JUNE 18, 2015 KNOXMERCURY.COM
COLD BEER HELLO—A LOT!
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GET HOPPY With almost a dozen new microbreweries on tap, can Knoxville become a true beer destination? BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN
NEWS
Knoxville’s Connection to the Supreme Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Case
JACK NEELY
The Continuing New Adventures of Downtown Parking
MUSIC
Folk Duo Count This Penny’s Soaring Appalachian Noir
FOOD
Mama Mia, Now That’s Some Middle Eastern Cuisine!
“Knoxville: Summer 1915” “We are now talking of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time when I was so successfully disguised to myself as a child.” The most famous thing ever written about Knoxville is “Knoxville: Summer 1915,” by James Agee (1909-1955). This Sunday, the library and the city will be sponsoring an event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of that oft-remembered summer, in James Agee Park, near the residential block he described.
prologue to a novel called A Death in the Family. Cobbled together from narrative drafts left by Agee, the novel is mainly about his father’s death in a car wreck in North Knox County on Clinton Pike, in May 1916, almost a year after the summer of 1915. The editors thought the earlier piece, describing the last summer when his family was intact, was a good beginning for the book. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
The poetic essay has an unusual story. The author wrote it when he was 26, living in New York but thinking about his early youth in Knoxville. During the summer of 1915, Agee was just 5 years old. His family lived at 1505 Highland Avenue. That comfortable middle-class residential neighborhood had an electric streetcar that went downtown, and was known as West End. It’s the neighborhood we now know as Fort Sanders.
Author James Agee as a boy with his Aunt Paula Tyler--the “musician” mentioned in “Knoxville: Summer 1915”--and some cats. Courtesy of Knox County Public Library at cmdc.knoxlib.org
In 1938, Agee published the piece in The Partisan Review, a New York-based quarterly that was sometimes controversial. “Knoxville: Summer 1915” is a richly recalled memory of the sights and sounds of a summer evening, of quiet conversation and garden hoses and buggies and cars and electric streetcars, but also of “locusts,” or what we now call cicadas. The Knoxville essay was well known mainly to intellectuals until years later, when Samuel Barber, one of the most famous young composers in America, picked it up and, borrowing several passages from Agee’s text, wrote a soprano vocal piece called “Knoxville: Summer of 1915.” Barber grew up in West Chester, Pa., a small town outside of Philadelphia, and was not familiar with Knoxville except from Agee’s work. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Serge Koussevitsky, premiered the piece in 1948, with soprano Eleanor Steber singing Agee’s words. When Agee died suddenly, of a heart attack at age 45, he was remembered in obituaries mostly for his script for The African Queen and for his association with the Samuel Barber composition, which was famous by then. Soon afterward, editors ressurrected his original piece as the
Soon after its publication, playwright Tad Mosel adapted Agee’s story into a Broadway play called All the Way Home. It won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 1963 the story became a Hollywood movie, with major musical star Robert Preston playing the role of the father. It was shot in Knoxville, using some Fort Sanders settings. Ironically, the same year that movie was released, the Agee home on Highland Avenue was torn down for an apartment project.
Since then, the story has been the basis for three different made-for-television movies. The last one, in 2002, was in the Masterpiece Theatre series. For almost 60 years, “Knoxville: Summer 1915” has been described as the “prologue” to A Death in the Family. Today, it may be Agee’s most quoted work. A later University of Tennessee Press publication of A Death in the Family, edited by Agee scholar Michael Lofaro, who tried to be true to Agee’s intent with the autobiographical story, does not include “Knoxville: Summer 1915.” Twenty years ago, an audio crew from the BBC in London came to Knoxville to record a piece that would be broadcast globally (though not much in America) called “Knoxville: Summer 1995.” It won an international prize for radio documentaries. The Knox County Public Library’s “Ice Cream Social,” at James Agee Park, corner of Laurel Avenue and James Agee Street, will start at 5 p.m. There will be some short discussions about the context of the occasion, and a reading of Agee’s original text by recording artist R.B. Morris.
For more about this weekend’s event, see the Knox County Library website at knoxlib.org.
The Knoxville History Project, a new nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion of and education about the history of Knoxville, presents this page each week to raise awareness of the themes, personalities, and stories of our unique city. Learn more on www.facebook.com/knoxvillehistoryproject • email jack@knoxhistoryproject.org 2
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
June 18, 2015 Volume 01 / Issue 15 knoxmercury.com “Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.” —Kinky Friedman
NEWS
13 Pryor Brown’s Integrity
16 Get Hoppy COVER STORY
14 Seeking Acceptance One local attorney calls it “the biggest civil-rights cause of our lifetime”: Tanco v. Haslam, i.e. the Tennessee marriageequality case being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Arguments for the case were presented on April 28 and a decision is expected soon. Whatever the court’s decision, the history-making case is full of Knoxville connections, from plaintiffs Valeria Tanco and Sophy Jesty to local attorney Regina Lambert. How did this happen? Mike Gibson explains.
Downtown’s oldest parking garage, Pryor Brown, has been an ongoing cause for preservationists who want to see it refurbished. Plans were on track to do just that before the roof caved in. S. Heather Duncan surveys the damage.
A scramble to roll out the kegs is happening all over the city. At least 11 different local breweries plan to open in the next 18 months, many of them slated to start pouring or distributing this summer or fall. And although they cross the map, many are clustered in the Old City and around Central Avenue, which raises hopes for boosting tourism with an ale trail. But is there enough demand in Knoxville itself to support almost a dozen new breweries? S. Heather Duncan undertakes a long journey into beer.
Join Us! Our next Mercury Meetup will be at the Casual Pint in Fountain City (4842 Harvest Mill Way) on Wednesday, June 24, 5-8 p.m.
DEPARTMENTS
OPINION
A&E
4 6
8
24 Program Notes: Sunn O))) and
28 Spotlights: Zulu Wave, Jonah
35 Shelf Life: Chris Barrett surveys
FOOD & DRINK
Letters Howdy Start Here: Ghost Signs by Bud Ries, Believe It or Knox!, Public Affairs, Quote Factory.
44 ’Bye
Finish There: Sacred & Profane by Donna Johnson, Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely, Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray
10
The Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely finds himself parking the car downtown. Reflections ensue. Architecture Matters George Dodds explains everything you ever wanted to know about form-based codes.
CALENDAR nief-norf
new additions to the public library’s AV collection.
26 Music: Joe Tarr talks with
repatriating folkies Count This Penny.
27 Movies: April Snellings isn’t
Parzen-Johnson
40 Home Palate
Dennis Perkins finds an unlikely source for authentic Middle Eastern food in West Knoxville: Mama Mia Cuisine.
carried away by the dinosaurs of Jurassic World. June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3
LETTERS Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015
IN THE COURT OF KNOXVILLE PROG
I just wanted to let you know how pleased I am to see that there are some fellow progressive rock fans hanging around on the paper. Even though prog has seen something of a renaissance in popularity in the past decade with artists like Steven Wilson, it’s still considered a niche genre in most cultural commentary. So it’s nice to see so much prog coverage in the Mercury—the Yes box set and Mobility Chief in last issue alone [June 11, 2015], not to mention the White Stage profile earlier this year and the handful of other features in between. As a relative newcomer to the area (been here about two years), I’ve really enjoyed learning about the budding local prog scene, especially in a region mostly known for Americana. Long live 10+ minute rock suites! Michael O’Malley Knoxville
KNOXVILLE’S OWN LOST & FOUND MEDIA
JUNE 4, 2015 KNOXMERCURY.COM
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Lost Knoxville Harlan Hambright’s photographs of the 1970s document the last remnants of a prior era
JACK NEELY
Uncovering the Regas Building’s Hidden Hotel
MUSIC
Ancient River Explores the Psychedelic Frontier
GEORGE DODDS
Remembering Knoxville’s Red Summer of 1919
WE AGREE!
ED. NOTE
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Thanks for a walk down memory lane with Harlan Hambright’s photos. [“Lost Knoxville,” cover story, June 4, 2015] I always liked the Velda Rose building in West Haven even when I was a kid. I think the jukebox shot on page 19 is the old Farragut Diner, where I spent a lot of time in the ’70s. I love the Schlitz beer sign on the wall. Great photos which should be exhibited in Knoxville. David Myers Knoxville 4
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP ALL ABOUT?
Recently, our two senators [Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker] met publicly at the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy to discuss the future of energy with Bill Johnson, Tennessee Valley Authority CEO. They question, rather strongly, the wisdom of TVA’s interest in efficiency and renewable, sustainable energy sources. Solar, wind, and storage get short shrift in their estimations. Both focus narrowly on cheap power, economics, and job growth. Business as usual. What I cannot understand is how our political leaders believe that burning fossil fuel is the sole longterm solution to our energy needs. Pollution and inefficiency aside, focus on this: Oil and gas are a highly valuable natural resource and we are burning it? For a one-time use? How ridiculous. There is a long list of uses: lubrication, fertilizer, plastics, solvents, medicine, that sustain our culture daily and can be recycled, often many times. Currently we are relying on an old model of energy production centered around burning natural resources to boil water to make steam for electrical generation. 18th century technology. I agree with Johnson’s leadership toward a measured shift to sustainable sources of energy. Alexander and Corker come across as pandering to short-term corporate growth at the expense of long-term planning for a clean, sustainable future. Burn baby burn! They expressed skepticism on the value of distributed power, efficiency, mini grids, modular nukes, wind (Lamar’s pet peeve), and newer ideas coming online such as recent successes in splitting hydrogen from water for fuel cells; nor did they acknowledge daily advances in storage technology, read: Tesla and the “Power Wall.” We have a window of cheap, fairly clean, natural gas to help us over the hump if we use that time to develop methods for a clean, reliable, and sustainable future. Economic development and tax base are not the only issues. Alexander and Corker can lead or follow the realities of energy science and development. Why not
embrace the future instead of clinging to old, worn-out systems? Isn’t that what leadership is about? And while I have your ear: “Go Lady Vols!” Bruce Glanville Lenoir City
EDITORIAL EDITOR
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Chris Barrett Ian Blackburn Bryan Charles Patrice Cole Eric Dawson George Dodds Lee Gardner Mike Gibson Carey Hodges Nick Huinker Donna Johnson
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distribution@knoxmercury.com The Knoxville Mercury is an independent weekly news magazine devoted to informing and connecting Knoxville’s many different communities. It is a taxable, not-for-profit company governed by the Knoxville History Project, a non-profit organization devoted to exploring, disseminating, and celebrating Knoxville’s unique cultural heritage. It publishes 25,000 copies per week, available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. © 2015 The Knoxville Mercury
June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5
Illustration by Ben Adams
HOWDY
Believe It or Knox!
GHOST SIGNS BY BUD RIES
The recent renovation of the Patrick Sullivan’s building on Central and Jackson included the demolition of the former Back Room BBQ (previously Lucille’s) behind it, where this sign is located. But the developers chose to preserve the signs and paint around these pieces of faded glory.
QUOTE FACTORY “ I’m against the idea of allotting any air supply to the individuals who have the idea.” —Defense attorney Mike Whalen, in a News Sentinel story by Gerald Witt, criticizing a proposal by Knox County Criminal Court Clerk Mike Hammond to charge a new $5 fee in criminal cases. State Rep. Ryan Haynes and state Sen. Richard Briggs are sponsoring a bill to enable County Commission to levy the fee, which Whalen says adds yet another fee that poor people can’t afford.
BY Z. HERACLITUS KNOX Knoxville is roughly the same latitude as the Strait of Gibraltar, the Atlantic Ocean’s gateway to the Mediterranean Sea. On May 11, 1974, at UT’s Tom Black Track at LaPorte Stadium, Missouri runner Ivory Crockett BROKE THE WORLD RECORD for the 100-yard dash! His time of 9 seconds has never been beaten. However, Crockett’s achievement has been eclipsed by the fact that most running events since then have involved metrically determined distances, and relatively few globally competitive modern runners compete in the 100-yard dash. In the 1950s, Knoxville lost 10 percent of its population, the steepest decline of any American city of more than 100,000 in that decade. Suburbanization and the closing of several factories were the major causes. The city rebounded in the early 1960s, by way of major annexations of now-familiar Knoxville neighborhoods like Bearden and Fountain City.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
6/18 TRY TRANSIT DAY
THURSDAY
7-9 a.m. West-Side Superstop (Walbrook Drive in front of Walmart) and Fountain City Superstop (near Kroger, off of Knox Road). What if you ditched the car and gave mass transit a shot? And what if you found out it’s really not that difficult? All you’ve got to do is take that first step—to the bus stop. And KAT is making it easier today with staffers on hand at these specific bus stops to answer questions and ease your passage.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
6/20 INNER CITY GOT VOICE COMPETITION 6/21 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF “KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915” SATURDAY
5-8 p.m., Montgomery Village Athletic Fields (4600 Joe Lewis Rd.) This American Idol-style talent show for public housing residents is hosted by an actual American Idol finalist, Laurel Wright, and former UT quarterback Sterling Hinton. All genres of music are welcome, though contestants must keep it clean. Info: harboursgate.org.
SUNDAY
5-7 p.m., James Agee Park (331 James Agee St.). Free. The Knox County Public Library and the city of Knoxville are celebrating James Agee’s famous prelude with an ice cream social, music of the era led by Nancy Brennan Strange, and a public reading of the piece. Check out the Knoxville History Project page in this issue for more details.
6/23 LANCE OWENS AND FRIENDS TUESDAY
7 p.m., Beck Cultural Exchange Center (1927 Dandridge Ave.). Free. Lance Owens may have started his local jazz career in 1948 to play tenor saxophone with the Illusionaires, one of Knoxville’s most popular jazz bands, but he can still swing. Tom Johnson, Keith Brown, Emily Mathis and Will Boyd will join him on the bandstand. This concert is part of the Knoxville Jazz Festival’s Jazz Around Town pre-festival series before the big shows on Aug. 27-29. Info: knoxjazzfest.org.
r o t h f i y s a r e p p o r ter’s salar y ! p l e H
a d u D y intrepid
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June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7
one thing led to another. A famous author was in town, I was invited to an early dinner with him, he gave a talk and book-signing, and I hung around for that. It turned out he was a big Cormac McCarthy fan, and wanted to see some scenes from Suttree, a novel that he could quote. I ventured forth with the author, along with a couple of public-library folks and a college professor, and we finished just after 11. I walked back to my car under the highway. It hadn’t been broken into or vandalized. The street people had left it alone, as always. However, the police didn’t. It had a vivid surprise on the driver’s side window. A bright-orange IMPOUNDMENT NOTICE sticker. It said my car was parked “in violation of City of Knoxville Ordinance 17-291(5), storing a vehicle on the street for over 24 hours.” My car wasn’t stored on the street. It’s a parking lot, fenced off from the street. And it hadn’t been there for “over 24 hours,” but perhaps 13. Maybe they round up to the nearest 24 hours. Helpfully, the officer had jotted “No Over Night Parking.” A sign says the same thing, but with no suggestion of how that’s defined. Maybe 11 p.m. is considered “overnight.” And maybe the officer was out of stickers for that, and all he had handy was this big sticky Impoundment Notice. If so, it’s not a very polite way to educate us about the policy. It took a good while, some water and soap and a razor blade, to get the sticker off. Other under-the-highway city parking lots around the corner near the Old City aren’t strict about late-night parking. By the way, the sticker informed me that if my car wasn’t moved pronto, it would be towed “to the City Pound located at: 3407 Vice Mayor
SCRUFFY CITIZEN
Adventures in Parking A few perspectives on our relatively recent habit BY JACK NEELY
T
I
’ve been driving a car to work a lot more than I used to. My new job starting a nonprofit, combined with
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
some shifting in my neighborhood’s bus schedule, behooves me to drive a car a couple of times a week. And if you drive a car, you’re obliged to park it. I park in the city-provided spaces under the highway, along North Gay Street. Downtown’s free lots are the least popular ones. Maybe folks like to pay just a little bit to feel special. Although there are lots of unconventionally dressed loiterers around there, I’ve parked there free off and on for a year or two, probably a couple hundred days at this point. I’ve never had any trouble. Reporters and nonprofiteers don’t make a lot of money, as you might guess, and I’m grateful for the chance to park free, even if it means a 15-minute walk to the office. It’s usually an interesting walk. If I have to stay downtown late, I often do return, after peak-demand hours, and park somewhere closer to the brighter parts. No need to push my luck. But that particular Tuesday,
P
arking is central to a grim reality about downtown’s potential. When I first began to study Knoxville history, one of the biggest surprises I encountered were consistent descriptions of downtown in 1880, 1890, 1900, 1910, that make it sound busier, more cosmopolitan, livelier than downtown today. There were more cafes, more saloons, more stage shows, more street vendors, more street performers, acrobats, magicians, musicians. This in a city that’s technically about one-fifth as populous as Knoxville is today, and with limited access to electricity. Several cafes were open 24 hours. Every linear block downtown had multiple businesses, or multiple residences, or both, on both sides of the street. There was no dead space. And it had no parking. And maybe the fact that it had no parking was one of the things that made it viable. A pedestrian, arriving by foot or by public transit, takes up little space. Standing on the street, maybe 3 or 4 square feet. One parked car requires 160 to 300 square feet. When we drive a car downtown, we take up about 50 times more downtown space than we would if we walked or rode a bus. We bring that dead space, the equivalent of fatty tissue on a heart. That, I’m afraid, is the biggest difference between now and then. A 1900-style density of activity is impossible now. That parking math is not likely to change in our lifetime. Some things may get better, but we may have to settle for a sparser downtown experience than our great-grandparents knew. ◆
Parking is central to a grim reality Photo by Liv McConnell
he other day I watched a Seinfeld episode on Market Street. That undying sitcom flickers on bar TVs in the late afternoon. But this episode was right out in the open. There was a vacant parallel-parking space in front of Home Federal Bank. One car pulled up alongside the car in front, to back in, as we were all taught to. But as he was doing so, a larger car, an SUV, pulled into the same space frontally. They were angled into the same space exactly like George Costanza and the other hothead, Mike, in the classic 1992 episode called “The Parking Space.” It’s so well known it has its own Wikipedia entry. George and Mike maintain their standoff for the same Manhattan parking space for hours, well into the evening. Naturally, I stopped to watch this Knoxville episode. It wasn’t quite as funny. For a half a minute, neither character budged. The guy in the SUV honked his horn repeatedly. After a couple of minutes the polite and law-abiding driver, the one who was backing in, eased away. The louder guy in the bigger car got the space. Might beats right. Half a block away, I ran into a couple of young bicycle cops, and mentioned the dilemma. They admitted they weren’t sure how they would have handled it.
Jack Sharp Road.” If I were Vice Mayor Jack Sharp, I might ask that the city find some other name to use for the address of the City Pound.
about downtown’s potential.
