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2 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK RALEIGH

VOL. 36, NO. 1

7 Two thousand eighteen was exhausting, but at least Silent Sam came down, so we have that.

14 We recognize 2018’s narrowest escapes, biggest bosses, and more in our arts and culture superlatives.

21 Explore the best, worst, and most memorable things we saw, heard, read, watched, ate, and drank this year.

DEPARTMENTS 32 What to Do This Week 34 Music Calendar 37 Arts & Culture Calendar

Bob Trotman’s Business as Usual at the Gregg Museum was one of our top five art exhibits of 2018 (p. 30) PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GREGG MUSEUM

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NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING FOR THE PROPOSED WIDENING OF SOUTH CHURTON STREET AND THE PROPOSED EXTENSION OF ORANGE GROVE ROAD ORANGE COUNTY STIP PROJECT NOS. U-5845 & U-5848 The N.C. Department of Transportation and the Town of Hillsborough will hold a public meeting regarding the proposed projects to widen South Churton Street from I-40 to Orange Grove Road (U-5845) and extend Orange Grove Road from existing South Churton Street to U.S. 70A (U-5848) in Hillsborough. The meeting will take place on Tuesday, January 8 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Town Hall Annex, Board Meeting Room located at 105 East Corbin Street in Hillsborough.

A public meeting was previously held for Project U-5848 (Orange Grove Road) in March 2018. After the public meeting, NCDOT reviewed comments received by the Town and members of the community and based on public input and anticipated design and impact concerns, the project team eliminated two of the options (Alternatives 1 and 3).

Modifications were made to Alternative 2 based on comments—this new option is called Alternative 4. A map of this option will be at the public meeting.

The public may drop-in at any time during the meeting hours. NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and listen to comments regarding the project. The opportunity to submit comments will also be provided at the meeting or via phone, email, or mail by January 25, 2019. Comments received will be taken into consideration as the project develops. Please note that no formal presentation will be made. Project information and materials can be viewed as they become available online at https://www.ncdot.gov/ news/public-meetings.

For additional information, contact Gene Tarascio, NCDOT Project Manager at, 1582 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1582, (919) 707-6046, or gtarascio@ncdot.gov. You can also contact Teresa Gresham, P.E., Consultant Project Manager at, 421 Fayetteville Street, Suite 600, Raleigh, NC 27601, (919) 677-2194, or teresa.gresham@kimley-horn.com.

NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting. Anyone requiring special services should contact Samantha Borges, Environmental Analysis Unit at (919) 707-6115 or smborges@ncdot.gov as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

Raleigh Durham | Chapel Hill PUBLISHER EDITORIAL

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Persons who do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1-800-481-6494.

Aquellas personas que no hablan inglés o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1-800-481-6494.

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backtalk

Jesus Must Be Proud Happy New Year, and welcome back, everyone! While we were gone last week, editor Jeffrey C. Billman published a column called “Ten Observations on a Year at the Speed of Trump,” which reflected on how the perpetual chaos of the Trump presidency “clouds the memory, pollutes the mind,” and how scandals that would dominate weeks and months in any other administration seem to last but a few hours before a new one arises.

“I just wanted to say great article,” Dave Mueller writes. “And, oh my god, did you hit the nail on the head with the ‘Biggest Scandal Ever … for twelve hours’ part. Nothing makes me think of that more than the whole Hobby Lobby thing. A freakin’ craft store was involved in smuggling actual artifacts out of the Middle East. That would have been the most insane, bizarre story of the year during pretty much any other year of our country’s existence prior to 2017. But in the Trump era, it wasn’t even the craziest story of the week.”

Kevin Wilson, meanwhile, takes issue with the column’s prediction that things are going to get worse before they get better: “No, things will get worse before they get even worse! As putrid as he is, Trump isn’t the American Hitler everyone fears—he’s way too unhinged. So Trump is just setting up the groundwork for someone even more sinister. Mike Pence is Ted Cruz without the charisma. The next alt-right POTUS— ’20 if Trump doesn’t run, ’24 if he does—is the one who I fear, because he’ll be much younger and much less prone to outbursts than the Dumbass in Tweet.”

Larry Strickland thinks things are going just fine, thank you very much: “Your comments are the typical liberal farleft views that I have heard many times before. President Trump has been a great president, and I support him 100 percent.”

“Over 60 percent of the country disagrees with that,” Donovan Verrill replies. “He’s the dumbest, most childish, most narcissistic president we’ve ever had. He’s caused more damage to this country than I thought he would. Hillary was the first Democrat I ever voted for for president, and I despise Hillary. That’s how bad Trump is. I get it, though. You Christians have just been waiting for a foul-mouthed, tax-cheating,

“History— especially unjust history—is meant to be owned, not dismissed.” porn-star-paying-off, multiple philanderer to be your savior. Jesus must be so proud.”

Austin Richard Lovegrove says Trump is confounding progressives by doing things they should like: “We finally have an antiimperialist/anti-war president and liberals don’t know what to do.”

Our last issue of 2018 featured an interview with Maya Little, the activist and UNC grad student best known for smearing her own blood (and red paint) on Silent Sam in April.

Mike Harris believes protesters like Little are in it for the attention: “When I see so many ardent protesters devoting so much time and energy to the fate of an inanimate chunk of metal, as opposed to, say, housing the homeless or feeding the starving or fighting the erosion of our faith in our free press and our electoral process—you know, inconsequential things like that—I cannot help but wonder if they would be so sensitive about a dippy statue if that would not result in a crowd-driven gestalt of an emotional high and get them a place in the spotlight of news cameras.

“My solution to Confederate monuments would be more monuments—statues and plaques to people such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, along with more education about the times these people lived in. If you remove Confederate monuments, all you accomplish is avoiding history and covering it up. History—especially unjust history—is meant to be owned, not dismissed. Dismissing history is how you enable the same sort of people who claim that the Holocaust never happened.”

Want to see your name in bold? Email us at backtalk@indyweek.com, comment on indyweek.com or on our Facebook page, or hit us up on Twitter: @indyweek.

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SUPERLALATTIVES NEWS

The good. The bad. The ugly. (Lots of ugly.) Reflections on a year that exhausted, frustrated, and occasionally exhilarated us.

I

feel like I’ve aged a decade over the last 365 days.

It’s Trump and the chaos that perpetually surrounds him, but it’s not just that. It’s the news cycle, which both nationally and locally moves faster than ever—and which, by inclination and occupation, I’m obliged to keep up with—but it’s not just that either. It’s the constant wave of technological and cultural innovations, and the sense that these technological and cultural innovations are only exposing the rot of soulless late-stage capitalism (looking at you, Zuckerberg), but, again, it’s not just that either.

It’s the accumulation of these things: a feeling like you’re you’re swimming harder and harder just to stay afloat while the world is coming apart at the seams.

Two thousand and eighteen was a long, hard, often depressing slog of a year. The U.S. government kidnapped migrant children at the border and stuffed them into cages; the U.S. Senate confirmed a man accused of sexual assault to the Supreme Court; the president called the media the “enemy of the people” even after five journalists were gunned down in Maryland; we ended the year with a partial government shutdown because the Very Stable Genius who controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal threw a temper tantrum over a border wall that his own chief of staff once called “absurd.”

But there were glimmers of light amid the darkness: Democrats walloped the GOP in November, retaking the House of Representatives; in North Carolina, Democrats broke the Republican supermajorities, giving Governor Cooper some semblance of power; Silent Sam came down, at least for now; the Triangle’s local governments got serious about affordable housing and put some big money behind their efforts, to mention just a few things.

In the pages that follow, we’ve compiled a list of superlatives from the year in news—the good, the bad, and the ugly in North Carolina and the Triangle, the things that embarrassed us and those that gave us hope, the decisions that made us roll our eyes and the moments that filled us with pride. Join us for one last stroll down memory lane, and then let’s hit the damn reset button. —Jeffrey C. Billman

t r p s -

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e o e e fFrancisco Miranda (left), fourteen, and his brother, Samuel, eight, at the Families Belong Together march in Raleigh on June 30.

Biggest Cause for Hope, Part 1: THE BUSTED SUPERMAJORITIES

e , e l d

Ever since Roy Cooper defeated Pat McCro-

nry, he’s lived in Phil Berger and Tim Moore’s eworld. (Technically, McCrory did, too, he ejust didn’t realize it.) They controlled the lGeneral Assembly with supermajorities

large enough to override vetoes, which ren-

dered Cooper a figurehead, and meant the Republicans never had to bother negotiating with the legislature’s Democrats.

That changes now. Sure, the Republicans still have majorities in each gerrymandered chamber—even though Democrats won more votes statewide—but they’ll no longer have supermajorities, which means they’ll no longer have absolute power. Cooper’s vetoes will matter. Republicans will have to compromise. It’s a brave new world.

—Jeffrey C. Billman

Biggest Cause for Hope, Part 2: THOMAS FARR’S REJECTION Few of Donald Trump’s right-wing judicial nominees were more obnoxious than Raleigh’s own Thomas Farr, a former campaign lawyer for the white supremacist Jesse Helms who also represented the General Assembly in its losing battles

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SUPERLATIVES PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA

over racist gerrymandering and voter ID schemes.

In Congress’s lame-duck session this year, Farr was within a hair’s breadth of a lifetime appointment to the federal bench even after news surfaced—thanks to ye old INDY—that he may have misled the Senate Judiciary Committee about his knowledge of a postcard initiative the Helms campaign orchestrated in 1990 to intimidate black voters. Senate Republicans, however, had a slim majority and few compunctions about using it (see Kavanaugh, Brett).

INDYweek.com | 1.2.19 | 7

Except: Outgoing Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona promised to vote against every judicial nominee unless the Senate voted on a bill to protect Robert Mueller’s investigation, which didn’t happen. That meant, with every Democrat in opposition, only one Republican defector could sink Farr.

The duty fell to Tim Scott, the only African American Republican in the Senate, who ultimately decided that racist voter suppression was disqualifying. Imagine that.

—JCB

demographics and accelerated by a distaste for Trump. What it means is that the ruralurban divide is going to grow. But even though Democrats may dominate North Carolina’s economic and cultural epicenters, the GOP’s advantage in sprawling rural areas could give Republicans a leg up in the General Assembly for years to come. —Leigh Tauss

Most Embarrassing Scandal: CONGRESSIONAL Most Portentous Political Trend: DISTRICT 9 THE VANISHING URBAN REPUBLICAN After the election, there’s only one Republican left in Wake County’s legislative delegation.

There are zero countywide Republicans officials, nor are there any Republicans on the Raleigh City Council.

The same pattern holds true in North Carolina’s other urban areas. Democrats swept the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners in November for the first time since 1964. There are only two Republicans left on the Charlotte City Council, and one lonely elephant in Mecklenburg’s legislative delegation. Republicans have all but given up in Durham and Orange Counties. And so on.

This trend has been fueled by changing

It’s bad enough that voters in the Ninth Congressional District even came close to sending a reactionary doofus like Mark Harris to Washington. But the painful, face-palming spectacle that has taken place since the election has been truly something to behold.

As has been widely reported, Harris’s campaign hired a political operative to run an absentee ballot campaign that, well, may not have been entirely on the level. Harris hired the same operative in the primary and narrowly prevailed; his opponent, Congressman Robert Pittenger, reportedly complained to party officials but was ignored. Harris narrowly won—or, more accurately, he’s ahead—in November, too, but there was enough weirdness for the State Board of Election and Ethics Enforce-

ment to refuse to certify the results pending the results of its investigation.

Here’s where it gets fun: At first, the NCGOP professed outrage, demanding that Harris be declared victorious. But as the evidence of wrongdoing mounted, party leaders backtracked, saying a new election may be necessary; in fact, Republicans in the General Assembly quickly passed a law stating that any new election needed a primary, because they didn’t want Harris’s damaged goods costing them a seat. But then the elections board postponed its evidentiary hearing until January 11, which is eight days after the new Congress is sworn in. The NCGOP reversed course again, demanding that Harris be declared the winner because, hey, why not.

Then, last week, another small hiccup: The elections board ceased to exist.

To explain: After Governor Cooper’s win in 2016, Republicans in the General Assembly changed the board’s makeup as part of a power grab. Cooper sued. The board was declared unconstitutional, but the ruling wasn’t to take effect until after the 2018 midterms. In this year’s lame-duck session, the legislature reverted to the original electionsboard system, but that law doesn’t take effect until January 31. But last week, the court that originally found the old elections board unconstitutional lost its patience and ordered it to dissolve. Cooper pledged to appoint an interim board to fill in the gap, but the NCGOP says that’s illegal and it won’t cooperate.

Harris, meanwhile, is likely to sue over not being certified. But Democrats in Congress say they won’t seat him—and constitutionally, they have the final word. In other words, no one knows what’s going to happen. —JCB

Most Obnoxious Trump Bootlicker: MARK MEADOWS

There are plenty of reasons Congress is dysfunctional. But near the top of any list must be the Freedom Caucus, the self-appointed guardians of conservative purity who’ve made it impossible for the GOP to get things done. Their leaders: Jim Jordan, best known for ignoring sexual abuse allegations while he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State, and North Carolina’s own Mark Meadows, the biggest MAGA fanboy around. Trump, of course, loves Meadows, because Trump loves lackeys who go on cable television to prattle on about the WITCH HUNT and FAKE NEWS, which Meadows does with aplomb. Not long ago, it looked like Meadows might become Trump’s chief of staff, but, at least according to the White House, Trump decided Meadows should stay in Congress, where he can continue to insist that House Republicans say things that make Sean Hannity’s nether regions tingle while doing absolutely nothing productive. —JCB

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Turquoise Parker, a second-grade teacher at Eastway Elementary in Durham, marched for teachers on May 16.

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SUPERLATIVES PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CAITLIN PENNA

Most Malicious Deportation: SAMUEL OLIVER-BRUNO Last December, Samuel Oliver-Bruno became the fifth person in North Carolina to seek sanctuary from the Trump’s immigration policies, holing up in a Durham church to evade a deportation order. OliverBruno and his family had lived in Greenville for two decades, but, in 2014, he went home to Mexico to visit sick relatives. His wife, who has lupus, returned to the U.S. to get heart surgery. When Oliver-Bruno tried to re-enter the country, he was detained at the border. Under the Obama administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had given him a stay of removal; the Trump administration revoked that stay.

For eleven months, Oliver-Bruno never left that church. But then he got a message that he needed to go the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices in Morrisville to receive a biometric screening as part of his pending asylum application.

As soon as he got there, ICE officials tackled and arrested him. A week later, he was deported. You feel safer now, right? —JCB

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SUPERLATIVES

Most Malicious Prosecution: THE ALAMANCE 12 For all the Republican braying about voter fraud, there’s a persistent lack of evidence that the problem actually exists, especially the kind that would be prevented by voter ID laws. An audit of the 2016 election in North Carolina, for example, found that voter ID would have stopped just one illegal vote out of 4.8 million. But the audit did discover that 508 people voted illegally, and 441 of them were on parole or probation.

The state referred those cases to local district attorneys. Most declined to do anything; after all, the people casting these ballots usually didn’t know they were doing anything illegal. That wasn’t the case in Alamance County, where Republican District Attorney Pat Nadolski wanted to make a point. His office charged a dozen residents— nine of them black—with a felony that could land them two years in prison. For voting.

The law under which they were charged was passed in 1901, and, according to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, was designed to intimidate black voters. (The SCSJ notes that while casting an illegal ballot is a felony, using violence to disrupt an election is a misdemeanor.) In August, the felony charges against five of the so-called Alamance 12 were dismissed as part of a plea deal. —JCB

After the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, protesters amassed in downtown Raleigh for the March for Our Lives rally on March 24. PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA

Most Disappointing Policy Decision: CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS ON THE CAPITOL GROUNDS In the summer of 2017—after neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville to defend a Civil War monument, protesters in Dur-

ham tore down one Confederate statue, and UNC students demanded the removal of another—the North Carolina Historical Commission had an opportunity to remove three Confederate monuments from the state capitol grounds.

The commission, which must give its permission to move any “object of remembrance” in the state, punted. It took almost a year for the commission to reach a decision, finally voting this August not to remove them or relocate them to a battle-

field, but to “provide a balanced context” for monuments that are an “over-memorialization” of the Confederacy. The commission asked the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to design and raise money for a new monument to honor African Americans—a consolidation prize for a few hundred years of chattel slavery, apparently—but there doesn’t seem to be much urgency to get that done.

Meanwhile, those three monuments to white supremacy still stand. —Sarah Willets INDYweek.com | 1.2.19 | 9

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SUPERLATIVES

On August 20, protesters tore down Silent Sam, the Confederate monument that had stood on UNC’s campus for 105 years.

Biggest Own Goal: HOW THE NCGOP GOT ANITA EARLS Two years ago, Mike Morgan sneaked onto the N.C. Supreme Court, winning a bunch of conservative, rural, Trump-loving areas that you wouldn’t think would swing for a black Raleigh Democrat. And they probably didn’t on purpose. Instead, the state Republican Party got hoisted by its own petard. Earlier in 2016, the General Assembly had passed a law making N.C. Court of Appeals races partisan, and then another law mandating that candidates associated with the governor’s party (then a Republican) be given the coveted top spot on the ballot. However, the N.C. Supreme Court was still nonpartisan, its ballot order was still derived by chance, and Morgan got the top slot. In essence, a bunch of Republicans thought they were voting for a Republican, Morgan won, and Democrats got a majority on the state’s high court.

Republicans weren’t going to let that happen again. This year, with incumbent Barbara Jackson facing reelection, they decided that not only should Supreme 10 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

Court races be partisan, but there should also be no partisan primaries and no runoffs. They assumed that Democrats would split their votes among multiple candidates while Jackson would stand alone. But then came Chris Anglin, a former Democrat recently turned Republican. Republicans called shenanigans and passed a law stating that Anglin couldn’t appear on the ballot as a Republican because of his party switch; Anglin sued and prevailed, and appeared on the ballot as a second Republican. Anita Earls, the progressive Democrat the General Assembly absolutely did not want on the Supreme Court, won easily—albeit with just a smidge less than an outright majority.

Two elections in a row, the NCGOP tried to rig the system to their benefit. Two elections in a row, they were too clever by half.

There’s a lesson in there. —JCB

Worst Response to a #MeToo Scandal: DUANE HALL When Allison Dahle challenged state representative Duane Hall in the Democratic primary, nobody thought she had a chance.

But on February 28, the last day of qualify-

PHOTO BY COLE VILLENA

ing, that all changed with a story from NC Policy Watch (and former INDY) reporter Billy Ball, detailing accusations that Hall had kissed two women without their consent in 2016.

In the midst of the #MeToo movement, prominent Dems immediately urged Hall to resign. He remained defiant, insisting he’d never harassed anyone. Then he said he was a flirt and said one of the incidents was a joke that was being misconstrued by his political enemies. Then he lashed out, accusing Policy Watch of having a vendetta against him because he used to date the daughter of the executive director of the NC Justice Center, which operates Policy Watch, because hell hath no fury like the journalistic minions of the father of a woman scorned, it seems.

Shockingly, that strategy didn’t pan out.

