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/

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."

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

Some Army Debut 7"

The debut Some Army 7" is a gentle lover with a forgiving embrace. Arrangements are subtle, choruses and harmonies distant, and drums beat so as not to disturb. Its opener "Servant Tires" lulls to sleep with four minutes worth of bedroom eyes and its closer "Fallen On Your Sword" beckons them back awake with just as much sensitivity. A forty second long instrumental dream scape of lush synth keys and ethereal harmonies makes up the middle. All three tracks are reasons to fall in love. On this debut, lead singer Russell Baggett holds candied melodies in his hands and gently blows them to the wind...picked up and carried away by evanescent guitar rubbed with just enough grit to dial Some Army into the Indy rock genre, yet softened enough to keep them pop. --Carrboro Ninja

Servant Tires

post script

Some Army will perform songs from their debut 7" Friday 1/13 at Local 506 with Fan Modine; a pop inspired rock outfit with a taste for bouncy rhythms and vintage esthetics...and Prypyat which is a time capsule to sixties French pop brought to us via deft classical guitar plucking by Duncan Webster (Hammer No More The Fingers) and the deep stretchy cello of Leah Gibson (Lost in the Trees). Doors 9pm, $8.


screen print by Steve Oliva / Kitchen Island Show Prints

SCNP's Top 15 Song in 2011

Counting them up and counting them down, the local squeeze box kept Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill in the comfortable style, pulling in and pushing out hits throughout 2011. Here is this blogger's summation of the best fifteen songs from this year's releases.



15. Only One of Me
Greg Humphreys
People You May Know

First I was to say thank you to Greg for this song...its a classic feel good tune. Tongue-in-cheek hilarity, wise cracking hipness, and solid pop sing-a-long goodness give us plans for a song which could have only been drafted my a master songwriter. Greg Humphreys is a local treasure and a few coins were stolen from the chest on this one.

14. Empty Bottle
Slingshot Cash
From Aftermath to Exile

I am a sucker for a song with deeply drawn imagery and with the sorrowed plight of the song's fallen protagonist now fully understood after the somber telling of the first line "hello empty bottle, I've missed you" ...we are left to enjoy the rollicking jangle of Slingshot Cash's country rock.

13. fight/flight
I Was Totally Destroying It
Preludes - Greyday Records

"fight/flight" is an epic which spans massive builds and monuments crashes, souring choruses and bottomed refrains and it defends a little more ground for the power pop I Was Totally Destroying It upon the predominately alt-country, indy rock local battle field.

12. Time Alone
Birds and Arrows
We're Gonna Run - 307 Knox

"Time Alone" is a full frequency face time with the lovable voice of Andrea Connoley. This recording features a few more sounds than we'll hear live...namely a feedback dialed electric guitar and a stretchy organ...for a studio version which amps the energy to match Andrea's shimmering vocals. Quality in the studio also gives the song's fit and finish a time capsule retroness with depth and intrigue.

11. Blue Moon
The Moaners
Nocturnal - Holidays for Quince

"Blue Moon" is a raspy fragile eeriness that showcased lead singer Melissa Swingle's most interesting talent; playing the saw. The song's gentle pushing and pulling rhythm is accentuated by the spooky haunting whisper of the saw and creates an other-worldly effect in which to become lost. Found on an album which could have been farmed for several best-of songs, "Blue Moon" is a run-away favorite of 2011.

10. The Road to Mocharabuiee
Sinful Savage Tigers
Last Night of the Revels

Songwriter Seth Martin has a witty pen and mind for beautiful metaphors, band mates Andrew Marlin and Seth Barden are ringers on the mando and upright. The Road relates the up's and down's of love in terms that are easy on the ears and interesting for the mind.

9. Pills
Wembley
You Are Invisible

A band loved for their pretty songs sneaked in a blush worthy ep early this year and "Pills" was likely the track that spent the most time in front of the mirror. Boldly made up with the Wembley trademark harmonies and laced with Neven's art crafted guitar riffs, "Pills" gives us more reasons to stare.

8. A Day Without Fairies
Bitter Resolve
Bows and Arrows Against the Lightning

This song is rock purity. Starkly emotional and charged with the lung collapsing push of amp speakers being driven to limits and the primal scream of drums being beaten to death. Its built around the desire for rock to be drenched in its own loudness and the effect is honesty and truth channeled through a volume knob cranked to the right.

7. The Pony Express
Bombadil
All That The rain Promises - Ramseur Records

Bombadil came back in style in 2011 with a new release brimming with their quirky old fashioned pop goodness. "The Pony Express" is a story teller track that is so interestingly arranged that it hits the replay button very easily.

