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JANUARY 20, 2016

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RALEIGH

INSIDE NEWS & COLUMNS 7

TRIANGULATOR: College students call

NEWS: Chapel Hill passes on potential parkland to let a luxury-apartment developer do his thing

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NEWS: Restoring Durham’s Hayti District to its golden age—one kid at a time

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CITIZEN: Raleigh finds a way to be nicer to the homeless

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MUSIC: The unexpected ascent of Toon

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MUSIC: The acoustic aplomb of Jon Shain

and Joe Newberry’s Crow the Dawn 36

THEATER REVIEW: Stick Fly provokes at

Raleigh Little Theatre

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JANUARY 20, 2016

VOLUME 33 NUMBER 3

Bigger isn’t better A Raleigh developer has knocked down an old bungalow to build a massive new home By Jane Porter

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DISH: Sushi for everyone Our guide to cheap sushi, vegetarian sushi, do-it-yourself sushi and beer for sushi

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Electric wizards Understanding the sophisticated science behind The Hot at Nights’ jazz covers By Allison Hussey

A R T S , C U LT U R E , F O O D & M U S I C 28

CARY

F E AT U R E S

on Pat McCrory to expand Medicaid, McCrory calls on Obama to stop protecting drinking water, and a Raleigh retailer flees downtown 8

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Freeing the Wilmington Ten A UNC professor’s new book revisits a racially motivated miscarriage of justice By Cristel Orrand

CALENDARS & EVENTS 37

WHERE WE’LL BE: The best arts and

culture events of the week 41

MUSIC CALENDAR

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ARTS CALENDAR

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FILM CALENDAR

ON THE COVER: The cucumber and plum roll from Waraji Japanese Restaurant in Raleigh PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

The INDY’s Act Now and Food/Farmers Markets calendars can be found at indyweek.com.

THIS PAGE: Chris Boerner uses a custom-made instrument—a hybrid guitar and bass made by Wes Lambe of Hillsborough. It has three bass strings and five guitar strings. PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

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back talk Stop scapegoating poor whites

In the “The White People Problem” (Citizen, Jan. 6), Bob Geary says, “Progressives need to convince poor whites to vote in their own self-interest.” This line of argument circulates in progressive circles: that poor whites are bewilderingly irrational, uneducated about their own situation and/or misinformed about their “economic self-interest.” This reenacts painful classism—haven’t Appalachians and West Virginians had enough of being showcased for poverty and ignorance by liberals? And, this scapegoating obscures how racism and capitalism operate on a systemic level. It is primarily white, owningclass people who hold the power to pass racist policies at the Capitol, implement racist hiring practices, incarcerate black, brown and poor white people, and train police to shoot to kill. Clearly, racism is not just a poor-white-people problem.

And, suppose that poor white people were motivated mainly by their own economic interest: What would it take politically to end poverty? Historically, capitalism and neoliberalism have run rampant across the country under the

leadership of both parties, squeezing every last cent of productive value out of the working class. Are owning- and professional-class progressives ready to give up class prejudices and share power with working-class people—of all races—in order to create systemic change?

Furthermore, the theory that human beings are primarily or only motivated by economic self-interest is false. People are moved all the time by many different needs—dignity, stability, family, faith and belonging, as well as by economic considerations. People are not economic machines, nor should we be. Progressives would do well to keep this in mind if they hope to build a movement for real change.

Laurin Penland, Noah Rubin-Blose and Kriti Sharma, Hillsborough

Not an anomaly

I believe the article needs some context on how MLS is financing its current crop of downtown stadiums (“Edifice complex,” Jan. 13). The author calls private financing an “anomaly,” but it’s really not.

In the next generation of MLS stadiums that are located in downtown areas, you

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have seen private-public partnerships that see the owners pay for the majority or all of the stadium cost. In the early days of MLS, the league and owners were desperate for soccer-specific stadiums to control revenue streams. As downtown land and development were expensive, and MLS did not yet have the political clout to build in the urban core, they looked outside of the city. Suburban municipalities were eager for the development and notoriety that comes with a burgeoning professional sports franchise. That is how you end up with taxpayer-financed stadium in the outskirts of big cities—i.e., Commerce City (Denver), Frisco (Dallas), or Bridgeview (Chicago). These stadiums have seen some struggles with attendance.

MLS 2.0 has seen its fortunes heightened by focusing on building its stadiums in downtown locations, close to its millennial fan base and mass-transit locations. Owners have seen the success and are now willing to pay for the majority of stadiums, with some publicly provided development costs. If you look at the next crop of MLS stadiums, all are led by private owner-led financing.

Instead of taxpayers financing the whole

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stadium, they are using public-private partnerships to help with infrastructure costs and development, land acquisition or favorable lease terms. These are tools Raleigh has been using for other types of private development for years.

As Raleigh searches for ways to expand its appeal, a downtown MLS stadium that is majority privately financed would be a boon to the city. If the city does not want to miss the boat on a downtown professional sports team again, I suggest they spend less time debating the merits of the role of tax money in private development and more time figuring out a way to create a transformative downtown project that would help give Raleigh the “big city” status it seeks.

OakCity16, via indyweek.com

Correction: Due to an editing error, last week’s story on Raleigh’s stadium ambitions, “Edifice complex,” incorrectly labeled Downtown Raleigh Association planning and development manager Bill King the “primary author” of a recent downtown plan. In fact, King was part of a team that wrote it.

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JANUARY 20, 2016

PERIPHERAL VISIONS • V.C. ROGERS

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JANUARY 20, 2016

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HEY PAT, EXPAND MEDICAID ALREADY

Also: The gov isn’t all that keen on clean water, and a Raleigh retail shop flees downtown

BY DANNY HOOLEY, DAVID HUDNALL AND JANE PORTER

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at McCrory, ever the pragmatist, wanted to wait and see how the Supreme Court ruled on a key provision of the AFFORDABLE CARE ACT before deciding whether he supported expanding Medicaid in North Carolina. In June, SCOTUS upheld the provision. So where does the governor stand?

“It’s a very complex issue,” McCrory said after the decision. “You can’t just say you are for or against it.”

Actually, you can. It’s pretty easy. Last week, newly elected Louisiana GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS issued an executive order expanding Medicaid, making an additional 300,000 residents of the state eligible for health coverage. Thirty other states have also made the obvious decision to accept BILLIONS OF DOLLARS from the feds so that their poorest residents can go to the doctor.

North Carolina is not one of them. And so as many as 500,000 RESIDENTS are currently going uninsured so that McCrory and other Raleigh Republicans can feel selfrighteous about opposing the ACA while chewing on sea bass at Sullivan’s.

AMIRE SHEALEY may soon find himself among the uninsured. For most of his life, the 25-year-old N.C. Central student has been acutely aware that health care isn’t free.

He grew up below the poverty line in a single-parent family and was diagnosed with chronic asthma in the fourth grade. “My mom always explained to me that it was the government paying for my hospital visits,” Shealey says.

When he turned 18, he lost his health coverage. “I kept applying [for Medicaid], but I KEPT GETTING DENIED, even though I was only making about $10,000 a year,” he says. It was only several years later, when he enrolled at NCCU, that Shealey returned to the ranks of the insured.

“I graduate in May, though,” Shealey says. “And if I don’t have a job lined up with benefits, I might be in that same boat again because the state won’t expand Medicaid. It’s a scary situation.”

Last semester, Shealey took a public health policy course taught by DAVID JOLLY. One of the requirements was that students complete 15 hours of communityservice work related to increasing people’s access to health care. Shealey and four other students opted to work for a Durham-based organization Jolly heads called the COALITION FOR HEALTH CARE OF NORTH CAROLINA. The students knocked on doors and collected 1,500 signatures urging McCrory to expand Medicaid.

On Wednesday, a delegation from the coalition is bringing those signatures, plus 1,500 more, to Raleigh, where they’re set to meet with McCrory’s deputy chief of staff and his policy liaison with the Department of Health and Human Services. Before they go, they’re holding a public send-off event at the CCB PLAZA in downtown Durham, from noon to 1 p.m.

“We’re not naïve,” Jolly says. “We know this meeting won’t immediately change the situation. But we believe it’s important that ORDINARY CITIZENS in North Carolina make themselves heard on this issue. We’re just trying to put as much pressure as possible on leaders in Raleigh.”

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ecently, residents of Flint, Michigan, learned their drinking water was contaminated by lead, thanks to state government incompetence and/ or malfeasance. BERNIE SANDERS demanded Gov. Rick Snyder’s resignation. Filmmaker MICHAEL MOORE petitioned to have Snyder arrested. An emergency has been declared. Investigations are mounting.

In other words, last week was not a particularly good time to show tone deafness on the subject of water quality.

Particularly not for PAT MCCRORY, whose cozy relationship and secret meetings with execs at Duke Energy, his former employer, make news—not a good look when your DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY recently downgraded risk ratings for many of the company’s coal-ash impoundments.

Yet McCrory just had to weigh in on last week’s 252–166 vote in Congress to weaken the EPA’s WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES rule, which was issued last year and designates which rivers and other waterways fall under the feds’ jurisdiction. President Obama will veto, of course, and while Republicans have been waxing hyperbolic about this for some time—last year, former HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER called it a “raw and tyrannical power grab”—the issue is probably moot for now.

Still, McCrory’s office was quick to issue a supportive statement Thursday, letting farmers know that he would not let Obama take “large swaths of land” from them and place them “under control of the federal government.”

From the statement: “We are pleased that Congress has joined us in fighting against the EPA’S FEDERAL OVERREACH of North Carolina waters. Leaders in Congress recognize that this federal rule is a huge blow to North Carolina’s farmers and economic development.”

“We’re saddened that [McCrory] is putting the interests of CORPORATE POLLUTERS in front of the public health protections that North Carolinians so desperately need,” counters DAVE ROGERS, state director of Environment North Carolina. “If we’ve seen anything in the last few years in North Carolina, it’s that our state needs to do more to protect folks’ drinking water.”

Rogers also dismisses McCrory’s posturing as a protector of farmers.

“We have seen that MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN that’s largely led by industrial polluters and giant developers to try to paint a picture of the federal government overseeing swales and ditches,” he says.

“Waters of the U.S. does not do that. Really, what it does is protect the rivers and streams that actually feed in to our lakes and our drinking water sources.”

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hile luxury apartments have proliferated in downtown Raleigh in the past decade, retailers and small businesses have struggled to keep up with rising real-estate values. In response, business owners— like the owners of TRIG MODERN, a furniture store featured in an INDY story last summer (“The rent is too damn high,” July 29)—are getting creative with their business models. In their case, they’re fleeing downtown altogether.

Owner BOB DRAKE and his business partner, ANN MARIE BAUM, have found a new, bigger location at Dock 1053, an emerging shopping center and entrepreneurial hub off of Whitaker Mill Road. Trig Modern will occupy 5,000 SQUARE FEET of space in a retrofitted warehouse.

Even though he had more than a year left on his lease for his 3,900-square-foot space at the corner of West Jones and North Harrington streets, Drake was asked to relocate his business because a developer wants to turn the lot into (wait for it) APARTMENTS. Drake struggled to find a new location downtown, but he says he and Baum will be happy at Dock 1053, located halfway between downtown Raleigh and North Hills. And though the rent there is more than the $3,900 per month Drake is currently paying, it’s still more affordable than downtown. For customers, there’s easy access and plenty of parking, and the store won’t be surrounded by PERPETUAL CONSTRUCTION. They’ll move in March.

Baum says that after a meeting with other downtown business owners this summer, she widened her perspective of what she considers “downtown” to be, given how quickly downtown Raleigh is expanding.

Despite the high rents and many empty storefronts that dot downtown proper, BILL KING, the planning and development manager for the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, says there’s more retail on the horizon. Last fall saw the opening of five new retailers downtown, including GYPSY JULE in the Lincoln building and DEVOLVE on Glenwood South. Upcoming retailers include a modern furniture store going in under the Hue and a pharmacy on the ground floor of the Gramercy, as well as 16,000 square feet of retail space under the Edison apartments on Davie Street.

“And there are things being worked on for the DILLON, the Kane project,” King says, referring to North Hills developer John Kane’s plan to build a large mixed-use project in the Warehouse District. “So there are a few things out there percolating.” s Reach the INDY’s Triangulator team at triangulator@indyweek.com.

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JANUARY 20, 2015

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LEGION OF BOOM

Questions persist regarding the sale of one of the last large chunks of undeveloped property in Chapel Hill

BY DAVID HUDNALL

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uxury apartment developers are not, generally commission, suggests that there are already some 5,500 But a timeline of meetings regarding the Legion property, speaking, deserving of the public’s pity. Still, it was new residential units in the pipeline—meaning Chapel Hill recently released by the town in response to concerns tough not to feel just a tiny bit bad for Scott Underwood is doing fine without the Woodfield development. about the process, indicates that economic development last Wednesday evening.

Blaming a developer for building too many luxury officer Dwight Bassett met with Woodfield as far back Underwood’s firm, Woodfield Investments, is under condos, though, is like faulting a fox for lurking around the as March. This has raised a variety of concerns among contract to purchase, for $10 million, 36 acres of land just chicken coop. Ultimately, it’s up to local officials to step in.

CHALT members: Did pro-development town officials east of Fordham Boulevard and Ephesus Church Road In 2010 Chapel Hill passed an inclusionary-zoning such as Bassett play matchmaker between the Legion and in Chapel Hill. Currently owned by the American Legion ordinance that requires builders to make 15 percent of Woodfield? If so, why would the town not steer the Legion Post 6, it’s one of the last large chunks of undeveloped most new-home developments affordable. But because toward a developer of commercial or office property, which property left in the town. Woodfield intends to build state law forbids any kind of rent control, this ordinance few would dispute the town is in much greater need of? somewhere between 400 and 600 high-end apartment doesn’t apply to rental developments like Woodfield’s.

(Bassett did not respond to requests for comment.) units, plus ritzy add-ons like a resort-style swimming pool There are other—albeit duller—tools in the toolbox, CHALT cofounder David Schwartz also notes that a and a private dog park. The result will be, as the brochure however. And many argue that in the case of the Legion $40 million bond referendum (approved in the November puts it, an “amenity-rich, self-contained environment” property, the town failed to make use of them. election) to finance things like parks and sidewalks was with “market-defining interior design.”

To back up a bit: Chapel Hill and the American Legion being shaped throughout last year—the same time frame In an old, amenity-poor building on the in which the council was discussing options Legion’s property, Underwood stressed his Tar regarding the Legion’s land behind closed doors.

“The council denied the public an opportunity to Heel bona fides to a skeptical crowd of more The Legion property is “exactly the kind of than 100 Orange County baby boomers. He’s capital acquisition well suited to this type of participate in a discussion about the best use of the bond,” Schwartz says. “By authorizing town lived in the Triangle for 24 years. He earned his MBA from UNC. His parents went to UNC. to negotiate and execute agreements site and how public acquisition might be financed.” staff His grandfather was a professor at UNC. regarding the property in closed session and “There’s Carolina blue running through my signing away the town’s right of first refusal, blood,” Underwood said. the council denied the public an opportunity The baby boomers weren’t moved. When Underwood reached an agreement in 2005 giving the town first crack to participate in a discussion about the best use of the site noted that millennials were moving to Chapel Hill because at buying the Legion’s property if it ever decided to sell it. and how public acquisition might be financed.” of its “authentic” feel, loud scoffs rang out inside the In the ensuing years, the Legion property was identified Parks and recreation director Jim Orr confirms that, wood-paneled room. Reaching for common ground, in at least two public plans as a potential site for future despite the town’s interest in the property as parkland Underwood asked, “But would you at least agree that parkland, which is scarce in eastern Chapel Hill. being a matter of public record, his department was not Chapel Hill is a great place to live?”

Last June, town manager Tom Stancil informed the informed that the property was for sale or that the town “Not if you build this thing,” a woman snickered, to nods council that a buyer, Woodfield, was interested in the was negotiating with a private developer for it. and cheers. Tough crowd.

Legion property. The council went into a closed-door Stancil notes that the current memorandum of Underwood may have roots in Chapel Hill’s past, but session to discuss its options. According to the meeting understanding between the town and Woodfield doesn’t he was pitching a version of its future that an increasing minutes, Stancil “said Council could consider buying the guarantee anything. number of its residents abhor. Last November, Mayor Mark property or negotiate with the proposed buyer to get the “It just says, ‘We sure would like a road to be a part of this Kleinschmidt and three town council incumbents were Town’s interest in a park site with a roadway.” development, and we’d like to connect to whatever green ousted by challengers backed by the newly formed political The council voted to authorize Stancil to negotiate space that exists on the development,’” Stancil says. “But if action committee Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town. with Woodfield on both options. On Sept. 30, Stancil the council doesn’t like that, then it won’t happen.”

CHALT’s basic premise is that development in Chapel Hill received a letter from the Legion’s attorney indicating The sale is conditional on a rezoning—something the is out of control, and the decisions of the previous mayor that an offer had been made and the town had 60 days to new council would ultimately have to approve. Despite and council were enriching elites and developers while decide whether to buy the Legion property at the slightly the presentation last Wednesday, Woodfield hasn’t even squeezing out ordinary, long-time residents. discounted price of $9 million. Then, on Nov. 9—six days submitted its application for the project yet.

“Several of us who were voted in during the last election after the mayor and three council members were voted out “I understand why citizens are concerned,” says Mayor believe that a healthy town has room for development, but of office—the council again went into closed session and Pam Hemminger. “We’re totally out of balance with also room for the people who work here and keep the town voted to waive its right of first refusal. residential spaces over commercial spaces in town. It’s the going,” says council member Nancy Oates. “And to make “All we did was advise that the town didn’t have $9 Legion’s right to sell to whoever they want to, but I think it affordable for them, you need a different approach than million—which is half the town’s fund balance—to make people wanted a park and were hoping it wouldn’t be a just building a bunch of luxury apartments.” an offer,” Stancil tells the INDY. “And we went back to luxury development. We keep allowing luxury apartment Whether demand exists for 400–600 new luxury [Woodfield] and said, basically, that the town would like after luxury apartment to go up in Chapel Hill. And I don’t apartments in Chapel Hill is debatable. Underwood to integrate our public space with any development going think that’s what we should be building.” s trotted out a study indicating that Chapel HIll needs to forward, and that there’s interest in a roadway that would build 2,000 additional residential units by 2020. But an potentially make land on Ephesus Church Road more David Hudnall is an INDY staff writer. Email him at analysis by Del Snow, former chair of the town planning accessible. And they said, ‘OK.’” dhudnall@indyweek.com.

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WHEN BIGGER ISN’T BETTER

Residents of Oakdale are up in arms about a developer’s plans, but there’s nothing they can do

BY JANE PORTER

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he wooden front porch is all that’s left of the Victorianstyle cottage at the corner of Holden and Elm streets.

And, if all goes to plan, that front porch is the only thing that will remain when a massive, three-story home is erected around it, an awkward relic of a time when bigger wasn’t necessarily better.

Consternation over development in one of Raleigh’s oldest neighborhoods—Oakdale this time—is nothing new.

But in this case, because Oakdale isn’t a designated historic district, residents have no legal recourse to mitigate a design they say could be a jarring spectacle on a street dominated by well-preserved cottages and bungalows.

Neighbors of the century-old home formerly at 602 Holden St., one of the oldest on the street before it was torn down in December, say they’re dismayed at developer Jay Beaman’s plans to build a bulky new house that will consume most of the lot and tower over the old one-story homes around it.

“After establishing all hopes and aspirations for what was to come, attempting to limit my judgment and genuinely welcoming neighborhood improvements, I have concluded there could not be a more ham-fisted, clumsy, inelegant, disrespectful, noisy, over-compensating and amateurish solution approved for The front potch is all construction,” a resident wrote last week on the neighborhood’s private Facebook page.

“Too bad these precious neighborhoods aren’t treated with more care,” another neighbor added. “Big and bulky is not beautiful.”

Unlike those who live in Oakwood, Boylan Heights, Mordecai Place and other old Raleigh neighborhoods, Oakdale residents don’t have the protection of a locally or nationally designated historic status to shield them from outsized development that doesn’t mesh with the neighborhood’s character. They could only ask Beaman to build something that would be a better fit.

After speaking with the developer this weekend, Jon Zellweger, an architect who lives across the street from the property, says he’s not hopeful. “[It’s] simply a sign, when taken along with the 50-plus new homes on the Tiny Town site,” Zellweger told the

INDY in an email, referring to a nearby neighborhood of small World War II-era houses demolished last year, “that development pressure has come to Oakdale.”

Beaman did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Like Oakwood to the south, Oakdale was part of the area first known as Mordecai Grove, a plantation owned by the prominent Mordecai family; in 1877, the Mordecais began selling off their property. According to Karl Larson,

$320,000. Neighbors thought Beaman was merely gutting the inside—until one day the roof was suddenly gone.

In the early 1990s, Oakdale was designated as a Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District, which limits the height of new construction to 35 feet and requires a minimum 15-foot setback from the street, unless a builder is preserving an old structure’s original footprint. At 34 feet, 9 inches, Beaman’s planned house edges under the maximum height allowed.

Since Oakdale isn’t a historic district, there is no approval process for new construction—and ultimately no way for the city to delay or prohibit demolition.

“Historic designation allows for a one-year delay,” Damien Graham, the city’s public affairs director, told the INDY in an email. “Obtaining a demolition permit can be completed in a day. Going through the process of making a building a landmark, particularly over the owner’s objections, is a long-term process.

There is simply no way the city can use historic-preservation tools to protect an old building if the decision has already been made to tear it down.”

Under the city’s Unified Development Ordinance, demolition can only be forestalled in historic districts, of which there are two, but not in NCODs. In response to what Larson calls that’s left of the Victorian-style cottage at 602 Holden St. PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER “the first major intrusion” into the neighborhood in his 25-plus years of living there, working with the a longtime Oakdale resident and local historian who city to make Oakdale a historic district seems like a logical publishes the blog Goodnight Raleigh, Oakdale evolved next step. over three different periods of construction. A handful of City Councilor Russ Stephenson says he’s suggested homes were built from the 1890s through the 1910s; most of such an idea to Oakdale residents, but hasn’t yet “had the the bungalows were built during a construction boom in the opportunity to gauge neighborhood sentiment on this.”

1920s; and a third wave of building happened after World “Most neighborhoods feel safe and comfortable until War II. Many of these homes were cottages, one-story, something they find unappealing happens,” Stephenson single-family, few much bigger than 1,500 square feet. says. “Then, people are motivated to say, ‘Do we want to A 1914 edition of the Sanborn fire insurance maps shows protect ourselves from more of this happening?’” a home at 602 Holden St. “So we know for a fact that [the “I think it’s time we took up the cause,” says Larson. cottage] was built before 1914, and it was probably built “The 602 Holden Street debacle might just be the back in the 1890s,” says Larson. (Wake County real estate catalyst to move forward in that direction.” s records indicate the cottage was built in 1917.)

The former owners, who had lived there for 20 years, sold Jane Porter is an INDY staff writer. Email her at the cottage to Beaman Building and Realty last October for jporter@indyweek.com.

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JANUARY 20, 2015

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GREASE THE WHEEL

Kasib Abdullah is on a mission to restore Durham’s Hayti District to its glory days

K

BY DANNY HOOLEY

LEFT Kasib Abdullah asib Abdullah loves a good chat, RIGHT Bobby Burton, of and whenever he the Boys & Girls Club of gets rolling on a subject Greater Durham, carries he’s passionate about, he boxes of food to children at the after-school program at peppers his speech with the John Avery Boys & Girls some of his favorite selfClub. The food is provided coined phrases. Here’s one

by Believers United for you’ll hear a lot: “I’ve always Progress and paid for been the grease behind the through a federally funded wheel.” program.

