Old school local rockers Sorry About Dresden will be headlining our weekly event Local Beer Local Band Night at Tir Na Nog, thursday at 10!  Playing alongside are the Dirty Litte Heaters and Le Weekend.   It’s FREEEEE to get in and Tir Na Nog has some mouthwatering local brews on tap.  Come out and support your community!

Check out this video of Sorry About Dresden playing live for the DotMatrix Project in Greensboro!

And here’s a video of the Dirty Little Heaters playing live back in ’06. This girl know how to rock!!!

When I was a kid, my dad would often take me for a ride in his Camaro, crank up the radio, and introduce me to some of his favorite bands, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.  I’d sit there in the front seat, enthralled by the experience, and so began the long love affair with music that would eventually bring me to this station.

Perhaps as a result of those days, I’ve always had a soft spot for catchy, radio-friendly tunes, despite my proclivities towards the experimental and the eccentric.  After all, pop music is our culture’s universal communicator: you can sing just about anything over a good melody and most of your listeners will understand exactly what you’re trying to tell them.  That’s some serious power.

And so we come to the titular topic of this article, I Was Totally Destroying It, a group who specializes in creating just that…  remarkably catchy and ambitious pop music.

As a grizzled veteran of college radio music direction, I’ve often found that aficionados of indie rock can turn a blind eye towards unabashedly poppy music that isn’t either couched in brooding sentiment, sonic experimentalism, or profound lyricism.  IWTDI’s music can indeed become brooding, experimental, and profound, but their guiding principle has always been about building strong melodies above all other elements.

The end result is refreshingly unpretentious and listenable, whether you’re into Captain Beefheart or The Shins.  It comes with a strong pedigree too, featuring members of legendary Chapel Hill heavy rockers such as Sorry About Dresden and Strunken White.

So while you might not believe that pop music has a place in your collection, a quick listen to I Was Totally Destroying It’s songbook could change your opinion.  Fortunately for you, they’re opening up on Saturday at this year’s edition of the Double Barrel Benefit, and if you’ve never seen them live, prepare yourself for an energy-filled experience you won’t soon forget.

Until then, you can download their latest EP, Done Waiting, for free from their ReverbNation website, one of the best bargains you’re liable to find in 2009.  As for us, we’ll see you on Saturday.

You know the story.  Local music die hard, and WXYC alum,  Cy Rawls, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in June of 2008.  Unable to pay his mounting medical bills, bands and friends from all over North Carolina, Virginia, and the US pitched in to throw some of the most amazing concerts, film viewings, and even bake sales, with all benefits attributed to a fund which paid for Cy’s medical bills.  Unfortunately, at just the age of 33, on October 3, 2008, Cy passed away at Duke Medical Center.

Thankfully, it did not end there.  Enter CyTunes, a nonprofit music download site that “features exclusive music from artists who have contributed tracks (both live and in-studio) to help raise money for cancer research in memory of Cy Rawls.”  There are 44 bands and artists in all (as of today) which include:

ALL PROCEEDS from CyTunes go to Tisch Brain Tumor Center, where Cy was a patient.  Please support this amazing organization, the bands that contribute to it, and the memory of Cy Rawls.

For more information, feel free to read these excellent articles by the Independent Weekly, and this write-up by Pitchfork.