Scott Beal on Coney Island

It took just an e-mail or two from Scott Beal about his Gaff Music label to make it obvious that this was a guy lucky enough to be doing something that he was passionate about. And such luck is often reciprocal: Those who found their way to the objects of Beal’s passion let loose under the Gaff banner experienced plenty of good fortune of their own.

Even if Beal, who died at age 47 on March 9, 2008, of complications due to polycystic kidney disease, had issued only the Arrogance collection 5’ 11”, his contributions to the music world would have been worth celebrating. That release—”the great, lost Arrogance record,” as music writers could now refer to it—proved a treasure chest of late ‘70s, early ‘80s recordings from the pride of central N.C. At its center were a bunch of songs that would end up on Don Dixon’s solo albums. But 5’ 11” had company, including works from guitar adventurer Glenn Phillips, ex-Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten, and the most distinguished of music vets Ian McLagan, as well as the offering that earned Gaff and Beal the most attention: Forty Words for Fear, a collaboration between novelist Madison Smartt Bell and poet Wyn Cooper (backed by Dixon, Mitch Easter, and others) that sounds the way brooding feels. Gaff’s was an eclectic roster, with the word uncompromising the thread that connected them all. And it clearly reflected the tastes of Lincolnton, N.C., native Beal, whose tastes ranged from Leonard Cohen, Springsteen, and Randy Newman to Root Boy Slim and Captain Beefheart.

“The people on his label were not your garden variety players. If Scott liked your ideas, your sensibilities, he’d pull you into the label,” says Lisa Lowell, Beal’s girlfriend and a singer/songwriter and background vocalist who has worked with Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny and David Johansen. She was with him the past four years after he moved to New York. “He told me that he quit drums because he was just too in awe of the greats to think he could be a real player, but I believe he transferred all that pent-up desire into a very controlled insight into what made art and artists tick, and he knew how to offer something to so many projects. Never in a controlling or egotistic way, though, just a quiet sort of muse.”

A former record store owner making a run at the music industry as a one-man label does have a jousting-with-windmills feel to it, a notion the literature-loving Beal could appreciate. Sure enough, it was often a struggle: “As he put it later, having been in an ex-garment industry business with his dad, ‘Tube socks would have been a safer bet,’” recalls Lowell, adding “When times got financially rough for the label he took a lot of heat from his artists, but ultimately almost all put the petty issues aside and sustained strong friendships.” And that’s what gets to the heart of Scott Beal, a big heart and one clearly in the right place. Yeah, you were lucky to discover Gaff Music, but you were even more fortunate if you got to spend time with Scott Beal, the possessor of a wickedly offbeat sense of humor and, in the words of Lowell, “a small town aristocrat in his soul.”

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7 p.m. at the only surviving Carolina location at 2712 Hillsborough St., Raleigh.

We’re about seven weeks away from the first concert of this year’s retro-loving Bud Light Downtown Live series, and we still haven’t seen an official announcement for this year’s complete line-up from presenters Deep South Entertainment or the Raleigh Convention Center. But four of the seven headliners have been named with very little fanfare on a second-tier page of the series’ Web site, and, alas, the joint looks like it continues to struggle growing up (or growing young, as it stands). Actually, this year is worse than last year, which is quite the feat.

Read ‘em and maybe moan:

May 31: The Wailers
June 14: Cravin Melon
June 28: Carbon Leaf
July 26: Old 97s
August 9: Bad Company’s Brian Howe
August 23: Eve 6

Pollstar also has L.A. songwriter Jim Bianco on the August 9 bill. Deep South co-founder Dave Rose says the complete line-up is forthcoming. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Two more headliners have been added to the series. One more date remains open. Shit, is Vertical Horizon touring? Love those guys!!

As I said in print this week, I was super-excited about tomorrow night’s WKNC-supported bill with Red Collar and Spider Bags at Tir Na Nog. But the bags had to bail, so The Bronzed Chorus and The Dry Heathens will now fill the bill with R.C. Still solid

In this week’s paper, I discussed how protest and poetry are being celebrated starting on Tuesday afternoon at UNC, with readings by New York School post-Beat poet Anne Waldman and Ed Sanders, poet and co-founder with Tuli Kupferberg of the wonderful, irreverent Fugs.

