Bryant also performed the track “Good Girl Gone Bad” exclusively for Music.MyNC.

Legendary rock photographer Robert Knight is renowned for his iconic photos of Led Zepplin and The Rolling Stones before they became the icons they are today. Now, Knight prides himself on “discovering” new talent and helping them nurture their careers. Recently that has included Panic! At the Disco and Australian band Sick Puppies.

Knight has set his sights on Bryant and is trying to convince the rock world that he has discovered “the next Stevie Ray Vaughan.”

You can check out photos from this performance and others at the Music.MyNC Facebook Fan page. And while you’re there, become a fan and get the latest updates on upcoming Studio B performances.

“Upper Air moves away from the singular sound and sentiment,” Dead Oceans describes of the album. “Each and every song on Upper Air is a journal entry that stands on its own, each a singular, beautiful piece.”

Leading up to Upper Air’s release, Dead Oceans released the tracks “Beneath Your Tree” and “Northern Lights” to give fans a taste of what to expect on the new LP.

“There are thousands of overwrought songs released every year that beg and plead and all but demand their prospective audience to feel something,” Pitchfork’s David Raposa writes. “‘Northern Lights’ takes the road less traveled and simply asks that you listen.”

On July 6, Bowerbirds will hit the road with Durham-based Megafaun for a cross-country tour through much of the summer. The stint will finish up with a performance at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro on Aug. 22.

Before the tour, Beth Tacular and Phil Moore stopped by to perform a few songs and talk about their new album on Sessions at Studio B.

You can check out photos from this performance and others at the Music.MyNC Facebook Fan page. And while you’re there, become a fan and get the latest updates on upcoming Studio B performances.

The Foreign Exchange and Little Brother emcee Phonte Coleman cites Michael Jackson as the main reason why he is where he is, and says Jackson’s death has hit him on both an emotional and personal level.

“Being a young kid, being a music fan — and growing up wanting to do music — to see somebody like Michael Jackson on the screen and to see him on such a huge level; it was really inspiring for kids like me who had dreams of doing music themselves,” Phonte said.

Despite his recent personal troubles and battles with the media, Michael Jackson’s influence and legacy will forever live on in the music industry — not just for his songs, but also his high-energy performances

“He really pushed the boundaries artistically with his videos,” Phonte said. “He really took it and made it an art form … When he was doing his videos, he was having movie directors do his stuff — he had John Landis who did ‘Thriller,’ he had Martin Scorsese who did ‘Bad,’ he had Spike Lee who did ‘They Don’t Care About Us‘ — so he was really pushing that boundary and making a true art form as far as videos go.”

[UPDATE] Phonte posted a well thought out blog addressing the controversy that Jackson faced in the later years of his life.

But in 1999, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst introduced the world to a band that would change the landscape of alternative metal.

“[Durst] is the one person in a line of many who heard what we had to offer and actually put himself on the line for us, ” Staind frontman Aaron Lewis says.

Trading Durst’s signature backwards baseball cap for a slick, shaved head and nu-metal’s rap tendencies for brooding, often bleak lyrics, Staind unknowingly redefined the genre and made way for bands such as Cold, Breaking Benjamin, Seether, Trapt and Hinder to storm popular music airwaves.

This shift was much more in line with the direction grunge was moving in the early ’90s when radio began trading Nirvana for Live, and Alice in Chains for Collective Soul and Candlebox. Lewis chalks this new movement in alternative metal to the cyclical nature of popular music and the fact that rock bands often “regurgitate” what has already been done.

“Everything has been done once — at least,” Lewis says. “Anybody in rock music is ripping off Black Sabbath or any of those bands from that era that really kind of blew the rock thing wide open for all of us.”

Since Staind peaked in popularity in 2001 with Break the Cycle, popular music has again shifted to a retro-fitted style that mimics music of the ’70s and ’80s. This swing from brooding to poppy has not affected Staind’s record sales much, however, and Lewis says the band’s natural progression from album to album has a lot to do with it.

“We were much younger 11 years ago. I was still full of all the teenage anger that I was holding onto,” Lewis says. “Over the years, writing lyrics and writing these records has been cathartic for me. It’s a way of getting this stuff off my chest so I don’t have to carry it around anymore.”

Sporting a low-profile, black Boston Red Sox baseball cap, black T-shirt and oversized jeans, one might have the notion that Lewis still clings to the nu-metal ethos, but he asserts his understanding of the need for musical progression.

“Once [something is] off my chest, I don’t want to keep revisiting it so that nothing changes. And I’d like to hope that our fans don’t want the same record from us over and over again.”

So far the formula has proven to be successful for Staind as the albums Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey and V all debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, and 2008’s The Illusion of Progress debuted at number three. And while Korn has struggled to capture the same success it saw pre-1999 and Limp Bizkit is still fighting its label of “Worst Band of the Year” from a 2003 Guitar World readers poll, Staind has continued to sell albums and release singles that captivate modern rock radio.

