Alkaline Trio – This Addiction (Heart and Skull/Epitaph)
The stalwart pop-punks return to an indie label after the Epic-released Agony and Irony, and make up for lost time with a new collection that recalls their old ones by capturing the Trio’s trademark: witty wordplay in manic, punchy cuts.

Carolina Chocolate Drops – Genuine Negro Jig (Nonesuch)
The old-time revivalists have been picking up buzz from the NPR crowd lately, and it’s easy to see why. The trio’s back-porch string band aesthetic gets a contemporary list on this sophomore effort from covers of Blu Cantrell’s hit “Hit ‘Em Up Style” and Tom Waits’ “Trampled Rose.”

Hot Chip – One Life Stand (Astralwerks)
Unlike too many of their synth-pop peers, London’s Hot Chip actually knows how to write a song. The band had a hipster break out with the 2006 single “And I Was A Boy From School.” One Life Stand, the band’s fifth proper LP, is jam-packed with stellar “Boy From School”-worthy singles, not least of which is the gold-medal pop song that gives the album its title.

Minor Stars – The Death of The Sun in The SIlver Sea (Summer Secret)
Minor Stars is a start-up rock band from Chapel Hill with an ambitious and promising debut that draws psychedelic sprawl, power-pop hooks, heavy metal trudge and shograze ambience into a concoction as sweet as it is brawny.

Shearwater – The Golden Archipelago (Matador)
Shearwater is, and this is important to note, a rock band. They don’t shy away from dissonance or abrasive, bombastic bursts. But Shearwater’s music will always be pretty. And that’s all thanks to frontman Jonathan Meiburg and his Swarovski crystalline vocals. And his songs go much farther than the novelty of a classically-trained singer fronting an indie rock band.

Shellshag – Rumors In Disguise (Don Giovanni)
This duo blasts shaggy garage rock as catchy as a cold. Their slacker nonchalance is perfected in these 15 shuffling cuts. The songs are short, but once these earworms dig into your brain, they’re far from short-lived.

The Go Find – Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight (Morr Music)
On their latest, The Go Find keeps the rhythmic bounce and keyboard shimmer one might expect from the Morr Music label – known for Postal Service/Owl City-type electronic pop. But here there’s a strong current of Countrypolitan shuffle that gives the record just the songwriter bent it needs to illuminate the craftsmanship in these songs.

Title Tracks – It Was Easy (Ernest Jenning)
Former Q And Not U and Georgie James frontman John Davis now fronts this D.C.-based unit, and powers through Stiff Records pop bursts like a young Elvis Costello (if Costello were fortunate enough to duet with Scottish siren Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura on his debut LP)

Toro Y Moi – Causers of This (Carpark)
South Carolina resident Chaz Bundick goes beyond the “chillwave” fad he’s often lumped into with this collection of hazy, late-night pop gems which marry ’90s R&B with late-night disco for a nostalgic look at youthful innocence through bleary grown-up eyes.

Tunng – …And Then We Saw Land (Thrill Jockey)
Tunng’s quiet and unassuming pop songs lean on their complex and unexpected arrangements to win over a listener. Banjos over auxiliary percussion; acoustic guitars over electronic burbles; rhythmic clatter and sweet harmonies. In their meetings of disparate sounds, Tunng makes a singularly sweet musical confection.

~ Bryan Reed

The first time Matt Kokenes and I go to the Frye Gym, we spend 15 minutes driving around looking for the entrance. We know it’s in a converted warehouse on Tremont between South and Tryon, but there are a lot of brick warehouses on Tremont in that area, so which one? We are looking for a sign that we come to find out doesn’t exist. The gym turns out to be one of those places that you don’t know is there unless you know it’s there. We finally see something of a sign on a door next to a loading dock, figure out that, yes, this is Frye’s gym.
It’s like no other gym I’ve seen before. Where we entered is a poorly painted garage door that upon opening announces to all that you’ve arrived. The walls inside are bare gray concrete block, and there is a full-size Mixed Martial Arts cage in the near corner with a group of men wrestling and taking turns sparring. Plenty of weights with handles on them fill the area, but there’s not a machine to be had and just one treadmill that’s not plugged in. Colorful artistic graffiti  covers the outside of the changing area, and there is a 20-foot wide strip of green Astroturf that runs the length of one side of the gym. We have no idea where to begin, but we do realize who Frye is because he is “encouraging” one of his clients in a loud and demanding voice.

