Cat’s Cradle

Bilingual rapper and singer Claudia Feliciano, who goes by the name Snow tha Product, switches between hardened rhymes and bright melodic hooks with an emphasis on the former. Easily mistaken for a drug reference, Feliciano’s performing alias was inspired instead by Disney character Snow White and the artist’s desire to prevent her musical and personal lives from blurring into one another. Born in San Jose and raised in San Diego, she appeared as Claudia White on “Alguien,” a 2009 single by Latin pop artist Jaime Kohen, prior to basing herself out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. For several years she was an underground artist, though she eventually attracted some high-level guest appearances on her mixtape releases, including the likes of Tech N9ne and Ty Dolla $ign. In 2013, she went aboveground and started issuing singles for major-label Atlantic, such as “Play,” “Doing Fine,” and “Hola,” which alternated between pop-oriented material and more aggressive, lighter-hearted tracks tailored for club play. In 2016, Atlantic released an eight-track EP, Half Way There…, Pt. 1. From there Feliciano had success with a series of singles and featured appearances. 2017 included the viral breakup anthem “Waste of Time,” as well as “Nuestra Cancion, Pt. 2,” both showcasing a smoother and more pop-friendly side of her style. The next year she continued with trappy singles “Help a Bitch Out (featuring O.T. Genasis),” “Dale Gas,” and “Today I Decided” as well as the more lighthearted “Goin’ Off” and “Myself (featuring DRAM).” She ended the year by contributing to several tracks on the VIBE HIGHER mixtape with Castro Escobar, Lex the Great, Jandro, and others. ~ Andy Kellman Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube

The new album by Tinariwen could well have been called Exile on Main Street. But other people have already thought of that. It also could have been called A la recherché du pays perdu (‘Remembrance of a lost country’). Except that would have been a tad Proustian for musicians who grew up pretty much between a rock and a sand dune, in the midst of their goat herds and camel caravans. But the idea is apt. As is the painful paradox, if you consider that while Tinariwen were busy criss-crossing the globe on their recent triumphant tours (160 concerts played in the past three years), expanding their audience on all five continents, becoming one of the latest musical phenomena of truly universal calibre, the frontiers that encircle their desert home were closing down and double-locking, forcing them into exile to record this their 8th album. Over the past five years, their beloved homeland in the Adrar des Ifoghas, a Saharan mountain range that straddles the border between north-eastern Mali and southern Algeria has, in effect, been transformed into a conflict zone, a place where nobody can venture without putting themselves in danger and where war lords devoted either to jihad or trafficking (sometimes both at the same time), have put any activity that contradicts their beliefs or escapes their control in jeopardy. Even though the 12 songs on this new record evoke those cherished deserts of home, they were recorded a long way away from them. And, as a result of this separation, at a time when the political, military and humanitarian situation in the region has never been so critical, the feelings and the emotions that the band managed to capture on record have never been so vivid. In October 2014, making use of a few days off in the middle of a long American tour, the band stopped off at Rancho de la Luna studios in California’s Joshua Tree National Park. The place has become the favoured refuge of the stoner rock tribe. Josh Homme and his Queens of the Stone Age were the first to make it their hive, and since then, whether in use by P J Harvey or the Foo Fighters, Iggy Pop or the Arctic Monkeys, neither the mixing console nor the kitchen ovens have had a moment to cool down. For Tinariwen, the geographical location of the studios – lost in the middle of that horizontal desert, that mineral immensity, where Man is reminded of his own insignificance in ways that can only, in the end, either kill him or sublimate him – proved to be particularly propitious in terms of creativity. Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

