■lf You Speak Chinese ... Despite the daunting subtitles, Grammy award-winning
director Chen Kaige succeeds again with "The Emperor and the Assassin."... page 7
A little Bit (Seuntru
/! Rack ' Rail &
Local Country Rides
To Different Groove
By Eri\ Wyma
Senior Writer
When music fans around the country
think of mainstream music in Chapel
Hill, they associate the area with indie
rock.
Guitars here grind, not twang. Voices
growl, not drawl.
But amongst the well-established
indie rock scene lies a group of bands
dedicated to the preservation of _
IY pit.au VclllUU UI m UtbLIIUcU lilt' i>
I popular music -as a restrictive, hit-m
itry. UP ter. Nashville artists,
includes older A chart-toppei
y like the blues, Af Shania Tw;
.sic I and Tim i\
W group of:
1" |;
scei
has JR ml
extremely K' Kf
I
the
ailother form of popular music -
roots-based country.
Roots music includes older
forms of country like the blues, i
string band music
and bluegrass.
Spearheaded by
the alternative
country act
Whiskeytown.
which has gainec
fame in national
publications like
Rolling Stone, the
Raleigh-Durhaiti-
Chapel Hill area
has groomed a
faithful country music ■
following in the past 10 1
years.
“This area has
always been extremely
supportive of
what we’re
doing,” said
John How'ie,
lead singer of the
high-energy honky-tonk band 2 Dollar
Pistols.
While he said that alternative country
acts like his generally found a strong
group of supporters here, Howie hesi
tated to call the area’s collection of
roots-based bands a scene.
“Everybody’s moving into their own
little world,” he said.
His band prefers to write in the style
of older country bands, lending the
music a more authentic, Southern feel
than much of the music streaming out of
Nashville in the past 10 years.
But Triangle groups like
Whiskeytown betray more of a rock
influence, while others like Trailer Bride
tend to produce more experimental
sounding country music. T hrow Tony
winning string band Red Clay Ramblers
into the mix, and country music in the
Triangle becomes even more of a stew,
providing a true “alternative” to the
DTH/ CASEY QUILLEN
With bands that mix roots-country with modern music, the scene at last
weekend's Honky-Tonka-Rama was far from the typical barn dance or
Nashville club show.
Ret
<Thg Daily (Tar Heel
country music that floods airwaves.
Like roots musicians in other medi
um-sized Southeastern cities, Chapel
Hill country bands find themselves
eager to break away from Nashville’s
commercial tentacles.
“I want the music to not have to be
this decidedly commercial, based-in
demographics music,” Howie said.
“(Nashville writers) just have certain set
of ideas about the way things are done.”
He described the Nashville industry
as a restrictive, hit-making music cen
ter. Nashville artists, like pop country
chart-toppers Garth Brooks,
Shania Twain, Faith Evans
and Tim McGraw, do not
write their own songs, and
some Nashville studios
make artists use backup
musicians that are not a part of
the band, Howie said. He said a
group of musicians called
the A-Team play on
many albums coming
out of Nashville.
So, along with
other Southern
music meccas like
Atlanta, with its
large rockabilly
scene, Chapel Hill
country acts fill
a much-needed
void in the
nation’s roots
music industry by
adding other dis
tinct musical voices
to the options.
Kenny Roby, a former Six-String
Drag member and roots-influenced
rocker from Raleigh, said he appreciat
ed the musical diversity that existed out
side the world’s country music capital.
“A lot of times you won’t find the soul
in music from Nashville than you would
in other places,” Roby said.
Not only does staying out of
Nashville’s looming corporate shadow
yield a wider variety of music, musicians
like Roby and Howie argued, but it also
gives them a better audience.
“1 prefer it in this area to a place like
Tennessee or Texas because they’ve
become jaded there,” Howie said. He
said Nashville’s idea of commercial
country had conditioned these audi
ences to expect a certain sound, and
they became disappointed when they
didn’t hear it. When they hear old-style
honky-tonk from 2 Dollar Pistols, he
■ Searching for a Cure or Headed for Death? The Cure's latest release, Bloodflowers, rings with a
sadness that goes beyond the group's typical doldrums to create a feeling of finality.. page 9
iff ■ a
mgr
. ■
DTH ' CASEY QUILLEN
A Chapel Hill country favorite, the "Backsliders" performed Friday night as a part of the sixth annual
Honky-Tonka-Rama at Local 506 on West Franklin Street.
said, they don’t understand the music.
2 Dollar Pistols is not the only local
band to suffer that fate. Chapel Hill
based Chicken Wire Gang, a band influ
enced by Southern blues, country and
bluegrass, which comes closest in sound
to bands like Flat Duo Jets and Southern
Culture on the Skids, finds itself in the
same position. Greg Bell, a songwriter,
keyboardist and accordion player for
the band, said touring up and down the
East Coast revealed audiences’ igno
rance of country music.
