ALSO:
raleigh
Thomas Farr may have lied about the Jesse Helms campaign’s racist voter-suppression tactics. Should that disqualify him from the federal bench?
11|22|17
p. 10
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
HOW RALEIGH’S JOHN PAVLOVITZ WENT FROM FIRED MEGACHURCH PASTOR TO RISING STAR OF THE RELIGIOUS LEFT BY A M A N DA A B R A M S
P. 12
2 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK VOL. 34, NO. 46
DEPARTMENTS
7 A week after Raleigh unveiled a new logo, it’s Durham’s turn.
6 Triangulator
8 At a Confederate rally in Graham, Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson was pictured with men who were throwing up the insignia of the Three Percenters.
8 News 16 Music 19 Food
10 “Had the White House deliberately sought to identify an attorney in North Carolina with a more hostile record on African-American voting rights and workers’ rights than Thomas Farr, it hardly could have done so.”
22 Arts & Culture 26 What to Do This Week 29 Music Calendar 33 Arts & Culture Calendar
12 This year alone, twenty-three million people have viewed Raleigh pastor John Pavlovitz’s blog. 18 Volume in Hillsborough curates a selection of beer, wine, and vinyl exemplifying the best of any given genre.
ON THE COVER
20 If there aren’t at least a couple of pounds of extra turkey left over after Thanksgiving, you’re doing it wrong. 23 The Museum of the Cherokee Indian is among the first museums to confront viewers with human suffering.
RALEIGH: PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SHAN STUMPF
Hillsborough’s Volume is a new record store that also serves beer (see page 18). PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA
INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 3
NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING FOR THE PROPOSED LOUIS STEPHENS DRIVE EXTENSION (S.R. 1632) FROM O’KELLY CHAPEL ROAD (S.R. 1629) / LITTLE DRIVE (S.R. 2153) IN RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK TO POPULAR PIKE LANE IN MORRISVILLE, WAKE COUNTY TIP PROJECT NO. U-5827 The N.C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting regarding the proposed project to extend Louis Stephens Drive (S.R. 1632) from O’Kelly Chapel Road (S.R. 1629)/Little Drive (S.R. 2153) in Research Triangle Park to Popular Pike Lane in Morrisville. The meeting will take place on Thursday, December 7, 2017 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Morrisville Town Hall located at 100 Town Hall Drive. The public may attend at any time during the above mentioned hours. NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and listen to comments regarding the project. The opportunity to submit comments will also be provided at the meeting or via phone, email, or mail by December 22, 2017. Comments received will be taken into consideration as the project develops. Please note that no formal presentation will be made. Project information and materials can be viewed as they become available online at http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings. For additional information, contact Roger Kluckman, NCDOT Division 5 Project Manager by mail: 2612 North Duke Street, Durham, NC 27704, by phone: (919) 220-4717, or by email: rkluckman@ncdot.gov. NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting. Anyone requiring special services should contact Caitlyn Ridge, P.E., Environmental Analysis Unit via e-mail at ceridge1@ncdot.gov or by phone (919) 707-6091 as early as possible so that arrangements can be made. Persons who speak Spanish and do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1-800-481-6494. Aquellas personas que hablan español y no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1-800-481-6494.
4 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
Raleigh Durham | Chapel Hill PUBLISHER Susan Harper EDITORIAL
EDITOR IN CHIEF Jeffrey C. Billman MANAGING EDITOR FOR ARTS+CULTURE Brian Howe DESIGN DIRECTOR Shan Stumpf STAFF WRITERS Thomas Goldsmith,
Erica Hellerstein, Sarah Willets
MUSIC EDITOR Allison Hussey COPY EDITOR David Klein FOOD EDITOR Victoria Bouloubasis LISTINGS COORDINATOR Kate Thompson THEATER AND DANCE CRITIC Byron Woods RESTAURANT CRITIC Emma Laperruque STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Caitlin Penna CHIEF CONTRIBUTORS Amanda Abrams, Jim Allen,
Elizabeth Bracy, Timothy Bracy, Michaela Dwyer, Katie Jane Fernelius, Curt Fields, Spencer Griffith, Glenn McDonald, Neil Morris, Hannah Pitstick, Noah Rawlings, V. Cullum Rogers, Dan Ruccia, David Ford Smith, Zack Smith, Chris Vitiello, Patrick Wall INTERN Emma Parna Gomes
PRODUCTION+DESIGN
PRODUCTION MANAGER Christopher Williams GRAPHIC+EDITORIAL DESIGNER Steve Oliva
OPERATIONS
BUSINESS MANAGER Alex Rogers
CIRCULATION
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Brenna Berry-Stewart DISTRIBUTION Laura Bass, David Cameron,
Nathan Fellers, Michael Griswold, JC Lacroix, Richard David Lee, Gloria McNair, Jeff Prince, Timm Shaw, Freddie Simons, Trudi Vass
ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Shannon Legge SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Lee Coggins,
Sarah Schmader
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Stephanie Miller,
Joshua Rowsey
CLASSIFIEDS ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Kim Cordray
WWW.INDYWEEK.COM
P.O. Box 1772 • Durham, N.C. 27702 DURHAM 320 East Chapel Hill Street, Suite 200 Durham, N.C. 27701 | 919-286-1972 RALEIGH 227 Fayetteville Street, Suite 105 Raleigh, N.C. 27601 | 919-832-8774 EMAIL ADDRESSES
first initial[no space]last name@indyweek.com DISPLAY ADVERTISING SALES advertising@indyweek.com RALEIGH 919-832-8774 DURHAM 919-286-1972 CLASSIFIEDS ADVERTISING 919-286-6642 CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 2017 INDY WEEK
All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission.
backtalk
Man-Haters We begin this week with Terry Duff, who writes in response to our story last week on Jose Chicas, a Raleigh pastor who has been in a Durham religious facility for the past five months evading Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and who really craves a McDonald’s pancake. “I checked,” Duff writes. “There are McDonald’s in El Salvador. Not only is there breakfast, but you can get a barbacoa tocino gourmet. The federal law at the beginning of President Obama’s first term was to deport illegal aliens like Jose Chicas. At the end of eight years of Obama being president, the same deportation laws were in place. Jose Chicas should thank the very compassionate Democratic Party for for his wonderful life. President Trump has given Congress an opportunity to fix the problem. Neither Republicans or Democrats can get anything done except secure power, money, and get the idiots to vote for them again.” Last week, music editor Allison Hussey raved about Fitness Womxn and their new release, Macho City, saying it “sizes up patriarchal entitlement and rips it to shreds.” A writer claiming to be Martha Goldschmidt responds: “You are selling hatred. If you were of decent character, you’d be selling the idea that the overwhelming majority of men are good and decent human beings and that the anger should be directed only at those who have been proven to be bad people. “Instead you spew rhetoric that encourages women to run around angry at the male half of the human race. And that is both idiotic and reprehensible. The Dalai Lama would shake his head and laugh at your low level of personal evolution. I see man-haters like you every day in Carrboro. I thank God I will never be like them, or like you. You are a pathetic example of a little girl. You certainly are not a woman, because the word woman implies a level of maturity you have not achieved. “Females are not supposed to hate. It is
not natural for a female to hate. Females are nurturing and loving, as anyone who has had children knows. For the sake of the world, I hope you are never a mother, because you have no business being one.” On a similar note, Nathan Smith 1 weighs in on the recent sexual misconduct scandal involving Senator Al Franken: “Calls for Franken to resign are not helpful. Not all moral transgressions are equally bad, and they don’t all deserve the same punishment. Demanding the same punishment of Franken as Roy Moore plays into the false equivalencies of the Republicans. Franken must be punished. Moore must be destroyed.” On Facebook, Paul Vant and Janet Piper concur. First, Vant: “What Senator Franken did was awful. But let’s not equate his bad joke and kiss to Roy Moore’s pedophilia or the president’s assaults.” Piper: “He is obviously not touching her and did it for a camera. I don’t believe he is a deviant doing things in the shadows. It is wrong and he apologized. I think this woman wanted attention. If this type of behavior turns out to be criminal, you better triple the number of jails.” “It needs to stop?” Kevin Marshall writes. “Yes. It also needed to stop eleven years ago, when the incident actually occurred. All of those incident reports from decades past, buried as not newsworthy at the time, are fueling outrage in the present. Some are just coming to light as victims feel emboldened to speak up, but some incidents were known to media and flat-out shrugged off. The victims’ outrage is more than understandable. The general public’s outrage is late in coming, but still understandable, even if we share some responsibility for collectively looking the other way. But media outrage rings hollow.”
“The Dalai Lama would shake his head and laugh at your low level of personal evolution.”
Want to see your name in bold? Email us at backtalk@indyweek.com, comment on our Facebook page or indyweek.com, or hit us up on Twitter: @indyweek.
INDYWEEK.COM
Your week. Every Wednesday. INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 5
triangulator
WILL THE GOP’S TAX PLANS BE GOOD FOR ME? Not sure what to make of the Republican tax-reform bills making their way through Congress? We’ll break it down for you. A 1997 Ford Aspire, until it broke down.
Do you think you should pay 25% more a year in taxes?
A 2014 Toyota Prius
Do you think cutting large corporations’ taxes will produce jobs?
I dunno, maybe?
No. I’ve read an economics textbook, and I understand that trickle-down economics has never worked.
WTF, dude, seriously? I’ll pass.
Why drive when I have a private jet?
What kind of car do you drive?
No. I’m a decent human being.
Yeah, Sean Hannity told me so!
Not my problem.
Do you think Donald Trump’s kids should have to pay taxes when he croaks?
Do you want 13 million people to lose health insurance?
Do you have kids?
Do furry ones count?
Sorry, no child care tax credit for you.
6 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
Yeah, kids rule!
No. Rich people are better than us.
Do you want your kid(s) to go to college, or maybe grad school?
Of course! Education is very important in the 21st-century economy.
Those bastards? Of course!
Send Mitch McConnell a check— he’s done you a solid.
+SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
Get out your wallets: Duke Energy, a behemoth with a market capitalization of more than $62 billion, wants you—not its shareholders—to pay for its coal ash mess. Coal ash dominated local headlines between 2014, when thirty-nine thousand tons of toxic coal ash contaminated seventy miles of the Dan River, and 2016, when a state toxicologist testified that McCrory administration officials “knowingly told people that their water was safe when we knew it wasn’t.” Along the way, the Department of Environmental Quality fined Duke $25 million, though after private negotiations that penalty was reduced to just $6.6 million. But that’s just a drop in the bucket. Duke has estimated that cleaning up its thirtythree coal ash sites will cost more than $4 billion. That’s where you come in. In June, Duke proposed a nearly 17 percent rate hike, or about $17.80 a month (and $213 a year) extra for residential customers—an annual total of more than $477 million in additional revenue. Since then, that request has been pared down to about 15 percent, says Duke spokesman Randy Wheeless. “Recent work to modernize power plants and generate cleaner electricity, responsibly manage coal ash, and respond to major storms is at the heart of Duke Energy Progress’s rate increase request,” Wheeless writes in an email. “… The cost of these services, including compliance with state and federal regulations that govern our work, is a responsibility we all share as consumers of electricity, so that the public and the environ-
PERIPHERAL VISIONS | V.C. ROGERS
ment are protected now and in the future.” This isn’t a done deal yet. Hearings on the proposed hikes were supposed to kick off this week, but they’ve been delayed as the company and government attorneys work on a partial settlement.
+CITY OF FOODIES
Earlier this month, the city of Raleigh unveiled a new city logo, which came with a $226,000 price tag and some heated internet reactions. Some thought the green, digitized tree was fresh and conveyed an eco-friendly message. Others—probably a majority of the Twitter commentariat—thought it flimsy, corporate, overpriced, and outdated. Now the city of Durham is embarking on its own logo update, although residents may not notice much of a change. Because city graphics, including the logo, are now primarily used electronically, the city is updating its standards manual ($20,000 was set aside for the process). As part of that update, it sought feedback on the current logo, which was adopted in 1991 and features the city flag, the year the city was incorporated (1869), and the words “City of Medicine.” Respondents (a mix of city representatives, marketing folks, and focus groups) largely gave “resounding negative feedback” on that tagline. “At that time, Durham’s identity as a healthcare leader was its primary strength, with a higher than average physician-topopulation ratio, internationally recognized hospitals, and more than 300 medical and
health-related companies,” a staff memo reads. “Now, research respondents agreed that while the community’s identity as a healthcare leader is still strong, other terms such as diversity, entrepreneurial, foodie, and technology could easily describe the community as well, and that the tagline never accurately represented the services and programs of city government.” Respondents also weren’t keen on the year (many didn’t know what it stood for). So staff members came up with both vertical and horizontal options that remove the tagline and date and use fewer colors. The changes were approved unanimously on Monday night. Craig Carter, who does social media for the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau but appeared before the council Monday as a private resident, suggested an alternative logo that placed the word “Durham” in white letters inside the flag. City manager Tom Bonfield noted that the logo would be used for government business and needed to say “City of Durham.” Council member Charlie Reece admitted that the changes aren’t “revolutionary” but said they’re more user-friendly and step away from “antiquated” elements like the incorporation date. Council member and mayor-elect Steve Schewel pointed out it was much cheaper than “Raleigh’s tree.” “I was pleased that our logo is a heck of a lot better than theirs,” he said. triangulator@indyweek.com This week’s report by Jeffrey C. Billman, Erica Hellerstein, and Sarah Willets.
PEt of the
WEEK
PHOTO BY KARI LINFORS
REGGIE is our
Pet of the Week! Hi, I’m Reggie, and as my name implies, I’m a distinguished gentleman. I’m also sweet as pie. I’m a gentle boy who likes being close to people, so if you’re looking for a snuggle-buddy, look no further! I am currently in foster care, so if you are interested in meeting me, please contact APS at 919-560-0640. If you’re interested in featuring a pet for adoption, please contact advertising@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 7
indynews C
an a protester charged with assaulting a popular sheriff get a fair trial on the lawman’s home turf? That question is being raised by a court case in Alamance County, where Sheriff Terry Johnson says he was assaulted by a Durham man counterprotesting a Confederate Memorial Day rally in Graham earlier this year. An attorney representing Durham activist Rann Bar-On is seeking a change of venue, arguing that an Alamance jury would be biased toward the county’s elected sheriff and that Johnson and District Attorney Pat Nadolski have too close of a relationship for Nadolski’s office to fairly prosecute the case. Further, Scott Holmes, a Durham civil rights attorney, questions the sheriff’s credibility as the main witness, citing a now-dismissed Department of Justice lawsuit alleging racial discrimination at the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office and photographs that show Johnson with people Holmes describes as “members of far-right and racist groups” who participated in the May 20 rally. “If it turns out there is a relationship or a good relationship there, that may be some evidence—if we get more support for that—that he would be biased against the counterprotesters for which he brought charges,” Holmes says. Bar-On and William Hood, who is charged with assaulting two other officers at the same rally, are due in court on Monday. Johnson declined to be interviewed for this story, saying it would be inappropriate for him to comment on a pending case. Nadolski couldn’t be reached by deadline. Johnson has served as sheriff of Alamance County since 2002, and, according to the Burlington Times-News, he was the first Republican to hold that office since 1954. He won 60 percent of the vote in 2010, ran unopposed in 2014, and plans to seek another term next year. In his position, Johnson has gained a reputation as an immigration hardliner. In 2012—the same year the Department of Justice, citing racial discrimination, booted his agency from a federal immigration-enforcement program referred to as 287(g)—The New Yorker compared him to Joe Arpaio, the notorious former Arizona sheriff pardoned by President Trump earlier this year after 8 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
I Scratched the Sheriff
ALAMANCE COUNTY’S NOTORIOUS TOP LAWMAN HURT HIS SHIN, AND HE WANTS A DURHAM ANTI-CONFEDERATE PROTESTER TO PAY FOR IT BY SARAH WILLETS
being convicted of violating a judge’s order to stop detaining people on suspicion of being illegal immigrants. “They both have the kind of bold rhetorical style that has launched many careers in reality television—Johnson, for example, often refers to his Latino constituents as ‘taco eaters,’” the magazine’s Jessica Weisburg wrote. “They both won their most recent elections by more than ten percentage points. And they are both under investigation by the Department of Justice for racial discrimination.” The Justice Department’s two-year investigation into the allegations of racial discrimination at the Sheriff’s Office found “reasonable cause to believe that ACSO engages in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing” and engaged in “a culture of discrimination against Latinos” that allegedly included Johnson telling deputies at a checkpoint to “go out there and get me some of those taco eaters.” Johnson denied at the time that he or his office discriminates, painting the DOJ’s case as politically motivated. A judge later dismissed the case, questioning the soundness of the feds’ allegations. But traffic stop data, analyzed by the DOJ and the INDY, showed that Latino drivers were being arrested during traffic stops at disproportionate rates. The DOJ appealed, and, last year, Johnson settled the case. Under the agreement, the ACSO said it would implement a bias-free policing policy and track, analyze, and submit traffic-stop data to the Justice Department. Earlier this year, after Jeff Sessions took over the Justice Department, the DOJ asked the Sheriff’s Office to rejoin the 287(g) program.
H
Rann Bar-On
PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA
olmes has requested an immense amount of evidence from the discovery portion of the case, including any documents in the state’s possession related to the DOJ lawsuit, racial slurs used by Johnson or his deputies, and racially discriminatory policing. He’s also seeking any video taken at the Confederate Memorial Day rally, the sheriff’s medical records, and documents concerning protesters or the ACSO’s relationship to groups Holmes says were “represented at or associated with” the Confederate Memorial Day rally.
A
lso at issue in the case is a billboard that towers over Interstate 40 near Burlington. It features Johnson and Nadolski standing back to back with the words “working side-by-side to protect Alamance County.” It isn’t unusual for a district attorney and a sheriff to work together closely. But Holmes says the billboard is evidence the two officials have a political relationship, not just a professional one. Text on the billboard says it was paid for by campaign committees for each man, but the INDY was unable to identify the expense in campaign finance reports. Nadolski was appointed to his position in 2009 and was elected twice as a Democrat in 2010 and 2014. In 2015, he switched to the Republican Party, citing criticism from Democrats that he was too tough on crime. (Two years earlier, a Durham County superior court judge said she would no longer hear cases in Alamance County because Nadolski’s office was too harsh.) During the DOJ investigation, Johnson said he meets with Nadolski weekly. They are seen together at places you’d expect— parades, ceremonies honoring veterans— and they give joint press conferences. Last month, Johnson attended a campaign kickoff event for Nadolski (both are up for reelection next year). In general, a prosecutor should “not permit his or her professional judgment or obligations to be affected by his or her own political, financial, business, property, or personal interests,” the American Bar Association’s ethics standards say. Neither the North Carolina State Bar Association nor the ABA offers ethics opinions specifically requiring a prosecutor to recuse himself based on a relationship with a victim. An assistant district attorney, Corey Santos, is prosecuting this case, but Holmes’s concerns about his connection to Johnson still stand. (Santos says he will file a response to Holmes’s motion Monday but declined to comment beforehand.) “He’s the boss. Any conflict the district attorney would have would also affect anyone working under his supervision,” Holmes says. swilllets@indyweek.com
Ninth Street Bakery
“It’s a huge help that Carpe Diem takes the cleaning duties off of my plate and allows me to spend more time with my family.” Brenda, Durham
TAKE $20 OFF* *initial cleaning after consulation Thanks for voting us “Best of the Triangle!”
From our Blog: Longtime regulars of the Bakery will notice that our crusty artisan breads have become especially amazing as of late. In July, Alex Ruch, previously a baker at Bellegarde Bakery in New Orleans, came on with us here. He actually baked with me back in the days when I ran the Berenbaum’s bakestand. He left for a post-doc at Tulane in 2012 and I was trying to recruit him back pretty much as soon as left. His bread has made a huge step forward for NSB’s quality, and I am extremely proud of him with every bake. We have gained new wholesale customers as a result of these fine breads, and we will be looking to add on more in the months to come.
info@ninthstbakery.com
919-68-CLEAN (919-682-5326)
carpediemcleaning.com
THE INDY'S GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE
business and unfurling a banner reading, “He who controls the past controls the future” (a quote from George Orwell’s 1984), “YWNRU,” which stands for “you will not replace us” and is a popular refrain among white supremacists, and the symbol of the Identitarian movement, basically Europe’s alt-right. One pleaded guilty and was kicked out of the Marine Corps; the other took an Alford plea.
