Night Life News in Raleigh

For those of you that haven’t been to Mosaic, it can be a real treat if you are in the mood.  The basement bar is like a cave carved into the side of Glenwood South.  A Moroccan theme permeates the decor and music and the atmosphere is a nice change of pace from your typical Raleigh night club. Saturday night Mosaic invites you to join its Carnival at 9pm.  They invite masks and “flamboyant” dress to decorate the sound of Samba and Afro beats with live drummers and belly dancers.  A rich event for sure.  Mosaic requires a $5 one-time membership fee. 

Remember large gold chains, In Living Color, Reebok Pumps, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and the beginning of hip hop music?  The transition from the 80s to 90s was a tough one for many, but hip hop was one of the guiding forces that led the way into a new decade.  Almost 20 years later this music is still influencing the likes of pop, electro and indie music.  From mashups to extreme neon colors, the beats and styles of the late 80s and early 90s are back in fashion.  If The Downtown Event Center gets its way, tonight will be a dance filled 90s “House Party” full of Das Efx, early Wu Tang, and who else but Biggie and Tupac.  At $50 for the best dressed, the threads should be in full effect.  Who want EFX? 

Irish pubs.  Downtown Raleigh has a handful of restaurants/bars that attach this “slogan” to the end of their name, but are they “public houses” in the true sense of the word?  Most of them are massive, serve pseudo-Irish food, and are more like mazes than the shotgun bar space that most authentic Irish pubs are known for in Ireland and the UK.  The James Joyce in Durham is one of the few spaces in the Triangle that actually resembles a true Irish pub (clientele: career drinkers, locals and raconteurs), but then again it is owned by an Irish lad.  The newly finished Smoking Times is another such bar.  Historically, the public House is synonymous with neighborhood bar and Raleigh needs more of these.  When The Landmark Tavern opens today, Raleigh may gain just that, a big city pub with the small town atmosphere.

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For awhile, a long, over-priced drinks, waiting half hour for the bathroom, danger of being vomited on while, I thought my options for Raleigh nightlife were confined to Glenwood Avenue South between Tucker and Jones Streets. 

Two weeks ago in The New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones wrote, in his (correction) article A Paler Shade of White:  How indie rock lost its soul, about the history of “indie-music” and its lack of relation to “soul, blues, reggae, or funk.” It took a couple of pages worth of reading to figure out her point, but last night, it took only the first note of Band of Horses frontman Benjamin Bridwell singing Lamb on the Lam (In the City) at Lincoln Theatre to realize that they have just as much soul as they do “white rock”.

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