Vol. 2, Issue 35 - Sept. 8, 2016

SEPT. 8, 2016 KNOXMERCURY.COM

SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME V.

2 / N.35

ADMIT ADM D M I ONE ADULT • NOT FOR RESALES •

NEWS

Local Developer Faces Lawsuits and Liens as Real Estate Holdings Grow

JACK NEELY

Chilhowee’s Jacob Building: Where Knoxville Discovered Rock ’n’ Roll

MUSIC

Indie-Pop/Folk Duo Sylvan Esso Assess Their Unexpected Success

DATE: 09.08.2016

OUTSIDE INSIDER

How to Jump Into the Knoxville Paddleboarding Scene (In Every Sense)

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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 FALL SERIES

September 9th featuring John Myers Band September 16th featuring The Royal Hounds September 23rd featuring Aftah Party September 30th featuring Andy “T”– Nick Nixon Band October 14th featuring “AA5 23rd Anniversary” with The BlairXperience November 4th featuring Stacy Mitchhart Band November 11th featuring C. Vaughn Leslie & Boys’ Night Out November 18th featuring Big John Atkinson Blues Revue featuring Alabama Mike December 9th featuring “Holiday Dance Party!” with Soul Connection

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

Sept. 8, 2016 Volume 02 / Issue 35 knoxmercury.com

CONTENTS

“When you start recognizing that you’re having fun, life can be delightful.” —Jane Birkin

10 A&E Fall Guide 2016 COVER STORY

Not too long ago, you could reasonably complain that there wasn’t much to do in Knoxville. That’s changed over the last decade or so. Now you’re more likely to hear people say that there’s too much to do—that there are so many events scheduled during certain peak weekends that nobody can fit it all in. So, in consideration of the logistical challenges that Knoxvillians face when planning an evening out, here’s our annual guide to the fall arts and entertainment season.

NEWS

8 Real Estate Wranglings If all had gone as planned, Gay Street would now be home to a Carolina Ale House restaurant and brewery, and a new Wild Wing Cafe. Instead, both of those prospective business expansions soured, ending in lawsuits totaling millions of dollars against a prominent Knoxville developer who has scooped up dozens of high-profile properties in downtown Knoxville in recent years, many of which still sit fallow. Clay Duda reports.

Wish Knoxville a Happy Birthday!

As the city celebrates its 225th anniversary on Oct. 3, we will be marking the occasion with a special history supplement on Sept. 29. And for $25 you can be in it with a birthday message to Knoxville. Go to: store.knoxmercury.com.

DEPARTMENTS

OPINION

A&E

4 5

6

18

36

Letters to the Editor Howdy Start Here: Dumpster Dive, Public Affairs, and PechaKucha Knoxville—each week, we run a slide from an interesting local presentation. ’Bye Finish There: New columnist!

Angie Vicars introduces That ’70s Girl. Plus Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely and Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray

Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely discovers that the hippest place in town is actually Chilhowee’s Jacob Building.

21 20 21

CALENDAR Program Notes: The Smoky Mountain Burlesque Festival brings on the glamor.

Shelf Life: Chris Barrett shares some interesting items recently donated to the Knox County Public Library.

Music: Ryan Reed talks with Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath.

Movies: Lee Gardner enjoys hearing from Werner Herzog in Werner Herzog’s Lo and Behold.

22

Spotlights: The very first James Agee Conference for Literature and Arts, and Hogskin History Day at Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center

OUTDOORS

34

Outside Insider Kim Trevathan attempts to learn how to paddleboard.

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3

EDITOR’S NOTE

W

Hats Off to Clay Duda

hen we pitched Knoxville on the idea of helping us start a weekly news magazine back in December 2014, we made several promises: We would report stories that otherwise wouldn’t be told. We would offer in-depth journalism that reveals what’s at stake in our community. We would provide context and nuance rather than yet more pointless clickbait.

Of course, at the time, we didn’t quite know how we were going to pull that off. Investigative journalists are a dying breed. Despite the fact that most of us are inundated by media all day, every day, much of it isn’t real reporting at all. It’s conjecture, opinion, listicles, and cute puppy videos—things that reaffirm our preconceptions of how the world works and provide us with convenient scapegoats to blame stuff on. Social-media sharing has created a booming job market for conspiracy theorists, not reporters. So actually finding one available to hire is a challenge. And in our particular situation—a startup funded by donations—finding someone brave enough to take the job is even more difficult.

Fortunately, Heather Duncan, a superb reporter from Macon, Ga.’s Telegraph, was already living in Knoxville and looking for a part-time

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

job. Unfortunately, however, working her to death did not appear to be a viable option—she has a family, after all. Therefore, we also needed to find a full-time staff writer. The job requirements looked something like this: • Must have strong news-reporting experience, with a focus on investigative journalism. Data reporting a plus.

• Must be able to write magazine-style stories that engage readers with a literary approach to storytelling and be able to tackle a wide range of subjects.

• Must be able to shoot your own photographs, and they better be really good ones since we usually can’t afford to hire professionals.

• Must be well-versed in website management on a technical level, because we aren’t.

• Must be willing to quit your job, ask your spouse to quit her job, move all of your earthly possessions—and your pit bull—across the country, settle down in a city you’ve only visited before, and begin work at a paper that can offer no guarantee of prolonged employment.

• Bonus points for having a well-developed sense of ethics, a pleasant personality, and sanity.

Surprisingly enough, we received a lot of applications—but one candidate hit all the targets: Clay Duda. Which is why the Mercury, and Knoxville, will miss his many talents. It takes a certain intrepidness to quit a (somewhat) secure corporate job and bet your career on people you’ve never actually met before—and it’s that same sense of adventure that now calls to Clay and his wife, Melissa. They have decided to leave Knoxville for a six-month sojourn, hiking through South America. It’s one of those bucket-list things: “I’m not getting any younger,” as Clay (in his early 30s) puts it.

His stories about Knoxville have illuminated a lot of dark places: from a heroin user’s drug-buying routine to a day in the life of a homeless man. He sorted out the entanglements of bureaucracy, showing how public policies that take years of crafting can inevitably be ignored in the real world, as with hilltop development guidelines.

He shared viewpoints and concerns from segments of the Knoxville community that often get purposely ignored, such as LGBTQ students at the University of Tennessee or young black activists from the east side of town. He reported on unpleasant situations relevant to public discourse, from a federal investigation of Knox County Schools for discrimination to complicated real estate shenanigans (in this issue). And all of his stories were reported with fairness and depth, qualities that we must hold ever more dear in our media.

Our community has benefited from Clay’s reporting, not to mention Melissa’s hair-styling at Lox Salon.

Perhaps, once they satisfy their wanderlust, they’ll find themselves back in Knoxville. (It’s been known to happen.) In the meantime, we’ll begin our search for a new journalist to enlist.

And, if you’re reading this in time, you can join us in wishing them well at their going-away party: Thursday, Sept. 8, starting at 5:30 p.m. at Crafty Bastard Brewery. (6 Emory Place).

—Coury Turczyn, ed.

Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015

EDITORIAL 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

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

INTERNS

Hayley Brundige Maria Smith

DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Charlie Finch

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 ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Michael Tremoulis michael@knoxmercury.com

BUSINESS BUSINESS MANAGER Scott Dickey scott.dickey@knoxmercury.com

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 618 South Gay St., Suite L2, Knoxville, TN 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 Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Joe Sullivan 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

HOWDY DUMPSTER highlights DIVE Weekly from our blog Read more at knoxmercury.com/blog UT CHATTANOOGA DROPS ANIMAL USE In a triumph for a nonprofit fighting the use of live animals in medical training, the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga—the last holdout in the nation—announced that it is abandoning the practice. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine had been pressuring the college since 2006; an online petition garnered almost 31,600 signatures.

Photo by Jonathon Smith

PECHA KUCHA NIGHT KNOXVILLE OLD HARP | Jeremy Shipp | May 07, 2015 Knoxville’s old harp singers taught Jeremy Shipp to sing, using an oblong shape-note tune book published in Knoxville in 1867. Old harp is the tradition and community of singing from this book. If you show up, you’re a singer. Each singer takes a turn choosing a song and leading it from the center of the hollow square, and the unaccompanied four-part harmony is a raw, visceral, ancient sound. There is no audience, only singers... and a potluck dinner on the grounds. | Watch the 6-minute presentation at pechakucha.org/cities/knoxville

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

9/8 WORKSHOP: NEIGHBORHOOD GROUPS 9/9 MOVIES ON MARKET SQUARE THURSDAY

6-8 p.m., United Way Building (1301 Hannah Ave.).

Free.

Get organized! The City of Knoxville’s Office of Neighborhoods will share ideas for bringing power to the people with this class on how to start a neighborhood organization. Marshal your neighborhood forces and attend! Register at: 865-215-3232 or dmassey@ knoxvilletn.gov.

FRIDAY

Dusk, Market Square. Free.

The Movies on Market Square series returns for a new season of outdoor family-friendly film screenings—it’s kind of like a drive-in theater, only with lawn chairs.

Kicking things off is Disney’s The Fox and the Hound from 1981. Buzzfeed recently declared it “The Most Tragic Disney Film Ever Made.” Screenings continue each week through Oct. 14. More titles at knoxlib.org/ movies.

9/12 AN EVENING WITH MAYOR ROGERO MONDAY

5:45-7 p.m., 17 Market Square #201. Free.

While it may sound like the mayor is launching her new cabaret act, this is actually the quarterly meeting of the Downtown Knoxville Residents group and Mayor Rogero is the featured speaker. The mayor will “provide updates on the city’s current initiatives, discuss plans for the coming years, and answer questions about downtown.” Now’s your chance to complain about those new Cylon parking meters!

OUR CHEFS’ ROUNDTABLE: OUTTAKES Lonesome Dove chef Tim Love: “When I opened my first restaurant, I used every bit of money I had—it was $76,000 I had saved up over three years. I redid a 1,500-square-foot space and sat in a fetal position underneath my desk, praying that people would show up, every day. I still have that feeling.”

GROUP LAUNCHES TENN. CAMPAIGN In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a Texas law limiting abortion clinics, a national abortion rights group has launched a campaign to turn Tennesseans against similar laws here. NARAL Pro-Choice America sent national staff to Tennessee a few weeks ago to kick-start its “Tennessee Total Access” project, which aims to establish networks of abortion-access supporters in urban areas. The first event in Knoxville is a feminist trivia night at 6 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 7 at Saw Works Brewing Company.

9/14 FUNDRAISER: NOODLE BOWL FESTIVAL WEDNESDAY

6-8:30 p.m., Blue Slip Winery at Historic Southern Railway Station (300 W. Depot Ave.). $30.

The second edition of this fundraiser for student chefs

by Chefs Collaborative Knoxville offers many enticements: Asian-style noodles by Savory and Sweet, Kaizen, Knox Mason, Bull’s BBQ, Oliver Royale, and Blue Slip Winery. Plus: craft beers from Alliance Brewing Company, Blackhorse Pub & Brewery, Crafty Bastard, Last Days of Autumn, and more. Info: facebook.com/ChefsCollaborativeKnoxville.

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5

SCRUFFY CITIZEN

Chilhowee Rock Can the Jacob Building ever be that cool again?

BY JACK NEELY

W

hen you’re at the Tennessee Valley Fair this week, in the Jacob Building perusing the canned-vegetable exhibits, the quilt show, the student-art exhibit, watching the cake-decoration demonstration, it might be easy to forget you’re in the building where Knoxville discovered rock ’n’ roll.

I can’t claim to know what the first bona-fide rock show in Knoxville was. But chances are it was in this building.

Today, the Jacob Building is never known for cutting-edge productions, unless you count knife shows. The Jacob Building was built in 1941 to replace the grander old exposition building that had burned down before it. It sometimes hosted trade shows in the daytime, but at night it was a performance space, a dance hall. The public library’s “From Papers to Pixels” project offers us hints of a narrative we haven’t heard before.

In its early days, the tail end of big-band jazz, Chilhowee Park attracted black and white acts and audiences evenly: Buddy Rich, Sammy Kaye, Cab Calloway, Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie all performed big shows there in the ‘40s.

By the early ’50s, it was hosting mainly black R&B—as the music was evolving into something slightly different.

Roy Brown was here on June 3, 1951, with his own Mighty, Mighty Man Orchestra, along with Ruth Brown, “Queen of R&B,” and saxman Willis Jackson. Today his hit, “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” is a familiar song covered later by rock ’n’ roll or

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

rockabilly bands. It was called “jump blues,” not rock, when Brown performed it at Chilhowee Park. But it offered a hint of what was to come.

A few months later, a show on March 27, 1952 featured 26-year-old B.B. King and H-Bomb Ferguson. A few weeks later, Lloyd Price, whose “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” came out that year, performed here for Emancipation Day, Aug. 8—returning at the end of that year for a New Year’s Eve show.

Fats Domino played at Chilhowee Park in late November 1952 with his “all-Negro recording dance band.”

The New Orleans piano player and singer was just 24 at the time. This show was before any of his national hit songs, like “Ain’t That a Shame” and “Blueberry Hill.” According to legends older than I am, “I’m Walkin’” was quietly co-written by Knoxville gambler, bootlegger, and music promoter Freddie Logan. He was responsible for many of these shows.

Big Mama Thornton, who made an R&B hit of “Hound Dog”—only later to be recorded by Elvis Presley— was at Chilhowee in May 1954. With her was Johnny Ace, the R&B crooner who would later that year accidentally kill himself with a pistol.

Only after that did the term “rock and roll” first started showing up in print. On May 1, 1956, Fats Domino, whose shows later that year would spark riots, returned to that venue fronting a “Big Rock ’n’ Roll Party” with a pretty incredible lineup. With him was Georgia-born madman Little Richard, the Clovers, the Cadillacs, Ruth Brown, and others. Little Richard returned later that October with Big Joe Turner,

Etta James, the Moonglows, the Five Keys, and the Five Satins.

Bo Diddley arrived in June 1957 with a legendary-sounding show that included the Coasters, Ruth Brown, Paul “Hucklebuck” Williams, the jazz saxophonist who’s considered a progenitor of rock; the Drifters, Smiley (“I Hear You Knocking”) Lewis, and others.

In February 1958, Chuck Berry, at the height of his fame, and Larry Williams (famous for “Bony Moronie” and “Dizzy, Miss Lizzy”) were there.

All these shows were at the “Chilhowee Park Auditorium.” Today most Chilhowee Park rock shows are at the outdoor Homer Hamilton Theatre. But these ’50s shows wouldn’t have worked outside. They were dances, and required a dance floor. Also, they went very late, typically until 2 a.m. Neighbors would have complained. Witnesses confirm that these shows were mostly in the Jacob Building.

And they were segregated shows, intended primarily for black audiences. For the popular shows, white audiences were allowed only as “spectators,” often up on the mezzanine level.

Perusing all these shows, there’s one irony you can’t ignore.

In the 1950s, Knoxville was more than 80 percent white. But almost all the rock ’n’ roll shows back then were by black groups. And most of the great early black rock ’n’ roll performers did play here.

Nationally, lots of white rock groups were making a go at rock ’n’ roll, but they rarely got scheduled in Knoxville. Did Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, or Elvis Presley ever perform in Knoxville in the ’50s, when this new music was exploding

nationally? I can’t tell that they did.

Some did later.

Even the Everly Brothers, who lived here and first started working up a rock ’n’ roll act for radio in Knoxville, never performed an actual concert here until their audience was graying.

All these white rock pioneers, most of them Southerners, skipped Knoxville. (One exception was from Michigan. Bill Haley and the Comets, already famous for “Rock Around the Clock,” played a two-nighter at the new WNOX Auditorium at Whittle Springs in September 1955.)

Was it the fact that the white community had nobody as well-connected as Freddie Logan? The all-around hepcat kept black East Knoxville hopping with the latest and best music for a quarter century.

Or maybe it had to do with venues. Although white acts sometimes performed at Chilhowee Park over the years, by the ’50s most of its shows were black shows for predominantly black audiences.

The white majority just didn’t have a comparable scene.

Before the completion of the Civic Coliseum in 1961, white Knoxville leaned heavily on UT’s Alumni Hall or “Gym,” which hosted classical concerts and some of the more dignified pop performers. Perhaps ivory-tower skepticism undermined UT’s potential hep factor.

But in the 1950s, Chilhowee Park was the most rockin’ joint in East Tennessee. The Jacob Building turns 75 this year. I think it’s overdue for a plaque, and maybe a revival.

Known today mainly for gun shows, antique shows, and canning exhibits, it’s the Birthplace of Rock in Knoxville. ◆

By the early ’50s, Chilhowee Park was hosting mainly black R&B— as the music was evolving into something slightly different.

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September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7

Photos by Clay Duda

Real Estate Wranglings Local developer faces lawsuits, property and tax liens as real estate holdings grow

BY CLAY DUDA

I

f all had gone as planned, Gay Street would now be home to a Carolina Ale House restaurant and brewery and a new Wild Wings Cafe. Instead, both of those prospective business expansions soured, ending in lawsuits totaling millions of dollars against a prominent Knoxville developer who has scooped up a number of high-profile properties in downtown Knoxville in recent years, many of which still sit fallow.

The lawsuits have one thing in common: both allege wrongdoing or malicious intent by Brant Enderle, a local developer with a long history of business discrepancies and ties to a slew of limited liability corporations (or LLCs) that, on paper, own many key downtown properties in Knoxville and Chattanooga. He is also a manager for Henry & Wallace—previously known as Enderle Holdings, LLC—a downtown development firm listing these properties among its projects. His wife, Amy, is the company’s registered agent, Secretary of State records show. LLCs are not required to divulge the identities of

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

owners, though an amendment filed with the SOS in 2010 listed Amy Enderle as owner of Henry & Wallace.

These recent lawsuits aren’t isolated incidents. Court documents across multiple states trace Enderle’s questionable business practices back a decade, from allegations of gross mismanagement at a Louisiana golf course to unpaid debts and other legal wranglings here in Tennessee.

If it sounds complicated, it is. Yet court documents, property records, and media reports offer at least a glimpse into this tangled world of business maneuvers that allow such companies and operators to make sizable investments under different companies’ names, with limited oversight or accountability.

The repercussions of these business disputes could significantly shape downtown’s continued development, and in some cases have already contributed to prolonged vacant storefronts and still crumbling brick facades.

In July Enderle was sued by

Universal Properties, LLC, who along with BAJM Holdings is part-owner of the Conley Building on Gay Street.

Universal alleges Enderle, as a member of BAJM and acting on behalf of the Conley Building Owners Association, failed to act in good faith and misrepresented aspects of a space in the Conley Building being considered for a new Carolina Ale House location. As a result, that restaurant company terminated a $2.5 million contract, which Universal is now attempting to recoup from Enderle; BAJM Holdings, LLC; 507 South Gay, LLC; and the Conley Building Owners Association. It is also seeking an additional $5 million in punitive damages.

