INDY Week 12.09.15 by Indy Week

raleighâ&#x20AC;˘cary 12|9|15

Is RaleIgh finally gEtTing SerIous abOUt puBlic art? By JAne PoRter, p.10

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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“WHAT A GREAT IDEA TO ENCOURAGE LOCAL GIVING! I was referred here by one of my ‘regular’ charities, and when I got here I found two other organizations I wanted to make donations to. Thanks for putting this website together.” —Julie N., Rougemont. Give!Guide donor

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2015

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RALEIGH

INSIDE NEWS & COLUMNS 7

TRIANGULATOR: Nothing compares to

NEWS: Immigration activists protest Wake’s participation in a federal deportation program

DECEMBER 9, 2015

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VOLUME 32 NUMBER 49

Paint this town!

Moogfest movements

Front-dude stuff How the singers of Corrosion of Conformity and High on Fire twist heavy metal leadship

RESTAURANT REVIEW: No missing meat

at Durham’s incredible Vegan Flava Cafe 18

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By Grayson Haver Currin

A R T S , C U LT U R E , F O O D & M U S I C

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The festival announced its lineup and details about its pending first year in Durham

CITIZEN: An alleged assault at Donald

EAT THIS: Cocoa Cinnamon’s Simón Bolívar packs a punch with cayenne

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Is Raleigh finally getting serious about public art? By Jane Porter

Trump’s Raleigh rally offers a window into the virulent rage of the right

CARY

F E AT U R E S

… a half-baked rebranding campaign, and a new news co-op says journalism isn’t dead yet 8

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By Bryan C. Reed

FOOD: Steven Lambeth gets spiritual with

chocolate 28

MUSIC: Can Cécile McLorin Salvant help

push jazz toward the mainstream? 32

BOOK REVIEW: LGBTQ writers on the

perils of identity in Writing the Walls Down 33

It’s a family affair Parents and their kids collaborate on art exhibits in Raleigh and Durham By Chris Vitiello

THEATER REVIEWS: The Tramp’s New

World and The Emotions of Normal People

CALENDARS & EVENTS 35

WHERE WE’LL BE: The best arts and

culture events of the week 37

MUSIC CALENDAR

ARTS CALENDAR

FILM CALENDAR

THIS PAGE: Yah-I Ausar Tafari Amen is the chef and co-owner of Vegan Flava Cafe. The INDY’s Act Now and Food/Farmers Markets calendars can be found at indyweek.com.

ON THE COVER: Artist Kevin Lyons works on an original mural on the side of the Trophy Brewing building as part of the Raleigh Murals Project. PHOTOS BY JEREMY M. LANGE

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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Raleigh Cary Durham Chapel Hill A ZM INDY, INC. COMPANY PUBLISHER Susan Harper

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back talk Send her home!

Hmmm, I dunno. Did Sofia “immigrate” legally (“The invisibles,” Dec. 2)? Does she know or care who our first president was? Does she have a clue what our Declaration of Independence says? If so, she’s fine with me. Otherwise, 57,000-plus minors per year, not counting the adults coming into our country who are, for the most part, unvetted and are walking in willy-nilly into our racist country, where no one is treated fairly and the police are racist and triggerhappy. (I’m being facetious, of course). Also, seriously: The U.S., where there is a continuation of the gang-riddled streets created by many of the same thugs that created the gang-riddled streets between Honduras and the Rio Grande. There are places in the U.S. where you cannot walk in the daytime. Forget the nighttime. So if Sofia came in legally, fine; if not, yes, back she goes. Sorry. I would much rather we work with “authorities/governments” between Honduras and the Rio Grande to help them make their countries safer. We have our own absolutely major economic and social issues right now. Our citizens need help.

We cannot handle a half a million unvetted people every single year who will need initial welfare to survive. We can’t borrow enough from China and Japan to cover it. That’s where our money is coming from right now. We still owe them $19 trillion. Our own citizens are suffering and need help. We just cannot be the lifeboat for the entire world. These people need to take their own countries back. Our U.S. lifeboat is taking on major water as it is. We can’t help anyone if we are not strong ourselves. And we are not strong right now ... not to mention, we are literally at friggin’ war with people who wish to sneak into our country to wreak havoc. We need to get serious about all this right now and lay down the law, follow the laws already in place, or we will surely become what these people are escaping. Or worse. We’re on our way, I’ll tell you that, and I am worried for my children. We need to reverse this spiral or we won’t be able to help any one. Cole, via indyweek.com

No new gun laws!

Here we go again: another shooting with another call for gun control.

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Somewhere along the line, these knee-jerk calls for gun control have got to stop. What we really need is enforcement of the guncontrol laws we have in the statutes today. Guns are not the problem! It is the people who use guns to cause harm to others that are the problem. We have background check laws in place, but they are not doing their job. Why? Our background check system does not keep track of all the problems that should keep an individual from purchasing a gun or rifle. Until the background check system is fully integrated with our mental health system, our law enforcement records system and our terror watch list, there will be holes in the system that allow people to buy guns who shouldn’t buy guns. Background checks are an infringement on our Second Amendment rights, but in today’s society, with all our degenerates, background checks are a necessary evil. Yes, an evil that I can tolerate. Rather than getting on their soapbox about gun control every time there is a shooting, our elected officials need to be making improvements in our current

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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background check system. Our elected officials do not need to be passing more laws to infringe on our rights as citizens. We have too many infringement laws as it is today; adding more is uncalled for and highly unnecessary. Ray Shamlin, Rocky Mount

Show us the money!

Rural-dominated [Legislature] (“Resegregati0n, never,” Dec. 2)? Really? We who live in barren parts of eastern North Carolina really wonder about that. We see the vast majority of dollars shift to urban areas for roads, Internet and other infrastructure. The General Assembly is not coming to anyone’s rescue that I can see, other than those that don’t need rescuing at all. dodahman1, via indyweek.com If you would like to respond to something that appeared in the INDY’s pages, please send an email to backtalk@indyweek.com. The INDY reserves the right to edit letters for space and clarity.

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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INDYweek.com

triangulator

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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NOTHING COMPARES TO … A HALF-BAKED REBRANDING CAMPAIGN Also: A new news co-op says journalism isn’t dead yet

o perhaps you’ve heard by now that North Carolina has a brand-new slogan (“Nothing Compares”) and logo, courtesy of the McCrory administration, which shelled out almost $450,000 to a Charlotte advertising agency called LUQUIRE GEORGE ANDREWS. And after spending what had to be a stressful afternoon sketching on a bar napkin, Luquire gave us … this: The logo, which will replace logos used by myriad state agencies, first started popping up on highway billboards this summer, and then all state employees got a NEW-LOGO LAPEL PIN as an annual appreciation gift. (We’re sure they were thrilled.) There’s also a new website and 90-second video replete with images of beaches and mountains atop a soft piano and a warm voiceover (“How far can you see from a mountaintop? Or across the ocean?” And so on). We found the whole thing, well, underwhelming, but this is not our area of expertise. We do, however, happen to know a bunch of graphic artists, so we decided to get their take. (Anonymously, of course.) Here’s a sampling of their reactions: “This is the kind of work that MAKES ME SAD. We live in a very diverse, forward-moving state, and yet this feels like it was created and approved by a committee. It’s amazing to me that [the state] would say ‘Nothing Compares’ and then put it in an incredibly generic context.” “The latest rebranding effort by North Carolina seems like a ROUGH DRAFT. There are too many graphical pieces (the tree, the mountain, the sea) and [it’s] missing a cohesive concept to bring them together into a simple design. … As for the phrase ‘Nothing Compares,’ it’s thoughtful and provocative, especially with the connection to the Mountains to the Sea as a unique landscape. As well, the connection to the acronym is interesting, but it’s just not visually represented very well in the logo with the busy nature of the rest of the branding. … NOTHING COMPARES TO SIMPLICITY.” “If we are to seriously consider this video, it must be critiqued as the propaganda it plainly is. The video communicates that if you are reasonably wealthy, you can claim ‘[the view] from the windows of an executive suite,’ the pleasures of water sports, and the beautiful pottery from Seagrove. This is a political vehicle meant to broadcast

BY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN AND DAVID FELLERATH

a POLITICAL AGENDA: ‘Come on in, the water’s fine!’ whitewashing the fact that for so many North Carolinians, the water is swarming with sharks aggressively and systematically tearing limbs from our education system, social services, environmental and public programs. The depictions of African-Americans are: a man reviewing paperwork, a street busker and an AfricanAmerican man and child looking at a caged African animal. … The ‘Nothing Compares’ tagline is likewise sourced from a BIN OF STOCK PHRASES generic enough to apply to any state, town or dry cleaning establishment. It has, in fact, previously been used by a ski resort in Australia, a tourism campaign for Egypt and a Cuban rum. The only gift here might be the taunting invitation for citizens to respond with ‘Nothing compares to …’ riffs.” Look on the bright side: At least the state did better than FUQUAY-VARINA, which also rolled out a new, $95,000 logo and motto (“a dash more,” seriously) last week. Have a gander: We’d be happier if they’d just gone with “HOME OF AVIATOR.”

n Sunday afternoon, more than 150 people, including notables from publishing, business and foundations, gathered in Raleigh’s Five Points neighborhood to meet Washington Post editor MARTIN BARON. Following a screening at the Rialto of the new film Spotlight, which dramatizes Baron’s role in uncovering a decades-long cover-up of clerical sex abuse in Boston, the crowd moved next door to Proof for food, drink and discussion. It looked like a celebration of establishment media, but the occasion was to support underdog journalism: an innovative venture called the N.C. NEWSROOM COOPERATIVE, an RTP-based incubator that will open in the spring. The cooperative will be housed at THE FRONTIER, a largely free co-working space. Close to 7,000 square feet will be upfitted with enough room for about 100 journalists. Thanks to what amounts to a rent subsidy from

the Research Triangle Foundation, which operates RTP, the journalists would pay a modest amount per month—an exact figure hasn’t been announced—for the privilege, as well as amenities like Wi-Fi and podcasting facilities. The co-op will cater primarily to local freelancers, though at least one news organization, N.C. HEALTH NEWS, plans to make the space its brick-and-mortar base. The incubator also envisions fostering things like hackathons, helping writers monetize their work in new ways and acting as a broker connecting writers with content that needs to be produced. The co-op is the brainchild of three experienced, wellconnected people: HUGH STEVENS, a First Amendment lawyer and counsel for the N.C. Press Foundation; MARY E. MILLER, an entrepreneur and former News & Observer reporter who is married to Bob Geolas, president and CEO of Research Triangle Foundation; and SETH EFFRON, an early pioneer of online news who did a stint as curator and special projects director at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. Effron admits that, while the idea of a member-owned news co-op isn’t new—the Associated Press is a cooperative, after all—the business model for this enterprise is still a work in progress. “We haven’t found a model yet,” he says. “But we want to focus on enabling other people to create revenue and help journalists make money.” ROSE HOBAN of N.C. Health News is another early organizer. While Hoban has successfully carved out a nonprofit niche for NCHN, she recalls telling Miller, “We need to do something more disruptive.” One model Hoban has in mind is The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit online news site founded in 2009. A frequently mentioned benefit of the co-op is its potential to re-create the newsroom atmosphere, even as actual newsrooms are being thinned out and sold for scrap. “There’s something about the collaborative spirit making things better,” says KIRK ROSS, a former INDY managing editor who writes for two nonprofit news outlets. For Ross, the emergence of the cooperative is another sign that, after two decades of relentless DISRUPTION AND RETRENCHMENT, the decline of journalism has slowed enough to allow a glimmer of optimism to return. “The brave new world used to be so depressing,” Ross says. “Now there’s more money and less clinging to old ways.” s Reach the INDY’s Triangulator team at triangulator@ indyweek.com.

INDYweek.com

news

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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PRIORITY TARGETS

Activists protest Wake County’s participation in a federal program that has led to nearly 300 deportations this year alone BY PAUL BLEST

n Thursday, the six activists arrested on Oct. 29 for blocking traffic outside of the governor’s mansion to protest his signing of House Bill 318—a law expanding E-Verify, forbidding sanctuary cities and restricting what forms of ID immigrants can use—appeared for the first time before a judge at the Wake County Justice Center. It was a perfunctory hearing: They were granted an unsecured bond and given a February court date. But the activists saw an opportunity to once again draw attention to a law that, in their view, “targets immigrants and low-income people,” as Angeline Echeverria, executive director of local nonprofit El Pueblo and one of those arrested, said afterward at a press conference outside the courthouse. The immigration system has long been “designed to keep out people who aren’t American enough, white enough, wealthy enough, educated enough, quiet enough,” added Ivanna Gonzalez, another arrestee. “… This bill was designed to pit our communities against one another.” About an hour later, inside the Wake County Detention Center, a similar opportunity presented itself. About a dozen people, including some of those present at the earlier press conference, protested an Immigration and Customs Enforcement forum designed to champion the “success” of a long-controversial partnership between the feds and the Wake County Sheriff’s Office. Wake County has employed this program, known as 287(g)—which deputizes participating state and local law enforcement agencies to help deport undocumented immigrants arrested within their jurisdiction—since 2007. (It is one Ivanna Gonzalez, Angeline Echeverria, David Salazar and of five North Carolina counties currently participating, Lliana Santillan were arrested, along with two others, the others being Mecklenburg, Gaston, Cabarrus and while protesting H.B. 318 in October. Henderson.) In 2015, 294 people have been deported from PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE Wake County because of 287(g). That, to ICE and the sheriff ’s office, has made Wake is completely different. You completely decided to doubt County safer. “In my professional opinion,” ICE assistant the Latino community. You decided not to work for the field office director Robert Alfieri said, “287(g) is the single people’s safety. … Instead, you decided to work on behalf most effective program we’ve ever worked with.” of the private-prison shareholders.” After Vasquez’s Even so, it has come under fire elsewhere in the state. remarks, protesters stood up and marched out of the In 2012, for example, Alamance County was expelled meeting while chanting, “ICE out of North Carolina!” The from the program after the federal government brought a ICE officials watched stone-faced. lawsuit—dismissed by a federal judge this past August— Morales’ comment on prisons referred to the fact accusing the sheriff ’s office of targeting Latinos. And that private prison conglomerates have profited from then in January, Charlotte’s Immigration Integration Task the explosion of immigration detentions owing to this Force recommended that its police department nix its and other programs. ICE is obligated by federal law to relationship with ICE. (A CMPD official told the INDY “maintain a level” of 34,000 detention beds each year; as that the program is actually under the jurisdiction of the the Texas-based nonprofit Grassroots Leadership found in Mecklenburg County Sheriff ’s Office.) a report released earlier this year, private prisons account And now it’s coming under fire here, too. When ICE for 62 percent of these beds. project manager Edgar Vasquez opened the floor to public After the protesters walked out, Vasquez and Alfieri comment, Comité Popular Somos Raleigh member continued to face tough questions about the program’s Gregorio Morales stood up. Reading from a short prepared impact on the Latino community. One person said it statement, Morales said, “Our perception of this program creates a perception among immigrants that ICE and

local law enforcement agencies are the same entity, and this stokes fear that undocumented immigrants may be deported if they call the police. “It is my commitment not to deport anyone who is not a legitimate threat,” Alfieri responded. While that might be his commitment, the numbers show a different story. In a January 2015 U.S. Department of Homeland Security memo, Secretary Jeh Johnson defined “priority 3 offenders”—undocumented immigrants who’ve been issued a final order of removal on or after Jan. 1, 2014—as representing the “lowest priority for apprehension and removal.” Yet out of the 294 people deported from Wake this year, 51 have been priority 3. It’s a similar trend nationwide; in 2014, ICE reported that 40 percent of its removals of people who have committed a crime were “level 3” deportations, defined as “aliens convicted of a misdemeanor crime punishable by less than one year in prison.” Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison blamed the program’s perception problem on “motivations that group has”—presumably, Comité Popular Somos Raleigh—a group that he said “incites fear” within the community. He also cited examples of violent retribution against undocumented individuals who call the police as the real reason why undocumented immigrants doesn’t trust the cops. Harrison disagreed vehemently with the notion that the program was destroying the local police’s reputation with the Latino community, but seemed to wash his hands of the decisions ICE officials make after someone has been turned over to them. “We don’t ask [people to turn themselves in],” he said. “You come to jail because you committed a crime. … This group we’ve worked with here, ICE—I’ve been tickled to death. We turn it over to them, and they make those decisions.” Harrison conceded that the system had flaws, but said he was unable to fix them due to “political pressure.” “I wish there was a way that the good people could get drivers’ licenses and stay here and work, because it would make my life 100 percent better.” (In March, lawmakers introduced a bill that would have done just that, but it died without receiving a vote in the House.) In a statement, Morales says he and the other activists “disrupted the 287(g) forum at the Wake County Detention Center because 287(g) is a federal program that doesn’t work, makes our communities unsafe and targets indiscriminately immigrant communities. … We will organize our community to pressure the sheriff’s department in Wake County to end any and all collaboration with ICE. We won’t stop until Wake County is a safe place for all communities.” s Paul Blest is a Raleigh-based freelance writer. Respond to this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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PAINT THIS TOWN!

Is Raleigh finally getting serious about public art?

evin Lyons is up a ladder, hands black with charcoal, the result of hours spent painstakingly sketching an army of fuzzy-edged monsters on the eastern wall of the Trophy Brewing building on Morgan Street. A crowd watches him at work. A drone whizzes around them all. Lyons climbs down, stands back and determines where a smudge or two of black paint should go to give his monsters movement; they’re shouting and smiling, tongues out, staring, or eyes drawn, scheming. Speech bubbles float from wide-open mouths. The New York City native’s illustrations have adorned skateboards and storefronts and sneakers, but, in Raleigh, these monsters have been fashioned into a mural with a message. “[Street art] provides a really amazing forum for both the artist and the community itself,” Lyons says. “It can do a lot of good in a community. It can say a lot of things. It can send messages that can remind the community of what to do.” “It’s a way to have a conversation. It brings people together,” says Raleigh-based artist David Eichenberger, who assisted with the Lyons mural. In the past couple of months, murals like this have popped up all over the city. There’s the seven-surface collection of M.C. Escher quotes that emerged in September (and will be removed at the end of January), a collaborative project between Eichenberger and the N.C. Museum of Art. There’s Sprinkles, Lisa Gaither’s luxuriating bobcat on the side of C. Grace, the jazz bar on Glenwood South. There are Dalek’s bright, crisscrossing lines on the wall of a building in the Ridgewood Shopping Center. It’s become easier than ever for artists to bring color to Raleigh, thanks in no small part to a citizens collective that works to preserve, celebrate and promote existing and new public artwork. “Our goal was starting a conversation around murals in general,” says JT Moore, a marketing director and photographer, who, with Jedidiah Gant, a media strategist and founder of the news website New Raleigh, started the Raleigh Murals Project a little over a year ago. “The way we look at it is, our job is to promote what’s going on, and whenever possible, make life easy for the artist.” “We’re the middleman,” Gant adds, a liaison between artists and the owners of buildings and businesses, as well as the city of Raleigh. “It’s been really exciting. There have been lots of murals that we weren’t directly involved in. Our goal is to bring more. We’re not painters or artists in the traditional sense, but our job is to make sure the city has more murals coming about. We’ll gladly take credit for the conversation.”

t all started with a butterfly. Moore and Gant started talking one day in early 2014 about the fading black-and-white butterfly perched atop a yellow blob of flower, a painting on the side of the

Remedy Diner on East Hargett Street. “Are there other ones like this, and why aren’t there, and what can we do to save the ones that are already here?” Moore wondered. “That led to, ‘Let’s have a conversation and see what happens,’ and then it just took off.” Moore and Gant launched a website showcasing Raleigh murals last April. Since then, they’ve had a hand in bringing about several murals across town, including the Escher quotes and an ongoing project at Shaw University in which Chapel Hill-based artist Scott Nurkin painted campus underpasses to reflect the historically black institution’s history and future. And they’re just getting started: The Raleigh Mural Project has been involved in several murals that are launching this month and early next year, including Lyons’ mural at Trophy, a collaboration with the nonprofit Truth, whose goal is to keep teenagers from smoking. “To me, [Lyons’ mural] is one of the most interesting stories we’ve had so far that involves cool clients and an interesting concept behind it,” Gant says. “It’s like people realize that Raleigh is now a destination for this. It’s encouraging that there is a connection from people here to people like this who can get things done.” In conceptualizing the Raleigh Murals Project, Moore

BY JANE PORTER and Gant looked for inspiration to Richmond, Virginia, where an organization pays artists from all over the world to come paint the city’s surfaces and walls. Moore also points to Miami, where the colorful Wynwood Walls have transformed what was essentially a warehouse district. Philadelphia has a widely acclaimed mural arts program that emerged in the 1980s. New York City has always been a destination for graffiti artists. And European cities like Brussels, adorned all over with comic strip-style murals, and London have offered democratized spaces for artists for decades. Raleigh, a traditionally conservative city with strict sign ordinances, has not. But as it’s grown, the need for more public art has become apparent. In 2009, the City Council passed an ordinance that reserves half of a percent of municipal funding for construction projects to go toward public art. In 2014, the council clarified rules for neighborhood art on public property. And in a speech last month, Mayor Nancy McFarlane emphasized the need for more art, saying that the arts “are an integral part of how we define ourselves.” But for Raleigh to become a street-art destination, Gant and Moore realize that, along with curating strong local talent, the city will need to attract world-class artists, and that all these artists will eventually need to be paid. So Gant and Pam Blondin, owner of the gift shop Deco, recently founded Flight, a foundation that seeks to pay people who make public art. A pop-up store by the same name, selling locally made arts, crafts and jewelry, has emerged on East Martin Street; for as long as it’s open, 10 percent of its proceeds will go to Flight. Another important piece of the puzzle, Gant and Moore say, will be building and maintaining a relationship with city officials. “I think it’s the goal of 2016 to get the city of Raleigh involved,” Gant says. “I don’t know what that means. I like to set the expectation really low, but if it’s only two murals on two city-owned buildings, that would be amazing.” Kim Curry-Evans, the city of Raleigh’s public arts coordinator, is on board. She’s been working on a longterm public arts plan that she says will give the city direction. One of the most important aspects of that process, Curry-Evans says, has been figuring out “how we can have art everywhere. And not art that’s so much pushed by the city, but art that’s pushed by everyone. The murals project is very cool because that’s a perfect example of that. Now it’s a question of how to use our leverage to do things on the different city properties that are sitting vacant but are potentially opportunities for public art.” One such opportunity has already been seized: The Contemporary Art Museum is sponsoring a temporary mural that will go up on a city-owned building near the future Union Station. (That building will eventually be demolished.)

