All posts by Chris Parker
Chris Parker ·
9 Mar 2010, 5:54 PM ·
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O rly?
Athens, Ga., trio Music Hates You aren’t about to let you off easy. Like Jesus Lizard sunning on molten, accelerated Black Sabbath grooves, the Athens trio are hot to the touch and likely to drop right through the floor of your third story apartment. Frontman Noah Ray’s performances are possessed. He’s always been comfortable as the center of attention. That goes back to the last time you saw him, when he was the skater boy digging around in that dilapidated house of R.E.M.’s video, “End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” It’s still that way today. After a recent show, a Waffle House waitress joked they could plug in there, and so he loaded in. She’ll think twice before she opens her mouth next time. Continue reading »
You Should Do This Music Hates You, The Reservoir
Chris Parker ·
12 Nov 2009, 4:17 PM ·
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Sinful Savage Tigers
With a name like Sinful Savage Tigers, you half expect cookie monster vocals, thundering breakdowns and a machine gun hardcore backbeat. But the Chapel Hill trio is a string band wedded to contemporary rock/pop sensibilities. In May, they released their debut, Rain is the Soup of the Dogs in Heaven. Their origins go back a lot further—to Seth Martin’s undergrad years at Sewanee College in Tennessee. It’s there that he met Rob Guthrie, his collaborator on the project’s songs.
“He started playing guitar in college,” says Martin. “I heard him down the hall, playing nothing but Dave Matthews covers. I went into the room and told him to knock it off. Or learn some Who or some GBV.”
They would eventually collaborate, but only when Guthrie gave Martin a call several years later. In the interim, Martin had moved to the Triangle with the loose intent to get hooked up with “an angular indie rock act.” But the opportunity never materialized, and after a few tours of the local open-mic venues, he became more dedicated to his graduate studies at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in English. Last Spring, Guthrie asked Martin if he’d come down and help him fill out a couple hours at a big music and arts festival where he lives. He wanted to perform as a duo and pad out the set with some of Martin’s own tunes, just rearranged in a string-band style. Continue reading »
New Music, You Should Do This Sinful Savage Tigers, The Cave
Chris Parker ·
24 Sep 2009, 3:20 PM ·
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Joe Taylor (left) and Adam Brinson are Blag'ard
Blag’ard has delayed the release of its second LP, tentatively titled Mach II, to the beginning of next year. Guitarist Joe Taylor now plans to accompany its release by unshelving the long lost Capsize 7 album he recorded with the old alt-rock act in the mid ‘90s before they were dropped from Caroline Records. Fusing the jagged angular spirit of Polvo with Achers of Loaf’s hooks, Capsize 7 was one of the Triangle’s most underappreciated coulda-beens. He brings a similar bristling sound to his new outfit, fueled by drummer Adam Brinson’s sizzling kit work. We spoke to Taylor about the forthcoming releases.
INDEPENDENT WEEKLY: So what’s up with the new Blag’ard recording?
JOE TAYLOR: The Blag’ard record was pushed back to an unforeseen medical situation in my family, which basically meant I had to derail my life for about a half a year. I got back on track with getting my shit together. We are going to record the record starting in October. We’re going to record with Nick Peterson and start tracking on the 6th—coincidently, the day after my birthday. So it’s a nice birthday present for me, and then we’re doing it on one-inch reel-to-reel. I hadn’t recorded with audio tape in a long time, so I’m psyched to be working with Nick and going down on reel-to-reel. We’re going to do 10 songs, and because of the fact that Fall crept around and we hadn’t recorded the record in September or August, we said, “Putting a record out in November doesn’t make any sense, so let’s just wait.” So it’s going to come out in January. Continue reading »
In the Studio Blag'ard, Capsize 7, Nightlight
Chris Parker ·
13 Jul 2009, 5:52 PM ·
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The Boss & Erica Bernstein: Greensboro, 2009.
Some musicians inspire fans, and some do something more. It’s not necessarily a reflection on the quality of the music, as the face-painted hordes of Insane Clown Posse followers suggest, but a testament to the level of identification and comity music engenders. While Bruce Springsteen doesn’t quite galvanize the same response as Jerry Garcia, the outpouring is close. Recently, Raleigh resident Erica Bernstein had the opportunity to take her appreciation for The Boss to the next level.
A fan of Springsteen since she heard “The River” on the way back from the beach almost a dozen years ago (she remembers because it was the same day Princess Diana died), Bernstein followed up the thrill of meeting Springsteen in person in May with an hour-long DJ slot on the XM/Sirius’ E-Street Radio, a channel dedicated to all things Springsteen. Bernstein can be heard at 4 p.m. Monday, July 13, and again at midnight and 8 a.m. the next day, Tuesday, July 14. Continue reading »
News flashes Bruce Springsteen, Erica Bernstein
Chris Parker ·
1 May 2009, 2:33 PM ·
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Cursive, getting close. At middle, Tim Kasher. (Photo by Wendy Lynch Redfern)
Tim Kasher’s been the creative mastermind behind Cursive for almost 15 years and six full-length albums. During that time, the band’s sound’s evolved from a bristling hard rock that owed a significant debt to Fugazi into something much more rich in dynamics and instrumentation. During that same period, Kasher also released five solo LPs, frequently using different players under the name The Good Life.
With Cursive’s latest, Mama, I’m Swollen, the two projects seemed to have merged, judging from the often downbeat, more theatrical tone of the work. Perhaps that’s to be expected, now that Cursive’s members live in different towns. Kasher recently moved from his longtime home of Omaha, Neb., to Los Angeles to pursue a dream of becoming a screenwriter and perhaps find financing for a movie he’s written. We caught up with him on the latest Cursive tour, as the band made its way from Nashville, Tenn., to Birmingham, Ala. Continue reading »
Interviews and Long Cuts Cat's Cradle, Cursive
