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  • From: ansmithers AT yahoo.com
  • To: ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: On Durham and identity
  • Date: 5 Apr 2007 11:01:35 -0700

I have avoided posting something like this for quite some time now
because discussions of "scene" on this list (and anywhere for that
matter often) devolve into insanity and I have never posted anything
but show notices for my own bands (speaking of which, one is in the
midst of a kick ass Triangle tour (can't wait to see everyone from
Raleigh at Volume 11 Tavern for The Hem of His Garment tonight, but
seriously you should go see pulsoptional tomorrow. It is in Durham
after all).

I have spent way too much time in the past thinking about the concept
of music scenes and finally decided to do something with it so my
Folklore thesis is actually about scenes in the Triangle, centered on
ethnographic research, done primarily at Nightlight.

While I have been saying I was doing this for a couple years, this
winter and spring I have actually been doing interviews, and now am
trying to write after work and actually finish this shit, but it is
aggravating and difficult and I would rather put on a bear hat or just
sit and play a D chord really really fucking loud for 2 hours or even
play scales on my french horn than try and write some cultural
analysis about stuff that is almost impossible to theorize in a way
that doesn't collapse under a miniscule amount of scrutiny and really,
an MA in Folkore? Don't get me wrong, I have worked in
"folklore" (professionally even, and if you want to know what the hell
that means you got to ask and avoid the fact that I am also a shitty
line cook and library cubicle wage slaver) for a few years now but try
and tell that to your girlfriend's parents and see what kind of faces
they make...shit tell it to your own parents and snap a picture

Anyhow, I am attaching a bit of my proposal which explains some of the
ideas I have come up with about the Triangle and scenes in general.
Basically a scene can't be a scene unless it is constantly changing,
it is a core characteristic of the cultural phenomenon, but this
variability is resisted by individual participants who attempt to
locate boundaries for a scene and themselves, articulated through a
variety of behaviors but powerfully through personal narrative,
particularly about memories of the past, all of this works toward
processes of identity construction, and blah, blah, blah.

My ideas are surely indebted to the work of Mr. Butch Lazorchak, whose
paper on the CH-Scene from teh 90's I first read off of this list. I
also draw from a paper by Nicole Bogas who talks a lot about the Sony
Free! days and certainly the interviews kindly given by my
consultants, and also surely discussions on this list. This is an
incomplete old copy that didn't get editted because I am not at my
computer but the ideas get accross I think, and please keep in mind
this is written for my professors who really have no idea what I am
talking about when I mention any of this music or activity. Also the
final proposal includes all of my consultants, and although some read
this list, I didn't ask them if I could make them public here yet.
Any comments or critique are appreciated, should be done with actual
thesis in late May. I actually kind of like it when people hate my
work and I loved the critique of that Loveless thesis link that got
posted a while back.

Nothing like academic types trying to look at rock scenes to piss
people off, so say what you will, but maybe it contributes a bit to
the discussion, though not about Durham specifically, about scenes in
the Triangle. The word doesn't have to be negative all the time,
although back in Austin, one of the primary insults of new bands I
seemed to always hear was "they suck, they are just a bunch of fucking
scenesters."

again criticism is greatly appreciated,

apologies for the shitload of text

Project History:
On a cold Friday night, the last of February 2003, excusing myself
from the convivial setting of the Folklore graduate student Happy
Hour, I fully intended to make the long trek, first by foot, then on
bicycle, then in truck, to the dark and molded rented rooms in the
woods down Dairyland Rd. that I called home. My second semester in
the Curriculum in Folklore at the University of North Carolina-Chapel
Hill progressing nicely, I remained in awe of living outside of Texas
and I was mostly pleased with life as a graduate student, appreciative
of the intellectual challenges of my coursework and developing
relationships with new friends, colleagues, and professors. Instead
of heading home, however, I remembered an email on the listserv of
WXYC, the UNC student run radio station, about opening night at a new
local performance space called Nightlight, co-owned and operated by
Isaac Trogden, a former WXYC station manager and his friend Lauren
Ford.

And so I decided to forego a more sensible early retirement that
evening in favor of attending the show at the new club. Before
entering the venue, from outside the door, I heard someone wrenching
chords from an electric guitar and another someone pounding rhythmic
thunder on a drum kit, I felt this place, this space, was special. I
watched three bands, drank some beer from a free keg, spoke only to
one person who wondered why I carried such a large bag, thanked the
doorman (who was the owner Isaac), and finally made the long (and now
very late) trip home, blissfully unaware that the little hidden, used
book/record store/caf=E9 cum music venue tucked away off Rosemary St.
would become a focal point of future research and personal creative
activities as a musician.

>From experience as a radio DJ, audio engineer, fan, performer, and
promoter of music in my former home of Austin, Texas, I was aware of
the "Chapel Hill Scene" as fertile ground for producing and
maintaining excellent and exciting music. Since relocating I had
attended many performances in the Triangle and in Greensboro featuring
a stylistic variety of music, including rock of many subgenres,
experimental, country, old time, jazz, and classical. My regular
activities involved reading the local newspapers, listening to the
college radio stations WXYC and WXDU, examining fliers displayed
around town advertising future and past performances, and observing
not only performing bands but also their audiences at different
venues. These activities served both as a form of entertainment and
also as an education about the variety of cultural offerings in my
local community.

Over time I constructed a mental map of Triangle music, a complex
three-dimensional family tree of a local music histories. I knew
where and when I could find noise, jazz, indie rock, bluegrass,
country, or hip-hop, local music or touring bands, as well as the
names and some faces of local musicians and which genres of music they
performed. I also listened to enough local music, old and new, and
read enough local music media to coherently discuss bands, styles,
happenings, and history, but until that late night in February, I had
yet to discover the kind of locally produced and supported music
community or scene that I associate with musical experimentation and
the excessive expressivity of rock performance practices, and that I
particularly enjoy. Nightlight became not only a space where I could
"locate" a community that supported the kinds of music and expressive
culture I value, but also an environment that fostered the kind of
social interaction that I longed for.

