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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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2015

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DURHAM

INSIDE NEWS & COLUMNS 5

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TRIANGULATOR: Roy Cooper panders to our basest instincts, and Raleigh artist Dalek promotes Small Business Saturday

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EAT THIS: Now that’s a Damn Fine Coffee 22

VISUAL ART: Robin Rhode and The Energy of Youth at NCMA

36

FILM REVIEWS: Creed, Trumbo and

Brooklyn

CALENDARS & EVENTS 39

WHERE WE’LL BE: The best arts and

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

VOLUME 32 NUMBER 47

The Durham: the verdict

Letters to the Future

Downtown Boulevards Having lunch, taking a stroll and record shopping with Raleigh’s funk phenom

music from Rapper Big Pooh, Jeanne Jolly, Necrocosm and Montana Stax 32

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With the Paris climate talks looming, scientists, authors and politicians weigh in on where we’ve been and where we’re headed

FOOD: The story of one of North Carolina’s best “barbecues”

RECORD REVIEWS: Two from Lack, plus

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By Emma Laperruque

Liqueur 29

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Up top and on the ground, The Durham finesses the familiar

A R T S , C U LT U R E , F O O D & M U S I C 10

CHAPEL HILL

F E AT U R E S

CITIZEN: Why climate change is more

perilous to our national security than refugees

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By Corbie Hill

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Flash in the Pan An ingenious origin story for the boy who never grew up in Peter and the Starcatcher By Byron Woods

culture events of the week 41

MUSIC CALENDAR

46

ARTS CALENDAR

49

FILM CALENDAR

ON THE COVER: Letters to the Future ILLUSTRATION BY DON BUTTON THIS PAGE: Barbecue Shrimp and The Restaurant at The Durham, p. 9 PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER

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

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Grayson Haver Currin

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Brian Howe STAFF WRITERS

Billy Ball, Jane Porter

CALENDAR EDITOR Allison Hussey COPY EDITOR David Klein STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS

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triangulator

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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BAD BOY, ROY

Also: In Raleigh retail, go small or go home

BY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN AND JANE PORTER

H

ere’s the thing, ROY COOPER: We expected this from PAT MCCRORY. Have you seen the Republican base he answers to, presently in thrall to nativist fabulist DONALD TRUMP—an outrage factory perpetually in search of its next scapegoat?

And McCrory’s establishment peers have jumped on the bandwagon, too. Last week, House Republicans, along with some quivering Democrats cowed by the brutality of Paris, gave ISIS exactly what it wants: the demonization of an entire population of people—only 2 PERCENT of whom, by the way, are fighting-age single males—who are risking their lives to flee some of the most horrendous conditions on Earth. Combine the vote to essentially block Syrian refugees from entering the country with Trump’s call for widespread mosque surveillance, and you’re feeding the radicals’ narrative that America hates Muslims. Which, of course, begets more radicals. See how that works?

This sort of terrorism-related pants-shitting has been the GOP’s bread and butter since Dubya. But it’s been exacerbated in the Obama era, owing in part to knee-jerk opposition to literally anything the president does (e.g., earlier this week, PUBLIC POLICY POLLING released a survey showing that Republicans objected to Obama pardoning two Thanksgiving turkeys last year instead of one). That’s not to minimize the White House’s very real missteps in the tumult that is the post-Arab Spring Middle East (though such critiques are rich coming from the same guys who invaded Iraq). It is intended, however, to remind us that much of the hysteria that surrounds foreign policymaking is explicitly political, and this is no exception.

So when McCrory—along with more than half of America’s governors—announced last week that the state would no longer accept SYRIAN REFUGEES (give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses indeed) because the background checks are somehow insufficient, even though he lacks the authority to do that, we shrugged.

But then, Roy, you came out and endorsed a “pause” in refugee entries to “ensure we have the most effective screening process possible.” Oh sure, you couched with cautionary words about fear mongering, but the underlying point remained: You think people are afraid, you want their vote, and you’re willing to appeal to their BASEST INSTINCTS to get it.

You’re a smart guy. You know better. Even a cursory glance at the hurdles refugees have to jump to gain access to this country should put an end to this nonsense. Before refugees can even be considered for entry into the United States, they have to be cleared by the United Nations.

Next, as the group HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST describes it: “The U.S. government then conducts its own extremely rigorous screening process, including health checks, repeated biometric checks, several layers of biographical and background screening, and in-person interviews

by specially-trained officers.” On top of that, the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY has added an extra layer of screening specifically for Syrian refugees. (If they’re granted access, they’re placed in the country by NGOs and religious aid organizations, not the government.)

As Secretary of Homeland Security JEH JOHNSON told Congress last month, “The reality is that, with improvements to the process we have made over time, refugees are subject to the highest level of security checks.”

This process takes as long as three years. And it works: Of the roughly 2,000 refugees who have entered the country since the start of Syria’s civil war, zero have been arrested for terrorist activities. In fact, of the 785,000 REFUGEES from all over the world who’ve migrated to the U.S. since 9/11, only a dozen have been arrested or deported due to terrorism concerns that existed before they settled here, according to the State Department.

No system is foolproof, Roy, and if you’ve got a better notion of the “most effective screening process possible,” we’d love to hear it. But that’s not what you’re doing.

You’re putting politics—stupid, pointless, ineffective politics at that—ahead of sound policy and basic human compassion, and you’re doing it rather obviously.

While he declined to discuss your motivations, saying that politicians have the right to “inquire about what the process looks like,” REP. DAVID PRICE, D-Chapel Hill, did tell the INDY Monday that this current wave of “fear mongering and suspicion” in Washington is “reprehensible politics. … I think our country can do better than this.”

So do we, Congressman. And so, Roy, we’ll pass the mic to your underdog opponent for the gubernatorial nomination, Durham lawyer KEN SPAULDING, who at least diagnoses your move accurately: “It’s the typical approach North Carolina politicians have had, both Republicans and Democrats, on issues that consultants feel are hot-button issues, fear issues. The Republicans are out front, Democrats who are timid will follow along instead of leading. That’s why Democrats have lost.”

Perhaps, given the liberal backlash your pandering has engendered, Roy, you’re beginning to recognize that. On Monday, your office announced that, despite McCrory’s asinine request, you wouldn’t join a TRANSGENDERBATHROOM-FREAKOUT lawsuit out of Virginia.

“Adolescence is hard enough without being bullied by an elected official,” your campaign said in a statement.

This is true, Roy. But you know what else is hard and undeserving of political bullying? Being a Syrian refugee.

T

he crisscrossing red and blue lines jump off the black, painted-brick background under the green Bruegger’s Bagels sign in Raleigh’s Ridgewood shopping center. This is the work of nationally renowned street artist JAMES MARSHALL, aka Dalek. (Yes, nerds, the

Doctor Who reference is intentional.) His mural is a gift to the city he now calls home.

But it also has a bigger purpose: Dalek is supporting American Express’ SHOP SMALL campaign, coming to Raleigh Nov. 28 as part of SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY— the day after Black Friday, when it is somehow societally acceptable to camp out in front of Best Buy at 4 a.m.

Yes, AmEx, a massive global corporation, is a weird champion for the little guy. And yes, this is very much a marketing effort—AmEx grossly bills it as a “movement”— and we shouldn’t lose sight of that. Even so, as we’ve documented in these pages, it’s not easy for small businesses to survive, let alone thrive, in downtown Raleigh, where the invading legion of condo dwellers is driving up rents. And this is being done in partnership with advocacy outfit SHOP LOCAL RALEIGH, a program of the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association, and participating merchants don’t have to carry American Express. So we’ll give AmEx a pass on cravenness.

Besides, the idea is worthy: Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Saturday, shopping centers all over Raleigh will host popup shops and holiday-shopping events with free food, music and local celebrities—like Dalek, who will be at Ridgewood—to lure you away from national chains.

“It’s our chance to show off how we do Shop Small Saturday,” says JENNIFER MARTIN, executive director of Shop Local Raleigh. “We received an email from Shop Small’s marketing team that said they were pleased with the work being done here, and that Raleigh was a top performer in promoting and branding Shop Small Saturday and in getting people engaged.”

Founded six years ago, Shop Local Raleigh has grown to count more than 100 local businesses as members. “The goal is always to get people to eat small and drink small, and then to go out and shop small,” Martin says.

Consuming small has big benefits for local economies.

“If your goal is to have more money stay in the local area, then buying products at local stores selling local products will do that, rather than buying at national chains,” says MICHAEL WALDEN, an economics professor at N.C. State.

Walden cites a recent study conducted in the Chicago metro area that showed that for every dollar a person spent at a national chain, the impact on the local economy was $1.40. When the same dollar was spent in a locally owned store selling local products, the impact was $1.70. “[By shopping locally] I feel like I know where my money is going and what it is supporting,” says Dalek. “I feel like it builds depth to the community by INVESTING IN YOUR NEIGHBORS. The push and pull of that dynamic is meaningful.”

Reach the INDY’s Triangulator team at triangulator@indyweek.com.

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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2015

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citizen THE MOST DANGEROUS (POLITICAL) GAME

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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Why climate change—and the radicals it spawns—is more perilous to our national security than Syrian refugees

BY BOB GEARY

I

s it any surprise that Gov. Pat McCrory wants to halt the flow of Syrian refugees to North Carolina following the Paris attacks?

There’s not actually a flow, of course, just a trickle, amounting to two refugees a month. But McCrory’s understanding of the issue consists of Republican talking points. His ability to think for himself is slight. So, you know, bless his heart.

Nonetheless, the N.C. Democratic Party ripped McCrory last Wednesday for “giving demagogue interviews” on U.S. refugee policy. Kimberly Reynolds, the party’s executive director, seemed unaware that Attorney General Roy Cooper was about to join the governor.

Cooper is, of course, the leading Democratic candidate for governor.

“As chief law enforcement officer of North Carolina,” Cooper announced, “I support asking the federal government to pause refugee entries to make sure we have the most effective screening process possible.”

His craven statement came from Cooper’s campaign office, not from the N.C. Department of Justice, the law enforcement agency he heads. Perhaps Cooper recognized that sinking to McCrory’s level was about something other than justice.

Cooper should’ve paused to study what Rep. David Price, D-Chapel Hill, had written in The Charlotte Observer.

Price, who sits on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, explained how exacting the refugee-screening process already is, and how closely we vet those fleeing from war zones.

“The notion that refugee settlement poses a national security threat may resonate politically,” Price wrote, “but it’s deeply misleading.”

Thank you, Congressman Price.

For the record, Cooper’s opponent for the Democratic nomination, Durham lawyer Ken Spaulding, did better. While also putting security first, Spaulding hit McCrory for wanting to bar “children and mothers … running for their lives from ruthless dictators and ISIS killers.”

B

ut I want to turn to the upcoming summit on climate change, which by a twist of fate will also take place in Paris. Elsewhere in the INDY, Letters to the Future speak to the environmental imperative. My point is that, even if the summit succeeds, the world’s refugee crises are only beginning. If it fails and we don’t alter the arc of global warming quickly, a geopolitical catastrophe looms— and terrorism on a massive scale.

Going into the summit, three things are clear.

One is that climate change is making life unbearable in the hottest regions of the planet, including parts of the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Saharan and subSaharan Africa—all places where Islam is the predominant religion.

The second is that wrenching poverty in these regions, exacerbated by the droughts associated with global warming, is helping to fuel civil wars, criminal gangs, terrorism—while feudal, despotic governments, if they haven’t fallen yet, are on the verge of collapse.

The third: That the so-called war on terror cannot be won with bombs.

Bombs toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, but the result for both countries is a lawless vacuum in which ISIS, Al Qaeda affiliates and other terrorist groups thrive.

One reason Syria has been ripped apart is a severe drought that began in 2006, causing widespread crop and livestock failures. Millions fled from the countryside to the outskirts of Damascus and other cities, where they live in slums, without jobs or hope. The slums are fertile ground for ISIS fighters.

Much the same is true in Mali, where grasslands have turned into deserts, and the nomadic Tuaregs, Berber-speaking Muslims, launched a civil war against the Christian-dominated central government.

Al Qaeda is recruiting there. Elsewhere in Africa, it’s Boko Haram.

My sources here include Michael Klare, author of The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources and a prolific writer on the impacts of climate change. In a prescient

article for the website TomDispatch.com, before the recent Paris and Mali attacks, Klare suggested that we “consider the events in Syria and Mali previews of what is likely to come in this century on a far larger scale.

“As climate change intensifies, bringing not just desertification but rising sea levels in low-lying coastal areas and increasingly devastating heat waves in regions that are already hot,” Klare wrote, “ever more parts of the planet will be rendered less habitable, pushing millions of people into desperate flight.”

For the foreseeable future, the U.S. and Europe face a stark choice. We can give humanitarian aid to the victims—the refugees—and make room within our borders for those who can’t go home. Or, we can shut them out while we bomb the terrorists into oblivion. Except that collateral damage from our bombs means more victims die than bad guys. And from

the despair, new bad guys are spawned.

France is choosing the first path, welcoming 30,000 Syrian refugees in defiance of ISIS. Here, President Obama’s paltry pledge to take in 10,000 is under attack by the likes of Pat McCrory, while too many Roy Coopers run scared.

Pandering to fears about terrorists may be smart politics in the short run. But long term, it tells the Islamic world that the terrorists are right to call us their enemy.

And right to wage war against us.

It’s also a betrayal of our ideals. As Iraq veteran Phil Klay, the author of Redeployment, said in a series of tweets last week denouncing our spineless politicians: “I get it that people are scared. … But it’s only during frightening times when you get to find out if your country really deserves to call itself ‘the home of the brave.’” s Bob Geary is an INDY columnist. Email him at rjgeary@mac.com.

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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music& drink eat

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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GUEST REWARDS

Yes, The Durham Hotel raises some uncomfortable questions for a growing downtown.

The food, at least, reassures with comfort and creativity.

BY EMMA LAPERRUQUE • PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEX BOERNER

J

ust before the evening becomes too dark to see the skyline from the roof of The Durham Hotel, our denimaproned, Converse-wearing waitress walks the carrot dog to our table.

I spent the drive from Raleigh into downtown Durham considering the technique behind a vegetarian hotdog, so I’m now on the edge of my soft, brown leather seat: Is the carrot churned through a meat grinder? Made from bits and bobs?

Is the casing shaped from carrot skins?

“This,” I whisper, “is not what I expected.”

My partner looks at our carrot dog, at me and again at our carrot dog: “It’s exactly what I expected,” he replies.

This is because it’s exactly what it sounds like—a hickory-smoked carrot, stuffed in a squishy bun and topped with green tomato chow-chow (or your choice of sauerkraut, sweet onion relish, ketchup or mustard). It is firm, like a snappyskinned sausage, and very smoky. As with any good ballpark dog, the bun is buttery, the relish bright.

Much like the broccoli dog at Amanda Cohen’s Dirt Candy or the Carrots Wellington at John Fraser’s Narcissa, the carrot dog looks at our meat-obsessed culture and laughs. There is an animal-made Butcher’s Hot Dog, too, but this carrot is bold and independent, funny and chic, the sort of city slicker your sad, suburban, crisper-drawer vegetables want to become.

The carrot dog is also the last thing you’d expect when you hear the name Andrea Reusing—which you probably have, if you live in the Triangle and follow the area’s food scene. Reusing opened her farmfocused, Asian-fusion restaurant, Lantern, in Chapel Hill in 2002.

Nine years later, she earned a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Southeast, and Lantern became a destination on the national map. In a profile with The Huffington Post’s Makers project,

she explained, “The practical translation of that is that you get to do things that you didn’t get to do before.”

When Reusing announced that, after more than a decade, she was taking on a second culinary venture, she couldn’t stress enough that the two concepts are unrelated—American not Asian, a hotel instead of a stand-alone spot. “This will not be a Lantern in Durham,” she told Eater.

Served on the roof, just after the sun slips away, the carrot dog says she wasn’t kidding.

T

he Durham Hotel opened in July.

The building, which previously housed the Home Savings and Mutual Community Savings banks, was built in the late ’60s. The restaurant floor is a red, beige and black carpet, in a bold, modern design. Imagine a beautifully high-budget Mad Men set.

There are navy seats and mustard chairs, booths of supple camel leather and golden geometric lanterns, a two-floor window and some enormous greenery. With her

wide skirt swaying back and forth as she shows you to your table, even the host seems plucked from mid-century America.

Reusing spearheads the entire food operation at the hotel, including the 80-seat restaurant (you’re practically in it as soon as you walk in) and the rooftop lounge and bar. They serve from separate menus, and their names are, well, minimalistic: The Restaurant at The Durham and The Roof at The Durham.

There is a “lobby lounge,” too, which blends into the restaurant so seamlessly you may have trouble telling the two apart.

From 5 to 7 p.m., through the winter, the lobby lounge offers $1 oysters on the half shell, as many or as few as you’d like. The Restaurant, on the other hand, offers oysters at market price, with a minimum of six per order. I saw several groups sit down at a restaurant table only to have a brief, confused conversation with a server before relocating to the lounge.

The hotel also features an all-day coffee shop, which will soon offer lunch specials.

And breakfast. And room service for guests. And as of this Sunday, brunch, too.

This is a lot for me, the humble eater, to track, let alone Reusing, who maintains her flagship restaurant a dozen miles away.

For now, though, let’s escape to the roof, to the top of the city. The sky is a swirl of ash and indigo, and the wind is awful. Just as I wonder how the hotel plans to use the space year-round, I notice heat lamps. I wish they were on.

Our server accessorizes the carrot dog with “picnic eggs” and fried chicken. The former is just one egg, sliced in half. It’s a damn good deviled egg, even for $4. You can pick between smoked fish and N.C. trout roe or last summer’s chiles. No matter the question, my answer is always smoked fish. Piled atop a mountain of creamy yolk, it lends the egg a savory oomph. The trout eggs, orange and nearly glowing, are delightfully crunchy and amusingly meta.

The fried chicken is less North Carolina than chic North Carolina hotel. Three iPhone-size pieces of boneless, dark, tender meat come with a beautifully bumpy, shattering crust, more like airy tempura than the standard sturdy coating. Bread-and-butter pickles curl together like flower petals, and a tangy remoulade swishes beneath it all. It’s not the Southern fried chicken an out-oftowner might expect.

The concise rooftop menu includes items like beef tartare with potato crisps and guacamole with masa tortillas, too. But I have to pass: After being stalled by those temptress $1 oysters, my partner and I were behind schedule to fit in The Roof before our reservation at The Restaurant.

Our server was on it, though; food arrived in less than 10

Don’t let me down, fancy.

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music& drink eat minutes and the check promptly thereafter.

Downstairs we went, where dinner begins with bread from Chicken Bridge Bakery: sour, wide-crumbed, wildly good. I was studying the menu when I noticed a woman at a nearby table shunning hers. “I already know what I want,” she said.

“The burger.”

My partner and I give each other the nod.

But first, drinks. The cocktail menu is gin- and rum-heavy, with dramatic names that feel silly to say aloud—“The Undeniable Truth, please,” or “El Rosario, por favor!” The former tweaks a classic martini, with dry gin, dry vermouth and citrusy orange bitters. In lieu of a drunken green olive, an orb of extra-virgin olive oil floats around and, every now and then, makes an intense sip softer and richer. El Rosario The steak’s humbler and cheaper cousin: the burger features cachaça and FernetBranca, sweetened by honey, with roasted squash, marinated kale, blue speckled with black pepper and decorated cheese, pepitas and pomegranate. The with a giant mint leaf, a fragrant fascinator. squash is the wedge. I ordered the chopped The main menu splits into several salad, with Russian dressing, tomato, subsets: raw bar (oysters and caviar), pickles and hard-boiled egg—the same appetizers, boards (cured meat or cheese), mishmash I’ve ordered at Jewish delis and entrées, small vegetable plates (all for shore dives. Sound familiar to you, too? At $7) and beef. The last category includes The Restaurant, instead of a rushed, rough a Wilkshire Farm bone-in ribeye with a chop, the pieces are pristinely cubed. Rather roasted marrowbone and beef-fat fries. It than a cloyingly ketchup-heavy Russian can serve two to four people. On my first dressing, this version is vinegary and bright. visit, the smallest option was 34 ounces, for The scrapple and the barbecue shrimp a little more than $90. shouldn’t be missed, either. The former But then there’s the steak’s humbler is a cornmeal-crispy pork terrine, with a cousin, the burger. Topped with shaved center as lush and fatty as pulled pork. A pickle, red onion and cheese (American sunny-side egg oozes yolk everywhere. the first time, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar The acidity of pickled local apples lures you the second), it arrives on a buttered potato out of the porky rabbit hole. Four shell-on, bun with fries and pickled carrot salad. wild-caught shrimp swim in zesty hot sauce.

The diner nearby was right: It is fantastic When I pressed our server for the specific enough for a return trip. Made from a dryingredients, she replied, “Oh! There are so aged, house-ground blend of chuck, brisket many. Let me find out for you.” and short rib, the patty is liberally seasoned Otherwise friendly, attentive and and lick-your-wrists greasy—pure, primal, authoritative, she never did. expertly executed American comfort food.

The small vegetable plates rotate. In I can’t help but wonder if that’s the the few months The Restaurant has been whole point. The Durham’s menus, if open, pole beans with country ham have anything, feed upon familiarity. The made way for roasted sweet potato with ambiance may be ornate, the prices nearly chile, honey and cider vinegar. A turnip special-occasion, but the food concept is gratin with garlic and cream and roasted downright homey, even whimsical. broccoli have stuck around.

Take the salads. One is a “wedge,” The last was truly delightful. Two

mammoth spears, stalks and all, stretch the entirety of the plate. Charred in places to the point of blackness, it takes polite restaurant conventions, tosses them off The Roof and speaks instead to the dark depths of your soul. Like the broccoli, the roasted pork chop shoves the boundaries of char, showing a fiery boldness that acclaimed chefs like Francis Mallmann have also explored. The burn on these dishes offers bitterness to contrast sweet, crust to contrast fat. It is thrilling.

Other entrées, though, less so: Roastedto-order, the chicken is good but not great. The smoked cauliflower cassoulet is deceptively vegan, with squash, butter beans and a creamy potato sauce conjuring a gooey smoked Gouda. Served in an ovenhot ramekin and topped with crispy crumbs, it, too, is comforting and incredibly rich given its constraints. Inevitably, it’s less satisfying than the burger or chop.

F

roufrou spots like The Restaurant often share several themes: metaminimalist names, a seriously polite staff, picture-perfect decor, dim lights. Dessert, too, often falls somewhere between an afterthought and a disappointment.

Here, surrounded by the machinery of the hotel’s hospitality industry, that’s not

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the case. Like the savory menus that play around with cookout classics, the sweet options are down to earth: coconut cake, chocolate pudding, ice cream sundae. I ordered the first and the last and can recommend both.

The cake sports six layers, with toasty fresh coconut and shiny meringue. It is moist and dense and rich in a tres leches sort of way.

If your grandma was an awardwinning chef, this would be her signature. And the sundae—with roasted banana ice cream, salted caramel, peanut brittle and brûléed bananas—is good enough to finish, even after you’ve already had too much.

As I did just that, I looked around the dining room on a crowded Saturday night.

“How many people do you think are actually staying here?” my partner asked.

“That guy,” I said, pointing to a middle-aged man in a suit. He sat in the lobby lounge, with a laptop as a companion. “For sure.”

No one else seemed to fit the mold.

If a hotel is a transitory space where people never stay too long, the true challenge of its restaurant is not winning over guests but locals. Against a veil of socioeconomic concerns about gentrification and strata of race, class and privilege in the city, The Durham’s restaurants are at least standing on their own merits, attempting to welcome locals with food that doesn’t clash so much with its surroundings.

