Field Guide: Local Fall Music Festivals to Look Foward To

This morning, I drove to Chapel Hill to tape a “fall music festivals” segment on Due South, alongside host Leoneda Inge and WUNC music reporter Brian Burns. Brian already put together a pretty comprehensive festival rundown, so I won’t try to recreate that. But here are some highlights: 

• Raleighwood | August 30 | South Raleigh: Last week, Ryan Cocca interviewed festival founders DJ Ricky Ricardo and rapper Lesthegenius about the festival’s “homegrown, DIY spirit” that pulls in artists from soul, R&B, hip-hop, pop, and more. Read that interview here.  

• Hopscotch | September 4-6 | Downtown Raleigh: My Morning Jacket, Earl Sweatshirt, and Sparks headline this year’s festival, and as with every year, the day parties are half the fun. I would like to see Fust, Geese, and Swamp Dogg (still regret missing the documentary about him when it played at the Carolina a few months ago!).    

• Raleigh Wide Open | October 3-4 | Downtown Raleigh: This bluegrass festival—which, you may remember, evolved out of the IBMA’s World of Bluegrass festival that has decamped from Raleigh to Chattanooga—is largely free, save for a few ticketed shows at Red Hat. There will be square dances both nights! 

• Missy Lane’s Block Party | October 4 | Downtown Durham: As you can see, Raleigh pulls its weight with festivals, but this one’s a Bull City original created by Cicely Mitchell, who owns Missy Lane’s and previously co-founded Art of Cool. Expect jazz, soul, and R&B. 

• Sleepy Fest | October 11 | Saxapahaw: The Triangle label’s eclectic festival (featuring Alice Gerrard, Made of Oak, Stormie Daie, and more) sprawls throughout the Saxapahaw core, making for perhaps the perfect fall day along the river. 

What are you looking forward to? On a related note, I read this feature in fellow alt-weekly pub The Chicago Reader about ditching Spotify and feel almost ready to make the jump—both because of the way it shorts artists and because I fear it’s performing a slow algorithmic lobotomy on my brain. Has anyone else made the jump? What platforms do you use now? 

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If you haven’t already, carve out some time to read Lena Geller’s feature on the $8,887 Bloody Mary that a Holly Springs seafood restaurant recently served. I love weird old America stuff, but the descriptions of the marine accessories driving up the price horrified me—and I also couldn’t look away, which is maybe the point.

Lena had another chaotic-by-description Lunch Money piece on Morning Rolls in Raleigh. 

Here are some recommendations for things to do in the Triangle this week (OutSouth is this weekend!). 

Finally, I wrote about Durham folklorist and musician Joseph Decosimo’s new album, Fiery Gizzard, which releases today. Joseph is a very talented fiddle and banjo player who pulled in several other old-time musicians, near and far, for takes on traditional music that he describes as “responsive”:  

“If you listen to the record, you can hear a conversation that is living and breathing in a way,” Decosimo says. “We’re not working from a score; we were working from, maybe, a sense of energy—the build and release of something.” 

You can catch Joseph at Raleigh Wide Open in October.

Following the popularity of teens-on-the-coast hit Outer Banks, the Netflix show’s creators have a new one, The Runarounds, set to premiere in September. (All aboard the ferry from the Outer Banks to Chapel Hill!). There’s a new local theater company for those 55+, and there’s a new coffee shop in Cary. State fair tickets are now on sale. Superchunk collaborated with a local brewery to release a beer. RTP has a big art scavenger hunt on September 2. Southern Grammar, a show curated by Raleigh artist Clarence Heyward, debuts at Ella West Gallery in Durham this week. 

— Sarah Edwards —
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