Abdullah is 70 years PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER old, around 5-foot-6, and when he’s working at the Regus Durham office of his nonprofit organization, Believers United for Progress, he’s likely to wear the same clothes you’d to BUFP. Now, on any imagine he once wore as a weekday afternoon, if you baker, a restaurant manager peer through New Visions’ and a cleaning-service door, you’ll see head cook supervisor. On this day, it’s Edgar “Luke” Caldwell and faded jeans, a N.C. Central some helpers packing old cap and a rugged jacket, produce boxes with meals ideal for outdoor work. and snacks to be delivered And even though he talks to about 300 kids in a lot, he’s still kind of quiet— afterschool programs. even-tempered, speaking “Some kids might not be matter-of-factly. He’s able to get anything during proud of his resistance to that time period, between “I’ve spoken to many gang members. I’m respected like they’re respected. getting his hackles up when getting out of school I said, ‘If you want to be a Blood, that’s fine. Be a positive Blood.’ provoked, a skill he learned and going home,” says in part from the teachings of Caldwell. “There’s a lot of And if you want to be a Crip, I ain’t gonna tell them to stop Crippin’.” the Nation of Islam, to which kids going through poverty he’s been an adherent, right now. I try to help them although an imperfect one, out. There’s a lot of kids out for a half century. here that’s running around years, this problem has been particularly acute in Hayti, When he talks about building self-sustaining doing bad things.” where “unproductive behavior” (as Abdullah puts it) linked communities in black neighborhoods, that’s when you BUFP works to encourage positive behavior by getting to low incomes, drug trafficking and gun culture is likely to finally feel the “boss” vibe on him—an unshakeable belief kids to volunteer. At the John Avery Boys & Girls Club, one breed more suspicion than cooperation among neighbors. in his mission, and an ability to persuade others to come on of BUFP’s food-service beneficiaries, young people are Believers United for Progress has been on the second board. And this boss’ mission is to bring the Hayti District— encouraged to pursue interests that lead to a solid career. floor of the Meridian Parkway building for about seven once a prosperous African-American neighborhood that has Fourteen-year-old Grace Thornton has been coming to months. It was born around 2005, when Abdullah and struggled since the late 1950s, when urban renewal brought Avery since early 2015. the restaurant he worked for, New Visions of Africa, the Durham Freeway and the displacement of homes and “I want to do graphic designing and make my own began reaching out to surrounding neighborhoods with businesses—back to its glory days. games,” she says. “I usually draw my own characters, just community dinners. These days, BUFP administers federal “I want to see us brought back to self-sufficiency,” he to see what it’s like. Or maybe get some help trying to initiatives such as the summer feeding-service program, says, “where we have jobs, where we meet the needs of the program my own game.” which provides free breakfast and lunch to at-risk kids all community and we’re able to engage each other more in a One evening last week, Grace met Abdullah at the Boys over Durham while school is out. community-type atmosphere.” & Girls Club for the first time. She thanked him for New About two years ago, New Visions ceased operating That last item—community engagement—is “something Visions’ chili cheeseburgers the night before. as a sit-down restaurant that served soul food out of a that’s been missing in all communities,” he adds. In recent Pointing at-risk kids in a positive direction is particularly steam table and began devoting its time and labor entirely

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news important at a time when Durham’s violent crime rate is rising precipitously; last year, the city saw a nearly 100 percent increase in homicides, and in some pockets the sound of gunshots is an almost-nightly occurrence. Many of these problems are rooted in factors common to inner cities: gangs, drugs, handguns, but perhaps most of all poverty.

The state government isn’t doing much to help on that score: Even-stricter rules for unemployment insurance benefits and food stamps take hold this year. Nonprofits like BUFP that serve urban areas are going to see firsthand the effects of those economic burdens on poor families.

coke and dabbled in heroin, he says, but never shot up or smoked crack—and moved from San Bernadino, where he was selling cakes, to Durham, where he landed a job as a cleaning-service supervisor. He soon learned about Hayti’s “rich history,” he says, as well as that of Black Wall

A

bdullah’s focus on at-risk kids comes with some personal knowledge about the allure of the street hustle.

He says his central motivation is his belief in mutual respect and his concept of “community life.”

The latter was instilled in him during his early years on Central Avenue in Newark, New Jersey, where he ran his first business at age 12, selling hot dogs at a neighborhood bowling alley. By the time he was 18, he’d converted to Islam and was following Elijah Muhammed, the controversial founder of the Nation of Islam.

“Elijah Muhammad wasn’t a racist,” Abdullah says. “He was just telling people to stand up on their own. Do for self.

That was his message. The white man was the devil? That was necessary back in that time.”

As a young adult, Abdullah and some friends moved to Chancellor Avenue, where they ran a row of businesses: a meat market, a grocery store and a produce store. But that’s not all they were running. “We were doing a lot of things that we had no business to do,” he says.

For instance, selling heroin. Even so, Abdullah insists he never strayed far from his “moral compass.” He treated others with respect and never sold smack to anyone who wanted to try it for the first time. Looking back, Abdullah says, he just wanted to make money.

He left Newark in his late 30s in an effort to get back to his “inner self,” he says. Baking jobs and unspecified con games in various cities followed. By the 1990s, he decided to stop doing drugs himself—he smoked pot, did some

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“I didn’t mean to disrespect them,” he says. “I told them, I said, ‘If this is what you want to do, go in front of your house and do it. You’re not gonna parade up and down the street doing that, because we’re not gonna tolerate that.’”

Neither the streetwalkers nor the police were especially fond of his efforts. “They didn’t like me because I did that,” says Abdullah. “See, our police don’t live in our community. Police don’t care about our community.

I’ve had more words with the police than I’ve had with the people on the street.”

That includes gang members.

“I’ve spoken to many gang members,” Abdullah says. “I’m respected like they’re respected.

I said, ‘If you want to be a Blood, that’s fine. Be a positive Blood.’

And if you want to be a Crip, I ain’t gonna tell them to stop Crippin’.”

I

Street and a city divided along racial lines by a freeway. He found the spirit of community, entrepreneurship and selfsufficiency in post-Reconstruction Hayti inspiring.

“My vision was to get the community back to the history of the community,” says Abdullah.

He went to work for New Visions as a restaurant manager around 2000, and it wasn’t long before he started inserting himself, quietly but firmly, into his adopted community, even when that meant confronting problems head on.

“It was a meeting of the minds,” says Abdullah, “because we knew the climate of the community. At that time, Fayetteville Street was known for prostitution. It was known for drug dealing.”

Some of his tactics proved controversial. Abdullah would get up early in the morning and politely introduce himself to the street-corner prostitutes near the restaurant—and then try to dissuade them for being there.

“I would tell them, ‘It’s not safe for you to be out here,’” he says.

They usually declined his request for them to leave, so he moved on to plan B. He began walking up and down the street wearing a sandwich board. One sign read: “Hoes spread AIDS.” The other: “Hoes have AIDS.”

•

n an effort to—quite literally— clean up the neighborhood, BUFP runs Operation Clean Sweep, which gets residents involved in removing trash and graffiti from their neighborhoods, an attempt to foster personal commitments to neighborhoods and to neighbors. Abdullah says that volunteers will sometimes place a trash can on a street corner occupied by a drug dealer, and kindly ask that dealer to make sure passers-by throw their trash in it instead of on the street.

“They do it!” Abdullah says. “That’s how you approach people. The bigger effect is to make people more conscious. And then they see the drug dealers—they’re bringing out the positiveness in them. Because when God blessed one, God blessed all.”

As part of his community-building ambition, and to help him realize his dream for the Hayti area, Abdullah plans to enlist partners in the areas of drug rehabilitation, job training, mentoring, cooking classes and re-entry programs for ex-convicts. BUFP is working on a plan and courting partners, says Abdullah, and he hopes to start moving on that later this year.

“Our main aspiration is to get our own building, to have a full-service building where we could invite other nonprofits that are doing things that we’re not doing,” he says.

All he needs now, he adds, is to find some more partners—and a suitable spot.

Because, as he also likes to say, you need to make sure the wheel has spokes. s Danny Hooley is an INDY staff writer. Email him at dhooley@indyweek.com.

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THE HEART OF THE CITY

Raleigh’s made progress since the days when it threatened to arrest people for feeding the needy

BY BOB GEARY

S

aturday was a postcard day in James Davis, an encouraging word.

Details are on the foundation’s website January, and at the Oak City About the food: Inside, it was chili with (jamiekirkhahnfoundation.org). There’s Outreach Center in downtown rice, cornbread and trifle for dessert at sita meeting at the center at 6 p.m. on Jan. Raleigh, it felt like a block party. Inside and down tables, with loads of rolls; outside, 21 to answer questions and serve as a outside, folks were bouncing on their toes, there were bagged burgers to go from Cook networking opportunity for individuals and an amplified street preacher was going Out. It was plentiful, but heavy on the groups with ideas. strong in the parking lot and, when he took starch and light on veggies and fruit. o let me step back. That the Oak a break, a guy with a guitar jumped in to By the way, there’s no kitchen at the City center even exists should be sing “Lean On Me.” Several hundred men, center, and no refrigeration, which doesn’t thrilling to anyone who’s worked women and children were enjoying one help. Much of the food that volunteers bring with the homeless in Raleigh over the years another’s company—and a generous supply is paid for out of their pockets at a local or watched as the city kept pushing them of donated food and clothing. grocery. There’s got to be a better way. aside—until Aug. 24, 2013.

For the homeless and the needy, and the But my purpose isn’t to criticize. The city That was the Saturday that Raleigh police dozens of volunteers on hand to help them, has plans for a permanent, multiservice officers threatened to arrest the do-gooders it was splendid. center in the next 24–36 months, says who distributed food to the needy on I was drawn there because of the Shana Overdorf, the partnership’s director. weekends in Moore Square. Realize that $25,000 challenge grant being offered by a A kitchen and laundry facilities are pair of Raleigh nonprofits for the penciled in. It’s huge progress best idea to improve the quality from the bad old days in the ’90s of the food served at the center when Raleigh cut off aid to the “Food is an imtimate way of engaging with people. first homeless shelter that opened and at other sites for the poor around Wake County. downtown and instead shipped On both sides.”

The Jamie Kirk Hahn the homeless to an abandoned Foundation, whose mission is warehouse out on South to develop a new generation of Wilmington Street. weekends are when the kids don’t eat socially conscious leaders, teamed up with I returned on Sunday to visit with friends at school and the churches don’t open Clark’s Promise, which puts nurses on who are part of Food 4 Thought, a small their soup kitchens. An ad hoc bunch of the street to aid the homeless. The Hahn nonprofit in its ninth year of distributing volunteers and ministries was filling the gap. foundation honors the generosity of the food to the needy every Sunday, first in But the city had other ideas for Moore 29-year-old Raleigh activist killed three Moore Square and now at the center.

Square, including upscale development all years ago by a deranged friend. Clark’s Food 4 Thought is the one group that around. The poor weren’t in the plan.

Promise was established in memory of gives away not meals but groceries— Then somebody gave the wrong order.

Clark Grew, known for his mission work specifically, the unsold but perfectly good Raleigh found a heart that day. Out of it until his death in 2009 at age 24. fruits, vegetables, salads and other goodies came the center, which has been open for The foundation has focused on the lack that Trader Joe’s donates the same day.

19 months serving breakfast, lunch and of healthy food as a poverty issue, a special Dee O’Neal Pickering, a member of dinner—a total of 114,931 meals given to interest of Jamie Hahn’s. It’s a problem Food 4 Thought, is proud that they were 300–500 people on any given weekend by that resonates in Raleigh, with our thriving on the frontlines with the homeless when dozens of groups and individual volunteers. restaurant scene and so many of Jamie’s the city wasn’t. I asked her how the center The City Council established the center generation working around food and is faring. “I think it’s been absolutely in a temporary structure behind the old valuing it. wonderful,” she said. “The folks have Salvation Army building off Moore Square, The idea of the challenge is to draw on bathrooms, they have a place to wash which the city also owns. The Raleightheir knowledge of food supply, including their hands. It’s heated in winter.”

Wake Partnership to End and Prevent local farms, to get more fresh vegetables, Good point, because Sunday was cold Homelessness, an alliance of government fruits and nutritious foods to the table. and raw. and nonprofit agencies, runs it. Catholic Beyond that, says Alexis Trost, the I told her about the festive atmosphere Charities coordinates the donations. foundation’s executive director, it’s the day before. “That’s the way it is most If that sounds cumbersome, it isn’t. intended to forge relationships between weekends,” she responded. She paused and On Saturday, food and clothing were in givers and recipients and build awareness smiled. “It’s like family down there.” s abundance thanks to Brown Bag Ministries, of the problems faced by the homeless. based in Apex. Other, smaller groups “Food is an intimate way of engaging Bob Geary is an INDY columnist. Reach him offered toiletries or, in the case of preacher people,” she says. “On both sides.” at rjgeary@mac.com.

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SUSHI FOR EVERYONE

An encouraging guide for exploring sushi beyond the basics

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don’t remember the taste of the first sushi I ever ate, but I certainly remember the circumstances. I was in college and perpetually poor but in search of a place for a date that might make my budget appear bigger than it was. “What about two-for-one sushi?” a friend proposed, as if I understood what that meant. “Go to Sushi Blues on Glenwood Avenue—at night, everything is two for the price of one.”

That introduction to sushi now seems as inauspicious as it was unremarkable; lots of people, it seems, arrive at sushi by settling at a cheap place with some steal of a deal. And while that’s OK, of course, those strange specialty rolls, named for bygone N.C. State basketball stars and Hollywood heroes, don’t represent the breadth and bounds of the voluminous and sometimes mysterious world of sushi. Nor, at half-off, are they necessarily the cheapest option. It took me much too long to realize that, and more than a decade later, I feel like I’m just now beginning to comprehend sushi’s range of variety and versatility, let alone the tantalizing specifics.

The four stories that follow are attempts to explore sushi slightly outside of this comfort zone.

First, Sayaka Matsuoka explores the kaitenzushi serving system of the Chapel Hill institution Kurama and the couple who have made the little place accessible and open for UNC students for more than a decade. With the help of all-star area chefs and food distributors, Jill Warren Lucas takes a deep dive into the seemingly perilous waters of making sushi at home, only to discover it’s not so scary. Greg Barbera offers advice on what to (and what not to) drink with sushi. And I—yes, being the resident vegetarian—roam the area’s sushi restaurants in search of sushi that’s more than avocado wrapped in rice and end up delighted by the results.

This isn’t intended as a comprehensive guide to sushi in the Triangle, as the scene is massive and constantly morphing. Durham, for instance, will get a new downtown restaurant, M Sushi, by the end of this week. But it is, I hope, encouragement to pursue sushi beyond the California roll or the David Thompson, as Sushi Blues calls one of its creations.

But please proceed with caution when approaching the nattō. —Grayson Haver Currin

ROUND AND ROUND

Chapel Hill’s Kurama keeps the Triangle’s first kaitenzushi restaurant— and the best sushi values around—spinning BY SAYAKA MATSUOKA

M

y dad is a sushi chef.

He used to tell me how to differentiate the good sushi restaurants from the bad ones: The modern new places might look fresh and inviting, he would say, but the ones with the truly best sushi were stripped-down and bare, randomly decorated if at all. Kurama— located in a squat redbrick strip just off Franklin Street in Chapel Hill—would fit his old-school standards perfectly. And yes, Dad, the sushi is pretty good.

Inside, little trinkets adorn both the walls

TOP

and the sushi bar. A Japanese style curtain, or noren, displaying a geisha in an elaborate orange kimono, is all that separates the tallow-colored seating area from the rear kitchen. Maybe a hundred yards from the campus of UNC, Kurama’s ceiling is painted in the obligatory Carolina blue hue, a color that lights up the interior when the sun shines through the large glass windows.

But there is one distinct and rare physical draw that lures customers: a large, round conveyor belt on which rolls of colorful sushi and appetizers pass between waiting

The Scary Jerry roll at Raleigh’s Waraji

Hiroyuki Osada works behind the kaitenzushi conveyor belt at Kurama, the restaurant he owns just off Chapel Hill’s Franklin Sreet. The plates above his head indicate the prices of the dishes.

LEFT

RIGHT

All in a row: Sushi dishes make their way around the wheel.

PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER

INDYweek.com

eat & drink

in simplicity, much like the belt that spins at its center. It’s the kind of place you could pass the day just by drinking green tea and savoring the sight of an array of sushi as it makes laps.

I

customers gathered in wooden chairs and the chefs, working rapidly to keep the gray paddles that slide between stainless steel rails loaded with food. This is kaitenzushi, a decades-old system for satisfying customers not by taking and filling their orders with menus and servers but by tempting them with the actual food as it floats by. Grab what you want, and pay later.

Some conveyor belt-style sushi restaurants in New York and on the West

Coast have more lavish interiors. In Japan, many even boast electronic menus beside booths. At Mizu in North Raleigh, the kaitenzushi takes the form of a train.

But Kurama was the first Triangle restaurant to incorporate kaitenzushi, and it remains the basic, economical standard. Well into its second decade, the homey, unassuming Kurama is steadfast

t’s 11:30 a.m. on a weekday.

Kurama has just opened, and already, the belt is crowded with plates of colorful nigiri and rolls ready to be plucked by hungry customers. Pieces of salmon lay perfectly centered on top of keenly shaped mounds of rice. Tempura flakes top several rolls of flavorful sushi. Despite the humble setting, Kurama keeps a busy kitchen, preparing everything from sushi rolls and sashimi to appetizers like edamame and dumplings. They serve ramen, too.

After an extended Christmas break, UNC students are back for the first day of classes. Students and parents begin to trickle in as soon as Kurama opens, just as owner Hiroyuki Osada predicted they would. In this college town, Kurama’s cost is hard to beat. The restaurant boasts $1 California and avocado rolls and $7 ramen bowls; the most expensive item on the menu—a “UNC roll” stuffed with eel, tuna and shrimp tempura—tops out at $10.

A visual pricing diagram for the plates hangs from the wall. A yellow plate means $1, a blue plate $2. Looking at the colorcoded chart and then watching the plates pass by one at a time, I begin to understand just how much sushi you can have at Kurama for very little money.

As the customers arrive, Osada greets them with a kind “Happy New Year,” even remembering many of their names. He is the friendly neighborhood sushi chef, the self-made mascot of his momand-pop establishment. Kurama, after all, represents the fulfillment of his dream.

Osada and his wife, Vickie, took over the small kaitenzushi parlor in 2005, just four years after the shop opened. The restaurant’s owner, Hirofumi Ono, had decided to sell his company, consisting primarily of Kurama steakhouses scattered throughout the Southeast, including one seven miles away in Durham.

• JANUARY 20, 2016 •

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Rolling by, on the Kurama conveyor PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

Both Osada and Vickie had been working at the Kurama steakhouse in Hilton Head, South Carolina, when they received the offer to buy the sushi outlier.

With two daughters then aged 3 and 5, they decided to take the chance on a state they’d never visited.

“We knew that Chapel Hill had a great school system,” says Vickie. She grew up in Britain and met Osada in Hilton Head; remnants of a British accent still linger in her speech.

Osada—or Hiro, as Vickie and the other employees call him—is a seasoned sushi chef. His culinary career began in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo as a chef at a hotel’s French restaurant, but Osada soon moved into the sushi business.

“It was for survival,” he says. He knew that expertise in sushi could take him places he wanted to go—namely, the United States.

“It was my dream to come here.”

Soon enough, in 1994, Osada learned of an opportunity to work in South Carolina as a sushi chef for the Kurama chain. When he arrived, he spoke almost no English. He didn’t have a car, either.

Standing behind the sushi bar, he recalls attempting to walk to a South Carolina Wal-Mart near his apartment not long after his arrival.

“I didn’t make it there,” Osada says.

“It was too far, and I ended up buying a bicycle halfway and then going home.”

There was pronounced culture shock upon arrival, too. He was fascinated by his apartment complex’s pool, for instance, and confused every time a friendly American said “What’s up?”

“I kept thinking, what is ‘What’s up?’” he says, laughing. “Like the sky?”

When he wasn’t working, he would call his family back in Japan from a grocery store pay phone and collect Camel cigarette coupons to mail in for merchandise.

“I remember being so excited when I got my hat in the mail,” Osada says. “I felt like an American; I felt cool.”

Only a few years later, in 1999, the craft that brought him to America took him to the Masters golf tournament, where he built sushi rolls and sliced sashimi for the

Champion Dinner, the meal chosen by the tournament’s defending victor, Mark O’Meara. Osada still calls that moment his crowning achievement as a chef; a Japanese golf magazine even printed a photograph of him in an article about the event.

Once Osada starts talking about his past, he doesn’t like to stop. He speaks fondly of his experiences struggling as an immigrant, sharing one memory after another as if he’s slowly uncovering

dusty, forgotten corners of his mind.

“Are you sure this is what you want to hear?” he asks, as if catching himself midrecollection. He continues as he prepares more sushi, sliding it onto the belt.

As Osada speaks, I realize that this job now seems like second nature for him, as though he could make sushi in his sleep.

But even after a successful decade, Osada explains, running a kaiten shop is taihen, or difficult, full of unique challenges. Because

the nature of a kaiten shop means making an excess of sushi from which customers can pick, rather than making it to order, waste can be an issue.

“We stop making sushi for the belt two hours before we close,” he says. “We ask customers to make direct requests to the sushi chef after that. Otherwise, we have too much waste.”

And given the lack of kaiten-style sushi restaurants stateside, Kurama has to order repair pieces for the conveyor belt directly from Japan. And then there’s the issue of standing 10 hours each day to make more than 400 rolls of sushi. Ever since Kurama’s other long-time sushi chef, Andy Chen, left in late 2015 to manage Akashi in Durham, Osada has been the one making almost all of Kurama’s sushi.

“I have to ice my hands every night after I go home,” Osada, now 50, admits.

Since August, a former regular, Max Silva, has been working as the apprentice sushi chef at Kurama. He applied during one of his visits, and he helps produce sushi for the belt, occasionally learning a new roll. He hopes to help take a little of the load off Osada’s hands.

“It’s my favorite place,” Silva says. “I still eat out here on my days off.”

But Osada doesn’t seem eager to hop from behind the conveyor belt just yet. He explains the nuances of being a good sushi chef with pride and how it’s not just about making sushi; to him, it’s about remembering people’s orders and delivering the same quality every time.

He even speaks of his hope to open up a hibachi restaurant in Chapel Hill.

But for now, he focuses on the mound of rice and piece of fish at hand. He’s got to get them in line for the kids. ▲ Sayaka Matsuoka is a local freelance journalist, avid tea drinker and dog enthusiast.

KURAMA 105 N. Columbia St., Chapel Hill 919-968-4747 www.kuramasushinoodle.com

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SURFING THE TURF

Trawling the Triangle’s sushi restaurants in search of vegetarian delights

BY GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN

M

asatoshi Tsujimura looks across the counter of his North Raleigh sushi institution, Waraji, and smiles knowingly, as though he’s intuited a secret.

“You’ve never been here before, have you?” Tsujimura asks, guessing correctly.

“Well, have you ever had nattō?” he continues, glancing down at the thin white strip on which I’ve ordered nearly every vegetarian sushi roll his restaurant offers—cucumber and plum, seasoned kelp salad, pickled radish, avocado, egg, Japanese pickle, tofu skin and, finally, fermented soybeans, or nattō, the Marmite equivalent of Japan.

When I shake my head, Tsujimura frowns, not out of disappointment but out of concern for my well-being. He reaches beneath the corner and pulls out a clear plastic tube, no bigger than a pouch of cake frosting, and squeezes the end until a pale brown mound forms in an alabaster saucer. He quickly wipes his hands, daintily grabs the dish by its edges and swiftly extends his arm across the counter. He leans back, distancing his nose from the dish.

“Here, I’ll let you try a little bit,” he says, his face now expressionless, as though to tell me he really means it. “And if you like it, I’ll make it for you.”

And then he walks away.

Fermented soybeans resemble overboiled pinto beans that have been allowed to dehydrate in the summer sun, shriveling to a quarter of their size until they curl inward as if in shame. The beans, however little, produce a big smell, like a mixture of ammonia and sulfur simmering on a stovetop. And the beans hang together with translucent, gelatinous threads, as thin as spider web but twice as strange; pluck one away from the rest, as I did not long after Tsujimura stepped away, and you’ll have to lift and pull for a few feet until the strand finally snaps.

But it does, and I eat one, two, then three. When Tsujimura finally returns, he looks at the quarter-empty dish and agrees to go ahead with the order. Though he was born in a fishing village in Japan, where nattō is something of a superfood, and has been making sushi in America since 1982 and at Waraji since opening the place in 1997, Tsujimura admits he has never eaten nattō, not even gotten it past his nose.

By a thread: natt¯o, or fermented soybean, at Raleigh’s Waraji PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

But I have passed his test, and he will roll it. Hey, if I’m going to try Waraji’s vegetarian sushi options, I might as well try them all.

V

egetarian sushi sounds strange, of course, since our standard operating definition of sushi often runs something like “raw fish wrapped in rice.” But it’s as easy to roll the rice around produce as it is seafood.

Though the incorporation of vegetables in sushi is a somewhat recent Western pastime for the millennia-old Eastern technique, it’s not without its historical precedents.

Tamagoyaki, the sweetened and layered egg omelet that’s often considered an ultimate test of sushi chefs, dates back several centuries. (If you’ve seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi, you’ve seen one of his apprentices try and fail to make it to the master’s standards more than 200 times.)

Indeed, vegetarian sushi has been around for so long that at least two distinct camps have emerged. There are those chefs who, like Waraji’s Tsujimura, keep it simple, delivering basic ingredients in tight, crisp rolls. And there are those cooks whose postmodern zeal for everything all the time (or perhaps that belongs to their audience instead) compels them to stuff an entire pantry of ingredients between the grains; the small chain The Cowfish features a mushroom-and-basil-and-peppers creation called the “Birkenstocky Shiitake Maki.”