Frye is your typical 6-foot-plus, 245-pound, shaved-head, single-digit body fat, tattooed fitness motivator. Whether you consciously decide to or not, you end up listening to him and his instructions because it’s hard to ignore when coming from that figure.

Frye is a local, grew up here in Charlotte, played football at South Meck and was good enough to go on to play football at the Citadel. From grunt to upperclassman he completed his four years in Charleston and came back home to start a cabinet business and a family, and try to stay in physical shape around those things in life that typically get in the way. He added two of his own boys to the mix and took on coaching high school football. His own fitness suffered mightily, complicated by his love of food, and Frye ballooned to 330 pounds. But as part of his football coaching duties, Frye trained his players and took a more thoughtful approach to their training. Neuromuscular is the word, but what it works out to is an athletic way to train. None of those machines with pulleys, cables, a lap belt and concise instructions on what specific muscles are trained, but instead active training on all the muscles of the body.

The Prowler today is a go between for me. Between warm-ups and what comes next, a five-step exercise of Olympic lifts. I have just enough time to go from my high heart rate of 176 to a more manageable rate in the 140s. But even in the 140s I imagine I can feel myself moving mentally backward toward the medulla or the reptilian part of my brain, the part of the brain that we started with and the more “civilized” part of the brain grew around it as we evolved. I naturally stop talking, get slightly angry at the process, don’t really look at anyone and reach a point where I can work through physical levels that I didn’t think I could before I started coming to this gym. Halfway through the lifts that I’ve now memorized, RDL to bent-over row to clean and then press, squat and good morning I’m ready to go home, but can’t yet because our workout isn’t over. I just wish it was.

Chris took his exercise strategy from the football field and athletes to everyday folks in the gyms in and around uptown. He worked as a trainer at most all of them, big and small, national chains and not, and left or was kicked out of all of them. His views didn’t mesh with the typical trainer who worked at these gyms, and so out of this conflict the Frye Gym was born.

Chris’ gym was constructed with a specific purpose, and that is to sweat. There are no mirrors to watch yourself, no place to sit to check e-mail, or listen to a voice mail. I haven’t seen anyone try, and I haven’t even thought about bringing my phone into a workout session. I imagine it would be greeted with loud disapproval. But with his bare bones approach to the gym and to the hypoxia-inducing workouts, a bond is created among all the folks who work out at the gym, a friendship that is formed out of mutual survival of these calorie-destroying workouts. And these bonds cross any and all boundaries: a UPS driver trades good-natured jabs with venture capitalists and stay-at-home moms challenge Matt and me to races the length of the gym with 25-pound heavy balls lifted over our heads.

And with my two young daughters at home I can’t help but stop mid-workout and smile as three very determined pre-teen girls strap on their pink boxing gloves and commence to learning the sweet science from Daniel, one of Frye’s instructors. Two to three days a week they get dropped off by their dads and enter what I imagine to be a pretty intimidating environment. Ignoring the loud music pumping from the speakers, and Dingo the shirtless MMA fighter walking around between rounds, they focus on footwork, form and defense with a concentration unmatched in the gym. Can’t help but think what my girls will be doing at their age.

With each overhead press of 100 pounds, I can feel my heart rate rocket upward, hitting that number again, 176.

Followed by rest, walking the gym for as long as it takes Matt to go through his sets, maybe a minute or two, giving my heart time to slow back to the 140s, then it’s my turn again – back to RDL, and clean and press, and 176. I start to think maybe that’s as high as my heart rate monitor goes, maybe I should hold my breath just to see if it’ll hit 180. Nah, might not be a good idea, passing out with 100 pounds of steel overhead will not have a good outcome.

Our sets of Olympic lifts are over and according to the digital clock on the wall we have five minutes left in the workout. Thank God. Maybe Chris will have mercy on our quads and let us go early, but with that thought comes a response from Frye. “Almost done, come on over to the tire. Eight times up and eight times back, five sets and you’re done!” It seems like this happens almost every time; I’m nearing the point where I don’t think I can go on, I definitely don’t want to go on, and I’m being asked to move this massive 500-pound tire end over end 40 times.

My first reaction is anger. I’m not talking to anyone, I’m not looking at anyone, and I scowl. I can’t believe I’m being asked to do this. My whole body is already vibrating, and I’m soaked to the core in my own sweat and now I have to do this. I really can’t believe it. But I grab some more water, move toward the tire and start lifting. The first lift is the hardest, but once again I turn my civilized mind off, reptilian on and push forward. One set of eight flips down, four more to go. I have a minute for Matt to do his thing and then I step back in, eight flips down, three more sets to go. I glance down at my heart rate, in the 140s, which at the beginning of our workout felt like breathlessness but is where I now catch my breath and recover. Amazing how the body works.