However, there may be a resurgence on the horizon for late-’90s alternative metal with the announcement last week that guitarist Wes Borland has once again teamed up with Fred Durst to record another Limp Bizkit album. In turn, that may lead to another run of Family Values tour dates.

“Limp Bizkit is working on music again and they plan on going back out on tour,” Lewis says. “That would be pretty cool to put the Family Values thing back together again -– I’d be in.”

While the fate of post-grunge still hangs in the balance, Lewis will continue touring and recording with Staind, and he is planning a solo release that will feature many of the songs that he presents during his intimate, acoustic performances.

“There are a few songs I’ve been throwing out there over the past year or so that are songs that I wrote while I was out on tour or just have kicking around,” Lewis says. “They’ll be on the solo record –- renditions of them, anyways. They’re never finished until you go into the studio.”

“We didn’t really understand the magnitude of it,” Bradley Cook of the band Megafaun and The Great Eight class of ‘08 said. “It definitely felt like a different turning point.”

Making its presence known on the list this year is Greenville via Raleigh-based band Lonnie Walker, who will see the release of its debut album this Spring and has a slot on this year’s South by Southwest music and arts festival in Austin, Texas.

“To be honest, it kinda hit me by surprise,” Lonnie Walker frontman Brian Corum said.

But success for the bands is not always instant.

“We’re all just as broke as we were before,” Corum said.

The project is always a labor of love — having to start in November just to produce a full multimedia package ready to be released in February — Menconi each year pours through hordes of bands who call the Triangle home. However, with the birth of weekly events like WKNC’s Local Beer Local Band at Tir Na Nog on Thursdays, Menconi has found that the support of local venues has made it easier to find bands he may deem worthy of The Great Eight — and if not this year’s list, then maybe next.

“I often run across bands for the first time at [Local Beer Local Band],” Menconi says. “It’s a great thing; every week there’s a couple of other great bands — local — and often I haven’t seen them. It’s a great way to check in.”

Although it is always satisfying to see the bands he picked in previous years become successful on a larger scale, Menconi remains humble.

“I’m not saying we’re great predictors,” he says. “But it is nice when bands you give some recognition to do go on to bigger and better things.”

What isn’t always satisfying is the backlash he sometimes receives with the release of the list. Sometimes bands are not interested in being featured on The Great Eight or even sitting still long enough to shoot a decent portrait for the feature; while other times local media outlets find the list to be a means for sparking controversy.

Just last year, the list stirred controversy when Independent Weekly published an article criticizing the annual list’s intentions as well as the N&O’s local music coverage. Despite the backlash, Menconi remained positive and fairly quiet about the situation, saying that anyone who paid attention knew that the claims against N&O’s local music coverage “just aren’t true.”

In years past, The Great Eight has included bands such as Annuals, The Old Ceremony, Megafaun, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Bowerbirds and Alina Simone. It’s easy to say that the majority of these acts haven’t yet “made it,” but all have garnered quite the buzz; especially in the last year. It is this year’s list, though, that contains some of the most phenomenal acts in the feature’s history — and perhaps that is partially due to the thriving music scene that has really begun to prosper here in the Triangle over the past couple of years.

With bands like Annuals, The Love Language, Chatham County Line and Bowerbirds as well as expatriates such as Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and Tift Merritt really seeming to hit their marks recently, there’s no doubt that the rest of the United States is beginning to catch on to the fact that with our massive University communities, the Triangle is a breeding ground for musical talent.

Like in previous years, a Great Eight showcase will be held at Local 506 in Chapel Hill. This year’s concert will feature Lonnie Walker, Hammer No More The Fingers, Violet Vector the Lovely Lovelies and Double Negative on Feb. 13. Tickets for the performance are $5.

When you are an actor and you sing a song what could seem like 525,600 times, little moments that happen in places like Durham are the things that can stick with you.

“It looked to me that there was a young mother and, probably, her 7-year-old daughter in the front row last night,” Rent star Anthony Rapp said smiling. “The little girl was looking right up to me and singing along to every word of ‘Seasons of Love’ and that was really sweet.”

“Rentheads” know the names Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal. By week’s end, thousands more will here in the Triangle. The two stars are now back in the traveling version of the Broadway show. The iconic musical drew devoted fans to New York’s Nederlander Theatre for years. A version of the show hit the big screen in 2005.

“Even though the movie was not — by any means — a big hit at the box office, it’s had a good life on DVD and on cable,” Rapp said. “Even when you’re not a huge hit at the box office, you’re still seen by millions of people. It would take — in New York at the Nederlander Theatre where it played — two years of being sold out of every performance for one million people to see it.”

