The Independent Weekly back issues from May 2006:
Lip service
May 03, 2006; ... up front I had a good laugh not too long ago when I read a story about a local condo company that hired a couple of folks to lounge around the model unit in bohemian fashion to show how cool their new development will be. Trust fund kids aside, I've met few bohemian types who can afford ...
best bets
May 03, 2006; ... IN HOWLE'ING AGAIN As a singer-songwriter and performer, Columbia, S.C.'s DANIELLE HOWLE is generally acknowledged as a free-spirited type, an imaginative storyteller with a voice and an attitude driven to make an innocent audience feel guilty. She's released work on Kill Rock Stars and ...
MOVING TO DURHAM?
May 03, 2006; ... I'm coming to live in the Raleigh-Durham area on May 5. My husband has already started working down there in the Triangle. I came to visit for a week in March from the 17th to the 27th. I took him to work every day so I could have the car and go exploring. The first day I got horribly lost in ...
RITES OF PASSAGE
May 03, 2006; ... It's become an inadvertent tradition. Every Thursday when my 12-year-old daughter finishes riding lessons at Pleasant Hill Farm, after she's put Irish out to pasture and a cotton candy sunset glows over a riding ring of young girls finishing their lessons, I let her drive the car. It's about two ...
Correction
May 03, 2006; ... Last week's article "Singing songs into being" incorrectly ...
Colbert to White House press corps: Die laughing
May 03, 2006; ... The mainstream press has worked hard to ignore or (worse) bash Stephen Colbert's address at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night. But it was brilliant, made more powerful knowing the president and first lady were sitting uncomfortably just a few seats down on the dais ....
Industry clout eases nuke rules
May 03, 2006; ... AS SHEARON HARRIS PLANS EXPANSION A federal watchdog agency says NRC staff urged tighter security against terrorism, but industry reps said it was too expensive. Concern over corporate profits appears to have trumped public safety in the Grafting of a new rule regulating security ...
'Today we march. Tomorrow we vote.'
May 03, 2006; ... LATINOS RALLY IN RALEIGH When Rosa Saavedra spotted Catholic Sister Kitty Bethea on Monday at the Raleigh May Day march and rally for fair immigration reform, Saavedra looked at her friend in amazement. "Did you ever think we'd see mis day?" said Saavedra, who marched in ...
Everybody loves Luebke
May 03, 2006; ... But public campaign financing in the primaries would really help the Democrats. I startled myself the other day with the realization that, unless I put it down on my calendar for Tuesday, I might actually forget to vote. This was unprecedented. I've never not voted. On the other hand, ...
Growing up on Castlemaine Farm
May 03, 2006; ... In a lightening flash of irony, Mother Nature served up the first big rain we've had in months during the farm tour sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Despite the storms, almost 100 people visited Castlemaine Farm, owned by Brian and Joann Gallagher. Named for a village on ...
Elsewhere, Greensboro's art supply fantasyland
May 03, 2006; ... Where everything is art (and nothing's for sale) In downtown Greensboro, in the middle of city blocks filled with antique stores, the storefronts of 606 and 608 S. Elm St. kind of stand out. The windows are full of what at first glance looks like carefully arranged trash. One ...
More than 1,000 under Mary Pope Osborne's magic spell
May 03, 2006; ... For adults without children, she is mostly unknown. But among parents and children between 5 and 9, she has achieved an almost cult-like following whose popularity rivals J.K. Rowling. Last Thursday evening, more than 1,000 of her fans crowded into Quail Ridge Books & Music in ...
In praise of global warming
May 03, 2006; ... THEATER In praise of global warming Little Green Pig defrosts Chekhov-at last-in Three Sisters I'm fairly certain that, wherever he was, director Jay O'Berski was chortling to himself as he read my column last week. Particularly this part: "Clearly, artists have the right ...
KEEP the BEAT
May 03, 2006; ... Why Raleigh's sleek new downtown should embrace a music scene on the verge From the dust of the imploded convention center and the concrete trenches along Fayetteville Street Mall, the new downtown Raleigh is slowly rising, a landscape of sleek mixed-use buildings, luxury condos, ...
