Reviews

The Blackbird Sessions

It somehow leans towards an Allman Brothers Band spinoff when local blues/country/Americana/jam band Sugar Lime Blue combines a rough take on ’90s alternative rock band Living Colour’s in-your-face sound with Primus’ rattling thump-funk bass and an Annie Lennox vocal styling. When the band grooves out on a calypso-fl avored tune, frontwoman Ashley Beth’s hippie presence mixes with a relaxed backing band to create the resonant frequencies. It’s all the Nashville-to-Gainesboro area’s Americana jam band Sugar Lime Blue, though, further developing its established mix of jazz, blues, country and jam-rock through its fourth full-length studio album, The Blackbird Sessions.

Female-fronted throughout the twentyteens, Sugar Lime Blue gained a couple-led popularity as Ashley’s husband and guitarist Dave Beth has backed her vocals and stage presence for 13 years of live performances. This live chemistry has seemingly produced more fan loyalty than their studio work, though this invites their live-setting intentions into the studio, giving The Blackbird Sessions as rough a feel as Sugar Lime Blue’s cover-heavy dive residencies and festival appearances.

While the new album is comprised of original material stoked by the pandemic years and the loss of their founding bassist, Russ Dean, The Blackbird Sessions keep the Sugar Lime Blue established drive and exploratory jams (it’s not a downer).

For The Blackbird Sessions, Ashley and Dave Beth enlisted the help of bassist Jo Bass and keyboardist Scott Guberman and also re-established a live presence embarking on several multi-state tours adding members Luis “Slive” Echeverria on keys and Ikaika Pekelo on drums, who also contribute to the album, according to the band’s website.

It’s the versatility, as well as the consistency and companionship, that makes Sugar Lime Blue uniquely comforting. The Beths seem to be a solid couple behind an Americana jam outfi t exuding an Evanescence-like vibe, just styled in a hippie, bluesy way instead of a gothic approach.

Sugar Lime Blue’s The Blackbird Sessions (and previous releases) can be found across the icons on Bandcamp, YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeart and Deezer, as well as through sugarlimeblue.com. Their popular and consistent #SundayShoutOut—Sugar Lime Blue’s weekly, intimate, mostly acoustic, “fi reside chat” home performances—air every Sunday from their Facebook homepage and YouTube channel.

Sugar Lime Blue already has numerous shows on the schedule for 2023, including hosting the weekly Americana Brunch at the Bull & Thistle in Gainesboro each Sunday at noon, a Jan. 20 appearance at Common John Brewing in Manchester and a Jan. 27 show at Jimmy’s in Lebanon. — BRYCE HARMON

DIRECTOR Rian Johnson STARRING Daniel Craig,

RATED PG-13 Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Glass Onion from here on) establishes the Southern sleuth Benoit Blanc as the Hercule Poirot of the modern era. After cracking the case in the excellent Knives Out, a loving homage and expertly crafted addition to the mansion murder mystery genre, Blanc becomes embroiled in a puzzler set at a private party in paradise, hosted by the complicated genius and tech billionaire Miles Bron.

Blanc (Craig) begins the fi lm bereft between cases, fi guratively lost while literally losing a game of Among Us to Angela Lansbury and Natasha Lyonne, among others, while smoking a cigar in the tub. Meanwhile, Bron (Edward Norton) has sent delightfully complicated puzzle boxes to his fi ve best friends whom he calls “the disruptors.” They are: Birdie Jay (Hudson), a fashionista who’s not afraid to “tell it like I see it”; Claire (Kathryn Hahn), a campaigning politician courting “the grassroots left”; Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), a men’s rights Twitch streamer who hawks “rhino-horn boner pills to teenagers”; Lionel (Leslie Odom Jr.), the chief scientist at Bron’s company Alpha; Andi (Monáe) the co-founder of Alpha who Bron defrauded out of the business; and Blanc himself, who somehow also received a box. Inside the boxes are individual invitations to Miles Bron’s private Greek Island, at the center of which lies a building that resembles a giant glass onion.

While the tone of Knives Out matches the stately décor of the manor in which it takes place, not devoid of humor by any means, but subtle and restrained, Glass Onion likewise takes on the more fl amboyant tone of its setting and characters —everything is bigger, funnier, and more playful. The ridiculous cast of characters is drawn broadly enough as to have any number of real-life analogues, regardless of what B.S. on Twitter might claim, but there’s no denying we’ve all seen certain celebrities, politicians and personalities like this in our feed.

