Hopscotch Announces 2011 Lineup! Flaming Lips and Guided By Voices To Headline.

The Hopscotch Music Festival has announced the lineup for this year’s festival and its a doozy. The festival, which takes place september 8-10 in downtown Raleigh will be headlined by psychedelic rockers The Flaming Lips and newly reunited indie rock pioneers Guided By Voices. Other bands that will perform on the festival’s main stage include The Dodos, Drive By Truckers and local heroes Superchunk. In addition to the main stage, acts will perform in 11 other venues scattered around downtown Raleigh including King’s Barcade, The Pour House, Tir Na Nog and the Flether Opera Theater. Acts that will perform in these venues include Dinosaur Jr frontman J Mascis, Swans, Atlanta garage rockers The Black Lips, Twin Shadow, The Love Language, Lost in the Trees, Little Scream and Toto Y Moi. Check out the poster with the full lineup below.

Tickets for the festival are on sale now via the Hopscotch website. Ticket options include all show passes, passes to each night’s main stage performance and club show passes. For more information visit hopscotchmusicfest.com

Record Store Day Is Tomorrow!

The annual celebration of independent record stores known as Record Store Day takes place tomorrow. This is your chance to pick up exclusive releases from artists like The Decemberists, Foo Fighters, Superchunk, Daft Punk, The Flaming Lips and more. For a full list of exclusive record store day releases visit the official Record Store Day website.

In adition to exclusive music releases, many record stores will host instore performances. The Dexter Romwebber Duo and The Raveonettes will play at Schoolkids in Raleigh while two undisclosed acts will perform at Bull City Records in Durham. Record Store Day is a great opportunity to get great new music and support local independent record stores at the same time.

Local Record Stores:

Schoolkids (Raleigh):http://www.myspace.com/schoolkidsrecords

Bull City Records (Durham):http://www.bullcityrecords.com/

All Day Records (Carrboro):http://alldayrecords.com/

CD Alley (Chapel Hill):http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=194628129086

Upcoming Shows 4/4-4/10

There are a ton of great shows happening in the area this week. Here’s a rundown of the best ones.

April 6:

The Black Lips & Vivian Girls at Cat’s Cradle

Atlanta quartet The Black Lips bring their raucous brand of retro garage rock to Cat’s Cradle. The Vivian Girls, an all female punk trio from Brooklyn, open the show. The show begins at 8:30 PM and you can purchase tickets online via etix for $12.

The Rosebuds To Release New Album In June

The Rosebuds have announced that their new album, titled Loud Planes Fly low, will be released on June 7th via Merge Records. Loud Planes Fly Low marks the North Carolina duo’s 5th studio album and the first release since their 2008 album Life Like. In addition, this album will be the first release from the band since band members Kelly Crisp and Ivan Howard ended their marriage. According to a Merge Records press release this situation allowed Ivan and Kelly to write and record, “some of The Rosebuds’ riskiest and most rewarding songs to date.” Head over to http://therosebuds.com/ to download the song Second Bird Of Paradise for free and check out the trailer for the album below.

Hopscotch Festival Announces Venue Information, To Announce Lineup 4/20

The downtown Raleigh based Hopscotch Music Festival, which takes place September 8-10, has announced the venue information for the 2011 incarnation of the event. While the 2010 festival took place in 10 downtown Raleigh venues including Kings Barcade, Tir Na Nog and The Pour House, this year’s festival will expand to 12 venues. The two new venues will be White Collar Crime and the Fletcher Opera Theater, which is part of the Progress Energy Center. According to the Hopscotch website the use of the 600 seat Fletcher Opera Theater will allow the festival to provide, “increasingly diverse programming, while providing a unique festival experience for artists and attendees.”

Hopscotch has also announced that the artist lineup for the festival will be released April, 20. Tickets will go on sale the same day. While the promoters have been tightlipped about who is playing the event, they have hinted that, “a visionary Paris based composer, a Chapel Hill folk band, a seminal trio of Australian improvisers, an experimental Brooklyn siren and many more” are set to play the festival. For more information on the festival visit the Hopscotch website.

