Mac McCaughan at Moving Islands Benefit - Saturday Afternoon Pics

804 West Street, Raleigh
January 29, 2011

Stepping on to the room's raggedly carpeted and mix matched speaker dressed do-it-yerself riser stage with nothing but his Gibson hollow body and a rock and roll state of mind, a trim and tautly Mac McCaughan plugged in to the first fender amp he found and ripped through a selection of Portastatic and Superchunk numbers with ageless form. A good decade and change beyond the blood sweat and tears that Mac's rock bands poured out upon the road helping to stick a pin through Chapel Hill on the indie rock map, Saturday's solo set was cliff notes that caught the room up quick. Planting every hook and mastering every falsetto amidst deftly maneuvered early-indie guitar work, Mac entertained an afternoon crowd of young bloods with a reminder from where our rich music culture is rooted.

Mac's Merge Records darling Kelly Crisp of the Rosebuds introduced his performance with a quick thank you to the chipper crowd for being part of the Moving Islands kick-off benefit, an effort for which she is a co-founder and brain equity investor. Until this weekend, the spot at 804 West Street in Raleigh has existed as a club house slash rehearsal space for a handful of bands to anchor themselves. With a festive two-day benefit concert Friday night and all day Saturday, it has emerged from the underground into full view of the community in the form of Moving Island, an art/music/culture destination which is seeking to establish permanent residence and expand into their vision. With splendid plans to grow the space into a multiple roomed performance, education, and rehearsal space...the founders of this aspiring not-for-profit deserve to be heralded as doers who powered their way from the overly common "wouldn't it be cool if" to the fleetingly rare "come in, we're open."

A successful Moving Island may also be the answer to the Raleigh indie music subculture's missing community space. Raleigh is often left out of the conversation on underground rock movements in part due to lacking a venue which is booked, operated, and attended true to its own kind. Deep down a dark alleyway, Nightlight is home for experimental rock and art in Chapel Hill and The Pinhook on Durham's concrete and steel downtown loop is its musician founded and supported, creativity welcomed spot (since BCHQ wrapped it.) An owned locale may be the call to arms that gives Raleigh bands identity others can rally to.

Perhaps Moving Islands most endearing quality is its offer for anyone to become a meaningful part of its success. Moving Islands is gaining financial support from the community by offering memberships in exchange for a donation of thirty dollars (or more) which can easily be slipped to them on-line via this paypal donation page. --Carrboro Ninja

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Mac McCaughan

Mac McCaughan and a youngin' setting up gear on stage at Moving Islands Saturday Jan 29th 2011 in Raleigh, NC

Moving Islands co-founder Kelly Crisp introducing Mac McCaughan and Moving Islands

804 West Street - Moving Islands

Young Volcanoes entertained an early crowd with a brand of indie quite adept at building energy amoung peaks and valleys within a song.

Show Review: Mandolin Orange, Sinful Savage Tigers at Local 506

Local 506, Chapel Hill
Saturday January 22, 2011

As a bundled up line of scarves, heavy coats and toboggans the length of Franklin Street's five-hundred block filtered slowly in to Local 506 and thawed into cheery faces charmed with anticipation for the evenings headlining act Mandolin Orange, openers Big Al Hall and The Sinful Savage Tigers turned the stage room into a zippy folk skiffle ball room and threw them a welcoming party.

Stacking the room shoulder to shoulder, the fully charged capacity crowd and an electrified Sinful Savage Tigers beamed energy back and forth through a full set of peppery three minute acoustic Americana romps and near honky-tonk foot stompers which were cut up and glued back together by enamouringly quick witted banter on the mic between songs. A fun, funny, and fascinating Seth Martin held attentions in suspended animation for the length of his string trio's time on stage. "He's so weird!" came a gleeful exclamation from within ear shot after Seth left the audience smitten with laughter on a sharp one-liner. Song in, the crowd fixed with SST's confident rollicking and jolly hook driven Americana tunes, song out the crowd cheered and giggled with SST's character and charisma. Wilmington's Southern and stately Big Al Hall lead the night off with true-type folk croons designed for the solo spot light. "I love the old timey stuff" I over heard as Hall picked a high stepping bluegrass rhythm on the banjo. Across the length of his set, variety was maintained with a host of style changes from six strings to four strings and set the pace for an evening of the areas best acoustic music.

With Big Al Hall and The Sinful Savage Tigers having given all they could give to an absorbing crowd, Mandolin Oranges took the stage and lulled the cheerful chatty room to a calm as still as the countryside at dawn. As the crowed diminished into silence, two song birds pierced the air with perfectly true harmonies and delicate melodies. Country gentleman Andrew Marlin soft pedaled the first few songs with boldness and poise wise beyond his years as Southern belle Emily Frantz sparkled out crisp clean notes on electric guitar and softly hummed backing vocals. The crowd momentarily woke from their trance and cheered as Andrew reached for his trademark mandolin and Emily shouldered her violin. Emily stepped to the mic and gracefully let go a set of sultry ballads which were quietly sung along with by those around me who were seemingly swaying in time with the rocking of her violin bow.

