Issue 3 - March 26, 2015 by Knoxville Mercury

Also inside: The Official Pullout Guide to Big Ears

MARCH 26, 2015 KNOXMERCURY.COM

THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM

1 / N.3

RHIANNON GIDDENS

NEL CLIN S E TANY TAGA A Q

JAM IE

LAURIE AN DERSON SILVE APPL R ES

BILL FRISELL

TERRY RILEY

KNO SYM XVIL ORC PHO LE HES NY T RA

KRONOS QUARTET

SWAN S

JAMIE XX

BEN FROST

DES BRYC S E N ER

s T D r A y HE tUnEBAD PLU S

TYONDAI BRAXTON

AMEN DUNE S

S U I N GE E M U F R E P

NEW ADVENTURES IN FUTURE MUSIC NEWS

SCRUFFY CITIZEN

OUTDOORS

FOOD

Are Knoxville Parents Vaccinating Their Kids?

The Knoxville Music Festival We’ve Forgotten

In Search of the Prized Walleye at Cove Creek

Local Bakeries Remake the Toaster Pastry

Music in Knoxville Knoxville is associated with the deaths, or final performances, of multiple major musicians, perhaps beginning with Sergei Rachmaninoﬀ. The immortal Russian composer’s final piano concert in 1943 did earn the city a permanent distinction. The only statue of Rachmaninoﬀ in America, the gift of a Russian sculptor, stands in World’s Fair Park, overlooking the intersection of Cumberland and 11th Street. Knoxville has witnessed several notable endings, but the city has seen many more beginnings. Guitarist and harmonica player Charlie Oaks, sometimes described as country music’s first professional, is known for a song about the New Market Train Wreck, a catastrophically fatal collision of passenger trains near Knoxville in 1904. Long before country music was available on record, the street musician made a modest living selling cards, or “billets,” with his lyrics, in the form of poems. Sterchi Brother Furniture, whose 1924 headquarters building still towers over Gay Street, expanded the market for phonographs by sponsoring some of the first country-music records ever made. Long before Nashville was a recording center, Sterchi sent early performers to New York to record.

popularizing the small string band, then unusual in popular music. One of the world’s most influential guitarists, Union-County-born Chet Atkins (1924-2001) moved to Knoxville in his youth and did much of his early playing for radio broadcasts in studios of WNOX and WROL on Gay Street.

Roy Acuﬀ (left) with two cohorts , ca. 1935 Photo courtesy of Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound.

In 1929, major record label BrunswickVocalion came to Knoxville and set up a recording studio in the St. James Hotel on Wall Avenue, by Market Square. They made hundreds of recordings, finding an extraordinarily broad array of styles, from blues to jazz to country, including early recordings of the Tennessee Ramblers, featuring rare female lead guitarist Willie Sievers; the legendary Tennessee Chocolate Drops, featuring bluesman Carl Martin and mandolin/fiddle maverick Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong; and Maynard Baird’s Southern Serenaders, a local jazz orchestra that toured Northern cities. Blues singer Leola Manning made her only known recordings at the St. James. Bear Family Records of Germany is in the midst of a project to make the St. James recordings available in a box set, for release in 2016.

Roy Acuﬀ (1903-1992), the fiddler and singer who became an influential figure in popular music, grew up in Knoxville and began his performing and radio-broadcasting career here. He first performed before an auditorium audience at the Tennessee Theatre in 1932, with a band called the Three Rolling Stones. His later Knoxville band, the Crazy Tennesseans, introduced the then-little-known dobro to country music with hits like “The Great Speckled Bird.” The star credited with making the Grand Old Opry a national phenomenon, Acuﬀ also had an influence on rock’n’roll by

Knoxville radio stations WNOX and WROL gave Knoxville a reputation as an incubator for country music. Performers who worked in Knoxville for the radio exposure included Flatt & Scruggs, Don Gibson, the Louvin Brothers, Pee Wee King, Kitty Wells, Carl Story, musical comedians Homer and Jethro, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Archie Campbell and, among the last of that era, a very young singer named Dolly Parton.

Originally from the Midwest, the Everly Brothers moved to Knoxville with their music-performing family in 1953. During their two years here, they attended West High School, split away from their parents’ band to form a harmonic duo, and discovered rock’n’roll by way of Bo Diddley records found at a Cumberland Avenue record store. When they began favoring rock’n’roll rhythms, grocer-impresario Cas Walker fired them from his bluegrass show. Former Knoxvillian Chet Atkins thought better of their work, and shepherded their early career in Nashville. “Cathy’s Clown,” one of their later and bigger hits, describes a painful circumstance at West High. Another local record store played a diﬀerent role in the history of rock’n’roll. Enterprising merchant Sam Morrison ran a record company on Market Square, and Market Square’s demographic diversity, gave Morrison’s store had a reputation with RCA as a bellwether for new music that had potential to go national. In the summer of 1954, Morrison reported to a visiting RCA scout an unprecedented phenomenon: a extraordinarily popular rhythm-and-blues record that even older whites were buying. The Sun Records 78, “That’s All Right, Mama,” recorded in Memphis just weeks earlier, was RCA’s first encounter with the name Elvis Presley.

Source: The Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound (TAMIS), a department of the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, is a source for a great deal of information and recordings of early Knoxville music.

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 March 26, 2015

March 26, 2015 Volume 01 / Issue 03 knoxmercury.com

CONTENTS

“Where words fail, music speaks.” —Hans Christian Andersen

NEWS

12 Future Music COVER STORY

10 Big Shots

What is Big Ears? The quick and easy description might be “avant-garde music festival,” but that barely encompasses the range of artistic interactions that arise when you gather so many inventive people in one setting. In fact, let’s avoid labeling it altogether and just hear what the artists themselves have to say about the things they do. Meanwhile, our team of new-music fans will be covering Big Ears all weekend! Follow along at knoxmercury.com, facebook.com/knoxmercury, instagram.com/knoxmercury, and on Twitter @knoxmercury and #MercuryEars.

How many Knox County parents are actually vaccinating their children? S. Heather Duncan examines a recent study that reveals just that.

35 Arnold

Schwarzbart

Jack Neely recalls the life of one of Knoxville’s most internationally renowned artists.

We’ll Be Taking Your Calls!

For the WUOT fund-raising drive, that is. On Thursday, March 26, the Mercury staff will be manning the phones to accept donations for Knoxville’s public radio institution. We’ll be there 9-11 a.m., 11 a.m.-1 p.m., and 5-8 p.m.

DEPARTMENTS

OPINION

A&E

4 5

Letters Howdy Start Here: Ghost Signs, Believe It or Knox!, Public Affairs, Quote Factory ’Bye Finish There: Restless Native by by Chris Wohlwend, Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely, Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray

7 8

The Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely uncovers possibly the first public performance of “country music.” Perspectives Joe Sullivan finds signs of optimism for the future of South Knoxville development. Architecture Matters George Dodds tackles the new big gray wall downtown.

36 37 38 39

CALENDAR Program Notes The life of Arnold Schwarzbart and a review of Kevin Abernathy’s latest release. Shelf Life Chris Barrett surveys Big Ears offerings at the library. Classical The amazing Conrad Tao. Movie Review ’71 by April Snellings Video Review The Overnighters by Lee Gardner

Spotlights: Bill Orcutt, the War on Drugs

OUTDOORS

Voice in the Wilderness Kim Trevathan goes in search of walleye at Cove Creek.

FOOD & DRINK

Home Palate Dennis Perkins professes his love for tarts, at Old City Java and Tomato Head. Plus: other handsized treats around town. March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3

EDITOR’S NOTE Work in Progress: Part 2

o, we’re three issues into this complicated learning process that we call publishing a paper. What do we know for sure? We’ve got a long way to go before we can breathe easy. Our campaign to fund a newsweekly startup was (as far as we know) unprecedented. While Kickstarter’s journalism projects are chock full of online journals or books or special one-offs, we haven’t found other successful campaigns to start an entire newspaper—it’s not exactly the “in” thing to do these days. So Knoxville should be proud of the fact that its citizens stepped forward and made the Knoxville Mercury happen. A lot of people are feeling good about what we’ve all accomplished thus far, and for good reason. It’s special. But the job’s not nearly done yet. Anyone who’s even slightly cognizant of publishing trends knows that the journalism industry is in flux, particularly our branch of ink-stained wretches. Newspapers are shrinking, dying, or dead. As a result, in-depth reporting is on the decline everywhere. But we also know that such journalism

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makes a difference, just as it has in Knoxville. You can help us make that difference. Readers: Get to know the businesses that advertise on our pages. We’re a free paper, and right now we’re reliant on advertising to finance our effort. (Later, we also hope to develop memberships for readers along the lines of what NPR stations offer.) If you want to have an independent, locally owned news magazine, then please choose to support the places that are supporting us. And be sure to tell them you saw their ad and appreciate their presence in the Knoxville Mercury. Business owners: Think about connecting with our readers. They are intelligent, diverse, and passionate about Knoxville and their own communities. It’s their active engagement with our city that has sparked its renewal. And they will support the businesses they know share their interest in Knoxville. Advertisers: Let us know what you think about the paper as we evolve to reach even larger audiences.

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EDITOR

Coury Turczyn coury@knoxmercury.com SENIOR EDITOR

Matthew Everett matthew@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Jack Neely jack@knoxhistoryproject.org STAFF WRITER

S. Heather Duncan heather@knoxmercury.com

P.S.: One more way you can help out is by telling us about yourself. Take our online survey here: survature.com/s/knoxmercury.

David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GUIDELINES As you can tell from the helpful charts sent to us by reader Kevin Farr, our letters page lacks letters. Send us some! (Farr also noticed that most of the photos we ran last week of readers holding the paper weren’t actually selfies.) • Letter submissions should include a verifiable name, address, and phone number. We do not print anonymous letters. • We much prefer letters that address issues that pertain specifically to Knoxville or to stories we’ve published. • We don’t publish letters about personal disputes or how you didn’t like your waiter at that restaurant. • Letters are usually published in the order that we receive them.

Or message us at facebook.com/knoxmercury. KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

EDITORIAL

And be aware that we’re certainly thankful for your help in making this endeavor possible. Since the Knoxville Mercury is a not-for-profit company, none of us are in this to become independently wealthy. We’re not here to make shareholders happy or to appease a corporate accountant 250 miles away. We’re here purely to inform and educate our community as best we can, and to create the paper we all want for Knoxville. We’re not there yet, but we hope to be soon. Please help spread the word. —Coury, ed.

Send your letters to: Editor Knoxville Mercury 706 Walnut St., Suite 404 Knoxville, TN 37920 editor@knoxmercury.com

Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015

CONTRIBUTORS

Victor Agreda Jr. Chris Barrett Ian Blackburn Patrice Cole Eric Dawson George Dodds Matthew Foltz-Gray Lee Gardner Mike Gibson Carey Hodges Nick Huinker Donna Johnson

Rose Kennedy Dennis Perkins Stephanie Piper Ryan Reed Eleanor Scott Alan Sherrod April Snellings Joe Sullivan Kim Trevathan Joe Tarr William Warren Chris Wohlwend

DESIGN ART DIRECTOR

Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Charlie Finch Corey McPherson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

Ben Adams

ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES

Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Scott Hamstead scott@knoxmercury.com L.A. McCrae mcrae@knoxmercury.com

BUSINESS DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Jerry Collins jerry@knoxmercury.com

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 706 Walnut St., Suite 404, Knoxville, Tenn. 37902 knoxmercury.com • 865-313-2059 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR & PRESS RELEASES

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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

HOWDY Illustration by Ben Adams

Believe It or Knox! BY Z. HERACLITUS KNOX Playwright Tennessee Williams WAS NOT FROM TENNESSEE! He was born 104 years ago this month in Columbus, Miss., but sometimes said he chose the pen name to honor his Tennessee ancestors, who included Knoxville founder James White, and who were well-known throughout the 19th century in Knoxville. East Knoxville’s Williams Creek is named for the family. His real name was Thomas Lanier Williams III. Thomas Lanier Williams I and II, the writer’s grandfather and great-great uncle, respectively, were Knoxvillians. Tennessee’s father, Cornelius Williams, grew up in Knoxville and attended the University of Tennessee, and is buried at Old Gray Cemetery. The playwright came to Knoxville on several occasions in his youth to visits his aunts Ella and Isabel. The University of Tennessee, then known as East Tennessee College, began building its new campus on the Hill in 1826. Construction crews digging the foundation for the first building found HUMAN BONES! As it turned out, it was the site of a 30-year-old graveyard that had been forgotten, despite the fact that one of those buried there was the commander of the federal garrison in Knoxville in 1796. Bettie Tyson donated Tyson Park to the city for public use with the provision that Knoxville’s airport forever bear the name of her son, McGhee Tyson, who was killed in a plane crash in the North Sea, in the final weeks of World War I.

GHOST SIGNS BY BUD RIES QUOTE FACTORY “ It amazes me that around 1887 or thereabouts we had three black people on the City Council, and now we can only get one.” —Robert Booker, quoted in Gerald Witt’s News Sentinel blog Knox Beat, commenting on City Council’s lack of diversity. Knox County Commissioner Sam McKenzie had criticized the lack of black candidates for a magistrate position earlier in the week.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

3/26 BALANCED CALENDAR COMMUNITY FORUM

3/30 URBAN LAND INSTITUTE REPORT MEETING

6-7 p.m., West High School auditorium. The Knox County Schools administration is conducting a series of public meetings through early April to discuss the concept of a “balanced calendar,” which would shorten summer vacation in favor of longer seasonal breaks. Get the full list of meetings at knoxschools.org/domain/4273.

5:30 p.m., East Tennessee History Center (601 S Gay St,) Back in October, the Urban Land Institute sent a crack squad of urban advisors to Knoxville to assess what we should do with the former McClung Warehouses properties on Jackson Avenue, World’s Fair Park, the Henley Street corridor, the former State Supreme Court building, and the Civic Auditorium and Coliseum. At this forum, Mayor Madeline Rogero will discuss the recommendations and the city’s plans to move forward on some of them.

THURSDAY

3/27 FUNNY EARS FRINGE FESTIVAL FRIDAY

7 p.m., Preservation Pub & Scruffy City Hall. $5. As you may have noticed, the Big Ears festival is underway this week. But there are also some concurrent showcases of local musical talent (such as Hello City at Pilot Light) and this three-day extravaganza that includes Ben Gaines, Bliss on Tap, Ebony Eyes, Ex Gold, Far Far Away, Faux Ferocious, Grandpa’s Stash, and more.

MONDAY

3/31 ‘TWIN PEAKS’ VIEWING PARTY TUESDAY

7-9 p.m., The Bird House, (800 N. 4th Ave.). Free. Yes, that’s right—this bi-weekly viewing party will screen every single episode of David Lynch’s timeless television masterpiece. (Tonight’s will be episode two.) Attendees are encouraged to dress as their favorite characters; there’s also trivia (starting at 7 p.m.), Twin Peaks-themed giveaways, donuts, and coffee. Bring your own log.

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5

SCRUFFY CITIZEN

The Knoxville Music Festival Big Ears may have a forgotten precedent BY JACK NEELY

t was springtime, and musicians from around the world, from the big cities of the North and from the capitals of Europe, were converging on Gay Street. It exalted the old town in surprising ways. When it was underway, fans declared Knoxville to be “the Little Paris of the United States.” It happened every year, well over a century ago. For decades, Knoxville had nurtured a reputation as a practical place of factories and wholesale warehouses. That changed, almost suddenly, in the 1880s. The Knoxville Music Festival’s emphasis was classical, with a strong emphasis on contemporary opera. The festival was a collaborative effort, but in the forefront were several who’d grown up speaking German. In 1874, Swiss immigrant Peter Staub had built Knoxville’s Opera House, on Gay Street. The leader of the early festivals was a German immigrant who was by then well known in Knoxville. Gustavus Knabe—he pronounced it something like K’Nobba—had a resume that stood out in East Tennessee. Born in Leipzig just after the Napoleonic wars, at a time when that mid-sized city was vigorously developing its reputation as one of Europe’s musical centers, Knabe studied at the Leipzig Conservatorium, directed its orchestra, for a time, and performed as a member of Mendelssohn’s orchestra— presumably the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra, of which the well known composer became director in 1835. What instrument Knabe played for Mendelssohn is obscure. He mastered

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

at least a dozen: piano, violin, the flute and several reed instruments, and an exotic instrument only rarely seen in concert halls, known as a guitar. According to people who knew him, Knabe was “associated with” young Richard Wagner, and “proud of his friendship with” Robert and Clara Schumann. Details are elusive, but they were all musicians close to the same age, and in Leipzig at the same time. He was 30 when the Revolutions of 1848 unsettled Leipzig, and Knabe came alone to America, first settling in Wartburg, Tenn., oversold as an idyllic German refuge in the American wilderness. There he met a young woman from Stuttgart, married her, and proceeded to sire a large family. But Wartburg didn’t offer much demand for his talents, and he traveled around some, leading a military band for an Ohio regiment during the Civil War. Six months before the war’s end, he landed in Knoxville, and stayed. By the time Knabe arrived here, some of his old Leipzig contemporaries, like Mendelssohn and Schumann, were dead. Knabe made much of his longer life, and for his last 40 years devoted himself to raising Knoxville’s standards in music. He founded the Knoxville Philharmonic Society, a choral group; a Knoxville orchestra, apparently not durable enough to be considered a forerunner of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra; and the Knabe School of Music, at which he and several of his talented children taught hundreds of local students. He eventually became a part-time professor of music at the

university, which awarded him a doctorate for his services. You might almost get the impression he was trying to make of Knoxville an American Leipzig. Along the way he did some composing, too, including the official funeral march for former President Andrew Johnson in 1875, which he conducted himself—and a piece called “Have You Seen the Roses Blooming,” his tribute to Knoxville. Knabe was in his mid-60s when he led the first of Knoxville’s annual Music Festivals. In 1883, it was a four-day festival—on weekdays, not the weekend— and involved a vigorous combination of regional talent and performers from Cincinnati and Atlanta. They performed Donizetti’s comic opera L’elisir d’amore, the current and already popular Pirates of Penzance, the recent French comic opera Les Cloches de Corneville by Robert Planquette, and an act of Friedrich von Flotow’s Martha. We’re used to thinking of opera as the legacy of composers who died before our grandparents were born, but in 1883, much of it was current. Flotow had died just weeks before the festival. When his work was presented at Staub’s, French composer Planquette was just 34. Most local opera fans in 1883 were young, some perhaps rebelling from their parents’ homely ways. And the festival itself prompted an interesting rebellion of sorts that may bear some further study. A fiddle contest, performed as an irreverent prank by some disgruntled older guys at the very end of the festival, may have been the first country-music concert in history. Festivals have unpredictable results. The festival engendered a surprising backlash from practical-minded

Knoxvillians. Knoxville’s older two daily newspapers supported the festival enthusiastically, but the relatively new paper, the Sentinel, denounced the “alleged festival,” refusing even to run ads for this musical foolishness. Knoxville needed factories, not operas, they said, and visiting musicians were arrogant jerks who drank too much and behaved badly in restaurants. Despite the resistance, the music festival’s high point may have arrived in 1889, when it was called the June Festival. Young cellist Victor Herbert, not yet more famous as a composer, was there, as was Viennese soprano Emma Juch, who performed here more than once in the 1880s; extravagantly mustachioed German conductor Carl Zerrahn of the Boston Symphony; Italian cellist-baritone Giuseppe Campanari; and pianist Adele aus der Ohe, a favorite prodigy of Franz Liszt. Anywhere in the world in 1889, it would have been an impressive lineup. Various combinations of them performed more than 60 pieces in Knoxville that week. Thousands witnessed some of the performances; some were awed, some were alarmed, some were amused. The Sentinel predictably called it a “dismal failure.” But it left an impression. Although it’s not obvious what became of the Knoxville Music Festival, it seems to have fizzled out in the 1890s, around the time that Knabe was forced to retire due to his painful rheumatism. He died in 1906. He didn’t live to see the establishment of a permanent Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, and his music festival was almost completely forgotten. Staub’s Opera House became a wrestling arena, later to be torn down for parking. But when we’re lucky, good things come back around.

A fiddle contest, performed as an irreverent prank by some disgruntled older guys at the very end of the festival, may have been the first country-music concert in history.

PERSPECTIVES

Southern Revival Stirrings on the South Knoxville waterfront BY JOE SULLIVAN

t’s been a decade since then-Mayor Bill Haslam heralded South Knoxville waterfront development as the city”s “next big thing.” Yet except for the remarkable reincarnation of the site left dormant by the demise of Baptist Hospital, not very much has happened. The 2008 financial crash put the kibosh on residential developments that were expected to be the mainstays of the waterfront’s transformation. And the closing of the Henley Street bridge for nearly three years put a further crimp in already limited commercial activity in South Knoxville. The one residential project that got built before the mortgage market went kaput, the 122-unit CityView condominiums on Blount Avenue, soon went bankrupt. And not even the two titans who acquired it at a fire sale, Jim Clayton and Raja Jubran, have managed to sell more than 25 units in the six years since. (Another 60 units have been rented for the nonce.) Still, the crash is now a fading memory, and the housing market generally has made a strong recovery—as manifested by the 365-unit apartment complex that’s going up on the former Baptist site at a cost of $160 million. Riverwalk at the Bridges, as the complex has been dubbed, should

provide a big boost to South Knoxville’s economy. And some signs of that are starting to emerge. Consider: • The developer who’s long been in the forefront of downtown’s revitalization, David Dewhirst, has established a South Side foothold with the acquisition of the historic (but vacant) Kern’s Bakery building on Chapman Highway. But where most of Dewhirst’s myriad downtown building renovations have been largely residential, he foresees the 65,000 square foot Kern’s building serving different purposes. “While we’re still early in the planning stage, I envision an eight-figure multi-use development including retail, entertainment, restaurants, and breweries,” Dewhirst says. He’s also looking for ways to make the 13-acre site “serve as a front door to South Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness, which I think is one of its best assets.” • A smaller vacant building on Sevier Avenue that was once a fraternal lodge is being renovated for a combination of office, retail, and restaurant use. One of the pillars of a 2006 South Waterfront Vision Plan was the use of tax increment financing (TIF) to fund some $50 million in public-sector improvements that would go hand in glove with hundreds of millions in

private development. Unlike the many downtown TIFs that have gone primarily to support developer financing, these public sector TIFs derived from private development would go for supportive street work and a signature 3-mile riverwalk stretching from Island Home in the east to the western end of Scottish Pike. More than a mile of this riverwalk is now docketed for completion within the next year in connection with several projects on which work is now underway. These include: • A 134-unit River’s Edge apartment complex in Island Home from which a $2.5 million TIF will fund 1,900 feet of riverwalk as well as street work. • Suttree Landing Park for which the city is “borrowing” some $6 million from a notional TIF account to cover the cost of new access roads and another 1,900 feet of riverwalk as well as the 5-acre park itself with boat ramps. The notion is that these amenities will spur private development on adjacent property whose augmented value will repay the loan. The property is mostly owned by Mike Conley. But after canceling a $30 million condominium and townhouse development in 2008, Conley has remained silent on his plans and didn’t return my phone call to his Regal Corp. office. • As its very name connotes, Riverwalk at the Bridges includes 1,000 feet of riverwalk between the Gay Street and Henley Street bridges funded by a TIF that will also cover the cost of a 37,000 square foot public plaza on the site as well as streetscaping on Blount Avenue. Another 500 feet of riverwalk will accompany the 235 units of student housing that the same developer is planning west of Henley, linking to the 1,000 feet that went in

place with CityVIew. When or whether riverwalk extensions will accompany development further west on Blount Avenue and Scottish Pike is anybody’s guess. Perhaps the biggest single spur to such development is a proposed $20 million pedestrian bridge linking the South Waterfront to the University of Tennessee campus. Environmental studies and design work on the bridge have been completed, and the city’s South Waterfront coordinator, Dawn Michelle Foster, says it’s “shovel ready.” But no funding source nor timetable for construction is in sight. Clearly, such a bridge would beget a lot of student housing and thus benefit the owners of the mostly industrial properties near its southern terminus. But it’s hard to imagine such development generating enough TIF revenue to pay for the span. So whether it would be a boon or a boondoggle is debatable. The city does have $5.4 million in federal funding earmarked for roadwork along Sevier Avenue to the east, including a roundabout that promises to become the increasingly busy intersection of Sevier and Island Home. But Foster reckons it may be three years before design work and right-ofway acquisition for sidewalks are completed so construction can begin. Meanwhile, the city is nearing completion of a much more accessible new entrance to Fort Dickerson Park aligned with the intersection of Chapman Highway and Woodlawn Pike. This $1.2 million project should make Knoxville’s prime Civil War commemorative site a more appealing place to visit and to access nearby trails around Quarry Lake, which is one of the Urban Wilderness’ most scenic spots. So things are looking up.

Riverwalk at the Bridges, as the complex has been dubbed, should provide a big boost to South Knoxville’s economy.

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7

ARCHITECTURE MATTERS

An Art Untrue The new Walnut Street parking garage offers a difficult lesson BY GEORGE DODDS

n old friend once quipped, “The half-life of missing the point is forever.” He could have been speaking of the new Walnut Street parking garage in downtown Knoxville. Just as Knoxville is emerging from its backwater status, it finds itself once again on the cutting edge of the past. It’s difficult to get around what seems a generally held view by several of the new garage’s critics: This is the wrong building type in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet, the garage’s very existence serves an important albeit unintended civic function: smelling salts for those committed to the continued reinvention and reinhabitation of our downtown. It demonstrates unambiguously the kind of thing that ought never to happen again in our urban core. For years to come, it will serve an invaluable civic role when we debate new building projects for downtown or elsewhere. It is encouraging to think that the Clockwork Orange-like intersection of vacant streets it comprises at Walnut and Summer Place need not be a Dante-esque signpost to all who enter here; we need not “abandon all hope.” One way to better understand some of the flaws behind its creation is to parse, not the building’s failures as

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

they seem readily apparent, but rather the nature of downtown Knoxville’s successes. The parking garage notwithstanding, what is it that Knoxville has been doing right? For when one can’t find a way to repeat an earlier success, it’s often because one never knew what one was doing right in the first place. Several years ago, Metro Pulse’s Jack Neely became quite animated when downtown Knoxville finally achieved a dwelling density equal to that of its suburbs. And while any viable urban core typically sports a density exponentially higher than that of its periphery, Neely was right to celebrate that tipping point when the core began to outpace the density of its edges. Every city’s rebirth begins with fits and starts of reinhabitation and is crowned with its first sizable grocery store, signaling that residents need no longer drive to outlying supermarkets. That said, when we look closely at the successes that Knoxville has enjoyed in its downtown of late, it’s difficult not to see the suburban model behind its urban success, and this should signal some concern. No one would argue that the level of activity downtown today was unimaginable a dozen years ago.