Dahle will join the General Assembly January 9. —JCB

Biggest Red Wave: THE TEACHERS’ MARCH On May 16, the streets of downtown Raleigh turned red, clogged with twenty thousand people wearing the color in sup-

port of public education. The march came as educators in other states, particularly red states, went on strike to demand better pay and more respect. On the day of the North Carolina event, 42 out of the state’s 115 school districts—accounting for 75 percent of the state’s student population— closed. (The stunning display of solidarity also gave us one of 2018’s most notable political gaffes: Republican state representative Mark Brody said “union thugs” were behind the march.) Six months after participants chanted “Remember, remember, we vote in November,” Democrats broke Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. —SW

Biggest Legislative Failure: EXTREME RISK PROTECTION ORDERS

After the February massacre in Parkland, Florida, there was plenty of talk about the need to address the uniquely American problem of mass shootings. In the General Assembly, state representative Marcia Morey filed a bill offering a pretty reasonable solution: extreme risk pro-

tection orders. The bill, the former Durham District Court Judge explained, would allow judges to temporarily take guns away from people who pose an imminent danger to themselves or others—the kind of people you really don’t want have a gun. Similar “red flag” laws are already in place in six states, and they seem to be effective, especially in preventing suicides.

It seemed like a no-brainer to, well, anyone with a brain. Alas, brains were in short supply on Jones Street, which long ago auctioned itself off to the NRA. Morey’s bill was relegated to the Rules Committee, where it died a silent death. —SW

Biggest Con: THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS Of course people should be able to hunt and fish. Obviously, you want to protect victims from criminals. And who wants to pay higher taxes? And while you’re checking yes, why not make everyone show ID to vote, give the legislature more power to fill judicial vacancies, and rejigger the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement?

Don’t worry about the details. Just roll with it.

The legislature put all six of those questions to voters. Even the most benignsounding were problematic, or at least potentially problematic, as the legislature hadn’t passed the kind of implementing legislation that tells you how these proposed constitutional amendments would work. This was by design: The less meat on the bones, the more likely voters were to approve them without thinking too hard, especially the first three. What lawmakers really wanted were the latter: voter ID, to replace a law struck down as racist by a federal court; and two efforts to strip power from the governor.

The bad news: Voters got suckered by the voter ID amendment and gave Republicans license to pass a law—in a lame-duck session, over Cooper’s veto—that could make it harder for marginalized communities to cast a ballot. The good news: The two power grabs failed. —JCB

Rejection We’re Totally OK With: AMAZON When 2018 began, local officials were giddy about our inclusion on Amazon’s short list for HQ2. Later, we’d learn that the state and Wake County had offered the company more than $2 billion in incentives. But in

the end, it was all for show: Amazon chose New York and the D.C. suburbs, which, coincidentally, is where Amazon already has its highest concentrations of workers outside Seattle and where Jeff Bezos already owns houses.

As alluring as the prospect of those fifty-thousand six-figure jobs was, the idea of prostrating ourselves before the world’s richest man was a bit unseemly—not to mention the fact that no one had really stopped to think about what such a massive project would mean for schools and housing costs and all the rest. We didn’t get picked, and it’s probably for the best. —JCB

Rejection We’re Less OK With: APPLE Amazon, whatever. But Apple ditching us for Austin, that stung. Apple’s project was smaller (five thousand jobs and $1 billion in investment at first), but it would’ve had a faster ramp-up, meaning those jobs would have arrived quicker. And while there would have been incentives, they were nothing like what Amazon wanted.

So what happened? Apple hasn’t said. But Apple’s flirtation with the HB 2 state had prompted a backlash from the LGBTQ community. There were also suggestions that Apple was wary of the legislature’s recent constitutional amendments, including voter ID, and questions about whether the region’s infrastructure was ready for primetime. We may never know for sure, but in any event, this has to count as one of 2018’s biggest disappointments.

Or maybe not. Just last week, WRAL reported that the foundation that oversees much of Research Triangle Park had sold a parcel to a company with ties to an Apple lobbyist who is “considered as a primary negotiator on behalf of Apple when the firm is engaging in negotiations for incentives.” Make of that what you will. —JCB

Loudest Collective Whine by Pusillanimous Politicians: THE FARM BILL In April, a federal jury awarded ten plaintiffs who had sued Smithfield Foods $50 million in the first of twenty-six hog-farm nuisance lawsuits to go to trial. The industry and its lackeys in the General Assembly immediately went to work. Never mind that, because of a cap on punitive damages, that verdict came down to just over $3 million. Never mind that the year before, the legislature had muscled through a law to dramatically tamp

down the amount of money future nuisance lawsuits could recoup. Nope, Big Pork needed more protection, this time via a Farm Bill that makes future nuisance lawsuits all but impossible and essentially gives the industry carte blanche to do as it pleases.

Since then, Smithfield has lost three more cases, one of which amounted to a whopping $94 million judgment. In October, the company announced that it would cover its hog waste lagoons and convert the methane its hogs produce to biofuel, which is part of what advocates have been begging the company to do for decades. —JCB

Goodest Riddance, Part 1: SILENT SAM In August, as classes began at UNC-Chapel Hill, a crowd that had gathered in McCorkle Place to protest Silent Sam shrouded the Confederate monument in tall banners and pulled him to the ground.

It was a long time coming. Like, a really long time.

Silent Sam was dedicated in 1913 with a virulently racist speech by Julian Carr that left no question about its intent to glorify the Confederacy. For 105 years, it broadcast that message from the heart of campus. For decades, students, faculty, and others called for its removal, saying the statue made them feel unsafe and dehumanized.

They stepped up those calls following the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. The university, meanwhile, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on security for the hunk of metal while officials wrung their hands over what to do with it, saying a 2015 state law prevented them from removing the damn thing. (They rejected a suggestion from Governor Cooper that the statue be relocated under a public safety exemption to that law.) Fed up, protesters took matters into their own hands.

Sam’s fate is still uncertain. Four months after the statue was felled, UNC-Chapel Hill officials recommended to the Board of Governors that a new, $5.3 million center be built to house it. The Board of Governors, citing the cost and safety concerns, rejected that proposal and formed an ad hoc group to come up with a new plan this spring. —SW

There were many reasons voters wanted Andrews gone, made only worse by news the morning of the primary that Andrews’s campaign Facebook page had responded “Amen” to a comment warning supporters against “immigrants and minorities” flocking to the polls. On his watch, eight people had died in the county jail, as suicide risks identified years ago had only slowly been addressed. He also clashed with protesters, going so far as to propose a rule requiring advance notice of demonstrations. And after a crowd pulled down a Confederate monument downtown, Andrews aggressively pursued those involved, charging people not only with property damage but with inciting a riot (the riot charges were eventually dropped). He publicly flip-flopped about his agency’s cooperation with ICE, while internally the jail had an unwritten policy to honor all requests to hold people after they should have been released so ICE could pick them up.

Tl;dr: We won’t miss you, Mike. —SW

Our Favorite Reinvention: PRIDE: DURHAM

In 1981, Durham held the state’s first gay and lesbian march. Five years later, the city’s annual Pride march began. For three decades, that September tradition continued, but over time it lost touch with the community it sought to represent. After a string of controversies—like allegations that an organizer had assaulted a Black Lives Matter activist in 2015 and a boycott-prompting scheduling conflict with Yom Kippur—Pride seemed to sputter out. Finally, in June, a message appeared on the event’s website stating that it had been suspended.

Enter the LGBTQ Center of Durham its board chair Helena Cragg, and J. Clapp also known as Vivica C. Coxx, drag matriarch of Durham’s House of Coxx. Together, they revived the tradition—rebranded Pride: Durham, NC—in just three months And they did it with intention, assembling a diverse planning committee, taking heaps of public input, and working to ensure that people who felt Pride wasn’t for them before felt welcome this time. —SW

Coolest Experiment in Goodest Riddance, Part 2: PARTICIPATORY SHERIFF MIKE ANDREWS Democracy: BUDGETING IN DURHAM In May, incumbent Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews got whooped in the Democratic primary, losing to Clarence Birkhead by a two-to-one margin.

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The rebranded, relaunched Pride: Durham, NC parade took place on September 29. budgeting. The city collected five hundred ideas from the public, including fare-free buses, crosswalks, and community centers, and this May, residents in each of the city’s three wards will vote on what projects they want implemented.

Unlike regular elections, citizenship won’t be a requirement to vote; voters just need to present proof of Durham residency or sign an affidavit attesting to it. Not only will participatory budgeting lead to new sidewalks or bus shelters or whatever residents want, but it’s also an exercise in democracy, fomenting engagement with local government. And that’s pretty darn neat. —SW

Most Unnecessary Debate: DURHAM’S POLICEEXCHANGE RESOLUTION Stipulation 1: Police training programs that emphasize military tactics are generally bad.

Stipulation 2: The Israel-Palestine situation is, well, complicated, a hornet’s nest that’s plagued foreign policy experts for decades.

In April, the Durham City Council poked that hornet’s nest. It’s not entirely clear what that accomplished.

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had amassed more than a thousand signatures asking the council to condemn police exchange programs with Israel, whose defense forces have “a long history of violence and harm against Palestinian people and Jews of Color.” Former Durham police chief Jose Lopez had attended a counterterrorism program in Israel, and current chief C.J. Davis had coordinated exchanges at her previous job in Atlanta, but the Durham police weren’t currently involved in any such programs.

The council took up the petition anyway. Everyone got pissed. Members of the Jewish community claimed it was antiSemitic. Activists accused Israeli forces of contributing to racialized policing in the U.S. Someone accused the Jews of having “an inordinate amount of control” over politics; someone else accused Mayor Steve Schewel, who is Jewish, of being a Nazi sympathizer. You get the picture.

The council tried to thread the needle, voting unanimously in favor of a resolution pledging not to enter into a program “with any country in which Durham officers receive military-style training”—not just Israel, Schewel pointed out during the April 16 public hearing, but also countries like Syria and North Korea, if they offered such programs.

PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA

That statement didn’t exactly smooth things over. In December, one of the resolution’s opponents sued the city council for allegedly violating the state’s open-government law while crafting the resolution.

To reiterate: Durham cops weren’t involved in any such programs, so a resolution condemning them had no practical effect. —JCB

Dumbest Controversy: E-SCOOTERS IN RALEIGH This summer’s sudden arrival of dockless electric scooters was met with some consternation from the denizens of the Raleigh City Council, some of whom often seem, well, less than enthusiastic about newfangled thingamajigs. This consternation quickly devolved into straight-up fear-mongering—The scooters will run you over!—and at least one council member seemed dead set on extinguishing the scooters from his sight forever.

But in contrast to its usual foot-dragging (see below)—perhaps because the scooter company Bird strategically decided to ask forgiveness instead of permission—the council acted pretty quickly, crafting a set of policies for the scooters in a few weeks.

Raleigh being Raleigh, those policies are fairly draconian: On top of an assortment of regulations, the city will charge Bird and Lime $300 per scooter for up to five hundred scooters each, which Bird complained was “regressive.” Raleigh being Raleigh, the rules will also likely become stricter later this year. —LT

Most Annoying Examples of Raleigh’s Perpetual ThumbTwirling: AIRBNBS AND ADUS

For the Raleigh City Council, 2018 marked another year of stagnation on the oh-mygod-how-are-we-still-debating-this? subjects of Airbnb (introduced in 2015) and accessory dwelling units (2013), not-verydifficult issues that most other cities figured out long ago.

With ADUs, the latest holdup is the proneighborhood majority of council members who support strict regulations and what’s called an overlay zone, which would essentially force residents to beg their neighbors for permission to build granny flats on their property rather than being able to do so by right. The planning commission thinks this is too onerous; this

year, we’ll find out whether the council will overrule them.

As for short-term rentals—which are still technically illegal, though no one’s enforcing the law—the rules being contemplated would ban whole-house rentals and restrict the number of occupants in a home and the number of rentals in a neighborhood, which, again, critics point out, is pretty onerous. It’s not clear when this one will come back before the council. It is clear the council’s not in any hurry. —LT

Biggest DTR Development: THE WAREHOUSE DISTRICT Probably the year’s biggest story in downtown Raleigh was the full-on arrival of the Warehouse District, with the opening of both Union Station and The Dillon. The former, of course, is Raleigh’s premier transportation hub—a “front door to the city,” in Mayor Nancy McFarlane’s words, that will eventually connect commuters to all kinds of transit options, including Amtrak, buses, and commuter rail. The latter is developer John Kane’s eighteen-story, block-sized, mixeduse colossus, the first project of its kind in DTR, and a window into the future. —LT

Most Obvious Case of Money Talking: DEAN DEBNAM AND ANN CAMPBELL There’s no getting around this political reality: The makeup of the Wake County Board of Commissioners is what it is today because two well-heeled donors, along with their spouses and PACs, spent nearly $200,000 on behalf of the candidates they believed would improve public education.

Or, more specifically, they spent money on candidates challenging incumbents whom they believed had betrayed public schools.

There’s nothing wrong with people of means using their resources to further worthwhile causes, nor is there any suggestion that what Dean Debnam and Ann Campbell did is in any way illegal or unethical. Quite the contrary: It was just politics at its most effective—and it proved that, in politics, money, when well-targeted, talks.

There were two central but related issues.

The first was the board’s vote in 2017 not to give the school board all of the money it requested. The second was its later decision to move forward with purchasing the defunct Crooked Creek golf course to turn into a park. Critics argued that if you could spend millions on a new park, you could

spend millions more on schools. It was a salient if somewhat reductive argument.

They targeted the four commissioners who’d voted for Crooked Creek. Two of them—Erv Portman and John Burns—lost in the May Democratic primary; another, Matt Calabria, barely eked out a win. —JCB

Most Obvious Twist: SELLING CROOKED CREEK The Board of Commissioners that took office in December had a new power dynamic. The old board’s center of gravity had been Sig Hutchinson, Calabria, Burns, and Portman—the four who voted for Crooked Creek. Now it lies with chairwoman Jessica Holmes and Commissioner Greg Ford, along with newcomers Susan Evans and Vickie Adamson. Just weeks after the board was sworn in, Ford began pushing to sell off the Crooked Creek property the county had only recently spent $4 million to acquire.

A vote is planned for next week. The park’s supporters say they’ll come out in force.

Ford thinks he has the numbers. After all, Evans and Adamson benefitted from the anti-Crooked-Creek campaign. —LT

Worst Explanation for Embezzling Taxpayer Money: LAURA RIDDICK Prior to 2017, Laura Riddick was a widely respected public servant, credited with bringing the Wake County Register of Deeds Office into the twenty-first century.

Then, all of sudden, she resigned, ostensibly because of poor health, but at the very same time the SBI announced an investigation into the disappearance of $2.3 million from the office. Coincidence? Of course not.

In August, Riddick pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $1 million. And she offered a doozy of a reason: Early trauma, she said, had created “a compulsion to hoard money,” which sounds a lot like a lawyer-y term for “greedy.” She told the court this wasn’t an excuse but rather an explanation. As part of her plea deal, Riddick will have the next five to seven years in prison to sort out her compulsion. —SW

Story That Nearly Broke Our Website: YOUNG DOLPHGATE On May 4, Duke vice president Larry Moneta—who had previously urged tolerance for hate speech—walked into the Joe

Van Gogh coffee shop on Duke’s campus, heard a profane rap song, and complained.

The store’s management took away from that complaint that it needed to fire the two baristas working the counter that day, and did so. And for a few hours after Katie Jane Fernelius broke the story on May 8 that we came to refer to as Young Dolphgate and the damn thing went viral, we were legitimately concerned that our servers might crash from all the traffic.

They didn’t, but a lot of stuff went down in the days that followed. There were protests at Moneta’s office. The owner of Joe Van Gogh apologized, then cut ties with Duke. Duke president Vincent Price apologized, too. Rapper Young Dolph flew the baristas to a concert in Miami and gave them $20,000 for their trouble. Moneta quit Twitter, then announced a few months later that he would retire from Duke at the end of the academic year.

In December, he also quit Facebook after a series of, um, questionable posts during a trip to China. —JCB

Brightest Glimmer of Progress: AFFORDABLE HOUSING Last year saw several major strides toward addressing the Triangle’s affordable housing problem—an issue that will only grow with the region’s population.

In Chapel Hill, voters approved a $10 million bond aimed at building four hundred and preserving three hundred units of affordable housing. In Durham, the city council backed a development with eighty-two affordable units next to the Durham Station (and began exploring a second project nearby) and committed to putting affordable housing on the former site of the Durham Police Department. The city has also contributed to the Durham Housing Authority’s redevelopment of its public housing sites, worked on establishing an affordable housing loan fund, and funded nonprofit endeavors.

Durham County made its first foray into affordable housing by approving plans to redevelop two county-owned parking lots with commercial space and 437 residential units, 277 of which will be affordable to lower-income residents. Wake County, meanwhile, hiked property taxes in part to add twenty-five hundred affordable units and end veteran homelessness within five years. And in May, the Raleigh City Council approved $7.6 million for affordable housing in downtown and Southeast Raleigh, part of a broader effort to create eleven hundred new affordable units with $19 million set aside from the city’s housing fund. —SW

Biggest Question We’ll Finally Get an Answer to in 2019: WILL LIGHT RAIL HAPPEN?

As 2018 drew to a close, the fate of the Durham-Orange Light Rail line seemed a bit shaky.

The project still needed to secure operating agreements with important partners, which are key for the project to apply for federal funding by April, which it needs to do to get a federal funding commitment in September, which it needs to meet a deadline from the legislature to have all non-state funding committed by the end of November. A nonprofit fundraising effort was far short of its goal to raise $102 million

by April 30—another do-or-die deadline from the state. At the same time, GoTriangle, which is overseeing the project, was negotiating over the rail alignment through downtown Durham in an effort to appease the railroads, which didn’t want to share crossing systems, and downtown stakeholders, who didn’t want to be isolated by the tracks.

But while there are question marks, the $2.4 billion project seems to be on firmer footing than it was a year ago. Republicans no longer have supermajorities in the legislature, which will prevent further meddling, and a local light rail advocate, Congressman David Price, is about to become chairman of a House subcommittee on transportation funding, which won’t hurt. And GoTriangle caught a break in December, when it worked out a potential solution to the carving-up-downtown problem—a tunnel—though this proposal will cost more and still needs to be approved by the Federal Transit Administration.

One way or another, 2019 will be the year when we learn whether light rail will actually happen. —SW

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The best, the worst, the biggest, the weirdest— our 2018 was a year of extremes

deep dive EAT • DRINK • SHOP • PLAY

The INDY’s monthly neighborhood guide to all things Triangle

Coming January 9:

DOWNTOWN RALEIGH

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ow, 2018—what a time to be alive. We’ll spare you the rehashing of the year’s indignities, injustices, and threats of existential extinction, as you’ll be reading about some of them in the pages to come, anyway. But one thing we will say about 2018 is this: It was a year of extremes.