FINDER
Present at the rally were Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County, or ACTBAC, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as “a fledgling neo-Confederate group” but bills itself as a collective “willing and wanting to preserve our Southern rights,” and the Alamance County Regulators militia. In photos taken at the event, Johnson is pictured with men displaying a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and throwing up the insignia of the Three Percenters militia, which provided security at the Unite the Right in Charlottesville but has since tried to distance itself from the white supremacist gathering. After the rally, Johnson described the alleged assault to the Times-News (another reason Holmes is seeking a change of venue). According to the paper, Johnson said a protester tried to grab a Confederate or Christian flag—it’s not clear which— and was “struggling to get a water bottle open,” leading deputies to believe he was trying to douse it with lighter fluid and set it aflame. But they never got their hands on the bottle, the paper reports. Law enforcement, including Johnson, tried to wrest control of the flag, and that’s when Johnson says Bar-On struck him on the left shin with the flagpole, causing “broken skin and bruising,” according to an indictment, and aggravating an existing injury. Hood, of Chapel Hill, is accused of assaulting two Graham police officers in the struggle. According to indictments against him, B.F. Hicks suffered a “scraped knee and damaged uniform pants from falling on concrete,” and C.S. Swink was pushed to the ground. Both face felony charges of assaulting a law enforcement officer, inflicting physical injury. A conviction could mean anything from three months of community service to two years of probation or even jail time. Bar-On, who teaches math at Duke, has been arrested protesting before. He was one of five people taken into custody after interrupting a Durham County commissioners meeting in March by reading letters from inmates at the Durham jail. Those charges were dismissed; according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety, Bar-On has no prior convictions. In addition, Hood is charged with having a weapon at a public assembly (a pocket knife), and Bar-On is charged with damaging two flags, which a police report describes as a Christian flag and a First National Confederate flag, valued at $12 each. Two marines were also arrested at the rally for trespassing on the roof of a nearby
on stands
NOW!
INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 9
news
Postcards from the Edge
THOMAS FARR MAY HAVE LIED TO THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ABOUT THE JESSE HELMS CAMPAIGN’S RACIST VOTER-SUPPRESSION TACTICS. SHOULD THAT DISQUALIFY HIM FROM THE FEDERAL BENCH? BY THOMAS GOLDSMITH AND ERICA HELLERSTEIN
P
resident Trump and North Carolina senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr proudly stand behind Raleigh attorney Thomas Farr’s decades-long legal practice, which includes defending the General Assembly’s controversial voter ID and redistricting laws, defending corporations against workers, and serving as the lawyer for two racially charged campaigns by Senator Jesse Helms. After all, Trump nominated Farr, sixtythree, to a lifetime appointment as a federal district court judge in eastern North Carolina. Even though his bid made it through the key Senate Judiciary Committee last month, one roadblock could stand in Farr’s way—the question of whether he gave truthful statements about a controversial 1990 mailing by the Helms campaign, consisting of thousands of postcards that a federal court said were intended to suppress voting by African Americans. In response to a written questionnaire, Farr told Senator Dianne Feinstein of California that he knew nothing about the postcards until they had been sent. “Did you provide any counsel, or were you consulted in any way, about the content of or the decision to send these postcards?” Feinstein asked. “No,” Farr replied. He also told Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin that he was horrified to see the postcards’ content. But a chronology of the events surrounding the postcards—and interviews with a federal attorney who was part of the Department of Justice’s probe into them—calls into question what Farr knew, and when. The INDY’s initial reporting last week prompted Feinstein to call Farr’s statements “greatly disturbing.” Although Farr has not responded to the INDY’s attempts to reach him, what is clear about the disputed incident is that the postcards caused disruption, confusion, and 10 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
Julie and William Boler of Raleigh received a postcard from the Helms campaign in 1990. likely lower turnout among African-American voters. Julie and William Boler were among thousands of North Carolina voters who were sent mailers from the N.C. Republican Party informing them, falsely, that they had to have lived in their precinct for at least thirty days to be able to vote and could face jail time if they provided false voter information. The
mailers appeared to target African-American, Democratic precincts. Julie Boler, fifty-five, who is white, vividly remembers the day her husband, William, fifty-nine, who is African American, got one in the mail. At the time, they had been living in Raleigh’s Mordecai neighborhood for about a year, and were surprised to see language indicating that they could get in trou-
PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA
ble if they provided the wrong information. “We were looking at it, and it just seemed like you would basically be afraid to go vote, in case you would do something wrong,” Julie recalls. “We were informed voters, so we knew exactly where we lived and what our rights were. So it was more for us just a creepy feeling that you’re seeing in your hands this racist tactic. I looked at his, and
it was really intimidating. It was just so tangible that William was being targeted. And the wording on the card just gave you a chill.”
T
he postcards were just one piece of the bitter 1990 Senate race between the incumbent Helms, a conservative firebrand, and Harvey Gantt, who had been Charlotte’s first African-American mayor. As the race tightened, Helms worked furiously to make sure Gantt wouldn’t win, driving a racially charged Senate campaign that was widely viewed as dredging up dog whistles. Helms’s media team was responsible for engineering one of the most egregiously race-based advertisements in modern political history: “Hands,” which criticized Gantt for supporting racial quotas. Running in late October, the ad showed a pair of white hands crumpling up a job rejection letter. “You needed that job and you were the best qualified,” a narrator said somberly. “But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?” The message was clear. As one Helms supporter told The News & Observer during the race, if Gantt were elected, “he’d give [tax money] away to the hippies, the Jews, the niggers.” The tale of the postcards emerges in decades-old legal documents and newspaper stories so old that many aren’t on the web. Many of the details are contained in a federal lawsuit, filed February 26, 1992, in the district where Farr will be a judge if confirmed by the full Senate, and resolved the following day in a consent decree signed by Farr, among others. In the summer of 1990, Helms’s campaign and the state GOP “discussed whether to conduct a so-called ballot security program,” the complaint says, referring to various techniques ostensibly meant to prevent fraud but often resulting in scaring people away from the polls. (Farr was general counsel for the campaign, as he had been in 1984, during another racially loaded contest, by incumbent Helms against Governor Jim Hunt.) Then came a surprise. In mid-October, the state Board of Elections released figures showing that black voter registration grew 10.6 percent between April and October, twice the rate of white voters. In what seemed like a related development, a Charlotte Observer poll showed Gantt with an eight-point lead. The Helms crew decided to take action. On October 16 and 17, members of the Helms campaign and an attorney, who according to the complaint “had been involved in past ballot security efforts on behalf of Senator Helms” and the Republican Party, had several meetings on ballot security issues that led
to the infamous postcard campaign. J. Gerald Hebert, a former Department of Justice attorney, told the N&O in 2009 and the INDY last week that Farr was the unnamed lawyer in the complaint. In fact, according to what Hebert says are his handwritten, contemporaneous notes, which he sent to the INDY, Farr was Helms’s primary ballot security person in the 1984 senatorial campaign, and he was part of the team that decided to send postcards to African-American voters in 1984 and 1990. Hebert’s notes also allege that Farr held a mid-October 1990 meeting at his law office on ballot security, where Farr said that the postcards should go to mostly black and Democratic precincts, potentially for use in ballot challenges. If these notes are accurate, Farr had early knowledge of the postcards, which contradicts what he told the Senate committee. On Monday, N.C. Central law professor Erv Joyner, who fought the Helms campaign as part of the North Carolina Association
“I don’t think Farr can really claim that the first he heard of it was from a DOJ letter.” of Black Lawyers, said he also remembered Farr as an architect of the postcard campaign, not just the lawyer who defended it. On October 26 and 29, at least eighty-one thousand postcards containing misleading voting information were mailed under the direction of state GOP chair Jack Hawke, mostly to African Americans, according to the DOJ complaint. By October 31, local and national media were all over the story, with the N&O, The New York Times, and The Washington Post running pieces the next day. Hawke told the media that the postcard mailing was legitimate, even though “he knew or should have known that the postcard contained false and/or misleading information” and was targeted based in part on race, according to the consent decree. Farr has said he never saw or discussed the controversial postcards until he received
word from the Department of Justice. Given the media swarm in late October, that seems unlikely. On November 6, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department had said the day before that it was investigating the N.C. Republican Party for possible violations of civil rights laws in connection with the postcard mailing. “We immediately decided to send out the FBI,” Hebert says. “The chair of the party in North Carolina, Jack Hawke, refused to talk to us. He referred us to his attorney, Mr. Farr.” On November 7, Helms won a fourth term, drawing 1.08 million votes to Gantt’s 974,701. Helms would continue serving in the Senate until 2003. He died in 2008. It took about sixteen months for the feds to complete their investigation. When it was over, Farr signed a consent decree resolving federal charges against the Helms campaign, the state Republican Party, and others. The defendants did not admit guilt but agreed to refrain from intimidating voters.
T
hough the mailers were sent out twenty-seven years ago, the postcard scheme is back in the news today. The reason: Trump’s nomination of Farr for a federal judgeship in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Farr’s past has civil rights advocates speaking out against his elevation to the bench. The Congressional Black Caucus, in a letter opposing Farr’s nomination, wrote that the nominee has “amassed a record that puts him at the forefront of an extended fight to disenfranchise African-American voters in his home state of North Carolina.” That record includes defending North Carolina when the Republican-dominated legislature enacted a voter ID law that the Fourth Circuit Court determined targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision,” and defending the legislature’s 2011 legislative districts, which are currently being redrawn after a lower court struck down twenty-eight of them as illegal racial gerrymanders. “It is no exaggeration to say that had the White House deliberately sought to identify an attorney in North Carolina with a more hostile record on African-American voting rights and workers’ rights than Thomas Farr, it hardly could have done so,” the CBC concluded. Farr’s controversial record is compounded by the optics. The Eastern District, which spans forty-four counties, is nearly 30 percent black. The court has never had a black judge, but it got close under President Obama, who nominated two African-American women for the position. Their nominations never went anywhere, because Burr
blocked them. (Senate Republicans recently announced that they are doing away with the so-called blue-slip tradition, which permits senators to obstruct judicial appointments in their home states.) Farr’s nomination fits into a broader pattern of the remaking of the judiciary under Trump, who has nominated an unprecedented number of white, male judges to the federal bench. According to an analysis by the Associated Press, Trump has selected the least diverse pool of judicial nominees in decades: 91 percent of the fifty-eight candidates are white, and 81 percent are male. (The last president to select such a homogenous group was George H.W. Bush.) Trump has a rare opportunity to radically reshape the courts. He inherited an exceptionally high number of judicial vacancies, thanks in large part to the Senate’s decision to block all of Barack Obama’s nominations in the final year of his presidency. “They want to put [Farr] in the Eastern District of North Carolina, in a district that has never had an African American sit on that bench,” says the Reverend William J. Barber II, the former president of the N.C. NAACP. “It’s cynicism at its highest.” In September, Farr appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and, in written comments provided to the members, he said he had not provided counsel about the decision to send the postcards and didn’t know about them until after they were sent. If Hebert and Joyner are correct that Farr was involved in the planning process that led to those postcards, that would mean that Farr misled Feinstein. “I don’t think [Farr] can really claim that the first he heard of it was from a Justice Department letter,” Hebert told the INDY last week. But it’s not just the revelations about Farr’s potentially untruthful testimony that civil rights advocates find troubling. It’s the arc of his entire legal career—his defense of the Helms campaign, the voter ID bill, and the state’s gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts. For Julie Boler, the idea that Farr could be tapped for a lifelong federal judgeship is “really discouraging,” especially since he could end up ruling on cases that touch on the civil and voting rights issues he litigated earlier in his career. “By the time a case of possibly voter suppression gets to the courts, you just hope that somebody extremely objective and devoted to the rule of law, not biased at all, is going to hear the case,” she says. “What he was defending was just very specifically racebased voter intimidation. So it’s just worrying to think that he could be appointed.” backtalk@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 11
Your week. Every Wednesday. News • Music • Arts • Food
indyweek.com 12 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
L
THE GOSPEL OF
JOHN How Raleigh’s John Pavlovitz went from fired megachurch pastor to rising star of the religious left BY AMANDA ABRAMS PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA
ittle by little, John Pavlovitz is becoming a familiar name among progressives, particularly progressive Christians. And he has Donald Trump to thank for it. Pavlovitz, forty-eight, is a Wake Forest resident, pastor at North Raleigh Community Church, and father of two young kids. He’s also the writer behind Stuff that Needs to be Said, a blog that calls out hypocrisy in plain language, with the president and his ardent followers within the religious right earning particular scorn. His style—compassion paired with a nobullshit, emperor-wears-no-clothes attitude, all informed by an inclusive brand of Christianity—has endeared him to millions of readers. This year alone, twenty-three million people have viewed his blog, and he has over sixty thousand Twitter followers. His words have been featured in Slate, Cosmopolitan, and Quartz. But as his recently released book, A Bigger Table, explains, finding that voice was the result of a years-long process of soul searching. A former megachurch pastor, Pavlovitz didn’t fully arrive at his new, progressive mind-set until a few years ago. “It was a gradual deconstruction of my faith,” he says. “You look at one isolated area of the Bible, for example, then realize, Well, if that doesn’t mean what I was taught it meant, what other areas of my spiritual journey was I taking for granted? So you start digging into it, and you find yourself exploring all areas of your belief system.” Born in Syracuse to a middle-class Italian family, Pavlovitz grew up Catholic. By his own description, his was a mainstream suburban childhood, and he was raised with a sense of “in groups” and “out groups”—those who were blessed by the Almighty, and those who were not. People of color, gay people, poor people, addicts, atheists—“All were to be avoided or feared, or at least approached with great skepticism,” he remembers. Then he went to college, at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he’d arrived with a scholarship to study graphic design. “It’s difficult to comprehend how my head didn’t simply explode upon arrival,” he writes in A Bigger Table. With no idea of what to expect, he was suddenly exposed to a wideranging, colorful diversity beyond anything he could have imagined: artists, dancers, musicians, gay, straight—people he came to know and care about. Then his brother came out as gay. Pavlovitz had grown up with a vague discomfort about gay people, yet his first reaction at hearing the news about his brother was relief. He finally understood why his sibling had been so depressed, and he was happy that his parINDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 13
ents embraced his brother’s identity. Those two events were pivotal, says Pavlovitz: they opened his mind about who was worthy of compassion and love. Around the same time, he was finding his way back to Christianity, thanks to his impending marriage. Late in the game, he and his fiancée realized they wanted to have a church wedding, and the only institution that welcomed them was a small Methodist church in suburban Pennsylvania. They liked its coziness, so the Pavlovitzes continued there as congregants after they were married. One day, a church leader asked if he would serve as the church’s youth pastor. The fit was perfect. He had found his calling. After a stint in seminary and more time at the Pennsylvania church, the couple moved to Charlotte, where Pavlovitz got a job as youth pastor at a megachurch, the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church; he spent nearly a decade there. To be an integral member of a church family, Pavlovitz found, was to be part of something greater than oneself, something warm and welcoming. The sense of belonging was powerful. But it was also, he learned, stifling. The pressure to conform, to agree with derisive comments about Democrats or the “gay agenda,” to prioritize boosting attendance over addressing genuine laspes in faith, was intense, he says. Instead of being a balm for congregants’ dark nights of the soul, church felt like an event where participants presented highly edited versions of themselves. And that old sense of in-groups and out-groups was still there, an invisble line between a certain kind of Christian and everyone else. Was everyone struggling with doubt? Pavlovitz didn’t know, but he sure was. Given his experiences in Philadelphia and in his own family, he’d accepted that gay people were his equals in dignity and worth. What else that the church was promoting was untrue— about Muslims, or women, or poor people? It was a terrifying realization. At that point, Pavlovitz was a respected pastor, someone who was supposed to have all the answers. “There’s a conspiracy of silence in churches,” he explains. The ministers are seen as being so certain of their beliefs that their congregation doesn’t feel comfortable coming to them with doubts. Meanwhile, clergymen (and they’re usually men) aren’t able to confess the questions they themselves have. Were they really acting like Jesus would? That was the big question. Wasn’t the goal to love everyone, unreservedly? But instead of speaking his doubts, Pavlovitz hid his misgivings and got a job at a Raleigh megachurch. (He asked that the INDY not give the church’s name.) And then, one day in 2013, he was fired. 14 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
“You don’t fit here. You’ve never fit here,” the head pastor told him. In fact, Pavlovitz says, he did fit—very well—when he ministered to young people and families looking for comfort and connection. But he couldn’t find a place for himself in the fabric of a church that, like many in the U.S., had become increasingly corporate. It was skilled at creating “really wellproduced, age-specific Sunday experiences” and “great faith-based entertainment,” Pavlovitz says, but it never attempted to pull together people from all corners of humanity for the common purpose of glorifying God. And that, Pavlovitz realized, was what his soul was yearning for. Being fired was a shock at first. But within twenty-four hours, he came to view it as a blessing, one that would allow him to finally speak his mind. He’d already begun the blog by then, but it had mostly been reserved for the church community. Now he began to write more freely. In 2014, his writing project went viral. It started with a personal post in the form of a letter to his kids. “If I Have Gay Children” outlined the ways he would continue to love and support his son and daughter if they came out—that he would not keep their sexual orientation a secret and not quietly hope that they would eventually change. Almost overnight, millions of people read it. “One day you’re unemployed; the next day CNN calls,” Pavlovitz says. The shift was incredible. Suddenly he had an audience, and he was going to use it. In 2016, another of his posts caught the internet’s eye. “To Brock Turner’s Father, from Another Father” addressed the dad of the Stanford University swimming star who’d been accused of rape; the father had asked the judge for leniency. “Brock is not the victim here. His victim is the victim,” the post begins, then systematically knocks down the father’s excuses for his son’s actions. But the site’s greatest one-day readership occurred on November 9, 2016, the day after Trump’s election. “That day, a lot of people were searching on Google, and they found me,” he says. It helped that pop singer Katy Perry shared his post, “This Is Why We Grieve Today,” on Twitter. The essay explained to a hypothetical clueless reader why Trump’s election felt so profoundly painful to many Americans. It resonated. Many of the readers who found him that day have stayed. Pavlovitz says his readers come from all over the political and religious spectrum—and that’s apparent in the dozens or sometimes hundreds of comments on his posts. “But I think we all have the same pull
“Right now, there’s a voice of Christianity that seems loud because it has the White House behind it. But there’s a large population in America that thinks, This is nothing like the faith I entered into.”
toward protecting humanity,” he says. “If you’re a person who believes in equality that transcends gender or faith traditions, you’ll find something that appeals to you.” Pavlovitz has always featured Christianity-specific posts, like “Why You May Want to Try Church Again” or “With the Time You Have Left Here.” But most of his writings focus on current events: gun control, kneeling NFL players, sexual harassment and assault, and, in the last week, Roy Moore. Unabashedly liberal, Pavlovitz has come a long way from his roots as an acquiescent megachurch pastor. One could imagine posts like “Rescuing Jesus from American Evangelicals” or “In Gun We Trust: God Bless the NRA” being written to some of his conservative former congregants. But Trump’s election in particular has provided him with fuel; he’s covered immigration, white supremacy, and health care, and often directly addresses Trump supporters in posts like “If You Voted for Trump, You Owe My Children an Apology.” He is unremitting in his derision for voters who he believes must take responsibility for the chaos and violence that’s occurred since the election. Pavlovitz says his comfort with questioning established dogma makes him a rarity in mainstream Christianity and has turned him into something of a beacon for others with doubts—a surprisingly large group of people. “People say to me, ‘I’ve been in the church
my whole life, but you’re finally giving me permission to wrestle with things,’” he says. “Right now, there’s a voice of Christianity that seems loud because it has the White House behind it. But there’s a large population in America that thinks, This is nothing like the faith I entered into.” Some simply know in their gut, he says, that a religion of in-groups and out-groups isn’t what Jesus was preaching. “I believe he’s absolutely on to something,” says Molly Worthen, a UNC history professor who focuses on religion and ideology. “There are changes in the way younger evangelicals think about things like sexuality and gender roles. But they’re also exhausted by the aggressive confrontational style and old Moral Majority approach to politics.” Indeed, a number of polls have shown a decline in Christian beliefs among young Americans over the past decade. Pavlovitz—now a youth pastor at North Raleigh Community Church, a congregation that welcomes people who are questioning the Christianity they grew up with—is part of a movement of progressive Christians, people like North Carolina’s Reverend William Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, whose agendas have become more pointed as a result of Trump’s presidency. But the movement has been slow to coalesce in recent years, Pavlovitz acknowledges. He thinks it’s partly because liberal Christians view political power with disdain; after all, their Jesus was a homeless preacher, an underdog who was executed for butting up against an established government. But Nancy Petty, pastor of Raleigh’s liberal Pullen Baptist Church, thinks progressives often struggle with how to articulate their faith, since much of the vocabulary of Christianity has been co-opted by the far right. But that hasn’t been the case with Pavlovitz, she says. “One of the things with John is he’s articulating the message of progressives,” she says. “He’s found his own language.” Pavlovitz isn’t a radical. The topics he emphasizes, like gay rights and women’s rights, were resolved by liberal Christians years ago. And unlike Barber and WilsonHartgrove, he doesn’t frequently talk about the tougher, more structural issues of poverty and racism that could require a radical reordering of society to remedy. But that’s probably part of why Pavlovitz is so popular. His is a manageable liberalism, one that makes logical sense but isn’t too taxing. And yet, at a time when America seems to have taken a giant step backward in how it views minorities and other vulnerable populations, he might be exactly what the country—and the church—needs. backtalk@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 15
N OVE M B E R
WE 22 CELEBRATION OF LIFE FOR BRAD SKINNER 6P FR 24 CAPITAL CITY REGGAE FEST SA 25
FEAT. CRUCIAL FIYA 7:30P
indymusic
Pass the Butter
FROM FITNESS WOMXN'S FEARLESS DEBUT TO ERIE CHOIR'S RETURN FROM RETIREMENT, THESE ARE ROCK 'N' ROLL RECORDS TO BE THANKFUL FOR NANTUCKET W/ SHOOT TO THRILL (AC/DC TRIBUTE) 7P DECE M B E R
FR 1 START MAKING SENSE
(TALKING HEADS TRIBUTE) 8P
SA 2 KIX W/ THE FIFTH 7P SU 3 NETWORKING SOCIAL 2017 TH 7 WHO’S HAT IS THIS?