Cheek-to-jowl gatherings in Market Square have replaced the occasional tumbleweeds that blew across what some local wags once called Knoxville’s Piazza della morte: buildings, major and minor, rehabilitated as apartments and condominiums; restored, lovely theaters along Gay Street belching out paying customers onto crowded nighttime streets; heretofore unknown homegrown restaurants with lines out the door; a gaggle of new retail venues, including Urban Outfitters; an actual wine and spirits shop; and the omnipresence of police vehicles signaling there is enough activity to actually promote petty crimes and misdemeanors—all signs of a typical healthy city center. Yet, like the theaters on Gay, the downtown itself remains more a stage set for urban events than an authentic “urb.” It is used not that differently from West Town Mall or the Orchestra Hall/Coliseum Zone. Virtually all of its users are short-term, driving in, from, and back home to various points along the periphery. Certainly, Knoxville is not the first city with a center that is more stagecraft than statecraft. The Italian Renaissance walled town of Sabbioneta, situated midway between Verona and Mantua, was built out of whole cloth by Duke Gonzaga as a homage to ancient Rome (and to his family). Its city streets were designed to promote memories of ancient Greek and Roman tragedies, but the ideal town never became a going concern. Knoxville is no Sabbioneta, which is a good thing, as the intended utopia suffered the fate of all such cities—the ideal could not resist the vicissitudes of a world that is real. Hence, this is not to suggest that Knoxville can continue to

develop and transform into a vibrant urban setting free of the very real pressures of profit. But the new Walnut Street parking garage— prefabricated and post-rationalized—seems not only a product of developer profit margins but also a fabrication of need. Hence, we continue to carry coals to Newcastle as we add to our existing glut of parking in the urban core. One need not be a historic preservationist to argue that standalone single-use parking garages are not just a bad idea for downtown Knoxville, they are bad idea for any downtown at any time. Of course, these sorts of things are far easier to criticize than they are to manage. Fortunately, there are many places one can look to for lessons learned—examples of the unintended consequences of attempting to improve a modest-sized city’s quality of life: Portland, Boulder, and Charleston, to name a few. Portland is, today, the antithesis of nearby Seattle. While both cities have become popular settings for an ever-increasing number of basic cable television programs, they could not be more different. Iconic buildings such as the Office of Metropolitan Architecture’s Seattle Public Library are essentially outlawed in Portland, where relatively strict buildings codes are so narrowly enforced that buildings such as OMA’s formally aggressive and not-traditionally-urban library is forever out of bounds. In Boulder, the residents’ desire to preserve the surrounding beautiful open spaces has inadvertently created extreme challenges to the affordability of inner-city dwelling; the beltway of preservation has created a bottleneck of development on a fixed landmass. As Mark Twain quipped, the reason land is

One need not be a historic preservationist to argue that stand-alone single-use parking garages are not just a bad idea for downtown Knoxville, they are bad idea for any downtown at any time.

Old City Luxury Loft

As Mark Twain

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quipped, the reason land is such a good investment is

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because “they’re not making it anymore.”

such a good investment is because “they’re not making it anymore.” And as was recently reported in a New York Times article, Charleston struggles with its past as it continues to profit from its image of Victorian civility. Clemson University’s failed attempts over the course of a decade to build an extension of its School of Architecture in the city’s downtown demonstrates just how Charleston’s tourist-based business interests will continue to defeat any attempt to build architecture that challenges the status quo. Ironically, it may take the construction of a museum to house the history of the city’s role in New World slavery to effectively challenge Charleston’s de facto ban on architecture that actively engages current cultural trends. Near the end of his life, Pennsylvania’s founder, William Penn, wrote in his Fruits of Solitude (1693), “Undertake no Experiment, in Speculation, that appears not true in Art; nor then, at thine own Cost, if costly or hazardous in making.” By permitting the new Walnut Street parking garage to be built in a manner better suited for an exurban mall than a city center, unintentionally retarding the recent gains of urban reinvigoration, we learn the difficult lesson of how fragile is success, particularly when one does not fully understand why one has succeeded. That said, the rebuilding of downtown will continue with failures and successes, but surely not by building the wrong kind of building in the wrong place at the wrong time, as there is much hazard in making an art untrue. George Dodds is the Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor of Architecture at the University of Tennessee.

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March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9

easles are back. The disease that American medicine seemed to have conquered 15 years ago struck 644 Americans in 27 states last year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. There are four continuing outbreaks underway nationwide, including a multi-state outbreak linked to Disneyland that began last December. Although Tennessee reported no cases last year, they are inching closer: At least one measles case was diagnosed in Georgia. But some communities face more risk than others. It all boils down to a shot. In areas where vaccination rates are high, preventable diseases struggle to spread. So what is Knoxville’s risk? An annual survey by the Tennessee Immunization Program in the state health department checks how many 2-year-olds have received the recommended dosage of 10 vaccinations, breaking down the results by seven rural regions and six urban counties. With the Disneyland outbreak making headlines and stirring fears, the 2014 survey results send a message to Knoxville: Good job. Knox County vaccination rates are better than average—not only for

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

A study reveals how closely Knox County parents are sticking to their children’s vaccination schedules BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN measles but for most diseases that can be prevented by a shot or two (or three, or four). In 2014, 87 percent of Knox County 2-year-olds had their vaccinations on time, the highest rate in the state. For the last two years, only about 2 percent of Tennessee 2-year-olds had received no shots, according to the survey. Most parents who decided not to vaccinate their children cited philosophical reasons. Religious objections were the second most common reason given. Of the 105 children in the 2014 Knox County survey, only one had received no shots. One more whose

family refused the shots was among the 107 sampled in the broader East Tennessee region. “We’re really proud and really pleased at the level of vaccination coverage we have for 2-year-olds here in Knox County,” says Dr. Martha Buchanan, director of the Knox County Health Department. “We really don’t have a huge portion of people in Knox County not vaccinating their children.” She credits her staff and local pediatricians, as well as health department public education campaigns about the shots most often skipped in past years, such as the HIB vaccine that helps combat a leading cause of bacterial meningitis.

She says the county immunization program audits day cares once a year, finding between three and six kids per day care missing some of the shots. She estimates the total number is at or below the state average. And the number of kids who basically stay on the recommended shot schedule may be even higher, because the survey doesn’t count the many children who have their annual checkup and shots slightly after their second birthday.

PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED

Most babies get shots at almost every visit to the pediatrician. To stay on the recommended schedule, a child may receive as many as six shots in one doctor visit and up to 29 by the age of 2, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. That’s how it was for Catherine Roberson’s first child. The Knoxville mother didn’t think a lot about it because she was following her doctor’s recommendations. But by the time she had her second child, she had more questions. “I started learning about alternative ways of thinking about my children’s health,” after joining the local chapter of the Holistic Moms Network, she says. She began questioning whether vaccina-

tions might lead to autism or produce neurological side effects, especially when so many are given together. “It felt like a huge responsibility,” Roberson says. She tried to do her own research but felt bombarded by different opinions from the Holistic Moms Network, her family, her doctor and her friends. Evaluating all these messages started to feel overwhelming. She prayed about it. Over time, she decided her children would receive all the recommended shots, but at a slower pace. “Once I realized it doesn’t have to be on their timeline, it was a huge relief,” she says. “Our doctor said, ‘I do not agree with this, but I’ll allow you as a mother to make the decision.’” Later, however, when her pediatrician moved and she had to find a new one, several refused to take her children as patients because their shots were not up to date. Knoxville Pediatric Associates, for example, screens out new patients whose families don’t vaccinate, says pediatrician John Wilkinson. He says some doctors feel that if the parent doesn’t trust the pediatrician’s recommendations about vaccines, they may not trust his other recommendations either. On the other hand, treating these families gives doctors more opportunities to try to talk them into immunizing their children. Today, Roberson’s kids, who are now in upper elementary school, have all their immunizations and never had any reactions. “People in East Tennessee are no different than people across the country in their concerns about potential side effects of vaccines or the sheer number of vaccines that are given,” Buchanan says. “Really concerns about the health of their children are the primary reasons people cite for not vaccinating their kids. People have that freedom to choose how they raise their children.” Roberson’s choice to space out her kids’ shots has become more common as the number of vaccinations proliferate. A study published online March 2 in the journal Pediatrics found that 93 percent of pediatricians are asked to delay shots in a typical month, and 74 percent said they agree to it at least some of the time. (Most say they also believe it puts the kids at risk.) Winkinson says he is opposed to delaying shots the first year because the youngest children are at the greatest risk. The schedule can be a

little more flexible after a year, he says. In some regions of the United States, a growing number of parents are deciding not to vaccinate at all. The trend is more common in states like California that allow children to attend public school without shots. (The only exemptions in Tennessee are for religious or medical reasons, not “philosophical” ones.) Particularly prevalent have been fears of a link between autism and a mercury-containing preservative once common in vaccines. The original 1997 study supporting this idea has been discredited for procedural problems, ethical violations and conflict of interest, and was retracted by the medical journal The Lancet which first published it. And the mercury-containing ingredient was almost entirely removed from vaccines by 2001, without a corresponding fall in autism rates, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Since 2003, the CDC has funded or conducted nine studies that also found no link between the mercury in vaccines and autism. And a 2010 Pediatrics study of more than 1,000 children ages 7 to 10 found no neurological effects from receiving multiple shots on time when compared with children who received their shots on a delayed schedule. Wilkerson says parents occasionally raise concerns about autism and mercury, and he shares the results of scientific studies that help them be more comfortable with vaccination. He also notes that although children today receive many more vaccines than 20 to 30 years ago, the number of antigens (the proteins that cause an immune reaction) to which they are exposed is smaller because vaccines have been refined. Media coverage of vaccine-deniers has been enough to induce whiplash. Much of it was sympathetic in its portrayal of parents’ autism fears, despite contrary evidence—until the Disneyland measles outbreak triggered a frenzy of media reports demonizing parents who don’t vaccinate.

FOLLOWING THE HERD

They don’t have horns. But they can affect the herd. (Don’t be too offended, but in this scenario, we are all cows.) In one of those rare cases when medical terms aren’t technical, it’s called “herd immunity.” “If enough people are protected (by vaccination) from an illness and

“People in East Tennessee are no different than people across the country in their concerns about potential side effects of vaccines or the sheer number of vaccines that are given.” —DR. MARTHA BUCHANAN, director of the Knox County Health Department

the disease is introduced into the community, the protected people stop the transmission because they don’t get sick,” Buchanan explains. But if enough people aren’t immunized, the disease can spread and attack children too young to be vaccinated. “So you put other people at risk when you choose not to vaccinate your children,” she says. This is how a personal choice can have implications for many other people. The threshold needed to maintain herd immunity varies according to how contagious a disease is. Often medical journals indicate a 90 to 95 vaccination rate is needed to maintain herd immunity against measles. But it might be notably lower for polio, which is less contagious. JAMA Pediatrics published research last week confirming the Disneyland outbreak was probably caused by low vaccination rates. As many as half the people who were sickened with the disease were unvaccinated. The 2014 Tennessee vaccination survey found that 95 percent of 2-year-olds in Knoxville and East Tennessee had completed the MMR series, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella (German measles). Local vaccination rates were also very high in several other categories, such as the Hepatitis B series of vaccines, which had been received by 99 percent of East Tennessee 2-yearolds. (The East Tennessee region includes all the counties surrounding Knox and others north to Campbell and

Scott and south to Monroe.) You really can’t get more protection than that. In the state as a whole, 81.5 percent of kids get their recommended shots by age 2. East Tennessee as a whole clocks in a little lower, at 79 percent, but it nevertheless places third among the state’s regions.

THE EXCEPTIONS

The news is not as good for poor children. The survey found that statewide, children on TennCare were significantly less likely to be fully protected against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, as well as the infection that causes meningitis. Black 2-year-olds were slightly more likely to have full protection against measles and chicken pox than white children, the survey found. But they are 19 percent less likely to get the two flu shots required to protect babies. Children on food stamps also lag when it comes to getting the flu shots. “What we are seeing now is that racial disparity really exists in Tennessee primarily around flu vaccine,” Buchanan says. “Why it’s lower is a good question. We really haven’t been able to sort out what the primary cause is of that.” Although poorer families often don’t receive preventive care because of the cost, children who are uninsured or who have TennCare now receive vaccines for free, she notes. She says the health department’s TenderCare program contacts families of children on TennCare to make sure those children’s shots are up to date. The state is shifting to a new electronic system for tracking vaccination records. It was supposed to roll out in November, but technical kinks have prevented its being used yet, Buchanan says. It should eventually enable any doctor to immediately pull up a child’s records, no matter where the last shots were given, and flag the shots that are due. “The hope is the new system will interface more easily with pediatricians’ electronic health records and we’ll have more real-time reporting,” Buchanan says. And that could make it even harder for a child’s vaccination to be overlooked. “Vaccines have successfully eliminated childhood illnesses that take the life or leave a child permanently disabled,” Buchanan says. “We know if everybody is practicing prevention, we’ll all be healthier.” March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11

futurE MusiC FOLLOWING THE HEARTBEAT OF BIG EARS 2015 What is Big Ears? The quick and easy description might be “avant-garde music festival,” but that barely encompasses the range of artistic interactions that arise when you gather so many inventive people in one setting. In fact, let’s avoid labeling it altogether and just hear what the artists themselves have to say about the things they do. Our team of new-music fans will be covering Big Ears all weekend! Keep up with us on the following platforms: • Blog posts, photo galleries, and podcasts at knoxmercury.com • Recaps at facebook.com/knoxmercury • Photos at instagram.com/knoxmercury • And on Twitter! Follow @knoxmercury and #MercuryEars 12

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

krONOs QuartEt

QUIETLY SHAPING THE NEXT STRING-QUARTET GENERATION BY CHRIS BARRETT

n a mid-February evening, David Harrington, first violinist and founder of Kronos Quartet, politely accepts a scheduled phone call, and even more politely delays the intended conversation with a digression on war photography. “I met a photojournalist who has covered virtually every war in the last 30 years,” says Harrington. “His name is James Nachtwey. He was showing me his photographs and there was no way I could not keep looking at these. It was just so incredibly beautiful, moving, disturbing. It was so many things all at once.” Kronos Quartet was founded in 1973. The ensemble has changed little in terms of membership over those 41 years plus change. Currently alongside Harrington onstage and in studio are violinist John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Sunny Yang. Kronos Quartet has recorded and performed music from across the spectrum—from Esquivel to Jimi Hendrix, Steve Reich to Terry Riley, Alban Berg to Alfred Schnittke, Bryce Dessner to Oswaldo Golijov, and most of what lies between. Kronos Quartet has redefined a form that many consider to have been

perfected by Beethoven. And Kronos has refined that form in ways that, surprisingly, can make the string quartet seem the ideal descriptive and documentary device for life during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. One way Kronos Quartet has advanced the string quartet form is by commissioning diverse works specifically for their collective and individual instrumental voices. More than 850 original works have been written for them. David Harrington may have been made aware that the goal for this article was to examine the Kronos commission and cultivation programs. If not, all the more impressive is the ease with which he transforms the Nachtwey portfolio from momentary diversion to Exhibit A. “There is no way that is not going to lead to a Kronos project,” he says of the photos. “Music has to be a counterbalance to terror and war.” Kronos has fruitful and long-running histories of collaboration with American minimalist giants Riley, Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams, and there is an often otherwise unaffiliated school of gifted living composers who value Kronos both as assessor and ambassador. Kronos is

their mirror and their pitchman. And so the repertoire grows of its own accord. The Kronos Performing Arts Association is a San Francisco-based nonprofit that raises and disperses much of the funds necessary to make all this music. According to the organization’s website, 40 new works are currently underway by composers from 25 different countries. In order to commemorate the ensemble’s 30th anniversary in 2003, Kronos launched the “Under 30” program—1,000-plus aspiring composers from 58 countries, all under the age of 30, submitted compositions for consideration, and five of them have been realized and have received their premiere performances. The system works. “When I was 12, I first heard string-quartet music,” Harrington says, remembering a time when his musical world was shaped by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. “I got addicted to the sound. Years later, it became clear to me that at that age, the string quartet became my instrument. At age 14, I’m looking at the globe and I have this realization that all the music I know for this form that I’m addicted to was written by four men who lived in the same city. “As I got a little older, I began playing music written by composers living in Seattle. I started to play the

music of Bartók and started to hear all kinds of music by Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Edgard Varèse, and Charles Ives. And the vocabulary started to increase. Then I started to hear music from Africa and Asia and different places. Then there’s the contact with the American war in Vietnam and thinking, what am I going to do with my life? “And then hearing [West Virginia composer George Crumb’s] Black Angels in 1973 for the first time, and all of a sudden I knew exactly what I had to do. There was not even a question. It was one of those moments when everything was so clear. “A week later I started Kronos.” Harrington was 24 years old at the time. In January of this year, Kronos announced a new program, “Fifty for the Future,” a program that promises continued new music—50 new compositions over the next five years—and an online infrastructure that provides teaching tools to music educators and emerging musicians around the world at no charge. Among Kronos’ many blue-chip partners for the endeavor is the host institution, Carnegie Hall. “There’s so much that can be done in music,” Harrington says. “One experience leads to another. Music itself is a set of variations. This substance, this man-made substance, is infinitely variable. Each person, each group, each composer, is able to create these variations and we get to share it with each other.” And life is long.

KRONOS QUARTET WILL PERFORM WITH THE FOLLOWING: THE MUSIC OF TERRY RILEY WITH WU MAN • TENNESSEE THEATRE • Friday, March 27 • 9 p.m. •

FOLK SONGS WITH RHIANNON GIDDENS AND SAM AMIDON • TENNESSEE THEATRE • Saturday, March 28 • 1:30 p.m.

LANDFALL WITH LAURIE ANDERSON • TENNESSEE THEATRE • Saturday, March 28 • 7 p.m.

TUNDRA SONGS WITH TANYA TAGAQ • THE STANDARD • Sunday, March 29 • 3 p.m.

40 CANONS WITH BRYCE DESSNER • THE STANDARD • Sunday, March 29 • 3:52 p.m.

VIEWS FROM HERE TO THE HEAVENS (FOR SCOTT FRASER) WITH NELS CLINE • THE STANDARD • Sunday, March 29 • 10 p.m. March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13

GrOuper HYPNOTIC SOUNDSCAPES

hen Grouper’s music washes over you, it takes its time. The solo project of Portland-based ambient artist Liz Harris, Grouper’s intimate compositions slowly seep into the senses, drowning out distractions as they explore themes of space and nature. Her art is pure and quiet—supported by chirping crickets, falling rain, and fuzzy piano—yet powerful enough to make an impact. An active member of Portland’s arts community, Harris has performed as Grouper since 2005, when she released a self-titled CD-R. Since her debut, she’s put out around a dozen recordings on various imprints, including Kranky, Type, and her own Yellow Electric. But while all of Harris’ releases boast the same key components—breathy vocals, ethereal drones, and ambient acoustics—each individual offering lulls listeners into a distinct dream, carried by her hypnotic soundscapes and measured use of instrumentation. On 2008’s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, Harris’ main instruments consist of listless guitars and whirring organs, while on her latest, 2014’s Ruins, she largely relies on noises from nature—croaking frogs and rumbling thunder—to support her simple but emotionally dense arrangements.

A JOURNEY THROUGH KRONOS QUARTET RECORDINGS

uring a mid-1980s period of compulsion for all things Philip Glass, I found myself on Park Row in New York City, plopping down money for two recent recordings of the composer¹s music that, coincidentally, were both performances by the Kronos Quartet. The first was original music for the Paul Schrader film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, which contained Glass’ String Quartet No. 3. The other, an album titled simply Kronos Quartet, included a string-quartet arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” in addition to Glass’ String Quartet No. 2 (also called Company) and quartets by the now-late composers Peter Sculthorpe and Conlon Nancarrow. Although I had been aware of Kronos by name for several years, this was my first tangible encounter with the group, and I found their eclecticism and enthusiasm for diverse contemporary music irresistible. What I experienced in the ’80s was but a hint of the mind-boggling diversity that was to emerge over the next 30 years—more than 50 recordings and the commissioning of more than 800 works for string quartet from both relative unknowns and greats of contemporary music such as Astor Piazzolla, Osvaldo Golijov, Steve Reich, John Cage, Henryk Górecki, Morton Feldman, and, of course, Glass and Terry Riley. Big Ears audiences can explore the special bond between Riley and Kronos on Friday evening in a set that is slated to feature The Cusp of Magic, a 2008 recording. Their relationship, though, began 30 years earlier at Mills College, in California, where Riley taught composition and the members of Kronos served as artists-in-residence. Perhaps the most emotionally charged collaboration with Riley was the 2001 Requiem for Adam, a project that had its origins in tragedy. In 1998, founder David Harrington’s 16-year-old son Adam died while the family was hiking. Riley’s touch in this memorial work, though unmistakable, has a compelling and unexpected gentleness. Reich and Kronos have collaborated on several works, but I’m drawn over and over again to an earlier one, the Grammy-winning Different Trains, from 1989. The three-movement work combines layers of strings combined with the sounds of trains and the voices of train workers in the U.S. and Holocaust survivors who had been transported via trains during World War II. In a completely different direction and sensibility, Nuevo, Kronos’ south of the border-flavored recording from 2002, features several Osvaldo Golijov arrangements as well as rhythmically 14

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

addictive works by Silvestre Revueltas and others that drip with humor and spice. The variety of tone and texture on this recording is amazing, insuring that you must listen till the end. Bryce Dessner, best known as a guitarist for the indie band the National, also treads another musical path in a completely different direction, and with a completely different sensibility—that of a composer of post-classical music for orchestral and chamber ensembles. Big Ears audiences can catch Kronos with Dessner’s 40 Canons, which premiered in May. A year earlier came the recording Aheym: Kronos Quartet Plays Music by Bryce Dessner. The title track is driving and anxious, yet contains perversely satisfying twists. The music surges, then relents, all the while dotted with porcupine-like string textures. Following “Little Blue Something” and “Tenebrae” comes the contrast of the finale, “Tour Eiffel,” which opens with a youth chorus reciting a poem by the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro that softly clashes in dissonance. The work then moves in multiple directions, exploring a range of events of what one might conceivably define as luscious minimalism. The journey through the music of Kronos always leads back to where it began for me—with Philip Glass. 2013 brought another commission to Glass from Kronos for the String Quartet No. 6, a work still awaiting the recording studio. However, an essential trek through the other Glass string quartets via Kronos can be had in the 1995 album Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass. The album includes the two mentioned previously plus the string quartets No. 4 and No. 5. For those familiar only with Glass’ soundtracks, operas, or theater pieces, the No. 5’s depth and wealth of lyricism, minus the repetition, plus a sensitive performance from Kronos, may just force you to view the composer in an entirely new way.

Photo by Jason Bokros

BY ALAN SHERROD

Written in the home of a friend’s aunt on the southwest tip of Portugal in 2011, Ruins marks Harris’ most cohesive group of songs to date. Recorded with a four-track tape recorder and an upright piano, the album was inspired by the ruins of a tiny village nearby. The isolation that she experienced on walks through the village provided ample opportunity to reflect on space, a theme Harris has said played a large role in the album’s eight tracks. In addition to her achievements in music, Harris is also an accomplished visual artist, bringing her observations to life via video, sound, and illustrations. Her screen prints are especially striking, with intricate, repetitive drawings of mesmerizing shapes in shades of black and cream. Both Harris’ visual and sonic aesthetics surface in her live performances, with trance-inducing loops and layered vocals syncing to create an arresting atmosphere. “Most of the drawings and songs have a kind of doorway or void somewhere in them,” Harris told one interviewer. But with the robust emotional reactions her art evokes, it’s hard to pick up on the emptiness. —Carey Hodges

GROUPER • THE SQUARE ROOM • Saturday, March 28 • 11 p.m.

MulitMeDia

Bill MOrrisON TIME CHANGES EVERYTHING BY ERIC DAWSON

lauriE ANDersON SPOKEN-WORD EXPERIMENTALIST

BILL MORRISON AND BIL FRISELL: THE GREAT FLOOD • BIJOU THEATRE • Sunday, March 29, at 5:30 p.m.

Photo by Clayton James Cubitt

hough Bill Morrison doesn’t make traditional narrative films, stories are told through the film clips he assembles. A graduate of Cooper Union School of Art, Morrison has made a career of working with footage found in archives throughout the world. Due to the nature of their source material, his films were always concerned with history, memory, and the passage of time. But an encounter with Peter Delpeut’s 1991 film Lyrical Nitrate, which incorporated damaged nitrate film, caused him to reflect further on the ephemeral nature of film and its visual record of life in the 20th century. “That was a eureka moment for me, to see how the narrative changed when the distress occurred on the film,” Morrison says. “I’d already applied corrosive material to film and distressed it myself in other ways, but when I saw what time had done without the aid of a human hand, that was very inspiring to me.” The result of this epiphany was Decasia, a film composed entirely of nitrate, a highly unstable film stock prone to decomposition and combustion when not stored properly. Morrison says he selected film clips in which deteriorating portions of the image seem to be interacting with people within the frame. The most widely-known image from the film is that of a boxer striking out at a punching bag that is no longer there. As Morrison puts it, he “looks like he’s fighting the void.” It’s an eerily beautiful film, created as a meditation on mortality, and it remains the filmmaker’s most heralded work. This may change as Morrison’s latest film, The Great Flood, gains more exposure. The Great Flood comprises archival footage from the 1927 Mississippi River flood, which submerged 27,000 square miles of land, mainly throughout the South but as far north as Illinois. Much of the film uses original 35mm nitrate negative that had never been viewed before. It’s a captivating assemblage of images documenting both the destruction the flood wrought and the perseverance of the people caught up in it. Time and humidity have rendered a weathered, ragged look to some of the footage—a perfect, if disquieting, fit for the subject matter. Lately, there’s been an abundance of established musicians scoring classic silent films. Morrison was in the vanguard of matching silent images with creative musicians—he’s worked with John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Michael Gordon, and Johann Johannsson. He usually edits films to existing scores, but for The Great Flood he wanted a soundtrack that was more fluid and improvisational. So he turned to one of his heroes, guitarist Bill Frisell.

