All posts by Bryan Reed
Bryan Reed ·
16 Nov 2009, 12:30 PM ·
1 Comment
"It's so very red," said Collar via Twitter.
For Durham’s Red Collar, self-releasing its first full-length album, Pilgrim, in February was an impetus to take the show on the road and make a full-time go of rock ’n’ roll. The CDs were pressed and packaged, a publicity campaign was implemented and dates were booked. The band members packed into “Vandrew Blass,” the vehicle named for former keyboardist Andrew Blass. And, so far, it’s been paying off: The band picked up favorable reviews and college radio airtime nationwide and earned a slot at the recent CMJ Music Marathon in New York.
But Pilgrim, save for local consignment, wasn’t in stores. “One of the big problems with not having a label is not having physical distribution,” says guitarist Mike Jackson. That, though, is no longer a problem. Suburban Home Records and brother company Vinyl Collective picked up Pilgrim for distribution starting Dec. 1. The distribution deal coincides with a re-issue of Pilgrim as a limited-edition LP, pressed in a batch of 500 by Loose Charm Records.
The vinyl version is different than the CD, as the band shifted and pruned the track order. “It was harder than we thought,” says Jackson. “We had to cut some of the songs … We just couldn’t fit the album onto one LP and still have it sound good.”
“Stay” and “Hands Up,” which also appeared on Red Collar’s Hands Up EP, didn’t make the cut. They remain, though, on the LP’s digital component, a download card featuring all 11 tracks from the original CD version, plus an acoustic cover of Jawbreaker’s “Jinx Removing.”
Plus, vinyl has its own rewards: “There’s something more physical and immediate about having the record,” Jackson says. “CDs almost seem disposable at this point.”
For a video of Red Collar playing “Tools” with Maple Stave at Troika Music Festival last weekend, hit the jump. And for more of Spencer Griffith’s videos from Troika (and elsewhere), hit Scan’s YouTube channel. Continue reading »
New Music, News flashes, Troika Music Festival Red Collar, Troika Music Festival
Bryan Reed ·
8 Oct 2009, 6:32 PM ·
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Aminal, on the porch
“We’ve got three songs done,” says Aminal frontman Patrick O’Neill. “We leave in like three weeks to go back up to do another three songs. Then back the first of December to finish.”
The nine (and maybe 10) songs he’s alluding to comprise an album tentatively titled Loud It’s You, and tentatively scheduled for release in mid- to late-2010. It’s being recorded, little by little, at Landslide Studio in Asheville.
“Hopefully we’re going to get our feet wet with touring in the spring,” he says, further explaining the band’s plans. “Somewhere around spring break, we’ll do a week, and hopefully if all things shape up, the record will be done and pressed, and we’ll be working the album in the fall.” Continue reading »
News flashes Aminal, Black Skies, Landslide Studio, new record, The Honored Guests, Vinyl Records, VR Presents
Bryan Reed ·
2 Oct 2009, 11:53 AM ·
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Merge Records recording artists, The Love Language
With yesterday’s announcement that The Love Language had signed to Durham’s Merge Records, frontman Stu McLamb told the press, “I’ve overdrawn my bank account by $200, my girlfriend dumped me, and my car won’t start. I think this Merge deal could be a real turning point.”
It was said with a tinge of sarcasm—“I hope people do read that and realize that musicians are all broke-ass motherfuckers, no matter how ‘successful’ things can seem,” he now says—but, given that I caught him shortly after he’d finished lunch with the aforementioned ex-girlfriend, things did indeed seem to be looking up for McLamb, and certainly for his band.
“I’d like to celebrate more on this record,” McLamb says. Continue reading »
News flashes Merge, stu mclamb, the light pines, The Love Language
Bryan Reed ·
26 Sep 2009, 3:51 PM ·
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(photo by Karli Stephenson & Mark Reidy)
Chapel Hill doom trio Black Skies had to cancel a recent show in Athens, Ga. The band had never before canceled a confirmed date, a trait in which frontman Kevin Clark had always taken pride. “I’m super-bummed that we had to bail out on that show,” he says.
But it would be hard for Black Skies to pull off a set without its drummer, right? Continue reading »
News flashes Aminal, Black Skies, Spinal Tap
Bryan Reed ·
10 Sep 2009, 6:05 PM ·
4 Comments
New York songwriter Joe Romeo
It’s not so much a departure as a homecoming for Joe Romeo, the songwriter and Orange County Volunteers frontman who’s speaking now from his family home in Metuchen, N.J., about 25 miles Southeast of New York City. Romeo left the Triangle—and his girlfriend in Chapel Hill—last weekend to seek his fortune in the city, “to broaden my horizons,” he says.
