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Concert Preview Local Music

Last night’s LBLB photos, and July 8…in your face!

Last night’s Local Beer Local Band photos, taken by WKNC photographer Katie Hill

A tin djinn

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Static Minds

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

WKNC and Tir Na Nog are proud to present KOOLEY HIGH and KING MEZ at Local Beer Local Band Night on July 8!

KOOLEY HIGH

Kooley High has always been a favorite for the Triangle’s music-going crowd.  They blew up the courtyard with their high-energy performance behind Talley Student Center for one of our Friday’s on the Lawn series last fall. Our best turnout for the whole FOTL music series.
“Kooley High combines traditional hip-hop and R&B with a modern freestyle that traverses effortlessly between not only genres, but also generations. The result is a three-dimensional concoction that envelops listeners in a sound that is as smooth as The Fugees and Common, as passionate as Mary J. Blige, and as intelligent as Hieroglyphics.” —URB Magazine

KING MEZ

King Mez and Commissioner Gordon make up the next big BIG name in underground Hip-Hop.  You might as well see them now before the tickets to their shows cost you half your paycheck.

Eric Tullis, writer for the Independent, describes King Mez’s performance as “the veteran work ethic of an old soul with youthful enthusiasm. He bounces around as if permanently affixed to a pogo stick, cheering on Commissioner Gordon as he works in some of his new beats from his drum machine.”

The show is FREE, ages 21+. Starts at 10 p.m. Tir Na Nog has a wide selection of local brew specials from Big Boss, Aviator, LoneRider, French Broad, Foothills, and more!

Come down to Local Beer Local Band on July 8 to see Raleigh’s—and now Brooklyn’s—premier hip-hop group, KOOLEY HIGH, and the up-and-coming KING MEZ!

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Concert Preview

Neko Case headed to NC Museum of Art

It looks like Neko Case will be bringing her brand of country-rock mixed with a mind-blowingly good voice to the Joseph M. Byron, Jr. Theater at the North Carolina Museum of Art later this summer. The show will take place Thursday, August 19 at 8 p.m. with doors at 7 and local orchestral-folk group Lost In The Trees opening. Tickets for the show are available here and you can check out the remaining summer concerts on the Museum’s schedule here.

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Music News and Interviews

Get ready, get set, call and win!

Get ready, get set, call and win CDs and other merch from your favorite artists! DJs will be giving away the goodies below and all you have to do is be the correct caller when the DJ asks for it.

Here’s what we have:

LCD Soundsystem CD – This Is Happening

First Aid Kit CD The Big Black & The Blue and XL First Aid Kit T-shirt

SIA CD – We Are Born

Casiokids CD Topp Stemning Pa Lokal Bar and Poster

Casiokids Poster

Foals CD – Total Life Forever (2)

Hooray For Earth CD – Momo

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Local Music

Local bands read: Sound Around launches today!

In case the Cheerwine flavored Krispey Kreme donut didn’t quite do it for you, the next best product launch this week has to be iPhone app Sound Around, which hit the market today.  Sound Around is a brand new iPhone app aimed at local and national artists and made by co-founders and brothers Scott and Steven Klein of NC State cred right here in the Triangle.

Sound Around is an easy-to-use app creator for bands that lets musicians and groups create customizable apps which their fans can download for free.  Twitter updates, push notifications, concert calendars, music streaming, and more are right at everyone’s fingertips.  For more information, check out this short video below:

Sound Around – Launch from Sound Around on Vimeo.

Local artists River City Ransom, I Was Totally Destroying It, Valient Thorr, Rome Is Dead, and American Aquarium have been doing test trials on the app for a couple of months now, and The Separate are set to release it’s Sound Around app this evening.  Ben Pritchett of RCR had this to say about their experience so far:

“The Sound Around app is an exceptional service. After talking with the Sound Around creators, I could tell they were all about getting the maximum amount of content to their customers. And they’ve done a great job of providing my band the tools to put as much content out to our fans as we want. Content is available instantaneously after uploading, giving Sound Around an “organic” feeling. The Sound Around app is extremely intuitive to use, so it only took minutes before a good amount of our band’s content was available. And even with being this intuitive, it still manages to create a level of customization so I feel my band’s app is different from any other band’s app that will be found on the App Store.”

