Melissa Swingle Playing The Saw

With the rare instance of the expatriated Alex Bowers visiting from his new home across the pond came a spontaneous show at The Cave. Even more spontaneous seemed to be Melissa Swingle's appearance as she walked in half way through the set with a saw and bow in hand, went directly on stage and did this. Enjoy!




Alex Bowers on piano there, RJ Ventre on the standup double upright giant bass, Dan Hall on drums, and of course Melissa Swingle of Trailer Bride, The Moaners, and The Melissa Swingle Duo...playing the saw. Earlier in the evening the backing trio of Alex, RJ, and Dan played some spunky western jazz along with Ashley Hayes on acoustic guitar and Wendy Hayes on vocals. Sometimes you walk through The Cave to get to Franklin Street. Sometimes you don't make it out the other door. - Carrboro Ninja

Happening Now! - Brett Harris, The Everymen, Shark Week

Brett Harris glosses the era of rock and roll antiquity which gave the term singer/songwriter a face. Dylan, Van Zandt, Kristofferson...bold personalities with a voice to cut through the mix of 60s power genres and sing the American story. With the whirly keys and Beattlesesque pop brightness seen in Up In The Air, Brett Harris soars through the decades to bring the counter culture of early American Folk Rock into focus once again. The Cat's Cradle Back Room in Carrboro, NC hosts a release show for Up In The Air on Friday, March 4th at 8 PM. THAT'S HAPPENING NOW!!!

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There we will also find Wilmington native and Carrboro familiar Sean Gerard giving similar accounts to folk rock as he plays in support. Seemingly torn from the same cloth as Harris, Sean Gerard moves crowds with hooky feels whilst beating on a big six string acoustic guitar. The Real Official Opens.

New Jersey ex-pats The Everymen are making Chapel Hill their home and putting truck loads of hi-fidelity twang everywhere there is an open space. The Cave on Wednesday March 9th will receive a delivery. The Everymen are genre benders, molding indie, pop, and metal to their delight. With a new long-play incoming and a March tour kicking off next week, there is little time to settle in. Slingshot Cash opens the show with both kinds of country filtered through a rock and roll lens. Campfires and Constellations gets on with their psychedelic country outlawness in the headliner spot. Bringing all the bluegrass instruments to bear with a very forward rock and roll beat, Campfires is just one black leather jacket short of being rockabilly.

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Surfy garage pop meets surfy garage pop when Shark Week shares a billing with Greensboro's Wahyas at Slim's Downtown on Sunday March 13th. Wahyas is Joshua Johnson (Pinche Gringo) rattling the electric guitar and Lindsey Sprague, formerly of Daddy Issues, on drums (actually drum...singular.) Their songs are sparse and directional while being riff heavy and unpredictable, like the wind...but if the wind played surf rock. Shark Week recreates the sounds crashing waves and wipe outs with twangy reverberated guitars and urgent doo wop minus the doo wop. --Carrboro Ninja

Album: Magnolia Collective - An Old Darkness Falls

For a band whose Indy Southern rock accent has filled stage rooms like smoke over the Appalachians for the past five+ years, Magnolia Collective's new album An Old Darkness Falls, out on Potluck October 24th, is markedly Americana. Half-half stompers to ballads, the common prose is Magnolia Collective's talent for telling it like it is. No tears on this album, just confessions in the dead of night after every attempt to avoid breakdown and breakup has passed. The acoustic guitars get this part right every time and Rich McLaughlin, famous for ripping stages in half with his electric guitar, brings a darker melancholy to bear with the strummed strings this time around.

On An Old Darkness Falls, Magnolia Collective displays a higher understanding of the human condition. That is, there are things in life you can change for the better, and then there are things you write songs about. The grand tradition of Americana is to be painfully honest with the latter and these songs tell their story with a right hand in the air. Murder ballads and lost lovers are just primer topics for this album. The real tell-all's are the desperate missed chances romanticized in "Coldest Winter" and "The Doldrums". Magnolia Collective has always made heartbreak look pretty, these ten songs drift like swans upon a lake.

Magnolia will release An Old Darkness Falls Saturday, October 24th with a performance at Local 506 in Chapel Hill, NC. Nathan Golub and Maldora share the bill. --Carrboro Ninja

Preview: Shivery Shakes + Seabreeze Diner + The Charming Youngsters at The Cave 5/25 (Tonight omg!)

Driving in from Austin with an eye-smiling fuzzy surf vibe foot on the pedal, Shivery Shakes' van stops tonight when it firmly connects with The Cave in Chapel Hill. When they swing open the doors, be ready for overtly beach pop sounds, shooting melodies, and unabashed twang to pour out all over the place. Their 2014 release Three Waves & A Shake, is a dead giveaway that The Cave tonight will be reverberating with enough chime to make a grandfather clock put on a Hawaiian shirt and go listen.

