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For nearly three years, he’s been a veritable ghost within the music scene, spending his time on an “eat-pray-love” adjacent journey stretching from Europe to Thailand following a nearly career-ending injury while touring with Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Festival.
Sturgill Simpson may have taken his bow, but Johnny Blue Skies follows strongly in his wake.
Another Hopscotch has come and gone with the fourteenth festival in the books.
And good golly, was it a learning experience.
What’s a better way to kick off our beloved festival days than with a meeting of old and new NC music at a tried-and-true old venue turned new?
For the uninitiated, The dB’s are an NYC power-pop quartet by way of Winston-Salem.
Guitarist and vocalist Chris Stamey was the first member to fly the Southern coop to NYU, making a name for himself as a member of Alex Chilton’s backing band “The Kossacks,” later persuading bassist Gene Holder and drummer Will Rigby to join him.
It wasn’t until Chapel Hill based band H-Bomb fizzled out in 1978 that the soon-to-be dB’s lineup would be complete with the addition of guitarist and vocalist Peter Holsapple.
A prime example of “your favorite band’s favorite band,” The dB’s saw rave critical reviews but never quite broke the mainstream in the same way their Southern college rock pioneering contemporaries did.
They easily could have and should have been apart of that massive boom, marching across college campuses arm in arm with R.E.M.
With the imminent reissue of their 1981 debut album “Stands for Decibels” on the horizon, their warm-up set was a celebration of the band’s multifaceted sound an more importantly their
Encompassing both Stamey’s nebulous and amorphous Beach-Boys-by-way-of-Big-Star baroque style pop and Holsapple’s straightforward, youthfully sneering guitar rock, their set was an effective love letter to not only their beginning but to the fans who have stuck with them through the years, and those who have joined along the way.
Supported by Kate Rhudy, the Raleigh-based singer-songwriter warmed the theater with an intimate and tender 45-or so minute set.
Tried and true coffeeshop acoustic, Rhudy cut an incredibly charming if not a little green figure on stage in her rhinestone go-go boots.
Standing alone with her guitar, she carried an air of vulnerability as she crooned and flipped her way through breakup songs and love letters to missing cats.
With each quasi-yodel and delicate vocal flips, she garnered easy comparisons to 10,000 Maniacs’ Natalie Merchant and Taylor Swift.
Perhaps a more direct line of comparison would be if a young Merchant managed Swift’s songbook.
Melding with what seems to be the over all ethos of the festival, Rhudy felt comfortably familiar to old favorites we know and love, while still keeping a unique image all her own.
Alternatively, The dB’s felt as fresh as they day they emerged from NYC’s basement clubs, now serving as a musical “Guess Who?” between their influences and the later influenced.
In contemporary terms, you wouldn’t have groups like The Lemon Twigs without The dB’s, nor would I hazard to guess one of Jack White’s many projects, The Raconteurs.
But that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?
Remembering why we love our favorite bands and finding something new to fawn over at the same time; a celebration of music’s circularity.
Together, The dB’s and Rhudy brought a show together for a an intimate welcome to the festival weekend and it certainly left me wanting more of the Hopscotch soup du jour.
Formed in 1985 by Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins and Eric Avery, Jane’s Addiction quickly rode the wave of L.A. rock with a mélange of punk ideologies, arthouse theatrics and the mad dog rabid funk-fusion of bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers—though I would attest that Farrell and his motley crew did it bigger, better and meaner than RHCP ever could dream of.
However, from an outsider looking in, it is nigh short of a miracle that all four original members made it through the 90s and into a space that would welcome a reunion.
Not to say they were a flash in the pan, but they certainly weren’t a band that foretold longevity; they were hard-living men, and hard-living men seldom long for this world.
Yet, here we are in 2024, and by some strange turn of events, the original lineup has taken to the stage once more.
In a co-headlined tour of North America, Jane’s Addiction and Love and Rockets launched a dual-ended attack on our alt-rock sensibilities.