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Artist Kevin Lyons, known for his work with Stussy, DC Shoes and other brands, works on an original mural on the side of the Trophy Brewing building as part of the Raleigh Murals Project. PHOTOS BY JEREMY M. LANGE

“The conversation is just going to get bigger and louder,” says Gant.

nderlying this emerging movement is the notion that public art has inherent value. It makes places more interesting and gives people new and different ways to enjoy their cities. “People are encouraged and energized by art, and it gives them pride,” says Nurkin, the artist working on the Shaw murals. “When I paint something, people seem to be happy I did it. It adds to the identity of the place as not just another boring town, but there’s color on the walls and interesting things everywhere. It enlightens people.” It’s not lost on the founders of the Raleigh Murals Project, as well Raleigh’s art community, that street art is often seen as toeing a fine line between actual art and vandalism. Philadelphia’s mural program, for example, came about in response to what the city termed a “graffiti crisis.” For artists,

there’s the worry that their work could be spoiled with tags or drawings by others. “[The word graffiti] carries a lot of baggage for some people, and that’s the challenge,” says Moore. “There is some tension and aggression involved in that culture. It’s meant to be another thing that comes up, and a next one and a next one.” A month ago, local artists went to work on another wall on the Trophy building. The result was a colorful, haphazard mashup of text and illustration—graffiti at its best, thoughtful, artful and interesting. But the wall has since been vandalized with tags and crude spray-painted drawings. “That’s unfortunate,” says Gant. “If an artist comes in from out of town, they see if this one has been tagged, will theirs? Will this community respect me if they didn’t respect another?” But he notes that none of the city’s murals have been tagged or otherwise defaced, the result of an unspoken code of etiquette.

“There are very naïve generalizations made around graffiti art and street art in general,” says Lyons. “In cities that haven’t really embraced it, it gets a bad rap. It seems like Raleigh is at the beginning stages of what will be really fun—to watch how this develops and how it grows over the next couple years.” Eichenberger says that while public art makes cities interesting and vibrant, there’s also the basic human need that it fulfills—that is, the desire to connect. “Once people see that they can do this, that it’s acceptable, they want art everywhere,” he says. “People follow the murals on Instagram, they see there’s a new one, they want to go check it out at Yellow Dog Bakery and then they stop in at the bike shop. It makes people a little bit more active in their community. It makes people happy.” s Jane Porter is an INDY staff writer. Email her at jporter@indyweek.com.

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BOILING OVER

An alleged assault at Donald Trump’s Raleigh rally offers a window into the virulent rage building on the right BY BOB GEARY

es Holland Cronmiller is the Raleigh woman who got whacked in the jaw Friday night at the Donald Trump rally in Dorton Arena. A total sucker punch, she says, landed by an as-yet-unidentified Trump supporter who went ballistic when Cronmiller and other protesters dared to disrupt the Dear Leader. On Sunday, Jes said her face still hurt, and her mouth wasn’t opening all the way. But the loose tooth she’d been worried about seemed to be firmly back in place. Had she seen a doctor? No, because she doesn’t have health insurance. “I’ll survive,” she told me in the no-nonsense voice she uses to ward off sympathy. “It’s not my first rodeo.” I’ve known Jes since Occupy Raleigh was in bloom four years ago, with her in the forefront as organizer, spokesperson, den mother to those for whom it was a first rodeo, and actual mom to her precocious daughter, Cass, now 11. Since then, I’ve caught up with her at Moral Mondays and other lefty protests, as well as in Raleigh restaurants where she works as a server. She’s smart, speaks her mind and will be the first to tell you that her life would be easier if she spoke it less. The truth is her thing. From the many other ugly incidents reported by people who attended the Trump event, journalists included, a motif emerges of Trump onstage, stirring his kettle of hatreds while his followers scanned the people around them for anyone who wasn’t chanting “Build That Wall!” or “Send the Syrians Back!” with sufficient vigor—folks who should be screamed at, spat on or roughed up. I wasn’t there. But I’m convinced that what happened to Jes should not be dismissed as an isolated attack, but rather seen as an example of a virulent rage that is building on the political right that may soon become a firestorm.

he Trump event was open to anyone who wanted to be there, and Jes went with a contingent of experienced protesters who’d planned a series of interruptions, both verbal and with signs. There were 10 brief interruptions—CNN

counted—each one ending with the cops swooping in. Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said 25 protesters were removed, with no arrests. Jes’ role was backup for the final disruption. Two friends unfurled a banner—“No Platform for Hate Speech”— and the cops ripped it from their hands immediately, knocking one of them to the ground. The two were hustled out. Jes, Carrboro activist Lila Little and two others followed without being herded. They were chanting “Black lives matter.” As the contingent reached the exit ramp, Trump supporters were jeering and shouting epithets from the bleachers on both sides of them. Jes locked eyes with a woman to her left who seemed to tower above her, she says, either because she was taller (Jes is 5-foot-8) or was standing one step up. The woman shouted “something vile,” Jes says. Jes flipped her off (“Not my finest moment”), and the woman shouted again as Jes passed by. “I turned around to be like, ‘What is wrong with you?’ and as I turned my head, she just cold-clocked me in the jaw,” Jes says. The blow landed flush on the left side of her face, leaving a bruise visible two days later. “She hit me hard, and I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t braced for it.” Jes’s recollection of what the woman said and what happened next is fuzzy. From behind, Little witnessed the punch and says it snapped Jes’ head around. Little grabbed Jes and pulled her away. As she did, the woman wound up again, but by now Jes was out of reach, and there was a barricade in between, Little says. Little took a picture of the woman that is blurry but probably good enough to confirm her identity if the cops had arrested her. But they didn’t, despite Jes and Little pointing her out. Jes said the cops on hand denied seeing anything, and she was told to “just move along.”

cum!” “Traitors!” “Deport them!” These were the shouts that Shaun Ridgway, another

Raleigh protester, remembers hearing. Someone yelled that the protesters should be beheaded. A CNN reporter wrote that two men in combat fatigues were seen manhandling protesters before the cops got there. Accounts in The New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor describe an atmosphere about to boil over. Trump, “visibly rattled,” according to CSM, cut his speech short, but not before saying, as the INDY’s Jane Porter reported, “We are sitting on something that is bigger than anyone understands or knows.” Yes, and it’s frightening. There’s fear in the country—about jobs lost, security threatened, a planet in crisis— and it’s palpable on the left and the right. But there’s a difference that’s plain to Jes when she remembers the look of sheer hatred on her assailant’s face. “The difference is, the things we

believe on the left may be controversial, but they’re about the economy or some political issue,” she says. “They’re opinions and, sure, we shout them and we’re angry. But I’ve never heard us be actively hateful to entire groups of people, as if their very humanity was in question. That woman hated me, and she’d didn’t know one thing about me.” That’s the essence of Trump. He’s the strongman who knows, at a glance, whether people are worthy. On Monday, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” And his followers, so eager to help him root out evil, cheered and pledged allegiance to the end of religious liberty. s Bob Geary is an INDY columnist. Email him at rjgeary@mac.com.

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f some peppe ritual, But that w Cinnamo signature on a sudd welcome Cocoa C de Grodsk name of t who helpe countries Grodski a engineere “We sta “and had kind of co The com to Bolívar a high-caf namesake Allspice is Bolívar w pepper al would hav Central A been a pa millennia Many c lattes—th your choi with steam maté vari

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French Connections Looking for a holiday gift that is Unique? Beautiful? Natural? Affordable? Pictured: Cocoa Cinnamon’s “Simón Bolívar” maté latte. Not pictured: a South American revolutionary PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE

f someone dumped a dollop of cayenne pepper into your morning caffeine ritual, you would probably protest. But that won’t be necessary at Cocoa Cinnamon, where one of the shop’s best signature drinks, the “Simón Bolívar,” keys on a sudden shock of heat, providing a welcome jolt for drab winter days. Cocoa Cinnamon co-owner Leon Barrera de Grodski says the drink began with the name of the Venezuelan revolutionary who helped free several South American countries from Spanish rule. Barrera de Grodski and his partner, Areli, then reverseengineered the drink to match that story. “We started with ‘Simón Bolívar,’” he says, “and had fun trying to come up with what kind of cool drink we could get out of it.” The components are all individual nods to Bolívar’s history: Its base is yerba maté, a high-caffeine tea that, like the drink’s namesake, has South American roots. Allspice is native to Jamaica, to which Bolívar was exiled in 1815, and cayenne pepper alludes to the hot peppers Bolívar would have found as he pushed through Central America to Panama. Honey has been a part of native South America for millennia. Many coffee shops offer tea-based lattes—that is, the leafy or herbal mix of your choice, steeped in water then blended with steamed milk. Few, however, make maté varieties; only a few spots in the

Triangle, such as Carrboro’s Krave, even have maté on their menus. I usually avoid lattes made with espresso, as the flavor and density of the milk often feel too heavy against the coffee for me. But as soon as the Simón Bolívar is ready (given Cocoa Cinnamon’s frequent long lines and slow service, that may take a bit…), the difference is obvious from its near-white color, streaked across the top by spice. The drink is light and silky, too, so that the milk smooths out all of the tea’s boldest aspects. The maté and allspice combine for a light woody note, while the honey tempers most of the tea’s bitterness. It’s sweet but mild, with the milk’s microfoam offering a subtle texture. But it’s that small shake of cayenne that makes the Simón Bolívar exceptional. There’s not enough cayenne in the drink to make it hot, but the pepper lingers at the edge of your inner lip for a moment. And if you let yourself get distracted by your book or laptop (or cops handing out “good tickets” outside), the heat mixes with the allspice at the bottom of the cup, making for an ultra-emphatic finale. It’s best, then, to sip steadily, which I’ve never found to be a problem with this spiced surprise. —Allison Hussey Eat This is a recurring column about great new dishes and drinks in the Triangle. Had something you loved? Email food@indyweek.com.

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Crammed into the end of a Durham strip mall, Vegan Flava Cafe is one of the Triangle’s best new restaurants, meatless or otherwise BY GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN

he chef knows this look well. For three minutes of a post-lunch lull late on a Thursday afternoon, Yah-I Ausar Tafari Amen has patiently stood behind the bar of Vegan Flava Cafe, his palms spread flat against the marbled emerald laminate countertops. He stares at me, his eyes wide as he waits for me to scoop one of the curled green lettuce leaves from the paper plate he’s delivered. When I do, he smiles preemptively, expecting what’s next. I take a bite, look down, take another and finally look up at Ausar while smiling incredulously. His grin is so wide now it seems to dip into the hairnet that’s nestled beneath his beard. “That’s the reason we’re in business,” Ausar explains, laughing. “That’s what started it all.” Ausar begins to tell me about a conference in Raleigh years ago. His second wife, Ma’at em Maakheru Amen, was selling Whatz In Your Womb, her book “about the energy we carry around and how we pass it back and forth,” he says. The book helped him understand how humans relate to one another and how we affect each other’s mood; the theories apply to war and peace, sex and peace, he says at the start of a very long tangent. An on-again, off-again vegan who had worked at a series of health food stores in Atlanta, Philadelphia, his Brooklyn hometown and in Chapel Hill, Ausar brought some of the tuna salad he had been making for himself at home to the conference. Except there was no tuna, nothing even resembling fish—only carrots, ground into a pulp and reconstituted into a paste with spices, seaweed, egg-free mayonnaise and residual carrot juice. At the conference, Ausar had stepped outside only to return and find a line had formed, the folks waiting not for the book but for a serving. That’s the first time he knew he should start a restaurant. Today, mesmerized by the flavor to the point of confusion, frozen in a stupid smile, I reaffirm the decision. I ask him how he does it, and as soon as he starts talking, I begin eating again. By the time I’m finished, maybe 45 seconds later, he’s still discussing the reason he didn’t add carrot juice this time. What, you’ve never seen rare carrot tuna before? PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE I never loved tuna, and I’ve been known to spending several years running a popular food trailer at the Durham loathe a carrot. But I would eat this meal until the Farmers Market. Just off a frontage road that juts from congested U.S. sun sets over Vegan Flava Cafe, one of the Triangle’s best new 15-501, the restaurant sits alongside a panaderia and barbershop and restaurants. around the corner from an instrument store, a tailor and a tattoo parlor. “I’m glad you like it,” he finally says, smile still intact. “Bless you.” Vegan Flava Cafe seems to crouch beneath the weight of a Ausar and a small team opened Vegan Flava Cafe in a strip massive billboard just overhead. Its bright pink color and adultmall on the southwestern fringes of Durham late this summer, after

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eat & drink sized letters advertise affordable “family dental care,” dwarfing the restaurant’s own hand-painted sign to the point I only notice its diminutive palm trees when leaving for the second time. Vegan Flava occupies the former space of Blue Note Grill, the bar, rock club and restaurant that has since relocated to downtown Durham. Inside, it still recalls the former tenants. The concrete floors are painted and scuffed, and the bar—with its stainless steel taps sitting fallow in the temporarily alcohol-free restaurant— seems to exist now only because it used to. An Anubis tapestry covers most of one wall, and four pieces of currency (from Brazil, the United States, Uganda and Kenya) hang behind the bar. A small glass case, catawampus and neglected at one end of the bar, holds a kit for making at home the same Kangen Alkaline Water—that is, water whose pH has been boosted for purported, if debated, health benefits—that Vegan Flava uses in every dish it serves. Just beyond a small dining room, there’s a small lounge with a long brown couch, and then another rectangular “art gallery,” where hangings of Bob Marley and bright scenes reside in small frames. On a Friday night, pairs square off over games of chess in the colorful room after lessons earlier in the evening; in the dining room, young poets arrive for a reading. If the restaurant feels casually furnished, even accidentally so, the menu does not. It is intentional and limited, eschewing the flowery or technical explanations one might expect from a healthy emporium with new-age aims like this one. The halfdozen entrees include several wraps, either with the carrot “tuna,” an almond-based “seafood salad” or a simple panoply of crisp vegetables, wrapped in collards, seaweed or lettuce. There are tacos—where the typical seasoning has been ground deep into pureed walnuts—a daily special, a side or two and a few desserts. There is a Sunday brunch, too. I must admit that, in two trips, I ate everything on the menu and off it. (Speaking of the latter, ask for the “collard supreme,” stuffed with kale that’s been wondrously wrenched in nutritional yeast, oil and sundried tomatoes.) It was all designed and executed to the point of perfection. Sure, maybe it’s a bit awkward when a smiling chef stares at you, awaiting your first bite. But then, at least, you have the chance to stare back at him. Somehow, I stopped myself just short of saying, “Bless you, too.”

At a glance, Vegan Flava’s menu suggests that Ausar does what many other meatless restaurants do: Approximate the taste and texture of meat-based antecedents, like tuna salad or ground chuck in tacos, and use the health benefits as a sort of write-off for the missing bite, zest or essence you’d expect from its counterpart. But, really, it’s only the tacos that do this, with their spiced walnuts matching the savory taste and coarse chew of ground beef that’s been cooked quickly in a skillet. The rest of the dishes stand on their own. The “tuna salad” worries less about aping its namesake than acing a fleshy bite and a slightly briny sweetness. The same applies for the toothsome seafood salad. Rolled in collard leaves that sparkle and shine to the point they seem to have been dipped in hot wax, it is salty and spicy. Garlic and onion deliver an initial punch, only to be countered by a phantom velveteen creaminess and a dense crunch. The avocado is fresh, generous and sliced thin, as with most every dish at Vegan Flava. And the “live cashew cheesecake” doesn’t mimic a cheesecake at all. Above a sweet, nut-based crust, the filling is the color of wet sand, and it has the taste of a delicious pound cake that’s been pulled from the oven before the bake has finished. Topped by a strawberry compote, each colossal $7 piece suggests it took an eternity to design and almost as long to cook; devouring it takes little more than an instant. Really, that’s my chief standing criticism with Vegan Flava Cafe: The restaurant brims with wonderful conversationalists, like the server Raj, who likes to talk about how the alkali water “disrupts the microclusters in your blood … because it’s like a snowflake,” or a customer ordering takeout and explaining how no one in her family would believe the pecan pie was vegan. And then there’s Ausar, who discloses his life story as soon as you meet him. But the food simply leaves the plate too quickly for many of these conversations. At least that’s why, I like to tell myself, I ate everything on the menu in only two visits—so I could stay a little longer. s Grayson Haver Currin is the managing+music editor of the INDY.

VEGAN FLAVA CAFÉ 4125 Durham Chapel Hill Blvd., Durham, 919-960-1832, www.veganflavacafe.com

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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December 11, 2015 – July 4, 2016

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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CHOCOLATE HEARTS

Steven Lambeth is a new-age chocolatier on a quest to stretch the effects of sweets BY SAYAKA MATSUOKA

S the

N o rt h C a r o li N a M u s eu M

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James-farmer ColleCtion 5 East Edenton Street Downtown Raleigh 919-807-7900 ncmuseumofhistory.org

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teven Lambeth’s obsession with chocolate began as a romantic rebound. About two years ago, Lambeth was working through a particularly rough breakup with a woman who had loved chocolate. After the split, he began to eat his feelings, picking one of her favorite foods as a tribute to the person he’d lost. “I fell in love with this woman who loved chocolate,” Lambeth remembers. “But I still didn’t eat it. It wasn’t until after we broke up that I started dumping chocolate into the big, gaping hole she left.” When Lambeth finally started, he couldn’t stop. He began craving chocolate to the point where he was spending more money on it than on actual meals. Lambeth knew the lifestyle wasn’t sustainable, either for his physical or financial health. “That’s when I decided to start making chocolate myself,” he remembers, “instead of curtailing my consumption.” The idea had been for Lambeth, a private chef by trade, to make only what he intended to eat, but he started sharing his creations with family and friends. He soon learned there was a market for this new hobby—vegan, largely raw confections made by hand and flavored by an unlikely assortment of additions. He uses only organic ingredients to create uncanny chocolate flavors, plus a blend of herbs, spices and flowers to give his confections very specific roles. Rather than push the limits of cocoa darkness or truffles that cram caramel or booze into tiny spaces, Lambeth is attempting to differentiate himself in the Triangle’s increasingly crowded chocolate scene with a near new-age approach to flavor and functionality. And it appears to be working: The upstart chocolatier now makes three standard flavors of bars (and has just launched his first holiday bar) and sells them throughout the Triangle in spots like the Saxapahaw General Store and Carrboro’s Oasis Cafe. His two-year-old company, Raw Chocolate for the Soul, hopes to expand into larger grocery chains next year and perhaps hire a full-time employee, too. For now, though, he does it all alone, fitting for someone who

describes chocolate making as his “spiritual journey.” His creations reflect his own personality and ideology. “This endeavor to create chocolate has been a part of my own journey and spiritual path,” says Lambeth. “And I hope whoever eats it also feels that support.”

teven Lambeth always listens to music when he makes his chocolates—sometimes classical, sometimes rap. Today, he picks a folk-andbluegrass play list and slips a hairnet over his head, taming his curly brown locks. He begins laying out his materials as “One More Day” by The Wood Brothers plays. Since February, Lambeth has been working in the kitchen of Smitty’s Homemade Ice Cream in Graham, partly owned by his father, to produce his herbal chocolate bars. He begins to measure ingredients on a scale, preparing to make a batch of “Heart” bars. The Heart bar features hawthorn berries, rose petals and rose hips, meant as a “heartwarming” treat, he says. Each of the three flavors employs a different concept, with corresponding herbs and ingredients meant to fulfill its theme. The “Love” bar, for instance, incorporates codonopsis, kava and shatavari with a touch of cinnamon and cayenne to create an aphrodisiac effect. “Vitality” includes maca, tulsi and schisandra berries to help center and balance consumers. Lambeth is not shy about the spiritual sensibility of his treats. When the cacao first arrives at his home, he even performs a blessing ceremony. During the process, Lambeth stores three crystals inside the container of cacao to “anchor his intention.” This is where his spiritual self, he hopes, connects with his creative half. “I spend an hour over the cacao, praying,” explains Lambeth. “I pray that the cacao helps everyone who comes into contact with it. People say they feel the love in the chocolate.” While actually producing the product, however, the meticulous Lambeth makes sure those same crystals don’t fall into the mixing bowl with the cacao powder. Instead,

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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ssical, olk-andet over ocks. He One plays. en

, partly s herbal he adds coconut oil and powdered herbs. ure o make a As the mixer turns on, the beater starts to spin, and small, brown clouds of cacao float n berries, out of the bowl and into the air like smoke. The bluegrass play list has yielded to Mos sa ch of the Def’s “Ms. Fat Booty,” the beat straining the oncept, speakers of his nearby Macbook. As the cacao combines with the oil and edients ve” bar, herbs, it slowly transforms into a unified psis, kava mixture. Lambeth turns off the machine and brings over a tray of water and an amon induction cooktop. iac “It’s a makeshift tempering machine,” he ulsi explains, grinning. “I was really happy when ter and I figured out this could work.” Like he’s putting together a puzzle, iritual Lambeth slides the tray of water on top of cacao erforms the heating cooktop and then positions the rocess, mixer above the tray. The simmering water heats the bottom inch of the mixing bowl, de allowing the chocolate-based paste to warm his ual self, up just enough to melt into a viscous cream. ve half. The mixer continues to stir. “This is my favorite part,” says Lambeth, , who wears a colorful patchwork apron, ay that mes into black slacks and sandals. “This is the part l the love where the ingredients become my product. It’s when the magic happens.” Lambeth adds coconut sugar, Himalayan duct, pink salt and maple syrup. The new makes components completely transform the nto the r. Instead, consistency of the chocolate into a deep,

The INDY’S GUIDE to ALL THINGS TRIANGLE

dark brown pool that looks so smooth you could bathe in it. At this point, Lambeth prepares for what he considers the hardest part, especially since this is a one-chocolatier operation: spreading the chocolate into the silicone forms. Each grid includes tiny squares patterned inside of it, meant to make the resulting chocolate bars look a little like delicious miniature French doors. Lambeth begins scooping the chocolate paste out of the bowl with a spatula, measuring the mix into 24 4.2-ounce molds, each of which ideally yields two bars. He rounds off the edges with a spoon, like an artist smoothing out paint against a new canvas. For the customer, this is where the handmade aspect of Lambeth’s craft becomes most evident. Lambeth leans in closely to clean the edges of the bars, but

they are never as straight as those made by machine. Each bar is slightly different from the last. Though Lambeth says this part of the process is his least favorite, he’s remedied that by adding another layer to the tedium, rather than trying to make it easier. Using the Alexander technique, a 19th-century system indented to limit inefficient movements and tension, he tries to avoid unnecessary muscular strain by feeling the whole process from his wrists down to his heels. Even making chocolate has become a therapy of sorts. “I make spreading the chocolate into a game,” explains Lambeth. “I try to feel the energy throughout my body. It makes it more enjoyable.” At last, all that remains is refrigerating the bars until they harden. He’ll then cut the bars and package them. The whole process takes close to three hours and yields about 47 pieces. It’s a time-consuming part-time occupation, but Lambeth says it’s about more than his own hours: He hopes his creations help people reframe what they imagine chocolate can be by showing them that confections can have a larger purpose than sheer sweetness. Not bad for a rebound. s Sayaka Matsuoka is a local freelance journalist, avid tea drinker and dog enthusiast.

