Orr Shtuhl

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Grizzly Bear should forget about the delay and get to the good stuff

By Orr Shtuhl | April 27

MUSICREVIEW Grizzly Bear Sorry for the Delay (The Early Recordings) 3 stars Audiences have always put up with some amount of filler on a record. In the pre-album era, singles were more a benchmark for success than full-length LPs. The move from vinyl to CD blew the lid off length requirements, almost doubling from a standard 45-minute release to a maximum run time of 80 minutes. The increased canvas has led to sprawled albums, to point where anything less than 50 minutes is dubbed "compact."

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Editors lay out hits for stellar show

By Orr Shtuhl | April 13

CONCERTREVIEW Editors/Stellastarr Cat's Cradle April 5 3.5 The concert experience is really an alternate universe. Like in a movie theater, I can for a few hours immerse myself in a suspension of reality. I walk in, and I'm on vacation. Or in a complete state of mediation. Until the house lights come on and we exit into the night's fresh chill, there is nothing outside of this room.

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Good band puts on bad show

By Orr Shtuhl | March 30

CONCERTREVIEW Hard-Fi Cat's Cradle Tuesday 1.5 stars Usually a negative review has an upshot. The writer and readers can at least share a chuckle over the follies of Ashlee Simpson, Limp Bizkit or some other artist who no one takes seriously. But when London rockers Hard-Fi played Cats Cradle on Tuesday night in support of their debut, Stars of CCTV, the sight was merely sad and disappointing.

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Brit rockers wish upon 'Stars'

By Orr Shtuhl | March 30

MUSICREVIEW Hard-Fi Stars of CCTV 3.5 Stars Hard-Fi is the new Killers. Before you fire up your hype machines, consider this: The Killers are nothing special. But mediocrity is not what these two bands share. Rather, Stars of CCTV - like Hot Fuss - is a punchy pop album with more hits than B-sides and nary a weak song in sight. Since its U.K. release last summer, the band's debut album has peaked at No. 1 on the British charts and includes four Top-20 singles. Of course, commercial success is no substitute for quality. But Stars is the real deal.

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STV season premiere channels 'Office' satire

By Orr Shtuhl | March 29

"A lot of jokes just fall flat," says freshman business major Preston Neill, sitting by the Old Well and discussing the challenges of writing comedy. "It's all about timing." That's something he and freshman Doug Branson, a communication studies major, have learned working on their new television show, "The RA." Modeled after BBC sitcom "The Office," it's one of the shows debuting on Student TV's Premiere Night, airing today from 6 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.

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Chapel Hill acts rock festival

By Orr Shtuhl | March 22

AUSTIN, TEXAS - Five days. Fourteen hundred bands. That was the flood that overtook the Texas capital from March 15 to March 19 at the 20th annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference. Some 10,000 concertgoers flocked to more than 50 venues to see six, eight or as many as a dozen bands nightly. The number of performers was 40 times that of the original Woodstock. And the Chapel Hill music scene was right in the middle of it.

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Obnoxious rock act electrifies audience

By Orr Shtuhl | February 23

CONCERTREVIEW Electric Six Cat's Cradle Sunday 3 Stars In the wake of a flurry of controversy ignited by The Daily Tar Heel's negative review of Se

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Tuning into the O.C.

By Orr Shtuhl | January 26

Four attractive teens hover by the stage in a dingy yet fashionable club. Backing their gossipy chatter is a crowd of impeccably dressed models, lush, sexy lighting and - Modest Mouse? Or maybe it's the Walkmen, or Death Cab for Cutie. That's the way they live on "The O.C.": hip, wealthy and with an impossible knack for underground music. And they're starting to affect consumers.

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Over-ambitious art rock falls short

By Orr Shtuhl | January 19

MUSICREVIEW The Playwrights English Self Storage 3 Stars Misdirected talent is always a shame. British art-rockers The Playwrights demonstrate clear musical chops and poetic mastery on their second album, English Self Storage. But when it comes to marrying the two in an attempt at cohesive songwriting, their efforts fall disappointingly flat.

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Poetry colors King celebration

By Orr Shtuhl | January 18

The room was austere, the dress formal, but the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History's Brown Gallery glowed hot with passion Tuesday night as students and faculty gathered for "He Was a Poem," the second annual poetry reading commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Not a seat was left unfilled as students and faculty performed pieces by Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni and others to honor King. The poems were read with vigor, many of the readers incorporating actions and speech affectation to bring the works to life.