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ch-scene - stuff to do, week of December 20, 2007

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Subject: RTP-area local music and culture

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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: stuff to do, week of December 20, 2007
  • Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:22:30 -0500

If you read ch-scene via digest, you've probably noticed that it's not being sent out daily at present. It's broken. I'm at the mercy of my friends at ibiblio.org to troubleshoot and fix it, but it's winter break at UNC, so it'll be a few more days/weeks. You can change your preferences (or read the list online) at the website: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene

Onward:

Thursday, December 20
Calico Haunts (http://www.myspace.com/calicohaunts)
Gambling the Muse (http://www.myspace.com/gamblingthemuse)
Brandon Herndon
Nightlight, Chapel Hill



Thursday, December 20
Lam! Lam! (http://www.myspace.com/lamlamband)
Virgo 9
Somebody Sam
Broad Street Cafe, Durham



Friday, December 21
Jule Brown (http://www.julebrown.org)
The Cave, Chapel Hill

This is the early show, with the beautiful demented blues-drone of Jule Brown.



Friday, December 21
Jeffrey Dean Foster (http://www.jeffreydeanfoster.com/)
Don Dixon (http://www.myspace.com/dondixonsmusic)
The Garage, Winston-Salem



Friday, December 21
Dexter Romweber (http://www.dexterromweber.com)
Jimmy & The Teasers (http://www.geocities.com/booze1031/teasers.html)
Sister Fanny
Pneurotics (http://www.myspace.com/pneurotics)
Local 506, Chapel Hill

The 506 website lists this as "Christmas Jam 2007," so consider yourselves warned.



Friday, December 21
DJ Nasty Boots
Southern Man
Black Congo (http://www.myspace.com/blackcongonc)
Nightlight, Chapel Hill

The earlier part of the evening is a free Nightlight holiday party (come out & grill Alexis on all the changes afoot); the later part is the the return of the semi-prodigal Nightlight founder Isaac Trogdon's Southern Man.



Friday, December 21
Evil Wiener (http://www.evilwienerworld.com/)
The Cave, Chapel Hill

What's that you say, there's a holiday upon us? Must be time for an Evil Weiner show, then. The Weiner boys have allowed themselves to become so associated with various holidays that you may even have forgotten that frontman Billy Sugarfix is a bona-fide popsong-writing genius. Be sure to request one of his secular classics, like "Silver Dollars" to remind yourself.

And don't forget to listen to their classic Christmas single (conveniently streaming from MySpace for the holidays) 'n' brush up on the words to "Secret Santa" so you can sing along.



Saturday, December 22
Accelerators
Hideaway BBQ, Raleigh

Gerald Duncan's Accelerators were one of the great regional success stories of the mid-80s, at least from where I was sitting in Upstate South Carolina (both Gerald and then-guitarist Brad Rice were SC boys who'd moved to Raleigh & made good). The reality was a little more down-to-earth (and sadly predictable): a strong debut on local label Dolphin, a couple of follow-ups on Profile Records . . . but then Profile closed its doors, the band found itself homeless, and eventually broke up.

Or rather went on extended hiatus, broken briefly a few years ago by a resurrection, a new album, and then another period of dormancy.

This year they released a career-spanning retrospective, Road Chill, so if you haven't met 'em yet, now's yr chance.



Saturday, December 22
Midtown Dickens (http://www.myspace.com/midtowndickens)
Invisible
Lindsay Cooper
Jemima James
Local 506, Chapel Hill

I felt compelled to write this after reading the Independent Weekly's list of the 35 best local songs of 2007:

Good list, and I can't really argue with any of it, but I'd like to make a case for Midtown Dickens' "Job Song" as not only the best song on the album, but maybe song of the year.

It's true that the Midtown Dickens story is long on goofy camaraderie, impromptu streetcorner jams, and songs that sound like they're being written on-the-spot, and "A.M. Dial" is the perfect illustration of that narrative.

But the real story of Midtown Dickens in 2007 (keeping in mind that "A.M. Dial" was first released in 2005 on the Downtown Durham Inc comp "Rockin' the Blocks") isn't really about the goofiness & all that; it's about the transformation of those two lovable, openly-amateurish goofs into knockout songwriters and performers.