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Holiday Gift Guide

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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Artspace Gift Shop

Santa Claws Card by Wit & Whistle | $4.50

Santa Claws is coming to town and he’s sending his elves to the new Artspace gift shop! Featuring a curated selection of artwork, jewelry, holiday cards and gifts from local artists Gabriella Corter, Julie Anne Greenberg, Mark Gordon, Michelle Lyon, STEELthread and more. Open Tuesday 10-7, Wednesday – Saturday 10-6. 201 E Davie St, Raleigh (919) 821-2787 | www.artspacenc.org

American Brewmaster 1 Gallon Home Winemaking Kit

The New World Vineyard 5 bottle kit is the perfect starter size for anyone wanting try their hand at winemaking with minimal investment. Available in Six Varietals. Premium Quality Country Specific Juice from renowned growing regions around the world. Come see us at either our Raleigh or new Cary location! 3021 Stonybrook Dr, Raleigh | 919-850-0095 1008 SW Maynard Rd, Cary | 919-289-4090 www.americanbrewmaster.com

Atomic Empire

Splendor Card Game | $31.99 Freshen up family game night with a fast-paced card game that changes with every re-play. Drop by Atomic Empire and let our staff make a recommendation, or test-drive one of our 100 demo games! Vintners 3400 Westgate Dr #14B, Durham 919-490-7900 | www.atomicempire.com

Bull City Homebrew

The Byrd Nest of Raleigh Nest of Gems

Our Nest is filled with a menagerie of items gathered from local artisans and growers, as well as the latest in accessories and beautiful antique pieces. One-of-a-kind gifts, sports memorabilia and a room dedicated to several charities is also nestled inside. Come see what the Nest holds for you! 4016 Durham Road, Raleigh 919-803-2922 www.thebyrdnestofraleigh.com

Best Wine Equipment Kit w/ Corker | $135.99

The perfect gift for any wine lover that wants to make wine at home. This equipment kit contains all the equipment a beginning vintner needs to make wine except bottles. It’s easy and we can show you how. Just mention this ad and we will give you 15% off the kit price AND 2 tickets to our wine making 101 class worth $25 each! Offer good until Dec. 24th. 1906 NC-54 #200b, Durham 919-682-0300 | www.bullcityhomebrew.com

Burlington Aviation

Discovery Flight Gift Card | $119 Does your loved one dream of flying? Buy a Discovery Flight Gift Card online from Burlington Aviation and give them the gift of flight. Get a 45 minute flight in which they will get to take the controls under the supervision of an experienced instructor. 3510 Alamance Rd., Burlington 336-227-1278 | www.burlingtonaviation.com

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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Cameron’s

French Chocolate Truffles Handmade chocolate truffles from one of the last family owned chocolatiers in Paris, France. These chocolates are destined to become your go-to gift for the holiday. 370 E Main St #130, Carrboro 919-942-5554 | www.camerons-gallery.com

Cedar Creek Gallery

Blown Glass Ornaments $17-$125 A destination for treasures. Choose from over 200 local, regional and national craftspeople working in pottery, glass, metal wood fiber and more. 20 Minutes from Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Open 10AM-6PM 7 days a week. 1150 Fleming Road, Creedmoor 919-528-1041 | www.cedarcreekgallery.com www.shopcedarcreek.com

Freda’s Workshop Gift basket

Enjoy a large selection of local, all natural handcrafted soaps, lotions, sugar scrubs, skin care products, bath bombs, massage candles, and essential oils. We’ll create a gift basket or help you choose the perfect, unique gift for anyone on your list! 821 Bass Pro Lane, Cary 919-535-3111

Devolve Moto

Sons of Trade – Journey Bag: $160 The Sons of Trade Journey Pack is an expedition unto itself. Made from one of civilization’s oldest know fabrics--felt--this lightweight, strong bag is ready whenever you are. 304 Glenwood Ave., Raleigh 336-687-2445 | www.devolvemoto.com

Fred Astaire Franchised Dance Studios Give the gift of social dance! Gift certificates starting at $40

Ballroom, Latin, and swing. Couples, singles, and teens welcome. Wedding programs available. Friendly interactive environment. No partner necessary. New customers enjoy 3 sessions for only $40: includes 2 private dance lesions and 1 group lesson. DURHAM • 4702 Garrett Rd. 919-489-4313 • www.dancingfads.com RALEIGH • 6300 Creedmoor Rd. #122 919-872-0111 • www.carolinadance.com

The Glass Jug

Craft Beer, Gift Certificates, & Apparel

Give the gift of craft beer with a gift certificate good for draft beer, growler fills, or anything from our huge selection of beer to go! The Glass Jug also has beer coolers, growler carriers, bottle openers, and other great stocking stuffers for the beer lover in your life! 5410 Hwy 55, Suite AF, Durham 919-813-0135 | glass-jug.com

Goldworks

Platinum Spiral Ring Give her something unique this Christmas, jewelry from Goldworks. Fine jewelry, casual jewelry and everything in between, including one of the Triangle’s best selections of American handmade glass. Pottery, Glass, Silk Scarves, gifts to delight and inspire. Classic to contemporary. Casual to Steam-punk. Goldworks has something for everyone this Christmas. University Mall, 201 S. Estes Dr, Chapel Hill 919-932-1771 | www.goldworks-nc.com

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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Holiday Gift Guide Great Outdoor Provision Co.

Jewelsmith

Sterling Silver and Sapphire Pendant | $1690 This sterling silver pendant is flush set with various colors of sparkling sapphires. We also have this design available in diamond, for a dressier look. Don’t forget about your own loose gemstones and diamonds- this design is a contemporary and affordable way to use them. Erwin Square, 2200 W. Main St., Durham 919-286-2990 www.jewelsmith.com

Yeti Hopper – Retail – starts at $249.95 The YETI Hopper is a personal, portable, anything but soft-sided cooler. Like all YETI products, the Hopper is built for the wild. Now thru 12/15, receive a $15 holiday gift card with the purchase of 2 Yeti Rambler Lowball Tumblers. Cameron Village, Raleigh | 919-833-1741 Eastgate Shopping Center, Chapel Hill | 919-933-6148 GreatOutdoorProvision.com

Kamiya Furniture Gallery Glass on Teak | $99 + up

The Triangle’s best kept secret. Specializing in handmade, sustainable, Indonesian teak furniture and decor, this is the best place to find that one-of-a-kind gift. Discover their “Glass on Teak” collection - Each is as lovely and unique as you are. Gifts Cards available. 2611 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd. Durham, NC 919-401-5338 | www.kamiyaco.com

High Strung Violins & Guitars

Mahalo Ukuleles | $39.95 This year, give the gift of music making with the easiest string instrument! Great colors, great price, and good for beginners old or young, or as a “beater uke” for camping trips or the beach. 1803 W Markham Ave, Durham 919-286-3801 | www.highstrungdurham.com

Light Years

Geometric Necklaces & Earrings

Light Years has many classic bar necklaces and geometric earrings! A great style to dress up or down, these pieces can be worn from work to a night out on the town! Come by and get one of these timeless styles for friends and loved ones! 121 E. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill | 919-942-9265 Streets at Southpoint Mall, Durham | 919-806-5992 Cameron Village, Raleigh | 919-754-8555 www.lightyearsjewelry.com

Little Shop of Horror

Handmade Candles $10 each or 3 for $25

Handmade, unscented horror & villain inspired decorative prayer candles. Feel free to contact us with custom requests and we’ll see what we can come up with. 506 N Mangum St #103 Durham 919-688-1237 | www.littleshophorror.com

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences’ Stores MOVA Globe | $135 - $140

Looking for an original gift? The MOVA® Globe is an eco-friendly item that relies only on ambient light and the Earth’s magnetic field to rotate – no batteries required! The three Museum stores are full of many unique gifts with a natural science theme. 11 West Jones Street, Raleigh 919-707-9800 www.naturalsciences.org

Locally Grown Art

Glassblowing workshop | $265 Our glassblowing school offers a variety of workshops for beginners. Students will create a number of ornaments, beads, and paperweights in this two- day workshop. Learn the basics of glassblowing and gain a technical framework to set up a home studio or rent time through ours. No experience necessary. 407 Rock Rest Rd. Pittsboro 919-200-1957 www.locallygrownart.com

Miel Bon Bons

Heavenly Holiday Desserts Locally owned boutique-style bakery & chocolate shop committed to great desserts. Throwing a cocktail party or a swanky New Year’s Eve bash? Come in for delicious macarons, decadent handmade truffles and more. Pre-Order your Bûche de Noël or a traditional Yule log— a must have dessert for the Holidays. Gifts + Shop = We ship anywhere. 2514 University Dr. Suite 101, Durham 919-360-3332 | www.mielbonbons.com

North Carolina Crafts Gallery

Flour Sack Towels | $12 each

A gift gallery featuring items made exclusively by North Carolina artists and craftsmen. Pottery, turned wood, jewelry, glass, fiber art, metal, folk art, toys and more! Flour sack towels from “the High Fiber” are made with natural unbleached cotton and are printed by hand using solvent free, environmentally kind inks. 212 West Main Street, Carrboro 919-942-4048 www.nccraftsgallery.com

NOFO @ the Pig Beardbrand Beard Kit

For the beardsman, premium & luxurious grooming products from the west coast’s Beardbrand. Wax, oil, beard wash, combs, & brushes. Available in Tree Ranger & Lumber Yard scents. And for the serious urban beardsman, a handsome wooden box filled with everything. 2014 Fairview Rd., Raleigh 919-821-1240 | www.nofo.com

The Peoples Channel Videography classes

Give the Gift of Videography! $50 for a one-on-one videography class in our studio. $100 for a one-on-one videography class + unlimited equipment checkouts for a year. $30/hour for video editing classes in Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro.300 S. Elliott Rd., Chapel Hill 919-960-0088 www.ThePeoplesChannel.org

PNC Arena Gift Cards

Give the Gift of Live Entertainment! PNC Arena Gift Cards are the perfect gift for Family, Friends, or Clients. Carolina Hurricanes hockey, NC State Men’s basketball, concerts, family shows, comedy, and more - something for everyone! Redeemable for event tickets,* at participating concession stands, the Eye Team Store, and more. *excluding NC State Men’s Basketball and select events. 1400 Edwards Mill Rd., Raleigh 919-861-2300 | www.ThePNCArena.com

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

Holiday Gift Guide Posh the Salon

Paintbar

Redken Hairspray Gift Packs | 22.00

Give The Gift Of Pampering!

There’s nothing better than hair that stays put during the holiday season! This Redken Holiday Hairspray set includes NEW Triple Take 32, an extremely high-hold, yet soft and touchable hairspray without the crunch featuring a triplenozzle, and Guts 10, a wonderful volume spray-foam to keep your roots perfectly lifted and textured throughout the day! 610 W Main Street, Durham 919-683-2109 poshthesalon.com

Paintbar offers convenient, high-end nail and beauty services; give the gift of pampering with a Paintbar gift card this holiday season! Paintbar can also host semiprivate or private parties for any occasion! 705 Tucker Street, Raleigh 919-218-8795 | www.paintbarnails.com

THE RED HEN Felt Masks

Need a present for the little pirate or cat lover in your life? Come shop our selection of locally made masks, hair accessories, wooden rattles, handmade soap as well as lots of gently used children’s and maternity clothes, toys, books and gear. Save money by shopping at The Red Hen first!

Ramble Supply Co.

Kinfolk Table and Home Books

201 South Estes Drive Chapel Hill, NC | 919-942-4420 www.theredhen.com

Make it a handmade holiday with beautiful gifts from Ramble Supply Co. Shop from a selection of ceramics from Liz Kelly or give the gift of Home and Table with these Kinfolk books. Perfect for the cook or home decorator in your life. 123 E. Martin St., Raleigh 919-977-7767 | www.ramblesupplyco.com

Reliable Jewelry & Loan Jewelry

The Root Cellar Gift Baskets

Our custom-made Gift Baskets feature specialty food items and more from our market, including pickles, spice rubs, dry pastas, marmalades and jams, peanut and almond butters, gourmet mustards, hand-crafted chocolates, local honey, wines, and more! The perfect holiday gift for the food lover in your life! 750 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill 919-967-3663 | rootcellarchapelhill.com

We have a large selection of jewelry, accessories, and all sizes of looses diamonds and settings. Since 1949, Reliable Jewelry has been the trusted name in luxury all over the triangle. Three generations have been providing the best jewelry at the most affordable prices. 307 S. Wilmington St., Raleigh, NC 919-832-1240 | reliablejewelry.com

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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Sofia’s Boutique

Houston Llew Spiritiles | $98 Spirit to Spirit! Share the unique stories of life with loved ones through a Spiritile. Houston Llew’s glass on copper artworks draw from the beauty of simplicity and will be treasured for years to come. Shop Sofia’s for one of a kind gifts this holiday season! Historic Carr Mill Mall, Carrboro NC 919-942-9008 www.sofiasboutique.us

Ten Thousand Villages

Kenyan Princess Cuff Bracelet | $24 This modern bracelet design is simple, sleek and stylish. Bombolulu Workshops and Cultural Centre is located in Mombasa, Kenya, and works to help men and women overcome physical limitations in order to become economically and socially empowered. 1357 Kildaire Farm Rd, Cary 919-821-1100 www.tenthousandvillages.com

TWIG

Hardwood Playable Art Ball For the big or little kid in your life. Twig is a local, eco-boutique specializing in environmentallyfriendly home goods, clothing, and toys. We bring you the best most exclusive brands, improving your life and preserving the earth for future generations. Stop by and see what we have for you and your loved ones. 99 S. Elliott Rd, Chapel Hill | 919-929-8944 | www.twigliving.com

Vert & Vogue Femme

Beanie Pomster by Mischa Lampert

Vert & Vogue

Insignia Stud by Emily Triplett Modern and elegant, the Insignia Stud earring set is a truly timeless piece. Handmade in Chapel Hill, they feature 14-karat forged yellow gold with a high polish finish. It’s unique shape and classic design will make this a gift she’ll want to wear everyday! Brightleaf Square | 905 West Main Street Downtown Durham | 919-251-8537 | vertandvogue.com

The super comfy Mischa Lampert Beanie Pomster is handmade in NYC of the finest 100% merino wool. Available in a variety of colors, there’s an option for everyone on your list. It’s soft knit style will keep ears warm making it a gift they’ll want to wear all Winter long! Five Points | 353 West Main Street Downtown Durham | 919-797-2767

Virtuoso Jewels

Palladium “Oslo” Ring Set with Blue and Red Spinel The only North Carolina jewelry shop owned and run by a Certified Master Jeweler. Owner Larry Seiger is a second generation goldsmith, a multiple international jewelry design award winner and the third jeweler in the nation to be awarded the prestigious JA Certified Master Bench Jeweler Certification. 114B North Salem Street, Apex 919-805-5111 | virtuosojewels@gmail.com www.facebook.com/virtuosojewels

Women’s Birth & Wellness Boutique

The Happy Mat

The Happy Mat is an all-in-one, food-grade silicone placemat and plate. It’s pretty amazing as it suctions directly to the table, making it nearly impossible for children’s hands to tip it over. Pretty smart! Designed for infants & toddlers. Dishwasher, microwave, oven safe. Easy to store. Less mess, more fun! Non-profit | Open 7 Days a Week Chapel Hill | 919-537-7055 | ncbirthcenter.org

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Wed Dec 9

www.lincolntheatre.com DECEMBER

Samantha Fish Thu Dec 10

We 9 SAMANTHA FISH w/ Mel Melton Th 10 CORROSION OF CONFORMITY

Pepper-Reed-Mike-Woody + 7p w/Brant Bjork/Saviors/Mothership Fr 11 DOPAPOD w/ Nth Power 8p Sa 12 OLD HABITS /Old Man Whickett 8p We 16 HOLIDAY RAWk Local Artist

Th 17 HOPE FOR HAITI BENEFIT

Corrosion of Conformity

18 19 26 27 31

w/People’s Blues of Richmond + REBEL SON w/Dave Schneider 8p YARN w/ The Dune Dogs 8p PULSE: Electronic Dance Party 9p NANTUCKET w/Monika Jaymes+ 7p BIG SOMETHING w/Groove Fetish

Sa 2 8 & 9 Su 10 We 13 Fr 15 Sa 16 Sa 23 Th 28 Fr 29 Su 31

WINTER METAL FEST ZOSO Ultimate LED ZEPPELIN exp AFTON MUSIC SHOWCASE 6p LIQUID STRANGER STRUTTER (A Tribute to KISS) THE BREAKFAST CLUB 80’s 8p ANI DIFRANCO w/Hamell on Trial LUKE COMBS 7p REEL BIG FISH GRAVEYARD w/Spiders 7p

Mo 1 We 3 5 & 6 Th 11 Fr 12 Fr 13 Th 18 Fr 19 Sa 20 Tu 23 Fr 26 Su 28 3 - 1 3 - 2 3 - 3 3 - 9 3-17 3-26 3-31 4 - 3 4 - 7

EPICA w/ Moonspell/Starkill 6:30 GAELIC STORM 7p AMERICAN AQUARIUM 8p CHERUB w/Bibbz @ THE RITZ THE SHAKEDOWN (Mardi Gras) WHO’S BAD Michael Jackson Trib. THE MACHINE performs PINK FLOYD MOTHER’S FINEST + 7p NEVER SHOUT NEVER + 6:30p SISTER HAZEL 7p GEOFF TATE’S Operation: Mindcrime MIKE GARDNER BENEFIT 7p Y&T 7p RANDY ROGERS BAND + TITUS ANDRONICUS w/Craig Finn JUDAH AND THE LION 7p MAC SABBATH DAVID ALLAN COE Fri STICK FIGURE 7p THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS ELLE KING

Fr Sa Sa Su Th

Fri Dec 11

JANUARY

Dopapod Sat Dec 12

FEBRUARY

Advance Tickets @Lincolntheatre.com & Schoolkids Records All Shows All Ages 126 E. Cabarrus St. 919-821-4111

Old Habits Holiday Bash

Yarn

Sat Dec 19 Jan 29

Reel Big Fish

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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culture

BIG SCIENCE

The lineup for May’s Durham debut of Moogfest is an impressive cross-curricular extravaganza. Now the festival must fit inside its adopted city. BY GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN

hen the music-and-technology festival Moogfest announced in July it would relocate from Asheville, its longtime home and the headquarters of its parent brand, Moog Music, to Durham, the impending move raised a set of salient questions. How, for instance, would downtown Durham and its slim set of music venues provide adequate space for a few hundred acts, let alone several thousand attendees? Where would they speak and teach during daytime workshops? Where would they play and dance during shows at night? In a region with a budding festival circuit, would Moogfest trend more toward the technology side of its mission, using bigname speakers and cutting-edge thinkers to lure start-up zealots, Research Triangle Park wonks and university affiliates into rock clubs? And after abandoned attempts to establish the event in Manhattan and Asheville, an ostensibly bitter split with one of the nation’s largest independent concert promoters years ago, and a $1.5 million loss during the 2014 festival, could Moogfest finally settle down in Durham—and, who knows, maybe break even? On Tuesday morning, Moogfest took its first serious step toward answering at least some of those questions (but, inevitably, not all of them) with the release of an impressive initial roster for its Durham debut, scheduled to run from May 19 to May 22. Moogfest’s geographic footprint alone will likely make it the most involved and involving festival yet in Durham’s resurgent downtown. Its deep integration of musicians and thinkers—or its perception of that binary as false— positions it to become a singular Triangle event, too, where theory and praxis share stage time and spotlights. Backtracking on an earlier announcement that the festival would be biannual, Moogfest now intends to become an annual event; with this sort of size and scope, it could permanently alter the Triangle’s majorevents landscape.

The festival will enlist nearly two dozen venues—some preexisting, like Motorco Music Hall; others ad hoc, like Motorco’s parking lot—in downtown Durham. The festival will turn the Carolina Theatre into three event spaces, the 21c Museum Hotel into two and the Durham Arts Council into three. Organizers will employ untraditional rooms such as the First Presbyterian Church and Duke’s downtown “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” facility, and they will build stages in outdoor squares like CCB Plaza and Diamond View Park. The lineup itself, which will expand in the coming months, aims to close the gap between the festival’s music and technology aspects by exploring and connecting both realms. During the day, an array of speakers, including Sirius Radio creator Martine Rothblatt and “cyborg artist” Neil Harbisson, will lead panels and lectures and interact with a world of musicians selected, at least in part, for their interest in technology. As such, many of those 100-plus acts work mainly in the realm of electronic music—from dubstep icon Kode9 to British dance architect DJ Harvey, from soul sophisticate Blood Orange to synth magus M. Geddes Gengras, from pillowtop techno lords The Orb to U2 producer, rock songwriter and ambient explorer Daniel Lanois. The roster crisscrosses multiple genres, too, nodding at something like jazz with Dawn of Midi and hip-hop with Wu-Tang’s GZA, pop with Empress Of and Gary Numan and heavy metal with Sunn O))) and The Body. There’s rock from Explosions in the Sky and Mac McCaughan, noise from Ben Frost and Tim Hecker. There will be hours-long improvisations called “Durationals,” quiet shows in a sanctuary, synthesizer demonstrations from modern masters and even a Yo Gabba Gabba! kids show that includes Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh and Parliament-Funkadelic’s Bootsy Collins. Friperformer, & Sat The most emblematic FebAnderson, 5 & 6the though, might be Laurie

American Aquarium

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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culture

violinist, singer, performance artist and conceptual powerhouse. For the last 40 years, Anderson has explored intersections of technology and music, becoming an early and inventive adopter of various electronic instruments and processes. Those choices have often illuminated her music’s uncanny explorations of society, time and unease, adding an edge of inquisitive exploration across fields. Anderson, you could argue, is o dozen Moogfest’s paragon. As with Anderson’s music, Moogfest otorco aims to create an immersive, unified torco’s event, where ideas that are proposed m. The and analyzed during daytime talks, atre into m Hotel classes, seminars and panels are made uncil into flesh during nighttime concerts. Some raditional programming themes are gnomically general; what can one really say, an nnovation for instance, about “The Future of d they Creativity?” Others, like “Afrofuturism” and “Transhumanism,” seem especially es like relevant right now; to wit, the latter rk. topic recently arrived at your Sundayand se the morning doorstep, thanks to The New York Times’ distribution of Google nd Cardboard glasses. nd Moogfest feels a little like a series he day, of ius Radio TED Talks, where the question of who’s playing the after-party is not only borg paramount but tied to the day’s actual anels orld of discussions. “All participants, whether t, for performing artists or contributors in the conference, have been selected s acts for their thematic connection to onic the central programmatic themes,” to festival director Marisa Brickman from explained Monday night. “In some synth pillow- cases, they were sought out for a oducer, very specific contribution—synth pioneers, transhumanist advocates, orer experts in dub reggae. In other cases, sses omething their association (to electronic music, p-hop the future of creativity, emerging mpress technologies) is more loose.” This, of course, goes several steps etal beyond the general music festival or creativity ere’s nd Mac conference approach, where events seem like convocations for the preexisting choir rather t and than chances to explore interstitial ideas and ong audiences and find new connections. The s,” concept of combining the two is en vogue sizer sters and right now, evidenced locally by the Art of Cool Festival’s “Innovate Your Cool” addition or the w that ugh and Hopscotch Design Festival, which ends just Collins. before the Hopscotch Music Festival begins. But these sideshows feel tenuous and r, tacked-on, limited by budgets and the , the

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need to, first and foremost, satiate the music crowds they’ve built over many years. Moogfest hopes to remove those self-imposed boundaries—to put the systems, system designers and system operators in play all at once. The acts themselves—many of which have played Hopscotch, Moogfest or Knoxville’s Big Ears in recent years, anyway—seem less important than that difficult, expensive mission. It is Moogfest’s cri de cœur.

financially and philosophically. It seems capable enough, with its thoughtful design providing a potential crossroads for those interested in music at large and technology at all (and vice versa). But now that Moogfest intends to take over Durham every year, it’s essential that it doesn’t feel like an imported, resourcesucking product in search of a willing host. In its initial announcement, Moogfest has taken some essential steps to incorporate Laurie Anderson PHOTO BY LUCIE JANSCH

“The total number of artists and activities is not nearly as important as the integration of a holistic program,” Brickman said. “We know that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

he strength of Tuesday’s announcement doesn’t absolve Moogfest of all its issues, of course. The festival does not begin for another five months, and only on-the-ground results will tell us if it fits in Durham logistically,

its new local culture, from rapper Well$ and producer Made of Oak to a series of art commissions and site-specific pieces. Brickman expects to announce more local partnerships throughout the spring, eventually incorporating researchers and professors from the area’s museums and universities. And the worry that Moogfest’s arrival in late May—that is, two weeks after the third iteration of Durham’s jazz-and-soul-centric Art of Cool—will galvanize the preexisting

image of “two Durhams” looms large. After all, a Moogfest pass will run you $249, with VIP access doubling the price; though Art of Cool tickets cost about half that sum, it’s difficult to imagine many people affording both. Instead, the festivals’ near-consecutive runs will likely necessitate a telling choice. Moogfest calls this year’s hip-hop subset its “strongest ever hip-hop and rap lineup,” which is not only debatable (2010 in Asheville was stronger) but is also not saying so much. GZA is a genre titan. Lunice and Ryan Hemsworth are among its best young producers and remixers. Justin Bieber really likes future star Tory Lanez, and there’s some strong local hip-hop on the roster. But that’s about it. Moogfest’s lineup, at least as is, harbors the suspicious implication that making beats for rappers is somehow a higher art than rapping itself. The hard choice of area fans could carry over to financial support, too. Though Moogfest will only begin to announce its full slate of partners and sponsors in February, it’s already enlisted major help from Research Triangle Park, American Underground and Capitol Broadcasting Company after moving to town in part for pledges of assistance from the Durham Chamber of Commerce. The festival has asked for $125,000 of support and $25,000 of in-kind services from its adopted city and county. Meanwhile, Art of Cool’s fight for festival dollars has only escalated, according to co-founder Cicely Mitchell. In 2016, Art of Cool will receive $5,000 from the city, down from $8,000 in 2015. And this year, Art of Cool’s former title sponsors at American Tobacco Campus, a Capitol Broadcasting property, will underwrite only a portion of the “Innovate Your Cool” conference, not the music festival itself. “As the festival has evolved,” a company spokesperson said last month, “so has our involvement.” It remains to be seen if Moogfest can evolve, too, while leaving space, fans and funds for Art of Cool to do the same. But that is a question for Durham—or really, the Triangle—just as much as it is for Moogfest. s Grayson Haver Currin is the INDY’s managing+music editor. Email him at gcurrin@indyweek.com.

