So if you're a high school student who would like to get your "Glee" on (only in a much cooler way), here's your chance: Community Chorus Project is looking for a few good singers. A few score good singers, actually.

Local arts entrepreneur Lauren Hodge assembled the initial Community Chorus Project last year, which debuted with fine performances of R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." Recorded and filmed at Manifold Recording Studio with arrangements by Shana Tucker and The Beast's Eric Hirsh, videos went out far and wide, earning the approval of R.E.M. Now they're looking to do it again in August, this time covering Radiohead, Ben Folds Five, Bruno Mars and others. Members of Lost in the Trees, Megafaun and The Old Ceremony are among the local musicians participating.

If you want in, auditions will be May 12 at UNC-Chapel Hill. For details, go here.

The Tar Heels may have fallen short of the Final Four in the NCAA tournament, but Chapel Hill's music community just made the top-four in a different countdown. Livability.com, a website that runs top-10 lists about the country's best places to live, puts Chapel Hill at No. 4 in its "Top 10 Cities With the Best Music Scenes Outside Nashville, New York City and Los Angeles" -- right between Omaha and Portland. Coming in at No. 1 is Athens, Ga.

I have to say, however, that the methodology is a bit peculiar. Rather than quote someone who actually lives in Chapel Hill or is familiar with its new-music quadrant, the piece quotes Doobie Brothers/New Grass Revival member John Cowan, apparently because he has played in Chapel Hill "many times since he began touring extensively in the 1970s" (which is probably code for, "He answered the phone when we called"). The list of acts with Chapel Hill ties is pretty dated, too: James Taylor, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Archers of Loaf, Southern Culture on the Skids, Superchunk and Ben Folds Five, all of whom go back at least 15 years.

But at least it has a picture of modern-day hitmakers The Old Ceremony, barely visible onstage at Haw River Ballroom.

Check out Ben Folds explaining the concept of NBC's new singing competition show, "Sing Off," which premiered last night and continues tonight and tomorrow night with a finale on December 21. Folds, who is from North Carolina, is a judge on the show, and Time Magazine's TV critic James Poniewozik calls him the "greatest reality judge." In the video below, Folds talks about what he's looking for from performers and says he's not there to "tear them down," though he recognizes artists "can't move along unless they know what their problems are."

If you couldn't get tickets for last month's Ben Folds Five reunion show in Chapel Hill, you can watch the first 53 minutes of it (the "Reinhold Messner" portion of the program) here. And if you did get tickets, you may now spend the next 53 minutes trying to find yourself in the crowd at the same link.

Either way, it's time well-spent.

Speaking of piano pop stars, last month's big Ben Folds Five reunion show won't be available for online watching for a few more weeks. In the meantime, you can catch Mr. Folds on TV tonight (or Friday morning, actually). Folds plays NBC's "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," offering up his new single "You Don't Know Me." Regina Spektor will also be there to reprise her cameo role from the recorded version.

So how was Thursday night's Ben Folds Five reunion show, you ask? For starters, I'd say it was a great moment in local-music history, and one of the coolest shows I've seen this year; and during "Army," I seriously thought everybody in the room was going to have a heart attack because we were all making like Tom Cruise in "Risky Business."

It felt like a privilege to be there. The review is below.

(photo by Emily Shur.) 

ADDENDUM (12/15/09): Ouch.

'90S REVERB AT BEN FOLDS FIVE SHOW
By David Menconi, News & Observer
Sept. 22, 2008

CHAPEL HILL -- That real-estate axiom of location, location, location can apply to concerts, too. Like the Ben Folds Five reunion show at UNC-Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall Thursday night, the trio's first performance in eight years.

Put that show in New York, and it's just another show in the big city. But put it in Chapel Hill, the trio's hometown during their mid-'90s heyday, and it's cool. Throw in a delirious crowd salted with many of the band's local peers from back then, and it's special. Throw in a few songs steeped in local lore, and it's supernatural.

The evening's most spine-tingling moment came with a raucous version of 1999's "Army," Ben Folds Five's final moment of mainstream pop stardom, and a song that now feels like an anthropological document of a bygone indie-rock generation. As the band dropped out to let the crowd scream the crescendo, "God please spare me more rejection," it felt like a circle closing.

Thursday's show was a one-off reunion for MySpace's "Front to Back" series, featuring one album played in its entirety. So the first half of the program consisted of the group's 1999 swan song, "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner." In many ways, it's the quintessential Ben Folds Five album, swinging between brilliant pop and wild self-indulgence with a sequence guaranteed to tax attention spans.

"It's not an immediate-gratification record, " Folds acknowledged. But while "Reinhold" seemed like an over-reach at the time (and also performed dismally on the charts), it has aged surprisingly well. Thursday night, it sounded terrific.

There was a sense of pent-up anticipation as the band took the stage, and the sold-out house gave a gigantic "whoo" as the band hit the big raveup on the opening "Narcolepsy." Other high points were the spectral piano riff to "Hospital Song, " the Steely Dan vibe of "Jane" and the big surprise of the night, Folds' father Dean, onstage to recreate his voicemail recording on "Your Most Valuable Possession."

Given that it's been eight years since the trio's last show, it wasn't surprising that a bit of rust showed. Folds forgot the words halfway through "Regrets, " bassist Robert Sledge had a clam or two on synthesizer and drummer Darren Jessee wasn't the tightest he's ever been.

But everything was pretty air-tight for the second half of the show, when the trio went deeper into their back catalog, all the way back to "Eddie Walker" from their very first single. They completely nailed the atmospherics of both "Selfless, Cold and Composed" and "Where's Summer B.?, " with the latter song's reference to the long-gone Hardback Cafe adding a note of poignancy to the evening.

"Battle of Who Could Care Less" was another massive crowd sing-along, a perfect little nugget of attitude dressed up as summertime pop. And "Song for the Dumped" felt like a temporary pass to be a callow adolescent again, a virtuoso display by all three players as well as the crowd on howl-along vocals. At the end, Folds picked up his stool and heaved it at the piano.

Some things never change.

Thursday night is the big Ben Folds Five reunion show, which has already caused much attendant hysteria. Click through for details, plus the inevitable back-story.

UPDATE (5 p.m.): Word is that more tickets have been released. So if you can get to the Memorial box office quickly... 

As expected, the Sept. 18 Ben Folds Five reunion show sold out at breathtaking speed when it went on sale Monday morning. The thousand or so tickets available to the public disappeared within minutes, while the 630 student tickets were gone by early afternoon. And now, craigslist is full of pleas from people all over the country searching for tickets -- I've heard a report of someone even offering sexual favors for tickets, although that disappeared before I could find it.

As to offers still pending, one fan from Virginia is offering an ultra-rare tape of Folds' first band, Majosha, in exchange for tickets. Another from Cleveland offers $500 for two tickets (which were originally priced at $50). Another vents frustration at scalpers charging up to $999 for tickets. And over on eBay, someone has listed a pair of lower-level tickets for the buy-it-now price of $1,299.99.

Wow. Shop wisely, folks. And for the folks doing the selling -- let your conscience be your guide.

(Thanks, Valerie.)

Bounce on over to Ben Folds' Website for some major news: Ben Folds Five, the long-gone trio of Folds, Darren Jessee and Robert Sledge, is reuniting for a Sept. 18 show at UNC-Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall. It will be their first show together in almost a decade. The set will include all of the trio's 1999 pop masterpiece "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner."

Tickets go on sale Monday through etix.com; expect a terrifyingly quick sellout. And as a fantastic bonus (as if one were needed), Jessee will open the show with an acoustic Hotel Lights set.