Well adding to the fuzz+chime+vibe are local groups Sea Breeze Diner and The Charming Youngsters, whom are the newest crop of indie bands that would go in your basket if they were veggies and you you walking the isles at the farmer's market. Seabreeze Diner blasts infectious pop riffs at damaged crooning vocals until dancing is the only suitable response. The Charming Youngsters brilliantly layer stretchy fuzz, head banging down strokes, crisp harmonies, and bubblegum whimsy to their heart's content. Its a symphony of "yes!" and they always seem genuinly surprised when the audience responds with thunderous aplause...its totes adorbs. Tonight 5/25 at The Cave in Chapel Hill at 9 PM $5. --Carrboro Ninja

Preview: Leland Sundries, Ramblin' Andy - Slim's

Brooklyn based Leland Sundries borrows the nostalgia of generations who lived and loved before us and maintains their sweet remind with the jangle of folk rock guitars and the gravity of mellow baritone Nick Loss-Eaton. Their collection of songs presents Americana as if holding a pen to paper and listing that which they hold dear. In the lines they form, stories and melodies drift like clouds across a lifetime of skies which are colored neither blue nor gray, calm nor turbulent...just recalled with fondness and awe.

Setting out on a seven show run late February, Leland Sundries makes two stops in our neck of the woods. Wednesday March 4th at Slim's in Raleigh, and Thursday March 5th at Mystery Brewing in Hillsborough, a spot which continually makes a name for itself with their award winning craft brews and for bring a steady stream of talented Americana and folk rock artists from points unknown to entertain the locals.

Traveling with Leland Sundries is the crooner Ramblin' Andy whose call and warble is akin to the roots of country yet sophisticated enough to move to the city. -- @carrboroninja

Carrboro Ninja is Jeremy Blair,
Writer, people lover, and singer for The Affectionates.

Watch Leland Sundries' music video for their song "Elegy"

Compilation: Broken Hearts Broken Sounds

Carrboro, NC based promoter Michael Charles Wood has leagued with Raleigh label Silber Records to stack 18 South Eastern bands, give or take a couple from The West Coast and/or Mars...onto a compilation that's all about falling in (and out) of love. And its just in time for Valentine's Day...no shortage of romantics in this ensemble. The theme for this comp is the altered state of consciousness which is love, but you won't find any model citizens of Sweetheartville USA among the broken emotions and bittersweet send offs of this collection. For, if you ask an indie pop band within the envelope of Athens, Columbia, and Raleigh to write a love song, they will first write a beautiful melody, followed by an engaging arrangement, then rip shit about that last fucked up relationship they were in. These bands know love hurts and they like a dash of salt in the wound. Among its abundance, the comp offers a steady mix of overtly pretty songs (acoustic guitars and all), no talking-just action instrumentals...and the purely experimental. ...all in all a pretty good metaphor for the relationships of musicians, no? The full comp can be downloaded from Bandcamp in name-your-price format here: Broken Hearts Broken Sounds or at Silber's home page: Silbermedia.com/brokenhearts/. --Carrboro Ninja -- @carrboroninja

Here is a fine representative track by Feel No Other titled "Even The Blue"

Show Review: Alpha Cop

Motorco, Durham
July 25, 2014

What's Alpha Cop like?

Like a group of weird contemporary* folks gave up working on the community supported garden and started a cyborg production facility in Bahama with plans to expand with a new co-op somewhere in Durham, posing as a food truck, sponsored by Viewers Like You and the Santa Fe Natural American Spirit Medical Sciences Division. Not the slightest bit concerned. Not sold out. Bought wholesale into the reality of industry eating itself for breakfast, lunch and din-din. Living in the sugary sporadic confection of hip martyrdom. Rejoicing in the somber noise of insanity.

Like that time after seventeen straight days of fourteen hour shifts, when six and a half minutes of intense concentration resulted in one migraine, three panic attacks and two epiphanies for these intrepid slackers. Break out the fiddle and pick up the Tele. Pluck. Cry a little. Capo the bass. Scream too much. Laugh at stupid flesh, moles and horsehair. Play. Shove metal into Ken dolls. Pull nylon hairs from Skipper. Fuck Barbie. And her flaming single-wide trailer in the background.

