I caught The Devil and Daniel Johnston Sunday night at Galaxy Cinema in Cary, and I thought it was beautiful. Unfortunately, like most small-budget music films in Triangle art houses, its Triangle run is meant to be short. The movie closes at Galaxy Thursday, June 22. Go see it. I suppose I don’t have much to say about the film that’s not been said, other than to note that it is an endearing, honest portrait of a grand songwriter turning his manic depression into a powerful muse. Also, I couldn’t disagree more with a line in Godfrey Cheshire’s review of the film for the Independent: “The music we hear is quirkily engaging, nothing more…” David Menconi, though, makes an interesting point about the film in his blog for The N&O.

For the second year in a row, Aretha Franklin has canceled her show at Booth Amphitheatre in Cary. Teresa Franzen, the venue’s publicist, announced the August 26 cancellation this afternoon. Refunds will be issued at the point of purchase starting tomorrow. Don’t worry, I won’t make a pun about R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Oops, I just did.

Hard-working man/band.

I’ve long been a fan of Centro-matic, the rock band of Will Johnson, a prolific Denton, TX Jandek devotee who has released fantastic records under his own name and with Centro-matic and South San Gabriel. Fort Recovery, released earlier this year on Misra, is his band’s best record yet, some of Johnson’s best songs yet spilled over a fat-ass Texas boogie and some beautiful tube ampage. They’ve got a video up for “Triggers and Trash Heaps,” the album’s single and an indication of the landmark Fort Recovery stands to be. See the video here.

Timshel and Skip Matheny practicing last week (Credit: Derek Anderson)

Congratulations to Wilkesboro-via-Chapel Hill quintet Roman Candle, whose The Wee Hours Revue was finally released today on V2 Records. Wee Hours represents the prototypical saga of the record industry’s art-apathetic mind and money games, having been paid for and subsequently discarded by Disney-owned Hollywood Records before being picked up by V2 Records. Three years later, The Wee Hours Revue—a better re-recorded version of the brilliant Says Pop, a record they made in college at UNC-Chapel Hill—is finally out. It’s one of the best pop-rock-country records you’ll hear this year, and it’s worth your dollars. For more on this, see tomorrow’s cover story in the Indy. We’ll have four tracks online tomorrow. For a full review, see next week’s Indy.

The band’s release party is set for the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro on Thursday, June 22. Rumor has it, the band will play the full album from start to finish, calling on special guests from Chatham County Line and Thad Cockrell to Chris Stamey and Caitlin Cary. It should be grand. Tickets are still available.

Deadly Orifice, in Austin. Gimmicks are so smart.

The first 12 hours of No Future Festival—stretched last weekend on Friday and Saturday from 8 p.m. to sometime after 2 a.m. at Nightlight—were about a friendly scene: Some of the premier noise musicians in the world came together with their biggest Southern fans, crowding the already occupied by-day used book-and-record store. New friends smiled, musicians sold merch and crowds listened.

Friday night, the forcible static squalls of Pedestrian Deposit—a frail kid named Jon Borges from California, leaning over a square table of pedals—flung the room into fits, a group of 30 kids crowded around him and moshing in waves to a rhythm that didn’t exist. Saturday night looked like an upped-ante continuum, with some of the genre’s weightiest performers—Carlos Giffoni, Aaron Dilloway, Hive Mind—playing some of the most precise, exhilarating sets several in the crowd had ever seen.

But, in the 13th hour, two days of brilliance turned on itself, turning the club’s floor into shambles and its denizens into confused, terrified or exasperated bystanders of bloodsport. During the closing set from Macronympha—a shocking, turbulent, two- to three-piece that seldom performs more than three times each year and fueled this year by a guest appearance from Dominick Fernow of Prurient, one of the smartest, most capable minds in the genre—people started to pay special attention to a guy named Robert, standing just behind the stage.

On Friday, blood had been trickling down his brow. On Saturday, most spectators not colliding into one another and thrashing about the room as Macro played watched more confused than shocked. His entire face was caked in blood, three-quarters black from cuts, save the bright-red spots still streaming. He repeatedly lifted his shirt up and cut his chest in more than 50 horizontal lines, clutching a can of beer in a paper bag with his other hand.

After Macro’s set, a woman named Nicki, who had spent most of Pedestrian Deposit’s show shrieking and riding someone’s back, plugged her guitar into a batch of pedals and an amp. Before she started playing, Robert began kicking her in the chest, yelling at her as everyone else in the room wondered what was happening. She yelled back, eventually turning the amp and guitar on and letting the pedals induce a boring, clipped stream of feedback. Rodger, another musician from Macro, joined her with a sampler. She put the guitar down and started fighting Robert, her bloody assailant. She grabbed pieces of 20 glass panes and a dozen five-foot fluorescent tubes they had brought. She bashed them over his face. She didn’t stop.

The all-important headline at top of the MySpace homepage for popular Raleigh band The Capulets reads “broken” today, yet another confirmation that the band—which had been gigging to success in the Triangle and beyond for over a year—has indeed broken up. The band’s Web site announced the decision a few days ago, sporting a moribund picture of the band in the dark, each holding candles at chest level. I never cared much for the band, primarily because The Strokes have never done anything for me. But Ross Grady had some appropriate and kind things to say about them recently: “The Capulets remind a lot of people of a certain NYC band with skinny pants & messy hair. I definitely hear the resemblance, but part of that is the fact that The Capulets write really hooky rocksongs, which isn’t something that can just be copied offhand.” I hear Yep Roc had a good deal of interest in signing them, too, and they had a huge Raleigh following, including a group of non-betrothed female fans sporting “I (Heart) The Capulets” shirts. It’s at least sad to see a decent band that brought an unfamiliar clientele to rock clubs like Kings bid adieu so quickly.

The band has offered its entire catalogue of demos and live Brewery recordings, as well as an interview on WKNC 88.1, on its Website, so—if you were a fan—find some solace there.

The Cave gets lucky, thinks Mouse: “ Hello, Mouse here. The RED HOT POKER DOTS are in town! The Australian
super group are filling in their world tour with two dates at The Cave! Tomorrow night, Tues. 6/27 @ 10pm and Thurs. 6/29 @ 7:30pm. We are not often blessed with short notice shows like this, so come on out! Spread the word.”

I agree. Check out the Dots here or there.