We really loved the things we loved, really hated the things we hated, and were supremely ambivalent about the things we were ambivalent about. In our Year in Arts and Culture Superlatives, we tried to get some persepctive on the things that mattered and how they fit together, from the biggest losses in the Triangle’s cultural landscape to the gains we hope will compensate for them, from the things that narrowly escaped extinction to the things we wish hadn’t. We also run down some of the most memorable things we ate and drank, some food buzzwords we’re starting to side-eye, and our favorites from a bumper crop of music, visual art, theater, dance, books, and film. And as much as we found to be depressed about in 2018, we found just as much to be hopeful for in 2019, thanks largely to the energy and efforts of the Triangle’s artists and the everincreasing quality of their work. —Brian Howe

Narrowest Escapes

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t’s easy and valid to look at 2018 as a year of ruptures and losses, from the global political climate down to the cultural landscape of the Triangle. But you know what? We’re still here, and if we flip over that narrative of trials and travails, we can glimpse a story of resilience and redemption on the other side. In a year when it seemed like even the most venerable local institutions might suddenly disappear—and many did—there were also a striking number that bounced back from the brink, thanks to their dedicated communities. On reflection, the upshot is that, while it’s natural to feel powerless to influence the course of big-money development in the Triangle, we can choose to keep the things we care about with the will and the effort. Cheers to those who stepped up and did.

First, give it up for SPARKcon, the opensource arts festival in which creators of all stripes overtake downtown Raleigh for one extended weekend per year. The twelveyear-old festival persevered through not only a budget crisis, but also a hurricane. In August, it faced a shortage north of $20,000, the INDY learned from Brandon Cordrey, the director of arts nonprofit VAE Raleigh, which runs SPARKcon. Cordrey launched a crowdfunding campaign that, along with an injection of public and private money, put the festival back in the black in time for its usual September appearance, though Florence blew it a little later than usual into the month. For many of the literal thousands of artists involved each year, SPARKcon is their biggest platform, and its survival was a real SPARKcoup.

Aficionados of a certain humble, filmfocused cinema experience still shudder to think that we almost lost The Chelsea Theater, the last old-school arthouse in Chapel Hill now that The Varsity is showing Spider-Man cartoons. When owners Bruce and Mary Jo Stone announced at the end of 2017 that they weren’t going to renew the lease on their twenty-eight-year-old threescreener in the Timberlyne shopping center, a group called Save the Chelsea quickly coalesced and led a grassroots funding campaign to take over the lease in March, and the Chelsea is keeping the projectors running in a promising new incarnation as a nonprofit.

Remember when two employees of Nice Price Books and Records in Raleigh

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The Cave PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA stepped up to buy and save the invaluable indie shop from going out of business?

Local history repeated itself in Durham this year, when Wander Lorentz de Haas and Elliot Berger, two employees of the forty-year-old Regulator Bookshop, bought it from retiring owners Tom Campbell and John Valentine, preserving a landmark for author readings and local books. A Regulator Sustainability Fund has raised more than $50,000 and counting, which looks good to keep those green awnings on Ninth Street in the years to come.

The honor of the most unlikely comeback for 2018 might go to The Cave, which escaped near-certain death in the spring.

Indeed, the fifty-year-old music club technically closed at the end of April after its previous owners couldn’t find a new buyer; its week of “funeral” shows was a party for the ages. But with help from a few friends, Melissa Swingle and Autumn Spencer resurrected the venue, did plenty of sprucing up (including painting the floor of the back room with Twin Peaksinspired chevrons), and instituted a new policy of taking donations for bands rather than enforcing a set cover charge. The

Cave officially celebrated its fiftieth anniversary at the beginning of December— here’s to no more close calls.

Also in the Chapel Hill music scene, Local 506 had a much less tumultuous change-of-ownership story. In May, former owners Kippy and Tom Perkins (who purchased the club from Glenn Boothe in 2013) announced that they had sold it to Stephen Mooneyhan and Rob Walsh, two longtime employees. (Noticing a trend?)

The new owner-operators have kept up the two-hundred-fifty-capacity club as a Franklin Street staple for up-and-coming artists, as well as a pleasantly cozy spot for more off-the-wall acts like French pop trio YELLE and noise artist Author & Punisher.

Finally, after YesterYears Brewery & Taproom owner David Larsen’s son died in the fall of 2016, the Carrboro spot fell behind financially and threatened to close.

But thanks to community support and a crowdfunding campaign, the brewery raised more than $14,000 and celebrated its grand reopening as Vecino Brewing in May, with local suds and pub grub from chef Leah Plumlee. arts@indyweek.com

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Every Wednesday.

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he fact that something changes is a sign that it’s still alive, which goes for a city as much as a person. But the inevitability—even the ultimate healthiness—of change doesn’t mean we shouldn’t mourn the loss and celebrate the life of the places and institutions that have shaped our idea of the Triangle’s cultural life. We had our share of casualties this year, and whether they lost their footing among big development or naturally ran their course, we’re sending them off with both appreciation for what they did and excitement for the new roots their legacies will nourish.

Let’s start with one of the freshest wounds: In the fall, downtown Durham’s Beyù Caffè shocked its customers with the announcement that, beginning in 2019, it would no longer offer live music. Instead, owner Dorian Bolden wants to focus on the establishment’s food and coffee programs. Beyù was a significant home for jazz music (as well as some heavy doses of soul, funk, and R&B) in Durham, a place where up-and-comers and old favorites could rub shoulders for two sets. The end of live music at Beyù leaves a gaping hole in the entertainment offerings downtown and in the Durham jazz scene as a whole.

Not every club can be Carnegie Hall, which is certainly true of Deep South, a dive at the edge of downtown Raleigh. Open for a decade, the club was a low-key getaway, its black-and-red walls covered in lyrics selected and hand-painted by Raleigh luminaries. It hosted scores of eager bands on the rise yearround while also functioning as an essential Hopscotch host every year, and offered plenty of errata—Foo Fighters cover bands need a place to play, too. The club’s end is an increasingly familiar tale: big-wig developer (in this case, Greg Hatem) buys the block, raises rents, and longtime tenants flee.

In July, chef Phoebe Lawless startled the Triangle by announcing the sudden closing of both beloved bakery Scratch and yearold restaurant The Lakewood, which held its last day of service on July 29. The loss tasted even bitterer when, days after the closure was announced, The Lakewood was included among fifty nominees for Bon Appetit’s annual Hot 10 feature, a list of the ten best new restaurants in America.

That same month, chef-restaurateur Scott Howell closed his iconic Durham finedining restaurant, Nana’s, after twenty-five years. Howell still owns three restaurants in Durham: NanaSteak, NanaTaco, and his latest, DeeLuxe Chicken, a fast-casual spot specializing in fried chicken and seafood.

Hillsborough’s Mystery Brewing Company closed the doors of its brewery 16 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

and brewpub in October. Though it was a community fixture, and owner Erik Lars Myers said that the pub was profitable, the operation had too much debt to go on, robbing the Triangle of a vibrant performance venue as well as a place to drink local beer.

We also poured one out for All About Beer Magazine, which helped prime the tubes for the craft beer movement and, after a nearly four-decade run, abruptly folded in midOctober, leaving subscribers with lots of questions about missing issues and refunds.

And Chapel Hill’s Allen & Son Barbeque quietly closed after almost fifty years in business, during which it earned a reputation as one of the top traditional ‘cue joints in the state.

While you’ve still got until next month to stock up on Durm apparel, Runaway, the definitive young-Durham fashion-andmusic lifestyle brand we commemorated in our recent Indies Arts Awards, announced at the end of 2018 that this will be its final season. So long not just to its styles, but to its downtown storefront as a reliably hopping Third Friday destination.

Runaway wasn’t the only Indies Arts Awards winner we celebrated on their way out the door: Larry Wheeler, who helped elevate the national profile of and local engagement at the North Carolina Museum of Art, stepped down after a long tenure in November, to be replaced as director by Valerie Hillings. Meanwhile, heroic founding director Laura Ritchie retired from The Carrack Modern Art, Durham’s vital community gallery, catapulting that loss into a gain by turning over the helm to the estimable Saba Taj. There was no such silver lining with the end of SPECTRE Arts, the little white cube that could, which was the Carrack’s neighbor until last summer.

We’ve spilled copious tears and ink all year over the closure of Manbites Dog Theater, the producing company and venue that was a veritable living room for Durham theater artists since 1998—though you’ll find ample evidence of the seeds it planted and the energy of its artists in our “Biggest Gains” section. A loss in local theater we haven’t noted yet is the retirement of longtime News & Observer theater critic Roy C. Dicks, who signed off in August with a damn gracious admission that, while he applauds all the innovation in local theater, it doesn’t suit his more traditional tastes. That Dicks both had and acted on this insight adds to twenty years’ worth of written evidence of his thoughtful, sensitive stewardship of our theater.

Biggest Losses

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The bar at The Lakewood FILE PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER Finally—and this is almost going to sound like a koan—you can’t really lose something you hardly had and didn’t want.

WTF happened with Whalburgers? After eons of local anticipation, the celebritybrothers burger chain finally opened in Raleigh in May, and then closed without

explanation seven months later, a “Do Not Enter” sign taped on the door by the Wake County Sherriff. The employee venting about bouncing checks, shoddy facilities, and crappy food is just starting to get aired out now. arts@indyweek.com

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The Yaki Onigiri at Papa Shogun PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

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ow that we’ve dispensed with the doom and gloom, let’s get down to the bigger news for the Triangle’s future: the new venues, restaurants, and presenters that sprung from the ashes of the dearly departed this year.

The Triangle has a vibrant scene of leftfield electronic music, which usually gets its time in the spotlight each May at Nightlight’s Savage Weekend throwdown. This

year, however, Raleigh’s Wicked Witch threw its hat into the ring with August’s All Data Lost, a day-long festival exploring the farther reaches of electronic music in North Carolina. The world needs more stuff happening by weirdos, for weirdos, and All Data Lost made for a welcome addition.

Carrboro lost Music Loft, but it gained Twin House Music, which opened in the former space of the long-running music

shop ten months after it closed at the end of 2017. Carrboro remains an important hub for hobby and semi-pro musicians alike, and Twin House means the town once again has an independently owned and operated space for new gear, consignments, and more. Here’s to giving less money to corporate behemoths in 2019.

So, a little more music—but so much to eat!

We finally joined the ranks of bigger food cities with the opening of two food halls, Blue Dogwood Market in Chapel Hill and Morgan Street Food Hall in Raleigh. Offering a wide range of cuisines under one roof, food halls give local trucks a chance at their first brickand-mortar, including Cocoa Forte, Oak City Fish & Chips, and Curry in a Hurry at Morgan Street Food Hall. It also gives niche products a chance to flourish—at Blue Dogwood Market, you’ll find gluten-free baked goods at Pizzelle Bakery, peanut-free chocolates at Chocolatay Confections, vegan tacos and wraps at Vegan Flava, and plant-based tamales and arepas at Soul Cocina. With the opening of County Fare Durham, there’s a permanent food-truck rodeo in town, too, with a rotating roster of trucks and craft beer.

In Raleigh, chef-owner Tom Cuomo of Papa Shogun explores the parallels between Japanese and Italian flavors and techniques with whimsical dishes such as fresh-pulled mozzarella with kombu garlic bread and carbonara ramen. Café-bars officially became a thing with the opening of Fig, which slings espresso drinks and quiche in the morning and small plates and cocktails after dusk.

Downtown also gained a ramen shop-izakaya hybrid in Tonbo Ramen, which serves seven kinds of ramen on the ground floor and small plates, sake, and cocktails upstairs.

Kaiju Bowl & Bao also brought ramen downtown, along with shareable bowls such as bibimbap and sesame-glazed tofu. A few chains of note opened, too, including Wahlburgers (hilariously briefly—see p. 16) and Viva Chicken, a Charlotte import known for Pollo a la Brasa, a Peruvian dish of herbrubbed rotisserie chicken.

In Durham, Margaritte Malfy brought a taste of the Yucatan with Tamale Factory and Tequila Bar, which serves flavorful tamales and tacos with a medley of zippy sauces and equally zippy cocktails. Building on her catering business, chef Zwelibanzi Williams opened Zweli’s Piri Piri Kitchen, which specializes in her signature chicken and native Zimbabwean dishes such as fried curry cabbage. Ali Rudel realized her brickand-mortar dreams in East Durham Bake Shop, where she makes seasonal pies and galettes alongside excellent pastries, cookies, and scones. Old Havana moved down the block and became COPA, plating Cuban sandwiches by day and tapas by night, many

fashioned after centuries-old recipes using produce from the restaurant’s own farm.

Chef Mike Lee’s latest spot, M Tempura, introduced diners to two new concepts at once, omakase-style tempura dinners featuring multiple bites of delicately fried seafood, vegetables, and proteins, and donkatsu lunch sets, where katsu-style meat or veggies are coated with panko breadcrumbs and deep fried. Downtown gained a few good lunchbreak options, including Thai at Main Street, which took over the former Dame’s Chicken and Waffles space, Neomonde, the Raleighbased casual Mediterranean restaurant, and Pokeworks, a national chain trafficking in poke bowls and pokeburritos. Hutchins Garage filled the void for late-night pizza on Geer Street with a menu of thin-crust pies and heftier Grandma-style pizza slices, and Cucciolo Osteria brought its traditional Italian offerings downtown.

Lula’s took over the former home of Chapel Hill institution Spanky’s and became an instant classic with chef William D’Auvray’s signature shallow-fried chicken and biscuits with spun sage honey, and Cary became a dumpling destination with Kathmandu Kitchen, serving Nepalese momos jhol-style in broth or alongside dipping sauces.

As much as we moan about the end of Manbites Dog Theater, we’re already seeing some silver linings. The loss of such a cherished institution always opens a space for new efforts. One of them is Bulldog Ensemble Theater, a new company of Manbites vets—including Akiva Fox, Lakeisha Coffey, and JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell (whose Bull City Black Theatre Festival was also a flashpoint this year, and a beautiful sendoff for Manbites)—began its debut season in the fall with Curve of Departure, a stellar production that verified the concept and landed on our best-of-year list (see p. 26). Manbites is gone, but its legacy will last for years to come.

Indie theater and dance are hurting for venues, but in the academic sphere, both Carolina Performing Arts and Duke Performances gained impressive new facilities.

CURRENT ArtSpace + Studio allows UNC to present unique shows in a smaller, more flexible space than Memorial Hall, while the von der Heyden Studio Theater at the Rubenstein Arts Center (call it The Vondy at The Ruby) did the same for Duke.

And film geeks in the Triangle got a gift from the cinema gods this year as Alamo Drafthouse, the national chain known for themed screenings, hearty retro lineups, and strict no-texting rules opened in Raleigh. It also earned national notices for Video Vortex, its old-fashioned VHS rental store. For the span of a couple hours, at least, it’s like Netflix never happened. arts@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 1.2.19 | 17

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his is a far from comprehensive selection of Trianglers who made power moves this year, but even fresh off of our Indies Arts Awards, we can’t find enough space to sing all the praises we’d like to.

For instance, as Southern studies scholar Bill Ferris retired from teaching at UNCChapel Hill this year, he celebrated a new accomplishment with the release of Voices of Mississippi, a profound summation of his lifelong work as a folklorist. Dust to Digital issued the three-disc box set, which includes a book and earned two Grammy nominations for best historical album and best liner notes.

Rife with big names and virtual unknowns, it’s a masterpiece, and if you’re unfamiliar with Ferris’s legacy, it’s a great introduction.

Speaking of Grammys, Eric Oberstein, associate director of Duke Performances, is up for another one as the producer of Back to the Sunset by the Dafnis Prieto Big Band, which comes to Baldwin Auditorium on March 29, by which time we’ll know if Oberstein has brought home the statue again, following two 2015 wins for his collaborations with Arturo O’Farrill.

Emily Frantz of Mandolin Orange has been on a steady rise for almost a decade, and while the Chapel Hill folk duo didn’t release an album in 2018, Frantz and Andrew Marlin added a new endeavor to their body of work:

parenting. Ahead of the baby’s arrival, the pair wrote and recorded a new album, Tides of a Teardrop, which is out in early February. They also performed across the United States and Europe, meaning that Frantz was hitting the stage eight months pregnant in a sparkling gold dress. That’s Beyoncé-level bossing.

Chef-restaurateur Ashley Christensen, who previously won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southeast, was nominated for Outstanding Chef at the 2018 awards.

Though she didn’t win, it’s a big deal to be nominated in a nationwide category. A handful of other top Triangle talent earned semifinalist nods, including Gabe Barker of Pizzeria Mercato for Rising Star Chef of the Year, Fullsteam brewer Sean Lilly Wilson for Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional, and Cheetie Kumar of Garland, who was nominated for Best Chef: Southeast.

Maggie Kane, who founded and opened pay-what-you-can-cafe A Place at the Table, garnered attention on The Today Show. Kane was inspired to bring the concept to Raleigh based on her work with people experiencing homelessness. She wanted to create a safe space where they could choose what they wanted to eat from a wholesome, fresh menu and dine with dignity. Kane has also been recognized for her work with A Place at the Table locally, receiving N.C. State’s

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Outstanding Young Alumna award and the INDY’s Food Triangle award.

Durham’s Saltbox Seafood Joint, owned and operated by Ricky Moore, landed on Taste of the South magazine’s “Taste 50,” which covers the places, people, tastes, and trends that make up the South’s diverse food scene. Beard Award–winning chef Andrea Reusing (of Lantern and The Durham) was also recognized for her work as founder of Kitchen Patrol Initiative, a nonprofit that improves children’s access to quality food through weekly cooking classes.

Chefs across the state banded together to host Hurricane Florence relief events to raise money for hurricane victims and businesses affected by the storm, and several restaurants donated a portion of proceeds to benefit the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. Dozens of Triangle chefs and hospitality workers volunteered in support of World Central Kitchen, chef José Andrés's nonprofit dedicated to disaster relief and fighting poverty and hunger.

In Chapel Hill, Al’s Burger Shack’s Bobo Chili Cheeseburger was crowned the best burger in America by TripAdvisor—which is to say, by the people who use it. As Food & Wine reported, TripAdvisor analyzed millions of user reviews to determine the honor, and the Bobo Chili Cheeseburger, where the patty comes heaped with chili sauce, coleslaw, chopped onion, yellow mustard, and American cheese, took home top honors. And Durham Distillery’s owners, Lee and Melissa Katrincic, were inducted into the prestigious London-based Gin Guild, the fourth and fifth Americans to be sworn in. Durham Distillery was also named the number-one craft gin distillery in America in USA Today’s annual reader’s-choice poll.

The Triangle also made some film-and-TV splashes this year. We recently interviewed Lachlan Watson, a young actor nurtured in the Raleigh theater community who is now pushing forward nonbinary representation with a meaty role in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Thunder Road, a Sundancewinning short produced by Durham resident Ben Wiessner, was turned into an acclaimed feature film. And Bisbee ’17, a film by N.C. State grad Robert Greene, received national acclaim everywhere from RogerEbert.com to The New York Times. arts@indyweek.com

Thanks but No Thanks H

onestly, for as much good as we found in 2018, “thanks but no thanks” could have been our rejoinder to this whole year of silent monuments and noisy reactionaries. We often treat arts and culture like a safe haven from the real world, but there were plenty of times when it pierced that bubble—and really, thank goodness, lest the whole enterprise become sheer escapism. These are but a few of the hard passes we threw down this year.

