Friday, July 6′s “The Local Beat Beat” is the first in our July series of the “Best Of The Local Beat”.  Every year I take a month off from the program and allow our listeners to revisit some old interviews that we have done on the program. Every Friday evening in July 2012 we will be doing flashbacks at some of my favorite interviews. Tonight’s are examples from some of the finest:

At 5 p.m. we are going to hear an interview from April 2011 when one of my favorite groups around, Mount Moriah, dropped by to talk about the band and their debut self titled release. We spent a great deal of time talking about the formation of the band and their sound as well as the founding members, Heather McEntire and Jenks Miller, and their various other projects. Heather and Jenks are two of the nicest and sweetest people and had a great deal to share about their music and their craft.

For the second hour we are only looking back briefly to January of 2012 when Jeff Crawford visited “The Local Beat” for one evening to talk about a new album that he was releasing through his own studio, Arbor Ridge Studios. The album was a collection of hymns performed by various North Carolina musicians in support of the music department of a Durham church where Jeff is the music director. The church is the Gathering Church and the album is Hymns From The Gathering Church. Jeff and I mused about religion and music, his role in our community’s music scene and various other topics. That interview begins a little after 6 p.m.

At 7 p.m., the program will conclude with an interview I did a little over a year ago with Phil Cook. Phil is mostly known for his part in Megafaun, but he also has a wonderful instrumental and acoustic solo act, Phil Cook and His Feat, which many of my listeners will recognize. Our conversation leaned heavily on his newly released album at the time, Hungry Mother Blues. Phil also played several live songs in studio.

If you heard these interviews the first time I hope you enjoy them as much as your did before. If these are new conversations to your ears I hope you appreciate them as much as I.

As always, the fun starts at 5 p.m. and will last until 8 p.m.! Be sure to follow the Local Beat on Twitter or Facebook and download tons of free local music on our ReverbNation page!

With the success of the previous 8 Double Barrel Benefits, WKNC is broadening its emphasis on all things local. This year, DBB will include a day party and market Saturday, February 4 from NOON to 5 p.m. at Tir na nOg Irish Pub, just two doors down from The Pour House. The event is free and all ages!

Raffles will be held for WKNC merch, concert tickets, and VIP passes to Hopscotch 2012! There is also a fantastic list of Triangle charities, artists, and businesses important to WKNC.  Check out the following artists

This week on The Local Beat we only have one guest to welcome. At 6 p.m. Jeff Crawford of Arbor Ridge Studios is coming on to chat about a new project. In addition to being active in over five dozen bands (only a slight exaggeration) and heading popular local recording studio Arbor Ridge Studios, Jeff is also the music director at The Gathering Church in Durham. The Gathering Church has been meeting since 2009 at Creekside Elementary School and has become well known for its worship services with Jeff’s musical talents taking stage. In 2010 the church released Christmas Nights: Music From The Gathering Church to great fanfare. Now, just a little over a year later, a new album is being released: Hymns From The Gathering Church. The album features a plethora of well-known local artists performing their takes on traditional Christian hymns.  Phil Cook (Megafaun), Heather McEntire (Mount Moriah), Seth Kauffman (Floating Action), Mandolin Orange, Skylar Gudasz, Ryan Gustafson, Brett Harris, Nick Jaeger (The Tomahawks), Mark Simonsen (The Old Ceremony), and James Wallace all contributed to the record.

Join Jeff and I on The Local Beat as we take a listen and chat about this new album.

As always, the fun starts at 5 p.m. and will last until 8 p.m.! Be sure to follow the Local Beat on Twitter or Facebook and download tons of free local music on our ReverbNation page!

Arbor Ridge Studios of Chapel Hill has put together a day party for Hopscotch – but this isn’t any day party.  Titled “Saved Haven” and presented in conjunction with Shuffle Magazine and WKNC, the party will present local bands at Tir Na NOg on Friday, September 9 from 12-5 p.m.  Oh, and the bands will be paired together on stage.

That’s right, instead of a set of just Mandolin Orange, it’ll be a set of Mandolin Orange and Josh Moore.  Not just Luego, but Luego and Wylie Hunter and the Cazadores.

The live collaborations are (in reverse order of appearance):

• Mandolin Orange/Josh Moore
• Birds and Arrows/Skylar Gudasz and the Ugly Girls
• Jeff Crawford/Brett Harris
• The Tomahawks/Schooner
• Luego/Wylie Hunter and the Cazadores

Sounds amazing, right?  Can it get any better?  Yes.  While all of this magic is going on, Arbor Ridge is giving listeners a sneak peak into what’s been recorded recently at their studio.

