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        <title>Cat&#039;s Cradle</title>
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        <description>Carrboro, NC</description>
        <lastBuildDate>Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:13:20 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>Cat&#039;s Cradle</title>
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                        <item>
                                <title>West 22nd: Places To Be</title>
                                <eventupdate>18 hours ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/west-22nd-places-to-be/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[West 22nd is an Austin-based rock band formed by friends at the University of Texas, united by one goal: to become the next great rock band. They define their sound as &#8220;carousel rock&#8221;&#8212;a genre-bending style that spins through emotion and energy while staying grounded in controlled chaos. Following a breakout EP and debut album that together have amassed over 75 million streams worldwide, West 22nd has made it clear they are here to stand out. Their lyrics are autobiographical, their live shows electric, and their ambition unmistakable. They&#8217;ve performed at ACL, sold out numerous dates on their debut headlining tour, and cultivated a devoted fanbase that sings every word back to them. Not chasing nostalgia or trends, West 22nd focuses on creating what comes next. Their music hits at exactly the right moment, leaving listeners both dizzy and grounded&#8212;a signature experience of carousel rock. Official updates, tour info, and more are available at west-22nd.com. &#160; TikTok &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Morgan St. Jean</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 day ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/morgan-st-jean/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Morgan St. Jean has been deemed your &#8220;favorite up-and-coming angsty, feminist, socially aware pop princess&#8221; &#8212; but it&#8217;s her electric live show that&#8217;s turning buzz into a movement. Blending explosive pop production with raw storytelling, Morgan has quickly built a reputation as a once-in-a-generation performer. In the past few years, she&#8217;s been invited to support four major tours, including a European run with X Ambassadors. She has performed at SXSW, LA&#8217;s School Night, and the Lady Gaga x Global Citizen One World: Together At Home concert, and recently completed her debut North American headline tour &#8212; solidifying herself as a commanding live force. Beyond the stage, Morgan is a platinum-selling songwriter and artist. She co-wrote Chappell Roan&#8217;s critically acclaimed single &#8220;Casual&#8221; (produced by Dan Nigro), and her own viral feminist pop anthems &#8212; including &#8220;Not All Men&#8221; and &#8220;Do It Like A Girl&#8221; &#8212; have amassed hundreds of millions of streams while building a fiercely loyal global community. With a growing fanbase, undeniable stage presence, and songs that feel both personal and universal, Morgan St. Jean isn&#8217;t just an artist to watch &#8212; she&#8217;s an artist to experience live. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Sincere Engineer: The Probable Claws Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/sincere-engineer-the-probable-claws-tour/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[When Sincere Engineer entered the studio to begin recording their fourth full-length album, they were already building on a foundation primed for success. Tracking the record entirely at Chicago&#8217;s Electrical Audio&#8212;the studio of the late Steve Albini and the origin of hundreds of revered independent releases&#8212;the band tapped into a space synonymous with unfiltered artistry. The result: Probable Claws (leave it to Sincere Engineer to pull a punny title out of the hat), a record that solidifies her punk-fueled catalogue as a formidable quartet. As Sincere Engineer frontwoman Deanna Belos continues to mine the deeply introspective terrain of her past work, the question remains: how does this latest chapter measure up? For starters, it leans into a thematic core that feels relatably universal, especially for anyone who has felt the pressure of life&#8217;s eternal ticking clock. &#8220;I think the overall theme of this record is being uncomfortable with the passing of time and how quick time passes,&#8221; Belos shares. &#8220;Not all the songs touch on that, there&#8217;s some songs about me moving too fast through life myself.&#8221; That sentiment pulses through the album&#8217;s lead single, &#8220;Cooler,&#8221; which landed on streaming platforms in March. The track stands as a quintessential example of Sincere Engineer&#8217;s signature brand of cathartic, angst-fueled punk&#8212;refined, yet no less urgent. And while Belos&#8217; audience now stretches to a global scale, her sound remains grounded in a gritty, blue-collar ethos, undeniably shaped by her Chicago, Illinois roots. &#8220;We set out to make a very straightforward pop punk record,&#8221; Belos says, before noting that fans can still expect a handful of Sincere Engineer&#8217;s characteristically poignant ballads woven throughout. Make no mistake: Probable Claws is a no-skip listen. Across 11 tracks, the album is meticulously sequenced to grip from the outset, kicking off with the commanding &#8220;Twist My Tongue&#8221; and closing on &#8220;Dynamite,&#8221; a finale that lands with emotional weight. A well-placed Bad Religion nod on &#8220;LOL&#8221; only deepens the record&#8217;s relatability level, bridging generational gaps within the punk community. Of course, every album has its emotional centerpiece, and here, Belos delivers it in &#8220;Arborvitae Evergreen.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s my favorite,&#8221; she shares. &#8220;It&#8217;s kind of the song I&#8217;ve been telling people I wrote for myself. It&#8217;s about the backyard of the house I grew up in. When we recorded it, I was so stoked with how well it came out&#8230; it takes me back to that place.&#8221; All in all, Probable Claws finds Belos sitting in some of her strongest writing yet, wielding her sharpest pen and laying her heart out on the table. &#8220;I&#8217;m excited for the new chapter of SE. We&#8217;ve done so much touring with so many amazing bands that we all look up to. I can&#8217;t believe we&#8217;re on our fourth record and we&#8217;re excited to get on tour and play the new songs live. The recording process was a dream&#8212;Electrical Audio is an incredible studio, literally one of the best in the world. We were very excited and fortunate we got to make the record there!&#8221; &#160; Website &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>The Format</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-format/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Format will donate $1 from every ticket sold to help fight food insecurity, support marginalized communities and fund local animal shelters. This is a sponsored project of Catalyst Philanthropy Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. &#160; The Format was beginning to think the stars were aligned against them. Just as Nate Ruess and Sam Means were finally able to sort through the aftermath of the 2020 pandemic&#8212;which first stalled, then completely wiped out their last attempt at a reunion&#8212;tragedy struck again. On the very first day of recording new music in nearly 20 years with Grammy-winning producer Brendan O&#8217;Brien (Pearl Jam, The Killers, Bruce Springsteen), the Los Angeles wildfires broke out, leaving devastation across the city. It was enough to inspire a little conspiratorial thinking. &#8220;It seriously felt like the universe was against us,&#8221; Ruess says, trailing off. &#8220;It was at least&#8230;&#8221; &#8220;It was testing us, for sure,&#8221; Means adds, finishing the thought. It&#8217;s no wonder that *Boycott Heaven*, their third album, is charged with there is no waiting on tomorrow energy. After all, if the universe was in fact putting you through your paces, how might you respond? Not on some far-off imagined judgement day, but right now? &#8220;Holy roller, don&#8217;t go wasting all your time,&#8221; Ruess sings in the boisterous single &#8220;Holy Roller.&#8221; In other words, the time for creating something more like heaven isn&#8217;t tomorrow or some other day, but today. A certain romantic fatalism has always coursed through The Format&#8217;s lyrics, which the more mature Ruess cops to in the heartland rocker &#8220;Shot in the Dark.&#8221; &#8220;Lived my whole life like I was ready to die,&#8221; he confesses over jangling guitars and stomping rhythms. But *Boycott Heaven* is filled with reflections on reasons to stick around this broken old world: family, life-long connections, distorted guitar riffs, and a stubborn belief that even as bad as it is, tomorrow could be better. Once it was safe to return, the duo got back to work at Henson Recording Studios. Sam and Nate both played electric guitars&#8212;Ruess having picked up the instrument in the years since The Format&#8217;s last album, in addition to launching a solo career, forming the chart-topping fun. with Jack Antonoff and Andrew Dost, and collaborating with P!nk, Kesha, and Hayley Williams of Paramore. Their rhythm section was comprised of O&#8217;Brien on bass and drummer Matt Chamberlain (David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Soundgarden, Fiona Apple). Fans of *Interventions + Lullabies* (2003) and *Dog Problems* (2006) will recognize the hooks and retro-pop bravado, but *Boycott Heaven* signals a new era. It&#8217;s not a nostalgia play, even as it incorporates sonic nods to the alt-rock, grunge, and pop-punk sounds Ruess and Means first bonded over as Arizona teenagers. &#8220;We first bonded listening to bands like Weezer, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots,&#8221; Ruess says. &#8220;I&#8217;m a new guitarist, just enamored with power chords, so I&#8217;m listening to all this stuff we&#8217;d listen to back then and cross referencing&#8212;NOFX, Lagwagon. But you take that pop-punk stuff and slow it down, and then have Matt Chamberlain playing on it, and then it feels a little like grunge. All that&#8217;s in there.&#8221; &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Bad Cop Bad Cop</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/bad-cop-bad-cop/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[In the final moments of &#8220;Dead Friends,&#8221; the penultimate track of the new Lighten Up, Bad Cop Bad Cop guitarist-vocalist Stacey Dee sings, &#8220;So try to love your life, while you can.&#8221; These words serve as a powerful thesis for Lighten Up (out September 19, 2025 on Fat Wreck Chords/Hopeless Records) the SoCal punk group&#8217;s fourth full-length. The album paints a striking portrait of life's hard-won victories and hard-fought losses. &#8220;I think that's what I write my songs about,&#8221; Dee says. &#8220;Life is hard, but it's still beautiful. Stop picking the hard shit to look at&#8212;look at the beautiful stuff too. Lighten up.&#8221; Dee and her bandmates&#8212;bassist-vocalist Linh Le, drummer-vocalist Myra Gallarza, and guitarist Alex Windsor&#8212;know what it takes to persevere. Resilience surfaces throughout Lighten Up. In &#8220;Strugglinh,&#8221; Le confronts self-doubt and finds strength, and in &#8220;See Me Now,&#8221; she turns family loss into triumph. &#8220;Straight Out of Detox&#8221; details a transformational night in Dee's life, and&#8220;Note to Self" is her reminder to keep things in perspective, aided by iconic LA underground rapper 2mex. Playing like a big-hearted sibling to the Jim Carroll Band's iconic &#8220;People Who Died,&#8221; &#8220;Dead Friends&#8221; has been in the works for years. &#8220;This was the first time that I dug in to tell stories that I was too afraid to talk about prior,&#8221; Dee says. &#8220;We've made records that were unapologetically strong, but the way we got to be unapologetically strong was dealing with things like this.&#8221; Unapologetically personal best describes Lighten Up. &#8220;It started with having the girls over on Sundays. I would cook brunch, we'd drink tons of bottles of Prosecco, and we would write music together,&#8221; Dee says. &#8220;This was family the entire time. It was who we trusted, who we loved, who we knew we could work with.&#8221; That's why Bad Cop Bad Cop recorded at the Compound in Long Beach, home to veteran producer Antoine Arvizu (Sublime, Ryan Bingham). The band loved recording the singles &#8220;Shattered&#8221; and &#8220;Safe and Legal&#8221; there in 2023 with Arvizu and Dee&#8217;s partner, Migs (Sublime, Slightly Stoopid, Long Beach Dub Allstars). &#8220;The way that Miguel produces, he lets you be you until something needs to be added or reeled in. He always says, &#8216;Never a dull moment on a record,&#8221; Dee explains. Bad Cop Bad Cop stretched their signature hooky, melodic punk into unexpected places, like the jazzy &#8220;Las Ventanas,&#8221; the dub-inflected &#8220;Note to Self,&#8221; or &#8220;Johnny Appleseed,&#8221; a reimagining of the Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros classic. After tracking the instruments, the band spent 10 intense 12-hour days recording vocals with longtime collaborator John E. Carey Jr. (Old Man Markley, NOFX, Get Dead). &#8220;The singing was&#160;the most important part for us. We really tried things out,&#8221; Dee says, adding that Gallarza stepped up to sing third harmony for the first time.Lighten Up also benefits from Windsor, an expert guitarist who not only shreds (check out the end of &#8220;I4NI&#8221;) but whose music theory knowledge proved invaluable. &#8220;Alex's guitar playing is just so fantastic and has really elevated our songwriting, truly,&#8221; Dee says. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Bandcamp &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Cosmic Charlie &#8211; High energy Grateful Dead</title>
                                <eventupdate>7 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cosmic-charlie-high-energy-grateful-dead-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA["Cosmic Charlie really is a great band - these guys do this music the way it should be done: having the conversation in their own voices.&#8221; - David Gans, Grateful Dead Hour &#160; Cosmic Charlie was born in the musical Mecca of Athens, Georgia. From its summer 1999 inception, the band swiftly cemented its reputation as a band that puts a unique and personal twist on the Grateful Dead catalogue. Cosmic Charlie is a Dead cover band for folks that are ambivalent about Dead cover bands. Rather than mimicking the Dead exactly, Cosmic Charlie chooses to tap into the Dead&#8217;s energy and style as a foundation on which to build. The result is healthy balance of creativity and tradition, where both the band and its audience are taken to that familiar edge with the sense that, music is actually being MADE here tonight. Moving and shaking even the most skeptical of Deadheads, Cosmic Charlie storms into a town and plays with an energy that eludes other bands, an energy that sometimes eluded the Dead themselves. Those precious moments during Dead jams when the synchronicity is there and all is right with the world - &#160;these are the moments that Cosmic Charlie relishes and feverishly welcomes with open arms. Clearly, Cosmic Charlie&#8217;s audiences are also eager to partake in these moments, and together with the band, they have indulged in many memorable evenings. Most nights, Cosmic Charlie walks onstage without a setlist, not even knowing what the first song will be. Any Dead tune can rear its head at any moment, and fan requests are always welcome. &#8220;INSPIRATON, MOVE ME BRIGHTLY" is Cosmic Charlie&#8217;s mantra, allowing the music to truly play the band. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Tommy Prine</title>
                                <eventupdate>8 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/tommy-prine/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; Facebook &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Andrew Marlin &amp; Josh Oliver</title>
                                <eventupdate>8 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/andrew-marlin-josh-oliver/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Andrew Marlin &#38; Josh Oliver (of Watchhouse) have been playing and touring together for over a decade in an array of configurations with countless different collaborators. For the first time, they&#8217;re hitting the road to share their music as a duo. These special hometown shows will feature a mix of Andrew &#38; Josh&#8217;s original songs, alongside a number of covers and traditionals. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Soda Water Sea</title>
                                <eventupdate>10 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/soda-water-sea-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 20:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Soda Water Sea is a musical collective from Durham, NC. A rock band, a chorus, a mini-orchestra, 20ish people of all ages making beautiful music together. &#160; Bandcamp &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Man Man</title>
                                <eventupdate>10 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/man-man-2/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[When Man Man released its last album, “Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In Between,&#8221; frontman Honus Honus (né Ryan Kattner) was in a state of unrest, oscillating between hope and cynicism. Perhaps fittingly, the album ended up dropping during the pandemic. (We could all relate.) But much like that bizarre turn of global [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Future Islands</title>
                                <eventupdate>10 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/future-islands-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Future Islands are an emotionally charged synth pop group, known for their dexterous melodic touch, stately momentum and impassioned delivery. Over the past twenty years they have travelled a rare arc, from promising newcomers to best-kept secret, from cult favourites to heroes of the genre. As they reach this remarkable milestone, they resist the obvious move. Instead of a &#8216;best-of&#8217; compilation victory lap, Future Islands present From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth&#8212;an immediate and accessible collection, half of which has never appeared on streaming services, comprising alternate hits, rarities, and fan favourites that showcase the band&#8217;s palette and bring further colour to their uniquely universal appeal. Future Islands have chosen this moment to shine a light on the less obvious, giving everyone the chance to glimpse at how they&#8217;ve grown as a band. This is not mere fan service however, nor a nostalgic exercise in self-congratulation. I&#8217;ve worked with the band since their first album, and this release feels more like a resetting of the narrative, or rather a reaffirmation of who they truly are. Future Islands have always been more than a viral moment; their career contains extraordinary depth and nuance, often overshadowed by louder peaks. Here, that breadth is finally acknowledged. These songs reveal a band comfortable with subtlety, grace, and emotional endurance&#8212;and they have never sounded more eternal. As the title suggests, this double-LP traces the group&#8217;s journey from humble origins toward ever-widening horizons. Twenty songs for twenty years, four members of the band, four sides of vinyl. There&#8217;s a well-known Tennessee Williams quote that talks of this kind of duration&#8212;&#8220;time is the longest distance between two places.&#8221; It is time that really separates the floor from the fountain. Future Islands have developed from a pulse-quickening prospect into something more majestic and sustaining. What remains constant though is that romantic core, keeping perfect time with a melancholic pendulum, documenting those moments that vanish with fleeting beauty. Thinking back to those early days spent with Future Islands on that first tour of the UK in 2009, my memories surface in vivid flashes&#8212;a frozen February visit to Stonehenge, wrapped in long scarves as we stalked tree-crowned barrows. &#8220;Take all the time it takes, make all the time it takes,&#8221; sings Samuel T. Herring on phenomenal woozy serenade &#8220;Sail,&#8221; urging further recollection. I remember a battered copy of the Collected Roethke hanging out of a torn duffle coat pocket, sleepwalking through strange rooms, and driving the van into a snowstorm after the Bristol show; we were all sublimated into a full-beam screensaver of shooting stars. There was vocalist Herring&#8217;s instant rapport with a venue lackey in Nottingham, sparked purely by the coincidence of matching hats, a small moment of unlikely shared humanity, emblematic of the band&#8217;s warmth and decency. That same charisma animates their performances even now, remaining crystalline, vivid, and alive. The songs on this anthology unfold like pages torn from a diary by a sudden gale. From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth takes its title from the opening line of &#8220;Pinnochio,&#8221; a smouldering anthem built on a persistent bass motif and soaring keyboard line, rising toward an air-punching climax. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                        <item>
                                <title>Future Islands</title>
                                <eventupdate>10 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/future-islands-3/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Future Islands are an emotionally charged synth pop group, known for their dexterous melodic touch, stately momentum and impassioned delivery. Over the past twenty years they have travelled a rare arc, from promising newcomers to best-kept secret, from cult favourites to heroes of the genre. As they reach this remarkable milestone, they resist the obvious move. Instead of a &#8216;best-of&#8217; compilation victory lap, Future Islands present From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth&#8212;an immediate and accessible collection, half of which has never appeared on streaming services, comprising alternate hits, rarities, and fan favourites that showcase the band&#8217;s palette and bring further colour to their uniquely universal appeal. Future Islands have chosen this moment to shine a light on the less obvious, giving everyone the chance to glimpse at how they&#8217;ve grown as a band. This is not mere fan service however, nor a nostalgic exercise in self-congratulation. I&#8217;ve worked with the band since their first album, and this release feels more like a resetting of the narrative, or rather a reaffirmation of who they truly are. Future Islands have always been more than a viral moment; their career contains extraordinary depth and nuance, often overshadowed by louder peaks. Here, that breadth is finally acknowledged. These songs reveal a band comfortable with subtlety, grace, and emotional endurance&#8212;and they have never sounded more eternal. As the title suggests, this double-LP traces the group&#8217;s journey from humble origins toward ever-widening horizons. Twenty songs for twenty years, four members of the band, four sides of vinyl. There&#8217;s a well-known Tennessee Williams quote that talks of this kind of duration&#8212;&#8220;time is the longest distance between two places.&#8221; It is time that really separates the floor from the fountain. Future Islands have developed from a pulse-quickening prospect into something more majestic and sustaining. What remains constant though is that romantic core, keeping perfect time with a melancholic pendulum, documenting those moments that vanish with fleeting beauty. Thinking back to those early days spent with Future Islands on that first tour of the UK in 2009, my memories surface in vivid flashes&#8212;a frozen February visit to Stonehenge, wrapped in long scarves as we stalked tree-crowned barrows. &#8220;Take all the time it takes, make all the time it takes,&#8221; sings Samuel T. Herring on phenomenal woozy serenade &#8220;Sail,&#8221; urging further recollection. I remember a battered copy of the Collected Roethke hanging out of a torn duffle coat pocket, sleepwalking through strange rooms, and driving the van into a snowstorm after the Bristol show; we were all sublimated into a full-beam screensaver of shooting stars. There was vocalist Herring&#8217;s instant rapport with a venue lackey in Nottingham, sparked purely by the coincidence of matching hats, a small moment of unlikely shared humanity, emblematic of the band&#8217;s warmth and decency. That same charisma animates their performances even now, remaining crystalline, vivid, and alive. The songs on this anthology unfold like pages torn from a diary by a sudden gale. From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth takes its title from the opening line of &#8220;Pinnochio,&#8221; a smouldering anthem built on a persistent bass motif and soaring keyboard line, rising toward an air-punching climax. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                        <item>
                                <title>Future Islands</title>
                                <eventupdate>10 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/future-islands-4/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Future Islands are an emotionally charged synth pop group, known for their dexterous melodic touch, stately momentum and impassioned delivery. Over the past twenty years they have travelled a rare arc, from promising newcomers to best-kept secret, from cult favourites to heroes of the genre. As they reach this remarkable milestone, they resist the obvious move. Instead of a &#8216;best-of&#8217; compilation victory lap, Future Islands present From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth&#8212;an immediate and accessible collection, half of which has never appeared on streaming services, comprising alternate hits, rarities, and fan favourites that showcase the band&#8217;s palette and bring further colour to their uniquely universal appeal. Future Islands have chosen this moment to shine a light on the less obvious, giving everyone the chance to glimpse at how they&#8217;ve grown as a band. This is not mere fan service however, nor a nostalgic exercise in self-congratulation. I&#8217;ve worked with the band since their first album, and this release feels more like a resetting of the narrative, or rather a reaffirmation of who they truly are. Future Islands have always been more than a viral moment; their career contains extraordinary depth and nuance, often overshadowed by louder peaks. Here, that breadth is finally acknowledged. These songs reveal a band comfortable with subtlety, grace, and emotional endurance&#8212;and they have never sounded more eternal. As the title suggests, this double-LP traces the group&#8217;s journey from humble origins toward ever-widening horizons. Twenty songs for twenty years, four members of the band, four sides of vinyl. There&#8217;s a well-known Tennessee Williams quote that talks of this kind of duration&#8212;&#8220;time is the longest distance between two places.&#8221; It is time that really separates the floor from the fountain. Future Islands have developed from a pulse-quickening prospect into something more majestic and sustaining. What remains constant though is that romantic core, keeping perfect time with a melancholic pendulum, documenting those moments that vanish with fleeting beauty. Thinking back to those early days spent with Future Islands on that first tour of the UK in 2009, my memories surface in vivid flashes&#8212;a frozen February visit to Stonehenge, wrapped in long scarves as we stalked tree-crowned barrows. &#8220;Take all the time it takes, make all the time it takes,&#8221; sings Samuel T. Herring on phenomenal woozy serenade &#8220;Sail,&#8221; urging further recollection. I remember a battered copy of the Collected Roethke hanging out of a torn duffle coat pocket, sleepwalking through strange rooms, and driving the van into a snowstorm after the Bristol show; we were all sublimated into a full-beam screensaver of shooting stars. There was vocalist Herring&#8217;s instant rapport with a venue lackey in Nottingham, sparked purely by the coincidence of matching hats, a small moment of unlikely shared humanity, emblematic of the band&#8217;s warmth and decency. That same charisma animates their performances even now, remaining crystalline, vivid, and alive. The songs on this anthology unfold like pages torn from a diary by a sudden gale. From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth takes its title from the opening line of &#8220;Pinnochio,&#8221; a smouldering anthem built on a persistent bass motif and soaring keyboard line, rising toward an air-punching climax. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Alcantara, Persimmon, Snide</title>
