Hull, Caltrop and Ruscha play Chapel Hill Underground (formerly Hell) Saturday, Nov. 19, at 10 p.m. Tickets are $5. Beyond the Lightless Sky, the second record by Brooklyn quintet Hull, is a big record by an ambitious band. The songs stretch from complex, epic crunch-fests like the title track to “Fire Vein,” a 10-minute integration […]
Corbie Hill
Bio: Corbie Hill lives on three wooded acres in Pittsboro, where he is a writer, musician, dad of two and community college English instructor. He is a regular contributor to INDY Week's music section.Twitter: http://twitter.com/afraidofthebear
Posted inMusic
Chapel Hill’s MAKE finds relief in volume
Read our review of Trephine MAKE plays Casbah in Durham Saturday, Nov. 5, at 8:30 p.m. Hog and In the Year of the Pig open the free show. Scott Endres has an anxiety problem, and he self-medicates.”It follows me every moment of my life,” says Endres, the 34-year-old guitarist of Chapel Hill post-metal trio MAKE. […]
Posted inCulture
The Rum Diary is a drunken stumble for Johnny Depp
Photo by Peter Mountain The Rum Diary*Opens today Nobody would publish the book this film was based on when it was first written. And now, nobody would make this film except for who wrote it. Reading The Rum Diary, which Hunter S. Thompson pushed into print 38 years after he wrote it, it’s easy to […]
Posted inMusic
Systems’ Ghost Medicine
At the core of Systems’ brilliance, at least on the Carrboro band’s debut, is the band’s ability to navigate the uneven line between thrash and post-rock. Here, these two disparate styles cooperate within a churning, nuanced soundscape, where thrash elements take on a cinematic, lonesome beauty. Post-rock has rarely sounded so rightfully oppressive. As such, […]
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Essential listening at this weekend’s Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival
Read our feature story on “Growing up Shakori.” Sharon Jones deserves what she has. Perhaps the most exciting performer on this billand with a rock-solid backing band, The Dap-KingsJones spent most of her adult life merely wishing she had a music career while she worked on New York’s Rikers Island and as a guard in […]
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Growing up Shakori
The fall Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance takes place Thursday, Oct. 6, through Sunday, Oct. 9. See the full schedule and buy tickets. Read our suggestions of who not to miss. In Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival‘s inaugural year in 2003, rain turned the festival site into a mess of red clay. Volunteers […]
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Mandolin Orange grows comfortable as a duo and quartet
Mandolin Orange plays Cat’s Cradle Saturday, Sept. 24, at 9 p.m. The Tender Fruit opens, and tickets cost $10. Last December, Mandolin Orange, the Carrboro folk-like band of Emily Frantz and Andrew Marlin, holed up in a cabin in Franklin, N.C., a mountain town with spotty cellphone service along the sparsely inhabited fringe of the […]
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Patterns in the Hopscotch (non)chaos
It may be the mind’s function to create patterns out of chaos. And maybe I’m accustomed to chaos, because Hopscotch ’11 didn’t feel all that chaotic. Still, out of the 135 bands, I believe I caught some patterns in the 29 I saw this past weekend. I’m sure everyone had a different vision of the […]
Posted inNews
Transference
In August of 2000, Bill Clinton was president. Baggy jeans and rap-rock were wildly popular. 9/11 hadn’t happened yet. I grew up in a tiny coastal town hours from the nearest interstate, and, after years of maddening isolation, I wanted a big change. College was expected of me, so I obediently enrolled at University of […]
Posted inMusic
Troika Music Festival calls it quits after 10 years
For a decade, the Troika Music Festival brought dozens of bands to Durham venues for three nights in the fall. Sometimes it was a harmonious affair. Sometimes it was a mess. But it was still Durham’s homegrown celebration of local music. And now it’s over, per an announcement on the festival’s website. Its original purpose, […]