The word early this evening is that Les Savy Fav, scheduled to headline the Troika Music Festival follow-up show Friday, Nov. 16 at Duke Coffeehouse, has canceled its appearance. Festival organizer Zeno Gill and Inland Empire Booking both confirmed the cancellation but supplied no reason. Information on refunds is still to come, but Gill says the show, now headlined by Des Ark, will continue as planned.

In the early ‘90s—and by many accounts, in years prior—David Enloe and the rest of the Woods owned the Brewery, and they owned Saturday night. Over the next couple of days much will be written about David, who passed away early Tuesday from complications related to liver disease, by those who played alongside him and loved him like a brother. Not having the privilege of knowing David, my perspective comes from out in the crowd.

The Woods were this transplant’s first favorite North Carolina band. Their sound was a Southern-accented mix of Stones, Faces, and more Stones, with a hints of Minneapolis (it’s not for nothing that their It’s Like This was released on Twin/Tone). Sealing the deal, they covered “Can’t Hardly Wait.”

My initial exposure to the Woods came courtesy of a whole bunch of those Brewery shows, and I’d eventually follow them to Chapel Hill’s La Terrazza, a coffee shop on Main Street in Carrboro, that big-ass Mexican restaurant in Cary with the patio stage, and other places that also no longer exist. The Woods guys truly shared the stage; everybody wrote and sang. Still, the spotlight seemed to favor David. He was the most charismatic, the most rock-star. Finding myself behind him and some friends waiting in line for a show at Raleigh’s Rialto one evening, I marveled as he held court by, among other things, doing a Homey the Clown routine—it being the heyday of In Living Color and all. I remember thinking to myself, “He’s even a natural frontguy on the sidewalk.”

It’s not completely true that I didn’t know David. I got to meet him a couple years back when the Woods visited my WXDU radio program before a reunion show at Cat’s Cradle. At that station, he commented on an article he’d just read about the Avett Brothers. Turns out that I wrote the article, and when I made a lame joke about it, David was gracious enough to offer a genuine chuckle. Then he and Terry Anderson, Jack Cornell, and Jamie Hoover gathered around one microphone and sang a few Woods songs, and it was suddenly 1990. Wish a tape had been running.

Bowerbirds were named as nominee for Best Americana Album in the Plug Awards. Somehow, they’re alongside The Avett Brothers, Angels of Light, Iron & Wine and nine other artists. Voting is happening now. And, in the interest of disclosure, I  helped release the first edition of nominated record.

How many rumors have you heard about a Polvo reunion show in the last five years? Rumors of Mike Dillon’s basement, WKNC’s Double Barrel, a Cover-Up…Finally, they’ve announced a date at next year’s Explosions in the Sky-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties. From Pitchfork.

Because knowing they don’t give a shit is better.

All year long, the great bastion of City-Upon-a-Hill music blogging Idolator has been running its The Worst Album Cover of the Year contest, poking fun at Ted Nugent, Gina Gershon and Disturbing Tha Peace along the way. Yesterday, the site put out a call for entries for loyal readers to send in their personal least-favorites, and—wouldn’t you know?—David Karsten Daniels’ Sharp Teeth cover ended up leading the pack. I’m not here to pass judgment on the Beth Tacular-designed cover (Normal disclosures with a band called Bowerbirds apply here, and I do like the rather shocking cover) as much as I’m here to pass judgment on how Idolator decided to : According to Idolator, News & Observer music critic David Menconi sent them the cover. From Idolator:

“Yesterday, when we put out the call for entries in our Worst Album Cover Of The Year tournament, we referenced Ted Nugent’s special-edition cover for Love Grenade, calling its theme “Ladies: They’re What’s For Dinner.” Well, thanks to David Menconi, we now have a first-round opponent for the Nuge: the Chapel Hill, N.C., songwriter whose album Sharp Teeth doubles as a visual tribute to the post-coital joys of eating half-digested food. Or bloodied rope. I can’t really tell.”

Seriously, that’s a tad pathetic. David Karsten Daniels, who lives in Chapel Hill and has now for most of the decade, released Sharp Teeth in February on Fat Cat, one of the better independent labels in ye’ old world. It’s a really, really good record, and—as you may have guessed—the News & Observer never reviewed it. Menconi did happen to mention it on his N&O-funded blog in a post called, “Ugly Covers R Us.” Writing primarily about the cover, he managed to call the album itself “otherwise quite fine.” The biggest mention of Daniels in the N&O is an “Eight That Rate” entry on The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers from last year.

I’m not saying we’re without sin here in missing our share of records or shows or blog items, but this confirms and amplifies something that’s been disturbing me about the News & Observer for a great while: Indicative of its larger attitude toward culture and arts in the Triangle, the News & Observer treats local music that’s not alt.country with casual disdain or condescension—that is, until it ends up on a reality show or game show, at which point they cannot cover it enough. But now its head music critic is willing to go out of his way to embarrass (or “lightheartedly poke fun,” I imagine will be his rebuttal) at a local artist whose written one of the better indie songwriter albums of the year? That’s disgraceful.

Let’s see if Menconi, who drops Idolator links with great expediency on his blog (including one about Brian Howe and me!), shouts out his shout-out. Let’s hope not, though.