Approaching the end of my coursework, I considered how much of my
attempts at folklore research, unsurprisingly, fit comfortably into
disciplinary canon: foodways (specifically barbecue), Mexican corridos
(narcocorridos), country music (alt.country), folk revivalists
(Patrick Skye), African American sacred music (shout bands), and hip-
hop culture (Straight from the Crate hip-hop radio). While
enlightening, I felt my work maintained the dichotomy between folk vs.
popular culture, antiquated vs. contemporary, ethnic vs. white, low
vs. high art, rural vs. urban, a model that, as a folklorist, I knew
was a construct of Western hegemonic discourse and that I naively
hoped to somehow reveal. At the same time, critical analyses of rock
music by and rock culture produced by scholars of other humanities
based disciplines, I felt that research on these forms of contemporary
expressive culture lacked the engaged interaction with and in
communities, a cornerstone of quality folklore research. I wondered
how to apply the tools of folklore and a commitment to collaborative
ethnography to the protean music culture in the Triangle and
specifically to the Nightlight.

This project is a culmination of three years of active participation
in Nightlight culture: as a researcher, song collector, audience
member, performer, volunteer, supporter, and as a friend. I have
collected recordings from 35 different performances, attended
countless other shows, performed sixteen times with four different
bands, three of which had our first performance at Nightlight. I have
helped with sound, donated a microphone, collected money at the door,
promoted shows on WXYC radio where I am a DJ, collected oral histories
from thirteen consultants ranging in age from 21 to 42 who represent a
variety of roles in the community. Individuals often play more than
one and the level of activity certainly varies over time. Two
consultants no longer live in North Carolina. My consultants are fans
and casual audience members, employees and owners past and present, a
music journalist, radio Djs, university students and wage earners,
veteran musicians and neophyte performers, and some of them are also
colleagues, collaborators and, importantly, friends. My social
relationships with consultants and personal activity at Nightlight
might raise concerns about my ability to objectively perform critical
ethnographic research, however, it is precisely the depth of my
relationships and artistic investment that allow a closeness to the
material and the perspective to begin to make sense of something as
unstable as a music scene.

By actively engaging the Nightlight communities, the diversity and
multiplicity of expressive culture and complex networks of relations
through which music scenes are articulated are revealed. Committed to
reading culture in context and not people as text, folklore can offer
much to the understanding of contemporary musical styles and culture
on a level not typically dealt with in musicology, cultural studies,
anthropology, or related disciplines while drawing on the collective
knowledge of their valuable perspectives at the same time. I will
attempt such an interdisciplinary approach in this thesis as well as
including the voices and ideas of my consultants, hopefully crafting a
document that presents Nightlight and participants in the music scenes
with clarity and respect.

Introduction:
It is easy to miss the pedestrian alleyway located (hidden?) within
the small strip of four businesses-a bar, currently Fuse (but it has
had many names over the years), an office for a construction company,
the offices of Mama Dip's Restaurant, and Tienda Don Jose, a store
catering to Chapel Hill's small but growing Latino population. The
squat, cinderblock one story assemblage, looks thrown together on the
south side of the street and is surrounded by just as disparate
properties: a university parking lot to the east, an African American
church to the west, across the street to the north are Mama Dips, a
Chapel Hill dining institution, and brand new, three-story, million
dollar condominiums. The condominiums tower over all other
architecture, especially the houses of Chapel Hill's quickly
gentrifying and transmogrfying historically African American
neighborhood, Northside, that border its structure. The block is
almost a microcosm of Chapel Hill-institutions catering to the mostly
white university population interacting with the long oppressed
African American neighborhood, with an addition of the newer immigrant
Latino population. The observant may notice bicycles chained to "No
Parking" and speed limit signs, as well as Xeroxed fliers stapled to
the telephone pole with names like Cantwell Gomez & Jordan, Boner
Machine, BubbleGum Shitface, DJ Mothers Brothers, Planecrash, American
Band, and Haunted House. Looking up, a small painted sign hangs over
the empty doorframe of the alleyway reading "Skylight Exchange" above
and "Nightlight" below, complete with pink lightning bolts.

Walking down that dimly lit alley away from this scene of Chapel
Hill's burgeoning metropolitan progress, over plywood planks laid on
the concrete to bridge large puddles from a recent rain, the sky over
head, between narrow concrete walls painted red with bits of black
scrawled graffiti, stealing voyeuristic glimpses of the lone line-cook
through the windows of the commercial kitchen at Fuse, into a
lingering cloud of cigarette smoke from people standing outside the
entrance, can indeed be a disorienting experience. Passing through
the wooden door and into the space itself maintains confusion for the
space's purpose is not immediately apparent. Books and records are
stacked everywhere, a small stage is in the corner, and a lunch
counter and booths occupy the center space.
The room is not small, accommodating a bar with at least 10 stools
down the left side where patrons can order from a menu of eclectic
sandwiches and coffee during the day and selected beers at night.
Ninety degrees to the right are two rows of used music for sale,
primarily a wide selection of vinyl LPs sorted first by genre and then
alphabetically. The bins hold a few thousand records and many more
sit in boxes beneath the record bins. The three walls not occupied by
the bar/kitchen are comprised of bookshelves of full of used books;
thousands of books that contribute nicely to the dampening of
reflected sounds. Booths and tables occupy the open center space and
farthest from the door, in front of a wall of books, is a 5-foot-by-8-
foot carpeted stage. Two large, grey PA speakers flank the stage, and
to the right is a broken down upright piano, trapped by a tangled web
of speaker/monitor/microphone/power cables and assorted sound
reinforcement equipment. The ceiling feels low at 10 feet, there are
no windows, but natural light enters through the six skylights that
give the space its daytime name. Between 9 and 10 pm, the space
undergoes a transformation into Nightlight. Booths and tables are
pushed away to line the walls, opening a large, empty space in front
of the small stage, or they are simply turned around to face the
stage. Beer coolers are unlocked, a separate cash register is set up,
lights are dimmed, and the music increases in volume.

