115 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(04/10/08 4:00am)
There's a sense of epic urgency that spills from Giant's music.
Guitars clash, surging against each other as they propel melodies to soaring heights.
Powerful drum hits fill the space, nailing shut the lid as Isaac Jones' gruff vocals battle against churning waves of sound - exasperated, desperate.
But when the fury recedes - even if only for a moment - it leaves a raw, vulnerable haze of gorgeous melody and melancholic atmosphere.
As the opening band at Cat's Cradle tonight, Giant should prove a tough act to follow.
The Greensboro-based band has been on a far-reaching tour with Between The Buried And Me, perhaps N.C.'s best known metal band, which Jones says has been "awesome," except for being unable to play dates in Canada.
But now, the band is bringing its massive music back home, in a tour that started Wednesday in Greensboro and continues with tonight's show and a set Friday in Charlotte.
Musically, Giant is a dynamic, brooding beast, but after talking to vocalist/guitarist Jones, who founded the band with his brother, Zac, it all makes sense.
"We just wanted to create music that had some weight to it," he said.
It's a dark, heavy sound indebted to the brothers' days spent listening to hardcore and metal, but equally important is the group's tenacity when it comes to composition and experimentation.
"Whatever emotions we're trying to display with the music, we want that to translate," Jones said. "That's why we've become so turned on to soundtracks, just because the more visual we can make it, the better."
Their sound's unrelenting dynamic only augments the urgency in Giant's music.
Much of the band's philosophy stems from radical politics and social discontent: the search for positive change in what can seem to be a harsh world.
"For me and my brother, when we first started Giant, a lot of that stuff was really relevant," Jones said of the band members' leftist sentiments.
"We kind of latch on to the things that are more movement-oriented," he continues. "I don't like to tell people how to live, but it's how we live . Giant, musically, was an expression of a lot of the anger we were feeling."
But he's also quick to note that politics don't dominate Giant's songwriting.
"A lot of the lyrics do talk about that sort of thing, but a lot of them don't, you know? When you write music it's a really personal thing."
Personal enough that it plays into the band's business practices.
"We love music for the sake of music," Jones said. "I don't even know if we actually own any of our music."
He doesn't fault music being sold as a commodity; it's when it's made for the sake of being sold, rather than for the sake of expressing something important, that he sees a problem.
"Essentially, business put to music is what makes people f--k with other people's music," he said.
"The motives are essential."
As the band continues its tour with BTBAM, the notions of commercial success blending with musical progression become apparent. In contrast to Giant's relatively small-scale operations, BTBAM can celebrate a huge fanbase, a big-time record deal with Victory Records and much wider renown - and the commercial success that comes with it.
But Jones sees a balance.
"It's just one of those things that Between The Buried And Me is just so talented that you had to pay attention.
"There's bands that evade that commercial ideal. You have to pay attention to it because it is what it is. We knew Between The Buried And Me would either be cult-famous, or, well, famous.
"Those dudes really know what they're doing."
The same easily can be said of Giant, who with this tour finishing up and a new recording in the works, finally might see a dawning horizon where the music the band makes is greeted with a reception as huge as its sound.
And it would make a fitting story for the band whose songs express a deep, heavy turmoil but at the same time bring a sound of hopefulness - always looking forward, always pushing on, always progressing.
Art can't exist in stasis. The band will continue to push its boundaries, constantly evolving and making music for the sake of making music.
It's a quest befitting a Giant.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(03/27/08 4:00am)
I find it interesting how our pop-trained ears (and brains) crave melody to such a degree that when deprived of it, listening can become a challenging, even painful endeavor.
When familiar concepts of melody are manipulated or exploited - even altogether abandoned - we consider the music to be avant-garde, inaccessible, unmusical.
But only through challenges and explorations can our ideas be solidified, and the concept of melody truly defined with any degree even approaching adequacy.
The UK noise duo of Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power, better known as F--k Buttons, has, with its debut LP, Street Horrrsing, created a remarkably melodic effort - though it doesn't seem that way at first.
The album's opener, "Sweet Love For Planet Earth," begins with a slow crescendo of gently sprinkled keys eventually churning itself up into more voluminous, but still downtempo, waves of feedback.