If you do stop by for dinner sometime, I’ll be the one sipping an olive oil cocktail and forgoing the menu. I already know what I want. s Emma Laperruque is a nocturnal baker at Scratch in Durham. In the daytime, she works as a freelance food writer as well as blogger at Dourmet.com. Find her on Twitter: @EmmaLaperruque.

THE RESTAURANT AT THE DURHAM THE ROOFTOP AT THE DURHAM 315 E. Chapel Hill St., Durham 919-768-8830 www.thedurham.com

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stabilizing agents that supply a milky consistency. They rely on coffee flavoring, not coffee, to manufacture a generic taste for mass consumption. For Damn Fine, the Bonchaks have chosen an organic bean from Honduras with notes of stonefruit— fleshy pulp that surrounds a central pit, like a peach or plum—and cacao. Add the local sweeteners, and each batch sports a subtle difference in flavor that changes with the season.

The coffee comes from Slingshot, which cold-brews 100 gallons every month to fulfill its distribution demands. But the rest of the operation occurs at Durham Distillery, a crafty enterprise run by another husbandwife team. Melissa and Lee Katrincic began making small-batch gin in a 230-liter copper still three years ago and expanded their lineup to include liqueurs in August. The coffee version has been more than a year in the making. The process entailed several late-night pasta dinners, which doubled as recipe-tasting sessions, before the couples settled on a formula.

They got it right. By itself, the liqueur’s snappy sweetness calls to mind a candied citrus peel dipped in dark chocolate. With a splash of whole milk, the drink becomes a toothsome dessert. Add a dram to your weekend morning coffee, and “greeting the day with enthusiasm” should be pretty easy. —Tina Haver Currin Had something you loved? Email food@indyweek.com.

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n the whiteboard above the desk that Jenny and Jonathan Bonchak share in the small, square office of Slingshot Coffee Company’s headquarters near downtown Raleigh, a mantra written in lime-green ink reminds the couple to “rise up and greet the day with enthusiasm.”

Below the quote, the complete set of the brand’s bottled libations stands on display: There’s a squat cold-brew coffee and its concentrated twin, plus the lighter Cascara tea. And tall, dark and slim, like the mature older brother of the stubby canteens, is a rather new addition—a collaboration between Slingshot and Durham Distillery that they call Damn Fine Coffee Liqueur.

The bottle looks as if it might house a fancy olive oil, but the amber liquid pours out smooth and even, not in thick glugs.

On sight alone, the liqueur could pass for coffee, except for the sweetish-sour smell of alcohol that wafts up before you take a sip.

Damn Fine goes down as easily as coffee, too. It tastes more like the morning beverage than the liqueur we’ve come to expect from the likes of Kahlúa or Baileys.

It’s lightly sweetened by orange-blossom honey and molasses.

“Most coffee liqueurs we’ve had are way too sweet, with a terrible viscosity,” Jenny explains. “They’re slimy, almost like—sorry to say it—mucus. We wanted this to be silky and sippable on its own, but also able to work as a mixer.” (For ice cream, I’m told— mix it with ice cream.)

Many coffee liqueurs come with shelf-

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music& drink eat

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12

PULLED PORKLESS

The back story of North Carolina’s best Eastern-style “barbecue” BY

Y

ou can raise the price on North Carolina pork barbecue. You can put brisket on the menu. You can even sell chicken from the most traditional pig-purveying huts. But a wine list at a barbecue joint? For The New Yorker, that is a modern-day deal-breaker.

At least that’s how Calvin Trillin ends his early November piece on the state of Tar Heel ’cue.

Those other tweaks are within reason, notes Trillin, but he and his traveling companion, UNC professor John Shelton Reed, can find little excuse for the selection of fermented grapes at Durham’s The Pit—“an effort to do authentic barbecue in a trendy setting.” It’s simply “wrong,” Reed notes.

Trillin’s 4,000-word exploration of the state’s smoked meats ticks through all the requisite tropes: He illuminates the smoldering divide between the shoulders topped with a ketchup-heavy sauce, endemic to the state’s west, and the east’s pulled, chopped and vinegar-drunk recipe. He indulges unapologetic nostalgia for old methods and mores, essentially serving as a mouthpiece for an organization working to maintain them. And, of course, he makes a college basketball joke.

But in diving headlong into efforts to preserve North Carolina’s atavistic approach, Trillin overlooks thoughtful attempts to reimagine our beloved barbecue in a changing South in ways that do more than add expense and extravagance. In fact, to my mind, he missed some of the best barbecue in the state, even if it’s not barbecue at all: soy, smoked low and slow, pulled apart by hand and drenched with a vinegar-based sauce. It is a regional delicacy, reinvented for reasons beyond upscale dining.

Caroline Morrison—the head chef and co-owner of The Fiction Kitchen, blocks away from Raleigh’s own Pit—grew up in Roanoke Rapids, a mid-size town wedged between the Virginia border and the Carolina coast. She ate the pulled or chopped pork of her region at tiny restaurants and family pig pickings until she became a vegetarian early in college. But she missed the smoke and chew of the barbecue, prompting a backyard mission to re-create it.

The process took years, but her barbecue—now served at The Fiction Kitchen with a heaping mound of slaw, a pillow-top potato cake and a side of savory greens—is perhaps the pièce de résistance of her restaurant. It’s her heritage, reimagined for her life.

Perhaps on his next trip to North Carolina, Trillin will visit. Here’s hoping he doesn’t mind the sake selection.

GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN INDY: You grew up eating pulled pork in little North Carolina restaurants. But when did you realize it was such a regional delicacy?

CAROLINE MORRISON: It was elementary school, when we went to Texas. One of my dad’s Vietnam buddies said, “We’re gonna have barbecue.” He just meant putting stuff on the grill. It didn’t have anything to do with what kind of animal it was, or what kind of sauce it was. He was just barbecuing.

And then I went to college at Cullowhee in western Carolina. There was a smokehouse nearby.

You had four different sauces that were on the table to put on your brisket or different cuts, either cow or pork. There was a mustard-based sauce, a tomatobased sauce, a vinegar sauce and a hot sauce.

And they had Texas Pete. They were calling it all barbecue. The first year, I spent a lot of time at the smokehouse. I really liked the textures, the smoked flavor, and I liked the idea of slow, low cooking.

Above, The Fiction Kitchen’s perfect soy-based Eastern North Carolina barbecue; below, Caroline Morrison prepares a pork plate.

PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER

But you became a vegetarian shortly thereafter, right?

I passed out in the hallway in college with wing sauce all over my face, after devouring wings all over the bone. I decided I needed a lifestyle change after a case of Anheuser-Busch and wings.

I had started to think about the impact on the environment. Steak was one of the biggest things I ate when I was younger, but I said, “I don’t think I need to eat this animal to survive anymore. How can I eat to survive without feeling bad about eating a cow?” The cafeteria was not making vegetarian stuff, so I had to come up with a plan to sustain myself. I just felt that I would feel better about myself. Passing out like that, I was just in a bad place. Part of it was habits, like eating chicken. It’s just so accessible and easy to eat crap food and not think about how the animal was treated or what happened to the animal during their death or their life.

When did you start cooking?

I tried to make fun stuff in my dorm room using the microwave. Then, when I graduated from college, I started working at Lilly’s and Cup A Joe in Raleigh. At Lilly’s, because there are so many ingredients, you could start playing around.

I started cooking more at home, and I started to think, “Oh, vegetables, they’re fun, but I miss the textures and memories of meat.” So I started working on a biscuits-and-gravy recipe.

I realized there’s some things that, maybe down the road, I’d be able to get right, but I wasn’t going to get it for a long time, like the bite of casing when you eat a kielbasa. One of the big things when I was young, growing up at the State Fair, was eating

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eat & drink Polish sausage with peppers. That bite is from intestine. It’s a great total use of product from whoever invented the reason to do this, and it was a necessity at that time for life. But it’s not a necessity now for my life. At the same time, it would be fun to try to figure out a vegetarian version of that, so I could have that in my life again.

How soon did that process start with barbecue?

Barbecue was definitely something that was first on my agenda. I was taking any product that I thought I could smoke and blending different brands and types of wood and wood chips to get that exact smoke factor that was going to bring out the sweetness, the pepperiness. I had the barbecue sauce down already—black pepper, garlic, crushed red pepper, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar. I also knew what I wanted in texture. It was a matter of finding the right product that could give me the texture.

How do you smoke it?

It is just the old-school way of smoking to try to keep the temperature down, though I didn’t have a big smoker. I wasn’t having to smoke something as big as a whole hog, but I didn’t want to cook the product to death really quickly either. I would just soak my wood chips and wrap them in aluminum foil and put some holes in it. Then I’d get a perforated hotel pan, put the wood chips in the hotel pan or the bottom of the grill and then put whatever product I wanted in the perforated pan.

What products did you try?

I used tofu. I used tempeh. Some people use jackfruit, but I was trying to stay away from canned items. I wanted it to be a local product, and then I ran into Delight Soy in Morrisville. I used to work for the North Carolina Soybean Producers Association, teaching farmers how to use soy products like tofu and tempeh. I began realizing that Lila Chung from Delight Soy was, as much as she could, using North Carolina soybeans. And it had a great texture.

But her patties were just too thick. They would smoke too quick. Just like with pork, all the products I found would, when it’s ready, get that smoked crust. Her nuggets were just thick enough where I could smoke it the right amount of time.

I tried to put it in the food processor to chop it, but that was not right. I got it out while it was warm, got the hot gloves on and started pulling it apart—the same thing as pulled pork. That produced the texture

ELF FAIR

I wanted, and then I poured the barbecue sauce over it: “Oh my God, this is it.”

In my experience, other people tend to react to it the same way, even forgetting that it’s not meat. My dad, who has been eating Eastern North Carolina barbecue for more than six decades, says it’s maybe the best he’s ever had.

I grew up eating fatback, pulled pork, fatback biscuits, collard greens-and-ham hocks, green beans-and-ham hocks. Now my family, if they are going to a pig picking, ask me for my barbecue. My brother is pretty high up in the National Guard, and he just organized his unit’s get-together of everyone who has ever been in the unit.

One of the older guys who was in the unit is a vegetarian. He told my brother he couldn’t eat meat. “I can take care of you,” my brother said. He got two gallons of our barbecue, and people said it was better than the other barbecue. The good old boys had been cooking their pig all day, and then he walked in with this? And it was better?

Some people wonder why vegetarians are so obsessed with working so hard to mimic the flavors of meat, something they’ve given up.

Why is it important for you?

I see it as a nostalgia factor. If I can create something that pleases my palate and makes my conscience feel better, I don’t see the harm. I have no problem saying I used to eat fatback. When I was a kid, that’s what we did. And I have no problem saying that I liked it. But it doesn’t mean I want to eat it now that I can think more about what I put in my body. Liking something and knowing its reality, I want to create it again without doing harm.

In this town, a lot of people don’t know how to cook vegetables. There’s been change, but three or four years ago, even the vegetable sides weren’t that great. So if you were a vegetarian and you went out to eat with people, you ended up getting overcooked vegetables most of the time, or bland. What we’re doing here is allowing a space where a vegetarian can come, eat off the whole menu, and they can bring their carnivore friend, who will also be happy. It provides a way for omnivores to come in and have a meat-free meal of something that’s approachable. And if someone’s a vegetarian and thinks like I do, it re-creates a childhood memory. That feels good. s Grayson Haver Currin is the music+managing editor of the INDY.

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LETTERS to the

FUTURE

W

orld leaders from more than 190 countries will convene in Paris during the first two weeks of December for the long-awaited United Nations Climate Change Conference. Will the governments of the world finally pass a binding global treaty aimed at reducing the most dangerous impacts of global warming … or will they fail?

Letters to the Future, a national project involving more than 40 alternative weeklies across the United States, set out to find authors, artists, scientists and others willing to draft letters to future generations of their own families, predicting the success or failure of the Paris talks—and the future that followed.

Some participants were optimistic about what is to come; others, not so much.

Bill McKibben Dear descendants: The first thing to say is sorry. We were the last generation to know the world before full-on climate change made it a treacherous place. That we didn’t get sooner to work slowing it down is our great shame.

That said, I hope that we made at least some difference. There were many milestones in the fight—Rio, Kyoto, the debacle at Copenhagen. By the time the great Paris climate conference of 2015 rolled around, many of us were inclined to cynicism.

And our cynicism was well-taken. The delegates to that convention, representing governments that were still unwilling to take more than baby steps, didn’t really grasp the nettle. They looked for easy, around-the-edges fixes, ones that wouldn’t unduly alarm their patrons in the fossil-fuel industry.

But so many others seized the moment that Paris offered to do the truly important thing: organize. There were meetings and

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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With the Paris climate-change conference on the horizon—and perhaps the fate of the planet in the balance—scientists, philosophers and politicians weigh in on where we’ve been and where we’re headed.

marches, disruptions and disobedience.

And we came out of it more committed than ever to taking on the real powers that be.

The real changes flowed in the months and years past Paris, when people made sure that their institutions pulled money from oil and coal stocks, and when they literally sat down in the way of the coal

Jeffrey C. Billman Dear future INDY readers: First off, you exist! That’s wonderful—and maybe a little surprising. In my time, newspapers are being written off as anachronisms to be gutted, hollowed out and sold for scrap. (Related: Is Twitter still a thing?) It’s good to know we survived, in one form or another. (Or maybe you’re reading this in a library archive? Oh well.)

Come to think of it, though, maybe that’s how my generation should be looking at things like coal and crude, bygone relics to be cast aside in a clean-energy future. But even a generation after we realized that releasing climate-shaking quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere might be a problem, the fossil-fuel industry’s clout and avarice

trains and the oil pipelines. People did the work governments wouldn’t—and as they weakened the fossil-fuel industry, political leaders grew ever-so-slowly bolder.

We learned a lot that year about where power lay: less in the words of weak treaties than in the zeitgeist we could create with our passion, our spirit and

PHOTO BY STEVE LIPTAY

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BILL MCKIBBEN

015

remain largely unchecked. The tiniest steps toward a more sustainable future are met with ferocious resistance or outright denial.

We’ve been cowards, afraid to own up to the consequences of our modernity, content to pass along the costs to our posterity.

But there came a point when our cowardice was indefensible.

That’s why, as your history books tell you, the Paris climate talks were so important. This was the moment that the world admitted we have a real problem that requires real solutions that may have real short-term pain, but the cost of inaction is, in the long run, much greater.

At least, for your sake, that’s how I hope it played out.

Billman is the INDY’s editor in chief.

our creativity. Would that we had done it sooner!

An author, educator and environmentalist, McKibben is co-founder of 350.org, a planetwide climate-change movement.

Geraldine Brooks I just flushed my toilet with drinking water.

I know: You don’t believe me. “Nobody could ever have been that stupid, that wasteful.” But we are. We use air conditioners all the time, even in mild climates where they aren’t a bit necessary.

We cool our homes so we need to wear sweaters indoors in summer, and heat them so we have to wear T-shirts in winter. We let one person drive around all alone in a huge thing called an SUV. We make perfectly good things—plates, cups, knives—then we use them just once and throw them away.

They’re still there, in your time. Dig them up. They’ll still be useable.

Maybe you have dug them up. Maybe you’re making use of them now. Maybe

To read more letters or to write a letter of your own, please visit www.letterstothefuture.org. This is a collaborative effort between the INDY, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the Media Consortium. Like the project on Facebook at www.facebook.com/letterstothefuture.parisclimateproject.

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Brooks is an Australian-American journalist and author. Her 2005 novel, March, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Art Howard Dear Madeline and Megan: I hope you’ve had a great day. I spent mine editing images from my recent trip to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the largest marine preserve off Hawaii’s coast. Looking at theses images, I celebrate that humans have the ability to protect and conserve. We all have the wonderful ability to think, analyze and act.

But we have fallen short when it comes to climate change. Still, I wish you could meet all the thinkers I have photographed about this important issue, so you could gain from their experiences and knowledge. I will do my best to “introduce” you to three: George Divoky—aka “the scientist who

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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Stephen K. Robinson

PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA

Dear future Robinsons: Back around the turn of the century, flying to space was a rare human privilege, a dream come true, the stuff of movies (look it up) and an almost impossible ambition for children around the world.

But I was one of the fortunate.

And what I saw from the cold, thick, protective windows of the space shuttle is something that, despite my 40 years of dreaming (I was never a young astronaut), I never remotely imagined.

Not that I was new to imagining things. As you may know, I was somehow born with a passion for the sky, for flight and for the mysteries of the atmosphere. I built and flew death-defying gliders, learned to fly properly, earned university degrees in the science of flight and then spent STEPHEN K. ROBINSON the rest of my life exploring Earth’s atmosphere from below, within and above. My hunger was never satisfied, ART HOWARD GERALDINE BROOKS and my love of flight never waned at all, even though it tried to kill me many times.

As I learned to fly in gliders, then small aircraft, then military jets, I always had the secure feeling that the atmosphere was the infinite “long delirious burning blue” of Magee’s poem, even though, of all people, I well knew about space and its nearness.

It seemed impossible to believe that with just a little more power and a little more bravery, I couldn’t continue to climb higher and higher on “laughter-silvered wings.”

My life was a celebration of the infinite gift of sky, atmosphere and flight.

But what I saw in the first minutes of saw the future”—has camped on Cooper of a 500,000-year-old ice-core sample, he entering space, following that violent, lifeIsland, 20 miles off Alaska’s coast, for more documented changes in our climate. He changing rocket ride, shocked me. than 30 years, documenting the migratory analyzed gases trapped in the ice to show If you look at Earth’s atmosphere from patterns of guillemots. He discovered when humans started burning fossil fuels orbit, you can see it “on edge”—gazing changes in their migratory pattern, and the rise of CO2 that followed. toward the horizon, with the black of space reproductive cycles and loss of food supply.

Climate change is real. It is caused by above and the gentle curve of the yes-it’sAfter many years of dedicated research, he humans. While other regions of our planet round planet below. And what you see is is finally getting people to believe that our are making changes, ours continues to the most exquisite, luminous, delicate glow earth and climate are changing, and that debate and waste time. of a layered azure haze holding the Earth man is causing that change.

A half-century from now, when you are like an ethereal eggshell. “That’s it?!” I Perry Pungowiyi, a native Alaskan my age, I hope you, too, can visit the Arctic thought. The entire sky—my endless sky— from the Savoonga Village, depends on and see polar bears, or whatever else it was only a paper-thin blue wrapping of the the Arctic’s pack ice for his family and is you want to see. But more important, I planet, and looking as tentative as frost. community’s survival. The ice brings hope you can look back at this time and And this is the truth. Our Earth’s walruses and seals, their main source of celebrate America’s decision to protect and atmosphere is fragile and shockingly tiny— food and clothing. Without the ice, their respect our planet. Do your part and keep maybe 4 percent of the planet’s volume. way of life is changing. exploring.

Of all the life we know about, only one Richard Alley, a member of the Tell your parents hello. species has the responsibility to protect Intergovernmental Panel on Climate that precious blue planet-wrap. I hope we Howard is an Emmy Award-winning Change, helped write our nation’s Nobel did, and I hope you do. photographer and video producer based in Prize-winning climate-change report to the North Carolina.

After 36 years as an astronaut—with a tenure United Nations. Through his examination that included four shuttle missions and three PHOTO BY RANDI BAIRD

you’re frugal and ingenious in ways we have not yet chosen to be. There’s an old teaching from a rabbi called Nachman who lived in a town called Bratslav centuries ago: “If you believe it is possible to destroy, believe it is possible to repair.” Some of us believe that. We’re trying to spread the message.

Friends are working on genetic editing that will bring back the heath hen, a bird that went extinct almost 80 years ago. Did we succeed? Do you have heath hens booming their mating calls across the sand plains that sustain them? If you do, it means that this idea of repair caught on in time. It means that enough great minds turned away from the easy temptations of a career moving money from one rich person’s account to another’s, and instead became engineers and scientists dedicated to repairing and preserving this small blue marble.

We send out probes looking for signs of life on other worlds. A possible spec of mold is exciting—press conference!

News flash! Imagine if they found, say, a sparrow. President addresses the nation!

And yet we fail to take note of the beauty of sparrows, their subtle hues and swift grace. We’re profligate and reckless with all this abundant life, teeming and vivid, that sustains and inspires us.

We destroyed. You believed it was possible to repair.

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spacewalks—Robinson retired from NASA in 2012. He is now a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Davis.

Kim Stanley Robinson Dear great-great-grandchildren: I’ve been worried about you for a long time. For years it’s seemed like all I could say to you was, “Sorry, we torched the planet and now you have to live like saints.” Not a happy message. But recently I’ve seen signs that we might give you a better result. At this moment the issue is still in doubt. But a good path leading from me to you can be discerned.

It was crucial that we recognized the problem, because otherwise we wouldn’t have acted as we did. A stupendous effort by the global scientific community alerted us to the fact that our civilization, by

KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

dumping carbon into the air and disrupting biosphere processes in many other ways, was creating a toxic combination that was going to wreak havoc on all Earth’s living creatures, including us. When we learned that, we tried to change.

Our damaging impact was caused by a combination of the sheer number of people, the types of technologies we used and how much we consumed. We had to change in each area, and we did. We invented cleaner technologies to replace dirtier ones; this turned out to be the easiest part. When it came to population growth, we saw that wherever women had full educations and strong legal rights, population growth stopped and the number of humans stabilized; thus justice was both good in itself and good for the planet.

The third aspect of the problem, our consumption levels, depended on our values, which are always encoded in

our economic system. Capitalism was wrecking the biosphere and people’s lives to the perceived benefit of very few. So we changed it. We charged ourselves the proper price for burning carbon; we enacted a progressive tax on all capital assets as well as incomes. With that money newly released to positive work, we paid ourselves a living wage to do ecological restoration, to feed ourselves and to maintain the biosphere we knew you were going to need.

Those changes taken all together mean you live in a post-capitalist world: congratulations. I’m sure you are happier for it. Creating that new economic system was our best achievement, and because of it, we can look you in the eye and say, “Enjoy it, care for it, pass it on.”

A winner of the Nebula and Hugo awards, Robinson has published 19 novels, including the award-winning Mars trilogy.

SHELIA SMITH MCKOY

THANKS

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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Shelia Smith McKoy Dear great-great-great ones: I have thought of you often these last few days, wondering if you are connected to your African roots, your global roots, wondering where you are in the world. I hope that you have had the chance to see the startling beauty of Earth from many places, not just from the place that you call home. I hope that you have had the chance to plant seeds and watch them grow. I hope you know the feeling of your hands in dirt.

As I write this letter, my world is being shaped by decisions that have been made in the interest of greed. Perhaps we have intervened. Perhaps these decisions have not prevented you from knowing the feel of red clay under your feet or the pull of the ocean’s current as the waves run back to their source. The powers that be are preparing to meet in Paris, though I know that many of them are armed largely with

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Smith McKoy is a professor, poet, fiction writer, health activist and Raleigh native.

Harry Reid As a young boy growing up in Searchlight, the unique beauty of the Nevada desert was my home. Our family didn’t travel or take vacations, but we were able to visit Fort Piute Springs, which was just 15 miles from our home. Fort Piute Springs was a starkly beautiful place. From the gushing ponds of water to the beautiful lily pads and cattails, Fort Piute’s beauty was magical.

Decades later I returned to visit Fort Piute Springs and found the magical place of my childhood in ruins. I remember thinking how sad it was that my descendants would never get to appreciate the stark beauty of the desert I cherished as a child. It was in that moment that I decided to fight to protect our environment.

Throughout my career I fought to protect my home and my country from the permanent damage of climate change. I thought about the world you would live in, the burdens you would face and the health issues that could one day challenge your very existence. You deserve a chance to experience the beautiful world that I grew up in. We all need clean air, clean water and natural resources to lead healthy lives.

The idea that our actions could jeopardize your future was simply unbearable.

