For quite possibly the first time in Twangfest’s 11-year existence, there were no Triangle-area artists involved and no one from the roster of Yep Roc or the formerly Durham-based Sugar Hill. (It still hurts to type that.) Still, for other reasons, the fest had me thinking of home. For starters, I’d seen a full quarter of the Twangfest acts at house concerts in the much-missed confines of Pine Hill Farm: Tim Easton (who liked Pine Hill so much that he almost moved in), Blue Mountain, Elizabeth Cook and Slaid Cleaves. Then there was Wussy co-leader Chuck Cleaver, a guy who I’d sat a mere five or so feet away from when his late Ass Ponys played the Lizard & Snake 11 years ago; I’ll always remember the handshake Cleaver gave me immediately after the last note—my reward, I presumed, for digging them so much. I’ve caught the mighty Figgs—who headlined Saturday night at Twangfest and joined Graham Parker for much of his headlining set on Friday night—at the Brewery, Local 506 and Cat’s Cradle over the years. Parker’s entertained me and a host of other old-timers at Cat’s Cradle on several occasions, and Thursday night’s opener—Columbus, Ohio’s Two Cow Garage—will be in Raleigh in next week week. I guess the lesson is that no matter where you are, you’re never too far from the Triangle, at least musically speaking. (more…)

Tonight, reps from Megafaun, Trekky Records and Red String Records convoke at Bull City Headquarters (723 N Mangum St, Durham) to talk about/demonstrate/manufacture band merchandise. It’s part of BCHQ’s ongoing DIY series, and it’s free, natch.

FADER should stick with fashion. Actually, well, maybe not even that.

Some intense national blogging about some local lights today: The clowns at Idolator, held the snark and gifted the praise to Carrboro’s Schooner. Their new one, Hold on Too Tight, is out in August, as we’ve mentioned before. The Perm & the Skullet fawned (Idolator will one day use this same pun) for the first (and super-good) Megafaun album, Bury the Square. And, in the interest of disclosure, I co-own a business with Megafaun member, Brad Cook.

Oh, if only…

I’m leaving for St. Louis tomorrow afternoon for the 11th annual Twangfest. Ever since attending the event several years back, I’ve had the same daydream as it starts getting close to departure date. I write it off as the natural longing of a music fanatic without an ounce of actual musical talent. It goes something like this [Insert wavy lines here]:

I form a vaguely rootsy pop band and call it the Mel Cooleys. We have a song titled “American Idle” that talks about, but not in a whiny or elitist way, how the majority of people are content to be spoon-fed manufactured music stars. More importantly, it has monster hooks like Material Issue’s “Goin’ Through Your Purse” or Guided By Voice’s “Chasing Heather Crazy” or Fountains of Wayne’s “Leave the Biker” or most everything on Adam Schmitt’s first album. Julie Christie comes to one of our shows, but it’s Julie Christie at the age she was when she made Heaven Can Wait with all that curly hair that looked angel-wing soft, and we get to talking and really hit it off—not that I’m remotely British or sophisticated (no one has ever said, “You know, you remind me of James Mason.” Jeff Daniels, yes, but not James Mason.), but I do tell her that I thought she was amazing in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and I really mean it. I’m not just feeding her a line.

And the Mel Cooleys occasionally hire some horn players and do shows under the name Richard and the Deacons, and we play old soul and r&b covers like “(I’d Rather Be) Blind, Crippled & Crazy” and “Pouring Water on a Drowning Man” and a whole bunch of Dan Penn-Spooner Oldham songs and maybe even Wilson Pickett’s arrangement of “Sugar Sugar.” And, because we’re vaguely rootsy, the Mel Cooleys get invited to play Twangfest, and we kick ass. When we close out our set with “Mai Tais at High Tide” (the title track from our good-word-of-mouth debut; we opened with “American Idle” because you don’t make the good people wait), all the members of NRBQ, who are playing after us, stage-dive, and for once everybody is happy that Big Al Anderson left the band.

I mean, it could happen. Umm, see you next week?

Roving in Durham. (Photo by Derek L. Anderson)

I mentioned The Scene of the Crime Rovers’ surprise appearance at last weekend’s Durham Rising in this week’s Scan column, but—in the spirit of crowd participation they foster—I invited the Rovers to write about it from their perspective. Director Shannon Morrow shares her thoughts below, with Amy Wilkinson’s fascinating essay below the break.