In response, Enderle’s attorney filed a counterclaim, suing Universal for $2.5 million for “the damages caused” by the initial lawsuit, denying many of Universal’s allegations, saying Enderle did not have an ownership stake in BAJM, and arguing Universal never had a legal contract with Carolina Ale House proprietor Moshakos Real Estate, LLC. (The copy of the contract included in the original lawsuit was only signed by a Universal representative.) The counterclaim alleges that, by filing a lawsuit, Universal had “intentionally placed a cloud on the title of the Building and the interest of the Defendants therein,” thus the defendants are entitled to compensation.

Universal at one time owned the entirety of the Conley Building, but sold all but the first floor and mezzanine levels to BAJM Holdings in 2014.

(BAJM, in turn, divided up the building between other companies, including 507 South Gay, LLC and Gay Street

Law, LLC—like we said, it gets complicated). Attorneys representing both Enderle and Universal declined to comment for this story, citing pending litigation. Henry and Wallace representative Rebecca Everheart said Enderle declined comment.

“He is sitting right across the table from me and does not want to comment about that,” Everheart said on the phone.

Just a few months earlier, in April, Enderle and his wife, Amy, faced a separate lawsuit from DNC Lakeside, a company looking to open a Wild Wing Cafe restaurant in the Kress Building on Gay Street. DNC provided $180,000 up front to cover construction costs, to be handled by Enderle’s Kress Partnership, LLC. But as the months ticked by, little to no work took place at the storefront, eventually leading DNC to file a lawsuit in an effort to recoup its money. (Work recently resumed at the Kress building with a “for lease” sign posted out front.)

“The Defendants have kept and enjoyed the benefit of the Plaintiff’s Construction Money, without using the funds for the performance of the Work as required by the Purchase Agreement,” the lawsuit alleges. “Moreover, despite the Plaintiff’s furnishing to Kress Partnership of the substantial Construction Money, Kress Partnership failed to pay contractors or to appropriately engage their services in order to perform the Work under the terms of the Purchase Agreement.”

Property records show some of DNC’s claims hold true. At least five contractors filed a total of 12 liens against the Kress and Century buildings since January of this year,

“He [Brant Enderle] is sitting right across the table from me and does not want to comment about that.� —REBECCA EVERHEART, Henry and Wallace representative

alleging nonpayment for materials and work totaling more than $260,000. Most all of those debts were paid off in April or May, property records show. DNC settled its lawsuit out of court.

Even as companies with ties to Enderle have struggled to pay the bills, the group has continued to expand on its investments. Knoxville Partners, LLC recently purchased Knoxville Center Mall for about a third of its appraised value. It wasn’t initially clear who the buyers were, however, with a press release announcing the purchase saying it was being bought by “two companies with extensive portfolios in the real estate construction and redevelopment in

commercial, residential and mixeduse markets.� It was later revealed that filings would go to an LLC owned

by Brant Enderle, WBIR reports.

Over the past few years, businesses with ties to Enderle have amassed quite a lengthy list of urban properties, both in Knoxville and Chattanooga, plus a few outliers. He has an ownership hand in the Kress and Century buildings, the Conley building, Standard Knitting Mills and Abbey Fields, about a dozen small parcels near the South Waterfront, and other local holdings, now including the mall and also the old Morristown College campus. These properties are all owned by a variety of different LLCs, but are all listed as

projects on the website of Henry and Wallace. Elsewhere, its portfolio includes several buildings in downtown Chattanooga, residential developments in Thompson Station and Sevierville, and stakes in two golf course: the Ridges at Village Creek in Arkansas and the Cabins at Carter Plantation in Springfield, La. Legal filings related to Enderle’s management of the Carter Plantation golf course and resort development may offer the most insight into some past business practices. In 2010, Chicago-based debt managers Nuveen Investments, Inc., sued bond underwriter Crew and Associates Inc. for allegedly misrepresenting facts to get a loan for expanding the resort. While neither Enderle nor his companies were named in that suit, the premises for the lawsuit hinged on his alleged business practices as manager, which included allegations that he failed to pay lenders, misappropriated funds, and defaulted on several loans.

Enderle and another co-manager at Carter Plantation used some of the $15 million in bonds to cover operating expenses at the struggling golf course, according to the complaint, despite that money being earmarked

for the development of a marina and hotel on the property. Enderle was also alleged to have submitted sham requests to the bond trustee, in one instance billing $190,000 to pay vendors, then putting that money in his own personal bank account, the suit alleged. The developers were also sued for $400,000 for an unpaid mortgage and more than $500,000 for past-due rent in separate lawsuits.

Enderle told Bloomberg at the time that the golf resort failed because of economic fallout after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the state in 2005. However, the lawsuit framed things differently: “Carter Plantation was already facing economic disaster due to the incompetence and dishonesty of CP Land and CP Golf, Enderle and [co-manager Jim] Adair long before the national economic decline caused further economic deterioration at Carter Plantation.�

In 2007 the Department of Treasury placed a $211,000 tax lien on the resort property. Enderle faced a $400,000 federal tax lien covering that same period, for unpaid taxes in 2006 and 2007. The Nuveen lawsuit was eventually settled out of court. â—†

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September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9

10

HAVANA CLUB ALL STARS

MUSIC

K

noxville almost certainly has more music venues in 2016 than it has had in decades. With the addition of the midsize Mill and Mine on the north end of downtown, the city now has everything from national-destination rock clubs to a major arena, with two historic and world-class theaters and a variety of small and medium venues in between. There’s at least one major show—a big theater concert, an arena spectacle, a rare intimate encounter in a small venue, or a can’t-miss club act—every week. This fall offers contemporary stars (Maroon 5, Leon Bridges, Kelsea Ballerini, Band of Horses), legendary performers (Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Nick Lowe), reliable rockers (Drive-By Truckers, ZZ Top, Ray Wylie Hubbard), as well as a deep lineup of pop, country, indie and alternative rock, jazz, and much more.

SEPTEMBER MAROON 5

Music Performing Arts Film Classical Music

16 Spoken Word and Comedy 16 Art & Exhibits 17 Festivals

Thompson-Boling Arena • Wednesday, Sept. 14 • 7:30 p.m. • $30.50-$126 Adam Levine takes time off from The Voice for a world tour with his immensely popular pop-rock band, in anticipation of Maroon 5’s long-awaited, as-yet-unreleased sixth album. With Tove Lo, R. City, and PHASES.

Knoxville Civic Coliseum (500 Howard Baker Jr. Ave.) • Sunday, Sept. 25 • 7 p.m. • $29.50 • knoxvillecoliseum.com The South Carolina pop-rock band is joined by Mat Kearney, John Mark McMillan, and Welshly Arms for the Tour de Compadres.

HAVANA CUBA ALL STARS Clayton Center for the Arts (502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville) • Friday, Sept. 16 • 7:30 p.m. • $16.50-$29.50 • claytonartscenter.com Some of Cuba’s leading Latin jazz players team up for their first U.S. tour together.

SCOTT MILLER AND THE COMMONWEALTH Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Sept. 16 • 8 p.m. • $20 • knoxbijou.com Ex-Knoxvillian and ex-V-Roy Scott Miller makes one of his trips back to the valley from his family farm in Virginia. With Aaron Lee Tasjan.

NEIL HAGERTY AND THE HOWLING HEX Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Thursday, Sept.

22 • 9:30 p.m. • $8 • 18 and up • thepilotlight.com Since the dissolution of underground garage/punk band Royal Trux, RTX cofounder Neil Hagerty has

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

NEEDTOBREATHE

Photo by Sully Sullivan

N

ot too long ago, you could reasonably complain that there wasn’t much to do in Knoxville. That’s changed over the last decade or so.

Now you’re more likely to hear people say that there’s too much to do—that there are so many events scheduled during certain peak weekends that nobody can fit it all in. That’s only occasionally true, but Knoxville’s jam-packed entertainment calendar requires advance planning, stamina, and a budget if you expect to take advantage of all the music, art, theater, film, and festivals that are available.

In consideration of the logistical challenges that Knoxvillians face when planning an evening out, here’s our annual guide to the fall arts and entertainment season.

—Matthew Everett

10 13 14 15

soldiered on with the Howling Hex. The new band pursues a similar sound—a grimy, urban take on rural roots music—with a slightly more melodic sensibility.

NEEDTOBREATHE

AMOS LEE

• 10 p.m. • $10 • 18 and up • thepilotlight.com The former Gun Club/Cramps/Bad Seeds guitarist has created his own band, the Pink Monkey Birds, as a vehicle for his iconoclastic take on American roots music and rock ’n’ roll. With Daddy Don’t.

Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Monday, Sept.

26 • 8 p.m. • $44-$59 • tennesseetheatre.com Is Amos Lee a folksy soul singer or a soulful folk singer? Either way, he’s headlining at the Tennessee Theatre on a new tour to support his sixth album, Spirit, released in August.

OCTOBER

KJO: CUBAN FIRE WITH PAQUITO D’RIVERA Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Tuesday, Sept. 27 • 8 p.m. • $35.50 • knoxbijou.com or knoxjazz.org The widely admired Cuban-American sax master Paquito D’Rivera and his swinging rhythm section join the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra for a big-band take on Latin jazz.

JUNIOR BOYS

RAILROAD EARTH

BLITZEN TRAPPER AND REAL ESTATE

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Wednesday, Sept.

28 • 7:30 p.m. • $21.50 • knoxbijou.com Old-fashioned classic rock. With the Scott Pemberton Trio.

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Sunday, Oct. 2 • 7:30 p.m. • $22 • knoxbijou.com Two indie-rock all stars—the folkified Blitzen Trapper and the laid-back beach-pop experts Real Estate—team up for a co-headlining tour. With Kacy and Clayton.

LAKE STREET DRIVE The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Wednesday, Sept. 28 • 8 p.m. • $30 • 18 and up • themillandmine.com Contemporary folk-pop informed by ’60s rock, pop, and R&B. With Rubblebucket.

LEON BRIDGES Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Tuesday, Oct. 4 • 8 p.m. • $35-$49 • tennesseetheatre.com The 26-year-old Texas native channeled the deep soul, gospel, and R&B of the 1950s and ’60s on his 2015 debut album, Coming Home. Two hit singles from the disc—the title track and “Smooth Sailin’”—a blistering performance on Saturday Night Live, and a Grammy nomination helped Bridges find a widespread audience.

SHOVELS AND ROPE Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Thursday, Sept.

29 • 8 p.m. • $25 • knoxbijou.com The South Carolina Americana duo is scheduled to release its fourth album, Little Seeds, in October.

With Matthew Logan Vasquez.

COHEED AND CAMBRIA

CEREUS BRIGHT

The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Tuesday, Oct. 4 • 7 p.m. • $28 • themillandmine.com Geeky prog-metal. With Saves the Day and Polyphia.

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Sept. 30 • 8 p.m. • $18.50 • knoxbijou.com The local mass-appeal folk-pop band released its debut full-length, Excuses—loaded with handclaps, strummed guitars, high harmonies, and melodic hooks—in late July. With Swear and Shake.

KJO JAZZ LUNCH: A TRIBUTE TO DEXTER GORDON The Square Room (4 Market Square) • Wednesday, Oct. 5 • noon • $15 • 4marketsquare.com or knoxjazz.org With Jamel Mitchell.

KID CONGO POWERS AND THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Friday, Sept. 30

Photo by Danny Clinch

Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Saturday, Oct. 1 • 9:30 p.m. • $12 • 18 and up • thepilotlight.com The Canadian disco-pop duo returned earlier this year after a five-year hiatus with Big Black Coat.

With Egyptrixx and Borys.

LAKE STREET DIVE

DESTROYER Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Thursday, Oct. 6 • 9 p.m. • $12 • 18 and up • thepilotlight.com Dan Bejar’s intimate but elliptical songwriting defines this long-running band, which has evolved from lo-fi bedroom pop to slick, jazzy, cinematic classicism. With Zachary Cale.

NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND Clayton Center for the Arts (502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville) • Friday, Oct. 7 • 7:30 p.m. • $32-$52 • claytonartscenter.com The L.A. country-rock superstars, best known for their recording of “Mr. Bojangles” and the Nashville all-star tribute/collaboration album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, are celebrating their 50th anniversary.

BLACK JACKET SYMPHONY Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Oct. 7 • 8 p.m. • $28 • knoxbijou.com The rock ’n’ roll orchestra performs the Beatles’ Revolver.

CELTIC THUNDER: LEGACY Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Monday, Oct.

10 • 8 p.m. • $35-$95 • tennesseetheatre.com The latest iteration of the touring Irish-music production brings romantic ballads, drinking songs, and crowd-pleasing anthems to the Tennessee Theatre.

M83 The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Tuesday, Oct. 11 • 8 p.m. • $40 • 18 and up themillandmine.com Space-age future pop from France. With Shura.

BEN RECTOR Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Sunday, Oct. 16 • 8 p.m. • $29.50-$39.50 • tennesseetheatre.com Nashville pop-rock singer/songwriter.

ALABAMA Knoxville Civic Coliseum (500 Howard Baker Jr. Ave.) • Friday, Oct. 21 • 7:30 p.m. $53-$105 • knoxvillecoliseum.com The champs of ’80s country radio are joined by the Charlie Daniels Band.

RAY WYLIE HUBBARD AND ELIZABETH COOK The Standard (416 W. Jackson Ave.) • Friday, Oct. 21 • 7:30 p.m. • $30-$100 • wdvx.com Texas singer/songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard and country comeback singer Elizabeth Cook headline WDVX’s annual WDVX-Travaganza fundraising concert.

LEON BRIDGES

Photo by Andrew Stuart

BAND OF HORSES

BAND OF HORSES

The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Friday, Oct. 21 • 8 p.m. • $35 • 18 and up. themillandmine.com The South Carolina quintet updates classic rock for the 21st century. With the Shelters.

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11

ETHAN BORTNICK

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Saturday, Oct. 22 • 8 p.m. • $35 • knoxbijou.com The Jesus of Cool, a pioneer of pub rock, new wave, and power pop, has thrived in middle age. Like his contemporary Elvis Costello, he’s flirted with country, jazz, and classic vocal pop, without ever giving up the salty unsentimentality of his youth.

With Josh Rouse.

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Thursday, Oct. 27 • 7 p.m. • $22-$102 • knoxbijou.com or (joy of music) Fifteen-year-old piano prodigy Ethan Bortnick—recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest solo musician to headline his own tour—performs to raise money for East Tennessee PBS and the Joy of Music School.

RICHARD BUCKNER

MANDOLIN ORANGE

Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Sunday, Oct. 23 • 9 p.m. • $10 • thepilotlight.com Buckner’s taken many approaches on his solo albums since his debut in 1994—avant-garde arrangements, indie-rock crossover, sparse acoustic folk. But all of them reveal him as a literate, insightful songwriter.

The Concourse (940 Blackstock Ave.) • Thursday, Oct. 27 • 8 p.m. • $15 • internationalknox.com North Carolina folk built around the chemistry and harmony of Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz.

BONNIE RAITT Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Tuesday, Oct. 25 • 7:30 p.m. • $69.50-$99.50 • tennesseetheatre.com Bonnie Raitt’s earned just about every accolade available for songwriters and guitarists—multiple Grammy Awards, two number-one albums, membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—but she’s still at it, at the age of 66. Her most recent album, Dig in Deep, was released in February.

WILLIE WATSON AND AOIFE O’DONOVAN Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Tuesday, Oct. 25 • 8 p.m. • $21 • knoxbijou.com Watson was a cofounder of Old Crow Medicine Show; O’Donovan has performed with Jerry Douglas, Chris Thile, Yo-Yo Ma, and Jim Lauderdale.

LOREENA MCKENNITT Tennessee Theatre • Wednesday, Oct. 26 • 8 p.m.

• $39.50-$69.50 • tennesseetheatre.com Canada’s premier practitioner of traditional Celtic music.

12

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

ROBIN SPIELBERG

KJO JAZZ LUNCH: A TRIBUTE TO ARETHA FRANKLIN

Clayton Center for the Arts (502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville) • Friday, Oct. 28 • 7:30 p.m. • $12.50-$25 • claytonartscenter.com Composer/pianist Robin Spielberg presents classic American songbook performances and new compositions.

The Square Room (4 Market Square) • Wednesday, Nov. 2 • noon • $15 • 4marketsquare.com or knoxjazz.org With Robinella.

JACKIE GREENE AND JILL ANDREWS

PHANTOGRAM The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Sunday, Oct. 30 • 9 p.m. • $26 • 18 and up • themillandmine.com The New York trio swirls dance music, rock, psychedelic pop, and hip-hop together. A new album is expected in October. With the Range.

NOVEMBER KJO: IN SEARCH OF GARAJ MAHAL WITH FAREED HAQUE

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Thursday, Nov. 3 • 8 p.m. • $25 • 18 and up • themillandmine.com The veteran Athens, Ga., Southern rock band has been one of America’s best rock groups for more than 20 years. With Kyle Craft.

STS9

PURITY RING

The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Friday.

Nov. 4 • 8 p.m. • $25 • 16 and up • themillandmine.com The YouTube sensation, who earned Internet fame with covers of songs by Drake, Chris Brown, and the Weekend, has turned into a legitimate mainstream pop star.

STRAIGHT NO CHASER

The Square Room (4 Market Square) • Tuesday, Nov. 1 • 8 p.m. • 4marketsquare.com or knoxjazz.org Fareed Haque, a jazz guitarist of Pakistani and Chilean descent who leads the progressive world music band Garaj Mahal, reinterprets his music for a large jazz orchestra.

BOB DYLAN

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Wednesday, Nov. 2 • 8 p.m. • $18.50 • knoxbijou.com Americana singer/songwriter Jackie Greene and ex-everybodyfields frontwoman Jill Andrews co-headline the Bijou.

The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • Wednesday, Nov. 2 • 9 p.m. • $22 • 18 and up • themillandmine.com Canadian dance rock. With HEALTH. Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Thursday, Nov. 3 • 7:30 p.m. • $29.50-$52.50 • tennesseetheatre.com The illustrious a cappella group celebrates its unlikely 20th anniversary.

Photo by Danny Clinch/Big Hassle

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

BONNIE RAIT

Photo by Marina Chavez

NICK LOWE

STS9

Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Nov. 4 • 8 p.m. • $35 • tennesseetheatre.com Spaced-out electronic jams.

SOMO

PAUL THORN Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Nov. 4 • 8 p.m. • $25 • knoxbijou.com The former boxer and son of a preacher has made a career out of reliable blue-collar country/folk/rock.

JOHNNYSWIM

Pevensie children and their adventures with Aslan and the White Witch in Narnia.

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Tuesday, Nov. 8 • $27 • knoxbijou.com Folky contemporary pop. With Johnny P.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: THE CRUCIBLE

BOB DYLAN

Carousel Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.) • Sept.

