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        <title>Cat&#039;s Cradle</title>
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        <link>https://catscradle.com</link>
        <description>Carrboro, NC</description>
        <lastBuildDate>Wed, 16 Sep 2026 10:33:12 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<url>https://catscradle.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cradlevenue-150x150.png</url>
	<title>Cat&#039;s Cradle</title>
	<link>https://catscradle.com</link>
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                        <item>
                                <title>Julien Baker</title>
                                <eventupdate>21 hours ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/julien-baker/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[A portion of the proceeds from Julien Baker's tour will go to TAC and their work supporting LGBTQ Youth across the country. &#160; Julien Baker returns for a special run of intimate shows this fall. This tour marks her first solo performances since 2024. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Julien Baker</title>
                                <eventupdate>21 hours ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/julien-baker-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[A portion of the proceeds from Julien Baker's tour will go to TAC and their work supporting LGBTQ Youth across the country. &#160; Julien Baker returns for a special run of intimate shows this fall. This tour marks her first solo performances since 2024. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Julien Baker</title>
                                <eventupdate>21 hours ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/julien-baker-3/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[A portion of the proceeds from Julien Baker's tour will go to TAC and their work supporting LGBTQ Youth across the country. &#160; Julien Baker returns for a special run of intimate shows this fall. This tour marks her first solo performances since 2024. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Josie Edwards</title>
                                <eventupdate>6 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/josie-edwards/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Josie Edwards is a rising folk-pop singer-songwriter based in Nashville, TN, whose sharp storytelling and unmistakable voice have earned her more than 100 million streams and a fast-growing audience online. &#160; Raised in northern Indiana, she formed her first band in high school before moving to Nashville to study at Belmont University, where she earned a degree in songwriting. Her breakout single &#8220;good girls&#8221; introduced millions of listeners to the personal, slightly offbeat world behind her music. &#160; She carried that momentum through &#8220;The Poet and Her Vice (Happy Ending),&#8221; &#8220;Dog Prophecies,&#8221; and &#8220;Gravedigger,&#8221; into her 2026 EP Greetings From Bleak St. Its standout track, &#8220;Chemical Light,&#8221; has sparked another wave of attention online and pushed her audience higher still. &#160; Drawing on artists like Tom Odell, Twenty One Pilots, Noah Kahan, The Lumineers, and Bob Dylan, Josie pairs dark humor with folk-pop melodies that stick. It&#8217;s an identity entirely her own &#8212; and one of the most distinct arriving in the genre right now. &#160; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Jon Shain Trio &#8211; CD Release Show</title>
                                <eventupdate>7 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/jon-shain-trio-cd-release-show/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 22:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. CD release show for Jon's new album Odds...and Even So &#160; Hailing from Durham, NC, Jon Shain is a veteran singer-songwriter who's been turning heads for years with his words, his fiery acoustic guitar work, and his evolved musical style - combining improvised piedmont blues with bluegrass, swing, and ragtime. Jon has released ten solo albums to date, along with two albums with duo partner FJ Ventre, a Jon Shain Trio live album, and one album of co-writes with Joe Newberry. Shain's newest album, Odds...and Even So, recorded at Good Luck Studio this past year, was just released September 1, 2026. Shain is also the author of the music books Gettin' Handy With the Blues - a Tribute to the Legacy of W.C. Handy and Jon Shain's Fingerstyle Guitar Method, both published by Mel Bay Publications. In 2019, Shain won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN in the solo/duo category. &#160; Shain cut his touring teeth from 1989-1998 founding the Chapel Hill, NC folk-rock group, Flyin' Mice and their spin-off group, WAKE. The band performed with acts such as David Grisman, Tony Rice Unit, Hot Tuna, and the Dixie Dregs, released four CDs, and played clubs, schools, and festivals up and down the East Coast, building a legion of fans. After the band&#8217;s breakup, Shain went solo, returning to his roots by touring in the folk and blues circuit. Shain has also become a sought after guitar teacher and studio producer. In 2021, he produced Donna Herula&#8217;s blues radio chart-topping album, Bang at the Door. Over the last several years, Shain has headlined listening rooms both as a solo and with duo partner FJ Ventre throughout the US and he's done three solo tours in Europe. He has opened shows for John Hiatt, Keb&#8217; Mo&#8217;, Little Feat, and many other roots legends. When Shain is not recording, producing other artists, or performing, he stays busy giving private instruction in guitar, and teaching group workshops in songwriting and blues guitar. FJ Ventre began playing music with Jon in 1982 when they met in high school and have developed a brotherly connection that continues to this day. Since relocating to Chapel Hill, NC in 2000, Ventre has performed with his own group The Swang Brothers, as well as with Chris Stamey, Wes Collins, Huzzah, and a who's who of NC music groups. In addition to being a sought-after bassist, Ventre spends his time behind the mixing board, producing and engineering at his own Good Luck Studio as well as songwriting.&#160; Bill Newton began playing harmonica in 1971, buying a Marine Band for $1.75 in a Durham, NC pawn shop. From the first note, he was hooked. Since then, Newton has played with many great Triangle area bands, starting in blues and bluegrass, and branching out to swing and jump blues, and doing session work with artists such as the Indigo Girls. &#160;He plays blues harp, chromatic, and even the bass harmonica. He has played with Jon on and off since the 1990s. Tonight's show will also feature long-time friend and musical collaborator John Currie on dobro and guitar.]]></description>
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                                <title>Tommy Fleece</title>
                                <eventupdate>7 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/tommy-fleece/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Detroit-born Tommy Fleece, 23, makes music for the cool kids and the normal kids, casual soundtracks and party anthems, buoyed by a uniquely sensitive and mischievous spirit. Describing his music as &#8220;all positivity, all being a Chad,&#8221; he grew up on indie sleaze delirium, punk rock his dad would show him, and the improv genius of jazz. After cutting his teeth in the underground and earning a reputation as a tweaked-out synth wizard, he&#8217;s finally ready to seize the electroclash crown. &#160; Instagram &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Big Mistake</title>
                                <eventupdate>13 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/big-mistake/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[big mistake is a Raleigh based indie noise pop band. They were formed in 2025 by Elijah Hall and Michael Utt after working on the project My Sister Maura. Their debut single &#8220;party pickup&#8221; released independently in July of 2025.]]></description>
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                                <title>Cosmic Charlie does JGB</title>
                                <eventupdate>13 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cosmic-charlie-does-jgb/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:25:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Join Cosmic Charlie for a lively evening of Jerry Garcia Band tunes! &#160;JGB was a quintessential part of the Deadhead experience, keeping fans connected in between Grateful Dead tours, and giving Jerry a chance to dive deeper into the music he loved. Along with their rousing versions of Grateful Dead classic repertoire such as Sugaree, They Love Each Other and Deal, JGB was legendary for their take on Bob Marley, JJ Cale, Jimmy Cliff; and of course many Hunter/Garcia originals from his Jerry's albums. The show will feature special guests, helping Cosmic Charlie capture the classic JGB sound. We look forward to a real good time!&#160; &#160; ---------------------------- &#160; "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; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; -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.&#160; 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. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram&#160;&#183;&#160;Facebook &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Carrboro Bluegrass Festival Presents Bluegrass In The Backroom</title>
                                <eventupdate>15 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/carrboro-bluegrass-festival-presents-bluegrass-in-the-backroom-6/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 31 Aug 2026 16:05:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show.]]></description>
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                                <title>Dinosaur Jr. &#8211; Spring Tour 2027</title>
                                <eventupdate>18 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/dinosaur-jr-spring-tour-2027/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Finally! The sixth studio album Dinosaur Jr. have recorded in the 20 years since their triumphal rebirth. There have been several live and/or closet cleaning collections to keep us punters sated for the five years since Sweep It Into Space, but there is nothing quite like having a full slab of new Dino tunes to fry your ears. And There Near has all knobs set to Extra Crispy. Created in short, intense bursts over the course of a year at Amherst's Bisquiteen Studio, There Near was recorded almost entirely by Dino's core trio -- king of the thunder tubs, Murph, human tornado Lou Barlow on bass/vocals and the inimitable J Mascis on guitar/vocals -- with a bit of piano and organ work by local master musician, Ken Mauri. And the album roars from start to finish. Trying to define the essence of Dino's sound is never easy. It's an instantly recognizable blend of loose vocals, sharp guitars and an animalistic rhythm section, but these parts combine into a whole far more magical and exciting than its components. In strict rock-write terms, you might call the approach &#8220;post-core power balladeering,&#8221; but what use is that? Dinosaur Jr. invented their formula for noise/pop jiggering around the same time Husker D&#252; were trying out some of the same ideas, all of which got made popular by a band they inspired called Nirvana. But that's an old and much-told tale. J's guitar tone throughout There Near is even more animalistic than usual, perhaps owing partly to the fact he's playing through a recently acquired 70's Mesa Boogie MK 1 amp. &#8220;I bought the same amp that Chris Dixon had when we made our first album,&#8221; J says. &#8220;Chris recorded us at his house with his amp. It has a real interesting sound I haven't gotten for a while. And it's something I was trying to get back to on this album. The Stones started using Mesa Boogies in the '70s after they heard Santana playing through them. Then The Clash copied The Stones, etc. As the years went on into the MK 2 and so on, the Boogie got more metal sounding. But the MK 1 has a souped-up Fender sound. You always hear how Rick Rubin always makes bands he's producing sit down and listen to their first album and say let's get back to that sound. So I just gave myself his advice." Asked about the philosophical opacity of his lyrical approach, J says. &#8220;I'm not always sure what a song is 'about' when I'm writing it. I guess the meaning will present itself at some point. I'll use whatever words work. And a lot of it will be influenced by whatever esoteric mumbo jumbo I'm reading at the time. I try not to think too hard about any of it. I think it's a drag that Spotify shows all the lyrics to a song. What's the fun of that? Japanese labels always wanted us to give them lyrics to print. I wouldn't hand them over so they'd just have to try and figure them out. It has always been better to make up your own version of lyrics to songs by the Stones or R.E.M. or whoever. I mean, R.E.M.'s whole thing was about mumbling. I never understood why they caved to pressure and started enunciating." &#8220;Someone suggested this album sounds more upbeat, but I guess that's to do with my delivery, because lyrics like 'No Friends' might make you think otherwise. But I usually write in the third person. It's all just make believe.&#8221; &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Carrboro Music Festival Hip-Hop &#038; Grooves Showcase</title>
                                <eventupdate>18 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/carrboro-music-festival-hip-hop-grooves-showcase-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:00:36 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Join us for our annual Hip-Hop &#38; Grooves Showcase at the Carrboro Music Festival!! This all-day event will feature talented local Hip-Hop and multi-genre artists from across North Carolina. If you&#8217;ve been to one of our showcases before, you know you&#8217;re in for a great time with amazing live music! Don’t miss out on the [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Scattrbrain</title>
                                <eventupdate>19 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/scattrbrain/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>AZ Chike</title>
                                <eventupdate>20 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/az-chike/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Contrasts Songwriter Showcase</title>
                                <eventupdate>21 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/contrasts-songwriter-showcase/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 06:55:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Ashby Lynn is a songwriter from eastern NC, pulling inspiration from indie-folk and traditional music. Beginning their songwriting journey at twelve, Ashby&#8217;s voice as a songwriter has bloomed into auditory Impressionism. Stringing together environmental landscapes, poetry, and delicately played alternative tuned guitars, Ashby has developed an idiosyncratic sonic tapestry. They are currently working on their first EP &#8216;deer path&#8217;. Instagram &#160; Max Jacobson is a singer-songwriter based in Chapel Hill, NC. He serves as a guitarist, mandolinist, and bassist in a number of local bands in the triangle area and fronts his own project &#8220;Yakamashii&#8221;.&#8221; Instagram Roxanne Fortney is a local songwriter from Chapel Hill, NC who uses storytelling and intentional lyricism to sing softly about life's nuances&#8230;love, loss, the everyday, and faith to relate to and inspire listeners. Her debut album 'Growing', released May 2024, is reminiscent of these themes. She has a folk/singer-songwriter style with soft rock influences.&#160; &#160; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#160; Cole Cook is a local songwriter and musician. He plays in local band, The Rattletraps, playing harmonica and tambourine and singing vocals.]]></description>
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                                <title>Mega Colossus</title>
                                <eventupdate>21 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/mega-colossus-3/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 06:15:00 +0000</pubDate>
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                                <title>Carrboro Music Festival Kickoff Show</title>
                                <eventupdate>21 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/carrboro-music-festival-kickoff-show-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:10:51 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Spotlighting the music of Joseph Terrell and Jacob Sharp from Mipso!]]></description>
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                                <title>Carrboro Music Festival</title>
                                <eventupdate>21 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/carrboro-music-festival-4/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:10:39 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[2:30 pm door3 pm show Wake Moody 3:00 &#8211; 3:45Tre. Charles 4:15 &#8211; 5:00XOXOK 5:30 &#8211; 6:15Shelles 6:45 &#8211; 7:30Slow Teeth 8:00 &#8211; 8:45Narsick 9:15 &#8211; 10:00]]></description>
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                                <title>Jacob Sharp: Middle Kid Album Release Show</title>
                                <eventupdate>23 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/jacob-sharp-middle-kid-album-release-show/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2026 04:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Jacob Sharp has been writing songs and playing shows for 15 years. And he finally has an album of his own worth sharing. The songs of &#8220;Middle Kid&#8221; provide nuanced insights to the relational intrigue that has long driven both his musical and interpersonal worlds. A richly-textured album that feels bound to immediately serve as a lexicon for an increasingly vast indie-folk world, it&#8217;s as equally sparse as it is confident, and full of both the emotional directness and pop hooks that have become the calling cards of Jacob&#8217;s writing and songs. &#160; From a small town in the mountains of North Carolina, Jacob grew up surrounded by music and obsessed with bands. As a founding member of Mipso, who sprang from Chapel Hill as a genre-bending stringband in 2012 and now serves as a maven to a fully-bloomed folk/americana scene, he has long been most comfortable making music with friends. Though this is a solo-debut, the collaboration at its core is what gives it its most striking edge - and the album is a celebration of the musical community Jacob has built living in Brooklyn and Los Angeles when not on the road over the last decade. It was initially conceived as an outlet for the co-writing that drives his creative world; the record features co-writing contributions from Bridget Kearney (Lake Street Dive), Benjamin Lazar Davis (Maya Hawke, Cuddle Magic), Taylor Ashton and Shane Leonard. But when demo sessions began with co-producer Benjamin Lazar Davis it became immediately clear that the batch of songs deserved a band of ringers. Jacob&#8217;s closest friends and most-treasured musical companions gathered in Los Angeles in the early summer of 2024 and gave the tunes the life they needed to become a record too good not to share. "Middle Kid" is out on October 9th - with select tour dates this fall to celebrate the release. &#160; &#160; Taylor Ashton is a shape-shifting songwriter with the heart of a novelist and the timing of a stand-up comic. Whether it&#8217;s just his warm baritone over solo clawhammer banjo or his agile falsetto soaring over an electric six-piece band with horns, his live shows unfold like a play: vulnerable, funny, and slyly profound. Laughter often gives way to a hush. Ashton&#8217;s sound evokes the intimacy of Nick Drake, the soul of Bill Withers, the tender playfulness of Harry Nilsson, and the searching spirit of Joni Mitchell.]]></description>
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                                <title>Tabitha Meeks</title>
                                <eventupdate>25 days ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/tabitha-meeks/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 21 Aug 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Queen of Retro Pop has arrived. Currently touring the country, her piano solos and live shows are unmatched for their vintage and fun energy. She is best described as &#8220;Norah Jones meets Nancy Sinatra,&#8221; and Tabitha Meeks&#8217; feel-good throwback music will make you bop your head, tap your toes, and feel empowered all at once. Her song &#8220;Cherry on Top&#8221; aired in the No. 1 Hulu/Disney+ show &#8220;The Testaments&#8221; (S1 Ep. 3) and her Holiday hit song &#8220;Ready for Christmas&#8221; has been used in over 1 million social media videos. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Frankie Gavin (of De Dannan)</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/frankie-gavin-of-de-dannan/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Sat, 15 Aug 2026 17:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. &#160; Frankie Gavin is widely regarded as one of the greatest Irish fiddle players of all time. Best known as the founding member of the legendary Irish traditional band De Dannan, Gavin has enjoyed an extraordinary career spanning decades. He has recorded and performed with an impressive range of musical icons, including The Rolling Stones, St&#233;phane Grappelli, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Earl Scruggs, Tim O'Brien, and Nigel Kennedy. &#8212; Simon Haines]]></description>
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                                <title>Sam Shackleton &#8211; North American Headline Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/sam-shackleton-north-american-headline-tour/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Widely known for his viral videos and songs such as The Lone Prairie, The Overgate, and Rocky Road to Dublin, Sam Shackleton has developed a large touring fanbase across the UK and USA. He has become well known for his unique, rowdy, and exciting performance style, from his strong Scottish traditional ballad singing brogue reminiscent of the likes of Luke Kelly, to his masterful interpretations of traditional folk music from Scotland, Ireland, and the USA, which he blends with punk elements alongside his own original songs and deep introspective lyrics. Whether moving the audience to tears with an old folk ballad such as The Butcher Boy, or rousing the whole room to sing and dance to his rhythmic clawhammer banjo and whooping harmonica, the Scottish troubadour has been making a name for himself on the global folk scene by consistently selling out headline shows across the UK and the USA. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Palmyra</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/palmyra-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Established in Virginia&#8217;s Shenandoah Valley, Palmyra captures the collective spirit of three Virginia natives: Teddy Chipouras, Mānoa Bell, and Sasha Landon. Palmyra straddles at least two musical worlds. They are, on one hand, a band from the South that plays traditional instruments and indeed once lived in the old-time locus of Floyd, Virginia. Comparisons to and a kinship with The Avett Brothers and even Old Crow Medicine Show are inevitable. On the other hand, Palmyra writes about grief, gender dysphoria and identity, and coming of age in songs that flirt with soul, post-rock, and even emo; the South, too, is the place of My Morning Jacket, Band of Horses, Cat Power, and now, Palmyra. The band&#8217;s first full length LP, Restless, is out now on Oh Boy Records. Framed by moments of struggle, solidarity, and hard-won growth, Restless is an unqualified ringer for anyone who loves the space where the roar of indie rock collides with raw folk. &#160; Website &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>tiLLie</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/tillie-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[tiLLie is a genre-bending alt-pop artist whose music shapeshifts between glittering pop hooks, grungy guitars, and 90s-inspired electronic chaos. Described by BBC Radio&#8217;s Jack Saunders as &#8220;a maverick artist born from the gates of Hell,&#8221; tiLLie&#8217;s lyrics go deep, tackling mental health, abuse, and empowerment head-on. With co-signs and co-writes from the likes of mgk, Daniel James, Bishop Briggs, Evan Bogart, Lights, Skyler Stonestreet, and Kevin Lyman (Vans Warped Tour), editorial support from Alt Press, The Fader, Spin, Billboard and more, she unleashed her new EP, &#8220;i miss when monsters were only shadows,&#8221; in January 2026 - led by the single &#8220;earn a living,&#8221; which landed her on Amazon Music&#8217;s #alt playlist cover. Anticipate raw, unfiltered alt-pop, a fearless voice, and a sonic evolution that keeps you leaning in. Having toured alongside Lights, girli, TX2, and Delilah Bon, and stormed stages at Vans Warped Tour, Slam Dunk Festival, and Rock for People, tiLLie has built her reputation as a firecracker of a performer - chaotic, cathartic, and impossible to look away from. With a brand-new era on the horizon, expect to catch her tearing up stages across the U.S. and Europe in 2026 (including Vans Warped Tour D.C., Long Beach, and Orlando) turning every show into a glitter-streaked, scream-along exorcism of joy. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify &#160;]]></description>
