RTP-area local music and culture

[grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>]

Errata:

1) Ticonderoga, gentle men that they are, were damn-near-destructified 
by a month on tour, and thus will not be performing on WXDU this Sunday. 
This upsets me terribly, but I will soldier on.

2) As has perhaps been mentioned here already, RECESS is happening at 
Nightlight Saturday night:

RECESS is a monthly night of local 'experimental' music at Nightlight in
Chapel Hill.  This Saturday's show features:

David Nahm w/ Ben Spiker and Robert Biggers (of Audubon Park)
Todd Emert (of Mowing Lawns, Inspector 22)
Rob Maggard (of Samuel Robison and the Crowd)
Matt Kalb (of Hotel Motel, Audubon Park)
Aaron Smithers (of Year of the Pig, Hem of His Garment)

Show starts promptly at 10pm and will be over by midnight.

3) I'm pretty sure The Great Cover-Up jumped the shark many years ago (I 
dunno; I never manage to make it to all 3 nights, so I probably missed 
the exact moment), but if not, it sure as shit did it last night, right 
about the time "Joey Ramone" lit the pommel of his sword on fire and 
proceeded to blow fireballs into the air over the audience. Guys, if 
you're gonna play "Somebody Put Something In My Drink" *and* "Merry 
Christmas, I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight" you may as well go whole-hog and 
do "Pet Cemetery" as well. We were all rooting for you (albeit in an 
annoyed "how much fucking worse can this get?" kind of way), and you 
blew it.

