AltWeeklies Wire
The Honored Guests finally value the process, not just the productnew
"It's about understanding your situation and understanding that something has to change in order to get to a better place," says frontman Russell Baggett of the band's third album, Please Try Again.
INDY Week |
Chris Parker |
08-27-2010 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: The Honored Guests
Kooley High is Moving to New Yorknew
"My mama always told me that people won't respect you sometimes until you leave and come back, so we're doing our little leave and come back thing because we're definitely coming back."
INDY Week |
Spencer Griffith |
08-17-2010 |
Profiles & Interviews
The Arcade Fire's ascension, and their cold stare back downnew
The Arcade Fire was once about possibility; they still sound that way, but—egalitarian subject, best-seller be damned—they're now at the top of the pile, coldly staring down at the mess.
INDY Week |
Grayson Currin |
08-16-2010 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Merge Records, The Arcade Fire
The Static Minds' 'Rich Girl Blues'new
Here, on the debut 7" from Raleigh quartet The Static Minds, there are two. A-side reasoning: She's too busy being rich and, memorably put, "dying in her own bad taste." B-side reasoning: She's too busy being a bore.
Tags: Rich Girl Blues, The Static Minds
Jazz Album Taps Into Plena, an Overlooked Puerto Rican Rhythmnew
Ancestral and electrifying, Esta Plena, which lost its two bids for a Grammy Award to Terence Blanchard and Chucho and Bebo Valdes, is nonetheless a milestone recording. For the first time, it creates an album-length conversation between jazz and plena.
INDY Week |
Sylvia Pfeiffenberger |
02-12-2010 |
Profiles & Interviews
Gil Scott-Heron's Remarkable New Record, 'I'm New Here'new
Gil Scott-Heron is the gruff-voiced griot and spoken-word poet who laid a good chunk of the foundation for what we know today as rapping. I'm New Here is his unremitting self-portrait of a man who's had years to catalogue and now capture his paranoia, thrills and agitations.
Team Spirit: Durham's 307 Knox Records Turns Fivenew
Since 2004, the imprint has released 31 records—a compilation full of Bull City bands, full-lengths by Midtown Dickens, The Future Kings of Nowhere and Cantwell, Gomez & Jordan and a series of 7-inch vinyl singles. Meet founder Melissa Thomas.
Year in Review: A Sizable Fleet of North Carolina Bands Found Bigger Audiencesnew
This year, more than any other this decade, the Triangle's local band scene seemed to engender broader support. It was a good year to be, as one excellent local compilation put it, "hearing here," at home.
Pete Rock, DJ Premier and the Praise of Disciplesnew
Hip-hop producers Pete Rock and DJ Premier remain among the most musically and culturally important in hip-hop's lifespan. We talked with five area artists (two of whom will perform Saturday) whose careers have been influenced by Pete and Primo.
INDY Week |
Eric Tullis |
12-10-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Found: Betty Davis' Lost Masterpiecenew
Davis railed against the male-dominated industry, while playing the come-hither, power-wielding goddess who stirs libidos everywhere. Far ahead of the social norms, Davis presented herself unflinchingly as a complex black woman who could not be held down.
Tags: Is It Love or Desire, Betty Davis
#thissongissogreat: How to Change This Band's Life, in 140 Characters or Lessnew
The Twitter paradigm reverts to the antiquated record-store clerk model, where you discover new music because you trust the person behind the counter who loves something you've yet to hear.
On Album 12, Yo La Tengo Again Turns Familiar Music Inside Outnew
For 25 years, Yo La Tengo has taken a contrarian approach to originality. Unafraid to evoke other artists, genres and time periods, the trio has dabbled in folk, pop, doo-wop, classic rock and the avant-garde.
INDY Week |
Marc Masters |
09-18-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Two Jersey Boys Called Spider Bags Find a New Chance in North Carolinanew
Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World, the second album by Spider Bags, is a glorious mess. Each of its 10 tracks feels as if it fights from beneath a haze of distortion or gasps for air underneath a tide of tape hiss.
INDY Week |
Grayson Currin |
09-18-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Elephant 6's The Circulatory System Returnsnew
Talking to Will Cullen Hart is like talking to a tape collage. It is sometimes hard to sort out what is medication, what is self-medication, what is Hart, what is something else.
INDY Week |
Jesse Jarnow |
09-03-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Depression-Era North Carolina String Band is Generously Anthologized on New Two-CD Setnew
The subtitle of the anthology, The Complete Recordings of the Red Fox Chasers (1928-31), is truthful: The two discs contain the entire recorded output of Brooks, Miles, A.P. Thompson and Bob Cranford.
