You hold in your hands The Daily Tar Heel’s inaugural music edition, a celebration of the musicians and music lovers who have filled Chapel Hill and Carrboro with unique melodies and lyrics for decades.
Along with this edition, we are releasing the first episode of Editors’ Notes, a video music series shot in The Daily Tar Heel office, featuring guitarist and UNC sophomore Bill Moore.
This series was born out of the desire to provide fresh, accessible coverage of the Triangle’s local musicians through the Lifestyle desk, inspired by the work done by past arts desks at The DTH.
This summer, as we began defining Lifestyle and its coverage, I discovered that once a semester for several years, our former arts desk, Diversions, collaborated with Local 506 to host a free show with local bands.
Chapel Hill and Carrboro are home to musical legends ranging from Elizabeth Cotten to Dexter Romweber, and industry staples like Merge Records and Cat’s Cradle — it made perfect sense that Diversions hosted these “Dive Parties.”
The concerts were an accessible celebration of local music, and as Lifestyle gained its footing at The DTH, I began to think about ways that the desk could continue to elevate the work of our area's musicians in new ways.
The past several weeks have been full of brainstorming sessions, filming and editing. Conversations about this series began in the fall, but it wasn’t until January that an artist and date were arranged for filming.
Emi Maerz, the assistant Lifestyle editor, and I sat in the office to create the banner and garland for the set in early February. That week, our writers began working on the stories you’ll read in this edition.
The co-editors for our Audio & Video desk, Natalie Bradin and McKenzie Bulris, worked with our Multimedia Managing Editor Carson Elm-Picard to perfect the audio and video setup, and, on Feb. 17, we filmed Bill Moore perform a set of four original songs.