Scott and Steve are both coming on the Local Beat this Friday, July 2 at 6pm to chat about the new application.  Be on the listen and you could win a free three-month trial!  Screenshots below:

Unfortunately there is currently not an Android version of the app but that is planned for a release in a couple months.

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Local Music

Local Beat preview 7/2/10

Tomorrow on the Local Beat will be our second live show of the summer and features some fine guests.

Band email
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The first hour of the program might be almost entirely live music as we are going to pack the studio with Chapel Hill experimental band Boat Burning. They plan on bringing in quite the arrangement of equipment and informed me they will be jamming to several different songs in upwards of 10 min each! According to their Myspace page:

“Boat Burning is an experiment in live music composition using amplified guitars and chance. Each performance is unique, as there are no predefined pieces: all compositions are created live.”

I have never had a group in quite like this, so it should make for an interesting first hour.  Also, feel free to listen to their recorded material with the widget on the left for what you might experience tomorrow.

The second hour of the show will be a little more toned down; Steve and Scott of Sound Around will be coming in to chat about their brand new iPhone application and discuss the future of phone technology with regards to music and the interactions between bands and their fans through this new medium. In case you are unaware of what Sound Around is, be sure to read my blog post about the product here.

Last, but certainly not the least, is a special treat. A couple members of Chatham County Line will be coming by to promote their new album Wildwood, their upcoming shows in the area, and I may even let them guest DJ some of their personal favorite local artists!

All of this is happening tomorrow night from 5 p.m.-8 p.m. on 88.1 WKNC. Don’t forget, you can always follow the Local Beat on Twitter, ReverbNation, and Facebook!

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Concert Review

Caught on camera: A bluegrass surprise at a corporate dinner

I’m a photography intern at Advanced Energy, and this past Tuesday night was our annual Board of Directors dinner. It was a beautiful event held at NC State’s Dorothy and Roy Park Alumni Center on Centennial Campus. The dining room looked like it could also be used as a ballroom or even to inaugurate the next president. There were sparkling chandeliers, most likely bigger than the average car, ceiling-high windows, and an elegant fireplace.

Needless to say, I was incredibly nervous to be the 20-year-old intern who has been with the company for less than a month, and I would be mingling with expensive men and honored guests, among them a member of our state senate. I did that female thing—you know, with the skirt and the make-up and the cute shoes—I put on my best adult-pleasing smile, and I walked in with my Van Gogh umbrella and awkward camera bag.

After I got over my adolescent fear of adults, creeped on the guests with my 200mm zoom lens, and ate some delicious carrot cake, the night turned out to be quite enjoyable, and much less scary than my dramatic imagination anticipated. But the real treat at the end of the evening was the beautiful bluegrass music from the Durham duo, The Jaybirds

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Made up of Jamie, the male singer and acoustic guitar player, and Susie, female singer and fiddle/electric bass player, their soulful yet upbeat melodies wonderfully filled the enormous hall and immediately had me enchanted. While many of the adults continued with their small talk, I was completely enamored, and I knew I had to spread the word about their incredible talent. For us they played bluegrass and covered the oldie but goodie, “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, but they said they also played rock and blues if the crowd so demanded. If you’re an Americana fan, think of the beautiful harmonies of the Small Ponds mixed with the cajun flavor of Langhorne Slim with the delicate soul of Meklit Hadero. If you don’t believe me, check out their Myspace page, or visit them on Facebook, even like them! They only have two demos to listen to, but those two songs are more than enough to showcase their raw talent and rare synchronicity.

Photography taken by WKNC photographer Katie Hill

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Concert Review

Dutchess and the Duke, Dodos, and New Pornographers Rock Memorial HallFriday, July 25

Despite the dearth of good things on UNC’s campus, Memorial Hall put on a spectacular show Friday, June 25. The Dutchess and the Duke and Dodos opened for the super group New Pornographers in a jaw-dropping concert.

