Photos/Story by Jake Seaton

When you’re a young band in need of filling a vacancy in your lineup, you may daydream of recruiting some of the biggest names in the game. But realistically, getting those names on board probably isn’t going to happen.

That is unless you are Chicago-based Krautrock band Disappears.

Through a mutual friend, Disappears was introduced to Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley — you may have heard him on every Sonic Youth album since EVOL — and as fate would have it, Steve dug what he heard.

Surrounded by vintage machines in the Raleigh Denim workshop on Martin Street, Steve recalled, “Our friend Jeremy … took me to see the band at The Hideout in Chicago and I just immediately thought they were a great band.”

“When you like something, you like it. I just liked the attitude — the whole package.”

Recalling Sonic Youth and even another side project of Steve’s, Hallogallo 2010, Disappears derives its sound from a minimalist approach of loud guitars and repetition.

“It’s repetitive, it’s minimal, it’s fun as hell,” guitarist Brian Case (ex-Ponys) explained. “It’s kind of a wash of guitar with strong rhythms underneath it and sort of aggressive vocals — a call to arms, in a sense.”

Brian continued, “Really simple, repetitive, first instinct kind of stuff. It’s taken a while to get it where it is now — sort of refine it.”

Forming in 2008 as a super group of sorts of Chicago prog and garage bands, Disappears has released two full-lengths to date — 2010′s Lux and 2011′s Guider — and is eager to get back into the studio to record the songs they’ve written since the addition of Steve.

“We’ve been playing a lot this year, and we’ve worked a lot on these new tunes,” Brian said. “We’re at the point where we’re still excited about them and new things are happening every time we play them.”

Bassist Damon Carruesco added, “I think we’re at a particular point in our musical development where we’re all playing really well, and I think that playing with Steve has really elevated our playing.”

Photos/Story by Jake Seaton

Just five years ago, BRAIDS was a high school band working to make a name for itself in a Battle of the Bands competition.

Unfortunately, the Montreal-based quartet — at the time living in Calgary — lost to a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band and a judge named “Mulletor.”

“I think they were probably actually tighter than we were,” guitarist Austin Tufts recalled. “And they played more catchy music that was more oriented towards that [sort of show].”

The competition was BRAIDS’ — at the time, The Neighbourhood Council — first show, and to be fair, the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band wore costumes.

“We had the same score as them. The only reason why they won is they had costumes,” keyboardist Katie Lee was quick to point out.

“Costumes can sometimes win the judges,” Austin interjected. “One of the judges’ names was ‘Mulletor’ … This guy showed up and he was super big with this massive mullet, and he was like, ‘Sup, I’m Mulletor.’ We were like, ‘Whoa, this is going to be a weird show.’”

But not even Mulletor could stop BRAIDS.

The band took a year off after graduating from high school to pursue music and push themselves with 30 hours of rehearsals every week.

“We really pushed ourselves to develop a cohesive sound,” Austin recalled.

“Over the course of that year we eventually settled on something that was very collective and very group-oriented. There was no leader, there was no one person writing the songs — it was a collective effort.”

The result of this time are dense, textural pop tunes that have taken BRAIDS on two nationwide tours — one with Toro Y Moi and another with Baths — and now a headlining tour.

“[A]fter South by Southwest we got an offer [to play Hopscotch],” Austin explained. “I didn’t know much on the back end, but since we accepted the offer we’ve heard so many great things from tons of different bands.”

What the band wants to leave the audience when it walks away from Hopscotch is a strong sense of emotion generated by its wall of sounds.

“It’s definitely — at its roots — based around melody,” Austin said. “So in that sense, it is pop music, but it’s definitely pushing the boundaries in terms of songform, rhythm, and exactly how the melody is executed and how it’s supported by the rest of the band.

“So it’s very texural — there’s tons of layers going on all of the time.”

Katie added, “It requires a lot of patience. Whenever our friends come to see our shows, they’re always like, ‘Wow, I’m — like — emotionally drained.’”

Photos by Nick Pironio
Story by Jake Seaton

Just around the corner from where he will take the stage at Five Star during Hopscotch’s opening night, Israeli guitarist Yair Yona sits in The Curatory — the retail branch of Raleigh Denim — and recalls the serendipitous events that landed him at the three-day music festival.

“It is the weirdest coincidence in the world,” Yair laughed.

Einat Shaul, the director of cultural affairs for the Consulate General of Israel to the Southeast, reached out to Hopscotch organizers Grayson Currin and Greg Lowenhagen just as they began lining up acts for the festival second year.

“It happened to be that Grayson himself was in a record store, All Day Records in Carrboro, and saw my record on the wall and liked the cover,” Yair explained. “He liked the record and decided to go with it, and meanwhile there was a CD waiting for him with [Einat's] recommendation for him to listen to my music.

“All of the dots connected.”

It was Yair Yona‘s blues-soaked guitar work on his 2010 album Remember that inspired Grayson to call it “one of my favorite albums” of the year, and landed the musician on Hopscotch’s 2011 lineup.

“If I hadn’t landed on that record that day, I would have soon been writing about my favorite records of 2010 without having heard a record that, as it turns out, is one of the best things I’ve heard this year,” Grayson wrote.

While living in London in his 20s, Yair was exposed to Mississippi Delta blues and Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch, which lead to his love affair with acoustic guitars of all sorts — six-string, 12-string, slide, you name it. This combined with an appreciation for Italian horror soundtracks, free jazz, avant garde, industrial music, and countless other genres has helped him carve a unique niche

Describing his place in the wide music world, Yair was quick to point out, “It’s not blues, it’s not jazz, it’s not classical, it’s not indie, it’s not folk, it’s not rock, it’s … who knows man?”

Regardless of how you may describe his music, it’s obvious at first listen that Yair has a deep appreciation and respect for the guitar.

“It’s an instrument that can bring so much power or so much delicacy at the same time,” Yair explained.

“Because I’m not singing and the only thing I have got is the composition itself, I try to connect to an authentic place in myself because you can’t fake authenticity,” he said.

“If it’s authentic, [your music] hits the audience in the face … You want to entertain the audience and leave them with passion.”

Before taking the stage at Memorial Auditorium Monday night, The National stopped into Raleigh Denim‘s production space to try on some custom-fit jeans.

Photographer Nick Pironio was there to document the dudes in their new duds.

If you were at the show, you may recall The National gave a shout out to Sarah and Victor Lytvinenko and their unique craft.

For more celebrities rocking Sarah and Victor’s jeans, check out Gayngs in their custom white denim Wednesday night at Cat’s Cradle.