bloggin, with a certain festive attitude

Oh, there’s a feeling in the air. That feeling is cold, but it also has a certain piney aroma. It’s a holiday kind of feeling.

Now I am not a religious man, but I love me some Christmas. All givin people stuff. All gettin stuff. All just getting wonky from scotch in front a roaring fire, my dog all curled up, looking hell of cute. It’s good! Stressful but good.

So some of may know, and some of those some may care, but the Fin Fang Foom, FES, Gray Young shindig on friday got kiboshed due to the weather. It was terrible. I was a sad, sad man. But fear not. It’s been rescheduled for January 29th, adding New York’s Fantan to the bill. Pretty sweet.

So, it’s not the most eventful week here, but that’s ok. It’s Christmas time! Monday night we do have a very special movie presentation, of WIZARD PEOPLE, DEAR READER. A cult phenomenon of the highest level, this is a true piece of Illegal Art. Austin cartoonist Brad Neely (creator of the The George Washington Rap) dubbed his own narration over the first Harry Potter movie, as if it was a Book-On-Tape. I have managed to secure a (rare) copy, and I must say that this is one of the funniest thing I’ve ever witnessed. Sample quote: “Hagar the Horrible hands Harry a jug of what is definitely whiskey. Harry takes an appreciative slurp.” Guys, this is awesome. Check out an example of Neely’s work below.

On Saturday the 26th, don’t be sad and blue. Come see a show! The roaring insanity of Bobby’s Fever hits the stage in support of up and coming rock stars En Serenade! It’s gonna be a very aggro way to finish off the season.

Love and Happiness,

THEPHK

A WEEKEND OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

HERE IT IS, EVERYONE. THE BEST WEEKEND TO EVER HAPPEN IN THE MONTH OF DECEMBER. IN HISTORY.

It can’t be described. Not in terms humans can understand. Fortunately, this town is full of beyondhumans, who can understand anything and solve any problem with poise and aplomb and a body full of whiskey.

Thursday welcomes Sea Cow with their burlap sack of mordant humor and rootsy Americana. Dangerous pink shirted agitators The Scene of the Crime Rovers rock the place with their satanic urban destruction take on Marching Band music. If you have never scene these lunatics descending on you from down the street, come check them out in the much more lawless environs of the Pinhook. Consummate musicians, and people who know that Ray Davies was as a good a songwriter as John Lennon, The Kinksmen play Kinks songs. The Kinks fucking rule, and so do the Kinksman.

Friday is a BANGER. A BANGER WITH AN EARLY MASH.

For 3rd Friday, at 6 pm, designer Jamie Powell brings the Revamp Clothing trunk show to the Hook, featuring organic-cloth’d women’s clothing for sale at hell of discounts. Do some damn shopping already. We need to keep this economy alive.

At 10 pm its a whole different thang going on in here, as the impeccable Gray Young kicks off a night of amplifier worship. Free Electric State anchors the deal at 11 pm, and local legends Fin Fang Foom headline. The first band and the third bands are two of the best bands around, one a newcomer and the other a scene stalwart. The second band is a band that I play in, so I don’t have much to say (other than that we will destroy you). Check out the Indy writeup here.

Saturday, come celebrate the five-year anniversary of 307 Knox Records, hosted by us! These guys have been and remain a happy home for many of our favorite people, so come out and jam with them. DJ’s and general Christmas debauchery will ensue.

TIME TO BE BRILLIANT, DURHAM!

Love,

PPIINNHHOOKK

ok it’s a disney movie. WHATEVER. You don’t even know.

The Christmas season of Wizardry and Sorcery continues this week suckas, with some obscure Disney madness called The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a part of the insane Fantasia, which we will go ahead and show after TSA is done.

I know it’s weird to show a Mickey Mouse movie at The Pinhook, but I’m on a childish animation kick after checking out The Fantastic Mr. Fox today, which destroyed and everyone needs to see it.

