LIFEWAVE

CORT MCCOWN & QCB

5/6

THURS05_06

CORT MCCOWN & QCB

Beginning his career as an actor in the 1980s, Cort McCown has appeared in movies like Beverly Hills Brats and horror opus Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies. He’s also landed roles in Beverly Hills 90210, and on the soap opera The Young and Restless. Growing restless with acting, he began touring his stand-up act in 2001. QCB has been a co-host on WFNZ Sports Radio and a panelist on WCCB News Edge. You have to tweet him @RealQCB to find out what the letters “QCB” stand for. More: $20 - $150; May 6, 7 p.m.; 158 On Main, 158 N. Main St., Mooresville; tinyurl.com/158OnMain

CHARLOTTE SYMPHONY: EVENINGS AT THE PARK

5/7

FRI05_07 FRI05_07 FRI05_07 TUE05_11

BLACK FOOD TRUCK FRIDAY FUNK YOU

Black Business Owners of Charlotte (BBOC) kick off this food truck event at a hotel that has been transitioned from Crowne Plaza to a new location five minutes from Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Foodies, friends of foodies and the merely hungry are encouraged to come out in support of Black-owned food, dessert and retail vendors who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Social distancing will be strictly enforced and masks must be worn by all attendees and participating vendors. Black Food Truck Friday returns to the same location on May 23. More: Free; May 7, 3 p.m.; Sonestra Charlotte, 5700 Westpark Dr.; bboclt.com A nine-piece musical juggernaut from Augusta, Georgia, Funk You places a hefty helping of soul atop a prowling coiling backbeat. In 2010 the group bubbled up on music fans’ radar when they appeared in a viral video titled, “The Worst Band Ever Butchers Pink Floyd.” Their 2016 debut album, Apparitions, displayed impressive confidence, chops and personality, and in the ensuing decade of touring, recording and getting concert crowds on their feet, the band of funky brothers have built an arsenal of blistering grooves and serpentine melodies. More: $15; May 7, 7 p.m.; Heist Brewery and Barrel Arts, 1030 Woodward Ave.; tinyurl.com/FunkYouHeist

CHARLOTTE SYMPHONY: EVENINGS AT THE PARK

The premier program under the SouthPark bandshell spotlights Jacques Ibert’s Hommage à Mozart. In 1956, French National Radio commissioned Ibert to provide a work by for one of its concerts. A lover on Mozart’s music — as a student he composed cadenzas for Mozart’s concertos for clarinet and bassoon — Ibert navigated as impressive feat of musical legerdemain, managing to pay an enthusiastic tribute to the maestro, while avoiding the pitfalls of pastiche. More: Sold out; May 7, 7 p.m.; Symphony Park, 4400 Sharon Rd.; charlottesymphony.org/events/

MT. JOY

Soulful indie rockers Mt. Joy top the bill at Maxx Music’s Cruise in Concert in Rural Hill. With understated slow-burning folk-inflected tracks, the Philadelphia combo rode a series of self-released singles to a deal with Dualtone Music, an almost guaranteed spot on festival bills across the country and a large and devoted following. Mt. Joy’s latest album, Rearrange Us, shakes up the band’s laidback yet heartfelt template by experimenting with ambitious arrangements, psychedelic undertones and a touch more rock ‘n’ roll. Singer-songwriter and American Idol alumnus Briston Maroney opens. More: $150-$200; May 11, 7 p.m.; Rural Hill, 4431 Neck Road, Huntersville; tinyurl.com/MtJoyRuralHill

WED05_12 THU05_13 SAT05_15 TUE05_18

MOVIES ON THE LAWN: ‘THE LION KING’

“The great circle of life! “Hakuna Matata!” Meerkats! That’s the extent of my knowledge of The Lion King. It’s a heartwarming tale I’ve somehow missed experiencing, despite multiple iterations including movies, Broadway shows and video games. Young Simba is set to succeed his father as king, but evil uncle Scar intervenes. There’s even one guy who says the story is inspired by Old Testament Judaism and two iconic heroes from the Torah, Joseph and Moses. More: Free; May 12, 5:30 p.m.; Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, 6500 S. New Hope Road, Belmont; dsbg.org

