Read our review of Kooley High’s Eastern Standard Time Since hitting the local hip-hop scene in 2006, Kooley High has been pegged as the rising star of Raleigh’s rap universe. After building its local reputation with energetic shows and stoking the fire with a steady release of MP3s, mixtapes and an EP, Kooleysave producer Sinopsis […]
Spencer Griffith
Bio: Spencer Griffith lives in Raleigh, where he teaches school and writes about bands.
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O.A.R. wonders where have all the frat boys gone?
O.A.R. plays the Raleigh Amphitheater Tuesday, August 10 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $22.50–$32.50, and Citizen Cope opens. See Related Events below. Several of my friends make it a habit to call me a music snob, but at least one fact from my past generally brings me down a notch: I was once a pretty […]
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The rhythm section and producing unit that powers Drughorse, Chapel Hill’s fertile vintage rock collective
Max Indian plays Duke Gardens Wednesday, July 21, at 7 p.m. The Sundowners play Papa Mojo’s Roadhouse Friday, July 23. Tickets for that 9:30 p.m. show are $8. See Related Events below. “We’ve turned down some folks,” Chapel Hill producer and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Crawford says of the new projects he and longtime collaborator James Wallace […]
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Twelve Thousand Armies’ North Carolina
Twelve Thousand Armies plays Saturday, June 19, at Local 506 with Ryan Gustafson and Old Bricks. The show begins at 9:30 p.m. with a $7–$8 cover. Since releasing The Mirth These Days on Charlotte’s MoRisen Records in 2005, Justin Williamsthe Queen City expat who fronted MoRisen rockers The Talk while self-recording his dreamy pop nuggets […]
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American Aquarium’s Smalltown Hymns
American Aquarium plays with Bright Young Things at Local 506 Thursday, June 3, at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $8. The first couplet of “Gone Long Gone”the penultimate track of Smalltown Hymns, American Aquarium’s fourth albumreads like the record’s thesis statement: “I spent my whole life running from the truth/ I blamed it on the women […]
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The idyllic Beaufort Music Festival calls on Triangle bands
Surely there are few small towns in America where a pirate can walk his dog along the main drag on a Saturday night and earn greetings rather than questions from the policeor at least local rumors regarding his sanity. Beaufort, North Carolina, a coastal community of less than 5,000 people that sits at this state’s […]
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American Aquarium returns to form, quietly
American Aquarium releases Smalltown Hymns Saturday, May 1, at The Pour House at 10 p.m. Sons of Bill and the Jamie McLean Band open. Tickets are $8–$10. In a plaid pearl-button shirt and cowboy boots, BJ Barham reclines on a couch in the downtown Raleigh apartment he shares with his girlfriend, surrounded by records and […]
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Shakori’s collaborative energy
For information and tickets to Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival, which runs Thursday, April 22, to Sunday, April 25, visit www.shakorihills.org. Abigail Washburn plays Sunday, April 25, on the Meadow Stage at 1 p.m. Kai Welch will join her for the major debut of their new project. Béla Fleck plays throughout Saturday and Sunday. Read also: […]
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Carolina Chocolate Drops, the country’s premier black string band, expand their sound—and their crowd
Five years after they met, Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson are exactly where they startedthe Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, N.C. This time, however, they are the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a trio with a major-label record deal and a packed slate of performances scheduled around the world. Five years ago, they were simply […]
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Max Indian/ Ryan Gustafson/ The Light Pines’ Drughorse One
(Drughorse Collective) Assembled only over the last year, Chapel Hill’s Drughorse Collectivea dozen or so local vets and associates that band together as Max Indian, The Tomahawks, The Sundowners and several other affiliated actshas quickly become the area’s most important creative musical association since the Justus League. As members bound from one project to another, […]