A night at the 506: the great 8 showcase

Here is a little photoblog update. It is me playing with my new camera at a red collar gig. I took all these without a flash for that old school grainy black and white effect. Remember to click on the photos to see them big.

One of the best things about being back in Durham is the music. On Saturday I caught a show at the aptly named Local 506 showcasing national, sorry, local talent. The so called great 8, which you can see a cool flash applet about. The first band I saw properly was 'I was totally destroying it', I have seen them before, and are pretty damn cool. I think they fit into the local scene well as the local bands round here seem to be trying to reclaim pop music or at least rock 'n' roll. Unfortunately I was still working out how to use my camera and the pictures I got were pretty bad.

I did get some of Red Collar though. The first shot is actually of a film that was being shown throughout the night of the great 8. I just thought it came out nice, especially as the guy in the white t-shirt is the guy in the white shirt.

Things started off pretty quiet.

When you don't use a flash it's hard to capture motion in focus, but it does show the energy the band have.

They do move around on stage.


I got this shot on the go of 'hey come on let's go go go' from the song 'stay'

A shot with the whole band. It's tough when you're trying to fight off all the fan girls and boys for a good space to take photos.....

Lam!Lam!

On Thursday I caught a show that I have been meaning to see for ages, and as it was at the [ahem] classy Sirens Lounge and I didn't really have an excuse as it is within spitting distance of my house. It was infamous LAM!LAM!, who are reportedly the worst thing to happen to music ever! But they do have a drinking solution, so don't be put off. I have to warn you before you listen to the songs, that they are bloody catchy and will stick in your head like a sickly sweet aftertaste.

Lam lam who is also known as Betsy and is one of the funniest people I have met in Dirty D. She like PBR and Jarvis Cocker so we get along just great. Here is a picture of us discussing a CD she is making for Ryan, it's called 25 songs to make Ryan Hill uncomfortable, as you can see this made me look like I was about to puke.

Oh look at me hanging out with rock stars!

Red Collar

Had a wonderful evening last Friday night. It started off with a bloody massive thunderstorm. The electricity even went off. The tales of the thunderstorm were pretty funny, we had a near miss (due to Ryan being outside while the storm was going down), a shaking car and a broken shooing bag which nearly resulted in a tofu squashing incident. To top it off all the way to Chapel Hill it was fine and as soon as we pulled on to Franklin St (the main st of Chapel Hill), the thunderstorm decided to have another go at us, apparently not satisfied with almost getting the tofu squished it wanted to stop us going to Carrburritos. But alas four hungry people within spitting distance of the best burritos in the triangle were not going to be stopped by a little torrential rain.

After out fill of burritos it was to the local 506 for the musical entertainment of the evening. Ryan spotted the singer from Red Collar the band we were planning to see. We were invited to a house party they were also playing later that evening. The first band were fronted by a maths professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. They were pretty good actually. The place was rammed, usually at the 506 there aren't too many people, but it was a free CD launch party, people always love free shows, even with the possibility of getting pissed on by thunderstorms won't stop em. So as you can see from the photo I stole, of the gig it was pretty sweaty.

Red Collar are five piece from Durham, NC. I'm not going to try and pigeonhole them, they just play good modern rock 'n' roll. Listen to them. They put on such a good show. With so much energy (see photo below), even in the bloody hot pit that is the 506. They put a smile on our faces. I don't think you ask for much more than that. I paid money to see a lot worse bands and I will pay good money to see Red Collar again. After the set we had to get out as it was far too hot. So we went to the posh wine bar down the street. I found out they serve PBR in a can for a dollar 50. Sweet, the night was turning out to be pretty good and we hadn't even got near Time Out Chicken.

We mosied on down to the party. It was pretty cool party with lots of people. We managed to find time to find some gin that was washed down with Buzz cola (an advertising scheme from those good people who brought us the Simpson's movie). I have had worse drinks.... just. The band were indeed setting up to play in somebody's living room. That was pretty strange to see (see pic of band below, complete with curtains in the background). What was even stranger was the mosh pit that ensued. You couldn't really escape it. It was so cool being in somebody's house with a damn good band playing. Certainly one of my coolest experiences in the US so far, especially Andy 'losing his shit' in the mosh pit, I'm not going to try an explain that one but I will go as far to say he didn't soil himself. The moral of the story, Durham rocked Chapel Hill.

After the band had finished a Time Out was called, and answered. I had my usual of chicken and a biscuit, but a fellow party goer had a 2 and a half dollar ice cream sandwich. This thing was huge (not 'el gigante' huge but still pretty damn big). It consisted of two cookies that were approximately face sized and about a tub of ice cream in it. People couldn't get their teeth round it. Yes, you will be pleased to know I shall be eating one in the near future, complete with pictures of a fiver being swamped by it.

The National

OK here is just a quick post about music to break up the NYC posts (the Manhattan post is now finished, woo hoo). I have been getting into a band called 'The National' recently and just wanted to share them with you. They have had a lot of exposure on KEXP, which is a fantastic radio station. Here is their Myspace, their official site and they are also coming to the Leadmill in November. My favourite song by them is 'Mr. November off the album named Alligator, which I picked up for the bargain of $12. It sort of ties in with NYC as they are from Brooklyn..... which is coming up next.

Live Earth

The second day I was in NYC, I managed to go to Live Earth. While there were many bands that I would not normally see (the set list is here) it was still a cool event. The whole day was pretty mad, but cool. It started off with a very American breakfast of pancakes in a lovely diner in Brooklyn. I then went to meet Dan at Newark, NJ airport. I had to get my first bus to 'New Jersey' which is known as the 'garden state' or as I (and many others) like to call it the 'armpit of America'.

