Vol. 3, Issue 9 Apr. 4, 2017

2 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

April 6, 2017 | Volume 03: Issue 09 | knoxmercury.com “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.” —Pablo Neruda

HOWDY

6 Local Life

by Marissa Highfill

8

OPINION Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely looks for Kingston Pike’s Road of Remembrance, a lost monument to the Great War’s dead.

10 Perspectives

Joe Sullivan hopes the newly funded Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center can achieve its goals.

12 Guest Ed.

Betty Bean, longtime local journalist, reflects on the career of Sandra Clark—former editor and publisher of Shopper News.

A&E 24 Program Notes

One of the indispensable Knoxville albums makes its vinyl debut: the V-Roys’ Just Add Ice.

Photo by Amanda Mohney

COVER STORY

16 Rhythm Nation Rhythm N’ Blooms, Knoxville’s largest music festival, takes over downtown this weekend. We convened a roundtable discussion with seven local musicians who will perform to talk about the festival and what it means to the city’s music scene. Carey Hodges and

NEWS 13 No More NV

Change is afoot in the Old City.

Local developer Tim Hill recently confirmed that he has purchased the NV Nightclub building at 125 E. Jackson Ave. from longtime downtown nightclub maven Duane Carleo.

PRESS FORWARD 14 Generations Literary Alliance

GLA works to connect generations and strengthen the sense of community by having older and younger adults engage in literary arts together. Tracy Jones sits in.

23 Classical Music

Alan Sherrod reviews Claire Chenette’s refreshing chamber program of Mozart.

26 Movies

April Snellings likes her films Raw. Well, the scary ones, anyway.

CALENDAR

27 Spotlights

Anne Lamott

OUTDOORS

42 Voice in the Wilderness

Kim Trevathan locks through Watts Bar Dam—in a canoe going upstream.

’BYE 44 News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

45 Sacred & Profane

by Donna Johnson

46 Spirit of the Staircase

by Matthew Foltz-Gray

47 Crooked Street Crossword

by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely

47 Mulberry Place Cryptoquote

by Joan Keuper

Matthew Everett lead the discussion.

NEWS OF THE WEIRD IS BACK! Yep, the ultimate survey of society’s downfall is once again back on the pages of an alternative weekly paper in Knoxville. Head over to page 44 and rejoice.

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 3

DELIVERING FINE JOURNALISM SINCE 2015 The Knoxville Mercury is an initiative of the Knoxville History Project, a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit whose mission is to research and promote the history of Knoxville.

Coury Turczyn’s 85-year-old house recently went through a series of plumbing mishaps from which he is still recovering. Would it be improper to start a gofundme.com campaign to replace all the disintegrating pipes in a person’s own home?

It’d be, like, historic preservation, right? Okay, probably not. But maybe?

Jack Neely talks the walk!

On Saturday, April 8 starting at 9 a.m., he’ll be conducting a walking tour of downtown performance venues— everything from the Bijou Theatre to Scruffy City Hall to the Mill and Mine.

It’s part of the festivities for AIA East Tennessee’s Architecture week. Info: knoxvillehistoryproject.org.

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 CONTRIBUTORS Chris Barrett Joan Keuper Ian Blackburn Catherine Landis Hayley Brundige Dennis Perkins Patrice Cole Stephanie Piper Eric Dawson Ryan Reed George Dodds Eleanor Scott Thomas Fraser Alan Sherrod Lee Gardner Nathan Smith Mike Gibson April Snellings Carey Hodges Denise Stewart-Sanabria Nick Huinker Joe Sullivan Donna Johnson Kim Trevathan Tracy Jones Chris Wohlwend Rose Kennedy Angie Vicars Carol Z. Shane MULTIMEDIA ASSISTANT Jeffrey Chastain DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Charlie Finch CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS Matthew Foltz-Gray PHOTOGRAPHY INTERN Marissa Highfill ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Scott Hamstead scott@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 Robin Easter Tommy Smith Melanie Faizer Joe Sullivan Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Charlie Vogel The Knoxville Mercury is an independent weekly news magazine devoted to informing and connecting Knoxville’s many different communities. It publishes 25,000 copies per week, available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. © 2017 The Knoxville Mercury

4 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

Our beloved outdoors writer, Kim Trevathan, will be discussing “Communication in Today’s World” at the Trout Unlimited Southeast Regional meeting, Saturday, April 22 at 3 p.m., at the Glenstone Lodge in Gatlinburg. Fellow panelists include WBIR’s John Becker and Don Kirk, along with moderator John Reinhardt. Info: tu.org/southeast-regional.

We’ll miss our photo intern Marissa Highfill when she graduates from Pellissippi State on May 5.

After that, she begins job hunting in earnest, seeking a position in commercial or editorial photography.

Maybe one of you student readers would be interested in a photojournalism internship this summer or fall? If so, contact the art director at tricia@knoxmercury.com.

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April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 5

DUMPSTER highlights DIVE Weekly from our blog

LOCAL LIFE Photo Series by Marissa Highfill

The Tiny House Pocket Parade (March 25 at 200 West 5th Ave.) featured local tiny house builders and owners who talked with visitors about tiny house construction, living, and community. The event was sponsored by Trotta Montgomery Real Estate and East Tennessee PBS.

NEWS SENTINEL’S “HISTORIC NEW APPROACH” On Wednesday, News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy announced the paper’s “historic new approach to covering the news.” Gannett executives call it a “transformative strategy” that will “re-secure and level-set our economic vitality to support our journalism.”

The first step into this brave new world of journalism? On Tuesday, McElroy and Gannett fired a dozen veteran reporters and editors. That’s a 20 percent reduction of the paper’s editorial staff.

The move wasn’t unexpected. Gannett is known as a particularly ruthless syndicate, even in an industry that’s been cutting jobs for years. And the company had a challenging 2016, with big advertising losses and a failed bid to buy the Chicago Tribune’s parent company. But the scale of Tuesday’s bloodletting still came as a shock. The casualties include some of the Sentinel’s most respected and longest-serving journalists, from Shopper-News founder and publisher Sandra Clark and editorial page editor Scott Barker to reporters Ed Marcum and Gerald Witt.

Despite McElroy’s spin, cutting newsrooms is bad for journalism. It’s bad for the journalists who lose their jobs. It’s bad for newsroom morale. It reduces the incentive for aggressive, risk-taking reporting. It’s bad for readers. This “historic new approach” will critically compromise local news-gathering.

As seriously as we take our work here at the Mercury, we’re not equipped or designed to provide the kind of ongoing and breaking coverage expected of a metro daily. …

There’s nothing new or historic about laying off reporters—it’s the new industry standard.

—Matthew Everett

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

4/7 KERN’S BAKERY TOUR

4/8 HSTV KITTEN SHOWER

4/9 SCREENING: “THE WHITE HELMETS”

So what does developer David Dewhirst have in store for the refurbished Kern’s Bakery building in South Knoxville? You might very well find out in this behind-the-scenes tour presented by Knox Heritage. It’s free for KH members, and you can join at knoxheritage. org. RSVP for the tour at RSVP@knoxheritage.org or 865-523-8008

Kitten season is upon us, and HSTV could use your help to make preparations—they need all sorts of items, from food to thermometers, which can be found on their Amazon wish list. Come for the cuteness at the Kitten Shower, and consider making donations or adoptions. Info: humanesocietytennessee.com.

Winner of Best Documentary (short) at the Oscars, White Helmets tracks a group of volunteer rescue workers of the Syrian Civil Defense as they risk their lives daily amid civil war. Maryville’s Dr. Jaber Hassan, a member of the Syrian-American Medical Society, and Yassin Terou of Yassin’s Falefel House will share their experiences. RSVP: tinyurl.com/whitehelmetsscreening.

FRIDAY

5-8 p.m., Kern’s Bakery (2110 Chapman Highway).

Free (with membership).

6 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

SATURDAY

1-3 p.m., Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley (6717 Kingston Pike). Free.

SUNDAY

3-5 p.m., Annoor Academy of Knoxville (724 Foxvue Rd.). Free.

4/12 LECTURE: “FRIENDLY FACES: DR. ANDY HOLT” WEDNESDAY

Noon, East Tennessee History Center (601 South Gay St.). Free.

Dr. Joe Johnson, president emeritus of the University of Tennessee, will discuss the career of his predecessor, Dr. Andy Holt. Holt led UT from 1959 to 1970, a period that saw a tripling of student enrollment, a doubling of faculty and staff, and the addition of eight new buildings. Info: easttnhistory.org.

HISTOR IC A PR IL Happy Architecture Week!

starting at the corner of Jackson and Central, are at 2 and 5. Joining is free, but reserve a spot online at http://www. rhythmnbloomsfest.com/news/.

Friday, the 7th, at 5:00, Knox Heritage will host a rare opportunity to visit the ca. 1931 Kern’s Bakery building on Chapman Highway. The tour is free to KH members, and it’s not too late to join. Preservationist developer David Dewhirst will be on hand to talk about his plans for the building.

See knoxheritage.org.

That day is, by the way, the 69th anniversary of the premiere of Samuel Barber’s famous vocal composition, “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” based on a text by James Agee. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, headed by conductor Serge Koussevitzky, had that honor in 1948, with soprano Eleanor Steber singing the text evoking Agee’s childhood on Highland Avenue.

I t ’s t h e A m e r i c a n I n s t i t u t e o f Architects’ annual Architecture Week, celebrated locally with multiple events.

S at u r d ay at 9 : 0 0 i s A I A’s a n nu a l architectural walking tour, led by Jack Neely, of the Knoxville History Project.

This year, partly reflecting the fact that The grand lobby of the Tennessee Theatre, designed How free is thought at the University of music festivals like Big Ears are drawing Tennessee, historically? The University of in 1928 with Moorish Revival elements by Chicago international praise for our music venues, Tennessee will host, on Monday, April 10, architects Graven and Mayger, will be part of this t he t he me i s d ow nt ow n’s h i s t or ic a forum on the past, present, and future of weekend’s AIA architecture tour. At left are movie auditoriums, from the 1909 Bijou and the advertisements from the theater’s first year, including i ntel lect ua l freedom on ca mpus on 1928 Tennessee to the 1961 Civic Monday, the 10th, at 5:00. Panelists will one for the Marx Brothers’ first comedy, Cocoanuts.

Coliseum and Auditorium, and several include Prof. Bruce Wheeler, author nightclubs in recently rehabbed historic and leading authority on Knoxville’s 20thbuildings. Tickets are $10. Proceeds go to support the Knoxville History century history; Prof. Chuck Maland, whose collection of Agee’s often Project, whose priorities include providing this History Page in the searing film criticism is due out soon; as well as representatives from UT’s Mercury. For reservations and information about Architecture Week, see departments of art, journalism, religious studies, literature, and law. The archweek.aiaetn.org. event, which will be held at Room 132 auditorium in UT’s School of Law building, will last about 90 minutes, and is free and open to the public.

As it happens, Saturday is also the 120th anniversary of Knoxville’s worst architectural disaster, the Fire of 1897. The worst fire in Knoxville history, Wednesday, April 12, former UT president Joe Johnson will speak about it destroyed most of the east 400 block of Gay Street, including a hotel and his influential predecessor, Andy Holt, president of UT from 1959 to 1970, several large wholesale houses. At least four people were killed. All the lost at the East Tennessee History Center, at noon. buildings were rapidly rebuilt, bigger than before.

Knoxville has a 150-year-old tradition of baseball, and this Saturday afternoon, the 8th, will be a double header for the Tennessee Association of Vintage Base Ball (yes, two words as it was then), with the Brentwood Travelers challenging Knoxville’s Emmett Machinists, and Nashville’s Cumberlanders trying to best Knoxville’s team, the Holstons. They play 1860s rules baseball (no gloves) at the backyard of 1797 Ramsey House.

For more, see tennesseevintagebaseball.com.

This weekend is Rhythm N’ Blooms, one of Knoxville’s bigger music festivals, which includes some historical perspective. Jack Neely will lead Sunday afternoon walking tours of the city’s musical history. Tours,

April 15 is Marble History Day at the Museum of East Tennessee History, celebrating the current “Rock of Ages” exhibit about the marble and limestone industry, which runs until May 14. (See next week’s issue for more about Knoxville’s marble history.)

Please help the Knoxville History Project maintain this page and support the Knoxville Mercury for another year! See knoxvillehistoryproject.org, or send your tax-deductible donation to KHP at 516 W. Vine Ave., #8, Knoxville, TN 37902.

The Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, Lawson McGhee Library Image courtesy of Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection • cmdc.knoxlib.org

Source

T h e K n ox v i l l e H i s to ry P r o j ec t, a n o n p r o fi t o r g a n iz at i o n d e vot e d to t h e p r o m ot i o n o f a n d ed u c at i o n a b o u t t h e h i s to ry o f K n ox v i l l e , p r e s en t s t h i s pag e e ac h w e e k to r a i s e awa r en e s s o f t h e t h em e s , p er s o n a l i t i e s , a n d s to r i e s o f o u r u n i q u e c i t y.

L e a r n m o r e at

knoxvillehistoryproject.org

o r em a i l

jack@knoxhistoryproject.org

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 7

Scruffy Citizen | Perspectives | Guest Ed.

The Forgotten Memorial Kingston Pike’s Road of Remembrance was planned to be an extraordinary perpetual monument to the Great War’s dead

BY JACK NEELY

T

he centennial of the First World War I on my mind, I was going through some library files when I ran across a picture I’d never seen. A photocopied image from an unknown book showed two stout marble pillars on either side of a long road in the countryside, with meadow on either side of a road and low hills in the distance. This “Memorial Road,” as the inscribed tablets heralded it, was on the outskirts of Knoxville, about 1925. Another image, from another file, shows a beautiful avenue lined with symmetrical rows of trees. It looks holy.

The text I could read, just a fragment of a longer passage, explained that it was a special memorial to the soldiers killed in World War I. And it was, as near as I can tell, on what we know as Kingston Pike.

I looked around. The idea may have started with Lucy Varnell, the wife of James Varnell, executive of Miller’s Department Store. The Varnells lived on Kingston Pike, as it was becoming better known by its new name, Lee Highway, because it had recently become part of that national route from the Washington, D.C., area to New Orleans. It also intersected with part of the northsouth route known as Dixie Highway.

8 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

Combined, the two promised to bring steady automobile traffic.

President of the Lee Highway Association’s Women’s Auxiliary, Mrs. Varnell had proposed banning billboards on the new highways. In this beautiful countryside, she said, billboards were eyesores.

Looking at this picture of this pastoral road, you can see what she was trying to protect. You wouldn’t want to see that happen here.

The women of the Federated Women’s Clubs of Knoxville took the cause to the federal government. In February of ’24, Lucy Varnell went to Washington, and on to New York soliciting partners. After dining at the Waldorf Astoria, she was “stricken,” as the papers said. She was only 47. Her sudden death was a shock to the city’s progressive community.

An ally picked up the Memorial Road banner. Susie Johnston, niece of Knoxville’s only English-born mayor, had been an organizer of the huge National Conservation Exposition of 1913. During the Great War she was in charge of the Park House “war workshop,” preparing bandages for the American troops in Europe.

The month after Varnell’s sudden death, Johnston and her allies took the effort to the public.

Their memorial would include large stone monuments on either side of the highway, and between them, some 350 Lombardy poplars to memorialize each of the Knoxville-area soldiers killed in the war. That number, more than twice Knox County’s war toll, was apparently regional in scope.

In between the poplars would be flowers, irises, poppies, a mix carefully chosen so some would be blooming most of the time.

On March 17, Lucille McMillin, wife of former Gov. Benton McMillin and also “one of the South’s most noted elocutionists,” came to the Bijou to present “A Night in Spain,” including a rare reading of a modern Spanish play, Malvaloca, as a fundraiser for the ambitious memorial.

By then, the project leaders said, they had already planted 175 poplars, each with a metal tag identifying a soldier killed in the Great War. Accounts say it started right at the western city limits of Knoxville, at the “new railroad overpass”—near what’s now Mayo’s. Some descriptions claim the memorial went all the way to the county line, 17 miles away. (If the trees were planted evenly, that would suggest just about 20 trees per mile; in the picture of an unknown stretch of the road, they look much closer together than that.)

The unveiling of the stone pillars, in November 1925, was attended by philanthropists, clergy, and members of the American Legion, which backed the effort. Lalla Arnstein, wife of the department-store owner and philanthropist Max Arnstein, read the famous poem “Trees,” by Joyce Kilmer, the American soldier-poet who had been killed in the war. Also on hand to speak was Mayor Ben Morton, wealthy businessman, accepting the city’s responsibility for the road. Gen. Cary Spence, a combat veteran of war who had led part of the assault on the Hindenburg Line, gave a talk about the importance of this Road of Remembrance.

You wouldn’t need a more prominent main speaker than that, but they got one. Congressional Medal of Honor winner Sgt. Alvin York himself came to Bearden to dedicate the Memorial Road. The Gary Cooper movie about his life was

still 15 years in the future, but York was already America’s single most celebrated hero.

Sgt. York formally “accepted” the memorial “on behalf of the men who served.” Unveiling the new pillars were two “gold-star mothers” who’d lost sons in the war.

After that, something went wrong.

A few things, maybe.

Mrs. Johnston was visiting relatives in California when she was badly hurt in a train wreck. She died a few months later, in 1927. Then the Arnsteins retired and moved to New York. By then, Ben Morton was no longer mayor. A low-tax movement swept through city government, scuttling some ambitious plans for redeveloping downtown.

It’s hard to find mentions of the “Road of Remembrance” after that.

In the 1930s, Lee Highway through Bearden became less a solemn memorial drive, and more a strip of motels and restaurants catering to tourists.

What happened to the Road of Remembrance? The trees aren’t there, the pillars aren’t there. I grew up among people who knew that area well, and this week I interviewed a few Bearden octogenarians. None remember hearing of it. Was it all just knocked down before they were born, perhaps with the first widening of Kingston Pike in the ’30s?

The only person I found who’d ever heard of the memorial was historian Steve Cotham, director of the McClung Historical Collection. He notes that Lombardy poplars aren’t very hardy trees, and maybe they just died. But what happened to those big columns?

Beauty and remembrance of war dead is all well and good, Knoxvillians may agree. But we more consistently prove ourselves to be a practical people.

Jack Neely is the director of the Knoxville History Project, a nonprofit devoted to exploring, disseminating, and celebrating Knoxville’s cultural heritage—not to mention publishing the Knoxville Mercury. The Scruffy Citizen surveys the city of Knoxville’s life and culture in the context of its history, with emphasis on what makes it unique and how its past continues to affect and inform its future.

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April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 9

Scruffy Citizen | Perspectives | Guest Ed.

Behavioral Health UP NEXT!

Can a jail diversion center curtail recidivism?

BY JOE SULLIVAN

A

fter nearly a decade of wheel spinning, the launch of a facility to divert mentally ill and addicted offenders from jail to treatment has finally gained traction.

