Another Rosemary Street heat and volume blowout, this time with two excellent out-of-town trios in Tel Aviv and Bear Claw, followed by a problem of alarming dimensions, a band in the midst of an ultra-assuring transition. (more…)

A minute or so late, but here’s a happy birthday to RON LIBERTI.
More stuff at Demonbeach and Bullfightparty.

kmr

Would my dear ella throw in a steel guitar if they were opening for a country band? Or turntables for a hip-hop show? Heads on Sticks snarls ‘em, and Dead Meadow stones ‘em… (more…)

So what do you get when you throw one half-dozen bands, a few dozen kids and a sticky July night together centered on a stage in a by-day used bookstore? A day after the volume of Dinosaur Jr.? Well, you best get earplugs… (more…)

According to the bastion of fine journalism and superb music criticism that is Spin, Raleigh is now a “second-tier city,” which comes as a complete surprise, as many of us have been assuming that we belonged in the third or fourth echelon for quite a while now. Hot Damn! Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Providence, Minneapolis and others, we’re glad to be on Level 2 with ya’. Please learn how to pronounce Raleigh, though. Kthx.

It also comes as a complete surprise that the Triangle is a “less-trafficked locale…[which leads] to situations where a sad soul possibly could go forever without seeing a certain favorite band come to town…” Weird, see, because in the past year, I’ve seen lots of bands I like—straight from Animal Collective, The Arcade Fire and Andrew Bird down through Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket and Prefuse 73 to Wilco, Yo La Tengo and ZZZZ. And wait, wasn’t that Dinosaur Jr. I saw the other night? With Superchunk opening? Playing songs from the first three albums? Whoa, I think it was. For a second, I thought I was crashing on Peter Gaston’s couch…in Manhattan.

Keep your quaint pictures of bovine love and Southern hipsters, dude. We’ve heard it all before.

g/

EPCCS, Nine Black Alps and Wolf Parade: 1 syndrome and two bands you’ll hear plenty about plenty this Autumn. (more…)

This from Carrboro’s People of Faith Against The Death Penalty: “When Bruce Springsteen performs in Charlotte on Sunday and Greensboro on Tuesday, he will again lend his support to a North Carolina-based group working to have the death penalty repealed.”

It will be the third time the rock star has hosted People of Faith Against the Death Penalty during his swings through the state and the third time he will meet with the group’s executive director, Stephen Dear. At his concerts in Charlotte and Raleigh in 2000 and again in Chapel Hill in 2003, Springsteen dedicated songs to PFADP and suggested that audience members get involved with the group.”

Tune in next time to see how Bonzo tries to one-up The Boss when U2 rolls through town.

The band list for Troika keeps growing. At this point, most of the lineup is pretty obvious, but plenty more bands will be added. One of the most exciting things I’ve heard about it all is an experimental music night set for Joe & Jo’s (date not confirmed at this point). Portastatic will celebrate the release of Bright Ideas with a show on August 27 with Chris Lopez’s Tenement Halls and Bellafea. And, of course, the finale will go down at 305 South, the new Durham digs of former Ooh La Latte/Untidy proprietors James and Michelle Lee. This will be a grand opening.

Here’s to the health of that club, and here’s to hoping that Troika throws some hard ol’ rock and roll in the mix.

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In yet another local ribbing by a national outlet, Vice Magazine awarded The Nein’s excellent Wrath of Circuits with its un-coveted “Worst Cover of the Month” laurel. Dale Flattum, also known as Tooth and the fourth member of The Nein, designed the cover. They gave the album a respectable 5/10, apparently lauding its Franz-ness. Hmm.

In the same issue, Vice described desArk’s new album, Loose Lips Sink Ships, with the following beaute: “I guess ‘lazy tension’ is an oxymoronic thing to say, but that’s the best term I can come up with for desark…It’s like two people playing half-assed tug of war or fucking in a really humid room and trying not to overexert themselves.”

And, certainly not to be omitted, the dramatic, sexist, you-actually-ran-that? conclusion: “One song smolders into the next while huge gray thunderclouds swell overhead, but the end happens before the climax does and I’m sitting there with my dick in my hand and no more baby oil…Still, the workout alone makes this worth a bunch of replays for sure.”

Oh, shit. Well, at least they got a 7 out of it. That folllows fairly high praise in several publications, including Pitchfork,
Issue #68 of Magnet, and here at the Indy.

Is it just me, or does Vice remind you of that dude down the street that drinks 40s all day, snorting lines to keep awake before eventually smoking himself to sleep while gazing glassy-eyed at broadband porn—or, that is, a vacuous series of “the-only-joke is-you, asshole” incidents done by your friend with a 1570 SAT score and a job at Burger King?

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Well, it is said that any press is good press, and little press is more conspicuous than a Tonight Show appearence. Jay Leno recently called Durham’s Viva La Venus out for a spot in the Asheville Citizen-Times with the headline “These Chicks Rock!” Leno zoomed in on the photo and scanned from left to right, commenting on the band’s three female members before landing on drummer Trey McLamb, asking “How ‘bout that chick? What’s her story?” Watch that janx.

Oh, Chinman, you’re so funny. But isn’t it better when the W-backing Leno is the butt of the joke?

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Edit: Apparently, NBC doesn’t like the bands that their employees rib to show people that they have indeed been ribbed. VLV’s Mary Anne Barckhoff has been asked to remove the video, but she’s working on getting NBC to post it themselves. We’ll let you know.

Edit Two: NBC has posted pictures from the segment. See that janx.