Named event or history
Cat’s Cradle, the ArtsCenter, Merge Records, WXYC, Local 506 and the bands that came through them.
In briefCat'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."
312 indexed works are connected with this event. 2 held at OCPL →
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this event. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.
Tom Maxwell's 2024 account of Chapel Hill's alternative rock scene in the 1990s, set against North Carolina's longer musical history. Maxwell writes as a musician who played in that scene, and the book follows the bands, clubs and labels that drew national attention to the town. Subjects include alternative rock music, Chapel Hill, 1991-2000, history and criticism. Published by Hachette, 310 pages with plates.
John Cook's history of Merge Records, the independent label that Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Superchunk built in Chapel Hill. Chapters follow the label year by year from 1987 to 2009 and pause for profiles of Butterglory, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Magnetic Fields, Spoon, Lambchop and the Arcade Fire, ending on how it managed to stay small. Advance reading copy of the first edition, published in Chapel Hill in 2009, 289 pages with twelve pages of plates.
A 2015 zine produced by people at WXYC, the college radio station in Chapel Hill.
Essays on the American independent music underground, edited by Thomas Howells according to the colophon and published in London in 2013. The essays include the history and criticism of alternative rock in Chapel Hill. Of interest to readers following North Carolina music of the late twentieth century.
Concert film of the Archers of Loaf recorded at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro on August 19 and 20, 2011, released on a single videodisc running 89 minutes in color with sound. Extras include six additional songs, four interviews with the band and a trailer. Topics include rock concerts in Carrboro and rock music of the 2010s.
Visual discography covering the first twenty years of Merge Records, the independent label founded in Chapel Hill, published by the label itself in 2009. Album covers and catalog listings make up the substance of it, and the spine carries the label number MRG353. Topics include the sound recording industry in Chapel Hill and catalogs of album covers.
Katie R. Almirall's senior honors thesis statement, written to accompany her exhibition in the Center Gallery of the ArtsCenter in Carrboro from April 2 to 28, 2007. Twenty one leaves with illustrations, describing collaborative art work with Latino young people in the town. Topics include community arts projects and Hispanic American youth in Carrboro.
Event calendars issued by the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, recorded from 1995 and printed in illustrated volumes at 35 centimeters. The title varies from issue to issue. The series gives dates and listings for the center's performances and classes.
Video compilation of seventeen music videos by Chapel Hill area bands, directed by Norwood Cheek and released by Cane Man Films of Carrboro in 1994, with clips of local figures cut between the songs. Running an hour and seven minutes on VHS, it documents the Chapel Hill alternative rock scene of the early 1990s. Subjects include alternative rock and popular music in Chapel Hill.
William Bish asked in 1992 how government funding shapes arts programming, drawing on the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, and considering arts fundraising in the town and across North Carolina. A typescript of 66 leaves, closing with a bibliography on leaves 65 and 66.
Periodical issued by WXYC, the radio station in Chapel Hill, from 1991. Three volumes, 22 centimeters.
Archived captures of the WXYC website, the college radio station in Chapel Hill. Part of the Records of the Media Board, collection 40159, in the University Archives at Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Published in San Francisco.
Episodes in this history, earliest first. Each has its own page.
Other dated events here: sixteen of 34, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 34 dated events in the chronology →
Nye, who had worked for Milton Abernethy, opened a record shop in the store the Smiths' bookshop had just left.
Cat's Cradle opened in 1969 as a tiny basement music club near the UNC campus, named for Kurt Vonnegut's novel. After moves within Chapel Hill it settled at 300 East Main Street in Carrboro in 1993, where it became a regular stop for touring acts.
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
At 19, the Flat Duo Jets singer and guitarist was living in a shack he had fitted out behind the Romweber family house in Carrboro, sleeping beside a coffin. The house itself, where his siblings Sara and Joe also played in bands, was known for practices and police noise complaints.
Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance started Merge in Chapel Hill in 1989, the year they formed Superchunk, to put out their own band's and friends' records on 7-inch singles and cassettes.
People: Mac McCaughan · Laura Ballance
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
After working out of several Chapel Hill houses, Merge took space at 120 East Main Street in Carrboro, upstairs from the Armadillo Grill; it moved to a Chapel Hill house in 1996 and to Durham in 2001.
People: Mac McCaughan · Laura Ballance
The Chapel Hill quartet's first album came out on Merge in 1992, followed by Today's Active Lifestyles on Merge in 1993.
Jim Mathus and Katharine Whalen, who had moved from Chapel Hill to a farmhouse in Efland, started the band in summer 1993, played their first show that November and signed with Mammoth Records in 1994.
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.
The Chapel Hill band's first album came out on Alias Records; Merge later reissued it with bonus material.
WXYC streamed its radio broadcast over the internet on November 7, 1994.
The band's second album and its single "Hell" reached the national charts during the swing revival, and Hot went platinum.
Stamey served as musical director for a live staging of Big Star's 1975 album Third, which debuted at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro before later shows in London and at South by Southwest in 2012.
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
Merge marked 25 years with a festival built around Cat's Cradle, ending with an outdoor show in the club's parking lot that organizers expected to draw about 3,000 people after the indoor nights sold out. Passes were sold through the Cat's Cradle website.
Part of The Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990s · 27 events
People: Mac McCaughan
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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
Merge celebrated its 35th anniversary with four shows at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, the club that had held its earlier anniversary festivals, in the same year the label was named to the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.
People: Mac McCaughan
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.
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Picture: Sparklehorse at the Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, 2007. CC BY 2.0. Photograph by broma; via Wikimedia Commons
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