Loamlands are an exciting new Durham based band, featuring Will Hackney and Kym Register, formerly of the group Midtown Dickens. The group revels in a sort of emotionally charged Americana that manages to hopeful and bittersweet all at once. The band saw their first EP release, Some Kind Of Light, last year on Trekky Records, and the record is a powerful and spare collection of songs with earworm vocal melodies and a distinctly Southern charm.
The duo recently came in for a Lounge session, where they performed “One More Day” a track from their upcoming new LP. See them play with Mount Moriah, Daniel Bachman, and more this Friday 2/14 at Lincoln Theater for Double Barrel Benefit Night 2!
Hammer No More The Fingers has been a mainstay of the Triangle music scene for years, and they show no sign of stopping. Their last release of new material was the single Kaplox, and they group came by the WKNC Lounge to perform it live.
HNMTF will take the stage at Cat’s Cradle on February 7th for the first night of Double Barrel Benefit 11, right after T0W3RS and before The Love Language end the night.
WKNC is delighted to be the primary media sponsor for this year’s Phuzz Phest- Winston-Salem’s premiere annual music festival. This fourth annual event returns to the City of the Arts & Innovation’s burgeoning downtown area to thousands of music fans across the southeast. This year the festival will span three days from Friday April 4 through Sunday April 6, featuring their most potent and genre-spanning lineup yet with more than 50 musical acts coming from as far away as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Brooklyn and Detroit.
Though far from NC’s largest music festival, Phuzz Phest has built its reputation on keenly curating the region’s best acts for a truly special weekend of music, offering attendees a rare opportunity to see critically-acclaimed artists alongside under-praised locals in settings more intimate than would otherwise be possible.
The 2014 lineup features headliners like L.A.’s pioneering noise-punk duo No Age, visionary rap legend Kool Keith, hypnotic alt-country songstress Jessica Lea Mayfield, and San Francisco psych-rock stalwarts White Fence. Festival alumni and Merge Records acts Mount Moriah & The Love Language make return appearances alongside Ex Hex, the new project of Mary Timony (Wild Flag, Autoclave, Helium) whose debut record is due in March via Merge Records. View the full lineup below, bold indicates headliners.
T0W3RS is a crazy infectious band based out of Carrboro. They blend driving indie rock guitars with spacious electronic hooks and catchy melody lines. Led by Derek Torres, the band has enlisted many different musicians from across the Triangle over the past couple years. Torres spent last year working on his latest effort “TL;DR” due out sometime this year.
Torres stopped by the other day for an interview and to premiere some new tracks off the forthcoming full-length in our Lounge. "The Situation" is the lead single off the album and if it is any indication of the rest of the effort, this album should be on top of some local “Best of” lists this year. Check out his performance in The Lounge above and get ready to get down with him this Friday, February 7th at Cat’s Cradle for Night 1 of Double Barrel Benefit 11!
GHOSTT BLLONDE are a new Raleigh band who have erupted onto the scene. After playing their house and many other houses over the past year, they have now started headlining shows at some of the area’s bigger venues. We are really excited to have GHOSTT BLLONDE open up night 1 of Double Barrel 11 at Cat’s Cradle on Friday, February 7th with their infectious brand of “a 50’s rumble of trash-can-pop.”
GHOSTT BLLONDE came in to kick off our DBB11 Lounge Sessions as our first ever full-band in the Lounge. Even in the cramped space, they sounded incredible. They recently signed to Negative Fun records and debuted the song “Curls” off their forthcoming EP for us in The Lounge. Check out the song above and be sure to come out to see them at DBB11!!!
Richmond songwriter Matthew E. White paid a visit to WKNC before his December show at King’s to perform an alternate version of “Big Love,” a cut off his debut album Big Inner. This is the forth session of The Lounge, which has been described by Indy Week as “a good way to hear tunes you might know in a different context."
Matthew E. White, founder of Spacebomb Records in Richmond, Virginia, is also head of the jazz band Fight the Big Bull and was also a member of rock group The Great White Jenkins. Big Inner, which was released in 2012, can best be described from the following excerpt via his website: " Whether you’re a woman or man, White’s mournful, get-it-on voice may be all you can hear: I don’t want to live a day longer than you, so let’s meet the Lord together. You can call it soul music if you want. It’s his soul and it’s his music.” Big Inner is composed of seven songs and is the first release from Spacebomb Records.
It’s been a little over two years since their last live performance in November 2011 in Brazil, but The Strokes are back for a much anticipated performance at this year’s Governor’s Ball Music Festival. Julian Casablancas will also be performing a separate show during the festival.
The band released their fifth album, Comedown Machine, in 2013 but no tour came along with the new release.
On January 9th, Perfect Pussy came to Raleigh to blow the roof off of King’s with Whatever Brains and Davidians. Before that, they dropped by the studio and sat down with DJ Phian to discuss sabotaging soda factories, the new Beyoncé album, and navigating around the rules of the FCC when the name of your band is Perfect Pussy. Listen here.
Keep it tuned to WKNC all week long for your chance to win tickets to any of these great shows below! Just be the correct caller when the DJ asks for it, and you and a friend could be hitting up some of the coolest local acts around.
Tuesday, January 14 – Against Me! with The Sidekicks @ Cat’s Cradle
Saturday, January 18 – Solar Halos with Irata @ Cat’s Cradle Back Room
Sunday, January 19 – Reggie and the Full Effect with Dads @ Local 506
For the second hour of our first show in 2014 I was joined by the iconic alt-country act Six String Drag. In the late 90s Six String Drag was taking the scene by the horns and delivering a sweltering dose of all-out good ol’ fashioned rock n’ roll. It’s been over a decade since the band broke up and moved on to other projects, Kenny Roby has led a successful solo career while Dave Wright has dabbled in acts like The Countdown Quartet and Bone Slinger and Rob Keller forayed into bluegrass territory with The Welfare Liners. Since their breakup the group has only performed together twice, but on Jan. 4 they made their long awaited return to the Triangle after nearly 8 years at The Pour House.
I had most of the original members in-studio to talk a bit about how this reunion came together and exactly where they’ll go from here. As it turns out Roby has been storing up some songs that feel quite similar to Six String Drag, and while he hasn’t specifically stated that it’s going to turn into another Six String Drag album…the band is certainly all here. Throughout the hour we cover the looming question on everyone’s mind (more music?!), run down what the band has been doing since their break up, speak of the preparation for the show and hear a slew of in-studio performances from their marquee album High Hat. The band even played a tune that may end up on their new recordings!
