INDY Week 6.28.17 by Indy Week

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PA RT O N E O F A T H R E E - PA RT S E R I E S

A powerful special interest. Shameless politicians. Failed regulations. An in-depth look at Big Pork in North Carolina. by KEN FINE and ERICA HELLERSTEIN P. 1 0

Nature • Wildlife Wilderness Skills

SUMMER DAY CAMPS July 5th - August 21st ages 5-18

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3 LOCATIONS LEIGH FARM PARK • Durham UMSTEAD PARK • Hwy. 70 entrance • Wake blackwood farm park • chapel hill www.piedmontwildlifecenter.org 919.489.0900

2 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

6 Two on M

8 In 2 sixte for m

10 In on Nort tons

18 The reme Roya

19 In ju Zooz

24 The seco clim

25 Hav Pint mon

WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK | RALEIGH 6 Two of every five children in North Carolina rely on Medicaid for health care. 8 In 2015, North Carolina prosecuted 11,784 sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds as adults for misdemeanors or minor felonies. 10 In one year alone, 7.5 million pigs in five North Carolina counties produced 15.5 million tons of feces. 18 The Woolworth’s sit-in in Greensboro in 1960 is well remembered, but a similar protest took place at the Royal Ice Cream Parlor in Durham three years earlier.

DEPARTMENTS

VOL. 34, NO. 23

6 Triangulator 8 News 18 Food 19 Music 22 Arts & Culture 26 What to Do This Week 29 Music Calendar 33 Arts & Culture Calendar

19 In just a few years, subway sensations Too Many Zooz vaulted from busking to Beyoncé. 24 The Women’s Theatre Festival’s all-comedy second season isn’t a retreat from our political climate—it’s a weapon. 25 Having subsisted on one-off donations, Honest Pint Theatre is trying a new tack: asking for money up front.

On the cover: ILLUSTRATION BY SHAN STUMPF

Don Webb was once a hog farmer. Now, as his briefcase attests, he’s a staunch industry critic (see story, page 10). PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 3

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backtalk

Mind On Our Money In last week’s paper, Thomas Goldsmith made the case that the tax hikes in Raleigh and Wake County can be linked to the legislature’s tax cuts [“The Tax Man Cometh,” June 21]. Bonnie Hauser thinks his analysis is off: “I love content that explains money, but this one is pretty simplistic. The tax increases in Raleigh have nothing to do with the state. It’s mostly the costs of urbanization and growth. Transportation, parks and greenways, and other amenities all cost money. Wake and Raleigh each have lots of them. At the county level, Wake’s schools have done a lot with a little—and it’s reassuring to know that the county and the school board are working to get some of politics out of the school funding process. “As a city, Raleigh has added incredible service and recreational resources, the county has excellent schools, and they boast some of the lowest taxes in the state. I think some of us are worried about the pace of development, but the economics and tax policy is impressive—and compared to Orange and Durham, Wake is hitting it out of the park. “It’s easy to blame everything on the state. They deserve it, especially when it comes to health care and Medicaid —something that counties are doing nothing about. Gentrification is undermining affordable housing everywhere, and the counties are all benefiting from the increase in property taxes. And like it or not, Wake has seen impressive job growth—something that benefits everyone. So please help us connect the right dots so we can stop the partisan nonsense and start holding every politician accountable for helping to create communities that we all can be proud of.” “Goldsmith states the reality that tax cuts at the federal government leads to increases in state taxes and tax cuts at the state leads to increases in county taxes,” writes Terry Duff. “Wouldn’t that be great? We could severely cut the federal government, which is our biggest tax burden, thus saving us thousands of dollars. The local level would have control, and we could tell our elected neighbors living up the street (directly

over the fence and by voting) where we want our real money (not federal deficit money) spent. This would be based on our local needs and not on federal programs and many highly paid administrators to run those federal programs. Could we use the money for more and better teachers? Health care? Getting the feds, our backroom Congress, and so much fraud out of our lives would certainly have many positive changes. When people pay out of their own pocket, as we have for most of our 241 years, the United States of America thrives. Far better than an extra Chick-fil-A every other week.” Relatedly, commenter Trixsie M thinks we went too easy on the Wake County school system in its recent budget dispute with the Board of Commissioners. “Why isn’t the INDY asking the Wake County Public Schools System why they believe they have the right to retain the $20 million? It’s taxpayer money directly intended for the school system. If they have that much left over, then what didn’t the WCPSS fund in previous years? Where is the mention that the county board contributed more than their original proposal? “The WCPSS talks about mistrust, but they do nothing to foster trust—especially with all the hyperbole and attempts at creating a guilt-ridden environment. The WCPSS consistently practices a lack of transparency and proposes unsustainable and at times grossly incorrect projections, but they want the taxpayer to trust them? When questioned, they get angry and obfuscate. Then, much like this article, the media spins the tale that the county is unwilling to support education. Where is the media holding the WCPSS accountable? Where are the articles detailing how taxpayer money is spent or misspent? Where is a full picture of spending by the WCPSS? Is it just easier to eviscerate a board of commissioners that is attempting to rein in an unsustainable trajectory of spending?”

“It’s easy to blame the state.”

Want to see your name is bold? Email us at backtalk@indyweek.com, comment on our Facebook page or indyweek.com, or hit us up on Twitter: @indyweek. INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 5

triangulator

MEDICAID IN NORTH CAROLINA

The easiest way to think of the health care bill the Senate unveiled last week is not as a health care bill at all, but rather as a trillion-dollar tax cut funded by hacking away at programs that provide health care to lower-income Americans, especially children and those with disabilities—namely, Medicaid, which stands to lose $772 billion over the next decade. The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion would be gone. That wouldn’t matter in North Carolina, which never expanded Medicaid. But this would: under the Senate bill, federal funding would switch to a block grant, locking in already-low spending and tying increases to a formula that wouldn’t keep up with inflation. Less money, of course, means fewer services.

1.97M Medicaid enrollees in N.C. $14.2B Total N.C. Medicaid funding, 2016 $3.6B State funds spent on Medicaid, 2016 66.9% Medicaid funding covered by the federal government 35th

North Carolina’s national ranking in per-enrollee spending

$880B

Amount the House’s American Health Care Act would cut to Medicaid over a decade

107,500

N.C. Medicaid enrollees who would lose Medicaid coverage under the AHCA

$772B

Amount the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act would cut from Medicaid over a decade

15M

Medicaid enrollees who would lose coverage under the BCRA nationally 6 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

Who’s Covered by Medicaid in N.C.?

12.5%

of nonelderly adults

As Scott St. Clair, president of the N.C. Pediatric Society, told N.C. Health News, “Any cut to Medicaid is a cut to kids, particularly lowerincome kids, particularly in more rural areas of North Carolina.” On Monday, the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the Senate bill, which predicted that fifteen million Medicaid recipients would get booted from the program. According to an analysis of the House’s similar American Health Care Act, more than one hundred thousand of them would come from the Tar Heel State. So what do the state’s Medicaid recipients look like? Who would be hurt if the Senate’s attempt at health care reform passes? Here are some facts you need to know.

Medicaid Spending and Enrollees in N.C.

55%

of enrollees are children

40%*

24%

40%*

25%

60%*

63%

40%*

85%

of low-income individuals

of children

of nursing home residents

of people with disabilities

of spending is on children

of enrollees are aged, blind, or disabled

of spending is on the aged, blind, or disabled of adults on Medicaid say they’re satisfied with their health care

Eligibility Levels in N.C. (income based on a family of three) 216% ($44,107 for a family of three) of the federal poverty line for children 201% ($41,044) of the federal poverty line for pregnant women 44% ($8,985) of the federal poverty line level for children 0 of the federal poverty line for childless adults 100% ($12,060) of the federal poverty line for seniors and people with disabilities Sources: N.C. Health News, The Urban Institute, Kaiser Family Foundation

* Rounded numbers

+GAM

A last-mi judicial m ends gene tee hearin line vote for debate The pr tative Ju Stanly, w judicial d rial distri rior court attempt t can judge “I belie and it’s b to get an state of N should be tem this er-Butter Duane predicted in 14 dist ocrats co the distri advantag “This i tion,” Hal dred and this extr gerryman Burr br of gerrym ing maps Democra whenever

PERIPHERA

+GAME THE SYSTEM

A last-minute effort to overhaul the state’s judicial maps before the legislative session ends generated fierce debate at a committee hearing Monday, but passed on a partyline vote and was sent to the House floor for debate. The proposal, sponsored by Representative Justin Burr, R-Montgomery and Stanly, would alter the state’s existing judicial districts by redrawing prosecutorial districts as well as district and superior court lines—an effort critics say is an attempt to stack the bench with Republican judges. “I believe it’s partisan gerrymandering, and it’s based on the majority party trying to get an edge in terms of the judges in the state of North Carolina. I do not feel like we should be interfering with the judicial system this way,” Representative Jean Farmer-Butterfield, D-Wilson, told the INDY. Duane Hall, a Wake County Democrat, predicted that the new lines would result in 14 districts that would likely elect Democrats compared to 41 Republicans at the district court level, and a 45–12 GOP advantage at the superior court level. “This is a major, major piece of legislation,” Hall said. “I’ve gotten over two hundred and fifty calls today about this. I take this extremely seriously. This is racial gerrymandering.” Burr bristled in response to accusations of gerrymandering, arguing that the existing maps were drawn decades ago under Democratic rule and subsequently tweaked whenever a Republican judge was elected.

As an example, he pointed to Mecklenburg County, where around half of the population elects two of the county’s seven judges. His bill, he said, was “correcting gerrymandering. We are fixing problems of the past!” But the bill’s opponents—including N.C. Voters for Clean Elections and the League of Women Voters—didn’t buy it. “Maybe the U.S. Supreme Court wasn’t clear when the nation’s highest court told you to redraw our state’s gerrymandered maps. You told the public you were too busy with the budget to redraw unconstitutional legislative districts. Instead, you are embarking on the biggest challenge of our judiciary in over fifty years—done in secret, behind closed doors, and without public input,” said Melissa Price Kromm of N.C. Voters for Clean Elections.

+COUCH CUSHIONS

Do you remember that $1.5 million that Wake officials found to ease the county commission’s rejection of the school district’s full budget request? It was part of a package that allocated $430 million to the schools, about $15 million shy of the school board’s ask. It turns out that the $1.5 million in sales taxes wasn’t the only extra revenue county officials discovered. They also came across

$3 million more than they expected in property taxes but didn’t mention the sum as a source for school funding. Deputy county manager Johnna Rogers says the county knew early enough about the increase in property taxes that they were able to use the dough to wrap up the old budget year. “What we do when we are building the next year’s budget, we always use the most current numbers we have,” Rogers says. School board members say they were never told about the increased property-tax haul during the sometimes heated budget struggles. “I don’t remember hearing about that,” says vice chairwoman Christine Kushner. “I know they did a great deal of due diligence on our budget. We stayed in our lane of working to explain our budget request to the commissioners.” Wake schools financial chief Mark Winters didn’t know about the $3 million either. But it might not have made a great deal of difference, says Wake County Public Schools spokesman Tim Simmons. “We knew as soon as the county manager proposed his budget that it was not going to be an amount anywhere near the school board request,” Simmons says. triangulator@indyweek.com

RECYCLE THIS PAPER

This week’s report by Jeffrey C. Billman, Thomas Goldsmith, and Erica Hellerstein.

PERIPHERAL VISIONS | V.C. ROGERS

INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 7

indynews A

measure to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction in North Carolina could keep upward of eleven thousand teens out of the state’s adult court system each year, beginning in December 2019. The proposal, included in a $23 billion state budget approved by legislators last week, would direct sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds charged with misdemeanors and two classes of nonviolent felonies to juvenile court. Currently, North Carolina is one of two states that automatically try all sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds as adults. The other state, New York, voted in April to raise its age of juvenile jurisdiction beginning next year. Although Governor Cooper announced Monday that he would veto the legislature’s budget—an override is likely—raising the age has won support from Cooper and legislators, who in May approved a similar measure via House Bill 280. “Raising the age is the right thing for public safety and for turning young people away from crime, and it can also save taxpayers money,” Cooper told the INDY in a statement. “It will require sustained investments in juvenile justice prevention and treatment, and I call on the legislature to work with me to make sure North Carolina puts the long-term resources needed into raising the age.” Advocates say the juvenile court system is better suited for teens who may not fully grasp the consequences of their actions. With more intervention than in the adult system, teens will be less likely to reoffend and will avoid criminal records that could keep them from getting into college or getting jobs, proponents say. The plan included in the General Assembly’s budget isn’t exactly the one advocates had pushed for. But it still represents a significant shift for North Carolina’s courts. A proposal put forth in March by the N.C. Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice—and echoed in HB 280—recommended exempting sixteen- and seventeenyear-olds charged with misdemeanors and four classes of felonies, classes F through I, from adult court. There are ten classes of felonies in North Carolina, with Class A being the most serious. The budget proposal carves out misdemeanors and class H and I felonies from adult jurisdiction. According to a fiscal note attached to HB 280, 20,814 misdemeanor or Class H or I felony charges were filed against an estimated 8 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

Suffer the Children THE RAISE-THE-AGE PROVISION INCLUDED IN THE STATE BUDGET ISN’T EVERYTHING ADVOCATES WANTED, BUT IT’S A START BY SARAH WILLETS

11,784 sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds in fiscal year 2015. Class H and I felonies include breaking and entering, larceny, forgery, and some drug charges, among other offenses. “The number one benefit is avoiding the direct and indirect consequences of being in the adult system by not having the arrest or charge on the record,” says Peggy Nicholson, codirector of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice’s Youth Justice Project. “Just

having that kind of privacy and being able to handle that in a confidential manner is a huge benefit for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds and will put them on a level playing field with kids in other states.” The age of juvenile jurisdiction has been fifteen in North Carolina for a century, and efforts to raise that threshold have been in the works since the 1950s. “It’s a tremendous step in the right direc-

tion,” says state Representative Marcia Morey, who served as a district court judge in Durham County for nearly eighteen years. “Every year we have hundreds of sixteenand seventeen-year-olds charged with misdemeanors and low-level felonies in Durham County and now have a permanent record.” Informed by her experiences on the bench, Morey—who was appointed in March to fill the seat of the late Paul Luebke, who died last year—has long been an advocate of raising the age and helped establish Durham’s misdemeanor diversion program, the first in the state. She says seeing young offenders in court was “heartbreaking.” “Even if it’s a minor offense, it has lifetime consequences,” she says. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Texas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia prosecute seventeen-year-olds as adults. Under North Carolina’s budget proposal, young offenders could still be transferred to adult courts for serious offenses. The move will be costly but should save the state money in the long run. There would be an influx of teens into the juvenile system, requiring more court counselors, greater detention center capacity, and more work hours for law enforcement and court staff. The budget sets aside $13.2 million for a new youth development center in Rockingham County. Raising the age has earned the support of the state’s Department of Public Safety, the N.C. Sheriff’s Association, the N.C. Police Benevolent Association, and the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys. In 2011, the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice looked at what it would cost for North Carolina to exempt teens charged with misdemeanors and four classes of felonies from adult court. The study found that while the change would cost the state an additional $49.2 million annually, it would also generate an annual net benefit of $52.3 million by reducing recidivism rates, saving would-be victims on the costs of stolen items, medical care, and court fees, and helping to eliminate hurdles teens with criminal records face later on in life. “It’s not about collecting fines or fees or jail sentencing,” Morey says. “It’s about identifying the problems a young person has and about rectifying those problems to help them have a better future.” swillets@indyweek.com

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HOGWASHED A powerful special interest. Shameless politicians. Failed regulations. An in-depth look at Big Pork in North Carolina. by KEN FINE and ERICA HELLERSTEIN photos by ALEX BOERNER

10 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a three-part investigation into North Carolina’s hog-farming industry. This story will examine claims by lower-income African-American residents of eastern North Carolina that neighboring hog farms have polluted their properties and efforts by lawmakers to shield pork producers from litigation. The second story will look at the environmental impacts hog farming has had over the last two decades, particularly on waterways such as the Neuse River. The final piece will discuss ways to make the hog industry more sustainable, both for the environment and the state’s rural population, and the political and financial reasons those steps have not been taken.