Let’s ease in with the merely silly before we get into the real dirty shit. This year, Durham’s Foster Street lost a Manbites Dog Theater, but it gained … an Urban Axes.

Straight out of Portlandia—oops, make that Philadelphia—came the chain of bars where the idea is to get a little sudsy and then hurl actual freaking axes at targets (wooden ones, not your enemies at rival startups).

Whatever people enjoy without bothering anyone is fine with us, even if we don’t get it.

But it does feel like some kind of crossingthe-Rubicon moment for Durham that you

can no longer spend money to support local theater on Foster, but you can to throw an ax.

When incel-in-chief Jordan B. Peterson came to DPAC, we had some questions for the venue about hosting the white-privilegedenying patriarchy apologist and gender cop. We never heard back, though we heard an awful lot from Peterson’s minions, who appear en masse whenever his name is uttered and repeat his talking points in hypnotized lockstep—rather shocking for such free thinkers. One tries to imagine complex motivations behind the reactionary elements resurging in this country, but it’s depressing to hear it’s all because Whitey McWhiteguy doesn’t know how to do a sex.

Unfortunately, one of the most painful controversies this year was homegrown and involved a trusted community institution.

CAM Raleigh presented a solo exhibit of paintings by Margaret Bowland, a white person who paints pictures of black people that are always a least a little racially charged and are sometimes egregiously, bafflingly so. When Bowland starts adding cotton plants and watermelons to her paintings, it feels like trolling. Of course, we don’t know, because Bowland won’t really talk about how race functions in her work, and the museum failed to interrogate it with wall text or proximity to other charged works about race.

Community outcry on Facebook spilled into

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tense public discussions at the museum, and in the end, no one—our citizens, the museum, the artist—felt seen or served.

We’re not exactly thanks but no thanksing Hamilton, as we don’t want the Triangle to be insulated, but we did air out some anguished thoughts about its sheep’s-clothing white supremacy. Chris Brown, on the other hand, we can officially do without. The serial abuser stopped in Raleigh to hold court at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre, which seats close to twenty-one thousand people. Remember all that hand-wringing about how the #MeToo movement would ruin the careers of men who had been accused of abusing women?

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Our Music Festival Superlatives Worst Best Festival: Moogfest Moogfest is probably super cool if you’re a deep electronic-music head and/or a tech enthusiast.

But if your interest in those fields is anything less than intense, it feels like a scatterbrained behemoth that papers over downtown Durham for a weekend in the interest of attracting hordes of moneyed nerds. Did I love getting to walk home in a pensive daze after seeing Jenny Hval? With my whole Hvalobsessed heart! Could I have afforded to enjoy her set if it weren’t my job? Definitely not. In an area where music festivals thrive because they feel both of and for this place, Moogfest does neither. —Allison Hussey

Detroit or no, this couldn’t have happened anywhere but Durham. —Allison Hussey Ghost Festival: Dreamville J. Cole’s festival was to be the premier hip-hop event in the state. Scheduled for September in Raleigh’s Dorthea Dix Park, the event—which had Cole, Nelly, SZA, and Young Thug as headliners—had a projected attendance of more than thirty thousand. But then Hurricane Florence hit, and the festival was postponed until April 6, with a new lineup that has yet to be fully announced. Here’s hoping April showers won’t wash this one out, too.

—Allison Hussey

Best Worst Festival: Moogfest I want to “yes, and” Allison, because A IN Moogfest does seem designed for a chimerical customer who likes Kelela, Author & Punisher, and Pete Rock, and who makes $100,000 a year in tech.

But if I’m being honest, I’ve had more fun there than at Hopscotch recently. For electronic heads starved for concentrated doses of big artists and big sound in big rooms, Moogfest Nile Rodgers and Chic at Hopscotch PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA serves up transcendent Steadiest Festival: Hopscotch The Trianshows by luminaries like Jon Hopkins and gle’s signature music festival held pace this dance-focused sets by well-curated DJs. It’s year, but with a lot of returning bookings no shot at invaluable Triangle dance hubs like and self-consciously retro headliners, the Nightlight, the Pinhook, and Ruby Deluxe to experience started to feel distinctly rote, and say that Moogfest, while it’s not as Durham as we hope that Hopscotch will find some new we like things in Durham to be, fills a certain tricks next year. We’ll always be grateful for niche for touring electronic music. If they can that Chic booking, though. —Brian Howe make it cheaper and broaden access, I’m so here for it. —Brian Howe Readiest Festival: IBMA The International Bluegrass Music Association is a Most Festival: Art of Cool This year, slow-moving institution, one that’s loath Durham’s Art of Cool Festival had a to allow much room for those who don’t major glow-up, due in part to a change of fit within the institution’s narrow definiownership. In March, Art of Cool cofounders tion of “bluegrass” or youthful progresCicely Mitchell and Al Strong announced sivism at large. This year, however, one of that they’d sold the music-festival arm of the festival’s headlining sets at Red Hat their jazz-education nonprofit to the DOME Amphitheater was an all-woman ensemGroup, a promotional company in Detroit. ble that included luminaries like Alison Erykah Badu headlining the Durham Bulls Brown, Gillian Welch, Rhiannon Giddens, Athletic Park gave ample evidence of the and more. It’s a small step in a good direcfestival’s solidity, and it also finessed a rare tion. Keep going. —Allison Hussey reunion out of the beloved Little Brother.

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Our Most Memorable Bites and Drinks

BY LAYLA KHOURY-HANOLD

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he theme for our latest food-focused DISH issue was comfort food, which we instinctively gravitated to in an uncomfortable year. We’re hardwired to crave salt, sugar, fat, and carbs, and many of our most memorable Bites of the Week were full of the stuff.

a shiso leaf chaser, which struck us as a grown-up take on an orange creamsicle.

And there was the sundae at Crawford and Son, a disc of chocolate shortbread topped with smoked cacao-nib ice cream, chocolate mousse, and toasted meringue.

Savory highlights included a sampling of dishes inspired by Southern comfort food.

There was Iyla’s Southern Kitchen’s BBQ “Sundae,” where a smoked-cheddar mac ‘n’ cheese base comes topped with pulled pork, collard greens, and a barbecue-sauce drizzle; Jack Tar’s fried chicken, in which Nashville hot chicken detours through China with a Szechuan peppercorn-infused oil; and a duo of bar snacks at Saint James

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Seafood: cornmeal-dusted N.C. shrimp and Geechie Boy cornmeal hushpuppies.

We self-soothed with beverages, too, which may have coincided with the launch of our Day Drinker beer column. We loved Glass Jug Beer Lab’s O’Malley's Kilt, a crisp, light Scottish ale with a nutty aftertaste and honeyed finish, as well as its Cryo Opacity, a hazy New England IPA with citrus and pine notes. Funguys Brewing’s Paula Street was a pleasing pale ale with a creamy mouthfeel and pithy, citrus-peel finish, and Crank Arm Brewing’s refreshing, bracing Tight Cassette made for a fine palate-cleanser between sips. food@indyweek.com

FOUR FOOD BUZZWORDS WE’RE PUTTING ON NOTICE

Andia’s Homemade Ice Cream’s Dark Indulgence PHOTO BY LAYLA KHOURY-HAN0LD Frozen treats dominated. There were the ice cream sandwiches: Locopops’ ginger-molasses-cookie and Rose’s Noodles Dumplings & Sweets’ blueberries-andcream. There were the scoops: Andia’s Homemade Ice Cream’s Dark Indulgence, its dark chocolate ribboned with peanut butter and scattered with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups; Two Roosters’ Sea Salt Chip Cookie Dough, in which Southern Sugar Bakery’s cookie dough elevates vanilla ice cream to something sensational; and M Tempura’s orange buttermilk sorbet with

Craft Don’t get us wrong; we think it’s great that more people care about where their food and drinks are coming from. But like most buzzwords, “craft” is losing its luster and meaning through wanton application. Plus, people are getting a little craft crazy: Some of the drinks we tried this year were memorable because, frankly, they were kind of weird. Among the many delicious local craft beers we sampled were others that tasted like Margherita pizza, Flintstones chewable children’s vitamins, and potpourri. A little creativity goes a long way, y’all. And we’d much rather make our own cocktails using Durham Distillery’s excellent Conniption gin than sip a gin and tonic from its new line of canned cocktails.

House-Made See also “artisanal” and “handcrafted.” If you ever edit a food section, you’ll notice how often you have to write these words, and you may start wondering what they even mean, especially now that they crop up on corporate snack-food packages and fast-food menus. Even at McDonald's, meals are prepared in-house by people who are using their hands. Unless there’s a finedining restaurant outsourcing food from

YOUR WEEK. EVERY WEDNESDAY. FOOD • NEWS • ARTS • MUSIC

robots that we don’t know about, we think we can all give these blurry bona fides a rest.

Farm-to-Table We’re definitely not against the farm-to-table concept. We salute those who diligently source or grow their ingredients locally and sustainably. It tastes better, and it’s better for our bodies, the local economy, and the planet. But just because something grows in the dirt doesn’t make it farm-to-table, and just because a restaurant lists a couple farms on its menu doesn’t mean the rest of its ingredients aren’t trucked in.

It’d be great to get to a point where menus don’t need to list the pH level of the lettuce’s soil and farm-to-table was just the standard, not a shibboleth. Until then, it’s worth keeping an eye on what it actually means.

Gourmet Specifically, we’re looking at you, gourmet burgers. We love a good burger, and we get that premium ingredients cost more. But when the price starts creeping up toward the $18 mark, we need more than the magic G-word to convince us to shell out. If “gourmet” is just an overused euphemism for “expensive,” maybe we should just get back to basics.

INDYWEEK.COM INDYweek.com | 1.2.19 | 21

Our Top 20 Albums of 2018 BAT FANGS DON GIOVANNI RECORDS

There are many bands for which nostalgia is both a crutch and a shortcut, but on their debut album as Bat Fangs, Laura King and Betsy Wright leverage it as an empowering force. Inspired heavily by larger-than-life stadium-rock acts of the eighties, the pair delivers songs whose ingratiating hooks and rafter-rattling riffs become all the more mighty with King’s heavy percussion.

The band serves a command to “Turn it Up” on the opening track with such force that one needs no convincing to obey. Supernatural themes—the bats, of course, but reapers and wolves that bite, oh my!—run deep across the record, making for a thoroughly fiendish delight. —Allison Hussey

NATHAN BOWLES

PLAINLY MISTAKEN PARADISE OF BACHELORS

Durham banjo man Nathan Bowles sprints through some seriously disparate musical settings on Plainly Mistaken while somehow maintaining a common sonic thread. What do you make of a picker who covers U.K. singer Julie Tippetts’ 1975 art-rock ballad “Now If You Remember” and gives it an early Eno vibe, then turns around and blends classic country with crazed psychedelia on “Ruby/In Kind I,” stopping along the way to drop off some reflective, almost impressionistic solo banjo pieces? You’re best off if you simply chuck all preconceptions out the window and delight in Bowles’ eclectic artistry wherever it may lead, because it’s always someplace intriguing. —Jim Allen

COLD CREAM

COLD CREAM SELF-RELEASED

One of punk’s greatest strengths is its ability to synthesize and subvert. Take “First They Came,” from Cold Cream’s self-titled debut. Its title references Martin Niemöller’s famous poem about the cowardice of German intellectuals during 24 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

the rise of Hitler. Its first line references Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer,” reframing that song’s romantic portrayal of a Spanish conquistador as a metaphor for the modern, self-perpetuating war machine. Elsewhere, the quartet references the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil,” Wilfred Owen poems, and more. All this is to say: Carrboro’s Cold Cream is not just tougher than you are. They’re cooler and smarter, too.

—Patrick Wall

PHIL COOK

PEOPLE ARE MY DRUG PSYCHIC HOTLINE

Even down to the title, few records reflect their creator as well as Phil Cook’s People Are My Drug. Made in collaboration with his musical community, the soulful album spans Cook’s array of rootsy influences, from the gentle, harmonyrich folk of “Tupelo Child” to the New Orleans piano and brass on rousing closer “Life.” Cook powerfully transcends personal storytelling on “Another Mother’s Son” by connecting the fragility of life he felt during his newborn’s NICU stint with the fears and uncertainty of black parents for their own children—the track erupts in the final minute as a gospel choir joins him in singing “no more silence!” and “no more bodies!”

—Spencer Griffith

THE DEAD TONGUES UNSUNG PASSAGE PSYCHIC HOTLINE

For a decade, Ryan Gustafson has excelled at delivering enrapturing records that sit at the razor’s edge of what might be considered folkrock. May’s Unsung Passage was more heavily inspired by Appalachian old-time traditions, evident upon close inspection of songs like the spacious “My Other” and “The Giver.” With his lyrics, Gustafson offers his distinct blend of lines that are beguilingly mystical, pointedly beautiful, and achingly familiar—”If you cry, let it dry and bring you near to the broken side of people everywhere,” he sings on one track. Gustafson’s expert balance of ragged edges and pristine polish make Unsung Passage shine like gold nuggets in a creek bed.

—Allison Hussey

MATT DOUGLAS

AFFIRMATION (WITH DISCOMFORT) SELF-RELEASED

Raleigh’s Matt Douglas has devoted the bulk of his time in the past few years to collaborative ensembles—his own Hot at Nights, as well as Hiss Golden Messenger and The Mountain Goats. But on Affirmation (With Discomfort), Douglas leans all the way into his decades of saxophone studies for an unusual and rapturous solo record. The album is all woodwinds, with Douglas deploying loops and other effects used to build detailed soundscapes that fit complicated moods.

Douglas winds his way through knots of anxiety, rumination, joy, and, of course, affirmation. —Allison Hussey

ELEPHANT MICAH GENERICANA WESTERN VINYL

In Joseph O’Connell’s vision, Genericana is a “sort of like a lucky mutation, that could lead to a heartier version of Elephant Micah for the digital world.”

Those digital mutations of the group’s “folk” songs take many forms: the AM radio static that opens and closes the album, the custom-built synth named “the Mutant” whose buzzing drones appear throughout, the Arthur Russell–inflected space dub of “Fire B.” But it’s in “Fire A” that this new vision becomes fully realized, when a handful of warm synth effects merge subtly and seamlessly with an otherwise straightforward, gleaming song. The effect is ecstatic.

—Dan Ruccia

G YAMAZAWA

MONEY IS TIME YAMAZAWA/OTHAZ

G Yamazawa’s Money Is Time dosn’t have another certified regional anthem like “North Cack,” but it offers so much more of what hip-hop is missing. Yamazawa celebrates his identity as an Asian-American rapper throughout this project. On “Rap God,” Yamazawa makes it clear he doesn’t do “white music” or “Asian rap,” thus suggesting that one’s

racial makeup or ethnic background should not separate them in hip-hop. Yamazawa’s unique lens on Southern identity and his inimitable braggadocio place him in a lane of his own—a Southern rapper with Japanese roots whose cadence is reminiscent of Golden Age boom-bap rap with a familiar drawl.

—Kyesha Jennings

HANZ

PLASTY I & PLASTY II TRI-ANGLE RECORDS

A cracked, unique collection of futurist beatmaking, Durham producer Brandon Juhans’ excellent Plasty series this year stands out, even in an increasingly crowded space for deconstructed beat music. With an eye for detail inspired by his own collage and illustration work, Juhans steers his music toward weapons-grade breakbeats of the sort found in old nineties boom-bap throbbers.

However, his weird, kinetic mélange of lo-fi sampledelia knocks them into near– fourth world ambient territory, abstract and strange as a Jon Hassell record, addicting and hypnotic as any dusty beat tape.

Both Plasty releases came out on Tri-Angle Records, home to Serpentwithfeet, Haxan Cloak, and other forward-looking talents, an exceptional fit. —David Ford Smith

KOOLEY HIGH

NEVER COME DOWN FAT BEATS RECORDS

After a three year hiatus, hometown heroes Kooley High delivered Never Come Down, produced by 9th Wonder.

Good vibes abound on Never Come Down, beginning with track titles like “We Don’t Care,” “Grinning,” “Cool Out/Tranquility,” and “Either Way.” Tab-One and Charlie Smarts remain sharp with their lyrical metaphors and punch lines; the way the two switch off bar for bar, accompanied by the pleasant Charlie Smarts, is reminiscent of the likes of Little Brother, Slum Village, and Goodie Mob. But it’s their “cool kid” cadence that separates them from their hip-hop predecessors and peers. Ultimately, Never Come Down solidifies Kooley High’s importance to North Carolina hip-hop, even without a major label.

—Kyesha Jennings

H.C. MCENTIRE

punk’s impulsive pedigree, pays off for No Love. Choke On It is one of 2018’s best punk albums, from anywhere. —Bryan C. Reed

Heather McEntire’s solo debut was a long time coming. The singer-songwriter has been a fixture in Triangle music for years, from her ragged punk with Bellafea, her charming pop project Un Deux Trois, and rangy folk-rock with Mount Moriah. But with encouragement from riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna, McEntire at last issued her first solo LP in the form of a slick country record, Lionheart. She ruminates on love and heartache with stunning imagery, gilding them with graceful touches of harp, strings, and pedal steel. Though “country music” carries a wide variety of connotations, McEntire’s heartfelt entry invites tears-in-my-beer with the best of them.

—Allison Hussey

OAK CITY SLUMS

LIONHEART MERGE RECORDS

MOUNTAIN MAN

MAGIC SHIP NONESUCH RECORDS

In a noisy, chaotic world, Mountain Man’s Magic Ship felt like a pleasure cruise to an Elysian haven. Quiet intimacy reigns supreme, and the women of Mountain Man—Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, Molly Sarlé, and Amelia Meath—execute it with careful grace. They leverage their sharp, almost preternatural vocal harmonies to build peaceful little worlds, where secretive spiders live tucked away in the eaves and stars guide the way, where it’s possible to find as much comfort in learning not to be wracked by guilt as a good pair of underwear.

For all of its gossamer sensibilities, the softness of Magic Ship can take a mighty hold.