Where his N.C. ensemble, The Orange County Volunteers, was a loosely assembled and hardly constant backing band—“I would just book shows willy-nilly and whoever I could get to come along would come along,” he says. “They’re like minutemen and women.”—his Big Apple back-up draws consistently from Romeo’s lifelong friends in Metuchen Americana outfit The Roadside Graves. But as much as a consistent band eases some of the logistical issues of performing, Romeo admits he’d still choose the spontaneity of a loose collective like the Volunteers. “Breathing new life into [the songs] is vital to stay with them, and to get behind them,” he says. Continue reading »
News flashes Joe Romeo, New York, Orange County Volunteers, Robust Records, The Roadside Graves
Bryan Reed ·
10 Aug 2009, 3:34 PM ·
2 Comments
Raise up, Queen City: Scott Avett in Charlotte.
The Avett Brothers
Bojangles Coliseum, Charlotte
Saturday, August 8
Several minutes after their scheduled start time of 8:45 p.m. had passed, The Avett Brothers climbed the stairs of the head-high stage at Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte. The crowd erupted. That thousands of fans had gathered to make the Concord band’s homecoming a major event is hardly surprising: From New York to Portland and at most places in between, thousands of fans gather most every time the Avetts set fingers to strings. What was surprising in Charlotte was the manner in which the consummate showmen managed to make even an arena feel intimate, such that the connection with the audience was occasionally as compelling as the songs themselves.
The spectacle at Bojangles Coliseum (formerly Cricket Arena) was meant to be the official release party for I and Love and You, the Concord quartet’s much-anticipated major label debut for Rick Rubin’s American Recordings. But as the album’s release was pushed back from early August to the end of September, the show went on minus the new record. The empty upper-level seats, then, might have been indicative of some fans’ disappointment with the change in plans. Still, the venue felt full, and the event carried a feeling of celebration in honor of the band’s by-most-predictions promising future—and its substantial past accomplishments. Continue reading »
Live Actions: Reviews Charlotte, The Avett Brothers
Bryan Reed ·
9 Jul 2009, 11:35 AM ·
4 Comments
Tonight @ Players
The second-annual The Club is Open Festival began Tuesday night with a pre-fest party and a triple-bill at The Reservoir. Like last night’s Hammer No More The Fingers show at the newly repurposed Players on East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, that gig was free.
But the shows tonight (Aminal, The Dry Heathensand On The Beach at The Cave), Friday (Red Collar, The Loners, Rat Jacksonand A Rooster For The Masses at Local 506) and Saturday (American Aquarium, The Future Kings of Nowhere, Flithybird and Nathan Oliver at Cat’s Cradle) are not. The paltry cover charges ($5, $7 and $8, chronologically) aren’t meant to line the pockets of club owners, promoters or musicians, though: All proceeds from this year’s festival will benefit The Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University and CyTunes.org—all in memory of the late local music champion Cy Rawls.
Continue reading »
General Notes, You Should Do This Cy Rawls, CyTunes, The Club Is Open
Bryan Reed ·
8 Jul 2009, 12:32 PM ·
1 Comment
Bowerbirds, by Alissa Anderson
Bowerbirds and Megafaun, two of the finest musical acts this state has to offer, are on the road together for a six-week jaunt that began Monday in Washington, D.C. and ends Aug. 17 in Atlanta. (A full list of tour dates is below the jump). It will bring the bands north to Canada and west to Washington, and will bring their music to a nation, that, by all appearances, is ready to hear what we’ve treasured in our backyards for a few years now. The latest on both, after the jump, and our usual disclosures apply…
Megafaun, by Mike Schaedler
Continue reading »
News flashes Bowerbirds, Megafaun
Bryan Reed ·
25 Jun 2009, 12:19 PM ·
5 Comments
Red star.
In defense of Twitter: There are some pretty sweet tweets floating around, including one yesterday from @hnmtf. “We just released a new track from the looking for bruce recording session Do the Human - FREE!,” it read, offering a link to a bit of Web 2.0 marketing shared between Windows and ReverbNation—wherein one could, as promised, download “Do The Human.”
For local fans, “Do The Human” isn’t entirely new: It was (but isn’t any more) offered as a digital bonus for folks who ordered Hammer’s J. Robbins-produced Looking For Bruce directly from Churchkey Records, and I swear, I heard a demo of this song floating around more than a year ago. Hammer’s Duncan Webster backs me up. “‘Do The Human’ was actually the third song we ever wrote. I think we wrote it in January of 2007. It was on our demo CD.” Continue reading »
New Music Bull City, Churchkey Records, Future Kings of Nowhere, Hammer No More the Fingers, Microsoft, ReverbNation, Schooner, Sponsored Songs, Windows
Bryan Reed ·
19 Jun 2009, 5:22 PM ·
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Today's Active Polvo
“Beggar’s Bowl,” the first track to be unveiled from Polvo’s forthcoming In Prism, is as good as a fan could hope for, but not likely what they’d expect. (Download here, and read more after the jump). Continue reading »
New Music In Prism, Merge, Polvo
