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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: On Durham and identity
  • Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:17:43 -0400

I dunno, the external perception of Durham in some circles may be hardcore, but in a lot of areas I think it's really like a giant Carrboro with housing prices that are actually in line with the vintage/condition of the houses. Mix of aging hippies & young familes. Sure, Durham has some supremely poverty-stricken areas, and some streets that are crime-ier than others, but I don't really know that many musicians who're doing the urban pioneer thing in that sense.

But yes, maybe the "feel" of Durham as more "gritty" (that term comes up a lot, from all sides) is appealing. Or maybe it's just that the inexpensive housing, due to the vicissitudes of urban un/development, is in closer proximity to interesting stuff, whether it be downtown, or the Roxboro taqueria belt, or just interesting old architecture.

I certainly feel more "at home" in Durham (I should mention that I don't live there, though I've done a radio show there for ~12 years, many of my friends live there, and I'm likely moving there next year . . . I currently live in Chatham County, which is a whole other discussion) than in the other towns around. Chapel Hill/Carrboro seems too evenly divided between rich people and college students; Raleigh feels more like Charlotte every day, sadly. People in Durham feel more like people.

I guess I'd get back to what I said earlier, about it being kind of a tabula rasa, but I'll phrase it differently: Durham feels kind of "anything-goes," but in a positive sense. Not wild west like Deadwood (although there's a running "cocksucker!" gag among certain Durham bands), but like this sense of untapped possibility. I think in order for that to pay off, there has to be a critical mass of people willing to say "yes! thank you for trying whatever crazy experiment you're trying!" and I would argue that this critical mass of freaks has only recently (past 3-5 years) grown to the point that it has become clearly visible to non-Durhamites.

So, say, 10 years ago, Jim Kellough could open his Modern Museum in a basement off Foster Street, and have some amazing installation-art shows, and get a steady stream of Durhamites stopping by, but that stream might only add up to maybe 100 people seeing the show over the course of a few weeks. He was cool with that, the artists were cool with that. But (despite an Indy arts award), the ripples didn't necessarily travel that far out into the Triangle (or even into Durham-at-large).

Contrast that with the crazy overflow crowds at the Rousse installations last year.

So what is it about Durham that makes people so willing to come out for the weird/interesting stuff? I kind of feel like it has been this slow process of self-selection over the past dozen years, as layer upon layer of adventurous people moved to Durham & it thus became slightly more attractive to each additional layer.

The DDI and the American Tobacco people like to congratulate themselves on all their hard work & all the money they've invested to accelerate this process, but the attractiveness of Durham to the true "creative class" (as vs. the faux creative class of advertising executives--sorry, Kevin) began before DDI came on the scene, and I don't think it has really been positively impacted (at least not directly) by all the new development.

See also: the article in the Indy by Kate Dobbs Ariail a couple of months ago, about Scientific Properties & the redevelopment of one of the oldschool downtown Durham "creative class" buildings, leaving some of the earlier generation of Durham pioneers kinda out in the cold.

(I read something disturbing the other day: is it true that one of the Scientific Properties principals developed some mini mansions on the site of the bulldozed Catalano House?)

As re: your other points, regarding gender/politics/etc . . . I dunno, Internationalist & the Weaver Street Crowd are pretty hard to ignore when you're in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, at least if you're a member of their potential constituency, so I don't know that Durham has anything over them in terms of visibility per se.

Which isn't to cast Durham as at all lacking in that area, although the current crop of commie bookstores & collaboratives in Durham are mostly mere pups compared to the 26-year-old Internationalist.

But that may be part of the point, if I can be allowed to come back & belabor what has become my core idea one more time: Durham seems like more of a fertile ground for DIY, maybe *because* there is the perception that (a) it hasn't already been done [better] by a bunch of rich assholes in tie-dye driving volvos who'd be more than happy to tell you what a shitty job you're doing, and (b) there are people who will come out & support what you're doing.

Note bene, however, that one of the oldest examples of left-wing DIY cooperative whatever-ness in Durham, the Durham Food Co-op, is in the midst of an awful internal struggle that has basically pitted one group (the ones who want to run it like a business, in the sense of not being horribly in debt, but also in the sense of a level of efficiency/organization that really offends some people) against another group of folks who still want to think of it as a co-op in all connotations of the term, good and bad.

And some other group of people who just wanna argue, apparently, although I will confess I've avoided it entirely after hearing the horror stories of a friend who used to work there.

I'd be interested to hear from all the Durham musicians who were Durham musicians back before all this attention began.

Ross

p.s. I can picture hardcore, of one kind or another, happening all over the Triangle . . . I've certainly seen it in house shows & small clubs in all three towns at one time or another. Now you've got me missing the Fallout Shelter again.

Joel Peck wrote:
Cheap housing is not a new concept, but I don't think cheap housing is the same everywhere.
Does Durham, arguably more "hardcore" in terms of its neighborhoods and socio economics, provide an environment more apt to the "punk/hardcore" aesthetic? Is there more visibility in terms of gender, sexual orientation, and political leanings? Does Durham have a unique "More than Music" approach in terms of hosting discourse, DIY workshops, political gatherings, et al? It seems Durham is more DIY than Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Raleigh combined. Thoughts?