—Allison Hussey

NO LOVE

CHOKE ON IT SORRY STATE RECORDS

Raleigh’s No Love crams so many strains of punk into their frantic fuzz-bombs that it’s hard to back the band into a corner. It’s thrilling. On one hand there’s the straightforward charge of early West Coast hardcore, but it’s countered with squiggling post-punk guitar licks. Singer Elizabeth Lynch sneers and snarls, but her vocal barbs form unforgettable hooks, too. Angry and upbeat, snotty and complex, Choke On It feels every bit the product of a band that spent plenty of time woodshedding on demo recordings and scores of stages before issuing a proper fulllength. And that patience, however unlike

NOT WELL RAUND HAUS

Rodney Finch, or Oak City Slums, has a talent for finding the right grooves and sample loops in a dance track to make people not just dance, but lose themselves when he deejays. His ten-track Not Well showcases Finch’s impressive artistic growth, with a departure from his usual sample-heavy remixes and an embrace of analog synthesis. He stays true, though, to his eclectic tastes as a deejay with influences of rap, house, drum-and-bass, and more sprinkled throughout the album. Though Not Well is intended for full consumption, one of the standout tracks, “Sleep,” featuring KX, who provides elegant R&B vocals behind Finch’s scattering drum patterns and soft synth pads. It’s a touching song about loss that takes a sonically soothing approach to a usually anxious topic. —Charles Morse

PERSONALITY CULT PERSONALITY CULT DRUNKEN SAILOR RECORDS

Personality Cult’s debut takes Ben Carr’s songwriting in unexpected directions, but that in itself is hardly a surprise. Throughout previous exploits in pop-punk, twangy garage rock, and synthdriven proto-hardcore, Carr’s knack for sharp hooks and clever, self-deprecating turns of phrase have made him a consistently compelling bandleader. Here, effectively solo, Carr churns out upbeat pop gems that recall iconic acts like The Buzzcocks and The Undertones as much as cult acts like The Spits and Marked Men. But, as ever, Carr doesn’t shy from his influences, but neither is he beholden to them. Big, brash hooks, propelled by punchy backbeats and needling guitar work drive Personality Cult’s brief, brilliant first outing. —Bryan C. Reed

SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS YEARS BLOODSHOT RECORDS

On her second LP commanding The Disarmers, Chapel Hillbased alt-country singer-songwriter Sarah Shook touches on tradition while digging deep inside to mine some intense emotions,

giving the whole marvelous mess a raw, rock ’n’ roll kick in the pants before sending it out the door. The honky-tonk roots of “Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don’t” and the Bakersfieldworthy licks of “New Ways to Fail” blend with a roughneck rocking sensibility on an album full of regret and resolve in equal measure, equally useful as a soundtrack for lamenting one’s past mistakes and forging a clear-eyed path forward. —Jim Allen

SPIDER BAGS

SOMEDAY EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE MERGE RECORDS

Dan McGee strains into falsetto to sing the titular line to Someday Everything Will Be Fine at the end of “Reckless,” the rangy, raucous song that kicks off the record. He sings the line four times, repeating it as though it were a mantra. At the end of the fourth, the song ends abruptly, cymbal crashes and reverb trails fading into silence. In a trying year, it was hard sometimes to believe McGee when he sang those words—perhaps doubly so given his propensity for littering Spider Bags’s back catalog with absurdist messages. But Someday, while still weird, is a markedly mature record, one wherein McGee ponders his own insouciant misadventures and unearths trenchant insight into the nature of man. Someday, McGee incants, everything will be fine. And you believe him.

(Disclosure: Spider Bags bassist Steve Oliva is the INDY’s art director.) —Patrick Wall

SUPERCHUNK

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE MERGE RECORDS

Fury has always suited Superchunk. (See: “Slack Motherfucker”; “Precision Auto.”)

But across all its records—What a Time to Be Alive is number eleven—Superchunk has never sounded so furious, and has never written such defiant social commentary. Written almost entirely between Trump’s election win and his inauguration, the album doesn’t idly rage against the machine. It pointedly rails against those in power and the people who put them there. It superbly articulates the anger, anxiety and frustration of the sociopolitical miasma that’s choking American discourse.

Politically oriented records inherently have an expiration date; once the bastards are out of office, pointed protest songs lose their target and just sound quaint. By focusing on the root issues—regressive belief systems, stratified social orders, hate—Superchunk’s made protest punk for the long haul. —Patrick Wall

KOBIE WATKINS GROUPTET MOVEMENT SELF-RELEASED

Earlier this year, the Kobie Watkins Grouptet, the latest iteration in a long line of ensembles led by jazz drummer Kobie Watkins, released their percussive, joyful album Movement. True to its title, the album’s eclectic rhythms and finely tuned arrangements carry it from song to song. The first three tracks are their own exceptional progression: the jaunty “Catch This,” followed by layers of “The City,” then concluding with the bombastic titular track. What makes Watkins a pleasure to listen to as both a musician and bandleader is his combined assurance and playfulness, and this album is certainly the work of a musician at the apex of his abilities.

—Katie Jane Fernelius

WYE OAK THE LOUDER I CALL, THE FASTER IT RUNS MERGE RECORDS

For most of its life, the band Wye Oak revolved around what its two members, Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack, could execute simultaneously. But for their sixth LP, April’s The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs, the pair decided to rid themselves of their self-imposed limitations, leaping headfirst into more intricate arrangements.

Their efforts gleam brighter than ever in the rich, immersive environs of songs like the undulating “It Was Not Natural,” the heart-quickening “Symmetry,” and the record’s thrilling title track. The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs feels less like an album than a breathing organism, one that reveals new details with every listen.

—Allison Hussey

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Our Top 15 Theater and Dance Shows of 2018 AMERICAN DANCE FESTIVAL: SHEN WEI BULLDOG ENSEMBLE THEATER: CURVE OF DEPARTURE ### BURNING COAL THEATRE COMPANY: THE NORMAL HEART ### BURNING COAL: IPHIGENIA IN SPLOTT CAROLINA PERFORMING ARTS: NEDERLANDS DANS THEATER DURHAM INDEPENDENT DANCE ARTISTS: THE BIPEDS ### DIDA: REAL.LIVE.PEOPLE DUKE PERFORMANCES: CAMILLE A. BROWN ### MONÉT NOELLE MARSHALL: “BUY IT/CALL IT” TRILOGY ### NC THEATRE: IN THE HEIGHTS ### PLAYMAKERS REPERTORY COMPANY: KANE SMEGO ### PLAYMAKERS/RALEIGH LITTLE THEATRE: MIKE WILEY ### SNAP PEA UNDERGROUND: THE BANQUET ### TOBACCO ROAD DANCE PRODUCTIONS: KRISTIN CLOTFELTER ### THEATRE RALEIGH: SIGNIFICANT OTHER 26 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

KIM WALKER

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The Bipeds That must have been some party the night before. At the start of 54 Strange Words, everybody’s coming to at about the same time, slowly rising up or rolling over on the floor of some dilapidated dustbowl shack. Composer Curtis Eller staggers to his feet in a blood-spattered undershirt and lifts his banjo off choreographer Stacy Wolfson’s back before plaintively asking the musical question, “Have mercy, what has happened here?” During the rest of the hour-long work, the cocreators and dancers Jessi Knight and William Commander probed rough recriminations and imbalanced relationships in sections including the gently nihilistic waltz “A Ragged Sayonara.” But Dana Marks stopped the show, exploring the monstrous feminine in designer Graham Wolfson’s fantastical costume of fur, exposed rib bones, and stilts. After mating with an upright bass, Marks’s rough beast internalized and then gave second birth to Wolfson’s character, scored by the sometimes aghast accompaniment of bassist Joseph Dejarnette, drummer William Dawson and guitarist Jack Fleishman. The stuff of dreams—and nightmares—indeed. —Byron Woods Kane Smego It’s saddening, if no surprise, to recognize that people of color have had to lead the charge against white supremacy, as even the best-intentioned among us who are not threatened by it can so easily slip into its comfortable cocoon. But in Temples of Lung and Air, his solo show at PlayMakers, Kane Smego—Triangle expat, Sacrificial Poets cofounder, and National Poetry Slam finalist—came as close as a white person can feasibly come to using hip-hop to tell his story while also kneeling respectfully before the form and honoring it as something that, no matter how much he gives it and how much it gives him, will never truly belong to him. Smego’s storytelling charm and verbal pyrotechnics drew in a largely white PlayMakers audience and then fed them some truly real, non-self-exculpatory talk about white privilege and endemic racism. It was one of the most honest, searching shows we saw this year, and it never tried to paper over the problematic qualities of its creator’s humble, humane, heartfelt relationship to hip-hop. We need more white people talking about white privilege not as some free-floating force around them, but as a medium they exist within and can’t help but propagate without constant vigilance. Smego provided a sterling example with a generous spirit and dazzling musicality. —Brian Howe The Normal Heart In one of the most gripping scenes from Larry Kramer’s furious memoir of the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, an activist tormented by despair and anger hits the wall while desperate phone calls pour into the New York crisis center set up to respond to the epidemic. “They are going to persecute us! … Test our blood to see if we're pure! Lock us up! Stone us in the streets,” a wild-eyed Michael Babbitt yelled at Burning Coal in the role of health writer Mickey Marcus, just before lunging full-force at actor Marc Geller, playing Kramer stand-in Ned Weeks. Shaken, Ned cursed the cognitive dissonance of being at ground zero of a medical disaster that authorities and the media were still downplaying a year and a half after the CDC declared it an epidemic. Director Emily Ranii built the strongest ensemble of any regional show this year, with outstanding performances from the likes of suave Preston Campbell, steely Julie Oliver, conflicted Byron Jennings II, and carbonated newcomer Cody Hill. —Byron Woods

The Banquet This area had endured low-stakes dinner theater in the past, but we’d never seen the highconcept fusion of theater and fine dining found in Snap Pea Catering’s audacious August production of Macbeth. Director Akiva Fox trimmed the text and marshaled a phalanx of first-rank talent, with an insidious Phillip Bernard Smith in the title role and a chilly Rebecca Bossen McHugh as his lady. Innovative chef Jacob Boehm made the food itself a character as the tale—and the meal—unfolded in The Fruit’s various rooms. A dazzling opening course on golden platters accompanied the feast Macbeth served King Duncan. Artisan cocktails and fruit accompanied a transition-of-power press conference. Diners were forced to get their hands as dirty as the murderous monarch’s during the banquet after Banquo’s untimely demise, when a visceral course of uncarved pork and smoked Spanish mackerel was served on butcher’s paper with stainless steel cleavers—but no knives, forks, or plates. Encore! —Byron Woods

In the Heights Lin-Manuel Miranda’s name has been buzzing since Hamilton took the world by storm, but seven years earlier, he wrote and starred in In The Heights. Taking place in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, the musical tells a story of a Dominican bodega owner who contemplates the meaning of home and belonging as he witnesses his rapidly changing working-class community of Latinx and Black residents respond to gentrification. Quite a bit has changed in this country since the debut of In the Heights in 2008, when hope was a springboard into the Obama era. A decade later, the relevancy of the themes was evident at Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium in October. The local cast and crew captured the essence of a New York barrio through a vibrant and colorful set, lively choreography, and blaring rap and salsa music, encouraging the audience to dance in their seats. One of the best scenes and songs of the production is “Carnaval Del Barrio,” a celebratory ode to Latinx pride and culture. It is poignant to see a stage full of different shades of Latinx identities raising their flags proudly in unison, especially in today’s tense climate of deportations and barriers to American citizenship for the people the musical celebrates. NC Theatre made a timely decision in bringing the show back to the stage at a time when hope felt distant (oh, and Hamilton was about to come to DPAC). Miranda’s lyrical story is a heartwarming reminder about resilience against significant change and the power of a community’s love. —Khayla Deans

TIM WALTER

Camille A. Brown Camille A. Brown dances a multitude of stories. The choreographer, whose ongoing trilogy of Duke Performances shows this season began with ink in November, is a natural griot, using the rhythmic movements of her feet and the poetic sway of her body to write a narrative of Black identity. Ink is a visceral performance of love, resilience, and liberation, packed with history, cultural cues, vernacular, and stories from social dances in the African diaspora. As Brown explained in the show’s program notes, “It’s about using the power of the past and present to propel us into the future.” This thread is evident in Brown’s ability to preserve and honor dances from previous generations while connecting them to those of younger generations.

While traveling the world to teach and perform on prestigious stages, Brown always remains connected to the communities that she visits through workshops and her Every Body Move initiative, in which everyone is encouraged to freely move and dance as they see fit.

As Brown continues her residency at Duke in 2019, she will continue to curate cultural and creative classes for Durham residents. Her company’s next performance, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, is coming at the start of February. —Khayla Deans

Mike Wiley As hard as it can be for local playwrights to get attention, Mike Wiley’s springtime achievement was all the more remarkable: landing two world premieres in back-to-back mainstage shows at prominent area venues. In April, Wiley returned to PlayMakers with Leaving Eden, an unsettling new music-theater work with composer Laurelyn Dossett, which examined the cyclic nature of economic exploitation and racial violence in a backwater Eastern North Carolina town.

Actor Tangela Large’s uncanny guide, Selah, ferried us between a shocking episode of ethnic cleansing in 1933 and a present-day analog in Jeffrey Blair Cornell’s tinhorn tea-party candidate proposing “countywide immigration reform” targeted at underpaid Latinx pork-plant workers. Three weeks later, director Joseph Megel staged Wiley’s full-ensemble adaptation of Blood Done Sign My Name, based on local historian Timothy Tyson’s chronicle of a 1970 racial murder in Oxford. The evocative set and atmospheric lights and sound design took us to another place and time, as a strong ensemble including Mark Phialas, Juan Isler, and Juanda Holley unleashed the tale of a Methodist minister’s struggle to heal a town split by racial violence, in a way Wiley’s earlier solo version never could. —Byron Woods

ALEX BOERNER

Kristin Clotfelter Verses, Kristin Clotfelter’s pithy, poignant solo in Tobacco Road’s annual showcase, matched the spareness of Really Craft When You, by celebrated NYC-based composer, violinist, and singer Caroline Shaw, who was born in North Carolina.

Clotfelter’s character experienced a moving day of reckoning as she struggled to fit the family history and rural folkways represented in the interviews with Southern quilters woven through Shaw’s music into three cardboard U-Haul boxes of different sizes. With balletic precision, she seemed to beckon individual memories from the space around her, impressing them on her form and then crawling through the containers, before ultimately realizing how little of our past is truly transferable. —Byron Woods

Monét Noelle Marshall The pointed questions Marshall had for local audiences and arts presenters took a year and a broad-reaching trilogy of immersive multimedia performance installations to ask. In Buy My Soul and Call It Art, unsavory art auctions examined the complicity of consumers in the distortion and commodification of the lives of African-American artists through the social structures that produce and present art and popular entertainment. In Buy My Body and Call It a Ticket, a dark carnival with an uncanny ringmaster deconstructed the cultural stigmatizing of our bodies, including weight, hair type, skin color, age, and gender. Though a winter storm in December interfered with much of the run of the concluding piece, Buy My Art and Call It Holy, its closing day tied a loop of gratitude and community in a self-produced trilogy that created an authentic space for the sacredness of African-American labor, experiences, and art where one was sorely needed. —Byron Woods

Curve of Departure Manbites Dog Theater’s lamentable closing in May left a community of artists without a venue or a company to create for. But instead of disbanding, Akiva Fox, Lakeisha Coffey, and a constellation of twenty-odd directors, designers, actors, and technicians resolved to produce challenging, contemporary, socially conscious works as Bulldog Ensemble Theater.

At the Fruit in September, after reaching an agreement to teach acting classes at Durham Arts Council, the group debuted with one of the year’s most moving and authentic productions. Rachel Bonds’s family drama explores the ties that bind and the forces that threaten a modern-day multi-racial family, including both the ex-wife and the aging father of Cyrus, a man who’d abandoned them both, along with his own son.

Under Thaddaeus Edwards’s direction, Phyllis Morrison’s bedrock performance as Linda, a loving, no-nonsense African-American mom, and veteran actor John Murphy as Rudy, a patriarch whose rough poetic streak is threatened by dementia, provided the show’s foundation. With Marcus Zollicoffer’s nuanced work as Linda’s son and Luar Mercado Lopez’s impassioned take on his lover, a quartet of characters explored the ethical consequences of commitment. —Byron Woods INDYweek.com | 1.2.19 | 27

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Our Top 15 Films of 2018

ANNIHILATION ### IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK ### BLACK PANTHER BLACKKKLANSMAN ### EIGHTH GRADE THE FAVOURITE FIRST MAN FIRST REFORMED ### HEREDITARY MANDY ### MINDING THE GAP ### A QUIET PLACE ROMA ### SORRY TO BOTHER YOU A STAR IS BORN ### 28 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

First Reformed There are two main characters in writerdirector Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. The first is the eponymous Dutch Reformed church in upstate New York, a remote two-hundred-fifty-year-old chapel with few parishioners and an organ that doesn’t work—more like a stately museum than a functioning parish. By contrast, the cannibalistic megachurch nearby, which owns the historical landmark, has many more worshipers flocking through its doors but compromises its precepts for the sake of corporate donors who keep those doors open. The second protagonist is fallen Calvinist clergyman Ernst Toller, played by Ethan Hawke in an aching, penetrating performance. Toller is grappling with despair and an existential crisis of faith on multiple fronts. When he fails to save a radical environmentalist who comes to him for counsel, Toller inherits his unused suicide vest and the friendship of his widow (Amanda Seyfried), which both become fulcrums in Toller’s inner struggle between Old Testament damnation and New Testament atonement. The untidy ending doesn’t resolve this conflict—there are not-so-faint echoes of Schrader’s Taxi Driver script. But, upon reflection, two thousand years of Christian theology hasn’t resolved it, either. Schrader’s best film in years skewers politics, organized religion, and even anti-environmentalism, all under the umbrella of stewardship. “Will God forgive us?” is the film’s refrain, but it offers no easy answers to this provocative question. —Neil Morris

Annihilation A very good adaptation of an even better book, Annihilation is a thrilling alchemy of science fiction, psychological horror, and ecological parable. Natalie Portman leads a team of scientists into Area X, a patch of quarantined Florida coastline where a sudden transformation has occurred. The government's official story concerns a vague industrial disaster, but Area X is actually Something Else Entirely. Director Alex Garland folds in all kinds of kinky, thinky weirdness: optical physics, de-evolution, fungal intelligence, that sort of thing. The film departs significantly from Jeff Vandermeer’s book, but both cross apocalyptic sci-fi with the old literary tradition known as weird fiction. Each plays to the strengths of its medium. The book gets into your head via language, while the movie takes a brutal shortcut through your eyeballs. The images evoke a specific variety of terror-tinged awe, the kind you feel contemplating the destructive power of a hurricane, the terrible beauty of a decaying swamp, or the vast darkness of the night sky. Weird fiction specializes in these sensations, and Annihilation points them at our environmental worries about climate change, genetic engineering, and ecological collapse. If movies are like dreams—and they are—then this is a collective anxiety nightmare. We're trying to tell ourselves something. —Glenn McDonald

If Beale Street Could Talk Moonlight director Barry Jenkins’s latest (finally getting a local release next week) is visually appealing, intimate, and heartbreaking. Based on James Baldwin’s 1974 novel, the film foregrounds the beauty and resilience of black people, black love, and black families against the despair of racism and systemic oppression. Set in 1970s Harlem, Beale Street opens with two gorgeous brown-skinned people. A young woman with natural hair (KiKi Layne) and a young man with full lips (Stephan James) are holding hands. The scene conveys optimism that their love will have space to flourish. We learn that Tish and Fonny, who have been friends since childhood, are engaged to be married.

But then, with a baby on the way, Fonny is incarcerated.

Baldwin’s characters are always complex. They don’t just destabilize stereotypes about blackness; they actively reflect the range of black experience. Fonny is an artist, and Tish’s family celebrates her pregnancy and devotion to Fonny—though Tish’s father, Joseph (Colman Domingo), asks if she’s sure she wants to keep the baby.