“Unlike other composers I’ve worked with, I went on the road with Frisell and his band when they were developing this music in 2011,” Morrison says. “We went through the same region as the flood, through the Deep South, up through Missouri and Illinois. I don’t know if you recall, but the Mississippi River was as high then as it had been since 1927. We stood on the levee and felt some anxiety and uncertainty about whether it would hold. It was a palpable and uncanny experience, and I think it probably affected the way he wrote the music.” Jazz, blues, hymns, and parlor music are all referenced in the score (there’s even a take on “Ol’ Man River,” from the 1927 musical Show Boat), but the music is highly modern. The subtle arrangements for guitar, trumpet, bass, and drums never overshadow the images, though Frisell does allow himself an animated fuzz-laden guitar solo toward film’s end. Morrison also emphasizes the importance of music in the lives of the displaced citizens, with footage of dancing, singing, and music-making appearing throughout the film. The final image is of a group of dancers on Chicago’s Maxwell Street. The spirited woman in the center of the group seems to be dancing away her worries, at least momentarily. She glances at the camera and audience just before the fade-out. It’s a potent image that could be representative of Morrison’s oeuvre in general. Though we may find the eventual and inevitable loss of these fading images and the people within them tragic, watching the films we’re also reminded of the impermanence of everything, and that we should perhaps live accordingly.

n October 2013, Laurie Anderson lost her partner of 21 years, 71-year-old rock icon Lou Reed. The music world has mourned profoundly ever since— but for Anderson, Reed’s death has led to reevaluating the meaning of life. “It’s been a wonderful, kind of hallucinatory year for me,” Anderson told Time Out New York in 2014. “I’ve learned probably more than I’ve ever learned in my whole life, so it’s been really great, from that point of view. … I really, ah, kind of see things differently. Fundamentally differently now than I did a year ago. I’ve found that I really have to rethink pretty much everything I know about time, love, work. Just everything!” Anderson’s work—as a musician, composer, visual artist, performance artist, photographer, filmmaker, inventor—is proof that art has restorative powers, that it can heal. After working as an art critic and children’s-book illustrator in the early ’70s, Anderson found her true calling onstage later in the decade, earning acclaim within the sophisticated New York performance-art and experimental-music scenes. Then the unthinkable happened: In 1981, “O Superman,” a vocoder-driven single from her debut album, Big Science, rose to number two on the U.K. singles chart. The record transcended its era. Over three decades later, it still sounds unlike anything else, establishing Anderson’s unique blend of minimalist art-rock atmospheres and sharply satirical—and often profoundly

moving—spoken-word pieces. Ever since, Anderson has occupied a unique position in pop culture as a revered experimentalist who still attracts modest commercial attention. Her thrilling run of ’80s albums capitalized on the momentum of her left-field hit, blurring the line between avant-garde and pop. Anderson is a savvy collaborator, constantly surrounding herself with talented partners, regardless of the potential pop impact. In 1994, she recruited Brian Eno to produce Bright Red, a bleak and insular reaction to her more accessible ’80s material. But regardless of personnel, Anderson’s style—her ethereal violin playing, her warm singing, her authoritative spoken word—is unmistakable. Anderson’s most recent studio album is 2010’s Homeland, a haunting, hour-long song cycle about the absurdity of modern life in America. But she’s persevered through the last year and a half with admirable grace, both personally and professionally. Her latest project—and the focus of her Big Ears performance—is Landfall, a collaboration with acclaimed ensemble Kronos Quartet. Inspired by Anderson’s vivid experiences from Hurricane Sandy, the piece combines musically triggered pictorials with lush orchestrations and electronics. —Ryan Reed

LAURIE ANDERSON AND KRONOS QUARTET: LANDFALL • TENNESSEE THEATRE • Saturday, March 28 • 7 p.m. March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 15

MulitMeDia

SQÜRL CINEMATIC DRONE BY ERIC DAWSON

SaM AMiDON

COLLABORATIVE FOLK ARTIST BY CAREY HODGES

ollaboration creeps into every aspect of Sam Amidon’s songwriting. On his latest release, 2014’s subdued but powerful Lily-O, the Vermont-born folk musician worked closely with celebrated jazz guitarist (and fellow Big Ears performer) Bill Frisell, as well as Icelandic composer/ producer/engineer Valgeir Sigurðsson, whose affinity for mining bold, stirring themes out of subtle electronics and classical arrangements has led to projects with Björk, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Feist, and others. But while Amidon has worked directly with a variety of musicians over the course of his nearly decade-long career—friends Thomas Bartlett and Nico Muhly joined him as a part of the 802 Tour at 2010’s Big Ears—his self-dubbed “re-imagined folk songs” are also collaborations in themselves. They’re often stitched together from slices of traditional folk songs and modern offerings (check out his version of R. Kelly’s “Relief”) and rearranged to resemble something new entirely. Amidon grew up in a musical family, learning the fiddle at an early age and tagging along with his folk-artist parents to various performance circles and education events in his hometown of Brattleboro, Vt. As

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

Amidon explains it, his childhood was immersed in a warm, open musical community, a quality that he was particularly pleased to encounter at 2010’s Big Ears. “You know, at most festivals people don’t interact with one another quite as often,” Amidon says. “You sort of go on for your performance and that’s it. I really remember the warm atmosphere of that 2010 year. People would stop one another on the street and say hi. It was all much more casual. Plus, it’s always great to perform my music in Tennessee because it’s a source of inspiration for the style of music that I create. Someone could be watching the show and think about how their grandfather played the fiddle or how he used to sit on the porch with a banjo.” In addition to his solo performance at this year’s festival, Amidon is slated to share the stage with the Kronos Quartet and Carolina Chocolate Drops’ frontwoman Rhiannon Giddens. But beyond his scheduled appearances, Big Ears presents a unique opportunity for Amidon to exert his passion for working with other artists, so you might find him joining in surprise performances.

KRONOS QUARTET: FOLK SONGS WITH RHIANNON GIDDENS AND SAM AMIDON • TENNESSEE THEATRE • Saturday, March 28 • 1:30 p.m.

SAM AMIDON WITH BILL FRISELL AND SHAHZAD ISMAILY • BIJOU THEATRE • Saturday • March 28 • 10:45 p.m.

im Jarmusch’s soundtracks have always been an especially important element of his films. The music he selects can reveal as much about his characters as their dialogue. His soundtrack albums have also served as excellent mixtapes or entry points into the discographies of musicians such as Tom Waits and Neil Young. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, Jarmusch was a regular at New York City’s legendary CBGB and the Mudd Club, soaking up the sounds of the seminal bands of New York punk. He even created some of those sounds in the no-wave band the Del-Byzanteens. A few years ago, Jarmusch started playing music again, in the band SQÜRL and with lutist Jozef van Wissem. SQÜRL works in a sort of doomy, feedback-laden sludge mode not unlike Boris, Earth, or Sunn O))), bands whose music appears in Jarmusch’s film The Limits of Control. “A while ago, Jack White asked me to remix the White Stripes’ ‘Blue Orchard’ for a split vinyl release with Michel Gondry, and then I made a video for the Raconteurs down in Tennessee,” Jarmusch says. “I’d go to Jack’s house at the end of the day and he encouraged me to go into his music room and play anything I want. He would find me playing this old Gibson from 1905, and at the end of the shoot he gave me the guitar. I never would have taken it, but he said he had two so it was okay. So I was plunking around on that, then got another electric guitar and a cheap keyboard and I started making music again.” Recently, SQÜRL—Jarmusch, drummer Carter Logan, and engineer Shane Stoneback—has been providing live accompaniment for short films by Man Ray; the band will present this program at Big Ears. Though Ray’s films aren’t as well-known as his influential photographs, Jarmusch finds them no less intriguing. “I’ve been a fan of Man Ray’s work for a long time, and I’ve been interested in Dadaists and surrealists since my teens,” Jarmusch says. “He has such beautiful nonlinear experiments in film, and as

someone said recently, he treated the camera like it was a toy. In the 1920s, he was hanging the camera out of moving cars, shooting through textured glass, making photograms, there are literary references. I like his very free approach to cinema. He’s making stuff not based on logic or formal constraints, but based on the unconscious, dream logic, and juxtaposition.” Jarmusch says he thinks SQÜRL’s approach is perfect for Ray’s films, since the band doesn’t have to consider a narrative approach. “Musically, its great for us, because we are not math rockers,” Jarmusch says. “We like drone, we like atmospheric music, we like to expand, so finding things for Man Ray is a great joy because we’re not accentuating a narrative, we’re just adding another layer to the experience. We have a little map that we follow, formed while improvising along with the films and making notes about what we liked. But it’s a loose map, not in the form of a score or musical notation, just certain keys and textures and instruments that we equate with certain parts of the film. We do improvise, so every time we play is somewhat different.” SQÜRL has recorded a series of EPs as a three-piece, but Jarmusch says Stoneback, busy with his work as a recording engineer, doesn’t often play live with the band. The duo of Jarmusch and Carter will soundtrack the films, while Jozef van Wissem will join them on 12-string electric guitar for their more straightforward set Friday evening. Jarmusch has been invigorated by playing music again, as is evident in the number of recordings and live performances he’s undertaken in the last few years. The renewed interest has come as a welcome surprise to him. “I don’t know, it seemed almost like a necessity that I hadn’t planned on,” Jarmusch says. “It’s very important to me to keep making music. It’s healthy for me. It’s something I get a lot of joy from, and I may keep playing it longer than I’m making films.”

SQÜRL • THE SQUARE ROOM • Friday, March 27 • 9:15 p.m.

SQÜRL LIVE SCORE WITH MAN RAY FILMS • BIJOU THEATRE • Saturday, March 28 • 1 p.m.

ThE BaD Plus

JAZZ-POP-CLASSICAL-ROCK FUSION (IN A GOOD WAY)

o band better exemplifies the limitless Big Ears spirit than the Bad Plus. Over the past 15 years, the Midwestern trio—pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer Dave King—has expanded the palate of contemporary jazz, layering hues of avant-garde rock and classical and pop into their expansive instrumental canvas. The band established that multifaceted approach with their self-titled 2001 debut, which featured a mix of original tracks and left-field covers of Abba and Nirvana. On paper, the idea of recontextualizing a universally recognizable grunge hook into a post-bop groove whiffed of gimmick— but the group’s expressive transformation of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” proved the trio was way beyond kitsch. For some casual listeners, the Bad Plus have become “that jazz covers band”—a misleading label that belies the sophistication of their style. Over the years, they’ve radically revamped everything from Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” to Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire theme to Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” But they’ve never once played it straight, instead using familiar melodies and rhythms as a gateway into experimen-

tation. Take their 2003 cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”—here, Iverson’s cascading piano lines and King’s propulsive snare rolls push the track into free-jazz territory. It’s remarkable how a band this weird, this audacious, could indeed attract a consistent following for the past 15 years. But the Bad Plus’ malleability draws in a wide demographic—open-minded rock fans and jazz buffs looking for legitimate 21st-century fusion. The diehards love this band because they never know what to expect. As part of their artist-in-residency stint at Duke University in 2011, the trio debuted an ambitious adaptation of Stravinsky’s 1913 orchestral piece The Rite of Spring. Last year, they recorded the road-tested material—40 minutes of chaotic dissonance and majestic texture, inspired equally by Yes and Duke Ellington—for their ninth studio album. The trio also released an album of original tracks, Inevitable Western, in 2014. But for Big Ears 2015, they’re focusing on The Rite of Spring, with two back-to-back shows at the Bijou. They seem to realize the creative risks they’re taking—their Big Ears performances are playfully dubbed “On Sacred Ground.” But for the Bad Plus, traversing the unknown is the entire point. —Ryan Reed

THE BAD PLUS • BIJOU THEATRE • Friday, March 27 • 7 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.

BeN frOst

A DANGEROUS DANCE BY ERIC DAWSON

en Frost’s performance was one of the highlights of the 2010 Big Ears, and he returns to the festival to perform music from last year’s A U R O R A. Though his previous albums were characterized by a moody, dark, ambient vibe with intermittent flashes of brutality, A U R O R A is a volatile affair throughout. Gone are the elegant touches of piano, strings, and musique concrète, resulting in an album composed almost wholly of harsh electronics and the torrential drumming of Zs’ Greg Fox, Swans’ Thor Harris, and avant-garde MVP Shahzhad Ismaily. The genesis of the album is Frost’s time spent in the war-torn regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, working alongside photographer Richard Mosse. Most reviews (and, to be fair, the press release) have mentioned Frost’s time in the Congo, implying or insisting that A U R O R A is “about” that country and its civil war. But Frost has concerns about the need to so readily explain or resolve creative works. “The writing that’s been out there, it’s not wrong. It’s as true as anything,” Frost says from his native Australia, where he’s returned for a series of performances. “The mechanical reality of that record is that it was primarily forged in the back of a Land Rover in the Congo, but beyond that, I would encourage interpreting it subjectively. It’s an unfortunate reality

we inhabit, where the need for immediate gratification and encyclopedic historical fact regarding very contemporary, brand-new objects are not only asked for but demanded by a modern media construct.” Stripped of its narrative backstory, A U R O R A might sound like a warped kind of club music. At times it sounds like a nightmarish rave, the pulsing beats and shrill tones of house and techno exaggerated and distorted. But Frost approaches it from a different perspective. “Many of my contemporaries who work in what is called electronic music came to it through the conduit of dance music or rave culture, and I guess you could say avant-garde electronic music sort of deconstructs dance music, or offers an abstraction of those ideas,” Frost says. “But I wasn’t listening to that kind of music in the ’90s—I was listening to Nirvana and the Pixies, so I came to it through an almost archival way. Any art form that has moved into the realm of retro or cliché is a ripe picking ground.” More clues to Frost’s intentions might be found in the album title. The Aurora lights are caused by charged particles from the sun entering Earth’s atmosphere, creating a spectacle that elicits awe from spectators. Frost has lived in Iceland for the past 20 years and had plenty of time to reflect on the Northern lights. “In the realm of instrumental music, titles for songs and albums become even more poignant and can impose a narrative structure on the ear,” Frost says. “It’s one of the few opportunities I have to guide the ear towards ideas that were on my mind while making the music. I was looking for a title that could summarize the ideas behind the record. It has less to do with the physical reality of the Northern lights as it does with the perceived image of the Aurora from our point of view of this objective beauty, some kind of heavenly, benign force that’s there for our amusement. It’s not being interpreted as a manifestation of what it is, which is an extremely dangerous, violent outburst. It’s a fucking star vomiting out gamma rays directly at us and being sucked down to the magnetic core of the Earth. So often we think of beauty when we should be thinking of destruction.”

BEN FROST • BIJOU THEATRE • Saturday, March 28 • 12:30 a.m. March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17

Photo by Yulia Mahr

Max RiChter RECOMPOSITIONS BY ALAN SHERROD

or some, it is comforting to believe that the music world is one of discrete genres where listeners inhabit clearly marked-off territories delineated by style, preference, and social group. While that concept makes the commerce side of performance a bit easier, the reality is that musical taste, more often than not, is more analog than digital, more amorphous than narrowly defined. The fact that a festival like Big Ears even exists at all seems to be proof of that. Additional proof lies in a curious corner of the music world, a territory warmly familiar yet refreshingly quirky at the same time, where style boundaries are blurred, old and new traditions are embraced then distorted, and where even naming it often provokes discussion. This is the world of the “post-classical,” aka “neoclassical” or “indie classical”—in short, incisive musical subversion filtered through the a traditional tonal experience. Whatever label one chooses, it is a world that was incubated by the likes of Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and Steve Reich and currently headlined by composers such as Nico Muhly, Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead), and Max Richter. Big Ears

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

audiences get two chances to take in Richter and his genre-bending mix of electronics and traditional instruments—music that started with solo recordings and that now includes cinema scores, ballet, and opera. The German-born Richter moved to Great Britain as a child, first studying piano and composition at Edinburgh University, then graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and later studying under the 20th-century modernist composer Luciano Berio, in Florence. Richter’s early compositional work found him in the Berio camp of atonality, but Berio’s forays into experimental electronic music were clearly an influence as well. The appeal of atonal modernism began to fade for Richter during his time with Piano Circus, a six-pianist ensemble he cofounded in 1989. He discovered that audiences gravitated to the music of Glass, Reich, Pärt, and Terry Riley and away from the hard edges of atonality. His 10 years with Piano Circus, from which five albums sprang, solidified his belief in the narrative potential of melody. In 2002, Richter released Memoryhouse, his first recording under his own name. The 18-track album featured a mix of piano pieces, strings, natural sounds, samplings, voices, and orchestral work by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. The album foundered commercially, but someone was listening—the album got a vinyl reissue and a live performance at the Barbican in London last year, and it’s being

MAX RICHTER WITH THE AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE: THE BLUE NOTEBOOKS AND INFRA • BIJOU THEATRE • Saturday, March 28 • 8:30 p.m. MAX RICHTER WITH ACME, THE KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, AND YUKI NUMATA RESNICK: VIVALDI: RECOMPOSED AND THE LEFTOVERS • TENNESSEE THEATRE • Sunday, March 29 • 8 p.m.

Photo by Constance Mensh

performed live this year on his U.S. tour with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble. Similarly, Richter’s second album, The Blue Notebooks, from 2004, is getting a vinyl and CD re-release this month on the Deutsche Grammophon label and is on the Big Ears schedule for Saturday at the Bijou Theatre. Described by Richter as “a series of interconnected dreams,” the album mixes strings, piano, and electronics with tracks of actress Tilda Swinton reading texts by Franz Kafka and Czeslaw Milosz against environmental background sounds, including the sound of a typewriter. With a collective memory of the tasteless 1970s craze for synthesizer re-imaginings of the classics, many listeners are naturally suspicious on hearing words like “recomposed.” On the other hand, thematic borrowing has gone on throughout music history, and Deutsche Grammophon executives are certainly in a position to understand the limits. The label’s Recomposed series, in which classical works are reinterpreted by contemporary artists, has managed to surprise many, including some usually harsh critics. A 2012 invitation from the label yielded Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, a work in which the overall shape, texture, and dynamics of Vivaldi remain, but exist in an environment that’s pure Richter. That work will get its Big Ears performance on Sunday at the Tennessee Theatre, performed by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and violinist Yuki Numata. Richter’s prolific surge into collaborative media includes music for theater (Alan Cumming’s Macbeth, on Broadway), modern ballet (Infra, for choreographer Wayne McGregor with the Royal Ballet), and numerous film and TV projects (Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Ari Folman’s documentary Waltz With Bashir). This last category of Richter’s work will be represented at Big Ears on Sunday with his music from HBO’s The Leftovers, enticingly paired with Recomposed.

stevE GuNN MULTICULTURAL GUITAR PHENOM

or years, Steve Gunn built his reputation as a guitarist’s guitarist, in bands like Kurt Vile’s Violators, GHQ, or Gunn-Truscinski Duo, and on his own stylistically diverse solo records. His familiarity with folk, country, Indian, and African styles made his early releases exciting listens, but he mostly remained an underground figure. (Gunn played at Pilot Light a few years ago to maybe half a dozen paying customers.) This all began to change with the release of his 2013 album Time Off. The album reveals an unerring talent for melodies and catchy riffs, and though the tunes can stretch out lengthier than your average pop song, the group never gets lost in jam-band territory. Last year, Gunn built on this sound by expanding his band, most notably adding slide guitar and organ, resulting in probably his best album to date, Way Out Weather. He had also made a record accessible enough, and great enough, to catch the ears of NPR, Rolling Stone, Mojo, and other mainstream outlets. In his music, you can hear traces of the Grateful Dead, Gene Clark, Michael Chapman, and the forgotten or hardly known songwriters of the 1970s that Gunn references in his interviews and curated playlists for online magazines. While it’s true that he’s having a moment—he recently signed with indie powerhouse Matador—he’s been having it for a while now. Live recordings on the Web show him and his band in great form, so it’s a good time to see him. —Eric Dawson

STEVE GUNN • THE SQUARE ROOM • Friday, March 27 • 10:45 p.m.

HOlly HerNDON

MulitMeDia

WilliaM Tyler

BIONIC MUSIC BY ERIC DAWSON

SOUNDS OF THE PAST

BY ERIC DAWSON

ashville guitarist William Tyler, the son of a country-music songwriter, is most conversant in folk, rock, and country, but the diversity of acts he’s backed demonstrates his flexibility and range. His musical erudition is on display in his podcast, It’s All True, where he reflects on connections between works such as Gavin Bryars’ “The Sinking of the Titanic” and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring or Gregorian chant and American shape-note singing. These monologues on music also serve as launch points for musings on cultural history. “I have just as much of a passion for history as music,” Tyler says. “I’m really interested in the way memory and nostalgia play into the way we shape remembrance of things that happened on a mass level. I’m interested in looking into economics, psychology, religion, and everything that goes on behind the scenes—what I call deep history, things you’re not taught in high school.” This inquisitiveness made him the perfect choice to create music for a multimedia presentation reflecting on the Civil War. Duke University invited Tyler to collaborate with filmmaker Steve Milligan and theater director Akiva Fox on Corduroy Roads, a work based on the university’s recently acquired Civil War photographic portfolios of George Barnard and Alexander Gardner. These pictures were originally published in 1866 monographs sold in Northern states, offering a close-up view of the war’s violence and destruction. Reproduced in multiple books and films, many of the images have since become iconic, but Tyler says he and his collaborators wanted to present those familiar images in a new way. “We wanted to say something different about the Civil War and the way it’s talked about and presented in our culture, and also create an immersive visual and audio experience,” he says. “I grew up in the Deep South, and the way the Civil War was taught and remembered in the South 50 years ago was pretty different than it is now. A lot of white people were still fighting that war during the Civil Rights movement. “When I was a kid, the Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary was on TV, and that was a formative experience for me. Going back and rewatching it over the years, including leading up to doing this, I still respect the writing of people like Shelby Foote, but I felt some of them were disconnected or unwilling to admit the central evil that the war was about, which was slavery, and the way slavery played into the economics of our country at that time.” Tyler is certainly not alone in seeing Ken

Burns’ 1990 PBS series The Civil War as a formative experience. The nine-part, 11-hour series was a visually arresting populist exploration of what was, until then, a niche subject for academics and history buffs. Two and a half decades on, its style remains massively influential, not just on representations of the Civil War but historical documentaries in general. This popularity and influence extends to the soundtrack. The hymns, reels, and especially that plaintive wail of a lonesome fiddle rang in viewers’ ears long after the series ended. Tyler is quite conscious of how the Burns series looms large over anyone tackling this subject, especially a musician. “What Ken Burns was able to do with that series I compare with what Kubrick did with 2001 or Spielberg did with Saving Private Ryan,” Tyler says. “He basically reinvented a genre. You’re in the shadow of it, sonically and visually. But I’ve written a lot of guitar work that’s rooted in vernacular music, so obviously some of it might sound like it could be in a Ken Burns documentary. “So there are elements that will be familiar to people but also things that people might not expect. There’s a lot of atmosphere. I move between acoustic and electric guitar, and I have effects and ambient noise I run off a computer. It’s inclusive but abstract and experimental, too. I think Big Ears is a great platform for it.”

WILLIAM TYLER: CORDUROY ROADS • SATURDAY, MARCH 28 • 7:45 p.m. • The Square Room

hough Johnson City is more known for its old-time and country-music legacy, it also produced Holly Herndon, one of the most exciting, innovative electronic musicians working today, who fashions challenging but beguiling sounds using her voice and laptop. Born in 1980, Herndon moved to Berlin as a teenager to explore the city’s vibrant music scene. There she began performing improv and noise shows. After five years, Herndon moved back to the United States to pursue more formal music study at Mills College in Oakland. She is currently working toward a Ph.D. in composition at Stanford. Though she’s written a number of compositions in a new-music vein, she’s best known for music rooted in techno and pop. Samples sourced from the Internet skitter and collide over bass-heavy beats in her immersive tracks. The most affecting aspect of Herndon’s music, however, is her use of vocals, which she manipulates with her laptop. Marrying the most personal and primal of instruments with the latest technology is one of her primary creative strategies, as she explains in a Skype conversation from San Francisco. “My voice was the first instrument I started using,” Herndon says. “I grew up singing in church and school choir. It’s a natural, approachable instrument for me, and it’s easy to try things out and makes for good input to the computer. It’s old news now, but back when I started doing this there was a lot of discussion about laptop music being disembodied or less engaging, so I made it my mission to make it more engaging.” Herndon is totally on board with Donna Haraway’s 1985 essay “A Cyborg Manifesto,” which was already arguing that we have pretty much merged with machines. Herndon has even referred to her laptop as a “bionic extension” of herself. For last year’s “Chorus” single, she employed custom-made software that converted her Internet browsing history into audio signals. The program was created by her partner, artist Matt Dryhurst, who refers to the sounds of

such Internet-to-audio conversions as “Net concrète.” “I deal with contemporary conditions, and the Internet is a big part of contemporary life,” she says. “I’m not nostalgic for a past that never was. I want to deal with the here and now. It’s often an oversimplification to just criticize technology or the Internet. That doesn’t make sense to me, because they’re an extension of human thought and life.” Her work does, however, display concerns about how technology is used by government and corporate entities to harvest data and spy on digital citizens. These themes are made most explicit in the strong visual elements that figure into Herndon’s aesthetic, via her innovative videos and especially in her live performances, for which Japanese artist Akihiko Taniguchi has created animated environments that Dryhurst manipulates in real time. She will be bringing a new visual environment to Big Ears, to accompany music from her forthcoming second album, Platform. As our conversation winds down, I tell Herndon that I saw her at Moogfest in Asheville last year and met her mother at the show. Given her Johnson City roots, and the abstract and somewhat challenging nature of Herndon’s music, I wondered what her family thinks of her work. “I think they like it,” Herndon says. “They’ve put in a lot of effort to engage with it, and they’re pretty intuitive. My mom’s been to several experimental concerts with me, and we usually agree on which pieces we like and which we don’t. They like some of it more than others, I can tell, but they’ve been amazingly open-minded and supportive about it. They’re actually going to be at Big Ears this year. They’re really sweet and supportive.”

