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DJ Highlights

Best of the Local Beat 7/20/12

This week on “The Local Beat” we are continuing to look back into the past at some of our favorite interviews ever on the program for our “Best of the Local Beat” series that is happening throughout July. This is the third Friday of the month and the interviews we are re-airing are some of my favorites.

At 5 p.m. we will listen to an interview I had with the fellas in Durham band Bombadil last November in which they stopped by to talk about their first album in two years, All That The Rain Promises. It had been a year since they had come by “The Local Beat” so we had a lot to catch up on outside of the new record. We also spent a great deal of time chatting about the album and comparing it to the previous one.

Six o’clock brings on one of my favorite interviews ever when Mandolin Orange came by on September 23, 2011 to talk about their release of a double LP: Haste Make and Hard Hearted Stranger. Andrew and Emily are two of my favorite musicians in our state and both of them shared quite a bit of insight into their art and craft.

The final hour was with Magnolia Collective, a collection of some of our finest musicians in the area. We had a wonderful conversation about the history of the group and the song creation process that they administer for each of their songs. In the latter part of the interview we touched on the trends and themes of our music scenes from 2011 in what turned out to be one of my favorite bits ever on The Local Beat.“ It is always interesting to compare our music scene from year to year. See if you can do the same yourself.

As always, the fun starts at 5 p.m. and will last until 8 p.m.! Be sure to follow the Local Beat on Twitter or Facebook and download tons of free local music on our ReverbNation page!

 

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Non-Music News

No Eye on the Triangle tonight!

Hello Everyone,

Tonight there will not be an Eye on the Triangle, unfortunately. However, we are gearing up for an excellent next show to make up for it! Fall Semester is creeping up slowly but surely, so our next show will feature Wolfpack Welcome Week stories.

Thanks,

EOT

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Concert Review

Surfer Blood’s Return to Raleigh

Surfer Blood returned to Raleigh Sunday night at a packed Kings Barcade. They came through town last July for deja FEST, playing outside Lincoln Theatre during the day. While I definitely enjoyed both shows, I think this one was much better.

This time around I think they had a stage presence that wasn’t nearly as strong as before. John Paul Pitts (lead vocals/guitar) hopped down into the crowd and meandered through to sing a few of the songs. The rest of the band looked like they were either ultimately consumed by their instrument (like drummer Tyler Schwarz) or just having a lot of fun. Overall, the band exuded a confidence and comfort I didn’t necessarily see last year. They played all my favorites and sing-a-longs as well as a couple unreleased songs. If you are a Surfer Blood fan, you’ll love it – they remain true to their sound without letting it get stale.

The crowd was another significant part of the show: stage dives, crowd surfing, broken glass, discarded limes from tequila shots, chanting and clapping. Everyone had a great time, and hopefully Surfer Blood will be back for round three soon.

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Non-Music News

EOT95 Stihl Timbersports 7/3/12

Lumberjack competition: The Stihl Timbersports Collegiate Championship is basically exactly what it sounds like; a competition to find the best lumberjack out there. This year, the twenty-twelve Stihl Timbersports Collegiate Southern Qualifier was held right here at N.C. State. Deondre’ Jones spoke with the coordinator of the event.

Fracking: Senate Bill Eight Twenty was passed late last night, when the North Carolina legislature overrode governor Beverly Perdue’s veto. The bill made fracking legal in the state of North Carolina.

Andy Griffith: On July 3rd, 2012, North Carolina lost a great son; Andy Griffith died at the age of eighty-six.

Listen to episode 95.

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Non-Music News

Insect Minute – The Arctic Woolly Bear Moth

As a kid in North Carolina, many of us grew up with the notion that banded woolly bear caterpillars could be used to predict the severity and length of the coming winter. If the band around the center of the caterpillar’s body was wide, we knew we were in for a winter full of snow days and sledding! I am sorry to report that this is, indeed, a wives’ tale. There can be a lot of color variation within one clutch of banded woolly bear caterpillar eggs and the band width typically grows with age. Disappointed? Me too.

Banded woolly bear – Photo by graftendno1

Never the less, there is a woolly bear caterpillar that does have a very interesting relationship with winter. It is called the Arctic woolly bear caterpillar. Although their names are similar and they superficially look alike, these two are very different. The banded woolly bear caterpillar is in the family Arctiidae and is common in all of North America. The arctic woolly bear is member of the family, Lymantriidae, and is found in the Arctic Circle.  This is where is gets really interesting, folks.