Still, it’s clear from the start of the film that the odds are stacked against them. From those Edenic opening frames, we hear Tish’s voice over the darkness: “Of course, I must say I don't think America is God's gift to anybody … If it is, God's days have got to be numbered.”

These are Baldwin’s words, appearing dozens of pages into the novel, and it is significant that Jenkins begins with them. It’s hard to hear them and not think of our current moment, when America’s apparent greatness is tangled up with its return to a misguided false morality.

In Baldwin’s world, which Jenkins recreates with vivacity and tragedy, a just, benevolent God is absent, replaced by racist police and a corrupt justice system. Fonny is incarcerated for a brutal rape he did not commit, and his Puerto Rican accuser, who was indeed raped by someone, becomes the tool of a white police officer’s vendetta against the black man who dared to defend his bride-to-be after she was sexually harassed at a bodega. Jenkins’s complex, awe-inspiring film challenges us to imagine and fight for a society in which black love, black families, and black lives matter.

—Jameela F. Dallis

Minding the Gap Bing Liu’s documentary Minding the Gap, about three amateur skateboarders (including the filmmaker) in Rockford, Illinois, is empathetic and expansive. It encompasses so much more than skating.

It’s as much about the heartbreak of growing up as it is about the endowment of domestic violence, the premonitions bred by race, and post-recession American malaise. The film played to a full house at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival this year. Documentary filmmakers often discuss who should be making documentaries for whom, a question always underpinning doc festivals. This debate isn’t new and is never settled, but I share in others’ frustrations about the proliferation of documentaries targeted towards the NPR-donor variety: white, educated, liberal enough. In fact, many of the documentaries that crossed over into the mainstream this year seemed designed to assuage the anxieties of this demographic, like RBG and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?. Minding the Gap was a rare, necessary exception. Liu’s film moves with both the fluidity and jolts of skateboarding: in graceful, single shots of lanky bodies gliding through the streets, the camera skates with the skaters. But the camera stumbles, crashes, and lingers with them, too. To watch is to come away with skinned knees. —Katie Jane Fernelius

Roma The word “cinematic” often functions as an antonym of “intimate,” suggesting a layer between art and life. But that’s not so in Alfonso Cuarón’s sweeping panorama of family life, which centers on Cleo, a young housekeeper who is at once deeply involved with and held at arm’s length by the family she works for. Shot in black and white, 1970s Mexico City is beautifully recreated, with the changes happening in the outside world— a jet reflected in soap suds, astronauts suspended on a dark movie screen, a student riot-turned-bloodbath— mirroring those happening within the family. “Who are these kids?” wayward father Antonio jokes as he greets his children, foreshadowing the distance to come. Near the end, the mother, Sofia, takes her kids to the beach so Antonio can clear his belongings from the house. By then, Cleo, now pregnant, has also been abandoned by a man. Despite the emotional scope of these changes, interiority is not emphasized. In this way, Cuarón’s priorities—visual texture over narrative contours—often resemble Terrence Malick’s. But while a Malick film often feels austere and painterly, Cuarón deftly translates the visual poetry of everyday life with an intimacy that makes it almost hard to breathe. If the film has a personal feel, it’s because it’s Cuaron’s semi-autobiographical tribute to the women that raised him, his perspective now complicated by adult understandings of class, race, gender, and the lonely distance between intense emotions and a world unready to receive them.

—Sarah Edwards

Mandy A lysergic vision of astonishing and delirious beauty, Panos Cosmatos’s second feature contains multitudes, including an LSD cult of Easy Rider caricatures and a biker gang seemingly sprung from the puzzle box of Hellraiser. In a year when theaters were still dominated by a predictable empire of superheroes, Mandy gave new meaning to the action film without skimping on epic chainsaw duels and other gems of ultra-violence. A genre flick, a poetic exploration of intimacy and loss, and a cautionary tale about the havoc caused by the fragility of the male ego, Mandy revived the revenge-film narrative by infusing it with emotional depth, centered on the tender relationship between two lovers: Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) and Red (Nicolas Cage). In scenes that accurately represent the process of trauma, Cage takes his characteristic performance of excess and exaggeration to a whole new level of intensity, while the proliferation of hallucinated landscapes and the dreamy synth score Jóhann Jóhannsson wrote before his untimely death accompany us through this splendid nightmare. —Marta Nuñez Pouzols

Hereditary This is what my face looked like the entire time during this riveting horror film, in which mundane family life is so much scarier than supernatural death.

—Brian Howe

BlacKkKlansman It’s no coincidence that BlacKkKlansman was released a day before the first anniversary of the infamous Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville.

With implacable lucidity and excellent humor, Spike Lee’s latest feature highlights how white supremacy, far from being a marginal phenomenon, is ingrained in the social fabric of this country. Paying skillful and pertinent homage to Blaxploitation movies through its cinematography and referencing the heroes of its genre (Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal), the film is a carefully crafted reflection on the representation of blackness in cinema history. This reflection, mixed with a pointed bit of social commentary, culminates in a harrowing scene that should end the critical reverence for D.W. Griffith’s ode to racism, Birth of a Nation. Other crucial moments are the exhilarating phone conversations in which black detective Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) successfully passes as white and tricks a clueless, wimpy David Duke (Topher Grace).

Poignant, engaging, and hilarious, BlacKkKlansman is also a relevant critique of the futility of attempting social change without subverting the racist status quo.

—Marta Nuñez Pouzols

A Star Is Born I watched A Star Is Born on the last day of a trip to New York, foreswearing all other cultural activities to sit alone in an overpriced theater and have an experience I could have literally anywhere in America.

I think that’s what I enjoyed about the movie, though— how unifying the experience felt. I can’t remember the last time a big-budget Hollywood movie felt as thrillingly encompassing: Even before the film was released, the trailer racked up a staggering number of views, and the internet swam with memes. The anticipation, taste, and aftertaste of the movie all felt equitable.

As for the movie itself, Lady Gaga’s Ally is genuine and focused, the music is phenomenal, and Bradley Cooper’s throaty, washed-up musician is appropriately wrenching (although the biggest fairy tale might be that an alt-country singer could be a megastar of the stature depicted). Afterward, I found myself singing the soundtrack, compulsively telling people that I just wanted to take another look at them, and re-watching the trailer—which, after all, includes the capital-M Moment, the one we’re all somehow collectively nostalgic for even though we’ll never experience it quite this way: watching from the sidelines, being recognized, called up, and reborn. —Sarah Edwards INDYweek.com | 1.2.19 | 29

Our Top 5 Art Exhibits

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THE ACKLAND: BECOMING A WOMAN IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: FRENCH ART FROM THE HORVITZ COLLECTION THE CARRACK: GABRIELLE DUGGAN: ROCKS THAT WON’T SINK THE GREGG: BOB TROTMAN: BUSINESS AS USUAL THE NASHER: ACROSS COUNTY LINES: CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE PIEDMONT NCMA: YOU ARE HERE: LIGHT, COLOR, AND SOUND EXPERIENCES

JEREMY M. LANGE

Across County Lines In this companion exhibit to People Get Ready, one photo made me catch my breath. Depicting a bright green mosque surrounded by pine trees, it’s strongly reminiscent of a William Christenberry photo of a green barn in rural Alabama. But this shot, part of Christopher Sims’s “Theater of War” series, was taken in Eastern North Carolina at a simulation of an Iraqi village used to train soldiers. Sims offers little commentary, letting the building speak for itself, guilelessly framed by a sandy grove. Though the exhibit’s theme is geographical, other allusive through lines emerge. Several photos are concerned with costuming and mythmaking, or what critic Doreen St. Felix has called the “Southern thirst for domestic pageantry.” An immaculate spread of deviled eggs on a porch, by Margaret Sartor, suggests a loaded social code.

In “The Roles We Play,” Heather Evans Smith depicts her daughter standing in a puppet theater, a nod to the cultural performances passed down between women. Another Sartor piece deals a distressing blow. Two boys crouch on a porch, a menagerie of plastic figures between them. Both boys hold plastic guns; one cowers, as if to either hide or get a better shot. These compelling photos reminded me of the darker side of playing pretend, and they’re still on view into February. —Sarah Edwards

Gabrielle Duggan In a year with many exhibits by and about women, from art-historical corrections to #MeToo protests to statements of defiant self-love and positive empowerment, Duggan’s Carrack show stood out. Fiber techniques and structures in works spanning several media expressed the complex tensions of navigating more interlocking patriarchal systems than a person can keep track of. The works were nuanced, ambiguous, even impenetrable. One consisted of a bathtub beneath a hanging network of thread and wire. A pump drew water from the tub and released it into the network, down which it dribbled unpredictably back into the tub, onto the floor, or onto a plastic sheet. It made a mess.

You kept touching the network to tweak the flows. It was beautiful and ugly. It worked and it didn’t work. Nothing about it stayed the same or was easy. This aesthetically understated show required the kind of deep engagement that our social problems around gender require if we’re going to progress. Long looks see more. —Chris Vitiello 30 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

Our Year in Speculative Fiction

BY SAMUEL MONTGOMERY-BLINN

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wo of the Triangle’s science-fiction masters delivered at the top of their game this year. Pittsboro’s David Drake stepped outside of his millionsselling bailiwick of military sci-fi with The Spark, a far-future retelling of Arthurian legend. And Raleigh’s John Kessel expanded his Nebula Award–winning novelette Pride and Prometheus into a full-length novel, alternating between the points of view of Victor Frankenstein, his Creature, and Elizabeth Bennet, recognizably lifted from the pages of Jane Austen.

Three debut novels from authors in different stages of their careers provided fresh, intriguing voices. Recent N.C. State MFA graduate Christopher Ruocchio wowed us with his science fantasy, Empire of Silence, beginning his “Sun Eater Trilogy” with disgraced hero Hadrian Marlowe recounting his life as the scion of a Roman-influenced, starspanning family. Duke professor and humanrights advocate Robin Kirk, already the author of three nonfiction books, released her first novel, The Bond, a dystopian warning of the slippery slope to genocide set in a future Earth where women have killed nearly all men.

And Durham physicist J.D. Cortese’s debut, The Sound of a Broken Chain, is a sui generis novel of time travel and political unrest. Set largely in Cortese’s native Argentina, the book finds two idealistic high school students receiving a warning through time against a backdrop of politically motivated torture and Argentina's 1978 World Cup victory.

Two of the area’s most well-known authors made genre splashes again. A year after her Philip K. Dick Award–nominated Six Wakes gained significant critical purchase, Durham author Mur Lafferty was tapped to novelize the film Solo: A Star Wars Story. Far from a paint-by-numbers media tie-in, Lafferty delightfully expands on the film, providing

much more from the point of view of L3-37, the scene-stealing "droid rights" droid. A full year removed from his stint as Piedmont Laureate, Hillsborough author James Maxey delivered three books in Lawless, a gonzo series of novels that tell the story of B-list superheroes who can't catch a break.

In the world of children’s books, a pair of writer-illustrator talents continued their series with aplomb. Raleigh's S.E.M. Ishida published a follow-up to Nick Newton: Boy Genius. The lightly (and delightfully) illustrated Nick Newton: The Highest Bidder finds the titular character encountering an auctionhouse mystery bidder and helping his friend rebuild an android. Pittsboro author Ursula Vernon continued her “Hamster Princess” series with Whiskerella (a rodentthemed Cinderella) and Little Red Rodent Hood.

Finally, three fantastic non-fantastic books convinced me to turn the pages even if there were no rockets or dragons: Natania Barron's Rock Revival, in which Kate Styx’s successful band has started to crumble around her and the tabloids are circling; Therese Anne Fowler’s A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts, which brings Alma Smith Vanderbilt to well-drawn, gilded-age life; and Eryk Pruitt's What We Reckon, the best of his Southern-fried noir books to date. arts@indyweek.com

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Fiddler on the Roof PHOTO COURTESY OF FIDDLERMUSICAL.COM

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK 1.2–1.9

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4– SUNDAY, JANUARY 20

TUESDAY, JANUARY 8– SUNDAY, JANUARY 13

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9SATURDAY, JANUARY 12

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

THE GREAT COVER UP

Folks generally associate costumed revelry and makebelieve with Halloween, but every January, an enthusiastic contingent of local musicians offers a musically inclined reprise. The Great Cover Up is one of the most esteemed spokes of the Triangle’s music scene, a beloved tradition wherein local musicians reconfigure to do their best set-length impressions of other bands they love. The details of each band stay secret until they hit the stage, further enhancing the fun. Though most sets are one-offs, some of the bigger crowd-pleasers have endured: The Who-conjuring act The Whom, led by Kings’ own Paul Siler, has returned to the stage for plenty of non–Cover Up gigs in the area. More recent favorites have included the Dixie Chicks and Siouxie and the Banshees, and each night offers eight to ten (relatively short) sets. It’s all great fun, and proceeds benefit local nonprofits. The only gamble is deciding how many nights of the four-show stretch to attend. —Allison Hussey

Funny thing: Most playwrights don’t tell you about the rejection letters they’ve gotten while talking up their next show. But South Stream Productions cofounder Brook North is up-front about his showcase of seven (“and a half,” he adds) ten-minute plays that kicks off the regional 2019 theater season Friday night. All of them, he notes with pride, have been rejected by at least one theatrical company—and that, in itself, is something of a meta-endorsement for an evening of comedies and serious works about things going very, very wrong. (Of course, many of North’s selections have also been successfully staged in festivals stretching from Wisconsin to San Miguel de Allende.) In the dark comedy Lunch Break, a worker stuck in a meaningless day job starts thinking outside the cubicle after getting fed up with coworkers. In Clover, a first-contact scenario goes sideways when invading aliens turn out to be much cuter (and furrier) than anything Ridley Scott ever dreamed of.

J North directs a top-flight septet including Katie Barrett and cofounder John Honeycutt. —Byron Woods

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, DURHAM Various times, $84+, www.dpacnc.com

KINGS, RALEIGH 8 p.m., $10, www.kingsraleigh.com

SONOROUS ROAD THEATRE, RALEIGH Various times, $16–$20, www.sonorousroad.com

In 2015, when millions of Syrian refugees had no guarantee of a lasting welcome in Europe or the United States, director Bartlett Sher opened his Broadway revival of the epic 1964 musical on a cold, empty, modern-day train platform, as a man holding a book of Sholem Aleichem’s tales of Anatevka scanned the landscape for any sign of the shtetl that stood there a century before.

The starkness of that frame, grounding audiences in a comfortless present, looking into a past for what has been lost, signaled a definite departure from a Fiddler that had become cemented, to quote the famous first-act song, in tradition. So did Sher’s choice of Hofesh Shechter, the contemporary dance choreographer regional audiences have seen at the American Dance Festival, to replace Jerome Robbins’s iconic original choreography. But no shortage of patrons are interested in seeing an old work with new eyes; only a few tickets remain for the one-week visit by this professional touring version at DPAC. —Byron Woods

32 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

THIS DOESN’T END WELL

JAN UARY

FR 4 AARON HAMM AND BIG RIVER & JONATHAN WOOD 6:30p

SA 5 QDR HAPPY Q YEAR 7p

SU 6 AFTON MUSIC SHOWCASE WE 9 FR 11 SA 12 FR 18 SA 19 WE 23

FEATURING: OG, TIGGY OLANDOE, AIRCRASH, DETECHTIVES PLUS TBA FRUITION 7p

ZOSO 7:30p THE GRATEFUL BALL 7:30p CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD 7:30p RIPE

W/ THE BROOK AND THE BLUFF 7p

FR 25 GREENSKY BLUEGRASS AT THE RITZ 7p

FR 25 SA 26 AMERICAN AQUARIUM 7p TH 31 RESURRECTION- A JOURNEY TRIBUTE 7p

F E B R UARY

FR 1 KELLER WILLIAMS 8p SA 2 PIGEONS PLAYING PING PONG 8p FR 7 TAUK W/ PEOPLE’S BLUES OF RICHMOND 8p

SA 8 COSMIC CHARLIE PRESENTS: DARK SIDE OF THE DEAD 8p

SU 9 JUPITER COYOTE & THE BLUE DOGS 7p

MO 11 ALAN DOYLE BAND 7p FR 15 THE BREAKFAST CLUB W/ BAD INC 8p

SA 16 NANTUCKET W/ MAJ DEEKA/ PEGASUS PLUS 7p

FR 22 CORROSION OF CONFORMITY W/ CROWBAR/THE OBSESSED/ MOTHERSHIP 6:30p

SA 23 MAYDAY! & RDGLDGRN W/ LITTLE STRANGER 8p

SU 24 ASLEEP AT THE WHEELSTRING BAND TOUR 7p

WE 27 JJ GREY AND MOFRO W/ CRIS JACOBS BAND 7p

CO M I N G S O O N

3/2 WHO’S BAD – THE ULTIMATE

MICHAEL JACKSON EXPERIENCE 7:30p

SUNDAY, JANUARY 6

3/3 Y & T 7p 3/8 WHISKEY MYERS

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

Okay, so maybe Justin Timberlake didn’t knock it out of the park with February’s Man of the Woods. It’s a perplexing record that offered an unnecessary answer to the question of what might happen if the former boy-band heartthrob “went country” while cribbing a few weirder pages from the Bon Iver playbook. And he definitely did wrong by the queen Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl so many years ago. But Timberlake was born and bred to be a capital-E Entertainer, on which he’s bound to deliver when he makes this stadium stop in Raleigh. While some of Timberlake’s post-“SexyBack” singles haven’t had as much staying power as that monster hit (with a possible exception with 2016’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from the soundtrack to the featurefilm adaptation of the Troll doll universe), he still remains a steamroller presence in the pop world. —Allison Hussey PNC ARENA, RALEIGH | 7:30 p.m., $50+, www.thepncarena.com

DIE ROCKIN’ TOUR

W/ BONES OWEN 7p AT THE RITZ

3/9 CITIZEN COPE 7p 3/11 CRANK IT LOUD & LINCOLN

THEATRE PRESENT: THE DECIBEL MAGAZINE TOUR 2018 6p

3/15 ADRIAN BELEW

W/ SAUL ZONANA 7:30p

3/16 WEEKEND EXCURSION 7p 3/22 TODD SNIDER 7:30p 3/23 LYRICAL LEMONADE PRESENTS:

LIL MOSEY NORTHSBEST TOUR 7p

Justin Timberlake

3/29 RECKLESS KELLY & PAUL THORN 7:30p

PHOTO BY RYAN MCGINLEY

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO?

HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING AT ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE (P. 40), JEFF JACKSON AT CRANK ARM BREWING (P. 38), SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS AT MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM (P. 39), AARON ZALONIS AT LUMP (P. 37)

ADV. TICKETS @ LINCOLNTHEATRE.COM & SCHOOLKIDS RECORDS ALL SHOWS ALL AGES

126 E. Cabarrus St.• 919-821-4111 www.lincolntheatre.com INDYweek.com | 1.2.19 | 33

music 1.2–1.9 WED, JAN 2

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

THE KRAKEN: Shake Sugaree Americana Residency with Jonathan Byrd & Friends; 7-10 p.m.

THE OUTPOST: Head Room Drum & Bass; 9 p.m.-1 a.m.

POUR HOUSE MUSIC HALL: Chesley “Cheese” Allen & Friends, Radio Boxx Band; $10. 8 p.m.