But it's in the approaching and receding tones the feedback creates that melodic ideas begin to take shape.
Vocals don't enter the picture until five-and-a-half minutes in, and even then, it's a distorted wail - just another texture in the bubbling stew of sounds.
And F--k Buttons don't shy away from abrasive timbres at all.
The beauty is that they don't shy away from moments of gorgeous serenity, either, creating a sense of tension and release that keeps the listener entangled in the music, listening eagerly for the next passage of melodic comfort.
The opening seconds of the 10-minute "Okay, Let's Talk About Magic" provide a syncopated groove that becomes infectious with its repetition.
"Bright Tomorrow" (the closest to pop F--k Buttons get) drops the bottom out for an ecstatic bout of dance-pop rhythms and creeping synthesizer melody. It's a moment of respite and triumph as the listener enters the album's home stretch.
Street Horrrsing's sixth and final track, "Colours Move," lets a heavy drone climb into pounding rhythms that give way to upper-register melody (even harmony) before retreating back to the very same keyboard twinkles that opened the record.
In its completeness, the LP comes full circle, finding its way through scathing atonality and melodic comfort with equal aplomb, stringing us, the listeners, along and showing us the common ground between what we know as pop music and what we often dismiss as unmusical.
Here is an entirely musical effort. Its manipulations of melodic expectations provide challenges, but they're challenges that are ultimately satisfying when they wind up resolved.
We still crave melody, but our notions of what that concept entails have developed.
And that's the record's true reward.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(03/19/08 4:00am)
With No Ceiling, her full-length debut (following two 2007 EPs), New York singer/songwriter Haale guides her band through a solid set of smooth psych-rock melded with Persian influences.
The blend becomes almost seamless as the Middle Eastern elements are pronounced mostly in the melodic phrasing of the songs and in the lyrics borrowing from Sufi mysticism and poetry.
Three of the album's 10 songs simply set the words of the Sufi poet Rumi to music - and it's these songs that lend the most audible excitement.
"Ay Dar Shekasteh" finds Haale letting loose her voice in an ecstatic praise as shattered guitars come in and out of the mix, lending a visceral dynamic to Rumi's lyrical ruminations on the metaphysical.
The exoticism of the Persian melodies and language counter the otherwise familiar sounds of Western psychedelic rock, finding a common ground and establishing Haale's unique voice.
Elsewhere on the record, though, Haale's rock influences weigh too heavily, obscuring the importance of her Persian heritage and musical influences.
The album's title track evokes Middle Eastern sounds more than it transforms them - in the same way other psych-rockers (late-era Beatles) have been doing for decades.
The strength in Haale's music comes in the cultural immersion she can assert on an audience with her velveteen voice - which at times carries a similar timbre to Madonna or Gwen Stefani (in her No Doubt days) - at the helm.
Haale is at her best carrying listeners deep into her own Persian roots.
And for this, No Ceiling can -and often does - make for a compelling excursion.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(02/21/08 5:00am)
It's impossible to consider Heretic Pride without the context of the two albums that preceded it: 2005's The Sunset Tree and 2006's Get Lonely.
See, both of those records were so inescapably personal, so paralyzingly powerful, so great.
They're the kinds of albums that don't just inhabit a spot on the shelf or in the stereo, but gradually become indelibly attached to anyone who's ever cared to listen. They get in your bloodstream, and no matter what you do, there's no cure.
Both are examples of John Darnielle, The Mountain Goats' central figure, doing more with less, his lyrics becoming the sole focal point. And they're as intense as burning embers burrowing into tender flesh.
Heretic Pride, however, sees Darnielle doing less with more.
The instrumental backing is fuller, more pronounced than it's ever been before. The production value gives the record a boldness never seen in The Mountain Goats' usually spare-sounding catalog.
But the charm of The Mountain Goats has always been the level of spare intimacy the solitary-man music lends.
So in comparison to its antecedents, Heretic Pride pales.
But the fact of the matter is, John Darnielle is still one of the most exciting songwriters working today.
His attention to detail makes the imagery he injects into his lyrics that much more real, letting the places, characters and emotions described take on a vivid existence in listeners' imaginations.
Heretic Pride just doesn't have the overarching themes that made The Sunset Tree and Get Lonely something like novels, and something else like the soundtrack to our own darkest moments.
