Sep 11-17, 2013

Sep 11-17, 2013 / Vol. 27 / No. 29

Cover Story

NoDa’s must-have late-night hot dog

Carlos Diaz is on the corner of East 36th Street and North Davidson, his hot dog cart parked on the sidewalk in front of the Evening Muse. Enjoying the night air on a break between customers, the stocky 44-year-old notices an SUV make a quick U-turn on Davidson and park across the street. A large,…

Jeff Hahne

CD Review: Acoustic Syndicate’s Rooftop Garden

Social and environmental concerns imbue Acoustic Syndicate’s mix of electric and unplugged banjos, dobros and guitars. The Cleveland County farmers’ and bluegrass rockers’ new LP, Rooftop Garden, is also haunted by The Grapes of Wrath everyman Tom Joad and his promise, “I’ll be there in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry… and when people…

Pat Moran

CD Review: Bombadil’s Metrics of Affection

Rarely can a band truly capture the essence of the human experience, but Bombadil, the quirky quartet from Durham, does just that. Since 2005, Bombadil has made music that runs the gamut on emotionality, the anxieties of young love, the joy of friendship and the crippling sadness of death. Through eclectic folk music, Bombadil shares…

Clifton Golden

All gold (and green) everything at 49ers tailgate debut

It just so happened that the week before the UNC-Charlotte 49ers football team took to the field for the first time in history, I was getting schooled on the art of the tailgate by local food photographer and blogger Taylor Mathis. Well, I was being schooled by his book. He was already on a book…

Keia Mastrianni

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (Sept. 12)

Can I Crash?: A south Charlotte woman will not be invited to any more block parties after she pissed off one of her neighbors last week. A man reported seeing a woman driving home at 9:30 p.m. when she allegedly veered off course, striking a mailbox and a tree in his front yard. The man…

Ryan Pitkin

Gall in The Family

THE FAMILY **1/2 DIRECTED BY Luc Besson STARS Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer Michelle Pfeiffer finds herself once again married to the mob in The Family, and that’s decidedly a good thing. This accomplished actress made significant contributions to two gangster flicks back in the 1980s — Brian De Palma’s hard-hitting drama Scarface (1983) and…

Matt Brunson

Austenland suffers from shoddy construction

AUSTENLAND ** DIRECTED BY Jerusha Hess STARS Keri Russell, JJ Feild Even with all the inherent dangers, it’s better for the average person to buy a ticket to Westworld or Jurassic Park rather than Austenland, an opulent if insincere fantasy resort that has trouble delivering on its promise of a happily-ever-after experience. The same logic…

Matt Brunson

Riddick: Pitch bleak

RIDDICK ** DIRECTED BY David Twohy STARS Vin Diesel, Matt Nable A step up from the 2004 slumber party The Chronicles of Riddick but still a few rungs down the ladder from 2000’s pitch-perfect Pitch Black, Riddick, the third theatrical endeavor featuring everyone’s favorite killer with a heart of gold, foregoes the disastrous epic scope…

Matt Brunson

Dropping the (Ben Wa) Ball

I should have learned my lesson when the first Ben Wa ball fell out, but I really thought I had the situation under control. I arrived at my friend Maree’s house for a typical night of wearing pajamas, drinking wine, catching up on Girls, and eating salad and chocolate. When I walked in the door,…

Abby White

Pop. 1280 brings the noise

Imps of Perversion, the second LP from noisy New York punks Pop. 1280, bruises and fumes. It’s an angry record that takes stock of modern crises — population overload, unending violence, senseless torture — and blasts them all with jagged riffs, dense synthesizers and the burly belts of singer Chris Bug. There’s nothing reasonable about…

Jordan Lawrence

Rude or racist?

My sister texted me the other day asking if I wanted to do lunch. Since we work only a few blocks from each other in Uptown, I suggested we try one of my new discoveries, Vapiano. We met on the corner of Third and Tryon streets and walked the half block to our destination. It…

Charles Easley

Latest Madden edition will knock you off your feet

Former Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi once said, “We are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good.” That…

Adam Frazier

Weekly horoscope (Sept. 12-18)

Virgo The Virgin (Aug. 22-Sept. 22): It may seem that every time you attempt to concentrate on any sort of detail, someone or something begins to interfere. Itsy-bitsy parts will not cooperate or can’t be found. It may take multiple trips to the hardware store or the grocery market to collect what you need to…

Vivian Carol

Syria: Down another rabbit hole

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Good luck these days trying to find an iota of sanity in the halls of government, never mind looking for reasoned arguments. Consider as evidence the ruinous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the mindless, ongoing deadlock in D.C. Or better yet, think…

John Grooms

Shirlette Ammons and Sookee’s ideal partnership

It takes time to appreciate the powerful connection between Shirlette Ammons and Sookee, two cunning MCs who constitute one of the fall’s most fascinating bills. For starters, there’s that pesky language barrier — Shirlette, a Durham artist raised in the rural South, delivers her lines in English with a rich and inviting drawl. She draws…

Jordan Lawrence

Zoning ordinances pass final milestone before City Council vote

After spending more than a year trying to mash out new zoning regulations for restaurants, bars and nightclubs, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department held its last meeting with a citizen advisory group Tuesday night, announcing it has created an amendment to the existing rules. City Council will debate and vote on the amendment in November. During…

Ryan Pitkin

Summer Movie Wrap: The Heat Is On

With the summer movie season officially behind us, let’s take a final look at what soared and what sank. Five Performances Worth Remembering During Awards Season: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine; Trine Dyrholm, Love Is All You Need; Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine; Mads Mikkelsen, The Hunt; Shailene Woodley, The Spectacular Now. Most Miscast: Carey Mulligan as…

Matt Brunson

N.C. poet laureate to visit Charlotte

If not for teenage hormones, Joseph Bathanti might never have become North Carolina’s seventh poet laureate. “I went to an all-boys Catholic high school in Pittsburgh,” Bathanti says, “and we had this literary magazine come out. All these guys had poems in them, and they got terrific attention from all these girls I was dying…

Ana McKenzie

CD review: Scowl Brow

Whatever you do, don’t break Robby Hale’s heart. If you do, chances are the Scowl Brow singer and songwriter will write a series of crass punk tunes showcasing every sordid detail, from heavy drug abuse to bad sex. And, really, that’s what we have in his band’s debut LP — a string of gutter-level confessions…

Corbie Hill

CD review: Estrangers’ Season of 1000 Colors

When it comes to the North Carolina music scene, Winston-Salem isn’t the first city that comes to mind. Phillip Pledger looks to change that. Pledger is the singer-songwriter behind Estrangers, but also doubles as the show runner for Winston-Salem’s swiftly rising Phuzz Phest. Estrangers’ blissed-out blend of melancholic pop music has been gradually evolving over…

Clifton Golden

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