About a week and a half ago I got my first live experience of alt/roots rock and alt country at Slim’s as Austin Collins & The Rainbirds (above) and Patty Hurst Shifter (below) took the stage to play some deep, rustic, and hard rockin’ grooves.

I had read about Patty Hurst Shifter and Austin Collins a few days before the show in the Independent, but didn’t know much else beyond that. Although I didn’t know what to expect, I experienced a very intense and memorable couple of hours. It began with a gradual and steady buildup with Collins’ set and led out with intense rock and roll fury with the final closing and subsequent solo guitar sets by Patty Hurst Shifter.

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Every month on the first Friday, most, if not all, of the galleries in the downtown area open up their new exhibits with really enjoyable receptions. Many people drive downtown and walk to as many of the galleries as they can with the night usually culminating in a few drinks at a local bar. For me, it’s probably one of my favorite times of any given month because it’s a great opportunity to see many of my friends as well as check out the artwork. Also happening every first Friday of the month is a downtown bike ride often hijacking at least one lane of traffic. Most are college aged or young professionals, although anyone and everyone is welcome. Usually we have a good distribution of ages. Typically we’re following our noses to the places with the free beer or wine as well as the places where our friends or colleagues have shows. The advantages are that A) you can visit many more galleries over a much broader area than you could by foot, and B) that there is no problem finding a parking place right in front of the galleries. This month was no exception, and due to the beautifully fall-tacular weather, we had a huge turnout! We had 35 riders when I took the picture above at RebusWorks.

The route we followed was from RebusWorks which had a neat political exhibit titled Pro/Con. RebusWorks is down by AntFarm right past the Boylan Bridge. They usually feature what they describe as compelling and innovative work and to their credit, it always is both compelling and innovative!

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On the eastern fringe of downtown Raleigh an imposing Jacobean manor stands sentinel over the surrounding neighborhood. I am referring, of course, to the former Thompson School on East Hargett St. Although the school itself closed with the merger of the city and county public school systems in 1976, the building still bears a prominence in the community today as Wake County’s family services Thompson Center.
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