And what a night of dualities it was.
Starting strong, Love and Rockets were everything you want to see out of a New Wave act: sparkly suits, thinned hair teased to high heavens, droning guitars, heavy synths and a voice that inexplicably has not aged.
Following a lackluster opening act, Daniel Ash and co. came out swinging with “The Light,” cranking up the synth lines in something more reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails rather than the radio-friendly Bauhaus off-shoot.
The band shot from one song to the next with little intermission or crowd-friendly banter in a blistering fuzzy wave of guitar-driven rock that spanned their discography.
They were good, but dare I say they were almost too good; by the time they closed out their set with a rollicking, raucous rendition of “Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man),” I didn’t just want more, I was hungry for more – but you can have too much of a good thing.
Now, I respect their art and I commend their work to stay fit for the stage. However, I can’t help but miss the grit and mess that rock used to come with.
And then Perry Farrell bounded onto the stage…
Before I even bought my tickets for the tour, I had heard mixed reviews about how the reunited band performed together on stage, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled.
Rumors and shaky cellphone footage of slurred words and drunken ramblings filled my feed whenever I looked for anything about the show, and that’s not something I can pass up in good conscience.
Let me tell you, that good conscience paid off in spades.
At a minimum, the setlist was everything you need to hear from a Jane’s Addiction show: a nearly even split between tracks off of “Nothing’s Shocking,” “Ritual de lo Habitual,” and a stray few across their relatively small discography.
Navarro, Avery and Perkins were unrelenting in their sonic assault, driving the set forward so powerfully your seat would vibrate beneath you. There were moments in the set when I felt it so strongly that I had to sit back to get my bearings.
When I say it was heavy, it was heavy.
But it was also so incredibly, wonderfully, beautifully messy in the same breath.
Above, I wrote “Perry Farrell bounded onto the stage…” when in reality, it was somewhere between a stagger and a slink as he whined his way through the opening lines of “Kettle Whistle.”
To be fair, Farrell is a lot like Rod Stewart in a way because we all know that it’s not technically a “good” voice, but an interesting one, and interesting ones hardly stand the test of time.
He’s not a man who knows how to sing; he’s a guy who figured out he sounded halfway cool screeching into a mic, and it worked.
Long story short, the voice didn’t quite hold up over the years, but it was never going to – the writing was on the wall all along.
Speaking of “writing on the wall,” addiction haunted the band since its 1985 inception, far beyond name-only
Anyone who cut their teeth on the Sunset Strip is more often than not inclined to taste the hard stuff – Farrell’s poison of choice were speedballs: go big or go home.
All that is to say, anyone who bought tickets expecting a nice, clean, presentable act came to the wrong show.
As the night wore on, it was plain to see that something on stage was wrong; something or rather someone, wasn’t on the same page as the rest of the band.
While the instrumentally inclined members of the band laid down what I can only describe as sonic bedrock comparable to Led Zeppelin, their charismatic frontman slurred his way through song after song, somehow managing to stay just a hare off beat every single time.
And I loved every single minute of it.
Culturally, we’ve come to a point where rock isn’t big and bad any more.
There’s nothing to warn your children about or straighten your mother’s curls…guys in polos are going to gigs.
At what point did we defang rock’n’roll?
Was it when the Eagles crooned their country-fied California easy listening over the air waves?
Or maybe when your favorite band became a “sellout?”
Either way you want to spin it, we all have our own “whys” as to the mass acceptance of rock as a genre.
But sometimes, you need a reminder that a lion in the winter is still a lion; an aging rockstar is still a goddamn rockstar.
From often incoherent stories sandwiched between fumbled and unintelligible lyrics to joining the pit for a smoke (true story), Jane’s Addiction, but more specifically, Perry Farrell revived the long extinct archetype.
Despite being under the influence, he owned that stage and that crowd; I’ve hardly ever heard more voices in unison than when the band broke into a tenderhearted, surprisingly gentle acoustic rendition of “Jane Says” in the middle of the debauched and flamboyant set.