June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9
ARCHITECTURE MATTERS
Building in Code Cumberland Avenue’s big gray error BY GEORGE DODDS
B
uilding codes, zoning ordinances—these are not the stuff that dreams are made of. We do not put our children to sleep at night reading excerpts on occupancy limits or egress requirements. These do not excite one’s soul to take up arms nor offer warm embrace. Typically, the average citizen confronts them only when building an addition or renovation. As far as regulatory authorities are concerned, building codes exist for the same reason that doctors and architects are licensed: to protect the lives and safety of the public. The first of these was to protect a city from fire. That city was Rome. Several ancient historians record Emperor Nero as the first to enact laws specifying construction standards after much of Rome burned. While he is likely responsible for the fire (he built his vast villa, the Domus Aurea, on part of the charred remains), Nero remains, nonetheless, the paterfamilias of urban building codes. Form-based codes, such as those in the city of Knoxville, are of a much more recent vintage and another matter entirely, so much so that they are virtually absent from land-use case law. For the past century, much of this country has been regulated by Euclidian zoning. Curiously, this nationwide standard is named not after the Greek geometer but a town in Northern Ohio, now part of Cleveland. It was party to a landmark 1926 Supreme Court case, Euclid v. Ambler Realty, that resulted in a
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
municipality’s right to regulate land use—what most of us know as the color-coded maps that delimit the physical zones of residential, commercial, light industry, and so on, most of which are single-use. And therein lies the problem, particularly for those promoting FBCs, which regulate the form, pattern, density, materials, architectural character, and several other aspects of construction within a municipality’s prescribed limits. Here in Knoxville we have two: the Cumberland Avenue Corridor and the South Waterfront. The need for restrictions on the particulars of urban (and suburban) buildings and developments largely did not exist before the mid-19th century. While the promoters of FBCs argue that one can trace their history
centuries back, this is a false history at best; before the Industrial Revolution there were, in most of the Western world, generally held standards and tastes by which the interiors and exteriors of significant buildings, public or private, were designed and judged. Indeed, large developments such as Regents Street and Park Crescent in London by John Nash were designed in a single coherent manner for a single speculator, both in the Regency Style. The first national comprehensive code was the London Building Act (1844), which dealt with construction standards, heights, character of design, etc. Yet even as late as the first two decades of the 19th century, such matters as density, character, and many others were self-regulated by taste shared among those with the capital to build such ventures, and by architects like Nash, who designed them. Things change, however, and quickly, particularly during the last two centuries. Form-based codes have become extremely popular in certain parts of the United States of late, particularly in the Southeast. They were invented in the early 1980s by the postmodern architect-planners Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Their main goal: to re-establish some qualitative control over suburban development and the making of public space—its size, configuration, and its character. One of their central concerns was to create a model of exurban development attractive for developers while at the same time slowing suburban sprawl. Of late, this development model has been used within more dense urban settings, with varying
During the past three decades, form-based codes have become the go-to planning model of many architects and urbanists. Of course, there are limits and unintended consequences.
degrees of success. There is no denying that the simplistic Euclidean zoning maps of postwar city planning offices created an apartheid of activities, denuding city dwellers of the rich complexities of urban life, form, and content. That strategy of separation and striation did as much to destroy the fabric of American cities as the most dramatic job migrations of the 1930s, the Interstate Highway System of the 1950s, or the civil-rights riots of the 1960s. In the main, with FBCs’ focus on dense clusters of like-minded multi-use buildings that create “room-like streets,” and something they call a “transect zone,” the problem of programmatic estrangement was one of the key issues that these codes have been relatively successful at fixing. The first realization of Duany and Plater-Zyberk’s theories, Seaside, Fla., became the setting for the film The Truman Show. In relatively short order, they institutionalized their work into the Congress of the New Urbanism, a series of books, conferences, and the curriculum of several major schools of architecture in the United States. There is even a Form-Based Codes Institute, founded more than a decade ago, populated by New Urbanists, many of whom hail from DPZ, Duany and Plater-Zyberk’s firm, and who use the FBCI to promulgate and correctly interpret the teachings of the CNU and DPZ. During the past three decades, FBCs have become the go-to planning model of many architects and urbanists. Of course, there are limits and unintended consequences. Anyone who has seen The Truman Show may be surprised to learn that the setting for the film was an actual “town” and not a set built for the production. During the past decade or so, DPZ, the New Urbanists, and the CNU have added a bit of sustainable strategy, the latter of which is intended to convince one that a stand-alone community (some of which are gated) is somehow sustainable. Sadly, the more sustainable we make any particular suburban enclave, the more unsustainable, as a society, we make our general way of living. After several meetings with city representatives, including an attempt to break the height limit of the newly minted FBCs for Cumberland Avenue, the Big Gray Box (BGB) of a building
It’s almost like living on the Lake! Photo by Liv McConnell
3BR 3.5BA Cape Cod with partly finished basement adjacent to TVA Greenway on Ft. Loudon Lake. Northshore Dr 1 mi west of Pellissippi Pkwy. Text T127760 to #85377 Or call Vickie Jarnigo 865.455.0133
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While to many it seems to loom
ready to tell your story to Knoxville’s
too large, that is mostly because
most passionate Knoxvillians.
it accomplishes little else.
at 2010 Cumberland Ave., between Mountcastle and S. 21st streets, opened for business in August 2014. Built by Campus Acquisitions of Chicago, it is the first building completed under the new FBC. Standing six stories tall (facing Cumberland), with the exception of slots cut into its north- and south-facing facades to provide light, the BGB seemingly fills every cubic inch of buildable envelope permitted under the FBC. The intention of the code is to transform a strip into an avenue. Strips are the sorts of things one finds in the suburbs, not so close to the city center nor the heart of a major university. Kingston Pike, although now within the city limits, is a strip, as is Chapman Highway. But Cumberland Avenue, bounded by UT’s campus and what’s left of Fort Sanders, ought to be an avenue; the new code is intended to make it just that, the thriving main street of a town-meets-gown neighborhood. The BGB does what it can to help. If it accomplishes nothing else, it holds the line of the street, just as the code
requires. While to many it seems to loom too large, that is mostly because it accomplishes little else. Lacking a sense of scale or any quality of materials, its dark glass, gray-hued stucco, and standard storefront ground-floor facade create the familiar image of a suburban office building— ironically, the kind one finds along Northshore Drive. Indeed, the only thing urban about the BGB is its siting, which is required by the FBC. Otherwise, it could be anywhere. Recently, a colleague offered a more positive spin on the BGB: “It’s a hell of a lot better than the parking lot that was there before.” Perhaps, but when the site was a parking lot, it still had promise. Now, we live with 30 years of a big gray error. There is always the hope that as more new buildings completed under the code populate the street, it will become less foreground and more background. One lesson learned from this first product of the Cumberland Avenue FBC: Such regulations hardly guarantee success. Rather, they limit the terms of acceptable failure. ◆
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Pryor Brown’s Integrity Downtown’s original parking garage suffers a collapsed roof, but it might not affect redevelopment plans BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN
T
he historic Pryor Brown garage may have had a breakdown over the weekend, but that doesn’t have to put a wrench in plans to redevelop it. The northwest corner of the wooden roof of the garage collapsed Sunday night, causing cracking on the same corner of the brick facade and prompting the city to close a block of Walnut Street as a precaution. Since then the owner, Royal Properties, has consulted a structural engineer and is awaiting his report, says Shay Lowe, Royal Properties vice president. Kim Trent, executive director of Knox Heritage, says she took photos of the damage and sent them to an architect who has been consulting about possible redevelopment of the site. She says he indicated the damage did not appear severe enough to prevent saving the structure. “Obviously it’s not good, but it’s still repairable,” she says. “Hopefully this will speed up the redevelopment process. This is something that focuses your attention.”
Trent says her organization, which put the parking garage on its annual list of Fragile 15 properties around Knoxville, has been working with the owners to explore redeveloping the building into about 20 condominiums upstairs and retail or restaurants on the street level. The four-story structure, located at the site of a livery stable of the same name, was built 90 years ago by expert horseman and transportation maverick Pryor Brown (1849?-1936) himself, who in his later years kept his main office in the building. It is believed to be one of the oldest parking decks in the country. Cars were still parking there as recently as two to four weeks ago, says Eric Vreeland, communications manager for the city of Knoxville. The deck was an early example of mixed-use development because it also housed retail businesses. A dry-cleaning and shoe repair company was still operating at the street level last year. Royal Properties has owned the
Pryor Brown garage since the 1990s, says Trent. About 20 years ago, its owner, Mike Conley, first announced his intention of constructing an office tower on the site and the surface parking lot that surrounds it. (Royal Properties received permission from the Metropolitan Planning Commission in 1996 to disregard streetscape rules requiring parking lot fencing and tree planting because it would be temporary—just until the offices could be built.) Nothing has come of the plan, although Conley periodically reaffirms it as a goal that could remain decades away. In 2013, Royal Properties applied for a facade grant from the Central Business Improvement District to help with rehabilitating the garage, but the application was denied. At that point, with the Pryor Brown garage continuing to deteriorate, Metro Pulse reported that Conley sought to demolish it and extend the surrounding surface parking lot over
the space. The MPC and city refused to give permission for that use; it would have had the unusual effect of reducing downtown parking spaces by adding a parking lot. Royal Properties nevertheless received a demolition permit, but “12 hours from demolition” the owners decided not to knock down deck, Trent says. A change.org petition last summer sought to convince Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and City Council to apply for historic overlay zoning for the Pryor Brown area in order to help preserve it or at least influence what happens there. That never happened, but it has looked unnecessary since Royal Properties switched gears toward redevelopment.
@KNOXMERCURY.COM
We’ll update this story online as we get information about the structural report.
“Hopefully this will speed up the redevelopment process. This is something that focuses your attention.” —KIM TRENT, executive director, Knox Heritage
June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13
I
Seeking Acceptance How Knoxville is at the center of the Supreme Court’s most anticipated decision, the recognition of same-sex marriage BY MIKE GIBSON
Gwen (left) and Erin Schablik, New York city, 2013 14
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
t took visiting a trio of Knoxville DMV outposts to bring Gwen Schablik into a full recognition of what it means to be a lesbian and a partner in a same-sex marriage in her adopted city. “That’s when I realized I was a second-class citizen,” says Schlabik, who took a copy of her marriage license to the Department of Motor Vehicles for what should have been a routine name change. A Knoxville resident for 16 years, Schablik met her partner, Erin Schablik, eight years ago through OkCupid. They dated, fell in love, and got married in 2013, in a ceremony in New York City’s Central Park. But there was an obstacle to Schablik getting her name changed on her Tennessee driver’s license. Namely, the state of Tennessee doesn’t recognize her same-sex marriage, even though she was married in a state in which same-sex couples can be legally wed. She was told by others in the LGBT community that she might get by, if she talked to the right clerk in the right office. “There had been people who had been successful [in getting a name change],” she says. “Because this person over here is cool, or because maybe this office doesn’t pay attention.” But stopping by three different area DMV centers, she met with increasing difficulties. At her third stop, polite bureaucratic demurral turned into a stony dismissal. “It felt hateful, directed toward me personally,” she says of that final DMV clerk’s haughty rebuff. “That’s when I realized that people need to be educated,” she says. So she reached out and became involved with Knoxville’s committee of the Tennessee Equality Project, a politically active group engaged in promoting LGBT equality. Two years later, Schablik is the TEP Knoxville committee chair. Which means she also has a hand in what one local attorney calls “the biggest civil-rights cause of our lifetime”: Tanco v. Haslam, i.e. the Tennessee marriage-equality case, arguments for which were presented before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 28. TEP provided some of the funding for the plaintiffs’ legal expenses. Should justices rule in favor of the Tennessee couples who originally filed suit—and a ruling is expected by
the end of June—it will mean that marriage equality is on a fast track in the 13 states where it doesn’t already have a foothold. Should their ruling be less favorable—and it could go a couple of different ways—it means that equality advocates, especially in the remaining 13 states, still have some hard work ahead of them. Knoxville’s Regina Lambert, one of the attorneys in Tanco, explains that the court’s 2013 ruling in U.S. vs. Windsor cleared the way for what advocates hope is the last big fight in the war for marriage equality. In Windsor, justices ruled that restricting the federal interpretation of marriage to only heterosexual unions was unconstitutional. In the wake of that decision, plaintiffs in several states began filing challenges to existing state laws. “We decided we wanted Tennessee to be in the mix,” says Lambert. Having spent most of her career to date practicing in corporate law, Lambert says she was invigorated by the prospect of being an agent for social change. “I’m a lesbian, and I have always been interested in those issues,” she says. “I never thought this would happen in my lifetime. “I was shocked by how quickly things were happening. After Windsor, I was inspired to get involved. And it’s been a dream come true. It’s the case of a lifetime, and a chance to be involved in a piece of history.” Lambert is working with Nashville attorney Abby Rubenfeld, Maureen Holland of Memphis, and Nashville law firm Sherrard & Roe. The plan at the outset was to file a “recognition” lawsuit, Lambert says, meaning that the suit merely sought to require Tennessee to recognize marriages performed in other states. “We thought that would be a baby step, a foot in the door,” Lambert says. The attorneys found three sets of plaintiffs to challenge the state, including Knoxville couple Valeria Tanco and Sophy Jesty. Veterinarians recruited to teach at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, the couple knew Lambert socially. Their involvement brought an unexpected twist to the case. “It was a big commitment for them—a pretty big deal that they signed up for,” Lambert says. “So the day they decided to take part in the lawsuit, they came over and told me, and I pulled out a bottle of cham-
pagne. That’s when Val told me she couldn’t drink; she just found out she was pregnant. “We had no idea that would be the case when we started. That made things more urgent.” Tanco’s pregnancy raised several issues, the most worrisome of which was the possibility that complications might arise. Because the state doesn’t recognize the couple’s union, it meant that Jesty would have no legal standing to make medical decisions regarding her wife and her unborn child. The plaintiffs filed for a preliminary injunction in federal district court, requiring the state to recognize all three couples’ marriages while the case was adjudicated. The injunction was granted in March 2014; baby Amelia was born, without complica-
Windsor, plaintiffs in many states filed lawsuits challenging state bans on same-sex marriage, and states’ refusal to recognize the same. Like Tanco, many of those cases ultimately landed in federal circuit court of appeals. There are 13 circuits in all. Several other circuits had already heard same-sex cases when the Sixth Circuit ruling came down, and in all of the other cases, judges ruled that state same-sex marriage bans were unconstitutional. That circumstance—with different federal circuits setting down contradictory precedents on the same legal question—constitutes what’s known as a split in the circuit. And it gave the U.S. Supreme Court good cause to rule on the Sixth Circuit plaintiffs’ case.
“It’s a waiting game now—waiting to see whether 13 states that don’t have marriage equality are going to catch up with the rest of the country.” —REGINA LAMBERT, plaintiffs’ attorney, Tanco v. Haslam
tion, on March 27, the only child to be born in the state of Tennessee with the names of two mothers on the birth certificate. The state asked for a stay of the injunction, but that request was denied. So state attorneys filed again, with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Sixth Circuit assigned Tanco to a special panel of judges in order to fast-track a decision. In a 2-1 decision, the court of appeals ruled in November 2014 that bans on freedom to marry for same-sex couples in four states—Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio—do not violate the U.S. Constitution. Scarcely a week later, on Nov. 14, 2014, the couples asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case. Lambert explains that, after
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on April 28. “It was amazing—an incredible experience to have been there,” Lambert says. “There were people who camped out four or five days to get a seat in that courtroom. You were pinching yourself, realizing you were actually there.” A decision could come at any time, but with the court’s current session coming to a close, the most likely scenario is the end of June. The implications are huge. Lambert says that Windsor cleared the way for same-sex couples to enjoy some 1,031 federal marriage benefits. But that still leaves many issues to be resolved at the state level. “The rights and benefits that are in question cut across every type of law you can think of,” she says.
Rights of inheritance, death benefits, medical decisions, workplace benefits—that’s a short list of questions with which partners in same-sex unions must struggle in Tennessee, addressing the issues piecemeal, if they can be addressed at all. “If you have children, you can’t adopt your spouse’s kids,” says Ben Byers, president of the East Tennessee Equality Council, and director of the local Pridefest event from 2007 to 2014. “So something as simple as checking a child out of school for a doctor’s appointment becomes an issue,” he says. But Byers says that though the practical and financial issues are significant, marriage equality is about something that can’t be quantified in dollars and cents. “Marriage is a significant social contract, and it gets to the legitimacy of a relationship,” he says. “It’s about declaring to friends and family that this is the person I want to be with. “And many people want to have that recognition, that their love is significant and worthy of acknowledgment.” As marriage-equality advocates wait for the Supreme Court ruling, Schablik explains the decision could take any of three paths. Although the Tennessee plaintiffs are only seeking recognition of marital status attained in other states, plaintiffs in the other Sixth Circuit cases have gone so far as to challenge the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans in their respective states. Should justices deem marriage bans unconstitutional, Schablik says that recognition of marriages performed in other states will inevitably follow. But justices could also choose to uphold marriage bans, yet require recognition of out-of-state unions. Or they could choose to uphold bans and deny recognition, rejecting the claim of same-sex marriage advocates. Lambert doesn’t think the latter scenario is likely to happen. “Based on the questions the justices asked during oral arguments, I felt very positive about the case when we left,” she says. “It’s a waiting game now— waiting to see whether 13 states that don’t have marriage equality are going to catch up with the rest of the country.” ◆ June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 15
GET HOPPY With almost a dozen new microbreweries on tap, can Knoxville become a true beer destination?
BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
I
t’s so close, he can practically taste it. Matthew Cummings is approaching the day he’ll be pouring pints—pints of dark Belgian beer he brewed, into glasses he crafted over a hot forge in the next room. But in April, his future glass studio on South Central Street was an empty room with giant piles of dust on the floor. Its tall ceilings and the walls decorated with brick arches hinted at its long history as everything from a nickelodeon (where Knoxvillians could watch a silent movie for a nickel) to a grocery store. The cavernous room, which is being renovated to handle the newly necessary infrastructure, is a contrast to the future pub next door, which is crammed with saws, metal bars, plastic tubing, glass-cutting lathes and ovens for reheating glass, giant rolls of white foam, piles of twisty wire for sculpture and plastic tubs full of delicate colored glass wands ready to work their magic. Cummings surveys the space. “We’re doing our own metal and wood fabrication,” he says, gesturing to the beechwood-topped bars with frames like metal puzzle pieces, soon to be inset with bourbon barrel slats. “Everything we can legally make ourselves, we’re making it.” The work is easier, though, fueled as it is by the kegerator wedged among towering stands of tools. Today Cummings has three of his own beers on tap, including two dark Belgians, which are among his specialties. The cherry quad is darkened by caramelized beet sugar, then set on cherries for two weeks. It tastes powerful and rich rather than sweet or cloying. “I think craft brewing is about pushing flavor profiles,” Cummings says. “It’s about an adventure, trying something you’ve never had before.” Cummings owns the Pretentious Glass Company, soon to be the Pretentious Beer and Glassware Company, which has been making specialty pint glasses. But he plans to open a glass-blowing studio within a month, followed by a linked taproom next door. “As far as I know this will be the only place in the world you can watch us make the glass and the beer, and then drink the beer out of the glass,” Cummings says. Although this combination is novel, Cummings is not alone in his
newfound pursuit of brewing in Knoxville. A scramble to roll out the kegs is happening all over the city. At least 11 different breweries plan to open in the next 18 months, many of them slated to start pouring or distributing this summer or fall. And although they cross the map, many are clustered in the Old City and around N. Central Avenue, which raises hopes for boosting tourism with an ale trail. “I think the Old City and Happy Holler are going to be much more connected within a year,” Cummings says. “From here to Fanatic (Brewing Company), there will be six or seven breweries within a mile.” Newcomer Fanatic Brewing Co. is already in production. By the end of May its beer was on 50 taps in the area and being bottled, too, says president and founder Josh Martin. Crafty Bastard is opening a taproom on North Central Street within a few weeks, according to co-owner and head brewer Aaron McClain. Alliance Brewing Co., a venture borne of the Bearden Beer Market, is expecting to open this summer on Sevier Avenue. Schulz Bräu Brewing Co. is shooting to open an authentic German beer garden near Central in time for Octoberfest. Cold Fusion plans to begin production for distribution to bars within the next month at a warehouse on Inskip Road. And that’s only a handful of the breweries planning to tap a keg or sell a six-pack in the near future (see sidebar). “I think 2015 is going to be a big year for beer in Knoxville,” says Adam Palmer, president and co-founder of the 5-year-old Saw Works Brewing Company, Knoxville’s grand dame of microbreweries. This sudden flood of beer had some important precursors in Saw Works (which produces 5,000 barrels of beer a year) as well as brew pubs like Blackhorse Pub & Brewery, Smoky Mountain Brewery, and Downtown Grill & Brewery. But the multiplication of beer and beer-related business—from beer glasses to beer additives and local hop farms—is growing a new “beer culture” for the region. “I think Knoxville has potential to be a very strong ‘beercation’ city— maybe by next summer,” says Zack Roskop, owner of Knox Brew Tours, which transports visitors from one pub or tasting room to the next. Why so many new breweries on
At the Pretentious Beer and Glassware Co. on South Central, customers will be able to drink beer made in front of them from a glass made in front of them. The diversity of new brewery types is expected to add to the draw of a new “ale trail.”
June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17
tap all at once? Industry insiders say it’s due to a growing thirst for craft beer combined with favorable changes in Tennessee laws and Knoxville zoning. The number of U.S. breweries grew by 19 percent in 2014, with the vast majority (3,418) being craft breweries, according to the association. Although craft beer made up 11 percent of beer sales, its retail dollar market share is higher, at more than 19 percent. Palmer says craft beer markets like The Casual Pint, which jumped to eight locations in four years and is now selling franchises, “really grew the awareness” locally. “Places like that are invaluable to local suppliers,” he says. But is there enough demand in Knoxville to support almost a dozen new breweries?
HIGH-GRAVITY TAXES
Maryville’s Bluetick Brewery, which uses an unusual co-op approach, is one of five established breweries that paved the way for the next wave of locally-brewed beer, with as many as 13 new breweries planned or newly-operating in Knoxville.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
North Carolina and Kentucky are among Southeastern states riding high on the craft beer wave that Knoxville is just catching. Tennessee is home to 42 breweries, including brew pubs, Palmer says. Compare that to 125 in North Carolina, where the beer tax is about half as much. Asheville alone has 18 breweries, purportedly the most per capita in the United States, and its beer culture has earned it the Beer City USA designation four years running. Local brewery owners say Tennessee has lagged largely because it has the highest tax in the nation per gallon of beer. “Asheville is reaping the rewards of people smart enough to change the laws several years ago,” says Stephanie Carson, Maryville native and media coordinator for Asheville-based Superfly Fabulous Events. Her company operates beer festivals across the country, including the recent Brewhibition festival in Knoxville. Carson notes that North Carolina also allows breweries to distribute their own product, reducing the cost of the beer. “We’ve got good friends in the industry that just don’t send their beer to (Tennessee) because of the taxes,” Martin says, and Tennessee breweries make more money carting their beer out of state than selling it at home. But it used to be even worse. That was one of the major reasons that Saw Works joined breweries across the state to form the Tennessee Craft Brewer’s Guild: They wanted to lobby for changes in state law. Unlike other states, which taxed beer based on
volume, Tennessee was taxing based on wholesale prices. Seventeen percent of the wholesale price went to local governments. Due partly to lobbying by the guild and economic development agency Blount Partnership, the state switched to volume-based taxing in 2013, while preserving the local funding levels. “We’re making something that brings a lot of tax revenue to the city,” says Martin, adding that he thinks Knoxville has started to better understand this perk. He says city officials worked well with his brewery to help it through permitting, although the process was slow. In one case, Knoxville even approved a tax incentive to bring a brewery downtown. Balter Beerworks will turn an old service station in a blighted stretch of West Jackson Avenue into a brew pub with a beer garden this fall. The city approved a payment in lieu of taxes for the project valued at about $40,000 a year, to abate the increased taxes that would follow if owners invest $2 million in improvements. Another state law change that will benefit breweries relates to “high-gravity” beer, which contains higher amounts of alcohol. Currently, any beer containing more than 6.2 percent alcohol by volume requires a liquor license to sell. But last year, the state Legislature eased limits on selling high-gravity beers at breweries by requiring only a high-gravity beer license. Brewers say this change is important as high-gravity beer becomes trendier. “Alcohol for beer is akin to salt for food,” Cummings says. “It enhances the flavors and gives a more luscious mouth feel.” In just a few years, the Tennessee Craft Brewer’s Guild achieved the two goals for which it was formed, Palmer says. Despite some progress, McMillan says Tennessee laws still fall short. He and others hope to start a Knoxville brewer’s guild to build camaraderie and work for improvements. “Our state alcohol laws just need massive change,” says McMillan, who is working to help Hexagon Brewing Co. get off the ground. “Your beer license is regulated through city, and the distillery license is through the city and state. It has to do with paperwork, where you’re getting taxed, what laws apply. It’s become really overcomplicated and burdensome.”
And that has had a direct impact on economic development in the region. Blount County was very close to bringing Sierra Nevada’s first East Coast brewery to its Pellissippi Place Industrial Park in 2011, losing to Asheville partly because the tax structure was more favorable there. “At that time (our) laws were almost penalistic,” recalls Bryan Daniels, president and CEO of Blount Partnership. More recently, Blount Partnership tried to convince Stone Brewing Co. to open at the same location, but couldn’t beat the enormous tax incentives Richmond, Va. offered. However, in the process, Blount Partnership pioneered some new techniques for wooing hip craft brewers, including music videos and booklets featuring Daniels using the same aggressive, colorful language as the brewery. “Stone told us the reason we got in the mix was how out-of-the-box we were,” Daniels says. Daniels says that after losing Sierra Nevada, the group got involved in pushing for changes in how craft brews are taxed, classified, and distributed. Now, he says, the industry can be profitable and far-reaching in a way that was impossible before. He says Blount Partnership is now negotiating with two nationally-distributed craft brewers, and is awaiting a final decision from one company it has been wooing for eight months. Interestingly, Blount isn’t pursuing breweries for the jobs they would provide, although that’s a big plus. What it wants is the cache of the brewery itself, to attract top science and technology companies to the business park. Blount Partnership heard other communities wish they’d developed a commercial district within their science and technology parks, because this generation of young scientists likes to live close to work and “urban amenities,” Daniels says. So Blount Partnership planned Pellissippi Place to include a hotel, lofts with commercial businesses underneath, and a “destination brewer” producing 100,000 to 1 million barrels of beer and offering tours, a brew pub and a music/entertainment venue. As far as Blount County is concerned, those kegs will float a lot of high-wage, high-tech jobs. And that could raise not only tax revenue but the quality of life around Maryville.
WANTED: A NAME AND A HOME
In Knoxville, changes in local regulations have also helped paved the way for the profusion of smaller-scale breweries. Last year Knoxville changed zoning rules to allow breweries in more areas. Until then, breweries had been forced to compete heavily for the few properties that were the right size and location, especially if they wanted to include a tasting room. “That was really a big kind of game changer,” says McMillan, who was formerly with Alliance Brewing. “Slowly but surely the city is starting to see the potential of these breweries.” Alliance has been in the works for about five years, partly because it couldn’t find a location far enough from schools and churches under the old code. Alliance brewer Adam Ingle says the brewery has finally found a home in a former laundry on Sevier Avenue, but that was its 12th—that’s right, 12th—attempt. “Five years ago I wouldn’t have thought of opening a brewery,” says Stephen Apking, owner and brewer at Hexagon. Now he can use a warehouse on Dutch Valley Road that he was already renting to run his label company. Once they find a location, breweries must obtain a host of permits, and in some cases seek a distributor. Even picking a name is a legal gambit. To a layman, that might seem the easiest part. But it left several local breweries with significant hangovers. Saw Works operated for several years as Marble City Brewing before facing a legal challenge from Marble Brewery in New Mexico. Palmer says his company had two weeks to pull all its beer from the shelves and replace it with a new batch under a new name. But he adds that it was the best thing that happened to the company. “It made us step back and analyze everything in the previous two years,” he says. “We got rid of the entire staff, basically took the playbook, ripped it up, and started over.” He says the brewery cut its accounts in half and focused them more exclusively on bars whose clientele drink craft beer, doubling sales as a result. But it was an abrupt lesson in the bitter realities of the industry, even for a company that began by buying its equipment from the old New Knoxville Brewing
Who’s Brewing What and When ALLIANCE BREWING CO. Aims to open in summer on Sevier Avenue; three-barrel system, mostly for sale at tap room, eventually plans to include gluten-free beer offering. BALTER BEERWORKS Aims to open a brew pub at corner of Jackson Avenue and Broadway in a former service station in October. Will sell primarily on-site although may do some limited keg distribution in Knoxville with its seven-barrel system. CHISHOLM TAVERN BREWING A beer festival staple, Chisholm Tavern is still 18 to 24 months from opening, according to brewer Steve Dedman. COLD FUSION BREWING Plans to start brewing any day now using a three-barrel system off Merchants Drive on Inskip Road, which could expand to a 20-barrel system. Will distribute kegs to bars, with bottling to follow soon after. Also has several other beer-related ventures including a hop farm and a beer additive to enhance the flavor of domestic light beer. CRAFTY BASTARD BREWERY Opening in the next month or so in the Fourth and Gill neighborhood on Central Street with a three-barrel system. Beer to be sold in-house at tap room, pairing with food trucks. GEEZERS Has made an offer on a location in the North Central Street area and hopes to open in 2016 as a 15-barrel, distribution-only operation. HEXAGON BREWING CO. Fountain City-area brewery (Dutch Valley Road) aiming to open by the end of the year; 20-barrel system for distribution and pouring in its tasting room. FANATIC BREWING CO. Microbrewery on North Central Street with 25,000-barrel capacity, has been selling beer for distribution for the last three to four months.
HINDSIGHT Twelve to 18 months away from opening, no location chosen yet. Brewpub format with three- to seven-barrel system. LAST DAYS OF AUTUMN Opening around next spring, still finalizing a location but shooting for the N. Central Street area. Husband-wife team will be operating a brewery taproom with two-barrel system, with beer for sale primarily on-premises. PRETENTIOUS BEER & GLASSWARE CO. Glass blowing studio will open in the coming weeks, then plans to be pouring other people’s beers at the taproom by fall and brewing in winter or spring. Specializing in “Americanized Belgian” and funky beers on a three- to five-barrel system on South Central Street. SCRUFFY CITY A two-barrel brewing system is intended to start running this summer in the area beneath the stage in the popular Market Square venue. SCHULZ BRÄU BREWING CO. Happy Holler-area brewery on Bernard Avenue aims to open its 30-barrel system by October. All German beers brewed according to the German purity law, sold in its beer garden and for distribution. EXISTING BREWERIES SAW WORKS BREWING CO.: East Depot Avenue microbrewery sells mostly for distribution, utilizing a 5,000 barrel system. BLUETICK BREWERY: An innovative co-op brewery in Maryville. BLACKHORSE PUB & BREWERY: Bearden brewery that left Knoxville for over a decade before returning to its original location at Western Plaza. SMOKY MOUNTAIN BREWERY (four East Tennessee locations, including Turkey Creek in Knoxville): One of the oldest brew pubs in town, and the only one with multiple locations. WOODRUFF BREWING CO. (Downtown Grill & Brewery) on Gay Street: Knoxville’s original modern-era brew pub. June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 19
Jeff Adams (right) of Saw Works takes a big whiff of the honeysuckle that will be added, along with local honey (above), into vats (below) to make a honeysuckle saison for Knoxville Brewfest this weekend. The limited-edition batch was made through collaboration among nine local breweries.
Co. at a foreclosure sale. Even Balter Beerworks had to negotiate for its Old English name, a word meaning “to dance without particular grace or skill, but with enjoyment.” It and another brewery both tried to trademark Balter Brewing at almost the same time; they reached an agreement allowing the local brewery to keep Balter and switch to “Beerworks,” says co-owner Blaine Wedekind. Wedekind, who left a career at Cherokee Distributing Co. last year, says he vetted around 400 potential names before choosing that one. Almost all the others were already being used for a particular brew or brewery. The Underground Brewing Company also had to change its name recently. Apking, who hopes to open the brewery in Fountain City later this year, says he recently switched the name to Hexagon when he couldn’t trademark Underground. The new name represents a powerful pattern in nature, one that his beloved grandfather used in making prized cane fly fishing poles. Apking also sees the shape daily in the pattern of the honeycombs built by his bees, which he began keeping when he started brewing beer. His insect assistants will be helping with the operation: Apking plans for Hexagon to make a carbonated, low-gravity mead, an alcohol made by fermenting honey and other ingredients.
BUBBLING PERSONALITIES
Almost every local brewer or brewery founder has had another career first—often many others. What brewers seem to have in common are interesting stories, an entrepreneurial spirit (often paired with a distaste for working for others), a love of adventure, a Y chromosome, and a noticeable propensity toward either shaved heads or immense mountain-man beards. Many started as home brewers who began sharing their beer at festivals. At 27, Nico Schulz, founder of Schulz Bräu Brewing Co., had worked in a dairy before starting his first brewery. He opened the successful Blue Stallion Brewery in Lexington, Ky., where the German-born Schulz attended college. But his girlfriend and parents live in Knoxville, so he decided to locate Schulz Bräu, his second brewery, here (with his parents as co-owners). It will focus on 20
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
the German lagers he had begun to miss. He says a shipping container full of used tables and benches from Munich’s Octoberfest celebrations are on the way across the ocean for the beer garden, which will serve up the suds in 1-liter steins. Then there’s Cummings, a glass sculptor who has journeyed the world for a decade plying his trade. He started making beer glasses for regular income, but the business exploded after he was featured in Huffington Post and Southern Living, among others. Now he aims to hire six glassblowers to make his glasses during the week and their own sculpture on the weekends, as drinkers raise a glass at a bar top in front of the glassblowing stations. For Cummings, the beer came second. It was an interest he developed only while perfecting the best glass to highlight the properties of each Pilsner, stout, or amber. (For example, “The ‘subtle’ is a really tall glass because when the carbonation can move through more beer, it brings out the smell.”) Now he anticipates that the tap room will help support the glassblowing studio and its expensive equipment, like the lathe affectionately dubbed Gertrude, which can be used to make personalized fingerprint grips on your beer glass. But as time goes by, Cummings seems to be getting just as enthused about the beer, his boyish face breaking into a grin as if he’s just found an incredible new toy. He plans his to celebrate his nanobrewery opening with a huge party including a dance competition: “Me versus everybody!” Fanatic Brewing Company is well-named: Its president and founder, Josh Martin, is so driven that he speaks about 5,000 words a minute without the aid of caffeine. “I’m just wired,” he says. “I got a motor on me.” Martin started brewing at age 17 because he couldn’t buy beer legally. “I bought a 5-gallon bucket and started making it. It was easy,” he says. “It wasn’t good. But it doesn’t have to be good for 17-year-olds in a dorm room.” Martin was far from a typical 17-year-old, though. He started a commercial supply company selling spas during his junior year to help pay for college. That blossomed into a business building cabins in the Sevier County mountains, until the recession dried up business. He switched to
film, working on country and Christian music videos. But in 2009, looking for a truly recession-proof venture, he settled on alcohol. Martin teamed with Copper Cellar’s Marty Velas, who became his partner and brewmaster. At the end of May, Fanatic had been operating about three months, sending out 30 kegs a day, and had signed a deal to sell six-packs in all the Food City grocery stores in East Tennessee, Martin says. Through Cherokee Distributing, Fanatic will be sold in 21 counties, but that’s just a first step. “I want to be in Chattanooga by the end of the summer,” Martin says. “We’d like to get to 25,000 barrels as soon as possible. That’s what this building can handle.” Although Fanatic seems to be gearing up at fanatic speed, it took years to get there. “I think it’s funny when people pop out and say, ‘We’re going to open a brewery next year,’” Martin says. “There’s ton of moving parts: local, federal and state oversight…. All it is, is busting your hump.”
RISING TIDES
Walk through the Saw Works tasting room, under the 3-foot saw blades and past the “Pour it Forward” chalkboard where you can write your buddy’s name when you’ve bought him a beer ahead of time. Then duck through a side door into the brewery. On this hot May day, rock music is blasting and a bunch of guys in shorts and T-shirts are milling around, eating watermelon and tipping back bottles. “Craft beer is 99 percent asshole-free,” says Adam Ingle, head brewer for Alliance, sipping beer from a pottery mug next to a shoulder-high stack of malt sacks. “We’re all going to be competing for taps soon, but we don’t care. What’s that saying? A rising tide raises all ships.”