Rian Johnson has concocted yet another Rubik’s cube of a fi lm (see also Brick, see also The Brothers Bloom) like he has been doing for most of his fi lmmaking career, and he seems to be having more and more fun doing it. As well, the cast members all appear to be having a blast. Craig seems more suited to the role of Benoit Blanc than to any other role (even counting him being arguably the best James Bond). Hudson as Birdie Jay cannot be discounted either; as an insensitive and ignorant former celebutante, Hudson’s spot-on delivery of lines like “It was supposed to be a tribute to Beyoncé” about her Halloween costume debacle, garner some of the fi lm’s biggest laughs. Norton as the billionaire Bron dances on a knife’s edge between being genial and insufferable. And Janelle Monáe gives a wonderful performance that rewards repeat viewings.

Multiple viewings are now not only possible but recommended—after a painfully short stint in theaters, Netfl ix released Glass Onion to its streaming service on Dec. 23.

— JAY SPIGHT

HELPING HANDS WORLD WIDE Services, Inc., founded in Murfreesboro, has helped more than 10,000 people in the Philippines since its inception. Now the nonprofi t is looking for more ways to expand to assist people here in Rutherford County and beyond.

The idea for Helping Hands came about as its founder, Fidel Pinote, was going back and forth between the Philippines and the U.S., aiding people whenever he traveled.

“He grew up in a dilapidated school with no chairs or tables, and no money for school,” said Helping Hands CEO MILA VAZQUEZ. “So he said his goal is that every time he comes back he will help out people, because now he is in America and is going back to the Philippines and can afford it.

“He formed an organization to make it more offi cial. He approached me, and we worked on getting the 501(c)(3) certifi cation. We started with just $500 in 2014.”

Helping Hands has developed since then with three pillars—health, education and infrastructure—and every pillar has its own projects. Under the health pillar, Helping Hands has launched Project RICE (Regain Insuffi cient Calories to gain Energy) with a mission to feed kids and assist them medically. Then, they have educational program assistance initiatives and, under infrastructure, the group helps install community water pumps and helps with natural disaster relief needs. Helping Hands wants to assist locally and worldwide, and they are looking for more volunteers, including directors and a few board members, said Vazquez.

“Our activities and meetings usually happen here in Murfreesboro because most of our offi cers are from here,” Vazquez said. “Most of the offi cers are professionals, and they have devoted their time and talent through the years. The dedication makes it work.

“Most of our work is overseas right now because we can relate to the Philippines, we are mostly Filipino. We have 16 chapters and directors in the Philippines. The directors send us a proposal of what they need, then we send them the funds. Usually for simple things that mean a lot.”

She said, they recently gave food bags for 200 people; $3 can feed 15 people. Able to send a lot of help to the Philippines because of the favorable currency conversion rate, they have reached at least 10,000 people already.

“Another time, we provided electric fans to a Philippine school,” Vazquez said. “They don’t have [air conditioning]. When we asked the school what they needed, they asked for an electric fan, so we provided it. In another case we provided a well; a water pump—one water pump will be providing water to a whole community.”

This project cost around $500.

“It is encouraging that we are able to help this much,” she said. “Our most recent medical mission was in 2019. We were able to reach out to 800-some people. We will have another medical mission next October. We are asking people here if they want to go, volunteer, or donate. The medical mission lasts a few days, and I usually go to the Philippines for two or three weeks.”

Helping Hands’ vision is to provide “a helping hand for an improved quality of life in our community, one individual at a time.”

“We are looking for people who would like to be a part of the organization,” Vazquez said. “This can be anyone. We are not just looking for people from the Philippines . . . as long as they have a giving heart. We need more volunteers, and we need people who want to be leaders. We need one or two more people for our board of directors: we need a marketing director, an infrastructure development director and a disaster relief director.”

Helping Hands is a small organization, where everyone is a volunteer and overhead is only about 5 percent, so about 95 percent of proceeds go to the people they serve.

Helping Hands has a yearly fundraising masquerade ball in Murfreesboro. In 2022 it was held at the Fountains at Gateway in October and at least 400 people attended.

Locally, Helping Hands has also been participating with groups helping with local needs like Habitat for Humanity, building homes, and The Journey Home, feeding the homeless. The organization also helps a Filipino American group in Columbia, Tennessee, that operates a free medical clinic in the United States.

“It’s a work in progress to see what we can do in the United States, especially in the Rutherford County area,” Vazquez said. “Our founder wants to do a free medical clinic here in Murfreesboro like they are doing in Columbia. . . . It takes a lot of fi nances to do something like that, because . . . here you are looking at $15,000 or maybe $25,000 to be able to do that free medical clinic.”

To learn more about Helping Hands, visit helpinghandstn.org, email Mila Vazquez at ceo@helpinghandstn.org or call 615442-6370.