BCR has a pair of tickets to The Explorer’s Club show at the Casbah in Durham to giiiiiive away. The show is on Saturday, February 11th with the Wigg Report and North Elementary and is in support of their upcoming new album Grand Hotel. They’re getting heavy descriptions to both The Beach Boys and Burt Bacharach lately, which has me pretty damn intrigued for one.

Now on to the fun part…how are we going to organize the giveaway ‘eh?? Let’s do another drawing contest! Now, keep in mind, these contests are by no means based on ability, just creativity and fun.

To win this pair of tickets, please draw any kind of a picture (pen, crayon, pencil, digital, etc) involving The Explorer’s Club and twitter it out tagged to all of our accounts. You can scan it or take a picture of it, just make sure we can see it!

Please include on the twitter post:

Bull City Records = @bullcityrecords
The Explorer’s Club = @expclub
The Casbah = @casbahdurham

Thanks! We’ll look ‘em over and the winner will be announced next week. Have fun on this one!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7TH @ Reynolds Theater, Durham, NC.
8pm. 22bucks. (room info)

THURSTON MOORE (Massachusetts | Matador)
HUSH ARBORS (Ecstatic Peace)

If you have yet to snag your tickets for this, I’d recommend you start thinking about it. Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore is swinging through Duke’s 600-seater theater in support of his latest solo release for Matador Records. Demolished Thoughts finished the year pretty high on BCR’s year-end list as one of the best go-to albums for post-work comedown. Beautifully sprawled over two LPs, Moore’s newest solo outing is more reflective, slow-paced and personal than his usual avant skree and phasered scrawl. Art pop and indie songwriting can indeed interestingly survive and thrive together if executed by the right folks….

Wide-eyed psych-folkers Hush Arbors opens the show. I’ve been itching to see these guys for a while now, but haven’t been so lucky until now. Perfect pairing. I recommend getting there on time to catch ‘em!

Yup and yup. It’s Tuesday, which means we’ve got another stack of new arrivals hitting the floor.

Recent New Stock & Restocks…

Ali Ag Amoumine – Takamba LP+7″
Apples in Stereo – Funtrick Noisemaker LP
Arcade Fire – Funeral LP
Arcade Fire – Suburbs LP
Archers of Loaf – Icky Mettle LP
Atomic Forest – Obsession 2LP
Black Bananas – Rad Times Xpress IV CD/LP
Black Lips – Black Lips LP
Bill Callahan – Apocalypse CD/LP
Shinki Chen & Friends – Shinki Chen & Friends LP
Damon & Naomi with Ghost – s/t LP+7″ Reissue
Dead Boys – Young, Loud & Snotty LP
Death – For the Whole World to See LP
Des Ark – Live at WXDU, Vol. 3 LP
First Aid Kit – The Lion’s Roar LP
Gonjasufi – Muzzle CD/2×10″
Thee Headcoats – Knights of the Baskervilles LP
Headstone Circus – Headstone Circus CD
Richard Hell & The Voidoids – Blank Generation LP
Hiss Golden Messenger – Poor Moon LP
Hospitality – Hospitality CD/LP
Horseback/Pyramids – A Throne Without a King CD/CS
Imperial Teen – Feel the Sound CD/LP
Jandek – Camber Sands CD
Jandek – Portland Thursday 2CD
Bert Jansch – LA Turnaround LP
Doug Jerebine – Is Jesse Harper LP
Eddie Lee Jones & Family – Yonder Go That Old Black Dog LP
Erkin Koray – Mechul: Singles & Rarities LP
Love Language – Libraries LP
Magnetic Fields – Andrew in Drag 7″
Carmen Maki & Blues Creation – Carmen Maki & Blues Creation LP
MC5 – Best Of LP
Mighty Sparrow – Sparrowmania! 2LP
Kimio Mizutani – A Path Through Haze CD
Neal Morgan – In the Yard LP
Mount Moriah – Mount Moriah CD
Nada Surf – The Stars Are Indifferent… CD/LP
Mickey Newbury – Looks Like Rain LP
People – Ceremony – Buddha Meet Rock LP
The Raincoats – The Raincoats LP
Ty Segall – Goodbye Bread CD/LP
Sic Alps – Vedley 7″
Six Organs of Admittance – School of the Flower LP
Omar Souleyman – Haflat Gharbia: The Western Concerts 2LP
Omar Souleyman – Leh Jani 2LP
Speed, Glue & Shinki – Speed, Glue & Shinki 2LP
Suicide – Suicide LP
Sun Araw – Ancient Romans 2LP
V/A – African Scream Contest: Raw & Psychedelic Afro Sounds 2LP
V/A – Bamabara Mystic Soul 2LP
V/A – Berlin Super 80: West Berlin Underground ’78-’84 2LP
Wire Magazine #336: February 2012

