Grant Golden of “Carolina Grown” sat down with members of Dark Water Rising on Aug. 8. Listen back to their conversation.
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Category: Blog
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Greg and Nathan from Hopscotch Music Fest LLC stopped by the station last week to chat with me about the state of the festival, its future, the triangle community, and music in general. You can listen to the extensive interview here.
Our conversation had me thinking on some of the highlights from my experiences at past years attending the festival. Many of the most fun times I’ve had at Hopscotch or in Raleigh, or at live concerts in general have been sparked by the somewhat spontaneous nature of Hopscotch’s design. By so excellently pairing such interesting and unknown artists together with local acts or more established groups the festival creates an atmosphere that breeds discovery.
But while there are great sets at single venues at the same time the range of diversity and general quality of the festival brings always brings up conflicts and scavenger hunt style show attendance hopping.
I remember at last year’s festival I went to CAM to see Horse Lords on a completely blind suggestion from a friend. Horse Lords have been described as “polyrhythmic krautrockers” that use intonation and repeating tropes in an entrancing psychedelic rock and roll kind of way. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that could be catchy or fun but IT WAS. The live performance had multitudes of energy and on top of that I got to have a conversation with Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner in the crowd.
Its that kind of liberating feeling that any show you could walk into could be your next favorite band that has kept me coming to Hopscotch year after year and I hope you consider making some spontaneous choices this year as well.
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Artist Profile: Wild Fur
To start with the basics, Wild Fur is made up of duo Nick Jaegar (past member of Luego, The Tomahawks, Schooner, and Roman Candle) and Wylie Hunter (past member of the Cazadores) from Durham, North Carolina. However, on live shows Nick and Wylie are joined by drummer Brad Porter (Some Army, Wichita Falls) and bassist Casey Toll (Mount Moriah). Digging a little deeper into the sound that Wild Fur produces, the best way to describe it is being infectiously dreamy with numerous emotion stirring rhythms. The first time I saw Wild Fur live was actually at WKNC’s Local Band Local Beer on August 14th at Tir Na Nog Irish Pub in Downtown Raleigh. It was at this performance that I truly realized Wild Fur’s ability to make the audience hang on to every word in their songs. There is some sort of connectivity between Wild Fur and their audience that is incomparable to any other band-audience relationship. Perhaps it is their lyrics that hit home with lines like “Carolina its been getting stranger as I find myself stuck in place,” or it’s their echoing vocals that seem to blend together in perfect harmonies that leave the audience begging for more.
With lots of experience under their belts, Jaegar and Hunter know what they are doing and are setting out to show everyone their utmost capabilities as musicians and performers. The overflowing talent of Wild Fur will undoubtedly reach far beyond Durham, and it is going to be really nice to say that I saw Wild Fur take the stage first on Thursday night at Lincoln Theater for the 2014 Hopscotch Music Festival. That being said, Wild Fur goes on at 8:30 PM on Thursday night at the Lincoln Theater, being the first act to open for the final act of that evening–The War on Drugs.
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Navigating Hopscotch
Hopscotch music festival will take over downtown Raleigh and crowds of music lovers will descend upon the city streets. With a fast-paced 160 bands in just 3 days, any prepared festival goer needs transportation options to match. Navigating Raleigh’s relatively square grid-like downtown blocks is not always as straightforward as it seems, so here are some tips for choosing the transport methods to best suit your festival schedule. [Bonus feature: a handy map of festival venues to get you started!]
“I have no wheels!”
Pedestrians get a few subtle perks in Raleigh. With City Plaza as epicenter of the festival, most of Fayetteville Street will be blocked off and only available to pedestrians. Crosswalks in downtown Raleigh are timed with the car traffic, no button mashing required! Simply wait your turn, and appreciate the few crosswalks around town that give a head start to pedestrians while everyone else is stopped.
Public transit in downtown Raleigh can connect your bipedal travel. Raleigh features two free bus routes: NCSU’s Wolfprowl and CAT’s R-Line. You can use Transloc on your computer or smart phone to track the location of the bus at any time. The Wolfprowl and the R-line share a stop on Morgan Street. The stops along Wilmington Street are close to most festival venues, and the route is lined with parking decks for the multi-modal Hopscotch’ers (see “I have four wheels!” below). Both buses run until at least 2am on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights so you don’t have to miss any of the festival action.