Matt’s done and I get eight more groaning flips in and have two more sets to go; I can see the end. I’m not aware of who is in the gym, or what music is pumping through the speakers, I’m just sitting, listening to my breathing, feeling my heart pump and watching the sweat pour off my face. Nothing else matters at this moment. Matt’s turn is done, and so is my down time. Chris says something motivating, I take the cue and step up and flip, eight times and I just have one set left. What started as a monumental task has been reduced to just one set of eight flips of this nasty ass tire and that’s it. Matt finishes, it’s my turn and I squat, lift and push, squat, lift and push. I’m done.

I lie down on the turf, spent. More spent than I ever have been in my life, more spent than any time playing any sport, ever, including my time in Division I tennis. That was nothing compared to this, and now I just want to lie here and catch my breath. Let my blood make a lap through my body at a slightly slower pace. Then while I’m lying on the ground, Chris comes over, gives me a congratulatory high five, says nothing and moves on to the next client, his job done here.

Eventually, I pick myself up off the ground, mix up a concoction to help my muscles recover, slip back to the changing area, jump into the nicest gym shower in town, and slowly recover from the mental and physical trauma of the workout. By the time I exit the shower, I’m back to the civilized world and ready to continue my day. But I now have a deeper understanding of my mental and physical limits and a confidence that comes from pushing myself far beyond anything I thought I could do before.

As I walk out of the gym a smile comes to my lips: The Prowler is moving, gliding along the Astroturf – and I’m not the one pushing it.

See more at Chris’s Gym www.chris-frye.com

~ Todd Trimakas

As a specialty shop, Lunchbox has been largely unaffected by the record industry’s catastrophic fall from grace that began around the turn of the millennium when a kid named Shawn Fanning developed a little computer program he called Napster. Internet file-sharing boomed, then gave way to digital music sales through services such as iTunes. All the while, CD sales busted with little help from the antagonizing efforts of the Recording Industry Association of America. Big box stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart continually downsize the floor space devoted to music. At large, the future of recorded music looks dismal.

But at Lunchbox, business is just fine, thanks in no small part to the store’s unique and eclectic offerings—and helped along by a surprising resurgence in the popularity of the most outmoded of recording formats, vinyl records. Wishart, who has been in the music retail business since 1997, says, “I’ve always bought records, but when I first started, records were on the way out. Labels, especially big ones, weren’t even releasing them and it kind of continued that way until a few years ago.”

Today, I’m talking to Wishart with an armload of new (at least, new to me) records stretching the flimsy handles of the plastic bag in which they’re ensconced. He’s blasting “Old Wounds,” the latest CD from the Louisville, Ky.-based punk band Young Widows, through the store’s speakers as customers comb through shelves for hidden treasures. In the course of our conversation, Wishart sells three copies of the Charlotte-based band Yardwork’s self-titled EP to three customers. He sells an armload of obscure metal LPs to a couple who sheepishly admit that they didn’t intend to spend so much money. They couldn’t help it. “People like to own things,” Wishart says. “Even though you can go and download anything in the world, if you want to look at the art or something physical, it’s a nicer, more tangible product.”

“Me buying 1,000 records is just like some guy that has 200 pairs of shoes in his closet,” he adds. “It’s just different consumer addictions.”

And he’s happy to be the well-stocked dealer of choice for the Queen City’s discerning music junkies. As record stores close nationwide, Lunchbox keeps its doors open. As the record industry as we know it spirals downward, Lunchbox’s CD sales stay constant, and even rise some months. And with vinyl’s new vogue status, Lunchbox reaps the benefits of being one of only a small number of retail outlets in town carrying the hip toy. Says Wishart, “Most stores it’s like less than 10 percent of their sales, and for me it’s like around 40 percent from [vinyl] records.”