(MEMBERS OF TEDESCHI TRUCKS) 7P
FR 8 OLD HABITS
W/ OLD MAN WHICHUTT 8P
SA 9 WQDR’S CHRISTMAS WISH
W/GRANGER SMITH & BROOKE EDEN
SU 10 SHOOTER JENNINGS & JASON BOLAND 7P TU 12 JAKE BUGG W/ KATE RHUDY 7P WE 13 CHATHAM COUNTY LINE ELECTRIC FR 15 BAND TOGETHER HOLIDAY BASH W/ THE CONNELLS SA 16 SU 17 FR 22 SA 23 FR 29
SURRENDER HUMAN & SPACE MULLET 7P
YARN & THE DUNE DOGS 7P ASHEVILLE HOLIDAY HANG 7P LIQUID PLEASURE 8P SMELL THE GLOVE 9:30P BIG SOMETHING W/ TRAVERS BROTHERSHIP
SA 30 BIG SOMETHING W/ URBAN SOIL SU 31 BIG SOMETHING W/ DR. BACON CO M I N G S O O N
1/5 BIG RIVER BAND 7P 1/12-13 ZOSO (LED ZEPPELIN TRIBUTE) 1/14 COLLIE BUDDZ W/ THE HOLDUP 1/19 THE BREAKFAST CLUB 8P 1/20 BOULEVARDS W/KOOLEY HIGH/ 1/26-27
1/29 2/2 2/3 2/8 2/10 2/11 2/17 2/18 2/23 2/24 2/25 2/28
LONNIE WALKER/ZENSOFLY
AMERICAN AQUARIUM 8P BROCKHAMPTON KELLER WILLIAMS 8P PERPETUAL GROOVE 8P AJR: THE CLICK TOUR FAR TOO JONES 7P SLEIGH BELLS 7:30P WHO’S BAD
(MICHAEL JACKSON TRIBUTE) 7:30P Y&T 7P EMANCIPATOR ENSEMBLE 8P
WEEKEND EXCURSION ERIC JOHNSON W/ARIELLE 7P RAILROAD EARTH 7P
ADV. TICKETS @ LINCOLNTHEATRE.COM & SCHOOLKIDS RECORDS ALL SHOWS ALL AGES
126 E. Cabarrus St.• 919-821-4111 www.lincolntheatre.com
16 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
ERIE CHOIR Old Rigs PotLuck HHH Ten years is an eternity in rock ’n’ roll, where waiting too long to release new product can lose a band its audience. But in the case of Erie Choir, which has just released its first LP in a decade, the struggles and life changes that occurred between releases have informed Old Rigs, the proudly unprolific band’s long-awaited second album. Starting out as a less frenetic alternative to Eric Roehrig’s main band, Sorry About Dresden, Erie Choir issued Slighter Awake in 2006 but didn’t record together again until 2010. Old Rigs, released this week via PotLuck, collects these long-gestating songs. The sound is a bit more visceral than the crisp indie pop of its predecessor. “Bicentennial Quarters,” the ramshackle, slyly tuneful opener, sets the record’s bright but bitter tone as Roehrig sings with scorn to someone, himself perhaps, who yearned to perform on big stages but never made good on those dreams: “Thought you might be a star,” he sings, “not the assistant supervisor which you are,” a line that has a cutting sting to it. “The Era of Good Feelings (Is Over)” also references a bygone American moment, with a Faces-like swagger abet-
ted by brass accents and a wonderfully stabbing guitar solo. The rousing, gangvocaled closer, “Haunted,” is also hard to resist. Along with satisfying rockers are gentler tracks like the dreamy folk-pop of “Echoes” and “Saw Your Face,” which rides a country feel with peals of steel and hazy harmonies suggesting the melancholy and yearning of the open road. Some of the deeper emotions that inspired the music are reflected in the songs from the record’s latter half, which reference songs of significance for Roehrig. We can catch a glimpse of what Shakira’s “Ready for the Good Times” meant to him in the air of hopeful desperation imbued in his song of the same title. —David Klein
FITNESS WOMXN Macho City Acid Etch Recordings HHHH The world has always been hostile toward women and non-binary people, but the recent weeks of publicly relived tales of abuse and harassment at the hands of men have compounded this perpetual pain. But this means that Carrboro trio Fitness Womxn couldn’t have picked a better time to release Macho City, its debut LP and an essential, affirming force for these times. Macho City opens with the one-two punch
of “Erosion” and “Living Hell,” re-recorded iterations of the band’s digital single from May. “Erosion” is jittery and hair-raising, while “Living Hell” vacillates between and devastating deadpan. Behind sing-shout vocals, prickly guitar parts jitter over rumbling, fuzzy bass and guitar. The tone of the record is largely brooding and seething, but Fitness Womxn breaks it up with plain, chirpy vocals over clean drum-machine beats on “Fit Bit.01” and “Fit Bit.02.” “Tastemaker,” which arrives late in the record, is a no-holds-barred takedown of self-proclaimed (and almost always male) tastemakers. Every single line is a barb against the egotistical attitudes that run rampant among music fans and collectors. There are direct nods to tiresome showmanship through lines like “I own every seveninch, twelve-inch, EP, LP, cassette tape, and FLAC file worth owning.” But the song also speaks to some of the more insidious misogyny that’s part of the industry, as with the line “I love your aesthetic, I’m so happy to see your partner’s had a good influence on you,” the assumption being that a woman can’t develop their own tastes. “Tastemaker” is cathartic, and it’s oddly reassuring to hear these grievances aired loudly and publicly, rather than murmured in private spaces. With Macho City, Fitness Womxn creates a safety zone for feeling raw, angry, and fed-up. It’s one we desperately need right now. But if you find yourself feeling particularly wounded by Fitness Womxn’s jabs, the band says it best in the closing lines of “Living Hell”: “My best advice to you is repent/Or get bent!” —Allison Hussey MIKE VM The Happiest Man on Earth Suah Sounds HHH½ For the past several years, New Jerseyborn Chapel Hill transplant Michael Venutolo-Mantovani has served as frontman for the raggedly lovable Everymen,
a commendably unhinged garage and blue-eyed soul outfit. The band’s takeno-prisoners live sets and general sense of abandon narrowly obscured an attention to cerebral songcraft and a latent sentimental streak. So it is eye-opening, but not fully surprising, when the opening strains of Venutolo-Mantovani's solo debut, The Happiest Man on Earth, reveal a very different sort of mood altogether: somber, contemplative, and marinating in complex emotions. Perhaps with an eye toward explicating his new Southern identity, VenutoloMantovani recorded the album in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, at Cypress Moon studios, where he conscripted a fine group of top-notch hands to serve as his backing band. The results are immediately evident, as tracks like the haunting, minor-key “A Girl Named Lou Pt. 3” and the ruminative “Nothing Good Happens After Midnight” pulse with an unhurried intensity that drapes Venutolo-Mantovani’s closely sung growl in handsome sonic scenery. Elsewhere, the lilting highlight “Oh Susie” recalls Elvis Costello in King of America mode, wedding desperate sentiments to winsome roots rock. With its down-in-the-groove tempos and occasionally harrowing meditations on death and aging, The Happiest Man on Earth is not an easy hang or a light one. Much of the release revolves around the passing of Venutolo-Mantovani’s mother from cancer in 2016, and the sense of loss, letting go, and the terror of learning a new emotional vernacular pervade even his most hopeful songs. But by the time of the penultimate track “Chapel Hill”—a moving tribute and spirited devotional dedicated to Venutolo-Mantovani’s wife—the sense of catharsis is well-earned and deeply worthwhile. On The Happiest Man on Earth, a talented artist reaches desperate ends, only to realize they are new beginnings. —Timothy Bracy INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 17
music
VOLUME
226 S. Churton St., Hillsborough www.volumehillsborough.com
Record Bar
A NEW MUSIC STORE IN HILLSBOROUGH INVITES YOU TO SIP AS YOU FLIP BY MEG NESTEROV Tony Lopez would like to hang out and listen to his record collection with you, and match you to a perfect beer while he’s at it. A Durham native and longtime d.j. and bartender, he opened Volume in Hillsborough in October with Nathan Andrews, a friend since high school. It’s a record store with a bar, or perhaps a bar with records. Arriving in Orange County with relatively little fanfare, Volume has so far been met with a steady audience who didn’t know they were lacking a record store bar. When Triangle Vinyl left Mebane for Florida last year, Lopez felt it created a void for a music shop on the western side of the Triangle (Durham’s Bull City Records and Carrboro’s All Day Records are each at least a twenty-minute drive away) and Andrews hoped for a hangout spot in his town. Opened in a rare stand-alone building—no shared walls means fewer noise complaints if music gets loud—on Churton Street next to Weaver Street Market, the space is big enough for a narrow bar and stools, a vintage sofa and chair for conversation or perusing a book of terrible album covers, and a few bins of records. The design aesthetic? “My teenage bedroom, minus the [beer] taps,” says Lopez. Different bathroom-themed cover art is rotated out weekly in the restroom, like Foreigner’s slightly scandalous Head Games, with a scantily clad young woman posing in a urinal. Volume’s business cards are labels overlaid on an assortment of trading cards; you can choose from New Kids on the Block, Menudo, or Yo! MTV Raps. While you flip through records, you can set your pint down on a mic-stand drink holder, a detail carefully chosen to protect the merchandise from spills and moisture rings. There’s no space for a listening booth, but Lopez is happy to throw on a record for you to try, even if it’s not part of his inventory. He’s had customers come in just to play their old vinyl, no purchase required. 18 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
Customers search through the bins of records at Volume Hillsborough on Saturday, Nov. 18. Lopez is the music lover’s music fan, unpretentious and nonjudgmental in his adoration of music. From his perspective, he sees the vinyl resurgence as a result of the digital download included with many new album pressings. “It lets you take the music with you while still enjoying the physical record and cover art. It changed the game,” he says. He grew up going to shows at Cat’s Cradle, spinning eighties theme nights in Chapel Hill, and buying albums at stores like Durham’s late, lamented Poindexter Records. (“I was buying whatever they were playing,” Lopez says.) Several customers at the bar remember him from Tyler’s Taproom, both for his pouring skills and his music recommendations.
Lopez takes the same approach to curating the bar’s beer and wine list as he does with his vinyl: each is chosen to represent the best of its genre. Some selections have a music theme, like the Terrapin Sound Czech Pilsner or First Press Chardonnay. A few other brews are local, like the Lynwood IPA, or chosen for a tie-in, like the Big Boss Autumn Amber, a collaboration with the band Chatham County Line. Further drinkand-album specials are planned, as well as theme nights and listening parties. Volume seems to fits hand in glove with Hillsborough, already home to the venerable Yep Roc Records and WHUP, an independent radio station with low power and high community impact. It’s a small,
PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA
creative town where you are likely to see Mayor Tom Stevens getting a cup of coffee at Cup of Joe or a pint at Wooden Nickel Pub (especially if it’s Tuesday, wings night) before opening up his art gallery. And the shop’s new neighbors are happy to have it around, too. “Record store people are always going to seek out and find record stores. This combines two local favorites: beer and music,” says Bob Burtman, WHUP’s founder. While Hillsborough has no shortage of drinking options, Volume is inviting both for locals wanting to relax with a round after work and weekend visitors wanting to sip and shop. music@indyweek.com
indyfood
Free Your Brine
RELAX AND LET THE PROS HANDLE THE THANKSGIVING MEAL STRESS FOR YOU BY MEG NESTEROV
F
with the typical trappings or maybe begin a new tradition. Have breakfast with violin accompaniment at Johnny’s Gone Fishing. Classical musician Jennifer Curtis will give a concert on Thanksgiving morning; arrive early for seats and coffee. Free, ten-thirty a.m. to noon. www. johnnysgonefishing.com If a pie base of Fritos and chili sounds appealing, the Accordion Club in Durham is your place, with cold beer and hot dogs all day, plus tabletop Pacman. Noon to two a.m., www.theaccordionclub.com Dinner and a movie has long been an alternative for the nonobservant on Christmas, so there’s no reason not to move up the timeline. Trilogy at Silverspot Chapel Hill goes beyond a bucket of popcorn with an everyday menu of dips, salads, and flatbreads available in the theater, which emphasizes holiday-themed sequels, superhero flicks, and heartwarming animated fare. Eleven a.m. to ten p.m., www.trilogyrestaurant.com
or some, Thanksgiving is a time to dust off heirloom recipes and pretend you always set the table with fancy napkin rings and flickering candlelight. For others, the holiday is a headache of shopping and cooking logistics, loads of dishes, and too few chairs. Why not leave it to the professionals to whip up a perfect turkey (and perhaps a perfect martini, too) and clean up afterward? Or do something totally different this year? Be thankful for these Triangle restaurants staying open on Thursday. And be sure to tip your server generously. (For restaurants listed below, reservations are recommended. Unless otherwise noted, prices do not include alcoholic beverages, tax, or gratuity.)
TRADITIONAL DINING
Stick to the tried-and-true Thanksgiving menu at hotel and restaurant buffets. Eat your golden-brown turkey among the fuschia penguins at 21C Museum Hotel’s Counting House restaurant. The buffet features fried turkey with a sorghum glaze and truffled mac and cheese. $60 adults/$25 children under twelve, eleven a.m. to seven p.m. www.countinghouse.com At the Durham Hotel, the family-style turkey dinner starts with oysters on the half shell and ends with a dessert table. $75/$35, eleven a.m. to four-thirty p.m. www. thedurham.com Carrboro’s Tandem Restaurant offers breakfast pastries and pancakes down to a sweet-tea-glazed ham and smoked apple soup. $35/$15, ten-thirty a.m. to three p.m. www.tandemcarrboro.com
NONTRADITIONAL THANKSGIVING
There are options that subvert the standards. Talullas in Chapel Hill puts a Turkish spin on turkey, serving it over eggplant puree (or have it as it delighted the sultan, with lamb shank). Choose from a set menu starting with a shepherd’s salad of cucumbers and tomatoes and ending with milk pudding, or order a la carte mezze and kabob plates. $35
Stephen Polzin removes fresh bread from the oven at La Farm Bakery in Cary. PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
prix fixe, one to ten p.m. www.talullas.com In downtown Cary, Kababish cafe puts a Pakistani twist on turkey, marinating it in yogurt and masala spices. Round out your plate with curried vegetables; bring your own beer or wine. $30/$12, noon to seven p.m. www.kababishcafe.com Barbeque might not be de rigueur for Thanksgiving, but it’s always appropriate in the South. The Pit in Raleigh and Durham will have whole-hog chopped barbecue alongside pit-cooked turkey and smoked ham, plus fried pimento cheese bites and banana pudding. $29.99/$14.99, eleven a.m. to four p.m. www.thepit-raleigh.com, www. thepit-durham.com
TOTALLY NONTRADITIONAL
Whether you’re eating vegan or you just fancy yourself bohemian, you can dispense
TAKE-OUT TURKEY
If you like the classic bird and stuffing spread but would prefer to spread out at home, pick up a fully cooked dinner or a few sides. At Grub Durham, a full meal for four with a choice of smoked turkey, ham, pulled pork, or spare ribs is $120. Order by November 21 and pick up next day. www.grubdurham.com Picnic’s barbeque smoker may be at rest Thursday, but you can order a dish of pimento mac and cheese or sorghum gingersnap cheesecake to get you through. Order by November 19 for pickup by November 22. www.picnicdurham.com La Farm Bakery will be working over a hot oven even on November 23 at Cary’s new Whole Foods. Pick up a fresh pastry or crusty baguette on Thanksgiving Day; place an advance order for fig-walnut bread or braided pumpkin challah made with North Carolina-milled flours. Order by November 20 for pickup at any of their three locations by November 22. www.lafarmbakery.com food@indyweek.com
RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER
INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 19
Don’t Sle Those Lef
TURKEY LURKING? STRETCH YO THE WEEKEND WITH FOUR L
TURKEY AND MATZO BALL SOUP
Whenever my mom made chicken and matzo ball soup when I was a kid, it was an all-burner affair. Chicken broth here. Matzo balls there. Egg noodles way over there. For us, this was special-occasion food, on the order of a Jewish holiday or the first day of school. This version is streamlined for weeknights when you need something soothing, fast. The miso would made my grandmother weep (sorry, Grandma) but it significantly bolsters the store-bought broth. Make sure you buy white, which is relatively mellow and won’t discolor the light soup.