It’s a 2-in-1 day party – collaborations + listening party – and it is a must for Hopscotch.

Local Bands (together), Local Studio, Local Magazine, Local Station, Local Pub

12-5pm, Tir Na nOg, September 9. It will be beautiful.

With all the students moving back to campus and all the fun activities going on this week (Wolfstock and FTW!, for starters), we here at WKNC couldn’t help but get excited and have a ton of awesome giveaways for you lovely listeners.

Here’s what you should stayed tuned in for this week:

8/19: Alex Kotch, Tyler Hypnosis, Phil Cook and his Feat, H.U.S.S., Locus Recordings @ The Pinhook

8/20: Birds and Arrows, Caleb Caudel and the Bayonets, Jeff Crawford @ The Pinhook

8/20: Peter Lamb and the Wolves with Shana Tucker @ Casbah

8/20: Dntel with The One AM Radio and Geotic @ Kings

8/20: Archers of Loaf, Hammer No More the Fingers, Cobra Horse @ Cat’s Cradle

8/24: Richard Buckner and David Kilgour @ The ArtsCenter

PLUS Pictureplane’s new album, Thee Physical

Keep our requests lines on your speed dial so when the WKNC DJ asks for it, you can be a winner!

This week on the Local Beat should be a fantastic program as we have three great hours of interviews lined up for your listening pleasure.

At 5 p.m., Chapel Hill group the Tomahawks are dropping in to chat about their brand new album Cut Loose. It was recorded at Arbor Ridge Studios, home of Jeff Crawford, who is a member of the Tomahawks, among many others. We are going to try to get the group to play a couple live tracks for us and debut the new tunes!

6 p.m. is bringing back our good friends from Nightsound Studios who are releasing the Local Musical Chairs Compilation. The compilation is complete and available for free download! The official album release however is on November 3 at the Cats Cradle, though as of today there is no word on the lineup for the show.

Back in June, when news of the compilation started gaining momentum, I had Erika Libero from Nightsound and Wylie Hunter and the Cazadores come in to talk about the compilation. Listen to the interview here:

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For the last hour of the program, I am welcoming Steve & Paul from the newly opened Kings Barcade on Martin Street in downtown Raleigh. Kings recently reopened in September, just in time for Hopscotch, after the club closed down several years ago. The announcement of its reopening early in 2010 was met with high anticipation from local residents, and the venue has already booked several high profile shows. Listen to the interview starting at 7 p.m. as we talk about the past, present, and future of Kings!

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Earlier this afternoon on WKNC Patrick Phelan from Durham based Luego dropped by to debut the band’s newest album, Ocho, which is scheduled to be released June 1st.  Patrick and I played several tracks off of the album and chatted about a variety of things related to the band and the album. Ocho is being released a mere eight months after the debut LP of Taped-Together Stories but the two seem hardly related.  Ocho relies much more heavily on background harmonies and a thicker and deeper sound that is stacked with layer upon layer of grooviness and cool.  The bluesy ruggedness and heartfelt emotion of Phelan’s voice is still present but the album seems to be much more of a family affair and holds a certain friendly attire about it.  Jeff Crawford produced the album at his own Arbor Ridge Studios.  Take a listen to this first sample of the songs anywhere:

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The album has an album release party May 29th at the Nightlight in Chapel Hill. The Tomahawks, who share several band members with Luego, will be playing first and afterwards a “soulful themed” dance party will commence.  Needless to say, this album will continue to be played on WKNC as often as possible from here on out.

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Eight months ago a relatively unheard of band in the area released one of the best albums from the Triangle in quite a long time.  I was so impressed I even listed it as my #3 album of 2009.  As is typical with most groups, a turnaround and rebound from such a great record is generally slow and and .  However, this is no typical band.

With just eight months passing since Taped-Together Stories was released, Durham band Luego is already setting to drop another full length album, Ocho. With quite a bit of hype and publicity garnering attention to this local music supergroup (read: Patrick Phelan, Jeff Crawford, Peter Holsapple, Nick Jaeger, Rob DiMauro, Cameron Lee, and Charles Cleaver among others) one would expect Ocho to be another milestone record for the area.