There are few voices more deeply embedded in the iconography and mythology of American indie rock than that of Chan Marshall. Under the musical nom de plume of Cat Power, Marshall has released music for nearly 25 years now and her prowess as a songwriter, a producer, and most notably-as a voice-has only grown more influential with time. On her 10th studio album, Wanderer, Marshall resets her dials, offering a collection of songs that function as pristine examples of her still-evolving creative practice. Held aloft primarily by Marshall’s own guitar and piano, Wanderer is a collection of winding, wondering narratives all perfectly imbued with the kind of yearning and warmth that have made her one of the most distinctive and beloved artists of her generation. Produced by Marshall and mixed by Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck), the album includes appearances by longtime friends and compatriots, as well as guest vocals courtesy of friend and recent tourmate Lana Del Rey. Wanderer is, in many ways, a kind of quintessential Cat Power record, with Marshall’s clarion voice front and center in a set of songs that are remarkably stark and straightforward. Tracks like “Black” and “Me Voy” have the kind of haunted quality that recall the most emotionally harrowing moments of Moon Pix or You Are Free, while the elegant lilt of “In Your Face” and the minimalist blues of “You Get” (“You Know there’s nothing like time, to teach you where you have been” Marshall sings on the latter) have the same kind of playful, soulful timbre of The Greatest. Meanwhile, the album also showcases Marshall’s uncanny abilities as one of the great interpreters of songs, with a stunning version of Rihanna’s “Stay”. “I love the tradition of interpreting songs”, she says. “I think it’s one of the highest compliments you can pay another artist. It’s one of the great traditions in American music and one of the great pleasures.” While Wanderer represents a hard-won stability for Marshall, it’s also evidence that stability -emotional, physical, financial -is often fleeting. It’s a thing that must be cared for, protected, and can easily evaporate. Songs like “Robbin Hood” and “Nothing Really Matters” confront duplicity and hopelessness in equal measure, examining what it means to be taken advantage of (“Who Robbing, who robbing who?”) and the nihilism of trying to do the right thing in a world where it often feels as if it truly makes no difference. In stark contrast, the album’s first single, “Woman,” (featuring backing vocals from Lana Del Rey) is a full-throated push back against doubters and critics, as well as a righteous claiming of space. “The doctor said I was not my past, he said I was finally free,” sings Marshall, “I’m a woman of my word, or haven’t you heard? My word’s the only thing I’ve ever needed.” Defiant, unbowed, and fantastically steadfast, the song ends with the perfect, beautiful coda: “I’m a woman.” If old Cat Power records might have easily been viewed as repositories for pain, Wanderer is, at its heart, a testament to the transformative nature of songs, an album-length imagining of alternate paths, redemptions, connections, and open-ended possibility. This is most evident on “Horizon”, the album’s emotional centerpiece, in which Marshall sings about the complicated, emotionally elastic bonds between family members. For someone whose entire life has been predicated on movement -years of comings and goings with little time to pause and connect – the song offers a bittersweet reconciliation: “You’re on the horizon / I’m on my way / You’re on the horizon / I’m headed the other way.”

“Almost everything changed for us in these last two years,” says Andy Baxter, one half of the acclaimed duo Penny & Sparrow. “It was a painful experience in a lot of ways, but it was also a joyful one.” Joy and pain walk hand in hand on ‘Finch,’ Penny & Sparrow’s magnificent sixth album. Written during their first major break from the road in years, the record finds the band reckoning with a prolonged period of intense personal transformation, a profound awakening that altered their perceptions of masculinity, sex, religion, divorce, friendship, vanity, purpose, and, perhaps most importantly, self. Deeply vulnerable and boldly cinematic, the resulting songs blur the lines between indie-folk and alt-pop, with dense string arrangements and atmospheric production underpinning soaring melodies and airtight harmonies from Baxter and his longtime musical partner, Kyle Jahnke. Texas natives, Baxter and Jahnke first crossed paths at UT Austin, where they developed both a fast friendship and a deeply symbiotic musical connection. Jahnke was a gifted guitarist with an ear for melody, Baxter an erudite lyricist with a mesmerizing voice and crystalline falsetto, and the duo quickly found that their vocals blended together as if they’d been singing in harmony their whole lives. Beginning with 2013’s ‘Tenboom,’ the staunchly DIY pair released a series of critically lauded records that garnered comparisons to the hushed intimacy of Iron & Wine and the adventurous beauty of James Blake, building up a devoted fanbase along the way through relentless touring and word-of-mouth buzz. NPR praised the band’s songwriting as a “delicate dance between heartache and resolve,” while The World Café raved that they’ve “steadily built a sound as attentive to detail as Simon & Garfunkel and as open to the present day as Bon Iver,” and Rolling Stone hailed their catalog as “folk music for Sunday mornings, quiet evenings, and all the fragile moments in between.” In addition to the mountain of glowing reviews, the band also earned high profile fans-including The Civil Wars’ John Paul White, who produced 2015’s ‘Let A Lover Drown You’-and extensive tour dates with everyone from Josh Ritter and Johnnyswim to Drew Holcomb and Delta Rae.