Their stimulating approach to rock drew me in and then more cigarettes had to happen as I processed my ping ponging emotions. Appreciate the sound's ability to reach through walls. Still listening. The audience. Is the void semicircle in front of the stage necessary? The floor is lava. Obviously. Static and stunned. Nodding in a combined effort. Like that was enough gesticulation for one night. Why aren't they dancing? Thrashing about like so many tadpoles? Cyborgs. Apparently. Whiskey and noise. Noise and bourbon and cheap beer. Sex legs. He said "Fuck up more often." Don't listen to me. Listen to them. -- Mork N. Sirl

Alpha Cop Links
https://www.facebook.com/alphacop
http://alphacop.bandcamp.com

Prevue: Texoma

Being sixteen in the dust blown hills of the lower Midwest you'll find no shortage of crop fields that needed five-dollar an hour day laborers, nor will you find a shortage of country music drifting from the AM radios of pick up trucks that drive you to them. Those long afternoons walking rows and pulling weeds or breathing diesel atop a rolling iron monstrosity were antagonized by a sun that seemed to perch itself in the apex of the sky and then burn for hours without moving.

Aside from the fifty bucks that was going to be made for a summer day's worth of sweating, the thought that kept the heads up and the legs moving was of the honky tonk which that fifty bucks would likely be blown at later that night. Honky tonk is a work-hard play-hard culture which is a creed in rural blue collar America and its songs are acted out every day in the lives of its subjects. They take it with them to the country bars, VFW parties, and anywhere else that the reveling in one-upmanship stories of the days hardships could be shared while the floor rumbled with swing dancing and the ceiling shook with joyous laughter.

The name Texoma is instantly recognizable in this setting. In the 1930's, the Corps of Engineers built Lake Texoma in the geometric center of honky tonk country...North of Texas, South of Oklahoma City. Given the imagery that can be derived from the people of this land, their culture, and their music, this Chapel Hill alt-country/folk rock band who plays their brand of boot stompin' good-time country under the same name made an exquisite choice.

Its the new project of ex-Whiskey Smugglers frontman Zach Terry, with Jon Ackley of Slingshot Cash riding shotgun. Texoma swings with an inspired blend of guitar rock and thumping bass riffs that could form a room into a line dancing party within a song's first few notes. The traits of this being a passion project are evident. Today is less than two months since their first show and Texoma's facebook profile is already glittered with videos and photos taken by a quickly arranging group of followers. Their first show was at Local 506, one of the areas most important rock venues, and a five-song EP was recorded and ready to be shared before anyone even knew that a dance was being planned. Indeed, Texoma is taking "working hard and playing hard" seriously.

February 22nd, the honky tonking will be at Motorco in Durham as Texoma and Raleigh alt. country rockers Buckshot Betty walk the rows and breathe the diesel. -- @carrboroninja

Texoma "Riverside"

Feburary 22nd @ Motorco in Durham - Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/567194883370917

Video - Tall Tall Trees

I was introduced to the looping pedal in the same broke down college rent district living room where I learned to play my first "A" chord. That lesson went something like, "Here, press down all the strings on the second fret and strum. See, you can play guitar." The subsequent jam sessions revolved heavily around the A major chord and months later had expanded to G major, then to D major, and then we were a band. Like my guitar playing, this ensemble's adaptations of the looping pedal adhered to our stringent standard of "close enough" and we weren't bashful about looping anything. The pedal, operated by our complex lead guitar player Steve, had the tendency to go wildly awry, often taking center stage half way into a song with sonic hysteria that made the cat leave the room and everyone else to ask Steve if he was alright. We owe many cigarette breaks to Steve's looping pedal.

These impressions of making music as a group left me mystified and filled with wonder. I entrenched myself with rock and roll, but gave looping pedals a wide berth. Some took to it wholeheartedly however and I am a willing admirer when I see a band punch a neat riff into a live performance with a loop...and I'm downright in awe when I see a performer who makes looping the entire act.

Tall Tall Trees is that performer. This gentleman could contend for the heavy weight title of interesting and unique things to do with a looping pedal. Tall Tall Trees, aka Mike Savino is a NYC banjo player who loops up just about every percussive or pluckable sound that can be conceived with a banjo and sums it into smart folk pop. This video from his fund raiser campaign is the perfect example, and the good news is that the project is funded! So watch with impunity. -- @carrboroninja

Leyla McCalla: Heart of Gold

Eureka, a genuine and impassioned performance. This is the kind of video which stops you in your tracks, slows down the spinning of the day and takes control of your attention for a few minutes. This is Leyla McCalla, most recently known as the cellist for Carolina Chocolate Drops, a group that consistently produces elegant solo spin-offs. "Heart of Gold" is just one of the Langston Huges poems which Leyla delicately arranges to original music on her upcoming album Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes. Click play and enjoy!  -- @carrboroninja



