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Knoxville Craft Beer Week Guide
KNOXVILLE’S #1 SOURCE FOR EXPERIMENTALMUSIC NEWS
JUNE 9, 2016 KNOXMERCURY.COM V.
2 / N. 23
what is nief-norf?
NEWS
Knoxville College’s Environmental Problems Complicate Redevelopment
JACK NEELY
Parking Garage Mystery: Pryor Brown and the Legend of the Gold Bricks
MUSIC
An inside look at the most important music festival in Knoxville that you’ve never heard of
Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch Still Doesn’t Have It Figured Out
BY CHRIS BARRETT AND MATTHEW EVERETT
JOE SULLIVAN
Moving On, But Let’s Not Call This One a Farewell Column
20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION It’s our 20th Anniversary! We are so grateful to have shared 20 wonderful years of fitting your backpack, adjusting your Chacos and connecting you with the right apparel to get outdoors. In celebration, we are throwing a giant party! We are hosting a week’s worth of festivities to honor you! We are so grateful to you for making us your source for hiking, packing, disc golf, car camping, traveling, climbing, paddling, cycling, and even craft beer. We are not just an outdoor store, but a resource for our community to live a healthy, active lifestyle. As we celebrate our 20th year, we look forward to a future of environmental stewardship, community support, and shared outdoor experiences with you.
FRIDAY JUNE 17
FOUNDERS DAY HIKE
THURSDAY JUNE 23
PINTS FOR A PURPOSE
BENEFITTING TN WILD
SATURDAY JUNE 18
SUNDAY JUNE 19
TUESDAY JUNE 21
STAFF ADVENTURE TALES
CUSTOMER SWAP
FATHER’S DAY CELEBRATION AT THE POINT
FRIDAY JUNE 24
SATURDAY JUNE 25
HOPS IN THE HILLS
TENT & GEAR
BREW CRAWL
MIKE CAVE DIVES THE YUCATAN
TRUNK SHOW
SATURDAY JUNE 25
*Check our Facebook page or our website for more details.
Get ready for your next outdoor adventure here! 2408 E Lamar Alexander Pkwy Maryville Store Hours: M-Fri 9-7pm • Sat 9-6pm • Sun 12-6pm 865.681.4141
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE OPEN
PRESENTED BY LITTLE RIVER TRADING COMPANY
June 9, 2016 Volume 02 / Issue 23 knoxmercury.com
CONTENTS
“Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.” —Muhammad Ali
COVER STORY
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what is nief-norf?
This week, dozens of musicians, scholars, and composers from around the country have gathered in Knoxville for the nief-norf Summer Festival. For the next 10 days, in intensive workshops and seminars and in a series of eight concerts, they’ll turn the city into a cutting-edge laboratory for 21st-century avant-garde and experimental music. nnSF has developed into an internationally significant music event that gives Knoxville a global profile as an incubator of new music. Chris Barrett and Matthew Everett collect the festival’s oral history and provide a preview of its events. NEWS
12 Historic Hazard Tennessee’s proposal to put Knoxville College on its list of most polluted properties could have broad ramifications for the college’s plans to prolong its life by redeveloping most of its crumbling campus. And the potential health hazards could be significant, as S. Heather Duncan reports.
21 Knoxville Craft Beer Week Guide
Knoxville suddenly has a lot of craft breweries—and here’s the festival that celebrates them.
DEPARTMENTS
OPINION
A&E
4 6
Letters to the Editor
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20
Howdy Start Here: By the Numbers, Public Affairs, Quote Factory PLUS: “Photo Recollection: Knoxville Streets,” a photo series by Holly Rainey.
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’Bye Finish There: Restless Native by Chris Wohlwend, Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely, Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray
Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely is on the lookout for some golden bricks missing from the Pryor Brown Garage. Perspectives Joe Sullivan has an idea for a book he’s pursuing—which means he won’t have much time left for column-writing.
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CALENDAR Program Notes: We visit the city’s Cre865 meetup, and report on a project to celebrate artist Beauford Delaney.
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Spotlight: Soft-rock sister trio Haim visits the Mill and Mine.
Classical Music: Alan Sherrod assesses KSO’s choice for its new music director. Music: Mike Gibson feels the ’90s moroseness with Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch. Movies: April Snellings does what she must: watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3
LETTERS Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015
MORE METER FALLOUT
I was disappointed to read the Mercury’s May 25 guest editorial “Should We Be Concerned About KUB’s New ‘Smart’ Meters?” The author makes a number of citations that claim health risks associated with installation of “smart meters.” In every case, the nature or the content of the source is mischaracterized. For example, the author fails to mention the American Cancer Society’s position that “it is very unlikely that living in a house with a smart meter increases risk of cancer,” even though those exact words come from the article she cites. Her claim that the World Health Organization classifies radio frequencies [RF] as “in the same class as lead and chloroform” in regards to cancer risk is willfully misleading. Lead and chloroform are widely known as health risks, but not because they’re potential carcinogens—in fact, the WHO also includes coffee and pickled vegetables in that category. The author cites the Electric Power Research Institute’s study on RF “pulses” as reason to doubt that RF energy is not harmful. This would be a shock to EPRI, however—its own studies say that smart meters “comply with scientifically based human exposure limits by a wide margin.” She alludes to “a wealth of peer-reviewed scientific studies” that show links between RFs and human health problems, but her only cited study is the self-published, non-peer reviewed Bioinitiative Report that was roundly criticized by a number of leading health agencies. What is absolutely clear is that our current energy policies are woefully inadequate to protect humans from the health risks associated with extractive industries and climate change. Improving our outmoded energy grid is a necessary first step. I applaud KUB’s contribution, and I hope the Mercury’s readers will not choose to opt out of this important program. Adam Hughes Knoxville 4
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
EDITORIAL
BUT EVERYONE LOVES BAT BOY!
As with most question headlines, the answer is no. The Mercury does the community a grave disservice by publishing this scaremongering. Any attempt at vetting would have shown what nonsense it is. The 1-second signal blips from an intermittent 1-watt transmitter are meaningless beside the WiFi devices transmitting double that power inside your house around the clock. And, because power decreases with the square of the distance, you’re absorbing 230,000 times as much energy from that cell phone a half-inch from your head as from a KUB smart meter 20 feet away. None of this matters because there is no link between non-ionizing radiation and cancer. The Mercury isn’t supposed to be The Weekly World News. Should we expect Bat Boy or an anti-vaccine guest piece next week? Maybe some news about Obama’s birth certificate? Brent W. Minchey Knoxville
TREASURES INCOMPLETE
Jack Neely’s great pleasure in being able to access more of the digitized News Sentinel was exactly what the library and foundation board hoped for when we launched the ambitious $600,000 fundraiser, From Papers to Pixels. [“The Lost Years,” the Scruffy Citizen, May 26, 2016] Even as readers enjoy these new-found treasures, however, be aware that the project is not complete. Because of the digitization methods used by NewsBank, what we are now getting are often only portions of a year. Browse with pleasure and lose sleep, as Jack suggests, while you pore over nuggets from the past, but please understand that this is not the final version. We will make a noisy shoutout when a large portion is available in its entirety. Ginna Mashburn Knoxville
EDITOR Coury Turczyn coury@knoxmercury.com SENIOR EDITOR Matthew Everett matthew@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Neely jack@knoxhistoryproject.org STAFF WRITERS S. Heather Duncan heather@knoxmercury.com Clay Duda clay@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTORS
AWESOME NEW T-SHIRTS!
Even if you already own one of our highly collectible launch T-shirts, you’ll certainly want to pick up one of our new, extremely fashionable gray T’s. Guaranteed to make you 30 percent more sexy among people who like to read about Knoxville! Meanwhile, you can also shop for all of our Knoxville Mercury goods and services. We’ve got koozies, and amazingly enough, classified ads! And remember, all proceeds go to a worthy cause: keeping your favorite weekly paper in business. Go to: store.knoxmercury.com.
Chris Barrett Ian Blackburn Brian Canever Patrice Cole Eric Dawson George Dodds Lee Gardner Mike Gibson Carey Hodges Nick Huinker Donna Johnson
Rose Kennedy Catherine Landis Dennis Perkins Stephanie Piper Ryan Reed Eleanor Scott Alan Sherrod April Snellings Joe Sullivan Kim Trevathan Chris Wohlwend
DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Charlie Finch Corey McPherson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS
Ben Adams Matthew Foltz-Gray
ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Scott Hamstead scott@knoxmercury.com Stacey Pastor stacey@knoxmercury.com
BUSINESS BUSINESS MANAGER Scott Dickey scott.dickey@knoxmercury.com
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GUIDELINES
• 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. Send your letters to: Our Dear Editor Knoxville Mercury 706 Walnut St., Suite 404 Knoxville, TN 37920 Send an email to: editor@knoxmercury.com Or message us at: facebook.com/knoxmercury
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 706 Walnut St., Suite 404, Knoxville, Tenn. 37902 knoxmercury.com • 865-313-2059 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR & PRESS RELEASES editor@knoxmercury.com CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS calendar@knoxmercury.com SALES QUERIES sales@knoxmercury.com DISTRIBUTION distribution@knoxmercury.com
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Terry Hummel Joe Sullivan Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Charlie Vogel 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. © 2016 The Knoxville Mercury
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5
thinkstock
HOWDY
BY THE NUMBERS
Guns on Campus
88%
of faculty members surveyed at the University of Tennessee Knoxville opposed guns on campus. About 10 percent said they thought allowing guns was a good idea, or was “in the best interest of the campus community.”
22% Dallie DeArmond does yard work on a sunny day in East Knoxville. PHOTO RECOLLECTION: KNOXVILLE STREETS by Holly Rainey (loveh865.com)
QUOTE FACTORY “ Cassius Clay was a skilled, great boxer, but failure to to [sic] enlist in the US military when the call was made is [sic] black cloud on his character.” —State Rep. Martin Daniel (R-West Knoxville) tweeted (@RepMartinDaniel) his summation of Muhammad Ali upon news of the boxer’s death on June 4. After receiving swift criticism (Keith Olbermann called him a “racist clown unfit to represent parakeets”), he added this one: “Dutiful, patriotic, brave black and white men died in jungles while Cassius sat warm and cozy in USA.” Daniel’s official biography on his website reveals no military service—he was born in 1956; the Vietnam War ended in 1975. His Ali tweets were deleted, though he did add several more praising Vietnam veterans.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
6/9 ODD ATTRACTION: SAFETY CITY THURSDAY
9 a.m.-7 p.m., Safety City (165 S. Concord St.). Free. The gates to the fabled miniature version of Knoxville will be opened to the public on Mondays and Thursdays through July 28. Yes, that means you can at last pretend you’re Godzilla (just don’t incinerate any of the buildings). You may also bring bikes, battery-powered cars, or non-motorized scooters.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
of surveyed faculty members said they would resign or start to search for a new job if S.B. 2376 became law. The bill, which allows faculty and staff with concealed carry permits to have weapons at work, passed the Senate and House by wide margins, becoming law without Gov. Bill Haslam’s signature in early May. It takes effect July 1.
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people commenting on the survey anonymously said they support guns on campus in some form or fashion. 296 comments were in opposition.
746
faculty members who responded to the week-long “Guns of Campus” online survey in April—about 42 percent of all faculty members at UTK. —Clay Duda Source: University of Tennessee Knoxville Faculty Senate “Guns on Campus” Poll. An unscientific survey.
6/11 FUNDRAISERS: CHICKEN WINGS & DOGS 6/12 GUY CARAWAN CELEBRATION SATURDAY
World’s Fair Park. In an odd confluence of chicken bones and the dogs who are not allowed to eat them, two fundraising festivals are happening nearby at World’s Fair Park: the 4th Annual Big Kahuna Wing Festival (noon-8 p.m., $15, bkwfestival.com) and the 22nd Annual Bark in the Park (3-8 p.m., $5, humanesocietytennessee.com).
SUNDAY
11 a.m., Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church (2931 Kingston Pike). Free. Folk singer Guy Carawan, who died in May 2015, was a significant figure in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, popularizing the anthem “We Shall Overcome.” This service will celebrate his life with performers Evan Carawan, Nancy Brennan-Strange, and Chris Durman.
6/15 LECTURE: ‘EAST TENNESSEE IN WORLD WAR II’ WEDNESDAY
Noon, East Tennessee History Center (601 South Gay St.). Free. In this post-Memorial Day Brown Bag Lecture, Dewaine Speaks and Ray Clift talk about their new book, East Tennessee in World War II, the first comprehensive look at the accomplishments of East Tennessee soldiers and civilians during the war. Info: easttnhistory.org.
The Tennessee Theatre The 88-year-old venue gets an external makeover. The Tennessee Theatre’s tall sign, removed this week, is only about 12 years old. A vertical sign was there during the theater’s early years, but it was removed in 1956. When the theater underwent a massive renovation in 2003 to 2005, there was sentiment to match the interior restoration with a replica of the 1928 sign that older supporters remembered, this time with a new computerized electronic marquee below it. Both now need improvements to update the electronics, repair some damage caused by hail and passing trucks, and add 5,700 new, better LED lights to the six-story tall sign. A new campaign is raising money for the project. For more, go to tennesseetheatre.com. Designed by the short-lived Chicago firm of Graven and Mayger, the Tennessee Theatre was a long-promised project of Hollywood’s Paramount studio. In a typical week, the theater debuted two new movies, most of them here for just three nights each. That’s why the theater, which originally seated almost 2,000, had to be so big. The Tennessee showed more than 100 new feature films a year.
rhumba dancing, and promoting a movie called Too Many Girls. The Tennessee also hosted talent shows. Fiddler and singer Roy Acuff played for his first auditorium audience at a talent show in 1932. His band, the Three Rolling Stones, were runners up. By the end of the decade, he was a national star. The Tennessee’s biggest show ever may have been the Ziegfeld Follies of 1935, starring singer and comedian Fanny Brice. Because 100 standing-room only tickets were sold, the audience was well over 2,000. Other big shows of the 1930s included cowboy star Tom Mix’s acrobatic rodeo show, with live horses on stage; Helen Hayes in the Broadway show Mary of Scotland; and Earl Carroll’s Vanities, starring the sometimes-controversial Fifi D’Orsay.
1928 or 2016?
The theater later focused more on movies, and offered “world premieres” of some, including So This is Love, in 1953, featuring a stage show by four of the film’s actors, including singer Kathryn Grayson and the young singer Merv Griffin, who played the Tennessee Waltz on the piano--and All the Way Home, the James Agee film set and filmed in Knoxville.
Can you guess? One clue is the movie on the marquee, Masks But it was not just a movie theater, especially of the Devil, a 1928 silent starring John Gilbert. Another is in its early years. The first movies shown at the the building on the right, which is the original S&W Tennessee are considered “silents,” because they Cafeteria, before its 1937 move to the next block. The didn’t include recorded conversation, although The Tennessee closed as a regular cinema in Farragut is in the background. most came with their own musical soundtracks. 1977. A series of renovations, especially a major By 1930, though, most movies were “talkies” with one in 2003-5, reinvented the old theater as a Image courtesy of Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection recorded dialogue. A Mighty Wurlitzer organ, place suitable for all sorts of music, including cmdc.knoxlib.org installed with the theater’s construction, was Broadway shows and major operas. considered a necessity in big movie theaters, because a live organist had played an accompaniment to the movies as they were shown. By the time the TennesSince 1980, the Tennessee has been mainly a live-music venue, a stage for see opened, recorded soundtracks made this unnecessary, but a live organist Johnny Cash, Tony Bennett, Cab Calloway, Bob Dylan, Diana Ross, and many greeted theater audiences for decades. others, most of them arranged by local firm AC Entertainment. But every year, it still shows some movies. Each movie followed a vaudeville show, typically four acts that usually included a singer or musician, but might also include a magician, an acrobat, a This weekend’s movie, the first in the Tennessee’s summer series, is Some comedian, a psychic, or an animal act. Several nationally popular performers, Like It Hot, which was No. 1 in the American Film Institute’s 100 Funniest including jazz guitarist Nick Lucas and crooner Gene Austin, kept the audience Movies poll. This particular movie had its Knoxville-era debut half a block entertained while they were waiting for the movie. Even Glenn Miller’s away at the old Riviera in May, 1959. However, the comedy, starring Marilyn often-mentioned national broadcast at the Tennessee in 1940 was before a Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis, seems intimate with the Tennessee. regular showing of a feature film. Young Cuban actor and musician Desi Arnaz Its setting is 1929, the era evoked by the theater’s design. And its plot involves performed four shows at the Tennessee later that year, singing, playing guitar, itinerant musicians of the sort that once performed on the Tennessee’s stage.
Sources: McClung Historical Collection, Historic Tennessee Theatre Foundation, and the 2015 book The Tennessee Theatre: A Grand Entertainment Palace.
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 June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7
SCRUFFY CITIZEN
The Historic Parking Garage Pryor Brown, the man, and the legend of the gold bricks BY JACK NEELY
L
ast week saw a welcome announcement of the likely prospects for the 1920s Pryor Brown Garage, the four-story brick building at Market and Church that was very nearly torn down a couple of years ago. If parking garages aren’t significant enough to be historic, that should come as welcome news for our civilization. We could therefore just stop parking. Until then, let’s own up to our costly habit and acknowledge this important invention that enables us to store our vehicles efficiently in an urban setting. Pryor Brown appears to be one of America’s oldest existing parking garages. It’s an especially good example of one, as a mixed-use building from the beginning; for most of its history it hosted several retail businesses. However, this particular example was, in its heyday, a good deal more than a parking garage. Known grandly in the 1920s and ’30s as the House of Brown, it was an innovative intermodal transit center, housing Knoxville’s leading taxi fleet (Brown had the taxi contracts for both train stations), a freight transfer service (he carried sets for vaudeville shows), and even some mail hauling in cooperation with the post office. It heralded a new industry of movement. The new building was such an amazing thing that when they opened
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
it in July 1929, Pryor Brown hosted open houses, soirées in the evenings until 10 p.m., when citizens walked in and beheld this extraordinary building, with its sweeping ramps and interesting amenities like automobile turntables and supervisor’s conning tower. New architecture rarely generates such excitement. To say it was built between 1925 and 1929 is a simplification. It evolved on this corner over a period of decades. Born around 1849, Pryor Brown began his career as a South Knox County horseman. Brown Mountain is named for his family. He began delivering mail, by horse, as a teenager during the Civil War. He used his affinity for horses to develop Knoxville’s best-regarded livery stable. Well known by 1901, he built a fine one of brick on this corner. Brown didn’t like cars; one good horse beat a garage full of cars, he said. But he was a practical man in a new century, and around World War I, he motorized his fleet of trucks and began parking cars in his livery stable. The concept of Pryor Brown Garage is older than its bricks. But speaking of bricks, there’s a story about two very odd ones, which once gave the building an extraordinary distinction. The story was told for decades, never the same way twice. Around
1880, a South Knoxvillian named Davenport—Charles or Henry, depending on the story—owned many acres in the vicinity of what only later became Lindbergh Forest and Woodlawn Cemetery. He was of the family for whom Davenport Road is named. Mr. Davenport was land rich, but cash poor. When a traveling stranger offered him two gold bricks for $3,750, he saw opportunity. That was a lot of money in the 1880s, around $75,000 in modern dollars. But he knew it was less than a couple of gold bricks would be worth. Today, two gold bars would go for more than $1 million. In several versions of the story, an Indian, or a dark-complected white man posing as an Indian, is involved, and presented as someone unaware of the value of gold bricks. Davenport came to downtown Knoxville, to the Mechanics Bank & Trust on Gay Street, and borrowed the money to buy the bricks, with his land as collateral. After some time admiring his new bricks, Davenport became restless and fearful, alone in his South-Side home, sure he was going to be robbed, maybe murdered. So he went to sell them. And an assayist explained that the bricks were not gold after all. In some versions of the story they’re copper, in some bronze, in some brass. In one version they’re just plain clay coated with a bright yellow paint. Disgusted and brokenhearted, Davenport gave the bricks to his friend Pryor Brown, who loved a good story. He incorporated them visibly into the construction of his 1901 livery stable, the one that evolved into a parking garage. When it was torn down in the mid-1920s for a 10-story hotel that was never built, he saved them. When it became clear the hotel was going nowhere, Brown built the
grand new parking garage. He had his masons install Davenport’s legendary gold bricks plainly on either side of the main entrance to the garage on Church Avenue. Pryor Brown came to his office, sitting in a comfortable chair near the corner of the building, almost every day until he died in the summer of 1936, at the age of 87. Knoxvillians made a habit of pointing out the oversized gold bricks to newcomers, telling their favorite version of the story. Newspaper columnists like Bert Vincent loved the story, and told it repeatedly, and of course never exactly the same way. For years, I assumed Mr. Davenport’s gold bricks were still there somewhere, maybe obscured, waiting to be found. But thanks to the public library’s Paper to Pixels project, I discovered the melancholy truth. When Charlie Brown, Pryor Brown’s son, sold the building to the Bank of Knoxville, 20 years after his dad’s death, he stipulated that he got to keep the legendary gold bricks. In July 1956, he had them removed, the holes in his dad’s old garage patched up. He lived in a big house on Kingston Pike, and retired on the fortune he and his dad had made. A couple of years later, he moved to Florida. The building is just a block from our office. It would be hard to find replacement bricks that match the building’s construction exactly, 30 years later. And sure enough, if you look at the building’s bricks closely, you see a couple of patches where some bricks look subtly different in color and texture, about 5 or 6 feet up from the sidewalk. I don’t know, but I bet that’s where the big gold bricks were. What Charlie Brown did with Mr. Davenport’s gold bricks, I don’t know. Maybe somebody out there does. ◆
The story was told for decades, never the same way twice.
