This third release from Raleigh’s Kickin Grass Band isn’t the perfect modern bluegrass album (is that legally possible without the name McCoury or Skaggs associated?), but that doesn’t seem to be the goal, anyway. For starters, it’s not all pure bluegrass. A cover of Roger Miller’s “Chug a Lug,” sung by bassist Patrick Walsh, is […]
Rick Cornell
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Three songs from Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby
Listen up! Download , , , or stream them below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. It was a match made in Hull. There was Amy Rigby, who had graduated from the NYC-based trio the Shams to an impressive run of solo records that suggests a one-woman girl […]
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Matthew Ryan’s “It Could’ve Been Worse”
Listen up! or stream it below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. The photos don’t help. Almost every picture of Matthew Ryanstarting with the back-cover shots, a triptych that could be titled “Tortured Artist by Typewriter,” on his 1997 debut May Daydepicts him as a brooding sort, the […]
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Great Big Gone’s Threadbare Heart; Stratocruiser’s Egg Shells
Janet Place and Mike Nicholsonleaders of the bands Great Big Gone and Stratocruiser, respectivelyhave been at this music thing for a while now. Vocalist/ guitarist Place got her start with D.C. alt-country pioneers the Slim Jims, later forming the Kickbacks and Great Big Gone forebears Brown Mountain Lights after moving to the Triangle’s outskirts. Guitarist/ […]
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The unlikely liturgy of The Hold Steady
“Our psalms are sing-along songs,” exclaims Craig Finn, vocalist and songwriter for New York’s The Hold Steady, to end the first verse of the first song on the band’s new album Stay Positive. It’s a verse that freeze-frames that moment when everything comes togethertime and place, music and friends. Later, on the title track, Finn […]
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Mary Johnson Rockers’ No Place for Birds to Rest
Listen up! If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. Poor Mary Johnson Rockers: How many times has she explained to a booking agent or journalist that it’s her name, not her band’s name? And that her musica porch-swing summit of folk and introspective country, solo and formerly in the […]
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The Whistlestop’s The Whistlestop
Listen up! If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. Purity of faith is a holy aspiration that’s celebrated at various points throughout the self-titled debut from Apex quartet The Whistlestop. On the other hand, music that’s willing to mix things upnot to dilute, but to expandhas divine power all […]
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Tonight, rock anthologist Jeff Jarema on WXYC
Courtesy of his travels in the land of the cult figure, Raleigh’s Jeff Jarema has become a bit of a cult figure himself. As the genius chronicler behind the late garage-rock-and-more zine Here ‘Tis, he shared tales of the Sonics and Sam the Sham with the world, or at least a little fanatical corner of […]
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Navigating stages at the Eno festival
Preparing for its 29th birthday and getting stronger every year, the Festival for the Eno has earned the right to declare itselfalongside parades, picnics and pyrotechnicsa Fourth of July tradition. That “getting stronger” claim is clearly supported by the 2008 musical lineup, arguably the strongest ever and at the very least the most varied and […]
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Chuck Prophet’s “Freckle Song” and “Always a Friend” with Alejandro Escovedo
Listen up! Download Chuck Prophet’s and or stream them below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. The first time I saw Chuck Prophet in person, he was off to the side on the Cat’s Cradle stage in the mid ’90s, supporting the Silos’ Walter Salas-Humara. That night, he […]