“I have two wheels!”
Raleigh doesn’t have any truly protected bike lanes, but it has an assortment of bike-friendly sharrows painted on many roads around town. The Capital Area Greenway Trail System can connect you to the festival action, particularly the Rocky Branch or Little Rock Trails.
Especially when biking on roads in the flow of traffic with cars, wear a helmet and ensure you have a functioning white light for the front and a red light for the back of your bike. Follow all traffic laws and bike predictably for the safest ride. There are lots of bike racks within a few blocks of Fayetteville Street, even a few cleverly shaped, so bring a handsome bike lock.
“I have four wheels”
Raleigh features parking decks are well-located surrounding the main attractions and venues in town. The decks are generally free after 7pm and on weekends, but special event parking is a $7 fee. Check out the city’s ParkLink for the most up to date guides, maps, and parking information. The R-line route is lined with parking decks for the multi-modal Hopscotch’ers (see “I have no wheels!” above).
Regardless of your preferred mode of travel, happy Hopscotch’ing!
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WKNC Lounges up for awards
Our sessions with Matthew E. White and T0W3RS have both been nominated in the National Student Production Awards at CBI! We make up half the nominations in the Best Vodcast – Television category.
Huge thanks to everybody for your support of The Lounge over the last year!
It’s also never been a better time to revisit them: here’s Matthew E. White’s Big Love and T0W3RS’ The Situation.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
One of my favorite parts of Hopscotch are the surprises each year. In the past, I never expected someone like harsh noise legend Merzbow to play in a place like Raleigh, or to discover the then-relatively-unknown Oneohtrix Point Never way back in 2011, two years before he made it big as an artist/internet troll. The pleasant obscurity I didn’t see coming this year wound up being Sun Araw.
The solo project of former Magic Lantern member Cameron Stallones, Sun Araw sounds like jumping into a cyber pool of jello and floating in it. Stallones fuses elements of old-school, 60’s psychedelia and contextualizes it in the retro future.
Like a lot of people, my first exposure to Sun Araw was in the 2012 video game Hotline Miami. Developed by Jonatan Söderström (a developer most well known for creating Adult Swim games), it was a fast-paced journey through the mind of a man under mind-control drugs as he wages war on the mob in 1980’s Miami. Its eerie, lo-fi atmosphere was complimented by its psychedelic electronic soundtrack. The first thing you encounter when starting up is this start menu, set to Sun Araw’s Horse Steppin’. He sets the stage for a wicked fever dream experience.
On Saturday, September 6th, you can experience Sun Araw’s wicked fever dream yourself. He takes the stage at Slim’s for a dimly-lit, intimate performance that should unsettle you, but in a good way. I’m looking forward to having another Hopscotch memory as unique as having my bones rattled at Merzbow.
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WKNC made College Music Journal’s “Chart Discovery” list last week with the inclusion of WKNC Lounge artist Wing Dam on its weekly Radio 200 charts.
Harvest Records, beloved Asheville-based independent record store and label, will celebrate it’s 10 year anniversary with the return of multi-day music festival, Transfigurations II, a sequel to 2009’s Transfigurations I. Through these festivals, owners Mark Capon and Matt Schnable hope to reflect Harvest and the community’s tastes, as well as encourage people to discover new music.
“In all honesty, if we look back on our earliest hopes, dreams and visions of what Harvest Records could become, it would mirror what actually ended up happening,” said Harvest Records’ Mark Capon and Matt Schnable in a press release statement. “Since our college days together, the idea was consistent: Open a record shop, yes, of course…but don’t let it stop there. Create a space dedicated to the discovery of music, the exchange of ideas, a place for broader discussions about community. Book shows for artists that normally wouldn’t come to town; host art on our walls from local artists who haven’t shown much before; start a record label and release recordings of sounds that may have not otherwise been produced physically. And it all happened.”
Transfigurations II will take place August 28-30 in Harvest’s home of West Asheville. The festival will feature more than 25 bands at three different venues throughout Asheville and Marshall, NC. Lineup highlights include Ashley Olsen, The Clean, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Mount Eerie.