The only way to solve this problem was if we all worked together to save the planet for you and future generations. During my lifetime, the overwhelming majority of scientists across the world concluded that pollution from burning fossil fuels was beginning to raise temperatures and alter our climate. These scientists

HARRY REID

predicted that if countries failed to work together to replace fossil fuels with cleaner energy sources, the world would face uncontrollable rising temperatures and sea levels, water shortages, climate-fueled migration crises, and landscape-altering wildfire, drought and extreme weather.

At the close of 2015, the world finally did something about it. Everybody knew we needed to address climate change and that a failure to lead could destroy the progress we fought so hard to achieve and endanger your future. In the face of this reality, the United States pressed on and led a historic global agreement to change the course of climate change worldwide.

I’m proud of the work we did to protect our environment for you. I hope by now you can run just about everything on renewable energy, and you no longer have to worry about whether your children will suffer from asthma because of smog.

Today you may face a number of issues I could have never imagined. My hope has always been that the United States’ efforts to combat climate change would create a cleaner future for my descendants and future Nevadans. I hope that you are no longer burdened with the issue of climate change and can enjoy more of the Nevada I have always known. But if you face similar challenges, draw strength from my experiences and continue to fight for a cleaner environment.

Reid, D-Nevada, is the U.S. Senate Minority Leader.

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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above dif develop a avert runa Sadly, w activists a it seems, public wil enough to help slow I could te came to d years, dev of people demande finally go who are d climate-ju Maybe needs to h In the s experts w 10 feet wi reducing immediat are now r and their time’s up soon/But they’ll blow it up corporate and prepare life on the moon the renew currently My bounty, it’s easy to Monday-morning fracking-g quarterback* from my 2015 vantage point.

My hom But I did not do an adequate job of teaching crucial in the children about what our corporate world’s la overlords had in store for them. Didn’t laggard, D do it with Exxon or Volkswagen. Didn’t I’m par do it when Rakim initially sold me on the state’s the premise. And, to be honest, I haven’t to assert h done a bunch of it this year, as sinkholes over Duk form and trees fall in parts of the Arctic executive that Mother Earth could have only ever instead of imagined frozen solid. the burnin Make no mistake, I want these words clean-ene to function as much as a godspeed note the larges as one of confession. Good luck with Requiring your new methane-dictated normal, and positive m the sonic pollution and spiritual upset of disruption those executive flights to colonized Mars.

It’s hea Conditions should have never come to this, courageo though. And we’ll always have Paris, to social just remind us of what might have been. trying to c *The NFL will be around forever, like herpes. the clima saving en Alexander is a former staff writer for ESPN The Magazine and LA Weekly and author of assert pub polluters the memoir Ghetto Celebrity.

Emergen is challen toward a f Jim Warren methane Dear friends in the future: I wish I could unneeded tell you that, as the world’s top scientists I hope I rang the alarm increasingly over the past point tow 15 years about our overheating planet, U.S. looms eve leaders, corporations and activists rose DONNELL ALEXANDER

self-interest, a desire for more power and an indifference toward difference.

There are days that I fear that we have failed you. Maybe we will not be able to stop fracking. Maybe we will not flinch when oil is harvested from pristine places we thought were safe.

Then there are days like today, when I believe in our power to change the world.

Perhaps we have realized that we cannot afford to acquiesce to those we call “they.”

“They” believe that our Earth is disposable.

“They” think that they—only they—can go to another planet and start again, or that their version of God has given them dominion over the Earth, or that they can deny the climate changes that may soon have islands of the world under water.

I believe that we have held “them” at bay. I believe that you exist.

Somehow, I know that we changed attitudes about climate change, about the value of individual lives, about the Earth, about so many things. Somewhere, you are reading this letter with tomatoes growing in your yard, near an ocean where you can still swim, in a place where everyone and every being, especially the Earth, is valued.

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Donnell Alexander Good day, my beautiful bounty. It probably feels redundant to someone rockin’ in 2070, a year that’s gotta be wavy in ways I can’t imagine, but … your great-greatgrandpappy is old school.

And when my old-school ass thinks about how the backdrop to your existence changed when the Paris climate talks failed, it harkens to the late-20th-century rap duo Eric B. & Rakim. Music is forever. Probably, it sounds crazy that the musical idiom best known in your time as the foundation of the worldwide cough syrup industry could ever have imparted anything enlightening.

You can look it up, though—before the Telecommunications Act of 1996 such transformations happened not infrequently.

But that’s another letter. MC Rakim had this scrap of lyric from “Teach the Children”—a pro-environment slapper that hit the atmosphere closer to Exxon Valdez newspaper-headline days than when the web gave us pictures of smoke plumes taking rise above Iraq.

For you, these are abstract epochs. Alaska still had permafrost, the formerly frozen soil that kept methane safely underground. The domino that fell, permafrost. And I could tell you that humans skied Earth’s mountains.

Yes, I know: snow. An antique reference, no question.

That Rakim verse. It went: Teach the children, save the nation/I see the destruction, the situation/They’re corrupt,

INDYweek.com had to be diminished. But that was never necessarily the case.

In our time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture still handed out subsidies to farmers for every bushel of corn or wheat or rice they could grow. This promoted a form of agriculture that was extremely productive and extremely destructive—of the climate, among other things.

Approximately one-third of the carbon then in the atmosphere had formerly been sequestered in soils in the form of organic matter, but since we began plowing and deforesting, we’d been releasing huge quantities of this carbon into the

wise enough to balance the immense time and energy we pour into toys and entertainment with the need for active civic engagement.

As the climate-change asteroid charges toward Earth, we’re imploring our neighbors to realize that feeling concerned is not enough, and that taking action is empowering.

I deeply hope we won’t have left a chaotic planet for you.

Warren is the executive director of NC WARN, a nonprofit focused on shifting North Carolina to a clean-energy economy.

MICHAEL POLLAN

REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN

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reliance on solar energy—photosynthesis.

Carbon farming was one of the most hopeful things going on at that time in climate-change research. We discovered that plants secrete sugars into the soil to feed the microbes they depend on, in the process putting carbon into the soil. This process of sequestering carbon at the same time improved the fertility and water-holding capacity of the soil. We began relying on the sun—on photosynthesis—rather than on fossil fuels to feed ourselves. We learned that there were non-zero-sum ways we could feed ourselves and heal the earth. That was just one of the big changes we made toward the sustainable food system you are lucky enough to take for granted.

Pollan is a teacher, author and speaker on the environment, agriculture and the food industry. His letter is adapted from an interview in Vice magazine.

PHOTO BY FRAN COLLIN

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

JIM WARREN

above differences, profits and power to develop an inspiring, cooperative effort to avert runaway climate catastrophe.

Sadly, we aren’t there yet, though the activists are gaining ground. Surreal as it seems, it’s not clear that the American public will face reality by getting organized enough to demand that corporate polluters help slow this planetary emergency. I wish I could tell you that as bizarre weather came to dominate world news in recent years, devastating wildlife and millions of people, and as citizens of most nations demanded real changes, lots of Americans finally got in the game. I appreciate those who are deeply committed, but all of the climate-justice groups need more help.

Maybe it’s finally starting to happen. It needs to happen faster.

In the summer of 2015, leading experts warned that oceans could rise 10 feet within 50 years unless we began reducing global carbon emissions immediately. Climate protection groups are now redoubling efforts to demand that corporate laggards embrace—or yield to— the renewable-energy technologies that are currently cheaper than coal, nuclear and fracking-gas fuels.

My home state, North Carolina, is crucial in this fight as the base for the world’s largest corporate utility and leading laggard, Duke Energy.

I’m part of a growing alliance calling for the state’s attorney general, Roy Cooper, to assert his constitutional authority over Duke Energy and require that its executives help slow global warming instead of making it worse by expanding the burning of fossil fuels while blocking clean-energy competition. Duke is the largest utility polluter in the U.S. Requiring it to decarbonize can create a positive moment toward slowing climate disruption, despite the lateness of the hour.

It’s heartening to be allied with courageous African-American faith and social justice leaders in this effort. We’re trying to convince other civic leaders that the climate struggle is about more than saving energy at home or church. We must assert public sovereignty over corporate polluters and government officials. This Emergency Climate Response campaign is challenging Duke’s recent commitment toward a fracking-gas future—filled with methane leakage from wells, pipelines and unneeded power plants.

I hope I can soon say that as the tipping point toward the collapse of humanity looms ever closer, our society is finally

•

Michael Pollan Dear future family: I know you will not read this note until the turn of the century, but I want to explain what things were like back in 2015, before we figured out how to roll back climate change. As a civilization, we were still locked into a zero-sum idea of our relationship with the natural world, in which we assumed that for us to get whatever we needed, whether it was food or energy or entertainment, nature

atmosphere. At that time, the food system as a whole—that includes agriculture, food processing and food transportation— contributed somewhere between 20 to 30 percent of the greenhouse gases produced by civilization, more than any other sector except energy. Fertilizer was always one of the biggest culprits for two reasons: It’s made from fossil fuels, and when you spread it on fields and it gets wet, it turns into nitrous oxide, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Slowly, we convinced policymakers to instead give subsidies to farmers for every increment of carbon they sequestered in the soil.

Over time, we began to organize our agriculture so that it could heal the planet, feed us and tackle climate change. This began with shifting our food system from its reliance on oil, which is the central fact of industrial agriculture (not just machinery, but pesticides and fertilizers are all oil-based technologies), back to a

Dear descendants: If you are reading this, then you must exist, and so my greatest fears haven’t been realized. We didn’t manage to eradicate our kind from the universe. In my darkest hours, routinely arriving at 4 in the morning, that’s what I feared, a universe in which our species had disappeared, taking along with it many other life forms that had once flourished on Earth. I’d lie awake mourning all those life forms, but—call me anthropocentric—most especially the humans. A universe emptied of humans, with all of our fancies and follies, seemed to me an immeasurably reduced universe.

So at least you exist—only under what conditions I can’t begin to imagine. I don’t know whether you’re reading this on Earth and, if you are, whether you’re huddled inside an artificial environment to protect yourself from deadly radiation. Or perhaps you’ve colonized another planet or built a system of space stations, using your human ingenuity to adapt to an alien environment for which evolution didn’t naturally equip you. Perhaps you only know about what it was like to welcome each changing season on Earth—smell the fecund, moist earth of spring, feel the silky sultriness of summer nights, listen to the silence of snow falling heavily in the forest—by reading the writings of us ancients.

Wherever you are, struggling with whatever hostile conditions are constraining the choices we took for granted, you must look back at your ancestors—us—with

An Inconvenient Congress stalls on China overtak the climate, America as wo Truth, the film leaving state largest greenh version of former gas emitter. N Vice President Al governments to Gore’s lectures on lead the charge. finds Greenland California passes Antarctic ice sh climate change, is the Global and Arctic Oc released and Warming sea-ice cove eventually wins Solutions Act and shrinking fast multiple Oscars. soon leads the than expecte Climate science nation in energy efficiency Fourth IPCC re enters into standards and warns of mo popular regulation of evidence of consciousness but emissions. warming. Gore political the IPCC win j polarization Nobel Peace P mounts. for climate wo

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The good news is that we humans have been able to hang on for 200,000 years, and I hope that lasts. I hope that all of your relatives have had a strong connection to the mountains and rivers and cared for them, and I hope you are doing the same.

It’s comforting to think of you visiting those important places—hiking with your dad through the woods, floating down the river, spotting that trout from 30 feet away.

Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast. This and other severe weather events spur debate over impact of global warming. U.N. parties continue negotiations toward global carbon reductions.

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The world’s governments gather in Kyoto, Japan, to negotiate a treaty to curb global warming. The United States never ratifies the treaty. A developing nation, China, was never bound by the treaty.

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In Rio de Janeiro, IPCC agrees a United Nations framework is needed to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

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Prominent scientists testify for the first time before U.S. Congress about dangers of global warming.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed to gather and assess evidence.

The Third IPCC reports that global warming will likely cause unprecedented sea level rise, extreme weather events and grave consequences for humanity. A few months into the next year comes a dramatic collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

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Dear great-great-great grandchildren: How I would love to scoop you up and give you kisses. How I would love to show you some of my favorite things on this Earth. I’d take you to the important places, places my dad took me and his dad took him. We have a long relationship with mountains.

Gardner is an Emmy Award-winning My dad’s family spent many meteorologist for WRAL in Raleigh.

ELIZABETH GARDNER summer weekends at a campground called Carolina Hemlocks. His ANNIE LEONARD Annie Leonard love of North Carolina’s mountains grew, and he passed it along to me.

It’s hard to imagine writing to the year showing that, while streams in the One of our early trips was backpacking. granddaughter of my own daughter, but northern United States are recovering, 40 We took a few cans of soup and no tent. if you’re anything like her—strong, smart, percent of our southern streams still have We didn’t have the GoreTex, titanium pots occasionally a little stubborn—then I have high acid content. These levels are still and gravity filters that I take backpacking no doubt the world is in good hands. too high for brook trout and some aquatic with my kids now. Roughing it was not By now your school should have taught insects. My son, Max, is an enthusiastic my mom’s cup of tea, but I fell in love. you about climate change, and how fisherman, and he can spot a trout from The smell of the fir trees and the sound humans helped to bring it about with our 30 feet away. I hope you are able to catch of the gurgling creek were magical. Dad big cars, big homes, big appetites and an trout with your dad. and I would hike on the Appalachian Trail endless desire for more stuff. But what Warming temperatures across the globe as often as we could. We went rafting the teachers and textbooks may not have are threatening the ecosystems that thrive on the French Broad River. The way the passed on are the stories of incredible in our cool mountaintop climates. Spruce, river rushed around huge boulders and people who helped make sure the planet fir, endangered salamanders and saw-whet through those beautiful mountains was remained beautiful and livable for you. owls are suffering. Even though there’s intoxicating. I shared all of that with my These are stories of everyday people been a reduction in acid rain and mercury children, and they also fell in love. doing courageous things, because they emissions, warmer temperatures will We noticed changes as the years went by. couldn’t stand by and watch communities kill the spruce and fir. The ecosystems at The towering hemlocks at the campground poisoned by pollution, the Arctic melt or elevations above 5,500 feet remain from began to die. They became infested with an California die of fire and drought. They the last ice age; as temperatures warm, insect from China. Only half the number couldn’t bear to think of New Orleans they will disappear. my dad saw in the 1950s remained. As I am writing this, scientists at N.C. State are working on ways to curb DECEMBER F E B R U A RY AUGUST the insect’s population. They haven’t had much luck yet.

As a young reporter in the 1990s, I did a series of stories The Third IPCC In Rio de Prominent The world’s Hurricane on acid rain, sulfur-dioxide reports that Janeiro, IPCC scientists governments Katrina hits the pollution mostly from coalglobal warming Gulf Coast. This testify for the agrees a United gather in fired power plants and auto will likely cause Nations first time Kyoto, Japan, and other emissions. It was killing all the unprecedented framework is before U.S. to negotiate a severe weather trees on top of Grandfather sea level rise, needed to Congress about treaty to curb events spur Mountain. Back in 1990, the extreme weather stabilize dangers of global debate over Clean Air Act preceded North events and grave greenhouse gas global warming.

The impact of Carolina’s Clean Smokestacks consequences for concentrations warming.

United States global Act in 2002. Sulfur-dioxide humanity. A few warming. U.N. in the Intergovernnever ratifies pollution emissions have since months into the atmosphere. mental Panel the treaty. A parties been cut by 30–40 percent. next year comes on Climate developing continue Mercury emissions have been a dramatic Change (IPCC) nation, China, negotiations cut by 70 percent. collapse of the formed to was never toward global But it will take a while to Larsen B Ice gather and bound by the carbon reverse the effects of this Shelf in assess treaty. reductions. pollution. The National Park Antarctica. evidence.

Service did a study along the Appalachian Trail this

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Source: UNFCCC, IPCC, New York Times

A philosopher and novelist, Goldstein won a MacArthur “Genius Grant” and was recently presented the National Humanities Medal.

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200 Source: UNFCCC, IPCC, New York Times

Elizabeth Gardner

DECEMBER

outraged incredulity. How could we not have cared about you at all, you wonder?

You are our kith and kin. Didn’t we consider that you deserved the same rights to flourish that we presumed for ourselves?

It’s ironic, because we often looked back at our ancestors with outraged incredulity, wondering how they couldn’t have seen, say, that slavery and misogyny were wrong.

Were they moral monsters? we’d wonder. Do you wonder exactly the same about us?

Well, we weren’t monsters. Really, we weren’t. We were human, all too human.

And being human, we tended to prioritize our own lives, our own self-interest, over those of others. It’s not that other selves meant nothing at all to us. But our own selves always meant so much more.

And here’s another feature of our evolution-shaped human nature that, through no malice at all, conspired to doom you. (You understand, I’m not justifying our behavior, just trying to explain it to you.) We discounted the future. The future seemed so hazy, so uncertain, while the present … well, it was present. The now was vividly pressing on us, real and fully formed.

Our psychology evolved out of a past when human life was “nasty, brutish and short.” And because we weren’t able to overcome that psychology, to think in ways larger and more generous, the future we’ve bequeathed you is at least as precarious as the past out of which we emerged. I fear it is unimaginably nasty.

You just weren’t very real to us, you others who didn’t even enjoy the privilege of existing. How could your claims, so ghostly as to be ungraspable, rein in our desires? And we were so inventive in our technologies, which pelted us with more and more things to want, amusements to distract us from what we should have been thinking about—which was you.

Now it’s we who no longer exist. Perhaps you’d just as soon forget about our existence as we forgot about yours. If only you could, I imagine you thinking. If only you could blot us out of your consciousness just as thoroughly as we blotted you out of ours.

If there are still storytellers among you, if that’s a human capacity that you can still indulge, then do a better job than we did in making the lives of others felt—each and every life, when its time comes, a towering importance.

May you flourish. May you forgive us.

INDYweek.com

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INDYweek.com under water again or New York lost to a superstorm. Right now, as politicians weigh options and opinion polls, people are organizing and uprising. It’s amazing to see and be a part of.

In the year that led up to the 2015 meeting of global leaders on climate change in Paris, kayakers took to the water to stop oil rigs.

Nurses, musicians, grannies, preachers and even beekeepers took to the streets. The message was loud and clear: “We want clean, safe, renewable energy now!”

Were it not for this glorious rainbow of people power, I don’t know whether President Obama would have stepped up and canceled oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic or the sale of 10 billion tons of American coal that were set to tip the planet toward climate chaos.

But he did. This paved the way for an era of unprecedented innovation, as entrepreneurs and academics fine-tuned the best ways to harness the unlimited power of our wind, waves and sun and make it available to everyone. We’ve just seen the first-ever oceanic crossing by a solar plane, and I can only imagine what incredible inventions have grown in your time from the seeds planted in this energy revolution we’re experiencing right now.

I want to tell you about this because there was a time we didn’t think any of it was possible. And there may be times when you face similar challenges. Generations before you have taken acts of great courage to make sure you too have all the joys and gifts

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of the natural world— hiking in forests, swimming in clean water, breathing fresh air. If you need to be a little stubborn to make sure things stay that way, so be it.

Leonard is the executive director of Greenpeace USA.

Jim Hightower Hello? People of the future … Anyone there? It’s your forebears checking JIM HIGHTOWER in with you from generations ago. We were the stewards of the Earth in 2015—a dicey time for the planet, humankind and life itself. And … well, how’d we do? Anyone still there? Hello.

A gutsy, innovative and tenacious environmental movement arose around the globe back then to try lifting common sense to the highest levels of industry and government. We had made great progress in developing a grassroots consciousness about the suicidal consequences for us (as well as those of you future earthlings) if we didn’t act pronto to stop the reckless industrial pollution that was causing climate change. Our message was

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An Inconvenient Congress stalls on China overtakes the climate, America as world’s Truth, the film leaving state largest greenhouse version of former gas emitter. NASA Vice President Al governments to Gore’s lectures on lead the charge. finds Greenland and California passes Antarctic ice sheets climate change, is the Global and Arctic Ocean released and Warming sea-ice cover eventually wins Solutions Act and shrinking faster multiple Oscars. soon leads the than expected.

Climate science nation in energy efficiency Fourth IPCC report enters into standards and warns of more popular regulation of evidence of consciousness but emissions. warming. Gore and political the IPCC win joint polarization Nobel Peace Prize mounts. for climate work.

straightforward: When you realize you’ve dug yourself into a hole, the very first thing to do is stop digging.

Unfortunately, our grassroots majority was confronted by an elite alliance of narcissistic corporate greedheads and political boneheads. They were determined to deny environmental reality in order to grab more short-term wealth and power for themselves. Centuries before this, some Native American cultures adopted a wise ethos of deciding to take a particular action only after contemplating its impact on the seventh generation of their descendants. In 2015, however, the

2009

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Many experts warn that global warming is arriving at a faster, more dangerous pace than expected.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference talks in Copenhagen, held in the midst of global recession, fail to negotiate binding emissions agreements.

UNFCCC meets in Durban, South Africa, and parties agree to work on a new and universal agreement involving all countries, not just wealthy ones, to join in combating global warming. This accord is to be negotiated in Paris.

Mean global temperature at warmest in thousands of years; concentration of carbon in the atmosphere reaches 397 parts per million, highest it's been in millennia.

Scientists and politicians become bolder in connecting increased extreme weather events and climate change

SEPTEMBER

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Global rallies are held in 2,000 locations across the world demanding urgent action on climate change.

Hundreds of thousands of people gather and continue a call for action.

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ethos of the dominant powers was to look no further into the future than the three-month forecast of corporate profits.

As I write this letter to the future, delegations from the nations of our world are gathering to consider a global agreement on steps we can finally take to rein in the looming disaster of global warming.

But at this convocation and beyond, will we have the courage for boldness, for choosing people and the planet over short-term profits for the few? The people’s movement is urging the delegates in advance to remember that the opposite of courage is not cowardice, it’s conformity— just going along with the flow. After all, even a dead fish can go with the flow, and if the delegates don’t dare to swim against the corporate current, we’re all dead.

So did we have the courage to start doing what has to be done? Hello … anyone there?

Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and New York Times best-selling author.

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In an unexpected political breakthrough, China and the United States, which together produce nearly half of global carbon dioxide emissions, jointly announce future reduction plans.

Pope Francis releases unprecedented papal encyclical wherein he calls for urgent action on climate change. Two more populous countries—Brazil and India—make pre-Paris commitments to decrease emissions.

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The world’s governments convene in Paris to attempt negotiation of a unified, global accord and to put architecture in place to save humanity from the worst outcomes of climate change.

• NOVEMBER 25, 2015 • music visual arts performance books film sports Wed Nov 18 INDYweek.com

Holy Ghost Tent Revival Fri Nov 27

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BOOGIE WONDERLAND Prowling downtown Raleigh for old threads Kevin and good recordsGates with funk-and-fashion phenom Boulevards

NOVEMBER

We 25 THE MANTRAS 8p Fr 27 HOLY GHOST TENT REVIVAL

BY CORBIE HILL 8p

w/ Rebekah Todd Sa 28 UP THE IRONS IRON MAIDEN trib w/Still The Night (WHITESNAKE trib) DECEMBER

Iron Maiden Tribute

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We 2 DEGREES NORTH Film presented

by THE NORTH FACE w/ Ralph

Backstom / Xavier De Le Rue + 7:30P

T h 3 BIG DADDY LOVE/LOVE CANON F r 4 THE STEELDRIVERS 8p w/ The Black Lillies Sa 5 KIX w/Automag /The Fifth + 7p

Su 6 JOHN KADLECIK BAND 7p We 9 SAMANTHA FISH 7p Th 10 CORROSION OF CONFORMITY

Sat Nov 28 Thu Dec 3

Pepper-Reed-Mike-Woody + 7p w/Brant Bjork/Saviors/Mothership Fr 11 DOPAPOD w/ Nth Power 8p Sa 12 OLD HABITS (Christmas Bash!!) w/ Old Man Whickett 8p

Love Canon & Blues of Richmond/Peak City Blues Big Daddy Love

We 16 HOLIDAY RAWk 7p Th 17 HOPE FOR HAITI w/People’s Fr Sa Su Th

18 19 27 31

8& 9 Fr 15 Sa 16 Sa 23 Th 28 Su 31 2 - 1 2-5&6 2-13 2-18 2-19 2-20 2-23 2-28 3 - 1 3 - 2 3 - 9 3-17 3-31 4 - 3

REBEL SON w/Dave Schneider 8p YARN w/ The Dune Dogs 8p NANTUCKET w/Monika Jaymes+ 7p BIG SOMETHING w/Groove Fetish JANUARY

ZOSO Ultimate LED ZEPPELIN exp STRUTTER (A Tribute to KISS) THE BREAKFAST CLUB 80’s 8p ANI DIFRANCO w/Hamell on Trial LUKE COMBS 7p GRAVEYARD w/Spiders 7p EPICA w/ Moonspell/Starkill 6:30 AMERICAN AQUARIUM 8p WHO’S BAD Michael Jackson Trib.

