Sonic Youth Hyperthink/Auxes @ Black Cat Sunday

“Hair in the hole in my head/Too bad the scene is dead.” Thus runneth the lyrics “Chapel Hill,” a less-than-catchy number on Sonic Youth’s breakthrough 1992 effort Dirty. Ostensibly about the death of leftist bookstore owner Bob Sheldon, “Chapel Hill” is a strange anthem - that is, if its meant to be an anthem at all. Too angry to be inspirational and too vague to condemn what may have been a politically-motivated killing, the overlong song is a Thurston Moore whiner between two Kim Gordon whisperers in the final third of a meandering record. Since Moore’s from Massuchusetts, maybe his cynicism is geographic - one of Chapel Hill’s secret charms is its prolific inhabitants’ refusal to moon over their past.

Case in point: the Auxes. Led by Dave Laney, ex-member of NC legends Milemarker, the Auxes bring more emo guitar-pickin from the guitar-lovin’ Lovitt diaspora to the Black Cat this Sunday. Touring behind the just-released LP Sunshine, the road-ready version of the Auxes is a veritable North Carolinian supergroup featuring members of Fin Fang Foom, Caltrop, Ben Davis, and Challenger.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 9:25 am and is filed under Show Alert. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.