The possibilities of sushi as a form have inspired vegetarian and vegan chefs, too. At Raleigh’s Fiction Kitchen, for instance, chef Caroline Morrison approximates sashimi by slicing tofu in uniform pieces, searing it cleanly and coating it with sesame seeds. The strips accompany bits of sushi, with a mix of greens and grains and root vegetables bound by nori; somehow, the moist mix suggests the sea.

Like sea-based sushi, though, herbivore sushi hinges largely on the freshness and flavor of the featured ingredients and the chef’s particular combination of imagination and concentration. And so, it can be maddeningly boring or bad.

During a recent weekday lunch, I settled into a bar-side seat at Basan in Durham, a chic space sandwiched between the city’s entertainment jewels, the ballpark and the theater. Consistent with a menu featuring specialty rolls bearing titles such as “Screaming O” and “Sharkbite,” the plant-based options were either audacious or elementary. I opted for a little of both, selecting a cheap lunch-only roll with roasted red pepper perched atop rice bearing cucumber and avocado along with two more ostentatious offerings—the $10 Bonsai and the $9 Garden.

The Bonsai certainly sounded intriguing, with a wrapper

music& drink eat made not of rice but soy paper-lined cucumber, carefully curled around a core of avocado and broccoli, tempura green beans and asparagus. Soy-soaked salsa came ladled over the top. The Garden also held promise, with a wide, tempting smear of mustard-heavy dressing above red peppers draped around rice that tucked tomato, avocado and cucumber inside. Likewise, the tamagoyaki looked fascinating, with long, thick, tempeh-like strips of the egg ingeniously bracketed to a pillow of rice with a band of nori.

Maybe two pieces into each roll, though, I began peeling the layers apart, digging into the innards to discover that the produce simply didn’t have much character. The pale tomatoes and limp asparagus, pallid cucumber and withered broccoli suggested a discount salad bar, not a pricey lunch. And the tamagoyaki was cloyingly sweet, as if I’d ordered eggs and pancakes at an IHOP and allowed the maple syrup from one to flood out the other.

The rolls were slipshod, anyway, with uneven construction and layers that started to fall apart long before I began pulling them asunder. I turned my attention, instead, to the delicious edamame, wrenched in a wet bath of peppers and garlic. I devoured that as if in a trance, wondering whether or not Basan treated its fish with the same disregard for quality control. For its sake, I hoped not.

Perhaps Basan should take notes from An, the upscale but only slightly pricier Cary restaurant that often aces its uncanny fusion of Asian roots and Southern geography. An has but one vegetarian roll on its sushi menu, the Vegetable Mango; it alone is worth the trip.

The usual combination of avocado and cucumber joins lotus root and the carrotlike yamabogo, or pickled burdock root.

On top, spiced slices of room temperature mango provide a sweet slick for crispy ginger pieces, perched atop like prawn exoskeletons.

And when I asked the waiter if the kitchen had any off-menu vegetarian options, he replied with delight, as if he’d been waiting all night to be asked.

The result—a sans-rice, daikon-wrapped assemblage of meticulous greens and pickled vegetables—executed Basan’s basic Bonsai idea with attention and acumen.

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Waraji’s Masatoshi Tsujimura

His cucumber and plum roll

PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER

consistently executing familiar dishes rather than pushing them into flights of fancy or whimsy.

Perhaps that pragmatism is why, at meal’s end, he looks over the counter and chuckles at the strings extending from the half-eaten nattō order. A few beans by themselves were fine, maybe even appealing, but concentrated inside a rice wrap? Each piece was a fight to swallow. He knew that might happen.

In Japan, Tsujimura says, people claim it fights cancer, that those sticky tendrils wrap around and paralyze the cells. But here tonight in North Raleigh, they only stick to and stain our hands with an acrid smell.

“Hey,” Tsujimura says, “you tried.” s It was a delight, as was the tamagoyaki, which balanced the essence of the egg with the sweetness of the omelet.

An takes such care with its ingredients that I, as a vegetarian, could even eat the roe, which the chefs guaranteed had been harvested from living fish. (If you want to see an Internet brouhaha, read up on that debate, or don’t.) When the meal was done, I longed for that nameless, daikonwrapped roll but decided against ordering another one.

Closing time seemed near.

I

don’t know that I’d make the same off-menu request of Tsujimura, though Waraji’s vegetarian sushi wooed me like no others. Simplicity is his key.

His cucumber and plum roll, for instance, wraps the crisp vegetables and savory purple sauce in a mild Japanese mint that he even attempts to grow at home for the restaurant. It’s irresistible.

Likewise, his tofu skin sushi uses the outermost layer of tofu like a pigskin for soft rice. That’s what it tastes like, too, with the tofu suggesting a more pliable, less greasy version of cracklings. Each bite balances sweet and savory with the precision of an Olympic gymnast. If the chefs at An are fusion-minded dreamers, he seems to be a reality-based doer,

Grayson Haver Currin is the managing+music editor of the INDY.

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LET ME ROLL IT

Five top Triangle food experts share their secrets for home sushi

BY JILL WARREN LUCAS

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHRIS WILLIAMS

Making sushi at home can seem quite intimidating. You may think you have to buy several varieties of fish, appropriate vegetables and accompanying spices and seeds.

You need to cook rice with the right consistency and texture. And you need to have the techniques and tools required to put it all together.

But, according to four Triangle chefs and one fish supplier, it doesn’t have to be so mystifying or demanding, so long as you know what you’re shopping for—and what you already have. These tips should make your next home sushi experience tastier and a little more homemade.

Rice rules

In sushi, there is no ingredient more important than rice. The name “sushi” even refers to the type of rice used to make a vast array of rolls, plus the pillows used to support glistening strips of seafood in nigiri.

Mike Lee, of Raleigh’s Sono and Durham’s M Sushi, expected to open downtown this week, says it is essential to use the best available rice—the “super premium” varieties koshihikari or tamanishiki. Available at select Asian markets in the Triangle, they are prized for their inherently sweet, slightly nutty flavor and starchiness. And if you find bags marked “new crop,” consider yourself a winner of the sushi Powerball. If you can’t find those varieties, says Lee, go for the best Japanese or Korean brands you can find.

“It’s sad to see that a lot of sushi restaurants in the area don’t pay attention to how important the rice is,” says Lee, whose staff makes several 50-cup batches throughout lunch and dinner service. Rice will vary from bag to bag, even in the same brand, based on when it was grown and how long it’s been stored. He makes a test batch with every new bag to ensure quality and gauge cooking time.

According to Lee, rice should be rinsed well enough before cooking that water will run clear through it in a colander.

A heavy-bottom pot with a tight lid, like a Dutch oven, is ideal for cooking rice. If you lack patience to watch the pot boil, Lee recommends investing in a highquality electric rice cooker. (Again, go with a Japanese or Korean brand.) When the rice is done cooking, transfer it to a wide, shallow bowl; wood is ideal, but start with what you’ve got.

“You have to mix in the seasoned vinegar right away, while it’s piping hot,” says Lee, who uses a dimpled, paddle-shaped spatula to cut in the vinegar and coat all the grains.

“Then you want to cool it down quickly so the excess moisture is controlled. A piece of cardboard works great.”

The seasoned rice wine vinegar sold at most grocery stores and even some Asian markets is, like its balsamic counterparts, not authentic. Lee considers most brands a poor substitute for a recipe you can do yourself. The basic ratio is 3 parts rice wine vinegar to 1 part sugar and one-half part salt—or 6 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon salt. Tweak this depending on how sweet you like your rice or if you’d like to add kombu (edible kelp), umami or citrus.

“As long as you keep it close to the basic ratio,” Lee says, “you can be as creative as you like.”

Pickling, unpackaged

When Charlie Deal of Durham’s Jujube wants sushi, he heads to his favorite “hidden gem” in the city, Kurama. “It’s the last place you’d expect, because it looks like a dated Japanese steak house,” Deal says.

“But the sushi there is impeccable,

especially if you let the guy do his thing.”

Though Deal doesn’t attempt sushi at Jujube, some of the dishes do come with pickled ginger. He encourages home cooks to dispense with the prepackaged pink stuff and make their own.

“I’ve always seen pickled ginger being made from young ginger, which I can’t always find,” says Deal, who was initially skeptical when chef Miguel Gordillo made it with mature ginger. But it worked. “It’s delicious, and it’s even got a nice texture.”

Young ginger can be pickled by just soaking in hot brine. Mature ginger, however, needs to be simmered in brine.

Here’s how they do it at Jujube.

INGREDIENTS 150 grams ginger, peeled and thinly sliced, preferably with a mandoline 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 3/4 cup mirin 3/4 cup rice wine vinegar 4 tablespoons white sugar

Combine everything in a heavybottom saucepan and simmer uncovered for 45 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Transfer ginger and remaining brine to a sealable container.

from powder, which often contains no real wasabi at all.

“There’s a surprising sweetness to freshly grated wasabi,” Gettles says. “And it should be used soon after you grate it. If you wait until the next day, the flavor will be super muted.”

Gettles recommends buying wasabi from an Asian market where produce is frequently replenished. Such stores often sell ceramic or sharkskin boards for grating it traditionally, but a Microplane is just as effective.

Still, if the fresh wasabi is a bit more assertive than you like, Gettles suggests taming it with a dash of mirin, or sweetened rice wine.

While he has not served sushi at Piedmont, Gettles has used wasabi to brighten a classic beurre monté, a melted butter sauce. “Finishing it with a little wasabi adds depth,” he explains. “Wasabi also pairs nicely with cilantro, so it’s great in something like a cucumber gazpacho.”

While the plant does not thrive in the Southern climate (or many at all, really), Gettles plans to use locally grown wasabi microgreens in salads this spring and, hopefully, larger leaves later as a wrapper for steamed fish.

“I’ve got a couple of small farmers set to grow leaves for me,” he says. “I’ve never tried this, but I think the flavor will be unreal.”

Cry for wasabi

Early in his kitchen career, a boss tasked Greg Gettles with turning harsh wasabi powder into the thick green paste served with sushi.

“I cried,” admits Gettles, now the executive chef at Piedmont in Durham. “It’ll light you up for sure.

That’s why it was such a big deal to me to taste real wasabi for the first time.”

Fresh wasabi root looks similar to horseradish but has a vibrant green tint.

It’s not as hot as wasabi made

Fair fish warning

Consider yourself warned: Eating raw seafood can cause food-borne illness.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and I like to be clear,” says Lin Peterson of Raleigh’s Locals Seafood, which provides fresh catches for Triangle chefs and home cooks alike. “Just as with raw oysters, there is an inherent risk in

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A home sushi party in Durham

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eating raw fish in sushi.”

Peterson says 99 percent of fish served in sushi restaurants has been frozen to -40 degrees Fahrenheit, not only for convenient transport but also to kill potentially harmful bacteria. This is even required by some state and local health departments.

“And there is no such thing as ‘sushi grade’ fish,” he says. “We sell fresh fish, and we know exactly where it came from, when it left the water, when it was cut and when it was sold.”

If you don’t buy your fish from a seller who can vouch for such stock, chances are you should not experiment with uncooked seafood in your homemade sashimi or rolls. If you do, Peterson offers a few tips.

First, choose a whole fish, like black sea bass or Spanish mackerel, instead of a trimmed fillet, which begins to break down as soon as it’s exposed to air.

“Grouper and snapper can work, as well as triggerfish and tilefish,” Peterson says.

“If you like tuna, look for a section of bigeye or yellowfin, which are running now.

They have a nice fat content, which makes for great flavor.”

Second, keep the fish super cold, preferably on ice. And then, use your best, sharpest knife to cut thin, even slices.

For garnish, Peterson suggests golden rainbow trout caviar from Sunburst Trout Farms, located in the mountain town of Canton, instead of the salty orange beads of salmon roe.

Refrigerator rolls

Freaked out about raw fish? Stop fretting and do what Gray Brooks does: Make sushi rolls at home using leftover proteins, like those last few bites of a great steak.

“When you’re eating a steak as sushi, you can stretch what would normally be a snack into a whole portion of dinner,” says the Pizzeria Toro chef. “And it’s delicious.”

Brooks likes making steak sushi for other reasons, too.

“I don’t have special sushi knives, and I don’t want to have to buy four or five different kinds of fish,” he says. “This is just so much easier.”

It’s best to slice leftover steak straight from the refrigerator, when it’s cold and firm. To ensure a tender bite, cut across the grain.

Brooks likes to have an avocado on hand for his steak sushi. Otherwise, he can be spontaneous about making the rolls because he keeps a stash of essentials in his pantry—rice and seasoned rice wine vinegar, mirin, sheets of nori and togarashi, a seven-flavor Japanese chili sauce. He also reserves a bottle of especially good soy sauce for dipping.

“It really is worth spending a little more money to get a high-end soy sauce,” he says. “The subtleties are amazing.” s Jill Warren Lucas is a Raleigh writer who blogs at Eating My Words. Follow her at @jwlucasnc.

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RICE COLD

A guide to five common Japanese beers— and practical advice on what else to drink with sushi

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ice is, of course, synonymous with Japanese food. It is part of, or an accompaniment to, most meals and often eaten by itself. So it is no surprise that most Japanese beers are rice lagers, meaning rice is used as an adjunct in making the beverage, just as with sake.

Like hops in other parts of the world, different rice varietals impart distinct flavor profiles. While the macro Japanese rice lagers (think Budweiser’s analogues) tend to use a flavorless grain, craft beer maker Hitachino has turned to sake for inspiration. The company uses a variety of grains like Omachi (rich and earthy) and Yamada Nishiki (soft and fragrant) to achieve interesting flavors during the brewing process.

I’ve explored five Japanese beers offered at local sushi joints. Remember, though, that having sushi doesn’t mean you must stick with Japanese beer. Germany’s Ritterguts Gose is a tarty sour with a salty, mineral-like finish that works well with the fish, while Duck Rabbit’s Milk Stout, from Kinston, helps tame the heat of spicy foods through milk. Or consider a classic Czechstyle pilsner (like Oskar Blues’ Mama’s Little Yella Pils) or Haw River’s Rusted Plow Farmhouse Saison, an earthy brew

made with local honey and dry-hopped with Sorachi Ace, a Japanese hop.

KIRIN ICHIBAN: Calling itself “100% malt, first press,” Kirin is a yellow, fizzy, bland lager—tantamount to the Budweiser of Japan in popularity and taste. Indeed, the beer is made stateside by Anheuser-Busch.

This very carbonated lager has a dry, ricewafer-like finish. It can be found in most sushi restaurants.

SAPPORO: This is the oldest beer in Japan, first brewed in 1876. It’s cheap, light and refreshing, without much complexity that might spoil your palate pre-sushi. Look for it on draft at Basan in Durham.

HITACHINO: The only Japanese craft beer on this list is undoubtedly the most complex. Hitachino XH is matured in sake casks, and it’s highly recommended.

Hitachino has some Belgian-inspired ales, too; the Hitachino Nest white ale, for instance, has a grassy, peppery essence with hints of orange peel and coriander at the finish. Though amber in color, the Red Rice Ale, the company’s take on a Belgian golden, has the sweetness of a strawberryand-red vinegar concoction. At 7 percent ABV, it drinks like a hard soda. Look for these in local bottle shops.

ASAHI DRY: The beer that started the “dry wars,” as it was the first to adopt the term. Dry refers to a fully attenuated pale lager, meaning all of the sugars used in the fermentation process make it stronger in alcohol and what’s essentially a “diet” beer. It is commonly served in a 22-ounce can. Order one next time you visit Carrboro’s Akai Hana.

LUCKY BUDDHA: This one pours a golden straw with very little head retention. I try desperately to get a whiff, and it smells like nothing at all. Even PBR has a smell. It tastes like nothing. Even Corona Light has a flavor. This beer just “is,” which makes it more Taoist, right? It claims to bring good fortune and enlightenment, and, at under 5 percent, it’s definitely not going to overpower anything you are eating.

Hey, the bottle is cool, like a little Buddha figurine. I think I’ll top it with a candle and let the wax drip down all over it. Suddenly I feel like a hippie. Maybe there is something in this beer... Available at local bottle shops. ▲ Greg Barbera is a freelance writer living in Durham, specializing in beer and automobiles.

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RESTAURANT LISTINGS

Asian MURA AT NORTH HILLS 4121 Main at North Hills St., Raleigh • 919-781-7887 • Monday-Thursday 11 am-10 pm, Friday 11 am-11 pm, Saturday 12 noon-11 pm, Sunday 12 noon-9 pm • www. muranorthhills.com • Specializing in flavorful Japanese cuisine and one-of-a-kind sushi rolls, Mura has been one of North Hill’s most popular restaurants since opening in 2005. Our menu features steaks, sushi and Japanese fare. The drink menu offers everything from Japanese beers and local craft brews to Asianinspired cocktails and sake.

Bakery GUGLHUPF BAKERY & PATISSERIE 2706 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd., Durham • 919-401-2600 • Tuesday-Friday 7:30 am-6 pm, Saturday 7:30 am-5 pm, Sunday 8:30 am-2 pm, closed Monday • www. guglhupf.com • Traditional European baking merges with a more contemporary style at this awardwinning bakery that produces daily artisan breads, classic tortes, individual desserts and pastries.

Also offers a selection of high-quality foods and condiments from fellow NC producers ranging from pepper jelly to free-range eggs. The bakery adjoins Guglhupf Café & Restaurant featuring local and seasonal fare with a southern German twist.

BBQ THE BLUE NOTE GRILL 709 Washington St., Durham • 919-401-1979 • Open Tuesday-Friday 11 am, Saturday-Sunday 12 pm • www.thebluenotegrill.com • Serving ribs, BBQ, burgers and more with full bar and live music nightly.

Cafe GUGLHUPF CAFÉ & RESTAURANT 2706 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd., Durham • 919401-2600 • Closed Monday. Breakfast & lunch: Tuesday-Friday 8 am-4:30 pm, Brunch: Saturday 8 am-3 pm, Sunday 9 am-3 pm. Dinner: TuesdayFriday 5:30-9:30 pm, Saturday 5:30-10 pm • www. guglhupf.com • Upscale, modern comfort food in a casual setting. Atmosphere is eclectic in this

vibrant, architecturally striking European restaurant.

Seasonal menus feature southern German-inspired dishes and small plates using fresh, local ingredients. Notable beer and wine list. Fresh artisan breads from Guglhupf’s adjoining bakery and delectable house-made desserts. Beautiful patio for outdoor dining.

HONEYSUCKLE TEA HOUSE 8871 Pickards Meadow Road, Chapel Hill • 919-9039131 • Sunday-Thursday 9 am-9 pm, Friday-Saturday 9 am-10 pm • www.honeysuckleteahouse.com • The Honeysuckle Teahouse is an apothecary café designed to nourish, revitalize and improve the health of our community. Come visit our beautiful farm setting where over 80 medicinal herbs, teas and fruits grow. We offer a large array of beverages and foods, including smoothies, teas, coffee, kombucha, baked goods and herbal chocolates.

IRREGARDLESS CAFÉ 901 W Morgan Street, Raleigh • 919-833-8898 ext 0 • Lunch: Tuesday-Friday 11 am-2:30 pm; Dinner: TuesdaySaturday 5-9:30 pm and later. Brunch Saturday-Sunday 10 am-2:30 pm • www.irregardless.com • Traditional Serving hand-crafted meals in downtown Raleigh since 1975, featuring farm to table cuisine in the café and at all catering events. Great live music nightly.

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These listings are published as a special paid advertising section. To list your restaurant, please contact your advertising representative or Ruth Gierisch (rgierisch@indyweek.com). You may submit or update a free listing to our online database at anytime by filling out our electronic form. Go to www.indyweek. com and choose “Submit or update a dining listing” from the Food section in the top navigation bar.

NASHER MUSEUM CAFE 2001 Campus Drive, Durham • 919-684-6032 • Brunch Saturday 11 am-3 pm, Sunday 12-3 pm; Lunch: Full menu - Tuesday-Friday 11 am-3 pm, limited menu 3-4 pm, beverages 4-4:30 pm. Dinner: Thursday 5-9 pm , last seating at 8 pm. • nasher.duke.edu/cafe • The Nasher Museum Café menu changes seasonally and features locally sourced products. Artisanal cheese plates, salads, sandwiches and more. Purchase of admission to the museum not required.

THE ROOT CELLAR CAFÉ & CATERING 750Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill • 919-9673663 • Open daily 7:30 am-8 pm • www.rootcellarchapelhill.com • The Root Cellar Café & Catering serves scratch-made breakfast, lunch and dinner options made with seasonal veggies & in-house roasted meats in a cozy, community-focused space.

We offer weekly prepared take home Family Dinners and Paleo Dinner for those on the go.

Chocolatier VIDERI CHOCOLATE FACTORY 327 W. Davie St., Suite 100, Raleigh • 919-755-5053 • Tuesday-Thursday 11 am-7 pm, Friday-Saturday 11 am-9 pm, Closed Sunday-Monday • www.viderichocolatefac-

tory.com • The story of Videri’s bean-to-bar chocolate begins on a handful of lush cacao plantations located throughout Central and South America.

Purchasing select beans across these regions based on pricing and availability, and commitment to achieving fair-trade and organic status whenever possible, has resulted in some of the finest chocolate you’ll ever taste. Come visit Sam, Starr and Chris today.

Community Kitchens MIDWAY COMMUNITY KITCHEN 505 W. Rosemary St., Chapel Hill • info@midwaycommunitykitchen.com • www.midwaycommunitykitchen. com • Midway Community Kitchen is a commercial and community kitchen. We rent space for food business owners to prepare and sell their food. We host hands-on cooking classes. We have pop-up markets and monthly community dinners. Come learn cooking skills and techniques, try out new recipes and create connections with each other, community members and neighbors.

Eclectic/New American MORE. 116 N. West St., Raleigh • 919-926-8415 • MondayThursday 4-10 pm, Friday-Saturday 4 pm-12 am • www.jmrkitchens/more • Fresh, local, simple... yet complex. Hand-crafted small plates with each ingredient in gentle balance. The wine collection features 160+ eclectic and uniquely distinct bottles covering a breadth of offerings from various countries, regions and varietals.

Weekday specials. Private wine lockers.

THE OAK 4035 Lake Boone Trail, Raleigh • 919-787-9100 • Monday-Thursday 4-10 pm, Friday-Saturday 4-11 pm, Sunday 4-9 pm • www.jmrkitchens.com/oak • Kitchen and bourbon bar using fresh ingredients to create simple yet elevated fare. Seasonal menu with scratch-made dishes. Enjoy our large bourbon selection, craft cocktails, our houseaged bourbons, bourbon dinners, bourbon tastings, and our adopt-a-barrel bourbon program.

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eat & drink TASTE 3048 Medlin Drive, Raleigh • 919-322-0568 • MondayThursday 4-10 pm, Friday-Saturday 4-11 pm, Sunday 4 -9 pm • www.jmrkitchens/taste • Small plates that achieve the elusive, cuisine-defining balance of sweet, salty and sour. Rotating seasonal selections with signature favorites always available. Our wine list is carefully cultivated, with access to owner’s private wine reserve. Bar, patio and dining room seating.

Japanese AKAI HANA RESTAURANT 206 W. Main St., Carrboro • 919-942-6848 • Lunch: Monday-Saturday 11:30 am-2 pm, Dinner: MondayThursday 5-9:30pm, Friday & Saturday 5-10:30 pm, Sunday 5-9 pm • www.akaihana.com • Akai Hana is Carrboro’s favorite sushi bar since 1997. Serving traditional Japanese cuisine and the Triangle’s freshest and most creative sushi has made us a perennial Indy Best of contender and Chapel Hill News Rose Award winner. And we’re a friendly service-oriented neighborhood restaurant tucked away in trendy Carrboro.

BASAN BULL CITY SUSHI 359-220 Blackwell St., Durham • 919-797-9728 • MondayThursday 11 am-2 pm & 4-10 pm, Friday 11 am-2 pm & 4-11 pm, Saturday 12-11 pm, Sunday 4-9 pm • www. basanrestaurant.com • Basan’s modern Japanese cuisine, intriguing appetizers, entrees, unique sushi rolls, an extensive selection of sake and more, highlights the best of Japanese cuisine in upscale yet comfortable ambiance. Whether you’re stopping in before a show at DPAC, just craving sushi, or are planning a private event, we look forward to serving you soon!

KANKI JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE & SUSHI BAR Crabtree Valley Mall, 4325 Glenwood Ave., Raleigh • 919-782-9708 • 4500 Old Wake Forest Road, Raleigh • 919-876-4157 • 3504 Mt. Moriah Road, Durham • 919401-6908 • Monday-Thursday 11:30 am-2 pm, 4:30-9:30 pm; Friday 11:30 am-2 pm, 4:30-10:30 pm, Saturday 12 noon-10:30 pm, Sunday 12 noon-9:30 pm • www. kanki.com • When you step into one of our three Japanese steakhouse and sushi bar locations in the Triangle, you’ll be met with personalized service, a warm atmosphere, and a menu to cater to every taste. Kanki offers the perfect setting for a memorable family dinner, unique date night, festive birthday celebration, other special occasion – or just because.