On a song-by-song basis, though, Heretic Pride's got its hits.
"In the Craters on the Moon" is a propulsive, slow-burning song that delivers the album's most soul-cleansing climax.
And there's plenty of classic Darniellian imagery, as in, "I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam," from "Autoclave."
"So Desperate," sees Darnielle's speaker setting the intricately built stage, "We were parked in your car/In our neutral meeting place/The Episcopalian churchyard," then launching into a love song so entrenched in hopeless devotion and - as the title suggests - desperation that it breaks out in Darnielle's dead-leaf-fragile delivery of the chorus.
The robust Heretic Pride is certainly one of The Mountain Goats' most immediate works.
But even if it is solidly a good record, Heretic Pride still doesn't have the forceful, lapel-grabbing desperation or the physically affecting emotional vulnerability over the course of the entire LP that made its predecessors so uncompromisingly, down-to-the-marrow compelling.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(02/14/08 5:00am)
In 1968, George A. Romero turned zombies from ambling, carnivorous corpses into vehicles for sharp social commentary with the classic "Night of the Living Dead."
He did it again 10 years later with the critical hit, "Dawn of the Dead" (not to be confused with Zack Snyder's dumbed-down remake).
And throughout the resurrections of his "Dead" series (now in its fifth installment with "Diary of the Dead"), Romero's eye on society has never been far from the foreground.
But as he's gotten older, Romero's knack for subtlety has waned - not that a zombie movie is ever really subtle, what with all the gut-munching ghouls and the splattered brains and such.
The largely first-person "Diary of the Dead" finds the father of the undead taking stabs at media saturation and the social voyeurism made possible by the Internet.
But all he really has to say is that the mainstream media is generally up to no good, and (as per usual) humanity is doomed.
Worse yet, the comments are so surface-level and so obvious that they fail to make much of an impression.
Romero's more subtle remarks, such as those targeted at American xenophobia - the first zombies we see are an immigrant family, and as such "foreigners" are blamed for the plague - are expertly weaved into the storyline. The writer/director at his finest.
And the central characters show a range of emotions and reactions to the catastrophe, allowing the film to make ample explorations of people's responses to chaos.
Really, the zombies take a backseat in "Diary," and the film is better for it.
And that's not to say the audience that typically enjoys zombie flicks won't be satisfied, either.
There's plenty of undead carnage, and Romero's still got a twisted imagination when it comes to killing off the walking corpses - let's just say medieval weaponry comes into play.
But for all its virtues, "Diary" is still heavy-handed where it counts. Romero's still mad, and his vision of humanity is as bleak as ever, but the movie suffers for his unwillingness to let the viewers make their own interpretations.
It's just sad to know that for all its superficial awesomeness, "Diary" is just one more piece of evidence that Romero will never make another "Dawn of the Dead."
For his whole career, he's been asking "Are we really worth saving?" It didn't need to actually be written into the dialogue.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(01/24/08 5:00am)
The very name, Instruments of Science and Technology, carries the perfect mix of enigmatic sci-fi nerdity to act as the moniker for popsmith Richard Swift's eerily propulsive electronic project.
The title carries an evocation of distance and coldness, almost stereotypical of electronic music.
But with Music from the Films of R/Swift, Swift's music is given room to breathe, becoming something akin to human, despite the notable absence of truly human elements in the arrangements.
Swift declares his intentions boldly with the pulsing, dance-ready "INST," in which a robotic voice declares again and again, "We are the instruments of science and technology," as a metronomic, four-on-the-floor snare beat buttresses the song against a whirring onslaught of electronic tones and insistent waves of bass.
The rest of the album, however, takes a decidedly more atmospheric approach, layering tones and alternating driving rhythms with stretches of glassy calm to create unsettling harmonic dissonances that would sound at home as the score to some apocalyptic thriller.
And like a good thriller ought to, the album raises questions about what exactly it means to be human.
Man can create a synthetic artifice of himself, but at what point does this creation begin to take on a life of its own?
As the music swells and recedes into dissonance and melody, into rhythmic pulses or extended metallic tones, it begins to become something apart from Instruments of Science and Technology, as if the band has not created music, but given birth to it.