There are a lot of ships floating on the foam here: Owners and brewers from nine breweries are hanging out, working on Knoxville’s first “collaboration brew,” a honeysuckle saison. It started when Roskop of Knox Brew Tours had a booth at Hops for Hope, a Townsend event in May that raises money for New Hope Blount County Children’s Advocacy Center. He found that visitors were disappointed that he didn’t offer beer samples, and he joked with local brewers there about helping him create a brew. Right off, three volunteered. But Roskop liked the idea of getting everyone together, and sent out an email to other brewers asking whether they’d like to participate. too. A few weeks later, Roskop and Cummings helped organize the first local industry “bottle share” in Knoxville, with brewers, distributors, and sellers sharing rare six-packs. While sipping, brewers from nine local breweries started working on a recipe. Now, they were brewing the result, using Saw Works’ equipment. Roskop led the way into the giant Saw Works cooler full of kegs, and shook a bucket that was a quarter of the way full of fragrant blossoms. “I picked the honeysuckle with Blaine Wedekind (of Balter Beerworks) at 6:30 this morning at Lakeshore Park,” Roskop says. Jars of Apking’s honey, ready to be added to the brew, sit on a table made out of a crate stacked on kegs. The setup for this one-barrel batch isn’t very big. After the grains have steeped and starches have turned to sugar, the hot liquor is boiling in a silver vat. It looks like the big kettle grandma used to boil her greens, except with a big temperature gauge on the front. When the temperature and time are right, all the brewers gather around and shake small paper packets full of hops into the roiling mass.
“I think craft brewing is about pushing flavor profiles. It’s about an adventure, trying something you’ve never had before.” —MATTHEW CUMMINGS, owner, Pretentious Beer and Glassware Company
Then they circle around Saw Works head brewer Will Brady, raising their bottles and mugs for his toast, which goes something like: “Here’s to you and here’s to me, that good friends we may ever be. And if we ever disagree… then fuck it. Here’s to Knoxville!” Cummings says he hopes to continue such events to grow camaraderie—and the kind of group marketing that will help everyone. But with so many breweries opening at once, won’t competition be fierce? Won’t the craft beer market be saturated? “To me there’s a much bigger demand for craft beer than the supply right now,” says Aaron McClain, co-owner and head brewer of Crafty Bastard Brewery. The brew pub is very close to opening at a location just off Central Avenue near the Old City. McClain points out that his brewery won’t be competing with breweries that focus on distribution, like Saw Works and Fanatic. The new breweries are offering a variety of business models and styles of beer. For example, Crafty Bastard will be in the neighborhood of Schulz Bräu, but won’t compete with its German beer styles, McClain says. “I think everybody starting up has really different aesthetics,” Cummings says. “When you’re really into a brewery, it’s like being really into a chef. With craft brewing, there are so many different styles.” Many also point to Asheville, which supports 18 breweries and a population of 87,000—almost 100,000 less than Knoxville.
DEVELOPING BEER CULTURE
Becoming a beer destination is about more than the number of barrels and breweries. It’s about saturating the local culture through beer festivals, supporting businesses, products made with beer and, in Knoxville’s case, a college program that provides a steady stream of new brewers. This week, thousands will gather for Knoxville Brewfest, a fiesta for beer-lovers in its fifth year. McMillan, who manages the festival, says it will feature 100 breweries, 20 more than last year. Maryville will host its first Hops in the Hills festival June 26 and 27, distinguished by an emphasis on agriculture (a hop-growing seminar) and beer craft. Blount Partnership is helping
Beer Parties Chug a local beer at one of these upcoming beer festivals: KNOXVILLE BREWFEST Saturday, June 20, 4-8 p.m. on Depot Street and the Gay Street Viaduct, overlooking the Southern Railway Terminal and the Old City. Featuring 100 breweries. Tickets $50, or $20 for designated drivers. Details at knoxvillebrewfest.com. HOPS IN THE HILLS June 26-27 at various locations in the Maryville area. Craft brew crawl by Knox Brew Tours Friday, June 26 starting at 6 p.m. ($10); seminars on home brewing and hop growing Saturday, June 27, 3-4 p.m.; Brew Festival, 4-8 p.m. ($40). Details at hopsinthehills.com.
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Trent Gilland of Hellbender Hops Farm says hops have lots of non-beer applications, from pickled hops above (beer is a natural preservative) to a natural pesticide that kills the mites that attack beehives. promote the festival as it continues to try to build the city’s beer culture for Pellissippi Place. “Truly in this industry, all ships rise,” Daniels says. Knoxville can look forward to its oldest local beer extravaganza in October, the 19th Annual Brewer’s Jam in World’s Fair Park. And Knoxville has room for even more festivals, says Carson with Superfly Fabulous Events. Her company, which put on Brewhibition in May, also runs four beer events in the Tri-Cities area, which has a smaller population than Knoxville. Each festival takes a slightly different approach. For Brewhibition, it was a 1920s theme and unusual flavor combinations. The festival featured beer and whiskey cocktails as well as beer pairings (like Samoa Girl Scout cookies with Chisholm Tavern’s chocolatey Somora Stout) and beer infusions (like running an IPA through fresh jalapeños). Many up-and-coming but not-yetopen Knoxville breweries, including Alliance and Pretentious, were pouring. Guys wearing Hawaiian shirts and pretzel necklaces mingled with women dressed in elaborate flapper regalia in the Old City Courtyard. Sarah Holt of Knoxville swayed to hot blues as she stood in line to try a beer-and-whiskey Bananas Foster cocktail. “Brewers here are actually taking the time to explain their craft to you,” Holt says. “Being able to see the person that made it is really cool.” She and her friend Jared Huis22
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
ingh say a Knoxville beer trail would draw them to neighborhoods like Happy Holler that they might not visit otherwise. “In Nashville, there are a bunch of breweries within a block, and you tour them all because: Why not?” says Huisingh. “Knoxville can be the same way.” While some tourists might come for the beer alone, others might find it enhances another of Knoxville’s attractions. Knoxville has been marketing itself heavily to mountain bikers and outdoor enthusiasts, a group which Ingle and Apking say overlaps heavily with craft beer drinkers. The city has expanded its outdoor opportunities in the last several years, with a 42-mile loop of urban wilderness trails as well as new rock-climbing options at Ijams Nature Center. Ingle says Alliance’s Sevier Avenue location is well-placed to be a stop-off on the way to or from Ijams. The brewery’s slogan is “Active Beer Culture,” and Ingle envisions group rides and other events that culminate in beer. “You need to earn it,” says Ingle, who plays rugby. “Go out and burn some calories before you have some.” Apking with Hexagon is a co-owner of Cedar Bluff Cycles. “Extreme sports really lends itself to craft beer,” he says. “It goes hand in hand with that outdoor industry mentality. We really see some opportunity to become a Seattle, a Portland, an Asheville.” Another advantage for Knoxville is the pipeline of brewers coming from South College’s brewing science program, the only formal program for
training brewers in the Southeast. The six-month certificate program has graduated 40 students since 2013, says director Todd White. Fanatic’s head brewer, Marty Velas, helped White develop the curriculum, and Velas and other local brewers serve as guest instructors. Students study the chemical reactions, microbiology, and physics of brewing, as well as the business of brewing, White explains while awaiting a phone call telling him to get on the road. He’s taking a group of students to visit the brewery at Blackberry Farm in Walland, followed by Bluetick Brewery in Maryville (the only local co-op brewery, run by a former Blackberry Farm chef). Students get the chance to see demonstrations at a variety of local breweries and sometimes to volunteer there or try out the equipment. At Saw Works, students can experiment making small batches of “rough cut” beers for sale at the brewery’s tasting room. Partly as a result of these relationships, both brewers at Saw Works and three at Blackhorse are graduates of the program, which places 90 percent of its students in industry jobs, White says. One former student is Saw Works head brewer Will Brady, a Knoxville native whose previous careers include carpenter, insurance salesman, and pizza delivery guy. His bushy reddish beard reaches almost to his muscle shirt, which shows off the many complex tattoos that wind over his arms and shoulders and across his knuckles. Brady sat at a wooden picnic table in the baking sun outside Saw Works, reflecting on the benefits of the hands-on experience he received with brewing equipment
through the South College program. “Brewing is ‘good clean living,’” is Brady’s mantra as sweat trickles down his forehead from beneath his black bandanna. “With that brewing science program right in the backyard, Knoxville will become a beer destination.”
POUR ME A JOB MARKET
A community of breweries can provide an economic boost, not only in tourism dollars but in related businesses. “People think the beer industry is just putting beer in a glass, but it’s so many other products and jobs,” Palmer says. In Asheville, locally-brewed beer is used in making everything from ice cream to shampoo. Plus, entrepreneurs there find all kinds of ways to bring beer drinkers together with their pints. (Bikers? Pedal your bar around downtown or end a group ride with a pub crawl. Women and NewAgers? Yoga class topped off with some suds.) “Beer culture is integrated throughout the local economy,” says Dodie Stephens, director of communications for the Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau. “I can name at least 10 local artisan products made from local beer, so the foodie scene is rife with contributions from beer culture as well.” Some of the new Knoxville brewers are already thinking about beer products. Cold Fusion, which plans to operate in North Knoxville off Merchants Drive, will not only make beer but additives that manipulate its chemistry in beneficial ways. Isaac Privett, president and head brewer, says the brewery is testing a provisionally patented product, packaged in small bottles like water energy
“Extreme sports really lends itself to craft beer. It goes hand in hand with that outdoor industry mentality. We really see some opportunity to become a Seattle, a Portland, an Asheville.” —STEPHEN APKING, owner and brewer, Hexagon Brewing Co.
additives, to turn the flavor of a light domestic beer into that of a full-bodied craft beer. “The best part is that one ounce can take care of a whole 12-pack!” he writes in an email. “The flavors are concentrated down enough that it can make it more cost effective for the consumer to buy everything they need to drink ‘craft’ beer at slightly-more-expensive-than-domestic prices…. College keg parties can be conveniently more flavorful!” He says the company is also experimenting with yeast manipulation “that has some huge implications on the world of craft beer if successful.” Roskop with Knox Brew Tours sees the potential to multiple tour routes so he can benefit from repeat business. His customer base has already been steadily expanding, enabling him to quit his second job. Roskop says he led 50 brewery tours between Black Friday last November and Good Friday this spring. Roskop predicts that the food truck industry will also benefit from new breweries. Already bars that specialize in craft brews like Hops and Hollers, The Casual Pint, and Bearden Beer Market partner with food trucks. Rules limiting food truck locations downtown could complicate this at some locations, however. As consumers continue to thirst for all things local, brewers are also on the lookout for ways to up the ante with local malts, barley, and hops. So far, only hops are in the mix, with several Knoxville hop farms planned and the Townsend farm, Hellbender Hops, in its third year. Palmer says if there was enough supply of local hops or barley, Saw Works would buy them. He says another logical next step for the expansion of the local beer industry would be a malt house. Privett, too, says he’s in the market for all-local beer components. To that end, Cold Fusion is looking to start or partner with a hop farm in Knoxville. “The hop farm is still in the planning phase but we should be looking for a location in the area soon after the brewery starts cranking out suds,” he writes in an email. “If we can in the long run use only ingredients from Knoxville, that would be ideal.” In other words, an entire new homegrown industry. Both beer lovers and economic boosters can raise a glass to that. ◆
Gold in These Hills Hellbender Hops farm introduces locally-grown hops to East Tennessee after a century In a field behind a shack where his grandfather lived while logging what would become Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Trent Gilland is farming. But although Gilland’s family land is steeped in tradition, the crop is not. It’s not tobacco or corn, but something that mostly disappeared from the East Coast almost a century ago: hops. On Hellbender Hops farm, Gilland is learning how to grow beer. Or at least, the cones that provide its distinctive flavor. Gilland was the first in the region to venture into hops (although several hop farms are in the works for Knoxville) at his 1-acre Townsend farm named for an Appalachian salamander. This spring he was training his hop vines to climb a trellis of woven coconut husk lasts (basically, rot-resistant rope). The lines travel upward from each plant to another horizontal rope about 20 feet in the air. A disgruntled rooster crows repeatedly as Gilland, sporting a bushy beard and floppy hat, shows off his eight different hop varieties. His oft-repeated mantra is, “The work of every man is the envy of another,” and Gilland would know. Like many local brewers, the Maryville College graduate is on his second career after he tired of taking orders from corporate bigwigs—in his case, as a mathematician in customer analytics at Family Dollar. He returned to his family’s valley, which turns out to provide the ideal air circulation for a crop usually associated with the Pacific Northwest. The constant breeze that keeps hop lines a-tremble also keeps the plants from developing blight and mildew. Gilland estimates he’ll earn $15,000 to $20,000 from his hop yard if it achieves full yields, but that hasn’t happened during Hellbender’s first two years. Gilland is learning by trial and error because hops really haven’t been grown on the East Coast since the 1920s. “A bad case of blight took out a bunch of hop farms, and a bad case of ignorance called Prohibition took out the rest,” he jokes. Gilland is switching a few of his hop varieties, but his big change this year is adding an underground irrigation system. He attended a recent conference with hop growers from Virginia and North Carolina, learning that his lack of constant watering was the only thing keeping him from their high yields. The plants take seven to ten gallons of water a week, he says. Gilland sold his first two harvests to the home-brewers’ supplier Ferment Station in Knoxville. (Hops for home brewers sell for $3 to $4 an ounce, while brewers pay just $6 to $8 a pound, he says.) But he’d eventually like to be
able to work with a brewer like Bluetick in Maryville to supply local hops for a single beer variety. He says he’d love to see more local hop farms because farmers could pool their harvests to support a brew year-round, earning a higher profit at the same time. Local hops could be more than a marketing tool: They could help develop a distinctive-tasting East Tennessee beer. Different hops produce different flavors, and many of Gilland’s provide the lighter, lemony taste of a lager or India Pale Ale. They could become the key ingredient in an Appalachian IPA. “My Mt. Hood hops will taste different from any others on Earth, based on the minerals in the soil, the bacteria in the air, and how the plant develops lupulin,” Gilland says. Lupulin is a golden oil found in each pocket of the hop cone. “If there is gold in these hills, that’s the gold you’re mining for,” Gilland says. “It’s the flavor and bitterness of hoppy beer.” East Coast hop farming began anew in the last 15 years or so, when efforts like the North Carolina Specialty Crops Program began helping farmers diversify, particularly those who had been growing tobacco. North Carolina has about 80 hop farms, but hop growing is still unusual in Tennessee. In July and August, Gilland’s hop vines will be covered in little cones, which can range in size from the length of a thumb to the length of a fingernail. When Gilland brushes against them, he’ll walk away smelling like beer. In some respects, hop farming is easy; hops require few, if any, chemicals or fertilizers. Once trained up the trellis, they just have to be picked and dried.
But that can be tougher than you’d think. Each plant produced 500 to 1,000 hops. Even with mediocre yields, Gilland is picking half a million hops a summer. First he pulls down the vines, which are scratchy in a painful way, like insulation. Picking the hops off is labor-intensive, so he makes a party of it. Gilland brews some beer and feeds his friends a big meal in exchange for their help—not unlike what people in Townsend did during harvests and barn raisings 150 years ago. “We spend an evening in the parking lot picking them off and eating and having a big ol’ time,” he says. Gilland has been using industrial dehydration units to dry the hops, but it can’t keep up with an increased harvest. So he’s interested in converting a wooden outbuilding— once his grandparents’ portable logging cabin— into a smoking shed. It’s hard to believe the dark, cramped space once housed a family. Can’t you just see this as a stop on a future hop farm tour? “I’d like to turn hop yards into vineyards,” Gilland says, complete with tours and tastings. At a wooden picnic table next to his hop field, Gilland opens a glass jar. “This used to be called ‘poor man’s asparagus,’” he says. The jar contains long, spindly hop stems pickled with vinegar and herbs. While they’re a little difficult to manipulate into your mouth, the taste is strong, spicy, and addictive. Hops are a natural preservative, so Gilland cans vegetables using beer and vinegar. Gilland chose to grow hops instead of becoming a professional brewer because, he says, “If I’m a brewer, even if I’m great, I’ve got to beat 2,000 other people. But if I grow hops, I’m in the game from day one, and I’m guiding the beer.”
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A&E
P rogram Notes
Alive and Well The nief-norf Summer Festival keeps the beat of contemporary classical music
Sunn O))) Set Drone-doom band unleashes a slew of live recordings, including a 2009 Knoxville concert In September 2009, Sunn O))) filled the century-old Bijou Theatre with smoke and a stomach-churning deconstruction of heavy metal theatrics. The core duo of Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson was joined by Steve Moore on keyboards and trombone and Hungarian underground legend Attila Csihar on vocals. Dressed in robes, O’Malley and Anderson stood as still as statues during the entire 80-minute ritual; Csihar, hidden behind a horror-movie mask, took center stage and delivered a barrage of mostly wordless vocalizations. It was an unlikely performance in one of Knoxville’s grandest venues, as the size of the audience would attest—the auditorium was well under half full. But most of those who attended the show will remember it distinctly. For those who don’t, or who didn’t make it, a recording of that concert and 66 other Sunn O))) shows have just been released on the group’s new Bandcamp page of live archives from 2002 to the present, featuring “unmixed, unmastered raw footage captured via underground tapers & fans.” A kind of Dick’s Picks for experimental doom fans, the new Bandcamp page (sunn-live. bandcamp.com) showcases the band over more than a decade in various permutations—as a duo, as a trio, and at least once as a sextet, and in collaboration with Moore, Csihar, and other notable underground figures like Oren Ambarchi, Joe Preston, Mark Deutrom, and Daniel O’Sullivan. The earliest show is from August 2002; the most recent was recorded on May 30 in Bristol, England. All 67 sets are available for free streaming or as a download for $5. Proceeds will fund “future O))) actions.” If you have any audio or video recordings or photos, send them to sunn@ southernlord.com. —Matthew Everett
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Shelf Life: Film of the Month Club
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
T
he nief-norf Summer Festival isn’t like other Knoxville music festivals. The annual two-week event, which is taking place on the University of Tennessee campus and downtown through June 19, combines public performances with academic lectures and workshops focused on contemporary classical music and attracts young performers, scholars, and composers from around the world. Much of it takes place out of the public spotlight, in the classrooms and rehearsal studios of UT’s new Natalie L. Haslam Music Center. “A template for the day-to-day schedule for the fellows would be rehearsal from 9 a.m. to noon, with some master classes in there,” says Andrew Bliss, the director of percussion studies at UT and a founder of the festival and its associated performance ensemble. “The composers are getting lessons —I just gave a class this morning on how to write for percussion for composers. Then we go to lunch, and after lunch there’s typically lectures for an hour or so and rehearsals and composition lessons.” Following a break for dinner, there are either performances—seven concerts in all, at Remedy Coffee, the Square Room, and UT’s Music Center—or more rehearsals. The festival is an outgrowth of the nief-norf performance ensemble, a concert group established by Bliss and the scholar/performer Kerry O’Brien in 2005. (The name is an “onomatopoetic neologism” that stands for “any new music that was experimental or avant-garde,” according to the group’s website.) At the time, Bliss was a graduate student at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He started the
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Music: Count this Penny
festival in 2011, just before joining the faculty at UT. A colleague at Furman University, in South Carolina, offered to host the festival, and it stayed there for three more years. This is the first year it’s been held in Knoxville. “We did it for four years and then this year made the group decision to move it here to Knoxville,” Bliss says. “This new music center and me living here now, it made sense in a variety of ways. So it’s here for good.” The ensemble has had some presence in Knoxville since Bliss arrived here—every year, they facilitate a crowd performance of Phil Kline’s boom-box piece Unsilent Night, and last year the group performed Pulitzer-winning composer John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit, with the composer in attendance, at Ijams Nature Center. But the festival itself gives the group a higher profile in the local concert-music community and provides a platform for Bliss’ mission of promoting contemporary music. “We try to get rid of this notion that composition is a thing of the past,” he says. “We see these big portraits of Beethoven and think that
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all composers are old white guys from hundreds of years ago, but it’s not that way. We try to celebrate a diverse roster of composers and work with them in a variety of ways—commissioning and premiering their works— to support this idea that classical music is alive and well and there are many interesting things happening out there. … We’re not going into this asking questions like, is this music? That’s not interesting to us. We’re asking things like, is this interesting? We try to have very open ears about the types of music we’re producing.” Part of the reason for the group’s focus on contemporary music is that Bliss’ expertise is in percussion, and classical music written for percussion is almost by default music composed after World War II. “Percussion innately lends itself to contemporary music,” Bliss says. “Our founding fathers of art music for percussion are John Cage and Iannis Xenakis and Stockhausen. These are the people who wrote the earliest pieces for percussion in a ‘classical’ sense. We always say Xenakis is like our Bach. That’s just our repertoire. We don’t think of it as new or gnarly or forward-thinking or radical. This is who I am and what I do.” The nief-norf Summer Festival closes with a final concert on Friday, June 19, at 5 p.m. at the UT Music Center. —M.E.