So yes, to the man in Brooks Brothers beside me – I’m sorry it didn’t quite live up to your thirty-something-year-old memories (though I would argue: If you saw Jane’s Addiction in their heyday, you might not have been so lucid yourself).
But, sometimes, the old gods need to step down off their mountain and remind us of how things used to be; sobriety be damned.
I am certainly not the festival going type, but when in Rome…right?
As much as I love live music, I’ve never really taken the opportunity to explore the wonderland of a multi-day festival.
So, thanks to the benevolent gods of WKNC, I have the utmost privilege to take you along with me as I dive headfirst into Downtown Raleigh’s favorite indie-alternative smorgasbord.
In the immortal words of Smash Mouth, there’s so much to do and so much to see, so let me be your guide on our nearly week-long romp.
Or, in my own words…let’s take a peek at my must see’s for the 2024 Hopscotch Musical Festival
The lineup: The dB’s, with support from Kate Rhudy, showtime: 7:00 pm
Quasi-Local favorites The dB’s (Yes, I know they formed in NYC but Winston-Salem calls dibs) are doing a pre-festival warm-up show at the Rialto Theatre to kick off the long festival quasi-weekend.
If you are a fan of WKNC, I’d be willing to bet you’re a fan of first wave college rock/jangle pop too – and in that case where would any of us be without The dB’s?
Fret not: if you can’t catch them on their warm-up, the original line up will also be taking to the one of the Hopscotch main stages on Saturday, September 7.
The lineup: Waxahatchee, Snail Mail, Tim Heidecker and Lonnie Walker
I, for one, about lost my mind to see Tim Heidecker and Waxahatchee sharing a billing. So obviously that’s where I’ll have to be.
It’s day one of the festival and I will be starting low and slow across the plate with the easy, breezy down home sounds of tried and true lo-fi acoustic indie.
But, if twangy, folksy indie isn’t quite your speed, that’s alright over in Moore Square, you’ve got a bill consisting of: JPEGMAFIA, Mavi, Previous Industries, and Jooselord.
The lineup: BADBADNOTGOOD, Chicano Batman, Peter One and ¡Tumbao!
A little bit of Neo-Soul and a little Latin flair tees up a fine night in Bodhi’s book.
We’re all familiar with BADBADNOTGOOD from their TikTok viral stint as part of the Adult Swim “[as]” logo trend, but selfishly, I’m in it for the effortless psychedelic SoCal-cool of Chicano Batman and the classic Latin-fusion of ¡Tumbao!
Alternatively, if that’s not your speed, more power to you because over in City Plaza you’ve got the bulletproof bill of: Faye Webster, MJ Lenderman and the Wind, Feeble Little Horse and My Sister Maura.
Oh, my lovelies…I have a lot of heartburn over what to do with myself on the last day of the festival.
On one hand, you’ve got the wonderfully eclectic lineup of: The Jesus Lizard, Wednesday, Durand Jones, The dB’s, Ducks LTD and Charlie Passo over in Moore Square.
On the other, you’ve got the undeniably electric (see what I did there?) bill of: St Vincent, Guided by Voices, Indigo de Souza, Amen Dunes and Sofia Bolt in City Plaza.
And this, dear reader is where the ever appropriate name of the festival comes into play; we’re going to play hopscotch.
The beauty of downtown is everything is within walking distance if you’re stubborn enough, so I’m going to attempt to split the bill and see a little bit of everything Saturday night – Who said I can’t have my cake and eat it too?
Before I let you go to begin your own plan making, I would be remiss to ignore the legendary day parties that further thicken the Hopscotch plot.
Spread across The Lincoln Theatre, Neptunes, Kings, The Pourhouse, Wicked Witch, Slim’s, TRansfer Co. Ballroom and Nash Hall (amongst others), small bands light up the City of Oaks in more intimate shows through the mid afternoon and the early hours of morning.
