Music, Indy Week

Within a widening gyre of genres, Chuck Johnson has discovered his artistic through-line

Brian Howe — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Over 20 years, Chuck Johnson has developed three discrete aspects of musical performance: experimental rock guitarist, analog electronics wizard, fingerstyle acoustic guitarist. His elemental through-line: emotion. by Brian Howe During the last 20 years, Chuck Johnson has developed what appear to be three discrete aspects of musical performance. The first is that of experimental rock guitarist for Spatula, one of the weirder bands to flourish in Chapel Hill's indie-rock heyday.…

The week in music: May 22-29, 2013

Grayson Currin — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Integrity; Dege Legg, Anders & Kendall; Rotten Sound; Major Handy; Sons of Tonatiuh; Black Tusk; Vandaveer; John Howie Jr & the Rosewood Bluff; Baobab, Sumner James; Jon Lindsay; Bad Veins; Krewella by Grayson Currin 1. Integrity Perhaps Dwid Hellion, the sole constant member of long-running metal and hardcore confounders Integrity, is a perfectly amicable fellow.…

The unlikely and intersecting successes of The Old Ceremony and Haw River Ballroom

Grayson Currin — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

The Old Ceremony will play the second anniversary of Haw River Ballroom, reconnecting two great ideas—a ballroom in the country and a rock band with a dozen members—that have become unpredictable successes. by Grayson Currin Django Haskins and Heather LaGarde laugh when they talk about the geneses of the institutions they respectively created. Nine years after launching The Old Ceremony, for instance, Haskins sounds genuinely surprised that the same core of musicians have stuck with him, in spite of the band's original plan to be so large that they'd likely never tour or make any money.…

How Southern metal supergroup Down earned that title

Kim Kelly — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

The dudes of New Orleans doom rock quintet Down have lived the hardscrabble lifestyle long enough to warrant the "super-" tag, and their past is essential to the success of their music. by Kim Kelly The "super-" prefix attached to supergroup used to mean something, man. But thanks in part to the democratization allowed by the Internet, just about any chucklehead can pen a half-baked garage jam, chuck it onto Bandcamp and label the project a supergroup if they'd like. In that sense, the music industry of 2013 can sometimes suggest the afterschool soccer games of yore: Everyone gets a trophy, and benchwarmers are welcome.…

Three months after being hit by a car, Paint Fumes' Elijah Von Cramon laughs on

Jordan Lawrence — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

"This is like the first time in my life that I've actually ever been like, 'Yeah, shit's cool. Life's not that bad.' Even though it's totally bad right now. I did get brain damage. Maybe that helps." by Jordan Lawrence Elijah Von Cramon simply needed a beer. It was a little after 9 p.m. the day before Valentine's Day, and the leader of Charlotte's scrappy Paint Fumes had just ended a heated argument with his father.…

Herding jazz cats: How D-Town Brass manages 15 members

Grayson Currin — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

The assorted day jobs of D-Town's members make scheduling hard. But the size of the ensemble allows them both versatility and force, as evidenced by their excellent new nine-track album, Golden Belt. by Grayson Currin It doesn't take long for keyboardist Andy Magowan to name the 15 members of D-Town Brass, the horns-and-rhythms troupe he launched five years ago simply because he wanted to flesh out the sound on a single song. But he does struggle with calling out the profession of each member.…

The week in music: May 15-22, 2013

Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Goner; Ghostface Killah; Ola Podrida; Titus Andronicus; The Bee Ball; Pure X; Solas, Kenny Roby; Barleycorn & Rye; People's Temple; Demon Eye, Church of Zann; !!!; Stanley Jordan, Kevin Eubanks 1. Goner Faking the Wisdom is the fourth album by Raleigh rock band Goner, and it is incontrovertibly their best.…

The anarchic face of Savage Weekend noise festival belies an acute curatorial mind

Brian Howe — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

"What can happen at a festival so dense is that people cannot absorb any more, even if the most interesting person in the world starts playing. But Ryan Martin did the sequence so well that did not happen." by Brian Howe Ryan Martin sits at a picnic table outside the Looking Glass Cafe in Carrboro, his eyes searching the middle distance. He's trying to decide how to encapsulate the third annual Savage Weekend, which takes over Chapel Hill experimental music stronghold Nightlight this weekend.…

