Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Cat's Cradle, Chapel Hill


North Carolina has had a hip and rowdy indie music scene for decades. The main venue nodes that I knew about in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s were in Chapel Hill and the larger urban centers: Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro. It helped having colleges and universities in each vicinity to provide a large, energetic and always changing fan base.

I was just looking for any artifacts from the Jim Carroll Band show at the Frog & Nightgown (or the Pier) in Raleigh, and instead came across these ticket stubs from Cat's Cradle shows in Chapel Hill: The Cramps (Flat Duo Jets opened) and Buzzcocks. Both excellent shows. The Cat's Cradle was a frequent place to go. This venue has moved around a lot, but included locations off Rosemary Street and West Franklin Street before moving in 1993 over to Carrboro, the adjoining town where I'd lived for a few of years while an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina in the early 80s. The Cat's Cradle in memory is like a Pandora's Box -- so many gigs, so many prompts in the pipeline!

In my quest to hunt down details of the Jim Carroll gig, came across an article about the Raleigh music scene and a comment by allthingsarial, who was also at the Jim Carroll show -- placing it back to 1981 or 1982. (Catholic Boy came out in 1980). Many thanks to "The Arial View" at http://allthingsarial.wordpress.com/ for the input.

Today's Rune: Wholeness. Ides of September.

3 comments:

Vee said...

Yep, I was at that show, I think, and nice to meet you. I answered your comment. Goodnight Raleigh rocks!

Erik Donald France said...

Thanks, Vee -- small world, indeed ;->

Erik Donald France said...

p.s. I Wrote a piece for Essays on Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries, in Nonfiction Classics for Students, Vol. 5, 2003 (Gale).