Office Art (#5 in a series) #officeart (at IBM RTP 500 Campus)
Month: May 2015
Office Art (#4 in a series) #officeart (at IBM RTP 500 Campus)
Office Art (#3 in a series) #officeart (at IBM RTP 500 Campus)
Hopscotch 2015 lineup data
The Hopscotch 2015 lineup was released today.
In order to assist you in making what will undoubtedly be some tough decisions, here’s some data that I’m in a weirdly unique position to be able to provide.
For the past 15+ years I’ve been running a website, trianglerock.com, so I have a database of most of the shows of interest that have happened locally during that time. This isn’t an infallible resource by any means – I miss shows, and I will occasionally skip shows if a day is overloaded already & the bands have stupid names.
But it’s a pretty good record of who’s been through & who hasn’t. I’d say the data below is probably at least 85% accurate. Feel free to point out gaps & errors.
Here, then, are this year’s Hopscotch bands, and the 2-3 most recent times they’ve played locally (if at all), based on my trianglerock.com database. It seems like this might be useful to try to gauge who comes through town regularly, and who rarely, if ever, comes through:
Ace Henderson: 2015-01-29 Cat’s Cradle Back Room; 2015-03-26 Pour House;
Acid Chaperone: 2015-02-12 Tir Na Nog; 2015-04-18 Slims;
Advaeta: 2015-03-27 Slims;
American Aquarium (a lot)
Ameriglow: 2015-03-26 Local 506; 2015-03-18 Nice Price Books;
Bandages: 2015-03-24 Slim’s; 2015-03-07 Nice Price Books;
Battles: 2012-06-10 Cat’s Cradle; 2007-03-24 Local 506;
Big Ups (none)
Birds of Avalon: 2015-04-11 The Pinhook; 2015-04-06 Neptunes;
Black Clouds: 2013-03-17 MotorCo Music Hall;
Blaxxx (none)
Booher (none)
Boulevards: 2015-03-06 Kings; 2015-01-22 Neptunes;
Breathers: 2015-04-01 Kings; 2015-03-05 Tir na Nog; 2015-02-25 Pinhook;
Brief Lives: 2014-11-09 Nice Price Books; 2014-06-01 The Cave;
Bully: 2014-10-20 Local 506;
Cakes Da Killa (none)
Carlitta Durand: 2011-07-14 The Casbah; 2010-12-11 Pour House;
Cashmere Cat (none)
Chaz French (none)
Chelsea Wolfe: 2013-09-10 Local 506; 2013-01-29 Local 506;
Choked Out: 2015-05-06 Prisma Video; 2015-01-23 Kings;
Chulo (none)
Clark (none)
Cloud Becomes Your Hand: 2011-07-25 Nightlight;
Dad & Dad: 2015-05-09 Kings; 2015-04-09 Tir Na Nog;
Daniel Romano: 2013-06-12 Pour House;
Deerhunter: 2014-02-03 Cat’s Cradle; 2013-09-22 Cat’s Cradle;
DJ Earl (none)
Dorthia Cottrell (none)
Drippy Inputs: 2015-05-11 Kings; 2015-04-04 Slim’s;
Dwight Yoakam: 2014-12-10 Carolina Theatre
Echo Courts: 2015-05-21 Neptunes; 2015-05-02 Kings;
Elisa Ambrogio: 2015-01-11 The Pinhook;
Escher: 2015-03-09 Pour House; 2015-01-21 The Maywood
EYEHATEGOD: 2010-06-05 Volume 11 Tavern; 2001-01-10 Kings;
Eyes Low: 2015-04-22 Nightlight;
Father (none)
FAULTS (none)
Flock of Dimes: 2014-10-30 Haw River Ballroom;
Fórn (none)
Godflesh (none)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor: 2012-10-04 Cat’s Cradle; 2003-03-06 Cat’s Cradle;
GoldLink (none)
Grand Champeen: 2010-10-23 Kings; 2004-06-24 Go! Studios Rm. 4;
Grandma Sparrow: 2014-05-18 The Pinhook;
Hank Wood & The Hammerheads (none)
Hanz: 2015-01-23 Kings; 2014-08-15 Kings;
HeCTA (none)
Ian William Craig (none)
Jake Xerxes Fussell: 2015-04-04 Nice Price Books; 2015-04-03 Nightlight;
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (none)
Jenks Miller & Rose Cross NC: 2015-01-24 ArtsCenter; 2014-11-15 Kings;
Jenny Hval: 2014-03-28 Local 506;
Jessica Pratt: 2013-05-15 Cat’s Cradle;
John Chantler (none)
Jubilee (none)