BY EMMA LAPERR ILLUSTRATIONS BY ST
T
Yield: about 3 quarts For the matzo balls: 1 cup matzo meal 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 cup chopped dill 4 large eggs, beaten with a fork 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1/4 cup seltzer For the soup: Matzo meal Extra-virgin olive oil 2 parsnips, sliced on a bias 2 carrots, sliced on a bias 3 leeks, chopped 12 ounces roast turkey, chopped Few sprigs dill 2 quarts chicken broth 3 tablespoons white miso Make the matzo balls. Combine the matzo meal, salt, black pepper, ginger, baking powder, and dill in a bowl. Stir to combine. Add the eggs, olive oil, and seltzer. Stir until smooth. Chill the mixture for at least 20 minutes. Meanwhile, set a large pot over medium-high heat. Add a thick film of olive oil. Add the parsnips, carrots, and leeks. Sauté until beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the turkey and dill sprigs, then the chicken broth. Bring to a simmer. In a small bowl, combine a splash of warm broth and the miso, then stir to dilute. Pour that into the soup. Keep on a low simmer while you cook the matzo balls. Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil. Scoop the matzo meal mixture into rounded tablespoons—a cookie scoop works well here— then add to the water. (You should yield about 18 matzo balls.) Cover and simmer for 40 minutes. Add the matzo balls to the soup and simmer for about 10 more minutes. Serve immediately. 20 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
NORTHERN NJ-STYLE SLOPPY JOE
Where I’m from in northern New Jersey (a commuter town just a trainride away from New York City), we have our own definition of “sloppy joe.” To me, it’s a triple-decker, rye bread sandwich with cold cuts and cheese, cabbage slaw, and Russian dressing. Like a Reuben or Rachel, except the cabbage isn’t fermented and the sandwich isn’t warm. This version uses thick, leftover carved turkey. Accordingly, I dropped the bread count from three to two slices. I also don’t believe in making small amounts of Russian dressing (why would you?). So use any extra for anything, especially chopped salads. Handful shredded green cabbage Kosher salt, to taste 1 cup mayonnaise 6 tablespoons minced pickles 1/4 cup ketchup Cayenne pepper, to taste 2 slices rye bread (New York deli-style, not Nordic) Roast turkey, sliced Swiss cheese, sliced Generously season the cabbage with salt. Give it a little massage, then leave it to relax while you make the Russian dressing. Mix together the mayo, ketchup, and pickles. Season with salt and cayenne to taste. Now, there’s nothing more offensive than a recipe telling you how to make a sandwich—and I wouldn’t dare. Pile on as much turkey and cheese as you please! Just assemble in this order: bread, smear of Russian dressing, turkey, Swiss, salted cabbage, a lot of Russian dressing, bread. Serve with a kosher pickle spear to keep it traditional.
he go-to rule for buying turke person. But this forgets the m right? The leftovers. If there ar of pounds of extra meat post holiday, y Thanksgiving is all about excess. That way, you can have your kitchen know, with the gravy-soaked bread slice Then you can freeze the rest, forget abou find a weird, ice-crusty plastic bag bene of Coffee, Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz!, ask was this?” And he says, “Huh? Don’t kn in the trash. Wait. Scratch that. This year, skip the freezer and enjoy y its prime. These four recipes will show joe and ssäm are flexible—good for any have. The other two recipes use a large stretched into reviving, cozy soups.
Sleep on Leftovers
STRETCH YOUR FEAST THROUGH WITH FOUR LIVELY RECIPES.
MMA LAPERRUQUE TIONS BY STEVE OLIVA
TURKEY AND WHITE BEAN CHILI VERDE
Pork shoulder and Hatch chilies are signature in Southwestern chili verde. In this version, we’ll do away with both. Leftover turkey cuts down on the cooking time by a few hours. And poblanos are easier to access around here. I also add in some white beans because, well, I just love beans; feel free to leave them out if you don’t. Serve this with a skillet of cornbread, pot of brown rice, or stack of warm flour tortillas.
for buying turkey is: one pound per this forgets the most important part, tovers. If there aren’t at least a couple eat post holiday, you’re doing it wrong. out excess. have your kitchen-sink sandwich—you soaked bread slices—the next morning. he rest, forget about it until the summer, ty plastic bag beneath your expired pint zzBuzzBuzz!, ask your partner, “What s, “Huh? Don’t know!” And you throw it
Yield: 2+ quarts 1 pound (about 5) poblanos 1 jalapeño 1 pound, 10 ounces (about 9) tomatillos, peeled and halved Canola oil Kosher salt, to taste 1 1/2 cups chopped cilantro (stems are fine!) 1 large yellow onion, finely diced 5 garlic cloves, minced or Microplaned 1 teaspoon ground cumin 3 cups chicken broth, divided 1 pound roast turkey, chopped 1 (15.5-ounce) can white beans, such as cannellini, drained Lime wedges, for serving
reezer and enjoy your beloved big bird in recipes will show you how. The sloppy ble—good for any amount of turkey you ecipes use a larger amount, which gets g, cozy soups. TURKEY SSÄM WITH KIMCHI MAYO
Ssäm is Korean for “wrapped”—so think Korean lettuce wraps. I first learned about these while working as a line cook at Kimbap, a Koreaninspired, locally focused restaurant in Raleigh. Kimbap’s version adapted tradition. Mine adapts it even further with roast turkey, brown rice, and an un-shy amount of kimchi mayo, all bundled in a radicchio leaf. Buttery Bibb lettuce is more common, but I really like the bitterness that chicory contributes here. 1 cup mayo 1/3 cup finely chopped kimchi Roast turkey, pulled like pork Whole radicchio leaves Cooked short-grain brown rice This is one of those recipes that’s as fitting for one person as it is for a group. First, mix together the mayo and kimchi. If you have any left over, it will come in handy on all sorts of occasions, such as: BLTs, burgers, even—dare I say it—pimento cheese. Set the table with a dish of kimchi mayo, plate of turkey, plate of radicchio leaves, and pot of rice. Let everyone assemble for themselves.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Put the poblanos and jalapeños on a lined sheet tray. Put the tomatillos on a separate, lined sheet tray. To each, drizzle with canola oil, sprinkle with salt, and toss. Roast for about 30 minutes, until the peppers are soft and starting to char, and the tomatillos are collapsed and juicy. Transfer the peppers to a glass bowl and cover with plastic film to steam for about 10 minutes. This should loosen their skins. Pulse the cilantro in a food processor until very finely chopped. Add the tomatillos (and all their juices!) and process until smooth. Meanwhile, set a large pot over medium heat, then add a thin film of canola oil. Add the onion and season generously with salt. Sauté, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until soft and starting to take on a pale, golden color. (If the onions begin to stick at all, just add a splash of water.) Add the garlic and cumin. Stir-fry for a minute until toasty and fragrant. Deglaze with 1 1/2 cups chicken broth. Add the tomatillo-cilantro puree, chopped turkey, and beans. While that comes to a simmer, peel, deseed, and roughly chop the peppers (a few skin stragglers is fine!). Add those to a food processor with the remaining 1 1/2 cups chicken broth and process until smooth. Add to the pot. Season with salt to taste. Simmer for at least 15 minutes, until the flavors get to know one another, and everything is hot. food@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 21
indyart
HEATHER GORDON: AND THEN THE SUN SWALLOWED ME Through Feb. 4, 2018 CAM Raleigh, Raleigh www.camraleigh.org
A Moment in the Sun
MEET HEATHER GORDON, THE DURHAM ARTIST BEHIND THE OBSCURELY BUT DEEPLY PERSONAL INSTALLATION AND THEN THE SUN SWALLOWED ME AT CAM RALEIGH BY DANIEL HALL
C
AM Raleigh installation And Then the Sun Swallowed Me, by Durham artist Heather Gordon, is a visual interpretation of the contraction of the universe after the explosion of the sun. Black tape, geometrically organized on the museum’s walls, represents the cataclysmic moment in which we will return to dust. Centered on the floor is a projection of someone swimming in limbo, going neither forward nor backward, encouraging thoughts of existential ennui in one’s daily life. Gordon’s exhibit inspired me, as an intern at CAM Raleigh, to question her about her perspectives on home, stillness, and purpose.
HEATHER GORDON ON "HOME"
Concepts of home, existential ennui, and where I’m from can be answered together. I am the child of an Air Force officer and his wife. While my parents can be identified in other ways, this iteration suits the discussion. As an only child of loving and supportive parents, I lived on military bases around the United States until I was fifteen, then in various suburbs, then university, continuing my geographical definition of home base. I was also aware, by the age of eight, that I liked girls, which seemed rather different from what I saw modeled around me on base. But I was loved and cared for, taught and nurtured by my parents, although clearly raised within a microculture of sameness, with clear social divisions through rank and gender, very little communication about emotions, and a great deal of patriotism. In my thirties I began to consider how this has shaped my thinking, and so started my release from an ennui that I’d carried a good while. As I deconstructed those stories, as if debating with my personal history, they began to mean something different and more accepting. I find it rewarding to question the perspectives that have given 22 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
And Then the Sun Swallowed Me at CAM Raleigh PHOTO BY CHRIS CICCONE me enduring pain. I end up feeling a bit more like I belong here, wherever here is at the moment, and that feels like home.
ON "STILLNESS"
I associate stillness with a kind of silence rather than a solid state—unmoving, similar to death in this way. In opposition, or in complement, to stillness, “movement” feels like sound to me. Stillness may be the internal moment when we become suddenly aware of our own aliveness, our physicality with a consciousness. All else seems so quiet and still. That’s our awareness of us looking down at our hands. But in movement, we are, in some ways, simply learning about ourselves and our environment. We are simply looking at our hands. In partnership with stillness, the movement of the world requires no narrative to be appreciated, although we do so enjoy the crafting of a good story to make us feel more secure in the inevitabilities and unpredictable
nature of being alive. Our internal story removes the stillness through which we can merely observe. It makes noise that we confuse with the movement that is actually happening.
ON "PURPOSE"
This is a question of perennial interest to me, with regard to the purpose of an artist, and specifically to me as an artist. Purpose, some defining driving force, a reason for being, one end-all-be-all, does not exist. It seems a romantic view of the world. We claim a purpose, either by god-given right or crafted by our own wits, and it becomes the measure of our value as human beings, how well we are assessed to have fulfilled that purpose. We often see those who retire have a hard time with the sudden visceral question of purpose. They often don’t know what to do with their bodies. Some stop moving, or at least, move a whole lot less. In the past, I have prescribed myself a defini-
tion of my purpose, and I simply go about checking those boxes. I perhaps confuse having purpose with having objectives. But I do find that a bit of purposelessness gives grace to the shifting purpose which I often face in reality. Today, my purpose may be to get my laundry done, or spend an evening drawing with my four-year-old son, or have conversation with a friend, or pay the bills, or work on an art installation. If I set about defining my purpose, to live as an artist, then I will likely encounter a sense that life isn’t what I’d hoped, given that I spend very little time making art in the scheme of all that I do. Life could feel lacking and counterproductive, and I prefer a view of sufficiency. So, for now, I've made the pact with myself to observe more and think less about purpose. For example, on opening night for And Then the Sun Swallowed Me, I sat on a bench and watched so many people taking selfies with the work, including friends and family crowding into the frame, making an effort to preserve a moment, an experience which they had through some work I had the opportunity to make because CAM opened their doors to me, and because some pot of resources allowed them to do that, and so on. Each link in the chain agreeing that having art in our lives is important stuff we value, for whatever reason we do so. I get to be part of the overall movement that allows for some idea in my head to become something real and shared, and that seems pretty wonderful to me. My purpose is wrapped up somewhere in that. arts@indyweek.com
indypage
BEST CREATIVE NONFICTION OF THE SOUTH, VOLUME II: NORTH CAROLINA Tuesday, Nov. 28, 7 p.m., free The Regulator Bookshop, Durham www.regulatorbookshop.com
Creating North Carolina
STAGE BRIEF Dot begins the early Christmas season at PlayMakers. PHOTO BY HUTHPHOTO
LOCAL POET MICHAEL CHITWOOD DRAWS DEEPLY FROM THE TRIANGLE IN A NEW ANTHOLOGY OF CREATIVE NONFICTION FROM OUR STATE BY DAVID KLEIN Any adequate literary accounting of North Carolina would seem to require certain elements. The state’s natural beauty, the sound of its spoken language, and the history of its land and people. Cultural traditions of storytelling and music and Southern hospitality would have to be in there. So would the mythic South depicted in popular culture, and so would an impassioned defense of vinegar-based barbecue. The second book in Texas Review Press’s Best Creative Nonfiction of the South series checks off all the boxes. Coedited by Michael Chitwood, a prolific poet and a lecturer in UNC’s English department, the slim volume contains seventeen selections by many of the state’s biggest living literary names, from memoirs to essays and travel writing, all with a pronounced North Carolina terroir. “Nubbin’ stretcher,” “sour sop, chitlins, churn rags, and clabber,” and “not nary a any” are just a few of the terms Thomas Rain Crowe drops in “Native Tongue,” which reverentially depicts his reclamation of the Southern Mountain Speech that he tried to hide when he moved north. In “An Imperfect Marriage,” Jan DeBlieu describes moving to a much-fantasized west, only to feel the inexorable pull of her native region. Clyde Edgerton’s “A Story” feels like a yarn— there’s a great-grandma with seven names, an aunt given to malapropisms, digression upon delightful digression—before it builds to the realization that “place helps make people into who they become.” Depictions of the beauty of a bygone world abound. In “Horses and Boys,” Marianne Gingher evokes the unambiguous sunshine of a seemingly less fraught, but not at all dainty, era, on a farm near Greensboro: “I loved the rollicking dirtiness, the thin black rinds of filth under my fingernails, the way horse hair and sweat mingled and dried lacily on the insides of my calves and thighs,” she writes in a vehement passage that verges on poetry.
The collection’s longest piece is also its saddest. In “Chiefing in Cherokee,” a couple researching the Trail of Tears arrives in Cherokee, N.C., and finds the town taken over by stores hawking kitsch. They’re outraged at the sight of Native Americans clad in inauthentic costumes who dance for tips for the white tourist trade, but are forced to examine the limitations of their own perspective. They excavate the history of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee and marvel at its resiliency. Among numerous poignant facts, we learn that the Museum of the Cherokee Indian was among the first museums to confront viewers with human suffering. In “Hospitality,” Scott Huler claims he moved to North Carolina for free refills on soda and tea, and assesses this Southern tradition from an almost anthropological view, locating its origins as an antidote to loneliness in the rural South. In “A Torrent of Kindness,” Allan Gurganus similarly assays the nature of graciousness but through a more hopeful lens, concluding, movingly, that it’s “a strange, radical thing.” It’s satisfying that the final story, Bland Simpson’s “The Christmas Kayaker,” encapsulates many of the themes and charms of the foregoing pieces. With the seductive precision of a well-told tall tale, the story portrays the intimate geography of the state and the sound and spirit of its people, ending with an invitation of pure Southern hospitality. The only unwelcome surprise is a lack of editorial precision. I came across several typos, along with a misquotation of an iconic Carl Sandburg line and misspellings of Allan Gurganus and Georgann Eubanks. But that won’t be an issue when you hear the stories read aloud, as they will be at the Regulator on Tuesday, when Chitwood will be joined by Randall Kenan, whose piece on the N.C. hog industry is a tour de force, and poet Michael McFee. dklein@indyweek.com
CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY TO TRIANGLE STAGES
It’s been true for years: anytime after Halloween is fair game for department stores and shopping malls to put up Christmas decorations. By mid-November, WRAL-FM has replaced evergreens by Aerosmith and Justin Timberlake with a steady stream of holiday classics by Burl Ives and Gene Autry. We’re uncertain if this is a good thing, but several local theaters are following suit this year with holiday-themed shows opening Thanksgiving week, before the perennials that run every December. PlayMakers Repertory Company kicks off the season with Dot (Nov. 22–Dec. 10, Paul Green Theatre, playmakersrep.org), a drama that takes place at a family Christmas gathering in West Philadelphia (see p. 26). The week before Carolina Ballet opens The Nutcracker (Dec. 2, UNC’s Memorial Hall, carolinaballet.com), the company revives its 1999 masterwork, Messiah (Nov. 22–26, Raleigh Memorial Auditorium), a thrilling, panoramic setting of Handel’s oratorio that animates religious paintings from the Renaissance, with live music from the North Carolina Master Chorale. The Women’s Theatre Festival continues its embryonic holiday tradition of staging Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women as a holiday tea (Nov. 24–Dec. 3, Sonorous Road Theatre, womenstheatrefestival. com). DPAC follows with Hip Hop Nutcracker (Nov. 24, DPAC, dpacnc. com), a touring take in which old-school rapper Kurtis Blow and DJ Boo remix Tchaikovsky as a young daughter of bickering parents is saved from a gang of rats by a street-nut vendor. The pair is then magically transported back to the club where the girl’s parents first met, as b-boys pirouette on their shoulders and heads instead of en pointe. Broadway Series South brings back its annual tribute to the 1960s Rankin-Bass holiday TV special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical (Nov. 24–Dec. 24, Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, dukeenergycenterraleigh.com). And, in the first of two new works added to its Christmas franchise, Theatre in the Park’s Scrooge-for-life, Ira David Wood III, reminisces with the theater’s longtime Marley, David Henderson, on the forty-three-year history of TIP’s production of A Christmas Carol in An Evening with Scrooge and Marley (Nov. 25, Theatre in the Park, theatreinthepark.com). —Byron Woods INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 23
indyscreen
Betts’s spare, sensitive script captures the jarring tensions that define the young nuns’ lives. Though pulled toward a secular world in which the very idea of God seems increasingly untenable, they have sought out a devout sphere in which loving God means the total effacement of worldly desires. The film strikes a fine balance between taking the nuns’ desires for God and community seriously while also casting a severely critical eye at the institution of the church, resisting the urge to romanticize its repression of women’s sexuality. Novitiate is a nuanced, elegant portrait of a community facing its own extinction and the questions of faith, authority, and identity raised by the waning of a powerful institution. Most important, the film does something rare, portraying women’s experience in all its philosophical complexity during a time of great historical change. —Laura Jaramillo
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI HH½
Opening Wednesday, Nov. 22
Novitiate
PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Cinema Coma
WE’RE THANKFUL FOR LOTS OF NEW MOVIES TO SIT IN AND DROWSE AWAY ALL OF THESE HOLIDAY CARBS BY LAURA JARAMILLO, GLENN MCDONALD, AND NEIL MORRIS NOVITIATE HHHH Opening Friday, Nov. 24
Writer-director Maggie Betts’s Novitiate is a quietly stunning historical drama about a group of nuns trying to keep the faith against an encroaching modern world— one which, by 1965, has breached even the conservative Catholic Church. The film follows the spiritual journey of aspiring nun Cathleen (played with wide-eyed brilliance by Margaret Qualley) and her fellow initiates into the highly ascetic, ritualized daily life of a particularly strict nunnery. She’s a quick study, but her initial unquestioning devotion begins to erode under the prohibition against 24 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
touch that so defines the nun’s vocation. As we witness each novice’s struggle with doubt, it becomes clear that the intense, inchoate desires that first drove these young women to the convent also come to threaten their faith. When the liberalizing reforms known as Vatican II come knocking on the monastery door, the Reverend Mother Superior Marie Sinclair, played with ferocious authoritarian derision by Melissa Leo, doubles down on traditions such as humiliating confession, enforced silence, and corporal punishment. When the Reverend Mother furiously commands a novice to use “the discipline,” a cat o’nine tails made of rope, on herself as penance, the medieval history of the
