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NC Arts Council.Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–9.Back to highlights
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Chapel Hill and Carrboro music scene
Cat's Cradle opened in a small basement club near the UNC campus in 1969 and, after several moves, settled in Carrboro in 1993. With Merge Records, founded in Chapel Hill in 1989, and bands such as Superchunk and Polvo, the local scene drew national press in the early 1990s as a possible "next Seattle."
- Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Frank Heath buys Cat's Cradle
David Robert and his partners sold the Chapel Hill club to Frank Heath and Richard Fox in 1986; Heath became sole owner in 1987 and still runs the club.
People: Frank Heath
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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Nirvana plays Cat's Cradle
Nirvana played the club's West Franklin Street room ten days after the release of Nevermind; Pearl Jam also played the Cradle in 1991, to about 100 people.
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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The Chapel Hill sound gains national attention
Spin's December 1992 feature "Robbing the Cradle," its title a play on the Cat's Cradle, looked at Polvo and other local bands as record scouts hunted for the next big thing after Seattle. By January 1993 the Daily Tar Heel counted about six publications calling Chapel Hill the next Seattle, and Details and Time followed that year.
Part of Chapel Hill and Carrboro music scene · 37 events
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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Ben Folds Five forms in Chapel Hill
Ben Folds and bassist Robert Sledge, who had met at UNC Greensboro, moved to Chapel Hill and formed the piano trio Ben Folds Five with drummer Darren Jessee.
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The Cat's Cradle moves to Carrboro
After about six months dark, the club reopened in the former Nice Price Books space at 300 East Main Street, a standing-room hall holding about 750.
People: Frank Heath
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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Details magazine profiles the scene as "Chapel Hill-billies"
Details followed Spin with a February 1993 piece on the town's bands, and Time the same year named Chapel Hill as a possible alternative-rock boomtown.
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Hillsborough holds a celebration of Billy Strayhorn
A day of events called A Celebration of Billy Strayhorn began at the historical marker on South Churton Street and ran on at the Orange County Main Library and the Burwell School Historic Site. Mayor Tom Stevens, the musician Yahyah Corbett, the choreographer David Rousseve, the Duke professor Thomas DeFrantz and the puppeteer Jeghetto took part.
People: Tom Stevens
Subject: Burwell School · Orange County Public Library
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Cat's Cradle marks 50 years with an anniversary concert series
The "Cat's Cradle Turns 50" series put 50 acts on stage over six nights at the Carrboro club.
People: Frank Heath
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →
Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.