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2014 IBMA Momentum Award BAND OF THE YEAR

Can Cécile McLorin Salvant’s dipping, diving voice lure unsuspecting listeners into jazz? BY ERIC TULLIS

ven if you have yet to notice, jazz is inching back toward 106 Purefoy Road, Chapel hill NC 27514 the mainstream musical 106 Purefoy Road, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514 Advance Sale $20 at consciousness. 919-942-2050 www.communitychurchconcerts.org Thanks especially to some highwww.communitychurchconcerts.org profile hip-hop collaborators, Tickets: In Advance: $15 jazz acts such as Thundercat, Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper suddenly seem ubiquitous, unexpectedly flirting with wider acceptance and accessibility. But by and large, the genre is still held hostage by its old guard’s staunch defenders, bop preservationists who render the An evening with Jens, Uwe and Joel is always a special form ineffective for outsiders. Cécile musical experience. McLorin Salvant—only a few years ago, “I used to think the banjo was somewhat limited to an certain outsider to jazz herself—could help styles, un8l I heard Jens Kruger. Jens has played some of the change that. most beau8ful and expressive banjo I’ve ever heard.“ –Ron Block “I had a hole in my voice. I still Alison Krauss and Union StaTon do,” Salvant explained in a recent interview. She was describing her transition from the classical arena to the more accommodating arms of jazz pastiche and how an error in her voice necessitated an idiomatic switch. “We call it a hole, but it’s an area in the voice where it’s air. My classical teachers were just so frustrated with me because I would have these deep, low notes that were really strong, and the higher register was strong,” she continued. “But right in the middle area, it was really hard. In jazz, I could take advantage of that.” During the last half-decade, Salvant has stepped into jazz in a major way. Her timbre towers among obvious influences such as Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith and Betty Carter, though she explores musical latitudes they left alone. Those are the holes of which she speaks, the same that have caused no less of an old-guard dignitary than Wynton Marsalis to identify her as jazz’s “manna from heaven.” Her third record, For One to Love, To advertise or feature recently nabbed a Grammy nomination for a pet for adoption, “Best Jazz Vocal Album.” No, her fanciful renditions of songs by the likes of Valaida please contact Snow and Blanche Calloway have not rgierisch@indyweek.com crept into the Beats 1 play list of many pop stars, but she has created another possible alleyway into jazz. In fact, Salvant has said that the best point of entry into jazz for the uninitiated Friday October 10th at 8:00PM

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CALL AND RESPONSE

The Kruger Brothers

Community Church Hill of CUU hapel Hill Community Church of Chapel

DECEMBER 9, 2015

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Special Holiday Show! Bring the Family!

December 11, 2015 @ 8:00PM

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Her turn: Cécile McLorin Salvant PHOTO COURTESY OF DUKE PERFORMANCES

CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT Saturday, Dec. 12, 8 p.m., $10–$34 Duke’s Baldwin Auditorium, 1336 Campus Drive, Durham 919-684-4444 www.dukeperformances.duke.edu

may be to start with the vocalist—“It eases you in,” she maintains. For that matter, it’s not hard to imagine Apple’s annual holiday television advertisement converting more than PC users; Stevie Wonder’s duet of his 1967 song, “Someday at Christmas,” with up-and-coming jazz chanteuse Andra Day could make believers out of the unsuspecting, too. But Day’s approach suggests the Amy Winehouse kind of crossover, meant explicitly to greet the jazz virgin. The Miami-bred Salvant offers a welcome that is more didactic and allegiant to tradition.

She swings her voice between grunt-y conquests of jazz, blues and vaudeville fluency, bending accessibility toward her will rather than bending her voice toward its demands. Sometimes these swings take on whimsical shapes, as in Salvant’s cover of Snow’s 1934 mating cry, “You Bring Out the Savage in Me,” from her swoon-worthy second album, WomanChild. Salvant’s archival instincts come out here as perfectly pitched primitive madness, so that her take recalls an appreciation for the source and an upgrade of it all at once. Her approach recalls Percival Everett’s short story “The Appropriation of Cultures,” in which the story’s black protagonist, Daniel Barkley, plays overtly racist, old-time tunes like “Dixie.” “He sang it slowly,” writes Everett. “He sang it, feeling the lyrics, deciding that the lyrics were his ... recognizing his blood in it.” You hear that same sort of new ownership in Salvant. In September, Salvant issued For One to Love, a 12-song stride through brave, original songwriting and revisiting canonized standards such as Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Wives and Lovers” and Stacey Kent’s “Le Mal de Vivre.” That track traces Salvant’s HaitianFrench-Guadeloupean heritage to her classical voice training at Conservatory Darius Milhaud in France. That’s where she eventually found jazz and the strength of her own voice. During “Look at Me,” which Salvant wrote, she questions an unwilling lover for keeping her in the friend zone. “Why don’t you look at me the way you look at all the other girls?” she asks in a high, pleading coo. But then she slides through one of her holes and hits a low blues register. Suddenly, the song’s heavy air creates a burden of sympathy. Despite her protestations in this song, Salvant is becoming nearly impossible to overlook. s Eric Tullis lives in Chapel Hill, where he writes about music and basketball. He tweets: @erictullis.

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DOWN IN FRONT

High on Fire and Corrosion of Conformity deliver divergent perspectives on strong lead singers BY BRYAN C. REED supergroup with Pantera’s Phil Anselmo. Still, Keenan had been instrumental in shifting COC’s sound away from hardcore punk salad days to the fusion of stoner metal and heavy Southern rock that would give them popular crossover appeal. If you were only familiar with the mainstream version of COC, the reunion of the last five years felt fake. When Keenan announced he’d rejoin COC last year for a flurry of tours and a new album, the move was hardly a surprise. Five years after the trio’s reemergence, it seemed like a logical concession to popular demand for COC to revisit their hard-rock heyday. Still, Keenan isn’t the face of Corrosion of Conformity, something their survival without him makes clear. In fact, he was the sixth, debatably seventh, man to step behind the band’s microphone. Corrosion of Conformity has continually reinvented itself, transforming from a ferocious hardcore band into punk-metal crossover pioneers into mainstream metal heroes, to arrive, at last, as a living mix of all of it. And Keenan is just one piece of that larger legacy. Even now, Keenan doesn’t overshadow Dean’s inventive bass lines, Mullin’s powerful drumming or Weatherman’s iconoclastic blend of hardcore fury and blues-metal finesse. If Corrosion of Conformity has an icon, it’s their logo—the spiked-and-fanged skull with a radiation warning, which has been the band’s emblem since the early ’80s. But the embodiment of High on Fire is unquestionably its singer, Matt Pike, with no mascot needed. He founded High on Fire in 1998, after the split of his genre-defining stoner metal trio Sleep. His former bandmates, bassist Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius, took Sleep’s repetitious, meditative qualities into the more esoteric outfit Om. Pike, however, doubled down on hesher fundamentals to craft High on Fire’s weed-and-potatoes metal. While not as ambitious as Sleep, whose hour-long Dopesmoker is a totem of patient repetition, High on Fire has been an exercise in consistent execution. At this

has rarely modified its template. Across seven studio albums, the band has traded in thick riffs, played at a roiling mid-tempo, with simple structures and quick breaks. Never yielding to “extreme metal” gamesmanship or conservative puritanism, High on Fire has established a formula as singular and broadly familiar as that of AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Sleep. Pike drew up a plan from the start, and High on Fire continues to execute it, confirming his vision every time they set foot on a stage or in a studio. In Corrosion of Conformity and High on Fire, Keenan and Pike are flanked by powerful players worthy of praise. But Keenan’s band etched a legacy before he joined and another after his exit. Pike’s band, however, works primarily to highlight his presence, the way a great character actor gives a lead more vibrant scenes in which to work. Despite the differences in perception, these dual reminders assert that leaders are only as great as the bands they lead. That is, what’s Sabbath without Tony Iommi? Judas Priest without K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton? Or Motörhead without the late Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor? Just a dude with a microphone and, just maybe, some riffs, too. s

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS WILLIAMS

ixating on a front person is easy. The singer stands at the center of the stage, in the brightest spotlight, with a microphone. Even if holding a guitar, the front person’s primary role is to function as a band’s mouthpiece, to address the audience between songs, to speak directly to the crowd in a way no guitar solo or drum fill can ever manage. The front person is the face of the entire operation, the obvious object upon which an audience most often foists adulation or criticism. In metal, even more than in rock ’n’ roll, the singer’s role almost always eclipses those of the supporting instrumentalists. Every good weapon needs a point of attack; in the aggressive arena of metal, the singer is the sharp tip of that spear. Tony Iommi never left Black Sabbath, but most casual fans could only name Ozzy or Dio, the band’s primary singers. And what is Priest without Rob Halford, Motörhead without Lemmy? This week, two headliners will invite fans of riff-forward heavy metal once again to fixate on lead singers—or maybe not. Now fronted by newly rejoined singer and guitarist Pepper Keenan, Corrosion of Conformity tops a Thursday night bill at the Lincoln Theatre, while Matt Pike’s High on Fire plays Motorco two days later. Taken together, these singers suggest that the leader isn’t always down in front— especially if he’s only the facade of a much larger institution. For Corrosion of Conformity, Thursday’s show caps off a year of touring with Pepper Keenan. He is a lightning rod in his veteran band’s complicated history. After five years on hiatus, Corrosion of Conformity reunited, without Keenan, in 2010. The schisms within the band’s fan base became very obvious. The back-in-action COC featured the founding trio of bassist Mike Dean, guitarist Woodroe Weatherman and drummer Reed Mullin. The lineup was an exciting prospect for fans of the band’s earlier work, as this was the trio that recorded 1985’s thrash landmark, Animosity. For many, though, COC without Pepper Keenan wasn’t really COC at all. Keenan left COC in 2006 to focus on his work in Down, the New Orleans

point, Pike’s individual legacy might just outshine that of either band. After some turnover early on, High on Fire settled into its current lineup of Pike, drummer Des Kensel and bassist Jeff Matz in 2005. Kensel and Matz have proven to be one of the genre’s tightest, most consistent rhythm sections. Kensel, who co-founded High on Fire and co-writes much of the material, drums relentlessly. His agile backing pushes tempos and emphasizes the low-end rumble; he’s High on Fire’s heaviest component. Bassist Matz plays in lockstep with Kensel, accenting Pike’s riffs with understated melody and overstated heft. Still, Matz and Kensel remain criminally overlooked—or, at least, eclipsed by the tattooed, long-haired, barrel-chested and usually shirtless Pike. He looks like a hybrid of Viking and barfly, heavy metal personified. His guitar playing is concise and forceful, his solos spinning out effortlessly from the dense bedrock of High on Fire’s riffs. His guttural rasp carries a melody with authority and experience. Like Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Pike is supported by bandmates who don’t seem to mind letting their own contributions reflect back toward the front man. And as with Motörhead, High on Fire

Find Bryan C. Reed on Twitter: @BryanCReed.

HIGH ON FIRE With Crowbar, Colossus & Bedowyn Saturday, Dec. 12, 7:30 p.m., $17–$20 Motorco, 723 Rigsbee Ave., Durham 919-901-9875

www.motorcomusic.com

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY With Brant Bjork, Saviours & Mothership Thursday, Dec. 10, 8 p.m., $20 Lincoln Theatre, 126 E. Cabarrus St., Raleigh 919-821-4111 | www.lincolntheatre.com

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music

SCRAWL IN THE FAMILY

Two ongoing exhibits explore artistic influence—on the genetic level BY CHRIS VITIELLO

Seeking Duke cardiology patients to participate in an 8-week study on medication compliance using digital tools to track progress. You may be eligible for this research study if you: • are over 18 years old • have a personal iOS or Android device • are currently prescribed and taking heart medication, one or two times per day Participation includes: • Coming to our office to enroll in the study and take a survey • Taking part in brief surveys daily and weekly during the study on your mobile device for 6 weeks • Coming back to our office to take one final survey and complete the study You will be compensated for your study participation. To sign up, email BEresearch@duke.edu or call 919-681-9521 Protocol # Pro00064774

hen artists become parents, they must figure out how the two roles relate. While some build a family schedule that strictly separates their practice from parenting, others, by choice or necessity, bring their children into their art, passing on skills and sensibilities—or even collaborating. Two current shows in the Triangle offer fascinating looks into the parent-child artist dynamic. Working out of her home in Chapel Hill, Carrie Alter has widely shown her paintings, drawings and photography. When her 9-year-old son, Max McMichaels, asked to come into the studio with her, she reminded him that it was a workspace. He understood, and started making fantastic drawings based on his dreams and imagination as well as on the eccentric objects in Alter’s studio— taxidermy, animal teeth, wigs, vintage toys and striped socks. Alter gave her son blank canvases to draw on, thinking she would later gesso over them. But the drawings were so interesting that she asked him to collaborate—she would turn his drawings into paintings, manipulating the figures in the process. Would he be OK with that? Yes, he would. This casual collaboration has become the phantasmagorical exhibit CROSSING THE LINES at Artspace, which includes 14 paintings, two drawings and two books, one of which is a coloring book of McMichaels’ original drawings. Hardly refrigerator-door fare, the chimerical inhabitants of his weird, placeless tableaux find corporeality in Alter’s shifty contours and unsettling coloration. McMichaels’ illustrative sensibility originates more from the dark, surreal stills of picture books than from cinematic graphic novels or video games. Warped animalistic figures pose against bright monochromatic backgrounds, as if waiting for a line of storytelling beneath them. McMichaels primarily draws distorted bodies with oversize heads and distended limbs, intuiting Salvador Dalí’s soft, floppy forms and parroting Alter’s figuration. Only a few works indicate place. In “Crime ‘Seen,’” a multi-breasted bank

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From Crossing the Lines

PHOTO COURTESY OF CARRIE ALTER NEXT PAGE, TOP

Gottlieb

“Sharp Shark” by Iris

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

NEXT PAGE, BOTTOM “Stoned Man on a Hazy Day, New York City, 2015” by Dan Gottlieb PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

robber on the run trails coins from a bag. “The Circus” portrays tortured acrobats performing above a ring of ambivalent clowns. They’re like unfinished bedtime stories continuing in dreams. There are a lot of holes and orifices. A hook-handed thing with oblong spider legs pisses down a sewer grate. An egg-shaped creature punctures a target on the ground with its peg leg. A figure in Alter’s signature red-striped socks, with an upside down deer head for a body, holds a violin over a hole marked with two signs: “Trash” and “Poop.” Though unnerving at times, McMichaels’ figures are never terrifying, expressing the transformative potential of bodies rather than an inner psychodynamic. The arms of the protagonist of “She Holds the Moon” terminate in single fingers, and her legs are mere spiral flourishes. But she looks out calmly with large blue eyes, not suffering. Even the figures Alter has given a kind of self-awareness seem blissfully ignorant of what unconventional beings they are.

hile Alter and McMichaels have charted fantastic ground together, Dan and Iris Gottlieb show a hereditary concern with representation and perception, using different media and methods, in simultaneous shows at Craven Allen Gallery. Dan is the director of planning at the North Carolina Museum of Art, while Iris, who lives in the Bay Area, is a professional illustrator and data visualization specialist. Dan’s MOVING PICTURES/FIGURE AND FOREST combines photography and painting in blurred images of trees and

people, reclaiming subjectivity from the inanimate camera eye. He catches the moment of thinking “I should take a picture,” rather than the later moment delayed by the focusing and framing. He starts with a photograph reverse-printed on acrylic. Then he paints over the image, sanding it to a finish so immaculate it’s hard to believe painting was involved. The result looks purely photographic, albeit with some post-production. Through physical texture instead of Photoshop, the work registers the blur not of the unfocused lens or algorithmic filter but of the sharp eye in the turning head, glimpsing visual components in a gestalt. Perception isn’t about taking a picture and then seeing what one captured. Looking and interpreting are simultaneous, which Dan’s work comprehends. His street photography underlines this impossibl point. “Stoned Man on a Hazy Day, New Her hand York City, 2015” is taken from behind the the work man, who walks up a busy sidewalk. His black outline is warped against a sun-blasted precision. come thro sky. A backdrop of pedestrians and cars One of seems to part as the he steps into it. Dan’s images of trees are more painterly than his of ubiquit empty cig street scenes. Indian teak and Wyoming pines nearly become abstract—taut vertical of unfoldi form rath swipes. But their bark looks so much like Giving eq living skin that clusters of trees become a cacti and silent crowd peering out of the image. Iris’ 29 pen-and-ink drawings in ANIMAL,if she cou annotates VEGETABLE, MANDIBLE couldn’t look arrows to more different from her father’s work, but they display the same impulse toward categorica singular attention and intelligence. Mostly “formerly “formerly in black ink, they range from studies of sandwich everyday objects to cultural critiques to The dia idiosyncratic informational maps. level in ob Iris’ freehand skill is understated but time. One breathtaking. Her lines can be almost

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The INDY’S GUIDE to ALL THINGS TRIANGLE wildflowers with a series of time stamps noting the exact occurrences of sirens passing, dogs barking and, finally, the mowing of the weeds. Another shows a network of objects connected by consumption: The dryer eats the sock; the dog eats the sticks; mistakes eat the pencil eraser and the paper eats the point. The Gottliebs compress thought and vision in their compositions, while Alter elaborates upon McMichaels’ imaginative vision. Both shows revel in the intimate complexity of artistic inheritance when it’s genetic as well as figurative. s impossibly minute yet absolutely precise. Her hand is never tentative, but somehow the work lacks the anxiety often coded into precision. Instead, humor and analysis come through. One of Iris’ modes is the frank depiction of ubiquitous objects. She offers 12 empty cigarette packs in various states of unfolding, but it’s a study in accurate form rather than a commentary on waste. Giving equally detailed attention to potted cacti and hands holding phones, it’s as if she could catalog the world. She often annotates images with minute text and arrows to show relationships and wry categorical thinking. A wadded sock is “formerly white,” a ketchup packet is “formerly tomato,” but an untouched sandwich is “still a sandwich.” The diagrammatic reaches its highest level in object maps of causality and time. One depicts a sprig of weeds and

Chris Vitiello is the INDY’s visual art columnist.

CARRIE ALTER AND MAX MCMICHAELS: CROSSING THE LINES Artspace | 201 E. Davie St., Raleigh 919-821-2787 www.artspacenc.org Through Dec. 26

DAN GOTTLIEB: MOVING PICTURES/FIGURE AND FOREST IRIS GOTTLIEB: ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MANDIBLE Craven Allen Gallery 1106 Broad St., Durham | 919-286-4837 www.cravenallengallery.com Through Jan. 9

• DECEMBER 9, 2015 • music visual arts performance books film sports INDYweek.com

BARE THE LOAD LGBTQ writers smash identity’s walls

BY RYAN-ASHLEY ANDERSON

The INDY’s Guide to Dining in the Triangle

PUBLICATION DATE

MAY 26, 2016 RESERVE YOUR SPACE NOW!