THE MACHINE performs PINK FLOYD MOTHER’S FINEST + 7p NEVER SHOUT NEVER + 6:30p SISTER HAZEL 7p MIKE GARDNER BENEFIT 7p Y&T 7p RANDY ROGERS BAND + JUDAH AND THE LION 7p MAC SABBATH STICK FIGURE 7p THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS

Advance Tickets @Lincolntheatre.com & Schoolkids Records All Shows All Ages 126 E. Cabarrus St. 919-821-4111

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The Steeldrivers

Fri Dec 4

KIX

Sat Dec 5

amil Rashad walks into Capital Club 16 and slides directly onto a seat at the bar.

It’s lunchtime on a Thursday, but he’s impeccably dressed—mirrored sunglasses, denim jacket, a button-down shirt tucked into straight-leg jeans lifted from the early ’80s. Rashad asks for his usual, and the bartender knows he means a portobelloand-avocado sandwich. Not having to ask seems consistent with Rashad’s entire aesthetic. Like James Dean re-created in the image of a B-boy, he exudes effortless cool with every move and every new song he makes under the name Boulevards.

Many streams converge during this restaurant’s lunchtime rush: Business and lawyer types in pricy suits trickle in and seek tables. Bright-eyed, bearded dads corral kids. Assorted folks in casual outfits straggle in for lunch, coffee or the hair of the dog.

But only two streams converge in Rashad: As Boulevards, he’s a purveyor of infectious, visceral funk. Despite only a handful of shows and singles, Boulevards now has a promising future. The hip New York label Captured Tracks has signed Boulevards and is releasing his debut LP next year, following a short-but-satisfying EP that came out this fall. Boulevards is a featured artist at SXSW 2016, too. And on the fashion side, Rashad cultivates a very specific look—a sort of street-funk guise meant to perfectly match his sound. It is very intentional. For his ecstatic Hopscotch set in September, Rashad collaborated with local menswear boutique Lumina Clothing, which designed a stunning matched teal suit and baseball cap. Think Miami Vice for the selfie generation.

Boulevards sounds good and looks good doing it. Whether collaborating with local designers for high-profile shows or seeking cool digs at consignment shops, Rashad represents a welcome, rare junction of local music and fashion. So today, he’s taking me to Father and Son, the multi-level downtown Raleigh vintage institution.

“When I buy clothes, my mentality is, it’s going to last me 10–20 years,” he says as we

step out of Capital Club and start to stroll up Salisbury Street. “A good jacket, a good pair of jeans, a good pair of white shoes or wing tips, a good, nice pink-button down: I won’t have to buy another pink button-down for another 10–15 years, unless it rips.”

Several people turn their heads as we walk. It’s the early afternoon, after all, and Rashad looks like he just fronted the opening act at a 1983 Lionel Richie concert.

He doesn’t seem to notice the attention. It’s a flashy outfit, but it’s his everyday look.

Boulevards, like Rashad’s clothing, is heavy on throwback style—squirrelly ’80s synth, heavy walking bass lines, eminently danceable backbeats. Again, a sense of permanence matters.

“When I write new music, I want to be able to write music that’s gonna last,” he explains. “I want to write music people can connect with and can have this nostalgic feeling about. You have bands like S.O.S. or Earth, Wind & Fire or Rick James or Prince, and they were the cutting edge of music. But at the same time, you hear it 20 years later, and it still sounds fresh.”

I ask him if those are the same people who come to mind when he envisions what will always be fresh to him, his inspirations.

“Oh yeah,” he answers. “Even James Brown’s ‘Get on Up.’ That song was made in 1960-something, but it’s genius. His screams...”

“They’re insistent,” I say. Rashad sings bits of Brown’s “Sex Machine” to himself and smiles. Funk seems a source of great soul joy for the guy.

“Yeah! Music like that inspires me to make what I want to create now,” he says.

“Funk music is something that has been very untouched. You have trap music. You have folk music. You have indie music. You have rap. You have alternative. You have electronic. You have EDM. But nobody wants to touch the funk. Nobody even wants to try to touch the funk. Back in the day, you had so many funk artists.”

“Do we have the Chili Peppers to blame Fri & Sat as for that?” I wonder aloud, backpedaling Feb 5a & soon as I say it. “I say this as fan,6 but did

American Aquarium

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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music visual arts performance books film sports Turn your cameras on: Boulevards PHOTO BY NICK PIRONIO

people think it was corny after them?”

“I don’t know, because Incubus, they had some elements of funk, too,” Rashad answers without hesitation. “They’re not saying it’s funk music, but it has funk sensibilities. They had a lot of it under their music, which I thought was very cool.

Nobody is saying, ‘I’m a funk artist.’”

He bounds through a list of musicians who have incorporated funk into their music, noting that they paved the way for his emergence but didn’t take it as far as he wants.

“For me, that’s the goal for Boulevards— funk music, but also crossing over,” he continues. “Earth, Wind & Fire crossed over. Prince crossed over. James Brown crossed over. Rick James—all those artists crossed over. You can still make really cool, original funk music that’s cutting edge, but you can make it to a point where it’s really accessible and everybody still digs it.”

Kids, teenagers, his own 60-year-old mother, Rashad says, can connect to funk’s high-velocity grooves. He stops to feed

the parking meter. Otherwise, we’d be in a hurry at Father and Son, and hurried just isn’t how Rashad operates.

“Do you think it’s funk’s moment again?” I ask, as much to myself as to him.

“It’s hard to say, because you don’t have enough people trying to do it,” he says. “People want to move. People want to dance. Maybe funk music is that lost art, the original kind of dance music.

Back in the day, you had those artists that made you dance. They had those hooks and those infectious bass lines and that syncopation on the guitar. They had calland-response. I can’t say if it’s coming back, but it’s slowly starting to become relevant again. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars have that ‘Uptown Funk’ song.”

As we cross the street, we’re singing bits of the radio hit back and forth, smiling all the while.

“To me, that’s a Time song, if you think about Morris Day and the Time,” Rashad continues, revealing his funk credentials.

“If you think of the production, that’s what

it reminds me of. I’m not a hater on the track; I think it’s a great pop song.”

The thing is, Rashad explains, Ronson is not a funk artist. He’s a pop songwriter.

Funk is Rashad’s passion; he’d rather do the opposite and write funk that crosses over into pop, not push pop into funk for a facile hook.

Inside Father and Son, Rashad is in his element. He takes a whirlwind tour through the clothing racks, noting a denim coat lined with a Southwestern pattern as something he might come back to get. He zeroes in on the records, sorting them and muttering artist names as he passes. He pauses at Earth, Wind & Fire’s Spirit. “It’s a great record,” he exclaims.

“Here we go,” I say, holding up a War record. “‘Why can’t we be friends/why can’t we be friends?’” Rashad sings, flipping on. His next pause: a 1987 World Class Wreckin’ Cru compilation. “Isn’t that Dr. Dre? That has to be young Dr. Dre!” “This outfit is shiny,” I say, pausing at a pretty glitzy LP cover, too hypnotized by the

getup to notice the artist’s name. He starts telling me about his outfit at Hopscotch, the hat and the designers at Lumina.

“Local guys, young guys, coming-up designers. I respect what they do,” Rashad says. “We worked hand in hand. They understand the music, my style.”

Both, he continues, are meant to last, the same as the music in the air of the Rashad household when he was young. As he scans the records at Father and Son, he rattles off artists he grew up on: Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis; Sting and Hall & Oates; Marvin Gaye and Al Green; Bobby McFerrin and Prince.

“Back then, you don’t really understand it, because you’re a kid. Back then, you want to be a cool rock star or a cool rap star,” Rashad says. “When you’re older, you understand the genius behind the production and songwriting. I try to study it as much as possible.”

Then, just as it seems he’s about to wax philosophical, he excitedly stops at the Doobie Brothers’ Minute by Minute. He holds it like a precious gem or a prized vintage coat.

“Actually,” he says, “I might get this record.” s Find Corbie Hill on Twitter: @afraidofthebear.

BOULEVARDS with T0W3RS, Mikey Maison Friday, Nov. 27, 9 p.m., $10–$12 Kings, 14 W. Martin St., Raleigh 919-833-1091 www.kingsbarcade.com

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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Barnes Supply Co.

Earthborn Holistic Pet Food Barnes Supply is your one-stop shop for the pet lovers on your Christmas list. Huge selection of top-rated foods, treats, beds, leashes and collars as well as wild bird feeding and backyard chicken supplies. Get your FREE BAG of Earthborn Holistic Grain Free Earthbite treats with the purchase of any size grain free pet food!

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Blue Point Yoga Center Gift Certificate

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American Brewmaster

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Burlington Aviation

Discovery Flight Gift Card | $119 Does your loved one dream of flying? Buy a Discovery Flight Gift Card online from Burlington Aviation and give them the gift of flight. Get a 45 minute flight in which they will get to take the controls under the supervision of an experienced instructor.

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Custom made Fire Pits

Commercially available firepits are wimpy, at best. Bull Durham Fabrications is the home of EXTREME FIRE PITS, the type of fire pits that Genghis Khan would have had in his yurt. Custom made in gas or wood. Perfect for any time of the year. See our website for more information.

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Cameron’s

French Chocolate Truffles Handmade chocolate truffles from one of the last family owned chocolatiers in Paris, France. These chocolates are destined to become your go-to gift for the holiday.

370 E Main St #130, Carrboro 919-942-5554 www.camerons-gallery.com

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Blown Glass Ornaments $17-$125 A destination for treasures. Choose from over 200 local, regional and national craftspeople working in pottery, glass, metal wood fiber and more. 20 Minutes from Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Open 10AM-6PM 7 days a week.

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Devolve Moto

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Dolly’s Vintage

Darling Deer Mug

Glazed Expectations

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Hol iday Gift Guid e

Cedar Creek Gallery

Add cocoa and marshmallows for a happy holiday moment. Visit Dolly’s for everything vintage…along with fun and quirky gifts for the holidays and beyond.

213 W Main St, Durham | 919-682-1471

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Fred Astaire Franchised Dance Studios Give the gift of social dance!

Gift certificates starting at $40

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Freda’s Workshop Gift basket

Enjoy a large selection of local, all natural handcrafted soaps, lotions, sugar scrubs, skin care products, bath bombs, massage candles, and essential oils. We’ll create a gift basket or help you choose the perfect, unique gift for anyone on your list!

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Great Outdoor Provision Co.

Yeti Hopper – Retail – starts at $249.95 The YETI Hopper is a personal, portable, anything but soft-sided cooler. Like all YETI products, the Hopper is built for the wild. Now through 11/29, receive a Free Yeti Rambler Lowball with purchase of any Hopper.

Cameron Village, Raleigh | 919-833-1741 Eastgate Shopping Center, Chapel Hill | 919-933-6148 GreatOutdoorProvision.com

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e d i u G t f i G y a d i High Strung Hol

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Little Shop of Horror

Handmade Candles $10 each or 3 for $25

Violins & Guitars

Mahalo Ukuleles | $39.95

Handmade, unscented horror & villain inspired decorative prayer candles. Feel free to contact us with custom requests and we’ll see what we can come up with.

506 N Mangum St #103, Durham 919-688-1237 | www.littleshophorror.com

This year, give the gift of music making with the easiest string instrument! Great colors, great price, and good for beginners old or young, or as a “beater uke” for camping trips or the beach.

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Light Years Jewelry

Kamiya Furniture Gallery

Dotted ($11) & Plaid ($18) Scarves

Glass on Teak | $99 + up

Stay warm this winter with one of our many cute and comfortable scarves! We have a wide range of scarves, ponchos, blanket scarves, shawls, boot toppers & arm warmers! Our best selection of the year is right now so come in to find perfect gifts for your loved ones.

121 E. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill | 919-942-9265 Streets at Southpoint Mall, Durham | 919-806-5992 Cameron Village, Raleigh | 919-754-8555 www.lightyearsjewelry.com

The Triangle’s best kept secret. Specializing in handmade, sustainable, Indonesian teak furniture and decor, this is the best place to find that one-of-a-kind gift.

Discover their “Glass on Teak” collection - Each is as lovely and unique as you are. Gifts Cards available.

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Naomi Studio and Gallery

NOFO @ the Pig

Mosaic Xmas Ball

Gifts for the Bourbon Lover

Go off the beaten path for the holiday season this year! Give the finest gift - a piece of locally made art, ranging from $10 - $3000.

Fine Art, Outsider Art, Metal Sculpture, Wood Turned Vessels, Home Accessories, Jewelry, Hand-dyed Silk Scarves and more.

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Bourbon’s big this year. We’ve got Pappy Van Winkle’s Bourbon Balls & delicious Maple Syrup.

We also carry the Bourbon & Bacon cookbook, Kentucky Woods Bourbon Barrel Cake, Cloister Honey’s bourbon infused honey, Woodford Reserve bourbon infused simple syrup & bourbon cherries, and we even have glass vials of bourbon toothpicks.

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PNC Arena Gift Cards

Give the Gift of Live Entertainment!

PNC Arena Gift Cards are the perfect gift for Family, Friends, or Clients. Carolina Hurricanes hockey, NC State Men’s basketball, concerts, family shows, comedy, and more - something for everyone! Redeemable for event tickets,* at participating concession stands, the Eye Team Store, and more. *excluding NC State Men’s Basketball and select events.

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Ramble Supply Company

Handcrafted Textiles & Leather Goods

Posh the Salon Pureology Gift Packs | $58.00

Gift the gift of gorgeous hair this holiday season! Choose from four different holiday hair packs focused on hydration, strength, volume, or smoothness. Kits come with shampoo, conditioner, & three styling aids! Every Pureology product is 100% vegan, includes anti-fade complex, and maintains a zero-sulfate commitment.

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Shop local with Ramble Supply Co. - A Home + Lifestyle boutique offering a beautifully curated selection of home goods, apothecary, jewelry, ceramics, textiles and more. Join us for Small Business Saturday, Nov. 28th, 10-8pm. We’ll be serving up wine + treats and the first 15 purchases will receive a free tote bag!

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Hol iday Gift Guid e

Sofia’s Shoetique Fly London Shoes

THE RED HEN Festive Soap

Duck the halls with handmade soap from Sweet Tea ‘N Biscuits! These holiday themed soaps are great stocking stuffers. We also have new and locally made wooden rattles, hair accessories, masks and lots of gently used books, toys and clothing. Save money by shopping at The Red Hen first! The Red Hen, a resale boutique for parents and those who love them.

201 South Estes Drive | Chapel Hill, NC | 919-942-4420 | www.theredhen.com

Why walk when you can fly! Fly London’s bold European design coupled with comfort make this chic oil suede collection the perfect his and hers holiday duo. Shop Sofias’s exclusive shoe selection for all the shoe lovers in your life!

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Ten Thousand Villages Ceramic bowl | $16

Ornate vines and berries are painted by hand on this ceramic piece from Hebron Glass, a family business established in 1890. This piece makes a festive tablesetting for the holidays and the cheerful colors will brighten your table throughout the year.

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RIDE Cycle Studio

Looking for a unique gift this holiday season? Give the gift of health and fitness with a RIDE Cycle Studio gift card. RIDE Cycle is a boutique fitness studio offering cycle, barre, yoga and combo classes. Purchase your gift card online or in the studio.

5504 Durham Chapel Hill Blvd. Suite 201 Durham | 919-401-5559 www.ridecyclestudios.com

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Virtuoso Jewels

Symphony Engagement Ring The only North Carolina jewelry shop owned and run by a Certified Master Jeweler. Owner Larry Seiger is a second generation goldsmith, a multiple international jewelry design award winner and the third jeweler in the nation to be awarded the prestigious JA Certified Master Bench Jeweler Certification.

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e d i u G t f i G Vert & Vogue Femme y a d i Bucket Bag by Map of Days Hol

This limited-edition Map of Days bucket bag is handcrafted in Carrboro, NC of supple American cognac leather. It features a single burnished black leather adjustable shoulder strap, convenient hand-braided leather drawstring tassel and an interior magnetic closure. Perfect for all seasons, it’s a gift that will only get better with time.

Five Points | 353 West Main Street Downtown Durham | 919-797-2767

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Vert & Vogue

The Runwell Contrast Watch by Shinola The Shinola Runwell Contrast Chrono is a 47mm classic timepiece, hand assembled in Detroit of the finest Swiss components. Made with a double curve sapphire crystal, sterling silver ring and natural American leather strap, it’s a gift that they’ll love for a lifetime (guaranteed)!

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Women’s Birth & Wellness Boutique

There is still time to get into the December 9th Gift Guide!

Contact rgierisch@indyweek.com to place your reservation.

Coobie

It’s simply the most amazing bra you’ll ever buy. Ultra-comfortable, supportive, and inexpensive - it’s the perfect combination. Fun colors & neutrals. Nursing & non-nursing alike. One size fits most. A North Carolina company. Open seven days a week.

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FLIGHT FLIGHTRaleigh.org Closed Thanksgiving Day

merry and bright 300 S Elliott Rd Chapel Hill (919) 968-0711 www.vacuumhospital.com

Open Mon-Sat 11-7; Sun 11-5 DECO: corner of Hargett and Salisbury FLIGHT: E Martin near MECCA

raleigh local • unique • smart

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LITE AND DARK

A local rap legend welcomes himself home with a concept album, while a strong singer scrubs the truth from her staid songs RAPPER BIG POOH HOME SWEET HOME (Mello Music Group) As hip-hop bona fides go, Rapper Big Pooh has little left to prove. His past as a co-founder and one-third of legendary North Carolina group Little Brother should make that much clear. And if it doesn’t, songs alongside Kanye West, Drake and Kendrick Lamar before their names became household items should help.

Still, Pooh remains an emcee’s emcee, a behind-the-scenes connector in the hiphop world. He is respected enough to crack open the door at Aftermath last summer in order for Raleigh rapper King Mez to slip into Dr. Dre’s inner circle. But like many other classic acts or background connectors, he is most frequently talked about in the past tense. He’s not able to do an interview without a question about his relationship with Phonte, not able to have a new album

reviewed without an introductory Little Brother mention. (See above.)

Though it’s not an easy shadow from which to emerge, Pooh remains persistent.

Earlier this year, he issued a strong set with producer Apollo Brown. Now, with the release of his collaborative LP Home Sweet Home alongside Virginia beatmaker Nottz, he has put his name on two projects within eight months that should vie for

year-end attention. Nearly two years have passed since this collaboration was first announced; it was worth the wait.

Home Sweet Home brims with energy from the first track, an introduction that’s fittingly cinematic for a hero’s reintroduction. “I’m tryin’ to reach new heights, so fuck fear,” Pooh spouts over a head-knocking beat before transitioning to “Welcome Home,” the first of three “home”-related interludes.

Parallels to West’s masterpiece “Family Business” run through the entire album.

The middle interlude, “Homemade,” feels specifically like a soulful redux of the classic from The College Dropout.

Conveying the same feeling of being at peace with life as West does, Pooh places us in the midst of a raucous gathering of relatives: “Kids playin’ in the front yard/ niggas standin’ on the corner/I don’t know ’em but they lookin’ hard.”

Home Sweet Home charts a clever narrative, too, jumping between themes of arriving home, going to church, indulging bad friends, recalling fond memories and courting old partners. Even when Pooh approaches darker material, and even when Nottz’ snapping drums and granular samples get abrasive, Home Sweet Home manages to feel like, well, home.

The pervasive warmth here moves beyond simple boombap nostalgia. The saxophone on the tail end of “Prom Season,” the looped piano riff in “Homemade,” the soothing glow of the organ on “Alone”: Home Sweet Home feels good.

As a soundtrack to time spent back home with family, old friends and some unsavory characters, Home Sweet Home is the rare album that is exactly what it purports to be. Its conceptual focus gets a boost from the shared Virginia roots of Pooh and Nottz, both of whom left the comforts of the place to pursue their respective careers.

Years later, Home Sweet Home represents a wondrous rendezvous. —Ryan Cocca

JEANNE JOLLY A PLACE TO RUN (self-released) The Raleigh singer Jeanne Jolly has a powerful and versatile voice, as capable of flying high for a soulful vibrato as it is dipping low for soft country ballads.

It’s earned her spots on stages with symphonies and on stages and in studios with the trumpeter Chris Botti. She’s lent it to the R&B sophisticates The Foreign Exchange and has collaborated with roots music machine Phil Cook. She’s steadily developed a solo catalog, too, culminating in the new eight-track album, A Place to Run. But A Place to Run doesn’t run so much as it ambles on course, never daring to pick up too much speed or stray too deep into the unknown. Jolly languishes in the adult-contemporary department, making moderate folk-rock with occasional inflections of blues and soul. All her

outsider experiences barely make a dent on A Place to Run’s smooth surface. Her songs touch on familiar singer-songwriter tropes—California, dreaming, hope, escape—but rarely offer a distinct spin on any of them. Yes, she’s got a powerful singing voice; her songwriting voice, however, remains to be determined.

On “Good Man,” Jolly praises the man

in her life who loves his parents and turns her rain into sunshine. The idea is that he’s something special, but she offers few grounding details, the real-life stuff that makes love songs like this more than cliches. You have to accept the fact that this person is an especially good man just because Jolly—her voice dressed in finery— says so.

During “California,” she offers lines like “Sometimes in life, you don’t get to choose the end” and “Sometimes in life, you don’t get your goodbye,” followed by a soothing refrain that repeats the title. It sounds wistful and sad, but lifted by piano and ethereal pedal steel, Jolly seems to hide her truest, deepest feelings. The results feel vague and incomplete. “Gypsy Skin” and “Boundless Love” do a better job of offering a sense of resolution, but they, too, offer more platitudes than specifics.

Jolly, at least, is a seasoned collaborator, and the excellent backing band she built for A Place to Run does her songs the most favors. With simple instrumentation, A Place to Run would be just another album in the unremarkable folk-rock pile. But James Wallace’s varied keys and the woozy, wiggly guitar licks of producer Chris Boerner lend the LP intrigue and depth.

Together, the two dazzle during the instrumental break of “The Dreamer,” combining for a sweetly floating haze that validates the title.

A Place to Run finishes with “Circles in the Sky,” a midtempo tune that was perhaps meant to be a meditative closing track but just feels anticlimactic instead. Soft vocal harmonies drift over acoustic guitar strums, and then it all just stops. A Place To Run has too few peaks to coast across the finish line like this, as though it celebrates a victory that doesn’t actually exist. A Place to Run is painstakingly polished, but it rarely possesses the same power and punch as Jolly’s voice itself. — Allison Hussey

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LACK ATEMPORAL/PERHORRESCES (Tone Log/Hot Releases) Philip Maier’s LACK is a logical extension of the time he has spent pushing boundaries in other acts. Whether cutting up postpunk and digital pop tropes in VVAQRT or rerouting electronics to the stars in Sagan Youth, Maier loves to tinker with form. His outlet for warped, alternately gorgeous and garish techno-based compositions, LACK picks up on this spirit. His two major releases from 2015, Atemporal and Perhorresces, use it to build broad, involving structures from simple ideas.

