North Carolina Gems

Feb 27th, 2025

Lydia Miro

“Chosen To Deserve” Wednesday

Man, there is something about growing up in North Carolina. The towns are filled with community that has been there for ages. It’s the norm to stay in your neck of the woods, close to family. There is a chaotic simplicity in these towns and the relationships that are built in them, and Wednesday understands how to capture that feeling via song. The band is made up of NC locals, Karly Hartzman, MJ Lenderman (who did just annouce he will no longer be touring with the group), Alex Farrar, Rusty Sutton. I feel like thing song in particular captures the stupidity of our youthful days. One of my favorite lyrics is “If you're lookin' for me / I'm in the back of an SUV / Doin' it in some cul-de-sac / Underneath a dogwood tree”, referring to the NC state flower. I also grew up on a cul-de-sac street and speant a great amount of time in my 2007 Toytota Highlander, almsot exclusivly burning gas by driving around listening to music. Something in me just gets so excited to see tiny reminders of home, especially the less obvious ot people who aren’t from here. The band has teased a new album is recorded and ready but no date has been annouced as to when it will drop. Considering that they toured the absolute hell out of their album that features this song, “Rat Saw God”, the band deserves a much needed break at home!

“Real Pain” Indigo De Souza

Indigo is one of my all time top artists for so many reasons. For one, her live perforaances are so cathardic and intimate. I have seen her four times, each time holding a new signifciance to her songs. I chose this song in particular because of the live performance she gives with this song. The first time I saw her, she was opening for Lucy Dacus at the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC. I was vaguely familiar with her music but she only performed songs I hadn’t yet discovered. Real Pain was the song that she ended with but it was also what stuck out to me the most. The cathardic repetation of ‘going’, which sometimes sounds like it transforms into ‘go away’ if you listen for it. Each time she utters the word, you can feel the inner chaos building up and bursting into the last verse, where she pauses for a moment before quickly swiching into rationting with herself. She often dances heavily to this song when performing it, making it even more expressive. Between her and the crowd, the energy release during this performance is almost tangible.

Another reason why I adore her is her vulnerability through her songs. Each piece feels so raw, singing about grief ___ She hails from Spruce Pine, NC, a small town near Asheville. While her discography doesn’t directly refrence this area, a lot of her lyrics mimick the experiences of living in smaller towns, where it feels the most comfortable for you and simultaneously giving you the worst experiences that you cannot escape unless you confront other deamons. It feels as if she is writing lyrics directly from my journal when I was living in my college town.

“Carolina Rolling By” Mipso

Mipso has an amazing catalog. It’s filled with songs about love, grief, community, smoking pot, and lot’s of songs about North Carolina. The folk quartet is based in Chapel Hill, NC, and as featured in this song, tells stories about their time passing in this great state. After spending so many summer days with my windows down, music blaring, and that humidity beating down on you, you begin to really appreciate the daily sights of the area. The people and their silly church signs that litter the back roads, the rolling tobacco fields, the hours spent at maple view farms getting ice cream and eating it in the trunk while you watch the belted cows mosey around. It those moments and community that make this place so special.

This song in particular feels so much like a younger sibling to “Carolina in my Mind” by the famous James Taylor. It has a youthful spirit while mimicking the classic song structure of their predecessor. The music captures your regular local day, exploring the state you’ve lived in your whole life. There is always something “new” around the corner, even if that establishment has a long rich history. Songs like this make me miss home more than most.

“Wagon Wheel”
Old Crow Medicine Show

This is the only group on my list that is actually not from NC, but in fact gained their popularity by busking the streets of Western NC. Old Crow Medicine Show was discoved by Doc Watson (he writer of ‘Swing and Turn Jubillee’). This song is full of refrences to surrounding areas like Roanoke, VA and Johnson City, TN, along with NC towns like Raleigh and Cumberland. The dissonance between fiddles just amps you up and get’s you dancing with all of your buddies. As you can hear in this live version, locals have clung to this song as one of their favorite NC anthems, you just can’t help but sing along at whatever bar, football game, or car is playing it. Darius Rucker helped popularized the song but the scrappy original version will always be my favorite!