Telekinesis and The Love Language Wow Sold Out Crowd at Local 506

Sunday evening a capacity crowd gathered at  Local 506 in Chapel Hill to catch an excellent double bill featuring the Seattle based Telekinesis and local rising stars The Love Language.

Telekinesis were up first and treated the crowd to an hours worth of catchy, danceable pop songs. While on record most Telekinesis songs can be docile and sweet, in the live setting the songs transform into more aggressive pseudo-punk anthems. The set began with a run of songs off of the new album, 12 Desperate Straight Lines, including You Turn Clear In The Sun, I Cannot Love You, and album standout Please Ask For Help. About midway through the set singer/songwriter/drummer Michael Benjamin Lerner came out from behind the drum kit to play a few songs on acoustic guitar including a Teenage Fanclub cover.

Once Lerner returned to the drums, Telekinesis were joined on stage by Love Language frontman Stuart Mclamb who helped them cover Guided By Voices 1995 classic Game Of Pricks. To end the set the entire Love Language crew joined Telekinesis for Coast Of Carolina off of their debut album. The song quickly turned into one giant singalong and eventually turned into an absolute frenzy complete with band members playing in the audience and crowd surfing.  Telekinesis brought an energy that few live bands can match. If the evening would have ended after Telekinesis I doubt anyone in the venue would have minded.

Prince To Bring Welcome 2 America Tour To The Carolinas…In 9 Days

 

It was announced on friday that Prince would bring his critically acclaimed Welcome 2 America tour to North and South Carolina for a six date run. In a somewhat unorthodox move the tour dates were announced less than two weeks before the shows are scheduled to take place. Yes, you read that correctly. The six date run is slated to begin in Columbia, South Carolina on March 21st. The tour will then make its way to Raleigh on the 23rd, Charlotte on the 24th and Greensboro on the 26th before making its way back to South Carolina.

 

Tickets go on sale monday at 10 AM. Ticket prices start at $20 and go all the way up to $199. No word yet on who the opening acts will be for these dates, but openers for previous shows on the tour have included Jannelle Monae and Cee-Lo Green. All dates and venues are listed below.

 

3/21/11 Columbia, SC @ Colonial Life Arena

3/23/11 Raleigh, NC @ RBC Center (tickets)

3/24/11 Charlotte, NC @ Time Warner Cable Arena (tickets)

3/26/11 Greensboro, NC @ Greensboro Coliseum (tickets)

3/28/11 Greenville, SC @ BiLo Center

3/30/11 North Charleston, SC @ North Charleston Coliseum

Troika Music Festival Nov 4-6

Troika Music Festival is back like a heartattack! Durham’s 8th Annual Troika Music Festival presents local licks from all around North Carolina. The goal each year is to celebrate in Durham’s burgeoning downtown area the vibrant independent music scene of the Durham–Chapel Hill–Raleigh area by featuring the area’s brightest musical acts as well as critically acclaimed acts visiting from elsewhere. Some of the artists on the bill include Red Collar, The Small Ponds, and Futurebirds!

Tickets are $10 for day and $25 for 3-day pass.

Any other questions contact the event coordinators/staff: info@troikamusicfestival.org

618 Foster Street, Durham, NC 27701

Website: http://troikamusicfestival.org/

 

Bonnaroo 2010 Poll

Sleeping In with Szewcow and Gwynn

Sleeping In with Szewcow and Gwynn: Sundays  2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

David Gwynn is a freshman communications fellow at Elon and jumped into the DJ position early in the year. He has loads of fun playing music and being crazy on air and can’t wait to continue doing so. He is from North Carolina and has never done anything radio-related before but always loved impressions, accents and funny voices, and what better stage to be on than the radio!

“We choose a different theme every week and play songs that corrospond with that theme. We like to use a variety of music genres on our show and we frequently host interesting guests to have a good time chatting and joking on air. The marriage of witty banter, quirky conversation and great tunes provides the ultimate form of radio entertainment!”

Gabriela Szewcow is a freshman Communications Fellow from Pittsburgh, PA. Like David, she’s new to the radio scene, but she’s so glad that the two friends were able to jump right into it and gain a semester of experience before becoming a specialty show. She looks forward to three more years of fun with her awesome co-host!