institution becomes disturbingly visceral. One of the film’s triumphs is how effectively but subtly it uses costuming and lighting to dramatize the conflicts between tradition and modernity. When the novices exchange their wimples for mod satin wedding gowns to marry Jesus, Kat Westergaard’s limpid cinematography of stoic faces through gauzy veils transmits all the ambivalent longing and melancholy of a ritual that is absolutely alien to the modern viewer. When the novices kneel around the Mother Superior in a candle-lit room, we know we’ve entered the dark recesses of tradition. Based on the memoirs of several nuns who left the church during Vatican II,
The Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in question line a little-traveled byway called Drinkwater Road. In this forgotten place, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) revives a fading tragedy. She spends five thousand dollars to turn the weathered signs into beacons shining on her daughter’s unsolved rape and murder seven months ago. They read: “Raped While Dying,” “And Still No Arrests?,” and “How Come, Chief Willoughby?.” Drinkwater Road is described as a stretch people drive down only “if they got lost or they’re retards.” This off-color quip works when a character says it once. But by the time the third local yokel makes the same crack, it becomes the canary in the coalmine of a tonally incoherent dark-comedy-drama that doesn’t have a clue how to manage its weighty themes and discordant plot. Mildred is trying to embarrass the local police chief, Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), into action. Her rage and frustration are understandable, even laudable. She could be an avenging angel on a mission to topple a corrupt patriarchy. But Willoughby, who is dying of cancer, seems sincere in his desire to find the killer, and his investigation has hit a legitimate dead end. So it just seems cruel that Mildred puts up the billboards now, because, as she tells him,
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
PHOTO COURTESY OF FOX SEARCHLIGHT
“they won’t be as effective after you croak.” We also never understand why the townsfolk turn on a grieving mother because she scolds the police chief in some secluded
signage. But turn they do, beginning with Willoughby and continuing with his deputy, Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), a cartoon racist who has a reputation for beating up
African Americans. British writer-director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) uses Mildred’s victimhood to absolve her for every coarse invective and aggressive urge, however felonious or extreme. She drills a hole into the thumb of a reproving dentist. She sends a pious preacher packing with a diatribe about enabling pedophilia. But McDonagh fails to coalesce the dramatic and dark-comedic elements (maybe the Coen brothers could have). The fictitious Ebbing was apparently conceived while binge-watching reruns of Carter Country and The Dukes of Hazzard. The denizens don’t act and talk like actual people; McDonagh’s trademark obscenities are so forced that they sound like bad punch lines. Mildred and her daughter casually call each other “cunts” in a flashback. Willoughby says “goddamn” a lot, whether over Easter dinner or while giving his kids water-
safety tips. Mildred’s son, Robbie (Lucas Hedges), calls his mom a bitch right before her ex-husband, Charlie (John Hawkes), pops in for a flash of domestic violence, interrupted by some kooky non sequiturs from his nineteen-year-old girlfriend. There are supposedly lessons to learn in this aimless milieu. Indeed, the themes are so patent they might as well be on billboards: wrath, cataclysm, and redemption. Rockwell improves his performance after a mid-film event sends Dixon into a spiritual spiral and erodes Mildred’s moral high ground. The pair traverses hellfire, but their destination is less like earned salvation than weary resignation. The boundaries between good and evil are so blurry that we’re left in a state of ethical ambivalence, and the setting rings so false that we just don’t care. Three Billboards is neither the farce it thinks it is nor the emotional odyssey it could have been. —Neil Morris
SCREEN BRIEFS COCO
HHH Opening Wednesday, Nov. 22 In its prime, Pixar was impossibly reliable, churning out original family films jammed with creativity, wit, and sophisticated emotional intelligence. Think Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, or WALL-E. We didn’t know how good we had it. Now Pixar is a subsidiary of omnivorous Disney, and its last two films (Finding Dory and Cars 3) were profitable franchise installments. The next two on the slate (The Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4) are sequels, too. Happily, Coco is a visually dazzling new story steeped in the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos. Most of the adventure takes place in a mythical Land of the Dead, which will go down as one of Pixar’s most richly beautiful fantasy worlds. Miguel is a twelve-year-old boy who
dreams of being a musician. Alas, his family has forbidden music ever since great-grandpa abandoned the kids to pursue his muse. Through a series of painfully contrived plot points, Miguel travels to the Land of the Dead to secure the blessing of his ancestors and bring music back to the family. The setup is awfully rickety, and the movie never quite overcomes this fundamental weakness. The thematic dilemma of family versus art never rings true. It’s clear from the start that both can coexist just fine. People do it all the time. Besides, who stays mad at music? Absent a solid story, Coco slips into predictable emotional swells, cheap gags, and Disney’s familiar conservative themes. This is technically a Pixar original, but it feels like another Disney franchise installment, skillfully manufactured, perfectly adequate, and kind of depressing. —Glenn McDonald
THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS
HHH ½ Opening Wednesday, Nov. 22 This pleasant holiday surprise is a heartfelt, clever British import that tells the story of Charles Dickens writing the classic yuletide novella A Christmas Carol. Similar to Goodbye Christopher Robin, the recent drama about A. A. Milne, The Man Who Invented Christmas purports to reveal the details behind a literary phenomenon. But whereas the Milne film is overstuffed and heavy, the Dickens tale is agreeably fanciful and light. Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) plays the author as a gently nutty genius who collects ideas in his ever-present notepad. The central conceit is that, once he has created and named a character, it comes to life as a kind of perpetual hallucination, hanging around his writing desk and
offering unsolicited suggestions. That clever little twist brings us the unalloyed delight of watching Christopher Plummer riff on the immortal character of Ebenezer Scrooge. In this movie, Scrooge knows he’s a literary legend. He likes it that way, and he delights in taunting his creator. The upside for Dickens is that he doesn’t need to invent dialogue. He just transcribes the abuse of his imaginary friend. Fittingly, the film’s version of nineteenthcentury London has a storybook charm, and director Bharat Nalluri composes images that resemble Victorian illustrations breaking out of their frames. Recovering English majors will enjoy the references to Dickens’s other works and the real biographical details. There’s nothing like a good Thackeray joke, I always say. Kids will be bored silly, but grown-ups will want this one in Christmasmovie rotation for years to come. —Glenn McDonald
THE CHELSEA, CHAPEL HILL’S LAST OLD-SCHOOL ART CINEMA, MIGHT CLOSE AT YEAR’S END Though the Chelsea Theater is a Chapel Hill institution, it has never made a big deal about itself. Tucked away in the Timberlyne strip mall, almost literally in the shadow of the Regal multiplex, the little-art-house-that-could has discreetly held its ground in a volatile cinema market for almost thirty years. So it’s no surprise that the Chelsea recently slipped a major announcement onto the “News and Notes” page of its ancient website, where no one would ever think to look. Unless a buyer comes through, the theater’s legacy looks likely
to end come 2018. The post, titled “The Chelsea’s Future,” states that the theater is in the final year of its current five-year lease. “With only a handful of months to go,” it says, “we must make some serious choices about the future of the Chelsea Theater.” Citing the advancing age of owner Bruce Stone, who formerly owned the historic Varsity on Franklin as well, the post says it “might be difficult” to commit to another lease but also raises the prospect of finding a buyer to carry on the “quality, personalized, intimate
movie-going experience that has been the hallmark of the Chelsea Theater.” This idea has a recent precedent in the Triangle: Durham’s Regulator Bookshop recently announced that it was purchased by two employees, Elliot Berger and Wander Lorentz de Haas, who will take over in March when founders Tom Campbell and John Valentine retire. Reached by the INDY, Stone declined to elaborate at this time. While the Chelsea has surely felt the pinch of new luxury cinemas such as Silverspot, which carry some of the same art-house fare but in a
plush, modern setting, something would be irrevocably lost were the Chelsea to close. It’s tiny and a tad dingy, with small screens and rickety chairs in bare-bones theaters, cheap wine and real buttered popcorn at the concession stand, and a great coffee shop next door. In other words, it’s everything an old school art house should be. We’re rooting for a buyer (paging Ambassador Cinemas). If the Regulator can do it, why not the Chelsea? —Brian Howe
INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 25
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24– SUNDAY, JANUARY 14
NORTH CAROLINA CHINESE LANTERN FESTIVAL
The soul-crushing depression that comes with the early onset of darkness after daylight saving time kicks in can find some relief in the wondrous colors of the annual North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival in Cary. For the duration of the holiday season, the grounds of Koka Booth Amphitheatre will be transformed into a magical realm of radiance, with huge lantern creatures contrasting pitch blackness with the warm comforts of dreamlike imagery and childhood imagination. As you wander about the grounds, you’ll see giant swans gliding across the water, amber-lit pagodas towering over your head, and other giant, smiling animals lighting your way down wooded paths. And there are acrobats, musicians, and other performers at the amphitheater itself. The festival is perfect for kids, or for the kid in you. —Zack Smith KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE, CARY 6–10 p.m. Tues.–Sun., $10–$15 www.boothamphitheatre.com
N.C. Chinese Lantern Festival
FILE PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22–SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10
DOT
Playwright Colman Domingo (Selma, Fear the Walking Dead) chose a tough subject for his 2016 comedy: the holiday family gathering where everyone knows next year is going to be different, because this one already is. The title character, the family matriarch, is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and her boomergeneration children are struggling—and failing, for the most part—to cope with that transition, on top of their own passages from young adulthood to middle age. How long can boomerang baby Averie crash in the bedroom downstairs as she clings to her dreams of YouTube stardom? Why did Donnie bring his white husband, Adam, along, when they’re clearly on the rocks? And how much longer can Shelly, a responsible daughter, take care of Dot and keep this West Philadelphia clan from flying apart? Nicole Watson directs a cast led by veteran actors Kathryn Hunter-Williams and Rasool Jahan. —Byron Woods PLAYMAKERS REPERTORY COMPANY, CHAPEL HILL Various times, $10–$57, www.playmakersrep.org
WHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO?
CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY AROUND THE TRIANGLE (P. 23), FRANK GALLERY POP-UP AT UNIVERSITY PLACE (P. 33), HEATHER GORDON AT CAM RALEIGH (P. 22), HOME ALONE IN CONCERT AT MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL (P. 36), THE LOVE LANGUAGE AT KINGS (P. 29), SCHOOL OF ROCK AT DPAC (P. 34) 26 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
11.22– 11.29
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25
ST. VINCENT
As far as artistic transformations go, it’s hard to name anyone whose growth has been as dramatic as that of St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. Since beginning with relatively straightforward indie rock a decade ago, Clark has transformed into one of the most intriguing and inscrutable artists of her generation, delivering raw confessions, artful instrumentation, and glamorous confidence all with grace. With MASSEDUCTION, released in October, Clark handily demonstrates some of those contrasts: “Los Ageless” is icy and almost industrial, while “New York” is strikingly intimate (“I have lost a hero, I have lost a friend/But for you, darling, I’d do it all again,” she sings). St. Vincent is a vast, mysterious, complicated machine—one that makes the music landscape far more interesting. —Allison Hussey DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, DURHAM 8 p.m., $39–$142, www.dpacnc.com
St. Vincent
PHOTO BY NEDDA ASFARI
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24
ROCK FOR INTERACT
Bargains abound on Black Friday, but there are few finer deals than this benefit, which directs door proceeds to support InterAct’s services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault while uniting three of the Triangle’s most intriguing heavy acts. “The time for raising awareness for organizations like InterAct—which helps those in crisis get the care they need immediately—is needed now more than ever,” explains Erik Sugg, the Demon Eye frontman and Lightning Born guitarist. Demon Eye headlines with hooky headbangers and hulking grooves that worship at the dark altar of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. Lightning Born features Sugg and members of Corrosion of Conformity and Mega Colossus, matching the mighty, bluesy wail of The Hell No’s Brenna Leath with doomy, stoned-out proto-metal muscle. Fusing hurried hardcore rhythms with raw seventies hard-rock riffage, furiously snotty Raleigh five-piece Mind Dweller has rightfully earned frequent comparisons to legendary punks Annihilation Time. —Spencer Griffith THE POUR HOUSE, RALEIGH 9 p.m., $7–$10, www.thepourhousemusichall.com
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24–SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9
LAKE PLACID
Ski jumping takes focus, fearlessness, and no small amount of are you insane? You’re going sixty miles per hour as you become airborne, rocketing into the wild blue beyond the edge of a narrow, icy chute. You’re testing your mastery of the forces of wind, gravity, and aerodynamics, experiencing wind chill up to fifty below before landing more than a tenth of a mile away. Little Green Pig has been doing the theatrical equivalent of this for years—flying, unassisted, off nearly every edge they can imagine or devise. Lake Placid is no exception; after months of training in long-form improvisation, director Jaybird O’Berski and a cast of nine, including Dana Marks, Germain Choffart, and Jessica Flemming, promise a completely different show each night. But it’s always based on the small-town inhabitants of the titled site in upstate New York and the international athletes who visited during the 1980 Winter Olympics. Louis Landry provides the tunes. Bonus: a “blue,” adults-only late-night showing on Dec. 2. —Byron Woods DURHAM FRUIT & PRODUCE COMPANY, DURHAM Various times, $8–$17, www.littlegreenpig.com
INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 27
POPUP BROADWAY
TH 11/30
RECYCLE THIS PAPER
(THE WIZARD OF OZ & RENT)
THE GIBSON BROTHERS NORTH COUNTRY CHRISTMAS
FR 12/1
TH 11/30
CUT COPY
WITH NEWBERRY & VERCH
11TH ANNUAL ELF MARKET LAUREL & HARDY
SA 12/2 SA 12/2
LIVE FILM RE-SCORING BY TIM CARLESS
DECISION HEIGHT
12/812/10
PRESENTED BY ONE SONG PRODUCTIONS
NO SHAME THEATRE - CARRBORO DAR WILLIAMS TRANSACTORS IMPROV 2ND ANNUAL HOLIDAY CIRCLE SHOW
SA 12/9 WE 12/13 FR 12/15 SA 12/16
SU 12/31
DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY JASON MARSALIS AND THE 21ST CENTURY TRAD BAND TRANSACTORS IMPROV: FOR FAMILIES! NO SHAME THEATRE - CARRBORO
FR 1/12 SA 1/13 SA 1/20
Find out More at
ArtsCenterLive.org
300-G East Main St., Carrboro, NC Find us on Social Media: @ArtsCenterLive
SA 12/2
POKEY LAFARGE 11/25 PHILSTOCK '17: BENEFIT CONCERT FEAT. MR POTATO HEAD, WYATT EASTERLING, DEX ROMWEBER, HONEY PUMPKINS, THE WOOS, UNIONTOWN, THE HIGH WINDS (FREE SHOW; DONATIONS ENCOURAGED) 11/30 CUT
COPY
W/PALMBOMEN II
12/2 POKEY
LAFARGE
W/ THE EASY LEAVES ($17/$20) 12/9 SOUTHERN
CULTURE ON THE SKIDS W/ IT'S SNAKES!, DEX ROMWEBER ($13/$15)
12/10 KRS-ONE ($26/$30) 12/15 HEARTBROKEN: A TOM PETTY TRIBUTE TO BENEFIT THE VICTIMS OF THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING* ($10) 12/17 HORTON’S HOLIDAY HAYRIDE STARRING REVEREND
HORTON HEAT, WITH THE BLASTERS, JUNIOR BROWN, BIG SANDY ($25/ $28)
1/12/18 YONDER
MOUNTAIN STRING BAND W/ THE
SOUTHERN BELLES (ON SALE 11/17) 1/15 THE
WOMBATS
W/ BLAENAVON, COURTSHIP ($22/$25)
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS ($25/$28)
1/18
WE 11/24
TH 11/16
1/22 AND 1/23/18
CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS:
POST THANKSGIVING THROWDOWN II feat. DEAR DESOLATE w/ The Second After WE 11/26 AIRPARK w/ Stray Owls CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS
BROADSIDE
W/ CAROUSEL KIND, FOR THE WIN, WE WERE SHARKS FR 11/30
SA 11/18
CAROLINA JAMS PRESENTS:
WEB THREATS, BROKEN CHAIR, STATE OF UNCERTAINTY, TAYLOR BETTS AND CHARLIE BROWN THE TWO YOUTHS / LIGHT BEAMS FR 12/1 w/ Manners Manners, Silent Piece
TWO SHOWS!
SAY ANYTHING
($22/$27; $40 FOR 2-NIGHT PASS) 1/26 ENTER
SHIKARI
W/MILK TEETH ($18/$20)
1/27/18 TENNIS W/ OVERCOATS 1/30/18 DESTROYER W/ MEGA BOG ($20/$23 2/1/18 TYPHOON ($18/$20) 2/10/18 WHY? ($16/$18) 2/11/18 NOAH GUNDERSEN ($15/$17) 2/17/18 THE
BLACK LILLIES
W/ SAM QUINN
2/20/18 PHILLIP PHILLIPS ($27.50/$30) 2/22/18 LIGHTS
W/CHASE ATLANTIC, DCF ($20/$23)
WIFISFUNERAL
THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF TOUR W/ DANNY TOWERS, 458KEEZ, CHRIS DINERO, DJ YAZMINE SA 12/2
FLOURESCENCE / GABRIEL DAVID w/ Case Sensitive
COMING SOON: ‘68, MICHAEL VM, SHELLES, PRAWN
www.LOCAL506.com 28 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
2/24/18 ANDREA
GIBSON
W/CHASTITY BROWN ($18/$21) 3/1/18 QUINN
XCII
W/ CHELSEA CUTLER ($18/$20) 3/2/18 JOYWAVE ($15/$17) 3/6/18 WALLOWS ($15) 3/7/18 LP ($22/$25) 3/13/18 J
BOOG
W/JESSE ROYAL, ETANA ($20)
SU 11/25 @DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
ST.VINCENT TH 11/30 & FR 12/1 @HAW RIVER BALLROOM
HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER
DIALI CISSOKHO & KAIRA BA ($10/$12)
3/16/18
3/27/18 CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS:
OUR LAST NIGHT DIRKSCHNEIDER 4/27/18 SUPERCHUNK ($16/$18) 5/8/18 BAHAMAS ($16/$18) 5/25/18 PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT ($28/$31)
4/2/18 UDO
TH 11/30 @MOTORCO
THE DISTRICTS 2/7/18 WILLIE
WATSON ($18/$20) JANE STRUTHERS ($12/ $14) 2/16/18 NORA
2/17/18 HANK,
PATTIE AND THE CURRENT ($7/$10) 2/20/18 MAGIC GIANT W/ THE BREVET ($12/ $14) 3/13/18 JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD ($15)
3/26/18 S
CAREY W/ GORDI
4/6/18 GRIFFIN CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM 11/24 THE GRAND SHELL GAME W/ EMILY MUSOLINO TRIO, KERISHA ROI ($8/$10) 11/25 PHILSTOCK '17 BENEFIT CONCERT 11/30 THE WEATHER STATION W/ JAMES ELKINGTON 12/1 ALLAN
RAYMAN($18/$20)
12/3 CHRISTMAS AT THE CRADLE TABLE BENEFIT FEAT.
DELTA SON, LEE ANDERSON (FROM LOOK HOMEWARD) AND DUSTIN AHKUOI ($10) 12/5 DAVID RAMIREZ: WE’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE W/ MOLLY PARDEN ($15/$17) 12/9 COLESLAW W/ RAGWEED BRASS ($7) 12/15 AND 12/16
TWO SHOWS!
LYDIA LOVELESS (SOLO)
W/ CASEYMAGIC, TODD MAY ($15) 12/26 THE
MERCH HOLIDAY DANCE PARTY
1/4/18 MELODIME W/ THE BREVET ($12/$14) 1/10/18 BEN
GERBER (COMEDY) STRAY BIRDS
1/13/18 THE
1/17/18 YUNG
GRAVY
1/20/18 CHARLIE
MARS
1/31/18 THE
DANGEROUS SUMMER ($15)
2/2/18 BAT FANGS RECORD RELEASE PARTY ($10)
HOUSE
4/23/18 DURAND
JONES & THE INDICATIONS ($13/$15) CAROLINA THEATRE (DUR) 12/6 THE MOUNTAIN GOATS W/ JENNY BESETZT 3/24/18 LUCIUS ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) AN EVENING WITH
LLOYD COLE ($20) 3/3/18 AN EVENING WITH
COWBOY JUNKIES 4/20/18 GREG BROWN ($28/ $30) MOTORCO (DUR) 11/30 THE DISTRICTS W/ SUN SEEKER ($15/$17) DPAC (DUR) 11/25 ST. VINCENT THE RITZ (RAL) 2/17/18 SNARKY PUPPY W/ SIRINTIP HAW RIVER BALLROOM 11/30 AND 12/1
TWO SHOWS!
HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER 12/16 CHATHAM
LINE
COUNTY
ELECTRIC HOLIDAY TOUR 2/1/18 THE
DEVIL MAKES THREE
3/23/18 GODSPEED
YOU! BLACK EMPEROR ($27/$30)
NORTH CHARLESTON PAC (CHARLESTON, SC) 2/25/18 STEVE MARTIN & MARTIN SHORT W/ THE STEEP
CANYON RANGERS AND JEFF BABKO
CATSCRADLE.COM ★ 919.967.9053 ★ 300 E. MAIN STREET ★ CARRBORO
**Asterisks denote advance tickets @ schoolkids records in raleigh & chapel hill order tix online at ticketfly.com ★ we serve carolina brewery beer on tap! ★ we are a non-smoking club
music 11.22– 11.29
FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR
WWW.INDYWEEK.COM
CONTRIBUTORS: Elizabeth Bracy (EB), Timothy Bracy (TB), Grant Britt (GB), Allison Hussey (AH), David Klein (DK), Charles Morse (CM), Noah Rawlings (NR), David Ford Smith (DS), Patrick Wall (PW)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25
THE LOVE LANGUAGE
WED, NOV 22 2ND WIND: Yeaux Katz; 7-9 p.m., free. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Blue Wednesday; 8 p.m. • THE CAVE: Crowmeat Bob Residency; 9 p.m., $5. • HUMBLE PIE: Sidecar Social Club; 8:30 p.m., free. • IRREGARDLESS: Mysti Mayhem; 6:30 p.m. • MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: Polar Express; 3 p.m. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: TV Man and the TV Band; 10:30 p.m., $5. • POUR HOUSE: Smell the Glove’s 9th Annual Thanksgiving Soiree; 8 p.m. • RALEIGH CITY MARKET: Music on Market; 5-6:30 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: GREENBEANSPOTATOES with DJ Luxeposh; 10 p.m. • THE OAK: Live Music Wednesdays; 6:30 p.m.