Released last month, Atemporal trends toward the experimental side. While patches of light occasionally shine through these songs, the record feels like a maze of abstract electronics and elliptical percussion. But as you lock into the logic, you hear Maier toying with rhythm.

Elements careen in and out unexpectedly.

“Paddhereen” suggests an exploration of the earth’s interior, with strange, throbbing echoes resonating from crevices unknown.

“Multum In Parvo” revels in muscular bass and spiraling synths. The wide sense of space and eerie mechanical lurches suggest an overhead drone, documenting the dying sights and sounds of an abandoned factory’s half-working machines.

Perhorresces is the more accessible collection. Initially released in June on a now-sold-out cassette, the set arrives anew as a 12-inch record from Hot Releases this month. Maier tempers his impulses here, especially on side two, with several brilliant nods to ambient and dub.

“Atmadja Duma” is a revelation, with a pernicious low-end hum and disembodied choirs. They float toward the surface like

exotic fish through the digital image of an old-school screensaver. The cavernous minimal techno of “Inosculatione” slowly writhes into inscrutable melodic shape.

The songs exude mystery and allure from an icy distance.

Together, these two releases serve as vivid documents of Maier’s continued sonic exploration, speaking to his ability to create isolated worlds from sound. To that point, less patient listeners might accuse him of being self-indulgent, as most of his tracks surpass the six-minute mark. But LACK’s charms are cumulative, and these records require full immersion. These tunes don’t always hit individually, but greater context provides clarity and meaning. As you move through these environments, you’ll certainly notice the way Maier builds an eerie, uncanny headspace. It’s allconsuming and hard to shake even when the records spin to an end, evidence of experiments well made. —David Ford Smith NECROCOSM DAMNATION DOCTRINE (self-released) The four years Raleigh death metallers Necrocosm spent woodshedding have paid off. Not long after forming in late 2011, the band became a staple of local bills, but the group didn’t rush a recording, that typically pernicious rookie mistake.

Instead, Necrocosm carefully crafted its debut, Damnation Doctrine. The diligence impresses.

The time—and money—the band poured into the record is obvious even on the cover.

Local tattoo legend Errol Engelbrecht’s meticulous illustration suggests the fluid, florid motion that John Dyer Baizley has worked up for Skeletonwitch and his own

band, Baroness, or even the vintage penand-ink details of Pushead. Producer Jamie King, whose most famous clients might be Between the Buried and Me, offers his ability to balance precision with raw energy.

These investments go beyond veneer and credits. Recalling the cover’s cosmic demons, singer Zach Senicola growls and shrieks about Lovecraftian horrors and inevitable death. The low-end pummel of bassist Matt Brocking and drummer Adam Walker matter just as much as the crisp leads of guitarists Kevin Spivey and Brent Overton. A similarly dynamic mix of elegance and brutality made legends of At The Gates and headliners of The Black Dahlia Murder. It requires careful production—too clean and it loses its heft, too dirty and the melodies get muddied.

With King at the helm here, Necrocosm nears the sweet spot.

Despite its obvious allegiance to melodeath inspirations, Necrocosm isn’t a subgenre tribute or a one-trick act, either. Yes, “Architects of Death” immediately hits a brisk stride, offering a battle between a sharp riff, Senicola’s stern bark and Walker’s agile drumming. But when the chorus hits, Spivey and Overton nod toward black metal and NWOBHM at once, tremolo-picking in harmony. Spivey’s solo in “Disavow” shifts suddenly from In Flames melody to Slayer squeals.

Necrocosm’s members are obvious students of and zealots for all things metal.

By taking the time to establish themselves first and their Damnation Doctrine second, they have made a reverent and refreshing survey of their influences—a promising first outing for a band with clear dedication to cause and craft. —Bryan C. Reed

MONTANA STAX OUIJA (Main Event Army) The cover art for Montana Stax’s diss track, “N.I.N.A.,” pictures the Raleigh rapper dressed in semi-drag, standing in front of shelves of purses and red-bottom Christian Louboutin heels. The petty image was meant to effeminize Stax’s nemesis, the Raleigh rapper Nino Ru. But when you skip the layers of offensive gimmickry, the track itself actually captures Montana at his most potent, as he zings homicidal threats over another infamous diss instrumental, LL Cool J’s “I Shot Ya (Remix).”

The moment provided a perfect prologue for Stax’s debut LP, Ouija, a crime-ridden but vindicating crash course through this rapper’s psyche. “That’s why getting killed is not a problem to me/but let’s talk about this poverty,” he offers before delving into underlying issues of street violence through two graphic story lines that both culminate in death. “Real Life” is a parable about navigating social media’s real-life consequences, while “Good Day” borrows a page from Ice Cube’s diary classic “It Was a Good Day.” Arriving for a brief verse alongside Raleigh rapper and singer Bobby James, Stax advertises his knack for spitting the coldest raps and his urge to “keep a scope attached/we still militant.” Ouija highlights an emcee who seems on the verge of eruption, his baritone delivering the catharses of angry storytelling in songs that demand he be given a watchful eye.

—Eric Tullis

GLAD Study

The Frohlich Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill is looking for individuals who would be interested in participating in a clinical research study.

This study is testing the effect of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on mood symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder. Transcranial current stimulation is a technique that delivers a very weak current to the scalp.

Treatment has been well tolerated with no serious side-effects reported. This intervention is aimed at restoring normal brain activity and function which may reduce mood symptoms experienced with Major Depressive Disorder. We are looking for individuals between the ages of 18 and 65, diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder currently not taking benzodiazepines or antiepileptic drugs. You can earn a total of $280 for completing this study.

If you are interested in learning more, contact our study coordinator at: courtney_lugo@med.unc.edu. Or call us at (919)962-5271

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The Swingles: Yule Songs Thursday, December 10 at 8pm Stewart Theatre ■ 919-515-1100 go.ncsu.edu/swingles AN INTERNATIONAL A CAPPELLA PHENOMENON “Never less than dazzling”–Washington Post

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SUNDER THE ILLUSION

The moving image stills you and the still image moves you: Robin Rhode and The Energy of Youth at NCMA

BY BRIAN HOWE

Still from “Piano Chair,” Robin Rhode COURTESY OF NCMA, THE ARTIST AND LEHMANN MAUPIN GALLERY, NEW YORK AND HONG KONG. © 2015 ROBIN RHODE “Children Dancing by Lake, Camp Treetops,” Barbara Morgan COURTESY OF NCMA. GIFT OF RICHARD AND LOIS ZAKIA. © 2015 BARBARA MORGAN ARCHIVE PAGE, BOTTOM “Untitled,” Ralph Eugene Meatyard COURTESY OF NCMA/FRAENKEL GALLERY. GIFT OF THE FAMILY/ESTATE OF JULIAN T. BAKER JR. © 2015 THE ESTATE OF RALPH

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ou might remember the South African artist ROBIN RHODE from his entries in Nasher Museum of Art exhibits The Record and Street Level. His static works in those shows come to life in a pair of videos at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Along with a small but significant photography show, The Energy of Youth, they compose a diptych: the moving image that stills you and the still image that moves you. They make a perfect pictorial apéritif and digestif, respectively, for the blockbuster M.C. Escher show.

If you’ve already been to the Escher, Rhode’s videos likely stopped you in your tracks on the way in and then provided a hauntingly distant soundtrack of rumbles and chimes as you perused the Dutch illusionist’s retrospective.

The videos combine actors with drawings of objects, animated in a way that suggests stop-motion, to plumb an illusive space between the second and third dimensions.

In the playful “Piano Chair,” inspired by South African jazz

legend Moses Molelekwa, a man in tux and tails mounts an escalating assault on a piano drawn in charcoal on a wall.

What begins with the tentative plinking of keys ends with the instrument ablaze.

Meanwhile, in “Zig Zag,” a young person in profile seems to sit on a Zig Zag chair, an iconic design by the Dutch modernist Gerrit Rietveld, drawn in chalk. The geometric angles seem to metastasize, spiraling around like a conch shell. Though the figure is actually lying on the ground, the tricky camera perspective makes her appear stuck to the wall.

Speaking of young people stuck to walls, childhood is usually documented through smiling snapshots, the moments chosen sentimentally. We often have to rely on fine art photographers to reveal the nuances of young life.

There are 19 portraits by 10 photographers in THE ENERGY OF YOUTH: DEPICTING CHILDHOOD IN THE NCMA’S

EUGENE MEATYARD

PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION. Almost none of the kids in them are smiling.

Not that play, a defining feature of childhood, is absent.

Barbara Morgan’s mid-20th-century shots of children catching raindrops in their mouths and cavorting near a lake come closest to depicting exuberant freedom. Morgan was famous for photographing dancers, and you can see that skill translated in her compositions here.

More representative are two color photographs by Durham’s Titus Brooks Heagins that capture children looking very serious. In “Fabienne” (2009), a preteen fills the frame, though her downward gaze keeps us from feeling connected to her. She’s in her own world, not letting the photographer in. In “Devonte” (2008), a boy around age 3, wearing only jeans and a belt, stands in a forest looking directly at the camera without much expression. It feels as though he’s sizing us up, which is

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unnervingly incongruous with his age.

Children assume metaphorical, even metaphysical, roles in other photographs. In famed American photographer Sally Mann’s stunning “Shiva at Whistle Creek” (1992), her daughter squats and presses her palms together like a deity, and the creek seems to succumb to her powers, changing its course around her. Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s untitled silver gelatin print (1960) looks like something out of an Eastern European fairy tale, with a young boy wearing a mask of an old man’s face and holding a doll.

Duke University photography teacher Margaret Sartor’s “Eliza on the Levee, Monroe, Louisiana” (1999) shows the back of a girl’s head, her hair only somewhat checked by butterfly clips. Multiple strands escape. The image crystallizes the tension that runs through the show, between childhood’s freedom and the photograph’s

containment. The latter at once undermines the former, reminding us how trapped we felt as kids, and underscores it, reminding us how youthful wantonness can only be partially restrained. The kids aren’t smiling, but the viewer will be. s Brian Howe is the INDY’s arts and culture editor. Email him at bhowe@indyweek.com.

ROBIN RHODE

Through Jan. 31

THE ENERGY OF YOUTH Through April 3

North Carolina Museum of Art 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh 919-839-6262 www.ncartmuseum.org

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RATED “ARRR!”

Just kidding—Peter and the Starcatcher is a resourceful, all-ages origin story for Pan

BY BYRON WOODS

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here was a time, not long ago, when audiences and critics alike bemoaned the lack of theater options in the twelfth month, when two regional evergreens loomed large: Theatre in the Park’s A Christmas Carol and Raleigh Little Theatre’s Cinderella. But gradually, other companies added a host of different voices—and blessed dissonance—to the winter mix. This year, there are about as many productions on Triangle stages devoted to the holidays as those that aren’t.

The first of them, PlayMakers Rep’s Peter and the Starcatcher, opened last weekend. A prequel to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, it’s based on the first in the series of best-selling children’s books by Pulitzerwinning humorist Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. The series is published by Hyperion Books, a subsidiary of Disney, so the parent company’s involvement in a stage adaptation was inevitable. The resulting musical took an unconventional professional trajectory, with off-Broadway productions in 2011 and 2013 sandwiching a 10-month run on Broadway.

Playwright Rick Elice’s all-ages adaptation mixes the sweet and snarky in a ripping old-school yarn. It propels 13-yearold Molly Aster (Arielle Yoder), her father, the prim Lord Aster (Ray Dooley) and three orphans who become the original Lost Boys out of the proper world of Victorian England through high treachery with pirates on the open seas. This bloodand-thunder passage lands the principals on an island with inhabitants both magical and mundane.

As might have been predicted for a Disney enterprise, the heavies aren’t that heavy. Mitchell Jarvis’ less-than-dread pirate, Black Stache, is a pneumatically inflated fop whose menace never truly convinces. Still, he regularly scores with a quiver of bad-boy puns, anachronistic social references and theater in-jokes.

After referring to a problem as “the Cadillac Escalade of dilemmas,” he complains that one character is “as elusive as the melody in a Philip Glass opera.” As in Chuck Jones’ golden age of Bugs Bunny cartoons, these references sail over the

L r o F b r PETER AND THE STARCATCHER Black Stache menaces Molly Aster in Peter and the Starcatcher.

HHH 1/2

PHOTO BY JON GARDINER FOR PLAYMAKERS REPERTORY COMPANY

PlayMakers Repertory Company 150 Country Club Road, Chapel Hill 919-962-7529 www.playmakersrep.org Through Dec. 12

heads of 9-year-olds and hit their parents dead-on. A prizefight sequence from out of nowhere could have been lifted whole from a Looney Tunes classic.

But the heart of the enterprise belongs with Molly and the Lost Boys. Molly becomes their first leader, simultaneously challenging and protecting them, refuting the hollow, gender-based leadership claim of the contentious Prentiss (Daniel Bailin).

Under Brendon Fox’s direction, we see the post-traumatic stress in actor Evan Johnson’s Peter after flashbacks detail his harrowing experiences in a London orphanage. Other ethical failings of the British Empire (and empires that followed) are probed when the island’s inhabitants are

found to be a direct result of British intervention and negligence.

As is frequently the case, children internalize and baldly state the facts. After Molly and the Lost Boys persuade the islanders not to kill them, Prentiss exults, “You need us! We can do all the things you guys don’t wanna do anymore. We’re foreigners! That’s what we’re for!”

Actor John Allore is a memorable, unsavory Slank, and Jeffrey Blair Cornell gratifies as his assistant, Alf. Brian Owen is a suitable foil as Smee, the captain’s second in command. Benjamin Curns amuses in the drag role of Mrs. Bumbrake, Molly’s nanny.

Increasingly fantastical costumes, minimal set design and atmospheric lighting ably place us within several changing worlds. But Fox’s mostly imaginative staging doesn’t extend to the pirate-hating crocodile, which remains offstage, and Wayne Barker’s score for percussion and piano rarely matches the larger-than-life aesthetics on display.

Still, Peter entertains by filling in the blanks that transport the orphans—and us—to Neverland. s Byron Woods is the INDY’s theater and dance columnist. Twitter: @ByronWoods

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STRESS-FREE STAYS Room for your entire family

The INDY’s Guide to Dining in the Triangle

PUBLICATION DATE

MAY 26, 2016 RESERVE YOUR SPACE NOW!

Let your friends and family relax this holiday season at one of Raleigh’s 145 area hotels.

From luxurious amenities to budget-friendly finds, we have room for everyone.

Learn more at visitRaleigh.com/family Photo Credit: Aloft Raleigh

Contact your rep or advertising@indyweek.com

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THREE AMERICAN DREAMS

A Rocky for a new era in Creed, a communist in Hollywood in Trumbo and an immigrant’s tale in a whitewashed Brooklyn

C

REED doesn’t propel the Rocky franchise into a rebirth—the boxingfilm genre reached its narrative limits long ago. But by using conjoined character arcs that double as Jungian archetypes, the series’ seventh film ably honors, updates and even deconstructs its legacy.

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the son of late champ Apollo Creed—Sylvester Stallone’s respected nemesis in the first two Rocky films—is rescued from a delinquent childhood spent bouncing between foster homes and detention centers by Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo’s widow.

Although Adonis is reared in wealth, his father’s fighting blood runs through his veins. Still haunted by her husband’s death in the ring, Mary Anne discourages Adonis’ impulses. But after the son of Apollo’s late trainer refuses to train him, Adonis quits his job in California and moves to Philadelphia to coax an aging Rocky Balboa (Stallone) to take him under his tutelage.

With his beloved Adrian 14 years dead (as was covered in 2006’s Rocky Balboa), Rocky now also visits the grave of his brother-in-law and best friend, Paulie. He hasn’t seen his estranged son, Robert, for years, which might be a sad allusion to the death of Stallone’s son, Sage, in 2012.

Rocky runs an Italian restaurant, Adrian’s, and doesn’t visit Mickey’s gym anymore.

But he reluctantly agrees to train Adonis, though Rocky’s lingering guilt over failing to prevent Apollo’s death is a motivation the film doesn’t sufficiently explicate.

Adonis fights under the surname Johnson, preferring to earn his fame rather than riding the coattails of his absentee father. Adonis’ rapid ascension up the ranks makes little sense—this is a Rocky movie, after all. But once his lineage becomes public knowledge, it catapults him into an unlikely title fight against the undefeated British world champion (reallife boxer Tony Bellew). It also means that Rashad, who once played Bill Cosby’s TV wife, is portraying a woman forced to suffer the public revelation of her famous spouse’s philandering.

Under the auspices of writer-director Ryan Coogler, Jordan’s director in Fruitvale Station, Creed reclaims the

Title fight: Sylvester Stallone passes the Rocky torch to Michael B. Jordan in Creed.

PHOTO BY BARRY WETCHER/COURTESY OF MGM

blackness of a franchise originally framed through the prism of The Great White Hope, with genuine depictions of innercity Philly and a central romance between Adonis and Bianca (Tessa Thompson, terrific until relegated to being a spectator). It’s not only the first Rocky film in which Rocky doesn’t fight in some fashion, but also the first that doesn’t spotlight a white boxer. Adonis’ two main bouts are against fighters of color—the first, played by real-life boxer Gabriel Rosado, is edited as an extended take with exhilarating camerawork that sails around and between the pugilists.

Jordan is utterly at ease as an actor; Stallone is utterly at ease in his role.

Together, they conjure an alchemy of wit and poignancy. Creed doesn’t conclude

with a celebration in the ring. Instead, a movie icon haltingly climbs the same steps he galloped up to glory almost four decades ago. The image isn’t just a portrait of Rocky Balboa’s mortality. It projects the mortality of us all, conveyed as an elegy for a cultural phenomenon.

—Neil Morris

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ovies are the most powerful tool ever created, and they are infested with traitors!”

So says one of the government’s redblooded commie hunters in TRUMBO, the new biographical drama starring Bryan Cranston as the great Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Beginning in the 1940s and wrapping up in the 1970s, the film tells the story of the infamous

Hollywood blacklist through the biography of its most interesting victim.

Trumbo, a successful studio scribe and card-carrying member of the American Communist Party, was convicted for contempt of Congress after refusing to give information to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. A cabal of studio executives, under pressure from the federal government, blacklisted Trumbo and nine others, who later became known as the Hollywood Ten. Trumbo served a year in prison on the conviction and was unable to get meaningful work in the industry for more than a decade. He continued to write, though, passing scripts to acquaintances and publishing under pseudonyms. He even won an Oscar for The Brave One while

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music visual arts performance books film sports blacklisted, which is a pretty neat trick and makes for a great story.

You wouldn’t know it from the first half of Trumbo, though. Screenwriter John McNamara (TV’s Lois and Clark) follows blunt history from episode to episode, and it’s pretty miserable from a storytelling point of view. Meanwhile, director Jay Roach (Austin Powers) stages sequences like slightly classed-up dramatizations from the History Channel.

But just when audience despair threatens to go Code Red, Trumbo gets a significant second wind. This is largely due to the killer supporting cast, especially John Goodman as bat-wielding B-movie producer Frank King, who employs Trumbo to churn out his no-budget gangster and werewolf scripts.

Louis C.K. tears up the joint, too, upstaging Cranston, which is hard to do.

The second half is like a whole different movie, and it’s worth sticking around for. As Trumbo makes his triumphant comeback, he uses a kind of political jujitsu against his tormentors, leveraging Washington gutlessness and Hollywood greed for his own crafty purposes. Cranston is finally given something to do besides rage and pontificate, and it’s interesting to watch Trumbo’s plans come together.

The movie’s other lingering pleasure is seeing a parade of Hollywood heavyweights pass through as supporting characters in Trumbo’s story—Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Otto Preminger, Louis B. Mayer. When John Wayne swaggers in as a dim-bulb bully, Trumbo dices up his empty jingoism with precision jabs and razor-edged rejoinders. It’s all lost on the Duke, though, who looks like a dog watching a card trick.

The deck is stacked, of course, and everything here feels terribly selfcongratulatory. But it’s still good, clean, American fun. —Glenn McDonald

S

o lyrical and lush you don’t quite trust what you see, BROOKLYN is a classy—and classical—piece of filmmaking. Working from Colm Tóibín’s 2010 novel, Irish director John Crowley (Intermission) and screenwriter Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) capture the melancholy and nostalgia of the book while presenting the sort of elegiac old-school melodrama that is seldom made any more.

Saoirse Ronan is Eilis, an Irish girl who moves to America to work in Brooklyn in the 1950s, thanks to the sponsorship of a

U.S.-based priest (Jim Broadbent, angelic as hell). Since she’s leaving behind a mother (Jane Brennan) and sister (Fiona Glascott) she adores, she’s initially homesick, living in an all-female boarding house (led by the wonderfully finicky Julie Walters). That changes when she meets a sweet-natured Italian plumber (Emory Cohen) who immediately falls for her good-girl ways.

Like a sunnier counterpart to 2013’s beautiful yet painful The Immigrant, which had Marion Cotillard as a Polish émigré forced to make ends meet as a prostitute in 1920s New York, Brooklyn presents a colorful, confident portrait of the American Dream, with Ronan’s levelheaded protagonist serving as a walking beacon of hope and optimism. Striking work by cinematographer Yves Bélanger and costumer Odile Dicks-Mireaux make Ronan—with her moony, wholesome looks—the brightest thing in the movie, covering her in pastel sundresses that single her out from the rest of the cast.

Also like The Immigrant, there are tearjerking moments, especially when Eilis returns home after a family tragedy. Things get complicated when she starts seeing a suave Irishman (Ex Machina’s Domhnall Gleeson), turning the story into an intercontinental torn-between-two-lovers affair and making Eilis wonder if heading back to the U.S. of A. is really a good idea.

Something did nag at me while watching the film. There weren’t any black people or other minorities in Brooklyn in the ’50s?

Just Italians and the Irish—that’s what you’re telling me? But you can’t knock the vivid visual craftsmanship and sad but sanguine storytelling. Like so many prior films about immigrants looking for a better life on these shores, Brooklyn lays out a wondrous, overwhelming and romantic vision of America’s past—the same vision that brought people here in the first place.

—Craig D. Lindsey

CREED HHHH Now playing

TRUMBO HHH Now playing

BROOKLYN HHH 1/2 Now playing

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

967-6159

bill.burton.lawyer@gmail.com

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The Enclave Richard Mosse

On view through January 10, 2016 2001 Campus Drive, Durham I nasher.duke.edu/mosse Richard Mosse, Safe From Harm, a member of Mai Mai Yakutumba in a scene from The Enclave showing a simulated battle sequence performed by this rebel group in Fizi, South Kivu, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, 2012. © Richard Mosse. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. The presentation of Richard Mosse: The Enclave at the Nasher Museum is made possible by Trent Carmichael, Katie Thorpe Kerr and Terrance I. R. Kerr, Lisa Lowenthal Pruzan and Jonathan Pruzan, Caroline and Arthur Rogers, and Gail M.D. Belvett.

NOV 18 - DEC 12 Center for Dramatic Art, UNC-Chapel Hill

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919.962.7529

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11.25–12.2

Where we’ll be

CALENDARS MUSIC 41 VISUAL ARTS 46 PERFORMANCE 47 BOOKS 48 SPORTS 48 FILM 49

FESTIVAL

NC CHINESE LANTERN FESTIVAL KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE, CARY SATURDAY, NOV. 28–SUNDAY, JAN. 3

Cary has one of the largest Chinese populations in North Carolina, as is tacitly celebrated in the first NC Chinese Lantern Festival at Koka Booth Amphitheatre. Lasting for the entire holiday season, the festival finds the outdoor auditorium’s invitingly walkable grounds and picturesque lake adorned with more than 20 luminescent displays—they traveled here by ocean liner all the way from China—on an awe-inspiring scale.

