Queen City Nerve

Duke Energy originally proposed an 18% rate hike but has now revised it to 11.6%. (Photo courtesy of Duke Energy) Summers in North Carolina are hot and sticky, making air conditioning an essential need, not a luxury. We depend on it to keep our homes, families and food cool.

Kirk Frankin, this year’s host, performs at the Stellar Awards in 2016. (Photo by Earl Gibson III) Charlotte is one of nine American municipalities that has been dubbed the City of Churches. A 2015 Business Insider article ranked our city eighth in total number of religious institutions per capita while finding that 83% of local residents are religiously affiliated. With numbers like that, it’s a wonder the Stellar Gospel Music Awards took so long to come to the Queen City.

Cast of ‘Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors’ (from left): James Romney, Adriane Leigh Robinson, Christopher James Stevens, Paul Vogt, and Kelly Bashar. (Photo by Alexander South/Blumenthal Arts) Even before he became a Muppet or the mascot for a General Mills breakfast cereal, Bram Stoker’s Dracula regularly took on a comical tinge that the novelist could not have foreseen when his masterwork was published in 1897.

Buffalo Traffic Jam performs at The Underground on July 14. (Photo by Jeff Hahne) It’s interesting how a cover song can impact a set in the midst of an artist’s performance. At The Underground on Tuesday, for example, singer/songwriter Ava Hall’s performance of Tyler Childers’ “Whitehouse Road” undoubtedly won over new fans and served as one of her set’s highlights.

More than half of the 33 curfew violations CMPD has cited thus far this year have been in the Central Division.

I Hate Dave performs at Snug Harbor in April. (Photo by Dan Russell-Pinson) Screeching feedback, ricocheting drums and grinding guitars collide like a car crash on “Red Circus,” the ominous lead-off track from I Hate Dave’s latest three-song EP.

The family behind Eats and Rhymes. (Photo courtesy of Eats and Rhymes) Ashley and Clem McKinley are in pursuit of the American Dream. Situated on Beatties Ford Road, ground zero of the gentrification shuffle, the McKinleys’ new pizza parlor concept Eats and Rhymes pushes towards revitalization rather than redevelopment, giving back to the community while looking to build a legacy for their two sons.

Joshiah Johnson performs with Group Therapy. (Photo by Vicktoria Wright) There’s something special about wearing a dress shirt and tie onstage, insists Josiah Johnson, who fronts Rock Hill’s energetic, uplifting rock quintet Group Therapy. “When I put that tie on, I feel like a superhero,” Johnson maintains.

Jordyn Zaino performs at The Milestone in May. (Photo by Dan Russell-Pinson) “What were your musical inspirations growing up?” It’s the obligatory cliche question that all musical journalists ask — more of an icebreaker than an overly meaningful query. Yet when I ask local singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist and raw rock frontwoman Jordyn Zaino, her first two answers provide a certain profundity and perspective that doesn’t really strike me until later.

A still from ‘Blood Covenant.’ (Courtesy of Jesse Lee O’Sheal) Framed by a stained-glass window like a halo, a Southern pastor regales his congregation with a parable. His story is about a preacher out on a boat with two boys — his son and his son’s best friend. The boys fall into the water. The preacher, knowing his son is Christian and assured a spot in heaven, rescues the friend but lets his own son drown. “I was that boy that the preacher saved,” the pastor proclaims.