It wasn’t officially open, but today in Durham’s Brightleaf Square shopping center, Schoolkids Records sold music. Stephen Judge, who owns the Schoolkids in Raleigh, is close to completing a deal that will see him open a second location in the space recently vacated by Offbeat Records. Judge was at the new space corresponding with distributors […]
Jordan Lawrence
Bio: After seven years in the Triangle, Jordan Lawrence followed his fiancée and their fluffy cat to Greensboro. He has written about music for the INDY since 2010.Twitter: http://twitter.com/JordanLawrence
Posted inMusic
Pokey LaFarge grapples with old-time music and political correctness
Pokey LaFarge Friday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m. $22-$29 Fletcher Opera Theater 2 E. South St., Raleigh 919-664-8302 pinecone.org Pokey LaFarge will likely never shake loose his ties to Jack White, the loudmouthed rock star who pushed the old-time musician toward prominence by producing and issuing LaFarge’s self-titled breakthrough back in 2013. But the 31-year-old St. […]
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Record review: Hiss Golden Messenger’s Southern Grammar
Oh, let me be the one I want,” Durham’s Mike Taylor moans early on Haw, Hiss Golden Messenger’s 2013 breakthrough. Acoustics pulse and electrics gnarl as Taylor continues, “Oh, let me love the one I want.” He laments that “creatures with forked tongues,” or prejudiced people convinced that salvation can only be reckoned in one […]
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Mac McCaughan announces new solo LP, Non-Believers
Somewhere out in the ether, a near-complete collection of “invigorating power pop” tunes recorded by Superchunk frontman and Merge Records co-founder Mac McCaughan exists. It’s a tantalizing prospect—enough to have a fan of his jittery indie rock band or Portastatic, his more subdued and eclectic solo project, giddy with anticipation. And it certainly would have […]
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Winston-Salem’s Phuzz Phest returns for year five with Foxygen, Ex Hex and more
For a festival that started accidentally—when two Winston-Salem booking agents scheduled four shows for four consecutive days and needed a way to market them—Phuzz Phest sure has grown. Last year, the event’s fourth outing featured simultaneous shows at three main venues across three days. There were eye-grabbing national acts like rapper Kool Keith and noisy […]
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Birds of Avalon’s Disappearance
Birds of Avalon don’t fly very often these days. Their initial burst of activity stalled near the beginning of this decade, as the members of the heady, catchy psych outfit wrangled new responsibilities. Married guitarists Paul Siler and Cheetie Kumar run three thriving businesses togetherthe rock club Kings, the subterranean bar Neptune’s and the eclectic […]
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Record review: Jonathan Byrd’s You Can’t Outrun the Radio
On You Can’t Outrun the Radio, Carrboro songwriter Jonathan Byrd obsesses over the ways we crisscross this country. “A Big Truck Brought It” relates with a wry smile the role that massive rigs play in delivering our goods, whether we acknowledge it or not. “Starlight” sends romance by rail across the land, as star-crossed lovers […]
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Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Rhiannon Giddens announces solo album
“The whole idea is to remind people that there’s just more to the story of American music. That’s what we’ve done from the beginning with the [Carolina Chocolate] Drops,” Rhiannon Giddens told INDY Week this spring, talking then about a performance with the North Carolina Symphony. These days, she’s the leader and lone original member […]
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Hiss Golden Messenger talks Garth Brooks and stops by Letterman
This May, I saw Mike Taylor from Hiss Golden Messenger play a solo set at South Carolina’s first-ever Blackstock Music Festival. His spiritual folk ruminations were an odd fit for the mostly jam-band lineup. To make things worse, Taylor was lined up against a full-band set from Will Hoge, another singer that specializes in rustic […]
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Jenks Miller expands his bands with Rose Cross NC
Jenks Miller is spinning a lot of musical plates. He’s the guitarist in Mount Moriah, a fiery and far-reaching folk-rock band based in Durham. He’s also the mastermind behind Horseback, his eternally shape-shifting avant-metal moniker, which has touched on ambient drone and barebones electronica amid a bevy of other diverse ideas. Apart from those bands, […]
