You should be really excited right now because Troika 2009 starts today. What looks like the best iteration of the Troika Music Festival tonight kicks off tonight at 7 p.m. at Durham Central Park with the Beast and Megafaun. We previewed some of the shows you should definitely check out (the aforementioned one among them) in today’s recess. You can check it out here:
Also noteworthy (I could go on about all the shows–Pipe!–but Trekky has a good guide here) is the Rock Paper Scissors art/music event Saturday afternoon. If nothing else, you can be a humanitarian and buy some of Red Collar drummer Jonathan Truesdale photos to help him work out some medical bills caused by CMJ (see the story for clarification).
See you at Troika.
[Photo of Bowerbirds in Paris by Oliver Peel. Courtesy Flickr.]
Megafaun just released the video for “Impressions of the Past” from Gather, Form and Fly, which, to anyone who was at the Arts Center show in August, will seem pretty familiar. Nonetheless, it’s pretty great and an excellent song. Also, be sure to catch them Thursday in downtown Durham for the Troika kick-off (the Beast opens.)
Midtown Dickens celebrated the release of their second LP, Lanterns, Friday at the Duke Coffeehouse. The band–augmented by a quartet of horns and Megafaun’s Brad and Phil Cook–spent the time between songs thanking all their friends and those who enabled the album–it was like a bearable Oscars acceptance speech with great metaphors about babies. But a grateful Midtown Dickens was matched by an audience even more grateful for the energetic, joyful performance. Check out the three videos below of Midtown Dickens performing some of the tracks from Lanterns. (And if you are wondering about the head that occasionally pops on screen–that’s Kym Registers mom standing front row-center.)
This year’s Troika Music Festival just got a lot better and there are 15 reasons why. The lineup now includes 15 more bands, among them Megafaun, the Love Language, Red Collar, Pipe (!) and Butterflies. The schedule for this year’s festival will be released later this week. Ticket sales for Durham’s November 5-7 music festival will also begin later this week. Check back her for further updates and below for the new additions to Troika.
Brad Cook played with Megafaun and Bowerbirds at last night’s show, earning the hard-worker award. And for “The Ticonderoga,” Phil Cook joined Bowerbirds. Bowerbirds, who headlined, closed out their encore (and tour) with all of Megafaun joining them on-stage as they performed a cover of the Rosebuds’ “Hold Hands and Fight,” dedicated the Rosebuds’ Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp, both in the audience.