From the opening set by Big Al Hall through the final whispers of Mandolin Orange, the stage room was as packed with warm bodies as have ever been at The Local 506, yet for the charm of being part of a wonderful night, not a soul seemed to mind the close quarters. Spirits held high in the enthusiasm of being part of the grand local Americana music culture which the evening's performers showcased. --Carrboro Ninja


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Mandolin Orange



The Sinful Savage Tigers




Seth and company set up next at Jack Sprat in Chapel Hill on Wednesday Feb 23 alongside Richmond, VA's touring folk troubadours The Itchy Hearts. The Itchy Hearts will play back to back local dates, the second being Thursday the 24th at The Pinhook with Durham folk rockers Jordan & the Sphinx and Effingham.


Big Al Hall




Big Al Hall performs locally again on Thursday February 10th at the Station at Southern Rail along side stellar The Magnolia Collective for The Americana Revue

Big Hell, Soft Company, The Big Picture at Local 506

Local 506, Chapel Hill
January 20, 2011
By the time I stepped into the room at ten after ten, Big Hell was already heavily grinding a lot of hip hop into a measured amount of rock with three microphones and enough wires, controllers, and Mac Books to make the Local 506 stage look like an alien synthesizer home world. Towards the left front of the stage to warm up the shutter on my Pentax, I angled just behind a lit up foursome of girls who were animated in dance while the rest of the indie faithful crowd stared on from the shadows with intrigue. Big Hell was burning impressions in the form of lyrical hip hop and electronic rock and had nearly emptied the bar room, everyone was at the stage watching.

Thursday night was a mix and match bill of indie rock and hip hop with Big Hell, who steals the hipness from mainstream R&B and chop shops it into edgy electronic rock beats of their own proprietary post hop brand, and with two decidedly alternative indie rock acts in the Missy Thangs fronted Chapel Hill mainstay Soft Company and newly plied The Big Picture, whom is jointed with members of more Chapel Hill mainstay bands such as The Never and Lost in the Trees.

The billing provided just the opportunity for live action consideration of the importance and impact of local hip hop on the alternative music audience.

The last line in measuring hip hop worth is; if it sounds good, then it is good. While that should never sound simple to the degree of being easy, Big Hell demonstrates that when hip hop meets those requirements it often looks it. Big Hell summoned vast energy with effortless and natural poise. As these match ups offered us, a sincere advantage that deeply talented rock-hip-hop mash up artists hold versus their equals on the other side of the indie spectrum is the unabated creative room to bring it. This form has no tethers to the indie pop expectations of a lyric which sets up a chorus which better have a hook or no one is interested...and it maintains no rock creedo to an electric guitar burning like a shrine for forty five minutes of rock and roll prayer. Big Hell's set last night cascaded genres of mainstream rap, R&B, soul, and electronic indie...stripping the better elements of each and leaving the bull shit behind.

Big Hell is definitely not a fluke instance of legitimate hip hop round these parts either. Lila & the Midgrade Lifestyle is another Durham based underground hip hop act which is intoxicated with charisma and kill you softly charm. WKNC dedicates an entire night of the double barrel benefit to hip hop this year and local flavor indie music compilation promos are burning more hip hop into the mixes as well. So where are the grass roots of the hip hop that is growing around here? It's unlikely that it could thrive in a town built on indie, or can it?

The idiosyncrasies of hip hop is its unwillingness to be underground. Seemingly, everyone on the make in hip hop is a producer, rolling phat, has deals in the works, connections to the big time, and are fully in control of their own destiny and the last thing they want to be considered as is an artist. But fool us not, we know ninety-nine percent of up-start hip hop writing about high living with cars booze and bitches is done from a low rent apartment and not knowing where the next buck is coming from. The paradox continues with indie which romanticizes minimalist poverty. Songs about being lost to the point of despair are being written from mom and dad's comfortable couch in the suburbs and the artists writing them will reluctantly admit that they even own a computer. But here in lies the separation between the two cultures that typically damn themselves to not coexisting.

This is where Big Hell crosses over. They shatter mold across the board and boldly emphasizes reality in their lyrics. Every line is sellable as a life experience and finds an audience readily able to relate. I may be bold, but I offer that the hot bed of indie rock song crafters that dwell here have influenced young hip hop writers in town to throw down their guards and seek glory in the truth, and the brand of hip hop being generated here has tremendous quality in part by it.

As Big Hell finished their set and moved their entourage from the stage area to the bar, we were demonstrated just that degree of influence with Soft Company and The Big Picture.

Soft Company is the stage embodiment of the pure energy flowing in Missy Thangs' veins. Having performed in Chapel Hill for nearly five years now, Missy Thangs has just recently retooled the machine with members of The Huguenots and ramped the energy to a new level of awareness. Missy drives a keyboard controller with a heavy hand and pushes a lush stream of synthy fuzz through the speakers for the surrounding rock rock band to fork into. High energy arrangements with a Rickenbacker lead six string that is not gun shy to the pounding attack of the rhythm section are the traits of Soft Company they offer a baseline for electronic infused rock to shoot at. A fledgling two month old Big Picture rounded things out with impossibly talented vocal melodies that end every lyric with hooky twists and curling falsettos. If The Big Picture didn't possess such ascending ability then young and beautiful would be their trademarks, but with their collective vocal might and dexterity of instrumentation and arrangement...we'll be expecting songs that we wake up singing. --Carrboro Ninja


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Big Hell






Soft Company






The Big Picture