Life is different on the road. Rapp does yoga whenever he can. Pascal hits hotel gyms to try to get cardio and weight training in during this hectic schedule. Both bring water bottles with them to keep hydrated.

“I have a wife and kids so it’s difficult to leave them back home,” Pascal said. “But I’m actually enjoying being out here. The physicality of the show is very demanding, and to perform the show at the level we’re expected to perform it … we have to exercise, we have to eat the right kinds of food. We have to take care of our bodies. It’s not like a touring rock band.”

You can sense that the two feed off each other’s energy, especially on-stage.

“It was always a package deal,” Pascal said. “Neither one of us wanted to do it without the other one,”

The production is taking the cast around the country — in Tempe, Ariz. one week; Minneapolis, Minn. the next.

“Because a show lives and breathes in the ensemble and the energy that happens between the actors and the audience, we’re blessed with an incredible group of people where we’re all there for each other,” Rapp said.

Both said the movie version of the Broadway musical opened up a new generation of Rent fans.

“The film version really helps tell a particular story — not just the story of the show,” Rapp said. “But it also tells a story of part of the history of [the] AIDS crisis. I think that young people have grown up with AIDS being a part of their life, but they don’t always know all of the truth of what it was like at a certain time.”

“One of the things I’m proud of — in the film in particular being seen by young people — that it can bring them to the theatre. That’s really exciting: to encourage them to seek out a live production. I think the truest and purest expression of the piece is the theatrical version.”

Pascal said that’s one of the reasons Rent still hits home.

“You hear about what people went through. It’s almost like when I see stuff about Vietnam … to, in a way, experience what it felt like for people who actually went through it,” Pascal said.

Rent plays through Sunday at the Durham Performing Arts Center.

“There’s so much in this show about love and life and the questions that you can ask yourself about what is it that we’re here for,” Rapp said. “One of the questions I think the show asks is given that we don’t know how much time we’re going to be here, what are you going to do with the time you have.”

However, this is not the work of the famed U2 guitarist; rather it is Annuals keyboardist Anna Spence and guitarist Kenny Florence. It is not a mistake that “Hot Night Hounds” is laced with U2 influences, as Florence explains, “That’s what I told the producer, ‘Ya gotta make me sound like The Edge.’”

Check out some of the other bands that have influenced the members of Annuals in the video above. And if you haven’t seen the band’s exclusive performance on Sessions at Studio B, venture over to the video’s landing page.

RALEIGH — Radio host Kitty Kinnin is still amazed by the number of e-mails she receives every morning.

She is amazed by the memories, the well wishes and mostly, the welcome back to the Triangle.

If you listened to local rock radio in the mid-to-late ’80s and early ’90s you already know her voice.

It’s top shelf scotch with a dose of sugar; a smoky relaxed voice that is more than distinctive. You can’t mistake it.

Such was the case on a recent morning when I grew tired of political coverage on NPR and switched my truck radio dial to Raleigh’s 100.7 FM The River. See Kinnin’s Web site Here.

WRDU was named Rolling Stone's "Best Radio Station of the Year" several years in a row beginning in 1989.

I instantly knew “the voice.” There, sitting in traffic on the Beltline, my mind went back in time to the late ’80s when I listened to the old WRDU 106.1 FM when it was the classic rock king. Then, Kitty Kinnin was the voice of midday and the popular Sunday Brunch — a jazz and blues show every Sunday morning.

It turns out I was not alone. In the last couple of months, a lot of listeners have had the same reaction.

This is just one of many e-mails Kinnin has recently received:

“I wanted to drop you a note a let you know you have another fan. Don’t cuss at me, but I have been almost exclusively an XM radio listener for the past 4 or 5 years. Last week, on my way to work, I was stuck in morning traffic and decided to check out The River for a traffic update. I am a classic rock fan, so I have listened to the station periodically. Imagine my surprise when I heard your voice and thought to myself: that sounds like Kitty that used to be on WKZL years ago. Yes, I used to listen to you on that station as well! As soon as you said your name, of course my thoughts were confirmed. Well, let me tell you, at least for my morning drive each day, I will no longer be listening to XM radio, I will be listening to you!”

After a five-year stay in Wilmington and a decade after leaving WRDU, Kinnin returned to the rock radio airwaves as the morning host from 6 to 9 a.m. on 100.7 FM. And that’s not all.

She also arranged a bargain when she agreed to come back.

She brought back her Sunday Jazz and Blues Brunch from 9 a.m. to noon on Sundays. In fact, she is in control of the music she plays — which ranges from jazz to eclectic — and the content of the show. She said getting to do the show again helped entice her to return even though she had not planned on getting back into radio full-time.

“I just missed Raleigh, I really did,” Kinnin said. “I was going to come back and not really do radio. I was going to do freelance work and then this happened. It just fell in my lap. It was like fate.”

