Porcelain Raft stopped by the WKNC studios to talk with the Kenosha Kid. Listen to their conversation here, and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on any of our great artist interviews.
Category: Blog
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Rock & Shop Market: Nov. 30, 2013
On Saturday, November 30, 2013 from 11am-5pm The Rock & Shop Market will take place at the Durham Armory. The Rock & Shop Market is a one-of-a-kind shopping experience; an indoor fashion, art & music flea market featuring emerging, independent local and national designers selling their wares plus live music by local performers.
The local market was created in 2004 to help support and celebrate the burgeoning indie arts scene of professional designers, artists, and musicians in the Triangle and beyond.
Bands and DJs will include Old Quarter, Prypyat, See Gulls, and DJ E Main. There will be 75 designers including Fleet Co., Freaker USA, Oak City Collective, Lauren Amos Designs, and much more! Food trucks will also be there including Gussys, KoKyu BBQ, Will & Pops, Pie Pushers & Chirba Chirba.
The schedule is as follows:
11:00am – Market opens
11:00 – 12:00 DJ E Main
12:00 – 1:00 Prypyat
1:00 – 2:00 DJ E Main
2:00 – 3:00 See Gulls
3:00 – 4:00 DJ E Main
4:00 – 5:00 Old Quarter
When it comes to describing Raleigh’s experimental punk outfit Whatever Brains, quite a few things come to mind. The band dabbles into plenty of unfamiliar territories for a band that most would pigeonhole into the “punk” category, one the band doesn’t even sound too privy to. Rather, they see themselves firmly within the realm of modern electronic music, morphing together elements from aggressive rock like punk and garage while melding in elements of psych-rock to create a caustic conglomeration of sounds. For our November Artist of the Month feature I sat down with Whatever Brains to talk a bit about the music that inspires them, their opinions on the North Carolina punk scene, and what we can expect from the band in the future.
What resulted was a spastic interview that covered everything from the band’s origins with local music to their favorite cereal and youtube videos. The conversation is a bit indicative of what you can expect from the band’s music, regardless of how the direction you’re taking with it you know that you’re in for something that’s entertaining. While Whatever Brains’ past three untitled full-lengths have displayed a gradual progression from spastic punk stand-outs to electronically leaning front-runners, the band’s humility continually shines through. Whether you’re looking to find out about the band’s upcoming release, slated to be a “rock opera” split-single, or to hear about what they’re listening to in their free time, our Local Artist of the Month feature pinpoints what makes Whatever Brains tick.
Vocalist Rich Ivey delves into his songwriting process and the importance of lyrics while one of the band’s numerous keyboardists William Evans tackles the topics of contemporary influences. For the next forty minutes you can immerse yourself in our off-kilt conversations about the past, present and future of one of the region’s most underrated acts, Whatever Brains.
Although our state is best known for our vibrant and ever-expanding indie rock scene, there’s plenty of gems that are hidden throughout the state that display the sheer depth of our musical talent. Acts like Songs of Water are the perfect display of this scene’s breadth, they’re an immensely talented group of musicians with a wide array of influences that funnel out to produce an all-encompassing brand of world-inspired folk music. It’s hard to peg down this band’s genre, as Stephen Roach proclaims the band has heard everything from “post-traditional folk” to cinematic world music.
Whatever you want to call it, it’s damn good. Last week I was joined by several members of this massive seven-person crew to chat a bit about how so many voices can come together to create such a rich and seamless sound. Roach comments on how the band pulls their influences from a variety of regions, one minute you’ll hear traditional West African rhythms bleeding through and on the next track you’ll hear some Russian-inspired folk musings.
Together the band of multi-instrumentalists play on a huge array of instruments, their latest full length The Sea Has Spoken featured over thirty instruments. During our conversation I spoke with the band about just how one goes about learning such a wide variety of instruments, what some of the most unique and region-specific instruments are that they’ve found, and how they go about morphing these songs from studio works to live performances.
Check out our full conversation to find out about the intricacies that go into working with such a large band and the work that’s gone into their forthcoming full length album.
Categories
Top Ten Afterhours Albums for 11/18
1 BREAK SCIENCE “Seven Bridges” (Pretty Lights Music)
2 MACHINEDRUM ”Vapor City” (Ninja Tune)
3 SLOW MAGIC ”Triangle” (LebensStrasse)
4 VARIOUS ARTISTS ”Verve Remixed: The First Ladies” (Verve)
5 IKONIKA ”Aerotropolis” (Hyperdub)
6 Dameron ”Bronx Showdown” (Self-Release) <- LOCAL
7 Pretty Lights ”Color Map of the Sun” (8 Minutes 20 Seconds)
8 ULTRAISTA ”Ultraista: Remixes” (Temporary Residence)
9 BOTANY ”Lava Diviner (Truestory)” (Western Vinyl)
10 MINDELIXIR ”Lunology” (Outside) <- LOCAL
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New Daytime Music
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – The Speed of Things
This is another great release from the electro-indie-pop outfit. They’ve got that whole indie-nostalgia-feely-thingy down really well, all with some pretty engaging beats.
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Cults – Static
This is a high profile release. Psychedelic, shimmery, female vocals, etc. pop, you know the drill by now. Very heavy Kevin Parker vibes here.
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I absolutely love this album. It’s exactly what indie rock is supposed to be: cool, unpretentious, easy, sincere.
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Yip Deceiver – Medallius
Two guys from Of Montreal’s analog synth pop side project. Great vibe, without a hint of irony.
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This girl is really popular in Brazil. She blends French pop, Americana, and Brazilian rhythms into an extremely unique style. Very exceptional.
