Secret Carrboro Ninja Patrol: Bloody Brunch and The Magnolia Collective

The Magnolia Collective at Bloody Brunch

Motorco, Durham
July 24, 2011

A coincidental mash up between two efforts with near exact grass roots make ups made time together last Sunday afternoon at Motorco when The Magnolia Collective framed up their emerging brand of Southern rock inside Motorco's progressively successful new Sunday afternoon concert series Bloody Brunch and dTown Market.

Of Bloody Brunch and The Magnolia Collective, the first grass roots story is that of the performers. The Magnolia Collective, who also answer to MagCo, or to Rich and Mimi's side project, or Zach Terry's side project, or to Daniel Snyder's side project...sprung to life a little over a year ago atop the bar stools of the The Station at Southern Rail with promoter Scotty Fuller serving whiskey to Daniel and Zach...the three of them dreaming up a recurring Americana themed concert series. In the dream each show would open with a "house band" warming up the crowd with a few country classics before handing off to a featured group chosen from local alt country stock. Forming the band, Zach and Daniel recruited Rich and Mimi McLaughlin of The Pneurotics, Jonathan Truesdale of Red Collar, and members of their own bands The Whiskey Smugglers and Gambling The Muse who would together become The Magnolia Collective. Their set list cherry picked the best songs from their own bands along with some good time covers and put them in the hands of an large Americana outfit who crammed on stage shoulder to shoulder plucking banjos, mandolins, six strings, accordions, and a plethora of you-name-it noise makers. An opening act was expected to grow from these roots...it wouldn't be long however that MagCo would out grow those expectations.

By the end of the first Summer season the walls of The Station bursted to capacity during every Americana Revue and as MagCo became the main draw, the featured acts became the openers. By the fall they were no longer just The Station's house band as they were on the short list for promoters across town and regularly rounding out billings at Nightlight in Chapel Hill, The Pinhook and Broad Street Cafe in Durham, and anywhere else that called for energy and excitement. The grass now grown, they began to write original music and Sunday at Motorco, a half dozen tracks were brandished as what will soon become their first album.

Bloody Brunch can trace its beginnings back to a similar humbleness. Local art promoter and vintage clothing marketer Kala Wolfe was given the Motorco Garage to host an art swap meet on a cold early Spring afternoon during a trial Sunday rock show. Anchoring the swap with choice items from her own vintage shop RetroK, Wolfe filled the garage with tables from the local artist community and began promoting the event as "Bloody Brunch and dTown market." The combo was a hit and Motorco has slowly grown into a Sunday afternoon destination faring Bloody Marys, local rock, local art, the Ko Kyu barbeque food truck, and about as wild a time as you can have after church.

The Magnolia Collective