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ch-scene - Stuff to Do, Week of April 21, 2005

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Subject: RTP-area local music and culture

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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 21, 2005
  • Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 17:31:26 -0400


Thursday, April 21 - Saturday, April 23
Sparklefest [http://www.sparklefest.com]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

Sparklefest is a long-running local festival dedicated to many things power/pop/fuzzrock-related. You'll have to suss out the order/nights thing yourself via the website, but here's a semi-orderly list of bands. Note the triumphant return of former local Parthenon Huxley, aka Rick Rock, whose "Buddha Buddha" is an unjustly-forgotten local classic:

THE NEVER / ROBBIE RIST / DAN BRYK / THE BREAKS / VELVET / JEFF HART & THE RUINS / WONDERWALL / PARTHENON HUXLEY / TERRY ANDERSON AND THE OLYMPIC ASS-KICKING TEAM / MITCH EASTER / WALTER CLEVENGER & THE DAIRY KINGS / TIM LEE / THE RACHEL NEVADAS / THE BREAKUP SOCIETY / WAFER THIN / THE SHAZAM / THE MOCKERS / STRATOCRUISER / THE ANDERSON COUNCIL / BARRY HOLDSHIP 4 / THE SAVING GRACES



Thursday, April 21
Dizzee Rascal [http://www.dizzeerascal.net/]
Cat's Cradle, Carrboro



Thursday, April 21
Strange [http://www.thisisstrange.org], Mahjongg [http://www.arc6ery.org/]
Kings, Raleigh



Thursday, April 21
Jule Brown [http://www.julebrown.org]
Fuse, Chapel Hill



Friday, April 22
Schooner [http://www.schoonermusic.com], Erie Choir, The Sames [http://www.thesames.com]
Duke Coffeehouse, Durham

This is the CD-release party for the long-overdue first full-length album from The Sames. To celebrate, they've invited the current Robert Biggers-powered Deluxx Version of Erie Choir, as well as Raleigh's not-really-nautical popband Schooner. Plus I'm told we'll see Torch Marauder, as well as an appearance by the Pox Family Singers.

The Sames, in case you missed their debut EP back in 1947, are a fresh-faced bunch of lads, one-third of whose songs involve really fast strummy guitar bits and another third of which involve chunka-chunka downstrokes. Sprinkle in some la-las and a really demented lyrical bent & you've got a start.



Friday, April 22
The Ghost of Rock, The Young Idea [http://www.theyoungidea.com], The Assault, Fashion Design [http://fashiondesignband.com/], The Jones
Kings, Raleigh

It's the Kings Barcade Spring Fling, which I think just means fine young local bands like Fashion Design (swirly big-beat 80s britpop revivalism) and the Young Idea (used to wanna rock the Buzzcocks, now they wanna rock Wire), and fine old local bands like The Ghost of Rock (all their sweaters have elbow patches; all their glasses are bi-focal).



Saturday, April 23
The Moaners, Work Clothes [http://www.bullfightparty.org], Cub Country [http://www.cubcountry.com/]
Ooh La Latte, Durham

The show of the week is in Durham? At Ooh La Latte, the venue that swore off live music last year?

Well, it's this year now, and this *is* the show of the week. Melissa Swingle (ex-Trailer Bride) and Laura King (ex-Gerty, Grand National) rock the gtr/drums duo format as the Moaners; it's a format Melissa knows well, as it was the Trailer Bride format for the first few years of that band's existence. This one's a whole lot meaner & bluesier, with Melissa going periodically apeshit with a slide.

Work Clothes are as softly hushed & delicate as they ever were, only nowadays they've drafted Clarque Blomquist & John Harrison to hush it up a bit more. This works particularly well at the point in the show when Lee busts out a massive pickslide and they make a giant wall of rock noise for a minute and a half before silencing it back down again.

Cub Country make laid-back country rock with crisp arrangments and self-effacing lyrics that never once mention crap about dogs and trucks. Drinking and heartache, yes, sure, but in an urban/wintry context.



Saturday, April 23
Roh Delikat [http://www.rohdelikat.com/], Jakuta & Carl [http://jnc.hlinak.com/], The Physics of Meaning [http://www.thephysicsofmeaning.com/]
Duke Coffeehouse, Durham



Saturday, April 23
Chrome Plated Apostles [http://www.demonbeach.com], The Spinns [http://www.thespinns.freeservers.com/], Dude Garden, Fake Swedish [http://fakeswedish.4t.com/index.html], Chest Pains
Kings, Raleigh

Another night of the Kings Spring Fling. Things get heavier/garageyer with Chrome-Plated Apostles (a slightly rearranged/customized chopped/channelled tucked/rolled Bad Checks), the decidedly lo-fi sounds of The Spinns, and the intermittently mildly baroque 60s psych-rock of Fake Swedish.