Austin: A city in harmony with its music community
May 03, 2006; ... What the city of Austin does for its music scene will blow your mind. First, there's Jim Butler, who works for the city as a liaison between the music community and city government. Butler's job is to keep Austin's 100-plus live music venues happy. The city's music marketing department also ...
Carrboro keeps the beat, but can Chapel Hill keep up?
May 03, 2006; ... In 1993, Carrboro stole the Cat's Cradle away from Chapel Hill. It didn't take much, just a little help from the mayor and a small business loan. It's a bellwether moment in local music history, one that signaled the migration of the world famous "Chapel Hill music scene" out of Chapel Hill and ...
Downtown Durham club: SOS!
May 03, 2006; ... Michael Penny put a sign up in the window of his club the other day. It says, "No streetlights, no sidewalks for over 20 weeks and no end in sight. FIX THIS! The irresponsible pace of this project is severely impacting my ability to maintain this hard fought for, vital and pioneering downtown ...
YOU WIN
May 03, 2006; ... THE STRUGGLERS YOU WIN (Acuarela Discos) Randy Bickford's world is marked by a weird sort of static metamorphosis. His protagonists are condemned to change into the same thing again and again; a film adaptation of You Win might reasonably be titled Sisyphus in Love. In ...
Blogroots
May 10, 2006; ... up front Several years ago a small group of Web visionaries who saw what the Web was becoming put out a document called the Cluetrain Manifesto (www.cluetrain.com). The opening statement summed up a belief they held that the Web was fast becoming a place where people would form their own ...
best bets
May 10, 2006; ... IN NOT ALL KID'S STUFF New York Times best-selling author SARAH DESSEN takes on an ambitious task with yet another work of young-adult literature: explaining the point of view of a 13-year-old girl. Just Listen tells the story of Annabel, the girl who seems to have it all, except the one ...
MOTHERING SUNDAY
May 10, 2006; ... Even by the yardstick of American consumer culture, Mother's Day has got to be one of our stranger holidays. Foisted on us with the equally strong pressures of sentiment and obligation, one is free to show love and appreciation for one's mother, or the mother of your children, one's grandmother, ...
HERO WORSHIP
May 10, 2006; ... Sadlack's Heroes, the beer-music-sandwich institution on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, started as Baxley's, a simple sandwich wagon back in the '40s that was dragged in and assembled for former soldiers flocking to N.C. State on the heels of World War II. But it was on the toes of the ...
'Chatham residents stand up to money'
May 10, 2006; ... COALITION WINS PRIMARY After defeating a slate headed by Bunkey Morgan, three candidates say they will improve planning. Meanwhile, developers have seven months until they take office. Last week, while Chatham County voters streamed to polling places to wrestle control of their ...
Varied groups rally Tuesday against OLF
May 10, 2006; ... DUCKS UNLIMITED, NAACP AND EASLEY The battle lines are drawn, and a showdown is looming that pits a bunch of rural North Carolinians against the U.S. Navy. A win for the Navy could spell environmental disaster for one of the state's most pristine wildlife preserves. The folks ...
DNA test is inmate's last chance
May 10, 2006; ... BUT THE STATE WON'T DO IT When a Gates County jury concluded in 1995 that Jerry Wayne Conner should be executed for a double murder, one of the jurors who voted for death was Gates County Index news editor Helene Knight. Knight was the Index's reporter assigned to cover Conner's ...
It's time to bring out the 100-ton gun
May 10, 2006; ... Presidents, senators, judges all impeached for lesser crimes than George W. Bush. James Bryce, in his landmark commentary The American Commonwealth, wrote that impeachment "is like a one-hundred ton gun which needs complex machinery to bring it into position, an enormous charge of powder ...
THE REVOLUTiOn WiLL BE BLOGGED
May 10, 2006; ... It's one big progressive soapbox out there on the Internet. Traditionally, political stories like this one start with an anecdote. An illustrative example, that is, that sets the stage for the BIG IDEA. This story, for example, is about how the progressive cause is advancing thanks to ...