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June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9
PERSPECTIVES
My Personal Progressions Let’s not call this a farewell column just yet BY JOE SULLIVAN
W
ith the Mercury’s viability for the foreseeable future assured by the remarkable generosity of donor responses to our Press Forward campaign, I feel it’s time for me to turn my attention to fulfillment of a personal goal. For many years I’ve said (mostly to myself) that the one thing I haven’t done that I’d most like to do is write a book. The only time I even made a start was 50 years ago when I was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal covering Congress and politics. Following the 1966 elections, I had an idea for a book about campaign strategies and techniques, drawing on the many campaigns I’d covered that year. My extensive outline was well received by Random House but not well enough to garner me an advance. Slowpoke writer that I was then and am now, I felt I would have to devote full time for many months to gathering and marshaling materials for the book. But when push came to shove I wasn’t prepared to quit my job in order to do so. So my outline gathered dust. Ironically, a year later I did quit my job in order to take a much better paying one as assistant to the president of the Chicago Board of Trade,
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Henry Hall Wilson, whom I had gotten to know while he was serving as President Lyndon Johnson’s Congressional relations chief. Then came the most incredible phase of my life in which I got immersed for a decade in the protracted process of creating its offspring, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and then serving as its founding president. A number a people encouraged me to write a book about my CBOE experience. But I was too busy at the time, and afterward it seemed too self-serving. The 1980s took me to Wall Street where, along with three former CBOE colleagues and three emigres from J.P. Morgan, we formed a firm called The Options Group. The primary product line turned out to be options analytic software, which we sold with some success for several years to securities brokers, trading firms, and investment banks. But this endeavor was also all-consuming, except for trying to be a good father to my three kids. Having been born and raised in Knoxville with family roots that go back to James White, I’d always considered it home and envisioned moving back here some day. Another pipe dream was to launch a Knoxville publication, and I
seriously considered doing so when my CBOE years were sunsetting in the late 1970s. City magazines were voguish at the time in larger markets. But Phillip Moffitt and Chris Whittle, then of 13-30 Corp., convinced me that the Knoxville market wasn’t large enough to sustain one. I should be glad that Cityview’s Nathan Sparks has eventually proven them wrong. By 1991, with The Options Group sold and my kids grown, I was at another turning point—one that led me back home for good. By this time, alternative weeklies were coming to the fore, and Knoxville had a fledgling one that Ashley Capps had started on a shoestring with a cadre of recent college graduates. Ashley was pleased to let me take it off his hands before the string ran out. And thus began my ever so memorable years as owner and publisher of Metro Pulse. Instead of lamenting the fact that we never made any money, I took pride in the fact that our editorial expenses in relation to revenues were at least 10 percentage points higher than any other member of our trade association. By the time I hit age 65, however, the wear and tear and had taken a toll. So I sold the paper and spared myself the management headaches while continuing to write a column. For the next 10 years until the News Sentinel abruptly pulled the plug on Metro Pulse, that’s just about all I did professionally. Since then I’ve also added my support to its courageous former editors who spurned a News Sentinel severance package with a non-compete in order to launch the Mercury. And it’s immensely gratifying to see that its editorial
accomplishments have been rewarded with financial backing to sustain it. All the while, though, I’ve been mulling ideas for that book I’ve never written. Biography and history were the two spheres that I gave the most attention. But the subjects that occurred had already been well covered or seemed beyond my reach. And with my 79th birthday approaching, time is no longer on my side. So I am pleased to report that a subject has finally clicked with me. I’m not willing to divulge what it is at this point except to say that it involves the two things I cherish most: my family and sports. Unlike Jack Neely who can seemingly write a book with his left hand while churning out columns and other voluminous writings with his right, I’m not a multi-tasker. So just as was the case in 1966, it’s clear to me that I’ve got to concentrate on the book until it materializes—or doesn’t. That means this may be my last Mercury column for some time, with apologies for its being so self-centric. Unlike MacArthur, I won’t promise to return but neither do I want to be the old soldier who just fades away. So I hope that Coury Turczyn will have me back upon completion of this tour of duty and perhaps for occasional contributions in the meantime. I believe the most remarkable thing that’s happened within my purview in these past 25 years is that Knoxville has become a much more vibrant city. I am very gratified to have been a part of that and hope to be once again. ◆
Unlike MacArthur, I won’t promise to return but neither do I want to be the old soldier who just fades away.
NO
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Maori Healers Women’s Retreat
July 29 - August 4, 2016 | Dandridge, TN
(August 5-7 Individual Bodywork Sessions for Men and Women | Knoxville, TN) The Maori Healers have been traveling the world teaching workshops and offering healing bodywork for quite a while now. Because of their special association with Tennessee, seeded when they first presented their work on this stunning land over 15 years ago, Knoxville is one of the two continental US locations where they are holding a women’s retreat. KAWA ARIKI is a ground breaking and deeply necessary workshop that releases the 'wounded woman' from all types of abuse. KAWA ARIKI is about the adornment of a woman who is growing herself, ready to bloom to the full hearted capacity of womanhood, armed with self-knowledge and understanding, thus giving her power. This workshop contains a lot of bodywork that will help you move through many of the things that have held you back, allowed fear to rule your life, and maintained the mediocrity of that life. Spaces are limited. More at www.maorihealers.com
For more information or to register visit: www.knoxvillehealingcenter.com or call 865-250-8812.
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Stanley’s Greenhouse 3029 Davenport Road | 865.573.9591 M-F 8-5:30 pm | Sat 9-5 pm | Sun 1-5 pm www.stanleysgreenhouse.com
June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11
Photos by Tricia Bateman
Historic Hazard Knoxville College’s environmental problems complicate development plans for the campus BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN
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ennessee’s proposal to put Knoxville College on its list of most polluted properties could have broad ramifications for the college’s plans to prolong its life by redeveloping most of its crumbling campus. The historically black college, founded in 1875, stopped holding classes last year as debt mounted and its buildings were shuttered. In 2014, the federal Environmental Protection Agency conducted an emergency cleanup at the college’s A.K. Stewart Science Building, which had been essentially abandoned while still full of highly-reactive hazardous chemicals. Searching for income that would allow it to resume taking students, the college inked a deal in January giving Knoxville-based Southeast Commercial exclusive “master developer” rights to the property, says college board chairman James Reese. Southeast owner Gary Smith says he has agreements with two buyers for
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
projects on the campus that could include a charter school, affordable housing, senior housing, and offices. Knoxville leaders say the fate of the 39-acre campus, whose buildings topped Knox Heritage’s 2016 list of “Fragile 15” properties, is especially important given its proximity to downtown. But Smith and college officials only learned that problems persist in the science building and could affect the whole campus. At a Knoxville Public Works hearing May 27, officials with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation recommended the college become a state Superfund site because the science building’s contamination remains so severe. The state Superfund program differs from federally-designated Superfunds, which take years to add to the National Priorities List of the most polluted in the country. But properties making the state list still pose a hazard to the public or the
environment and must be cleaned up, says Dan Hawkins, who supervises hazardous site cleanups for the Knoxville TDEC region. Hawkins says the science building deserves to be on the list partly because people continue to be exposed to its contaminants. The state has been unable to keep the building secured from thieves, who continually try to loot it. If vandals lit fires that spread through the building, smoke tainted with chemicals and asbestos could settle over the surrounding residential neighborhood of Mechanicsville. Four fires were intentionally set on the campus in a single weekend this April, although Hawkins knows of none in the science building yet. Hawkins says TDEC has been checking the building almost weekly for several years. “There have not been adequate attempts to secure it, so we have tried ourselves,” he says, but people seem to find ways to break in every few weeks. He says now
they’re coming through the roof. A Superfund designation would likely include the entire campus and could limit how the land can be reused in the future, he says. Environmental regulators typically include the whole property so that if the government ends up paying for cleanup, it can put a lien on the land and try to recoup the costs before a sale. Deed records show there are already close to $500,000 in liens on the property, the majority being federal tax liens. Although the EPA considered placing its own lien for cleanup costs, which topped $400,000, it appears not to have done so. Smith says he has buyers for much of the college’s land lined up, and they won’t have to pay for the cleanup—he says he thinks TDEC will have to pay that bill.
STILL A HAZARD
EPA emergency responders removed chemical containers and cleaned up spills leaking from them, Hawkins says, averting a possible catastrophe to the surrounding neighborhood involving fire or explosions. “There were considerable quantities of deadly poisons, reactive materials, things that can’t be in contact with water in a building that was leaking like a sieve,” Hawkins recounts. But surfaces throughout the science building remain coated throughout with “very, very high” levels of mercury, he says, and in the past EPA measured high amounts of mercury in the air. Breathing intense mercury vapor can cause respiratory distress and the fumes affect brain function, but Hawkins says state regulators haven’t tested airborne mercury levels in the building yet. Hawkins says the EPA found no evidence of a specific spill as the mercury source. “It could be as simple has somebody dropped a flask of mercury in that building 10 or 20 years ago, it eventually got spread over the entire building,” he says. “Mercury is weird stuff.” Hawkins says the building also has other chemical contamination and (like all of the college’s buildings) it is full of asbestos. The chemical-related problems may not be confined to the science building, he says. “One of the issues we are concerned about is it appears records
for chemical disposal (from the science building) have a lot of gaps in them,” he says. “We know chemical labs will generate waste. Some went down the drain, but not this much. We don’t know where it went.” That leaves the possibility that it might have been dumped or buried somewhere else on the property, which is the sort of surprise TDEC officials have seen at other Superfund sites. Even the chemicals that went down drains could contribute to broader contamination, because they corrode pipes and could have escaped into the soil beneath the building. (Hawkins adds that tests also showed high mercury levels in its sinks.) In that case, disturbing dirt during redevelopment could expose contamination. And some types of chemicals, such as organic solvents, can seep into the soil but then “off-gas” to the surface again, poisoning the air in buildings above, he noted. In some cases, Superfund sites can only be cleaned up to the point of being reusable for limited purposes, like industrial or commercial use, but not for residences or schools. Hawkins says air and soil testing is needed before the state could determine if that will be an issue at Knoxville College, but at the very least, “it would definitely add another element to an already extremely complicated situation.” The Superfund designation would also trigger research into potential responsible parties besides Knoxville College itself. The state could order these to help pay for cleanup. “We have been able to collect from the science building lots of information which indicates to us there are other parties that may have had a large role in management of the property,” Hawkins says. Chemical manufacturers can also be held legally responsible for failed disposal under certain circumstances, he says. The first step, though, is a hearing July 7. Then the decision about Superfund listing will be made by the state Solid Waste Disposal Board.
REDEVELOPMENT REDUX
The condition of the science building came to public attention again after the city issued emergency repair orders on the Knoxville College buildings and then held a hearing to declare them unsafe for human occupation, Hawkins came to explain
“We know chemical labs will generate waste. Some went down the drain, but not this much. We don’t know where it went.” —DAN HAWKINS, TDEC
TDEC’s Superfund proposal. At that hearing, the city finalized the orders for all buildings except the science building and two others, the chapel and library, where the college’s remaining operations staff still works. It postponed deciding about those for 60 days. David Brace, Knoxville public works director, says the delay gives the city time to consult its attorneys about how to proceed with the science building, and gives college officials time to deal with the unsafe conditions in the chapel and library. Nevertheless, a sign on the library, which has a noticeable jagged crack running down one exterior brick wall, still indicated last week that it was “unfit for human habitation.” “We really feel that we wouldn’t be having people working in the building if it wasn’t habitable,” Reese says. The fate of the library is key to the college’s plans, because it’s envisioned as the place where classes could first be resumed on campus. Reese says the college still wants to offer classes again this fall, although probably online. “Every time you think you’re
getting started, there’s one more trip wire,” he says. Smith says he plans to work with the college to develop a plan in the next 60 days for dealing with the science building. He says he hasn’t worked directly with Superfund properties before, but is familiar with the process and thinks it’s manageable. Smith’s firm had been courting Knoxville College for a redevelopment deal since at least the winter of 2015. But when its initial master developer proposal was leaked, the college faced some public criticism for making decisions behind closed doors. Its board voted to create an advisory committee of local development and real estate professionals to take a broader look at options for the campus, Reese said at the time. The Mercury has repeatedly requested a list of the people on the advisory committee from board vice-chair Leonard Adams, who was in charge of the process. He never responded. Reese said last week he said he doesn’t know if the advisory group was ever created, but a board subcommittee did solicit proposals from 14
groups and received two, he says. “Southeast Commercial wanted to cooperate with us,” Reese says. “The other[’s attitude] was, ‘Turn it over to us, and we’ll tell you what we’ll do with it.’ We feel that whatever it is, it’s going to be a cooperative venture.” He declined to name the firm that offered the alternative proposal. Southeast Commercial has developed or redeveloped high-profile hotels and commercial ventures in Knoxville, including the Hilton, the Marriott, the downtown YMCA, Dunhill Apartments, the Knoxville Expo Center on Clinton Highway, and National College. Reese and Smith did not share details of the agreement, but Reese says it doesn’t involve any payments to the college and overall it is similar to what was proposed last spring. That would have given Southeast Commercial exclusive development rights for a year. Under that proposal, the firm could negotiate leases or sales, public incentives and financing, and agreements among the college and its creditors. Reese says Southeast Commercial is supposed to offer a detailed redevelopment plan to the college’s board in 90 to 180 days. Many aspects, such as the acreage involved and whether the land would be leased or sold, remain under negotiation. Reese says he would like to see the college retain the 13 acres that include the oldest buildings that are part of the Knoxville College National Historic District. Reese said the current hazardous condition of the science building, which was a surprise, is “very troubling” to the college’s recovery efforts and its budding relationship with Southeast Commercial. “One or both of us will be greatly affected if the science building contamination is as urgent or extensive as what they say it is,” Reese says. A meeting soliciting public comment on the proposal to list Knoxville College as a state Superfund site will be held July 7 at 6 p.m. at Knoxville TDEC headquarters at 3711 Middlebrook Pike. TDEC officials seeking information about past activities at the A.K. Stewart Science Building would like to speak to anyone who worked there in any capacity about what they remember about its operations. Attend the meeting or call Dan Hawkins at TDEC at 865-5945445 or email dan.hawkins@tn.gov.◆ June 9, 2016
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what is nief-norf?
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his week, dozens of musicians, scholars, and composers from around the country have gathered in Knoxville for the nief-norf Summer Festival. For the next 10 days, in intensive workshops and seminars and in a series of eight concerts, they’ll turn the city into a cutting-edge laboratory for 21st-century avant-garde and experimental music. Some of the music you’ll hear at nnSF will sound strange. Some will
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An inside look at the most important music festival in Knoxville that you’ve never heard of BY CHRIS BARRETT AND MATTHEW EVERETT
Photo by Emory Hensley
be abrasive or confrontational. Some will be beautiful, or even transcendent. Some of it might not sound like music at all. For many listeners, it will challenge deeply held assumptions about what music is and what it means. (One piece that will be performed loops sounds recorded from outer space and the inside of a pine tree.) nnSF is the brain child of Andy Bliss, who is now the head of percussion studies at the University of
Tennessee, and his colleague Kerry O’Brien, a musician and researcher now based in Seattle, Wash. They’ve held the festival every year since 2011; this is the second year it’s been held in Knoxville. Here, Bliss says, nnSF has flourished and evolved. With UT’s state-of-the-art music facilities and the city’s network of world-class music venues, Bliss and his colleagues have seen the festival develop into an internationally significant music event
that gives Knoxville a global profile as an incubator of new music. In turn, Knoxville—with adventurous and curious audiences and an abundance of performance spaces—have opened up new possibilities for the festival, allowing an academic conference to grow into a public showcase for the best of contemporary music. You’ll hear new music—music you probably haven’t heard before—at nnSF. You also might find new ways to think about music, and new ways to listen.
the origins
Bliss and O’Brien founded nief-norf as a performance ensemble to showcase the “challenging and boundary-pushing repertoire” of 20th- and 21st-century classical music in 2005, when they were graduate students together at Northern Illinois University. In 2011, they established the festival, bringing together students, scholars, and composers to share their perspectives on new music. The first four festivals were held at Furman University, in South Carolina; last year, nnSF followed Bliss to Knoxville, where he has been since the fall of 2011.
Photo by Emory Hensley
Photo by Emory Hensley
“ The term ‘nief-norf’ came from some older graduate students who liked to call any experimental or strange music ‘nief-norf.’ It’s meant as onomatopoeia for strange sounds, like ‘bleep-blop.’ Andy and I bonded over the fact that we secretly loved the music that these grad students were deriding. Although nief-norf was born as a derogatory term, we flipped it and created a group that specializes in this kind of experimental music.”
“ It’s a labor of love to produce these things, and it requires a lot of energy, energy that not everyone can afford to expend on such an endeavor. I am amazed at what Andy and his co-organizers have done with nief-norf. They consistently produce innovative and excellent programs, and rally the most talented people to the festival. nief-norf is now a community.” —MATTHEW BURTNER, 2012 nnSF composition fellow
—KERRY O’BRIEN, nief-norf co-founder and research director
“ There are a couple of motivations. One is to create opportunities that would not otherwise exist for this music to be performed to the general public. Another motivation is to work with really, really bright students from all over the country and see if getting together like this might provide a spark that helps them see different possibilities in their career—what might be possible.” —ANDY BLISS
“ I would meet one student at a small or mid-size university who would come up and ask me questions about Morton Feldman or Stockhausen or these 20th-century composers. These composers weren’t being taught at their school, but they were starting to get hip to them. And I thought, what would happen if I got that kid and this other kid I just met together at a summer festival format?” —ANDY BLISS, nief-norf co-founder and artistic director June 9, 2016
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the sound
Contemporary music is often stereotyped as random noise or deliberately obscure; while music like that can be heard at nnSF, there’s a variety of modern music on the program, and much of it is accessible and traditionally appealing.
