Troop 41 Hits It With the “John Wall”
Raleigh rap group Troop 41 has a hit on their hands with their video “Do The John Wall”. The video has gotten 7.5 million hits on YouTube, and earned a record deal for the group with Universal Republic. There is more about this story posted this afternoon by allhiphop.com.
Def Leppard, Heart Coming to TWC
Def Leppard announced their North American summer tour yesterday and Raleigh’s Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek gets the act on Friday, June 24. Opening will be Heart. In all likelihood the mostly original lineup for Def Leppard will consist of Joe Elliott on vocals, Phil Collen on guitar, Vivian Campbell on guitar, Rick Savage on bass, and Rick Allen on drums. Campbell is the only member who wasn’t in the band during their 80’s heyday.
Carolina Railhawks 2011 Calendar Ready for Download
Contrary to what many believe after recent news, the Carolina Railhawks will be back in Cary his summer! I’ve posted their schedule in many different formats for easy downloading to iPhones, Android Phones, Outlook, Google Calendar, and many, many more!
The calendars are available in the “ Calendars ” tab found at the top of the page at Gogoraleigh. Scroll down to “Carolina Railhawks Soccer 2011” and select your desired format.
Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria Coming to RBC Center
Cirque du Soleil will be bringing its Alegria for eight performances at the RBC Center from July 6 thru July 10. Cirque Club members can take advantage of the presale running now. General Public tickets will go on sale February 28.
Yes Coming to DPAC
One of the legendary ProgRock bands of all time will be returning to the area. On Thursday, March 24, Yes will play at the Durham Performing Arts Center . Tickets go on sale on Saturday morning (2/19) at 10am. Yes’ current lineup features the incredible Steve Howe (guitar), Chris Squire (bass), Allan White (drums), Benoit David (vocals), Oliver Wakeman (keyboards – son of Rick). With no Jon Anderson and no Trevor Rabin, the setlist is likely to be havily weighted toward the early days (Fragile, etc) and less of the 80’s (90215, Big Generator).
Borders Closing Most Area Locations
The Borders location at Six Forks and Wake Forest Roads is in the books. On Friday the company announced that it was filing Chapter 11 and will close 4 of its 6 Triangle stores including Apex, Cary, Chapel Hill, and the Creekside location in Raleigh.
This bad news certainly isn’t a surprise, but surely doesn’t please landlords at places like North Hills, Cameron Village, Downtown Raleigh hoping to make their developments more browsable. This is just the beginning, too. As digital downloads envelope brick and mortar book sales, expect the final chapter from more booksellers.
Chipotle Coming to Hillsborough St.
Fast-Mex outlet Chipotle is coming to Hillsborough St. The site will be near Jimmy John’s and Duncan Donuts, either in the free-standing building that was home to Sylvia’s Pizza or on the corner where GoPaks Bazaar was. At this point construction has not begun, but in all likelihood the store will open in the summer.
This is a major blessing for Hillsborough Street. A strip that has been dotted by junk food and forgettable local food is showing signs of life to a Denver-based company that takes site selection very seriously. Hopefully it is the sign of more good things for the area. The company is also expanding into Fayetteville, showing another positive sign about the economy.
If you haven’t had Chipotle’s carnitas on crunchy tacos, then you are really missing out. Try the trio with a different salsa on each, plus cheese and lettuce. It makes one fantastic lunch.
ACC Football Schedules Posted for Easy Download
Today the ACC released the complete schedule for the upcoming football season. In typical fashion, gogoraleigh has compiled the schedules into a formats that are easy to import into almost all calendar applications. Included are not only downloadable files for the UNC and NCSU schedules, but also files for the entire ACC conference schedule.
Google Calendar users will find that the existing feed for each of these schedules has been updated, so there is no need change anything if you are already subscribed.
TV has not had a chance to affect the schedule, so the dates are not final and times are not set.
Merge’s Arcade Fire Hatches
Back in 1989 Mac and Laura from Superchunk started their own label in Chapel Hill, Merge Records . The label put out Superchunk’s CDs and signed bands like Polvo, Teenage Fanclub, American Music Club, Portastatic, but the label still saw very little commercial success for many years. Then in 2004 they signed a little band out of Canada called Arcade Fire whose first CD, Funeral, would go on to be an indy success and the first CD for the label to enter the Billboard Top 200. Success was limited, however, and the band still existed in the margins of the record and radio establishment. Arcade Fire’s second CD held serve, but left many wondering if the band could sustain their level of creativity and success on their third album. It was that third album, The Suburbs , that pushed the band into the spotlight, winning the Album of the Year honors in a stunning upset at the Grammy’s last night.
It was to be a night tailor-made by the record and radio companies. Sure, they had found commercial success in the Pop realm with Justin Bieber and Katy Perry this year, but the night was made for Lady Gaga and Eminem . CBS and E! both fell prey to the marketing machine featuring Madonna rip-off Lady Gaga’s bizarre interview on 60 Minutes and her amniotic arrival on the red carpet. On the night where she, the self-proclaimed Master of Publicity, arrived in an egg, it was the record companies and radio stations that proved to be the real chickens.
The announcement was so stunning that even Barbra Streisand’s reputation for being “ smooth like butta ” came crashing down. Listen carefully today as scores of news anchors stumble through the announcement of this year’s Album of the Year winner. Consider every pause and every air of unfamiliarity a victory against a record and radio industry that is so clearly broken, it has no understanding of the suburbs. They have force-fed Americans their music for so long, they cannot fathom us behaving like anything but lemmings. They are cowards who claim that piracy is the cause of their decade-long decline. They are way, way off. Much like Merge record’s move to Durham a decade ago, Record and Radio’s cheese also moved. It lies somewhere in record companies like Merge and on the internet. Don’t expect the industry’s Funeral this year, though. I fully expect Americans to be force-fed another helping of Radio Gaga.
Keith Urban Coming to RBC Center
On Saturday, June 25, Keith Urban will be returning to the area. This time the show is at the RBC Center. Tickets go on sale tomorrow (Fri), but there is a presale at 10am this morning (Thu). Password is KEYS. Here is Keith doing his best Ace Frehley.
Auto Expo Begins Today
The North Carolina International Auto Expo runs today thru Sunday Sunday Sunday. The event will be at the Jim Graham Building and Expo Center (NC State Fairgrounds) and features many of the latest available cars.
It will be the first time in Raleigh for the 2012 Focus (pictured) & 2012 Mustang Boss. The Focus will deliver up to a projected 40 mpg on the highway while bringing new technologies and features to the segment including available Active Park Assist, MyKey, and MyFord Touch driver connect technologies.
The Boss features a 440-hp 5.0-liter V8 with refinements to the driveline, suspension, steering and brakes to deliver as close to a race-car experience as is possible on a street-legal machine.
The new Chevy Volt, Chevrolet’s foray into the world of hybrid technologies, will also be on display. The car will be available for preorder in North Carolina in the second quarter of this year.
A plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) will be displayed, thanks to the local partnership with Progress Energy. A PHEV has a high-energy battery on-board which can be charged using the plug from a wall outlet. It can be driven solely on electricity for miles without using gasoline. If the battery becomes depleted, it can switch back to operation with the on-board gasoline engine achieving up to 120 mpg.
MyFord Touch driver connect technology will also be on display. Launching on the 2011 Ford Edge, MyFord Touch is the next generation of Ford Sync and iblends strengths of the most popular interfaces in consumer electronics (including MP3 players and mobile phones) with a new generation of the Ford SYNC system.
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