Categories
Festival Coverage

A first timer’s incredible mushy Post-Scotch review

I had a very bad feeling about Hopscotch in the weeks leading up to the event. After months of anticipation, planning, pressuring my friends into buying wristbands, it was almost here, and I was scared. Not of losing my friends every night, having my phone die before 10pm the first night, walking from Fletcher Opera House to Slim’s in the pouring rain, or getting lost in a parking deck for what felt like half an hour; I was scared of the weekend not living up to my high expectations. I had built up the festival so much that I couldn’t shake this feeling that I would walk away from the event disappointed. I had never been to a music festival before and, although everyone who had been to Hopscotch in the past told me about the great time they had, I couldn’t imagine it.

I can say with confidence, however, that Hopscotch was one of the best weekends of my life.

I could list all the amazing artists I saw – day parties included – but those obviously change every year. There are things that won’t change though. The connection you feel with everyone around you, knowing you’re all there on the same mission. The strange comfort you find in the overall chaos of the operation. The forgotten, perfected schedules and sudden urges to be spontaneous. The shows you never thought you’d end up at, which turn out the be the best of the night. The intimate conversations you’ll have with people you’ll never see again.

Hopscotch had me dancing until 2 am every night, almost losing my life in a few moshpits, and falling in love in one crazy, enigmatic weekend and I absolutely cannot wait for next year.

My wristband is starting to get pretty gross, but I don’t have the heart to cut it off just yet.

Categories
Festival Coverage

PostScotch: Three (Metal) Bands to Peep

Hopscotch has came and went leaving in it’s wake a mass face-melted people struggling to readjust to the wares of every day life. With three days of non-stop partying and an unending stream of music, it’s easy for some bands to fall through the cracks. One of my goals this year was to find some new metal bands to keep an eye on this year, and boy howdy did I find some. Here are a few that I think deserve some attention.

SubRosa

SubRosa is a sludge/doom band out of SLC. If I had to describe this band in a single word, it would be haunting. Their slow, drudging sound reverberates with the two violins in the band that create what could be the soundtrack of an actual ghost house. Rebecca Vernon’s vocals have a tension and ferocity to them all while sounding somewhat dissonant against the sludging assault behind her. This band was the biggest surprise for me of all of Hopscotch, I highly back them.

Listen: “The Usher” from “More Constant Than the Gods”

FFO: Electric Wizard, Thou, Sunn 0)))

Artificial Brain

Artificial Brain are a technical death metal band from Long Island. Artificial Brain are a mega-aggressive, super technical, time signature changing buncha dudes. Along with the typical tech death flair, Will’s deep, guttural vocals really impressed me. The tech death sound can be difficult to pull off accurately live, but these guys did a solid job.

Listen: “Absorbing Black Ignition” from “Labyrinth Constellation”

FFO: Gorguts, The Faceless, Decapitated 

Witch Mountain

Witch Mountain is a doom metal band from Portland. Now most people hip to the doom metal scene are aware of this band, but I want to keep an eye on them for a different reason. Uta, the lead vocalist, recently announced that she will be leaving the band, meaning that Hopscotch was one of her last shows, making it quite a special show. I’ve always thought that this band sounded like driving down a back road in a wooded, mountainous area at 2 in the morning with the windows down, just thinking about where everything in your life has led you to. Granted, that isn’t the main theme of their music, but that’s how it has always resonated with me.

Listen: “Can’t Settle” from “Mobile of Angels”

FFO: Dark Castle, Sleep, Cough

~Slaughterhome

Categories
Local Music Music News and Interviews

Phian interviewed Young Cardinals last Thursday before they played Local Band Local Beer at Tir Na Nog Irish Pub in Raleigh.

You can hear four of their songs during this interview: All You Others; Head I’m Not Home; Nothing Ever Happened, Not Even This; and A Dozen Places.

Check out the Young Cardinals on their website, like them on Facebook and hear more of their music on Bandcamp.

Listen here.

Categories
Music News and Interviews

Giveaways of the Week: September 22nd – 28th

9/22: Danava w/ MAKE, Solar Halos @ Back Room

9/23: Senses Fail w/ No Bragging Rights, The Wind @ Cat’s Cradle

9/24: Tennis w/ Pure Bathing Culture @ Cat’s Cradle

9/24: Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds w/ Wailin’ Storms @ Pinhook

9/24: Shonen Knife w/ Pipe @ Pinhook

9/25: Yuna @ King’s Barcade

9/27: The Connells w/ The Backsliders, Chris Hendricks @ Raleigh Little Theater

Categories
Non-Music News

WKNC//Schoolkids Records MUSIC MOVIE NIGHT

Were you worried your Wednesday night wasn’t going to have enough musical inspiration? Well, don’t fret because WKNC and Schoolkids Records have partnered up to bring you the first ever MUSIC MOVIE NIGHT, a brand new monthly series of music documentary and movie screenings at Schoolkids Records in Mission Valley! This Wednesday at 7pm, we’re kickin’ it off with Gandulf Hennig’s “Fallen Angel: Gram Parsons.”