Photo by Kerry O’Brien
“ I’ve tried to work on programming that gives people a taste of just how wide contemporary classical music is. To a curious audience member, there will be something for almost everyone at all of our concerts, I think. … We have this piece by Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon that we’re playing this year—it is breathtakingly beautiful, with a soprano and a sextet of chamber musicians. I have a hard time thinking that the average classical-music lover would not just adore this piece.” —ANDY BLISS
“ I always tell people to not force the music to be beautiful. People listen to classical music always expecting to hear something beautiful. If something is cool and kind of gross, let it be cool and kind of gross. … I encourage people to let the music speak for itself. If it didn’t sound beautiful, it probably wasn’t trying to sound beautiful. Those things that make you raise your eyebrows and say ‘That was really cool, that was really interesting, I’ve never heard anything like that before,’ that’s the most interesting thing about it.” —DAVID FLOYD, nnSF 2016 performance fellow 16
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
Photo by Warren LaFever
“ Contemporary music is not all angular and squeaky and weird. We do explore those sound worlds sometimes, and where I find real beauty is where those worlds intersect with the more melodic tonal music that our ears are more accustomed to. Wilco does that all the time, and they sold out the Tennessee Theatre the last time they were here—they play tunes that are folk-like and gorgeous and then there’s a moment where the guitars are playing loud and there’s pretty much white noise. That contrast can be really stunning and really effective. Classical music’s not that different. The music we’re programming, it’s swimming around and exploring the combinations of these different filters and sounds and ways of putting these things together.” —ANDY BLISS
“ Instead of listening for melodies, listen for motifs. Instead of listening for a tonal center, listen for the interaction between pitches and rhythms. I think that the way you listen to music has a huge impact on your interpretation of it, and that is a big reason why some people are turned off by new music.” —KEVIN ZETINA, nnSF 2016 performance fellow
“ The experience of taking these things that are not part of the canon yet, or they are part of the new canon that doesn’t get represented very much, it was so enriching for me.” —DAVID FLOYD
the experience
The festival brings together working composers, music scholars, and students for workshops, rehearsals, and a series of concerts open to the public. The concerts feature major works from the 20th century (this year, pieces by the legendary European composers Iannis Xenakis and Pierre Boulez), recent music from celebrity composers like John Luther Adams, Caroline Shaw, and David Lang, and pieces by the composers at the festival.
Photo courtesy of Christopher Adler
“ Performers and composers bring different kinds of knowledge to the table. It’s one thing for a scholar to study a musical score or a recording, but it’s quite another thing to become familiar with music through performance or composition—to compose the music, to embody it through performance, to have it percolating in your mind and body. This can lead to intimate kinds of musical knowledge. This isn’t better or worse knowledge than scholarly types of knowledge, just different. Performers and composers have different priorities and experiences, and this affords them unique perspectives.” —KERRY O’BRIEN
Photo by Emory Hensley
“ Really well-established awards are not my compass when it comes to artistic direction, but it is worth noting that the people we program at nief-norf are winning Grammys and Pulitzer Prizes. These are things the classical world is recognizing as today’s version of greatness. For example, I’d been collaborating with John Luther Adams for about eight years in 2014, when he was coming to Knoxville—we were doing Inuksuit at Ijams. And a week before he came he won the Pulitzer Prize, and then suddenly people became very interested in what we were doing.” —ANDY BLISS
“ I was invited to the first festival as a guest composer and two of my compositions were performed. Having the composer present to interact with the performers as they learned the piece was an especially valuable experience for the performers, and so from this grew the idea of having composers be a regular part of the festival. … For performers, the interaction with composers brings the music to life and reminds them that ours is a living tradition—something easy to forget when learning music solely from notes on a page.” —CHRISTOPHER ADLER, composer in residence at nnSF 2011 and now the festival’s composition workshop director
June 9, 2016
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the community
During the day, with students and faculty laboring over the intricacies of the music they’ll be performing, the nief-norf Summer Festival can have a monastic sensibility. But Bliss and his colleagues are dedicated to sharing that sensibility with the community at large. Knoxville audiences benefit from the fact that the festival is here. But part of the reason the festival succeeds here is that Knoxville allows it to be what it is.
Photo by Kerry O’Brien
“ Such festivals push the boundaries of musical thought and design, and they can do this in a manner that would not be possible in a larger city. We expect innovative and high-quality festivals in San Francisco or Chicago. But festivals such as nief-norf … can risk pushing the envelope much further. Such festivals become the proving ground for larger cultural venues. You’ll hear it first in Greeneville or Charlottesville, and then in New York City or Los Angeles. … I consider Andy among the most important producers in the country because he can make these great ideas come to life as performance in America.” —MATTHEW BURTNER
“ I think Knoxville is ready to have a forward-pushing contemporary chamber-music ensemble in town regularly. That’s one of the things that we’re very interested in providing for the community—opportunities to hear these incredible pieces that are an extension of the repertoire that people would otherwise have access to.” —ANDY BLISS
“ Some of this music really works best in the UT recital hall, which is an acoustically beautiful space—there’s not going to be sound distraction, and you can really focus on the intricacies of what the composer was trying to get at. But then other pieces are best heard while walking around the space with a beer in your hand.” —ANDY BLISS
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Photo by Emory Hensley
“ There are many festivals around the country, but nief-norf is unique in its intensity, stylistic diversity, high level of achievement, and the thorough integration of scholarly experience into the festival context. I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it in the U.S. I would be ecstatic if there were something like this in my hometown of San Diego, because it is such a great window into contemporary music-making around the world.” —CHRISTOPHER ADLER
“ It’s added a whole new dimension to the festival by having it here. It took us a couple of years to figure out what the thing was and what we were doing and what we wanted to do. But now that we’re here, it’s clear to us that it’s critically important that we’re out in the community of Knoxville. We could not do this without the University of Tennessee, period—we need the music building for practical day-to-day reasons. But without the creative music-making outlets of downtown Knoxville, I think it would have a much more vanilla or static, dry feeling to it.” —ANDY BLISS
astro-bio-geo-physical ASTRO-BIO-GEO-PHYSICAL OPENING CONCERT Natalie L. Haslam Music Center (1741 Volunteer Boulevard) • Friday, June 10 • 7:30 p.m. • $10/$15 at the door The theme for the 2016 nief-norf Summer Festival is “astro-bio-geo-physical music”—“music that plugs into astrophysical, biophysical, or geophysical sources,” says nnSF co-founder and research director Kerry O’Brien. “In some cases, this is just amplifying sounds we can already hear but don’t pay much attention to, like human breath or the sounds of ambient wind.” This can take the form of something like 2016 Big Ears composer-in-residence John Luther Adams’ large-scale pieces of “sonic geography,” inspired by the vast Alaskan landscape, or the wide-ranging experimental music of Annea Lockwood, who combines found sound, nontraditional instruments, electronic music, and performance art. Music by both Adams and Lockwood as well as Tonia Ko, Matthew Burtner, and Donnacha Dennehy will appear on the program.
Photo by Kerry O’Brien
“ It always makes me think about the riot at the theater when Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring premiered. All those people were there and they wouldn’t let the music be ugly. They wouldn’t let it be aggressive and sharp. They were so angry that it wasn’t what they expected. The other side of the coin is that people think they’re not smart enough to enjoy it or the music’s too complicated. “ Sometimes there’s not anything to get. Just let the music be and be there in the moment with it.” —DAVID FLOYD
Here’s what you can experience at the 2016 nief-norf Summer Festival. Weekend passes are available for $50. Visit niefnorf.org for more information.
CHANGE/DERIVE/VARY Natalie L. Haslam Music Center (1741 Volunteer Boulevard) • Tuesday, June 14 • 7:30 p.m. • $10/$15 at the door One of Xenakis’ most celebrated peers during the second half of the 20th century was the French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who died in January at the age of 90. Boulez was, in fact, one of the most important figures in the music world in the last 100 years; as both a composer and an interpreter, he demonstrated formidable intelligence and clarity in a career that spanned almost 70 years. “Cool, brutal, elegant, fiery, he established a kind of International Style in music, and propagated it in polemical writings and through institutional networks,” The New Yorker ’s Alex Ross wrote in a column after Boulez’s death. “As a conductor, he was an exacting, absorbing interpreter of the advanced styles he favored. His death marks the end of an epoch.” Also: music by New York composer Judd Greenstein, one of the leaders of the “indie classical” movement, and two pieces from the nnSF 2016 call for scores.
SAME IS NOT THE SAME The Emporium Center (100 S. Gay St.) • Wednesday, June 15 • 7:30 p.m. • $10/$15 at the door WILD ENERGY AND PLÉÏADES Michael Gordon represents a bridge between the Ijams Nature Center • Saturday, June 11 • 5:30 minimalists of the 1970s and the bright young p.m. • Free, but a $10 donation is suggested 21st-century composers. He’s also one of the This outdoor installation/concert combo—an artistic directors of the Bang on a Can Festival. echo of nief-norf’s performance of John Luther He’s written chamber music, large orchestral Adams’ Inuksuit at Ijams in 2014 and again as pieces, vocal music, pieces for electric guitar, and part of this year’s Big Ears festival—is something operas and collaborated with musicians, of a centerpiece for this year’s nnSF, showcasing composers, filmmakers, artists, and ensembles the ensemble’s percussion-centric repertoire from around the world. and this year’s astro-bio-geo-physical music Kate Soper is one of those bright young 21st-centutheme. The program starts with Wild Energy, a ry composers—and a terrific soprano, too. She 50-minute installation created by Annea Lockwood and Bob Bielicki that presents sounds writes and performs absorbing but challenging chamber and vocal music, most recently Voices from the natural world—trees, outer space, From the Killing Jar, a stark, witty feminist operatic whales, and geologic forces—that are normally inaudible to human ears, sped up or slowed down song cycle from 2014. Also: music by the prolific Italian composer Salvatore so we can hear them. That’s followed by Pléïades, a 1978 composition Sciarrino and a piece from the nnSF call for scores. for six percussionists by the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, one of the seminal figures in MUSIC OF A PLACE 20th-century music. Pléïades features The Square Room (4 Market Square) • Thursday, vibraphones, marimbas, xylophones, xylorimbas, June 16 • 7:30 p.m. • $10/$15 at the door bongos, tom-toms, drums, and the sixxen, a In 2014, the year John Luther Adams won a Pulitzer microtuned metal keyboard built especially for Prize just a week before coming to Knoxville for this piece. nief-norf’s outdoor performance of his Inuksuit,
Christopher Cerrone was one of the finalists Adams beat out for the award. Cerrone, then just 30 years old, was nominated for Invisible Cities, an opera based on Italo Calvino’s novel of the same title that The Los Angeles Times called “startlingly ambitious.” (The original production was staged in an L.A. train station, with performers and audience members—who listened to the music transmitted live over headphones—mingling and mixing together, creating “an existential confusion between reality and unreality.”) Also: music from Michael Gordon, the 12-tone composer Charles Wuorinen, and a piece by the Mexican-American composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon that nnSF artistic director Andy Bliss describes as “breathtakingly beautiful.” WORLD PREMIERES Natalie L. Haslam Music Center (1741 Volunteer Boulevard) • Friday, June 17 • 7:30 p.m. • $10/$15 at the door For the participants, nnSF is not a vacation—the performing fellows rehearse and, of course, perform, and the 10 composition fellows are expected to write a piece of music that will premiere at this concert. The work at the fellowship premier concert won’t be as polished as what’s on the other programs, but it provides an important insight into the heart of the festival. Featuring 10 world premieres by nnSF Composition Fellows. Tickets: $10 advance / $15 door FINAL MARATHON Jackson Terminal (213 W. Jackson Ave.) • Sunday, June 19 • 3 p.m. • $20/$30 at the door nnSF concludes with a six-hour marathon of music by Xenakis, the cerebral Italian composer Luciano Berio, the installation artist/composer Ashley Fure, violinist/singer/composer/Kanye West collaborator/Pulitzer winner Caroline Shaw, postminimalist composer Marc Mellits, iconoclastic Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, nnSF call-for-scores winner Nicole Murphy, and more. “The idea behind a marathon concert is that you can’t possibly sit through all of it. You just can’t,” Bliss says. “So often after a classical concert, people will go out and say, well, I like the first piece but I didn’t like the second and the third one was my favorite. There has to be a winner and a loser over dinner afterward. With a marathon concert, the conversation changes because of the listening situation. You just take it in like a day at the theme park—you maybe didn’t ride everything but it doesn’t matter because you still had a good time.”
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A&E
P rogram Notes
Creative Class
Estate Planning Local organizations team up to acknowledge the life and work of Knoxville-born painter Beaufird Delaney
B
eauford Delaney left Knoxville in 1924, when he was 23. He went to Boston, then New York, and finally to Paris, where he lived from the early 1950s until his death in 1979. Along the way, he became one of the leading American abstract artists of the 20th century and cultivated connections to the Harlem Renaissance, the abstract expressionist movement, and the black expatriate community in Europe that included James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright. Despite his accomplishments and his reputation among collectors, critics, and curators—his oil paintings on canvas regularly sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction—Delaney’s legacy has been almost invisible in his hometown. The house he grew up in was demolished during the 1960s, and only recently did the
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Classical Music: Aram Dimerjian
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
Knoxville Museum of Art acquire its first paintings by Delaney. (The museum has acquired a dozen or so works in the last couple of years, including the 1964 oil painting “Scattered Light.” That piece now hangs in KMA’s Higher Ground: A Century of the Arts in East Tennessee exhibit, next to a painting by Delaney’s brother Joseph, also an accomplished painter.) That could all change soon— KMA, the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, and the East Tennessee History Center have teamed up on what they’re calling the Beauford Delaney Project, a long-term effort to recognize Delaney and his art in Knoxville. KMA curator Stephen Wicks and Beck president Renee Kesler talked about the plan at a reception at the Beck Center on
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Music: Built to Spill
Thursday, June 2. “Beauford Delaney is one of my favorite artists who ever lived,” Wicks told the crowd of 100 people, which included elected officials, board members from KMA and the Beck Center, and arts supporters. “It just so happens that he was born in Knoxville. He was one of the greatest abstract painters of the 20th century— that’s a rarefied list—and he’s still virtually unknown in his hometown.” Wicks and representatives of Delaney’s estate have been in negotiations for several years. In the last few months, they’ve agreed on specific goals: to move the contents of the estate into a secure environment at the museum; to make works from the estate publicly accessible; to select paintings to be earmarked for purchase by KMA; and to keep Delaney’s archival material (letters, notebooks, sketches) in regional institutions. Wicks also wants to bring a recent Paris exhibit of Delaney works in private collections to Knoxville, set up historical markers at local landmarks, and organize an international academic conference dedicated to Delaney. —M.E.
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THE BUSINESS OF SUPPORTING THE LOCAL MUSIC SCENE About 40 people attended the most recent installment of Cre865, a new happy-hour discussion series about Knoxville’s creative community, at Pilot Light in the Old City last week. For some of them—the middle-aged business types in polo shirts and loafers, mostly—it seemed like their first time in the pugnacious rock club. At the June 1 forum, those newcomers encountered three of Knoxville’s heartiest entrepreneurs, though most people wouldn’t think of them that way. In addition to playing music here and around the region in their bands the Tim Lee 3 and Bark, the husband-and-wife duo of Tim Lee and Susan Bauer Lee are tireless supporters of other people’s projects. Jason Boardman is the owner of Pilot Light, which has served as unofficial headquarters for the more experimental and underground branches of the Knoxville music community for more than 15 years. For nearly an hour, Boardman and the Lees talked with Steve Wildsmith of The Daily Times in Maryville about the business of supporting the local music scene, the rewards and costs of creative work, and the challenges of getting other people interested. “It has peaks and valleys, but this is the most consistently exciting and impressive local scene I’ve ever experienced,” Boardman said. “People move away and talk about how much they miss it. Then they move back here and say there’s something about it that really stands out after going to a larger city.” Wildsmith, who’s also one of the local scene’s most ardent supporters, kept the tone upbeat, but all three panelists agreed that the local creative community depends on people coming out to see shows. If the audience won’t take risks, neither will the artists. “If there’s one thing that could take this to the next level, it’s more people who go to shows and take chances on something they’ve never heard before,” Tim Lee said. “This stuff matters as much as the symphony or art museum and deserves support. It’s part of the community, not some outlier that just happens even if nobody’s paying attention.” (Boardman also addressed the phenomenon of “Pilot Light time,” the widespread conviction that Pilot Light shows rarely start on time—it’s part of a cycle, he says. If nobody’s there at the scheduled start time, it’s not fair to make a touring band play to an empty room. “It’s partly well-deserved and partly a misunderstood concept,” he said. “It’s hard to sacrifice a band and make them play for nobody.”) —Matthew Everett
Movies: TMNT: Out of the Shadows
YOUR OFFICIAL GUIDE BREWERY LIST | PAGE 2 EVENT CALENDAR | PAGE 4
KNOX BEER WEEK 1
KNOXVILLE’S BOOMING BREWERIES KEVIN RIDDER We’re suddenly living amid a burgeoning craft-brewery scene— here’s who’s brewing what in the Knoxville area. You should be able to sample their wares at Knoxville Beer Week and BrewFest. ALLIANCE BREWING CO. 1130 Sevier Ave., 865-247-5355 The Brewery: Ever since Alliance Brewing Co. first opened its doors in August 2015, its owners have stuck to two main principles: drinkability and “Active Beer Culture.” They know that good craft beer generally has a few more calories than regular beer, so they say if you drink it you should earn it. They back up this statement with various deals and events, like $1 off on Thursdays for trail runners and a partnership with the Appalachian Mountain Biking Club. The Beer: Alliance keeps seven year-round beers alongside various seasonals and others—they try to have something for everyone at Alliance. They also keep a rotating cast of IPAs on tap; with such a huge variety of hops to choose from, the Alliance team doesn’t want to stay married to one batch. Where to Find Them: Stop by their taproom in South Knoxville, where you can sit down for a pint or take home a 32 oz. canned “Crowler.” You can also find Alliance brews at Bearden Beer Market and various Knoxville locales.
BALTER BEERWORKS 100 S. Broadway, 865-999-5015 The Brewery: Much like some of the bands in Knoxville’s local music scene, Balter Beerworks started off with a few friends and a garage. After tweaking their recipes to be both creative and approachable, the Beerworks team transformed an old gas station into a hip restaurant/brewery earlier this year. 2 KNOX BEER WEEK
The Beer: Brewmaster Will Rutemeyer keeps a steady and balanced selection on tap. There are no flagship styles, so expect a couple of new brews along with your old favorites. Balter also taps a cask periodically, and the bartenders will hand-pull a pint, usually to showcase a local or unusual ingredient. Where to Find Them: Downtown Knoxville on the corner of Broadway and Jackson Avenue.
BLACKBERRY FARM 1471 West Millers Cove Rd., Walland, 865-984-8166 The Brewery: Although it first started brewing in 2011, Blackberry Farm’s brewery and processes are rooted in centuries-old traditions. All of its beers utilize a natural re-fermentation in the bottle, which produces a soft and pleasant carbonation. This allows each brew to either be consumed immediately or cellared for a special occasion. The Beer: The Blackberry Farm brewing team produces four families of beers, each of which serve a different purpose in rounding out their offerings. The brews offered change with the seasons, along with the occasional special release. Where to Find Them: Currently, the beers are available to guests on Blackberry Farm and are distributed to stores and restaurants in 38 states.
BLACKHORSE PUB & BREWERY 4429 Kingston Pike, 865-249-8511
The Brewery: Blackhorse Pub & Brewery first opened its doors in Clarksville in 1992 with the goal of providing a neighborhood gathering place for friends and families. Since expanding to Knoxville (for a second time), it has become a local staple, offering a wide variety of in-house brewed ales and fresh eats. The Beer: Available on tap at its Bearden location, Blackhorse offers a diverse selection, from signature ales to stout. Try them all in a beer flight or take one home in a half-gallon growler. Where to Find Them: At Bearden’s Western Plaza in the far right corner.
COLD FUSION BREWING CO. 4711 Morton Place Way, 865-309-4429 The Brewery: Since opening its doors in August 2015, Cold Fusion Brewing has been offering “cold brews with a fusion of flavors.” While just a production operation at the moment, the fine folks over at Cold Fusion see a tasting room in their future. The Beer: Creativity, drinkability and affordability all go hand in hand with Cold Fusion Brewing Co. with offerings like Buzzed Light Beer and S.O.B. Where to Find Them: You’re sure to find a Cold Fusion brew at the Powell Station Craft Beer Garden, and possibly at any of the Casual Pints, the Oliver Royale, Scruffy City Hall, Preservation Pub, and Suttree’s High-Gravity Tavern.