The music claims its own life - its own kind-of-human existence in the realm of speakers and headphones.
It's a life complete with moments of harshness, confusion and sublime clarity, all playing against each other to create a collection of sounds, that when taken as a whole, becomes an affecting entity.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu
(01/17/08 5:00am)
Critiquing acts whose primary purpose is to faithfully resurrect a particular (and largely dead) style brings with it its own particular challenges.
Colossus, Raleigh's troupe of New-Wave-of-British-Heavy-Metal revivalists, creates all these sorts of critical challenges with its debut LP, ...And The Rift of the Pan-Dimensional Undergods.
Since the band's primary mission is to recreate the sound of the NWOBHM, we can say outright that the effort isn't pushing into any new musical territory.
We've got all the dueling, wailing guitar solos, driving rhythm sections and soaring vocals of bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and, well, not a whole lot else.
But, if you're a fan of bands that sound like Priest and Maiden, then that's not a bad thing.
Determining whether or not this is a "good" album then begs the question, "How faithful is the band to its source material?"
And the answer there is, "Very."
The band plays a tight melee of fretboard acrobatics, with appropriately dramatic vocals (not far at all removed from Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson), and it's all done with skill and finesse.
But despite the band's reverent (to say the least) re-creation of the established sound, Colossus does take one small-but-important step toward establishing its own identity.
The band employs a sense of humor that manifests in the playfully absurdist fantasies of songs such as the self-explanatory "Ghostf--ker" or the triumphant "Limit Break."
Colossus takes every power-metal cliche, sets it out note-for-note and adds a wink and a nod to the listener.
The band knows exactly what it's doing, and for all the shredding, there's not a sliver of self-aggrandizement or pretentiousness - just headbanging, beer-guzzling, Flying-V-playing good times.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(01/10/08 5:00am)
We came late to the party. What can I say?
It's almost halfway through January, and we're just now getting around to printing our Top 10s.
You're probably asking yourself, "What gives, Dive?" Maybe you're even asking, "Why bother?"
Well, for critics, the year-end list, as arbitrary and divisive as it inevitably turns out to be, is an important ritual. It's a chance to show some real enthusiasm for the art forms we spend our lives trying to know intimately.
But -- most importantly, for the sake of this column - it's also a measuring stick for our readers.
Even if only indirectly, we critics make having good taste into a job. And our readers are right to judge us on our taste.
But there's a crucial question in that idea: What exactly is good taste?
And that, friends, is a dangerous question.
As a critic, my taste is a function of my knowledge. The more I know, the broader my tastes become. The broader my base of knowledge and appreciation, the more diverse my taste can be.
And since one can't really claim to have good taste in something (popular music in my case) as a whole without at least a modicum of understanding about the whole of something, diversity equates to taste, right?
Well, almost.
On top of the burden of knowledge comes the burden of argument.
Because the things we like are so subjective and personal, we must be able to defend, or at least explain, our choices.
But as with anything else in this world, as much as you defend your position, someone is always going to disagree. Whether you're going with "I like what I like because I like it," (a perfectly valid argument, though I'm reluctant to admit it) or a rambling thesis on the ability of Wolves In The Throne Room's recent album, Two Hunters, to evoke not only an emotional sense of lonesome desolation, but also to create a dark, cold sense of specific place and time that manifests itself both physically and metaphorically in the context of the record, making it an easy choice for year's best, you're not wrong.
But you're not entirely right, either.
At the end of the day, we like what we like because we like it, and sometimes something special will come along we get so excited about that it leads to rambling, abstract theses that try so hard to pin down exactly what about it is so great but often end up just expressing an all-out enthusiasm that should be argument enough.
So what, then, is the job of a critic?
All year long the critic tries to keep an open mind to all styles, to review in context to the cultural whole and to disregard taste as much as possible.
But it's impossible to do that.
So, once a year we get the opportunity to let our tastes run rampant, ranking the items we feel were the best, for reasons ranging from a perceived cultural importance to the mere fact that we liked something a whole heck of a lot.
As you peruse our Top-10 lists, judging Diversions on its collective taste, I'd like to think there will be something that might strike your fancy.
But maybe there won't be. Then what?