The banded woolly bear has two broods in the summer, the first of which pupates and emerges in the same year, the second will pupate over winter and emerge the following spring. The life cycle is very different in the Arctic. Due to the brief growing season, the caterpillar has to feed for several summers to achieve the critical body mass it needs to pupate. As the arctic woolly bear awaits the coming summers it overwinters as a caterpillar, hiding in a hibernacula, allowing the body to freeze, relying on cryoprotectants, such as antifreeze compounds, to minimize permanent tissue damage caused by temperatures nearing -60°C. When the summer returns the caterpillar thaws, reanimates and returns to feeding. This cycle can repeat up to 14 times, meaning 14 years (!) of freezing and thawing and eating, before it pupates and becomes an adult. However a 1998 study by Morewood and Dean showed that it is more common for the cycle to continue for 7 years before pupation. Still, quite impressive!

Arctic Woolly Bear from Discovery documentary, Frozen Planet

Transcript of Insect Minute 2 – Arctic Woolly Bear:

Hi this is Heather with your Insect Minute brought to you by WKNC and the NC State Insect Museum.
The Arctic circle is an unlikely place to find an insect, right? WROOONG! Insects are everywhere and have adapted cool strategies for contending with harsh conditions. The Arctic Woolly Bear Moth is native to this extreme environment. Upon emerging from its egg, the caterpillar begins to eat voraciously. As summer comes to an end it finds a rock to hunker down on and as the arctic freezes over, so does the caterpillar. When the thaw returns the following June, the caterpillar reanimates and returns to its frantic feeding schedule. The cycle is repeated 7 times, which means this moth lives as a caterpillar for 7 years, freezing and defrosting every year. It survives by producing a kind of antifreeze in its blood which protects vital areas from freezing. In the final year the caterpillar develops into an adult, mates, lays eggs and the cycle for the next generation begins.
If you’d like to learn more about the arctic woolly bear visit the museum’s website at insectmuseum.org where you also find out information about the museum and read our blog where we talk about interesting stuff going on in the world of entomology.

Want to read more?

  1. Morewood, W. Dean & Richard A. Ring (1998). “Revision of the life history of the High Arctic moth Gynaephora groenlandica (Wocke) (Lepidoptera: Lymantriidae)“. Can. J. Zool. 76 (7): 1371–1381. DOI:10.1139/cjz-76-7-1371
  2. ARCTIC WOOLLY BEAR WEBSITE (!!!) – http://www.arcticcaterpillars.org/Site/Arctic_Woolly_Bear/Arctic_Woolly_Bear.html
  3. Bennett, V.A., Lee, R. E., Jr., Nauman, J.S. and Kukal, O. (2003) Selection of overwintering microhabitats used by the arctic woollybear caterpillar, Gynaephora groenlandica. CryoLetters 24(3): 191-200.

Listen to episode two.

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DJ Highlights

Best of the Local Beat 7/13/12

This Friday, July 13 on “The Local Beat” we are continuing our “Best Of” series with three great interviews.

At 5 p.m. we are revisiting an interview from December 2011 when local hip-hop group Kooley High dropped by to talk about their newly released album “David Thompson.” Kooley High was planning a show at the Pour House in support of the album release with several other local hip-hop groups. The guys and I talked about their exodus to New York, the new album, music videos and much more.

The second hour we will re-listen to an interview from February 2012 when Jeff Shields of local act Kleptonaut stopped by to chat about one of my favorite albums from last year, “The Golden Age of Space Travel.” Jeff was an excellent guest and shared a lot of witty insight into the creation of his music. We had a blast talking about everything from his experience as a “podcast troubadour” to the naming of his instrumental songs.
Kleptonaut interview

For the final hour of the program we are just reaching back to March of this year when I was joined by one of my favorite all time local bands, Birds and Arrows. Pete and Andrea brought some guests into the station to promote an folk/hip-hop show they were putting on at White Collar Crime called “Folk What You Heard.” Millie Vaughn, Lazarus, and Corey McLemore provided some great insight into their craft and even free-styled over a ukulele beat for us. The whole hour was a lot of fun and I know you will enjoy it once again.

As always, the fun starts at 5 p.m. and will last until 8 p.m.! Be sure to follow the Local Beat on Twitter or Facebook and download tons of free local music on our ReverbNation page!

Categories
Concert Review

Mavis Staples and Andrew Bird: A Wonderfully Rainy Night at NCMA

Rhythm and blues singer Mavis Staples joined indie rocker Andrew Bird as part of the North Carolina Museum of Art’s summer concert series Tuesday night.

