Tag: Raleigh

Band Moving Boxes brings mathy midwest pop-punk whatevercore to local music scene | Culture

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Moving Boxes, a new Raleigh/Charlotte-based math rock band, are establishing themselves as a band dedicated to the surrounding communities with a unique sound that stems from the creative involvement from all members.

The band was conceived when JT Sutek, a first-year studying industrial design, wrote a few songs in January that did not fit the style of his Charlotte-based metalcore band, Forever We Roam, which he plays the guitar for.

The band started as a duo after Sutek contacted Sophie Biancofiore, a student at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, who Sutek met as staff at a music school. The two recorded the songs Sutek had written previously, titled “Dakota” and “I Don’t Want to Fall in Love.” Here, Biancofiore was established as the lead vocalist and lyricist for the band.

After playing a few live shows, Biancofiore began to take up the bass guitar and the duo decided they could use a drummer. Sutek reached out to Noah Santos from Davidson, North Carolina, who Sutek had previously played in a band with, to play drums for their live shows. After playing a few shows, Sutek and Biancofiore offered Santos full membership in the band.

Being a band less than a year old, Moving Boxes has already released two singles, a six-song EP and is currently in the process of writing and recording a self-titled album. 

Despite Sutek residing over a hundred miles away from the rest of the band, the band credits its longevity to their deep friendships and the development of a system that keeps the band active and constantly writing new music. The band has scheduled calls every week and organized an advanced Google Drive system to keep track of their ideas.

Biancofiore said the band’s motivation to keep writing music stems from the creative involvement of each member of the band.

“I think just coming off the bat when we started playing shows, we already had like eight or nine [songs] that we either wrote together or separately,” Biancofiore said. “Just having three different people putting in that creative process, everything really helped move along swiftly.”

Moving Boxes describe their sound as “mathy midwest pop-punky whatevercore,” on their Instagram page.

Sutek said the contrast between the instrumental and lyrical elements of Moving Boxes create a satisfyingly relatable appeal to their listeners.

“I think it’s a combination of really fun music that people can dance to with really sad lyrics that they can relate to,” Sutek said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m dancing, but I think I’m also crying and I don’t know why, but this is fun and helps me not be sad.’”

Santos said the band’s unique sound stems from the nature of how involved each member is in the creative process, highlighting the individual styles of each member.

“I think we have a kind of an interesting sound because I have a background in grunge music, like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, that kind of ‘90s rock, and JT has always been really into metal, and then Sophie is like the main character of an indie film,” Santos said. “So we all come together and we’re all making music that isn’t our initial background in music.”

Sutek said the group named themselves after band With Confidence’s song “Moving Boxes” as the idea of moving boxes is intriguing because they present questions as to where one is moving from or what could be in the boxes. The band’s name took on a deeper meaning as the title of its self-titled song, which Sutek came up with when he found a box of mementos from an older relationship while packing to leave for NC State.

“It just brought up a lot of emotions and was like, ‘I need to write a song about this or else I think I might just cry,’” Sutek said. “The lyric just popped in my head like ‘packed three years of our life in moving boxes,’ and it felt so just fitting for how the band came about. What we wanted to be the instrumental to the song is very much the direction we’re going and what we want to be as a band. So it felt right to make that the self-titled song, everything just kind of fell into place for that.”

The band said the biggest venue it’s played at so far was Packapalooza, which Sutek said he signed his two bands up for during orientation, not expecting Moving Boxes to be invited to play for the event. 

Biancofiore said she was surprised by the number of people who stopped to watch the band and purchase merchandise during their Packapalooza performance.

“We totally sold out of everything that we brought and a lot of the people that were there watching us, they were just random people they didn’t know us,” Biancofiore said. “It was really just gratifying and kind of humbling.”

Looking to the future, Moving Boxes plans to release their self-titled album in the coming months and perform for a few venues in Raleigh and Charlotte.

Moving Boxes will perform in Charlotte at the Spoke Easy on Dec. 3 in Raleigh alongside Blankstate and I and the Lad, at Pour House on Dec. 20, and at Local 506 with Blankstate and The Sour on Jan. 27. More information about future shows can be found on the band’s Instagram.





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A New Exhibit Showcases the Sterling, Enduring Presence of Women in Country Music

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The Power of Women In Country Music |  Friday, Oct. 28–Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023  |  The North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh

Country music is said to revolve around “three chords and the truth.” But the truth is that, despite a progressively diverse roster of talent, the genre’s history has tended to heavily emphasize white men.

The Power of Women in Country Music, a new exhibit coming to the NC Museum of History from the GRAMMY Museum on October 28, spotlights the women who shaped country music and those who continue to propel it forward.

