On “To Be Woke,” the finale of T0W3RS’ second LP, TL;DR, Derek Torres retreats to old tricks. His voice emerges from a bower’s nest of glowing drones and scrambled electronics, bird noises and guitar strums to deliver ponderous questions. As the beat builds behind Torres’ coo, the inspiration becomes obvious: Animal Collective, circa 2005. It’s […]
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 inArt
Indies Arts Awards: Van Alston uses his bars and bank account to boost bands
The singer B.J. Barham wasn’t asking for money. He was just venting to a friend. Early in the summer of 2012, Barham and his country-rock band of nearly a decade, American Aquarium, were struggling to release their sixth studio album, Burn.Flicker.Die. The music had been recorded in the legendary Alabama studio town of Muscle Shoals […]
Posted inMusic
Kim Gordon and Bill Nace discuss Body/Head, women’s rights and religious fervor
Body/Head with Solar Halos, Jenks Miller & Rose Cross NC Saturday, Nov. 15, 9 p.m. $18-$20 Kings, 14 W. Martin St., Raleigh 919-833-1091 kingsbarcade.com In April, Kim Gordon pulled no punches about the power of music. In her first interview following her divorce from longtime bandmate Thurston Moore, she portrayed it as a personal revolution. […]
Posted inMusic
Live: Sorry, Jason Isbell, but Sturgill Simpson is too good
Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson DPAC, Durham Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014 Last night, Sturgill Simpson and the pneumatic trio that surrounded him barely had time to catch their breath or take in the plush surroundings of the Durham Performing Arts Center. Opening for Southern songwriting favorite and erstwhile Drive-By Trucker Jason Isbell, they squeezed the better […]
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If love is a crime, Sturgill Simpson is outlaw country’s new felon
Jason Isbell & Sturgill Simpson Thursday, Nov. 6, 8 p.m. $35–$45 DPAC, 123 Vivian St., Durham 919-680-2787 dpacnc.com Mistaking country songwriter Sturgill Simpson for some hot-headed, cold-blooded redneck rebel proves easy, at least if you’re prone to read the headlines and questions of interviews while skipping the answers themselves. This would mean, of course, missing […]
Posted inMusic
Wayne Coyne to speak at the Carolina Theatre as part of a new film-and-music series
When Wayne Coyne steps on the stage of Durham’s Carolina Theatre on December 15th, he won’t have a guitar in hand. The Flaming Lips won’t be with him. He won’t be in town to play music at all. “I don’t really do shows by myself. I don’t really do songs on my own,” he says […]
Posted inMusic
The charitable efficacy of cats on the Internet
Run the Jewels with Ratking and Despot Monday, Nov. 3, 9 p.m. $20 Cat’s Cradle, 300 E. Main St. Carrboro, 919-967-9053 catscradle.com In less than 12 hours, more than $65,000 will flood the bank account of Sly Jones, a Phoenix, Arizona, music blogger who makes about one-third of that per year at his job in […]
Posted inMusic
The N.C. State Fair loses $98,375 inside Dorton Arena
Well, that didn’t end well: For the last dozen days, I’ve received nightly updates from Sarah Ray, a public information officer with the North Carolina State Fair, citing the number of tickets sold for each night’s headlining concert in the Dorton Arena. I’ve published the data here. Why, you might wonder? For the last few […]
Posted inMusic
Ashrae Fax’s Never Really Been Into It
Ashrae Fax Never Really Been Into It (Mexican Summer) Going from lost to found has never been easier. That’s true, at least in some superficial sense, of making available information that people once might have presumed to be long gone, if they knew it existed at all. This especially holds for music in the online […]
Posted inMusic
A running tally of the money lost or made at this year’s N.C. State Fair concerts
Ahh, yes, Fall is here: The leaves are changing colors. There’s a gentle crisp in the evening air. Kids are talking costumes. And each night, for the next 10 days, if you bend your ear just so, you can hear rock, rap, gospel and country coming from the old concrete seats of the much-neglected Dorton […]