Rippling dragons, adorable packs of pandas and elegant gabled temples shine in the darkness, evoking the magical views of a quieter, more contemplative state fair. It’s a widely inclusive celebration for friends and families of all backgrounds, as it’s devoted purely to one thing all the diverse holidays share: a ritualistic reverence for the bonding power of light. 6:30–10 p.m.

Sun.–Thurs.; 6:30–11 p.m. Fri.–Sat., $12– $20, 8003 Regency Parkway, Cary, 919-462-2025, www.boothamphitheatre.com. —Brian Howe

MUSIC

NICK LOWE’S QUALITY HOLIDAY REVUE DUKE’S REYNOLDS THEATER, DURHAM WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2

If you haven’t been paying attention for the last decade or two, Nick Lowe—the man who helped put power pop, punk and new wave on the map in the ’70s—shifted to acoustic crooner mode in the ’90s. Don’t expect him to live up to his old “Basher” nickname by pounding out “Heart of the City.” But as part of his bid to become the Andy Williams of pub-rock pioneers, Lowe has mounted an honest-to-God Christmas show, the Quality Holiday Revue tour, based on his 2013 album, Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family. On that album, eccentric Nashville rockers Los Straitjackets joined him; they accompany him here, too,

as he delivers classic Christmas songs, original tunes tailor-made for the occasion and covers by esteemed peers. The fact that Los Straitjackets are, as always, outfitted with Mexican wrestling masks doesn’t exactly put a damper on the entertainment factor, either. 8 p.m., $10–$48, 125 Science Drive, Durham, 919-684-4444, www.dukeperformances.duke.edu. —Jim Allen

MUSIC | COLOSSUS

CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, CARRBORO SATURDAY, NOV. 28

In its decade of existence, Colossus has never worn costumes or set off pyrotechnics. The band has never earned notoriety for prodigious appetites or wanton destruction. But musically, Colossus is gleefully ostentatious. The group’s triple-guitar onslaught drives a soaring NWOBHM revival, while singer Sean Buchanan evokes Halford and Dickinson. As the band has evolved from a scrappy revival act to a polished force, Colossus has never lost the giddy thrill inherent in this stuff. Lyrics illustrate elaborate fantasy realms and glorious battles.

Guitars peel off like stunt planes to push songs in new directions.

In celebration of Colossus’ decennial, expect cuts spanning 2006’s ...And the Rift of the Pandimensional Under-Gods, 2009’s Drunk on Blood and 2012’s ...And the Sepulcher of the Mirror Warlocks. With an extra drummer and two more guitarists, Colossus may actually crush you. Chapel Hill’s patient post-doom trio MAKE and Raleigh proto-metal reanimators Demon Eye open. 9 p.m., $8, 300 E. Main St., Carrboro, 919-967-9053, www.catscradle.com. —Bryan C. Reed

NICK LOWE PHOTO BY JIM HERRINGTON

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from the studio or putting the kids to bed. Aden is there in his gym socks jumping around, hyping me up. He’ll be just fine.” With Drake Murphy and Blanko Basnet. 10 p.m., $10–$12, 117 W. Main St., Durham, 919-667-1100, www.thepinhook.com. —Eric Tullis

THEATER

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, DURHAM TUESDAY, DEC. 1–SUNDAY, DEC. 6

The story could come from today’s newspaper: A large family of refugees—a mother, father and seven children—are on the run, barely one step ahead of the murderous totalitarians in pursuit.

Between the family and safety lies an impenetrable natural barrier.

But the dateline is 1938, not 2015, and the family is European, not Syrian. Their last name is now famous: von Trapp. The Sound of Music, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s final collaboration, went on to becomes one of the American Film Institute’s all-time top five movie musicals. A rarity distinguishes this national touring production, which launched in September: Kerstin Anderson, who plays Maria, was a New York college sophomore when she was cast, with no credits on Broadway (or off- or off-off-Broadway, for that matter). Now she works alongside Tony Award winner Ben Davis and Ashley Brown, who played Broadway’s Mary Poppins. 7:30 p.m. Tues.–Thurs.; 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat.; 2 p.m. Sat.; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sun., 123 Vivian St., Durham, $30–$145, 919-680-2787, www.dpacnc.com. —Byron Woods

NC CHINESE LANTERN FESTIVAL PHOTO COURTESY OF NC CHINESE LANTERN FESTIVAL

MUSIC | LANGUAGE ARTS

VISUAL ART | SMASHFEST

Triangle rap duos must be cursed. Phonte and Rapper Big Pooh’s divide as Little Brother seems irreconcilable, and the Bull City’s Wreck-N-Crew fled to Atlanta. The Koolest recently split up, and Actual Proof’s career hangs in the Jamla Records balance. Before all this, though, there was the politically assertive duo Language Arts, featuring close friends Pierce Freelon and Aden Darity. Their dissolution stemmed from distance and fuzzy connections, not drama. While one was away at school, the other remained at home, left to solo devices. Now, six years since after their last performance, they’re reawakening the righteous raps for one night. They’ll revisit their marquee material and debut neverbefore-heard selections. While Freelon has been able to keep his performance stamina intact with the steady-gigging The Beast, will Darity be able to keep up? “He’s still a great live performer,” say Freelon. “I’ve been getting to our rehearsals tired from coming

Unless you’ve got the patience of a saint or you’re opting out of the season entirely, the holidays are a stressful time, and they kick into high gear this week. Fortunately, Durham’s Scrap Exchange has you covered with a healthier outlet for your post-turkey tension than battling the Black Friday consumer rampage. At the annual Smashfest, you can buy recyclable items for the sole purpose of breaking them—or you can hang out, free of charge, and watch others work out their fractiousness without doing any fracturing yourself. There’s music from DJ Piddipat and short film screenings from the A/V Geeks, and the Durham Co-Op Market and Sam’s Quik Shop will be on hand with food and drinks. Get smashed.

3–8 p.m., free, 2050 Chapel Hill Road, Durham, 919-688-6960, www.scrapexchange.org. —Allison Hussey

THE PINHOOK, DURHAM | SATURDAY, NOV. 28

THE SCRAP EXCHANGE, DURHAM FRIDAY, NOV. 27

INDYweek.com

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Gift Certificates available for the holidays!

Find out More at

www.ArtsCenterLive.org 300-G East Main St. Carrboro, NC Find us on Social Media

@ArtsCenterLive

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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INDYweek.com

music WED, NOV 25

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) MARY JOHNSON ROCKERS & THE SPARK With her band The Spark, Mary Johnson Rockers delivers soulful Americana lifted by piano licks on “Pulley and Rope” or classical guitar on “Lucio.” Sometimes, it all sounds a little too timid, as though The Spark needs a little extra power boost. But when they get it, they can charm. Pat Reedy opens. $8–$10/9 p.m. —AH LINCOLN THEATRE: The Mantras; 9 p.m., $12.50. See indyweek.com.

MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: N.C. Symphony: A Frozen Journey; 3 p.m., $23. See indyweek.com.

THE PINHOOK: DJ Hazflo, Big Brad, FLUent, The Kush Administration, Just Jess; 9:30 p.m., $7. See indyweek.com.

SOUTHLAND BALLROOM: Smell the Glove; 10 p.m., $5.

STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: Yeaux Katz Trio; 6 p.m. Exit Glaciers, Ozymandias; 9 p.m.

THU, NOV 26 POUR HOUSE LOCAL BAND, LOCAL BEER: SINGER-SONGWRITER SHOWCASE One week removed from the final installment of the Local Band Local Beer series at Tir Na Nog, The Pour House picks up the Thursday night torch, albeit not yet weekly. This edition—the third annual Thanksgiving singer-songwriter showcase— features nine area songsmiths in solo and duo formats. Highlights Contributors Jim Allen (JA), Grayson Haver Currin (GC), Spencer Griffith (SG), Allison Hussey (AH), David Klein (DK), Jeff Klingman (JK), Jordan Lawrence (JL), Karlie Justus Marlowe (KM), Bryan C. Reed (BCR), Dan Ruccia (DR), Gary Suarez (GS), Eric Tullis (ET), Chris Vitiello (CV), Patrick Wall (PW)

include Caroline Mamoulides and co-founding Backslider Steve Howell’s sweetly harmonized twang, along with Fredi Scholtz’s distinct alt-pop and Cyrus Atkins’ low-fi, hooky fuzz. The Antique Hearts’ Zach Gregory, Tom Mackel and the duo of Evan Farkas and Nancy Shaw round out the bill. Free/8:30 p.m. —SG

FRI, NOV 27 BERKELEY CAFÉ: Dex Romweber; 9 p.m.

BEYÙ CAFFÈ JO GORE Jo Gore seems to like her men just like she likes her whiskey— that is, “Aged and Mellow,” as the song title goes. The phrase, coined by the early blues singer Esther Phillips, also describes Gore’s singing style. Like Phillips, Gore’s music takes sharp turns from genre to genre, alternative soul to swinging string jazz, her sophisticated and mature voice guiding it all. Look for Gore’s graceful familiarity on Beyù’s stage to leave you grateful during this post-Thanksgiving show. $10/8 & 10 p.m. —ET BLUE NOTE GRILL: Luxuriant Sedans; 9 p.m., $8. Duke Street Dogs; 6-8 p.m., free.

CAT’S CRADLE THE SWORD If you’ve forgotten about The Sword, the Austin band was a pivotal player at the heavy metal-indie rock crossroads about a decade ago, when the crew offered a sunbaked and surly answer to Canada’s Black Mountain. Stiff to a fault then, The Sword has grown less mighty over time; on the new High Country, the band seems content to retread classic rock tropes by putting the “thin” in Thin Lizzy and adding an unexpected “Z” to ZZ Top. The riffs are reverent. The singing is competent. The drums are agile. The moment is passed.

Royal Thunder opens. $17–$19/9 p.m. —GC

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) BENEFIT FOR OPEN HEMISPHERES Black Friday shopping spree stirring up some guilt? Do some

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

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ART OF NOISE: MAD SKILLZ & DJ LONNIE B SATURDAY, NOV. 28

CLUB EGO, RALEIGH— “You had the DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince fans, the DJs that used to sit in their room and transform and do the ‘Peter Piper’ routine, the people that only know him from getting thrown out of the house on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the people who are all about the Philly sound, the people who are just there for the hot Friday night party,” remembers Richmond emcee and songwriter Mad Skillz about his 13 years as DJ Jazzy Jeff’s hype man.

A few of those years constitute the ongoing web series Vinyl Destination, following Skillz and the rest of DJ Jazzy Jeff’s touring entourage on a global concert spree. “That was the first time I’d ever seen a DJ satisfy everybody in the room,” Skillz says.

Eventually and amicably, Skillz parted ways with Jazzy Jeff and found himself back at home in the company of another DJ and longtime friend, DJ Lonnie B of WCDX-FM. The pair’s strategy for their first Art of Noise party in 2012 was simple: “Let’s set up four turntables and just play the music that everybody loves,” remembers Lonnie B. “Skillz has always been a great emcee. His presence can always get a crowd into the music.” As soon as word spread around Richmond that the Art of Noise parties intended to delight Jay Z fans and Frankie Beverly and Maze lovers, the crowds grew from 80 to 1,200.

“This is the party where you get to hear all of it in one setting,” says Skillz. “I’m gonna be on the mic, and I’m gonna make you remember your college dorm. We’re restoring a feeling.”

In Raleigh, Skillz will do most of that from the front of the stage, chanting along with whatever Lonnie B throws on and beckoning the crowd to join in, for instance, on A Tribe Called Quest’s “Check the Rhime.”

“A lot of today’s music isn’t positive,” he says. “It’s more ‘turn up.’ Your chest is out a little bit more. Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder made you smile, made you feel happy.”

10 p.m., $10–$15, 4030 Capital Blvd., Raleigh, www.artofnoiseego.eventbrite.com. —Eric Tullis good at this benefit for new Orange County nonprofit Open Hemispheres, which provides free after-school programs meant to empower refugee and immigrant girls ages 9–11. New Familiars co-founder Eric-Scott Guthrie fronts The Grand Shell Game, a somewhat psychedelic sextet in which Guthrie’s songwriting takes off into cosmic Americana as often as it leans on laid-back rock. Durham’s The Dye Wells add gritty, dynamic fusions of funk, soul and rock, while Carrboro’s Parallel Lives add

modern twists to acoustic fare.

Selector B Steady and MikeD spin. $5–$15/8 p.m. —SG DEEP SOUTH: Mic The Prophet, Unlucky Sevens, Ryan Mullaney and Lodge McCammon; 9 p.m., $5.

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER GLEN HANSARD Glen Hansard first appeared as a musician onscreen in 1991’s The Commitments, a charming

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indie hit about an unlikely soul band in working-class Dublin. He made a bigger impression as a romantic lead in the naturalistic 2007 musical Once, winning a “best original song” Oscar for a ballad he brought to the production. Hansard was a real-life troubadour throughout, first in well-regarded ’90s folk-rock experimenters The Frames and then with Once co-star Markéta Irglová as The Swell Season.

He’s now a seasoned performer and stage-banter raconteur with a faithful fan base. His arrival sets up Once’s live run in Raleigh, which begins Dec. 1. The legendary and always delightful Richard Thompson opens. $30.50–$50.50/8 p.m. —JK IRREGARDLESS: Elmer Gibson; 6:30 p.m.

KINGS: Boulevards, T0W3RS, Zensofly; 9 p.m., $10–$12. See page 22.

THE KRAKEN ZEN FRISBEE, BLUE GREEN GODS, THE FONTANELLES To celebrate a year of ownership, Jody Kidney and Kirk Schmidt—the new proprietors of cheap-drinks-and-local-music outpost The Kraken—pull a few old favorites from the attic.

Neither Blue Green Gods nor Zen Frisbee attained the broad acclaim of their most famous North Carolina indie peers or successors. Still, their legacies remain willfully defiant reminders of just how outlandish and soul-awakening the stuff could get when it worried less about garnering streams than having a blast. The Fontanelles open. This should be a wonderfully weird party near the woods. Free/8 p.m. —GC

LINCOLN THEATRE HOLY GHOST TENT REVIVAL Since relocating to Asheville from Greensboro, Holy Ghost Tent Revival has expanded its list of collaborators and fleshed out its horn section. The septet isn’t the first band to employ horns to splash blue-eyed soul color onto rambunctious retro rock.

What differentiates Holy Ghost Tent Revival is an energetic zeal, a holdover from its days as a banjo-driven old-time revival outfit. The gusto imparts welcome oomph and warmth.

Rebekah Todd opens. $10/9 p.m. —PW LOCAL 506: Urban Soil, Dark Water Rising; 9 p.m., $7.

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL N.C. SYMPHONY: HOLIDAY POPS We have entered the Christmas Music Zone: Radio stations rotate every pop artist’s carol covers 24/7. Speakers in the ceiling over grocery store aisles blare “Jingle Bell Rock.” Animatronic elves and reindeer emit unintentionally foreboding electronic chimes. The tonic is live holiday music. The North Carolina Symphony teams with the North Carolina Master Chorale and special guest vocalists—as well as you and your family—to bring holiday music back to life with selections from The Polar Express and Frozen, plus annual sing-alongs. Baritone Alfred E. Sturgis and the aptly named sopranos Lisa Jolley and Jeanne Jolly join in, and Santa Claus hangs out in the lobby before the show. Bring a Soup-to-Go donation to support the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s BackPack Buddies program to help feed hungry children across the Triangle, and receive a $20-off coupon for a January symphony concert. The symphony reprises the show on Saturday at 3 p.m. $42–$72/7:30 p.m. —CV MOTORCO: STACKED Throwback Party; 9 p.m., $7–$10.

MYSTERY BREWING PUBLIC HOUSE: Christopher Leeland Sayles; 8-11 p.m., free.

PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: Hip Pocket; 8 p.m., $15.

POUR HOUSE HECTORINA During the past several years, Hectorina has often performed its 2011 debut in its entirety, transforming the ridiculous and exuberant space-rock opera Collywobble into an equally outlandish stage production. The band’s new self-titled effort shows Hectorina to be better when keeping things simple. Blitzing through Bowie-esque weirdness with garage rock intensity, it’s Hectorina’s most striking release to date. With Jack Carter & the Armory and Drunk on the Regs. $6/10 p.m. —JL SOUTHLAND BALLROOM: The Stegmonds; 9:30 p.m., $8–$10.

STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: It Was You; 7:30 p.m. DJ Luxe Posh; 10 p.m.

THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Elijah Fox-Peck Trio; 8 p.m.

INDYweek.com

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NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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BAR OPEN DAILY STARTING AT 4 fr 11/27 sa 11/28 su 11/29

919.821.1120 • 224 S. Blount St TH 11/26 LOCAL BAND LOCAL BEER SINGER/SONGWRITER THANKSGIVING SHOW

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JACK CARTER & THE ARMORY / DRUNK ON THE REGS THE FAMILY / C2 & THE BROTHERS REED / SOL FLO

STRAY OWLS

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DEAD GIRLS / ESSEX / MURO / WAILIN STORMS ROAR THE ENGINE FR 12/4 FOOTHILLS FREE FIRST FRIDAY FEATURING: SPIRITUAL REZ / DOWN BY FIVE SA 12/5 RUNAWAY GIN: A TRIBUTE TO PHISH SU 12/6 SCHOOL OF ROCK 2PM TU 12/8 WE 12/9 TH 12/10 FR 12/11

GRACE & TONY LOWLAND HUM / WILSON & LODGE CRANFORD HOLLOW COSMIC SUPERHEROS / THE PSUEDO COWBOYS 9TH WONDER & THE ART OF COOL PRESENT CARAMEL CITY: AL STRONG / HEATHER VICTORIA BLACK MASALA

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MO 11/30 @ CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM

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WE 12/2 @ CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM

RUN RIVER NORTH

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THE SKIDS W/ BAD CHECKS AND THE KREKTONES ($13/$15) TU 12/15 SAN FERMIN W/ SAM AMIDON ($15) WE 12/16 THE GET UP KIDS 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR W/ INTO IT. OVER IT., ROZWELL KID ($19.50/$23)

SU 12/6 THE ACADEMY IS...

12/31: NEW YEAR'S EVE SA 12/19 BOMBADIL PARTY WITH WILD FUR & W/ KINGSLEY FLOOD ($13/$15) CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM SKYLAR GUDASZ SA 1/16 ABBEY ROAD LIVE! -- 2 11/25: MARY JOHNSON ROCKERS 1/9: AU PAIR ($12) SHOWS ( 4 PM, 8:30 PM) AND THE SPARK W/PAT REEDY ($8/$10) 1/13: JUCIFER MO 1/18 SCOTT STAPP (LEAD SINGER 11/27:BENEFIT FOR "OPEN FROM CREED) ($22/$25) 1/22: DANGERMUFFIN W/BAKED HEMISPHERES" W/ THE GRAND GOODS ($10/$12) FR 1/22 AARON CARTER SHELL GAME, THE DYE WELLS, ($15/$17) 1/23: LARRY CAMPBELL & TERESA PARALLEL LIVES, DJ MIKE D & WILLIAMS ($17/$20) SELECTOR B STEADY SA 1/23 PHIL COOK W/ THE DEAD ($5-$15 DONATION) TONGUES ($12/$15) 1/27: JULIEN BAKER 11/28: COLOSSUS ($10; ON SALE 11/20) WE 1/27 KEYS N KRATES W/ W/DEMON EYE, MAKE ($8) 1/29: JON STICKLEY TRIO STOOKI SOUND, JESSE SLAYTER 11/30: ALL THEM WITCHES W/NEW ($20/$22) 2/7: THE PINES MADRID ($10) TH 1/28 YONDER MOUNTAIN 2/13: HEY MARSEILLES 12/2: RUN RIVER NORTH ($10) STRING BAND **($25) ($12/$14; ON SALE 11/20) 12/6: ATTALUS, GREAVER, FS ($8) SU 1/29 COSMIC CHARLIE 2/21: HONEYHONEY ($15) PERFORMING "WORKINGMAN'S 12/7: CAS HALEY W/COLIN HAUSER 2/22: THE SOFT MOON ($10/$12) DEAD" ($10/$12) ($12/$15) 3/11: PORCHES / ALEX G 12/8: ENERGY RELEASE PARTY MO 1/30 REV HORTON HEAT, W/YOUR FRIEND ($13/$15) W/ FLESH WOUNDS, NATURAL UNKNOWN HINSON, NASHVILLE PUSSY CAUSES, DOOM ASYLUM, THE ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) WE 2/3: LOW **($20) BUDDYSHIP ($5) 12/12: DELTA RAE'S WINTER ACOUSTIC FR 2/12 MUTEMATH ** UT SOLD O TOUR W/ PENNY AND SPARROW ($23/$25) 12/9-10-11: RED CLAY RAMBLERS & THE COASTAL COHORTS TH 3/3 KURT VILE & THE MEMORIAL HALL (UNC-CH) VIOLATORS ($20) 12/12: MARTI JONES & DON 12/12: STEEP CANYON RANGERS MO 3/28 JUNIOR BOYS DIXON ($15/$18) AND JERRY DOUGLAS W/JESSY LANZA, BORYS ($15/$17) 12/13: DON DIXON'S MEDICARE CARD CAROLINA THEATRE (DURHAM) TH 3/31 G LOVE AND BIRTHDAY BASH 2/25, 2016: JOSH RITTER & THE ROYAL SPECIAL SAUCE ** FEATURING ME & DIXON! CITY BAND ($25 / $30; ON SALE 11/27) 12/15: MELISSA FERRICK**($18/$20) DPAC (DURHAM): SA 4/2 DAUGHTER 12/18: WYATT EASTERLING ($16/$18) 11/27: GLEN HANSARD W/ SPECIAL W/LAURELYN DOSSETT ($20) SA 4/9 THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS GUEST RICHARD THOMPSON 12/19: RED COLLAR, TEMPERANCE **($23/$25) HAW RIVER BALLROOM LEAGUE, HAMMER NO MORE THE MO 4/18 THAO & THE GET 12/19: CHATHAM COUNTY LINE: FINGERS ($10) DOWN STAY DOWN ($15/$17) ELECTRIC HOLIDAY TOUR 12/21: 15TH BIG FAT GAP TH 4/28 POLICA W/ MOTHXR 1/16: BRIAN FALLON AND THE HOLIDAY HOMECOMING ($16/$18) CROWES W/ CORY BRANAN

CATSCRADLE.COM ★ 919.967.9053 ★ 300 E. MAIN STREET ★ CARRBORO **Asterisks denote advance tickets @ schoolkids records in raleigh, cd alley in chapel hill order tix online at ticketfly.com ★ we serve carolina brewery beer on tap! ★ we are a non-smoking club

4/3: ANGEL OLSEN ($17/$20)

THE RITZ (RALEIGH) 1/19:: RATATAT

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INDYweek.com TOM CARTER

SAT, NOV 28

CAROLINA THEATRE RONNIE MILSAP In the ’70s and ’80s, Ronnie Milsap was one of the biggest things in Nashville, having been one of the first to figure out how to take a blend of country twang and pop balladry to the top of the charts. Today, country-pop crossovers are a matter of course, but they’re far removed from the kind of pop, soul and Americana amalgams Milsap is still out there slinging at 72. Risa Binder opens. $37–$130/8 p.m. —JA THE CARY THEATER: Post Turkey Day Benefit Jam; 8 p.m., $20.

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Colossus, Demon Eye, MAKE; 9 p.m., $8. See page 39.