28-Oct. 16 • $22-$42 • clarencebrowntheatre.com Arthur Miller’s classic drama about the Salem witch trials was widely perceived as an allegory about McCarthyism when it was first staged in 1953. It seems more and more appropriate with every revival.

Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Wednesday, Nov. 9 • 8 p.m. • $59.50-$129.50 • tennesseetheatre.com Dylan continues his mischievous game of masks into his eighth decade. After a remarkable streak of late-career consistency, starting with 1997’s Time Out of Mind, Dylan has turned to midcentury vocal jazz and classic pop for inspiration; his last two albums, Shadows in the Night (2015) and Fallen Angels (2016), have featured selections from the American songbook made famous by Frank Sinatra.

MARK TWAIN TONIGHT! Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Sept. 30 • 8 p.m. • $54-$79 Hal Holbrook reprises one of the defining roles of his long career, delivering Twain’s trenchant social criticism and timeless insights about human nature.

ZZ TOP Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Thursday, Nov. 10 • 8 p.m. • $79.50-$99.50 • tennesseetheatre.com That Little Ol’ Band From Texas can’t be stopped.

KELSEA BALLERINI Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Nov. 11 • 8 p.m. • $25-$49 • tennesseetheatre.com Twenty-two-year-old pop-country star Kelsea Ballerini—born in Mascot and raised in Knoxville before moving to Nashville as a teenager—already has two number-one singles from her debut abum, The First Time.

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN The Concourse (940 Blackstock Ave.) • Sunday, Nov. 13 • 7 p.m. • 18 and up • $18 • internationalknox.com The elder statesmen of American metalcore are on what might be their last tour—they’ve announced an indefinite hiatus at the end of their run supporting the upcoming album Dissociation. With O’Brother, Car Bomb, and Cult Leader.

ERICK BAKER Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Thursday, Nov. 17 • 8 p.m. • $32-$72 • knoxbijou.com Local singer/songwriter Erick Baker kicks off the Salvation Army’s holiday fundraising campaigns.

DARRELL SCOTT Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Nov. 18 • 8 p.m. • $25 • knoxbijou.com Scott’s a Nashville utility player—a session musician, in-demand songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and solo performer. None of his skills have suffered from his diverse ambitions, though; Scott remains among the best at everything he does.

GOO GOO DOLLS Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Wednesday, Nov. 30 • 8 p.m. • $44.50-$59.50 • tennesseetheatre.com The ’90s MTV pop-rockers return.

OCTOBER

ONCE

PERFORMING ARTS

P

rofessional theater, community theater, children’s theater, dance, burlesque, comedy, drama, and plenty of holiday offerings—there’s enough stagecraft in Knoxville these days to keep theatergoers of all sorts satisfied (and challenged and intrigued). The fall calendar runs from Clarence Brown Theatre’s big-budget pro productions and Theatre Knoxville Downtown’s cozy community shows to classic kids’ adaptations, ballet and modern dance, Hal Holbrook and Rodgers and Hammerstein at the Tennessee Theatre, and a spate of Christmas performances.

SEPTEMBER CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: VIOLET Clarence Brown Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.) • Through Sept. 18 • $26-$42 • clarencebrowntheatre.com In the 1960s, a woman heads from North Carolina to Oklahoma, hoping to be healed by a TV evangelist. Along the way, she finds what she really needs—and encounters the regional music of East Tennessee, Memphis, and Arkansas.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: [TITLE OF SHOW] Theatre Knoxville Downtown (319 N. Gay St.) • Through Sept. 18 • $15 • theatreknoxville.com That’s not a typo—it’s a sitcom-style tribute to musical theater.

APPALACHIAN BALLET: BLUEJEANS AND BALLET Clayton Center for the Arts (502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville) • Thursday, Sept.

15 • 6 p.m. • $55 • claytonartscenter.com or appalachianballet.com The Appalachian Ballet Company’s annual

fundraising gala includes casual dinner and drinks and a modern dance performance.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN BURLESQUE FEST The Edge (7211 Kingston Pike) and the Concourse (940 Blackstock Ave.) • Sept. 15-17 • $10-$80 • smokymountainburlesquefest.com Three nights of world-class burlesque with Mr. Gorgeous, Ray Gunn, Bazuka Joe, Lola Lesoleil, Truvy Trollop, and the Bishop of Burlesque.

WORDPLAYERS: LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC Erin Presbyterian Church (200 Lockett Rd.) • Sept. 15-25 • $15 • wordplayers.org The local Christian theater company presents Arlene Hutton’s play about coincidence and true love, set aboard a passenger train in 1940.

KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE Knoxville Children’s Theatre (109 E. Churchwell Ave.) • Sept. 23-Oct. 9 • $12 • knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com A stage adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ fantasy about the

GO! CONTEMPORARY DANCE WORKS: TRANSCENDANCE Clarence Brown Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.) • Oct. 1-2 • $15 • gocontemporarydance.com An evening of contemporary and classical works, with two new works by Artistic Director Lisa McKee. Guest artist Daniel Chait presents “Don’t Be Afraid.”

OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: IT’S ONLY A PLAY Oak Ridge Playhouse (227 Broadway, Oak Ridge) • Oct. 7-16 • orplayhouse.com This comedy peeks behind the scenes of the theater world to show where the drama really lies.

ONCE Clayton Center for the Arts (502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville) • Thursday, Oct. 13 • $39.50-$62.50 • claytonartscenter.com A mysterious romance propels a Dublin street musician to new creative heights in this Tony Award-winning musical.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: EARTH AND SKY Theatre Knoxville Downtown (319 N. Gay St.) • Oct. 14-30 • $15 • theatreknoxville.com An underworld thriller and romance all in one, as a poet and librarian digs into the dirty details surrounding her lover’s death.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: THIS IS OUR YOUTH Clarence Brown Lab Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.) • Oct. 26-Nov. 13 • $15 • clarencebrowntheatre.com A coming-of-age story set in Reagan-era New York

by Kenneth Lonergan, writer and director of the acclaimed indie films You Can Count on Me and Margaret.

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13

PUBLIC CINEMA: HOMO SAPIENS

KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

Knoxville Museum of Art (1050 World’s Fair Park) • Sunday, Oct. 23 • 2 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org Director Nikolaus Geyrhalter peers into urban spaces that we’ve forgotten and abandoned in this Austrian documentary.

Knoxville Children’s Theatre (109 E. Churchwell Ave.) • Oct. 28-Nov. 13 • $12 • knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com KCT adapts Shirley Jackson’s spooky novel for the stage, just in time for Halloween.

COSTUMES AND CLASSIC CARTOONS OPEN HOUSE

NOVEMBER

Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Saturday, Oct. 29 • 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. • Free • tennesseetheatre.com Classic Warner Bros. cartoons and kids in Halloween costumes! Plus free tours of the Tennessee Theatre.

DISNEY ON ICE: DREAM BIG Knoxville Civic Coliseum (500 Howard Baker Jr. Ave.) • Nov. 2-6 • $15-$66 • knoxvillecoliseum.com

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: A CHRISTMAS CAROL Clarence Brown Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.) • Nov. 23-Dec. 11 • $22-$42 • clarencebrowntheatre.com Clarence Brown Theatre updates its long-running seasonal family favorite with a new production based on a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel.

OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: 1940S RADIO HOUR Oak Ridge Playhouse (227 Broadway, Oak Ridge) • Nov. 24-Dec. 11 • orplayhouse.com Various low-level entertainers, strivers, and industry hacks come together at the Mutual Manhattan Variety Cavalcade radio show in late December 1942.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SEASONAL ALLERGIES Theatre Knoxville Downtown (319 N. Gay St.) • Nov. 25-Dec. 11 • $15 • theatreknoxvilledowntown.com A bittersweet comedy about friends, family, and holiday stress.

DEAD SLOW AHEAD

PUBLIC CINEMA: FRAUD

FILM

A

fter years of cinematic desolation, Knoxville film audiences can claim regional distinction: Between the various film series and festivals available throughout the year, Knoxville moviegoers can see international and independent movies that never screen in cities we typically think of as more cosmopolitan. And you get the chance to see them on a big screen, with an audience, the way most of them were intended to be seen.

SEPTEMBER

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

Scruffy City Hall (32 Market Square) • Wednesday, Sept. 14 • 8 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org Werner Herzog stares into the abyss that is the Internet.

Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Saturday, Oct. 15 • $10 • tennesseetheatre.com The classic B-movie send-up has become a Halloween tradition at the Tennessee, with a shadowcast and costumed attendees. (There will other shadowcast performances around town TBA.)

PUBLIC CINEMA: CHEVALIER

KNOXVILLE HORROR FILM FESTIVAL

Knoxville Museum of Art (1050 World’s Fair Park) • Sunday, Sept. 25 • 2 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org A yacht trip in the Aegean Sea takes an unexpected turn when the participants push each other to dangerous limits in this Greek comedy/drama that explores masculinity and manners.

Regal Downtown West Cinema 8 (1640 Downtown West Boulevard) and Scruffy City Hall (32 Market Square) • Oct. 21-23 • knoxvillehorrorfest.com Three nights of slasher movies, gorefests, FX spectaculars, thrillers and chillers, plus a new 4K remaster of the 1979 cult classic Phantasm and the usual cavalcade of shorts and trailers.

PUBLIC CINEMA: LO AND BEHOLD: REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD

OCTOBER PUBLIC CINEMA: DEAD SLOW AHEAD Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Tuesday, Oct. 4 • 7:30 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org A documentary-style sci-fi art-house thriller from Spanish director Mauro Herce.

PUBLIC CINEMA: SLASH

CHEVALIER 14

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

Scruffy City Hall (32 Market Square) • Wednesday, Oct. 12 • 8 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org A high-school freshman’s erotic fan fiction earns him more attention than he’d like—but it also takes him places he couldn’t imagine before in Clay Liford’s indie comedy.

NOVEMBER

HOTEL DALLAS

Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Tuesday, Nov. 1 • 7:30 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org Fraud purports to be a collage of personal YouTube videos documenting the decline and fall of an American family. But it might be something else entirely.

PUBLIC CINEMA: RUGGLES OF RED GAP Scruffy City Hall (32 Market Square) • Wednesday, Nov. 9 • 8 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org Charles Laughton stars as an English valet whose employer loses him to a brash American cattle baron in a poker game in Leo Carey’s classic 1935 comedy.

PUBLIC CINEMA: HOTEL DALLAS Knoxville Museum of Art (1050 World’s Fair Park) • Sunday, Nov. 13 • 2 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org A Romanian family’s obsession with the ’80s prime-time soap opera Dallas sets off the plot of this “genre-bending road trip” directed by the husbandand-wife team of Livia Ungur and Sherng-Lee Huang.

PUBLIC CINEMA: STARLESS DREAMS Knoxville Museum of Art (1050 World’s Fair Park) • Sunday, Nov. 27 • 2 p.m. • Free • publiccinema.org Mehrdad Oskouei directed this documentary about seven young women in an Iranian prison, and the circumstances that led them there.

OAK RIDGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CHAMBER SERIES: FANDANGO! Pollard Technology Conference Center (210 Badger Road, Oak Ridge) • Saturday, Oct. 8 • 7:30 p.m. • $25 • orcma.org

KSO MASTERWORKS SERIES: VIVALDI’S THE FOUR SEASONS Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Oct. 13-14 • 7:30 p.m. • $15-$88 • tennesseetheatre.com or knoxvillesymphony.com

CLASSICAL MUSIC

T

he last several years have been notable for Knoxville’s classical music community, with an increasingly accomplished Knoxville Symphony Orchestra expanding its small-ensemble performances, Knoxville Opera adding a third annual production to its calendar, and the emergence of new organizations like Marble City Opera. But the next year promises to be a defining one for KSO—it will be the orchestra’s first year under the baton of new 30-year-old music director Aram Demirjian.

SEPTEMBER KSO MASTERWORKS SERIES: RUSSIAN PASSION Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Sept. 15-16 • 7:30 p.m. • $15-$88 • tennesseetheatre.com or knoxvillesymphony.com New KSO music director and conductor Aram Demirjian makes his official debut with performances of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

UT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Alumni Memorial Building • Sunday, Sept. 18 • 4 p.m. • Free • music.utk.edu

KSO Q SERIES The Square Room (4 Market Square) • Wednesday, Sept. 21 • noon • $18 • 4marketsquare.com or knoxvillesymphony.com Join the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s principal quartet for a lunchtime series of chamber music.

OAK RIDGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: PRIDE OF PLACE Oak Ridge High School (1450 Oak Ridge Turnpike) • Saturday, Sept. 24 • 7:30 p.m. • $25 • orcma.org

UT READY FOR THE WORLD MUSIC SERIES: POLAND Natalie L. Haslam Music Center (1741 Volunteer

Boulevard) • Sunday, Sept. 25 • 2 p.m. • Free • music.utk.edu This series showcases music from around the world, performed by visiting artists.

KSO CHAMBER CLASSICS SERIES: MOZART AND HAYDN Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Sunday, Sept. 25 • 2:30 p.m. • $12.50-$35 • knoxbijou.com or knoxvillesymphony.com

KSO CONCERTMASTER SERIES Knoxville Museum of Art (1050 World’s Fair Park Drive) • Sept. 28-29 • 7 p.m. • $25 • knoxvillesymphony.com KSO Concertmaster Gabriel Lefkowitz leads this series of small-ensemble performances.

OCTOBER

Photo by David Bickley

ARAM DEMIRJIAN

MARBLE CITY OPERA: GALLANTRY AND LA DIVINA Emporium Center (100 S. Gay St.) • Oct. 13-14 • marblecityopera.com Knoxville’s chamber opera company presents two one-act American contemporary operas to kick off its 2016-17 season.

KSO Q SERIES The Square Room (4 Market Square) • Wednesday, Oct. 19 • noon • $18 • 4marketsquare.com or knoxvillesymphony.com Join the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s principal quartet for a lunchtime series of chamber music.

UT CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL University of Tennessee • Oct. 19-22 Big Ears isn’t the only local music festival that explores the outer reaches of modern music. The University of Tennessee’s second Contemporary Music Festival will bring a program of challenging, and sometimes surprisingly accessible, 21st-century music to campus and downtown.

KNOXVILLE OPERA: THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 23, at 2:30 p.m.

• $21-$99 • tennesseetheatre.com or knoxvilleopera.com Knoxville Opera’s fall production—and the kickoff to the 2016-17 season—features Gilbert and Sullivan’s boisterous maritime operetta.

UT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Alumni Memorial Building • Sunday, Oct. 23 • 4 p.m. • Free • music.utk.edu

KSO CHAMBER CLASSICS: THE FOUR

SEASONS OF BUENOS AIRES Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Sunday, Oct. 30 • 2:30 p.m. • $12.50-$35 • knoxbijou.com or knoxvillesymphony.com

NOVEMBER OAK RIDGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS: CELEBRATING MOZART! First United Methodist Church (1350 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge) • Saturday, Nov. 5 • 7:30 p.m. • $25 • orcma.org

UT OPERA THEATRE: THE RETURN OF ULYSSES TO HIS HOMELAND Carousel Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.) • Nov. 10-13 • music.utk.edu UT Opera Theatre presents Monteverdi’s 17th-century opera based on The Odyssey.

KSO MASTERWORKS SERIES: APPALACHIAN SPRING Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Nov. 17-18 • 7:30 p.m. • $15-$88 • tennesseetheatre.com or knoxvillesymphony.com Aram Demirjian’s second official concert as KSO music director and conductor features Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Jeff Midkiff’s 21st-century mandolin concerto, From the Blue Ridge.

KNOXVILLE CHORAL SOCIETY FALL CONCERT: APPALACHIAN TALES AND TUNES Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Sunday, Nov. 20 • 6 p.m. • knoxvillechoralsociety.org KCS performs a selection of American folk and gospel songs at its annual fall concert.

KEYBOARDS AT CHRISTMAS Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Sunday, Nov. 27 • 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. • $15 • tennesseetheatre.com The Tennessee’s iconic Mighty Wurlitzer organ is joined by six grand pianos, a 13-piece band, and a children’s chorus for a magisterial Christmas concert to raise money for Mission of Hope.

KSO CHAMBER CLASSICS SERIES: CLASSICAL CHRISTMAS Bijou Theatre • Sunday, Nov. 27 • 2:30 p.m. • $12.50$35 • knoxbijou.com or knoxvillesymphony.com

KSO POPS

KSO POPS: PET SOUNDS LIVE: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEACH BOYS Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Oct. 7 • 8 p.m. • $11-$62 • knoxvillesymphony.com or tennesseetheatre.com KSO’s Pops series kicks off with an orchestral rendition of the Beach Boys’ symphonic-pop masterpiece from 1966, followed by a program of the band’s greatest hits.

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 15

ART & EXHIBITS

K

noxville’s growing number of galleries, museums, and arts organizations means there’s more to see than ever before—art, fine crafts, and history, in exhibits local, regional, and global in scope, from artists from around the world.

Photo by Clay Duda

TRAE CROWDER

SPOKEN WORD AND COMEDY

T

he big events announced so far are big indeed—TV star Jeff Dunham, New Yorker and NPR favorite David Sedaris, and Knoxville’s own Scruffy City Comedy Festival. But don’t forget the scruffy little comedy scene that offers open mics, improv shows, and local and regional headliners every week all over town.

OCTOBER TRAILER PARK BOYS: THE STILL DRUNK, HIGH, AND UNEMPLOYED TOUR Tennessee Theatre (604 S. Gay St.) • Oct. 24 • 8 p.m. • $35-$55 • tennesseetheatre.com The Canadian reprobates revamp their cult-classic TV show for the stage. Expect harebrained schemes, bad language, booze and drugs, and bad decisions.

HENRY ROLLINS

DAVID SEDARIS Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Thursday, Oct. 20 • 8 p.m. • $59.50 • knoxbijou.com The New Yorker contributor and best-selling humor memoirist releases his long-awaited next book, a collection of his personal diaries, in 2017.

23 Emory Place • a1labarts.com Oct. 7-21: The Diptych Project, a group exhibition of work by 24 A1 members. The artists were paired into 12 teams of two; they created their new works in response to their partners. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Oct. 7, from 6-10 p.m.

Friday, Oct. 28-Saturday, Oct. 29: Halloween installations by A1 member artists.

Nov. 17-19: University of Tennessee Capstone shows.

EMPORIUM CENTER FOR ARTS AND CULTURE 100 S. Gay St. • knoxalliance.com Oct. 7-28: The Tennessee Artists Association Fall Juried Show, pottery by Rex W. Redd, and artwork by Melanie Fetterolf and artists from the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Oct. 7, from 5-9 p.m.

Nov. 4-23: Artwork by Marty Elmer, Marta Goebel-Pietrasz, Steve Bryan, Eun-Sook Kim, and Brian McDaniel. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Nov. 4, from 5-9 p.m.