The music of North Carolina is some of my absolute favorite. The creative community there is often enjoyed mostly by locals, but lately a lot of my favorite “underground” acts have been gaining lots of attention. It’s bittersweet to see the music that you were an advocate for, for so long, finally gaining a wide audience. It may no longer be your hidden gem, more people than ever are getting to experience some realllllly special music. In an effort to share some more music from the tar heel state, I have compiled a list of 8 songs that are written by North Carolinians, hopefully highlighting some new music for you! Or further affirming that you do, in fact, have great music taste ;)

“Swing and Turn Jubilee” The A’s

The album that features this song is, dare I say, one of my favorites of all time, so it was tough to only choose one song from this group of standouts. It was recorded in my hometown (Chapel Hill, NC) and recommend to me by the owner of my favorite record store. I have since acquired 2 copies of this physical record and can confidently say that it is my most frequently spinning record. “Live and learn jubilee / Swing and turn jubilee” stuck out to me so much when I first played the record. I was living in an apartment with people whos friendship we shared was in a limbo. It might be cliché to say that music gave me such understanding during hard times but it really did. So much so that I was thissss close to getting live, learn, swing, and turn tattooed on my knees.

This album is full of the whimsy I thought I had lost. It has reality checks in the form of lyricism, while also mixing in the beautiful yodels of the duo, made up of Alexandra Sauser-Monnig (Daughter of Swords, Mountain Men) and Amelia Meath (Sylvann Esso, Mountain Men). In my research I learned that their version in fact a cover of Doc Watson and Jean Ritchie’s song from 1990. Doc is a known icon in my college town (Boone, NC) for his busking days and is also known as a father figure in the world of appalachian bluegrass. His wife, Merle Watson, is the name sake of the famous Merle Fest, a music festival held in western NC to celebrate the best of Folk and Bluegrass. While I was only able to pick one song from this album, I urge you to listen to the whole thing start to finish. And then repeat as many times as you would like!

“Letting Go” Dissimilar South

I learned about this band by another recommendation from the record store! I was lucky enough to sit in on an intimate performance in the former awesome space’s (rip) Huzzah! books. This song in particular stuck out to me during the performance. I heard this around the same time as I heard the album by the A’s, and this theme of living, learning, and letting go, hit me like a ton of bricks. I am so thankful for the music community I had during that time, it fueled me through some tough times. I hope this song reaches you in a (dis)similar way ;)

“Cotton Candy” Weston Estate

For this group, I had to choose a throwback to the song that got me hooked! To me, this song is a time machine right back to my senior year of high school, going to the beach on senior skip day/weekend after the senior class got too rowdy after hours. I hear the light strum of the guitar and am on a golf cart at my friends beach house. The band is made up of high school friends Marco Luka, Manas Panchavati, Tanmay Joshi, Srikar Nanduri, and Abhi Manhass from the triangle area. Weston Estate is a refrence to the notably wealthy neighborhood in Cary, NC. Since the release of Cotton Candy in 2019, they have continued to release music, gaining maturity in the lyrics, vocals, and overall production. I highly recommend checking out their newer project like “Maggie Valley”, their EP from 2022.

Song 8

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MJ Lenderman at the Aggie Theater ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆Coming Soon⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆˙⟡ Coming Soon ⟡⋆˙ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆Coming Soon⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ˚⟡⊰⋆: Coming Soon :⋆⊱⟡˚⋆˙⟡ Coming Soon ⟡⋆˙⋆✴︎˚｡⋆Coming Soon⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

MJ Lenderman at
the Aggie Theater
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˚⟡⊰⋆: Coming Soon :⋆⊱⟡˚
⋆˙⟡ Coming Soon ⟡⋆˙
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆Coming Soon⋆✴︎˚｡⋆