Leyla McCalla performs in Durham, NC at The Pinhook on Tuesday Feb 4th. Punkgrass specialists Grace and Tony open. See the event details here: http://www.thepinhook.com/event/457121-leyla-mccalla-durham/

Show Review: Arliss Nancy

Slims Downtown, Raleigh
Wednesday March 6, 2013

The small clubs in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill are grand benefactors of a yearly occurrence as the underground unknowns from the East filter down the 95 corridor to bang a right on 20 and drive for days to be seen and heard at SXSW. The Triangle makes for a nice gas money stop. Deertick once played a show to three people at Nightlight, went to Austin and became famous, then a few days later played to over 1000 at Cat's Cradle on the way back home to Providence. Wednesday night, Slims Downtown began to tell the story again, this fable starring the Fort Collins, CO based roots rock band Arliss Nancy.

But wait, their is a lot of prairie to cross between the Rockies of Colorado and the beaches of the East so that they could be part of the great migration of Northeastern bands. They find themselves sharing the same stretch of asphalt by virtue of their ethic. Arliss Nancy is given to the road. Two days before they lit up the stage at Slims they were finishing up a European tour. One day before, they were racing from JFK to a gig in Manhattan. And the morning of the show, they were on the road at 6:30 A.M trudging to Raleigh with one hand on the wheel and one eye on the road. Spruced up with a splash of pbr, their amps crackled to life and they recall why they do it. These guys live for the stage. The excitement of their show is derived in whole from their exuberance for performing.

The music is part of the next generation of outlaw country, raised by the original rambling troubadours who took refuge from the elements of society to properly reflect on the virtues of being a lone wolf from under the brilliant night sky of the Rocky Mountains. Being the sons of the movement, their angst is genuine and their guitars are sharper. Front man Cory Call rumbles through only the most meaningful parts of the stories and a swell of keys and rock and roll tells the rest. A thick layer of electric guitar flowing from Jason Larson offers confidence that the stories are as true as they are heavy hearted.

Alas, it may not be a total coincidence that Arliss Nancy found themselves on our local stage days after jet lagging from Europe and days before walking tall in Austin. They are signed to Durham, NC label Death To False Hopes Records and their oldest friend and biggest fan is the label's head, Scotty sandwich..a gem of a production manager, promoter, and talent developer.

Arliss Nancy is probably somewhere west of Alabama right now, driving blindly toward the light. Do what they did Wednesday night in Raleigh and I'll wager Austin welcomes them with open arms, but don't stay too long, We'll be waiting intently for their return. --Carrboro Ninja

FTW - Church Key First One's Free @ The Pinhook, The Human Eyes @ kINGS, and Who Not to Miss at Carrboro Music Fest

Tin Can Sailor performing at Motorco Garage on Thursday Aug 30th.

California Wives, Stars, Diamond Rings @ Cat's Cradle Wednesday 9/26
The big sound of California Wives' chiming indie guitar and smooth vocal harmonies should shine its brightest on the big stage at Cat's Cradle Wednesday night. This Chicago band has earned plenty of press since they started touring heavy last year. Wednesday they will take a shot at engaging the home crowd with immersible indie pop.

Farewell Blowout and Potluck @ The Cave Friday 9/28 5:00 PM
Being present when history occurs is an endearing opportunity for anyone who seeks a strong relationship with the local music culture. Rarely do we have a chance to make plans to attend history, but you can put it on your calendar right now. Current owner Mouse celebrates his last day at The Cave, passing the torch to the Slims team. The festivities kick off at 5:00 PM with a potluck. Music begins at 7:30 PM featuring round-robin style performances by Taz Halloween, Mark Simonsen, and Billy Sugarfix. 5:00 PM/pass the hat

The Human Eyes, Heads on Sticks @ Kings Friday 9/28
The Human Eyes strikes chords of retro pop and avant-garde electronica simultaneously. Their May 2012 album Guiding Eyes For The Blind is a confident envoy into the shimmer and shine that made "synthesizer" a buzz word in the eighties. Heads on Sticks primes from the same pump and blends in a bit of funk. 9:00 pm/$5

Frontier Ruckus, Magnolia Collective @ Local 506 Saturday 9/29
This is a Cat's Cradle presents billing at Local 506 and will be a honey of a roots rocker. Both bands blend Americana and indie to form an excitable brand of Southern rock. Local 506 and Cat's Cradle promoters strive to be matchmakers between locals and touring bands, and this billing has potential to go all the way. Doors at 8 PM/$10

Mount Carmel, Effingham @ Local 506 Monday 10/1
Mount Carmel is on tour out of Columbus, Ohio and hell bent to bring their surly take on blues rock to the indie underground. Next Monday the trio plugs in and rips through their riff drenched anthems in Chapel Hill. Durham indie folk-rock band Effingham opens with their patented high energy, short duration set of story teller rock. doors at 8:30 PM/$9