MURA AT NORTH HILLS 4121 Main at North Hills St., Raleigh • 919-781-7887 • Monday-Thursday 11 am-10 pm, Friday 11 am-11 pm, Saturday 12 noon-11 pm, Sunday 12 noon-9 pm • www.muranorthhills.com • Specializing in flavorful Japanese cuisine and one-of-a-kind sushi rolls, Mura has been one of North Hill’s most popular restaurants since opening in 2005. Our menu features steaks, sushi and Japanese fare. The drink menu offers everything from Japanese beers and local craft brews to Asian-inspired cocktails and sake.

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Mediterranean SASSOOL 9650 Strickland Road, Raleigh • 919-847-2700 • 1347 Kildaire Road, Cary • 919-300-5586 • Monday-Saturday 11 am-10 pm • www.sassool.com • Sassool is a family-owned restaurant serving authentic Lebanese and Mediterranean cuisine in a fast-casual setting. In addition to fresh, healthy Mediterranean fare, Sassool offers an interesting selection of specialty groceries and baked goods.

Mexican CARRBURRITOS 711 W. Rosemary St., Carrboro • 919-933-8226 • MondaySaturday 11 am-10 pm • www.carrburritos.com • Superfresh Mexican food made to order in a lively, casual setting. Choose from eight distinctive fillings including house-made chorizo, vegetarian options (check out Tofu Tuesdays!) and chicken and fish right off the grill. Enjoy the famous salsas and margaritas.

Dine inside or on the garden patio.

Pizza BRIXX WOOD FIRED PIZZA 501 Meadowmont Village Circle, Meadowmont Village, Chapel Hill • 919-929-1942 / 8511-101 Briercreek Pkwy, Raleigh • 919-246-0640 / Cameron Village, 402 Oberlin Road, Raleigh • 919-723-9370 / 1111 Parkside Main, Cary • 919-674-4388 • Monday-Saturday 11 am-1 am; Sunday 11 am-11 pm • www.brixxpizza.com • Brixx Wood Fired Pizza is a fun, friendly, neighborhood restaurant that serves the best brick oven pizza, pasta and salads. The pizza is handcrafted and served hot from the wood-burning oven while you enjoy one of 24 great beers on tap or 14 wines by the glass.

Brixx is known for great outdoor dining and serving late night (until 1 a.m.)!

LILLY’S PIZZA 810 Peabody St., Durham • 919-797-2554 / 1813 Glenwood Ave., Raleigh • 919-833-0226 • SundayThursday 11 am-10 pm, Friday & Saturday 11 am-11 pm • www.lillyspizza.com • Voted the Triangle’s Best Pizza in the INDY’s 1997-2015 readers’ polls. Featuring a locally sourced and organic menu. Vegetarian friendly. Large beer and wine selection. Takeout and delivery. Located next to Morgan Imports at Peabody Place in Historic Durham and historic Five Points in Raleigh.

Southern BELLE @ THE JONES HOUSE 324 S. Academy St., Cary • 919-378-9724 • SundayMonday 9 am-3 pm, Tuesday-Thursday 9 am-9 pm, Friday-Saturday 9 am-11 pm • www.belleofcary.com • Farm to table restaurant and bakery located in beautiful historic Cary house. Focus on fresh and healthy. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options. Daily lunch and dinner specials. Local craft beer on tap and full bar. Weekend brunchtry our Belle Benedict! Catering and specialty cakes available.

Burritos-Tacos-Nachos-Housemade Salsa-Margaritas!

711 W Rosemary St • Carrboro • carrburritos.com • 919.933.8226

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BARS & RUNGS

Corporate benefactors, networking summits, radio appearances: Can Professor Toon’s debut, Take Notes, make him more than Durham’s rap spokesperson?

BY ERIC TULLIS | PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER

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t’s a little before noon on a Friday, and Kurrell Rice is slumped over in a chair in the lobby of WUNC-FM, sinking deep into its cushions. In an hour, the Durham rapper, better known as Professor Toon, will field questions from Frank Stasio on The State of Things and even perform a few songs from his debut LP, Take Notes.

But for now, Toon eavesdrops on an off-air conversation between Stasio and UNC-Chapel Hill professor Kenneth Janken, another of the day’s guests. Stasio is busily familiarizing himself with Janken’s new book, The Wilmington Ten: Violence, Injustice, and the Rise of Black Politics in the 1970s. Stasio quotes a passage: “The river is choked with bodies,” he says, referencing the African-Americans believed to have been murdered and dumped in the Cape Fear River during the race riots of 1898.

“Text that to me,” Toon tells me.

He wants to revisit the morose phrase for a future rap line.

On air at last, Toon describes Take Notes as a cross between a sermon and a party.

It’s a hard-edged, largely guest-free album, devoid of the kind of big hooks that might land him on radio stations known more for rap segments than talk shows. Toon tells Stasio that one of his collaborators—the producer Made of Oak, or Nick Sanborn of the pop duo Sylvan Esso—has even dubbed this “dark trap music.”

“That’s to distinguish it from ‘von Trapp music,’” Stasio jokes.

Toon pretends to get the Sound of Music reference, but he doesn’t. Later in the interview, Toon returns the favor by saying “ball is life.” This time, it’s Stasio who plays along.

“But that’s a whole ’nother conversation,” Toon continues, unfazed. “Music and my former athletic abilities—that’s what soothes me, man. It’s almost like meditation.”

Toon refers to his athletic prowess in the past tense, but sportsmanship remains an integral part of his existence—and, in some ways, his budding career. He’s coached women’s wrestling, and these days during

Searching for a signal: Professor Toon at a radio interview in Raleigh

pickup basketball games, he’s called “Spidey” for his nimble nature.

The nickname also applies to his off-thecourt savvy. He has the ability to keep his hands in many places at once, weaving a web of unlikely connections. That ability to network has made Toon an unlikely area favorite, positioning him as the Triangle’s next potential rap riser. From Stasio’s show to the domain of corporate benefactors, from festival main stages to indie producer music videos, Toon continues to go places where few other local rappers dare to venture. Now, he hopes, Take Notes can take him farther.

T

he chemistry didn’t always come so easily.

In 2009, Toon met fellow rapper The Real Laww through a mutual friend, and the aspiring emcees became fast friends. That same year, though, Laww, a Marine, learned he had to dispatch to a tour in Iraq. He left the studio equipment he’d just purchased with Toon; when he returned two years later, Toon had become a self-taught musician.

The two banded together as a likeable

if mismatched rap duo—Professor Toon, the Baltimore-bred street thinker, and The Real Laww, the Marine who, before moving to Durham, failed at an attempt to make it big. The pair released an EP, You Know the Name/End the Beginning, through local label Cardigan Records in 2013.

Toon wasn’t happy with the results.

“When I listened, I thought that all of the stuff I recorded was kind of wack,” says Toon. “I didn’t feel like it was ready to be put out there. But I could see my music taking a different path. I wanted to explore that path and cultivate a new voice.”

He and The Real Laww built and maintained an impressive area fanbase.

But without any substantial releases, their reputation stemmed from social visibility and enthusiasm, not musical triumphs.

Toon had learned to network. In 2011, for instance, he worked at Durham’s The Scrap Exchange when the store’s roof collapsed. City officials condemned the building, and local musicians organized a daylong benefit to raise money for subsequent relocation. Toon performed at that show and met Megafaun’s Phil

Cook who, in turn, introduced him to Made of Oak, now Toon’s occasional producer and partner. In 2012, at the recommendation of Durham’s Pierce Freelon, Toon found himself opening for American Idol alum Anoop Desai during a collegiate tour. Even the Durham cafe Cocoa Cinnamon named drinks after Toon and The Real Laww.

“I have no fucking idea how we kept a fanbase,” says Toon, his chip-toothed chuckle betraying genuine confusion at his reputation. “There was a time period where I needed to book shows, but I wasn’t putting out any material.

That’s why we took a break. We thought that people would get tired of seeing us, knowing we hadn’t broke on a national level yet. But we were so busy with shows, charities, hosting gigs and the DURM Hip Hop Summit.”

Toon’s knack for networking recently led to his biggest role yet—as the rapperin-residence at American Underground, the sprawling start-up network headquartered in downtown Durham.

Last October, during the three-day Black Wall Street Homecoming conference in Durham, Toon met the New York rapper Divine. A year earlier, Divine, who claims credit for creating “tech-hop,” met Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z. Divine wrote the theme song for the firm, and Horowitz named Divine “the official a16z rapper.”

Though Divine says now it was “more so a title than an actual purpose,” he believes his appearance in Durham helped prompt American Underground’s executives to find a similar fit for Toon.

“American Underground has attracted national attention for its concerted efforts to engage the full array of talent in our diverse community, and Professor Toon is a perfect example,” says Adam Klein, the chief strategist at American Underground.

“Toon brings to our start-up hub not just amazing energy and talent but a keen marketing sense that gets results.”

In December, Toon publicly premiered the role with a music video, titled “American

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culture Underground Annual Report.” For two minutes, he romps through American Underground, wearing headphones, dancing on desks and rapping a variation on the facility’s fiscal and demographic reports. When Toon raps about “part-time cake,” orange text flashes translations across

name. I’ve literally slept on couches this year. My credit is horrible. Still, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe in what American Underground has in place.”

Toon won’t divulge the exact nature or numbers of his business relationship with American Underground, other than

INGREDIENTS:

Toon, back in Durham’s American Underground

the screen, explaining just how much parttime employees might make in American Underground. According to Klein, the video is the space’s most widely viewed attempt at public outreach.

“I think it’s great,” says Divine, “because it allows rappers to add their craft to another industry outside of music.”

A

fter Toon’s radio appearance, we relocate a few blocks from the station’s studio to his headquarters inside American Underground’s coworking workspace. Toon bounces from person to person, initiating conversations about everything from toffee and pickup basketball to putting beehives in the hood.

He can recite everyone’s specialties, achievements and goals—especially key figures like American Underground’s entrepreneur-in-residence Talib GravesManns and ExitEvent’s Michael English, who have bolstered the center’s reputation for diversity. Toon proudly details the space’s minority recruitment mission.

“It sounds like a pitch because I’ve said it a million times,” Toon says. “I ain’t filthy rich. It ain’t like I’m staying around for guap. I don’t even have a car title in my

to say the connection gives him access to the start-up community. The relationship thrives off “reciprocity,” he says.

“Above everything else, they see authenticity,” Toon says. “They realize that I’m not a knucklehead. My music speaks for itself, and I don’t have to be my music 24 hours out of the day. There’s three hours out of the day where I have to be a father, another three hours when I have to be a professional.

They notice those values in my songs.

“It just so happens that I have the ability to turn random shit into rap songs,” he continues. “I don’t think anyone looked at the video with a side-eye. They were more like, ‘Oh this shit is cool. It’s the middle of the workday and this nigga Toon is in here standing on desks. I wanna do that.’” s

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Find Eric Tullis on Twitter: @erictullis.

PROFESSOR TOON with Made of Oak, Tab-One, Ace Henderson & Ace Apollo Friday, Jan. 22, 8:30 p.m., $12–$15 Motorco, 723 Rigsbee Ave., Durham 919-901-0875, www.motorcomusic.com

IndyWeek 01-20-16.indd 1

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MATT DOUGLAS MuSIc VISuAl ArtS PerFOrMANce BOOKS FIlM SPOrtS AGE: 35

INFLUENCES: Cannonball Adderley’s melodies, Ornette Coleman’s improvisation and Steve Coleman’s rhythm KNOWN FOR: Douglas’ most recent big gigs have been with The Mountain Goats and Hiss Golden Messenger, but he’s also been involved with Phil Cook’s latest venture. He co-founded The Small Ponds with Caitlin Cary and once led his own band, The Proclivities.

SELMER MARK VI ALTO SAX: Made in the mid-’60s in Paris, this horn—“quintessential, coveted mid-century saxophone”—is Douglas’ most-used piece. “This is my instrument I’d be emotionally distraught over if something happened to it, if it was stolen,” he says. He bought it in 1999 when he was a music student in New York, from an ornery Broadway musician. Many saxophones made after the Mark VI were modeled after this style. The mouthpiece is a Meyer 6, made around the same time in New York as the saxophone was made in Paris.

SELMER BUNDY TENOR SAX: “If anybody’s heard of a Bundy saxophone, it’s because it’s a total piece-of-crap student instrument—which, the Bundy IIs are, but this is a Bundy from 1960,” Douglas explains. Even if it’s not dressed up with engravings and reinforcements, this horn came off a factory line that built these horns to last. Douglas bought it from Raleigh’s Marsh Woodwinds after years of borrowing different tenor saxes for various jobs. But he accidentally stole the Berg Larsen mouthpiece years ago from another musician while borrowing another horn.

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CHRIS BOERNER AGE: 37 INFLUENCES: Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Charlie Hunter, John Scofield, Wayne Krantz KNOWN FOR: In addition to The Hot at Nights, Boerner works closely with Raleigh singer-songwriter Jeanne Jolly as a guitarist and producer. His lengthy résumé also includes work with Hiss Golden Messenger and The Foreign Exchange.

EIGHT-STRING GUITAR: Boerner’s unusual guitar rig is the centerpiece of this band.

“That instrument informs a lot of what we do,” Boerner says. “There’s some limitations to it, but you also just play differently, because you’re playing two parts at one time.” Wes Lambe, a Hillsborough luthier, built it for Boerner from maple and mahogany. Its eight strings put the E, A and D of the bass above the B, G, D, A and high E of the guitar.

Each set runs through separate pickups and outputs, and its frets are fanned—that is, not perpendicular to the neck but spread over changing distances—to allow for easier adaptation to the strings’ different scales.

PEDALS: Douglas uses the first three pedals on his board to distort his sax. On the far left is a Dr. Scientist reverb pedal that belongs to head Mountain Goat John Darnielle. Next is a TC Electronic Flashback delay pedal, followed by a Boss TR-2 tremolo and a Boss RC-3 Loop Station (not pictured). Douglas bought the tremolo in when he filled in for Boerner on guitar in Jeanne Jolly’s band. It also adds intrigue to the sax: “It sounds like a really intense but robotic vibrato,” he says.

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MuSIc VISuAl ArtS PerFOrMANce BOOKS FIlM SPOrtS B-BENDER: Boerner installed this Nashvilleinspired modification because bending a single string for extra twang is difficult given the instrument’s other strings. A carabiner, connected to Boerner’s belt loop, attaches to a short length of cord that runs through the guitar and anchors to the B string at the bridge. When Boerner pulls the guitar the right way, the string bends. Listen for it on Cool It’s “O.R.G.Y.”

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PEDALS: Boerner’s extensive pedal board stretches his capabilities. The bass runs through a Boss OC-3 octave pedal to give it even lower tones, while a Moog Lowpass supplies an auto-wah sound. (Think Bootsy Collins.) For the guitar, Boerner has a fuzz pedal and a boost pedal made by Raleigh’s Rich Flickinger. A MXR Phase 90 pedal came from Aaron Freeman, or Gene Ween, with whom Boerner toured extensively in 2014.

Boerner built his own tremolo pedal and a copy of a Klon Centaur reverb pedal, which retails for about $3,000. A vibrato pedal, reverb pedal, tuner, Pigtronix auto volume pedal and Eventide TimeFactor delay pedal share space on the board.

NICK BAGLIO AGE: 35 INFLUENCES: His dad, Dick (also a drummer); Tony Williams; Vinnie Colaiuta; Mark Juliano KNOWN FOR: Baglio mostly plays drums for The Foreign Exchange outside of The Hot at Nights, but, like Boerner, performs with Jeanne Jolly, too.

HIPSHOT D TUNER: “That drops this [string] down a whole step,” Boerner says, referring to the bass’s E string. “If I have a song that requires a lower bass note, I can go to D really fast without turning it.”

INSTRUMENTALIST: THE HOT AT NIGHTS

STICKS: Baglio uses two different models of Vic Firth sticks—an SD4 and an AJ2. Each makes a slight but noticeable difference in how the cymbals resonate.

DRUMS: This wooden Ludwig kit from the late ’60s isn’t actually Baglio’s. This one lives in Boerner’s practice space, but Baglio’s is similar—one floor tom, one rack tom, a snare and a kick drum. His rig also includes an electronic element that triggers loops and samples.

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DREAM 16" HI-HATS AND CRASH CYMBAL: These cymbals are unique prototypes made for Baglio. What Baglio uses as hi-hats are actually 16" crash cymbals, reconfigured. They have holes in them, too—to make them cheaper, Baglio jokes. But these spaces actually affect the cymbals’ sound. “It takes away from the girth of the cymbal. It thins it out, but it also makes it really cutting,” he says. “They feel really nice under your hands.” Baglio is currently experimenting with a 10-inch splash cymbal beneath the crash.

LOCATION: The basement practice space of Chris Boerner’s home of nearly a decade in Raleigh HEAR AND SEE: The band releases its excellent Cool It at The Pour House in Raleigh Friday, Jan. 22, at 9 p.m. Tickets are $10–$12. For more information, see www.the-pour-house.com.

BACKSTORY: The Hot at Nights began with a guitar. In 2010, Chris Boerner acquired a bizarre-looking, custom-made, eight-string contraption built by a local luthier. Drawing upon its range of quirks and capabilities, Boerner was able to play guitar leads and bass lines at once, essentially handling half a band himself. The acquisition inspired Boerner to pursue new musical ideas—and find some new bandmates to do so.

Boerner, a Raleigh native, met sax player Matt Douglas and drummer Nick Baglio through mutual musical acquaintances. They played together sporadically in other bands before founding The Hot at Nights not long after Boerner’s purchase.

Though each member has a jazz background, that’s only the band’s foundation, not a limitation. Each player weaves elements of rock, funk and soul into the seams, creating songs that are technically intricate and melodically enchanting. Boerner cites jazz iconoclasts The Bad Plus as a key influence for this mission; like The Bad Plus, The Hot at Nights play jazz-minded instrumental material—loudly.

“It’s not something you’d stick in the corner of a restaurant,” Boerner says of both acts.

Trying to put the band’s new EP, Cool It, in any one corner would be a mistake. The Hot at Nights transmogrify five songs by North Carolina acts. Bowerbirds’ folksy “Bur Oak,” for instance, becomes a warm, heady number that blooms patiently, while Hammer No More the Fingers’ “O.R.G.Y.” gets a bit of sizzling funk. Elsewhere, The Hot at Nights have turns with songs by Delta Rae, Future Islands and Sylvan Esso, folding those acts into their jazz-plus mentality.

“Especially on a creative tip, there’s never walls that can’t be broken down,” says Baglio, “never any limits.” —Allison Hussey PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER

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www.lincolntheatre.com JANUARY

Th 21 REMEMBERING DAVID BOWIE Free Screening of “LABYRINTH” 7p

Fr 22 STEEP CANYON RANGERS

8p

w/ Look Homeward Sa 23 ANI DIFRANCO w/Hamell on Trial Th 28 LUKE COMBS w/Blake Kearney7p

Fr 29 REEL BIG FISH 8p Sa 30 PULSE (Electronic Dance Party) Su 31 GRAVEYARD w/Spiders 7p FEBRUARY

Steep Canyon BY GR Rangers

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Thu Jan 28

Luke Combs

Mo 1 EPICA w/ Moonspell/Starkill 6:30 We 3 GAELIC STORM 7p Fri F r 5 AMERICAN AQUARIUM 8p

Jan 29

w.T Hardy Morris & Timmy The Teeth

Sa 6 AMERICAN AQUARIUM

8p

w. Nikki Lane & Jonathan Tyler Mo 8 FOR TODAY w/Like Moths to Flames

We 10 Th 11 Fr 12 Fr 13 Su 15 Th 18 Fr 19 Sa 20 Su 21

JOHN KADLECIK BAND 7p CHERUB w/Gibbz @ THE RITZ THE SHAKEDOWN (Mardi Gras) WHO’S BAD Michael Jackson Trib.

BOOMBOX THE MACHINE performs PINK FLOYD MOTHER’S FINEST + 7p NEVER SHOUT NEVER + 6:30p KELLY HOLLAND MEMORIAL

Sun Jan 31

HANK SINATRA/BLEEDING HEARTS+

Tu 23 SISTER HAZEL 7p Fr 26 GEOFF TATE’S OPERATION MINDCRIME Sa 27 DAVID ALLAN COE 7p Su 28 MIKE GARDNER BENEFIT Tu 1 We 2 Th 3 Sa 5 We 9 Sa 12 Su 13 Th 17 Su 20 Th 31 4 - 1 4 - 3 4 - 7 4-15 4-17 5-14

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MARCH

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Y&T 7p RANDY ROGERS BAND + TITUS ANDRONICUS w/Craig Finn THE CLARKS 8p JUDAH AND THE LION 7p JOHN MAYALL BAND CEE-LO GREEN MAC SABBATH WE THE KINGS w/AJR, She is We+ STICK FIGURE w/Fortunate Youth START MAKING SENSE THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS ELLE KING JJ GREY & MOFRO 8p DOPAPOD w/The Fritz 8p FLATBUSH ZOMBIES

Advance Tickets @Lincolntheatre.com & Schoolkids Records All Shows All Ages

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Graveyard Fri Feb 5 & Sat Feb 6

American Aquarium

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Gaelic Storm

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TANGLED ROOTS

As a songwriting tandem, two acoustic veterans ace new tricks

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he blues guitarist Jon Shain is contemplating the ways in which the seven songs he wrote with the oldtime banjo player Joe Newberry altered his musical approach.

Those tunes—written for their collaborative debut as a duo, the new Crow the Dawn—reminded him to be open to new experiences, Shain says, and to surrender his ego in collaborative work.

It showed him that a different approach isn’t necessarily a wrong approach and that truly paying attention to someone else’s work can be more valuable than playing blues licks alongside it.

But then, almost as an afterthought, Shain realizes that the experience had a more tangible effect: It helped him salvage a band of which Newberry wasn’t even a member.

As Shain and Newberry worked to finish the 14-track record last summer, F.J. Ventre, the longtime bassist in Shain’s self-named trio and the anchor for much of Crow the Dawn, said he was quitting the band. He and Shain had played together since 1982, when they were both Massachusetts high school students, but it was time to move on.

“I was really bummed out about it,” Shain says. “I decided that, if F.J. was leaving, I was just going to break up the band, start something new.”

He diagnosed the problem, however, just in time: Though he and Ventre had played together for more than 30 years, Shain had written all the songs. If he and Ventre co-wrote some material, as he had just done with Newberry, would his bassist and buddy stick around?

“I made him that offer, and that’s what it ended up being, really,” Shain says. “After writing with Joe, I had the confidence to know that, if I could be successful writing with him, I could be successful writing with F.J., too We’ve been working with some of his ideas, bouncing them around, and I’m already ready for that project.”

That approach of giving ground is a key tenet of Crow the Dawn, a delightful and diverse set that finds Shain, 48, and Newberry, 58, trying new tricks. Both musicians have worked in the Triangle for decades and steadily gained national

Sun Mar 13

attention for their singular interpretations of the past—Shain as a bluesman with a reverent core and a revisionist streak, Newberry as a pristine banjo player and clarion singer who has lately earned attention and major awards as a poetically earnest songwriter.

Here, though, Shain shuffles into Newberry’s open-hearted worldview for the tender ode to domestic contentment, “Ember and Flame,” while Newberry adds a little tough-guy swagger to match Shain’s gutbucket narration during “The Last Time I Saw Laszlo.” With Ventre on bass and Shain on guitar, “Joe’s Blues” gets unexpected pep. And during the gorgeous opener, “All Your Neon Dollars,” the pair suggests The Byrds lifting out of retirement to ponder their younger days with equal parts wonder and worry. The graceful country-rock reflection pushes both Shain and Newberry out of their expected roles.

“You need to be listening as well as you play. Instead of all the ideas stemming from your playing, listen to what the other person is trying to do and trying to say with their writing,” Shain says. “People will be surprised. People who expect me to be a blues player won’t hear a lot of blues on this record.”

A student of the form’s elders, Shain confesses he almost always jumps at the chance to work with and learn from older musicians. In this case, though, Newberry felt at times like the student, thanks to Shain’s long songwriting résumé.

“To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, I am an old man but a young songwriter.

When I saw myself doing all this stuff with Jon, I could see the ‘me’ there, but I was observing it, too,” says Newberry. “It allowed me to work outside of myself.”

In the past, Newberry’s traditional music has required little in the way of

production—a band or a banjo in a room, surrounded by a few microphones. But the veteran producer Dave Tilley took the task of making the duo’s debut even before they decided to do it; when he heard the two were playing together, he urged them to finish a record and let him produce. The multi-day sessions involved many takes of most songs, a separate night for Ed Butler’s loping drums, and batches of overdubs recorded at Tilley’s home with a passel of contributors, from gospel singers and jazz pianists to Red Clay Ramblers and Shain’s bandmates. It ranks as one of the most grandiose productions of Newberry’s career.

