Hawk Season (the skirmish/battle/war metaphor)

War has been declared on creativity. Thousands already have died, perished in the flames of perdition, while the endless tide of myspace bands creeps across the land. Apartment dwelling twenty-somethings with Fender Standard Stratocasters and Marshall Half Stacks roam the woods, killing the innocent and skinning their carcasses, while trust fund babies in their post-hippie stages slay the unwilling in back alleys by bashing their heads soft with their drum machines and Korg single octave synths. These are dark times, with a dark focus.

It is a dark lack of focus, rather, reminiscient of the dreaded eighties. I was alive and cognizant in the eighties, I remember what a dark and braindead time it was. New Wave, relatively fresh and brought to life by advances in synthesizer technology, battled Dumbass Metal and Cock Rock for the adulation of the hordes. The underground was one of righteous indignation, the shouts and howls of the Hard Core army. Indestructible motherfuckers, not even twenty years old, changed the world from the invisible shadows. The Guerrilla victory was so complete that by the early 90s decent music was available to the mainstream. Without the DC Hard Core scene there would have been no stage set for the 1989/90/91 explosion of good music through mainstream avenues. Over the first half of this sacred decade were more geniuses per capita than any Renaissance city.

We all rode around in dirigibles eating caviar from platinum dishes, wiping our chins with thousand dollar bills until there were none left. These sacred years shall never be forgot.

Regardless, the underground has become confused. Things are very, very backwards now that the major record labels have gone over completely into the Prince of Darkness's camp. Now battles that would have been waged upon the radio waves are waged underground, pushing the less accessible (and generally more musically adept) acts even farther into obscurity.

Now we approach an international situation that makes the Reaganomic Nightmare of the eighties seem like a methodist dinner party. Now we need the smart music the most, the vindicated protest songs, the twin blades of screaming guitar and fuzz bass slicing to the central nervous center. Instead, we drown in self-righteous moron metal and smilingly oblivious dance pop. There are rare venues scattered around the state and nation where one can go to have their face melted by real music, but they are often either so far underground that you will only hear about them after the fact or they are shut down within the span of months for lack of interest (read: profit).

Raleigh has house shows, a few bars that occasionally will put an incredible band in front of five or six barflies, and several major venues. The house shows are almost too underground, and tend to be of the "invite only" category. If you don't know about them, you probably won't. Good luck getting booked to one, too. As for the major and semi-major venues, occasionally there is a decent band, but more often than not the acts are either has-beens or the latest one hit wonders. Disco Rodeo (previously the Ritz) averages two or three decent bands a year, but is a pretty lousy venue. It's evidently a booty club that either folded or changed hands. Generally, acts worth catching bypass Raleigh for the next town listed...

Chapel Hill keeps hope alive better than most places in the state. I'm woefully uninformed on their house show situation, but only because I can catch really good music at their clubs and haven't had to look for the showhouses. Local 506 brought Red Sparowes and William Eliot Whitmore IN THE SAME NIGHT, the Black Angels, all kinds of mindblowing sound comes through that club. On the same strip are several more holes in the wall of note, such as the Cave, where local acts dominate. Not as much of the idiotheque here, Chapel Hill tends to hold up their end of the bargain. Carrboro I include here, too, for the simple fact of the legendary Cat's Cradle.

Asheville has the Grey Eagle, but the catch is that it's damn near impossible for local acts to get in there. Only common members of a few bands, specifically the elitist alumni of Piedmont Charisma, are ever invited. They do not accept press kits. They bring the best independent label music to town, giving people a righteous alternative to the bloodsuckers at the Orange Peel. Pelican, Dungen, Mono, Explosions in the Sky, Akron/Family... all kinds of future music. This would be the best venue in the state if only they would acknowledge the quality of their local scene.

