dex romweber duo @ local 506

There are plenty of things I always remember about Dex Romweber: that he’s a great songwriter and a phenomenal guitarist, that his hair will always flop forward into his eyes two songs into the set, that he’s been kicking around the Triangle for ages and probably knows everyone in Chapel Hill and then some. I…

heartless bastards @ cat’s cradle

I wanna be Erika Wennerstrom when I grow up. The nice married gentleman standing next to me up against the Cradle stage said that his young son calls her the little woman with the big voice, and it’s an utterly correct description — Erika Wennerstrom is a slight woman, not weighing much more than her…

a week(end) at the 506

Remember those weeks last year when it seemed like I’d just moved into the Local 506 and was, say, sleeping in the bathroom after shows instead of going home, because I would just be back there the night after, and the night after that? This year has had less of that, because this year has…

worth getting up for: february

Worth getting up for in February: Carolina/Duke; Eli winning Super Bowls; a new Patti Smith biography; Dr. Dog’s Be The Void; Lydia Loveless live; being shaken out of self-pitying funks by people who love me; mimosas; friends who take up winemaking; daffodils; days off for no reason other than I can; Sugar & the Hi-Lows;…

two sentence reviews of new albums i listened to in february

Damien Jurado — Maraqopa: psychdelic, ringing, and bleak, this is my first encounter with Jurado beyond a perennial favorite promo photo of him smoking a cigarette in a bathroom, and I love it. It’s scary and huge, and the guitar work on it is otherworldly in both talent and sound. Estrogen Highs — Irrelevant Future:…

leland sundries @ the cave

Leland Sundries is the brainchild of Brooklyn songwriter Nick Loss-Eaton; it’s a showcase for his exceptional songwriting, his wide-ranging musicality, and his excellent beard. On the recently released The Foundry EP, he takes on everything from a sea chanty about the burning of the Greenpoint warehouse district to a straight up country rocker about giving…

february helplessness blues

“I guess it is like an archaeologist, where you’re always wanting to find something you’ve never heard before. And people now are, even at a young age, they’re looking back into the past and trying to make connections. They’re trying to connect ’60s Pakistani pop music to punk rock in Washington, DC in the ’90s….

hacking a brownie

A few years ago, Ash gave me a vintage Kodak Brownie, in working condition but minus its 620mm spools, for my birthday — I’ve been trying to find spools for it since, albeit half-heartedly, but when a pair turned up on my Etsy favorites list for cheap last week, I had to jump on them….

craig finn — clear heart full eyes

Craig Finn — Clear Heart Full Eyes. Out 1/24/2012. Vagrant Records. The thing is — and this doesn’t make me an expert, or smug and self-satisfied, or anything but opinionated, this is just the way I feel — the thing is that I think there’s a certain something in Craig Finn’s songwriting, a tiny pinch…

enough

Rock ‘n’ roll did not need a museum. The fact that it existed was enough. — Dave Thompson writing on Patti Smith in Dancing Barefoot: The Patti Smith Story