Raleigh
Walk/Run/Bike for Umstead
Umstead State Park– It’s Earth Day, and activists and nature lovers alike take to the outdoors across the Triangle to enjoy their surroundings and to clean them up. Of note this year is the Walk/Run/Bike for Umstead, an event hosted by the Umstead Coalition to raise funds for increased environmental education and the control of invasive plants within the state park. For a requested $25 donation, choose between a four-mile walk/run and a three- or seven-mile bike ride. Registration is at 8 a.m, followed by a 10:30 start.
Durham
Fog
Duke Coffeehouse– The hip-hop underground of America is in a state of sleep-inducing disrepair, but the Mush/anticon alliance that includes groups like cLOUDDEAD and Subtle and musical ingénues like Dose-One, Why? and Sole is the one stronghold still seemingly capable of doing cutting edge work. A good deal of that still-surviving innovation is in the group’s outside musical influences and inclusion of people who come with hip-hop experience but prone to make rock-and-pop-oriented music. Case in point: Andrew Broder leads Minneapolis’ Fog, an exquisite piano-and-turntable pop exercise, and he’s worked with all of the aforementioned parties, though he releases material on Britain’s excellent Lex label. Broder’s work isn’t as transformative as that of his associates, but he’s got an excellent sense for song and a crack backing band. Local favorites Bowerbirds and Tennis & the Mennonites open at 9:30 p.m. —Grayson Currin
