New music from Dirty Little Heaters!

Check it out: Durham's DLH will release their latest CD, "Champions

of Imperfection" through Churchkey Records on Feb. 22, but you can hear the album's second track, "City Square" right here! The heaters will play their CD-release show Feb. 20 at Local 506 with Red Collar, Pink Flag, and Magician Michael Casey. I didn't make that last part up. 

See The Avett Brothers on Austin City Limits

And you don't have to wait until this Sunday at midnight. Check out "I and Love and You" here.

WKNC to debut new music by Annuals and Gray Young

From the WKNC press release:

On Thursday, January 28th, WKNC 88.1 FM will debut the new Annuals' single, "Loxtep" from their up-coming EP, Sweet Sister, coming out March 30th on Banter Records. Also, WKNC will be debuting Gray Young's up-coming single, "Meridian". Tune into Local Lunch at 12pm with Tommyboy on WKNC 88.1 or stream online at wknc.org/listen next Thursday to hear these exclusive tracks. Annuals and Gray Young are releasing these songs to drum up support for a concert on February 19th at The Pour House Music Hall featuring both bands, along with Bright Young Things. Additionally, WKNC will be giving away two pairs of tickets to the show during the broadcast. We are excited to have the opportunity to debut these tracks exclusively to WKNC's listeners during next Thursday's Local Lunch.

IWTDI on the State of Things

 I Was Totally Destroying It will be on The State of Things on NPR today at noon. 

New Annuals out March 30

Annuals will release a new EP March 30. It's called "Sweet Sister," and it will be out on Banter Records. They'll be touring too, but the dates haven't been released. Here's the track listing:

01  Loxtep

02  Turncloaking

03  Sweet Sister

04  Holler and Howl

05  Flesh and Blood

Double Barrel Benefit lineup announced

And it's a good one. I was musing about Roman Candle to someone last weekend. Will be good to see them again. From the press release:

WKNC 88.1 FM will hold its annual Double Barrel Benefit Friday, Feb. 5 and Saturday, Feb. 6 at The Pour House Music Hall. The station’s seventh installment of the two-night concert will be feature Max Indian and Roman Candle.

The Light Pines open Friday’s show, followed by Veelee, Bellafea and Max Indian.
Saturday’s line-up consists of The Tender Fruit, Midtown Dickens, Spider Bags and Roman Candle.

More from Ben Davis & the Jett$

Just got word of a video release for Ben Davis & The Jett$ "Rincon Pio Sounds" and a reminder that the band will be at The Pinhook Thursday night.

Schooner to issue Cy-Tunes only release

Reid from Schooner just sent word that the band is releasing an  EP entitled "Duck Kee Sessions" on Cytunes in mid February.  Here' s what he had to say:

The "drop date" for the EP will be February 9, which means that's when we'll make it live on the site.   307 Knox is donating CDRs for TC to send to 150 radio stations, which will go out about a week before the release.

We are putting out no physical release in order to generate all of the traffic to Cytunes.  In lieu of this, we have a group of local artists that are making limited runs of 7x7"ish pieces of artwork that we will be attaching download codes to, courtesy of Chris Rossi.  We'll sell these at shows and some local stores with ALL of the $ is going to Cytunes.  The artists are:

Ron Liberti
Chris Williams
Will Hackney
Catherine Edgerton
Billy Sugarfix
Dave Cantwell
Kerry Cantwell
John Harrison
Michele Preslik
David Koslowski
Shirle Koslowski
Zeno Gill
Maria Albani
+ me.

The EP release party, where the artwork will be available for the first time, will be February 19th at the Pinhook.  Joining us will be Erie Choir, Veelee, and The Popular Kids (which Cy and I used to be in together).  The Merch is hooking us up with posters.

We're on the following radio shows in February:
February 5: WUNC's State of Things
February 7: WXYC's Backyard BBQ
February 12: WKNC's Local Beat
February 14: Valentines day performance on Ross Grady's WXDU show

And here's a sneak peak at what you'll hear on the new CD!

Raleigh Undercover night 3 recap

What an awesome weekend for local music! Despite a sold-out show two doors down (or maybe because of it) Raleigh Undercover was a huge, jam-packed success.

I didn't catch the Friday show, but heard great things about Bright Young Things rendition of Bowie. I also didn't see Dirty Little Heaters as The Doors (too early for me) and Hearts & Daggers as CCR (too late) during last night's show. But I liked what I saw in between, especially Static Minds' killer version of Black Sabbath. I didn't record it, but I've already seen video floating around Facebook this morning, so be on the lookout for it.

Left Outlet did an excellent version of Nick Cave, and The Whalewatchers had everyone singing along to the Doobie Brothers. Jeff Hart of course did a fine job with the Kinks (he has a Kinks tribute band), even if he did pick an obscure set list. Several people kept asking me who the band was, and I admit, I didn't even realize it until about the third song.