CRAFTY BASTARD BREWERY 6 Emory Place, 865-755-2358 The Brewery: Founded in 2014, this local nanobrewery specializes in unconventional craft beers. The folks at Crafty Bastard like to keep things small to provide the most unique, top-quality beers in East Tennessee. The Beer: It’s safe to say that there’s always going to be something you haven’t tried before with each visit to Crafty Bastard Brewery, from tropical-flavored IPAs and smoky porters to hop-heavy English style beers. Where to Find Them: Their taproom at Emory Place is at the end of North Gay Street, and it also features frequent food-truck visits—check out craftybastardbrewery.com to see the weekly schedule.
DOWNTOWN GRILL & BREWERY/ WOODRUFF’S 424 S. Gay St., 865-633-8111 The Brewery: Often referred to simply as “The Brewpub,” Downtown Grill & Brewery has been a Knoxville staple ever since its opening in December 2002 in the historic Woodruff building. Every glass of beer is brewed in the midst of a booming restaurant serving everything from steaks to seafood. The Beer: Brewmaster Al Krusen relies on established traditional beer recipes, something he prides himself on. All beer is
available on tap and for take home in kegs, growlers and glasses. Not sure what to get? Order a beer flight and try them all, from the White Mule Ale to a Woodruff IPA. Where to Find Them: Smack dab in the middle of Gay Street, about a block north of the Tennessee Theatre.
FANATIC BREWING CO. 2727 N. Central St. The Brewery: A company three years in the making, Fanatic Brewing Co. is full of, you guessed it, beer fanatics. And with a group led by internationally recognized beer judge Marty Velas, you know it’s got to be good. The Beer: Brewmaster Velas likes drinkable beer, a philosophy that’s reflected in the brews created over at Fanatic. While there’s only the Tennessee Blonde and the Fanatic Pale Ale available for purchase in stores at the moment, you can find their Tennessee Red and Fanatic Black Schwarzbier at local bars and restaurants. Where to Find Them: You can find their brews in all Knoxville area Food City and Casual Pint locations, as well as some of the local bars. Visit fanaticbrewing.com for a regularly updated list, or to schedule a tour of the brew house. Fanatic’s tap room is opening soon.
LAST DAYS OF AUTUMN BREWING 808 E. Magnolia Ave., 865-202-4298 The Brewery: Last Days of Autumn prides itself in creating a multitude of unique, small batch ales. The brewery’s self-stated goal is that each time you visit its taproom, there is a beer available on tap that you haven’t tried before. The Beer: Although the brewery officially opened up in February, Brewmaster Mike Frede has been homebrewing for over 20 years. Seasonality, customer requests, availability of ingredients and the brewmaster’s whim determine what comes out of the tap; there’s no set styles poured at their taproom, but you might find brews such as Sharkbait Blonde Ale, Salted Caramel Porter, or Black Belgian Style Abbey Ale. Where to Find Them: At their taproom, of course, which also features weekly events and food trucks—check out their schedule at lastdaysofautumn.com.
SAW WORKS BREWING CO. 708 E. Depot Ave., 865-247-5952 The Brewery: Located in the old Wallace Saw Works Building from which the brewery gained its name, Saw Works Brewing Co. was founded in 2010 (with the initial name of Marble City Brewing). You’re bound to find a Saw Works beer at any of our city’s craft beer hotspots. The Beer: Saw Works utilizes the traditional Peter Austin Brick Kettle Brewing system with a few modern twists, resulting in a classic yet pleasantly surprising taste. Its
three flagship beers include Rocky Hop IPA, Brown Ale, and Pale Ale, though there’s always something new at the Saw Works taproom thanks to its Rough Cut series. Where to Find Them: A production-based brewery, you can find this brand in restaurants and grocery stores throughout Tennessee and South Carolina, not to mention its tasting room, where you can grab a beer or go on a tour of the brewery.
SCHULZ BRÄU BREWING 126 Bernard Ave., 800-245-9764 The Brewery: With a grand opening on June 10, Schulz Br u will officially be Knoxville’s newest brewery. Its taproom, dubbed “The Great Hall,” is no exaggeration, with seating for 80 people and 20 beers on tap. Outside, the walled-off Biergarten will have seating for 200 guests and will play host to live music and other events in the very near future. The Beer: As its name might suggest, Schulz Br u will focus on traditional German style ales and lagers, brewing almost all of its beers according to the Reinheitsgebot (the “German Beer Purity Law”). It won’t be sticking solely to tradition, however; a limited number of experimental brews with non-traditional ingredients will be made as well. The grand opening will feature six Schulz Br u originals, along with catering from Grujo’s German
Restaurant and live polka music. Where to Find Them: Bernard Avenue is a side street off of North Central Street in the Downtown North district.
SMOKY MOUNTAIN BREWERY 11308 Parkside Dr., 865-288-5500 The Brewery: First opening in Gatlinburg in 199 as a brewery/restaurant combo, Smoky Mountain Brewery now operates at four locations across East Tennessee. Freshness is key here; you can only get Smoky Mountain brews at one of the Copper Cellar family of restaurants, meaning that the only thing fresher than its beer is the plate of food next to it. The Beer: With seven mainstays, three seasonals, and several limited-availability brewmaster specialties, there’s a brew for everyone at Smoky Mountain. And again, freshness is at the forefront, meaning each beer is brewed without the use of chemical preservatives or additives, from the Cherokee Red Ale to the Tuckaleechee Porter. Where to Find Them: You can find Smoky Mountain brews at any of its four locations in Maryville, Pigeon Forge, Turkey Creek, or Gatlinburg, plus at The Copper Cellar on Cumberland Avenue and in Calhoun’s many locations. Go to knoxmercury.com for descriptions of each brewery’s offerings!
COMING SOON: MORE NEW BREWS CHISHOLM TAVERN BREWING | chisholmtavernbrewing.com Named after the first tavern that opened in Knoxville in 1 92, Chisholm Tavern Brewing is already making waves; its Misty Melon Watermelon Kolsch has won numerous awards at several beer festivals in East Tennessee. GEEZERS BREWERY | geezersbrewery.com Brewing for the BikesNBeers crew since 2010, Geezers Brewery is planning a mid-summer opening of its production brewery. ntil then, check out bikesnbeers.com/events to see where you can grab a Geezers brew. Beers include the so-called Big Dumb Blonde, Kassassinator, Bitch Puddin’, and Pale Bastard. HEXAGON BREWING CO. | hexagonbrewing.com Located in Fountain City on Dutch Valley Road, Hexagon plans to be open by the end of the year. It will be set up for distribution and pouring in its tasting room. PRETENTIOUS BEER GLASS CO. | pretentiousglass.com Matthew Cummings has been hand-making a multitude of “pretentious” glassware for the past couple of years in the Old City, and soon he’ll be making something to pour into them. He envisions a hybrid brewery/bar/glass studio operation sometime in the near future, once the paperwork is cleared. SCRUFFY CITY BREWERY | scruffycity.com Opening later this year, Scruffy City Brewery will be located in the basement of Market Square’s renowned live music venue, Scruffy City Hall. Brews regularly on tap will include a Kolsch, Stout, Amber, and American Pale Ale with rotating/evolving IPAs, Belgians, saisons, and seasonals.
KNOX BEER WEEK 3
EVENT CALENDAR Ongoing thru June 19 ALL DAY
BREW MAP KEGERATOR GIVEAWAY | The Casual Pint Bearden
Thursday, June 9 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
UNTAPPD BADGE CELEBRATION AND UNVEILING PARTY | Hops and Hollers |
$20/person, Tickets available at knoxvillebrewers.com/beerweek/untappd
Saturday, June 11 BARSTOOL BLACKOUTS AND $2 HIGHLAND PILSNER CANS | The Casual Pint at Northshore and Pellissippi 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM TASTE OF TENNESSEE | Market Square Farmers’ Market 12:00 AM
Sunday, June 12 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
LIVE TEAM TRIVIA WITH TRIVIA GUYS AND SWAG GIVE AWAY WITH EAGLE DISTRIBUTING! | The Casual Pint Farragut SUNDAY BEER SNOB TRIVIA | Crafty Bastard Brewery
Monday, June 13 ALL DAY 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM
$2 CAN NIGHT! | The Casual Pint Farragut ADULT COLORING BOOK NIGHT | The Casual Pint Bearden | Sponsored by
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
FREE BREWERY TOUR | Balter Beerworks | Presented by Knox Brew Tours KNOX BREW TOURS & CRAFTY BASTARD CRAFT BEER DOCUMENTARY SCREENING
Blackhorse Brewing Co. | Crafty Bastard Brewery 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM 7:00 PM
SUPER FANTASTIC TRIVIA CHALLENGE FINALS | Hops and Hollers YEE HAW PRIZE PACK GIVEAWAY AND BREW FEST TICKET GIVEAWAY | The
Casual Pint Bearden
Tuesday, June 14 ALL DAY ALL DAY
KNOXVILLE WORLD BEER TOUR | Info at knoxvillebrewers.com/beerweek DOGFISH HEAD BREWERY RAFFLE ENTRY AND HAPPY HOUR PRICES ALL DAY |
The Casual Pint at Northshore and Pellissippi ALL DAY
DOGFISH HEAD PINT NIGHT AND SWAG GIVE AWAY WITH OUR WEEKLY FUN RUN! | The Casual Pint Farragut 12:00 AM - 7:00 PM FREE TOURS | Blackhorse Brewery | Presented by Knox Brew Tours 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM DEVILS BACKBONE NIGHT | Suttree’s 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM LADIES NIGHT TO BENEFIT PINK BOOTS SOCIETY, KNOXVILLE CHAPTER | Last
Days of Autumn Brewing 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM 7:00 PM
TIE-DYE TUESDAY WITH STARR HILL BREWING | Bearden Beer Market YEE HAW PRIZE PACK GIVEAWAY AND BREW FEST TICKET GIVEAWAY | The
Casual Pint Bearden
4 KNOX BEER WEEK
Wednesday, June 15 KNOXVILLE WORLD BEER TOUR | Info at knoxvillebrewers.com/beerweek BEER CAMP ACROSS AMERICA TAP TAKEOVER | Suttree’s TENNESSEE BREWERIES PINT NIGHT! | The Casual Pint Farragut “BE GOOD PEOPLE!” BENEFIT TO HELP POND GAP ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BUILD A NEW PLAYGROUND | Bearden Beer Market | Presented by Good People Brewing 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM GUAVA DOUBLE IPA RELEASE | Crafty Bastard Brewery 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM FREE BREWERY TOUR | Alliance Brewing Co. | Presented by Knox Brew Tours 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM FREE BREWERY TOUR | Last Days of Autumn Brewery | Presented by Knox ALL DAY ALL DAY ALL DAY ALL DAY
Brew Tours 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 7:00 PM
YEE-HAW PRESENTS: TRIVIA-BEER-GO | Balter Beerworks HUMBLE BEER LIVE FROM SUGAR MAMA’S | Sugar Mama’s FREE SAMPLES FROM CHISHOLM TAVERN BREWING | Mind Yer Ps and Qs YEE HAW PRIZE PACK GIVEAWAY AND BREW FEST TICKET GIVEAWAY | The
Casual Pint Bearden 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
TRIVIA NIGHT WITH HANNAH AND ALEX! | The Casual Pint Bearden
thursday, June 16 ALL DAY 12:00 AM
KNOXVILLE WORLD BEER TOUR | Info at knoxvillebrewers.com/beerweek BINGO SPONSORED BY YEE HAW BREWING COMPANY | The Casual Pint at
Northshore and Pellissippi 12:00 AM THROWBACK THURSDAY! | The Casual Pint Farragut 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM BEER RELEASE: THREE KINDS OF GOSE | Crafty Bastard Brewery 4:00 PM - 10:00 PM WORLD’S SHORTEST PUB CRAWL | Saw Works Brewing Company and Last
Days of Autumn Brewing 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 7:00 PM
GUAVA DOUBLE IPA RELEASE | Crafty Bastard Brewery BLACKBERRY FARM TAKEOVER | Hops and Hollers FREE BREWERY TOUR | Crafty Bastard Brewery | Presented by Knox Brew Tours FREE BREWERY TOUR | Fanatic Brewing Co. | Presented by Knox Brew Tours HIGHLAND CASK NIGHT & KEG HOISTING COMPETITION | The Casual Pint Bearden SWEETWATER BREWING AND GOLDFISH PAIRING | Bearden Beer Market TERRAPIN SKEE BALL TOURNAMENT | Suttree’s FREE SAMPLES FROM CHISHOLM TAVERN BREWING | Central Flats and Taps WISEACRE PINT NIGHT | Sunspot YEE HAW PRIZE PACK GIVEAWAY AND BREW FEST TICKET GIVEAWAY | The
YOU IN
HOME BREW!
Find everything you need to create your own craft beer or wine at:
Ferment Station, Inc. 8805 Kingston Pike 865-694-7993 www.fermentstation.com Tues-Fri 12-7 • Sat 10-5 In business since 1999
Casual Pint Bearden
Friday, June 17 12:00 AM 12:30 PM - 9:00 PM 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM 5:30 PM - 8:00 PM 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM 7:00 PM
LUAUA NIGHT! | The Casual Pint Farragut HIGHLAND BREWING FIRKIN FRIDAY | Bearden Beer Market SPICY TAP TAKEOVER | Crafty Bastard Brewery BEER RELEASE: THREE KINDS OF GOSE | Crafty Bastard Brewery BELL’S NIGHT | Suttree’s BREWERY LAUNCH PARTY: NANTAHALA BREWING COMPANY | Hops & Hollers FREE BREWERY TOUR | Saw Works Brewing Company PINTS AND PILE DRIVERS | Powell Station Craft Beer Garden YELLOWHAMMER BREWING AT JACKSON AVENUE MARKET | Jackson Ave. Market YEE HAW PRIZE PACK GIVEAWAY AND BREW FEST TICKET GIVEAWAY | The
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Casual Pint Bearden GUITAR HERO NIGHT! | The Casual Pint Bearden MEET YOUR MAKER | Scruffy City Hall
Saturday, June 18 12:00 AM BLACKHORSE BREWING PINT NIGHT | The Casual Pint Farragut 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM SPICY TAP TAKEOVER | Crafty Bastard Brewery, 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM 6TH ANNUAL KNOXVILLE BREWFEST | Depot Ave and Gay St Viaduct,
sunday, June 19 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
HANGOVER BRUNCH | Sunspot
KNOX BEER WEEK 5
Thank you to our customers, suppliers, and the great city of Knoxville!
6 KNOX BEER WEEK
r our Join us fo ing en p Grand O pm! 6 th 0 1 June
Monday-Thursday 4pm - 10pm | Friday 2pm - 1am Saturday noon-1am | Sunday noon-10pm
The Knoxville Mercury raises its glass to BEER WEEK and to all our supporters and advertisers.
126 Bernard Ave. Knoxville, TN 37917 www.SchulzBrauBrewing.com www.facebook.com/SchulzBrauBrewing
KNOX BEER WEEK 7
8 KNOX BEER WEEK
Classical Music
Photo by Brian Hatton
The Youth Vote KSO selects 29-year-old Aram Demirjian as its new music director BY ALAN SHERROD
I
n September 2013, when Lucas Richman announced he would be ending his tenure as Knoxville Symphony Orchestra music director and conductor, a process of wishing, hoping, planning, and dreaming began for both the orchestra and for those interested in competing for the position. Last week, almost three full years later, KSO introduced 29-yearold Aram Demirjian as the eighth music director in the orchestra’s history. The anxiety of the selection process is over, but the anxiety of a new era is just beginning—a lot of strategic wishing, hoping, and planning still remains as the orchestra charts a course into its future. Demirjian was, by far, the youngest of the finalists for the job. Haling from Boston, with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, he’s been with the Kansas City Symphony since 2012, first as an assistant conductor and then as associate conductor.
Selected from a field of approximately 200 applicants, Demirjian was one of nine finalists who appeared as guest conductor of a KSO Masterworks concert between 2014 and 2016. Demirjian was probably the least familiar of the finalists with the KSO audience; his concert appearance came in January of this year, when a snowstorm scare reduced attendance to a few hundred on each night. In my review of that concert, I noted my admiration for Demirjian’s courageous programming choice: a 1990s work by John Adams and an early György Ligeti work from the 1950s, along with works by Bruch and Beethoven. While most of the candidates included a token contemporary work on their programs, Demirjian’s choices made his position clear on the importance of nudging a changing audience into broadened musical territories. His willingness to simultaneously embrace history and modernity is essential if orchestras are to attract new audiences.
A&E
Demirjian also seemed to embrace the energy of the weather-induced crisis of that January evening, turning the anxiety of the situation into an exuberant performance that bristled with danger and excitement. Whether the orchestra members shared in that exuberance or whether such a thing would have happened on another evening with a full house is anyone’s guess. What, then, can we expect from the Demirjian era with the KSO? Clearly, youth is a factor. With the orchestra’s new music director and its concertmaster, Gabriel Lefkowitz, both in their late 20s, the Knoxville audience can expect—and demand— energetic performances, bold programming, and an evolving orchestra that satisfies traditional listeners but also excites new ones. It’s important to remember that the bulk of KSO’s activities are not in the concert hall but in educational and outreach programs. Demirjian’s youthful presence at those events will be key in creating excitement and enthusiasm for classical and new music in future players and potential audiences. Jeffery Whaley, KSO’s principal horn and one of the orchestra members on the selection committee, stresses the need to consider the future, not just of the orchestra but of Knoxville’s diverse music scene and its audience. “There is certainly talk of how to bring the KSO, with its history of fine music-making, into more modern relevance,” Whaley says. “Our current audience knows the KSO is the group to hear, but we want to grow our audience and make it perfectly clear that the KSO, with its many musical offerings, has something for every single member of our community. A change in leadership is a perfect time to adjust and renew our vision as an organization. “Aram is a great musician, is highly intelligent, and is a very nice guy. An enthusiastic ambassador for classical and orchestral music, his will be a welcoming face for our audiences both old and new, and he has a personality and temperament that will serve the KSO very well.” ◆ June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21
A&E
Music
Photo by Stephen Gere
Guitar Antihero Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch still doesn’t have it figured out BY MIKE GIBSON
A
fter 24 years, the Boise, Idaho-based Built to Spill is still carrying the torch for ’90s-style indie rock. The band’s latest release, Untethered Moon, is a loose yet tuneful affair built on fetching guitar hooks and plaintive vocals—an album that could just as easily have come out of 1995 as 2015. Likewise, Built to Spill frontman Doug Martsch is still very much the prototypical ’90s indie rocker—matter-of-fact but just a little obtuse, and given to frequent rumination and frequently racked with self-doubt. “It is something I wrestle with, but it’s obviously not too big a problem,” says Martsch, acknowledging his navel-gazing tendencies during an interview from the road in support of Untethered Moon. “I mean, I’m still doing this band. I think most of us are struggling in some way, trying to improve, trying to prove ourselves to ourselves.”
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
Then there’s the matter of Martsch’s guitar-playing. Possessed of a trebly, eminently recognizable tone and a penchant for trenchant soloing, Martsch has been heralded as something of a post-punk guitar hero in the mode of Dinosaur Jr.’s J. Mascis, an acknowledged influence. Martsch, however, downplays his
playing, saying he considers himself more a songwriter than a guitarist—if, indeed, he considers himself anything at all. “I like to play guitar,” he says. “But when I listen to what others do on the instrument, I feel like I’m pretty mediocre. I mean, I’m not all that good at basketball, either, but I really like to play it.” Untethered Moon is Built to Spill’s eighth full-length studio release and the band’s sixth album on major label Warner Bros. And while you might make the case that Built to Spill has had a lower profile than some of its ’90s-era peers—think Pavement, Sebadoh, Guided by Voices, and the like—Martsch’s band has arguably been steadier and more enduring. This in spite of a roster that has included at least nine different members over the years, with many of those having left and returned to the fold at various points along the way. Martsch founded the band after the dissolution of his previous outfit, Treepeople. He says he always envisioned Built to Spill as a rotating cast of players, for reasons both practical and personal. “When I first started the band, I knew I was going to be moving,” Martsch says. “So I would have to be changing the lineup anyway. But it also felt like it would keep the music from being stale. I always think about David Bowie and his career, and how he was always changing everything. You could never pigeonhole him. I wanted that kind of freedom.” After nearly a quarter of a century with the same band, Martsch says he’s
reached a level of comfort in his role as band leader and frontman. But then, his definition of comfort seems to allow plenty of room for uncertainty, and for a brand of introspection that occasionally borders on self-flagellation. “When I look back at where we began, it’s really tough for me to see how we’ve evolved,” he says. “I guess I have trouble analyzing myself. In some ways, I enjoy it more. I’m more comfortable. I know that when we started out, we were a really bad live band. I guess I don’t know if it’s any good, still. There are some nights where I’m definitely not good at it.” Martsch admits to having some uncertainty, too, around the future of Built to Spill, at least as a major-label entity. “We’re at the end of a deal with Warner Bros.,” he says. “And we’re still trying to learn about the landscape of music in this era, the era of the Internet and streaming. I’m in the process of trying to wrap my brain around that stuff. “But I can still see me doing this in 20 years. That would make me, what, 67? That sounds about right. Playing with Built to Spill and making the music I play, it’s really all I know how to do.” ◆
WHO
Built to Spill with Love as Laughter
WHERE
Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.)
