$5 from each ticket will be directed to WNC hurricane relief.
Soon after the start of this millennium, the long-fabled music scene in the middle of North Carolina seemed on the cusp of a new renaissance. Avaricious talk of Chapel Hill as the next Seattle had subsided to the slow simmer of people making music because it’s what they loved; Raleigh’s wild alt-country moment had likewise downshifted, some groups breaking up and others settling into the rhythms of lifers. But a crop of young bands bolstered by upstart labels and an enthusiastic audience in several interconnected little cities—Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and their many hinterlands—increasingly felt like they had something significant to say. The ever-wooing Rosebuds led the charge nationally, but Des Ark, DeYarmond Edison, Ticonderoga, and The Kingsbury Manx were just four in a flood of groups that made that moment feel so rich. Of them all, Schooner might have been the most beguiling, with a 2004 debut, You Forget About Your Heart, that remains a gem of sad-eyed Southern songwriting wonder, even if most people have yet to hear it.
As is inevitable in small and energetic scenes where everyone abuts everyone else’s business, Schooner sprang from a few different disconnected projects. Songwriter Reid Johnson and guitarist Tripp Cox played plangent rock that echoed Britpop in a band called The A.M. Johnson, meanwhile, was making lo-fi recordings in his apartment near N.C. State, late-night testaments of a recent grad enduring a breakup and wondering just where his life was going. When The A.M. couldn’t make a show in early 2003, Johnson, Cox, and a few friends stepped forward with full-band versions of these softer songs. They were so excited that a keyboard was smashed, which accidentally busted Johnson’s prized acoustic guitar, too. Anyway, less a year later, not only had Schooner’s lineup solidified—Johnson up front, sister Kathryn on keys and exquisite harmonies, Cox on bass and occasional guitar, and scene veteran Billy Alphin adding soul on the drums—but they’d also made a record, You Forget About Your Heart.
This will be the first time You Forget About Your Heart will be on vinyl. It is an expanded reissue with three previously unreleased demos, a 20-track companion download with nine additional demos and home recordings, and extensive liner notes documenting the time period by Grayson Harver Currin.