Movie: Jurassic World
Shelf Life
A&E
The Benefits of Membership The best of film-of-the-month club Film Movement at Knox Co. Public Library BY CHRIS BARRETT
T
he film-of-the-month club Film Movement offers terrific content at a premium price. Alas, the indie and international films in which the service traffics aren’t generating much in the way of box-office or broadcast revenue. They are typically devoid of stylized or gratuitous violence— though those set in Third World locales occasionally make reference to traumatizing circumstances. They are generally thoughtful films, often with festival-award pedigrees, seemingly made for reasons not much in play around 21st-century Hollywood. Fortunately, your public library subscribes on your behalf.
BROKEN
The parallels between this film and 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird are many. Patient and ruminative single father Archie (Tim Roth, in one of his most flattering roles) descends from Atticus Finch. His adventurous tomboy daughter, Skunk (Eloise Laurence), would probably answer to the name Scout. In and around a British row-house cul-de-sac, Skunk susses out the final days of her childhood. Her innocence is about to be kiboshed by the random hammers of mental illness, exhausted romantic passion among her favorite adults, and three of the meanest sisters you’ll ever encounter. Director Rufus Norris’ ability to believably resolve this
block-long train wreck without a bulldozer is fascinating and makes you want to take notes for next time your own world gets derailed.
young immigrant caretaker, this film is an exercise in dread and its deferment. Companion and servant Marcella cultivates a dependent friendship with the sly, still-handsome Amador, who dispenses sage advice and foreshadowing in equal measures. We watch as Marcella quietly inventories what she wants compared to what she needs, and watches those wish lists change instantly as they are fulfilled. It’s unlikely that you’ve ever had such a pleasing and hopeful story make you so anxious.
THE DAY I SAW YOUR HEART
Mélanie Laurent (introduced to American audiences by Quentin Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds) plays the gorgeous, ditzy, and lovable Justine. While Justine is best described as restless with regard to romance, her emotionally adolescent father, Eli (Michel Blanc), is about to have a child with a much younger second wife. After years of estrangement, Eli attempts to get to know his daughter by chumming with her many exes. What could possibly go wrong?
AMADOR
Set almost entirely in the small, nondescript Spanish apartment of Amador, an ailing retiree whose absent adult daughter has hired a
2 AUTUMNS, 3 WINTERS
French filmmaker Sébastien Betbeder crafted this European rom-com/ drama, which introduces two handsome couples whose love lives are alternately assisted and thwarted by chance, physics, late-arriving maturity, and the occasional laziness and bad behavior of the individual participants. Arman (Vincent Macaigne) pursues Amélie (Maud Wyler), who begins somewhere between indifferent and hard to get but ultimately makes a delightful girlfriend. A predictable process couples Arman’s friend Benjamin (Bastien Bouillon) with Katia (Audrey Bastien), who together and separately chasten their underappreciative friends by example. This film employs a surprising narrative technique—not to be divulged—that proves alarmingly effective. ◆ June 18, 2015
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Music
Home Companions Allen and Amanda Rigell look for a new place in their old home BY JOE TARR
A
llen and Amanda Rigell, a husband and wife who perform under the name Count This Penny, both grew up in Oak Ridge, well versed in the Americana music traditions of East Tennessee. But it wasn’t until the couple landed in Madison, Wis., that their band began to take off. The couple moved to Madison in 2010 for Allen’s psychiatry residency. While there, they released a string of well-regarded recordings and became an integral part of the music scene. And they made a lot of friends, including me. The couple plays folk and country, with strong emphasis on harmony and storytelling. Performing live, they trade off lead vocals with almost each song, and also trade off guitar and bass.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
With Rigell’s residency complete, the couple returned to their roots and families in East Tennessee this summer. While they’re thrilled to be back, the prospects of leaving one music scene where they are adored for another where they’re scarcely known is daunting. “It’s a combination of apprehension and excitement,” Allen says. “We had a little bit of street cred and respect coming into the Midwest because we were from the Southeast. I don’t know if that was earned or not. I have no idea how we’ll fit into this community. But we have a few friends who are welcoming and encouraging.” Early signs are hopeful. The group played the Rhythm N’ Blooms festival in April and were thrilled by
what they saw and heard. “It was so much fun and the community we saw was so reassuring,” says Amanda. “We love how the festival respected local artists. It’s great to think we have the option to be local artists in Knoxville. We’ll see if there’s a place for us. Usually what makes a good music scene is people busting their asses. And we know that’s happening in Knoxville.” Although Allen and Amanda grew up in the same town, they didn’t become a couple until they were in college together at Emory University in Atlanta. They began playing as a group while living in Johnson City, while Allen was going through medical school at East Tennessee State University. Their debut EP, Gone, was released in 2010. Later that year, they moved to Madison, where, to their surprise, they were quickly embraced by the local music scene. They added a great banjo player, John Ray. The scene in Madison also influenced their music, with the band eventually adding a guitarist and drummer for last year’s Wolves Are Sheep. The duo excels at narrative songwriting. True to Appalachia, many of their songs are stark—suicide, murder, cheating, drinking, and betrayal are all confronted—but the melodies, harmonies, and choruses frequently soar. Some of their songs have almost become anthems in Madison. “Big Tall Pines,” a ballad about a woman who kills her no-good cheating lover, has become a particular favorite there, never failing to get audiences singing along.
Count This Penny’s breakout year was 2012—they landed a coveted spot on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion when the show visited Milwaukee and released the fulllength Pitchman that year. Back in East Tennessee, they’re a duo again. They have a June 24 show lined up at the Grey Eagle in Asheville, though, as of yet, no Knoxville dates. For now they’re taking their time getting settled. “We haven’t been booking shows, but we’ve still been writing and playing,” Allen says. “Sometimes not being in a routine can be helpful from a creative aspect.” It’s not as though Count This Penny—the group takes its name from a Sesame Street skit where John John asks Grover to “count this penny” in his hand—is completely unknown in Knoxville. The couple has played numerous shows around town, as well as in Johnson City, and they’ve been featured on WDVX’s Blue Plate Special. Still, for them, the scene is relatively new, and they’re looking forward to discovering it. “What we really liked about Madison is it’s so accessible,” says Amanda. “It’s a small city and Knoxville is similar in many ways.” Being in a small city can make getting out of your comfort zone a little easier. “We’re so genre-bound in terms of the people we get to know,” Amanda says. “I have no idea what the punk scene or DIY scene is like here. So having a scene that’s really easy to explore is great. We’re looking forward to the exploration.” ◆
Usually what makes a good music scene is people busting their asses. And we know that’s happening in Knoxville. —COUNT THIS PENNY’S AMANDA RIGELL
Movies
Feed the Beast Jurassic World delivers the dinos but falls short in every other way BY APRIL SNELLINGS
T
here’s an embarrassment of dinosaurs in Jurassic World, and they’re eager to please. They chase people, of course, and dutifully devour the ones they catch. But they also fly, dive, swim, fight, connive, strategize, communicate, and do everything else that could possibly be asked of them in a 21st-century blockbuster, short of morphing into robots or hitting Vegas for a booze-fueled all-nighter. These are hard-working critters, and if you’re only showing up for the dinosaur action, Jurassic World won’t disappoint. Even the most dedicated dinos can’t carry a movie without some human help, though, and these poor monsters are on their own in the latest attempt to get the franchise back on track. Though it smartly banishes parts two and three from the series’ continuity, Jurassic World doesn’t capture any of the old-fashioned movie magic that made Jurassic Park a pop-culture phenomenon. The film picks up 20-something years after Dr. Alan Grant and company left Isla Nublar in their helicopter’s
rearview mirror. The disaster that befell the original Jurassic Park looms large over Jurassic World, a luxury theme park looking for a way to boost its waning attendance. It seems the vacationing public, not to mention the park’s corporate sponsors, have grown bored with dinosaurs—a plight with which the filmmakers can certainly sympathize. Even the mighty tyrannosaurus has become ho-hum. The solution is to genetically engineer a monster so pants-wettingly terrifying that it must be kept in total isolation. That would be Indominus rex, an albino chimera stitched together from the DNA of the world’s most dangerous predators. Indominus can claim reigning franchise heavy T. rex as her genetic baseline, but she promptly gives her predecessor the ol’ All About Eve treatment and takes over as this installment’s boss monster. Cue the tech malfunctions, running, and screaming. If the Indominus rex was conceived in a lab, it feels like the rest of the movie was cooked up in focus groups. Jurassic World boasts four
screenwriters, including director Colin Trevorrow, but none of them have managed to recapture the first film’s sense of wonder and adventure. It’s not for lack of trying. Jurassic World spends most of its two-hour running time aping Steven Spielberg’s 1993 game-changer, but it picks the wrong elements to emulate. The original film—for which I have endless affection, by the way—had glimmers of progressiveness and hints of subversion, with its trio of smartypants heroes (a paleontologist, a botanist, and a mathematician). Jurassic World wants no part of that, and the first of many missteps is to head up the cast of characters with a pair of lifeless clichés. First there’s Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), a stuffy park executive who must play hostess to her visiting nephews (Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson). Then there’s her jilted lover, Owen (Chris Pratt), an easygoing hunk who can communicate with, and exert some influence over, velociraptors because he was in the Navy. (Don’t ask me.) It’s a sad state of affairs when Pratt can’t class up a joint, but he’s got no room to maneuver in Jurassic World. Owen’s defining characteristic is looking good in a tight T-shirt; he turns manliness into a verb as he sweats and flexes his way through each of the movie’s de rigueur plot
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points. Claire gets the same one-dimensional treatment as she blusters, screams, sheds clothing, and refuses to ditch her high heels, even when dinos are in hot pursuit. The roster of cut-and-paste characters is rounded out by Vincent D’Onofrio as a scheming military contractor who wants to weaponize Owen’s pack of raptors; Irrfan Kahn as the park’s deep-pocketed but short-sighted billionaire owner; and B.D. Wong as the not-atall-mad scientist who whips up nightmares in his lab. Trevorrow, whose only prior feature credit is the art-house sci-fi charmer Safety Not Guaranteed, might have been a terrific choice to revive the franchise, but he’s been reduced to strictly director-for-hire status here. It’s impossible to know whether control was wrested from him by the studio or if he was just too awed or intimidated by the presence of executive producer Spielberg. Either way, Jurassic World has a depressing tendency to pander to its predecessor, going so far as to recycle entire sequences with only minor tweaks. Maybe it doesn’t matter that the movie is so predictable and lifeless, because Jurassic World is all about dinosaurs and, at least on that count, it delivers. The third-act interspecies melee is chompy enough to earn the ticket price, even if the movie is a letdown in every other way. ◆ June 18, 2015
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CALENDAR MUSIC
Thursday, June 18 JOSIAH ATCHLEY • Historic Southern Railway Station • 8PM • Part of the Southern Station Live concert series. AUTOMATIC STOPS WITH AS A FRIEND AND KERCHIEF • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM CRYSTAL BRIGHT AND THE SILVER HANDS • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM • Crystal Bright has an eclectic, haunting but yet whimsical, carnivalesque world folk sound, dubbed “kaleidophrenic cabaret.” THE CLAYMATION QUINTET • Preservation Pub • 7:30PM • FREE JAY ERIC • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7PM 2015 STEVE KAUFMAN CONCERT SERIES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Featuring instructors from Steve Kaufman’s summer instrumental camps. Shows will be held Monday through Friday, June 15-26. Individual tickets are $20. Passes for all 10 shows are $85. • $20 KNOXVILLE’S FINEST BAND • Market Square • 7PM • Part of the city of Knoxville’s spring series of free concerts on Market Square. • FREE SOLO SAM LAUGHERTY • Edgewood Park • 7PM • The Edgewood Park Neighborhood Association invites you to share an evening of music and community building at the inaugural event in a three month series titled “Third Thursday Music in the Edgewood Gazebo”. • FREE LINEAR DOWNFALL • Pilot Light • 10PM • $5 THE LONETONES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM MARBLE CITY SHOOTERS • Central Flats and Taps • 7PM THE ETHAN PARKER BAND WITH DAVID PLATILERO AND KIRSTEN ARIAN • The Square Room • 8PM • The Ethan Parker Band will be going on a 60 city tour over the next year partnering with a nonprofit organization called Project Primavera, where they will play at local venues as well as Children home’s across America. The goal is more that just putting on amazing concerts, but to also provide hope for orphans and at-risk youth in each city in which they travel. THE THIRST QUENCHERS • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM • The Ps and Qs house band. THE CHARLES WALKER BAND • Preservation Pub • 10PM JIM WHITE VS. THE PARKWAY HANDLE BAND WITH DAVIE AND THE UNTAMED • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE • See Music Story on page 22. JIM WHITE VS. THE PARKWAY HANDLE BAND • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Jim White’s blend of country, folk, and rock meets The Packway Handle Band’s high-energy roots-grass style in this much-anticipated collaborative album. • See Music Story on page 22. Friday, June 19 JOSIAH ATCHLEY WITH ZULU WAVE AND MODEL INMATES • Preservation Pub • 10PM • See Spotlight. BLUE MOTHER TUPELO • Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center (Townsend) • 7PM • $5 BLUEGRASS DRIFTERS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE TAMARA BROWN • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE COUSIN CLYDE WITH THE SACRED • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM THE ENIGMATIC FOE • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE LARRY GOODWIN • Jimmy’s Place • 6PM • Buffett covers, 28
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
Thursday, June 18 - Sunday, June 28
beach tunes, and more. All ages. • FREE 2015 STEVE KAUFMAN CONCERT SERIES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Featuring instructors from Steve Kaufman’s summer instrumental camps. Shows will be held Monday through Friday, June 15-26. Individual tickets are $20. Passes for all 10 shows are $85. • $20 KOAN SOUND • The Concourse • 9PM • KOAN Sound is an electronic music act consisting of Will Weeks and Jim Bastow, both hailing from Bristol, UK. The group’s early origins and influences lie mainly in acoustic based music, from bands such as Incubus to RATM, but it wasn’t until 2005 that the duo became immersed in electronic music through acts such as Noisia and The Prodigy. Soon after, the growing Dubstep scene in Bristol began to inform their productions, eventually leading to a string of releases on various labels.Presented by Midnight Voyage Productions. 18 and up. • $10-$15 KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • The summer series of Alive After Five swings into action with Latin and Gypsy Jazz. • $10 LIL IFFY WITH SPOKEN NERD AND YOU JUST DON’T • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 6PM • LiL iFFy’s march to extinction returns to Knoxville. • $5 MAGNOLIA SONS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM MARBLE CITY SHOOTERS • Casual Pint (Fountain City) • 7PM • FREE MOBILITY CHIEF WITH LINES TAKING SHAPE AND MESMER TEA • Pilot Light • 10PM • Local prog band Mobility Chief headlines its final show. • $5 • See Program Notes on page 20. SUSAN PRINCE • Susan’s Happy Hour • 8PM • FREE ALANNA ROYALE WITH CALEB HAWLEY AND MATHIEN • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM • $8 STEVE RUTLEDGE • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Instrumental and vocal jazz standards. SUPERSONIC SOUND OF THE ‘70S • Twisted Mike’s • 9PM • Classic dance-rock and disco. TALL PAUL WITH KRISTI BOBAL, ASHLEE K AND TALIA KEYS • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7PM ROGER ALAN WADE WITH THE ADAM POPE BAND • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE ROGER ALAN WADE WITH BRANDON FULSON AND THE REALBILLYS • The Bowery • 8PM • Roger Alan Wade has written songs for Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Jr., Karen O. and a host of others. Wade’s songs “If You’re Gonna be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough”, “Sometimes I Don’t Know If I’ll Make It” and “Stoned Traveler” made it to the silver screen in Hollywood hit movies “Jackass, The Movie”, “Jackass #2”, “Jackass 2.5” and “Bad Grandpa”. • $8 Saturday, June 20 3 MILE SMILE • Jimmy’s Place • 6PM • All ages. • FREE ANNANDALE WITH POYNTE AND OSARA • The Bowery • 8PM • 18 and up. • $8 THE CELTS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE ANTHONY D’AMATO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Recorded with members of Bon Iver, Megafaun, and Josh Ritter’s band, Anthony D’Amato’s New West Records debut, The Shipwreck From The Shore, has already earned praise from NPR and The NY Times to SPIN and Billboard for its heavy-hearted folk and electric streaks of rock and roll.
