⇒ Stream Starmaker and read our review Just two weeks ago, Andrea and Pete Connolly took a trip down to a local tattoo parlor. To celebrate their first wedding anniversary, both got a little ink of the artwork from Starmaker, their first full-length album as Birds & Arrows. That scenetwo young lovers getting matching tattoosepitomizes […]
Andrew Ritchey
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Poetry in points: Songwriter and Roman Candle member Keegan DeWitt talks Islands
Keegan DeWitt draws on his background in theater and acting to convey moments of poignancy in his music. Rather than creating entire film stories, he constructs song scenes that look for the poetry of everyday life. DeWitt is probably best known at this point for scoring independent films or playing with local act Roman Candle, […]
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The Whiskey Smugglers’ Clear Strong Dreams
“I was a pot-smoking, whiskey-drinking, fun-loving, down-home Appalachian boy,” sings Zach Terry on “From Upton,” the fourth track on The Whiskey Smugglers’ debut, Clear Strong Dreams. There you have it: The Carrboro band’s first LP is a jaunty romp through the woods and into a bar, where girl troubles, restlessness and the quest for a […]
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Sons of Bill’s “Joey’s Arm”
Sons of Bill bring equal parts jangle and twang to their no-nonsense rock. Based around three brothers, Sons of Bill released their second album, One Town Away, on June 23. “Joey’s Arm,” a slow-building country rock ballad for the down-and-out, opens the album. The song offers hope for the destitute, delivered with a drawl. Lead […]
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Mining coal songs for historical perspective
“He’s had more hard luck than most men could stand/ The mines was his first love but never his friend,” opens “Black Lung,” a tune penned by West Virginia bluegrass singer Hazel Dickens in 1969. In the weeks before writing “Black Lung,” Dickens sat beside the deathbed of her brother, Thurman, watching him wither from […]
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How David Holt brought the music down from the mountain
Switzerland’s Gstaad Country Music Festival came calling in America in 2002, and David Holta Texan living among the mountains of North Carolinaanswered: “I was asked to play the largest country music festival in Europe,” remembers Holt, “and so I wanted to put together musicians from this area, from western North Carolina, who could exemplify and […]
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The Guggenheim Grotto’s “Her Beautiful Ideas”
Listen up! or stream it below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. ⇒ Watch The Guggenheim Grotto’s “Her Beautiful Ideas” video on YouTube After meeting in a mutual friend’s band, Kevin May and Mick Lynch formed The Guggenheim Grotto when the previous group dissolved. Together since 2005, the […]
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Live: Black Lips, kaleidoscopic lights, thrown bottles
The Black Lips, Gentleman Jesse and His Men, The Moaners Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro Wednesday, March 4 Starting with the third song of its set, ‘O Katrina!”, and continuing throughout The Black Lips‘ Cradle spree last night, a band member would shout ‘magic time,” and the venue would transform: Red-and-white liquid kaleidoscopic lighting flooded the stage, […]
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Live: Dr. John & The Neville Brothers vs. Memorial Hall
Dr. John & The Neville Brothers Memorial Hall, UNC-Chapel Hill Tuesday, Feb. 24 The eye sockets of the skull perched atop the grand piano glared at the sold-out, seated audience in Memorial Hall last night. Dr. John spent his Mardi Gras away from his New Orleans home to be in Chapel Hill, and, although it […]
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Live: What did MC Chris just call me?
MC Chris [N.C. Comedy Arts Festival] Cat’s Cradle Saturday, Feb. 21 During his performance of ‘Hoodie Ninja” Saturday night, MC Chris commanded the gathered masses to do The Twist. When people on the sides of Cat’s Cradle failed to comply, he called them ’30 year olds” and berated them, saying, ‘Twist in your chairs, you […]