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                                <title>Missio</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/missio/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>The Stews</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-stews-4/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Forming at Auburn University, The Stews ultimately decided to leave school to meet the massive demand for their live shows and raw, high-energy rock music. The now-Atlanta-based band since have graduated from the &#8216;college band&#8217; label, selling out venues nationwide from NYC&#8217;s Bowery Ballroom, to DC&#8217;s 9:30 Club and Wilmington's Greenfield Lake Amphitheater, and bringing their electrifying stage presence to festival stages like Bonnaroo, Hangout, Lollapalooza, Sweetwater 420 and more in only a couple of years. Comprised of Preston Hall (Lead Vocals/Guitar), Blake Dobbs (Rhythm Guitar), Bennett Baugus (Bass), and Wyatt Griffith (Drums), The Stews burst onto the southeastern rock scene in 2021 with their self titled EP, all while recording and releasing music in a frenzy. The southern four-piece&#8217;s debut album 'What Was' came out in April 2022, and 2024&#8217;s follow up record 'Chicken Fight' has already taken them to new heights. A daring body of work that can&#8217;t be confined to one genre, &#8216;Chicken Fight&#8217; delivers as a single sit-through record, with its 11 songs touching on sonic palettes of The Allman Brothers, Audioslave, Pink Floyd, and Kings of Leon, amongst others, yet still uniquely The Stews. Single &#8220;Make It Out&#8221; continues to make waves, earning over 4 million streams on Spotify, and radio play nationwide. Now they&#8217;re back in the kitchen continuing to push the rock genre past its age-old roots, and cooking up new recipes for high fidelity head-banging and heart-capturing music. &#160; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Open Mike Eagle</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/open-mike-eagle/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Open Mike Eagle: Open Mike Eagle spent the 2010s finding comedy in rap music and American nightmares. On albums like Brick Body Kids Still Daydream and Dark Comedy, he delivered hilarious socio-political insights via half-sung verses laid atop progressive production. Acclaim from publications like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and NPR coincided with headlining solo tours and top-billing at events like Adult Swim Festival. Between studio sessions, Eagle co-founded The New Negroes, a standup-meets-music variety show that explores perceptions of Blackness. He and co-founder Baron Vaughn brought the show to Upright Citizens Brigade, Comedy Central, and venues around the U.S. With over a dozen solo and collaborative projects to his name, Eagle has spent his career redefining and expanding the parameters of &#8220;art rap,&#8221; the term he coined as a shorthand for leftfield and avant-garde rap music. On Dark Comedy, he chronicled everything from smartphone addiction to the realities of being an indie artist in the streaming era with self-deprecation and side-splitting absurdity. 2017&#8217;s Brick Body Kids Still Daydream marked Eagle&#8217;s shift toward examining trauma, wading through the rubble of Chicago&#8217;s demolished Robert Taylor Homes, where several family members once lived. Anime, Trauma, and Divorce, his first full-length album on Auto Reverse Records, was among the most personal projects of his career. Neighborhood Gods Unlimited expanded that autobiographical and surrealist language further, turning an unrealized television concept into an album with an opening theme, flashbacks, a climax, and commercials. &#160; Instagram&#160;&#183; Website &#160; Kenny Segal: Kenny Segal is a Los Angeles-based producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist whose work has helped shape some of the most adventurous corners of independent rap and experimental music. A longtime fixture of LA&#8217;s underground, Segal has built a reputation for productions that feel tactile, strange, melodic, and deeply lived-in. His recent collaborations span acclaimed projects with rappers including billy woods and K-the-I???, as well as work with jazz trio Human Error Club and bluesy indie rocker Benjamin Booker. On DOOMED!, Segal brings that full range into focus, constructing a singular sonic world around Mike Eagle&#8217;s fractured romantic postmortem. &#160; Instagram &#183; Bandcamp]]></description>
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                                <title>The Whom</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-whom/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 05 Aug 2026 06:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>The Couch Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-couch-tour/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 05 Aug 2026 03:45:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Make/Believe, NashvilleMaggie Miles, NashvilleJohn Sierra, Nashville via NC]]></description>
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                                <title>More Souvenirs from Paradise &#8211; A Tribute to John Prine</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/more-souvenirs-from-paradise-a-tribute-to-john-prine/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 20:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. &#160; Rebecca Newton, John Saylor, Kimmie Wilson, Lance White, Zach White, Charles Latham, Danny Gotham, Jones Bell, Emma Davis, and other local favorites. &#160; By the folks that brought you the Stax shows.]]></description>
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                                <title>Whitey Morgan and the 78s</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/whitey-morgan-and-the-78s/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[With a career rooted in grit, soul, and over 15 years of relentless touring, Whitey Morgan has long stood as one of the fiercest torchbearers of outlaw country. Hailing from Flint, Michigan, Morgan has released six acclaimed studio albums, a powerful live record, and earned a reputation as a relentless road warrior&#8212;averaging more than 125 shows per year. As Rolling Stone put it, he&#8217;s a &#8220;Waylon Jennings acolyte... a modern-day outlaw [with a] hard-hitting blue-collar brand of music,&#8221; while NPR praised him for staying true to the lineage of legends like Jennings, Merle Haggard, and David Allan Coe. &#160; Since the release of 2018&#8217;s Hard Times and White Lines&#8212;called his "finest set yet" by American Songwriter&#8212;Morgan has only deepened his impact, playing to packed clubs and sold-out theaters across the country. In 2024, he reached a defining milestone with his official debut at the Grand Ole Opry, a moment that signified more than just a career benchmark&#8212;it solidified his place in country music&#8217;s living legacy. &#160; Whitey Morgan&#8217;s creative resurgence came full force in early 2025 with the release of three new singles produced by Shooter Jennings. These tracks&#8212;gritty, soulful, and unmistakably Morgan&#8212;marked a powerful return to the studio. &#8220;Let Me Roll,&#8221; the lead single, set the tone with its raw heartland sound, followed by two equally compelling releases that proved Morgan&#8217;s songwriting is as vital as ever. &#160; Now, Whitey Morgan &#38; the 78&#8217;s continue to push forward&#8212;onstage, in the studio, and on their own terms. With a loyal fanbase built one show at a time, Morgan remains one of country music&#8217;s most enduring and authentic voices&#8212;an artist for the outsiders, the true believers, and anyone who still finds salvation in a steel guitar and a hard truth. &#160; Facebook &#183;&#160;Instagram&#160;&#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Charlie Parr</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/charlie-parr-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[In the music of Charlie Parr, there is a sincere conviction and earnest drive to create. The Minnesota-born guitarist, songwriter, and interpreter of traditional music has released 19 albums over two decades and has been known to perform up to 275 shows a year. Parr is a folk troubadour in the truest sense: taking to the road between shows, writing and rewriting songs as he plays, fueled by a belief that music is eternal and cannot be claimed or adequately explained. The bluesman poet pulls closely from the sights and sounds around him, his lyrical craftsmanship built by his influences. The sounds from his working-class upbringing&#8212;including Folkways legends such as Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie&#8212;imbue Parr&#8217;s music with stylistic echoes of blues and folk icons of decades past. Parr sees himself merely as a continuer of a folk tradition: &#8220;I feel like I stand on a lot of big shoulders,&#8221; he said in an interview. &#8220;I hope that I&#8217;ve brought a little bit of myself to the music.&#8221; With a discography simultaneously transcendental in nature and grounded in roots music, Charlie Parr is the humble master of the 21st century folk tradition. Parr started recording in Duluth in 2002, where he lives today. Life in the port town on Lake Superior has a way of bleeding into his work the same way his childhood in Austin, Minnesota does. Parr self-released his debut album, Criminals and Sinners, and did the same for his sophomore album 1922 (2002). With growing popularity abroad, Parr signed with Red House Records in 2015, where he recorded break-out albums Stumpjumper (2015) and Dog (2017). Parr&#8217;s music has an overwhelming sense of being present and mindful, and his sound is timeless. Parr&#8217;s mastery of his craft is only more apparent when contextualized within the history of folk tradition of which Parr has dedicated his practice The land and lives around and intersecting with Parr have always influenced him, from the hills and valleys of Hollandale, Minnesota to the Depression-era stories from his father. Parr strives to listen to everything: &#8220;I don&#8217;t see that I&#8217;d ever be capable of creating anything if it weren&#8217;t for these inspirations and influences, books and music as well as the weather and random interactions with strangers and animals. So, the well never runs dry as long as my eyes and ears are open,&#8221; Parr said in a 2020 interview. Before he was even 10 years old Parr was rummaging through his father&#8217;s record collection&#8212;sometimes drawing dinosaurs on the vinyl sleeves&#8212;and listening to country, folk, and blues legends, many of whom are staples in the Folkways catalog. When Parr sings and plays his resonator or 12-string, you can hear influences like Mance Lipscomb, Charley Patton, Spinder John Koerner, Rev. Gary Davis, and Dock Boggs. This is especially true in his playing, when, after a diagnosis of focal dystonia, Parr turned to greats like Davis, Doc Watson, and Booker White for two-finger picking inspiration. Gifted a 1965 Gibson B-45 12-string by his father, Parr has never had a formal lesson and learned by to listening records and watching musicians he admired. &#160; Website &#183;&#160;Spotify &#183;&#160;Facebook &#183;&#160;Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Leah Moore EP Release Show</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/leah-moore-ep-release-show/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 06:25:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[North Carolina singer‑songwriter Leah Moore writes from the fault lines between vulnerability and strength. Her forthcoming debut EP, Home to Myself, traces the long journey back to one&#8217;s own voice and truth &#8212; through the treacherous waters of comparison, self‑doubt, bad actors, and heartbreak. Effortlessly blending folk, rock, pop, and country, Moore&#8217;s music defies genre categorization and moves with emotional clarity and vivid imagery, anchored by a voice that holds both power and tenderness. Home to Myself was recorded at Nightsound Studios in Carrboro with a cohort of well‑respected local musicians: lead guitarist Mario Arnez (Blue Cactus), bassist Casey Toll (Skylar Gudasz, The Dead Tongues), drummer Stephen Mooneyhan, keyboardist Charles Cleaver, and fiddler Isa Burke (Lula Wiles, Aoife O&#8217;Donovan). Together with engineers Kei Mizobuchi and Chris Wimberley, they created an EP that feels intimate, honest, rooted, and, at times, electric. &#160; Across the EP, Moore explores the tension between wanting to be seen and wanting to disappear, between offering yourself and protecting yourself, between losing your voice and finding it again. Home to Myself is the sound of someone stepping out of the shadows and back into her own life &#8212; not with certainty, but with courage. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; Facebook &#160; Jesse Fox Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; Facebook The Carolina Junebugs Instagram&#160;&#183; Spotify&#160;&#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Joy Oladokun: The Heavy Things Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/joy-oladokun-the-heavy-things-tour/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Joy Oladokun is one of today&#8217;s most compelling genre-defying voices. A queer Black musician and daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Oladokun has become a vital cultural voice, writing songs that explore identity, faith, mental health, and social justice with honesty and restraint. Those themes remain at the heart of Hope Is A Heavy Thing, Oladokun's new 12-track album, due September 25. Produced by Oladokun with additional contributions from Nigerian producer Spellz and a feature from Nigerian artist Adekunle Gold, the album marks a bold new creative chapter, broadening her sound while continuing to explore questions of identity, resilience, and belonging with the emotional depth that has become her signature. The project further reflects Oladokun&#8217;s ability to draw from diverse influences while creating music that transcends genre and geography. Since her 2020 breakthrough, Oladokun has released three critically acclaimed albums, was nominated for Americana Artist of the Year, and saw her protest anthem &#8220;i see america&#8221; named a finalist for the Recording Academy&#8217;s Special Merit Award for Best Song for Social Change. Praised by The New York Times, NPR Music, and Billboard for her ability to turn quiet introspection into lasting impact, Oladokun has brought her music to national television on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CBS Saturday Morning, and Austin City Limits, while her songs have been featured across major TV series. With collaborations spanning artists like Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Noah Kahan, and Maxo Kream, she is entering her next chapter by bringing an even broader, bolder sound to the table, continuing to prove herself as an artist who not only bends genre but bridges culture. Website]]></description>
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                                <title>Winyah</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/winyah-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Winyah has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 per ticket goes to supporting organizations working for equity, access, and dignity for all.&#160;www.plus1.org &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Quadeca</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/quadeca-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Quadeca has partnered with City of Hope, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the organization&#8217;s efforts to advance cancer research, provide lifesaving treatments, and support children and families facing cancer.City of Hope Website &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Greg Freeman</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/greg-freeman-2/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:00:48 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website]]></description>
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                                <title>East Nash Grass</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/east-nash-grass/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[How did East Nash Grass follow up their 2024 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) award for Best New Artist? By earning a nomination for Entertainer of the Year, IBMA&#8217;s highest honor, in 2025, and celebrating fiddler Maddie Denton&#8217;s win as Fiddler of the Year. In short, East Nash Grass have quickly established themselves as the fresh new face of Nashville&#8217;s storied bluegrass tradition, a supergroup of rising stars: Grand Master Fiddle champion Denton is joined by banjo player Cory Walker (banjo player on the five-time nominated &#8220;Carter &#38; Cleveland&#8221; album this year, among numerous accolades), 2022 IBMA Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year Harry Clark, and new guitar player Frank Rische. This is an all-star band that harkens back to the sort of talent collected in the original Blue Grass Boys and a powerhouse leader of the next generation in bluegrass excellence. Rolling Stone had them among the &#8220;best of what we saw&#8221; at RockyGrass in 2025, praising their &#8220;rowdy set of high-octane bluegrass numbers,&#8221; and noting, &#8220;The group itself is a rapidly-rising force on the national touring scene.&#8221; And &#8220;rowdy&#8221; is right. They are far more than just a group of impressive instrumental technicians, building on night after night of three-set gigs on Nashville&#8217;s East Side, playing tiny stages for the love of it between tours backing bigger acts. It&#8217;s a hard-forged bond that translates into an infectious on-stage energy that audiences can&#8217;t seem to get enough of. With their new release, &#8220;All God&#8217;s Children&#8221; (Mountain Fever, August 22, 2025), they show a depth and feel, too, that goes well beyond the traditional bluegrass fair, with nods to Gypsy jazz and East Village folk, and eye toward moving bluegrass forward and keeping it from being too mired in the past. If East Nash Grass isn&#8217;t the future of the genre it&#8217;s only because they&#8217;re already among its leading lights. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Yana &#8211; The Feelings Are Forever Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/yana-the-feelings-are-forever-tour/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Bitchin Bajas</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/bitchin-bajas/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The next album from Bitchin Bajas &#8212; the trio of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye and Daniel Quinlivan &#8212; is near! The successor to 2022&#8217;s Bajascillators glides easily into frame, but once there, Inland See is deceptively immediate: four songs, entirely within themselves, all together forming an essential whole. Inland See is out September 26; the lead single &#8220;Skylarking&#8221; arrives today with a new visualizer featuring visuals by Nick Ciontea. With every successive Bitchin Bajas release, we see that the real key for them is a sense of discovery, that tingle that comes when you feel something breaking through. The sky opening up. Take &#8220;Skylarking&#8221;: a remarkable construction, built to and fro in the ether, but with a deceptive grasp of four-on-the-floor rhythm. A space dance that achieves completion in almost aggressive terms &#8212; aggressive like an oxygen bath! &#8212; showcasing jewels from their world music and jazz archives, then returning to their undulous source drone, riding smoothly back into silence. The stuff that fills this Inland See holds you up powerfully, as if you&#8217;re floating, saltwater or helium-wise &#8212; effervescent, effortless, elemental. This music was mostly written on the road. It&#8217;s an unusual happening for Bitchin Bajas! They were open for it, though &#8212; the landmarked Bajascillators kept them out there for a while, and when inspiration struck, there they&#8217;re rolling. When it was time to render it to tape and find the record there, they did the whole thing at Electrical Audio, recorded in Studio B by Cooper. Recording all together in the room there lent a sense of space, which they dug and captured as natural as possible. No reverb at all added after the fact. Some additional recording and mixing was done at home by the Bajas, then Phil Baljeu did up the art. Soon enough, Inland See is flowing toward you, through the hi-fi &#8212; and you&#8217;ll feel it all in the air. &#160; Bandcamp]]></description>
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                                <title>After</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/after/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website]]></description>
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                                <title>River Shook (Full Band) Album Release Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/river-shook-full-band-album-release-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[River Shook is an artist in constant evolution. After a decade spent making their mark on country music, River Shook is closing the door on their first project (Sarah Shook &#38; the Disarmers) and entering an exciting new era, debuting as a solo artist. River&#8217;s reputation for writing galvanizing, strikingly honest lyrics, and their penchant for tapping elements of Indie rock and pop have forever cemented them as a country artist who energetically pushes the boundaries of their genre into a new frontier. River has delivered fiery fusions of country music and rock n&#8217; roll all over the USA, Canada, and Europe, selling out headlining shows at home and abroad. Whether they&#8217;re backed by a full band or appearing as a duo, River Shook is hitting the road in 2026 with their unmistakable voice, a growing collection of brand new songs, smoking talent, and the promise of real, raw, unforgettable live shows. Onstage and off, River Shook isn&#8217;t just an artist &#8211; they&#8217;re a force of nature. &#160; Website]]></description>
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                                <title>Harvey Street</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/harvey-street-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#183; YouTube &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Guardin, Kennedy XOXO, Fijimar</title>
                                <eventupdate>1 month ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/guardin-kennedy-xoxo-fijimar/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; Soundcloud]]></description>