Various artists' Waste of Time: A Tribute to Paint Fumes

Jordan Lawrence — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Waste of Time isn't without its rough patches, but the highs are legendary, much like Von Cramon's recent tumble itself. by Jordan Lawrence After being hit by a car in February, Elijah Von Cramon was placed on a variety of painkillers, a barrage of opiates and other chemicals that seriously altered his perception. He's largely weaned himself from them, but the 18 covers of songs by his band, Paint Fumes, on the fundraising compilation Waste of Time: A Tribute to Paint Fumes approximate what his own music must have sounded like in that altered state.…

The Darkness and the woes of revivalist one-hit wonders

Grayson Currin — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

No matter how well Hot Cakes recaptures and reasserts the charisma that made people love them a decade before, The Darkness are now only a relic of a previous moment. by Grayson Currin A decade ago, the British glam-rock wastrels The Darkness lodged the flagrant and falsetto refrain of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" into the minds of a few million listeners on multiple continents. Good for them: They went platinum several times, supported Metallica on tour and raked in mounds of awards and attention.…

Bevel Summers' The Cards

Ashley Melzer — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

The Carrboro band's first full-length, a magpie collection featuring more voices, new instruments and a wider palette of influences, is united by a keen sense of songcraft. by Ashley Melzer When Carrboro's Bevel Summers released their seven-track debut EP last year, the band centered around two guys with old-timey ambitions, surrounded by a set of friends. The dueling songwriting team of Jeb Brinkley and David Hutcheson sang of liquor-high times and hard-women lows alongside acoustic guitars and soaring fiddle, delivering tunes that charmed through tradition.…

The week in music: May 8-15, 2013

Grayson Currin — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

James Blake; Alice Gerrard; Krakenfest; Josh Ritter; Losering: The Songs of Ryan Adams; Captured! By Robots; Culture; Dessa; HOG; Juan Huevos, Hemlock Ernst; Band of Horses; Imagine Dragons by Grayson Currin 1. James Blake The assumed ascendance of James Blake never quite happened.…

Caroline Shaw, a North Carolina native not looking to be called a composer, wins music's Pulitzer

William Robin — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

The prize-winning Partita is an astonishing deconstruction of a Baroque dance suite that incorporates Tuvan throat singing, square dances, abstract minimalism and red-blooded American hymnody. by William Robin In 2010, musician Caroline Shaw tossed off a tease of a new idea she was exploring. "As for Bach solo violin partitas in particular," she wrote on her blog, "I'm working on a couple of ideas with these myself, over the summer.…

Phil Cook steps into the bandleader role to re-create a Ry Cooder favorite

Jordan Lawrence — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

With a band of local favorites dubbed the Guitarheels, Phil Cook will commemorate his half decade of intense Ry Cooder admiration by re-creating all but one of Boomer's Story's tracks. by Jordan Lawrence If they don't mind waking up early, full-time touring musicians often have their days off the road or away from the studio entirely to themselves. With no desk to commute to or deadline to beat, a day off can be a refuge for relaxation or an opportunity for solitary pursuits free from outside pressure.…

The N.C. Opera stages Aida just enough

Chris Vitiello — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Aida will be semi-staged: It's the full opera with costumes, props, lighting and dramatization; there's simply no set. "To me," Timothy Myers says, "Aida is all about the intimate detail of relationships." by Chris Vitiello Timothy Myers' voice quivers when he remembers the first time he heard soprano Angela Brown. It was the Giuseppe Verdi opera A Masked Ball, and her performance that evening changed the course of his life and career, which now finds him holding the baton as principal conductor and artistic director of the North Carolina Opera.…

The populist plea bargain of Rush

Chris Parker — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Rush were never as baroque or symphonic as bigger art rock icons like King Crimson or ELP, perhaps because they weren't trying to turn classical music into rock music. They simply bedazzled hard rock. by Chris Parker Nobody was necessarily pining for more populist art-rock. Isn't one point of eight-minute songs and symphonic orchestrations to winnow out the less sophisticated?…

The week in music: May 1-8, 2013

Grayson Currin — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Bob Dylan; Opeth, Katatonia; Carrboro Block Party; Lyle Lovett; Brown Bird; No BS! Brass Band; Jason Anderson; Mandolin Orange; Amadéus Leopold; Anna Rose Beck; Oberhofer; The Airborne Toxic Event by Grayson Currin 1. Bob Dylan Last year's Tempest might have been Bob Dylan's best-received album in a decade, but what's new and what's old hardly matters when the songwriter takes the stage these days.…