THE CAVE THE WOOLLY BUSHMEN Bands like The Trashmen, The Sonics and The Kingsmen banged out big, dumb, loud party music that was raw, ragged and fun. With skill, spark and ferocity, the boogie-down workouts of Orlando trio The Woolly Bushmen qualify as rightful descendants. The knockout punch is bandleader Simon Palombi’s raunchy “96 Tears” organ tone.

This trio’s reckless rock ‘n’ roll is entrancing in its audacity and captivating in its conviction—not entirely unlike kindred spirit Dex Romweber. With The Delusionaires and Deadly Lo-Fi. $5/9 p.m. —PW DEEP SOUTH: ARTiculate; 9 p.m., $8–$10.

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TOM CARTER | MONDAY, NOV. 30

THE PINHOOK, DURHAM—Instrumental solo guitar albums are often predestined to the domain of the mannerly. Some solitary picker pays tribute to a pastoral scene, the melody rippling in a fashion meant to suggest a memory or unfurling methodically in order to sketch an unspoken narrative. Blues and folk idioms fold into a polite, warm whole, with dissonance used only to express a particularly rough patch or hard time.

This stereotype exists for a reason, of course, but like most reductions, it’s not entirely accurate. From Derek Bailey and Mary Halvorson to Six Organs of Admittance and Sir Richard Bishop, many such soloists twist scraps of jazz, noise, electronics and Middle Eastern forms into their pieces, pushing them firmly off NPR’s idyllic back porch. Few do this better than Tom Carter, co-founder of New Weird America paragons Charalambides and a guitarist with an imagination rivaled only by his skill set.

Take the new Long Time Underground, issued in October by the Triad-based Three Lobed Recordings. There are some serene moments here. The arching “Westtown Shuffle,” for instance, sticks to the core of a flickering, blues-based riff even as its tone sails off into an acidic flight of fancy. And the closing beauty, “Colors for N,” is a blissful farewell, distortion melting away as each note hangs in the air. But the most electrifying turns come when Carter’s guitar tone sounds little like a guitar tone; the microtonal quakes in the second half of the brilliant 22-minute opener, “August Is All,” sound both like synthesizer squeals and bagpipe bleats. During “Beauty Draws the Seed,” he sometimes conjures, all at once, the down tempo of doom metal, the piercing solos of Yngwie Malmsteen and the ecstatic beats-and-leads of Middle Eastern dabke.

Carter turns in one of the year’s great solo guitar records by refusing to be confined by the expectations of the genre. With Daniel Bachman.

9 p.m., $7, 117 W. Main St., Durham, 919-667-1100, www.thepinhook.com. —Grayson Haver Currin

BERKELEY CAFÉ: Bad Checks; 9 p.m.

BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Stanley Baird; 8 & 10 p.m., $10.

BLUE NOTE GRILL: The Beauty Operators; 8 p.m., $8.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THREE LOBED RECORDINGS

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KINGS SURFER BLOOD Florida’s Surfer Blood broke out five years back by performing surf rock with the enthusiastic concision of indie pop. Singer John Paul Pitts’ preppy, peppy demeanor bobbed on top. The band’s had a particularly rough year. Guitarist Thomas Fekete was diagnosed with a rare cancer. Thieves broke into their van, swiping both gear and cash that had been raised for treatment. The indie rock community rallied support, with luminaries like Guided by Voices, Yo La Tengo and Yoko Ono contributing unreleased tracks or signed memorabilia for an auction. In music news, the band released

1000 Palms, a sweet, samey return and their first without a major label. The Lighthouse and the Whaler, plus Wool, opens. $12/9 p.m. —JK THE KRAKEN: Triple Fret; 9 p.m.

LINCOLN THEATRE: Up the Irons, Still of the Night; 8 p.m., $10.

LOCAL 506 MUST BE THE HOLY GHOST As Must Be the Holy Ghost, Winston-Salem’s Jared Draughon expertly blends analog and digital psychedelia. His songs develop glacially into widescreen soundscapes that seem

boundless and borderless. But his music, guided by layered vocal loops, is too emotionally engaging to be purely ambient.

Live, Draughon teams with Evan Hawkins, who provides visual accompaniment by using an old-school overhead projector and brilliantly pigmented liquids.

He washes Draughon’s one-man symphonies in swirling, aqueous colors. With Slowriter and Hundredftfaces. $7/9 p.m. —PW MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: N.C. Symphony: Holiday Pops; 3 p.m., $42–$72. See Nov. 27 listing.

THE PINHOOK: Language Arts, Drake Murphy, Blanko Basnet; 10 p.m., $10–$12. See page 39.

PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: La Familie Cissokho; 8 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: The Family, C2 & The Brothers Reed, Sol Flo; 9 p.m., $5–$7.

THE RITZ MONICA The Lil Wayne-assisted radio hit “Just Right For Me” served some redemption for the song’s producer, Polow da Don, and its centerpiece, adored Atlanta R&B singer Monica. Polow may have gotten away with producing Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda,” but its mainstream fruits hung way too low for his otherwise tasteful reputation. Meanwhile, during her last three albums, Monica’s shortcomings stemmed from her

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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own lack of mainstream viability.

Even if this single is all the bang we get from her upcoming Code Red, we should be happy that the girl-next-door diva remains relevant after all these years.

Rico Love opens. $29.50/8 p.m.

—ET SOUTHLAND BALLROOM: Dear Desolate, Headfirst For Halos, Valleys, Friends As Enemies, Nailgun, Magnolia; 6:30 p.m., $10–$12.

STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: Twilighter; 8 p.m. DJ Petey Green; 10 p.m.

SUN, NOV 29 DEEP SOUTH: Eleveneven, Invaluable, Pink Drinks; 8 p.m., $6.

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER STRAIGHT NO CHASER Whether purveyed by the Ink Spots or Bobby McFerrin, vocal approximations of the sound of musical instruments often approach shtick. Yet for a genre that owes a deep debt to the barbershop quartet tradition, a cappella has shed its uncool roots with a vengeance. So has Straight No Chaser, a 10-member choral group that originated at Indiana University nearly two decades ago. The group’s latest record, The New Old Fashioned, is a succinct summation of the ensemble’s ethos. It includes covers of songs by Dylan and Frankie Valli after a previous foray into hits by the likes of Adele and Oasis. $47.50/7:30 p.m. —DK

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LOCAL 506 IVADELL After dealing in metalcore punishment with Darkentries, a band that was ascending when it receded into inactivity last year, the core trio behind South Carolina’s Ivadell looked to nurture a love for emotional posthardcore. Their effort pays off on Maybe Tomorrow, a full-length debut that balances choruses so sweet that they validate the band’s professed debt to Third Eye Blind with walls of distortion and swirling harmonies. With Look a Ghost and Snatch the Snail. $7/9 p.m. —JL NORTHWOOD HIGH SCHOOL: African Children’s Choir; 4 p.m., $12.50–$25.

PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: John Westmoreland; 11:30 a.m.

POUR HOUSE STRAY OWLS Sometimes things get weird in the country. Consider Stray Owls, a Mebane trio that twists familiar folk-rock forms in a way that suggests this band takes a lot of time to ponder those shapes. Neil Young’s spacious vistas dissolve into waves of psychedelic distortion, sped along by shape-shifting rhythms.

Stray Owls maintain a strong melodic foundation to support this scatterbrained range of styles.

With Them Damn Bruners and Midnite Sun. $6–$7/9 p.m. —JL QUAIL RIDGE BOOKS: Mishpacha; 2 p.m.

THE RITZ CURREN$Y Now that the cloud rap trend has been quietly put to rest, what does one of its most notable proponents do? Wiz Khalifa’s turn toward the masses paid off, so it comes as no surprise that Curren$y would team with his old stoner buddy for the somewhat uncharacteristic, 808 Mafia-produced “Winning.” Lyrically, Curren$y shifts to more accessible themes of professional jealousy while celebrating in the only way he knows how. Smoking trees never goes out of style in hip-hop, so no matter how Curren$y’s next album sounds,

he’ll always have that comfy beanbag chair. $23/8 p.m. —GS

NIK TURNER

SLIM’S: Swings, Less Western, SMLH; 8 p.m., $5.

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

MON, NOV 30 CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) ALL THEM WITCHES More like All Them Heshers. All Them Witches can get heavy with the best of ’em, with rolling drums adding urgency to blown-out guitars. Witness the eight-and-a-half-minute “El Centro,” from the band’s recent Dying Surfer Meets His Maker, which deploys Sleep’s headnodding plod and bong-haze solos. It’s fitting that the band recorded Surfer in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, the setting of Cormac McCarthy’s rural-horror masterpiece Child of God. The Nashville quartet is as heady as it is heavy, bringing a wide sonic palette— including transcendental folk vamps and Dead-ish grooves— into jams that help them move beyond occult neo-psych. New Madrid opens. $10/9 p.m. —PW THE PINHOOK: Tom Carter, Daniel Bachman; 9 p.m., $7. See box, page 43.

THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Sessions at the Shed with Ernest Turner; 8 p.m., $5.

TUE, DEC 1 THE CAVE RYAN JOHNSON In the mid-’70s, when Dylan started smoking again, his voice was a revelation, boasting a high, piercing smoothness that was just starting to fray at the edges.

It reinforced his deep desperation on Blood on the Tracks and Desire. Raleigh’s Ryan Johnson has such a voice, and it’s a perfect fit for songs that are full of regret and hope. He searches for reasons to believe amid persistent disappointment. His songs don’t match Dylan’s standouts, but that voice is a great place to start. With Old Man Rinken. $3/9 p.m. —JL DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke Chorale Christmas Concert; 7 p.m., one non-perishable food item.

MOTORCO RIVERS MONROE Despite headliner Rivers Monroe’s Warped Tour credentials,

PHOTO COURTESY OF GLASS ONYON PR

makes this a fine chance to check out something new. Ozymandias, for instance, is a folk-leaning Durham crew that anchors Kaitlin Bailey’s glowing vocals with contemplative acoustic hooks.

Delicate electric touches and patient rhythms grace the songs.

With Barren Graves and Keelan Donovan. Free/3 p.m. —JL

NIK TURNER’S HAWKWIND TUESDAY, DEC. 1

THE POUR HOUSE, RALEIGH—During Hawkwind’s ’70s heyday, the collective of astral explorers pushed flowerpower psychedelia further into space than anyone else. With bold guitar, swooping synthesizers and high-flying Mellotron sounds, Hawkwind pursued sci-fi electronics, mesmerizing psy-fi grooves, earthbound jamming and cerebral poetry. They crossed paths with wispy folk, heavy acid rock, Chuck Berry’s proto-rock and The Moody Blues’ soft-prog without sounding like any of it.

Saxophonist, flautist and vocalist Nik Turner co-founded the proto-prog space-rock band in 1969. Despite writing “Brainstorm,” he’s also been booted by fellow founder Dave Brock twice—once in 1976 and again in 1984 after rejoining in 1982. Both Turner and Brock still use the Hawkwind name, but where the Brock-led Hawkwind has mostly put the spaceship on autopilot, Turner’s version at least tries to keep the deepthrobbing, distant-sailing sound moving forward.

Nik Turner’s Hawkwind is, technically, an outcropping of Space Ritual, the band he started after legal woes threatened to squash his endeavor entirely. Many of its players are former Hawkwind members, and the band plays many old Hawkwind numbers. They also indulge his discursive solo oeuvre, which has found the enigmatic sax man spouting gnomic nonsense over everything from eerily sacred flute warblings to psychedelic Latin funk.

Hawkwind’s best work infused English folk tropes with an acid haze. Turner’s take on the material is exponentially more esoteric, constantly bouncing between jazz, blues and hard rock rather than pulling from all at once. Space Fusion Odyssey, Turner’s latest opus of cheerful insanity, is a fascinating hybrid of free jazz and fluid psychedelic rock. Not far removed from Sun Ra’s interstellar antics, it’s by turns confounding and stimulating. Live, Turner’s Hawkwind can be hit and miss, too; the band’s disappointing 2014 Hopscotch performance was certainly the latter. Still, how often do you get the chance to be launched into orbit by an original astronaut? 8:30 p.m., $12–$15, 224 S. Blount St., Raleigh, 919-821-1120, www.the-pour-house.com. —Patrick Wall

• NOVEMBER 25, 2015 •

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it’s easy to imagine this bill of impossibly upbeat bands missing a chunk of its audience tonight by starting so close to bedtime.

The Philadelphia pop-punk quintet—emphasis on the former, as it’s much better suited for Five Seconds of Summer fans than those who prefer the more aggressive Warped fare—loads its yearning ditties with nerdy references. Lineup Atlantic’s squeaky clean singles earned the recently formed duo a direct support slot on Aaron Carter’s last tour.

Statues and Stories rewind to Dashboard Confessional’s early days of melodramatic acoustic strummer bummers. $10/8 p.m. —SG

ences of her West Virginia roots. $27–$79/8 p.m. —KM

PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: Kevin Michael Thompson; 6:30 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: Nik Turner’s Hawkwind, Hedersleben; 8:30 p.m., $12–$15. See box, this page.

DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke Symphony Orchestra; 8 p.m., free.

DUKE’S REYNOLDS INDUSTRIES THEATER: Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets; 8 p.m., $10–$48. See page 39.

SLIM’S FLESH WOUNDS At the outset, the Carrboro trio Flesh Wounds injected garage rock grooves with punk fury. But as the band has found its footing and built an audience, the group has leaned harder into feral proto-hardcore. April’s In the Mouth is a frenzied flurry of brisk songs, driven by sharp, straightforward drumming, scrappy guitars and frontman Montgomery Morris’ slurred shouts. Songs like “Magazines” mutate the old groove into a sneering stagger, while shorter cuts like “Joy Division Killed My Boner” go for a bullish ground-and-pound. Given Flesh Wounds’ stylistic evolution, its slot on this bill—headlining over the scrappy punk rage of Baltimore’s Sick Thoughts and the jagged hooks of Raleigh’s No Love—makes perfect sense. $5/9 p.m. —BCR

WED, DEC 2 CAROLINA THEATRE KATHY MATTEA Eighteen wheels, a dozen roses and a partridge in a pear tree: Kathy Mattea brings her Songs of the Season tour to Durham, scrapping syrupy seasonal sheen for the subtle elegance that kept her on top of the country charts in the ’80s and ’90s. Mattea has a lot of holiday material thanks to Good News, recorded in her commercial heyday in 1993, and 2003’s Joy for Christmas Day. The former even earned Mattea her second Grammy Award, showcasing the gospel influ-

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) RUN RIVER NORTH Californian sextet Run River North is yet another band that toes the line between independent and major-label music worlds. The group’s pop-rock is pleasant and polished, free of potential abrasion. At the same time, they don’t have the big leagues’ requisite super-shine or eagerness, opting for cooler, mellow guitar licks that aren’t quite Top 40-friendly. $10/9 p.m. —AH

POUR HOUSE CYHI THE PRINCE Now that G.O.O.D. Music’s Kanye West has supposedly promoted Pusha T to imprint president, where does that leave the label’s poor metaphor rap majesty, Cyhi The Prynce? Surely not in Kanye’s good graces, after lines from “Elephant in the Room” took aim at Yeezy: “I’m riding with a gun next to me and it sounds like a little boy playing with a drum set.” Satire? Fiction? A slight exaggeration? You’re still fired, Cyhi. Rome Jeterr, Nyck Newz and Rasta B open. $11–$25/9:30 p.m. —ET STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: Yeaux Katz Trio; 6 p.m.

UNC’S KENAN MUSIC BUILDING MIHO HAZAMA AND BRAD LINDE To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, composer/arranger Miho Hazama and saxophonist Brad Linde have re-orchestrated the album for a 14-piece big band. Hatama is known for inventive orchestrations that possess a post-Maria Schneider impressionism. And with Jon Irabagon and Brian Settles in the saxophone section, you can expect some sonic fireworks, too. Originally scheduled for The ArtsCenter, the show has moved to UNC’s Kenan Music Building. $10–$15/7:30 p.m. —DR

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CARY ARTS CENTER: Thru

Galleries ONGOING ARTSOURCE FINE ART GALLERY: Thru Dec 31:

ArtSource 25th Year Celebration, James P. Kerr. 4351-107 The Circle at North Hills St, Raleigh. 919-7879533, artsource-raleigh.com.

BOND PARK COMMUNITY CENTER: Thru Dec 31: A View of

My Favorite Things, work by Jane Hopkins. 150 Metro Park Dr, Cary.

919-462-3970, www.townofcary.org.

BULL CITY ARTS COLLABORATIVE: UPFRONT GALLERY: Thru Dec 25: Penland

School Inspired Pottery, Peter Dugan. 401-B1 Foster St, Durham.

919-949-4847, bullcityarts.org.

CAPTAIN JAMES & EMMA HOLT WHITE HOUSE: Thru Dec

24: Christmas at Captain White’s, multimedia art by various artists.

213 S Main St, Graham.

Jan 24, 2016: Cary Photographic Artists. — Thru Dec 2: Red Ribbon Student Poster Contest. 101 Dry Ave. 919-469-4069, www. townofcary.org.

THE COTTON COMPANY: Thru Dec 6: Richard Tardell. 306 S White St, Wake Forest. 919-570-0087, www.thecottoncompany.net.

INDYPICK CRAVEN ALLEN GALLERY: Thru Jan 9, 2016:

Moving Pictures/Figure and Forest, work by Dan Gottlieb. — Thru Jan 9, 2016: Animal, Vegetable, Mandible, work by Iris Gottlieb.

1106 1/2 Broad St, Durham. 919286-4837, cravenallengallery.com.

INDYPICK DUKE CENTER FOR DOCUMENTARY STUDIES: Thru Feb 27, 2016:

South Side, photos and writings

by Jon Lowenstein. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Aunties: The Seven Summers of Alevtina and Ludmila, photographs by Nadia Sablin. 1317 W Pettigrew St, Durham. 919-6603663, www.cdsporch.org.

DUKE RUBENSTEIN LIBRARY: Thru Dec 13:

•

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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46

“HALF ARCH CHAIRS”

BY ELSA HOFFMAN

Dreamers and Dissenters, books, manuscripts, photographs, recordings and artifacts that document human aspirations.

Free. — Thru Nov 30: American Beginnings, maps, texts, and historical documents from the Rubenstein Library, including the Bay Psalm Book. Free. 411 Chapel Drive, Durham. 919-660-5822.

DURHAM ARTS COUNCIL:

Thru Jan 3, 2016: I Am Quixote - Yo Soy Quijote, work by North Carolina artists celebrating the 400th anniversary of El Quixote. — Thru Dec 26: Illustrations for the Volcano Book, illustrations from I Built My House on a Volcano by Stacye Leanza. 120 Morris St. 919560-2787, www.durhamarts.org.

DURHAM CONVENTION CENTER: Thru Apr 14, 2016: I Want

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

ENO GALLERY: Thru Jan 15, 2016: Fine Southern Clay, ceramics and clay by Southern artists. 100 S Churton St, Hillsborough. 919-8831415, enogallery.net.

ERUUF ART GALLERY: Thru Dec 10: Images of Outer Bans, photos by Peter Aiken. 4907 Garrett Rd, Durham. 919-4892575, www.eruuf.org.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LINDA WINSKI PHOTOGRAPHY

visualarts

INDYweek.com

VISUAL ART

PHOTO COURTESY OF FRANK GALLERY

INTERPRETATIONS IN FURNITURE | FRIDAY, NOV. 27, DURHAM

“Poppy” by Sudie Rakusin is on view in 3 Artists, 3 Worlds at FRANK Gallery through Dec. 6.

THE CARRACK MODERN ART—Four local carpenters and builders who skirt the line between furniture and fine art, and who share a Chapel Hill woodshop, decided to give one another a challenge. They would each create an original piece with four features: a flat surface to place things on, somewhere to sit, an enclosure for “artifacts” and a light source. (If, like me, you just pictured an old-fashioned schoolhouse desk with a reading lamp, congratulations: You are also not a creative furniture thinker.) Arranged in the Carrack like an art installation rather than a showroom display, the pieces demonstrate the refined craft of Elsa Hoffman, Scott Howell, Evan Berding and Meredith Hart at the dovetail where function meets fancy. See what they dreamed up Nov. 24–Dec. 5 and catch the artists’ talk at 7 p.m Dec. 4. 6 p.m., free, 111 W. Parrish St., Durham, 704-213-6666, www.thecarrack.org. —Brian Howe

FLANDERS GALLERY:

Thru Dec 8: A Changeable and Unpredictable Nature, work by Elizabeth Alexander. 505 S Blount St, Raleigh. 919-757-9533, www. flandersartgallery.com.

FRANK GALLERY: Thru Dec 6: 3 Artists, 3 Worlds, works by Sudie Rakusin, Michele Maynard and

Erik Haagensen. 109 E Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-636-4135, www. frankisart.com.

LITMUS GALLERY: Thru Dec

4: Anything Goes, multimedia works by 40 different artists. 312 W Cabarrus St, Raleigh. 919-5713605, www.litmusgallery.com.

LITTLE ART GALLERY & CRAFT COLLECTION: Thru

Dec 31: The Classics, work by Stephen White. 432 Daniels St, Raleigh. 919-890-4111, littleartgalleryandcraft.com.

NATIONAL HUMANITIES CENTER: Thru Dec 8:

Continuum, paintings by Anne

INDYweek.com Gregory. 7 Alexander Dr, Durham. 919-549-0661, www. nationalhumanitiescenter.org.

NATURE ART GALLERY:

Thru Nov 29: The Nature Series, paintings by Ellen Gamble. 11 W Jones St, Raleigh. 919-733-7450 x369, www.naturalsciences.org.

NC CRAFTS GALLERY:

Thru Nov 30: Alicia Stemper, photographs of Carrboro. 212 W Main St, Carrboro. 919-942-4048, www.nccraftsgallery.com.

NCSU CAMPUS: DH HILL LIBRARY: Thru Jan 4, 2016: Life’s

Chapel Hill. 919-962-2015, art. unc.edu.

Chapel Hill. 919-843-1611, www. ackland.org.

UNC CAMPUS: WILSON SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY: Thru Jan 10, 2016:

CAM RALEIGH: Thru Jan 3, 2016: The Imaginary Architecture of Love, mural by Sarah Cain.

409 W Martin St. 919-261-5920, camraleigh.org.

Chronicles of Empire: Spain in the Americas, featuring more than 50 early printed volumes from UNC’s Rare Book Collection. 201 South Rd, Chapel Hill. www.lib.unc.edu/wilson.

VISUAL ART EXCHANGE:

Thru Dec 13: Shelter, work by Leila Ehtesham. 309 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-828-7834, www. visualartexchange.org.

Little Dramas: Puppets, Proxies, and Spirits. 2 Broughton Dr, Raleigh. 919515-3364, www.lib.ncsu.edu.

PAGE-WALKER ARTS & HISTORY CENTER: Thru Jan 2,

2016: Fine Arts League of Cary’s Annual Member Exhibition. — Thru Jan 2, 2016: Functional Art Pottery, work by Kenneth Neilsen. 119 Ambassador Loop, Cary. 919-460-4963, www. friendsofpagewalker.org.

PLEIADES GALLERY: Thru

Dec 6: Creation, work by member artists about diverse creative processes. Free. 109 E Chapel Hill St, Durham. 919-797-2706, www.

PleiadesArtDurham.com.

Art Related

THE EL QUIXOTE FESTIVAL:

Thru Apr 23, 2016: art exhibits, performances and more in various locations celebrating Don Quixote.

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

HOLIDAY HANDMADE POPUP MARKET: Sat, Nov 28, 9

am-1 p.m.: Perch Studios, 204 W Main Street, Carrboro. 919-2605313, www.perchstudios.net.

SPECTRE ARTS: Thru Dec 4: Gnaw Dude, new works on paper

by Edward Max Fendley. 1004 Morning Glory Ave, Durham. 919213-1441, www.spectrearts.org.