WHEN
I like to play guitar. But when I listen to what others do on the instrument, I feel like I’m pretty mediocre. I mean, I’m not all that good at basketball, either, but I really like to play it. —DOUG MARTSCH
Wednesday, June 15, at 8 p.m.
HOW MUCH $24
INFO
knoxbijou.com builttospill.com
Movies
Shell Game
TMNT: Out of the Shadows restores some of the fun to the heroes in a half shell BY APRIL SNELLINGS
H
ere’s an easy test to determine whether you should shell out your bucks (sorry) for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows: Have you ever, at any point in your life and for any reason, owned a copy of Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters? If the answer is yes, you’ve spent enough time in the trenches of turtle fandom that you’ll get at least a few kicks out of the latest movie. To be clear, there’s no universe where a Michael Bay-produced fi lm that includes the words “mutant” and “ninja”—with a colon, to boot—doesn’t play like the mercenary ploy that it is. But to director Dave Green’s credit, Out of the Shadows—a follow-up to 2014’s punishingly terrible franchise reboot—represents such a dramatic improvement over its predecessor that it can’t help but qualify as a success. It’s relentlessly silly and stuffed with CG mayhem, but it reinstalls the sense of fun and the affection for the franchise that were so sorely missing from the last big-screen iteration, hitting just enough nostalgic soft spots to make it more than tolerable for viewers of a certain age. All of which is a fancy way of
saying Krang is in this one, and he looks pretty cool. The action picks up about a year after the last movie left off. The four titular heroes are once again skulking around in New York’s sewers, the top world oblivious to their heroism—or their existence, for that matter. (If none of this makes sense, turn back now—there’s nothing here for you.) Eventually—read: in the fi rst five minutes—the turtles are pressed back into action when their old nemesis, Shredder (Brian Tee this time), teams up with an interdimensional warlord called Krang (the voice of Brad Garrett). Since it’s 2016, the plot involves averting an apocalypse and overcoming an intra-superteam rift. No one is going to accuse the screenwriters of aiming over their target audience’s heads, but the script is smart enough to make plenty of room for both familiar characters and new ones. The best returning cast member is Will Arnett, who reprises his role as smarmy cameraman Vernon Fenwick; newbies who bear mention include the great Laura Linney as New York’s police chief and Green Arrow’s Stephen Amell as a toned-down but
A&E
still appealing Casey Jones. Reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox), meanwhile, is as puzzlingly superfluous as she was last time around. The plot is nonsense, of course, but the movie zips along at a pace that’s spry without feeling manic, and the action scenes are surprisingly well staged and cleanly edited. Many of them are lifted from other, better titles—there are at least two scenes that borrow heavily from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight fi lms, and the Avengers movies are mercilessly mined for Out of the Shadows’ chaotic fi nale. Somehow, though, amid all those visual references and blatant rip-offs, it manages to cobble together a cohesive visual style that’s pleasingly bright and colorful. The movie still has problems finding its own identity in the long-running glut of comic-book and superhero flicks, which is too bad. In a cooler dimension, all of this trend-hopping could have folded in on itself in some really fun, interesting ways. Early issues of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s cult-favorite comic poked fun at ’80s superhero titles in ways that were both obvious and sly. Never has there been a better time for a property that takes the same tack with superhero movies, and a bolder creative team might have turned this into something like a kid-friendly Deadpool. But Out of the Shadows plays it sort of straight—at least, as straight as it can be played when we’re dealing with farting mutant warthogs and a mad scientist (courtesy of Tyler Perry, back in Madea mode) who’s more Igor than Dr. Frankenstein. There’s lots of existential bellyaching about coming to terms with one’s true nature and protecting people who are fearful and intolerant of their super-powered guardians, and the movie often seems hesitant to go the extra mile when it comes to embracing the property’s baroque silliness. But when it’s fi ring on all cylinders, Out of the Shadows comes very close to channeling the weird charm of its pre-Bayed source material. It might not constitute a good movie by typical metrics, but it does make for a reasonably fun one. ◆ June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 23
CALENDAR MUSIC
Thursday, June 9 THE HORSE TRADERS WITH THE REV. JUSTIN HYLTON • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE JOSH CANTRELL • Market Square • 7PM • Come enjoy local singer/songwriter Josh Cantrell and his indie, folk-style music. • FREE CORY BRANAN • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • Throughout his career, Cory Branan has been too punk for country, too country for punk, too Memphis for Nashville, and probably a little too Cory Branan for anyone’s damn good. • FREE EDGAR MEYER • First United Methodist Church of Oak Ridge • 7:30PM • In demand as both a performer and a composer, Oak Ridge native Edgar Meyer has formed a role in the music world unlike any other. Hailed by The New Yorker as “…the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively un-chronicled history of his instrument”, Mr. Meyer’s unparalleled technique and musicianship in combination with his gift for composition have brought him to the fore, where he is appreciated by a vast, varied audience. Tickets are available online at www.ORCMA.org or by calling (865) 483-5569. • $25 ROSCOE MORGAN • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM THE HORSE TRADERS • Preservation Pub • 10PM ANDY WOOD • Regal Cinemas Pinnacle Stadium 18 in Turkey Creek • 6:30PM • Part of the Sounds of Summer concert series. • FREE JEFF JENSEN • Brackins Blues Club • 8PM AMASA HINES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Amasa Hines is a seven piece, Little Rock, Arkansas based band whose sound is as big as their influences are wide. Their influences come from a diverse range of Soul, Afro-Beat, Psychedelic, Blues, Dub, and Indie Rock stylings. Friday, June 10 THE JOHN SUTTON BAND WITH SARAH MORGAN • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE ADEEM THE ARTIST • Campbell Station Park • 6PM • Part of the Lawn Chair Concert series. • FREE THE OLD SCRATCH SALLIES • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE BAREFOOT SANCTUARY • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Local fiddler Evie Andrus will be releasing her first solo CD under the name Barefoot Sanctuary. • $5 HAIM • The Mill and Mine • 8:30PM • Haim is a LA-based band made up of sisters Este, Danielle and Alana Haim. Haim’s full-length debut album “Days Are Gone” showcases their music talent with influences of rock, pop and R&B that have made the band such a critical and commercial success. Known for their dynamic live shows, which feature their accomplished abilities as musicians, the trio have been featured at prestigious festivals like Glastonbury and Coachella. • $29.50 • See Spotlight. CUMBERLAND STATION • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM KINCAID • Two Doors Down • 9PM 24
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
WILL BOYD • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE STRUTTER: A TRIBUTE TO KISS • The Concourse • 9:30PM • 18 and up. • $5 CABINET • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Cabinet is a band with roots firmly planted in the Appalachian tradition. They wear their influences like badges, honoring the canon of roots, bluegrass, country, and folk, weaving these sounds into a patchwork Americana quilt. SHAUN ABBOTT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM LITTLE TYBEE • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • Little Tybee’s music is the quirky love child of Fleet Foxes and Animals as Leaders, and the group has opened for acts including Kurt Vile, Of Montreal, Maps and Atlases, and Hundred Waters. • FREE LA INEDITA WITH PAUL EDELMAN • Preservation Pub • 10PM THE WOODPECKERS REUNION • Seymour Public Library • 7PM • FREE SWINGBOOTY • Casual Pint (Northshore) • 8PM • Come join us for craft beers and gypsy jazz. • FREE PORCH 40 • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM CRISWELL COLLECTIVE WITH TYLER DAMON, MATT NELSON, AND JOSH WRIGHT • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 Saturday, June 11 JACKSON EMMER WITH THE FARMER AND ADELE • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE RAY WYLIE HUBBARD WITH AARON LEE TASMAN • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • With a keen eye of observation and a wise man’s knowledge, Ray Wylie Hubbard composes and performs a dozen songs that couldn’t spring from anywhere else but out of his fertile rock and roll bluesy poet-in-the-blistering-heat southern noggin. • $20 DELBERT MCCLINTON • Back Porch on the Creek • 7PM • Delbert McClinton has taken to that open road, full speed ahead. So what keeps the energy in more than 60 years of music? His incredible musical versatility has been a blessing and a curse. He has managed to stay ahead of the curve – rather than just riding the wave of musical popularity. He has paddled out and caught the wave as it is forming as an innovator in American music. • $22-$53 THE DIRTY DOUGS • Last Days of Autumn Brewery • 7PM JEANINE FULLER • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • FREE THE PAPER CROWNS • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE OXYMORRONS WITH MR. ILL AND THE MEDICINE AND BLACK ATTICUS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Alt-hip-hop from Queens, N.Y. • $8-$10 THE TEMPER EVANS BAND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM HAROLD NAGGE AND ALAN WYATT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE JOHN DOUGH BOYS • Preservation Pub • 10PM OFF THE RECORD • Concord Park • 6PM • Part of Knox County’s Second Saturday Concerts series at the Cover at Concord Park. • FREE FEW MILES ON • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE OPERATOR WITH THE NEW ROMANTICS AND GAMENIGHT •
Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 LORD NELSON • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM Sunday, June 12 SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 12:45PM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE INSANE CLOWN POSSE • The International • 7:30PM • Fucking magnets, how do they work? 18 and up. • $20-$25 PALE ROOT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Aaron Freeman’s taste for contemporary songwriters like Ryan Adams and Darrel Scott provides a balance to Jordan Burris’ penchant for bluegrass and traditional folk. As Pale Root, they’ve quietly settled into their own spot in
Knoxville’s crowded Americana scene—intimate, confessional music grounded in tradition. At various times, the duo’s music recalls Neil Young, Jackson Browne, the Everly Brothers, and the Avett Brothers. It’s a surprisingly full and mature sound from just two people. CANVAS PEOPLE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. Monday, June 13 REV FREAKCHILD AND THE ROAMIES • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE VIENNA COFFEE HOUSE JAZZ TRIO • Vienna Coffee House • 5PM • Every Monday. Visit viennacoffeehouse.net. • FREE STEVE KAUFMAN ACOUSTIC KAMPS CONCERT SERIES • Maryville College • 7PM • In conjunction with his annual summer camps for guitarists, fiddlers, and other acoustic
HAIM The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Friday, June 10 • 8 p.m. • $29.50 • themillandmine.com
Haim’s objective is clear: They want to make soft-rock trendy again. With 2013’s Days Are Gone, the instrument-swapping sister trio reveled in lightly funky Fleetwood Mac grooves, gated Phil Collins drum reverb, and slick synth hooks. But their stylish tunes never pandered for retro cool points, instead updating the emotive bombast of early-’80s West Coast rock radio for the Spotify generation. Days Are Gone is the rare modern pop album with both hipster and soccer-mom appeal. The album spawned six singles (including the glittery “Falling” and “Forever”) and earned the band spots on Saturday Night Live and in Target ads. It also landed on virtually every major year-end best-of round-up, including the ones at Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. Haim hasn’t rushed to capitalize on that momentum. The members of the band—sisters Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim and drummer Dash Hutton—have used the past few years to expand their profile on stage, including a run of opening dates for Taylor Swift. In March, the band wrote on Instagram that they’re finalizing their next album, and they’ve unveiled two epic tracks—“Give Me Just a Little of Your Love” and “Nothing’s Wrong”—on their latest jaunt. (Ryan Reed)
musicians, award-winning guitarist Steve Kaufman hosts two weeks of concerts at Maryville College’s newly refurbished Alumni Gym. The lineup includes Kaufman, Cary Fridley, April Verch, Mike Dowling, Clint Mullcan, and more than a dozen other musicians. June 13-24. Visit flatpik.com for more info. • $15 MATT A. FOSTER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM JOHNNY GRAVE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. Tuesday, June 14 THE PURPLE KITE WITH THE FORLORN STRANGERS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE STEVE KAUFMAN ACOUSTIC KAMPS CONCERT SERIES • Maryville College • 7PM • In conjunction with his annual summer camps for guitarists, fiddlers, and other acoustic musicians, award-winning guitarist Steve Kaufman hosts two weeks of concerts at Maryville College’s newly refurbished Alumni Gym. The lineup includes Kaufman, Cary Fridley, April Verch, Mike Dowling, Clint Mullcan, and more than a dozen other musicians. June 13-24. Visit flatpik.com for more info. • $15 MARBLE CITY 5 • Market Square • 8PM • Live jazz every Tuesday from May 3-Aug. 30. • FREE FORLORN STRANGERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Forlorn Strangers is an all acoustic band using guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, a stomp box, and some percussion. Our sound is based on the roots of American music, leaning heavily on bluegrass, drenched in four part harmony and added elements from blues, jazz, and some rock & roll. We bring a high-energy set designed to engage listeners and participants in an exciting yet introspective experience. SCHWIZZ • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. Wednesday, June 15 THE ANDERSON STRING QUARTET WITH SETH RICHARD • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 6:30PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE TENNESSEE SHINES: JASON EADY • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Although country music was Jason Eady’s first love, he was exposed to the musical stew of the lower Delta — blues, soul, R&B and primal swamp rock — while growing up in Jackson, Mississippi. He was performing in local bars by the time he was 14, singing and playing guitar, writing his own songs. Eady moved to Nashville to seek a record deal but became disillusioned and headed back to Mississippi, joining the Air Force as a translator. After the military, Eady got a job in a Fort Worth bank’s IT department, and he began attending open mic nights to blow off steam. His latest and sixth album, Daylight & Dark, embraces multiple styles of die-hard country music to weave together 11 songs about the deep, messy details of love and life. • $10 STEVE KAUFMAN ACOUSTIC KAMPS CONCERT SERIES • Maryville College • 7PM • In conjunction with his annual summer camps for guitarists, fiddlers, and other acoustic musicians, award-winning guitarist Steve Kaufman hosts two weeks of concerts at Maryville College’s newly refurbished Alumni Gym. The lineup includes Kaufman, Cary Fridley, April Verch, Mike Dowling, Clint Mullcan, and more than a dozen other musicians. June 13-24. Visit flatpik.com for more info. • $15 June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25
CALENDAR THE CASEY GREEN TRIO • The Bistro at the Bijou • 7PM • Live jazz. • FREE THE ZAC FALLON PROJECT • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM STUMP TAIL DOLLY WITH RYAN SHELEY AND THE BOHANNONS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • $5 TANK AND THE BANGAS • Preservation Pub • 10PM HARRY CONNICK JR. • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • Recognized for his live and recorded musical performances and for his achievements on screens large and small, as well as on the Broadway stage, Harry Connick, Jr. has exemplified excellence in every aspect of the entertainment world. • $79-$109 Thursday, June 16 MAC LEAPHART WITH KIRA SMALL • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE SPARKLE MOTION BAND • Last Days of Autumn Brewery • 6PM KELSEY’S WOODS • Regal Cinemas Pinnacle Stadium 18 in Turkey Creek • 6:30PM • Part of the Sounds of Summer concert series. • FREE LAFEVER • Market Square • 7PM • Bringing heat to modern pop music, with a twist of retro R & B, and soul – LaFever is sure to provide a fun night on the Square. • FREE STEVE KAUFMAN ACOUSTIC KAMPS CONCERT SERIES • Maryville College • 7PM • In conjunction with his annual summer camps for guitarists, fiddlers, and other acoustic musicians, award-winning guitarist Steve Kaufman hosts two weeks of concerts at Maryville College’s newly refurbished Alumni Gym. The lineup includes Kaufman, Cary Fridley, April Verch, Mike Dowling, Clint Mullcan, and more than a dozen other musicians. June 13-24. Visit flatpik.com for more info. • $15 THE TRONGONE BAND • Sugarlands Distilling Co. • 7PM • FREE BUILT TO SPILL • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Twenty years on from first signing to Warner Bros. Records, Built To Spill is set to return in 2015 with its eighth studio album, Untethered Moon. That’s now two complete decades that one of America’s leading “indie rock” bands has happily made its home on a major label, and in the process redefined that clumsy descriptor of independence by operating wholly and consistently under its own steam, taking the proper time to craft timeless songs and playing endless, epic shows to a growing grip of fans each year. • $24 BLUE MOTHER TUPELO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM PETER KARP • Brackins Blues Club • 8PM DIVIDED WE STAND • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM KEITH MEAD WITH DEAR BLANCA, FALLOIR, AND BAT HOUSE • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 HONEY AND HOUSTON • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Original Americana quartet that blends country and blues influences with sweet “sister” harmonies and a little taste of gypsy on the side. Friday, June 17 BRANDON FULSON WITH THE MOON AND YOU • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE ALIVE AFTER FIVE: BOYS’ NIGHT OUT • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • The summer series of Alive After Five premieres with 11-member Carolina beach music band. • $10-$15 26
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
THE MALIBU DIAMOND BAND • Last Days of Autumn Brewery • 7PM STEVE KAUFMAN ACOUSTIC KAMPS CONCERT SERIES • Maryville College • 7PM • In conjunction with his annual summer camps for guitarists, fiddlers, and other acoustic musicians, award-winning guitarist Steve Kaufman hosts two weeks of concerts at Maryville College’s newly refurbished Alumni Gym. The lineup includes Kaufman, Cary Fridley, April Verch, Mike Dowling, Clint Mullcan, and more than a dozen other musicians. June 13-24. Visit flatpik.com for more info. • $15 SPARROW FULLER • Vienna Coffee House • 7PM • FREE JASON EADY • Sugarlands Distilling Co. • 7PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE SEASONS OF ME WITH DIVIDED WE STAND, TRANSPARENT SOUL, AND SHADOWED SELF • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • East Tennessee hard rock. All ages. • $5 AN EVENING WITH JASON MRAZ AND HIS GUITAR • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Jason Mraz has quietly amassed a youthful, diverse, and vibrant fan-base throughout all parts of the globe. Since getting his start in coffeehouses in his adopted city of San Diego, Mraz has brought his positive message and soulful, folk-pop sound to rapt audiences around the world through his recordings, vibrant live performances, and philanthropic efforts. • $45-$59.50 EXIT 60 • Two Doors Down • 9PM PAM KLICKA • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE GROOVE JUNCTION • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM TREETOPS WITH AGORI TRIBE AND UNAKA PRONG • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM REED TURCHI AND THE CATERWAULS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Raised in the Swannanoa Valley just outside of Asheville, North Carolina, Reed Turchi grew up playing piano, focusing on boogie woogie and New Orleans styles before becoming infatuated with slide guitar. While learning Hill Country Blues (RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Mississippi Fred McDowell) firsthand in North Mississippi, he founded his blues-rock trio “TURCHI,” which released its debut album Road Ends in Water in 2012. Called “everything a blues fan could want” (LA Examiner), the album featured guest Luther Dickinson on three tracks. THE WILD THINGS • Preservation Pub • 10PM Saturday, June 18 THREESOUND WITH NOAH LARSSEN • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE START ME UP: THE ROLLING STONES TRIBUTE • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson • 6PM • $15 JON CHAMBERS • Vienna Coffee House • 7PM • FREE GAELIC STORM • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Gaelic Storm is back with their 12th studio album, once again delivering the foot-stomping, eclectic mix of tunes that has established the band as one of world music’s premier live acts. “Matching Sweaters” infuses traditional Celtic music with modern influences, updating the genre for a new generation of fans raised on rock, country, and folk. These 12 brand new tracks straddle the line between tradition and innovation in the world music format, making “Matching Sweaters” an absolute must-have. • $23 BRANDON FULSON WITH MATT HONKONEN AND HANDSOME AND THE HUMBLES • Open Chord Brewhouse
and Stage • 8PM • Brandon Fulson is an Americana country singer songwriter. Originally from Cumberland Gap, Tennessee he now resides in Knoxville. All ages. • $5 NELLIE PEARL • Preservation Pub • 8PM KITTY WAMPUS • Paul’s Oasis • 9PM • Classic rock, blues, and R&B. • FREE BETTER DAZE • Two Doors Down • 9PM THE CHUCK MULLICAN JAZZ BONANZA • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE DUNAVANT • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM BILLY STRINGS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM TINA TARMAC AND THE BURNS • Pilot Light • 10PM • On its self-titled debut EP, released in 2014, the band offers a survey of classic ’70s and ’80s rock—proto-punk, punk rock proper, power pop, arena-ready hard rock. You can hear echoes of the Ramones, Kiss, the Runaways, Patti Smith, the Dictators, Sonic Youth, and Cheap Trick in the Burns’ hard-charging, melodic riff rock. A cover of the Shangri-Las’ deep cut “Heaven Only Knows” gets a treatment that’s halfway between early Clash and Joan Jett. It’s so straightforward and accessible that it defies description beyond just “rock ’n’ roll.” 18 and up. AL SCORCH • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE EMPIRE STRIKES BRASS • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM THE BURNIN’ HERMANS • Preservation Pub • 10PM Sunday, June 19 SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 12:45PM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE JORDAN SMITH • Bijou Theatre • 7:30PM • Jordan Smith is a Republic Records recording artist from Harlan, Ky., and winner of season nine of NBC’s The Voice. • $27-$32 KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM SNAKE BLOOD REMEDY • Preservation Pub • 10PM
OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS
Thursday, June 9 VIENNA COFFEE HOUSE OPEN MIC NIGHT • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • Visit viennacoffeehouse.net. • FREE SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. • FREE OPEN CHORD OPEN MIC NIGHT • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • FREE Friday, June 10 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OPEN SONGWRITER NIGHT • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Songwriter Night at Time Warp Tea Room runs on the second and fourth Friday of every month. Show up around 7 p.m. with your instrument in tow and sign up to share a couple of original songs with a community of friends down in Happy Holler. • FREE Sunday, June 12 EPWORTH MONTHLY OLD HARP SHAPE NOTE SINGING • Laurel Theater • 6:30PM • Visit jubileearts.org. • FREE SING OUT KNOXVILLE • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7PM • A folk singing circle open to everyone. • FREE Tuesday, June 14 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT •
Preservation Pub • 7PM OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Hosted by Sarah Pickle. • FREE BARLEY’S OPEN MIC NIGHT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM Wednesday, June 15 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OLD-TIME JAM • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Regular speed old-time/fiddle jam every Wednesday. All instruments and skill levels welcome. BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. • FREE ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC NIGHT • Asia Cafe West • 7PM • Bring an acoustic guitar and a few songs every Wednesday. Sign-up sheet available 30 minutes prior to 7 p.m. start. Three songs or 10 minutes per performer. • FREE Thursday, June 16 VIENNA COFFEE HOUSE OPEN MIC NIGHT • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • Visit viennacoffeehouse.net. • FREE IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. • FREE Saturday, June 18 OLD-TIME SLOW JAM • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • A monthly old-time music session, held on the third Saturday of each month. • FREE Sunday, June 19 FAMILY FRIENDLY DRUM CIRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 3:30PM • Drumming for kids of all ages on the third Sunday of the month. Bring a drum or share one of ours. Bring a blanket or chair. Open to drummers of all ages and levels. Free and fun. • FREE
DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS
Saturday, June 11 REWIND RETRO DANCE NIGHT • The Concourse • 9PM • Featuring Z Is Not a DJ and X1138. 18 and up. • $5 BOOGIE TO THE TOP • Scruffy City Hall • 4PM • A rooftop afternoon-into-Sunday morning dance party with DJ Earl Grae. Sunday, June 12 LAYOVER SUNDAY BRUNCH • The Concourse • 12PM • Enjoy good eats, refreshing libations, and the most appropriate afternoon tunage in the company of this city’s most dedicated loafers. We’ll be serving our normal brunch in all it’s glory, courtesy of Localmotive. Musical accompaniment by the likes of Slow Nasty, Psychonaut, and a rotating list of special guests. All ages. • FREE Friday, June 17 HOUSE IS WHERE THE HEART IS • The Concourse • 7:30PM • A monthly community-oriented event consisting of yoga, flow, dance, and play, with music by Gregory Alan Tarrants and J Mo and yoga by Meryl Kerns. • FREE Saturday, June 18 TEMPLE DANCE NIGHT • The Concourse • 9PM • Knoxville’s long-running alternative once night. 18 and up. • $5 Sunday, June 19 LAYOVER SUNDAY BRUNCH • The Concourse • 12PM • Enjoy good eats, refreshing libations, and the most appropriate afternoon tunage in the company of this city’s most
CALENDAR dedicated loafers. We’ll be serving our normal brunch in all it’s glory, courtesy of Localmotive. Musical accompaniment by the likes of Slow Nasty, Psychonaut, and a rotating list of special guests. All ages. • FREE
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Thursday, June 9-Sunday, June 19 NIEF-NORF SUMMER FESTIVAL • University of Tennessee • The nief-norf Summer Festival (nnSF) is an interdisciplinary summer music festival, bringing together dozens of performers, composers, and scholars to collaborate on the performance, creation, and discussion of contemporary solo and chamber music. The nnSF offers an intensive think-tank environment and presents inspiring and devoted performances of modern music, aiming to encourage both appreciation and support for live music and contemporary art. Through June 20. Visit niefnorf.org for a schedule and more information. See cover story.