Potpourri of freshness
May 10, 2006; ... Popular brands making the grade For those of you who never enter a wine shop, the endless rows of popular brands in your supermarket's aisle can be a real crapshoot. Names such as Gallo, Kendall-Jackson, Yellow Tail and Sutler Home often dominate shelf space. How is one to know if they ...
A&E BRIEFS
May 10, 2006; ... MALLARMÉ CHAMBER PLAYERS is calling it quits after 23 years. Durham's traveling orchestra will perform for the last time in June 2007. The board of directors voted to disband the nonprofit that employs about two dozen professional musicians after founder and artistic director Anna Ludwig ...
The blackness of tango
May 10, 2006; ... Dance's dark roots in a country "without blacks" It is just as important to be well danced as it is to be well versed or well read. -Robert Farris Thompson, Tango: An Art History of Love (Pantheon, 2005) Every Argentinian is proud of the tango. Yet, it's a commonly held ...
MOTHer KnOWS BeST
May 10, 2006; ... Fashion and the family tree When asking our mothers for fashion advice, we run the risk of making them think we want all of their old clothes-they dressed us for so long that it's probably only natural for them to want to continue to do so. But some of us are lucky to inherit ...
Severe weather advisory
May 10, 2006; ... DANCE In Weather is Very Important, Robin Harris reminds us a storm is coming As Robbie Robertson might say, take a picture of this: Choreographer Robin Harris, a tall, thin, somewhat gaunt-looking woman, is standing alone, a few feet from the end of a wooden pier. She faces us, ...
REVIEWS
May 10, 2006; ... ****1/2 THREE SISTERS (ON ICE), Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, Manbites Dog Theater-When director/adaptor Jay O'Berski takes considerable liberties with Chekhov's script and Brian Friel's adaptation, the result is an outsized, profane and gleeful descent into emotional slapstick and ...
What's that noise?
May 10, 2006; ... Seven of the Triangle's eminent noiseniks answer the question. When Washington, D.C's Orthrelm played at the Wetlands Dance Hall in February, their guitar-based, prog-rock brutalism seemed quaint compared to the local opening act, a collaboration between Boyzone's Ryan Martin and Chuck ...
SPOTLIGHT: PINBACK
May 10, 2006; ... For those who've only seen the travel brochures-the sailboats on Mission Bay, the hang-gliders at Torrey Pines, the Windansea suffers-it can be jarring to learn that sunny San Diego is home to some of the darkest bands in the indie rock scene. Take Pinback, for instance, the home-studio ...
SPOTLIGHT: JOHNNY WINTER
May 10, 2006; ... Johnny Winter's music has been known to move listeners to tears. But when he talks, it affects people to the opposite end. "I wet my pants," says Paul Nelson, Winter's guitar player and manager, in response to Winter's casual comment a couple of days ago that he wanted to record Jimi ...
The emperor and his clothes
May 10, 2006; ... ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL/ AWESOME; I ... SHOT THAT! Open Friday in select theaters MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III Now playing throughout the Triangle What makes a great artist? What makes Tom Cruise so expensive? The title itself is worthy of a quiet smirk: Art ...
RIGHT ON DAIRYLAND
May 03, 2006; ... DAY ACTION BAND RIGHT ON DAIRYLAND (Captain Cape Records) Songwriting is seldom better than when complex subjects come explained simply, when mystifying material comes distilled by someone who's lived enough to know. Modern rock is full of those banalities, tripe about ...
DOUBLE WIDE AND LIVE
May 03, 2006; ... SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS DOUBLE WIDE AND LIVE (Yep Roc) Listening to SCOTS is like slipping into an old, comfortable pair of shoes. Their sound hasn't changed much since they introduced toe-sucking geek rock back in '85. Their fried chicken-flinging backwoodsabilly ...
I GOTTA B ME/ LA RÉSISTANCE, C'EST
May 03, 2006; ... EXTREME ANIMALS/VARIOUS ARTISTS I GOTTA B ME/ LA RÉSISTANCE, C'EST HOMEGROWN (FrequeNC) The Chapel Hill vinyl imprint FrequeNC represents only one face of its founders' autonomous ambitions. Their home base outside of town spans several buildings: living quarters, ...