                                <eventupdate>13 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/alcantara-persimmon-snide/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Sat, 28 Mar 2026 03:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Formed in 2022 by transplants from the vibrant scenes of Brooklyn, Oakland, New Haven, Raleigh, and Salt Lake City, Alcantara is a riveting ensemble showcasing the talents of Brooke Suffridge, Justin Blau, Eric Bliss, Myles Peterson, and Adrian Drummond-Cole. These seasoned musicians converged in the Triangle and found a whole more than equal to the sum of its parts. Pulling in equal measures from indie, post-rock, punk, and post-hardcore, Alcantara specializes in off-kilter grooves and earworm melodies. Songs flow from wistful to wrathful, reflective to rebellious, always bursting with energy. &#160;Their live performances around the state have earned them a growing following as well as a spot on Raleigh&#8217;s Boared to Death Records. Alcantara recorded with Kei Mizobuchi and Chris Wimberly at Carrboro&#8217;s Night Sound Studios and mastered by Mike Westbrook. These first five songs capture a band brimming with potential, confident in their collaboration and hungry to create. &#160;The Bee EP released digitally on 02/21/2025. &#160;A recent interview with the band on The Daily Tarheel can be found here. &#160; Instagram &#183; Bandcamp &#183; Linktree &#160; SNiDE Is a four piece American rock and roll band from chapel hill, NC. Featuring Two suave guitarists in love, a hunky rhythm section with a brotherly bond. Topped by a big gay sparkling frontman whom will not be ignored. &#160; Slamming untamed self expression into mountains of reverb. Crafting concerningly personal songs With themes inspired by the sanctuaries and alleys of the queer human experience. &#160; Known widely for providing excellent value in dollar to entertainment ratio. Their music lies somewhere between Mot&#246;rhead and The Beach Boys. with a snarky attitude backed up with pure bop ass melodies. Delivered in a hardcore punk package. &#160; Linktree &#160; Persimmon &#160; Linktree]]></description>
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                                <title>Subhumans</title>
                                <eventupdate>13 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/subhumans-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Subhumans are one of the most influential bands from the UK Anarcho-Punk scene of the 80&#8217;s, filed right alongside Crass and Conflict, and just as relevant today as they were during the darkest days of Thatcher&#8217;s Britain. Take your choice in how to label them &#8211; Punk, UK82, Crusty, etc, &#8211; there lies the attraction and consequent reason for their popularity, the band epitomizes non-conformity and connects with people in many different scenes. Forming in 1980, recording and releasing a series of live and demo cassette tapes on their own Bluurg label, they continued to release music throughout the 80&#8217;s &#8211; building a powerhouse of a back catalog that completely stands the test of time. Their debut LP &#8216;The Day the Country Died&#8217; (1983), with its Orwellian influence, is considered by many to be a classic and has sold in excess of 100,000 copies. The second album, &#8216;From the Cradle to the Grave&#8217;, came swiftly the following year (1984), and although the same frenetic pace is in evidence, this marks a significant musical development for the band. In 1985 Subhumans broke up, citing the usual musical differences, although had managed to release a third, maybe ironically entitled, LP &#8216;Worlds Apart.&#8217; A final EP was released posthumously in 1986, &#8216;29:29 Split Vision,&#8217; a further demonstration of how far the band had come musically from their initial leanings. Dick Lucas subsequently joined Culture Shock and then formed political ska-punk band Citizen Fish in 1990, both bands releasing many albums, and still playing today. Subhumans had a couple of reunion shows in the nineties, before a more permanent return for the 21st century, including 2 major tours of the US, the first resulting in the &#8216;Live in a Dive&#8217; LP. The Subhumans then released a further studio album in 2007, &#8216;Internal Riot,&#8217; again on Bluurg Records. The band is still passionate and angry, illustrated by Dick saying &#8220;Being in a band is the source of most of my passion and drive! The live experience of sharing it with people keeps it ongoing, the release of anger, frustration and initially negative/destructive states of mind is a release from the downward spiral of keeping it all bottled up and it feels positive/constructive as a result.&#8221; The band have recently written ten new songs, which Pirates Press Records are thrilled to be releasing, and are embarking on a year of touring in both Europe and North America! First a split with The Restarts before a 12&#8221; of their own comes out in October of 2019! The social and political commentary of bands like Subhumans forged a path, along with their contemporaries, for punk to change lives and opinions around the world. Sadly the things they sang about forty years ago are largely just as important now, sometimes more so in an age of Trump and Brexit. We can&#8217;t wait to hear more of what they have to say about the current political climate, the immense imbalance of wealth and power, and the causes they hold near and dear to their hearts. &#160; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Music for Mental Health</title>
                                <eventupdate>14 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/music-for-mental-health/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:25:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[NC Musicians Mental Health Alliance &#160; Caleb Caudle On his latest release, Sweet Critters, Caleb Caudle continues to mine both the brightest and murkiest corners of his imagination, finding that purest of points where tenderness and grit collide, inspired by musical heroes like Buddy Miller and Guy Clark, and mentors like Elizabeth Cook and John Paul White. It was White who Caudle tapped to produce Sweet Critters, along with Ben Tanner, at the duo&#8217;s Florence, Alabama studio Sun Drop Sound. "I was very excited to work with Caleb on this record. Iʼve been a fan for years and count him as a friend,&#8221; White says of working with Caudle. &#8220;Heʼs a stellar songwriter, so I knew heʼd bring the goods. And he did.&#8221; The album features Allison Russell, Aoife O'Donovan, John Paul White and Caleb's own touring band. He has played Stagecoach, Cayamo, Luck Reunion, Mountain Stage, Merlefest, Americanafest and recently supported Marty Stuart, Steve Earle, Hayes Carll, Elizabeth Cook, Brent Cobb, Charles Wesley Godwin and Ray Wylie Hubbard among many others. ------------------------------------ Laurelyn DossettSinger/songwriter Laurelyn Dossett lives and writes in Stokes County, NC. &#160;Her songs have appeared in films and television (Hell on Wheels, Ain't In it for My Health) and have been recorded by many artists including Grammy-winning Levon Helm (Anna Lee) and Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (Leaving Eden).&#160; She has written the songs for seven plays, staged at Triad Stage and Playmaker's Repertory. &#160;Her song cycle, The Gathering: A Winter's Tale in Six Songs was commissioned by the North Carolina Symphony and premiered in Raleigh in 2011. She last performed it in 2019 with the Winston-Salem Symphony. Laurelyn has written songs for various protest movements in North Carolina including My Beloved Enemy and Vote Against Amendment One. She remains a voice for social justice and environmental activism in North Carolina and beyond. &#160;The River&#8217;s Lament is her testament to the devastation of the Dan River coal ash spill. She founded and continues to host the annual &#8220;Songs of Hope and Justice&#8221; at the North Carolina Folk Festival. ----------------------------------- The Vagabond Saints' Society has waited patiently for many years for the right time to pay tribute to one of their favorite cult albums - The Waterboys&#8217; 1988 classic, "Fisherman&#8217;s Blues.&#8221; The VSS will perform this timeless record classic in its entirety, featuring Doug Davis on lead vocals, as well as a selection of other Waterboys favorites featuring a selection of Triad &#38; Triangle singers! "Fisherman&#8217;s Blues" was the fruit of an intense reevaluation of the Waterboys&#8217; previous anthemic post-punk, filtered through a new fascination with traditional Irish forms and instrumentation. The result is neither rock &#8217;n roll nor authentic &#8220;trad&#8221; music, but something all its own, rooted in the deeply passionate and romantic writing of bandleader, Mike Scott.]]></description>
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                                <title>Squirrel Nut Zippers</title>
                                <eventupdate>14 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/squirrel-nut-zippers/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[When Hot first hit the airwaves in 1996, it didn&#8217;t just ignite excitement &#8212; it sparked a cultural bonfire. With its infectious blend of swing, jazz, Delta blues, and Southern storytelling, Hot rocketed Squirrel Nut Zippers from the underground scene of Chapel Hill, NC, to the national stage, going Platinum and defining a generation&#8217;s rediscovery of vintage Americana. &#160; The band&#8217;s breakout sophomore album captured lightning in a bottle. Recorded at the famed Kingsway Studio in New Orleans (owned by Daneil Lanois), the record radiated with authenticity. Featuring a warm, analog sound, paired with wry, vivid storytelling, the album topped the Billboard 200 charts for an impressive 51 weeks and included such standout tracks as &#8220;Put a Lid On It,&#8221; &#8220;Blue Angel,&#8221; and its biggest hit to-date &#8220;Hell.&#8221; &#160; &#8220;Hell,&#8221; which at the time, was considered an unlikely radio single, topped the Alternative Airplay charts at #13 and has become a pivotal piece of pop culture as it continues to heat up the radio and TV airwaves, appearing on alt rock and Americana stations and in such prominent television shows as Wednesday (2025) and Lucifer (2021).Now, 30 years later, the Zippers are celebrating the ever-lasting magic of Hot with the &#8220;In The Afterlife&#8221; tour, where the band will play the record in its entirety. The 30th celebration of Hot is not just a look back &#8212; it&#8217;s a salute to resilience, innovation, and the enduring power of a band that never stopped evolving.Formed in 1993 by Jimbo Mathus, Katharine Whalen, and a tight-knit group of musical misfits, Squirrel Nut Zippers defied genre from the start. Their sound &#8212; an intoxicating mix of prohibition-era jazz, big band bravado, and punk-rock irreverence &#8212; invited listeners into a world where vaudeville met voodoo and speakeasy swagger met Southern soul. &#160; Led by Mathus, and managed by original drummer Chris Phillips, the modern-day Zippers continue to honor that legacy while breathing new life into their beloved catalog. As the Squirrel Nut Zippers bring Hot back to the stage, fans old and new are rediscovering what made the album &#8212; and the band &#8212; so unforgettable. Music that swings, sings, and sizzles with soul. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Cheekface</title>
                                <eventupdate>15 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cheekface-4/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[LinkTree · Bandcamp · Instagram · Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>An Evening with Shawn Mullins: a solo performance filled with songs and stories</title>
                                <eventupdate>15 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/an-evening-with-shawn-mullins-a-solo-performance-filled-with-songs-and-stories/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[After a series of indie releases and growing buzz in the Atlanta music scene, Shawn Mullins&#8217; critical and commercial breakthrough came when 1998 Soul&#8217;s Core shot him to fame on the strength of Grammy-nominated No. 1 hit, &#8220;Lullaby&#8221; followed by AAA/Americana No. 1 hit &#8220;Beautiful Wreck&#8221; from 2006&#8217;s 9th Ward Pickin&#8217; Parlor. His song, &#8220;Shimmer&#8221; was used in promotion of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and was included on the Dawson&#8217;s Creek soundtrack. His co-write &#8220;All in My Head&#8221; from 2008&#8217;s Honeydew was featured in episode one of the hit TV sitcom &#8220;Scrubs.&#8221; Mullins also co-wrote the Zac Brown Band&#8217;s No. 1 country tune &#8220;Toes.&#8221; In early 2002, he formed supergroup The Thorns with Matthew Sweet and Pete Droge. &#8220;No Blue Sky&#8221; from the resulting album, is a modern day classic. For the 20th anniversary of his breakthrough album, Shawn revisited the music of Soul&#8217;s Core by recording two new versions of the album. He calls this Soul&#8217;s Core Revival. This is not a remix or a remaster of the original, but rather brand new recordings with new arrangements of the songs &#8211; one album is stripped down solo performances, some on guitar, some on piano and maybe one a cappella and the second is a new studio recording with his full band, Soul Carnival. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>The Bug Club</title>
                                <eventupdate>15 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-bug-club/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Bug Club are back with a new album. It&#8217;s been a whole eleven months since their last. Where have they been? &#160; Every Single Muscle, the band&#8217;s fifth LP, arrives May 29th, 2026 via Sub Pop, making it a hat-trick for the Welsh duo and their esteemed Seattle-based patrons. Since Very Human Features, which emerged in June of 2025, the non-stop tour has seen the BBC 6 Music and KEXP favourites ping-pong across the Atlantic like they used to the Severn Bridge. Various festival slots in the summer kept them from having any sort of holiday - who needs one when you live in Wales anyway? - until it was time to head back to the writing room. &#160; So that answers that first question. Not that you&#8217;d have otherwise known. Ever self-effacing, songwriters Sam (guitar, vocals) and Tilly (bass, vocals) go as far as to claim that they&#8217;ve been sitting around &#8220;doing nothing at all&#8221; during track &#8220;It&#8217;s Our Manager David.&#8221; That&#8217;s clearly a lie. Every Single Muscle gets off to a full-throttle, chugging start with &#8220;Miss Wales 2012,&#8221; referencing a competition both Tilly and Sam have actually won. Dead serious. It&#8217;s the first of many sub-two-minute tracks on the album, setting the tone for The Bug Club&#8217;s punkiest offering yet and recalling both the short, sharp snaps of their very first singles and the grunt of recent releases. So packed is the album with wall-to-wall riffs and lyrical hooks rammed into tight confines that Sam actually asks permission to squeeze in a solo during second track &#8220;A Good Day for Dying.&#8221; He&#8217;s given two seconds. &#160; Not that we&#8217;re short-changed, though, because Sam asks again later on and is granted more. Across eighteen tunes there&#8217;s enough classic Sam/Tilly guitar interplay to satisfy even the most vociferous Bug Club club member and firmly refute the band&#8217;s own claim that they are only &#8220;just about technically proficient on our instruments.&#8221; &#8220;Full Range of Motion&#8221; has a choppy rhythm that sits atop drummer Tom&#8217;s tight beat and serves to remind us all of Minutemen, for a minute. &#8220;Make It Count&#8221; brings sweet melody and call and response, while &#8220;All My Clothes Fell Off&#8221; allows for a slower paced ballad that builds to a crescendo that would not be out of place in the world of classic rock. &#8220;Cut to Black&#8221; combines a Sparks-esque falsetto and Tilly&#8217;s melodic bass playing with a rhythm something close-ish to what Klaus Dinger used to do for Neu! And closer &#8220;My Uncle Warren Drives a Passat&#8221; sees them doing a bit of a left turn and swapping out guitars for keys. This record&#8217;s an exercise in efficient maximalism - the musical equivalent of your dad packing the car for a holiday. Bring what you like; space is tight but they&#8217;ll get it in there somehow. &#160; On to the words, because with these guys those are important. While Very Human Features did an excellent job of pointing at everyday things and highlighting their absurdity, on Every Single Muscle The Bug Club look more closely at themselves. Not so much in an introspective way, though. More in a way an alien might probe a captive specimen on an intergalactic gurney. Horror movies get their &#8220;body&#8221; subgenre, now garage rock albums get theirs too. Self-interested in an entirely new sense of the term, the human form and condition is prodded and inspected from every angle throughout the course of the album. &#160; Bandcamp &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>BALTHVS</title>
                                <eventupdate>16 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/balthvs/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[BALTHVS has grown in six years to become one of the most unique psychedelic groove acts in the world. With over 100 million streams, four albums, and twelve EPs, the band has established itself in the global touring circuit, performing across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. &#160; They have played in 26 countries and 94 cities worldwide, appearing at major events including Jam Cruise, SXSW, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Outside Lands, Electric Forest, Lightning in a Bottle, Montreal Jazz Festival, SXSW Sydney, and Jazz Cafe Festival. The band has also made notable appearances on KEXP, Gilles Peterson&#8217;s Worldwide Cafe, and the BBC. &#160; Website &#183; Spotify &#183; Instagram &#183; Bandcamp &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Fruit Bats</title>
                                <eventupdate>16 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/fruit-bats-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 24 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The midwest, particularly the part of the midwest Eric D. Johnson hails from, is a largely flat expanse. Zipping through it on the highway, you&#8217;ll see cities and towns rise up in the distance, but blink and you&#8217;ll miss other man-made rejoinders to horizontal living dotting the landscape, hill after hill, built from the refuse of the past: landfills. Some of these hills make for great sledding spots, parks, and trails. Others turn organic waste into compost. The Landfill, Fruit Bats&#8217; June 12, 2026 album from Merge Records, is something else entirely: a mountain dominating the landscape of Johnson&#8217;s heart.&#160;This being a Fruit Bats record, one scales that mountain to take in the view, to see the future spread out as wide and endless as the midwestern plains. &#8220;But the mountain that gives us this vantage point,&#8221; Johnson says, &#8220;is made out of the trash that we&#8217;ve created, the collective weight of the past and where it&#8217;s taken us.&#8221; When he details that view on title track and lead single &#8220;The Landfill&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;a holy vision / of what could be / and couldn&#8217;t be / and could have been&#8221; &#8212; it&#8217;s thrilling to hear him sent soaring by a full complement of instruments. But what&#8217;s truly stunning is how, in his recontouring from could to couldn&#8217;t to could have been, he has lost none of the vulnerability that was brought to the foreground of his songwriting by 2025&#8217;s solo outing, Baby Man.&#160;Over the course of his now 25-year career under the moniker, most of Eric D. Johnson&#8217;s output as Fruit Bats has been the product of patience and fine-tuning. His songs, to borrow a phrase, are slow growers, given life on albums that encompass long stretches of time and memory. Baby Man changed that &#8212; he disallowed himself from referring to material he&#8217;d been working on before laying the album down, utilizing the morning pages technique of stream-of-consciousness, observational songwriting which flowed directly into his afternoon recording sessions. It was both a breathtaking document of Johnson&#8217;s skill as a singer-songwriter and an unvarnished account of the two weeks in which he recorded the album.&#160;Baby Man&#8217;s closeness to Johnson&#8217;s heart and the close attention to his voice and instrument its minimalist-maximalist ethos required uncorked something in him as he wrote towards a new full band effort. &#8220;That session was over,&#8221; he explains, &#8220;but there was way more to explore. I liked the immediacy of it, and I wanted to see how that would translate into a full-band Fruit Bats record.&#8221; Within weeks, he was back in a studio, this time with his band &#8212; David Dawda (bass), Josh Mease (guitars, synth), Frank LoCrasto (piano, synth), and Kosta Galanopoulos (drums) &#8212; with whom Johnson has spent over a decade building Fruit Bats into one of the most in-demand live acts in indie rock. Listening to The Landfill, it&#8217;s not hard to understand why: simply put, this band smokes.&#160;Producing the initial recording sessions in Washington&#8217;s Bear Creek Studios, Johnson set out to capture &#8220;the sound of this band I constantly marvel at, the feeling of being in a room with musicians you love and trust enough to let them cook.&#8221; They laid most of it down on the floor &#8212; no click tracks, no comped vocals, and minimal overdubs, with frequent collaborator Thom Monahan returning to provide additional production and The Landfill&#8217;s final mix. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Cole Chaney and Kyova</title>
                                <eventupdate>17 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cole-chaney-and-kyova/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[When it comes to his latest album, In the Shadow of the Mountain, 25-year-old singer-songwriter Cole Chaney is pretty candid and blunt about who he is and what kind of music he wants to make&#8212;the result of which is this stunning offering from an artist wise beyond his age. &#8220;There&#8217;s a yin to every yang,&#8221; Chaney says. &#8220;I want nothing more than for people to be creatively fulfilled, and to do what they want. But, for me to preach that? I have to practice it.&#8221; That attitude resides at the core of the record, where the trajectory of the songs seemingly&#8212;more so purposely&#8212;shoot off in the opposite direction of many of his contemporaries in the Americana, country and folk music scenes. In truth? Chaney is summoning his rock roots. &#8220;I&#8217;m not concerned with being labeled as &#8216;country.&#8217; There&#8217;s not a lot of music being released right now that is doing anything for me. I made something that I would want to listen to.&#8221; Pointing to his lifelong admiration for 1990s rock&#8212;specifically Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots&#8212;as a vital influence on the sonic landscape of the album, Chaney aimed to find a melodic balance between that raw and real rock sound and the bluegrass and folk music of his native Kentucky. &#8220;I wanted to make something that sounded like Ralph Stanley went in and got backed up by Soundgarden,&#8221; Chaney jokes. &#8220;I write what I listen to. And whatever I listen to is going to come out in my music.&#8221; In the Shadow of the Mountain was captured by famed producer Duane Lundy at his legendary studio in Lexington, Kentucky. While talking at length about the possible collaboration, Lundy spoke of his love for Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. &#8220;I know plenty of bluegrass guys that could have recorded this for me,&#8221; Chaney says. &#8220;But, I wanted to take that string band and folk sound and bring it to a rock producer, to bring that big sound out of these acoustic instruments&#8212;[Duane] was able to do that.&#8221; The album was also co-produced by guitarist Zachary Hamilton, a close friend of Chaney, who is also the brother and bandmate of rising Lexington singer-songwriter Abby Hamilton. &#8220;[Zach] has that ability to fill a room with his guitar, his voicings, and all the choices he goes for down the neck of the guitar,&#8221; Chaney says. &#8220;When Abby was opening for us, I got to sit there and watch him play every night. I knew when I was going to do another album, he needed to be involved in some capacity.&#8221; Heading into the recording sessions, Chaney brought along his band, which included Ella Webster (fiddle), Kyle Kleinman (mandolin), Joel Murtaugh (upright bass) and James Gooding (drums). Acclaimed Kentucky musician (and former bandmate) Aaron Bibelhauser also makes an appearance. With this pivot in his tone and intent compared to his 2021 debut album, Mercy, Chaney sees this current path as more in tune with what he&#8217;s not only wanted to do all along, but has slowly shifted towards in recent years amid endless touring and performing. &#8220;I was green [while recording Mercy]. I didn&#8217;t really know what I was doing,&#8221; Chaney admits. &#8220;And, by the grace of so many people around me, we were able to get some really great string band music on [that album].&#8221; &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Lynn Blakey: A Celebration of Her Life and Music</title>
                                <eventupdate>18 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/lynn-blakey-a-celebration-of-her-life-and-music/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 23 Mar 2026 02:25:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Lynn Blakey: A Celebration of Her Life and MusicFeaturing Chatham County Line, Tift Merritt, Skylar Gudasz, Caitlin Cary, Tonya Lamm, Sara Bell, John Howie Jr., Linda Hopper, Jeffrey Dean Foster, Caroline Mamoulides, Anne-Claire Cleaver, Rachel Kiel, Mary Johnson Rockers &#38; MoreBacked by an All-Star Tarheel Band:&#160;John Chumbris, Doug Davis, Wes Lachot, Will Rigby &#38; Robert Sledge Lynn Blakey, one of the most beloved singers North Carolina ever produced, died February 6. Those who knew Blakey speak of her kindness, beauty, and optimism, and the way she lit up any room she was in. All true. She was like a sun that never set, and a tireless warrior&#8212;an activist with North Carolina Music Love Army, and an unofficial advisor to friends trying to negotiate the intricacies of the Affordable Care Act. A spectacular vocalist and terrific songwriter, Blakey played in North Carolina and Athens, Ga., bands including Oh Ok (with Lynda Stipe), Let&#8217;s Active (with Mitch Easter), Holiday (with Linda Hopper), Glory Fountain (with John Chumbris), Tres Chicas (with Caitlin Cary and Tonya Lamm), and most recently, the indie-rock supergroup Salt Collective (including tracks with Mike Mills and Matthew Caws). Her Christmas shows with her husband, violinist Ecki Heins, were treasured local events as well. She was our scene&#8217;s Emmylou Harris, blessing scores of other friends&#8217; recordings with her voice for the ages. Yep Roc Records is releasing Dreams Are Lovers: A Retrospective, a collection of some of her marvelous songs, on May 29, and the concert is both a celebration of her life and a record-release performance for this release. &#8220;Anybody Lynn ever met immediately realized what a bright shining star she was,&#8221; said her Tres Chicas bandmate Lamm. &#8220;Not like a rock or movie star, but a brilliant light of kindness, happiness, and depth. A living angel. I can still hear her laugh and will hold that in my heart forever.&#8221; Blakey&#8217;s musical life began four decades ago at UNC-Greensboro, where she was a college radio deejay and avid concert-goer. When R.E.M. played Friday&#8217;s in Greensboro for the first time in 1981, she was one of perhaps 20 people in the room. Inspired, she began playing in bands herself, among them Broken Crayons and, later, Holiday with Linda Hopper. In 1983, she left school and toured with Let&#8217;s Active, eventually landing back in Chapel Hill and fronting a series of great bands over the years. &#8220;All I ever had to do was put a mic in front of her,&#8221; said Chris Stamey, who frequently recorded Blakey, &#8220;and the first take would always have magic in it. To us, she was family, even singing some of the Tres Chicas album with everyone around one mic while holding our young daughter, Julia, in her arms.&#8221; The May 30 concert will benefit Ecki Heins&#8217;s ongoing cancer treatment expenses, and sales from the Yep Roc release will benefit the NC Musicians Mental Health Alliance, a partnership between Be Good To Yourself, the SIMS Foundation, and Backline that provides grants up to $1,000 to help cover the cost of mental health care for North Carolina-based music industry professionals and their family members. Apply here: https://backline.care/case-management - excerpted from an article in INDYWEEK by David Menconi]]></description>
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                                <title>MC Chris</title>
