RTP-area local music and culture

["David Menconi" <dmenconi AT earthlink.net>]

>
This is a showcase for four of the eight artists featured in this year's 
News & Observer Great 8, which is an annual feature spotlighting eight 
local bands to watch in the coming year. It's always a mix of poppier 
bands whom the average N&O music-section reader might dig, and a few 
wild-cards (here, blistering hardcore band Double Negative) who've 
achieved a level of prominence big enough to qualify as news. (In the 
case of Double Negative, being invited to play the UK All Tomorrow's 
Parties curated by the Melvins certainly counts.)

If one still believed that daily papers had any real power or authority, 
one could spend a bit too much time analyzing the selection, and/or 
griping about all the bands who got left out. But it's 2009, and given 
the modern landscape of daily print journalism, it's pretty amazing that 
the paper's editors were willing to devote the column-inches at all, let 
alone provide the resources to put together such a snazzy multimedia 
package.

It has clearly crossed over from "journalistic obligation" to "crazy 
labor of love," and that just proves what I've already known for the 17 
years that I've lived in the Triangle: the N&O's David Menconi is a 
kindred spirit.
>


Awwwww...

You are to kind. But I would be remiss if I didn't add that I had partners
in this labor of love -- Jason Arthurs, Travis Long & Lamonte Garrett from
the N&O's multi-media department, who made the online package so fantastic
(and put in an immense amount of their own time to do so).

Now I just gots to hope we get to do it again next year.

Cheers,

David Menconi