tim barry @ local 506

Tim Barry, much like Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, is one of those rare songwriters who has the ability to make me feel jubilant and heartbroken all at once. He writes with the fierce punk ethos of Avail, even when he’s self-admittedly failing at playing the guitar, when he’s intimated by crowd and using his…

oberhofer & cloudlines @ local 506

Straight up: all I knew about Oberhofer before last night was that Brad and Pete were supremely charming guys; I shot their interview with Speakers In Code back in February, but missed their following set at the Cradle for another show. I was delighted last night, though, when they took the stage to play the…

holy ghost tent revival @ cat’s cradle

For all intents and purposes, except for the pattern of the tie and the quality of the shot, those two images could be from the same night, though obviously they’re not. The top shot was taken with my Nikon Coolpix L3 on October 21, 2008, when Holy Ghost was the local open for Jersey band…

slingshot cash @ the cave

I talked Brian Matusz and Brad Bergesen with Jay, yelled at a Red Sox fan for pissing on my baseball stadium, and spotted two, TWO, Royals fans in the wild. I also drank $2 PBR drafts, which is dangerous. Slingshot Cash and Effingham played, too, and they were both excellent. Slingshot Cash releases their new…

the rural alberta advantage @ local 506

I sat here with this window open and blank almost all day; I wanted to say something profound about how gorgeous and heartbreaking and wonderful the Rural Alberta Advantage were last night, how Nils’ voice made me shudder and Paul’s drumming made me laugh and dance in a crowd that was, otherwise, quietly and politely…

wye oak @ local 506

So the thing is: I like Wye Oak recorded just fine. I listen to their records, I enjoy them, they’re good, and I think Civilian is even breathtaking in moments. But it’s live, live Wye Oak sounds like a heartbeat to me, and because I am from Baltimore and they are from Baltimore, it doesn’t…

superchunk @ the cradle

Yesterday at work I uttered the phrase “Superchunk are the elder statesmen of Triangle rock” and then had to explain the term “elder statesmen”, so I didn’t bother with explaining the rest of it, but they are: in his 40s, Mac still rocks harder than most of the kids in the Triangle today. Jim Wilbur…

brett harris @ local 506

I title this after Brett, because he fronted the only band whose full set I saw last night — I was out for him, and while I caught the end of The Stars Explode’s set and most of the Numbers, I was hanging out at the 506 for Brett. (Can I say how nice it…

jim avett @ local 506

Heidi, Jim Avett’s lovely publicist, told me to make sure that I introduced myself to Jim last night — and I would have anyway, to thank him for his interview, but because she’d said that, I made sure to find him during Reed Mahoney’s opening set. She’d warned me, though, that Jim was gregarious; that…

american aquarium @ motorco

One of the reasons that I keep shooting American Aquarium, even though I have more photos of them than any one person could need, is to see if I can get a different shot, a new one, every time. It’s not about them. It’s about me. Onward, Soldiers are, as always, a joy to shoot…