THU, JAN 3 ARCANA: Ann; 8 p.m.

BLUE NOTE GRILL: Nash Street Ramblers; 7-9 p.m.

KINGS:

Arson Daily [$7/8 P.M.]

In addition to having a punny band name, this trio stands out for its scorched-earth take on retro rock ’n’ roll. Originally from Boone, the band recently relocated to Raleigh and has continued refining its blues-based garage sound that’s strongly reminiscent of Cage the Elephant (see single “Train”), and playing energetic, party-centric shows in and around the Triangle.

Look for the band’s fulllength follow-up to the 2017 EP, What’s On Your Mind?, sometime this year. Nordista Freeze, Future Crib, and Charlie Paso open.

—Howard Hardee

FRI, JAN 4 BLUE NOTE GRILL: The Wiley Fosters; 9 p.m.

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM):

Sirius B

[$10/8:30PM] The jangly folk group Sirius B, hailing from Asheville, was founded by guitarists Xavier Ferdón and Pancho Romero Bond, as well as New Orleans ex-pat percussionist Imhotep.

The band has come to include 34 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

a revolving set of folks playing everything from the accordion to the melodica, and it revels in creating a carnival of sounds that reference klezmer, jazz, prog, and more. The Shoaldiggers and Lester Coalbanks & the Seven Sorrows also perform.

—Josephine McRobbie THE CAVE: Ruse de Guerre, Peachelope, Poinsettia; 9 p.m.

HAW RIVER BALLROOM:

Donna the Buffalo [$20–$22/8 P.M.]

This is grass-fed roots music complete with astounding feats of fiddling and bootstomping beats. Formed in Trumansburg, New York, Donna the Buffalo has been touring the country for about thirty years, drawing a devoted fan base that calls itself The Herd, and the songwriting duo of vocalists Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins has produced close to two hundred songs.

The band is currently touring to support its eighth album, Dancing in the Street. With Western Centuries.

—Howard Hardee LINCOLN THEATRE:

Aaron Hamm & The Big River Band [$14–$16/7:30 P.M.]

We’ve reached a point in the country music continuum where we’re getting bands influenced by multiple generations of outlaw country.

So it is with Aaron Hamm & The Big River Band, who’ve learned their lessons well not only from outlaw originators like Waylon and Willie, but also from the likes of Jamey Johnson and Cody Jinks. Of course, you could also argue that they’re simply fellow travelers of the latter bunch who haven’t been as widely heard. With Jonathan Wood.

—Jim Allen LOCAL 506: Elvis Division, Bellflower, The Mothmen; $7. 9 p.m.

Reese McHenry performs with The Dirty Little Heaters at Local 506 on Saturday.

PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE

MOTORCO:

POUR HOUSE MUSIC HALL: Emily Musolino Band, Downtown Abby & The Echoes, Rebekah Todd; $5-10. 9 p.m.

[$12/9 P.M.]

SLIM’S:

Benefit for BBQ

Back in October, Durham fixture and original Tooth merch dude BBQ Dudzinski had a stroke. Then, he lost his job. So his buddies in Tooth (and from the recently and dearly departed Sam’s Quik Shop) threw together this benefit gig. Tooth’s beloved Bull City metal has only grown sharper since the band reunited in 2013.

Greensboro’s The Bronzed Chorus makes math rock out of guitars, drums, synths, and an array of objects that usually aren’t used to make music. Wilmington’s Youth League also plays math rock, and plays it a little straighter, evoking the acrobatics of Minus the Bear and El Ten Eleven. —Patrick Wall THE PINHOOK:

Nay Fong, Phrenthrow [$7/10 P.M.]

The accomplished, inclusivityfocused Party Illegal dance series returns to the Pinhook for 2019, boasting a tightly focused, atmospheric lineup of area selectors.

Raleigh producer Nay Fong channels a keen sensibility for the dreamier, deep-house informed corners of dubstep in his mixes, occasionally cruising out towards the funkier corners of hip-hop remix-dom. Durham visual artist Phrenthrow is a self-described reverent fan of emotional techno, bruising and contemplative in equal measure. Party Illegal organizers Queen Plz and Treee City support on the decks. —David Ford Smith

Doll Baby [$5/9 P.M.]

Touching on the crunchy and searing guitars from Loveless, the deep-reaching screams from Pretty on the Inside, the essay-long lyrical screeds from Maybe I’ll Catch Fire, Richmond’s Doll Baby creates a sound that references emo, metal, and alternative from the entire decade of the nineties, fronted by cocksure and talented vocalist Julie Storey. Bangzz and Girl Werewolf open.

—Josephine McRobbie

SAT, JAN 5 BLUE NOTE GRILL: Spank; $8.

8 p.m.

CAT’S CRADLE: Lake Street Dive, Mikaela Davis; 8 p.m.

THE CAVE:

Reef Blower [$5/9 P.M.]

Reef Blower’s totally chill psych-rock sound is defined not just by fuzzy guitars, but by fuzzy everything.

The local band’s four-song demo—titled, uh, Demo— leaves the impression of intentional messiness, like a teenager who actually prefers wading through waist-deep rubble to reach their bedroom door. Bum notes and dissonant chords are part of the charm, as are hooky vocal melodies buried in the lo-fi mix. It’s the garage-rock equivalent of an impressionistic painting, and it’s beautiful. With Rosemary. —Howard Hardee

KINGS:

Bandway

[$10–$12/9 P.M.] The killer B’s of Bandway— guitarist Bo Taylor and singing drummer Brooks Carter—love big guitar riffs, old cassette decks, and the visceral pleasure of rock ‘n’ roll. They also love crude jokes, cock-rock swagger, and partying hard. For more than two decades now, Taylor and Carter have been mining this big, dumb rock mentality for everything its worth, inhabiting these characters as though they were a second skin. So much so, in fact, that they occasionally stumble across the occasional truism: “Get Your Balls Out,” for instance, is secretly a rallying cry for believing in yourself. Then again: “There’s a hero in my pants/And all he wants to do is dance/With you,” Carter shrieks on “Hot Zone,” from 2016’s Buddies. Karl Welzein would rock Bandway in his ’bring. 300 Dog Night and Enemy Waves open.

—Patrick Wall LINCOLN THEATRE: Granger Smith, Jon Langston, Seth Ennis; $15-35.

8 p.m.

LOCAL 506:

The Dirty Little Heaters [$8/9 P.M.]

In “Jump in the Line,” Harry Belafonte sings of a woman who’s “a hurricane in all kinds of weather.” Though the song predates Reese McHenry by a good bit, she is that woman. A ferocious vocalist with a knack for writing songs that pull from the blues, honky-tonk country, and honest-to-god unfiltered rock ’n’ roll, McHenry is an

SA 1/12

ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO TH 1/31

EL TEN ELEVEN SOLD OUT

1/5 LAKE STREET DIVE

1/11 HIGH ON FIRE W/ TOKE, YEAR OF THE COBRA ($18/$20) 1/12 THE CROSSING TOUR ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO W/ DON ANTONIO (BAND) SOLD OUT

1/14 NONAME W/ ELTON

1/19 ABBEY ROAD LIVE – BEATLES TRIBUTE 2 SHOWS: 4 PM/ 8:30 PM ($10/$13) 1/31 EL TEN ELEVEN W/ JOAN OF ARC ($15/$17) 2/1 JOYCE MANOR/JEFF ROSENSTOCK W/ REMEMBER SPORTS

TH 2/14

SPAFFORD

2/2 BOB MARLEY BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FT. MICKEY MILLS AND STEEL 2/7 FRED ARMISEN

SOLD OUT

2/9 PETER MURPHY 40 YEARS OF BAUHAUS CELEBRATION LD FEATURING DAVID J SO OUT 2/12 JOHN MAUS ( PRESENTED BY CAT'S CRADLE AND MOTORCO) 2/14 SPAFFORD ($17.50/$20) 2/15 COPELAND W/ FROM INDIAN LAKES, MANY ROOMS 2/16 MATT NATHANSON

SOLD OUT

2/23 HOUNDMOUTH W/ BEN KWELLER, MODERN LOVE CHILD 2/25 TOO MANY ZOOZ 2/26 JUKEBOX THE GHOST, THE MOWGLI'S

4/4 JUICE CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM 1/4 SIRIUS B, SHOALDIGGERS, LESTER COALBANKS & THE SEVEN SORROWS ($8/ $10) 1/10 FAMILY VISION, BLEARY EYED, AND JULIAN WAITS ( $7) 1/11 ROBUST RECORDS PRESENTS CHATHAM RABBITS ($12/$15) 1/12 RUNAWAY GIN A TRIBUTE TO PHISH ($10/$15) 1/19 AND 1/20 2ND ANNUAL CARRBORO DJANGO REINHARDT FESTIVAL -- ONYX BOYS CLUB, RHYTHM FUTURE QUARTET & MORE. 1/24 ARSON DAILY, DADDY’S BEEMER, ECHO COURTS

4/17 THE WILD REEDS ($14/$16) 4/18 TELEKINESIS W/ SONTALK ($13/$15) 4/25 ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE W/ YAMANTAKA, SONIC TITAN 5/2 JULIA JACKLIN W/ BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT ($14/$16) 5/21 SHAME ($14) ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) 2/20 JONATHAN RICHMAN MEMORIAL HALL (UNC CH-HILL) 1/29 NEKO CASE

2/1 GABE DIXON ($10/$12)

CAROLINA THEATRE (DUR) LD 1/11 GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV SO OUT

3/4 WATSKY

2/6 THE LIL SMOKIES W/ MICHIGAN RATTLERS

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER LD 2/1 MANDOLIN ORANGE SO OUT

3/6 COLD CAVE W/ ADULT AND SEXTILE

2/8 NICOLAY & THE HOT AT NIGHTS

3/7 STRFKR W/ SHY BOYS ($25)

2/9 BRONZE RADIO RETURN W/ SONTALK

MOTORCO (DUR) 2/1 LUCY DACUS LD W/ ILLUMINATI HOTTIES SO OUT

2/27 WET, KILO KISH 3/2 COLE ESCOLA

3/8 CHELSEA CUTLER W/ ANTHONY RUSSO

2/14 DANILEIGH

3/19 TREVOR HALL W/ DIRTWIRE, WILL EVANS ($22/$25)

2/16 MOZES AND THE FIRSTBORN W/ THE PARROTS ($12)

3/21 ANDREA GIBSON ($20/$22)

2/20 DEAD HORSES & THE BROTHER BROTHERS ($12/$14) 2/23 LOWLAND HUM

3/22 NOVO AMOR 3/25 ADHOC PRESENTS: HOMESHAKE

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR INDYWEEK.COM

FR 2/1 @ HAW RIVER BALLROOM

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND

3/30 CARBON LEAF ($20/$25) 3/31 THE MIDNIGHT ($20/$22)

2/24 THE ACES

SOLD OUT

2/25 LILY & MADELEINE W/ BROTHER BIRD

4/8 RIVAL SONS W/ SHEEPDOGS

2/26 WILLIAM RYAN KEY W/ SELFISH THINGS AND CORY WELLS ($15)

4/11 RUBBLEBUCKET

3/1 WILLIAM TYLER ($15)

4/13 DURAND JONES & THE INDICATIONS ($15)

3/8 MIKE KROL, SPIDER BAGS ($10/$12)

4/16 MITSKI W/ JAY SOM

SOLD OUT

4/18 TOM ODELL 4/25 LAURA JANE GRACE & THE DEVOURING MOTHERS W/ MERCY UNION AND CONTROL TOP ($20 / $23)

3/9 MATT KEREKES W/ JETTY BONES, JACOB SIGMAN 3/10 HOT FLASH HEAT WAVE W/ VACATIONS ($13/$15) 3/11 MEN I TRUST W/ MICHAEL SEYER

5/5 JAPANESE BREAKFAST W/ ETERNAL SUMMERS

3/12 SEAN MCCONNELL ($10/$12)

5/6 RIVERSIDE ($20/$25)

3/28 MAX FROST($15/$17)

2/24 MIKE DOUGHTY PLAYS SOUL COUGHING’S "RUBY VROOM" 25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR 3/24 ALL THEM WITCHES ($15) FLETCHER OPERA THEATER (RAL) 2/6 VALERIE JUNE (SOLO) 4/3 GRAHAM NASH RED HAT AMPHITHEATER (RAL) 4/27 RAINBOW KITTEN SURPRISE THE RITZ (R AL) 2/7 DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS AND LUCINDA WILLIAMS W/ ERIKA WENNERSTROM 2/8 CODY KO AND NOEL MILLER SOLD OUT

HAW RIVER BALLROOM 1/16 THE DEVIL MAKES THREE ($27.50/$30) 2/1 YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND W/ HANDMADE MOMENTS ($25/$30) 3/18 TEENAGE FANCLUB W/ THE LOVE LANGUAGE ($25/$28)

CATSCRADLE.COM  919.967.9053  300 E. MAIN STREET  CARRBORO |

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1/27

FAMILY-FRIENDLY TRANSACTORS IMPROV NO SHAME THEATRE - CARRBORO THE SEASHELL AND THE CLERGYMAN LIVE SCORE BY TIM CARLESS LUNA’S MAGIC FLUTE

2/1

AUSTIN PIAZZOLLA QUINTET

2/8

LAURIE LEWIS AND THE RIGHT HANDS

2/10

ALASDAIR FRASER AND NATALIE HAAS

1/12 1/12 1/19

PERFORMANCES IN BOTH ENGLISH AND SPANISH

Get tickets at

artscenterlive.org

300-G East Main St., Carrboro, NC Find us on Social Media: @artscenterlive

Sam’s Quik Benefit for BBQ WEDShop JUN Presents 29 @ 8:00 PM, $12/$15 with Tooth / Bronzed Chorus / Youth League SAT 1/5 Dishoom FRI 1/11 Shred for Music Ed with Stellar Circuits w/ POISON ANTHEM Knightmare / The Reticent Attracting RICHARD BACCHUS & THE /LUCKIEST GIRLSThe Fall (A Benefit for the Jordan High School FRI 7/1 LOOK HOMEWARD / THE MIDATLANTIC Band Program) MON TUE1/147/5JON Crank It Loud: / CULTURE ABUSE SPENCER & NOTHING the HITmakers / Dex WAILIN STORMSDuo / HUNDREDFTFACES Romweber FRI 1/4

RICHIE RAMONE

FRI

7/8 SolKitchen & The Art of Cool Project: The Art of Noise #Durham

MON 1/14

MON 7/11SPENCER Regulator Bookstore presents JON & the HITmakers

W/DEX ROMWEBER DUO HEATHER HAVRILESKY: Ask Polly Live

Vivo Carlota TUE 7/12Flamenco DANNY SCHMIDT / REBECCASantana NEWTON with WES COLLINS

1/17-1/19

12pm: Hype Season One Release Party with Well$, PAT Junior, Ace Henderson, SAT 7/16Zensofly.

PINKERTON RAIDby / ST.Phonte ANTHONY & THE MYSTERY TRAIN Hosted SUN 1/20 7pm: Blackspace and FTMF Present SUN JUL 17 Afro8:00 PM Soul: A@Tribute WEDPresent JUN 29&@Future 8:00 -PM, $12/$15 THEPast, RAGBIRDS $12/$15 to Dr. MLK Jr with The JonDoe, The Afronauts and Africa Unplugged THU 1/24 The Monti StorySLAM: The Internet FRI 1/25 THE PINKERTON RAID w/ POISON ANTHEM RICHARD/ BACCHUS THE LUCKIEST GIRLS Sawyer Charity &Lane MON 7/18Time MAIL THE HORSE SAT 1/26 ALEX CAMERON & ROY MOLLOY: TAKE FRI 7/1 LOOK HOMEWARD / THE MIDATLANTIC FRI JUL 22 CARE OF BUSINESS A duo tour with @ TUE8:00 7/5 PMJOHN CrankCOWAN It Loud: NOTHING / CULTURE ABUSESAT 1/26 Holiday Sidewinder $25/$30 SUN 1/20

THU 7/14 Storymakers: Durham, Community Listening Event

RECYCLE THIS PAPER

RICHIE RAMONE THE RAGBIRDS

ALEX CAMERON & ROY MOLLOY

WAILIN STORMS / HUNDREDFTFACES

JOHN COWAN w/ DARIN & BROOKE ALDRIDGE MON 7/11 Regulator Bookstore presents

7/8 SolKitchen & The Art of Cool Project: w/ Holiday Sidewinder SUN 1/27 AMEN The ArtDUNES of Noise #Durham / Arthur FRI

S D R I B G A R E H T SAT 7/23 Girls RockHAVRILESKY: Showcase Ask Polly Live HEATHER TUE 7/26 Motorco Comedy Night:NEWTON with WES COLLINS TUE 7/12 DANNY SCHMIDT / REBECCA ANDY WOODHULL / ADAM COHEN THU 7/14 Storymakers: Durham, Community Listening Event er s -P op Ma tt FRI 7/29 YOUNG BULL Album Releases"Show tr av el er SAT 7/16 at PINKERTON RAID / ST. ANTHONY & THE MYSTERY TRAIN e ar tis tic "C on su mm w/ ALIX AFF / DURTY DUB SUN JUL 17 SUN JUL17 COMING SOON: JULIETTE LEWIS, YARN, JARED & THE MILL, @ 8:00 PM THE RAGBIRDS HAL KETCHUM, Doors: 7pmNRBQ, LIZ VICE, WINDHAND, $12/$15 SUN 1/27

CODY CANADA Show: 8pm& THE DEPARTED, RUSSIAN CIRCLES, BAND OF SKULLS, SISTER SPARROW & THE DIRTY BIRDS, KING, $12 ADV 723 RIGSBEE AVE - DURHAM, NC - MOTORCOMUSIC.COM w/Arthur DOYLE LAWSON LEGG, $15 DAY OF & QUICKSILVER, THE RECORD COMPANY, ADRIAN WED 1/30 THE REBIRTH BRASSSTEEL BAND, MYWHEELS BRIGHTEST DIAMOND, KARLA BONOFF, !