Ross

grady wrote:
> Wednesday, November 30
> Amish Jihad, Caltrop
> Reservoir, Carrboro
>
> Reservoir is where Go! used to be, and although they are
> strictly-speaking still Just A Bar, they've been having rockshows more
> & more frequently. It nearly always seems to involve the owners and/or
> friends of the owners, so perhaps they're Just A Bar until somebody
> they know wants to play, which is a damn convenient way to avoid
> having to throw away 100s of unlistened demo-CD-Rs.
>
> But so anyway, Amish Jihad are the More Metal spinoff of the Scaries.
> Caltrop are heavy/sludgy/Sabbathy & feature ex-members of El Sucio and
> the Ladderback.
>
>
>
> Thursday, December 1 - Saturday December 3
> The Great Cover-Up [http://www.kingsbarcade.com]
> Kings, Raleigh
>
> This is the 7th-annual Great Cover-Up, which (as always) involves
> local bands performing short sets of covers of their favorite bands.
> In essence it's closer to the "Great Tribute-Up," because each band
> covers a single other band, and they're welcome (and indeed
> encouraged) to tart it up with wigs and costumes and fake moustaches.
>
> Over the past few years a trend has developed whereby the local
> "bands" aren't local bands at all, but are instead just accretions of
> otherwise-unrelated local musicians, assembled solely for the purpose
> of playing the Cover-Up. This is, strictly-speaking, a Bad Thing, but
> considering that some of my personal faves over the past few years
> have been such bands (Big Black or Jesus Lizard, anyone?), I guess I
> should just shut up & enjoy it. Good enough.
>
> The lineup is always kept semi-secret, and this year I actually
> haven't heard Thing One about who's covering whom on which night, so
> you're just gonna have to turn out for all three nights
> (Thursday-Saturday).
>
>
>
> Thursday, December 1
> The Apes [http://www.selfstarterfoundation.com/apes.html]
> Duke Coffeehouse, Durham
>
>
>
> Thursday, December 1
> Snatches of Pink [http://www.snatchesofpink.com/], Elevator Action
> [http://www.elevatoractionband.com/], The Sammies
> Local 506, Chapel Hill
>
>
>
> Friday, December 2
> Deadboy & the Elephantmen [http://www.deadboyandtheelephantmen.com],
> Summerbirds [http://www.summerbirds.com/]
> Local 506, Chapel Hill
>
>
>
> Friday, December 2
> Nathan Asher & the Infantry [http://www.nathanasher.com/], Eyes to
> Space [http://www.eyestospace.net/]
> Wetlands, Chapel Hill
>
>
>
> Saturday, December 3
> des_ark [http://www.des-ark.org], The Strugglers
> [http://www.thestrugglers.org/], Buried Beds
> [http://www.buriedbeds.com/]
> Bickett Gallery, Raleigh
>
> des_ark at present is just Aimee Argote and her guitar, although last
> month it also included Drunk Girl's unearthly keening. Lately Aimee
> has taken to swearing up & down that she prefers playing with just her
> acoustic guitar & no amplification, to which I'm compelled to respond:
> Remember the stairwell scene in Animal House.
>
> The Strugglers's most recent album, "You Win," should be
> required-listening for anybody interested in the current state of the
> alt-alt-alt-country/bummer-folk movement (think Drag City, Palace,
> Smog), and for anybody else who admires a devastating song
> well-delivered.
>
> Randy says his friends the Buried Beds are like "Karen Carpenter
> fronting Low." Holy moly.
>
>
>
> Saturday, December 3
> Low Skies [http://www.lowskies.com/]
> Duke Coffeehouse, Durham
>
>
>
> Saturday, December 3
> The Cartridge Family [http://www.cartridge-family.com/], Watershed
> Slim's Downtown, Raleigh
>
>
>
> Sunday, December 4
> Ticonderoga [http://www.ticonderobics.com/]
> WXDU 88.7 FM, Durham
>
> Ticonderoga are from Raleigh, and among their many accomplishments,
> they successfully pull off the switching-instruments thing to further
> their program of everchanging subtle variations in tone from
> song-to-song. Their music can be identified vaguely as
> "post-Pavement," primarily via the lackadaisical vocal styleee, but
> instruments & arrangements have their own nervous twitch-folk energy.
> Their new "Heilig-Levine LP" is one of my faves of 2005, and my
> experience of their live shows to date would indicate that their
> live-radio set might still hip you to why. 5:00 p.m. 88.7FM or
> www.wxdu.org.
>
>
>
> Sunday, December 4
> Eugene Chadbourne [http://www.eugenechadbourne.com/], Malachy Papers
> [http://www.malachypapers.com/]
> Local 506, Chapel Hill
>
> Eugene Chadbourne is a national treasure (the only one currently
> living in Greensboro? I'll have to mull that one for a while); for the
> past 30+ years he's been investigating the overlap between the various
> American Indigenous Musical Styles--jazz, bluegrass, country--and
> doing his damnedest to increase the amount of overlap. He's entirely
> likely to veer from a sort of 21st-century-classical minimalist bleat,
> into a few bars of a Merle Haggard cover, into some free-jazz skronk,
> and back to the bleat. Or he may just give you 45 minutes of his own
> investigations into the American Music of his mind, or 45 minutes of
> bare-bones-beautiful Phil Ochs covers.
>
>
>
> Sunday, December 4
> The Strugglers [http://www.thestrugglers.org/], Bibis Ellison
> [http://bibisellison.elektrikcoma.com/], Buried Beds
> [http://www.buriedbeds.com/]
> Wetlands, Chapel Hill
>
> In case you missed 'em at Bickett Gallery last night, local
> Drag-City-ish heirs-apparent the Strugglers, plus their pals the
> Buried Beds, ID'd as "Karen Carpenter fronting Low."
>
>
>
> Monday, December 5
> Rogue Wave [http://www.roguewavemusic.com/], Mazarin
> [http://www.mazarinband.com/], Tennis and the Mennonites
> [http://www.tennisandthemennonites.com]
> Local 506, Chapel Hill
>
> We love Tennis and the Mennonites; they are a sub-Mason-Dixon version
> of an artschool band, with all the additional weirdness that might
> imply.
>
> Rogue Wave are the latest Sub Pop Thing, whatever that means.
>
>
>
> Monday, December 5
> Torche [http://www.myspace.com/Torche], Ruscha
> Wetlands, Chapel Hill
>
>
>
> Tuesday, December 6
> The Experts [http://www.expertsrock.com], Veronique Diabolique
> [http://www.veroniquediabolique.com/]
> Wetlands, Chapel Hill
>
>
>
> Wednesday, December 7
> Xiu Xiu [http://www.epitonic.com/artists/xiuxiu.html], The Dead
> Science [http://www.thedeadscience.com/], Cantwell, Gomez, Jordan
> [http://www.cantwellgomezandjordan.com]
> Duke Coffeehouse, Durham
>
> The last time I saw Cantwell Gomez & Jordan, it was in a cramped
> record store in Durham, and they were positively deadly: I thought
> bassist Anne Gomez was going to split into 400 shards from all the
> internal tension she was carrying. Instead she just played 15 times as
> spazzily-aggressively as she usually does, which put her about 87
> degrees above the top of that particular scale. It was phenomenal, and
> you can only hope that whatever got into them that night is still
> stewing somewhere inside.
>
>
>
> Wednesday, December 7
> Vampire Lezbos, Chest Pains
> Local 506, Chapel Hill
>
>
>
> Wednesday, December 7
> Chris Brokaw [http://www.chrisbrokaw.com/], American Analog Set
> [http://www.americananalogset.com/], Fan Modine
> [http://www.grimsey.com/fanmodine.html]
> Wetlands, Chapel Hill
>
>
>
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