The Fugs were just outside of most every scene except the poetry scene, in which Sanders and Kupferberg were already working. Their kitchen-sink approach—throwing everything from dirty rock ‘n’ roll to chants to jazz—ultimately got them thrown in with the folkies, but they had so much more musical bravado than what people associated with the term “folk.” They were first released on ESP-Disk, which was mostly know for free jazz avant garde records. Now. they’re like glimmering legends of DIY freedom, and constant, hilarious, voices of protest. Here’s “Saran Wrap” from the Dial-a-Poem Poets collection, Big Ego

Waldman and Sanders will do a public reading Tuesday afternoon, April 22, at 3:30 p.m. at the Bull’s Head Bookshop on UNC’s campus. The exhibit opens the next day with a reception at the Rare Book Collection in Wilson Library at 5 p.m., followed at 6 p.m. by a panel including the two poets and Robert Cantwell, professor of American Studies at UNC. Both events are free.

Head over to Merge’s online store to download a free copy of Sweet Beats, Troubled Sleep: Night of the Furies Remixed. Remixes come courtesy of Bon Iver/Justin Vernon (who produced part of the original album), Merge man Mac McCaughan, ex-Ticonderoga Wes Phillips, Jon Yu and a handful of others.

New Raleigh pointed out earlier today that Downtown Event Center, the rock club occupying the third floor of the space at 14 West Martin St. in downtown Raleigh, has closed its doors. Owner Charles Norwood told the Independent Monday afternoon that he couldn’t confirm or deny the reports that the club was closing, just that “there are a couple of things that need to be worked out before I know what’s going on.” Norwood has been unavailable for comment since making that statement, but former D.E.C. booking manager Mike Dillon said Tuesday morning, referring to a show by band Earth scheduled for Saturday, May 3, that “I guess the show is kaput… The club is done. Death sentence. Kaput.” The space has experienced high turnover in the last several years: What was once Retail Bar has also been Martin Street Music Hall and Raleigh Music Hall since 2004.

The Independent scrapped its advance coverage of the Earth show on Tuesday morning, but Dillon and members of opening bands In the Year of the Pig and Des Ark have been scrambling to find a venue for Saturday’s show. They have found nothing yet, Dillon says members of Earth are willing to lower their guaranteed payment in order to find a show in the area. We’ll update you as we hear more.

For now, here’s my review of Earth’s track “Omens and Portents I: The Driver” for Paper Thin Walls, as well as an interview and mp3.

Congrats to local hip-hop crew Inflowential for taking first place in mtvU and Palm Centro at AT&T Battle of the Bands contest (that’s a mouthful). They’ll be opening for Wyclef Jean and a host of others at one of the Campus Invasion Music Festival dates in Boston, Philly or College Park, Maryland. Inflow will now compete with the other two first place winners for the opportunity to host an episode of mtvU’s Dean’s List and some free Palm Centro phones. Oh yeah, and 10 grand. Vote here to help them out.

Inflow will be playing the Break Into The Music conference’s unfortunately named (but free) “Rap, Rock & Roll” concert at B.N. Duke Auditorium on the campus of North Carolina Central this Wednesday at 8 PM. A mystery major label act (surely from concert sponsor Capitol Records) will also appear. Inflow will also be at the Cradle Friday night with DJ Babu, D-Styles, & DJ Rhettmatic (of The World Famous Beat Junkies), Supastition, Brother Reade, and DJ SK as part of Signal Fest 08.

Tooth plays the Joyce in Durham tonight at 9 p.m. “’Til the cops come,” I’ve been told. We’ll see.