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                                <title>Magoo</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/magoo/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Magoo is a progressive bluegrass quartet from Denver, Colorado, redefining the boundaries of modern bluegrass with fearless creativity and world-class musicianship. Known for their dynamic live performances, the band delivers a powerful blend of intricate arrangements, tight three-part harmonies, and extended improvisations that bring new life to the genre. Their debut album What a Life arrived in February 2026, capturing the group&#8217;s adventurous spirit and balance between heartfelt songwriting and soaring instrumental work. The record honors the roots of bluegrass while boldly exploring its modern evolution, featuring a guest appearance from bluegrass legend Sam Bush on fiddle and harmony vocals and mastering by two-time GRAMMY Award winner David Glasser at Airshow Mastering. Each member of Magoo brings a distinctive voice and musical strength to the project. Dobroist Dylan Flynn, winner of the 2024 RockyGrass Dobro Competition, adds soulful depth and melodic warmth. Guitarist Erik Hill, runner-up in the RockyGrass Flatpicking Contest, drives the band&#8217;s rhythmic pulse with power and precision. Mandolinist Courtlyn Bills injects fiery solos and inventive arrangements, while bassist Denton Turner grounds the sound with groove, timing, and subtle dynamics. Together, they form a sound that is rich, cohesive, and unmistakably their own. Magoo&#8217;s recent achievements include first place at UllrGrass Band Competition and Clash of the Strings, second at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Competition, and a sold-out headlining show at the Bluebird Theater in Denver. Their festival appearances at Winter WonderGrass, Grand Lake Folk Festival, RapidGrass, and Huck Finn Jubilee have solidified their reputation as one of the most exciting new acts in the progressive bluegrass scene. With What a Life now out to the world, Magoo stands poised for a breakout year, bridging the heart of traditional bluegrass with the fearless innovation of a new generation. &#160; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Cole Barnhill</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/cole-barnhill/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Hailing from what he proudly calls &#8220;the music capital of the world,&#8221; Lubbock, TX, Cole Barnhill kicked off his music career at just 17 years old&#8212;cutting his teeth in local bars with his band. In the years since, he&#8217;s carved out a signature Texas Rock sound that blends raw energy, melodic vocals, and heavy guitars. The result? Millions of streams across platforms and a fiercely loyal fanbase that stretches far beyond state lines. Known for their electrifying live performances, Cole and his band deliver a high-octane, no-frills rock show that leaves a lasting impression. Whether it&#8217;s a packed club in Austin or a festival crowd in Oklahoma, they bring unmatched energy that gets every crowd on their feet. After Cole exploded onto the scene with his first collaboration, &#8220;Daydreams&#8221; with giants in the scene, Treaty Oak Revival, Cole is now rolling out his first EP since his debut album, *Welcome To My World*. The first single offers a glimpse of what&#8217;s to come: &#8220;Run,&#8221; a gritty, guitar-driven anthem that showcases Cole&#8217;s sharp songwriting and undeniable momentum. With a fresh sound in an oversaturated scene, Cole Barnhill is quickly becoming a name to watch in modern rock and Texas Red Dirt country&#8212;and he&#8217;s just getting started. &#160; Website &#160;]]></description>
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                                <title>Dev Lemons &#8211; Eat The Pavement Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/dev-lemons-eat-the-pavement-tour/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:00:32 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Dev Lemons has built a career by refusing to fit neatly into a single lane. Equal parts alt-pop artist, songwriter, comedian, and internet personality, she has cultivated a fiercely loyal audience through her sharp wit, fearless authenticity, and genre-blurring music that balances vulnerability with humor. Originally gaining attention through her viral online content, Dev quickly [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Dillon Fence</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/dillon-fence/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Dillon Fence&#8212;Greg Humphreys, Chis Goode, Scott Carle, and Kent Alphin&#8212;returns in 2026 to celebrate their second album, Outside In! The band, formed as college students at UNC Chapel Hill and Wake Forest in the late &#8216;80s, made a splash with their first album Rosemary, with songs honed at countless beer-soaked frat parties and nightclub shows. Their follow-up sophomore album, Outside In&#8212;produced by Lou Giordano at Fort Apache Studios in Boston, MA&#8212;was quite different than Rosemary. Many DF fans consider Outside In to be the band&#8217;s &#160;best collection of songs. Outside In took the band out on tours with bands like X, Lush, and Weezer, and onto MTV&#8217;s 120 Minutes with music videos for &#8220;Collapsis&#8221; and &#8220;Black Eyed Susan.&#8221; Dillon Fence will feature songs from Outside In at this year&#8217;s run of holiday dates&#8212;along with many crowd favorites. &#160; Website &#183; Spotify &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Porch Light &#8211; Hush Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/porch-light-hush-tour/kings/raleigh-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Minneapolis five-piece Porch Light&#8217;s year ahead has a collection of big, unabashed rock tunes, full of riffs that&#160;announce themselves and choruses that reach and grab. All of them are songs meant to be played on stage, by five&#160;people without bells or whistles. It&#8217;s an approach that&#8217;s taken them far &#8212; the five-piece have reached over a&#160;million monthly Spotify listeners and sold-out headline shows across the country before their debut project hit the&#160;market. They are all over this year's festival circuit playing Summerfest, Yacht Club, Hinterland, Lollapalooza and Shaky&#160;Knees. They also are setting out on the road this Fall for the 'Hush Tour', spanning across 30+ dates including shows&#160;at the Troubadour, Bowery Ballroom and more. &#160; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Lucero</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/lucero-2/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[It would be difficult to find a band that is more self-aware than longtime touring band Lucero. Since forming in Memphis in the late 90&#8217;s, Lucero&#8217;s base musical hallmarks have remained similar to the band&#8217;s initial sound established with their first record The Attic Tapes. In the history of their expansive discography, Lucero has evolved and embraced everything from southern rock to Stax-inspired Memphis soul, whilst simultaneously maintaining their distinctive sonic foundations. Years later, dedicated fans of the group still flock to hear the band&#8217;s punchy driving rhythms, punk-rooted guitar licks, and lyrics that evoke the whiskey drenched sentimentality of Americana singer-songwriters. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Here at the Starlite (Live from Red Rocks)]]></description>
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                                <title>Brigitte Calls Me Baby &#8211; Irreversible Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/brigitte-calls-me-baby-irreversible-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Since their widely lauded debut album, The Future Is Our Way Out, Chicago-based 5 piece Brigitte Calls Me Baby have brought a greater intensity of vision to their lavish breed of alt-rock, arriving at a boldly singular sound that is both thrillingly new and immediately essential to the modern rock landscape. In a major leap forward for the band, Brigitte Calls Me Baby&#8217;s sophomore album Irreversible captures the energy, intrigue and &#160;grandeur of their live show, all while pushing further into the exquisite pathos of their songwriting. &#160; &#8220;Our first album taught me that you&#8217;ve got to reach as far down into your soul as possible and be willing to show something real and raw to the world, and with this album that felt even easier and more natural,&#8221; says Leavins, whose signature croon imbues every track on Irreversible with a potent emotionality. &#8220;There was a time when I tried to bury the kind of feelings we&#8217;re displaying on this record, but now I&#8217;m at the point where I don&#8217;t feel the need to hold anything back.&#8221; Produced by Yves Rothman and Lawrence Rothman (Blondshell, Yves Tumor), Irreversible came to life in the midst of a relentless live schedule that&#8217;s included performing at leading festivals like Lollapalooza, sharing bills with the likes of Morrissey &#38; Muse, and headlining sold-out tours across the U.S., U.K., and Europe. Recorded live at Lawrence&#8217;s the result is a majestic suite of songs that burn bright, hit hard, and passionately celebrate the drama of being alive. &#160; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Friendship, Charlotte Cornfield</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/friendship-charlotte-cornfield/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Friendship Music for sleeping and waking, walking and driving, hunting and fishing, for loitering outside a roadhouse on the haunted tundra. Okay in elevators, not great for dinner. On Caveman Wakes Up, Friendship&#8217;s new album and second for Merge Records, the band&#8217;s historically capacious definition of country music grows wider still. Shambolic guitars are offset by flute pads, bleary poetry is set against a Motown rhythm section, a song about Jerry Garcia and First Lady Betty Ford fades out with a drum solo, like if Talk Talk came from a dingy Philadelphia basement, and was fronted by James Tate. Songwriter Dan Wriggins&#8217; ragged baritone cuts through eleven murky, swirling country-rock songs with profound lyrical substance and sincerity. Like an alarm clock incorporated into the edge of a dream, Caveman Wakes Up belongs equally to the conscious and subconscious mind, fraught with background, steeped in reference and experimentation, delivered casually and as a dire warning, dedicated, above all, to music&#8217;s creative soul. Over the years, dedication has paid off. Friendship has become a kind of reverse supergroup, wherein the band itself and each individual member is located centrally in an increasingly prominent scene of young folk and country musicians and songwriters. Drummer Michael Cormier O&#8217;Leary leads the instrumental collective Hour and, along with bassist Jon Samuels, run Dear Life Records, home to friends and peers who count Friendship as a major influence, including MJ Lenderman, Florry, and Fust. (Samuels also plays lead guitar in MJ Lenderman and the Wind). Guitarist Peter Gill&#8217;s band 2nd Grade records prolifically. Wriggins began writing the songs of Caveman Wakes Up on a downtuned classical guitar of Lenderman&#8217;s, and finished on a barely-tuned piano in an apartment he shared with Sadurn&#8217;s G DeGroot. In the summer of 2023, Wriggins had just left the Iowa Writers&#8217; Workshop, where his love for poetry and mistrust for the academic poetry world grew in tandem. A relationship fell apart, and Wriggins crashed for several weeks at Lenderman&#8217;s and Wednesday&#8217;s Karly Hartzman&#8217;s home in North Carolina, where he recorded the first demos of &#8220;Resident Evil,&#8221; &#8220;All Over the World,&#8221; and &#8220;Love Vape.&#8221; Wriggins returned to Philadelphia, and the band got to work on new ideas, finally tracking the album in five days with engineer Jeff Ziegler (Mary Lattimore, War on Drugs). Wriggins recorded vocals with Love the Stranger engineer Bradford Kreiger, and organ, violin (Jason Calhoun), and flute (Adelyn Strei) were recorded by Lucas Knapp in a West Philadelphia church. Charlotte Cornfield Hurts Like Hell, Toronto songwriter Charlotte Cornfield&#8217;s March 27, 2026 Merge Records debut, is the most open-hearted, full-voiced album of her career and the first she&#8217;s recorded since the birth of her daughter in 2023. Decamping to Philip Weinrobe&#8217;s Sugar Mountain studio in Brooklyn, New York in January 2025, Cornfield was joined by Palehound&#8217;s El Kempner (guitar/vocals), Lake Street Drive&#8217;s Bridget Kearney (bass/vocals), Adam Brisbin (guitar/pedal steel), and Sean Mullins (drums). She and Weinrobe then recruited Feist, Buck Meek, Christian Lee Hutson, and Maia Friedman to sing on the album. &#8220;Every musician involved was a dream collaborator,&#8221; Cornfield says. These ten songs are at once a reaffirmation of Cornfield standing among the great singer-songwriters of her generation and the first articulation of her future, whatever uncertainty and love it may bring.]]></description>
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                                <title>The Linda Lindas</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-linda-lindas/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Linda Lindas have partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 from every ticket sold on our tour will go towards supporting organizations working for equity, access, and dignity for all. www.plus1.org &#160; Every day around 4 p.m., The Linda Lindas put down their instruments and jumped in the pool. They used these aquatic moments as a reset during a week-long writing retreat in Palm Springs where phones were banned, the outside world was suspended, and four young people who&#8217;ve been making music since tweenhood were writing together in the same room for the first time.&#160; In the process, they figured out who they really are. GOTTA GET OUT, the third album from Bela Salazar, Eloise Wong, and Lucia and Mila de la Garza, is the sound of a band discovering itself. Historically, The Linda Lindas have written individually and brought songs to the table. It was a process that served them well through their impressive, Ramones-esque debut Growing Up (2022) and its forceful follow-up No Obligation (2024). The two records took them from L.A. Chinatown all-ages scene mainstays to tours with Green Day and song placements in Inside Out 2. But for this one, they wanted something a little different. &#8220;For the first time, we were presenting ideas to each other that weren&#8217;t fully formed. That was scary. But we worked through everything together and figured out the role each of us naturally plays,&#8221; Lucia explains. &#8220;Writing together was a way to find our collective sound,&#8221; adds Eloise. &#8220;Anything can work if we&#8217;re all shaping it together. We can write this slow indie song or a funky dance-y song. And it can all be for the band because we all worked on it together.&#8221; At the house with the pool, &#8220;I haven't finished this, but do you wanna hear what I have?&#8221; became credo. Bela would conjure a &#8220;vibe&#8221; &#8212; a Logic loop, a guitar part twisted through pedals, a chord progression that was unmistakably hers &#8212; and they&#8217;d construct a song from there, working out lyrics in real time. They tinkered with synths for the first time, and graduated beyond bar chords. At a second retreat in Long Beach, a Mission Impossible marathon was the background ambiance as they worked out yet more songs &#8212; by the end, they had 30 total. &#8220;We discovered a lot about being very intentional,&#8221; says Lucia, who had recently graduated high school. &#8220;Gotta Get Out&#8221; was the very first song they wrote. They didn&#8217;t intend to make it the title or the theme, but kept coming back to it, rewriting verses right before tracking vocals, clipboard and pen in hand, until, as Lucia says, &#8220;we made it mean something.&#8221; Opening the LP with big spicy synths and an ominous groove, it captures a central restlessness: the itchiness of being inside while the world moves &#8212; the desire to break out of the old habits, the old sounds, the old you. &#160; The album&#8217;s visual world, designed by Eloise, makes the same argument through imagery: inspired by an old Audubon guidebook, clouds grow across the singles&#8217; art from fair-weather cumulus to full cumulonimbus, viewed from a windowsill. The lyrics are rubber-stamped, the paper is glued, and every smudge is maintained. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube&#160;&#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Deerhoof</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/deerhoof-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[For a band that seems to thrive on collapse, it's simply amazing that this US/Japanese quartet is now celebrating their 31st year. Though Deerhoof long ago established itself as one of the greatest rock groups ever to stride the earth-and if you think that's hyperbole, you haven't seen them live-the furiously inventive quartet releases new albums on the schedule of a young band still hungry for its first break. Each one discovers some previously unknown combination of candy-coated hard-rock riffs and free-jazz percussive freakouts, sideways J-pop hooks and fearsome dissonance, trenchant social commentary and surrealist humor. Fronting it all is Satomi Matsuzaki's inimitable alto, whose plainspoken calm can seem strangely outside of the band's maelstrom. This music is joyful and foreboding, cybernetic and deeply human, carrying an implicit note of defiant optimism in their refusal to bow to convention or received wisdom. Deerhoof is defined by such paradoxes. Missive 3-19-25: Deerhoof today announced their new album Noble and Godlike in Ruin will be released April 25th (Joyful Noise Recordings), and took an unexpected turn by exclusively premiering its lead single "Immigrant Songs" via Craigslist-two days ahead of the song's official release at streaming services. In a series of Craigslist 'Services' posts advertising themselves for hire in their local communities, including Brooklyn, Tucson, Portland, and Minneapolis, the band shared a message directing readers how to hear their epic album closer alongside photos of the album artwork (front/back, insert, center label). This unconventional premiere serves to spotlight a tech platform that isn't blatantly supporting fascism. "Immigrant Songs" is an odyssey like only Deerhoof could dream up: beginning with an innocuous lyric about showing up to a party, set to a delicate ostinato for bells and sparkling guitar; and ending with a noise-rock blowout that sounds like reality coming apart at the seams. The band of Satomi Matsuzaki, Ed Rodriguez, John Dieterich, and Greg Saunier get from one extreme to the other through expertly managed tension and inventive juxtaposition, weaving four-on-the-floor beats through bossa nova guitar chords, following passages of tightly coiled rhythm with wide-open vistas. All the while, the narrative about the party gradually reveals the allegory hinted at in the title. (Which, given Deerhoof's encyclopedic relationship to music history, is probably also a Led Zeppelin reference.) "Kindness is all I needed from you," Matsuzaki sings to an unwelcoming host, "but you think we're in your house." Not long after, the song detonates, its tightly wound art-pop giving way to several minutes of howling noise. "This song is kind of a sequel to Satomi describing her immigration tribulations in 'Exit Only.' It's what it feels like to see the discourse around immigration get so twisted. The most criminal and barbaric 'migrant horde' to invade America was from Europe. There's a sector of racialized, underpaid immigrants, doing labor white people won't, who are getting deported and dehumanized in record numbers in recent years. They are really the glue keeping our society from collapsing. It's these heroic fugitives, not millionaire politicians holding little signs with one hand while sending out fundraising emails about 'strengthening our borders' with the other, who actually have a thing or two to teach us all about how to resist and survive." - Greg from Deerhoof &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Bandcamp &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Protomartyr</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/protomartyr-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Since their 2012 debut No Passion All Technique, the Detroit post-punk band Protomartyr have mastered the art of evoking place: the grinding Midwest humility of their hometown, as well as the x-rayed elucidation of America that comes with their vantage. Protomartyr&#8212;vocalist Joe Casey, guitarist Greg Ahee, drummer Alex Leonard, and bassist Scott Davidson&#8212;have become synonymous with caustic, impressionistic assemblages of politics and poetry, the literal and oblique. The group&#8217;s sixth album, recorded at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, is called Formal Growth In The Desert. And though frontman Joe Casey did have a humbling experience staring at awe-inspiring Sonoran rock formations and reckoning with his own smallness in the scheme of things &#8211; as recounted in the single &#8220;Elimination Dances&#8221; - the title is not necessarily a nod to the sandy expanses of the southwest. Detroit, too, is like a desert. &#8220;The desert is more of a metaphor or symbol,&#8221; Casey says, &#8220;of emotional deserts, or a place or time that seems to lack life.&#8221; The desert brings an existential awareness that is ultimately internal. The &#8220;growth&#8221; came from a period of colossal transition for Casey, including the death of his mother. Now 45, Casey had lived in the family home in northwest Detroit all his life until 2021, when a surge of break-ins signaled that it was time to move out. As with all touring artists, the pandemic years also brought on other inner quandaries about the purpose and feasibility of a musician&#8217;s life. But life does go on, and Casey describes the great theme of Formal Growth In The Desert as an embrace and acknowledgment of that fact: a 12-song testament to &#8220;getting on with life,&#8221; even when it feels impossibly hard. &#8220;I was trying to find a way forward after some pretty heavy things, without lyrically resorting to, Oh my god, my life sucks,&#8221; Casey says. &#8220;I was trying to see what was beyond the trouble.&#8221; The titles of the two opening songs&#8212;the moody &#8220;Make Way&#8221; followed by the charging ennui of &#8220;For Tomorrow&#8221;&#8212;complete that thought. The band&#8217;s music&#8212;more spacious and dynamic than ever&#8212;pulled him up, too. Guitarist Greg Ahee, who co-produced Formal Growth In The Desert alongside Jake Aron (Snail Mail, L&#8217;Rain), knew what Casey was going through. Conceptualizing the music, he considered how to make it all &#8220;like a narrative film.