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ur world is made of walls— geographical ones, such as the oceans between masses of people, physical ones that keep some in and others out, and emotional ones that can protect or prohibit. In Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices, the new anthology from Chapel Hill’s Trans-Genre Press, dozens of writers use words as a measure for the walls of identity—or as a wrecking ball to smash them down. California-based editors Helen Klonaris and Amir Rabiyah curated the anthology to give voice to the individual and collective experiences of queer writers at the intersection of static and fluid identities— sexual, gender, ethnic and socioeconomic. In the collection, walls defend, define and oppress, and collisions with them shape the short fiction, memoirs and poetry. Hannah Stein, of Athens, Georgia, writes about the consuming fear of looking for jobs during gender transition, before she had begun to physically exhibit feminine characteristics. “My mind raced as to whether my current presentation as a ‘typical young male business professional’ was being undone,” she writes. In “Kissing,” Vickie Vértiz, a Los Angeles native and author of the poetry collection Swallows, writes about the precise moment when childhood ends, as whiling away summer afternoons acting out music videos with a friend turns into a confrontation with who she will become and how that person will fit into the world—or not. Vértiz’s life changed when she was caught kissing her best girlfriend and had to promise her mother never to do it again. All at once, the piece captures the joy of adolescent discovery, the pain of loss and the insistence of identity. Toronto’s Margaret Robinson details her experience as a poor, queer woman who suffers from depression trying to succeed in a world she can’t relate to, where middle-class partners spend money with a “quiet confidence” that there will always be more. Robinson’s piece illuminates the struggle to become a professional despite the crushing infrastructure that keeps poor people poor. Even those who succeed

are often left with a subtle, constant fear that WRITING THE WALLS DOWN it could CO-EDITOR AMIR RABIYAH collapse at any moment, and Robinson writes of carrying poverty with you, “I’m never entirely free of it … Poverty marks my body as well as my mind.” The way we present our identity determines the ways we’re able to move through the world, and for many, staying safe means staying hidden behind a version of ourselves society deems respectable. Doing so might help prevent physical violence but also perpetuates a more enduring trauma than a bruise or broken bone—the spiritual trauma of always having to inhabit multiple identities, like the “double consciousness” described by W.E.B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk. Klonaris echoes Du Bois when she writes, “When we split off parts of ourselves too dangerous, too shame-filed, too ugly to acknowledge, we make it ‘other’, we divide it from ourselves and put up a wall.” This collection invites the reader to question, redefine, rename and even completely reject the categorical definitions that have historically served to box us off from one another. It’s through recognizing shared experiences that it becomes possible to connect in a new way and transform the walls that have oppressed us into ones that protect us. By sharing their stories, the writers in this anthology have created a space, if only in the margins and between the lines, for readers of all identities and backgrounds to recognize themselves. s Carrboro’s Ryan-Ashley Anderson, a writer and jewelry designer, studied creative writing at UNC-Asheville.

WRITING THE WALLS DOWN Trans-Genre Press, 259 pp.

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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POST-NUCLEAR FAMILY

Charlie Chaplin after the apocalypse in The Tramp’s New World; spies in the tribe in The Emotions of Normal People BY BYRON WOODS

n “Talkin’ World War III Blues,” the young Bob Dylan relates his dream of surviving a nuclear apocalypse. Written just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the song veers between gallows humor, social criticism and optimism. In the end, the singer offers an antidote for dreams he says everyone has, in which they find themselves alone after civilization’s end: “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.” Actor Rob Jansen takes that stratagem to an extreme in THE TRAMP’S NEW WORLD, Manbites Dog Theater’s second production this season to focus on a postatomic-disaster future. The one-person show adapts an unfinished screenplay James Agee wrote for Charlie Chaplin in 1947. Agee begged Chaplin to bring back his iconic character, the Tramp, for a script described as being “so dark it was without precedent.” In it, the Tramp is one of a few survivors after an atomic bomb blast over New York. Though the two artists became fast friends, Chaplin never made the film, and the script fell into obscurity until researcher John Wranovics uncovered it while working on a book in 2005. On a sparse set rendered even more barren by Dustbowl-era furniture, props and costuming, this vivid production segues between the real world and the meta-world of Agee’s script. After a silent opening processional grimly underlines the scarcity of comfort and potable water in a new American wasteland, Jansen’s voice breaks the stillness as he reads from a blistered piece of paper, which is revealed as Agee’s first letter to Chaplin. Then Jansen solemnly conveys the document to an audience member in the front row. Fair warning: It’s the first of many participatory moments. Jansen not only recruits audience members to assist him as he assembles a makeshift stage, projector and screen, he also casts them as characters in Agee’s tale as it veers between the bleakness of post-apocalyptic isolation and the joy of finding anyone still alive. At first, Jansen’s character is something of a trickster figure from the realm of

silent movies who communicates through gestures and facial expressions. Later, he convincingly impersonates the Tramp in sequences combining live action and film. Improbably, a stark production shimmers with delight during Jansen’s pratfalls and physical humor. He demonstrates an old theatrical rubric: If you’re taking an audience somewhere dark, leave lots of lights on along the way. But the trompe l’oeil film tricks threaten to drag before they escalate the plot. And if even momentary audience participation can be discomfiting, what was it like for the spectator who was cast in an extended scene as the Tramp’s romantic interest

and subsequently entrusted with a (symbolic) baby? Agee’s anti-war, anti-nuke script is a noble work despite some soapboxing. Under Joseph Megel’s direction, this production takes us deeper into Agee’s desolate dream than some might want to go.

he CIA estimates that at the height of hostilities in East Germany, one person in seven was a collaborator with Stasi, the state secret police. In a totalitarian society, such blanket surveillance warped conventional concepts of intimacy, identity and trust.

The Emotions of Normal People PHOTO BY ALEX MANESS

So it’s apt that Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern’s multimedia exploration of that world takes its title, THE EMOTIONS OF NORMAL PEOPLE, from psychologist William Moulton Marston’s influential investigation of dominance, inducement, submission and compliance in human behavior. And it’s no coincidence that Miyuki Su’s compelling, skeletal set depicts a claustrophobic two-story house whose walls are made of see-through (and hearthrough) scrims.

• DECEMBER 9, 2015 • music visual arts performance books film sports INDYweek.com

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The Tramp’s Emotions probes THE TRAMP’S New World this furtive world NEW WORLD PHOTO BY ED HUNT by individually HHHH examining the Rahn) that the Manbites Dog Theater members of one culture’s best and 703 Foster St., Durham extended family. As brightest are “sheep.” 919-682-3343 it does, we quickly Dana Marks’ www.manbitesdogtheater.org learn, in a roiling mix unnamed character Through Dec. 19 of movement, music, presides over these video and narrative, unhappy, hollowed that they are living in THE EMOTIONS OF souls. With her an ongoing state of NORMAL PEOPLE speech electronically interpersonal siege, modified to resemble HHH 1/2 unable to trust one Laurie Anderson’s Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern another enough to “Voice of Authority,” @ UNC’s Swain Hall confide their true Marks chillingly 101 E. Cameron Ave., Chapel Hill dreams, grievances embodies state 919-542-5406 and desires. Gerty control in a costume www.littlegreenpig.com (Jessica Hudson) seemingly lifted from Through Dec. 19 begins with a jaded Tron. In one dance rundown of each number, she goes on relative’s likelihood camera to memorably lip-sync a mutated of being an informant. The agitated version of Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film.” Horst (Shelby Hahn) seeks psychological It is not always clear how the dance and openness commensurate with the nudism movement sequences advance this story he advocates. Elke (Jessica Flemming) and this world, but the barrage of images gets increasingly fed up with the limits of in Alex Maness’ live and prerecorded intimacy as she sings ELO’s “Telephone video montages and Michael Palm’s audio Line.” Work strictures stifle the vivid play list reinforce dead-end consumerism Birgit (Emma Nadeau), and Peter (Dale and the primacy of surface appearance Wolf ) rails in secret agony against a sister as the only available shelters in this who cannot accept his gender change. dystopia. But clearly, they aren’t sufficient Co-directors Nicola Bullock, Jaybird to protect these citizen inmates, or permit O’Berski and Tony Perucci reveal the them any escape. s utter banality of the sexual role-play Eugen (Liam O’Neill) indulges in and Byron Woods is the INDY’s theater and blast vintage Eric Carmen to drown out dance columnist. Twitter: @ByronWoods the observations of Hildebran (Samantha

INDYweek.com

12.9–12.16

Where we’ll be

CALENDARS MUSIC 37 VISUAL ARTS 42 PERFORMANCE 43 SPORTS 44 BOOKS 44 FILM 45

MUSIC

CARAMEL CITY WITH AL STRONG

THE POUR HOUSE, RALEIGH THURSDAY, DEC. 10

Co-founder privilege comes into play at this month’s installment of Art of Cool and 9th Wonder’s collaborative soul series, Caramel City. And why shouldn’t it? This go-round’s featured performer, trumpeter Al Strong, helped launch the Art of Cool Project and has been a stalwart of the Triangle jazz scene NT for many years. He’s also worked as a band he member and session musician for swanky acts like The Foreign Exchange, Orquesta GarDel t and “sheep.” and Soul Understated. This time, backed by noble local noise boys Zoocrü and joined by ks’ aracter several singers (Heather Victoria, Laura Reed r these and Rissi Palmer), he steps into a spotlight of his own, just ahead of the January arrival of llowed his debut LP, Love-Strong, Vol. 1. A week after her the album’s release, Strong will take his forte ronically to the Revive Music Stage at New York City’s resemble annual Winter Jazzfest. But don’t expect this rson’s show to be as rigid—those jazz hands do some thority,” soul claps, too. 8 p.m., $5–$12, 224 S. Blount St., Raleigh, 919-821-1120, ngly www.the-pour-house.com. —Eric Tullis ate

ostume ted from THEATER dance THEATRE IN THE PARK goes on CHRISTMAS SHOWS mutated VARIOUS VENUES, RALEIGH/DURHAM on Film.” WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9–SUNDAY, DEC. 20 ance and Once again, Raleigh’s Theatre in the Park is story corners the local market on Christmas shows images with three separate stagings of its two very long-running holiday productions. The week before the regional debut of David Sedaris’ ded m’s audio comical Christmas monologue, The Santaland Diaries (Dec. 11–20, umerism Theatre in the Park, 107 Pullen Road, Raleigh), the Supreme Court ruled George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 presidential election. rance In recent years, Jesse Gephart has ably taken on the mantle of his Crumpet, the most cynical elf to ever darken a Macy’s Santa Claus sufficient display. And Gerald Ford was still hawking “Whip Inflation Now” or permit buttons when Ira David Wood III first donned Ebenezer Scrooge’s

and Woods

famous crooked nose and spectacles in A Christmas Carol (Dec. 9–13, Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, 2 E. South St., Raleigh; Dec. 17–20, Durham Performing Arts Center, 123 Vivian St., Durham). Wood’s endless, snarky sight gags, quips and arch one-liners— spruced up each year with current references from pop culture

AL STRONG

ROSANNE CASH and local news—temper the sentimentalism of his musical score in a broad lampoon of a holiday classic. 919-831-6936, www.theatreinthepark.com. —Byron Woods

MUSIC

THE PINHOOK’S SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY THE PINHOOK, DURHAM | FRIDAY, DEC. 11

When The Pinhook first opened in downtown Durham, the club seemed to be an oddity—a music outpost on a Main Street without many restaurants, clubs or bars at all. And now, seven years later, The Pinhook still comes off as an oddity—an esoteric, inclusive, affordable venue and de facto community center that existed before the city center’s renaissance launched a real estate war. But Kym Register, The Pinhook’s

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRIS CHARLES OF CREATIVE SILENCE

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PHOTO BY CLAY PATRICK MCBRIDE

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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co-founder and now sole owner, also owns the building that houses her club; don’t expect the space to shift any time soon. The room celebrates its anniversary with a righteous crew of bands, led by the great Philadelphia duo Trophy Wife. Diane Foglizzo and Katy Otto build prowling, loaded indie rock that surges beneath the weight of thick, dissonant riffs and heavy drums. Still, they may seem like a dénouement after Solar Halos, a Chapel Hill trio that walks the exciting line between post-rock catharsis and doommetal malevolence. With Bad Friends. 9 p.m., $8, 117 W. Main St., Durham, 919-667-1100, www.thepinhook.com. —Grayson Haver Currin

MUSIC | ROSANNE CASH DUKE’S PAGE AUDITORIUM, DURHAM | THURSDAY, DEC. 10

You never can tell where Rosanne Cash is liable to go next stylistically, but the journey of the 60-year-old singer-songwriter has been worth following since she launched her recording career in 1978 with her self-titled debut. Even in those early days, Cash’s sound always keyed as much on contemporary rock and pop as her iconic dad’s brand of classic country. She’s never shied away from either side of that genre fence. Her last two albums exemplify that ongoing duality: 2009’s all-covers record, The List, found Cash tackling the likes of Merle Haggard, Harlan Howard and Hank Snow. Last year’s triple Grammy winner, The River & the Thread, goes with unfailingly modern folk-rock. It also happens to be one of the finest releases of her long career, and she will perform the lot of it during this show. 8 p.m., $10–$55, 402 Chapel Drive, Durham, 919-684-4444, www.dukeperformances.duke.edu. —Jim Allen

THEATER | GROUNDED

SONOROUS ROAD PRODUCTIONS, RALEIGH THURSDAY, DEC. 10–SUNDAY, DEC. 20

In George Brant’s suspenseful one-person show, a fighter pilot grounded by pregnancy is transferred to the “Chair Force” and finds that the daily segue between her suburban family and high-stakes drone warfare is changing her in unexpected ways. Three years after its debut, Grounded remains frustratingly relevant. The U.S. military asserted that the use of armed drones would reduce the dangers pilots face in combat. But a 2013 study found that drone pilots experience high stress and fatigue, and suffer the same rate of post-traumatic mental health disorders as those in the cockpit. In January, the secretary of the Air Force admitted that drone pilots were stressed, logging four times as many hours as their airborne peers. Burning Coal Theatre Company’s Jerome Davis directs Sonorous Road founder Michelle Murray Wells. 7:30 p.m. Dec. 10–12 and 18–19; 2 p.m. Dec. 13 and 20, $14–$22, 209 Oberlin Road, Raleigh, 919-803-3798, www.sonorousroad.com. —Byron Woods

INDYweek.com

919.821.1120 • 224 S. Blount St WE 12/9 COSMIC SUPERHEROS / THE PSUEDO COWBOYS TH 12/10 9TH WONDER & THE ART OF COOL PRESENT CARAMEL CITY: AL STRONG / HEATHER VICTORIA FR 12/11 BLACK MASALA SA 12/12 SU 12/13

SOUND SYSTEM SEVEN / BOOM UNIT BRASS BAND THE SHAKEDOWN PRESENTS: FRANK SINATRA’S

100TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FREDFIN WALLABY

ABSENT LOVERS / ARMY OF DOG FREE SHOW! TU 12/15

SONFATHER

GREYSCALE WHALE / JOY ON FIRE / PHOTOCLUB INPUT ELECTRONIC MUSIC SERIES FREE SHOW! TH 12/17 NOAH GUTHRIE / RADIO BIRDS / SAM BURCHFIELD

TH 12/10

FR 12/11 SA 12/12 SU 12/13

RAIMEE

WE 12/16

FR 12/25

BETTER OFF DEAD A TRIBUTE TO THE GRATEFUL DEAD

SA 12/26 TU 12/29

BRANDON HUGHES / CASTLE WILD CHRISTMAS WITH NUCLEAR HONEY URBAN SOIL / DALE & THE ZDUBS MACHINEGUN EARL HOLD BACK THE DAY / SAFE WORD

TH 12/31

NYE W/ THE LOVE LANGUAGE

ZACK MEXICO / FAULTS (EX GROSS GHOST) / DJ CLIKDAT FOOTHILLS FREE FIRST FRIDAY W/ THE GET RIGHT BAND / DARK WATER RISING SA 1/2 GIRLS NIGHT OUT THE SHOW 8PM PSYLO JOE 11PM

RED SEA

SONGS FROM DOWNSTAIRS YEAR END BASH ROD ABERNETHY

TATSUYA NAKATANI & MICHEL DONEDA / REFLEX ARC FR 12/18 DANGLING LOAFER 7:30 FIVES 10:00 TH 12/17

LIVE AT NEPTUNE’S

FR 1/1

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614 N. WEST ST RALEIGH | 919-821-0023 FR 12/11 CHRISTMAS WITH THE CAB!

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LAUREN NICOLE / ROAR THE ENGINES

SA 12/12 BOOM OR BUST PRESENTS

STAR WARS BURLESQUE

TH 12/17 REGGAE CHRISTMAS PARTY!

THE AMATEURS

12/18

UNKNOWN HINSON

HANK SINATRA ACOUSTIC CRAVIN’ MELON / THE ROMAN SPRING WE 12/22 SMELL THE GLOVE / MIDNIGHT SPECIAL SA 12/19 NYE

YO MAMA’S BIG FAT BOOTY BAND

BOOK YOUR PRIVATE PARTY HERE! southlandballroom.com

@ CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM

ERIC & ERICA / YOUNGSTERS COLOSSUS / SALVACION / MIRACLES NANCE / KID INFAMOUS / SHANE MOZELI CASEY BATTLE / THE LOST GENERATION

CAITLIN CARY / THE CONNELLS THE BACKSLIDERS + MORE!

IDLEWILD SOUTH SU 12/20

SA 12/12 @ MEMORIAL HALL

STEEP CANYON RANGERS

LIVE AT NEPTUNE’S GUY BLAKESLEE (OF THE ENTRANCE BAND)

KNIGHTMARE / THE HELL NO / THE SEDUCTION SA 12/19

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RED CLAY RAMBLERS

FAUN & A PAN FLUTE / ENEMY WAVES TU 12/15 AV GEEKS “A VERY DADA CHRISTMAS” (7:30)

WE 12/16 FR 12/18

DECEMBER 9, 2015

12/9-12/11

KI: THEORY / ANIMALWEAPON LIVE AT NEPTUNE’S SUBURBAN LIVING

LIVE AT NEPTUNE’S

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BANDWAY / KINGS’ ANNUAL DOG SHOW / THE GREAT COVER UP / MUSEUM MOUTH / NAKED NAPS / BLACK TUSK

SA 12/12

SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS

SA 12/12 & SU 12/13

SA 12/12 SOUTHERN CULTURE ON DON DIXON THE SKIDS W/ BAD CHECKS AND @ CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM THE KREKTONES ($13/$15) TU 12/15 SAN FERMIN

TU 12/15

SAN FERMIN

W/ SAM AMIDON ($15) WE 12/16 THE GET UP KIDS 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR W/ INTO IT. OVER IT., ROZWELL KID ($19.50/$23)

SA 12/19 BOMBADIL

W/ KINGSLEY FLOOD ($13/$15) WE 1/13 WAKA FLOCKA FLAME ($20/$25; ON SALE 12/11) SA 1/16 ABBEY ROAD LIVE! 2 SHOWS ( 4 PM, 8:30 PM) WE 12/16 THE GET UP KIDS MO 1/18 SCOTT STAPP (THE VOICE OF CREED) ($22/$25) 1/29: JON STICKLEY TRIO W/ FR 1/22 AARON CARTER STEPHANIESID AND HNMTF ($15/$17) CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM SA 1/23 PHIL COOK W/ THE DEAD 2/7: THE PINES 12/9-10-11 THREE NIGHTS!: TONGUES ($12/$15) 2/13: HEY MARSEILLES ($12/$14) RED CLAY RAMBLERS & THE WE 1/27 KEYS N KRATES W/ 2/16: PROTOMARTYR W/ STOOKI SOUND, JESSE SLAYTER COASTAL COHORTS SPRAYPAINT ($10/$12) ($20/$22) 12/12 (EARLY SHOW, 7PM): MARTI 2/21: HONEYHONEY ($15) TH 1/28 YONDER MOUNTAIN JONES & DON DIXON ($15) 2/22: THE SOFT MOON ($10/$12) STRING BAND **($25) (LATE SHOW, 9:30PM): 2/26: GRIFFIN HOUSE ($15/$18) SU 1/29 COSMIC CHARLIE HANK SINATRA (NO COVER) PERFORMING "WORKINGMAN'S 2/27: THE BLACK LILLIES DEAD" ($10/$12) W/ UNDERHILL ROSE ($14) 12/13: DON DIXON'S MEDICARE CARD MO 1/30 REVEREND HORTON HEAT, 3/11: PORCHES / ALEX G BIRTHDAY BASH UNKNOWN HINSON, NASHVILLE PUSSY W/YOUR FRIEND ($13/$15) FEATURING ME & DIXON! WE 2/3: LOW **($20) 12/15: MELISSA FERRICK **($18/$20) THE ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) FR 2/12 MUTEMATH ** ($23/$25) 12/18: WYATT EASTERLING 12/12: DELTA RAE'S WINTER ACOUSTIC UT W/LAURELYN DOSSETT ($20) MO 2/15 WAVVES / BEST SOLD O TOUR W/ PENNY AND SPARROW COAST W/ CHERRY GLAZER 12/19: RED COLLAR, TEMPERANCE MEMORIAL HALL (UNC-CH) ($30; ON SALE 12/11) LEAGUE, HAMMER NO MORE THE TH 3/3 KURT VILE & THE 12/12: STEEP CANYON RANGERS FINGERS ($10) VIOLATORS ($20) AND JERRY DOUGLAS 12/21: 15TH BIG FAT GAP SA 3/12: PENTAGRAM ($18/$22) HOLIDAY HOMECOMING CAROLINA THEATRE (DURHAM) MO 3/28 JUNIOR BOYS 2/25: JOSH RITTER & THE ROYAL CITY 1/8: MAGNOLIA COLLECTIVE, W/JESSY LANZA, BORYS ($15/$17) J PHONO1 BAND TH 3/31 G LOVE AND 1/9: AU PAIR ($12) SPECIAL SAUCE ** PINHOOK (DURHAM) ($25 / $30) 1/13: JUCIFER 1/29: DYLAN LEBLANC SA 4/2 DAUGHTER 1/15: RAINBOW KITTEN ($16/$18) HAW RIVER BALLROOM SURPRISE ($8/$10) 12/19: CHATHAM COUNTY LINE: SA 4/9 THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS 1/22: DANGERMUFFIN W/BAKED **($23/$25) ELECTRIC HOLIDAY TOUR GOODS ($10/$12) MO 4/18 THAO & THE GET 1/16: BRIAN FALLON AND THE 1/23: LARRY CAMPBELL & TERESA DOWN STAY DOWN ($15/$17) CROWES W/ CORY BRANAN WILLIAMS ($17/$20) TH 4/28 POLICA W/ MOTHXR 4/3: ANGEL OLSEN ($16/$18) 1/27: JULIEN BAKER ($10)

($17/$20)

CATSCRADLE.COM ★ 919.967.9053 ★ 300 E. MAIN STREET ★ CARRBORO **Asterisks denote advance tickets @ schoolkids records in raleigh, cd alley in chapel hill order tix online at ticketfly.com ★ we serve carolina brewery beer on tap! ★ we are a non-smoking club

THE RITZ (RALEIGH) 1/19:: RATATAT

W/ JACKSON AND HIS COMPUTERBAND

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music WED, DEC 9

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): The Red Clay Ramblers, The Coastal Cohorts; 7:30 p.m., $10–$30. See indyweek.com. THE CAVE: Araleigh; 9 p.m. DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke Medicine Orchestra: City Trees; 7:30 p.m., free. LINCOLN THEATRE: Samantha Fish; 8 p.m., $12–$18. See indyweek.com. LOCAL 506: Sibannac, The Manimals, Car Crash Star; 9 p.m., $7.

