Nuclear Honey with Valley Young and Pisces Rising Deep South the Bar Thursday, Aug. 15 8:30 p.m., $6 Dead-inspired guitar noodles? Check. Syncopated rhythms and greasy breaks? Check. Weighty meditations on life and love? Check. Reprises that recur with the frequency of Geico commercials? Check, check and check. The second EP by Raleigh septet Nuclear […]
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’ Kiss
New Town Drunks with Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands, Beloved Binge The Pinhook Saturday, Aug. 10 9:30 p.m., $5 A Latin lounge-lizard essence has always slithered beneath ramshackle roots-rock for Chapel Hill’s New Town Drunks. But on their third round, Kiss, it comes to the forefront. The style’s always been a good fit for […]
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The future’s wide open for Japandroids
Now is the moment for Japandroids, and their lyrics reflect that carpe diem attitude. But just as “restless nights turn to restless years,” a band’s second album turns to album three (if they’re lucky). Drummer David Prowse doesn’t feel he and guitarist Brian King can continue indefinitely with this teenage esprit. Hell, even the Ramones […]
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Japandroids offer a lesson in simplicity and romance
Japandroids with A Place to Bury Strangers Wednesday, June 5 9 p.m., $15–$17 Cat’s Cradle Celebration Rock doesn’t shadow or shade its intentions. Rather, the second album by Vancouver duo Japandroids is hooky, high-energy, sweat-on-the-brow, heart-on-the-microphone music that bounds ahead with a headstrong, romantic spirit. The title is not a feint. It is a fist […]
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The populist plea bargain of Rush
Rush Friday, May 3, 7:30 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh $46-$116 Nobody was necessarily pining for more populist art-rock. Isn’t one point of eight-minute songs and symphonic orchestrations to winnow out the less sophisticated? It’s anything but natural to meld epic navel-gazing orchestrations and power chord chug. But Rush gave prog-rock its arena swagger, possibly slowing […]
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Monty Warren & The Friggin Whatevers’ Let’s Go to Therapy
It took trial lawyer Monty Warren 30-odd years to get around to rocking and to debut with 2008’s punchy Trailer Park Angel. It took him significantly less time to chase it with the better follow-up, the new Let’s Go to Therapy. Though about half of these dozen songs cross the four-minute mark, they’re crisply constructed […]
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Michael Rank & Stag’s In the Weeds
Michael Rank & Stag Friday, April 5, The Cave Saturday, April 6, Slim’s The harrowing break-up album typically precedes the record of bloodshot Sunday-morning blues, but leave it to Michael Rank to fuck up a formula. If you’ve followed the career of the former Snatches of Pink frontman, you know two things: There will be […]
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Deep Chatham’s Flood
Deep Chatham plays Saturday, March 30, at 9:30 p.m. at Local 506 with Sarah Shook & the Devil. Admission is $7-$10. It’s always shocking to see your young nieces and nephews again after a few years; their growth can be so striking. The same is true of Deep Chatham. A string trio at the time […]
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Birds and Arrows’ Coyotes
Birds and Arrows play Friday, March 15, at Local 506 with June Star and Katharine Whalen. Tickets are $8 for the 8 p.m. show. Birds and Arrows‘ third album, Coyotes, recalls one of those HGTV house-porn programs: The camera tracks the elegant environs, wending through a spaciously designed and gorgeously apportioned home. Cellos, violins and […]
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Wembley’s How to Talk to Strangers
Wembley, Actual Persons Living or Dead and Jphono1 celebrate their new albums with a release show at Durham’s Casbah Friday, March 8. The $6 show starts at 9 p.m. Wembley inhabit a space where the unconventional dates the popular, taking the naïve to the art house cinema, the microbrew pub and the grimy rock club. […]