Cat’s Cradle will be matching the first $1000 in advance sales and donations! This performance will benefit the following charities: YachtAid Global | World Central Kitchen | American Red Cross Free entry Donations encouraged ($10 or larger) Please note that there are no ticketing fees on your donation Aid for the Bahamas 5:00pm: Flesh Tuxedo / Kid Advay 6:00pm: Chris Frisina 6:30pm: Simone Finally 7:00pm: Love & Valor 7:45pm: Matt Southern and Lost Gold 8:30pm: Dissimilar South 9:15pm: Gone Ghosts 10:00pm: Texoma 10:45pm: Charles Latham & the Borrowed Band

Who’s Bad’s live performance is an unrivaled celebration of pop music’s one true King. Their power-packed performance of Michael Jackson’s expansive catalog has ignited crowds on every continent and can only be described as a jaw-dropping, musical must-see. As the longest-running Michael Jackson tribute band, and the only one to predate his untimely passing, Who’s Bad has awed even the skeptics, selling out nearly 50 venues in the United Kingdom including London’s O2 in December of 2010, the venue where the King of Pop was slated to end his career with a 50-show “This Is It” concert series. Beyond this unparalleled achievement, Who’s Bad has checked some of the world’s most famous pavilions off their ‘to-do’ list, selling out their first tour of China with stops at Ningbo’s Grand Theatre and Hunan Grand Theatre in Chengsha. Never neglecting Michael’s U.S. fans, Who’s Bad has packed The House of Blues in Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans; rocked DC’s 930 Club and returned to their native Chapel Hill, NC boasting larger, more eagerly-awaited performances with every romp around the globe. Sold-out shows from Colorado’s Bluebird Theatre and LA’s Gibson Amphitheatre and Romania’s Sala Palatalui to Teatro do Bourbon Country (Porto Alegre, Brazil) tell the story: no corner of the earth is safe from this infectious party production. Who’s Bad has earned its name by paying studious attention to Michael Jackson’s every original groove and gravity-defying dance move, boasting over 100 years of professional experience and a team of dancers with resumes that include Broadway productions such as Phantom of the Opera. Vamsi Tadepalli (Who’s Bad founder, composer, and saxophonist) assembled a cast of North Carolina’s premiere musicians and, from Who’s Bad’s inception, believed in the band’s boundless possibilities. The velvety vocals and pinpoint choreography of frontmen Joseph Bell and Taalib York’s combined with the six-piece band’s synchronized dance routines, blaring horns and down-deep rhythms, results in a performance delivered with soul and precision superseded by no one but the King himself. They’ve shared stages with the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, The Backstreet Boys, The Four Tops, Boys II Men, and hip hop superstar, Pitbull. Captivated fans include LIVENATION’s Anthony Nicolaidis who calls Who’s Bad, “the real deal,” and Michael Jackson’s longtime friend and manager Frank DiLeo who proclaimed after Who’s Bad show in Nashville, TN, “the show was great….Michael would have been proud!” Whether you idolized the Jackson 5, fell in love to Human Nature, or learned to moonwalk to Billie Jean, Who’s Bad is THE ULTIMATE music-and-dance driven Michael Jackson homage. This band of professionals relentlessly elevate the legacy of pop music’s King, always pushing themselves to be more precise, to raise the level of excitement and awe, while embodying Michael Jackson’s mission to bring people together of all races, genders, and cultures through music. As the curtain opens on a Who’s Bad performance, every MJ fan feels the adrenaline, screams at the sight of that unmistakable silhouette, and succumbs to a surefire Michael Jackson sing-along. The energy is purely magnetic, the musicianship is first-rate, the dance moves deftly inspired. Who’s Bad is a tribute befitting a King and their high-octane execution of MJ’s music and dance has catapulted them to the exclusive rank of Ultimate! Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