Looking around, the performers, audience, and employees are mostly
white, university educated, members of Chapel Hill bohemia, and while
most are in their twenties, ages vary from teenagers-Nightlight is one
of few all-ages venues in Chapel Hill-to people in their forties.
Performances occur about four nights per week and represent a variety
of genres, but well more than half of the performances each month
feature an array of non-traditional rock music, including a mixture of
noise music, improvisational music, avant-garde and underground rock
music of obscure genres performed with a huge range technical
abilities. Much music heard and performed at Nightlight eschews
traditional rock song structure; songs are loose, timbres are harsh,
rhythm is free to wander, volumes range from ear splitting to
virtually silent. While the classic rock ensemble instrumentation of
drums, electric guitar, and bass, and vocals is still ubiquitous,
connecting the venue to a history of locally produced rock scenes,
performers are very likely to include or to make music entirely with a
variety of electronics, sound generators, effects pedals, mixing
boards, contact microphones, synthesizers, computers, homemade
instruments, improvised percussion, violins, saxophones, samplers, the
human body, pieces of metal, and the voice; literally anything anyone
thinks of. Local artists usually comprise about half of the
performances and most nights they attempt to combine touring bands
with local to maximize the potential for an audience. Every Sunday is
an open-mic, and about two dance parties hosted by local DJs are
hosted each month.

Nightlight officially opened as a business February 28, 2003 with
"Chapel Hill's finest freaky punk rock," [Trogden] represented by the
angular post-punk des_ark, Cantwell Gomez & Jordan, and Coldsides. On
that night, a particular grouping of musicians and fans within the
Chapel Hill music scene reclaimed the physical space at 405 1/2 W.
Rosemary St., adding another institution to the local rock
infrastructure that provided a place for active participation in the
musical practices and social relations related to the production and
consumption of music culture in Chapel Hill. RE-claimed because,
while the majority of the clientele is unaware, the space has a multi-
decade history of use as a performance venue: housing the original
location of the now nationally known Cat's Cradle, a venue in the mid
1980s called Rhythm Alley, hosting occasional shows in the 1990s
organized by local participants in the underground music scene under
arrangement with the owners of its next and current incarnation as
Skylight Exchange, as well as jam sessions, open mics, poetry
readings, theatrical performances, and film and video screenings
[Bogas]. Also RE-claimed because Nightlight as an entity operates
within the space already occupied by a separate business entity, the
aforementioned Skylight Exchange, that was and is a combination of
used book/record store and caf=E9/deli. The space Nightlight inhabits
occupies a special niche in Chapel Hill music, not only physically as
one of many venues dedicated to live music performance, but also
idealistically as a community of self-proclaimed and mostly self-
sustaining artists, musicians, fans, and sympathizers.

Rather than frame the investigation of Nightlight according to the
physical space and exclusively to the musical performances and
interactions inside that space, a more useful approach utilizes the
concept of music "scenes" to explore activity at Nightlight. A
musical "scene" is "that cultural space in which a range of musical
practices coexist, interacting with each other within a variety of
processes of differentiation, and according to widely varying
trajectories of change and cross-fertilization," [Straw 494]. Scenes
are in a constant state of redefinition according to the contexts in
which their forms of communication are articulated. The circulation
of cultural commodities like music is often "organized" as a
lifecycle, during which their value varies in relationship to the
cultural terrain [Straw 494, Kruse, Azerrad, Frith]. In scenes,
certain styles, individuals, institutions, undergo significant shifts
in perceived value relative to the passing of time and the ongoing
transformation of social and cultural relations within and between
music communities. Historically, the "Triangle," comprised of three
cities, Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh, North Carolina, has been
internationally recognized for developing and maintaining active and
influential music scenes: from the piedmont blues of Blind Boy Fuller
and the Durham tobacco warehouses, the folk revival of the Hollow Rock
String Band and the Red Clay Ramblers, and the melodic power-pop of
the dB's, to the 1990s "indie" rock of Superchunk, Polvo, and Archers
of Loaf, only to name a few examples.

As a center of politics, industry, and higher education, the Triangle
constantly shifts demographically, and the music produced reflects
these shifts over time; aesthetic value of sound and performance is
negotiated, certain bands and styles are considered more popular at
different times, individuals come and go and vary levels of
participation, some practices are co-opted into the mainstream, old
practices are rearticulated, and new practices emerge. This thesis
attempts to describe scenes of current music practice in the Triangle
through ethnographic research involving a very small portion of this
population, centered at present around the institution/club
Nightlight.
Scenes are not consistent in character over time, but fluctuate
according to the particular cultural activities and the context of
those activities. Indeed, in Chapel Hill alone, one may discuss the
art scene, the music scene, the Chapel Hill scene, the indie rock
scene, the hip-hop scene, the electronic/dance music scene, the noise
scene, the frat-rock scene, and on and on ad infinitum, historicizing
any of these in past, present, or future. According to Will Straw,
"Scene designates particular clusters of social and cultural activity
without specifying the nature of the boundaries which circumscribe
them." [Straw 2005, 412] With such and elusive and seemingly
indefinable frame, using the concept of scene as a theoretical base
for analysis appears imprudent, however, scenes provide a more
accurate model of the constant variability of cultural production.
Under scrutiny, scenes may elude distinct, recognizable boundaries,
but individuals involved in the production of scenes are constantly
drawing and re-drawing these boundaries (although often
unintentionally) through the performance of their own identities.
These boundaries are articulated through the personal narratives of
individual participants and dependent on the desires and goals of the
individual at the time of the event or of the narrative; they may not
be the same.

Limiting the focus of this paper to activity in one location,
Nightlight, offers an opportunity to examine the variety and fluid
nature of scenes as they emerge and change over time according to the
context and social interaction of the participants and also how spaces
and practices are directly linked with the history of cultural forms.
Nightlight demonstrates the importance of local spaces to musical
activity; spaces where properties of local music practice are
performed and, through this process, identities are constructed. At
the same time, concentrating on activity at Nightlight, activity
dependent on the participation of individuals from geographic
locations outside the Triangle, also demonstrates the significance of
interlocal relationships and the influence of global musical culture
to "local" scene production [Straw 499].

Regional "scenes" and local "sounds" have decreased in significance in
recent popular culture. While a regional sound was an important point
of reference in discussions of independent music of the 1980s and
1990s, distance from localities of mainstream music production being
an important point of differentiation, alternative and independent
structures of production and consumption, so vital to the definition
and maintenance of independent rock music, have been institutionalized
to the extent that they are now part of the dominant music culture
against which they continue to identify themselves in opposition to
[Fred]. These networks, of record labels, distributors, media,
venues, and individuals, allow for the greater availability of "non-
mainstream" music for specialized audiences geographically distanced
from its production, increasing the interlocal interaction of music
scenes and social relationships between participants, and reducing the
importance of connection to a particular local music history as a
source of identification [Straw]. College radio stations, so
important to local rock music [Kruse, Lazorchak] can now be heard
anywhere in the world over the internet, and musician websites and
free access, commercial sites like Myspace.com make music of countless
performers-professional, amateur, living, dead and imaginary--
available to anyone with a computer.