FREEQUENCY • Willy’s Bar and Grill • 7PM THE HACKENSAW BOYS • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM MATTHEW HICKEY BAND • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7:30PM HOMEMADE WINE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. K-TOWN MAFIA • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM THE RERUNS • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Knoxville’s premier TV band plays your favorite television themes. THE JAMES SEATON TRIO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM BILLY JOE SHAVER WITH MIC HARRISON AND THE HIGH
SCORE • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 8PM • Billy Joe Shaver is the classic country music outlaw. In the early 1970s, while Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, already established figures in the music industry, were fighting executive-level battles over the Music City business model, Shaver was a broke Nashville bum, playing bars and pitching his songs to whoever would listen. In 1972, Shaver cornered Jennings at a recording session and strong-armed him into listening to his songs. By the end of the day, Jennings had agreed to record an entire album of Shaver’s songs. The
ZULU WAVE Preservation Pub (28 Market Square) • Friday, June 19 • 10 p.m. • 21 and up • preservationpub.com
Zulu Wave has a hard time labeling their own music, and so does everybody else. The Tampa quartet settled for “noise rock” on its Facebook page, but the band’s Bandcamp profile notes that “someone once called us ‘Afro Jazz Punk.’” That genre confusion is the band’s signature: Dissonant guitars, jazzy drums, hypnotic keyboard textures, and Afrobeat grooves combine into a heady psych-prog stew that sounds like pretty much no other modern rock band. Formed in 2011 by British/South African frontman/guitarist Michael Barrow and keyboardist Ariel Cortes, Zulu Wave released two solid, small-scale EPs—2011’s Theep and the following year’s Nyami Nyami—before reaching a new plateau with 2014’s debut album, Jagorilla. Epics like “Bowakozi” and “So Cool” showcase the band’s artful eeriness, and Barrow unearths bizarre melodrama with his hiccuping, soulful yelp. Despite regional success and opening slots for bands like Surfer Blood and Gringo Starr, Zulu Wave continues to fly below the radar. That’s a shame. Their hour-long Preservation Pub set probably won’t draw huge numbers, but it’s hard to imagine them not blowing the room apart. With Josiah Atchley and the Greater Good and Model Inmates. (Ryan Reed)
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Spotlight: Jonah Parzen-Johnson
CALENDAR resulting disc, Honky Tonk Heroes, was released in the summer of 1973 and could have been Shaver’s big break. But while Jennings rode Shaver’s songs to fame and fortune at the forefront of the outlaw movement, Shaver, thanks to a tumultuous personality and a run of bad luck, never found mainstream success. He got his own deal in the wake of Jennings’ success and later in 1973 delivered his own early outlaw classic, Old Five and Dimers Like Me, which reprised four songs from Jennings’ album. The disc was a commercial dud but turned into an influential cult classic—over the years, Shaver has recorded some fine albums, but none has come close to the singular accomplishment of Old Five and Dimers. • $25 BEN SHUSTER • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE STEPH STEWART AND THE BOYFRIENDS WITH LAUREL WRIGHT • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE THRILL IS GONE … BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: A TRIBUTE TO B.B. KING • Relix Variety Theatre • 8PM • After a long and legendary career, “The King of the Blues” passed away on May 14. He was one of the most beloved and influential musicians of all time. Coming together to pay tribute are some of Knoxville’s finest performers, including Labron Lazenby, Michael Crawley, “Detroit” Dave Meer, Davis Mitchell, Jay Mac, and many more. • $8 THE JOEY WINSLETT BAND • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Although the Joey Winslett Band’s style is primarily influenced by Rock n Roll and Blues, the Joey Winslett Band is a group that is hard to slap a genre on. They are based out of Chattanooga, TN and they include a group of very different musicians with very different genre styles. All ages. • $8 THE WILL YAGER TRIO • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE Sunday, June 21 THE BAD IDOLS • Longbranch Saloon • 1PM CYMBALS EAT GUITARS • Pilot Light • 10PM • It’s several years since Cymbals Eat Guitars, fronted by songwriter and lead vocalist Joseph D’Agostino, self released their debut album Why There Are Mountains. The record was a distillation of a modern America beyond the boundaries of Brooklyn, lyrically an update on the New York of Roth and Bellow, musically inspired by the likes of Guided by Voices and Pavement, displaying a maturity that belied their comparative youth. • $10 THE JUSTIN KALK ORCHESTRA • Preservation Pub • 10PM MAN MAN WITH ED SCHRADER’S MUSIC BEAT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Man Man is a fearlessly unique band from Philadelphia. The group’s fifth full length album On Oni Pond features an arresting reconstruction of the group’s visionary sound – stripped to its core and rebuilt as something new and compelling yet still very much Man Man. MIMIC • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 4PM SHIFFLETT AND HANNAH • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 1PM • Live jazz. SWINGBOOTY WITH FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • Ijams Nature Center • 5:30PM • Part of the summer Jazz at Ijams season. Monday, June 22 BURNING TURLEYS WITH SOMETHING MORE AND ALL STAR LOSERS • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM JASON ELLIS • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7PM ELIJAH OCEAN WITH B. SNIPES • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime
concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE GOOD GRACES • Preservation Pub • 10PM 2015 STEVE KAUFMAN CONCERT SERIES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Featuring instructors from Steve Kaufman’s summer instrumental camps. Shows will be held Monday through Friday, June 15-26. Individual tickets are $20. Passes for all 10 shows are $85. • $20 OPEN CHORD BATTLE OF THE BANDS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Come out to support your favorite local band and hear some great live music. Winner & runner-up will advance to the next round of competition.Judging is based on stage presence, originality, and crowd size. This means the more fans there are to watch a band perform, the better their chances are of advancing to the next round. • $5 PALE ROOT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Local Americana. Tuesday, June 23 MATT A. FOSTER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM JAZZ AROUND TOWN • Beck Cultural Exchange Center • 7PM • As part of our Jazz Around Town concert series, we’re throwing a birthday party for one of Knoxville’s jazz icons. In partnership with the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, we’re presenting a concert with tenor sax man, Lance Owens. He’ll be joined on stage by Tom Johnson, Keith Brown, Emily Mathis and Will Boyd. If you’re a musician, bring your ax--you might want to sit in. If you’re a dancer, bring your feet--you might want to dance. To paraphrase Lance, “not everyone gets to turn 92” so come out to congratulate him. Admission is free. • FREE JAZZ ON THE SQUARE • Market Square • 8PM • Featuring the Marble City 5. Every Tuesday from May 12-Aug. 25. • FREE 2015 STEVE KAUFMAN CONCERT SERIES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Featuring instructors from Steve Kaufman’s summer instrumental camps. Shows will be held Monday through Friday, June 15-26. Individual tickets are $20. Passes for all 10 shows are $85. • $20 JONAH PARZEN-JOHNSON • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 • See Spotlight on page 35. JOSHUA POWELL AND THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY WITH SHAWN TAYLOR • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE Wednesday, June 24 CLOUDSHIP • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 6:30PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE THE JONNY MONSTER BAND • Preservation Pub • 10PM 2015 STEVE KAUFMAN CONCERT SERIES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Featuring instructors from Steve Kaufman’s summer instrumental camps. Shows will be held Monday through Friday, June 15-26. Individual tickets are $20. Passes for all 10 shows are $85. • $20 THIS MOUNTAIN • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Johnson City folk-rock. • $10 Thursday, June 25 ASHES TO LAKESHORE • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM MATT BREWSTER DUO • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7PM June 18, 2015
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CALENDAR THE BROADCAST • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM CAPTAIN IVORY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Greasy Rock n’ Roll meets Motor City Soul. GHOSTWRITER WITH THE BLAINE BAND AND HAILEY WOJCIK • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 THE GREYHOUNDS WITH MUDDY RUCKUS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE GREYHOUNDS WITH DEVAN JONES AND THE UPTOWN STOMP • The Bowery • 7PM • 18 and up. • $10 J.C. AND THE DIRTY SMOKERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM 2015 STEVE KAUFMAN CONCERT SERIES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Featuring instructors from Steve Kaufman’s summer instrumental camps. Shows will be held Monday through Friday, June 15-26. Individual tickets are $20. Passes for all 10 shows are $85. • $20 KELSEY’S WOODS • Market Square • 7PM • Part of the city of Knoxville’s spring series of free concerts on Market Square. • FREE LIVE AT THE FILLMORE: A TRIBUTE TO THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND • The Concourse • 7PM • All ages. • $5 MUDDY RUCKUS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $3 REWIND • Clancy’s Tavern and Whiskey House • 6PM SICK OF SARAH • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All-girl rockers Sick of Sarah make their way through Knoxville on Thursday, June 25 at The Open Chord. • $10-$12 THE THIRST QUENCHERS • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer
Thursday, June 18 - Sunday, June 28
and Wine Lounge • 8PM • The Ps and Qs house band. Friday, June 26 ACOUSTIC EIDOLON • Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center (Townsend) • 7PM • $5 THE BLAIR XPERIENCE • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7:30PM KIRK FLETA • Jimmy’s Place • 6PM • Blues, rock, and soul. • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE HEADROOM WITH THE SPACETWINS, WILL AZADA, RICK STYLES, AND BORG • The Concourse • 9PM • Presented by Midnight Voyage Productions. 18 and up. • $5 2015 STEVE KAUFMAN CONCERT SERIES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Featuring instructors from Steve Kaufman’s summer instrumental camps. Shows will be held Monday through Friday, June 15-26. Individual tickets are $20. Passes for all 10 shows are $85. • $20 WHITEY MORGAN AND THE 78S • The Bowery • 8PM • Whitey Morgan and the 78’s are a Honky Tonk band from Flint, Michigan. They haven’t re-invented the wheel, they just picked it up and started it rolling all over again. • $20 THE TYLER NAIL TRIO • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE SUSAN PRINCE • Susan’s Happy Hour • 8PM • FREE PURPLE 7 WITH BIG BAD OVEN AND TANGLES • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 SINNERS AND SAINTS WITH HEYDAY REVIVAL • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week
lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Instrumental and vocal jazz standards. CHRIS STALCUP AND THE RANGE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM TINA TARMAC AND THE BURNS WITH LITTLE WAR TWINS AND AMETHYST KIAH • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM • Sara Washington provides renewed hope to all of us music-scene aficionados who secretly yearn to someday jump on stage ourselves. While that day may still never come for most of us (which is probably for the best, to be honest), former record-store clerk and longtime local-music fan Washington decided to go for it last year, fronting the new power trio Tina Tarmac and the Burns. Who knew that she’d be such an absolute natural at it?On stage, she’s got charisma to burn, alternating between snarling rock ’n’ roll intensity and sweet-natured patter. On record, that same energy—which can often get lost between stage and studio—comes through loud and clear. The Burns’ self-titled five-song EP is a full-on ear assault of raunchy, no-bullshit hard rock of a sort that’s becoming more difficult to find in these sensitive times. The band’s not so much interested in painful self-reflection or artistic expression as they are in having fun, which is an old idea that’s starting to feel new again. TALL PAUL • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM TREEHOUSE WITH DON’T FEAR THE SATELLITES AND HEYDAY REVIVAL • Preservation Pub • 9PM • 21 and up.
A TRIBUTE TO THE R&B CLASSIC HITS • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • With Donald Brown & Evelyn Jack. A fond tribute to the hits of Marvin Gaye, Chaka Khan, The Temptations, Donny Hathaway, and more. • $15 THE LARRY VINCENT GROUP • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE THE WHISKEY SESSIONS • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE WOODY PINES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Ragtime, Boogie, Viper Jazz, Lighting Speed Folk. Full of stomp and swing, and jump and jive. It’s old-time feel-good music done by a young master who clearly understands that this kind of music was always about having a great time. Saturday, June 27 AS A FRIEND • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM BRAD AUSTIN • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM BACKUP PLANET WITH CBDB • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM THE BEARDED • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE FAUN FABLES • Pilot Light • 9PM • Faun Fables are known for exquisite, visceral adventures in song & theater and riveting live performances. Faun Fables vocals ride through solid, elemental structures of guitars and percussion like Valkyries. All manner of flutes dance through the arrangements. • $8 SAMANTHA GRAY AND THE SOUL PROVIDERS • Jimmy’s Place • 6PM • Classic R&B. • FREE RAY WYLIE HUBBARD WITH BRANDY ZDAN • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • Ray Wylie Hubbard started his journey as a folk singer in his
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY Special
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Trade in your old CDs, movies & vinyl for credit towards the purchase of new & used albums and movies
2615 Chapman Hwy | 573-5710 | discexchange.com Just South of the Henley St. Bridge Across from Shoney’s Mon-Sat 10a - 9p • Sun 12p - 7p
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
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CALENDAR native Oklahoma before falling in with the wild and wooly cosmic/outlaw Texas country scene of the ’70s — in large part by way of penning the immortal “Up Against the Wall (Redneck Mother),” which Jerry Jeff Walker recorded on his seminal 1973 album ¡Viva Terlingua!. He’s moved from strength to strength ever since, recording a handful of acclaimed albums with noted producers Lloyd Maines and Gurf Morlix and cementing his standing as one of the most respected artists on the modern Americana scene. • $20 MEADOW LARK MUSIC FESTIVAL • Ijams Nature Center • 1PM • The Meadow Lark Music Festival 2015 is a day of incredible Americana music at beautiful Ijams Nature Center, just minutes from the heart of downtown Knoxville. Hosted by Ijams and community radio station WDVX, Meadow Lark is a day of music, food, and local artists. The complete lineup for this year includes Pokey LaFarge, Scott Miller & The Commonwealth Ladies Auxiliary, the Lonesome Coyotes, Emi Sunshine and the Rain, Guy Marshall, Mountain Soul, the John Myers Band, Subtle Clutch, and the Knoxville Banjo Orchestra. Tickets on sale now online and in person at Ijams and WDVX. • $20 THE NORTHERNERS WITH BILL AND ELI PERRAS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE O’POSSUM WITH REALM AND WHITE STAG • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 7PM • Local heavy rock. • $8 THE POP ROX • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine
Lounge • 8PM REDLEG HUSKY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM ROMAN REESE AND THE CARDINAL SINS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. THE RERUNS • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Knoxville’s premier TV band plays your favorite television themes. SECOND OPINION • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7:30PM BEN SHUSTER • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE THE WHISKEY SHIVERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM YELAWOLF WITH DJ KLEVER AND HILLBILLY CASINO • The International • 9PM • $15-$75
PRESENTED BY
Sunday, June 28 THE BROCKEFELLERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM DEVAN JONES AND THE UPTOWN STOMP • Star of Knoxville Riverboat • 5PM • Part of the Smoky Mountain Blues Society’s annual season of summer blues cruises. • $16-$19 SCARLET VICTORY • Longbranch Saloon • 9PM DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 1PM • Live jazz. SYDNI STINNETT AND CHAD CORN • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 4PM SUNSHINE STATION WITH MONK PARKER • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.
PRESENTED BY
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 31
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
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SONGWRITER NIGHTS
TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM
Saturday, June 20 OLD-TIME SLOW JAM • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • A monthly old-time music session, held on the third Saturday of each month. • FREE WHOLE FOODS BLUEGRASS JAM • Whole Foods • 5PM • FREE
Sunday, June 28 S.I.N. • The Concourse • 9 p.m. • A weekly dance night for service-industry workers—get in free with your ABC license or other proof of employment. ($5 for everybody else.) • 18 and up. LAYOVER BRUNCH • The Concourse • 12PM • Featuring music by Slow Nasty, Psychonaut, and Saint Thomas Ledoux. Presented by Midnight Voyage Productions on the last Sunday of each month through October. • FREE
Thursday, June 18 IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. • FREE BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM
Sunday, June 21 FAMILY FRIENDLY DRUM CIRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 4PM • Bring a drum or share one of ours. All ages from toddlers to grandparents welcome. Free. Call Ijams at 865-577-4717 ex 110 to register. • FREE Tuesday, June 23 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7PM • A weekly open mic. OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Hosted by Sarah Pickle. • FREE CHRIS MARSHALL OPEN JAM • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7PM Wednesday, June 24 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OLD-TIME JAM • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Regular speed old-time/fiddle jam every Wednesday from 7-9 p.m. at the Time Warp Tea Room. All instruments and skill levels welcome. OPEN BLUES JAM • Susan’s Happy Hour • 8PM • FREE Thursday, June 25 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. • FREE BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM Friday, June 26 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OPEN SONGWRITER NIGHT • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Songwriter Night at Time Warp Tea Room runs on the second and fourth Friday of every month. Show up around 7 p.m. with your instrument in tow and sign up to share a couple of original songs with a community of friends down in Happy Holler. • FREE
DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS
Friday, June 19 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM Saturday, June 20 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM TEMPLE • The Concourse • 9PM • Knoxville’s longest-running—and only!—alternative/goth dance night. With DJ Fallen, DJ Minge, and Z Is Not a DJ. • $5 Sunday, June 21 S.I.N. • The Concourse • 9 p.m. • A weekly dance night for service-industry workers—get in free with your ABC license or other proof of employment. ($5 for everybody else.) • 18 and up. Friday, June 26
Saturday, June 27 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Friday, June 19 NIEF-NORF SUMMER FESTIVAL CONCERT SERIES: FINAL MARATHON CONCERT • UT Haslam Music Center • 5PM • Featuring music by Aperghis, Deyoe, Grisey, Halco, Honstein, Rowan, and Salathe. Suggested Donation $10. • See Program Notes on page 24.
COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD
Sunday, June 21 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic hosted by Matt Ward. Tuesday, June 23 OPEN MIC STANDUP COMEDY • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM • Come laugh until you cry at the Longbranch every Tuesday night. Doors open at 8, first comic at 8:30. No cover charge, all are welcome. Aspiring or experienced comics interested in joining in the fun email us at longbranch.info@gmail.com to learn more, or simply come to the show a few minutes early. • FREE EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Knoxville’s long-running improv comedy troupe. • Free Sunday, June 28 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic hosted by Matt Ward.