“As the founder of the Flying Burrito Brothers, a member of the hit-making, legendary Byrds, an important influence on the Rolling Stones and the man who catapulted Emmylou Harris to fame, Gram Parsons made music history in only a few years…Friends, contemporaries and devotees of Gram Parsons talk about the importance of his work and the bizarre circumstances of his early death. Rare footage of his performances shows why Gram Parsons has become a legend.”

This event is free and open to the community!

Schoolkids Records will have beer available on tap:
Bells Two Hearted Ale
Long Rider Sweet Josie
Sweetwater 420 
Shiner Bock
Dogfish Head Punkin Ale
Big Boss Harvest Time
And over 8 more cans/bottles of various craft beers and cider!

WKNC will have freebies and merchandise available!

Join the Facebook event page for updates!

Parking is available in the Mission Valley parking lot.  Come hang out with us on Wednesday!  We’ll see you there!

Categories
Music News and Interviews

PJ Sykes of Hoax Hunters swung by the Hopscotch live broadcast table to talk a bit about balancing being in a rock band with being a rock photographer, the Richmond scene, and defending the architectural quality of his favorite building in Richmond. The band rocked the Negative Fun Day Party at Legends later that week.

Listen here.

Categories
Music News and Interviews

The background behind Father/Daughter Records is literally all in the name of the company; a father and daughter who joined forces to contribute to the greater good that is the music industry.

Being out of San Francisco, what brought Father/Daughter Records to the Hopscotch Music Festival is their signed bands that played at the festival this year: Mutual Benefit (Played at Vintage 21) & Gems (Played at CAM).

Jessie (the daughter in Father/Daughter Records) was nice enough to sit down with us for a little bit to give us some insight as to what she does and how she really appreciates what the Raleigh/Triangle is doing for the music scene. 

Listen here.

Categories
Concert Review

Hiss Golden Messenger at Cat’s Cradle 9/13/14

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to see Hiss Golden Messenger, whose latest album Lateness of Dancers is perhaps one of my favorite albums of 2014. 

Opening the show was Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, who I saw perform seven days prior at Hopscotch to an attentive audience at Fletcher Theatre. Opening a cappella with “Maria’s Gone,” a song made famous by Jean Ritchie, Sauser-Monnig had the audience at full attention like a mountain storyteller telling tales of bygone days.  One of my favorite tunes she played at Hopscotch also made the Cat’s Cradle setlist, Eddy Arnold’s “Cattle Call,” a song about driving the western ranges.  Her quiet, folksy rendition could put you out in the old west as much as Arnold’s original.

The second opener was a Philly folk-rock band, Strand of Oaks, who I had heard of on the radio back home in NJ, but hadn’t delved too much into their music until seeing their show.  The project of singer-songwriter, Timothy Showalter, there was plenty of guitar shredding and drum breaks to be had, which took the audience from captivated listeners to really active participants, with people in the crowd dancing and head bobbing from the front to the back of the venue. 

The two openers really got the crowd pumped for Hiss Golden Messenger’s homecoming concert.  When M.C. Taylor and his band started, they had the whole crowd moving from the gate with “Red Rose Nantahala” and moved right into “Saturday’s Song” from Lateness of Dancers.  Towards the middle of the set, Sauser-Monnig came out to join in with “Day O Day,” along with a number of other tunes from the latest album.  The whole band, consisting of Scott Hirsch on bass, Matt McCaughan on drums, William Tyler on guitar, Terry Lonergan on sax and guitar, and Phil Cook on keys, guitar, and banjo, put on an awesome show as they played though songs from Hiss Golden Messenger’s different albums.  Phil Cook played a stellar, Duane Allman-esque, slide guitar solo on “Lucia” to wrap things up, at least before the encore.They came back out and finished with two songs, the final being a hard rocking, sax heavy rendition of  “Call Him Daylight”, quite different then the acoustic rendition I was familiar with from WKNC’s Lounge session

From what I had heard of Hiss Golden Messenger’s shows in the past, they are never to be missed and always excellent, and I can finally confirm those words are indeed the truth.

-DJ CJ

Categories
Music News and Interviews

Hailing from Winston-Salem, NC, Judy Barnes is a musical group with a unique approach to their artistry. Like any true opera-inspired rock and roll band, all members of the group bring their own musical talents and experiences to create captivating tracks. Since 2000, Jodi Burns (vocals, piano) has been creating and exploring concepts that now constitute the repertory of Judy Barnes today. Expect rich harmonies, pulsating instrumentals, and angelic vocals composed in pure symphonic drama.

Jodi Burns and Tim Nolan joined me at Hopscotch Music Festival during WKNC’s live stream from Wristband City to talk about the journey of Judy Barnes and their self-described live performances full of “sad songs with jokes in between.”

Listen here.

Categories
Music News and Interviews

Karl Kuehn, known across the N.C. music scene as front man/drummer of Museum Mouth and “almost rapper” OK McQueen, recently released new material under his new project, Family Bike. The duo stopped by Wristband City for a quick interview on the eve of their debut show at the Negative Fun Records Day Party.

Listen here.