Keath Mead: 2015-05-12 Cat’s Cradle;
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (none)
Las Rosas: 2015-04-18 Slim’s; 2015-01-09 Nightlight;
Lawrence English (none)
Le1F: 2014-01-31 The Pinhook;
Leapling: 2015-03-13 Nightlight;
Less Western: 2015-05-23 Kings; 2015-03-27 Slim’s;
Leverage Models: 2014-03-03 Slim’s; 2012-06-25 Slim’s;
Lilac Shadows: 2015-04-11 The Pinhook; 2015-04-10 Cat’s Cradle Back Room;
Lizzo (none)
Lost Trail: 2015-05-22 The Cave; 2015-04-30 The Cave;
Loud Boyz (none)
Lud: 2015-01-16 The Kraken; 2015-01-04 The Pinhook;
Luxe Posh (a lot)
Lydia Loveless: 2015-02-11 Motorco Music Hall; 2014-09-23 Motorco Music Hall;
Mac McCaughan: 2015-05-23 Cat’s Cradle Back Room; 2015-04-18 Central Park & Chaz’s;
Mamiffer (none)
Mary Lattimore & Jeff Zeigler: 2014-10-10 The Pinhook;
May Erwin: 2014-10-18 Cat’s Cradle Back Room;
Microkingdom: 2011-11-12 Nightlight; 2008-03-07 Nightlight;
Mitski: 2015-03-07 Local 506;
Moenda: 2010-04-07 Nightlight;
Moon Duo: 2012-10-09 Kings; 2011-03-23 Kings;
Morbids: 2014-01-24 Local 506; 2013-07-27 The Cave;
Mumdance (none)
Must Be The Holy Ghost: 2015-04-09 Tir Na Nog; 2015-03-12 Motorco Music Hall;
Naked Naps: 2015-05-07 Tir Na Nog; 2015-04-14 Slim’s;
Natalie Prass and the Spacebomb Orchestra: 2015-04-17 Haw River Ballroom; 2015-03-27 Kings;
Nathan Golub: 2015-05-17 The Pinhook; 2015-05-16 Nice Price Books;
Natural Causes: 2015-04-05 Duke Coffeehouse; 2015-02-27 The Cave;
New Music Raleigh: Music by Oscar Bettison and Evan Ziporyn (~~)
Nick James: 2015-01-23 Kings; 2014-11-08 Kings;
No Love: 2015-02-07 Lincoln Theater; 2014-12-12 Nice Price Books;
Nocando (none)
Nots (none (?))
Obey City (none)
OBN IIIs: 2014-10-28 Neptunes;
Old Man Gloom (none)
Oulipo: 2015-05-09 Kings; 2015-04-01 Kings;
Outer Spaces: 2015-03-06 Nice Price Books; 2014-11-14 Slim’s;
Owen Pallett: 2010-04-26 Local 506;
Patois Counselors (none)
Peacers (none)
Phil Cook presents Southland Mission: 2015-05-07 Motorco Music Hall; 2014-10-11 Pour House;
Pile: 2012-04-27 Chapel Hill Underground; 2011-02-25 Duke Coffeehouse;
Pill (none)
Porches.: 2014-10-15 Duke Coffeehouse;
Prurient: 2005-09-29 Local 506; 2004-08-11 Nightlight;
Pusha T (none)
River Whyless: 2015-02-27 Kings; 2014-12-19 Pour House;
Roky Erickson (none)
Sannhet: 2015-04-04 Kings;
Sarah Louise (none)
Secret Boyfriend: 2015-02-21 Kings; 2015-02-15 The Pinhook;
Sheer Mag (none)
Shitty Boots: 2015-05-15 Kings; 2015-03-08 Slim’s;
Silent Lunch: 2015-03-20 Local 506; 2015-03-16 The Pinhook;
SkyBlew: 2015-05-23 Cat’s Cradle; 2015-05-22 Deep South (The Bar);
SMLH: 2015-05-09 Cat’s Cradle Back Room; 2015-03-15 Kings;
Solar Halos: 2015-01-17 Local 506; 2014-11-15 Kings;
Some Army: 2015-04-10 Cat’s Cradle Back Room; 2015-03-13 Slim’s;
Soon: 2015-04-23 Slim’s; 2015-04-01 The Cave;
Steve Gunn & The Black Twig Pickers: SG: 2015-05-11 The Pinhook; 2014-10-10 The Pinhook; BTP: annual WXDU/3 Lobed Day Parties; 2011-10-27 Nightlight;
Tashi Dorji: 2014-12-11 Neptunes
The Vibekillers: 2014-11-14 Pour House; 2014-04-16 Slim’s;
thefacesblur: 2015-04-25 Kings; 2015-03-13 Local 506;
Tombs: 2014-10-31 Local 506; 2009-05-29 Cat’s Cradle;
TV on the Radio: 2003-12-02 Gate City Noise;
Tycho: 2014-04-23 Cat’s Cradle; 2012-09-19 Cat’s Cradle;
TZYVYX: 2015-04-29 Pour House; 2014-01-31 Kings;
Wahyas: 2015-05-02 Local 506; 2015-04-05 Duke Coffeehouse;
Warehouse: 2015-04-16 Neptunes; 2015-02-25 The Pinhook;
Wildhoney: 2015-01-21 Nice Price Books;
Wizard Rifle: 2014-11-22 Slim’s; 2012-05-01 Slim’s;
