Categories
Non-Music News

WKNC Transmitter Maintenance Noon-4pm

Our trusty team of engineers is once again working to tame our renegade transmitter. We will be experiencing signal outages from now until the baseball game begins at 4 p.m. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Categories
Music News and Interviews

February 23rd – Feb 27th Ticket Giveaways!

Tis that time again listeners where your devoted hours to WKNC pays off (Or you might possibly just get lucky!)

Tune in this week to score chances to the following shows:

Pico vs. Island Treesplaying @ Cats Cradle on Feb. 26th

*See blog for more details about their in-studio performance this Friday!



Abbey Road Live playing @ LincolnTheatre on Feb. 27th 

 

Railroad Earth playing @ Cats Cradle on Feb. 27th 


Tim Barry playing @ CatsCradle on Feb. 28th

Categories
Music News and Interviews

Ben Folds & Miniature Tigers Ticket Giveaways! (Feb 23rd-25th)

North Carolina’s own singer-songwriter and the former front-man of the band Ben Folds Five, Ben Folds will be making an appearance at the Durham Performing Arts Center on Feb 25th with the Miniature Tigers.

How do I win?:

Bribes. Just kidding. Glad you asked though faithful KNC listener! In order to win our ticket giveaways for this great show, tune in Monday through Wednesday (Feb 23rd-25th) and listen to the daytime rock deejays. We’ll be spinning various song clips from both bands. Guess the correct song title, be the first caller,  and you’ll be on your way to see Ben and the Tigers play an incredible show.

Categories
DJ Highlights

SciFi, Fantasy, and Horror Soundtracks on Mystery Roach

This week’s show is going to be a great one! With the help of Jacob, another DJ at the station, the show will focus on the music of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror soundtracks from the 60s and 70s.

Jacob and I will be playing music and discussing the films. If you’d like us to look into a particular movie, please post a comment below. It’s not too late to get on the playlist!!

Some topics include Zardoz, a 1974 film whose bleak depiction of our future includes Sean Connery  and organized human breeding. The Green Slime , a 1968 effort about the negative side of space exploration with a groovy main theme.  Steve McQueen’s battles with a pulsing, man-eating, ever-growing ball of Jell-O in The Blob.  We’ll play compositions by Bernard Herrmann, who has composed for such films as Psycho, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Fahrenheitit 451, several Ray Harryhausen films, and Taxi Driver.  And Godzilla, a giant lizard who needs little elaboration.

These are only a few of the movies.  Tune in this Saturday, February 21st from 8-10 am, and enjoy the show.

Cheers.

-La Barba Rossa

Categories
Non-Music News

WKNC Off Air

The WKNC engineering team is currently working on our transmitter, which is causing some interruption in our air signal. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Categories
DJ Highlights

DJ Stevo’s last show this Friday

Well, as you might have heard, I’ll be hanging up the headphones shortly, but not without one final, epic edition of the Local Beat this Friday, starting at 6PM, after NC State Baseball.

We’ll be interviewing The Old Ceremony, hanging out with members of our local music scene, and spinning some of my favorite music from the past four years, including at least one Genesis track.

After Friday, stay tuned, as DJ Mick will be taking over the reins, and if you’ve ever heard his Local Lunch shifts, you’ll no doubt be prepared for the inevitable onslaught of kickass rock’n’roll.  As for me, it’s been a real privilege to be your DJ, and if you see me at a local rock show, be sure to come by and say hello.

Categories
Music News and Interviews

J. Period Releases Best Of Q-Tip Mixtape

The [Abstract] Best Of Q-Tip Vol. 1

As a hip hop DJ, one of my biggest idols is DJ J.Period. J. Period has garnered numerous awards for his mixtapes including “Elemental Magazine “MIXTAPE DJ ROOKIE OF THE YEAR 2003”, “Source Magazine MIXTAPE DJ OF THE YEAR 2005”, “MTV TOP 5 DJs OF 2007”, and “Hip Hop DX 2008 Mixtape of the Year Runner Up” for “Design of A Decade Volume 1” hosted by Skillz. Check out J. Period’s awards and press page for a complete list of his achievements.

The [Abstract] Best Of Q-Tip Vol. 1 describes Q-Tip’s journey through hip hop. In the “behind the scenes” mini-interviews, Q-Tip explains what influences him to make music and how well-known projects like “Scenario” came together. The [Abstract] covers Tip’s most popular songs with A Tribe Called Quest, his solo joints and his production projects.