County Commission and City Council have committed a combined $1 million a year and Gov. Bill Haslam has pledged $1.5 million from the state for operation of what will be known as the Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center.

The center will provide up to 72 hours of treatment for those arrested for nonviolent behavioral offenses whom law enforcement officials have long insisted don’t belong in jail. Helen Ross McNabb will manage the 15-bed facility as an extension of its pervasive community wide mental illness and substance-abuse treatment programs.

The center’s prime proponents, Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones and former District Attorney General Randy Nichols, contend that treatment can break the cycle of “revolving door” incarcerations that fill as much as 20 percent of Knox County jail space at great expense. But skeptics have doubted whether 72 hours, which is all the law allows an individual to be detained without being charged with a criminal offense, begins to be enough to make a lasting dent in deep-seated mental and addiction problems that are frequently co-occurring.

In its latest incarnation, the Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center puts more emphasis than earlier versions on laying a foundation for ongoing care and treatment. “The

10 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

aftercare is what’s really important,” Helen Ross McNabb’s president, Jerry Vagnier, told County Commission.

In its proposal to Knox County, McNabb stated that, along with assessments and interventions during a stay, “a fundamental key to success is a strong and obtainable discharge plan … which is essential to reduce recidivism and meet the needs of the individual.” It goes on to say that, “One of the main responsibilities for the discharge planning staff will include expert community knowledge of agencies and services to work directly with the participant to devise a plan to increase the likelihood of follow through once they leave the BHUCC…. Each discharge plan will include a follow-up appointment and a support plan….”

In an effort to get a better understanding of what this means, I met with the two longtime McNabb administrators who will oversee the center, Leann Human-Hilliard and Candace Allen. For starters, they sought to disabuse me of the notion that a 72-hour stay wouldn’t be meaningful per se.

“It’s amazing what can be accomplished in three days,” Allen asserted. “You are giving people who have been in and out of jail repeatedly an alternative. You work with them and give them help that translates into a solid discharge plan.”

For those who present with mental illnesses, this will include scheduling an appointment with an outpatient

provider and prescribing medications.

A case manager will follow up with each of them to make sure appointments are kept and medications obtained. For the indigent, a Behavioral Health Safety Net program that former Gov. Phil Bredesen established more than a decade ago may be a source of funding.

The program has been patterned to some extent after ones in San Antonio, Phoenix, and Miami that have purportedly been successful in reducing recidivism. At the same time, Memphis has been a model for a program, also conducted by McNabb, that has trained more than 300 local law enforcement officers on how to recognize and deal with people who are exhibiting symptoms of mental illness. Sheriff ’s deputies will transport them both to and from the center.

Human-Hilliard acknowledges that successes won’t be uniform. “Can some people not get it right and need to come back. Perhaps. But if they keep coming back, then we won’t take them any more,” she said. All admissions are voluntary. But for those who don’t want to come or stay, the alternative destination is jail.

The center will be located just off Western Avenue near its intersection with Ball Camp Pike. Knox County is also investing $1.2 million and the City of Knoxville $200,000 in the renovation of a former church now owned by McNabb that will house it. The initial contract for its operation runs for three years, and the state is also expected to make a three-year financial commitment to it.

What’s needed before commitments are extended is a set of measures of the program’s success or lack of same. This should start with keeping track of many of the several thousand individuals who are expected to be treated by the center annually and who are the subject of subsequent arrests.

As much as I hope the program can make a difference in their lives, I will be pleasantly surprised if very many of them realize lasting benefits.

Joe Sullivan is the former owner and publisher of Metro Pulse (1992-2003) as well as a longtime columnist covering local politics, education, development, health care, and tennis.

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April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 11

Scruffy Citizen | Perspectives | Guest Ed.

Free Again Sandra Clark, storied publisher and editor of the Shopper News, tackles a sudden career change

BY BETTY BEAN

O

n March 28, the Gannett Company laid off 31 employees across Tennessee.

Nineteen of the layoffs were from newspapers in Memphis, Nashville, Murfreesboro; 12 were in Knoxville—11 from the News Sentinel’s newsroom plus the editor of the Shopper News, a community newspaper with seven zoned editions in Knox County and one in Union County.

So for the first time since 1971, Sandra Clark doesn’t have a deadline to meet. But that doesn’t mean she’s not working. When she announced her termination on Facebook the next day, she made it clear that she has no intention of retiring: “I was one of 12 people laid off yesterday by Gannett. Bummer. I’ve committed to walking around the block every morning and posting something for public consumption.

“Am starting an exciting new business. More soon.”

Her announcement generated 240 responses and 193 comments. No one who knows Clark is surprised by her reaction.

She sold her newspaper to E.W. Scripps in 2005 and was retained as editor. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel bought Scripps in 2014 and formed the Journal Media Group, which it sold to Gannett in 2015.

Gannett will publish the Shopper News without her, although its readers probably wonder how that’s going to

12 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

work, because the fiercely independent weekly was dominated by Clark’s style and personality, even after she was no longer the owner.

I know how they feel, because I worked for her, off and on, for 33 years, and keep having to go back and to put all those verbs into past tense.

It’s hard to write this at all, truth to be told, because in addition to being my now-former employer, she is my friend—and she isn’t too crazy about my writing this, so there won’t be a lot of quotes from her in this column.

Clark has a lot of friends and she has touched hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives over the last four decades, although her attention was not always appreciated, particularly by public figures whose performance she did not admire.

Longtime county employee Dwight Van de Vate is Knox County’s director of Engineering and Public Works and has worked for bosses of whom Clark approved (former Sheriff Tim Hutchison and present mayor Tim Burchett) and one she didn’t (former Mayor Mike Ragsdale). He says he’s stunned that Clark is no longer editor of the Shopper News.

“She’s been a towering influence on public life in Knox County, and she’s really the heart and soul of the Shopper. I’ve been on both sides of the coin with Sandra—unabated criticism on one side and rock solid support on the other. I have a strong

preference for rock solid support.”

A lifelong Republican, Clark has been involved in politics her entire adult life, and probably even before that. Impatient to get on with it, she dropped out of Halls High School at the end of her junior year and applied for admission to the University of Tennessee, writing “Pending” on the line that asked for a high school diploma. Oddly, it worked, and she moved away from the family home in Pedigo and got an apartment in what is now Fourth and Gill, long before it became trendy. She went to work at Standard Knitting Mills, and then moved on to a job at Levi Strauss while taking political science classes at UT. But her real goal was to work at the Knoxville Journal, and she started applying there every time the management changed. Eventually her persistence paid off, but her tenure there was short-lived because her editor nixed her request to be assigned to Nashville to cover state government.

Her response to this roadblock was to run for the state Legislature.

She’d built some name recognition by getting elected as a delegate to the state Constitutional Convention of 1970 (where she made a point of removing gender-specific references to men from the document).

She beat a well-known (male) opponent in the Republican primary and two years later beat another well-known (male) opponent in the general election. It was a brutal race, highlighted by a bunch of well-known Democrats—led by House Speaker Ned McWherter and House Majority Leader Tommy Burnett—who came to Halls to campaign for her opponent.

Clark, who was about 24 years old, showed up at their rally, climbed up onto their flatbed truck, and welcomed them to Halls. She didn’t run again, and unleashed her energy on the Halls Shopper, which she had purchased during her tenure as a state representative.

When she took on the Shopper, it was an eight-page advertiser with a front page of news that the owners typed up on a manual typewriter.

Clark’s aim was to grow it into a weekly newspaper that covered local news events, particularly those

SANDRA CLARK

involving education. Over the years, Clark mentored scores of students, started an internship program, and even ran an after-school program at an inner-city elementary school.

She campaign-managed her business partner, Mary Lou Horner, into a career on County Commission and became a player in local politics.

She took a particular interest in school board elections and strongly supported teachers. She has encouraged women to run for office, and is known for her sometimes-brutal candor.

“Two things about her stand out in my mind,” says Van de Vate.

“The time she wrote that another county official and I had done such a bad job that we should give the county back our paychecks for the week, and the column she wrote about a falling-out with another weekly newspaper publisher.

“She said she told him to go to hell, and he said something to the effect of, ‘I might, but if I do, I’ll be standing on your shoulders.’ She wrote it just like it happened. It was a turn of a phrase and a moment of candor that stand out in my mind.

“This is somebody who is possessed of stone cold courage and is absolutely unafraid of swimming against the tide. I submit to you that if Sandra Clark had $5 million in the bank, she’d still be doing what she’s doing right now. She’d go forward with this new endeavor and tell the stories that need to be told.”

Betty Bean is a longtime local journalist, reporting over the years for the Knoxville Journal, Metro Pulse, and the Shopper News.

No More NV Local developer Tim Hill promises big changes in the Old City

BY MIKE GIBSON

C

hange is afoot in the Old City.

Local developer Tim Hill recently confirmed that he has purchased the NV Nightclub building at 125 E. Jackson Ave. from longtime downtown nightclub maven Duane Carleo.

The big two-story building has hosted a number of venues over the years, with its most recent incarnations, including NV, taking the form of mass-market, D.J.-driven dance clubs aimed at the early-20s crowd. Though he couldn’t reveal all the details of his plans, Hill promised a serious tonal shift for the space, and by extension, for the Old City as a whole.

“The plan is for a restaurant/ special events [establishment],” Hill says. “There’s nothing concrete yet, but we’re in discussion with a restaurant that has a special events component.

“We’re not opposed to some element of entertainment in the venue, but we’d like to see it as more of a restaurant type of theme than a bar/nightclub. … It may be time for the Old City to grow up a little.”

For starters, though, Hill says the

building needs significant renovation.

“We bought it with the intention of improving it,” he says. “It’s been something of a victim of deferred maintenance.”

Hill says he’d also like to make better use of the facility’s extensive patio. Hill describes his vision of “some type of water feature” for the patio area: “Maybe even a pool, for terrace dining. We’re still in the development stages.”

In the meantime, downtown developer David Dewhirst of Dewhirst Properties has purchased the parking lot beside the NV building from paid-parking company LAZ. Dewhirst said his purchase is coincidental to Hill’s—though the two men have worked together in the past, notably on renovating the old J.C. Penney building on Gay Street.

Dewhirst says his plans for the lot are still very much up in the air.

“If I had a good answer about what I wanted to do, I’d give it to you,” he says. “Mainly, we’re looking to develop the space so it’s not a surface parking lot. I’m just not a parking lot kind of guy.”

BROUGH T TO YOU BY TH E AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCH ITECTS EA ST TENNESSEE CH APTER

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 13

Focus: Arts & Culture

BY TRACY JONES

I

f history is a thing that repeats itself so that we may learn from it, maybe literature is that thing that best gets the message across. The jealousy of Othello still feels as fresh as it did in Shakespeare’s day, and the flowering trees the old Haiku poets wrote about still reflect our own beautiful dogwood and redbud springs. In a world where older and younger generations have fewer chances to mingle and interact, one local nonprofit is finding reasons to put people of all ages together using literary works that speak to us all.

Generations Literary Alliances works to connect generations and strengthen the sense of community by having older and younger adults engage in literary arts together. It does this through four main program initiatives: • The LifeWords program meets weekly at Sherrill Hills Retirement Community in West Knoxville and at Shannondale Retirement Community in Maryville. There, college-aged readers meet with older adults, led by a program facilitator, to talk about two or three themed pieces of literature a week.

• In the Knox Generation Spoken Word program, area teens meet each week to hone their poetry-writing and performance skills, and they participate in slam performances and workshops.

• The Origins Poetry Project, which grew out of LifeWords, engages the whole community in writing individual poems centered around a theme or prompt.

14 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

• And in the Bridge Summer Reading Program, adults 65 and over meet with 10 to 13-year-olds to read four young-adult novels over the summer.

All of it is the brainchild of Laura Keigan, who grew up in Farragut and returned to the area a few years ago after earning her doctorate in Brit Lit. She and her husband, a medical resident, have two young daughters, and she has taught area college-level courses. She founded the nonprofit as a literary arts performance organization; when she added the “generations” to it, everything clicked.

Why is the intergenerational component so important?

If you look at research on what makes strong communities, it’s when you have connections between generations. There’s something about literature that connects people on so many levels, that gets people sharing their own stories.

I never got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents, and there are a lot of things I wished I had asked them. I realize I missed out, but I am getting that experience now with these women in the LifeWords program. The oldest participant, who is 93, was born in France and was a teenager during the German occupation there. My nephew, who is almost 13, has been a part of the Bridge Summer Reading program, and I get to watch him engage and speak intelligently with older adults.

Laura Keigan

founder of Generations Literary Alliance

Photos courtesy of Generations Literary Alliance

Uniting young and old through the power of words

Photo by Marissa Highfill

Generations Literary Alliance

GENERATIONS LITERARY ALLIANCE generationsliteraryalliance.org lkeigan@generationsliteraryalliance.org

What makes your organization different from other literary arts groups or mentoring groups?

There’s not a whole lot out there like what we do. It’s part lifelong learning, part literary arts program, but the way we have combined them is different.

We use the things we read to share and connect and experience with each other.

Do you have to have writing experience to participate?

Of all of the people who have participated in the LifeWords program, none had ever written poetry before. For our Origins Poetry Project, everyone from the teens in our slam poetry program to our 93-year-old LifeWords participant has written a poem. We want to make the Origins project so accessible that anyone can do it, to open it up to all generations. Right

PROGRAMS • LifeWords: College-age readers go to local retirement community centers.

• K nox Generation Spoken Word: Teens hone poetry writing and performance skills.

• Origins Poetry Project: A communitywide poetry writing initiative.

• B ridge Summer Reading Program: Seniors meet with 10 to 13-year-olds to read four young-adult novels.

HOW YOU CAN HELP • College-aged volunteers are needed for the LifeWords program.

• Volunteer mentors are needed for the Knox Generation Spoken Word program.

• Join their community funding partners.

• Attend the second annual GLA benefit (see box).

now we’re looking to partner with other local arts organizations to get the word out.

Knox Generation is currently just high school students?

Right now, it’s slam poetry for young adults, set up for high school students

from all over Knox County. Knox Generations meets weekly at Awaken Coffee in the Old City. McKay Books has covered our costs—they’ve been very generous with us. In the fall we’re hoping to introduce older adults to the program, too. We’re trying to figure out the best way to do that, whether it will be as mentors, or having them workshop with each other, or compete against each other.

What’s up on this year’s reading list for your summer Bridge Reading group?

We’re still deciding on the books for this summer for the Bridge Summer Reading Program. We read four books last year: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, A Wrinkle in

SECOND ANNUAL LITERATURE 4 LIFE BENEFIT AND SLAM SHOWCASE WHEN Friday, April 7, 6:30–9:30 p.m.

WHERE The Square Room (4 Market Square)

Time, Ender’s Game, and The Wednesday Wars, which takes place in the Vietnam era in America. Last summer, we had seven adults and three kids, including a grandmother and granddaughter who participated together.

GLA started with a different mission?

We got our 501(c)3 status in November 2015 as “Own the Boards.”

[Puzzled look, as Keigan laughs.]

Right, that’s the reaction we got. It was meant to represent the idea of owning literary performance [“boards” being what stages were called in Shakespeare’s time]. It was centered around the literary arts, but there was no other organizing theme. On several grant organizations, the first question people had wasn’t “What do you do?” but “What does the name mean?” So we knew. The push to change the name sped up the transition to the intergenerational focus.

The biggest challenge for any young not-for-profit is funding, of course, but I’ve been so lucky to have some very supportive and knowledgeable people in my corner. Now that we have solidified our mission, we have a real path forward.

WHAT A silent auction and spoken word performance gala and benefit for Generations Literary Alliance, featuring slam performances by Knox Generation students, live music with Latitude 35, hors d’oevres, and a cash bar.

Silent auctions up for bid include goodies from Dollywood, Alliance Brewing, Union Ave Books, Striped Light, First Watch, and others.

Know someone doing amazing things for the future of Knoxville?

COST $20 per person; $35 per couple; $10 for students with valid student I.D. (tickets available online and at the door)

CATEGORIES Civic & Humanitarian Arts & Culture Business & Innovation Environmental & Sustainability Health & Food Education

ADULTS. FREE TUITION. FALL 2017.

Do you qualify?

Submit your story suggestions to: editor@knoxmercury.com Contact us for sponsorship opportunities: charlie@knoxmercury.com

865.694.6400

www.pstcc.edu

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 15

T

he first edition of Rhythm N’ Blooms, in 2010, was a primer on how not to stage a music festival—thrown together in six weeks with no budget and club-size acts booked in the Bijou and Tennessee theaters. Less than a decade later, Rhythm N’ Blooms is a cornerstone of the Dogwood Arts Festival and the unofficial kickoff to Knoxville’s spring festival season. It’s also the city’s biggest music fest, with more than 20,000 people attending and three days and nights of local and national rock, pop, and Americana on six stages in the Old City. In late March, we gathered some of this year’s local performers—Lucy and Roxie Abernathy of the Pinklets, Cruz Contreras, Matt Honkonen of Peak Physique, Daje Morris, Brian “Shimmy” Paddock of Shimmy and the Burns, and Josh Smith of Handsome of the Humbles—and festival organizer Chyna Brackeen for a roundtable discussion about the festival.

Rhythm N’ Blooms runs Friday, April 7-Sunday, April 9 in the Old City. Visit rhythmnbloomsfest.com for the lineup, schedule, and ticket information.

Some of you have played the festival before. How has it changed, and what do you expect this year?

MATT HONKONEN: The most striking thing has been how quickly it’s grown. It’s always been a fun festival, but the first year I went, I only knew a handful of people who were going. This year, I don’t know anybody who isn’t going, or doesn’t want to go.

CRUZ CONTRERAS: Any time you can have a festival in a central downtown location, where people can walk and enjoy the music but also bars and restaurants and retail, I think you really bring together a lot of aspects of the community. To me, that’s an important thing about a festival like this—it does something unique that happens once a year. If

you want to experience Knoxville, it’s springtime, you’re going to meet people from all over the country and have a very complete experience.

CHYNA BRACKEEN: The first year, we were going out on Market Square and handing out free tickets and begging people to come to shows. But every year we’ve had a higher percentage of visitors.

It was probably three years ago, the first year we moved to the Old City, there was this group of people and I heard European accents, and I thought, what the hell? “Can I help you find something? You look really confused.”

They were like, “We flew over from Germany because one of our favorite bands announced they were playing, and then we saw the rest of the lineup and got really excited.” The next year I saw them again and they had brought friends from Spain.

For the first-timers, have you attended the festival before, and what are you expecting as performers?

JOSH SMITH: I’m so excited to be a part of it. I’ve been to some of the festivals before, to see friends play and to see some of the national acts play.

I’m just excited to see bands play that I haven’t seen before and to play in front of people who have never heard of us.

