Jul 18-24, 2018
Music Issue 2018, Open Mics, 10 Best Albums; RNC Vote; NoDa Bodega Vegan Night; ‘Infamous Characters, Notorious Villains’
Cover Stories
The Top 10 Charlotte Releases of the Past Year
Between last year’s annual CL Music Issue and this one, a lot of great music has come out of Charlotte, but these are the 10 releases that I’ve spent the most time listening to, that I’ve found the most compelling, and that I see the most potential for making even more of an impact in…
Explore Charlotte’s Open-Mic Nights to find City’s Newest Musical Talent
[Image-5] For last year’s Music Issue, Creative Loafing put the spotlight on 10 local artists and bands to keep an eye out for in the coming year, including Lenny Muckle’s art-punk project Lofidels, R&B singer Dexter Jordan, the Latin-tinged act Quisol and singer-songwriter Randi Johnson. In the year since, all of those artists have issued…
Evanescence, Lindsey Stirling bring new energy to PNC Music Pavilion
Band backed by orchestra bring renewed life to their songs.
The Equalizer 2: Soggy Sequel
THE EQUALIZER 2 ** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Antoine Fuqua STARS Denzel Washington, Melissa Leo Much has been made of the fact that Denzel Washington, who’s been appearing in movies since 1981, has never starred in a sequel. In an industry that gets high off the fumes of highly lucrative follow-ups, that’s an incredible…
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again: Superior Sequel
MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Ol Parker STARS Amanda Seyfried, Lily James The overlapping section in the Venn diagram that represents Kurt Cobain and me is probably pretty small, but that sliver of shaded area definitely contains the tidbit that both of us are fans of ABBA. We’ll…
Appalachian Summer Festival Goes Into Home Stretch Looking Strong
[Paid Content] If you’re looking to stay away from the beach traffic in the next couple weeks, go the other way and head to Boone to catch the end of the Appalachian Summer Festival. There’s still a few acts left, including the best of the bunch: Rhiannon Giddens. The Greensboro native is best known for…
I Feel Pretty, Isle of Dogs, Rampage among new home entertainment titles
(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, DVD and Streaming. Ratings are on a four-star scale.) BILLY BUDD (1962). Fans of nautical adventures will find much to appreciate in Billy Budd — even if (especially since?) it appeared on the scene long before Johnny Depp and his now-stale…
The Blotter: Fourth of July High
What Goes Up PSA for all dumbasses on the Fourth of July: Do not shoot your gun into the air to add to the firework display. See, fireworks don’t come back down at a deadly speed. Police are still trying to find out which idiot shot into the air at around 10:30 p.m. on July…
Listen Up: Cyanca Brings ‘Local Vibes’ to ‘The Isle of Queens’
You’ve seen her at Made From Scratch Fest. You’ve seen her on the cover of Creative Loafing. Now hear her story on Local Vibes, as up-and-coming R&B/neo-soul singer Cyanca (pictured above, right) blesses the booth alongside her friend and manager Megan Wolford (left), whose poetry skills are featured on a track that the two share…
News of the Weird: FOMO
In Absentia During the 2014 World Cup, five friends in Durango, Mexico, made a pact to travel to the 2018 tournament in Russia. They saved their money, bought a bus, painted it in Mexico’s colors and booked passage for themselves and the bus on a ship going to Spain, where The Daily Mail reported, the…
New Documentary Will Showcase Untold Story of Melungeon People
[Image-5] Even today, Vardy Valley is remote, according to Charlotte historian Heather Andolina. Situated in Hancock County, in northeastern Tennessee, the narrow valley can only be reached via a series of hairpin switchbacks on State Highway 63. Andolina, the senior museum assistant at Wells Fargo History Museum in uptown Charlotte who holds a masters degree…
Nouveau Sud Debuts New Sinful Acrobatic Show
Using physical theater similar to the internationally known Cirque du Soleil, CarlosAlexis Cruz and Nouveau Sud hope to link the seven deadly sins with seven forms of social oppression found in Charlotte with a new show, Septem. The Nouveau Sud — “New South” — troupe are debuting their latest show on July 20 for a…
NoDa Bodega’s Vegan Night Brings Big Crowds on a Weekly Basis
Fried, creamy, rich and delicious are not typical adjectives a non-vegan would associate with vegan food. However, for more than a year now, the folks at NoDa Bodega have been chipping away at the misconceptions about what vegan food can be by hosting Vegan Night on Thursdays. Judging by the growing popularity of the weekly…
Safety 101 on the Streets of Charlotte
Last week, I was watching the news — a rare occurrence for this writer because local news stations tend to irk me. However, the boyfriend had left the TV on after watching one of the millions of World Cup soccer matches and the news popped on. I was shocked, for lack of a better word,…
A Musing on Music, Open Mics and Political Conventions
When Charlotte singer Kevin “Mercury” Carter decided to hang up the clothes he designed under his fashion name Kevin Vain and begin exploring his musical talent, he took to the city’s open-mic nights to see how his multi-octave voice and songs would go over in a live setting. That was three years ago. Earlier this…
