WKNC 88.1 FM - North Carolina State University Student RadioAll this week WKNC will be giving away tickets for the 2010 Honda Civic Tour featuring Paramore with Tegan and Sara, New Found Glory, and Kadawatha going on this Friday, July 23 at the new Raleigh Amphitheatre. Just be the correct caller when the WKNC deejay asks for it, and you could win tickets for you and a friend. Tickets are also available at Livenation.com.
Hey, viewers of the WKNC Blog! If you haven’t noticed, we’ve started the polls back up again (look to the right side of the page you’re reading right now). Us radio station workers are pretty ingenius people with a hand full of irresistibly awesome questions, but, alas, we aren’t perfect. We can’t think of all the great questions that need to be voted upon, and we can’t peer into the souls of our listeners to find the questions they most deeply yearn to ask. We need your help! Do you have a great question in desperate need of results? A funny question? A dumb question? A sarcastic question? A life-altering question? As long as it’s kept PG and has to do with WKNC radio, NCSU, or music in general, we want to make a poll about it! All you have to do is email me, The Blog Lady, at blog@wknc.org, and send me your questions ALONG WITH ANSWERS. You may have a great poll question, but without great answers, you’ve got diddly. The question needs a minimum of two answers and, depending on the question, maximum of ten to twelve answers. Need a little poll inspiration? Keep refreshing this page, and a different poll will show up on the right-hand side each time.
Thanks for helping make us the best radio station in the Triangle!
Allow me to introduce to you Toy Soldiers. As if I wasn’t already impressed by their music, after this interview, I would love to sit around a bon fire in Pennsylvania somewhere and cook s’mores with these folks just to listen to their adventures, none the less, attend their concerts. And good thing! Toy Soldiers are playing in Asheville, NC at the Lexington Ave. Brewery on August 4, 2010.
Below is a few of the select question and summarized answers.
1. Could you give me a background on your band?
Basically, in short, the band began as just two of us (building caastleees in the skyyy). Me (Ron Gallo) and my long-time friend Mike Baurer. One day in September of 2007 we were just sitting around and decided to write some really inappropriate joke songs and record them on the internal microphone of my computer. It was around this same time I had started to delve really deep into American Roots music. We decided to give up the joking for a bit and try out a real song of mine. It was a sort of an odd take on a blues song, and all of the sudden, I was singing and playing the guitar in a way I never had before. We had this new door open up and we just ran with it, not focusing too much on the detail but just getting across. “Throw Me Down”. That was the second song we came up with and we wrote while riding bikes almost three years ago.
Fast forward!
Time came to make a real album. It was during this time I had called a bunch of talented friends of mine to come in and basically write whatever parts they wanted and play them on the record. After the sessions, they sort of just stuck around and we played our first show all together on May 9, 2009 with the big band.
Since then some people have come and gone. I wasn’t crazy about having this new band have to push a record they weren’t even on, and we had new songs. So, the new lineup recorded those, subtracted four old tracks from the original album and added the four new ones. And that is “Whisper” as we know it today.
That was in no way, shape, or form the short version. Haha.
2. What is it like working as such a large musical group? Does one person tend to take charge when writing lyrics or composing the music?
A lot of people tend to focus on the fact that the band is large. Right now, Toy Soldiers is a five-piece (Me, Dan, Noah, Bennett and Tom) and occasionally we are joined by Kate Foust (vocals), Vinchelle Woods (vocals) Garrett Smith (Washboard, Tambourine Man), Dominic Billett (piano, percussion, singing). We also have occasional horn players, etc.
As far as songwriting. I have written most of the Toy Soldiers songs as we know them today. The way it has gone thus far is whoever you hear singing lead on a song has written the lyrics and composed all of the music for that song. We haven’t focused too much on a more collaborative songwriting effort just yet.
3. Is there one song on the album that is particularly more fun to perform live?
When we play “The Turnaround,” I sort of do this obnoxious let loose belting falsetto operatic kind of singing that everyone always laughs about, but it’s fun for me. “Loaded on Sunday” is a real banger in the live show; it’s just really dirty and raucous, just like Dan who sings the shit of that song. “Hard Times” has consistently been everyones favorite song to play live, it’s always really high energy and we’ve thrown in some little things here and there that make it unique to every show.
Toy Soldiers will be playing in Asheville, NC at the Lexington Ave. Brewery on August 4, 2010 at 8 p.m. For their full tour schedule, check out their MySpace and their Facebook . While you’re there, make sure you listen to a track or two—you won’t be disappointed. Also, listen for them (or request them!) on 88.1 WKNC.
Ten years ago this summer, internationally acclaimed Shen Wei, (SHEN WAY) one of China’s most original modern dance choreographers, directors, and dancers, formed his company Shen Wei Dance Arts at the 2000 American Dance Festival. Shen Wei is a modern dance choreographer (now in NYC) who also choreographed the opening ceremony of the 2009 Beijing Olympics. He is returning this summer as part of the American Dance Festival at the Durham Performing Arts Center. Performances will be Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—July 22, 23 -24—at 8 p.m and will feature an ADF-commissioned world premiere solo danced by the choreographer himself.
WKNC deejays will be giving away tickets for the July 23 performance. Listen in and be the correct caller when the deejay asks for it to win tickets to experience this celebration of movement and dance.
For more information and tickets www.americandancefestival.org or 919-680-2787.
The Love Language’s much anticipated Merge release Libraries dropped recently into the hands of a salivating clientele, and tonight we have the privilege of celebrating the occasion. I could waste my time (and yours) by giving a most likely inadequate review here, laden with underwhelming vocabulary and confusing or inappropriate allusions, but I know better. I shall leave that task to the better equipped–those who do the album the service it deserves.
So rather than try to steer your take on the album, I’ll just give you some simple procedural advice: consider purchasing a ticket for the show tonight. Openers Shit Horse and Light Pines dictate attention, regardless of the situation. (But is there a better situation than this? An almost certainly sold-out Cat’s Cradle, bursting at the seams for one of the Triangle’s most lauded outfits in recent memory? I lean toward no.)
Tonight promises to entertain, to satisfy, and to satiate. (Ok, so you did end up getting some underwhelming vocabulary.) Doors are at 8 and the show starts at 9.
T.A.
(If my camera charges, I’ll be sure to put up some pics.)
At approximately 7:59 p.m., a massive storm rolled over WKNC studios, and we believe a lightning strike knocked out either our main broadcasting tower or one of our relay towers causing us to go off the air. We are still down but our engineers are already working to resolve the issue. Please stay tuned on WKNC’s Twitter account for updated details.
Facts about lightning:
Unfortunately, schedules have a way of tying up. Samuel and William of Future Islands will no longer be coming to the station, but rather they will be calling the studio around 4pm for a live phone interview. No hard feelings; these guys rock. They will be at the Local 506 tonight, don’t miss it!