It’s also exciting for me how good Knoxville music is and that we’re so well represented at the festival. I’m excited for all these people coming in who are going to see these Knoxville musicians. I’m pumped.

MATT: I did some solo stuff at the last Rhythm N’ Blooms and I recognized maybe two fans there. [The crowd] was people who had never seen me before, which is pretty rare in Knoxville. It’s hard to get a crowd that’s not the same group of your friends who come out every single time. It’s nice to see fresh faces.

And when you see some national acts or you go see the Black Lillies play, it gets you amped—you know you have to bring your game to this festival, because there are going to be a lot of eyes on you.

LUCY ABERNATHY: Somehow we’ve never been to Rhythm N’ Blooms. I have no idea what to expect, that’s for sure. But like everybody else, I think it’s awesome.

ROXIE ABERNATHY: I only knew it existed. I didn’t know a whole lot about it. Then I shared it with my friends and they saw Young the Giant and were like, oh my gosh, we have to come to this. And I agree about the fresh faces—it’s usually the same group of friends who come to support us.

DAJE MORRIS: I’m just excited to play, honestly. My expectations are that I’ll get to meet new people. I’m

excited to get to see a lot of acts in a lot of different genres that I’m close to but don’t always get to play next to, if that makes sense. I tend to be more of a hybrid genre and tend to play shows with a lot of different people, but this time it’s going to be more eclectic, and not what I’m used to. I’m excited for that—the newness and the energy.

What connects all the different artists at Rhythm N’ Blooms?

CRUZ: In a word, she just said it— energy. It’s an intensity, an honesty.

Stylistically, it can be anything, but that’s what attracts people to a festival, it’s what attracts artists. It’s why it changes every year and becomes something different.

CHYNA: We started as an American roots festival, but my definition of American roots is very broad. To me, if there’s an artist who is writing their own music and playing their own instruments, even if it’s with an electronic component, and they have a kick-ass live performance, then I’m going to find a way to fit that into the American roots box. Even if they’re not from America.

Every year I try to push that a little more. What I really want to happen is, when someone walks into a room, whether it’s an artist they came to see or an artist they’ve never heard of before, that they say, “Holy shit— that’s amazing.”

I want this to be the festival where you find your new favorite artist. The first show that St. Paul and the Broken Bones did outside Alabama was at Rhythm N’ Blooms. They played at the Knoxville Botanical Garden and nobody knew who they were, and then a year later they blew April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 17

up. Margo Price played here. Chris Stapleton—the very first year, the Jompson Brothers played. They were the first act of the day on the main stage and nobody had a clue who they were and now, it’s Chris Stapleton.

BRIAN PADDOCK: The first year, I knew who everybody was when the lineup came out. I was excited because I liked them all. But every year since then, there’s been stuff I haven’t heard before combined with people who are bigger that I want to see.

What’s the ratio of local artists to touring bands?

CHYNA: It’s usually about a third

local. Part of my goal with the festival is to intersperse those local artists in with the national and international acts so that when you see the headliner that you came to see there might be somebody from Knoxville opening. We’ve got the Pinklets on the main stage this year.

The Royal Hounds are on the main stage this year. You’re always going to find those Knoxville acts mixed in with everything else so that our audience can see that we’ve got this kind of quality.

They shouldn’t be sitting there thinking, “Oh, this is from Knoxville.”

It should be, “This is kick-ass music.”

And then, “Oh, did you know they’re from Knoxville?”

The festival is billed as a celebration of Knoxville’s music history.

How does it reflect that?

CRUZ: When you talk about the history of this town, it’s a chameleon.

It changes so fast. It looks sleepy but it changes so fast. So that’s a really hard question—I don’t know how you sum it up. …

18 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

DAJE: I’ve only been in Knoxville for six years. I’m from Memphis. My dad is a musician and producer and engineer in Nashville. So getting to see from West Tennessee all the way to East Tennessee, that spectrum of styles, and getting to find my own creative voice in that does make a difference in the way I see the Knoxville music scene.

How would you describe the current scene? How has it changed over the last few years and what does it have that people might not know about?

BRIAN: There’s just so much stuff, and everybody’s good at it. Even if it’s not my thing, they’re good at what they do to the point that it’s intimidating.

CRUZ: I’m always blown away by the Monday night groups down at Barley’s, the jazz groups. This is worldclass jazz a block away from my house—some people would travel to a jazz festival in another country to hear musicians of this caliber, and we have it on a random night.

But we don’t have the type of industry that’s in Nashville or New York or L.A. or even Austin.

CHYNA: People ask me all the time why I don’t live in Nashville. If I lived in Nashville, I could focus on the industry part of the music industry. If I live in Knoxville, I can still remember that I love the music part of it.

Ten years ago, no one would have believed you—in fact, they would have laughed in your face—if you told them that you’d have two major music festivals two weeks apart from each other in downtown Knoxville and people coming from all over the world to attend them.

So what’s happening next?

LUCY: We haven’t been here long

enough to know what’s already happened! We’ve never lived anywhere but Knoxville.

ROXIE: When I was younger, I hated Knoxville. As I’ve gotten older and I’ve been allowed to get out and see more things, I think it’s pretty great, and I think it’s going to get even greater, in terms of music. More fantastic.

CRUZ: If you want to make music a profession, can you stay here? Is it a good idea to stay here? I’ve had to ask myself that repeatedly. There’s not a bunch of record companies and there’s not a huge music industry. But the quality of life is pretty good here.

It doesn’t cost a lot to live here. It’s beautiful. The people are great.

CHYNA: But one thing we lack in Knoxville is the hustle. In Nashville, I think people know you’ve got to work your ass off all the time to get noticed.

In Knoxville, everybody’s so supportive and so nice. But if you do start hustling, people hold it against you.

I’ve certainly seen it with the Black Lillies. If you’re going to hold it against someone for trying to pursue it as a career and then in the next breath say why don’t we have more people in Knoxville making it—you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Cruz, has the answer to that question—whether you can make a music career in Knoxville—changed over the last 15 years, as the industry has changed?

CRUZ: There’s more opportunities. I’m getting ready to move back into this neighborhood; my entire band and my manager are going to

live within walking distance from each other. If there’s somebody I need to hire to make a video or do a photo shoot, they’re here. We can grab a coffee or grab a beer, have a rehearsal—it’s all right here.

CHYNA: I’m seeing a lot of artists move here from Austin and Nashville.

That’s allowing people who have been here for a while see that it might be cool to stay here instead of moving to one of those other cities. I think we’re about to reach a period where there’s this creative renaissance where everybody’s here at the right time and the right place and things aren’t overpriced yet and we aren’t all getting kicked out of North Knoxville.

MATT: And we have Big Ears and Rhythm N’ Blooms to thank for a lot of these things. There’s a reason these things are happening—it’s because we have artists who are creating good things and we also have people flying from Europe to see those things, and they’re seeing the city.

CHYNA: And they’re falling in love with it. We had someone come to Rhythm N’ Blooms last year who stayed an extra week to look for

“We started as an American roots festival, but my definition of American roots is very broad. I want this to be the festival where you find your new favorite artist.”

—CHYNA BRACKEEN

Who are you looking forward to seeing at Rhythm N’ Blooms?

MATT: Gogol Bordello.

JOSH: John Moreland. He makes

me cry every time.

BRIAN: I was actually trying to get him to play here and I talked to his manager and he emailed me back and said he’s coming to a festival in Knoxville in April.

I’m also looking forward to seeing Handsome and the Humbles, and I’m not just saying that because he’s wearing my T-shirt or because he’s here. In fact, I almost didn’t say it because he’s here. But I think if you put those guys up onstage in front of Ryan Adams or Jason Isbell and they’re selling a lot of records that night.

CHYNA: I think the best way to experience Rhythm N’ Blooms is to not have a plan, to just wander in anywhere. Obviously everybody’s going to have their must-see artist, but wander in anywhere, catch all kinds of different music, it’s all going to be good.

Photo by Lauren Dukoff

architecture jobs. We’ve had people look for apartments while they’re in town. They come to the festival and think it must be like this all the time, which isn’t too far off. There’s always something going on.

DAJE: I think there’s a sweet collaborative spirit in Knoxville. It’s not like combat. My dad checks up on me all the time—he’s like, “Daje, you need to take care of yourself.” He has this Nashville/Memphis mind-set about music where people are going to hurt you, you have to make sure you have all of your armor on and all your walls up before you step into any kind of meeting or collaborative session. But it’s not like that—we’re all here and our heart is to make the best kind of music that we can make and grow. And that’s the spirit that’s growing in Knoxville. People are just so open to the spirit of living as a creative and making things that make the world better.

CRUZ: The key is going to be hanging onto that mentality if and when the money shows up. If people are like, I can make a living playing music, sometimes that translates into money and politics and power. And when that stuff gets involved, that’s when it gets nasty.

YOUNG THE GIANT

Headliners YOUNG THE GIANT

Young the Giant plays on the Cripple Creek Stage on Sunday, April 9, from 8-10 p.m.

I

n 2011, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Young the Giant’s crossover hit “My Body.” From the grocery store to MTV to a Michelob Ultra commercial, the super-charged anthem was inescapable. But while most folks were introduced to the California indie rockers through the pop-rock earworm, the five-piece band had been cranking out college radio favorites since forming as the Jakes in 2004.

After their 2007 EP, Shake My Hand, and a series of lineup changes, the Jakes changed their name in 2010.

Touring slots with fellow indie favorites Minus the Bear and Neon Trees followed, and the group, led by charismatic vocalist Sameer Gadhia, released their self-titled debut album a few months later on Roadrunner Records.

With its slick production and slew of radio-ready songs, Young the Giant earned the band a fast following. Tracks like the groovy, tambourine-tinged “Apartment” showcase the band’s knack for big choruses and building percussion; “On my way to your apartment/I write for fear of silence/ You carved a boat to sell my shadow/ Now I walk alone,” Gadhia exclaims

over a wall of walloping guitars.

Over the years, Young the Giant has polished its gritty sound, opting for tight production and perfectly timed crescendos over loose jams.

While their execution has earned them comparisons to fellow big-studio acts like Kings of Leon and even Coldplay, the band’s latest album, 2016’s Home of the Strange, takes on subject matter with a little more bite than the band’s indie rock peers.

Packed with glitzy synths and electronic hiccups, Home of the Strange could be mistaken as simply another step in the same direction, pushing toward the danceable sound that dominates today’s modern rock.

But listen closely and you’ll find Young the Giant exploring their multicultural heritage—members boast European, Middle Eastern, and French-Canadian backgrounds—and

privilege and empty promises on the Kafka-inspired “Amerika”: “Say you care, but you don’t/You know I hate it/It’s a rich kid game/Didn’t grow up with a throne/It’s all it really is.” The new depth highlights a previously unexposed layer in the group’s arena-ready sound.

—Carey Hodges

GOGOL BORDELLO Gogol Bordello plays on the Cripple Creek Stage on Saturday, April 8, from 8-10 p.m.

G

ogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hütz spent much of his adolescence and early adulthood on the run.

He and his family left their hometown in Ukraine after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986; after the fall of the Soviet Union, Hütz spent three years in European refugee camps before finally landing in the United States in 1992. A few years later, he found a permanent home—and his bandmates—among New York’s Lower East Side bohemian immigrant communities.

Over the course of eight albums, from the 1999 debut Voi-La Intruder to Pure Vida Conspiracy, in 2013, Hütz and Gogol Bordello have crafted a mythology of Dionysian pan-cultural punk rock informed by European folk and dance music, the Velvet Underground, the Ramones, musical theater, and jazz. Songs like “American Wedding” contrast the in-the-moment joys of traditional cultures—booze,

GOGOL BORDELLO

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 19

friendship, and sex—against middle American conservatism. It’s a party that can’t be separated from its political content.

The band’s political significance stands out even more starkly in the midst of a global refugee crisis and an American political system embroiled in Cold War-style cloak-and-dagger intrigue and xenophobic anti-immigrant sentiment. Still, Hütz and company offer the same advice in 2017 that they did in a more hopeful era: a few drinks, some loud music, and friends. It might not be a permanent solution, but it’s one that will always work.

—Matthew Everett

NIKKI LANE Nikki Lane plays on the Cripple Creek Stage on Friday, April 7, from 6:45-8 p.m.

R

aucous, earnest, and always fierce, Nikki Lane is full of fire when belting out her defiant take on country rock. Born in Greenville, S.C., the singer-songwriter took up residence in both New York City and Los Angeles before putting down roots in East Nashville. There, she opened up a popular vintage pop-up shop, High Class Hillbilly, where she bumped into Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach. After a series of off-chance meetings, Auerbach would eventually produce Lane’s 2014 breakout album,

Festival Guide

All or Nothin’.

More fuzzy distortion than traditional twang, All or Nothin’ standout tracks “Love’s on Fire” and “Wild One” earned Lane a reputation as a purveyor of outlaw country.

Since then, she’s shared the stage with everyone from Willie Nelson to Spiritualized. But the singer has since traded her indie edge for rootsy swagger, lining the 2017 follow-up Highway Queen with stripped-down guitar, pedal steel, and honky-tonk keyboards. The lead single, “700,000 Rednecks,” find Lane boasting, “Seven hundred thousand rednecks/That’s what it takes to get to the top/Seven hundred thousand rednecks/No, there ain’t no one gonna make me stop.”

On Highway Queen, Lane doubles down on her cowgirl image, touching on everything from Vegas slots to heartbreak. She’s said in interviews that several of the album’s saloon-ready songs are autobiographical. Throughout, Lane dishes out details of her life with in-your-face honesty and total confidence. The frankness is infectious, transforming Lane from an exaggerated character to an experienced storyteller.

Lane says she hopes to push past being pegged as country, outlaw country, and everything in between. It should be easy. A female force, she promises to continue building her own identity through searing vocals and raw narratives.

—Carey Hodges

APRIL DOGWOOD ARTS FESTIVAL dogwoodarts.com A Knoxville staple for over 50 years, the Dogwood Arts Festival is back in bloom.

With a plethora of events all around Knoxville, all month long, there’s bound to be a little something for everyone.

RHYTHM N’ BLOOMS The Old City • April 7-9 • $45-$190 • rhythmnbloomsfest.com Since 2010, Rhythm N’ Blooms has celebrated East Tennessee’s music traditions with multiple stages of local and national (and international) artists, gaining a reputation as one of the best music fests in the Southeast. See our story on page TK. PELLISSIPPI STATE FESTIVAL OF CULTURES Pellissippi State Community College • Friday, April 7 • 4-8:30 p.m. • Free • pstcc.edu Pellissippi State’s annual international festival commemorates the school’s diverse community with music, food, and entertainment from around the world.

MARBLE CITY COMICON Knoxville Expo Center • April 8-9 • $15-$99 • marblecitycomicon FARRAGUT BOOK FEST FOR CHILDREN Founder’s Park • Saturday, April 9 • 10 a.m.-2 p.m. • Free • townoffarragut.org/bookfest TOWNSEND FOUNDERS DAY Townsend Visitors Center • Saturday, April 15 • 10 a.m.-5 p.m. • Free • smokymountains.org

20 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

Photo by Glynis Carpenter

NIKKI LANE

EARTH FEST Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum • Saturday, April 15 • 11 a.m.-5 p.m. • Free • knox-earthfest.org Knoxville’s annual EarthFest boasts environmentally friendly fun for the whole family. The event is zero-waste, meaning composting and recycling bins replace the catch-all trash cans.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center and Townsend Visitors Center • April 21-23 • townsendartisanguild.net ROSSINI FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL STREET FAIR Downtown Knoxville • 10 a.m.-9 p.m. • Free • knoxvilleopera.com The annual Rossini Festival International Street Fair brings a taste of Europe to downtown by celebrating the color, fun, and excitement of opera and international culture.

FIDO FEST Turkey Creek • Saturday, April 22 • 11 a.m.-3 p.m. • Free KITE FESTIVAL Pearson Springs Park (Maryville) • Sunday, April 23 • 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. • Free • fineartsblount.org MAYAPPLE MARKETPLACE Ijams Nature Center • Sunday, April 23 • 11 a.m.-4 p.m. • Free • ijams.org SOUTHERN TEQUILA AND TACO FESTIVAL Gander Mountain (Turkey Creek) • Friday, April 28 • 6-9 p.m. • $35-$40 • southerntequilafest.com The Southern Tequila and Taco Festival brings in some of the biggest names in tequila alongside the best tacos Knoxville has to offer. You’ll also be helping a cause: Proceeds from the festival go to Remote Area Medical.

VOLAPALOOZA World’s Fair Park • Friday, April 28 • 5:30 p.m. • Free-$30 • volapalooza.utk.edu The University of Tennessee’s end-of-semester party features X Ambassadors, COIN, Luke Pell, Mountains Like Wax, Electric Darling, and DJ A-Wall.

BREWHIBITION Old City Courtyard • Saturday, April 29 • 1-6 p.m. • $45-$65 • brewhibition.com With over 75 craft beers from Tennessee and surrounding areas, Brewhibition is a celebration not only of the end of Prohibition, but of the regional brewers born out of it.

OPEN STREETS

17 • 8 a.m.-3 p.m. • Free-$10 • jacksonsquarelavenderfestival.org KNOX PRIDE PARADE AND FESTIVAL Downtown Knoxville and World’s Fair Park • Saturday, June 17 • 11 a.m.-8 p.m. • Free • knoxvillepridefest.org Knoxville’s PrideFest is an open celebration of music, entertainment and speakers focused on promoting equality and inclusion of all people.

Photo by Clay Duda

MAY FARRAGUT FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL Renaissance Farragut • Friday, May 5 • 6:30-9:30 p.m. • $30-$75 • farragutbusiness.com WDVX CAMPERFEST Dumplin Valley Farm (Kodak) • May 5-6 • $22.50-$50 • wdvx.com

CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL OF READING World’s Fair Park • Saturday, May 20 • 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

• Free • knoxlib.org Help the kids start the summer off right with a full day of music, storytelling, arts, crafts, science exploration, food, and fun.

MARBLE SPRINGS STORYTELLING FESTIVAL Marble Springs State Historic Site • Saturday, May 6 • 10 a.m.-5 p.m. • Free • marblesprings.net

BEER, BBQ AND BOURBON FESTIVAL World’s Fair Park • Saturday, May 20 • 2-6 p.m. • $35 • beerandbourbon.com It’s an afternoon of “beer sippin’, bourbon tastin’, music listenin’, cigar smokin’, and barbeque eatin’” (on a different lawn than the kids book festival).

TENNESSEE MEDIEVAL FAIRE Harriman • May 13-29 • tmfaire.com

SUNSET FEST Sunset Farms (Dandridge) • 6-11 p.m. • $20-$35

VESTIVAL Candoro Arts and Heritage Center • Saturday, May 13 • 11 a.m.-7 p.m. • Free • candoromarble.org Vestival brings the South Knoxville community together on Mother’s Day weekend for a day of live music, local craft and food vendors, dancing, and more at the historic Candoro Marble Building.