Anyway, Tuesday is another YOUTUBE FRESH JIVE FIASCO. You know the drill this time. Come and play the greatest pieces of found video ever unearthed.

And Wednesday. Our good friends at Churchkey records are throwing a bit of a Holiday get-together, that of course everyone on earth is invited too. Let’s hear some fresh shit from some rad folks, and maybe some jamming out if the mood strikes.

Word up, Y’All,

-KHP

BIRDS! VECTORS! FURRIES! YAAAA!

It is completely a thing, doggs. The next three days at The Pinhook promise to slay your face with absolutely no mercy. You will wake up in a different town. A special town, where there are no hangovers and every night has great bands and excellent beats right out the ass. Let me tell you of these things…

Birds and Arrows owns Thursday with their soulful, heartstring pulling chimes. Chicago’s Lionlimb has the middle spot, and these guys are awesome. I can see them blowing up and getting upwards of 9000 points on Pitchfork. But GET THERE EARLY, because Where the Buffalo Roamed is kicking things off at 9. WTBR is Corbie Hill’s (of Battle Rockets) other band. Corbie is an awesome guy and a great friend of mine, not to mention probably the biggest booster of local music in town (at least, the variety of local music that fills yr head with images of technicolor comets blazing out of the stratosphere, exploding like pinwheels and burning with pure psychedelic WOOSH). Corbie’s also a great musician, and can coax the most spine-melting rills and patterns out of his guitar. This band is fantastic drugs. Not like fantastic drugs. They are fantastic drugs.

Ricky and Joe rock the house on Friday with a dance party for the ages. Dress as your favorite Woodland Creature! Furries welcome! Seriously, that will be hilarious. I want fully attired raccoons and deer and chipmunks n’shit, just givin’ her! This will be so cute! And incredibly sweaty, but that’s how we roll RIGHT DURHAM!

(cheers) WORD UP!

And Saturday just keeps it going with Birds of Avalon crushing all comers, floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee, slinging axes like bees and butterflies on home-cooked acid (I think I have drugs on the brain tonight, pardon that shit). Opening up is resident Chapel Hill wall-of-sound screamers Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies. It’s awesome to finally have these guys on our stage, just total tigresses nailing the 60’s girl group sound to the door of a cathedral, all Martin Luther style, all Principles. All Catholic Church totally persecuting them.

Man, I should not take 17 hits of acid and then write a blog! My spelling is still good though! Propr speling is veryy imortant to m.

Yours, Psychedelically,

El Gancho del Perno

WIZARDS UPON US

I apologize profusely, but Monday’s film will not be the 90 minute Nintendo commercial known as The Wizard. That film does no exist in any goddamn form at all in any of the various places around the Triangle in which movies are found. I thought Avid had a VHS copy. No dice. You know what? We probably all remember that movie too fondly anyway. Like thr Powerglove, it’s so bad.

Anyway, the movie will be Wizards! Which is way better, and which me an Eric came up with on the spot to solve this problem. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of fantasy, and because it is animated by the great Ralph Bakshi, it is completely fucking insane. I’ve been wanting to see this thing forever, and now we have it. I thought it was really hard to find. Thanks Lilly Library!

Ok what’s on the docket this week?

Tuesday night it is, yes, AN OPEN BELLY DANCING NIGHT. Like an open mic, but with far fewer clothes and far more gyrating. Some pros are gonna show people how it’s done, and you can probably catch a lesson or two. Scandalous!

Wednesday night we got an excellent lineup of shimmering, perfectly crafted pop Americana, Carrboro’s The New Town Drunks headline with their ragged glory folk rock. These guys are sweethearts, but they have dirt under their nails.

Knoxville TN’s Tenderhooks kick things off at 9. This will be frontman Jake Winstrom performing his band’s killer pop hooks, just off an opening slot with ZZ Top!. God I love ZZ Top. Anybody got legs? Anybody know how to use them?