HOLLY HERNDON • SATURDAY, MARCH 28 • 5:45 p.m. • The Standard

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 19

HellO CitY

ARE YOU READY TO (UNDERGROUND) ROCK? BY NICK HUINKER

S Photo by Matias Corral

SwaNs

ECSTASY AND TRANSCENDENCE BY JOE TARR

ichael Gira’s Swans has been called the greatest live band in the world. One critic described the group’s concerts as a “visceral experience that tests the very idea of the band and the creation of music.” It’s no surprise then, that Swans’ albums— which have also found critical praise— come as a bit of an afterthought. It’s the live performances where Gira and Swans experiment, compose, and settle on what eventually will become the next record. “With the last record, many of the pieces on there had been performed for a year, 18 months,” Gira says in a Skype interview. “By the time it reaches that stage [of being recorded], it’s kind of spent.” He adds, “We usually, for the most part, abandon what we’ve just recorded and move on to something else.” Although the band is still playing two pieces based on tracks from last year’s To Be Kind, Gira says, “they’re much different from what’s on the record.” Formed in the early 1980s as part of New York City’s no-wave scene, the Swans were a challenging band from the start. The early lineup consisted of two bass players, two drummers, and a guitarist. “It was very brutal,” Gira has said. “People weren’t prepared to deal with it.” Although audience members often walked out of early shows, the band

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

nevertheless gained a cult following and endured, until disbanding in 1997. Gira moved onto other projects, including the Angels of Light, which put more emphasis on vocals and melody. But in 2010, to the delight of many old fans, he reformed the Swans. “My decision to disinter Swans was based on trying to be in the kind of sound that Swans provides again,” Gira says. “When you’re in it, it’s an overwhelming and simultaneously uplifting experience. I wanted to do that again before I was unable to do so, so I just decided, why not do it?” Swans now includes Gira on vocals and guitars, Norman Westberg on guitars and vocals, Phil Puleo on percussion, Chirstoph Hahn on guitars, Thor Harris on drums, and Christopher Pravdica on bass and acoustic guitars. Numerous guests musicians also join in for recordings. “I’m fortunate that this particular lineup of Swans has lasted so long,” Gira says of the collaboration. “It’s not a democracy. I’m the head clown. But I want people’s abilities and instinct and passion. So I’m kind of guiding things.” The recent lineup has been even more highly praised than it’s ground-breaking first act. All three albums released since reforming—2010’s My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, 2012’s The Seer, and To Be Kind—have found high critical praise. On record, the music is layered and complex. Although the music is at times a dense thicket of sound, details and nuances continually emerge. “Recording is, I don’t want to say

intellectual, but it’s more of a thing that works by accretion,” Gira says. “I try to get a good performance from the band when it’s a recording that involves the entire band at once. Or I’ll record a basic underpinning with an acoustic guitar and maybe a percussionist. Then it’s just thinking about orchestration and how to reach these moments of ecstasy.” Although the band is considered one of the more challenging live acts, Gira rejects that notion. For him, the aim is not pain or endurance but beauty and transcendence, however fleeting. “I feel it’s a total experience—it’s just like a Richard Serra sculpture, there it is. You either experience it or you don’t,” he says. “It’s not really trying to expand anybody’s consciousness. “Without being too serious about it, it’s my religion,” he adds. “It’s what I feel I’m put on Earth to do, so when I’m doing it, I feel connected to the universe. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes I’m just standing there pushing chords. When it does work, it’s the best experience I can imagine.”

SWANS • BIJOU THEATRE • Sunday, March 29 • 9:30 p.m.

ix years and four Big Ears festivals in, the idea of an exclusive, tightly curated art-music festival in Knoxville still carries a certain novelty. Not only for the fans, artists, and journalists who descend on our under-the-radar city from all over the world, but also for music-loving locals who are used to driving to Nashville or Asheville when the year’s buzziest tours pass Knoxville by. However, to an ever-growing pocket of Knoxvillians, the challenging sounds of Big Ears are an easy fit with the city’s musical identity—and a weekend when downtown is flush with adventurous listeners is the perfect time to show off the local scene. “I see Big Ears as an opportunity for people to see what’s happening here all the time,” says Jason Boardman, whose venerable Old City dive Pilot Light will again host its “indigenous companion” event, Hello City, on Friday and Saturday. “With the festival going on in town there’s a lot of excitement, and it’s great that there’s all these things people can participate in.” The Hello City concept has been in place since the first Big Ears festival in 2009. This year, however, Hello City has been pared down to the essentials: two evening-long programs offering a cross-section of the area’s most notable underground acts, from Boardman’s out-rock supergroup White Gregg to the stunning solo guitar of Joseph Allred. “Keeping it at the Pilot Light this year is a way of keeping it essential,” says Alan Bajandas, who helped Boardman coordinate this year’s event and whose band, Shriek Operator, is one of seven acts on Friday night’s bill. “Experimental, independent music in Knoxville has everything to do with the Pilot Light.” The focused structure isn’t the only thing making Hello City 2015 an essential stop for out-of-towners; as with last year’s events, Big Ears pass-holders are welcomed at no additional charge, and, as of last week, Big Ears organizers began endorsing Hello City as a recommended companion to the main festival. But locals of all stripes are eagerly welcome, too—those without passes looking for a survey of Knoxville music or just a cheap fix of the Big Ears vibe can also get in for $8 either night at the door.

HELLO CITY • PILOT LIGHT • Friday, March 27, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, March 28, at 6:30 p.m.

PerfuME GeNius

CONCEPTUAL CROSSOVER POP BY NICK HUINKER

ne of the most striking things about Big Ears’ 2014 resurrection was what seemed to be missing from its wide-ranging lineup: “big” names, at least as far as casual music fans were concerned. The festival’s previous installment, in 2010, had stayed true to its artsy intentions while also hosting acts like the National, Vampire Weekend, and St. Vincent, giving Knoxville an appreciated taste of the indie-rock festival circuit. But as last year’s crowd suggested—and as this year’s lineup confirms—Big Ears no longer has to pander to popular interest. This shift corrects the imbalance that left many 2010 sets sparsely attended while general audiences camped out at the Bijou and Tennessee theaters; it also allows the festival’s few mainstream bookings to carry some weight rather than bearing a load. This seems especially true of Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius. Though his breakthrough album (and 2014 year-end-list fixture) Too Bright, produced by Portishead’s Adrian

MulitMeDia

DeMDikE starE HORROR SOUNDTRACK

Utley, offered a bold sonic expansion on the modestly produced, piano-driven songs of his first two releases, its form and accessibility position Perfume Genius as Big Ears 2015’s most identifiably pop act. That’s no dubious honor, but it is a highly relative one, as Hadreas’ halting tones and unflinching songwriting carry conceptual significance that fairly rivals the more head-scratching acts throughout the lineup. As the tremendous widescreen lead single, “Queen,” demonstrates, Perfume Genius’ work has a way of profoundly engaging Hadreas’ experience in a society struggling to reconcile gay other-ness. “Though the direction of the album was partly a rebellious response to people suggesting I tailor or tone down the subject matter I usually deal in, I essentially just continued to create music that felt important and inspired to me,” Hadreas writes in an email interview. “The gayness of the music is just a result of my gayness. With maybe a few added ‘F YOU’s.’” The response to Too Bright has expanded Perfume Genius’ audience from small clubs to headlined music halls and an eye-catching network TV debut on The Late Show With David Letterman. Hadreas has spent recent months appreciating the effect his

hen Demdike Stare’s Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker were first invited to perform a live score for Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages for the British Film Institute, they hesitated—the pairing was too obvious, they thought. You can’t blame them. The electronic duo from Manchester, England,

artistic point of view has on those who needed to hear it from someone else. “It is overwhelming sometimes just because my music is a lot less shy than I am as a person. But all the hugs after shows, the letters and secrets people tell me—that’s the reason I am writing the way I do,” Hadreas writes. “I remember looking to music for comfort and to quell the loneliness I feel as an outsider. I am specific and explicit in my lyrics in attempt to be specifically and explicitly helpful.” As for being one of the few crossover acts at Big Ears, Hadreas expresses how honored he is to be a part of the festival but demurs to elaborate on how he thinks he fits in. Instead, he enthuses about all the shows he hopes to catch as a privileged attendee, including Tanya Tagaq, Grouper, Max Richter (“I have been a fan of his albums for years and consider them a big inspiration”), and “#$&^ing Swans.” “All of the artists on the roster are all-in and truly intense in their own specific ways, which is something I really admire and hope to share,” Hadreas writes. “The lineup is INSANE. I am PUMPED UP.”

PERFUME GENIUS • TENNESSEE THEATRE • Sunday, March 29 • 6:30 p.m.

takes its name from an unfortunate woman accused of witchcraft in the 1612 Pendle witch trials in Lancashire. Old Demdike (“devil woman”) was the nickname of Elizabeth Southerns, who perished in prison while awaiting trial. Häxan is Danish director Benjamin Christensen’s famous 1922 film based on the Malleus Maleficarum, the 15th-century book on the persecution of witches. Demdike Stare had already named a track and a club night for the film before being approached by the BFI. In the end, though, the offer proved too perfect to resist. The film’s alternately creepy and amusing imagery—including torture, orgies, nudity, nuns gone wild, cartoonish demons, and the most ludicrously lascivious devil ever filmed—has made it a cult favorite for years. It’s had multiple soundtracks, including one in 1968 featuring a William Burroughs narration that was the only version available to Americans for many years. It’s doubtful any of the scores have sounded anything like what Demdike Stare have created. Much of their music already sounded well-suited for a horror soundtrack, and it’s easy to imagine some fans had already paired it with a Häxan DVD at home. Not that all of their music is well suited for

such things. Demdike Stare has released a slew of albums, singles, and mixtapes, each possessing a slightly sinister vibe, heavily reliant on dub, but also displaying the members’ magpie crate-digging aesthetic. Techno, jungle, footwork, noise, ambient, and African- and Middle Eastern-influenced percussion are just some of the sounds found on their releases. The duo’s 2012 album, Elemental, takes for much of its source material the sounds of pianos being demolished, the plunk of vibrating strings and splintering of wood. The numerous mixtapes contain a range of musical selections that is impressive, even in an era when seemingly everyone’s tastes are catholic. Transitions from club bangers to krautrock to Thai orchestras to free jazz never sounded so good. Some of these mixes, along with Whittaker’s DJ sets, are readily available to hear online and are worth checking out. (Here’s hoping for a late-night Big Ears DJ set.) —Eric Dawson

DEMDIKE STARE: HÄXAN RESCORED • BIJOU THEATRE • Friday, March 27 • 11:30 p.m.

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21

lisTeN UP Our team of new-music fans will be covering Big Ears all weekend! Keep up with us on the following platforms: • Blog posts, photo galleries, and podcasts at knoxmercury.com • Recaps at facebook.com/ knoxmercury

tUNEyArDs

COMPLEX AND EXPERIMENTAL POP BY JOE TARR

errill Garbus is always a little distrustful of pretty sounds. “I’m suspicious when things sound too good,” says Garbus, who fronts the band tUnE-yArDs. “Truth is really hard to hear.” Garbus references these suspicions on “Look Around,” from her 2014 album Nikki Nack: “On the one hand there’s what sounds good, on the other hand there’s what’s true/Beware the empty promise.” Which is not to say that Garbus believes that there’s nothing true about beauty. She has a love for great pop music and was reared on Michael Jackson’s music. “I feel like there’s a deal we make with a pop song,” Garbus says. “This song is taking me to a paradise. I know this isn’t true, but we need it to get through the day. And that’s okay.” Nevertheless, when it comes to making music, Garbus has always preferred a jarring dissonance. “The ugliness, the rawness of my voice, the imperfections of my voice, that’s more interesting to me than smoothing it

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

out,” she says. And yet there are gloriously sweet sounds that shine through. Case in point: “Look Around,” where Garbus builds the melody around her voice—it seems to resonate perfectly with the ukulele and synthesizer, even as she begins to distort her vocals as the song progresses. Despite her love of the rough edges and unconventional structures, Garbus has made an effort recently to embrace the beauty of pop. Before writing the songs on Nikki Nack, she checked Molly-Ann Leikin’s book How to Write a Hit Song out of the library. One of the biggest lessons she learned had to do with sweat and tears. “Put your butt in the seat and do the work,” she says. “You can’t just dream of writing a song. You have to put the hours in. The more hours you put in, the more you get out.” tUnE-yArDs released its first album, BiRd-BrAiNs, in 2009. The band’s 2011 sophomore effort, w h o k i l l, was a critic’s favorite, topping the prestigious Village Voice Pazz and Jop music poll that year. In live shows, Garbus makes on-the-spot loops of drum beats, which she and bandmate Nate Brenner then accent with ukulele, keyboards, and bass. Thematically, tUnE-yArDs often tackles political and social issues. Just as her music is a stew of influences, her lyrics reflect a messy urbanism, a clash of cultures trying to find an equilibrium. “Bizness,” from w h o k i l l, evokes

a mugging, with the chorus, “Don’t take my life away.” Both mugger and mark are presented a victims. On the album, the song is followed by “Doorstep,” about a police shooting: “Don’t tell me the cops are right in a wrong like this.” But there are also moments of connection and transcendence. “Social justice and actual equality and digging into the truth of this country and other countries, and how we treat other people on the planet— those are always the big questions for me,” Garbus says. “Just the fact that I get to engage in those topics, I feel better. I feel better talking out loud rather than withering away, isolated in my bedroom.” Unlike a lot of bands playing Big Ears, Garbus’ music leans toward the more accessible side of the spectrum. But even if you label it “pop music,” it’s a pop that is complex and experimental. “We’re going to be at Big Ears with artists far more impervious than tUnE-yArDs is, whose aim has never been to be a pop star,” Garbus says. “I come from an understanding of avant-garde and jazz music, that’s all in my history and consciousness. tUnEyArDs will always draw from aspects of that. I presume someone heard that in our music and that’s why we’re there.”

tUnE-yArDs • TENNESSEE THEATRE • Saturday, March 28 • 10 p.m.

• Photos at instagram.com/ knoxmercury • And on Twitter! Follow @knoxmercury and #MercuryEars

THE OFFICIAL 2015 PROGRAM Welcome ..................................... 2 Info & FAQs ................................ 2 Artists.......................................... 3 Schedule ..................................... 5 Map ..............................................8

amazing artists who are with us this year: Laurie Anderson, Harold Budd, and Terry Riley. Their remarkable music and profound influence on our culture and the Big Ears aesthetic are inestimable, and we’re deeply honored to have them join us for the weekend. Thanks to each and every one of you for being here. Ashley Capps President, AC Entertainment

A MESSAGE FROM OUR MAYOR PHOTO BY BILL FOSTER

WELCOME TO THE

BIG EARS FESTIVAL HERE WE ARE! The planning of any great festival is a very long and continually evolving process. This year has been no exception, and it’s almost hard to believe the moment to dive into the festival experience has now arrived. If there’s one thing that truly sets the Big Ears experience apart from so many others, it is the enthusiasm and engagement from the artists themselves. We have some of the world’s most exciting and creative visionaries descending on Knoxville this weekend, and many

of them are not only presenting their work, but have also directly contributed their ideas and inspirations in shaping and making Big Ears all that it is. We are especially indebted to David Harrington and Kronos Quartet. We have hoped to have them join us for Big Ears since the very beginning – in 2009. After all, their questing and omnivorous spirit is the very essence of what Big Ears aspires to celebrate. Last April, as the final sounds of last year’s festival were still resonating, we finally aligned our schedules.

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to Knoxville for the fourth Big Ears Festival. It has been rewarding to watch this festival grow into an international destination for music lovers of all kinds.

In a song by one of this year’s artists, tUnE-yArDs, Merrill Garbus sings, “You won’t believe what I saw in the city tonight.” That’s how I often feel at Big Ears.

But that was just the beginning. I wish I could fully share the remarkable, kaleidoscopic conversations that followed – with David and with others – but you will be immersed in some of what emerged from them during the next three days. The full scope of ideas could have easily filled our entire spring with wonderful concerts and happenings. Indeed, they have already overflowed from this weekend into the planning for 2016, which is already underway. A special tip of the hat to three

This year’s Big Ears promises to be the most dynamic and diverse yet. The roster cuts across boundaries of genre, gender, age, ethnicity, and nationality. It also expands the festival’s reach into adventurous cinema, both with and without musical accompaniment. One of my favorite things about Big Ears is the way it interacts with our vibrant downtown. As you walk from venue to venue, you are surrounded by historic buildings and an array of restaurants, shops and local attractions. Please take the time to enjoy everything Knoxville has to offer! In a song by one of this year’s artists, tUnE-yArDs, Merrill Garbus sings, “You won’t believe what I saw in the city tonight.” That’s how I often feel at Big Ears. Thank you for being here to enjoy it with us!

KRONOS QUARTET

OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE BIG EARS FESTIVAL

LAURIE ANDERSON

Madeline Rogero Mayor

GENERAL FESTIVAL

INFO+FAQS WHEN AND WHERE IS BIG EARS? The Big Ears Festival is held in multiple venues throughout downtown Knoxville, TN. Big Ears features performances, panels, activities and more taking place Friday, March 27 Sunday, March 29. WHEN AND WHERE DO I PICK UP MY TICKETS? All tickets must be exchanged for a festival wristband before you attend your first show. This wristband will serve as your proof of entry at all venues and shows. Check-In will be located at 530 Gay St. in the Farragut Building. Check in hours are: Thursday, 3/26: 5pm-8pm; 3/27: 11am-midnight; 3/28: 11am-midnight; and 3/29: 11am-8pm. Big Ears 2015 is an all-ages event. Passes/ tickets will be required for patrons of age 2 or older. WHAT IS INCLUDED WITH MY FESTIVAL TICKET? The Big Ears 2015 weekend festival pass offers access to all official Big Ears performances and activities. Please note: access is subject to each venue’s capacity, which will be based on first come, first served availability. A “1-in, 1-out” policy will be implemented if a venue reaches capacity. Single day passes allow you access to all events for your purchased day. CAN I BRING A CAMERA? Disposable and small digital photography will be allowed. Professional cameras with removable lenses are not permitted. Audio and video recording devices are also prohibited. No flash photography is allowed. WHERE CAN I PARK? Parking is free at all city-owned garages after 6:00PM on weekdays and all day throughout the weekend. Convenient garages are located at State Street/Clinch Avenue, Wall Avenue/Walnut Street, and Locust Street/Clinch Avenue. Public transportation is also available, including a Knoxville Trolley Line that services the downtown area. Full information can be found at www.katbus.com.

2015 ARTISTS FRIDAY, MARCH 27 TENNESSEE THEATRE HAROLD BUDD & KEITH LOWE

Harold Budd and Keith Lowe never quite meant to make music as a pair. But when Budd sought a publisher for his poetry collection, Colorful Fortune, David Sylvian sent him to Keith Lowe, the esteemed upright session bassist who was launching a publishing company. To celebrate the launch of the 2009 book, they improvised. And they kept doing it. The pair have yet to release an album, and the impromptu, organic nature of their partnership seems to fit the music. When they play, Lowe nests his patient patterns inside Budd’s prismatic lines, which scatter from the source into a dozen separate points. Their ad hoc work is open

and articulate, like pieces of the same poem passed unknowingly across one little room.

KRONOS QUARTET PRESENTS THE MUSIC OF TERRY RILEY, FEATURING THE CUSP OF MAGIC WITH WU MAN

For more than three decades, the members of the adventurous Kronos Quartet have pushed the musical envelope. They’ve had considerable help along the way from the wispy-bearded American composer Terry Riley, widely regarded as the man who launched the minimalist movement. Riley has written 23 pieces for Kronos, including 13 string quartets, Sun Rings, a multimedia piece for choir, visuals and space sounds, Salome Dances for Peace, and Cadenza on the Night Plain. One of Riley’s latest compositions

for Kronos, The Cusp of Magic, was commissioned by the group for the composer’s own 70th birthday, in 2005.

BIJOU THEATRE THE BAD PLUS: “ON SACRED GROUND: STRAVINSKY’S THE RITE OF SPRING”

Just how audacious are The Bad Plus? With a reputation for deconstructing popular songs and the avant-garde, it seems natural for these bad boys of jazz to deconstruct and reinterpret Stravinsky’s controversial masterpiece The Rite of Spring in this riveting program entitled “On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.” Radically transferred from its original orchestral setting into the spare parts of a nominal jazz band, The New York Times has called their interpretation “electrifying,” and the Boston Globe describes it as “exhilarating…dramatic, dynamic.”

DEMDIKE STARE: HÄXAN: WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES RE-SCORED

A vanguard act within a growing scene of groups taking dark turns through techno rhythms and digital textures, Demdike Stare thrive in the spaces between the beats, lacing the rests with whispers of wind that seem to haunt whatever room they enter. In 2013, the pair debuted a live soundtrack to Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages. Nearly a century old now, that four-part silent film is an early horror classic, filled with (possibly naïve) impressions of what evil might look like and the forms it may take. Don’t fear the darkened theater.

ANN AND STEVE BAILEY HALL AT THE KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART BIG EARS KICK-OFF EVENT Join us as we kick off the Big Ears weekend with a celebration of all that’s to come! Featuring words from AC Entertainment and Big Ears founder Ashley Capps,

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Knoxville mayor Madeline Rogero, and Kronos Quartet founder and artistic director David Harrington, the event will also include a musical presentation from our Little Ears partners Community School of the Arts and the Joy of Music School.

HILDUR GUðNADÓTTIR

Icelandic composer, performer and collaborator Hildur Guðnadóttir makes music that is simply immersive, playing every inch of her cello or using her voice to glide between registers both high and low. During the last decade, her curriculum vitae has grown to include work with Ben Frost and Throbbing Gristle, The Knife and múm, Jamie Lidell and Jóhann Jóhannsson. But her solo work demands its own attention. Saman, issued by the essential sound-art label Touch in June, finds her exploring the spaces between and around her voice and cello, discovering how the tones of both function when they’re allowed to resonate slowly throughout a space. Her cello playing, for instance, seems to explore the body of the instrument, delivering a three-dimensional portrait of the wood and strings with mere sound. And when she sings, her voice creates clouds only from vibrating air, as though she were a conjurer and the audience were the willingly bewitched.

THE SQUARE ROOM RYLEY WALKER

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Ryley Walker has been alive only for a quarter-century, but the exquisite music that the guitarist and singer makes conjures several centuries of folk tradition and progress. The Chicago stylist is rooted most obviously in the renaissance of British folk music, with pickers and singers like Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy and even The Belfast Cowboy himself, Van Morrison, serving as necessary touchstones. But Walker stretches both backward and forward, digging for the antecedents of those artists while pushing their accomplishments ahead with audacious arrangements and sterling collaborators. Continued on next page

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2015 ARTISTS SQÜRL (JIM JARMUSCH, CARTER LOGAN, AND JOZEF VAN WISSEM)

You’ve heard of the power trio, but have you heard of the anti-power trio, the kind that pulls you in instead of blowing you out? During the last five years, that’s what SQÜRL—the convocation of guitarist and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, drummer Carter Logan and guest lutist Jozef van Wissem—have become. Together, they plunder the hypnosis of arid desert rock and languid psychedelia, refracted country blues and minimal noise abstraction. With the help of samples, sometimes cut as preludes or postludes or sometimes snapped between the lumbering beats, the music suggests cinematic spools, characters moving in and out of the frame with preternatural ease.

STEVE GUNN

Having released several excellent albums of serpentine, sailing playing, and a pair of radiant electric records with drummer John Truscinski, Steve Gunn switched streams and became a songwriter. 2013’s Time Off made for a fine transition, but Gunn’s knack for hooks and ensemble structures arrives more fully formed on the brilliant Way Out Weather, an instant classic of psychedelic folk-rock. These tunes still hinge on Gunn’s intuitive guitar playing, which crosses a Workingman’s Dead ethic with worldwide erudition. “Milly’s Garden,” for instance, pivots on a thin, country-funk riff to climax into a chorus that you might want to call home. The album ends with “Tommy’s Congo,” a percolating pot of eclecticism—West African guitar, Sufi trance music, ominous British folk, threatening American blues. These days, Gunn brings a proper rock band with him, and they treat these songs like starting points for glorious trips meant to galvanize the new ranks.

THE STANDARD RIVAL CONSOLES

Some might be surprised that

London-based electronic producer Ryan Lee West, aka Rival Consoles, shares a home with contemporary classical composers such as Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds and Peter Broderick. And yet they have a lot more in common than expected. Fascinated by sound from an early age, Ryan chose to dedicate his time to studying, experimenting with and producing sound. He often composes early ideas on piano, violin and guitar, although the end result is much more electronzic-laden. As Rival Consoles, Ryan showcases his craft, creating atmosphere and space, while exploring waves of sound and rhythm.

NOSAJ THING

Home—the title of the third and most recent LP by Los Angeles producer Jason Chung, better known as Nosaj Thing—is a trick he plays on new listeners. With synthesizers that glow and woo and beats that percolate and pulse just beneath that surface, Home is often soft enough to be heard as pillow-top pop but hard enough to ferry a dance-floor crowd from late-night sweat to atdawn bliss. You might want to take up residence, to live within its bright but gentle walls. You might not have a choice when it comes time to exit, though; Home is a bit of a maze, where the elements of up-tempo pop and down-tempo techno, subtle funk and sophisticated electro crisscross into labyrinthine designs. Like a more sedate Prefuse 73 or a less boisterous Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing makes music that’s both considered and energetic, where the careful decisions of Chung’s productions only turn them more intriguing. What might have seemed like a cheery nod to chillwave or a headlong dip into bass music eventually reveals itself to be a more complex system, too immersive and magnetic to escape.

TYONDAI BRAXTON: HIVE

Tyondai Braxton – “one of the most acclaimed experimental musicians of the last decade” (Washington Post) and former frontman of the band,

OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE BIG EARS FESTIVAL

NOSAJ THING

Battles – will present his remarkable live-performance conception, HIVE, in a weekend residency at The Standard. Both an installation and a performance, HIVE features five musicians sitting atop oval pods designed by acclaimed Danish architect Uffe Surland Van Tams. The live music combines synths, samples, and intricately composed acoustic percussion with lighting and visual effects programmed to create a visceral and expressive sonic mood. Premiered in 2013 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and later performed at the Sydney Opera House and the Barbican in London, this performance will mark only the second occasion that HIVE has been presented in North America.

CLARK

Do you want a tour of modern electronic music that twists through the techniques you need to know, dips into the sounds you have to hear and drops you somewhere wonderfully uncomfortable, perhaps between ecstasy and anxiety? Then look for Clark, the exploratory and engrossing new journey from British producer Chris Clark. His invocation is a short, swollen drone, layers of static shrouding a mesmeric melody. Clark has been working these ideas for more a decade, looking for ways to web disparate pieces of a broad electronic palette while not succumbing to big-bass trends or simple pop indulgence. He manages to reference the greats of a previous IDM generation without mirroring them or slipping into their own solipsistic indulgence. Clark links narrative with technique, dexterity

STEVE GUNN

with drama. And at their best, his records and sets alike pull you along through the plot.

JAMIE XX

Is Jamie xx the new paragon of cool? Aside from the seemingly effortless hooks and sleek design, that quality is one of the hallmark draws of The xx, the post-modern pop act that he cofounded while still in school. And that essence carries over to his solo material, which feels more exhaled than labored, more spontaneous than deliberate. Jamie xx is the guy who made Gil Scott-Heron sound more authoritative and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” like a four-minute art-pop opera. He possesses the innate sense for what gets people going that marketing teams spend countless dollars and hours trying to decode. Onstage, Jamie xx’s sets tend to be generous affairs, where he uses that cool as the filter for an evening of loud, wide curation, where several subgenres spiral into late-night ecstacy. He avoids his own material, but his imprimatur is everywhere, from the seamless transitions to the choice selections.