With that said the first time you will be able to head the record will be tomorrow at 1pm on WKNC.  I will be sitting down with band leader Patrick Phelan to discuss the quickness of the release, the recording process of the album, touring plans, and of course listen to the album itself.

Ocho is set to hit the streets June 1st following an album release party on May 29 at the Nightlight with The Tomahawks and a dance party afterward.  So be sure to listen in tomorrow at 1 p.m. for a listen on whats to come.

Everyone seems to have had their say about the show at the Pour House Music Hall last Friday, which featured Annuals with support from Gray Young and Bright Young Things.  I was there and it rocked.

(Seriously, check Cabbage’s review of the show as well as Karen Mann’s always excellent coverage.)

But let’s not forget the 2/11 Local Beer, Local Band show at Tir Na Nog that featured Bright Young Things with support from Luego and Naked Gods (straight outta Boone).

And let’s not forget the three interviews in one hour preceding that show.  That’s right, I shuffled all three of these bands in and out of the studio.  Better yet, Bright Young Things played a Jayhawks-inspired version of their own “She Left You Dreaming.”  Luego followed with Patrick’s solo version of “Run Away” that will be on their album Ocho, to be released later this year.

Check the interview below — the catch is that you have to sift through to my voice to catch the live songs. But they’re worth it!  Enjoy.

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(But wait, there’s more! Free Bright Young Things music at Bandcamp!)

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Members of the local music collective Drug Horse Cartel will be on WKNC Thursday, December 10, around 3:30 pm. Nick Jaeger (Max Indian, The Tomahawks), Ryan Gustafson, Jeff Crawford (Max Indian, The Tomahawks), and Josh Moore will be on to discuss the various bands and solo acts associated with the group and their upcoming Holiday Show this Friday at Local 506, so be sure and tune in!

The Local Beat section of the WKNC blog has been keeping a low profile recently, in part because I’m a control freak and don’t want to tell someone else to do it instead, in part because I’ve been working on a research paper that’s due tomorrow, and in part because I’ve been moving out of a disgusting 6-person college student house all week.

But that doesn’t mean we’re not giving you more than your daily prescribed dose of local music tonight at 5pm.  In fact, we’re ODing on it.

At 5:00 Violet Vector & The Lovely Lovelies and Mike Dillon of Gross Ghost will be by to talk about their show next Friday at Slim’s.

Then at 6:00 Jeff Crawford and Nick Jaeger of The Tomahawks–and every other band you’ve ever loved–will be playing some songs and chatting about the MS Open Eye Series.  They’re playing tomorrow (Saturday 8/1) at the Open Eye Cafe in Carrboro at 8pm (suggested $5 donation to support Zach Terry’s MS Ride team).

And last but CERTAINLY not least is The Proclivities, who’ll be playing The Pour House Music Hall tonight alongside Modern Skirts and Heypenny.  They’ll be stopping by right around 7:00.

And of course, in between all the chatter will be your favorite local music–and there’s so much good new local music right now it’s ridiculous. So tune in at 88.1 FM or wknc.org/listen.  No, seriously: do it.

Another good show in store for you this week.

Gambling the Muse show flyer 6/12, courtesy of the band's Myspace page

At 5:00, we will be joined by self-described folk/Americana band Gambling the Muse of Carrboro will be in to talk about their show at The Cave on Saturday, June 13th.  They will be opening for Calico Haunts and Raised by Wolves.  They will also be performing a few songs live in studio, as well as bringing some unreleased tracks they recently recorded with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.
I was informed by Gambling the Muse that Calico Haunts is a “spacey, folk rock creation of Alex Inglehart, with backing contributions by Jenni Snyder (Whiskeytown, Neil Diamond Allstars), Wylie Pamplin (The Strugglers, The Physics of Meaning), Eric Haugen (The Strugglers), and Laura King (The Moaners).”
Raised by Wolves is from Charlotte and describe themselves as psychedelic/garage/ghettotech.

MS Benefit flyer

At 6:00, Zach Terry of The Whiskey Smugglers will be coming by to talk about a summer music series he’s co-organized to be held at the Open Eye Cafe of Carrboro.  Zach will be performing a few songs in studio and may be bringing some special guests, as well.  Check out some previews of the music you’ll be hearing, as well as the complete lineup for the summer series.

And of course, be sure to tune in as always on Friday at 5:00 at 88.1 FM or wknc.org/listen.