Church Key Presents Wood Ear, Some Army @ The Pinhook Saturday 10/6
This is another installment of Church Key Records highly successful "Churchkey Presents First One's Free" music series which occurs the first Saturday of the month at The Pinhook in Durham, is free, and has presented fantastic talent on stage since the series kicked off in June. Some Army, having secured their place in the hearts of the local scene with their sweet soft rock indie, has been quite ambassadorial lately...on the road promoting their sound outwardly. Wood Ear are masters of dark Americana sound scapes and could single handedly keep the spirit of rock and roll country from dissipating from the collective minds of the local culture, if it ever came to that. 10 PM, Free

Sunday 9/30 is the Carrboro Music Festival which is one of our last great all-play festivals featuring local-only bands. Its a feel good event for the community and musicians alike with a day of trans-Carrboro performances. SCNP selects from a large list and makes a few recommendations:

Rachel Kiel 1:00 Music Loft
Kiel's 2009 album Table Manners didn't reach the heights that it should have, as evidence by the fact that she isn't in Nashville drawing royalty checks from "Lights On" and negotiating big things with big labels. We'll selfishly keep her big talent to ourselves on Sunday.

Onward Soldiers 4:00 Milltown
Wilmington natives that have been given a key to our house and a permanent invite to come up and stay, Onward Soldiers are a favorite guest. Southern rock meets indie with distinctive vocals and well thought out guitar arrangements.

Saints Apollo 5:00 Southern Rail (Front Porch)
one of the best new harmony driven acoustic acts this year has to offer. Sweet airy songs with a beautiful mingle of voices and softly rendered keys and strings.

Morning Brigade 5:00 Music Loft
Fresh, clean, exciting, hooky...there is plenty to adore in Morning Brigade. Their music is a well rounded wall of sound with a gritty yet refined lead vocal.

Tow3rs 5:00 Milltown
Tow3rs continues to create unique and passionate electronic pop that reaches beyond the boundaries of the genre. Tow3rs sound scapes build more than just colorful rhythms, mystique is generated somewhere within the haze. Fun to listen to, fun to watch.

Magnolia Collective 6:00 Milltown
Carrboro darlings and favorites of SCNP, it's no secret why this band's raucous folk rocking charisma makes our list twice...MagCo is a performance that should never be missed.

Battlestar Canada 6:15 2nd Wind Sports Saloon
Street smart eclectic folk pop glorifying pulp-ish stories of urban decay. This Durham two piece brings a full on electronic wall of sound with the help of synth and loops.

Tin Can Sailor 7:30 Cat's Cradle
Tin Can Sailor is a sleeping giant of indie rock potential. A couple years in to being a band, but just now coming of age with focus and direction on tight arrangements and mind engaging lyrics. Their small cult following could and should multiply on Sunday as they lay it down at a prime time on a prime stage.

The Pinkerton Raid 8:00 Jessee's Coffee and Bar
With energy still sizzling from their east coast tour, this Durham three piece will plug in and continue to cook up their witty brand of heavy pop.

Album Review - Beloved Binge: Pockets

On Pockets, Beloved Binge displays a matured creativity which rends quirky lyrics and unlikely harmonies into genuine emotion, and they find an electrified zeal in the common space between the poles of pop and rock. The most colorful of these movements is the parade of genres that weave in and out of songs like Shriners on mini bikes. Mix and match arrangements high step with a confidence conjurable by only the most devotedly free minds. 80's inspired joy synth, Spanish style classical guitar, industrial metal, new wave, and indie jangle aren't only found on the same album together, they are throwing candy in the same songs. But the diverse range of genres aren't the only opposites that are found marching harmoniously here, there is a marvelous attraction between the two vocals. The fragile confidence of Eleni Vlachos' girlish squeal locks on and strides the album in a defiant harmony with Rob Beloved's graveled and charismatic dead-pan baritone. Yes, on Pockets, the opposing vocal styles and impossible genre match ups win because they succeed in occupying the same space while offering mutual respect, as if Cyndi Lauper and Iggy Pop romanced over an album without trying to change one another.

The fundamental abilities that allow this duo to compassionately mingle unlikes are found in their lifestyle. Rob Beloved and Eleni Vlachos embody warm old word bohemianism. It’s an immaculate strangeness that finds comfort in the gathering of all things that contrast. These habits direct their music toward extremes and then enjoy the curious juxtapositions once connected. It’s as if parts and pieces of songs were held up to one another on their hangers and stared at in the mirror...only those which didn't match were combined. These themes play out from front to back of Pockets and offer a dramatic window into the creativity of Beloved Binge.