PART ONE: THE STENCH I. “Nobody Else Will Ever Live on This Land”

Rene Miller pokes a lavender-frocked leg out of her front door and grimaces. It’s a bright April afternoon, and the sixty-six-year-old Miller, with a stoic expression and a dark crop of curls, braces herself for the walk ahead. Her destination isn’t far away—just a half-mile down a narrow country road, flanked by sprawling green meadows, modest homes,and agricultural operations— but the journey takes a toll. Because as she ambles down the two-lane street, stepping over pebbles and sprouts of grass, the stench takes hold—an odor so noxious that it makes your eyes burn and your nose run. Miller likens it to “death” or “decomposition,” to being surrounded by spoiled meat.

Rene Miller INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 11

As bad as it is today, she says, it’s nothing compared to the way it is on a muggy afternoon in August, when the stink hovering in the stagnant, humid air can nearly “knock you off your feet.” Still, Miller makes this trip often, to honor her family and pay her respects. She points ahead to her family cemetery, which sits just off Veachs Mill Road in Warsaw, an hour’s drive east from Raleigh. It’s a stone’s throw from her one-story, white-walled house, part of a tract of land her great-grandmother inherited as part of a post-slavery land grant. When she gets to the cemetery, she stops in front of her nephew’s grave, recalling his life and his death to cancer. Purple and yellow wildflowers nip at its edges; nearby, a Steelers flag rustles in the wind. “How long have we lived here? Always,” she says, gazing at her grandmother’s headstone. “And we always will. Nobody else will ever live on this land.” The odor isn’t just her problem. It’s ubiquitous across parts of eastern North Carolina. It’s the smell of hog country, of millions of pigs and even more tons of their feces. For years, their waste and its stink have been the subject of litigation, investigations, legislation, and regulation. A growing body of research has documented the industry’s health and environmental risks. The issue has been well examined in the media, too. The New York Times and The Washington Post covered it. So have Dateline and 60 Minutes. The News & Observer earned a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on it in 1995. Nonetheless, the stench—and its consequences, both for the lower-income, largely African-American neighbors of the hog farms and the state’s environment—lingers. The obvious question—why?—has been at the heart of a months-long INDY investigation that has led reporters to raucous legislative hearings, a tiny airplane, and stories about death threats shared over a glass of sweet tea. This series will explore what the newspaper has learned—and what can be done to solve North Carolina’s pervasive hog-waste problem.

II. “Recognized as Environmental Racism” To understand Rene Miller’s predicament, you have to start with the pigs. Their population in North Carolina has skyrocketed in recent decades. In 1986, North Carolina ranked seventh in the country in pork production; thirty years later, 12 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

Miller’s family cemetery in Warsaw it’s second only to Iowa, with an estimated 9.2 million pigs on 2,217 hog farms, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s quarterly hog survey and the 2012 U.S. Census of Agriculture. The pigs have ushered in a $2.9 billion-a-year industry that employs more than forty-six thousand people in North Carolina, but those hogs also produce millions of tons of feces. In one year alone, an estimated 7.5 million hogs in five eastern North Carolina counties produced more than 15.5 million tons of feces, according to a 2008 report by the General Accounting Office. Nowhere are the impacts more profound than in Duplin County, where Miller and about 2.3 million hogs live—more than anywhere else in the state, according to the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization. A recent analysis of county and satellite data by the EWG found that roughly 160,000 North Carolinians live within a half-mile of a pig or poultry farm; in Duplin, nearly 12,500 people, more than 20 percent of its residents, live within that range. If you extend the radius to three miles, as many as 960,000 North Carolinians fall into that category. That’s nearly 10 percent of the state’s population.

For Miller, these numbers aren’t abstractions. They’re her life. “That scent is so bad,” she says. “You can’t go outside. You can’t go outside and cook anything because the flies and mosquitos take over.” Within a mile of her property, Murphy-Brown LLC—a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, the largest hog producer in the world—owns 5,280 hogs, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. Within two miles, there are more than eighty thousand Murphy-Brown-owned hogs at seven different farms, according to a lawsuit she filed in 2014. Fifty yards from Miller’s family graveyard is a massive open-air cesspool storing the pigs’ waste—a stagnant pool containing their feces, urine, blood, and other bodily fluids—often referred to as a “lagoon,” one of about thirty-three hundred lagoons across the state. When the cesspool reaches its capacity, its contents are liquefied and sprayed into a field across the street from Miller’s house via a large, sprinkler-like apparatus. The sprayer releases a mist of waste onto the field, which, according to court documents, is about two hundred feet from Miller’s home at its closest rotation.

That system prevents the cesspool from overflowing, but Miller says it also makes her life miserable. It’s more than just the smell, she says. The liquefied waste mist drifts onto her property, and “dead boxes” filled with rotting hogs sit near her family’s cemetery, attracting buzzards, gnats, and swarms of large black flies. After spending time outside, she says, her eyes burn and her nose waters. She says she also suffers from asthma, which she began to develop shortly after she returned to her childhood home from New Jersey in the late eighties to care for her ailing mother. Research published by the late Steven Wing, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, linked similar health concerns to proximity to hog farms. Wing, who passed away in November, described his research in a 2013 TED Talk: “In 1995, I began to meet neighbors of industrial hog operations,” he said. “I saw how close some neighborhoods are to hog operations. People told me about contaminated wells, the stench from hog operations that woke them at night, and children who were mocked at school for smelling like hog

waste. I studied the medical literature and learned about the allergens, gases, bacteria, and viruses released by these facilities—all of them capable of making people sick.” Wing’s research showed a correlation between air pollution from hog farms and higher rates of nausea, increases in blood pressure, respiratory issues such as wheezing and increased asthma symptoms for children, and overall diminished quality of life for people living nearby. “Air pollutants from the routine operation of confinement houses, cesspools, and waste sprayers affect nearby neighborhoods where they cause disruption of

“More than 80 percent of hog farms are owned and operated by families,” Smithfield argues. “They produce good products, they do it the right way, and they strive to be good neighbors.” Other industry advocates have also alleged that greed is at the heart of these claims. The N.C. Pork Council, a trade group funded by commercial hog operations, has blamed the lawsuits on avaricious attorneys who “like to sue farmers for as much money as possible.” (The Pork Council did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) In an email, Mark Anderson, an attor-

“HOW MAN Y HOG PENS HAVE YOU FOUND NEXT TO A COUN TRY CLUB? ” activities of daily living, stress, anxiety, mucous membrane irritation, respiratory conditions, reduced lung function, and acute blood pressure elevation,” Wing and fellow UNC researcher Jill Johnston wrote in a 2014 study. They also found that the state’s industrial hog operations disproportionately affect African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. That pattern, they concluded, “is generally recognized as environmental racism.” Three years ago, Miller and more than five hundred other North Carolina residents, mostly poor and African American, filed twenty-six federal lawsuits against Murphy-Brown, alleging its behavior adversely affects their health and quality of life. The lawsuits argue that MurphyBrown’s parent company, Smithfield— which was purchased by the multinational Chinese corporation WH Group in 2013 for an estimated $4.7 billion—has the financial resources to manage the pigs’ waste in a way that minimizes the odor and nuisance to nearby property owners. The industry dismisses these claims. “North Carolina’s hog farmers are under a coordinated attack by predatory lawyers, anti-farm activists, and their allies,” Smithfield Foods told the INDY in an email. “The lawsuits are about one thing and one thing only: a money grab.” Smithfield points to the fact that between 2012 and 2016, the DEQ only received twenty-five odor complaints, and of those, none resulted in fines or notices of violations.

ney representing Murphy-Brown, says the company “is aggressively contesting the plaintiffs’ claims. After careful study, we concluded that the claims are not valid and have no merit.” But Miller says she knows what she’s experienced—and that life on Veachs Mill Road has deteriorated since the hog houses came. “Right now,” she says, “my life is the worst it’s ever been.” The cases are pending in federal court. No trial dates have been set.

III. “Boss Hog’s Crown Jewel”

North Carolina’s pork production industry has shifted dramatically since the mideighties. Today’s industrial farms, often called concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, raise pigs and other livestock in confinement until they are ready for slaughter. The hogs generally live in cramped quarters; Michelle B. Nowlin, supervising attorney of Duke’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, estimates they typically get seven or eight square feet of space each. When they have to relieve themselves, slatted, slanted floors filter their waste into pits that feed into open-air cesspools that sit just behind the hog houses. These pools, known as lagoons, come in muted tones of brown and sometimes Pepto-Bismol pink, courtesy of a cocktail of chemicals and pig waste. INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 13

Don Webb The move from small family farm to massive commercial operation didn’t happen overnight. Starting in the 1980s and early 1990s, a new method of pig farming began to take hold as corporate hog producers and CAFOs began replacing independent, family-owned farms. In an arrangement known as contract farming, many larger companies bought family farms or merged with them by providing pigs in exchange for land and waste management services. As the state gravitated toward a corporate production model—one already in place for the poultry industry—thousands of independent farmers left the business. 14 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

According to census data, the number of farms in the state fell from more than 11,000 in 1982 to 2,217 in 2012. Nobody was more influential in reshaping the industry than Wendell Murphy, a powerful Democratic state legislator and the subject of the N&O’s Pulitzer Prizewinning “Boss Hog” series. Murphy, a high school agriculture teacher turned farmer from Rose Hill, grew to become the nation’s top hog producer during his tenure in the General Assembly, from 1982– 93. While in office, he backed legislation to provide poultry and hog farmers with tax breaks and exemptions from environmental regulation, helping “pass laws worth

millions of dollars to his company and his industry,” the N&O reported. This included the 1991 “Murphy Amendment,” which exempted poultry and animal operations from stricter regulations on air and water pollution, and a 1991 bill that barred counties from imposing zoning restrictions on hog farms. In 1986, he voted in favor of a bill that eliminated sales taxes on hog and poultry operations. By 1995, Duplin County was home to more than one million hogs, more than six times the number it had when Murphy was first elected. Most of them, the N&O reported, belonged to none other than Murphy Family Farms, Boss Hog’s crown jewel.

Five years later, Murphy Family Farms was acquired by Smithfield, and its name was changed to Murphy-Brown LLC. With the acquisition, Smithfield became the world’s largest hog producer.

IV. “Heaven 4 Hogs, Hell 4 Humans”

To an outsider, it might seem like business as usual. Murphy played politics and his company came out for the better. But for Don Webb, a living history book on all things related to hog farming, something was amiss.

A former hog farmer, Webb bore witness to the industry’s explosive growth firsthand. He grew up on a farm in Stantonsburg and cropped tobacco and picked corn with his bare hands. His father sold pigs right off the family farm. After a brief stint as a PE teacher, Webb started a successful hog farm in Northampton County in the mid-seventies. But after an up-close experience with pig waste management, Webb has since become a thorn in the industry’s side. Webb, seventy-six years old, has a thick drawl and is prone to impassioned rants. Next to a chair inside his house, he sets an otherwise unassuming leather briefcase decorated with bumper stickers bearing such slogans as “Welcome to North Carolina: Heaven 4 Hogs, Hell 4 Humans.” “They say they love America, but they really love somethin’ else,” he scoffs. “It’s green. How many hog pens have you found next to a country club?” Webb’s transition from hog farmer to fuming activist was years in the making. He got into hog farming at the urging of a friend. At his farm’s peak, he had about four thousand hogs—a small number by today’s standards, but enough to turn a handsome profit. He managed the pig waste similarly to how today’s farms do it. The slanted floors of his farm’s hog house filtered the waste into cesspools. When those filled up, they sprayed it elsewhere. It was a matter of conscience that charted his current path, he says. Several of his neighbors told him that the stench from his farm was making their lives miserable. They grumbled about being quarantined indoors on sweltering summer evenings, unable to go outside on account of the pungent, fly-infested air. “I said, ‘Suppose that was my mama and daddy back there,’” he says. “‘How would I feel?’ I hit the brakes on that truck.” In 1979, after about five years in the business, Webb sold his hogs and relocated to Cape Hatteras, where “the air was fresh.” When he returned to Duplin County six years later, however, he was greeted once again by that stench. That’s what ultimately turned him into an activist, he says. “These are human beings,” Webb says. “They’ve worked their whole lives and are tryin’ to have a clean home and a decent place to live, and they can’t go on their front porch and take a deep breath.” While legal, hog farms’ longstanding practice of disposing of excess waste by spraying it as mist onto nearby fields has proven controversial. Farms’ neighbors have complained that the system literally brings excrement to their doorsteps, allowing the liquefied waste to ride the wind to

State Representative Jimmy Dixon their property. In May, Shane Rogers, a former EPA and USDA environmental engineer, published a report that concluded that this is exactly what happens. The study, which was filed in court documents on behalf of plaintiffs suing Murphy-Brown, relied on both air and physical samples collected from the exteriors of homes located near Murphy-Brown hog fields. The homes were selected randomly, and “at every visit and every home, I experienced offensive and sustained swine manure odors to varying intensity, from moderate to very strong,” Rogers wrote. To test for the presence of pig-manure DNA, Rogers and his team collected DNA swab samples from the exterior walls of homes and from the air itself. In total, they collected thirty-one samples from the outside walls of seventeen homes and submitted them for DNA testing; fourteen of seventeen homes tested positive. Additionally, all six of the dust samples taken from the air “contained tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of hog feces DNA particles,” Rogers wrote, “demonstrating exposure to hog feces bioaerosols for clients who breathe in the air at their homes. Considering the facts, it is far more likely than not that hog feces also gets inside clients’ homes where they live and

where they eat.” Anderson, Murphy-Brown’s attorney, disputes the notion that the company’s farms and contractors disrupt their neighbors’ quality of life. “Murphy-Brown requires all of its company farms to operate properly and in compliance with strict state regulatory requirements,” he writes in an email. “We expect the same of all contract growers. Even more, we expect all farmers to be good neighbors. If any neighbor has a problem with a farm, tell us and we will do our best to fix it.”

V. “Promised a Pie in the Sky”

In an interview, state Representative Jimmy Dixon, a former poultry farmer and a Duplin County Republican who is perhaps the hog industry’s most outspoken ally in the General Assembly, makes three fundamental beliefs abundantly clear. One, he believes the Murphy-Brown plaintiffs’ claims are “at best exaggerations, at worst misrepresentations,” and they’re being “recruited” by greedy lawyers who have “promised a pie in the sky” (see sidebar, page 16).