Tune into WKNC this week for your chance to win Saturday day passes to Transfigurations II.
Visit Harvest Records for more information and tickets.
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Old Crow Medicine Show along with special guests, Shovels & Rope, will be coming to the Red Hat Amphitheatre on August 20th. WKNC will be giving away tickets for the show until Tuesday, August 19th. All you have to do is be the correct caller when the DJ asks for it and you could win yourself a night of great music. So don’t miss this golden opportunity! All of your friends will think you are so cool once you tell them you won free tickets from WKNC. That girl/guy will be highly impressed by your resourcefulness and finally agree to go out on a date with you. Basically, these tickets will change your life.
Old Crow Medicine Show is a bluegrass/americana band from Harrisonburg Virginia. They were discovered by bluegrass legend Doc Watson while the band was performing out on the streets of Boone, North Carolina. The band brings a classic, folk rock sound to the table that warms your heart and makes ya’ feel rightcha at home in ol’e North Caka-Laka. Old Crow Medicine Show makes me think of what southern country music should sound like. Plenty of harmonica solos, lots of banjo pickin’, a big upright bass, and overall great tunes. Even if you don’t like americana music, it’s hard not to like Old Crow Medicine Show’s sound. And with songs like “Down Home Girl” and “Caroline” you can’t help but admire the musical talent behind the music. But you know what they say, “Americana sound’s best when heard live”. I think that’s an ancient chinese proverb. Maybe not. But who knows, right? What is for certain is that you won’t regret a night with Old Crow Medicine Show!
(P.S. If you’ve gone to any NC State sponsored/related event you’ve probably heard Old Crow Medicine Show’s song Wagon Wheel “heeeeeeeeey mama rock me”)
Shovels & Rope is an Americana duo from Charleston, South Carolina. Their music is filled with mellifluous vocal harmonies, palpitating drums, and dulcet acoustic guitars. A little less bluegrass than Old Crow Medicine Show but still an excellent example of southern americana rock. Check out their song Birmingham to hear a great example of my (fancily worded) description for the band.
So be on the listen for DJs giving away these tickets all week!
Good luck!
One of the great features of Hopscotch Music Fest is that it not only aims to expose the community to new music, but also a deeper range of culture. This year, to the delight of the growing design community in Raleigh, Hopscotch is introducing its own Design Festival. Kicking off a day before the music begins, the Design Festival promises an enlightening conversation about current design and its role in the future.
With its own lineup and separate wristband, the Design Fest will house a subculture of people separate from the typical nightgoers. However, the two festivals will not only have overlapping attendees, but also overlapping performers as a few of the Design Festival’s speakers are on the Hopscotch Music Festival schedule.. With worldwide renown designers, the festival is sure to be compelling and informative for designers and nondesigners alike.
The 2-day Design Festival will take place from Sept. 3rd – 4th. From 9:30am to 4pm on Wednesday, there will be speakers at the Raleigh Convention Center, CAM’s Main Gallery and Classroom, Flanders, Clearscapes, and Red Hat. Speakers include Brian Singer of Pinterest, Pierce Freelon + Apple Juice Kid co-founders of Beat Making Lab, and Doug Powell of IBM. During this period, there will be Interactive Projects and a Prototyping Festival. In addition, from 1pm – 4pm, the Raleigh Convention Center will be hosting a Hopscotch Lab featuring Elliot Montgomery’s Extrapolation Factory.
The Extrapolation Factory was a project developed by designers Chris Woebken and Elliott Montgomery to encourage people to get in the mindset of not predicting, but actively embodying design. The Extrapolation Factory features “futuring research;” it is an imagination-based studio that uses hands-on activities to further people’s understanding of how we control the future through our design. By the end of the lab, participants should have a deeper understanding on how “futuring” affects them and they’re powerful role in it.
From 4pm – 5pm there will be a Happy Hour at CAM immediately preceding Shohei Shigematsu’s seminar at the Raleigh Convention Center. Shohei Shigematsu became Director of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in 2006 and a Partner in 2008. Shigematsu has directed multiple architectural projects under OMA including the Milstein Hall (a College of Architecture extension) and the current construction of the Quebec National Beaux Arts museum and the Faena Arts Center in Miami Beach. Shigematsu has even collaborated with Kanye West on a seven-screen pavilion that was unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.