Christy Smith returned to the live music game as part of WKNC’s ongoing Local Beer Local Band series at Tir Na Nog last Thursday night, a year after her last show as frontwoman of Raleigh band Nola. Smith’s new Tenderfruit project (with pal Staci Sawyer on drums and vocals), still rough around the edges, played a brief set for a noisy but appreciative crowd, sharing many of the same bedroom country qualities that Nola parlayed into their gorgeous self-titled disc. Smith harmonizes well with her new partner-in-crime (reminiscent at times of Midtown Dickens’s prettier moments), and as a nice change of pace, Sawyer traded her spot behind the kit with Smith for a turn at lead vocals and guitar. Alone, her voice is endearing. Truthfully, though, it was tough to pick up too many subtleties over the din. Still, when Smith unleashed her raw power, it cut through the clamor, and the crowd listened. Safe to say that Tenderfruit will be one to keep an eye on now (check out the video below) and down the road.

Two of the most respected cultural critics who know the difference between the ones and the twos will participate in a conversation in an hour: Oliver Wang has run the stellar Soul Sides blog (at soul-sides.com) for several years, championing the often overlooked stars of soul, funk and hip-hop in in-depth posts and audio. Wang wrote the investigative and revealing liner notes to the reissues of acid funk queen Betty Davis’ first two records, and was a great help in my profile of her in the Indy. He is a professor at Cal State, Long Beach. Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African American Studies and Director of the Institute for Critical U.S. Studies (ICUSS) at Duke University, and writes regularly on his blog, New Black Man. He is the author of four books, including New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity (2005), and was co-editor (with Murray Forman) of That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (2004).

The talk is billed as Cultural Criticism 2.0: How Do You Filter The Infinite? and will explore the relationship of cultural criticism and emergent technologies, the importance of the blogosphere, and their affection for soul music. But once these gentlemen get to talking, wherever they veer is bound to be interesting.

The event is from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the John Hope Franklin Center, Room 240. “All are welcome.”

Or at least Ash Bowie. Bowie talks about drummer switches, getting along and the long-shot of a Helium reunion.

Hmm, was it the tall fella down in front?

It’s why Plan B’s were invented. Plan A went like this: Inspired by both Shelby Lynne’s new country-soul-styled, Dusty Springfield-honoring Just a Little Lovin’ and the Independent’s recurring “Listening with…” feature, I was going to make a mix CD of ‘60s and ‘70s female southern and country soul for Lynne. Then in a follow-up call, we’d talk about a half-dozen of the songs, and I’d document the call for “Listening with.” However, Lost Highway, Lynne’s new label, let me down gently, explaining that she wouldn’t have time to do this because of her busy tour schedule.

Enter Plan B: I put together the CD anyway, with a goal of getting it into Lynne’s hands at her April 10 show at The ArtsCenter—even if it means turning to American Roots Series Director Tess Mangum Ocaña, who once saw to it that a pecan pie from Mama Dip’s found its way to Bettye LaVette and her band, for help. Lynne, so taken by the gesture and by the collection of songs, will seek out the phone number of the mysterious stranger who left the disc, and we’ll have the conversation about the songs after the fact.

OK, so the mysterious stranger stuff is a leap, but there’s no way that she’ll be able to resist the songs. To my ears, country soul has two prototypes: country songs recorded by soul singers (you got soul in my country), and songs that were written as soul songs but end up with somewhat of a country feel (you got country in my soul). This CD features both. From the former category are the likes of Ella Washington’s take of the Harlan Howard-penned “He Called Me Baby,” Candi Staton’s “Mr. and Mrs. Untrue,” Etta James’ monumental “Almost Persuaded,” and Barbara & the Browns’ “Things Have Gone to Pieces.” And those from the latter include Ruby Johnson’s “Run Your Hurt Away” (which, as reported in Barney Hoskins’ indispensable Say It One Time for the Brokenhearted: Country Soul in the American South, drove a session player to tears during its recording), LaVette’s “He Made a Woman Out of Me,” and Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You).”

