Little more than a year ago, Jed Gant, downtown editor for local news blog New Raleigh, gave a ride to a friend. It was a pretty typical weekday afternoon in downtown Raleigh, and his buddy needed a lift home. During the drive, Gant's then 1-year-old son Oliver sat in the back seat screaming, apparently in tremendous pain. His father attempted to adjust the harness on his car seat, but the child continued to cry. A few days later, Oliver was diagnosed with cancer.

The friend, as it happens, was Grayson Currin, music editor for the Independent and co-director of the paper's annual Hopscotch Music Festival. Currin was tapped by Chris Tamplin, who booked a benefit for Oliver at Raleigh's Tir na nOg last month, to help out with his event. With this as a spark, Currin started to envision something bigger. Racing the Cure—a one-night, three-venue mini-fest in downtown Raleigh benefiting an ailing 2-year-old and his deserving family— is the result.

“I barely think about the fact that my friends have kids,” Currin explains. “I don't really think about the fact that my friends have kids with cancer.”

As you can see in the schedule above, Racing the Cure, set for March 23, is among the biggest local music benefits in Triangle history. Nationally recognized folk superstars (and old friends of Gant) The Avett Brothers will take a break from playing amphitheaters and arenas to throw down in the 250-capacity rock club Kings. The fest will also inhabit The Pour House and Tir na nOg and includes 15 other bands, some of the biggest names in Triangle music. Rag-tag pop-rockers The Love Language, energetic pop outfit Annuals and stately rock band The Old Ceremony highlight a line-up rich with local heavyweights. The $25 tickets, good for admission to all three venues, go on sale at noon today, Feb. 8.

“For us, I think it means a lot that we've been able to … not stand on the shoulders of other people, but have other people help us out,” Jed Gant says of the assistance the community has offered his family, which has already included two benefits in Raleigh.

The past year has been rough for Oliver, his mother, Stacy, and Jed. Oliver was diagnosed last February with a sacrococcygeal teratoma, a type of germ-cell tumor. It was malignant, but luckily hadn't yet metastasized. His doctors gave him the standard treatment for his condition, which started with chemotherapy before a June surgery to remove the tumor. Two months after his surgery, doctors discovered the cancer was beginning to grow anew. Oliver was given a new formula of chemotherapy and had another major surgery in December.

If all goes according to plan, the festival may well serve as a celebration of Oliver's health. He recently completed what his doctors hope will be his last round of chemotherapy and is recouping now at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill. Cautiously optimistic, Jed says that the support of their friends, family and community has been invaluable in helping them through this crisis.

“We feel there are a lot of things that we would have struggled to do without help from other people,” Gant says. “We see other families at the hospital who don't have this support, and it's very sad. We feel very supported in a way that we're able to focus on Oliver. I think that's very crucial for pediatric cancer care, that the parents are able to focus their energies on their child and on the treatment and are able to be there as much as possible to monitor the needs of their child.”

Any proceeds from the festival that don't go to Oliver's family will go to CaringBridge, a free online service that allows families dealing with pediatric cancer to tell their story and communicate with other families in similar situations.

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In the last few years, N.C. State's student radio station WKNC 88.1 FM has become one of the most reliable champions of local music in the Triangle. Their steady stream of N.C. talent—during regular blocks of programming as well as their Local Lunch and Local Beat segments—is a vital resource to area artists. Their annual Double Barrel Benefit has become an extension of that mission, a two-night celebration that exposes local bands to audiences that might otherwise remain ignorant. The lineup for this year's event, which takes place Feb. 3 and 4 at Raleigh's Pour House, continues that tradition. (Here's the Facebook event.)

The first night is heavy on quality talent, if a little off-balance stylistically. Revitalized Durham "acousti-core" heroes The Future Kings of Nowhere headline. Shayne Miel, who is back at it after a long battle with lymphoma, leads his band through explosive acoustic-punk love ballads and newer, more mature rock songs with near endless vigor and charm. (Take that proclamation with a grain of salt: I sometimes work for the label that's releasing the band's new EP.) Dreamy folk trio Birds and Arrows and experimental outfit Organos are a well-suited pair in the middle of the bill. MAKE opens the night and is among the better metal bands in the Triangle, patiently unleashing ominous tones in the doom tradition, but they don't make much sense as a lead-in to the tuneful fare that will follow. Still, it will likely be worth a laugh watching college rock devotees cope with MAKE's volume.