For my lazy bones who forgot to get a pass, good news! While late night club sets require a pass (womp womp), anything labeled a “Day Party” is free and open to the public.
I am a firm believer that 95% of festivals are no longer cool.
The market is oversaturated, the bar for small bands is too low and the commodification and democratization of stardom has made big bands seem blasé.
Plainly stated, music doesn’t feel important any more.
I’m not seeing many, if any, baby bands that feel like they’re going to set the world on fire – and I am certainly not seeing many big artists that will go down in the annals of history.
And festivals feel the same.
Coachella is a ‘wannabe influencer’ petri dish, Reading & Leeds have pop acts gracing their stages and Glastonbury is now Coachella with more mud.
And worst of all, there’s Lollapalooza…
What was once a haven for everything alternative has become yet another destination, Coachella-lite festival.
But it wasn’t always that way – once, it was a bright, shining beacon of transgression in a sea of country-club, khaki approved pop.
Streaming on Paramount+, “LOLLA: The story of Lollapalooza” charts the rise, fall, and rebirth of Lollapalooza from Perry Farrell’s Glastonbury inspired dream to the multi-million dollar Chicago festival.
It’s a long and bumpy ride that stretches from equipment frying heatwaves that enraged a baby-faced Trent Reznor to stuffed shirt meetings to introduce collaboration with the Austin City Limits team.
But narratively aside, the footage of yesterday’s Lolla was what I fell in love with.
From Body Count to Ben Folds Five, the early days and death knells of Lollapalooza were diligently captured by MTV camera crews and Fans alike.
I grew up hearing my dad’s Lolla-land adventures from the 90s, a former festival devotee, and I so badly wanted to step foot in that sea.
And while time travel certainly isn’t an option, it was an option to sit down and watch this with him – courtesy commentary provided.
We’ve all seen the videos of Eddie Vedder monkey bar-ing it across the stage, but it’s different to see that video with live feedback from your old man who was there.
So, not only did I get my trip in the way back machine, I got to know a little bit more about my dad during his 20-something-ne’er-do-well heyday.
Speaking of Dads…
Do you have a reformed alternative parent?
Does said parent need a kick in the ass to remember they’re still alive?
Do you have the music taste of a middle-aged man?
If so, I have wonderful news for you:
In what I can only describe as an alt-rock wet dream, Jane’s Addiction’s original line up of Perry Ferrell, Dave Navarro, Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins are returning to the stage supported by Love and Rockets.
So, if you’re looking to kill time on a Tuesday Night with your Ma and/or Pops, watching them revert back to whatever college delinquents they were, this is the show for you.
Besides, what’s more rock-n-roll than ignoring the looming 9-5 Wednesday morning wake-up call to go to a show?
If any album can convince you to get a belly button piercing, it’s going to be this one.
Most of us know Cree Summer as the raspy-voiced woman behind our childhood cartoons as “Numbah Five” from “Codename: Kids Next Door,” or Susie Meyerson from “Rugrats” amongst many others.
My Gen X-ers know Summer as the ever-spunky Freddie on “A Different World.”
However, my favorite incarnation is the scratchy and soulful singer of the here-and-then-gone 1999 album “Street Faërie.”
Summer’s lyrics walk the line between fresh and cynical, intimate and erotic, poetic and plainspoken in a way that feels almost reminiscent of Erykah Badu’s work.
She effortlessly weaves that earth-mother-barefoot-beauty with a decidedly tough, no-nonsense sensibility.
“Street Faërie” was produced by Lenny Kravitz, whose fingerprints are sonically all over the album.
From lush arrangements to backing vocals, he added tangible shape and color to Summer’s vision.
Forget Don Henley and Stevie Nicks; Kravitz and Summer create auditory leather and lace together.
Her vocals are equal parts delicate and forceful, uniquely free of her signature spoken rasp, whereas his guitar has that tell-tale driven ’90s crunch laced with powerfully ’70s swagger.
