Listen up! or stream it below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. Scruffy bachelors everywhere receive a bit of valued advice courtesy Billy Sugarfix and Katherine Simonsen on this charming, vaguely twee tune. The tender, archly theatrical style recalls Magnetic Fields, while the earnest yet whimsical tone invokes […]
Chris Parker
Bio: After a fond stint in the Triangle, Chris Parker lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where he writes about music and politics for a variety of newspapers and magazines. He has written about music for INDY Week since 2002.
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New Town Drunks’ The Ballad of Stayed and Gone
It seems Chapel Hill’s New Town Drunks have matured or, at the very least, sobered up. Back from a newborn-filled hiatus, the Drunks offer The Ballad of Stayed and Gone, their debut full-length, a relatively sedate, thoughtful follow-up to 2005’s typically rambunctious ….Trust Us With Your Car EP. Pedal steel, the flamenco-style picking of guitarist […]
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Emery’s “Butcher’s Mouth”
Listen up! or stream it below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. One of the best tracks on Emery’s new album, …In Shallow Seas We Sail, “Butcher’s Mouth” epitomizes the band’s charms with a strong vocal element and loud chugging guitars, brushing up against a wafting keyboard-fueled melody. […]
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Dar Williams’ “Buzzer”
Listen up! or stream it below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. With “Buzzer,” upstate New York songwriter Dar Williams takes one of the most famous psychology experiments of the last half-century and turns it on its head, pulling away its oversimplified conclusions and exploring the people behind […]
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Tonight: Raleigh resident hosts E-Street radio, talks The Boss
Some musicians inspire fans, and some do something more. It’s not necessarily a reflection on the quality of the music, as the face-painted hordes of Insane Clown Posse followers suggest, but a testament to the level of identification and comity music engenders. While Bruce Springsteen doesn’t quite galvanize the same response as Jerry Garcia, the […]
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A half-true history of Shelton Hank Williams
Shelton Hank Williamsknown on stage as Hank IIImight only be the most recent generation of three Hank Williams boys to make his name in music, but, with or without the legacy, he’s an absolute American original. Rocking just as hard as he lives, Williams has always cut his own path, fighting the bridle thrown over […]
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Chris Stamey & Peter Holsapple’s Here and Now
That Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple are popsmiths capable of penning tunes of breathless beauty and jangling joy is undeniable: For well over 30 years, they’ve written songs together and apart that caught listeners on the first spin. Their band, the dBs, helped herald the Southern roots-rock renaissance while drinking deep the bubbly power pop […]
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Americans In France’s Pretzelvania
⇒ Read our interview with the band It doesn’t have to be complicated: While there’s nothing wrong with noodling and navelgazing or making ornate pop, rock music is a raging adolescent, driven by hormonal revolution and youthful insouciance, shouting “baby, baby baby” because it doesn’t know any better. It works, too. Not everyone’s been a […]
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Portugal. The Man’s “Created”
Listen up! or stream it below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. “Created” blends the band’s occasional prog tendencies with catchy finger-picked folk, striking a reflective tone that keys Portugal. The Man’s third album, Censored Colors. Frontman John Gourley’s willowy Robert Plant-ish tenor flutters like a kite catching […]
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Aminal’s A Will to Fight/ A Face to Fight
Listen up! If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. With as many hues and varieties as there are in music’s stylistic box, why are there so many trite, unimaginative releases? Why not mix it up? Try something different? Take a chance? That’s exactly what Aminal (formerly Aminal Music) does […]