MOTORCO A NIGHT OF NUMBER SONGS

With his book If 6 Was 9 and Other Assorted Number Songs, Chapel Hill writer David Klein has assembled an impressive volume detailing songs (and bands and records) inspired by particular numbers—from zero all the way to 100. It’s a fun read for music and math nerds; to celebrate RIO W/ the distance covered among NMTF the integers, he’s assembled a crew of locals—including Nathan ($12/$14) Golub, Eston Dickinson and Doug R W/ McMillan of The Connells—to $12) perform some of the songs. (DisY ($15) claimer: Klein works at the INDY ($10/$12) as a copy editor.) $15/$18) $5/7:30 p.m. —AH

LLIES ($14)

THE PINHOOK: Ne-Hi; 9 p.m., EX G $8. See indyweek.com. /$15) POUR HOUSE: Cosmic RBORO) Superheroes, The Pseudo R ACOUSTIC Cowboys; 9 p.m., $5–$7. ARROW

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THU, DEC 10 CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): The Red Clay Ramblers,

Contributors Jim Allen (JA), Grant Britt (GB), Grayson Haver Currin (GC), Spencer Griffith (SG), Allison Hussey (AH), Maura Johnston (MJ), David Klein (DK), Jordan Lawrence (JL), Bryan C. Reed (BCR), Dan Ruccia (DR), Gary Suarez (GS), Eric Tullis (ET), Chris Vitiello (CV), Patrick Wall (PW)

The Coastal Cohorts 7:30 p.m., $10–$30. See indyweek.com. THE CAVE: The Nitrogen Tone, Loudon Silver; 9 p.m., $5. DEEP SOUTH: Clever Measures, Dr. Copter, Paper Dolls; 8 p.m., $5. DUKE’S PAGE AUDITORIUM: Rosanne Cash: The River & the Thread; 8 p.m., $10–$55. See page 35.

KINGS KI:THEORY Joel Burleson’s engorged music of compact yet hyperbolically emotive epics is meant for the attention-deficient masses. As Ki:Theory, he’s best known for a radical cover of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” its heartstringtugging usage in network television ad campaigns and movie trailers paling in comparison to the original’s impact in Rob Reiner’s films. Still, his project gets the job done, and those who like their music served supersized and with a mild browbeating shall find his live show extreme and satisfying. Animalweapon opens. $10–$12/8 p.m. —GS LINCOLN THEATRE: Corrosion of Conformity, Brant Bjork, Saviours, Mothership; 8 p.m., $20. See page 29. LOCAL 506: Mic The Prophet, XOXOK, Parallel Lives; 9 p.m., $7.

MOTORCO A VERY MERRY MOTORCO Sloan Meek—a familiar face around Durham’s Reality Ministries and local shows alike—hosts this combo birthday celebration and holiday jam, featuring friends in Look Homeward and The Pinkerton Raid, plus a few special guests. The former delivers modern string-band tunes with down-home earnestness, while the latter adds harmonyheavy indie pop fringed with folk. Festivities also include a Christmas carol sing-along, “reindeer” games, holiday treats and the chance to shop Reality’s handmade gift store. Free/7:30 p.m. —SG

NCSU’S STEWART THEATRE THE SWINGLES Pentatonix might be the biggest name in a cappella right now, but

INDYweek.com PHOTO COURTESY OF GROUND CONTROL TOURING

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Living. Conjured by Philadelphia’s Wesley Bunch, the delicate melodies ride skittering beats, crunchy bass and sumptuous reverb, mostly par for indie pop’s current course. But great songs are still great songs, and Bunch has more than his share. He peppers his tunes with understated, irresistible hooks and sings with genuine feeling. With Eric & Erica and The Charming Youngsters. $5/9:30 p.m. —JL THE PINHOOK: Kenneth Whalum, Zoocrü; 8 p.m., $12–$15. POUR HOUSE: Al Strong with Heather Victoria; 9 p.m., $10– $12. See page 35.

SPEEDY ORTIZ

SPEEDY ORTIZ TUESDAY, DEC. 15

THE PINHOOK, DURHAM—Sadie Dupuis, the leader of Massachusetts’ Speedy Ortiz, briefly fronted an all-female Pavement cover band called “Babement.” Though Pavement is a less ubiquitous influence now than they were two decades ago, plenty of bands still get the comparison now, even if it’s wrongheaded. Aloofness was Pavement’s easiest signifier, but not the defining aspect; the band’s specific musical frequency is deceptively hard to emulate. They were jammy but not hippies. They weren’t wrapped up in perfection, but they consistently put distinctive riffs under even more memorable bits of absurd, elegant wordplay. Speedy Ortiz does all of that stuff at a high level. But Malkmus projected the illusion he didn’t give a shit. You can’t hang that on Dupuis. On record, Speedy Ortiz is clearly growing more ambitious. The band released its second full-length album, Foil Deer, earlier this year to much acclaim. Dupuis’ sly lyricism is becoming slightly more direct, and the ’90s indie rock references are growing more muscular and varied. Previous efforts wouldn’t have made room for “Puffer,” where they take radio-borne influences and hip-hop-familiar beats and fold them into kraut-pop that’s scowling yet light on its feet. Off record, Speedy Ortiz seems to care even more. The band launched the latest in a series of near-constant tours as a benefit for The Girls Rock Camp Foundation, an organization focused on teaching music and music-business skills to young girls on a local level. (Proceeds from the show go to charity.) Dupuis has spoken about the casual condescension and overt misogyny female musicians continue to encounter. The band is trying to make its shows a safer space, too. This fall, they established a hotline, 574-404-SAFE, to provide immediate assistance to any fans who felt threatened or harassed, an attempt to positively affect something that might typically be out of a performer’s hands. Speedy Ortiz are trying to undermine the old idea of a rock show as a definitively macho environment on all fronts—behind, on and in front of the stage. Too much work for Malkmus, really. 9 p.m., $10–$15, 117 W. Main St., Durham, 919-667-1100, www.thepinhook.com. —Jeff Klingman

The Swingles have history: They originally formed in 1962 in Paris as the Swingle Singers, a group of session vocalists who came together to record an album of Bach arrangements. Founding member Ward Swingle passed away in January, but the group— now a seven-piece that announces itself with kooky photo shoots—put out two releases

FRI, DEC 11 THE CARY THEATER: Jonathan Byrd and The Pickup Cowboys; 8 p.m., $10–$22.50. CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): The Red Clay Ramblers, The Coastal Cohorts; 7:30 p.m., $10–$30. See indyweek.com.

THE CAVE MHYMES “Feel the good vibe,” a voice— buried in the mix and masked in distortion—intones on “Good Vibe,” one of two demos released by Raleigh lo-fi outfit Mhymes. The line is as much invitation as invocation, a summons to turn on, tune in and drop out with Mhymes’ mercurial bedroom pop. With CHEW, Sea Cycles. $5/9 p.m. —PW DEEP SOUTH: Ascella Vega; 9 p.m., free.

DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM VALENTINA LISITSA

since. Deep End revamps tracks by the likes of Debussy with a jazz edge, while Yule Songs Vol. II adds to the group’s sizeable holiday discography. $27–$32/8 p.m. —MJ

Originally from Kiev, pianist and YouTube star Valentina Lisitsa currently calls New Bern home. For this recital, she tackles a mess of short-form works, mostly by Alexander Scriabin but with some Chopin thrown in, too. Her selections focus largely on the first half of Scriabin’s career, charting his evolution from a harmonically saturated Chopin descendent into something more obscure and gnomic. And while Lisitsa doesn’t really touch his most experimentally dissonant works, her selections show Scriabin pushing 19th-century harmony to its breaking point. $10–$38/8 p.m. —DR

NEPTUNES SUBURBAN LIVING

HAW RIVER BALLROOM BILL KIRCHEN

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Suburban

Bill Kirchen will forever be known to most of the world as the man

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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whose mighty guitar powered country-rocking rebels Commander Cody & The Lost Planet Airmen from the late ’60s through the mid ’70s. But that was only the first chapter of his story. Besides working with Nick Lowe and others post-Cody, he has become a consistently commanding solo artist, with a catalog of killer roots-rock records showing off his singing/ songwriting prowess alongside his Telecaster technicality. Some call his steady-rolling sound “dieselbilly.” Year after year, Kirchen keeps on truckin’ in style. With Too Much Fun. $20–$25/8 p.m. —JA

KINGS COLOSSUS The wonderfully hyperbolic revivalists of Colossus—perhaps the Triangle’s premier goodtiming, high-flying, high-fiving metal institution—continue the celebration of their first decade. Three years have passed since Colossus issued its last LP, ...and the Sepulcher of the Mirror Warlocks, but metal about dragons and beasts and wars and heroes is built to last longer than a sword in a stone and an empire’s army on guard—forever good as new. With Salvacion and Miracles. $8/9 p.m. —GC

LINCOLN THEATRE DOPAPOD, NTH POWER Dopapod’s prog rock and jazz fusion noodling often stretches into exhaustion for all but the most devoted listeners; improvheavy live renditions of the Brooklyn quartet’s electro-infused originals last nearly as long as a sitcom. But they often fail to capture the intrigue of, say, The Big Bang Theory. At least Nth Power brings a more promising premise to the opening slot: The eternally optimistic five-piece offers joyful and smooth soulfunk emulsions born out of New Orleans and refined on the jam circuit. $14/9 p.m. —SG LOCAL 506: Kaatskillachia, Driftwood Soldier, Ellis Dyson; 9 p.m., $5–$7.

THE MAYWOOD NECROCOSM This year’s Damnation Doctrine proved the melodic death metal of Raleigh’s Necrocosm and marked a nice contrast from Raleigh’s more traditionalist death squad Bloodwritten, who join this bill. Fayetteville’s dark and brutal Kurgan combine thrash riffs and growls; the band is celebrating an album release of its own. With Fayetteville’s Hell is Here. $8–$10/8:30 p.m. —BCR

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INDYweek.com MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: Annie Moses Band; 7:30 p.m., $27.

SHARP NINE GALLERY: Kobie Watkins Grouptet; 8 p.m., $10–$15.

MOTORCO THE WUSSES

SLIM’S FUCK THE FACTS

Former Deadheads are legion, and they’ve started many bands. But the Wusses are that most rare unit of former Breadheads—that is, acolytes of Bread, early ’70s chart-toppers whose soft rock was the sonic equivalent of feathered hair, parted down the middle. These days, folks play the Me Decade for laughs, but the Wusses treat songs by the likes of Pablo Cruise with the sincerity of folks who truly believe love will find a way. In the opening slot, the Beauty Operators serve up gritty R&B and tail-feather-shaking roots rock. $10/9 p.m. —DK

Despite only now touring behind Desire Will Rot, a self-released LP recorded three years ago but released in August, Fuck the Facts have rarely sounded so fresh. That’s a high bar for the Canadian grindcore troupe, too, given its longstanding interest in upsetting genre conventions with nuance and cohesion. On Desire, the band tilts toward grand melody, suggesting In Flames as much as Napalm Death, but it’s not a full Heartwork conversion. Instead, Fuck the Facts incorporates melody for contrast, like light piercing the darkness. With Greensboro’s Priapus, who just announced their trip to next year’s Maryland Deathfest on the eve of a scorching new EP, and Chapel Hill’s Lesser Life. $5/9 p.m. —BCR

NIGHTLIGHT MAC MCCAUGHAN AND THE NON-BELIEVERS Mac McCaughan has led the same rock band, Superchunk, for nearly three decades, and the quartet has maintained a steadfast approach to angled hooks and unapologetic attitude for much of that run. Still, McCaughan—who has dabbled with lo-fi recording and hi-fi studios, free jazz and film scores, synthesizers and acoustic guitars—has never been one for sitting still. As the co-founder of Merge Records and an enthusiastic collaborator, he seems to be on the perennial prowl for new enthusiasm and energy, which explains in part why he recruited the great Flesh Wounds to serve as “The Non-Believers,” the live backing band for his solo LP from earlier this year. They’ll offer two sets after Blackball, a rad new live riot from Raleigh and Richmond, opens, earning its McCaughan imprimatur. $10/9 p.m. —GC THE PINHOOK: Trophy Wife, Solar Halos, Bad Friends, Fish Dad; 9 p.m., $8. See page 35.

POUR HOUSE BLACK MASALA Inventive D.C. troupe Black Masala uses brass band instrumentation to make a multicultural, multilingual collage of traditions pulled from New Orleans, India and Eastern Europe. The brassy gypsy punk amalgamations are as energetic and danceable as they are eclectic. The dance-floor fun begins with local upstarts Boom Unit Brass Band, who mix modern fare into the brass band canon. Cary’s Sound System Seven tackles ska originals and covers. $8–$10/9 p.m. —SG

SOUTHLAND BALLROOM RUNAWAY CAB Released in April, Runaway Cab’s fourth album, Soul of the Streets, finds the Raleigh vets again plying alt-rock anthems with slick hooks and polished production. So far, it’s landed them placements on major TV networks. Lauren Nicole and Roar The Engines round out the bill. $10/9 p.m. —SG THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: The July Issue; 8 p.m., $5.

UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA: BIG BAND HOLIDAYS Since jazz is not actually a nation, it has no official ambassador. But if it did, Wynton Marsalis (for better or worse, really) would wear the sash, and his staff would be the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which he leads. The JLCO is akin to the minor leagues of jazz, where young musicians, composers and arrangers—like vocalists Denzal Sinclaire and Audrey Shakir, featured here—rise through the ranks before launching their own careers.$10–$119/8 p.m. —CV

SAT, DEC 12 THE ARTSCENTER: Delta Rae; 8 p.m.

BEYÙ CAFFÈ CALVIN EDWARDS Kings Mountain native Calvin Edwards dispenses mellow jazz

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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in the George Benson mode. Edwards played the Bull Durham Festival last year, scat singing his way through a set that mixed in jazz, blues and gospel with a Benson-flavored Al Green impersonation and a threat to play some Michael Jackson. $7/8 & 10 p.m. —GB

CAT’S CRADLE SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS Don’t believe chickens can fly? You’ve never been to a Southern Culture show. When the band hits “8 Piece Box,” a designated hurler dispenses fried cluck to the masses. Founder Rick Miller has said he meant to take roots music and mess with it. The resulting mix of swampy garage rock, surf and backwoods boogie, all led by his Link Wray-like licks, has been doing that with delight for more than 30 years. Hang around for dessert—that is, handfuls of “Banana Pudding,” delivered by air mail. With The Bad Checks and Krektones. $13–$15/9 p.m. —GB CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Marti Jones & Don Dixon; 7 p.m., $15–$25. Hank Sinatra; 9:30 p.m. THE CAVE: Blood Red River, Thee Dirtybeats; 9 p.m., $5. DEEP SOUTH: Kasey Tyndall, Adam Pitts; 8 p.m., free. DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Cécile McLorin Salvant; 8 p.m., $10–$34. See page 28.

KINGS NANCE By the time Raleigh emcee and merchandise brand owner Nance finishes his rookie rap cycle, he’ll be faced with this question: “Do my wonderful T-shirts match my talent?” With just one EP to his name, last year’s Thanks For Having Me, he’s already gained a zealous fan base. Let’s hope those fans don’t always approve of Nance’s lesser sandbox lines, like, “I be in the house like I got my ass elected/ prayer-hand emoji/Man, this is a blessing.” Artificial T-shirt raps like those can put any rapper in a perpetual rut. Prayer-hand emoji that it doesn’t happen to the good ol’ boy Nance. Kid Infamous, Shane Mozeli, Casey Battle and The Lost Generation open. $10–$12/9 p.m. —ET

LINCOLN THEATRE OLD HABITS Raleigh’s Old Habits stay true to their name when it comes to bluegrass. It’s Flatt & Scruggs, but their guitar, bass and banjo

PHOTO BY SANDLIN GAITHER

015

STEEP CANYON RANGERS

STEEP CANYON RANGERS & JERRY DOUGLAS SAT. DEC 12

UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL, CHAPEL HILL—When the comedian Steve Martin first recruited the Steep Canyon Rangers to back his banjo tunes in 2009, he tapped the Brevard sextet for its strength with relatively traditional bluegrass. The collaboration has now survived several tours and nabbed a Grammy nod for the joint studio album, Rare Bird Alert. It has raised the Rangers’ profile considerably, too. But the band’s own recordings are where it’s actually made the most interesting strides. Take Radio, the outfit’s ninth and latest LP. Virtuosic dobro player Jerry Douglas produced it, adding another legendary name to the Rangers’ list of collaborators. Though Radio topped Billboard’s bluegrass chart upon its release, the material represents a far more inclusive approach to Americana styles than that label implies. From Douglas’ twangy flourishes on the upbeat country cuts “Diamonds” and “Simple Is Me” to the melancholy of folk ballads like “Blue Velvet Rain” and “Down That Road Again,” the Rangers’ range crisscrosses roots idioms. And tracks like “Blow Me Away” prove they haven’t completely left behind straight bluegrass, picked hard and fast. And tight harmonies and top-notch hooks—strong enough to give the Rangers another avenue by which to cross over into the mainstream, without celebrity help—remain the group’s hallmarks, despite the presence of relatively new percussionist Michael Ashworth. During this Chapel Hill homecoming concert, which will feature Douglas on dobro, audiences should be able to see how much they’ve grown even as they’ve retained their classic core. 8 p.m., $34–$104, 114 E. Cameron Ave., Chapel Hill, 919-843-3333, www.carolinaperformingarts.org. —Spencer Griffith approach is plenty familiar and not always distinct. Still, they’ll get your toes tapping. Old Man Whickutt, another Raleigh bluegrass outfit, opens. $10/9 p.m. —AH

THE MAYWOOD KIFFMAS KIFF’s eighth-annual holiday party boasts a four-band bill headlined by the tenacious Raleigh shock-rockers themseleves. This year, they’re joined by Greensboro’s Dogbane, who collide stoner rock and classic metal, Raleigh funk-meets-hard rock trio Meatbox and relative Raleigh newcomers Go Benji Go. $7–$9/8:30 p.m. —BCR MOTORCO: High on Fire, Crowbar, Colossus; 7:30 p.m., $17–$20. See page 29.

NIGHTLIGHT TEARDROP CANYON With Butterflies, Carrboro’s Josh Kimbrough crafted light, popinflected rock. His new Teardrop

Canyon is already more interesting. “Let It Rest,” the band’s debut single, is dark and punchy, powered by a tight, chugging rhythm section. Faults, the new project of Gross Ghost’s Mike Dillon, opens, while Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn offers a DJ set as Made of Oak. $7/9:30 p.m. —AH

THE PINHOOK BIGG BRAD It’s hard to tell what Cardigan Records has done to push Bigg Brad’s profile to the fore of the local rap dialogue. If a white, wrestler-size country boy doubling as a rock ’n’ roll rapper isn’t enough of a gimmick, perhaps the label could score the man some experienced collaborators or coaches to help him find a voice beyond the whiskey and AK-47 aesthetic that’s become his crutch. Still, he remains one of the Bull City’s most recognizable emcees, apart from label mate Toon. Oz the Hit Maker, Evo the Artist and Kemosabe join. $8–$10/9:30 p.m. —ET

PLAN B LOVE FOR ROOTZIE Plan B club co-owner Bill West co-hosts this benefit for his friend and fellow musician Gregory Blaine, who is ill with cancer. West met Blaine at an open-mic night at Hillsborough’s Blue Bayou club a decade ago. They became friends and musical cohorts, and West even credits Blaine with providing the impetus to start his own club. Blaine’s blues, gospel and reggae band Rootzie spreads low key, mellow positivity. This 12-hour affair features seven local bands, food and an invitation from West for folks to bring their dogs along. Donations/2 p.m. —GB

POUR HOUSE THE SHAKEDOWN: FRANK SINATRA’S 100TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION Francis Albert Sinatra was a towering figure in 20th century music and culture. He was the original teen idol, a singer of such preeminence that he

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THE RITZ: Back N Black; 9 p.m., $10. SLIM’S: Extra Pulp; 9 p.m., $5.. UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL: Steep Canyon Rangers; 8 p.m., $10–$114. See box, page 39.

NEPTUNES RED SEA

SUN, DEC 13 THE ARTSCENTER MAPPAMUNDI Had it with that Adam Sandler ditty? Seeking a new spin on “The Dreidel Song”? The Mappamundi quartet has a remedy. In place of the expected Hanukkah fare, the group’s Cabaret Warsaw project reinvigorates old Polish and Yiddish songs that once filled the air of small halls in Warsaw between the world wars. The atmosphere is welcoming, and joining in is both encouraged and abetted, thanks to lyrics projected on the wall. $7–$10/4:30 p.m. —DK

Matisyahu broke through in a big way a decade ago, largely on the strength of his Live at Stubb’s and an unlikely image—a Hasidic Jew named Matthew Miller, fusing reggae, hip-hop and island rock. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first Stubb’s album and the release of the third volume this fall, this stripped-down tour should allow Matisyahu to focus more on his early work than his bland new material, which lacks the fiery intensity and spiritual themes that helped him find fame. $36–$79/8 p.m. —SG

Saturday Dec. 12th

An Adult Nightclub

N.C. MUSEUM OF HISTORY FREYLACH TIME

CAROLINA THEATRE MATISYAHU

15th Annual Christmas Party

www.teasersmensclub.com 156 Ramseur St Durham, NC

was dubbed The Voice. Yet the man whose vocal innovations elevated the popular song to the level of fine art is often better remembered for his Las Vegas “Rat Pack” years and his pugnaciousness than for his art. The centenary of his birth offers an opportunity to appreciate the legacy of the legendary crooner with fresh ears. Save $3 by “looking sharp.” With Peter Lamb & the Wolves. $15/9 p.m. —DK

@TeasersDurham TeasersMensClub

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Me & Dixon, Rod Abernethy; 7:30 p.m., $15–$25. THE CAVE: Vug Arakas; 9 p.m., $5. DEEP SOUTH: Breakin The Law, Sin Inc; 9 p.m., $5–$7. LOCAL 506: 3@3: Porch Light Apothecary, Map The Sky, Empty Disco; 3 p.m., free. NC MUSEUM OF ART: Raleigh Flute Choir; 3 p.m., $6–$10.

The North Carolina Museum of History’s Music of the Carolinas series continues with Freylach Time, a Durham-based klezmer band, just before Hanukkah ends. Clarinet and accordion are prominent features of the group’s bouncy, winding traditional Jewish music. Free/3 p.m. —AH

At first listen to Atlanta’s Red Sea, you may impulsively say, “Oh, great, another straight-laced indie rock quartet.” But keep their excellent Bayonet Records cassette, In the Salon, moving, and you’ll soon understand that there’s more to this than jarring chords and jangling riffs. So rhythmically tricky you may think you’re hearing two bands at once, and so lyrically knotty you’ll wonder how many members self-identify as poets, these songs fold cues from exotic polyrhythmic fare into their lissome guitar rock, sounding like the multivariable calculus to Vampire Weekend’s neat and easy trigonometry. With Faun & A Pan Flute and Enemy Waves. $5/9 p.m. —GC POUR HOUSE: Fredfin Wallaby; 9 p.m., free.

MON, DEC 14 CAROLINA THEATRE: Vanessa Carlton, Joshua Hyslop; 8 p.m., $28–$64. See box, page 41. MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: Raleigh Ringers; 7:30 p.m.

