Preview: Shakori Hills Fall 2011

Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival will be held Oct 6th-9th.
Click above to visit their official site.

Having fully recovered from the breakneck pacing of Hopscotch, we now set our sights on another of the Triangle's (well, just outside the Triangle) hidden gems: The Shakori Hill Grassroots Festival of Music & Dance, Shakori for short. On October 6th, the sleepy rural community of Silk Hope will erupt to vibrant life as folks of all stripes gather together on its beautiful countryside to enjoy a four day music festival.

The last festival, held in April, boasted 50 bands, including jam-band mainstays (and upstate New York natives) Donna the Buffalo, as well as astonishing sets from Arrested Development and Holy Ghost Tent Revival. As vibrant a musical community as the Triangle is, it featured a fair number of local acts, including Birds and Arrows, Mount Moriah and perennial favorites Midtown Dickens (whom I watched in the rain).

This time around, the organizers have gone all-in, so to speak. They've attracted major national acts, including Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, legendary banjoist Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, up-and-comer Brett Dennen, Dirty Bourbon River Show, The Emmit-Nerishi Band and many, many more. Still, they make a fantastic effort to highlight local talent with Hammer No More The Fingers, Dub Addis and Des Ark. With a grand total of over 50 fifty bands lined up and a boatload of daily activities, there is something for everyone to listen to and enjoy.

News - Gibson Guitar's Tennessee Factory Raided

Gibson's Nashville, TN factory was raided by government
officials for violation of the Lacey Act.

The federal government, whose competence has never been questioned and whose approval rating has never been higher, sent armed federal agents into two of Gibson Guitar's Tennessee factories, seizing $1 million dollars in guitars and imported rosewood and ebony. It seems that the iconic instrument manufacturer could be violating the Lacey Act, a nearly 100 year-old law that restricts the importation of  raw materials made of endangered woods, like rosewood and ebony.

The law itself is not a problem, in fact it just makes good sense to ban importation of endangered raw materials. Denis Leary's whale skin hubcaps need not exist in real life. The issue to be taken is with the heavy-handed and melodramatic methods of executing the law, not to mention the ripple effect in the guitar industry. What of independent dealers trading in these Gibson guitars made of ebony and rosewood? The fear, it seems, is a very real one. George Gruhn, a Tennessee dealer in vintage guitars lamented that "there is uncertainty about what the federal government expects" in relation to the Lacey Act. According to local newspapers, the Department of Justice has reached out to Gibson and set a meeting for next week to discuss the raids.

Myxem Picks 'Em - Week of 09/12/11

Beaten and bedraggled by the fantastic weekend in Raleigh, NC at the Hopscotch Music Festival, we finally got around to setting down and assembling a playlist. Needless to say, the playlist focuses heavily on the highlights of the festival including Bombadil, Empress Hotel, Ben Sollee and Shit Horse. The playlist also features some non-festival talent in the way of Warm Ghost's chillwave stylings, new tracks from St. Vincent and Girls, and Fleet Foxes' "Grown Ocean." Click the banner above to listen to the playlist.

Hopscotch '11 - Day Three Review

The Myxem crew awoke battered and beaten on Saturday morning; two full days of Hopscotching can really kick your ass. Regardless, this was our big day and we were going to enjoy the hell out of it. I was about thirteen years old when I first heard the Flaming Lips. I was an awkward eighth grader who listened to a lot of classic rock and watched a lot of VH1, where they played a clip of "Do You Realize??" during just about every commercial break. It was this that inspired me to check out the whole album, which led me to the Soft Bulletin, which led to Clouds Taste Metallic, and the rest is history. Today would be my first time ever seeing the Lips live, a moment that my awkward teenage years had been building up to. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. But, before that glorious moment, there was lot on the agenda: bands to see, day parties to attend, and a whole lot of walking around.