Most American TV viewers remember June 10th, 2007. On this night, at around 9:58 pm, HBO’s critically acclaimed series “The Sopranos” arrived at its intentionally ambiguous conclusion, with a smash cut to black and a silent credits reel.
1. Megafaun’s third album, Heretofore, has a release date. The album’s arrival is set for September 14 via Hometapes Records. The band has toured extensively for the past several months, on top of putting the final touches on the album. The first single is “Volunteers,” and you can listen to it here. In a few weeks, Megafaun will play at TRKfest in Pittsboro, NC. (via trianglemusic.blogspot.com) 2. What began as a quiet conspiracy of “something going down,” Conan O'Brien and Jack White did indeed combine forces for what became a rock show. Conan and White teamed up for a few tunes for a few hundred people, including Conan’s cover of Radiohead’s “Creep.” The limited performance was recorded and will be pressed into a record for sale soon. (via Pitchfork) 3. The Strokes (http://www.thestrokes.com/)are officially back in the studio, however are beginning the recording process without Julian Casablancas (http://www.juliancasablancas.com/news/). The frontman decided it would be best to let the other band members to “spread their wings” without pressure from him. While the band works on the music and tracking, Casablancas will add the vocals later on. Currently, the band is embarking on a small tour, their first in several years. (via NME.com) 4. Songwriter Billy Bragg is embarking on an American tour this fall, including making a stop at the Cat’s Cradle, one of four dates that have currently been released. Also known for his political activism, Bragg was last in the Triangle in 2008 right around election time. Tickets for the September show are currently on sale. (via trianglemusic.blogspot.com)
A night of Drughorse Collective is inevitably unpredictable. Between the 25-some members that comprise the collective, musicians frequently jump in and out of each band. On Saturday night, the same unpredictability proved true for Max Indian and Ryan Gustafson, who performed with Bright Young Things at The Pour House in Raleigh. As usual, there was evidence copious evidence of shared band members (and one coveted vintage Batman shirt) — but more importantly there was a shared passion for playing infectious live music in its purest form.
On Friday night, Phoenix and The Love Language made Cary cool — noise limits and abundant suburbs be damned.When you form a bill with two bands that have such magnetic stage presence and delectable, irresistible pop songs, the show is bound to be spectacular. But Friday's show surpassed even the most ardent fan's French pop fantasies.The Love Language opened, blasting Koka Booth Amphitheatre with catchy indie pop. The set lasted about 45 minutes and showcased several songs from the band's upcoming release, Libraries. Stu McLamb's velvety voice still rang dreamy through the large amphitheater, as intimate and warm as any show at a smaller venue. The band's instrumentation was equally charming — Missy Thangs, BJ Burton, Jordan McLamb and Justin Rodermond exuded chemistry on stage, smiling and thrashing as each song wound to a climactic finish.
Originally published in 1726, “Gulliver’s Travels” is a classic work of fiction by master satirist Jonathan Swift, and has been adapted numerous times for TV and movies. The latest big screen version from Rob Letterman is due out this Christmas and stars Jack Black as a modern-day Gulliver, who is re-imagined as a loser mailroom clerk inadvertently dispatched on a writing assignment to the Bermuda Triangle. Clearly the best chance at capturing the original intent of Swift’s work is to cast a guy from Tenacious D in the lead role of an adaptation directed by the same man responsible for the tepid “Shark Tale” and “Monsters vs. Aliens.” Black has showed plenty of range in films before, but he looks to be in full-on broad comedy mode in this trailer, where the basic joke seems to be “Boy, Jack Black is large!”