&#8221; Having recently scored a pair of short films, Ahee found himself immersed in the cinematic Spaghetti Western music of Ennio Morricone. &#8220;I started to write at home on a piano and on a keyboard and then play along to short films, and watch how you can affect and heighten moods as you play,&#8221; Ahee explains. The filmic sensibility is manifest in Casey&#8217;s storytelling, too, whether he&#8217;s critiquing ominous techno-capitalism or processing aging, the future, and the possibility of love. Casey calls the centerpiece, &#8220;Graft Vs. Host,&#8221; written in the immediate wake of his mother&#8217;s death, the heaviest song on the record, but it is also among Protomartyr&#8217;s most beautiful. It opens with an ominous sprawl before Casey&#8217;s sweet, coiling melody buoys the subject matter: &#8220;Sadness running through my mind/She wouldn&#8217;t want to see me live this way,&#8221; he sings, an earnest inquiry into how grief manages to eventually make way for other emotions. &#160; Website &#183; Bandcamp &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>L’Rain</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/lrain-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 07 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[L'Rain has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 from every ticket sold goes to Sounds of Saving and their work designing and providing tools, content, resources, and curriculum to young people on how to discover and utilize music to support their mental health and wellness. L&#8217;Rain is the musical project of multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and curator Taja Cheek. Operating between the worlds of art and music, and outwards into film, fashion and cultural discourse, Cheek is forging a unique path that transcends disciplines to become one of the most vital and adventurous voices for this warped contemporary moment. Currently the artistic director of Performance Space NY and readying the release of L&#8217;Rain&#8217;s fourth album, fata morgana, Cheek&#8217;s creative impact resonates through her uncompromising commitment to community-building, navigating structural inequality while challenging musical conventions and expectations at every turn. L&#8217;Rain is its thrilling manifestation. Raised in Brooklyn and rooted in the city&#8217;s vibrant noise community, Cheek&#8217;s world was defined by a tension of contrasts from the off &#8212; classically trained yet steeped in DIY iconoclasm, drawn to lush orchestrations and gritty tape loops alike, finding cracks in established forms, taking risks and letting the light pour through. Fascinated by the schisms, feedbacks and distortions that emerge between identity and society at large, Cheek worked closely with collaborators Ben Chapoteau-Katz and Andrew Lappin to hone a sound for L&#8217;Rain that is intense, playful, seductive and deeply personal, deconstructing pop tropes with impressionistic flair and subverting the very notion of experimental music within the Black American tradition. Where the &#8220;psychic collage&#8221; of self-titled 2017 debut revelled in the collisions of hi- and lo-fi technology, it was 2021&#8217;s Fatigue that propelled L&#8217;Rain to a wider audience. Gaining critical acclaim from NPR, album of the year in The Wire and #2 in Pitchfork&#8217;s best albums of 2021, it set the foundations for 2023 album I Killed Your Dog, which skewed towards &#8216;90s RnB influences &#8212; a bold, bratty, diabolical anti-break-up record that untangled Cheek&#8217;s relationship with femininity and the formal musical conventions that others imposed on her. fata morgana is the daring and ambitious high point of this quadrilogy of L&#8217;Rain releases. A heady synthesis of sonic influences, from digi-dub, dream pop and gospel slow jams to tape meditations and crunched thrash metal, it is an album that effervesces in the messiness of life, interrogating power relations while reckoning with self-doubt, self-love and the mirages of belonging and alienation that shape Cheek&#8217;s lived experience of the United States today. This capacity to articulate emotional nuance within a wider societal critique has defined Cheek&#8217;s curatorial work with major institutions like Creative Time, the High Line, and MoMA PS1, where she reframed the music programme over several years. Challenging the systemic barriers to representation in the arts, Cheek&#8217;s accessible and community-centred approach defined her success as guest curator of the 2024 Whitney Biennial and extends to her current role at Performance Space NY, whose programming has shaped cultural, theoretical and political discourse over four decades. &#160; Website&#160;&#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Southern Culture on the Skids</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/southern-culture-on-the-skids-6/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Southern Culture On The Skids has been consistently recording and touring around the world since 1983. The band (Rick Miller &#8211; guitar and vocals, Mary Huff &#8211; bass and vocals, Dave Hartman &#8211; drums) has been playing together for over 30 years. Their musical journey has taken them from all-night North Carolina house parties to late night TV talk shows (Conan O&#8217;Brien, The Tonight Show), from performing at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan to rockin&#8217; out for the inmates at North Carolina correctional facilities. They&#8217;ve shared a stage with many musical luminaries including Link Wray, Loretta Lynn, Hasil Adkins and Patti Smith. Their music has been featured in movies and TV, parodied by Weird Al, and used to sell everything from diamonds to pork sausage. In 2014 the band was honored by the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill with an exhibition featuring their music and cultural contributions. Their legendary live shows are a testament to the therapeutic powers of foot-stomping, butt-shaking rock and roll and what Rolling Stone dubbed &#8220;a hell raising rock and roll party.&#8221;At Home with Southern Culture on the Skids is the latest full length album from the band and is due to drop into stores on March 12th. The album consists of 11 tracks recorded and mixed in Rick Miller&#8217;s living room with some additional tracks recorded at his studio, The Kudzu Ranch.The first radio single off the album is &#8220;Run Baby Run&#8221;&#8212;a rocking number with deep garage roots. SCOTS bassist Mary Huff provides an urgent vocal while the band pulls back the throttle on a full race fuzz fest&#8212;cause she&#8217;s gotta to go fast! Run Baby Run!The other songs on the album are a combination of the band&#8217;s unique mix of musical genres: rock and roll, surf, folk and country&#8212;all a bit off-center, what Rick proudly calls &#8220;our wobbly Americana&#8221;. Rick goes on, &#8220;We put a few more acoustic guitars on this one, as you would expect if you recorded in your living room, but it still rocks like SCOTS. So put your headphones on, get in your favorite chair/sofa/recliner, put on &#8220;At Home With&#8221; and let&#8217;s hang out for a while.&#8221; Guitar riffs as lumpy as a camel, rough as a jackhammer or smooth and bright as Tennessee sippin&#8217; whiskey, all slung loose and loud over salacious beats - No Depression For over thirty years, Southern Culture On The Skids have played an eclectic range of Americana including rockabilly, surf rock, country and R&#38;B, with a punk edge and heaps of humor. They are known for their legendary live shows and wacky antics...But it&#8217;s more than just great fun; they are fantastic musicians to boot. - Elmore Magazine This Chapel Hill-based trio is flat-out amazing. Without resorting to needless flash or attention-hungry showboating, Miller in particular is one of the most spectacularly gifted guitar players I&#8217;ve ever seen. He juggles a lot of styles &#8211; country, garage rock, surf, rockabilly and soul to name just a few. - Stomp &#38; Stammer Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Popsicle</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/popsicle/cats-cradle-back-yard/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Featuring The Connells, Superdrag, Chuck Prophet, Young Fresh Fellows, The Mayflies USA, The Popes, Jonny Polonsky, Five Eight, Bass Battery. &#160; Taking place at Cat's Cradle Back Yard, Cat's Cradle, and Cat's Cradle Back Room.]]></description>
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                                <title>The Jayhawks</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-jayhawks/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[For more than forty years, The Jayhawks have created music that embodies the enduring spirit and soul of classic American songwriting. &#160; The Jayhawks emerged from Minneapolis in the post-punk era of The Replacements, H&#252;sker D&#252; and Soul Asylum. They pioneered today&#8217;s Americana movement through a series of classic albums that introduced rock audiences to their unique musical stew of country, folk, soul, Britpop and rock 'n' roll.The band has played most every major music festival, from Farm Aid to Primavera Sound, Pinkpop to Wilco&#8217;s Sky Blue Sky. In the tradition of The Band and Tom Petty &#38; The Heartbreakers, The Jayhawks have toured with and served as backup band for many of music&#8217;s most acclaimed visionaries, including Ray Davies, Roger McGuinn, and Johnny Cash.Today, Gary Louris, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg and Tim O&#8217;Reagan continue to record and tour worldwide. Over 12 studio albums and three live albums, The Jayhawks are still building a legacy of music that stands the test of time.The band once again teamed up with legendary producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed) to create their upcoming album entitled Sanctuary Park, set to be released late summer 2026. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Frog</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/frog/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Frog is a 2-3 person guitar band from the swamp in New Rochelle, NY. They issued their self-titled debut mini-album "Frog" on Brooklyn's now defunct Monkfish Records which Gold Flake Paint called "The best American guitar record of the year. Seriously. It's like every cult band from the past decade bottled into half an hour of music." The duo returned in 2015 with their highly acclaimed debut LP "Kind of Blah" on the UK's Audio Antihero Records which included the fan-favorite singles "Judy Garland" and "Photograph." Frog promoted the album with a tour of the UK, which was later documented in the 2018 film 'Kings of Blah'. In November 2018, they issued their long-awaited follow-up "Whatever We Probably Already Had It" mini-LP on Audio Antihero. This was followed in August 2019 with the freak-folk opus "Count Bateman," featuring the sleeper stoner hit single, "You Know I'm Down." &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Russian Circles</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/russian-circles-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Across the span of their previous seven studio albums, Chicago-based instrumental trio Russian Circles traversed a diverse topography of sounds, moods, and approaches with their limited armory of drums, bass, and guitar. It&#8217;s difficult to chart an evolution in their sound when their records have always felt like well-curated playlists. It wasn&#8217;t uncommon to hear drone-heavy meditations, dazzling prog exercises, knuckle-dragging riff-fests, haunting folk ballads, and tension-baiting noise rock all within the span of one album. Still, it&#8217;s difficult to ignore the progression from the pensive and intricate melodies of Enter (2006) to the layered distorted dirges of Blood Year (2019). It&#8217;s been a gradual sonic shift owing to the band&#8217;s rigorous tour schedule and a predilection towards playing their more authoritative material on stage. But with their latest album, Gnosis, Russian Circles eschew the varied terrain of their past work and bulldoze a path through the most tumultuous and harrowing territory of their sound. As was the case for so many artists in the age of COVID, the obstacles of geography and isolation forced Russian Circles to reevaluate their writing process. Rather than crafting songs out of fragmented ideas in the practice room, full songs were written and recorded independently before being shared with other members, so that their initial vision was retained. While these demos spanned the full breadth of the band&#8217;s varied styles, the more cinematic compositions were ultimately excised in favor of the physically cathartic pieces. Gnosis was engineered and mixed by Kurt Ballou. Drums and bass were tracked at Electrical Audio in Chicago to maximize the natural room sounds of the rhythm section. Guitar and synth overdubs were conducted at God City in Salem, MA to take advantage of Ballou&#8217;s vast inventory of amps and effects pedals. Despite the entirety of the album being written remotely, the songs were recorded with the full band playing together to retain the live feel of the material. Owing to the climate of the times and a new writing method, Russian Circles created their most fuming and focused work to date&#8212;an album that favors the exorcism of two years&#8217; worth of tension over the melancholy and restraint that often colored their past endeavors. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Liana Flores</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/liana-flores/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[&#8220;This record is the story of the country girl moving to the city,&#8221; Liana Flores says. &#8220;It&#8217;s bossa nova meets pop, inspired by the people, relationships and glamour of city life.&#8221; Since the release of her acclaimed 2024 debut album Flower of the Soul, British-Brazilian singer-songwriter Liana Flores has been at the forefront of a bossa nova revival. Drawing on the &#8217;60s sound of genre pioneers like Jo&#227;o Gilberto alongside pop songwriting, Flores combines the dual aspects of her cultural heritage to create an emotive sound. Following extensive tour dates across North America, Asia, and Europe, Flores now returns with a new EP, And so it goes&#8230;, that expands her palette to encompass the playful and ebullient experiences of moving from her rural hometown in Norfolk to St. Andrews before coming to London. The result is a six-track collection that shifts between the finger-picked guitar and gossamer bossa vocals of &#8220;So it goes,&#8221; the upbeat funk inflections of the heavy-grooving love song &#8220;So Mysterious,&#8221; the Carole King-influenced folk storytelling of &#8220;Here to Stay,&#8221; and the sprightly, glittering pop melodies of &#8220;Silvershoes.&#8221; &#8220;These songs were informed by my experiences living in the city and touring for the first time. I grew up and studied in small towns with nature in my surroundings, so that&#8217;s what came naturally in terms of lyrics. With So it goes, the lyrics are more centred on human connection, and I wanted to explore a part of my identity that&#8217;s more playful and matter-of-fact. I also wanted to challenge myself to write songs with strong melodies that would be fun to sing or to get ready to.&#8221; Raised by an immigrant Brazilian mother and British father in East Anglia, Flores first began learning music while listening to &#8217;80s and &#8217;90s bossa nova artists like Bebel Gilberto and Leila Pinheiro alongside Top 40 pop radio. In her late teens, she picked up a guitar and started emulating finger-picked bossa nova guitar chords by ear, first covering Tom Jobim standards, then writing her own songs combining the bossa guitar style with her own introspective lyrics, expressing loneliness, self-doubt, and endurance. &#8220;Music is the way I best communicate and connect with the world, through the listener, collaboration with fellow musicians, and the guidance of my musical forbears. I'm particularly drawn to the use of sophisticated harmonic structures in popular song - Tom Jobim, Kate Bush, Stevie Wonder and Brian Wilson were early inspirations.&#8221; Debut EP The Water&#8217;s Fine! was released in 2018, while ensuing 2019 EP Recently delved deeper into Flores&#8217; current reimagining of Brazilian singer-songwriting with its combination of syncopated melodies and warm vocal harmony. EP track &#8220;rises the moon&#8221; became a surprise hit, picking up traction across TikTok and social media in 2021, although by that point Flores had decided to take a break from making music and focus on her degree instead. &#160; Bandcamp &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>HARBOUR</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/harbour-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Since their formation in 2014, HARBOUR has gone from packing rooms in their native Cincinnati, to selling out venues across the United States. Members Ryan Green (vocals/guitar), Jarett Lewis (guitar), Zack Lemons (guitar), Ryan Sulken (drums), and Devon Turner (bass) have curated an infectious high energy sound that transfers seamlessly into their live shows. During their tenure as a group, HARBOUR has delivered 5 full length albums &#8211; the latest of which, entitled Great, Big, Insignificant, was released in October 2025 after much anticipation. After supportings artists such as Bilmuri &#38; Wilderado, HARBOUR successfully completed their first multinational headline tour in 2025. With more shows on the way in celebration of the new album, and even more music in the works, the band&#8217;s future is sure to be anything but insignificant. &#160; Website]]></description>
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                                <title>The Hails &#8211; Duckpond Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-hails-duckpond-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Following a string of encounters too strange to be coincidence, Robbie Kingsley, Franco Solari, Dylan McCue and Zach Levy came together to form The Hails. Despite first playing in an insular Miami high school music scene, the band officially formed at the University of Florida in Gainesville, turning the tattered carpeting and beer bottle lined shelves of their shitty college house into a distinct, refined sound that is now synonymous with their name. After graduation, the group made the pilgrimage back to their home of Miami, the city that directly influenced the sound of their early shimmering singles &#8220;Younger&#8221; and &#8220;Stay,&#8221; debut EP He Seems Upset (2020), and the subsequent Alive in Strange Ways (2021).After releasing their debut album What&#8217;s Your Motive (2023) and gaining international praise, The Hails have created their own unique style of collaboration with band members living in Miami, DC and Brooklyn. Recent highlights of the road include holding court at festivals like Governors Ball, III Points and Okeechobee, interspersed between sold-out headline shows and tour support for The Revivalists, Quarters, The Beaches, flipturn and the moss. This year will see The Hails back out on the road as they ready for the release of their second full-length album later this year. &#160; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>The Tubs</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-tubs/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Upon arriving in the United States for The Tubs&#8217; first tour of the country, frontman Owen Williams told The New Yorker, &#8220;We&#8217;re here to unite the country. We&#8217;re gonna come, like, three times. By that point, I think this place will start healing.&#8221; Then, joyously, they did just that, piling into a van and criss-crossing the States, bringing their literary, bleary-eyed, world-weary, night-of-your-life highwire act to the masses when it was needed most. Along the way, they signed to Merge Records, who will release The Tubs&#8217; third full-length album, Hard Life, on September 11, 2026. &#160; The Tubs have never lacked for ambition &#8212; on Hard Life, theirs is to complicate the Tub-ullar experience. Having perfected their sound across two albums and hundreds of shows, the London-based Celtic jangle boyband &#8212; Williams (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass), Dan Lucas (guitar), Taylor Stewart (drums), and Max Warren (bass) &#8212; push themselves even further into the shimmering heart of virtuosic indie rock. They&#8217;re joined by frequent collaborators Lan McArdle (vocals), George Nicholls (guitar), and Rachel Kenedy (keyboards), all of whom have orbited various Tubs and Gob Nation-adjacent efforts dating back to Joanna Gruesome, but the secret to Hard Life&#8217;s lushness is the addition of fiddle player Chris Haigh, an instructor and session musician who left an indelible mark on British pop on Steps&#8217; &#8220;5, 6, 7, 8.&#8221; &#160; Mirroring Williams' use of trilling on vocal melodies, Haigh&#8217;s fiddle shades the vocalist's rueful croon like a bruise. On &#8220;Stoop to Me,&#8221; the folkiest, jangliest pop song on the album, Haigh&#8217;s licks complement Williams at his most self-deprecating, the lopsided smile of a guy trying not to let on how wounded he is in unrequited love. On album opener and title track &#8220;Hard Life,&#8221; it&#8217;s the sweetness of the ascending fiddle lines in the mix that weds the harshness of Williams&#8217; lyrics to The Tubs&#8217; fist-pumping anthemics. &#160; The hard line Williams takes here and elsewhere on Hard Life further troubles one&#8217;s idea of a Tubs song. The persona familiar to listeners of Cotton Crown and Dead Meat &#8212; to quote Williams, &#8220;navel gazing about romantic abjection, London squalor, and the indignities of grief and OCD&#8221; &#8212; is still present, but so too is a second voice, steelier and more experienced. &#8220;The second persona doesn&#8217;t have much time for the first,&#8221; Williams explains, &#8220;often haranguing him for his self-indulgence and immaturity; sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly.&#8221; &#160; It&#8217;s the scold who takes center stage on lead single &#8220;Who&#8217;s Gonna Love You Now?&#8221; His questions, from the titular one to more concrete concerns like &#8220;Who&#8217;s gonna pay the rent?&#8221; existing in mocking opposition to ideas like moving to the city and really starting to live. Though Williams plays the crank, the song is a raver, guitars ringing out over an organ-brightened horizon. &#8220;It&#8217;s your life,&#8221; Williams sings, the life chugging away beneath him sounding exceptionally keen. He wouldn&#8217;t have much sympathy for the lovelorn Williams of &#8220;If You Don&#8217;t Love Me&#8221; &#8212; hell, his whole existence seems like a warning that the kinds of romantic entanglements one suffers when they&#8217;re young will end in loneliness, failure, and an inbox choked with unread Substacks. &#160; Linktree &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Bandcamp &#183; Substack]]></description>
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                                <title>Karina Rykman &#8211; Late Checkout Tour 2026</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/karina-rykman-late-checkout-tour-2026/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Karina Rykman plays bass, sings, jumps around, and laughs a lot. In doing so, she has garnered rare attention and avid listenership. Straddling the worlds of jam rock and indie pop drenched in psychedelia, Karina&#8217;s effervescent presence comes to life in musical form. Born &#38; raised in New York City, Karina Rykman&#8217;s musical path began in her early teens playing in bands whenever she could while attending a veritable ton of live music as a fan. By the end of her senior year at NYU, Rykman&#8217;s virtuoso talent &#38; infectious spirit saw her invited to join pianist Marco Benevento&#8217;s band (as recommended by Ween bassist Dave Dreiwitz), with whom she&#8217;s performed countless shows including dates with Vulfpeck, Dispatch, The Claypool Lennon Delirium, &#38; many more. Rykman soon formed her own namesake band, accompanied by Adam November (guitar, loopers, effects) and Chris Corsico (drums). She quickly earned a reputation as an unmissable live act - a bombastic exposition that floats freely between dreamy indie pop and thick, distorted rock - &#160;with &#8220;fun&#8221; as its guiding light. Tearing up sold out headline performances to ravenous fans, show-stealing festival performances (including Bonnaroo, Peach Music Festival, and Sweetwater 420 Fest), opening for Khruangbin, My Morning Jacket, the Tedeschi Trucks Band (+ many more), plus recent appearances in the house band on NBC&#8217;s Late Night with Seth Meyers, Karina stays busy. Rykman released her debut album, JOYRIDE via AWAL in August 2023. Written &#38; recorded with childhood friend and producer Gabe Monro, the album serves as a vivid canvas for Rykman&#8217;s vibrant expression &#38; chameleonic songcraft. JOYRIDE features Trey Anastasio as co-producer &#38; featured musician, contributing guitar on five of the album&#8217;s nine tracks. The bassist/vocalist&#8217;s concerts are often packed with fans who feel more like friends&#8212;a testament to her undeniable charisma and her embrace of the live music community&#8212;and that circle continues to expand at alarming rates. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>The Wldlfe</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-wldlfe-3/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Wldlfe, comprised of Jansen Hogan, Carson Hogan, &#38; Jack Crane, entered into the independent scene in 2016 with their smash EP "New, 2016" and have continued to grow one the most steadfast fanbases around through their consistent releases and relentless appetite for touring. An electrifying live act, The Wldlfe has toured sold-out shows across North America in 2023, 2024, and 2025 while cultivating an audience hungry for more. Frontman Jansen Hogan's magnetic stage presence and infectious charisma, paired with the skillful instrumentation of Carson Hogan and Jack Crane, leave fans with unforgettable experience. With over 100 million global streams to date, The Wldlfe released the Deluxe version of their highest streaming project yet, Heaven is a place, 2024. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>The War And Treaty</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-war-and-treaty-2/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[For the past decade, soulful duo The War And Treaty&#8212;the husband-and-wife team of Michael and Tanya Trotter&#8212;have released music that continues to elevate them beyond beloved industry favorites, as well as award-season and touring staples, capable of performing on stages worldwide with widespread acclaim and standing ovations. Every aspect of their new project exemplifies the pinnacle of the group&#8217;s ever-creative growth within these mentioned ideas. Twelve years after their founding, The War And Treaty have redefined themselves beyond Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, and GRAMMY nominations. Moreover, being lauded by the Rock &#38; Roll Hall of Fame, the Grand Ole Opry, and the Americana Music Association, which named them Duo/Group of the Year for two consecutive years, cannot contain them as a group greater than the sum of their most successful parts. Immediately upon listening to their latest album, it&#8217;s clear that a more vibrant energy now guides a duo confidently shaping their own destiny. Album collaborators include titans of the arts who are as much friends, mentors, and trusted confidants as they are legends across multiple industries: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award winner Whoopi Goldberg (who provides the spoken word intro for &#8220;Litty&#8221;), Songwriters Hall of Famer Kenneth &#8220;Babyface&#8221; Edmonds (writer of &#8220;You Can&#8217;t Hurt Me Anymore&#8221;), Country Music Hall of Famer Wynonna Judd, and Grammy-nominated performer Valerie June (both on &#8220;Reclaim All Of Your Time&#8221;) all contribute as guest artists. Hall of Fame-caliber mentors and influential friends, now serving as relaxed collaborators, shape how powerhouse country-soul vocalists like Valerie June and Wynonna Judd influence The War And Treaty&#8217;s latest sound. The duo&#8217;s pairing is less unlikely than it appears at first glance: both grew up listening to classic country and Memphis soul records, among many other genres. As a result, on the song &#8220;Reclaim All of Your Time,&#8221; their styles blend seamlessly with Tanya Trotter&#8217;s veteran gospel-soul stylings. For nearly five years after writing the folksy, female-empowerment ballad, Michael Trotter, its creator, believed it should be presented as a conversational piece with layered harmonies. He was right. The song, both in its composition and vocal delivery, combines warmth and strength to forge a rare genre bridge. Beyond collaborations, The War And Treaty&#8217;s latest work also thoughtfully seeks to expand Ray Charles&#8217; 50-year-old idea that the best music exists in the tension between sacred sounds and secular desires. Given that Michael and Tanya Trotter are a married couple, their ability to explore that space is obvious. Yet, their decade-long efforts to meet industry expectations in folk, Americana, and country music left significant raw and romantic potential in their sound untapped. &#8220;We&#8217;re finally performing material that shows people how, beyond being mature and intentional, how sanctified and sexual we can be,&#8221; says Tanya Trotter. &#8220;For Michael and me, it&#8217;s important to show the combination of rawness and sweetness that underlies our soulful sound.&#8221; &#160; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Tiny Habits &#8211; The Keepers Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/tiny-habits-the-keepers-tour/lincoln-theatre/raleigh-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:00:34 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Tiny Habits were still students in Boston when they began gaining recognition for the harmony-focused song covers recorded in their dorm stairwell and posted to millions of listeners on TikTok. They released their first EP of original songs, Tiny Things, in April 2023 and soon earned a spot opening for Gracie Abrams on her ‘Good [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Six Foot Blonde</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/six-foot-blonde-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Chicago-based indie pop/rock outfit Six Foot Blonde delivers a dynamic sound defined by soulful, powerhouse vocals with lush indie rock instrumentation. This six-piece seamlessly blends infectious pop melodies with raw rock energy, cementing their reputation as one of the Midwest&#8217;s most exciting emerging acts. They burst onto the scene from Bloomington, Indiana, forming during the pandemic in 2020 as an IU college cover band. They quickly evolved into a tight-knit group of meticulous arrangers. Frontwoman Julia Rusyniak&#8217;s soaring voice and deeply personal lyrics backed by a dynamic fusion of indie-rock slide guitar, synth, and three-part harmonies. Their infectious sound and explosive performances are rapidly expanding their dedicated fanbase. "The rare combination of earnest and exciting, the synthesis of frontwoman Julia's tremendous vocal talent and heartfelt lyrics with a 90's-alt-washed take on soul pop that is lush, tight-knit, and brimming with energy." &#8212; MOKB Presents "Julia's voice and lyrics resemble a modern pop artist, backdropped by indie-rock instrumentation uniquely their own." - Melodic Magazine Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#160;]]></description>
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                                <title>Brian Fallon &amp; The Painkillers</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/brian-fallon-the-painkillers/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Brian Fallon is known far and wide for his elemental gifts as a songwriter, musician, and storyteller, including four acclaimed solo albums and his role as founding member and frontman of The Gaslight Anthem. Over the course of nearly three decades, the New Jersey-based artist has crafted a constantly evolving body of work, booming with insistent imagery, defiant romanticism, and an extraordinary emotional acuity that has marked all variations of his music from the very start. 2023 saw The Gaslight Anthem return from a long hiatus with History Books, their sixth full-length album and first new studio LP in nine years. The much-beloved band marked the acclaimed album with an epic tour schedule that saw sold-out headline dates and show-stopping festival performances around the world, confirming their ongoing place among the top ranks of American rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll bands. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Ak&#8217;chamel</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/akchamel/local-506/chapel-hill-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[For over 15 winters, the name Ak'chamel has drifted like smoke through the underground-a thing half-seen, yet impossible to forget. Wearing nightmarish costumes and engaging in hallucinatory ceremonies; their singular sound comprising desert-scorched psychedelia, post-apocalyptic shamanism, and lo-fi ritual-folk is as unique as the physical theater of their live performances. They have released dozens of cassettes, several vinyl records, and a handful of cryptic VHS tapes. Their ungodly reels have been seen by millions yet understood by few. The group remains veiled in mystery, yet they tour often-through the United States, Canada, and Europe; bringing their unearthly plague to the world. &#160; Instagram &#183; Bandcamp &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>YHWH Nailgun</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/yhwh-nailgun/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The quartet of Zack Borzone (vox), Jack Tobias (synth), Sam Pickard (drums), and Saguiv Rosenstock (guitar) display an innate ability to translate a primitive spirit into a modern form. Born during the lockdown as an experimental project between Borzone and Pickard in Philadelphia, the group expanded as the two moved to New York, adding Tobias for their debut self-titled EP, which was produced by Rosenstock, who was then integrated into the band. That first collection is one of self-discovery, of finding the tools necessary to make songs within the band&#8217;s own ecosystem. They honed in on their own world and their collaborative, close-knit writing process, discovering the essential structures and feelings that make YHWH Nailgun. &#160; Website]]></description>
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                                <title>Whitney</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/whitney-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Whitney return to the road in 2026 with a North American tour celebrating their forthcoming fourth &#160;studio album Small Talk (out November 7, 2025). Formed in Chicago in 2015 by Julien Ehrlich and &#160;Max Kakacek, the band has earned a devoted following for their soulful blend of tender melancholy &#160;and radiant warmth.&#160; Their debut Light Upon the Lake introduced Whitney with the beloved single &#8220;No Woman,&#8221; earning &#160;Pitchfork&#8217;s coveted Best New Music designation and praise for its &#8220;near flawless&#8230; low-key &#160;perfectionism.&#8221; Nearly a decade later, the band continues to evolve while preserving the intimacy &#160;and spirit that made them so cherished from the start.&#160; On this run, Whitney will share new songs from Small Talk alongside fan favorites, bringing their &#160;signature mix of laid-back charm and intricate musicianship to stages across the US and Canada, &#160;with stops in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Toronto, Montreal, and more.&#160; &#8220;If you&#8217;ve ever seen Whitney live, you already know what a treasure their performances are. The &#160;Chicago-based outfit, led by the effortlessly cool Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek, has a gift for &#160;crafting songs that feel both timeless and deeply personal - sunny yet melancholic, tender yet &#160;bold.&#8221; - We Write About Music &#160; Website &#183; Threads &#183; YouTube &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Carbon Leaf</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/carbon-leaf-4/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Carbon Leaf&#8217;s fifteenth studio album, Time is the Playground is both a call to action and an embrace of the moment. Marrying nostalgic storytelling to nuanced, folk-infused indie rock, the Richmond, Virginia band embroiders heartfelt melody and harmony with acoustic and electric instrumentation to create a 12-song rumination on time, love and personal growth that&#8217;s equal parts urgent epiphany and contented exhalation. &#8220;Everybody says people don&#8217;t listen to albums anymore,&#8221; mulled Carbon Leaf frontman Barry Privett, holed up in a coastal cottage. &#8220;So, the challenge for us was to make something that felt good to get through from beginning to end &#8230; to listen to like a story.&#8221; Originally formed as a college cover band in 1992 and with over 3,500 famously enthused live shows together, Carbon Leaf helped to define the aughts indie rock that they ultimately outgrew and outlasted. They first earned national recognition with &#8220;The Boxer,&#8221; a song that won the American Music Awards 2002 New Music Award and made Carbon Leaf the first unsigned band to perform before millions on the AMAs. &#8220;The Boxer&#8221; entered regular radio rotation, Carbon Leaf&#8217;s tours grew bigger and better, and within a couple of years they quit their day jobs and inked a record deal. The band&#8217;s fanbase snowballed, drawn to their infectious spirit of commitment, empathy, communion, and self-reliance &#8211; not to mention supremely crafted songs with ultra-relatable, thought-provoking lyrics. After a trio of charting albums for Vanguard Records, multiple songwriting awards and headlining shows, Carbon Leaf opted to return to the complete creative control of their indie roots. Guitarist Terry Clark, who co-founded the band with Privett and multi-instrumentalist Carter Gravatt, converted his garage into the band&#8217;s Two-Car Studio, where they&#8217;ve recorded releases for their own Constant Ivy imprint ever since. Carbon Leaf&#8217;s DIY spirit even extended to re-recording their three Vanguard albums in order to regain the rights. Due in September,&#160;Time is the Playground is Carbon Leaf&#8217;s first full-length album in a decade, during which they released two EPs and a 27-song live performance album and Blu-ray.&#160;Time is the Playground gathers the best of songs written, in fits and starts, over 15 years, alongside brand new ideas. Privett dusted off old demos and shut himself away for months to finish their stories, while also honing recent compositions. With Clark engineering, Carbon Leaf &#8211; completed by longtime bassist Jon Markel and drummer Jesse Humphrey &#8211; spent a year and a half recording and mixing the resulting songs. &#8220;Thinking about these disparate pieces of music, I began ruminating on time itself,&#8221; Privett recalled. &#8220;The band&#8217;s been together a long time. You mature a bit and see yourself in place on the timeline &#8230; rolling around the scenes of love and growth.&#8221; Masterfully melding saturated AC/DC guitar and squelchy Cars synth, &#8220;Backmask 1983&#8221; is a fun flipbook of evocative era emblems &#8211; Farah Fawcett, &#8220;Satanic Panic,&#8221; Time Life Books, Bigfoot and more &#8211; that traverses the simultaneous nexus of Privett&#8217;s childhood/adolescence and the world&#8217;s analog/digital ages. It&#8217;s about morphing into a new person and a new planet with wide-eyed wonder and a longing to believe. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/ryan-davis-and-the-roadhouse-band/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 14:00:34 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[New Threats from the Soul is a masterclass in reducing the sublime to the prosaic, immensity to infinitesimally, and vice versa (the trick can only work both ways). Everything in our universe is essentially flotsam or jetsam, rubbish heaps of fragments and shards. We, especially, are jerry-rigs of bubblegum and driftwood, inconsistencies and incoherencies, dead [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>The Arcadian Wild &#8211; Make It Out Alive Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>2 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-arcadian-wild-make-it-out-alive-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Arcadian Wild is an indie folk/pop group from Nashville, TN, led by songwriters Isaac Horn, Lincoln Mick and Bailey Warren, The Arcadian Wild confidently inhabits and explores an intersection of genre, blending the traditional with the contemporary. Combining elements of confessional pop, folk, progressive bluegrass, and formal vocal music, The Arcadian Wild offer up songs of invitation; calls to come and see, to find refuge and rest, to journey and wonder, to laugh and cry, to share joy and community and sing along. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>Rafael Green performs Pink Moon, Georgia Moon performs Blue</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/rafael-green-performs-pink-moon-georgia-moon-performs-blue/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:55:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[This is a seated show. &#160; Rafael Green is a progressive-folk/art-rock songwriter currently based in the Triangle area of North Carolina. He was born in Essen, Germany to musician parents and spent his early years in Wraysbury, England while his mother taught at the Guildhall School of Music &#38; Drama in London. After moving to Tucson, Arizona, Green began showing an interest in playing an instrument and acquired his first guitar. He discovered a love for performing and songwriting in junior high school and, after graduating from high school, attended Berklee College of Music where he studied guitar, voice, arranging, production, and songwriting. He graduated with honors in 2013 and shortly thereafter moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he performed in various bands alongside fellow alumni. His songwriting style borrows from English folk and rock bands as well as progressive rock and classical guitarists such as Andr&#233;s Segovia and Leo Brouwer. &#160; Instagram &#160; Georgia Moon is an artist, writer, and multi-instrumentalist from the foothills of North Carolina. She started on piano at age four with a classical teacher who thought ragtime was too contemporary, taught herself alto saxophone at age ten, but it was the hum of the guitar that truly drew her in. She has long confessed that singing Joni Mitchell songs in her childhood bedroom is how she found the courage to perform in front of others in the first place, and the importance of Mitchell&#8217;s excavating lyricism and melodic explorations cannot be understated in terms of understanding Moon&#8217;s own songwriting. &#160; She recorded her first demo of original songs in her hometown of Winston-Salem at age eighteen and she&#8217;s been playing gigs in bands and as a solo musician ever since, picking up more instruments in her travels around the American south, England, and western Michigan. Her self-titled EP was recorded and released in 2019, and several other musical offerings have additionally been birthed to the world including the full-band EP Linger Longer, which was released May 31st, 2026. A forthcoming solo album Fare Well is also due at the end of September 2026. &#160; Since her return to North Carolina in 2020, she has found camaraderie among the multitude of musicians who call the Triangle home - especially with Crazy Chester, Carrboro&#8217;s homage to The Band and The Last Waltz, with whom she has performed annually as Joni Mitchell and saxophonist. &#160; This performance of Joni Mitchell&#8217;s iconic 1971 album Blue is the culmination of thirty years of Georgia Moon&#8217;s devotion to music, and is a natural offshoot of her participation in Crazy Chester before the 50th anniversary celebration of the original Last Waltz concert this Thanksgiving. &#160; Website]]></description>
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                                <title>The Brook &amp; The Bluff: The Werewolf Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-brook-the-bluff-the-werewolf-tour/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Brook &#38; The Bluff return to their rock &#38; roll roots with Werewolf - a high-voltage, live-inspired album that turns up the amps, pushes the tempo, and howls in four-part harmony. Fueled by the sharp songwriting and stacked vocals that have defined their catalog, the collection captures the raw, supercharged energy of the band&#8217;s concerts.After nearly a decade of nonstop touring - earning hundreds of millions of streams with fan favorites like &#8220;Halfway Up&#8221; and &#8220;Everything Is Just a Mess&#8221; - the band regrouped in Nashville, meeting every morning to write and rehearse like their early days in Birmingham, Alabama. Life unfolded in the background: weddings, divorces, real-world growing pains. Inside the room, it was all music.The band channels the swamp rock spirit of legendary artists like Creedence, Petty, and The Eagles, delivering loud, melodic, deeply human songs like lead single &#8220;Super Bowl Sunday&#8221; - a crashing, introspective anthem about ego and emotional blind spots. &#8220;The goal was to treat the record like a live set,&#8221; says frontman Joseph Settine. And that&#8217;s exactly what they&#8217;ve done.Armed with a new album and an unflinching spirit, The Brook &#38; The Bluff are ready to hit the road again to continue their 2026 Werewolf tour. The band boasts a history of sold out headline tours across the continent, a number of major festival performances, and have supported artists like Noah Kahan, Mt. Joy, The Avett Brothers, Ashe, and Rainbow Kitten Surprise. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Evan Honer: It’s An Even Longer Road Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/evan-honer-its-an-even-longer-road-tour/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[$1 per ticket will go to The Cloverdale Project, which supports organizations taking care of people, animals, and the world around us.A cross-country move to Nashville. An international touring schedule. A record label with 25 artists and more than 100 releases, all operating out of his living room. A recording studio built into his four-car garage. Evan Honer spent 2024 in a blur of momentum, expanding his life in all directions, playing nearly 100 shows in support of his second album, Fighting For, while writing new songs for its follow-up. Only two years earlier, his cover of Tyler Childers' "Jersey Giant" had become a viral juggernaut, earning more than 200 million streams and launching his music career. He was busy then, too, balancing his college classes with nighttime gigs as a solo act and daily practices with the school's Division 1 swimming team. Things only intensified as school came to a close. Honer released the debut album West On I-10 on graduation day and quickly remade himself into a road warrior, balancing the challenges of early adulthood with an unbending commitment to music.Then, one day, he learned to look around him and take stock of the present. Everything I Wanted finds Honer planting new roots in Nashville, his adopted hometown after a multi-year stint in Southern California. Recorded over 18 days in a garage studio that he built himself, it's a homemade record with big-studio sparkle, its 13 songs emphasizing the indie and alternative-pop influences that have always lingered on the outskirts of his sound. Here, they're moved to the forefront, pushing Honer beyond his roots as an acoustic Americana act and into something more eclectic and electrifying. There are string arrangements courtesy of a talented neighbor, Kate Stephenson. There are horn arrangements, pedal steel swells, and contributions from his roommates, too. At the center of that sound is Evan Honer himself: an acclaimed songwriter, storyteller, and bleeding-heart vocalist who, after years on the move, has learned to slow down a bit and appreciate the moment."My life completely changed this past year," he says. "I'm learning to be happy with where I'm at. I'm grateful that I get to stand onstage and sing songs I wrote in my bedroom, and people know the words and sing them back to me. How can you be upset about that?"It's true; there's a lot to be grateful for. 500 million streams, for starters. An RIAA gold certification for his "Jersey Giant" cover. Sold-out shows alongside headliners like Wyatt Flores. The ongoing success of his own label, Cloverdale Records. With Everything I Wanted, though, Honer turns his gaze inward, writing autobiographical songs about romance, resilience, roots, and his relationship with his audience."When the going gets tough, I'll stick through the season," he promises during "Maybe For Once." On the surface, it's a love song to a woman he met on the road, her memory lingering in the rear-review mirror every time his van pulls away. For someone who's used to living life at 80 miles per hour, though, the song is something more: a self-made promise to focus not only upon the destination, but on the journey itself. "These songs are about me not getting in my own way," he clarifies. "I've stopped looking for reasons not to commit. I'm pushing myself to just let things happen." The rest of the record is similarly personal. On the cinematic piano ballad "It's a Home," Honer whisks himself back to childhood to unpack some traumatic family baggage. &#160; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Militarie Gun</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/militarie-gun/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Militarie Gun&#8217;s new album, God Save The Gun, starts with a confession. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been slipping up&#8221; frontman Ian Shelton roars on the opening cut &#8220;B A D I D E A.&#8221; It&#8217;s real vulnerability tucked amongst distorted bass and blown-out drums, and the perfect introduction to one of the most exciting records of the year. This isn&#8217;t just a sonically daring, massive swing of a rock album, it&#8217;s also a very human document of being at your worst when you should be on top of the world &#8211; an absurdist guide to the intersection of self-destruction and self-belief.&#160; "I&#8217;m well aware that being this vulnerable turns my personal trauma into a marketing hook for this album,&#8221; Shelton says. &#8220;But I&#8217;m fine with it, if not provoking it. Over the past couple years, as I spoke about addiction from the perspective of someone affected by it, I became the one struggling with it. There&#8217;s a farcical logic to entering a situation, fully knowing the consequences, and doing it anyway&#8211;but that&#8217;s where my head was when I started leaning on drinking.&#8221; Militarie Gun&#8217;s 2023 debut album, Life Under The Gun was centered around lifelong cycles of hurt, with the singer looking back at growing up with family members struggling with addiction, and while God Save The Gun is still tethered to that history, this time, he&#8217;s not the witness&#8212;he&#8217;s the protagonist. It wasn&#8217;t until the band was scheduled to enter the studio in early 2025 that Shelton realized he was the one who needed to hear God Save The Gun&#8217;s message. &#8220;I thought I was playing a character, but it was becoming my reality,&#8221; he explains. "Right before recording, it hit me that I was really losing control and needed to do something about it. I looked at the record as a whole and could see that it was a note to myself &#8211; when I read back those lyrics, I could clearly see they&#8217;re saying &#8216;yeah man, you&#8217;re fucking up.&#8217;&#8221; Despite all of the inner turmoil leading to God Save The Gun, Shelton and his bandmates &#8211; guitarists William Acu&#241;a and Kevin Kiley, bassist Waylon Trim, and drummer David Stalsworth &#8211; more than rose to the challenge of following up Militarie Gun&#8217;s acclaimed debut. Stalsworth, Trim, and Kiley all joined during Life Under The Gun&#8217;s extensive touring cycle after a series of member shakeups that would hobble most bands, but only made Militarie Gun stronger. &#8220;It took us a long time to find the right people to be in this band but it feels like all the pieces have finally fallen into place,&#8221; Shelton says. &#8220;It&#8217;s like we&#8217;ve had a fast car for a while but we just now figured out how to drive it. We wrote for three years consistently because our intention was to make a classic record&#8212;full stop. The songs need to be as emotional as possible but the music needs to fully hit too. Big ideas need big songs.&#8221; &#160; God Save The Gun certainly lives up to that credo, and to do it, the band recruited a village of new and old collaborators. Shelton continued his creative relationship with songsmith Phillip Odom, co-wrote with longtime conspirator and frequent harmonizer James Goodson of Dazy, and newly tapped Nick Panella of MSPAINT, among others. &#8220;Phil really taught me how to sing, he knows my voice better than anyone,&#8221; says Shelton. &#8220;Or sometimes it&#8217;s about bringing in a fresh perspective &#8211; I call someone like James or Nick because those guys write songs in a totally different way than I do.&#8221; &#160; Bandcamp &#183; Instagram]]></description>