ACOUSTIC GRACE

Instrumentalist and vocalist Jessica Macks and Sofar Sounds’ Eddie Harris host this monthly showcase for singer-songwriters and a cappella performers. The intimate listening-room experience is held in Uptown’s historic Brooklyn Grace. Formerly Grace A.M.E. Zion Church, the venue is owned by the Brooklyn Collective, a group committed to preserving the Brooklyn neighborhood’s culture and history. Featured performers include R&B, gospel, and jazz trio K3 and vocalist Mercury Carter, who boasts exceptional pitch and an incredible 3.5 octave range. More: Free; May 13, 7:30 p.m.; Brooklyn Grace, 219 S. Brevard St; blumenthalarts.org/events

BRANFORD MARSALIS PLAYS IBERT

5/13

CROWN TOWN SHAKEDOWN

Billing itself as a “native” music festival, Shakedown features two groups apiece from Charleston and Charlotte. The Queen City offers the ebullient yet unsettling Americana of Late Night Special and the countrified R&B of Tin 4. The Holy City contributes the smooth yet hemmed-in psychedelic vibes of Dead Swells and the southern gothic/Tropicália mashup of Susto. The deceptively sunny grooves laid down by Dead Swells, Susto and Late Night Special evoke both a lazy day at the beach and deadly riptides just offshore. More: $40; May 15, 2 p.m.; GreenLife Family Farms, 281 Odell School Rd., Concord; shakedown.rocks/

OPEN AIR: ARTIST CONVERSATION WITH CHARLY PALMER

Born in Alabama and raised in Milwaukee, Charly Palmer relocated to Chicago to study at the city’s famed Art Institute. In 2020, Palmer created the cover of Time Magazine’s July edition titled “America Must Change.” Earlier that year, his portrait of John Legend became the cover art for Legend’s album “Bigger Love.” Palmer has contributed art to the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Stadium, and has illustrated two children’s books, There’s A Dragon In My Closet and Mama Africa. More: Free; May 18, 7 p.m.; online; ganttcenter.org/ calendar/open-air-charly-palmer/

CROWN TOWN SHAKEDOWN

5/15

FRI & SAT05_14 & 05_15

BRANFORD MARSALIS PLAYS IBERT

We didn’t have multiple Marsalis sightings plus an outpouring of Ibert love on our Charlotte music bingo card, but here we are. Six days before little brother Wynton Marsalis plays with the Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet at Victoria Yards, eldest brother Branford essays Jacques Ibert’s soaring Concertino da Camera at Belk Theater — just seven days after Ibert’s Hommage à Mozart gets played at Symphony Park. Youngest Marsalis brother Jason gets in on the act too, joining JazzArts Charlotte’s Conversations with Curtis live on May 11 at 8 p.m. More: $35 - $50; May 14 & 15, 7:30 p.m.; Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St.; charlottesymphony.org/ events

THE SKA SKANK REDEMPTION

Waiting for a fourth wave in Charlotte

BY PAT MORAN

featuring charging horns, chopping upcut guitars and expression of national pride. Ska’s second wave necessarily required that a ska song contains all herky-jerky rhythms dominated radio and MTV. engulfed Britain when the music of Caribbean these elements.” Billboard’s Jessica Lipsky reports that in September immigrants fused with the angry and defiant chords Carnes, who formed his own ska band Flat Earth 1997, four ska songs entered Billboard’s Alternative struck by punk rock. Groups like The Specials and in the ’90s, is an expert on the genre. A journalist top 20. Sublime’s “Wrong Way” debuted at no. 3, Reel The Selector pushed back against racism and the and music editor at the Santa Cruz alt-weekly Big Fish’s “Sell Out” hit no. 12, and the Mighty Mighty oppressive policies of Prime Minister Margaret Good Times, Carnes has written a book about the Bosstones scored two chart-toppers, “The Impression Thatcher, while bands like Madness and The English genre, In Defense of Ska, published by Clash Books That I Get,” at no. 17 and “The Rascal King” at no. 11. Beat inspired audiences to get on their feet, move to on May 4. In his book, Carnes pushes back at the Locally, Charlotte bands like IED and Bums Lie the beat and dance all over their troubles. genre’s detractors, who claim that third wave got audiences on their feet and skanking, the term Ska’s second wave, also called 2 Tone after an bands like Voodoo Glow Skulls and The Aquabats for the genre’s signature dance move. Meanwhile, influential record label founded by The Specials’ Jerry are sophomoric and inconsequential, and that groups like Broken Napoleons and Bakaloa Stars Dammers, never hit big in America, but its influence therefore, the entire genre is passe.