While the album reeks of what I can only imagine is Lenny Kravit’s spicy cologne, it feels like a disservice to dismiss it as his pet project as some reviewers have.
As far as content goes, it’s all Summer – from “Curious White Boy” to “Naheo,” she pulls from her reality to find the beauty in mundanity.
Her songs run the gamut from interracial dating to period sex, each one handled with a deeply personal intimacy that brings the listener deeper into a wonderland entirely of her making.
Despite what the title may suggest, the whimsical “Street Faërie” keeps both feet firmly planted in reality.
We’re witnessing the musical changing of the guard and it could not be a more excitingly bittersweet time to love music.
The 2024 line-up for the Outlaw Music Festival was nothing short of legendary rolling into Raleigh’s Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek; Celisse, Alisson Krause & Robert Plant, Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson all taking the stage.
But as best laid plans are apt to do, the line up fell through.
The danger, you see, is in relying on octo- and nonagenarians for your entertainment is the general precarity of old age.
Friday, June 21st Willie Nelson’s team released a statement announcing the country singer’s departure from four of the ensuing tour dates due to medical concerns.
In his place, son Lukas Nelson and the Nelson Family Band stepped in with an abridged tribute set.
But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to let the younger Nelson take the stage in his father’s wake.
If anything, it reaffirmed what we already knew about Willie’s songs — they’re timeless country-western staples for a reason.
And more importantly, Lukas Nelson is far too talented to stay in his father’s shadow.
Freed from the albatross of an elderly father, Nelson’s voice quite literally soared through the shortened tribute set – simply put, he sounded like his father for a new age.
Waffling between original compositions and Willie-standards, Nelson was able to effortlessly bridge the divide between new fans and old, bouncing between the soulful growl present on Promise of The Real track “Find Yourself” to his father’s signature warble on songs like “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain.”
Speaking of soul, I would be remiss not to mention one of the freshest faces amongst the lineup: Celisse.
The Oakland born singer and guitarist easily won over unsure and unfamiliar audiences with more than just sweet talk and charm, she won them over with her sound.
Bombastic in every sense of the word, her belt and her shred equally silenced the normally rowdy “lawnies” of Coastal Credit Union – her cover of Bill Withers’ “Use Me” met with earthshaking applause and shouts.
For a woman who has been making music for well over a decade, touring as supporting acts for some of the biggest acts in folk and easy listening rock both old and new – Brandi Carlisle and Joni Mitchell, to name a few – I have a sneaking suspicion that Outlaw Music Festival is only the beginning of her just desserts.
So yes, Bob Dylan and Robert Plant were once-in-a-lifetime, bucket list artists to see, but perhaps more importantly, I walked away with not just hope, but a feverish excitement to see what the next wave of Americana, Soul and whatever-the-hell-else-you-want-to-call-it will be.
Long story short, it is sad to see the old god’s fade away, but my god, I cannot wait to see the nebulous eruptions of the new.
Oh, Justin Timberlake.
It’s been a rough year or so hasn’t it, bud?
From Brittany’s slightly dubious tell all to an ill-fated romp in the Hamptons, he’s has had a tough go of it as of late.
And my, what a sight to see.
Celebrity implosions, especially of such long standing figures, are always a spectacle – but I’ve yet to see one that reeks of desperation quite like Timberlake’s.
From the hallowed halls of the Mickey Mouse Club to Gen X thirst trap World Tours, Timberlake has a knack for keeping himself in the spotlight.
For better or worse, the common man has a half-baked notion of what — or rather, who — he is.
But there’s something that feels different about this latest scandal.
Perhaps it’s because I had the pleasure of seeing him at PNC Arena a week before his DUI.
Or maybe it’s the comical coverage of the incident — considering the pouty celebrity mugshot, perp walk and the beautifully oblivious cop making the arrest.
Either way you spin it, there’s something distinctly and pitifully funny about Timberlake’s snafu.