And, yes, I know that it’s borderline insulting to suggest that Lynne doesn’t already have that Aretha recording, but it has to show up on any attempt to define country soul. Then there’s Baby Washington’s original version of “Breakfast in Bed,” a Dusty in Memphis song that Lynne tackles on Just a Little Lovin’. But perhaps the two most compelling cuts are Little Lois Barber’s “Specify” and Loretta Williams’ “I’m Missing You.” Both come from mystery figures of sorts (not unlike the gentleman who dropped off the CD, but I digress), and both represent artists experiencing what late collector and soul evangelist Dave Godin described as “a sublime moment.”

OK, Shelby Lynne, the ball will soon be in your court. I’ll keep the phone lines open.

The complete track list hits below the break:

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Ahh, shit.

Polvo will play the My Bloody Valentine-curated American version of ATP in New York in September. The first half of the line-up—Tortoise, meat Puppets, Built to Spill and Thurston Moore all doing albums, with appearances by Shellac, Low, Edan, Fuck Buttons, uhh My Bloody Valentine—is sort of insane. Tickets go on sale Friday, and only 3,000 people get in. Insane.

A request, fellas.

Superchunk and The Arcade Fire will play two dates in North Carolina to support Barack Obama’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Merge Records announced today.

Thursday, May 1: Greensboro, NC: Greensboro Coliseum Complex Pavilion Parking Lot
Friday, May 2: Carrboro, NC Carrboro Town Commons

Gates open at 1 p.m. for both events, and both shows start at 2 p.m. Tickets are free but required, as space is limited and admission is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Tickets will be available in Forsythe, Guilford, Randolph, Almanace, Orange, Durham and Wake counties during early voting hours starting Thursday, April 24. Only one ticket can be picked up per person. Both shows are all-ages.

Pick-up spots for Carrboro tickets (more locations to come):
Obama table outside UNC-Chapel Hill Planetarium
(250 E Franklin St, Chapel Hill, M-F: 8 a.m.-5 p.m.)

Balloons and Tunes
(208 W Main St, Carrboro, M-F: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. & Saturday, April 26, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.)

Morning Times Café
(10 E Hargett St, Raleigh, M-F: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m & Saturday, April 26 10 a.m.-5 p.m.)

Obama table outside of the Old Durham Ball Park
(Corporation and Morris sts, Durham, M-Sat: 9 a.m.- 5:30 p.m.)

Pick-up spots for Greensboro tickets (more locations to come):
Obama for America Office
(8 West 3rd St, Winston-Salem, M-F 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat: 10 a.m.-1 p.m.)

Greensboro Coliseum, Northside of Pavilion Parking Lot
(1921 W Lee St, Greensboro, M-F: 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m., Sat: 10 a.m.-3 p.m.)

Obama table outside Shaw Building
(158 Worth St, Asheboro, M-F: 8 a.m.-5 p.m.)

Obama table outside Board of Elections office
(505 E Green Dr, High Point, M-F: 8 a.m.-5 p.m.)

Obama table outside Courthouse
(301 W Market St, Greensboro, M-F: 8 a.m.-5 p.m.)

Mmhmm.

Independent Weekly Managing Editor Jennifer Strom saw Bruce Springsteen play Monday night in Greensboro. After watching Lou Reed play in Durham, I covered Barack Obama’s speech in Chapel Hill. We swapped essays on our swapped beats and, as it turns out, thoughts on our own ages. Here’s her report:

Just about the time Bruce Springsteen got a good sweat going Monday night in Greensboro, my stepson shouted into my ear: So far, he didn’t recognize any of the songs. Small wonder, I replied. Even though he’s a big fan—knows the greatest hits collection and The Rising by heart—at 16, he’s been alive less than half of Springsteen’s career.

I graduated high school in 1985, at the height of what some devotees consider the low of Springsteen’s career, the Born in the U.S.A. years. The album (the round flat thing made out of vinyl, with grooves) came with a fold-out poster of a denim-clad Springsteen leaning sexily against a wall. My older sister (she of the Born to Run generation) stole it. Somehow, it wound up on the wall behind my mother’s bedroom door.

