I’m going to use this Music Monday as a plea to my readers to get off their couches, close their laptops, send their kiddos to a babysitter and go out. Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt at The Pinhook. Photo by Briana Brough.

You know what convinced me this is more than a good idea? Going to The Pinhook last Wednesday night and seeing the Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt. The band has received some pretty good press in the New York Times, which zeroed in on a few key details that really got me excited.

They hand out cupcakes at their shows, and have been known to wear costumes that are made entirely of stuffed animals.

I wanted to see how Durham music fans reacted to such a spectacle.

To start, I noticed the crowd at The Pinhook was a lot cooler than I am. Which initially made me want to judge them all so I didn’t feel like a loser for not being their friend. But then I met a few people, and really started to warm up to the scene as the band started to set up.

First, they lined the stage with plastic snowmen reminiscent of a holiday-loving grandmother’s apartment. Then, they started passing out costumes to members of the audience. Buried in my notebook, I didn’t notice until it was too late that they had managed to get my husband, an MBA student, to wear an elf hat and leopard print jacket. And our friend Amy –– she wore what looked like some bee-keepers netting festooned with craft-store flair.Amy Cox, donning one of the costumes handed out by the band. Photo by Briana Brough.

And then the music started - some jumpy, up-tempo stuff with feel-good lyrics.

The singers walked amid the crowd, a strategy one band member told me ensures everyone feels a part of the experience. At one point, one of them dressed up in a green M & M top chanted, “I like you. I like you. I like you.”

As he punched out the affirmations, he pointed to different people whose faces broke into smiles. How could they help it? It may have been a gimmick, but it was all so simple, dumb and weird that it worked.

And that’s when I started dancing, right in the middle of these sweaty guys in the band (They did the majority of their performance on the floor, not the stage). I felt happy. I felt like I belonged. I felt like it was OK to bust out of the bore of daily life and emerge jubilant and re-inspired.It's OK to dance at The Pinhook! See, I do it and you can too! (Bri Brough's photography)

Is that enough convincing for you? Go out! Pinhook Co-owner Nick Williams told me this show was not atypical of the kind of performances they attract there, and as you all know, there are multiple places to see people share their music, art and thought throughout the city.

Click here to see more pictures of the night. 

Have a story idea? Think I should attend a show or feature a band? e-mail lisarossi@durhammag.com

Broad Street Cafe recently almost lost its ability to be a late-night music venue here after a neighbor to the cafe complained about the noise. The cafe salvaged its role when the Board of Adjustment voted unanimously last week to allow it to play music after 10 p.m. The following is a condensed interview with one of the co-owners, John Hite, reflecting on Durham's music scene.

What did this most recent debate about the special use permit and noise levels at Broad Street do for the perception that Durham is city that supports local music? John Hite at Broad Street.

I think for the most part, it ended up being a positive thing. I think a lot of folks paid a lot of attention and read what was written in the press and actually came down to see the place.

I wonder if it prompted more people to speak out more forcefully in support of local music here?

I think for every comment I saw from somebody who believed the negative connotations, there were probably six or seven responses that said, ‘No, no , no, no. You don’t understand. You need to take a look. …. I think maybe some folks who maybe wouldn’t see music - have either already come out, or thought about it. Now, it puts us or Durham on the radar.

I've heard Broad Street treats musicians really well.

Whoever is in the band gets dinner – which I think they seem to appreciate as much as getting paid. We give them a modest bar tab and they get reimbursed based on a percentage of what we make. Some places either don't pay at all. The only thing the musician gets is what is in tip jar. Some places offer guarantees of "x" number of dollars. We played around with the current model ... there were some guarantees going on. What we found was when you guarantee a band "x" number of dollars, they kind of lose the incentive to promote the show.

You often don't charge cover either, right?

At least in Durham, I think we’re still blooming as a music community. A lot of folks who go out are still learning about the bands. To throw a cover charge -- I think discourages people.

What more needs to be done to make Durham a music destination?

I think that one of the turning points we had recently was the Troika Music Festival. That was the first big weekend where I started seeing more than a few folks from outside of Durham coming in. …. If we could pick up another event like the Troika, that would be fantastic. 

Got an idea for Music Monday? Send it my way! lisarossi@durhammag.com

Durham Magazine Photographer Briana Brough and I met The Old Ceremony frontman Django Haskins, 36, recently at Rue CDjango Haskins at Whiskey. Photos by Briana Brough.ler. The interview followed a particularly embarrassing and gushy blog post I wrote about never wanting to wash my arm again after he touched it following a recent performance at Cat’s Cradle. He denied remembering that moment, which broke my heart a little, but quickly redeemed himself with an interview about how he juices Durham (where he moved from Carrboro recently) for songwriting and musical inspiration, why his band members wear vintage suits, and how a vibraphone, one of the more interesting instruments in TOC, sounds.

Briana: Here’s the question of the day - Why would you leave Carrboro and move to Durham?

Django: I lived in Brooklyn for seven years before I moved here. Durham has a similar kind of energy. There’s a lot of possibility. Every fourth house [in my Lakewood neighborhood] is an artist of some sort, which is exciting for me, which means there’s a community reaching a critical mass that will draw more creative people, and people that will appreciate the creative stuff they are making.

Lisa: Talk about a specific inspirational moment around town.