Success stories like Lunchbox are beginning to perk journalists’ ears nationwide, too. News stories in big-time publications like Time, “The Chicago Tribune,” and Wired Magazine and on NPR all point to a dramatic resurgence in vinyl’s viability as a recording format. Industry statistics showed a 15.4 percent increase in vinyl sales from 2006 to 2007 – from 858,000 records to 990,000, overall. But that doesn’t include small stores like Lunchbox. More telling are the record-pressing plants that can’t keep up with demand, the small record labels offering vinyl editions of albums also available on CD or digital formats, or the mere fact that retail giants such as Best Buy and Amazon.com have begun making room for vinyl records.
What, then, would bring a younger generation of music fans back to the format their parents discarded years ago? Well, price could be a factor. Used records often sell for much less than a new – or even a used – CD. While visiting Lunchbox, I bought used vinyl copies of Willie Nelson’s classic “Red Headed Stranger” and Marvin Gaye’s essential “Let’s Get It On” for a paltry $6 each. There’s the collectible nature of records, as well. The cover art is much bigger, making them seem more like a keepsake than CDs for many consumers. Records also tend to be more limited in quantity than their 5-inch counterparts. Most records are limited to only a few thousand – even for bigger releases. Boutique records are often made into limited-edition items with mere hundreds of copies in existence. Plus, say some consumers, a record just sounds better.

Or does it? “If you have good equipment, yes it does sound better,” says Wishart. “But, I mean, most people have crappy record players. If you get one of those crappy USB Ion turntables, and you play it on that, versus a CD player through a real stereo, the CD player’s gonna sound way better.”

He adds, “Then people talk about, ‘Oh, I like the pops and clicks of vinyl.’ If you have pops and clicks in your vinyl you have scratched-up records and you’re not taking care of them. That’s not what records are about. Good records sound good. If you have pops and clicks then you’re doing something wrong. That’s like saying, ‘I got a hamburger and there’s pieces of bone in it, but I like that because it makes it more homey.’”

So without audiophile equipment or misguided notions of aural “authenticity,” it would seem consumers are left with little incentive to purchase a record over a CD. And that’s why many records offer a little something extra. On their Top 100-charting album “The Second Gleam,” Concord’s favorite sons The Avett Brothers offer two extra songs exclusive to the LP version. Many record labels also have begun to include coupons for free MP3 downloads with LPs, giving customers the improved sound quality and novelty of owning vinyl and the convenience of the digital format.

But even at a vinyl-centric store like Lunchbox, CDs are still the most prevalent format. “There’s only been a couple months where I’ve sold more records than CDs,” says Wishart. Despite the Chicken Little claims of music-industry reports, it seems unlikely the CD will ever disappear entirely. “They’re too cheap to make,” Wishart opines, suggesting the 5-inch plastic discs might eventually assume an entirely promotional role, or become the province of small, local bands eager to get their music out quickly and cheaply.

This, of course, leaves a wide opportunity for vinyl to reassume its position as the dominant physical format for audio – especially in the realm of independent music. “Some genres never stopped making records,” Wishart says. “All the indie rock stuff always came on records…if you go down to Reggae Central they still sell 45s that they get from Jamaica because they never stopped making them.” And as more and more independent – and even local – bands begin to release records, it certainly seems to be possible. The Raleigh-based punk band Double Negative released its debut, “The Wonderful And Frightening World of Double Negative,” exclusively on vinyl in 2007. It sold out its initial pressing in a matter of days. Wishart runs a boutique label that has released 7-inch EPs from local bands Obstruction and Calabi Yau. And the sale of turntables has increased, as has their availability in mainstream outlets like Urban Outfitters and Target.

Already, vinyl records have moved beyond the scope of obsessive collectors and teenagers unearthing their parents’ dusty collections in the attic. The once-obsolete format, it seems, is regaining its footing in a very real way. Just spend some time in Lunchbox Records watching the customers entering in waves as they file through the store’s inventory for a dusty classic or a shrink-wrapped new release.

~ Bryan Reed

As a musician, music writer and diehard fan, I was as stunned as anybody when the theater’s operator, JEM Entertainment, announced in January that the partnership would likely be folding its tents at the end of March.

The theater’s funky charm and broad array of top talent over the past 12 years have made it special among folks who take their live music seriously. As it grew, it pumped life into the blossoming North Davidson community – galleries, restaurants, and shops – by attracting people to NoDa who might have never visited otherwise.

An outpouring of public sentiment over the theater’s rumored demise, backed up by advance ticket sales and pledges of support, convinced JEM to press on.

“(Shutting down) was a planned business decision, based on a thorough evaluation of our situation,” says JEM partner Zach McNabb. “It wasn’t like we were in default of anything. But we could clearly see things couldn’t continue as they were.” Words to that effect were posted on the Neighborhood Web site.

Then the Facebook “Save the Neighborhood Theatre” page erupted with well over 7,000 members as word spread on the grapevine and in the press. Attendance and interest picked up, and public demand brightened the grim picture.

