Category: Blog

Categories
Weekly Charts

Chainsaw Charts 10/19

Antichrist Siege Machine Album Cover
#ArtistAlbumLabel
1ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINEPurifying BladeProfound Lore
2CARCASSTorn ArteriesNuclear Blast
3BLOODY KEEPBloody Horror [EP]Grime Stone
4MORBID MESSIAHDisgorged in the CoffinChaos
5ANNIHILUSFollow a Song From the SkyFederal Prisoner
6ANDREW WKGod Is PartyingNapalm
7CHARREDPrayers Of MaledictionEntertainment One
8BLACK WOUNDUnending LabyrinthDry Cough
9MALIGNAMENTHypocrisis AbsolutionPrimitive Reaction
10IXTLAHUACTeyacanilitztli NahualliNuclear War Now!
Categories
Miscellaneous

Screen Time: What to do Instead of Doom-Scrolling

Grey background with a photo of a scroll in the center. On the top right text reads "this is a" and on the bottom left the text reads "no doom scroll zone"

I treasure my screen time (my weekly screen time report is an embarrassing number). But sometimes, even when I want to be taking a break, scrolling through all of my endless feeds can be very emotionally and mentally draining. When I want to be on my phone or computer, but don’t want to scroll myself into the void, here’s what I do instead.

Phone Games

I feel like everyone is entitled to at least one silly little phone game that they are way too into. For me, it’s the app/website Cardgames.io (right now I am going through a major Farkle phase but I have played most games on there). Whether it be a card game, an adventure game or something where you have to tend to crops, let yourself have a game or two on your phone. It’s all in good fun.

Make A Playlist

If you’re in a creative mood, check out my blog “Struggle Making Playlists? Have Some Playlist Prompts.” It could potentially give you some new ideas for ways to freshen up your music library. 

Quizzes

There are two types of quizzes I frequent in my free time: personality quizzes and knowledge quizzes. Recently, I’ve been loving the Taylor Swift Sporcle quiz where you have 11 minutes to try and name every song on every album. Sporcle is a generally good resource for the knowledge/trivia based quizzes, but you can find them on all corners of the internet. 

The “Wikipedia Game”

You know the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” phenomenon? It’s kind of like that, but with Wikipedia. As Wikipedia describes it on the Wikipedia page for the game the objective is: “Players (one or more) start on the same randomly selected article, and must navigate to another pre-selected target article, solely by clicking links within each article. The goal is to arrive at the target article in the fewest clicks (articles), or the least time.” This is fun on your own, but is especially fun racing a friend. 

Catch Up On Favorite Podcasts/Current Audiobook

I feel like all I do is recommend my own blogs but I have written a blog with some podcast recommendations, as well as several blogs with book reviews (“You Have A Match,” “Tweet Cute,” “The Unhoneymooners”).  But if you have your own personal favorite that you haven’t listened to in a while: do it, it’ll be worth it.

Set The Phone Down

If you’ve exhausted all of these, maybe screen time should come to a close. Or not, I won’t tell you what to do. 

Here’s to no more doom-scrolling,

Caitlin

Categories
Miscellaneous

Why WKNC Rocks

Red background with the WKNC 88.1 logo repeated over and over,

As I wrote about in “My Year Writing For WKNC,” I’ve been involved one way or another with WKNC for about a year now, and I want to share a few of the many wonderful things about the Triangle’s very own 88.1.

The People

Whether it be sharing memes in the Discord, eating lunch together in the lounge, or waving to one another on campus, I’ve met some wonderful people at the station. It’s a blessing to be surrounded by people who have seemingly infinite knowledge about music and who are incredibly talented.

New Music Everywhere, All The Time

I used to have this irrational fear that I would never be able to listen to all the music in the world, and that I could have a favorite song out there that I just hadn’t listened to. WKNC has exposed me to hundreds of new songs and bands and diminished this fear almost entirely. If I ever get bored with my music, I know I can always tune into HD-1, HD-2, go to the blog, the YouTube channel, or our Discord to find something new to listen to. 

The Interior Design

I cannot stress how many stickers and posters adorn the doors and walls of the station. I notice something new every time I walk into the station. Not to mention the LED lights that set the ambience in the HD-1 and HD-2 studios.

The Coolest Opportunities

I’ve gotten to DJ at The Den, write blogs for the station, and interview my peers. I’ve also seen my fellow DJs get to attend festivals and conferences, express themselves creatively and achieve other wonderful things through WKNC.

Creative Outlet

Making playlists has always been my jam, but getting to share them with people live for one hour every week is such an immense privilege. 

