rduwtf.com

Keeping up with the nightly goings-on in the Triangle can be daunting and we aren’t even a real metropolis. The Minutemen used to rhapsodize that some day there would be a band on every street corner and at the time that seemed like a great notion. But now I’m older and more jaded and there are just too many mediocre bands clouding the waters. It’s best to have friends who send the occasional to regular email with tips for First Friday or recommending a good band playing but most of my friends are as busy and self-involved as I am. I have yet to find a reliable source for updates on the visual art scene in the Triangle (if you have one, please comment), The N&O coverage of visual art is a joke and the Independent can be very hit or miss.The options for live music updates are somewhat better. David Menconi’s On The Beat blog at Triangle.com doesn’t provide a roundup of must-see bands as much as it gives some local music news that slants too heavily towards the promotion of the events at the RBC Center and the Walnut Creek (formerly Alltel, formerly Hardee’s, soon to be out of business) Amphitheater. The Independent’s “Get Out” page can be helpful due to contributions from a board of writers that that don’t have to appeal to as broad an audience as Menconi’s but is still too broad for my tastes. The best source in the Triangle has to be Ross Grady’s TriangleRock.com. Grady’s tastes jibe with my own about 55%, which is actually a decent ratio - again, this is very subjective stuff. It’s easy to avoid the possible 45% that doesn’t interest me because Grady provides audio links for his picks and allows me to judge for myself and the RSS feeds push the info my way and keep it all very easy for me. The events are often Durham-centric but that’s a good thing because I can tell we’re going to be light on Durham topics. Someone in Raleigh needs to take a cue from Grady, stop sleeping and create a Raleigh-centric version with at least an 80% match to my tastes.