Superchunk News

DIY icons Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Superchunk dropped by New York City's Housing Works Bookstore Friday for a reading from Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label that Got Big and Stayed Small , a new oral history about their revered 20-year-old label.

The home to dozens of bands - including Arcade Fire , Spoon, Lambchop , as well as founders Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance's band Superchunk - is a success, artistically and businesswise, an industry rarity as it celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

The closing track on FOX Japan 's recent disc, " Hell ," recounts tales of pre-pubescent revelry in early-nineties West Virginia.

Think of all the truly awesome things that Merge Records has accomplished in its 20-year existence.

Live version of Superchunk's fab new single. For better audio and a different take on the song, after the jump check out the acoustic, sitting-on-the-porch version , performed by Mac and Jim, for Play.Converse.com. D.C. Bound: Mac McCaughan will be at Crooked Beat on Mon., Oct.

History is never far away with North Carolina music, and those connections with the past are everywhere.

Durham Cirque Dreams: Illumination Durham Performing Arts Center - Remember the old Bravo network? Before it rebranded itself with reality shows centered around artsy professions and real housewives, Bravo was known for airing avant-garde theater productions and a whole lot of Cirque du Soleil.

OUR NOISE John Vook with Mac McCaughan & Laura Ballance Algonquin Books When John Cook opens the 11th chapter in Our Noise, 'If there is a quintessential Merge band aside from Superchunk, it is Lambchop,' it becomes instantly clear what this book is.

From the early 1980s, the New Zealand pop scene has flourished, mostly through the Christchurch-based label Flying Nun Records.

Son Volt's Jay Farrar and Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard will tour together next month in support of their collaborative album, One Fast Move Or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur .

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records John Cook with Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance Algonquin Books, 294 pp.

To commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Merge Records, the North Carolina-based independent record label launched by Superchunk's Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance, author John Cook retraces its story, how two 20-year-olds in an indie-rock band needed a place to put out records and decided to do it themselves.

Could Our Noise , out Sept. 15, be the best-read rock book since Our Band Could Be Your Life ? It tells the story of Merge Records , and how the bedroom-born label, started in the '90s in Chapel Hill by Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance, has not only stuck around for 20 years , but has also shaped the careers of the Chunk ...

Memoirs, biographies, and personal recollections can take us far beyond dry historical accounts.

My Labor Day? So kind of you to ask. Filled with hot dogs and Prince , a few art shows here and there , Helado Negro and Inglourious Basterds .

This summer's happening event within the tight-knit circle of indie rock has been the 20th anniversary of Merge Records... "the little label that could." A much younger Merge Records was still scoring a decade earlier.

Does the world really need another rock band? If the band is fronted by Mac McCaughan, yes.

Does the world really need another rock band? If the band is fronted by Mac McCaughan, yes.

Mac and Britt embrace The much anticipated XX Merge Festival took place last week in North Carolina with a five-day , Wednesday to Sunday run of shows.

After Heretic Pride and the Satanic Messiah EP, John Darnielle's getting more Godly with the forthcoming The Life Of The World To Come , which features a 12-song tracklist made entirely of Bible verses.