Our Amazing Advisor, Jamie

I’ve never met someone so radically supportive and accepting. Not to mention, she’s pretty cool, herself. I, and I’m sure the other DJs agree, could not ask for a better advisor.

If you’re a student at NC State on the fence about getting involved at WKNC, go for it. Seriously, it’s changed my life, and your time at WKNC can be whatever you want it to be. 

Long Live College Radio,

Caitlin

Categories
Music Education

Soundtrack to a Revolution: My Pick for the Perfect Protest Song

Protest in Raleigh
Women’s March for Abortion Rights in Raleigh – photo by Erie Mitchell

Going to the women’s march for abortion rights in Raleigh recently was a big moment for me because was my first protest since the pandemic started, but during it my thoughts briefly wandered to something else. During a quiet moment between speakers I noticed they were playing “Scoop” by Lil Nas X. Now this is a great song, and it got the crowd going, but it got me wondering if we could do better.

There are songs (some of which were already mentioned) that instantly come to mind when you think of a protest: “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar was the rallying cry against police brutality, Gil Scott Heron created a phrase as relevant today as in 1971 with “The Revolution Will Not be Televised”, and Rage Against the Machine built an entire career around punchy, stick-it-to-the-man anthems like “Killing in the Name”. All of these are classics that have inspired millions and work because of their purposeful simplicity and universality as well as their strong musical fundamentals , but I feel like the best protest song is something that isn’t known for being played on the picket line. The best listen of a song is the first one, and I know I would be just a little more fired up if it was an unexpected song.

This brings me back to “Scoop”. Again, it’s a great song and has the energy level that aligns with a massive demonstration, but lyrically it’s about fame, sex, and looking really good; all fine things to make a song about of course, but maybe not one challenging Texas abortion law. Scoop is worth discussing here because of one important aspect: the context. Lil Nas X has become such a counterculture icon that he’s shifted culture itself, conversely every song and video he releases is accompanied by, let’s say discourse, on Twitter. Everything about him is rebellious, and this is the kind of artist I would want my dream protest song to be by.

Which brings me to what my dream protest song actually is: “Generational Synthetic” by Beach Fossils. From a strictly musical perspective (I think it’s important for a protest song to be a good song in its own right) it’s a great song that starts with a killer groove and doesn’t stop that groove, and it’s just low-fi enough to blend with the chanting of a crowd and have the voices not feel completely distinct. Thematically it deals with coming into one’s own and growing along the way with clever turns of phrase, “all your working inspiration // systematic exploration” is heady without sounding pretentious. And the chorus strips all of that away to create a universality that, like Kendrick’s anthem “Alright”, lets it be extracted from the song and become a rallying cry for the voiceless all on its own. 

Lo-fi indie pop band Beach Fossils aren’t exactly an artist that screams protest, but there are some important notes I thought made this selection work. Their most recent album and interviews from lead singer Dustin Payseur about their upcoming project have shown a genre bending willingness and a specific focus on jazz that lends itself to going against the grain, and their videos especially draw from countercultural iconography with depictions of skateboarding and graffiti. One of the founding members left to become a Buddhist monk, so these aren’t a group of people who are sellouts. And the fact that this just feels like a weird choice is an asset because it doesn’t at all feel cliche.

Perhaps the most important aspect, though, is the scale of the lyricism. It’s not too long and wordy, which I think would get in a song’s way here, but also comes with a certain melancholic spirit, with a Payseur tapping into a weight of depicting an entire generation’s trials and tribulations that captures the essence of what a protest is in just a few lines.

This is just my personal pick of course, and there’s too much music out there to have a definitive answer. Mine might change tomorrow, but for now, “Generational Synthetic” is what I’m queuing up when I head to the next rally.

-Erie

Categories
Playlists

Albums On Repeat This Fall

Glitch-edited photo of leaves. White text in the center of the photo that reads "Albums on repeat this fall"

Autumn is in full swing (although, I wish it were at least 15 degrees cooler outside), which means my rotation of albums to circle through is autumn to its core. So, let’s get straight into it and look at the albums I frequent during the fall time. Hopefully this list can give you some inspiration or remind you of an album you haven’t heard in a while.