Thanks for reading!

Merge Records has a pretty stacked release schedule over the course of the next month. This Tuesday is going to bring us the debut from Hospitality, the fifth full length from 15 year vets (and counting) Imperial Teen and the Magnetic Fields’ official return to Merge, the Andrew in Drag 7″. Today we’ll peak into the new Imperial Teen LP.

*Imperial Teen – Feel the Sound (Album Stream by Spin)

I hopped I-85 on up to Richmond tonight with the brand new Imperial Teen album as my night drive soundtrack. Turns out that was the right decision to make. It was a quick, painless drive as Imperial Teen’s shifting, fuzzy pop filled the all too familiar night time trip up to my folk’s place. With a stumbling, pulsing drive and layers of humming effects, the album was a perfect match for gassed rubber flapping on empty, mindless stretches of pavement. It completely engulfed the drive; it was perfect.

The band’s take on pop is classic, throaty and infectious which surprisingly (and effectively) comes across sounding like a skewed Tusk-era Fleetwood Mac stitched into a New Pornographers’ starry-eyed world. So yes, like those, it’s swooning with paranoid romance and heavy with beautiful troubles. It’s a fun listen.

RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: Imperial Teen.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28TH @ Motorco, Durham, NC
6pm. 10bucks. (club info)

STUDENT BANDS (From the Central Park School)
THE BEAST (Durham, NC | self-release)
MOUNT MORIAH (Durham, NC | Holidays for Quince)
MEGAFAUN (Durham, NC | Hometapes)

It’s that time of year again! Time for the infamous ‘Save Our Arts’ Benefit for downtown Durham’s Central Park School. As explained on the organization’s website, the goal of the annual benefit, which is largely organized by Heather Cook, is to raise money for student art supplies, grow the school’s art education programs and fund art-based field trips and gallery visits among other art-centered things. If I remember correctly, it all started a few years back when the school’s funding started showing signs that it could no longer support an art program for the elementary-aged students.

Every year the fundraiser has been an amazing party, a great show of community support and a sweeping, sold out success. The line-up is stellar as usual with some of our most inspiring local bands from right here in Durham. If you’re free Saturday night, I’d highly encourage you to check it out. Keep in mind though – the show will start at 6pm with the student bands! And you really won’t want to miss those performances.

See ya out!

Sacred Bones Records is attracting some serious attention and settling themselves comfortably into a steady roll of stand-out releases right now. 2012 is going to be a good year. They’ve just put out the new Pop. 1280 full length and the new record from The Men is burning bright on the horizon.

Pop. 1280 – Bodies in the Dunes

I’ve been getting asked a lot recently about this new Pop. 1280 The Horror LP currently haunting the bins, so I figured it’d be as good an album as any to turn our focus on tonight. Their futuristic, bleak, industrial cyber-punk debut EP, The Grid, was very well received in the shop and on the blog here back in late 2010. The (potentially off their rocker) members that comprise Pop. 1280 shine glaringly bright as the best candidates for the future representatives of our wastelands and discarded smog-choked cities. I would gladly send my votes their way, as they clearly know how to navigate a post-industrial disaster world. Cold metallic tones draw and wretch against thudding, repetitive rhythms and stinging, buzzing guitars. It’s apocalyptic post-punk built for a world that’s already long gone.

