Laura Ballance feature in the INDY

photo: Jason Arthurs

Many thanks to Laura Ballance of Merge Records and Superchunk for letting me put her in the spotlight she does not savor for this long INDY Week feature, which spans her entry into the North Carolina music scene and her recent retirement from touring after 25 years.

Pam Saulsby Profile in INDY Week

cover photo by Jeremy M. Lange

I wrote the cover story for this week's INDY, learning about "the struggle" of local celebrity newscaster Pam Saulsby, whom I grew up watching on WRAL, after she was fired from that job before landing at WNCN one tumultuous year later. Read it here.

A World-Class Studio in Rural North Carolina

cover photo by D.L. Anderson

Check out my INDY Week cover story on Manifold Recording, a state-of-the-art music and video production facility hidden away in a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired building in rural Pittsboro.

How is a Hand-Lathed Record is Made?

I wanted to know, so I got together with local hand-lather Wesley Wolfe to find out. The result was this feature story for INDY Week, which also has a great Jeremy M. Lange photo spread where I zoom in on the lathing process step-by-step. Highly recommend picking it up in print if you're in the area.

NC Comicon Feature

I wrote a cover story for Indy Week about NC Comicon and Ultimate Comics. Very cool to see Duncan Fegredo art on the cover of the Indy! Read it here.

Beat Making Lab

I took on what turned out to be a pretty involved and fascinating story about the UNC Beat Making Lab's exportation to the Congo and beyond--in Indy Week.

Lydia Davis article

Thanks to Lydia Davis visiting Duke this week, I got to unleash years of bottled-up thoughts on her epic Collected Stories: In the Indy.

I Went to a Fake Rave...

And all I got out of it was a pretty fun article.

Busy Week at the Indy

I saw a Philip Glass opera, struggled through an historical novel by Lisa Alther, and attended a great Jeff Mangum show that would have literally killed me with joy a decade ago.

The Poetics of American Song Lyrics

I wrote an essay about Leonard Cohen's "The Stranger Song" for the Poetics of American Song Lyrics anthology (ed. Charlotte Pence), new from the University Press of Mississippi. More info here.

The Nintendo 4DS

The video gaming humor column--excuse me, humour column--which I've been writing for the U.K.'s Edge Magazine since last summer has only appeared in the print edition, until now. The first one, on some very curious new hardware from Nintendo, just went up on Edge's website. Read it here, as long as you are a huge nerd.

Jens Lekman & Megafaun

Not together, silly. (Though a guy can dream, right?) They're in the pages of Pitchfork (Jens review) and the Independent Weekly (Megafaun feature).

Shirlette Ammons is on Her Grind

Check out my article on Shirlette Ammons & the Dynamite Brothers in the new issue of Shuffle Magazine here.

Hopscotch Panels in the Duke Chronicle

I spoke to a reporter at the Duke Chronicle for her story about panels at the Hopscotch Music Festival because I'm moderating one at the Raleigh City Museum on Saturday, Sept. 10, at 3 pm (info). Strangely, the story is headed by a huge, old photo of my face, even though I'm only quoted at the end. Solid overview though. Read it here.

Archers Feature in the Indy

Check out my story in the Indy about the Archers of Loaf reunion. Stoked for the show tomorrow night!

Video Game Journalism Extravaganza

I've dabbled in video game writing for years, printing quite a few reviews, humor pieces, and a few features in Paste Magazine. It's something that I've been getting more and more interested in recently. So I'm extra-super-excited to simultaneously break into two incredible gaming publications, one a venerable mainstream institution and the other a new grassroots upstart.

EDGE is a huge British gaming mag that has been in print for like 17 years, and provides more in-depth reporting on all aspects of the industry than any of the American print mags do. The April issue with the Max Payne cover, on American stands now (at least in North Carolina), includes my first article for the magazine, a "Time Extend" feature on Final Fantasy VIII. It was really fun to write, and getting to spell things all British was the icing on the cake. I'll definitely be writing more for EDGE in months to come.

The upstart Kill Screen, on the other hand, represents the sharpest effort so far to provide intellectual, cutting-edge video game journalism to an American audience that craves it, but too often has to rely on consumer-reports reviews and baldly promotional previews. If you believe that gaming is mature enough for a serious and skeptical press, you're probably already a subscriber to the print edition. I'm not saying my first review for Kill Screen rises to this lofty intellectual standard: it's about Bulletstorm, a profoundly silly but way-fun shooter, and I didn't want to gild the lily. But maybe it will get you clicking around to see what all Kill Screen has to offer online. Read it here. 

Mount Moriah Interview in the Indy

Not only is Mount Moriah is one of the most exciting up-and-coming bands in the Triangle, but as many locals know, Heather McEntire and Jenks Miller are just great people. I've admired their various projects for years, so it was a real pleasure to get the scoop on their long-awaited debut record for the Indy. They give a great and very honest interview. Check it out.

Broken Out of the Box

In which Paste lets me write what is essentially an extended in-joke for fans of the videogame Fallout: New Vegas. Nerdgasm!

Andrew Weathers article

Read my new article in Shuffle Magazine about This Voice Saying These Words, a collaboration between Andrew Weathers and C.J. Boyd based on Lars von Trier's The Five Obstructions. 

Julianna Barwick article in the The Fanzine

I interviewed Julianna Barwick twice without managing to capture it on tape either time--well okay, I did the second time, but lost it when my recorder malfunctioned--which seems appropriate for a subject whose music is so vanishing and elusive. Still, I think I managed to turn out a solidly informative article for The Fanzine. Why not check it out?