                                <eventupdate>20 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/mc-chris-4/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[It was twenty-five years ago that most fans first came across mc chris when Adult Swim premiered September 2nd, 2001. The first album was free for download on a website most OG fans found in the credits of a random Sealab episode. After five years of working for Cartoon Network during the day and making mc chris music at night, mc took a chance, quit his job and headed out on the road. He found packed venues filled with nerdy kids who knew all the words. Twenty years later he&#8217;s still at it, playing the same venues, singing along with the same kids, who are now in their thirties. The only difference is now they&#8217;ve either brought their kids or given themselves a much-needed night off. This year mc celebrates 25 years in existence and a new Marvel inspired album, King in Black. &#160; mc chris is most widely known for his reoccurring character MC P Pants on Adult Swim&#8217;s Aqua Teen Hunger Force where he was also an animator and writer. He&#8217;s been featured in the Aqua Teen movie, the video game and most recently on a series of You Tube videos called Aqua Donk Side Pieces. He&#8217;s also starred on several Adult Swim series including The Brak Show and Sealab 2021. A pioneer of the hip hop subgenre Nerdcore, mc chris has worked with Talib Kweli, Andrew WK, and Donald Glover. His fans include the likes of Gerard Way, Post Malone and T-Pain and he was even sampled by Run the Jewels for the latest Aqua Teen movie Plantasm. He&#8217;s toured with Reggie and Full Effect, and Ninja Sex Party, performed on the Warped Tour and The Gathering of the Juggalos, appeared on a GWAR album, and even had his own Honda commercial. You truly never know where he&#8217;s going to pop up. &#160; He&#8217;s a full-time single father to his son, Tony, and lives in Los Angeles.]]></description>
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                                <title>Tank and the Bangas &#8211; The Last Balloon Tour &#8211; A Carrboro Juneteenth Celebration</title>
                                <eventupdate>20 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/tank-and-the-bangas-the-last-balloon-tour-a-carrboro-juneteenth-celebration/cats-cradle-back-yard/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[For Tank and the Bangas, music is a vessel for unbridled joy and transcendent connection&#8212;forces as integral to their essence as their wildly original sound. On their new album The Last Balloon, the New Orleans-bred outfit channel those impulses into something celebratory yet profoundly human, exploring themes of frustration, resilience, and self-realization with equal parts raw emotionality and playful exuberance. A shapeshifting collective helmed by lead singer Tarriona &#8220;Tank&#8221; Ball and multi-instrumentalist Norman Spence II, the globally beloved group completed the LP after winning a GRAMMY for 2024&#8217;s spoken-word powerhouse The Heart, The Mind, The Soul, moving from incendiary poetry to a euphoric collision of soul and hip-hop and forward-thinking R&#38;B. As the final installment in a trilogy of albums that began with 2019&#8217;s Green Balloon (a critical triumph that earned them a GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist), The Last Balloon ultimately solidifies Tank and the Bangas&#8217; legacy as one of modern music&#8217;s most steadfast voices of sublime exhilaration. Executive-produced by their frequent collaborator Austin Brown (Jamila Woods, Masego), The Last Balloon offers up a suite of songs designed to thrive in Tank and the Bangas&#8217; rapturous live set, where unified movement becomes crucial to the show itself. &#8220;We&#8217;re known for a very interactive experience, so I wanted to get the fans more involved and have even more fun with the crowd,&#8221; says Ball. &#8220;There&#8217;s lots of gang vocals, handclaps, all these intentional moments to let everyone know, &#8216;This is my part, but your part&#8217;s coming up next&#8212;so get ready.&#8217;&#8221; A highly collaborative band whose past work has featured luminaries like Big Freedia, Questlove, and Jill Scott, Tank and the Bangas created The Last Balloon with the help of Iman Omari (a multifaceted musician who&#8217;s worked with Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller), pianist/producer Tane Runo (Brittany Howard, JID), esteemed soul singers Ledisi and Jelly Joseph, and many more. The result: a party-ready extravaganza that provides both ecstatic catharsis and communal elevation. &#160; Mainly recorded at The Complex Studios (an iconic L.A. spot once home to Earth, Wind &#38; Fire), The Last Balloon unfolds in a loosely woven storyline charting a journey from self-doubt and erasure to empowered self-reclamation. On &#8220;Ain&#8217;t That Deep,&#8221; Tank and the Bangas deliver a defiant refusal to let negativity penetrate their world, setting Ball&#8217;s larger-than-life vocals against a potent backdrop of hypnotic beats and velvety horns. Sprung from a punchy piano riff spontaneously composed by Spence, &#8220;No Invite&#8221; arrives as a fantastically explosive takedown of industry gatekeeping and shameless clout-chasing. &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of parties and award ceremonies we don&#8217;t get invited to, even though we do a lot for our community and should really be welcomed into those spaces,&#8221; explains Ball, who conceptualized &#8220;No Invite&#8221; as a rock-trap track. Next, on &#8220;Move,&#8221; two-time GRAMMY-winning R&#38;B phenomenon Lucky Daye joins in for a pleading but powerful anthem lit up in lush grooves and jangly guitar tones. &#8220;I wrote that song about wanting my partner at the time to move to New Orleans to be closer to me, but you could interpret it as motivation to get moving in general,&#8221; says Ball. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been around people who let Monday go into Friday real quick, so &#8216;Move&#8217; could be a way of telling yourself, &#8216;Let me get up, get my body moving, start making things happen for myself before it&#8217;s too late.&#8217;&#8221;]]></description>
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                                <title>2nd Annual Study Hall Music Fest</title>
                                <eventupdate>21 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/2nd-annual-study-hall-music-fest/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:55:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[EIGHT standout UNC bands playing on multiple stages. &#160; Bands:JuniperBill Moore (and his Secret Admirers)Davie CircleThe Carolina JunebugsRed KanooHorizonThe Band PollenThe Wallabies+ MC Spencer Whittman &#160; with solo performances from: Asby Lynn Ebina SILKIE Wes Coatney &#160; Sounds From DJ Red Belt]]></description>
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                                <title>Larry.</title>
                                <eventupdate>22 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/larry-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 18 Mar 2026 22:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Larry. &#160; On their new album Changing Size, produced by Casey Proctor of Verity Den, the Durham, NC band Larry. (@larry.theband) blends immersive atmospheric effects, distorted guitars, driving complex rhythms and cutting vocals. &#160; From slower reverb-soaked ballads to fast-paced pop-influenced diss tracks, the band weaves across tempos and style influences, bringing together straightforward, fuzz-laden indie rock and layered dreamlike bubblegaze. &#160; Songwriter Emma Bouck delivers hyperbolic and bratty lyrics that sneak vulnerability and heartbreak into undeniably infectious melodies. &#160; At a Larry show, only two things are certain - Larry is everyone, and we are all Larry. Bandcamp &#183; Instagram &#160; Jupiter 2 &#160; Jupiter 2 is the collaboration of Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based multi-instrumentalists Nicholas Cirone and Ian Campbell. The duo weaves their discography into hazy, starry-eyed, and hypnotic live performances - balancing an inclination toward sweet, psychedelic pop melodies and jangly guitars with thumping drum machines and blissed out layers of synthesizers, noise, and samples fit for a DJ mix. &#160; &#160; dreamscent &#160; dreamscent is a band from Raleigh that blurs shoegaze with indie rock. &#160; FFO: Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, Ringo Deathstarr, Wishy]]></description>
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                                <title>of Montreal</title>
                                <eventupdate>23 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/of-montreal-5/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Led by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Barnes, of Montreal have spent nearly three decades redefining pop, with their kaleidoscopic blend of glam rock, psychedelia, funk, and synth-driven indie rock. Emerging from the Elephant 6 Recording Company in the late &#8217;90s, the band quickly built a cult following for their inventive songwriting and wildly theatrical live performances.&#160;From the breakthrough brilliance of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? to a steady run of boundary-pushing releases, of Montreal have remained fearless sonic shapeshifters&#8212;equally at home crafting hook-laden anthems as they are exploring surreal, experimental textures. The band's prolific output has led to numerous late-night TV appearances&#8212;including The Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon&#8212;and brilliant collaborations with artists such as Solange, Janelle Mon&#225;e, and Jon Brion.&#160;On stage, they transform concerts into immersive spectacles of color, costume, and cathartic energy. The band has performed across the globe, gracing festival stages at Coachella, Primavera, &#160;Lollapalooza, Vive Latino among dozens of others and headlining countless marquee venues, while also amassing hundreds of millions of streams worldwide. With a new tour on the horizon, of Montreal continue to celebrate their legacy while pushing boldly forward&#8212;delivering a live experience that is as unpredictable and electrifying as ever. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>An evening with Lucinda Williams and her band</title>
                                <eventupdate>23 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/an-evening-with-lucinda-williams-and-her-band/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[&#8220;My dad, as a poet, always told me to never censor myself &#8211; that&#8217;s one of his cardinal rules of creative writing,&#8221; says multiple-Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams. &#8220;That became my motto which I&#8217;ve stuck by all these years.&#8221; Miller Williams&#8217; advice clearly is born out on Lucinda&#8217;s powerful eighteenth studio album, the provocative World&#8217;s Gone Wrong. &#8220;I felt a sense of urgency in making this record,&#8221; she adds. Filled with gut-wrenching topical songs, the album&#8217;s ten tracks were written and recorded in a blast of collaborative creativity as Lucinda and her cowriters &#8211; primarily husband/manager/co-producer Tom Overby and guitarist Doug Pettibone &#8211; grappled with events transpiring during the spring of 2025. A whole other album had been in the works, but that &#8220;urgency&#8221; to address our current cataclysmic situation motivated Lucinda and company to cut World&#8217;s Gone Wrong in direct response. &#8220;Music is a powerful weapon,&#8221; she points out. &#8220;I want this record to make people aware, wake them up. I like to push people&#8217;s buttons.&#8221; Lucinda, Pettibone, and Overby returned to co-producer Ray Kennedy&#8217;s Room &#38; Board Studio in Nashville to cut the tracks with her newly configured band: guitarist Marc Ford (Black Crowes), drummer Brady Blade (Emmylou Harris), and her longtime bassist David Sutton. On the gripping title track, they&#8217;re joined by guest vocalist Brittney Spencer and keyboardist Rob Burger on Hammond B3. Its title inspired by the 1931 Mississippi Sheiks song (repurposed by Dylan in &#8217;93), the lyrics give voice to the lives of baffled everyday Americans: a nurse and a car salesman &#8220;workin&#8217; long hours&#8221; and &#8220;lookin&#8217; for comfort in a song.&#8221; Throughout the album, Lucinda is at her most direct, not mincing words via those distinctive, one-of-a-kind vocals. The ominous &#8220;Something&#8217;s Gotta Give&#8221; (also featuring Spencer) is punctuated by Pettibone&#8217;s and Ford&#8217;s fiery two-guitar interplay &#8211; a clarion call that &#8220;evil has come to play/you can feel it everywhere.&#8221; On the country-blues &#8220;Lowlife,&#8221; Mickey Raphael&#8217;s dulcet harmonica livens up this ode to a juke joint where weary souls find relief. Lucinda and her band played the song onstage with Raphael during Willie Nelson&#8217;s Outlaw Fest, and &#8220;audiences really responded to that one,&#8221; Lucinda recalls. After their August 2 tour stop in Saratoga Springs, they reconvened with Raphael at New York&#8217;s iconic Electric Lady Studio to cut the vibrant track. The blues-rockin&#8217; &#8220;Sing Unburied Sing,&#8221; inspired by Jesmyn Ward&#8217;s 2017 award-winning novel of a haunted South, offers soaring background vocals by Maureen Murphy and Siobhan Kennedy. A gutbucket blues, &#8220;Black Tears&#8221; features Reese Wynans&#8217; Hammond B3 accenting a down-and-dirty dual guitar attack. Accompanied by a serpentine slide guitar, &#8220;Punchline&#8221; eviscerates &#8220;false gods and deceivers/playin&#8217; on our deepest fears&#8221; and &#8220;people being taught to hate.&#8221; Personifying the voice of liberty itself, in &#8220;Freedom Speaks&#8221; Lucinda reminds us that &#8220;apathy will blind you,&#8221; urging us to &#8220;stand up and fight.&#8221; The punk-blues &#8220;How Much Did You Get for Your Soul?&#8221; is a sequel of sorts to the piercing &#8220;Man Without a Soul,&#8221; from Lucinda&#8217;s critically acclaimed Good Souls Better Angels (2020). Backed by Murphy&#8217;s churchy vocals, Lucinda paraphrases biblical scripture, delivering a bit of fire-and-brimstone that&#8217;s sorely needed. &#160; Website]]></description>
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                                <title>Setting</title>
                                <eventupdate>24 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/setting-3/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 21:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The North Carolina Piedmont-based trio of Setting bring together their substantial collective skills as musicians and their collaborative, explorative mindsets from groups such as Mind Over Mirrors, Califone, Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, Peeesseye, Sylvan Esso, and Jake Xerxes Fussell to bear in their inventive and rich improvisations. Multi- instrumentalists Jaime Fennelly, Nathan Bowles and Joe [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Dua Saleh</title>
                                <eventupdate>24 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/dua-saleh-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[LA-based Sudanese-American artist Dua Saleh continues their ascent with Of Earth &#38; Wires, a resolutely warm, spiritual, and frenetic follow-up exploring notions of home, humanity, and renewal. Executive produced by Billy Lemos (SZA, Paris Texas, Tinashe), the album features contributions from Bon Iver, aja monet, Gaidaa, and others. Saleh threads and deconstructs indie, R&#38;B, and electronic pop with flashes of Sudanese folk, UK dance, and baile funk, sounds intrinsic to their story, all held together by ambitious, future-facing production and clear-eyed lyricism. Saleh&#8217;s soulful, gritty, shape-shifting style has found fans from The New York Times to NME, alongside their breakout role in the Netflix series Sex Education, making 2024's Ghostly International debut, I SHOULD CALL THEM, a proper arrival. The highly anticipated Of Earth &#38; Wires responds to the moment as both a watershed in their career and an urgent dialogue with struggles faced on a universal level. Beyond mythological references and planetary narratives, with their strongest, most immediate material to date, Saleh makes the case for love above progress and greed, for divine beauty and the enduring flame of the human spirit.]]></description>
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                                <title>Dex Fest Night One</title>
                                <eventupdate>24 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/dex-fest-night-one/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The second year of the music festival for musicians and the music-obsessed, celebrating the legacy of Dexter Romweber, a musical legend of Carrboro. The festival centers artists who have that wildfire stage presence, the passion and dedication that consumes them and ensures they must create, must perform, must share their visions. An intentionally connective experience brought to you by a team of all-female, townie music freaks. + There will be additional Dex Fest events at Local 506, The Cave, and Lapin Bleu. &#160; Lineup coming soon. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Dex Fest Night Two</title>
                                <eventupdate>24 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/dex-fest-night-two/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The second year of the music festival for musicians and the music-obsessed, celebrating the legacy of Dexter Romweber, a musical legend of Carrboro. The festival centers artists who have that wildfire stage presence, the passion and dedication that consumes them and ensures they must create, must perform, must share their visions. An intentionally connective experience brought to you by a team of all-female, townie music freaks. + There will be additional Dex Fest events at Local 506, The Cave, and Lapin Bleu. &#160; Lineup coming soon. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Deer Tick</title>
                                <eventupdate>30 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/deer-tick/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The ninth studio album from Deer Tick, Coin-O-Matic casts a bright light on a little-known facet of the American mythos: the hidden histories of the band’s home state of Rhode Island, where the everyday dramas of working-class families long collided with the menace of the mafia underworld. As they tapped into their infinite fascination with [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Rostam &#8211; American Stories</title>
                                <eventupdate>30 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/rostam-american-stories/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Rostam is a GRAMMY&#174; Award-winning songwriter, producer, and composer. One of the founding members of Vampire Weekend and producer of their first three albums, he has been described as one of the great pop and indie-rock producers of his generation, having produced for some of the most important artists of the last decade including Frank Ocean, Clairo, Charli XCX, Maggie Rogers, HAIM, Solange, Lykke Li, Santigold, Carly Rae Jepsen, Hamilton Leithauser, and many others. In recent years, he has maintained an astonishingly varied and intensely busy career, releasing two critically acclaimed solo albums&#8212;2017&#8217;s Half-Light and 2020&#8217;s Changephobia&#8212;while also producing records for HAIM (2020&#8217;s Women in Music Pt. III, nominated for Album of the Year at the 63rd GRAMMY&#174; Awards, and 2025&#8217;s I quit, nominated for Best Rock Album at the 68th GRAMMY&#174; Awards), Clairo (2019&#8217;s Immunity), Vagabon (2023&#8217;s Sorry I Haven&#8217;t Called), Leith Ross (2025&#8217;s I Can See the Future), and Georgia (2023&#8217;s Euphoric), as well as composing for film and television, including 2016&#8217;s The OA and 2023&#8217;s The Persian Version. This year, Rostam released his original version of Vampire Weekend&#8217;s beloved single &#8220;Campus.&#8221; His third studio album American Stories arrives on May 15. The album&#8217;s first single &#8220;Like a Spark&#8221; is out now.]]></description>
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                                <title>Robyn Hitchcock “Live And Electric &#8211; Full Band Shows”</title>
                                <eventupdate>30 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/robyn-hitchcock-live-and-electric-full-band-shows/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[With a career now spanning six decades, Robyn Hitchcock remains a truly one-of-a-kind artist &#8211; surrealist rock &#8216;n&#8217; roller, iconic troubadour, guitarist, poet, painter, and performer. An unparalleled, deeply individualistic songwriter and stylist, Hitchcock has traversed many genres with humor, intelligence and originality over 30 albums and seemingly infinite live performances. &#160; From The Soft Boys&#8217; proto-psych-punk and The Egyptians&#8217; Dadaist pop to solo masterpieces like 1984&#8217;s milestone I Often Dream of Trains and 1990&#8217;s Eye, Hitchcock has crafted a strikingly original oeuvre rife with sagacious observation, astringent wit, recurring marine life, mechanized rail services, cheese, Clint Eastwood, and innumerable finely drawn characters, real and imagined. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Bandsintown&#160;&#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Dylan LeBlanc</title>
                                <eventupdate>30 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/dylan-leblanc/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Dylan LeBlanc is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who often finds himself flirting with the edge &#8212; or &#8220;dancing on a razor,&#8221; as he calls it &#8212; as it is all he has ever known. A verdict vagabond since he was a little boy tossed between Texas, Louisiana and Alabama, LeBlanc thrives on the precipice, never staying in one place for too long. It is that nomadic spirit that drew him not only to a life as a touring musician, but also to the beast that titles his newest record: &#8216;Coyote.&#8217;LeBlanc says he has always related to the insatiable, scavenging nature of the wily coyote. Much like the animal, LeBlanc is a wanderer who knows when to trust his instincts, musically and otherwise. It is a spiritual kinship that runs deep, but he credits one particularly hair-raising face-to-face instance with solidifying his bond with the animal. LeBlanc was in Austin, Texas, climbing the face of a 100-foot cliff, gambling with Mother Nature&#8217;s good graces as he pulled himself up by tree branches. Once he reached the top, all that laid ahead of him was a lush treeline. There was a breath of stillness, then the sound of a thunderous rustling that drew closer and closer to him. In a blink, LeBlanc watched as a frenzied raccoon came speeding out of the treeline, trailed by an animal that stopped and stared at him with striking intensity: a coyote. &#8220;We&#8217;re looking at each other dead in the eyes&#8230;and I&#8217;m saying &#8212; out loud &#8212; &#8216;If it&#8217;s you or me, I am going to kick you off the side of this cliff. I&#8217;m not going down.&#8217; It was intense, this human-animal moment,&#8221; LeBlanc recalls. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never forgotten that&#8230; he was just trying to survive and so was I.&#8221; &#8216;Coyote&#8217; is LeBlanc&#8217;s first self-produced release, boasting a cherry-picked lineup of what he calls &#8220;killer session players,&#8221; such as drummer Fred Eltringham (Ringo Starr, Sheryl Crow), pianist Jim &#8220;Moose&#8221; Brown (Bob Seger), and bass player Seth Kaufman (Lana Del Rey). Though &#8216;Coyote&#8217; covers familiar ground for LeBlanc of living on the edge of danger and its many consequences, the record is both autobiographical and a concept album built around the character of Coyote, a man on the run. The story of &#8216;Coyote&#8217; progresses linearly, opening with the dizzyingly declarative, strings-heavy title track which details Coyote&#8217;s arrival and quick departure as he crosses the border and gets involved with drug cartels. The trouble builds and dark waters rise until track six, &#8220;No Promises Broken,&#8221; a soaring, against-all-odds love song that marks when Coyote meets a girl, and his luck begins to change for the better. The song tells of how love heals, and places emphasis on lovers remaining open while maintaining their own freedoms, as LeBlanc believes that true devotion does not equal possession. He says that though both Coyote and his love each faced adversity, the hand of destiny put them on the same path and bound them together before they ever met: &#8220;&#8216;No Promises Broken&#8217; is an honest love song about two people who come from the same troubled past, and fate intertwines them together. It&#8217;s about acknowledging that there will be hard times ahead, but vowing to stick it out without making promises to each other that they know they can&#8217;t keep.&#8221; &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Caleb Caudle &amp; The Sweet Critters</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/caleb-caudle-the-sweet-critters/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Caleb Caudle&#8217;s body of work is shaped from the ground up. His artistry has emerged through endurance and the steady momentum of a life in motion, carrying him from small stages in the North Carolina foothills he calls home, all the way to the Grand Ole Opry. &#160;&#160;Now, Caudle is entering a pivotal chapter &#8211; one of a profound culmination where life and art converge in powerful ways. The recent discovery that he and his wife are going to be first-time parents has added a new perspective, full of the responsibility and wonder that welcoming a child into the world brings.&#160;On his new album, Heavy Thrill, this personal evolution mirrors his artistic journey. He takes full creative control, self-producing for the first time while recording at the storied Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, Tenn., where reverence for tradition meets his singular artistic vision.&#160;&#8220;For this record, I wanted to focus on embracing the patina of life,&#8221; says Caudle. &#8220;Our plans rarely shake out the way we want them to. This record is about doing the most with what you&#8217;re given and weathering the storms.&#8221;&#160;With the release of this album, Caudle is also launching his own label, aptly named &#8220;Handplow Records,&#8221; for the steel handplow painted a rusty red that sits in his great uncle&#8217;s yard, across the street from his home.&#160;The humble tool was used for generations of tobacco farming in Caudle&#8217;s family, its wooden handles worn smooth by years of use stretching back to his great-grandfather. It represents the toil and dedication it takes to do things the hard way &#8212; &#160;and the sweetness that can yield.&#160;&#8220;Much like farming, my career has been about putting in the work,&#8221; Caudle says. &#8220;You can&#8217;t always control the weather, but you can show up every day and give it your best.&#8221; His ascent has been gradual and steadfast, guided by experience rather than spectacle. The sound reflects where he comes from: the rich country traditions he was immersed in as a child, blended seamlessly with the indie music he grew up hearing on the radio. The result feels rooted yet restless &#8212; aware of its lineage but unafraid to wander.The 10-track album captures life as it leaves its mark, embracing patience and quiet perseverance, as embodied in &#8220;Slow Growth&#8221; whose lyrics tell the story of the constant gardener, waking up each day and finding the ways to become a better version of yourself.&#8220;The Ballad of Country Ham&#8221; reckons with the cost of chasing dreams and the aftermath when they slip away, while songs like &#8220;Anxious&#8221; turn inward, grappling with the dissonance of staying empathetic in a world that seems to have forgotten what the word means. Caudle extends compassion toward flawed, deeply human lives&#8212;whether it&#8217;s the ethical gray spaces of survival in &#8220;Fox Got the Chicken&#8221; or the quiet resilience of a toll booth worker hanging on in &#8220;Toll Booth,&#8221; penned alongside two-time Grammy winner Natalie Hemby.Together, these songs unfold as intimate portraits of individuals, moments, and moral crossroads, stitched together by empathy and hard-won self-awareness. At its heart, the record searches for meaning without certainty, dignity without recognition, and a hope that exists honestly within a fractured world. