Weirs

Meet @weirs.ig , a Triangle folk music collective that gathers singers & instrumentalists for otherworldly takes on traditional tunes. "On their 2nd album, Diamond Grove, Weirs covers some of the most familiar tunes from the traditional folk music canon. There’s “Lord Randall” and “Edward,” ballads made famous by American folk revival legend Jean Ritchie; the African-American spiritual “I Want to Die Easy” + two versions of the “Doxology.". Yet this still might be the most unusual folk record you’ll ever hear. Along with ambient noises typical of field recordings, it also has water dripping onto a grate, looped samples and mind-blowing distortion. One of those “Doxology” versions was recorded through an iPhone for a warped, otherworldly effect, punctuated by the faint sound of dogs baying in the distance. This mindset extends to the band’s name, Weirs, after the low barriers that direct the flow of a river," writes @ncdavidmenconi in our April issue. 📸 @chajbo + @rodeo_walrus

April is here and the Mixtape Live series continues with DJ sets by Charlie Harris of Megabitch, Justin Holm of Gunboat and IYEZ, Josh Kimbrough and Oliver Childs-Lanning of Weirs, Sluice + Fust. Every Sunday 6-10pm. Free. Flyer by @abigailfeldman

Fly Around welcomes Weirs to this year’s lineup. Weirs is an experimental collective grown out of central North Carolina’s music scene––one that is equal parts old-time and DIY noise. Non-hierarchical in form, past Weirs performances have included anywhere from two to twelve people. Their recent album Diamond Grove explores songs from across centuries, blending shape note harmonies with dissonance and the humid reverberations of a southern summer night. Weirs’ revolving cast is centered by Oliver Child-Lanning and often includes members of Sluice and festival friends Magic Tuber Stringband. @weirs.ig @lostprovincearts

13 | 01 @weirs.ig (@dearliferecs ) + Greater London Banjo Trio 📍@theatreship Presented by @broadsidehacks & @pickmeradio Tickets via dice.fm - If you head north on I-85 from Hillsborough, NC, and take the exit for 58 East, in fifteen minutes you’ll reach Diamond Grove, a small unincorporated area in Brunswick County, Virginia on the Meherrin River. To most eyes, there’s not much there—you’ll have to drive to Lawrenceville for groceries or to South Hill for hardware. But hidden in this patch of Virginia piedmont are the remnants of a dairy farm established in the 1740s, its main house an old two up, two down beauty still outfitted with rope beds and all. Go there today and you’ll hear distant sounds of someone working soybeans and cotton in the leased-out outbuildings, farm-use tires grinding gravel roads, frogs peeping, and chickadees singing out: chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee. But if you happened to pass through in September of 2023, you might’ve heard fiddle tunes ricocheting off the pines, BBs rattling-to-rest inside empties, and the sounds of Weirs recording their second LP and Dear Life Records debut: Diamond Grove. Weirs is an experimental collective grown out of central North Carolina’s music scene––one that is equal parts old-time and DIY noise. Non-hierarchical in form, past Weirs performances have included anywhere from two to twelve people. In September 2023, nine traveled up US-58 to pack into the living and dining rooms of the dairy farm main house, still in the family of band member and organizer Oliver Child-Lanning, whose relatives have been there for centuries. This Weirs lineup—neither definitive nor precious—includes Child-Lanning; Justin Morris and Libby Rodenbough (his collaborators in Sluice); Evan Morgan, Courtney Werner, and Mike DeVito of Magic Tuber Stringband; and stalwarts Andy McLeod, Alli Rogers, and Oriana Messer who played deep into those late-summer evenings. What resulted are the nine tracks of Diamond Grove, recorded with an ad hoc signal chain assembled from a greater-community’s worth of borrowed gear. #Weirs

I had a great time playing solo the other night in Boone at @huzzahbooks ! Damn that place is cool! If you're in Asheville and you'd like to see some storytelling and fiddling, come on down to Static Age Records this Friday, 12/12. It's an absolutely stacked bill with Weirs (@weirs.ig ) on tour and local wizard Shane Justice McCord (@shanejusticemccord ). Hope to see you there!