Rockstars and rappers go through their own legal issues and brushes with the law, but when it happens to a pop star, people pay attention.
Even more so to someone of Timberlake’s caliber.
For people 35 and over, he’s been a tried and true standard for a large part of American pop-culture.
From childhood to adulthood, he’s been a prominent spotlight feature, and he’s desperately grasping at the edge of the stage as he’s being played out.
As far as the soundscape of popular culture goes, he’s by and far left behind.
His stage show proves it to, sadly: asses really only left seats for old standards like “Sexy Back,” “Suit and Tie” and “Cry Me A River” — even more so for the throwback reliant DJ opener.
Not to besmirch the opening band, but there’s something wrong with your act if more people are amped for a DJ playing the dancehall classics of yesterday than your set.
Consistently, he’s released albums every four to five years since 2002. Yet, his sound hardly changes.
Since he’s left NSYNC, the only evolution I can truly see is a semi-annual media scandal of either infidelity or inebriation.
When your entire career is based upon the affection of young girls, what happens when those girls grow up?
What happens when you grow up?
Somewhere within the pandering, paltry pastiche of the “Forget Tomorrow” world tour and the relatively tame release “Everything I Thought I Was,” you’ll find the answer.
It was a good show, don’t get me wrong.
Justin Timberlake is an entertainer first and foremost, to which he most certainly delivered.
But as the times catch up with the now 43-year old, fading pop star, the whirling dervish of past and present controversy seems to loom large over him.
From Britney to Janet, inebriation, infidelity and unknown world tours, perhaps Timberlake should take to the mirror himself and truly reckon with his next steps.
Because let’s be fair, humoring an aging audience in flights of fantasy feels like a desperate cash-grab preying on the hardwired need of women past a certain age to feel relevant — to feel important.
In a world where artists are more accessible than ever, feeling more real than ever, the thin line between artifice and artistry has never been more apparent.
And artists who are unwilling to step beyond their predestined imagery are not only doing their audiences a disservice, they are doing one to themselves.
Oppression is a funny thing, but then again so are humans – the more your press and restrain a spirit, the stronger it grows.
East Berlin was no different.
Pirate Radio blossoms across the airwaves, ringing throughout the darkened corners of tenements and squats – The Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, The Clash, Buzzcocks, and Ian Drury burst through the wall with a blast of pure, unadulterated adrenaline.
It was a shockwave to the restricted, highly controlled world of the DDR, a select group of kids saw their break in the clouds to build a new reality from the ground – or rather, boots up.
Beyond adopting the leather, studs and ‘can-do’ d.i.y. spirit of the movement, these kids began to form bands – circulating outside contraband and inside underground paraphernalia within a loosely organized, but painfully tightknit community across the DDR far beyond East Berlin.
Tim Mohr chronicles the burgeoning punk movement within the DDR from the first girl to spike her hair to the fall of the wall and the birth of Krautrock through “Burning Down the Haus.”
More than glimpse behind the Iron Curtain, Mohr paints a moving portrait of rebellion and reinvention in life or death situations, a revelation spurred on by chains and spikes.
When I first read this post, I wasn’t in a really good place; I was struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to find the drive to keep pushing forward in a world that feels exceedingly futile. In many ways, this book helped me see beauty in the human experience again.
These kids were angry, and rightfully so, but they found hope for a better world within their anger.
They turned that anger into action, they turned life itself into an act of defiance.
These young punks weren’t just surviving the impossible, they made an active choice to live in the face of inscrutable danger.
Beyond the music, beyond the fashion, beyond the shows and squats that’s what stuck with me long after reading – and I hope it will stick with you too.
For those of you looking for an auditory companion to the listening experience, the “Too Much Future” compilation album of DDR punk from 1980-1989 is what I found most aligned with the reading.
Be forewarned, the material is explicit…but if you’re expecting kisses from grandma on a punk album, I can’t help you.