Night two, on the other hand, is one of the best bills Double Barrel has ever put together. The Kingsbury Manx headline, and their immaculately crafted chamber pop is one of the Triangle's truly under-appreciated treasures. Live, their chemistry as an ensemble is wowing. Garage rock spark plug Gross Ghost, whose forthcoming debut LP Brer Rabbit is a burst of relentless momentum, rev things up the middle of the night alongside Boone's Naked Gods, who liven Wilco's weirdo folk with slanted and enchanted indie rock energy. The opener here may well steal the show: Raleigh's Heads on Sticks have quickly become one of the area's most thrilling live acts. David Mueller, bassist for psych-rock heavyweights Birds of Avalon, leads his outfit through darkly distorted dance-rock that's scary-good fun. On Saturday, the dance party may well trump the rock show.

• The Body's tough.

Last year’s inaugural Bull City Metal Fest saw sets by some of the best heavy music in the Triangle, from Jenks Miller’s widely praised brainchild Horseback to blues-metal blacksmiths Caltrop. The second is now scheduled to happen Feb. 3-4 at Durham’s Casbah, and it promises a continuation of this theme. With such diverse bands aboard as Braveyoung and The Body (hard to list them separately, considering 2011’s excellent split), Asheville’s Shadow of the Destroyer and Bitter Resolve, there’s little pattern beyond this: It’s heavy, it’s good and it’s all on the same weekend.

“I tend to always define things more liberally, and I think it’s one of the highlights of not only the fest, but our local metal scene,” says Steve Gardner, fest organizer and Casbah talent buyer. And while this inclusive approach may have cost him the participation of a certain death metal band (they only play with bands of the same sub-genre), he’s happy that he can showcase exciting, ever-splintering niches within the heavy music world.

“Other regions in the country are known for specific types of metal,” he says, mentioning Savannah’s long history with sludge. He says the Triangle, as a relative newcomer to the heavy game, hasn’t yet crystallized to this degree. As such, there’s enough variety to keep metalheads interested, but it’s not so specialized or compartmentalized as to scare off curious newcomers. With only two repeat acts (MAKE and Hog), the upped ante of headliners Black Tusk and the aforementioned Braveyoung/The Body pairing and more bands to be announced, this already sounds like a good excuse to grab your earplugs and head for Durham.

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• Jeremy M. Lange
• Carpenter Ryan Carlson sits underneath a tree that landed on his roof in the Oakwood neighborhood of Raleigh. A record 92 tornadoes tore through North Carolina on April 16.

In the wake of recent Raleigh tornado benefits at Kings and Tir na nOg, and another next week at The Pour House, the city will officially throw its own musical assist next month. The event—dubbed Rise Up Raleigh headlined by The Connells, The Love Language and Marcy Playground, or that band who sang “Sex and Candy”—will take place June 3 at the Raleigh Amphitheater, the outdoor venue the April tornado missed by less than a mile. Also aboard are talented locals like Motor Skills, Kooley High and The Small Ponds.

A few questions come to mind, though: Why is the event free? The city could easily have charged a cover. True, the multi-sponsor show gives attendees the opportunity to donate, and funds will be administered by United Way to four local charities. But by making the event free, this benefit concert loses revenue that—frankly—people would be happy to pay not only because the clout of The Love Language and the legacy of The Connells but also because, well, it’s a benefit. People will generally pay to help their friends, even if it’s just a few bucks and even if it’s just to giggle at Marcy Playground. Speaking of which, if this is a game of “one of these things is not like the other,” I think we’ve spotted the odd band out. Hopefully this means Candlebox’s Kevin Martin will be busking through the city the night of the benefit for charity.

The June 3 event starts at 5 p.m. For more details, check the city’s very, well, special website here.

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• Yim? Jim? My Morning Jacket.

The grizzled bros of My Morning Jacket will play Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary April 30 with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, after a tour-anchoring stop in New Orleans for Jazzfest. MMJ frontman Jim James (Yim Yames?) recently recorded two tracks for PHJB's new album, PRESERVATION: An Album To Benefit Preservation Hall & The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program. The nine-show run starts in Alabama and ends two weeks later in Ohio.

Cat's Cradle announced two big bookings this afternoon: The Carrboro club presents the mighty harpist Joanna Newsom at Carolina Theatre Thursday, March 25, just ahead of her appearance at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tenn. A little more than a month later, Beach House and Washed Out will play the Cradle itself, on May 1. These announcements suggest being patted lightly on the face by tiny, soft kitten paws.