On a side note: one of my favorite political hardcore bands, Born Against, have a youtube clip from a Durham show in 1992 or so. I don't know the circumstances for why they played there, but I can't picture them anywhere else in the Triangle. Was anyone there?


From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
Reply-To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: On Durham and identity
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:35:30 -0400

Umm, I think so many groups are self-identifying as Durham bands because
their members live in Durham. Root cause: for some folks, it's the most
affordable place to live, and for a lot of folks, it's the most
desireable place to live. I stopped counting a long time ago the number
of my friends who'd moved to Durham from the other points in the Triangle.

So if you're trendspotting, the trend started at least a half-dozen
years ago, and it's called "musicians like cheap housing."

As for the question about t-shirts, well, I guess you just haven't seen
the Carrboro t-shirts, or the OCSC t-shirts. Given the longstanding
basketball/rock connection in Chapel Hill, I'd say any UNC
basketball-related t-shirt would probably count for Chapel Hill.

Are you asking "why does Durham have such uncanny self-esteem-boosting
T-shirts?" Because the answer to that is pretty much "James & Michelle
Lee," and if you start asking "why James & Michelle Lee," I'm not sure
that there's an answer for that. Other than, getting back to point A,
musicians like cheap housing. Where else could they afford to operate
such a sprawling enterprise as 305 South?

There are other folks whose outsized level of involvement/boosterism
sort of singlehandedly makes Durham seem more "together" or "organized"
or "scene-like" [than it actually is]: Melissa Thomas at 307 Knox, and
certainly Chaz. Shannon Morrow moved back to Durham from Chicago (though
before she moved to Chicago, she was living in Carrboro, so there ya go)
& started the Scene of the Crime Rovers.

What do all *these* people have in common? Maybe that they like the idea
of being able to get something done more or less singlehandedly, or with
a small group of co-conspirators. Durham seems like a tabula rasa,
culture-wise, at least to youngish white-ish indie-rockers. Check out
that article in the Indy from a couple of weeks ago about the NCCU jazz
program & you'll see that Durham isn't really such a clean slate, but
when it comes to youth culture, all it takes is a fallow period of a
couple of years to wipe everything pretty clean.

Maybe another thing they have in common is the good old fashioned
punkrock ideal that community is a good thing, and that building
community is an end unto itself. Obviously there are some folks who have
slightly different ideas (i.e. the Troika folks who like to salt the
festival lineup with a few out-of-towners), but even they do what they
do by and large for the sake of the community, rather than out of some
quest for larger fame/fortune.

But then I think you'd have to go all the way to Charlotte to really
find anybody who was desperately seeking fame via indie-rock. Oh, well,
I guess there are those guys from Raleigh who bought a tour bus to live
in while they wait for their ship to come in, Airiel Down, but they're
an aberration even for Raleigh.

The thing about people who like the idea of a close-knit community, is
that they tend to seek out other people who also like that idea. Couple
that with real estate that's cheap enough for peeps to be able to afford
to open something like BCHQ . . .

I hope you don't have some thesis in mind regarding sharp distinctions
between the various towns, or anything like adversarial relationships
between the towns, the clubs, or the bands. Periodically people try to
advance some notion that there is some level of competition or
something, but if there is, it's isolated almost entirely to the annual
WXDU/WXYC kickball game. There may be the occasional crackpot who sees
things as a zero-sum game where somebody's gotta lose, but I would
strongly caution you against extrapolating from them to anything bigger.

Or before you do, talk to Chaz & ask him how many Raleigh bands have
played his store and/or Bull City HQ. Or talk to DJ Stevo at WKNC & ask
him how he feels about bands from Durham & Chapel Hill. That dude loves
*everybody* & he works his butt off to prove it.

Anyway. The more I think about it, the more I come back to point A:
cheap real estate makes for countercultural magic. This is not a new
concept.

Nor, for that matter, is the converse, which is that expensive real
estate can kill the countercultural magic. Just look at Raleigh. Goodbye
Kings, goodbye Bickett Gallery.

Ross

betsyshane AT gmail.com wrote:
Hey Alt.music.CH

I'm a student at Duke and am writing a paper about the indie rock
scene in the Triangle, with a particular focus on Durham identity. I
was hoping I could maybe spark a little conversation or a little
interest to email back and forth about what it means to be a member of
the community, either as a fan, a band member, an info center,
whatever the case may be.

I'm interested in exploring what exactly it means to be a "Durham
band" since the proliferation of so many groups claiming this lately,
as well as what it means to be part of the Durham scene, and how (or
if) this differs from say, being part of the Raleigh scene or the
Chapel Hill scene (and being a Raleigh band or CH band). I wonder
what *you* think of when you think of Durham (and be completely
honest) or if you ever think of it at all. Why does Durham have tee
shirts and no other town does? What's the pride all about?

I'll keep an eye out and hope I get some replies.
Thanks
Betsy-Shane

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