THU, NOV 23 2ND WIND: 2 fer; 7:30-9 p.m. • IRREGARDLESS: Cole Koffi; 3:45 p.m.
FRI, NOV 24 Beat Harvest SWEATER Durham’s WEATHER streetwear brand
Runaway has become the label to be seen wearing in the hip-hop and beatmaking scenes of the Triangle. The brand’s seasonal line-release shows have come to resemble mini festivals, with lineups that look more like a night at Hopscotch than the average weekend show. This iteration brings local beat titans Made of Oak (Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso), Oak City Slums, Queen Plz, and Hubble to the stage. —CM [MOTORCO, $8–$10, 8:30 P.M.]
Biz Markie: 80s vs. 90s DECADE Are you more of a DUEL Paula Abdul and L.A. Gears kind of partygoer, or a Filas and Mase rager? Well, if you want to burn off a couple slices of pie from Thanksgiving by dancing your heart out to prove which era is better, then get your slap bracelets on and spend Black Friday night with Biz Markie as the legendary beatboxer, d.j., and emcee spins through
“I talked to Nathan Toben [of Toddlers and Weller] about how he tries to focus on what the song needs rather than thinking about everything being cohesive in the end,” McLamb says. That approach has resonated with him, he adds. “It’s hard for me to think about this album as a specific style, but it’s been cool for like one song to have an eighties goth influence and another to be like Randy Newman.” Working this month with Kris Hillbert of Legitimate Business, who McLamb met while recording his doom metal project, Soon A.D., McLamb has polished up around a dozen demos with additional help from his pal Iggy Cosky, rearranging and replacing parts from his rough Logic recordings as needed rather than building the tracks from scratch. It’s a “Frankenstein” approach, he says. “Stu not being confined to a specific flavor of ‘indie rock’ [on this album] but being a songwriter and letting the song guide him into what it needs,” Hilbert explains. “That can make people nervous, but in this case, I think it’s awesome.” With the same lineup—keyboardist Autumn Ehinger, bassist Eddie Sanchez, and drummer Tom Simpson—don’t expect too many differences when The Love Language resurfaces; McLamb imagines only previewing a few new tracks for this first show back. Moon Racer and Real Dad open. —Spencer Griffith
PHOTO BY JASON ARTHURS
A few years ago, The Love Language—a vehicle for the soulful, mostly retro pop songwriting of Cary native Stuart McLamb—was one of the brightest stars of the Triangle’s music scene, having released a pair of LPs on Merge Records before headlining big local shindigs like First Night Raleigh in 2014 and the North Carolina State Fair in 2015. Though the band returned to the bright lights earlier this month—performing a couple of songs at PNC Arena for the Carolina Hurricanes’ Homegrown Series—this show marks its first local set since last October, shortly after McLamb made a move to Los Angeles. “It’s like a painter who’s right up in his painting the whole time, but his work’s not gonna turn out good unless he takes a step back and looks at it,” McLamb analogizes. “I’d lived [in the Triangle] basically my whole life and it can be a healthy thing for people just to get out and have a change of scenery.” Before living in L.A., McLamb briefly stayed with his brother and former bandmate in Roanoke, Virginia, toiling away on demos for a new album at home studios in both sites. McLamb has spent much of this month turning those demos into The Love Language’s as yet untitled fourth album, their first since 2013’s ambitious, lushly layered Ruby Red. Just as Ruby Red ventured into more adventurous territory that encompassed scraps of krautrock within its wall of sound, McLamb suggests the forthcoming LP—planned for summer 2018 on Merge—is “all over the place” in terms of genre.
KINGS, RALEIGH | 9 p.m., $10–$12, www.kingsraleigh.com
a set that pits the eighties against the nineties. —CM [THE RITZ, $8–$15/7:30 P.M.]
Capital City Reggae Fest The nephew of CHILL OUT reggae legend Peter Tosh, Edge Michael, headlines the Capital City Reggae Fest alongside Cayenne the Lion King, who appears with the band Crucial Fiya as his backing instrumentalists. Edge Michael’s music continues the legacy of his uncle’s work with traditional reggae songwriting based on positivity and the tenets of Rastafari. His 2016 album, Legalize It, was a remake of his uncle’s debut album of the same name. —CM [LINCOLN THEATRE, $15/8:30 P.M.]
Dear Desolate GROWLS Nu-metal music is & GUITAR seldom associated with associated with subtlety, and Raleigh’s Dear Desolate
openly embraces the extravagances of the genre. Thick drum samples smack alongside guitars processed to sound more like sci-fi weapons than six-stringed instruments, as lines like “This is our false hope!” are delivered in the form of an existential growl-scream. With Headfirst for Halos, Eyes Eat Suns, Fear The United, and Refuse the Conformity. —NR [LOCAL 506, $10–$40/6:30 P.M.]
Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba A beguiling LOCAL, GLOBAL collaboration between the Senegalese musician Diali Cissokho and the handful of Triangle locals who comprise Kaira Ba, this five-piece has landed on an approach to traditional West African music that’s both reverential and forward-looking. With African kora and electric guitar playing equally prominent roles alongside a wide range of continent-hop-
ping percussion textures, the invaluable community asset creates danceable music in the tradition of everything from Youssou N’Dour to Peter Tosh. Violet Bell opens. —EB [KINGS, $12–$15/8 P.M.]
Sherman Lee Dillon and the Dillionaires FAMILY For fans of family FUN harmony, Sherman Lee and the Dillonaires—with dad Sherman Lee on banjo, son Andrew John on fiddle, and daughter Anna Lee on guitar—blend their voices on old-time and bluegrass standards including a take on “Ashes of Love” done folkier than Jim and Jesse’s 1976 bluegrass version. —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, FREE/9 P.M.]
Dr. Mudd and the Alamo ELECTRIC This feral Raleigh MUD trio makes good on its claim of playing the
“sloppiest of slop rock” with an explosively heavy sound and room-shaking vocals. Still, something in song titles like “Get Off My Property Lady in a KIA” hint at some kind of sociological underpinnings to the maelstrom of sound. With Five Mile Radius, NewFaze, and Echonest. —DK [DEEP SOUTH, $5/8 P.M.]
The Grand Shell Game PROG & The Grand Shell MORE Game’s complicated mélange of manic energy, prog precision, and near-spoken-word lyrical headiness doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense on paper, but on tracks like the dusty, art-damaged march of “Oracle” or the peripatetic hysteria of “Man on a Wire,” the influences cohere into something legible and even catchy. Whether in the mode of Primus or They Might Be Giants, here’s hoping the band gets the weird career it deserves. INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 29
Emily Musolino Trio and Kerisha Roy open. —TB [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $8–$10/8:30 P.M.]
Hardworker Durham’s ROOTS RACKET Hardworker evolved from an acousticfolk duo into a hard-edged roots band unafraid to make a racket. Reminiscent in its current composition of everything from mid-period Jefferson Airplane to the blue-eyed soul of Fiona Apple, songs like the breathless workout “Kansas City” and the refreshing “Woman’s Weapon” are high-energy exemplars that ratify the band’s name. Everyone in the group impresses, but guitarist-vocalist Sus Long is the MVP. Bang! Bang! and Jacob Thomas Jr. open. —EB [SLIM’S, $5/9 P.M.]
The Motown Experience: A Motown Christmas HOLIDAY Boasting former SOUL members of The Miracles, The Temptations, The Contours, and The Capitals, and backed by a six-piece band, this quartet covers the Motown catalog with hits including the Four Tops’ “I Can’t Help Myself,” The Temptations’ “My Girl,” and The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” so well they sound like the originals. Don’t look for any carols for this Christmas celebration—the presents here are strictly Motown soul. —GB [CAROLINA THEATRE, $45–$55/8 P.M.]
The Soul Psychedelique DANCE ROCK
A throwback revue featuring
the full complement of horns, background singers and a crowd-pleasing repertoire that runs the gamut from R&B to rock to Latin jams, Soul Psychedelique is a welcome throwback to the sort of maximalist, everybody-is-a star traveling spectacles that Motown once specialized in. —EB [THE MAYWOOD, $10/9 P.M.] ALSO ON FRIDAY 618 BISTRO: Randy Reed; 7-9:30 p.m. • BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Calvin Edwards; 7 & 9 p.m., $10. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Duke Street Dogs; 6-8 p.m., free. • THE CAVE: Loi Loi, Electric Grandmother, Spookstina, 80 lb Test; 9 p.m., $5. • IRREGARDLESS: Elmer Gibson; 6:30 p.m. • LOCAL 506: Post Thanksgiving Throwdown; 6:30 p.m., $12–$30. • MYSTERY BREWING PUBLIC HOUSE: River Otters, The Lady Comes First; 8 p.m., free. • POUR HOUSE: Rock for InterAct: Demon Eye, Lightning Born, and Mind Dweller; 8 p.m.-midnite, $10. See page 27. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ LuxePosh; 10 p.m.
SAT, NOV 25 Cloak BIGGER, On To Venomous BLACKER Depths, Atlanta metal quartet Cloak grafts hard rock and d-beat elements onto bleak and brutal black metal without nullifying its gothic and atmospheric vibes. It’s an old trope, but Cloak executes it seamlessly. With Etiolated and Witchtit. —PW [SLIM’S, $5/9 P.M.]
Danglebash 41 DANGLY If there’s one BITS thing we’re all ready for two days after stuffing ourselves with turkey, green bean casserole, and, uh, stuffing, it’s punk and its variegated subspecies. This Maywood bash runs the gamut of styles: Wilson’s Safe Word plays crossover thrash;
Chapel Hill’s Sibannäc plays thrashy, metal-tinged ska; trans-Virginians Genosha play experimental, grindy hardcore; Richmond’s The Donalds play crossover hardcore; Raw Dog is a one-man comedy-punk band. —PW [THE MAYWOOD, $10/8:30 P.M.]
Sam Frazier Band, Luxuriant Sedans DOUBLE Sam Frazier’s DOWN muse is Van Morrison, whose spirit he’ll electrify through originals from his two solo CDs. Winston-Salem’s The Luxuriant Sedans rework obscure rock and blues classics with the power and fervor of motorheads tinkering with a souped-up street rod, ably demonstrated on their two latest powerhouse releases, Born Certifed and Double Parked. —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, $8/8 P.M.]
Dee Lucas SMOOTH Veteran AtlantaJAZZ based soprano sax stalwart Dee Lucas’s beguiling hybrid-jazz is one part the electro-funk of On the Corner-era Miles Davis, one part the neo-soul of Herbie Hancock’s seventies albums, and one part throwback to Lester Young’s clean and fluid tone. Whether rendering the Gershwin chestnut “Summertime” with a hard-driven bass groove or taking tacks like “Nothing But the Sax” and “Keep Knocking” on epic expeditions, Lucas emits the casual cool of longtime master. —EB [BEYÙ CAFFÈ, $9/8 & 10 P.M.]
Nantucket Music lifers who ROCK LIFERS started out as a Jacksonville jam outfit and eventually evolved into one of the Carolinas’ most beloved
Love the indy?
e Support th businesses rt who suppo us...
S hop ! l a c o l 30 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
2009 - 2017 WINNER! Best Erotic Gifs
cover bands, Nantucket is a master class in surviving in an industry that devours anything less than the strongest of survivors. Throughout constant lineup changes and debilitating personal issues, these AC/ DC loving, occasional soft-touch rockers have seen several thousand faces and rocked them all. Shoot To Thrill, an AC/DC cover band, opens. —TB [LINCOLN THEATRE, $15–$25/8 P.M.]
well be one, but that’s not the case for Unknown Hinson. Sure, he looks like the vampire brother of one of Lincoln’s assassins, and sure, songs like “Your Husband Is Gay” stand in the way of major crossover potential, but he’s funny and can play like Jimi Hendrix. With the Living Deads and Eddie Taylor. —DK [POUR HOUSE, $20–$25/8 P.M.]
Philstock ‘17
TWANG Russ Varnell & IT UP His Too Country Band holds hard and fast to classic country standards, performing tunes written by and originals inspired by the likes of Buck Owens, George Jones, Porter Wagoner, and Merle Haggard. In the opening slot, Wilmington quartet The Dew Drops deals in honky-tonk, rockabilly, and Western swing. —SG [DEEP SOUTH, $8/8:30 P.M.]
The Phil referred PHIL GOOD to in the title of this miniature festival is Phillip Bair, a Wilmington resident who was recently diagnosed with ALS. Bair has some famous pals, too: Slated to perform are Wyatt Easterling, a producer, record executive, songwriter, singer, and session musician (he wrote Dierks Bentley’s “Modern Day Drifter”); and Dex Romweber, the one-time Flat Duo Jet who’s carved out a niche as a roots and rockabilly cult favorite. Donations are encouraged in lieu of a cover charge, and there’s a silent auction, too. —PW [CAT’S CRADLE, DONATIONS/6 P.M.]
Ragweed Brass Time seems to GOOD OLD TIME have stopped in the early part of the twentieth century for this six-piece brass band, but what a good time to stop. Delving into the epoch when jazz was still in its Dixieland infancy and songs like “Somebody Stole My Gal” were on the lips of populace, Ragweed Brass aims to connect with listeners in the most direct, primal way: via the tapping of toes, clapping, dancing, and singing along. —DK [THE STATION, $6/8 P.M.]
Unknown Hinson GET YR When a singer FREAK ON feels compelled to point out that he’s not a novelty act, he might very
Russ Varnell & His Too Country Band
Young Bull With August’s LAID BACK Sopadelic, Durham’s Young Bull delivered a fine debut LP. The group folds together hip-hop, jazz, and soul for a clutch of easygoing, inviting tunes. And yet, for all of its smooth edges, Sopadelic is remarkably sharp. With Alan Fame and Durty Dub, which opens with a tribute to Charley Pride. —AH [THE PINHOOK, $8–$10/9 P.M.] ALSO ON SATURDAY DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER: St. Vincent; 8 p.m., $35+. See page 27. • IRREGARDLESS: Gary Brunotte Duo with Beverly Botsford; 6-9 p.m. Ti Harmon Group; 9 p.m. • KINGS: The Love Language, Moonracer, Real Dad; 9 p.m., $10–$12. See box, page 29. • MYSTERY BREWING PUBLIC HOUSE: Infielder; 8 p.m., free. • NASH STREET TAVERN: Dmitri Resnik & Bootleg Beat; 8 p.m. • PEAK OF THE VINE: The Carolina Sound Committee; 8:30 p.m. • QUAIL RIDGE BOOKS: Raleigh Boychoir 50th Anniversary
WE 11/22 TH 11/23 FR 11/24
SA 11/25 SU 11/26 TU 11/28
BLUE WED: STERN & COTTON CLOSED FOR THANKSGIVING DUKE STREET DOGS FFAF: SHERMAN LEE DILLON & THE DILLONAIRES SAM FRAZIER BAND / LUXURIANT SEDANS MYSTI MAYHEM TRIO TUESDAY BLUES JAM
8PM 6-8PM 9PM 8PM $8
5-7PM 7:30PM
PHOTO BY JIMMY FONTAINE
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28
DREAM THEATER Some say less is more, but Dream Theater, the long-running group of ultratechnical prog-metal wizards, doesn’t go much for minimalism. Quite the opposite: The band’s flashy instrumentalists have spent their lives acquiring weapons-grade chops, and they tend to show them off during extensive minute symphonic metal suites full of mind-melting time-signature and tempo changes, speedy but melodic instrumental breaks, and anvil-heavy guitar riffs. The individual members of Dream Theater are living legends in prog and metal circles. John Petrucci is generally recognized as one of the fastest-shredding guitarists of all time, separating himself from the pack of self-indulgent speedmetal dudes with expressive, soulful playing. Similar props go to virtuoso keyboardist Jordan Rudess, bassist John Myung, and former longtime drummer and co-founder Mike Portnoy, who left the band back in 2010 and has been off playing with Avenged Sevenfold and his newly formed all-star prog group, Sons of Apollo. (Portnoy’s replacement, former Berklee College of Music faculty Mike Mangini, is a metal monster in his own right.) But not everything Dream Theater plays is fast and heavy. The band has dabbled in power ballads (see “Misunderstood,” a ten-minute track featured on the band’s 2002 album, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence) and has its contemplative moments, too. For instance, on “A Change of Seasons” off the band’s 1995 EP, frontman James LaBrie sings: “Seize the day/I heard him say/Life will not always be this way/Look around/hear the sounds/cherish your life while you’re still around.” Make no mistake, though: Dream Theater gets crazily heavy. Check out 1992’s “Pull Me Under,” which remains the band’s most recognizable song, which features end-of-all-things metal guitar and Petrucci coaxing nasty harmonic squeals out of his six-string. Unlike the vast majority of metal bands, Dream Theater has broken the bounds of niche appeal that so often apply to massive Rush dorks (the band once cut the riff from “Tom Sawyer” and pasted it into one of its own songs), selling more than eight million records worldwide. At this point, Dream Theater is right up there with Rush as prog rock demigods. —Howard Hardee MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM, RALEIGH 8 P.M., $39–$65, www.dukeenergycenterraleigh.com
Present this coupon for
Member Admission Price (Not Valid for Special Events, expires 01-18)
919-6-TEASER for directions and information
www.teasersmensclub.com 156 Ramseur St. Durham, NC
An Adult Nightclub Open 7 Days/week • Hours 7pm - 2am
TeasersMensClub
@TeasersDurham
INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 31
Sharing of Song; 10 a.m.. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ Bitchcraft; 10 p.m. • THE STATION: Jazz Saturdays; 2 p.m., free.
Escapism with DJ Stone Zone; 10 p.m. • WEST END WINE BARDURHAM: Eric Meyer, Noah Sager & Friends; 4-6 p.m., free.
SUN, NOV 26
MON, NOV 27
Loi Loi, The Electric Grandmother
Westerlund, Wallace, and Toll
TIME FOR The bit-crushed SYNTHS synths that open Loi Loi’s songs tease the potential of pleasant, mellow pop music. Yet when Madonnaesque vocals enter, the effect is jarring, as the dramatic inflection works against the understated instrumentals. Opener The Electric Grandmother also favors distorted synthesizers, but eschews melodramatic vocals in favor of goofy-yet-catchy crooning about dystopian TV shows and dysfunctional relationships. With Diaspoura. —NR [NEPTUNES PARLOUR, $5/9 P.M.]
FRIEND To try to count the PARTY number of bands—both long-term and one-off—that Joe Westerlund, James Wallace, and Casey Toll have been in would be a truly Herculean effort. They’ve played with the likes of Mount Moriah, Hiss Golden Messenger, Megafaun, Mandolin Orange, and, well, dozens more. At the Pinhook, the trio promises a “celebratory evening” of jazz, blues, and roots music, and they’re guaranteed to follow through on that promise in two sets. It’ll be big fun, regardless of what songs the three pull out of their collective bag of tricks. —AH [THE PINHOOK, $6/8:30 & 9:30 P.M.]
Chase Payne Talented but trite NEW COUNTRY Virginia Beach singer-songwriter Chase Payne comes on like a budding New Country star, and on tracks like the horndog-romantic “Taillights,” it seems like he just might get there. Alternatively, he could channel that talent into Dwight Yoakam territory and become something even better. —TB [POUR HOUSE, $5–$10/8 P.M.]