OPEN STREETS KNOXVILLE Magnolia Avenue • Sunday, May 21 • 2-6 p.m. • Free • openstreetsknoxville.com

INTERNATIONAL BISCUIT FESTIVAL Downtown Knoxville • May 19-20 • biscuitfest.com The International Biscuit Festival shares Knoxville’s biscuit heritage with the world.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN SCOTTISH FESTIVAL AND GAMES Maryville College • May 20-21 • smokymountaingames.org You don’t have to be Scottish in order to enjoy this festival, originally founded in 1981 and now one of the oldest Scottish festivals in the country.

JUNE SECRET CITY FESTIVAL Oak Ridge • June 2-17 • secretcityfestival.com Originally known as the Azalea Festival, the Secret City Festival showcases Oak Ridge’s history and culture.

BIKE, BOAT, BREW, AND BARK Volunteer Landing • June 3-4 • Free • visitknoxville.com Bike, Boat, Brew, and Bark offers the best of Knoxville to locals, tourists, dog lovers, outdoor adventurers, craft-beer enthusiasts, and any combination thereof.

LAVENDER FESTIVAL Historic Jackson Square (Oak Ridge) • Saturday, June

BIG KAHUNA WING FESTIVAL World’s Fair Park • Saturday, June 17 • Noon-8 p.m. • $15-$20 • bkwfestival.com If you love wings, then this is the festival for you.

KNOXVILLE BREWFEST Gay Street • Saturday, June 17 • 4-8 p.m. • $45-$50 • knoxvillebrewfest.com BrewFest hosts a bundle of breweries from all over the region. Come enjoy a lovely summer afternoon with beers of all colors, styles, and flavors. All net proceeds benefit CureDuchenne, a charity dedicated to helping cure the devastating and lethal muscle disease affecting more than 24,000 children in the U.S. KUUMBA FESTIVAL Downtown Knoxville • June 22-25 • Free • kuumbafestival.com Kuumba Fest brings African culture to the heart of Knoxville with a variety of activities: the Junkanu Parade, African markets, and live music.

OUT OF TOWN SWEETWATER 420 FEST Atlanta • April 21-23 • sweetwater420fest.com 4 BRIDGES ART FESTIVAL Chattanooga • April 22-23 • 4bridgesartfestival.org HIGH WATER FEST Charleston, S.C. • April 22-23 • highwaterfest.com MERLEFEST Wilkesboro, N.C. • April 27-30 • merlefest.org SHAKORI HILLS GRASSROOTS FESTIVAL OF MUSIC AND DANCE Pittsboro, N.C. • May 4-7 • shakorihillsgrassroots.org FRENCH BROAD RIVER FESTIVAL Hot Springs, N.C. • May 5-7 • frenchbroadriverfestival.com SHAKY BEATS MUSIC FESTIVAL Atlanta • May 5-7 • shakybeatsfestival.com LAKE EDEN ARTS FEST Black Mountain, N.C. • May 12-14 • theleaf.org SHAKY KNEES MUSIC FESTIVAL Atlanta • May 12-14 • shakykneesfestival.com HANGOUT MUSIC FESTIVAL Gulf Shores, Ala. • May 19-21 • hangoutmusicfest.com

HOPS IN THE HILLS Downtown Maryville • June 23-24 • $15-$60 • hopsinthehills.com Maryville’s celebration of fermentation brings together more than 20 local breweries and live music in the scenic gateway to the Smoky Mountains.

ATLANTA JAZZ FESTIVAL Atlanta • May 26-28 • atlantafestivals.com

WHITE LIGHTNING TRAIL FESTIVAL Cumberland Gap • June 23-24 • Free • claibornecounty.com

RIVERBEND FESTIVAL Chattanooga • June 9-17 • riverbendfestival.com

FANBOY EXPO KNOXVILLE COMIC CON Knoxville Convention Center • June 23-25 • $17-$475 • fanboyexpo.com

JULY INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATION AND ANVIL SHOOT Museum of Appalachia • 2 p.m. • museumofappalachia.org FESTIVAL ON THE 4TH World’s Fair Park • Free • knoxvilletn.gov

BONNAROO MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL Manchester, Tenn. • June 8-11 • bonnaroo.com

FORECASTLE Louisville, Ky. • July 14-16 • forecastlefestival.com SLOSS MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL Birmingham, Ala. • July 15-16 • slossfest.com FLOYDFEST Floyd, Va. • July 26-30 • floydfest.com MUDDY ROOTS MUSIC FESTIVAL Cookeville • Sept. 1-4 • muddyrootsrecords.com PILGRIMAGE MUSIC AND CULTURAL FESTIVAL Franklin, Tenn. • Sept. 23-24 • pilgrimagefestival.com April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 21

Photo by Chad Pelton

Program Notes | Classical | Movies

Sooner or Later V-Roys’ Just Add Ice will be released on vinyl for the first time in April

S

hocking as it may seem today, there was a brief period in time when releasing music on vinyl was not considered hip at all. In fact, during much of the ’90s, LPs were about as cool as CDs are now. So it was no big surprise that most Knoxville bands of that decade did not even consider putting out vinyl records. But more than 20 years after its initial release, the V-Roys’ Just Add Ice—one of the defining albums of Knoxville’s late-1990s music scene—is set for a limited-edition vinyl release on Record Store Day. The band’s former bassist, Paxton Sellers, talks about the record, how the reissue came about, and where you can get it.

Did the V-Roys ever have any vinyl releases previously?

When our albums came out (1996-99), it was the pinnacle of the CD craze, so we never considered putting out anything on vinyl. The only thing that I am aware of on vinyl previously was an EP that we did with Steve Earle called Johnny Too Bad. It was released in the U.S. and U.K., and the U.K. label did a small run of 10- and 12-inch singles that are pretty hard to find now, at least in the U.S.

Was vinyl even an option back then?

In the ’90s, new vinyl was only seen in a couple of places: indie bands (specifically 7-inch singles) and dance club records. One of our label owners, Jack Emerson, had more vision than us at the time. As we were recording Just 22 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

Add Ice, he suggested that we put out a couple 7-inch singles and wait on doing a full album release. We wanted to get our full album out on CD. Having a CD actually, in a weird way, meant something then versus now.

This was before CD burning, so it seemed special.

In hindsight, Jack had the vision and I wish we had made those 7-inch singles like he suggested. I would love to have one in my collection.

Were the V-Roys recordings digital or analog?

All the original recordings were done to 2-inch analog tape and all recorded with analog equipment, but it was dumped down to a DAT after mastering. Fortunately, before the loudness wars began with mastering, we still had plenty of dynamic range in our masters. I attribute this to the great job our mastering engineer, Hank Williams, did back in ’96.

Who owns the rights to the tapes?

We as a band own the rights to the masters. We were able to acquire them all from our label several years ago. Our drummer, Jeff Bills, has kept them archived since that time.

What did you (technically) have to do in order to put the songs into a vinyl state?

I could go real technical, but I will spare you the grand detail. First and foremost, I had to do the research on how it is done for anyone. I spent

several months just learning all I could about how records work and how they are made, from just a layman’s perspective.

I then consulted with Logan Rogers of Lightning Rod Records, which is the label we are releasing this vinyl version through. Logan directed me to Welcome to 1979, which is a vinyl cutting/plating facility in Nashville. I began a dialogue with them about my masters and I also called up Hank Williams, who still does mastering at MasterMix in Nashville. Hank and I talked quite a bit about it, and he felt that the master we had would still make a good vinyl master.

So I took a chance and had some lacquers made from Welcome to 1979. I was overwhelmingly pleased with how they sounded, so I decided to go ahead with the full project.

Where were they pressed?

After finally deciding to go ahead with pressing the vinyl, I did research into pressing plants. I kept seeing the plant Gotta Groove Records popping up out of Cleveland, Ohio. After some research and quoting I decided to use them. They have been excellent to work with and I would suggest them to anyone looking to press records.

How many have been pressed, where are they available, and what’s the MSRP? I decided to do a limited edition run of this record. Two reasons: I love limited records personally, and I also

was not sure if the demand would be there. So I didn’t want too many out there. What I have is a limited press of 500 on a blue translucent vinyl.

Matte-finish tip-on jacket, with each album numbered 1-500.

The release date I have set for April 22, which is Record Store Day. It will be available in the following ways: I will have a vinyl preorder that will go live on Wednesday, April 5. The link will be available on our V-Roys Facebook page. We will do the preorder through Bandcamp. It will also be distributed some through Lightning Rod Records and made available through select indie stores and, last but not least, it will be available for those who do not want to buy online at my shop, Magnolia Records, on April 22. I will sell it to you personally.

The price will be $21 for the 21 years it has been in this world. It is now old enough to buy itself a cold beer, hello.

Do you think there’s anything to the idea that the LP version is a more “intimate” experience?

I am a little biased, but I love the vinyl experience. I like the ritual of it. Taking it off the shelf, looking at the art, putting the record on the player and then reading the sleeve while listening.

Passing the sleeve around to friends.

You have to stay engaged with a record. You can’t just turn it on and leave it playing all day. Music can be forgettable if you don’t give it attention.

—Coury Turczyn

Program Notes | Classical | Movies

Open Windows Claire Chenette headlines a refreshing chamber program of Mozart and more

BY ALAN SHERROD

I

The Mozart was perhaps the perfect work to separate the two opening and closing strings-only pieces: Ottorino Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 3 and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op. 48.

Each exists in its own musical space; each one needs its distance.

Fellenbaum and the orchestra gave the Tchaikovsky the richness and solidity it deserves with a careful running dynamic balance between the string sections. Fellenbaum also found the perfect textural balance between sections that allows the different string colors to ebb and flow, all the while maintaining cohesion as an ensemble.

The famous elegiac third movement was beautifully rendered, setting up substantial energy in the emphatic and luscious Finale movement.

Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, though, is different. The Suite

Photo courtesy of the KSO

n his biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the 20th-century musicologist Alfred Einstein came right to the point on the Mozart wind concertos: “All these concertos have something special and personal about them, and when one hears them in a concert hall, which is seldom enough, one has the feeling that the windows have suddenly been opened and a breath of fresh air let in.”

That’s exactly what audiences received at Sunday’s Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra concert at the Bijou Theatre, thanks to a particularly exhilarating performance by principal oboe Claire Chenette of Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in C Major. Chenette delivered a refreshing interpretation of this supremely challenging work, full of charming nuance and chirruped details that magnetically held the listener’s attention. Chenette, known for an oboe sound that is open and luminous, gently sculpted musical phrases and seized moments of humor and drama; she also displayed, on occasion, a spine-tingling focus and timbre.

KSO resident conductor James Fellenbaum and the orchestra gave Chenette all the room and support she needed. Even the slow movement, a lyrical Adagio non troppo, was imparted a cautious energy. The Rondo finale movement returns to characteristic briskness, this time with virtuosic details that lead up to a rewarding and upbeat finale.

No. 3, composed in 1932, defies its 20th-century origin and echoes 16th-century lute and guitar pieces by Santino Garsi da Parma, Jean-Baptiste Besard, Ludovico Roncalli, and some anonymous composers. The result is the flavor of Renaissance string pieces filtered through a modern ensemble of bowed and pizzicato strings, displaying both fluidity and texture.

The KSO’s performance here was charming, clean, and soothing. And, in the name of programmatic diversity, they were right to keep this work as far away from the seething 19th-century romanticism of Tchaikovsky as possible. However, it is precisely that kind of programming voltage that makes for entertaining Sunday afternoons.

ARAM

The

from ERA:BetheThere Beginning!

New Music Director Aram Demirjian will conduct these upcoming concerts at the Tennessee Theatre!

IN TWO WEEKS

T

he KSO Chamber Orchestra heads just a bit further west this week, joining the choirs of Church Street United Methodist for a Lenten concert on Thursday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m. The free concert will feature the choir and KSO in a performance of the Requiem by the 20th-century French composer Maurice Duruflé. The baritone soloist will be Daniel Webb; the conductor will be Joe Miller.

The concert will also offer Antonio Vivaldi’s Laudate Pueri with soprano Jami Rogers Anderson.

On Friday, the year-old Scruffy City Orchestra, a volunteer ensemble of area players, will offer Around the World in Eight Pieces, a musical journey of selections from Korea and India and Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave and Rodriguez’s La cumparsita. The concert will be held at First Baptist Church (510 W. Main St.) at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $5.

Chenette delivered a refreshing interpretation of this supremely challenging work; she also displayed, on occasion, a spine-tingling focus and timbre.

GOLKA PLAYS CHOPIN April 20 & 21 • 7:30 p.m.

Aram Demirjian, conductor Adam Golka, piano

CHOPIN: Piano Concerto No. 1 BIZET: Overture & Romance from The Pearl Fishers GOLIJOV: Night of the Flying Horses RAVEL: Daphnis & Chloe Suite No. 2 Sponsored by John H. Daniel

COMING IN MAY

BEETHOVEN’S 5TH May 18 & 19 • 7:30 p.m.

Aram Demirjian, conductor BATES: Mothership STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegel WILLIAMS: “Escapades” from Catch Me If You Can BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 Sponsored by The Trust Company and Old Forge Distillery

CLASSICAL TICKETS start at just $15!

CALL: (865) 291-3310 CLICK: knoxvillesymphony.com VISIT: Monday-Friday, 9-5 April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 23

Program Notes | Classical | Movies

New Flesh Anticipated cannibal thriller Raw turns out to be more than just a gorefest

SOLD OUT!

BY APRIL SNELLINGS

F SOLD OUT!

*Times listed are door times

26 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

or those who don’t follow such things, the French-Belgian cannibal drama Raw is one of the most eagerly anticipated genre titles of 2017. Since its enthusiastic reception at Cannes last year, the film has earned rapturous reviews from genre and mainstream critics alike, even as it reportedly inspired walkouts and fainting spells among viewers with less durable constitutions.

Headlines like that can be as much of a millstone as a boon, so Raw enters its wide release with expectations that could sink a lesser film. And while it’s neither as groundbreaking nor as transgressive as viewers have been led to expect, it’s an unqualified success for its writer-director (Julia Ducournau, making her feature debut) and largely unproven young cast.

Though Raw piles on the gruesome makeup effects and sinister atmospherics, it has more in common with coming-of-age tales and even teen comedies than traditional horror films.

The story centers on Justine (Garance Marillier, also notching her first feature credit), a virginal and devoutly vegetarian teenager entering her freshman year at the world’s most disturbing veterinary school. Her parents, who also attended the school, deliver her to the

grim, gray campus and supposedly into the care of her older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), who’s nowhere to be found.

College life immediately throws Justine a curve ball. She was expecting a female roommate but is instead assigned to bunk with a young, gay Muslim man named Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella). Before she can unpack her things, Justine and her fellow freshmen are whisked off by masked upperclassman to a bacchanalian hazing ritual that culminates in the goriest baptism this side of Carrie.

She finally meets up with Alexia, who has embraced all the debauchery that college life can offer. At Alexia’s insistence, Justine participates in one last rite of initiation: eating a raw rabbit kidney. It’s her first taste of meat, but it certainly won’t be her last.

The hunger that’s awakened in Justine is immediate and undeniable, and she’s driven to consume meat even as her body seems to reject it. It isn’t long before Raw conflates Justine’s new diet with her inevitable sexual awakening. As she chows down on stolen hamburgers and raw chicken, she evolves from a doe-eyed innocent to a sultry predator, stalking the hypermasculine students who once intimidated her.

Female adolescence as horror show is territory that’s been successfully mined in countless movies; Raw belongs to the same tradition that produced Ginger Snaps, May, and Excision, to name a few. But Raw’s innovation, buoyed by Ducournau’s remarkable confidence behind the camera, is to keep the story firmly grounded in its female perspective. It doesn’t have so much as a passing interest in how men feel about Justine’s burgeoning sexuality and every-increasing aggression; she is both prey and predator, and the title could refer to Marillier’s performance as much as Justine’s culinary choices.

To an extent, Raw earns its reputation for flaunting taboos and pushing boundaries. The set piece that bisects the film into two distinct halves is a brilliantly orchestrated, show-stopping symphony of body horror and black humor that announces Ducournau as a gifted stylist and a major new talent. Don’t expect an endurance test, though—Raw offers a few stomach-turning moments, but it’s gorgeous and engaging far more often than it’s repulsive or confrontational.

Ducournau seems to take more inspiration from the French New Wave of the 1960s than their gory New Extremity descendants.

It’s also a remarkably uncynical movie—it’s essentially a coming-of-age story about a young woman learning to navigate social bounds in accordance with her own evolving but ever-present moral center and struggling to establish an identity beyond her family’s shadow. In spite of its attention-grabbing depictions of cannibalism and, er, energetic sex, the film is at its best when it’s exploring the thorny relationship between the sisters. Alexia knows a thing or two about Justine’s new dietary requirements, and the beating, red heart of the story is the complex bond between them. Justine idolizes her big sister, even as she’s repulsed by her actions; Alexia loves and protects the younger girl, but also resents and exploits her. It’s a poignant and insightful exploration of sisterhood, and one that I wish the movie could’ve spent even more time fleshing out.

Raw opens at Regal Downtown West Cinema 8 on Friday, April 7.

LARRY SPARKS

Thursday, April 6 — Sunday, April 16 Spotlights: 28 Anne Lamott

MUSIC Thursday, April 6

OF GOOD NATURE • Preservation Pub • 10PM THE DANBERRYS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria

(Maryville) • 8PM BOONDOX WITH BLAZE YA DEAD HOMIE • The Concourse •

TIM LEAVY WITH DRIFTWOOD • WDVX • 12PM • Part of

Thursday, April 6

MIKE BAGGETTA

I LOVE THE ’90S TOUR Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 7:30 p.m. • $40-$100 • Sometimes nostalgia’s not so bad—like when it brings Salt-N-Pepa to one of Knoxville’s biggest stages, with a bunch of Gen X-era hip-hoppers in tow. The full lineup ranges from the spectacular (S-N-P) to the less spectacular (Color Me Badd).

Friday, April 7

JAKE WINSTROM Holly’s Corner • 7 p.m. • Free • The former Tenderhooks frontman, now a New Yorker, rounds up some impressive local talent for First Friday—his band for the evening includes Jeff Bills and Dave Nichols, and Brian Waldschlager, Leah Gardner, and Jamie Cook are opening.

RHYTHM N’ BLOOMS The Old City • $75-$190 • Knoxville’s biggest music festival runs through Sunday on multiple stages in the Old City, with a raft of local performers and headliners Young the Giant and Gogol Bordello.

Saturday, April 8

SAW WORKS 5K AND BEER MILE Saw Works Brewing Company • 7 p.m. • $20-$40 • Take a quick tour of the Old City and the warehouse district, then enjoy locally brewed beer.

