RTP-area local music and culture

[grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>]

Today I went through the first half of my WXDU 2008 Top-66 local 
releases (the second half, 33 - 1, will be on next Sunday from 4 - 6). 
Some of these actually came out in late 2007 but didn't chart at WXDU 
during that year:

34      Cantwell Gomez Jordan - Hot Licks & Rhetoric
35      Transportation - Daydreams
36      Gambling the Muse - self-titled
37      Violet Vector - EP I
38      Beloved Binge - Blender Theory
39      Ex-Monkeys - self-titled
40      Sweater Weather: Now Everyone Can Sing
41      Fortress of Swatches - It's a Battle
42      Monsonia - Growler
43      Black Skies - Hexagon
44      Strugglers - Latest Rights
45      Krzysztof - Jajouka
46      Project Bluebird - s/t
47      Brett Harris - Yesterday's News
48      Valient Thorr - Immortalizer
49      Caltrop - World Class
50      Maple Stave - EP 3
51      Resist Not - Durham!
52      Evil Weiner - Evil Wiener Xmas EP
53      Glissade - Further
54      Ponchos from Peru - Friendship and other Mistakes
55      Dawn Chorus - Florida St. Serenade
56      Eberhardt - Curse EP
57      Sequoya - Sleep and Dream of Fire
58      Stella By Starlight - s/t
59      Double Negative - Raw Energy EP (
60      Megafaun - Bury the Square
61      Potpie - Plays the Classics
62      Lost in the Trees - All Alone in an Empty House
63      Waumiss - self-titled
64      Savage Knights - The Martian Demos
65      Old Ceremony - Remixed
66      Citified - The Meeting After the Meeting

Since the WXDU list is built by adding up all the plays each record got 
in its first 8 weeks at the station, it's not necessarily representative 
of MY personal faves, locally. So I put together this other list of 
moments that I enjoyed in 2008 (not in order):

* Midtown Dickens / Tooth double bill at Troika Festival, especially 
when J-Me Guptill, midway through Tooth's brutal set, said "how bout 
Midtown Dickens?" and a massive roar went up from the crowd
* Noncanon - 5-song sampler
* Superchunk for Obama, and again for Cy (live set on CyTunes.org!)
* Double Negative - every time I saw them, plus live set from cytunes.org
* Portastatic - Some Small History, and their live set at Sarah P. Duke 
Gardens in the rain (as well as the rest of Duke Performances' awesome 
"Music in the Garden" series this summer)
* Cantwell Gomez Jordan - Hot Licks and Rhetoric
* Motherfucking Polvo reunion!!!!!
* Le Weekend - Suite
* Yard Work (live at BCHQ, and their self-titled EP): 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/trianglerock/3105170542/
* Aimee / Evan / Noah version of des_ark
* Evil Wiener Xmas EP reissue
* Beloved Binge - Blender Theory, plus hitting the road for a year in an 
80s-vintage VW Westfalia Vanagon
* Seth Kauffman - Research
* Megafaun: every time I saw them, but especially inside at BCHQ on 
August 2, and outside at the Obama rally at UNC
* Caltrop - World Class
* Wigg Report - Live on WXDU November 2nd, which turned out so well they 
released it as part of "Like Blammo Fast" a week later
* Dirty Little Heaters - Fatty Don't Feel Good
* Dry Heathens - "Splendid Little War", one of the few overtly political 
songs to come out around here, and a doozy
* Flat Duo Jets - Two Headed Cow soundtrack
* Krzysztof - Jajouka / Potpie - Plays the Classics -- New Orleans 
ex-pat moves to Asheville and fucks shit up with serious noise
* Lud - V & the accompanying spate of live shows
* Wembley - "Moon": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEOuGlX0MQ&fmt=18
* Jenks Miller - Approaching the Invisible Mountain


-- Ross