W O N LE B A TALIB KWELI, LOUDON WAINWRIGHT FRI AVIIIAILLUCY MON2/17/18 MAIL THE HORSE M U Cat’s Cradle Presents DACUS / LB A H" W T NE HE A LD OUT SOR Hotties OLD & THE FRI JULIllumanati 22 H S E R H T E PM "T WED 2/6 @H8:00 JUSTIN NOZUKA Cardiff 723 RIGSBEE - DURHAM,/ S. NCCraig - MOTORCOMUSIC.COM JOHNAVE COWAN COM $25/$30 BIRD THU 2/7 The R A GSpot Presents Level Up W W W .T H ESweet Valentine Edition FRI 2/8 H.C. McENTIRE / Blue Cactus SAT 2/9 Metal Pole Mayhem TUE SAT2/127/23Cat’s Girls Rock Showcase Cradle and Motorco Presents JOHN MAUS (at Cat’s Cradle) TUE 7/26 Motorco Comedy Night: TUE 2/19 DEERHOOF / B|_ank ANDY WOODHULL / ADAM COHEN THU 2/21 LEE “SCRATCH” PERRY er s -P op Ma tt FRI 7/29 YOUNG BULL Album Release el er s"Show SUN 2/24 Cat’s Cradle tic tr avMIKE DOUGHTY Plays tisPresents ar e at "C on su mm w/ ALIX AFF / DURTY DUB Soul Coughing’s “Ruby Vroom” 25 Year SUN JUL17 Anniversary Tour with special guest COMING SOON: JULIETTE LEWIS, YARN, JARED & THE MILL, Wheatus TUE HAL2/26 KETCHUM, WINDHAND, Doors: 7pmNRBQ, LIZ/VICE, NOBIGDYL 1K Phew / Byron Juane CODY CANADA DEPARTED, RUSSIAN CIRCLES, OF SKULLS, Show: 8pm& THE COMING SOON: Ryan Montbleau, Bella’sBAND Bartok, SISTER SPARROW & THE DIRTY BIRDS, KING, Brother Ali, Smallpools, Alice Phoebe Jared the Mill, $12 ADV 723 RIGSBEE AVELou, - DURHAM, NC -&MOTORCOMUSIC.COM AllDOYLE Them Witches, Girlpool, Flotsam and Jetsam, LAWSON THE RECORD COMPANY,Sonata ADRIANArtica LEGG, $15 DAY OF & QUICKSILVER, REBIRTH BRASS BAND,John MY BRIGHTEST KARLAonBONOFF, Also co-presenting Maus (atDIAMOND, Cat’s Cradle Feb 12th) !

W O N LE B and KWELI, Japanese Breakfast with AILASummers (at Cat’s TALIB LOUDON WAINWRIGHT VIIIEternal A M U LB A W T NE Cradle on May 5th) H E AR H " OLD & THE H S E R H T "THE

THE RAGBIRDS

AMEN DUNES

The Threshold & The Hearth

Donna the Buffalo stops in Saxapahaw on Friday. utter powerhouse. With The Dirty Little Heaters, she’ll blow you away. Charlotte’s Paint Fumes open with heavy doses of scuzzy punk.

—Allison Hussey

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36 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

AGBIRD W W W .T H E R

SLIM’S DOWNTOWN: The Antique Hearts; $5. 9 p.m.

$10 advance / $12 day of

THE RAGBIRDS

JOHN COWAN w/ DARIN & BROOKE ALDRIDGE

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

MOTORCO:

Dishoom Dance Party [$15–$20/10 P.M.]

For five years, the Dishoom Dance Party—led by Rang Rajaram, aka DJ Rang—has been one of the hottest tickets downtown. The bhangrafocused throwdowns feature DJ Rang on the decks, spinning hours, as well as live visual remixes by KidEthnic and live dhol drumming to top it all off.

Arrive early for a dance lesson, too. —Allison Hussey

SUN, JAN 6 ARCANA: Cal Folger Day, Stray Owls, The Bonk; 9 p.m.

LINCOLN THEATRE: AirCrash Detectives; $12. 6 p.m.

PNC ARENA: Justin Timberlake; 7 p.m. See page 33.

SLIM’S DOWNTOWN: Dododo, Nowadays, Elephant Jake; $5. 8 p.m.

MON, JAN 7 NEPTUNES PARLOUR:

Secret Nudist Friends

$10 advance / [$8/9 $12 day P.M.] of

POUR HOUSE MUSIC HALL: Deloused: The Music of The Mars Volta with Echonest; $5-10. 9 p.m.

I can’t tell you the extent to which Secret Nudist Friends have nude activity that is actually a secret, but I can

tell you that the Philadelphiabased foursome can spin some killer post-punk garage grunge (think The Ramones, but with a trippier psychedelic streak) that also manages to be surprisingly uplifting. “I can’t love anyone,” they croon, in a way that somehow still makes you want to crack the champagne open.

Raleigh outfit Acid Chaperone opens. —Sarah Edwards LOCAL 506:

Elephant Jake [$8/9 P.M.]

With songs like “Freshman 15,” lyrics like “tell me things that none of your friends know,” and squeaky-clean guitar jams performed by young men in novelty sweaters and thick-framed glasses, Elephant Jake are a cute and harmless capsule of college boy rock, as immortalized by bands like Vampire Weekend.

Watch as they bop endearingly to a marching band beat, just barely nail complicated little guitar licks, and beam throughout their performance.

With Nowadays, Dizzy Bats, and Black Bouquet.

—Josephine McRobbie

TUE, JAN 8 THE CAVE: Hot Pink Satan, Solemn Shapes, He Who Walks Behind the Rows; 9 p.m.

WED, JAN 9

POUR HOUSE:

NIGHTLIGHT:

KINGS: The Great Cover Up; $10.

8 p.m. See page 32.

[$7/9:30PM]

LINCOLN THEATRE:

Lauren Tosswill Hailing from Portland, Maine, artist Lauren Tosswill creates soundscapes that rely almost entirely on her own voice. Stone-faced and meditative, she ranges from riffing humorously on her own interior monologue, experimenting with an uncannily ancient-sounding high lonesome sound, and whispering ambiguously, all while looping and manipulating the utterances. The final product is boldly vulnerable, a furry and shifting offering of a soft female voice made multiple. —Josephine McRobbie

that’s raucous, emotional, original, and underlied by a firm rootsy tradition. Plus Brad Parsons & Starbird.

—Sarah Edwards

Fruition [$12/8 P.M.]

The five members of the altcountry-inclined jam-band Fruition always knew they wanted to play music for a living; in the early aughts, they busked until they made it happen. In 2018, the band released a full-length album— its fifth—and a four-song EP that features “Baby, Let’s Go,” a sultry ballad that highlights singer-guitarist-mandolinist Mimi Naja’s syrupy vocals.

Here’s foot-tapping music

Matt Southern & Lost Gold [$6–$8/9 P.M.]

If you’ll excuse the pun, the Raleigh-based singersongwriter and multiinstrumentalist Matt Southern is fingerpickin’ good. A founding member of the folkrock band Magpie Feast, lately he’s been focused on his solo project and breaking in a new band, Lost Gold, which dabbles in roots music and ragtimeinfluenced instrumentals. His recordings sound personal, like the listener is eavesdropping on a performance that wasn’t meant to be heard by anyone outside the studio, and sometimes that’s the best kind.

—Howard Hardee

art 1.2–1.9 FRIDAY, JANUARY 4

AARON ZALONIS: GOD, LUCIFER AND THEIR NEIGHBOR: A SITUATION COMEDY Which best serves a social agenda, realist or absurdist aesthetics? Aaron Zalonis would say both, or maybe, in year two of Trump, “What’s the fucking difference?” In pen-and-ink drawings with intense captions rendered in an obsessive hand, Zalonis yanks on the threads hanging off of rationality until we’re standing there naked in a pile of unraveled yarn. A committee of monsters watches a vile man eat a hot dog. A woman needs to sign in to retrieve her toothbrush from a device that keeps moths off it. A headless character drops avocados on the ground, declaring, “This is my design.”

Is this funny? Is this serious? Is this scary? Is this you, in some way? Zalonis’s drawings are just earnest enough to make you nervous and just goofy enough to make you laugh. So the result is nervous laughter—the kind that you want to do constantly in an effort not to feel a gnawing, uncertain fear. Enjoy! The exhibit runs through February 2 after this First Friday opening. —Chris Vitiello

LUMP, RALEIGH | 6–9 p.m., free, www.lumpprojects.org

OPENING Basement Battle: Art created live for an audience. Fri, Jan 4, 6 p.m. Imurj, Raleigh.

sculpture, and video. Jan 4-Feb 2. Lump, Raleigh. lumpprojects.org.

Bert Beirne: Paintings. Jan 5-Feb 12. Gallery C, Raleigh. galleryc.net.

SPECIAL Motion Stills: Jan EVENT 4-31. Reception: Jan 4, 7-10 p.m. Morning Times Gallery, Raleigh. morningtimes-raleigh.com.

Corey Escoto, Steve Mykietyn, Carmen Tiffany: Recognition Is a Form of Agreement: Painting,

Resolutions 2019: Various media. Jan 7-31. Reception: Jan 25, 6-9 p.m. Hillsborough

Gallery of Arts, Hillsborough. hillsboroughgallery.com.

Yousuf Zafar: Congregation: Photos. Jan 6-27.

Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill. preservationchapelhill.org.

Aaron Zalonis: God, Lucifer, and Their Neighbor: Paintings.

Jan 4-Feb 2. Lump, Raleigh. lumpprojects.org.

Art by Aaron Zalonis Lake Street Dive, in Carrboro on Saturday

PHOTO BY SHERVIN LAINEZ

PHOTO COURTESY OF LUMP

INDYweek.com | 1.2.19 | 37

art

CONT’D

ONGOING Freeman Beard: A Watercolor World: Watercolors.

Thru Jan 31. Bull City Art & Frame Co, Durham. bullcityartandframecompany. com.

John Beerman: A Field, A World: Paintings. Thru Feb 3.

Craven Allen Gallery, Durham. cravenallengallery.com.

LAST CHANCE Ashlynn Browning: Revisionist Geometry: Paintings.

Thru Jan 5. Durham Arts Council, Durham. durhamarts.org.

Allan Gurganus: A Writer’s Sketchbooks: Duke’s Rubenstein Library recently acquired the papers of one of North Carolina’s seminal authors, the fiction writer and essayist Allan Gurganus. But before he wrote the nationally acclaimed books Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and White People, Gurganus began his creative life as an artist, a discipline he studied at the

s

page University of Pennsylvania before consoling himself with his sketchbook while serving in the Vietnam War. To celebrate the acquisition, the Rubenstein is working with Power Plant Gallery to showcase sixty never-before-seen drawings and paintings. The colorful, imaginative, but ultimately humane style of Gurganus’s books is revealed in a new way through these visual works.

Thru Jan 19. Power Plant Gallery, Durham. powerplantgallery.com.

—Brian Howe LAST Gwen Lowery: Night CHANCE Visions: Fiber art.

Thru Sat, Jan 5. Durham Arts Council, Durham. durhamarts.org.

Portraying Power and Identity: A Global Perspective: 21c Museum Hotel unveils a packed portraiture exhibition featuring work by forty contemporary artists, many of whom pay striking homage to classical portraiture in recasting their own images and experiences. Anthony Goicolea, a photographer

interested in digital manipulation and themes of duality and the reclamation of self, nods to John Singer Sargent’s “Madame X” with “Portrait in Negative of a Boy with Harmonica as Madame Gautreau.”

Miguel Ángel Rojas’s series depicting a young, injured Colombian soldier in repose gracefully gestures toward Michelangelo’s “David.” The exhibition also includes works

by Titus Kaphar, Ori Gersht, and Zanele Muholi. Thru Mar 31. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham. www.21cmuseumhotels.com/ durham. —Sarah Edwards Vernon Pratt: All The Possibilities of Sixteen: Neverbefore-seen posthumous exhibit. Thru Sun, Feb 10. Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh. gregg.arts.ncsu.edu.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DEATHOFLITERATURE.COM

Allison Tierney: Glimpse: Mixed media. Thru Feb 7. Durham Arts Council, Durham. durhamarts.org.

Blaise Tobia: Material Matters: Photography. Thru Jan 26.

Raleigh. artspacenc.org.

SPECIAL EVENT JP Trostle: Signals: Photos. Thru Feb 28.

Reception: Jan 4, 7-11 p.m.

Atomic Fern, Durham. japenet.net.

Tom Willis: Journey: Paintings.

Thru Fri, Apr 12. Durham Convention Center, Durham. durhamarts.org.

Dane Winkler: Brain Janitor: Interactive installations and large-scale sculptures. Free.

Thru Feb 2. Artspace, Raleigh. artspacenc.org

THURSDAY, JANUARY 10

JEFF JACKSON: DESTROY ALL MONSTERS

Charlotte author Jeff Jackson’s newest novel paints a local music scene mired in uncertainty, fear, and dread. But the anxious musicians, aspiring managers, obsessive collectors, and ravenous fans in Jackson’s FSG Originals title aren’t just grappling with shuttering clubs or scene infighting. Instead, someone—or someones—is gunning down musicians mid-set for reasons unknown, beginning in the fictional town of Arcadia and then spreading across the nation. Like an album, Destroy All Monsters has two sides, leaving the reader to choose which to read first. Side A follows a disillusioned singer and a stubborn guitarist as they wander through a music scene in tatters, while Side B takes a macro view of the national epidemic. One part modern noir, one part angsty post-teen rock novel, one part allegory about the cast-off nature of music in the age of streaming, this propulsive and uber-stylized novel probes music’s place in an ever-faster world.

Jackson reads at Crank Arm Brewing for free, though purchasing the book from sponsor Quail Ridge is required to meet him. —Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

CRANK ARM BREWING, RALEIGH | 7 p.m., free, www.crankarmbrewing.com

READINGS & SIGNINGS Leah S. Jones: Diving Horses.

Sat, Jan 5, 4 p.m. Hope Valley Diner, Durham.

“Wormsign” by JP Trostle is on view in his Atomic Fern exhibit, Signals, which has a reception from 7:0011:00 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 4.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

38 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

Robin Kirk: Young-adult fantasy novel The Bond.

(See p. 31.)

Tue, Jan 8, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. regulatorbookshop.com.

food & drink Pinhook Presents: Weekly Pop-Up Series: Jeddah’s Tea and The Purple Fence, guest vendors. 8 a.m.-4 p.m. ThuSat. The Pinhook, Durham. thepinhook.com.

Farmhouse Cider & Wine Tasting: Saturdays, Sundays, 2-6 p.m.

Botanist & Barrel, Cedar Grove. botanistandbarrel.com.

Wine Tasting at Mandolin: Exploring Terroir with Pinot Noir: Wednesdays, 6 p.m. Mandolin, Raleigh. mandolinraleigh.com.

stage

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4–SUNDAY, JANUARY 6

SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS ONGOING

OPENING Bewilderness: $10-35. Jan 9-13, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill. playmakersrep.org.

Fiddler on the Roof: Jan 8-13, Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. dpacnc.co.

Shen Yun Performing Arts: Jan 4: 7:30 p.m. Jan 5: 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Jan 6: 2 p.m. Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh. com.

This Doesn’t End Well: South Stream Productions. $16-20. Jan 4-20. Sonorous Road Theatre, Raleigh. sonorousroad.com.

Anything Goes Late Show: Saturdays, 10:30 p.m.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. goodnightscomedy.com.

The Harry Show: Ages 18+. Potentially risque games improv games with audience volunteers. $10.

Fridays & Saturdays, 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. comedyworx.com.

House Teams Improv: $10.

Fri, Jan 4, 8 p.m. The Peoples Improv Theater-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill. thepit-chapelhill. com.

The Sunday Comedy Show: With Mark Brady, Shari Diaz, Sam Mazany, Brett Williams, and host Jeremy Alder. Free.

Sun, Jan 6, 7 p.m. King Street

The spectacle-rich Chinese dance troupe Shen Yun has made annual stops in the Triangle in recent years, staging sumptuous pageants in eye-popping traditional costumes to a live Chinese orchestra. An article last December in London’s The Guardian links the touring company with Falun Gong, an organized spiritual practice banned by the Chinese government in 1999. (The practice is also known as Falun Dafa; according to Shen Yun’s website, the Raleigh performances are presented by the North Carolina Falun Dafa Organization.) That schism is noted on the company’s own website, which claims that Chinese belief in a divinely inspired culture “endured five millennia, until the Chinese Communist Party seized power some sixty years ago.” Shen Yun’s revival of authentic music and dance counters an “atheist regime” that “has sought to destroy all remnants of China’s cultural and spiritual heritage.” Small wonder the The Guardian concluded that Shen Yun fights for “the hearts and minds of Westerners and overseas Chinese … one ribbon dance at a time.” —Byron Woods

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screen SPECIAL SHOWINGS The Death of Stalin: $7. Fri, Jan 4, 8 p.m. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. ncartmuseum.org.

OPENING

Escape Room—If you already find escape room games terrifying, absolutely do not go see this psychhorror flick about them.

Rated PG-13.

N OW P L AY I N G The INDY uses a five-star rating scale. Read reviews of these films at indyweek.com. ½ Creed II—The latest in the revived franchise is a good Rocky sequel, but it’s not a great Creed sequel. Rated PG-13.  The Favourite— Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) infuses this lurid period melodrama with his unmistakable sensibility of cruelty and absurdity.

Rated R.  Green Book— There’s some rose-tinting at play in this cross-racial buddy comedy set in the Jim Crow South, but it’s nice to see the good guys get a rare win. Rated PG-13.  Mary Poppins Returns—While charming, the new version of the beloved Disney film apes the original so much that it’s hard to see the point.

Rated PG. ½ Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse—Not only is it a good SpiderMan story, this animated film introduces welcome diversity to the tale of Peter Parker. Rated PG.  Vice—Christian Bale’s mimicry is the best thing in this cynical, shallow film about lizard-hearted former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Rated R. 40 | 1.2.19 | INDYweek.com

Hale County This Morning, This Evening TUESDAY, JANUARY 8

HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING “Hale County This Morning, This Evening is not a long film, but it contains whole worlds,” The New York Times wrote in an admiring review of RaMell Ross’s film, which is currently shortlisted for a Best Documentary Feature Academy Award. Ross inhabits the same Alabama county that Walker Evans photographed in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and he brings a similar but new kind of nuanced, quiet profundity. Avoiding the misery-porn that can occur when filmmakers plumb African-American lives, Ross spins his portrait from ordinary moments more than tragic or symbolic ones. The film focuses on three young people making lives for themselves in a marginalized community over the course of several years. An introductory text states that it’s about figuring out “how we can be seen,” referring to African Americans, a question Ross answers by showing the complexity and mundanity of these lives instead of making them stand for stark social forces. The result is more like a visual poem than a jeremiad, speaking volumes with its subtlety. —Brian Howe

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE, RALEIGH | 7 p.m., $8, www.drafthouse.com/raleigh

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crossword If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages” at the bottom of our webpage.

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CLASSY AT INDYWEEK DOT COM 30/10/2005

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SINGING, SPEAKING AND COMMUNICATION TRAINING WWW.LAURECEWESTSTUDIOS.COM

SMOKY MOUNTAIN WHISKEY CRACKERS® available at: Saxapahaw General Store Southern Season, New Hope Market Special Treats

WANT A 20X24 INCH FRAMED PORTRAIT OF YOUR PET? Acrylic portraits from cell phone photos.

Three-week delivery schedule.

Gift certificates possible. contact@artbyminhvu.com 919-995-3213

IN SEARCH OF KIND LADY Older gentleman in the Raleigh area seeking kind lady for companionship and possibly more.

Please call 919-649-1253 or email rjones9948@msn.com

ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Breathtaking artistry! January 10 at ECU’s Wright Auditorium, Greenville. https://artscomm.ecu.edu/orpheus-chamber-orchestra/

LEARN TAI CHI IN 2019!

Improve balance, flexibility, strength.

New classes start in January and February throughout the Triangle.

Visit www.taoisttaichi.org for details.

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INDEPENDENT JEWELRY APPRAISER Graduate Gemologist 919-260-3686 www.ncjewelryappraiser.com

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