Following Shigematsu’s seminar is an In-House Design reflections panel at Red Hat. The first day’s events will end with a party at Lincoln Theatre from 8pm – 10pm.
On Thursday, speakers will be having seminars at participating venues the Raleigh Convention Center, the Stockroom, King’s Barcade, Raleigh City Museum, and Lincoln Theatre. Included in Thursday’s speakers are Annie Atkins the lead graphic designer for Wes Anderson’s film The Grand Budapest Hotel, Tristan Shone and Lee Noble. As a mechanical engineering and musician, Tristan Shone has built his career designing custom machines and speakers for his music project Author & Punisher. He has been producing his “doom-influenced” sounds for the past 10 years releasing 5 albums to date. Shone will be performing at Kings Barcade on Thursday at 11:30pm. Lee Noble runs No Kings in Los Angelos, a small-batch tape release record label. Noble plans to discuss the aesthetics in the combination of music, art, and design in relation to his label. Noble’s music is described as mysterious and elusive and he will also be playing Hopscotch Thursday at Fletcher Opera Theater at 9pm. Thursday’s events will end with a day party at the Convention Center.
Hopscotch is selling 2-Day Design Festival passes for $150 and for half price with the purchase of a VIP or 3-day music pass.
Below is a full list of speakers.
Shohei Shigematsu – Partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)
Harper Reed – Founder and CEO of Modest, Chief Technology Officer for Obama 2012 campaign
Sarah Miller Caldicott – executive with Global 500 firms including Quaker Oats/Pepsi and the Helene Curtis subsidary of Unilever, co-author of Innovate Like Edison: The Five Step System for Breakthrough Business Success
Elle Luna – Designer, painter, and writer. Creator of Bulan Project
Kai-Uwe Bergmann – Partner at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
Alexander Isley – Founder of Alexander Inc., graduate of NCSU’s College of Design and The Cooper Union School of Art
Doug Powell – Design Principal and Design Education Program Director at IBM
Annie Atkins – Lead Graphic Designer on Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel
Brian Singer – Manager on the Communication Design team at Facebook, previously worked with Apple, Adidas, Stanford Lively Arts, and Chronicle Books
Maurice Woods – Founder and Executive Director of the Inneract Project
Casey Caplowe – Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of GOOD
Cliff Bleszinski – Former Design Director at Epic Games
Sha Hwang – Designer on Healthcare.gov team, worked with The New York Times, CNN, MTV, Flickr, and Adobe
Pamela Abalu – Global Head of Design and Construction for MetLife Inc.
Mitchell Silver – Commissioner of New York City’s Dept. of Parks and Recreation
Elliot Montgomery – Co-Founder of The Extrapolation Factory
Matt Tomasulo – Chief Instigator of Walk [Your City]
Jake Levitas – Innovation Fellow in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation
Rob Cotter – Founder and CEO of Organic Transit
Katie Potochney – Creative Director at SYPartners
Jarin Tabata – Creative Director at SYPartners
Timothy Myers – Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of North Carolina Opera
Patrick Hobgood – Raleigh native who worked for the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and currently at family business Kenneth Hobgood Architects (KHA)
Tristan Shore – Musician and Engineer; playing Hopscotch Thursday at King’s Barcade under the name Author & Punisher
Apple Juice Kid & Pierce Freelon – Co-Founders of the Beat Making Lab
Lee Noble – runs No Kings record Label, performing at Hopscotch on Thursday at Fletcher Opera Theater
Heather Cook – Founder of Shind!gs
Kaitlyn Goalen – Co-Founder of Short Stack Editions
Meredith Pittman – NCSU’s College of Design Graduate working with Wild Yonder and Ellen Cassilly Architect
Garrett Grohman – Manager of A&R at Indiegogo
Merrette Moore – Founder and Managing Director of Lookout Capital
Creighton Blackwell – Vice President of Branch Networks and Community Engagement at Coastal Federal Credit Union