THROUGH THIS LENS:

Thru Jan 9, 2016: Industrial Blues, photographs by Gunther Cartwright. — Thru Jan 9, 2016: Trees, photographs by JJ Raia. 303 E Chapel Hill St, Durham. 919-6870250, www.throughthislens.com.

TIPPING PAINT GALLERY:

Thru Nov 28: Sweet Potatoes & Beaujolais Nouveau. free. 311 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-928-5279, www.tippingpaintgallery.com.

TYNDALL GALLERIES: Thru Dec 31: Lynn Boggess, new landscape paintings. 201 S Estes Dr, Chapel Hill. 919-942-2290, www.tyndallgalleries.com.

UMSTEAD HOTEL & SPA:

Thru Dec 31: Orr Ambrose. 100 Woodland Pond, Cary. 919-4474000, theumstead.com.

INDYPICK UNC CAMPUS: HANES ART CENTER: Thru

Dec 11: Eureka!, new works

by UNC-Chapel Hill MFA in Art alumni, curated by Jina Valentine, in the John and June Allcott Gallery. 101C E Cameron Ave,

Thru Sep 18, 2016: The New Galleries: A Collection Come to Light. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Reality of My Surroundings: The Contemporary Collection. — Thru Jan 10, 2016: Richard Mosse: The Enclave. — Thursdays, 5-9 p.m.: Free Thursday Nights, Admission is free to all. 2001 Campus Dr, Durham. 919-684-5135, nasher. duke.edu.

NC MUSEUM OF ART: Thru

Mar 20, 2016: Chisel and Forge: Works by Peter Oakley and Elizabeth Brim. — Thru Jan 17, 2016: Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester and the Creative Mind.

— Thru Jan 31, 2016: Robin Rhode Video Installations. — Thru Jan 17, 2016: The Worlds of M. C. Escher: Nature, Science, and Imagination.

2110 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh. Info 919-839-6262, tickets 919-7155923, www.ncartmuseum.org.

NC MUSEUM OF HISTORY:

THE SCRAP EXCHANGE:

Thru Dec 12: Pauli Murray: Imp, Crusader, Dude, Priest, exhibit exploring the life and legacy of human rights activist Pauli Murray. 2050 Chapel Hill Road, Durham. 919-688-6960, www. scrapexchange.org.

NASHER MUSEUM OF ART:

Museums

ACKLAND ART MUSEUM:

Thru Jan 3, 2016: Testing Testing, survey of paintings and sculpture since 1960. — Last Sundays, 2-4 p.m.: Family Day, museum tour, story time, activities at creation station, scavenger hunts in the galleries. Free. 101 S Columbia St,

Thru Jun 19, 2016: Treasures of Carolina: Stories from the State Archives, public records and private archival materials from the state archives. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Hey America!: Eastern North Carolina and the Birth of Funk. — Thru Jul 10, 2016: North Carolina’s Favorite Son: Billy Graham and His Remarkable Journey of Faith. 5 E Edenton St, Raleigh. 919-807-7900, www.ncmuseumofhistory.org.

Saturdays, 10:30 p.m.: Anything Goes Late Show. free. 861 W Morgan St, Raleigh. 919-828-5233, www.goodnightscomedy.com.

LONDON BRIDGE PUB: Fourth Thursdays, 8:30 p.m.: Under the Bridge Comedy Night Showcase.

110 E Hargett St, Raleigh. 919-8335599, thelondonbridgepub.com.

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

Theater OPENING INDYPICK

ONCE: Tue, Dec 1,

7:30 p.m., Wed, Dec 2, 7:30 p.m.: $25–$90. Memorial Auditorium, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER: Fri, Nov 27, 2 p.m.,

Sat, Nov 28, 11 a.m. & 2 p.m., Sun, Nov 29, 11 a.m. & 2 p.m.: $23–$55.

Fletcher Opera Theater, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

INDYPICK

THE SOUND OF

MUSIC: Tue, Dec 1, 7:30 p.m.,

•

Wed, Dec 2, 7:30 p.m., Thu, Dec 3, 7:30 p.m., Fri, Dec 4, 8 p.m., Sat, Dec 5, 2 & 8 p.m. & Sun, Dec 6, 1 & 6:30 p.m.: $30–$145. Durham Performing Arts Center, 123 Vivian St. Info 919-688-3722, Tickets 919680-2787, dpacnc.com. See p. 39.

ONGOING INDYPICK PETER AND THE STARCATCHER: Tuesdays-

Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Thru Dec 12: $15–$44. UNC Campus: Paul Green Theatre, 120 Country Club Rd, Chapel Hill. 919-962-7529, www.playmakersrep.org. See review, p. 34.

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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Visions Retreat Center, 3717 Murphy School Rd, Durham. 919616-2190, www.sharedvisions.org.

SUNDAY SALSA SOCIAL:

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

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

Triangle Dance Studio, 2603 S Miami Blvd, Durham.

TRIANGLE COUNTRY DANCERS CONTRA DANCE:

Fri, Nov 27, 8 p.m.: $8–$10.

Reality Center, 916 Lamond Ave, Durham. 919-688-7776, www. realityministriesinc.org.

TRIANGLE FOLK DANCERS:

Dance PA R T I C I PATO RY CIMARRON LATIN NIGHT: Last Fridays: Salsa, merengue, bachata & reggaeton with DJ David Dice.

Proceeds benefit enCOURAGE! Durham youth program. $5–$10.

Saucy Crab Restaurant, 4020 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd, Durham.

DURHAM DANCE WAVE:

Mondays, 7:30-9 p.m.: $7. www. durhamdancewave.com. The Murphey School at the Shared

Wednesdays, 7:30-10 p.m.: Recreational international folk dancing. Lesson at 7:45 p.m.. $3.

Beth El Synagogue, 1004 Watts St, Durham. 919-682-1238, www. betheldurham.org.

CIMARRON LATIN NIGHT: Last Fridays, 10 p.m.: $5–$10. 4020 Lounge, 4020 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd, Durham.

TRIANGLE SINGLES DANCE CLUB: Sat, Nov 28: Alcohol-free 50+ singles social club. $5–$8.

Northbrook Country Club, 4905 North Hills Dr, Raleigh.

performance Peace St, Raleigh. 919-829-0822, comedyworx.com.

Comedy

DSI COMEDY THEATER:

7:30-10 p.m.: Blackjack Comedy Night. Free. 1053 E. Whitaker Mill Rd., Raleigh. 919-424-7533.

Fridays, 10 p.m.: Mister Diplomat.

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

COMEDYWORX THEATRE:

FLEX NIGHTCLUB: Thursdays,

BLACKJACK BREWING COMPANY: Every third Wednesday,

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

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

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

GOODNIGHTS COMEDY CLUB / THE GRILLE AT GOODNIGHTS: Tue, Dec 1, 8

p.m.: Clean Open Mic. $5–$13. — Wed, Dec 2, 8 p.m., Thu, Dec 3, 7:30 p.m. & Fri, Dec 4, 7:30 & 10 p.m.: Orny Adams. $15–$28. —

PHOTO COURTESY OF BROADWAY SERIES SOUTH

THEATER | ONCE | TUESDAY, DEC. 1–SUNDAY, DEC. 6, RALEIGH RALEIGH MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM—One of last season’s most charming, moving touring musicals returns to the region this week courtesy of Broadway Series South. Unexpected bonus: The same lead actors who wowed us on Once’s first go-round are still in place. Stuart Ward and Dani de Waal’s chemistry is as delicate as the nuances explored by a 13-piece Irish folk orchestra in a production where the performers onstage double as the band. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová’s Tony Award-winning score probes the relationship that unfolds between a Dublin busker about to give up on his dreams and the enigmatic Czech immigrant and pianist who intervenes. Get there early for the pre-show Celtic jam—it’s worth the admission price by itself. 7:30 p.m. Tues.–Sun.; 2 p.m. Sat.–Sun., $25–$105, 2 E. South St., Raleigh, 919-996-8700, www.dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. —Byron Woods

Literary Related

7-STORIES: THANKS, BUT NO THANKS: Sun,

Nov 29, 7:07 p.m.: $5.

Kings, 14 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-833-1091, www.kingsbarcade.com.

Readings & Signings

CITY SOUL CAFE POETRY & SPOKEN WORD OPEN MIC:

INDYPICK ALEXANDER WOLFF: Wed, Dec 2, 12:30

p.m.: with The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama. UNC Campus: Bull’s Head Bookshop, 207 South Rd, Chapel Hill. 919-962-5060, store.unc.edu.

Wednesdays, 8-10 p.m.: Poets, vocalists, musicians & lyricists welcome. All performances a cappella

DANIEL WALLACE: Wed, Dec

2, 11:30 am: with The Angelologia.

Duke University Medical Center, 2301 Erwin Rd, Durham. www. dukehealth.org/locations/duke_ hospital/location_details/.

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS: Tue, Dec 1, 4 p.m.: readings in English and Latin. UNC Campus: Bull’s Head Bookshop, 207 South Rd, Chapel Hill. 919962-5060, store.unc.edu.

JAMIE TWORKOWSKI: Wed, Dec 2, 7 p.m.: To Write Love On Her Arms founder discusses his book If You Feel Too Much:

or acoustic. $5. www.citysoulcafe. splashthat.com. Smokin Grooves Bar & Grill, 2253 New Hope Church Rd, Raleigh.

SACRIFICIAL POETS TOUCHSTONES OPEN MIC:

First Wednesdays, 6-8 p.m.: www. sacrificialpoets.com. Flyleaf Books, 752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill. 919-942-7373, www. flyleafbooks.com.

YOUR STORY: Fourth Saturdays, 10 a.m.-noon: Informal writers’ group facilitated by Gaines Steer.

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

sports

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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Participatory

RIVER RUN CLUB: Thursdays,

6:45 p.m.: The Hop Yard, 1141 Falls River Ave, Raleigh. 919-971-0631, www.thehopyardnc.com/.

Spectator

GOUGE WRESTLING: TURKEY IN THE BRAWL: Sat, Nov 28, 7 p.m.: $9–$10. Motorco Music Hall, 723 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 919-901-0875, www. motorcomusic.com.

HURRICANES VS. OILERS: Wed, Nov 25, 7 p.m.: PNC Arena, 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-861-2300, Tickets 1-800-745-3000, www. thepncarena.com.

G G

TEAM ON DRAFT BIKE RIDE: Wednesdays, 6 p.m.: Ride

sponsored by New Belgium. To join, you should be able to hold a 15 mph pace for 18 miles, and have your own helmet, water, pump and spare tube. The Glass Jug, 5410 Hwy 55, Durham. 919813-0135.

GIFT GUIDE

READING | ALEXANDER WOLFF: THE AUDACITY OF HOOP WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2, CHAPEL HILL

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BULL’S HEAD BOOKSHOP AT UNC—From wrestling buff Abe Lincoln and croquet fan Rutherford B. Hayes to the football-favoring presidents of the late-20th century, sports enthusiasts have often been found in the highest office in the land. But it’s safe to say that Barack Obama, in addition to his other, more profound, historical achievements, is our first chief executive who truly has game. During his candidacy, his love of basketball humanized him. Along with helping him woo Michelle, his on-court grit was anecdotal evidence that he had the mettle to lead the free world. Basketball has played such an unprecedented role in the Obama story that the cleverly titled The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama feels entirely justified. Rather than a puff biography, it’s an exploration of the connection between sport and life—and sports’ potential to inspire people to act boldly. Alexander Wolff, a celebrated writer for Sports Illustrated, traces the young player’s personal evolution through the prism of America’s “first post-industrial sport” while also going deep into the nuances of O’s hardwood style, or “Baracketology.” 12:30 p.m., free, 207 South Road, Chapel Hill, 919-962-5060, www.store.unc.edu. —David Klein

N.C. STATE VS. MICHIGAN (MEN’S): Tue, Dec 1, 7 p.m.:

PNC Arena, 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-861-2300, Tickets 1-800-745-3000, www. thepncarena.com.

WEDNESDAY BIKE RIDE:

Wednesdays, 6 p.m.: Crank Arm Brewing Co, 319 W Davie St, Raleigh. www.crankarmbrewing. com.

WEST END RUN CLUB:

Tuesdays, 6 p.m.: DSI Comedy Theater, 462 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-338-8150, www. dsicomedytheater.com.

. extra

N.C. STATE VS. WINTHROP (MEN’S): Fri, Nov 27, 7 p.m.:

Dece

PNC Arena, 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-861-2300, Tickets 1-800-745-3000, www. thepncarena.com.

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...a selection of extraordinary gift ideas

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(GM), Neil Morris (NM) and Ryan Vu (RV).

Opening

 1/2 BROOKLYN—Irish director John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Hornby capture the melancholy and nostalgia of Colm Tóibín’s novel in the kind of elegiac old-school melodrama that is seldom made LET THE FIRE BURN: Mon, anymore. Saoirse Ronan is Eilis, Nov 30, 7 p.m.: documentary an Irish girl who goes to work in about the 1985 standoff Brooklyn in the 1950s, thanks to between black liberation group the sponsorship of a U.S.-based MOVE and Philadelphia police. priest (Jim Broadbent). Leaving Internationalist Books, 101 Lloyd behind a mother and sister she St, Carrboro. 919-942-1740, adores, she’s initially homesick, www.internationalistbooks.org. living in an all-female boarding DEGREES NORTH: Wed, house. That changes when she Dec 2, 7:30 p.m.: $10. Lincoln meets a sweet-natured Italian Theatre, 126 E Cabarrus St, plumber who immediately falls Raleigh. 919-821-4111, www. for her good-girl ways. This is a lincolntheatre.com. colorful, confident portrait of the American Dream, with Eilis serving as a walking beacon of hope and optimism. Striking work by cinematographer Yves Bélanger and costumer Odile Dicks-Mireaux makes Ronan— Our rating system uses one to with her moony, wholesome five stars. Signed reviews are by looks—the brightest thing in the Brian Howe (BH), Laura Jaramillo To Kathy reserve your(KJ), ad contact rep orThings get complicated (LJ), Justice Craig D. your admovie. when she starts seeing a suave Lindsey (CDL), Glenn McDonald rgierisch@indyweek.com Irishman (Domhnall Gleeson),

GIFT GUIDE

Special Showings

...a selection of extraordinary gift ideas

Film Capsules

December 2nd & 9th

turning the story into an intercontinental torn-betweentwo-lovers affair and making Eilis wonder if heading back to the States is really a good idea.

Like so many prior films about immigrants looking for a better life, this one lays out a wondrous, overwhelming and romantic (if oddly minority-free) vision of America’s past—the same vision that brought people here in the first place. Rated PG-13. —CDL  CREED—The boxing-film genre reached its narrative limits long ago. But by using conjoined character arcs, the Rocky series’ seventh film ably honors, updates

GIFT GUIDE

and even deconstructs its legacy.

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the son of late champ Apollo Creed—Rocky’s respected nemesis—is rescued from a delinquent childhood by Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo’s widow. Haunted by her husband’s death in the ring, she discourages Adonis’ impulses. But he moves to Philadelphia to coax an aging Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to train him. Balboa runs an Italian restaurant and doesn’t visit Mickey’s gym anymore. Still, he reluctantly agrees to train Adonis, though his guilt over failing to prevent Apollo’s death is a motivation the film doesn’t

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sufficiently explicate. Ryan Coogler, who also directed Jordan in Fruitvale Station, reclaims the blackness of a franchise originally framed through the prism of the Great White Hope. It’s not only the first Rocky film in which Rocky doesn’t fight, but also the first that doesn’t spotlight a white boxer. Jordan and Stallone, utterly at ease, conjure an alchemy of wit and poignancy. The film doesn’t conclude with a celebration in the ring. Instead, a movie icon haltingly climbs the same steps he once galloped up to glory, in an elegy for a cultural phenomenon.

Rated PG-13. —NM

NOVEMBER 25 2015

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GHOSTBUSTERS AND HIGH SPIRITS ...a selection of extraordinary gift ideas.

FRIDAY, NOV. 27, DURHAM

CAROLINA THEATRE—This supernatural Retrofantasma double-feature pairs one of the biggest comedy hits and the oddest comedy non-hits of the 1980s. First is the one you know by heart, about a group of Marshmallow Man-zapping scientists who you’re gonna call when there’s something strange in your neighborhood. Brush up on the lore for Paul Feig’s female-centric reboot next summer, which misogynists on Twitter think is the worst thing to happen anywhere ever. Then stick around for the bizarro team-up of Steve Guttenberg, Peter O’Toole, Liam Neeson, Daryl Hannah and future The Crying Game director Neil Jordan in the 1988 screwball comedy High Spirits, where O’Toole’s character tries to drum up interest in his fading bed-and-breakfast by having his employees fake a haunting, which turns a wee bit real. Overshadowed by the similarly plotted Beetlejuice, which came out the same year, it’s ... not exactly a lost classic, but it has a certain, ahem, “spirited” charm. It’s such a brazen combination of talents that there’s a definite curiosity factor, not to mention a leg up for anyone “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” 7 p.m., $9, 309 W. Morgan St., your ad contact your adplaying rep or Durham, 919-560-3030, www.carolinatheatre.org. —Zack Smith

December 2nd & 9th

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NOV 24 • DEC 1 • DEC 8 • DEC 15 • DEC 22

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THE GOOD DINOSAUR—Visit www.indyweek.com for our review. Rated PG.  TRUMBO—This is the story of the infamous Hollywood blacklist seen through the biography of its most interesting victim. Bryan Cranston stars as the great screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who, in the late 1940s, was kicked out of Hollywood and served time in prison for being a member of the Communist Party. The drab first half of the film plays like a History Channel dramatization, but things pick up after that, thanks to the high-voltage supporting cast, including John Goodman,

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RALEIGH GRANDE

CREED • VICTOR FRANKENTEIN • TRUMBO BROOKLYN • HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES • THE NIGHT BEFORE SPOTLIGHT • ROOM • LOVE THE COOPERS SPECTRE • THE PEANUTS MOVIE • THE MARTIAN For times please go to website

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INDYweek.com Louis C.K. and Helen Mirren.

The second half is like a whole different movie, and it’s worth sticking around for. As Trumbo makes his triumphant comeback, he uses a kind of political jujitsu against his tormentors, leveraging Washington gutlessness and Hollywood greed for his own crafty purposes. Rated R. —GM VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN—Daniel Radcliffe is Igor in this prequel to the classic Frankenstein tale, which follows young Igor and Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy) to their monster-making futures.

Rated PG-13.

Current Releases

 1/2 BRIDGE OF SPIES—In Steven Spielberg’s true-story spy film, co-written by Ethan and Joel Coen, Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge is the site of the 1962 prisoner trade involving captured American spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) and convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). At first, it plays out like To Kill a Mockingbird, with attorney James Donovan (Tom Hanks) as a Cold War Atticus Finch, defending the vilified Abel before later negotiating the prisoner swap. Donovan is righteous, droll and likable. In other words, he’s Tom Hanks.

Rylance shapes a reed-thin role into an award-worthy performance. Seeing Germans being gunned down trying to scale the Berlin Wall indicts today’s immigration debates, and the legal plight of Abel alludes to our current treatment of “enemy combatants.” The U-2 overflights of yesterday are the drones of today. This modern relevance is enhanced by grand, sometimes sentimental filmmaking. That this will be regarded as minor Spielberg testifies to his enduring talent. Rated PG-13. —NM  THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 2— Drenched in violence and darkness, this last installment of the teenage wasteland franchise finds our heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) wearily slouching to her final bloody victory over the Capitol.

Bombs shred refugees, cannibals devour soldiers and children kill children in what is essentially a war picture marketed as YA sci-fi adventure. The heaviness that worked so well in Part 1, released last year, is unbalanced and off-kilter here. Lawrence is her usual bad-ass self and manages to hold the center for a while, but the story finally collapses under its own weight. To be clear: That

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PG-13 rating has nothing to do with informing viewer discretion.

It’s a marketing tag that says the Hunger Games are open for business one last time, to all teenagers and their parents’ credit cards. Rated PG-13. —GM  1/2 THE MARTIAN— Director Ridley Scott’s latest is one nerdy-ass science fiction movie—in a good way. In a recognizable near future, NASA sends interplanetary space ships on regular trips to Mars.

Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is separated, presumed dead and left behind by his crew.

But he survives, and most of the movie documents his ingenuity in gathering and creating what he needs to stay alive. As you get swept up in the story, it’s easy to forget how amazing Scott’s visuals are—he has created a new world onscreen. The film has a few weak spots: Some dodgy cloakand-dagger elements toward the end strain credulity. But overall, the film delivers what it should. A thinking person’s big-budget sci-fi movie, it’s talky and intelligent.

The filmmakers worked with NASA to make the science as accurate as possible. The story is compelling, the visuals are spectacular and the movie even manages to make math exhilarating. Rated PG-13. —GM  1/2 ROOM—Emma Donoghue and Lenny Abrahamson’s film, adapted from Donoghue’s novel, is a cathartic exploration of the trauma at the heart of the love between mother and child. The horrific premise— that young mother Joy Newsome (Brie Larson) and her son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), are prisoners in a psychopath’s shed—is kept in the background, intensifying uncomfortable emotions intrinsic to parenting and early childhood.

Daringly, the film highlights how trauma can be deepened through a parent’s efforts to protect her child. After letting Jack believe the room is all there is, Joy must shatter his illusions all at once.

The pair’s performances in these wrenching sequences deserve their Oscar buzz. Danny Cohen’s cinematography ties us to Jack’s point of view via tight closeups, restricting spatial detail.

This works well for scenes of suspense and tragedy. Underlying everything is the story of Austria’s Elisabeth Fritzl, who was held captive by her father in his cellar for 24 years. The film is inspired by, not based on, the Fritzl story, but a few threads from the source material beg to be tied. Keeping the captor incidental to the plot avoids cliché at the cost of making his behavior seem inconsistent: If he’s such a monster, why does he

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

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obey Joy’s demand that he never even see his son? We don’t know because Jack can’t. Rated R. —RV  SPECTRE—Until now, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the rest of the SPECTRE global crime syndicate hadn’t appeared in a James Bond film since 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. But after decades of rights-wrangling, MGM and the estate of film producer Kevin McClory finally reached a legal settlement, allowing Bond’s original infamous foes to return to the franchise. The 24th Bond film is overeager to reintegrate its birthright, shoehorning it into the narrative reboot that began with Daniel Craig and temporarily rejuvenated the franchise. But the slapdash Spectre is a nostalgic deviation that rolls back the Craig films from a reinvention to a mere rehash. A power struggle threatens to render the 00 section obsolete. With the help of Q (Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), Bond (Craig) goes rogue (again) on a globe-trotting search for the mastermind behind the worldwide tentacles of criminal mayhem dogging him. A few moments prove memorable: An extended tracking shot through Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivities, a train-car brawl between Bond and henchman du jour Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista).

Otherwise, the action scenes fall flat. The film does have a basic appeal for aficionados like me, with its copious callbacks to Bond lore, good and bad, but this distended 140-minute themepark ride doesn’t leave us shaken or stirred.Rated PG-13. —NM  SUFFRAGETTE—Those expecting a proper period piece will be sorely disappointed by this restless, angry drama, which sometimes plays out like a violent political thriller. Set in 1912 London and based on historical events, the film stars Carey Mulligan as Maud Watts, a desperately poor laundry worker in 1912 gradually radicalized by veteran women’s suffrage activists. “We break windows, we burn things,” Maud says.

“Because war is the only language men understand.” The gritty, ground-level story moves with the verve and velocity of a spy movie, and director Sarah Gavron makes bold choices throughout. It’s a bit of a stealth move, actually: Suffragette is a provocative political drama dressed as a British prestige picture. Rated PG-13. —GM

Find times and locations in our Film Calendar at www.indyweek.com.