The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Your week. Every Wednesday. ARTS•NEWS•FOOD•MUSIC INDYWEEK.COM 32 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
Craving a little STILL SWINGIN’ rockabilly swing to get your holidays in motion? Have no fear: Brian Setzer, once of The Stray Cats, stops in Durham with a big-band, hard-swinging extravaganza to celebrate the season. Setzer is a swingrevival, rockabilly lifer, so expect the same speedy licks and big pompadour as he’s always had. The Church Sisters open. —AH [DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, $45–$150/7:30 P.M.] ALSO ON SUNDAY DEEP SOUTH: Live & Loud Weekly; 9 p.m., $3. • IRREGARDLESS: Matt Walsh; 6 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: Tropical
ALSO ON MONDAY EAST CHAPEL HILL HIGH SCHOOL: The Village Band of Chapel Hill and Carrboro: Autumn Community Concert; 7:30-8:30 p.m., free. • IMBIBE: Grewen and Griffin; 7-10 p.m., free. • MOTORCO: Flash Chorus; 7 p.m., $7–$10. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ Lord Redbyrd; 10 p.m.
TUE, NOV 28 These Weak Lips STUDENT Formed by three BLEND jazz students at UNC, These Weak Lips looks like a rock power trio and trade in a distinctly un-jazzy hybrid that draws on prog, punk, and hip-hop. Big Strong Arms similarly sprawls across genres, in a looselimbed, Zappa-informed direction, and Secretary Pool revels in the guitar glory of the Weezer and Guided By Voices ilk. —DK [POUR HOUSE, $5/9 P.M.] ALSO ON TUESDAY IRREGARDLESS: Douglas Babcock; 6:30 p.m. • MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: Dream Theater; 8 p.m., $39–$65. See box, page 31. • RUBY DELUXE: Experimental Tuesday: TDK Boiy; 11 p.m.
WED, NOV 29 John Doyle In addition to IRISH TITAN dressing up as woman to play with the Telluride Boom Chicks, a female jam band that at one time featured Mary Chapin Carpenter, Sally Van Meter, Emmylou Harris, and Alison Krauss, cofounding pioneering Irish band Solas, and touring with Joan Baez, singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Doyle has had a hand and/or a voice in shaping the careers of dozens of Irish recording artists. His solo guitar work is still as magnificent as a full Irish orchestra. —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, $15–$20/7:30 P.M.]
Honey Magpie Carrboro roots act INDIE FOLK Honey Magpie specializes in a lovely, carefully manicured sound that recalls the stately beauty of Kate and Anna McGarrigle, both in the lilting harmonies of Rachel Hurwitz and Kati Moore and the tasteful, affecting arrangements featuring cello and violin. While there’s is an inviting energy to the clean vocals and major-key reveries like “Coming Home” and “Ugly Duckling,” something far more subversive lingers barely beneath every surface. Searra Jade and Simone Finally open. —EB [THE PINHOOK, $7/8 P.M.]
Branan Murphy RALEIGH Ascendant POP Raleigh multithreat writer, rapper, and producer Branan Murphy was recently promoted to the majors by dint of a new deal with Sony. He possesses the obsessive drive and knack for hooks that typically accompany a rise to stardom in that setting. Kid Politics opens. —TB [POUR HOUSE, $8–$10/9 P.M.] ALSO ON WEDNESDAY 2ND WIND: Yeaux Katz; 7-9 p.m., free. • THE CAVE: Crowmeat Bob Residency; 9 p.m., $5. • IRREGARDLESS: Mebanesville; 6:30 p.m. • RALEIGH CITY MARKET: Music on Market; 5-6:30 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: BPM Deluxe: 128 Curated by Calapse; 10 p.m. • THE OAK: Live Music Wednesdays; 6:30 p.m.
art
11.22 – 11.29
FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR WWW.INDYWEEK.COM
submit! Got something for our calendar? EITHER email calendar@indyweek.com
(include the date, time, street address, contact info, cost, and a short description) OR enter it yourself at posting.indyweek.com/indyweek/Events/AddEvent. DEADLINE: Wednesday 5 p.m. for the following Wednesday’s issue. Thanks!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24–SUNDAY, DECEMBER 24
FRANK GALLERY POP-UP SHOW As many people travel home for the holidays, the member artists of Chapel Hill’s FRANK Gallery are heading the other way. After seven years on Franklin Street, the regional artists’ nonprofit is filling the void for a gallery—after Tyndall Galleries’ departure to cyberspace—to the ever less mall-like University Place (anyone else kind of miss Roses and Kerr Drugs?), where it has a grand reopening on February 9. While FRANK will remain open in its current location until December 22, it also begins a monthlong preview of its new digs this Friday. “We are excited about the broader accessibility and the larger space for outreach exhibits and programs,” gallery manager Gordon Jameson said in a press release on his way out the door. As of November 28, Jameson will be replaced by Natalie Knox, who, with a minor in art history and “extensive experience in retail management and merchandizing,” seems well chosen to lead FRANK out of the food court that formerly funky Franklin Street has become and into the lifestyle-commerce arena of Silverspot, Kidzu Children’s Museum, and Planet Fitness. —Brian Howe
UNIVERSITY PLACE, CHAPEL HILL
10 a.m.–6 p.m. Tues.-Sat./1–6 p.m. Sun., free www.frankisart.com
These works by Sasha Bakaric are among those in FRANK Gallery’s pop-up show. PHOTO BY JASON DOWDLE
OPENING SPECIAL (as) Thick As EVENT Thieves: Scanner photography by Jeainny Kim. Nov 29-Dec 9. Reception: Wed, Nov 29, 5-8 p.m. Power Plant Gallery, Durham. www. powerplantgallery.com. Holiday Member Shows: Twenty-three artists. Fri, Nov 24, 6-9 p.m. Cary Gallery of Artists, Cary. carygalleryofartists.org. Peacemaker: John Kayrouz. Nov 29-Dec 10. The Carrack Modern Art, Durham. thecarrack.org.
ONGOING
A Field, A World: Charlotte native John Beerman spent three decades living and painting in the Hudson Valley. Six years ago, he returned to his native North Carolina, bringing with him a delicate way of dealing with light.
Beerman’s paintings, while indebted to the light-obsessed Hudson Valley painters of the nineteenth century, are less grandiose visions. His eye directs itself toward nature and landscapes, but he often frames only fragments of them, fixating upon uncommon angles of perception. Segments of tree trunks are foregrounded, the earth in which they are rooted and their leaves overhead unseen,. This photograph-like framing, along with a gentle way of abstracting away shadow, lends his work stillness and softness. Thru Jan 20. Craven Allen Gallery, Durham. www. cravenallengallery.com. —Noah Rawlings And Then the Sun Swallowed Me: Black tape and video site installation by Heather Gordon. Thru Feb 4. CAM
Raleigh, Raleigh. camraleigh.org. See story, p. 22. LAST Black on Black V2: CHANCE Performances and art. Thru Nov 25. VAE Raleigh, Raleigh. visualartexchange.org. The Boomer List: Photography by Timothy GreenfieldSanders. Thru Dec 31. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www.ncmuseumofhistory.org. Concept to Gallery: Six photographers. Thru Nov 30. FRANK Gallery, Chapel Hill. www.frankisart.com. Court and Capital: Art from Asia’s Greatest Cities: Thru Dec 10. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org. The Disaster Paintings: Donald Sultan. Thru Dec 31. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org. Don’t Quit: The Nello Teer Sr. Story: History of the Teer
family in Durham. Thru Dec 15. Durham History Hub. www. museumofdurhamhistory.org. Drawn Together: Mixed media drawings and ceramics by Kiki Farish, Jean LeCluyse, Aggie Zed. Thru Dec 22. FRANK Gallery, Chapel Hill. www.frankisart.com. Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Space: Photography by Natalie Ammarell. Thru Nov 30. Chatham Hill Winery, Cary. www.chathamhillwine.com. Envision Saint Agnes Hospital: Community and student artists. Thru Jan 5. Miriam Preston Block Gallery, Raleigh. www. raleighnc.gov/arts. The Fence: Durham is one of seven cities across the nation— the smallest, compared with the likes of Brooklyn, Boston, and Houston—to host this touring, public photography exhibit, curated from submissions from around the
world and based on themes such as “home,” “nature,” and “food.” While Lori Vrba is the only local artist among the fifty included in the touring exhibit, nine area photographers, including Bryce Lankard, Leah Sobsey, Gesche Würfel, and Warren Hicks, are featured in a regional showcase. The exhibit wraps the block around the Chapel Hill Street parking garage in a temporary fence and banner of photos. Thru Nov 30. Chapel Hill Street, Durham. —Brian Howe Flash of Light, Fog of War: Japanese military prints 18941905. Thru Jan 7. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www. ackland.org. Footnotes (revisions): Mixed media from various artists. Thru Dec 5. UNC Campus: Hanes Art Center, Chapel Hill. art.unc.edu. Freeze!: Installation by Mary Carter Taub. Thru Jan 5. Miriam Preston Block Gallery, Raleigh. www.raleighnc.gov/arts. LAST Guardians of the CHANCE Forest: Photography by Susan Jones. Thru Nov 25. Tipping Paint Gallery, Raleigh. www.tippingpaintgallery.com. Holiday Salon & Craft Exhibition: Pottery, glass, jewelry, photography, painting, fibers, books, and printmaking by twenty-five artists. Thru Dec 30. Horse & Buggy Press and Friends, Durham.. horseandbuggypress.com. LAST Homebound: Brenda CHANCE Brokke, Leatha Koefler, Amy Friend. Thru Nov 25. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org. Image of Ukraine: Exploring Ukrainian Culture through Embroidery and Painting: Olena Zintchouk. Thru Dec 8. UNC Campus: FedEx Global Education Center, Chapel Hill. www.global.unc.edu. LAST It’s Our Voice: CHANCE Photographs of Girls Rock NC: Kelley Bennett. Thru Nov 26. The Carrack Modern Art, Durham. thecarrack.org. A Kiss of the Earth: Apt for a work about a season of fecundity, the epochal modernist ballet The Rite of Spring just
keeps on giving, more than a century after its legendary premiere. It’s the inspiration for this experiment by UNCChapel Hill associate art professor Sabine Gruffat, whose interactive threechannel video projection remixes the story of a pagan tribe’s maiden sacrifice with stochastic elements: real-time weather data from Paris affects the weather in the animation, and viewers can text to a number on the wall to further alter the proceedings. Thru Jan 28. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www. ncartmuseum.org. —Brian Howe LAST Landscapes and CHANCE Seascapes: Photography. Thru Nov 25. 311 Gallery, Raleigh. Louis C. Tiffany: Art and Innovation from the Wester Collection: Stained glass windows, vases, lamps. Thru Mar 4. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org. Low Country Life: Paintings by Irene Tison. Thru Jan 4. Mike’s Art Truck, Hillsborough. Majestic Incognito: Paintings by Yuko Nogami Taylor. Thru Nov 30. Pleiades Gallery, Durham. www. PleiadesArtDurham.com. More than One Story | Mas de una historia: Photography. Thru Feb 1. UNC Campus: Davis Library, Chapel Hill. www.lib.unc.edu/davis. LAST Nature’s CHANCE Enchantment: Rita Baldwin. Thru Nov 26. NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh. naturalsciences.org. LAST Nevertheless She CHANCE Persisted: Mixed media by Elissa Farrow Savos. Thru Nov 28. Gallery C, Raleigh. www.galleryc.net. Night, Day, Night: Deconstruction and reconstruction by Jeff Bell. Thru Dec 2. Lump, Raleigh. www.www.lumpprojects.org. LAST Reflections Within CHANCE the Transitioning Grid: Laser-cut photography by Merrill Shatzman and INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 33
libi rose. Thru Nov 22. Power Plant Gallery, Durham. LAST Overtones/ CHANCE Undercurrents: Paintings by Donald Martiny. Thru Nov 26. Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill. www. chapelhillpreservation.com. Penelope’s Room: Fiber art installation. Thru Dec 2. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham. www.21cmuseumhotels.com/ durham. The Shape of Fashion: Dress trends from 1800s to 1900s. Thru May 6. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org. Shifting Tides: Bringing the NC Coastal Life to Durham: Tony Alderman. Thru Nov 30. Bull City Art & Frame Co, Durham. bullcityartandframecompany. com. David Shingler & Jimmy Craig Womble: You don’t have to go to the countryside or the museum to look at landscapes—you live in one, even if it doesn’t match the bucolic associations of the term. Oil painters David Shingler and Jimmy Craig Womble remind us that there
stage
is more to landscapes than rolling meadows and hazy mountains. On your way to the gallery, you might pass through views presented in Shingler’s energetic impressions of downtown Raleigh, while Womble’s softer, dreamier hues extend the exhibit’s purview to include Outer Banks docks and Blue Ridge waterfalls. Expect the show to color your perspective for the rest of the evening—after seeing art that looks like the city, the city should look more like art. Thru Dec 23. Adam Cave Fine Art, Raleigh. adamcavefineart.com. —Brian Howe Simple Elegance: Paintings by Stephen White. Thru Dec 31. Little Art Gallery & Craft Collection, Raleigh. littleartgalleryandcraft.com. Simple/Complex: Weavings by Ann Roth. Thru Dec 10. Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. Sleeper: Art Box exhibit by Mollie Earls and Lincoln Hancock. Thru Nov 1, 2018. North Hills, Raleigh. Step Right Up: Sculpture by Patrick Dougherty. Thru Aug 31.
Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org. The SuperNatural: We’ve lost sight of the seams, once considered inviolable, between nature, technology, and commerce—though we sometimes imagine we are crossing a boundary when we take thousand-dollar bikes into deceptively wild woods with our smartphones and moisture wicking socks. The SuperNatural wades into this liminal zone, exploring how we see and shape the contours of our planet as the physical refuse of the industrial age shades into the digital refuse of the present. The show includes a generative digital video by Tabor Robak, a virtual reality installation by Jakob Kudsk Steensen, and photos by Lars Jan, among many others. Brooklyn artist Chris Doyle created “Dreams of Infinite Luster,” a digital animation, for the exterior vitrines. In it, “All the elements are rendered in gold, the color of lucre—the product, engine, and goal of capitalism.” Is a luxury hotel an odd site for post-capitalist critique? Sure. But, as we’ve said, what seams?
Thru Jul 1. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham. www.21cmuseumhotels. com/durham. —Brian Howe Test of Faith: Signs, Serpents, Salvation: Photographs by Lauren Pond. Thru Feb 4. Duke Campus: Rubenstein Library, Durham. LAST Tethered to the CHANCE Zeitgeist: Mary Ann Anderson. Thru Nov 25. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org. Triangle Visual Artists Exposition: Paintings, photography, weavings. Thru Dec 15. The Frontier, RTP. Triangle Weavers Art Exhibition: Fiber art. Thru Jan 6. Carrboro Branch Library, Carrboro. www.co.orange.nc.us/ library/carrboro. Under the Same Sky: The idea of global communication through art is often a convenient abstraction, but the Mahler Fine Art in Raleigh puts it into concrete practice with its Moroccan/American Artists Residency Exchange. Next spring, five Triangle-based artists—Thomas Sayre, Pete Sack, Luke Buchanan, Susan
Woodson, and Kathleen Rieder—will travel to Morocco to create and live alongside artists there, five of whom will then come to Raleigh and the Mahler in the fall. The program is directed by Moroccan-born painter Ghany Belmaachi, a former Raleigh resident, whose current solo exhibit at the Mahler is called Under the Same Sky. Aptly for someone who is building a bridge from Raleigh to Morocco, Belmaachi’s striking designs capture universalist themes in bright, flat colors, singing a quiet song of oneness in divisive times. Thru Dec 2. The Mahler Fine Art, Raleigh. www.themahlerfineart.com. —Brian Howe LAST War Experience: CHANCE Personal artifacts, medals, uniforms, maps, letters, photographs, and more. Thru Nov 29. Raleigh City Museum, Raleigh. cityofraleighmuseum.org.
the Durham Bull. Thru Dec 23. Pleiades Gallery, Durham. www. PleiadesArtDurham.com.
Wanderers: Paintings by Jeff Joyce. Thru Dec 2. Light Art + Design, Chapel Hill. www. lightartdesign.com.
Winter Corridor Artists Exhibition: Dana Ayscue, Cynthia Bickley Green, Stephen Cefalo, Eileen Hendren, Kelly Murray. Thru Jan 27. Artspace, Raleigh. artspacenc.org.
We are greater than the sum of our parts: Collaboration around
We’ve Met Before: Hand-woven cloth has a certain rigor, a requirement for stitches to interact with structural integrity rather than spontaneity. Ink, meanwhile, has a quicksilver impulsiveness, a tendency to slip and run unbounded. Andrea Donnelly holds this contrast in tension. The images on her large textile pieces evoke bodies, Rorschach blots, abstract flora, and, most of all, memory. Dyed, woven, unwoven, and rewoven, the work contains “a literal record of its own making.” Thru Jan 28. N.C. Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org. —Brian Howe When War Comes to a Gallery: Photography by Sarah Dale. Room 100 Gallery. Thru Nov 30. Golden Belt, Durham. www.goldenbeltarts.com.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28–SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3
SCHOOL OF ROCK
Not everything from Jack Black’s aughties output has aged well: Shallow Hal and Tropic Thunder seem even more problematic now than they did then; Gulliver’s Travels earned him the double whammy of a Razzie nomination for worst actor and a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards nomination for favorite male movie star. But 2003’s School of Rock, directed by Richard Linklater, is a Black vehicle that drives as well today as it did when it rolled off the lot—though that’s at least as much because of the adorable, gifted child performers as it is due to the film’s fit with Black’s comfort zone of physical comedy in a musical theater setting. It was such an obvious choice for a musical that it took just two years to happen, with a bunch of new songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber, no less. A failed rock guitarist turned substitute teacher molds his overachieving fourth graders into battle of the bands champs; the actors all play their instruments live. The result is like a talent show where the kids happen to be world-class ringers, clad in Broadway production values instead of a public school auditorium. —Brian Howe
DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, DURHAM Various times, $35+, www.dpacnc.com
School of Rock
PHOTO COURTESY OF SCHOOL OF ROCK TOUR
34 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
OPENING Michael Blackson: Stand-up comedy. Fri, Nov 24-Sun, Nov 26. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. goodnightscomedy.com. A Drag Queen Christmas: $24+. Tue, Nov 28, 8 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham. www.carolinatheatre.org. The Hip Hop Nutcracker: Musical. $35+. Fri, Nov 24. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. www.dpacnc.com. See p. 23. Kick Off the Holidays with Some Laughs: Storytelling with Ira David Wood III and David Henderson. $15-$25. Sat, Nov 25, 7:30 p.m. Theatre In The Park, Raleigh. www. theatreinthepark.com. See p. 23.
Messiah: Carolina Ballet. Wed, Nov 22-Sun, Nov 26. Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. See p. 23. Jeanne Robertson: Comedy. $35+. Sat, Nov 25, 7:30 p.m. & Sun, Nov 26, 4 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham. www.carolinatheatre.org. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical: Broadway Series South. Nov 24-Dec 24. Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. See p. 23. ShakesBeer Round 2: Camille Watson, Laura P. Cormier, George Labusohr, Kirsten Ehlert. Wed, Nov 29, 8 p.m. Imurj, Raleigh. www.imurj.com.
The Vaudevillain Revue: Nerdvember 2017: Burlesque, circus arts, comedy, more. $10-$20. Sat, Nov 25, 9 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham. www.motorcomusic.com.
ONGOING
Anything Goes Late Show: Comedy. Sat, Nov 25, 10:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. goodnightscomedy.com. The Harry Show: Ages 18+. Improv host leads potentially risque games with audience participation. $10. Fri, Nov 24 & Sat, Nov 25, 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. comedyworx.com.
6713 Mt Herman Rd, Morrisville, NC www.capitalcabaret.com
Horrible People: Storytelling. Wed, Nov 29, 8 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. goodnightscomedy.com.
page READINGS & SIGNINGS Daniel P. Bolger: Our Year of War: Two Brothers, Vietnam, and a Nation Divided. Tue, Nov 28, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com. Michael Chitwood, Randall Kenan, Michael McFee: The Best Creative Nonfiction of the South, Volume II: North Carolina. Tue, Nov 28, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. regulatorbookshop.com. See p. 23.