Like the one that got away, Kevin Riggs remembers incorporated ska into their mélange of influences, bubbled under. Americans fused the British ska punk “The beat that originated in Jamaica in the ’50s the gig that got shut down. In 2006, Riggs, fresh out playing to packed houses. they loved with louder faster hardcore punk. Bands has carried over … from country to country and of high school, had launched the ska punk band IED By the 2010s, however, ska dropped off the like Southern California’s Operation Ivy — which blended with every other genre,” Carnes writes. and moved into a house with his bandmates that they national charts, perhaps never to return, as popular included future members of hard core punk outfit “It has a special place in our hearts because it so and their friends dubbed The Commonwealth House, musical tastes turned to rap, emo, R&B, hip-hop and nu Rancid — spearheaded one of several local scenes intrinsically [captures] us at a time when we [are] named for the neigborhood it sat in. metal. The genre didn’t disappear though. Bands still that sprouted up across the country. Those scenes young, unpretentious and vulnerable.”

“We had … absolutely insane DIY shows at Riggs fell in love with ska’s our band’s house,” Riggs says. “There unpretentious beats as an eighth-grader would be nights [with] 100-plus kids when he caught a show by third-wave occupying the yard and the church ska band Catch-22 at Tremont Music parking lot across the street.” Hall. As a band kid in school, he was

Then one night, someone called the captivated by a punk rock group that cops. played upbeat music you could dance to.

“All the underage kids in the “It was mind-blowing,” Riggs says. “It backyard started scaling the fence.” In was so fun and positive yet still aggressive.” 20 seconds, the backyard was empty At age 18, Riggs launched IED, and IED’s audience had flooded into the which stands for Intelligence, Equality abandoned Morningside apartments And Debauchery.behind the house. With Joe Leonard on drums, Aaron

Jon Lock cherishes the concert Monger on bass, Justin Mulcahy on his band Bums Lie played at the vocals and trumpet and Tay Trew Neighborhood Theatre in October 2007. and Riggs on guitar, IED played what Lock’s ska punk four-piece had the honor Riggs calls “Queen City hardcore ska,” of opening for one of the genre’s legends, a danceable mix of aggressive punk Toots and the Maytals. The Maytals, and melodic ska. In its five-year run, fronted by Toots Hibbert until his death in the band released a full length album, 2020, started cutting records in the early Whole-Hearted…Yet Half-Assed in 2009 1960s in Jamaica, including the enduring and The Jive Turkey EP in 2011, before ska classic, “Pressure Drop,” which was calling it quits that same year.covered by The Clash in 1978. THE MADD HATTERS. “IED was around at a point in

Kevin Gavagan recalls a gig that Charlotte’s punk history that was his ska-influenced band Broken Napoleons played filled dance floors with devoted fans, but the genre’s gave rise to ska’s third wave, a commercial juggernaut insane,” Riggs offers. “[There were] shows every in the late 2000s at Growlers Pourhouse in NoDa. peak profile seemed a thing of the past. Today, fans and that burst upon the mainstream in the mid-’90s. night, and [an] influx of young outcasts all looking While rain fell steadily that afternoon, it did little to musicians wonder if the genre’s commercial apex will Given that ska has been a shape-shifting hybrid for a place to fit in.” dampen the crowd’s spirits. ever return. Can a ska wave hit the Queen City again? since the days of Toots Hibbert, passing on new Lock credits long-defunct Charlotte music store

“Everyone was really into the groove,” Gavagan influences to each new iteration, it’s difficult to pin The Record Exchange for turning him onto The Specials, says. “You could watch the tents bob along to the music.” Partying, dancing, community and transgression were all part of the vibe during Charlotte’s ska boom. IED, Bums Lie, Broken Napoleons and other bands were playing ska, or music informed by ska, at a time when the genre was experiencing unprecedented popularity. From the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s, bands Surfing ska’s waves Ska’s popularity has peaked in a series of three waves, genre fans and practitioners say. The first wave crested in Jamaica in the late 1950s, as the merging of American R&B and island mento — also known as Jamaican calypso — became an down what is and what is not ska. Is a band like Rancid punk, ska, or something in between? “Ska is defined by its upbeat guitar skank, the walking bass, and the drum beat that accentuates the off-beat,” Aaron Carnes tells Queen City Nerve. “Since ska has evolved over the years … it’s not Toots and the Maytals and the ska label Moon Records. Bums Lie began as a music-making collective at Appalachian State University in Boone. As members graduated and moved to Charlotte, the band gradually winnowed down to four members, Cullen West on vocals and guitar, Randy West on trumpet,

