremacy.

Corey Kittrell’s story is similar to that of many of the kids who came to Lucy’s. But if we look through the lens of race, it is very, very different. Not many kids who looked like Corey came through the doors of Lucy’s or had the negative experiences that inspired him to write his ‘zine, My God Shaves.

John Rogers, who first stepped into Lucy’s Record Shop when he was just 14-years-old, is an accomplished writer and photographer who uses his camera to document both the jazz scene and the streets of New York City. In this episode you’ll hear how growing up in Nashville and a multitude of inexplicable and mysterious coincidences influence his life and art.

Do you ever wonder what has and hasn’t changed in the punk DIY community in the last 30 years? To find some answers host Mary Mancini spoke with 17-year-old Dru the Drifter who does it all - he writes and performs, books shows, and records and releases his own music. We talk about his musical influences, his struggle to find places to play, his songwriting process, how living in the bible belt fuels the punk rock scene, and his goal to release 100 albums by the time he’s 27.

Dallas Thomas picked up a guitar and became a prolific Lucy’s regular at the tender age of just 14-years-old. We talk about his time at Lucy’s, touring all over the world with Asschapel and Pelican, the disillusionment that followed a stint volunteering for a Hurricane Katrina relief organization, parenthood, his new band Ready For Death, and losing his dad, who took supportive parenting to a whole new level.

Joshua Toomey has loved metal ever since he was a kid. He went to metal shows, played bass in metal bands, and is now host of Talk Toomey, the premiere podcast dedicated to metal music and news. Josh remembers his time in Nashville in the 90s well, selling out Lucy’s as a member of 12V Negative Earth, applying the DIY-punk ethos to playing and touring, and the miracle of living in a place where you could easily connect with people like Fred Coury of Cinderella who would then record your band for free in a gigantic fancy-pants studio.

Travis Howell started playing the drums because his dad told him he couldn’t. His first band, No Remorse, was the first metal band to grace the Lucy’s stage and the first and only to be mistaken for a neo-nazis. When 12V Negative Earth sold out Lucy’s, he realized a dream. But it all became too much and he quit cold turkey and wouldn’t pick up a stick again for fourteen years. Then, he went to church.

There is no other band more legendary or more inextricably linked to Lucy’s than the Fun Girls From Mt. Pilot. Chris Fox, Troy Pigue, Charles “Cat” Tidball, and Donnie Kendall dressed in women’s clothes when they played, which caught people’s attention, but it was their songs - short bursts of frenetic pop-punk energy and clever lyrics - and their “mind-blowing” stage antics that earned them a devoted following.

Doyle Davis’ business cards read “Vinylist,” which is so perfect since he’s been a champion of vinyl as a music delivery system his whole life - as a kid picking through his parents’ collection, as a used record buyer at The Great Escape, as a Lucy’s Record Shop customer buying every Guided By Voices record he could get his hands on, and as the co-owner of Grimey’s New and Preloved Music, a Nashville institution he helped build from the ground up.

House O’ Pain’s Don and April Kendall flip the script and interview host Mary Mancini.

Don says: “Mary has done a wonderful job of sharing the stories of the kids and caretakers of Lucy’s, but what about Mary?”