THEATER AND DANCE
Thursday, June 18 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: THE HOBBIT • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • It’s unusual for a modern work to become a classic so quickly, but Tolkien’s “ring” stories, which began with The Hobbit, clearly are in this very special category. Bilbo, one of the most conservative of all Hobbits, is asked to leave his large, roomy and very dry home in the ground in order to set off as chief robber in an attempt to recover an important treasure. June 5-21. • $12 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: LES MISÉRABLES • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • The Tennessee Valley Players proudly present the epic and uplifting tale about the survival of the human spirit; the story is set against a nation in the throes of revolution. The musical features such songs as: “On My Own,” “One Day More,” “Do You Hear the People Sing?” and “I Dreamed a Dream,” performed by a cast of over 50 multi-talented singers
CALENDAR and actors. The show is presented “in the Round” at Carousel Theatre next to Clarence Brown Theatre on the UT Campus. Tennessee Valley Players is producing the show in collaboration with the University of Tennessee School of Music. • June 5-21 • $21 Friday, June 19 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: THE HOBBIT • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • June 5-21. • $12 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: LES MISÉRABLES • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • June 5-21 • $21 Saturday, June 20 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: LES MISÉRABLES • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • June 5-21 • $21 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: THE HOBBIT • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM and 5PM • June 5-21. • $12 Sunday, June 21 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: LES MISÉRABLES • Clarence Brown Theatre • 3PM • June 5-21 • $21 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: THE HOBBIT • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 3PM • June 5-21. • $12
FESTIVALS
Thursday, June 18 PELLISSIPPI STATE MAKERPALOOZA • Pellissippi State Community College • 10AM • Calling all makers of doodads and inventors of thingamajigs — everyone is welcome to submit his or her creations at Pellissippi State Community College’s inaugural MakerPalooza in June. MakerPalooza brings together creative sorts of all ages to show off their work. Perhaps it’s a computer program or a 3D printed item. Or a painting or sculpture. Or a remote-controlled vehicle, a hack, a rocket or a delicious cake. Bottom line: If it’s original and created, fabricated or otherwise made by an individual, Pellissippi State welcomes the creator to register at www.pstcc.edu/emt. • FREE Saturday, June 20 KNOXVILLE BREWFEST • Historic Southern Railway Station • 4PM • This celebration of beer features over 80 breweries, hundreds of beers and over 2,500 passionate craft beer fans. Knoxville Brewfest 2015 will be held from 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. near the Southern Railway Station on the Gay Street viaduct and Depot Avenue in downtown Knoxville. Tickets include admission to Brewfest, a tasting glass, a Fest map, and beer tasting. The event is being organized to help raise money to find a cure for Duchenne. Duchenne is a devastating muscle disease that impacts 1 in 3,500 boys. Boys are usually diagnosed with Duchenne by the age of 5, in a wheelchair by 12 and most do not survive their mid-20s. • $40-$50 KNOXVILLE PRIDEFEST PARADE AND FESTIVAL • Downtown Knoxville • 12PM • The Pridefest Parade, the annual kickoff to Knoxville Pridefest, starts at the corner of Gay Street and Jackson Avenue and turns right onto Clinch Avenue, then heads toward World’s Fair Park, where the festival proper runs from 1-8 p.m., with vendors, information booths, and music by nearly a dozen acts, including Karen E. Reynolds, the Pop Rox, and headliner Joan Osborne. • FREE LAVENDAR FESTIVAL • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM • Celebrating all things herbal, the Lavender Festival returns for its 17th year on Saturday, June 20th in Historic Jackson Square, on Broadway Avenue in Oak Ridge. The festival is from 8 am to 3 pm, and admission is free. The Lavender Festival focuses on herbs, health, gardening and cooking, and features more than 100 vendors, a
dozen herb and health presentations, children’s€™s activities and many live musicians. Vendors will line the covered walkways of Jackson Square, the parking lot, and both sides of Broadway Avenue, which will be closed to traffic. • FREE SUMMER KICKOFF OLD CITY PUB CRAWL • The Old City • 9PM • On Saturday June 20th the Old City welcomes summer with a Pub Crawl including Carleo’s, Wagon Wheel, Hanna’s, Southbound, 90 Proof, NV Nightclub and The Bowery all for only $5 in advance. Ticket/Wristbands can also be purchased for only $7 day of the event. 7 Venues for only $7 on a Saturday Night in the Old City to help kick off Summer. • $5-$7 Thursday, June 25 KUUMBA FESTIVAL • East Tennessee History Center • 12PM • The Kuumba Festival serves as the largest African American Cultural Arts Festival in East Tennessee. Every year the festival is a Four day and four night multi-event celebration with hundreds of entertainers performing throughout the festival. There will be live Entertainment with a world class African Marketplace that will host Many crafts and food vendors for your cultural shopping experience. Friday, June 26 SUMMER ON BROADWAY AND BBQ BASH • Founders Park (Maryville) • The 2015 Big BBQ Bash is set for June 26-27 at Founder’s Square in historic downtown Maryville, TN, located at the scenic foothills of the Smoky Mountains. The event is a barbecue cook-off and fundraiser for the Helen Ross McNabb Center, created by the Leadership Blount Class of 2007. Admission is free to the public on Friday and Saturday. Competing BBQ teams may charge a fee per plate to the public on Saturday; giving attendees the chance to taste some of the best barbecue in the south. A variety of vendors will also be set-up to feed and entertain guests of all ages. BBQ teams are invited to “smoke up or shut up” by cooking their best barbecue. Categories include Wampler’s Sausage, pork, chicken, ribs, beef brisket and “anything butt.” Prize money totaling $7,000 will be awarded. This year the Big BBQ Bash is a Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS) sanctioned competition. KCBS sanctions barbecue and grilling competitions across the U.S. and promotes barbecue as America’s cuisine. In addition, KCBS has an extensive Certified Barbecue Judging program. It is the largest society of barbecue enthusiasts in the world. Governor Bill Haslam has proclaimed the Blount County Big BBQ Bash as a state championship, making the competition a qualifier for the American Royal Barbecue Cook-Off and Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue. The 2014 competition will also be the third leg of The Triple Crown, a series of barbecue competitions in Knoxville, Sevierville and Maryville. HOPS IN THE HILLS • Founders Park (Maryville) • From the bine to the glass . . . as part of this celebration, we will be hosting two seminars. The Hops seminar will launch a conversation into the agriculture involved in artisan brewing. Along with a discussion of the art of crafting a fine brew, the Craft Beer 101 seminar will introduce you to some of the best brewers and specialists in the area. Hops in The Hills is the anchor event to Summer on Broadway, which will include The Big BBQ Bash*, Last Friday Art Walk, Maryville Farmers Market, and many other activities. KUUMBA FESTIVAL • Market Square • 5PM • The Kuumba Festival serves as the largest African American Cultural Arts Festival in East Tennessee. Every year the festival is a Four day and four night multi-event celebration with
Live Music | Dancing | Spirits | Food & Fun! 865-525-6101 • KNOXART.ORG SELECTED FRIDAYS @ 6:00 - 8:30pm SUMMER SERIES
June 19th featuring Kukuly & The Gypsy Fuego June 26th featuring “Tribute To The R&B Classic Hits” with Donald Brown & Evelyn Jack July 10th featuring John Myers Band July 17th featuring The Streamliners Swing Orchestra July 24th featuring RJ Mishcho with Devan Jones & The Uptown Stomp July 31st featuring Jazzspirations with Brian Clay August 7th featuring Soul Connection August 14th featuring Tee Dee Young
June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33
CALENDAR
Thursday, June 18 - Sunday, June 28
hundreds of entertainers performing throughout the festival. There will be live Entertainment with a world class African Marketplace that will host Many crafts and food vendors for your cultural shopping experience. • FREE
throughout the festival. There will be live Entertainment with a world class African Marketplace that will host Many crafts and food vendors for your cultural shopping experience. • FREE
Saturday, June 27 SUMMER ON BROADWAY AND BBQ BASH • Founders Park (Maryville) HOPS IN THE HILLS • Founders Park (Maryville) KUUMBA FESTIVAL • Morningside Park • 12PM • The Kuumba Festival serves as the largest African American Cultural Arts Festival in East Tennessee. Every year the festival is a Four day and four night multi-event celebration with hundreds of entertainers performing throughout the festival. There will be live Entertainment with a world class African Marketplace that will host Many crafts and food vendors for your cultural shopping experience. • FREE FIRE ON THE WATER • Sequoyah Marina • 2PM • The largest 4th of July Fireworks show on Norris Lake. Enjoy food and fun on Norris Lake at Sequoyah Marina. For more information, call 865-494-7984 or visit www. sequoyahmarina.net.
SPORTS AND RECREATION
Sunday, June 28 KUUMBA FESTIVAL • Morningside Park • 12PM • The Kuumba Festival serves as the largest African American Cultural Arts Festival in East Tennessee. Every year the festival is a Four day and four night multi-event celebration with hundreds of entertainers performing
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
Friday, June 26 MUSIC: BEST SERVED COLD • Ice Chalet • 7PM • Visit Knoxville is delighted to announce that the revolutionary event, Music: Best Served Cold, a collaboration between ice skating group Ice Cold Combos and Virginian band The Northerners, will be coming to Knoxville. The show will be performed from June 26th - 28th at 7:00pm, located at The Ice Chalet. This show offers an immersive and involved experience for the viewer with 360 degree views of the action. Eleven World-Class Skaters from all over North America will be performing in the show. Breaking the stereotype of classical music and fancy dress typically associated with ice skating, Ice Cold Combos’ partnership with The Northerners offers a completely new angle on each form of entertainment. The experience as an audience member has been likened to that of listening to a local band play at a bar. However, in this case, the audience is in the middle of the action as opposed to just watching. The performers will mingle with the viewers between sets of hard-hitting numbers combined with equally intense
choreography. Saturday, June 27 MUSIC: BEST SERVED COLD • Ice Chalet • 7PM • Visit Knoxville is delighted to announce that the revolutionary event, Music: Best Served Cold, a collaboration between ice skating group Ice Cold Combos and Virginian band The Northerners, will be coming to Knoxville. The show will be performed from June 26th - 28th at 7:00pm, located at The Ice Chalet. This show offers an immersive and involved experience for the viewer with 360 degree views of the action. Eleven World-Class Skaters from all over North America will be performing in the show. Breaking the stereotype of classical music and fancy dress typically associated with ice skating, Ice Cold Combos’ partnership with The Northerners offers a completely new angle on each form of entertainment. The experience as an audience member has been likened to that of listening to a local band play at a bar. However, in this case, the audience is in the middle of the action as opposed to just watching. The performers will mingle with the viewers between sets of hard-hitting numbers combined with equally intense choreography. Sunday, June 28 MUSIC: BEST SERVED COLD • Ice Chalet • 7PM • Visit Knoxville is delighted to announce that the revolutionary event, Music: Best Served Cold, a collaboration between ice skating group Ice Cold Combos and Virginian band The Northerners, will be coming to Knoxville. The show
will be performed from June 26th - 28th at 7:00pm, located at The Ice Chalet. This show offers an immersive and involved experience for the viewer with 360 degree views of the action. Eleven World-Class Skaters from all over North America will be performing in the show. Breaking the stereotype of classical music and fancy dress typically associated with ice skating, Ice Cold Combos’ partnership with The Northerners offers a completely new angle on each form of entertainment. The experience as an audience member has been likened to that of listening to a local band play at a bar. However, in this case, the audience is in the middle of the action as opposed to just watching. The performers will mingle with the viewers between sets of hard-hitting numbers combined with equally intense choreography.
FILM SCREENINGS
Friday, June 19 SUMMER MOVIE MAGIC SERIES: ‘RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK’ • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • Played by Harrison Ford, renowned archaeologist and expert in the occult, Dr. Indiana Jones, is hired by the U.S. Government in 1936 to find the Ark of the Covenant, which is believed to still hold the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, agents of Hitler are also after the Ark. Indy, and his ex-flame Marion, escape from various close scrapes in a quest that takes them from Nepal to Cairo. • $9 Sunday, June 21
CALENDAR SUMMER MOVIE MAGIC SERIES: ‘RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK’ • Tennessee Theatre • 2PM • Played by Harrison Ford, renowned archaeologist and expert in the occult, Dr. Indiana Jones, is hired by the U.S. Government in 1936 to find the Ark of the Covenant, which is believed to still hold the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, agents of Hitler are also after the Ark. Indy, and his ex-flame Marion, escape from various close scrapes in a quest that takes them from Nepal to Cairo. • $9 Friday, June 26 SUMMER MOVIE MAGIC SERIES: ‘THE BIRDS’ • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • The Birds is a 1963 thriller directed by Sir
Alfred Hitchcock. A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people in increasing numbers and viciousness. • $9 Sunday, June 28 SUMMER MAGIC MOVIE SERIES: ‘THE BIRDS’ • Tennessee Theatre • 2PM • The Birds is a 1963 thriller directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people
in increasing numbers and viciousness. • $9
ART
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 556 Parkway (Gatlinburg) MAY 18-AUG. 22 Arrowmont 2015 Instructor Exhibition; MAY 22-JULY 2: Festoon: A Solo Exhibition by Kim Winkle Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. JUNE 5-30: artwork by Marjorie Spalding Horne and Hugh Bailey. Bliss Home 29 Market Square JUNE 5-30: artwork by Brian Murray. Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. MAY 1-JUNE 27: Richard J. LeFevre’s Civil War series of mixed-media works East Tennessee History Center 601 S. Gay St. APRIL 27-OCT. 18: Memories of the Blue and Gray: The Civil War in East Tennessee at 150 Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St. JUNE 5-30: Origins, an exhibit of handmade masks by Stephen R. Hicks and photos by Nicole A. Perez-Camoirano. JUNE 5-27: Knox Photo Exhibition and exhibits by Ryan Blair and Robin Surber, Rachel Quammie, and Anna Rykaczewska.
JONAH PARZEN-JOHNSON Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Tuesday, June 23 • 9 p.m. • $5 • 18 and up • thepilotlight.com
The analog synth revival shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. While noise heads, avant dance-music producers and horror-movie soundtrack aficionados have been doing much of the knob twiddlng, the instruments also show up in more unlikely places. Jonah Parzen-Johnson has recently taken to playing them alongside his baritone saxophone. Synthesizers in jazz are nothing new, of course. Miles Davis’ and Herbie Hancock’s various groups throughout the 1970s covered an amazing amount of ground with these instruments, creating music that still sounds more adventurous than most of what came in their wakes. But the solo nature of Parzen-Johnson’s work makes for an unusual listening experience. He plays both instruments live simultaneously, with no overdubbing or looping. Often, this results in melodic, soulful sax playing over repetitive synth lines reminiscent of Terry Riley. It can get kind of drone-y and dissonant, but it’s largely devoid of the skronk and overplaying that a lot of younger solo sax players seem to favor. The music is more traditionally pleasant-sounding than not, which is not always something you can say about experimental music. The title of his new album, Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow, and a backstory about Parzen-Johnson’s desire to inspire others to resist nostalgia may or may not help you navigate what he’s trying to get at musically. Regardless, there is an intimacy and cohesiveness to the album that suggest the labor and thought that went into it and make it a compelling listen. (Eric Dawson)
Envision Art Gallery 4050 Sutherland Ave. THROUGH AUG. 15: • Envision Art Gallery Grand Opening Exhibition, featuring artwork by gallery owner Kay List and Larry S. Cole. Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive MAY 8-AUG. 2: Intellectual Property Donor, an exhibit of work by Evan Roth. ONGOING: Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in Tennessee; Currents: Recent Art From East Tennessee and Beyond; and Facets of Modern and Contemporary Glass. Liz-Beth and Co. 7240 Kingston Pike JUNE 1-JULY 4: 25 Years in the Making, a gallery exhibit of the foremost local and regional art, pottery, sculpture, art glass, wearable art, jewelry, and handcrafted gifts. (An artists’ reception will be held on Friday, June 26, from 5-8 p.m.) McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture 1327 Circle Park Drive JUNE 5-AUG. 30: Through the Lens: The Botanical Photography of Alan S. Heilman. Ongoing: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier. Pellissippi State Community College Bagwell Center for Media and Art 10915 Hardin Valley Road JUNE 22-JULY 31: Letters From Vietnam: International Art Exchange Exhibition, featuring the correspondence and June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35
CALENDAR
Thursday, June 18 - Sunday, June 28
FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS
CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 9AM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during late June and July. Most classes will culminate in a “showcase” presentation for family and friends at the end of the term. All classes include 2 free tickets to a KCT performance. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240
LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS
Friday, June 19 S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • Every week will be a different adventure, from science experiments to art projects and everything in between. Materials will be limited and available on a first come, first served basis. For grades K-5. • FREE
Saturday, June 27 VALERIE AND MARILYN SCOTT-WATERS: ‘A YEAR IN THE SECRET GARDEN’ • Union Ave Books • 2PM • Book signing with Maryville authors Valarie & Marilyn Scott-Waters discussing their book, A Year in the Secret Garden, for readers of all ages. • FREE
Monday, June 22 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING
Tuesday, June 23 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 9AM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during late June and July. Most classes will culminate in a “showcase” presentation for family and friends at the end of the term. All classes include 2 free tickets to a KCT performance. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240 LEGO CLUB • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • Kids will complete different themed and timed Lego Challenges, as well as have some time for free building. The library will provide the Legos, so all you have to bring is your imagination! Lego Club will be in the Children’s Library. • FREE WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Grab
artwork of young people with autism Zach Searcy Projects 317 N. Gay St. THROUGH JUNE: Knox u30 v1.0, an exhibit by Knoxville artists under the age of 30. On display through June by appointment. Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church 2931 Kingston Pike MAY 8-JUNE 30: Knoxville Watercolor Society Exhibit.
Thursday, June 18 MARGARET LAZARUS DEAN: ‘LEAVING ORBIT’ • Union Ave Books • 6PM • Author and Associate Professor of English at UT, Margaret Lazarus Dean, will read from and sign her new book, Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight • FREE
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Thursday, June 18 WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Grab you peeps and join us for Game Night in The Rocky! We have everything from Candy Land to Chess! A pint, a pizza, and a board: who could ask for more? • FREE
Saturday, June 20 FAMILY FUN DAY: DISCOVERING PLANTS IN THROUGH THE LENS • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 1PM • Join us for free a free Family Fun Day featuring activities, crafts, tours, and more. We’ll explore plants with the UT Gardens in our new temporary exhibit, Through the Lens: Botanical Photography of Alan S. Heilman. All materials will be provided. The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not necessary. • FREE
you peeps and join us for Game Night in The Rocky! We have everything from Candy Land to Chess! A pint, a pizza, and a board: who could ask for more? • FREE Wednesday, June 24 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 9AM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during late June and July. Most classes will culminate in a “showcase” presentation for family and friends at the end of the term. All classes include 2 free tickets to a KCT performance. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240 Thursday, June 25 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 9AM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during late June and July. Most classes will culminate in a “showcase” presentation for family and friends at the end of the term. All classes include 2 free tickets to a KCT performance. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240 WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Grab
ART • ACTIVISM MUSIC •
Now’s your chance to tell us what you really think–in person!
©
LOUISVILLE, KY • JULY 17-19, 2015
MEETUPS
Join us at our Monthly Mercury Meetup.
Wednesday, June 24, 5-8 p.m. at The Casual Pint Fountain City 4842 Harvest Mill Way, Knoxville, TN 37918 (Next to Pet Supplies Plus)
There won’t be any speeches or roundtables. We’ll just be hanging out, ready to chat about darn near anything with whomever stops by. We hope for a crowd!
June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37
CALENDAR
Thursday, June 18 - Sunday, June 28
you peeps and join us for Game Night in The Rocky! We have everything from Candy Land to Chess! A pint, a pizza, and a board: who could ask for more? • FREE
or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12
Friday, June 26 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 9AM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during late June and July. Most classes will culminate in a “showcase” presentation for family and friends at the end of the term. All classes include 2 free tickets to a KCT performance. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240 S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • Every week will be a different adventure, from science experiments to art projects and everything in between. Materials will be limited and available on a first come, first served basis. For grades K-5. • FREE
Friday, June 19 AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Everett Senior Center (Maryville) • 9AM • Call (865) 382-5822.