This process does not mean that the story of "local" rock stopped in
the year 2000, musicalized experience still produces differential
identities, and local scenes are still the cultural space where these
identities are negotiated, but within a larger scene, there are
countless smaller scenes, constructed around associations with genre,
location, personal relationships, and relation to the larger
international music culture [Shank]. Kruse and Shank use the concept
of "scene" to describe larger, regional, social and economic networks
of musical practice, including a wide variety of individuals, bands,
clubs, record stores, and media outlets in Athens, Georgia and
Champaign, Illinois, and Austin, Texas respectively, providing
valuable histories of local rock scenes in the 1980s and 1990s.
Rather than reconstruct a history of Chapel Hill during that same
period, I believe their research and concepts are can be applied to a
contemporary miniature or "micro-scenes" like those at Nightlight as
effectively as it follows trajectories currently organized around
noise, experimental music, local art, community support, and a
international network of individuals committed to similar
trajectories.
So strongly has Nightlight become associated with these non-
traditional rock apparatuses, Nightlight is described in local media
as,
Chapel Hill's noise bastion ...:

The post-meridian extension of the Skylight Exchange, a by-day used
book and record store and cafe, Nightlight has been hosting noiseniks
for three years now, serving as a Petri dish for the development of a
thriving regional noise circuit and a hitching post for artists
touring the country. [Currin, 31 May 2006]

A local music website run by long-time local music activist and fan,
Ross Grady,
described a performance on his weekly calendar with the following:

Sunday, August 8
Zom Zoms [http://www.tubezomzoms.com], Yip Yip
[http://www.yip-yip.com]
Nightlight, Chapel Hill

Two bands of fukked-up fried-out freaks in weird costumes with
keyboards & noisemakers and high-concepts and I swear to god I dunno
how Nightlight got onto this circuit in the first place but I have to
say: you can live here for years, and see all kinds of bands, both
local & out-of-town, and after a while you start to think we've got
all the bases covered. Well: we're not even close. There is weird shit
out there in the bowels of America that's 40 zillion times weirder
than the weirdest the Triangle has to offer (and yes, that includes
last night's show at Nightlight), and the only joint in town that even
comes close to opening a window into that world is Nightlight. Attend,
if you can handle the dismay at learning what you've been missing.
[Grady, Ross from Stuff to Do on trianglerock.com]

Representing what I identify as an "underground" scene in Chapel Hill,
practices at Nightlight inform two directions of research to the way
scenes work in contemporary local music practice, both referenced in
the above description. First, underground scenes, like those
articulated through and around Nightlight, are increasingly dependent
on interlocal relationships outside the particular town or region of
their origin, and second, at the same time, music practice in
underground scenes is still largely dependent on links to local,
regional musical heritage and processes of traditionalization.

Thesis Structure
This thesis will include three substantial chapters, outlined below,
as well as an introduction and conclusion. I will draw heavily from
the interviews with my consultants as well as a few more conducted by
a graduate of UNC, Nicole Bogas. I will also use archival research
including articles from local newspapers as well as independently
produced media and zines for their descriptions of local music and
musicians. My field notes and audio recordings, as well as
photographs by myself and photographer Galen Williams and video shot
by Michael Nutt and Travis Marriott, will help me to provide thick
description of the environment and the events in rich detail in an
attempt to contextualize the information for readers unfamiliar with
the music and the culture of local rock scenes. Finally, with a goal
toward collaboration with my consultants and the larger Nightlight
community in the final written document, the owners have agreed to
post a copy of the thesis as written by me on the Nighlight listserv,
inviting any interested party to insert their words and perspectives
into the paper. Comments will then be edited for format and framed
into the thesis to create a multi-vocal, dialogic representation of
this community.

Indie vs. Underground

To better explain this designation, I should explain my choice of the
descriptive "underground" rather than "independent" (as chosen by
Kruse), "alternative," or even simply "rock and roll" as used by
Shank. While many of these terms are used interchangeably in media
and in conversation, demonstrating their malleable meanings always
under construction by various agents with diverse objectives [Hibbett
58], I believe "underground" is most representative of the musical
practices at Nightlight and institutions like it.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, "alternative" became the term used to
describe the "terrain of musical activity" that resulted from local
infrastructures for a variety of musical activities developed in and
through punk scenes [Straw 496]. "Alternative," however, and even
more generally "Rock'n'roll," both have been used extensively in
mainstream popular music production, distribution, and consumption and
as a result have cultural associations according to which
"independent" and "underground" music are defined in opposition
[Kruse].

"Independent" music, in its most basic definition is that not produced
on a major label. Azerad emphasizes this distinction in his chronicle
of influential independent rock bands and artists of the 1980s (Sonic
Youth, Meat Puppets, Mission of Burma, Black Flag, Butthole Surfers,
and more from that decade who could be called successful), restricting
stories in his book, "solely to bands on independent labels," whose,
"stories trail off when and if a band signed to a major
label," [Azerrad 5]. Kruse chooses the term independent, and
shortened it more specifically to "indie" music, an abbreviation most
commonly used to describe "pop" and "rock" styles on which her
research focuses, as opposed to the wide variety of musical genres
released on independent labels [Kruse 8]. "Indie" rock is also being
the term used to describe the best known Triangle rock of the 1990s,
best represented still by the post-punk, pop-rock of Superchunk and
the record label they own and operate, Merge Records [Pareles,
Lazorchak, Kruse].

"Indie" is not, however, only defined by economic orientation. It is
also characterized by both the aesthetic qualities of the music,
redefined constantly by those who use it socially in clubs, on college
radio, local record stores, record collections, downloaded to ipods,
as well as political orientation, often linked to a working class
mentality associated to the DIY (Do It Yourself) philosophy as a basis
for artistic integrity, a legacy from American punk [Kruse, Hibbett,
Faris]. This definition is still not properly descriptive of
practices at Nightlight and in other "miniature scenes" around the
world whose music is "independent," but not always connected to the
"indie" network, circulating instead in more marginal set of alliances
that can be defined as "underground."