SATURDAY, MARCH 28 TENNESSEE THEATRE KRONOS QUARTET: FOLK SONGS WITH RHIANNON GIDDENS & SAM AMIDON

Delving into the American and international folk songbook, 2015 artists-in-residence Kronos Quartet team up with a duo of Big Ears guests and two of the most celebrated roots artists working

today—Rhiannon Giddens and Sam Amidon—to create entirely new arrangements of classic folk songs. Rhiannon Giddens is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning band the Carolina Chocolate Drops and has garnered nearly universal acclaim for her 2015 debut solo album release, Tomorrow Is My Turn. In turn, Vermont native Sam Amidon’s distinct gift is to rework traditional melodies into striking new forms that are all his own, which prompted Pitchfork to call them “so singular that it stops mattering how (or if) they existed before.”

LAURIE ANDERSON & KRONOS QUARTET: LANDFALL

Iconic storyteller and musician Laurie Anderson and ground-breaking ensemble Kronos Quartet unite for their first-ever collaboration, inspired by Anderson’s experience of Hurricane Sandy. Anderson and Kronos have created an evocative meditation on transience, combining poignant texts and music fortified by innovative technology. Landfall juxtaposes lush electronics and traditional strings by Kronos with Anderson’s powerful descriptions of loss, from water-logged pianos to disappearing animal species to Dutch karaoke bars. Dense projected texts, triggered musically via software developed for the work, overlay and compound Anderson’s tales, leaving a polyphony of meanings to percolate in the vivid wake of the storm. Continued on page 9

FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015

U.S. CELLULAR STAGE AT THE

TENNESSEE THEATRE

BIJOU THEATRE

THE SQUARE ROOM

ANN AND STEVE BAILEY HALL AT THE

KMA

REGAL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP AUDITORIUM AT THE

KMA

THE STANDARD

5 PM 5:30

Big Ears Kick Off 5:30 - 6:30 PM

6 PM 6:30 The Bad Plus: “On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring” 7:00 - 8:15 PM

7 PM 7:30 8 PM

Harold Budd & Keith Lowe 7:30 - 8:30 PM

8:30 9 PM 9:30 10 PM 10:30

Kronos Quartet presents The Music of Terry Riley, featuring The Cusp of Magic with Wu Man 9:00 - 11:00 PM

The Bad Plus: “On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring” 8:45 - 10:00 PM

11 PM 11:30 12 AM 12:30

Demdike Stare: HÄXAN: Witchcraft Through The Ages re-scored 11:30 - 1:00 AM

Rival Consoles 6:00 - 6:45 PM

Hildur Guðnadóttir 6:30 - 7:30 PM

Ryley Walker 8:00 - 8:45 PM

Nosaj Thing 7:00 - 8:00 PM

Decasia 7:30 pm – 8:45 pm

Tyondai Braxton: HIVE 9:00 - 10:00 PM

SQÜRL

(Jim Jarmusch, Carter Logan, & Jozef van Wissem)

9:15 - 10:15 PM

Clark 10:15 - 11:30 PM

Steve Gunn 10:45 - 12:00 AM

Jamie xx 12:00 - 1:30 AM

1 AM 1:30

BIG EARS/BIG EYES On the heels of a mid-career retrospective at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, filmmaker Bill Morrison will be on hand for Big Eyes / Big Ears: The Films of Bill Morrison presented by Regal Entertainment Group, an overview of some of his most powerful

films. Known for combining archival – and often damaged and decaying – film material with contemporary music, he has collaborated with some of the most influential composers of our time, including Laurie Anderson, Bill Frisell, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and many others. Morrison will introduce and screen his selected

Big Ears programs at the KMA’s Regal Entertainment Group Auditorium. One program will include his film Decasia, which was selected by the Library of Congress for its National Film Registry in 2013, becoming the most modern film to be added to the collection that preserves works of “great cultural, historic, or aesthetic significance

to the nation’s cinematic heritage.” Other highlights will include 2010’s Spark of Being (music by Dave Douglas), 2012’s The Miner’s Hymns (music by Jóhan Jóhannson), and 2014’s meditation on World War 1, Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 (music performed by Kronos Quartet), along with other shorter works.

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SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 2015

TENNESSEE THEATRE NOON 12:30 1 PM 1:30 2 PM 2:30 3 PM 3:30 4 PM 4:30 5 PM 5:30 6 PM 6:30 7 PM 7:30 8 PM 8:30 9 PM 9:30 10 PM 10:30 11 PM 11:30 12 AM 12:30 1 AM 1:30 2 AM

Kronos Quartet: Folk Songs w/ Rhiannon Giddens & Sam Amidon

U.S. CELLULAR STAGE AT THE

BIJOU THEATRE

SQÜRL (Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan): Live Score with Man Ray Films 1:00 - 2:30 PM

THE SQUARE ROOM

Wu Man 12:30 - 1:30 PM

ANN AND STEVE BAILEY HALL AT THE

KMA

REGAL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP AUDITORIUM AT THE KMA Spark of Being 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Loscil 1:00 - 2:00 PM Bill Morrison Shorts 1:30 – 2:45 PM

1:30 - 3:30 PM

Joseph van Wissem 3:30 - 4:45 PM Tanya Tagaq 4:15 - 5:30 PM

A Winged Victory for the Sullen 3:00 - 4:15 PM

The Miner’s Hymns 4:00 – 5:00 PM Nels Cline & Norton Wisdom: Stained Radiance 4:45 - 6:00 PM

Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 6:00 – 6:45 PM Back to the Soil 6:45 – 7:15 PM Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet: Landfall 7:00 - 8:30 PM Max Richter: The Blue Notebooks & Infra w/ the American Contemporary Music Ensemble 8:30 - 10:00 PM

OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE BIG EARS FESTIVAL

Ben Frost 12:30 - 1:30 AM

Holly Herndon 5:45 - 7:00 PM

Tyondai Braxton: HIVE 8:15 - 9:15 PM

Hildur Guðnadóttir 9:30 - 10:30 PM

Grouper 11:00 - 12:00 AM

Coupler 4:15 - 5:15 PM

Bill Morrison Shorts 7:30 – 8:30 PM

William Tyler: “Corduroy Roads” 7:45 - 9:00 PM

tUnE-yArDs 10:00 - 11:30 PM Sam Amidon 10:45 - 12:00 AM

THE STANDARD

Amen Dunes 9:30 - 10:30 PM Bing & Ruth 10:30 - 11:30 PM

Harold Budd & Keith Lowe 12:00 - 1:00 AM

Omar Souleyman 11:45 - 12:45 AM

Tyondai Braxton: DJ Set 1:00 - 2:00 AM

SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 2015

U.S. CELLULAR STAGE AT THE

TENNESSEE THEATRE NOON 12:30 1 PM 1:30 2 PM 2:30 3 PM 3:30 4 PM 4:30 5 PM 5:30 6 PM 6:30 7 PM 7:30 8 PM 8:30 9 PM 9:30 10 PM 10:30 11 PM

BIJOU THEATRE

Rhiannon Giddens 2:00 - 3:30 PM

ANN AND STEVE BAILEY HALL AT THE

KMA

REGAL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP AUDITORIUM AT THE KMA

REGAL RIVIERA STADIUM 8

Panel: Technology’s Place in Creativity 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Eraserhead 12:00 – 1:30 PM

Bing & Ruth plus Special Guests 1:00 - 3:00 PM

Decasia 3:00 – 4:00 PM

Bill Frisell & Bill Morrison: The Great Flood 5:30 - 6:45 PM

Perfume Genius 6:30 - 7:30 PM

Terry Riley with Gyan Riley & Tracy Silverman 4:00 - 6:00 PM

La Vie de Boheme 5:30 – 7:15 PM

Curated by Jim Jarmusch and Michael Gira and presented by Regal Entertainment Group, Big Ears is proud to present a series of films on Sunday at downtown Regal Rivera Stadium 8. Of his “Three In Black and White” curation, director and SQÜRL

Kronos Quartet: Tundra Songs w/Tanya Tagaq Kronos Quartet: 40 Canons w/Bryce Dessner

3:00 - 4:15 PM

Zs 5:15 - 6:15 PM

My Winnipeg 7:30 – 9:15 PM

Max Richter:

CRITERION COLLECTION FILM SERIES SCREENINGS

The Music Room 3:30 – 5:15 PM

Tyondai Braxton: HIVE 1:30 - 2:30 PM

Silver Apples 7:00 - 8:00 PM

Vivaldi: Recomposed & The Leftovers w/ the KSO & the American Contemporary Music Ensemble

8:00 - 9:30 PM

Nazoranai: A Film From Rock Fish Stew’s Ongoing Big Ears Documentary 1:45 – 3:15 PM

THE STANDARD

Little Annie

Swans 8:30 - 11:00 PM

Kronos Quartet: “Views from Here to the Heavens (for Scott Fraser)” w/Nels Cline

10:00 - 11:00 PM

cofounder Jarmusch writes, “THE MUSIC ROOM (1958) - Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece. Maybe the saddest and most moving film about addiction and its consequences—in this case addiction to music! LA VIE DE BOHÈME (1992) - Aki Kaurismäki’s very funny (and tragic) interpretation of Henri Murger’s book of the same title (in broken French with Finn-

ish accents!). - MY WINNIPEG (2007) Mad cinematic genius Guy Maddin’s remarkable (and partly imagined) portrait of his hometown.” Swans frontman Gira has selected David Lynch’s cult classic ERASERHEAD (1977). He writes, “I first saw this film soon after it was released, at the Fox Venice Theater in Venice, California. It is an entirely (and overwhelming)

cinematic experience, though it was made by a painter and visual artist. That Lynch was able to conceive this film - I assume the continuing vision for it was an act of accretion – and persevere with a limited budget over several years, learning as he went, always following the thread of where the thing lead - is a heroic act of individual imagination, the fruits

of which are available to anyone willing to let the experience lead them where it zmay. Its images and scenes morph from the cosmic to the infinitesimal and back again, often within a single extended shot. I see this film as a visual equivalent of consciousness itself. It’s simultaneously awe-inspiring, comical, grotesque, tender, absurd and horrific.”

BIGEARSFESTIVAL.COM

VENUES

TENNESSEE THEATRE 604 S. Gay Street U.S. CELLULAR STAGE AT THE BIJOU THEATRE 803 S. Gay Street THE SQUARE ROOM 4 Market Square Southwest KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive THE STANDARD 416 W. Jackson Avenue REGAL RIVIERA STADIUM 8 510 S. Gay Street BIG EARS CHECK-IN The Farragut Building 503 S. Gay Street

EAT & DRINK THE BISTRO 1 807 S. Gay Street

CAFÉ 4 4 Market Square

COOLATO GELATO 524 S. Gay Street

DAZZO’S PIZZERIA 710 S. Gay Street

DOWNTOWN WINE & SPIRITS 407 S. Gay Street

THE ICON 810 Clinch Avenue

KNOX MASON 131 S. Gay Street

NAMA SUSHI 506 S. Gay Street

THE PUBLIC HOUSE 212 W. Magnolia Avenue

SAW WORKS BREWERY 708 E. Depot Avenue

SUTTREE’S HIGH GRAVITY TAVERN 411 S. Gay Street

THREE RIVERS MARKET 1100 N. Central Street

THE TOMATO HEAD 12 Market Square

ATTRACTIONS

BIG EARS BRUNCH SOLD OUT!

THE PUBLIC HOUSE 212 W. Magnolia Avenue SUNDAY: 12PM-3PM

RENTALS 14 BIKE PRESENTED BY MAILCHIMP AND POWERED BY

TENNESSEE VALLEY BIKES KRUTCH PARK 504 Market Street SW

15 FOUND SOUND NATION’S STREET STUDIO PRESENTED BY DOWNTOWN KNOXVILLE KRUTCH PARK 504 Market Street SW SATURDAY: 1PM-5PM SUNDAY: 2PM-5PM

HELLO CITY: 16 AN INDIGENOUS COMPANION TO BIG EARS THE PILOT LIGHT

OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE BIG EARS FESTIVAL

106 East Jackson Ave. FRIDAY: 7PM+ SATURDAY: 6:30PM+

IN D, A DIGITAL 17 PERFORMANCES OF TERRY RILEY’S IN C KRUTCH PARK 504 Market Street SW

FRIDAY, SATURDAY, AND SUNDAY: 8PM-11:30PM

WORKS 10 SAW BREWERY TOURS

SAW WORKS BREWING COMPANY 708 E. Depot Avenue FRIDAY: 5PM & 6PM SATURDAY: 5PM & 6PM

LIGHT 18 STRIPED LETTERPRESS WORKSHOPS

STRIPED LIGHT 107 Bearden Place SATURDAY: 10AM-12PM; 1PM-3PM

SUTTREE’S

11 BEER EXCHANGE

SUTTREE’S HIGH GRAVITY TAVERN 411 S. Gay Street SATURDAY: 1PM-3PM

KNOXVILLE 19 VISIT VISITORS CENTER 301 S. Gay Street

FRIDAY, 3/27: 8:30AM-5PM SATURDAY: 9AM-5PM SUNDAY: 12PM-4PM

RETAIL TOO FANCY 20 NOTHING 435 Union Avenue FRIDAY: 8:30AM-5PM SATURDAY: 9AM-5PM SUNDAY: 12PM-4PM

TENNESSEE VALLEY

21 BICYCLES

214 W. Magnolia Avenue FRIDAY: 11AM-7PM SATURDAY: 10AM-5PM

2015 ARTISTS (CONTINUED) tUnE-yArDs

Merrill Garbus started tUnE-yArDs by recording quirky, complicated songs that were heavy on twisted rhythms and high on big beats using just a tape recorder and free audio software. The album that resulted, 2009’s BiRd-BrAiNs, has became a shorthand for wide-angle, high-involvement indie pop. And she’s continued to make it count, even as she’s stepped into studios and roped in high-profile collaborators: Whokill, from 2011, included a handful of perfect singles, with audacious production that made them instant anthems. The new Nikki Nack is even more involved,

LITTLE EARS Big Ears’ community outreach program Little Ears welcomes students from Knoxville’s Joy of Music School and Community School of the Arts to educational musical experiences. Little Ears provides financial support to each organization via donations from each festival ticket sold and fundraiser partnerships like our with songs that slide through effects-heavy rabbit holes, head for strange spoken-word tangents and step into bright moments of powerful soul singing. Sure, it’s only taken three albums, but Garbus has emerged as one of this generation’s truly singular stylists, making music that only animates her unique vision. Live, she gets help from an incredible band to put on one of the most kinetic, charismatic shows you’ll ever remember.

BIJOU THEATRE SQURL (JIM JARMUSCH AND CARTER LOGAN): LIVE SCORE WITH MAN RAY FILMS

Avant-rock band SQÜRL has handpicked silent films by the legendary Man Ray and then created original scores for these performances. Their curated soundscape will breathe new life into these vintage shorts. During the last five years, SQÜRL

have become the anti-power trio, the kind that pulls you in instead of blowing you out. Like Earth colliding with Kyuss, or Sleep spending a weekend in the Arizona desert with a backpack of peyote instead of a satchel of grass, SQÜRL co-mingle riffs and rhythms until they transfix.

TANYA TAGAQ

The first thing you will almost always read about Tanya Tagaq is that she is an Inuk throat singer, a native Canadian with a voice capable of full-bodied and animalist lows. And unless you’re a fan of death metal grunts and growls, vocal experiments by the likes of Meredith pint glasses, available at either Tomato Head location via their Loving Spoonful initiative. Net proceeds from the glasses benefit both organizations during March. Additionally, “Little Ears Presents: Expressions in Arts Education” featuring art from both schools will be on view at the Tomato Head: Market Square 3/9 - 4/5 and Gallery West from 4/6 - 5/4. Monk or the more pervasive Tuvan throat-singing style, you may find that description off-putting. But don’t: though Tagaq’s voice can indeed dip down toward the pits of hell, and though she is an outspoken advocate of aboriginal rights and equality, her musical and political tones are neither crutches nor gimmicks. It is a tool for increasingly complex and compelling compositions, richly emotive work that raises complaints and its fist with no words at all.

MAX RICHTER: THE BLUE NOTEBOOKS & INFRA WITH THE AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE

Composer, pianist, producer, remixer, collaborator extraordinaire: Max Richter defies definition. An enigma he may be; what is beyond argument is that he is one of the most prolific musical artists of his

generation. His 2004 album, The Blue Notebooks, was his first with Fat Cat Records and featured actress Tilda Swinton reading extracts from Kafka. Richter’s 2010 album, Infra, is an extension of his 25-minute score for a ballet choreographed by Wayne McGregor and staged at the Royal Opera House. Infra is composed of music written for piano, electronics and string quintet, as well as material that subsequently developed from the construction of the album. Members of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble will perform the pieces, an extension of their dedication to the outstanding performance of masterworks from the 20th and 21st centuries, primarily the work of American composers.

RHIANNON GIDDENS

SAM AMIDON

The son of musicians who once appeared on a shape-note-singing album on Nonesuch (the label he now calls home), Amidon is a student of transcontinental folk music, an experienced 33-year-old who seems to have collected and catalogued songs simply by living. But if he’s inherited a canon, he also understands that the only way to keep it alive is to rip it to pieces and rebuild it. He’s done this for more than a decade, whether it’s meant collaborating with Nico Muhly for a song cycle of electronics based on antediluvian acoustic numbers or his own record of carefully reconsidered classics.

BEN FROST

Until May 2014, Ben Frost had not released a new album since his appearance at the debut Big Ears Festival in 2009, a set that came in support of his savage sound-art

breakthrough, By the Throat. But he’s been busy, especially with several painstakingly minimal and tempestuous scores for film and dance. That reserve, though, is shattered by 2014’s A U R O R A, Frost’s punishing debut for Mute Records and one of the year’s most enthralling releases. Assisted by drummers Greg Fox (Liturgy, Guardian Alien) and Thor Harris (Swans), Frost dances on the lines between techno and drone, metal and noise, anxiety and panic. There are moments of generous restraint throughout these nine tracks, where small sounds and stable drones take center stage. But they mostly enable the catastrophic blitz that Frost’s electronics soon provide.

NELS CLINE

ANN AND STEVE BAILEY HALL AT THE KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART LOSCIL

The serene ambient compositions of loscil come courtesy of Vancouver-based musician Scott Morgan. Taking his moniker from the “looping oscillator” function in the computer music language Csound, Morgan uses custom made Max for Live devices and the occasional live instrument to build robust, droning soundscapes. Morgan cites influences including krautrock pioneers Cluster, minimalist composer Gavin Bryars, and a wealth of film music composers.

A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN

Accomplished composers Adam Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran weren’t necessarily looking for a new project but their chance encounter gave rise to A Winged

Victory for the Sullen, a modern classical pairing that has deliberately explored the edges of composition and pressed firm against the boundaries of instrumental restraint. A Winged Victory’s second album, the new Atomos, transcends the gloaming-like drones of their 2011 debut with more active and engaging pieces, occasionally pushing toward symphonic heights. The result of a commission from choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose work has previously spawned pieces by Ben Frost and Max Richter, Atomos moves with tremendous fluidity. It’s uncommonly playful, too: its electronic textures moving across the acoustic foundation with an unusual but delightful rapport.

NELS CLINE AND NORTON WISDOM: STAINED RADIANCE

If you only know Nels Cline through his role in Wilco, you’ve got some catching up to do: for more than a quarter-century, Cline has been one of the most active and exciting electric players in the world, skipping between side-projects and collaborations, solo work and new bands with unbridled zeal. Stained Radiance, Cline’s multimedia duo with provocative painter Norton Wisdom, exemplifies just that. Wisdom paints on a translucent frame, a strong backlight projecting his ever-morphing figures through the room. Cline plays along, not only reflecting the action of Wisdom’s scenes but attempting to build an atmosphere in which they can thrive. It’s an immersive experience, an opportunity to hear what you see and see what you hear.

BING & RUTH

The name Bing & Ruth connotes humility, suggestive perhaps of a singer-songwriter and an accompanist, an itinerant blues duo from the heyday of singles spun at 78 RPM. But New York’s Bing & Ruth is an important modern composition collective, where membership can swell to a dozen and pieces can push toward an uninterrupted hour. Their music tends to conjure comparisons to Eno and Feldman or Reich and Young and aims to entrance, pulling the audience close enough to their instrumental

BIGEARSFESTIVAL.COM

highs and lows until you can peer down inside of the dynamics, like a topographical display of towering peaks and deep valleys.

HAROLD BUDD

Considered by many to be the “grandfather of ambient,” Harold Budd first made waves when Brian Eno released The Pavilion of Dreams on his Obscure label. The music was rich, melodic, meditative and deeply sensuous, and it defied categorization. One could imagine some of its influences: eastern philosophy, the desert, the ocean, minimalism, maybe Coltrane at his most spiritual, perhaps some the visionary art of postWorld War II California, but it was impossible to place Budd’s music clearly into a musical tradition or style or school. It stood apart, and decades later, this is a quality that has continued to characterize Budd’s music and approach.

THE SQUARE ROOM WU MAN

Wu Man is not only an emissary of

PROGRAM

NOTES KRONOS QUARTET TENNESSEE THEATRE FRIDAY, 9 PM David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Sunny Yang, cello

her instrument, the ancient Chinese pipa; she’s also a disciple of the ageold music it helped create. Her solo performances are intimate and exquisite affairs, where she talks about the tunes of China and delivers them with mesmerizing dexterity. At times, it’s clear that she plays only four strings, as each well-placed and perfectly spaced note seems to occupy its own sphere of existence. But during the quicker runs, one wonders where she finds so much variety of sound and dynamic from such limited means. Suffice it to say that she’s borrowing from a lineage older than the Americas, pulling it into her own time.

JOZEF VAN WISSEM

Though his reputation rose swiftly and suddenly after he began collaborating with filmmaker and then-emerging guitarist Jim Jarmusch a half-decade ago, Jozef van Wissem has been challenging accepted notions of the Medieval lute for much longer. He doesn’t route the stringed instrument through obfuscating webs of

GROUPER

Grouper, Liz Harris’ prolific and mesmerizing solo project, makes constant bedfellows of impenetrable mystery and undeniable grace, of distant despair and complete surrender, of damaged recordings and trance states. Harris’ titles tend to evoke the morose or dejected: Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill and Ruins, “You Never Came” and “The Man Who Died in His Boat.” But whether Harris is murmuring through static and into a piano line, as on 2014’s Ruins, or slipping through a strummed electric or acoustic guitar haze, as

THE STANDARD COUPLER

Ryan Norris aka Coupler plays guitar and keyboards for Lambchop, Kort, Cortney Tidwell, Hands Off Cuba and others. As Coupler he makes deliberate, ambient music.

HOLLY HERNDON

Holly Herndon is one of the most confounding, compelling artists to arrive in the electronic music scene during the last decade. Her music is a twisted helix of influences both academic and kinetic. 2012’s sophisticated Movement, a record that remained complicated at its most accessible and visceral at its most arcane recalled The

KRONOS QUARTET

David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Sunny Yang, cello

LANDFALL

David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Sunny Yang, cello

Omar Souleyman (arr. Jacob Garchik) / La Sidounak Sayyada (I’ll Prevent the Hunters from Hunting You) + Traditional (arr. Kronos, transc. Ljova) / Tusen Tankar (A Thousand Thoughts) + Rahul Dev Burman (arr. Stephen Prutsman / Kronos) / Mehbooba Mehbooba (Beloved, O Beloved) + Fodé Lassana Diabaté (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Samuel + Jack Body / Long-ge +

Severiano Briseño (arr. Osvaldo Golijov) / El Sinaloense (The Man from Sinaloa) + Tanburi Cemil Bey (arr. Stephen Prutsman) / Eviç Taksim + Traditional (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Smyrneiko Minore + Traditional/Kim Sinh (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Lưu thủy trường + Unknown (arr. Ljova & Kronos) / Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me + With Rhiannon Giddens: Julie (arr. Gabriel Witcher) • Factory Girl (Folk song, arr. Witcher) Lullaby (arr. Witcher) • Mouth Music (arr. Witcher)

See previous description on page 3.

KRONOS QUARTET

Intermission

PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE Updated: 03/17/2015 * Written for Kronos + Arranged for Kronos

Commissioned last year by Duke Performances at Duke University, Nashville guitarist William Tyler incorporated the university’s archive of rare Civil War photographs with melodies on acoustic and electric guitar to create the multimedia wonder, “Corduroy Roads.” With access to archival materials made possible by the Archive of Documentary Arts at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University, the event provided an exploration of individual identity in a region of perpetual collective

HILDUR GUðNADÓTTIR

on Deer, there’s a sense of cyclical decay and renewal. Grouper’s best work holds you close to its dark thoughts (and live, Harris stares down at her instruments, lights off, head bowed) in a cocoon of beautiful signing and consolidated tones. Then it lets you go, somehow renewed by the senescent quiet.

PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE Updated: 03/17/2015 * Written for Kronos + Arranged for Kronos

TENNESSEE THEATRE SATURDAY, 1:30 PM

With Sam Amidon: How Come That Blood (Folk ballad, arr. Nico Muhly) • Weeping Mary (Shape note hymn, arr. Muhly) Oh Where (arr. Muhly) • I See the Sign (arr. Muhly)

with special guests Terry Riley, voice and Wu Man, pipa

WILLIAM TYLER: “CORDUROY ROADS”

confusion. Created by Tyler with his collaborators filmmaker Steve Milligan and theater director Akiva Fox, “Corduroy Roads” denied inherently romantic or tragic readings of that era, opting instead for an honest examination of what its ghosts mean now, 150 years later.

KRONOS QUARTET

Terry Riley / The Cusp of Magic * I. The Cusp of Magic II. Buddha’s Bedroom III. The Nursery IV. Royal Wedding V. Emily and Alice VI. Prayer Circle special guest Wu Man, pipa

Terry Riley / Good Medicine from Salome Dances for Peace * Terry Riley / One Earth, One People, One Love from Sun Rings * Terry Riley / Crazy World *

pedals and filters so much as he puts it in places you might not expect—film and video game scores, partnerships with the florid guitarist James Blackshaw or noise lord Maurizio Bianchi, and rock clubs. He approaches the instrument with what he labels a punk philosophy, meaning he’s open to new possibilities for playing it and not limited by its existing repertoire.

Intermission

OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE BIG EARS FESTIVAL

by Laurie Anderson for the Kronos Quartet TENNESSEE THEATRE SATURDAY, 7 PM

THE STANDARD SUNDAY, 3 PM

THE STANDARD SUNDAY, 10PM

Nicole Lizée / Death to Kosmische * Bryce Dessner / 40 Canons * 1. Strum 2. Plucked Canon 3. Chords 4. One Line 5. Górecki Canon 6. Canyon with special guest Bryce Dessner, guitar

Kevin Volans / White Man Sleeps * in five movements Nels Cline / Views from Here to the Heavens (for Scott Fraser) * with special guest Nels Cline, guitar

Creation and Production Laurie Anderson music and text Liubo Borissov Erst programming Robert Currie dramaturg Jacob Garchik transcriptions Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet and Jacob Garchik arrangements Konrad Kaczmarek electronics and software design Shane Koss audio rig design Brian H Scott lighting designer Scott Fraser audio engineer

Intermission

Kronos Quartet P. O. Box 225340 San Francisco, CA 94122-5340 Tel: 415/731-3533 Fax: 415/664-7590 www.kronosquartet.org www.facebook.com/kronosquartet www.myspace.com/kronosquartet

Landfall was commissioned by Adelaide Festival, Australia; Barbican, London; Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, College Park; Peak Performances @ Montclair State (NJ); Perth International Arts Festival, Australia; Stanford Live, Stanford University; and Texas Performing Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. Additional project support was provided to the Kronos Performing Arts Association by the National Endowment for the Arts.

PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE Updated: 03/17/2015 * Written for Kronos + Arranged for Kronos

Performers Laurie Anderson

Kronos Quartet David Harrington violin John Sherba violin Hank Dutt viola Sunny Yang cello

Derek Charke / Tundra Songs * Lyrics by Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (based on the Greenlandic creation story of Sassuma Arnaa) I. Ice II. Water III. Sedna’s Song IV. Lament of the Dogs V. The Trickster Tulugaq Throat-singing by Tanya Tagaq

PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE Updated: 03/17/2015 * Written for Kronos + Arranged for Kronos

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS

AMEN DUNES

MAX RICHTER

Knife and Coil, Nine Inch Nails and David Tudor, juxtapositions that suggest Herndon has several fields of play left to explore. She does just that on “Home,” a 2014 single that finds her winding beautiful soprano lines through a junkyard of digital artifacts. But at the core, there’s a sense of magnetism that recalls Portishead or even James Blake, a sense of grand narrative that suggests Burial’s latest and greatest. In a crowded field, Herndon stands apart for the eccentricity of her outlook—educated and excitable, a student with a class of her own.

TYONDAI BRAXTON: HIVE See previous description on page 4.

AMEN DUNES

You might recognize “I Can’t Dig It,” the late-album stunner from Amen Dunes’ recent Love, as a straight-ahead rock song. But about halfway through, the demented carousel piano that’s been bashing the background the entire time throws the whole thing from the rails. It drifts into a strange wallow of drowning tones and vocal vertigo. The song you’d known never returns, even it its heart still seems to beat, down there below the din. That is the feat of Amen Dunes, especially on Love, one of 2014’s phantom musical masterpieces. Everything McMahon does is vaguely familiar: he sings a little like Van Morrison and thinks a little like Syd Barrett. He probably likes Leonard Cohen and Roky Erickson. But McMahon makes torch songs sound like astral projections, simple folk

ballads sound like psychedelic sylvan trips, smoldering outros sound like dreams you want to call home.

OMAR SOULEYMAN

Omar Souleyman’s polyglot mix of Arabic folk and electronic elicits open-mouthed stares and frenetic movement. Above squealing synthesizers, heavily strummed oud and beats that are some of the busiest and most persistent you’ve ever heard, Souleyman delivers ecstatic songs of love and loss in an authoritative voice, his melodies swiveling atop the music with commanding glee. His music is a state of active trance with his kinetic band and unwavering stage visage sending audiences into paroxysms.

TYONDAI BRAXTON: DJ SET

Tyondai Braxton has never seemed like a content musician. Sure, he was the frontman and co-founder of the athletic and influential post-rock revisers Battles, a role that brought him initial public notice, but he didn’t rest on those plaudits. He released ambitious solo records, wrote pieces for Bang on a Can and performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Now, aside from his ingenious and interactive multimedia performance HIVE that will take place multiple times over the Big Ears weekend, join us for an intimate DJ set featuring some of Tyondai’s original pieces.

SUNDAY, MARCH 29 TENNESSEE THEATRE PERFUME GENIUS

The Seattle singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas has a lovely voice. It’s lithe but resilient, capable of sudden and high falsetto climbs before returning to plaintive, mid-range understatement. And he favors familiar arrangements, whether that means the spare piano brood of “I Decline,” the acoustic guitar sensitivity of “Normal Song” or the Menomena-meets-Roy Orbison dynamism of “My Body.” You feel like you’ve encountered these shapes before, and Hadreas’ singing possesses a vulnerability that draws you closer still.But don’t get too comfortable or expect to be wooed ever so gently. Especially on his third album, the new Too Bright, Hadreas emerges as a provocateur willing to ask uncomfortable questions and making hearing the hardest truth easy, a gift even greater than his captivating voice.

MAX RICHTER: VIVALDI: RECOMPOSED & THE LEFTOVERS WITH THE KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, VIOLIN SOLOIST YUKI NUMATA RESNICK, AND ACME

The European composer Max Richter sure has a lot of nerve: in 2012, he unveiled The Four Seasons—no, not an homage to the spry Baroque standard of Antonio Vivaldi, but a defacing and re-facing of it. Richter eviscerated the 18th century favorite, ripping out familiar bits and turning them into distant, spectral

loops. Yuki Numata Resnick will be the violin soloist for this performance. During this performance, Richter will also present some of his original compositions from the HBO series The Leftovers created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, which premiered in June 2014. Joining Richter will also be the The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, East Tennessee’s premiere orchestra reaching over 200,000 people annually, and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, presenters of cutting-edge literature by living composers.

BIJOU THEATRE RHIANNON GIDDENS

For the last decade, Giddens has been giving voice to the vanished, using tunes to tell tales that have been bowdlerized or simply omitted

from history books. Giddens has, most famously, done this with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the African-American string band that, for many, served as the first notice that American folk music wasn’t simply the work of white men with banjos and fiddles. The work of the Drops continues, though Giddens has stretched her purview beyond the group’s efforts. She transmits unnoticed histories through her own pen and voice, itself an instrument of near-magnetic purity. Recently, she joined Elvis Costello, Jim James, T-Bone Burnett and a handful of others to animate a set of forgotten Bob Dylan lyrics for a project known as The New Basement Tapes. Even among that esteemed company, her takes might be the most stunning, fitting testaments for

BIGEARSFESTIVAL.COM

a performer who salvages history by letting it live again.

BILL FRISELL & BILL MORRISON: THE GREAT FLOOD

Bill Frisell is an inarguable guitar master. His tone is impeccable and unmistakable: a soft, rich ripple of vibrations that tickles the senses just so. It’s more than a little astounding, then, that one of the most important works of his career arrived in finished format only in 2014. The Great Flood, his collaboration with filmmaker Bill

others—would return. Perhaps it’s strange to say that one of American music’s most vital institutions right now comes by a sexagenarian who will yell at and about you and everyone you know from stage. But see the Sturm und Drng of Swans’ tormented rock ecstasy in the 21st century, and you’ll believe it, too.

ANN AND STEVE BAILEY HALL AT THE KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART BING AND RUTH See previous description page 9.

LITTLE ANNIE & SWANS

Little Annie, aka Annie Anxiety Bandez, is a smokey contralto, raconteur and restless spirit who has spent the last 30 years creating a body of work that would take much more space than available here to list. Since stepping onto her first stage at the age of 16, her music – and her life – has defied categorization, limitations and restrictions. When Michael Gira played Big Ears in 2009, he was less than a year from an announcement that would rattle the music world: Swans—his legendary New York band, who had excoriated the world with gothic, grotesque and demented rock like few other

This very special sit-down with some of this year’s most prolific guests features Max Richter, Tyondai Braxton, Ben Frost, and Hildur GuðnadÓttir. Moderator TBD.

THE STANDARD TYONDAI BRAXTON: HIVE See previous description on page 4.

LITTLE ANNIE

SWANS

Morrison, is an immersive and hypnotic look at one of the defining and prescient events of American history, The Mississippi River Flood of 1927. Against archival footage and with an all-star band, Frisell works between poles of human exasperation and hope, expressing the struggle faced by our predecessors while also trying to conjure their language of survival.

REGAL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP AUDITORIUM AT THE KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART PANEL: TECHNOLOGY’S PLACE IN CREATIVITY

TERRY RILEY WITH GYAN RILEY & TRACY SILVERMAN

Maybe the most impressive thing about Terry Riley’s essential contributions to the development of American musical minimalism is his complete insistence that his career not remain limited by it. Not only mesmerizing but methodologically revelatory, his In C, which turned 50 this year, is one of those rare moments that changed art itself. Though he’s played it since (including a performance at Big Ears 2010) and celebrated it in 2014, Riley is not bound to it. Both before and after In C, he plundered ostentatious improvisation, where layers upon layers of sound resulted in kaleidoscopic sound fantasies. During this special performance in celebration of his 80th birth year, he’ll be joined by his guitarist son Gyan Riley and prolific electric violinist Tracy Silverman.

OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE BIG EARS FESTIVAL

KRONOS QUARTET: TUNDRA SONGS WITH TANYA TAGAQ

Tundra Songs features Kronos Quartet alongside Tanya Tagaq in a trio of works by Canadian composer Derek Charke. David Harrington, Artistic Director of Kronos and founder of the quartet, describes as “really one of the major, spectacular pieces that has ever been written for Kronos.” For Tundra Songs, Charke traveled with his gear to the Nunavut capital of Iqaluit on Baffin Island, proceeding to a two-day trip out on the ice by dog sled. There he recorded sounds of cracking and grinding ice sheets, shrimp, krill, and other marine life (via hydrophone), the shrieks of ravens, and various sounds of daily life in the region’s communities. Tundra Songs weaves these environmental samples into an often propulsive texture that also incorporates vocal sounds from Tanya Tagaq, who has developed the ability to sing call-andresponse Inuit throat song games (also known as Katajak) on her own, and from the quartet itself, which employs circular bowing techniques that evoke throat singing.

KRONOS QUARTET: 40 CANONS WITH BRYCE DESSNER

Written for the string quartet and guitar and commissioned by Kronos Quartet, Bryce Dessner premiered 40 Canons alongside Kronos at the Barbican Concert Hall in London, England just last year. Bryce Dessner – who composes “gorgeous, full-hearted music” according to National Public Radio – seamlessly blends aspects of the classical and the popular in his concert works, the compositions simultaneously alive to past and present and the potential

TANYA TAGAQ

of the future. Dessner’s scores, described as “deft” and “vibrant” by The New York Times, draw on elements from Baroque and folk music, late Romanticism and modernism, minimalism and the blues, as well as the inspiration of iconic figures from Béla Bartók, Benjamin Britten and Henryk Górecki to Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Steve Reich.

Zs, now solidifying into the trio formation of Sam Hillmer (tenor saxophone), Patrick Higgins (guitar/electronics), and Greg Fox (drums), has been variously categorized as no-wave, brutal-prog, and post-minimalist. The trio is primarily concerned with making music that challenges the physical and mental limitations of both performer and listener. Manipulating extended technique, unique instrumental synthesis, and near telepathic communication, Zs aims to create works that envelop the listener and unfold sonically over time, evoking unspoken past, present, and future rites and ritual.

SILVER APPLES

Silver Apples founder Simeon Coxe will be joined by drummer Toby Dammit aka Larry Mullins (drummer for Iggy Pop, Iggy and the Stooges, Swans, and countless others) for a very special performance. Formed in 1967, Silver Apples fused Simeon’s homemade synthesizer and eerie vocals with the electrifying drumming of the late Danny Taylor and quickly gained an underground reputation amongst the New York avant-garde. Although they disbanded in 1969, their musical influence continued to grow on new generations of sonic explorers, and Silver Apples was reactivated in 1996. Their Big Ears performance will be special in at least two ways: it will mark the first collaboration between the two, who only recently met and also discovered they were both originally from Knoxville, TN.

KRONOS QUARTET: “VIEWS FROM HERE TO THE HEAVENS (FOR SCOTT FRASER)” WITH NELS CLINE

Kronos Quartet, known for continually re-imagining the string quartet experience will join Wilco guitarist Nels Cline in a performance of the piece that he wrote in honor of fellow guitarist Scott Fraser’s 60th birthday. Cline’s composition “Views from here to the Heavens (for Scott Fraser)” is a piece he wrote in Fraser’s honor, who has toured as a sound designer with the Kronos Quartet since 1992, and received a Grammy nomination for producing and engineering Kronos’ 2005 CD You’ve Stolen My Heart featuring Bollywood diva Asha Bhosle.

REGAL RIVIERA STADIUM 8 NAZORANAI: A FILM FROM ROCK FISH STEW’S ONGOING BIG EARS DOCUMENTARY Featuring Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss from Rock Fish Stew, this film highlighting the 2014 performance of Nazoranai will be followed by an audience Q&A with the filmmakers. See notes on additional film programming on pages 5 and 7.

P rogram Notes

Remembering Knoxville’s Internationally Known Artist

LOCAL MUSIC REVIEW

Kevin Abernathy Ain’t Learned Yet It’s a stretch to call Kevin Abernathy’s second album under his own name, apart from the Kevin Abernathy Band, a solo album—the credits include a long list of local badasses, from Tim and Susan Lee to Po Hannah, Gray Comer, Chris Bratta, Trisha Gene Brady, Sean McCollough, and even saxophone player Jason Thompson. But Abernathy’s voice comes through loud and clear, a vision of straight-ahead guitar rock that nevertheless manages to nod at styles as varied as crisp ’80s hard rock, ’90s indie and alt-country, and classic-rock radio. Even with that all-star cast of backing musicians, and despite the fact that it was recorded in three different studios, Ain’t Learned Yet is Abernathy’s most accomplished and consistent record so far. Over the last decade or so, the Madisonville native has flirted with roots rock, heavy metal, and folk on different releases; here, he manages to fit his various influences together in a set of songs that showcase his wide-ranging interest without ever sounding like exercises in style. Take the closer “Gods of Rock,” a paean to classic-rock concerts at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum, which sounds, in places, like Steve Earle, Thin Lizzy, and John Prine, and yet never shows its seams. Ain’t Learned Yet is—enthusiastically, emphatically, and without qualification—bar-band music, in the best way. The album’s live-sounding production suggests that these songs, as sturdy as they are, sound best right in front of you, with the distortion cranked and the guitar solos extended for a few extra bars. (There are more guitar solos on Ain’t Learned Yet than any local album in recent memory.) The bad news is that Abernathy’s CD release show for Ain’t Learned Yet is behind us. The good news is that he’s playing at WFIV’s Behind the Barn series at Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria in Maryville on Thursday, April 2. And it’s free. —Matthew Everett

He might have seemed an unlikely Knoxvillian. Born in the Soviet Union during World War II, he was a small child when he moved to Vienna in 1945, the year the Nazis gave it up, and there he began his education. He learned several languages—Russian, German, Yiddish—but not English. It was thanks to his family’s kinship to Max Friedman, jeweler and popular city councilman, that they landed in Knoxville. Schwarzbart learned English fast, graduated from East High, and later was in the first graduating class of the then-new University of Tennessee School of Architecture. Like most East Knoxville kids, he learned to shoot pool. It was a rare indulgence in a life devoted to his faith—a longtime member of Heska Amuna Synagogue, he was long involved in leadership of local Jewish organizations, and helped found the Knoxville Jewish Alliance—and his art, and his wife of many years, Mary Linda. —Jack Neely

Classical Music: pianist Conrad Tao

Shelf Life: Big Ears performers

Photo courtesy of Knoxville Jewish Alliance

rnold Schwarzbart died in Knoxville last week, at the age of 73, after a long illness. He was once best known here as a prominent modernist architect, the designer of unusual structures like the Knoxville Zoo’s main building and the LT Ross public building, but for the last 30 years, he was an artist—or “artisan,” the term he preferred. In terms of international acclaim, hardly any contemporary Knoxville artist was his equal. His work appears prominently in public spaces in other states and other countries. However, there’s a good chance you’ve never encountered his work. He devoted his design talents to the particular realm of art known as Judaica. To most Americans, perhaps, it’s an esoteric field, but to observant Jews, Judaica is a familiar, useful, everyday art: lamps, Kiddush cups, amulets, and other symbolic objects. About 300 attended his funeral last week, and one of the several speakers remarked, credibly, that it was likely that most of the people in the room had some of Schwarzbart’s artwork in their homes. But his sculptures, lanterns, donor walls, and other creations appear in public places all over the United States, from Boston to Miami to Santa Fe, and also in Israel. A special exhibit of his work is currently on display at the Temple Beth El library.

Movie Review: ’71

Video Review: The Overnighters

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35

Classical Music

Youth Movement A young soloist and guest conductor lead KSO to an emotional performance BY ALAN SHERROD

t is difficult to pick a single emotion when confronted with a pianist like Conrad Tao. “Amazement” could be one—the 20-year-old pianist, who appeared with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra last weekend in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, has leaped from being a child prodigy into the rarefied world of adult performers possessing an extraordinary degree of musical maturity and inventiveness. “Awe” is not out of the question, either, particularly after his stunningly explosive, almost frightening, mad tear through the third movement of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7 as an encore on Friday. On the other hand, “total admiration” applies, too, as it does to any concert soloist who can confidently own the occasion with a pair of skinny jeans and a muted red

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

shirt. However, I’m going with a more down to earth “exuberant enchantment,” for Tao’s seemingly innate storytelling ability, which invested each Mozartian phrase with a refreshing twist and a perfect reason for existing. Perhaps because of Tao’s parallel educational track as a contemporary composer, he appeared dedicated—unconsciously, at least—to turning the piano into its own orchestra of sorts. In the slow Andante movement, he seemed to absorb and reflect the flavor of the woodwinds that provide much of the descriptive atmosphere. By the movement’s close and into the finale, Tao’s piano echoed the stream of lyricism of the violins. Tao did not shy away from percussion, either, whether it was from notated punctuation or from a delightfully uninhibited pedal foot.

The guest conductor for the evening, 31-year-old James Feddeck, proved to be a wise leader with style, substance, and control beyond his years. In addition to recent notable guest-conductor gigs, Feddeck’s resumé already includes assistant conductor positions with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Together, conductor, soloist, and orchestra turned in a performance in the Mozart concerto that was exceedingly fresh, bright, articulate, and attention-grabbing. This is indeed an accomplishment in a work that features a complex and ingenious textural sophistication instead of the achingly poignant and memorable melodies found in some of the composer’s earlier concertos. We shouldn’t overlook the age-related connections of the evening’s program itself. Feddeck opened the concert with Rossini’s last overture, the familiar Overture to William Tell, written at age 37, before his 40-year retirement from opera. At the same time William Tell was getting its premiere in August 1829, 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn was touring Scotland, acquiring inspiration for his “Scottish” Symphony, the concluding work on the program. However, it took Mendelssohn almost 13 more years before his “Scottish” would see the light of day. Chronologically, the “Scottish” Symphony was the last of five Mendelssohn composed, although it bears the title of Symphony No. 3 in A Minor. By the time of its premiere, in 1842, Wagner and Verdi were at the beginning of their operatic careers, Donizetti was at the end of his, and Romanticism was lurching past Beethoven into the mid-century period of Schumann and Berlioz. In this climate, Mendelssohn emerges as an evoker of images, but one more classical than modern. What marked Feddeck’s intensely satisfying interpretation of the “Scottish” was his ability to understand Mendelssohn’s evocation of images, and to treat them with energy and precision but without even the slightest hint of sentimentality. Repeating phrases were separated by distinctly descriptive dynamics rather than by the

artificial lushness of swelling crescendos and decrescendos that would later mark end-of-the-century impressionists. Even the suggestion of a storm in the opening movement shunned the overly dramatic, leaving the audience to feel the wind in their own mind. Textural separation between strings and woodwinds felt more like layers being peeled away than specific entrances and exits. Of course, the Overture to William Tell that opened the concert contains a memorable storm sequence as well, not to mention a gorgeous cello and bass ensemble opening, and an achingly beautiful pastoral dawn featuring the English horn. Sadly, because this rightfully terrific piece of music has been used, abused, degraded, and parodied in everything from commercials to cartoons to TV, one could almost feel the impatience of last weekend’s audience for that ubiquitous “Lone Ranger” finale. Others, this writer included, savored Feddeck’s deliberate attention to the proper pace and details of Rossini’s Alpine references—even without a fiery horse or a single cloud of dust in sight.

What marked Feddeck’s intensely satisfying interpretation of the “Scottish” was his ability to understand Mendelssohn’s evocation of images, and to treat them with energy and precision but without even the slightest hint of sentimentality.

Shelf Life

Ears Wide Open Dig into the work of Big Ears performers at the Knox County Public Library BY CHRIS BARRETT

alling all Big Ears. Knox County Public Library’s Sights and Sounds collection presents a tasting menu of sumptuous sounds representative of this week’s visiting artists. Come and get it. Visit knoxmercury.com for more picks.

KRONOS QUARTET

Striding into the ensemble’s fourth decade, Kronos Quartet has consistently expanded upon what might be expected from a string quartet. In the hands of these players, that lush and layered instrumental voice appears to be without limits. Although they do not contain music related to this weekend’s program, especially recommended are Pieces of Africa and Early Music. Both are breathtakingly beautiful and full of surprises. Early Music does contain some ancient music, but it’s presented alongside 20th-century compositions by Moondog, Harry Partch, John Cage, and Arvo Pärt, each performed with reverence and sublimation of the self.

JOZEF VAN WISSEM AND JIM JARMUSCH

The 2012 album The Mystery of Heaven is a fascinating suite of atmospheric duets. Van Wissem plays lute and 12-string guitars opposite Jarmusch and a rack of distorted guitars and effects. Jarmusch generates sustained chords with no real beginning or end, and only minute changes in pitch. Van Wissem’s lute, conversely, is nothing but details.

BILL FRISELL

Nobody has bigger ears than Bill Frisell. His presence, smile (behind spectacles, no less), and vast musical intellect are invaluable for many reasons. If this column is helping you build a list, put All We Are Saying and

Unspeakable near the top. The former is a playful and open-minded approach to the John Lennon songbook. The latter, circa 2004, sounds like the record Frisell might have been rehearsing for with the handful of Americana and country-and-western workouts that preceded it. Unspeakable is about perfect, both as a guitar record and as a guide to highly effective sampling. Listen to it this spring, and from now on when you walk down the street on any sunny day, pretending to be someone else or not, you will hear the world sing to you a song called “Alias.”

A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN

Let us not say less is more. Thank you, please. It makes no sense. Let us say— with regard to the much-augmented duo of Adam Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran—that less is plenty, or at least certainly enough. This is a wonderful record of mostly piano and chamber-music accompaniment. It requires and rewards some patience.

BILL MORRISON

Decasia begins and ends with what may be its most lovely footage. It’s a dervish dancer (according to external sources) filmed in Cairo circa 1928—a man who, in order to offer access to God, sacrifices that which protects most of us from God: balance. Most folks who watch the film closely will remain off balance for the next hour. It’s a beautiful mess: lovingly edited archival footage that makes artistic use of the patterns formed by oxygen and other detractors as they expedite the decomposition of film. It’s pretty. It’s seldom seen. And it may be the best any of us can hope for in terms of eulogy or lasting remembrance. March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37

Movie R e view

Belfast Burning The Irish Troubles serve as backdrop for the intense thriller ’71 BY APRIL SNELLINGS

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

They were expecting a stint in Germany, but instead Gary’s unit is sent to Belfast to provide support for anti-IRA operations. A well-meaning but inexperienced young officer (Sam Reid) sends the new recruits into a volatile situation that quickly turns violent, and Gary is accidentally abandoned in hostile territory. ’71 essentially becomes a chase film as the terrified young soldier tries to make his way back to his barracks.

Photo by Dean Rogers

n the years following the violent, decades-long Northern Ireland conflict known euphemistically as the Troubles, Belfast has emerged as a uniquely troubled chunk of cinematic real estate. It’s provided the backdrop for a long list of films about the bloody civil war between British loyalists and Irish nationalists; more recently, the city was terrorized by a fictional serial killer in the frightening (if uneven) BBC series The Fall. It’s back to the Troubles for ’71, an extraordinarily tense British thriller from first-time feature director Yann Demange. It’s being billed as an action film, and that’s technically correct— there are explosions, shootouts, fistfights, stabbings, and breathless, nerve-rattling chase scenes. But ’71’s intensely sympathetic protagonist is anything but an action hero; Pvt. Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell, most recently seen in Unbroken) is just a bewildered young man, plunged into a nightmare, whose only goal is to get out alive. Gary’s face is battered and bloodied the first time we see it. The film opens with the young soldier taking jabs to the head during a combat-training session; he’s a new recruit, being put through the paces of basic training. Soon he and his comrades are crawling through muddy ditches and hauling themselves over fences as they prepare for their first deployment. The training foreshadows the trials Gary will soon endure, but in no way does it prepare him for what will be the worst night of his already troubled life.

The cat-and-mouse sequences that play out over the course of the night are masterfully staged and relentlessly suspenseful, but what’s really captivating about ’71 is the way it rejects nearly everything we’ve come to expect from action movies. Demange, working from a script by Scottish playwright Gregory Burke, isn’t interested in the obvious beats that have come to define the genre; I can’t think of another action movie that sees its hero hide in a dingy bathroom and sob as his enemies search for him, but that’s exactly what Gary does. He isn’t a coward, but neither does he have anything to prove. He doesn’t want to kill and he doesn’t want to die—he just wants to go home. Far murkier are the political machinations that work against Gary at nearly every turn. The plot is twisty and not always easy to follow. It gets flat-out confusing at times, but that seems to be more of a creative choice than a narrative failing. A number of people are prowling the streets of Belfast in search of the frightened young man: there are British military personnel

hoping to save him, and IRA gunmen out to kill him. Things get complicated when the lines between the warring factions begin to blur, and each side splinters from within. Nothing is black and white here, and Gary begins to suspect (rightly) that he can’t trust anyone. There are good guys and bad guys on both sides of the conflict, and Gary finds himself caught up in shifting alliances and power plays as he makes his way across a nearly apocalyptic cityscape. When violence does erupt, it’s visceral and ugly. There are a couple of moments in ’71 that are tough to watch—the camera occasionally lingers on the tragic after-effects of violence, and there’s a squirm-inducing bit of impromptu surgery that isn’t easily forgotten—but the bloodshed is never gratuitous. The result is a claustrophobic, paranoid, and expertly paced thriller that never relies on flashy effects or overly stylized fight scenes. It’s just a likable guy running, hiding, and fighting for his life, and there’s something incredibly satisfying about that.