PHOTO BY JOSH TRENT PETTY

keyboards and backing vocals, Colin McLoy on drums and Lock on bass. After recording an unofficial demo EP First Time Offender, the slimmed-down fourpiece dropped Why Lie It’s for Beer in 2007. Lock calls the band’s official debut its most punk and skaheavy release. For Stumbling and Mumbling in 2008, Rob Tavaglione of Catalyst Recordings captured the energy of a Bums Lie live set at Visulite Theatre. Lock feels that by the band’s final album It’s an Infection, Not a Disease in 2012, Bums Lie had evolved into something beyond ska.

Lock’s assessment is borne out by the band’s 2011 single “Uptown,” which gives the song’s loping ska beat a pop polish topped by silvery spiraling guitar. The tune’s lyrics, however, display the cutting and incisive side of socially conscious ska:

“There’s a fire still burning in the city tonight/Like a beacon of hope in the dark … Uptown’s burning down/ And I’m laughing like a clown/The walls between us are coming down.”

Wilmington’s The Madd Hatters, fronted by Josh Trent Petty, play Charlotte often. The band recorded its 2006 album Burn Out Road in the living room of a Dilworth home on East Boulevard.

Like Riggs, Petty was a school band kid before joining the punk band The Relentless Bastards. He was eventually seduced by ska’s upbeat tunes, which invited everyone to get on the dance floor. The Madd Hatters played its first gig at a well-attended talent show, and after that the band was off and running.

The band adheres to one common ska stereotype — there are a hell of a lot of people onstage at a Hatters show, including Adam McBrayer on vocals, Chris Riggs Jr. on trumpet, Nash Fraylick on drums, Daniel Prymock on saxophone, Bethany J. Allen on violin, Brent Stott on bass and accordion and Maaike B. Brandis and Trenton Jackson on trombones. “The Madd Hatters got a review way back that said we were the angry side of ska,” Petty says. “I’m still not sure what that means.”

A tireless advocate for the genre, Petty champions North Carolina bands on his podcast GrayMatterz Chatter.

Ska or nah?

Although ska aficionados cite Broken Napoleons as a genre stalwart, Gavagan says the group, which folded in 2015, only sounded ska because his drumming style had the pop and feel of ska-punk percussionists he emulated.

Gavagan’s lifelong love affair with ska started in the ’90s when he, like Lock, heard albums released by Moon Records. After hearing the label’s Skarmaggedon compilation, Gavagan started collecting records from groups on the collection — third-wave ska bands like Mustard Plug and The Toasters.

Broken Napoleons, comprised of Joe Henderson on guitar and vocals, Eric Heinzman on bass, off-and-on member Russ Betenbaugh on keyboards and Gavagan on drums, released one album, Dead for Days, in 2011. An unreleased record tracked at Old House Studio in Charlotte can be found on SoundCloud under the title On the Verge of Believable.

Rock En Español juggernaut Bakaloa Stars is one of the last bands standing from Charlotte’s Latinrock boom of the early 2000s. Although not strictly a ska band, Bakaloa Stars members have counted both ska and reggae among their musical arsenal since the band’s inception in 2003.

One Charlotte band cited as a favorite of local ska fans is punk pranksters Dollar Signs. While vocalist Erik Button doesn’t consider his group a ska band, he says ska influences run deep in Dollar Signs’ music. Those influences can be heard in the band’s use of boisterous horns and occasional jolting rhythms. Button says ska bands like The Specials, Streetlight Manifesto, and Reel Big Fish were his gateway into punk.

“Ska’s use of upbeat music to convey heavy topics really meshes with my world philosophy,” Button says.

“The energy of ska is a huge part of our band, and we love that we get to be at least tangentially connected to that style of music.”

Ska doesn’t suck

Ska’s energy and sense of fun almost became its downfall. While many third-wave bands continued and expanded 2 Tone’s protest and social advocacy, far more followed in the dance steps of Madness, reeling out fun, rowdy and sometimes silly dance tunes. Bands with cartoonish graphics like Less than Jake and Reel Big Fish drew critical scorn, and soon the entire third wave was labeled “cartoon ska” by pop-culture critics.