6. Jam Up and Jelly Tight
Jennyanykind
The Moaners / Jennyanykind Split7 - Holidays For Quince

This song represented a white-hot resurgence of one of Chapel Hill's most charismatic rock bands. Jennyanykind shared a hand in carving Chapel Hill into the greater independent rock map in the nineties and "Jam up and Jelly Tight" delivered one of the best hooks of the current decade. It's hip and confident rock and roll kept the summer moving strong.

5. Heartbreak, TX
Magnolia Collective
Ghost Stories

Magnolia Collective's most sincere effort to tell a love or lose story that would be felt in the heart by Americana strings and folk rock guitars turned out a country hit. "Heartbreak, TX" was found unassumingly in the middle of their debut EP but it quickly found its way to the top of my play list.

4. Come With Us
The Light Pines
Into The Night

Chilling and dramatic, enticing and suspensful. The Light Pines were pure granulated talent and "Come with Us" was the flame under the spoon. Watching it performed live was an intoxicating breath of beauty and deftness. Alas, after a half-decade long exercise in expectations, Josh Pope broke up The Light Pines and cancelled their headliner spot in The Independent's Hopscotch Music Festival, leaving and empty spot on the roster, and an empty spot in our hearts. "Come With Us" remains one of the best songs released this year.

3. I Would Say
The Huguenots
The Huguenots

The Hugueonots are another band break up story that broke hearts. Calling it quits shortly after the release of the self titled "The Huguenots" left us without a benefactor for the gorgeous "I Would Say" ...a timeless pop gem that was dipped in fun and rolled in summer.

2. This Goes On
Once and Future Kings
Dead Lions

OFK packages their 2011 album Dead Lions in ocastraic swells lifting front man Jess Henderson's falsettos to angelic heights. "This Goes On" provides the album's best example and does it in a memorable way. Light and poppy key strokes dazzel with poignant guitars and heart spoken poli-sci lyrics for a chest heavy anthem that rewards each listen with satisfying clarity.

1. Lament
Mount Moriah
Mount Moriah - Holidays for Quince

This high stakes loving and leaving tale replayed its way to the top of my list for the sheer draw of it's impossible harmonies and engrossing lyrics. In Lament, heather and jenks reason on a higher level with a lucid melody and elgant hooks to deliver an instant classic, and IMHO...the best song of the year.

Magnolia Collective - Ghost Stories

If I were to describe the songs of Ghost Stories on a margin equal to how I listened to them it would read as if "Heartbreak, TX" is the only track on the album. From the moment of the first spin his song has played back and forth, up and down...and heard differently in each direction. The dark, heavy, and sublime melody is the song's first habit forming trip. It pulls and pushes, lets you fall and jerks you back up...a struggle that resolves only with an inevitable submission to the current. Drowning in it's thick and opaque textures may just be the first listen. Sink a few spins deeper and the mesmerizing grip of a hauntingly strummed banjo delicately weights the senses and hastens the fall. Weeks later you may, as I did, become enraptured with the song's provocatively visceral electric refrain that claws with emotion following a thorough vexing of the song's spirit stealing antagonist. Which ever element of this song is heard, Magnolia Collective is completely owning it. This is a Southern rock outfit expanded with a full accompaniment of Americana strings and they've pulled them all down from the wall to fix this song with surly smooth and tantalizingly moody textures.

No shortage of poets found in this seven person cast, every song is penned from a quill inked in the blood of a broken heart and the pages of their album bleed with the memories of lovers past. "Stolen Car" sets an early pace and coins the Magnolia Collective playing style as upbeat Americana rhythms, slinky C&W electric leads, and breezy harmonies. It also testifies for Magnolia Collective's urge to dive deep into the emotions of break-up's, make-up's, and fuck-up's. "Willow Tree" continues the knack for the deeply drawn plot with a sobering tale of the human condition as experienced by those who have loved and lost. MagCo hits stride for a big finish on "Owls" ...a charging waltz that swells and crashes on a grand scale. But I beg of you, don't let this be a six song EP, scratch for the seventh, there is a love song hidden within this album and you'll hear it if you dream steady.

You'll get this album with the eight-dollar ticket for Saturday night's EP release party at Local 506 in Chapel Hill, and Magnolia Collective will be in form for a raucous night of tight Southern rock. When you get to a disc player, go ahead and start on track four. That's "Heartbreak, Texas" and its not the only killer song on the album, but its the one that kills elegantly. --Carrboro Ninja

EP release party details:
Saturday 12/3 at Local 506 with The Moaners and Stag. $8 buy tickets on etix