You could write in to tell us how wrong we were for overlooking your favorite movie of the year or how overrated you think our favorite record is. And I'll read that letter, and I'll probably disagree with it.
And sooner or later we'll both come to the conclusion that we like what we like because we like it. And you don't have to agree with somebody's taste to respect it.
Contact Bryan Reed at breed@email.unc.edu.
(01/10/08 5:00am)
Kate Nash is at her absolute best singing along to the plinking toy piano chords of "Foundations."
On the standout track from her debut, Made of Bricks, the British songwriter predicts an argument with a poetic specificity that belies the conflict's frequent nature and the fragility of the relationship in question.
Her lyrics leave no stone unturned and no edges softened. "I'll use that voice that you find annoying/And say something like 'Yeah, intelligent input, darling, why don't you just have another beer then?'/Then you'll call me a b---h/And everyone we're with/Will be embarrassed/And I won't give a s--t."
Nash's biggest talent is her ability to make a playful song out of a tortured relationship and give it life with descriptive lyrics and clever turns of phrase.
But on Bricks, the urge to self-edit is glaringly absent.
The album's introduction comes in the form of "Play," a drum machine-fueled excrement that delays the listenability of the album for more than a minute.
And there are too many like-minded mistakes tossed on to expand the tracklist, "D--khead" and "S--t Song" being the most glaring culprits.
The unnecessary inclusions distract from the record, and also belittle Nash's songwriting talent to a grave effect.
"D--khead" casts an ugly shadow on the otherwise beautiful heartbreak tale that is "Birds," a delicate acoustic guitar tune that utilizes Nash's distinct accent and brilliant attention to detail to great effect.
And Nash also exhibits an astounding versatility on her debut, covering the tender melodies of "Birds" with as much confidence as the processed boogie of "Pumpkin Soup."
But for all the clever songwriting, versatility and confidence Nash puts into the album, it's a tainted delight, marred by the inclusion of a few too many throwaway cuts.
Made of Bricks is a lot like an old pair of socks left in the bottom of the drawer, dingy, holed and unloved.
There isn't much use for the socks, or the album, except on laundry day.
But when there's nothing else available, it'll do just fine.
Made of Bricks does exhibit a budding talent, one that with time could grow into a force to be reckoned with. But for now, there's too much miss to make a proper hit.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu
(11/29/07 5:00am)
It is impossible to consider Joy Division in 2007 without framing it through the context of lead singer Ian Curtis' 1980 suicide.
That said, Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980) - both recently re-released, untainted, with a bonus disc of live recordings - still stand as remarkable specimens of the post-punk era, chilling in their distant gloominess, and all the more haunting given Curtis' tragic biography.
The Collector's Edition versions don't change the original track listings, preserving the integrity of the already essential albums.
Unknown Pleasures shows the more jagged sound of the band's early years, fitting in perfectly alongside any number of British post-punk outfits, but Curtis' voice is there, offering a hint of what is yet to come - distant, chilling and sounding, in its cold monotone, not too distantly removed from a dying breath.
Harsh guitars and drum beats laced with a hollow reverb create a chilly atmosphere throughout Unknown Pleasures, but most notably on the closing dirge, "I Remember Nothing," which stumbles through a dark and foggy world of innate despair.
But Joy Division didn't become legendary until Closer, Curtis' last statement, and a pioneering post-punk album for its overt use of synthesizers.
Closer's standout single, "Isolation," rides an ironically cheerful synth-line over tumultuous bass grooves and Curtis' haunting moans. It makes the song at once immediate and even danceable, while retaining Joy Division's cold, gloomy character. It also provides a bridge between standard post-punk and its goth-rock and new wave offshoots.
At the same time, "Heart And Soul" offers little salvation as the synthesizers disappear once again in exchange for a ghostly haze of guitar fuzz and a trembling rhythm section.
Curtis' voice so effectively creates a mood of inescapable depression that its only catharsis comes in Closer's shuffling dance rhythms.
Just listening to the album leaves little wonder why it is such a revered classic.
But in an appropriately macabre sense, it leaves plenty of wonder to what might have been had Curtis' life not ended so soon and so tragically.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(11/19/07 5:00am)
Concert review
Old Noise, New Blues
Gerrard Hall
Saturday
4.5 stars out of 5
Saturday night, the newly reopened Gerrard Hall sheltered what might well have been the most ambitious and well-executed on-campus concert in recent memory.