  • “Tapestry” — Carole King (1971)
  • “Tender Buttons” — Broadcast (2005)
  • “Any Other City” — Life Without Buildings (2001)
  • “Figure 8” — Elliott Smith (2000)
  • “Lesser Matters” — The Radio Dept. (2003)
  • “The New Abnormal” — The Strokes (2020)
  • “Just As I Am”— Bill Withers (1971)
  • “Hypnic Jerks” — SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (2018)
  • “Emmerdale” — The Cardigans (1994)
  • “Painted Shut” — Hop Along (2015)
  • “songs” — Adrianne Lenker (2020)
  • “Dark In Here” — The Mountain Goats (2021)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

  • “Our Extended Play” — beabadoobee (2021)
    • Unfortunately only four songs, so it’s not an album, but it’s so, so good.
  • “Speak Now” — Taylor Swift (2010)
    • Controversial to not list “Red,” but “Speak Now” (despite having a song called “Back To December” on it) is much more fall to me. An honorable mention because this probably isn’t up the alley of most WKNC listeners, but hey, you never know.

Happy listening,

Caitlin

Categories
Festival Coverage

How Hopscotch Created a Sense of Community for Artists

Parquet Courts
Parquet Courts performing at Hopscotch

During Parquet Courts’ set at Hopscotch Festival, the bass player, Sean Yeaton, broke one of his bass strings. He didn’t have extra strings or a second base. While discussing with the band about whether he should pick up a guitar or try and play with one less bass string, Eric Johnson, the guitarist for Archers of Loaf brought out Matt Gentling, their bassists, bass for Yeaton to use. Yeaton played the rest of the set with Gentling’s bass and the show went on. This is the perfect story to show the sense of community the Hopscotch Festival created. 

The Hopscotch Festival took place over a month ago, but I still think about this moment. I was so excited to go back to festivals and be around people who were eager to see the same artists as me, and that moment reminded me why I love seeing live music. It is so delightful to see your favorite artists interacting with each other, and it’s even better when it’s happening in the city you live in. 

Large and small bands came together in Raleigh to perform to an excited crowd, for many of the people there it was probably their first shows back since the pandemic. I got to talk to some of the artists about their festival going experience and they all had nothing but nice things to say about Hopscotch. 

For Hannah Jadagu, a young indie-pop artist from New York, Hopscotch was the first festival she’s ever performed at. She had a prime spot on the City Plaza stage at 4:30, before Anjimile. 

“I was really nervous to play a festival, especially on the big stage, but I felt the performance went really well and I got more comfortable on stage as time went on,” Jadagu said. “ I was also really happy to see the crowd filling in during my set and I was able to play off of the crowd’s energy.” 

Jadagu was just as thrilled to be at the festival as the audience. She noted she was excited she was able to catch the Caroline Polachek and Flying Lotus sets. One of her current favorite artists is Caroline Polachek and she took inspiration from her confidence on stage. 

Wednesday, another act who played Hopscotch was excited to be back in Raleigh and at Hopscotch. This was their first time playing one of the main stages at Hopscotch and the lead singer, Karly Hartzman was excited to finally perform songs from her new album, Twin Plagues, for a responsive audience. 

“It was so validating to play on one of the main stages, we played a few day parties in 2019 which were great, but it was so exciting to come back and be asked to perform on a main stage,” Hartzman said. 

She was also happy to be able to play after the Pandemic at all outdoor sets because the band and audiences felt more comfortable being outside. 

“The last time we were at Hopscotch was really stressful because we were playing sets and still wanted to go see other acts, so we were running around all weekend.” Hartzman continued, “It was overwhelming because there were so many places we wanted to or had to be. This year it was a lot easier to go back and forth between the two main stages and play the next day [at Ruby Deluxe].” 

Playing her new songs for the Hopscotch crowds was also very rewarding for Hartzman. Her lyrics are so vulnerable and she was thrilled to share them with the crowds. 

“Practicing can be mind numbing because I have to put myself back in the place I was when I wrote these songs, but knowing my songs are being accepted and recognized by listeners was amazing,” Hartzman said. 

The last act I got to talk to was Archers of Loaf, who like Wednesday are also North Carolina Natives. Archers of Loaf headlined the Moore Square stage on the last day of the festival, and hundreds of people came out to see them return to Raleigh.

“When we first started as a band it was really hard to break into the scene in Raleigh, there were so many good bands and it took us a while to get our name out there,” Guitarist Eric Johnson said. “It’s so gratifying that we are now headlining a festival in Raleigh.” 

The band was pleased with the turnout and the energy from the crowd at Hopscotch. It’s nice to know that the artists enjoyed the festival as much as I did, because it makes me want to attend even more next year. Having a great music scene in Raleigh is an exciting privilege and I can’t wait to see who will come through the city next. 

Categories
Band/Artist Profile Festival Coverage

Artist interview & profile: Hannah Jadagu

Hannah Jadagu
Hannah Jadagu performing at Hopscotch

From her bedroom to the main stage at Hopscotch, Hannah Jadagu is starting to make a name for herself in the indie music scene. 

