On a recent weeknight, up late with a looming deadline and the need for a nocturnal snack, I peered into the refrigerator, poking around for something that didn’t require preparation or wouldn’t lull me into a subsequent sugar daze. My hand at last landed on a pint jar, its black screw-top lid still sealed by […]
Grayson Haver Currin
Bio: Grayson Haver Currin was the music editor of INDY Week and the co-director of Hopscotch Music Festival.Twitter: http://twitter.com/currincy
Posted inMusic
American Aquarium to headline Raleigh’s Winterfest Dec. 5
The city of Raleigh is starting to book a little more of its own music scene. Just yesterday, Artsplosure announced that See Gulls and T0W3Rs, two of the capital city’s most exciting upstarts, will play First Night Raleigh’s inaugural “indie rock venue.” (Pardon the name or the location in a church.) And today, Winterfest has […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Gonza Tacos and Raleigh’s refurbished Hillsborough Street: A slick, safe match
Gonza Tacos y Tequila 2100 Hillsborough St., Raleigh 919-268-8965 gonzatacosytequila.com The restaurant was too full to request another seat. By the time I had settled onto a broad black stool early on a weekday night last week, I had already elected against a 20-minute wait at the door of the fourth and latest location of […]
Posted inReviews
Record review: Made of Oak’s Penumbra
Nick Sanborn wants you to know that he is putting in work. At the start of “Blue Zipper,” the fifth and final track from Penumbra, the debut EP of the Sylvan Esso co-founder and producer under the name Made of Oak, he loops a set of quick, shallow breaths over a beat that hits like […]
Posted inMusic
Live Nation will not tell the city of Raleigh how Walnut Creek performed in 2015—or at least they wouldn’t
Live Nation, the world’s biggest live-events promoter, does not want to tell the city of Raleigh how many people—or, more specifically, what kind of people—are using the property it owns. On October 17, I sent one city official and two Live Nation employees a customary request for end-of-season attendance data for Walnut Creek Amphitheatre and […]
Posted inMusic
Four strokes couldn’t kill Reese McHenry, one of the state’s best singers, but they stalled her career
The Second Wife with Horizontal Hold and Lud Saturday, Nov. 7, 9:30 p.m., $7 The Pinhook 117 W. Main St., Durham 919-667-1100 www.thepinhook.com Reese McHenry could not speak. But the message she conveyed to her husband, Justin, on a November morning in 2008, was very clear: She was not going to the hospital. For the […]
Posted inMusic
Author & Punisher on heavy metal and machines, design and gimmicks
Author & Punisher with Muscle and Marrow, He Who Walks Behind the Rows, Thunderchief Saturday, Nov. 7, 9 p.m. $10–$13 Local 506 506 W. Franklin St., Chapel Hill 919-942-5506 www.local506.com After a recent tour, Tristan Shone realized he was in the best shape of his life. Every day, Shone and a minimal crew would load […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Take time for a slow meal with Bridgette A. Lacy’s Sunday Dinner
A few tablespoons of fig balsamic vinegar, some pinches of Herbes de Provence, a dash of Angostura bitters: Those might be the most highfalutin ingredients in Sunday Dinner, Bridgette A. Lacy’s inspiring new meditation on the merit of meals shared with friends and enjoyed over the course of a restorative afternoon. The Raleigh-based food writer […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Tir Na Nog’s Pete Pagano talks the decision to close his Blount Street mainstay
When the downtown Raleigh Irish pub Tir Na Nog closes for the final time on November 22, it will be the restaurant’s employees’ turn to shoulder up to the bar. For the next three weeks, and aside from a few special events, it will be business as usual at the downtown staple, which announced during […]
Posted inMusic
Sway into Halloween with Mac McCaughan’s cover of The Undead
It’s something of a Halloween tradition for Superchunk and Merge co-founder Mac McCaughan, often with the band, to offer up a take on a song from the greater world of the Misfits. This year, he’s reached a bit deeper than normal into the archives than normal, drafting The Undead’s charged, looking-for-lust anthem, “When the Evening […]