Wovenhand: 2010-10-08 Duke Coffeehouse; 2008-10-07 Local 506;
WYMYNS PRYSYN: 2013-06-28 The Maywood;
X: 2009-06-09 Cat’s Cradle; 2008-05-27 Cat’s Cradle;
Yandrew: 2014-06-22 Kings; 2014-04-16 The Pinhook;
Zack Mexico: 2015-04-30 Tir Na Nog; 2015-03-22 Pour House;
Zeena Parkins (none)
Zs: 2013-03-20 Kings
May 14 – 18, 2015
Thursday we went to a Bulls game, something (going to a Bulls game on a Thursday) we’re actually about to start actively trying not to do. A couple of weeks ago we made an impromptu trip to the ballpark on a Tuesday, and realized that part of what we find wearying at Bulls games nowadays is the volume of the audience chitchat all around us.
So our new goal is to go to the home games with the lowest attendance possible. Go team!
Hung out for an hour at the game with a guy from NYC who works for Moog. He wouldn’t even say much off the record, let alone officially, but the fact that he’s spending time in Durham on a regular basis is an indicator that they may yet still be serious about bringing Moogfest 2016 to the Triangle. Should be an interesting year, these next 12 months. The pace of change seems still to be increasing.
Friday night was just the standard trip to Toast, and then a mysteriously nearly line-free Parlour. It was Third Friday so we stuck our heads into one gallery on the way home but didn’t see much to like. We often talk about doing the full tour on Third Fridays, but we’ve lived here for long enough to know that the hit:miss ratio is usually pretty low for our tastes, so it’s hard to summon up the energy. I always feel guilty about skipping out, though.
I talk about (and retweet) a LOT of stuff on Twitter, and honestly, as long as I’m stuck in this rut of only writing here once every four or five days, I’m unlikely to have the stamina to go back and recap all of it here. Which is kind of too bad, because that’s where all the current events happen.
But then maybe Twitter is for Internet Events and this tumblr is for My Physical Existence, or something. I guess I can be OK with that.
Saturday we saw Mad Max: Fury Road. As you are probably aware by now, it’s mindboggling. Much like Snowpiercer, it captures the sensation of comic book action 1000x better than anything that has resulted from the glut of Marvel & DC comic book movies over the past 4-5 years.
And yes, it achieves it largely via actual physical bodies & vehicles moving through space, rather than computer graphics. Though I’m sure there was CGI deployed judiciously throughout – but to clean up, augment & color enhance, not to transfer virtual masses around the screen.
It’s also just sublimely fucked up, in a million different ways. Every frame features something that was clearly labored over lovingly by some production designer on a mission, and that mission was to saturate yr brain with the sensation that everything in this cinematic world is off-kilter. The costumes & makeup on all the War Boys, and all the other denizens of the Citadel. The milking chamber. The cars – all the cars! – and not just their exteriors but the detailing of their interiors.
Plotwise, yeah, it’s fundamentally a 2-hour car chase, and yet somehow it still also manages to include multiple scenes that pass the Bechdel Test several times over, inasmuch as they feature a dozen women all talking to each other about topics other than men.
It basically makes nearly every other “action” movie made in the past, oh, 25 years, look like the stunted formulaic endlessly repeating mindless garbage that they are.
