Julien Baker & TORRES – Send A Prayer My Way Tour
The New Outlaws Listen: For some of us, maybe even most of us, it’s been a rough year. As I write these words, it’s mid-November in Chicago, the warmest autumn on record, and the bad news keeps coming. Family and animals and homes washed away in the rural south. A wildfire season that never ends. Too much water in some places, not enough in others. Back in my home state of Texas, pregnant people, some barely out of childhood, are dying for lack of medical care. And Lord have mercy if you, or someone you love, is an undocumented immigrant, or if you’re trans, queer, poor, Black, and the list goes on (and on and on). Sometimes it feels like the whole damned world has made up its mind to destroy itself once and for all. So I feel it in my bones when Julien Baker sings, That it can’t get much worse depends on who you’re askin. Maybe you feel it, too, and maybe you could use the good company of this much-anticipated country album by critically acclaimed artists Julien Baker & TORRES (aka Mackenzie Scott). Send A Prayer My Way has been in the works for years. Imagine two young musicians playing their first show together at Lincoln Hall, a much-loved venue here in Chicago. It’s January 15, 2016, and bone chillingly cold outside, especially for a couple of southerners. When the show is over and they’re shooting the shit, one singer says to the other, “We should make a country album.” This is the origin story, the stuff of legend in the world of country music, and the beginning of a collaboration between two artists already admired for their spare, elegant lyrics as well as the courage to share their struggles with those who love their music. It’s also the beginning of creating a work that, like the most enduring country albums, sustains and inspires, reminding both singer and listener that not one of us is ever totally alone in this world, that music is a steady companion. Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking,” they sing in “No Desert Flower.” I can take more than a little rain/If the going’s tough I will not cower/And all the passing years won’t wash me away. I’ll lay my cards on the table from the get-go: Send A Prayer My Way is a damn fine country album, written and sung in the best of the outlaw tradition—defiant, subversive, working class, and determined to wrestle not only with addiction, regret and bad decisions, but also with oppressive systems of power. (In the best outlaw country, The Law is no friend of yours, and neither is The Man; in TORRES and Baker’s music, neither are religious blowhards or mothers who can’t stomach their daughter’s sexuality.) Julien Baker: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube TORRES: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Transviolet
After viral success with their debut single Girls Your Age in 2015, cosigns from Harry Styles, Katy Perry and Ellie Goulding, and accolades from tastemakers like Rolling Stone, the Fader, and Nylon, Transviolet built their cult following by opening for artists like Twenty One Pilots, LANY, Joywave, Dua Lipa, Mother Mother and captivating audiences at Gov Ball, SXSW, Redding and Leeds, Firefly and Summerfest. After going independent in 2019, the band has continued to break barriers in the indie space, receiving organic radio play on LA’s alt 98.7, sync placements such as the title theme for WB’s Pretty Little Liars, and landing numerous coveted playlist spots across platforms and genres, such as New Music Friday (Spotify), New in Alternative (Apple), New Dance Pop (Spotify), Heart Beats (Spotify), New Arrivals Arrivals Pop (tidal), Creamy (spotify). Now, with a viral moment on Chinese social media, and a viral moment on instagram reels, the band packed rooms on their Chinese headlining tour in spring 2024, and their 4th headlining run in the US on their Softcore tour, anticipating the release of their Softcore EP, out June 28th, leading into their Softcore LP in February 2025. Website | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube
Hourglass Kids, Sugar Snap Peas
Hourglass Kids The Hourglass Kids began as a group of high school friends jamming in various North Carolina basements, growing over the years into a dynamic seven-piece reggae-jam-rock collective. Known for their electrifyingly original live shows, the band draws on the distinct lyricism of four vocalists and the vibrant energy of a full horn section. Their music spans an eclectic mix of styles, blending roots reggae, psychedelic jam, hip-hop, funk, and jazz-rock, and has carved them out their own space in the roots music scene Sugar Snap Peas Sugar Snap Peas is a 6-piece fusion outfit based out of Raleigh, NC. Drawing on a set of influences spanning jazz to dreampop, the Peas’ sound is characterized by intricate grooves, colorful harmonies, and a lushness that fills the room. The Peas guide audiences between intimate ballads and high-energy arrangements over the course of their live sets. Propelled by musical curiosity informed by sophisticated tastes, they offer a sound unique in the Triangle music scene. Brandon Tenney Brandon Tenney grew up in North Carolina idolizing the music of AC/DC and Van Halen. Now in his early twenties, Tenney is a bandleader recording original material, and building a local following in the North Carolina Triad area. On his upcoming EP “Under Construction”, Tenney finds his niche in modern indie rock, while paying homage to his favorite 70s bands. Still at the beginning of a burgeoning career, Tenney has not only an unstoppable drive to create and build a successful band, but a full commitment to artistry.