“For people to say they can’t go outside, ‘I can’t barbeque, I can’t invite my neighbors over,’ those are exaggerations,” Dixon says. Two, he doesn’t buy studies that point to hazards associated with hog farms because “a lot of these studies, a lot of them, begin with the end product in mind, and then they construct it for the outcome.” And three, he doesn’t think any additional regulations are necessary. What’s more, he’s frustrated that critics don’t acknowledge the industry’s waste-management improvements over the last forty years, which he calls “unbelievable.” He’s been no less forthcoming in his public comments. On April 5, Dixon stepped past dozens of protesters into a crowded committee meeting inside the legislature. He was there to defend his controversial pet project, House Bill 467, which would cap the amount of money that property owners living near “agriculture and forestry operations,” including hog farms, could collect in nuisance lawsuits. Under HB 467, people could only collect damages equal to the reduction in their property’s fair market value—which critics argue is already low thanks to the presence of the nearby farms. One Democratic representative estimated that, if Dixon’s bill INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 15

Ou t-of-Towners

hroughout the debate over House Bill 467, the arguments proffered by state Representative Jimmy Dixon and other supporters centered on “hardworking farm families” besieged by “frivolous lawsuits” filed by greedy, out-ofstate attorneys. “You do know that the original lawyers were banned from North Carolina,” Dixon told the INDY, while shrugging off the plaintiffs’ claims about the stench associated with hog farms as “exaggerations.” Mark Anderson, an attorney representing Murphy-Brown LLC, brought up the same point in an email: “You should know that the original claims were filed by out-ofstate lawyers who went door to door, actively recruiting plaintiffs and promising them large sums of money if they joined the lawsuits. The lawyers’ conduct led to them being thrown out of the cases because of ethics violations.” The out-of-state-lawyers claim is a go-to for the bill’s champions, and for good reason: it’s entirely accurate. The Salisbury-based Wallace & Graham is now handling the plaintiffs’ twenty-six federal nuisance lawsuits against Murphy-Brown, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, but that wasn’t always the case. The suits were initially filed in Wake County Superior Court in 2013 by two out-ofstate firms, whose lawyers recruited clients in North Carolina without a state license and signed hundreds of clients to contracts requiring them to pay hundreds of dollars an hour

Your week. Every Wednesday. ARTS•NEWS•FOOD•MUSIC INDYWEEK.COM 16 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

passed, property owners could only recoup around $7,000 over three years. Importantly, the bill didn’t just seek to limit future nuisance lawsuits. It would also have negated the twenty-six pending claims against Murphy-Brown. Introducing the bill, Dixon said it “seeks to promote farming by clarifying and adjusting the maximum compensatory damages that can be awarded.”

for work performed on their behalf, even if the attorneys decided to drop the case, as The News & Observer previously reported. In hearings, Judge Donald Stephens admonished the firms for their behavior and, after the contracts were rewritten, required that they partner with a North Carolina firm, which ended up being Wallace & Graham. About two months after the firms teamed up, Wallace & Graham’s attorneys told Stephens they could no longer work with the out-of-towners. Stephens then took away the out-of-state lawyers’ privilege to practice in his court and said he didn’t “ever want to see them again or hear from them again.” Wallace & Graham refiled the lawsuits in federal court, but the behavior of the attorneys booted from the case has left its mark, giving the industry’s defenders ammunition with which to accuse the Murphy-Brown plaintiffs or their attorneys of cupidity. In a statement to the INDY, Smithfield Foods called the lawsuits a “cash grab.” At a House committee meeting in April, Dixon accused the plaintiffs’ current lawyers of manipulating their clients: “When the final chapter is written on these cases, we’ll see the people being represented are being prostituted for money.” In a statement, Wallace & Graham said that, “until the trial is over, we choose to make no further comment on the cases.” — Ken Fine and Erica Hellerstein

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VI. “E Has

If you Go lina,” you again: Els A cop Throughout the forty-minute commit-Herring tee discussion, Dixon’s arguments weremother, t met by an admixture of support, anger,for ninety and skepticism. Representative Amosmemorie Quick III, D-Guilford, questioned Dixonland in W about the bill’s discriminatory impact,tobacco, “because the plaintiffs are predominantlyries, and p African American.” ing and c Mark Dorosin of the UNC Center forwere Jim Civil Rights drilled down on that pointa “happie

during public comments, citing research showing that the proportions of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans living within three miles of industrial hog operations are 1.5, 1.39, and 2.18 times higher, respectively, than the proportion of white residents. A few days later, following heightened media scrutiny, the bill’s opponents scored a victory. The contentious provision invalidating the pending lawsuits against Murphy-Brown was stripped from the bill. With it gone, HB 467 cleared the House easily, then the Senate. On May 5—the same day Rogers’s study showing the presence of pig fecal matter on the exteriors of homes near hog farms was filed in court—Governor Cooper vetoed the bill, saying he opposed “special protection for one industry.” The hog industry fought back. In addition to its eight registered lobbyists, Smithfield enlisted the services of Tom Apodaca, a former senator from Hendersonville. Its efforts paid off. On May 10, the House voted 74–40, mostly along party lines, to override Cooper’s veto. The following day, the Senate followed suit. HB 467 became law. Deep financial ties exist between the bill’s backers and the hog industry. Cumulatively, House Republicans who supported HB 467 have received more than $272,000 in campaign contributions from the industry throughout their careers, according to an INDY analysis of campaign finance records. Dixon has received $115,000, including $36,250 from individuals associated with Murphy-Brown and $9,500 from the Pork Council. House Speaker Tim Moore has garnered $44,650. Senator Brent Jackson, who sponsored the Senate companion bill to HB 467, has received more than $130,000 from industry associates.

VI. “Everything Has Gone Downhill”

If you Google “hog farms and North Carolina,” you’ll see one name pop up again and again: Elsie Herring. A copper-haired sixty-nine-year-old, Herring lives on the same property her mother, the daughter of a slave, lived on for ninety-nine years. Herring’s childhood memories are built around her family’s land in Wallace—of growing and farming tobacco, cucumbers, soybeans, strawberries, and peanuts; of canning food; of smoking and curing meat. Even though those were Jim Crow days, she remembers it as a “happier, healthier time. Everything was

Elsie Herring segregated, but we still got along. But now, after these hogs came in, everything has gone downhill.” Herring’s home is adjacent to a farm that contracts with Murphy-Brown to raise 1,180 of its pigs, according to DEQ records and a lawsuit she filed. The lawsuit contends that the hog facility began spraying liquefied waste in the mid-nineties and planting trees between their properties to act as a buffer, which proved ineffective. Herring says her grandfather purchased

the property in the 1880s from his aunt, who was white and his slave mistress. Her parents built the home she now lives in; her mother, father, brother, and sister all lived on the land until they passed away. Herring came back to Wallace from New York in 1993 to look after her elderly mother and her brother, who had Down syndrome. About two years after she moved back, the spraying began, Herring says. She vividly remembers the time it happened—an otherwise uneventful Saturday evening.

“We were just sitting here having our Saturday evening like we usually do, enjoying,” she recalls. “And in a short time, we heard this bursting sound, and then all of a sudden it started stinking like nothing you’ve experienced.” Herring felt like she was going to be sick, so she went back inside. “If you would have stayed out there,” she says, “you would have probably had to end up going to the hospital because this stuff was being released and you’re breathing it in.” After that, Herring says, the spraying happened “all day, every day.” The stench became so unbearable that Herring eventually contacted the Duplin County Sheriff ’s Office, the Duplin County Department of Health, and the N.C. Department of Environmental and Natural Resources for help—all to no avail, she says. She became involved in local activist networks, joining the N.C. Environmental Justice Network and the Warsaw-based organization Rural Empowerment and Community Health, or REACH. In 2007, her activism took her to the lawn outside the General Assembly, where she joined other REACH members to protest the effects of hog farming for more than fifty consecutive hours. According to her lawsuit, Herring “called or wrote letters, or both, to the Governor, the state and local health departments, the Attorney General of North Carolina, the United States Justice Department, DENR, the local sheriff and police departments, the county commissioners, the federal EPA, her congressman, and the owner of the hogs [Murphy-Brown].” Though the spraying has subsided over the past few months—perhaps as a result of the lawsuits, Herring says, though she can’t be sure—life is still “no picnic.” She ticks off a list of issues she believes the stink and the spraying have brought: flies, mosquitoes, mice, poisonous snakes. To avoid the odor, she stays indoors. “It’s like living in prison,” she says. HB 467 came as a surprise, she says. But, to her, its motives were transparent. Like many of her fellow activists, she’s all too aware of the racial dynamics at play. “This is environmental racism,” she says. “This is my family land. And I’m sure race played a part when they decided they wanted to develop this area.” Herring sighs. “We’ve been asked many times, ‘Why don’t you just move?’ Move and go where? I don’t want to move. I never knew my grandfather, but I know he walked on this ground. And his family.” She pauses and looks at her house. “It’s my land.” backtalk@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 17

indyfood

A Battle Royal

SIXTY YEARS AGO, BEFORE GREENSBORO’S FAMOUS LUNCH COUNTER PROTEST, DURHAM’S ROYAL ICE CREAM SIT-IN QUIETLY SPARKED AN ACTIVIST MOVEMENT BY VICTORIA BOULOUBASIS Virginia Williams celebrated her eightieth birthday this year. She also quietly celebrated another milestone. June 23 was the sixtieth anniversary of the Royal Ice Cream sit-in, where Williams and six other African Americans demanded to be served inside the segregated Royal Ice Cream Parlor in north Durham and were arrested for it. A historical marker at the corner of Roxboro and Dowd streets, where Union Independent School now sits, commemorates the 1957 sit-in, which is often overlooked in the narrative about civil rights demonstrations in North Carolina. The Woolworth’s sit-in in Greensboro, which took place almost three years later, casts a long shadow. But the Royal sit-in, the first civil rights demonstration in Durham to result in arrests, was equally important for what it set in motion. In the fifties, when the Royal enjoyed packed lines after Sunday church services, two doors delineated who would be served where. On Roxboro, a “whites only” door opened into a parlor with a long counter and cozy booths. Around the corner, on Dowd, black customers ordered to-go from the back. Williams recalls that white customers would drive in from other parts of Durham to visit the shop, while the black children ran over from their homes across the street. “It sat in the heart of the colored community,” Williams says. “They were in our area, taking our money. The dollars were green, just like theirs. But we couldn’t sit in there.” In May 1957, Williams, who had moved to Durham from rural Northampton County a year prior to take a food service job at Duke Medical Center, attended a meeting for young black people at the Southeastern Business College on Venable Street. The meeting’s frank political discussion was a revelation to someone for whom activism had always been a more furtive affair. “We lived on farms owned by white people,” she says. “On Sundays, grown men dressed up and quietly left the house. My mother knew, 18 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

Members of the Royal Seven pray with Reverend Moore. Virginia Williams is wearing glasses. (Durham, 1957) COURTESY OF DURHAM PUBLIC LIBRARY but she didn’t tell us. I realized then that everybody’s father was slipping off to these NAACP meetings.” Williams had never heard of a sit-in but felt compelled to participate. The group met again on June 23 and settled on a nonviolent demonstration at Royal. The details were loosely planned. “We could have gone anywhere in Durham, but that is where we flocked on Sunday afternoons,” Williams says. At about six forty-five p.m., the participants spread out across the shop while the waiter asked them, one by one, to leave. And one by one, Williams and her group—Mary Clyburn, Vivian Jones, Claude Glenn, Jesse Gray, and Melvin Willis—refused. “By that time, the children of north Durham were at the windows peeping in,” Williams says. “This was the ’hood, so the black children were walking over and looking.” Eventually, the manager called the police.

The cops arrested the seven for trespassing. The next day, they were charged. There was an all-white-jury trial, and each defendant was found guilty and fined. Their lawyers appealed. The N.C. Supreme Court upheld the law regarding segregated facilities. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The sit-in didn’t garner much publicity. Williams recalls that it was a quiet summer and most students from the nearby colleges were out of town. Historians and community members attribute it to timing; sit-ins in the South weren’t rampant at that moment. In her book Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina, Christina Greene explores another reason: the tensions the Royal sitin unleashed in the black community. She documents a schism in sentiments about radical tactics. “Mary Clyburn, who hid her involvement in the sit-in for many years, remembered the

‘ugly faces’ of blacks looking ‘madder than the white folks,’” Green writes. Even though the sit-in failed to make headlines, it nonetheless generated urgency among some black activists. According to Greene, “it did point black Durham toward the community-based black boycotts and direct action protests of the sixties.” These included regular picket lines outside the ice cream parlor, where participants were largely high school age and nearly half were women. Among the leading organizers was Floyd McKissick, whose legacy includes being the first African American admitted to UNC’s law school. His son, state senator and local lawyer Floyd McKissick Jr., was four years old at the time of the Royal sit-in. The McKissick family lived off Corporation Street, just two blocks from the parlor. They were one of the first African-American families to own a home in a white neighborhood in Durham, McKissick says. “After school desegregation began in 1959, things were heightened in terms of awareness and sensitivity, and it’s when we received the highest amounts of threats,” he says. “Phone calls threatening to bomb the house. We actually would have people sitting on our front porch from dusk to dawn with shotguns to provide protection.” McKissick points out that the progress made over the last sixty years won’t necessarily continue. Vigilance is required. “The thing we cannot do today is become complacent,” he says. “There’s a strategic effort being made today by those who would like to see the Supreme Court reverse the progress we’ve made, to suppress votes. We have demographics on our side, due to the browning of America, but we need to be careful.” Williams echoes the sentiment. “Don’t come in and expect to be sitting at the head of the table,” she says. “Put in the work. We still have a lot of work to do.” vbouloubasis@indyweek.com

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struggles past and present. Pellegrino met Parks through mutual involvement in another band, the Drumadics, and he hooked up with Doe through their time together at the Manhattan School of Music. After making Too Many Zooz an official enterprise in 2014, the band coined the term brasshouse to try to describe its eclectic mix of styles and cultures. Trumpeter Doe blows like Dizzy Gillespsie with a head full of shrooms, Pellegrino honks and squawks while making Brown-style get-on-the-good-foot spins, and Parks whacks out slinky, syncopated Afro-Cuban rhythms. Electronic and house music is a touchstone of the band’s sound, along with the juju of King Sunny Ade and Fela Kuti’s rhythms. But the brass still shines through, and the overall sound

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The bakery relationships, and get what you want out of life. EMPOWERRaleigh. bread to several local restaurants, including required to take advantage of any ofsupplies Empower’s If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, medical Farina, J Betski’s, and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar. .These days, diagnosis, ongoing health issues, caregiving issues, aging, multitude of services. At Empower Raleigh you there’s a lot more buzz about Night Kitchen. European disability, medical trauma, relationship concerns, spirituality, classics such as croissant, scones, and french macarons stress management, depression, anxiety, adapting to change can drop in to a focused group fitness sign haveclass, received high marks; as well as more American items and unpredictability, grief, loss, or bereavement and would like

hef Amanda Cushman’s private cooking classes are just the thing for the foodie in you. If you love to cook, entertain, or just appreciate the pleasure of great food, private cooking classes are the place to indulge your passions. The classes are designed for both the novice cook and seasoned home chef and will empower you to cook with confidence. Bringing together groups from two to twenty in your home Amanda will provide tips on shopping, planning ahead and entertaining with ease. Amanda’s healthy recipes have appeared in publications such as Food and Wine, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking and Vegetarian Times. In Los Angeles her highly successful private classes included celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Sims and Randy Newman. Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham. Educated at The Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan, Cushman is the author of her own cookbook, “Simple, Real Food.” Amanda’s healthy recipes have appeared in publications such as Food and Wine, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking and Vegetarian Times. In Los Angeles her highly successful private classes included celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Sims and Randy Newman. Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham. Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham. In addition to a number of regularly scheduled cooking classes each month at venues such as Southern Season, Durham Wines and Spirits, Duke Diet and Fitness Center and UNC Wellness, Amanda offers private cooking classes in your home throughout the Triangle as well as corporate team building events. ●

ight Kitchen Bakehouse & Cafe opened in November

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Opening at Morgan Street Food Hall End of Summer 2017

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ight Kitchen Bakehouse & Cafe opened in November of 2014 rather quietly. “We didn’t have much time or extra cash to have a big to-do,” says owner Helen Pfann, “My Dad brought some wine for a soft opening party, and then we were off.” These days, there’s a lot more buzz about Night Kitchen. European classics such as croissant, scones, and french macarons have received high marks; as well as more American items such as brownies or the bread pudding, a muffin-shaped treat with caramelized sugar on top. The breads at Night Kitchen, however, are the real focus. “I got started as a bread baker,” explains Pfann, “...and though I enjoy pastry work, making bread is what I love most.” Night Kitchen sells Sourdough, 9-Grain, and French bread everyday, and features daily specials. The bakery supplies bread to several local restaurants, including Farina, J Betski’s, and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar. “I designed the kitchen so we could do wholesale and have room to grow. We’ve just started working with the Produce Box, so folks statewide can try our breads.” The final piece of the pie is the cafe at Night Kitchen. Exchange and fine teas from Tin Roof Teas, it’s a great space to meet a friend or have a small gathering at one of the larger farm tables. A selection of sandwiches, daily soup and quiche specials round out the menu. The breads at Night Kitchen, however, are the real focus. “I got started as a bread baker,” explains Pfann, “...and though I enjoy pastry work, making bread is what I love most.” Night Kitchen sells Sourdough, 9-Grain, and French bread everyday, and features daily specials. The bakery supplies bread to several local restaurants, including Farina, J Betski’s, and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar. .These days, there’s a lot more buzz about Night Kitchen. European classics such as croissant, scones, and french macarons have received high marks; as well as more American items such as brownies or the bread pudding, a muffin-shaped treat with caramelized sugar on top. ●

Publication Date: July 12

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ersonal issues such as anxiety, depression, a new medical diagnosis or dealing with a chronic illness may be making you feel like life is one big struggle. Whether you have these sorts of problems or other concerns that are making your life hard or even unbearable, change is always possible if you are willing to work and you have the support you need. I offer that support. My therapeutic foundation is based on a blend of Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a full, heartfelt engagement with the world. Using a mix of narrative therapy, mindfulyou can live more fully and enjoy more emotional balance, stronger relationships, and get what you want out of life. As a client, you can expect to become better acquainted with your thinking, behavior, responses, and feelings so that you can ultimately live more fully and authentically. We’ll work together to discover and build on your strengths and empower you to conquer negative patterns so you have greater emotional and overall psychological freedom. My therapeutic foundation is based on a blend of Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a full, heartfelt engagement with the world. Using a mix of narrative therapy, mindfulness, meditation, breathing, and physical movement techniques, I help you uncover and develop your strengths, so that you can live more fully and enjoy more emotional balance, stronger relationships, and get what you want out of life.

