Durham-based folk-rock sextet Delta Rae has signed to Sire Records, a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group. Their label mates will include Avenged Sevenfold, Jack’s Mannequin, Regina Spektor and a host of other bands that water down otherwise interesting musical ideas until they are highly safe and consumable. In short, this is just where Delta Rae belongs.

According to their manager, Adam Schlossman, the group signed the contract a week ago in New York before a show at the Mercury Lounge. The first album in the multi-record deal, a full-length follow-up to the band's 2010 self-titled EP, is expected out in late spring or early summer. Work on the release has already begun thanks to funding from Delta Rae's successful Kickstarter campaign.

Delta Rae unites the backwoods twang of old-time string music and gospel with mainstream forms, a formula deployed successfully by many of their Triangle peers, including Justin Robinson & the Mary Annettes, Hiss Golden Messenger and Megafaun. In Delta Rae’s case, the modern quotient comes in the form of highly varnished Nashville glitz, grinding out the grit of a typically gripping style in the process.

They're the kind of group that can power a single (“Bottom of the River”) with a chain-gang stomp, then make a video in which their platinum-blonde singer marches several hooded African-Americans across a plantation before leaving them lying on the ground, apparently dead. She prances off giggling. Somehow, Delta Rae didn't get the irony or complications, swapping deeper meaning for simple false provocation.

These major labels never learn, do they? There's always the hope that wizened industry vets will help sharpen their approach. Too bad they didn’t sign to American.

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For more than a few years now, Hillsborough Street’s Schoolkids Records claimed the title of “only independent record store in Raleigh.” That’s no longer the case: In The Groove Records—a used-only record store that buys, sells and trades vintage vinyl, with plans to expand into new goods—has moved into the Carter Building, an art studio-dominated space just down from the intersection of Glenwood Avenue and Hillsborough Street. The store opened on January 18 and is owned by long-time Raleigh resident and artist Greg Rollins, who says he saw a niche for a used-only shop in the Triangle.

“Used LPs—there’s always going to be a need for that,” Rollins says. “There are hundreds and hundreds of millions of them out there.”

One of the inspirations for Rollins’ store, he says, was his father, who owned Treasure Chest Records, a beach music-centered shop that operated on Peace Street between 1979 and 1983. Rollins' own selection comes mainly from the classic rock canon. Last week, highlights included a first pressing of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and Buckingham Nicks, the 1973 pre-Fleetwood Mac LP by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Rollins eventually plans to diversify his stock, possibly breaking into turntables and stereo equipment, new vinyl and also used cassettes, of which he has a collection of more than 3,000.

The circulating word is that the International Bluegrass Music Associations (IBMA) Awards are looking for a new home. A group of local bluegrass musicians and enthusiasts are, of course, trying to make that new home here in Raleigh. Indeed, a five-minute video produced by the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau recently landed on YouTube, appealing to IBMA on behalf of the state’s bluegrass traditions and the city’s entertainment assets. I sat down with Hank Smith, banjo player extraordinaire, last week to discuss this effort:

INDEPENDENT WEEKLY: Who came to you with the idea of bringing the IBMA to Raleigh?
HANK SMITH: We first heard about it from a videographer friend of ours who mentioned he interviewed bluegrass stars Jim Mills and Tony Williamson about IBMA moving to Raleigh. He approached us to interview because he wanted our perspective on the subject as younger members of IBMA with the thought that we could appeal to a younger market. Our role is the same as any other person interested in bringing IBMA to Raleigh. Hopefully, our perspective on the subject will help persuade the folks at IBMA to relocate to our fair city.
Our band, Kickin Grass, has been a member of IBMA for 10 years, and we have attended the conference eight times over the last decade both in Louisville and Nashville. We went last fall and showcased three times, attended seminars and jammed in the suites with industry folks. We love what IBMA does for bluegrass and the bluegrass music industry. As the industry and the music itself naturally evolve and change, so must we. We are harbingers of that change, along with all bluegrass musicians involved with IBMA. Bringing IBMA to the home state of such major bluegrass events like Merlefest, for example, seems natural.

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Chris Malarkey, a 13-year member of the staff at Raleigh’s Pour House Music Hall, has signed on to help book acts at the Lincoln Theatre. A local music fixture, Malarkey has been the sole booking agent at the Pour House for about five years.

“It’s a bigger level,” Malarkey says of the move. The Pour House lists its capacity as 350, while the Lincoln holds 800. “It just opens up a lot of different avenues as far as the bands that I can book. The bands that I booked at the Pour House, I can take two bands that draw 300 people and put them together, and that makes a room that holds 800 look great. I can also start working with bands that I’ve always wanted to work with. I spent a lot of time growing talent at the Pour House. Some of it’s outgrown the Pour House, and now I can book them at the Lincoln.”

Eric Mullen, owner of the Pour House, will take over booking duties in Malarkey’s absence. He’s not worried about the transition; he handled the talent buying on his own before he brought Malarkey on board.

“No replacement—he isn’t replaceable,” Mullen said of Malarkey on Thursday. “I’ll go back to doing all the booking just like before and the show will go on.”

Chris Malarkey, the former booking agent at Raleigh’s The Pour House Music Hall and a local music fixture, is moving on from his post after 13 years with the venue. Malarkey joined the space in 1999, begging his way into part-time gigs as a way to break into the live music business.

“I was a big music fan, an old Dead Head, so I thought it would be a good way to get in to doing something I love,” Malarkey remembers. “A friend of mine was bartending there. I told [owner] Eric [Mullen] I’d put up posters, whatever type of promo stuff I could do for a few bucks and some free tickets. It kind of snowballed into what I was doing at the end.”

Malarkey’s ties to the regional jam band scene made him extremely valuable to the club, which fills a large part of its calendar with such acts. He grew from a source of knowledge into a valuable part of their team, taking over as the venue’s sole booking agent by 2007.

“He was good at it because he knows more about music in his right thumb than most people know total,” Mullen says of Malarkey. “I simply taught him the business side of things, and he just took off from there.”

Malarkey is married with two kids, and he says it was difficult to work the other jobs necessary to support his family while giving The Pour House all the time it needed. He’s currently looking into new opportunities, and while he declined to discuss the possibilities, he was adamant that his experience at the venue will be invaluable moving forward.

“I learned to balance between booking with your heart and booking as a business,” Malarkey says. “I think there’s two distinct schools of people in this business. I know one person in this town who books solely with their heart and has to eat crow all the time. I know other people who book solely as a business, and it’s feast or famine. What I did, and what I did for myself, I learned a balance between the two. I booked what I like, but I booked smartly, knowing that for better or worse it is a business.”

For updates on who takes over booking duties at The Pour House and where Malarkey takes his experience, check back with Scan.

Big news from California and for Carolina today: Local orchestral indie band has signed to Lost in the Trees for a re-recorded take on last year's All Alone in an Empty House. We'll bring you an interview with the band about the deal tomorrow, and look for the full story in Wednesday's print edition of the Independent Weekly.