We’ve planned a skronky set—lots of John Zorn’s “Cobra” and our first time “marching” it, too. I’m not sure how receptive the crowd will be and am surprised that people seem curious enough to stick around! Colin (trombone) goes “guerilla” on me and jumps in to lead the band in the direction he wants to hear it go (this is part of the “Cobra” game). All the sudden,

I feel more relaxed and remember what it’s all about—being creative, provocative, taking new music to the streets!
I tell a reporter from The Herald Sun we’re a community band that accepts players at any level of experience. He says he wasn’t sure if we knew what we were doing or if we were just fooling around. In the words of Amy Wilkinson (bass clarinet), “Some of us may not know how to play, but we all know what
 we are doing.” —Shannon Morrow, Director of the Scene of the Crime Rovers

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SUPERCHUNK, OAKLEY HALL, +/-
MCCARREN POOL—BROOKLYN, N.Y.
JUNE 24, 2007

About halfway through “Slack Motherfucker,” McCarren Pool looked like a density map gone haywire—pockets of sweaty hipsters and 30-something parents bouncing wildly for Mac McCaughan and Superchunk, all practically screaming (if body language counts, and it does): “The po-go was invented for THIS!!”

In front of the undulating crowd (and some pretty suspect Helio branding), JellyNYC kicked off this year’s run of free pool parties at McCarren Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The docket included +/-, Recent Merge signees and purveyors of slopped-on indie country, Oakley Hall, and of course, the Chunk, who looked and sounded the part of scene-spanning elderstatesmen, plowing through bone-dry classics like “Driveway to Driveway” and “Punch Me Harder.”

As always, Jon Wurster’s impeccable drumming was the band’s anchor throughout the afternoon, while McCaughan’s buzzing Gibson did most of the dirty work on the set-closing “Motherfucker.” Dads, with clueless, sun-dazed toddlers on their shoulders, joined in, a not-so-subtle reminder that Superchunk is heading over the hill. Well, in indie rock years, at least.

But try telling that to the 12-year-old behind me who, by the end of its 3-minute run-time, learned every word to “Slack.” After the final chord rang out, Laura Ballance jokingly apologized to all the parents in attendance for playing a song with “the f-word in it.” Her playful guilt encapsulated the night perfectly: After a fifteen song set of couple-chord immediacy and vintage ’90s oomph, Superchunk still seemed to be delivering everything from a distance that said, “Hey, we’re not 20 anymore, OK?”

How did we forget to tell you?

I first heard about the possibilities of a Deep South Bar last month when interviewing Andy Martin and Dave Rose—the co-founders of the Raleigh management company responsible for things like Bud Light Downtown Live and Stryper’s merchandise—for this story about Downtown Live. Though they haven’t announced a location yet, they promise a downtown open date of August 2007. There’s an Elm Street in Raleigh, correct?

For now, the bar has two blog postings on its MySpace page: In the first, management refers to Raleigh as “Mayberry on Steroids,” which is interesting. In the second, they stipulate some androgenic rules of the bar, including “Deep South is an IDIOT FREE Bar” and “If you need to have total control over your environment, then just. go. home.”

Oh, and totally sweet call on the MySpace profile song: Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

If you followed our story on Azuka Jebose Molokwu and his attempt to open an African nightclub called Zanziba in Raleigh, you may be wondering what happened. When I last spoke with Molokwu, he said he and the other organizers of the club had run into the same red tape most clubs in the state go up against license troubles for selling alcohol. The space at 1625 Capital Blvd. in Raleigh needed a lot of work for them to be able to open a kitchen, which would then allow them to sell alcohol properly. They eventually decided to go the private club route and are now finally opening on June 15.

Here’s what the always bubbly Molokwu had to say in February about what Zanziba’s live music choices might look like for a club opening on the dawn of summer:”Molokwu says Zanziba will start out with live music every other weekend, and he hopes to add an unplugged blues night once a week and book reggae and African musicians when they start touring this summer. ‘African musicians are used to the summertime, unlike us,’ he says with a big chuckle.”