Love,

The Pinhook

damn it is rainy

So we live in Seattle, apparently. Or, like, Goa during the monsoon season. My pant legs are soaked up to my knees, and not because I peed myself. It’s because I have stepped in a million 6 inch deep puddles in the last hour or so.

Maybe it will get colder and all this rain will turn to snow. If that happens, everyone has 30 minutes to get to The Pinhook before I’m locking the doors. BRING A SLEEPING BAG. We will hell of settle our brains for a long winter’s drinking.

Thursday! Maple Stave! These guys are incredible. Evan’s drumming is a thing to behold, and the rest of the band keeps it grinding away with incredible math-steeled virtuosity. Alabama’s psych-dirge champions Broken Letters are in the middle, with the great Monsonia opening up.

Friday night is the Yep Roc/Red Eye Christmas party! Come meet the peeps from one of the Triangle’s biggest records labels.

And Saturday…DAAAAAAMN it’s another Jeff and King blowout! This one is dedicated to the great Milli Vanilli, with a Lip Sync contest to ensue. Check out this mindfuck of a poster:

Awesome. Totally awesome.

Sunday is Chef Shirle’s third monthly Vegan Brunch. The menus is vegan shepherd’s pie, with fresh fruit and salad. 7 bucks, coffee provided, bloodies, ‘mosas, you know the drill.

I love you. Nerds.

PHK

Thanksgiving is over. Back to Normal. FOR NOW.

Oh man thanks to all y’all who came out over the Thanksgiving week. Soulful Love had them all dancin’ on Friday. It was warm inside. It was cozy as hell. The Holidys have begun, and we have a burning christmas tree’s worth of awesome gifts for you all.

Tomorrow is movie night, and I promise, for serious this time, that the film will be Quicksilver, a killer Kevin Bacon vehicle that highlights the good parts of being a bycicle messenger. Here at the Pinhook we think Bicicyle messengers are A-OK, as long as they are not on meth and not running over us at 200+ mph.

Here’s the poster, droogs.

WINNING IS COMPLETELY A FEELING YOU NEVER FUCKING LOSE. That should have been the tagline. I totally need a job writing taglines for movies from the mid-80’s. Also, notice the production company. INDIEPROD!!!! HAAHAHAHA that’s hilarious. I can’t believe there is not a band from Brooklyn with that name at this exact moment.

WORD. December kicks off with one of Jonathan Thompson’s destructive Open Mics. This is not a bad open mic with trembly people singing badly about problems. This is an open mic that Jimmy Page would show up, if he showed up at open mics in North Carolina and could walk and wasn’t 600 years old.

Wednesday we are raising money for Lymphoma research, and having ANOTHER open mic! I use the word ANOTHER in a BIG MASSIVE WAY to symbolize how our open mics are different from all others.

Damn I love you guys. Coming up we got…here we go…MAPLE STAVE, BIRDS AND ARROWS, VIOLET VECTOR AND THE LOVELY LOVELIES, A JEFF AND KING LIPSYNCHING DANCE PARTY, THE NEW TOWN DRUNKS, BIRDS OF AVALON, FIN FANG FOOM, and so much more. Stay the hell tuned, Durham and Surrounding Areas.

Triangle with an Ass on Top,

Hook of the Pin

 

happy thankgsiving y’all

We closed on this day of days, as any Godfearing business should be, so that all of us may bask in the healing light of ovens and stoves. Be it with a tofurkey, or a good-old American bird, or something less traditional like sushi, please make sure to eat and drink too much, and go easy on your family.

Friday, however, we are open again! Our very good friend DJ Soulful Love is using his vast skills to spin all the finest records the 60’s have to offer, from rare garage to soul and R&B. Come relax for a few, and then get ready to dance, as your ass will commence to shake.

Saturday night is going to TEAR THE ROOF FROM ALL KINDS OF SUCKAS as Charlie O celebrates his CD release. DJ’s all night, plus Charlie himself plans to drop a helicopter payload of science on all y’all.

