If you've not yet caught Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey playing live on their current run of shows, I'd highly recommend doing so. They're playing Wednesday night in Durham at Duke Gardens,  and here's some possible incentive to get you to go -- some really terrific performance footage of a recent show in Nashville, shot by Steve Boyle for his "Return To Comboland" video project. Check it out.

It's a shame you can't be two places at once, which would've come in handy on Saturday night. That's when Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey were playing Cat's Cradle, but I was in Austin, Texas, for another reunion show by the Reivers. I've got no complaints, though, because it was pretty great, although it was less emotional than last year's reunion show (which marked their first performance since 1991). And it took place outdoors in the midst of an overpowering heat wave that felt more like the deepest dog days of August than June.

Still, there were warm feelings of fondness all the way around, from first song ("Warehouse Jam," an instrumental from the band's first single back in 1984) to last ("Ragamuffin Man," a Reivers signature since the late '80s). The vibe was very casual, a band playing for friends and family, which is basically what it was. And just for the occasion, they offered up a homage to the recently passed King of Pop, a cover of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough."

At one point, I was missing my pal Peter Blackstock and wishing he'd been there -- he's one of the few people who is even more of a rabid Reivers fan than I am. Alas, he couldn't make it to Austin this time. But he called during the show, and I was able to let him listen a bit by cellphone. Even better, he was calling from that Holsapple/Stamey show at the Cradle.

It was the next best thing to being there, for both of us.

Nowadays, Chapel Hill underground-pop icon Chris Stamey is probably better-known as a producer than a performer. But it would be wonderful if that changed with "Here and Now" -- his new album with longtime collaborative partner Peter Holsapple, and a terrific record (although not everyone agrees). "Here and Now" closes with an ode to the agonies and joys of working in a recording studio, "Tape Op Blues," which describes what it feels like to stand at a microphone and try to sing with everyone watching.

"I like to get the singing done during the initial recording, when possible, then shape everything around that," Stamey says. "Often records start with the instruments one by one. The singing is done only at the very end, after weeks or months of work, when everyone is exhausted by the process, and waiting for the singer to make it all work somehow at the last minute -- and discovering, sadly, that all that work was done at a tempo or in a key that really makes it hard to sing. And the rest of the band is often crowded into the control room, impatient and inattentive. The singer sees lips moving but only hears bits of the conversation when the talk-back button is held down. It's easy for paranoia to set in. I try to avoid this scenario, but it is one that is familiar to me."

For more talk from both Stamey and Holsapple about "Here and Now," see the interview in Friday's paper; and for more about Stamey's production methodology, check this feature from 2004. Then go see their show at Cat's Cradle on Saturday.

See, vinyl! It's like that table over there, only much smaller and it makes noises like that. Oh, never mind, you'll catch on when the next vinyl revolution hits.

-- Chris Stamey at Carrboro's Open Eye Cafe Saturday night, pointing at a round table immediately after trying to replicate the pops and scratches of a stylus on a vinyl record with a guitar pick on a microphone, at the end of the song "Broken Record"

More than two years after the regrouped dB's played a series of reunion shows, there's still no sign of a new dB's album. But here's the next best thing -- an official release date for the new album by dB's co-leaders Peter Holsapple/Chris Stamey, titled "hERE aND nOW," which is due out June 9 on Bar/None Records. It's a sequel of sorts to the duo's previous album, 1991's stellar "Mavericks" (which has one of my favorite songs ever). And it feels like this album has been in the works for decades.

"It does seem like we've been working on this forever," Holsapple says. "But it's only been a few years, although it has been through a lot of different areas to get to where it is now -- finished, mastered, with a cover -- all those things people do with records. Now we'll see if it sells, which is something else people do with records. Although I'm not so sure about that nowadays."

Guests on the album include the other two dB's, Gene Holder and Will Rigby; Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster; Chatham County Line's Greg Readling; and, most intriguingly, Durham resident Branford Marsalis, who contributes saxophone to two songs. There should be a live show around the time of the album's release, probably at Cat's Cradle. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: That Cradle show is on the schedule now for June 27.

Between the dB's and Continental Drifters, Durham resident Peter Holsapple has long been one of my favorite songwriters. And he's moving up in the ranks of my favorite writers about music, too, thanks to his regular contributions to the New York Times' "Measure for Measure" blog. Holsapple's latest entry offers a fascinating look at the evolution and sadly unrequited fate of what should have been a massive breakthrough hit for the dB's in the mid-1980s, "Love Is For Lovers" (a song I still remember with immense fondness). The package also includes a sample of Holsapple's original demo version of "Lovers," sung by his then-girlfriend.

If you turn on country radio now and wonder why you're hearing the gravelly voice of Hootie & the Blowfish singer Darius Rucker -- yes, he's gone country. And even though "Learn to Live" (due out Sept. 16) isn't the first solo album Rucker has made, it is apparently the one that's breaking up Hootie. The group is reportedly disbanding for the foreseeable future while Rucker gives Nashville a try.

Unfortunately, that means longtime Hootie sideman/Durham resident/original dB Peter Holsapple is out of a job. He broke the news on Saturday in an anguished blog post, which found him ruminating on the Hootie situation as well as the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (which drove him out of New Orleans and back to North Carolina):

Impending unemployment has been riding heavily on my shoulders. Hootie and the Blowfish has decided to hang it up, at least for several years, which means my job will also disappear. I had hoped to play with Darius in his solo country band, but his management had other ideas so that's not going to happen. I'd like to keep playing music, and the sub gig with Sugarland is allowing me to do that at least for a few more dates. After that, I don't know.

What I do know is that it's very difficult to look for jobs when you're watching "Ice Road Truckers" or "Deadliest Catch" or any of those shows that are so prevalent. You feel like a big sissy, unqualified to wrangle either a big fish or a big truck through a desparate situation. You look at the calluses at the ends of your fingertips from guitar playing and you think "how pathetic". No outdoor tan, no ruddy complexion, no bulging muscles and sinew. Just a fishbelly-white middle-aged bent-over guitar player who can type eighty words per minute.

I suspect Holsapple is just too good to stay unemployed for very long; but I'm still hoping the universe throws him a break soon.

One of the New York Times' best regular music features is "Measure for Measure," a blog featuring essays from noted songwriters about the craft of songwriting. The latest is from Durham resident Peter Holsapple -- and no surprise, it's terrific.

(Thanks, Shawn.)

ADDENDUM (10/29/08): More.