“I’ve had a lot more creative control in the past, because I haven’t worked with producers very much,” Newberry says.

“But working with Jon and Tilley, I figured out really quickly that these guys have a very good but different take on stuff than I,

New picking pals: Joe Newberry, left, and Jon Shain PHOTO BY JOHN GESSNER

being the traditional guy, would. I learned to talk less and listen more.” s Grayson Haver Currin is the managing+music editor of the INDY.

SemanS Lecture thursday, november 19, 2015, 7 Pm

Reality of My Surroundings THE CONTEMPORARY COLLECTION On view through July 10, 2016

JON SHAIN & JOE NEWBERRY Friday, Jan. 22, 8 p.m., $13 Plan B, 5504 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd., Durham, 919-493-7526 www.planbmusicclub.com

CeeLo Green

2001 Campus Drive, Durham I nasher.duke.edu Ebony G. Patterson, ...shortly after 8- beyond the bladez (detail), 2014. Museum purchase with additional funds provided by Blake Byrne (T’57) and Marjorie and Michael Levine (T’84, P’16, P’19, P’19).

Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago. © Ebony G. Patterson.

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JANUARY 20, 2016

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WHEN A FIRE STARTS TO BURN

The activist strategies of the Wilmington Ten remain relevant for protest movements today

BY CRISTEL ORRAND

F

ollowing desegregation, racial tensions were simmering in Wilmington, North Carolina, as white paramilitaries harassed black protesters with seeming impunity. That tension boiled over in early February, 1971, when shots were fired at firefighters responding to the burning of a white-owned grocery store.

The incident was blamed on the black youths headquartered at Gregory Congregational United Church of Christ next door. Aided by activist Ben Chavis, they were in the midst of a high school boycott stemming from unfair treatment by the administration and law enforcement officers. The next morning, a white supremacist passed through a police barricade and tried to open fire on the church before he was shot dead by an unknown assailant. Gov. Robert Scott called in the National Guard, who forcibly removed the suspects from the church.

Eight black high school students, Chavis and white anti-poverty activist Ann Shepherd were sentenced to prison on trumped-up charges of arson and conspiracy. A national movement secured their freedom after about 10 years, but it was not until 2012 that they were officially pardoned. The Wilmington Ten, as the accused came to be known, were victims of a racially and politically motivated legal imbroglio, complete with solicited and perjured testimony. This had more to do with white America’s need to maintain the status quo than justice, as UNC-Chapel Hill professor and undergraduate studies director Kenneth Janken shows in his new book, The Wilmington Ten: Violence, Injustice, and the Rise of Black Politics in the 1970s, which he discusses at Quail Ridge Books on Jan. 21.

The INDY recently spoke with Janken about the framing and freeing of the Wilmington Ten and the organizational lessons for today’s racial justice movements.

INDY: Reading about the Wilmington Ten, Bob Dylan’s song “Hurricane” came to mind, with the legal system failing and the case being taken to the court of public opinion. Did the state fail in this case?

The boycott committee announces its demands at Gregory Congregational Church. PHOTO FROM THE WILMINGTON MORNING STAR, FEBRUARY 2, 1971, COURTESY OF THE NEW HANOVER COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

KENNETH JANKEN: It certainly did. The Wilmington Ten were convicted and sentenced to a total of 282 years in prison.

They exhausted all appeals, lost every step of the way. Those mechanisms of justice failed. It was non-state actors that got President Carter’s attention and got Andrew Young, then secretary of state, to admit that the U.S. had dozens of political prisoners. Amnesty International involved people from all over the globe.

Some political theories suggest that it was partially the church infrastructure that led to the efficacy of the civil rights movement in the South. Was that true here?

The [boycotters] were looking for a headquarters. They went to AfricanAmerican churches, the Boys Club and the local NAACP, and were turned down at each. The only person who helped them was Eugene Templeton, a white minister who led a mostly black congregation at Gregory Congregational Church. Templeton called others in the church hierarchy, including the Commission for Racial Justice, and Ben Chavis was sent to help organizers. The church was very important, and the United Church of Christ and the CRJ continue to play a very important role in the struggle, but the students were not looking for religious leadership.

What was the impact of that joint effort, and what might the lesson be for movements today, like Black Lives Matter?

The leadership didn’t treat the arrest and conviction of the Wilmington Ten as a unique miscarriage of justice; they linked it to the criminal justice system, police repression, labor laws and the exclusion of African-Americans from the political system. For the people who were concerned with those things but hadn’t heard of the Wilmington Ten, they created connectors.

They were able to bring in a variety of people who were far more moderate.

Congressmen were involved in freeing the Wilmington Ten. That was unique because, today, most of those center or moderate politicians run away from anything radical.

Was the prosecution largely symbolic, operating within the framework of what society and the system wanted?

A major point of the frame-up of the Wilmington Ten was to get Ben Chavis.

He was charismatic, effective, practical, could connect the specific to the general and mobilize people. North Carolina was a very important state in revolutionary nationalist and Black Power movements, and [the state] was interested in getting rid of radical, revolutionary nationalists like Chavis. What [prosecutor] Jay Stroud did was not unique.

In all your research, what affected you most?

I couldn’t get away from the audacity of the government to ruin the lives of nine innocent people to get one person. One of the Wilmington Ten said, “There was no Wilmington Ten.” All 10 didn’t know each other. They were not a group; they didn’t hang out together. The Wilmington Ten was a creation of the state to trash a movement. Another thing that really affected me was the solidarity the 10 exhibited. None of them gave testimony against Chavis or each other. That’s very, very heroic. Looking through the trial transcripts, how the state lied and justified its lies was so angering. And the dedication of the defense attorneys, like James Ferguson, blew my mind.

What do you want the average person to take away from reading this book?

The story of the judicial misconduct. The state was willing to go to just about any lengths to smash an insurgent movement.

It’s important to look at the trial, the jury selection, the judge and the systematic attempts to crush the appeals. But the other side prevailed. This was part of a movement in North Carolina from the late 1960s to early 1980s that was built on insurgent politics and an effective organizing style that united left and center, linking specific grievances to larger systemic inequalities.

There are lessons for how to organize if you look at that time period.

Cristel Orrand is a writer and an amateur historian who lives in Raleigh. Her novels include The Amalgamist and Khayal.

KENNETH JANKEN: THE WILMINGTON TEN Thursday, Jan. 21, 7 p.m., free Quail Ridge Books 3522 Wade Ave., Raleigh 919-828-1588 | www.quailridgebooks.com

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JANUARY 20, 2016

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AWL NATURALE

An antique tool shop in Pittsboro helped create The Revenant’s Oscar-nominated authenticity

BY TARA LYNNE GROTH

A

lejandro González Iñárritu’s Academy Award-nominated film, The Revenant, is set in Montana and South Dakota. But if you watch closely, you’ll see a little bit of Pittsboro, too. When the filmmakers needed authentic antique hand tools to tell the true-life frontier survival story of fur trapper Hugh Glass, they found them—eventually—at Ed Lebetkin’s Chatham County tool shop.

“Anything that has survived the past 200 years is either in a museum or gone,” says set decorator Hamish Purdy, who has since been co-nominated for a productiondesign Oscar with Jack Fisk. “Right away, Ed showed me pictures of what was appropriate.”

In the early-19th-century era of Glass’ journey, photography was in its infancy.

The only way to see what life was like in Native American lands and settlers’ forts is through paintings and drawings by the artists hired by explorers.

So Purdy started researching oldfashioned tools the old-fashioned way: in books and museums. At first, his main points of reference were A Museum of Early American Tools by Eric Sloane and the paintings of Karl Bodmer and George Catlin. Then he tried the modern approach of an Internet image search. The results

LEFT

showed photos of Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s School, where power tools are (unofficially) outlawed.

Yes, that’s the same Roy from the beloved PBS show The Woodwright’s Shop, now in its 36th year. On most weekends, passersby strolling along Hillsboro Street in downtown Pittsboro can stop and watch students spinning vises, pushing saws, swinging mallets and chiseling dovetails.

During peak times, sawdust seems to fog the windows.

Just a few steps above the school is Ed’s Antique Tools, a less dusty space filled with hand tools dating as far back as the mid-1700s. Lebetkin has been a fan of The Woodwright’s Shop since the program’s beginnings. In the late 1980s he started attending trade shows, estate sales and auctions, collecting tools. By 2007, he was selling them at local meetings of the MidWest Tool Collectors Association.

“I started buying odds and ends,” he says.

“From talking to people at events, I realized I was pretty good about picking up tool types.

The vendors either knew how to sell and didn’t know tools, or the other way around.”

Lebetkin found he could do both. For years he relied on vendor displays, but a talk with Underhill in 2010 prompted him to open his brick-and-mortar space

Natural ax: Ed Lebetkin shows off his vintage tools.

RIGHT

above The Woodwright’s School. Being immersed in the antique-tool market makes recognizing specific features automatic for Lebetkin. Handle designs, saw teeth placement and ax-head styles and materials are clues to a tool’s age.

Prompt him about any item in the store and he is quick to identify its era and, sometimes, its exact maker.

After discussions with the filmmakers, Lebetkin packaged shipments of tools and sent them to the set in Canada. Since the story in The Revenant takes place in the wilderness and a fort, forestry tools were essential. Lebetkin provided a picaroon for handling logs, a log peavey for hauling them and a cooper’s froe for splitting them, as well as draw knives for bark removal and crosscut saws for timber framing.

In the first few minutes of the film, right before the first of many violent scenes, the camera pans over the camp. While trappers mill in and out, workers plane logs and build timber frames with Lebetkin’s tools.

They keep showing up throughout the film, all the way to Glass’ hatchet swinging in the final scene.

Purdy, dedicated to authenticity, always asks himself, “Is it as real as can be?” When a shipment from Pittsboro arrived on location, he didn’t simply pass the tools along to extras

Look boss, the plane: Wood planers line a shelf at Ed’s Antique Tools.

and actors as mere props. Instead, he made sure they were actually used.

“I had a carpenter working for me to build trunks, chests and other items that were period-correct,” Purdy says. “He built all the crates with Ed’s tools, and when he was done using the tools they were used on set.”

The tools played other important off-camera roles in creating the film’s acclaimed sense of authenticity. Flat boats of the era needed constant repairs, and Purdy assembled a toolbox full of items that would have been kept on board.

Although the audience doesn’t see them, the tools’ presence is part of an effort to make sure all details on set were as genuine as possible.

Lebetkin hasn’t seen the film yet, but he looks forward to it—and maybe working for others. If filmmakers develop any projects featuring George Washington, he might be able to help out.

“I’ve got George Washington’s ax over here,” he says, half-smiling, offering a joke as old as his tools. “The head’s been replaced four times, and the handle a few, too.” s Tara Lynne Groth (www.taralynnegroth.com) is a freelance writer who lives in Chatham County. Twitter: @writenaked

PHOTOS BY TARA LYNNE GROTH

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GLAD Study

The Frohlich Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill is looking for individuals who would be interested in participating in a clinical research study. This study is testing the effect of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on mood symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder.

Transcranial current stimulation is a technique that delivers a very weak current to the scalp. Treatment has been well tolerated with no serious side-effects reported. This intervention is aimed at restoring normal brain activity and function which may reduce mood symptoms experienced with Major Depressive Disorder. We are looking for individuals between the ages of 18 and 65, diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder currently not taking benzodiazepines or antiepileptic drugs. You can earn a total of $280 for completing this study. If you are interested in learning more, contact our study coordinator at: courtney_lugo@med.unc.edu Or call us at (919)962-5271

Meet the Author SISTER SOULJAH Saturday, January 23 2 p.m.

North Regional Library 7009 Harps Mill Rd., Raleigh 919-870-4000 Registration requested.

wake county public libraries

www.wakegov.com/libraries

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THE CLASS CEILING

Stick Fly provocatively probes issues of privilege and gender in a black family

BY BYRON WOODS

I

t is a basic, brutal fact of geopolitics: After the oppressed rise up, they may become oppressors in turn. We’ve seen this play out across the Middle East in recent decades, centuries after religious dissidents fled Europe for North America, sometimes establishing regimes as intolerant as those they’d escaped.

In families, a similar dynamic can manifest on a more intimate scale, funding cycles of abuse or oppression across generations, as we see with painful clarity in Raleigh Little Theatre’s production of Stick Fly. The family at the play’s center has reached the acme of social achievement. Prominent black neurosurgeon Joe LeVay (Thomasi McDonald) is enjoying a vacation with his older son, Flip (TJ Swann), and his younger son, Kent (Marcus Zollicoffer), at their Martha’s Vineyard summer home, where a Romare Bearden painting hangs in a living room abutted by a well-stocked library.

When the patriarch recites an old family story—how an encounter with the pigmentocracy, a historic form of discrimination within the black community, resulted in his meeting his future wife—it’s clear that the LeVay men are well aware of some forms of intra-ethnic prejudice. But gradually we see the varying degrees to which they are resolutely blind to, or simply unwilling to change, their gender- and class-based biases, both subtle and overt.

Director Karen Dacons-Brock exposes those biases largely through the eyes of the two women the sons have brought to meet the family: Kent’s fiancée, Taylor (Moriah Williams), and Flip’s new companion, the ostensibly Italian—and white—Kimber (Amy White).

The first, faint cracks appear as Flip

The cast of Stick Fly shines in Raleigh Little Theatre’s current production.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CURTIS BROWN PHOTOGRAPHY

coolly assesses Taylor, telling Kent, “Hey, man, met your girl. You coulda done worse.” Joe echoes these sentiments: “Nice. Well done,” he says, in Taylor’s presence, during their awkward introduction. Later, when Flip asks if his mom, who hasn’t arrived yet, is all right, Joe replies, “Yeah. You know women.”

In an increasingly hellish after-dinner conversation, Taylor finds her struggles as a middle-class black college student scrutinized and criticized by people who clearly feel that their social privilege gives them license to opine. The exchange pushes her relationship with Kent to a crisis point, when he must embrace the family power dynamic or pull away from it.

Meanwhile, Kimber faces different—and unexpected— challenges in finding her place in this strange family.

The LeVays’ relationship with Cheryl (Tosin Olufolabi), the daughter of their longterm housekeeper, discloses further social stratifications.

Olufolabi’s enviable emotional range conveys Cheryl’s familial ease until revelations take her to an explosive secondact confrontation. Williams needed but lacked similar range in her work as Taylor.

Swann convinces as the louche Flip, and Zollicoffer conveys Kent’s sensitivity about confronting his own family.

Stage veteran McDonald nails the stern Joe. As playwright Lydia R. Diamond pulls back the veil from black sexism and classism, she exposes a family edifice as flimsy as a house of cards. Stick Fly isn’t always easy to watch, but it provocatively depicts the barriers black women still must overcome within their families and culture in order to taste freedom in their own right. s Byron Woods is the INDY’s theater and dance columnist. Twitter: @ByronWoods

STICK FLY HHHH Raleigh Little Theatre 301 Pogue St., Raleigh 919-821-3111 www.raleighlittletheatre.org Through Jan. 31

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Where we’ll be

Somehow, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin has never been performed in the Triangle. Written in 1877, the opera adapts the Pushkin poem of the same name. It tells the story of Tatiana, a country girl, and Onegin, a world-weary rake. She falls for him even as he pushes her away, and the relationship does not end well. There are regal balls, extended solos and a memorable duel to end Act 2. The music is as swirling and lush as all of Tchaikovsky’s ballets and symphonies, full of glowing melodies and shimmering orchestration. This North Carolina Opera production features an exciting cast of up-and-coming singers, meant to inject this warhorse with new energy. Baritone Joo Won Kang returns as Onegin after a noteworthy performance in last season’s La Traviata. This is a concert-only performance, so don’t expect any opulent staging, sadly. 3 p.m., $25, 2 E. South St., Raleigh, 919792-3850, www.ncopera.org. —Dan Ruccia

SICK OF STUPID COMEDY TOUR PHIL COOK PHOTO BY D.L. ANDERSON

FILM

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF BONING LOCAL 506, CHAPEL HILL THURSDAY, JAN. 21

MUSIC | SAVE THE PINHOOK

The Pinhook, it seems, will survive. In December, Kym Register, the owner of the pioneering downtown Durham rock club, announced that an early partner in the business had let a major accounting error slip by in the venue’s books for nearly a decade.

That mistake meant that The Pinhook had less than a year to pay the North Carolina Department of Revenue $80,000. To date, a crowd-funding campaign has raised $33,000 for The Pinhook, and here come the reinforcements: For each of four nights, four unannounced bands will take to the venue’s stage.

Due to contractual terms, and in order to keep cool secrets, Register can’t name the bands, but she does say each night will include a “significant headliner.” Considering the caliber of acts that have played The Pinhook since 2008, the prospects are tantalizing. Each show will include a free piece of memorabilia to memorialize the night, along with custom posters for each gig. The Pinhook’s balance comes due in November, but Register is hoping these shows help get close to paying it off early. “We don’t want to be the place that’s raising money all year,” she says. 8 p.m., $25, 117 W. Main St., Durham, 919-667-1100, www.thepinhook.com. —Grayson Haver Currin

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MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL, RALEIGH SUNDAY, JAN. 24

COMEDY

THE PINHOOK, DURHAM WEDNESDAY, JAN. 27–THURSDAY, JAN. 28 & WEDNESDAY, FEB. 3–THURSDAY, FEB. 4

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NORTH CAROLINA OPERA’S EUGENE ONEGIN

CALENDARS MUSIC 39 VISUAL ARTS 43 BOOKS 44 PERFORMANCE 45 FILM 46

While it’s subtitled “A Southern Comedy Experience,” the Sick of Stupid Comedy Tour features a trio of funnymen who have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from famous comic yokels like Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy (both of whom will be at DPAC this month, by the way).

In fact, the show is billed as “the antithesis of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour,” promising to dispense, amid all the jokes, socially conscious insights that people don’t usually equate with down-South folk. Leading this progressive comedy charge is Greensboro’s Tom Simmons, whose brand of madas-hell-and-not-gonna-take-it-anymore stand-up has led to performances on Comedy Central, Showtime and BET. (My favorite of his credits is as a writer for BET’s ComicView.)

Joining him are North Carolinian Cliff Cash and Kentucky native Stewart Huff, two fellow cranks who share Simmons’ love for pointing out how imbecilic our culture has become.

These three pale riders have been hitting venues all over the country this month, letting people know that not everybody from the South is an overalls-wearing hillbilly. 8 p.m., $12, 723 Rigsbee Ave., Durham, 919-901-0875, www.motorcomusic.com. —Craig D. Lindsey

JANUARY 20, 2016

MUSIC

1.20–1.27

MOTORCO MUSIC HALL, DURHAM SUNDAY, JAN. 24

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LUX ALPTRAUM PHOTO BY ELLEN STAGG

MUSIC

PHIL COOK & THE DEAD TONGUES CAT’S CRADLE, CARRBORO SATURDAY, JAN. 23

After long stints as a sideman in DeYarmond Edison and an anchoring third of Megafaun, Phil Cook emerged as a proper bandleader on last year’s righteous Southland Mission. A beaming and earnest amalgamation of gospel and soul, bluegrass and blues, backwoods rock and back-porch sentiments, Southland Mission is a delight, a reflection both of Cook’s enthusiasm for making music and gathering his pals to do just that. On stage, the presentation is every bit as emphatic and endearing. Cook’s set will follow that of his sideman and collaborator Ryan Gustafson, who has recast his solo material under the name The Dead Tongues. Due later this year, The Dead Tongues’ Montana delivers Gustafson’s most exquisite material yet, as he tames country blues and folk fundamentals through 10 poignant songs that keenly capture the ups and downs of mortal perseverance. 9 p.m., $12–$15, 300 E. Main St., Carrboro, 919-967-9053, www.catscradle.com. —Grayson Haver Currin

If you received a public-school education in the United States, your sex-ed classes were probably stiff, humorless affairs, full of embarrassment and talk of abstinence. With The Wonderful World of Boning, the accomplished sex journalist Lux Alptraum hopes to redress some of that teen shame with funny riffs on awkward sex-ed videos. Find comfort in the fact that you’ve gotten better information and experiences in the years since (or, at least, we hope you have)—plus, there’s the possibility you’ll learn something new, too.

Some special-guest comedians join Alptraum onstage to add their commentary and further lighten the mood.

9 p.m., $10, 506 W. Franklin St., Chapel Hill, 919-942-5506, www.local506.com. —Allison Hussey

THEATER | THREE SISTERS

PLAYMAKERS REPERTORY COMPANY, CHAPEL HILL WEDNESDAY, JAN. 20–SUNDAY, FEB. 7

It’s fitting that playwright Libby Appel directed Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at PlayMakers Rep in 2014. The experienced theater artist is an authority on the works of Anton Chekhov, and her recently published translations of his five major plays featured strategic restorations of passages and entire scenes that had been excised by Russia’s government censors and Chekhov’s original director, the legendary Konstantin Stanislavski. But Appel’s love affair with Three Sisters dates back to her teen years. “I developed a reputation for being the three sisters—all of them at one time,” she wrote in a foreword to her 2013 adaptations, which smooth out the chill and stiltedness that have long dominated Chekhov’s identity in Europe and America.

PlayMakers’ new artistic director, Vivienne Benesch, directs this new view of the Russian master, in a production featuring David Adamson, Julie Fishell, Roy Dooley and Arielle Yoder.

7:30 p.m. Tues.–Sat.; 2 p.m. Sun. (and Jan. 30), $15–$54, 150 Country Club Road, Chapel Hill, 919-962-7529, www.playmakersrep.org. —Byron Woods

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919.821.1120 • 224 S. Blount St WE 1/20 TH 1/21

THE BOURBONS / THE ANTIQUE HEARTS (SPONSORED BY CRANK ARM BREWING) THE HOT AT NIGHTS - COOL IT EP RELEASE PARTY! W/ DJ SPCLGST

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FR 1/22 AARON CARTER ($15/$17) SA 1/23 PHIL COOK W/ THE DEAD TONGUES ($12/$15) WE 1/27 KEYS N KRATES W/ STOOKI SOUND, JESSE SLAYTER ($20/$22) TH 1/28 YONDER MOUNTAIN

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STRING BAND

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SA 1/23

@ CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM

LARRY CAMPBELL AND

TROUT STEAK REVIVAL**($25) FR 1/29 COSMIC CHARLIE PERFORMING "WORKINGMAN'S DEAD" ($10/$12) SA 1/30

TERESA WILLIAMS

REVEREND HORTON HEAT UNKNOWN HINSON NASHVILLE PUSSY ($20/$25) WE 2/3 LOW **($20)

FR 2/5 BATTLE OF THE BANDS ($8/$10)

SA 2/6 BOB MARLEY'S

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FEAT. MICKEY MILLS AND STEEL ($12/ $15) FR 2/12 MUTEMATH W / NOTHING BUT THIEVES**($23/$25) SA 2/13 PERPETUAL GROOVE ($20/$25) MO 2/15 WAVVES

BEST COAST

W/ CHERRY GLAZER ($30) FR 2/19 DIRTY BOURBON

RIVER SHOW / ELLIS DYSON & THE SHAMBLES SA 2/20 WKNC DOUBLE BARREL BENEFIT 13 DENIRO FARRAR, SKYBLEW, EARTHLY ($12/$15) FR 2/26 TIFT MERRITT PERFORMS 'BRAMBLE ROSE' ($25) WE 3/2 MC CHRIS W/ NATHAN ANDERSON TH 3/3 KURT VILE & THE VIOLATORS W/ SPACIN' ($20) TU 3/8 RA RA RIOT W/ SUN CLUB, PWR BTTM ($17) SA 3/12 PENTAGRAM W/ COLOSSUS, KING GIANT AND DEMON EYE ($18/$22) SU 3/13 T X AMBASSADORS SOLD OU W/ SEINABO SEY, POWERS TH/FR 3/17/18 (TWO SHOWS!)