Hannah Jadagu is an indie-pop artist who now lives in New York City, but is originally from Mesquite, Texas. The 19-year-old singer only started her music career a few years ago when she was in High School. She was 16 when she first learned how to play guitar, and instantly felt connected to the instrument. She started writing songs and recording them on her iPhone and released a few online. 

Now, a few years later she is signed to Sub Pop Records and is starting to play live shows. Her first festival performance was at Hopscotch in Raleigh, and we got to share that sweet experience with her. 

As she took center stage she felt nervous about how the set would go over. She had two other people in her band, a drummer and a member who jumped around between playing guitar, bass, and samples on his computer. Overall she felt their set went really well and she was excited to play in Raleigh for the first time. 

With this show in the bag, Hannah felt ready and excited for her upcoming tours and projects. She is currently working on an album and is opening for Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing on their North American tour. She also announced that she will be opening for Ritt Momney in 2022. 

Because of Covid she wasn’t able to share her music with as many people face to face, but it gave her the opportunity to work on her music and create music videos and more content for fans. 

“I took a leave of absence from school so that I could tour and focus on my music,” Jadagu said. “It was too much to balance, and I’m so happy with my choice because now I get to have these amazing experiences like playing festivals.” 

Hannah started her musical career by putting the songs she was working on out, and spread the word through her instagram which landed her a record deal with Sub Pop. 

“It was such a surreal moment, I got a DM on instagram from a manager at Sub Pop saying they loved my music and wanted to work with me, I didn’t think it was real at first but after a few zoom calls I signed to Sub Pop and now they’re helping me put out my music,” Jadagu said. 

Jadagu takes inspiration from any music and media she is consuming at the moment and turns them into her own interpretation. 

“Usually I just start strumming my guitar and see where that takes me. I like to freestyle and record all of my ideas so I have a basis to work off of when I’m ready to put the song together. When I play something that makes me excited I hone in on that part and work around it.”

Hannah was excited that she could perform her songs to crowds again and not just for her computer in her bedroom. Many artists probably feel the same way now that shows are being set up again. 
You can listen to her new single “All my Time is Wasted” here. 

Categories
Concert Preview Festival Coverage Local Music

Preview: Chapel Hill’s Manifest Aims to Break Barriers

Promotional poster for Manifest 5
Promotional Poster for Manifest 5 in Chapel Hill from October 15-16, 2021

In my training class to become a WKNC DJ, among the many pieces of advice our then station general manager gave us was to “not just play music made by four white guys”. This was met by laughs, but that line stuck with me because of how relevant it still is. When I was a daytime DJ I tried to have sets with a strong female representation, but four or so guys still made up most of the songs aired from 10 to 11 p.m. on Thursdays. And that doesn’t even take into account the “white” part of that; many genres such as modern indie rock are overrepresented by white artists and artists of color will often have their work labeled as R&B even when that label doesn’t fit the music, which can box in both exposure and creative freedom.

Enter Manifest. This is a festival that, according to the website, is “focused on dismantling patriarchy, misogyny, and white supremacy” with a diverse lineup that draws from a wide variety of races, sexualities and gender identities. Now dismantling vast social hierarchies is a lofty goal, but they’ve definitely got the lineup down. This is a festival that has seen acts like Skylar Gudasz and Hopscotch 2021 attendee Sarah Shook, and this year the acts range from Basura who make minute-and-a-half long death metal bangers to trans experimental artist KHX05 who brings a nervy and rebellious energy to her mixtapes and remix EPs. 

Manifest bills itself as mostly a punk festival, and there are a number of punk bands making an appearance. Gown is a hardcore metallic punk band that has seven members, three of whom play the cello, while Fortezza is an doom punk band out of Asheville whose long guitar solos and verses screamed over a lone drumbeat create a chaotic and apocalyptic feel to fit their hand-drawn album covers. The artists have a distinctly local flavor too. Of the 28 acts coming to Chapel Hill this weekend, 21 are from the Triangle area, and five of them won’t have to leave their hometown to make it there. 

This is the fifth iteration of Manifest, and it’s the fifth time in these exact three venues. The festival is mostly based around Local 506, a bar and club that, when not hosting live acts, is known for having themed dance parties such as the 80s-style one that I went to this summer. This is where tickets and wristbands are picked up and where WKNC is running the merch table. When not at the Local 506, festivalgoers can head to two other locations, one of which is The Cave. This is another bar/club hybrid, iconic in Chapel Hill for its alley location and will often host rock and punk rock bands. 