PAULA POUNDSTONE

SCRUFFY CITY COMEDY FEST

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Friday, Oct. 14 • 8 p.m. • $33 • knoxbijou.com Poundstone, a veteran comic and regular panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me, straddles the line between standup and spoken-word performance these days—no two shows are ever the same, and Poundstone spikes her regular material with impromptu insights and observations.

Downtown • Nov. 4-6 • $15-$40 • scruffycitycomedy.com The third installment of Knoxville’s biggest comedy festival will take over several venues on Market Square and around downtown this fall.

Headliners include Baron Vaughn, Emily Heller, and East Tennessee’s own Liberal Redneck, Trae Crowder.

MCCLUNG MUSEUM 1327 Circle Park Drive • mcclungmuseum.utk.edu Through Jan. 8: Knoxville Unearthed: Archaeology in the Heart of the Valley, an exhibit of artifacts and images detailing Knoxville’s 225-year history.

KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive • knoxart.org Through Nov. 6: Romantic Spirits: 19th-Century Paintings of the South From the Johnson Collection, an exhibit of landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and rustic and agricultural scenes from a private collection in Spartanburg, S.C. Nov. 25-Jan. 8: The East Tennessee Regional Student Art Exhibition, an annual collaboration between KMA and the East Tennessee Art Education Association showcasing the best art from students in grades 6-12 from Knox and 31 surrounding counties.

JEFF DUNHAM Thompson-Boling Arena • Sunday, Nov. 6 • 3 p.m.

• $46.50 • tbarena.com The most famous ventriloquist in the world will introduce his unpredictable characters on the Perfectly Unbalanced tour.

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

A1 LAB ARTS

106 S. Gay St. • downtown.utk.edu Oct. 7-31: UT Collects Ceramics, a collection of work from the university’s permanent collection and the collections of faculty and staff members. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Oct. 7, from 5-9 p.m.

NOVEMBER

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Thursday, Oct. 13 • 8 p.m. • $24-$34 • knoxbijou.com The ex-Black Flag frontman talks about his travels, his TV shows, and his other various creative pursuits.

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DOWNTOWN GALLERY

LLYOD BRANSON AT THE KMA

UT COLLECTS CERAMICS

FESTIVALS

S

pring may be the official festival overload season in East Tennessee, but fall offers its share of celebrations—in between football weekends, at least.

BRISTOL RHYTHM AND ROOTS REUNION Bristol • Sept. 16-18 • $40-$100 • birthplaceofcountrymusic.org The region’s premier roots-music fest features Loretta Lynn, Buddy Guy, the Indigo Girls, and dozens more.

LOUIE BLUIE MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL Cove Lake State Park (Caryville) • Saturday, Sept. 24 • 10 a.m.-7 p.m. • Free • louiebluie.org An all-day celebration of one of the most accomplished and important musicians to land in Knoxville: Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong, a mandolin player and fiddler and a member of the the 1920s and ’30s black string band the Tennessee Chocolate Drops. The music lineup includes the Armstrong Legacy Trio, with Howard Armstrong’s son Ralphe, Sparky and Rhonda Rucker, and many more.

GREEKFEST St. George Greek Orthodox Church (4070 Kingston Pike) • Sept. 30-Oct. 2 • greekfesttn. wordpress.com The 37th installment of this fall fest will feature the usual excellent Greek traditional music, dance, and food.

HOLA FESTIVAL Market Square • Oct. 1-2 • holahoralatina.org The area’s biggest and best celebration of Latin and Latin American culture.

TENNESSEE FALL HOMECOMING Museum of Appalachia (2819 Andersonville Highway, Clinton) • Oct. 7-9 • $25-$75 • museumofappalachia.org Five stages of traditional country, old-time, and mountain music over three days, headlined by Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, plus craft vendors, historical demonstrations, and tours of the museum.

PICKLE FEST

BREWERS’ JAM

The Riverdale School (7009 Thorn Grove Pike) • Sunday, Sept. 25 • Noon-5 p.m. • Free A celebration of the preservation of local food, with live music and puppet shows, food trucks, craft vendors, kids’ games and crafts, a poetry contest, a pickle contest, and pickling demonstrations.

World’s Fair Park • Saturday, Oct. 8 • 1-6 p.m. • $20-$100 • knoxvillebrewersjam.com The granddaddy of Knoxville beer bashes celebrates its 20th anniversary this year with another party on the lawn with more than 50 of your favorite local and regional brewers and brewsand music by Davis Mitchell’s New Power Soul Prince Tribute, Kelsey’s Woods, and more.

DUMPLIN VALLEY BLUEGRASS Dumplin Valley Farm (525 E. Dumplin Valley Rd., Kodak) • Sept. 15-17 • $30-$90 • dumplinvalleybluegrass.com An all-star bluegrass hoedown with more than a dozen bands over three days and nights, headlined by the Seldom Scene, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, and the Gibson Brothers.

Sunday, Oct. 9 • 2-6 p.m. • openstreetsknoxville.com The third version of Open Streets Knoxville heads west into Bearden, allowing Knoxvillians to walk, run, bike, rollerblade, and practice yoga and tai chi in a familiar space that’s not always so welcoming to pedestrians.

Photo by Clay Duda

OPEN STREETS

OPEN STREETS

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17

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P rogram Notes

Work It The Smoky Mountain Burlesque Festival brings a big dose of glamor to Knoxville

K

noxville is home to many festivals, but the newest addition—the Smoky Mountain Burlesque Festival—promises to be its most glamorous and glittery.

This four-day festival starts on Thursday, Sept. 15, and will feature a lineup of 75 performers from 16 states.

Nationally recognized striptease performers like Bazuka Joe, Mr. Gorgeous, and Ray Gunn will be joined by regional performers like Atlanta’s Lola LeSoleil and Truvy Trollop of Nashville. Gabriella Maze, known as “The Body That Never Stops,” will lead a class called “Secrets of the Cape.”

“We are excited to present a cast of artists that not only represent the best and brightest talent the burlesque community has to offer, but also the vast variety of performers seeing success on the burlesque stage,” says festival spokesperson and Knoxville-based burlesque artist Siren Santina in a press release.

In between performances at the Concourse and the Edge, the festival

TRUVY TROLLOP

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Shelf Life: Recently Donated Titles

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

will also offer a series of workshops at Broadway Academy of Performing Arts for the layperson: “Burlesque on a Budget,” “How to Be a Poised Goof,” “Wigs 101.”

Kerissa King, a coproducer, organizer, and featured performer for the festival, says Knoxville was chosen for the festival’s inaugural year because of its national renown in the burlesque community and the kitschy culture of nearby Dollywood.

Dolly Parton is a huge influence in burlesque, King says, as “an international symbol of feminine beauty in entertainment.”

“Knoxville has, surprisingly, a pretty well-developed kind of underground burlesque community,” King says. “It doesn’t necessarily get a lot of attention locally, but there’s quite a few nationally known and internationally traveling performers located here.”

Burlesque is often pigeonholed as “adult entertainment,” but King rejects that label and compares it to vaudeville or the fringe arts communi-

BAZUKA JOE

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Music: Sylvan Esso

ty as a whole. Modern burlesque shows can integrate traditional performance arts such as contemporary dance, theater, acrobatics, and even circus arts. King says one unique aspect of burlesque is how inclusive it is of different body types, ages, gender identities, and ethnic backgrounds.

While the festival was conceived two years ago, the most intense part of the organizing took about nine months. King says the four-day festival has ended up bigger than the organizers first envisioned, but there was also more interest in it than they expected. The organizers looked to the annual Burlesque Hall of Fame show in Las Vegas, Burlycon in Seattle, and other burlesque festivals popping up across the country for inspiration and guidance. They hope the festival can become an annual tradition in East Tennessee.

King says the festival offers a unique opportunity for those who have never experienced a burlesque show before to see some of the world’s best performers in action.

“It gives our city a chance to see what the national burlesque community is like, and it also gives some of the national burlesque community a chance to see what our little Scruffy City here is like,” King says.

Tickets for the Smoky Mountain Burlesque Festival performance showcases range in price from $10 for general admission to an $80 VIP Weekend Pass and can be purchased at smokymountainburlesquefest.com.

—Hayley Brundige

RAY GUNN

21

Movie: Lo and Behold

Shriek Operator The God Who Answers by Fire (Striped Light) The long-gestating debut album from the local ensemble Shriek Operator is, as the Old Testament reference in the title indicates, a serious and mysterious work—mysterious in the religious sense, as in dense and impenetrable and suffused with a sense of almost cosmic awe and dread. The music, an avant-garde conglomeration of folk, gospel, and sacred choral music, with traces of classic pop, matches the imposing title; singer/songwriter/ guitarist Alan Bajandas and the rest of the band (Alan’s sister, Joanna Bajandas, on vocals, and multi-instrumentalists Joshua Wright and Zechariah Freeman Young, plus dozens of other contributors) have crafted a fearfully impressive record, one that’s unlike any other local release in recent memory.

The record is full of familiar echoes and influences arranged in unexpected configurations: John Fahey, Lead Belly, Leonard Cohen, Roy Orbison, Stephen Foster, medieval church music. The music and lyrics can be metaphysical and otherworldly or profoundly visceral, and sometimes both at the same time—Bajandas has a rare talent for imbuing graphic sexual and scatological language with poetic dignity. There are passages of sparse, intimate acoustic folk, an elaborately arranged choral section performed by a dozen-member choir, and a full minute of what sounds like Bajandas retching in the corner of a room.

There’s allegory here to be unlocked—The God Who Answers by Fire is informed and influenced by the Bajandas siblings’ childhood in a strict counterculture Christian denomination, and their escape from it as young adults. The almost uniformly dark lyrics and religious imagery hint at that story, but you don’t need a biblical concordance to decipher its emotional message. Most listeners will probably find it forbidding or off-putting; a small, patient audience will recognize the grief and determination behind it.

(Matthew Everett)

Shelf Life

Gifts for Sharing Four recommended titles recently donated to Knox County Public Library

BY CHRIS BARRETT

Nonplussed by his wounds, his pain, his disinclination to smile, and his inability to answer the most basic questions about himself or his predicament, the indifferent currents of a large, unnamed city deposit him at a settlement of squatters living happily among abandoned freight containers at the edge of the sea. If there are American films that accomplish what this film does—remind us that unpleasant situations often end well enough, and that incomplete information does not prohibit happiness—no titles come quickly to mind.

Kati Outinen is exquisite and unconventionally dazzling as the social worker who helps M appreciate the advantages of not knowing.

SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES (2003)

T

he Knox County Public Library system receives a steady stream of donated books and audio-visual materials. We’re fortunate and grateful. If the gift is needed and in adequate condition, it will be added to the collection and become available to borrow. If it’s not, the item will find a new and appreciative home while generating support funds through the Friends of the Knox County Public Library’s ongoing schedule of sales.

Here are a few uncommonly fine finds that recently made their way to the shelves through the generosity of you or your neighbors.

JIMMIE LUNCEFORD AND HIS ORCHESTRA 1934-35 (1990, CLASSICS RECORDS)

This disc of excellent embryonic swing was part of a large bequest of materials from the estate of much-missed Knox County librarian Dale Watermulder. Watermulder was instrumental in developing KCPL’s extraordinary Sights and Sounds collection, and it would please him immensely—in whatever clean, well-lighted place he spends these days—if you gave this collection a spin.

Composer and bandleader Lunceford was a contemporary of Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.

These sides date from the decade when they were all in their prime, and when their three bands alternated

onstage at Harlem’s Cotton Club. As happens whenever some new form of creative expression is born, the rules changed daily; almost every evening at the Cotton Club you could hear a big band make sounds that had never been made before. Compared to his peers, Lunceford had what may have been an unfair advantage in the person of multi-instrumentalist and arranger Sy Oliver. These recordings are superb and in favor of any newcomer to big-band swing. Oliver’s arrangements are adventurous and complex, but on most pieces the band is composed of only nine or 10 players; instead of the overwhelming brass barrage you might associate with the huge Count Basie or Stan Kenton show bands soon to follow, you hear each instrument as an individual and articulate voice. This is great music, superlative within both style and period.

THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST (2002)

This quietly charming comedy by Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki serves as an ideal palate cleanser to Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

Who is George Bailey, after all, if not the man with too much past? M (the late, craggily handsome Markku Peltola) is traveling for work. After suffering a blow to the head during a mugging, he loses his memory.

If you have ever found yourself wishing that the late documentary filmmaker and musical anthropologist Les Blank had ventured into feature films, you should meet Schultze. (He pronounces his name with two syllables.) The rotund Horst Krause stars in the title role: salt miner by day, polka accordionist on his own time, most often without an audience.

Retirement, insomnia, and short-wave radio access to American airwaves combine to expose Schultze to the zydeco music of Texas and Louisiana.

With no emotional attachments to the German village where he has spent his life, Schultze slowly becomes

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aware of where he belongs. The world—using tools that range from a cast-off invitation to a Texas music festival to an abandoned shrimp boat—conspires to get him there.

THE GREAT WORKS OF SACRED MUSIC

One of our favorite patrons is a fan of the Great Courses audiobook lecture series produced by the Teaching Company and Modern Scholar. It’s usually a disappointment to inform someone who inquires that we don’t own and offer the title he or she seeks.

Not so with this good neighbor: If we don’t have the lecture he’s interested in, he buys it and, after he’s listened to it, donates it to the collection. If these lectures, by Charles McGuire of Oberlin College, were limited to Bach’s liturgical music and Handel’s inspired pageantry, the set would still be plenty worthwhile. But it also includes an introduction to chant and polyphony and interpretations of the choral music of Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart. McGuire is a functional good sport when he demonstrates technique and effect by singing examples himself. His voice is not perfect—which makes him all the more representative of the countless voices that have sung this music over the centuries. ◆ Shelf Life explores new and timely entries from the Knox County Public Library’s collection of movies and music.

The Knox County Public Library system receives a steady stream of donated books and audio-visual materials— some end up in the collection, others support the library through KCPL’s ongoing series of fundraising sales.

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 19

A&E

Music

Post-Pablo Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath adjusts her expectations after unforeseen breakout success

BY RYAN REED

“I

f someone ever says ‘folktronica’ to my face, I might kick them,” says Amelia Meath of the North Carolina indie-pop/folk duo Sylvan Esso. Her exasperated tone suggests both sarcasm and clear intent.

Meath is protective of the music she and Nick Sanborn make together as Sylvan Esso, in part because she thinks critics have been describing it inaccurately since the band’s formation. The duo’s self-titled 2014 debut, containing the breakout single “Coffee,” struck a chord with audiences and journalists alike thanks to the way it unites Meath’s earthy, seductive croon and Sanborn’s glossy, synthheavy production. But darkness and anxiety swim under the album’s smooth surfaces.

“There’s a lot of teeth in those songs,” she says. “It’s funny to me that people describe it as a chill album, because I don’t think it’s chill at all.

People also use ‘Coffee’ as their wedding song, and it’s about heartbreak and disillusion.”

Meath says she and Sanborn hope they can defy these one-dimensional descriptions with their next album, which they’re roughly halfway through recording. They started the process of making a new record in earnest last year, but they soon realized that they had put too much pressure on themselves.

“We tried to get it all done extremely fast, then realized that wasn’t fun at all,” Meath says. “I think there’s something that happens when you have your dream job—I do this thing where I think, ‘You’re getting to

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

do the thing you want to do—it’s got to be really fucking hard, it’s got to hurt.’

I’ve been realizing that’s not true.

“We can take our time and go and get lunch and wake up when we wish to and begin our creative workday.

We’ve been working really steadily through all of this, but it just became more obvious that the record will be better if we’re not sweating all over it.

“We live in a post-Pablo world,” she says, referring to Kanye West’s drawn-out revisionist approach to the production and release of The Life of Pablo earlier this year.

In 2015, Meath told Spin that she

and Sanborn had given themselves “full permission to just make bangers.”

“That’s a bummer-ass of a pull quote,” she says. “It was a joke, actually.”

Instead, the new songs are more varied than what appeared on the debut.

“After doing it for two years, you’re more articulate—or are least you hope you are,” she says. “There are dance songs on the record, but there’s also more noise, which I’m excited about. It’s weirder. … Our first record was basically just us saying, ‘Let’s make 10 songs, and we’ll show it to our friends and maybe put it on the Internet to see what happens.’

Then this wild thing happened. We’re still making music from the same source, but we’re different people now.

It’s weird to write a record when you’re 24, and then all of the sudden you’re 28. We’re infinitely more confident.”

Part of that confidence stems from the comfort and consistency of living in Durham.

“Nick and I both moved here at about the same time, when we started to work on the first record,” Meath

says. “I moved from New York, where I lived for a little while. Nick moved from Milwaukee. We spend so much time in cultural hubs—other than that, it’s so much nicer to live in a place where a couple things are happening and you can be really involved in them and watch them happen. The people are excited when you do something creative. And when I go to get my coffee, I can say hi to everyone and see how their day is. My house is 10 minutes from downtown.”

Meath and Sanborn are “rehearsing and cramming” new creative ideas for the upcoming tour, which starts in Nashville on Thursday. A safe bet for the setlist is the scathing new single “Radio,” which finds Meath blasting the expectations of the pop world with one of her most visceral vocals to date.

“The first record is really laidback in terms of vocal performance—I think it has something to do with the fact that I was recording in a closet,” she says. “When the size of the audiences we were playing for began to grow larger and larger, the performances got bigger. ‘Radio’ is one of the more articulate and angry songs I’ve written. It’s not very mysterious at all.” ◆

WHO

Sylvan Esso with All Dogs

WHERE

The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot St.)

WHEN

Friday, Sept. 9, at 8 p.m.

HOW MUCH

$22/$25 day of the show

INFO

themillandmine.com or sylvanesso.com

Movies

Internet Explorer Werner Herzog’s outsized personality keeps Lo and Behold interesting

BY LEE GARDNER

P

erhaps it should not be slightly surprising that Werner Herzog made a documentary about the Internet. His public image is, at this point, half man, half social-media meme—eccentric filmmaking grandpa meets intellectual caricature prone to bringing up “the abyss” with a straight face at unlikely moments. But his late-career Q factor bears little relation to his core brilliance and ambition, nor to his idiosyncratic filmmaking prowess. Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World displays an abundance of the former, less so the latter.

Herzog starts at the beginning, in the drab room at UCLA where the first message was sent over what we now call the Internet in 1969, and skips across nearly five decades of net-driven innovation. He alights in Silicon Valley to talk to futurist moguls like Sebastian Thrun and Elon Musk, and he examines the highest heights that the last half century of innovation have unveiled: crowdsourced research, robots edging up to intelligent autonomy, the prospect of interplanetary colonization.

