MetroPulse Stories: Arts and Music

R.I.P. Ed Corts

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:58:00 -0000

Knoxville’s music community took its second big hit in 2012 when Ed Corts died on Jan. 30.

All of Me: It's a Thin Line Between Nika Danilova and Zola Jesus

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:56:00 -0000

Nika Danilova hails from rural Wisconsin, where she began making music as a teenager under the intentionally provocative (for rural Wisconsin) name Zola Jesus.

2 Many Pixels’ 2011 Retrospective Highlights a Diverse Class of Photographers

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:38:00 -0000

Besides exhibiting diverse subject matter in color as well as black and white, Best Photographers of 2011 reflects a range of both artistic development and technical skill.

The Latest Version of 'The Woman in Black' Is a Pitch-Perfect Ghost Story

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:20:00 -0000

James Watkins’ chilling spook show isn’t even remotely interested in reinventing the ghost story. There’s nothing in it you haven’t seen before, but its old-school scares are executed so perfectly that it feels fresh again.

Two New Books Wonder How Much Work a Marriage Should Take

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:17:00 -0000

Maybe you’ve said it, maybe someone has said it to you, maybe you learned it from Friday Night Lights, but most Americans know: Marriage takes work.

'Higher Ground' Offers Sensitive Drama About Faith; 'The Woman' Serves Up Cheap Thrills

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:12:00 -0000

If you’re Meryl Streep, you get asked to play Margaret Thatcher. If you’re one of the tens of thousands of other actresses in Hollywood, you most often get asked to play a wife, a mom, a girlfriend, a best friend, a sister, a conquest, or just Dubiously Topless Woman No. 1.

Knoxville Music Scene Shows Signs of Spring

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:46:00 -0000

The winter doldrums are over and local musicians are coming out from hibernation.

Brandon Biondo and Coolrunnings Usher Local Label Dracula Horse Into a New Era

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:33:00 -0000

If you’re looking for any more evidence of how the Internet has altered the music business, consider this: Dracula Horse, arguably Knoxville’s most prominent record label, has spent the last two years giving its music away digitally in a pay-what-you-like arrangement, and only continues to gain ground.

Local Songwriters Launch "Career-Management" App for Musicians

mconnergibson@gmail.com (Mike Gibson) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:13:00 -0000

The world’s wastebaskets are filled with tattered bar-naps scribbled over with big ideas that never got off the ground—product concepts, book titles, and fragments of movie scripts. But when Knoxville’s Jonathan Sexton ran into former Whiskey Scars bandmate Matt Urmy at a house party last year, the ideas they scrawled on a rumpled napkin not only safely survived the night, they turned into a million-dollar-plus software platform the duo are now marketing as a veritable how-to kit for up-and-coming artists.

UT’s Ewing and Downtown Galleries Present Innovative Japanese Artists

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:10:00 -0000

Mention Japanese printmaking and Hiroshige’s iconic depiction of a wave comes to mind, if not scenes of Mount Fuji and pagodas in the rain. However, to consider Hiroshige’s almost-200-year-old image the epitome of all Japanese art would be akin to thinking that painting in France peaked with Claude Monet. Redefining the Multiple: 13 Japanese Printmakers, an exhibition appearing simultaneously at two University of Tennessee-affiliated galleries, turns that dated notion on its head.

Glenn Close’s Cross-Dressing Passion Project 'Albert Nobbs' Fumbles Its Passions

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:03:00 -0000

Albert Nobbs knows what he’s about. He is always perfectly groomed, eminently capable, and scrupulously unobtrusive. In short, he is the perfect manservant, except that he’s not a man.

Square Room Prepares Scruffy Concert Series

mconnergibson@gmail.com (Mike Gibson) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:59:00 -0000

One of the Knoxville’s favorite performers is coming back home, at least once a month, to front a monthly concert and interview series with everyone’s favorite local columnist.

Months Later, We're All Still Playing 'Skyrim.' But Why?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:55:00 -0000

Last night I read a couple of books, cooked a passable meal, did some light housework, and tricked a colossal brass automaton into killing off a dozen or so pesky goblinoids who were ruining the ambience of the latest in a series of newly-discovered dwarven ruins. It was Skyrim. Again. Always Skyrim, never ceasing.

Fantagraphics Pays a Long-Overdue Tribute to Walt Kelly’s 'Pogo'

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:24:00 -0000

The appeal of Pogo is impossible to ignore but hard to describe. A big part of Walt Kelly’s genius lies in plain old expert craftsmanship. His skill was such that his hand almost became invisible.

Prolific Electro-Funk Composer Dylan Dawkins Hides Behind Persona La Ave

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:53:00 -0000

Dylan Dawkins' tracks may be instrumental, but it’s rare to find electronic music this lyrical: Dawkins’ loose-limbed synthesizers, which stretch and crawl in luxurious waves, rarely sit in idle ambience, recalling at turns both the spacey fog of Animal Collective and the eye-popping finesse of Herbie Hancock.

Guest Conductor Edward Cumming Leads KSO Through a Night of Mozart

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:47:00 -0000

With over 400 years of music in our western repertoire, modern concerts devoted to just one composer often run the risk of appearing overly focused, fussy, and academic, even for listeners with more than a casual interest. The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, however, made a case last weekend that the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart can be a remarkable exception.

Dirty Guv'nahs Wrap Up Nashville Recording Session

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:43:00 -0000

The Dirty Guv’nahs have just wrapped up recording sessions in Nashville for their upcoming, still-untitled new album, due out sometime this year.

Newly Discovered Music by Folk Icon Karen Dalton Does Little to Dispel Her Mystery

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:33:00 -0000

Reportedly recorded in 1966 in a Colorado cabin (with electricity but no running water), the recordings were warm-ups for a gig, and thus never intended to be released as an official album. As such, they have a charming lo-fi quality to them, Dalton playing for friends who pass around a bottle—which was, reportedly, her favorite way to play music.

Steve McQueen Takes on a Grown-Up Subject in 'Shame'

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:29:00 -0000

Are we ready yet to be grown up at the movies?

'Essential Killing' and 'Hell and Back Again' Tackle a Tricky Subject: America's Wars in the Middle East

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:24:00 -0000

More reactionary American viewers will no doubt have a hard time with aspects of Essential Killing. Not only are a number of Americans/Westerners killed, but live Americans are typically portrayed as callous brutes fond of drugs and thudding bro metal—the kind of reductive vilifying that Islamic viewers of American films must be used to by now.