The concert, organized by Carolina Union Activities Board, WXYC and UNC's Curriculum in Folklore, was organized to showcase artists whose music pushes - and often breaks - the boundaries of Southern folk music traditions.
But the venue was as important to the event's success as the musicians' performances.
(11/15/07 5:00am)
North Carolina's importance in the history of funk can't be overemphasized.
Charlotte housed the recording studio responsible for James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." The one-and-only George Clinton was born in Kannapolis.
But the legacy of Carolina funk is far too often forgotten. Except, that is, by erstwhile radio DJ and record collector Jason Perlmutter, whose reverent compilation, Carolina Funk: Funk 45s from the Atlantic Coast, assembles a laundry list of essential but mostly unknown singles from both Carolinas.
The comp is almost worth it for the liner notes alone, which give a loving, detailed history of regional funk and its best bands.
But, as it should be, the music here is the star.
Cuts such as Mongoose's proto-disco "King Cobra," with its smooth falsettos and snappy guitars; Dynamite Singletary's "Super Good," a re-imagined take on James Brown's "Superbad;" and Primitive's eerie tribal clatter on the sax-led "Creation of Music," stand out only for the sake of personal preferences and tastes.
Every song is a groove-laden party filled to the brim with social consciousness, good-times catharsis and Southern sweat.
Brash horns, hip-shaking basslines and razor-sharp guitar rhythms mark the sound, but it's the soulful, naturalized vocals that give these songs their power.
Sundia's raw-throated demands on "Stand Up And Be A Man" are sultry, commanding and effortlessly captivating. And The Soul Impossibles' gang's-all-here chant of "Soul power/Black power" on "Interpretation - Soul Power No. 1" is as much a call to arms as it is a call to the dancefloor.
As a whole, the compilation acts as a monument to the rich history of regional funk, and it also creates one hell of a cohesive listen.
It's a shame these priceless singles faded into obscurity, but it's a godsend to have them all in a readily accessible compilation that plays as smoothly as a good radio set ought to.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(10/25/07 4:00am)
"30 Days of Night" bites.
It's so bad that it actually justifies horrible movie-critic puns.
Sure, the premise of the movie - vampires stalking a northern Alaska town in the dead of winter, when the sun won't rise for 30 days - is a great one.
The idea might even be one of the freshest, most exciting developments in the vampire genre since Dracula himself.
And yes, the sight of hideous, beastly vampires of the evil-incarnate "Nosferatu" variety is a whole lot better than some halfwit take on the vampire-as-sex-symbol cliché.
I mean, we've already seen rock star vampires, aristocratic gentleman vampires and other insert-high-status-profession-here vampires. Isn't it about time for some blood-sucking demons?
But that's all "30 Days" has going for it.
Everything else is a formulaic, boring splatterfest complete with exploding heads, missing limbs, decapitations and pools of blood looking less badass than intended on the vast plains of snow.
The movie, based on a graphic novel, fails to deliver any of the visual flair that has made the comic book-movie genre so successful post "Sin City." And without the stunning visuals, all that's left is a bottom-shelf vampire flick.
The plot (predictably) follows a group of survivors who must (predictably) battle the vampires before they are (predictably) eaten one by one. As the town dies, their numbers (predictably) wane, until the final (predictably) heroic showdown.
Add a moral about love and self-sacrifice, so on and so forth.
Then the sun comes up, the lights in the theater come back on and the audience leaves utterly unaffected.
The movie is not scary, and it's not adventurous, but boy, is it unnecessary.
The film's stock characters do their job of dying with gusto.
But the by-the-book approach to horror filmmaking is nothing short of yawn-inducing. And the special effects are nothing special.
The film totally ruins a good premise for the rest of us.
It's a waste, really. Vampires in an arctic settlement, free from the restrictions of the sun. It could have - and should have - been great.
But instead "30 Days" earns nothing more than half-assed puns and vindictive rants all summed up with some smart-alecky line like, "The movie, like its vampires, is soulless. (Get it?) It sucks. (Get it?)"