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Andy Hull</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/andy-hull-2/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Andy Hull is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer, best known as the lead singer for the acclaimed Atlanta-based band, Manchester Orchestra. Over the past two decades, they&#8217;ve ascended beyond their Atlanta, GA, origins to national TV performances, playing main stages at major festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, and reaching #1 at commercial AAA radio and the Alternative radio Top 15 (&#8220;The Gold&#8221; from 2017&#8217;s A Black Mile To The Surface). The sweeping and cinematic nature of the band&#8217;s consistently impressive catalog&#8212;inspired in part by Hull and producing partner Robert McDowell&#8217;s experience scoring movies, including 2016&#8217;s Swiss Army Man and 2019&#8217;s The Death Of Dick Long&#8212;has continually been synced across film, TV, and commercial campaigns. The band&#8217;s critically acclaimed sixth album, The Million Masks of God, debuted in 2021 on various Billboard charts with first-week sales, including at #1 on Alternative and Vinyl charts, and at #3 on the Top Current Album Sales and Top Rock Albums charts. It featured the Top 2 AAA and Top 20 Alternative radio hit &#8220;Bed Head,&#8221; which has been lauded as &#8220;an epic fit for sold-out venues&#8221; (Consequence). As a songwriter and producer, Hull has worked with artists including Logic, Paris Jackson, Briston Maroney, and Foxing. Beyond Manchester Orchestra, Hull's signature voice can also be heard across his solo project, fan favorite, Right Away, Great Captain!, and his collaboration with McDowell and Kevin Devine, Bad Books. &#160; Instagram &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Leanna Firestone</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/leanna-firestone/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Leanna Firestone is an impressive artist and talented musician from Nashville, Tennessee. While attending Recording Industry school, Leanna entered the professional world of songwriting by fusing her writing with the community of anime stans she found when she first joined TikTok. Ultimately, this led to a short snippet of what would become her first release, &#8220;Strawberry Mentos&#8221; which reached 5M streams. Then, in 2021, her next track &#8220;Least Favorite Only Child&#8221; reached 4M streams, while her EP Y/N peaked at #8 on the US singer-songwriter iTunes Charts. One of her songs was also featured during an episode of Love Island UK. In early 2022, she released her first full album Forward / Slash, featuring &#8220;Diet Coke&#8221;, &#8220;Gambling Addiction&#8221; and &#8220;Smitten.&#8221; Currently, Leanna is signed to Frtyfve Records out of London. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify &#183; TikTok &#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Bayside</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/bayside-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[For the past 25 years, Queens-based Bayside has represented a lifestyle, a counterculture, and a deeply-held commitment to integrity and earnestness. At their core, Bayside is a band that has constantly proven that music is not about gimmicks and ephemeral trends, but a timeless reflection of our life and our times. It is through this authentic expression and creative spirit that the band has amassed a cult-following that lives and breathes everything the band creates.&#160;It&#8217;s a spirit that permeates an impressive and storied discography, including Sirens and Condolences (2004), Bayside (2005), The Walking Wounded (2007) and Shudder (2008). Covering the &#8220;Victory Records Years,&#8221; Bayside grew their reputation as road warriors with their impressive amount of touring. From basements to clubs to Warped Tour, the band led melodious sing-alongs everywhere they went, with fans flocking to Anthony Raneri&#8217;s personal, yet universal lyrics and story-telling. Fan favorites like &#8220;Devotion and Desire&#8221; and &#8220;Duality&#8221; continue to be staples in the bands&#8217; live show.&#160;While the band held strong to their punk roots, what set them apart from their peers was their musicianship. Diverse in thought and background, but united in a shared desire for authentic expression and immense musical talent, Bayside continues to push the boundaries of what a Bayside song could be. In the second half of their legendary career, covering the &#8220;Wind-Up and Hopeless Records Years,&#8221; Bayside embraced the heavier and grittier side of themselves, while keeping the anthemic choruses of the earlier years. With Killing Time (2011), Cult (2014), Vacancy (2016), Interrobang (2019), and There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive (2024), the band focused on creating songs that are relevant to people who want substance, rather than being relegated to one genre. In 2023, the band even collaborated with Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills on their rock anthem, &#8220;How To Ruin Everything (Patience)&#8221; - their first song charting at Sirius XM Octane.&#160;Having toured the world multiple times over, sold thousands of albums, and amassed millions of streams, Bayside has achieved a lot in their storied career. And while many bands would coast on their past success, Bayside has always rejected that premise and continues to prove time and again that the best is yet to come. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube &#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Bixby</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/bixby/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Bixby is a Los Angeles&#8211;based singer, songwriter, and producer blending shimmering alt-pop, soaring falsettos, and emotionally charged hooks. His breakout single endlessly caught the attention of Dylan Brady of 100 gecs, leading to the release of his 2023 EP are you sleeping alone again?&#8212;a collection of sticky alt-pop anthems and intimate ballads&#8212;on Brady&#8217;s Atlantic Records imprint Dog Show. In 2024, Bixby released Distance, a euphoric summer track with a Power Rangers&#8211;inspired music video. The song became his fastest-growing release, topping a million streams in its first month and reaching #34 on Japan&#8217;s Shazam chart. He followed up with Desire (produced by Dylan Brady) and Darling He Lied (featuring Starfall)&#8212;a viral breakup ballad that sparked tens of thousands of TikTok videos across Southeast Asia. Following a pair of elevated R&#38;B bangers with longtime collaborator Joshwa (whyy, you know) in 2025, Bixby began rolling out his most fully realized music yet. After crushing his debut performance at 88rising&#8217;s Head in the Clouds and a tour in Asia, Bixby released Feel It On in early 2026&#8212;the first single off his long-awaited debut album. He will embark on a headline North American tour in Summer 2026. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>John R. Miller</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/john-r-miller-3/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2026 17:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[John R Miller is a true hyphenate artist: singer-songwriter-picker. Born in the Washington, DC area and raised in West Virginia, Miller has built a reputation as a thoughtful, boundary-pushing voice in alt-country and Americana, drawing from punk, traditional Appalachian music, and less conventional rock influences. Every song on his thrilling debut solo album, Depreciated, is [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Greg Mendez</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/greg-mendez/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Greg Mendez has always been an economical songwriter &#8211; he wields restraint and simplicity as tools, the core of his songs sharpened into simple, cutting truths. On Beauty Land, his new album and debut LP for Dead Oceans, we&#8217;re guided by a wry but forgiving narrator, an underdog who has learned to balance cynicism and faith. These songs are self-effacing without self-pity, carefully constructed altars of imperfection channeled through pop melodies, shimmering but urgent guitars, and a voice that reaches for choir boy innocence.The bulk of Beauty Land was recorded directly to tape, almost entirely alone in Mendez&#8217;s makeshift home studio in Philadelphia - a small room with no natural light. It&#8217;s his first full length since his unexpected self-titled breakthrough in 2023, which was a slow burn success following 15 years of writing and recording music in relative obscurity between Philly and New York. Beauty Land picks up where we left off three years ago &#8211; plumbing the depths of grief, love, and addiction &#8211; but its intense, quiet clarity shows Mendez at his songwriting best.Parts of Beauty Land feel like a lucid dream, dented characters carve their way through a world that&#8217;s cartoonish and warped &#8211; the broken-clock march of &#8220;I Wanna Feel Pretty,&#8221; the chiming toy piano on &#8220;Gentle Love.&#8221; &#8220;Mary / Dreaming&#8221; begins as a sparse, finger-picked lament before cutting abruptly to a deflated, Beach-Boys-but-make-it-fucked-up resolution that brings both melancholy and joy; a sense that all things can be true at once. None of the 14 tracks here break three minutes, but they tell stories that span lifetimes.Death floats through the record, whether it appears as a memory or a threat. Everything feels precarious. There&#8217;s a fragility to how these songs are built: the way the funeral organ hits alongside the morphine on &#8220;Looking Out Your Window,&#8221; the devastating simplicity of &#8220;Frog,&#8221; with its slowed-down keyboard and bare refrain: &#8220;Please forgive me for my faults.&#8221; Beauty Land feels, at times, impossibly lonely. Which makes it really count when it doesn&#8217;t &#8211; like when Mendez sings in harmony with his wife and bandmate, Veronica near the end of &#8220;So Mean&#8221; and it feels like a cherished reunion, a fleeting moment of redemption, a temporary parting of the seas. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; Bandcamp]]></description>
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                                <title>Joan Shelley</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/joan-shelley/the-artscenter/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Joan Shelley is a songwriter and singer who draws inspiration from traditional and traditionally-minded performers from her native Kentucky, as well as those from Ireland, Scotland, and England, but she&#8217;s not a folksinger. Her disposition aligns more closely with that of, say, Roger Miller, Dolly Parton, or Tom T. Hall, who once explained&#8212;simply, succinctly, in a song&#8212;&#8220;I Witness Life.&#8221; Her 7th album Real Warmth was released in September. It was recorded in Toronto with producer Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station), and the 13-tracks feature many guests from the city's fertile music scene. &#160; Instagram &#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Haute &amp; Freddy&#8217;s Big Disgrace Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/haute-freddys-big-disgrace-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Haute &#38; Freddy is the dazzling brainchild of Michelle Buzz and Lance Shipp. The duo released their first single &#8220;Scantily Clad,&#8221; sparking a devoted fanbase. The song has landed them on Spotify playlists *Lorem*, *Obsessed*, and the cover of *Fresh Finds*, paving the way for their second single &#8220;Anti-Superstar,&#8221; which has also been embraced with equal support and looks on multiple Spotify playlists, leading to them being named on Spotify&#8217;s Artists To Watch for 2026. Their third single &#8220;Shy Girl&#8221; is currently their most streamed track and has been licensed five times over for film &#38; TV projects. Fast forward to now, and the comment sections are buzzing with fans speaking in Ren Faire lingo, while their shows are filled with attendees crafting their own jester hats, as a mime clown joyfully twists balloon crowns for the rest of the Royal Court&#8212;aka H&#38;F&#8217;s loyal followers. With their debut album on the horizon and their sold-out Mini Grand Tour under their belt, Haute &#38; Freddy&#8217;s momentum is picking up speed. Fans devoured the recently released videos for &#8220;Shy Girl,&#8221; &#8220;Sophie,&#8221; and &#8220;Freaks.&#8221; More festivals and tour dates are in the works for 2026 when the album drops. Their latest single is a new anthem, &#8220;Dance The Pain Away,&#8221; out now, with their debut album *Big Disgrace* coming out via Atlantic Records on March 13th. Their love for theater, obscure synths, and underground club culture runs deep, infusing every track with an audacious energy. The duo moves through their music like runaway carnies, crashing through the veneer of polite society with all the flair of an 18th-century escapade. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Carrboro Bluegrass Festival Presents Bluegrass In The Backroom</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/carrboro-bluegrass-festival-presents-bluegrass-in-the-backroom-4/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2026 20:35:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show.]]></description>
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                                <title>Andrew Duhon</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/andrew-duhon-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. &#160; There&#8217;s a mystical allure to the road. Innately literal and figurative, it is both the blacktop and the connective tissue between people, places, and cultures. The opportunity to venture beyond what&#8217;s known and comfortable into what&#8217;s possible. A rugged romanticism of packing up a standard issue Chevy Express tour van with instruments, scuffed amps, overflowing merch boxes, and a trio of musicians setting sail to share Duhon's songs with anyone who will listen. For a young Andrew Duhon, the road was the connection from &#8220;No Man&#8217;s Land&#8221; to the &#8220;Promised Land.&#8221; A chance to truly connect with former strangers through song. To feel equal kinship with the good ol&#8217; boys in Beaumont, TX and the hippies and artists in Bellingham, WA. But with that comes a weight. Duhon has a knack for telling the kind of stories that clearly cost the writer something to tell, the kind of honesty that feels noble and never half hearted. Entertaining? Sure, but when a song written by a stranger heals you, even in the smallest way, that's a connection beyond entertainment, and that is the journey Andrew Duhon sets out on from his home in Louisiana. &#160;His songs are about recognizing our story as much as they are about telling his, and his coast to coast pursuits have given him a clearer view of the American Landscape than most are privy to.&#160;But after years of voyaging off to every corner of the country, a new sensation arises with each return to New Orleans. The fondness for home returns and, for the moment, forgives the potholes and the incompetence of local politics to focus on those familiar sights, sounds, and singular culture of Louisiana from the old European feeling of The French Quarter to the rural cane fields of Cajun country where his father&#8217;s side resides, now noticing the changes after every stretch of time spent away. And from that familiar return comes The Parish Record, a snapshot of life venturing from and returning to one of America&#8217;s purest cultural vignettes, and the beauty, conflict, and stories that come with it.The Parish Record was recorded at Dockside Studios in Maurice, LA, where deep in Cajun country sits a wood-panel barn engulfed in oak and cypress trees along the slow butterscotch bayou pace of the Vermillion River. In this isolated hub of Acadiana, Andrew Duhon embarked with his trio of most trusted musicians &#8211; Myles Weeks (James Hunter Six, Eric Lindell) on Bass, Jim Kolacek (Feufollet) on Drums, and Daniel Walker (Heart, Ann Wilson, Amy Ray) on Keys &#8211; to harness of the sound and feeling of their surroundings. Justin Tockett, the house engineer at Dockside is also, as Duhon claims, his secret weapon. &#160;From Duhon, &#8220;Justin&#8217;s production is the most underrated thing in the room, and his spirit is peaceful and literally at home at that studio. &#160;There&#8217;s a cat on his lap most of the time he&#8217;s mixing. I mean, come on... &#160;That&#8217;s the feeling I wanted to feel when making this record from what felt like home to me. It wasn&#8217;t time to hit Nashville or try out something new on this one. &#160;It was about believing in the songs from where the songs came from.&#8221; &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>The Dear Hunter &#8211; The Road to Sunya Tour 2026</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-dear-hunter-the-road-to-sunya-tour-2026/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Tommy Newport</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/tommy-newport/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Tommy Newport is a British-American singer crafting infectious, falsetto-laced indie anthems that blur eras and borders. Blending psych-pop shimmer, sun-soaked soul, and off-kilter cool, Newport has built a global following around his elastic melodies and unmistakable voice. &#160; He stepped fully into his own with his latest album Mister Domino, a bold, technicolor statement released on the heels of his debut at Lollapalooza. Featuring the fan-favorite single &#8220;Tangerine&#8221;, the project captures Newport at his most expansive, balancing playful experimentation with razor-sharp songwriting. His recent singles "Nancy Dancing" and "Risky Business" signal the sound of an artist moving effortlessly with intention into his next chapter. &#160; A magnetic live performer, Newport has toured extensively across North America and Europe and appeared on two platinum-certified releases: &#8220;Red Sky&#8221; from 21 Savage&#8217;s American Dream, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and &#8220;Comes &#38; Goes&#8221; from BigXthaPlug&#8217;s Take Care. He has also collaborated with Grammy-nominated duo EARTHGANG and rising indie star Baby Nova. &#160; Newport&#8217;s work has earned acclaim from The FADER, Complex, Hypebeast, Highsnobiety, Pigeons &#38; Planes, PAPER, Lyrical Lemonade, and COLORS, with support from Zane Lowe, Elton John, and Gilles Peterson. &#160; Spotify &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Die Spitz</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/die-spitz-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 24 Feb 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[When the Venn diagram of passion, friendship, identity, and artistry collide, it can feel as if fighting words are spitting from your veins. And as postmodern society crumbles, Die Spitz giddily bounce between a dozen different ways to push back. If the world of rock music were an ice cream shop, the Austin quartet have sampled each flavor, flipped the freezer over, and started dancing with the employees they helped unionize. On their debut album, Something to Consume (due Sept 12 via Third Man Records), Ava Schrobilgen, Chloe De St. Aubin, Eleanor Livingston, and Kate Halter fight against the inescapable consumption that surrounds life. &#8220;There&#8217;s a political side to it, but addiction and love can also be all-consuming,&#8221; Livingston says. And as the foursome trade off instruments, swapping songwriting and vocal duties, and generating powerful songwriting in concussive bursts, Die Spitz have created their own little pocket of the world where we can all stand on the edge together. That unity comes in part from the deep bonds between the 22-year-olds. All four are Austin natives, with Schrobilgen and Livingston having met in preschool, befriending Halter in middle school, and immediately bringing De St. Aubin into their inner circle when they formed the band in 2022. Though they&#8217;ve only been playing together a few years (not to mention Halter only learning to play bass to start the band), Something to Consume shows a maturity and technical prowess always wielded in service of their profound friendship. The group settled on the name Die Spitz over a &#8220;brown bag of Fireball,&#8221; opting for the feminine German definite article in place of the English. &#8220;It reminds me of the Grim Reaper spitting,&#8221; Livingston jokes. At their first live shows, they paired originals with covers from some of their inspirations: Black Sabbath, Pixies, Mudhoney, PJ Harvey, and Nirvana. The beguiling &#8220;Pop Punk Anthem&#8221; somehow encapsulates elements throughout that large musical swath, building from roiling verses to a growled chorus. &#8220;It may sound like a love song at first, but when the beat kicks in it&#8217;s the obsession that takes over,&#8221; Schrobilgen says. &#8220;The words &#8216;you&#8217;re a part of me&#8217; sound loving but it can be an insane emotion and privilege over someone else&#8217;s life.&#8221; As if their closeness as a band weren&#8217;t enough, the members of Die Spitz have also intermittently been roommates and still live near each other. &#8220;We call it sitcom life,&#8221; Livingston laughs. That said, the Die Spitz TV show would have a significantly different soundtrack to your usual sitcom fare. The Austinites express their ideas through a blend of classic punk, hardcore, metal, alt rock and more. The group have become known for their riotous live shows, where dueling cartwheels, Halter playing bass mid-crowdsurf, Schrobilgen unleashing a growling bark, and Livingston posing with the microphone on top of the venue&#8217;s bar or climbing into the rafters could happen at any moment. Pairing their mind-melting gigs with even more impressive songs has led to stints opening for (and rivaling the energy of) bands like OFF!, Amyl and the Sniffers, Viagra Boys, and Sleater-Kinney. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Cat Power &#8211; The Greatest Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cat-power-the-greatest-tour/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 24 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Cat Power is celebrating the 20th anniversary of her milestone 2006 album, The Greatest, with Redux, a three-song EP arriving digitally and on 10&#8221; vinyl via Domino Recording Company on Friday, January 23, 2026.&#160;Recorded by GRAMMY&#174; Award-winning engineer and longtime collaborator Stuart Sikes (Loretta Lynn, The White Stripes) at Austin, TX&#8217;s Church House Studios with backing by &#160;Dirty Delta Blues &#8211; the all-star supergroup assembled for the world tour that followed The Greatest comprising guitarist Judah Bauer (The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion), keyboardist Gregg Foreman (The Delta 72, Jesse Malin), bassist Erik Paparozzi (Lizard Music), and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Hard Quartet) &#8211; Redux includes a brand new re-recording of James Brown&#8217;s chart-topping classic, &#8220;Try Me,&#8221; premiering everywhere today. The track was among those first recorded by the singer-songwriter otherwise known as Chan Marshall during the original sessions that produced The Greatest but never completed.&#160;Redux also includes a stunning rendition of Prince&#8217;s iconic &#8220;Nothing Compares 2 U,&#8221; recorded in tribute to the late, great guitarist Teenie Hodges, a legendary member of The Memphis Rhythm Band that backed Cat Power on The Greatest and with whom she formed a close bond before his passing in 2014. The EP also includes a re-imagined version of one of the many standout tracks on The Greatest, Marshall&#8217;s own &#8220;Could We,&#8221; newly recorded in the arrangement that was performed live on The Greatest Tour with Dirty Delta Blues.&#160;Next year will see Cat Power perform The Greatest in its entirety with a very special series of 20th anniversary live shows beginning February 12, 2026, at Houston, TX&#8217;s White Oak Music Hall and then traveling North America, Europe, and the United Kingdom through early November. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Grace Ives</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/grace-ives/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Bill Callahan</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/bill-callahan/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[My Days of 58 is the eighth Bill Callahan album, his first since 2022. The twelve tunes here open uncanny depths of expression as Bill continues to blaze one of the most original songwriting-and-performance trails out there. With My Days of 58, he applies the living, breathing energies of his live shows to the studio process, sharpening his slice-of-life portraiture to cut deeper than ever before.&#160; The core musicians featured on My Days of 58 is the group that toured for 2022&#8217;s REALITY: guitarist Matt Kinsey, saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi and drummer Jim White, whose synergy was evident in 2024&#8217;s live Resuscitate!. This showed Bill, as he puts it, &#8220;that they could handle anything I threw at them,&#8221; adding:&#160; &#8220;Improv/unpredictability/the unknown is the thing that keeps me motivated to keep making music. It&#8217;s all about listening to yourself and others. A lot of the best parts of a recording are the mistakes&#8212;making them into strengths, using them as springboards into something human.&#8221;&#160; &#160; With this in mind, Bill prepared the songs with each player separately. Taking a note from songwriter, fan and friend Jerry DeCicca, he recorded the basic tracks for all but one song in a duo with Jim White. Meanwhile, he rehearsed with Matt, guitar to guitar, while asking Dustin to make horn charts for a few songs. Bill:&#160; &#8220;I usually just sing a melody to a horn player or let them try a few takes and go from there. This time I thought, why not get some of the record charted out. There&#8217;s always room for spontaneity on top of that. And we did indeed throw some off the cuff stuff on top of the charted horns in a couple cases where they weren&#8217;t fully doing what I wanted.&#160; With this record I kept thinking of it as a &#8216;living room record.&#8217; I&#8217;m not talking about fidelity at all here. Living room attitude. Living room vibe. Not too loud, not otherworldly. I asked for the horns to be relaxed like someone on the couch playing, not a blast from heaven or hell.&#8221;&#160; &#160; For more spontaneity and human color, Bill called up several other players: Richard Bowden on fiddle, whom he&#8217;d seen playing with Terry Allen and loved; pianist Pat Thrasher; bassist Chris Vreeland; and trombonist Mike St. Clair. About pedal steel player Bill McCullough, who he knew from Knife in the Water, Bill says this:&#160; &#8220;He has a real abstract approach to an abstract instrument&#8212;he&#8217;s a photographer (shot the front and back cover) and sees the steel in the same way as apertures and f-stops&#8212;foreground and mid ground and background&#8212;blurry and sharp. That&#8217;s how I&#8217;ve always seen the steel so it&#8217;s exciting to share that.&#160;But hobo stew is always the idea&#8212;throwing together who I have at hand instead of following a recipe. I&#8217;m always learning. I know very little after all these years. I go by gut mostly, but sometimes forget all the possible considerations to consider.&#160;The goal of every record at the recording part of the process is to get thrown out of Eden. Every session starts in Eden but you have to get out of there at some point.&#8221; &#160; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Caroline Kingsbury</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/caroline-kingsbury/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Expect a larger-than-life energy to her iridescent make-up, Bowie-esque boot-and-blazer get-ups and ready-to-risk-it-all ballads that are abundant in brutally honest and vulnerable storytelling lyrics. Dazed Beauty told their readers, &#8220;There&#8217;s something deliciously defiant about Caroline Kingsbury&#8217;s approach to pop music&#8230;through the holographic lens of 80s maximalism and New Romantic flair, she crafts songs that are emotional, percussive, and dramatic, born from breaking free of the conservative constraints of her Southern evangelical upbringing.&#8221; &#160; Fresh off electric festival debuts at Lollapalooza and All Things Go in late 2025, Caroline amassed 300k monthly listeners and landed a huge feature in the best-selling game &#8216;Dispatch.&#8217; Her fan favorite sleeper hit &#8216;Kissing Someone Else&#8217; accumulated over 6 million streams after the song was featured in Episode 1 and the game sold over a million copies in its first week. 2025 also brought Caroline the viral collaboration with fellow indie pop artist Maris with &#8216;Give Me A Sign.&#8217; The song landed Caroline a feature for the second year in a row on Spotify&#8217;s &#8216;Best Pop Songs of 2025&#8217; and a co-headline tour. &#160; You also may have heard Caroline in the newest seasons of Netflix&#8217;s &#8216;Forever&#8217; and Apple TV&#8217;s &#8216;The Buccaneers.&#8217; From 80s synths to soaring vocals accompanied by theatrical visuals, Caroline&#8217;s most recent release &#8220;Shock Treatment,&#8221; channels the spirit of queer futurism through a retro lens. Produced alongside indie icon Wild Nothing, it&#8217;s an EP that blurs the line between reality and performance, turning self-expression into an act of revolution. Catch Caroline Kingsbury on her first headline tour this Spring in support of &#8220;Shock Treatment&#8221; with more dates and festivals TBA. For tickets and VIP upgrades, visit shofetti.co/caroline. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>An Evening with Cowboy Junkies</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/an-evening-with-cowboy-junkies-2/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. &#160; Watch the Tour Trailer here &#8220;One of the most unique and enduring bands in alternative rock&#8221;- All Music "Margo Timmins's voice is as melancholy and enchanting as ever&#8221;- The New York Times "There&#8217;s something that is nearly miraculous about the way Margo Timmins&#8217; beautiful voice fits with those pained lyrics written by her brother Michael Timmins&#8230;the result is some truly transformative music."