Local Lunacy

Former Luna members Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips have recorded a version of “Since I Lay My Burden Down” from Michael Holland’s Tomorrow’s American Treasures. It will appear on an upcoming EP to be released in October. For more, see www.deanandbritta.com. Holland appears with Big Fat Gap every Saturday at Milltown in Carrboro for their new bluegrass brunch.

Mother Mike

Durham circuit bender and instrument whiz Mike Walters recently made some noises tailored more for bedtime stories than the tweaked pop he conjures for his band Jett Rink. A friend of Walters’ works with hospitalized kids, dressing as Mother Goose and giving them a CD of local music. Walters’ song is called “Blue Boing,” named in honor of one of his sonic widgets that forms the core of the track.

“The toughest part was incorporating this little guy into the song,” Walters says. “I used my Wilgamat for the drums, bass and square wave arpeggio, and Minimoog, Hammond L-112, the Melloman and digital piano.” It’s a bubbly bit of fun, and you can hear it at www.mysterycircuits.com/music/BlueBoingSong.mp3. –Chris Toenes

Music for marathons

Audrey Whaley and Liz Gilchrist–co-workers at Raleigh creative strategy think-tank Howard, Merrell & Partners–are heading to San Francisco on Sunday, Oct. 22 to run a marathon benefiting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Both runners are attempting to raise $3,900 each in sponsorship funds for the marathon, and rock bands Out of Orbit and The Relatively Calm have agreed to help them. All funds collected at the bands’ Sept. 21 show at The Pour House go to Whaley and Gilchrist. The show starts at 9 p.m., and the suggested donation is $10.

Weird call

As Ross Grady rightly points out at trianglerock.com, Mac McCaughan has been making waves of late: “Portastatic have a new CD coming out in October. The first single, “Sour Shores,” mentions surfing (listen to it here: www.toolshed-media.com/ts/portastatic-sour-shores.mp3) … AND so did one of the two new Superchunk songs debuted at their Cradle show last week … I’ve never seen Mac in board shorts & honestly I’m not sure I wanna, but more generally, WTF?” There’s a new wrinkle in the tidal wave, though. Phil Morrison–who directed last year’s Junebug and Superchunk’s Crowding Up Your Visual Field and produced Upright Citizens Brigade–did the cover art for Be Still Please, the aforementioned new release, and it, too, involves the sea shore. Mac, dressed in a business suit on a gray day, is seen washing onto a shore, riding some sort of raft or inner tube. It’s a curious call, to say the least, though it’s one in a series of nine scenes in the liner notes, each corresponding to a track on the record. See one of the essential early Merge bands, Ashley Stove, reunite at Orange County Social Club on Sunday, Sept. 24. –Grayson Currin