Scenes from the American Indie Underground1981-1991 is the second
title to Azerrad's book. "Indie" is used similar to the rock/pop like
Kruse with a more punk/hardcore/post punk orientation, but using that
term to modify "underground," suggesting that the opposition implied
by "indie" against "mainstream" is not strong enough. Much of the
narratives of bands in Azerrad's book, and those of scene participants
in Kruse's and Shank's work, chronicle the moments when individuals
are experimenting with others, defining a sound, recording their first
records, playing their first shows, and interacting with audiences in
small venues on intimate levels. Stories recount the development of
artists, labels, and styles. Music practice at this level is too
fluid for the other descriptive terms, especially now when even
"indie" rock has numerous established and successful networks and
institutions for its production and distribution and implies a
particular sonic structure of guitar driven rock [Kruse].
"Independent" falsely implies freedom, but "independent" and even
"underground" music "are positioned in relation to mainstream
production and consumption," [Kruse 30, Frith, Grossberg] and marginal
styles are constantly being co-opted into the mainstream. Kruse
writes, "Indie music has therefore been continually engaged in an
economic and ideological struggle in which its "outsider" status is re-
examined, re-defined, and re-articulated to sets of musical
practices," [Kruse 149]. Underground music, as defined here, can then
be portrayed in an analogous struggle with indie music. If the indie
"scenes" of the 1990s were defined by musical practice connected to
regionalism and a local "sound," [Kruse, Pareles, Lazorchak], then
contemporary underground scenes, like that at initially identified at
Nightlight, are a reaction against that tendency to categorize music
production in a locality to particular genres and styles and other
recognized scene formations. The contemporary underground scene will
also continue to react against itself. Certain networks and practices
and sounds will prove more relevant in the historical and cultural
contexts where the scene is articulated. When these formations become
stable enough, the underground scene becomes more associated with
something more specific, a place, for example CBGBs or Gillman Street
or the Kitchen, or a genre, rock, punk, or avant-garde. In the
narrative of Chapel Hill, the underground has shifted alliances away
from 90s indie rock and the institutions that rose to success from
that scene, towards new practices, many of a more experimental and
often noisy nature. Many of which can be found at Nightlight.

Nightlight as "underground"
The history of Chapel Hill underground scenes of the 1990s is well
documented in both local and national media. A piece from the year
2000 by Gavin O'Hara in the Triangle weekly, The Independent, neatly
summarizes the story. Looking to replicate the financial success and
mainstream popularity of the "grunge" scene of Seattle, Washington
represented by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, a number of regional
rock scenes, including Chapel Hill, were selected as potential
candidates [Pareles, Kobel, O'Hara]. The local scene reacted less
than kindly to this attention, the most popular artists like
Superchunk rejected major label deals, choosing instead to release
records on their own label Merge [Lazorchak]. Local zines from the
1990s, notably Stay Free!, are filled with vitriolic critique of the
corporate music industry and of local artists who are considered to
have been co-opted or products of that industry. Bands like Polvo,
Picasso Trigger, and Archers of Loaf toured nationally and received
play on college radio, but most other local rock acts received little
national attention. The ones that did, like the Squirrel Nut Zippers,
Ben Folds Five, and Whiskeytown, although arguably all roots oriented-
rock, were too different stylistically to distill into one genre like
"grunge." In the late 1990s, the sound-du-jour of the Triangle shifted
somewhat from indie rock to alt.country and bands like the
aforementioned Whiskeytown and the Backsliders rose from the local
scene to national prominence, but afterwards, like those before them,
left town or broke up. And so the Chapel Hill scene was left alone
again to its own devices, but remains fractured from the experience
[O'Hara].

The narrative of Chapel Hill independent rock often ends at this
point, and like other discussions of co-optation, "focus[es] on the
techniques by which rock and roll has been exploited and transformed
by the economic system and the various 'ideological state
apparatuses,' especially the mass media," [Grossberg 1984, 254].
Other scene histories are similar. Shank concludes his account of the
Austin rock and roll scene by documenting its splintering into
smaller, "insider" scenes according to industrial economic forces that
encourage musical differentiation according to genre and demographic
differentiation of consumers according to age, class, race, and gender
[Shank 240]. He further suggests that basis of music evaluation in
Austin had shifted from the "aesthetic of performance that
acknowledged the power of musicalized experience in the production of
adolescent identities," to the abstraction of that experience from a
commoditization of musical practice in the form of a recording,
reflecting a shift in the "interpretive structures that shape identity
formation," [Shank 251].

The Chapel Hill scene of the 1990s reflects this discussion and music
practice in Chapel Hill did change significantly. Active scene
participants moved away, new ones came, once upstart labels like Merge
became nationally known with an international roster, countless bands
formed and dissolved. Still discussions of the state of the Chapel
Hill scene, generally described in a weakened state, are a regular
feature on listservs like alt.music.chapel.hill, and nostalgia for the
Chapel Hill of the 1990s is a prominent sentiment
[alt.music.chapel.hill, O'Hara]. Such assertions are problematic,
assuming the only legitimate continuation of the scene is rock music
popularized and valorized in the 1990s. According to Local 506 owner
Glenn Boothe:
Unfortunately the sound that's being created now was en vogue in 1993,
and it's not necessarily the hip sound now. There's not as much new
blood coming into the scene. I think the scene needs new faces coming
out to the shows. I think a lot of bands are just preaching to the
converted because the same people come to see them all the time.
[Carolina Connection].

But "new blood" is coming into the scene all the time, particularly
through institutions like Nightlight. To resume the story of Chapel
Hill rock where O'Hara leaves off, co-optation must be recognized as a
process integral to scene production. As Grossberg noted:

Co-optation is the mode by which rock and roll produces itself anew,
rejecting moments of its own past and present in order to all the more
potently inscribe its own boundary...It is not necessarily an
alteration of the aesthetic or ideological constitution of the text,
but the production of new affective alliances with in the rock and
roll culture...Rather than a cycle of authentic and co-opted music,
rock and roll exists as a fractured unity within which differences of
authenticity and co-optation are defined in the construction of
affective alliances and networks of affiliation. [Grossberg 1984,
255].