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

THAYER SARRANO $25/$28) SA 3/26 MOUNT MORIAH W/ ELEPHANT MICAH ($12) MO 3/28 JUNIOR BOYS W/ JESSY LANZA, BORYS ($15/$17) WE 3/30 THE WONDER

YEARS W/ LETLIVE, MOOSE BLOOD, MICROWAVE

TH 3/31 G LOVE AND SPECIAL SAUCE **($25 / $30) FR 4/1DUNCAN TRUSSELL ($20;) T SA 4/2 SOLD OU

DAUGHTER

FR 4/8 MAGIC MAN, THE GRISWOLDS W/ PANAMA WEDDING ($20; ON SALE 1/22)

SA 4/9 THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS **($23/$25) MO 4/18 THAO & THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN ($15/$17) WE 4/20 MURDER BY DEATH W/ KEVIN DEVINE & THE GODDAMN BAND($15/$17)

TU 4/26 HOUNDMOUTH ($18/$20; ON SALE 1/22)

TH 4/28 POLICA W/ MOTHXR W/ MOTHXR ($16/$18) TH 5/5 PARACHUTE W/ JON MCLAUGHLIN ** FR 5/6 STICKY FINGERS ($13/$15)

SA 5/7 BOYCE AVENUE ($25; ON SALE 1/22)

TU 11/22 PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT ($25; ON SALE 1/22)

FR 1/22

JOE PUG

@ HAW RIVER BALLROOM

SA 1/23

CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM 1/22 DANGERMUFFIN W/ BAKED GOODS ($10/$12) 1/23 LARRY CAMPBELL & TERESA WILLIAMS W/ MICHAEL RANK ($17/$20) 1/27 JULIEN BAKER ($10) 1/28: HARDWORKER W/ LYNDON BAYNES JOHNSON ($8)

PHIL COOK WE 1/27

KEYS N KRATES

1/29 JON STICKLEY TRIO W/ STEPHANIESID AND HNMTF 1/31: SHAKORI HILLS CAC BENEFIT KAIRA BA, GRAND SHELL GAME 2/4: FAT CHEEK KAT ($5/$8) 2/6: HUMANIZE W/ TEARDROP CANYON ($8) 2/7 THE PINES 2/10: GRIFFANZO CD RELEASE PARTY ($8)

4/15: ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER ($14/$16)

4/16: ERIC BACHMANN ($12/$15)

2/11: PELL ($12/$15)

5/6: MATTHEW LOGAN VASQUEZ (OF DELTA SPIRIT)

2/12: ARALEIGH W/ SHANNON O'CONNOR

ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO)

2/13 HEY MARSEILLES W/ BAD BAD HATS($12/$14) 2/16 PROTOMARTYR W/ SPRAYPAINT, BODYKIT ($10/$12) 2/18 DRESSY BESSY AND PYLON REENACTMENT SOCIETY FEATURING VANESSA BRISCOE-HAY ($15/$18) 2/21: HONEYHONEY W/ CICADA RHYTHM ($15) 2/22 THE SOFT MOON ($10/$12) 2/26 GRIFFIN HOUSE ($15/$18) 2/27 THE BLACK LILLIES W/ UNDERHILL ROSE ($14) 2/29: SON LITTLE

3/6: QUILT 3/9: ALL DOGS 3/11 PORCHES / ALEX G W/ YOUR FRIEND ($13/$15) 3/19 GROOVE FETISH ($7/$10) 4/3 KRIS ALLEN 4/5 CHON W/ POLYPHIA, STRAWBERRY GIRLS ($13/$16)

4/14: RUN RIVER NORTH ($12/$14 (ON SALE 1/22)

2/4 BOB SCHNEIDER 5/5 GREG BROWN ($28/$30)

LOCAL 506 (CHAPEL HILL) TU 2/16 THIRD MAN RECORDS PRES: TIMMY’S ORGANISM, VIDEO, REGRESSION 696

CAROLINA THEATRE (DURHAM)

2/25 JOSH RITTER & THE ROYAL CITY BAND

MOTORCO (DURHAM)

4/12 INTO IT. OVER IT. AND TWIABP... W/ THE SIDEKICKS, PINEGROVE ($15/$17)

PINHOOK (DURHAM) 1/29 DYLAN LEBLANC W/ JOSH MOORE

HAW RIVER BALLROOM 1/22 JOE PUG AND HORSEFEATHERS 3/30-3/31 (TWO SHOWS!): DR DOG ($22/$25) 4/3 ANGEL OLSEN W/ THE TILLS ($17/$20) 4/29 M WARD ($23/$25)

CATSCRADLE.COM ★ 919.967.9053 ★ 300 E. MAIN STREET ★ CARRBORO

**Asterisks denote advance tickets @ schoolkids records in raleigh, cd alley in chapel hill order tix online at ticketfly.com ★ we serve carolina brewery beer on tap! ★ we are a non-smoking club

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INDYweek.com

music WED, JAN 20

BLUE NOTE GRILL: The Dagmar Bumpers; 8 p.m. The Herded Cats; 8 p.m.

HAW RIVER BALLROOM: Robert Earl Keen; 8 p.m., $26– $30. See indyweek.com.

HUMBLE PIE: Peter Lamb & the Wolves; 8:30 p.m.

IRREGARDLESS: The Longleaf Pine Nuts; 6:30 p.m.

LOCAL 506: Wild Adriatic, The 8:59’s; 9 p.m., $8. See indyweek.com.

MOTORCO: Marcia Ball, Good Rocking Sam; 7 p.m., $20–$25.

See indyweek.com.

POUR HOUSE INPUT ELECTRONIC MUSIC SERIES As Ancient/Lakes, Durham’s Sean Garrett bangs out pixelated EDM that values chaos and maxed-out waveforms. On mixes like “3AM Coconut Dranx,” his primary tools are trap’s harsh hi-hats and an arsenal of samples. Just when the high BPM gets stale, he’ll smack you with a shredded, uplifting trance vocal. The clever futurist rapper Tennis Rodman and rising R&B producer Gifted 6 open. $5/9:30 p.m. —DS THE RITZ: Papadosio; 8 p.m., $20.

SLIM’S: Savage Knights, Tangles; 9 p.m., $5.

THU, JAN 21 4020 LOUNGE: African Rhythms; 10 p.m., $5.

B-SIDE LOUNGE: Onyx Club Contributors: Jim Allen (JA), Ryan Cocca (RC), Grayson Haver Currin (GC), Spencer Griffith (SG), Corbie Hill (CH), Allison Hussey (AH), Maura Johnston (MJ), David Klein (DK), Jeff Klingman (JK), Jordan Lawrence (JL), Karlie Justus Marlowe (KM), Bryan C. Reed (BCR), Dan Ruccia (DR), David Ford Smith (DS), Brandon Soderberg (BS), Eric Tullis (ET), Chris Vitiello (CV), Patrick Wall (PW)

KINGS CRYSTAL BRIGHT AND THE SILVER HANDS Equal parts demented folklore, Eastern European traditional music and steampunk alternate reality soundtrack, Crystal Bright’s theatrical cabaret numbers swing and stomp through anachronistic melodrama. If you don’t feel self-conscious in a top hat and tailcoat, you’ll be right at home. Carrboro dance band Chocolate Suede also plays. $8/8:30 p.m. —CH LORRAINE’S COFFEE HOUSE: Lorraine’s Coffee House Band; 7:30 p.m.

MOTORCO: Yarn; 9 p.m., $12–$15.

THE PINHOOK DRUG YACHT A trio of local veterans named Dave (drummer Bjorkback, bassist Cantwell and guitarist Heller), Drug Yacht emerged briefly in the late ’90s but has been more active since a 2012 rebirth. The

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Dangermuffin—Folly Beach, South Carolina’s biggest popmusic export—makes grooveoriented roots rock that delivers Jack Johnson’s surf’s-up-bro vibe with an Avett Brothers inflection.

If a knockoff Salt Life T-shirt and a pair of Birkenstocks could start a band, it would sound like Dangermuffin. With Baked Goods. $10/9:30 p.m. —PW

CAROLINA THEATRE JAMEY JOHNSON

CARRBORO CENTURY CENTER: The Porchmen; noon, free.

DEEP SOUTH: Blue Frequency, Gone Forever, Alter The Deal, Still Gods; 8:30 p.m., $5–$10.

IRREGARDLESS: 15501music; 6:30 p.m.

JANUARY 20, 2016 CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) DANGERMUFFIN

Boys; 9 p.m.

BERKELEY CAFÉ: Jason Damico; 7 p.m.

BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Baron Tymas Trio; 7 p.m.

BLUE NOTE GRILL: Carolina Lightnin’; 7-9 p.m., free.

There are two kinds of Jamey Johnson concerts, each with merits and miscues. First, consider the barroom, standingroom-only shows, where shoving matches are inevitable and would-be cowboys yell every word of every Waylon Jennings cover, and Johnson’s loping, loose band plays marathon sets.

Then there are the civilized, seated affairs that showcase the singer’s masterful pen and commanding voice but often cut down his rambling set list. Catch the latter here. $39–$105/8 p.m. —KM

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PHOTO BY ANGELA BOATWRIGHT

016

BLACK TUSK

BLACK TUSK SATURDAY, JAN. 23

KINGS, RALEIGH—In a little more than a week, Savannah sludge metal act Black Tusk will release Pillars of Ash, its fifth album and the last to feature founding bassist and singer Jonathan Athon. He died in 2014 after a motorcycle accident. The music sounds more like portent than tribute. Opener “God’s on Vacation” finds Athon screaming against a driving backbeat and dense riffs: “All that’s left/A fucking hole.”

Athon’s bandmates, drummer James May and guitarist Andrew Fidler, opted to soldier on, joined by former Kylesa bassist Corey Barhorst. “We just had to keep it going,” May said last year. “If it would have been any of us, that’s what the other two guys would have done.” During the new trio’s first tour together, they brought Athon along, spreading his ashes across Europe while traveling with Black Label Society.

Though the trio’s dense fusion of hardcore punk momentum and heavy metal heft remains intact, the new album shows signs that Black Tusk had started to stretch its sound. Fidler’s guitar solos feel meatier and more consequential as they cut through Athon and May’s thick low end. The band’s intensity is unparalleled on these tracks, thanks in part to the careful work of producer Joel Grind, who took a second pass to perfect the levels after realizing this would be Athon’s final testament. The album’s bone-dry mix and explosive dynamics find Black Tusk at its finest. The album offers some fitting closure by putting a powerful end to its first era. With Royal Thunder, Bask, Gorbash and SOON. 8 p.m., $12, 14 W. Martin St., Raleigh, 919-833-1091, www.kingsbarcade.com. —Bryan C. Reed

band’s active, anxious post-punk shares traits with the Minutemen’s agile bursts. With Dogs Eyes and Nine Fingered Thug. $7/8 p.m. —BCR

Band; 8 & 10 p.m., $8.

BLUE NOTE GRILL: Duke Street Dogs; 6-8 p.m., free. The Tornado Blues Band; 9 p.m., $8.

it’s one-dimensional. Heard as a hybrid of the two, it’s a missed opportunity. $28–$80/8 p.m. —GC

PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: Dennis Cash; 6 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: Local Band Local Beer: Rebekah Todd and the Odyssey, The Bourbons, The Antique Hearts; 9 p.m., free.

THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Rez Abassi; 7 p.m., free. See box, page 41.

CAROLINA THEATRE BLACK VIOLIN

CARY ARTS CENTER: Forbidden Broadway; 7:30-10 p.m., $24–$26.

FRI, JAN 22 618 BISTRO: Randy Reed; 7-9:30 p.m.

BERKELEY CAFÉ: David Burney; 9 p.m.

BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Mint Julep Jazz

Black Violin is the duo of violinist Kev Marcus and violist Wil B., Florida instrumentalists interested in pairing their classical pedigrees with hip-hop passions. As an idea, it’s not novel, but it is at least interesting, an across-theaisles move meant to showcase the ways various musical traditions can speak to one another.

But the music itself is flat and thin, with uncomplicated string melodies floated over backing tracks that lack aplomb, finesse or gusto. Heard as hip-hop, it’s dated. Heard as classical music,

CAT’S CRADLE AARON CARTER Aaron Carter—former beater of Shaq, brother of Backstreet Boy Nick, one-time Dancing With the Stars contestant—seemed to be more of a Twitter trend than a musician in recent years.

Now that he’s paid off a hefty IRS bill, thanks in part to a moneyprinting 2014 tour (during which VIP tickets topped out at $400), he’s writing, producing and gearing up to self-release new music. $15–$65/8 p.m. —MJ

THE CAVE: PROM, Automagik, Young Cardinals; 9 p.m., $5.

CITY LIMITS SALOON: Dylan Scott, Nate Kenyon; 8 p.m., $12.

DEEP SOUTH: Fonix, Wave Lynx, Orchid Sun; 8:45 p.m., $5.

DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Rez Abbasi Invocation; 8 p.m., $10–$28. See box, page 41.

DUKE COFFEEHOUSE: Lonnie Holley, Marshall Ruffin; 8 p.m., $5, free with Duke ID. See indyweek.com.

FAIRVIEW RESTAURANT: Paul Holmes; 7-10 p.m.

FLETCHER OPERA THEATRE PETER YARROW As part of one of the biggest folk acts of the ’60s, Peter Yarrow—the Peter of Peter, Paul and Mary—has been around the block. How many other people can say, “My group helped put Bob Dylan on the map?” (By recording a hit version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” in 1963). Yarrow’s got a string of solo albums to his credit, too. You’ll be hearing plenty of history from one of the grand old men of Greenwich Village folk, in both his songs and stories. $35–$37/8 p.m. —JA

HAW RIVER BALLROOM JOE PUG Dropping out of college is an unlikely watershed moment, but for singer-songwriter Joe Pug (né Pugliese), ditching his playwriting studies at UNC and making a drive to Chicago was the spark for a career that’s entering Act 2.

He started writing songs that relied on just his voice, guitar and occasional harmonica, sounding something like the raw narratives of Springsteen’s Nebraska. Pug grew his reputation, initially, by giving his music away—postage included. After touring with Steve Earle in 2009, Pug stayed on the road for a few years until a hiatus beckoned. His 2015 LP, Windfall, is polished Americana, permeated by a sense of acceptance. With Horse Feathers. $17–$20/8:30 p.m. —DK

INDYweek.com

WE 1/20 TH 1/21 FR 1/22 SA 1/23 SU 1/24 TU 1/26

THE DAGMAR BUMPERS CAROLINA LIGHTNIN THE DUKE STREET DOGS THE TORNADO BLUES BAND SPANK BO LANKENAU OPEN BLUES JAM

8PM 7PM 6-8PM 9PM $8

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8PM $8 5PM 7:30PM

LIVE MUSIC • OPEN TUESDAY—SUNDAY THEBLUENOTEGRILL.COM 709 WAHSINGTON STREET • DURHAM

SA 1/23

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JANUARY 20, 2016

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SCIENTIST TURNED COMEDIAN:

TIM LEE SOUTH CAROLINA BROADCASTERS JOSH OLIVER

we 1/20 th 1/21 fr 1/22

WILD ADRIATIC / THE 8:59’S 9pm $8 THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF BONING: SEX ED WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR 9pm $10 THE SECOND WIFE / SOON 9:30pm $7

sa 1/23 LINEBERGER CANCER CENTER X NO9TO5 MUSIC X LOCAL 506 PRESENTS: SKYBLEW & THE

DIGIDESTINED / (J)ROWDY AND THE

NIGHTSHIFT / TRACY LAMONT / KONVO THE MUTANT OF THE UNC CYPHER 9pm $8/$10

su 1/24

1/291/31 SA 1/30 WE 2/3

3@3: SOCCER TEES

ELECTRICK LADYLAND / SLYDER DAVIS 3pm FREE we 1/27 FRONT ROOM SHOW: CHARLY

LOWRY

KATELYN READ / PRATEEK PODEAR 9pm FREE

COMING SOON: THE SHADOWBOXERS, INTER ARMA, LOLO, VINYL THEATRE, FINISH TICKET, THE QUEERS

SA 2/6

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FR 1/29 SA 1/30 FR 2/5 SA 2/6

“A MEMORIAL CONCERT FOR SCOTT WEILAND”

ADHESIVE (STP TRIBUTE) JOE HERO (FOO FIGHTERS) / AMUSE (MUSE) GIRLY GIRL BURLESQUE SHOW THE TROLLS “FEAT ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF MAMA’S LOVE”

MARADEEN / PSYLO JOE / FONIX SUTTER’S GOLD STREAK BAND

FR 2/26 SA 2/27

BOOK YOUR PRIVATE PARTY HERE!

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SA 4/2

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CYRANO PRESENTED

BY COMPANY CAROLINA

THE MONTI TRIANGLE JAZZ ORCHESTRA TRANSACTORS IMPROV PRES: THE LOVE SHOW NORTH CAROLINA COMEDY ARTS FESTIVAL BOOKER T. JONES JEANNE JOLLY REBIRTH BRASS BAND TANNAHIL WEAVERS Find out More at

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1.20 1.21

1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 1.29 1.30

ELETRIK LADY LAND VERONICA V NINE-FINGERED THUG DOGS EYES / DRUG YACHT THE PINKERTON RAID KAMARA THOMAS & THE NIGHT DRIVERS CANINE HEART SOUNDS BULLY / PALEHOUND

THE CAROLINA THEATER PRESENTS:

JOHNNY GALLAGHER MONDAY NIGHT SHOWCASE ELVIS DEPRESSEDLY SAVE THE PINHOOK SECRET CONCERT SERIES SAVE THE PINHOOK SECRET CONCERT SERIES CATS CRADLE PRESENTS:

DYLAN LEBLANC

VIVICA C. COXX PRESENTS:

HOUSE OF COXX AMATEUR DRAG CONTEST

COMING SOON:

GIRLPOOL • JOE JACK TALCOM (OF THE DEAD MILKMEN) • ERIC BACHMANN • JUAN WATERS

WWW.THEPINHOOK.COM

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INDYweek.com HIGH PARK BAR & GRILL: Leon Jordan and the Continentals; 7:30 p.m.

IRREGARDLESS: Jyl Clay; 6:30 p.m.

JOHNNY’S GONE FISHING: Ann Meadows; 7-9 p.m., free.

KINGS NAKED NAPS The Raleigh duo of guitarist and singer Catie Yerkes and drummer John Meier, or Naked Naps, have never been more bracing, nervy and good as they are on the new eight-song entry, The Middle.

The music is minimal and basic, with elementary indie rock that suggests the Up Records heyday of acts like 764-HERO. Yerkes, though, is a dynamo, delivering loaded observations about and gripes with the world in a voice that sputters, coughs and soars.

These songs balance agitation and attraction well, beckoning you in even as they storm off.

Mothers and Less Western open. $8/9 p.m. —GC THE KRAKEN: The Radials, Lemon Sparks; 8 p.m.

LINCOLN THEATRE STEEP CANYON RANGERS Though Steep Canyon Rangers’ Radio was produced by dobro legend Jerry Douglas (adding another big-time co-conspirator to a list topped by Steve Martin), the Brevard outfit’s ninth LP is worth plenty more than linernotes reading. While keeping one foot firmly in the bluegrass camp, the sextet carries its stellar songcraft, tight harmonies and ace picking into folk balladry and jaunty country. Meanwhile, Look Homeward’s inclusion of occasional brass in its contemporary folk adds an intriguing wrinkle to its string-band instrumentation and sweet vocals. $18/9 p.m. —SG

LOCAL 506 THE SECOND WIFE On Tourist, her debut as The Second Wife, Reese McHenry often doesn’t stray far from the loud guitars and charged tempos of her old band, The Dirty Little Heaters. Still, recorded in the midst of her heart problems and surgeries, the record reveals a more thoughtful and dynamic songcraft, complemented by a versatile backing band that shifts easily from grunge roar to Americana drift. Heavy psych all-stars SOON open. $7/9:30 p.m. —BCR LORRAINE’S COFFEE HOUSE: Wood Family Tradition; 7:30 p.m., $7.

MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL N.C. SYMPHONY: A RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN CELEBRATION Ah, yes, the golden age of musical theater, before sexual politics made it OK for women not to wear organdy gowns, before multiculturalism helped us understand that white guys shouldn’t play the king of Siam.

The North Carolina Symphony takes us back there, if only for an hour or so, through Rodgers and Hammerstein classics from The Sound of Music, Oklahoma!, The King and I and more. Oscar Andy Hammerstein III—yes, the grandson—hosts with guest vocalists Sean MacLaughlin and Teri Hansen. Albert-George Schram conducts. The symphony reprises the show twice on Saturday. $30–$75/8 p.m. —CV MOTORCO: Professor Toon, Ace Henderson, Ace Apollo, Made of Oak (DJ Set); 8:30 p.m., $12–$15. See page 28.

THE PINHOOK THE PINKERTON RAID Heart-on-sleeve indie rockers The Pinkerton Raid launch a crowdfunding campaign for their third album, Tolerance Ends, Love Begins, with this show. The album concept seems appropriately bleak and sweeping for this U2-as-family-band Durham outfit. Songwriter Jesse James DeConto draws from his old crime-reporting job and a decaying relationship to summon meditations on the inevitability of loss. Top-notch songwriter Kamara Thomas brings latter-day barefoot Americana—hippie music at its best—while Canine Heart Sounds spring between jubilant jam-band bounce and skittering postmodern folk-rock. $10–$12/8:30 p.m. —CH PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: BigTime; 8 p.m., $10.

PLAN B: Jon Shain and Joe Newberry; 8 p.m., $15. See page 33.

POUR HOUSE: The Hot at Nights, DJ SPCLGST; 9 p.m., $10–$12. See page 30.

THE RITZ DADA LIFE The Ritz’s Nightmoves series returns for another bacchanal, this one led by eccentric Swedish act Dada Life. This duo has a long history of not-quite-Dada stunts, which include selling “lifetime passports” to their shows and attempting to get the United Nations to recognize “Dada

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FRIDAY, JAN. 22

DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM, DURHAM— Guitarist Rez Abbasi, pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa are at the vanguard of a generation of musicians exploring the connections between jazz and the music of the Indian subcontinent. A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, Iyer is probably the best known. He has the widest musical range, composing modernist string quartets, covering albums that dig deep for their source material and using hip-hop as REZ ABBASI the basis for backing tracks.

Mahanthappa is the most musically adventurous, going deep into ragas and Hindustani harmonic systems. Abbasi is the technician, with a flair for flying around the fingerboard.

For this show, Abbasi will be front and center, leading his Invocation ensemble (which includes Iyer, Mahanthappa and drummer Dan Weiss, along with bassist Johannes Weidenmueller and cellist Elizabeth Means) through a series of original compositions rooted as much in qawwali as jazz. Abbasi doesn’t attempt to re-create qawwali, so you won’t actually hear any Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan within these tunes. Instead, he invokes its ecstatic energy and expansive form within jazz, broadly defined. His 2013 album, Suno Suno, spins dense tapestries, layering complex polyrhythms inside whirling tunes.

I initially approached this concert with some trepidation. I was excited to hear what Mahanthappa and Iyer would do as soloists within the ensemble, but I was concerned about how the tunes themselves would stand up. Abbasi’s albums as a leader have occasionally left something to be desired, occasionally suffering from poor compositions or flat playing. But as I’ve dug into Suno Suno and Abbasi’s Invocation ensemble more, I’m less worried. Abbasi seems to have found a voice, and his musical bond with these fellow travelers should supply adequate spark to propel their interactions. Abbasi also plays a free jam session at The Shed in Durham Thursday, Jan. 21, at 7 p.m. 8 p.m., $10–$28, 1336 Campus Drive, Durham, 919-684-4444, dukeperformances.duke.edu. —Dan Ruccia

Land.” Musically, they’re a bit like Zedd—heavy on the guest vocalists and even heavier on the ubiquitous, uplifting trance-viapop formula. $18–$25/9 p.m.—DS

& the Disarmers and Red States. $5/9 p.m. —PW

SLIM’S THE EVERYMEN

Melissa Aldana stands up and blows her tenor saxophone without trying to change the face of jazz. But she is changing the face of jazz, having won the 2013 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition as a 20-something and by splicing Chilean street music DNA into the bodies of more-or-less straight-ahead standards. Hailed as a torchbearer for Sonny Rollins, Aldana has a clean, approachable sound that works in an exciting array of influences and ideas. $10–$39/8 p.m. —CV

In the DC Comics universe, the supervillain Everyman can shift his shape into another person after eating part of someone’s body. Likewise, Tuckertown, New Jersey, wrecking crew The Everymen have been snacking on Garden State hero Bruce Springsteen’s leg for years, expertly aping The Boss’ workingclass bar-rock with a little bit of New York hardcore ardor. (Part of the band, by the way, lives in the Triangle now, so expect more local attributes soon, perhaps?)

In a tightly packed place like Slim’s, the band’s feel-good feelbad vibes can become cathartic shout-alongs. With Sarah Shook

UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL MELISSA ALDANA WITH PABLO MENARES AND ALLAN MEDNARD

SAT, JAN 23 THE ARTSCENTER THE SOUTH CAROLINA BROADCASTERS The South Carolina Broadcasters—a bit of a misnomer now that all of its members are based here in N.C.—hasn’t had many local gigs in the past year as it’s adjusted to lineup changes. The antediluvian bluegrass trio offers some of the most true-to-form interpretations of familiar old songs available from around a single microphone. Carrboro’s Josh Oliver, whose acoustic appearances are also rare, opens. $12–$17/8 p.m. —AH BERKELEY CAFÉ: S Alt; 8 p.m.