1. North Carolina pop-punk rockers Superchunk has its first album in nine years, Majesty Shredding, coming out on September 14 via Merge Records, the label co-founded by members Mac McCaughan and Laura Balance. The 11 track album also features backing vocals by Mountain Goats singer John Darnielle. (via Pitchfork) 2. The National announced a tour to promote its new album High Violet, and have included a stop in the Triangle. The band will play Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh on Monday, October 3. Owen Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy) will open the show and tickets are currently on sale. (via trianglemusic.blogspot.com) 3. Another update from The Love Language — Libraries, which is to be released on July 13 via Merge Records, is streaming online in its entirety here, on Merge’s website. Currently the band is on tour with Glasgow’s Camera Obscura and will be making a few stops in North Carolina over the next few months (via trianglemusic.blogspot.com) 4. Chicago hip-hop duo The Cool Kids have a new mixtape, Tacklebox, despite not setting a release date for official debut, When Fish Ride Bicycles. The 15-track mixtape can be downloaded from the Cool Kids website here. (via Pitchfork)
Durham's Delta Rae could be considered old souls. Not in the conventional sense — band member Liz Hopkins was as vibrant as ever as she chatted with Diversions Editor Linnie Greene for this week's 5 Questions. But take one listen to Delta Rae's old-school vocals and the term's application becomes more clear. Drawing on intricate, powerful harmonies, gospel and influences that hearken back to the '60s and '70s, Delta Rae is a modern, youthful reincarnation of a vintage style. Here, Hopkins dishes on what it's like to be a twenty-something in the local scene and why Fleetwood Mac-esque love triangles aren't a necessary part of a career in music.Diversions: How and when did Delta Rae form?Liz Hopkins: Delta Rae formed about eight months ago. We all moved into a big house in north Durham off of Guess Rd. Three out of four members of the band are actually siblings, and I'm a close family friend who's sung with them a lot in the past. We officially formed as a band around September.
In many ways, an album release party is like the day when you get your driver's license. A band has a set of songs that have been tested under the watchful guise of a producer, honed to precision over hours of practice and constructed with several solitary instruments. Still, the first live show is like the moment when your foot hits the gas, and the producers, sound technicians and machinery are nowhere to be found. It's just the band and the music.And on Saturday night, Luego proved that Ocho, its follow-up to 2009's Taped-together Stories, is ready to hit the road. The Tomahawks opened with a brief set of energetic, driving pop tunes that lit up the dark Nightlight stage.
First and foremost, Reader, I just want to say that I hope you’ve enjoyed your summer thus far. If your wild and crazy summer has been shaping up at all like mine, you’ve been spending most of your time watching movies at home or at a local theater with some friends. You and I have a lot to talk about in the coming months (though I imagine it will be mostly a one-sided conversation). Here we go… As you probably already know, the world witnessed two WTF moments in watching “Iron Man 2.” Fortunately, neither of them took place during the movie itself. The first was in the previews reel, when a mysterious teaser trailer for an alien movie premiered. The second was the post-credit scene, during which Thor’s hammer made a cameo as an ad for Marvel’s Summer 2011 flick, “Thor.” Since the latter is self-explanatory, here’s the scoop on the sci-fi teaser. It’s called “Super 8,” and there’s a lot of Cloverfield-esque mystery attached to it. What we do know: The film is written and directed by J.J. Abrams (“Star Trek,” “Lost”) and produced by Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood sci-fi veteran whose filmography need not be referenced. The film takes place in 1979 and is a homage to Spielberg’s sci-fi material from the 70’s and 80’s.
For the past year, Durham’s Luego has been busy. The pop-rock band established its big, retro-infused sound on its first record, Taped-together Stories, but adds even more warmth and creative juice to the upcoming Ocho. Full of unified backing vocals and foot stomping fun, Ocho continues in the same story-telling troubadour spirit. As Luego prepares for a quick tour and the album’s release party at the Nightlight on Saturday, staff writer Elizabeth Byrum sat down with frontman Patrick Phelan at Cosmic Cantina in Durham to chat about the upcoming album, the local music scene, and Herbie, the legendary number 53, over some chicken burritos. Diversions: What has it been like releasing two albums in 8 months? Are you tired yet? Patrick Phelan: Sometimes I feel a bit worn out, a bit worried because I am doing everything, working my ass off. But like that’s my role, is running things, booking us, shopping us, paying for everything, writing out songs, making sure everyone’s happy, staying on top that, staying on top of the bands everyone else is in, staying on top of the bands in the scene, the Pitchfork scene. I’m working, I have a dog, I write songs, and I constantly feel the need to create. This album Ocho, kind of represents a period in my life just like the last album did, they are very different from each other. I think to be an artist you have to be changing, and I feel insane because I am just compelled to write, to produce, and to perfect and to get better. I feel like I am getting better and we are getting better as a band. The records are becoming more careful and expressive.