Now despite having essentially grown up in downtown Chapel Hill, I’ll admit I had to look up the last venue, Rosemary Street’s The Nightlight. It’s the only one of the venues not located on Franklin Street, and its website is at time of writing a single page detailing its closures due to COVID and in the spirit of Manifest, a link to a mutual aid fund. All of these are within a quarter mile walk of each other so it should be easy to go between any of the simultaneous shows being played.

Continuity is a major theme here, and not just in the venues. Manifest 5 marks the fourth appearance of Raleigh’s Fruit Snack at the aforementioned festival, a band whose members work at multiple venues in the Triangle and whose themes of anti-capitalism, openness about sex and dislike of the police fit right in with Manifest’s mission statement. It also features a ukulele player. Meanwhile, punk act Pie Face Girls has attended every single iteration since the festival began in 2016. This in combination with its many local sponsors including Orange County Arts Commission, Chapel Hill’s own Midway Market and this radio station gives this festival a strong feeling of community that puts those goals of social change front and center.

I’m personally quite excited to cover Manifest. While I won’t be able to see every artist (The Cave being 21+ is unfortunate but understandable) there are a lot of acts I really want to see and blog about, and a lot of artists I had never heard of before and really want to get to know as part of my ongoing efforts to further connect with the local music scene here. After all, homegrown music with a message is the new punk rock. And the old one too.

-Erie

Categories
Concert Review Festival Coverage

Flying Lotus: Concert Review

Flying Lotus is an artist I first came across while working as the Underground Music Director for WKNC this Summer. I ended up loving his latest album “Yasuke” and added a bunch of his songs to the rotation, so when I found out he was performing at Hopscotch I couldn’t wait.

The Music

Throughout his set, Flying Lotus played an assortment of his more recent and his older projects. As a relatively new listener, I only recognized the tracks “Black Gold” and “Crust” which are from his latest album. Overall, his set was much more electronic than I had initially expected which was pleasant surprise. The bass was heavy, the music was loud, and the people were moshing.

The Performance

Unlike Caroline Polachek, the opener on Thursday night, Flying Lotus relied more on tech than choreography for his visuals. He stood alone behind a large DJ booth which had a transparent white tinted screen separating him and the audience. On this screen there flashed a crazy assortment of images and short videos that correlated to each song in his set. The visuals along with the heavy bass made for a pleasantly disorienting experience.



Categories
Blog Classic Album Review

Classic Album Review: “We Have the Facts and are Voting Yes” by Death Cab for Cutie

"We Have the Facts and Are Voting Yes" album cover
Death Cab for Cutie’s “We Have the Facts and Are Voting Yes” album cover

Death Cab for Cutie are synonymous with metaphorical songwriting and thought-provoking guitar work. Not thought-provoking as in so experimental you’ll think about music differently, more like sitting back and providing a canvas for the listener’s imagination to take over.

And while “Transatlanticism” and “Plans” are certified classics of the 2000s, it can be argued that their album that takes these strengths to the greatest extent is actually “We Have the Facts and are Voting Yes”, an album that came out a couple years before the band really blew up. It’s tied together conceptually with themes of breakup and modern urban life, specifically through a loosely-defined story of a hip Seattle couple and how their relationship slowly falls apart.

A defined concept album suits lead singer Ben Gibbard’s unique songwriting style perfectly. Verses are less of a defined set of lines and more of a section of a longer story arc. “Little Fury Bugs” is a winding tale of a road trip filled with uneasy friend group dynamics, while “For No Reason” makes powerful moments out of a barely raised voice. “Tracing the plot finds, skin touching skin” is an understated chorus with a lot of heart in the small vocal inflections. Meanwhile “No Joy in Mudville” reimagines a classic poem about baseball as a swan song of hipster life. 

Songs take on instrumental arcs as well as just narrative ones. “Title Track” starts with a narrow soundscape to fit the themes of weariness and cigarette filters before opening up with rich hi-hats and a strong bassline.

The narrative climax of the album, though, is the two-part epic “Company Calls” and “Company Calls Epilogue”. It goes from a rant about a relationship that is “so tired” with yells about crashing a “party line” to spiraling further into crashing an exes’ wedding, tying up the themes of the album with powerful metaphorical imagery.

All of this sounds heavy, and lyrically it is, but this is where Death Cab for Cutie’s breezy instrumentals come in. The lines that would be hard to listen to sound weightless when on top of a tight, minimal rhythm section and atmospheric guitars. All of this combines into an album that is the definition of a grower: you don’t even notice when you repeat “Title Track” for the fifth time in a row or whisper “what ghosts exist behind these attic walls” to yourself over and over.

-Erie