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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Stuff to Do, Week of April 1, 2005
  • Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 17:42:21 -0500

I have a cold & thus was unable to prepare any fake show listings for your April Fools amusement. Sorry. Some of these are so fucked-up they might suffice, however:


Friday, April 1
Audubon Park [http://audubonpark.blogspot.com], Eyes to Space [http://www.eyestospace.net/], Jett Rink [http://www.jett-rink.com/]
Duke Coffeehouse, Durham

Audubon Park's playing their second show in a week, so they might actually be able to get through one or more songs without having that moment where they all look at each other accusingly. Nahm's still gonna take forever tuning between songs, though. The songs are so great you won't mind. They've got their third EP ready to go, but I've been warned that it will confuse you with its recycled-vinyl-album-sleeve packaging. Or something like that.

Eyes to Space are from Chapel Hill, and they are nerdy. How nerdy? Their keyboardist built his own "keytar" with a regular keyboard and some kind of homebrew bracket, handle and strap system.

Of course, that's nothing compared to the elaborate keyboard modifications (aka "circuit bending") performed by Jett King keyboardist Mike Walters.



Friday, April 1
Transportation, Pyramid, Honored Guests [http://www.thehonoredguests.com/]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

Pyramid are from Charlotte, and on record they make a sort of gentle space-folk, although earlier I saw a reference to them touring as a nine-piece, which might be a different story altogether.

Transportation are from Chapel Hill & they've got quite the fondness for the baroque pop-rock of the early-mid 70s, from Badfinger to Queen to Wings to, shit, even Billy Joel.



Friday, April 1
Patty Hurst Shifter [http://www.pattyhurstshifter.com], The Films, Bloom
Martin Street Music Hall, Raleigh



Saturday, April 2
Lyrics Born [http://www.lyricsborn.com/], Heiruspecs [http://www.heiruspecs.com/], Pro-L [http://futurock.com/proL.php]
Duke Coffeehouse, Durham

It's a mark of how little I pay attention to hip-hop that the last hip-hop record I actually bought was the Latyrix 12" with Lateef & Lyrics Born, and that was back in the mid-90s, when we thought that underground hip-hop was actually maybe going to blow up huge. Who would have thought that the same old tired gangsta posing and boasting would still be dominating the artform, 10 years later?

Anyway, Lyrics Born isn't about that, he's about rambling stream-of-consciousness stories and a decidedly odd hummy/buzzy back-of-the-throat mumbly delivery that's weird but compelling nevertheless. At this point he's also one of the elder statesmen of underground/alternative hip-hop, and I'm overjoyed that the newly-rejuvenated Duke Coffeehouse was able to leverage some of those student fees & bring him to town, and for a ridiculously cheap $7 ($3 if you're a Duke student).



Saturday, April 2
Eyes to Space [http://www.eyestospace.net/], Cantwell, Gomez, Jordan [http://www.cantwellgomezandjordan.com], Gerty [http://www.gerty.org]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

One of these bands doesn't [usually] have a keyboard, although you never know with CGJ; a few years ago you wouldn't have expected Anne to tote a sax to every show, either, nor to be so good at it.

The other two bands *do* have keyboards, although the Gerty keyboards are virtual, existing only on the CD that Dave and Shirle play & sing along to. Call me old-fashioned, but I have to say, I like a live drummer. I happen to know one, in fact, who is Gerty's biggest fan, and who's only in two hardworking bands right now. Perhaps he needs to step on up.



Saturday, April 2
The Greatest Hits [http://www.thegreatesthits.org/], The Bleeding Hearts [http://www.thebleedinghearts.net/home.html], Dirty Johnny and the Make-Believes [http://futureperfectmedia.com/dirtyjohnny.htm]
Kings, Raleigh



Sunday, April 3
No Neck Blues Band [http://www.theserth.com/nnck_frame.html], Majik Markers, Virgin Eye Blood Brothers [http://www.staticcaravan.org/staticrecords/releases.htm]
Nightlight, Chapel Hill

If the Residents did different drugs and embraced damaged noise/skronk/jazz/psych/folk and lived together in a basement in Brooklyn, they might be the No Neck Blues Band instead. Thoroughly mysterious and apparently Ecstatic in a decidedly Byron Coley kind of way, they make crazy rudimentary noise to confuse & thus free us.

And they're playing Nightlight, the tiny club in the middle of all the bookshelves at the otherwise fairly mild-mannered by-day Skylight Exchange, which has over its two-year history evolved, sporadically (with acceleration of late) into one of the most reliably out-there fucked-up-noise venues in the southeast.



Sunday, April 3
The Golden Republic [http://www.thegoldenrepublic.com/], Aqueduct [http://www.aqueductisgoodmusic.com], Iconic [http://www.iconictheband.com]
Local 506, Chapel Hill



Monday, April 4
Jaguaro, Gray Young
Local 506, Chapel Hill

Jaguaro are a two piece, with Jon E Walker on guitar & athletic wear, and a woman whose name sadly escapes me on drum-bashing and looking way-too-happy to be there, but in a good way. They are rudimentary and a little insane (especially Jon E) which are two of my favorite things.