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If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, medical diagnosis, ongoing health issues, caregiving issues, aging, disability, medical trauma, relationship concerns, spirituality, stress management, depression, anxiety, adapting to change and unpredictability, grief, loss, or bereavement and would like help, please give me a call. ●

Issue date: JULY 12 Reserve by: JUNE 28 Contact your rep for more info or advertising@indyweek.com 20 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

ments and play.” The band’s newfound acclaim and higher-profile gigs, however, have been a mixed blessing. The gigs are more stressful than ever. “It’s not like I have stage fright, but I just want to do the best show that I can, and I can’t relax until I’ve played the last note,” Pellegrino says. “You have a soundcheck that takes about two hours, then there’s not usually enough time for you to do anything else before the gig,” he says, noting that the long days and minimal rest make it tough to stay healthy. But as he discovered with the CMAs, the band’s sudden fame does have its rewards— certainly none of them dreamed of sharing a stage with this generation’s biggest pop star at a country music awards show. But events like that shouldn’t surprise anybody. As they’ve proven to audiences above and below ground, Too Many Zooz dream too big to be put in a cage. music@indyweek.com

MUSIC BRIEF

GIRLS ROCK GETS THE BLUES— AND THAT’S A GOOD THING

BUSINESS PROFILES WRITTEN BY

YOU!

at times has echoes of pre-reggae pioneers like the Skatelites. When Too Many Zooz started busking for income, they learned how to capture a live audience quickly: play something visceral and unique enough to hold the crowd’s attention to get the message across, and make them want to pay for it. The band has worked up four EPs—F NOTE, Fanimals, Brasshouse Volume 1: Survival of the Flyest, and The Internet— and one LP, Subway Gawdz, released in late June of last year. The group branches out instrumentally in the studio, with Sludge on piano and Leo on bass clarinet and tenor sax. But live, they stick to the basic trio of drum, trumpet, and sax. “I don’t want to haul all that equipment around,” Pellegrino jokes. He’s retained a lingering fondness for the band’s simpler subway days, when the musicians mostly just wanted to make rent. “It was so easy, all we had to do was get there, set up and play—no sound checks, no waiting around, just take out the instru-

SIMPLE REAL FOOD

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For over a decade, Girls Rock NC has been empowering girls, teens, women, and gender nonconforming youth and adults through music. During its annual weeklong summer camps, kids convene to form rock bands. They learn how to play instruments and write songs, but Lena Mae Perry FILE PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER more important, they learn how to be creative and collaborate, which thirty years. all serves to boost self-esteem and build Their appearances include teaching young leaders. workshops, performing for campers at This summer, though, Girls Rock NC has lunch, and enriching their musical educateamed up with another local nonprofit tions. They’ll be a great reminder of the to build upon its programming. It’s joined many futures these campers can have forces with the Hillsborough-based Music with their music—who knows, maybe Maker Relief Foundation, which helps they’ll inspire the next Shemekia Copeland elderly blues and roots musicians mainor Bonnie Raitt? tain a living. Three of its associated art—Allison Hussey ists—Lena Mae Perry, Pat “Mother Blues” Cohen, and Pat Wilder—will each serve Cohen’s Girls Rock NC residency runs three-day residencies at camps this sumthrough Thursday, but Perry will be on hand mer. Perry has co-led the Johnston County July 18–20, and Wilder will join July 19–21. gospel group The Branchettes for more For more information on Girls Rock NC’s than twenty years, Cohen sang the blues camps and other programming, visit in New Orleans for two decades, and www.girlsrocknc.org. Wilder has been playing blues guitar for

music

ADF: MUSICIANS CONCERT Sunday, July 2, 7 p.m. $10.75 Duke’s Baldwin Auditorium, Durham www.americandancefestival.org

In Step

USUALLY HIDDEN IN THE WINGS, THE MUSICIANS BEHIND AMERICAN DANCE FESTIVAL SHOWS TAKE CENTER STAGE BY AMANDA ABRAMS

ot all of the artists who converge on Duke’s East Campus every summer as part of the American Dance Festival are dancers. Included in the gaggle of out-of-towners are about fifteen professional musicians who accompany ADF’s six weeks of dance classes on drums, keyboards, and a wide range of electronic equipment. It’s a coveted gig: four of them have returned to ADF for at least thirty summers. On the job, it’s an opportunity to whet their improvisational skills, and after hours, they can hobnob and jam with their contemporaries, most of whom are professional accompanists. Two of them—multi-instrumentalists Andy Hasenpflug and Westin Portillo— who work as dance accompanists at Slippery Rock University and Texas Woman’s University, respectively, spoke with us about improvising, electronic tools, and making music as a religious experience. INDY: What kind of guidance do you get from each teacher? ANDY HASENPFLUG: You go in and either discuss, or you just figure out what they want. What their agenda is for their class is always the priority, and that’s going to be a huge factor in all the decisions I make. WESTIN PORTILLO: Some teachers are more structured in terms of, this needs to be here, this needs to be there. And other teachers say, “Oh, you know what to do.” Our role is a utility for them. It makes class flow faster, and it makes things go easier for them so they don’t have to stop and use iPods. Do you work with the same teachers all summer? AH: No. It changes every two days, because everybody wants to work with everybody else. And I also think that people—on both sides of the fence—wouldn’t like it if they got the same person for forty classes in a row.

ADF accompanists Andy Hasenpflug, Adam Crawley, Westin Portillo, and Joanie Ferguson perform in 2015. PHOTO BY GRANT HALVERSON How has the advent of more electronic tools changed your experience of improvising music for dance? AH: It’s changed the whole industry, a ton. There are still people who don’t incorporate it and good for them, but I feel like I have to, to stay relevant. WP: Music in general is using it—synthesizer sounds, voice processing, AutoTune—so it’s the language of what people are listening to. Making that connection culturally with the music landscape helps me connect with the dancers.

focused on the teacher. It’s nice because some of that pressure is relieved, and also there’s the reciprocal kind of push-and-pull energy from each other, which makes it very rewarding. AH: When I’m playing, I find it rewarding when we’re making a symbiotic art. To me, that’s kind of religious—not necessarily theistic, but it fulfills that level of human experience. I feel like almost all the class, almost every class, should be art all the time, even if they’re just stretching or doing tendus.

How is playing for dancers different from playing any other show? WP: I still feel like it’s a performance, but the focus is not really on me; they’re mainly

Why do ADF musicians come back year after year? AH: It’s really magical here. It’s the time of year that feeds us. It’s very fulfilling artis-

tically—I think people play their best here. We’ll hang out and jam with each other at somebody’s house at night; we do that all the time. It’s really both inspiring and challenging to see the other players and what they do with what they’re bringing WP: It’s always a treat to come to ADF and see everybody play and go, “Oh, that’s really cool, I’m stealing that for later.” It’s kind of like, as we go out and do our own independent research in our own little nooks, we get to come back and compare notes and say, Oh cool, that works really well, I would’ve never thought of that. It’s very satisfying to be here. It’s like, “Yeah, this is the best part of the year to be with people who are really excited to be here.” That energy is infectious. music@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 21

CARE MATTERS

Long Term Care coverage Domestic partner and Civil Unions no problem. Call Josh or Jeff 336-266-0187

indyscreen

RAISING BERTIE HHHH Saturday, July 1 & Sunday, July 2, 1:45 p.m. The Chelsea Theater, Chapel Hill www.thechelseatheater.com

RECYCLE THIS PAPER

Raising Bertie PHOTOS COURTESY OF KARTEMQUIN FILMS

Near to Impossible

KNOW MORE ABOUT MANHATTAN THAN YOUR EMBATTLED NEIGHBORS IN RURAL NORTH CAROLINA? THEN SEE RAISING BERTIE. BY GLENN MCDONALD The independent documentary Raising Bertie, filmed in fits and starts over the course of six years, is essentially a comingof-age movie. Shot in Bertie County, in the rural, eastern part of North Carolina, the film tracks the lives of three young black men as they grow from their teenage years into adulthood. It’s one of the best movies you’ll see this year. Filmmaker Margaret Byrne made the movie more or less by accident. Initially intended to be a profile of The Hive, an alternative high school program for at-risk youth, the focus shifted when funding for the school dried up. Byrne kept filming anyway, returning to Bertie County every few months when she could scrape up enough funding to afford a trip. The result is an intimate chronicle of growing up in a small, impoverished rural community in twenty-first-century America. The young men we meet—Reginald 22 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

“Junior” Askew, David “Bud” Perry, and Davonte “Dada” Harrell—must navigate the typical hazards of adolescence: young love, problems at school, that shitty first car. But, due to circumstances beyond their control, they face a terribly bleak future. Bertie County is one of America’s forgotten places, the kind you keep reading about in election coverage. If you want to stick with your family and your hometown, job opportunities are limited to fast food, the cotton fields, or the pork-processing plant. “It’s like you ain’t even here,” Junior says, skipping stones at sunset, in the film’s central image. This is the beauty of Raising Bertie: Byrne tells her stories in rigorous cinéma vérité style. There is no voice-over narration, no framing of the topic, no onscreen statistics regarding poverty and systemic racism. This isn’t an Issue Film, just an artful procession of people, dialogue, and images.

Raising Bertie premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham last year. Two screenings at the Chelsea this weekend, which feature Q and A sessions with producer and Chapel Hill native Ian Kibbe, are part of a limited nationwide release following the film’s success on the festival circuit. It’s also been been picked up for an August 28 digital release and broadcast premiere on PBS. When I first saw the film at Full Frame, I remember being surprisingly moved. It’s the proximity, I think. Bertie County is about 150 miles from the Triangle, but having spent my life drenched in mass media, I know more about Manhattan than I do about rural eastern North Carolina—and I’ve never been to Manhattan. This accomplished piece of filmmaking—insightful, raw, and visually beautiful—is also a chance to meet your neighbors. arts@indyweek.com

SCREEN BRIEFS BEATRIZ AT DINNER HHHH Now playing Beatriz at Dinner is a sharp reflection on class and immigration in contemporary American society— which is to say, in a society teetering on the brink of fascism. Beatriz (Salma Hayek) is a Mexican massage therapist and healer living in Altadena, California, whose car breaks down at her employer’s mansion. The lady of the house, PHOTO COURTESY OF ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS Cathy (played with aplomb by Connie Britton), invites the cute but naïve outsider soon starts to Beatriz to stay for the business dinner that grate on the guests. As she subjects them her husband, Grant (David Warshofsky), to an escalating series of moral, ethical, is hosting. By the time the guest of honor and spiritual interrogations, their polite tolarrives—Doug Strutt (John Lithgow), a erance of her difference starts to fade and plutocratic land developer—we sense that their nihilistic sense of entitlement to the something is off. planet’s resources becomes clear. Mike White’s script is exquisitely Beatriz at Dinner is a lucid, if visually attuned to the fissures of conversational and narratively modest, diagnosis of this awkwardness through which irreconcilmoment in American history. Miguel able social antagonisms reveal themselves. Arteta’s sensitive direction and light touch Beatriz regales the dinner party with tales make material that might have otherwise of healing and magic, which the guests been heavy-handed feel sharply critical are at least slightly charmed by until it but infinitely complex. The lonely, curious, becomes clear that she isn't going to shut empathic, and traumatized Beatriz is the up. Beatriz’s gentle but firm refusal to fade kind of character we need to see on-screen into the background and play the role of more often. —Laura Jaramillo

THE BEGUILED HHH Opening Friday, June 30 Sofia Coppola’s new historical drama, The Beguiled, turns on an intriguing setup: in the waning days of the Civil War, a wounded Union soldier happens upon a girls boarding school deep in the woods of confederate Virginia. In the spirit of Christian charity, the women take him in. With Colin Farrell as the soldier, Nicole Kidman as the pious headmaster, and Kirsten Dunst as a repressed teacher, the math is in place for some dark, interPHOTO COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES esting equations. The older women haven't seen a man in years. The and the air is heavy with potential sex and younger girls have never seen one at violence. But it’s all too slow. Scenes linger all. The soldier, hobbled by a broken leg, is and dissolve, moments are held a beat too desperate and vulnerable—if the women long, and when the payoff does land, it’s turn him over to the passing patrols, he’s decidedly underwhelming. Nothing feels dead. What will happen? resolved. Psychological subtleties make This is a remake of a lurid, trashy Clint this a challenging film, but some storytellEastwood movie from 1971, but Coppola is ing vigor would have made it a better one. interested in the story’s deeper rhythms. —Glenn McDonald Beneath genteel flirtations, dark forms stir, INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 23

indystage

You Just Have to Laugh THE WOMEN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL RESPONDS TO AMERICA’S AMBIENT DESPAIR WITH A STREAMLINED, ALL-COMEDY SEASON BY BYRON WOODS

shley Popio knows that comedy is more than just entertainment, a coping mechanism, or a strategy for navigating problematic work environments. It can also be a devastating weapon. “It’s dangerous to be laughed at,” says Popio, the founder and artistic director of the Women’s Theatre Festival. “That’s why tyrants have no sense of humor. When people in power look ridiculous, you’re less likely to do what they say.” Comedy can be a potent form of resistance. “It’s freedom,” she concludes. This weekend, the festival opens its second year with the feminist sci-fi farce Space Girl and Occupy the Stage, a twenty-fourhour mini-fest of new plays, at the newly relocated Sonorous Road Theatre. This kicks off a month and a half of comedies written, directed, and staged primarily by women in Raleigh and Durham. Mounting an all-comedy season wasn’t about ignoring the current climate for women in the U.S.; it was a direct response to it, a “visceral reaction,” Popio says, to the depression that descended on so many women after Trump’s election. “Everything seemed so dark and hopeless,” she recalls. “We needed a light to fight for.” Despite the rise of comedians like Kate McKinnon, Mindy Kaling, Amy Schumer, and Tina Fey, useless stereotypes persist about women in comedy. WTF managing director Bronwen Mischel notes the lingering perception that feminists take themselves too seriously. “Plus, people have the impression that feminist theater isn’t fun to go see because it’s all about rape and domestic violence,” she says. 24 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