Everything went smoothly, till we got back to the port authority (bus terminal) in Manhattan. Upon where we realised that there was no storage space in the bus terminal. A friendly NYPD cop informed us that there was no storage in Manhattan since 9/11. D'oh, really should have guess that. So faced with either at least an hour and a half round trip to Brooklyn to drop the bag off or risk it and take it to the Giants stadium we decided to get on the bus to joysey.

We arrived across the Hudson unscathed, all we had to do was get into the stadium. The first security guard was bewildered by Dan's massive bag. Especially as it had presents from the UK, i.e. beer. The second gave us a typical New York reaction "you can't take any of that shit in here" then proceeded to go out of her way to see if she could get us in. New Yorkers can be seen as rude but they can be bloody nice. After talking to the head of security he said we could as long as we store it under the stadium. This is where the fun started. We got to ride in a golf buggy all the way to the security office. It was like we were celebrities, people were giving us funny looks (I'm used to that now). On the way we picked up a mad German woman who had to put her video camera there too. She was batty, she kept on saying how the London concert was much better.

The rest of the day was pretty surreal too. Seeing famous people such as Cameron Diaz (who has insanely long legs) and Al Gore on stage. Drinking beer out of a 'plastic cup' made from corn. Rocking out to 'Bon Jovi'..... it was good fun actually. Seeing Kanye West run up and down the stage about a million times in 20 mins. Akon wading through the crowd with huge security guards and a massive jewel encrusted cross that could feed Africa... it's good job it wasn't live 8 or they would have had it off him. Hearing an old British lady do chimpanzee impressions. Anyways enough name dropping.

A day time photo

My favourite one of the Smashing Pumpkins. Who were bloody good. All in all everyone put on a good show, even if the music wasn't what I would normally like. It was for a pretty good cause....even if they wasted a lot of energy doing the whole thing....

Random Update

I just thought I would update you on a few things. So as you might have guessed from the picture I have become a baseball convert. I thought it was about time to get me a baseball cap. So here is a pic of me looking very American ( you can even see dirty D in the background) and also that I do indeed have a TAN......I know you can't believe it.

Also caught a really cool band in Chapel Hill called Wild Sweet Orange. Hailing from Birmingham, AL, they were really bloody good. It was an accident they we saw them as they were the first support band for Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Which is a fantastic name for a band, but unfortunately as the first band was so good, CFTPA were a bit of a disappointment and a bit too down beat for the mood we were in. Although they did a good job of covering Bruce Springsteen's 'Streets of Philadelphia' in a very Casio keyboard style. Wild Sweet Orange did a very good job of doing a Pixes loud/soft/loud and were really tight on stage.

In other news, I am moving on Tuesday to my new place. I am very excited about that, as it is really sweet place, so expect pictures ASAP. Other pluses include Internet that works all the time and my own TV with the 70 odd channels you get here. Also I am off to New York, NY, next Friday. Dan is coming for a week, so we are going to go crazy New York style, including going to Live Earth. Also we are crashing at Shannon's place so it is extra cool. So expect a big blog update after that, with pictures. Last time such scenes as this took place...

You have been warned. For those interested, this is Jimmy (my old house mate) asleep at 3 am on the New York Subway. Jon and I were tempted to leave him....

PS A couple of people comment but it would be lovely great to have more people post a few.

Chapel Hill

I have wandered over to Chapel Hill (a map showing dirty D and Chapel Hill can be found here) a few times now. Most of it to catch some music, but food is sometimes involved but there have been complaints so I am going to try some posts without mentioning it. It is pretty well renowned for music, Ben Folds, James Taylor and Floyd of Pink Floyd fame too. Other residents of note are Michael Jordan and presidential candidate John Edwards. All the action takes place on Franklin St. Which has loads of bars restaurants and shops on. Also the UNC campus backs on to it. All in all it is a really nice place, even if it has a shop in it that Ryan dubbed 'Murder Mart', it is America after all.

We caught a local Chapel Hill band called 'the Never' (also on Myspace). Once I had got over the pretension of them, they were actually pretty good. Reasons for being pretentious: All wearing red carnations (could have got away with it if they all dressed the same), had a string/brass section but used them really poorly (i.e. all you could hear were the guitars) and also had a mandolin (or as I put it 'is that guy playing a bloody lute? he bloody well is', I was soon corrected). The mandolin was made up for, as the guy who was playing was 'face melting' (this is Ryan's term for the facial expression as pulled by 'heavy metal'/'stadium rock' guitarists circa 1984) during his solos. I do actually recommend you check em out because they could be huge and they do play nice indie pop.

Also a cool radio station KEXP if Y'all get bored of UK radio.

PS. Notice how short this post is because of no food related items.... you know who you are.

Some American Bands

Thanks to the man with a rather surprised look on his face, I have been introduced to some rather fine music. Which I shall share now. If you are wondering his name is Ryan and is the co-creator of a fantastic 5 topping pizza (sausage, bacon, pepperoni, mushroom and green pepper).

Now to the music...thanks to the power of MySpace

First up DeVotchKA. A kind of punk mariachi band. Lots of guitar, whistling and trumpets.

Next Neutral Milk Hotel. A sort of US Belle and Sebastian. Very nice music, not so nice lyrics

Also Man or Astro-man? Which are a cool surf guitar band

The band with the best name goes to the F....ing Champs. Which is now also our new slang for balls.... we do need to get out more I know.

Another picture, this time of Curtis and I looking rather musical. You may remember Curtis from such posts as this one. I am looking rather American in this photo. I assure everyone I still have my accent.