Whatever Brains online bandcamp tumblr Facebook Monday night has long since passed into Tuesday morning, and the boys in the band room aren’t done yet. Before midnight, most of the Raleigh six-piece Whatever Brains had been busy, building two songs from the new demo tapes of frontman Rich Ivey and practicing a few old cuts […]
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
The regional loyalty and stylistic liberty of Doc Watson
Earlier this week, I sat in a humid hospital room with most of my family. We were waiting on my mother to return from surgery, so we skipped from conversational topic to topic, hoping to pass the time with more anecdotes and less worry. There were the requisite themes, like childhood mishaps and relatives with […]
Posted inMusic
Wood Ear’s Steeple Vultures
Wood Ear releases Steeple Vultures at The Pinhook Saturday, June 9, at 10 p.m. Tickets are $5, and Spider Bags and WoWolfoL open. The seven songs on Steeple Vultures last for nearly 36 minutes, but that barely seems like long enough. Since singer-songwriter Nate Tarr formed Wood Ear as a solo-plus-friends project in 2003, the […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Sacha Baron Cohen spoofs post-9/11 U.S. in The Dictator
The Dictator The most immediate criticism of The Dictator is also its biggest strength: It is extremely offensive. From the Saudis to the Afghanis, from rednecks to vegans, from lesbians to cads, from New York City tourists to New York City cops, from Jews to Asians, from the ruling class to the working class, from […]
Posted inMusic
The woebegone wonders of Spiritualized
Spiritualized plays Cat’s Cradle Saturday, May 12, at 9 p.m. Nikki Lane opens the $18–$21 show. Sometimes it seems that Jason Piercethe frontman and founder of melodramatic baroque-rock enthusiasts Spiritualizedmakes albums so he has a vehicle for another inevitably sad story. With drugs to his left, God to his right and some mixture of a […]
Posted inMusic
In Memory of Matt Brown: John Howie Jr., Mike Nicholson and Brian Hill remember their friend and drummer
[Editor’s note: Matt Brown—a drummer with John Howie Jr. & the Rosewood Bluff, Stratocruiser, the Venables, Penny Prophets and many other local bands over the years—died of a heart attack last Wednesday afternoon. He was 42. Below, we have collected three remembrances from friends and bandmates of Brown. These entries have been edited by Grayson […]
Posted inMusic
Songs and shows against Amendment 1
Cassis Orange, Lilac Shadows and First Person Plural play Kings Friday, May 4, at 9 p.m. The show is free. Fan Modine, Organos, Flesh Wounds and Clinton Johnson play Nightlight Saturday, May 5, at 9:30 p.m. The show is free. Amy Ray, Kooley High and Mount Moriah play a free show outside of The Pinhook […]
Posted inMusic
The progressive interest in stylistically conservative music
Alabama Shakes and Lee Bains & The Glory Fires perform at Cat’s Cradle Friday, April 6. This show is sold-out. Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires and The Budos Band perform at Cat’s Cradle Monday, April 9. Last March, the 63-year-old, New York-raised soul singer Charles Bradley went down to Texas, where helike most every other […]
Posted inMusic
Caltrop’s Ten million years and eight minutes
The general approach to categorizing Chapel Hill quartet Caltrop has been first to describe them as heavy metal, and then immediately to qualify that classification. “Caltrop is metal, but they really like The Allman Brothers and soul music, but not in a cheesy way,” goes one hypothetical descriptor. Another might go, “Caltrop sounds metal, except […]
Posted inMusic
The travails of Xiu Xiu leader and reluctant Durham resident Jamie Stewart
Jamie Stewart’s first night in Durham felt like an unfinished dream. In the summer of 2008, he and his best friend and bandmate, Angela Seo, had driven from California to North Carolina, where she had decided to go to law school at Duke University. Stewart had been to Durham once, on tour with his band […]
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