WOMEN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL 2017 SHOWS SPACE GIRL

June 30–July 9, $17 Sonorous Road Theatre, Raleigh

OCCUPY THE STAGE

June 30–July 1, $5 Sonorous Road Theatre, Raleigh

THE WOODSTOCK TONTINE July 7–16, $17 Burning Coal Theatre, Raleigh

LICKED CUPCAKE

July 13–23, $17 Sonorous Road Theatre, Raleigh

SWEET TEA AND BABY DREAMS August 3–13, $17 Meredith College’s Studio Theatre, Raleigh

MISS LULU BETT August 10–20, $17 Walltown Children’s Theatre, Durham

WOMEN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL June 30–August 20, Raleigh/Durham www.womenstheatrefestival.com

S TAG E B R I E F S HAY FEVER | ½

June 15–25 TheatreFEST 2017, Raleigh

The cast of Space Girl gets used to acting on roller skates. PHOTO COURTESY OF ASHLEY POPIO “Or rage against the patriarchy,” Popio chimes in, with an exasperated eye roll. “But when we can combat that stereotype with a romp through alien lesbian roller derby, in Space Girl, then we have the chance to change some hearts and minds.” Audiences will note several strategic changes since the festival’s inaugural season. After staging seven productions in venues from Burlington to Sanford last year, the group has reduced the number to five productions in four theaters in order to direct more resources to each show. The festival’s productions and fourteen short courses in technical theater, dance, puppetry, and artistic-career management are scheduled so they don’t compete with one another. The script selection process has also undergone significant change, after works by local playwrights—some clearly not ready for main-stage production—dominated last season. Popio selected two of the five main-stage shows: Space Girl, which was a hit during last year’s Occupy the Stage, and Miss Lulu Bett, which Popio discovered while researching award-winning women dramatists of the twentieth century. Zona Gale became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama after she adapted her own best-selling novel into a play that premiered on Broadway in 1920. While many of the works Popio perused were dated or no longer relevant, Miss Lulu Bett portrays, if in a somewhat exaggerated form, a realistic family and problems that

still exist today. The play shines an intriguing light on another time in our culture. The title character is a disempowered spinster with a quick wit but few options, living on the crust of humility as the unappreciated cook and housekeeper for her sister’s family, headed by a supercilious husband. But fortunes reverse, first when his brother marries Lulu and again when he subsequently disappears. Director NaTasha Thompson says that the comedy lets us ask what happens when we finally “stop feeding the machine,” enabling relationships and social structures that work to our disadvantage. Thompson also reminds us that, when the work was created in the 1920s, it was a time, like ours, when the country was on the verge of major change. In its initial production, Miss Lulu Bett was so controversial that the playwright was forced to change the ending. “Originally, Lulu walked out into a life of her own, and viewers were appalled,” Popio says. Gale ultimately had to write an alternate conclusion in which a suitor swoops in at the last minute to marry her—a change scholars still refer to today as “the happy ending.” Popio is keeping mum on which ending the festival will present. But she’s smirking as she talks about the work, clearly already in on a joke that she can’t wait to share with the rest of us. bwoods@indyweek.com

N.C. State’s TheatreFEST 2017 was a gratifying upgrade of the series’s usual summer diet of thrillers, musicals, and low-grade comedies. This season, two biographical works and a classic Noël Coward farce all seemed dedicated to bad behavior among the artistic elites of yesteryear. When the odd patchwork of Tea with Edie and Fitz wasn’t riffing on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s boozy contretemps with Edith Wharton (a worldly, dignified Rachel Klem), actor Katie Barrett championed a beleaguered Zelda Fitzgerald as the unsung, possibly superior artist in the family. And Lynda Clark delighted audiences as the catty, crafty sixties fashion icon Diana Vreeland in a top-flight solo show, Full Gallop. In series closer Hay Fever, Coward’s tribute to a real-life theatrical family known for its unique brand of hospitality, a novelist, his actor wife, and two irritable adult children are in the

final agonies of cabin fever on a country estate too far from London. Crisis is inevitable when everyone invites house guests for the same weekend, with no place to put them. Under John McIlwee’s direction, JoAnne Dickinson captured Judith as an actor stuck in diva mode. When a diplomat (a smooth Jonathan King), Judith’s errant fanboy (a dyspeptic Linh Schladweiler), and a calculating vamp (Lynda Clark) get a little indiscreet in their affections, the diva and her husband, David (a canny Danny Norris), plunge the bewildered weekenders into reenactments of Judith’s favorite melodramas, whose bodice-ripping (and mostly fictional) passions can only be brazened through. After a rough first act, the ensemble found its pacing; given the stiff competition in a summer season TheatreFEST used to dominate, this year’s upgrades should continue. —Byron Woods

HONEST PINT WANTS YOUR PATRONAGE You like theater. But do you like it enough to support it beyond the ticket price? Raleigh’s Honest Pint Theatre Company is the latest local troupe gambling that the answer is yes. Theater is often funded one play at a time, as benefactors donate to it and audiences (hopefully) buy enough tickets to put it in the black. But an old model is new again: a growing number of local companies are embracing patronage models in which ongoing donors receive special privileges for supporting the company, not the production. Following the likes of Durham’s Little Green Pig, Honest Pint, a five-year-old company notable for its “uncut” Hamlet last year, just launched its patronage page at www. patreon.com/honestpinttheatre. “In these uncertain economic times and with arts funding in jeopardy, new methods of fundraising must be adopted,” codirectors David Henderson and Susannah Hough said in a press release. Patreon supporters set up automatic monthly donations and

are rewarded with tickets, branded merchandise, and salon-style home events. Donors will support upcoming productions, like King Lear and The Mystery of Love and Sex, as well as the long-term goals of expanding into underserved regions of the state, raising stipends, and subsidizing tickets for those who can’t afford them. Patreon allows theaters to retain independence without taking on nonprofit status or a board of directors. “So far, Honest Pint has subsisted on one-off donations and our personal money,” Hough told the INDY. “Patreon is a way to systematically raise money for the organization and build our network of fans, friends, and other supporters. They know exactly where their money is going. We get to have ongoing conversations with them, which will allow us to discover what our audiences like and don’t like and help us find new people who are interested in partnering with us. In other words, we will not be operating in a vacuum.” —Brian Howe INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 25

6.28–7.5

Caique Vidal PHOTO

MUSIC

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

FRIDAY, JUNE 30

DIALI CISSOKHO & KAIRA BA WITH CAIQUE VIDAL & BATUQUE

We’re getting into the most sweltering parts of summer in the Triangle, when even a quick run to the mailbox can leave you sweaty and feeling smothered by the humidity. But Friday night brings a much better occasion to get sweaty in Saxapahaw with a killer double bill. Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba is a longtime Triangle institution led by Cissokho, a Senegalese kora player who laces traditional West African music traditions with contemporary rock sounds. Its music is warm and upbeat, often with some extra positivity thrown in for good measure—“Teeriyaa,” for example, is an enthusiastic celebration of friendship. Coheadliner Caique Vidal & Batuque leans more into AfroBrazilian styles, bolstering heart-racing percussion with squealing, ebullient horn sections. Together, the bands make for a magnificent opportunity to expand your musical horizons while dancing your troubles away. —Allison Hussey HAW RIVER BALLROOM, SAXAPAHAW | 8 p.m., $15–$17, www.hawriverballroom.com

FRIDAY, JUNE 30

DAVID SEDARIS: THEFT BY FINDING

Your week. Every Wednesday. ARTS•NEWS•FOOD•MUSIC INDYWEEK.COM 26 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

Just because you’re a popular author does not necessarily mean your diary will be a good read. For certain kinds of writers, it might even spoil the mystery a little. But David Sedaris, whose latest book, Theft by Finding, I recently spotted on a prime bookstore rack inside New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, is the ideal popular author-diarist. What characterizes his oeuvre is a fascination with certain types of moments and situations: the awkward, surreal, ridiculous, not necessarily dramatic moments that make up the bulk of the Western human experience. Sedaris has been treating his audiences at book signings to excerpts from his decades-long diary-keeping, but this collection is the first to gather a representative sampling. Recounting a quarter-century swath beginning with the author as a twenty-year-old in 1977, this compendium offers short, sharp glimpses rather than an exhaustive linear progression. Sedaris recently likened it to “someone else’s yearbook,” but surely anyone else’s wouldn’t provide this much kick. —David Klein QUAIL RIDGE BOOKS, RALEIGH 7 p.m., signing line with book purchase, www.quailridgebooks.com

MUSIC

FRIDAY, JUNE 30

STEEP CANYON RANGERS WITH THE N.C. SYMPHONY

In the years since their early days as UNC students rooted firmly in bluegrass traditions, Asheville’s Steep Canyon Rangers have grown increasingly adventurous in their music. The Grammy-winning group may be best known outside the state for performances with banjoist and comedian Steve Martin, but they’ve also occasionally collaborated with orchestras based in Augusta, Boston, Salt Lake City, and western North Carolina. In Cary, they hook up with the North Carolina Symphony, its sixty-plus members adding depth to the Rangers’ already ample arsenal of strings on tender ballads and twangy toe-tappers filled with harmonies, hooks, and well-honed picking. “It’s incredibly rewarding to hear the music that our band has created, enhanced by the beautiful and complex sounds of a symphony orchestra,” says guitarist and vocalist Woody Platt. “After more than fifteen years as a band, it’s hard to think of anything more exciting than to be performing with our own North Carolina symphony.” —Spencer Griffith KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE, CARY 7:30 p.m., $17–$40, www.boothamphitheatre.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 29

A FREE EVENING OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS ONE-ACT PLAYS

WHAT TO DO

THIS WEEK

Rashad Jennings and Emma Slater in Dancing with the Stars: Live! PHOTO COURTESY OF FACULTY/ABC

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO?

ADF: MUSICIANS CONCERT AT BALDWIN AUDITORIUM (P. 21), AFRICAN GALLERY REOPENING AT NCMA (P. 33), BETH GILL AT REYNOLDS INDUSTRIES THEATER (P. 35), HEATHER HAVRILESKY AT THE REGULATOR (P. 36), THE JUNGLE BOOK AT KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE (P. 36), RAISING BERTIE AT THE CHELSEA THEATER (P. 22), TOO MANY ZOOZ AT DURHAM CENTRAL PARK (P. 19), WANTS UPON A TIME AT HILLSBOROUGH RIVERWALK (P. 35), WOMEN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL AT SONOROUS ROAD (P. 24)

Is a certain shuttered room in New Orleans a tourist trap or did time actually stop there at the end of the Romantic movement? Why has a shady rural Southern businessman left his wife alone with a hated competitor? And just how frank are two women prepared to get with each other over drinks in a St. Louis dive? A sextet of actors including Lakeisha Coffey and Emily Rieder answer these questions in the last production of Bartlett Theater’s inaugural season, a staged reading of three Tennessee Williams one-acts. Tickets are free if you email JB@bartletttheater.com to reserve them. —Byron Woods ST. PAUL’S EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH, DURHAM 7 p.m., free, www.bartletttheater.com

SUNDAY, JULY 2

DANCING WITH THE STARS: LIVE! — HOT SUMMER NIGHTS

Yes, we’ve seen you at the American Dance Festival in recent weeks, going gaga with the Charlotte Ballet, swigging from Monica Bill Barnes’s hip flask, and trading fashion tips with Cherdonna and Sara Juli. We also happen to know why you’ve been incommunicado from eight to ten every Monday night since March: there’s more to life than ADF, including Dancing with the Stars. Granted, guilty pleasures are the sweetest, and yes, you’ve been very good—at least lately. So, since Season 24 winners Rashad Jennings (an NFL running back) and Emma Slater’s national victory lap is stopping here in Durham on Sunday, go ahead, take a night off from contemporary dance and enjoy. We won’t tell. —Byron Woods DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, DURHAM 5 and 8:30 p.m., $45-$299, www.dpacnc.com INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 27

TH 6/29 @CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM

FR 7/14

KASEY CHAMBERS

JOHN PAUL WHITE

SU 7/9

WASHED OUT

SU 7/16

TH 6/29 WE 7/19

JOHN MORELAND 6/29 WEEDEATER W/ BLACK WIZARD, SERIAL HAWK, MEGA COLOSSUS ($20/$23) 7/7 SCHOOL OF ROCK (CARY)

SHOWCASE

7/9 WASHED

OUT W/DEGA ($25) 7/14 KASEY CHAMBERS W/ GARRET CATO ($22/$25)

7/16 RAEKWON W/ DEFACTO THESPIAN ($25) 7/19 JOHN MORELAND W/TRAVISLINVILLESEATEDSHOW ($13/$15) 7/22 CROWN THE EMPIRE W/ I SEE STARS, PALAYE ROYALE, OUT CAME THE WOLVES ($18/$20) 8/4 TOWN MOUNTAIN ($12/$15) 8/9 THE

MELVINS ($20/$22) 8/25 & 26 BE LOUD! '17 9/1 ROKY ERICKSON

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MASA ($17/$20)

10/12 TURNOVER ($25/$28) 10/13 CHELSEA WOLFE**($20/$23) 10/16 KALI UCHIS

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8/22 DURAND JONES & THE INDICATIONS ($10/$12) CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM

6/29 JOHN PAUL WHITE W/ LERA LYNN ($25) 6/30 THE CHORUS PROJECT SUMMER SHOWCASE ($10 ADULT/ $5 STUDENTS) 7/6 MATT

PHILLIPS / YOUNG MISTER W/ CHRIS FRISINA

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8/25 ALL 8/28

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9/1 MCCAFFERTY AND REMO DRIVE ($10/$12) 9/13 FRANKIE ROSE W/ SPLASHH ($10/$12) 9/16 CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS:

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7/14 JENNIFER KNAPP ($15/$18)

10/14 MATT POND PA W/ WILD PINK ($25/$28)

7/18 EVIL ENGLISH, NOTE ENSEMBLE, MONTHS OF INDECISION, SHANNON O’CONNOR ($7)

11/4 THE HOTELIER W/ OSO OSO, ALEX NAPPING ($13/$15)

7/21 HARDWORKER ALBUM RELEASE PARTY W/ ANNE-CLAIRE, RUN COME SEE

CAROLINA THEATRE (DUR)

7/23 CURTIS

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7/26 CYMBALS EAT GUITARS W/ ACTIVE BIRD COMMUNITY 7/29 HONEY MAGPIE ALBUM RELEASE PARTY W/JOSH MOORE, BROTHERS EGG, MAGNOLIA STILL, HAMMER NO MORE THE FINGERS ($10) 7/30 ROZWELL KID W/ VUNDABAR, GREAT GRANDPA 8/4 RASPUTINA W/ELIZA RICKMAN ($18/$20) 8/8 LAETITIA SADIER SOURCE ENSEMBLE

W/ ART FEYNMAN 8/9 SLAUGHTER BEACH, DOG W/ SHANNEN MOSER ($10/$12) 8/11 THE SECOND AFTER CD RELEASE PARTY 8/18 BRICK + MORTAR ($10/$12) 8/19 THE

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12/6 THE MOUNTAIN GOATS DPAC (DUR)

11/25 ST. VINCENT (ON SALE 6/30) MOTORCO (DUR)

11/4 BORIS’ “DEAR/25TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR” W/ MUTOID MAN, ENDON ($18/$20) RED HAT AMPH. (RAL)

10/2 THE

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music

6.28 – 7.5

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR

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CONTRIBUTORS: Jim Allen (JA), Grant Britt (GB), Charlie Burnett (CB), Spencer Griffith (SG), Kat Harding (KH), Allison Hussey (AH), David Klein (DK), Charles Morse (CM), Dan Ruccia (DR), David Ford Smith (DS)

WED, JUN 28 2ND WIND: Yeaux Katz; 7-9 p.m., free. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Blue Wednesday; 8 p.m. • DUKE GARDENS: Music in the Gardens: Loamlands; 7 p.m. • HUMBLE PIE: Sidecar Social Club; 8:30 p.m., free. • IRREGARDLESS: Matt Walsh; 6:30 p.m. • KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE: John Mellencamp, Emmylou Harris, Carlene Carter; 7 p.m., $45+. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: You’re Jovian; 10 p.m., $5. • NIGHTLIGHT: 919 Noise Showcase; 8:30 p.m., $5. • THE PINHOOK: Cindy Wilson, Pylon Reenactment Society; 8 p.m., $20–$35. • POUR HOUSE: Marbin, The Get Right Band; 9 p.m., $10–$12. • RUBY DELUXE: Mystery Dance Moms Theatre 3000; 8 p.m. • SLIM’S: Old Codger, Crack House, Witchtit; 9 p.m., $5.