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                                <title>AJ Lee &amp; Blue Summit</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/aj-lee-blue-summit-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[AJ Lee &#38; Blue Summit are an award-winning energetic, charming, and technically jaw-dropping band quickly rising on the national roots music scene. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the group met as teenagers, picking and jamming together as kids at local music festivals and jams until one day, they decided they would be a band. &#8220;Our roots go really deep,&#8221; explains de facto band leader Lee. &#8220;We met when we were young kids&#8230; We definitely decided to choose each other as a chosen family band later on in life, but in a lot of ways it was naturally just like that in the beginning.&#8221; &#8220;It was like one of those late at night things,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;We were sitting on a trailer at Grass Valley&#8221; at the annual Father&#8217;s Day Bluegrass Festival held in the Sierra Nevada foothills &#8211; &#8220;Someone said, &#8216;All of us right here, we're a band now.&#8217; We kind of didn't take it seriously, but we were like, okay, we'll be a band!&#8221; &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183;&#160;YouTube &#183;&#160;TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Sawyer Hill</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/sawyer-hill-3/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Sawyer Hill began playing bars as a teenager, sneaking through the back door so he wouldn&#8217;t be carded by bouncers. Eventually, he&#8217;d graduate to national stages, thanks in large part to his breakthrough single &#8220;Look at the Time.&#8221; He has since racked up over 130 million streams and nearly a quarter billion video views, and left Arkansas for the first time to bring his music across the United States and Europe. Those gigs, including sold out stops at LA's Troubadour and NYC's Bowery Ballroom, and an extensive tour supporting Yungblud informed the way his new LP, Everybody&#8217;s Home, Nobody&#8217;s Happy, sounds. He was also moved by a revelation he wasn&#8217;t expecting: Every time he left Arkansas for a California writing session or string of tour dates, he found himself longing for home. To hone in on the sonic and lyrical identity of the album, Hill worked with a few different collaborators throughout Los Angeles, like Mike Crossey [The 1975, Arctic Monkeys], Chris Greatti [Poppy, Yungblud], and Ryan Linville [Olivia Rodrigo, Dermot Kennedy]. He quickly began to triangulate the philosophy of the record, using these peers and role models as sounding boards. It&#8217;s part of the reason Hill sounds more assured than ever on the new album. With Everybody&#8217;s Home, Nobody&#8217;s Happy, Sawyer Hill wants to be that guiding presence that his favorite rockstars were for him when he was sitting in his childhood bedroom, teaching himself chords. He wants to be a voice for the loners and the doubters, the Southern kid who doesn&#8217;t understand why he&#8217;s meant to shut up about his feelings. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube &#183; Soundcloud &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Kevin Atwater &#8211; Blush Red Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/kevin-atwater-blush-red-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Kevin Atwater is a Chicago-born singer-songwriter based in New York City. Kevin started posting his music online in early 2022 and quickly built a fanbase drawn to his uniquely honest and intimate songwriting. A video of him performing his single &#8220;star tripping&#8221; was posted to TikTok in July 2022 and went viral, accumulating over 2.1 million views. Kevin continued posting his demos in full, each receiving at minimum hundreds of thousands of views and gaining the attention and support of notable artists like MUNA, Lizzy McAlpine, and Noah Kahan. &#160; Kevin released his debut EP Downers Grove on April 26, 2023, which has since garnered over 15 million streams across platforms. His follow-up single &#8220;why did you invite me to your wedding&#8221; gained significant demand from his audience on social media after several videos on TikTok reached over 3 million views collectively and has streamed over half a million times across platforms. During this time, he also spent time on the road supporting Jeremy Zucker, Leith Ross, and Searows on their tours. &#160; In 2025, Kevin released his debut album Achilles, which garnered more than 10 million streams across all DSPs, sold out his debut headline North American tour, and premiered a short film inspired by his viral song &#8220;why did you invite me to your wedding&#8221; in New York City. 2026 is poised to be a breakout year for Kevin as he works on his second full-length project, Blush Red, coming July 10th. &#160; Website &#183; Spotify &#183; TikTok &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Margaret Glaspy &#8211; The I Am Both Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/margaret-glaspy-the-i-am-both-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[In an era of excess and endless distraction, the New York-based singer/songwriter Margaret Glaspy rejects the noise in favor of something far more essential. On the self-possessed title track for her new album I Am Both, Glaspy offers an ardent refusal of any outside pressure to compromise her multidimensionality. &#8220;I wrote &#8216;I Am Both&#8217; a while ago; the story is based on a female character that I look up to deeply&#8212;a woman who contains multitudes while seeing reality very clearly,&#8221; says Glaspy. &#8220;It can feel safer to try to fit myself into a category, but I find that embracing my own complexity is much healthier for me.&#8221; That embrace of complexity runs throughout the album&#8217;s eleven tracks. In the making of I Am Both, Glaspy stepped away from social media and soon discovered a clarity of mind she hadn&#8217;t experienced in years, followed by a sustained burst of creative momentum. As she penned her lyrics in longhand and then polished them up on a typewriter, Glaspy assembled a selection of songs that span from fictional vignettes to unguarded self-revelation to empathetic observation of the troubled world around her. Produced by Joe Henry (the three-time Grammy-winning singer/songwriter/producer known for his work with luminaries like Aimee Mann and Joan Baez), I Am Both ultimately stands as a striking new statement from one of the modern music canon&#8217;s most formidable songwriters. &#8220;When I started writing for this record I had a goal of getting my practice back&#8212;to walk the walk in terms of how I envision myself as a songwriter,&#8221; says Glaspy, a Northern California-bred artist who made her debut with 2016&#8217;s lavishly acclaimed Emotions and Math. &#8220;At first it was really hard to break that addiction to social media, but after a while something shifted. It felt like I&#8217;d gotten back to original thought instead of being under the influence of so many outside opinions. It was life-changing.&#8221; Her fourth full-length album, I Am Both, emerged from three days of sessions at New York City&#8217;s Reservoir Studios, where Glaspy recorded live with drummer/percussionist Jay Bellerose (Bonnie Raitt, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss), keyboardist Patrick Warren (Tracy Chapman, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen), and bassist Ross Gallagher (Paula Cole, Grails). &#8220;I always think of myself as more of a photographer than a sculptor in the studio&#8212;it&#8217;s about capturing the moment rather than layering and building things up over time, and Joe has a similar mentality when it comes to recording,&#8221; says Glaspy, who first connected with Henry at a T Bone Burnett-curated tribute to Bob Dylan at New York&#8217;s Town Hall in 2022. &#8220;There was an incredible chemistry with the band and the whole process felt electric, so a lot of what you hear on the album is the first take.&#8221; The follow-up to 2023&#8217;s Echo the Diamond (hailed by Uncut as &#8220;songs that glint like shards of glass yet brim with love, grief, courage, existential doubt and all the stuff that makes us human&#8221;), I Am Both brings Glaspy&#8217;s disarmingly direct vocals and eloquent guitar work to a cathartic form of folk-leaning indie-rock. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>The Afghan Whigs</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-afghan-whigs-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[The Afghan Whigs new album, Soft Control is testament to the old David Bowie quote, where he describes aging as &#8220;an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.&#8221; By now, the volatile years of band leader Greg Dulli&#8217;s youth have been substituted with a wry and self-aware satori. The edge and sensitive temperament remain but the unchecked infernos of ego and rage no longer threaten personal immolation. And Dulli&#8217;s vocals are simultaneously the strongest and most delicate that they&#8217;ve ever been. &#8220;I&#8217;ve worked hard on my inner peace,&#8221; Dulli commented. &#8220;I was an angry young man, and it fueled my art, ambition and my drive. I wouldn&#8217;t change anything because I can&#8217;t. But as I got into photography and other art forms, I realized that I&#8217;m not in competition with anyone &#8211; including myself. Now, I know what I&#8217;m doing and there&#8217;s a quiet confidence that comes with being able to back it up.&#8221; Soft Control was recorded at Fireside Sound in Joshua Tree, Marigny Studios in New Orleans, Gold Diggers Sound in East Hollywood, and Sycamore in Cincinnati. The band recorded 22 songs for the record, discarding several favorites because they didn&#8217;t seamlessly fit the taut 37-minute track listing. Additional cameos on the album come from former Afghan Whigs drummer Patrick Keeler, vocalist/violist Petra Haden, Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), and many others. The album captures The Afghan Whigs&#8217; unique ability to conflagrate stab-you-in-your-nose bone guitars and cubist refractions of soul and R&#38;B. You expect bangers from The Afghan Whigs, and there are bangers. Yet there is a reconciliation of loud volume and somber reflections, living life with joy and purpose while keeping one eye on the clock and remaining aware of the absurdity. The Afghan Whigs&#8217; tenth album is a sterling addition to a singular body of work &#8211;a double-sided invitation to embrace the light and welcome the darkness. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Dana and Alden</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/dana-and-alden/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Jazz duo Dana &#38; Alden have always had a wanderlust, something they credit to their maternal grandfather. Affectionately known as Papa, he was the kind of person others naturally gravitate towards. It was a photograph from one of his trips to Asia that inspired the Eugene, OR duo&#8217;s new album Papa&#8217;s Boat. In the image Papa is looking out across the horizon and stood next to his boat Sŵn y M&#244;r (Welsh for &#8220;Sound of the Sea.&#8221;) &#8220;I think so much of what Alden and I are doing comes from just watching him live his own unique life,&#8221; says Dana. Alden agrees. &#8220;His emboldened, passionate personality gave us permission to be our own selves, to be unconventional and draw outside of the box.&#8221; Recorded with Malcolm Catto in London in March 2025, Papa&#8217;s Boat combines all their childhood love and global experience to create an ecstatic sound built on Dana&#8217;s saxophone and Alden&#8217;s drums. Recorded with the duo&#8217;s backing band, Ebba Dankel (vocals and keys), Andrew Mitchell (bass), Eli Torgersen (vocals and guitar) and Salim Charvet (sax and synths), Papa&#8217;s Boat is rooted in jazz but pulling influence from indie, pop, rap, bossa nova, and beyond. A hypnotic combination of sax and buzzing synths on &#8220;Lighthouse&#8221; sets the tone for an album that uses water as both a reflective surface and a body to get lost in. Elsewhere there are collaborations with Mei Semones, Melanie Charles, and legendary Brazilian songwriter Marcos Valle, a hero figure to the band who appears on &#8220;El Gaucho&#8221; and &#8220;Friendship Is A Boat.&#8221; Throughout its runtime Papa&#8217;s Boat sails purposefully between memories of the past and visions of a brighter future. It doesn&#8217;t just commemorate their Papa as a beloved character, but shares him with the world. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Evening Elephants</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/evening-elephants-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Evening Elephants is a playful duo whose sound blends sunny indie rock hooks with hip-hop and electronic sounds. After garnering buzz for singles like 2024's "Parking Lot Problems" and 2025's breakout "Snow on the Bluff," they made their label debut with the Carefree, very EP on Republic. The full-length Wholeheartedly, Terribly Sweet, arrived in 2026.Hailing from Los Angeles, Evening Elephants features vocalist Sam Boggs and drummer/producer Brandon Leslie. They initially came together in 2021 after meeting at a party in Silverlake and discovering their shared musical chemistry. Prior to joining forces, Boggs had worked as a producer and Leslie had pursued a solo project. Soon, they were recording tracks together and releasing them online; these included 2023's "Life Is Swell," "Snow on the Bluff," and "Rent Free." More singles followed in 2024, including "Succubus," "Pheromones," and the breakout "Snow on the Bluff," leading to a deal with the Republic label. Carefree, very, their major label debut, appeared in 2025, followed a year later by their first full-length, Wholeheartedly, Terribly Sweet. &#160; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Circle Jerks &amp; Municipal Waste</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/circle-jerks-municipal-waste/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Circle Jerks emerged from the punk underbelly of LA&#8217;s South Bay in 1979. After serving as a co-founder and lead vocalist of Black Flag during the recording of its essential Nervous Breakdown EP, Keith Morris joined forces with former Redd Kross guitarist Greg Hetson to form what would become Circle Jerks, along with bassist Roger Rogerson and jazz drummer Lucky Lehrer. Unlike much of the unapologetic hardcore that seeped through the cracks of American suburbia, the music of the Circle Jerks was thoughtfully steadfast, yet relentless and ferocious in nature. Bringing together a potent, articulate rhythm section with earnest yet oftentimes derisive lyrics and themes, the band was thereafter heralded as a leader of the pack - and a force to be reckoned with. Plowing forward with a relentless, tooth-cutting work ethic and a rousing stage presence, the band would soon find itself headlining shows at LA&#8217;s 5,000-capacity Olympic Auditorium and emblazoned in cult video classics like Decline of Western Civilization, Repo Man, New Wave Theatre, and The Slog Movie. Over the decades, Circle Jerks would release six studio albums, including the acclaimed Group Sex (1980) Wild in the Streets (1982), Golden Shower of Hits (1983), Wonderful (1985), and IV (1987), where they would become a major headliner during the alternative music explosion of the 80&#8217;s and 90&#8217;s. During hiatuses, Morris fronted bands like OFF! and FLAG, while Hetson played guitar in Bad Religion. Bassist Zander Schloss (The Weirdos, Joe Strummer) has been a member since the 1980&#8217;s and veteran drummer Joey Castillo (The Bronx, QOTSA, Danzig, BL&#8217;AST!, Wasted Youth) completes the lineup as its newest member. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#160; Municipal Waste Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook]]></description>
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                                <title>Julia Jacklin</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/julia-jacklin-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Julia Jacklin is celebrated for her emotionally direct lyricism, captivating performances, and commanding voice. Since the release of her acclaimed debut Don&#8217;t Let The Kids Win (2016), Jacklin has become one of the most respected artists in contemporary independent music, with follow-up albums Crushing (2019) and PRE PLEASURE (2022) &#8212; the latter debuting at #2 on the ARIA Charts. Across her career, she has earned two ARIA Awards and had thirteen nominations and widespread international critical acclaim, with both Crushing and PRE PLEASURE landing on numerous year-end best-of lists and receiving universal praise from outlets including Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NME, MOJO, and Uncut. &#160; A formidable live performer, Jacklin has built a substantial global touring audience through sold out headline shows at venues including London&#8217;s Roundhouse, Melbourne&#8217;s Forum, and Brooklyn Steel in New York, alongside appearances at major festivals such as Glastonbury, Primavera Sound, Austin City Limits, Pitchfork Music Festival, and Laneway. In addition to extensive headline touring, she has shared stages with artists including Mitski, Lana Del Rey, Courtney Barnett, and Faye Webster, with whom she has also collaborated musically. &#160; Following previous partnerships with Polyvinyl, Transgressive, and Liberation Records, Jacklin recently signed her first-ever global record deal with 4AD, marking a new chapter for one of Australia&#8217;s most internationally celebrated songwriters. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Saxsquatch</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/saxsquatch-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; TikTok &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Love Spells &#8211; LOVE IS THE LAW WORLD TOUR</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/love-spells-love-is-the-law-world-tour/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Love Spells is the mystic lovechild of 21-year old singer-songwriter Sir Taegen Harris. Born and raised in Houston, TX, Harris marries ethereal vocals, delicate percussion, and soothing guitar riffs into a dreamy &#38; nostalgic fusion of indie rock, psychedelia, and dream pop. Love Spells is defined by passionate romanticism, his songs revolving around themes of love, intimacy, and heartbreak. &#160; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; Facebook&#160;&#183; Youtube]]></description>
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                                <title>Gilla Band</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/gilla-band/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Giraffe is the first new music from Gilla Band in nearly 4 years. This follows their critically acclaimed 3rd album Most Normal which Pitchfork described in a best new music review as &#8220;a masterpiece of panic and deconstruction&#8221;. Live The Guardian described the band&#8217;s set as feeling &#8220;genuinely dangerous, like one last rave before the apocalypse, and as perfect an expression of rock&#8217;n&#8217;roll&#8217;s essential auto-destructive impulse as this writer&#8217;s ever heard.&#8221;For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet &#8212; vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner &#8212; have been redefining what you could loosely call &#8220;rock music&#8221; in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way. The band perfected a vision that wasn&#8217;t quite post-punk, wasn&#8217;t quite noise-rock, wasn&#8217;t quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them - Giraffe is their bold new offering. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Robert Lester Folsom</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/robert-lester-folsom-2/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2026 14:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Sunshine Only Sometimes: Archives Vol. 2, 1972–1975 continues Anthology Recordings’ excavation, and exploration, of southern singer, songwriter, and psychedelic serviceman Robert Lester Folsom’s bountiful archives. Recorded across Georgia in various bedrooms, a barn, and a motel room with a reel-to-reel and a revolving cast of whip smart studio musicians in the first half of a [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>The Bends</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-bends/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[You&#8217;ll encounter all kinds of relatable, yet colorful characters in the music of The Bends. There&#8217;s the over-&#160;bored hipster chick in ripped jeans and a tight t-shirt, the friend who&#8217;s only there for the party, the dude&#160;who&#8217;d rather smoke in his room than pay attention to his girl, and so on and so forth. These personalities&#160;come to life between the group&#8217;s hypnotic hooks and garage-born production. The Baton Rouge-bred&#160;and Nashville-based quartet&#8212;Hayden Field [vocals, guitar], Ian Marmande [guitar], Jacob Rhodes&#160;[drums], and Chase Perkins [bass]&#8212;craft the kind of undeniable alternative rock that could just as easily&#160;soundtrack a scene in your favorite Reality Bites-style nineties flick or a TikTok trend. It&#8217;s as quotable as it&#160;is quixotic, lacing fuzz-ed out power chords with unapologetically candid lyrics. It&#8217;s also resonated with&#160;fans worldwide, leading to millions of streams and even the applause of megastars like Zach&#160;Bryan. Meeting at LSU, the band seized any opportunity to perform in front of an audience, gigging&#160;marathon cover sets at college bars and frat parties. By the time senior year rolled around, the four-&#160;piece cut their first original &#8220;Makeup.&#8221; It organically exploded online once Zach Bryan shared it on his&#160;Instagram story, calling it &#8220;the song of the year.&#8221; It eventually amassed over 6.2 million Spotify streams&#160;and paved the way for &#8220;Fair Weather&#8221; and 2025&#8217;s Leeward Drive EP. Along the way, they notably&#160;captured the ear of Better Than Ezra frontman Kevin Griffin who jumped at the chance to produce and&#160;co-write &#8220;Virginia&#8221; and introduced them to Warner Records. Now, The Bends&#8217; raw and real sound that&#160;powers a series of 2026 singles and their forthcoming debut for Warner Records. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>The Tallest Man On Earth</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-tallest-man-on-earth-2/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA["Matsson has made some of the best and most-compelling folk songs of the 21st century.&#8221; &#8212; Paste &#160; &#8220;The Tallest Man on Earth has released some of the best modern folk music of this century. He writes elegant, homespun ballads that draw you in toward the proverbial campfire.&#8221; &#8212; GQ &#160; Swedish singer-songwriter The Tallest Man On Earth aka Kristian Matsson is announcing a 2026 US fall tour today and the song &#8220;Colors&#8221;, his first new music in nearly three years. Recorded by Matsson in his home studio, the song whirls and swirls with his violin, guitar playing and signature croon. Yearning for the verdant inspiration of summer, head below to listen and watch the song&#8217;s new video featuring handheld camera footage from Kristian and his crew on a recent run of European shows. &#160; Watch/Listen to &#8220;Colors&#8221;: https://thetallestmanonearth.ffm.to/colors &#160; The Tallest Man On Earth has captivated audiences using &#8220;every inch of his long guitar cord to roam the stage: darting around, crouching, stretching, hip-twitching, perching briefly and jittering away&#8230;&#8221; (The New York Times). His tour this fall begins October 15 in North Carolina and snakes through the East and West coasts, ending in Phoenix on November 15. Head below to check out all upcoming tour dates. &#160; Critics often draw comparisons between The Tallest Man on Earth and Bob Dylan, citing similarities in both songwriting and vocal style. Matsson himself has acknowledged Dylan's influence, revealing that he started listening to him at the age of fifteen. Fascinated by Dylan's covers, he delved into their origins, which gradually introduced him to early American folk artists like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. However, Matsson is quick to distance himself from being part of any specific tradition, stating, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to be part of a tradition. I just want to do what feels natural to me. This is how I play, and this is how I write songs.&#8221; &#160; His 2023 album &#8216;Henry St.&#8217; marks the first time Matsson recorded an album in a band setting. As described by Matsson, it&#8217;s the &#8220;most me album yet, because it covers so many of the different noises in my head. Having been away from it taught me that making music and performing is what I&#8217;m doing for the rest of my life, and I&#8217;m so grateful for it. It has given me new confidence and playfulness. This is what I do. It&#8217;s unconditional.&#8221;&#160; &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>King Buffalo</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/king-buffalo-2/motorco-music-hall/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 14:25:29 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[King Buffalo is the trio of vocalist/guitarist Sean McVay, bassist Dan Reynolds, and drummer Scott Donaldson. Since forming in 2013, the self-proclaimed “heavy psych” band has made its name via 4 Full-lengths, 4EPs, and tours with Clutch, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, All Them Witches, The Sword, and Elder.]]></description>