Tonight! Tuesday December 9th 7:30PM at The Perch located at 2321 Emerald Street (enter via side door on Arizona Street - 2 blocks for York/Dauphin MFL/L1 station) the first of three shows this week bringing our 2025 programming to a close. Traditional and experimental folk sounds collide and coexist with Weirs, Hour and Channel Marker. Tickets and info link in bio. See you there!

Today we share a live video of Lord Bateman, accompanied by shadow puppet play, that was taken at FEAST 5. Thanks to my sister Violet for puppet mastering, her assistants Goni and my dad, and the weirs band for playing. Watch it at the link in weirs bio, and catch us on tour this week!

Things we saw this fall

CORRECTED DATE: December 11th! The Cloak Room at the NCC 2025 season grand finale. Not to be missed, inimitable drone noise folk super group Weirs coming to join us from NC. Local support from two different string duos featuring Kaily and Mike and Courtney Werner and Mike DeVito respectively, and noise heroes of the Roanoke Valley, Dog Scream. Please come join us for some music, warm bevvies, and fellowship. We will also be once again collecting non-perishable food items and cash donations for our neighbors down the road @holler2holler (highly recommend following them for more ways to help out our community as the weather gets colder).

Big Weirs heads out on the road for the first time ever playing material from our new album, Diamond Grove. If you're in one of these cities please say hi! We'd love to see you. So excited for all the great bills people have put together and beautiful spaces we'll be playing. See you all there! 🙏🕯️🌷 (Picture by Libby @rodeo_walrus 👁️📸)

Today I'm excited to share the second track from "Diamond Grove," entitled "Everlasting." It comes from the hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" which dates back to the 1880s- a favorite of my grandmother's, who I used to sing it with as a child. Singing this and "Balm in Gilead" were some of the earliest experiences I had with the idea of being held or supported by a sublime power-- "held in the light" as Quakers would say. This version is an excerpt of a late-night instrumental improv recorded in the living room at Diamond Grove Farm, direct to a Zoom recorder.  Accompanying this musical release, I also am announcing an extremely limited run of lead crucifixes, which I'm calling the "Isaiah 2:4 Cross." I made these in the Iron-Age cuttlefish bone casting method from real melted civil-war grapeshot which was gathered by a relative in the 1880s at the site of the battle of Fredericksburg. The lead was then cast in Hillsborough, NC near Bennett Place, where Sherman's great wave crested and the coward slavers bowed their heads forever. Inscribed with the eponymous verse in dedication to a future without empire, nation, or war– and to all those now and throughout history struggling to make it so. "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." -Isaiah 2:4, KJV "Compare these Parisians, storming heaven, with the slave to heaven of the Holy Roman Empire, with its posthumous masquerades reeking of the barracks [and] Church..." -Marx, Letter to Dr Kugelmann on the Paris Commune, 1871 Extremely limited edition, one-of-a-kind pieces- each mold is destroyed by the casting and must be re-carved.

Feast V Schedule is here! Friday evening we'll be celebrating the release of Weirs' Diamond Grove, and then transitioning to the great Vernal Scuzz and Animal Surrender who will transport us into the night! Saturday is stacked, with 8 hours of music starting at 2pm and going to 11. Of course we'll have the FEAST, served at 7:00 pm fresh from the fires... And be sure to check out our sideshow, the Tomato Tent, where we'll have experimental installations and performance art running throughout the weekend. Some of our dear friends will be DJ-ing: playing folk, world, experimental and more from vinyl and tape mixes. Full-weekend hangers- we have plenty of room for camping, come early to set up if you can so that we don't interrupt the music. Reminder this year feast is at 4750 Orange Grove Road in Hillsborough! And thank you to our sponsor @nightlightclub for helping us bring these artists out... eternally grateful See you all around the fires...