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Starting this Friday, the darlings of Raleigh’s internet radio will launch a series of live listening parties aimed at elevating music important to the city, both as overlooked art and conversations that need some public air.
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So the natural kick-off to this string of record-spinning edu-tainment will focus on a long-lost record from crucial Raleigh rockers and shoegaze pioneers The Veldt — music that sat dormant for 34 years.
The series known as Groove History opens at City of Raleigh Museum during First Friday, and it features “Illuminated 89,” the band’s debut record that Capitol Records packed away in mothballs after a staff shakeup. Not only will the record echo loudly across Fayetteville Street, the band itself will follow it live.
The Veldt drew rave reviews in 1990 — “angry, breast-beating and cocky,” wrote The N&O — but Capitol dropped them when their biggest cheerleader left the company.
But reformed as Apollo Heights, twins Danny and Daniel Chavis relocated to New York and created seminal songs of the shoegaze genre, loosely defined by soft vocals over hazy, atmospheric layers of sound.
The idea comes from Little Raleigh Radio, the city’s nonprofit Internet radio station playing all original programming chosen by live DJs.
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The hope is that these quarterly listening sessions at Raleigh’s museum will both grant more visibility to this vibrant online medium and direct the city’s eye to more of its own creations.
Just last month, Little Raleigh Radio celebrated its 15th anniversary, and the collaboration with the museum might enhance both of their profiles.
“Music we think either has a strong historic connection to the city of Raleigh, or music that kind of is part of the conversation,” said Little Raleigh Radio co-founder Jacob Downey. “Something topical, but something we still like about living in the city of Raleigh and the kind of culture we want to see grow here.”
The Veldt’s “Illumination 1989” finally got released in 2023 once the rights got wrestled away from Capitol.
And as the band noted on its Instagram announcement, on Friday, hometown ears can at long last enjoy a “proper spin.”
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