The newest member of Vinyl Records is...

...Colby Ramsay!

He wasn't my first choice, but, like I said in my earlier post, you can't really go wrong with any of the performers that I saw. I do have to give Colby some credit though: I saw him standing by the door at Lenoir dining hall with a computer asking people to vote for him. Might have skewed the results a bit, but you can't knock the determination.

Check out recordings of his and all the other performances from the February Face-off here, and be sure to keep checking the Vinyl Records website for more information about Colby and the other three artists.

Vinyl Records February Face-Off

When I walked into Gerrard Hall a little after 9 p.m. on Friday night, Jaquelyn Lee was standing in front of about 100 people in a metallic blue dress and a guitar around her neck. Behind her, a YouTube video of dancing animated cats was playing on the back wall.

Somehow, it worked. Welcome to the February Face-Off!

Five artists rocked out in Gerrard for the shot at one spot on the Vinyl Records label. It's the second time that Vinyl Records has used a battle of the bands to sign bands to their label. The September Showdown last semester gave us Lafcadio, Apollo and Lake Inferior, who just released their debut albums in January.

I missed the first two artists, It Is Rain In My Face and Eric DiMarzio, but walked in just in time to see the end of Lee's set. She has the awkward, artsy singer-songwriter thing down. She sounded like a watered-down Cat Power (which made the images behind her even more fitting) as she strummed her electric guitar. That's not necessarily a bad thing. She had a great voice and with some help and studio production she would put out a stellar recording.

After an interesting dance-off during the "half-time show," the Huguenots took the stage. I've heard a lot about the Huguenots on campus and on blogs I read, so I was excited to finally hear them live. And I was not disappointed. They played a tight, but way too short, set of retro-rock clad in skinny jeans and skinny ties. I'm still not sure if the English accent is real....

The final performer of the night was Colby Ramsay, proudly hailing from Canada. Despite some trite lyrics ("Lost my money playing Hold 'em/Guess I didn't know when to fold 'em") Colby had a soulful sound and smoky voice that reminded me of David Grey. By far the best song was his last when he moved from guitar to keyboard and did a duet with a girl named Marianne (I think).

In the immortal words of Ryan Seacrest, now it's your turn, America. The next artist to be signed by Vinyl Records is decided by the students. You can vote all this weekend at vinylrecordsunc.org. In September, 1500 students voted after the September Showdown. Let's help blow that mark out of the water. From what I heard tonight, you can't really go wrong with any of them.

Nice Price Books

A review from the folks over at Vinyl Records finally convinced me to take my first trip to Nice Price Books, a little bookstore that sits right at the edge of Carrboro on Main Street. As much as I love books, what really drew me to this store was the music collection. Thousands upon thousands of CDs, tapes and records are piled up in the on the walls, on the floor and everywhere that there is space.

I have always loved sifting through stacks of music trying to find the "diamond in the rough" and this is the perfect place to do it. I was in there for an hour and didn't even notice. I could have spent another couple of hours browsing around.

But I walked out of the store three records richer and only $15 poorer. Can't beat that.

Here's what I bought:







Photo of Nice Price Books taken from Vinyl Records Blog.

Lafcadio

Just under a week after the historic election, I've decided it's time for me to move on to other things. That's not to say that you won't see the occasional post about politics or government, but I'm going to try to mix it up a little bit. I hope that there will be more about music (what this site was originally created for) and local issues. We'll see how long it lasts.

That said, please allow me to introduce you to Lafcadio.



This Chapel Hill trio was one of the first three artists signed on UNC's Vinyl Records after finishing tied for second in the September Showcase battle of the bands. The crazy thing is that they have only been together for a couple of months.

They have a great folksy sound and singer Liz Ross has a voice that will melt your heart, I promise. You can check out some of their music at their Myspace page, the live recordings from their September Showcase here, and a new demo recorded by Ross at their website, here.

Beautiful stuff. They're in the studio now working on their debut EP which should be out on Vinyl Records in January.

Music is Awesome

Hello faithful reader.

I have three awesome musical notes for you guys on this absolutely gorgeous Sunday.

First, I just got done interviewing Tripp and Grace from Vinyl Records UNC, a student-run record label at UNC-Chapel Hill. It was an awesome conversation and I'm so excited about what they will be doing in the coming months now that they have their three bands (Lafcadio, Apollo, Lake Inferior) signed and started on recording. I'll be putting together a full article on them for Uncharted, so be on the lookout for that.

Next, iLike is streaming the new Ryan Adams and the Cardinals album, Cardinology. I'm listening to it now and I'm a fan. But of course I've always loved Ryan Adams so I might be a little biased. Head over to Facebook and take a listen.

Finally, as if Barack Obama hasn't brought enough awesome music to Chapel Hill on behalf of his campaign (Superchunk, Arcade Fire and James Taylor), there will be one final concert in support of the presidential candidate on the terrace of Graham Memorial on UNC's campus. The line-up is a mix of great local artists, new and old:

The dB's
Superchunk
Ivan Rosebud
Megafaun
I Was Totally Destroying It
Bowerbirds
Greg Humphreys
Regina Hexaphone
Portastatic
Billy Bragg

The show will be November 1 from 9am to 1pm. Admission is free and there are no tickets required, so get there early. Even though it's the night after Halloween, I might have to fight through the pain and check out some great music.

Enjoy the music!!

Oh, and GO VOTE!!