Chatham County Line precursor Stillhouse stumbles into its second record, The Great Reprise

Spencer Griffith — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Stillhouse may have started first, and CCL's success may have taken away their ability to work quickly, but now both bands share the same larger-than-rules outlook on crafting classic tunes. by Spencer Griffith Stillhouse is a supergroup in reverse: In 1998, the quintet formed from loose jam sessions at Raleigh's famed musician dive, the Blue House on Boylan Avenue. The lineup originally included Dave Wilson, Greg Readling, Jay Brown, Colby Berry and Craig Emmons.…

The Southern baptism of Hiss Golden Messenger

Grayson Currin — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

"The thing is, all of this attention for this record will be gone really soon, in less than a month. I'm glad that I have my family and responsibilities to keep me grounded, because I can see how people just spin off into the ether." — Michael Taylor by Grayson Currin The sun was at least an hour away from the horizon when Michael Taylor sent me a text message on a recent Tuesday morning. Taylor makes what's most readily described as folk-rock under the name Hiss Golden Messenger, and I wanted to ask him some questions about his new record, Haw.…

The Nein's We Get Lost

Brian Howe — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Rather than a reintroduction or a resolution, We Get Lost is a "To Be Continued?" for a Triangle art rock act whose momentum, though fizzled, does not feel irrevocably lost. by Brian Howe The title's not a joke: In the mid '00s, Triangle art rockers The Nein looked set to establish themselves as a standard-bearing local band. But after releasing their 2007 sophomore LP, Luxury, they seemed to fall off the face of the earth.…

Stillhouse's The Great Reprise

Peter Blackstock — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Stillhouse's sound is country-tinged rock 'n' roll, though they're leaning a little heavier on country this time around. by Peter Blackstock Although guitarist Dave Wilson and multi-instrumentalist Greg Readling earn their living with Raleigh bluegrass/Americana outfit Chatham County Line, it wouldn't be accurate to classify Stillhouse as a side project; it existed before Chatham County Line formed more than a decade ago. Joining the two in Stillhouse are bassist Jay Brown and drummer Zeke Hutchins, and for a time in the early '00s, all four were members of Tift Merritt's backing band.…

The week in music: April 24-May 1, 2013

Bryan C. Reed — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Dave Holland, Kenny Barron; Los Vigilantes, Las Ardillas; The Sound of Hope triple benefit; The Snails, Art Department, The Lollipops; Wax Idols, TV Ghost; Chris Corsano; Shabazz Palaces, THEESatisfaction; Zomes; Last Year's Men, The Dynamite Brothers; Hadea; The Men; The Sword by Bryan C. Reed 1. DAVE HOLLAND & KENNY BARRON Summarizing the accomplishments of Dave Holland and Kenny Barron does neither justice, but their pasts are worth mention.…

An explosion of New Music in the Triangle

Chris Vitiello — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

From locals New Music Raleigh to visitors Wet Ink Ensemble, contemporary classical music is packing venues large and small. by Chris Vitiello On a rainy 40-degree night in early February, I trotted without an umbrella down a soaking Chapel Hill sidewalk. It was a bit after 10 p.m., my sneakers were saturated and my fingers were going numb.…

LiLa's IV

Eric Tullis — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

LiLa's IV has some soul packed in the places you'd least expect. by Eric Tullis One problem with being a band indigenous to a growing place like Durham is that, if your crusade doesn't match the pace of the city's progression, you run the risk of being buried in or blurred out by the surroundings—that is, out-rocked by busier, more innovative and louder acts in town. On their fourth album, simply titled IV, six-man bro band LiLa barely makes it out of their own rubble, mixing a concerned brand of undetectable chillax rap with obedient instrumentation.…

The week in music: April 17-24, 2013

Grayson Currin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival; DJ Spooky; Dan & Letha Rodman Melchior Fundraiser; Prizehog; Laura Stevenson; Metz, Odonis Odonis; Thrones; Black Swans; Born Ruffians; North Elementary, Antique Firearms; Les Claypool's Duo de Twang; Snarky Puppy by Grayson Currin 1. Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival certainly invests in its headliner: Solo guitar prankster Keller Williams, who will join The Travelin' McCourys for his Thursday night set, is a big-ticket item, as is beloved African singer Oliver Mtukudzi.…