Jamie DeMent: The Farmhouse Chef. Sat, Nov 25, 11 a.m.-noon. McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro. www.mcintyresbooks.com.
Scott Hilton: Chanukah Tales from Oykvetchnik. Sun, Nov 26, 2 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com.
Rae Drummond: Pioneer Woman Cooks: Come and Get It. Wed, Nov 29, 5 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com.
John Loecke & Jason Oliver Nixon: Prints Charming. Sat, Nov 25, 2 p.m. McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro. mcintyresbooks.com.
Mark Fallon: Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture. Wed, Nov 29, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com.
LECTURES ETC. Tell About the South: Ryan Emanuel on Indigenous Communities & Environmental Justice. Tue, Nov 28, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Love House and Hutchins Forum, Chapel Hill.
food Faithful Friends: The Holiday Tea: $16-$32. Nov 24-Jan 7, 2:30-4:30 p.m. Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club, Durham. www.washingtondukeinn.com.
A Splendid Feast: $25$82. Thu, Nov 23, 6 p.m. Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club, Durham. www. washingtondukeinn.com.
Free Wine Tasting: Mon, Nov 27, 5:15-7:15 p.m. Bottle Rev Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill. www.bottlerev.com.
Thanksgiving Dinner at Counting House: A buffet of Counting House favorites and classic holiday fixins, such as Sorghum Glazed Fried Turkey, Macaroni and Cheese with Truffle and Rosemary Gremolata and Cranberry Verine with orange curd and rum spiced
Open House: Taste hard ciders. Free. Fri, Nov 24, 2-6 p.m. & Sat, Nov 25, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Chatham Cider Works, PITTSBORO. chathamciderworks.com.
cotton cake. $25-$60. Thu, Nov 23, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Counting House, Durham. www.countinghousenc.com. Thanksgiving Feast: $15-$35. Thu, Nov 23, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. City Kitchen, Chapel Hill. www. citykitchenchapelhill.com. Vegan Thanksgiving Feast: Triangle Vegetarian Society. $8-$30. Thu, Nov 23, 11:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Parizade, Durham. parizadedurham.com.
BILL BURTON ATTORNEY AT LAW Un c o n t e s t e d Di vo rc e Bu s i n e s s L a w UNCONTESTED In c o r p o r a t i o n / L LC / DIVORCE Pa r t n e r s h i p MUSIC BUSINESS LAW Wi l l s INCORPORATION/LLC WILLS C o l l e c t i o n s SEPARATION AGREEMENTS Mu s i c
967-6159
(919) 967-6159
bill.burton.lawyer@gmail.com INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 35
THE INDY'S GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE
FINDER 36 | 11.22.17 | INDYweek.com
on stands
screen
NOW!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24 & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25
HOME ALONE IN CONCERT
Help me test a theory: your favorite holiday movie came out when you were about eleven. Young enough to be scared by the scary parts, moved by the moving parts, and credulous of the incredible parts, but old enough to feel the first incipient glimmerings of a new feeling—nostalgia—that will wax for the rest of your life, as the cloistered coherence of the family unit such films always portray wanes. For me, 1990’s Home Alone, an oddly chipper flick about child abandonment and violent home invasion, is 100 percent that movie. It didn’t hurt that, like child star Macaulay Culkin, I also happened to be tiny, blonde, cherubic, and hurtling toward teenage chaos. John Hughes’s script bristles with lines eternally seared on my mind—“Get down on your knees and tell me you love me!”—and director Chris Columbus’s vistas of cheery lights shining on dark surburban streets emblemize what Christmas looks like to me. So if you see an odd mix of little kids and late-thirtysomethings when the N.C. Symphony performs John Williams’s snowy score at this screening, you’ll know why. —Brian Howe
MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL, RALEIGH
7:30 p.m. Fri./3 p.m. Sat., $47, www.ncsymphony.org
SPECIAL SHOWINGS The Goonies: With expert speaker. Film starts at 7 p.m. $2-$5. Fri, Nov 24, 5:30-9 p.m. NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh. www.naturalsciences.org. Sharknado IV: Sun, Nov 26, 6 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. www.thepinhook.com.
OPENING Coco—Reviewed on p. 25. Rated PG. Last Flag Flying—Three former Marines (Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne) reunite for a funeral in Richard Linklater’s semi-sequel to Hal Ashby’s minor classic The Last Detail. Rated R. ½ The Man Who Invented Christmas— Reviewed on p. 25. Rated PG. Novitiate—Reviewed on p. 24. Rated R. Roman J. Israel, Esq.— Denzel Washington plays a lawyer who discovers iniquities at his crusading law firm. Rated PG-13. ½ Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri— Reviewed on p. 25. Rated R.
A L S O P L AY I N G The INDY uses a five-star rating scale. Read reviews of these films at indyweek.com. ½ American Made—It’s Top Gun with Tom Cruise flying for cocaine instead of country—fun enough, but it mostly rides on Cruise’s resilient charm. Rated R. Blade Runner 2049— This satisfying sequel to Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir reminds us that it works best to mess with the classics when there’s actually something wrong with them. Rated R. The Florida Project— Tangerine creator Sean Baker chases sparks of vitality on the neglected margins of the Magic Kingdom. Rated R. Goodbye Christopher Robin—A biopic of Winnie the Pooh creator A. A. Milne should be expected to be sentimental, but this one is just too squishy to bear. Rated PG. It—Blend vintage Spielberg with Stranger Things and you get this scary, heartfilled new version of Stephen King’s horror classic. Rated R. ½ Justice League— Uneven but much better than Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, this collision of Zack Snyder’s bombast and Joss Whedon’s wit actually kind of works. Rated PG-13.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer—The latest from The Lobster’s creator is an enigmatic, merciless ethical experiment powered by enthralling performances and pressurized pacing. Rated R. Lady Bird—Greta Gerwig’s nostalgic coming-ofage debut as a writer-director is winning and alert to class but falters on race. Rated R. The LEGO Ninjago Movie—Expect weak puns, weary pop-culture references, and a waning sense of discovery from this Ninjagobranded minor entry in the LEGO franchise. Rated PG. ½ Loving Vincent—The first fully painted animated film is a sort of prodedural about Vincent van Gogh that is visually stunning but weak on story. Rated PG-13. The Snowman—Less a whodunit than a “who cares,” this senseless adaptation of one of Norwegian crime author Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole books is truly abominable. Rated R. Thor: Ragnarok—A stodgy, self-serious franchise springs to life with demigods delightfully out of their element, as Thor squares off against the Hulk and tries to stop Hela from destroying Asgard. Rated PG-13.
employment employment
BARTENDERS NEEDED MAKE $20-$35/HOUR Raleigh’s Bartending School 676.0774 www.cocktailmixer. com 1-2wk class
BROWN TRUCKING is looking for COMPANY DRIVERS and OWNER OPERATORS. Brown requires: CDL-A, 2 years of tractor trailer experience OTR or Regional (Multiple states) in the last 3 years, good MVR and PSP. Apply: www.driveforbrown. com. Contact Matt 704-9276440.
HIRE THE BEST! Find the best candidates for your job opening in the INDY! Ads start at 70 cents/ word/week. Call INDY Classifieds:919-286-1972 or email classy@indyweek.com
LEAD PRESCHOOL/ KINDERGARTEN TEACHER Maracas Montessori LLC in Raleigh seeks Lead Preschool/Kindergarten Teacher for full immersion Spanish program. Requires Bachelor’s in Education or foreign equivalent. Must have 2 years experience in Teaching full immersion Spanish language Preschool and/or Kindergarten. Must be 100% fluent in written, spoken Spanish. Negative TB test; Medical Report; Criminal Record Background Check as required by NC DCDEE. Applicants send resume to contact@maracasmontessori.com, reference: Lead Preschool/Kindergarten Teacher
SECURITY OFFICER WANTED FTCC Fayetteville Technical Community College is now accepting applications for the following positions: Security Officer. For detailed information and to apply, please visit our employment portal at: https://faytechcc.peopleadmin.com/ Human Resources Office Phone: (910) 678-7342 Internet: http://www.faytechcc. edu An Equal Opportunity Employer
body • mind • spirit services
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ASSOCIATE North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC, the public radio station licensed to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is hiring a Social Media Marketing Associate to work with WUNC’s Development Team. The Social Media Marketing Associate will manage and grow the WUNC brand through relevant social channels to target audiences as well as the local communities. This position will strategize with internal stakeholders to engage key target audiences through valuable content. This position will also work on WUNC’s on-line fundraising. This position will serve as one of WUNC’s internal subject matter experts for social media platforms, which include but are not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Pinterest. The Social Media Marketing Associate will report to the Development Director. The ideal candidate is a professional who knows and understands public media’s significance in the world of digital platforms, marketing and online fundraising. The individual must have exceptional judgment, grammar, writing skills and discretion in order to carefully make real-time decisions about how best to represent WUNC in online conversations. In addition the successful candidate will have at least 2 years of social media, on-line fundraising and/or public radio experience. Bachelor’s degree required. WUNC is headquartered in the Triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) of North Carolina. It’s often rated among the top areas to live in the country. The ocean and mountains are just a few hours away. North Carolina Public Radio serves more than 400,000 listeners weekly and is consistently ranked as one of the top stations in the Raleigh Metro Market. Salary and benefits are competitive. Interested candidates must apply online at: http://unc. peopleadmin.com/postings/130692. Candidates should be prepared to attach a current CV and cover letter. The deadline to apply is December 7, 2017.
classes & instruction TAI CHI
Traditional art of meditative movement for health, energy, relaxation, self-defense. Classes/workshops throughout the Triangle. Magic Tortoise School - Since 1979. Call Jay or Kathleen, 919-968-3936 or www.magictortoise.com
massage MICHAEL A. SAVINO MASSAGE NC LMBT #703. Stressed? Enjoy relaxing bodywork. Voted Best in the Triangle 2017. Fall Special: 1 hour massage $49 plus free hot stones. Call 919-428-3398 to schedule an appointment
misc.
MAKE THE CALL TO START GETTING CLEAN TODAY Free 24/7 Helpline for alcohol & drug addiction treatment. Get help! It is time to take your life back! Call Now: 855-7324139 (AAN CAN)
PREGNANT? CONSIDERING ADOPTION? Call us first. Living expenses, housing, medical, and continued support afterwards. Choose adoptive family of your choice
home improvement
ALL THINGS BASEMENTY! Basement Systems Inc. Call us for all of your basement needs! Waterproofing, Finishing, Structural Repairs, Humidity and Mold Control. FREE ESTIMATES! Call 1-800-6989217(NCPA)
getaways COMING TO ASHEVILLE? Upscale Spa. private outdoor hot tubs, 26 massage therapists, overnight accommodations, sauna and more. Starting at $42. Shojiretreats.com 828-299-0999
ACORN STAIRLIFTS The AFFORDABLE solution to your stairs! **Limited time -$250 Off Your Stairlift Purchase!** Buy Direct & SAVE. Please call 1-800-291-2712 for FREE DVD and brochure. (NCPA)
tech services
GOT KNEE PAIN? BACK PAIN? SHOULDER PAIN?
DISH NETWORKSATELLITE TELEVISION SERVICES
Get a pain-relieving brace at little or NO cost to you. Medicare Patients Call Health Hotline Now! 1- 800-591-5582
a complete snuggle bug!
For all repairs and upgrades. Your every need is covered: Electrical, Plumbing, Carpentry, Fencing, Additions, Decks and more. New lighting? Cabinets? Sinks? 30+ years experience. Call Greg at 919-791-8471 or email exley556@gmail.com
The nation’s largest senior living referral service. Contact our trusted, local experts today! Our service is FREE/no obligation. CALL 1-800-717-0139
products
Maizie is
EXLEY HOME IMPROVEMENTS
A PLACE FOR MOM.
Ten years helping clients feel at home in their bodies. Swedish & deep tissue massage for stress relief. Near Duke. MassageByMarkKinsey. com. NCLMBT#6072. 919619-6373.
Now Over 190 channels for ONLY $49.99/mo! HBO-FREE for one year, FREE Installation, FREE Streaming, FREE HD. Add Internet for $14.95 a month. 1-800-373-6508 (AAN CAN)
Sponsored by
events BUSINESS LIQUIDATION AUCTION Parks & Son, Inc. an Unfinished & Finished Ammunition Wholesaler in Advance, NC, Online Only, Bidding Begins Closing 11/28, 11/29 & 11/30 at 12pm, ironhorseauction.com, 800.997.2248, NCAL 3936
DECEASED ESTATE AUCTION Luxury Watches-PensCufflinks-Knives-Moravian Antiques-Silver SpoonsFurniture-Books-18KGold Pocket Watches-Gold Jewelry! Saturday Dec. 2 @ 12:00 NOON 9497 NC Hwy 150 Clemmons, NC 27012 LEINBACH AUCTION & REALTY, LLC (336)4169614NCAL #5871 AUCTIONZIP. COM #5969
Tuesday, Dec. 5th. For details go to Facebook: specialtreatschapelhill.
notices DENIED CREDIT??
919-416-0675
entertainment #1 CHAT IN RALEIGH
Instant live phone connections with local women & men. Try It FREE! 18+ 919.899.6800, 336.235.7777 www.questchat.com
Book your ad • Email kim: classy@indywEEk.com
100’S OF HOT URBAN SINGLES
are waiting to Chat! Try it FREE! 18+ 919.861.6868, 336.235.2626 www.metrovibechat.com
Work to Repair Your Credit Report With the Trusted Leader in Credit Repair. Call Lexington Law for a FREE credit report summary & credit repair consultation. 855-620-9426. John C. Heath, Attorney at Law, PLLC, dba Lexington Law Firm. (AAN CAN)
Coalition to Unchain Dogs seeks plastic or igloo style dog houses for dogs in need, as well as indoor metal crates. To donate, please contact Amanda at director@unchaindogs.net.
for sale stuff
SAFE STEP WALK-IN TUB ALERT FOR SENIORS. Bathroom falls can be fatal. Approved by Arthritis Foundation. Therapeutic Jets. Less Than 4 Inch Step-In. Wide Door. Anti-Slip Floors. American Made. Installation Included. Call 800-807-7219 for $750 Off.
SAWMILLS FROM ONLY $4397.00?
misc.
GOURMET CHOCOLATE TASTING PARTY
www.harmonygate.com
KEEP DOGS SHELTERED
To adopt: 919-403-2221 or visit animalrescue.net
renovations
misc.
MASSAGE BY MARK KINSEY
critters
DURHAM COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS Notice of Resolution to Adopt Time for Counting of Absentee Ballots On 8/22/17 the Durham Board of Elections met at its office at 201 N. Roxboro St., Durham, and adopted the following resolution: 1. The Board of Elections shall meet at 2:00 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, 10/10/17 at its office to count absentee ballots. 2. Any voter of the county may attend this meeting and observe the count. 3. The results of the absentee ballot count will not be announced before 7:30 p.m. that night. Bill Brian, Chairman Durham County Board of Elections
LEGAL NOTICE Mobilitie, LLC is proposing to construct a 50-foot overall height pole at Brier Creek Parkway and Brier Leaf Lane, Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina. Mobilitie, LLC invites comments from any interested party on the impact the pole may have on any historic Properties. Comments may be addressed to : Public Notice Coordinator, 1375 Union Hill Industrial Court, Suite A, Alpharetta, Georgia, 30004. Comments must be received within 30 days. For questions please call 700-667-2040x111. T2380/KEB
MAKE & SAVE MONEY with your own bandmill- Cut lumber any dimension. In stock ready to ship! FREE Info/DVD: www.NorwoodSawmills.com 1?-800?-578?-1363 Ext.300N
EMAIL KIM FOR ADS! CLASSY AT INDYWEEK.COM
indy classifieds
INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 37
pl RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER 5 6 RECYCLE THIS PAPER 2 1 RECYCLE THIS PAPER 9 3 2 THIS PAPER 4 5 5 3 9 RECYCLE RECYCLE THIS PAPER 4 9 2 6 RECYCLE 2 3 THIS 4 7 PAPER THIS PAPER 2 5 5 RECYCLE 9 RECYCLE THIS PAPER 1 61 2 RECYCLE THIS PAPER 1 1 8 4 6 8 3 4 7 RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER 8 4 1 4 6 53 2 RECYCLE THIS PAPER 7 RECYCLE 6 THIS 2 # 90 PAPER RECYCLE 2 THIS 4 PAPER THIS PAPER su |MEDIUM do | kuRECYCLE this week’s puzzle level: # 37 RECYCLE THIS PAPER © Puzzles by Pappocom
3
7
2
5 8 3 9 6 4 2 7 8 5 2 5 2 6 3 4 9 3 1 7 8 1 4
5
3
MEDIUM
# 38
last
9 3 2
8
8 9 45
5 8
7
2
3 7 7 5
3 6
1
7
5
6
1 3 5 5 4 9 7
6
9
4 2 3 8 3 2 6
4
7
4
1
1
MEDIUM # 92
8 5 9 7 6 1 4 2 3
# 37
7 3 2 6 8 9 5 1 4
6 9 5 4 3 1 2 8 7
1 8 4 5 7 2 6 9 3
5 7 1 2 9 3 8 4 6
9 2 8 1 6 4 3 7 5
3 4 9 8 1 6 7 5 2
2 5 6 9 4 7 1 3 8
8 1 7 3 2 5 4 6 9
1 5 9 6
6 4 8 3
5 9 6 2
2 8 3 5
3 7 4 1
4 6 7 9
7 1 5 8
9 3 2 4
4
7
3
2 3 6
9
7 1 2 6
MEDIUM
# 40
CLASSY AT INDYWEEK DOT COM
Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com
# 38 4 2 5 1 7 9 8 3 30/10/2005 6
8 2 1 7
1
If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “Diversions”.
11.22.17
solution to last week’s puzzle
3 7 9 4| INDYweek.com 6 8 5 2 1 38 | 11.22.17
7
1 4 8 6
3 9 8 5
# 39 4 6 3 7 5 8 9 2 1
2 2 4
3 1 2
2
# 92
1
3 4 1 2 5 8 6 9 7
If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “Diversions” at the bottom of our webpage.
There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.
8 7 4 1 2
crossword
3 1 7 4 6 9
4 2 8 1 3 5
5 6 9 7 8 2
1 5 6 3 2 4
9 7 3 8 1 6
2 8 4 9 5 7
6 4 2 5 7 3
8 3 5 6 9 1
7 9 1 2 4 8
# 39
9 4 2 8 3 7
3 5 8 2 6 1
6 7 1 5 9 4
1 8 6 4 5 2
5 9 3 1 7 6
7 2 4 9 8 3
2 1 5 7 4 8
4 6 7 3 2 9
8 3 9 6 1 5
# 40
8 7 4 3 1 2
5 3 1 6 4 9
9 2 6 8 7 5
2 4 3 1 6 7
6 5 7 9 2 8
1 3 4 7
6 9your 1 B8 ook ad • Email kim: classy@indywEEk.com 9 4 5 3
8 5 9 4
2 7 8 1
5 2 3 6
Book y
please contact advertising@indyweek.com
THE INDY'S GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE
RECYCLE THIS PAPER
To advertise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact advertising@indyweek.com
To advertise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact advertising@indyweek.com
CAMPAIGN JOBS
Help doctors save lives across the world Work for Grassroots Campaigns on behalf of
To advertise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact advertising@indyweek.com
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
Earn $360 - $535 a week Full-Time/Part-Time/Career, Call Alex
984-260-8217
last week's puzzle
s d n sta
! w o n
on
Book your ad • Email kim: classy@indywEEk.com
INDYweek.com | 11.22.17 | 39
back page
Weekly deadline 4pm Monday • classy@indyweek.com
DANCE CLASSES IN SWING, LINDY, BLUES, TAI CHI
At ERUUF, Durham & ArtsCenter, Carrboro. RICHARD BADU, 919-724-1421, rbadudance@gmail.com
MICHAEL A. SAVINO MASSAGE See ad on pg. 37
THOUSANDS OF EYES ON YOUR AD EVERY WEEK
EMAIL KIM! CLASSY (AT) INDYWEEK (DOT) COM