He also examines the less encouraging aspects of our net-connected society. A family recounts the trauma of having viral photographs of their daughter, nearly beheaded in a car crash, wind up in their inbox. He meets a recovering Internet addict who spent 16 hours a day playing video games, watching porn, and “just waiting for the timer to run out” on his real life. Herzog also pokes at the clay feet that support the tech colossus on which we now so heavily depend. He

talks to hackers and privacy experts about the lawlessness built into the Web and the utter illusion of security therein. He delves briefly into the phenomenon of solar storms, which will—not might, but will—eventually reset our plugged-in society back to the Middle Ages in a blink.

It’s heady stuff, but note the word “reveries” in the subtitle. Herzog covers a lot of ground, and uncovers many fascinating gems, but he soon has to move on. For instance, did you know there’s a patch of rural West Virginia that, thanks to a large radio-telescope installation, tamps

down all electronic signals as much as possible for miles around? And that the area has attracted a cadre of new residents who believe the omnipresent electronic signal tech of modern life is a threat to their health, some of whom live in Safe-like refuges? That could make a fascinating film on its own, but here it’s a relative blip in a somewhat scattered-feeling filmic essay.

It doesn’t help that Herzog’s subject is one of the more uncinematic topics available: boxes, wires, screens, and talking head after talking head.

Even the robots, for all their activities, are undemonstrative. At one point, his camera focuses for what feels like a very long time on a tweedy older professor scratching out impenetrable equations on a narrow band of chalkboard. He still finds those bits of weird magic that come from sticking ordinary people in front of a camera, as when the Catsouras family calmly discuss their Internet-fueled nightmare while posed as if for a portrait around a luxe dining-room table sporting large trays of pristine, perfectly orderly pastries. But these tantalizing moments whip by all too soon.

Herzog himself never appears on camera, but he is always at its

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shoulder, asking questions in his cultured rasp and throwing the occasional wrench into the orderly reality in frame. To a young robotics expert cradling one of his creations, he unexpectedly asks, “Do you love it?” (The man says he does.) The director startles Musk, the force behind commercial spaceflight company SpaceX, by spontaneously volunteering for a one-way mission to Mars. He does not seem to be kidding at all. For those collecting more meme fodder, we get to hear Herzog dismiss a generic UCLA interior with “The corridors here look repulsive.” He also makes mystified reference to “a malevolent druid dwarf” at one point.

Herzog’s outsized personality and penetrating intelligence keep Lo and Behold from the tedium of a dry survey. There are some surprising omissions—there’s hardly any acknowledgment that social media exist—but the questions he entertains are worth all of us asking ourselves.

And in the end, he’s like any of us: one person trying to make sense of a tech-enabled world now changing faster than he can comprehend. Even if the snapshot is out of date in two years, it’s worth taking time with. ◆

WHAT

The Public Cinema: Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World

WHERE

Scruffy City Hall (32 Market Square)

WHEN

Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 8 p.m.

HOW MUCH Free

INFO

publiccinema.org

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21

CALENDAR MUSIC

Thursday, Sept. 8 CHRISTIE LENEE WITH GINA SICILIA • 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 DAWN KNOTS • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 6PM THE CASKET KIDS WITH BACK FOR BLOOD AND STONEWASHED SAVIOR • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $5 THE BIG VALLEY MUSTANGS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM CHERUB WITH FRENSHIP AND BOO SEEKA • The International • 9PM • Cherub is an avant-garde, electro-pop duo that is the dance lovechild of 80’s funk, and pop music from the future. Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber share a love for honest original music and vibrant live performance.

Cherub’s music is a fresh electrified take on risqué pop music that brings to mind timeless artists like Prince, Zapp and Roger, and more contemporary Justin Timberlake. With a live show that is bouncing with energy, Cherub dances their way into the hearts of audiences from the first falsetto hook, until the very last delay filters out. 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $23-$43 LEOPOLD AND HIS FICTION • Preservation Pub • 9PM • 21 and up.

PALEFACE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Prolific, influential, cult-hero and indie -folk icon Paleface is now a high-energy and charismatic duo featuring his girlfriend Monica “Mo” Samalot, on drum-kit and charming candied vocal harmonies. • FREE CROSS RECORD • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up.

GUY MARSHALL • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • Guy Marshall’s full-length debut, The Depression Blues, isn’t really a debut at all. Most of the album’s 10 tracks are already familiar to fans of the folksy five-piece band, whose main members, husband and wife Adam and Sarrenna McNulty, have been a staple in Knoxville’s Americana scene for the past five years. Armed with an infectious stage presence and an earnest arsenal of songs that touch on themes of whiskey and wallowing, the pair, backed by a rotating cast of musicians, have played gigs that range from providing a soundtrack to beer-soaked attendees of Knoxville’s Brewer’s Jam to securing a spot on the main stage of this year’s Rhythm N’ Blooms festival. • FREE GUY MARSHALL • Scruffy City Hall • 6PM • Guy Marshall’s full-length debut, The Depression Blues, is an earnest arsenal of country-folk songs that touch on themes of whiskey and wallowing. Part of Wayne Bledsoe’s 6 O’Clock Swerve series on WDVX. • FREE BENJAMIN HERMANN AND DANA SIPOS • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 JEFF ORR AND VIC GRAVES WITH RED SHOES AND ROSIN • 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 HEATHEN SONS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • $0 ANDY SNEED • Vienna Coffee House • 7PM • FREE GARY ALLAN WITH MAE BETH HARRIS • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Gary Allan’s Set You Free is a perfectly named, well-conceived album that embodies his own evolution toward personal, creative freedom. The album, sequenced with a storyline in which a man breaks the 22

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

restraints of a failed relationship and conquers the loneliness of its aftermath, is the result of Allan’s own journey as a man and as an artist. Part of the Tennessee Valley Fair’s concert series; a ticket to the fair is required for admission. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $10-$30 SYLVAN ESSO • The Mill and Mine • 8PM • Sylvan Esso’s self-titled debut—a collection of vivid addictions concerning suffering and love, darkness and deliverance— arrives as a necessary pop balm, an album stuffed with songs that don’t suffer the longstanding complications of that term. • $22-$25 • See Music story on page 20.

FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE RON POPE • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Nashville-based independent artist Ron Pope has stood at a crossroads where so many musicians find themselves — at the intersection of record label and independence. In an ever-evolving industry filled with rejection and compromise, he has plotted a new course for his music to reach loyal listeners, taking the industry-road-less-traveled in exchange for the ultimate payback, a league of devoted fans the world over. • $15-$18 ALMOST KINGS WITH SEASONS OF ME AND TRANSPARENT SOUL • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 9PM • All ages. • FREE KATY FREE • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE CHELSEA STEPP • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM PISTOL CREEK • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM COL. BRUCE HAMPTON • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • A myth, a man, a legend. • $5 DIRTY BOURBON RIVER SHOW • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM • The Dirty Bourbon River Show deftly melds sounds that range from hard-edged blues to Lisztian piano driven ballads to New Orleans brass, all into a blast of creative energy into the collective musical landscape. Dirty Bourbon live is a sight to behold, mesmerizing audiences with their eccentricity and dexterity, coupled with their knack to hearken back to by-gone eras in music. • $5 SEE MONSTERS • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 ADRIAN AND MEREDITH • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE MIDNIGHT VOYAGE LIVE: THIS IS ART WITH MAGMABLOOD AND COSMIC COAST • The Concourse • 10PM • Live EDM, presented by Midnight Voyage Productions. 18 and up. • $7 BADLANDS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

ALIVE AFTER FIVE: THE JOHN MYERS BAND • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • John Myers has done some gospel, yes, but for the last eight years or so, now known for his big black cowboy hat, he’s made an unlikely alliance with some local string bands. They’ve been backing Myers to create a distinct amalgam of folk and R&B, what multi-instrumentalist (and ethnomusicologist) Sean McCullough calls “Americana soul.” The two worked together on Myers’ first solo album, I Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, just a few years ago. • $10 PAUL LEE KUPFER • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE Saturday, Sept. 10 ANNA ROSE • 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 VINYL MANIA • Concord Park • 6PM • Part of Knox County’s Second Saturday Concerts series at the Cover at Concord Park. • FREE OTIS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson

(Maryville) • 6PM • FREE DRAKEFORD • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • FREE SWINGBOOTY • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Gypsy jazz with 16-year-old mandolin prodigy Marc deFontNouvelle. All ages. • FREE HAROLD NAGGE AND ALAN WYATT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE YANKEE ROSE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM

THE REFLECTORS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE JUDY CHOPS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE BRANDON FULSON • Jimmy’s Place • 4:30PM • FREE THE BURNIN’ HERMANS • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM C2 AND THE BROTHERS REED • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $5 Sunday, Sept. 11 SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE

JAMES AGEE CONFERENCE FOR LITERATURE AND ARTS Pellissippi State Community College (10915 Hardin Valley Road) • Friday, Sept. 9-Saturday, Sept. 10 • Free • pstcc.edu/ageeconference

Lovers of Knoxville-born writer James Agee—and of writing in general—can consider his influence on society, take a nonfiction-writing workshop, or mull Appalachian poetry at this weekend’s first James Agee Conference for Literature and Arts at Pellissippi State Community College. The free conference, from Friday afternoon through Saturday morning, will feature dozens of scholarly and creative presentations led by noted Appalachian authors and scholars.

Friday’s lineup features readings and writing workshops. Leading a master class on creative nonfiction will be Karen McElmurray, the author of Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, which won the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. Novelist Mark Powell, author of The Dark Corner and Prodigals, will lead a fiction master class. Kentucky native Crystal Wilkinson, author of Blackberries, Blackberries, Water Street, and The Birds of Opulence, will provide the keynote presentation and sign copies of her books. But the most fun part might be after all this, when visitors can kick back with the writers Friday night for a reading and book-signing at the Hardin Valley Casual Pint.

Saturday’s offerings concentrate on Agee as well as the broader artistic influence of Appalachian culture, from LGBTQ art to fertility in poetry. Agee was a critic and groundbreaking author of creative-nonfiction books and magazine articles, as well as major movie scripts, but he was slow to develop an academic following. That means significant and exciting strides can still be made in the study of his work.

For example, 2010 saw the discovery of the manuscript of “Cotton Tenants,” the unpublished article Agee wrote for Fortune magazine from the same material that inspired his 1941 radical classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. University of Tennessee scholars and others are still discovering new film reviews by Agee, who cowrote The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter. This conference offers the potential for surprises and the debate of fresh ideas among Knoxville readers and writers. (S. Heather Duncan)

25

Spotlight: Hogskin History Day

CALENDAR SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 12:45PM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE KANE BROWN • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Kane Brown was born and raised in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area by a single mother, moving from Rossville to Fort Oglethorpe and LaFayette in Georgia, finally settling in Red Bank, Tennessee.In 2014, Kane crowdfunded his debut EP Closer. On Kane’s 22nd birthday, October 21, 2015, he released the single “Used to Love You Sober” on iTunes where it quickly went to #1 on the country singles chart and #2 overall. Part of the Tennessee Valley Fair’s concert series; a ticket to the fair is required for admission. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $15-$20 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.

JULIA LUCILLE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $3 Monday, Sept. 12 SISSY BROWN WITH SAM MORROW • 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 BRADY SEALS AND GORDON KENNEDY • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE LAUREN DAIGLE • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Blessed with a voice that is both smoky and sweet, Daigle has forged a unique sound that combines the soulful, heart-in-throat vulnerability of Adele, with the passionate fire to serve God that Daigle admires in Brooke Fraser. Her Centricity Music debut, How Can It Be, is ripe with the kind of compelling lyrics and engaging melodies that invite listeners to draw closer to their creator, and that’s just what Daigle had in mind. Part of the Tennessee Valley Fair’s concert series; a ticket to the fair is required for admission. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $7 SAM MORROW • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM JIMMY AND THE JAWBONES WITH LAWRENCE TRAILER • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $3 Tuesday, Sept. 13 CAMERON SUTPHIN • 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 CHRIS JANSON • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • With undeniable charisma, Janson brings a blue-collar, working-class, boot-stomping hillbilly swagger to bear on every live performance, earning him opening slots for Florida Georgia Line, music legends Merle Haggard and Hank Williams Jr. Part of the Tennessee Valley Fair’s concert series; a ticket to the fair is required for admission. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $15 MISS TESS AND THE TALKBACKS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM Wednesday, Sept. 14 DAVE EGGAR WITH MISS TESS • 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: JOAN SHELLEY AND MAIDEN RADIO • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Joan Shelley quickly followed her acclaimed 2014 album “Electric Ursa” with “Over and Even,” a quieter, more contemplative set recorded in her home state of Kentucky. • $10 THE DANIEL RYAN TRIO • The Bistro at the Bijou • 7PM • Live jazz. • FREE THE BLIND SPOTS • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE MAROON 5 • Thompson-Boling Arena • 7:30PM • Capturing their first of three Grammy Awards as “Best New Artist” of 2005 and going on to sell more than 17 million albums worldwide, Maroon 5’s releases have gone gold and platinum in over 35 countries. For more information on Maroon 5, please visit www.maroon5.com. • $30.50-$126 LANCO • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Part of the Tennessee Valley Fair’s concert series; a ticket to the fair is required for admission. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • FREE THE CAM DUFFY BAND • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $3 Thursday, Sept. 15 THE WAY DOWN WANDERERS WITH MICK MCAULEY • 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 BLUEPRINT • Scruffy City Hall • 6PM • Local pianist Keith Brown’s cool jazz combo. Part of Wayne Bledsoe’s 6 O’Clock Swerve series on WDVX. • FREE STYX • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Harmony. Chemistry.

Balance. Grit. Dexterity. Determination. Solidarity. Terms that describe a Super Bowl champion? Well, almost.

These are words that define the core essence of Styx, the multimegamillion-selling rock band that has forged an indelible legacy both on record and onstage. Part of the Tennessee Valley Fair’s concert series; a ticket to the fair is required for admission. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $10-$30 GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT • The Concourse • 9PM • God Is An Astronaut are a 4 piece band who hail from Glen of the Downs, Ireland. 18 and up. • $13 THE WILD REEDS • Pilot Light • 9PM • The Wild Reeds can be defined by one word: Harmony. However, the music is nearly indefinable. The sound from this LA based band fronted by Kinsey Lee, Mackenzie Howe and Sharon Silva dips in and out of multiple genres - some ethereal folk, a hint of country twang and some rock and roll rhythm (from Nick Jones and Nick Phakpiseth), but it all comes back to the root of this band’s power: harmonies that create an instrument in and of itself. 18 and up. • $8 THE GRAND SHELL GAME • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • The Grand Shell Game is set to release their bold debut album man on a wire on June 11th, 2016. Recorded at the renowned Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, CT (Interpol, The Head and the Heart, The National), the work springs from foundations laid by songwriter E.S. Guthrie (guitar and vocals, former co-founder of The New Familiars) and is fully realized with some of the best musicians to be found in central North Carolina • FREE THE CHARLES WALKER BAND • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $3 Friday, Sept. 16 GROOVE JUNCTION • 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 September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 23

CALENDAR ALIVE AFTER FIVE: THE ROYAL HOUNDS • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • After three years in Las Vegas, performing and touring with “The Million Dollar Quartet,” East Tennessee native Scott Hinds returns home to perform with his own stellar rockabilly band. • $10 BENJAMIN JACOB RUPE • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • Singer/songwriter from Nashville. • FREE THESE WILD PLAINS • Sugarlands Distilling Co.(Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE THE HAVANA CUBA ALL-STARS • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Cuba’s greatest musicians have created and maintained the songs and music of the rich culture of the Cuban people in the program, “Cuban Nights.” • $16.50-$29.50 NAUGHTY BY NATURE WITH DJ ERIC B • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • The Grammy Award winning, Platinum-album selling, New Jersey super-group, Naughty By Nature, is celebrating their twenty-year track record of creating the hits and party anthems that have become the soundtrack to our lives. Their music has smashed through mainstream barriers all while remaining true to the sound, message and grit of the hood. Part of the Tennessee Valley Fair’s concert series; a ticket to the fair is required for admission. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $10 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE SCOTT MILLER WITH PARKER MILLSAP • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • As much as Scott Miller loves Knoxville, and as much as the city loves him back—and as much as his songs seem tied to this specific place—you could always tell that he

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

never quite gave up the idea of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley as his real home. Visit thescottmiller.com.

ANDREW PETERSON • The Square Room • 8PM • Singer/ songwriter and author Andrew Peterson will present songs from his most recent album, The Burning Edge of Dawn. He’ll follow the Friday concert with an appearance at a symposium on the intersection of art and faith at Johnson University. Visit newcityresources.org. • $20-$30 MIC HARRISON AND THE HIGH SCORE WITH LLAMA TRAIN AND HANDSOME AND THE HUMBLES • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up. • $5 KNOXVILLE SECRET SHOWS: FIREKID • Knoxville Music Warehouse • 8:30PM • The musical brainchild of Dillon Hodges, firekid has fast earned applause for his transcendent fusion of country, indie, folk, bluegrass, and Southern rock. Part of the Knoxville Secret Shows series produced by Knoxville Music Warehouse and Rhythm N’ Blooms; the venue will be announced to ticketholders the day before the show. Visit knoxvillemusicwarehouse. com. • $10-$12 JEANINE FULLER • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz.

• FREE THE WHIGS WITH TINA TARMAC AND THE BURNS AND RED WINE HANGOVER • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM • THE COVERALLS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • $5 BLANK RANGE • Pilot Light • 10PM • Nashville’s Blank Range serves up an eclectic patchwork of music that recalls Wilco’s folky noise, Alabama Shakes’ groove-heavy soul, and the giddy classic-rock thrust of early Kings of Leon. 18 and up.

GRANDPA’S COUGH MEDICINE • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE

THE FLOOZIES WITH CHET PORTER AND DAILY BREAD • The International • 10PM • 18 and up. • $15 Saturday, Sept. 17 BENJAMIN JACOB RUPE WITH SARAH SHOOK AND THE DISARMERS • 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 BENDER BASS AND COMPANY • Jimmy’s Place • 3PM • FREE THE BAND TRIBUTE CONCERT • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • A tribute to the music of the Band, led by the Tim Lee 3. • $5 JIMMY AND THE JAWBONES • Last Days of Autumn Brewery • 7PM CORTEZ GARZA • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • FREE SAM MORROW WITH BENJAMIN JACOB RUPE • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE PEABO BRYSON • Niswonger Performing Arts Center (Greeneville) • 7:30PM • $35-$45 EMILY ANN ROBERTS • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Emily Ann Roberts is a 17 year old singer/songwriter/musician.

Growing up in East Tennessee Emily Ann has been influenced by a wide variety of music. Her true love lies in the old country sounds mixed with gospel and bluegrass influences. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $5 THE CHUCK MULLICAN JAZZ BONANZA • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE NEW POWER SOUL • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM SARAH SHOOK AND THE DISARMERS • Barley’s Taproom

and Pizzeria • 10PM • FREE DARSOMBRA • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 THE KNOX COUNTY JUG STOMPERS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE WAY SNEAKY EDDIE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $5 Sunday, Sept. 18 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 GROOVE JUNCTION • Star of Knoxville Riverboat • 4PM • Visit smokymountainblues.org. • $16-$20 DIAMOND RIO WITH HOMER HART • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $15 THE LOST FIDDLE STRING BAND • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • FREE COLE WITH CHIFFON • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $6 RADIO BIRDS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $3

OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS

Thursday, Sept. 8 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.