HARD DARK LOVE
May 03, 2006; ... DENEEN MCEACHERN HARD DARK LOVE (Tomato Music) You can go to church on this one, drink in hand. You'd expect to find a voice like this in gospel. It's hard to shake the feeling that you're listening to Mahalia Jackson sing the blues. Instead, this serving of heavenly ...
ASHLEY ATKINS
May 03, 2006; ... ASHLEY ATKINS ASHLEY ATKINS (Carbonated Records) On her eponymous Carbonated Records debut, Ashley Atkins gives would-be playmates fair warning: Flirting with her is flirting with disaster, and, if she flirts back, she'll fell too hard, love too much and miss you bad when ...
BOOK ME BACK IN YOUR DREAMS
May 03, 2006; ... JEMIMA JAMES BOOK ME BACK IN YOUR DREAMS (Tomato Music) She gets called a blues singer, but Jemima James is pure, old-school country. The lyrics on Book Me Back in Your Dreams, courtesy of producer Kent Cooper, are low-down blues, but lames' vocals are rooted in country ....
BLACK TAJ
May 03, 2006; ... BLACK TAJ BLACK TAJ (Amish Records) The guys in Black Taj have a long and illustrious pedigree in local music, one marked by a certain exoticism. Guitarists Dave Brylawski and Grant Tennille are veterans of Idyll Swords, a group that whipped traditional Asian and Middle ...
NAKED TO THE INVISIBLE EYE
May 03, 2006; ... FEEDING THE FIRE NAKED TO THE INVISIBLE EYE (self-released) Naked to the Invisible Eye, the three-track debut EP from Chapel Hill quartet Feeding the Fire, is big on scope. Over the course of 15 minutes, the band takes modern rock's fuzzed guitars and emphatic rhythms on ...
SPRING OUT
May 03, 2006; ... Each year, spring comes along to rescue us from the ashtray character of rock clubs that's supported our habit since last autumn started turning too cold. And while cities like Raleigh beef up their outdoor entertainment with new, big-name music ventures, music in the summer means a chance to ...
ROMAN RELEASE
May 03, 2006; ... The Wee Hours Revue, the second album from Wilkesboro/Chapel Hill quintet Roman Candle, will finally see release via V2 Records on Tuesday, June 20. Portions of the album were ...
Sweet bird song
May 03, 2006; ... Bowerbirds' environmental aestheticism It's a Thursday night on Martin Street in downtown Raleigh in the dimly lit den of Alibi Bar, directly below the city's construction carnival. Nervously, a guy and a girl flit about one end of the room, plugging in microphones and guitars, asking ...
durham-chapel hill line
May 03, 2006; ... New ears Sometimes recording yourself in the kitchen and running it through ProTools just isn't enough. For those who reach that conclusion, WARRIOR SOUND, a brand new recording studio in Chapel Hill, opened its doors last month. Studio operators AL JACOB and MITCHELL MARLOW have ...
The Dirty Little Heaters
May 03, 2006; ... Grace Slick fronting X? Janis Joplin sitting in with the Germs? Think smaller and closer to home. Durham's Dirty Little Heaters-drummer Melissa Thomas and guitarist/vocalist Reese Gibbs-take the two-piece concept to another dimension. If you're thinking a sound similar to another local ...
SPOTLIGHT: SHOOTER JENNINGS
May 03, 2006; ... Shooter Jennings is easy to dismiss. He falls in that exclusive, often infamous club of musicians who have not yet enjoyed the success of their more famous musical parents. Lennon, Allman, Dylan: Some were on the tour bus as children with their famous parents, picking up the craft at an early ...
Grace under pressure
May 03, 2006; ... Grace under pressure A responsible and artistically impressive film about 9/11 Of the various ways to assess the understated excellence of United 93, a comment by one of the cast seems to me particularly on-targel Describing writer-director Paul Greengrass, Susan Blommaert, who ...
Three and out
May 03, 2006; ... Three and out Some movies are good, some are passable and some are ... Rarely in the course of a single year do three movies as thoroughly mediocre as The Promise, Don't Come Knocking and One Last Thing ... open on the same weekend. But bad movies come to art houses, too, and in ...