CLASSES
Thursday, June 18 AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Everett Senior Center (Maryville) • 9AM • Call (865) 382-5822. GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021
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Saturday, June 20 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org. Monday, June 22 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. Tuesday, June 23 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church • 12PM • Call (865) 382-5822. Wednesday, June 24 AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church • 12PM • Call (865) 382-5822. WHOLE FOODS CHEESE NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Come learn from the experts. • FREE
WINE WORKSHOP • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 7PM Thursday, June 25 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. OUTDOOR WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA WORKSHOP • Knoxville Convention Center • 3PM • The Outdoor Writers Association of America will kick off its 88th annual conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, by offering a free, half-day workshop titled “Becoming an Outdoors Communicator.” The workshop is the perfect opportunity for anyone interested in pursuing a career in outdoor communication – whether through writing, photography, radio or media relations - to learn about the field, how to break in and how to be successful. Hear established professionals share industry tips and tricks. Please pre-register at http://owaa.org/2015conference/agenda/ boc-workshop/. • FREE BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 Saturday, June 27 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org.
MEETINGS
Thursday, June 18 OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Recovery at Cokesbury • 5:30PM • What you WON’T find at OA meetings are weigh-ins, packaged meals, dues, fees, “shoulds,” “musts” or judgment. What you WILL find at meetings is: Acceptance of you as you are now, as you were, as you will be. Understanding of the problems you now face — problems almost certainly shared by others in the group. Communication that comes as the natural result of our mutual understanding and acceptance. Recovery from your illness. Power to enter a new way of life through the acceptance and understanding of yourself, the practice of the Twelve-Step recovery program, the belief in a power greater than yourself, and the support and companionship of the group. • FREE Sunday, June 21 SILENT MEDITATION SUNDAYS • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • The gatherings are intended to be inclusive of people of all faiths as well as those who do not align themselves with a particular religious denomination. For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org. • FREE Monday, June 22 GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • We hold
CALENDAR facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org. Thursday, June 25 OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Recovery at Cokesbury • 5:30PM • What you WON’T find at OA meetings are weigh-ins, packaged meals, dues, fees, “shoulds,” “musts” or judgment. What you WILL find at meetings is: Acceptance of you as you are now, as you were, as you will be. Understanding of the problems you now face — problems almost certainly shared by others in the group. Communication that comes as the natural result of our mutual understanding and acceptance. Recovery from your illness. Power to enter a new way of life through the acceptance and understanding of yourself, the practice of the Twelve-Step recovery program, the belief in a power greater than yourself, and the support and companionship of the group. • FREE Sunday, June 28 SILENT MEDITATION SUNDAYS • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • Narrow Ridge invites you to join us for our Silent Meditation Gathering on Sundays from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm at Narrow Ridge’s Mac Smith Resource Center (1936 Liberty Hill Rd., Washburn). The gatherings are intended to be inclusive of people of all faiths as well as those who do not align themselves with a particular religious denomination. For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@narrowridge.org. • FREE
ETC.
Thursday, June 18 NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • FREE Friday, June 19 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS’ MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM • FREE Saturday, June 20 OAK RIDGE FARMERS’ MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET • Seymour First Baptist Church • 8AM • Home grown and home made produce, honey, baked goods, crafts and more. MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM • The Market Square Farmers’ Market is an open-air farmers’ market located on Market Square in the heart of downtown Knoxville and is celebrating its 12th season this year. Hours are: Wednesday from 11a.m. to 2p.m. & Saturday from 9a.m. to 2p.m., May 2- November 21, 2015. The MSFM is a producer only market; everything is either made or grown by the vendor in our East Tennessee region. Products vary by the season and include ornamental plants, produce, dairy, eggs, honey, herbs, meat, baked goods, jams/jellies, coffee, & artisan crafts. With interactive fountains, delicious local food and entertainment, as well as tasty lunch options from some of Knoxville’s best food trucks, the MSFM is a perfect family destination. • FREE BEARDS AND BREWS • Whole Foods • 3PM • Celebrate that special guy in your life. Beer and pizza sampling with a beard decorating contest. This event is followed by a bring your own instrument bluegrass jam from 5-7 p.m. • FREE THE TURKEY TIME VARIETY SHOW • Pilot Light • 9PM • $5
WE ARE TALKING NOW OF A SUMMER EVENING IN JAMES AGEE PARK • James Agee Park • 5PM • “We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.” So begins the famous short piece entitled “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” by James Agee. This year marks the centennial of his reminisced summer of 1915. Knox County Public Library and the City of Knoxville invite the public to celebrate Agee’s famous prelude with an ice cream social, music of the era led by Nancy Brennan Strange, and a public reading of the piece. • FREE Tuesday, June 23 EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS’ MARKET • Ebenezer United Methodist Church • 3PM • FREE Wednesday, June 24 MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM • The Market Square Farmers’ Market is an open-air farmers’ market located on Market Square in the heart of downtown Knoxville and is celebrating its 12th season this year. Hours are: Wednesday from 11a.m. to 2p.m. & Saturday from 9a.m. to 2p.m., May 2- November 21, 2015. The MSFM is a producer only market; everything is either made or grown by the vendor in our East Tennessee region. Products vary by the season and include ornamental plants, produce, dairy, eggs, honey, herbs, meat, baked goods, jams/jellies, coffee, & artisan crafts. With interactive fountains, delicious local food and entertainment, as well as tasty lunch options from some of Knoxville’s best food trucks, the MSFM is a perfect family destination. • FREE Thursday, June 25 NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • FREE Friday, June 26 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS’ MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM • FREE Saturday, June 27 OAK RIDGE FARMERS’ MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET • Seymour First Baptist Church • 8AM • Home grown and home made produce, honey, baked goods, crafts and more. MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM • The Market Square Farmers’ Market is an open-air farmers’ market located on Market Square in the heart of downtown Knoxville and is celebrating its 12th season this year. Hours are: Wednesday from 11a.m. to 2p.m. & Saturday from 9a.m. to 2p.m., May 2- November 21, 2015. The MSFM is a producer only market; everything is either made or grown by the vendor in our East Tennessee region. Products vary by the season and include ornamental plants, produce, dairy, eggs, honey, herbs, meat, baked goods, jams/jellies, coffee, & artisan crafts. With interactive fountains, delicious local food and entertainment, as well as tasty lunch options from some of Knoxville’s best food trucks, the MSFM is a perfect family destination. • FREE
Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com
Sunday, June 21 June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39
FOOD
Home Palate
Cultural Diversity Mama Mia, now that’s some Middle Eastern food! BY DENNIS PERKINS
A
cliché is what it is because it’s true—so when mother tells you not to judge a book by its cover, she may be right. In fact, it’s often hard to judge a book by its title and/or early chapters—and that’s especially true in the case of both the name and menu of Mama Mia Cuisine. Mama Mia lives just off the north exit for Cedar Bluff on Executive Park Drive and sits in a lonely feeling strip mall that also houses Lemongrass Restaurant, Tiger Rock Martial Arts, and Absolute Ballroom. It’s a strip I’m never fully conscious of seeing; usually by the time I’ve reached it, I’m already thinking ahead to the traffic on Cedar Bluff and whether there’s an impossible left turn in my near future. But there’s a good reason to notice this joint with the Italian-sounding name—and the reason has nothing to do with Italy and has little relation to the bulk of its menu.
If you glance at the menu, it’s easy to mistake Mama Mia for a delivery restaurant with a large freezer—the kind of food that’s more suited to satisfying munchies created by recreational hijinks rather than to enjoying substantive eating. But, returning to that cliché, if you’ll look past the cover of both storefront and menu (and also look past the appetizer section with its potato Sskins and fried mozzarella sticks), you’ll uncover the real reason to visit Mama Mia: very good Middle Eastern or, as they refer to it, Mediterranean food. Before I launch into an unqualified paean, there’s a caveat: Mama Mia Cuisine can be inconsistent. Over the course of my visits, one meal was a triumph, one was pretty good, while yet another seemed like the day of leftovers. My first serving of fattoush (which arrives with each plate in the “Mediterranean Entrée” menu box)
The place looks the part of a casual pizza parlor. Looks, however, Photos by Justin Fee
can be deceiving.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
was crisp and bright with a well-seasoned dressing, but the next bowl was a sad little salad of wilted lettuce, under-ripe tomatoes, and flavorless oil. Likewise, a stuffed grape leaf that I had seen served plump and pleasantly moist, arrived looking dry and a little haggard when I ordered it. Even so, its stuffing exuded a delectably light and lemony personality that made me gratified that I took a bite despite its appearance. Another small issue is that while service is very friendly, even sweet—if you’ve managed to get past the name of the place, wade through the menu to the Middle Eastern section, and get the courage to ask about the kebbie— you may be discouraged to hear that the server hasn’t tried most of that Middle Eastern stuff. Still, you should try the Middle Eastern options—especially that kebbie; it’s a golden, ovate celebration of deep frying made from bulgur wheat that’s stuffed with seasoned ground beef. The perfectly golden and crunchy shell opens to a savory, soft center, redolent with a Middle Eastern mélange of spices that I’m betting includes a little allspice. Likewise, a tiny round of falafel, which comes as part of the shareable Mediterranean Dinner, crunches beautifully and reveals an unexpected but delicious and distinguishing flavor (one that I loved but couldn’t quite pin down).
Mama Mia’s shish kebab took first place as my favorite of their offerings. On two separate occasions it was tender, flavorsome, and better than most meatloaf in town; it benefits from a generous use of onion and parsley in the ground meat mix and an appealing texture that’s moist but light. I tried the kebab both as entrée and as a wrap; both are very good, but the wrap gets the win because of the happy inclusion of a sliver of pickled turnip. The bright pink root served up a surprising but welcome bit of piquancy and crunch, which gave the wrap a complex texture and flavor, as well as an unusual visual allure. Hummus here is a refreshing and very creamy affair that relies more on lemon than on garlic—even the tahini element was mild in my serving. I didn’t mind that it wasn’t served with pita, though some folks may be saddened by that. Any disappointment was assuaged by the arrival of a whole round of warm, golden sesame bread that was covered with seeds, a little salt, and glistened with oil. The top crust was delightfully crisp and nutty, the bottom chewy and toothsome, and
MAMA MIA CUISINE 9115C Executive Park Drive 357-FOOD (3663) mamamiacuisine.com Hours: Mon.–Thur. 10 a.m.–9 p.m., Fri.-Sat.: 10 a.m.–10 p.m.
June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 41
FOOD the interior very light and almost wispy. However, on another visit the sesame bread came without sesame, and, instead of a gleaming round of whole bread, it was served as separate wedges in a paper-lined basket. It’s a minor thing, but as I had bragged about the lovely loaf to my date (it, along with fattoush, comes with all Mediterranean entrees), I was disheartened by the basket. Still, except for the flat bread that comes with gyros, the bread here is homemade and delicious. Mama Mia puts its pizza ovens to many good uses. There are a number of appetizing, and not so run-of-the-mill dishes available—things like Iskender shawarma (sliced beef in hot tomato sauce), bamia (okra stew with lamb), and Iraqi kebab. Fassoulia, described as “lima beans cooked with tender lamb, onion, and tomato sauce” was another win even though the beans I had looked more like Great Northerns than Limas and were cooked a little more al dente than I like. Still, the fistsized chunk of lamb was meltingly tender and the tomato sauce—really a soup—arrived silky and richly flavored with the essence of the lamb and
Home Palate
legumes. I ended up dipping my rice, one spoonful at a time, into the soup and straight to my mouth. It wasn’t exactly a pretty sight, but it made me very, very happy. The rice—a Basmati sort—isn’t a mere afterthought here; it’s some of the most consistently well-cooked that I’ve had in town. Fluff y, tender, and flavorful, I found myself eating forkfuls of rice alone, something I never do. I didn’t try any of the pizza, pasta, or calzone that share the menu space, though I understand that they’re popular (especially the calzone that’s reportedly bigger than my head). The place looks the part of a casual pizza parlor, complete with a soda fountain amid the polyurethane-covered table tops in a lackluster dining area. Looks, however, can be deceiving, and, as I didn’t go for pizza or a first date, these little distractions didn’t trouble me. However, Mama Mia’s inconsistencies, though hardly ruinous, were annoying. One hopes they will get cleared up by the time you stop in; and it’s worth a visit because, for the most part, the Middle Eastern food isn’t just good, it’s very good. ◆
More Middle Eastern Favorites YASSIN’S FALAFEL HOUSE 706 Walnut St., 865-387-8275 If you walk past the Walnut Building at the right time of day, you’ll be struck by a sudden craving as the spicy aromas issue from Yassin’s. The falafel here gets high marks and has many fans, as it should; but my favorite food here is the baba ghanouj. This eggplant spread is silky, smoky, and addictive—even if you don’t love eggplant (and I’m decidedly iffy on the subject), you will be pleasantly surprised. HOLY LAND MARKET & DELI 3601 Sutherland Ave., 865-525-4659 Walter and Denise Ajlouny may be the most famous denizens of Sutherland Avenue, and the pastrami sandwich may be what everybody likes to talk about—but don’t bypass the menu of daily Middle Eastern specials. If you miss the chance to try Holy Land’s mansef, you’ll be doing yourself and your palate a major disservice. It’s a Jordanian dish of lamb served over rice and under yogurt sauce and a sprinkle of pine nuts. ALADDIN’S TIME OUT DELI 1428 N Central St., 865-673-8145 This corner spot at Woodland and Central is not much more than a convenience-store deli. And while the food can be inconsistent, it’s generally pretty good for what it is. One of my best foodie friends swears by the falafel here (which I like, too, mainly because I can order it with French fries), but I’m fond of steak in a sack. The meat is tender, flavorful, and sometimes a little greasy—in a good, guilty pleasure way. —D.P. 42
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
Your favorite Japanese, Chinese and Thai dishes made by hand with the freshest ingredients and served in an atmosphere of elegance and gracious hospitality. Live jazz music every Tuesday night • Happy Hour 2-7 pm daily FULIN'S ASIAN CUISINE 120 Merchant Drive Fountain City Exit 108 off I-75 Less than 5 miles from Downtown Knoxville 865-281-3371
The Fulin Commitment to the Community PILOT
EXIT 108
75
Bring in this ad and we’ll donate 15% of the cost of your meal to the Central High School
FULIN’S ASIAN CUISINE
band as part of our Fulin Cares philosophy of spreading good fortune.
June 18, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 43
’BYE
Sacred & P rofane
From the Porch Tragedy and abandon in Fourth and Gill (part two) BY DONNA JOHNSON
M
emorial Day. I rise at 10 a.m. and wander down to the Birdhouse, where a very pretty girl of about 21 is making coffee. A young man lies barefoot on the couch, reading The Grapes of Wrath. They are both students at the University of Tennessee and live in Fort Sanders. Timothy, the young man, tells me he is majoring in English literature and writes poetry. “What’s your major?” I ask the girl, whose name is Chloe. She shrugs her shoulders. “I’ve created my own major,” she says, handing me a piece of banana bread. “Human ecology.” I ask her what that is. She slices the rest of her bread and pours the hot coffee with such care and concentration that the acts are like a meditation. I am mesmerized. “Human ecology is how people interact with their environment,” she says, looking out a tall, lead-glass window with blue, yellow, and red stripes at the top. A cardinal flies off the branch of an oak tree and seems to hang suspended in the air for seconds before he moves on. It is still early enough for the air to be cool. I wander outside. Walkers are walking, bicyclists are bicycling, gardeners are gardening, and families are arriving to break bread with their loved ones—all is right in the world. Just as I go back inside to ask Timothy and Chloe if they want to take a walk with me, we hear a loud thud. The sound is horrifying. We rush outside to see a bicycle that has been thrown by a car across the street into the yard of the Birdhouse. A young man lies in the middle of the road with blood streaming out of his ears. He is snoring and unconscious. Within seconds, it seems, the whole world has changed. The driver of the vehicle that hit the man is holding a baby, rocking back and forth on her feet anxiously. Channel 10 arrives, as
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
do EMTs and the police. There is an enormous amount of blood in the street. A young girl stands weeping. I myself am pacing back and forth. The police are taking pictures and asking questions as if a crime has taken place. It’s what they are trained to do. From out of this I see a small boy, about 6 years old, standing next to his mother. He holds her hand and stares intently at the young man in the road. “He’s going to be all right,” he tells me. “Don’t worry.” He says it with such authority that I half-expect him to go over and lay hands on the victim. “How do you know?” I ask, wanting to believe. He lets his mother’s hand go. He looks me in the eye. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but I have special powers.” “Do you?” I ask, without doubting, for the words seem to come not from a child at all but from some sort of benevolent presence or divinity. Half an hour later, the man has been taken away in an ambulance and the blood cleaned up. Timothy and Chloe and I have gone our separate ways, as if by avoiding each other we can pretend nothing ever happened and go back to our peaceful day. But something has happened, and it cannot be ignored. A man’s life hangs in the balance. I wander on back home, through the bright sunshine, through the bright flowers of summer that seem almost a mockery now. More will be revealed, but perhaps not to us. Perhaps this accident will be the very thing that propels him to his destiny. Who are we to know? As I reach home, the birds are singing so loudly and happily that it is hard to imagine that there is anything but beauty, goodness, and joy in the world. Perhaps on some level this is true. I lie on the couch with Mallory. The ticking of the clock lulls me to sleep.
My schedule has become so different from that of so-called normal people that sometimes, when I wake up, I’m uncertain whether the darkness is night turning into morning or dusk becoming evening. Then I hear Magdalena’s rippling laugh from the porch next door and I figure it’s somewhere between midnight and 5 a.m. I stand underneath the flow of the shower, letting the hot water beat on my head. Then I dress as carefully as though I am going on a special date, for Magdalena’s porch is like theater, where every day the actors, costumes, and dialogue change. Tonight there are two young men of about 25 sitting on either side of her porch. Magdalena stands at the stove in black fishnet stockings and one of her black garments, deep-frying hush puppies. Tiny pink, red, and purple Christmas lights blink above the stove.
BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY
I feel there should be a sign on the door: “For Madmen Only.” We all seem like inventions of our own making in a world apart from the rest, a world both fantastical and out of ordinary time, where not only can everyone choose their role, they can actually become it. At least on Magdalena’s porch they can, for there is no judgment here. I wonder how long we will be able to meet and laugh together, for Magdalena’s building has just been sold. In any case, young people often move, so perhaps our little group of people will disperse. But surely some fragments of ourselves will remain, some imprint of our laughter and abandon. For now we will cherish our present time, as the sun rises through the darkness, reminding us of the gift of our knowing one another on the tiny porch of Magdalena’s on the corner of 4th and Gill. ◆
10 years of spirited nightlife.
JOAN OSBORNE
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 45
’BYE
Spir it of the Staircase
BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY
46
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 18, 2015
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