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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

CALENDAR

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Thursday, Sept. 8 SCRUFFY CITY ORCHESTRA • First Baptist Church • 7PM • A new venue for musicians from the greater Knoxville

metropolitan area. Scruffy City Orchestra kicks off with regular rehearsals on Thursdays beginning Aug. 25.

Conductors are Mat Wilkinson and Ace Edewards.

Prospective members, especially string players, are encouraged to contact Alicia Meryweather at ScruffyCityOrchestra@gmail.com for more information. • FREE

Sunday, Sept. 11 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, Sept. 13 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7PM OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Hosted by Sarah Pirkle. • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 14 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.

SCHULZ BRÄU OPEN MIC NIGHT • Schulz Bräu Brewing Company • 8PM • Every Wednesday. • FREE BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. • FREE Thursday, Sept. 15 IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 17 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, Sept. 18 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, Sept. 10 ASCEND • The International • 9PM • Ascend is Knoxville’s interactive dance experience. Take it to the next level with us every Saturday night with the best music of today and your favorite throwbacks. 18 and up. • $5-$10 TEMPLE • The Concourse • 9PM • Knoxville’s long-running alternative dance night. 18 and up. • $5 Friday, Sept. 16 TEKNOX V. 29 • The Birdhouse • 10PM • Knoxville’s monthly sounds of the underground, featuring techno, house, and more. With Justin Hand (Bangtech12/LFORadio) from Memphis and Oliver Dodd (Detroit Underground/ Konstructure) and Grey People (CGI Records/Proper Trax) from Nashville. 21 and up. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 17 ASCEND • The International • 9PM • Ascend is Knoxville’s interactive dance experience. Take it to the next level with us every Saturday night with the best music of today and your favorite throwbacks. 18 and up. • $5-$10

HOGSKIN HISTORY DAY Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center (1936 Liberty Hill Road, Washburn) • Saturday, Sept. 10 • 11 a.m.-5 p.m. • Free • narrorwridge.org

Get back to the land this Saturday at Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center’s annual celebration of the culture and heritage of Grainger County’s rural Hogskin Valley. The event features food, music, crafts, games, and a little education on the natural history of the area.

Blending Appalachian country living with ecological mindfulness, Narrow Ridge is a 120-acre spiritual retreat and environmental-education center overlooking Hogskin Valley, about 35 miles north of Knoxville. The center is dedicated to “sustainability, spirituality and community,” with a library, orchard, natural-burial cemetery, and solar-powered off-the-grid cabins and lodges. A small community of nature-lovers live on Narrow Ridge’s 500 acres of protected land trusts, abiding by ecological regulations on land-use and home construction.

On the day of the celebration, homemade food will be available for purchase: pizza baked in an outdoor cob oven, beans and cornbread, hand-cranked ice cream, and fresh-pressed organic cider. Entertainment includes traditional music, singing and dancing, guest speakers, craftspeople selling textiles and jewelry, door prizes, cake walks, puppet-making, children’s activities, and tours of Narrow Ridge’s grounds and buildings. Many of these distinctive buildings are of straw-bale construction—stacked bales of straw dressed with plaster form their exterior walls.

This year, Hogskin History Day’s theme is water—the role of rivers, lakes, and streams in the valley and surrounding communities.

“Folks in the Hogskin Valley have countless reasons to celebrate water,” says Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener, director of Narrow Ridge. “Water had shaped and colored our landscape, watered our crops and livestock, powered our grist mills, and sustained a fish population that has been a food source for generations.”

Water has also played a role in grimmer parts of Appalachian history, reminding Narrow Ridge environmentalists of the spiritual and practical importance of resource conservation and alternative energy.

“Although construction of [Norris Dam] was completed in 1936, folks in our region—many of whom were relocated and separated from their neighbors—did not receive electricity until the 1950s, due to the diversion of hydroelectric power for the war effort,” Wood-Von Mizener says.

“Today, species of fish and mollusks are seriously threatened by contaminants of coal dust and agricultural runoff. These bottom feeders are critical to the health of our waterways and their wild inhabitants.”

Guest speakers range from community elders sharing stories of local mills and the damming of the Clinch and Powell rivers to representatives from the Grainger County Forestry Department with a demonstration on the importance of trees in preventing erosion. (Eleanor Scott)

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25

CALENDAR Saturday, Sept. 10 DAVID FEDER • Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan • 7PM • Hillbilly Flamenco Guitarist/Songwriter David Feder has been captivating audiences worldwide with his playfully sensual music for over 20 years. With a warm smile and a funny charismatic presence, this remarkable musician has earned a devoted following. And with his fresh approach to the finger style classic guitar, Feder breathes new life into the American Gypsy-World Music scene. Visit knoxvilleguitar.org. • $20 Thursday, Sept. 15 SCRUFFY CITY ORCHESTRA • First Baptist Church • 7PM • A new venue for musicians from the greater Knoxville metropolitan area. Scruffy City Orchestra kicks off with regular rehearsals on Thursdays beginning Aug. 25.

Conductors are Mat Wilkinson and Ace Edewards.

Prospective members, especially string players, are encouraged to contact Alicia Meryweather at ScruffyCityOrchestra@gmail.com for more information. • FREE KSO MASTERWORKS: RUSSIAN PASSION • Tennessee Theatre • 7:30PM • The KSO will open its 81st season with a concert of Russian passion featuring Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Guest pianist Orion Weiss returns to join the KSO for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. • $13-$83 Friday, Sept. 16 KSO MASTERWORKS: RUSSIAN PASSION • Tennessee Theatre • 7:30PM • The KSO will open its 81st season with a concert

26

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

of Russian passion featuring Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.

Guest pianist Orion Weiss returns to join the KSO for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. • $13-$83 Sunday, Sept. 18 CHIH-LONG HU: THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 2PM • The Sandra G. Powell endowed professor will perform Bach’s Goldberg Variations, works by Liszt and Rachmaninov, and his own composition “Afterthought on Bach’s Goldberg Variations.â€? • FREE UT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA • University of Tennessee Alumni Memorial Building • 4PM • FREE

THEATER AND DANCE

Thursday, Sept. 8 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: AUDITIONS FOR ‘THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 4:30PM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre will hold auditions for the upcoming stage production of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Actors should expect to attend most, but not all, rehearsals. Actors must also be available for all 14 regular performances: Oct. 28-Nov. 13, Thursdays through Sundays. To make an audition appointment, e-mail dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville. com. • FREE CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by Brian Crawley. Filled with bluegrass, folk, and gospel tunes from one of the most vibrant composers in

40.&5*.&4 %*4$07&3: 45"354 8*5) " 1"5) 3JHIU PVUTJEF PG UIF (SFBU 4NPLZ .PVOUBJOT /BUJPOBM 1BSL JT ZPVS PXO P V U E P P S B N V T F N F O U Q B S L 8F P òF S N J M F T P G H SF F OX B Z T Q B D F T U P VOXJOE BOE FOKPZ FWFSZUIJOH UIF PVUEPPST IBT UP PòFS 'SPN TUSFBN TJEF USBJMT XJMEøPXFS ÜFMET GPSFTUT XBUFSXBZT BOE PQFO TQBDFT BMM MPD MPDBUFE XJUIJO KVTU B GFX NJOVUFT PG RVBJOU OFJHICPSIPPET BOE EPXOUPXO 8BML SVO PS D ZDMF UIF PQUJPOT BSF FOEMFTT JO UIF 1FBDFGVM 4JEF PG UIF 4NPLJFT :PV MM EJTDPWFS UIBU ZPV SF HPJOH UP OFFE B MPOHFS TUBZ

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

modern musical theatre. Scarred in a farm accident, Violet takes a bus to Tulsa – via Johnson City, Kingsport, Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis – to be healed by an evangelical preacher. On the way, she learns the real meaning of love, courage, and beauty. Aug. 31-Sept. 18.

Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • [title of show] is the story of Hunter and Jeff, “two nobodies in New York,â€? who are writing a musical with the help of their gal-pals Heidi and Susan. Throughout the show we get to know the four with their goofy quirks and inside jokes, as they put together something they all believe in. Biting and witty, clever and inspiring, vulnerable and hilarious—this edgy musical comedy chronicles the serious and hilarious challenges of following one’s dreams. Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Friday, Sept. 9 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Saturday, Sept. 10 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE GUYS’ • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 3PM • Less than two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, New Yorkers are still in shock.

One of them, an editor named Joan, receives an unexpected phone call from Nick, a fire captain who has

lost most of his men in the attack. He’s looking for a writer to help him with the eulogies he must present at their memorial services. Nick and Joan spend a long afternoon together, recalling the fallen men through recounting their virtues and their foibles, and fashioning the stories into memorials of words. Presented in partnership with the Knoxville Firefighters’ Association.

All proceeds in excess of expenses will benefit the KFA’s Firefighters Relief Fund and TKD’s Second Act campaign.

Admission is free, but reservations are strongly recommended as seating is limited. Donations will be gratefully accepted. Sept. 10-11. Visit theatreknoxville. com. • FREE CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Sunday, Sept. 11 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 2PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE GUYS’ • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 3PM nd 7PM • Sept. 10-11.

Visit theatreknoxville.com. • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 14

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

Thursday, Sept. 15 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

APPALACHIAN BALLET COMPANY: BLUEJEANS AND BALLET • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 6PM • A casual evening of dinner and contemporary dance—dinner and drinks at 6 p.m., followed by a performance by Appalachian Ballet Company at 7:15. Visit appalachianballet.com. • $55 THE WORDPLAYERS: ‘LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC’ • Erin Presbyterian Church • 7:30PM • Arlene Hutton’s play explores the new relationship of two young people who meet in 1940 under the shadow of the threat of war. Sept.

15-25. Visit wordplayers.org. • $15 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Friday, Sept. 16 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 THE WORDPLAYERS: ‘LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC’ • Erin Presbyterian Church • 7:30PM • Sept. 15-25. Visit wordplayers.org. • $15 Saturday, Sept. 17 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 THE WORDPLAYERS: ‘LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC’ • Erin Presbyterian Church • 7:30PM • Sept. 15-25. Visit wordplayers.org. • $15 Sunday, Sept. 18 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 2PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 THE WORDPLAYERS: ‘LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC’ • Erin Presbyterian Church • 2:30PM • Sept. 15-25. Visit wordplayers.org. • $15

COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD

Thursday, Sept. 8 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. 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

CALENDAR

Sunday, Sept. 11 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Visit scruffycity.com.

admission price. The show will feature both puppets from CPC’s spring show and some new ones they’ve recently dreamed up. • $10

Monday, Sept. 12 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.

FRIENDLYTOWN • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • A weekly comedy night named after the former red-light district near the Old City. Visit facebook.com/friendlytownknoxville. 18 and up. • FREE

FESTIVALS

Tuesday, Sept. 13 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 • Come laugh until you cry at the Longbranch every Tuesday night. 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 can email us at longbranch.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, Sept. 15 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, Sept. 16 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.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN BURLESQUE FESTIVAL • The Concourse • 8PM • An Appalachian burlesque invasion, with Ray Gunn, Bazuka Joe, and Mr. Gorgeous. 18 and up. • $15-$80 • See Program Notes on page 18.

Saturday, Sept. 17 SMOKY MOUNTAIN BURLESQUE FESTIVAL • The Concourse • 9PM • An Appalachian burlesque invasion, with Ray Gunn, Bazuka Joe, and Mr. Gorgeous. 18 and up. • $15-$80 • See Program Notes on page 18.

Sunday, Sept. 18 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Visit scruffycity.com.

CATTYWAMPUS PUPPETS IN THE PARK • Ijams Nature Center • 2PM • Join the Cattywampus Puppet Council for their second annual Puppets in the Park, with several puppet making stations set up to make your own puppet to bring to the show. All supplies are included with

Friday, Sept. 9 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 3PM • The Tennessee Valley Fair is a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing East Tennessee heritage, agriculture and the arts. From exciting rides, concerts, livestock shows, delicious fair food and so much more, there’s something for everyone at the Fair. Sept. 9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 Saturday, Sept. 10 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 10AM • The Tennessee Valley Fair is a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing East Tennessee heritage, agriculture and the arts. From exciting rides, concerts, livestock shows, delicious fair food and so much more, there’s something for everyone at the Fair. Sept. 9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 HOGSKIN HISTORY DAY • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For more information visit www. narrowridge.org or call 865-497-2753. • FREE • See Spotlight on page 25.

Sunday, Sept. 11 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 12PM • The Tennessee Valley Fair is a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing East Tennessee heritage, agriculture and the arts. From exciting rides, concerts, livestock shows, delicious fair food and so much more, there’s something for everyone at the Fair. Sept. 9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 Monday, Sept. 12 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 10AM • The Tennessee Valley Fair is a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing East Tennessee heritage, agriculture and the arts. From exciting rides, concerts, livestock shows, delicious fair food and so much more, there’s something for everyone at the Fair. Sept. 9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 Tuesday, Sept. 13 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 10AM • The Tennessee Valley Fair is a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing East Tennessee heritage, agriculture and the arts. From exciting rides, concerts, livestock shows, delicious fair food and so much more, there’s something for everyone at the Fair. Sept. 9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 Wednesday, Sept. 14 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 3PM • The Tennessee Valley Fair is a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing East Tennessee heritage, agriculture and the arts. From exciting rides, concerts, livestock shows, delicious fair food and so much more, there’s something for everyone at the Fair. Sept. 9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 KNOXVILLE NOODLE BOWL FESTIVAL • Blue Slip Winery • 6PM • The second Knoxville Noodle Bowl Festival is a family-friendly, casual picnic-style community event to raise funds to send young chefs to educational programming throughout the United States. Stay up-to-date with the Knoxville Noodle Bowl Festival on the Chefs Collaborative Knoxville Facebook page at www.facebook.

ARAM

The

from ERA:BetheThere Beginning!

CLASSICAL TICKETS start at just $15!

IN ONE WEEK!

RUSSIAN PASSION: RACHMANINOFF & TCHAIKOVSKY Thursday, Sept. 15 • 7:30 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 16 • 7:30 p.m.

TENNESSEE THEATRE Aram Demirjian, conductor Orion Weiss, piano RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 3 TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5 Sponsored by Twin City Dealerships

NOV. 2016

APPALACHIAN SPRING Thursday, Nov. 17 • 7:30 p.m.

Friday, Nov. 18 • 7:30 p.m.

TENNESSEE THEATRE Aram Demirjian, conductor Sponsored by Circle of Friends

A CLASSICAL CHRISTMAS Sunday, Nov. 27 • 2:30 p.m.

BIJOU THEATRE Aram Demirjian, conductor Pellissippi State Variations choir Sponsored by Asbury Place Continuing Care Retirement Communities Presented with support from the Aslan Foundation

CALL: (865) 291-3310 CLICK: knoxvillesymphony.com VISIT: Monday-Friday, 9-5 September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 27

CALENDAR

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

com/ChefsCollaborativeKnoxville. • $30-$60

or email kja@jewishknoxville.org.

Thursday, Sept. 15 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 3PM • Sept. 9-18.

Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10

FILM SCREENINGS

Friday, Sept. 16 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 3PM • Sept. 9-18.

Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 Saturday, Sept. 17 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 10AM • Sept. 9-18.

Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 JOHN SEVIER DAYS LIVING HISTORY WEEKEND • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 10AM • Marble Springs State Historic Site is pleased to host a weekend of Living History in celebration of the life and times of the first governor of Tennessee, John Sevier, in commemoration of his 271st birthday. Visit marblesprings.net. • $5 Sunday, Sept. 18 JOHN SEVIER DAYS LIVING HISTORY WEEKEND • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 11AM • Visit marblesprings. net. • $5 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 12PM • Sept. 9-18.

Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 KNOSHVILLE KOSHER DELI • Arnstein Jewish Community Center • 12PM • For more information, call (865) 690-6343

28

Thursday, Sept. 8 KNOXVILLE HORROR FILM FESTIVAL: ‘THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT’ • Scruffy City Hall • 7PM • To celebrate the recent announcement of the sequel to one of the most famous horror films from the last 20 years, we’re going back into the woods for a double feature to see if The Blair Witch is really as scary as we remember. As usual, this event is free, but we will be taking donations for KHFF 8 on Oct. 21-23. Visit knoxvillehorrofest.com. • FREE SCHULZ BRÄU FILMNACHT • Schulz Bräu Brewing Company • 9PM • A free weekly movie screening—check social media for the week’s entry. 21 and up. • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 MOVIES ON MARKET SQUARE • Market Square • 8PM • For more information, please call (865) 215-8767 or visit www.knoxlib.org. • FREE Monday, Sept. 12 UT OUT FILM SERIES: THE CELLULOID CLOSET • University of Tennessee • 6PM • Part of the UT OUT Film Series at the John C. Hodges Library. • FREE THE BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM • A weekly free movie screening. • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 14 THE PUBLIC CINEMA: LO AND BEHOLD, REVERIES OF THE

CONNECTED WORLD • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • FREE • See review on page 21.

NOKNO CINEMATHEQUE: ‘THE KARATE KID’ • Central Collective • 8PM • The 1984 favorite about a martial-arts master and his young protege, starring Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita. • FREE Thursday, Sept. 15 SCHULZ BRÄU FILMNACHT • Schulz Bräu Brewing Company • 9PM • A free weekly movie screening—check social media for the week’s entry. 21 and up. • FREE Friday, Sept. 16 MOVIES ON MARKET SQUARE • Market Square • 8PM • For more information, please call (865) 215-8767 or visit www.knoxlib.org. • FREE

SPORTS AND RECREATION

Thursday, Sept. 8 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10AM • Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE CLIMBING AT IJAMS CRAG • Ijams Nature Center • 5PM • You can register online or by calling 865-673-4687. riversportsoutfitters.com/events/. • $10 NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • FREE FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE

FOUNTAIN CITY PEDALER THIRSTY THURSDAY ROAD RIDE • Fountain City Pedaler • 6PM • Visit facebook.com/ Fountain-City-Pedaler-Bike-Shop. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES BEGINNER ROAD RIDE • Sequoyah Park • 6:20PM • Join us every Thursday evening at Sequoyah Park for a beginner’s no-drop ride. Riders can ride at their own pace on Cherokee Boulevard and do as many laps as they choose. Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY NIGHT RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:20PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 RIVER SPORTS FRIDAY NIGHT GREENWAY RUN • River Sports Outfitters • 6:30PM • Greenway run from the store every Friday evening. Work up a thirst then join us for $2 pints in the store afterwards. riversportsoutfitters.com. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 10 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: APPALACHIAN TRAIL MAINTENANCE • 8AM • The AT maintenance work-trip this month will involve parking at the Davenport Gap exit from the AT and hiking toward the Lower Mt. Cammerer trail junction with the AT. Along the way the group will focus on checking on the Davenport Gap shelter, cleaning water bars and trimming back brush and overgrown vegetation. Distance hiked will probably be around 6 miles. Bring a lunch, work gloves and your hand tool of choice. I will have additional tools. Meet at Comcast on Asheville Highway, at 8:00 am. Leader: Steve Dunkin, jsdunkin@roaneschools.com. • FREE BIKE ZOO SATURDAY MORNING RIDE • The Bike Zoo • 9AM •

Your downtown location to try local breweries

A Knoxville brewery tour all in one place!

