Author: WKNC Admin

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DJ Highlights

Top 10 Hip Hop Albums of 2008

Below is a list of what the WKNC Hip Hop DJs have come to an agreement to be the ten best hip hop albums of 2008. They are not ranked in anyway just listed. If you haven’t listened to one of these albums I strongly urge you to give them a listen.

Paper Trail by T.I.
Leave It All Behind by Foreign Exchange
The Carter 3 by Lil Wayne
Universal Mind Control by Common
Theater of Mind by Ludacris
The Renaissance by Q Tip
Emeritus by Scarface
Untitled by Nas
Rising Down by The Roots
Million Dollar Back Pack by Skillz

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DJ Highlights

NEW WKNC Shedule is Up

Happy New Year to all.  As is necessary every semester here at NC State, WKNC must alter its schedule to fit the available times of all of our volunteers and DJs.

This spring semester is exciting in that we have established a new Weekend Program, the Post Rock Block.  Every Sunday from 6-8pm you can hear your favorite 35 minute long, noise filled, post rock tunes, hosted by DJs Gray Matter, Bridges, Cabbage, Matticus Rex and May Day.

Also, our weekly sports show, Call of The Wolf, has been changed from Thursday evenings to Tuesday evenings from 7-8pm, and is now hosted by a couple new members.

Local Lunch introduces one new DJ, DJ Ray on Tuesdays, and welcomes back DJ Caid on Mondays.  DJ Cabbage has switched to Wednesday, Murdoc to Thursdays, and Chelsey stays put for her normal Friday show.

Chainsaw has also moved up 2 hours to Thursday night starting at 10pm.  This change may not be permanent, but we are happy to give our dedicated Chainsaw listeners some extra time to get their rock on.

For more shows and times visit our Schedule Page.

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Music News and Interviews

WKNC Announces Double Barrel Benefit #6

Set your calendars For Friday February 6th, and Saturday February 7th for WKNC’s annual Double Barrel Benefit #6 at the Pour House in downtown Raleigh.  Both nights are loaded with 8 of the best bands in our area for a small price, with all proceeds going to WKNC & NC State Student Media.

Prices are $7 in advance and $9 at the door.  There is a $5 surcharge for all attendees under 21.

Bands on Friday include (in order of appearance):
Lonnie Walker
Lost in the Trees
Schooner
Bowerbirds

Bands on Saturday include (in order of appearance):
I Was Totally Destroying It
Violet Vector & the Lovely Lovelies
Birds of Avalon
Polvo

WKNC will be broadcasting live from the site both nights.

Throughout the next month WKNC will begin featuring exclusive blogs about each of these fantastic bands leading up to the show.  Be on the lookout for those as well as listening to each of these bands on WKNC 88.1 fm.

In addition, the two days leading up to the show, WKNC will play 100% Local Music during its Daytime Format.   More information on this later.

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Music News and Interviews

How To Find Out About Local Music

When I started Local Lunch in the beginning of 2008, I have to admit… I didn’t know jack about local music. I knew we had a show called The Local Beat and that our Double Barrel Benefit 5 was going to feature 8 local acts, but that was essentially it. So there I was, half way through January and still struggling to find something that made my show different from all of the other WKNC DJs, and all I knew was that my shift was set in the middle of lunch time, I was hungry, and I needed to plug some of the acts from DBB5. In a nutshell, that is basically how Local Lunch was born.

So now I had a locally themed show, but I still didn’t know anything about local music. I asked myself, “What is the best way to learn about the local scene?”; and knew that I had to get in to going to local venues and seeing local acts. Thankfully, DBB5 had 8 local bands who I had been spinning and enjoying for a month. Another long drawn out story later, I was having a great time watching a band called The Future Kings of Nowhere (FKON). And thus how I fell in love with local music and renewed my interest in music in general.

FKON went on to become one of my favorite bands in 2008, and that is why I encourage everyone to go out and explore the local music scene. If you are like how I was, and don’t know who to go see or where to go to catch great local bands at; I suggest you check out the WKNC Rock Report. Or find your favorite band for 2009 by attending WKNC’s Double Barrel Benefit 6 on Friday and Saturday, February 6th & 7th.

I was once told that “Some of the greatest experiences of life where to be had in places far from home”. I hope you will discover, like I did, that such a saying is untrue because of the experiences to be had at some place down the street, rockin’ out with bands from down the street.

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Music News and Interviews

Post-modern Hip-Hop: The Glitch Mob

Pandora, describing The Glitch Mob as “four gents who are setting the dance world ablaze with their futuristic hip-hop deconstruction,” features three videos of the group talking about their music, and preforming live at the at the Mezzanine club in San Francisco:

  • In Track 1, they explain their niche.

  • In Track 2, they describes themeselves as being somewhere between a DJ and a live band, “we create our music with the intent of remixing it live.”

  • In Track 3, they explain their creative approach in using hardware and software as “instruments.”

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DJ Highlights

Welcome to the WKNC Blog!