D: Every year [my neighbors, a Mexican family], has a birthday party [in their yard for their kids who have similar birthdays]. And this last year, it started pouring. And then we all crammed inside into the living room. There were 50 people there, half spoke Spanish. It was really fun, and really humid, and it’s pouring outside. And then – the mariachi band shows up. A full mariachi band, 9-piece with the sombreros, trumpet, violin, guitar and bass. And you know, they are not going to send the mariachi band away, so they perform in the living room. There are very few places I could think of where that kind of thing could happen, and it was across the street from my house.

L: I want to talk about clothes. I like the clothes you guys wear, especially the guy who plays the violin  - Gabriel [Pelli]. Some bands wear jeans and T-shirts, which is fine, but I like the suits.

D: At the beginning, we consciously decided that is what would fit with the music we’d make. [It] was not just rock. We like rock 'n' roll, and we play some, but it was drawing from a lot of …influences, from some jazz, to European music. I think I had one suit when we started. Now, I’ve raided thrift stores all over the whole country and I have a stupid collection of clothes. Yeah – it’s fun. We all kind of enjoy it. Most of us.

L: Do you guys go shopping together?

D: We have.
 

L: And do you drink margaritas after?

D: We usually buy shoes because that makes us the happiest. And watch Sex and the City.

L: And cry?

D: Naturally. Tissues are never more than a few feet away.

L: Tell me about the song you played recently at the end of a Cradle show that everyone loved so much.

D: It’s a song called Whither On The Vine. We decided to turn off the PA and step to the front of the stage and see how it goes. And it was kind of a leap of faith. We didn’t know if people were going to be able to hear us, if they’d be quiet enough to listen. And we definitely didn’t know if people would sing along, which was really awesome. And it was our favorite part of the show too.Photos by Briana Brough.

L: This is the short answer part of the interview.  Favorite baked good?

D: Fudge

L: Signature drink?

D: Jameson, neat (At Whiskey if they would go non-smoking).

L: How does the song Rocky Raccoon from the Beatles The White Album make you feel?

D: Young. I listened to it as a kid. And it’s kind of a kid song. It has murder ..

L: You’re talking too much!

D: If I had a dime for every time a woman told me that…

L: Ok, try this one. What does a vibraphone sound like?

D: Like dropping golf balls into a bathtub.

L: Summing up, this interview was so…..

D: It was fun, but I don’t want to say ‘fun,’ because that’s lame. This interview was so…. delicious. It was delicious. The food was delicious.

 Want to be in Music Monday’s? Know someone who should be? E-mail lisarossi@durhammag.com

Jaimee Paul, whose album, At Last, hit No. 1 on the iTunes jazz charts in August, will sing at The Cotton Room’s V-Day party.

 Check out this video of her here:

I love how Paul’s mass of curly hair somehow matches the drama of her voice, which is a little Aretha and a little Madeleine Peyroux.

John Pelphrey, at LabourLove Art Gallery, gets the credit for bringing this musician, who has performed with Lyle Lovett and Wynonna Judd, to Durham. He tells me that he and Paul attended Belmont University in Nashville together, where they were both music business majors. Paul grew up in southern Illinois.

The two recently reconnected on Facebook, and John convinced Paul to add Durham to the list of places she’s performing this month, which includes The CBS Early Show in Manhattan, and several gigs in London, Ontario.

“It’s a great opportunity for people in the city to get exposure to some of the young talent that’s happening nationally,” Pelphrey says. “She’s definitely worth coming to watch.”

The 7 p.m. Cotton Room party costs between $65 and $80 per person and also includes a solo trumpet performance from Paul’s husband Leif Shires, a three-course tapas menu and a bottle of champagne per couple. Visit here to get tickets.

 Got any ideas for stories that should be featured in this space? This is Music Monday’s, and I like to write about Durham music stuff. E-mail me at lisarossi@durhammag.com.

Hi all,

I'm starting a new Web feature this month, titled "Music Mondays." It will be about Durham music news - I will be previewing new album releases, doing Q & A's with musicians who live here and more. Ideas? E-mail lisarossi@durhammag.com

Here is my first post, about Carrboro musician Maria Albani, who has a new album she's releasing in Durham this weekend.

Maria Albani, the Carrboro bassist you might know from the pop band Schooner, has a new solo project. Maria Albani

It’s called Organos, and she’s having what sounds like a pretty fun CD release party Friday at The Pinhook for her first CD on this project, called The Limbs EP.

She needs other musicians to play with her live, but on her recorded songs, she plays all the instruments, which could include phone books, spoons, a water jug or a cardboard box. She does all the vocals too.

“I’m not trying to do traditional indie-rock - I’ve already been involved with that. This is organic. The songs are short. Sometimes they are more like compositions than actually - here’s the hook, and here’s the chorus,” explains Albani, 36, who, during the day, works as an administration assistant to the assistant director of the N.C. Jaycee Burn Center at UNC hospitals.

At The Pinhook, she will be performing her songs with the help of Wes Stone-Phillips (from Ticonderoga and The Rosebuds), Reid Johnson (Schooner/Flute Flies), John Harrison (North Elementary) and Theresa Stone-Phillips and Nathan White (Nathan Oliver).

There will also be some music from Birds and Arrows and Ye Olde Shoppe (featuring members of Wild Wild Geese.

It sounds like a good show, and a good chance to get to know the music of many different musicians. $5 gets you in and a free copy of the new CD.

 Here's a YouTube clip of her song "Getbye."