Sometimes, a mystical, life-changing connection can be closer than you think. In 2017, Grammy Award-winning guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada had recorded some instrumentals in his Austin studio, and he started looking around for a vocalist — he knew a lot of singers, but he wanted something different. He reached out to friends in Los Angeles, in London, but nothing seemed right. Meantime, Eric Burton had recently made his way to Texas. Born in the San Fernando Valley, he grew up in church and then got heavily involved in musical theater. He started busking at the Santa Monica pier, where he brought in a few hundred dollars a day and developed his performance skills. Burton traveled through the Western states before deciding to settle down in Austin — setting up his busking spot on a downtown street corner, at 6th Street and Congress, for maximum exposure. A mutual friend mentioned Burton to Quesada, saying that he was the best singer he had ever heard. The two musicians connected, but Burton took a while to respond (“My friends were like ‘Dude, you’re a mad man, you need to hit that guy back!'”) Finally, he called Quesada, and started singing to one of the tracks over the phone. “I loved his energy, his vibe, and I knew it would be incredible on record,” he says. “From the moment I heard him on the phone, I was all about it.” The results of that inauspicious beginning can now be heard on the self-titled debut album from Black Pumas, the group that Quesada and Burton assembled, which has become one of the year’s most anticipated projects. Described as “Wu-Tang Clan meets James Brown” by KCRW, Black Pumas were the winner of Best New Band at the 2019 Austin Music Awards. Quesada has a storied reputation from playing in bands like Grupo Fantasma and Brownout, accompanying artists from Prince to Daniel Johnston, and producing such acclaimed projects as 2018’s Look at My Soul: The Latin Shade Of Texas Soul. For the tracks that kicked off this project, though, he had a different direction in mind. “I was looking for somebody with their own identity,” says Quesada, “who liked Neil Young as much as Sam Cooke.” Burton’s taste, range, and experience proved to be exactly what Quesada was seeking. “We just take to the same kind of music,” he says. “I listen to East Coast hip-hop, old soul music, folk music. When Adrian sent me the songs, it was like I had already heard them before. We were on the same wavelength from the get-go.” The first day they got together in the studio, they recorded the dusty funk that would become the Black Pumas’ first two singles, “Black Moon Rising” and “Fire.” Quesada had written the music for “Black Moon Rising” on the day of the 2017 solar eclipse, and Burton took that concept and ran with it. “Right away, the hair stood up on the back of my neck,” says Quesada. “I knew, ‘This is it — this is the guy.'” Burton sensed the potential, as well. “When I saw that Adrian played with Prince and had a Grammy,” he says, “that he was a serious, respected artist, I knew that I would do my best not to squander that. If you can do it on the street, for a long time, without making yourself crazy, you can do it with a guy who’s won a Grammy.” Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

This is a general admission seated show. Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, perform with a well-honed and solid power – always in the groove from their years of experience and mutual inspiration. Started as a side project during Jefferson Airplane days, the constant, the very definition of Hot Tuna, has always been Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. The two boyhood pals have never wavered in one of the most enduring friendships in Rock history. From their days playing together as teenagers in the Washington, DC area, through years of inventive Psylodelic rock in San Francisco (1996 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees), to their current acoustic and electric blues sound, no one has more consistently led American music for the last 50 years than Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the founders and continuing core members of Hot Tuna. At the 2016 Grammys, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards. “Jorma Kaukonen is a force in American music, equally adept at fingerpicked acoustic folk and blues as he is at wailing on an electric.” – Acoustic Guitar Guitarist and vocalist, Jorma Kaukonen is a highly respected interpreter of roots music, blues, Americana, and popular rock-and-roll. Jorma’s repertoire goes far beyond psychedelic rock; he is a music legend and one of the finest singer-songwriters in music. Jorma tours the world bringing his unique styling to old blues while writing new songs of weight and dimension. “Jack Casady is virtually unparalleled–and yet he has one of the most truly unique electric-bass voices in rock…he can melt into a supportive role but when opportunity knocks, he bursts forth with creative lines–both simple and ornate–that are unlike any you’ve heard” – Premier Guitar One of the most unique innovators in the sixty-year history of the bass guitar, Jack Casady made his sweeping melodic mark helping to create the “San Francisco Sound” with legendary rock group Jefferson Airplane. Jack went on to track with Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Warren Zevon, members of the Grateful Dead, John Lee Hooker, and Gov’t Mule. Casady, regarded as one of rock’s greatest bassists, is certainly one of its most original. “Hot Tuna is a Psychedelic-Blues Institution” – Rolling Stone Magazine Electric Hot Tuna Website | Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley Website