By the late 2000s, with media outlets like Spin Magazine and Entertainment Weekly shaming musicians for their ‘embarrassing’ ska pasts, ska was being denigrated as a genre best forgotten.

For his part, Carnes posits that music doesn’t always have to be serious to be worthwhile, and that despite mainstream scorn, ska is more popular than ever.

Just as American bands spun off in iterations of 2 Tone in the ’90s, countries across the globe are developing their own scenes after being influenced by America’s third wave. In some countries, such as Mexico, ska bands are protest groups, a potent counterpoint to government oppression.

Like Carnes, Lock pushes back at the assertion that ska has become childish music.

“We all want to be kids at heart,” he says. “If you’re too grown up for ska, you need to look in the mirror and learn to not take yourself so seriously.”

Riggs allows that many third-wave bands can fit into the childish and silly category.

“Ska is upbeat, sometimes cheesy and perfect for kids and teens.” Riggs offers. He notes that a lot of bands were filled with “band kids” such as himself. “Most of those kids are awkward, and dare I say, a bit nerdy.”

Gavagan says that blowback from third-wave ska’s national popularity should have been expected.

“Most of the acts that made it to the mainstream … didn’t exactly put the genre’s best foot forward,” he offers. “Most were fairly silly and not talking about the class strife and racial injustice that a lot of the underground bands were talking about.”

Gavagan moved to Durham in 2018 and in 2019 joined the band Plastic Flamingos, which plays what he describes as “Jimmy Buffet and late-’90s pop punk.”

Riggs plays in eclectic punk band Aloha Broha with founder Adam Griffith and drummer Matt Bloom. Ska is still an arrow in the band’s musical quiver.

Lock says Bums Lie play reunion gigs from time to time. They were slated to open for Mephiskapheles at The Milestone in spring 2020, but the gig was cancelled due to COVID-19.

The fourth wave?

Ska is still alive and well in Charlotte, Riggs insists. He points to current local ska groups he likes, including The Not Likeleys, who share drummer Bloom with Aloha Broha. Regionally, he praises Corporate Fandango from Greensboro and Sibannac out of Chapel Hill.

According to Carnes, ska is resurgent internationally, but the world has changed since third waves’ peak popularity in the ’90s. If ska is to have a fourth wave, it will look very different.

“People think back to the ’90s ska boom on radio and MTV. I seriously doubt we’ll ever see ska return the mainstream like that,” Cranes offers. Instead, he sees ska’s popularity confined largely to a growing independent and alternative market.

“As I release my book defending ska, the world now cares about [the genre],” he says. “Will bands be doing Converse commercials like they were in the ’90s? It’s unlikely.”

The main thing holding back a fourth wave of Queen City ska is the fickle character of the city’s music fans, says Anzola.

“There’s not really a ska scene here,” he says. He recalls seeing local concerts by The Toasters, The Aggrolites, and The Slackers with less than 20 people in the audience. “Bands like that would have sold out a show in other cities or even in South America.”

Lock doesn’t expect a new wave of ska, because he feels ska never really left.

“It’s always been here. Lots of commercials use it,” he says. “But I’m excited to see where [ska] goes next.”

If we’re to divine when and why ska may peak again, Gavagan advises taking a historic look at the social influences that fostered the rise of second- and third-wave ska.

“We’re in a time of uneven economic expansion with a rise in racial tensions and a government that is divided and dysfunctional,” Gavagan offers. “A danceable music that is outspoken about racial and economic equality may, yet again, be what the country is looking for.”

PMORAN@QCNERVE.COM

New donors can earn up to $1,000 with 8 successful donations in the first month at BioLife while making a difference for people with rare diseases.

*NEW DONORS ONLY

Must present this coupon prior to the initial donation to receive a total of $125 on your first donation, a total of $150 on your second donation, a total of $150 on your third donation, a total of $125 on your fourth donation, a total of $100 on your fifth donation, a total of $150 on your sixth donation, a total of $100 on your seventh donation, and a total of $100 on your eighth successful donation. Initial donation must be completed by 6.7.21 and subsequent donations within 60 days. Coupon redeemable only upon completing successful donations. May not be combined with any other offer. Only at participating locations.

Offer Code: 67041-3006

Copyright © 2021 Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. All rights reserved. Nearest Location: 5300 South Blvd • Charlotte, NC 28217 • 704.264.1948