It’s summertime, and there's no shortage of events around Charlotte. Ryan Pitkin, editor of Queen City Nerve, joins WFAE's "All Things Considered" host Mark Rumsey for another edition of Weekend In Entertainment.
Mark Rumsey: Hey, Ryan.
Ryan Pitkin: How's it going, Mark? Thanks for having me.
Rumsey: You bet. Hang onto your seat here. (Music plays.) A real wakeup call there. What are we listening to?
Pitkin: Absolutely that's Charlotte-based band King Cackle. They describe themselves as gritty N.C. swamp blues-rock and our contributing writer Pat Moran described them as what the animatronic Pirates Of The Caribbean would sound like if they got drunk and started a punk blues band. Got to give a shout out to Pat Moran because he's a much better music writer than I am so I just had to quote him there.
Rumsey: Mercy. Okay. King Cackle when and where?
Pitkin: They're going to be joining Uncle Buck, another a great rock band from Charlotte, at the Skylark Social Club on Friday night at 9 p.m. That's about $10 to $13 dollars depending on when you buy — at the door or beforehand.
Rumsey: Well, Ryan, soccer is on a lot of folks minds these days, you know, with the U.S. Women's National Team winning the World Cup, of course, a deal to bring the International Champions Cup to Bank of America Stadium, and then Panthers owner David Tepper working to land a Major League Soccer team here in Charlotte. But for this weekend, what's on the agenda for local soccer fans?
Pitkin: Right, so we have our first — I don't know if it's our first, but we have a first in five years — of International Champions Cup soccer coming to town. It'll be Arsenal, an English team, and ACF Fiorentina, which is a team from Italy. It was actually supposed to be a AS Roma. I think diehard soccer fans would tell you if it was still going to be AS Roma-Arsenal it would be a better game for just real soccer. But in general, it's going to be entertaining, especially taking into effect it was announced this week that Megan Rapinoe will be sort of continuing on her World Cup Victory Tour in coming by for the House of Soccer Fan Fest that will be a part of Saturday's events.
Rumsey: Okay, fun. The game is on Saturday evening at Bank of America Stadium. So what else is going on in the uptown area with that?
Pitkin: Right. If you go over to Romare Bearden Park or right there near Bank of America Stadium where the soccer game will be played, you're going to get live music, food trucks, gaming stations, and a beer garden. So it's expected to bring all sorts of people to the region for this game. And Megan Rapinoe coming here, she's going to be teaching sort of a skills camp. It's sort of impromptu, as we're recording this, that she just announced it, so I'm not sure exactly how you get involved with that or take part, but she'll be doing that before the game and then doing the coin toss for the actual match itself.
Rumsey: A lot of fun for soccer fans on Saturday. Moving on to Sunday. There's something going on called the “Hype” screening. Fill us in on that.
Pitkin: So this is from our neighbors to the north in Durham. A guy named Holland Gallagher is a filmmaker up there and does a web series called "Hype" that really was popular in the Durham area, specifically because it takes place there. It's about hip-hop and startup groups and stuff. Five 20 minute episodes. You can check him out on YouTube, but he has decided to move forward with a second season, and now he's just sort of trying to spread the word to different towns around Charlotte, different cities and get some support going. So he's going to be actually at the new spot name BESocial CLT, which is a spot that David Butler has set up and hosted some events there in Plaza Midwood. There’s going to be a DJ set, stuff like that. It'll be a great time.
Rumsey: All right. A lot of variety. Ryan Pitkin with Queen City Nerve. And before we go, you come with a little shameless plug, too.
Pitkin: Absolutely. Next weekend, July 27, we will be at Norfolk Hall at Suffolk Punch hosting our second big event after the Vodka Masters. This one's called Scallywag Social, and we're going to have all sorts of stuff out there from dunk tape to sideshow performances to live music to a rum tiki drink competition so definitely go to our website or go to our Facebook page to find that and sign up to get tickets. Tickets are $15 dollars all you can drink with samples and get to take part in all the fun.
Rumsey: Ryan, thanks for the previews. Have a great weekend.
Pitkin: Appreciate it, Mark.