Tuesday, April 11

MIKE BAGGETTA Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10 p.m. • Free • Recent Knoxville transplant Mike Baggetta is a veteran of New York’s world-class jazz scene; he’s quickly establishing himself as one of the area’s best.

Wednesday, April 12

JENNIFER NICELEY Jig and Reel • 7 p.m. • $10 • After several years back on her family’s East Tennessee farm, Niceley’s returned to Nashville, where she’s recording a new album—her first since 2014’s Birdlight. She’s playing WDVX’s weekly Tennessee Shines live-broadcast concert series.

WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE MERLE HAGGARD TRIBUTE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • The WDVX 6 O’Clock Swerve is weekly musical trip with talented regional artists featuring live performances and insightful interviews in a living room atmosphere. • FREE I LOVE THE ‘90S TOUR • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 7:30PM • The inaugural edition of the I Love The ‘90s Tour invites fans to reminisce about the trend-setting decade with some of the most iconic, indelible names in rap, hip hop and R&B, featuring Salt N Pepa, All 4 One, Coolio, Tone LOC, Color Me Badd, Rob Base and Young MC. • $40-$100 KENNY ROGERS WITH LINDA DAVIS • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 8PM • Rogers has played to millions of fans around the world, performing songs from his long list of hits which comprise 24 Number Ones including “The Gambler,” “Lucille,” “Coward of the County,” “Lady,” “Islands in the Stream,” “She Believes In Me,” “We’ve Got Tonight,” “Daytime Friends,” “Through The Years,” “You Decorated My Life,” and “Buy Me A Rose.” • $61.50-$108.50 THE DIRTY BOURBON RIVER SHOW • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • 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 result that is a sharp blast of humid energy into the musical landscape.

THREE DOG NIGHT • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • In the years 1969 through 1974, no other group achieved more top 10 hits, moved more records or sold more concert tickets than Three Dog Night. Three Dog Night hits wind through the fabric of pop culture today—songs like “Mama Told Me (Not To Come)”, “Joy to the World”, “Black and White”, “Shambala” and “One” serve to heighten our emotions and crystallize Three Dog Night’s continuing popularity. • $44-$84 DAY AND AGE WITH BLONDE BONES • Pilot Light • 9PM • Depending on the day, Day and Age could be could be pegged as everything from post-punk to hardcore to indie rock, but for the Knoxville band, that’s beside the point. • $5 DRIFTWOOD • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM

9PM • 18 and up. • $15-$20

Friday, April 7 THE DANBERRYS WITH NORA JANE STRUTHERS • WDVX •

12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE JAKE WINSTROM WITH BRIAN WALDSCHLAGER, JAMIE COOK, AND PEG HAMBRIGHT AND LEAH GARDNER • Holly’s Corner •

7PM • In the late ’00s, Jake Winstrom led the Tenderhooks, a Knoxville indie/power-pop band that connoisseurs tagged as an act to watch after they released the local classic New Ways to Butcher English.

After the band broke up, Winstrom headed for New York, where he’s still playing music. He’s visiting Knoxville to make some recordings and figured he could fit in a Frist Friday show with some local all-stars—he’ll be joined on stage by George Middlebrooks, Dave Nichols, Gregg Dunn, and Jeff Bills, and an assortment of talented acts will be opening. • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different. Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE THE DISMEMBERED TENNESSEANS • Laurel Theater • 8PM • It was back in 1945 that a group of McCallie students got together and began singing and playing a brand of Bluegrass music that has gone on now for more than 65 years. • $13 THE TEMPER EVANS BAND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM DARK STAR ORCHESTRA • The International • 8PM • Performing to critical acclaim worldwide for nearly 19 years and over 2600 shows, Dark Star Orchestra continues the Grateful Dead concert experience. 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $25-$28 BOOGERTOWN GAP • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE HEARTSICK WITH DIVIDED WE STAND, VIA VERA, CROWNS, AND YOUGUYS MUSIC • The Open Chord • 8PM

• All ages. • $10 April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 27

April 6 – April 16

THE TEMPER EVANS BAND • Two Doors Down (Maryville)

AND BENT TO BREAK • The Open Chord • 8PM • All ages.

• 9PM

• $10

PISTOL CREEK • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM VINYL TAP • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) •

THE JONNY MONSTER BAND • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM JASON MOORE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM RHYTHM N’ BLOOMS • The Old City • Rhythm N’ Blooms is a festival that’s just as much about the city of Knoxville as it is about music. The 2017 lineup includes Young the Giant, Gogol Bordello, Nikki Lane, Lee Fields and the Expressions, Angeleena Presley, Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line, the Jon Stickley Trio, Birds of Chicago, Dave Barnes, John Paul White, Cruz Contreras, and more. Visit rhythmnbloomsfest. com/2017-lineup for the full list. • $75-$190 • See cover story on page 16.

9PM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT WITH THE VIBRASLAPS • Scruffy City

Hall • 10PM RHYTHM N’ BLOOMS • The Old City • Rhythm N’ Blooms

Anne Lamott First Presbyterian Church (620 State St.) • Sunday, April 9 • 7 p.m. •knoxfriends.org Talking about Jesus in public is for conservatives, right? Recent Trump Administration policies have brought Christian liberals out of the woodwork lately, so it is perhaps a timely moment for the Friends of the Library to host a talk by best-selling author Anne Lamott on Sunday. Although she has written almost as many novels as nonfiction books, the often-hilarious recovered alcoholic is best known for her memoirs and irreverent liberal spirituality. (For a long time, I gave her book Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year to every friend who became a new mother, because it’s so honest, brutal, and forgiving.) For years Lamott has been at the forefront of embracing Christianity from a progressive perspective. She’s so earthy and self-deprecating that the reader never feels preached at.

Lamott’s new book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy seems especially timely in this age of political and cultural divides. “On bad days we can still feel, All my enemies are drowning and it’s the best day of my life,” Lamott writes. “Jesus says, That’s fine, honey, nice try; I still love you, but maybe you would reconsider restarting the forgiveness stuff? Maybe you might practice inclusion?” She emphasizes that, although it’s hard to access mercy for others, that precious commodity is even tougher to offer ourselves.

Lamott gets at the big concepts through the little personal moments that make up our lives, like when a text-fight with her son triggers a spiritual crisis in a Zoologie store, where she is trying to shop off her misery. A few days later, she is wearing the sweater she bought on that shopping trip and listening to Hawaiian folk singers serenading the Japanese at Hiroshima. Her response: “Thank God I am in charge of so little, or this could never have happened; life is much wilder, richer, and more profound than I am comfortable with.”

Clearly this resonates in Knoxville, because Lamott’s talk has been sold out for weeks. Those lucky enough to have tickets get a free copy of her new book, as well, which Lamott will sign in the church fellowship hall afterward. (S. Heather Duncan)

is a festival that’s just as much about the city of Knoxville as it is about music. The festival honors the identity and spirit of our rich East Tennessee history while providing a premium listening environment for top-notch musical performances. Knoxville’s story has always been set to music. Rhythm N’ Blooms highlights that soundtrack and celebrates the crossroads of this city’s varied music history by showcasing popular national acts alongside the finest musicians East Tennessee has to offer. The 2017 lineup includes Young the Giant, Gogol Bordello, Nikki Lane, Lee Fields and the Expressions, Angeleena Presley, Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line, the Jon Stickley Trio, Birds of Chicago, Dave Barnes, John Paul White, Cruz Contreras, and more. Visit rhythmnbloomsfest. com/2017-lineup for the full list. • $75-$190 • See cover story on page 16.

Saturday, April 8 JUSTIN CODY FOX WITH KYLE BLEDSOE • WDVX • 12PM •

Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE GREEN RIVER WITH THE BO ASHBY BAND • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 7:30PM • A tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival. • $10 MOLSKY’S MOUNTAIN DRIFTERS • Laurel Theater • 8PM • One of the most influential fiddlers of the old-time music revival, Bruce Molsky is also a remarkable guitarist, banjoist and singer. His discography includes seven solo albums, from his debut of fiddlers classics, Warring Cats, to his most recent, If It Aint Here When I Get Back. Poor Mans Troubles won a 2001 Indie award for Best Traditional Folk Recording. In the Mountain Drifters Bruce is joined by Allison De Groot on banjo and Stash Wyslouch on guitar. • $15 SMOOTH SAILOR • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM EXIT 60 • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM KITTY WAMPUS • Swifty’s Atomic Bar and Grill • 9:30PM THE OCTOPUS PROJECT • Pilot Light • 9:30PM • $10 TAUK • The Concourse • 10PM • The transcendent instrumental band Tauk seamlessly brings together genres as diverse as melodic rock, fusion, gritty funk, progressive rock, ambient, classic rock, hip hop and jazz. 18 and up. • $12-$15 THE BURNIN’ HERMANS • Preservation Pub • 10PM BRAD AUSTIN • Vienna Coffee House ( Maryville) • 6PM • FREE NIGHT IDEA WITH AELUDE AND EPHEMERAL • Purple Polilla • 8PM BRIDGE TO GRACE WITH INDIE LAGONE, FAITH AND SCARS,

28 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

Sunday, April 9 SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery •

11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE WONKY TONK • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM RHYTHM N’ BLOOMS • The Old City • Rhythm N’ Blooms is a festival that’s just as much about the city of Knoxville as it is about music. The 2017 lineup includes Young the Giant, Gogol Bordello, Nikki Lane, Lee Fields and the Expressions, Angeleena Presley, Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line, the Jon Stickley Trio, Birds of Chicago, Dave Barnes, John Paul White, Cruz Contreras, and more. Visit rhythmnbloomsfest. com/2017-lineup for the full list. • $75-$190 • See cover story on page 16.

THE NICK MOSS BAND • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 7PM

Monday, April 10 THE END OF AMERICA WITH LIBBY DECAMP • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE LIBBY DECAMP • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Libby DeCamp makes dusty folk and Roots-inspired music with a fine-tuned lyrical edge. Sweetly soulful “Broken Folk”.

SOMETHING LIKE SEDUCTION • Preservation Pub • 10PM

Tuesday, April 11 SISTA OTIS WITH THE BIG TAKEOVER • WDVX • 12PM • Part

of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE MATT NELSON, GARRIT TILLMAN, AND JAKE EDWARD SMITH • Pilot Light • 6PM • A free live improv showcase. 18

and up. • FREE MIKE BAGGETTA • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Jazz guitarist Mike Baggetta fled New York’s hectic music scene in 2016 and landed in Knoxville, where he’s quietly established himself as one of the city’s most

April 6 – April 16

JOIN US FOR THE 15TH ANNUAL

accomplished and forward-thinking musicians. • FREE

CRAWDADDY JONES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria

THE BIG TAKEOVER WITH JONNY MONSTER AND LACY GREEN • Preservation Pub • 10PM

(Maryville) • 8PM KATH BLOOM • Pilot Light • 8PM • 18 and up. • $10

Wednesday, April 12

SILENT HORROR WITH LA BASURA DEL DIABLO AND U.S. POLICE STATE • The Open Chord • 8PM • All ages. • $5 MO LOWDA AND THE HUMBLE WITH ELYSIAN FEEL •

BUNCH WITH RICHARD SHINDELL • WDVX • 12PM • Part of

WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast 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 • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different.

Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE TENNESSEE SHINES: JENNIFER NICELEY • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Part of WDVX’s weekly Tennessee Shines series of live concert broadcasts from the Old City, featuring singer-songwriter Jennifer Niceley, who’s back in Nashville and working on a new album. • $10 DAIKAIJU WITH THE MUTATIONS AND PIRATO KETCHUP • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 PIGEONS PLAYING PING PONG WITH COSMIC COAST • The Concourse • 9PM • 18 and up. • $10-$15

Thursday, April 13 DAVID DONDERO WITH RIVERBED REUNION • WDVX • 12PM

• Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE EMILY ANN ROBERTS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • The WDVX 6 O’Clock Swerve is weekly musical trip with talented regional artists featuring live performances and insightful interviews in a living room atmosphere. • FREE COCO MONTOYA • The Concourse • 7:30PM • Coco is touring in support of his new album, Hard Truth. From the radio-friendly, gospel-inspired celebration of love, I Want To Shout About It, to the haunting Devil Don’t Sleep to the icy-hot cover of Albert Collins’ The Moon Is Full, Hard Truth covers a lot of emotional ground. Montoya’s unpredictable guitar playing and smoking soul vocals blend effortlessly with a backing band featuring renowned musicians. • $20-$25 MARIA SCHNEIDER • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Maria Schneider is quite simply one of the world’s most acclaimed composers. Her music has been hailed by critics as “evocative, majestic, magical, and heart-stoppingly gorgeous.” Her five Grammy awards (two this year alone) come in multiple genres, including jazz, classical and a collaboration with pop icon David Bowie. Maria’s performance with the KJO will cap off a week long residency in Knoxville, and will spotlight a rich cross-section of music from across her storied career. Visit knoxjazz.org. • $35.50

VOLAPALOOZA

MUSIC FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY THE CAMPUS EVENTS BOARD

Preservation Pub • 9PM JON DEE GRAHAM WITH AMY COOK • Barley’s Taproom

and Pizzeria • 10PM

Friday, April 14 THE DARREN ZANCAN BAND WITH KIRBY SYBERT AND KALOB GRIFFIN • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue

Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE LUCY ROSE GEORGE • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE RODNEY PARKER AND 50 PESO REWARD • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different. Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE ANDY WOOD • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Andy Wood is recognized as part of the forefront of this generation’s top influential guitarists. Currently touring as the guitarist and mandolinist for country super group Rascal Flatts, Andy is also performing live with his own band promoting Caught Between the Truth and a Lie, the new double album which showcases Andy’s vast musical influences and abilities. • $16.50-$18.50 MALCOLM HOLCOMBE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • Malcolm Holcombe is highly regarded and recognized by contemporaries in Americana music including Emmylou Harris, Wilco, Steve Earle. His most recent release Another Black Hole features the mix of country, acoustic blues and rugged folk his many fans admire. • $13 BOMBADIL WITH BRISTON MARONEY • The Open Chord • 8PM • All ages. • $10-$12 THE PAUL WARREN PROJECT • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM THE JEFF JOPLING BAND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM THE YOUNG FABLES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM TENNESSEE’S DEAD • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM ASEETHE WITH BEREFT • The Birdhouse • 9:30PM • Aseethe’s unrelenting slow-doom is often compared to drone music because of its core repetitions. This distinctly non-metal approach combined with harsh vocals and unusual samples gives Aseethe a unique voice among metal’s boundary pushers. Bereft is a post metal band from Madison, Wis., blending classic doom and black metal styles into a loud and

FEATURING

X AMBASSADORS WITH COIN, PELL, & LUKE PELL

AND APPEARANCES BY MOUNTAINS LIKE WAX, ELECTRIC DARLING, AND DJ A-WALL

WORLD’S FAIR PARK 5:30PM-11PM

TICKETS ON SALE AT KNOXVILLETICKETS.COM

CAMPUS

EVENTS

BOARD

UNIVERSITY HOUSING

RECYCLING

For more information or to arrange disability accommodations, please contact the Center for Student Engagement at (865) 974-5455.

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 29

April 6 – April 16

atmospheric wall of music.

ALL THEM WITCHES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • The Nashville band All Them Witches has been heading toward something big since forming back in 2012. With Dying Surfer Meets His Maker, recorded in 2015 in Pigeon Forge, they nailed it—their third album (following Our Mother Electricity and Lightning at the Door) was a heady chunk of psychedelic existentialism. They’ve just released their fourth album, Sleeping Through the War. • $5 FIRESIDE COLLECTIVE • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE WILD THINGS • Preservation Pub • 10PM

Saturday, April 15 THE YOUNG FABLES WITH KRISTA SHOWS AND SCOTT SHARPE • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate

Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE STEPHEN RHODES • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE BADD HATT’RS WITH COVALENCE • Pilot Light • 6PM • All ages. • $5 CHRISTIAN LOPEZ AND DON GALLARDO • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • Steeped in the musical roots of his West Virginia upbringing, Christian Lopez epitomizes the soul of a traditional Appalachian folk musician living in the heart, mind

and body of a man not yet even 21 years old. On his debut full-length effort, Onward, the young artist emulates the sound produced by the region’s resident pickers and strummers and tackles themes of love, perseverance and coming of age. • FREE APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION WITH THE NICK SWAN BAND • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 7:30PM • A tribute to Guns N’ Roses. • $10 LAUREL THEATER • 8PM • The East Tennessee trio The Naughty Knots bring together a blend of country, jazz and blues and old time fiddle tunes that are as homegrown as garden tomatoes. The Naughty Knots can cook up some delicious tunes and serve them to you on a silver platter, with a focus on great songwriting, tight harmonies and solid instrumentation, as they showed in their first CD 12 Song in the Pan. • $15 SUNSHINE STATION • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • Local trippy-hippy music.

COUNTY WIDE • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM CINEMECHANICA WITH GAMENIGHT, GEOMETERS, AND MEMORYFOX • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 TREETOPS WITH MILKSHAKE FATTY • Preservation Pub • 9PM ROOTS OF A REBELLION • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM SAM OUTLAW • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM •

Sam Outlaw is a country singer living in Los Angeles. His songs capture the spirit of the classic country and rock music he learned from his favorite singers and songwriters, such as Don Williams, James Taylor, Gene

Watson, Keith Whitley, Tom Petty and Gram Parsons. • $5 M. ROSS PERKINS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE

Sunday, April 16 SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery •

11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE PALE ROOT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • FREE NATTY’S COMMON ROOTS • Preservation Pub • 10PM

OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS

30 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

Thursday, April 13 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM

Sunday, April 9 EPWORTH MONTHLY OLD HARP SHAPE NOTE SINGING • Laurel Theater • 6:30PM • Visit jubileearts.org. • FREE

Sunday, April 16

ANDERS OSBORNE DOPAPOD TWIDDLE JACKIE GREENE RON POPE THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT THE HIP ABDUCTION THE WERKS SAMANTHA FISH BIG SOMETHING PEOPLE'S BLUES OF RICHMOND MAJOR & THE MONBACKS CBDB WILD ADRIATIC THE STEPPIN STONES PORCH 40 FUNK YOU CHELSEA SHAG TEDO STONE VOODOO VISIONARY HEDONISTAS VIRGINIA BENSCH BAND

weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. Visit Facebook.com/BrackinsBlues. • FREE

• A proud tradition, Scots love nothing more than music and drink. The drink is strong and the music is steeped in the history of the green highlands and rocky cliffs. Whether lyrics or no lyrics, every song tells a story. The hills of East Tennessee are a home away from home for this style. Pull up a chair to listen or play along. Held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

DARK STAR ORCHESTRA LETTUCE TALIB KWELI

FORTUNATE YOUTH STOP LIGHT OBSERVATIONS

Preservation Pub • 7PM • 21 and up. Visit scruffycity.com.

OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • The musicians sit together and pick and strum familiar tunes on fiddles, guitars, and bass. Open to all lovers and players of music. No need to build up the courage to join in. Just grab an instrument off the wall and take a seat. Hosted by Sarah Pirkle. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM • A

IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month.

Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • The Open Chord • 8PM • Join Robert Higginbotham and the Smoking Section for the Brewhouse Blues Jam. Bring your instrument, sign up, and join the jammers. We supply drums and a full backline of amps. Sign-ups begin at 7 p.m.

SLIGHTLY STOOPID DIRTY HEADS MOE. TROMBONE SHORTY & ORLEANS AVENUE

CENTENNIAL OLYMPIC PARK

PRESERVATION PUB SINGER-SONGWRITER NIGHT •

Wednesday, April 12

Thursday, April 6

WIDESPREAD PANIC TREY ANASTASIO BAND WEEN

APRIL 21-23, 2017

Tuesday, April 11

OLD-TIME SLOW JAM • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • A

BREAK SCIENCE SAN HOLO SAVOY G-BUCK SUNSQUABI TEP NO

ANDY BRUH CLAVVS DAILY BREAD HIKU

JUJU BEATS MCBEEZY ORGANIK PARROTICE THE MORKESTRA THRICE GROOVE WHERE ARE WE XAVIER BLK PATRICK MORGAN PROBCAUSE SAM KING

AND COMEDIANS JON RUDNITSKY JAKE NORDWIND

JOE PETTIS BRIAN MOOTE DAVID PERDUE LACE LARRABEE OLIVE LYNCH MICHAEL ROWLAND PLUG CHAPMAN BRIAN EMOND CHERITH FULLER ANDREW MARKLE JEREMY MESI DEDRICK FLYNN ANDREW GEORGE

TICKETS AT: WWW.SWEETWATER420FEST.COM

April 6 – April 16

monthly old-time music session, held on the third Sunday of each month. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS Thursday, April 6

sensation Natalie MacMaster returns for a high-energy appearance featuring traditional Irish favorites, sizzling folk melodies, and eye-popping virtuosity.”

THEATER AND DANCE

COOLIO AFTER PARTY • The Open Chord • 11PM • Hang out

Saturday, April 8

with Coolio after the I Love the ‘90s Concert with Salt-N-Pepa and other Generation X hip-hop stars. Live music by Secret City Cyphers. • FREE

LUXE: LUSH, UNAPOLOGETIC AND EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN-POWERED PERFORMANCE ART SHOWCASE •

Saturday, April 15 TEMPLE DANCE NIGHT • The Concourse • 9PM •

Knoxville’s long-running alternative once night. 18 and up. Visit facebook.com/templeknoxville. • $5

CLASSICAL MUSIC Friday, April 7

Modern Studio • 8PM • This show highlights luxe women who are living lush, unapologetically, and extraordinarily through dance, spoken word poetry, performance art, and song (all with a bit of burlesque).

The show will entertain, inspire, positively challenge the norms of society and our minds, and show the true beauty in diversity and variety of women (age, culture, size, orientation, gender spectrum, ability, etc.). 18 and up. Visit www.luxeknox.com. • $10-$15

SCRUFFY CITY ORCHESTRA: MUSIC AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHT PIECES • First Baptist Church • 7:30PM • Scruffy

Clarence Brown Theatre clarencebrowntheatre.com

City Orchestra’s spring concert, under the direction of Ace Edewards, will include music from the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. • $5

TOP GIRLS • What would you sacrifice to get to the top?

Saturday, April 8 KSO POPS SERIES: NATALIE MACMASTER • Knoxville Civic

In a world of the “Supermom” and a shattering glass ceiling, Caryl Churchill’s play considers the conflicts that come with the pursuit of success and the desire to “have it all.” March 29-April 16 at Clarence Brown Lab Theatre.

Auditorium • 8PM • Celtic fiddling and step dancing

S H A K Y B E AT S F E S T I VA L . C O M

Knoxville Children’s Theatre knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com THE MIRACLE WORKER • Trapped in a secret, silent

world, unable to communicate, young Helen Keller is violent, spoiled, almost subhuman, and treated by her family as such. Only Annie Sullivan, a young Irish teacher, realizes there is a mind and spirit inside Helen, waiting to be rescued from the dark and tortured silence. March 31-April 16. • $12

COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD Thursday, April 6 THE FLYING KARAMAZOV BROTHERS • Clayton Center for

the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Expect the unexpected with the Flying Karamazov Brothers. The four self-proclaimed eccentric lunatics spice things up with a zany showcase filled with laugh-out-loud comedy, wild theatrics, arcane errata, and astonishing juggling feats. Visit claytonartscenter.com.

Friday, April 7 FIRST FRIDAY COMEDY • Saw Works Brewing Company •

7PM • A monthly showcase featuring local and touring stand-ups comics. • FREE THE OOH OOH REVUE • Cocoa Moon • 10PM • Knoxville’s

exciting monthly fun and sexy variety show. We are classy cabaret, song, dance, comedy and bedazzling burlesque, every First Friday. Visit oohoohrevue.com. 18 and up. • $10 LITERATURE 4 LIFE BENEFIT AND SLAM SHOWCASE • The Square Room • 6:30PM • Support the arts and have a fantastic time at Generation Literary Alliance’s second annual benefit showcase. We’ll have live music by Latitude 35, a silent auction, snacks by Cafe 4, and a spoken-word showcase featuring Knox Generation students and other slam artists. • $20

Monday, April 10 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

Tuesday, April 11 KNOXVILLE POETRY SLAM • The Open Chord • 8PM • All

ages. • $5 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. Visit einsteinsimplified.com. • FREE

#SHAKYBEATS

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 31

April 6 – April 16

Thursday, April 13 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, Tyler Sonnichsen, and Sean Simoneau) serves as your guide to introduce you the best of our region’s comedy scene. • FREE

Saturday, April 15 WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE • Bijou Theatre • 8PM •

Welcome to Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Turn on your radio and hide. • $25-$35

FESTIVALS Thursday, April 6 AUSTENFEST • University of Tennessee • 3:30PM • The UT

AuthorFest series presents AustenFest, a three-day celebration of the work and the Regency world of Jane Austen, whose characters including Elizabeth Bennett, Mr. Darcy, Emma Woodhouse, and Catherine Moreland,

are among the most beloved in English literature. The festival schedule includes a discussion of Emma at Lawson McGhee Library (Sunday, April 2, at 2 p.m.); a screening of Emma at the L and N STEM Academy (Wednesday, April 5, at 7 p.m.); a presentation on the Austen Special Collections followed by Peter Sabor’s lecture “Jane Austen and the Common Reader: Contemporary Responses to Emma” and afternoon tea at UT’s John C. Hodges Library (Thursday, April 6, starting at 3:30 p.m.); and a full day of events on April 7, including a tea-blending workshop, a marathon reading of Austen’s greatest scenes, and a Regency ball, at various locations around campus and downtown. Visit english.utk.edu/ austenfest/ for more information. • FREE

Friday, April 7 FOR MILES AND MILES • DreamBikes • 6PM • For Miles and Miles is the celebration of the bicycles as a means of empowerment. There will be a photography exhibition, music, food trucks, and many bicycles. The event is a fundraiser for scholarships for Dreambikes teenage employees. Music by Joseph Gillenwater, Spencer Connell, and Sally Buice. • $5 AUSTENFEST • University of Tennessee • 10AM • The UT AuthorFest series presents AustenFest, a three-day celebration of the work and the Regency world of Jane Austen, whose characters including Elizabeth Bennett, Mr. Darcy, Emma Woodhouse, and Catherine Moreland,

Bach or Basie?

Your music, your choice.

Your classical and jazz station.

FIX THIS BASTARD 32 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017 WUOT_Ad_4.625x5.25_ClassicalJazz_KnoxMerc.indd 2

9/17/16 5:00 PM

are among the most beloved in English literature. Visit english.utk.edu/austenfest/ for more information. • FREE RHYTHM N’ BLOOMS • The Old City • Rhythm N’ Blooms is a festival that’s just as much about the city of Knoxville as it is about music. The festival honors the identity and spirit of our rich East Tennessee history while providing a premium listening environment for top-notch musical performances. Knoxville’s story has always been set to music. Rhythm N’ Blooms highlights that soundtrack and celebrates the crossroads of this city’s varied music history by showcasing popular national acts alongside the finest musicians East Tennessee has to offer. The 2017 lineup includes Young the Giant, Gogol Bordello, Nikki Lane, Lee Fields and the Expressions, Angeleena Presley, Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line, the Jon Stickley Trio, Birds of Chicago, Dave Barnes, John Paul White, Cruz Contreras, and more. Visit rhythmnbloomsfest.com/2017-lineup for the full list. • $75-$190 • See cover story on page 16.

Saturday, April 8 MARBLE CITY COMICCON • Knoxville Expo Center • MCC

strives to be Tennessee’s best and truest comic con featuring fandoms of multiple genres. • $15-$99 RHYTHM N’ BLOOMS • The Old City • Rhythm N’ Blooms is a festival that’s just as much about the city of Knoxville as it is about music. The 2017 lineup includes Young the Giant, Gogol Bordello, Nikki Lane,

Lee Fields and the Expressions, Angeleena Presley, Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line, the Jon Stickley Trio, Birds of Chicago, Dave Barnes, John Paul White, Cruz Contreras, and more. Visit rhythmnbloomsfest. com/2017-lineup for the full list. • $75-$190 • See cover story on page 16.

Sunday, April 9 MARBLE CITY COMICCON • Knoxville Expo Center • MCC

strives to be Tennessee’s best and truest comic con featuring fandoms of multiple genres. • $15-$99 JAZZ IN THE PARK • James Agee Park • 5:30PM • With Swingbooty, Doug Harris, visual artists, Tarot readers, yoga, flow arts, and food and drink. • $3 RHYTHM N’ BLOOMS • The Old City • Rhythm N’ Blooms is a festival that’s just as much about the city of Knoxville as it is about music. The 2017 lineup includes Young the Giant, Gogol Bordello, Nikki Lane, Lee Fields and the Expressions, Angeleena Presley, Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line, the Jon Stickley Trio, Birds of Chicago, Dave Barnes, John Paul White, Cruz Contreras, and more. Visit rhythmnbloomsfest. com/2017-lineup for the full list. • $75-$190 • See cover story on page 16.

Saturday, April 15 EARTHFEST 2017 • Knoxville Botanical Garden • 11AM •

As always, EarthFest is a free, zero-waste event for the

April 6 – April 16

whole family, including pets. EarthFest is excited to celebrate Earth Day at the Knoxville Botanical Garden, which offers plenty of green space, views of the mountains and access to public transportation. For more information on EarthFest 2017 visit www. knox-earthfest.org. • FREE

FILM SCREENINGS Sunday, April 9 THE WHITE HELMETS’ • Annoor Academy of Knoxville •

3PM • Join us for a community viewing of the inspiring documentary, “The White Helmets.” The Netflix short film, which recently won Best Documentary at the 89th Academy Awards, follows the daily operations of a group of volunteer rescue workers of the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets. • FREE NOKNO CINEMATHEQUE: A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN • Central Collective • 6PM • Did Dottie drop the ball on purpose?

Did Kit finally prove herself to her big sister? Come watch the 1992 classic A League of Their Own and decide for yourself. • FREE

Saturday, April 15 NATIONAL BIRD • The Birdhouse • 8:30PM • National Bird

follows whistleblowers who, despite possible consequences, are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial issues of our

time: the secret U.S. drone war. The film gives rare insight through the eyes of both survivors and veterans who suffer from PTSD while plagued by guilt over participating in the killing of faceless people in foreign countries. • FREE

SPORTS AND RECREATION Saturday, April 8 SAVE VS. HUNGER • Second Harvest Food Bank • 8AM • Save vs Hunger is an annual event to raise money for the Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee. It is a celebration of what gamers can give back to the community. Featuring DDAL, PFS, Shadowrun Missions, Call of Chtuhlu, Deadlands, World of Darkness, and more roleplaying games. Also featuring a board game library, mini painting tutorials, and a charity raffle! • $15 BREAKTHROUGH RUN FOR AUTISM 5K • Regal Cinemas Pinnacle Stadium 18 in Turkey Creek • 8:30AM • This 11th annual 5K Run/Walk and 1-Mile Fun Run supports Autism Breakthrough of Knoxville, a non-profit committed to helping adults facing the challenges of autism. Go to https://runnerreg.us/breakthroughautismrunwalk/ to register. • $25-$30 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: FROZEN HEAD WILDFLOWER HIKE • 8AM • Frozen Head State Park

encompasses over 24,000 acres of wilderness and wildflower diversity. Typically, we will be able to enjoy dozens of species of wildflowers at this time of year. Hike is 6 miles, rated moderate. Meet at the Oak Ridge Books-a-Million, 310 South Illinois Avenue, at 8:00 am. Leaders: Billy Heaton, bheaton8@yahoo. com and Lynda Bryan, ellymay2015@aol.com • FREE CYCOLOGY WOMEN’S RIDE SERIES • Cycology Bicycles • 9:30AM • The Women’s Road Series includes hour-long clinics on maintenance, local bike routes, training, advocacy, and more followed by a group road ride.

Visit cycologybicycles.com. Registration for the full series is $30. • $30 SAW WORKS 5K AND BEER MILE • Saw Works Brewing Company • 7PM • Come join us as well take a 5K tromp through the Old City and have a party on the patio at Saw Works Brewing Company! The festivities begin with a 5k at 7pm and then a Beer Mile looping around the Old City. • $20-$40

Sunday, April 9 SAVE VS. HUNGER • Second Harvest Food Bank • 9AM • Save vs Hunger is an annual event to raise money for the Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee. It is a celebration of what gamers can give back to the community. Featuring DDAL, PFS, Shadowrun Missions, Call of Chtuhlu, Deadlands, World of Darkness, and more roleplaying games. Also featuring a board game library,

mini painting tutorials, and a charity raffle! • $15 KTC LAKESHORE TRAIL TREK • 9AM • New in 2012 was a well-received steambath of a race that traced a relatively unknown but delightful trail that snakes along the east bank of what used to be the Little Tennessee River southeast of Lenoir City. Visit ktc.org. • $15-$20

Tuesday, April 11 SMOKY MOUNTAIN WHEELMEN TUESDAY MORNING COUNTRY CRUISE • Howard Pinkston Branch Library • 9AM • Join

Smoky Mountain Wheelmen cyclists for a weekly, recreational, no-drop club ride. The routes and distances vary depending upon group experience. Check facebook. com/groups/smwbikeclub for ride details and information on the upcoming Cherohala Challenge for registration and volunteer positions. • FREE

Wednesday, April 12 SMOKY MOUNTAINS HIKING CLUB: BRADLEY FORK • Smoky

Mountain Hiking Club • 7:30AM • We will go to the Smokemont area of the Park to explore the trail along the Bradley Fork of the Oconaluftee River, hoping to find wildflowers along the way. Leader: Pat Watts, watts_at_home@yahoo.com. • FREE

Saturday, April 15 IJAMS WAG-N-WALK • Ijams Nature Center • 9AM • Grab

your favorite four-legged friend and join Ijams’ own

TROLLEY FOR FREE! #travelbytrolley

katbus.com 301 Church Ave., Knoxville, TN 37915 T 865.637.3000

Service throughout Downtown & UT S © 2017 KAT

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 33

April 6 – April 16

veterinarian, Dr. Louise Conrad, as she walks her own canine companions. She’ll review good doggy etiquette at the park and help owners understand the special safety concerns for dogs in nature. The fee for this program is $5 for non-members and free for members. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • $5 CYCOLOGY WOMEN’S RIDE SERIES • Cycology Bicycles • 9:30AM • The Women’s Road Series includes hour-long clinics on maintenance, local bike routes, training, advocacy, and more followed by a group road ride.

Visit cycologybicycles.com. Registration for the full series is $30. • $30

5:30 p.m.

ART Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts arrowmont.org FEB. 15-APRIL 8: Back to Work, mixed-media sculpture by Jackson Martin. MARCH 10-MAY 6: Un//known, new works

by Arrowmont artists in residence. A reception will be held on Friday, April 7, from 6-8 p.m.

Art Market Gallery artmarketgallery.net APRIL 4-30: Paintings by Harriet Howell and mixed-media artwork by Marilyn Avery Turner. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 7, at

knoxalliance.com

APRIL 7-29: Interrupted Signal, artwork by Charlesy Charleston McAllister. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 7, from 5-9 p.m.

APRIL 7-28: Little River Artists Exhibit; paintings by Sharon Gillenwater and Michael McKee; Connections, a mixed-media exhibit by Renee Suich; artwork by Kat Lewis; and the Barbara West Portrait Group Exhibit. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 7, from 5-9 p.m.

Central Collective thecentralcollective.com

Fluorescent Gallery 627 N. Central St.

APRIL 7-30: Boy Howdy, illustrations by Laura Baisden. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 7, from 7-10 p.m.

MARCH 17-30: Artwork by Dapper Bruce Lafitte.

Downtown Gallery downtown.utk.edu

THROUGH APRIL 6: Paintings by Aleex Connor. MARCH 10-APRIL 6: Southern Appalachian Nature Photography Society Exhibition and Knoxville Book Arts Guild Exhibition.

Broadway Studios and Gallery broadwaystudiosandgallery.com

APRIL 7-30: Breach, a mixed-media exhibition exploring issues of gender, race, and the African disapora through the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 7, from 5-9 p.m.

East Tennessee History Center easttnhistory.org NOV. 19-APRIL 30: Rock of Ages: East Tennessee’s Marble Industry.

Emporium Center for Arts and Culture

Fountain City Art Center fountaincityartcenter.com

Knoxville Convention Center APRIL 6-19: The Art of Recycling

Knoxville Museum of Art knoxart.org JAN. 27-APRIL 16: Outside In, new paintings by Jered

Sprecher. FEB. 3-APRIL 16: Virtual Views: Digital Art From the Thoma Foundation. ONGOING: Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in Tennessee; Currents:

Recent Art From East Tennessee and Beyond; and Facets of Modern and Contemporary Glass.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture mcclungmuseum.utk.edu FEB. 3-MAY 7: Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt.

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

Old City Java oldcityjava.com MARCH 3-31: New Schema, paintings by Van Walker.

RALA shoprala.com MARCH 3-31: Paintings by Sarah Moore.

Westminster Presbyterian Church wpcknox.org MARCH 5-APRIL 30: Paintings by Shirley Wittman and Lauren Lazarus and blown glass by Johnny Glass.

FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS Thursday, April 6

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34 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

April 6 – April 16

DOGWOOD ARTS: A VERY SPECIAL ART FESTIVAL • West

High School • 9AM • A Very Special Arts Festival is a one of a kind event that celebrates Knox County Students with diverse abilities and the various artistic skills they are learning in the classroom. • FREE

Saturday, April 8 IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 10AM

and 2PM • This program is free, but donations to support animal care are welcome. • FREE MARBLE SPRING TREE-PLANTING CELEBRATION • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 10AM • In recognition of Arbor Day, Marble Springs will host a tree planting celebration where participants will first learn how to properly plant and label saplings to meet arboretum qualifications as set by the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council. Please confirm your attendance at info@ marblesprings.net or by calling (865) 573-5508. We will need a name, contact number, and email. For more information please visit our website at www. marblesprings.net, call (865) 573-5508, or email info@ marblesprings.net. • FREE WDVX KIDSTUFF LIVE • WDVX • 10AM • Sean McCollough’s weekly kids’ music show hosts a live studio audience on the second Saturday of each month. Visit wdvx.com. • FREE IJAMS FAMILY YOGA HIKE • Ijams Nature Center • 11AM • Recommended for families with kids ages 6 and under.

Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • $7

Sunday, April 9 IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 1PM •

This program is free, but donations to support animal care are welcome. • FREE 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. • FREE

Monday, April 10 MCCLUNG MUSEUM STROLLER TOUR: MUMMIES 101 •

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 10AM • Join us for a morning out as our museum educator leads engaging gallery tours for parents and caregivers and their infants through four year olds.

Crying and wiggly babies welcome. This program will tour the McClung’s exhibition Ancient Egypt: The Eternal Voice. The event will focus on the process and context of mummy-making, and it will facilitate thematic connections to our spring exhibition Divine Felines. The event is free, but limited, and all attendees must register to attend online. Registration opens a month in advance and closes the day before the tour. • FREE

Tuesday, April 11 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.

Wednesday, April 12 IJAMS PRESCHOOL PLAY DATES • Ijams Nature Center • 10AM • Join us for our weekly playdates, where we build family relationships while having fun outside.

This program is free, but pre-registration is required.

Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • FREE

Saturday, April 15 IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 10AM

and 2PM • Have you met all the animals that call the Ijams Visitor Center home? If not, be sure to stop by every Saturday for a chance to get nose-to-beak with some of our resident furred and feathered ambassadors. This program is free, but donations to support animal care are welcome. • 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. For further information, please contact organizer Liam Hysjulien at KnoxLitExchange@gmail. com. • FREE

Sunday, April 16 IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 1PM •

Have you met all the animals that call the Ijams Visitor Center home? If not, be sure to stop by every Saturday for a chance to get nose-to-beak with some of our resident furred and feathered ambassadors.

This program is free, but donations to support animal care are welcome. • FREE

LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS Thursday, April 6 ROBERT RENNIE: “AVIATION DURING WORLD WAR I” • Blount

County Public Library • 11:30AM • A discussion in celebration of the 100th anniversary of World War I, co-sponsored by Blount County Records Management and Archives and the Blount County Public Library. • FREE WORLD WAR I CENTENNIAL EVENT • Blount County Public Library • 6:30PM • Presented by Vejas Liulevicius and Ernest Freeberg in celebration of the 100th anniversary of World War I. Liulevicius is a historian of modern Europe and director of UT’s Center for the Study of War and Society, which he represents on the Tennessee Great War Commission. Freeberg is the head of the History Department at the University of Tennessee, and is author of Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, The Great War, and the Right to Dissent. • FREE

Saturday, April 8 JACK NEELY DOWNTOWN WALKING TOUR • Knoxville Civic

Coliseum • 9AM • Inspired by Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival and Rhythm and Blooms, join us for a walk and talk with historian and author, Jack Neely highlighting downtown Knoxville’s historic theatres and event

www.TennesseeTheatre.com

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 35

April 6 – April 16

spaces: the Civic Auditorium and Coliseum, Bijou Theatre, Tennessee Theatre, Tennessee Amphitheater, Scruffy City Hall, The Square Room, The Standard, and The Mill and Mine. • $10 SATURDAY MORNING PHYSICS • University of Tennessee • 10AM • FREE UT COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN 2017 SPRING LECTURE SERIES • Bijou Theatre • 4PM • The University

of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design will host a variety of internationally renowned architects and guest lecturers during the 2017 spring semester.

• FREE

Sunday, April 9 ANNE LAMOTT • First Presbyterian Church • 7PM •

Bestselling author Anne Lamott is known for her ability to address issues of faith, family, and community with wit, wisdom, and a touch of irreverence. • $20 • See Spotlight on page 28.

Monday, April 10 UT COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN 2017 SPRING LECTURE SERIES • University of Tennessee Art

and Architecture Building • 5:30PM • The University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design will host a variety of internationally renowned architects and guest lecturers during the 2017 spring semester. • FREE

SARAH HOOKS: “UNDERSTANDING YOUR CREDIT AND UNDERWRITING” • Blount County Public Library •

lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at www.EastTNHistory.org. • FREE

6:30PM • Knowing what your credit score is and what is used to develop that score is important in each person’s credit history, especially if a person is trying to apply for a loan for a big-ticket item, like a house or car. • FREE UT WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY SERIES • University of Tennessee • 7PM • Visit lib.utk.edu/writers/. • FREE

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS Thursday, April 6 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios •

Tuesday, April 11

12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@ gmail.com. Donations accepted.

UT HUMANITIES CENTER CONVERSATIONS AND COCKTAILS SERIES • Holly’s Gourmets Market and Cafe • 6PM • The

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: KNIT YOUR WAY TO WELLNESS • Cancer Support Community • 1PM •

Humanities Center at the University of Tennessee kicks off its annual Conversations and Cocktails series. The programs provide the community an opportunity to interact with guest scholars as they discuss history, all while enjoying special dinner and appetizer selections.

• FREE KNOXVILLE CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE • Bearden Banquet Hall • 7PM • Featuring notable historians and other Civil War experts. Call (865) 671-9001 for reservations.

• $3-$17

Whether you are a novice knitter or an old pro, you are invited to bring your own project or join others in learning a new one. Call 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

Wednesday, April 12 JOE JOHNSON: “FRESH FACES: ANDY HOLT, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, 1959-1970” • East Tennessee

History Center • 12PM • For more information on the

WIN TICKETS! on Tickets!

Win a pair of General Admissi 2017 (2 pairs available).

Georgia April 21-23, To the 420 Festival in Atlanta ANSWER TO WIN

Name a comedian who will be at the festival ?

ry.com er to contests@knoxmercu Enter by sending the answ7. Winner will be contacted prior to event.

201 Drawing will be April 10,

will be notified in advance. ry from weekly submissions. Winners reside nt, 18 years of age or older, n at random by the Knoxville Mercuwhere ited. Must be a legal U.S. prohib *Disclaimer: Winners will be chosePURC Void Y. SSAR NECE HASE winner has 24 hours to respond.

(1 Pair of tickets per winner.) NOyee, family member, or household member of a sponsor. Once notified, Suite Knoxville, TN 37902.

404, and not be a sponsor or an emplo er of entries received. Sponsor: Knoxville Mercury, 706 Walnut Ave., Odds of winning depend on numb

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY RESTORATIVE YOGA SERIES

• Cancer Support Community • 3PM • 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: THOUGHTS GETTING YOU DOWN? • Thompson Cancer Survival Center (Oak Ridge)

• 6PM • Cognitive-Behavioral psychologist Dr. Denise Stillman will discuss the power of our thoughts and

teach ways to enlist them as our ally. RSVP. 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

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 SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET GARDENING CLASSES • Seymour Public Library • 7PM • Seymour Farmers Market will again be sponsoring a series of free gardening classes. These classes are fun and informative for both the novice and experienced gardener. Please contact Marjie Richardson at 865-453-0130. The schedule includes: planning a garden (Jan. 26); “It’s Soil, Not Dirt” (Feb. 2); improving your soil (March 30); and heirloom crops (April 6). • FREE BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance. com. • $12 BCPL TECH TIME • Blount County Public Library • 2:30PM • Need help with technology and don’t know where to start? Tech Time is designed to be space to get your questions answered and set you on the path you need for technology success. • FREE BABYWEARING 101 • Baby and Company • 6PM • Learn the basics of safely using a variety of baby carriers.

Yee-Haw Brewing Co. Presents tHe 2017

Arcade Decathlon Benefiting

A contest featuring a different arcade game each month to crown the next king or queen of the arcade in Knoxville!

Round 1 Skeeball WinnER Pone Tone

Round 9

Grand Prize for november 16 the winner of Galaga ROUND 2 is a pair of passes to see Spoon at the Round 8 october 19 Mill & Mine!

All proceeds go to help to keep Volunteer Radio 90.3 The Rock on the air!

wUtK 90.3

Round 2 Thursday April 20 “Foos20!”

Foosball

Each event is a mini-tourney to determine who squares off in the Round 3 Championship event.

May 18

Afterburner & Tomcat

2017

Championship Event december 14

Ghosts & Goblins

Sponsored by Harrogate’s Lounge and KS Absher Marketing & Events

Round 7 September 21 darts

Round 4 June 15 nBA Jam

10

$

registration fee for each event

Round 5 July 20 Cruisin’ uSA

Round 6 August 17 Pinball

Cool raffle prizes eaCh night for partiCipants!

Stay tuned to WUTK and check out wutkradio.com for details!

Streaming 24.7.365 at WUTKRADIO.COM 36 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

Registration: 6-7 pm Competition: 7 pm

April 6 – April 16

Children welcome. • FREE

Saturday, April 8

and all levels. No advance registration required.

Contact Micarooni@aol.com with questions. • $5

NARROW RIDGE YOGA • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center

Tuesday, April 11

• 9:30AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@narrowridge.org. • FREE 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. For more information visit knoxheritage.org. • FREE

KMA CLAY AND FAUNA WORKSHOP • Knoxville Museum of Art • 10AM • Jump into spring with clay creations such as floral wall hangings, garden animals or vessels. Learn clay hand-building and sculpture basics while you create wall reliefs or garden animals.

March 14-April 11. Visit knoxart.org. • $150 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY NUTRITION AMMUNITION • Cancer Support Community • 12PM • Call (865) 546-4611. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@ gmail.com. Donations accepted.

THE HEART’S JOURNEY: SACRED CIRCLE DANCE WORKSHOP WITH EVI BECK • Flynn Dance Center • 11AM • As we join

hands to dance in community, we will invoke and honor the many different parts of ourselves. No previous dance experience or partner are needed.

Circle Dance is a means for relaxation, joy, growth, awareness and healing. Also known as Sacred Dance or World Dance, it was birthed at Findhorn, a spiritual community in Scotland. • $50 IJAMS YOGA HIKE • Ijams Nature Center • 1PM • Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • $12 KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS • Cedar Bluff Branch Library • 10AM • Did you winterize your roses last fall?

Join Master Gardener Carolyn Noey to learn what to do with your roses now so that they will be healthy and beautiful this summer. Call 865-470-7033. • FREE

Sunday, April 9 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE BALLET BARRE CLASS • Emporium

Center for Arts and Culture • 1PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE: MODERN DANCE FOUNDATIONS CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 2PM •

Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10

ARTS AND CULTURE ALLIANCE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ARTISTS’ SEMINARS • Emporium Center for Arts

and Culture • 5:30PM • Visit knoxalliance.com. • $5-$8 KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 SHEBOOM!: A WEEKLY DROP-IN DANCE CLASS FOR ALL BODIES

Wednesday, April 12

Center • 2PM • Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. Note: We recommend wearing old clothing that can get dirty. • $25

KMA MOSAIC KEEPSAKE BOX CLASS • Knoxville Museum

KMA DROP-IN FIGURE DRAWING CLASS • Knoxville

Museum of Art • 10:30AM • Artists of all skill levels and media are welcome to join these self-instructed drop-in figure drawing sessions. These sessions are ongoing throughout the year. Participants of all ages are welcome, although participants under 18 years old must have parents’ permission. Please note – art materials are not supplied. • $10 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 6PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted.

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 MONDAY NIGHT YOGA • Church Street United Methodist Church • 7PM • Cost is $5, with first class free. Bring a mat and strap. In the class we stretch, bend and relax with low light and music. It is suitable for beginners

Monday, April 10, 5:00 PM

UT COLLEGE OF LAW, AUDITORIUM

1505 Cumberland Ave, Knoxville, TN 37996

In recent years, a major subject of conversation and controversy on our campus and across the nation is the question of intellectual autonomy at UT. Who, ultimately, has the final say on the content of a classroom and the intellectual and cultural life of the campus? a discussion about the history and Join us for future of intellectual freedom at UT

with faculty across several disciplines.

Free and open to the public. history.utk.edu

• Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • • $10 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 ADVENTURE CLASS: GETTING TO KNOW FIRE • Bar Marley • 7:30PM • Join an off duty firefighter, a fire performer and a pyromaniac as they use their wisdom and skill to guide you into the normally forbidding world of combustion, explosion, exothermic reactions and basic thermodynamics.

IJAMS GOURD BIRDHOUSE WORKSHOP • Ijams Nature

Monday, April 10

Intellectual Freedom at UT

of Art • 2PM • Explore the ancient art of mosaics with a modern twist. Artist Susan Watson Arbital specializes in mixed-media mosaics combining glass, stone, shells, tile, beads, ceramics, etc. In this two-session workshop, participants will learn the basics of the direct method mosaic construction by creating a lovely keepsake box. Material fee of $15 includes all supplies to complete the project; however participants are encouraged to bring anything they would like to incorporate in their box decoration (I.e., piece of jewelry, broken pottery or glass). Bring a friend. All materials and tools provided. • $65 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL BALLET CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6:30PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10

Thursday, April 13 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios •

12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@ gmail.com. Donations accepted.

BCPL TECH TIME • Blount County Public Library • 2:30PM • Need help with technology and don’t know where to start? Tech Time is designed to be space to get your

WITH DR. JABER HASSAN AND YASSIN TEROU Refreshments and child care provided.

APRIL 9, 2017 ANNOOR ACADEMY 3:00 PM

5:00 PM

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 37

April 6 – April 16

questions answered and set you on the path you need for technology success. • FREE

MEETINGS

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE

wanted to chat more about qualitative research outside of the classroom? Here’s your chance. Let’s get out of our silos and talk about thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and practices of QUALitative work. This event is for anyone interested in QUAL and hosted by Lauren Moret, assistant professor in the Educational Psychology and Counseling Department. • FREE

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY FAMILY BEREAVEMENT GROUP • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • Call

Saturday, April 8

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY RESTORATIVE YOGA SERIES • Cancer Support Community • 3PM • Deep relaxation

Thursday, April 6

helps combat stress and heals the body. Learn simple techniques to guide your body into a state of deep, restful healing and design a “mini-battery charge” practice you can do at home. RSVP. 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 BREAST CANCER: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • Learn about the many advances and breakthroughs in treating breast cancer including the evidence-based benefits of healthy lifestyle factors. RSVP. 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

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

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

Saturday, April 15 NARROW RIDGE YOGA • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center

• 9:30AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@narrowridge.org. • FREE

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/DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES • The Birdhouse • 6PM • Contact Laura at

706-621-2238 or lamohendricksll@gmail.com for more information or visit the international ACA website at adultchildren.org. • FREE KNOXVILLE WRITERS’ GUILD • Central United Methodist Church • 7PM • Additional information about KWG can be found at KnoxvilleWritersGuild.org.

BLACK LIVES MATTER • The Birdhouse • 7:30PM • Visit blacklivesmatterknoxville.org. • FREE

Friday, April 7 UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE SCIENCE FORUM • Thompson-Boling Arena • 12PM • Visit scienceforum.utk.edu. • FREE LET’S TALK QUAL • Knoxville Public House • 4PM • Ever

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY PROSTATE CANCER NETWORKER • Cancer Support Community • 10AM • This

drop-in group is an opportunity for men to network with other men about their experiences with prostate cancer. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@ narrowridge.org. • FREE

Sunday, April 9

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

Tuesday, April 11 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE ATHEISTS SOCIETY OF KNOXVILLE • West Hills Flats and Taps • 5:30PM • Visit meetup.com/KnoxvilleAtheists. • FREE HARVEY BROOME GROUP OF THE SIERRA CLUB • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7PM • FREE THREE RIVERS! EARTH FIRST! • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Y’all come. Call (865) 257-4029 for more information. • FREE

Wednesday, April 12 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE LESBIAN SOCIAL GROUP OF KNOXVILLE • Kristtopher’s • 6:30PM • Just a casual gathering of women to socialize and plan activities. Meetings are the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. • FREE

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

Thursday, April 13

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutala-

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will be notified in advance. from weekly submissions. WinnersU.S. nt, 18 years of age or older, n at random by the Knoxville Mercurywhere prohibited. Must be a legal reside *Disclaimer: Winners will be chose Void Y. SSAR NECE HASE PURC d, winner has 24 hours to respond. 2. notifie Once or. spons a of er (1 - 4 pack of tickets per winner.) NO memb family member, or household ville Mercury, 706 Walnut Ave., Suite 404, Knoxville, TN 3790 and not be a sponsor or an employee, entries received. Sponsor: Knox Odds of winning depend on number of

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April 6 – April 16

non.org. • FREE ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS/DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES • The Birdhouse • 6PM • Contact Laura at

706-621-2238 or lamohendricksll@gmail.com for more information or visit the international ACA website at adultchildren.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 15 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@ narrowridge.org. • FREE

Sunday, April 16 RATIONALISTS OF EAST TENNESSEE • Pellissippi State

Community College • 10:30AM • Visit rationalists.org. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE

ETC. Saturday, April 8

Creek Farm come back to the Central Collective for a special dinner featuring an early spring bounty foraged from the West Virginia woodlands. • $75

Thursday, April 13 NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • Held each Thursday from April through November, this market features locally grown produce, meats, artisan food products, plants, herbs, flowers, crafts and much more. Visit facebook.com/ newharvestfm. • FREE

Saturday, April 15 CENTRAL COLLECTIVE GOOD SPORT NIGHT • Central Collective • 7:30PM • Calling all good sports. Here’s the deal. You purchase a ticket to a mystery event. Show up to The Central Collective at the specified date and time, and be ready for anything. Note: We will not be meeting at The Central Collective for this month’s Good Sport Night. We will email you the meeting location on the day of the event by 4 p.m. The location is near downtown Knoxville. • $56

SEND YOUR EVENTS TO C ALENDAR@KNOXMERCURY.COM

UT ARBORETUM SPRING PLANT SALE • University of

Tennessee Arboretum • 9AM • The University of Tennessee Arboretum Society’s 50th Annual Spring Plant Sale will gather the best of four local nurseries in one location. To learn more about the Arboretum Society, and the UT Arboretum Endowment Fund, go to utarboretum.tennessee.edu/arboretum.htm and www. utarboretumsociety.org. • FREE FAMILY SPRING FAIR • Tennessee Conservatory of Fine Arts • 9AM • Come and join us for a fun filled day of family fun and shopping. • FREE NOURISH KNOXVILLE WINTER FARMERS’ MARKET • Central United Methodist Church • 10AM • Visit nourishknoxville.org. • FREE HUMANE SOCIETY KITTEN SHOWER • Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley • 1PM • The Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley will have a kitten shower in preparation for dozens of kittens they expect to care for this kitten season. Refreshments will be served and adorable kittens will be attending. • FREE

Wednesday, April 12 VOLUNTEER MINISTRY CENTER CARRY THE TORCH KNOXVILLE • Knoxville Convention Center • 11:45AM •

The Volunteer Ministry Center’s Carry the Torch Knoxville 2017 event will feature New York Times Best-Selling Author of The Freedom Writers Diary, Erin Gruwell. The Honorary Chair of the event is Knoxville Chief of Police David Rausch. For more information, contact Mary Beth Ramey at 865-524-3926, x 229 or visit carrythetorchknoxville.com.

