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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 August 12, 2005
  • Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:03:24 -0400

Two interesting art openings tonight in Carrboro: Ron Liberti has a show going up at Branch Gallery on Weaver St (across from the RBC bank) with Young Idea providing some musical entertainment; over at Wootini there's something odd going on, and Jerstin Crosby (UNC->MFA, frontman for Tennis & the Mennonites) is involved somehow.

Rock-wise:

Friday & Saturday, August 12 & 13
Sleazefest [http://www.sleazefest.com]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

The last lineup I got via email was like this:

Friday:
SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS
THE WOGGLES
DEXTER ROMWEBER & THE NEW ROMANS
HATEBOMBS!
BLOODSHOT BILL
TIGER TIGER
SNATCHES OF PINK
MONSTERS OF JAPAN

Admission also includes show at The Cave:
THE SPINNS
CHROME PLATED APOSTLES
LABIATORS
MALAMANDOS

Saturday:
THE PAYBACKS
GORE GORE GIRLS
DEMOLITION DOLLRODS
THE CHERRY VALENCE
THE KONKS
MONDO TOPLESS
THE LORDLY SERPENTS
DROPDEAD SONS

Admission also includes show at The Cave:
DEXTER ROMWEBER DUO
THE LOBSTERS
SIN EATERS
BLOODSHOT BILL



Friday, August 12
The Port Huron Statement [http://www.porthuronstatement.com/], The Rachel Nevadas [http://www.therachelnevadas.com/], Eyes to Space [http://www.eyestospace.net/]
Kings, Raleigh



Saturday, August 13
Veronique Diabolique [http://www.veroniquediabolique.com/]
Bickett Gallery, Raleigh



Saturday, August 13
The Ghost of Rock
Reservoir, Carrboro

Time may move in multiple directions around here -- witness the Pipe reunion show booked for 8/20 at the Local 506 -- but one thing it never does is stand still.

And so we come to the end -- perhaps momentarily, depending on your frame of reference -- of The Ghost of the British Soldier Who Loved to Rock, a band whose whole existence has been dedicated to time-slippage, both in their name and in the sense that, musically speaking, they might easily have been confused with an early ancestor of Pipe, despite being a more-or-less direct descendant thereof.

But then anybody who's ever seen Ron Liberti's sweaters knows that he's his own grandpa.

To further confuse your brain, this show's being held at Reservoir, which is where Go Studios used to be (another Southern time-quirk much in evidence in the Triangle: we do all our navigating via landmarks that aren't there anymore). Go ahead & close your eyes and spin around 1-2-3 times when you walk in the door, and maybe the fact that the bar is where the stage used to be won't be quite so confusing.



Sunday, August 14
Monsonia [http://www.monsonia.com]
WXDU 88.7 FM, Durham

Monsonia are a mathy/Slinty three-piece featuring Andy Willard, who has played drums in various incarnations of the Strugglers; David Alston, who was in the western-NC band Sticky as well as the next-to-last version of the Blue-Green Gods; and Carter Browning, who was briefly in Cold Sides, and whose sister Becky is in Rocketfire Red. Some bobbing, some weaving, and then some punches to the gut. 5:00 p.m. 88.7 FM or www.wxdu.org.



Sunday, August 14
Fake Swedish [http://fakeswedish.4t.com/index.html], The Dynamite Brothers [http://www.dynamitebrothers.com/], Taz Halloween [http://www.robertgriffin.com/people/taz.html]
Local 506, Chapel Hill



Monday, August 15
Choosy Beggars [http://www.thechoosybeggars.com]
The Cave, Chapel Hill



Tuesday, August 16
The Knitters [http://www.theknitters.net/], Phranc [http://www.pholksinger.com/]
Cat's Cradle, Carrboro

For those of you who've forgotten the 80s, the Knitters are what you get when the members of X (sans Billy Zoom) start hanging out & playing country music with Dave Alvin of the Blasters.

Phranc (once universally known as "the Jewish Lesbian Folksinger," back when the world was small enough to contain just one) has garnered the lion's share of her press over the past 5-10 years for hosting Tupperware parties. She's no lightweight, though; if you borrow my DVD of the Decline of Western Civilization [Part 1], that's her up there onstage in Catholic Discipline.



Wednesday, August 17
The High Dials [http://www.thehighdials.com/], Hopewell, Wayne Robbins and the Hellsayers [http://www.goodluckcricket.com/hellsayers/]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

The first time Wayne Robbins & the Hellsayers played the Local 506, I walked in just as they were finishing their set, and for the next 45 minutes I had to endure everybody I know walking up to me & asking, with semi-stupefied looks on their faces, whether I'd arrived in time to see them.

