Tangents Stories

Concert Review: Mountain Goats at Neighborhood Theatre

So I see that the Mountain Goats are coming to Charlotte, and I’m like, “Yeah!!!” The band made one of my all-time favorite albums a couple of years ago, and it was all about wrestling. It was awesome although there wasn’t a song on there about me. You can’t handle the truth, bandleader John Darnielle! Your life is not complete until you write a song about the Grim Freaker! Maybe your song just didn’t live up to the awesomeness of me. You’re saving this for the next album, right? But hey, I can

Concert review: Sun Ra Arkestra

In this column, I usually brag mightily while being the greatest masked wrestler on the planet who also covers concerts and looks damn good while doing it. Well, I have finally met my match. The Sun Ra Arkestra was absolutely the most mindblowing, piledriving, ass-shaking, booty-quaking, throw your head in my blender and let it spin beautiful clusterfudge I have ever seen. They came out on stage dressed as Egyptian gods from another planet. Because they are! Torrents of melodies,

Real Freaking History In Charlotte: Rock ’n’ Roll

When Elvis Presley first came to Charlotte in 1956, opening for another artist at the Carolina Theater, the roots of what became rock ’n’ roll were already in place in the Queen City and would continue to be for rock ’n’ roll’s first ten years. Nappy Brown had hit the national R&B charts in 1954 with “Don’t Be Angry,” and his arrangement of “The Night Time (Is the Right Time)” would later become a huge hit for Ray Charles. Wilbert Harrison came from a Charlotte family of 20 kids, most of whom