BEYÙ CAFFÈ: The Will McBride Group; 8 & 10 p.m., $7.

BLUE NOTE GRILL: Spank; 8 p.m., $8.

JANUARY 20, 2016

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CARRBORO CENTURY CENTER: Adam Levin; 8 p.m., $15–$20.

CARY ARTS CENTER: Anatoly Larkin; 3 p.m., $8.

CAT’S CRADLE: Phil Cook, The Dead Tongues; 9 p.m., $12–$15.

See page 37.

REZ ABBASI INVOCATION

PHOTO COURTESY OF DUKE PERFORMANCES

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CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) LARRY CAMPBELL & TERESA WILLIAMS If you’re into Americana, roots music or whatever the hell else you want to call it, you’ve heard the guitar work of Larry Campbell. He was Bob Dylan’s longtime axe man but has also played with Levon Helm, Paul Simon and Rosanne Cash.

Campbell and his wife, the singer Teresa Williams (who also worked with Helm’s band), have a duo that manages to channel the influences of their past into something personal. Dashes of folk, soul, country and rock can be divined in the sound, but trying to tack a name on it is a fool’s game. Michael Rank opens. $17–$20/8 p.m. —JA THE CAVE: Pagan Hellcats, Firecracker Jam; 9 p.m., $5.

CITY LIMITS SALOON BAND TOGETHER BIG CAHOOT Benefitting Band Together NC’s primary 2016 partner—Triangle music education provider Kidznotes—and other area nonprofits, the third annual Big Cahoot gathers a trio of locals to cater to diverse tastes. Headliner Laura Reed formerly fronted the funk-leaning Deep Pocket but now lends her breathy allure to slick neo-soul. The Balsa Gliders recall the regional indie-rock and jangle-pop scenes of the ’90s, while Kate Rhudy & The Boys grace the budding singer-songwriter’s plaintive lyrics with folk trappings. $10–$100/8 p.m. —SG DEEP SOUTH: Mel Melton & The Wicked Mojos, The Beauty Operators; 8 p.m., $8.

IRREGARDLESS: Kole Coffi; 11 a.m. John Palowitch Trio; 6 p.m.

Peter Lamb and the Wolves; 9 p.m.

JOHNNY’S GONE FISHING: Tori Heller; 7-9 p.m., free.

KINGS: Black Tusk, Royal Thunder, Bask, Gorbash, SOON; 8 p.m., $12. See box, page 39.

THE KRAKEN: Blood Red River, Nannerhead; 9 p.m.

INDYweek.com LINCOLN THEATRE ANI DIFRANCO Ani DiFranco was a prolific songwriter from a precocious age, building her music into a thriving independent business throughout the 1990s. As a feminine, feminist folk artist and a sustained DIY success story, DiFranco still commands a devoted cult. Her songs remain a specific taste, though, operating at a degree of emotional and political earnestness that might always trigger an acute allergy in aloof listeners. This show operates as a fundraiser for Americans United, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the constitutional separation of church and state. That foundational principle colors very current debates about marriage equality, reproductive rights and religious freedom—ideas circulating in DiFranco’s songs for decades.

With Hamell on Trial. $32.50/7 p.m. —JK

LOCAL 506 SKYBLEW & THE DIGIDESTINED “If you’re so inclined, you could convincingly argue that David Bowie might have influenced rap more than any rock star other than Prince,” wrote music journalist Jeff Weiss in one of the many eulogies that surfaced following the rock icon’s death after an 18-month battle with cancer.

“Bowie’s approach shared the same fundamental principle as hip-hop or really any good art: do what you want.” In its second year, this hip-hop fundraiser for UNC-Chapel Hill’s Lineberger Cancer Center has extra cause to throw up a middle finger to a terminal illness that has claimed our heroes, family members and friends. In the process, you’ll have the opportunity to familiarize yourself with local artists like Skyblew, whose imagination does suggest a Bowie influence.

Also with (J) Rowdy and The NightShift, Tracy Lamont and Konvo the Mutant. $8–$10/9 p.m. —ET LORRAINE’S COFFEE HOUSE: Brien Barbour; 7:30 p.m., free.

THE MAYWOOD: Against Their Will, Kiss the Curse, Enemy in Disguise, Aeonic; 8:30 p.m., $10.

MERCURY STUDIO: Happy Abandon; 7 p.m., $5–$7.

MEREDITH COLLEGE’S JONES AUDITORIUM: Raise Your Voice! A Cappella Concert; 7 p.m., $5–$10.

MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: N.C. Symphony: A Rodgers and Hammerstein Celebration; 3 &

8 p.m., $30–$75. See Jan. 22 listing.

THE OASIS AT CARR MILL: Laurece West; 8 p.m.

THE PINHOOK BULLY

SUN, JAN 24 BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Andrew Berinson; 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

BLUE NOTE GRILL: Bo Lankenau & Friends; 5 p.m.

Without even knowing that singer Alicia Bognanno interned at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio, you could find ample evidence that her Bully might be disciples of the muscular alt-rock sound the engineer helped create. The Nashville act’s debut record, Feels Like, may not be as ultra-hooky as a vintage Veruca Salt album, say, but it’s raw-throated realness and quietloud dynamics make for a fine modern approximation. Fun fact: Both Bully and The Police have very distinct drummers named Stewart Copeland. Palehound opens. $10/9 p.m. —JK

CAROLINA THEATRE INDIGO GIRLS

PLAN B: The Way Down Wanderers; 9 p.m.

THE POINT: Skin Tight; 10:30 p.m.

CHAPEL OF THE CROSS: Baroque & Beyond: Italian Music Through the Ages; 3 p.m., $18.

DEEP SOUTH: Live & Loud Weekly; 9 p.m., $3.

POUR HOUSE THE GRAVY BOYS Pour House regulars The Gravy Boys aren’t your normal country hat act; no, the Boys trade cowboy hats for fedoras and flat caps as they deliver a ramshackle roots blend of blues and bluegrass. Electric punkabilly outfit Saint Luke’s Drifters and Steph Stewart and The Boyfriends’ moody mountain music start the night. $7–$10/9 p.m. —KM THE RITZ: On the Border; 9 p.m., $10.

SCHOOLKIDS RECORDS: Salina Solomon; 7 p.m., free.

SHARP NINE GALLERY: Larry Q. Draughn Quintet; 8 p.m., $10–$15.

SLIM’S ROAR THE ENGINES, TOYNBEE Raleigh’s Roar the Engines and Toynbee dig into the annals of alternative rock for inspiration.

Roar the Engines fills the gap between the commercial and collegiate radio stations of the early ’90s, delivering mid-tempo rockers with ringing choruses.

Toynbee goes back to the late ’80s, when the jangling pop of R.E.M. and Miracle Legion was the rage. $5/9 p.m. —PW SOUTHLAND BALLROOM: Adhesive, Joe Hero, Amuse; 9 p.m., $7–$10.

ZOG’S ART BAR & POOL HALL: Simmer Down: Roots & Culture Reggae Revival; free.

During the past 30 years, the Indigo Girls have delivered more than a dozen records that back deeply personal and political songwriting with complementary harmonies. The band’s latest, last summer’s One Last Day, continues the familiar pattern with another set of comfortable, warm songs. The record feels instantly familiar and easygoing but still distinct, with an identifiable sound that still sets the Indigo Girls apart. $37–$130/8 p.m. —AH

DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM THYMOS QUARTET Early last year, Paris’ Thymos Quartet, joined by famed conductor and pianist Christoff Eschenbach, recorded an album of Schubert. This concert will show off the results. His “Rosamunde” Quartet was written around the same time as “Death and the Maiden” and features much of the same tumult. And his “Trout” Quintet, named for the expansive variation set in its finale, remains one of his most popular works. Eschenbach and bassist Yann Dubost will join the group for this piece. $10–$42/7 p.m. —DR DURHAM CENTRAL PARK: Plan B; 12:15 p.m., free.

IRREGARDLESS: Gene O’Neill; 10 am. Emily Musolino; 6 p.m.

LOCAL 506: 3@3: Soccer Tees, Electrick LadyLand, Slyder Davis; 3 p.m., free.

MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: N.C. Opera: Eugene Onegin; 3 p.m., $25–$99. See page 37.

N.C. MUSEUM OF ART AURORA MUSICALIS Consisting of members of the North Carolina Symphony, Aurora Musicalis presents trios

by Brahms and Carl Frühling.

Brahms considered his second piano trio, written between 1880 and 1882, to be one of the finest works in the form. Much of Frülhing’s music was suppressed

or destroyed by the Nazis, but his 1925 clarinet trio is a gem. $12–$14/3 p.m. —DR

THE PINHOOK JOHNNY GALLAGHER Johnny Gallagher’s already got the trickiest part of the “EGOT Foursome” handled; when he was 22, the Delaware-born singer and actor nabbed a Tony for his work as Moritz Stiefel in Duncan Sheik’s Spring Awakening. He’s ditching the stage (and the screen, after being a regular on The Newsroom) and specializing in sunwashed rock that borrows from the singing-songwriting greatest. Listen for bits of Elvis Costello’s biting romanticism and Tom Petty’s open-road insouciance. $18/8 p.m. —MJ PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: Joe Woodson; 11:30 a.m.

POUR HOUSE: McLovins, Mr. F; 9 p.m., $6–$8.

SLIM’S: DJ Pangean; 10 p.m.

STEEL STRING BREWERY: Alan Barnosky; 4 p.m.

THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Enjoy Sunday with Danny Grewen; 6-9 p.m., $5.

WEST END WINE BARDURHAM: Eric Meyer, Noah Sager & Friends; 4-6 p.m., free.

MON, JAN 25 BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Bo Lankenau; 7 p.m.

THE CAVE: Plutonian Burrito; 9 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: Baked Goods, Caroline Cotter, Joy Ike; 9 p.m., free.

SLIM’S THE DUE DILIGENCE New York’s The Due Diligence pulls wildly, gleefully from several disparate strains. There’s the fuzzed-out, sharp-tongued observations of The Velvet Underground and the barbed angularity of Fugazi, the strong soul of Ray Charles and the guitar heroics of Built to Spill. Leader Isaac Gillespie crams these all together with great enthusiasm, countering his sardonic statements with buoyant hooks and turning his sometimes-harsh words into anthems that you’ll hum in spite of yourself. If you’ve always liked the basic idea of Titus Andronicus more than the bombastic execution, do your diligence here. $5/9 p.m. —GC THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Sessions at the Shed with Ernest Turner; 8 p.m., $5.

TUE, JAN 26 BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Kayla Thompson; 7 p.m.

DUKE’S NELSON MUSIC ROOM: Vocal Master Class with Lucas Meacham; 5 p.m., free.

IRREGARDLESS: Michelle Cobley; 6:30 p.m.

THE PINHOOK ELVIS DEPRESSEDLY In recent years, Coma Cinema’s Mat Cothran and his wife, Delaney Mills, have made small but significant adjustments to their Elvis Depressedly project.

Following the smooth tones of 2014’s Holo Pleasures, they’ve inched toward a pop sensibility that their staunchly lo-fi early recordings never suggested.

2015’s New Alhambra plunged into dreamy depths while keeping the quips up, with lines like “Jesus died on the cross so I could quit my job.” Cat Be Damned, who offers emotionally freighted songs out of Phil Elverum’s playbook, opens. With Cende. $10/8 p.m.—DS PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: John Stevens; 6:30 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: Chilled Monkey Brains, Sibannac; 9 p.m., free.

SHARP NINE GALLERY: North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra; 8 p.m., $10–$20.

WED, JAN 27 CAT’S CRADLE KEYS N KRATES The latest release from Canadian hip-hop trio Keys N Krates is the Midnight Mass EP, which jumps from quasi-EDM to jungle-tinged chipmunk soul to soaring stadium pop (thanks to a crucial track featuring Katy B).

On highlight “Love Again,” Keys N Krates match early Kanye-esque sampling with the slow-build grandiosity of a ’90s rave track.

These just-arty-enough maximalists are not to be missed. Stooki Sound and Jesse Slayter open. $20–$22/8 p.m. —BS

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) JULIEN BAKER Julien Baker, who turned 20 last year, is a prodigious talent who seems to be a star lurking in the wings. Recorded under the auspices of Richmond’s Spacebomb empire, her nine-song debut, Sprained Ankle, suggests the early elegance of Sharon Van Etten records and the austerity of Pedro the Lion’s most focused, forceful LPs. Though she

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mesmerizes when she mopes, there are twinkles of a true pop sensibility to Sprained Ankle, suggesting that Baker is still settling on exactly how to use her beautifully curling voice. All the same, it’s uniformly gorgeous stuff, here for the early taking. $10/8 p.m. —GC

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER THE TENORS The Tenors are four suave Canadians whose vocal skills have brought them adult contemporary hits, stage appearances with stars like Neil Young and gigs at award ceremonies. Drawing from both opera and pop, the quartet stirs its audience through slick, emotional performances delivered with Broadway pizzazz.

Favoring songs of praise and uplift like “You Are So Beautiful,” “Hallelujah” and others that go for the emotional jugular, they want to woo you. $40–$75/7:30 p.m. —DK LOCAL 506: Charly Lowry, Katelyn Reed, Prateek Podear; 9 p.m., free.

THE PINHOOK: Save The Pinhook; 8 p.m., $25–$100. See page 37.

POUR HOUSE ED LEWIS Rapper Ed Lewis isn’t doing himself any favors on the marketing front. (Terrible game: Try to find his music online.) But his sound is better than the presentation suggests. At this show, he hopes to roll out a new brand that will take him further than his “Ciroc Pop” moniker ever did. With Ashley Mar Shell, Knotti, Tina Joy, Sofree Wisdom and Tish Songbird. $10–$15/9:30 p.m. —RC

THE RITZ BREAKING BENJAMIN UNPLUGGED Largely the province of grunter and growler Benjamin Burnley (who’s fired his entire band at least once), post-grunge unit movers Breaking Benjamin are virtually indistinguishable from their similarly shlocky brethren.

The band’s greatest hits collection is called Shallow Bay, fitting for songs that are thimble-deep.

Lord only knows why a band built on aggro angst thought an acoustic tour would be a good idea, but here we are. Starset opens. $35/8 p.m. —PW

INDYweek.com

visualarts OPENING HAGERSMITH DESIGN GALLERY: Jan 27-Mar 23:

Southern Comforter, 42 abstract images of a down comforter by Victoria Powers. 300 S Dawson St, Raleigh. 919-821-5547, www. hagersmith.com.

HILLSBOROUGH ARTS COUNCIL GALLERY: Jan

27-Mar 19: African American Quilter Circle Show. 102 N Churton St. 919-643-2500, www. hillsboroughartscouncil.org.

LIGHT ART + DESIGN: Jan

22-Mar 12: New Year Show, work

by Jeff Bell, Kiki Farish, Heather Gordon, Warren Hicks and Sallie White. — Fri, Jan 22, 6-9 p.m.: Reception. Free. 601 W Rosemary St, Chapel Hill. 919-942-7077, www.lightartdesign.com.

NAOMI GALLERY AND STUDIO: Jan 23-Feb 20: The

Auctioneer and His Brothers, acrylic paintings by Lynne Clarke.

— Sat, Jan 23, 5-7 p.m.: Reception.

711 Iredell St, Durham. www. naomistudioandgallery.com/.

INDYPICK POWER PLANT GALLERY: Jan 23-Mar 6:

Hackensack Dreaming, largescale installation by Nancy Cohen. — Fri, Jan 22, 5-8 p.m.: Reception and Artist’s Talk. Free. powerplantgallery.org/hackensackdreaming. 320 Blackwell Street, Suite 100, Durham. 919-660-3622.

UNC CAMPUS: HANES ART CENTER: Jan 26-Feb 18: Linear

Referencing, work by Matthew Rangel in the John and June Alcott gallery. free. — Tue, Jan 26, 6-8

JANUARY 20, 2016

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p.m.: Reception. 101C E Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill. 919-962-2015, art.unc.edu.

ONGOING ALEXANDER DICKSON HOUSE: Thru Mar 17: Simple

Ways: Folk Art by Leonard Jones, paintings done with house paint on scrap metal. 150 E King St, Hillsborough. 919-732-7741, www. historichillsborough.org.

THE ARTSCENTER: Thru Jan 31: Grey Area, monochromatic paintings and paper installation

by Constance Pappalardo and Erin Oliver. 300-G E Main St, Carrboro. 919-929-2787, www. artscenterlive.org.

ARTSPACE: Thru Feb 26:

Regional Emerging Artists in Residence Exhibition, work

by Kellie Bornhoft and Tedd Anderson. — Thru Mar 5: Small Tapestry International, works from the American Tapestry Alliance.

201 E Davie St, Raleigh. 919-8212787, www.artspacenc.org.

PHOTO COURTESY OF POWER PLANT GALLERY

Galleries

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“HACKENSACK DREAMING” (DETAIL)

BOND PARK COMMUNITY CENTER: Thru Feb 29: Dispatch

VISUAL ARTS | NANCY COHEN: HACKENSACK DREAMING | FRIDAY, JAN. 22, DURHAM

CAMERON VILLAGE REGIONAL LIBRARY: Thru

POWER PLANT GALLERY—The artist Nancy Cohen exhibits on a national scale without forsaking a regional identity, as her traveling, large-scale installation, now coming to Durham’s Power Plant Gallery, makes clear. Cohen lives and works in New Jersey, and Hackensack Dreaming is a complex abstraction of the ecosystem of Mill Creek Marsh in Secaucus. In it, Cohen shapes organic materials such as handmade paper and glass into an allusive facsimile of a place she has internalized. “This installation is in no way meant to reproduce the

from Vick Benson Farm—A Visual Communique from the Family Farm, work by Robert Cassanova.

— Fri, Jan 22, 6-8 p.m.: Reception.

150 Metro Park Dr, Cary. 919-4623970, www.townofcary.org.

Jan 31: New Zealand: The Great Escape, works in oil by Christin Kleinstreuer. 1930 Clark Ave, Raleigh. 919-856-6723, www. wakegov.com/libraries.

CARY SENIOR CENTER: Thru

Feb 19: Musings, work by Katy Gollahon. 120 Maury O’Dell Place.

919-469-4081, townofcary.org.

CEDAR CREEK GALLERY:

Thru Feb 21: CUPful: Celebrating the Daily Ritual, over 400 mugs and cups handcrafted by artists from all over the United States. Free. 1150 Fleming Rd, Creedmoor. 919-528-1041, www. cedarcreekgallery.com.

landscape,” she cautions in her artist statement. “However, [it] is rife with referential essence: translucent glass objects hint at cedar forest, poking up through the water on an icy New Jersey day, and liquid rubber poured on the paper suggests, interchangeably, a wet or toxic surface.” The result is an immersive diorama—a dream or memory you can walk inside. After this artist’s reception and talk, the exhibit runs through March 5. 5–8 p.m., free, 320 Blackwell St., Ste. 100, Durham, 919-660-3622, www.powerplantgallery.org. —Brian Howe

THE COTTON COMPANY:

Thru Feb 7: Patricia Velasco, paintings. 306 S White St, Wake Forest. 919-570-0087, www. thecottoncompany.net.

DUKE CENTER FOR DOCUMENTARY STUDIES: Thru Feb 27: South Side,

photographs and writings by Jon Lowenstein. — Thru Feb 28: Aunties: The Seven Summers of Alevtina and Ludmila, photographs

by Nadia Sablin. 1317 W Pettigrew St, Durham. 919-660-3663, www. cdsporch.org.

DURHAM ART GUILD: Thru

Mar 12: The Longitude and Latitude: Explorations of Land and Sea, work by Stephen Estrada and Tony Alderman. 120 Morris St. 919-560-2713, www. durhamartguild.org.

DURHAM CONVENTION CENTER: Thru Apr 14: I Want

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www.teasersmensclub.com 156 Ramseur St. Durham, NC

INDYWEEK’s Volunteer Guide is coming on Jan 27!

Want to be listed in our very first guide to volunteering for area nonprofits?

Call Leslie Land at 919-286-6642 or email Leslie@indyweek.com Or go to www.indyweek.com/indyweek/VolunteerGuide/Page And fill out the questionnaire.

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INDYweek.com Candy, work by Stacy Crabill. 301 W Morgan St. 919-956-9404, www.durhamconventioncenter. com.

Truck, folk art by nine self-taught artists. 137 W Margaret Ln, Hillsborough. 919-245-2525, www. co.orange.nc.us/library.

ERUUF ART GALLERY: Thru Feb 18: Shall We Dance, paintings of dancing figures in oil and mixed media by Linda Passman. Free.

4907 Garrett Rd, Durham. 919489-2575, www.eruuf.org.

PAGE-WALKER ARTS & HISTORY CENTER: Thru

FRANK GALLERY: Thru Feb

7: The Human Touch: Portraits of Care. — Thru Feb 7: Intersections, work by Sasha Bakaric, Shelly Hehenberger and Suzanne Krill. — Thru Feb 7: Layer Upon Layer, work by Peter Filene and Linda Prager. 109 E Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-636-4135, www. frankisart.com.

GALLERY C: Thru Feb 10:

Backroads: The Down East Photography of Watson Brown.

540 N Blount St, Raleigh. 919-8283165, www.galleryc.net.

GOLDEN BELT: Thru Feb 2:

Franco: Beautiful, Bold and Brave.

807 E Main St, Durham. www. goldenbeltarts.com.

HORACE WILLIAMS HOUSE: Thru Feb INDYPICK

Feb 20: Books & Pages, work by Christine Adamczyk. — Thru Feb 20: Painting on Silence, work by Frank Myers. 119 Ambassador Loop, Cary. 919-460-4963, www. friendsofpagewalker.org.

PLEIADES GALLERY: Thru

Feb 7: Deuces, multimedia work

by Pleiades member artists and a guest artist. Free. 109 E Chapel Hill St, Durham. 919-797-2706, www.

PleiadesArtDurham.com.

ROUNDABOUT ART COLLECTIVE: Thru Jan 31:

Textile Topography, textile works

by Joyce Watkins King. free. 305 Oberlin Rd, Raleigh. 919-747-9495, www.roundaboutartcollective. com.

THE SCRAP EXCHANGE: Thru Feb 13: Prospect Refuge Mystery Surprise, installation by Tom Dawson. 2050 Chapel Hill Road, Durham. 919-688-6960, www. scrapexchange.org.

1: Letters at Play: Text in Wax, encaustic paintings by Carol Retsch-Bogart, Lew Graham and Peg Bachenheimer. 610 E Rosemary St, Chapel Hill. 919-9427818, chapelhillpreservation.com.

SPECTRE ARTS: Thru Feb 5: Out of the Ordinary, work by Paula de Luccia and Liv Mette Larsen.

1004 Morning Glory Ave, Durham.

919-213-1441, www.spectrearts. org.

LOCAL COLOR GALLERY:

TIPPING PAINT GALLERY:

Thru Jan 30: New Year - New Art, watercolor, acrylic, oil, clay, glass and mixed media by twelve local women artists. 311 W. Martin Street, Raleigh. 919-819-5995, www.localcoloraleigh.com.

MEASUREMENT BUILDING:

Thru Feb 11: Cinc Hayes, paintings.

404 Hunt Street, Durham. 843475-3132, Cinchayes.com.

MORNING TIMES GALLERY:

Thru Jan 31: Britt Flood. 10 E Hargett St, Raleigh. 919-459-2348, www.morningtimes-raleigh.com.

ORANGE COUNTY MAIN LIBRARY: Thru Feb 26: Side

Roads: Folk Art from Mike’s Art

Thru Jan 30: Re-Start. 311 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-928-5279, www.tippingpaintgallery.com.

UMSTEAD HOTEL & SPA: Thru Apr 30: Constance

Pappalardo, paintings. 100 Woodland Pond, Cary. 919-4474000, www.theumstead.com.

VESPERTINE: Thru Jan 31: Tempus Immortales, work by Anita Joice. 118 B E. Main St, Carrboro.

919-356-6825.

VISUAL ART EXCHANGE:

Thru Feb 25: Contemporary South, multimedia work from artists across the South. — Thru Feb 5: Unfulfilled Desires, video art

installations by Hye Young Kim. 309 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919828-7834, www.visualartexchange. org.

Museums

NASHER MUSEUM OF ART: Thru Sep 18: The New Galleries: A Collection Come to Light.

— Thru Feb 28: Reality of My Surroundings: The Contemporary Collection. 2001 Campus Dr, Durham. 919-684-5135, nasher. duke.edu.

NC MUSEUM OF ART: Thru

Mar 20: Chisel and Forge: Works

by Peter Oakley and Elizabeth Brim. — Thru Jan 31: Robin Rhode Video Installations. — Thru Jan 24: The Worlds of M.C. Escher: Nature, Science, and Imagination. 2110 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh. Info 919839-6262, tickets 919-715-5923, www.ncartmuseum.org.