FARM AND FORAGE POP-UP DINNER • Central Collective • 7PM • Chef Mike Costello and Amy Dawson of Lost

The intrepid Phileas Fogg with his loyal valet, Passepartout, voyage from Victorian London through the Indian subcontinent, to Asia and across the Pacific to America on a wager that he will return in precisely 80 days. Literally, a theatrical tour-de-force.

SOLUTION TO CRYPTOQUOTE

“ With us his name shall live, through long succeeding years, embalmed with all our heart can give, our praises and our tears. “ — Resolutions in memory of Gen. Fred C. Houk, adopted by The Knoxville Bar Association March 22, 1930

This production employs the use of haze, fog, strobe lights and the sound effects of gunfire.

(Source: Tennessee Ancestors, A Publication of the East Tennessee Historical Society, December 2014 Vol. 30 No. 2)

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 39

. . .

F I T A H W

novelist left town just he —t ly al on rs pe t et rn t known Bu Though she hadn’t Wha xvillians Burnett. no K u yo if ew kn on et pl rth—Tem chool only music -s ic bl before the columnist’s bi pu y nt ou C n ga or uld by day a M tracing that author’s Scholar Paul Brown, co ns io ct se e, ge A es m Ja g en researchin teacher, read the has be s. The public library’s de ca de l ra ve se of d rio a of the pe lumn with a bit of co on et family around town over pl m Te r pe pa a t directed Brown to “Papers to Pixels” projec ese last 20-odd years. th ng si is m e at th en be information I’d on learned, based on th et pl m Te g in is rt ve ad n, colum id for? hodgson pa s ce As she asserted in a 1927 an Fr of e m ho er trusted, that the form memories of people she own as Tinker Tavern. kn en th e ac pl a as w t et Burn

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Voice in the Wilderness

Photos by Kim Trevathan

A Slow Lift Here’s what to expect if you lock through Watts Bar Dam—in a canoe going upstream

BY KIM TREVATHAN

W

ithin a barge length or two of Watts Bar Nuclear Plant across the lake, I launched my canoe for the first time in over a year. Accustomed to riding low out of the wind in a kayak about half the canoe’s weight, I had to reset my paddling tactics when a headwind hooked the bow and flung me downstream, away from my goal: the lock of Watts Bar Dam, about a mile away.

Grizzled fishermen stared from the ramp as I let the boat pinwheel until I could get the bow pointed into the wind and start the constant frantic paddling necessary for making progress against the current and a 20 mph wind.

When I first began to research a canoe trip down the Tennessee River in 1998, people assured me that Jasper, my dog, and I would have no trouble locking through nine dams going downstream, sitting there as if in a series of enormous draining

42 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

bathtubs. Just don’t lock through going upstream, more than one boater told me. I remember something said about the turbulence created when water is injected into the chamber, raising the level to the “upper” side of the dam, the lake side.

“Why would I ever want to go upstream?” I said to these advisors.

But today I was dusting off the canoe and my canoeing skills, and giving the upstream lock-through a try as a rehearsal for a trip next spring, on the 20th anniversary of my first voyage down the length of the Tennessee, from Knoxville to Paducah, Ky. Starting in mid-March 2018, I will begin a voyage up the Tennessee River, from Paducah to Knoxville. It will be my 60th spring.

On the drive from Maryville, I’d called the Watts Bar lock operator, Scott Padgett, and all he said after I told him I’d like to lock through in a

canoe going upstream was, “Just call me when you get a little closer, man.”

After getting underway at the boat ramp, I couldn’t stop paddling long enough to call Padgett again. If I paused even for a few seconds, the wind would either steer me toward the rip-rap enforced shoreline or push me back toward the boat ramp.

By the time I sought shelter leeward of a rusty mooring cell, 100 yards from the lock’s guide wall, I was huffing like I’d done 45 minutes of suicide drills. On the phone, I identified myself as “the guy in the canoe,” and Padgett said it would take 10 or 15 minutes to lower the water in the lock.

“I’ll turn on the green light,” he said, referring to the stoplight at the top of the dam near the gates, “and then you come in and tie up on the port side.”

This was going way too smoothly, I thought, and this guy sounded so easygoing, so unaffected by what I’d

been told was a big deal. Surely it wouldn’t be so easy.

In the meantime, I paddled forward out from behind the mooring cell and chatted with a fisherman who had multiple lines in the water, rods in holders, his hands behind his head leaning back in his padded captain’s chair. His boat looked as battered and well-used as mine.

“Haven’t caught nothing but drum and this catfish,” he said, and held up the cat for me to see—a decent 2-pounder—and to my astonishment, flung it into the water in apparent disgust. His target species were walleye and crappie, he said, but they had not been tempted by his minnows.

I had to ask him twice if he was locking through, and he gave me a quizzical look, as if he hadn’t heard me correctly when I said I was going through to fish the other side. My Little Cleo lure was dangling from the end of my rod, untouched by the tailwaters of Watts Bar Dam. When the lock doors began to open inward, I paddled through them, awed by the scale of a dam and the engineering feat of holding back so much water, generating power, and allowing smartasses in canoes to pass through routinely, no big deal. This sense of awe always occurs even though I’d previously written with nostalgia and longing about the old river, the one that flowed freely before we decided to dam it up and create a series of lakes.

I wrapped a rope around a yellow bollard, a sort of hitching post for

boats that rises or sinks with the water in the dam. I was going up, 57 feet in all, and there was nothing to do, really, but snap photos and hold onto the bollard. Out of the wind, I was able to relax.

It took about 20 minutes to fill the chamber, and I hadn’t felt fearful about the turbulence at any point, though the water did boil and swirl from the discharge, mostly on the starboard side of the lock.

On the way out, I told Padgett, who stood 30 feet above me, why I was locking through: a rehearsal for the longer trip.

“You’ll see a lot of interesting things,” he said. He had no problem locking me through going upstream, he said, but I’d have to check at each dam in order to see if it would be okay. The policy would be “site-specific.”

When I asked him about the turbulence that people had warned me about, he said that he had given me a “slow lift” that took twice as long as a normal filling of the chamber.

He asked me if I wanted to lock back through, going downstream, to paddle back to my car at the boat ramp, but I declined, not wanting to push my luck, wanting to stay in the good graces of the one lock operator I’d met before the big trip.

I left the canoe at the boat ramp below the dam at Meigs County Park and began the 2-mile walk back to my

By the time I sought shelter leeward of a rusty mooring cell, 100 yards from the lock’s guide wall, I was huffing like I’d done 45 minutes of suicide drills. car, thinking that in spite of the March winds, I could do this next year, having solved the mystery of upstream lock passages. Twenty years ago, TVA had tolerated the illegal camping of Jasper and me in this park. I hoped the Corps of Engineers, who ran the locks, would tolerate my upstream odyssey.

It was a good sign, I thought, that a fisherman in a pickup with his son gave me a ride for the last mile back to my car. On the way up the river, next spring, I’d have positive memories of a friendly place as the Watts Bar cooling towers came into view.

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 Can oe Odyssey Down the Cumberland.

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 43

News of the Weird | Sacred & Profane | Cartoon | Puzzles

AI Love Dolls All the odd news that’s mostly fit to print

BY CHUCK SHEPHERD

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION A highlight of the recent upmarket surge in Brooklyn, N.Y., as a residential and retail favorite, was the asking price for an ordinary parking space in the garage at 845 Union Street in the Park Slope neighborhood: $300,000 (also carrying a $240-a-month condominium fee and $50 monthly taxes). That’s similar to the price of actual one-bedroom apartments in less ritzy Brooklyn neighborhoods like Gravesend (a few miles away).

COMPELLING EXPLANATIONS Saginaw, Mich., defense lawyer Ed Czuprynski had beaten a felony DUI arrest in December, but was sentenced to probation on a lesser charge in the incident, and among his restrictions was a prohibition on drinking alcohol— which Czuprynski acknowledged in March that he has since violated at least twice. However, at that hearing (which could have meant jail time for the violations), Czuprynski used the opportunity to beg the judge to remove the restriction altogether, arguing that he can’t be “effective” as a lawyer unless he is able to have a drink now and then. (At press time, the judge was still undecided.)

FINE POINTS OF THE LAW Residents in southern Humboldt County, Calif., will vote in May on a 44 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

proposed property tax increase to fund a community hospital in Garberville to serve a web of small towns in the scenic, sparsely populated region, and thanks to a county judge’s March ruling, the issue will be explained more colorfully. Opponent Scotty McClure was initially rebuffed by the registrar when he tried to distribute, as taxpayer-funded “special elections material,” contempt for “Measure W” by including the phrase “(insert fart smell here)” in the description. The registrar decried the damage to election “integrity” by such “vulgarity,” but Judge Timothy Cissna said state law gives him jurisdiction only over “false” or “misleading” electioneering language.

CAN’T POSSIBLY BE TRUE • News of the Weird has written several times (as technology progressed) about Matt McMullen’s “RealDoll” franchise—the San Marcos, Calif., engineer’s richly detailed flexible silicone mannequins that currently sell for $5,500 and up (more with premium custom features). Even before the recent success of the very humanish, artificially intelligent (AI) android “hosts” on TV’s Westworld, McMullen revealed that his first AI doll, “Harmony,” will soon be available with a choice of 12 “personalities,” including “intellectualism” and “wit,” to mimic an emotional bond to add to

the sexual. A recent University of London conference previewed a near future when fake women routinely provide uncomplicated relationships for lonely (or disturbed) men. (Recently, in Barcelona, Spain, a brothel opened offering four “realdolls” “disinfected after each customer”—though still recommending condoms.)

• Scientists at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center announced that they have digitally stored (and retrieved) a movie, an entire computer operating system and a $50 gift card on a single drop of DNA. In theory, wrote the researchers in the journal Science, they might store, on one gram of DNA, 215 “petabytes” (i.e., 215 million gigabytes—enough to run, say, 10 million HD movies) and could reduce all the data housed in the Library of Congress to a small cube of crystals.

• An office in the New York City government, suspicious of a $5,000 payment to two men in the 2008 City Council election of Staten Island’s Debi Rose, opened an investigation, which at $300 an hour for the “special prosecutor,” has now cost the city $520,000, with his final bill still to come. Despite scant “evidence” and multiple opportunities to back off, the prosecutor relentlessly conducted months-long grand jury proceedings, fought several court appeals, had one 23-count indictment almost immediately crushed by judges, and enticed state and federal investigators to (fruitlessly) take on the Staten Island case. In March, the city’s Office of Court Administration finally shrugged and closed the case.

IRONIES A chain reaction of fireworks in Tultepec, Mexico, in December had made the San Pablito pyro marketplace a scorched ruin, with more than three dozen dead and scores injured, leaving the town to grieve and, in March, to solemnly honor the victims—with even more fireworks. Tultepec is the center of Mexico’s fireworks industry, with 30,000 people dependent on explosives for a living. Wrote The Guardian, “Gunpowder” is in “their blood.”

MISCELLANEOUS ECONOMIC INDICATORS

(1) “Bentley” the cat went missing in Marina Del Rey, Calif., on Feb. 26 and as of press time had not been located— despite a posted reward of $20,000. (A “wanted” photo is online, if you’re interested.) (2) British snack food manufacturer Walkers advertised in February for a part-time professional chip taster, at the equivalent of $10.55 an hour. (3) An Australian state administrative tribunal awarded a $90,000 settlement after a cold-calling telemarketer sold a farm couple 2,000 ink cartridges (for their one printer) by repeated pitches.

PERSPECTIVE American chef Dan Barber staged a temporary “pop-up” restaurant in London in March at which he and other renowned chefs prepared the fanciest meals they could imagine using only food scraps donated from local eateries. A primary purpose was to chastise First World eaters (especially Americans) for wasting food, not only in the kitchen and on the plate, but to satisfy our craving for meat (for example, requiring diversion of 80 percent of the world’s corn and soy just to feed edible animals). Among Barber’s March “WastED” dishes were a char-grilled meatless beetburger and pork braised in leftover fruit solids.

UNDIGNIFIED DEATHS (1) Smoking Kills: A 78-year-old man in Easton, Penn., died in February from injuries caused when he lit his cigarette but accidentally set afire his hooded sweatshirt. (2) Pornography Kills: A Mexico City man fell to his death recently in the city’s San Antonio neighborhood when he climbed up to turn off a highway video sign on the Periferico Sur highway that was showing a pornographic clip apparently placed by a hacker.

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS Oops! An officer in Harrington, Del., approaching an illegally parked driver at Liberty Plaza Shopping Center in March, had suspicions aroused when she gave him a name other than “Keyonna Waters” (which was the name on the employee name tag she was wearing). Properly ID’ed, she was arrested for driving with a suspended license.

News of the Weird | Sacred & Profane | Cartoon | Puzzles

Bottoms Up When there’s nowhere to go but upward

BY DONNA JOHNSON

T

he last few days have not been easy for me.

I woke up this morning with some sort of thick yellow gunk coming out of my lungs that looked like sewage from a radiation plant. My little cat, Solange, sits in the window sill staring at me with a mysterious, sphinx-like look that seems to say: “You need to do something about yourself. If you are not taking care of yourself, how are you going to take care of us?”

Her concern is not without cause.

My entire body aches from being up too many days, drinking hard, and running fast. What have I been running from? Myself, of course.

The torrential rain outside my window seems to scream the words: “Repent! Repent! Repent!”

“I know! I know!” I mumble to my version of God, who really is all-loving and all-merciful, and seems to whisper in my ear, “You do not have to live like this.” And then, very gently, very slowly, the words, “You are better than this.”

I’m not so sure of that, but I roll over and open my eyes to see three pairs of eyes staring back at me. Two are those of my dog, Mallory, who sits, head cocked, blinking at me in that reproachful way she has that seems to say, “How can you lie there sleeping when we are so hungry?” Her gaze shifts to Boots, my 30-pound cat, who suddenly waddles rapidly over to me and lands with a thud on my chest, causing another intense coughing spell.

The rain continues. The air inside my apartment is thick with smoke and the smell of stale food that has been left on the stove for two days—a meal

that was not even good when it was fresh but is now utterly loathsome.

Yellow roses, now dead, lay crumpled on the floor like the remains of a wasted day, year, life. But is anything really a waste? It’s hard to tell in the state of mind I’ve been inhabiting for the last year—a hopelessness that says you cannot do any better, be any better.

This is who and what you are: alcoholic, addict, wastrel.

Alcoholism, cunning and baffling, is most of all a great deceiver: “Go ahead and have just one drink. Just to be social. After that you can stop.”

That’s the deception that takes you down, down, down into the rabbit hole, inside of which you forget who you are.

Not for nothing is it called a blackout: You have blacked out your life.

Then there are the well-intended friends who tell you what you did the night before: “You were hilarious, you were down on all fours in Market Square pretending to be a donkey!

You were so funny!” Or perhaps, “You passed out and we had to carry you home!” As the memory of what they are talking about begins to sift back through with ruthless force, the previous night begins to play itself out on a life-size screen on which you have the starring role. The anti-hero.

That’s you.

More insidious still, when you are feeling inadequate, which is most of the time, the great deceiver tells you, “Have a cocktail. It will make you feel confident, brilliant, beautiful, young.”

Everything that you are, in fact, not.

For a while it seems to work. You are the wittiest person in the bar. You

buy the most drinks for everyone, you leave the biggest tips, you are charming.

And they all just love you—until the tips and the generosity come to an end. You reach in your wallet for cab-fare home, and—surprise, surprise—everyone but you has your money. Walking the 15 or so blocks home—for no one has time to give you a ride (“We’re not going that way…”)—you struggle valiantly to walk a straight line so you don’t get arrested.

Into the handcuffs and slammed against the side of the cop car you’ll go, like the derelict person you knew you were to begin with. It’s the reason you drink, or one of them.

There’s a place they call “the bottom” in AA. I was there. After a few desultory AA meetings, I still drank. It was no fun anymore, just maintenance to feel a semblance of normalcy, whatever that means. Normal was never something I was very good at. I gave up, gave in, surrendered. There was nowhere to go but up and I had no idea how to get there.

My mother always told me she felt God’s hand was on me. I try to remember that.

From out of this dark pit comes a voice that is nothing short of a miracle: My favorite drinking buddy of all time calls me, out of the blue.

“I’ve been looking for you for years,” she says.

During our drinking days, we drove all around the city in her little blue convertible Audi. Drinking and driving, driving and drinking. I became so concerned about her, I called her daughter and they put her in treatment. She has been sober for five years.

I am having lunch with her today.

If I need to go to treatment, I will do it.

If I have to go to AA, I will. At least I hope I will. The self-destruct button is always closer than the one for recovery. But with three pairs of eyes staring at me woefully, three loving beings completely dependent on my care, I know I must try. With a lot of prayer, a lot of meetings, and a little luck I will succeed.

Donna Johnson’s stories are often about people who are not recognized by others, who may even seem invisible, but “they often have a great truth to share if one but listens.”

April 6, 2017 knoxville mercury 45

News of the Weird | Sacred & Profane | Cartoon | Puzzles

BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY www.thespiritofthestaircase.com

46 knoxville mercury April 6, 2017

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Donate your drawing -please contact Susana at Wildliferehab@ raccoonkingdom.org

POMPEII -is a one year old America Pit Bull Terrier / mix. She is learning to play with other doggies and would bring joy to a new family.

Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.

A-JAY - is a 3-year-old domestic shorthair mix that has been looking for the perfect family for too long! He is a lovable and cuddly cat. Go see him at PetCo! Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.

MADDUX - is a very smart and obedient Terrier/Pit Bull mix. He already knows “sit” and he wants to learn more from you! Maddux is available for adoption at our Bearden location.

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This one-year-old pup is ready to go home. Goober is available for adoption at our Bearden location.

Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.

CHIRP - is 3-year-old domestic shorthair mix that wants a lot of love and snuggling! She is slightly shy at first, but soon becomes comfortable with her surroundings. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-2156599 for more information.

WIN TICKETS! MULBERRY PLACE CRYPTOQUOTE

BY JOAN KEUPER

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May 12-14, 2017 (2 pai ANSWER TO WIN

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