A clue for night two

Just in case you're not on the Raleigh Undercover facebook event list, Chris Tamplin just sent out this message:

"Holy Shit last night was amazing!  All the bands were in fine form and I can't thank them enough!  Also, thanks to everyone who Braved the "snow" to watch!  Tonight we are going to try and top last night with SIX bands!  Aminal kick it off at 9:15 sharp followed by Dry Heathens, The Tomahawks, Bright Young Things, Old Ceremony, and American Aquarium close it out!  One hint on  one of the acts being covered tonight is it is that artist's birthday today and it is not Elvis!  Once again it is a five spot to get in and the charity tonight is for Hopeline, Inc. of Raleigh.   For those of you going to one of the other great shows tonight stick your head in for a quick one (act and beer) the head out or try tomorrow night!  Thanks!"


Hmm. A quick google search of today's celebrity birthdays reveals the following: R&B singer R. Kelly (1969),  Mother Love Bone lead singer Andrew Wood (1966; d. 1990), David Bowie (1947), Doors guitarist Robby Krieger (1946),  "James Bond" theme song singer Shirley Bassey(1937). As much as I hope someone is doing R. Kelly's entire "Stuck in the Closet" series, or singing the James Bond theme, I'm going to guess that someone out there (maybe Old Ceremony?) is doing David Bowie. I already know who The Tomahawks are doing, and it should be "Something" to behold.

The best thing I have EVER seen at a Raleigh Undercover!

I don't know who River City Ransom are, but they absolutely NAILED Meat Loaf during night one of the Raleigh Undercover. Seriously, it was better than Valient Thorr's Parliament/Funkadelic tribute last year.

From the very first note, "Meat" himself owned the crowd. He sang like him, looked like him (except for a slightly dodgy wig), and moved like him. He even had an Ellen Foley-esque back up singer who was every bit as on it as he was. And the crowd was just going wild. I honestly can't wait to see River City Ransom as themselves simply because they did such an amazing job at Raleigh Undercover. Let that be a lesson to bands who want to break into the local scene: If you entertain a crowd at the cover up, people will want to know about your band.

Unfortunately I didn't shoot video because I don't want to run afoul of the law, but plenty of other folks had their phones and cameras out during this performance, so I'm sure we'll see something floating around out there soon.

Meat Loaf was one of only four bands that played last night, and all of them did well. Another band I don't know, Here Are The Young Men, did a great job with Joy Division, and Free Electric State had everyone dancing to the Pixies. I only caught the first song of Lonnie Walker's rendition of Talking Heads, but I'm already hearing that it was really good. 

Grayson hosted in character as Charles Bukowski. I even tweeted some video of him reading a Bukowski poem, but decided it might be best to take that down. Even though it was actually a fairly mild poem, I'm not sure it's something I would want to explain to my boss. 

If you're headed out tonight, the schedule includes the following:
Aminal
The Tomahawks
Bright Young Things
The Old Ceremony
Dry Heathens
American Aquarium
And, of course, there's Double Negative and Whatever Brains at the Berkeley (assuming you didn't get tix for the big Rosebuds/Megafaun show at the Pour House). Yours truly is probably going to stay in and gear up for tomorrow night, because I hear that Static Minds has something awesome planned.

Even more details on Hopscotch

Courtesy of New Raleigh. Looks very exciting!

My final interview for New Raleigh

And it's with Chris Tamplin, who is the brains behind this weekend's Raleigh Undercover. Check it out,  and go to the shows. I've had a lot of fun writing for New Raleigh, and I think they're all amazing and talented folks, but I think I need to spend a little more time around here. I promise not to be so much of a stranger on my own blog!

New .mp3 from Ben Davis & the Jett$!

Their latest, "Charge It Up," is out today on Lovitt Records. Here's an .mp3 of "Maccu Piccu".

More info on the Indy's new music fest

David Menconi has the details on his blog. 

IWTDU2

I've been hearing great things about IWTDI's occasional U2 tribute, and since I spent my junior and senior years of high school obsessing over U2, I had to check it out. John (Bono) started losing his voice during the show, and that seemed to inhibit his energy, but other than that they were spot-on. And they played the good, deep cuts - the early stuff that I absolutely love. I was thrilled to hear "A Celebration," and "A Sort of Homecoming."

I'll wait to check them out again (on St. Patrick's Day!) before fully judging them, and I look forward to seeing John in top form. I think any tribute Bono needs to be as campy as possible. When a group of girls started dancing drunkenly in front of the band last night, my companion leaned over and said, "The real Bono would have one of those girls on stage." So I advise John to let his inner Bono loose during the St. Patrick's show. Have the bouncer grab bring some random drunk girl on stage for a slow dance during "Bad". March around the pub with a white flag during "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Over-emote as if you believe every single line is going to save a starving child in Africa.

I also decided last night to begin tweeting video from shows, and got about two minutes of "New Year's Day," but when I heard the results, it sounded terrible. Anyone have advice for recording loud music over a Blackberry? Is recording over an iPhone any better, because I'm thinking about getting one when my contract runs out. I also got video on my camera of the band doing "Sunday Bloody Sunday," but decided against posting it. I'd like to think St. Bono would be magnanimous and not sue me for copyright infringement, but I'm not going to take my chances.

Forgot to add this: As you may have gleaned from my Twitter feed, I have offered John $100 if he sports an '80s era Bono mullet at the St. Patrick's Day show. This is a real offer. He must actually cut his hair into a mullet. Wearing a wig does not count. This is what I'm going for:

Or better yet, the 1983-style mullet:

I'll buy him a beer if he wears a shirt like that too!