Starting Friday Sept. 9 we will be offering all Knoxville area taps and flights.

As well as a our current wide selection of national and international craft beer in stock.

Join us football fans!

Every weekend for UT games and NFL Sunday Ticket.

Happy Hour 3-6pm Daily Always made fresh. Always made from scratch.

135 S. Gay St. Knoxville, TN (865) 333-5773

sugarmamasknox.com | @SugarMamasKnox

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

Join us every Saturday for a three-hour ride of 50 miles or more, usually at a fast pace of 18-20 mph. Visit bikezoo.com. • FREE Sunday, Sept. 11 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: BLANKET MOUNTAIN • 8AM • Join us for a hike to the top of Blanket Mountain.

The first part is the moderate hike up the Jakes Creek Trail to Jakes Gap, and the heritage part is the 0.5 mile off-trail up an overgrown former trail to the top of Blanket Mountain where we will find remnants of the former fire tower site. The off-trail part is not extreme but be ready for some “bushwhacking.” Hiking distance ~7 miles, rated moderate. Meet at Alcoa Food City, 121 North Hall Road, at 8:00 am. Leaders: Terri Cox, tcox@nxs.net and Mike Harrington, mike_harr@bellsouth.net. • FREE Monday, Sept. 12 CLIMBING AT IJAMS CRAG • Ijams Nature Center • 5PM • riversportsoutfitters.com/events/. • $10 KTC GROUP RUN • Mellow Mushroom • 6PM • Visit ktc.org.

• 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 17 mph and the B group averages around 14 mph. • FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 13 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 9AM • Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10:30AM • JVisit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE AMBC BIG GROUP MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE • Ijams Nature Center • 6PM • Visit ambc-sorba.org. • 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, Sept. 14 KTC GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 5:30PM • Visit ktc.org.

• 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. We meet near Mead’s Quarry. • FREE CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10AM • Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE CLIMBING AT IJAMS CRAG • Ijams Nature Center • 5PM • You can register online or by calling 865-673-4687. riversportsoutfitters.com/events/. • $10 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 FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE FOUNTAIN CITY PEDALER THIRSTY THURSDAY ROAD RIDE • Fountain City Pedaler • 6PM • Visit facebook.com/

CALENDAR

Fountain-City-Pedaler-Bike-Shop. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES BEGINNER ROAD RIDE • Sequoyah Park • 6:20PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY NIGHT RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:20PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE

ART

A1 Lab Arts 23 Emory Place SEPT. 2-30: Signification, an exhibition about art and language featuring work by Shannon Novak, Aaron Oldenburg, Norman Magden, Sara Blair McNally, Grayson Earle, Michael Arpino, Robert Thompson, Tracy Riggs, Elizabeth Mcnall, Beth Fox, Melanie Eichholz, Heath Schultz, Monique Grimord, Carson Grubaugh, Anna Ursyn, Peter Whittenberger, and the Bureau (Liat Berdugo, Josh Finn, Leora Fridman, and Shawn Manchester).

Arnstein Jewish Community Center 6800 Deane Hill Drive AUG. 29-SEPT. 30: Artwork by David Barnett.

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 556 Parkway (Gatlinburg) AUG. 15-OCT. 5: A retrospective exhibition featuring artwork by Bill Griffith, former Arrowmont program director.

Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. SEPT. 1-30: Paintings by Kathy Holland and gourd art by Jeannie Gravetti.

Broadway Studios and Gallery 1127 N. Broadway SEPT. 2-30: All Scapes, an art competition featuring work by local artists in any -scape format: landscape, cityscape, seascape, etc.

The District Gallery 5113 Kingston Pike AUG. 19-SEPT. 10: Terra Madre: Women in Clay, an exhibit of work by Knoxville-area ceramic artists. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Aug. 19, from 5-8 p.m.

Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. SEPT. 2-30: Persona: Process Portraiture, an exhibition of work by Leah Schrager, Marcia Goldenstein, Judith Page, and Gail Skudera.

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. SEPT. 2-9: Frutos Latinos, Hola Hora Latina’s 10th annual art exhibit and contest. SEPT. 2-30: Slot Machine, coloring pages by Stephen Reid Carcello; We the People,

by Antuco Chicaiza; artwork by Emily Taylor; A Time of Recent Creativity, new paintings by Anthony Donaldson; and Cosmic Order, artwork by Eurichea Showalter Subagh Ball.

Ewing Gallery

1715 Volunteer Boulevard SEPT. 6-30: The Unbearable Flatness of Being, an exhibit of paintings by Sarah Emerson. Emerson will discuss her work on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m.

Fluorescent Gallery 627 N. Central St. SEPT. 8-10: Creamy, multimedia works by Rachel Byrd.

Knoxville Arts and Fine Crafts Center 1127B Broadway AUG. 1-OCT. 31: Whimsical Creatures, paintings and photographs by Lela E. Buis.

Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive AUG. 26-NOV. 6: Romantic Spirits: 19th-Century Paintings of the South From the Johnson Collection (See Spotlight on page 41.) SEPT. 12-OCT. 7: Frutos Latinos, Hola Hora Latina’s 10th annual art exhibit and contest. 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.

Knoxville’s BEST live music venue 6 nights a week!

Happy Hour 4pm - 8pm | mon - fri Huge selection of Craft, Import & Local beer Locally roasted coffee

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture 1327 Circle Park Drive SEPT. 7-JAN. 8: Knoxville Unearthed: Archaeology in the Heart of the Valley. JULY 12-OCT. 19: Land, Sea, and Spirit: Alaska Native Art From the 19th and 20th Centuries.

ONGOING: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier.

Pellissippi State Community College 10915 Hardin Valley Road THROUGH SEPT. 9: Artwork by members of the Vacuum Shop Studios. A reception will be held on Friday, Sept.

9, from 4-7 p.m.

FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS

Thursday, Sept. 8 LITTLE LEARNERS • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 3-5. Interactive sessions focus on language acquisition and pre-literacy skills incorporating stories, music, motion, play, crafts and more. • FREE CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • For middle and high school students, with coach Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE LEGO CLUB • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • LEGO Club will take place in the children’s library. Kids will complete different-themed and timed LEGO Challenges, as well as have some time for free building. The library will provide the LEGOs, so all you have to bring is your imagination. • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • For grades K-5. Every week will be a different adventure, from science experiments to art projects and everything in between. Materials will be limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 10 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • For middle and high school students, with coach

wed sept. 7 • 7pm open mic night solo performers & bands welcome free • all ages ( open mic )

thurs sept. 8 • 8pm The Casket Kids w/ Back For Blood, & Stonewashed Savior $5 • All Ages ( punk rock )

fri sept. 9 • 8pm

Almost Kings W/ Seasons of Me, Transparent Soul, & Lost In Silence $10 • All Ages ( rock )

sat sept. 10 • 8pm

swingbooty w/ guest Marc deFontnouvelle FREE • all ages ( gypsy swing ) "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

September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 29

CALENDAR Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE MCCLUNG MUSEUM FAMILY FUN DAY: HISTORY AND RHYTHM • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 1PM • Join us for free a free Family Fun Day featuring activities, crafts, tours, and more. This month, we’ll explore history and rhythm with Cypher Saturdays Knoxville, a monthly Hip Hop group that focuses on bringing communities together to network and build. In collaboration with the local community, the museum will host a program in which dancers, poets, and hip hop enthusiasts will create connections between the collection and their artistic abilities. All materials will be provided. The program is free and open to the public.

Reservations are not necessary. • FREE BLOUNT COUNTY NERD GROUP • Blount County Public Library • 3PM • Starting this summer, students can learn the basic principles of computer programming, also known as coding. By participating in the newly-formed Blount County Nerd Group, students seventh grade and up can learn skills such as making simple games, developing professional websites and creating mobile apps. Participating students are encouraged to bring their own technologies including a laptop. However, students who do not have adequate technology will be provided a laptop by the library when necessary. • FREE Sunday, Sept. 11 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.

30

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

and 4 p.m. • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 13 LITTLE LEARNERS • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 3-5. Interactive sessions focus on language acquisition and pre-literacy skills incorporating stories, music, motion, play, crafts and more. • FREE 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, Sept. 14 BABY AND ME • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 2 and under. These lapsit sessions for baby and caregiver feature short stories, action rhymes, music and pre-literacy tips and tricks for caregivers. It is also a great time for caregivers and babies to socialize. • FREE Thursday, Sept. 15 LITTLE LEARNERS • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 3-5. Interactive sessions focus on language acquisition and pre-literacy skills incorporating stories, music, motion, play, crafts and more. • FREE CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library •

1PM • For middle and high school students, with coach Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE LEGO CLUB • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • FREE Friday, Sept. 16 S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • For grades K-5. Every week will be a different adventure, from science experiments to art projects and everything in between. Materials will be limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 17 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • For middle and high school students, with coach Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE BLOUNT COUNTY NERD GROUP • Blount County Public Library • 3PM • FREE KNOX LIT EXCHANGE • Central Collective • 11:30AM • The Knoxville Literary Exchange is a free, monthly poetry and prose writing workshop open to high school age students. The workshop will focus on giving students the opportunity to engage in writing, share their writing, and receive encouraging feedback--all in a supportive, safe space. The Knoxville Literary Exchange meets every third Saturday in the fall (September, October, November, and December) and spring (February, March, April, May). For further information, please contact organizer Liam Hysjulien at KnoxLitExchange@gmail.com. • FREE

LECTURES, READINGS,

AND BOOK SIGNINGS

Thursday, Sept. 8 JOHN HERBST: “THE FAILURE OF THE POLICY ELITE AND THE DANGERS OF POPULAR REACTION” • Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy • 5:30PM • Ambassador John Herbst, currently the director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., will provide his view of U.S. foreign policy, which he believes has blundered from one intervention in the Middle East into another, constrained by complementary ideologies popular among the foreign-policy elite in both parties.

The event is free and open to the public. Public parking is available in Vol Hall Garage. • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 JAMES AGEE CONFERENCE FOR LITERATURE AND ARTS • Pellissippi State Community College • FREE • See Spotlight on page 22.

UT SCIENCE FORUM • Thompson-Boling Arena • 12PM • The University of Tennessee Science Forum offers a weekly lecture on current science, medical, or technology developments. Visit scienceforum.utk.edu. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 10 THUNDER ROAD AUTHOR RALLY 2016 • Maynardville Public Library • 9AM • A meet and greet for local authors. • FREE JAMES AGEE CONFERENCE FOR LITERATURE AND ARTS • Pellissippi State Community College • FREE • See Spotlight on page 22.

Sunday, Sept. 11

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

FAMILY OF EARTH: A SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN CHILDHOOD • East Tennessee History Center • 3PM • After Wilma Dykeman’s death in 2006, a typewritten manuscript was discovered among her papers. The publication of that manuscript, Family of Earth: A Southern Mountain Childhood, will be celebrated by her sons, Jim and Dykeman Stokely, at the East Tennessee History Center.

Dykeman (1920–2006), one of the American South’s most prolific and storied writers, wrote this memoir while living in a stone cottage in the English Mountains of Cocke County, just east of Knoxville, during the final months of World War II. • FREE Monday, Sept. 12 PINTS OF SCIENCE • The Casual Pint (Downtown) • 6PM • Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines. Yet, physicists continue to make new discoveries. Join us over a pint as we hear from two ORNL scientists about their ongoing work in the exciting field of physics. • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 13 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, Sept. 14 JULIAN BURKE: “THE EARLY HISTORY OF WNOX RADIO” • East Tennessee History Center • 12PM • For decades, Julian Burke has collected unique pieces of broadcasting equipment, including the original announcer microphones from WNOX, the legendary Knoxville radio station known as the Cradle of Country Music. For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at EastTNHistory. org. • FREE Friday, Sept. 16 UT SCIENCE FORUM • Thompson-Boling Arena • 12PM • Visit scienceforum.utk.edu. • FREE Sunday, Sept. 18 MELANIE K. HUTSELL: ‘THE DEAD SHALL RISE’ • Union Ave Books • 2PM • Book-signing and reading with Melanie K. Hutsell author of The Dead Shall Rise, published by Celtic Cat Press. • FREE

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Thursday, Sept. 8 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

PORTRAIT AND LIFE DRAWING SESSIONS • Historic Candoro Marble Company • 12:30PM • Portrait and life drawing practice at Candoro Art and Heritage Center. $10. Call Brad Selph for more information (865-573-0709). • $10 KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS: HOW ARE YOUR ROSES? • Humana Guidance Center • 3:15PM • Join Master Gardeners Carolyn Noey and Carolyn Kiser to learn how to assess the end of summer health of your roses, what to do if you have problems, how to prepare for winter (light pruning, mulching) and what to do in early spring as they start to wake up. Call 865-329-8892. • FREE 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 SIX-WEEK STRENGTH AND BALANCE WORKSHOP • Ijams

CALENDAR

Nature Center • 6PM • Join Erik Andelman and Stephanie Leyland, certified Onnit instructors with South Knox Healing Arts, for a six-week course featuring bodyweight workouts combining yoga, calisthenics, flexibility training and traditional exercise forms from around the world. All ages and levels of fitness are welcome. Join us for an hour every Thursday evening from Aug. 11-Sept. 15. $100 for the full course or $20 for drop-in students.• $20-$100 THIRSTY (FOR KNOWLEDGE) THURSDAY • Old City Wine Bar • 6:30PM • 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-$25 to partake in the libations. • $20-$25 KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING PILATES • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • Every Tuesday and Thursday. First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4 BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 Saturday, Sept. 10 KNOX HERITAGE PRESERVATION NETWORK • Knox Heritage • 10AM • 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 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 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10:30AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS: HOW ARE YOUR ROSES? • Bearden Branch Public Library • 1:30PM • Join Master Gardeners Carolyn Noey and Carolyn Kiser to learn how to assess the “end of summer” health of your roses, what to do if you have problems, how to prepare for winter (light pruning, mulching) and what to do in early spring as they start to wake up. Call 865- 588-8813 or visit knoxlib.org. • FREE SAID FUSION WORKSHOP • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 2PM • The Saidi dance is from Upper Egypt, between Gizeh and Edfu.The Saidi people are upper Egyptian farmers. Usually a Saidi dance is lively, energetic and earthy. The dancer uses one or two sticks, originally made of bamboo. Lisa will cover the basics of dancing with an assaya (stick) and traditional movements. Then we will learn a fun fusion choreography. • $30 BEARDSLEY COMMUNITY FARM WORKDAYS AND GARDEN CLASSES • Beardsley Community Farm • 9AM • CAC Beardsley Community Farm Saturday Workdays are from 9 a.m.-noon, followed by a garden class from 12:15-1:30 p.m. The upcoming schedule includes “Beat the Bugs …

With Bugs” (July 23); “organic Disease Control” (Aug. 13); “Preserving the Harvest” (Sept. 10); and “Green Manure: Build Your Soil With Cover Crops” (Oct. 8). For more information visit beardsleyfarm.org, email beardsleyfarm@gmail.com or call 865-546-8446. • FREE NAMASTE BETTY YOGA CLASS • Farragut High School • 9:30AM • Join in a free yoga class dedicated to Betty Kalister, a local teacher who tragically passed away in a plane crashed away in a plane crash two years ago. Betty was a local yoga powerhouse, a happy person, a joy to be around, and—perhaps above all else—an organizer. She loved to gather people around a cause, and so it is fitting that this annual event draws the yoga community together.

The easy flow class—appropriate for practitioners of all level and accessible for beginners—will be led by Jen Schappel, Jill Bartine, Catherine Widener, and Amy Yunger.

But yoga teachers from every studio in town will be on hand, walking throughout the crowd, performing demonstrations, and offering adjustments. Just bring yourself, a mat, and an open heart. Water, instruction, and— for the sake of Betty—love will be provided.

Sunday, Sept. 11 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE BALLET BARRE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 1PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL MODERN TECHNIQUE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 2PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE IMPROVISATION CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 3:30PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 BEGINNING BRIDGE LESSONS • Knoxville Bridge Center • 1:30PM • Contact Jo Anne Newby at (865} 539-4150 or email KnoxvilleBridge@gmail.com. • $5 GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS CURLING CLUB: LEARN TO CURL • Ice Chalet • 8PM • Visit curlknoxville.com. • $15 Monday, Sept. 12 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: QUICK AND TASTY COOKING • Cancer Support Community • 12PM • Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-5772021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

BEGINNER MODERN BELLY DANCE • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • $13 KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING BOOT CAMP • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $15 Tuesday, Sept. 13 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

ARTS AND CULTURE ALLIANCE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ARTISTS’ SEMINARS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 5:30PM • The Arts and Culture Alliance’s 2016-17 series of professional development seminars for artists and other creative people includes Social Media for Artists and Creatives with Lisa Gifford Mueller (Sept. 13); Writing From Dreams with Marilynn Kallet (Oct. 25); Research and Apply for Juried Shows with Kelly Hider (Nov. 15); Lessons From Ansel Adams in the Digital Age with Steve Zigler (Jan. 10); the Power of Video and Photo to Tell Your Story with Mueller (Feb. 7); and Social Media and Branding with Dale Mackey (April 11). Visit knoxalliance.com. • $5-$8 KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 HANDS-ON GLUTEN-FREE ITALIAN DINNER • Central Collective • 6:30PM • Here’s a chance to come and learn while we make dinner together. Eileen Moffatt will lead you through the hands-on process of creating a gluten-free menu that no one will suspect is gluten-free.

Dinner will include a one-hour French bread, crème de ricotta gnocchi topped off with homemade pasta sauce, and chocolate cake. Attendees are welcome to bring wine or their beverage of choice to enjoy during the September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 31

CALENDAR

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

class. Visit thecentralcollective.com. • $32 KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING PILATES • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • Every Tuesday and Thursday. First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4 BEGINNING BRIDGE LESSONS • Knoxville Bridge Center • 6PM • Contact Jo Anne Newby at (865} 539-4150 or email KnoxvilleBridge@gmail.com. • $5

jubileearts.org. • FREE CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL BALLET CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 7:30PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 CLIMBING FUNDAMENTALS • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Visit riversportsoutfitters.com/events. • $20

Wednesday, Sept. 14 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED MODERN TECHNIQUE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com.