“We’ve got a good fresh start,” Zach says, sitting on a March calendar that includes Robert Earl Keen, Ani DiFranco, Cross Canadian Ragweed and another All Arts Market event.

Tyler Foster, owner of the theater property since 2007, is glad the hullabaloo’s over without a wrenching transition. The theater was never in danger of closing, he says – he’d been looking over promoters who could pick up the flag if the worst happened – but continuity works for him.

“I’m just glad Zach and company will keep trucking along,” Tyler says.

So, that’s the news! But, there’s always a story behind the news, and the Neighborhood’s is storied indeed.

Termed an “arts district,” NoDa is the closest thing Charlotte’s ever seen to a bohemian community – a vibrant urban environment with overtones of consciousness. But it wasn’t always that way.

From the 1900s through the 1950s, North Charlotte grew into a thriving textile-mill village beyond the outskirts of town – but when the mills collapsed like dominoes in the late ’60s and early ’70s, it began a two-decade spiral into degeneration and blight: crime, drugs, dives, streetwalkers, seedy storefronts and empty buildings.

By the time Center of the Earth and other galleries and businesses established a beachhead in the mid- to late 1980s, you could buy a four-room mill house there for under $20,000. Paul McBroom and his partner/wife, Sharon Pate, early on saw the potential in reviving the neighborhood and established a real estate business, buying, improving and selling houses to attract residents who would help the community outgrow its reputation as an irredeemable slum.

“Some of the people living there now wouldn’t believe what it was like back then,” Sharon says.

Among the ruins set the old Astor Theater just off the northeast corner of Davidson and 36th streets – unoccupied for 20 years, grossly dilapidated. Built after WWII to serve the booming mill community, the Astor made a splash with a classy design (main theater, big lobby and balcony) and a village to support it. But when the mills went bust and the community tanked, the theater, then next door to a topless bar, resorted to X-rated films until its slow death in the ’70s.

In December 1997, Paul and Sharon struck a deal for the northeast-corner property, which now includes the theater, Boudreaux’s restaurant and Wine Up. They tore into renovation as if sweat equity were gold, intent on building a venue aimed at a more upscale-alternative audience with an accent on top-shelf roots music.

Sharon ran the day-to-day operations and bookings while Paul, still involved in his real estate business, took care of the facility (including the sound system) and acted as “quasi-bouncer.”

Paul and Sharon didn’t shy from the gamble they were taking in the early going. Conventional wisdom said their strategy was lunacy: Shows starting at 8 p.m.? Cover charges steep enough to cover top talent? In a neighborhood where faint hearts dare not tread?

No problem, Paul says. “(During the late ’90s), no concert venue sold beer and wine you could take to your seat. People could see a great show and be on the way home by 11 o’clock. Spirit Square had quit booking music, so there was a vacuum we filled.

“We were totally focused on music rather than barroom mating … it was well-received, and people came, and came back.”

Their first show featured newgrass masters Tony Rice and Peter Rowan, and a nearly sold-out crowd showed up. Back then, the only heat was from a wood stove in the lobby; the tiny restrooms downstairs were allocated to the women, and the men were asked to go upstairs and use the bathtubs (yep, bathtubs) in the long-abandoned tenement-style apartments, among the ghosts of post-beatnik winos.

Americana singer/songwriter Michael Reno Harrell opened that show, so it can be rightfully said that he sung the first song in the Neighborhood. His recollection:

“At that time, the balcony was closed off from the rest of the theater and was used as the green room, which meant you had to walk down the stairs, through the lobby, down the aisle and climb onto the stage via a piano bench … fun carrying a guitar.

“The stage had about a 5 percent slope toward the audience, so the performers felt as if they might tumble head-first into the front row at any moment. But, all that aside, we had a wonderful show and an enthusiastic audience. And none of us fell off the stage!”

Doc Watson, Newgrass Revival, Taj Mahal, Richard Thompson – the roots-music revival was in full flower, and many great acts crossed the Neighborhood stage over those early years. Randy Ivey, an ardent roots-music supporter from Charlotte, says: “There hadn’t been that much Americana and bluegrass around here before that … (after the theater opened), we were seeing Sam Bush, David Thompson, Will Kimbrough.

“When people would complain there’s no good music happening around here, I’d tell them, ‘That’s because when it is, you’re not there!’ ”

Events also popped up outside the theater. One winter, Paul got a notion to promote a street festival, Mardi Grass, in the middle of February. He asked if my nutty band Lunatic Fringe could cobble together a bluegrass set for a change of pace, and I said, “Sure!” … Thinking, well, he’s the real lunatic here, but he’s paying the freight. We worked up a spirited set as the Good Ol’ Lunatic Boys and checked our Arctic gear for leaks.

