Month: April 2015

April 13-23, 2015

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Um.

Spent most of the week after Full Frame recovering from Full Frame. Did manage to make it out to see Inter Arma at the Pinhook – it was a good reminder of the life of the touring musician. They put out a nearly universally acclaimed debut album on Relapse in 2013, played a packed Lincoln Theatre at Hopscotch that year. And in April 2015 they played their asses off to a crowd of ~40 people on a Tuesday at the Pinhook.

My folks were coming to town on Saturday the 18th, Record Store Day, so the rest of the week was spent either cleaning house or getting ready for our simulcast of the big party at Chaz’s Bull City Records. Between Merge & the Record Store Day website, I was concerned that we’d get a flood of streaming listeners, so we shelled out for a month of third-party stream hosting (via ShoutCheap).

Apparently people are busy doing other things on beautiful Saturday afternoons in April, though – I think we peaked at maybe 40 listeners online, or less than half of what we’ve gotten at each of our Hopscotch/3 Lobed day parties. 

There were a ton of actual physical people at the actual physical show – I was impressed at how many humans can fit comfortably into Chaz’s parking lot. It looks so tiny when you’re parking your car in it. Good reminder that cars take up ridiculously large amounts of space that could otherwise be used for much cooler things.

Ex Hex totally blew me away, in welcome contrast to every time I had seen them before. Although I went back & listened to the recording of the show and was less impressed. They’re definitely a band you need to see up close & in person. Or on record. Love that record.

Sunday we watched the first episode of the new season of Orphan Black. It was pretty wretched, moreso even than the end of last season. Oh well. 

Gonna have to just shorthand the rest of this week, because I’m supposed to be packing to drive to Virginia.

High points:

Low points:

  • The crappy no-guitars mix at this week’s Sleater-Kinney show
  • The Back Porch Music-heavy lineup for this year’s Duke Performances Music in the Gardens series
  • Local businesses who try to crowdfund the purchase of luxury items (a pool table, for a barber shop) with “rewards” like “Hugs” for $75 donations.
  • The pitch timer

April 13-23, 2015

April 8-12, 2015

rossgrady, Leave a comment

Wednesday I swapped the WXDU livestream over to a new all-digital signal chain. I wrote about that at the WXDU website. 

Thursday-Sunday was Full Frame. I watched 17 movies over a span of 4 days, and tweeted my impressions of each one. 

I enjoyed nearly everything I saw this time around, which is a pretty impressive hit-rate. I should have known better than to get a ticket for the National Lampoon hagiography (in my defense, I figured there was a chance that the director might be something other than a starry-eyed uncritical fan … but, nope). 

The handful of docs I’m still actively thinking about are Iris, From This Day Forward, The Wolfpack, The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams’ Appalachia, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, and What Happened, Miss Simone?

See any/all of those that you can. 

April 8-12, 2015