TUE, DEC 15 THE CARY THEATER: The Jennifer Licko Band: A Celtic Christmas; 7-9 p.m., $22–$24. CAT’S CRADLE: San Fermin, Sam Amidon; 9 p.m., $15

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) MELISSA FERRICK Melissa Ferrick scored a deal with Atlantic Records and a slot as Morrissey’s tour opener in 1991, which should have given her and her fiery folk-rock a leg up on her Lilith Fair-like successors. But for two decades, she’s been issuing her own albums and stripping away extraneous ornamentation from her rough-hewn solo approach. To wit, Ferrick’s self-titled latest record features naught but her and her six-string; the sparseness emphasizes her emotionality. $18–$20/8 p.m. —PW

• DECEMBER 9, 2015 •

LOCAL 506 BARONESS Baroness would have been excused for giving up. In the summer of 2012, not long after the band issued Yellow & Green, its tour bus veered off a steep embankment in Britain. Two members quit. Frontman John Baizley broke several bones. Three years later, though, Baroness has returned in grand manner with Purple, a record that shows impressive resolve in the place of expected bruises. Heavy and athletic, arching and aggressive, it’s a shout-along triumph that does not bend to its backstory’s will. It’s good to have the always unapologetic, evolving Baroness back. With Earthling. $20/9 p.m. —GC

NEPTUNES PARLOUR GUY BLAKESLEE On Ophelia Slowly, Entrance Band main man Guy Blakeslee employs the tragic Shakespeare heroine as the focus of a loose song cycle. Unsurprisingly, it’s melodramatic as hell. Blakeslee deploys his voice in a series of overwrought acrobatic leaps and yawps, à la Jeff Buckley or Muse’s Matt Bellamy. Songs are alternately sparse folk and overstuffed alt-rock. It aims to be haunting, like the best of his solo and band work, but it’s too mercurial to make much of an impression. $7/9:30 p.m. —PW

WED, D

CAT’S CR THE GET U

Judge not Th by the legio punk-pop ba in their wak down the Ka stirring punk latter mater group’s post hasn’t been as its classic synth-heavy ain’t Someth About—but set should fe lections from ing act Into a perfect pa Get Up Kids pass the em the standou resurgence. $19.50–$23

LOCAL 50 JESSE MA

Jesse March to release m is a discons Canadian w quietly inte the soundtr desolation. his weary, w against dire progression with elegan ments. Mar THE PINHOOK: Speedy Ortiz; 9 ing is weigh p.m., $10–$15. See box, page 37.in plaintive “Where we POUR HOUSE: Sonfather, Greyscale Whale, 9 p.m., $5–$7. of this was its side,” fro “Words Und THE RITZ like haymak METRIC songs soar. Metric singer Emily Haines has Broderick a been one of rock’s best leading $10/8 p.m. players for more than a decade now; earlier this year, I watched as she converted a good chunk NEPTUNE of a sold-out Imagine Dragons SONGS FR audience into fist-pumping fans DOWNSTA with only an opening set—and During the not for the first time. Her tunes—the charisma and her band’s feisty club on the take on synth pop can have even level benea unfamiliar listeners singing along land—has b straightaway. AWOLNATION, venue, each who split the bill, have created few shows t some of this decade’s most last- indie rock to ing singles—the stomping “Sail” Abernethy’s and the deliriously self-lacerating from Down “Not Your Fault”—by hybridizing sential in pr alt-rock trendlets and electro adaptability bombast. $27.50/8 p.m. —MJ lair. Aberne year with a SHARP NINE GALLERY: guests, inclu North Carolina Jazz Repertory and membe Orchestra; 8 p.m., $10–$15. Folds Five a Expect to le new tunes t $5/8:30 p.m

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CAT’S CRADLE THE GET UP KIDS

LOCAL 506 JESSE MARCHANT Jesse Marchant, who used to release music as JBM, is a disconsolate FrenchCanadian whose wintry, quietly intense songs feel like the soundtrack to emotional desolation. Marchant casts his weary, weathered voice against direct, graceful chord progressions and surrounds it with elegantly spare arrangements. Marchant’s songwriting is weighty and steeped in plaintive gravity; lines like “Where were you/When all of this was fucked and on its side,” from the sedate “Words Underlined,” land like haymakers. These sad songs soar. Heather Woods Broderick and Mike V open. $10/8 p.m. —PW

NEPTUNES PARLOUR SONGS FROM DOWNSTAIRS During the last year, Neptunes—the bar and dance club on the subterranean level beneath Kings and Garland—has become a proper venue, each week hosting a few shows that range from indie rock to techno. Rod Abernethy’s series Songs from Downstairs has been essential in proving the space’s adaptability as a real listening lair. Abernethy closes out his year with a cadre of his best guests, including Caitlin Cary and members of acts like Ben Folds Five and The Connells. Expect to leave with some new tunes to love. $5/8:30 p.m. —GC

DECEMBER 9, 2015

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VANESSA CARLTON

WED, DEC 16

11 7 W MAIN STREET • DURHAM

FRIDAY 12.18

PINK FLAG 12.09

PHOTO BY EDDIE CHACON

Judge not The Get Up Kids by the legions of pedestrian punk-pop bands that formed in their wake and watered down the Kansas City quartet’s stirring punk, or the band’s latter material. Indeed, the group’s post-reunion material hasn’t been nearly as strong as its classic output—the synth-heavy There Are Rules ain’t Something to Write Home About—but any Get Up Kids set should feature plenty of selections from the latter. Opening act Into It. Over It. provides a perfect pairing, giving The Get Up Kids the opportunity to pass the emo torch to one of the standout acts of its current resurgence. With Rozwell Kid. $19.50–$23/8 p.m. —PW

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12.11 12.12 12.14 12.15 12.17

VANESSA CARLTON MONDAY, DEC. 14

CAROLINA THEATRE, DURHAM—Vanessa Carlton is proof that producing a hit can become a problem. In 2002, Carlton—then, a piano-playing singer-songwriter barely old enough to buy a drink— overcame a series of label woes and false starts to climb the charts on the strength of “A Thousand Miles,” an emotionally jejune love letter with a hook that was nevertheless instant. The song made her debut, Be Not Nobody, a hit and pushed her into big support slots, headlining tours and into the status of a sudden, supposed FM dial starlet. But Cartlon bristled at the trajectory and worked to become more than a singer of mere love songs. Using major-label studio money, she assembled a staggering team to assist a turn away from the simplistic, lovelorn fare that had started to make her famous. She led her second album, Harmonium, with “White Houses,” a smart, aggressive anthem about anorexia, virginal blood and the discomforts of adolescent attraction. That record, like her next and final LP for a major label, slid from the charts almost as soon as it could nab a spot, forcing Carlton into indie exile for 2011’s Rabbits on the Run. Carlton was still working squarely within the pop idiom, but her later records always approached big, sensitive topics with aplomb and inquisitiveness. Still, during an especially uncertain era for the music industry, her semi-star past prevented much movement. Why would a major label try to reinvent her, and why would indie rock listeners want an FM-radio has-been? But this year’s Liberman, Carlton’s first record in four years, represents something of a hard reset. Now in her mid-30s and the married mother of two, Carlton seems at ease and wise during these 10 terrific songs. She treats lost love like a passing lunar phase during “Blue Pool,” and addresses the quest for adult stability like a perilous but perennially captivating adventure during “River.” And working with a small production team in England and Nashville, Carlton takes care not too make these songs do too much. She finds a comfortable intersection of folk, pop and light rock and animates it with her patient voice, which is softer and less insistent than it used to be. “When is it time to let go? Is it then that you know?” she sings during “Matter of Time,” a little acoustic jewel in the album’s back half. Against most odds, 13 years after “A Thousand Miles” came and went, Liberman offers a reason to know Carlton all over again. With Joshua Hyslop. 8 p.m., $28–$63.80, 309 W. Morgan St., Durham, 919-5603030, www.carolinatheatre.org. —Grayson Haver Currin

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THE ARTSCENTER: Dec 11-30:

Annual Community Art Exhibit, photography, ceramics, paintings, fiber art and more. Free. — Dec 11-31: Amy Keenan-Amago, collages. — Fri, Dec 11, 6-8 p.m.: Reception. 300-G E Main St, Carrboro. 919-929-2787, www. artscenterlive.org.

CARY ARTS CENTER: Dec

9-Jan 21: Synesthesia: Connecting the Senses. 101 Dry Ave. 919-4694069, www.townofcary.org.

ONGOING 311 GALLERY & STUDIOS:

Ongoing: View From the Other Side, surrealist abstracts by Alex Waddell. Free. 311 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-436-6987, 311westmartinstreetgallery.com.

ARTSOURCE FINE ART GALLERY: Thru Dec 31:

ArtSource 25th Year Celebration, new works by James P. Kerr. 4351107 The Circle at North Hills St, Raleigh. 919-787-9533, www. artsource-raleigh.com.

ARTSPACE: Thru Dec 26:

Crossing the Lines: A Collaboration Project with Max McMichaels, work by Carrie Alter. — Thru Jan 23, 2016: Carpe Diem, work by Rachel Campbell, Judith Condon and Jane Paradise. — Thru Jan 16, 2016: The Forest for the Trees. Free. 919-821-2787, info@ artspacenc.org. 201 E Davie St, Raleigh. 919-821-2787, www. artspacenc.org.

BOND PARK COMMUNITY CENTER: Thru Dec 31: A View of

My Favorite Things, work by Jane Hopkins. 150 Metro Park Dr, Cary. 919-462-3970, www.townofcary.org.

BULL CITY ARTS COLLABORATIVE: UPFRONT GALLERY: Thru Dec 25: Penland

School Inspired Pottery, work by Peter Dugan. — Fri, Dec 11, 6 p.m.: Reception. 401-B1 Foster St, Durham. 919-949-4847, www. bullcityarts.org.

CAPTAIN JAMES & EMMA HOLT WHITE HOUSE: Thru Dec

24: Christmas at Captain White’s, multimedia art by various artists. 213 S Main St, Graham.

31: King Nobuyoshi Godwin, paintings. free. 305 Oberlin Rd, Raleigh. 919-747-9495, www. roundaboutartcollective.com.

CARY GALLERY OF ARTISTS:

THE SCRAP EXCHANGE:

Thru Dec 31: Celebrating Color, Nuanced and Bold, work by Dan Rice and Donna Schultz. 200 S Academy St #120. 919-462-2035, www.carygalleryofartists.org.

Thru Dec 12: Pauli Murray: Imp, Crusader, Dude, Priest, exhibit exploring the life and legacy of human rights activist Pauli Murray. 2050 Chapel Hill Road, Durham. 919-688-6960, www. scrapexchange.org.

CARY TOWN HALL: Thru Jan

25, 2016: Getting to Know Me, work from the LeTouquet and Town of Cary Children’s Cultural Exchange. 316 N Academy St. 919469-4000, www.townofcary.org.

SOVEROART: GALLERY STUDIO: Ongoing: David Sovero,

oil paintings & jewelry. 121 N Churton St, Hillsborough. 919-6195616, www.soveroart.com.

INDYPICK CRAVEN ALLEN GALLERY: Thru Jan 9, 2016:

SUNFLOWER STUDIO & GALLERY: Ongoing: Resident

Moving Pictures/Figure and Forest, work by Dan Gottlieb. — Thru Jan 9, 2016: Animal, Vegetable, Mandible, work by Iris Gottlieb. 1106 1/2 Broad St, Durham. 919286-4837, cravenallengallery.com. See story, p. 30.

Artists’ New Works, including jewelry, collage, watercolor, acrylic & fabric art. 214 E Jones Ave, Wake Forest. 919-570-0765, www. sunflowerstudiowf.com.

THROUGH THIS LENS:

INDYPICK DUKE CENTER FOR DOCUMENTARY STUDIES: Thru Feb 27, 2016:

Thru Jan 9, 2016: Industrial Blues, photographs by Gunther Cartwright. — Thru Jan 9, 2016: Trees, photographs by JJ Raia. 303 E Chapel Hill St, Durham. 919-6870250, www.throughthislens.com.

Lynn Boggess’ new oil paintings of the West Virginia landscape (including “1 October, 2015,” seen above) are on view and sale at Tyndall Galleries for the rest of December. 201 S. Estes Drive, Chapel Hill, 919-942-2290, www.tyndallgalleries.com.

TIPPING PAINT GALLERY:

PHOTO COURTESY OF TYNDALL GALLERIES

UMSTEAD HOTEL & SPA:

DUKE RUBENSTEIN LIBRARY: Thru Dec 13:

Dreamers and Dissenters, books, manuscripts, photographs, recordings and artifacts that document human aspirations, including Virginia Woolf’s writing desk. Free. 411 Chapel Drive, Durham. 919-660-5822.

DURHAM ARTS COUNCIL:

Thru Jan 3, 2016: I Am Quixote - Yo Soy Quijote, multimedia work from North Carolina artists exploring themes from Don Quixote de la Mancha. Free. — Thru Dec 26: Illustrations for the Volcano Book, illustrations from I Built My House on a Volcano by Stacye Leanza. 120 Morris St. 919560-2787, www.durhamarts.org.

DURHAM CONVENTION CENTER: Thru Apr 14, 2016: I

Want Candy, work by Stacy Crabill. 301 W Morgan St. 919-956-9404, durhamconventioncenter.com.

ENO GALLERY: Thru Jan 15,

2016: Celebrating 40 Years, work by Nancy Tuttle May. — Thru Jan 15, 2016: Fine Southern Clay,

ROUNDABOUT ART COLLECTIVE: Thru Dec

Jan 24, 2016: Cary Photographic Artists. 101 Dry Ave. 919-4694069, www.townofcary.org.

South Side, photographs and writings by Jon Lowenstein. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Aunties: The Seven Summers of Alevtina and Ludmila, photographs by Nadia Sablin. 1317 W Pettigrew St, Durham. 919-660-3663, www. cdsporch.org.

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2016: Fine Arts League of Cary’s Annual Member Exhibition. — Thru Jan 2, 2016: Functional Art Pottery, work by Kenneth Neilsen. 119 Ambassador Loop, Cary. 919-460-4963, www. friendsofpagewalker.org.

CARY ARTS CENTER: Thru

OPENING

DECEMBER 9, 2015

PAGE-WALKER ARTS & HISTORY CENTER: Thru Jan 2,

visualarts Galleries

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studio ceramics and sculptural clay by Southern artists. 100 S Churton St, Hillsborough. 919-883-1415, www.enogallery.net.

ERUUF ART GALLERY: Thru Dec 10: Images of Outer Bans, photos by Peter Aiken. 4907 Garrett Rd, Durham. 919-4892575, www.eruuf.org. GALLERY C: Thru Dec 31: A

NeOn NOel, works by Louis St. Lewis and Nate Sheaffer. 540 N Blount St, Raleigh. 919-828-3165, www.galleryc.net.

HERBERT C YOUNG COMMUNITY CENTER: Thru

Jan 25, 2016: Serenity in the South, work by H. Lee Dawson. 101 Wilkinson Ave, Cary. 919-4604965, www.townofcary.org.

LEE HANSLEY GALLERY:

Thru Jan 23, 2016: George Bireline Revisited, abstract expressionist, color field, figurative and narrative paintings by the late Raleigh artist. 225 Glenwood Ave, Raleigh. 919-8287557, www.leehansleygallery.com.

LIGHT ART + DESIGN: Thru

Jan 16, 2016: Metal V, Annual exhibition of metal artists with works from sculpture to jewelry. 919-942-7077, info@ lightartdesign.com, www. lightartdesign.com. 601 W Rosemary St, Chapel Hill. 919-9427077, www.lightartdesign.com.

LITTLE ART GALLERY & CRAFT COLLECTION: Thru

Dec 31: The Classics, work by Stephen White. 432 Daniels St, Raleigh. 919-890-4111, littleartgalleryandcraft.com.

LOCAL COLOR GALLERY:

Thru Dec 31: Let It Snow!. 311 W. Martin Street, Raleigh. 919-8195995, www.localcoloraleigh.com. INDYPICK LUMP: Thru Dec 28: Urchins, work by Amanda Barr, Kelie Bowman, Archie Lee Coates and more. 505 S Blount St, Raleigh. 919-889-2927, www.teamlump.org.

MELISSA DESIGNER JEWELRY: Ongoing: Handcrafted

Jewelry by Local Artists, works by

in-house gold designer Melissa Booth, local artists Ben Dyer & Michele LeVett. 116 S Churton St, Hillsborough. 919-643-2600.

MIRIAM PRESTON BLOCK GALLERY: Thru Jan 14, 2016:

National Arts Program, works by City of Raleigh and Wake County employees and their families. 222 W Hargett St, Raleigh. 919-9963610, www.raleighnc.gov/arts.

MORNING TIMES GALLERY: Thru Dec 30: I give up., photos by rkOliver. 10 E Hargett St, Raleigh. 919-459-2348, www. morningtimes-raleigh.com.

NAOMI GALLERY AND STUDIO: Thru Dec 19:

Amistad, work by Emily Eve Weinstein and Trudy Thomson. 0. 711 Iredell St, Durham. www. naomistudioandgallery.com/.

NCSU DH HILL LIBRARY:

Thru Jan 4, 2016: Life’s Little Dramas: Puppets, Proxies, and Spirits. 2 Broughton Dr, Raleigh. 919-515-3364, www.lib.ncsu.edu.

Thru Dec 31: Y’alltide. 311 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-928-5279, www.tippingpaintgallery.com. Thru Dec 31: Orr Ambrose, paintings. 100 Woodland Pond, Cary. 919-4474000, www.theumstead.com. INDYPICK UNC HANES ART CENTER: Thru Dec 11: Eureka!,

new works by UNC-Chapel Hill MFA in Art alumni, curated by Jina Valentine in the Allcott Gallery. 101C E Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill. 919-962-2015, art.unc.edu.

UNC WILSON SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY: Thru

Jan 10, 2016: Chronicles of Empire: Spain in the Americas, featuring more than 50 early printed volumes from UNC’s Rare Book Collection. 201 South Rd, Chapel Hill. www.lib.unc.edu/wilson.

VILLAGE ART CIRCLE: Thru Dec 31: Art for the Holidays. 200 S Academy St #130, Cary. www. villageartcircle.com. VISUAL ART EXCHANGE:

Thru Dec 13: Shelter, work by Leila Ehtesham. 309 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-828-7834, www. visualartexchange.org.

INDYweek.com

Thru Jan 3, 2016: Testing Testing, paintings and sculpture since 1960. 101 S Columbia St, Chapel Hill. 919-843-1611, www.ackland.org.

CAM RALEIGH: Thru Jan 3,

2016: The Imaginary Architecture of Love, mural by Sarah Cain. 409 W Martin St. 919-261-5920, camraleigh.org.

NASHER MUSEUM OF ART:

Thru Sep 18, 2016: The New Galleries: A Collection Come to Light. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Reality of My Surroundings: The Contemporary Collection. — Thru Jan 10, 2016: Richard Mosse: The Enclave. 2001 Campus Dr, Durham. 919-684-5135, nasher.duke.edu.

NC MUSEUM OF ART: Thru

Mar 20, 2016: Chisel and Forge: Works by Peter Oakley and Elizabeth Brim. — Thru Jan 17, 2016: Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester and the Creative Mind. — Thru Jan 31, 2016: Robin Rhode Video Installations. — Thru Jan 17, 2016: The Worlds of M.C. Escher: Nature, Science, and Imagination. 2110 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh. Info 919-839-6262, tickets 919-7155923, www.ncartmuseum.org.

NC MUSEUM OF HISTORY:

Thru Jun 19, 2016: Treasures of Carolina: Stories from the State Archives, materials from the state archives. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Hey America!: Eastern North Carolina and the Birth of Funk. — Thru Jul 10, 2016: North Carolina’s Favorite Son: Billy Graham and His Remarkable Journey of Faith. 5 E Edenton St, Raleigh. 919-807-7900, www.ncmuseumofhistory.org.

Art Related

2ND FRIDAY ART WALK CHAPEL HILL & CARRBORO:

ART AFTER DARK 2ND FRIDAY FUQUAY-VARINA:

Second Fridays, 6-10 p.m.: Art walk; also Holly Springs. 919552-7533, www.facebook.com/ artafterdark.

ART DISCUSSION GROUP:

Comedy

Fridays, 8 p.m. & Saturdays, 4 & 8 p.m.: ComedyWorx Improv Show, 2 teams of improv comedians earn points by making the audience laugh. $6-12. — Fridays, 10 p.m. & Saturdays, 10 p.m.: The Harry

midnite: Trailer Park Prize Night, comedy drag show with gag prize giveaways. 2 S West St, Raleigh. 919-832-8855, www.flex-club.com.

FULLSTEAM: Third Tuesdays,

9 p.m.: Bulltown Comedy Series. Free. https://www.facebook. com/BulltownComedySeries. 726 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 919-6822337, www.fullsteam.ag.

CARY PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTISTS: Second & Fourth

GOODNIGHTS COMEDY CLUB / THE GRILLE AT GOODNIGHTS: Wed, Dec 9,

Wednesdays: Discuss photography. caryphotographicartists.org. The Cary Theater, 122 E Chatham St.

CHATHAM STUDIO TOUR:

Sat, Dec 12, 10 am-5 p.m. & Sun, Dec 13, 12-5 p.m.: See website for maps and more information.

THE EL QUIXOTE FESTIVAL:

Thru Apr 23, 2016: art exhibits, performances and more in various locations celebrating Don Quixote. See website for more details. www.iamquixote.com.

FIGURE STUDIES (CLOTHED): Mondays, 6-9

p.m.: moderated long and short poses. $8. Art Bar Raleigh, 6109 Maddry Oaks Ct. 919-307-8312, artbarraleigh.com.

ComedyMongers Open Mic. $5, free for comedians. 704 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 984-439-2328.

Greensboro St. 919-918-7385, carrboro.com/centurycenter.html.

PERFORMANCE NUTCRACKER: Fri, Dec 11, 7 p.m. & Sat, Dec 12, 11 am & 3 p.m.: presented by City Ballet. $10–$25. 919-844-9799, info@ city-ballet.com, city-ballet.com/ event/nutcracker/. NCSU Campus: Stewart Theatre, 2610 Cates Ave, Raleigh.

FLEX NIGHTCLUB: Thursdays,

Mondays, 6-9 p.m.: 12-part series on The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. $5. Art Bar Raleigh, 6109 Maddry Oaks Ct. 919-307-8312, artbarraleigh.com.

8 p.m., Thu, Dec 10, 8 p.m., Fri, Dec 11, 7:30 & 10 p.m. & Sat, Dec 12, 7:30 & 10 p.m.: Alonzo Bodden. $15–$32. — Wed, Dec 16, 8 p.m.: Best of Raleigh Round-Up. $10–$18. — Saturdays, 10:30 p.m.: Anything Goes Late Show. free. 861 W Morgan St, Raleigh. 919-828-5233, www. goodnightscomedy.com.

RALEIGHWOOD CINEMA GRILL: Thu, Dec 10, 7:30 p.m.:

Eric Megert, Ben Jones, Mark Brady. $10. 6609 Falls of Neuse Rd. 919-847-8370 (office) 919847-0326 (movie/showtime info), www.raleighwoodmovies.com.

TOOTIE’S: Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.:

Dance PA R T I C I PATO RY DURHAM DANCE WAVE:

Mondays, 7:30-9 p.m.: $7. www. durhamdancewave.com. The Murphey School at the Shared Visions Retreat Center, 3717 Murphy School Rd, Durham. 919616-2190, www.sharedvisions.org.