NC MUSEUM OF HISTORY:

Thru Sep 5: Made Especially for You by Willie Kay, display of oneof-a-kind dresses by the Raleigh designer. — Thru Jun 19: Treasures of Carolina: Stories from the State Archives, public records and private archival materials from the state archives. — Thru Feb 28: Hey America!: Eastern North Carolina and the Birth of Funk. — Thru Jul 10: North Carolina’s Favorite Son: Billy Graham and His Remarkable Journey of Faith. 5 E Edenton St, Raleigh. 919-807-7900, www. ncmuseumofhistory.org.

Art Related

THE EL QUIXOTE FESTIVAL:

Thru Apr 23: art exhibits, performances and more in various locations celebrating Don Quixote.

See website for more details. www.iamquixote.com.

BILL BURTON ATTORNEY AT LAW Un c o n t e s t eAgreements d Di vo rc e Separation Mu s i c Bu s i n edivorce ss Law Uncontested InMusic c o r p obusiness r a t i o n / Llaw LC / Pa r t n e r s h i p Incorporation/LLC Wi lls Wills C o l l967-6159 ections (919)

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PRINTMAKING DEMONSTRATION: Wed, Jan

JANUARY 20, 2016

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books

27, 2:30-4:30 p.m.: with Matthew Rangel. UNC Campus: Hanes Art Center, 101C E Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill. 919-962-2015, art. unc.edu.

THE RESTORATION OF THE MARCUS BAXTER DRY PORTRAIT: Tue, Jan 26, 7:30 p.m.: Janet Hessline explains her process of restoring a portrait.

Page-Walker Arts & History Center, 119 Ambassador Loop, Cary. 919-460-4963, www. friendsofpagewalker.org.

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Readings & Signings

ALEXANDRA FULLER: Thu, Jan 21, 6:30 p.m.: with Leaving Before

SIGNING

JAY WILLIAMS: LIFE IS NOT AN ACCIDENT WEDNESDAY, JAN. 27, DURHAM REGULATOR BOOKSHOP—From its title, it would be easy to mistake former basketball player Jay Williams’ new book for an everything-happensfor-a-reason-themed inspirational memoir. And while this memoir is plenty inspirational, the “accident” in the title refers to Williams’ near-fatal, ostensibly career-ending motorcycle crash in 2003—and his refusal to let it define his life. Now an analyst for ESPN, Williams, a Duke Blue Devils phenom for three years, seemed headed for great things in the NBA, but only managed to play a single season before he was injured. In his book, he surveys a wide landscape, casting an unflinching eye on his youthful recklessness, the painful physical and emotional rehabilitation he endured in his attempt to return to pro ball, the harsh realities of the sports industry and the hard-won wisdom he’s acquired from such epic highs and lows. 7 p.m., $24.29 (book price), 720 Ninth St., Durham, 919-2862700, www.regulatorbookshop.com.

—David Klein

the Rains Come. McIntyre’s Books, 2000 Fearrington Village Center, Pittsboro. 919-542-3030, www. mcintyresbooks.com.

C. NICOLE SWINER: Fri, Jan 22, 2 p.m.: with How to Avoid the

INDYweek.com Superwoman Complex: 12 Ways to Balance Mind, Body & Spirit. UNC Campus: Bull’s Head Bookshop, 207 South Rd, Chapel Hill. 919962-5060, store.unc.edu.

INDYPICK

JAY WILLIAMS:

Wed, Jan 27, 7 p.m.: with Life is Not an Accident: A Memoir of Reinvention. Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St, Durham. 919-2862700, www.regulatorbookshop. com. See box, p. 44.

JJ JOHNSON: Sun, Jan 24, 4

p.m.: with Believarexic. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com.

INDYPICK KENNETH JANKEN: Thu, Jan 21, 7 p.m.:

with The Wilmington Ten: Violence, Injustice, and the Rise of Black Politics in the 1970s. Quail Ridge Books, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh.

919-828-1588, quailridgebooks. com. See story, p.33.

KIMBERLY KYSER: Thu, Jan 21, 1 p.m.: with Ticket, A Guidebook for the Table. UNC Campus: Bull’s Head Bookshop, 207 South Rd, Chapel Hill. 919-962-5060, store. unc.edu.

p.m.: with middle grade books Under Their Skin and Story Thieves 2: The Stolen Chapters. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com.

DAMON TWEEDY: Thu, Jan

21, 3:30-5 p.m.: with White Man in a Black Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine.

Free. Chapel Hill Public Library, 100 Library Dr. 919-969-2028, chapelhillpubliclibrary.org.

NICK BRUEL: Tue, Jan 26, 7

p.m.: with children’s book Bad Kitty Goes to the Vet. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com.

TAYLOR BROWN: Thu, Jan 21, 7 p.m.: with novel Fallen Land.

Flyleaf Books, 752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill. 919-9427373, www.flyleafbooks.com.

TONY REEVY: Tue, Jan 26,

3:30 p.m.: with The Railroad Photography of Jack Delano. UNC Campus: Bull’s Head Bookshop, 207 South Rd, Chapel Hill. 919962-5060, store.unc.edu.

FLEX NIGHTCLUB: Thursdays,

THE ARTSCENTER: Fri, Jan 22, 8 p.m.: Tim Lee. $9–$27. 300-G E Main St, Carrboro. 919-929-2787, www.artscenterlive.org.

COMEDYWORX THEATRE:

Fridays, 8 p.m. & Saturdays, 4 & 8 p.m.: ComedyWorx Improv Show, 2 teams of improv comedians earn points by making the audience laugh. $6-12. — Fridays, 10 p.m. & Saturdays, 10 p.m.: The Harry Show, Ages 18+. Improv host leads late-night revelers through potentially risque games, with audience volunteers brought onstage to join in. $10. 431 Peace St, Raleigh. 919-829-0822, comedyworx.com.

DSI COMEDY THEATER:

Fridays, 10 p.m.: Mister Diplomat.

Free. — Fridays, 11 p.m.: The Jam. free. — Saturdays, 10 p.m.: Pork, 5 NC comics perform. Free. 462 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-3388150, www.dsicomedytheater. com.

JANUARY 20, 2016

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MARGARET HADDIX AND JAMES RILEY: Fri, Jan 22, 7

performance Comedy

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midnite: Trailer Park Prize Night, comedy drag show with gag prize giveaways. 2 S West St, Raleigh.

919-832-8855, www.flex-club.com.

GOODNIGHTS COMEDY CLUB / THE GRILLE AT GOODNIGHTS: Saturdays, 10:30

p.m.: Anything Goes Late Show. free. — Wed, Jan 20, 8 p.m.: Comedy Roulette. $5–$13. — Thu, Jan 21, 8 p.m., Fri, Jan 22, 7:30 & 10 p.m. & Sat, Jan 23, 7:30 & 10 p.m.: Jamie Kennedy. $20–$33. — Wed, Jan 27, 8 p.m.: Goodnights Comedy Academy Graduation Showcase. $5–$13. 861 W Morgan St, Raleigh. 919-828-5233, www. goodnightscomedy.com.

INDYPICK MOTORCO MUSIC HALL: Sun, Jan 24, 8

p.m.: Tom Simmons, Stewart Huff, Cliff Cash. $12. 723 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 919-901-0875, www. motorcomusic.com.

RALEIGHWOOD CINEMA GRILL: Thu, Jan 21, 7:30 p.m.:

Lew Morgante, Louis Bishop, Steve Marcinowski. $10. 6609 Falls of Neuse Rd. 919-847-8370 (office) 919-847-0326 (movie/showtime info), www.raleighwoodmovies.com.

Literary Related

BEDTIME STORIES: LOVE, LIFE, AND INTIMACY: Thu, Jan

21, 8 p.m.: soul music and poetry, featuring Dasan Ahanu, Lavar Guy and more. $10. Hayti Heritage Center, 804 Old Fayetteville St, Durham. 919-683-1709, www. hayti.org.

CITY SOUL CAFE POETRY & SPOKEN WORD OPEN MIC:

Wednesdays, 8-10 p.m.: Poets, vocalists, musicians & lyricists welcome. All performances a cappella or acoustic. $5. www. citysoulcafe.splashthat.com.

Smokin Grooves Bar & Grill, 2253 New Hope Church Rd, Raleigh.

CURRYBLOSSOM CONVERSATIONS: Third

Thursdays, 6-8 p.m.: Sacrificial Poets host an open mic event for works of music, poetry or anything in-between. The aim is a relaxing & enjoyable night out where you can eat, drink & connect through creativity. Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe, 431 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-929-3833, www. curryblossom.com.

TOOTIE’S: Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.: ComedyMongers Open Mic. $5, free for comedians. 704 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 984-439-2328.

Dance PA R T I C I PATO RY DURHAM DANCE WAVE:

Mondays, 7:30-9 p.m.: $7. www. durhamdancewave.com. The Murphey School at the Shared Visions Retreat Center, 3717 Murphy School Rd, Durham. 919616-2190, www.sharedvisions.org.

PITTSBORO COMMUNITY DANCE JAM: Sat, Jan 23, 7-10

p.m.: $5. Pittsboro Community House, 65 Thompson St. 919-5424621.

SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCING: Wednesdays, 7:30

p.m.; Thru May 4: Glen Eden Park & Community Center, 1500 Glen Eden Dr, Raleigh.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON SALSA: Second & Fourth

Sundays, 3:30-6:15 p.m.: $6–$10.

919-494-2300, wesleyboz@ musicanddance.com. Raleigh Elks Lodge, 5538 Leadmine Rd.

SUNDAY SALSA SOCIAL:

Sundays, 6:30-9:30 p.m.: Every Sunday social featuring mostly Salsa with sides of Bachata, Merengue, Cha Cha, and Kizomba.

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FRIDAY, JAN. 22–SUNDAY, JAN. 31, RALEIGH NORTH RALEIGH ARTS & CREATIVE THEATRE—That’s not the Stage Manager from Our Town interrupting the nuptials at the start of this deranged dark comedy. It’s the happy couple’s soon-to-be son, Matt. He’s seen the future, and the news isn’t good. Matt’s our host in Christopher Durang’s semiautobiographical farce from 1985, and he leads a guided tour through three generations of a uniquely twisted family tree. Critic Robert Brustein called the result “a remorselessly sad, achingly funny assault on the vanities, inanities and insanities of family life.” At NRACT, Jonathan McCarter directs a cast including Danny Mullins, Liz Webb, Ryan Ladue and Hannah Rose Miller. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat.; 3 p.m. Sun., $10–$17, 7713-51 Lead Mine Road, Raleigh, 919-866-0228, www.nract.org. —Byron Woods

Lesson at 6:30 for beginners plus sometimes intermediate. DJ Dance at 7. $6. www.dancegumbo.com.

Triangle Dance Studio, 2603 S Miami Blvd, Durham.

TRIANGLE COUNTRY DANCERS CONTRA DANCE:

Fri, Jan 22, 7:30 p.m.: caller George Segabade, live music by Go Figure. $8–$10. Reality Center, 916 Lamond Ave, Durham. 919-6887776, www.realityministriesinc. org.

TRIANGLE SINGLES DANCE CLUB: Sat, Jan 23, 8 p.m. & Fri,

PERFORMANCE DANCING WITH THE STARS LIVE TOUR: Tue, Jan 26, 8 p.m.: $49.50–$75. Durham Performing Arts Center, 123 Vivian St. Info 919-688-3722, Tickets 919-6802787, www.dpacnc.com.

SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS: Sat, Jan 23, 2 & 7:30 p.m.

& Sun, Jan 24, 2 p.m.: $56–$141.

Memorial Auditorium, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

Jan 29, 8 p.m.: alcohol-free dance for 40+ singles. $5–$8. Northbrook Country Club, 4905 North Hills Dr, Raleigh.

film Special showings

DEUX JOURS, UNE NUIT (TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT):

Thu, Jan 21, 6:15 p.m.: free. NCSU Campus: Witherspoon Student Center, 2810 Cates Ave, Raleigh.

THE GAY DIVORCEE: Fri, Jan 22, 8 p.m.: $5–$7. NC Museum of Art, 2110 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh.

Info 919-839-6262, tickets 919715-5923, www.ncartmuseum.org.

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH: Sat, Jan 23, 6:30 p.m.:

Pour House Music Hall, 224 S Blount St, Raleigh. 919-821-1120, www.thepourhousemusichall.com.

CHEF’S TABLE: Wed, Jan 27, 7 p.m.: free. Duke Campus: Griffith Theater, Bryan Center, Durham. www.duke.edu.

OPENING BUCKING THE MEDICAL AND MENTAL BULL: Thu, Jan 21, 7 p.m.: one-woman show written and performed by Anita Woodley on the Black Male experience with the Health Care System in America. free. Stanford L Warren Branch Library, 1201 Fayetteville St, Durham. 919-560-0270, www. durhamcountylibrary.org.

NEXT TO NORMAL: ThursdaysSundays, 8 p.m.; Thru Jan 31: $10– $12. https://www.facebook.com/ events/1665987293660179/. Duke

Film Capsules

Our rating system uses one to five stars. Signed reviews are by Brian Howe (BH), Laura Jaramillo (LJ), Kathy Justice (KJ), Craig D. Lindsey (CDL), Glenn McDonald (GM), Neil Morris (NM), Zack Smith (ZS) and Ryan Vu (RV).

AMY: Wed, Jan 20, 7 p.m.: Asif

Kapadia’s documentary about Amy Winehouse. Carolina Theatre, 309 W Morgan St, Durham. 919-5603030, www.carolinatheatre.org.

Theater

Opening

THE 5TH WAVE—A young woman (Chloë Grace Moretz) fights to keep her younger brother safe in a world torn apart by extraterrestrial attacks. Rated PG-13.

ANOMALISA—A stranger enriches the mundane life of a successful author in Charlie Kaufman’s new stop-motion drama. Rated R. DIRTY GRANDPA—Shortly after his wife’s death, Dick Kelly (Robert De Niro) takes his grandson Jason (Zac Efron) on a raunchy and outrageous string of spring break adventures. Rated R.

Current Releases

 1/2 BROOKLYN—John Crowley and Nick Hornby capture the nostalgic melancholy of Colm Tóibín’s novel in this elegiac oldschool melodrama. Saoirse Ronan is Eilis, an Irish girl who goes to work in Brooklyn in the 1950s, thanks to the sponsorship of a U.S.-based priest (Jim Broadbent).

Leaving behind a mother and sister she adores, she’s initially homesick, living in an all-female boarding house. That changes when she meets a sweet-natured Italian plumber who falls for her.

Things get complicated when she starts seeing a suave Irishman (Domhnall Gleeson), turning the story into an intercontinental tornbetween-two-lovers affair. Like so many films about immigrants looking for a better life, this one lays out a wondrous and romantic (if oddly minority-free) vision of America’s past. Rated PG-13.

—CDL  CAROL—With Carol, filmmaker Todd Haynes continues to delve into forbidden love during a tense, conflicted era.

While his 2002 film Far from Heaven about interracial romance

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MATILDA THE MUSICAL:

Campus: Sheafer Lab Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus, Durham.

Thru Jan 24: $40–$155. Durham Performing Arts Center, 123 Vivian St. Info 919-688-3722, Tickets 919680-2787, www.dpacnc.com.

ONGOING AN LOC: Fri, Jan 22 & Sat, Jan

23: Free. UNC Campus: Swain Hall, 101 E Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill.

INDYPICK

JANUARY 20, 2016

THREE SISTERS:

Tuesdays-Sundays, 7:30-9 p.m.; Thru Feb 7: $15–$44. 919-9627529, www.playmakersrep.org.

UNC Campus: Paul Green Theatre, 120 Country Club Rd, Chapel Hill.

919-962-7529, playmakersrep.org.

INDYPICK SMALL AND TIRED: Thru Jan 23: Common

Ground Theatre, 4815-B Hillsborough Rd, Durham. 919384-7817, www.cgtheatre.com.

INDYPICK STICK FLY: Thru Jan 31, 8 p.m.: $13–$22. Raleigh Little Theatre, 301 Pogue St. Office 919-821-4579, Tickets 919-8213111, www.raleighlittletheatre.org.

See review, p. 35.

FILM | MEREDITH COLLEGE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL SUNDAY, JAN. 24, RALEIGH CARSWELL AUDITORIUM—This is Meredith College’s third annual mini-festival for documentaries, many with a local focus and the filmmakers invited for post-screening discussions. The highlights are the bookends: The festival begins at 2 p.m. with Brewconomy, an hour-long doc by Meredith graduate Camden Watts that boosts North Carolina’s booming craft beer scene, and ends at 7 p.m. with Althea, a feature-length film by Durham filmmakers Rex Miller, Elisabeth Haviland James and Nancy Buirski that tells the story of Althea Gibson, the first black woman to compete at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. In between, at 4 p.m., you can catch a raft of shorts, many of them also focused on women’s accomplishments, with subjects including pioneering female aviators and law enforcement officers.

The event is free and open to the public, and you can drop in for whichever films you’d like to see.

2 p.m., free, 3800 Hillsborough St., Raleigh, 919-7608507, www.meredith. edu. —Brian Howe

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE FILMMAKERS

THEATER | THE MARRIAGE OF BETTE AND BOO

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ALTHEA

was practically a Douglas Sirk tribute in ironic quotation marks, Carol is more like a same-sex Brief Encounter. And just like that classic love story, the subject matter is handled with genuine, romantic sincerity. Once again tripping back to the beautiful but hopelessly repressed ’50s, Haynes casts Rooney Mara as a single shopgirl who is drawn to the title character, a high-society dame played by Cate Blanchett.

A harmless friendship morphs into a frowned-upon affair as Carol tries to at once court her new love and keep custody of her daughter. Using Patricia

Highsmith’s 1952 book, The Price of Salt, as source material, Haynes returns to something he knows all too well: how to hammer through the façades of seemingly content people to get to the secrets and lies hidden underneath. He finds an ideal pair of frustrated lovebirds in Blanchett and Mara, who know how to show the pain and confusion inside them through their eyes alone. Both give performances worthy of a nomination.

Haynes and his performers create a sophisticated story about two people trying to be together in an environment that’s quietly suffocating them. Haynes follows

Highsmith’s example and ultimately provides some light at the end of this maddening, harrowing yet exquisite love story. Rated R. —CDL  CREED—The boxing-film genre reached its narrative limits long ago. But by using conjoined character arcs, the Rocky series’ seventh film ably honors, updates and even deconstructs its legacy.

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the son of late champ Apollo Creed—Rocky’s respected nemesis—is rescued from a delinquent childhood by Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo’s

INDYweek.com widow. Haunted by her husband’s death in the ring, she discourages Adonis’ impulses. But he moves to Philadelphia to coax an aging Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to train him. He reluctantly agrees, though his guilt over failing to prevent Apollo’s death is a motivation the film doesn’t sufficiently explicate. Ryan Coogler, who directed Jordan in Fruitvale Station, reclaims the blackness of a franchise originally framed through the prism of the Great White Hope. Jordan and Stallone, utterly at ease, conjure an alchemy of wit and poignancy.

Rated PG-13. —NM  THE DANISH GIRL—Eddie Redmayne (last year’s Oscar winner for best actor) stars as landscape painter Einar Wegener, one of the first recipients of gender reassignment surgery. Set in 1920s Copenhagen, the tale is inspired by actual events, although director Tom Hooper (Les Misérables) takes liberties to present the story as a tender portrait of a remarkable marriage. Alicia Vikander plays Einar’s wife, Gerda, and her performance is every bit as vulnerable and wrenching as Redmayne’s. As Einar begins his gradual transformation into a woman, the story becomes a psychologically complex love triangle between two people.

But Hooper’s overwrought visual strategy keeps the film from really soaring. The style is too composed and conventional for the material. Rated R. —GM  THE GOOD DINOSAUR— Disney and Pixar’s latest imagines a world where an asteroid didn’t hit Earth and dinosaurs continued to evolve. The premise is an excuse for an old-fashioned adventure story—a “boy and his dog” tale where the dog is the boy and the boy is a dinosaur. Family runt Arlo is terrified of everything and despairs of ever “making his mark.” An encounter with a loin-clothed “critter” (Jack Bright) leads to a tragedy, and then Arlo is swept downriver, where he discovers that the cave-boy he resents is a surprisingly loyal companion on the long, danger-filled trip home. There’s a darkness to this story that contrasts with the soft, toy-like pastel dinosaurs; Arlo suffers about every physical and emotional trauma possible in a Disney flick, dead parent included. It’s all a little old-fashioned for Pixar, which has done its best work breathing fresh life into tired ideas. But it’s nice to see that oldfashioned children’s stories aren’t extinct. Rated PG. —ZS  THE HATEFUL EIGHT—The

best things during the interminable three hours of Quentin Tarantino’s latest are the musical overture by Ennio Morricone and the intermission, when you can flee without bothering the rest of the audience. Set in post-Civil War Wyoming, The Hateful Eight is an ensemble Western revolving around a gaggle of miscreants forced into close quarters en route to the town of Red Rock. In all, 10 people take shelter from a blizzard in a stage stopover. As their furtive motives and backstories are gradually revealed, the plot assumes the guise of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Despite a garrulous script, few sequences are memorable.

The final chapters are a nihilistic fever dream; what’s missing is maturity and meaning. Tarantino can still be a captivating, adroit filmmaker, but his narrative predilections have become predictable, and his films are teetering on self-parody. Unless he jettisons his period revenge fantasies and returns to the wheelhouse of contemporary hyper-realities, Tarantino will soon feel as dated as his film stock. Rated R. —NM  1/2 THE REVENANT—In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new film, stranded fur trapper Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) takes overnight shelter in the hollowed-out carcass of a horse and then slowly emerges, naked, from the grisly womb. It’s a stark visual metaphor for the theme of rebirth that permeates this epic neo-Western, based on a true story. A revenant is one who returns from the dead, as Glass seemed to after being mauled by a bear during a hunting expedition in 1820s Dakota Territory. The film features the most spectacular battle scene to open a movie since Saving Private Ryan, and the bear attack is a visceral CGI triumph. Glass’ fellow trappers leave him for dead, and the death of his part-Pawnee son further fuels his revenge quest.

His antagonist is John Fitzgerald, a bullying backwoodsman played by a mesmerizing Tom Hardy.

Iñárritu films many scenes with his tracking-shot technique from Birdman, complemented by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s natural light. Stories abound about the film’s grueling shoot and skyrocketing budget, but the end result is a cinematic tour de force, if not a rebirth.

Rated R. —NM  1/2 SISTERS—Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are Maura and Kate Ellis, terminally immature siblings whose empty-nester

parents are selling their childhood home. Poehler sweetly plays the straight woman to Fey’s middleaged lady gone wild. It’s a competent comedy that occasionally hits some very funny notes, though it mostly stays within the triedand-true formula of mainstream American comedy: toilet humor meets family values. Directed by Jason Moore, Sisters mobilizes a cadre of Saturday Night Live talent in bit parts. Unfortunately, none of them are allowed enough screen time to really let their jokes rip. The famed chemistry between Poehler and Fey is best expressed when they’re obviously going off script. The pair has an uncanny gift for physical comedy, but the script seriously hampers Fey’s comedic gifts, stifling her brainy absurdist humor and shoehorning her into the Sarah Silverman-esque territory of dick and pussy jokes. Though female comedians have gained ground in recent years, Sisters highlights how limited a category “funny” remains for women in Hollywood.

Rated R. —LJ  STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS—Director J.J. Abrams has delivered a triumph by flouting the usual reboot expectations to make a disco remix of franchise mythology. Three decades after the events of Return of the Jedi, the collapse of the Empire has created a power vacuum. The fascist First Order has stepped in, and Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi, has disappeared. On the desert planet of Jakku we meet Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), a Resistance pilot who finds an ally in the morally conflicted Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega).

We also meet the resourceful scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley). Over on the Dark Side, the mysterious Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) evokes Darth Vader. As more characters come into play, it becomes clear that Abrams isn’t creating a new Star Wars so much as retelling the original saga with all the components mixed up. Not everything clicks into place, but it builds to a satisfying crescendo, and the quiet coda is just about perfect.

It’s helpful to keep in mind the notion that myths are stories we tell ourselves over and over again, in different guises and different eras.

Star Wars is one of the great tales of our modern mythology, and The Force Awakens successfully re-imagines the legend for a new generation. Rated PG-13. —GM

Seeking Duke cardiology patients to participate in an 8-week study on medication compliance using digital tools to track progress.

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JANUARY 20, 2016

•

ART

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RALEIGH GRANDE

You may be eligible for this research study if you: • are over 18 years old • have a personal iOS or Android device • are currently prescribed and taking heart medication, one or two times per day Participation includes: • Coming to our office to enroll in the study and take a survey • Taking part in brief surveys daily and weekly during the study on your mobile device for 6 weeks • Coming back to our office to take one final survey and complete the study

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To sign up, email BEresearch@duke.edu or call 919-681-9521 Protocol # Pro00064774

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