1. Raleigh’s The Love Language will release Libraries, its second album, on July 13 and have planned a newly announced album release party on July 17 at Cat’s Cradle. Tickets are $8 and are on sale now. Additionally, the band will be touring throughout May and June with bands including Camera Obscura and Superchunk.(via trianglemusic.blogspot.com) 2. Eighteen new bands have been added to the Hopscotch Festival in September, including Bowerbirds, Raekwon, Woods and In the Year of the Pig. All venue access passes are still on sale for $85 for the three-day, 120 band festival. The full lineup can be seen here.(via trianglemusic.blogspot.com) 3. Arcade Fire posted a postcard informing fans that a new single is due out in the next few weeks. While fans await the third album from Canada’s finest orchestral indie pop outfit, snip-its of two songs, “The Suburbs” and “Month of May,” are available on the band's website. (via Pitchfork) 4. U2 frontman Bono underwent emergency back surgery on May 21 for an injury sustained during tour preparations. The first show in Salt Lake City has been postponed next month and there is talk of additional shows being postponed as Bono continues to recover. U2’s 360° tour is set to include several additional acts as it travels the world including Lenny Kravitz and One Republic.(via Pitchfork)
This week marks the return of Dive's 5 Questions series, and we're starting the summer off with a conversation with England's Bobby Long. In the midst of a busy touring schedule and recording his first full-length album, Bobby chatted with Diversions Editor Linnie Greene about crossing the pond, childhood influences and how the Twilight soundtrack influenced his career. Catch his show at Local 506 this Saturday
From the time the doors opened Saturday to late into the night, Cat’s Cradle buzzed with anticipation for Lost in the Trees’ first performance in several months. Any mention of the band or Ari Picker, the band’s front man, and the crowd erupted into cheers.
In development since it appeared as one of the “fake trailers” in 2007’s “Grindhouse,” Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete” has continued to embrace the campy premise it was initially formed on. It stars Danny Trejo as the titular day laborer hero, who is hired to assassinate an anti-immigrant Texas politician, only to be promptly double-crossed. The latest trailer was released on Cinco De Mayo and features the likes of Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, and a shotgun-toting Cheech Marin, not to mention a minigun-equipped motorcycle. It looks to be pretty close in tone to “Grindhouse,” which is kind of a mixed bag, given the lackluster critical and box-office reception it received. Nonetheless, I’ll see any film with the balls to stick with the tagline “They just fucked with the wrong Mexican.”On the more realistic side of the spectrum is the gritty urban crime thriller “Gangster’s Paradise: Jerusalema,” the tale of petty criminal Lucky Kunene (Rapulana Seiphemo) and his rise from the bottom of the criminal world. The trailer isn’t spectacular, but it has a similar feel to “City of God” and “Elite Squad,” both of which are foreign crime films that I highly enjoyed. It may not be as much acclaim as either of those films did, but the possibility of being at all similar to them is enough to keep me interested.
Although its title is incredibly deceiving, “Get Low” is not the latest urban dance flick. It’s actually a dark comedy starring Robert Duvall as Tennessee hermit who isolated himself from the world for 40 years before returning to the world to plan his own living funeral party. The trailer was a lot better than I thought it would be, taking a much more measured and dark comedic tone instead of going for broad “grumpy old man” jokes, not to mention highlighting Bill Murray’s supporting role. As he proved in “Secondhand Lions,” Duvall can play a codger without resorting to excessive sappy life lessons, so he seems like a great choice here.
You’ve got to give Animal Collective and Danny Perez credit — they warned you. And in the case of "ODDSAC," directed by Perez with music by Animal Collective, it’s a warning you should heed. The screening at the Varsity Friday night proved an exercise in hallucination and experimentation, and Perez asked the audience to “wipe their minds clean.” In short — this is not the kind of movie you see on LSD unless you’re prepared for a very tumultuous trip. The film — which its creators bill as a “visual album” — pushes limits, both aurally and visually. It’s an alternately fast-paced and groggy vision of psychedelia, with nightmarish scenes juxtaposing images of nature, childhood, and the fourth dimension. The soundtrack augments this dreamy environ, where scenes vacillate between calm and irrational panic. The film’s most powerful moments occurred in the space between noise and silence, when an otherworldly creature’s footsteps scraped on river rocks as unidentifiable noise resounded intermittently. The band has crafted a mix of fast-paced frenzy and chilling sound bites, from screams to demonic laughter, and this exploration tests the limits of noise, exploring its capability to transform an image into something more sinister.