THEATER AND DANCE
Friday, June 10 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: ‘PIRATES OF PENZANCE’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • The 2016 collaboration between the Tennessee Valley Players and the University of Tennessee School of Music Choral Area is Gilbert and Sullivan’s farce of sentimental pirates, bumbling policemen, dim-witted young lovers, and an eccentric major general. June 10-26. Visit tennesseevalleyplayers. org. • $20 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘LEADING LADIES’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • In this hilarious comedy by the author of Lend Me A Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo, two English Shakespearean actors, Jack and Leo, find themselves so down on their luck that they are performing “Scenes from Shakespeare” on the Moose Lodge circuit in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. When they hear that an old lady in York, Pennsylvania, is about to die and leave her fortune to her two long lost English nephews, they resolve to pass themselves off as her beloved relatives and get the cash. June 3-19. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $13-$15 ENCORE THEATRICAL COMPANY: ‘FOLLIES’ • Walters State Community College • 8PM • The time is 1971, and theatrical impresario Dimitri Weissmann hosts a reunion of ex-Follies performers in his crumbling theatre, setting the stage for a parade of brilliant pastiche numbers, including “Losing My Mind,” “I’m Still Here,” and “Broadway Baby.” Amid the reminiscing, two middle-aged couples confront some unpleasant truths about their past and present, and come face to face with the future. A true theatrical event, this legendary masterpiece is considered by many to be the greatest musical ever created. June 10-26. Visit encoretheatricalcompany.com. KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • Poor Charlie Bucket finds a Golden Ticket in his Wonka Chocolate Bar, sending him and his Grandpa on a magical tour of Willy Wonka’s renowned chocolate factory. One by one, the other children on the tour break the rules, but if Charlie survives the journey, he may find an even greater reward. June 10-26. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 Saturday, June 11 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: ‘PIRATES OF PENZANCE’ •
Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • June 10-26. Visit tennesseevalleyplayers.org. • $20 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘LEADING LADIES’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • June 3-19. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $13-$15 ENCORE THEATRICAL COMPANY: ‘FOLLIES’ • Walters State Community College • 8PM • June 10-26. Visit encoretheatricalcompany.com. KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM and 5PM • June 10-26. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre. com. • $12 THE FRONT PAGE FOLLIES • Knoxville Convention Center • 6PM • A long-standing tradition in Knoxville, the Follies is a musical satire poking fun at national, state and local newsmakers. The cast is made of up singers and dancers whose day jobs are in radio, public relations, theatre, music and many other professions. Tickets can be reserved online at www.FrontPageFoundation.org. Individual tickets are $125. Tables of 10 are available for $1,000. A portion of each ticket is tax deductible. • $125 Sunday, June 12 ENCORE THEATRICAL COMPANY: ‘FOLLIES’ • Walters State Community College • 2PM • June 10-26. Visit encoretheatricalcompany.com. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘LEADING LADIES’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • June 3-19. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $13-$15 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: ‘PIRATES OF PENZANCE’ • Carousel Theatre • 3PM • June 10-26. Visit tennesseevalleyplayers.org. • $20 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 3PM • June 10-26. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 Monday, June 13 THE WORDPLAYERS: ‘THE GLASS MENAGERIE’ • The Square Room • 7PM • A staged reading of Tennessee Williams’ classic drama. • FREE Thursday, June 16 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • PJune 10-26. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: ‘PIRATES OF PENZANCE’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • June 10-26. Visit tennesseevalleyplayers.org. • $20 Friday, June 17 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • June 10-26. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: ‘PIRATES OF PENZANCE’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • June 10-26. Visit tennesseevalleyplayers.org. • $20 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘LEADING LADIES’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • June 3-19. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $13-$15 ENCORE THEATRICAL COMPANY: ‘FOLLIES’ • Walters State Community College • 8PM • June 10-26. Visit encoretheatricalcompany.com.
Live Music | Dancing | Spirits | Food & Fun! 865-525-6101 • KNOXART.ORG ALIVE AFTER FIVE - KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF @RT
SELECTED FRIDAYS @ 6:00 - 8:30pm 2016 SUMMER SERIES
June 17th featuring Boys’ Night Out June 24th featuring Leftfoot Dave & The Magic Hats
July 15th featuring Soul Connection July 22nd featuring Tee Dee Young July 29th featuring Tennessee Sheiks August 5th featuring The Streamliners Swing Orchestra August 12th featuring Ori Naftaly & Southern Avenue
Saturday, June 18 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM and 5PM • June 10-26. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre. com. • $12 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: ‘PIRATES OF PENZANCE’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • June 10-26. Visit tennesseevalleyplayers.org. • $20 June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 27
CALENDAR THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘LEADING LADIES’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • June 3-19. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $13-$15 ENCORE THEATRICAL COMPANY: ‘FOLLIES’ • Walters State Community College • 8PM • June 10-26. Visit encoretheatricalcompany.com. Sunday, June 19 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 3PM • June 10-26. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 ENCORE THEATRICAL COMPANY: ‘FOLLIES’ • Walters State Community College • 2PM • June 10-26. Visit encoretheatricalcompany.com. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘LEADING LADIES’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • June 3-19. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $13-$15 TENNESSEE VALLEY PLAYERS: ‘PIRATES OF PENZANCE’ • Carousel Theatre • 3PM • June 10-26. Visit tennesseevalleyplayers.org. • $20
COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD
Thursday, June 9 PIZZA HAS • Pizza Hoss • 8PM • On the second Thursday of the month, Pizza Hoss in Powell hosts a showcase featuring sets from some of the best comedians in East Tennessee along with selected up-and-coming talent.
Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
Each month one of the hosts of Rain/Shine Event productions (Shane Rhyne, Matt Chadourne, Tyler Sonnichsen, and Sean Simoneau) serves as your guide to introduce you the best of our region’s comedy scene. • FREE Friday, June 10 SMOKY MOUNTAIN STORYTELLERS • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • FREE Sunday, June 12 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Monday, June 13 QED COMEDY LABORATORY • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • QED ComedyLaboratory is a weekly show with different theme every week that combines stand-up, improv, sketch, music and other types of performance and features some of the funniest people in Knoxville and parts unknown. Free, but donations are accepted.• FREE ON THE MIC WITH MIKE • Scruffy City Hall • 7PM • Bee Valley Productions and Scruffy City Hall are proud to present an attention-deficit, topsy turvy take on the late-night talk show format. Mike Bartlett created the show as a way of marrying his passion for music and comedy; the purpose is to showcase the abundance of talented artists in the Knoxville music scene. Each episode features unique interviews and performances from Knoxville’s best artists, as well as sketches, segments, games, and more. Visit beevalleyproductions. com/comedy/onthemicwithmike.
Tuesday, June 14 EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Einstein Simplified Comedy performs live comedy improv at Scruffy City Hall. It’s just like Whose Line Is It Anyway, but you get to make the suggestions. Show starts at 8:15, get there early for the best seats. No cover. • FREE OPEN MIC STAND-UP COMEDY • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM • Doors open at 8:30, first comic at 9. No cover charge, all are welcome. Aspiring or experienced comics interested in joining in the fun email us at long branch.info@gmail. com to learn more, or simply come to the show a few minutes early. • FREE KNOXVILLE POETRY SLAM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $5 Thursday, June 16 THIRD THURSDAY COMEDY OPEN MIC • Big Fatty’s Catering Kitchen • 7:30PM • We will showcase local and touring talent in a curated open mic of 6 to 8 comics. The event starts at 7:30, and there is no charge for admission. The kitchen will be open as well as their full bar. • FREE Friday, June 17 THE FIFTH WOMAN POETRY SLAM • The Birdhouse • 6:30PM • The 5th Woman Poetry slam is place where all poets can come and share their words of love, respect, passion, and expression. It is not dedicated solely women but is a place where women poets are celebrated and honored. Check out our Facebook pages for the challenge of the month and focus for our poetry every month. Sunday, June 19
UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic.
FESTIVALS
Friday, June 10 SECRET CITY FESTIVAL • Oak Ridge • Originally known as the Azalea Festival, a small one day arts and crafts show that started in 1982 before evolving into Mayfest in 1990, the name was changed to the Secret City Festival in 2003 to showcase Oak Ridge’s nuclear history.Featured Entertainment:The Charlie Daniels Band, Grand Funk RailroadOther Attractions: Activities include food, arts and crafts, a petting zoo, inflatables, water slides, and a World War II reenactment. Visit secretcityfestival.com. Saturday, June 11 SECRET CITY FESTIVAL • Oak Ridge • Originally known as the Azalea Festival, a small one day arts and crafts show that started in 1982 before evolving into Mayfest in 1990, the name was changed to the Secret City Festival in 2003 to showcase Oak Ridge’s nuclear history.Featured Entertainment:The Charlie Daniels Band, Grand Funk RailroadOther Attractions: Activities include food, arts and crafts, a petting zoo, inflatables, water slides, and a World War II reenactment. Visit secretcityfestival.com. TENNESSEE POLK SALAD FESTIVAL • Riverfront Park (Harriman) • 9AM • The Tennessee Polk Salad Festival is an arts and crafts event with performing artists in the covered pavilion, visual artists and artisans around the park, a free Fun Train running throughout the park for
SKEE BALL TOURNEY! FUNDRAISER FOR WUTK!