Video R e view

Photo by Drafthouse Films

Extended Stay The Overnighters captures the decay of the American Dream

he Bible commands Christians to love their neighbors. But the congregation at Concordia Lutheran Church in Williston, N.D., had trouble with that. Williston is the epicenter of the fracking boom, and every day men from all over the country show up by car, bus, or train, looking for work. And for over a year, more than a thousand of them ended up at Concordia, where Pastor Jay Reinke let them sleep in the church and use it as a home base until they got on their feet. As witnessed by Jesse Moss’s astonishing documentary The Overnighters, now streaming on Netflix and available wherever else home video is rented or sold, complications ensued. Selfless goodness generally doesn’t come jetting up out of the ground these days, but Reinke is a-slosh with it. Moss’ cameras find him before dawn, waking the men crashed in his hallways; straight-talking to the new men who show up in his parking lot looking for a spot inside; attending meetings with local politicians and his own congregants to plead for forbearance on behalf of his temporary charges; and eventually slipping off to spend a few minutes with his wife and

kids. Poised, articulate, and unfailingly kind, he’s a mountain-states mensch. The men he’s trying to help are more complicated, at least on the surface. Few brought with them much more than hopes and, frequently, traces of troubled pasts. Addicts, ex-cons, the poor and dispirited—you know, the sort of folks Jesus hung out with. Yet the city council, Reinke’s parishioners, and local media run short of patience for the strain they put on everything. Pretty soon Reinke himself is strained, along with his family, as he goes to ever more desperate lengths to protect the men who have asked him for help. Not to get all clickbait-y, but you will not believe where this story ends up. The past year or two has seen a number of excellent documentaries— We Always Lie to Strangers and Rich Hill, for two—that take as their subject that deceptively familiar idea of Middle America. In The Overnighters, you get a good long look at the steep curve of the new energy boom, the attenuated odds that now define the American Dream for many, and the flinty hearts that inhabit many in the heartland. Every American should see this film. —Lee Gardner

presents

LEWIS NASH tues Apr 7 the 8 Square Room

GENERAL ADMISSION $20 ($25 AT DOOR) $15 (STUDENTS)

LEWIS NASH embodies the essence of a jazz musician in today’s world. His depth of swing is reminiscent of the old jazz drum masters, yet he’s the go-to drummer for the latest generation of players. He maintains his personal sound whatever the band or style of music.

PURCHASE TICKETS: WWW.KNOXJAZZFEST.ORG

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39

CALENDAR MUSIC Wednesday, March 25 CLIFF EBERHARDT AND LOUISE MOSRIE WITH SUSAN O’DELL UNDERWOOD • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • Free • Tennessee Shines is a weekly radio show performed live for an audience at Boyd’s Jig & Reel musical pub in Knoxville’s Old City at 7 p.m. and broadcast on WDVX 89.9 and 102.9 FM and WDVX.com. Host Paige Travis welcome an array of folk, country, bluegrass and Americana musical guests performing from 7-8 p.m. with bonus songs for the in-studio audience from 8-8:30 p.m. Poets, authors and other readers of a literary bent present their works in the Wordplay segment of the show. • $10

KATY FREE • Casual Pint (Northshore Drive) • 6:30 p.m.

FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE STOMP • Crown and

Thursday, March 26 - Sunday, April 5

MYSTERY MACHINE • WDVX • Noon • 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 Thursday, March 26 49 WINCHESTER • Barley’s Taproom and

Pizzeria • 10 p.m. • 49 Winchester is a band from the heart of the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia. Their sound combines acoustic traditional styles with modern day influences to create an energetic and melodic blend of folk rock. This eclectic group of musicians take pride in the brotherhood that being in a band holds, and their closeness as a unit shines through their live performance.

GUY MARSHALL • Casual Pint (Northshore Drive) • 6:30 p.m.

Goose • 6:30 p.m. • Traditional Dixieland jazz.

THE HERMALEIGHS • Preservation Pub • 10

LIONS • Longbranch Saloon • 7:30 p.m.

DAVE KENNEDY • Clancy’s Tavern and

RADIO BIRDS • Preservation Pub • 10 p.m. • 21 and up

BARRY ROSEMAN • Bistro at the Bijou • 7 p.m. • Live jazz. • Free

SECRET CITY CYPHERS WITH HOUSECAT, SIR VEILLANCE, TAYLOR, AND BR-NDON • The Square Room • 8 p.m. • $5

J. RODDY WALSTON AND THE BUSINESS WITH THE WEEKS AND SLEEPWALKERS • Bijou Theatre •

7:30 p.m. • For J. Roddy Walston & The Business – who formed in 2002 in Walston’s hometown of Cleveland, Tennessee – embracing weirdness means a mumble-out-loud celebration of that great and terrible burden of being human. Forcing the oft-clashing worlds of art and rock-and-roll to make nice, the band (including guitarist/ vocalist Billy Gordon, bassist/vocalist Logan Davis, and drummer Steve Colmus) deals in a scrappy yet sublime sound that honors both their Southern roots and punk spirit. • $18

JULIA WELDON WITH DAPHNE CULVER AND THE 40

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

p.m. • 21 and up

Whiskey House • 6 p.m.

RACHEL SARA ROBERTS • WDVX • Noon •

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

SEBADOH WITH QUI AND SPADES COOLEY • The International • 7 p.m. • On their 2013 comeback album, Defend Yourself, Lou Barlow and company make a solid, if not overwhelming, case that the world needs them back. The new album isn’t an essential addition to the Sebadoh catalog, but there are a handful of striking songs—“Inquiries • “State of Mine”—that sound refreshed, relevant, and even vital, capturing some of the same shambolically catchy guitar magic that defined Harmacy and Bakesale. Hardly the comeback of the century, but one that fans can welcome and linger over. • $12-$15 • All ages SIX TIME LOSERS WITH HOMEMADE WINE •

Scruffy City Hall • 10 p.m.

BILL ORCUTT Bill Orcutt • Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Wednesday, April 1 • 10 p.m. • $10 • 18 and up • thepilotlight.com Bill Orcutt spent a good part of the ’90s playing mind-warping guitar in frenetic noise rock band Harry Pussy. If you didn’t listen closely, the chaotic nature of their music could obscure the fact that these were excellent musicians making such a racket. The same might be said of Orcutt’s solo work. Returning from a decade-plus music-making hiatus, in 2009 Orcutt traded in his electric guitar for an acoustic and unleashed A New Way to Pay Old Debts. Since his return, Orcutt’s work has been heralded as one of the most original approaches to guitar music since British improviser Derek Bailey. At first it might sound like he’s making it all up as he goes, but repeated listens reveal a method, however abstract. Recently, he’s taken to interpreting well-known American songs like “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “White Christmas,” allowing listeners to parse his style in more familiar contexts. Much has been made of Orcutt’s playing a six-string guitar with two strings missing, but it wasn’t until seeing Orcutt perform live at last year’s Big Ears that I think I started to really get what makes his technique so unique. He often approaches his guitar as a percussion instrument, the way Cecil Taylor does the piano. And for all the eccentricities of his style, his take on “Spanish Is the Loving Tongue” at that show was a surprisingly gorgeous moment. All you avant-garde weekend warriors who go to Big Ears this year might consider staying up late on a weeknight for this one. If that’s your bag, it would be a shame to miss out on a live Orcutt performance. (Eric Dawson)

Spotlight: The War on Drugs

CALENDAR CHARLIE WILSON WITH RAY VIETTI AND MY BROTHER THE BEAR • Scruffy City Hall • 7 p.m. Friday, March 27 BIG EARS • Downtown Knoxville • Big

Ears is proud to be making its return in 2015 for another weekend of visionary music, exploratory art, and southern hospitality March 27, 28 and 29 in historic downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The legendary Kronos Quartet – considered the most celebrated new music ensemble in the world – will serve as Artists-in-Residence for the 2015 event. Performances will be held at the Tennessee Theatre, the Bijou Theatre, the Standard, the Square Room, and Knoxville Museum of Art. • See our coverage beginning on page 12. • $65-$199.50

CHINGY • NV Nightclub • 9 p.m. • The St.

Louis rapper, best known for his early ’00s hit “Right Thurr,” is still at it and making a stop in Knoxville. • $5-$10

FINAL FIGHT WITH THE LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN DAREDEVILS, BRAIN DEAD MORONS, THE BILLY WIDGETS, AND CHRISTOPHER SCUM • Open

Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8 p.m. • $8 • All ages

series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • Free

THE GRAND OLE UPROAR • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10 p.m. THE HACKENSAW BOYS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10 p.m. • With feet firmly planted in the old-time song tradition, hands soiled by the dirt of rock n’ roll and eyes fixed steadily on the future of real country music, the Hackensaw Boys are among the most exciting groups charting new territory in today’s diverse Americana music scene. HELLO CITY • Pilot Light • 7 p.m. • A local alternative/complement to Big Ears, featuring White Gregg, Shriek Operator, Maspeth, Big Kitty, Andy the Doorbum, Joseph Allred, and Ryan Schaefer of Royal Bangs. Free with a Big Ears pass. • $8 THE BUDDY HONEYCUTT TRIO • Bistro at the Bijou • 9 p.m. • Live jazz. • Free LARRY SPARKS • Laurel Theater • 8 p.m. • Classic gospel bluegrass from one of the all-time greats.

FREEQUENCY • Mulligan’s • 7 p.m.

The Super Dave 5 • Wild Wing Cafe • 10 p.m. • Free

FUNNY EARS FRINGE FESTIVAL • Preservation

WESTWEND • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10 p.m.

Pub and Scruffy City Hall • 7 p.m. • Preservation Pub and Scruffy City Hall host an alternative to Big Ears, featuring 36 mostly local bands over three days in two Market Square venues. The lineup includes Ben Gaines, Bliss on Tap, Ebony Eyes, Ex Gold, Far Far Away, Faux Ferocious, Grandpa’s Stash, Kukuly and the Romani Fuego, Mare Vita, O Youth, Senryu, Yak Strangler, Yung Life, Zach and Kota’s Sweet Life, and more.

GLADKILL WITH MONIKER, MEATBALL MADNESS, AND GLOBERT PAULSON • The International •

9 p.m. • Presented by Midnight Voyage Productions. • $8-$12 • 18 and up

THE GRAND OLE UPROAR • WDVX • Noon •

Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert

• Local folk and country. • Free

Saturday, March 28 ARPETRIO WITH STOKESWOOD AND CUDDLEFISH •

The International • 9 p.m. • Local EDM favorites. • $7-$10

BIG EARS • Downtown Knoxville • Big

Standard, the Square Room, and Knoxville Museum of Art. • See our coverage beginning on page 12. • $65-$199.50

MARK BOLING • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9 p.m. • Live jazz. • Free DUNAVANT • Clancy’s Tavern and Whiskey House • 8 p.m.

MATT FOSTER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10 p.m.

FUNNY EARS FRINGE FESTIVAL • Preservation

GORILLA • Longbranch Saloon • 8 p.m. COL. BRUCE HAMPTON WITH THE JEFF SIPE TRIO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10 p.m. • Col. Bruce Hampton has been making music since he formed his first band in 1963. Col. Bruce has been in constant motion ever since leaving a trail of memorable live performances with his many bands, including The Late Bronze Age and Col. Bruce Hampton and The Aquarium Rescue Unit. HANDSOME AND THE HUMBLES WITH THE HOT SHOT FREIGHT TRAIN • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8 p.m.

HELLO CITY • Pilot Light • 6:30 p.m. • A local alternative/complement to Big Ears, featuring Pleases, Horcerer, Daddy Don’t, Wesley Wyrick, Ex Gold, Wife Pilse, Criswell Collective, and Headface and the Congenitals. Free with a Big Ears pass. • $8 JENNA AND HER COOL FRIENDS • Mulligan’s • 7:30 p.m. • Classic blues, soul, and R&B.

JAMIE LAVAL • Laurel Theater • 8 p.m. March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 41

CALENDAR SAMUEL PAYNE WITH HANDSOME AND THE HUMBLES • WDVX • Noon • Part of

WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-daysa-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • Free

THE STEVE RUTLEDGE BAND • Wild Wing Cafe • 10 p.m. • Free

LAUREN SHERA WITH THE KNOX COUNTY JUG STOMPERS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10 p.m. • Free

T-PAIN WITH MAC SOSA AND DJ ERIC B • NV

Nightclub • 9 p.m. • T-Pain’s polished arrangements have become the in-demand sound across genres, and his scene-stealing vocal performances are among the most coveted in music. Since bursting on the scene in 2005, T-Pain has been awarded a Grammy, produced and written a plethora of chart-topping and platinum-selling singles, garnered “Songwriter of the

Thursday, March 26 - Sunday, April 5

Year” and “Producer of the Year” honors at the BMI Urban Awards and earned a BET Award. • $20 • 18 and up

Sunday, March 29 BIG EARS • Downtown Knoxville • Big

THE BROCKEFELLERS • Barley’s Taproom and

Pizzeria • 8 p.m.

Pizzeria • 10 p.m.

FUNNY EARS FRINGE FESTIVAL • Preservation Pub and Scruff y City Hall • 7 p.m. • Preservation Pub and Scruff y City Hall host an alternative to Big Ears, featuring 36 mostly local bands over three days in two Market Square venues. The lineup includes Ben Gaines, Bliss on Tap, Ebony Eyes, Ex Gold, Far Far Away, Faux Ferocious, Grandpa’s Stash, Kukuly and the Romani Fuego, Mare Vita, O Youth, Senryu, Yak Strangler, Yung Life, Zach and Kota’s Sweet Life, and more.

THE TENNESSEE TURKEYS • Suttree’s High Gravity Tavern • 9 p.m. • Free

NICK MOSS • Barley’s Taproom and

Pizzeria (Maryville) • 7 p.m.

Monday, March 30 AUTUMN ELECTRIC WITH UNDER THE WILLOW • Preservation Pub • 10 p.m.

THE BLUEPRINT • Barley’s Taproom and

KARIM WALKER WITH UNCLE JAKE AND THE 18 WHEEL GANG • WDVX • Noon • Part of

WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-daysa-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • Free

Monday, March 31 JEREMIAH DALY AND LOGAN VATH WITH LEFTFOOT DAVE AND THE MAGIC HATS • WDVX • Noon •

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

DRIFTIN’ WESTWARD • Barley’s Taproom

and Pizzeria • 10 p.m. • The brain-child

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

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of a charming wordsmith who’s hell bent on bringing his brand of Appalachian music to the masses, Driftin’ Westward brings a diverse arsenal of musical arrangements and enthusiastic performances wherever they go.

MILES TACKETT • Preservation Pub •10 p.m. THE WAR ON DRUGS WITH HOP ALONG • Bijou Theatre • 8 p.m. • See Spotlight at right. • $27.50

Wednesday, April 1 BARK WITH SIX STRING DRAG • Preservation

BRADFORD LEE FOLK AND THE BLUEGRASS PLAYBOYS WITH JACK RENTFRO • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7 p.m. • The former frontman for Open Road plays Americana rooted in the bluegrass tradition from his latest CD, Somewhere Far Away. Jack Rentfro reads prose and verse with modern Appalachian wit. Part of WDVX’s weekly Tennessee Shines series. • $10

KJO JAZZ LUNCH • The Square Room •

Noon • Vocalist Kayley Farmer celebrates music from the Great American Songbook in this encore Jazz Lunch performance. Join her as she and her band recreate many of your favorite hits from films like Singing in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, An American in Paris, Swing Time, and White Christmas. Featured composers include Harold Arlen/E.Y. Harburg, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields, and Irving Berlin. • $15

BILL ORCUTT • Pilot Light • 10 p.m. • See

Spotlight on page 40. • $10 • 18 and up

STEPHEN LEE RICH • WDVX • Noon • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a sixdays-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • Free

...we’re on our way!

Photo by Dusdin Condren

Pub • 10 p.m. • Tim and Susan Lee’s experimental rock side project, with reunited ’90s alt-country vets Six String Drag.

THE WAR ON DRUGS The War on Drugs with Hop Along • Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Tuesday, March 31 • 8 p.m. • $27.50 • knoxbijou.com Last year, the War on Drugs proved almost as polarizing as the narco-policy that inspired its name. Breakout album Lost in the Dream won the Philadelphia-based band kudos and a legion of new followers drawn in by the melodic born-in-theU.S.A. rock verities that singer/guitarist Adam Granduciel and company baked into its sinuous, heartbroken tracks. At the same time, Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek wasn’t the only one to slight the band as too slick, too beholden to out-of-fashion sonics and sincerity, though Kozelek got more attention than anyone else when he dismissed them as “beer-commercial” rock during a weird, one-sided public tiff.

Patronize our advertisers!!! And tell them you saw their ad here in

Said tiff is only worth bringing up to point out that, if anyone cares, Granduciel and company seem to be enjoying the best revenge. A year after its release, Lost in the Dream holds up beautifully. Could be the deceptive level of detail in its pulsing, ’80s-tinged straight-ahead-ness (once you hear the saxophone, you can no longer not hear it). Maybe it’s the folkish gait and durability of its melodies. Just as likely, it’s the emotion Granduciel projects via his narrow vocal range and his expressively shaggy guitar-playing. Or maybe it’s the way all those pieces come together into a piece of work in which big concepts like power and passion prove out, at least for the hour it’s on. They call classic rock “classic” for a reason. (Lee Gardner)

Thursday, April 2 March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 43

CALENDAR KEVIN ABERNATHY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8 p.m. • See review on page 35. • Free

THE BEARDED • Barley’s Taproom and

Pizzeria • 10 p.m. • Local old-time music and bluegrass.

THE FREEWAY REVIVAL • Scruff y City Hall • 7 p.m.

MOTION THEATRE WITH FAR FROM ROYAL AND SADIE • Longbranch Saloon • 8 p.m.

STEVEN MULLAN WITH CASEY JAMES PRESTWOOD AND THE BURNING ANGELS • WDVX • Noon • 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

ONE EYED DOLL WITH SHALLOWPOINT AND DECONBRIO • The Concourse • 7 p.m. • $8-$10

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

Thursday, March 26 - Sunday, April 5

PARADISO AND RASAMAYI • Shanti Yoga

Haven • 7 p.m. • Carnegie Hall didjeridoo artist Paradiso and singing bowl master alchemist Rasamayi bring concerts that are doorways to multidimensional journeys and experience regular reports of transformative experiences. • $25-$30

UT JAZZ BIG BAND • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 8 p.m. • Free THE CHARLES WALKER BAND • Preservation

Pub • 10 p.m.

FREEQUENCY • Cru Bistro and Wine Bar •

Local heavy metal. All ages. • $5

THE FREEWAY REVIVAL • Barley’s Taproom

SHIFFTY AND THE HEADMASTERS • Barley’s

and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10 p.m.

TIM HALPERIN • The Square Room • 8 p.m.

• $10

HUDSON K WITH STEPHANIESID, LITTLE WAR TWINS, DANIMAL PLANET, AND THE SNIFF • Scruff y City

Hall • 9 p.m.

KELLE JOLLY WITH DUSTIN SELLERS • WDVX •

Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8 p.m.

Noon • 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 DEAD RINGERS • Preservation Pub • 10 p.m.

DEVAN JONES AND THE UPTOWN STOMP • Boyd’s

Friday, April 3 COYOTES IN BOXES WITH YAK STRANGLER • Open

EARTH BY TRAIN • Longbranch Saloon • 7:30 p.m.

EMBERS, AMONG THE BEASTS, AND THE CREATURES IN SECRET • The Concourse • 6 p.m. •

8PM - 8PM • Folk-pop and covers with three-part harmony.

Jig and Reel • 10 p.m. • Free

SCENT OF REMAINS WITH WARCLOWN, TEARS TO

Taproom and Pizzeria • 10 p.m. • Covering the gamut of classic mid ‘70s to ‘80s rock.

JARED WEEKS • Wild Wing Cafe • 10 p.m. ZULU WELSH • Preservation Pub • 8 p.m. Saturday, April 4 AGORI TRIBE WITH OPPOSITE BOX • Preservation Pub • 10 p.m.

THE ATLAS MOTH WITH GENERATION OF VIPERS • The International • 7 p.m. • 18 and up. • $8-$12 BIG GUN • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 8 p.m. • An AC/DC tribute. • 6 p.m. • $15

CALENDAR ERICA BLINN AND THE HANDSOME MACHINE WITH BROOKS DIXON • WDVX • Noon • Part of

WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-daysa-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • Free

OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS Wednesday, March 25 OPEN CHORD OPEN MIC • Open Chord

Saturday, March 28 THE ART OF HOUSE WEEKENDER DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 11 p.m. • Featuring resident DJs Rick Styles, Mark B, and Kevin Nowell. 21 and up.

Brewhouse and Stage • 8 p.m.

Sunday, March 29

Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10 p.m. • Free

Thursday, March 26

FREEQUENCY • Doc’s All American Grille •

BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord

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

ERICA BLINN AND THE HANDSOME MACHINE •

9 p.m. • Folk-pop and covers with three-part harmony.

Brewhouse and Stage • 8 p.m.• Free

SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15 p.m. • Free

Friday, April 3

Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10 p.m.

Monday, March 30

THE ART OF HOUSE WEEKENDER DANCE PARTY •

LIARS DICE WITH LANDFALL AND ANTLERS HOPKINS

BLUEGRASS AND BREWS OPEN JAM • Suttree’s

HANDSOME AND THE HUMBLES • Barley’s

• Longbranch Saloon • 6 p.m.

SUNSHINE STATION • Bluetick Brewery

(Maryville) • 9 p.m. • Local folk band Sunshine Station celebrates the release of its debut album. • Free

THE ALLEN THOMPSON BAND • Preservation Pub • 8 p.m.

High Gravity Tavern • 7 p.m.-9 p.m. • Free

Tuesday, March 31 BARLEY’S OPEN MIC NIGHT • Barley’s

Taproom and Pizzeria • 8 p.m.

OLD-TIME JAM • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15

Southbound Bar and Grill • 11 p.m. • Featuring resident DJs Rick Styles, Mark B, and Kevin Nowell. 21 and up.

Saturday, April 4 THE ART OF HOUSE WEEKENDER DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 11 p.m. • Featuring resident DJs Rick Styles, Mark B, and Kevin Nowell. 21 and up.

p.m. • Hosted by Sarah Pirkle. • Free

Sunday, April 5

Hall • 10 p.m. • Wussy are a four-piece rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio fronted by ex-Ass Ponys frontman Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker.

Wednesday, April 1

Sunday, April 5

Thursday, April 2

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

ROBINELLA • Barley’s Taproom and

BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord

WUSSY WITH THE TIM LEE 3 • Scruff y City

Pizzeria (Maryville) • 7 p.m.

THE JEFF SIPE TRIO • Barley’s Taproom and

Pizzeria • 8 p.m. • Two-time Grammy nominee Jeff Sipe brings together the incredible virtuosos Mike Seal on guitar and Taylor Lee on bass to form the Jeff Sipe Trio. An alumni of Berklee College of Music, Sipe has established himself as one of the greatest drummers in the United States. He has toured and/or recorded with highly renowned artists such as Bela Fleck, Phil Lesh, Jimmy Herring Band, Trey Anastasio Band, Derek Trucks, Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit and many others.

YOUNG RAPIDS • Preservation Pub • 10 p.m.

OPEN CHORD OPEN MIC • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8 p.m.

Brewhouse and Stage • 8 p.m.• Free

DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS Friday, March 27 THE ART OF HOUSE WEEKENDER DANCE PARTY •

Southbound Bar and Grill • 11 p.m. • Featuring resident DJs Rick Styles, Mark B, and Kevin Nowell. 21 and up.

TEKNOX 20 • The Birdhouse • 9 p.m. • A showcase of regional techno and house DJs, featuring Ajhenda (Wiggle Factor, AFRO ACID ATL), JMo, dialectic sines, and Saint Thomas LeDoux.

CLASSICAL MUSIC Wednesday, March 25

Artist: Brad Loveday

1020 N. Broadway 865-971-3983 www.sainttattoo.com

Architectural Antics Architecturals Art & Antiques COME SEE OUR NEW INVENTORY SPRING PROJECTS AWAIT YOU!

KSO Q SERIES • The Square Room • Noon •

This brand new recital series will feature one-hour lunchtime concerts by the Woodwind Quintet and the Principal Quartet at the Square Room, located behind Café 4 in Market Square in downtown Knoxville. Tickets include a boxed lunch; seating is limited. Visit knoxvillesymphony. com • $15-$20

Monday, March 30 COMPLETE BRAHMS PIANO TRIOS • University

of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 8p.m. • Faculty and guest artists; UT Collaborative Piano

12pm-6pm Wed-Fri 10am-5pm Sat 12pm-5pm Sun Or by appointment: 865.414.4838 or 865.696.7777 820 N. Broadway • Knoxville TN www.architecturalantics.com March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 45

CALENDAR

Thursday, March 26 - Sunday, April 5

Professor Kevin Class (piano) with guest artists Ruth Bacon and Gabriel Lefkowitz (violin), Victor Chavez (clarinet), Andy Breynton, Stacy Miller and Wesley Baldwin (cello). • Free

Roberts is touring in support of his new album, Old Man Baby Face. • $10

every week. • Free

Thursday, March 26

Saloon • 8 p.m.

Tuesday, March 31

p.m. • Brian Regan has distinguished himself as one of the premier comedians in the country. Brian’s non-stop theater tour has visited more than 80 cities each year since 2005 and continues through 2015. It is the quality of his material, relatable to a wide audience and revered by his peers, which continues to grow Brian’s fan base. The perfect balance of sophisticated writing and physicality, Brian Regan consistently fills theaters nationwide with fervent fans that span generations. • $46.50

CHRISTIAN WOLFF ENSEMBLE • University of

Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 8PM - 8PM • Guest artist; Scott Deal and Stuart Gerber (percussion), Stephen Drury and Yukiko Drury (piano) will perform a new work by Wolff plus Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. • Free

COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD Wednesday, March 25 HUNTER ROBERTS • Southern Railway Station • 7:30 p.m. • Tri-Cities comic Hunter

BRIAN REGAN • Tennessee Theatre • 7:30

Tuesday, March 31 EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruff y City Hall •

8:15 p.m. • Local comedy improve,

OPEN MIC STANDUP COMEDY • Longbranch

THEATRE AND DANCE Thursday, March 26 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ •

Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • A powerful and deeply affecting portrait of a family in the aftermath of the Holocaust: two sisters, one a survivor of Nazi concentration camps, the other brought up as an American, meet in 1946 after a separation of almost 20 years. Directed by Terry Silver-Alford. March 26-April 12. • $15

Friday, March 27 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15

KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘SHREK: THE MUSICAL JR.’ • Knoxville Children’s

Theatre • 7 p.m. • Based on Disney’s blockbuster animation franchise. March 27-April 12. • $12

Saturday, March 28 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘SHREK: THE MUSICAL JR.’ • Knoxville Children’s

Theatre • 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. • March 27-April 12. • $12

Sunday, March 29 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘SHREK: THE MUSICAL JR.’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 3 p.m.