The final words sung on the sixth album by WHY? are an apt place to begin: “Hold on, what’s going on?” Because while there’s much familiar about the oddly named Moh Lhean-mastermind Yoni Wolf’s sour-sweet croon, his deadpan poet’s drawl and ear for stunningly fluid psych-pop-folk-whatever arrangement-a great deal has changed in the four years that’ve passed since 2012’s Mumps, Etc., an LP that honed the band’s orchestral precision and self-deprecating swagger to a fine point. It’s significant that this is the first fully home-recorded WHY? album since the project’s 2003 debut. Made mostly in Wolf’s studio and co-produced by his brother Josiah, the result is obsessive, of course, but also intimate, and flush with warmth and looseness. But the biggest transformation is a bit subtler. After years of eying his world, in part, with a cynical squint, Wolf here learns a new mode. While Moh Lhean never stoops to outright optimism, it chronicles our hero finding peace in the unknowing, trading the wry smirk for a holy shrug, and looking past corporeal pain for something more cosmic and, rest assured, equally weird. A low tone opens the album on “This Ole King” as acoustic pluck and upright bass form a Western bedrock beneath Wolf’s fragile voice. But as the song pushes on, the playing gets brighter and the vocal becomes a mantra-like hum inspired by Ali Farka Touré’s blues, before rolling into a second part rich with chiming keys and twisting harmony-Brian Wilson’s kaleidoscopic vision of pop. If there’s new litheness here, it’s probably because Wolf spent much of the time between albums collaborating-with ex/muse Anna Stewart as the fuzz-pop duo Divorcee, and MC Serengeti as the puckishly depressive Yoni & Geti. And if there’s a lithe newness, it may be that Wolf excised some nostalgia via his 2014 solo tapes-one re-recording choice raps from his own catalog, and another covering cuts by artists like Bob Dylan and Pavement. It’s no wonder, then, that “The Water” handily morphs a moody folk tune into some strange new form of full-band dub. Or that “One Mississippi” bounces along happily over a flurry of bizarre percussion, whistled melodies, and trippy synthesizer blips. Perhaps most impressive is “Consequence of Nonaction,” which vacillates between a quiet meditation for guitar/voice/clarinet, and wild, sax-strewn astral art-funk. Movement is a key theme of Moh Lhean. It’s a breakup album without a romantic interest-coded within the lyrics is a tale about fleeing the seductions of a wintry figure for something synonymous with spring. “Easy” plays like a ward against the old ghost who haunts “January February March,” while “George Washington” places our host in a tiny watercraft, “paddling for land/hand on heart and heart in hand” as that faceless malevolent force stays ashore. While writing these songs, Wolf suffered a severe health scare far from home. Rather than drive him to depression, his brush with mortality imparted an incongruous impression of peace and connection to the living. At the end of “Proactive Evolution,” wherein WHY? enlists mewithoutYou’s Aaron Weiss to celebrate the stubborn persistence of humankind, Wolf samples not only thinkers like Sharon Salzberg and Ram Dass, but his actual doctors-the voices that helped shape his new outlook. Sure, Wolf poses as many questions as ever. Moh Lhean’s gorgeously psychedelic closer, “The Barely Blur” with Son Lux, puzzles over the nature of existence. But rather than leave us with the macabre chill of death, as many a WHY? LP has, the song dissolves into the infinite-the sound of the Big Bang. Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

You can buy tickets for the both nights for $40. Tickets for individual shows are also available – $25 for Friday and $25 for Saturday. All shows are all ages. And remember all proceeds will go to the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation. Tickets: Both Nights/Weekend Pass $40 | Friday Night $25 | Saturday Night $25 Ladies and gentlemen…it is time to BE LOUD again! Be Loud! ’19 is the weekend of August 23 and 24th at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, with all proceeds benefiting the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation. This is our 6th Anniversary show (yes, we said 6th!) and we’re pleased to announce that Chatham County Line is headlining Friday night with The Old Ceremony, The Tan & Sober Gentlemen and Alive at 27 rounding out a super fine bill. Saturday night features Preeesh! plays Joe Jackson (Ladd, Plymale, Sledge, Dennis doing songs from the first two Joe Jackson records…more on that below) with Greg Humphreys Electric Trio, PopUp Chorus and Pajama Day. A great weekend of music! More information over at the website for Be Loud! Friday headliner Chatham County Line has been crossing borders musically and literally since they formed in the Triangle in the early ’00s. Call them “newgrass”, “guerilla bluegrass” or whatever you like…they’ve been at the forefront of an insurgence of Carolina bluegrass and have taken their incredible music throughout the world. The Old Ceremony are another local treasure who also bend genres, make incredible records and put on a mighty fine show. The Tan & Sober Gentlemen produce an avalanche of Scotch-Irish hillbilly insanity they dub “Celtic punk-grass.” Alive at 27 rocked the stage at our annual spring high school showcase and just released their first EP this summer. Saturday night features Preeesh!, a supergroup comprised of John Plymale, Rob Ladd, Robert Sledge and Brian Dennis, who will be performing songs from Look Sharp! and I’m the Man, Joe Jackson’s first two records from 1979 (which was 40 years ago!). Be Loud regulars will recognize these four from previous festivals and the songs are equally memorable. Greg Humphreys has also played Be Loud before, fronting Dillon Fence and Hobex, and we’re thrilled to have his current band the Greg Humphreys Electric Trio come down from New York City to perform this year. Get ready for a little soul, a little funk and a lot of fun. If you’ve never seen or been involved in a PopUp Chorus show you are in for a treat. The whole audience learns, rehearses and sings a song in 40 minutes and (drumroll) we’ll be singing Tom Petty’s “American Girl”. Pajama Day’s indie pop was a big hit at our high school showcase. Thanks for your support and Be Loud!