By the end of the night I'd been handed a copy of their debut CD, "The Lonesome Sea," which contains their song Jesus, which has obsessed me fairly constantly in the 4-5 months since I first heard it. I'm not gonna be a dumbass and walk in late for this show, that's for damn sure. And if you'll invest just 6 minutes to listen to that song, you'll feel the same (it can be got via their website, URL above).



Thursday, August 18
The Teeth [http://www.theteeth.net], The Young Idea [http://www.theyoungidea.com], The David Harper Experience
Nightlight, Chapel Hill

The Young Idea are two women & one man, a couple of Rickenbackers, and some matching dark suits. And a sincere love of UK smart/snotty punk of the Buzzcocks/Jam variety. Last time I saw them (which was many months ago) they were just starting to expand that cirle out to include Wire, and the results were intriguing.



Thursday, August 18
Jule Brown [http://www.julebrown.org], John Harrison
Fuse, Chapel Hill

Jule Brown are midway through a monthlong residency at Fuse, in advance of the release of their 3rd (and-a-half) album, "Lemon Lite." Mark Holland spent many years playing shoegazery pop -> demented gospel -> slow-droning country-blues in Jennyanykind, and he continues that meandering tradition in his side-project-turned-main-thing Jule Brown.

John Harrison was the drummer in the original Comas, and he's now the primary instigator of North Elementary.



Friday, August 19
Kenny Roby's Mercy Filter [http://www.kennyroby.com]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

Kenny Roby played punkrock in the 80s with the Lubricators, who morphed in the early 90s into a driving roots-rock band before burning out. Kenny's next band Six String Drag were, to my ears, the finest of the many "alt-country" outfits to emerge in Raleigh in the mid-90s--a heady mix of Kenny's influences, from the Stanley Brothers to Elvis Costello, with a heavy detour out to Doug Sahm's desert stomping grounds (via New Orleans) along the way. After they collapsed under the weight of label expectations and/or the Clemson->Raleigh commute, Kenny began sporadically releasing well-crafted solo albums; Mercy Filter is the name of the latest one, as well as the band he assembled to record it.



Friday, August 19
Get Him Eat Him [http://www.gethimeathim.com], Opening Flower Happy Bird [http://www.myspace.com/openingflowerhappybird], Pussywhisperers
Nightlight, Chapel Hill



Saturday, August 20
Rainer Maria [http://www.rainermaria.com/], Fin Fang Foom [http://www.lovitt.com/artists/finfangfoom.html], Bellafea [http://www.bellafea.com/], The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers [http://www.prayersandtears.com/], Hail Social [http://www.hailsocial.com/]
Cat's Cradle, Carrboro

This is a benefit for the Piedmont Wildlife Center, which among other things rescues & rehabilitates a variety of injured wild animals. I used to have a next-door neighbor & PWC volunteer who rehabilitated squirrels in a big cage in the front yard, actually, and OK, it's true, that neighbor was Frank Heath, Cat's Cradle owner. So these benefit shows are only the tip of the iceberg, and if you've ever bottle-fed a little squirrel with a little plaster cast on its leg, then you know what I'm talking about.

My cat used to spend hours sitting outside that cage.

But I digress. Rainer Maria are from Madison, WI, and they put out one of my favorite albums of the 90s, "Past Worn Searching," and then immediately lost whatever magical talisman had made that album possible. I dunno; maybe it just fell between the sofa cushions, and maybe they've subsequently found it again. I stopped hoping after a while.

Bellafea are a gtr-drums two-piece from Chapel Hill, and they're all about the shrill + the boom. Fin Fang Foom make dark muscular crashing "postpunk" (or something) that always reminds me of the way those black clouds sometimes hover in the air over the Carrboro Plaza as you're heading out 54 West in the afternoon in the summer.

Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers make songs about love and loss which are overwrought and prone to escalation from whisper to crash and back again, and are just generally in every way infused with all the manipulative techniques of rock and roll. They are remarkably good at it, and when I'm in the mood to be manipulated in that fashion, they do the trick admirably.



Saturday, August 20
Evil Wiener [http://www.evilwienerworld.com/]
The Cave, Chapel Hill

Double Duty for Chuck Garrison tonight, as he drums for Evil Weiner and then jets around the corner to Local 506 and drums for the "Local Bands Reunited" Pipe Original Recipe show. Evil Wiener won't get invited to play one of those reunion shows anytime soon, because they've never broken up. They haven't even modified their lineup [much - there was that brief period as a four-piece with Brian Butler on keys] since their inception at the dawn of the 90s. Just decade after decade of brilliantly sugary skewed pop anthems, with the occasional skit & plenty of weird hats.



