Boogixote Q&A: Alex Underwood
Alex Underwood is about as easy a guy to get into a groove with as laying down the needle on a James Brown record. I’d seen him in and around Saxapahaw, North Carolina at a couple different gigs, with with a mic, guitar, and his guitar case open and available for tips. His music certainly…
Blue Cactus: Bound to Make You a Believer
The most cold-hard-facts line of 2025 was born from the grocery store checkout line. “I don’t know if I’m getting better / If I’m getting worse / But I’m getting by” I mean, have truer words been spoken for these times? That honest-ass line is the chorus of “This Kind of Rain,” a sunshower country…
Boogixote Q&A: Spencer Thomas Smith
“I’m a duck on a pond, just here having a good time.” That’s how Durham, NC guitarist and songwriter Spencer Thomas Smith describes himself to me with a smile, as we share our morning coffees over Zoom, with a fresh inch of snow outside. The weather had interrupted our plans to meet in person, but…
Set, Setting, Tuneage: Sunsp.t: JoFi-2
It was a frosty January morning, the first legitimately cold morning of 2024. I had to swing by Food Lion and get some eggs, veggies, and a pie crust. I was cooking a quiche for brunch and it was going to be the first thing I had cooked in what felt like a year. My…
Boogixote Q&A: STOP MVP Compilation Album
“Don’t mess with our homes/Leave our waters alone/Shove that pipe up your b-u-t-T” It’s a note for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, signed and sealed by North Carolina native Joe Troop, delivered as a solo screed from the frets of his banjo, from one Joe to another, on Troop’s song “We Don’t Want The MVP…
What’s So Magical About Magic Al?
“Tell me your company, and I will tell you what you are.” That line comes from Miguel Cervantes’ seminal novel Don Quixote in 1615 – namesake and phonetic inspiration for this wonderful site – and a version of this sentiment has proliferated for centuries in a number of civilizations. We’re a social species and much…
Set, Setting, Tuneage: Setting Sounds #2- On The Eno River
I was in a quandry. I couldn’t decide if should bring my inner tube – a three-foot wide cheeseburger – to this Friday night concert along the Eno River in Hillsborough, North Carolina. There were whispers of being able to float the river as you took in the music. But I was already dressed loudly…
Betamax: NC Climber’s Fest 2023
I’ve never been much of a climber, but I like to hang with a bunch. There was a big ol’ hang at Pilot Mountain May 6th and 7th, for the Carolina Climbers Coalition’s NC Climber’s Fest. Early birds got cinnamon rolls whose sourdough starter goes back 100 years, but everyone got a bluebird day to…
Stewarding with the Carolina Climbers Coalition
“Still on.” That’s the two word answer I got over email from Will Rodgers, Pilot Mountain State Park Crag Steward, at 6:45 in the morning on April Fool’s Day. I had emailed him asking if we were still meeting up at the park with thunderstorms in the forecast. I was somewhat hoping it’d be canceled.…
Boogixote Q&A: Empire Strikes Brass
It’s April in the Piedmont and after a wet winter I’m ready for one thing to warm my bones, wake my soul, and get my ass on the dance floor: Festy season. It’s that beautiful time of the year when our bodies flow into a new equinoctial rhythm that manifests in communities throwing down together…
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