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                                <title>Luna</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/luna/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Luna was a New York band formed in 1991 by singer/guitarist Dean Wareham after the breakup of Galaxie 500. The band made seven studio albums before disbanding in 2005. After a ten-year break, they reunited and toured in 2015, and in 2017 released a new LP &#8212; A Sentimental Education and an EP of instrumentals &#8212; A Place of Greater Safety. Other recent reissues include a deluxe 2xLP version of their classic Penthouse album (on Rhino) and another 2xLP set Lunafied that collects all the covers the band record-ed in the 1990s. Now scattered around the country (Los Angeles, New York and Austin) the band re-tains the same lineup that operated from 1999 to 2005: Dean Wareham on vo-cals/guitar, his wife Britta Phillips on bass, Sean Eden on guitar, and Lee Wall on drums. A Luna Timeline: 1992. Dean Wareham recruits Justin Harwood (ex-Chills) on bass and Stanley Demeski (ex-Feelies) on drums to record Lunapark for Elektra Records. After completing the al-bum, the band places an ad in the Village Voice and thus adds Sean Eden on guitar. Eden, who is Canadian by birth and a trained actor, plays lead guitar on the excellent Indian Summer EP (aka the Slide EP). 1993. The band records their second album, Bewitched, featuring &#8220;California,&#8221; &#8220;Tiger Lily&#8221; and &#8220;Friendly Advice.&#8221; 1995 Luna&#8217;s classic third album, Penthouse (1995) is recorded in New York City, fea-turing guests Tom Verlaine (Television) and Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab). The band signs to Beggar&#8217;s Banquet in Europe. Rolling Stone calls it &#8220;one of the essential recordings of the &#8216;90s&#8221; 1997 Lee Wall replaces the travel-weary Stanley Demeski on drums, and the band rec-ords Pup Tent, their fourth album for Elektra. 1998 Luna recorded their fifth album The Days of Our Nights. 1999 Justin Harwood moves back to his home country (New Zealand), and is replaced on bass by Britta Phillips. 2000 finding themselves between contracts, the band quickly records a live album &#8212; Luna Live! for the Arena Rock label. 2002 the band sign to Jetset Records, record Romantica, co-produced by Gene Holder (DB&#8217;s) and Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev). Romantica was followed by the mini-LP Close Cover Before Striking. 2004 Luna record their Rendezvous album in Brooklyn, NY. Produced by Bryce Gog-gin with minimal overdubs, it captures the band more-or-less live. 2005 After a farewell tour, on February 28 the band play their last show at New York&#8217;s Bowery Ballroom. 2015 After ten years away, the band announces a commemorative world tour. The lineup is the exact &#8217;99-&#8217;05 group: Dean Wareham and Sean Eden on guitar, Lee Wall on drums, and Britta Phillips (now married to Mr Wareham) on bass. 2016 Captured Tracks label release a vinyl box set comprising Luna&#8217;s five albums rec-orded for Elektra and a bonus LP of rarities. 2017 Double Feature Records release the band&#8217;s first new material since 2004, the co-vers LP A Sentimental Education and instrumental EP A Place of Greater Safety. 2018 Run-Out-Groove releases the double LP Lunafied &#8212; containing all the covers the band recorded during the 1990s. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Ax and the Hatchetmen: The Late Checkout Tour 2026</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/ax-and-the-hatchetmen-the-late-checkout-tour-2026/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Check out was hours ago, but Ax and the Hatchetmen aren&#8217;t leaving. The indie rock six piece, fronted by Axel Ellis, hit the road this fall for the &#8220;Late Check Out Tour&#8221; &#8212; a coast to coast run bringing their sunburnt guitars and jangly tunes to the masses. What started in high school hallways outside Chicago has grown into a band with millions of listeners, diehard fans, and nearly a decade of life on the road. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify &#183; Bandcamp &#183; TikTok]]></description>
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                                <title>Grace Enger &#8211; The Satisfied Girl Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/grace-enger-the-satisfied-girl-tour/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[&#8220;The story of my life has been telling myself I can&#8217;t do it, but then still doing it, and &#8216;it&#8217; working out way better than I thought,&#8221; says singer-songwriter Grace Enger. The 23-year-old has built a career on that paradox, and on songs that make others feel less lost in their own contradictions. Blending pop, folk, soul, and rock, she crafts songs that approach what she calls &#8220;stereotypically shameful emotions&#8221; &#8212; resentment, insecurity, the taboo of a forbidden crush &#8212; with the no-filter intimacy and levity of a heart-to-heart between besties. &#8220;I feel like I&#8217;m writing songs that I needed to hear when I was younger,&#8221; she says, &#8220;and maybe that I still need to hear now.&#8221; Enger&#8217;s Your Favorite Record EP is full of songs you might need to hear, too. Early single &#8220;Give A Little&#8221; is a bright, piano-driven bop with forceful guitar strums and horn flourishes. It&#8217;s also the kiss-off you wish you&#8217;d given an emotionally deadbeat ex, while the wistful &#8220;Running Back To You&#8221; explains why you can&#8217;t stop texting that dud back. Later, the floating &#8220;Track 7&#8221; trades tough love for self-acceptance: &#8220;Well maybe I&#8217;m a deep cut / But aren&#8217;t those the best ones? / Ones that stick with you forever ever?&#8221; By the end, &#8220;Falling For You Anyways&#8221; sees her opening up again to new experiences. &#8220;This project represents a metamorphosis,&#8221; Enger says, &#8220;my journey of growing up and realizing I don&#8217;t have to stick around in situations that don&#8217;t serve me.&#8221; It&#8217;s an arc that mirrors its creative process. Written in the months after her first headline tour in 2025 (she was back in the studio that Monday), the EP captures a &#8220;liminal&#8221; headspace, caught between the afterglow of achieving a dream and the anxiety of what comes next. Her support system gone, Enger faced a choice: wait for someone else to make things happen, or do it herself. She chose the latter, stepping into production work she&#8217;d always left to others and making demos of new songs &#8212; not voice memos, but expansive arrangements with harmonies and strings. &#8220;I was telling myself I couldn&#8217;t do things alone. You give yourself all the reasons why you shouldn&#8217;t: &#8216;girls don't produce,&#8217; &#8216;you should leave it to a guy,&#8217; &#8216;you need a creative director,&#8217;&#8221; she says. &#8220;But by the end of it, I took the reins on my own project and therefore my own life.&#8221; Enger also wanted Your Favorite Record to feel like the soundtrack of her childhood, listening to John Mayer, Sara Bareilles, Norah Jones, Stevie Wonder &#8212; everything her parents would put on in the morning car ride to school in Hoboken, New Jersey. She fell in love with songwriting at age 10 thanks to Taylor Swift&#8217;s Red. She was soon penning her own tunes, eventually attending Berklee College of Music&#8217;s teen summer program, where she was selected from a thousand applicants to play the institute&#8217;s esteemed annual student singer-songwriter showcase. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; Spotify &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube]]></description>
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                                <title>Bebe Stockwell</title>
                                <eventupdate>3 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/bebe-stockwell/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 18 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Bebe Stockwell, the Boston-born singer, songwriter, and performer crafts folk anthems punctuated by an unapologetically and unfiltered Gen-Z perspective. Her life began in the neighborhood of Beacon Hill where she took piano, drum, and guitar lessons, and penning songs of her own served as an outlet as a kid. While attending the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, she continued to write and record. She eventually caught the attention of GRAMMY&#174; Award-winning producer M-Phazes and together they collaborated on her 2022 breakout &#8220;Love Me Back,&#8221; which to date has amassed north of 7 million Spotify streams. &#8220;Love Me Back&#8221; paved the way for more music, including &#8220;Robbie,&#8221; &#8220;Frosty,&#8221; and &#8220;Helium,&#8221; as well as while along the way, she shared stages with the likes of Claire Rosinkranz, Stephen Sanchez, Rachel Chinouriri, and M. Ward in addition to gracing the bills of Newport Folk Festival and Boston Calling. In 2024, the songstress inked a deal with Columbia Records and she released her debut EP, Driving Backwards, to much acclaim in May 2025. &#160; Website &#160;]]></description>
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                                <title>Good Moon Festival</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/good-moon-festival/durham-performing-arts-center/durham-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2026 16:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[We are excited to announce the return of GOOD MOON. After taking a year away we are back and in a new phase.  This year’s festival will function a little differently than in the past. We’re saying goodbye to our previous home at the ballpark and are spreading out to more venues across our beloved [&#8230;]]]></description>
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                                <title>Son Little</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/son-little/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Son Little&#8217;s live show brings his music into a different kind of clarity - raw, expressive, and always evolving. Whether solo or with a full band, he moves fluidly between deep grooves, stripped-down intimacy, and moments that feel completely improvised yet emotionally precise. It&#8217;s a performance style shaped by instinct and connection, grounded in the richness of his voice and the depth of his songwriting. Over the past decade, he&#8217;s cultivated a sound that draws from soul, blues, folk, hip-hop, and R&#38;B - without ever settling fully into any one space. That spirit carries into the room when he performs, offering something that feels both familiar and entirely his own. Audiences are pulled into songs built on texture and vulnerability, delivered with equal parts grit and grace. It&#8217;s not just a setlist - it&#8217;s an experience. Following a run through the UK and Europe supporting Larkin Poe, Son Little is back with a new wave of music and a fresh stretch of tour dates for winter and spring. His new album CITYFOLK, released in March 2026, features recent singles &#8220;in orbit&#8221; and &#8220;be better,&#8221; offering a first look at what&#8217;s taking shape - onstage and beyond - in the months ahead.]]></description>
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                                <title>Theo Katzman</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/theo-katzman-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[A man walks barefoot through the snow, takes a long bath in an icy river, then searches Craigslist for new-in-box cassette tapes from the early 90&#8217;s.&#160; He lights a candle, loads the tape, and waits. He&#8217;s listening for something unknown, yet familiar: the edge. This is a man staring down midlife with a renewed sense of vision, a recently unearthed Tascam Portastudio, and a call to embody masculine vulnerability through rock and roll song. In other words&#8230;Theo Katzman is returning to his singer-songwriter roots, with a series of intimate solo performances across the globe. He aims to pierce your heart. His aim is true.]]></description>
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                                <title>Reverend Horton Heat</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/reverend-horton-heat-4/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Loaded guns, space heaters, and big skies. Welcome to the lethal littered landscape of Jim Heath&#8217;s imagination. True to his high evangelical calling, Jim is a Revelator, both revealing &#38; reinterpreting the country-blues-rock roots of American music. He&#8217;s a time-travelling space-cowboy on a endless interstellar musical tour, and we are all the richer &#38; &#8220;psychobillier&#8221; for getting to tag along. Seeing Reverend Horton Heat live is a transformative experience. Flames come off the guitars. Heat singes your skin. There&#8217;s nothing like the primal tribal rock &#38; roll transfiguration of a Reverend Horton Heat show. Jim becomes a slicked-back 1950&#8242;s rock &#38; roll shaman channeling Screamin&#8217; Jay Hawkins through Buddy Holly, while Jimbo incinerates the Stand&#160;Up Bass. And then there are the &#8220;Heatettes&#8221;. Those foxy rockabilly chicks dressed in poodle-skirts and cowboy boots slamming the night away. It&#8217;s like being magically transported into a Teen Exploitation picture from the 1950&#8242;s that&#8217;s currently taking place in the future. Listening to the Reverend Horton Heat is tantamount to injecting pure musical nitrous into the hot-rod engine of your heart. The Reverend&#8217;s commandants are simple. Rock hard, drive fast, and live true. And no band on this, or any other, planet rocks harder, drives faster, or lives truer than the Reverend Horton Heat. These &#8220;itinerant preachers&#8221; actually practice what they preach. They live their lives by the Gospel of Rock &#38; Roll. From the High-Octane Spaghetti-Western Wall of Sound in &#8220;Big Sky&#8221; - to the dark driving frenetic paranoia of &#8220;400 Bucks&#8221; &#8211; to the brain-melting Western Psychedelic Garage purity of &#8220;Psychobilly Freakout&#8221; - The Rev&#8217;s music is the perfect soundtrack to the Drive-In Movie of your life. &#160; Jim Heath &#38; Jimbo Wallace have chewed up more road than the Google Maps drivers. For twenty-five Psychobilly years, they have blazed an indelible, unforgettable, and meteoric trail across the globe with their unique blend of musical virtuosity, legendary showmanship, and mythic imagery. &#160; &#8220;Okay it&#8217;s time for me to put this loaded gun down, jump in my Five&#160;Oh Ford, and nurture my pig on the outskirts of Houston. I&#8217;ll be bringing my love whip. See y&#8217;all later.&#8221; - Carty Talkington Writer/Director &#160; Rev your engines and catch the sermon on the road as it&#8217;s preached by everybody&#8217;s favorite Reverend. Don&#8217;t forget to keep an eye out for the 11th studio album from Reverend Horton Heat, boldly titled Rev, due out January 21st. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; YouTube &#183; Soundcloud]]></description>
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                                <title>Damien Jurado</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/damien-jurado/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[&#8220;Play on, there&#8217;s no such thing as better days,&#8221; Damien Jurado sings on &#8220;Roger,&#8221; the sweeping wash of a song that opens Reggae Film Star, his 18th full length album and second release from Jurado&#8217;s own Maraqopa Records label. But as he enters his 25th year as a recording artist, it&#8217;s clear these are, at the least, very good days for Jurado on the creative front. In these 12 songs, which evoke half-recalled dreams and overheard conversations, the cosmic rushes headlong into the autobiographical and specific moments on the clock fade from past to future to scenes set only in the eternal now. Playing out like a backlot documentary filmed on the location of an unnamed TV or film set&#8212;maybe a sitcom taping, or perhaps it&#8217;s a low budget science fiction B-movie, or could it be a talk show?&#8212;the album is populated by performers awaiting call times, camera operators praying for their shot, and studio audiences rapt with anticipation. The stars here eschew glitz and glamor. Instead, they wander grocery stores and parking lots in the verdant Pacific Northwest and the desert Southwest, looking for payphones and a sense of purpose. Produced by Jurado with multi-instrumentalist Josh Gordon and recording engineer Alex Bush at Sonikwire studio in Irvine,CA, Jurado&#8217;s home away from home and musical headquarters, the record&#8217;s compositions are among the most musically rich in his vast discography, encompassing romantic AM gold, &#8216;60s psychedelia, driving rock &#38; roll, Latin shuffles, and left of the dial ambiance. Strings swell, melodic bass bubbles, and piano sparkles, undergirding Jurado&#8217;s unmistakable voice, at once intimately present and ghostly, grounded in the here and now but capable, at any moment, of drifting off into the divinatory. Following threads established by 2021&#8217;s The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania, the album sees Jurado embracing his auteur era, penning vignettes that arrive with little fanfare and depart quicker than you might suspect, only to linger long after they wrap. Seeking a skeleton key to decipher the action is beside the point&#8212;Jurado&#8217;s songs are worlds meant to be lived in, not picked apart&#8212;but on the beatific single &#8220;What Happened To The Class Of &#8216;65?&#8221; the singer imagines himself as both the viewer and the viewed, the eye behind the camera and its subject. This emotional and spiritual transference animates Reggae Film Star. Like a masterful director, Jurado offers motivation to the listener, staring unblinkingly from the mise-en-sc&#232;ne in your mind. &#8220;Look into the camera,&#8221; he commands on &#8220;The Day Of The Robot,&#8221; &#8220;One more time with anger/And sadness/I believe you.&#8221; A quarter-century in, Jurado remains gripped by his visions and driven by an unmatched creative drive. Reggae Film Star is one of Damien Jurado&#8217;s finest works to date, a stunning new feature from one of indie rock&#8217;s most cinematic figures. Here on this sound stage, you are the camera, you are the scene, you are the setting, and you are the viewer. Please try not to blink. -Jason P. Woodbury &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#160; + Adam Voith reading from Recommended If You Like]]></description>
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                                <title>Slow Pulp</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/slow-pulp-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 16:15:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[When the members of Slow Pulp discuss Yard, their second full-length record and first for ANTI-, their vocabulary often defaults to synesthetic imagery and sensation. &#160; "We have so many visual cues for how we talk about music," singer and guitarist Emily Massey says as she stops herself in the middle of explaining how the album's second song, "Doubt," sounds like wakeboarding. "Doubt is quite dark lyrically, but it is found in this upbeat and almost campy environment." &#160; On Yard, the Wisconsin-bred, Chicago-based four-piece nestles comfortably into pockets of nuance, impressions, contradictions -- sonics and lyrics finessed together to bottle the specific tension of a feeling you've never quite been able to find the right words for. In that regard, listening to Slow Pulp can feel like being in a room with someone who's known you so long that they can read your every micro-expression and pinpoint exactly how you're feeling before you can. Perhaps this spawns from the band's own shared history and chemistry; in various ways, the four of them grew up -- are still growing up -- together. &#160; Guitarist Henry Stoehr and drummer Teddy Mathews attended elementary school together in Madison. Not long after, they met bassist Alex Leeds at the west side location of the now-closed local music program called Good'nLoud Music. And while Massey didn't enter the fold until later on in college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Mathews and Stoehr, it turns out she was in the same program on the other side of town at Good'nLoud's east side location. In fact, the chords to Yard's addictive track "Slugs" are from a song Stoehr wrote for his crush in the sixth grade. "Imagination," Mathews immediately chimes in with the name of Stoehr's original. The album's iteration of the song is, fittingly, also about a crush: "You're a summer hit, I'm singing it," Massey swoons over a warm wave of guitar fuzz and syrupy background vocals. &#160; With Leeds attending college in Minneapolis and the other members in Madison, the quartet started recording, playing shows around the Midwest, and eventually released their first EP as a four-piece, EP2, in 2017. It's an intimate, restless, and decidedly lo-fi 17-minute debut by a band with an obvious knack for creating sticky hooks that tend to stay in the space behind your eyes long after the songs are finished playing. So obvious that, without much promotion on the band's end, EP2 picked up traction across YouTube channels and blogs, and thanks to the power of the internet, Slow Pulp unexpectedly found themselves amid their first wave of buzz. &#160; In September 2018, the band relocated to Chicago and moved in together, writing and recording most of their Big Day EP at a cabin in Michigan the following January. As they put in the hours on stage and in the studio, the buzz continued to grow, they kept refining their work, and by 2019, they were touring with Alex G and working on their debut full-length record, Moveys. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram&#160;&#183; Facebook &#183; Spotify &#183; YouTube &#183; Soundcloud]]></description>