Tuesday, April 5
Christina Carter [http://www.kranky.net/artists/carterc.html], Eric Weddle, Can't [http://www.irfp.net/], Felt Battery
Nightlight, Chapel Hill

Another night of out-there action at Nightlight. I believe I read in the Indy that Sunburned Hand of the Man were also on this show, but their website says they're in SC tonight (but at Gate City Noise on the following night, April 6th, so head to Greensboro if you want). Here's what the Nightlighters say about the rest of this rather elaborate bill:

Christina is 1/3 of the amazing, unstoppable psych/drone/vocal/guitar band CHARLAMBIDES, who have released records on their own Wholly Other Label for the past 13 or so years, and are now getting a fine reissue treatment (as well as Christina's solo albums) on Kranky. This show will have Christina playing guitar and belting out her trance-like and spectral vocals along with guitarist GOWN. Jessica Rylan is a sound artist and electronic musician from Boston. The main focus of her work has been the design and construction of modular synthesizers which use and analog electronic circuits to create a diversity of sounds. She uses her synthesizers in installations at galleries and also in her high-energy, live musical performancees with vocals and dance. Her new LP on RRR is great.

Eric Weddle is a new Raleighian moved in from Bloomington, Indiana, performing improvised mixing board & cassette recorder that summon hermetic colored masses and chaotic fragments that dissolve into drifting smoke - he is also the head of the swell Family Vineyard label. Felt Battery is another valued local, tonight performing a short set with a variety of curious props, which in the past have included a electric stuffed and mounted deer's head."



Tuesday, April 5
Ben Davis + The Calculators [http://www.lovitt.com/artists/bendavis.html], The Physics of Meaning [http://www.thephysicsofmeaning.com/]
The Library, Chapel Hill

That's actually probably a lie; I believe Ben has had to replace his coterie of calculators with a single computer because the calculators all went on tour or something. But anyway, Ben soldiers on, performing his oddly swooping melodic indie-rock tunes.

The Physics of Meaning is a "solo" side-project thing of one of the Go Machine guys, which, as with all Bu Hanan Cult Projects, involves everybody else he knows in one form or another.



Tuesday, April 5
Urban Sophisticates [http://www.urbansophisticates.com/], Mercury Radio Theatre [http://mercuryradioland.com/home.php]
Local 506, Chapel Hill



Wednesday, April 6
... Trail of Dead ... [http://www.trailofdead.com/], The Octopus Project [http://www.theoctopusproject.com/], The Swords
Cat's Cradle, Carrboro



Wednesday, April 6
Erie Choir, Samuel Robinson & the Crowd, David Nahm [http://audubonpark.blogspot.com]
Nightlight, Chapel Hill

Erie Choir you hopefully know by now; they're the mournful quietly-mopey but beautiful songwriting outlet of Sorry About Dresden guitarist Eric Roehrig.

David Nahm was in a band called V.Sirin, but nowadays you know him as the frontman for Audubon Park. His ambition is to be a standup comedian and a lawyer at the same time, so be doubly cautious.



Thursday, April 7
M. Ward [http://www.futurefarmer.com/mward.html], Norfolk and Western [http://www.norfolkandwestern.org/], Devotchka [http://www.devotchka.net/]
Cat's Cradle, Carrboro



Friday, April 8
Fantomas [http://www.ipecac.com/bio.php?id=3], The Locust [http://www.thelocust.com], Trevor Dunn's Trio Convulsant [http://trevordunn.n3.net/]
Cat's Cradle, Carrboro

Fantomas is the current primary outlet of ex-Faith No More/Mr. Bungle frontman Mike Patton. It's heavy & weird and Japanoise-influenced, and currently consists of Patton, Buzz Osborne on guitar (Melvins), Trevor Dunn on bass (Mr. Bungle, Trevor Dunn’s Trio Convulsant) and Dave Lombardo on drums (Slayer). Their current release is a 30-song calendar/CD designed by fucked-up Japanese artist Yoshimoto Nara, who specializes in giant gorgeously-muted paintings of tired/angry-looking little girls with cigarettes and knives. The CD is a tribute to April.

The Locust more or less invented that weird offshoot of hardcore that involves short, screamy songs with keyboards and high-pitched noises.



Friday, April 8
Fake Swedish [http://fakeswedish.4t.com/index.html], The Ghost of Rock, Hope, Star & Browning [http://www.lowcityrecords.com/]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

CD-release party for Fake Swedish, whose new CD "Get Correct" is an admirable document of their strange fusion of 60s psych-rock guitarwork and Joe Romeo's hyperliterate lyrics and appealingly self-deprecating style. They sound more like themselves than most bands their age, which is high praise.

The Ghost of Rock also sound very much like themselves, but they're a whole shitload older, so that's maybe to be expected. They also sound a bit like Pipe, which is also to expected, as half of them were. Pipe, that is.

Memo to H,S&B: That "IE required" logo on your website is so delightfully 1999. Don't ever change!



Friday, April 8
Torch Marauder
Duke Coffeehouse, Durham

What, you didn't know that the Torch Marauder was putting out a DVD? OK, neither did I, 'til I read it on the Coffeehouse website (This being the DVD-release party, you see). True it is, though, and totally logical when you think about it, given the extraordinarily elaborate stage show for which the Torch is so well-known.

This one's extra-special because, in addition to [presumably] showcasing all the Torch's special video-on-video-on-video performance techniques, it also features a lot of footage from last year's CD-release show at the Cat's Cradle, which marked the first (and thus far only) time Torch consented to share the stage with other musicians. That show was a rousing success, and I'm excited at the prospect of seeing it again. And, yes, of looking for myself in the crowd shots.



--------> http://www.trianglerock.com <--------




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