(See more from her interview in the video above.)

And it seems her personality is making a difference. The response over the last couple of months has been great.

Still, the question is “Why?”

For some, it is reviving the old spirit that existed at WRDU. There was a certain chemistry among the DJs that ran from true musical knowledge to the perfect mix of personalities. WRDU, which was known for its “Reynolds And Silva Show” in the mornings and such personalities as Tom Gongaware, Donna Reed, Gayle Rancer, Bob Walton, Tom Guild, Lizz Wall, Paul Jackson and several others, was a radio powerhouse.

WRDU launched its classic rock format in 1984 but today operates as 106.1 The Rooster — a modern country music station. WRDU was born from the old Peabody award-winning WQDR, which ironically is also now a country music station.

Kinnin says the atmosphere for radio and music was different during her WRDU days. She said people were more invested with radio then and spent longer times listening during the day. The times, she said, were also different.

Other than that, it is hard to pinpoint what led WRDU to become Rolling Stone’s people’s choice “Radio Station of the Year” for several years in the a row beginning in the late ’80s.

Tom Gongaware is now vice president and managing broker at York Simpson Underwood in Raleigh. He was on the air at WRDU with Kinnin and was a member of the “WRDU family.”

He said it was a genuine love for the music, talent and passion that led to the station’s success. He also said it was all-live radio with a great local flavor. And then it was a family; warts and all. More than one former staffer called that group a group of “rockers.” It was that simple to them.

Whatever it is, it seems to be returning in some way, at least for Kinnin’s listeners.

Gongaware said Kinnin has a wonderful combination of a great voice and personality. But there’s more, he said.

“She has just an incredible enthusiasm for the music,” he said. “You could understand that she was more than just a voice. That is the kind of stuff that an audience relates to.”

And there’s the other side as well.

“She was never known for being early to her shift,” Gongaware said, and laughed.

Bob 'The Blade' and Kitty Kinnin attend one of the infamous WRDU parties in the 1980s.

Other former members of “the family” also remember the laughs. Local radio legend “Bob the Blade” was an original when WRDU launched its classic rock format in 1984 and he worked with Kinnin for many years. In fact, they both worked at a small TV station introducing music videos for a brief period in 1984. He too is on the local airwaves again, but now as an afternoon host on 96 Rock in the Triangle.

His days in local radio are much fabled. In 2006 while on the air after WRDU’s switch to a country music format, he quit his job. He told his listeners that he couldn’t work as a country music DJ, switched the music to The Who’s “The Song Is Over” and literally walked out.

(Listen to Bob the Blade’s infamous resignation)

“I have to say, you cannot find a sweeter girl than that one; I mean it,” Bob The Blade wrote in an e-mail. “Charming and totally engaging.”

That being said, he couldn’t help having a little fun:

“Seems like Kitty hurts her foot a lot,” he wrote. “I remember once back in the ’90s, she hurt her foot again and I saw her at the station (WRDU) stumbling around with a cane, and I just cracked up when I saw her. She has a great sense of humor so it didn’t hurt her feelings; she laughed too.”

And, even better:

“I used to totally make fun of her Jazz Brunch. First off, I always called her “Brunchie” and I still do,” he wrote. “I would always ask her what was on tap for the jazz brunch on Sunday, and then I’d make a request for some Kiko Matsui or Bela Fleck & The Flecktones or someone with the first name ‘Hans’ … anybody with a weird name. If your band had a weird name, you’d hear it on the Jazz Brunch. ‘Eclectic’ she would call it … meaning ‘whatever Kitty liked.’”

He, too, thought about the question of the WRDU team’s chemistry.

“What a great question about the team chemistry back then at WRDU. I guess we were just lucky enough to all like each other, and we were all rockers so we liked the same music and that was a BIG help.”

Now on 100.7 The River, Kinnin is again becoming known for her quotes of the day, her stories that go along with the songs formatted into her show and last, but not least, her recipes. Her cooking passion has become an ongoing conversation between her and her listeners as they literally swap recipes.

You’ll likely soon see a new locally roasted coffee blend dedicated to her. The Triangle’s 8th Sin Coffee is developing the “Bad Kitty Blend,” which will include portions of the proceeds going to local women’s domestic violence causes. You might even hear some of Kinnin’s voiceover work and most likely see her back in local music venues loving the place that she still calls home. To that end, you may even see her on TV again after a successful run at an ABC affiliate in Wilmington as the host of “The Hometown Show.”

At a recent interview during her morning shift, all was quiet as she commanded a studio sound board, several computer screens, a ringing phone and other stuff that looked complicated.

It was 9 a.m. Her shift ended and she signed off once again with her signature “Ciao.”

Sure the times might have changed, but it seems Kitty Kinnin’s fans have not.