THE NUTCRACKER: Sat, Dec

12, 4 p.m. & Sun, Dec 13, 1 & 5 p.m.: by Barriskill Dance Theatre School. $25–$30, $15 under 10. 919-684-4444, katieh@ barriskilldance.com, https://tickets. duke.edu. Duke Campus: Reynolds Industries Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus, Durham.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON SALSA: Second & Fourth

Sundays, 3:30-6:15 p.m.: $6–$10. 919-494-2300, wesleyboz@ musicanddance.com. Raleigh Elks Lodge, 5538 Leadmine Rd.

INDYPICK CAROLINA BALLET: THE NUTCRACKER:

Dec 12–13, $35–$102: Durham Performing Arts Center, 123 Vivian St. Info 919-688-3722, Tickets 919-680-2787, www.dpacnc. com. Dec 18–27, $23–$105: Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, 2 E South St., 919-996-8700, www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

SUNDAY SALSA SOCIAL:

Sundays, 6:30-9:30 p.m.: Every Sunday social featuring mostly Salsa with sides of bachata, merengue, cha cha and kizomba. Lesson at 6:30 for beginners plus sometimes intermediate. DJ Dance at 7. $6. www.dancegumbo.com. Triangle Dance Studio, 2603 S Miami Blvd, Durham.

FOOTNOTES HOLIDAY TAP SHOW: Wed, Dec 16, 7-8 p.m.:

Free. Carolina Inn, 211 Pittsboro St, Chapel Hill. 919-933-2001, www.carolinainn.com.

TRIANGLE COUNTRY DANCERS CONTRA DANCE:

Sun, Dec 13, 8 p.m.: $8–$10. Carrboro Century Center, 100 N

AN IRISH CHRISTMAS: Wed, Dec 16, 7:30 p.m.: $27–$52. Memorial Auditorium, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

FIGURE STUDIES (NUDE):

Thursdays, 7-10 p.m.: moderated short and long poses. $10. Art Bar Raleigh, 6109 Maddry Oaks Ct. 919-307-8312, artbarraleigh.com.

SCULPTURE WALK: Ongoing:

Fun, colorful sculptures, abstract to whimsical, in a 40-minute walk set in an old Raleigh neighborhood near Meredith College; walking guide & directions on website. www.sculpturewalk.org.

THEATER

DSI COMEDY THEATER: Wed, Dec 16, 8:30 p.m.: Ashley Strand, Krish Mohan. $10. — Fridays, 10 p.m.: Mister Diplomat. Free.

Fri, Dec 11, 7 p.m.: free. NC School of Science & Math, 1219 Broad St, Durham. 919-416-2845, www. ncssm.edu.

THURSDAY, DEC. 10–SUNDAY, DEC. 20, DURHAM

Receptions & extended hours at downtown galleries. 919-5562911, wakeforestarts.org.

Show, Ages 18+. Improv host leads late-night revelers through potentially risque games, with audience volunteers brought onstage to join in. $10. 431 Peace St, Raleigh. 919-829-0822, comedyworx.com.

NCSSM DANCE ENSEMBLE:

A TRAILER PARK CHRISTMAS

WAKE FOREST ART AFTER HOURS: Second Fridays, 5-9 p.m.:

performance COMEDYWORX THEATRE:

— Fridays, 11 p.m.: The Jam. free. — Saturdays, 10 p.m.: Pork, 5 NC comics perform. Free. 462 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-3388150, www.dsicomedytheater.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF COMMON GROUND THEATRE

Museums

ACKLAND ART MUSEUM:

Second Fridays, 6-9 p.m.: Music, food & art-related activities. 919-9679440, www.2ndfridayartwalk.com.

COMMON GROUND THEATRE—It must be catching. Jeffrey Moore and Rachel Klem’s soapy lowbrow farce, A Trailer Park Christmas, has been running in Wilmington since mid-November, but only now makes it eighth annual pilgrimage to West Durham. Meemaw Hussey (Moore), the dowager countess of Whispering Pines Trailer Park, rules the double-wide as the steeliest magnolia you ever saw. As the holidays approach, domestic tranquility is threatened from all sides; money’s tight, in-law infighting is getting out of hand, there’s bad news from the landlord and word of a storm on the horizon. Can Christmas be saved? Pass the Doritos and aerosol cheese. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat.; 2 p.m. Sun., $21–$23, 4815-B Hillsborough Road, Durham, 919-384-7817, www.cgtheatre.org. —Byron Woods

THE NUTCRACKER: Sat, Dec

12, 11 a.m. & 3:30 p.m.: $12–$27. Carolina Theatre, 309 W Morgan St, Durham. 919-560-3030, www. carolinatheatre.org.

Theater OPENING BEAT THE DEVIL: Sat, Dec

12, 7 p.m.: one-man dramatic interpretation of Goethe’s Faust by Glen Williamson. $10–$20. Emerson Waldorf School, 6211 New Jericho Rd, Chapel Hill. 919-967-1858, www. emersonwaldorf.org.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER: Fri, Dec 11, 7:30 p.m., Sat, Dec 12, 7:30 p.m. & Sun, Dec 13, 3 p.m.: $13–$18. Wake Forest Renaissance Center, 405 S. Brooks St. www.wakeforestnc/ renaissance-centre.aspx.

INDYPICK A CHRISTMAS CAROL: Wed, Dec 9, 7 p.m.,

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

•

Thu, Dec 10, 7 p.m., Fri, Dec 11, 7 p.m., Sat, Dec 12, 2 & 7 p.m. & Sun, Dec 13, 2 p.m.: $32–$84. Memorial Auditorium, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. See p. 35. INDYPICK

GROUNDED:

Thu., Dec. 10, 7:30 p.m., FridaysSundays, 7:30 p.m. and Sundays, 2 p.m. Continues through Dec. 20 $18–$22. Sonorous Road Productions, 209 Oberlin Rd. Raleigh. 919-803-3798, www. sonorousroad.com. See p. 35.

INCARNATION OF THE LOGOS: Sun, Dec 13, 4:30 p.m.: one-man interpretation of the life of Christ by Glen Williamson. $10–$20. Emerson Waldorf School, 6211 New Jericho Rd, Chapel Hill. 919-967-1858, www. emersonwaldorf.org.

ONGOING INDYPICK PETER AND THE STARCATCHER: Tuesdays-

Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Thru Dec 12: $15–$44. UNC Campus: Paul Green Theatre, 120 Country Club Rd, Chapel Hill. 919-962-7529, playmakersrep.org.

INDYPICK THE EMOTIONS OF NORMAL PEOPLE:

Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Thru Dec 19: $8–$15. UNC Campus: Swain Hall, 101 E Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill. See review, p. 33.

NUNCRACKERS: Thursdays-

Saturdays, 8 p.m. and Sun., Dec. 6, 3 p.m. Continues through Dec. 20. North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre, 7713-51 Leadmine Rd. 919-866-0228, www.nract.org.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER: Fri, Dec 11, 6:30

p.m., Sat, Dec 12, 11 am & 2 p.m., Sun, Dec 13, 11 am & 2 p.m.: $23– $55. Fletcher Opera Theater, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

INDYPICK SANTALAND DIARIES: Fridays, Saturdays, 8

p.m. & Sundays, 3 p.m.; Thru Dec 20: $18–$24. Theatre In The Park, 107 Pullen Rd, Raleigh. Office 919831-6936, Tickets 919-831-6058, www.theatreinthepark.com.

INDYPICK THE TRAMP’S NEW WORLD: Thru Dec 19:

$5–$25. Manbites Dog Theater, 703 Foster St, Durham. Tickets 919-682-3343; Office 919-6824974, www.manbitesdogtheater. org. See review, p. 33. INDYPICK THE WIZ: Thru Dec 20, 7:30 p.m.: $5–$25. Burning Coal Theatre at the Murphey School, 224 Polk St, Raleigh. 919834-4001, www.burningcoal.org.

INDYweek.com

books Readings & Signings

ART CHANSKY AND JOHNNY MOORE: Sat, Dec 12, noon: with

100 Things UNC Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die and 100 Things Duke Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com.

B.A. SHAPIRO: Thu, Dec 10,

7 p.m.: with novel The Muralist. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www.quailridgebooks.com. INDYPICK BARRY SAUNDERS: Wed, Dec 9, 7 p.m.:

Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com.

DORA CHARLES: Sat, Dec 12,

noon: signing cookbooks. Free. Southern Season, 201 S Estes Dr, Chapel Hill. 919-929-7133, www. southernseason.com.

Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St, Durham. 919-286-2700, www. regulatorbookshop.com.

SARA FOSTER: Wed, Dec 9, 7 p.m.: with Foster’s Market Favorites: 25th Anniversary Collection. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com. SO & SO #91: GABRIELLE CALVOCORESSI, VALERIE NIEMAN: Thu, Dec INDYPICK

10, 8 p.m.: So & So Books, 704 N Person St, Raleigh. See box, this page.

SANDRA GUTIERREZ: Sat, Dec 12, noon: signing cookbooks. Free. Southern Season, 201 S Estes Dr, Chapel Hill. 919-929-7133, www. southernseason.com.

DAVID KLEIN: Wed, Dec 9, 7:30 p.m.: with If 6 Was 9 and Other Assorted Number Songs. $5. Motorco Music Hall, 723 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 919-901-0875, www.motorcomusic.com.

DORA CHARLES: Fri, Dec 11, 2

with And the Horse You Rode in On, Saunders. Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St, Durham. 919-2862700, www.regulatorbookshop. com.

p.m.: with A Real Southern Cook in her Savannah Kitchen. McIntyre’s Books, 2000 Fearrington Village Center, Pittsboro. 919-542-3030, www.mcintyresbooks.com.

CASSIE BEASLEY: Tue, Dec 15, 7 p.m.: with children’s book Circus Mirandus. Quail Ridge

JUDY HOGAN: Tue, Dec 15, 7

p.m.: with The Sands of Gower: The First Penny Weaver Mystery.

The INDY’S GUIDE to ALL THINGS TRIANGLE

sports Participatory

RIVER RUN CLUB: Thursdays, 6:45 p.m.: The Hop Yard, 1141 Falls River Ave, Raleigh. 919-971-0631, www.thehopyardnc.com/.

TEAM ON DRAFT BIKE RIDE:

Wednesdays, 6 p.m.: Ride sponsored by New Belgium. To join, you should be able to hold a 15 mph pace for 18 miles, and have your own helmet, water, pump and spare tube. The Glass Jug, 5410 Hwy 55, Durham. 919-813-0135.

WEDNESDAY BIKE RIDE:

Wednesdays, 6 p.m.: Crank Arm Brewing Co, 319 W Davie St, Raleigh. www.crankarmbrewing.com.

WEST END RUN CLUB:

Tuesdays, 6 p.m.: DSI Comedy

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

•

Theater, 462 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-338-8150, www. dsicomedytheater.com

Spectator

N.C. STATE VS. HIGH POINT (MEN’S): Wed, Dec 16, 7 p.m.:

PNC Arena, 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-861-2300, Tickets 1-800-745-3000, www. thepncarena.com.

READING | GABRIELLE CALVOCORESSI | THURSDAY, DEC. 10, RALEIGH

Literary Related

ALLAN GURGANUS: Thu, Dec

10, 7 p.m.: performing his short story “A Fool for Christmas.” Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St, Durham. 919-286-2700, www. regulatorbookshop.com.

CITY SOUL CAFE POETRY & SPOKEN WORD OPEN MIC:

Wednesdays, 8-10 p.m.: Poets, vocalists, musicians & lyricists welcome. All performances a cappella or acoustic. $5. www. citysoulcafe.splashthat.com. Smokin Grooves Bar & Grill, 2253 New Hope Church Rd, Raleigh.

SO & SO BOOKS—To judge by published excerpts, Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s forthcoming book of poetry, Rocket Fantastic, is highly attuned to the subtleties of looking. The poems set up multiple vantages that the narration plays across, as if they sketched the boundaries of the field of possibility. In one matter-offact but taut prose poem, the speaker watches someone who is unaware of her presence, as he is intent on staring at a bird. “He’s really beautiful,” Calvocoressi writes. “When he’s standing in the trees like that and thinks nobody sees him. He’s like a stag. Which sounds silly but he is.” An eternal triangle of desire yawns between those gazes, with their perpendicular lines of motion, though what the bird is studying, no one knows. Elsewhere, Calvocoressi shows us not only what to see but exactly where to look, drawing our attention away from “the beast” and toward “the tiny, frightened / man who brings him / in a cage from Alhambra.” The author of two previous collections, Calvocoressi is senior poetry editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books and teaches writing at Warren Wilson and UNC-Chapel Hill. Hear her read in the So and So Reading Series with Valerie Nieman, former North Carolina Arts Council poetry fellow and author, most recently, of Hotel Worthy. 8 p.m., free, 704 N. Person St., Raleigh, 919-426-9502, www.facebook.com/SoandSoPoetry. —Brian Howe

INDYweek.com

film Special Showings

HOLY MOTORS: Tue, Dec 15, 7 p.m.: Nightlight, 405 1/2 W Rosemary St, Chapel Hill. 919960-6101, www.nightlightclub. com.

Film Capsules

Our rating system uses one to five stars. Signed reviews are by Brian Howe (BH), Laura Jaramillo (LJ), Kathy Justice (KJ), Craig D. Lindsey (CDL), Glenn McDonald (GM), Neil Morris (NM), Zack Smith (ZS) and Ryan Vu (RV).

Opening

Current Releases

DECEMBER 9, 2015

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HOLY MOTORS | TUESDAY, DEC.15, CHAPEL HILL

NIGHTLIGHT BAR & CLUB—What is the dreamlike temporal sequence of a movie but life with a more intentional relationship to artifice, nightmares and fantasies? That seems to be the question beating in the ecstatic heart of Holy Motors, Leos Carax’s acclaimed 2012 film, which has alternately been described as science fiction, psychological horror, dramatic fantasy, visionary art cinema and unwatchable phantasmagoria. It starts when a man called “The Sleeper” wakes up and opens a hidden door in his apartment with a key that grows from his finger. Then things get strange. A woman named Céline (Édith Scob) drives a man called Oscar (Denis Lavant) around Paris in a white limousine to “appointments” that seem a lot like movie shoots, except there are no cameras in evidence (except, of course, the ones actually filming these actors). Oscar dresses up as a beggar, dons a motion-capture suit for simulated sex and kidnaps a model in a cemetery—just for starters. One soon realizes that trying to figure it all out is like trying to figure out the dramatic flow of life itself, and that both are more plausible and pleasurable if you just let the white limo bear you from one dream to the next without wondering why. 7 p.m., free for members, 405 W. Rosemary St., Chapel Hill, 919-960-6101, www.nightlightclub.com. —Brian Howe

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA—Ron Howard directed this maritime action film about an 1820 incident when a sperm whale got revenge on a whaling ship, stranding the crew for three months. Rated PG-13. MACBETH—Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star as the doomed royals in this new interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic play. Rated R.

 1/2 BRIDGE OF SPIES—In Steven Spielberg’s true-story spy film, co-written by Ethan and Joel Coen, Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge is the site of the 1962 prisoner trade involving captured American spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) and convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). At first, it plays out like To Kill a Mockingbird, with attorney James Donovan (Tom Hanks) as a Cold War Atticus Finch, defending the vilified Abel before later negotiating the prisoner swap. Donovan is righteous,

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droll and likable. In other words, he’s Tom Hanks. Rylance shapes a reed-thin role into an awardworthy performance. Seeing Germans being gunned down trying to scale the Berlin Wall indicts today’s immigration debates, and the legal plight of Abel alludes to our current treatment of “enemy combatants.” The U-2 overflights of yesterday are the drones of today. This modern relevance is enhanced by grand, sometimes sentimental filmmaking. That this will be regarded as minor Spielberg testifies to his enduring talent. Rated PG-13. —NM  1/2 BROOKLYN—Irish director John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Hornby capture

the melancholy and nostalgia of Colm Tóibín’s novel in the kind of elegiac old-school melodrama that is seldom made anymore. Saoirse Ronan is Eilis, an Irish girl who goes to work in Brooklyn in the 1950s, thanks to the sponsorship of a U.S.-based priest (Jim Broadbent). Leaving behind a mother and sister she adores, she’s initially homesick, living in an all-female boarding house. That changes when she meets a sweetnatured Italian plumber who immediately falls for her good-girl ways. This is a colorful, confident portrait of the American Dream, with Eilis serving as a walking beacon of hope and optimism. Striking work by cinematographer

Yves Bélanger and costumer Odile Dicks-Mireaux makes Ronan— with her moony, wholesome looks—the brightest thing in the movie. Things get complicated when she starts seeing a suave Irishman (Domhnall Gleeson), turning the story into an intercontinental torn-between-two-lovers affair and making Eilis wonder if heading back to the States is really a good idea. Like so many prior films about immigrants looking for a better life, this one lays out a wondrous, overwhelming and romantic (if oddly minority-free) vision of America’s past—the same vision that brought people here in the first place. Rated PG13. —CDL

 CREED—The boxing-film genre reached its narrative limits long ago. But by using conjoined character arcs, the Rocky series’ seventh film ably honors, updates and even deconstructs its legacy. Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the son of late champ Apollo Creed—Rocky’s respected nemesis—is rescued from a delinquent childhood by Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo’s widow. Haunted by her husband’s death in the ring, she discourages Adonis’ impulses. But he moves to Philadelphia to coax an aging Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to train him. Balboa runs an Italian restaurant and doesn’t visit Mickey’s gym anymore. Still,

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INDYweek.com he reluctantly agrees to train Adonis, though his guilt over failing to prevent Apollo’s death is a motivation the film doesn’t sufficiently explicate. Ryan Coogler, who also directed Jordan in Fruitvale Station, reclaims the blackness of a franchise originally framed through the prism of the Great White Hope. It’s not only the first Rocky film in which Rocky doesn’t fight, but also the first that doesn’t spotlight a white boxer. Jordan and Stallone, utterly at ease, conjure an alchemy of wit and poignancy. The film doesn’t conclude with a celebration in the ring. Instead, a movie icon haltingly climbs the same steps he once galloped up to glory, in an elegy for a cultural phenomenon. Rated PG-13. —NM  THE GOOD DINOSAUR— The publicity materials for Disney and Pixar’s latest focus on the fact that it’s set in a world where an asteroid didn’t hit Earth and dinosaurs continued to evolve. What goes unmentioned is that the premise is an excuse for an old-fashioned children’s adventure story—a “boy and his dog” tale where the dog is the boy and the boy is a dinosaur. Set in an untouched American West, The Good Dinosaur is a simple story of a dino homestead where a four-legged Apatosaurus family is apparently quite good at irrigation and growing corn despite a lack of opposable thumbs. Family runt Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa) is terrified of everything and despairs of never “making his mark,” a point the film illustrates literally. An encounter with a loin-clothed “critter” (Jack Bright) leads to a tragedy, and then Arlo is swept downriver, where he discovers that the cave-boy he resents is a surprisingly loyal companion on the long, dangerfilled trip home. Like the Cars films, this one seems aimed at a tradition-loving Middle American audience. But there’s a darkness to this story that contrasts with the soft, toy-like pastel dinosaurs; Arlo suffers about every physical and emotional trauma possible in a Disney flick, dead parent included. It’s all a little old-fashioned for Pixar, which has done its best work breathing fresh life into tired ideas. It doesn’t feel particularly innovative, or even interested in exploring the dinosaur-based society it’s created. But it’s nice to see that old-fashioned children’s adventure stories aren’t, well, extinct. Rated PG. —ZS  THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 2— Drenched in violence and darkness, this last installment of the teenage wasteland franchise finds our heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) wearily

slouching to her final bloody victory over the Capitol. Bombs shred refugees, cannibals devour soldiers and children kill children in what is essentially a war picture marketed as YA sci-fi adventure. The heaviness that worked so well in Part 1, released last year, is unbalanced and off-kilter here. Lawrence is her usual bad-ass self and manages to hold the center for a while, but the story finally collapses under its own weight. To be clear: That PG-13 rating has nothing to do with informing viewer discretion. It’s a marketing tag that says the Hunger Games are open for business one last time, to all teenagers and their parents’ credit cards. Rated PG13. —GM  1/2 THE MARTIAN— Director Ridley Scott’s latest is one nerdy-ass science fiction movie—in a good way. In a recognizable near future, NASA sends interplanetary space ships on regular trips to Mars. Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is separated, presumed dead and left behind by his crew. But he survives, and most of the movie documents his ingenuity in gathering and creating what he needs to stay alive. As you get swept up in the story, it’s easy to forget how amazing Scott’s visuals are—he has created a new world onscreen. The film has a few weak spots: Some dodgy cloakand-dagger elements toward the end strain credulity. But overall, the film delivers what it should. A thinking person’s big-budget sci-fi movie, it’s talky and intelligent. The filmmakers worked with NASA to make the science as accurate as possible. The story is compelling, the visuals are spectacular and the movie even manages to make math exhilarating. Rated PG-13. —GM  SPECTRE—Until now, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the rest of the SPECTRE global crime syndicate hadn’t appeared in a James Bond film since 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. But after decades of rights-wrangling, MGM and the estate of film producer Kevin McClory finally reached a legal settlement, allowing Bond’s original infamous foes to return to the franchise. The 24th Bond film is overeager to reintegrate its birthright, shoehorning it into the narrative reboot that began with Daniel Craig and temporarily rejuvenated the franchise. But the slapdash Spectre is a nostalgic deviation that rolls back the Craig films from a reinvention to a mere rehash. A power struggle threatens to render the 00 section obsolete. With the help of Q (Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris),

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DECEMBER 9, 2015

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Bond (Craig) goes rogue (again) on a globe-trotting search for the mastermind behind the worldwide tentacles of criminal mayhem dogging him. A few moments prove memorable: An extended tracking shot through Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivities, a train-car brawl between Bond and henchman du jour Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista). Otherwise, the action scenes fall flat. The film does have a basic appeal for aficionados like me, with its copious callbacks to Bond lore, good and bad, but this distended 140-minute theme-park ride doesn’t leave us shaken or stirred. Rated PG-13. —NM  SUFFRAGETTE—Those expecting a proper period piece will be sorely disappointed by this restless, angry drama, which sometimes plays out like a violent political thriller. Set in 1912 London and based on historical events, the film stars Carey Mulligan as Maud Watts, a desperately poor laundry worker in 1912 gradually radicalized by veteran women’s suffrage activists. “We break windows, we burn things,” Maud says. “Because war is the only language men understand.” The gritty, ground-level story moves with the verve and velocity of a spy movie, and director Sarah Gavron makes bold choices throughout. It’s a bit of a stealth move, actually: Suffragette is a provocative political drama dressed as a British prestige picture. Rated PG-13. —GM  TRUMBO—This is the story of the infamous Hollywood blacklist seen through the biography of its most interesting victim. Bryan Cranston stars as the great screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who, in the late 1940s, was kicked out of Hollywood and served time in prison for being a member of the Communist Party. The drab first half of the film plays like a History Channel dramatization, but things pick up after that, thanks to the high-voltage supporting cast, including John Goodman, Louis C.K. and Helen Mirren. The second half is like a whole different movie, and it’s worth sticking around for. As Trumbo makes his triumphant comeback, he uses a kind of political jujitsu against his tormentors, leveraging Washington gutlessness and Hollywood greed for his own crafty purposes. Rated R. —GM

Find times and locations in our Film Calendar at www.indyweek.com.