Some current scene participants, like former WXDU-Durham music
director, and active Nightlight audience member, Kelly Kress, identify
this process as neccessary to current music practice in Chapel Hill.

The music scene is going to exist regardless of whether Rolling Stone
is writing articles about it.... In terms of the 'heyday' [of Chapel
Hill music], I guess there were a lot of bands that got popular just
for being from here, like the Archers of Loaf...but creatively, I would
disagree with saying that that was the heyday. The things going on
now are different, but there is still a lot to do and a lot to see,
and I think that's always going to be the case here.... I think there's
a legacy here.... There is so much stability with the radio stations and
the clubs.... People come here, they might not know anything...they might
turn on the radio one day and find 'XYC and hear something, and maybe
it's local and they'll realize they can go out and see it. And
they'll go see it and all of a sudden two years later they're one of
the people playing in bands and booking clubs or something [Kress].

Her statement is astute, recognizing the continuing importance of
institutions like college radio and local venues, but also recognizing
the way individuals' relationship to scenes change over time.
Underground scenes resist the tendency to be narrated into a lifecycle
because of their tendency toward stylistic experimentation and
constant reorientation in relation to other music practices. The
processes of differentiation that identify a scene, however,
underground or otherwise, demand that it be located in a historical
context, making a rise and fall, or a recognition and cooptation, for
at least those who are invested in the scene, inevitable. At
Nightlight, current musicians and fans work to reconcile the influence
of the underground scenes of the past that legitimized Chapel Hill in
popular culture as a viable site of music production while carving out
their own spaces in order to counter the opinion that the scene has
become stagnant.

"Rock music is dead," acerbically notes Ryan Martin, current co-owner
of Nightlight. He continues:
All the rock music I listen to was made years and years ago. There's
not a lot of new interesting rock music and it is not as potent as it
once was. Right now you have bands who are carrying on the form of
rebellious music that happened a long time ago, but it's not so vital
somehow. I hope that people are wanting to see, in place of a rock
show, something that's more of a performance, parties where people can
dance and interact. [Martin]

Martin's emphatic statement is important, even if not entirely
reflected in booking practices and performances at Nightlight. There
are still many rock shows at Nightlight, but these often follow a
different format than those at a more standard rock venue like the
Local 506. DJs often perform between sets and after the performance.
Bands seldom know the order in which they will perform before they
begin. There are very limited (if any) sound checks. Some bands
refuse their share of the door, instead offering their portion to a
touring band or back to Nightlight to cover expenses. Such an
environment encourages socialization between performers and audience
before and after the show, increasing a sense of community and
strengthening identities of the participants, but also can negatively
affect the success of Nightlight as a business. As Mike Nutt, former
Nightlight employee suggests:
Community is something that's really important to me...I still am
hesitant to say that it was something I was looking for in a music
venue, but once I did happen upon it I think that was one of the
reasons why it felt comfortable to me and right to me. Because it was
like, Nightlight is more successful as a community center than a
business. [Nutt]

Nutt is quick to include, however that while he and others feel
comfortable in the "low pressure" community of Nightlight, that "it
has a self-selecting community that excludes people for various
reasons." [Nutt] Exclusivity and constructed boundaries seem to be
precisely what Nightlight idealistically seeks to avoid, but such
contradictions are implied in the business's own rhetoric.

According to Nightlight's website, it's goal is "to host as many
styles and tastes of music as there are fans-maybe more. In
particular, Nightlight hopes to provide a forum for new music and
ideas not getting the attention they deserve," [Nightlight]. As a
locally produced rock and roll apparatus, that "constantly reinscribes
a boundary between 'us' and 'them'" [Grossberg 1986, 57], Nightlight
separates itself from the local music community, defining itself as
representative of newness and difference, and not only that, but
values these qualities as significant. Many fans demand consistency
in rock and roll and do not look for "anything off-beat or
weird" [Parker 1]. Mike Nutt observes:
.=2E.if Nightlight invites or caters to these people who have these social
quirks and there's this room full of people who have all these
strange, social quirks, you walk in there and you're probably gonna be
like, "Who the fuck are these people and why are they so weird?" You
are kind of disoriented; the music's all crazy. You go there once and
you have this kind of weird experience-people are looking for the same
thing that I'm looking for when I go to Nightlight, which is to feel
comfortable in a place. If they aren't feeling the signals that make
them feel comfortable, then they're not coming back. I think that it
just kind of fills this niche. I don't think it's for everybody.
It's not for everybody in Chapel Hill; it's not for every touring
band. [Nutt]

Other active Nightlight regulars agree the space and scene drive many
people away. Martin even goes so far as to suggest there are less
than twenty people who attend Nightlight on a regular (weekly or more
often) basis, but even they are particular about what types of shows
they attend: local, noise, improv, punk, dance, folk, or other variety
[Martin]. While this core group may be the most active participants
at Nightlight, many other people make up the Triangle's rock community
and have attended many events at Nightlight or performed there on
occasion. Perhaps they do not consider themselves part of a scene,
but their occasional attendance, decisions not to attend when the
music is "weird," and ideas formed through local media, interpersonal
communication, and online resources like trianglerock.com, all
contribute to the constant negotiation of the cultural space that is
the Nightlight scene and underground music in the Triangle.

Scenes are where a variety of music practices coexist and interact
[Kruse, Straw] and music practice at Nightlight is extremely variable:
rock, noise, improvisation, and dance music nights (from techno, to
80s, to post-punk, to world music) have been mentioned, but Nightlight
has also hosted old-time country jam sessions, traditional Irish
music, hip-hop, high-school garage bands, singer-songwriters, open-mic
nights, movie nights, trivia nights, puppet performances, theater,
drag fashion shows, and more. Much like folklore has too often been
defined as "what folklorists study," it can appear that the Nightlight
scene can only be described by the variety of performances at the
space. The only requirement seems to be that the performances "can't
really happen at a different venue in town. I mean if it can't happen
at Nightlight, where else could it possibly happen? I guess Chaz's
(Bull City Records) is a possibility now, but it is pretty rock
oriented" [Harper]. Again and again in discussions about Nightlight,
rock and roll is posited as being oppositional to the kind of
performances typical at Nightlight, while at the same time the space
is upheld as being the only place where one can currently can witness
an authentic "real rock show, even though the music isn't really rock
and roll like all the old Chapel Hill indie shit, it is noise and
crazy shit" [Arzano].