THU, JUN 29 Lauren Light

Slighty Stoopid

Weedeater

VERY In 2017, plenty of STOOPID really strong arguments for the legalization of cannabis exist. The music of SoCal group Slightly Stoopid—in case the name didn’t give it away— however, is not one of them. Half-rapped, half-sung, pseudodeep lyrics are mumbled over a bed of half-baked grooves staler than a space cake that’s been left out for days. —CB [RED HAT AMPHITHEATER, $19.50–$35/6 P.M.]

HEAVY- Whether trading in OSITY pile-driving riffs or molasses trudges, the stoner rock stalwarts of Weedeater trade in the most visceral kind of sludge, powered by throbbing, viscerashaking bass and the bridge-troll rasp of bassist/vocalist “Dixie” Dave Collins. Live shows are cathartic, sometimes even emetic events, as vomiting has remained a key component of the band’s performances over its twentythree-year existence. With Black Wizard, Serial Hawk, and Mega Colossus on hand, you can bet on a barrage of brawny riffs that might leave you blissful but bruised. —DK [CAT’S CRADLE, $20–$23/8:30 P.M.]

Triangle Chance for All’s Punk Rock Benefit Bash

POP KID

Ohio’s Colin Rigsby has been crafting

DOUBLE John Paul White’s FOLK new album, Beulah, is folk ballads at its finest. His soft voice weaves between dark yet gentle guitar chords with a Southern gothic feel. With opener Lera Lynn, who was one of the best parts of Season 2 of True Detective, the creepy Southern vibes will be strong in the Cradle’s back room. Lynn’s latest album, last April’s Resistor, adds rock ’n’ roll elements to an offbeat Americana vibe. —KH [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $25/8 P.M.]

S ILLIAM ER W

Vesperteen

John Paul White, Lera Lynn

Patriotism is in the eye of the beholder, and so is a patriotic soundtrack. Despite a seeming consensus among Americans that every Fourth of July fireworks display must be accompanied by the bombastic encomiums of Neil Diamond and Lee Greenwood, the soupy strings of the Boston Pops, and the impossible-to-sing-along-to version of “The Star Spangled Banner” by Whitney Houston, one Triangle metal band has bucked this trend. In place of the unctuous, feel-good pomp we’ve grown used to, Mega Colossus has made a tradition of delivering a charged-up set of U.S.A.-centric cover tunes by the likes of the Boss, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and John Mellencamp, not to mention hits from the Top Gun soundtrack. The red-white-and-blue sentiment is atypical for most metal bands, but Mega Colossus, which has refined its Maiden-inspired heavy rock for more than a decade, has always flown the flag proudly, balancing songs about mirror warlocks with a heartfelt desire to perform that Top Gun soundtrack in its entirety. In a recent Facebook post, the band queried its fans to name “the best metal songs that start with a high pitched, balls in a vice heavy metal howl.” That should give an indication of the specificity of the band’s love for metal and its sound. Lead singer Sean Buchanan is well capable of sustaining the aforementioned level of high-pitched intensity in the manner of his NWOBHM heroes. Since releasing …and the rift of the pandimensional under-gods in 2006, the quintet (originally Colossus but supersized in 2016 to coincide with the release of HyperGlaive) has honed its attack. Celebrating the Fourth on the third, this annual Independence Day salute struts to the beat of its own drum. It’s not some tongue-in-cheek, “America, F Yeah” kind of sendup of patriotism, yet the descriptor on the Kings website—“Celebrate/embarrass”— seems to indicate that it’s not taking itself too seriously. Just don’t think too hard about what a song like “We’re an American Band”—Grand Funk Railroad’s salute to groupies—has to do with being free. What’s genuine is an underlying sentiment of inclusion, of putting aside of politics and a belief that patriotism and rocking out are ineluctably connected. It’s a wise balance to strike on the cusp of a day that might prompt feelings of despair and bewilderment in these divisive times. So, while the rest of America gears up for the usual “Party in the USA,” you can join in on “Free Bird” and perhaps see it as an allusion to the U.S. national symbol, a bird you cannot change and one you want to see fly high. —David Klein

TOPH

CHICKEN Do you love animals CHANCES as much as you love heavy music? You can find cases for both at Triangle Chance for All’s benefit show at The Pinhook. The Chapel Hill “microsanctuary” rescues animals like chickens and pigs from shelters, with the end goal of keeping them from being slaughtered for meat. For the fundraising bash, Oxidant headlines with heavy, chaotic metal. The lineup also features a one-off reunion of The Bastages, and Night Battles opens. —AH [THE PINHOOK, $10/9 P.M.]

MEGA COLOSSUS: THIRD OF JULY SPECTACULAR

CHRIS N BY

BEACHY For this summer JAMS edition of WKNC’s weekly Local Band Local Beer series, Wilmington’s Elephant Convoy, led by brothers Daniel and Javier Rodriguez, brings an appropriately warm blend of roots reggae, pop melodies, and coastal energy. The band will pair nicely with Kill Devil Hills’ Sensi Trails and Atlantic Beach’s Monjah. —CB [POUR HOUSE, $3–$5/9:30 P.M.]

EVER Ottawa quintet GREEN PINE’s recently released, five-song Pillow Talk opens with the dreamy pop-rock of “Dolya,” leading into a collection of confessional songs with wistful, often swirling arrangements and expressive vocals. Somehow, the band recalls the Triangle’s own I Was Totally Destroying It. With Fluorescence and Max Gowan and the Backing Band. —CB [LOCAL 506, $6–$8/9 P.M.]

music for the better part of a decade. He built a relationship with pop music while drumming in pop-rock bands, and that nascent love factors heavily into Vesperteen, his full-on pop outfit. Rigsby has a vibrant vocal range, even if his lyrics are typical pop-rock slosh. If you’ve ever bopped along to a fun. song but don’t want to pay to see them, this is a decidedly cheaper, comparably catchy alternative. With North 11 and Janxxx. —DS [KINGS, $10–$12/8 P.M.]

TRATIO

Local Band Local Beer: Elephant Convoy

PINE

ILLUS

POP Lauren Light’s album POWER Take Me As I Am is full of upbeat pop tracks, urging you to say goodbye to the haters. With ballads meant to be sung at the top of your lungs and dance-friendly tracks alike, Light is likely to leave you feeling inspired. Sam Robertson and Lesa Silvermore open. —KH [THE STATION, $6/7:30 P.M.]

MONDAY, JULY 3

KINGS, RALEIGH 9 p.m., $5–$8, www.kingsraleigh.com INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 29

GUITAR LESSONS

ALSO ON THURSDAY AMERICAN TOBACCO AMPHITHEATER: Alice Gerrard & The Piedmont Melody Makers, Onyx Club Boys; 6-9 p.m. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Kirk Ridge Band, Individually Twisted; 7 p.m., free. • THE CAVE: Rett Smith, Bobby Bryson; 9 p.m., $5. • DEEP SOUTH: Inner Prolific; 10:30 p.m., free. • IRREGARDLESS: Cityfolk; 6-9 p.m. • REBUS WORKS: Orlando Parker Jr. with Autumn Nicholas; 8-10 p.m., $5. • RUBY DELUXE: J-pop/K-pop Dance Party with DJ Slime-A-Rita; 10 p.m. • SLIM’S: Jphono1, Sean Barna, Ravary; 9 p.m., $5.

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Your week. Every Wednesday.

BISCUIT Biscuit Miller’s BLUES nickname came from his habit of bothering his grandmother for crumbs of doughy delights while she was baking. The 2012 BMA Bassist of the Year spent a decade as Lonny Brooks’s bassist and five more years backing Anthony Gomes before starting his own group, the Mix. He calls himself a bluesman, but the frontman throws in big chunks of Larry Graham-style thumb-snappin’ funk into his music, along with odes to biscuits and other comfort food staples. —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, $10/9 P.M.]

Boogarins PSYCH Meshing bits of BLEND boogie and prog rock with touches of psych and Tropicalia, this young Brazilian band embodies the group dynamic through structured jams and beguiling melodies. Formed by two school friends, Boogarins has a strong Triangle connection, having been “discovered” here and subsequently finding management through local fans. Two albums and several tours later, the band is road-tested for this headlining show on familiar ground. With Tegucigalpan and Wild Fur. —DK [MOTORCO, $12/9 P.M.]

The Chorus Project Summer Showcase

INDYWEEK.COM 30 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

VOX The popularity of POPULI choral groups reflects a growing acknowledgment that making music is not

merely the province of those who know how to play an instrument. UNC’s Summer Recording Workshop brings together forty area high school students for a week of rehearsal that culminates in a full-blown concert. Abetted by solid musical accompaniment, the chorus will lay into the kind of pop songs that traditional school choirs eschewed, and the results are infectious. —DK [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $5–$10/7:30 P.M.]

reflections like, “She gave me the world and she taught me to stand/ and that life’s what happens when you’re making other plans,” with an earnest Southern twang before name-dropping Beyoncé the next moment to remind that he’s freshly graduated college. Annabelle’s Curse and Sugar Dirt and Sand open. —SG [DEEP SOUTH, $5/9 P.M.]

Brian Miller

NOT SO Now a decade into PAINFUL its career, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are still reliably issuing moderate indie pop-rock records. “Anymore,” from the forthcoming The Echo of Pleasure, feels like a throwback to early-nineties college radio rock; though catchy, it’s not exactly refreshing territory. With Beverly and Ablebody. —AH [LOCAL 506, $16–$18/8 P.M.]

MASSIVE Brian Miller is a large SAX man, dwarfing his saxophone in his hands. But when he plays, there’s no mistaking that sax for a toy. His sound is rich and complicated, singing sweetly through ballads, screaming through tricky bop tunes, and lingering in the room like a velvety curtain. —DR [BEYÙ CAFFÈ, $15/7 & 9 P.M.]

J. Gunn BULL CITY One of the current BOSS trailblazers of getting the Triangle’s hip-hop scene noticed on a national level is J. Gunn. He has been a prominent local figure for over a decade, but has recently been taken under the wing of music industry legend, Dame Dash, who cofounded the iconic record label Roc-A-Fella Records with Jay-Z. He recently collaborated with G Yamazawa on “North Cack,” an enthusiastic and impressive ode to the rappers’ shared home state. Yamazawa opens, plus P.A.T. Junior. —CM [THE PINHOOK, $20/8 P.M.]

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Third Eye: A Tribute to Tool TOOL ME The current glut of ONCE tribute bands lends credence to the otherwise unsteady argument that rock is dying. Playing the music of a popular band to its fans is a safer bet than playing your own stuff and building up your own audience, but what will the rock landscape look like in ten years, when there’s nothing but tributes to old bands, U2, and the Stones? With New Level: The Pantera Experience! —DK [POUR HOUSE, $8–$10/9 P.M.]

J. Gunn

Will Overman Band FRESH Charlottesville’s Will FOLK Overman sings and writes like an old soul, offering

PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN

XXXTentacion MULTITUDES

Hardcore, thrash metal, and trap rap

SATURDAY, JULY 1 & TUESDAY, JULY 4

FESTIVAL FOR THE ENO

Antibalas

collide in the hands of XXXTentacion, a nineteen-year-old from South Florida. The sound trolls mainstream trends in hip-hop and uses compressed 808 kicks to create the sound of heavy guitar riffs. The music maintains a level of aggression that keeps his fans moshing all night at his shows, and this Raleigh stop is sure to deliver on that. With Ski Mask the Slump God. —CM [THE RITZ, $30/8 P.M.] ALSO ON FRIDAY BLUE NOTE GRILL: Duke Street Dogs; 6-8 p.m., free. • BYNUM FRONT PORCH: Heart of Carolina Jazz Society; 7 p.m., $10 donation. • THE CAVE: Candy Ambulance, Eyeball; 9 p.m., $5. • DURHAM CENTRAL PARK: Too Many Zooz; 6 p.m. See page 20. • FRED G BOND METRO PARK: Garland Mason; 6-7:30 p.m. • HAW RIVER BALLROOM: Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba, Caique Vidal & Batuque; 8 p.m., $15–$17. See page 26. • IMURJ: Milk ‘N’ Honey Album Release; 8:30 p.m., $5. • IRREGARDLESS: Elmer Gibson; 6:30 p.m. • KINGS: The Oak City Affair; 9 p.m., $10. • KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE: Steep Canyon Rangers; 7:30 p.m. See page 27. • LINCOLN THEATRE: Red Not Chili Peppers, Down by Five; 9 p.m., $12. • THE MAYWOOD: Added Color, Fourth Hour, SoulSeason, Strength Betrayed; 8 p.m., $10. • OLD ORANGE COUNTY COURTHOUSE: Liquid Pleasure; 6-9 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ DNLTMS; 10 p.m. • SLIM’S: Toke, Heavy Temple, Death Metal Pope; 9 p.m., $7.

SAT, JUL 1 Bellflower FOLKY Montreal’s POP Bellflower makes first-rate folky, interesting indie pop. The group of eight does it all: beautiful, haunting harmonies, enticing brass and woodwind accents, and twinkling keys. It feels like a miniature orchestra, with Em Pompa’s vocals shining as the centerpiece. Bill West and Tremolux open. —KH [THE CAVE, $5/9 P.M.]

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

Ocie Davis Trio SOLID The Charlotte jazz JAZZ scene would be much poorer without the work and music of Ocie and Lonnie Davis. In 2009, the pair founded the Jazz Arts Initiative, which has sponsored concerts, festivals, and educational programs, serving a similar civic role as the Art of the Cool does in Durham. As a drummer, Ocie has played with Ellis Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, and Christina Scott, and his playing is imbued with a kinetic sense of swing. —DR [BEYÙ CAFFÈ, $11/7 & 9 P.M.]

Canine Heart Sounds

Cool John Ferguson

MAD SCI- Between busy ENTISTS individual schedules that keeps them playing with Grandma Sparrow, Mipso, Blanko Basnet, and other local outfits, the members of Canine Heart Sounds somehow still find time to form the initial foundations for new experiments in proggy jazz improvisation; expect the quirky Durham-via-Duluth quartet to take some trial runs tonight. The Canines will also back Mountain Man’s Molly Sarlé on her dreamy, new solo material, and DJ Sweet William closes out the night with a dance party. —SG [THE PINHOOK, $10/8 P.M.]

COOL Cool John Ferguson BLUES has been one of the pillars of Tim and Denise Duffy’s Music Maker Foundation since Tim met him in 1995. According to Tim Duffy, Ferguson has played on dozens of other Music Maker artists’ records, with styles ranging from blues to gospel. He brings it hard live, too, specializing in blistering Hendrix interpretations and the blues trinity of Kings: Albert, Freddie, and B.B. —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, $12/8 P.M

Last year, the Festival for the Eno’s annual two-day affair suffered some unexpected derailment. On the day the festival was supposed to announce its lineup, complete with Ani DiFranco as its top headliner, DiFranco instead announced that she was cancelling her appearance It was a tough blow for the festival and the Eno River Association, the nonprofit organization for which the Festival for the Eno serves as a major fundraising event. Though the likes of Nikki Lane and Hiss Golden Messenger filled up the bill, by mid-April it was too late to get another big name for early July to fill in for DiFranco. Fortunately, the festival has run into no such trouble for its thirty-eighth edition this week. Brooklyn’s Antibalas, which blends Afrobeat, rock, dub, funk, and more into a groovy, danceinducing blend, takes the top slot, while Ruby Amanfu offers smoky, soulful belting, and AJ Ghent shines with bright, heartfelt blues-rock.

also has plenty of solo albums to his credit, including last year’s excellent Psychic Tears, released on the ever-dependable Beyond Beyond Is Beyond label. Psychedelic influences from the sixties, fuzzy pop, and sharp guitar work edge over Kogon’s vintage-sounding voice. Sparkling percussion and retro electric guitar wailing will have you hooked. Stray Owls and neo-psych group Shadowgraph open. —KH [LOCAL 506, $6–$8/9 P.M.]