And yet, even after all of that, it’s not even perfect. Some of the dialogue is just goofy. And although it’s uniformly exciting, it’s still literally just a 2-hour car chase. It may well be the best movie of 2015, and its biggest lesson is just how much higher our expectations could legitimately be.
Sunday night we tried to watch The Drowning Pool via Amazon Instant Video, but somehow their transfer of the original had been de-anamorphized excessively, so that rather than its 2.35:1 ratio, it was at something closer to 3:1. Not even sure how that happens – I know that physical DVDs would often ship with an anamorphic image that your DVD player would expand for widescreen, rather than using permanent letterboxes, but this was supposedly an HD transfer. Or at least I paid $1 extra for HD.
Anyway, we couldn’t watch it, and now I have to figure out how to get my $3.99 back from Amazon. And I still want to see the damn movie.
Today I worked from home & was reminded, yet again, that Parker & Otis makes a fabulous BLT.
Deconstruction (at Tootie’s Bar on Rigsbee)
Office Art (#2 of a series) #officeart (at IBM RTP 500 Campus)
Office Art (one of a series) #officeart (at IBM RTP 500 Campus)
May 7-13, 2015
Last Thursday? No idea. Friday night we went to Chapel Hill *and* Carrboro. Had a lovely dinner at Sandwhich. Durham has Toast, but it needs about 12 other places where you can get a healthy dinner for $10 or less.
Then we went to Carrboro to see Bronwyn’s portraits of roosters rescued from a cockfighting ring. She may still have some that haven’t sold yet. If you see one you like, let her know. Most of the money from sales of the paintings will go to the sanctuary where the roosters are now living.
Saturday we saw Welcome to Me. That was some uneasy enjoyment, right there. It was funny, but it was funny because the main character has Borderline Personality Disorder & is off her meds for most of the movie. Kristen Wiig. Is funny. And very affecting, actually, which is why I wound up feeling OK about the whole thing – her character is entirely sympathetic throughout. But it was uneasy.
Sunday was Mother’s Day *and* Duke graduation, so everything in town was utter chaos. Dashi opened for lunch, though, and either nobody knew about it, or nobody wanted to take Mom to a ramen place for brunch, so I had a bowl of ramen without any hassles.
Honestly, though, I can’t eat at Dashi that often. Those bowls look small, but they’re filling, and they’re loaded with delicious calories. I always feel overstuffed when I’m rolling home from the ramen shop, because it’s too delicious to stop eating before the bowl is empty.
Tuesday I was driving home from work and I heard a horrible human being (Arthur Brooks, of the American Enterprise Institute) on NPR say the following: “The poor are not having their money taken away and given to the rich. To the extent that we can get away from the notion that the rich are stealing from the poor, then we can look at this in a way that I think is instructive.”
He was sort of followed by a sort-of rebutting quote from Elizabeth Warren, but NPR didn’t go far enough to elucidate the lies in his statement. Because THE RICH ARE STEALING FROM THE POOR. Every day. Subprime lending. Check cashing + payday loans. The enormous increase in productivity (value of work product / cost of labor) compared to the complete stagnation of wages. Where do you think that difference has gone? The rich have stolen the labor of the working class forever, but they’ve gotten markedly more effective at it over the past 30+ years.
Tuesday night I drove to Carrboro to see Ryley Walker. There were a couple of openers added in the week prior to the show, and I wasn’t thrilled about a 3-band bill on a Tuesday night. But one of those openers was Elephant Micah, who are now a North Carolina band. And they were great. I love that variety of surprise.
Ryley Walker started out his set playing a 12-string acoustic & just strumming the shit out of it, and it was TOO MUCH JANGLE for my head. And he was over-singing and it was all just too much. Frustrating. Once he switched to 6-string, everything was immediately a whole lot better. It was just Ryley and another guy on electric guitar, though, and it never reached the level of brilliance of his full-band NYC show that NYC Taper caught in March.
Wednesday was just work & then after-work meetings of all varieties. I ate a slice of pizza for the first time in over a year, and it was magical. Took 7 Lactaid tablets with it. I realized later that part of my problem with pizza is the same as everyone else’s: It’s delicious, so you eat like 17 pieces at a sitting. That’s probably more of my problem than the lactose intolerance. So pizza by the slice (and willpower) is the way to go for me. So far so good.
Ryley Walker (at Cat’s Cradle)