The Dutchess and the Duke were joined by another member due to an accident with a food processor leaving the lead guitarist wounded. They played a set of strong folk rock with heavy vocals and light percussion.

I had been told that Dodos do not put on a good live show, but after their performance Friday, I beg to differ. These three guys—Meric Long, Logan Kroeber, and Keaton Snyder—played a percussion-filled set of their high-energy songs mainly off albums Visitor and Time to Die. They were obviously quite tired from traveling on tour for the past two weeks, for their between-song banter was admittedly lackluster, but, luckily, this did not carry over to their music.  Fellow DJ Sarah-nade enjoyed the vibraphone, which we found added a deeper sound to the music.

I don’t need to tell you how amazing the New Pornographers are. You’re probably singing your favorite New Pornographers’ song in your head right now (mine is Myriad Harbour). The acoustics in Memorial Hall worked perfectly with the sound emanating from A.C. Newman’s guitar, Neko Case and Kathryn Calder’s beautiful voices, and all musicians making up this Canadian super group. As we listened, I pictured colorful threads of sound coming together to form one beautiful tapestry. They played a great set, starting off with “Sing Me Spanish Techno” and kept the energy high with “Myriad Harbor” and songs off their new album, Together, like “Your Hands” and “Crash Years.” They played songs off almost all of their five albums.

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Weekly Charts

6/21 RPM ablums for WKNC’s Daytime Music

Artist Album Label
#1 TAME IMPALA Innerspeaker Modular
#2 GRAND LAKE Blood Sea Dream Hippies are Dead
#3 CASIOKIDS Topp Stemning Pa Lokal Bar Polyvinyl
#4 LIGHT POLLUTION Apparitions Car Park
#5 VILLAGERS Becoming a Jackal Domino
#6 PONTIAK Living
#7 PEGGY SUE Fossils and Other Phantoms Yep Roc
#8 PETER WOLF CRIER Inter-Be Jagjaguwar
#9 WILD MOCCASINS Skin Collision Past self-released
#10 SLEIGH BELLS Treats Mom and Pop
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Non-Music News

EOT33 Alternate Options for Graduates 6/23/10

EOT host Saja Hindi runs down the latest news, followed by From the Sidelines with Tyler Everett. Our VIP segment was a rebroadcast of our Feb. 15, 2010 live in-studio interview with Teach for America on-campus student coordinator Joe Wright and future Teach for America teacher and WKNC general manager Mike Alston, N.C. State Peace Corps Recruiter Marques Anderson, and senior in graphic design Ana Andruzzi. Wright and Anderson discussed the organizations they represent and the benefits students can take from joining these service corps. Andruzzi talked about her decision to teach in Prague after graduation through Teaching English as a Foreign Language and what she hoped to get out of it.

In community canvas, Saja talks with photographer Rob Fisher about his black and white photography exhibit for First Friday at Vintage 21. Hear This previews the Friends of the Brussels Chamber Orchestra’s Cross Currents Festival. Finally, Alison Harman chats with Wolfpacker of the Week Laura Maruzzella,  senior in art and design.

Listen to episode 33.

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Local Music

Local Musical Chairs Compilation

If 2009 was the year of Hear Here, then 2010 could very well be the year of Musical Chairs.  Carrboro based recording studio Nightsound Studios is releasing a compilation album in a similar vein that Flying Tiger Sound pulled off at this same time last year.  The project is to be titled The Musical Chairs Compilation.  The kicker is that the bands are covering other local bands and have to choose the band they are covering at random.  The compilation is being released for free with all donations going to the production of the free CDs and a local concert, and all concert proceeds will benefit a charity. You can read more about it here.

Bands on the project include:
Birds and Arrows
Butterflies
Erie Choir
I Was Totally Destroying It
Lizzy Ross Band
Luego
New Town Drunks
North Elementary
Pneurotics
Puritan Rodeo
Soft Company
Swaso
Wylie Hunter and the Cazadores and Pecosa

IWTDI has already announced that they are covering a North Elementary track while Puritan Rodeo is covering one of their’s.  I will post more information as I know it.