Highly recommended if you’ve found yourself brooding over anything in the last few weeks. This LP is like a support group for surly garagers and punkers. I’m onboard.

RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: Human Eye, Timmy’s Organism, Chrome, Killdozer, The Men, Nothing People, A-Frames, etc.

NERDITUDE: Limited edition colored vinyl!

Thrill Jockey & Friends are slaying it this week in the releases department. Between the proper label and their distributed labels – Immune, Root Strata, Three Lobed, to name a few – they zonked out the competition with some seriously space-bound vinyl.

Rhyton – Stone Colored

Today we’re gonna touch down on the stellar new Rhyton LP. This live collaboration recording blindsided us here at BCR as soon as we read the label’s description just last week. We were running a little behind on our email at the shop as usual. Barely contained within these grooves pours out an epic, cosmic space-out session between Dave Shuford (of D. Charles Speer, No Neck Blues Band, etc), Jimy SeiTang (of Sacred Bones’ Psychic Ills) and Spencer Herbst (of Messages, Matta Llama). The rhythm section throbs and heaves on the LP locked down by a burning, snaking, fuzzblown guitar. As the instruments push and bend between each other, the pace slides in laid back and open while the mood hangs eerie and heavy. If you’re constantly in search of the next stoned groove, this is for you. It’s already been a phenomenal year for kraut, psych and prog revival and if this is any indication, it’s just gonna keep getting better.

RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: No Neck Blues Band, Wooden Shjips, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Three Lobed Recordings, Heavy Winged, Psychic Ills, Barn Owl, Eternal Tapestry, etc.

NERDNESS: Only 500 copies!

Tuesday brings boxes. And here are some of their contents…

Recent New Stock & Restocks…

Ilyas Ahmed – With Endless Fire LP
Apache Dropout – Apache Dropout LP
Archers of Loaf – Icky Mettle CD/LP
Avalanches – Since I Left You CD
Bardo Pond & Tom Carter – 4/23/03 Collaboration 2LP+CD
Bazooka – Jupiter 7″
Beach Boys – Smile Sessions 2LP
Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver CD/LP
Greg Cartwright – Live At the Circle A LP
Catholic Boys – Psychic Voodoo Mind Control LP
Chairlift – Something CD
Cleared – Breaking Day LP
Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory CD/LP
C.R.A.S.H. – War on All Fronts 7″
Kathleen Edwards – Voyageur CD
Craig Finn – Clear Heart Full Eyes CD/LP
First Aid Kit – The Lion’s Roar CD
Flat Duo Jets – Two Headed Cow DVD
Chris Forsyth & Koen Holtkamp (Mountains) – Early Astral LP
Future Islands – On the Water CD/LP
Goodnight Loving – The Goodnight Loving LP
Guilty Pleasures – Summer Strange LP
Head on Electric – Sleep Slaughter Sheep LP
Howler – America Give Up CD/LP
Imbogodom – And They Turned Not When They Went LP
Joy Division – Closer LP
Liturgy – Aesthethica 2LP
Megafaun – Gather Form & Fly CD/LP
Megafaun – Megafaun CD/2LP
The Midwest Beat – Gone Not Lost LP
The Mistreaters – The Mistreaters: Singles Comp 2LP
Moon Duo – Mazes LP
Moss of Aura – Wading LP
Pop. 1280 – The Horror CD/LP
Porcelain Raft – Strange Weekend CD/LP
The Psychic Paramount – II LP
Rhyton – Rhyton LP
Nathan Salsburg – Affirmed LP
Colin Stetson – New History Warfare, Vol. 2 LP
Colin Stetson – Those Who Didn’t Run 10″
The Tallest Man on Earth – Wild Hunt CD/LP
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker CD
Toro Y Moi – Underneath the Pines LP
Tortoise – Standards LP
Trans Am – The Surveillance LP
Jason Urick – I Love You LP
V/A – Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas: Tropicalia Psych 2LP
V/A – Forge Your Own Chains: Heavy Psych Ballads & Dirges 2LP
The War on Drugs – Wagonwheel Blues LP
Gillian Welch – The Harrow & The Harvest CD
Kendl Winter – The Mechanics of Hovering Flight CD/LP
Wire – Pink Flag LP
Wooden Shjips – Dos LP
Wooden Shjips – Vol. 2 LP
Wooden Shjips – West CD
Wooden Shjips – Wooden Shjips LP
Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) LP
Kourosh Yaghmaei – Back From the Brink 3LP
Richard Youngs – Core to the Brave LP
Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation CD/LP
Zomes – Improvisations LP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26TH @ La Salamandra, Durham, NC
9pm. 5bucks (min. donation, more welcomed). (club info)

