Uncharted Music

Uncharted Music - North Carolina

In episode two of Uncharted Tracks, Chris and Dan head South to explore the sprawling musical geography of North Carolina, a state with scenes stretching from the college rock epicenter of the Chapel Hill to the overlooked creative pockets of Charlotte, Greensboro, Asheville, and Winston-Salem. What begins as a conversation about local indie bands quickly turns into something larger: an exploration of regional identity, forgotten music history, and why so much great music disappears before anyone hears it. The episode moves across decades and genres, tracing the lineage of what Dan jokingly calls “Triangle Rock," the jangly, melodic, emotionally charged indie sound that has quietly persisted in the Research Triangle since the 1980s. Along the way, we spotlight overlooked artists from across the state, including Truth Club, Annuals, The White Octave, Seam, Boulevards, and a long list of nearly forgotten bands whose records now feel like lost artifacts from parallel timelines. The discussion drifts through blog-rock nostalgia, emo basements, slowcore, jazz, funk compilations, Merge Records mythology, and the changing economics of independent music. Dan and Chris wrestle with a central question that sits underneath the entire series: why does incredible music so often vanish into obscurity?

Ep 1 - Wisconsin

From the ashes of The Hot Song Podcast comes Uncharted Music. Chris and Dan are back in the saddle again talking about great music that has been forgotten or ignored. We travel from the present day back to the mid-20th century surveying the best albums and singles that you almost certainly never knew existed. Each episode will focus on a single location, usually a city or state. Our first episode is focused on Wisconsin, where Chris and Dan grew up. We talk about indie pluckers from Madison, pioneering midwest emo from Oshkosh, forgotten shoegaze sludge from Milwaukee, and the lost UK Blues band from Appleton. We look under every nook and cranny of the Dairy State to find the some of the best music that has been lost to time, ignorance, and everything in-between. Welcome to the Uncharted Music.