Applauding the diversity of style and genre doesn't do justice to the aesthetic of the sound however and it’s most important to note that the result of all these mash up's is a fun pop record that delivers hook after singable hook. The mutual respect between pop and rock can only happen because both sides are at their best here. Vlachos owns pop and has its rhythm and melody gleaming beautifully. Beloved is a rocker and his arrangements on the six string are complex, interesting, and deft. For a duo of writers to reach so far into their soul and return with the truest elements of their persona and then form them into defendable pop music places Pockets close to self-actualization for Beloved Binge, and close to perfect for all of those standing on the sidewalk dazzled as it parades by. --Carrboro Ninja

The Pockets parade pulls up to The Pinhook at 117 W. Main St in Durham on Saturday Sept 22, 2012 for a record release party, which is triple billed with record releases from Billy Sugarfix, whose EP Carousel offers smooth, chiming, vintage instrumentals accentuated by charismatic baritone vocals...and (E)O(T) from Ellertronic, a lesson in electronic ambient 8-bit pop from local folk heroes Bonnie Pivacek (Sequoya) and David Zielinski (All Your Science). Additional theatrics will be performed in the form of improv comedy. This description was scraped from the New Town Drunks who offer their guitar player Roberto Confressi as one of the actors; "During the Beloved Binge set, there will be several short improv acts based the 70's show Three's Company."

Show Review: Arborea With Mariee Sioux and Sarah Shook

Arborea

September 5, 2012
Nightlight, Chapel Hill, NC

By Tommy Kurosawa

The shared experience of a live music show is something long past. The same is true for a random trip to the local multiplex on a saturday afternoon. With the advent of internet -- film and music at our fingertips, Pirate Bay and the like -- well, we can find anything our "hip" friend tells us to download and devour. The problem is the lack of effort it took to find the diamond in the dust. Let's face it, if it rained Van Gogh's every morning, that walk through the Louvre wouldn't be so precious.

CUT TO: A child pointing at the wall of the museum nonchalantly mutters, "Mommy, one of those fell in the backyard yesterday" as others shuffle past the Monet.

But occasionally, still, we stumble into the arena blindly. Not because it was hyped up by some local promoter. Not because the "cool kid" with no musical talent down the street championed it. No, simply because, it was a Wednesday night in Chapel Hill and you had nothing to lose.

Sarah Shook took the stage first with her haunting take on American-ized ballads. I have seen her with a full band before (Sarah Shook and The Devil), gushing the desperation of Hank Williams and bleeding the sharpness of Wanda Jackson. However, solo, Shook was a lullaby in waiting -- smart songs, soulfully stripped down to the bone -- all while coddling a large, hollow bodied guitar.

Mariee Sioux was second. This is where Shook's subtle genius became palpable, for without her as an opener, Sioux's entry into the foray would have seemed less grande. With primal and delicate lyrics floating over Joan Baez-esque finger picking, Sioux hypnotized the crowd. There were songs of blood and flowers and teeth. There were songs where verses dissipated into choruses -- maybe -- or perhaps there was no chorus at all (you lost track while the siren whispered something about "tongues").

But Arborea was the headliner. Now, after the openers' songs had faded into the walls. Now, after the crowd had thought better of the spell they had been seduced by earlier, a new magic filled the space. Arborea's primitive banjo coupled with Robert-Johnson-pact-made-with-the-devil electric guitar, fuzz wailing over the sweetness of Shanti's Bathsheeba-esque vocals, now, this is what we had stumbled into: like staring at the taken woman, beautiful, and bathing upon the roof.

Most of us sat silent. Oh, we laughed at the banter in between -- and the technical problems. And a few drunks chattered in and out during the set. But the most of us listened spellbound.

We were haunted by the sound. We were in love with the moment. We were amazed that these things can still happen.

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http://arboreamusic.blogspot.com
http://marieesioux.tumblr.com
http://www.reverbnation.com/sarahshookthedevil

Pictured Above: Mariee Sioux at Nightlight in Chapel Hill, NC on September 5th, 2012.

Prevue: Anna Rose Beck, Rachel Kiel, Darien Crossley at Cafe Driade Friday July 27th

Beginning with dorm room YouTube videos that caught the eye of local promoters, Anna Rose Beck was hastily ushered onto the local folk stage. While still quite raw and uncut, Beck’s early performances trialed style and composure. Her solo act became a duo with a cellist, soon percussion was invited in. Successes with mixing more hands in the music eventually lead to a sprawling six person folk rock outfit with a proper forty-five minute set built for the club circuit. Most of us following Beck at that time hoped to be dazzled by a surprise arrangement of instruments and musicians on any given night and the anticipation of who would be on stage was half of the entertainment. It was a performance of changes and for those who seek folk music for the appreciation of the art, Beck was unknowingly providing a rare opportunity to watch it move and see where it went.