Paul says, “I figured if the worst happened, we could throw frozen turkeys down an icy runway at bowling pins.”

But the day turned out with blue skies and 70 degrees– a perfect midwinter day. Dancing in the streets!

During our set, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady of Hot Tuna passed by the street stage en route to their sound check for that night’s show at the theater, and they hung around to listen. I had met them briefly in San Francisco during the Jefferson Airplane glory days … so after our set, they gracefully pretended they remembered me and we shot the breeze awhile about how the universe can sometimes be unpredictable in a good way, and how the gig reminded them of the old days when live music was a community event.

Enough people had responded to that community spirit that, by the end of their run, Paul and Sharon had upgraded the infrastructure, installed spacious restrooms and knocked a huge hole in the wall to provide a view of the main stage from the spacious lobby, nearly tripling capacity from 350 to 930. “We were working on a shoestring, but good business allowed us to make improvements,” Sharon says.

Late in 2003, the couple made “a considered decision” to lease the theater to JEM, a partnership of younger folks with a slightly different vision.

“Our intent was never to stay,” Paul says. “We wanted to build up the business to improve the neighborhood, then turn it over as part of our retirement plan.”

JEM’s plan was to expand beyond roots music. “We wanted to broaden the genre base and do, well … everything!” says partner Gary Leonhard. And from jam bands to George Clinton to notable indies such as Kings of Leon, Metric and Band of Horses, the Neighborhood has delivered on that mission.

JEM continued to plow money into improvements over time, upgrading the sound system and stage lights, installing a 16-foot fan in the main theater, creating a dance floor and building a small stage in the lobby area to bring in smaller acts on nights when the theater might have otherwise been dark.

“I like to stand at the back of the room as the show ends and watch the people going out – 95 percent of them are smiling,” Gary says. “That’s my reward – a recurring special moment.”

Special moments abound for longtime fans – Laurie Koster, who puts out the Charlotte Events Weekly Newsletter (www.carolinamusicconnection.com), has so many it’s hard to pick out even a few. She and her husband, Don, log more shows per year than many do in a lifetime. Standouts for her were Rodney Crowell (2002) and George Clinton (2008).

“Wow! I never stopped dancing and could not believe my ears,” Laurie says.

“But among the brightest moments Don and I have had were the benefits in which we were involved,” she says – five consecutive years of the Spread Your Wings breast cancer benefits and the 2005 tsunami benefit. Those shows featured big names such as Alejandro Escobedo and the Gourds along with the cream of area talent – David Childers, Malcolm Holcombe and the Avett Brothers in the early days of their roll, among many others.

“The Neighborhood Theater has always been stellar in helping to organize, promote and bring these shows together,” Laurie says.

Zach is quick to plug the folks who keep things running smoothly: “Our staff is our most important asset,” he says. In testimony: Christ Central Church, sponsor of NoDa School of the Arts, meets in the theater basement every Sunday. After Saturday night shows, Neighborhood employees work late to make sure churchgoers don’t walk into a place that reeks of beer.

And the beat goes on. The theater continues, and the clouds have broken now. But in the feast-and-famine of show biz, particularly in the current economy, it’s shrewd to balance risks against benefits, Zach says: “One big show doesn’t make your year, and one disaster can cancel out months of profit.”

So my fervent hope is that the recent outpouring of support for the theater is not just a flash in the pan, but a wake-up call and consciousness-raising to generate long-term support for performers, promoters and venues across the board in Charlotte.

Live music is a treasure, the most fleeting of the arts, one moment that can change your soul forever. For a working musician, the grail is connecting with the audience members and making them part of the show. For an audience, the grail is connecting with a performance that brings them in.

And that bond extends beyond the big-name acts: Local bands are always stoked over the opportunity to open for big names, and the times my bands have opened at the Neighborhood, our reception was always warm and appreciative – even if everybody in the room was chafing for the headliner. That’s musical community, sustainable only by the continued involvement of those who’ll back up their good wishes at the ticket booth.

~ Woody Mitchell

Nothing went as planned.  Nothing was as expected.  Nothing could have been better. I suddenly wanted these people to like me more than I ever did my peers in high school, which is the kingdom of the unknown where the land is ruled by wanting to be liked and the currency is nervousness.  I had had the captain of the basketball team wrapped around my finger, but these guys turned me to mush.  I felt like a bird without feathers, naked and vulnerable.  To top things off, I knew nothing.  I didn’t even really care for most pizza.  Yet, I was to become a pizzaiola at Pie Town, Charlotte’s first “artisan” pizzeria, and I was terrified.