Go figure. That’s the thing about Bruce, even today at 58. He’s omni-appealing. While there was plenty of male-pattern baldness in the Coliseum Monday night, there were lots of young fans, too. We all knew most of the words to the big hits, except of course “Badlands,” which no one ever knows except the chorus. (I committed to learning the verses after my last date with Bruce, at UNC’s Kenan Stadium in 2003, because mumbling through them made me feel inadequate, like I’d failed the Boss somehow.) We all wiped our eyes at the opening video tribute to E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici, who died of cancer April 18. Later on in the night, Springsteen told funny stories about Federici’s mischief in their early days together, some 40 years ago. I suspect fresh grief drove the playlist somewhat, as Springsteen played lots of early work before skipping from “Back Roads” to “Meet Me at Mary’s Place” and most of the cuts off the current CD, Magic, without stopping anywhere near “Dancing in the Dark.” I didn’t get to hear too many of my personal coming-of-age anthems, but that mattered really, truly not at all.

There was a little political talk. “It’s been eight years of bad, bad magic,” he said, introducing the title track off the current album, which aims none too subtly at the Bush administration’s failings. He talked about rendition and the erosion of our Constitution.

We cheered. But mostly he sang, and played, and sweated. Just when you thought it was over, he kicked into the opening notes of another song. And they were all good—even the ones you didn’t know. —Jennifer Strom

Skeeter in Europe.

“The public needs to realize that there are still a few of the true living legends around that are able to perform,” Will Beaty, who played drums behind Skeeter Brandon for years and served as his manager for the last several, told the Independent awhile back. “Once they are gone, they are gone forever.”

Calvin “Skeeter” Brandon has been gone for a month now, and Beaty still feels the loss every day. And he’s convinced that the public never did come to that realization he spoke of: “I thought Skeeter was special. I was honored to be his friend, bandmate, and manager. Often I would find myself, sweating my ass off playing the drums but at the same time having goosebumps. He was a special talent, a dying breed who deserved more recognition than he received.”

“What amazed me most about Skeeter was his ability to bounce back,” Beaty continues. “The band had taken to calling him the ‘Energizer Bluesman.’ Touring with Skeeter wasn’t the easiest of tasks. He required dialysis on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, five hours sitting in a chair hooked up to a dialysis machine. Not a whole lot of fun for Skeeter, and a significant added challenge to planning a tour.

“Anyway, it was 2004. We had just wrapped up a three-week tour of Spain and had one more gig in Compiegne, France—Raleigh’s sister city. It wasn’t even a paying gig, but we felt it would be a good to see Paris and do little cultural exchange while we were in the neighborhood. Things in Spain had gone swimmingly, and Skeeter decided to celebrate. Bad Idea. We left the hotel in Vallodolid for a two-hour, stop-and-go drive to the Madrid airport. We got caught in traffic and were running late. After barely making the flight—which, of course, was one of the bumpiest I have ever experienced—we landed in Paris just in time for Skeeter to present the previous night’s dinner to our stewardess. After another hour drive to Compiegne ,we found ourselves in less than ideal accommodations.

“None of us thought Skeeter would be able to perform. He was feeling horrible and could barely talk. True to form, an hour before we were to begin, Skeeter was up and going. The performance went well, and we were relieved to be heading home the next day.”

Plans are still being made for a memorial show for Skeeter Brandon. We’ll share the details when they’re available. in the meantime, there’s one more request from Will Beaty: Don’t forget Skeeter Brandon’s funny side:

Their show scheduled for The Berkeley Cafe tonight has been scratched.

In talking to Rosebud Ivan Howard about the Portastatic remix of last year’s “Silence by the Lakeside” for this week’s Song of the Week feature, I also asked about the new Rosebuds record. “It is almost done! We are singing the last four songs
this week and off to mastering it goes,” Howard said via e-mail. “I think if Night of the Furies was our dance record, then this new one is going to be our guitar rock record.”

I’m way, way into that statement. And this remixes album, actually. The Rosebuds play tomorrow at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences at 4:45 p.m.