While diversity in programming and tastes are characteristics of
underground music in Chapel Hill as currently articulated through the
Nightlight, as a micro-scene became identifiable with the space, music
styles and practices mostly identified with the experimental and noise
genres demonstrate the affective investments of scene participants.
As a contemporary underground scene, Nightlight has from the start
been dependent on interlocal interaction with musicians and artists
outside of Chapel Hill, the first shows all interviewees remember
attending were by DAT Politics, an experimental electronic dance group
from France, and Wolf Eyes, a brutally pummeling noise group from
Minnesota who have risen to internationally known musicians and
status. At the same time, they are dedicated to nurturing and being
nurtured by a local musical tradition of experimentation and avant-
garde performance, as long as it can be distanced from the indie rock
legacy. Two regular events at Nightlight, the annual No Future Fest,
a weekend festival of over 20 noise artists from around the country,
and the almost monthly Recess, a local experimental kind of open-mic,
demonstrate these seemingly contrasting characteristics of the
underground scene.

Nightlight and Noise
A semantic discussion of the definition of noise vs. music or noise
music is beyond the scope of this paper, and like rock and roll and
scenes, the boundaries of noise are in a constant state of flux
according to current hegemonic discourse about what constitutes music
and those who challenge that definition. For the purposes of this
paper, noise is best defined by participants in the scene as an
approach to sound that steps outside conventional notions of melody,
harmony, and rhythm. [Mayshark, Howe]. The current noise scene can be
traced to a number of genres in musical history: the work of John Cage
and the Italian Futurists Luigi Rosollo, the European avant-garde of
Karlheinz Stockhausen, tape experiments of Les Paul and Terry Riley,
the free jazz of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, punk and post-punk
music, the drone based minimalism of La Monte Young and Tony Conrad,
and the no-wave music of 1980s New York, from Glenn Branca and Rhys
Chatham to early "alternative rock" bands like Sonic Youth and the
Swans [Mayshark, Cox, Currin 31 May 2006].

Noise was not new to Chapel Hill in 2003 and Nightlight did not
suddenly bring it out of its dark recesses and into the local media
spotlight. Local records like the Friction Media compilation of 1998,
Cognitive Mapping II, include tracks of free jazz and experimental
noise side by side with Chapel Hill rock from the 90s. From 1998 to
2000, Chapel Hill was home to the Transmissions festival, a multi-
night event including musicians like John Fahey, Alan Licht, Pelt,
Eugene Chadbourne, Fennesz, David Grubbs, film and art installations,
as well as local performers, including Zuerichten with Nightlight's
founder, Isaac Trogden performing among the international cognoscenti
of experimental music. The Alliance for Improvised Music, a non-
profit concert promotion company founded by Walt Davis, consistently
brought some of the biggest international names in improvised jazz to
the Triangle from 1996 to 2004, including legendary percussionist Hans
Bennink, Ellery Eskerlin's trio with Jim Black and Andrea Perkins, Joe
McPhee, and more. WXYC 89.3 fm, the UNC student run radio station
(where Trogden also volunteered and acted briefly as station manager),
is nationally known for often playing "challenging" music, especially
on it's Sunday afternoon specialty show, "Broken Music," featuring
music and sounds that can often be heard at Nightlight. Throughout
this history, however, there never developed the stable (at least
temporarily) economic and social networks for a scene to organize that
offered regular opportunities for performance and participation. That
an institution like Nightlight would surface to serve this a growing
community, both in and out of Chapel Hill now seems predictable
[Grossberg 1984, 236-240].

Micro-scenes like Nightlight demonstrate what Straw suggests is the
"paradoxical status of localism" within alternative-music culture
[499]. Access to vast array of musical languages and styles via the
internet has vastly altered the way music is used in the small
communities, shifting focus away from regional difference and
resulting in a "musical cosmopolitanism wherein the points of musical
reference are likely to remain stable from one community to
another" [Straw 499]. The result is that particular styles of music,
in this case noise, circulate between local scenes with little need to
adapt to local circumstances. More important is that local scenes
develop institutions to function as part of the "circuits" by which
music circulates and local scenes of activity relate to one another.
Because Chapel Hill had a history of underground music production, as
well as a local history of experimental music events to which one of
the co-founders of Nightlight was directly connected, it easily found
itself on the relatively new circuit of noise music.

>From 2003 to 2004, Nightlight's first year in business, over seventy-
five percent of the performances I would identify as experimental or
noise oriented were by non-local musicians. While audiences were
initially less than 10 people [Martin], Nightlight still became
regarded on the noise circuit as a "friendly" place to play
[iheartnoise.com]. Within a month of its opening, however, local
musician Robert Biggers, drummer for prominent late 90s post-punk
bands The White Octave and Cold Sides, and currently the Nein,
initiated a monthly music series called Recess, a "semi-regular
experimental-music evening curated by Nein drummer Robert Biggers. The
idea is that local musicians break out of their "normal" rockband
roles & try something new, generally involving short solo or
collaborative sets with different instruments/noises than they're used
to" [Grady August 2006]. Recess offered a regular opportunity for
musicians to experiment with ideas in contrast with the indie rock
more typical of the Triangle. Each month is curated by a different
local musician, ensuring variety of performances as each curator would
most likely draw from different social circles. The intention was to
foster local community support for experimentation, a concept that fit
perfectly within the mission statement of Nightlight [Martin]. Recess
then worked to establish Nightlight as the local venue for non-
traditional rock performances. Attendance at Recess varies, but the
audience often numbers over twenty people, many of whom did not yet
attend Nightlight regularly on other occasions, but through this
series could develop a connection to and vocabulary of noise music
culture.
At the same time, Trogden used his former connections through WXYC and
the Transmissions festival to bring more and more experimental
performers to Chapel Hill. When Ryan Martin took over for Trogden in
late 2004, he continued this trend, admitting to try "and just keep up
with what Isaac was doing. By that time, lots of people were just
contacting us. I guess we developed a reputation as being some freaky
place in the Southeast people could play" [Martin]. As such,
Nightlight became a regular stop for noise musicians from more
established local scenes like those in Providence, Rhode Island, New
York City, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Michele Arzano and Martin
both observed that soon there were soon more local musicians
developing noise projects to open for or perform with touring bands,
making a local journalist's comment that, "in the past decade, the
relative popularity and propriety of noise has hit an exponential
curve, moving beyond experimental anathema to accepted demi-obscurity:
The standing joke is that every indie rock musician now has at least
one noise project in vitro," [Currin, 31 May 2006] seem strangely more
accurate than funny. Very different than the Chapel Hill scene of the
past, however, where outside influence and attention were regarded
with suspicion and even open contempt [O'Hara, Bogas, Lazorchak], this
new scene was intimately connected other music communities,
culminating in a new annual event founded at Nightlight in May of 2005
called No Future Fest.