The problems began before I arrived.  What does a pizzaiola wear?  This was the least of my problems, as I also didn’t know how to make dough or bake a pizza.  As much as I would like to say that I prepared extensively by learning everything I could, I didn’t. I was going in blind.  I ate pizza for lunch that day, hoping to get in the mindset.  This later proved to be a detriment, as the pizza was soon flowing and I was already nearing my saturation point.

This adventure had begun when I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in the kitchen of Pie Town.  Peter Reinhart, renowned baker and pizza expert, had traveled the world in search of the perfect pizza. As a result, Reinhart teamed with primary owner Pierre Bader on Pie Town. Reinhart is the executive pizzaiolo and consulting partner.
Pie Town’s professional pizzaiolos would teach me their ways so that I, too, could become a pizzaiola, or at least take one step down the path to perfection.  They enticed me with the promise of learning their secrets.  Normally, I would tell you that I play hard to get, but let’s be honest, I said yes before all the details were even finalized.  The staff’s T-shirts ask, “Could this be the best pizza in the world?”  I was ready to find out.

I arrived at 3 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon.  My only knowledge of restaurant kitchens came from “Kitchen Confidential,” by Anthony Bourdain.  He paints a descriptive picture of a kitchen as a brutal environment, filled with ex-cons and chaos – not a place for a young suburban co-ed.  After a round of formal introductions, the cooks went about their work of barbecuing chicken and slicing prosciutto, listening to my battery of questions but remaining a little distant.  As this was a new experience for everyone – my first time in a kitchen and their first time showing the ropes to an outsider – no one knew how to act.

We began by making dough.  Not just any dough of course, but a dough that is capable of creating “a crust that has balanced but complex flavors and a texture that contains both a crisp and smoky snap and a creamy texture inside the puffy edge,” as the menu touts.  I was quickly enrolled in Pizza 101.  We went over the precise ratio of water, flour and mixing.  My first lecture was a brief history of pizza and the differences among varieties.

I don’t know whether I proved myself by being an active listener or if they simply got tired of having a follower, but I was soon given an apron and cap and became part of the in crowd. I was a professional – or at least I looked like one.  It was the easiest initiation I had ever been a part of: no embarrassment, no pain. I helped slice pig jowl, a big hunk of creamy fat with some meat hidden inside, and immediately showed my amateur status by holding the meat with elongated fingers.  In a tone mixed with urgency, distress (he probably didn’t want any blood squirting into his bacon) and respect for a near-stranger, Austin Krum, the head of the Pie Town kitchen, explained that it would behoove me to hold the pig jowl with curled fingers curled and rounded knuckles.  “You wouldn’t want to lose a fingertip!”  I got the point and we made some delicious guanciale, cured bacon, from that jowl (not the belly, the source of regular bacon).

We then moved onto the true nuggets of pizza gold, the dough balls.  As my compatriots in white churned out ball after ball, I struggled to have any control over my pieces.  As dough quickly swam through their hands, it somehow got stuck in mine.  Each pizzaiolo offered his special tip.  Unfortunately, their three strategies did not meld into one perfect hybrid, but I did at least earn passing marks.  With so many hands, this task was quickly over, with all of the dough converted into pizza dough balls.  All that was left was to wait with baited breath for the diners to join us and order a pizza pie.

Most of the duties had been completed by this point, a classic case of hurry up and wait.  Conversation began to flow as we waited for the first customers of the evening.  The manager, bartender, wait staff – everyone – came into the kitchen to chat during this downtime.  Just like at a dinner party, everyone congregated in the kitchen.  Anecdotes were shared as we began to get to know one another. People shared stories about their past lives as culinary students or bulk food distributors. I was even able to add my two cents about my expertise in ice cream (see the September 2009 issue of Uptown for my ice cream initiation).  Food’s greatest strength was at work again – bringing people together.  These strangers suddenly began to become friends.