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(10/25/07 4:00am)
Halloween can be a stressful time, what with the high prices of costumes and the need for something that will really set you apart.
Here at Dive, we've come up with some delightfully gruesome, and wonderfully easy (not to mention thrifty), B-movie-quality horror effects.
Each effect should take about half an hour, and both together cost us about 20 bucks - with enough fake blood left over for next year ... or next week.
Welcome to Diversions' 30-minute macabre.
INGREDIENTS
Water
Woochie Accessories "Flesh Latex" ($3.99 at Halloween Express)
Toilet paper
"Adult Flesh and Blood Kit" ($7.99 at Target)
Fun World "Bottle of Blood" ($7.99 at Halloween Express)
Paper towels (for cleanup)
Lil' Miss Burn Victim
Steps
1. Outline a rough shape of the burn using black makeup.
2. Following the outline, begin molding the textures of the burn with wet toilet paper. There aren't too many guidelines here, just make it look gross.
3. Once you have the toilet paper base, coat the area with liquid latex. This adds more texture and acts as an adhesive.
4. Use red makeup to fill in any gaps and to outline the area, making the surrounding skin look inflamed.
5. Apply gel blood then liquid stage blood ... liberally.
6. Use black makeup to add charring where you feel it's appropriate.
Second Smile
Steps
1. Use wet toilet paper to build the shape of the slit throat. The key is to build a tapered opening around where the wound would be.
2. Use ample amounts of liquid latex to secure the toilet paper to the neck, and to add texture and volume to the raised edges of the wound.
3. Darken the inside of the cut with black makeup.
4. Redden the outsides of the wound with red, making the skin appear inflamed, then go over the blackened inside with red as well.
5. Fill the opening with gel blood ... liberally.
6. Use liquid stage blood to coat the entire neck, allowing it to run down the neck and chest of the "victim." You might also want to dribble some blood out of the "victim's" mouth for added realism.
(09/27/07 4:00am)
Jos
(09/13/07 4:00am)
Popular music appeals to the most basic instincts of pleasure, as opposed to art music which taps into the more cerebral pleasure centers.
It's our most basic need for pure loveliness that leads our subconscious to respond so strongly to warm melodies and gentle vocals in recorded music. There's no acquiring a taste for civility in pop music - it's inherent.
And it's this emotional response to pleasant music that lets Regina Hexaphone's Into Your Sleeping Heart grow in enjoyment like the calm afterglow left by a good back rub.
Sleeping Heart taps into all the tried-and-true pleasantries of pop, rock and country music leaning heavily on Sara Bell's warm, rich, but never overpowering voice.
On "The Forty-Niner," Bell lends the album its best hook with a building "Heaven let it roll" laid over the song's jaunty syncopated rhythm.
But it's on the near-classic pop sound of "Spider Boys" where Bell's voice adopts a crystalline fragility to evoke nostalgia and heartache among a complementary blend of fiddle, piano, subtle, cymbal-heavy drums and jangling guitars to become the best example of what Regina Hexaphone is capable of.
Hexaphone drummer Jerry Kee's production offers just the right touch of rawness to prevent the band from sounding over-processed, instead letting the organic sound of the recording override any flaws.
Only "Glory Be," disappoints as it tries on a Southern Gospel style, but with a touch more garage rock edge in its chorus than really suits the song or Bell's voice.
The contribution of Greg Humphreys' pedal steel guitar, inspired by the Sacred Steel tradition saves the song, but can't make it fit seamlessly on the album.
But when Regina Hexaphone is at its best, the band's confluence of classic pop and Americana can't be beat.
Bell sings "Into your sleeping heart, I'll steal" on "Waiting for the Wind," and she just might be right.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(09/12/07 4:00am)
Slideshow: Local Wild Weekend
(08/24/07 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Schooner will never be able to escape the "Chapel Hill indie rock" tag that sticks to any band from the area.
But with its second full-length, Hold On Too Tight, Schooner fights to push the boundaries of the label.
Sure, there's "Carrboro," which claims the band's hometown with its very title.
But it's a rare moment when Schooner directly recalls Superchunk or Archers of Loaf in a way that would justify pigeonholing.