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                                <title>The Takes</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-takes/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 05 May 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[At the intersection of rock riffs and earnest songwriting, you find The Takes, a folk-rock group hailing from Portland, Oregon. The band &#8211; composed of Sumner Rahr (guitar/vocals), Guido Rahr (guitar), and Phoebe Webb (bass) &#8211; weaves emotion and escapism through their songs, all while sticking to the roots of rock. On their 2024 EP &#8216;Lay Hold&#8217; The Takes delved further into their country/blues rock tendencies, led by Sumner&#8217;s raw vocals and backdropped by an organic four-piece sound of guitar, drums and bass. This era brought the band debut sets at Bonnaroo, BottleRock, Extra Innings Fest, and on two US headline tours, including sold out dates in NYC (Mercury Lounge), Chicago and Colorado Springs. Summer 2025 saw The Takes release anthemic, summery single &#8220;Take My Time&#8221;, produced by Jon Gilbert (Mt. Joy, Flipturn, Adam Melchor). The Takes are flipping to their next chapter with their third EP &#8216;Uprooting Roses&#8217; produced with David Baron (The Lumineers, Michael Marcagi, Matt Maeson) out May 1, 2026. It coincides with dates supporting The Runarounds across the US and sets at Treefort Fest, Calgary Stampede, and more. With over 3.5 million career streams and past support slots alongside Houndmouth, Wilderado, Briscoe, and Penelope Road, The Takes are creating music for the moment and community - wherever in the country that happens to be. &#160; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Son Volt</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/son-volt/haw-river-ballroom/saxapahaw-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 05 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[After spearheading the alt-country movement with Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar pursued his vision with Son Volt, who recorded three landmark albums in the &#8217;90s before the groundbreaking artist put the band on extended hiatus and cut three solo LPs. Missing the free exchange of ideas and the surprises that inevitably occur when a group of simpatico musicians lock together, Farrar assembled a new lineup of Son Volt in 2004 and has since released nine albums. The latest album, Sound Signal Serenades, was released as a special 2026 Record Store Day limited edition LP. Jay Farrar&#8217;s work often seeks out the ghosts of America's discordant or forgotten past, converses at length with them, and writes songs that stake a claim to a better future. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#160;]]></description>
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                                <title>The Menzingers</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-menzingers-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 05 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Everything I Ever Saw finds the Menzingers entering a new era in what&#8217;s already been a storied career. The Philadelphia punk legends&#8217; eighth album chronicles moments of significant change&#8212;the personal, the political, and the universal&#8212;while returning to the core creative principles that first put them on the map with listeners the world over. Twenty years in, the Menzingers have discovered that the wisdom gained with time&#8217;s passing is even stronger than the emotional armor they once wore in their youth, and Everything I Ever Saw captures the quartet embracing the here and now while strengthening the bonds that have held them together. Work on Everything I Ever Saw started in earnest after touring behind 2023&#8217;s Some Of It Was True, as the group felt a re-energized urgency while their worlds changed around them. &#8220;It wasn't something that we initially set out to do,&#8221; vocalist/guitarist Greg Barnett says. &#8220;We started writing immediately after our last record in a very fun, casual way&#8212;but we were going through really special moments that we wanted to document.&#8221; &#8220;We've been doing this for so long that it&#8217;s routine,&#8221; vocalist/guitarist Tom May adds. &#8220;Between this record and the last record, however, so much happened in our lives, and we always write about what's going on.&#8221; Indeed, the last three years have been plenty busy in the Menzingers&#8217; world: while Barnett got married and welcomed his first child, May got divorced and navigated new emotional territory both in and outside of the band. &#8220;We're no strangers to writing about breakups, but divorce is different,&#8221; he says. &#8220;There's a weirdness to it that cuts so much deeper and hurts much more. The most devastating part is that you had a vision for your life that's gone now, and you have to figure out how to navigate that while growing as a person. But through that suffering, I definitely became a better person than I was before. When you're broken, you can put yourself back together in a way where you are who you truly want to become.&#8221; &#8220;It was sad for him, but he became the person that he always wanted to be, and he found so much happiness in this way his life changed,&#8221; Barnett adds. &#8220;I'll always look back on this record as living in the moment of these massive changes in our lives.&#8221; While working on the record in the band&#8217;s new studio space in the Port Richmond area of Philadelphia, the quartet&#8212;rounded out by bassist Eric Keen and drummer Joe Godino&#8212;engaged in some group camaraderie (and, yes, a couple of frosty beverages) to help their bandmate and lifelong friend navigate this particular era of growing pains in his personal life. &#8220;Those guys took care of me,&#8221; May says, &#8220;and I can't even put it into words how powerful that was. It solidified our creative relationship, because they&#8217;re some of the few people that I can talk about these things with.&#8221; It&#8217;s that sense of coming together that inspired Barnett&#8217;s lyrics on the charging &#8220;Nobody's Heroes,&#8221; which opens with the glowing tick-tock of a drum machine before launching into the type of passionate burn the Menzingers have long been known for. &#8220;It feels like the story of the Menzingers to me,&#8221; he says while talking about the song. &#8220;I wanted to write about my experiences of trying to be there for him through everything he was going through. Then, the approach became the whole band rallying around each other, and an anthem for everything that we've been through, while shining a light on the connection that we have together.&#8221; &#160; Website]]></description>
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                                <title>Michigander</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/michigander-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 05 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[$1 from each ticket will be donated to Headcount via GanderGives, the band&#8217;s 501c3 partnership with Plus1. Join the band in making a difference. &#160; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; Instagram &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Crazy Chester: A Very Carrboro Tribute To The Band &amp; The Last Waltz 50th Anniversary Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/crazy-chester-a-very-carrboro-tribute-to-the-band-the-last-waltz-50th-anniversary-tour/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2026 04:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Formed in early 2020 for a series of one-off events in the piedmont region of North Carolina, Crazy Chester is a homegrown tribute act to The Band, consisting of Carrboro musicians Jones Bell (Mellow Swells, Ravary), Charles Cleaver (Big Star's Third, Fancy Gap, Lemon Sparks), Rob DiMauro (Heat Preacher, Mixtape Grab Bag, One After 919), Justin Ellis (Slow Teeth, Ravary, Easter Island, One After 919), and Rafael Green (solo artist, Ravary, One After 919), respectively recreating and playing the parts of Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Robbie Robertson. &#160; For the sixth year in a row, Crazy Chester will be performing most of The Band's legendary farewell performance from Thanksgiving Day 1976, immortalized in the 1978 Martin Scorsese film "The Last Waltz" - complete with additional musicians and special local guests to play the songs originally performed in the film by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and many more. But this time - they're taking the show on the road to celebrate 50 Years of The Last Waltz. &#160;A show that must be seen to be believed. &#160; Full list of guest performers TBD!]]></description>
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                                <title>The Milk Carton Kids</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/the-milk-carton-kids-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[On their seventh studio album, *Lost Cause Lover Fool* (due April 24 on Far Cry/Thirty Tigers), The Milk Carton Kids offer nine songs that, more than ever, invite listeners to lean in close and linger inside the small moments the record quietly magnifies. When Los Angeles&#8211;based singer-songwriters Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan first emerged in 2011, they did so with a sound as unassuming as their &#8220;marketing&#8221; plan. They recorded their ten-song debut, *Prologue*, with just their two guitars and two voices. They posted it online as a free download, sending the link to friends via email. Even amidst the foot stomps and hand claps carrying Folk into the mainstream, hundreds of thousands of people managed to find *Prologue* in that first year. From the beginning, The Milk Carton Kids were more interested in precision than volume. &#8220;We were very conscious back then of trying to make our two voices sound like one thing,&#8221; Ryan recalls. &#8220;And we wanted our guitars to sound like one instrument too.&#8221; That instinct toward unity and understatement became the foundation of a career that steadily expanded without ever losing its center. Fast-forward fifteen years, through chaotic world events, a global pandemic and its aftermath. Through Ryan&#8217;s two children and Pattengale&#8217;s move to Nashville then back to LA, his bout with cancer. The pair went from darlings of the Americana Music Association Festival to hosting its annual awards show at Nashville&#8217;s Ryman Auditorium. They started their own Sad Songs Summer Camp, helping songwriters dig deeper and darker through an intense workshopping process. They also founded the Los Angeles Folk Festival, spotlighting musicians and comedians in the broader Folk community. (In its first two years, the festival has featured performances by Emmylou Harris, Waxahatchee, Sierra Ferrell, Willie Watson, Valerie June, and more.) Along the way, the duo has received four Grammy nominations and their songs have been featured in numerous film and TV projects, from Gus Van Zandt&#8217;s *Promised Land* to Tina Fey&#8217;s goofball comedy series *Girls5Eva*. They&#8217;ve collaborated with a who&#8217;s who of players from Joe Henry and Rosanne Cash to Sara Bareilles and Josh Ritter. Through all of it, The Milk Carton Kids have remained committed to a deceptively simple idea: music can help turn down the volume on a chaotic world and make room for what matters most. *Lost Cause Lover Fool* is the clearest distillation of that idea yet. With roots-leaning arrangements and a deep trust in space, the album expands the duo&#8217;s signature minimalist sound while somehow making it even more focused. &#8220;This album is, at its core, a collection of songs about transformation,&#8221; Pattengale explains. &#8220;About the shifting terrain of consciousness and the stories we build to understand who we&#8217;ve been, who we are, and who we&#8217;re becoming. Each song takes a single moment, sometimes examined with microscopic closeness and sometimes viewed from a great distance, and lets it expand until it becomes an entire world. By enlarging small feelings until they&#8217;re inhabitable, the record looks for eternity not in the sweeping or monumental, but in the intimate specifics that usually pass too quickly to notice.&#8221; The record opens with &#8220;Blue Water,&#8221; led by the lonesome pluck of a banjo. Handled with restraint, the instrument feels less like traditional bluegrass and more like morning light cast across a stretch of grass. Lyrically, the song captures a fleeting image: a man walking along a river, thinking about the child who once lay on his chest and now shares his worried mind. &#160; Website]]></description>
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                                <title>Black Country, New Road</title>
                                <eventupdate>4 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/black-country-new-road-2/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[There are few contemporary bands who can do musical reinvention quite as consistently as Black Country, New Road. From their Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut For the First Time, which touched upon everything from jazz to post-rock via klezmer music, to the art-rock meets chamber pop follow up Ants From Up There (both top 5 charting albums). Then when singer Isaac Wood amicably left shortly after, they wrote an entire set of new songs to tour which ended up on Live at Bush Hall, an album The Guardian claimed was a &#8220;magical resurgence&#8221; in a triumphant five-star review. Now, on studio album three, the band are once again building from the ground up in yet another miraculous musical transformation. &#8220;Bush Hall was a really fun project to find our feet in,&#8221; says Charlie Wayne. &#8220;But we toured it to death and we were done with those songs. This album is a new statement of intent for us as a six-piece.&#8221; The band have now settled into a new shape in which vocal duties &#8211; and most of the songwriting &#8211; is split between Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery, and May Kershaw. &#8220;It created a real through line for the album, having three girls singing," says Ellery. "It's definitely very different to Ants From Up There, because of the female perspective - and the music we've made also compliments that." The band&#8217;s ability to respond to changing circumstances is not only down to their close-knit friendship but due to their talent, adaptability and long-standing relationship together as musicians. A mix of classically trained and self-taught, the multi-instrumentalists gathered steam as a band in the late 2010s, regularly playing The Windmill in Brixton alongside friends and peers such as Squid and Black Midi, and soon found themselves being labelled "the best band in the world" by The Quietus. Despite moving swiftly on after each record, and never having conventionally toured in support of a studio album, the band&#8217;s fervent following has only grown and grown regardless. By the time they found themselves in front of an ecstatic audience to record their live album, they were singing songs that reflected on the profound friendship that had steered them this far through an unpredictable journey, as they hollered in unison: &#8220;look at what we did together / BC,NR, friends forever!&#8221; That deep-rooted attachment and connection are the foundations of their latest. And it&#8217;s also a hugely ambitious and singular record, which is glisteningly produced by James Ford (Fontaines D.C., Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Blur). &#8220;It's pretty big and bold,&#8221; says Wayne. &#8220;There's a lot of very full and rich creative decisions that went into it. Making this we were considering every single option and really opening up every possibility as we figured out how to operate in a totally different framework.&#8221; It&#8217;s a framework that includes everything from folk to prog via baroque pop and touches of alt rock &#8211; with nods to a variety of artists such as Joanna Newsom, Randy Newman, Fiona Apple and Janis Ian &#8211; yet all the while retaining that unmistakably unique sound that only this combination of musicians can come up with. Although hugely varied and expansive, the album also feels deeply cohesive and focused, as it takes three distinct voices and styles and seamlessly intersperses them into a new collective sound. &#8220;At the beginning, it was very random,&#8221; says Hyde. &#160; Website &#183; Instagram &#183; Facebook &#183; Bandcamp]]></description>
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                                <title>Aaron Lee Tasjan</title>
                                <eventupdate>5 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/aaron-lee-tasjan-2/cats-cradle-back-room/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Aaron Lee Tasjan was experiencing the worst bout of imposter syndrome of his career when he sat down and wrote Todd Snider a vulnerable email asking for advice. Tasjan, despite writing and recording some of the most astute Americana rock songs of the last decade and being nominated for a Grammy, just didn&#8217;t see a future for an independent singer, songwriter, and guitarist like himself. Snider read Tasjan&#8217;s email and immediately replied: &#8220;I think I have some ideas. I&#8217;ll write you back tomorrow.&#8221; The next morning, Tasjan awoke to a signature Todd Snider missive for how to move forward as an artist. It was a novel-length email that read like the battle plans for the Invasion of Normandy. Do this, Snider wrote. Then this. But never that. The specifics don&#8217;t matter&#8212;besides, that&#8217;d be giving away the secret&#8212;but Tasjan devoured his mentor&#8217;s words and took them to heart. He began writing feverishly, unbothered by expectations and immune to any pressure to match his acclaimed albums like *In the Blazes*, *Karma for Cheap*, or his most recent, 2024&#8217;s *Stellar Evolution*. When he was through, Tasjan had *Get Over It, Underdog*, his most inspiring LP to date. Produced by Tasjan and his longtime sound engineer Mark Miller, the album is a celebration of the power of songwriting, the unbreakable bond of friendship, and the determination of the dark horse. &#8220;I went to the ultimate oasis for a singer, songwriter, and troubadour: Todd Snider. And he said, in very Todd fashion, &#8216;You can find your path forward by going backwards,&#8217;&#8221; Tasjan says with a laugh. &#8220;But he was right. I set aside my ego, played shows solo without my band, and wrote a lot of songs. In that process, I found my confidence again.&#8221; Tragically, however, he lost his mentor. Snider died shortly after *Get Over It, Underdog* was finished, leaving a void in the folk-rock scene that will prove nearly impossible to fill. But Tasjan is committed to carrying on Snider&#8217;s unbridled spirit and lifting up underdogs everywhere. Over 11 tracks, Tasjan&#8217;s new album kills sacred cows and pokes holes in the dam, while leaning hard into the idea of perseverance. In the talking-blues of &#8220;Science Friction,&#8221; he tells an abridged origin story of civilization that culminates with humankind editing itself out of its own picture. &#8220;Man made machines/putting man out of business,&#8221; he sings with a knowing wink. &#8220;Lost &#38; Alone,&#8221; meanwhile, finds him feeling like a &#8220;stranger in this town.&#8221; It&#8217;s a compact blast of indie-rock with a sing-along chorus that underscores Tasjan&#8217;s gift for writing infectious hooks. In &#8220;Twilight Zone Blues,&#8221; a shot of gritty T. Rex glam-rock, Tasjan wonders why we&#8217;re compelled to press the mysterious button just to find out what happens. &#8220;In society today, all this bad shit can become tempting, especially as the situation feels more and more dangerous as time goes on,&#8221; he says. &#8220;&#8216;Twilight Zone Blues&#8217; builds to that tension of, &#8216;What happens if I just give in to this or succumb to that?&#8217;&#8221; Website &#183; Facebook &#183; TikTok &#183; Youtube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>Temples</title>
                                <eventupdate>5 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/temples/cats-cradle/carrboro-north-carolina/</link>
                                <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
                                <description><![CDATA[Temples&#8217; name has become synonymous with a band with an adventurous spirit; constantly exploring new ideas. On their fifth album, Bliss, they shake up the perception of the Kettering-formed four-piece with a record that ventures into electronic territory while staying true to their core DNA. Euphoric and melancholic melodies of late &#8216;90s dance music blend with psych-tinged riffs and loops to create something fresh. &#160; After the 2023 release of Exotico felt overlooked, the band - James Bagshaw (vocals/guitar), Thomas Walmsley (bass), Adam Smith (keyboards/guitar), and Rens Ottink (drums) - hit a creative standstill. &#8220;There&#8217;s so much more to us as a band and as a group of people,&#8221; says Walmsley. &#8220;We&#8217;re completely reconnecting with why we started and who we&#8217;re making the music for - which is ourselves.&#8221; &#160; Reinvigorated, Temples signed with V2 Records and returned to working together in person. Unlike Exotico, Bliss was produced entirely by the band. Bagshaw explains: &#8220;It was very freeing. It felt like you could just improvise.&#8221; The album features self-sampling, creating a shared palette of sounds that could be lifted, reversed, or reimagined across tracks - &#8220;building up audio Pantones,&#8221; as Bagshaw puts it. &#160; Sonically, Bliss reinterprets dance music in Temples&#8217; style. Lead single Jet Stream Heart captures the thrill of being drawn into music, while Vendetta merges scuzzy riffs with lasering synths and dance melodies. Blue Flame, drawn from a chorus Smith had in his pocket for some years, explores disconnection with a slower, icier sound. Revelations nods to Gregorian chants, blending spiritual and matter-of-fact elements. Megalith tackles frustrations, surrender, and the fear of being stuck amidst a moving world. &#160; Though the band missed the late &#8216;90s rave culture firsthand, Bliss channels that era&#8217;s bittersweet euphoria, drawing inspiration from Faithless, Underworld, Prodigy, Air, R&#246;yksopp, Moby, Massive Attack, Orbital, Portishead, and more. Psych and dance share a natural lineage, with repetition, loops, and trance-like states forming the album&#8217;s foundation. &#160; For Temples, Bliss represents creative freedom and a shared sense of joy in making music. &#8220;We&#8217;ve just done exactly what we want to do in a purely selfish way, and that becomes not selfish when people connect with it,&#8221; says Bagshaw. Forward-looking yet aware of its roots, the album is unmistakably Temples: &#8220;People should throw out whatever they thought we were &#8211; this is what we are.&#8221; &#160; Website &#183; Facebok &#183; Instagram &#183; TikTok &#183; YouTube &#183; Spotify]]></description>
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                                <title>The Format</title>
                                <eventupdate>5 months 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>Fruit Bats</title>
                                <eventupdate>5 months 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>Deer Tick</title>
                                <eventupdate>6 months 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>Die Spitz</title>
                                <eventupdate>6 months 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>Hiss Golden Messenger &#8211; I&#8217;m People Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>7 months 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>7 months 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>Benjamin Tod &amp; Lost Dog Street Band 2026 Tour</title>
                                <eventupdate>10 months ago</eventupdate>
                                <link>https://catscradle.com/event/benjamin-tod-lost-dog-street-band-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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