Lucero MEMPHIS Memphis-based MADE band Lucero started out in the late nineties with a sound that married raw rock ‘n’ roll with country influences. Over the years, the group has filtered in soul and blues flavors, further assimilating the musical traditions of its immediate environs. You can call Lucero’s hard-hitting, organic approach Americana, roots rock, or whatever else you want, but no matter what tag you attach to it, this band has a better claim on it than most. With Banditos. —JA [LINCOLN THEATRE, $20/9 P.M.]

Further down the bill, the entertainment options get even more expansive: you can get a healthy dose of salsa from Orquesta GarDel, some straight-up blues from John Dee Holeman, folkrock from Dark Water Rising, some heavy stuff from Lud, weepy country from Blue Cactus, or get a little spiritual with The Gospel Jubilators. Unlike most other multiday music throwdowns, this year’s festival isn’t on consecutive days. Rather than running backto-back on Saturday and Sunday, the Festival for the Eno splits itself between Saturday and Tuesday, which coincides with the Fourth of July holiday. In addition to the music and dance performances by the African American Dance Ensemble and the Apple Chill Cloggers, there are dozens of opportunities for familyfriendly fun—games, crafts, and more. More than anything, the Festival for the Eno is about community, and this concentrated measure of it at the West Point will help float you through the rest of the summer. —Allison Hussey WEST POINT ON THE ENO, DURHAM 10 a.m.-6 p.m., $11–$35, www.enofest.org

concert (including a chance to hear John Williams cover Aaron Copland) is the program’s guest conductor. Gemma New is a relatively young New Zealander who currently leads the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in Ontario, Canada, and is working her way up the conducting ranks. Still, it’s a sad state of affairs that women are so underrepresented among conductors that something like this is seen as news. —DR [KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE, $27–$31/7:30 P.M.]

The Nude Party PIZZA What do you COP imagine “boner pop” sounds like? Boone garage rock outfit The Nude Party, which brands itself this way, unsurprisingly serves up aw-shucks guitar pop songs about party debauchery and missed connections and crooked cop encounters of the sort that you might hear on a higher-budget Burger Records release. If you’re looking for nuanced thoughts about post-millennial tension, this isn’t it, but partiers will enjoy. With Post Animal and Dim Delights. —DS [KINGS, $8/9 P.M.]

Sam Kogon

N.C. Symphony: Appalachian Spring

Justin West Band

PSYCH Indie crooner Sam POP Kogon, of The Vanderbuilts and The Left Banke,

AH-MUR- The most noteworI-CA thy thing about this fairly bland Fourth of July weekend

COUNTRY Justin West has CROONER made it out of small-town N.C. to the big stages,

touring with the likes of David Allan Coe, and Chris Janson. At City Limits, he’ll sling both original ballads with a good bit of twang and some well-known Top 40 country covers. —KH [CITY LIMITS, $10-15/8 P.M.] ALSO ON SATURDAY ARCANA: Aether Lounge: Dance Party featuring Shady Darling & the Velvet Curtain; 8 p.m.-2 a.m., $10. • DEEP SOUTH: The Norm, Sun of Nile, Autumn to May; 9 p.m., $5. • IMURJ: Smoke From All the Friction, Chris Larkin, Eric Scholz; 8-11:30 p.m., $7. • IRREGARDLESS: Marimjazzia; 9 p.m. • NIGHTLIGHT: First of the Month Party; 10 p.m., $5. • POUR HOUSE: Better Off Dead: Grateful Dead Tribute; 9 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ Luxe Posh; 10 p.m. • SLIM’S: Candy Ambulance; 9 p.m., $5. • THE STATION: Higher Ground with Dae the DJ; 10 p.m. Jazz Saturdays; 2 p.m., free. • WEST POINT ON THE ENO: Festival for the Eno; 10 a.m.-6 p.m., $18–$35. See box, this page.

SUN, JUL 2 Boy Harsher DARK Almost anyone can DUO be in a synth duo, but to be in a great synth duo you need power and personality. Boy Harsher, of Northhamption, Massachusetts, is a great synth duo. Their haunted pop is frayed and claustrophobic, with throbbing INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 31

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Crystal Coast Summer Fest: Chairmen of the Board LOVE 2 Before a Raleigh gig SHAG in the mid-sixties, even Board Chairman General Norman Johnson didn’t know he was making beach—he had always thought his songs were R&B. But when he performed “It Will Stand” and “39- 21-40 Shape,” the crowd went nuts. “Hey, damn! We doing beach music,” Johnson said, laughing. He revives the project tonight, and eighties tribute band Breakfast Club flashes forward with hits from The Cars to The Clash to Wham. —GB [LINCOLN THEATRE, $5–$10/5 P.M.] ALSO ON SUNDAY DEEP SOUTH: Live & Loud Weekly; 9 p.m., $3. • DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: ADF Musician’s Concert; 7 p.m., $10.75.See page 21. • WEST END WINE BARDURHAM: Eric Meyer, Noah Sager & Friends; 4-6 p.m., free.

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electric bass lines that lock in and refuse to yield. Vocalist Jae Matthews is the human touch above it all. Her hypnotic voice adds to the trance, enveloping the listener like so much dance-floor fog. Floor Model and Fitness Womxn. —DS [NEPTUNES PARLOUR, $10–$12/9 P.M.]

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ALTWith a gruff, gritty WAITS rasp that voices the dark, haunted tales of a traveling punk rock raconteur, Samm Bones is the Tom Waits of a parallel universe. As it is, her sparse, angrily strummed banjo serves as apt accompaniment to her scorned, sneering yarns. The Devil’s Cut, St. Christopher Webster, and The Ditchrunners join. —SG [POUR HOUSE, $5–$7/8 P.M.]

Uncle Einar 4TH EVE For this “America Eve” gig, New Jersey duo Uncle Einar brings spare, lo-fi, slightly warped ruminations on life, love, and loss to Chapel Hill’s finest underground rock club. The forlornsounding songs should sound

twice as lonely in an almostactual cavern. Asheville’s brief Awakening opens, plus Anguish. —CB [THE CAVE, $5/9 P.M.] ALSO ON MONDAY EMPRESS ROOM: Gary Brunotte plays and sings from The Great American Songbook; 8-10 p.m. • IMBIBE: Grewen and Griffin; 7-10 p.m., free. • KINGS: Mega Colossus, TV Man and the TV Band; 9 p.m., $5–$8. See box, page 29. • RUBY DELUXE: DNLTMS Doesn’t America; 10 p.m. DJ Lord Redbyrd; 10 p.m. • SLIM’S: Aitalla, Double Experience, Blackwall; 9 p.m., $5. • THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Sessions at the Shed with Ernest Turner; 8 p.m., $5.

TUE, JUL 4 The Connells LOCAL For a local Fourth of YOKELS July celebration, you can’t get much more of a home-grown music selection than Raleigh’s Connells. For more than thirty years, the band has traded in easygoing, Southern-tinged rock. The Backsliders open, and stick around after The Connells for fireworks. —AH [RED HAT AMPHITHEATER, FREE/6 P.M.] ALSO ON TUESDAY RUBY DELUXE: Experimental Tuesday: Calapse; 11 p.m. • WEST POINT ON THE ENO: Festival for the Eno; 10 am..-6 p.m., $18–$35. See box, page 31.

WED, JUL 5 Birds of Chicago SOAR At the heart of Birds HIGH of Chicago are singer-songwriters Allison Russell and JT Nero, their vocals blending so splendidly that it seems the husband-and-wife duo were meant to be together in more ways than one. Rooted in dusty folk-rock with the feel of secular gospel music, the Birds embellish their sound with doses of jazzy instrumental work and fiery blues-rock attitude on evocative, soul-stirring songs that touch upon universal emotions. —SG [DUKE GARDENS, $5–$10, 12 AND UNDER FREE/7 P.M.]

Earthling THRASH Alienation reaches a BASH fever pitch at this

metal show with Virginia thrash kings Earthling in the headlining slot. The band’s solos are blazing and over the top, with a nice, meaty crunch to the low end. Up top, warped vocals come full-speed and nonstop, like an acid monsoon falling on your head. Raleigh death metal veterans Eldritch Horror open, as do sludge-metallers Noctomb. —DS [SLIM’S, $6/9 P.M.]

Lord Raja BKLN Amadeus, the new TECHNO release by Brooklyn beatmaker Chester Raj Anand, aka Lord Raja was composed entirely in minor keys. Naturally, the record has an often brooding sound, one that can suggest both the high of the party and the gloomy public transportation ride home after. If you can deal with the angst, this is highly inventive, often exhilarating techno and well worth the cover. Rising Durham beatmaker Trandle opens. —DS [NEPTUNES PARLOUR, $8–$10/10 P.M.]

The Soggy Bottom Boys O, The Soggy Bottom BROTHER Boys are an unusual enterprise. In 2001, the group became a smash hit via the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but the on-screen band—George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson— were simply stand-ins for their actual musical counterparts. Behind the scenes, the band was made up of revered bluegrass players from Union Station and the Nashville Bluegrass Band, including fiddler Stuart Duncan and bassist Barry Bales. Front and center is Dan Tyminski, whose crystalline twang is the hallmark of songs like “Man of Constant Sorrow.” You can easily argue that, via O Brother, The Soggy Bottom Boys helped usher in the current folk revival, and the band’s Durham stop should make for a nice outing down a relatively recent memory lane. —AH [CAROLINA THEATRE, $33–$51/8 P.M.] ALSO ON THURSDAY 2ND WIND: Yeaux Katz; 7-9 p.m., free. • HUMBLE PIE: Peter Lamb & the Wolves; 8:30 p.m. • IMURJ: Reviving Raleigh Concert; 7-11:45 p.m., $1. • MOTORCO: Hawthorne Heights; 7:30 p.m., $15. • POUR HOUSE: Heads Up Penny, Tyler Boone, Swim in the Wild; 9 p.m. • WAVERLY PLACE: Wind Down Wednesday Concerts; 6-9 p.m., free.

art

6.28 – 7.5

OPENING SPECIAL African Art Gallery EVENT Expansion Opening: Fri, Jun 30. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum. org. See box, this page. Beautiful Bedlam: Paintings by Martha Thorn. Jul 2-30. Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill. www.chapelhillpreservation. com. SPECIAL Fatal Funhouse: EVENT Interactive, experimental exhibit by Jasmyn Milan. jun28-Jul 9. Reception: Fri, June 30, 6-9 p.m. The Carrack Modern Art, Durham. www.thecarrack.org. SPECIAL Vernissage: Rachel EVENT Breitinger’s solo exhibition. Closing reception: Fri, June 30, 6-9 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

ONGOING LAST 17 Feet Away: CHANCE Works by Carmen Neely. Thru Jul 1. Lump, Raleigh. www.teamlump.org. LAST Mark Abercrombie: CHANCE Abstract expressionist paintings. Thru Jul 1. Pleiades Gallery, Durham. www.PleiadesArtDurham.com. Abstract Vision: Paintings by Sam Ezell. Thru Aug 25. Whitted Building, Hillsborough. LAST American CHANCE Landscapes in 4/3 Time + Natural Attraction & Personal Work: The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. This pair of exhibits by a father and daughter is concerned with ensuring that future generations have enough natural world left to recognize the meaning of the cliché. Dan Gottlieb combines photography and painting in American Landscapes in 4/3 Time, referring both to his camera and to a jazzy time signature he perceives in nature’s improvisations. Iris Gottlieb shows work related to her new book, Natural Attraction, which explores the relationships between animals and people through quirky watercolors and text. It’s

supplemented by Personal Work, in which Iris probes “having mental illnesses, my queerness, and ways to visually explore intimate and vulnerable experiences.” Thru Jul 1. Craven Allen Gallery, Durham. www. cravenallengallery.com. —Brian Howe LAST Back Home: In Ron CHANCE Liberti’s new exhibit of prints, paintings, and mixedmedia pieces, home is where the art is—or, more specifically, the home-shaped hole we all must figure out how to fill as the things that felt so permanent in our youth reveal themselves as irrecoverably transient. In the past three years, Liberti, known for charismatically fronting veteran Chapel Hill pop-punk band Pipe as well as for his iconic poster art for nightclub concerts, reckoned with the passing of both his parents and the sale of his childhood home in Toms River, New Jersey. The resultant body of work tries to close the gap between where home was and where it is in Liberti’s bold, striking style. Thru Jun 30. SPECTRE Arts, Durham. www. spectrearts.org. —Brian Howe Barely Civilized: Folk art by Cher Shaffer. Thru Aug 24. Alexander Dickson House, Hillsborough. www.historichillsborough.org. Beyond the Front Porch 2017: Exhibition of work by twelve senior undergraduates. Thru Nov 12. Duke Campus: Center for Documentary Studies, Durham. www.cdsporch.org. LAST Careful to Carefree: CHANCE Watercolors by Carol Liz Fynn. Thru Jun 29. ERUUF Art Gallery, Durham. www.eruuf.org. Cedar Creek Gallery National Teapot Show X: Thru Sep 5. Cedar Creek Gallery, Creedmoor. www. cedarcreekgallery.com. Collections: Leah Sobsey. Thru Sep 30. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham. www.21cmuseumhotels. com/durham.

Discover Your Governors: Thru Aug 6. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org. Egg in Nest: Students of Jenny Eggleston. Thru Jul 21. Halle Cultural Arts Center, Apex. www.thehalle.org. Eye Scapes: Photography by Eric Raddatz. Thru Jul 9. Through This Lens, Durham. www. throughthislens.com. Featured Artists: Mixed media from Catherine Gregory and Marguerite Jay Gignoux; ceramics from Linda Prager. Thru Jul 8. FRANK Gallery, Chapel Hill. www.frankisart.com. Finished with Flame: Stoneware by Julie Jones, Matt Hallyburton, and Curry Wilkinson. Thru Jul 15. Claymakers, Durham. www. claymakers.com. Fluid: Paintings by MyLoan Dinh. Thru Oct 15. Durham Convention Center, Durham. www.durhamconventioncenter. com. Forecasts and Other Disturbances: Mixed media screenprints and cut paper by Julie Anne Greenberg. Thru Jul 7. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www.durhamarts.org. From Here to Eternity: Quilted tapestries by Ann Harwell. Thru Jul 25. Betty Ray McCain Gallery, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. Julie Anne Greenberg: Paintings. Thru Jul 7. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www. durhamarts.org. Group Show: Twenty-five artists and craftspersons. Thru Aug 25. Horse & Buggy Press and Friends, Durham. www. horseandbuggypress.com. LAST Livin’ Is Easy: CHANCE Interpretations of summer. Thru Jul 1. Tipping Paint Gallery, Raleigh. www. tippingpaintgallery.com. Looking South: Photography by Eudora Welty. Thru Sep 4. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www. ncartmuseum.org. More Than One Story | Mas de una historia: Photography.