The impetus for the project occurred a few short years after Tomato-gate in 2015, when radio consultant Keith Hill discussed the issue of gender parity on the radio by crafting one limp metaphor: In the salad of country music, he explained, men were lettuce and women were tomatoes. Playing too many tomatoes distorted the dish.

At the time, Hill’s rhetoric received significant flak, though that did little to change things. Women have continued to struggle with terrestrial radio, where visibility in country music arguably matters most.

It doesn’t seem to matter that Kacey Musgraves became the rare country artist to win Album of the Year at the 2019 Grammys or that Miranda Lambert is now the most-awarded musician in the Academy of Country Music’s history. As of 2019, women still comprised just 16 percent of airplay.

The GRAMMY Museum set out to help change that erasure with a traveling exhibition that landed in cities like Tulsa and Los Angeles prior to Raleigh.

“We wanted to shine a light on not only the contemporary women in country music but also the ones who came before them and show how important women have been this whole time,” says Kelsey Goelz, associate curator at the GRAMMY Museum.

The exhibit material is featured chronologically, beginning with country music’s purported inflection point in 1927, when the Carter Family traveled to Bristol, Tennessee, to record with producer Ralph Peer. “The show takes you back and shows you that people have been working hard so the Kaceys and Mirandas can do what they do,” Goelz says.

“Some of the most groundbreaking stuff that’s happened in country music has happened because of women,” says the Durham musician Rissi Palmer, who also hosts the Apple Radio show Color Me Country. Palmer is also featured in the exhibition.

Much of that history-making has taken place along gendered lines, but a growing number of artists, Palmer among them, have pushed for greater racial inclusivity as well. After all, many of the songs deemed “country” in the early 20th century were popular hymns, spirituals, and folk tunes that circulated in sundry communities.

“The history of the music itself goes back to Black women and people in the South,” says Goelz. “They’ve been there the whole time, but they’re finally getting their due.”

Palmer’s inclusion feels especially important considering the growing spate of artists—Mickey Guyton, Brittney Spencer, Allison Russell, and Amythyst Kiah, among others—who are working to deepen country’s legacy.

“My inclusion as a Black woman shows the impact people of color have had on the genre,” Palmer says.

The Power of Women in Country Music features a wealth of objects that bring an ephemeral art form to life. Costumes from Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, among many others, sit alongside Shania Twain’s famous top hat and tuxedo jacket from her “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” music video.

“We wanted to show performance outfits and fashion because I think that trickles into pop culture so much,” Goelz says.

Palmer donated the 1950s-style Betsey Johnson dress she wore during her first televised Grand Ole Opry performance.

“It means a lot to me to be able to go see it alongside LeAnn Rimes’s dress—or now Loretta Lynn,” says Palmer. “All these people that I looked up to and all these people that made music that mattered to me.”

Visitors will also get to see handwritten lyrics, and interact with certain instruments, like a dulcimer and autoharp.

The exhibit’s arrival in Raleigh brought an opportunity to expand the number of musicians featured in the display. Katie Edwards, curator of pop culture at the NC Museum of History, pulled Emmylou Harris and Rissi Palmer from the main setup and placed them alongside four new additions: Myrtle Wiseman (aka Lulu Belle), Donna Fargo, Rhiannon Giddens, and Kasey Tyndall.

Like the GRAMMY Museum’s original curation efforts, the sheer abundance of North Carolina talent made it difficult to figure out whom exactly to include.

“It was hard coming up with those women because there are so many,” says Edwards. “But I decided to choose natives from all over the state.”

The museum will also host four concerts in a Southern Songbirds series to bring attention to the different North Carolina artists who play in and around country music. Durham singer-songwriter H.C. McEntire kicks off the series on October 29, along with Charly Lowry, who lives in Pembroke, and Caitlin Cary, who lives in Raleigh. The three following concerts will feature Triangle musicians Tift Merritt, Alice Gerrard, and Rissi Palmer.

“I grew up in North Carolina,” says McEntire. “I grew up in the mountains, so country to me is much more than a genre—it’s more cultural.”

And that culture has been overdue for a shift, especially as more voices insist on new perspectives.

“As much as I am inspired by the country musicians that came before me, I challenge myself as a queer woman in the South playing music,” McEntire says. “I’m proud to be from the South and be creating art in the South. I also think with that comes a responsibility.”

Palmer is set to close out Southern Songbirds on January 21. “I love the name of the series because I think that being country and being Southern are two different things. It’s not a monolith. All of our experiences and influences are different, but it doesn’t make them any less authentic.”

McEntire echoes that sentiment. “There should be room for everyone,” she says. “Sometimes you have to elbow your way in a little bit. I think it’s starting to crack open in terms of visibility and opportunity, but there’s a long way to go.” 

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