Gushing about the Grey Eagle aside, the rest of Asheville has been effectively hijacked by the same braindead dancepop that's been shaking Greenville for so long. The only difference here is that Asheville has undergone a kind of self-lobotomy and now drools helplessly on the floor as rich kids from Philadelphia and Baltimore gyrate over them in pink tube tops, screeching over a deafening wall of laptop beatz and prerecorded synth loops. This was the New French Bar's fate, turning it from the best place in town to get cheap visibility to a useless supplicant to the synthbeast (666). Fred's Speakeasy was once the home of the best unknown rock music (and rock crowds) but has been bought out three times since the days of Mary and Kristen, who would bite the cap off a PBR and dance on the bar, and is now the sterile graveyard where bands who used to fill Akumi now go to die.

Greenville would not belong on this list if not for the tenacity of the local musical elite. A rare creature has power here and few other places. See, there are no real venues in town. The downtown exists only to pay talentless cover bands thousands of dollars per gig to fill idiotic ears with poorly delivered versions of radio hits. Occasionally there will be a momentary hiccup, during which a venue will appear and promise original music. However, the Greenville mainstream is several years behind the rest of the world, and this "original music" venue will only feature either heavy metal or meandering jam bands that no other city will book any more.

Greenville's underground, though, is anchored as far in the future as the mainstream is in the past. Where Asheville has gone braindead for dancepop, all for jealousy of Greenville for finding it first, Greenville approaches it intelligently. A dancepop act from the Northeast will share the stage with a three hour old local noise band, an independent rap duo from Wilmington, and a prog rock band from Texas all in the same night... and each act will receive appropriate attention per their level of radness. The Spazzatorium Galleria and 21 Eleven Beer & Wine are the two best places in town to see music. Whereas occasionally a crappy act will slip through the cracks, the quality control tends to be spectacular. Media coverage of these venues is terrible at best, but word of mouth is unstoppable.

Wilmington doesn't always export the best music, originality tends to be a little wanting, but they have a surprising score on the import board. Lake Trout has come through the Soapbox a few times, though they've only attracted an Asheville-esque wallsnob crowd, as well as the Avett Brothers. The Soapbox is like a more successfully executed version of Asheville's Stella Blue, in that both have an upstairs venue for better known acts coupled with a downstairs venue for local or up & coming acts. One of the weirder venues in the state (though nowhere near as weird as Murfreesboro's Zakk's Coffeehouse) is Lucky's Pub. It's on the way out of town, in a stripmall opposite a CVS. Their average night consists of three or four poorly rehearsed acts deafening ten or fifteen drunken ska fans who are still trapped in a Monday night in Boston, somewhere in early 1993. However, several times a month this sad little venue brings national ska and punk acts. I want to say Mustard Plug has played here, as well as other bands of the same caliber.

Greensboro, and her neighbor Winston-Salem, have been off and on import/export towns. In the early 2000s it was hard to find decent bands from either. It was not that they did not exist, just that they were a bit invisible. Recently, though, a few righteous bands have made themselves visible statewide. Greensboro is one of the first places in the state to have a self-actualized post rock/post metal scene exist independently of semimajor independent label instrumental music. Find these towns' instrumental bands and go see them play, you will love them. Also, there are decent venues springing up or in development. For years these have been "We can't stop here! This is bat country!" towns for me, but my mind is rapidly changing due to the quality of their export. Badass badass badass.

Charlotte really doesn't feel like part of NC to people who don't live there. It's kind of like the Cincinatti of NC. That said, it's really the place to go for intense Hard Core or evil ghetto death rap (nothing like the brainiac stuff coming out of Wilmington or parts of Greenville these days).

***

There is the army of Righteousness and Creativity and there is the army of Wickedness and Radio Friendliness. You must choose for yourself which one to join, if you aim to be a discriminating consumer of independent music. Avoid those who are DIY because they can afford to be (financially) and not because it is burned into their soul by the desire to be pure, spurn and destroy those who flaunt the underground because they think it gives them the right to make others feel like shit, and above all, turn up your CD player.

It's going to get louder before it gets quieter.