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Categories
Carolina Grown Preview: Nov. 25
While most episodes of Carolina Grown follow a loosely based theme, I’m incredibly excited to announce that this week’s installment is entirely based around our local jazz scene. While I try to highlight each area of our state’s musical talents fairly equally, it’s hard to do when we cover such a wide array of influences. Thus, when I heard that Art of Cool would be announcing their lineup on the evening of November 15, I made sure that I could get them in as quickly after that as possible to talk about the state of our region’s jazz scene. So this Friday I’ll be joined by one of the first acts to pique my interest in local jazz, Peter Lamb and the Wolves and the organizers from one of the projects that is single-handedly responsible for spearheading the jazz revival in the Triangle.
From 5-6 I’ll be joined by Peter Lamb from Peter Lamb and the Wolves. Peter Lamb gained notoriety throughout the area whilst playing tenor sax for the widely known Countdown Quartet, but after they disbanded he wasted no time in gathering up a slew of talented musicians to form a brand new project. Since 2008 Peter Lamb and the Wolves have been bringing a reinvigorated style of traditional New Orleans-style jazz to both old and new fans of jazz music. Beginning at an inaugural ball at Humble Pie for Obama’s 2008 victory, the band has swiftly risen through the ranks thanks to their seemingly endless pool of talent, gaining countless followers along the way. Their most recent full length Humble Pie, was funded entirely through Kickstarter, a campaign that was so successful that they were able to record another full album from the donations. I’ll be debuting a new track from the second album that resulted from this project, thus far only titled The Bootlegs, featuring Maceo Parker a legendary saxophonist from James Brown’s backing band and the iconic Parliament.
From 6-7 I’ll be joined by trumpeter Al Strong (who coincidentally is a member of Peter Lamb and the Wolves) and Cicely Mitchell, the two folks responsible for the Art of Cool Project. For the past few years this non-profit has been helping to increase the local awareness of our vibrant community of jazz musicians and lovers. While they’ve been best known for putting on showcases at art galleries throughout the Triangle, their public awareness was also raised highly due to a successful Kickstarter campaign, but this one helped fund a massive jazz festival that will be taking place in Durham this April. Last Friday they announced a dazzling lineup for the festival that includes Maceo Parker, the Robert Glasper Experiment, Thundercat, Cody ChesnuTT and tons of other internationally acclaimed artists.
The Art of Cool is simultaneously highlighting the immensely talented local jazz musicians while bringing in some of the world’s most revered acts, resulting in a world-class jazz festival that the Triangle can call home. The state has always had strong ties to jazz, but The Art of Cool is helping to strengthen those ties once more. I’ll chat with Al and Cicely about how the project came together, the ins and outs of coordinating a festival of this caliber, and some of the exciting things to come as we lead up to this incredible festival.
Categories
New Daytime Music
Minimalist psych rock like before, only this release isn’t nearly as good as their earlier stuff.
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Garage rock with a stiff pop-punk bend. Good hooks, great energy. Very solid album, if not all that distinct.
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Silly name for a silly album. Garage band plays bubblegum pop. It’s certainly unique, I’ll give it that.
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Impeccably produced, upbeat pop a la Jason Mraz. If you’re the type to exhort things as “adorable,” you’re probably going to love this.
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This guy uses classic rock & roll tropes spiced up with Lennon-esque screamy stuff and a super badass sax squealing solos Ornette Coleman style. Cool stuff.
The Redress Raleigh 2013 Fall Fashion Expo is this weekend. Michaela has more.
This week we introduce a new segment called Poet’s Corner, highlighting poetic talent right here at NC State. Join Selma and our guest poet for the first installment.
The Women’s Center at NC State is hosting the Silent Witness Project, which is a memorial to victims of domestic violence. To maximize awareness, the memorial will be placed in different areas around campus during the course of this school year. This week, Sydney sat down with Otis McGresham to find out more.
Yesterday, a federal grand jury in Raleigh indicted a Cary man on charges of attempting to aid a terrorist group. Andrew has the story.
For the past few years, budget cuts have been affecting almost everyone’s lives. Here’s Michaela with more on NC State’s budget cuts.
Listen to all this, plus national and international news from Andrew and Sydney, weather with meteorologist Katie Costa, Ben with sports, and a community calendar.
Nick Savage and Andrew Eichen bring you another edition of “Eye on the Triangle,” live each Tuesday at 7 p.m. on WKNC 88.1 FM and wknc.org/listen and available as a downloadable podcast.
Photo Source: Soleil Konkel
I’ve made few attempts at hiding my love for Gross Ghost. This pop heavy indie rock crew has been making moves around the Triangle for years now, but with the release of Public Housing they’ve begun to reap the benefits of their hard work. On Nov. 1 I was joined by Mike Dillon, the songwriter and vocalist for Gross Ghost to chat about the evolution of the band and the writing process that went on for this new record. While their debut full-length Brer Rabbit displayed much of Gross Ghost’s fundamentals, Public Housing delves into a bit deeper territory for the band. Brer Rabbit on its surface highlighted much of the band’s formative years, but Public Housing, as Dillon says, displays a much more relevant side of the band’s life now.
Throughout the hour Mike spun a slew of his favorite local tunes, which we sadly can’t share with you guys, but we do talk a bit about how he came to know and love the North Carolina music scene. Mike and I chatted a lot about how Gross Ghost has come to solidify their lineup, the process that goes into translating their live energy into studio energy, and who we need to be looking out for in the local scene. Without giving too much away, Dillon gives a fantastic peek into the machinations of Gross Ghost’s songwriting process and how the band comes together to create a cohesive vision that encapsulated every member’s creative voice.
Fans of this swiftly rising local act will have quite a bit to indulge in with this recent conversation, as I for one loved to hear about the origins and future plans for one of my favorite local acts.
Check out our full conversation.