Photography by Student Media photographers Alex Sanchez and Marisa Akers

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

This year’s Hopscotch Music Festival is set up to be another amazing event coming to the area. The icing on top of the cake comes with all of the accompanying day parties and various other events held that highlight talent in music. One of these is the Ed McKay Artist and Author Series. Similar to last year’s event, this year’s event will bring several members of some of the larger acts including The Flaming Lip’s Wayne Coyne and Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers.

The Series is three days long and corresponds with the afternoons before the main activities of the night take place. Each event takes place at the Raleigh City Museum from 3-5 p.m.  The first of these programs is titled Present the Past: Honoring and Outstripping Influences City Museum. The second is titled Simple Words: The Power of Narrative Songs. The final of the three is The Bubble: The Limits of Pop Music.

For more information about who will be participating in these events read up on the event at Hopscotchmusicfest.com

Looking for a date idea over Valentine’s Day weekend?  Or did you just say “bah humbug” to the idea of Valentine’s Day? Either way, listen to WKNC and you could win tickets to a variety of great shows. We won’t even tell your date that the tickets were free.

Feburary 9:
Blue-Tailed Skinks @ The Pinhook

Feburary 10:
Dance Revolution @ Lincoln Theatre
Diggup Tapes Cassingles Release party @ King’s
Tapes’n'Tapes @ Cat’s Cradle

February 11:
Diggup Tapes Cassingles Night 2 @ King’s
The Moaners @ Slim’s

February 12:
Ben Sollee @ Casbah **my personal Valentine’s Day pick**

February 13:
Veelee @ King’s

Inflowential @ The Pour House
Drive By Truckers Documentary @ The Pinhook

February 14 :
Yann Tiersen @ Cat’s Cradle

Also, we will be giving away movie tickets to see Hall Pass for Wednesday, February 23 at North Hills.

The local shows keep rolling, after a successful weekend of Hopscotch Musical Festival, and the upcoming SPARKcon, the Triangle is the place to be!

We have a lot of giveaways for you this week. You know what that means—listen to WKNC throughout your entire day and you could win tickets to:

9/15- Jay Clifford at Cat’s Cradle

9/16 – Shooter Jennings at Cat’s Cradle
The Small Ponds at The Pour House

On-going  movie tickets—The American and Resident Evil: Afterlife at Crossroads 20 in Cary

Even if you don’t win tickets, stay up to date on all local shows with our Rock Report!

Here is a compilation of the latest new music we have received in the past week.

Free Energy- Stuck on Nothing

Sounding closer to Thin Lizzy and Cheap Trick, Free Energy emits a fun, upbeat, guitar heavy album.

Drive-by Truckers- The Big To-Do

Probably the best southern rock album you’ll listen to this year. Imagine Dinosaur Jr. with a country slant –if you haven’t listened to one of their other nine excellent albums. Get out your lighters y’all.

Love is All- Two Thousand and Ten Injuries

High energy Swedish pop. Eccentric album with a collage of traditional and not so traditional rock instruments, i.e. saxophone. The female vocals can get annoying at times but the excellent clash of sounds make up for that.

Arctic Monkeys- My Propeller (single)

Solid B-sides that play of of the similar down tempo beats from Humbug. Although they don’t do anything revolutionary for the band, they are still quite enjoyable for the fans.

She & Him- Volume Two

Pop favorite Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward are at it again with another charming album. This time it’s more she than him. Really sweet and endearing, although after the first few tracks you start to lose your sugar high.

Slow Club- Yeah So

This UK indie-duo has sweet lyrics, simple guitar melodies and interesting harmonies. They take turns with lead vocals and never disappoint. Every song is interesting, up-beat and give you that feeling of: I want more more more.

Pavement – Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement

Well, hot damn.  Listening to this compilation, it’s remarkable to hear how genius Pavement’s music is–their low-fi aesthetic perfectly melds with Stephen Malkmus’s lazy, idiosyncratic wordplay .  This compilation is absolutely essential–it’s sequencing is flawless and the track choice balances their singles with album gems.

Jason Collett – Rat A Tat Tat

More good stuff from the Arts & Crafts Label.  Collet’s tunes are impassioned with twang and swagger and his music walks the line between alt-country, 60s pop, and the more soulful dispositions of indie rock.

One For The Team- Ghosts

Catchy, unpretentious, and unabashedly fun power pop.  It sounds like Mates of State with punk grit or the New Pornographers playing Something Corporate.  Lots of crunchy guitars and incessant harmonies.

Josiah Wolf- Jetlag

I really like this album! Here we have the solo album from the drummer of WHY? Seeing as I am not a huge fan of WHY? I was somewhat skeptical, however  I was totally wrong. I am really into this folky Paul Simon-esque experience.

Goldfrapp- Head First

You know I love this. Rocket might be the catchiest song ever. Think Xanadu meets David Bowie, a mixture of ’80s glam rock and ’70s disco.

Drink Up Buttercup- Born and Thrown on a Hook

Psychedelic mixture of the Beatles and Man Man. A weird pop experience for sure.

Let’s Wrestle- In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s

Scrappy British punk music. They are on Merge Records and have been getting a lot of press.

Dum Dum Girls- I Will Be

This is sort of a mixture between ’60s girl pop and shoegaze buzz garage rock. Sort of falling the trend of most of the bands out right now, but this one is surprisingly good.

Black Tambourine- Black Tambourine

This band has pretty much influenced every popular band out right now. Shoegaze pop that resembles A Sunny Day in Glasgow, but a lot darker.