Mavis celebrated her 73rd birthday at the Museum Park, and one fan even brought her a bouquet of flowers as a gift. She has one of the most powerful female voice I’ve heard, filled with raw soul and confidence. There were bluesy guitar solos and impressive drumming as Mavis tried to mimic with her voice what each instrument was doing.

As a North Carolina native, I understand that summer storms are unavoidable, which usually is unfortunate when paired with summer concerts. Tuesday night it actually worked in the crowd’s favor. About mid-way through Mavis’ set, the sky opened. The crowd immediately shuffled for their ponchos and umbrellas, but there was a group of us that  rushed to the front of the stage to “take advantage of the overhang to stay dry” – in other words, we’d finally found a legit excuse to get right in front of the stage. The NCMA folks were very cool about this and didn’t try to make us move. The show instantly became more intimate. We all sat down, singing and clapping along to the songs knee-to-knee with our neighbors.

Then, Mr. Andrew Bird. Coming out on stage initially by himself with his violin, he began his show with “Why,” from his 2011 album “The Swimming Hour.” This was an absolutely beautiful intro to his show, especially with the steady rain as background noise. Seeing how the music was performed live made me appreciate him as a musician even more. He and his band used loop pedals flawlessly to switch back and forth between instruments and play multiple layers at once. Andrew rotated between violin (which was played traditionally and ukulele-style), guitar, glockenspiel and of course his famous whistling. Some of my favorites of the night included “Orpheo Looks Back,” “Eyeoneye,” “Bein’ Green,” A Nervous Tic Head Motion of the Head to the Left,“ and "Fake Palindromes.”

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Festival Coverage

Hopscotch Announces Full 2012 Schedule

July 11, Hopscotch Music Festival released its entire schedule featuring over 15 venues and 175 bands in downtown Raleigh. In light of the announcement, Adam Kincaid, host of the Local Beat, and Michael Jones sat down to discuss the schedule, band conflicts, festival expectations, and their general excitement at what the festival has to offer this year. To view the entire lineup check out it out here.

Hopscotch Schedule 2012 discussion

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DJ Highlights

Best Of The Local Beat 7/6/12

Friday, July 6’s “The Local Beat Beat” is the first in our July series of the “Best Of The Local Beat”.  Every year I take a month off from the program and allow our listeners to revisit some old interviews that we have done on the program. Every Friday evening in July 2012 we will be doing flashbacks at some of my favorite interviews. Tonight’s are examples from some of the finest:

At 5 p.m. we are going to hear an interview from April 2011 when one of my favorite groups around, Mount Moriah, dropped by to talk about the band and their debut self titled release. We spent a great deal of time talking about the formation of the band and their sound as well as the founding members, Heather McEntire and Jenks Miller, and their various other projects. Heather and Jenks are two of the nicest and sweetest people and had a great deal to share about their music and their craft.

For the second hour we are only looking back briefly to January of 2012 when Jeff Crawford visited “The Local Beat” for one evening to talk about a new album that he was releasing through his own studio, Arbor Ridge Studios. The album was a collection of hymns performed by various North Carolina musicians in support of the music department of a Durham church where Jeff is the music director. The church is the Gathering Church and the album is Hymns From The Gathering Church. Jeff and I mused about religion and music, his role in our community’s music scene and various other topics. That interview begins a little after 6 p.m.

Gathering Church on The Local Beat

At 7 p.m., the program will conclude with an interview I did a little over a year ago with Phil Cook. Phil is mostly known for his part in Megafaun, but he also has a wonderful instrumental and acoustic solo act, Phil Cook and His Feat, which many of my listeners will recognize. Our conversation leaned heavily on his newly released album at the time, Hungry Mother Blues. Phil also played several live songs in studio.

If you heard these interviews the first time I hope you enjoy them as much as your did before. If these are new conversations to your ears I hope you appreciate them as much as I.

As always, the fun starts at 5 p.m. and will last until 8 p.m.! Be sure to follow the Local Beat on Twitter or Facebook and download tons of free local music on our ReverbNation page!

Categories
Non-Music News

Eye on the Triangle with Interesting Stuff Tonight!

Hey Everyone,

It’s Tuesday, July the third, which means that we’ve got a show tonight! Our first one will cover an interesting and strangely popular sport, Lumberjacking, also known as Timbersports. Fracking is an increasingly controversial method of extracting natural gas which is now legal in our state. Our second story will provide more detail about this. Lastly, we tell about the late, iconic Andy Griffith. Tune in everyone!

Thanks,

EOT