As most of you know, the spring edition of Shakori Hills Grassroots Music Festival (April 22nd-25th) is rapidly approaching. For those of you who don’t know about the festival, Shakori Hills is a four day experience, which exhibits various dance, art, and music. With over 50 bands performing on four stages,  we wanted to give you a taste of some of the talented acts of the festival. Due to various N.C. State baseball games interrupting the much beloved Local Beat during April, we’ve asked some of our favorite Shakori Hills musicians to join us in the WKNC studio earlier on Friday afternoons for the remainder of the month.

Take a look at who’s dropping in:

This Friday — April 9th, 2010

Inflowential

Inflowential (1-2pm w/ DJ Mick and DJ Kligz)

Bowerbirds

Bowerbirds (2-3pm w/ DJ Mick and DJ Kligz)

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Friday — April 16th, 2010

The Beast

Gar Del

The Beast and GarDel w/ Special K 2 to 3 p.m.

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Friday — April 23rd, 2010

Photo by Ryan Hebert

The Honeycutters (11am-12pm w/ DJ Kligz)

If Fridays weren’t already your favorite days of the week, then hopefully WKNC will change that with these great interviews. Be sure to tune in online or at 88.1FM. Also, check out our spring Fridays on the Lawn concert this Friday on Harris Field at N.C. State featuring local bands Aminal and Bright Young Things. The show is free and so are the t-shirts and pizza. Don’t you just love Fridays?

It’s hard to believe that two months ago we were setting up for the first ever Fridays on the Lawn concert with I Was Totally Destroying It and Luego. From conception, Fridays of the Lawn was designed to expose students to the thriving, yet largely unnoticed music scene of the Triangle. Carl Licata, a senior in computer science, said, “the past show was a great way to experience good, local music first-hand, and it didn’t cost a thing.”

Now with two concerts down, WKNC turns to promote its final installment featuring a hip-hop based show with The Beast and Kooley High.

WKNC staff will be posted out at the Free Expression Tunnel at NC State tomorrow and Friday to hand out fliers for the show from 11am-1pm. WKNC merch and Hear Here Compilation CDs will be available for purchase.

Due to weather conditions, Friday’s show will take place at the Wolves Den in the basement of Talley Student Center. This show is also free and open to the public. Free food and free t-shirts will be available, however they are limited, so don’t forget to come early! Let’s make the last Fridays on the Lawn the best one yet!

If you have been listening to WKNC lately, you probably know about Hear Here, a new local music compilation from Terpsikhore, Flying Tiger Sound and WKNC 88.1 FM. The 17-song CD features new tracks from Americans in France, The Beast, Birds of Avalon, Blount Harvey, Colossus, Hammer No More the Fingers, Inflowential, The Kingsbury Manx, Kooley High, Lonnie Walker, The Love Language, Motor Skills, The Never, The Old Ceremony, The Rosebuds, Static Minds and Sunfold.

Hear Here will be officially released Aug. 29 at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. The event will feature performances by Annuals, Birds of Avalon, Hammer No More the Fingers and The Never. Tickets to the release show are $10 and include a copy of the album. Proceeds from Hear Here will go to support Raleigh’s Visual Art Exchange, a non-profit dedicated to serving emerging artists. Local artist Ryan Cummings produced all of the artwork for the album, which showcases some of the Raleigh landscape.

Hear Here and its release party are going to be awesome; just ask New Raleigh, Music.MyNC and Scan.

As finals rapidly approach, and “Dead Week” proves to be much more lively with work, students are in need of some R&R before hitting the books. Luckily, Earth Day seems to offer some salvation. Starting at 6pm on this Friday (April 24th), Annuals, Lonnie Walker, and Cougar Magnum will be rocking Lee Field (located behind Sullivan and Lee residence halls) to raise awareness for Earth Day.

Annuals

Doors open at 5 p.m. and the show is scheduled to last until 11 p.m. This event is only open to N.C. State students and their guests (one guest per student and guests must have a valid student ID). While you wait for the show to start, be sure to check out the WKNC table which will be showcasing awesome merch such as Double Barrel Benefit 6 shirts, WKNC logoed shirts, koozies, and buttons.

For more information about Earth Day, check out the Web site. Also be sure to stop by the Energy Fair which will take place on NC State’s Brickyard- Wednesday April 22nd. More than 60 vendors will be taking part in NC State’s 2009 Earth Day which will feature the EcoCAR Challenge and the FREEDM Center’s hybrid car.

Curtains of Night were the last band of the evening, starting around 12:30. By the time they played I, and I assumed everyone else, was completely exhaused. It's a shame that every time I've seen this band it's been after about 21 hours of being awake. It was completely worth the physical exhaustion, they really delivered on the heavy rock action.

For the last three years, the good people at Bull City Headquarters, Durham’s community bicycle co-op/art space/occasional concert venue, has presented the Duo Fest, which showcases a diverse variety of two-person bands.  This years Duo Fest was last Saturday, and I must say it was amazing.  From the country tinged folk of Sequoya, to the intense sludge metal of Curtains of Night, the one-day festival had a little something for everyone.  It was almost too much rock and roll for one day; there were fifteen bands playing for about nine hours.  Even though I arrived about an hour late and sadly missed Battle Rockets and most of Sawteeth McTweedy, by the end of this epic day of constant musical stimulation I was totally exhausted. But, it was more than worth it to stick around to the end.

I, not being much of a writer, will not go into great detail on the fantastic show most of you missed, instead I’ll just post a bunch of pictures.

Curtains of Night

Veelee does some pretty impressive indie pop, I hadn't heard this band before seeing them, but I got a copy of their demo so expect to hear them on WKNC soon.

DC punkers Trophy wife rocked pretty hard.

Trophy Wife

Trophy Wife

All Your Science is always mind-blowing. It's amazing how good two People, one guitar, and three drums can be.

All Your Science

Beloved Binge

Another highlight of the show was the Saint Peter Pocket Veto from Winston Salem. I hadn't previously heard of this band but I should have. They did loud and fast instrumentals, a bit like the harder type of post rock or shoegaze.

The Saint Peter Pocket Veto

Spacelab

Spacelab

Victor Victor Band came all the way from Pennsylvania. They have sort of a bluesy rock and roll sound with great lead guitar.

Victor Victor Band

Sequoya

Fortress of Swatches did some pretty damn good Fugaziesque post-punk.

Basalt

Scientific Superstar