TO THE NEW

FROM YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS AT

Eldridge & Blakney, P.C. Attorneys at Law

David M. Eldridge Loretta G. Cravens Tasha C. Blakney Troy S. Weston

A FULL SERVICE LAW FIRM DOWNTOWN www.eblaw.us • 865 - 544 - 2010 46

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

CALENDAR • March 27-April 12. • $12

Tuesday, March 31 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15

Wednesday, April 1

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ •

Clarence Brown Theatre • 2 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15

FESTIVALS Friday, March 27

• March 27-April 12. • $12

BIG EARS • Downtown Knoxville • Big Ears is proud to be making its return in 2015 for another weekend of visionary music, exploratory art, and southern hospitality March 27, 28 and 29 in historic downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The legendary Kronos Quartet – considered the most celebrated new music ensemble in the world – will serve as Artists-in-Residence for the 2015 event. Performances will be held at the Tennessee Theatre, the Bijou Theatre, the Standard, the Square Room, and Knoxville Museum of Art. • $65-$199.50

Friday, April 3

Saturday, March 28

BROADWAY AT THE TENNESSEE: GUYS AND DOLLS •

BIG EARS • Downtown Knoxville •

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15

Thursday, April 2 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15

KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘SHREK: THE MUSICAL JR.’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7 p.m.

Tennessee Theatre • 8 p.m. • Set in Damon Runyon’s mythical New York City, this oddball romantic comedy considered by many to be the perfect musical comedy - soars with the spirit of Broadway. • $37-$77

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15

KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘SHREK: THE MUSICAL JR.’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7 p.m. • March 27-April 12. • $12

Saturday, April 4 BROADWAY AT THE TENNESSEE: GUYS AND DOLLS •

Tennessee Theatre • 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. • $37-$77

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • March 26-April 12. • $15

KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘SHREK: THE MUSICAL JR.’ • Knoxville Children’s

Performances will be held at the Tennessee Theatre, the Bijou Theatre, the Standard, the Square Room, and Knoxville Museum of Art. • $65$199.50

Sunday, March 29 BIG EARS • Downtown Knoxville • Performances will be held at the Tennessee Theatre, the Bijou Theatre, the Standard, the Square Room, and Knoxville Museum of Art. • $65$199.50

FILM SCREENINGS Thursday, March 26 CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY: THE 2014 MEDAL OF HONOR CONVENTION’ • East Tennessee

History Center • 7 p.m. • A documentary made by University of Tennessee students chronicling the Medal of Honor Convention held in Knoxville in September 2014. • Free

Theatre • 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. • March 27-April 12. • $12

Tuesday, March 31

Sunday, April 5

• 7 p.m. • Bi-weekly viewing parties for

TWIN PEAKS VIEWING PARTY • The Birdhouse

every single episode of the cult TV series. Attendees encouraged to dress as their favorite characters. Trivia, Twin Peaks-themed giveaways, donuts and coffee, plus some surprises. Trivia begins at 7:00pm with viewing to follow at 8:00pm. • Free

Wednesday, April 1 THE PUBLIC CINEMA: LISTEN UP PHILLIP AND MELVILLE • 6:30 p.m. • In this sly, very

funny portrait of artistic egomania, Jason Schwartzman stars as Philip Lewis Friedman, a precocious literary star anticipating the publication of his second novel. A film about callow ambition, Listen Up Philip is itself remarkably poised, a knowing, rueful account of how pain and insecurity transfigure themselves as anger but also as art. • Free

Thursday, April 2 TCWN WILD AND SCENIC FILM FESTIVAL • Relix

Variety Theatre • 7 p.m. • The Wild and Scenic Film Festival is the premier collection of environmental films that showcase gorgeous nature cinematography, hair-raising outdoor adventures, and the critical environmental issues of our time. TCWN’s staff curated over 90 minutes of films from this year’s 18-hour collection to engage, inspire, and entertain the Knoxville community. • $10

ART A1 Lab Arts 23 Emory Place MARCH 6-28: A Show of Hands: A Print

Exhibition From The Hand Magazine. A reception will be held on Thursday, March 19, from 6-9 p.m.

Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. APRIL 3-30: Artwork by Marilyn Avery

Turner and Gray Bearden. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 3, at 5:30 p.m.

Central Flats and Taps 1204 N. Central St. APRIL 3-29: New artwork by Beth

UP NEXT!

THE WAR ON DRUGS

w/ Hop Along tuesday, march 31 • 8pm

ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA

“ONE SIZE FITS ALL” 40TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

wednesday, april 15 • 8pm

THE BLACK CADILLACS w/ Sol Cat and Johnny Astro & The Big Bang friday, april 17 • 8pm

AER

monday, april 20 • 8pm

JASON BONHAM

LED ZEPPELIN EXPERIENCE tuesday, may 5 • 8pm

WIMZ PRESENTS

THE BLACK JACKET SYMPHONY PERFORMS EAGLES’ HOTEL CALIFORNIA saturday, may 9 • 8pm ALSO UPCOMING!

Erick Baker • 4/18 - SOLD OUT! Home Free • 4/23 Jenny Lewis •5/12 Jeff Daniels & The Ben Daniels Band • 5/19

KNOXBIJOU.COM TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE TENNESSEE

THEATRE BOX OFFICE, TICKETMASTER.COM, AND BY PHONE AT 800-745-3000

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 47

CALENDAR Meadows and Matthew Higginbotham.

Clayton Center for the Arts 502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway (Maryville) APRIL 2-30: Dogwood Arts Festival

Synergy Student and East Tennessee Educator Art Exhibition. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 2, from 5-9 p.m., with an awards ceremony at 7 p.m.

Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St.) MARCH 6-27: Ruth Weisberg: Time and Again.

Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St. MARCH 6-29: • Knoxville Collects Yee-

Haw, a selection of Yee-Haw Industries prints collected and owned by Knoxville residents. (A reception will be

held on Thursday, March 19, from 6-9 p.m.) Also on display March 6-29: SGC International Member Exhibition; Approximate Exactitude: The Diagram and the Book, a collection of books and diagrams curated by Sarah Smith; and works by the University of Tennessee print faculty. April 3-25: Dogwood Arts Regional Fine Arts Exhibition. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 3, from 5-9 p.m.

Ewing Gallery 1715 Volunteer Blvd. MARCH 27-APRIL 7: MFA Thesis Exhibition: Raluca Iancu, Kevin Kao, Alexandra Kirtley, and Thomas Wharton Knox Heritage Art & Salvage Shop 619 Broadway APRIL 3: Artwork by Beth Meadows and

Austin Ferber will be on display during

the Knox Heritage Art and Salvage Shop’s Grand Re-Opening First Friday reception from 6-9 p.m.

Knoxville Convention Center 701 Henley St. APRIL 3-19: The ARt of Recycling, a sculpture exhibition celebrating National Recycling Month.

Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive JAN. 30-APRIL 19: • LIFT: Contemporary

Printmaking in the Third Dimension and Contemporary Focus 2015. 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.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture 1327 Circle Park Drive JAN. 22-MAY 24: • Drawn From the

McClung Museum, an exhibition of work by 27 artists inspired by the McClung Museum collection. Ongoing: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier.

Pioneer House 413 S. Gay St. MARCH 19-31: • Pioneer Monsters,

featuring work by “Outlaw printmakerz” Tom Huck and Sean Starwars, and Tease It to Jesus: A Portfolio of Dolly Parton Prints, featuring work by John Hitchcock, Sage Perrott, Erika Adams, Kathryn and Andy Polk and Brett Anderson.

Urban Bar 109 N. Central St. APRIL 3-MAY 30: Paintings and drawings by Charlie Pogue.

Westminster Presbyterian Church Schilling Gallery 6500 Northshore Drive THROUGH APRIL 26: Monoprints by Marilyn Avery Turner and needlepoint pillows by Coral Grace Turner.

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

CALENDAR LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS Thursday, March 26 KRONOS QUARTET Q&A • University of Tennes-

see Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 9:40 a.m. • Members of Kronos Quartet, official artists-in-residence for this weekend’s Big Ears festival, will answer questions from the public. • Free

FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS

Beardsley Community Farm, an urban demonstration site that promotes food security and sustainable agriculture through practice, education, and community outreach. • Free

MEETINGS Wednesday, March 25 KNOXVILLE WRITERS’ GROUP • Naples Italian

Restaurant • 11 a.m.-1 p.m. • Internationally acclaimed Irish author Glenn Meade will talk about his latest book, The Last Witness: A Thriller. Meade’s books have been described as fast, sly and slick. All-inclusive lunch. RSVP by Monday, March 23. (865) 983-3740. • $12

Wednesday, April 1

Monday, March 30

DOGWOOD ARTS FESTIVAL VERY SPECIAL ARTS FESTIVAL • West High School • 9 a.m.-

GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee

12:30 p.m. • A Very Special Arts Festival is a one of a kind event that celebrates Knox County Students with diverse abilities and the various artistic skills they are learning in the classroom. The event includes a wide variety of activities in music, dance, drama, and visual arts. Workshops of “make and take” arts and crafts, demonstrations, exhibits of art work, and performances by individuals with disabilities are all elements of the festival. • Free

Thursday, April 2 FIRST ROBOTICS COMPETITION • Knoxville

Convention Center • 8 a.m.-5 p.m. • High schoolers from all over the east coast converge onto the Knoxville Convention Center to compete in this year’s FIRST Robotics Competition at the Smoky Mountains Regional. • Free

CLASSES Tuesday, March 31 STOP ‘EM BEFORE THEY START: SPRING WEED MANAGEMENT CLASS • CAC Beardsley Farm • 5 p.m. • Learn about organic weed management by beating weeds before they start! We will cover the basics of weed propagation, weed control, and early weed identification. This garden class is FREE, and hosted by CAC

Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30 p.m.-9 p.m. • We hold facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org.

Thursday, April 2 KNOXVILLE WRITERS’ GUILD • Laurel Theater • 7 p.m.

ETC. Wednesday, March 25 ROCKIN’ THE RUNWAY • Scruffy City Hall • 6

p.m. • A collage of local fashion and local music all for the benefit of a great cause. The admission for the event will be $10 dollars at the door (Donate more if you would like). All proceeds will be going to The Joy Of Music Youth Music School. Featuring music by Josiah Atchley and the Greater Good, Shaun Abbot, CiCi Teasley, and Lucy Weaver. • $10

Saturday, April 4 MADAM CHLOE’S RED HOT CABARET • The

Concourse • 10 p.m. • Madam Chloe brings her gang of neo-vaudeville style performers to the stage for comedy, burlesque, belly dance, clowns, and lots of down home sex appeal. 18 and up. • $10 March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 49

Voice in the Wilder ness

Cold Fish In search of the prized walleye, at Cove Creek BY KIM TREVATHAN

was paddling as fast as I could to get to my takeout, a half mile away. My hands, in fleece gloves, were swelling and stiffening to the point of intolerance. What had driven me to this state of desperation and near madness on this January morning? The walleye. Why walleye? Well, I’ve never caught one, and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) website says they are “prized for their taste.” Though it is the state fish of Minnesota and North Dakota, a fish that favors cold waters, it has been stocked at Norris, Cherokee, Tellico, Ft. Loudoun, and other East Tennessee reservoirs. It

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

is toothy and golden, a battler that Midwesterners mount on pedestals in larger-than-life effigies, much like the leaping catfish sculptures you see outside Southern restaurants. My friend Drew Crain, a biologist at Maryville College, said he caught one on Chilhowee Lake using a nightcrawler. At first I thought I’d go up there and try for that same fish that he had released, but then I got a tip from a TWRA biologist Jim Habera, who had “just done an assessment” of walleye on Cove Creek embayment, one of the arms of Norris Lake. Habera said fishing off rocky points with a jig and minnow or with just a minnow on the

bottom might produce results. I had fished from my kayak and I had fished in cold weather, but this quest for the walleye taught me several hard lessons (the need for neoprene gloves, for example), and looking back, those who declined my invitations to go along seem like the sensible, wise friends I knew them to be. The first time I put in near the mouth of Cove Creek, about a half mile upstream of Norris Dam, the temperature was in the 40s, but the wind roared, gusting to 20-25 mph. I paddled up the creek and away from the dam to escape the wind, which mocked my attempts at “still fishing.”

Catching any fish, much less a walleye, would have surprised me. I was decidedly low-tech, in a “sit-inside” kayak, without the rod holders and compartments you see in the sit-ontops popular on the World Fishing Network’s The Kayak Fishing Show, these TV boats outfitted with sonar and fish finders and multi-compartmental tackle boxes, roomy enough for a cooler and a picnic basket. I had my camera in a dry bag lashed on the deck in front of me, one spinning reel and rod, and a dozen minnows, stowed in the space between my legs in an open ziplock bag half full of water. That day, my company on the lake was one fishing boat, two

DJ Money Makin DJ Sterl The Pearl

guys trolling back and forth in the middle of the channel. On my next trip the wind was calm but the temperature was in the low 20s. At the concrete ramp, where somebody had just put in a boat, the water that had dripped from the trailer had left a sheet of ice. Those fishermen were trolling back and forth about 30 feet away. “How are y’all doing?” I asked after I went through my awkward launching routine, managing to keep my feet dry because of the neoprene diving boots I wore. “Cold,” said the one standing in the front of the boat. “You ever hear of anyone catching walleye here?” “Yeah, in [late March] they’ll be spawning near Twin Cove Marina,” he said, pointing up the creek. “What are y’all fishing for?” “Smallmouth and rockfish.” I knew I was pushing the limits of inquisitiveness, so I paddled on downstream toward a rocky point and wished them luck. I thought it a bit lame of them to be fishing for the commonplace bass. Rockfish I didn’t know much about, other than they could get really big. I spooled out 30 or 40 feet of line and let the lead weight rest off the bottom, the minnow a foot above it fluttering around in an enticing way, I

The lucid lake surface reflected the waffled cloud patterns and the bare winter branches of the forest on the hillsides that fronted the lake.

imagined. This is called a dropshot rig. I figured it would be a longshot to catch a fish, so I got my camera out of the dry bag and started fiddling with it. The lucid lake surface reflected the waffled cloud patterns and the bare winter branches of the forest on the hillsides that fronted the lake. While I took pictures of my line as it entered the water, I heard the rod sliding across the plastic cockpit. I grabbed the reel to free myself from what I thought was a snag and discovered I had a fish on there. I didn’t even set the hook, just started reeling him in, assuming it was a walleye because that’s what I wanted to catch and that’s where the TWRA guy said they would bite. I got him up to the boat, and I guess he’d already swallowed the poor minnow. He seemed a little lethargic compared to the walleye I’d seen on the World Fishing Network. He’d fought the whole way but nothing spectacular, no jumps. He was a keeper, about 7 inches long, I’d estimate, around 3 pounds. I looked inside his mouth for the teeth. He had none! This was good, I thought, that I’d caught a toothless walleye, an old guy, because I’d forgotten my pliers in the car. I don’t know if anybody else has tried to take a picture of a fish from the cockpit of a kayak, but it is an intricate operation, and in order not to lose the camera and the fish, I put the fish on the stringer, and held him at arm’s length for a one-handed photo. I was thinking that I’d found the walleye hotspot, that I’d catch about four more and then filet them for dinner. Then, looking through the viewfinder I realized something: I’d caught a smallmouth bass, not a walleye. Pretty soon after, I released him. He darted down into the depths again. I got onshore to stretch my legs, and my cell phone flickered to life, the reception fading in and out as I tried and failed to return the call. I set free my minnows. For some reason, out of the boat, I was getting colder and colder. There was no wind and I was not wet. That’s when the painful paddling back to the ramp began. It was enough, that day, to pull the smallmouth from the depths and then to return him. The walleye could wait for spring.

WUTK K is proud to have both our past AND present represented in the 2015 SCM Awards!

BRIAN B. B.T. TATE

WUTK Show Host “Edutainment Hip Hop Show” (Sat 9p-mid) Vote “Best Radio Personality” in the Media Category

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And, vote for WUTKRADIO.COM for Best Internet Radio Station in the Media Category!

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smart phone and iPad app.

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 51

FOOD

Home Palate

TOMATO HEAD 12 Market Square, 865-637-4067 Mon.-Thu.: 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri: 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sat.: 9 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun.: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. 7240 Kingston Pike #172, 865-584-1075 Mon.-Thu.: 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m., Fri.: 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m., Sat.: 10 a.m.-10:30 p.m., Sun.: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. OLD CITY JAVA 109 S. Central St., 865-523-9817 Mon-Fri: 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Sat-Sun: 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

OLD CITY JAVA

TOMATO HEAD

Fresh Tarts Local bakeries remake the toaster pastry into a gourmet treat BY DENNIS PERKINS

any beautiful things have happened in Knoxville in the last decade, but there’s little that surpasses the beauty of a city filled with the aroma of sweet things freshly baked. So many tender cakes, luscious pies, and chunky cookies are available now that there’s not enough time or room in one’s diet to eat them all. But one particular treat never fails to compel me to stop and smell the flour: a hand tart. Several local treats are made to be eaten by hand, but two of my favorites have the distinct shape and heft of an overly processed breakfast love from my youth, the Pop-Tart. I don’t know what it is about a rectangular treat that excites me; it’s probably less about true love and more about the serial insertion of craving-creating commercials into Saturday morning cartoon schedules.

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

Still, they remain a temptation. If you’re similarly tempted and decide to begin a tart search—and it’s a worthy quest—there are two in particular worth seeking out. You’ll find them at Tomato Head and Old City Java. Tomato Head doesn’t keep a regular stock of these treats; you’ll find them as a daily special or, more likely, on a Saturday morning at their Market Square Farmer’s Market booth. The author of these tarts is Maggie Davidson; she’s the magician in charge of sweet things for Tomato Head’s bakery, Flour Head. Davidson’s no slouch in the realm of sugar wizardry—she graduated from Paris’ Cordon Bleu, and it shows. For her, a tart begins with a classic French dough, pate sucree—a blend of flour, butter, eggs, and powdered sugar. It’s a pale dough with a dense, soft, but

pleasantly crumbly texture; it tastes far better than a tart from a box and it doesn’t contain unpronounceable ingredients. “People love them because they’re just like the Pop-Tart but made with good things,” she says. “Our tarts don’t give you a funny taste in the back of the mouth like you get from mass production.” Highly processed dough uses stabilizers and other chemical means to improve the product’s texture and longevity. But those additives contribute a funny, almost pasty aftertaste— not unlike eating glue. Of course, you won’t find that in Davidson’s pastries. What you will find are some pretty amazing fillings. She likes to use the jam that she and Flour Head’s owner, Mahasti Vafie, make in-house: “It holds its shape pretty well in the oven, and we make good jam.” That’s an understatement. A hand-tart, plump with house-made ginger-pear jam, baked with a little sprinkle of sugar on top, is so lovely that I’m ashamed to admit that I once loved toaster pastries. The crust is firm but yielding to the bite and makes a blissful union with the jam—a just-right balance of sweet and spicy; the whole mouthful is punctuated by a little crunch from the sugar sprinkle. My sample tart didn’t make it home—I scarfed it down in about three bites as I drove. At Java Old City, the tarts have the same shape, yet the approach is a little different (yet equally delicious). Meghan Parrish—whose craft, she

says, is self-taught and comes by way of “a lot of practice and a lot of love”—is the creative mind behind the Wild Love Bakehouse, Java’s in-house bakery. Parrish uses a traditional American pie-crust recipe that includes European butter with a high butterfat content. The richness of the butter makes for an enchantingly flaky crust; it’s the stuff that pie dreams are made of. But Parrish says she doesn’t sweeten her dough because she doesn’t think the tart needs it: “We tried a shortbread crust once, but it was a little too sweet with sweet fillings.” Wild Love hand tarts are filled with a fantastic array of agreeably sweet stuff. My favorite thus far was stuffed with slices of fresh pear and a few sprigs of aromatic rosemary; those flavors have an appetizing affinity that’s especially suited to a buttery, flaky frame with a satisfying crunch from the beautifully browned edges. My other favorite was a Nutella and cherry filling—or was it the strawberry-apricot? It’s too hard to decide on a favorite from among so many wonders, so try them all. That’s pretty easy at Java. Parrish’s tarts have become popular enough that she makes them every day; but your best bet is to visit on Wednesday or Sunday—that’s when she bakes the most. While that may not coincide with your Saturday morning cartoon viewing, you probably wouldn’t make it home with one anyway—so just grab a nice cup of coffee and save yourself the trouble of cleaning crumbs from your car.

FOOD

Enjoy Our Spectacular

Brunch Menu! bistro DOWNTOWN Saturday 11AM – 3PM Sunday 10AM – 3PM

TURKEY CREEK Sunday 11AM – 2PM

Filet and Eggs

■

$3 BLOODY MARYS

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$3 MIMOSAS

■

½ PRICE SELECT WINE BOTTLES 4PM–10PM

Photo by Shawn Poynter

(SUNDAY ONLY)

DALE’S FRIED PIES

French Toast Breakfast Sandwich

TURKEY CREEK 11383 Parkside Dr. ■ 865-671-6612 DOWNTOWN 141 S. Gay St. ■ 865-544-1491 www.crubistroandwinebar.com

Other Local Handheld Treats DALE’S FRIED PIES 865-236-1590, dalesfriedpies.com Dale Mackey has taken fried pies from their church social and fall festival goodness to a whole new caste of tasteful indulgence. Her wonderworks are both sweet and savory—including an indulgent mac-n-cheese pie and the often sold-out chicken and waffles option. If you want to try that one, you’ll have to be near the front of the line. For now, you’ll have to keep tabs on Dale via Facebook and Twitter if you want to capture some pie—but it’s worth it. Hours and location: Varies, but she’s usually at the Market Square Farmers’ Market (starts May 2). HOLLY’S 135 135 South Gay St., 865-329-0000 The Holly Pocket is a Pop-Tart-looking delight that’s filled with a variety of the sweet and savory—including things vegetarian or not (which is “Meatatarian” in Holly argot). While the fillings vary for this frame of pie-crust dough, they all share the essence of Holly’s cooking: big, satisfying flavors in fresh approaches to both classic and off-the-top-of-her-head combinations. Look for stuffings like apple and white cheddar with mango chutney or curried pork with sweet chili sauce. They’re available on the brunch menu, so you can bring your electronic device and reinvent your Saturday morning childhood right there on the spot. Hours: Mon.-Sun.: 11 a.m.–10 p.m.; Brunch: Sat.-Sun.: 11 a.m.–3 p.m. GRAMMA’S PASTIES 465 Park 40 North Blvd., 865-765-4726, grammaspasties.com This local option offers a taste of Cornwall’s contribution to world cuisine. The hand-held pie is stuffed exclusively with savory and hearty fillings. Gramma has several steak-and-potato options that combine sirloin and spuds with onions, mushrooms, or Stilton cheese. There are also vegetarian choices like eggplant with pesto or broccoli with cheese and potatoes. You can eat in or win friends and influence your kids by taking a stock of frozen pasties home. Hours: Mon.–Fri.: 11 a.m–6 p.m. —D.P.

Congratulations

KNOXVILLE MERCURY.

’

CREATIVE FOOD & SPIRITS

HOLLY’S 135 135 S. Gay St. 865.329.0000

HOLLY’S HOMBERG 5032 Whittaker Dr., Suite 3 865.330.0123

HOLLY’S CORNER 842 N. Central Ave 865.851.7854

Holly Hambright, Managing Partner hollyseventfuldining.com March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 53

’BYE

Spir it of the Staircase

BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY

TALK TO US 54

KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 26, 2015

Thanks for reading this issue of the Knoxville Mercury! We still need your help to keep making independent, locally owned journalism for this city— please take our online survey and tell us what kind of stories you want to see in the paper. survature.com/s/knoxmercury CONGRATULATIONS: Survey respondent Carly Duckett won two tickets to Big Ears!

Restless Native

Birth of a Burger Joint How a notorious highway robber inspired a new career BY CHRIS WOHLWEND

was introduced to Clarence Bunch shortly after I became an employee of the Knoxville Journal in 1965. The Journal had its own clippings library, files of newspaper stories from the past. The library, as was common in the newspaper business, was known as the “morgue.” In Bunch’s case, the nickname was appropriate. Shortly after I was hired, Vic Weals, one of the Journal’s longtime reporters, told me that I needed to see how the morgue was set up. He took me back to a long, narrow room, consisting of a central aisle flanked by rows of file cabinets. There were a couple of desks at the far end for the librarians. There was also a cabinet with slim, deep drawers designed to hold full-page broadsheet newspapers. In one of those drawers was a copy of the Journal’s front page from August 22, 1934. The lead story was of Bunch’s death during a police shootout at a house in Park City, a couple of miles east of downtown. As he stepped out onto the front porch of the house, he was accompanied by the Grainger County sheriff and a deputy. When confronted by the Knoxville police gathered in front of him, Bunch grabbed the Grainger sheriff’s pistol

and opened fire. The outlaw was hit by about two dozen bullets (some accounts say 23, some 26). The sheriff and deputy were charged with harboring a fugitive. So that there could be no doubt that Bunch was dead, the story included a six-column picture of the corpse lying on a slab in the county morgue, dried blood caked around the entry wounds. It was that image that Weals wanted to show me. The resumé of Bunch, a contemporary of other widely known Depression-era outlaws, included armed robbery and jail escape. He had fled the Cocke County jail in Newport in July, and had been on the lam for about a month. Given his law-enforcement companions on the porch, he obviously possessed charm and leadership ability. Bunch’s body, embalmed and on display at a downtown funeral home, drew crowds of the curious—hundreds, the newspapers reported. When I told my dad about viewing the front page, while we were eating lunch at a popular Burlington café, he laconically informed me that he was familiar with Bunch. Pressed, he said that our host at the eatery, who was an acquaintance, had gotten into the

restaurant business because of Bunch. After his escape from the Cocke County jail, Bunch and his gang (there were two others who had escaped with him) had terrorized motorists in East Tennessee. A favorite ploy was to pull up behind a traveler and shoot out the tires, forcing the driver to stop. Then the driver and occupants would be robbed. Reportedly, sometimes the ensuing roadblock would lead to other victims, causing “robbery jams” on Asheville Highway and Rutledge Pike and other country thoroughfares. Sometime in late July, my dad said, Knoxville police got word that Bunch was heading into Knoxville on Asheville Highway, which became Magnolia Avenue at Burlington. A roadblock was set up. Sure enough, Bunch and his boys were spotted. But they blasted their way through the roadblock and were

’BYE

pursued down Magnolia, guns blazing. In the melee, two of the policemen, both friends of my dad’s, were close behind Bunch, close enough that a bullet hit their windshield, scattering glass. The passenger was cut by flying glass. “Bleeding, he thought he had been hit by a bullet and made his partner stop the car,” Dad said. “He got out and then and there quit the force. It turned out to be a cut from the glass, easily taken care of with a few stitches. But he didn’t go back to being a policeman. “He decided to open a restaurant instead.” So the sandwiches that we just ate came about because of a notorious outlaw? “You can thank Clarence Bunch for your hamburger and fries,” dad said.

BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY

Sure enough, Bunch and his boys were spotted. But they blasted their way through the roadblock and were pursued down Magnolia, guns blazing.

March 26, 2015

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 55