Exclusive J. Period remixes for Getting Up, What The Fuss (that “Shook Ones” instrumental can make any remix hot), Give Up The Goods (which includes an an extra verse by Nas), Buddy and others are available only on this mixtape. In addition to the J.Period remixes, artists like Skillz, De La Soul, Consequence and Kid Cudi pay homage to Q-Tip by reinterpreting his classics with ‘tribute remixes”.

If you’re a DJ, aspiring artist, old head or a newcomer to hip hop, The [Abstract] massages away all the stress of commercial rap and even comes with a happy ending! That is, the end of the mixtape hints at The [Abstract] Best Of Q-Tip Vol. 2, which you can get if you buy the Limited Edition [Abstract] Best T-Shirt. The shirt, designed by Fuse Green, sports the mixtape’s cover on the front and has three options for the writing on the back. Q-Tip is a hip-hop legend and if you aren’t familiar with him, take a piece of advice from the (recreated) Midnight Marauders Tour Guide: “For an enhanced hip-hop experience, please know your history.”

Favorites : Vivrant Thing (J. Period Remix), What (Tribute Remix), What The Fuss (J. Period Remix), Give Up The Goods (J. Period Remix)

Categories
DJ Highlights

Aradhna

Aradhna is a musical group performing at the Hindu Society of North Carolina temple on March 21, 2009 at 7:30 pm. Aradhna will also be visiting as a special guest on Geet Bazaar on March 22nd 2009. For more information on Aradhna please visit www.aradhnamusic.com.

Categories
New Album Review

WKNC Pick of the Week 2/17

House music that’s meant for dancing
Milton Welch

The term “electronic music” encompasses lots of styles of music, and as much as any the pulsing 4/4 of house, techno, and electro. Josh Wink of Philadelphia extends this pulse across a long play release When a Banana Was Just a Banana―truly long: all tracks except “Minimum 23” are over nine minutes. Each makes a subtly different approach to layering synthesized sounds over robotic beats.

Running at more than an hour and a half, Wink’s release embraces once futuristic realities of contemporary music and how we listen to it now.

These songs are meant for dancing.

“Stay Out All Night” is a flashy homage to the 303 synthesizer updating dance club sounds from the nineties.

“Airplane Electronique” then takes off into bright harmonies and bending pitches.

The bright reverberating splashes of the currently circulating single “Counter Clock 319” builds with springy enthusiasm.

Like those songs, “What Used to Be Called Used to Be” at over ten minutes will more likely be heard on an iPod, a computer or thumping out of some club’s speakers than on commercial radio.

In an online interview, Wink discusses how many of these songs were written over the last few years of his travel as a DJ, so in all likelihood many of these songs have already had a fair share of club play.

It is worth noting that Wink’s own record label, Philadelphia’s Ovum Recordings, is releasing When a Banana Was Just a Banana.

Wink’s LP is a smart, driving collection of songs, but unlike mainstream popular music contemporary new electronic music from Ovum and similar labels is generally released as EP length material.

One EP that is of particular interest is the upcoming release of Kikomoto Allstars’s House Music EP on International Deejay Gigolo Records.

The Berlin techno label consistently releases electronic music that is at once surprising and envelope-pushing.

Kikomoto Allstars is the name of an Australian electronic producer and DJ whose songs are new, yet filled with retro nods to U.S. club sounds.

The title track is a deliberate nod backward from the global dancefloor of the 21st century to the early dancefloors for electronic music in such cities as Chicago, New York, and Detroit.

The second track of the E.P. “Bending Time” sizzles percussively around a modulating tone then breaks into a phasing handclap suspended amidst propulsive yet ambient bass of very low frequencies.

Both Josh Wink’s When a Banana Was Just a Banana LP and Kikomoto Allstars House Music EP are dancefloor ready, but their appeal goes further than the ease of cutting a rug to them.

The clever syncopations and dazzling sound palettes of these mostly instrumental tracks are both historic and futuristic.

These releases suggest the complex appeal of listening to electronic dance music whether dancing at the time or not.

88.1 WKNC DJ Pick of the Week is published in every Tuesday print edition of the Technician, as well as online at technicianonline.com and wknc.org.

Categories
Local Music Music News and Interviews

Need a ride from campus to Local Beer Local Band? You’re in luck.

Beginning tonight, N.C. State students needing a ride downtown for awesome WKNC festivities (and other stuff, if you must) will have one. The Technician newspaper has all the details, but please keep in mind the service is for State students ONLY.

There are three Wolfprowl bus stops downtown along the circulator route, with all the other stops on campus. Both the Wolfprowl and the circulator bus provide free transportation to students, allowing them to reach downtown safely and for free – all a student has to do is show his or her student ID, the Web site states. [Read more at TechnicianOnline.com]

The bus won’t quite get you to Tir Na Nog, so please check out the route to see your best drop-off options.