Cheaper gas or healthy kids?
May 17, 2006; ... up front If you were sitting in the legislature today, what would you do with a couple of billion dollars? Maybe it makes sense to you here, in this time of economic recovery, for folks to get a little relief in filling their tanks. Or maybe it makes more sense to give the ...
best bets
May 17, 2006; ... IN ECLECTICS He plays like a fusion of Albert King and Albert Collins and sings like a slightly hoarse Otis Redding with a Cajun accent. TAB BENOIT's swamp-inflected blues expose his Louisiana roots, but there's as much Texas in his music due to the twin Albert vibe. But Benoit won't ...
WANT AD
May 17, 2006; ... TO: Triangle employers SUBJECT: Your role in maintaining North Carolina's young talent base Must meet minimum qualifications: Five years of experience, master's degree required. If I see those words one more time I think I'm going to scream. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa ...
SHUT UP
May 17, 2006; ... I'm about to shut up, but before I do, I need to tell you to shut up. So, shut up! I mean you, you white Jordan High School lacrosse players. (But I don't just mean you; I really mean all privileged, young, white males.) Shut up and listen. I've had enough of your ignorant "She was a stripper, ...
High court stops execution for DNA test
May 17, 2006; ... AT THE 11TH HOUR Thrilled appellate lawyers gave Jerry Wayne Conner the news as he was saying his good-byes. They overcame the state's efforts to block a retest that could prove his guilt-or earn a new trial. Did an innocent man come within 36 hours of being executed? That's the ...
IRS says Murphys are hogging tax money
May 17, 2006; ... ACCUSED OF "ECONOMIC SHAM" Recently filed federal court documents offer a glimpse into the tax avoidance machinations of the super-rich, many of whom go to the greatest lengths to bilk Uncle Sam despite the steadily decreasing tax burden that Washington lawmakers place on ...
Why are recent grads so strapped?
May 17, 2006; ... LOANS, HOUSING AND LOW PAY If you're not of a certain age, then you won't remember when college was a bargain or when the G.I. Bill paid your full college costs and threw in a living stipend, too. You won't remember when that starter home in Levittown, N.Y., cost $6,700, though you ...
Poll taxes
May 17, 2006; ... You like taxes? Impact fees? Or would you like to pay for new schools some other way? Here's the thing about polls. Howard Dean was sailing to victory in Iowa, remember? Richard Petty was cruising in his race for Secretary of State. And Rufus Edmisten was so far ahead for governor, Jim ...
At N.C. State, personality, uptempo play and beating UNC trump Xs, Os-and graduation
May 17, 2006; ... Sidney Lowe, newly named head men's basketball coach at North Carolina State University, finished his formal press conference and circulated amiably among a milling multitude in the program's expensive new practice gym. The honeymoon had just begun for the former Wolfpack point guard, best ...
TECHNOBARONS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
May 17, 2006; ... TELEPHONE AND CABLE COMPANIES ARE TRYING TO CREATE A VERTICAL MONOPOLY. IF THEY SUCCEED, THEY'LL DESTROY THE FREE MARKET, ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE WE LOVE ABOUT THE INTERNET. John D. Rockefeller realized that the way to control the oil market was to control the transport of oil. So in ...
COPING WITH COPE
May 17, 2006; ... HERE'S A RUNDOWN OF BILLS IN CONGRESS CHALLENGING-AND SUPPORTING-"NET NEUTRALITY." IN THE HOUSE ... COMMUNICATIONS OPPORTUNITY, PROMOTION, AND ENHANCEMENT (COPE) ACT OF 2006 (HR 5252) Introduced by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). Rep. Sue Myrick and Rep. G.K. Butterfield, both ...
Last refuge of the spandrel
May 17, 2006; ... Exploring the undefined spaces of downtown Durham To take a walk through downtown Durham with artists Sabri Reed and Andrew Barco is to see the city in multiple dimensions of time. By professional inclination, they do a lot of thinking about Durham's urban future-the one with lofts, ...