- The Mercury News Cowboy Junkies will be performing a career-spanning show from The Trinity Session to their recent album, Such Ferocious Beauty! &#160; Sometimes revolutions begin quietly. In 1988, Cowboy Junkies proved that there was an audience waiting for something quiet, beautiful and reflective. The Trinity Session was like a whisper that cut through the noise -- and it was compelling. It stood out in the midst of the flash and bombast that came to define the late 80's. The now classic recording combined folk, blues and rock in a way that had never been heard before and went on to sell more than a million copies.&#160; Formed in Toronto in 1985 with siblings Michael Timmins on guitar, Margo Timmins on vocals, Peter Timmins on drums, and Michael&#8217;s lifelong friend Alan Anton on bass, the band has sparkled over the course of 29 albums. &#8220;I&#8217;ve known Alan longer than I&#8217;ve known Pete,&#8221; says Michael. &#8220;We were friends before Pete was born.&#8221; Unlike most long-lasting groups, Cowboy Junkies have never had a break up or taken a sanity-saving hiatus. There&#8217;s an appreciation of each other that keeps them constantly working. &#8220;It&#8217;s that intimacy and understanding of what each one of us brings to the table,&#8221; says Michael.&#160; &#160; &#160; Website &#124; Instagram&#160;&#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>An Evening with Cowboy Junkies</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/an-evening-with-cowboy-junkies-3/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. &#160; Watch the Tour Trailer here &#8220;One of the most unique and enduring bands in alternative rock&#8221;- All Music "Margo Timmins's voice is as melancholy and enchanting as ever&#8221;- The New York Times "There&#8217;s something that is nearly miraculous about the way Margo Timmins&#8217; beautiful voice fits with those pained lyrics written by her brother Michael Timmins&#8230;the result is some truly transformative music."- The Mercury News Cowboy Junkies will be performing a career-spanning show from The Trinity Session to their recent album, Such Ferocious Beauty! &#160; Sometimes revolutions begin quietly. In 1988, Cowboy Junkies proved that there was an audience waiting for something quiet, beautiful and reflective. The Trinity Session was like a whisper that cut through the noise -- and it was compelling. It stood out in the midst of the flash and bombast that came to define the late 80's. The now classic recording combined folk, blues and rock in a way that had never been heard before and went on to sell more than a million copies.&#160; Formed in Toronto in 1985 with siblings Michael Timmins on guitar, Margo Timmins on vocals, Peter Timmins on drums, and Michael&#8217;s lifelong friend Alan Anton on bass, the band has sparkled over the course of 29 albums. &#8220;I&#8217;ve known Alan longer than I&#8217;ve known Pete,&#8221; says Michael. &#8220;We were friends before Pete was born.&#8221; Unlike most long-lasting groups, Cowboy Junkies have never had a break up or taken a sanity-saving hiatus. There&#8217;s an appreciation of each other that keeps them constantly working. &#8220;It&#8217;s that intimacy and understanding of what each one of us brings to the table,&#8221; says Michael.&#160; &#160; &#160; Website &#124; Instagram&#160;&#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Failure</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/failure-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Over the course of six albums, Failure has exerted a similar effect on listeners. Their musical communion has intrigued critics, fans, and peers for nearly three decades. Following Comfort and Magnified, the trio created what is largely considered one of the &#8216;90s most influential and innovative albums: Fantastic Planet. The 17-track collection not only earned rave reviews and a trove of new fans but saw the band headline Lollapalooza&#8217;s second stage and craft one of the era&#8217;s most recognizable videos (&#8220;Stuck on You&#8221;). The album&#8217;s legend grew over the ensuing years, eventually spawning retrospective think pieces from the likes of Rolling Stone, Noisey (Vice), Decibel Magazine, and more. Failure has been honored with covers by A Perfect Circle, Paramore, Cave In, Melissa Auf de Maur, and more. After a 17-year hiatus, they returned with The Heart Is a Monster in 2015, inciting the applause of Pitchfork, Entertainment Weekly, and Stereogum who said upon the album&#8217;s release: &#8220;this is a pretty big deal.&#8221; Their most recent album is 2021&#8217;s Wild Type Droid, recorded in the midst of the global pandemic. &#160; Website &#124; Bandcamp &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Yasmin Williams</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/yasmin-williams/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. &#160; Yasmin Williams is an innovative guitarist and composer known for her unique compositional approach and expansive instrumental style. Her latest album Acadia, released on Nonesuch Records, showcases her evolution from solo performer to collaborative artist, featuring partnerships with notable musicians like Aoife O'Donovan and Immanuel Wilkins.&#160; Williams' distinctive creative process involves "ruminating" on single notes until compositions naturally emerge. Beyond traditional fingerpicked guitar, she demonstrates mastery of multiple instruments including kora, harp guitar, banjo, and electric guitar. Her music, while rooted in folk traditions, transcends conventional structures to incorporate elements of progressive rock and experimental composition.&#160; Following her acclaimed 2021 album Urban Driftwood, Acadia represents a significant artistic expansion, featuring three distinct sections that move from traditional folk influences to atmospheric soundscapes and experimental arrangements. Williams' approach emphasizes sustained tones and intricate articulation, creating music that balances technical precision with ethereal, floating melodies.&#160; ABOUT YASMIN WILLIAMS&#160;Yasmin Williams, raised in Woodbridge, Virginia, grew up surrounded by music. Inspired by a wide range of artists&#8212;from Chuck Brown to Jimi Hendrix&#8212;she began developing her innovative fingerstyle acoustic guitar technique while studying music theory and composition at NYU. Williams has released two previous albums, Unwind (2018) and Urban Driftwood (2021), where she introduced unique approaches, such as playing kalimba and guitar simultaneously. She also incorporates instruments like the kora, harp guitar, and banjo. Despite her use of folk instruments, she resists being categorized within the genre, valuing creative freedom over conformity. Her latest record, Acadia, is out now via Nonesuch Records. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook&#160;&#124; YouTube &#124; Instagram&#160;&#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Ol&#8217; Joey Scrums</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/ol-joey-scrums/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:55:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Ol&#8217; Joey Scrums blends folk, rock, and bluegrass with authentic Americana storytelling, they&#8217;ve released two albums since forming in 2022. &#160; Website &#183; Bandcamp &#183; Spotify &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube The Rattletraps bring roots rock and country with songs about bar fights and dead-end jobs and just released an EP. &#160; Website &#160; Born out of the quiet corners of Carrboro, North Carolina, the Eric Lee Hardt Band crafts soulful, melancholy songs that linger long after the last note fades. Hardt&#8217;s weathered, honest songwriting sits at the center, surrounded by careful, purposeful instrumentation that illuminates rather than decorates. Warm, unhurried, and deeply felt. This is music for people who aren&#8217;t afraid to sit with their feelings.]]></description>
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                                <title>Hiss Golden Messenger &#8211; I&#8217;m People Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/hiss-golden-messenger-im-people-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[A limited number of Two Night Passes are available here. &#160; Hiss Golden Messenger is the long-running musical project led by North Carolina-based singer, songwriter, and producer M.C. Taylor. The project has evolved over the last decade into one of the most respected and celebrated in contemporary Americana, blending folk, country, soul and gospel influences with deeply introspective, poetic, and conscious songwriting. &#160; Across multiple critically acclaimed, Grammy nominated albums, Hiss Golden Messenger has become known for its warmth and emotional clarity, as well as Taylor&#8217;s ability to connect the personal and poetic with the political without losing intimacy or musical grace. &#160; The forthcoming I&#8217;m People continues this trajectory, offering a reflective collection of songs that speaks to resilience, community, radical hopefulness, and the quiet human moments that animate and illuminate the everyday. It is among Taylor&#8217;s greatest and most profound work.&#160;Hiss Golden Messenger sits naturally alongside artists and releases that value craft, storytelling, and authenticity, and aligns well with audiences attuned to indie, folk, Americana, roots, and contemporary country music. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook&#160;&#124; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Hiss Golden Messenger &#8211; I&#8217;m People Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/hiss-golden-messenger-im-people-tour-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[A limited number of Two Night Passes are available here. &#160; Hiss Golden Messenger is the long-running musical project led by North Carolina-based singer, songwriter, and producer M.C. Taylor. The project has evolved over the last decade into one of the most respected and celebrated in contemporary Americana, blending folk, country, soul and gospel influences with deeply introspective, poetic, and conscious songwriting. &#160; Across multiple critically acclaimed, Grammy nominated albums, Hiss Golden Messenger has become known for its warmth and emotional clarity, as well as Taylor&#8217;s ability to connect the personal and poetic with the political without losing intimacy or musical grace. &#160; The forthcoming I&#8217;m People continues this trajectory, offering a reflective collection of songs that speaks to resilience, community, radical hopefulness, and the quiet human moments that animate and illuminate the everyday. It is among Taylor&#8217;s greatest and most profound work.&#160;Hiss Golden Messenger sits naturally alongside artists and releases that value craft, storytelling, and authenticity, and aligns well with audiences attuned to indie, folk, Americana, roots, and contemporary country music. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook&#160;&#124; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Superchunk</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/superchunk-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[&#8220;It&#8217;s always been the case that everyone is going through something that you may not be aware of,&#8221; says the band&#8217;s Mac McCaughan. &#8220;This is currently more true than ever&#8212;but also the case that we are all going through some things together. In the face of that, what good is art and where is happiness found? (Spoiler alert: I don&#8217;t know.)&#8221; In seeking an answer, Songs in the Key of Yikes unleashes a sound that is triumphant and bright in the darkness, Majesty Shredding in overdrive. Lead single &#8220;Is It Making You Feel Something&#8221; sets the tone early with the band&#8212;McCaughan, Laura Ballance, Jim Wilbur, and Laura King&#8212;building an anthem out of the potential for joy, diving into slop-polluted waters (&#8220;now fakes are faking everything / that once made your poor heart sing&#8221;) and emerging with a pearl. &#8220;This song is about not second-guessing yourself in the very second-guessable process of writing words and music,&#8221; McCaughan explains. &#8220;It&#8217;s about the legitimate question of &#8216;who needs this and what is it good for?&#8217; but also about not setting such a high bar for making art that you never get started. &#8216;Is it making you feel something?&#8217; Ok, that&#8217;s a place to start.&#8221; Songs in the Key of Yikes is a signature Superchunk album: visceral and timeless and catchy as hell&#8212;a cathartic balm for these oppressive times that will feel even better once we&#8217;ve figured our collective shit out. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>The Beths</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-beths-3/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA["One of the greatest indie-rock bands of their time." - Rolling Stone&#160;New Zealand indie rock heroes The Beths&#8217; latest album Straight Line Was A Lie is a catchy, instant classic. Written in Los Angeles and self-recorded in the band's hometown of Auckland, Straight Line Was A Lie (their first release for ANTI-) follows 2022's critically celebrated LP Expert in A Dying Field. Lead singer and songwriter Liz Stokes delves deeper into her psyche to address everything from roundabout progress to physical and mental health challenges, and fraught family dynamics. Inspired by The Go-Go's, Olivia Rodrigo, filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and Stephen King's On Writing, amongst others, Stokes' songwriting has achieved startling new depths of insight and vulnerability. Fans will agree that Straight Line Was A Lie is the most sharply observant, truthful, and poetic Beths project to date. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram&#160;&#124; Facebook &#124; Spotify &#124; YouTube &#124; Soundcloud &#124; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Carrboro Bluegrass Festival</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/carrboro-bluegrass-festival-2/cats-cradle-back-yard/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Mason ViaLaurie Lewis and The Right Hands&#160;Trenton Wagler and Eric BrubakerJon StickleyCody SistersHolland Brothers Carolina Bluegrass Ensemble+ More &#160; VIP Festival Patron Pass &#8212; $85 Limited to 100 tickets Support the festival and secure the best experience of the day VIP Festival Patron Pass holders receive: Guaranteed early entry &#8212; doors open 30 minutes before general admission Reserved seating in the first 10 rows, clearly marked and held exclusively for VIP Limited-edition festival poster, exclusive to VIP ticket holders The peace of mind of knowing your seat is waiting &#8212; no lines, no stress VIP tickets are limited to 100 tickets and will not be expanded once sold out. &#160; Reserved Seating &#8212; $70 Enjoy the festival with the comfort of a guaranteed seat. Reserved Seating tickets include: Reserved seating in the designated section Standard entry at door time Access to all festival performances Ideal for attendees who want a great view without worrying about arrival time. General Admission &#8212; $55 Be part of the Carrboro Bluegrass Festival. General Admission tickets include: Access to all performances Entry to the general admission area Seating availability on a first-come, first-served basis]]></description>
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                                <title>Melt</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/melt-3/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Pulsing with the energy of their hometown, New York City, &#8216;If There&#8217;s a Heaven&#8217; (2024) is the debut album from indie band Melt. Hear the band simultaneously at their most airtight and freewheeling&#8212;evoking the raw, &#160; communal spirit of Fleetwood Mac as well as the modern, danceable hooks of MUNA. Recorded live to tape with producer Sam Evian (Big Thief), the eleven tracks span existential, feel-good pop (&#8220;Plant the Garden&#8221;), classic love ballads (&#8220;Your Name&#8221;) and lush, soulful rockers (&#8220;Heaven&#8221;). Melt&#8217;s debut is a joyous, timeless soundtrack for coming of age and finding oneself and one&#8217;s community. &#160; Melt formed in 2017 and cut their teeth touring on the heels of their viral single &#8220;Sour Candy.&#8221; Called &#8220;one groovy superorganism&#8221; by NPR, the band&#8217;s ecstatic live set has led them to supporting slots with a wide array of artists from Grouplove, Lawrence, My Morning Jacket, and Grace Potter. &#160; Back with their first release since &#8216;If There&#8217;s a Heaven,&#8217; the band&#8217;s new single &#8220;Stay for the High&#8221; is 2025&#8217;s &#8220;Yellow&#8221;&#8212;an early aughts heartbreaker with the edge of a queer rock band. &#160; Website]]></description>
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                                <title>Geordie Greep</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/geordie-greep/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Is The New Sound a tonic for these times? Let&#8217;s ask Geordie Greep. &#8220;Music can be so much more than learning to play the same as everybody else. It can be anything you want. With recording The New Sound, it was the first time I have had no one to answer to. Being in a band (black midi), we often have this &#8216;we can do everything&#8217; feeling, but you are also kind of limited in that approach, and sometimes it's good to do something else, to let go of things.&#8221; Geordie&#8217;s debut solo album boasts a brand of high quality, all-embracing alternative pop fun not heard in a very long time, walking the line between the ridiculous and brilliant with a teflon-coated aplomb. How the record came about is a thing to marvel at. Over thirty session musicians were involved in its making, on two continents. Greep says, &#8220;Half of the tracks were done in Brazil, with local musicians pulled together at the last minute. They&#8217;d never heard anything I&#8217;d done before, they were just interested in the demos I&#8217;d made. The tracking was all done in one, maybe two days.&#8221; The spirit of Greep&#8217;s increasingly febrile and furtive soliloquies simultaneously calls to mind both Frank Zappa and Frank Sinatra, with a healthy dash of Scott Walker sprinkled throughout. The instrumental title track is a jazz-funk workout that could double as a soundtrack for a TV series or the intro music for a Broadway musical. Brass, wah-wah pedal and bass stabs, choruses and polyrhythms, all fizz and tumble around the place creating a sense of excitement and expectation. Tracks often oscillate from whispers to shouts, and start and end on a bang. The stories themselves act as a shopping list of the Active Male Imagination. A series of vignettes, where Geordie Greep plays the role of emcee and conductor. The characters we hear from are engaged in wild fantasies and situations in which they inevitably falter. &#8220;The main theme of the record is desperation; someone who is kidding themselves that they have everything under control, but they don&#8217;t.&#8221; Here Greep gives color to a set of imaginings which include cannibalism, being boiled alive, and a woman giving birth to a goat. Street life is all around The New Sound: the listener is thrown into a world of cafes, bars, rented rooms, cabarets and strange museums. Here we see our heroes carry out a series of naughty assignments, military cosplay or socio-economic triumphs. The lines between parody and sermon are often blurred. The urbane romantic fantasy of single &#8216;Holy Holy&#8217; tells the story of an imaginary liaison in a nightclub, soundtracked by &#8217;noughties indie chords and bravura Latin big band arrangements - including a three-piano attack. What next? &#8220;My plan is to &#8216;do a Keith Jarrett thing&#8217;, have a different group of session musicians in a different place and lean into the fact that we&#8217;re not going to get it the same.&#8221; How can anything ever be &#8216;the same&#8217; with Greep at the helm? &#160; Website &#124; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Ritt Momney</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/ritt-momney/local-506/chapel-hill-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 03 Feb 2026 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[To make Base, Jack Rutter (who performs as Ritt Momney) had to let go of everything. He had to get to the point where he wanted to quit making music. Tear everything down and build it all up again. Rutter had to let go of all the shoulds, and all of the expectations he thought people had for him and his music. So he hit the reset button, forgot about all the noise, and made a record he truly wanted to make. It&#8217;s his most realized offering yet: beautiful and weird and cool. A record of lo-fi bedroom rock that radiates warmth and honesty. Rutter&#8217;s story is one of reinventing yourself after viral success. After the release of his debut, Her and All My Friends, Rutter put out a cover of Corinne Bailey Rae&#8217;s &#8220;Put Your Records On.&#8221; The song was an unexpected hit, taking off almost half a year after it was initially released, and landing in the Billboard Hot 100. In 2021, he released his second full-length record Sunny Boy, a record of warm-to-the-touch bedroom pop. And then Rutter started to fall out of love with music. &#8220;I was starting to feel like I was making music because I had to,&#8221; he says, &#8220;but then I realized, I didn&#8217;t have to make anything if I didn&#8217;t want to.&#8221; This release from expectations was like a lightning bolt: Rutter felt a kind of freedom he had not felt in years. Enter Base. Base is Rutter&#8217;s third record. Since Sunny Boy, he&#8217;s bought a house in his native Salt Lake City, gotten married, and started treating his hobbies with the same seriousness he treats his music (for a period of time, he was bowling every morning of the week). In other words: he&#8217;s made a life for himself. A life where he has created the perfect environment to make music. Base is the product of this freedom. And you can tell from first listen. Base is a roomy, elegant collection of songs. &#8220;I believe in base creativity,&#8221; says Rutter. &#8220;Some kind of pure being. A solid foundation.&#8221; This was the goal with Base: to make a record that is rooted in that sort of boundless creativity. To make it, Rutter joined up with his bandmates, Rick West and Chris Peranich. On his past two records, Rutter would write and produce everything. On Base, he wanted things to be more collaborative. He wanted the record to have more of a live, analog sound. Base was recorded on an 8-track. No screens allowed in the studio during the initial recording. They&#8217;d use computers a little bit after the fact, but the goal was to make something that sounded organic. Like &#8220;Gunna,&#8221; a song about waiting and not knowing what you&#8217;re waiting for. The song starts out with acoustic guitars, then Rutter&#8217;s voice comes in. &#8220;As soon as she gets home,&#8221; he sings, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be so nice.&#8221; There&#8217;s a little distortion, cracking open the song like you do with an egg and a fork. Keys and big drums. It&#8217;s a little Radiohead, a little Alex G.]]></description>
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                                <title>Cece Coakley</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cece-coakley/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Cece Coakley is a rising singer-songwriter living in Nashville, whose music blends indie pop, folk, and country influences into a heartfelt, melodic sound. With introspective songwriting and a laid-back vocal delivery, Coakley has quickly made a name for herself in the indie music scene and a revered artist and songwriter. &#160; Her 2022 debut EP, Tender, was written while she was living at home with her parents in Knoxville Tennessee, a time of deep personal reflection and creative growth. She has since gone on to release two projects Happy Adjacent &#38; Soft Again following her move to Nashville. &#160; Coakley has spent most of her budding career on the road supporting artists such as Medium Build, Stephen Sanchez, Field Guide, and most recently Hazlett and Nell Mescal. Touring allowed her to connect with audiences across the country, further developing her artistry and confidence as a performer. &#160; Coakley is set to release her next EP on March 6th titled, Pleasant Attack, which includes songs &#8220;Pleasant Attack,&#8221; &#8220;Marionette,&#8221; &#8220;Personified&#8221; and &#160;&#8220;Future Tense&#8221; among others. Coakley&#8217;s EP was produced by her frequent collaborator, Sam Westhoff. &#160; With her distinctive blend of indie pop and country-tinged storytelling, Cece Coakley is proving to be one of the most compelling new voices in the indie-folk scene, carving out a path that feels entirely her own. &#160; Facebook &#124; Instagram &#124; Spotify &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>By Storm</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/by-storm/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[In 2023 RiTchie and producer Parker Corey introduced By Storm with &#8220;Double Trio,&#8221; an impassioned and atmospheric first single that both honored the legacy of their former group Injury Reserve and opened a new lane towards the future. &#8220;Shit gon' repeat if all you do is delay&#8221; RiTchie rapped on the track, underlining the momentum constantly pushing the rapper/producer duo forward. My Ghosts Go Ghost continues that trajectory, arriving almost by surprise but with maximum impact. &#160; My Ghosts Go Ghost is an album that is simple in its construction yet dense enough to get lost in. Created with a back-to-basics mantra (&#8220;what if we make nine really strong songs and put them in a good order?&#8221;) the album deals with themes of loss, fatherhood, capitalism, the weight of experience, and moving past difficult experiences. It is both a debut album and the continuation of a journey RiTchie and Corey started ten years ago when they first began making music in Phoenix. &#8220;This past decade we built our identity and every record has been us figuring out more about the kind of band we want to be,&#8221; says RiTchie. &#8220;That doesn't change.&#8221; With My Ghosts Go Ghost, committed fans get to hear RiTchie and Corey hone their craft in increasingly refined ways, while newcomers benefit from the experience and clarity of thought that brings them to this point. &#160; Mention ghosts and many will think of hauntings, but My Ghosts Go Ghost is not an album troubled by history. If anything, the art of looking ahead colors RiTchie&#8217;s lyrics, specifically how to do so while holding what is dear from the past. That could be not forgetting people you have lost, or selfishly wanting to stick with what&#8217;s familiar in the face of change. &#8220;CIHYFM&#8221; finds him on the eve of becoming a father, excited for what lay ahead but knowing that his relationship with his partner will also be changing in the process. &#8220;I&#8217;m ready to grow, just feeling TKTKTKT&#8221; he raps over a somber beat replete with chopped-up vocal samples. Album closer &#8220;GGG&#8221; maintains that same perspective, asking questions about the speediness of moving on from a seismic loss. Intricate Spanish guitars act as the bed for RiTchie to wrestle with the notion of shedding the past only to realise how important it was to you. The desire to look forwards, it seems, only leads to looking back. Ultimately, My Ghosts Go Ghost underscores the belief that life in the present is most precious of all. &#160; An off-the-cuff DJ set in Stockholm, Sweden in 2019, improvised when technical issues meant performing live was impossible, acted as the blueprint to unlocking the sound of the album. Debuting new material in that environment was both fun and freeing for the pair, who tested multiple My Ghosts Go Ghost tracks in various embryonic stages at shows in Phoenix, London, L.A., and New York throughout 2025. The automatic feedback of live audiences was both a prompt when writing and a guide in the editing process. &#8220;There's an element of being able to figure out certain songs better live and come up with ideas when you're in that super emotional and reactive phase,&#8221; says Corey. &#8220;You do a lot less overthinking in that environment.&#8221; &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Hiding Places</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/hiding-places/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 02 Feb 2026 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Shortly after forming, the members of the New York-via-North Carolina indie rock band Hiding Places noticed a secret power. During their live sets, no matter the loudness, scuzziness, or mayhem of the venues they played, their tender, atmospheric sound became the focus of the room, quieting their surroundings as audiences became hypnotized by their steady, rhythmic interplay and bittersweet vocal melodies. From these experiences, the band developed a credo of close listening. If one member plays too fast, they won&#8217;t try to nudge down the tempo; if someone&#8217;s volume rises above the rest, they adapt their levels accordingly. The goal, always, is togetherness&#8212;to maintain a unified whole, always in sync. This philosophy is part of what makes the quartet&#8217;s cozily intricate and hard-hitting Keeled Scales debut, The Secret to Good Living, feel like a bold introduction as much as a well-worn mixtape, passed down from a trusted friend.