I'm assuming that if you're one of the followers of the Diversions blog that you were unable to attend the festivities out Coachella way. I personally would have loved to see B.o.B. aka Bobby Ray perform a full set in the California sun. I got to see a younger Bob at Rock the Bells in the summer of 2008, but at that time he was only getting 15 minutes of stage time, a good chunk of it taken up by his radio single at the time, "Haterz Everywhere." In the two years since the man's music has grown bounds. Now his debut album, which drops next Tuesday, is one of the most anticipated hip-hop albums of the year, and by far the most excited I've been about an album in a while. Here is his Coachella live set to get ready for said release date.What's Good?: "Generation Lost," "Airplanes"Tracklist and Download link for B.o.B. Live at Coachella 4/18/10For a little local flavor let's mix in a nice tape for the summer courtesy of LiKuid Nation clothing. Mixed by DJ Ill Digitz, the man that works the 1s and 2s for Kooley High, LiKuid Sounds is a comp of a bunch of dope jams. You've got the incredible Reflection Eternal joint with Jay Electronica, Mos Def and J. Cole as well as some Little Brother, Lupe Fiasco and Big Sean. What's worth getting this tape besides the songs you may already have downloaded? Some music from Kooley High and Charlie Smarts that you may have overlooked. All around a great 12 tracks assemblage. Also, extra fresh artwork. What's Good?: Reflection Eternal "Just Begun" Feat. Jay Electronica, J. Cole and Mos Def, Kooley High "Ya Times Up," Charlie Smarts "Lovin' Me"Tracklist and Download link for The LiKuid SoundsLast but certainly not least, a tribute to the fallen Guru. Half, along with DJ Premier, of one of the best hip-hop groups of all-time, Gang Starr, Guru passed away on Monday after battling cancer. Guru had been in a coma since February. The man was a stellar emcee though and should be celebrated. With DJ Premier behind him, the two produced some of NY's best hip-hop. His flow is lazy yet calculated. If for some reason you already weren't familiar with Guru, do it now. It's a shame what happened between the two former groupmates in recent years, but it doesn't diminish the great music they made together and that Guru made as a solo artist. Here are 35 tracks commemorating a legend.What's Good?: "Execution of a Chump," "You Know My Steez," all of itTracklist and Download link for Icon
If you’re tastes are like mine, then you probably thought “Into the Wild” was great movie. As much as I liked it, I’m wary of any movie that attempt to emulate it without bringing much new substance to the table. This is what “180º South: Conquerors of the Useless” seems to be doing, producing “Into the Wild” for the older set, but in documentary form. The trailer sets up a journey of self-discovery in Patagonia and even plays up the original music aspect, much like “Into the Wild”’s much-praised Eddie Vedder soundtrack. Truthfully, it could just be a lackluster trailer, and the stunning visuals make it worth keeping an eye on as it develops.
1. The Love Language’s new album Libraries, is set to be released on July 13 by Merge Records. In addition to new material, the sophomore release will include several songs popular from the band’s live sets. “Heart To Tell,” the sixth track is currently available to listen to here. The band plays Memorial Hall next week with St. Vincent.(via trianglemusic.blogspot.com) 2.The new Raleigh Downtown Amphitheatre is in the final stages as the summer approaches. The outdoor amphitheatre is across from the Raleigh Convention Center and already has eight shows booked including O.A.R. with Citizen Cope. Consequently, the shows at this amphitheatre will be aimed at replacing Raleigh Downtown Live, which will not be occurring this summer. (via Music.MyNC) 3. Modest Mouse is hitting the road again with a tour this summer. In addition to headlining the Pitchfork Music Festival they will be touring the country and then the UK. In July, the band will make a stop at Asheville's The Orange Peel. (via Pitchfork) 4. Jay-Z and a business partner are suing the Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz over a night club conundrum. Jay-Z co-owns a chain of clubs called the 40/40 Club while Ortiz owns a club in the Dominican Republic, called the Forty-Forty Club. According to Jay-Z’s lawyers, Ortiz’s club is named only to capitalize on the popularity of the 40/40 Club chain and Jay is asking for $5 million in damages. (via Pitchfork)
The Morning Benders kick things off with a video for their song "Promises," which features probably the youngest bank robbers ever. This 9 or 10 year old-looking girl and boy spend their time drinking wine and champagne, smoking cigarettes and shooting machine guns while robbing banks. Their bloody and untimely demise is an important and timely message for elementary school kids today: The money and fast life may be tempting, but please kids, stay in your afterschool programs.