WITH EMCEES ROB & DEREK FROM THE FUNHOUSE
PRESENTED BY
®
ThurSDAY, June 16 @ SUTREE’S registration 5pm-6pm - Tourney starts at 6
Teams of two - $10 entry fee all proceeds benefit WUTK! Great prizes for Final 4 teams - Raffle prizes for all
Streaming 24.7.365 at WUTKRADIO.COM 28
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
CALENDAR both children and adults, and various locations for free arts and crafts activities. Featured is a regional food pavilion with plated meals of polk salad “poke sallet,” pinto beans, cornbread, and desert to support the local American Legion Ladies Auxiliary. • FREE MARBLE SPRINGS STATEHOOD DAY CELEBRATION • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 11AM • As part of Knoxville’s 225th anniversary celebration, Marble Springs will continue the Statehood Day celebration on June 11th from 11 am till 4 pm. Along with scheduled guided tours, guests will get to walk through Living History encampments, view open hearth cooking demonstrations, and enjoy some 18th century music. Details are subject to change. Both of these are free events and open to the public. Donations are appreciated. For more information please email info@marblesprings.net, call (865) 573-5508, or visit our website at www. marblesprings.net. • FREE BIG KAHUNA WING FESTIVAL • World’s Fair Park • If you love wings, then this is the festival for you! The Big Kahuna Wing Festival will be featuring over 10,000 pounds of wings, a wing eating competition, a wing cooking competition, live music, a kids corner, and a silent auction. • $10-$150 MOUNTAIN ANIMATION, GAMING, AND MEDIA ALLIANCE CONVENTION • Smoky Mountain Convention Center (Pigeon Forge) • MAGMA or Mountain Animation, Gaming, and Media Alliance is an annual convention held in Pigeon Forge. Our primary focus is gaming and multi-media, but we will have something for everyone. We will have gaming tournaments, exhibitors, artists, and industry guests as well as plenty of other interactive entertainment. Visit magmacon.org. • $10-$25 Sunday, June 12 MOUNTAIN ANIMATION, GAMING, AND MEDIA ALLIANCE CONVENTION • Smoky Mountain Convention Center (Pigeon Forge) • MAGMA or Mountain Animation, Gaming, and Media Alliance is an annual convention held in Pigeon Forge. Our primary focus is gaming and multi-media, but we will have something for everyone. We will have gaming tournaments, exhibitors, artists, and industry guests as well as plenty of other interactive entertainment. Visit magmacon.org. • $10-$25 Saturday, June 18 KARM DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL • Concord Park • 8AM • At the KARM Dragon Boat Festival paddlers commit to raise pledges to support the many life-saving programs that KARM offers to the homeless in Knoxville. • FREE WE LOVE DISTRICT 1 DAY • Knoxville Botanical Garden • 12PM • Join us for a free, family-friendly event open to the public to encourage residents to take notice of all the wondrous happenings in East Knoxville-District 1. Organized by local resident and activist Michael Covington, We Love District 1 Day aims to pay tribute to District 1’s historic venues and tourist attractions with informational booths, fun activities for all ages, entertainment and more. • FREE LAVENDER FESTIVAL • Historic Jackson Square (Oak Ridge) • 8AM • Celebrating the “Herb of the Year,” artisan crafts, local foods, live music and more, the Lavender Festival is located in the beautifully renovated Jackson Square, which now features a fountain and pleasant sitting area in the center. For a complete list of vendors and more information about the Lavender Festival, please visit www.JacksonSquareLavenderFestival.org. • FREE KNOXVILLE PRIDEFEST • World’s Fair Park • 11AM • Knoxville’s PrideFest is an open celebration of music, entertainment and speakers focused on promoting
equality and inclusion of all people. Featuring entertainment by Cheryl Wright, Pop Rox, Coco Montrese, Derrick Barry, God Des & She, Knoxville Gay Men’s Chorus, and Knoxville Opera.The annual PrideFest parade returns this year alongside the festival. Trophies will be awarded to the top three floats which use the festival’s theme of Love Won. Visit knoxvillepridefest.org. • FREE KNOXVILLE BREWFEST 2016 • Downtown Knoxville • 4PM • Breweries, beer and enthusiasts from all over will gather for a Summer afternoon sampling fresh beers of all colors, styles and flavors. Knoxville Brewfest will be held outdoors near the historic Southern Railway Terminal on Depot Avenue, Knoxville, Tennessee. • $50
FILM SCREENINGS
Friday, June 10 CRESTHILL CINEMA CLUB: ‘CARNIVAL IN COSTA RICA’ • Cresthill Cinema Club • 8PM • A merry musical comedy beyond compare, Carnival in Costa Rica turned its attentions to a heretofore untapped source of colorful spectacle and rhythmic richness, the fabulous Caribbean. Our location: The spacious clubhouse of the Windover Apartments. The journey there will take you to Cheshire Drive (off Kingston Pike, near the Olive Garden); going down Cheshire, turn right at the Windover Apartments sign, then go to the third parking lot on your right, next to the pool. There, the building that houses the clubhouse and offices of the Windover will be just a few steps away. • FREE SUMMER MOVIE MAGIC: ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’ • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • Maybe “nobody’s perfect,” as one character in this masterpiece suggests, but some movies are perfect, and Some Like It Hot is one of them. When Chicago musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) accidentally witness a gangland shooting, they quickly board a southbound train to Florida, disguised as Josephine and Daphne, the two newest and homeliest members of an all-girl jazz band. Some Like It Hot is the quintessential madcap farce and one of the greatest of all film comedies. • $9 Sunday, June 12 SUMMER MOVIE MAGIC: ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’ • Tennessee Theatre • 2PM • Maybe “nobody’s perfect,” as one character in this masterpiece suggests, but some movies are perfect, and Some Like It Hot is one of them. When Chicago musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) accidentally witness a gangland shooting, they quickly board a southbound train to Florida, disguised as Josephine and Daphne, the two newest and homeliest members of an all-girl jazz band. Some Like It Hot is the quintessential madcap farce and one of the greatest of all film comedies. • $9 Monday, June 13 THE BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM • A weekly free movie screening. • FREE MONDAY MOVIE MADNESS • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM • Campy horror, thrillers, and more every week. Plus beer! • FREE
SPORTS AND RECREATION
Thursday, June 9 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 29
CALENDAR Bicycles • 10AM • Join Cycology Bicycles every Thursday morning for a road ride with two group options. A Group does a 2 to 3 hour ride at 20+ pace; B group does an intermediate ride at 15/18 mph average. Weather permitting. cycologybicycles.com. • FREE FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Join us every Thursday night at our store for a fun group run/walk. We have all levels come out, so no matter what your speed you’ll have someone to keep you company. Our 30 - 60 minute route varies week by week in the various neighborhoods and greenways around the store, so be sure to show up on time so you can join up with the group. All levels welcome. fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer. • FREE RIVER SPORTS THURSDAY EVENING GREENWAY BIKE RIDE • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Every Thursday night from 6 to 7:30 join River Sports Outfitters on an easy paced, beginner friendly Greenway Ride. Bring your own bike or rent one for $15. Lights are mandatory on your bikes from September through March. After ride join us at the store for $2 pints. riversportsoutfitters.com/events. • FREE KNOXVILLE BICYCLE COMPANY THURSDAY GRAVEL GRINDER • North Boundary Trails • 6:30PM • Join Knoxville Bicycle Company every Thursday evening for their gravel grinder. Meets at 6:30 pm at North Boundary in Oak Ridge, park at the guard shack. Cross bikes and hardtails are perfect. Bring lights. Regroups as necessary. Call shop for more details. Weather permitting - call the store if weather is
Business
Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
questionable. knoxvillebicycleco.com. • CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • Join us every Thursday evening for a greenway ride at an intermediate pace of 14-15 mph. Must have lights. Weather permitting. cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE Friday, June 10 RIVER SPORTS FRIDAY NIGHT GREENWAY RUN • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Greenway run from the store every Friday evening from 6-7:30 pm. Work up a thirst then join us for $2 pints in the store afterwards. riversportsoutfitters.com. • FREE Sunday, June 12 KNOXVILLE HARDCOURT BIKE POLO • Sam Duff Memorial Park • 1PM • Don’t know how to play? Just bring your bike — we have mallets to share and will teach you the game. • FREE Monday, June 13 KTC GROUP RUN • Mellow Mushroom • 6PM • Visit ktc.org. • FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE TVB MONDAY NIGHT ROAD RIDE • Tennessee Valley Bikes • 6PM • The soon to be famous Monday night road ride happens every Monday. We usually split into two groups according to speed. Both groups are no-drop groups. The faster group averages over 17mph and the B group averages around 14mph. • FREE Tuesday, June 14
Product awareness
CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10:30AM • cycologybicycles.com. • FREE HARD KNOX TUESDAY FUN RUN • Hard Knox Pizzeria • 6:30PM • Join Hard Knox Pizzeria every Tuesday evening (rain or shine) for a 2-3 mile fun run. Burn calories. Devour pizza. Quench thirst. Follow us on Facebook. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES TUESDAY GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE Wednesday, June 15 KTC GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 5:30PM • Visit ktc.org. • FREE FOUNTAIN CITY PEDALERS SHARPS RIDGE MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE • Fountain City Pedaler • 6PM • Visit fcpedaler.com. • FREE TVB EASY RIDER MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE • Ijams Nature Center • 6PM • On Wednesday nights we hit the local trails for an easy-paced mountain bike ride. Riders of all skill levels are welcome, and if you would like to demo a mountain bike from our shop this is a great opportunity to do so. Rides are weather permitting. If the trails are too wet, we do not ride. Check out our Facebook page or give us a call at 865-540-9979 for more info. • FREE
ART
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 556 Parkway (Gatlinburg) APRIL 27-JUNE 25: Arrowmont staff exhibit, featuring artwork by Jeda Barr, Nick DeFord, Kelly Sullivan, Vickie
Bradshaw, Bill Griffith, Kelly Hider, Jennifer Blackburn, Ernie Schultz, Heather Ashworth, Laura Tuttle, Bob Biddlestone and Jason Burnett. MAY 21-AUG. 20: Arrowmont’s annual instructor exhibit. Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. MAY 31-JUNE 26: Artwork by Pat Herzog and Diana Dee Sarkar. An opening reception will be held on Friday, June 3, at 5:30 p.m. Bliss Home 24 Market Square JUNE 3-30: Photography by Brian Murray. An opening reception will be held on Friday, June 3, from 6-9 p.m. Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. JUNE 3-AUG. 19: Through the Lens of Ed Westcott, an exhibition of photos taken by the official photographer for the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge. An opening reception will be held on Friday, June 3, from 5-9 p.m. East Tennessee History Center 601 S. Gay St. APRIL 16-OCT. 30: Come to Make Records, a selection of artifacts, audio and video recordings, and photographs celebrating Knoxville’s music heritage and the 1929-30 St. James Hotel recording sessions. Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St.
Company goodwill
There’s never been a better time to “go public.” JUNE 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25 AT 8:00 PM JUNE 12, 19, 25, 26 AT 2:00 PM
WALTER STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOR TICKETS, VISIT WWW.ETCPLAYS.ORG OR CALL 423-318-8331 30
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
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Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
MAY 13-JUNE 27: Tennessee Watercolor Society 35th Biennial Exhibition. JUNE 3-24: Through Our Eyes, paintings by Kim Emert Gale and Janet Weaver; A Mosaic Journey, glass art by Judy Overholt Weaver; and the fourth annual Knoxville Photo Exhibition. Opening receptions will be held on Friday, June 3, from 5-9 p.m. Envision Art Gallery 4050 Sutherland Ave. JUNE 10-JULY 8: The Nature of Power, paintings by Marc H. Cline. An opening reception will be held on Friday, June 10, from 5-8 p.m. Fountain City Art Center 213 Hotel Road MAY 20-JUNE 16: Fountain City Art Guild Spring Show and Sale. Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive MAY 6-AUG. 7: Full Stop, a large-scale installation by painter Tom Burkhardt, and Contemporary Focus 2016, with artwork by installation/video/sound artist John Douglas Powers. 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 JUNE 4-AUG. 28: Dinosaur Discoveries: Ancient Fossils, New Ideas. ONGOING: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier. Westminster Presbyterian Church 6500 S. Northshore Drive THROUGH JUNE 26: Artwork by Donna Conliffe and Ann Dally.
FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS
Thursday, June 9 MCCLUNG MUSEUM DINO EXPLORERS CAMP • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 9AM • For ages 4–5. Scientific inquiry in activities, stories, make-andtake projects based on our new exhibition Dinosaur Discoveries: Ancient Fossils, New Ideas. June 7–9. Deadline for registration: May 31, 2016. For more details and registration information visit mcclungmuseum.utk. edu. • $35 Saturday, June 11 MCCLUNG MUSEUM FAMILY FUN DAY: IN THE LAND OF THE DINOSAURS • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 1PM • Join us for free a free Family Fun Day featuring activities, crafts, tours, and more. We’ll celebrate our special exhibition, Dinosaur Discoveries, with the theme “In the Land of the Dinosaurs.” All materials will be provided. The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not necessary. • FREE TREAT YO’ SELF DAY • Blount County Public Library • 2PM • .Teens will have plenty of opportunity to relax and express themselves in a stress-free environment. Be ready for art, music, dogs, cat videos, DIY spa stuff and more. For further information about library programs or services, call the library at 982-0981 or visit blountlibrary. org. • FREE
CALENDAR
Sunday, June 12 KMA ART ACTIVITY DAY • Knoxville Museum of Art • 1PM • Every second Sunday of each month, the KMA will host free drop-in art activities for families. A local artist will be on-site to lead hands-on art activities between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. • FREE Monday, June 13 KIDS IN THE ARTS SUMMER CAMP • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A week-long event to enhance your child’s summer experience by deepening their appreciation and learning of various arts forms including writing, art, media arts, games, comedy improv, storytelling, meditation and movement and more. Local talent including teachers and artists lead the classes. Please contact Karl Hess for more information. • $300 Tuesday, June 14 JURASSIC KIDS CAMP • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 9AM • Toddlers explore fossils and dinosaurs in our new exhibition, Dinosaur Discoveries. Ages 2-3 with caregiver. $20 for museum members. KIDS IN THE ARTS SUMMER CAMP • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A week-long event to enhance your child’s summer experience by deepening their appreciation and learning of various arts forms including writing, art, media arts, games, comedy improv, storytelling, meditation and movement and more. Local talent including teachers and artists lead the classes. Please contact Karl Hess for more information. • $300 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY KID TO KID: FUN WITH A PURPOSE • Cancer Support Community • 3:30PM • Your children will gain coping skills and have opportunities to talk about a loved one’s cancer diagnosis while also having fun. Please call before your first visit and RSVP. 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. Wednesday, June 15 JURASSIC KIDS CAMP • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 9AM • Toddlers explore fossils and dinosaurs in our new exhibition, Dinosaur Discoveries. Ages 2-3 with caregiver. $20 for museum members. KIDS IN THE ARTS SUMMER CAMP • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A week-long event to enhance your child’s summer experience by deepening their appreciation and learning of various arts forms including writing, art, media arts, games, comedy improv, storytelling, meditation and movement and more. Local talent including teachers and artists lead the classes. Please contact Karl Hess for more information. • $300 Thursday, June 16 KIDS IN THE ARTS SUMMER CAMP • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A week-long event to enhance your child’s summer experience by deepening their appreciation and learning of various arts forms including writing, art, media arts, games, comedy improv, storytelling, meditation and movement and more. Local talent including teachers and artists lead the classes. Please contact Karl Hess for more information. • $300 Friday, June 17 KIDS IN THE ARTS SUMMER CAMP • The Birdhouse • 10AM • Please contact Karl Hess for more information. • $300 A NIGHT AT THE MCCLUNG MUSEUM FAMILY SLEEPOVER • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 7PM • Join us for a Night at the McClung Museum–a family sleepover event and one-of-a-kind opportunity to spend the night with dinosaurs. • $50
Saturday, June 18 UT ARBORETUM FATHER’S DAY HIKE • University of Tennessee Arboretum (Oak Ridge) • 8:30AM • Just two days before the first day of summer, this is a great occasion to get some outdoor exercise with your children of any age. Wear clothes appropriate to the weather and good shoes for outdoor walking. For more information on the program, call the Arboretum at 483-3571. • FREE
LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS
Thursday, June 9 DANNY BERNSTEIN: ‘FORESTS, ALLIGATORS, BATTLEFIELDS’ • Union Ave Books • 6PM • Book signing with Danny Bernstein, author of Forests, Alligators, Battlefields: My Journey Through the National Parks of the South. • FREE
Knoxville’s BEST live music venue 6 nights a week!
Happy Hour 3pm to 8pm Huge selection of Craft, Import & Local beer Locally roasted coffee
Friday, June 10 WENDELL POTTER: ‘NATION ON THE TAKE’ • Union Ave Books • 6PM • Book signing with best-selling writer Wendell Potter, reading from his new book, Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It. • FREE Tuesday, June 14 MARK AND SHERRY FINCHUM: “CHEROKEE HERITAGE” • Seymour Public Library • 7PM • Mark and Sherry Finchum will discuss the roles of Cherokee men and women in the 18th century, as well as preserving Cherokee history and culture, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 14 at Seymour Public Library, 137 West Macon Lane, Seymour. The free event is part of the “How We Live: Then and Now” series sponsored by Friends of Seymour Library. For more information call the library at 865-573-0728. • FREE KNOXVILLE CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE • Bearden Banquet Hall • 7PM • Featuring notable historians and other Civil War experts. Call (865) 671-9001 for reservations. • $3-$17 Wednesday, June 15 DEWAINE SPEAKS AND RAY CLIFT: “EAST TENNESSEANS IN WORLD WAR II” • East Tennessee History Center • 12PM • Dewaine Speaks and Ray Clift will discuss their new book East Tennessee in World War II, the first comprehensive account of the accomplishments of East Tennessee soldiers and civilians during this critical time in the nation’s history. The book will be available for purchase and signing following the lecture.Guests are invited to bring a “Brown Bag” lunch and enjoy the lecture. Soft drinks will be available. For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at www. EastTNHistory.org. • FREE Saturday, June 18 SUNDRESS ACADEMY FOR THE ARTS READING SERIES • Bar Marley • 1PM • Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is pleased to announce the SAFTA Reading Series event of June, featuring authors William Woolfitt, Clifford Garstang, and Lyric Dunagan. The event will take place June 19th at 1p.m. in Bar Marley, located on Stone Street. William Woolfitt is the author of the poetry collections Beauty Strip (Texas Review Press, 2014) and Charles of the Desert (Paraclete Press, 2016). His fiction chapbook The Boy with Fire in His Mouth (2014) won the Epiphany Editions contest. Clifford Garstang is the author of What the Zhang Boys Know (Press 53, 2012), which won the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Fiction, and the
thur JUNE 9 • 8pm
open mic night! sign up starts at 7pm Happy hour 3pm-8pm free • All Ages ( open mic )
fri JUNE 10 • 7pm
Evie Andrus - Barefoot Sanctuary CD Release Party w/ Jubal $5 • All Ages ( Bluegrass )
SAT JUNE 11 • 8pm
oxymorons W/ Onehourphoto, Mr. ILL, Black Atticus $8 ADV | $10 Day OF All Ages ( Alternative Hip-Hop )
wed JUNE 15 • 8pm stump tail dolly w/ Ryan Sheley, Bohannons $5 • all ages ( metal / country )
"Coolest venue in town! Not too big, not too small. Great sound system and audio engineers. Lights show, good food, cold beer and a music store in the back. Oh, and they give lessons, too. Seriously? I still can't believe this place is real." -Austin Hall of Sam Killed The Bear
Knoxville’s Best Musical Instrument Store
8502 KINGSTON PIKE • (865) 281-5874 openchordmusic.com
June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 31
CALENDAR prize-winning short story collection In an Uncharted Country (Press 53, 2009). Lyric Dunagan graduated last month with her MFA in poetry from the University of Tennessee. Her poems have previously appeared in The Volta and New Madrid, among others. • FREE
CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS
Thursday, June 9 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 PORTRAIT AND LIFE DRAWING SESSIONS • Historic Candoro Marble Company • 2PM • Portrait and life drawing practice at Candoro Art & Heritage Center. $10. Call Brad Selph for more information (865-573-0709). • $10 KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • This class is an hour of student-led training and review of Capoeira skills and exercises. Come prepared to sweat. Visit knoxvillecapoeira.org. • $10 THIRSTY (FOR KNOWLEDGE) THURSDAY • Old City Wine Bar • 6PM • Join our sommelier, Matt Burke, every Thursday in the cellar of the Old City Wine Bar for our ongoing wine education series. Free to listen and only $20 to partake in
Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
the libations. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: HEALING THROUGH ART • Cancer Support Community • 1PM • No experience necessary. RSVP. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS: KILLER TOMATOES VS. TOMATO KILLERS • Humana Guidance Center • 3:15PM • Join Master Gardeners Joe Pardue and Marcia Griswold for a presentation on caring for tomatoes, including identifying tomato diseases and methods for protecting your plants. Call 865-329-8892. • FREE REI CAMPING BASICS • REI • 4:30PM • Have you wanted to try camping but don’t know how to get started? We will cover the basics: how to be comfortable camping, gear and equipment, fun activities; and great local areas to give it a try. Visit rei.com/stores/knoxville. • FREE Saturday, June 11 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10:30AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE KNOX HERITAGE PRESERVATION NETWORK • Knox Heritage • 10AM • Preservation Network is a series of free workshops held once every month on the second Saturday. The monthly workshops feature guest speakers who are specialists in windows, flooring, roofing, stained glass, tile, plumbing, electrical, and more. Other guest speakers have included those in real estate sales and appraisals, or city codes and zoning officials discussing historic overlays and building requirements.Knox Heritage preserves, restores and transforms historic places. For
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
Fisher Tire East Tennessee Sacred Circle Dance K-Town Vegans The Vegetarian Society of East Tennessee Seven Springs Yoga & Holistic Retreats
Nature & Soul Retreats Place Synergy, Plant Spirit Medicine Healing Beardsley Community Farm The Knoxville Mercury Curry Copy Center Three Rivers Market KidzCare Pediatrics
everyone. Forever. The nonprofit organization was founded in 1974 and now serves the entire 16-county Knoxville region. For more information visit www. knoxheritage.org. • FREE KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS: KILLER TOMATOES VS. TOMATO KILLERS • Bearden Branch Public Library • 1:30PM • Join Master Gardeners Joe Pardue and Marcia Griswold for a presentation on caring for tomatoes, including identifying tomato diseases and methods for protecting your plants. Call 865- 588-8813 or visit knoxlib.org. • FREE Sunday, June 12 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9:30AM • Narrow Ridge invites you to join us every Sunday morning for yoga instruction from Angela Gibson. This class can be tailored to each individual’s ability level. For information call 865-497-2753 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE CIRCLE MODERN DANCE BALLET BARRE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 1PM • This open-level barre class is designed to help students build and maintain strength, flexibility, and coordination for ballet technique. This is a great class for beginning and experienced students alike. • $10 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL MODERN TECHNIQUE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 2PM • This class is open to all. Teachers cover basic technique and vocabulary for modern and contemporary dance. The class includes floor and standing work to build proficiency in alignment, balance, initiation and articulation of movement, weight shift, elevation and
landing, and fall and recovery. Instruction is adjusted to meet the experience and ability of those in attendance. • $10 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE IMPROVISATION CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 3:30PM • Our improv classes offer an introduction to dance improvisation as a movement practice, performance technique, and a tool for creating choreography. Class involves both structured and free improvisations aimed at developing creativity, spontaneous decision-making, freedom of movement, and confidence in performance. No dance experience is necessary—only the desire to move. • $10 ROOFTOP YOGA • Central Collective • 6:30PM • Take your practice outside and breathe in some fresh air. This class will be accessible to all levels, and will include some breath and body awareness at the beginning to help calm the mind and get centered for class. • $10 Monday, June 13 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-5772021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. KNOXVILLE KETTLEBELL CLUB BEGINNERS CHALLENGE: STRENGTH AND STABILITY • Bullman’s Kickboxing and Krav Maga • 9:30AM • Have you been looking for a way to get fitter, happier, and healthier? Do you have any nagging injuries and are looking for a program that will accommodate your current level of fitness and also take you to the next level of strength and stability? Join us for
Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
this six-week series introducing the ancient strength-training kettlebell workout to make modern life feel better. Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m., starting May 23. • $180 SIX-WEEK CREATIVE WRITING INTENSIVE CLASS • The Birdhouse • 6PM • This summer, join journalist and poet Holly Haworth for a six-week creative writing intensive. This very exciting course will focus on establishing a regular practice, honoring the wildness of the entire writing process, writing as discovery, finding your most important stories, making space for your creativity, and sustaining inspiration. Entire course is $250. Participants must sign up for entire six-week course. Pre-registration required. Contact instructor Holly Haworth at olmountaingal@gmail.com or at (865) 801.0806. • $250 GREG ROWE: “DAY HIKING IN THE SMOKIES” • Blount County Public Library • 7PM • The workshop will address the “10 essentials to include in your pack” as well as best footwear for day hiking. There will also be recommendations for trekking poles.An avid outdoorsman and nature lover, Rowe is a proficient backpacker, paddler, cyclist, runner, and hiker. He and Little River Trading Company co-owner Charles Woody have a combined 60 years of retail experience, along with their shared enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, outdoor activities and nature hobbies. • FREE Tuesday, June 14 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.
KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Capoeira originated in Brazil and is a dynamic expression of Afro-Brazilian culture. It is an art form that encompasses martial arts, dance, and acrobatic movements as well as its own philosophy, history, culture, music, and songs. Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 ACROYOGA • Dragonfly Aerial Arts Studio • 7PM • Fly with us! Each class is beginner friendly, incorporating intermediate options for more experienced fliers. New content is explored each week while reviewing components taught in previous classes, providing a space for students to form strong foundational skills in flying, basing, and spotting. Each session ends with therapeutics or Thai massage. Please bring a mat, close fitting long pants, and water. No partner needed. • $15 SIX-WEEK NATURE-WRITING COURSE • Ijams Nature Center • 6PM • This summer, join journalist, poet, and Southern Appalachian naturalist Holly Haworth for a six-week nature-writing course at Ijams Nature Center. Your writing desk will be 300 acres of protected wildlife habitat along the Tennessee River (or, in the case of rain, an open-air covered pavilion at the old Ijams homesite). Entire six-week course is $250. For more information or to register, please contact Holly directly at olmountaingal@ gmail.com or (865) 801.0806. • $250 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY NUTRITION AMMUNITION • Cancer Support Community • 12PM • Call (865) 546-4611. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. Wednesday, June 15
CALENDAR
CIRCLE MODERN DANCE INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED MODERN TECHNIQUE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • A rotation of core members and guest artists of Circle Modern Dance teach this class. They present a variety of modern and contemporary styles, including Bartenieff and release-based techniques. This class is primarily designed for students with a basic knowledge of modern dance technique and vocabulary, but is open to any mover who is willing to be challenged. CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL BALLET CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 7:30PM • This is a basic ballet class open to students of all levels of experience and ability. Students will learn new steps, build coordination and flexibility, and learn choreography. • $10 KNOXVILLE KETTLEBELL CLUB BEGINNERS CHALLENGE: STRENGTH AND STABILITY • Bullman’s Kickboxing and Krav Maga • 9:30AM • Have you been looking for a way to get fitter, happier, and healthier? Do you have any nagging injuries and are looking for a program that will accommodate your current level of fitness and also take you to the next level of strength and stability? Join us for this six-week series introducing the ancient strength-training kettlebell workout to make modern life feel better. Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m., starting May 23. • $180 BACKPACKING IN THE SMOKIES • REI • 4:30PM and 7:30PM • REI will take the mystery out of Smokies backpacking with an overview of planning, preparation and gear. Along with local information, learn how to choose a pack, select proper clothing and footwear. • FREE
MEETINGS
Thursday, June 9 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY LEUKEMIA, LYMPHOMA, AND MYELOMA NETWORKER • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • This drop-in group is open for those with leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and myeloproliferative disorders and their support persons. Participants will be able to exchange information, discuss concerns and share experiences. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. KNOXVILLE LANDLORD SUMMIT • 8AM • Continuing on the success of the initial Landlord Summit last November, the City of Knoxville is hosting a second Landlord Summit for property owners and managers from across the city. It will provide resources and information to help landlords make rental units more energy-efficient and affordable for tenants.The event is free, and all are encouraged to attend to learn about the many programs available to landlords in Knoxville. Topics at the summit will include the new Cooperative Agreements to Benefit Homeless Individuals (CABHI) program, Section 8 rent assistance, free lead testing, programs to assist military veterans with housing, Tennessee landlord-tenant rules, and fair housing laws.For more information visit: www.KEEMteam. com or http://www.knoxvilletn.gov/government/city_departments_offices/community_development/. • FREE Saturday, June 11 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Al-Anon’s
June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33
CALENDAR purpose is to help families and friends of alcoholics recover from the effects of living with the problem drinking of a relative or friend. Visit our local website at farragutalanon.org or email us at FindHope@ Farragutalanon.org. • FREE CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY PROSTATE CANCER NETWORKER • Cancer Support Community • 10AM • This drop-in group is an opportunity for men to network with other men about their experiences with prostate cancer. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. Sunday, June 12 NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • Narrow Ridge invites you to join us for our Silent Meditation Gathering on Sundays. The gatherings are intended to be inclusive of people of all faiths as well as those who do not align themselves with a particular religious denomination. For information call 865-497-2753 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE THREE RIVERS! EARTH FIRST! • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 7PM • Three Rivers! Earth First! is the local dirt worshiping, tree hugging, anarchist collective that meets every Sunday night on the second floor of Barley’s in the back room (when its available) to organize against strip mining, counter protest the KKK and Nazis, to clean up Third Creek and to fight evil corporations in general. Open meeting, rotating facilitation, collective model. Y’all come. Call (865)
Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
257-4029 for more information. • FREE SKEPTIC BOOK CLUB • Books-A-Million • 2PM • The book club of the Rationalists of East Tennessee meets on the second Sunday of every month. Visit rationalists.org. • FREE INTERFAITH PRIDE SERVICE • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 2PM • Come join us for an interfaith service in anticipation of PrideFest. This will be a gathering of people of all faiths who affirm and promote equality and inclusion for all people. We will celebrate freedom through upbeat music and uplifting words. If you are tired of the culture wars and the bathroom brawls come join us and together we will find peace. This service is being hosted by Unity Transformation and supported by people from many other faith traditions. • FREE REFUGE RECOVERY • Refuge Recovery • 8:30PM • A peer-led weekly group gathering to supplement your dedicated practice (AA, NA, Smart Recovery, etc.) for recovery from addictions of all kinds. Buddhism recognizes a non-theistic approach to spiritual practice. The Refuge Recovery program does not ask anyone to believe anything, only to trust the process and do the hard work of recovery. All are welcome to join us in investigating the practices of mindfulness, compassion, forgiveness, and generosity to heal the pain addiction has caused in our lives and the lives of others. Hosted by Losel Shedrup Ling. Contact David at 865-306-0279 for any further questions. • FREE Monday, June 13 GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley
Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • We hold facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org. Tuesday, June 14 ATHEISTS SOCIETY OF KNOXVILLE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 5:30PM • Weekly atheists meetup and happy hour. Come join us for food, drink and great conversation. Everyone welcome. • FREE HARVEY BROOME GROUP OF THE SIERRA CLUB • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7PM • The Sierra Club is a national, member-supported environmental organization that seeks to influence public policy in Washington D.C., in the state capitals, and locally through public education and grass-roots political action. The Harvey Broome Group undertakes important conservation issues, offers year-round outings to enhance appreciation of the outdoors, and presents monthly programs that range from experts in environmental issues to entertaining speakers who have explored our world. • FREE Wednesday, June 15 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY WOMEN WITH ADVANCED CANCER NETWORKER • Cancer Support Community • 1:30PM • Join other women who are living with cancer as a chronic illness to discuss feelings and experiences that are unique to women with advanced cancer. Please call before your first visit. Call 865-546- 4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.
THE SOUTHERN LITERATURE BOOK CLUB • Union Ave Books • 6PM • Union Ave Books’ monthly discussion group about Southern books and writers. Visit unionavebooks.com. • FREE ORION ASTRONOMY CLUB • The Grove Theater (Oak Ridge) • 7PM • ORION is an amateur science and astronomy club centered in Oak Ridge that was founded in April 1974 by a group of scientists at the United States Department of Energy facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. We serve Oak Ridge, Knoxville, and the counties of Anderson, Knox, and Roane.We meet on the third Wednesday of each month for coffee and conversation, and our program begins 15 minutes thereafter. • FREE
ETC.
Thursday, June 9 MARBLE SPRINGS SHOPPING AT THE FARM FARMER’S MARKET • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 3PM • Marble Springs State Historic Site is proud to present the sixtth season of Shopping at the Farm, the Marble Springs Farmer’s Market for our South Knoxville community. The market will be held Thursdays from 3-6 p.m. beginning on May 19 and continuing weekly through Sept. 22. All vendors will be selling fresh, locally-produced products, and artisan crafts. This year we will be allowing the addition of antiques vendors. • FREE THE BIG FAKE WEDDING • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 7PM • Brides- and grooms-to-be are invited to
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
Thursday, June 9 - Sunday, June 19
attend Knoxville’s inaugural The Big Fake Wedding. “Wedding guests” are brides- and grooms-to-be who enjoy an emotional vow renewal ceremony, a tasty cocktail-style dinner, and a dance-party reception while experiencing local wedding vendors in action. Tickets for this event are $25 and may be purchased at www.thebigfakewedding.com. • $25 KNOXVILLE SQUARE DANCE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • Jubilee Community Arts presents Knoxville Square Dance with live old-time music by The Helgramites and calling by Stan Sharp, Ruth Simmons and Leo Collins. No experience or partner is necessary and the atmosphere is casual. (No taps, please.) • $7 Friday, June 10 EAST TENNESSEE WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP SUMMIT • Hilton Knoxville Airport • 8AM • Michelle Stacey and Joan Wright are just the women you need to share perspectives on this year’s East Tennessee Women’s Leadership Summit. Stacey, who is the luncheon speaker, has a 35-year leadership career that culminated in her being president of Keurig, Inc. During a morning session, attendees will hear from Joan Wright, who led the executive leadership development program at Wachovia. Wright understands all about taking action, as she demonstrated when she summited Mount Kilimanjaro. Registration for the full day is $99 until April 30th; $129 from May 1st until June 3rd; $200 after June 3rd. To register, or to find more information about the conference go to www.easttnwomensls.com. • $99-$200
LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM • Offering a wide variety of hand-picked produce, artisan breads, grass-fed beef, natural pork and chicken, farm fresh eggs and farm-based crafts. • FREE Saturday, June 11 SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET • First Baptist Church Seymour • 8AM • Open from 8 a.m. to noon every Saturday from June to the second Saturday in October. Locally grown fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey, baked goods and crafts sold by the person who produced it. • FREE MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM • The MSFM, a project of Nourish Knoxville, is an open-air farmers’ market located on historic Market Square in the heart of downtown Knoxville. We are a producer only market – everything is either made, grown or raised by our vendors all within a 150 mile radius of the MSFM. Visit marketsquarefarmersmarket. org. • FREE OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM • The market offers seasonal vegetables, herbs, fruits and berries, honey, artisan bread and cheese, grass-fed beef and naturally raised chicken, pork and lamb, farm-based crafts, flowers and potted plants. • FREE NICHOLAS GIBBS HISTORICAL SOCIETY OPEN HOUSE • Unnamed Venue • 11AM • Have you ever wondered how the Gibbs Community got its name? A revolutionary war hero named Nicholas Gibbs and his family was among the first white settlers in the area of what is now
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known as the Gibbs Community. The Nicholas Gibbs Historical Society invites anyone who is interested in learning more to attend an open house on Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 11:00 am at the original log home at 7633 East Emory Road, near Harbison’s Crossroads. From Harbison’s Crossroads in Gibbs, travel northeast on Emory Road about 1/2 mile and the house is on the left. • FREE
more information about the UT Farmers’ Market you can visit the market website: vegetables.tennessee.edu/ utfm.html or find it on Facebook. • FREE OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 3PM • The market offers seasonal vegetables, herbs, fruits and berries, honey, artisan bread and cheese, grass-fed beef and naturally raised chicken, pork and lamb, farm-based crafts, flowers and potted plants. • FREE
Tuesday, June 14 EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS MARKET • Ebenezer United Methodist Church • 3PM • The market offers hand-picked produce in season, artisan breads and cheese, grass-fed meat and farm fresh eggs. • FREE
Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com
Wednesday, June 15 MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 11AM • The MSFM, a project of Nourish Knoxville, is an open-air farmers’ market located on historic Market Square in the heart of downtown Knoxville. We are a producer only market – everything is either made, grown or raised by our vendors all within a 150 mile radius of the MSFM. Visit marketsquarefarmersmarket. org. • FREE UT FARMERS MARKET • University of Tennessee • 4PM • Since 2010, the UT Farmers Market has provided a venue for area producers to sell healthful, local food to the greater Knoxville area. This year the market is expanding its community offerings. The UT Farmers Market is free and open to the public every Wednesday from 4-7 p.m. in the UT Gardens off Neyland Drive. Market activities will be scheduled through Oct. 19. For
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*Disclaimer: Winners will be chosen at random by the Knoxville Mercury from weekly submissions. Winners will be notified in advance. (1 pair of tickets per winner.) NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void where prohibited. Must be a legal U.S. resident, 18 years of age or older, and not be a sponsor or an employee, family member, or household member of a sponsor. Once notified, winner has 24 hours to respond. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. Sponsor: Knoxville Mercury, 706 Walnut Ave., Suite 404, Knoxville, TN 37902.
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June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35
’BYE
R estless Nat ive
Carp Surprise The ladies of Society receive a fishy story BY CHRIS WOHLWEND
T
he “Society” section of the Knoxville Journal was produced by three women, all of whom were “of” the milieu. Their work domain was a separate office, befitting their status and, probably, to shield them from the raucous activity of the newsroom. The three finished their workday at 5 p.m., just when the rest of the newsroom was beginning its deadline runs. The lights of their office would be turned off, the door shut, the office a quiet refuge in a noisy, profane world. So it was the place of choice for those who needed peace and quiet—to make a personal phone call, to sleep off a nasty hangover, to pass out from a long, whiskey-fueled day. It was also clean and neat, something that most of the newsroom was not. The Society ladies kept their desks clear of everything except a telephone and in-and-out baskets. A person in need of rest had only to carefully move a couple of items to have space for an aching head. During my tenure at the Journal, more than once a rim-rat (as copy-desk denizens were known) who had gone missing would be found asleep in Society. The department was womaned by two long-time employees and a third, younger helper. The third person would be someone just out of Smith or Vassar or Sweet Briar, needing work experience until a suitable husband-to-be was snared. Sometimes the third person, still impressionable, would be drawn to the newsroom antics and would linger at
36
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
the desk of one of the reporters, entranced by a lurid tale of crime from a police reporter, or an unprintable story of moral degeneracy from the political realm. The latter might even involve someone widely known in her circle. Most of the rim-rats, gracious though they might be to the Society ladies in person, made fun of them when it was time to proof-read their pages. One night, as a weekly feature involving a recipe sent in by a reader was being proofed, a theory was born: The Society ladies did not pay attention to the recipes. A plot was concocted. What if a bogus recipe, a recipe for an outrageous dish, was mailed in—would Society recognize it as a prank? To test our theory, Carp Surprise was created. Carp is a bottom-feeding fish that is seldom eaten, but, for our experiment, we imagined it stuffed with a spinach mixture spiced with nutmeg and sweetened with just a touch of sorghum. There were other ingredients in the stuffing as well, ingredients selected to make an unpalatable fish even more sickening. Suitably stuffed, the fish would then be baked to a golden hue. A reader was invented, given a bogus Sequoyah Hills address, and the recipe was typed up and mailed to the Journal, attention of the Reader’s Recipes editor. The Society ladies, ignorant of bottom-feeders in general, had, within a couple of weeks, edited our Carp Surprise entry, headlined it, and sent
it to the composing room to be set into type. (The printers charged with handling the copy had been tipped off to our plot.) Our theory was proved. Now, if our concoction could just make the newspaper. But it was not to be. Unfortunately, the managing editor, by sheer chance, happened to see the page proof. A former outdoors editor and a longtime fisherman, he immediately detected the odor of a rat—a rim-rat. There was a quick phone call to the Society editor. Our creation was tossed. The Society office was the breeding ground for other late-night pranks, too. Initiation tradition for new reporters involved a phony obituary or phony story. An outrageous obituary might be called in to the neophyte from one of the phones in Society. Such efforts were not intended for publication—the victim would be laughed at
BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY
and his notes thrown away. One of the more memorable involved a Hawkins County farmer whose named survivors included Furry, his pet squirrel. In another, a sports clerk was given information on a McMinn County football game that involved a touchdown that was worth only one point “because it was from the one-yard line.” And the office refuge had other uses, too, especially after midnight when girlfriends would visit. A dark room, a door that closed—to employ that hoary Society-section cliche, a good time was had by all. But that’s another column. ◆ Chris Wohlwend’s Restless Native addresses the characters and absurdities of Knoxville, as well as the lessons learned pursuing the newspaper trade during the tumult that was the 1960s. He now teaches journalism part-time at the University of Tennessee.
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FOR YOUR HOME OR BUSINESS!
Stop in Late for Nightly Specials
’ 842 N. Central Ave 851-7854 AVAILABLE FOR PRIVATE PARTIES!
hollyseventfuldining.com
$6 Daily Lunch Specials Ever changing. Always delicious. ONE OF A KIND GIFTS • STAINED AND LEADED GLASS YARD ART • POSTERS & PRINTS • UNIQUE DECOR
12pm-6pm Tue-Fri 10am-5pm Sat • 12pm-5pm Sun 865.414.4838 or 865.696.7777 820 N. Broadway • Knoxville TN www.architecturalanticstn.com
Created only from the freshest local ingredients.
Open till 3am Wed-Sat Open till 1am Sun, Mon, & Tue 1204 Central St., Knoxville 865.247.0392 flatsandtaps.com June 9, 2016
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37
’BYE
Spir it of the Staircase
BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY
38
KNOXVILLE MERCURY June 9, 2016
www.thespiritofthestaircase.com
CLASSIFIEDS
Place your ad at store.knoxmercury.com
Support the Knoxville Mercury and sell your stuff by purchasing an ad in our classifieds section.
FOR SALE
FUN AND FESTIVE JEWELRY, local and handmade, unique and modern, repurposed vintage beads, hand-painted geometric necklaces, and more. etsy.com/shop/triciabee
JOIN OUR REVOLUTION
HOUSING
Got a strong background in sales? Want to sell something that brings true value to our community? Let’s talk. The Knoxville Mercury offers a one-of-a-kind product to our readers and to our clients. It has unlimited potential to expand its place in Knoxville’s media marketplace. So we’re expanding our sales team— we need people with big ideas and the ability to execute them well.
NORTH KNOXVILLE’S PREMIER RENTAL HOMES pittmanproperties.com
SERVICES
COMMUNITY
DANE KRISTOF, The popular Nashville psychic and clairvoyant that the tabloids call,” the Seer of Music Row,” is accepting appts. for when he is in Knoxville this month. One Nashville paper said, “This guy’s the real deal. He starts by telling you little known things that only you could know not to impress you but to add validation to the reading.” Call (615)4294053 for a Knoxville appt. – www.DaneKristof.com. PLACE YOUR AD AT STORE.KNOXMERCURY.COM
ANGELO - is a 2 month old Male DSH – spunky and fun!!!!! If you have extra time to give to a kitty, this is your guy. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.
BEN - is back, and needs someone to teach him manners! He’s perfect for an active family. Give this loving gentleman a second chance. Visit Young- Williams Animal Center / call 865-2156599 for more information.
TINY - is a 100 pound American Bull Dog/ Pit Bull Terrier mix! He’s a gentle giant that needs to go to a loving home. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.
GINGER - is a 1 year old Female Domestic Shorthair/Mix. She starts her purr engine every time someone walks by! Great snuggle buddy. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.
Join us at the
Ramsey House Annual Meeting Tuesday June 21, 2016 at 5:30 pm East Tennessee History Center 601 S. Gay Street
Help us grow!
ADVERTISING SALES Account Executive position available. See a full job description at knoxmercury.com/careers. Apply with a cover letter and resume: charlie@knoxmercury.com
Author Jerry Ellis will have a meet and greet along with a book signing. A light supper will be available at 6:15 pm, with a program to follow. This event is open to the public. Mr. Ellis is the author of Walking the Trail; One Mans Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears. He was the first man in modern history to actually walk the 900 miles that the Cherokee followed. He sold all of his worldly possessions and slept in woods or fields for most of the journey.
Tickets for Ramsey House members $20, non-members $25. For reservations please call 865-546-0745. Historic Ramsey House 2614 Thorngrove Pike, Knoxville, TN 37914 www.ramseyhouse.org
June 9, 2016
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