&#160; It makes sense that the band formed while three of its members were DJs at their college radio station at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They embrace music as a means of communication, identity-forming, and deeper understanding of human nature. Songwriters/guitarists Audrey Keelin and Nicholas Byrne alternate between fronting the band, sharing lead vocals and lending the 10-song record the tone of an intimate conversation with room for silence and deeper concentration. Rounded out by a rhythm section of drummer Henry Cutting and bassist/producer Michael Matsakis, they&#8217;ve developed a forward-thinking sound with a sense of nostalgia built into it: a blend that draws from the collage-like indie rock of Yo La Tengo, the elegant slowcore of The New Year, the riffy story-songs of Drive-By Truckers, and the analog hum of The Microphones.&#160; The Secret to Good Living, which bridges their fuzzy home-recorded demos with their first experience in a professional recording studio, helps translate their humble beginnings to the big stages for which they seem destined. It&#8217;s the product of hermetic late-night sessions, collaborative writing retreats in Athens, Georgia, and an evolving perspective on their singular dynamic. After years of working remotely, this record marks the collective result of the quartet living together in a city for the first time&#8212;an experience that amplified the band&#8217;s creative bond and connected them with fellow North Carolina transplants in the city. &#8220;We&#8217;ve built a Southern home in New York and simultaneously get to experience the cultures of the world that collide here,&#8221; Byrne says of their tight-knit community and enduring connections to their hometowns, where they frequently return. &#8220;Within 24 hours, I could be at Myrtle Broadway and then in rural Georgia sighting in a hunting rifle. Living between Southern landscapes and New York, and carrying those lessons and experiences with us, has been the story of this band.&#8221; On The Secret to Good Living, Hiding Places follow this thread, navigating their mid-to-late 20s and using songwriting as a portal for self-discovery and exploration. Tellingly, the concept raised in the title arrives not in a prescriptive philosophy but as an ongoing inquiry: &#8220;Oh, what&#8217;s the secret to good living,&#8221; Byrne and Keelin ask in unison. &#8220;How was I supposed to know?&#8221; &#160; Website &#124; Bandcamp &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>The Braymores, echo plum</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-braymores-echo-plum/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#124; YouTube &#124; Instagram &#124; Spotify &#124; Soundcloud &#124; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>The Black Angels: Passover 2026 Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-black-angels-passover-2026-tour/lincoln-theatre/raleigh-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 15:00:28 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[2026 marks the 20th anniversary of the band’s debut album, Passover (2006), a now-classic record that helped define the 21st-century psych revival. To celebrate, The Black Angels &#8211; Alex Maas (vocals/bass), Christian Bland (guitar), Stephanie Bailey (drums), Jake Garcia (guitar), and Misti Hamrick (bass) are returning to the road to perform the album in full, [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Sluice</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/sluice/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[When Justin Morris moved to New York City in 2019 after a lifetime in North Carolina, he was planning to do the opposite of what people usually move to the city to do: give up on his dream. Since childhood, that dream had been simple&#8212;write songs, play in bands, live inside &#8220;indie rock.&#8221; But a run selling merch for one of the era&#8217;s biggest indie stars unsettled that conviction. From his vantage point on the bus, the everyday grind of touring felt out of step with the spellbinding shows; encores gave way to a working reality that showed him the job-like side of something he&#8217;d only ever romanticized and left him wondering where the glow had gone. To his green worldview, the gap between the fantasy of &#8220;making it&#8221; and its reality was jarring. If this was &#8220;the dream,&#8221; he thought, maybe it needed to be reconsidered. New York was meant to be a clean slate, maybe even the place he&#8217;d learn another trade and leave music behind. Then, less than a day into his Bushwick sublet, a man with a gun kicked in his bedroom door, forced him to the floor, and tied his hands with TV cables. In the days after the robbery, unable to make sense of anything except through song, he started writing again. Those songs became the beginning of a new project he called Sluice. Sluice, now a four-piece band from Durham, North Carolina&#8212;with Morris on guitar and vocals, Oliver Child-Lanning on bass and various instruments, Avery Sullivan on drums, and Libby Rodenbough on fiddle&#8212;return with Companion, their third album and Mtn Laurel Recording Co. debut. It follows 2023&#8217;s Radial Gate, the quietly beloved record Morris made after fleeing New York for a Craigslist house in Hillsborough with then-stranger Child-Lanning, tracking songs at Sylvan Esso&#8217;s studio Betty&#8217;s while working carpentry jobs and wondering, as he sings on &#8220;What The Fuck?,&#8221; if he should do something else like &#8220;go back to school.&#8221; Radial Gate caught him halfway out the door of music, steeped in a hermit-like loneliness of rivers, dams, and floodgates. Instead, its release brought the dream back, but it looked different than it did to the &#8220;kid reading in a bunk&#8221; on a tour bus, crying and asking, &#8220;what happened to it all feeling so good?&#8221; that he sings about in &#8220;Vegas.&#8221; Companion begins where that disenchanted loneliness leaves off. Recorded with producer/engineer Alli Rogers at Betty&#8217;s in the winter of 2024 and slowly tended over two years, it sounds like someone deciding there may yet be a dream of music worth struggling for&#8212;and that the point of that dream isn&#8217;t stardom or escape, but companionship. That struggle is written into the songs themselves. &#8220;Vegas&#8221; returns to the era he was on tour with Angel Olsen, whose music he loved, watching the indie machine from the loading dock and feeling, as a younger musician, quietly overwhelmed by it, before fast-forwarding to the full-circle twist when Olsen later asked Sluice to open shows for her. &#8220;Now I&#8217;m at the 40 Watt with my old friends,&#8221; he sings, as if the old dream and the new dream finally collide in a joyous scream-along. Elsewhere, songs like &#8220;Torpor&#8221; and &#8220;What The Fuck&#8221; reach back to the robbery and that period of spiritual whiplash, now re-recorded after years of being played live to show how time can turn personal crisis into determination. &#160; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Cass McCombs</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cass-mccombs/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Over the past twenty plus years, Cass McCombs has journeyed a singular path as an uncompromising song-carver, guitarist and singer. Along with the finest squadron of collaborators and bandmates, his music travels gracefully over seemingly contradictory terrain, from infectious guitar riffage to intensely personal lyricism. In August 2025, Cass released his newest album &#8220;Interior Live Oak&#8221; to rave reviews including 5 stars from the Guardian, an 8.1 from Pitchfork who said &#8220;16 songs and not a throwaway among them&#8230;,&#8221; a 9/10 from Uncut Magazine, and a rave from Mojo magazine who said &#8220;&#8230;this is the kind of record it&#8217;s impossible to be casual about.&#8221; Interior Live Oak is his most personal album to date, and, more than any previous record, shows his vast range as a lyricist and musician. It draws from everything Cass has created over two decades of experimentation to cut through with a direct and clarifying light. Cass McCombs will embark on his &#8220;Interior Live Oak Live&#8221; tour over 2026. He lives in New York City. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram &#124; Soundcloud &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Billie Marten</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/billie-marten/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Prolific British singer-songwriter, Billie Marten, will tour America in support of her fifth album, Dog Eared, out now via Fiction Records. &#160; Billie Marten loves to leave her mark on a good book&#8212;underlining important passages, scribbling ideas in the margins, folding the corners of pages into dog ears to mark her place. The 10 songs of Dog Eared serve that purpose, telling the story of who she was as she wrote and recorded it, cleaving her adolescence from her adulthood in order to move forward. She is the songwriter who finds wisdom in horses and encourages self-reflection while realizing she has barely begun her own. She is the singer who makes the chorus of &#8220;Goodnight Moon&#8221; as beautiful as a lunar corona and smartly lets dissonance slip between her voice and the band around her as she watches something she loves disappear during &#8220;Crown.&#8221; Marten is a consummate singer-songwriter who has dared to push beyond the limitations of that form and make a stunning record that marks a new page, suggesting what comes next through the strength and beauty of what&#8217;s right here. &#160; With Dog Eared, Billie calmly posits herself at the top of the tree of not just British contemporary folk artists, but with British songwriters at large. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; TikTok &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Emily Yacina</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/emily-yacina/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Emily Yacina has been self-releasing music for over a decade, offering a &#8220;treasure trove of wrenching melodies and delightfully off-kilter meditations on time and absence&#8221; (Stereogum). Although she&#8217;s collaborated with some of the most notable names in indie rock, including Alex G and Rostam, Yacina is a singular artist. Her voice is compelling and instantly recognizable, sometimes winking, lilting, or layered and chopped and used as an instrument. Veilfall arrives six years after the release of her debut studio album, and is another mesmerizing entry in her catalogue. Illuminating Yacina&#8217;s sharp command of crystalline production, Veilfall showcases an expanded roster of collaborators operating at the highest level. Her ability to mine intangible emotions is sage-like, as she navigates formless concepts like the process of grieving, and the types of alienation that can follow in its wake. &#160; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Snail Mail</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/snail-mail-3/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#124; Bandcamp &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Gelli Haha &#8211; Where in the World is Gelli Haha Tour 2026</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/gelli-haha-where-in-the-world-is-gelli-haha-tour-2026/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Gelli Haha exists somewhere between Studio 54 and Area 51, where dancefloors become playgrounds and cheeky aesthetics ignite imagination. A shapeshifter, a sonic acrobat, a performer with one foot in the cosmos and the other in a slapstick routine, Gelli Haha is a space for pure creative chaos. For her opening trick, Gelli Haha presents Switcheroo, the debut album via Innovative Leisure, to be released in June 2025. With a shared taste for off-kilter pop and vintage gear, producer Sean Guerin (of De Lux) joined Gelli in turning freshly-formed demos into a high-voltage experiment, abandoning meticulous structure for something freer and more electrifying. Every song on Switcheroo makes use of a myriad of recording toys; wacky analog effects, such as the Eventide Harmonizer, MXR Pitch Transposer, and various Electrix units, fashion an intentionally flawed and strictly silly texture throughout the album. Gelli Haha&#8217;s music thrives on duality: playful but profound, tongue-in-cheek but sincere. &#8220;Bounce House&#8221; is the child-like innocence; &#8220;Spit&#8221; is the S-words-only underground-club grit. &#8220;Piss Artist&#8221; revels in tequila-fueled storytelling about an infamous party moment (involving a jar &#8212; don&#8217;t ask, just dance), while &#8220;Normalize&#8221; feels like you&#8217;re stuck in Play-Doh. It&#8217;s a practice in play - recording vocals mid-jump, translating drum fills into mouth sounds, granting your best friend&#8217;s wish for a song about them. A bear attack crashes through the happy-go-lucky &#8220;Dynamite&#8221;, &#8220;Funny Music&#8221; ends with a sudden &#8220;BONK!&#8221;&#8212; because why not? The emotional rainbow stretches beyond the positive &#8212; Gelli pouts and wails on "Tiramisu", demanding to know and feel everything, while "Pluto is not a planet it&#8217;s a restaurant" closes the album in a darker, heart-throbbing track with the repeated cry: "I&#8217;m afraid." &#160; Switcheroo is the soundtrack to the Gelliverse, a sensory adventure sphere created by Gelli. This live revue is an invitation into a world of dolphin balloons, flutes, mini trampolines, and a stage bathed in the project&#8217;s primary color, red - bold and full of mischief. &#160; Gelli Haha isn&#8217;t foolproof. It&#8217;s by design. Switcheroo is an exercise in letting go, an inside joke turned theatrical spectacle. Participation is encouraged. Surrender is required.]]></description>
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                                <title>Florence Dore</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/florence-dore/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 22:45:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Record release party! Nashville-born, Chapel Hill-based Florence Dore has just finished making her third record, Hold the Spark. It&#8217;s a gem. With a narrative bent that ranks her with the likes of James McMurtry and an ear for melody that has earned her comparisons with Lucinda Williams, Florence delivers rich storytelling with plenty of wit. Served up in rich, emotional vocals and backed by a killer rock band, the songs on Hold the Spark span the spectrum&#8212;ranging from a tear-jerking tender love song about Florence&#8217;s daughter to a hilarious Stooges-like rocker about the stupidity of academic meetings. &#160; Florence also teaches songwriting at UNC, and this event features students from her songwriting classes. &#160;Some will join Florence&#8217;s band, others take the stage with their own. &#160; Bill Moore will MC the event. Bill is a Chapel Hill-based guitarist, folk musician and singer-songwriter. He writes and performs a diverse array of music deeply rooted in the traditions of his home state of North Carolina. With influences ranging from Bob Dylan to Bob Wills and from Charley Patton to Charlie Poole, Bill covers a wide range of styles including Piedmont blues, old-time, ragtime, swing, vaudeville blues and rockabilly. His original work blends these old styles in new ways and realizes them within the Carolina fingerstyle guitar tradition of artists like Reverend Gary Davis and Elizabeth Cotten. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#160; Davie Circle is an alt-country/folk-rock band based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Formed in their tight-knit college town, the group quickly became a mainstay in the local music scene. Their name comes from a historic street where the band spent countless hours rehearsing, and it perfectly captures the spirit of their roots. Blending the free-spirited improvisation of jam bands, the lush harmonies of bluegrass, and the rhythmic groove of jazz with the storytelling traditions of Southern rock and Delta blues, Davie Circle creates a sound that&#8217;s undeniably American. The band brings a fresh twist to the genres they love, crafting music that feels both timeless and new. &#160; Juniper: After meeting by chance in ENGL 409: Lyrics &#38; Lyricists, Ella Deans, Ada Green, and Warner Vaughan couldn&#8217;t let their shared passion for music go to waste. With drummer Chloe Heneghan and bassist Jackson Kralic rounding out the lineup, Juniper has grown into an eccentric and electric rock outfit, merging North Carolinian elements of indie, folk, and country to soak their audience&#8217;s socks. &#160; Don&#8217;t miss this special night of multi-generational Chapel Hill musical community that includes members of The dB&#8217;s, those working in their legacy, and lots of musicians in between.]]></description>
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                                <title>Wild Party</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/wild-party-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Fishbone &#8211; In Your Face 40th Anniversary Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/fishbone-in-your-face-40th-anniversary-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[For over four decades, Fishbone has been an unstoppable force in music, well-known genre disrupters fusing punk, ska, funk, and soul into an explosive sound that is as socially conscious as it is musically innovative. Emerging from the Los Angeles punk scene, the band quickly carved out a reputation for their high-energy performances and fearless engagement with political and social issues. &#160; On June 27, 2025, Fishbone released their highly anticipated ninth studio album, Stockholm Syndrome, marking their first full-length LP in over 20 years. The album, a raw and powerful statement on modern life, picks up where the band left off in 1995&#8212;packed with infectious melodies, pure chaos, and politically charged anthems alongside reflections on life, relationships, and redemption. The first single, "Racist Piece of Shit" (aka "RxPxOxS"), dropped in November 2024, delivering a searing critique of global racism with Fishbone&#8217;s signature intensity. Their next single, "Last Call In America&#8221; co-written by original members Christopher Dowd and Walter &#8220;Dirty Walt&#8221; Kibby is a groove-driven commentary on the nation&#8217;s current economic and social struggles. &#8220;This song is a warning call to humanity to recognize the inflection point that is tearing the soul of this country and world apart,&#8221; shares Christopher Dowd. &#160; Despite lineup shifts over the years, Fishbone's spirit remains unwavering. 2024 saw significant changes as founding members Norwood Fisher and Walter Kibby stepped away, leaving the band in the capable hands of frontman Angelo Moore (vocals, saxophones) and longtime collaborator Christopher Dowd (keyboards, trombone, vocals). The current lineup also features James Jones (bass), Hassan Hurd (drums), John &#8220;JS&#8221; Williams II (trumpet, vocals), and the return of former Fishbone guitarist Tracey Spacey T Singleton. This evolution signals not just continuation, but a reinvigoration of Fishbone&#8217;s legacy. &#160; Fishbone has always thrived on resilience, adaptability, and reinvention. The band has weathered decades of industry shifts, internal struggles, and lineup changes, yet their mission remains the same: to push boundaries, challenge injustice, and music and art in a way that only Fishbone can. Their journey has been documented in Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone (released in 2010), capturing their highs and lows, from pioneering the fusion of styles to facing industry struggles and personal setbacks. &#160; The road to Stockholm Syndrome has been long, but Fishbone is surging forward with a renewed sense of purpose. Having recently shared stages with Madness, Tool, and Primus, as well as headlining successful winter tours in both the USA and Europe, and summer headline shows in the USA as well as Less Than Jake&#8217;s Summer Circus Tour Long Beach and D.C. stops of Vans Warped Tour 2025. &#160; Fishbone&#8217;s legacy isn&#8217;t just about their past&#8212;it&#8217;s about their future. With Stockholm Syndrome, they reclaim their place as musical revolutionaries and genre disrupters, proving that their message and music are as vital as ever. The band is moving forward, ready to reconnect with old fans and inspire a new generation, all while continuing to live their truth and write their story with dignity and defiance. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>The Red Pears and Together Pangea</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-red-pears-and-together-pangea/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 14 Jan 2026 17:00:32 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Red Pears Hailing from El Monte, a sleepy suburban town just east of Los Angeles, Henry Vargas (vocals/guitar), and Jose Corona (drums), draw their sound from the spectrum between the early 2000s New York indie rock and grunge scene to the cumbia and corridos that soundtracked their childhoods. After cycling through an assortment of [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Easy Honey</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/easy-honey/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 14 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Easy Honey is a Charleston, SC based indie rock band that infuses its singer-songwriter folk roots with an original mix of nostalgic East Coast surf-rock. &#160; Originating at The University of The South: Sewanee over a cooler filled with freshman year college punch, the dynamic of this group is one of their strongest elements, existing with an electricity and a true sense of comradery both on and off stage. &#160; The tremendous creative power between the band&#8217;s members Selby Austin (vocals, guitar), Darby McGlone (vocals, guitar), Charlie Holt (drums, vocals) and Webster Austin (bass, vocals) is on full display in their versatile new EP, Plaid (out April 30 via Third Brother Records), which they wrote and recorded over a three-day session at an isolated cabin in snowy Marble, Colorado. &#160; Mixed with a steady sheen by the legendary Tony Hoffer (Beck, Phoenix, The Kooks, Air, M83), the rapid-fire five-song set deepens their beachy indie-pop style with vibrant new colors as they serve up witty melodies, catchy, relatable hooks and raucous yet sentimental lyrics about love, wistfulness and life&#8217;s big moments. &#160; Easy Honey, like so many of their mutual rock heroes, cut their teeth on the road and have built a devoted following of daydreamers and night seekers through extensive touring and sold-out gigs. Just like their live shows, which have taken them to audiences nationwide, their influences remain all over the map and pull from the classic rock and power-pop staples of their parents&#8217; record collections (Big Star, Neil Young), up through '90s alt heroes Blind Melon as well as indie tunesmiths like Dr. Dog. &#160; This winter, Easy Honey will support The Runarounds (from the hit Amazon Prime Series) ahead of their own headline tour and will appear as an official showcasing artist at SXSW. No matter if they&#8217;re harmonizing next to a beach bonfire or exploring the rhythmic twists of a funky riff on stage, their music inevitably pulls you closer with an open-armed, all-are-welcome spirit. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Instagram &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Cut Worms</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cut-worms/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 14 Jan 2026 15:00:05 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#124; Instagram &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify &#124; Facebook &#124; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>The Beths</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-beths-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 13 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA["One of the greatest indie-rock bands of their time." - Rolling Stone&#160;New Zealand indie rock heroes The Beths&#8217; latest album Straight Line Was A Lie is a catchy, instant classic. Written in Los Angeles and self-recorded in the band's hometown of Auckland, Straight Line Was A Lie (their first release for ANTI-) follows 2022's critically celebrated LP Expert in A Dying Field. Lead singer and songwriter Liz Stokes delves deeper into her psyche to address everything from roundabout progress to physical and mental health challenges, and fraught family dynamics. Inspired by The Go-Go's, Olivia Rodrigo, filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and Stephen King's On Writing, amongst others, Stokes' songwriting has achieved startling new depths of insight and vulnerability. Fans will agree that Straight Line Was A Lie is the most sharply observant, truthful, and poetic Beths project to date. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram&#160;&#124; Facebook &#124; Spotify &#124; YouTube &#124; Soundcloud &#124; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Delicate Steve</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/delicate-steve/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Take a visit to Luke&#8217;s Garage, Delicate Steve&#8217;s latest album, and you&#8217;ll discover a place where sparks of creativity fly in all directions, where melodies splatter the walls like brightly hued paint, where no idea is too simple, too ingenuous, too full of childlike wonder. The L.A.-via-Jersey guitarist born Steve Marion, whose credits include session work for Amen Dunes, Paul Simon, and Deradoorian, had no grand plan for making it: he would simply book some time at a friend&#8217;s studio, hunker down, and play. He&#8217;s always allowed intuition to guide him, composing his jubilantly tuneful instrumentals as he records them, but this time, he felt freer than ever to &#8220;keep the seams showing, and don&#8217;t polish everything, and keep it raw, and alive, and electric-feeling,&#8221; he says. He chose the title, Luke&#8217;s Garage, as a tribute to his pal and sometime collaborator Luke Temple, but also for the anything-goes adolescent innocence it conjured: the feeling of heading over to a buddy&#8217;s house, turning up the amps, and creating your own world. In the world of Luke&#8217;s Garage, a passage of music that feels like a sketch in progress might open into a hook so finely wrought, so obviously right, that you have a hard time believing you haven&#8217;t heard it before. The two passages may in fact be one and the same. There are songs that feel destined to soundtrack memories of windows-down road trips, and those more suited to moments of hushed intimacy. A shadowy synth-pop excursion (&#8220;Light of the World&#8221;) veers into a candlelit soul ballad (&#8220;Shall Be Free&#8221;); a chugging garage-rocker (the title track, naturally) sets up an unexpected detour into slinky disco (&#8220;There Goes My Baby&#8221;). Delicate Steve&#8217;s unmistakable sensibility, his tone airy yet tactile, his lines full of poignant bends and whimsical asides, is a benevolent guide through the ever-shifting landscape, keeping a steady hand on the wheel no matter the surroundings. He has little interest in showing off, focusing instead on clarity, simplicity, and directness&#8212;more like an openhearted pop songwriter than a look-what-I-can-do shredder. Marion played every instrument on Luke&#8217;s Garage himself&#8212;guitars, drums, keys, bass&#8212;which heightens its homespun charm. The album&#8217;s sense of music as a colorful playground for exploration may remind you of Paul McCartney&#8217;s early solo work, made at a time when he was shrugging off the weight of expectation and digging into his own idiosyncrasy, tinkering alone until he found a sound that made him feel and trusting it would do the same for others. As with the McCartney, this record&#8217;s air of easy spontaneity belies serious craftsmanship and care: the exuberantly arcing melody of &#8220;We&#8217;ll Be Friends&#8221; and the quietly hopeful one of &#8220;Die With It&#8221; didn&#8217;t just come out of thin air, no matter how natural or even preordained they may seem. To hear Marion tell it, the audible joy in his music isn&#8217;t some affect he&#8217;s choosing to put on, but an honest expression of his own delight and relief when he finally finds the right note, the right rhythm. The prevailing mood of Luke&#8217;s Garage is one of discovery, because you&#8217;re hearing Marion discover the music himself. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Diggy Graves &#8211; The No Vacancy Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/diggy-graves-the-no-vacancy-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Raised in the PNW, Diggy Graves likes to describe his music as a melting pot of genres that ranges from Rap to Horror Core. Diggy has been making music for most of his life and decided to create his persona behind the mask in 2020. You might know him from his most popular songs Red Vineyard and Circus Psycho. You can usually find him hidden in the woods making music in his cabin but in his free-time he enjoys long walks on the beach, hanging out with his son and digging graves. He always looks forward to performing live and seeing all his loyal fans. &#160; Website &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify &#124; TikTok &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Vundabar &#8211; ‘Gawk’ 10 Year Anniversary Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/vundabar-gawk-10-year-anniversary-tour/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 17:00:18 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[&#8220;Following the overwhelming response to their sold-out Gawk 10-year anniversary shows in Los Angeles and Boston, Vundabar will take the celebration nationwide. Kicking off this May, the Gawk 10-Year Anniversary Tour will see the band perform the album in its entirety, alongside fan favorites and new material. Expect a set that’s loud, raw, and joyfully [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Foxtide</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/foxtide/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Made up by Elijah Gibbins-Croft, Oey James, and Ian Robles, Foxtide is a byproduct of being bred by the beach and raised by a DIY house show scene. The SoCal three-piece was formed around garage jam sessions and earned their cult following through the intense vitality of their live shows. First starting to release music in 2019, it was the band&#8217;s second EP Visons in 2021 that took them from a hometown secret to a band to watch nationally. Foxtide has previously played alongside The Backseat Lovers, Echo &#38; The Bunnymen, Lime Cordiale, Sarah and the Sundays, Mustard Service, Beach Goons, and joined the lineup of Shabang, Nothing Fest, and more. Moving into the chapter of their next project, Foxtide is abandoning the idea that they need to create &#8220;perfect&#8221; music, and simply making what they like to listen to. Tinged with the aloofness of early 2000s rock, while experimenting with the formulas of modern pop, all threads are knotted in the authenticity behind Foxtide&#8217;s unrelenting love for music. The band's third EP Paradise helped them secure critical looks from Fashionably Early&#8217;s &#8220;Bands that Deserve to be Bigger,&#8221; Luna Collective Magazine, and their debut LA headline show selling out. Their most recent record earned them the cover of Fashionably Early's playlist as well as their first editorial look from Spotify in All New Rock, and Apple&#8217;s New In Rock and New In Alternative. On the heels of the deluxe version, the band secured support tours with Arcy Drive, Pity Party Girls Club, and more to be announced. Foxtide has most recently signed a record deal with Position Music, and is gearing up for their second full-length LP. &#160; Instagram &#124; TikTok &#124; YouTube &#124; Facebook &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Wednesday &#8211; Bleeds Tour 2026</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/wednesday-bleeds-tour-2026-3/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2025 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Can a self-portrait be a collage? Can empathy be autobiographical? What&#8217;s the point of living if we&#8217;re not trying to understand all the horror and humor that surrounds everything? These are a few of the questions lurking under the bleachers of Wednesday&#8217;s new album Bleeds, an intoxicating collection of narrative-heavy Southern rock that&#8212;like many of the most arresting passages from the North Carolina band&#8217;s highlight reel so far&#8212;thoughtfully explores the vivid link between curiosity and confession. &#160; Bleeds is not only the best Wednesday record&#8212;it&#8217;s also the most Wednesday record, a patchwork-style triumph of literary allusions and outlaw grit, of place-based poetry and hair-raising noise. Karly Hartzman&#8212;founder, frontwoman, and primary lyricist&#8212;credits Wednesday&#8217;s tightened grasp on their own identity to time spent collaborating on previous albums, plus a tour schedule that&#8217;s been both rewarding and relentless. &#8220;Bleeds is the spiritual successor to Rat Saw God, and I think the quintessential &#8216;Wednesday Creek Rock&#8217; album,&#8221; Hartzman said, articulating satisfaction with the ways her band has sharpened its trademark sound, how they&#8217;ve refined the formula that makes them one of the most interesting rock bands of their generation. &#8220;This is what Wednesday songs are supposed to sound like,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve devoted a lot of our lives to figuring this out&#8212;and I feel like we did.&#8221;Just like Rat Saw God, one of the defining rock &#38; roll records of the 2020s so far, Bleeds came together at Drop of Sun in Asheville and was produced by Alex Farrar, who&#8217;s been recording the band since Twin Plagues. Hartzman again brought demos to the studio, where she and her bandmates&#8212;Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, pedal steel), Alan Miller (drums), Ethan Baechtold (bass, piano), and Jake &#8220;M.J.&#8221; Lenderman (guitar)&#8212;worked as a team to bulk-up the compositions with the exact right amounts of country truth-telling, indie-pop hooks, and noisy sludge. More than ever, the precise proportions were steered by the lyricism&#8212;not only its tone or subject matter, but also the actual sound of the words, as well as Hartzman&#8217;s masterfully subjective approach to detail selection.Whether she&#8217;s purging her fascination with a gruesome true-crime case (&#8220;Carolina Murder Suicide&#8221;) or recounting why her old landlord Gary got dentures at thirty-three (&#8220;Gary&#8217;s II&#8221;), every image or scene is filtered through Hartzman&#8217;s agile, writerly brain. The particulars deemed essential&#8212;a wincing dentist, a crooked nail, a Pitbull puppy pissing off a balcony&#8212;all contain revelations about Hartzman&#8217;s specific obsessions and vulnerabilities, about the fragmented way she processes the world. She confronts this affinity for interpersonal soul-searching on &#8220;Townies,&#8221; remembering a high-school mischief partner whose sexual adventures triggered nasty gossip: &#8220;Off I-40 / crawled into your life begging on my knees / and I get it now / you were sixteen and bored and drunk.&#8221; Maybe sometimes the best way to locate truth or pain or dignity within your own life story, Bleeds suggests, is by crawling into someone else&#8217;s. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Luna Luna</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/luna-luna/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Luna Luna is the solo project of Colombian-American artist Kavvi, known for crafting a vibrant sound that seamlessly blends his Spanish and English roots. Mixing nostalgic, feel-good synth-pop with a modern indie edge, Luna Luna has become a standout name in the alt-pop and Latin indie scenes. &#160; What started as a personal creative outlet has evolved into a project that has earned serious recognition &#8212; including nods from Rolling Stone as one of &#8220;10 Latin Acts to Break Big&#8221; and from Variety as one of &#8220;8 Latin Indie Artists to Watch.&#8221; Luna Luna&#8217;s music has been featured by Billboard, PEOPLE, NPR, Paper, FLOOD, Earmilk, REMEZCLA, and more, while also landing on major Spotify playlists like New Music Friday, Lorem, and Mixto. &#160; Known for dreamy live shows and an acclaimed Audiotree session, Luna Luna has built a devoted fanbase and a strong online presence, generating millions of views with over a quarter million followers across platforms. Brand collaborations with Jack Daniel's, Topo Chico, and Taco Bell highlight the project&#8217;s growing cultural impact, all while staying true to the emotional core that makes the music resonate so deeply. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Lucy Bedroque</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/lucy-bedroque/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Los Angeles based nineteen year old Jeremiah Mark (they/he) released their first full-length endeavor under the moniker Lucy Bedroque, their deadAir Records debut. With no prior singles, the breakneck seventeen track shotgun blast of Digicore and Hardcore Hip Hop, titled &#8220;Unmusique&#8221; has established them as a bastion of these underground sounds. The release date coincided with their first show on the Jane Remover and Dazegxd tour &#8220;TURN UP OR DIE&#8221;, along with a full west coast run. Leading up to this moment, Lucy Bedroque gained a cult following in the shadowy sectors of the online underground, with a break-out debut LP &#8220;Sisterhood&#8221; as Lostrushi. This is the name that raised them to notoriety alongside peers 9lives, prettifun, and egobreak. The new material continues further down the same path, combining cutthroat rage, with the eclecticism and sensitivities of Stereolab, Radiohead, and Deftones. While forging their distinct multi-media surrealism, Mark also found a penchant for customized linguistics and contorting the English language. Most notably, the title &#8220;Glutmother&#8221; (the name fans chose for a hyper-active Subreddit) graces the cover art of the debut and the packaging of &#8220;Unmusique. &#8220;The role of motherhood here is representative of a superiority to everything around it. But beyond humans, it&#8217;s a reference to mother nature and creation.&#8221; They explain. As for why it&#8217;s juxtaposed with gluttony, that&#8217;s because &#8220;People want more than anyone can handle, and I&#8217;ve responded to it with a perfectionist&#8217;s mindset.&#8221; They combine into a deep resonance of identity that'd easily evade a new listener. Artful self-produced digicore songs are weaved into a credits list that resembles a guide to online underground music. SKAI (Ken Carson, Osamason producer), Cranes (xaviersobased, Nettspend) also underpin hooks and multi-octave vocal acrobatics. &#160; Instagram &#124; YouTube &#124; Soundcloud &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Wednesday &#8211; Bleeds Tour 2026</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/wednesday-bleeds-tour-2026/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Can a self-portrait be a collage? Can empathy be autobiographical? What&#8217;s the point of living if we&#8217;re not trying to understand all the horror and humor that surrounds everything? These are a few of the questions lurking under the bleachers of Wednesday&#8217;s new album Bleeds, an intoxicating collection of narrative-heavy Southern rock that&#8212;like many of the most arresting passages from the North Carolina band&#8217;s highlight reel so far&#8212;thoughtfully explores the vivid link between curiosity and confession. &#160; Bleeds is not only the best Wednesday record&#8212;it&#8217;s also the most Wednesday record, a patchwork-style triumph of literary allusions and outlaw grit, of place-based poetry and hair-raising noise. Karly Hartzman&#8212;founder, frontwoman, and primary lyricist&#8212;credits Wednesday&#8217;s tightened grasp on their own identity to time spent collaborating on previous albums, plus a tour schedule that&#8217;s been both rewarding and relentless. &#8220;Bleeds is the spiritual successor to Rat Saw God, and I think the quintessential &#8216;Wednesday Creek Rock&#8217; album,&#8221; Hartzman said, articulating satisfaction with the ways her band has sharpened its trademark sound, how they&#8217;ve refined the formula that makes them one of the most interesting rock bands of their generation. &#8220;This is what Wednesday songs are supposed to sound like,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve devoted a lot of our lives to figuring this out&#8212;and I feel like we did.&#8221;Just like Rat Saw God, one of the defining rock &#38; roll records of the 2020s so far, Bleeds came together at Drop of Sun in Asheville and was produced by Alex Farrar, who&#8217;s been recording the band since Twin Plagues. Hartzman again brought demos to the studio, where she and her bandmates&#8212;Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, pedal steel), Alan Miller (drums), Ethan Baechtold (bass, piano), and Jake &#8220;M.J.&#8221; Lenderman (guitar)&#8212;worked as a team to bulk-up the compositions with the exact right amounts of country truth-telling, indie-pop hooks, and noisy sludge. More than ever, the precise proportions were steered by the lyricism&#8212;not only its tone or subject matter, but also the actual sound of the words, as well as Hartzman&#8217;s masterfully subjective approach to detail selection.Whether she&#8217;s purging her fascination with a gruesome true-crime case (&#8220;Carolina Murder Suicide&#8221;) or recounting why her old landlord Gary got dentures at thirty-three (&#8220;Gary&#8217;s II&#8221;), every image or scene is filtered through Hartzman&#8217;s agile, writerly brain. The particulars deemed essential&#8212;a wincing dentist, a crooked nail, a Pitbull puppy pissing off a balcony&#8212;all contain revelations about Hartzman&#8217;s specific obsessions and vulnerabilities, about the fragmented way she processes the world. She confronts this affinity for interpersonal soul-searching on &#8220;Townies,&#8221; remembering a high-school mischief partner whose sexual adventures triggered nasty gossip: &#8220;Off I-40 / crawled into your life begging on my knees / and I get it now / you were sixteen and bored and drunk.&#8221; Maybe sometimes the best way to locate truth or pain or dignity within your own life story, Bleeds suggests, is by crawling into someone else&#8217;s. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Wednesday &#8211; Bleeds Tour 2026</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/wednesday-bleeds-tour-2026-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Can a self-portrait be a collage? Can empathy be autobiographical? What&#8217;s the point of living if we&#8217;re not trying to understand all the horror and humor that surrounds everything? These are a few of the questions lurking under the bleachers of Wednesday&#8217;s new album Bleeds, an intoxicating collection of narrative-heavy Southern rock that&#8212;like many of the most arresting passages from the North Carolina band&#8217;s highlight reel so far&#8212;thoughtfully explores the vivid link between curiosity and confession. &#160; Bleeds is not only the best Wednesday record&#8212;it&#8217;s also the most Wednesday record, a patchwork-style triumph of literary allusions and outlaw grit, of place-based poetry and hair-raising noise. Karly Hartzman&#8212;founder, frontwoman, and primary lyricist&#8212;credits Wednesday&#8217;s tightened grasp on their own identity to time spent collaborating on previous albums, plus a tour schedule that&#8217;s been both rewarding and relentless. &#8220;Bleeds is the spiritual successor to Rat Saw God, and I think the quintessential &#8216;Wednesday Creek Rock&#8217; album,&#8221; Hartzman said, articulating satisfaction with the ways her band has sharpened its trademark sound, how they&#8217;ve refined the formula that makes them one of the most interesting rock bands of their generation. &#8220;This is what Wednesday songs are supposed to sound like,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve devoted a lot of our lives to figuring this out&#8212;and I feel like we did.&#8221;Just like Rat Saw God, one of the defining rock &#38; roll records of the 2020s so far, Bleeds came together at Drop of Sun in Asheville and was produced by Alex Farrar, who&#8217;s been recording the band since Twin Plagues. Hartzman again brought demos to the studio, where she and her bandmates&#8212;Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, pedal steel), Alan Miller (drums), Ethan Baechtold (bass, piano), and Jake &#8220;M.J.&#8221; Lenderman (guitar)&#8212;worked as a team to bulk-up the compositions with the exact right amounts of country truth-telling, indie-pop hooks, and noisy sludge. More than ever, the precise proportions were steered by the lyricism&#8212;not only its tone or subject matter, but also the actual sound of the words, as well as Hartzman&#8217;s masterfully subjective approach to detail selection.Whether she&#8217;s purging her fascination with a gruesome true-crime case (&#8220;Carolina Murder Suicide&#8221;) or recounting why her old landlord Gary got dentures at thirty-three (&#8220;Gary&#8217;s II&#8221;), every image or scene is filtered through Hartzman&#8217;s agile, writerly brain. The particulars deemed essential&#8212;a wincing dentist, a crooked nail, a Pitbull puppy pissing off a balcony&#8212;all contain revelations about Hartzman&#8217;s specific obsessions and vulnerabilities, about the fragmented way she processes the world. She confronts this affinity for interpersonal soul-searching on &#8220;Townies,&#8221; remembering a high-school mischief partner whose sexual adventures triggered nasty gossip: &#8220;Off I-40 / crawled into your life begging on my knees / and I get it now / you were sixteen and bored and drunk.&#8221; Maybe sometimes the best way to locate truth or pain or dignity within your own life story, Bleeds suggests, is by crawling into someone else&#8217;s. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Krooked Kings</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/krooked-kings/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[In a world where authenticity is often sacrificed, Krooked Kings stand as a beacon of unabashed vulnerability and raw emotion. Their indie rock sound is a candid reflection of their influences, drawing from the ornate and biting guitar arrangements of The Strokes, the introspective depth of Bon Iver, and the easygoing charm of Peach Pit. But while these inspirations shape their musical foundation, it's the band's own narrative that sets them apart. &#160; At the heart of Krooked Kings&#8217; music is a brutally honest portrayal of the twenty-something experience in America&#8212;capturing the restlessness, dreams, and disillusionments of a generation navigating the complexities of modern life. Their lyrics resonate with the tumultuous yet exhilarating journey of coming of age, making each song a poignant and relatable exploration of life's ups and downs. &#160; Krooked Kings burst onto the scene with a fervor that quickly captivated audiences across Europe and North America, culminating in a debut tour that left an indelible mark on their fans. Their ability to connect on a profound level is evident not just in their packed shows but also in their impressive digital footprint. With over 70 million streams on their albums, their music has reverberated across the globe, cementing their status as a rising force in indie rock. &#160; Their presence isn&#8217;t just isolated to the realm of underground fans and loyal listeners, having gained critical acclaim and placements on some of Spotify&#8217;s most sought after playlists in the genre including &#8220;Today&#8217;s Indie Rock&#8221;, &#8220;Feel Good Indie Rock&#8221;, &#8220;Marrow&#8221;, and many more. &#160; With their fearless approach to songwriting and an ever-expanding fanbase, they&#8217;re poised to redefine the boundaries of indie rock and make their mark on the world stage. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram &#124; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Iron &amp; Wine</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/iron-wine/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 10 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[With Improvement Movement &#160; Iron &#38; Wine is the musical project of singer-songwriter Sam Beam. Born and raised in South Carolina, Beam is a former film professor who got his start making home recordings before landing on Sub Pop Records. Iron &#38; Wine's 2002 debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle garnered both critical and popular acclaim, vaulting Beam into the spotlight of the burgeoning indie-folk/Americana scene as one of its new and leading voices. For over 20 years, Iron &#38; Wine has captured the emotion and imagination of listeners with distinctly cinematic songs. His recorded output includes seven full-length studio records, collaborations with Calexico, Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), and Jesca Hoop, countless EP's, singles and compilation/soundtrack appearances, a live concert documentary, and five GRAMMY nominations. Iron &#38; Wine's latest record, Light Verse was released in April 2024 with Paste Magazine noting "&#8230; Beam returns with an expanded sonic palette while also rekindling the bright spark that made 2007's The Shepherd's Dog so magical." &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Iron &amp; Wine</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/iron-wine-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 10 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[With Improvement Movement &#160; Iron &#38; Wine is the musical project of singer-songwriter Sam Beam. Born and raised in South Carolina, Beam is a former film professor who got his start making home recordings before landing on Sub Pop Records. Iron &#38; Wine's 2002 debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle garnered both critical and popular acclaim, vaulting Beam into the spotlight of the burgeoning indie-folk/Americana scene as one of its new and leading voices. For over 20 years, Iron &#38; Wine has captured the emotion and imagination of listeners with distinctly cinematic songs. His recorded output includes seven full-length studio records, collaborations with Calexico, Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), and Jesca Hoop, countless EP's, singles and compilation/soundtrack appearances, a live concert documentary, and five GRAMMY nominations. Iron &#38; Wine's latest record, Light Verse was released in April 2024 with Paste Magazine noting "&#8230; Beam returns with an expanded sonic palette while also rekindling the bright spark that made 2007's The Shepherd's Dog so magical." &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Femtanyl</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/femtanyl/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:00:57 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Bandcamp &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Never Ending Fall</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/never-ending-fall/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; TikTok &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Wallice</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/wallice-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[In April 2023, Wallice found herself on stages in arenas full of strangers. The Los Angeles songwriter was on the other side of the world, playing shows to 10,000 or more people who had, in many cases, been standing in line for days to see their favorite band, The 1975. Wallice was the opener, playing the biggest shows of her life to crowds that mostly didn't know her name. It was a thrill, of course, but there was dejection to it, too, to staring out at front rows of blank faces, struggling with the sleeplessness of a few days spent in line. So Wallice did what songwriters do: She turned the uncanny experience into "The Opener," the six-minute gambit of her first LP, The Jester. As the track moves from tender ballad to defiant rocker, she considers all the bad things she might say about her own art &#8212; a Radiohead rip-off, too innocent, too determined &#8212; and moves forward, anyway. "Gonna get what I deserve/I'm still the opener," she roars in the final seconds, balancing future hopes with present conditions across a razor wire of howling guitars. This push and pull between expectation and actuality animate much of The Jester, Wallice's ultra-dynamic and charged 14-song debut. Though Wallice has been writing songs since she was a preteen playing cello and releasing them for almost as long, her career took shape during the last four years, when a series of singles and EPs suggested her as a new chronicler of early adulthood's struggles and delights. Written while living with her mom and working in the eyelash extension business, that music &#8212; Wallice, 26, says now &#8212; was about coming of age. Now with a place of her own and a decade-long relationship, Wallice is making music that reckons with age and reality, that learns to find joy and meaning not in the life you wanted but in the life you have. As it pivots from soft acoustic waltzes to fluorescent electronic bounces, from warped piano drifts to unabashed rock anthems, The Jester holds fast to that thread: gratitude for what you've got and hope for what might yet come. A year before those shows across the globe, Wallice returned from her first substantial tour with similar questions about her path forward. Having first found widespread attention online, she struggled with the novel notion of putting on a show each night, of performing for a crowd no matter what else was happening. On April 1, 2022, during their first writing session together, she told Ethan Gruska &#38; her longtime collaborator Marinelli about those feelings; together, they stumbled upon the concept of "The Jester," or about sometimes having to mask what's inside for the sake of entertainment. They hatched the first half of "Heaven Has to Happen," a confession about suffering from imposter syndrome even while you're living your dream. "How many more jokes can I make before the wool gets pulled out from over my eyes?" Wallice sings just before a brief, mid-song outburst of distorted bass. For the better part of two years, that's where Wallice and Gruska left the track. &#160; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; TikTok &#124; Soundcloud &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Gatlin</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/gatlin/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Even when you try to outrun it, the past has a way of slithering out of the shadows and coiling up over your shoulders. Gatlin Thornton had long since left behind the conservative, religious upbringing in the American south and was living her life on her own terms as a young queer woman&#8212;but then there it was, inescapable. In combing through old memories, Gatlin unlocked something in her creative process. She had been writing and releasing music since high school, but actually wading through time and re-experiencing all those strong feelings helped catalyze what would become her debut album as Gatlin, The Eldest Daughter (due October TK). The result is a set of songs about rejecting the path laid at your feet and needing to build your own way forward, a record that both embraces nostalgia and knows its inherent pain. &#160; Gatlin spent her early years in Florida, fully entrenched in her conservative Christian private schooling&#8212;but her parents encouraged music as an outlet, where she excelled in guitar, piano, and singing. When it came time to start college, Gatlin had already begun bristling at the strictures of her upbringing and questioning how her burgeoning queer feelings would impact that life. She struck out to study songwriting, but after two years instead decided to drop out and work full-time in the heart of the music industry&#8212;first for a stint in Nashville, and then relocating to her current home in Los Angeles, while adding in frequent trips to London to collaborate with songwriters and producers. It was while packing for one of her trips to London when the past first caught up with Gatlin via an old journal she&#8217;d stumbled upon. In one entry, she detailed her first realization that she was having feelings for a girl: &#8220;If she was a boy I&#8217;d be in love.&#8221; Gatlin had been amassing tracks full of clever lyricism and grand emotionality inspired by her new life, but that elegantly simple phrase brought a new depth and intensity to Gatlin&#8217;s songwriting on lead single &#8220;If She Was a Boy.&#8221; Not only was she able to recapture some of the most intense memories and feelings of her life, but to also then take those forward and see her fulfilled present and hopeful future in a whole new light. Co-written with Chloe Kraemer and Amanda Cy, the track opens on a shimmering rhythm section and a slinky synth progression, Gatlin quickly pulls her youthful self forward&#8212;the naive lines delivered with a healthy dose of sensual romance. &#8220;I&#8217;m too afraid of what you think and who&#8217;s above/ But if she was a boy/ I&#8217;d be in love/ I&#8217;d be in love,&#8221; she sings, the song recounting a time of tragic distance from one&#8217;s heart but also somehow dizzy with potential. &#8220;Writing this song in a room in the middle of London with two other queer women was incredible,&#8221; Gatlin explains. &#8220;It&#8217;s not often I&#8217;ve gotten to make a track with all women, and I&#8217;m addicted to that energy.&#8221; The Eldest Daughter brims with contributions from other talented women, including Jennifer Decilveo (writer and producer for the likes of Miley Cyrus, Lucius, and Hozier), singer-songwriter Liza Owen, and indie rocker Tessa Mouzourakis of English duo Tommy Lefroy. But at its core the album is truly a statement of Gatlin carving her own path and taking control of her narrative, both musically and philosophically. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; TikTok &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Bahamas</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/bahamas/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2025 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[My Second Last Album Afie Jurvanen does not spend too much time in cities these days. For nearly two decades, Jurvanen was a fixture of the Toronto scene, both as a valued multi-instrumentalist and producer for friends like Feist, The Weather Station, and Kathleen Edwards and as the architect of one of his country&#8217;s most celebrated artists, Bahamas. Jurvanen came of age across Bahamas&#8217; first six albums, the restlessness of jumpy early hits like Pink Strat and Barchords slowly shifting into the generous domesticity of 2023&#8217;s Bootcut. But Jurvanen has long been drawn to open spaces, to a quieter life. In 2009, the year of his aforementioned debut, he began visiting Nova Scotia, the Atlantic Ocean. Over the next decade, his trips became more consistent, then more frequent, and then longer, until, in 2019, Jurvanen and his family of four finally made the move&#8212;nearly 2,000 kilometers northeast, to Nova Scotia. They live a lifestyle, Jurvanen half-jokes, that is &#8220;close to Mennonite.&#8221; The kids are homeschooled. No one has an iPad. Text messages can feel like miracles. But in 2022, Jurvanen went back to a city&#8212;namely, Music City, or Nashville, Tenn. During five days at the Sound Emporium, he worked with some of America&#8217;s true country greats, aces like Vince Gill and Sam Bush, Russ Pahl and Mickey Raphael. Bootcut, he reminisces, was maybe the easiest record he&#8217;s ever made, his songs and visions executed with utter clarity by absolute pros. When Jurvanen came home, though, he still had a few tunes and plenty of energy. Could he make more music, he wondered, outsideof a city? Despite his extended r&#233;sum&#233;, Jurvanen has never been much of a tech guy or studio hound, never one for making his own records. In 2021, however, producer and multiinstrumentalist Joshua Van Tassel had also left Toronto, moving back to Nova Scotia and building a little studio, called DreamDate, in a backyard shed there. It was just small enough to skirt inspections, just big enough to house everything. Jurvanen had once rented Van Tassel&#8217;s space back in Toronto to listen to his Earthtones album on someone else&#8217;s speakers, to decide if it was ready for release. He&#8217;d been impressed by the place&#8217;s minimalism and tidiness, by the studio rarity of everything working. So Jurvanen began driving the 20 minutes from his cottage to Van Tassel&#8217;s spot via a winding ocean road, passing his days hanging out with his local friend and recording some songs. There was no real agenda but to work and play. And that&#8217;s how two people in a little shed made what may be the most effortlessly magnetic record in the entire Bahamas catalogue, My Second Last Album. Van Tassel and Jurvanen played every sound on My Second Last Album, from the buzzing acoustics of &#8220;Shadows&#8221; to the Mellotron ostinato of &#8220;Play the Game.&#8221; This self- dependence allowed them to do anything they wanted, to follow musical enthusiasms into any space they favored. Jurvanen wrote &#8220;The Bridge&#8221; via text with Hiss Golden Messenger&#8217;s M.C. Taylor, and he and Van Tassel turned it into an infectious country-funk tune, the strutting refrain closing the gap between Little Feat and Canned Heat. &#8220;Ready for a New Thing&#8221; echoes Joni Mitchell&#8217;s famous electric guitar tone, using it as the core of a buoyant little pop song about growing up, about being happy with growing older. &#8220;Feels So Good&#8221; is a modern soul wonder, its perfect groove framed by bass, piano, and finger-snap drums and built with a brilliant amount of negative space. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Field Medic</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/field-medic-3/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[For ten years, singer-songwriter Kevin Patrick Sullivan has been releasing music as Field Medic that meshes the magical and the ordinary. His dreamy lo-fi bedroom folk discography is vast, with 5 full length albums, multiple EPs and singles, and has no plans on stopping. Newly sober, Sullivan plans on continuing to build his world through his poetic lyricism and imagery through his experiences that has amassed him a fanbase that can relate to the feelings his music evokes.Field Medic&#8217;s latest record, dope girl chronicles, is something of a spiritual sequel to his 2015 debut full length, but it also marks a sonic shift, deconstructing his as we know it in order to start an exciting new chapter. &#160; Highlights Featured on Green Day&#8217;s Tribute Album Supported tours for Beach Bunny, Backseat Lovers, Indigo DeSouza, The Neighbourhood Featured on New Music Friday and covers on all of the top Indie playlists &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Sarah Kinsley</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/sarah-kinsley/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[New York based Sarah Kinsley&#8217;s music evokes all the feelings. A schooled but intuitive&#160;musician/singer/producer, she explores doubts and dreams in her captivating and sometimesironic alt-pop songs. Distinctive and atmospheric she delves into the intimate and the expansive,&#160;the introspective and the cinematic. Narratively driven, there&#8217;s a dreamlike quality to her lyrics,&#160;whilst musically it runs the gamut from a hazy, alluring dream-pop to the more adventurous leftfield&#160;pop too. &#160; Escaper, Sarah's debut album, was the 2024 follow-up to her introductory EPs ~ The near&#160;instantaneous virality of The King (2021), the cinematic Cypress (2022) and the widescreenAscension (2023). A vibrant collection of songs, Escaper was born from Sarah's boundless desire to&#160;escape into portals and other realms. It was a musician rejoicing in holding nothing back and&#160;whose love of all things experimental and raw were reflected in her words and melodies. &#160; It was in the spring of 2025, while riding in cabs and walking the streets of New York by night,&#160;inspiration struck again. A moment of realisation hit her imagination like a bolt of electricity, afeeling so cathartic it became the foundation for her returning single, Fleeting: a euphoric, pulsating&#160;and richly melodic dance-pop track. If Escaper was the sound of an artist getting a feel for where&#160;she might fit in, Fleeting is exactly that. A feeling. A freedom. A rush. A dance floor? An introduction&#160;to her next world. &#160; Instagram &#124; Spotify &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Mei Semones</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/mei-semones-2/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2025 17:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[“No second-guessing, no overthinking. The way I want to live my life is by doing the things that are important to me, and I think everyone should live that way,” says Mei Semones of her strengthened self-assurance. Through continuously honing in on her signature fusion of indie rock, bossa nova, jazz and chamber pop in [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>The New Pornographers &#8211; The Former Site Of Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-new-pornographers-the-former-site-of-tour/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Over the past 20 years, The New Pornographers have proven themselves one of the most excellent bands in indie rock. They have released nine studio albums, including their classic debut Mass Romantic and their latest 2023&#8217;s Continue as a Guest, which marked their debut for Merge Records. They&#8217;ve constantly offered new sonic surprises with every album, and have established themselves alongside modern luminaries like Yo La Tengo and Superchunk when it comes to their ability to evolve while still retaining what made them so special in the first place. Of the newest record, New York Magazine lauded, &#8220;The New Pornographers are a massive unit bursting with unique and intersecting talents&#8230;the band&#8217;s ninth album serves another helping of their signature dish.&#8221; The band's new single "Ballad of the Last Payphone" is out now with a new full-length album slated for release in 2026 &#8211; more details to come. Critical acclaim for The New Pornographers: &#8220;Over the course of their 20-plus-year career, the New Pornographers have often specialized in catchy ambiguity. If leader Carl Newman was just a machine cranking out power-pop tunes, it would get boring. But there&#8217;s also a lot of mixed emotions going on under the surface of their studiously nuanced pop-rock formalism&#8212;like if Cheap Trick was as quick-witted as Steely Dan, or the Romantics were as thoughtful as R.E.M.&#8221;- Rolling Stone &#8220;Pure, blissfully irresistible power pop&#8221;- NPR Music &#8220;[The New Pornographers] make catchy, sophisticated alternate-universe hits.&#8221;- Stereogum&#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; TikTok &#124; Threads &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Martin Sexton &#8211; Live Wide Open Tour 2026</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/martin-sexton-live-wide-open-tour-2026/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. Martin Sexton tours in support the 25th anniversary of Live Wide Open - the critically-acclaimed double vinyl live album. The show will include these fan-favorites as well as some new material and surprise covers. &#160; &#8220;The real thing, people&#8221;&#160;&#8212;Billboard &#160; &#8220;Soul-marinated voice&#8221;&#160;&#8212;Rolling Stone &#160; &#8220;Mr. Sexton as an impassioned performer can bring women and men to tears when they see him live&#8221; &#8212;Wall Street Journal &#160; &#8220;The best live performer I&#8217;ve ever seen.&#8221; &#8212;John Mayer &#160; &#8220;Master of dynamics, reducing a room to silence with his blustering baritone, then teasing that silence with a fluttering falsetto." &#160;&#8212;Acoustic Guitar &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Soundcloud]]></description>
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                                <title>Benjamin Tod and the Inline Six 2026 Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/benjamin-tod-and-the-inline-six-2026-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 14 Nov 2025 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Sitting at a corner caf&#233; table, Benjamin Tod's eyes light up when asked what it's like to finally embrace happiness and accept love. With a slight grin, he sips his coffee and leans back, one arm draped casually and comfortably over the chair. "I'm kind of settling into my age, into allowing myself to be happy," the 33-year-old says. "For years, I led myself and the people around me into a lot of unnecessary darkness. And now, I've learned how to give and receive affection &#8212; it's helped heal a lot of parts of myself." Tod's demeanor is a far cry from his usual stiff posture stance with arms folded, this permeating sense of trepidation and scrutiny for what trouble may be coming down the pike. The relaxed, calm aura is a sign of a human being who has overcome lifelong personal demons, one who has finally become liberated &#8212; not only in his personal life, but also his music. "This latest record is so unusual for what I do," Tod says. "It's almost a spite album, to prove what I can do as a writer in whatever medium I step into." Titled Shooting Star, the album carves a fresh creative path for Tod, a storied singer-songwriter and frontman of Lost Dog Street Band. The self-proclaimed "proprietor of misery," Tod finds himself transcending into a life of gratitude, patience, and stability. "People evolve and change. You're growing as a person," Tod says. "If you want to get healthier, you have to start intentionally behaving like a healthy person. You have to look around you and adapt to those things &#8212; if you don't change your identity, it's hard to change yourself." For this latest solo endeavor, Tod tapped some of Nashville's finest to conjure country gold. Shifting from his signature somber tone of struggle and survival, Tod and his coal fire throat radiate a feeling of clarity and new beginnings in the face of adversity. The result is this intrinsic, musical crossroads &#8212; more Hank Williams than Bob Wills, more Marty Stuart than George Jones. "Most of my career has been laser-focused on poetic, piercing songwriting in mainly a folk tradition." Tod says. "I wanted to prove to myself and the industry that I could write an elite country record with ease. Either way, if I didn't accomplish that goal, I sure as hell came closer than anyone on pop country radio." The inspiration for the project struck in the summer of 2022, with Tod penning the opening track "I Ain't The Man." From there, it became this unrelenting, internal thirst for Tod to begin "imagining what all I could do within a genre slightly outside my comfort zone." With a thick thread of honkytonk woven into it, the album leaves fingerprints on seemingly every style of country, from outlaw to red dirt, folk to indie, the culmination of which being a happily welcomed challenge for Tod &#8212; the ethos of his life and career at this juncture howling loudly "obstacles are opportunities." Shooting Star is also a full-circle moment for Tod. Coming of age in Music City, he found himself squarely in the midst of rough-n-tumble Lower Broadway. Busking on street corners playing Woody Guthrie and Jim Ringer tunes for spare change. And getting kicked out of Robert's Western World or Layla's Honky Tonk "more times than most regulars had been before the age of 20." &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Unprocessed</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/unprocessed-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 10 Nov 2025 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
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                                <title>Rec Hall</title>
                                <eventupdate>5 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/rec-hall/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 05 Nov 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Southern California trio Rec Hall&#8212;John Barry [guitar, vocals], Lance Meliota [drums], and Ben Tyrrell [guitar, bass]&#8212;glide between indie, rock, and alternative on the crest of a catchy sun-soaked signature sound. Growing up in the South Bay neighborhood of Los Angeles, John and Lance initially met in pre-school at barely four-years-old. Building a friendship as they absorbed influence from &#8220;the 60&#8217;s to the 2000s,&#8221; John and Lance jammed for years and listened to the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Clash, The Shins, and Interpol. Cementing their lineup in high school, they finally linked up with Ben. The three-piece went on to win a series of &#8220;Battle of the Bands&#8221; competitions and performed local gigs at a relentless pace. They cooked up tunes throughout college, each member contributed to the writing process and rotated between instruments, giving the sound three distinct dimensions. Eventually, they linked up with producer Nicolas Zagorin and cut their debut single &#8220;She Doesn&#8217;t Get It.&#8221; It organically gained traction, gathering over 20 million Spotify streams and counting. During 2023, they caught the attention of Arista Records and inked a deal with the label. After building buzz, the musicians instantly transfixed with their debut EP, Localism. They are currently on their first tour with labelmate, Beach Weather. Since the tour started, the band&#8217;s socials increased by 30%. To kick off the second leg of their tour, the band is sharing track &#8220;How Long.&#8221; &#160; Website&#160;&#124; Instagram&#160;&#124; Facebook &#124; Spotify &#124; YouTube&#160;&#124; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Arts Fishing Club, Harvey Street</title>
                                <eventupdate>5 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/arts-fishing-club-harvey-street/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 04 Nov 2025 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Arts Fishing Club is more than just a band; they are storytellers, explorers of the human condition, and purveyors of living life boldly. An ethos demonstrated by frontman Christopher Kessenich&#8217;s first 4.5 month tour in which he walked 1600 miles along the east coast from Maine to Atlanta to Nashville, played 60 shows, and slept in strangers&#8217; living room floors.&#160;The boldness that compelled such an adventure is felt in AFC&#8217;s electrifying live shows where the band weaves the raw energy of rock and the introspective lyrical honesty of folk to create a sound that is timeless and refreshingly original.&#160;Whether performing in sold out small clubs or on festival stages (Bonnaroo, Summerfest, Treefort, Mile of Music), their engaging stage presence and ability to connect with fans makes their live performances a cornerstone of their success.&#160;With a growing fanbase, commitment to pushing their creative boundaries, and an infectiously entertaining live show, Arts Fishing Club is poised to make a lasting impact on the indie music landscape. &#160; Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Facebook &#124; Spotify &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Alice Phoebe Lou</title>
                                <eventupdate>5 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/alice-phoebe-lou/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2025 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#124; Instagram &#124; Bandcamp &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Kishi Bashi: Sonderlust 10th Anniversary Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>5 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/kishi-bashi-sonderlust-10th-anniversary-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of Emmy-nominated singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kaoru Ishibashi. A Berklee-trained virtuoso violinist, Kishi Bashi is acclaimed for his uplifting, high-energy concerts and his distinctive loop-based violin style. He has also earned recognition for his groundbreaking collaborations with major symphonies&#8212;including the National Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and Oregon Symphony&#8212;where he blends classical and pop influences in captivating performances. Beyond the orchestral stage, he has toured internationally with Regina Spektor and of Montreal, and released five acclaimed albums&#8212;beginning with his NPR-praised debut 151a (2012), followed by Sonderlust (2016), the documentary project Omoiyari (2019), and most recently Kantos (2024), a kaleidoscopic fusion of funk, jazz, and orchestral pop. Known for his cinematic storytelling and genre-bending sound, Kishi Bashi continues to push creative boundaries while captivating audiences worldwide. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>The Moss</title>
                                <eventupdate>6 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-moss-3/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2025 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[In a musical landscape with fewer boundaries than ever before, THE MOSS&#8217;s exuberant brand of alternative rock spans genres, eras, and even oceans.&#160;The Utah-via-Hawaii group was born on the shores of Oahu in 2015, as teenage buddies Tyke James (vocals/guitar) and Addison Sharp (guitar) picked up a gig serenading diners at local taco trucks in between surf sessions. Naturally, their songs took shape in the spirit of the island, imbued with the joyfulness and breeziness of reggae culture yet cut with the introspection and communal spirit of mainland indie acts like Pinegrove and Cage the Elephant.&#160;By 2018, the duo had grown, enlisting Willie Fowler on drums and Addison&#8217;s brother Brierton on bass, and traded in beaches for the Great Salt Lake. They hit the stage at spots like local cornerstone Kilby Court, live-testing their modern-indie-meets-&#8217;60s-blues with a wide-eyed exuberance that translated effortlessly into their 2019 self-released debut, Bryology.&#160;Colored by the sound of Stratocasters jamming through reverb-cranked Fender amps, all backed by bouncy rhythms, Bryology marked a big step for the still-young quartet &#8211; but, true to The Moss&#8217;s nature, was still hard-coded with a DIY ethos. &#8220;We basically had no budget,&#8221; James remembers fondly. &#8220;We bought some nice mics and an interface and I ended up learning how to mix while we were recording.&#8221;&#160;The follow-up, 2021&#8217;s Kentucky Derby, brought a more aspirational, blue-sky tilt to the foundation they&#8217;d laid on Bryology, expanding the group&#8217;s sonic arsenal while keeping the relatable lyrical style and sun-soaked sentiment at the forefront. &#8220;I&#8217;m really proud of how we&#8217;ve evolved as a band over time,&#8221; Addison Sharp says. &#8220;It feels like we&#8217;ve taken every different influence and mashed them all together to create something that feels really special.&#8221;&#160;&#8220;Bryology seemed like a collection of separate songs we put together to make an album, whereas Kentucky Derby is a similar thought and story coming together to collectively make a more cohesive album,&#8221; adds Brierton Sharp says, noting the album&#8217;s tracks are sneakily arranged in pairs of two that seamlessly flow into one another. &#8220;Each song could be listened to on its own, or you could listen to them all and get a broader sense of our intention.&#8221;&#160;No matter how listeners choose to interact with The Moss&#8217;s music, the band just hopes they feel something. It&#8217;s that kinetic relationship between band and audience that makes their live performances &#8211; including a pitch-perfect recent set for Audiotree &#8211; so compelling. &#8220;No matter what we do, we want to make sure the songs are fun to play live,&#8221; says Fowler. &#8220;We pride ourselves on being a band people want to see live.&#8221;&#160;&#8220;There&#8217;s something special that happens when you get an immediate reaction to a song,&#8221; says James. &#8220;Whether it&#8217;s during a live show or even just a songwriting session, if there&#8217;s a reaction from people in the room, you know you&#8217;re on the right track.&#8221; XX &#160; Website &#124; Facebook&#160;&#124; Instagram &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Eliza McLamb &#8211; Good Story Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>7 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/eliza-mclamb-good-story-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 13 Aug 2025 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[It appears to be a trophy at first. Look closer, and you&#8217;ll see the cover of Good Story features Eliza McLamb holding a makeshift award, hot-glued together from scraps she and her mother salvaged. It is, of course, silver &#8212; a self-deprecating wink introducing the timbre of McLamb&#8217;s sophomore album. These last few years, McLamb&#8217;s been parsing her upbringing, the songs she wrote about it, and the whole endeavor of the stories we tell about ourselves. &#8220;If you get really good at telling the story of who you are, you become the story you told instead of the ever-dynamic, ever-changing person you have to be,&#8221; McLamb says. &#8220;I did really well telling the story of who I am, but I began asking: What&#8217;s the point of it?&#8221; &#160; At only 23, McLamb has already lived multiple lives. In her late teens, McLamb found success via co-hosting the podcast Binchtopia and sharing songs on TikTok. She soon pulled back from the platform, feeling it didn&#8217;t represent her actual ethos as a songwriter. Instead, she signed to Royal Mountain and released her 2024 debut Going Through It, a document of a complex, traumatic childhood that led to searching phases &#8212; dropping out of college during the pandemic in favor of working on Midwest farms, eventually leaving her North Carolina hometown behind for Los Angeles. It all gave her plenty of stories to tell on Going Through It. And now on Good Story, she wonders how that process affected her. Yet the homemade trophy of Good Story&#8217;s cover is far from a jocular consolation prize alone. It&#8217;s a symbol of the layered, accomplished writing McLamb arrived at as she interrogated everything she thought she was about as an artist. &#160; After touring Going Through It in the spring of 2024, McLamb began writing new material and found herself encountering an age-old trope. &#8220;I felt like I had spent my whole life writing the first record,&#8221; she says. She could&#8217;ve mined her experience for a whole catalog of music, but she wanted to step back and reassess her impulses as a writer. Good Story directly reflects upon the process of making not only Going Through It, but the process of making art derived from our personal lives altogether. &#8220;I carved out room and brought in new songs that felt fresher, able to pick up on ideas outside of this compulsion to build a personal narrative,&#8221; McLamb explains. Then, she laughs: &#8220;But then I wrote all these songs about the compulsion to make a personal narrative.&#8221; &#160; Though Los Angeles had served her well for a time, McLamb had begun to feel suffocated by her life there. &#8220;I was on a personal mission to stop being so solipsistic,&#8221; she cracks. It led to another cross-country move to New York City. She found herself reinvigorated by being in a dense city colliding with so many different people. She fell into new scenes &#8212; music circles, but also literary crowds. Inspired by her new surroundings, McLamb&#8217;s writing process changed too. Songs arrived to her while on the subway, or on walks near her apartment. &#160; Once she had enough material, McLamb reconvened in upstate New York with guitarist Jacob Blizard and illuminati hotties&#8217; Sarah Tudzin, who had produced Going Through It. A greater sense of confidence allowed McLamb to open herself up to co-writing. Before Going Through It, McLamb had never played with a band. &#160; Bandcamp &#124; Instagram &#124; YouTube &#124; Spotify &#124; Bandcamp]]></description>
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                                <title>The Church THE SINGLES: 1980-2025</title>
                                <eventupdate>9 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-church-the-singles-1980-2025/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jun 2025 21:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Few bands enter their fifth decade of making music with all the fierce &#160;creative energy of their early years. Even fewer bands are like The Church. Experiencing a renaissance of sorts with their worldwide critically-hailed 26th album The Hypnogogue and its companion 27th album (that also serves as a &#160;worthy standalone) Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars, The Church has &#160;witnessed their continued impact to astonishingly grow exponentially in &#160;audience size and media attention through not only their new albums but a &#160;world tour that took them through North America, the UK, Europe and back &#160;home to Australia. Coupled with the 2024 vinyl re-issues of their first four &#160;albums &#8211; Of Skins &#38; Heart, The Blurred Crusade, S&#233;ance, and Heyday &#8211; their most recent Australian tour was one of their most successful tours to &#160;date. The band also launched an exclusive fan community via a partnership &#160;with The Chorus, aptly named nightfriends. It is a first for this storied band &#160;&#8211; an online experience where fans can receive first dibs on concert and new &#160;release presales, have access to unreleased songs/demos/live cuts, never before-seen live show video content and concert films, behind-the-music &#160;essays about the creation of pivotal albums, exclusive band Q&#38;As and Forum &#160;interactions, and much more. 2025 is turning into a banner year for the band, getting ready to turn the &#160;page and both explore new music and celebrate their impressive catalog &#160;with a slew of live dates. Kicking off with their first-ever &#8216;Singles-centric&#8217; tour this Summer in North America, they will be digging into their catalogue and &#160;playing the songs that launched them into mainstream consciousness, including &#8220;Metropolis,&#8221; &#8220;Ripple,&#8221; &#8220;C&#8217;est La Vie&#8221;, and of course, &#8220;Reptile&#8221; and &#160;&#8220;Under the Milky Way.&#8221; They also have a new album &#8211; their 28th! &#8211; planned &#160;for release later this year. &#160; The renowned five-piece line-up is made up of bassist, vocalist and founder &#160;Steve Kilbey, along with long-time collaborator, drummer, and producer Tim &#160;Powles (a member since 1994), guitarist Ian Haug, multi-instrumentalist &#160;Jeffrey Cain, and guitarist Ashley Naylor. The Church continue to remain a &#160;treasured creative force. &#160; Website &#124; Facebook &#124; Instagram &#124;&#160;Spotify &#124; YouTube]]></description>
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