BEGINNER MODERN BELLY DANCE • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • Tribal fusion belly dance is a modern blend of traditional belly dance infused with hip-hop, modern dance, and more to create a new, unique dance form. Each class will include an invigorating warm-up designed to increase flexibility and strength followed by an overview of posture, isolations, and basic footwork. At the end of class we put the moves together in a fun and simple combination. No dance experience is necessary. • $13 JUBILEE COMMUNITY ARTS CONCERT SOUND ENGINEERING WORKSHOP • Laurel Theater • 6:30PM • As part of its community service and education programs, Jubilee Community Arts is offering a two-session workshop which will provide an introduction to audio setup, equipment, and mixing for those interested in a basic introduction to live sound mixing. To register call Jubilee Community Arts at 522-5851 or email concerts@

MEETINGS

32

Thursday, Sept. 8 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY LEUKEMIA, LYMPHOMA, AND MYELOMA NETWORKER • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS • The Birdhouse • 6PM • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 LET’S TALK QUAL • Knoxville Public House • 4PM • Let’s Talk Qual is an meeting open to anyone who is interested in topics related to qualitative research. It is an informal gathering of individuals who like to discuss qualitative research in a casual atmosphere, whether you are a novice or seasoned researcher or a community leader interested in research techniques that could aid you with your own community projects. All are welcome. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 10

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • 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 • Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

Sunday, Sept. 11 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 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) 257-4029 for more information. • FREE REFUGE RECOVERY • Losel Shedrup Ling • 8:30PM • Contact David at 865-306-0279 for any further questions.

• FREE WONDER CLUB • Nostalgia on McCalla • 6PM • A philosophical discussion group that meets the second Sunday of each month. We have lively talks about a wide range of fun, interesting, and sometimes controversial topics. • FREE

Monday, Sept. 12 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, Sept. 13 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 • As one of five Groups within the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Harvey Broome Group is based in Knoxville and focuses on Knox County and 17 surrounding counties in East Tennessee. Our namesake, Harvey Broome (1902-1968), was a founding member of the Widlerness Society and a native of Knoxville.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

ETC.

Thursday, Sept. 8 BEARDSLEY COMMUNITY FARM RAISE THE ROOTS DINNER •

Shop Local with EILEEN FISHER Explore the new arrivals of our Fall collection September 15-17

5609 Kingston Pike Knoxville TN 37919 865-588-1588 www.est8te.com

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

Thursday, Sept. 8 - Sunday, Sept. 18

The Plaid Apron • 6PM • The sixth annual Raise the Roots dinner will feature the rich bounties of summer on the farm. Dinner will be prepared by the owner and chef of the Plaid Apron, Drew McDonald, and his team. Guests will have an opportunity to learn about Beardsley Farm, meet farm volunteers, and share their experiences gardening and cooking in Knoxville and East Tennessee.

All proceeds from the dinner will directly benefit Beardsley Farm. To learn more about Beardsley and the Plaid Apron please visit beardsleyfarm.org and facebook. com/ThePlaidApron. • $60-$200 MARBLE SPRINGS SHOPPING AT THE FARM FARMER’S MARKET • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 3PM • FREE 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, Sept. 9 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 MUSEUM OF APPALACHIA DAYS OF THE PIONEER ANTIQUE SHOW • Museum of Appalachia • 9AM • This two-day event features the finest selection of 18th and 19th century antiques from over 60 of the nation’s preeminent dealers. Visit museumofappalachia.org. • $20 Saturday, Sept. 10

CALENDAR

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 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 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. Visit marketsquarefarmersmarket.org. • FREE MUSEUM OF APPALACHIA DAYS OF THE PIONEER ANTIQUE SHOW • Museum of Appalachia • 9AM • This two-day event features the finest selection of 18th and 19th century antiques from over 60 of the nation’s preeminent dealers. Visit museumofappalachia.org. • $20

September 16 7:30 PM

marketsquarefarmersmarket.org. • FREE OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 3PM • FREE UT FARMERS MARKET • University of Tennessee • 4PM • For more information about the UT Farmers’ Market you can visit the market website: vegetables.tennessee.edu/ utfm.html or find it on Facebook. • FREE

Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com

Tuesday, Sept. 13 EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS MARKET • Ebenezer United Methodist Church • 3PM • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 14 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. Visit

5 REASONS UT CULINARY to in the PROGRAM UTEnroll Culinary Program: Get the skills to start your professional culinary career.

This full-time 12-week, 400-hour course prepares you for entry-level positions in restaurants, hotels, catering, and sales.

Business

Product awareness

Company goodwill

Financing & flexible payment options available.

There’s never been a better time to “go public.”

_Ad_5.5x4.25_WhyWUOT_KnoxMerc.indd 1

1

Learn from more than 15 educators, chefs, caterers, beverage experts, restaurant owners, scientists, and managers.

2

Train in a special classroom designed for culinary education with individual-assigned spaces with a computer.

3

Gain hands-on experience in multiple working and test kitchens.

4

Plan, produce, and serve your own catered function.

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Benefit from small class sizes, which allow for personal attention from instructors.

For more information call 865-974-3181 or visit

www.utculinary.com

September 8, 2016 9/7/15 9:52 AM

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33

Photo by Tami Barrett

Standup Act How to jump into the Knoxville paddleboarding scene

BY KIM TREVATHAN

F

or a while now, I’ve watched people propelling what look like surfboards across our inland lakes.

Recently, in a desperate act to extend the last days of summer, I decided stop watching and try out the sport of standup paddleboarding.

Too cheap to go out and buy a board, I sampled three rental spots in the Knoxville area: the Billy Lush Board Shop at Volunteer Landing, the Little River Trading Company at Louisville Point, and River Sports Outfitters at the Cove in Concord Park.

VOLUNTEER LANDING

At Billy Lush’s, on a Sunday around 11 a.m., they had me on a board within minutes of my arrival, a Velcro 34

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

leash around my ankle connecting me with a cord to the board. The young woman at the dock put my board in the water and handed me a life jacket and paddle. She suggested that I start out on my knees.

After a minute or so of knee paddling, I wobbled to a standing position and paddled upstream toward Dickinson Island.

I made it to the James White Parkway bridge in about an hour. I was never able to relax on the board, though I kept my knees flexed and tried really hard. Frequently, I lurched forward and backward, side to side, and I imagined that I looked like an aquatic Frankenstein from the riverside apartments upstream of

Volunteer Landing.

After the very hot paddle, I had a cold beer at Billy Lush’s bar and talked to Larry Hill, a paddleboard racer whose son, Thomas, works at the shop.

Inflatable boards, he said, are great in terms of storage and good for paddling rivers since you can bounce them off rocks without damaging them. The rigid recreational boards (10 or 11 feet long), like the inflatables, tend to be wider and more stable (thus good for beginners) than the longer touring boards and the really long racing boards (14 feet or longer), which track better and have pointed bows which slice through the water.

At the low end at Billy Lush’s is the Adventure XI All Rounder, a 10-foot, 6-inch long, 26-pound board that costs $895. Rentals are $20 an hour and $11 for each additional hour.

My rental was a Three Palms board, which is not for sale in the shop.

LOUISVILLE POINT

I figured my balance would improve at Louisville Point, and it needed to because by that Sunday afternoon, motor boat activity had begun to trouble the water. At first I felt more

Photo by Sharon Patterson

Out side Insider

Photo by Kim Trevathan

OUTDOORS

Left: The author takes a sudden dive at the Cove.

MIddle: Larry Hill, a paddleboard racer at the Billy Lush Board Shop. Right: Little River Trading Company’s Tim Patterson near Louisville Point. stable on the Riviera that the rental guy, Bryson Perkins, carried down to the boat ramp for me. And then I found myself in the water, with the board, leashless, scooting out ahead of me. I was far enough away from the ramp that nobody saw me. I clambered back on and paddled toward the shelter of Cox Creek.

Being on the board (versus a kayak) seemed more primitive and elemental. At a calm spot near a partially submerged fallen tree, I sat down on the board, and a school of striped bass surrounded me, dozens of them breaching the water like miniature dolphins.

At the Little River Trading Company shop, Tim Patterson was, like Larry Hill, a zealot. A paddleboarder for six years, he started out in his 50s when he began having a little trouble with his balance. Problem solved, he said.

LRTC has only one brand, the Riviera Voyager, and they are on sale.

Patterson says he can travel 7 or 8 miles in an hour on his. He likes to fly

OUTDOORS fish for bass from his board, and he loves to take along his Australian shepherd.

The boards have gained popularity for many reasons, said Patterson, but their light weight is one of the foremost. At less than 30 pounds, the Riviera, a touring board at 12 feet 6 inches, is easier for one person to load onto a car and carry to the water than a kayak or canoe.

The Voyagers are on sale for $900, which is $200 off.

Labor Day was the fi nal weekend of the season for Louisville Point rentals.

THE COVE

I got to the Cove rental shop, off Northshore Drive, just as it opened at 10 a.m., and there were five or six people in line (renting sit-on-top kayaks). It was, after all, the Saturday before Labor Day, which I thought would be the ultimate paddleboard challenge (for me), with all the boat traffic.

After launching, I teetered out to the Concord Yacht Club, a little less like Frankenstein but still unsteady in the chop raised by a 10-15 mile-anhour headwind and motorboat traffic out in the channel. I was on an 11-foot board called “Bounce,” which would turn out to be an uncannily accurate brand name for me.

Beyond the yacht club, I passed a navigational marker with a scolding osprey atop it, and did an awkward dance across the sea-like swells of cabin cruisers. I did what Patterson suggested to steady myself in wakes: keep paddling to make yourself a tripod.

I passed under the Northshore bridge into Turkey Creek, thinking I was home free here, in calmer waters, but then a runabout passed under the bridge behind me. The skipper pulled back the throttle, but I could not stay on the board. The fishermen and drivers above must have had a great view of me fl ipping off the back of the board and losing my hat.

Seeking even calmer waters, I paddled farther up Turkey Creek under the Norfolk Southern railroad bridge.

There, I planned on sitting down and

taking a break with some cormorants and a great blue heron, perched on rocks in a windless pocket.

I thought I saw a public swimming pool with a chain link fence around it, but upon closer inspection, this turned out to be a wastewater treatment plant.

I exited the area, the stakes for staying upright suddenly raised.

I made it back near the ramp without falling again, and I was feeling cocky. Then I saw a couple on boards doing yoga: no handstands, but downward dog and some other contorted poses that humbled me.

Ed McAlister, owner of River Sports Outfitters, explained the surge in paddleboard popularity with a concept that hadn’t occurred to me, in my awkward struggles. It was cool, he said, a natural progression of paddlesports from the more traditional kayak and canoe.

He also pointed out that it’s an easy sport to pick up on, that you don’t feel as confi ned as you might in a kayak.

River Sports has a variety of board brands, including the Bote, which maximizes the cool factor with colorful graphics on their decks.

Prices range from $725 (Bic) on to $1,600 (Bote).

When I picked up a paddle that cost $240, McAlister emphasized the importance of spending money on a good paddle. He suggested saving money on the board, if you have to, and spend more on a good paddle.

We talked briefly about the fact that both of us, of similar size, probably needed a board of at least 11 and a half feet. I wondered aloud if paddleboarding would help me drop a few pounds.

“It will,” McAlister assured me.

At the Cove, River Sports rents boards for $25 for three hours. RSO also rents boards at Ijams Nature Center on Meads Quarry Lake.

All three businesses—RSO, LRTC, and Billy Lush—make boards in their shops available for demos.

A writing instructor at Maryville College, Kim Trevathan is the author of Paddling the Tennessee River: A Voyage on East Water and Coldhearted River: A Canoe Odyssey Down the Cumberland.

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September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35

’BYE

That ’70 s Girl

Red Menace Returning Red Dye No. 2 to its rightful place in the American diet

BY ANGIE VICARS

I

didn’t care what was on Mom’s grocery list in 1976. As soon as she said I could visit the candy aisle, I ran all the way to the M&Ms. I tore open a pack, poured my palm full of candy, reached down to eat a red one first—but something was wrong. Where were all the red ones?

I dumped out the whole bag.

There weren’t any in there. No red M&Ms. Not a single one. I frantically stuffed M&Ms in my mouth. Maybe they turned red after you spit on them?

I spit M&Ms back out on my palm. They were faded and gross and they did melt in my hand, but they still weren’t red. They weren’t even pink. I studied my slime-covered M&M palm.

How could this be?

“Mom!” I yelled, running back to her cart. “I need you to check the M&Ms! I got a bum pack. All the reds were missing.”

“They’re not using red dye anymore,” she told me. “They say it’s bad for us.”

“Who says it’s bad?”

“The scientists.”

“What scientists?”

36

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” she said, exasperated, “the Americans or the Russians or somebody else who lives on this planet said that red dye is causing cancer.”

“So!” I blurted, aghast at the age of 8. “I want my red M&Ms back!

Can’t you do something?”

“Stop complaining about your candy, and help me find your baloney,” she told me. Never mind the irony. It was 1976.

I could have been mad at the FDA for doing a lousy study of Red Dye No. 2. I could have gone off on the media for feeding the public a fear of dangerous dye like it was candy. I could have gotten miffed at Mars for pulling its red spokescolor right out of our mouths.

But instead, I chose to rail at the Russians. No wonder they were called the Reds. They took away our perfectly good communist-colored candy. It was the Cold War of candy, and we were losing.

Sure, Mars tried to make it up to us. They added an orange M&M as bright as a Tennessee Vol’s jersey, but

I spit M&Ms back out on my palm.

They were faded and gross and they did melt in my hand, but they still weren’t red.

They weren’t even pink.

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

Americans were stuck with rations.

Concession lines were filled with faces like those in the soup lines of the Great Depression. It took ten browns in the mouth for every green in the hand.

Unbeknown to me back then, a University of Tennessee student—and later alum—helped return red M&Ms to the mouths of capitalists. Paul Hethmon’s attempt to create a junk mail parody—The Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&Ms—was taken by his friends as serious business. Backed by a growing membership that paid dues of up to $2.97, the society finally snail-mailed their way to candy freedom.

In December 1985, I trudged behind my mother through the grocery store. “What should we get for the holidays?” she asked. “How about a fruitcake? Your grandmother loves it.”

BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY

“Oh God, not fruitcake,” I objected. “Please anything but fruitcake. How about something that everyone will eat?”

That’s when I saw the cardboard cutout of the red M&M. His grinning face beckoned me toward the candy aisle. I couldn’t help it. I broke out in a run, snatched a pack off the shelf, poured my palm full of candy, and I ate a red one right away. It tasted just like all the others—but it brought perestroika to my 17-year-old American heart.

Want to know more about the rescue of the red M&M? Check out “The Restoration of the Red M&M” at torchbearer.utk.edu. ◆ Angie Vicars writes humorous essays and seriously good Web content for UT. In a former incarnation, she authored My Barbie Was an Amputee, Yikes columns for Metro Pulse, and produced the WATE website.

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’BYE

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 8, 2016

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September 8, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39

Let’s Go to the Fair!

The Tennessee Valley Fair is (almost) 100 We’ve been going to the fair since before the Civil War. Knoxville was enjoying fall agricultural fairs, mostly held in the downtown area, by 1854.

Since the 1980s, the fair has been known more simply as the Tennessee Valley Fair.

After the destruction of the extravagant old exposition building on the hill in a spectacular fire in 1938, the city replaced it with a new building, simpler in style, in 1941.

It was eventually called the Jacob Building, in honor of Dr. Moses Jacob, who was with Faust one of the original founders of the fair and its longtime president. Originally from Pennsylvania, Jacob was a professor of veterinary science at UT.

Chilhowee Park first developed as an attraction in the 1880s, and by 1890 it was hosting multiple annual events. The lake, originally known as Lake Ottosee (a joke— get it?) was the main draw, and offered rental boats, stunt swimmers, and sometimes aquatic games.

Early in the 20th century, Chilhowee Park evolved into “Knoxville’s Only Amusement Park,” offering a carousel, miniature train, Ferris wheel, shooting galleries, bumper cars, and roller coasters.

Those attractions were in the park all the time, not just during the fair. (After years of decline, the city sold the last rides in 1981.)

The Tennessee Valley Fair has played unexpected roles in local culture.

The Tennessee Valley Fair, held at Chilhowee Park every fall for a century now, is always a combination of the new and the very old.

In September, 1950, future Pulitzerwinning novelist Cormac McCarthy was a 17-year-old student at Catholic High, just down the street. He and some friends snuck into the fair by climbing the fence.

He described the adventure in a story called “Two Hour Scholar Loses His Dollar,” published in his school newspaper.

Image courtesy of Thinkstock After a series of large and successful national expositions at Chilhowee Park in 1910, 1911, and 1913, prominent young Knoxville businessman Hugh Faust, who grew up on a farm near Kingsport, pushed “Barkers were barking and sideshows to establish a permanent annual fair. He got help from others, including were sideshowing and all was confusion,” he wrote. “The three of us went Canadian-born agriculture professor and future University of Tennessee into the House of Mirrors, and a few minutes later two of us came out.” president (and still later, Tennessee Valley Authority director) Harcourt Morgan. They launched what became the Tennessee Vally Fair in early The short, wry account in the Catholic High Gold and Blue is McCarthy’s October 1916, almost one century ago. It included a Midway, with diverfirst known published work. sions including Carlo, the High-Diving Dog.

For many years, the Midway, with most of the rides and sideshows, was located south of Magnolia Avenue, accessible to the rest of the fair via a walkway beneath the street. Now all the fair is concentrated on the north side.

In 1926, fair promoters dropped 100,000 free tickets by “aeroplane” on more than a dozen cities from Athens, Tenn., to Gate City, Va. It’s unknown how many were found and used, but Knoxville’s fair became a regional attraction for thousands of people who lived outside the Knoxville area.

The fair was known as the East Tennessee Division Fair until 1933, when organizers changed the name to the Tennessee Valley Agricultural and Industrial Fair, to reflect the promise of the new Tennessee Valley Authority.

(Although TVA sometimes exhibited at the fair, the big federal agency never directed or managed it.)

Three years later, in September, 1953, teenagers Phil and Don Everly were unable to pay their way into the Tennessee Valley Fair, but with the help of their father, Ike, got an introduction to one of the fair’s performers, Nashville-based guitar wizard Chet Atkins, who had lived and worked in Knoxville about 10 years earlier. But because Atkins was on the inside and the Everlys were on the outside, they made their introductions through a fence.

A couple of years later, in Nashville, the well-known guitarist made connections for the Everly Brothers, and helped produce some of the duo’s successful early recordings.

Fairs aren’t as common in America as they used to be. Knoxville is one of a minority of American cities that still hosts one.

Sources: Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, Meet Me at the Fair!, by Stephen V. Ash

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