6th Annual Cupid’s Jam – Benefit Concert for TABLE
Please join us for the 6th Annual Cupid’s Jam – a festival show benefitting TABLE!As House Bands from School of Rock Chapel Hill, School of Rock Chesapeake, VA, School of Rock Virginia Beach, VA, and The R&B Performance Band from SOR Greensboro all come together to deliver an amazing afternoon of live music from the Main Stage of Cat’s Cradle! Sunday, February 16, 2025 – 12:30pm to 4:30pm!Doors at 12:00 noon. We humbly request $20 per attendee to help support the imporant work of TABLE. Always a great day and a wonderful event, we hope you’ll help us pack the house! TABLE delivers healthy food and nutrition education to children in Orange County, North Carolina. Learn more about this important organization at: https://tablenc.org/what-we-do/
Model/Actriz
Like their name suggests, Model/Actriz seek to channel raw emotions into striking new forms. The band’s surface glamor is supported by nerves of steel, leveraging their focus into moments of wild abandon. Since their songs roar to life off the back of blistering guitar, relentless drums, and pummeling bass there’s an expectation that Model/Actriz aim first and foremost to be shit-starters. But their instrumental muscle couches a searching heart and the Brooklyn quartet have long made a mission to reconcile undefinable feelings by charting a ferocious new path through sound, one that brings jagged emotions back into full, sweaty alignment with the listeners’ bodies. Their debut record Dogsbody was sexy, dark, and humid, full of eerie passages and veiled menace. Songs like “Amaranth” and “Mosquito” were hot house scenes cast in foreboding half-shadow, with frontman Cole Haden as the hero at the center of its shifting, sultry gloom. The figure he cut was reassuring and ominous, both an experienced guide who could light up the music’s dim corridors and a haunting presence who was inextricably bound to them. The lyrics found him fumbling around in its darkness to become the person he is today – scarred, but made stronger in pursuit of its seduction. Model/Actriz’s sophomore album Pirouette, which was co-produced and mixed by Seth Manchester and mastered by Matt Colton, their collaborators on Dogsbody, swerves out of the maze and directly into the spotlight. It is Dogsbody’s equally accomplished, but much more self-possessed sister record – thumping and immediate rather than dark and obscure. The light it casts off originates from within, and reflects a band that’s not only grown into its strengths but conquered its demons. Haden no longer vamps from the shadows but at the very front of the stage – and often in the very thick of the crowd – commanding the music’s chaotic center with a poise that channels Grace Jones and Lady Gaga. After much critical acclaim and an exhausting tour to support the record, the band sought to reinvigorate their visceral live shows that invite that audience into a shared room of carnal ritual. Pirouette is both a natural progression and a calculated reset, a move toward reasserting their command as artists by peeling away the smoke and mirrors to become brighter, heavier, and more direct. The pop thread running throughout the album allows the crowd to witness thumping club music in the spirit of cabaret and manifest the catharsis that comes with hitting the dancefloor. The word “Pirouette” literally dances on the tongue and few lyricists delectate in the flavor of words as expertly as Haden does. “Like ‘matinee’ or ‘seraglio’” he pouts on “Departures,” “all I want is to be beautiful.” The beauty Haden pines after on Pirouette is the kind that’s forbidden until you give yourself permission to indulge, and even then, it’s an enjoyment that’s tempered by a history of shame. On standout track “Cinderella,” the singer’s strutting bravado suddenly gives way to crushing vulnerability – as he stares into a love interest’s eyes, he recounts the childhood shame of backing out of having a Cinderella-themed birthday party, a psychic scar that he’s still able to trace over years later. Instagram | Bandcamp | YouTube | Facebook | Soundcloud
Sven Jungbeck Gypsy Jazz Guitar Workshop
March 20, 2025. 7:30pm-9:30pm Location in Carrboro/Chapel Hill to be announced. Along with being a sought after guitarist on the international performance circuit, Sven is also well known as a Gypsy Jazz guitar teacher through his popular YouTube channel. Not only will he guide in chord and lead playing in person all the way from Germany, he will also provide students with extensive materials to continue learning from. The Carrboro Django Reinhardt Festival Website | Sven Jungbeck YouTube
Joscho Stephan & Sven Jungbeck
