It's been a rumor for months, and now it's official: Terry Riley, the high priest of musical minimalism, will be the featured performer at Big Ears 2010, the second installment of AC Entertainment's festival of avant-garde and experimental music.

The 74-year-old Riley will be the official artist in residence at the festival, scheduled for Friday, March 26-Sunday, March 28. The weekend is a celebration of Riley's 75th birthday, which is in June. Riley will perform several concerts over the weekend with other musicians, including a performance of his 1964 masterpiece In C. The Calder String Quartet, a Los Angeles group that has worked with Riley since 2006, will also present a program of his work.

In C is generally regarded as one of the foundational pieces of minimalism, the mid-20th-century style of composition based on repetition and drone that's associated with Riley, La Monte Young, Steve Reich, and Phillip Glass.
 
The first Big Ears last February featured Glass and his partner, the cellist Wendy Sutter, as well as a range of artists from around the world, with notable appearances by experimental composer Pauline Oliveros, Australian jazz trio the Necks, saxophonist Ned Rothenburg, Baltimore dance-rock guru Dan Deacon, and New York cabaret-pop singer Antony Hagerty. The festival, held at the Bijou and Tennessee theaters, the Knoxville Museum of Art, Pilot Light, and the Woodruff Building on Gay Street, drew press coverage from The New York Times, Pitchfork, Atlanta's Creative Loafing, and the Baltimore City Paper.
 
"It's a tremendous honor to have Terry Riley participate in our festival this year," says AC Entertainment's Ashley Capps in a press release. "It's a dream come true."

The full lineup will be announced in early December. Tickets will also be available then.

[Matthew Everett]

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He'd probably keep it rather short and not so sweet after seeing this sign outside of Coolato Gelato on Gay Street:

As Shane Rhyne pointed out on our Twitter feed, that really ought to say "The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour." Hmmm -- shouldn't historical plaques go through some sort of proofreading process?

-Coury TurczynView Original Post

Frank here. I stepped outside and snapped some photos during the Veterans' Day parade this morning. Here are a smattering of images to give you a feel for what it was like. Also, please don't ask me to explain the black man dressed in civil war garb and waving the confederate flag, I was just as confused as you probably are.

--Update: Randy Neal over at knoxviews.com has clued me in on the mystery soldier's identity: His name is H.K. Edgerton and he's a former head of a North Carolina NAACP chapter.
You can read more about him here.































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I haven't been posting our extra editorial cartoons by Elizabeth Bricquet as I should, but here's an especially timely one for all you followers of the Great Controversy of Our Times:

This week's cover story by Frank Carlson takes a close look at the anonymous commenters at knoxnews.com -- and how their discussions often devolve into name-calling, misinformation, and worse. While there is certainly some civic engagement going on as well, is the almost overwhelming amount of ugly talk worth it?
Naturally, readers have been responding with online comments. (And thankfully, Metro Pulse readers seem to be a more thoughtful lot, as most of the comments on our stories are usually smart and reasonable.) 

Read what KnoxViews users have to say. 

Read the story and its own commenters.


-Matthew Everett

For clarity, the best way to get a listing in the Metro Pulse calendar is to send an e-mail to calendar@metropulse.com or submit an event directly to the website. (Full guidelines for submissions are here.)

Lil Wayne, who was the biggest rock starsView Original Post in the world in 2008, is known for his prolific recording schedule. One of his most recent studio toss-offs, "Banned From TV"--supposedly from his next mixtape, No Ceilings--has leaked, along with several other tracks. Wayne's kept a periodic blog on ESPN.com until this summer, and he crams as many words a minute into his raps as anybody else on the radio, so yeah, a sports reference is bound to show up. But it's still surprising to hear a reference to UT football coach Lane Kiffin about a minute and 10 seconds in:

"Take that to the bank witchya/I rock my hate to the side like a paint picture (???)/Smoke weed, talk shit like Lane Kiffin."

(I'm going to assume Wayne means that he smokes weed and also talks shit like Lane Kiffin, not that he smokes weed like Lane Kiffin and also talks shit like him. I'm pretty confident Kiffin doesn't smoke up nearly as much as Wayne.)

UT PR writer Drew Edwards quoted Kiffin's response yesterday at UTSports.com: "We're Lil Wayne fans. We've played him a number of times out here before," Kiffin said after practice Wednesday evening. "I guess we're getting a little street cred." (Edwards' story doesn't quote the reference.)

-Matthew Everett

Official word about the closing of the Old City nightclub Catalyst has come down from the club's owners. According to a press release issued this afternoon, financial difficulties forced the club to shut its doors just a week before what they're calling the club's first anniversary on Oct. 17 (the first show I can find any evidence of took place on Jan. 2 of this year):

Hi everyone,

as some of you might have already heard, Club Catalyst has encountered some tough times and while trying to remain open and finish our last few big shows through part of November, we are financially not able to do so.

While our landlord has been very lenient and many of our shows were well attended, the majority of shows simply underperformed and without substantial financial backing it was impossible to sustain losses lasting more than a couple of weeks.
This Press Release is especially difficult to submit since we are all still mourning the demise of the World Grotto and we now have to face the fact that we didn't reach our first year anniversary, which would have been this Saturday, Oct. 17.
It seems that after discussing our situation with other promoters we also found that the entertainment industry as a whole is suffering, making it tougher to compete with a mid sized venue. 
The owners of Club Catalyst, Nathan Brown and Randee Maxwell, as well as myself and the entire staff wish to extend our Thanks for all the support we have received from Press, Radio, Artists, Outside Promoters, and of course all those who came to our shows!  Knoxville has a very loyal fan base for the kind of music we wanted to continue bringing to this city and I hope we will be able to continue their music elsewhere.

Some of our shows will be moved to either the Cider House or Southbound, among others.  We will update you via  website.
Tickets purchased for shows we were not able to move within Knoxville will be refunded.
For information on those, or any other inquiries, please send your email to
info@clubcatalyst.com


Thank you all again,
Sincerely,
Andrea Kens


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Brazile is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, a syndicated columnist and the vice chair of voter registration and participation for the Democratic National Committee. She also is the author of the best-selling book "Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics." She serves as a political contributor for CNN, a consultant to ABC News, as well as a frequent contributor to NPR's "News and Notes."
 
Brazile has worked on presidential campaigns dating back to 1976, including the 2000 election where she served as presidential campaign manager for former vice president Al Gore and became the first African-American woman to lead a major campaign.
 
Washingtonian magazine named Brazile one of the "100 Most Powerful Women," and Essence magazine named her one of the "Top 50 Women in America." As chair of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute, Brazile encourages young people to vote and works within the political system to educate voters about their rights.

[Frank Carlson]

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