NOVEMBER RULES.

Love,

Ye Olde Pinhooke

happy thanksdrinking my people…

Seriously my dudes and dudettes and duderogynous badasses. Happy Thanksgiving. I hope everybody has a great holiday. Remember, a great holiday does not necessarily require family, so we have an awesome lineup for the week, for our friends that just cold hang out in Durham for the week. Ask for a better place to spend Thanksgiving. You won’t find one. That’s a thing to give thanks for.

Personally, I give thanks for my friends, The Pinhook, and the incredible year we have had. Somehow, they are all wrapped up in one. Funny, about that. Goddammit I love this city, and I love the people that live in it.

Ok, enough maudlin bullshit. What is rad that we have planned?

Ok, here’s one thing:

Yep, the best bike movie of all time plays at The Hook on Monday, Nov.23rd. Not only is this one of the finest films of all time, it contains literally the scariest moment of all time. Sure, Large Marge might seem innocuous these days, but 20 years ago that shit made me black out rather than face the terror.

Oh, this movie is also sweeter than a pile of Krispy Kremes. When those bikers befriend Pee-Wee? I am gonna cry.

Tuesday is our second monthly YOUTUBE FREE FOR ALL. If you didn’t check in last month, it was…fun as shit. It worked basically how I thought and hoped it would; I set up a computer, and people watched their favorite online videos for about three hours. We saw some hilarity, we saw some sadness, and we saw actual humans doing things that blew our minds (Russian Bike Team anybody?) It’s a fun night of casual chillin’, so come let us know what your internet genius has discovered.

Wednesday features some lean shit for all of you before the day of irresponsible feasting. The Mietek Glinkowski Trio headlines a night of untouchably great modern jazz. Jazz that slays a person. Also, something to relax with before a big day. Mahlon Hoard opens with his internationalized saxophonica, and Raleigh’s Slicnaton takes the local DIY scene and flips it into Brian Eno ambient territory.

Just to say, I am currently listening to The XX, a new group from Jolly Old Engalond. Man they are the stuff.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, CHECK WITH ME ON A WEDNESDAY THAT IS THE NEXT ONE OF THOSE!!!

koohniP ehT

happy weekend! (and thursday)

Doggs, I am chilling at the bar at the ole’ P’Hook as we speak, listening to the mind-bending acoustics of the Triangle Sound Painting Orchestra as they tune up for their show. How often are you surrounded by virtuosic string and horn players, just cold gettin’ ready to blow minds? Not that often, I bet.

Here’s WHAT’S COMIN’ UP!

Thursday we have an awesome lineup headlined by Boone’s The Naked Gods, with their soulful, country tinged guitars and their shit-hot rhythm section, steeped in the best of classic rock. Opening up are the sleek-yet-garagey The Jet Age, playing urbane Americana with big, chiming hooks. Viva Viva opens up with punk-fueled R&B.

Friday, we welcome the SONG Drag Xtravaganza, “An evening of sexy queer performances in honor of Willi Ninja and Venus Xtravaganza.” IT IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE, PEOPLE. What does it sound like? Awesome, that’s what. Who is Willi Ninja? I don’t know, but I know I want to meet that person. Oh, it will be followed by a dance party with DJs kickin the jams out until close. Commence yo azz to shakin’.

Rock returns on Saturday with Durham’s A1 garage trio Pistil, who just recently DESTROYED as the last band of the Troika festival. Gainesville, FL’s Morningbell anchors the lineup, with gently-coloured, sun-kissed psychedelia. Winston Salem’s KILLER Jews and Catholics (and great friends of ours) kicks things off at 9, with rinding, spaced-out guitar jams anchored with a cello being used in ways cellos are not usually used. One of those duos that manages to sound like 1000 people.

Ok. Cool! Great shows, see you here.

-PHK