Yesterday afternoon, three people asked me the same question about my evening’s entertainment plans: “Why are you going to that show?” The gig belonged to Ryley Walker, an Illinois guitarist and singer-songwriter whose second record, Primrose Green, I dismissed as an act of “pure creative anachronism and affectation” earlier this year. Why, then, take a […]
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
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N.C. State’s Jason Bivins pens the first full exploration of jazz and religion
Spirits Rejoice! Jazz and American Religion Oxford University Press 392 pp. Read excerpts from Spirits Rejoice! All of the sudden, Jason Bivins needed to know if he could write two books, not one. In the summer of 2013, the N.C. State religious studies professor was taking a broad sword to Spirits Rejoice!, his 700-page exploration […]
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Durham pedal steel and guitar ace Nathan Golub
John Howie Jr. & The Rosewood Bluff With Tonk Thursday, May 14, 6-9 p.m. Free American Tobacco Amphitheater 318 Blackwell St. Durham 919-433-1566 www.americantobaccocampus.comNathan Golub & Wood Ear Saturday, May 16, 9:30 p.m. $5 Nice Price Books 3106 Hillsborough St. Raleigh 919-829-0230www.nicepricebooksandrecords.com In 2012, Nathan Golub had been playing the pedal steel guitar for four […]
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Deep South gets the State Fair’s music contract, but flubs its own Oak City 7 series
During the last six months, several people have asked me what I would do differently if I booked the bands at the N.C. State Fair. It’s not a random question: For several years, seemingly excessive expenditures by the Department of Agriculture for acts inside and around Dorton Arena have been a strange personal fascination. In […]
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A brief survey of Savage Weekend 2015
Savage Weekend maintains a brutal schedule. In its fifth year, the Chapel Hill extravaganza of noise, dance and bedlam will rip through sets from more than 80 acts in about 21 hours. To do that, the action starts early both days (4:30 p.m. on Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday), continues after last call and […]
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Talking Non-Believers with Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan In His Home Studio
Mac McCaughan pushes some of the clutter aside, plunks a second chair between amplifiers and presses play on “Non-Believers,” the first album he’s ever released under his own name.
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Mac McCaughan’s track-by-track guide to Non-Believers
Non-Believers—Mac McCaughan’s first album under his own name—brims with lyrical and musical references to his childhood memories. McCaughan was raised in Durham and came of age in the Triangle’s rock clubs. So it seemed appropriate to sit with him in his basement and have him narrate the album’s area roots. “Your Hologram” The synthesizer that […]
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Record review: Mandolin Orange’s conservative Such Jubilee
Mandolin Orange plays Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill Saturday, May 2, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10–$29. The familiar and stepwise model of the music industry has, to date, worked wonders for the Carrboro duo Mandolin Orangeso much so that their fourth album, the new Such Jubilee, should be the one to push them to […]
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Live: In Raleigh, The Who take their own endurance test
For a moment, I worried the 71-year-old Roger Daltrey had hurt his back. Half an hour into The Who’s show at Raleigh’s PNC Arena, the fourth stop on what’s being billed as the band’s farewell American run, Daltrey leaned deep into the microphone for the start of “My Generation.” He shouted the first few lines […]
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How Red Hat Amphitheater’s new Taco Bell food truck might be a missed opportunity
On the recent and warm Friday night when Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater launched its 2015 concert season, the lines for Becky Jo Cascio’s pizza-slinging food truck were so long she couldn’t tell where the queues ended and the crowds began. In only four hours, Pie Pushers peddled nearly 800 slices of pizza, with receipts totaling […]