The performance continues. With influences still gathering and self-image as a songwriter half drawn, Beck's performances are intimate...vulnerable. Gently plucking an acoustic guitar and simmering through lines of heart broken joy, her eyes invite both reflections of the past and dreams of what may lie ahead. Imagining once again how playing it differently will feel, Beck invites us back to her beginnings…solo, with a guitar and a story.

The show is tomorrow, Friday July 27th at Cafe Driade in Chapel Hill, a quaint and grassy little candle lit back yard dining experience perfectly suited for sipping fine wine and enjoying a strummed guitar. The show promotes as "three of North Carolina's young songwriters" and Beck joins Rachel Kiel and Darien Crossley in its billing.

Chapel Hill native Rachel Kiel adds a full measure of spunk to her album of classically derived folk rock. Drawing from a personal diary, she writes with courage and sings with confidence. Her hit "Lights On" spans time and distance being equally suitable for early eighties post-disco feme punk or polished nineties indie, and either can be found drafting somewhere between Nashville and New York.

Darien Crossley travels from Asheville, NC to join the line-up and perfectly complements the evening with her velvet voice and even softer falsettos. Crossley may also be welcomed to Chapel Hill as a reminder that those among us who appreciate the beauty of our home grown folk music are well served to keep an ear in the direction of the mountains also. --Carrboro Ninja

FTW - The Cribs @ Motorco - Magnolia Collective @ 506

The Cribs @ Motorco Friday 6/8
The dazzling breadth of Motorco's main stage will hold one of the indy rock's most under valued bands Friday night as Yorkshire's The Cribs play Durham. By sheer will power alone The Cribs have maintained their indy street cred amidst a series of albums which are so pop singed and mass appeal ready that lessor bands would have succumbed to pressure and sold out mainstream long ago (see KoL). Durham tips a hat to that. The Cribs are touring in support of their most recent effort In the Belly of the Brazen Bull. Fight the good fight, The Cribs, ...fight the good fight. We'll be there watching.

LiLa, The Bronzed Chorus @ The Pinhook Wednesday 6/13
LiLa's indy beats are fresher that Juan Valdez' own cup of morning coffee. LiLa is infectiously hip and their performances motivate entire audiences into dance frenzy. Witness what the Durham underground hip hop scene looks like.

Triangle Rhysing: Music for Massed Guitars @ Nightlight Thursday 6/14
All I know about this is that 30 members of my favorite local bands were asked to bring their guitar, an amp, and a distortion pedal. Included are guitar players from Beloved Binge, Battle Rockets, Once and Future Kings, Horseback, Veronique Diabolique, Boat Burning...be ready for a wall of sound.

Magnolia Collective, Driftwood @ Local 506 Friday 6/15
Magnolia Collective and Driftwood redux their Americana proper down home folk rock show which we first loved when the two bands met on stage earlier this Spring at Motorco. Pennsylvania's driftwood is best known for their sweetly spun stories of the bygone era, but its the emotional violin of Claire Byrne that does most of the singing. Magnolia Collective represents their home town well with catchy pop rhythms reproduced for a cooler crowd on folk rock instruments.

Album: Risk Whalen - Whaler's Ink

A lo-fi charmer from Risk Walen will be here tomorrow, June 1st. Titled Whaler's Ink, the album is a dozen tracks cut on a farm in Efland, NC with a barn serving as the control room and the reverb found in an empty grain silo as the only effects processing. With feelings as calm and serene as the album's rustic backdrop summarizing my listen, the purpose for such a stripped down production became apparent; Katharine Whalen's uniquely powerful voice commands its own attention. A studio with compressors, limiters, lasers, and equalizers would be a distraction.

Softly raspen and delicately enchanting, Whalen remains gently aloft in a breeze of lullabies throughout the majority of the album. Acoustic guitar and cautious percussion flow just out of reach but no less aware of their role, and give the vocals a stream to drift upon. Stand out tracks are "Rabbit King" which is first to introduce Whalen's unique vocal and serves as vanguard for the aesthetic of the recording. And, "Bend Me a Line" which is a heart-breakingly conscious image of the quiet tragedy that scorned love can leave in its wake.

