This Thursday through Saturday, December 3-5, The Pinhook in Durham will be hosting The Great Band Swap—based on a 2007 concert.

The format: three nights, four local bands a night, and every artist must cover at least one song by one of the other three artists that night.

The Pinhook website (http://thepinhook.com/) provides the following line-ups and descriptions

Thursday, December 2 features the anthemic punk rock of Pink Flag, the soulful, old-school pop of Brett Harris, the classic-rock hooks of The Pneurotics, and the shambolic majesty of Dry Heathens. The WXDU deejay team.

Friday, December 3, local legend Billy Sugarfix leads the way with his whipsmart catalog of charming, confessional pop. Juan Huevos brings ebullient homemade hip-hop, and Durham duo Joy In Red squares off with Raleigh art-garage outfit Antibubbles. Deejay sets will be provided by WXYC.

Saturday, December 4 is the wildest bill, hitting most of the genre extremes in indie rock. Cassis Orange provides distilled electro-pop with a subtle Japanese edge. Mosadi Music is hard-edged, political hip-hop with searingly tight live instrumentation. HOG takes heavy-metal and stretches into psychedelic dirges and molten, fleet fingered hooks. And Embarrassing Fruits channels the finest guitar rock of the past 20 years, mixed with lyrics about girls, partying, and small-town ennui. The WKNC crew will spin records.

As listed, after the performances local college radio stations WXDU (Duke University), WXYC (The University of North Carolina), and, of course, WKNC (North Carolina State University) will provide the music by deejaying.  I will be representing the station with my co-host and valiant General Manager of WKNC 88.1. It should prove to be a most interesting and entertaining local happening each night and overall, and may earn a status as an annual event.

I can safely say that last Friday was my favorite Local Beat we have ever had. The guests on the show were wonderfully knowledgeable and entertaining, and the three hours we shared were exceptionally insightful into our local music scene. In case you missed it, I had a “roundtable” of sorts in which I invited several prominent members of the local music community onto the program to talk about the music in the area and their involvement. We chatted about everything from our favorite and least favorite local venues and bands to the history and future of our music scene.

First in was Betsy Harris, one of the most notable and certainly the most prolific local music photographers in the area.  Betsy was a fantastic guest who shared plenty about her role in the local music community, her work as a photographer, and several fun stories about her experiences in the past several years. Be sure to check out Betsy’s Fotki and Youtube for some sweet local multimedia content. Also, below are some of Betsy’s favorite photographs that she has graciously shared with us:

Jamie McFarlane of SWASO 12/13/10. © temples of grey (betsy harris)

Hugh Swaso of SWASO 12/13/10. © temples of grey (betsy harris)

Midtown Dickens’ Kym Dawson 2/6/10. © temples of grey (betsy harris)

Midtown Dickens’ Catherine Edgerton 2/6/10. © temples of grey (betsy harris)

Spider Bags 2/6/10. © temples of grey (betsy harris)

Don Dixon 8/28/08. © temples of grey (betsy harris)

Carter Gaj of Max Indian 10/3/09. © temples of grey (betsy harris)

Ingrid Stenzel of BUS 6/8/07. © temples of grey (betsy harris)

Karen Mann of Mann’s World also joined me on the show for about an hour.  Karen is one of the most prominent, if not the most prominent, local music blogger in our area and having her on the program was a special treat. Karen and I talked about her history in the area and her role within the music of our region. Karen was a fabulous interviewee and had plenty to say, all of it proving to be noteworthy and captivating about her dedication to the music and her blog. Karen is also having a special Mann’s World day party during Hopscotch on September 11th. Check out the flier below:

One of my favorite journalists in the area, Bryan Reed, made an appearance as well. Bryan is well known for his contributions to Shuffle Magazine where he is Assistant Editor and also the Independent Weekly where he covers local and national music. He was fun, witty, and full of knowledge on music scenes outside the Triangle region.

Linnie Green, the new editor of Diversions at the Daily Tar Heel, got quite a bit of crap from me for going to NC State’s rival school, but after I settled down and matured a little, she gave us some interesting insight into how Diversions works and what priorities they have with local music.

The mastermind behind NBC 17′s Music.MyNC was also a guest that evening. Jake is another extraordinary blogger in the area and also heads the live Sessions for Music.MyNC. I talked with Jake about how the Sessions came to be what it is and his thoughts about his contributions to the music.

Take a listen to the entire evening below, broken up into three parts:

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