Even when energy pours out of the band in the form of "I Would Tell You That I'm Stuck," which rolls along a turbulent beat pushing along frontman Reid Johnson's story of a turbulent relationship, Schooner pushes the boundaries of "Chapel Hill indie rock."
For the most part, Schooner's music is built on a foundation of oozing pop hooks, shoegazing reverb and Johnson's sleepily hypnotic vocal style, which is akin to Stephen Malkmus' slacker drawl.
Even if upbeat, even borderline aggressive cuts such as "I Would Tell You That I'm Stuck" are a change of pace for the band, most of Hold On Too Tight, focuses around the pains and discomforts of dying relationships, and lets the musical dynamic ebb and flow in reflection of individual songs' emotional musing.
Perhaps most noteworthy however, for a "Chapel Hill indie rock" band, is that on Hold On Too Tight, Schooner is as indebted to '60s R&B and teen idol pop as it is to My Bloody Valentine or Pavement.
"Pray for You to Die" marries a prom night doo-wop slow dance with a spurned lover's curse hidden in the reverb-heavy guitars and saccharine oohs and aahs of the deceptively sweet song.
Vocal harmonies, and bittersweet melodies owing directly to the vintage sounds of acts such as Smokey Robinson or Jan & Dean mesh with the shaggy-haired indie inclinations the band shows with its impressionistic lyrics, trudging fuzz-box guitars and shoegaze influences.
The result is a melodic, hazy sort of slack-pop, written with the type of melodic hook that is instantly memorable, and lyrics with just enough detail to allow personal, emotional relevance to turn the songs into something more than melodies.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
SEE THE SHOW
Time: TBA, Saturday
Location: Cat's Cradle. 300 E. Main St., Carrboro.
Info: www.catscradle.com
(08/24/07 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Dear Diversions readers,
I have something I need to get off my chest.
I'm kind of a huge dork - especially when it comes to music.
It shouldn't really come as much of a surprise, though, to read that a music critic obsesses over music.
Or should it?
For one reason or another (I've never really asked), we have a subscription to Rolling Stone in the office. Over time I've noticed that the reviews in RS, and a lot of other music magazines are, frighteningly often, not very opinionated.
That means to your average glossy magazine reviewer, the majority of the music released is "pretty good," and there's not much to say beyond that.
Nobody's going to contest a noncommittal review because really, who's going to argue with somebody saying, "Yeah, it was alright."?
That's what I tell people when they ask me at a social gathering if I like, say, Ben Folds, and I don't really feel like talking.
Granted, most of the music - or movies, whichever your preference - released will likely be somewhere around "average" or "good." That means it is enjoyable, but not necessarily in a substantive way.
Usually there's a reason it's only so-so.
Similarly, it wouldn't do anybody much good if we became a hype machine, throwing around five-star reviews all willy-nilly just because this band is new and reminds me of Oasis. (I'm talking to you, British music press.)
I admire critics who can retain the wide-eyed enthusiasm for a great new record in a way that reminds them why they got into the business of writing about music in the first place.
But if you're raving about everything, after a while it starts to lose its meaning.
A recommendation from Diversions should mean something.
Maybe you won't agree with us, but we hope you can at least see where we're coming from a good bit of the time.
And if you disagree, why not drop us a line and explain to us where you're coming from?
But to get back on topic, when I said I had to get something off my chest. I wasn't really referring to the fact I'm a record nerd. That's no secret.
I wanted to promise you something.
I pledge to you that I will do my best to ensure that the pages of Diversions this year avoid non-committal reviews. If we like something, we'll tell you. If we hate it, we'll tell you that, too. And hopefully, we'll be good enough writers to clearly and sufficiently explain why we feel the way we do.
I pledge to work toward providing accessibility, as much as possible. But I'll also promise to keep exposing our readers to new things.
And lastly, I promise to try and keep it lighthearted. After all, we're called Diversions, right?
We can't take ourselves too seriously.
That said, thanks for reading.
(08/24/07 4:00am)
Ska hasn't been fashionable for about 10 years, but the classic sounds of Motown and soul never go out of style.
Veterans of the national ska scene, The Pietasters, have on their past two albums, 2002's Turbo and the latest effort, All Day, delved deeper into the R&B roots that always lied at the basis of ska music from its inception in Jamaica in the 1960s.