"Job Song" epitomizes that shift, and it provides the most breathtaking musical moment of 2007 for me.

It starts out simply enough, a plunky banjo-and-ukelele line & a chorus about wanting to be left alone, revealing itself soon enough to be just-another-shitty-job-song.

Only it isn't just that, at all; after one singularly bizarre metaphor ("the fluorescent light behind the lady's head makes her face look like sand") and a moment of stillness, Catherine Edgerton resumes the song in a voice so ragged and fragile and defiant that my heart has broken every.single.time I've heard it:

And I tried too hard and I waited for air
And I acted tough and I pretended not to care
I'll X off the days, I won't be comin' in
Cause I was dismissed with a lie and a grin
"we'll call you next week
we'll call you next week
we'll call you next week"

And sometimes it feels so good to cry
when you get out of a burning boat alive
and then you're swimmin' in the water
as hard as you can
and there's ocean all around
there's ocean all around . . .

There's an entire universe of pain and resignation in her voice as she sings those last lines . . . but toughness, too: she's still fucking swimming, as hard as she can.

It makes me cry every time I hear it, and that's a pretty rare thing nowadays.



Saturday, December 22
Ghost to Falco (http://www.purevolume.com/GhosttoFalco)
Secret Boyfriend (http://www.myspace.com/scrtboyfriend)
Horseback (http://www.myspace.com/horsebacknoise)
Cornelius F. Van Stafrin III (http://corneliusv.podomatic.com/)
Nightlight, Chapel Hill

Horseback is Jenks Miller's [sometimes-] pastoral-drone outfit; their album "Impale Golden Horn" is one of my faves of 2007.



Saturday, December 22
The Loners (http://www.demonbeachrecords.com/loners.html)
Suburban Sweethearts
Slim's Downtown, Raleigh

The Loners are the Triangle's leading purveyors of stomp-n-shout gtr/drums garage-rock.



Sunday, December 23
Big Fat Gap (http://www.bigfatgap.com/)
Jeff Crawford
Cat's Cradle, Carrboro



Wednesday, December 26
Blood Red River (http://www.myspace.com/bloodredriver)
Pill Shovel (http://www.myspace.com/helloimstoned)
Emily Musolino
Marvell Building, Durham

This is an all-ages show, and lord knows you probably don't have anything else to do tonight anyway.



Thursday, December 27
Remora (http://www.silbermedia.com/remora/)
The Men
The Still (http://www.myspace.com/douglasferguson)
Nightlight, Chapel Hill



Friday, December 28
The Belmont Playboys (http://www.thebelmontplayboys.com/)
Edsel 500
Hideaway BBQ, Raleigh

Rockabilly revivalism, although the Belmont Playboys have been at it for so long that they've probably lived through a couple of revival cycles by now.



Friday, December 28
Chest Pains (http://www.myspace.com/thechestpains)
Government Warning (http://www.myspace.com/governmentwarningrva)
Crossed Eyes (http://www.myspace.com/chriscarraway)
Logic Problem
Bull City Headquarters, Durham

Depending on which BCHQ website you trust more (their actual site, or their myspace), the lineup may be as above, or it may be this: Logic Problem, Common Enemy, Piston Slap, Religious SS Disorder. Either way it's a punkrock show.



Friday, December 28
Valley (http://www.myspace.com/valleync)
The Naked and the Dead (http://www.myspace.com/thenakedandthedeadband)
Hundred Flowers (http://www.myspace.com/hundredflowersband)
Nightlight, Chapel Hill



Friday, December 28
Twilighter (http://twilighter.net/)
The Cave, Chapel Hill

If'n they'd asked me, I would've lobbied hard for "Pick Up," from Twilighter's second album, _Fixed_, to get a spot on the Indy's 35 best songs of 2007. It's a heartbreaker. It's also sung by longtime local music veteran Sonar Strange, who isn't actually a full-time member of the band, so it's a crapshoot as to whether you'll get to hear 'em do it. Worth the gamble, though.





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