Inspired by the highly lauded (and widely publicized) No Fun Fest
founded by improvisational electronic artist Carlos Giffoni and
supporter Thurston Moore, an elder statesmen of alternative-rock and
musical experimentation, North Carolina noise musician Jason Crumer,
along with Martin and visiting Italian student Arzano, organized the
first No Future Fest in less than a month. Because Nightlight was
already recognized as the home of a local scene welcoming of noise,
and many artists who performed at No Fun Fest had also performed at
Nightlight-including Prurient, Pedestrian Deposit, Exceptor, No Neck
Blues Band, Jessica Rylan-the first No Future Fest was considered a
success [Arzano, Martin, Currin 31 May 2006]. Twenty noise acts
performed over two nights in 2005, many of whom would return over the
course of the next year as they toured the noise circuit up and down
the East Coast. The second No Future Fest in June 2006 attracted more
performers, including Mr. Giffoni, and more attendees. Feature
articles about noise music and noise musicians in Chapel Hill have
occurred three times since March 2006 in the Triangle weekly newspaper
The Independent and have even appeared on prominent international,
online music news site Pitchfork Media. Noise and experimental
performances at Nightlight are also listed regularly in the
recommended section of The Independent as well. Where this attention
will lead is questionable, but the consistently transitory nature of
music scenes suggests this attention is only temporary.

Already the contexts of the Nightlight scene are changing that suggest
a transformation in itself and its role in Chapel Hill. Martin and co-
owner Lauren Ford-co-founder with Mr. Trogden-sold their interests in
Nightlight at the end of June. While new owners Alexis Mastromichalis
and her partner Charlie are committed to maintaining Nightlight's
current trajectory, stating ""I've always described Nightlight as an
experimental music and performance space...I want to make it clear that
it's still that, that this is still Nightlight" [Currin 19 July 2006],
with the loss of Martin the growing media attention of noise music
will likely lead the Nightlight scene into a narrative of cooptation.
More likely, the processes of differentiation active in the scene will
work to locate audiences around different "particular coalitions of
musical form," [Straw 504].

This brief description of the micro-scene at Nightlight only begins to
elaborate on the complexities of underground musical practice, in
Chapel Hill. Rather it attempts to demonstrate how one site,
Nightlight, where music is disseminated interacts within a broader
music community, organizing particular audiences "aligned with
populations along the lines of class and taste, provide the conditions
of possibility of alliances between musical styles and affective links
between dispersed geographical places," [Straw 504]. While the future
of Nightlight is now, and has from its inception been, uncertain,
other micro-scenes are developing around the Triangle. While other
venues and locations maintain these diverse music communities,
historically 405 1/2 W. Rosemary St. has been a setting for
underground music practice in Chapel Hill for forty years and likely
will continue for some years to come.


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On Apr 5, 11:20 am, g... AT ibiblio.org (grady) wrote:
> How do you get touring bands to choose Durham?
>
> 1) secretly arrange it so that the Cradle & 506 are both already booked
> on the night when they want to come to town
> 2) get the Coffeehouse to agree to pay a guarantee that no other club
> could afford to match
>
> I'm not even really joking about either of those, nor am I joking when I
> say that Frank Heath has right of first refusal for the vast majority of
> midlevel touring acts. It's a known fact, and you can ask any clubowner
> who has tried to compete in that space.
>
> But this leads to your second point. I would argue, from my admittedly
> somewhat skewed perspective, that anything that fuels a vibrant local
> music scene is a good thing, and that a vibrant local music scene should
> in fact be the end goal. In some towns, venues pay the bills with big
> sellout out of town shows, and then contribute to the health of the
> scene by hosting local shows that don't necessarily turn a profit.
> Sometimes all they want is to break even on such shows, since that keeps
> the bartender employed, and helps a little towards the rent, which is
> the same amount whether you have 4 shows a month or 24 shows a month.
>
> In other towns, the venues who wind up supporting local music are
> restaurants, or pubs, or co-op spaces, or laundromats, or record stores,
> or anyplace where having live music a few nights a week can help to
> augment the income from other sources, attract more people to the core
> business, or just generally make life a little more interesting.
>
> I grew up in a town where it was much more the latter than the former,
> and I've always been partial to the latter. I'm one of those socialist
> goofs who believes that expecting an arts scene to be profitable on its
> own kinda takes some of the fun out of it.
>
> See also this column in this week's Indy:http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase=
/Content?oid=3Doid%3A62757
>
> Setting aside the fact that it's easier to make rent when you're doing
> more than just selling beer & music for 5 hours a night, think about how
> many different constituencies overlap & rub up against each other when
> the rock music happens in a restaurant, or a store, or wherever else. In
> a bike co-op, for example.
>
> I guess this is a roundabout way of not getting around to arguing that
> people should worry first about making music for themselves & for their
> neighbors, and if folks from outta town want to make the trek over, then
> that's nice, but it can't be relied upon nor worried about.
>
> We crack wise sometimes about bands and their tours of the Triangle (Hem
> of His Garment are in the middle of one of those right now), but isn't
> that sort of the best of all possible worlds? You get the exotic
> experience of traveling to another city to play in front of a crowd of
> strangers who just stare at you, but you still get to go home & sleep in
> your own bed.
>
> James Hepler wrote:
> > Seems more like a band that draws big but
> > seldom plays the Triangle would have to choose Durham
> > over Chapel Hill or Raleigh. The question becomes,
> > how do you get THEM to choose Durham?
>
> > That's assuming one wants Durham to move beyond a
> > handful of venues that serve Durham almost
> > exclusively.
>
> -- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --http://lists.i=
biblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene






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