Like a medieval ball, I had been chained to Austin for the evening.  He had been at Pie Town since day one and had an amazing ability to move everyone forward; he was a team captain, not a dictator.  Chris Reinhart, Peter’s nephew, was the first to offer me a sample slice, so I liked him immediately.  I quickly realized this was no special treatment as I soon had whole pizzas coming my way, but he made a good first impression.  Gino was the new guy, despite being the oldest, at about 45.  He had been in the pizza business since he was 18, but wanted something new and extraordinary, so, he headed to Pie Town.  Gino took me under his wing as we manned the pizzas for the rest of night.  I knew it would be a fun night when Gino joked, “Now, that is G-I-N…” to ensure I spelled his name correctly in his Uptown debut.  These men were true pizza freaks, eating pizza nearly every day of the week, even on their days off.
At first I practiced with dough left over from the day before, waste dough. I was not yet trusted with the good stuff.  I felt like I was trying to entice a jellyfish to reshape itself.  Flour on my hands was key, in the right proportion. This wasn’t a case of more is better.  The dough was in a smooth half-dome about the circumference of a CD and a couple of inches thick.  I started in the middle, pressing down the dough with the pads of my fingertips, working my way to the edges.  The crust was to be as thin as four or five pieces of paper, but strong enough to hold all the goodies.  Meanwhile, what a layman (myself mere hours before) would refer to as the crust edge, the often-rejected bit, could be thicker.  In the world of artisan pizzas, the crust edge is the cornicione, and is the star of the show.

Just when I thought I was getting a handle on the finger pressing, it was time to move onto the next step.  Again, the three competing styles of each pizzaiolo showed their faces.  Austin told me to use my middle knuckles while I interpreted Gino’s method of choice as using the flat sides of his fingernails.  Gino told me, “Gravity is your friend,” while softly stretching the dough as long as the table still supported some of it.  At the same time, Austin encouraged me to free the dough of any outside support. Chris had his own tricks. I fused all of the styles to craft a new creature that at least appeared pizza-like in the end.  Toppings and sauce were the easy part.  A dollop of sauce in the middle was spiraled out with the bottom of a ladle.  Adding cheese, if you want to be efficient, is a two-handed endeavor.

The oven demands your respect.  It is the centerpiece of the kitchen, taking up most of the room and easily making its presence known by its constant heat.  The gas-fired brick oven kept a constant temperature of about 800 degrees.  With only a couple of feet between the oven and the production space, the back of my neck was treading the line between hot and uncomfortable.  My eyes burned as I kept a constant watch on the pizzas, but I could not tear them away from the cheese that boiled like rolling ocean waves.  Mere seconds were the difference between done and overdone.

A long-handled wooden board, a pizza peel, was used to transfer the pizzas from the assembly area to the oven and from the oven to the plate.  It took a delicate shimmy of the wrist to smoothly slide the pizza into the oven.  At this I proved to be a natural.  It may seem like a minor detail of the process, but without the proper transfer a pizza could be lost.  The outer edges of the oven are drastically warmer than the center, so the pizzas had to be rotated every 30 seconds to cook evenly.  This is done with a different peel – one that has a smaller metal disk at its head.

At last, mission accomplished: I made a pizza of customer quality!  From dough to finishing salt, I had a hand in every step of the process.  More important, I was proud to be a part of the operation.

Guests at Pie Town are welcomed back into the kitchen to see the process and ask questions.  They had no idea it was my first day, that I was just a visitor like them. By the end of the night, “Reinhart” (Chris and I were now on an informal footing) was taking pictures of me spinning dough in the air.  The rigidity of measurements and protocols had been replaced by laughter and fun.

As we were saying our goodbyes, I mentioned that this wasn’t at all the experience I had been expecting; it had far exceeded my expectations.  First off, I wasn’t planning on staying for nearly seven hours.  Secondly, I wasn’t expecting their kindness or patience.  And finally, I wasn’t expecting the calm and quiet of people working hard at what they do best.  Austin, the pizza guru, responded, “You exceeded our expectations too.”

As I reflected on these words, I realized that maybe they weren’t looking forward to my arrival, and now I certainly understand why I might first be perceived as a burden; they wouldn’t want someone coming into their space for a night, adding responsibility and work to an already full plate. But they told me that I did what I was supposed to, without even knowing it, and that I was even helpful.  I saw how this microcosm is representative of life. Is it human instinct to have low expectations of the unknown, of outsiders? Probably.  At the same time, it suggests that we are also willing to be proven wrong.  We may put up a guard initially and test newcomers, but relationships can be built quickly in the heat of fire.  Although I technically became a pizzaiola by making a customer-quality pizza, I think the true test was in being accepted by the community.  For one day I was able to become someone new, from restaurant guest to restaurant chef, from outsider to insider. I was a pizzaiola.

~ Jenn Burns