Saturday, August 20
Pipe [http://www.mrg2000.com/merge/bio.html?id=pipe], The Nein [http://www.thenein.com/], Chest Pains
Local 506, Chapel Hill

I will freely admit that if I were in the position to own a rockclub and make shows happen with the wave of my hand (or the click of a mouse), then I, like Local 506 owner Glenn Boothe, would be unable to resist using that power to reunite all my favorite defunct local bands.

Thankfully Glenn already owns Local 506 and is doing all the hard work, so I don't have to.

For some reason, too many of my fond memories of Pipe have been polluted/cross-pollenated with memories of Charlie Speight, like the time we all piled in the car and went up to Blacksburg VA to see Pipe playing in some weird rock venue that felt more like a big church basement; or the time we all piled in [a different] car and went to New Orleans to liberate Charlie from his summer [drinking/math tutoring] internship and there was much driving around half-lost with Charlie hanging out the window bellowing "hey kid I like your bike if it was mine / I'd take your fucking bike and ride all the time."

This version of Pipe is Pipe Classic, which last I heard means Ron, Chuck, Mike and Dave IT. There were also rumors of a mini-Small nostalgia-indulgence set, albeit sans Eric and Matt, although I suppose you never know.

Oh right, a description: Punkrock, Chapel Hill style. Intelligent without being ironic or overly selfconscious. Uninfluenced by disco or dub, at least not overtly. Breakneck at times, but a world away from hardcore.

Also on the bill, bravely: The Nein, who *are* influenced by disco and dub, at least a bit, as well as by Gang of Four, Savage Republic, and (shh, don't tell the Chapel Hillians) sounds like a little Cop Shoot Cop to me.

Chest Pains = kinda like if Pipe never broke up, and their longtime friend/localmusicwriter Greg Barbera offed Ron & took over the band.



Saturday, August 20
Maple Stave [http://www.maplestave.com], Verbal [http://www.verbalmusic.com], Dust from 1000 Years [http://dust.cjb.cc/], Heimholtz
Nightlight, Chapel Hill



Sunday, August 21
Cities [http://www.citiesmusic.com], Fashion Design [http://fashiondesignband.com/], North Elementary [http://www.northelementary.com]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

This is the 506 & WXYC's 2nd attempt at simulcasting the Backyard BBQ (XYC's long-running local music show) from Local 506. The first attempt, last month sometime, was far more successful if you were actually at the club than if you were trying to listen over the radio. I assume that in the intervening month they've devoted substantial time & energy to improving whatever parts of their signal chain were lacking last time, but nevertheless: if you're close enough to pick up WXYC, just get in the goddamn car and drive to the show, for chrissake.

If you're an internet listener, turn off the freaking computer & go find some local bands in your own town to go see.

Cities are tender sweet young things who have discovered that being cute *and* being slightly melancholy/moony like the Cure drives certain girls (and boys) batshit wild with desire.

Actually, that blurb would work equally well for Fashion Design, although they're swirlier, so insert "Siouxie" and maybe "My Bloody Valentine" in there someplace.

North Elementary are blissed-out woozy drug-pop, all sweet melodies that meander & get kinda lost betwixt head & lips.

Show starts at 8:00 (really! this is live radio); be sure to find their radio-feed microphone & stand really close to it & carry on a long involved conversation about absolutely nothing, particularly during the nearly-inaudible interview segments, just like last time.



Monday, August 22
Chrome Plated Apostles [http://www.demonbeach.com], Throw Rag [http://www.throwrag.com/], Dexter Romweber [http://www.dexterromweber.com]
Local 506, Chapel Hill

This is a showcase of sorts for Demonbeach Records of Raleigh (Hey Jenn & Ookie, when's that Transportation album coming out?). Chrome-Plated Apostles are a mix-and-match offshoot of the Bad Checks, with the Checks' bassist Clif Mann on guitar (Clif also played guitar in Pipe & The Ghost of Rock), former Pipe/Bedwetter bassist Greg Adams on bass, Fake Swedish drummer Dave Perry on drums (Dave also plays bass for Jett Rink), and Checks singer Hunter Landen on singing, harmonica, and falling down dramatically. They sound a lot like the Bad Checks, only slightly bluesier.

Throw Rag are from somewhere out west, and they make kind of echoey psychobilly, at least based on what I heard on their side of the split 12" they did with Dexter Romweber.

Dex should require no explanation, but just in case: He was out in front of Flat Duo Jets for most of the 80s and the 90s, and along the way influenced just about any/everybody who cared to pick up a guitar and play stripped-down full-bore rockabilly mixed up with croon-pop and anything else the demons in his head wanted him to try.



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




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