Beach music and the Carolina Shag dance phenom still carry a lot of weight in North Carolina. It was evidenced when Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, an avid shag dancer, established Beach Music Day in 2004, coinciding with a concert celebration in Downtown Raleigh. Now, UNC Women’s Basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell has invited shaggers to […]
Chris Toenes
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The lost masterpiece of Durham-born funk temptress Betty Davis gets found
In the loamy swamp’s underbrush surrounding Bogalusa, La., four men from Reidsville, N.C.a former tobacco and textile community north of Greensboro, not far from the Virginia state lineset out to make soul seductress Betty Davis’ ultimate record. They succeeded, too, but for more than three decades people only heard whispers and rumors of those recordings, […]
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Live: Jesus Lizard Stuns Cradle, Film at 11
When last night’s show first started, David Yow, the Jesus Lizard’s elemental front man (“singer” just doesn’t get to it,) made an early impression on one of my friendsa palm print. Yow gallivanted his way across the forest of young punk dudes and oldsters trying to get a lift, stepped up to him and slapped […]
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Experimenting without borders
If ancient music, modern techniques and the spiritual, political and pragmatic motivations behind both were tangled strings in a palm, untying them would be a lifes work. Laying them out, though, letting them overlap in new ways, is something else entirely. Ethnomusicologist Steven Feld found a guide for such a quest in Ghanaian percussionist Nii […]
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Live: Jazz with Mingus Big Band and Sun Ra Arkestra
Mingus Big Band and Sun Ra Arkestra Page Auditorium, Duke University, Durham Saturday, Sept. 26 Wild horses were not obstacles getting into Page Auditorium, but they were about the only things missing: Duke University’s homecoming football game had a kickoff time matching the start of a double bill with the Sun Ra Arkestra and the […]
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Tomorrow: WXDU’s fourth-annual Record Fair
Like most college radio stations, WXDU 88.7 FM holds events to shore up its reserves. For the last four years, they’ve put together a group of record dealers with a dual mission: getting collectors and fans together over a bevy of that exhilarating black wax and raising some money through some of their own sales. […]
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Jessica Hopper talks about The Girls’ Guide to Rocking
Rock heir. Parents, teachers, young music listeners, listen up: Jessica Hopper, author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, is reading at Nightlight in Chapel Hill tonigh, August 25. The show also includes two rad young female artists Katie Stelmanis and Ghost Bees and Durham female band Pink Flag. It’s all ages, costs $5 and starts […]
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Re-emerging acts: Pipe and Erectus Monotone
Listen up! If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. Resurrecting Pipe THE STORY: Pipe took shape during the sweltering, beer-soaked Chapel Hill summer of 1991, remembers Mike Kenlan. He was pulling double duty with the fledgling four-piecewhich pointed punk’s blunt force up rock ‘n’ roll’s upturned nose in quick […]
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Light in the Attic releasing Betty Davis lost album, reissuing third album, Nasty Gal, this fall
Record label Light in the Attic will soon add to the in-print catalog of Durham-born funk diva Betty Davis this fall with the release of Is It Love or Desire?, her last studio album, which was canned before release and hasn’t even been bootlegged. The album was recorded in Louisiana with Funk House, Davis’ backing […]
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Live: Grizzly Bear keeps its songs to itself
Grizzly Bear Thursday, June 11 Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro Grizzly Bear didn’t need to convince anyone of its charms at a sold-out Cat’s Cradle last night: Many onlookers wore broad grins when the lights dropped, and the crowd at large welcomed the band to the stage warmly. The quartet gauged the vibe. Singer Ed Droste lauded […]