Saturday, April 23
Countdown Quartet [http://www.countdownq.com/]
Fuse, Chapel Hill



Saturday, April 23
Yayhooray [http://purevolume.com/yayhooray], XXXX Squared, Tuntouchi [http://myspace.com/tuntouchi], Boyzone [http://kodakculture.org/katherine/boyszone]
Nightlight, Chapel Hill



Saturday, April 23
Auto-Passion, Golden Dawn, Art Lord and the Self Portraits [http://www.ideasforhousecrafts.com]
The Werehouse, Winston-Salem

I mention this show ('tis in Winston-Salem, so are you going?) primarily because it's a freaking MySpace.com Costume Party. I stopped paying attention to the whole Social Networking thing a little over a year ago (hey, it served its purpose), but apparently while the rest of the sites were sinking into the inevitable lameness of last year's fad, MySpace.com was bribing bands with an addictive combination of free streaming audio and all the normal social-networking toys, and succeeding so wildly that even a grubby underground artrock venue like the Werehouse is happy to pay homage to its success. Every band you can think of has a MySpace page. This was not true even 3 months ago. Celebrate? If necessary, OK.



Sunday, April 24
tommygun [http://www.tommygunrock.com], Mogote [http://www.mogotemusic.net/]
Local 506, Chapel Hill



Sunday, April 24
The Tranny Roadshow [http://www.trannyroadshow.org/]
Nightlight, Chapel Hill

From the Nightlight website:

The Tranny Roadshow is a multimedia performance art extravaganza, which will be touring the country in the spring of this year. It is composed of an eclectic group of artists, each one self-identified as transgender, and includes poets, rappers, filmmakers, storytellers, breakdancers, rock bands, comedians, actors, folk singers, photographers, zinesters, and more. Stationary art (i.e. photography and sculpture) will be on display, but most of the presentation is the live show, a unique variety show where the expression of gender and the expression of self are inseparable. The show is a fluid entity, changing to suit the artists and the crowd, but always it is full of intelligence, fun and humor. Although the Tranny Roadshow is done entirely by transpeople, it is not exclusively for transpeople. It is a raucous evening of entertainment, open and accessible to people of all backgrounds. While the Roadshow's goals do include challenging people and making them think, more important goals are to entertain them, make them laugh, and make them dance.



Sunday, April 24
New Town Drunks [http://www.thirdmind.org/featured_artists/NTD/index.html]
Fuse, Chapel Hill



Monday, April 25
Choosy Beggars [http://www.thechoosybeggars.com]
The Cave, Chapel Hill



Monday, April 25
Damien Jurado [http://www.damienjurado.com/], Two Gallants [http://www.twogallants.com/], Sail On, Sailor [http://www.myspace.com/sailonsailor]
Local 506, Chapel Hill



Monday, April 25
Mowing Lawns [http://www.dyss.net/mlawns.html]
Fuse, Chapel Hill



Tuesday, April 26
Honored Guests [http://www.thehonoredguests.com/], Tennis and the Mennonites [http://www.tennisandthemennonites.com]
The Library, Chapel Hill

Hope those free Chapel Hill buses do late-night on Franklin Street; you're going to need them to jet back and forth between the Library and Local 506. Tennis and the Mennonites (I still haven't seen them, so fingers crossed) made the first truly excellent popsong of Spring '05 with their "Magnets" from their Wicked Man EP. Don't miss them, if only for a chance to buy a copy of the damn CD.



Tuesday, April 26
The Strugglers [http://www.thestrugglers.org/], Hellsayers [http://www.goodluckcricket.com/hellsayers]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

Strugglers are one of my 10 favorite current local bands of the moment; they combine frontman Randy Bickford's fragile/damaged country folk, complete with cracked voice & brilliant ear for meter & metaphor, and his rotating cast of backing musicians & their willingness to try whatever arrangements seem to make sense at the moment, including a brilliant show last year at Go with two drummers that was one of the highlights of my 2004.



Wednesday, April 27
Greg Davis [http://www.reckankomplex.com/springtourbios.html], Keith Fullerton Whitman [http://www.keithfullertonwhitman.com/], Phon
Nightlight, Chapel Hill



Thursday, April 28
Radar Brothers [http://www.mergerecords.com/bands/radar/bio.html], Hotel Lights, Lud [http://members.aol.com/~ludkmr/]
Kings, Raleigh

Hotel Lights are the new thing of ex-Ben Folds drummer Darren Jessee; their debut album was on a lot of top-20 lists last year, and deservedly so: it's a lovely survey of indie-pop styles, from slow/quiet/lush/mournful at one end to chugga-chugga ecstatic/vicious poprock at the other.

Lud have a whole slew of material they're working up for their next album, and as usual it's a blend of spacious guitar instrumentals and third-person electric narrative anthems, all knit together by guitarist Bryon Settle's playing, which is so sublime that even the hardened punkrockers wish he'd play one more solo.



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




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