“I think a lot of times, people don’t
know w hat to make of us,” he said. “If
w'e go north, we just blow' people’s
minds, because it’s so alien.”
And like John Howie and 2 Dollar
Pistols, Bell said his band steered clear
of Nashville clubs.
“Chicken Wire Gang has generally
avoided it,” he said. “We’ve always
wanted to play it, but we never wanted
to be another Wednesday band that gets
out with SIOO a night.”
Bell said Chapel Hill had proven to
be an excellent home for his country
band. Not only can bands succeed in
the Triangle without a large financial
output, but they benefit from the cama
raderie amongst area bands.
“We all have a similar interest in the
honesty of music,” he said. “The songs
and the music basically speak for them
selves.”
The Arts & Entertainment Editor can
be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.
Fans Say Chapel Hill's Gone Country
7 guess I’d describe myself“ This is a lot of fun
as an enlightened punk meets country
redneck - a soph is-/ Ufa nothing you’d
ticated redneck.” hear on the radio. ”
Stu Cole Raul Moyla\
SNZ and Chicken Wire Gang Chapel Hill
“It’s to the point. It has a “I’m a big country fan. This is
little more emotion. ...It a little more new , like crazy
doesn’t equal cheesy orir alternative rock with some
lame. ” countiy thrown in. but
Melissa Swingle ,J I mos t °f& ”
TraHer Bride ~ Crav
Chapel Hill
“This is more like art with
- capital A.” /
Monica Lubk.sta / ’ £S£ * 5 ’
Carrboro l
r. “There’s nothing bad
ffkHk L, about it, ’cept you might
\ shed a tear in your beer. ”
II jfafr, J 1) WE RoKIfHBSs
Ownei of Local 506
■ Are You Afraid of the Dark? Durham's Carolina
Theater will launch its first Nevermore Horror & Gothic
Film Festival this weekend, a spin-off of the bimonthly
Retrofantasma Film Series. The weekend will showcase a
.. number of films never before aired in North Carolina and
includes a pet
Joshua Kane (!
m "* P "Tales of Terre
Poe"
PAGE 5
Alt-Country
Colors Area
Music Fest
Last weekend, the Franklin
Street music venue Local
506 hosted the sixth annual
Honky-Tonka-Rama.
By Daniele Eubanks
Assistant Arts & Entertainment Editor
A haze of smoke and the bitter smell
of moist beer-breath hung in the air. A
curly-haired man in an orange-check
ered shirt, jeans and Airwalks banged
out a tune on the keyboard, accompa
nied by Stuart Cole of the Squirrel Nut
Zippers on guitar and a great big guy
with a great big beard on a great big
bass singing, “Sally let your bangs hang
down!”
Night two of the sixth annual Honky-
Tonka-Rama music festival was in full
swing Saturday night at the Local 506.
By midnight about 50 folks were swing
ing their hips and stomping their boots
(some cowboy, some combat) to the
Chicken Wire Gang’s brand o!
American music.
The Gang joined Trailer Bride, Stai
Room Boys, Blue Balls Deluxe, Drive-
By Truckers and The Backsliders to fin
ish off the two-day festival, known for its
punk-country fusion.
John Dzubak, doorman at the Local
506, peeked out from under his
sparkling silver cowboy hat with eyes
accented by deep-grey shadow and
explained that the bands featured in the
festival weren’t the type you’d find in
Nashville.
“This is underground country, coun
try bands who grew up on punk - not
your contemporary Nashville 8.5.,” he
said.
Dave Robiness, the club’s owner,
agreed. He said the music was about
real issues and real emotion.
“This isn’t about candy-coated coun
try - it’s life - it’s what’s happening
now,” he said.
“There’s nothing bad about it, ‘cept
you might shed a tear in your beer,”
Robiness added.
Nearly shedding a tear in his beer,
800 Kaufman, owner of Boo’s
Hideaway in Raleigh, complained
about Nashville’s commercialization of
country.
“Country has been delivered by
Nashville for too long as pop,” Kaufman
said.
“It started in the 70s and has just got
ten worse - the same kind of canned
music, same hooks.
“Too much country' is really bad. It’s
not country, just rural - people singing
about pickups and their dogs dying,”
He went on to explain that the alt
country music being played at the
Honky-Tonka-Rama and in clubs
nationwide is a return to the musical
roots of country music, boasting more
originality than the bland pop-influ
enced tunes from the country Top 40
that fill the airwaves.
“It’s just f-—’ good music,” he said.
“It gives kids who have an interest in
playing the banjo or the fiddle or some
thing the outlet to do it.”
Melissa Swingle, Trailer Bride’s song
writer and lead singer, said she taught
herself to play the guitar, mandolin,
banjo and saw in the last few years.
Swingle’s rejection of tradition instru
ments ended in a multi-faceted musical
personality that aids the group’s unique
style.
See HONKY TONK, Page 6
includes a performance b)
Joshua Kane (below) in
‘Tales of Terror Edgar
Allen Poe"
...page 7