In an effort to reach out to our online community and encourage interaction with our listeners we have carved out an Internet outpost where WKNC listeners can come to find all of the newest and most up-to-date information about all of our music formats.  The past semester we have been busy at WKNC creating this new and exciting addition to our website and radio station.  Many members of our staff have given much of their time to the creation of this blog, and it is our hope that it thrives and excels as much as WKNC does.

On the blog, readers can expect to see music reviews, concert reviews, podcasts, and other generally cool and interesting stuff, posted entirely by WKNC staff members.  Additionally the blog will give listeners a heads up when we’re doing on-air giveaways or having a live band in the studio.

We encourage each and every reader to contribute to posts by adding comments with their wordpress accounts. To subscribe to our full blog RSS feed please click the ‘Subscribe’ link at the top right of the blog main page, or subscribe to individual blog sections by clicking their titles on the blog main page.

All of us here at WKNC look forward to better serving our listening audience and the triangle music scene by providing a fresh, concise, and preeminent source for music and station news.  With 2009 upon us, we hope to continue setting trends in the college radio community and wish you all a happy new year!

Signed,
WKNC Staff

Categories
Local Music Music News and Interviews

Colossus on Cannibalism

Raleigh metal act Colossus is back in the studio to record a new EP, as yet unnamed.   The album is being recorded outside Chapel Hill at Warrior Sound Studio.  According to guitarist Nicky Nixon the album will have five songs that “address a number of topics, including humans eating human corpses, human corpses reanimating and attempting to eat living humans, fish eating whale carcasses, and yet another song about cannibalism.”

No word on when the EP is set to release, but you can catch Colossus live at Tir Na Nog January 22nd, as part of WKNC’s Local Beer Local Band night along side Durham band Tooth.

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Music News and Interviews

WKNC Presents an Animal Collective Listening Party

Come one, come all to the Pour House on January 5th for an Animal Collective listening party hosted by WKNC & Schoolkids Records.  Animal Collective’s new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is set to be relased on vinyl (including an mp3 download of the album) January 6th and on CD January 20th.  However, if you want to listen and buy it before it hits the shelves, Schoolkids will be on location selling vinyl copies during the show.

WKNC will also be presenting three fresh local bands:
Old Bricks
Mr. Goodtimes
& an as yet un-named band consisting of two members of The Cumberland County Mean Gang

WKNC will also be giving away two prize packages from Domino Records to two lucky attendees.  Come on out and make it a night!

Categories
Music News and Interviews

Live Electronic Music Every Monday Night in Downtown Raleigh

Every Monday night until March, The Big Easy is hosting Rumble Sessions – Fine Electronic Music. The music starts at 10 pm, 21+ only.

Check GruvGlu for a detailed schedule.

Categories
DJ Highlights

Goodnight Raleigh: The Afterhours Ten Year Reunion Show

John Morris, of popular local blog Goodnight, Raleigh! wrote up a fantastic piece on WKNC’s annual Afterhours Reunion Show hosted by Afterhours’ founders Rob Rousseau, Ben Thomas, and Steve Brown.  read on:

On Monday night, three former WKNC DJs got together for an Afterhours reunion show lasting from 6PM until 1AM. Pictured above from left to right are Rob Rousseau, Ben Thomas, and Steve Brown. For the past ten years, Ben and Steve have got together shortly before the beginning of the new year for the show. Rob participated in the set for the first time this year, although he has made guest appearances on past shows.

The Roots of Electronic Music on WKNC

Afterhours officially got its start as a nightly format in early 1997. It was named for the initial time it started, 12AM. Not long after it began, the show as well as the electronic dance music scene in general started to gain in popularity. It then moved to the 8PM to midnight slot, where it has been ever since. Prior to the beginning of Afterhours, electronic music on the station consisted of a few scattered shows here and there, mostly without a slot title. Rob called in to one of these shows, hosted by Dave Brock, and began his stint shortly thereafter in 1996.

Around the same time, Steve had been getting more and more interested in bringing electronica to the station. After hearing a show syndicated via newsgroups and cassette tape titled “The Digital Dream” out of Bath, England, he was inspired to start a program on WKNC that focused exclusively on this relatively new form of music.

 

During the first reunion show in 1998, Ben (above) called in and was invited to the studio. He then pursued an interest in being a DJ. His first slot was referred to as the PSA shift, as it was at 4AM and the first 30 minutes consisted of playing a recorded program before he got to select some of his own tracks for airplay. Shortly thereafter, he continued the show in the more primetime hours for a while after graduation.

The Reunion Show and the Future

Ben and Steve prepare for the show for almost a year prior to it. It’s always between Christmas and the New Year, which is more convenient when juggling a family and a full time job.

Lasting between six and seven hours, there is a lot of music to play. The sets are arranged and selected ahead of time, so they can concentrate on discussing the music amongst themselves and listeners of the show. They had 10 copies of the entire set to give away during the show, and several of the people calling in have been listening to the reunion show for the past few years.

They plan to continue on with the tradition and host the show again next year at around the same time. You can enjoy the legacy they started by tuning in to 88.1 or the web stream Monday – Thursday from 8PM until 12AM.

If you’d like to be a part of their mailing list to be informed of news and information on future shows and electronic music, contact us and we will forward your information to them.