SPIDER BAGS (Carrboro/Durham, NC | Churchkey, Birdman, BCR)
PAINT FUMES (Charlotte, NC | Slovenly)
FLESH WOUNDS (Chapel Hill, NC | brand new!)
BRAINBOWS (Durham, NC | self-released)
SNAKE (Chapel Hill, NC | brand new!)

This is a benefit show for Letha Rodman-Melchior. The minimum asked at the door is only 5 bucks, but I’d highly encourage folks to donate a little more to help with her skyrocketing medical bills if you feel so inclined. Letha is a local artist whose photography frequently appears on her husband’s (local/cult musician Dan Melchior) albums, and as we all know, artist and musician fees aren’t so good at covering serious health issue costs. Benefit shows have already been planned and executed as far away as New York City and now it’s our turn to help out where we can.

Each band is geared up to play a twenty minute assault of a set in hopes of keeping the night from running too long. It’s almost like a sampler night of live, local music. If by the end of the bands’ short, focused sets you feel as if you haven’t gotten a full night’s worth of entertainment, the organizers are threatening a late night 50s/60s rock dance party. This will be spearheaded by the Mid-Century Modern DJ crew and I’d imagine it’s gonna be pretty spot-on.

If you’ve got no plans for this coming Thursday night, I’d highly encourage you to grab some friends and come on out! The music will be amazing (some of BCR’s favorite NC musicians), the drinks will be cheap and the food will come in tortillas and blow your minds. See ya out!

Alright. I’m gonna drop a bomb on ya tonight to ensure you have a good weekend. If you’re a fan of garage, there’s an Australian release that went a little too unheard last year in the States. It definitely made the rounds in places like the Goner message boards, but if you don’t follow those closely, it ran the risk of sliding right past ya.

Royal Headache – Down the Lane

After a few too many unsuccessful attempts in various distros, I was finally able to snag a handful of the new Royal Headache LPs in from the same Australian hub that was doling out the Woollen Kit LP mentioned a few days back. The order was actually built up specifically in order to get copies of this LP and James Arthur’s Manhunt LP into the shop. Success. And more on the James Arthur later. Royal Headache’s music throbs under rattling fuzz and rolling bass lines with a vocalist who’s getting dangerously close to being one of the most gut-driven, soulful men in modern garage next to Greg Cartwright (of the Reigning Sound). On their new album released by R.I.P. Society, they’ve managed to thrash together a nod to 60s soul and doo-wop with chiming, trebly guitars in a manner that hasn’t sounded so perfect and effortless since the heyday of first-wave powerpop. With this in mind though, be warned that this ain’t for the faint of hearing – the whole album hums behind a blanket of warm lofi fog.

RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: Lofi garage rock, Paul Collins’ Beat, Peter Case, the Nerves, the Reigning Sound, Last Year’s Men, the White Wires.