Joscho Stephan & Sven Jungbeck on March 21, 2025. 8:00pm-10:00pm. (Two, 45 minute sets, with intermission) The Carrboro Django Reinhardt Festival Website Joscho Stephan of Germany, has been integral in shaping modern Gypsy Jazz. With his authentic tone, harmonic finesse, rhythmic flair, and his virtuosic solo technique, Joscho has earned his reputation in the international guitar scene. He incorporates his many influences, from Classical to Latin to Pop, into his creative and visionary brand of contemporary Gypsy Jazz. Joscho has collaborated with many of the most celebrated players of Gypsy Jazz and beyond, including Bireli Lagrène, Stochelo Rosenberg, Tommy Emmanuel, and George Benson. Joscho will be performing with rhythm guitarist Sven Jungbeck, also from Germany. Along with being a sought after guitarist on the international performance circuit, he is also well known as a Gypsy Jazz guitar teacher through his popular YouTube channel. Joscho Stephan Website | Joscho Stephan YouTube | Sven Jungbeck YouTube
Simba Baumgartner & Adrien Marco Gypsy Jazz Guitar Workshop
March 22, 2025. 2:00pm-3:30pm Learn the secrets of Gypsy Jazz guitar straight from the masters. Simba and Adrien will guide you in the finer points of la pompe and chord voicings, as well as soloing concepts and licks. Come with an acoustic guitar and a recording device. Other instruments welcome too, but the workshop will focus on guitar. The Carrboro Django Reinhardt Festival Website Simba Baumgartner and Adrien Marco are French Gypsy Jazz guitarists who are part of the young generation of authentic players carrying on the tradition of Django Reinhardt. Simba is the great grandson of Django’s, and grew up in Samois-sur- Seine surrounded by the music and his family’s legacy. He plays in the authentic Jazz Manouche way, having learned it directly from his elders and some the greatest musicians of the style. Proud of his origins, he represents his musical culture by paying homage to his ancestor, while also revealing his own vision. Adrien grew up not far from Samois, the home of the original Django Reinhardt Festival. He was drawn to learning the guitar after hearing Django’s music, and taught himself to play by trying to recreate what he heard. His graceful and dynamic playing makes him a sought after musician on the world stage. Adrien Marco Website | Adrien Marco YouTube
Simba Baumgartner & Adrien Marco + Onyx Club Boys
March 22, 2025. 8:00pm-11:00pm.(Show #1, 8-9pm, 15 minute intermission, show #2, 9:15-11pm) The Carrboro Django Reinhardt Festival Website Simba Baumgartner and Adrien Marco are French Gypsy Jazz guitarists who are part of the young generation of authentic players carrying on the tradition of Django Reinhardt. Simba is the great grandson of Django’s, and grew up in Samois-sur- Seine surrounded by the music and his family’s legacy. He plays in the authentic Jazz Manouche way, having learned it directly from his elders and some the greatest musicians of the style. Proud of his origins, he represents his musical culture by paying homage to his ancestor, while also revealing his own vision. Adrien grew up not far from Samois, the home of the original Django Reinhardt Festival. He was drawn to learning the guitar after hearing Django’s music, and taught himself to play by trying to recreate what he heard. His graceful and dynamic playing makes him a sought after musician on the world stage. Adrien Marco Website | Adrien Marco YouTube Onyx Club Boys is an acoustic string band (violin, guitar, upright bass, and drums) rooted in Django Reinhardt’s Gypsy Jazz sounds of Paris, and Stuff Smith’s New York City Swing. However, being from 21st Century North Carolina, their diverse influences take the music beyond borders. With influences from around the world, their performances transcend boundaries, drawing listeners in with irresistible rhythms, soulful melodies, and a shared appreciation for the universal language of music. For this special Carrboro Django Reinhardt Festival appearance, they will start things off with the core band (Gabriel Pelli, Ben Lassiter, Aaron Gross, Daniel Hall), adding special guests until they transform into the sizzling Onyx Club Boys Big Band experience! Come ready to party and dance the night away. Onyx Club Boys Website
Abbey Road LIVE! – Family Matinee
“One of the world’s premier Beatles cover bands” -US News and World Report “unquestionably expert at what they do” -Indyweek You loved Beatles music when you were a kid. Now YOUR kids have a chance to experience the magic of the Beatles LIVE in concert! Abbey Road LIVE! is well known in the Southeast for their energetic concerts at clubs, theaters and festivals. This time, the focus will be on the kids. Expect fun classics such as “Octopus’ Garden”, “Yellow Submarine”, and “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”. Does your child have a a favorite Beatles tune? Abbey Road LIVE! loves to take requests, and has often been known to invite kids on stage to sing along. This rare event will be big fun for the whole family! **Special FAMILY PACK ticket available – admits 4 people for just $40!** Website | Facebook | YouTube