The album rounds itself out with a few folk stompers chanted in Brian Risk's baritone, and an equal number of instrumentals whose softly strummed melodies may still be ghosting around the limestone bricks of the silo where they were recorded. --Carrboro Ninja

listen to: "Bend Me a Line"

Album: The Pinkerton Raid - The Pinkerton Raid

The Pinkerton Raid's new self-titled album is a fused offering of modern soft pop indie and the gritty blues rock that was pop circa 1970 on the British underground scene. With hands in pockets and eyes sullenly fixed on the ground to its feet, The Pinkerton Raid is guided along its path by the echoes of electric guitar, rhythms of a delightful piano, and a chorus of harmonies wisping through the tree tops above. Leaving from the darkened urgency of opener "Santa Rosa", feeling its way through the psychedelic space of the midland tracks, and arriving at the heart felt sensitivity of the last song, "Lullaby, Butterfly"...The Pinkerton Raid knows when to walk and when to run. Exercising the arrangements of a music store's worth of instrumentation, these songs make their way with a lope and a trot, then a stop and a charge.

Most of the album is notably solemn and range from pure ballad (e.g. "Could You Wait") to the downright Floyd-ish "Piano Queen"...but one is an escape artist. "Life of the Party" unbinds itself from the album's somber reflective tone to reveal depth in the form of a magically fun pop tune. "Life of the Party" recounts why we love the weekend with a dancey story of a dinner party crowded with those joyously half inebriated and delightfully drinking the rest of the way there. As it was also my personal favorite of the collection, I was inspired to nearly having the next such party of my own planned and anticipated by the song's 4:00 mark. On an album with so much variety it was refreshing yet not surprising that the stand-out track was molecularly different than the rest, but take not my word for it...stream the album and see which takes you the furthest; stream it here

The Pinkerton Raid releases The Pinkerton Raid this Saturday May 26th with a performance at The Casgah in Durham with sweet folky pop sweet Birds and Arrows, and softly seductive Ashville pop act Stephaniesid. --Carrboro Ninja

Track: "A Shallow Madness" - Lilac Shadows

The title track released from the upcoming Shallow Madness EP casts Lilac Shadows into a universe where the spectrum is 8 bit synth, color vibrates the airwaves, and thoughts are communicated through texture. Bridging the languages of here and there, prettiness becomes a medium with whom "A Shallow Madness" emotes clearly. What may be translated however, is an overshot into the sparkle of unrecognizable gems, the wonder of incalculable movement, and the gleam of lucidity lit just beyond a haze of obscurity. But just before starry eyes fall to trance, there is a guitar. Chiming a universal language and giving reason to the unknown, it repeats it's message with bell like clarity until smiles are found sharing their interpretations with head nods.

Lilac Shadows is Sam Logan, Derek Torres, and Karen Blanco all of T0W3RS, and Zack Oden from Annuals. With their textures well formed and their sense of place purposefully ambiguous, the experimental has long since been beyond the test phase for this cast and "A Shallow Madness" seems a comfortable suspension in animation for them. The Shallow Madness EP will transcend the ether and enter the physical realm on cassette March 31st, with a release party hosted by DiggUp Tapes later that night at Kings on Martin St in Raleigh, NC. --Carrboro Ninja

listen what i'm talkin bout: A Shallow Madness

jphono1 - Living is Easy

John Harrison's arts is always a mind expanding challenge to convention and these forty pages of art and nine tracks of atmospheric acoustic pop found bound by a single release titled Living is Easy...is the sort of collapsed dichotomy between art and life that John's audience is conditioned to expect from his studio. Known for twisting the heaviest and darkest sounds from a synthesizer in his mainstay electronic rock group North Elementary, John takes a lighter more experimental approach to the same machine on this solo effort jphono1. Throughout the album, there is an acoustic guitar, John's whimsically philosophical voice, and a synth zipping, zapping, and echoing in playfully thoughtful arrangements. The occasional looped atmospheric sound of birds chirping or stars shooting promotes a bridge between the two mediums of Living is Easy, which are sound and print. Graphic artist Regina McCoy chose from a pallet of art works, images captured during times of the album's creation, and lyrics scribbled on scratch paper to frame up Living is Easy the book, and each page within it offers a rich and delectable dive into the colorful life of the artist.

The commission can be per-ordered right now for $12 book and $5 CD (which is mind numbingly cheap for an effort of this quality) and shipping will begin on or around Feb 7. The entire album is available for streaming and/or download at the artist's website jphono1 as of right now also. To kick things off, a massive album/art release party is on the books for February 16th at The Cave in Chapel Hill. The party will begin at 7 PM and will feature 30 minute sets by nine performers beginning with Mark Edwards and ending with Chapel Hill folk rock darlings Magnolia Collective. Sara Bell of Regina Hexaphone, Neven Carswell of Wembley, and Inspector 22 are among the performers billed. Join the facebook event.

--Carrboro Ninja

images from "Living is Easy" the book