Victor Ekpuk PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN FRIDAY, JUNE 30

AFRICAN GALLERY GRAND REOPENING African works previously on display in the North Carolina Museum of Art’s West Building were removed last December before undergoing conservation efforts. Now they join a variety of additional works in the new, larger African gallery in NCMA’s East Building, which opens to the public this Friday. The new gallery celebrates African contributions to art with works spanning nearly sixteen centuries, the newest being a site-specific chalk mural created recently by Nigerian-American artist Victor Ekpuk. The new space boasts improved lighting controls, allowing some fragile pieces to be displayed to the public for the first time, and a wall of works from public and private North Carolina collections. NCMA has a series of programs on African art throughout the summer, including lectures, film screenings, and a Sept. 23 community celebration that features a concert by famed West African musician Angélique Kidjo. —Xernay Aniwar NORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF ART, RALEIGH 10 a.m.–9 p.m., free, www.ncartmuseum.org Thru Feb 1. UNC Campus: Davis Library, Chapel Hill. www.lib.unc. edu/davis. The Music Makers: Visual art by various Pleiades members. Thru Jul 9. Pleiades Gallery, Durham. www.PleiadesArtDurham.com.

LAST New Paintings and CHANCE Assemblages, Celebrating 50 Years of Art Making: Paintings by Gerry Lynch. Thru Jul 1. Lee Hansley

Gallery, Raleigh. www. leehansleygallery.com. Our House: Student and instructor exhibition. Thru Jul 7. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www.durhamarts.org. Pleasant Places: Digital paintings by Quayola. Thru Aug 13. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org. Small to Large: Delight in the Practice of Painting: Paintings

by Margie Stewart. Thru Oct 23. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www.durhamarts.org. Teens, Inspired: Juried exhibition by N.C. high school students. Thru Sep 10. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org. Under Pressure: Prints and performance art. Mondays thru Aug 27. Visual Art Exchange, Raleigh. www. visualartexchange.org. INDYweek.com | 6.28.17 | 33

Lynn Boggess’s oil painting “2 March 2017” is on view in West Virgina Spring at Chapel Hill’s Tyndall Galleries. PHOTO COURTESY OF TYNDALL GALLERIES

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SPECIAL Up Close: Paintings EVENT by Linda Carmel, textiles by Alice Levinson, and sculpture by Lynn Wartski. Thru Jul 23. Reception: Fri, Jun 30, 6-9 p.m. Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, Hillsborough. www. hillsboroughgallery.com. SPECIAL Visual EVENT Conversations: A Two Woman Art Show: Oil paintings by Aimee Cuthrell and Angela Tommaso Hellman. Thru Jul 27. Reception: Fri, Jun 30, 6-8 p.m. Page-Walker Arts &

History Center, Cary. www. friendsofpagewalker.org. West Virginia Spring: Landscape paintings by Lynn Boggess. Thru Jul 15. Tyndall Galleries, Chapel Hill. www.tyndallgalleries.com. LAST Witchy Women Art CHANCE Dolls: Dolls by Chris Kanoy. Thru Jun 30. Thomas Stevens Gallery, Hillsborough. You + Me: Photographs from various artists. Thru Sep 4. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www. ncartmuseum.org.

food LAST Wine CHANCE Tasting: With Fearrington sommeliers and the occasional guest. Saturdays, 3-5 p.m. Thru Jul 30. The Goat, Pittsboro. www. fearrington.com/eateries/ the-goat.

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stage

Beth Gill’s Brand New Sidewalk is our top pick for ADF this week. PHOTO BY BRIAN ROGERS

OPENING ADF PICK Brand New Sidewalk: In the “carefully calibrated, nearly static universe” of minimalist torchbearer Beth Gill’s newest work, dancers move “from one sculptural shape to another” with “impeccably controlled slow motion,” according to the Boston Globe’s Karen Campbell. Though it won’t scratch an itch for instant gratification or flashy moves, this brainy meditation on formalism recalls the early days of postmodern dance, when the idea of dancing itself was under interrogation. As critic Marcia B. Siegel notes, “[Gill] encourages us to see how much there is in how little is there.” $27. Wed, Jun 28 & Thu, Jun 29, 8 p.m. Duke Campus: Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham. www. americandancefestival.org — Byron Woods Dancing with the Stars: Live! — Hot Summer Nights: Rashad Jennings and Emma Slater. Sun, Jul 2, 5 & 8:30 pm. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. www.dpacnc.com. See p. 26. Goodnights Comedy Academy Graduation Showcase: Standup from Mary Lewis, Greg Puertolas, Kim Montague, Janna Moize, J.W. Wilder, and Keshav Srinivasan. $12. Wed, Jun 28, 7 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www. goodnightscomedy.com.

Corey Holcomb: Stand-up comedy. Thu, Jun 29-Sat, Jul 1. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www. goodnightscomedy.com. The Missing Generation: $27. Wed, Jul 5 & Thu, Jul 6, 8 p.m. Duke Campus: Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham. www.americandancefestival.org Gary Owen: Stand-up comedy. Presented by Bob Nocek. Fri, Jun 30, 8 p.m. Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. Sean Patton: $15. Wed, Jun 28, 9:15 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www. goodnightscomedy.com. Pilobolus: Dance. $16-$66. Fri, Jun 30 & Sat, Jul 1. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. www.americandancefestival.org Summer Bachata & Salsa Throwdown: Dance and performances by Shaka Brown, Julissa Cruz, DJ Salsa Mike, and DJ Clase. $15. Sat, Jul 1, 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Latin Quarters, Raleigh. www.facebook.com/ latinvibesent Wants Upon A Time: Musical performed at the A Sight to Behold sculpture. Fri, Jun 30, 6:30 & 7 p.m. Riverwalk, Hillsborough. See box, this page.

ONGOING Eyes Up Here Comedy Showcase: Comedy from N.C. women. $5. First Wednesdays, 8-10:30 p.m. Kings, Raleigh. www.kingsraleigh.com.

The Harry Show: Ages 18+. Improv host leads latenight revelers in potentially risque games. $10. Fridays & Saturdays, 10 p.m. ComedyWorx Theatre, Raleigh. comedyworx.com. Hush Hush: Improv Comedy Based On Secrets: Presented by Mettlesome. Thursdays, 8-9 p.m. Thru Jun 29. Beer Study Durham, Durham. LAST It Shoulda Been You: CHANCE Musical comedy. Thru Jul 1. Theatre In The Park, Raleigh. www.theatreinthepark.com. RuPaul’s Drag Race Viewing and Open Amateur Drag Stage: Fridays, 8 p.m. Ruby Deluxe, Raleigh. www.facebook. com/RubyDeluxeRaleigh. LAST ½ Struck: Vera CHANCE Resnick (Emily Kron) is convinced the universe is telling her something when college student James (Liam Yates) runs into her with his bicycle. When playwright Sandy Rustin doesn’t trust her audience to grasp her promising script’s nuances, Vicky, a sassy sitcom neighbor who vends homeopathic cures, is there to conveniently underline the moral with a theatrical Sharpie. This expositional device masquerading as a supporting character is a temptation the playwright should have resisted. Thru Jul 2. Kennedy Theater, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. —Byron Woods

FRIDAY, JUNE 30

Wants Upon a Time PHOTO BY KRISTIN PRELIPP

WANTS UPON A TIME They’re taking our jobs! (Machines, not immigrants.) The arts aren’t safe. In 2013, Francesca Talenti cast a robot as the lead in The Uncanny Valley. Talenti, a filmmaker and animator, worked with a team at UNCChapel Hill to build and program the robot, which gradually took on the voice and aspect of its human costar over the course of the play. In a very modern way, Talenti probed very modern questions about artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and selfhood. Now she’s back with, basically, the opposite. Wants Upon a Time is a “family friendly,

Commedia dell’arte-inspired” take on Rapunzel, bringing sixteenth-century style to a nineteenth-century fairy tale. Its site is Patrick Dougherty’s stickwork sculpture on the Hillsborough Riverwalk, where it will be performed on the last Friday of each month through September. With Talenti’s track record and the presences of noted local performers like comedian Deborah Aronin and actor Drina Dunlap, we’re very intrigued. —Brian Howe RIVERWALK, HILLSBOROUGH 6:30 & 7 p.m., free, www.francescatalenti.com

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SATURDAY, JULY 1

THURSDAY, JUNE 29

HEATHER HAVRILESKY

As the highlight so far of Disney’s live-action remakes of animated classics, 2016’s The Jungle Book keeps the best parts of the 1967 Rudyard Kipling adaptation intact—the songs, the scenery, the talking animals— while improving upon, well, just about everything else. In his update, director Jon Favreau creates a vivid, colorful jungle with a real sense of presence and finds poignancy in the story of Mowgli (Neel Sethi), the boy raised by wolves. Some elements, such as the tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba), are a wee bit scary for the little ones, but kids today are tough. Enjoy a good sing-along to “The Bare Necessities,” but pray Disney doesn’t get around to remaking the terrifying The Black Cauldron. Well, maybe they should; the original book’s pretty good. —Zack Smith

Heather Havrilesky PHOTO BY WILLY SOMMA

You might think that advice columns would have faded away as newspapers began to shrink and we moved into the digital age, but the Internet has enabled them to get more specific than ever. Few dispense twenty-first-century wisdom better than Heather Havrilesky, the resident agony aunt at the women-focused New York magazine web offshoot The Cut, as Ask Polly. Though she handles letters from men and women of all ages, much of Havrilesky’s work is geared toward women trying to figure out how to navigate work, romance, relationships, and other assorted crises. Havrilesky responds with nobullshit, tough-love advice buoyed by heavy doses of inspired kindness and empathy. A former Durhamite, she returns in support of last summer’s How to Be a Person in the World, which, unlike many books of the same ilk, is mostly made up of new material. There are a few previously published greatest hits thrown in, too, like an appalling letter from 2013 by a man trying to make a case for cheating on his wife. When Havrilesky hits town, arrive armed with some tough questions—she’ll help you figure out some answers. —Allison Hussey THE REGULATOR BOOKSHOP, DURHAM 7 p.m., free, www.regulatorbookshop.com

READINGS & SIGNINGS

Wed, Jun 28, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www. quailridgebooks.com.

Heather Havrilesky: How to Be a Person in the World. Sat, Jul 1, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com. See box, this page.

Daniel Wallace: Extraordinary Adventures: A Novel. Thu, Jun 29, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com.

David Sedaris: Theft by Finding. Fri, Jun 30, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com. Ann Kidd Taylor: The Shark Club with Sue Monk Kidd. 36 | 6.28.17 | INDYweek.com

THE JUNGLE BOOK

Jane Williams: Mysterious Moments: Thoughts that Transform Grief. Wed, Jun 28, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com.

KOKA BOOTH AMPITHEATRE, CARY 8:30 p.m., $5, www.boothamphitheatre.com

SPECIAL SHOWINGS Motion for Pictures Screening Series: Jar of Bees; Whispers Among Wolves; Fish; Proximity; more. $5. First Wednesdays, 7 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary. www.thecarytheater.com Movies Under the Stars: Family-friendly movies and free popcorn. Thu, Jun 29. Wallace Plaza, Chapel Hill. The Universal Language: Documentary. Thu, Jun 29, 7 p.m. William Peace University: Jones Lecture Hall, Raleigh. www.peace.edu.

OPENING Baby Driver—Ant Man director Edgar Wright returns with an action picture about a reluctant getaway driver. Rated R.  The Beguiled— Reviewed on p. 23. Rated R. Despicable Me 3—Gru teams with his long-lost brother in the animated franchise’s return to adorable villainy. Rated PG. The Hero—An aging Western movie icon with cancer (Sam

Elliott) seeks a last role to cement his legacy. Rated R. The House—Will Farrell and Amy Poehler team up as parents who start an illegal casino to send their kids to college. Rated R.

AL S O P L AY I N G The INDY uses a five-star rating scale. Read reviews of these films at www.indyweek.com.  Alien: Covenant— This is easily the best Alien since the first two, and the is the darkest sci-fi vision yet of our evolving cultural anxieties about machines and artificial intelligence. Rated R.  Beatriz at Dinner— Reviewed on p. 23. Rated R.  Beauty and the Beast— This live-action remake is an effective piece of fan service but certainly won’t replace the animated classic. Rated PG. ½ The Book of Henry— What’s the kid from Room up to now? What does Colin Trevorrow do between Jurassic Park sequels? Is this sort of work why Bobby Moynihan left Saturday Night Live? Did Gregg Hurwitz really write this? Rated PG-13.

The Jungle Book PHOTO COURTESY OF WALT DISNEY STUDIOS

 Cars 3—Pixar’s latest is a smooth ride because it mainly runs on cruise control and Rocky references. Rated G. ½ The Fate of the Furious—The latest Fast & Furious film is outlandish and refreshingly self-aware, giddily embracing both elements of the label “dumb fun.” Rated PG-13.  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2—A muddier story and zestier jokes balance out to a worthy sequel to Marvel’s spacefaring hit, now with an Oedipal twist, as Peter Quill discovers his father is a living planet called Ego. Rated PG-13.  It Comes at Night—This family apocalypse survival saga is precise and measured but could use a dash of M. Night. Rated R. ½ Kong: Skull Island— Set before 2014’s Godzilla, this reboot makes Kong’s origin feel like Apocalypse Now meets Starship Troopers. Rated PG-13. ½ Letters from Baghdad—This experimental doc tells the story of Gertrude

Bell, the British official, explorer, and occasional spy who helped draw the borders of modern-day Iraq. Unrated.  Megan Leavey—The film lavishes love on the bond of a Marine and her bombsniffing dog but undersells everything else. Rated PG-13. ½ The Mummy—Tom Cruise’s increasing creepiness is the biggest impediment to a serviceable creature feature and reboot of the Brendan Fraser franchise. Rated PG-13.  Paris Can Wait— Eleanor Coppola’s beautiful imagery is better than her first non-documentary feature’s thin story of One Percenters in mild crisis. Rated PG. ½ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales—An improvment over its dire predecessor, this sequel still features Jack Sparrow literally jumping a shark. Rated PG-13. ½ Wonder Woman— This origin story doesn’t shrink from its hero’s beauty or brawn. Gal Gadot strikes the right balance as an idealist who relishes the battle but not the war. Rated PG-13.

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notices

claSSy@indyweek.com

DOCKET NO.: 2017-DR-23-1514 NOTICE OF ADOPTION PROCEEDINGS TO THE DEFENDANT: JOHN DOE, BIRTH FATHER YOU ARE HEREBY GIVEN THE FOLLOWING NOTICE: 1. That an adoption proceeding was filed in the Family Court of Greenville County on April 6, 2017 and in this Complaint you are alleged to be the father of a Caucasian, female child born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on March 29, 2017. 2. That the Plaintiffs in the above captioned Notice are not named for the purpose of confidentiality; however, the Court knows the true identity of the Plaintiffs and in responding to this notice, you are required to use the caption and the number 2017-DR-23-1514. 3. That if Notice to Contest, Intervene or otherwise Respond is filed by you with the Court within thirty (30) days of the receipt of this Notice of Adoption Proceedings, you will be given an opportunity to appear and be heard on the merits of the adoption. To file notice to Contest, Intervene or otherwise Respond in this action, you must notify the above named Court at Greenville County Courthouse, Clerk of Court at 301 University Ridge, Greenville, South Carolina, 29601 in writing of your intention to Contest, Intervene or otherwise Respond. The above named Court must be informed of your current address and any changes of your address during the adoption proceedings. 4. That your failure to respond within thirty (30) days of receipt of this Notice of Adoption Proceedings constitutes your consent to the adoption and forfeiture of all of your rights and obligations to the above identified child. It is further alleged that your consent to this adoption is not required under S.C. Code Ann. Section 63-9-310 and that your parental rights should be terminated pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. Section 63-7-2570 (7). This notice is given pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. Section 63-9-730 (E). Raymond W. Godwin, Esq. (SC Bar #2162) PO Box 354 Greenville, SC 29602 PH (864) 241-2883 FAX: (864) 255-4342 ATTORNEY FOR PLAINTIFFS Date: May 24, 2017

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