The Northside District Unites Carrboro in Song
April 2023 • Feature Writing @ UNC
This morning, I wandered to class with my Airpods in, giggling (as usual) at all the little students with their little backpacks. I’d shuffled my Liked Songs on Spotify, a playlist of over 2,000 tunes I’ve been collecting since 2016, and was bombarded with Greg Brown’s monotonous voice— “Reluctantly crouched, at the starting line / Engines pumping and thumping in time.”
The lyrics came so easily to me that my first thought was that this song, “The Distance” by CAKE, a ’90s classic I was weirdly obsessed with in middle school, would be the perfect karaoke song.
I was not walking on the sunlit brick sidewalk beside South Road anymore but underneath the hefty glow of the Carrboro bar, the Northside District’s, electric blue string lights. Microphone in hand, the crowd’s own anticipation of what song I had chosen and how I’d sing it matched my nervous adrenaline. Psychedelic paintings hung crookedly filled the orange wall behind me. I waited for my cue by watching the TV above the bar. When the familiar baseline of “The Distance” began to play, it was up to me to fill Greg Brown’s shoes.
On Mondays from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. while the rest of Carrboro is getting a good start to their week by studying or sleeping, my friends and I occupy the back right table of Northside’s eccentric and welcoming interior room. Since first going to karaoke night at the start of the year, my walks to campus have never been so entertaining. The stage is calling my name, I tell myself, though the stage in this case is a humble bar corner and the audience never consists of more than 25 people. Monday night karaoke has seeped into my everyday—I determine the “karaoke-ability” of each song I hear. I pocket songs that meet the requirements for later in anticipation of the sweet release that is singing off-key in front of a group of people I’ve never met.
The TV is bolted to the right side of the bar, which lives in the center of Northside’s three spaces. In the front room, which is decorated like a medieval foyer, folks play provided board games drinking draft beers. On the patio out back, there are plants, picnic tables, the largest ash trays I’ve ever seen, and often a few dogs to pet. The space opens up to the right of the bar. On Monday nights, one of the rotating DJ’s awaits song submissions on small slips of paper, which are added to the queue. Beer bottles and cocktail glasses clink on the glossy wooden tables and booths as folks keep one eye on the TV, one eye on the performer and sing along to everything from classic rock tunes to obscure hip-hop. Lyrics appear line by line in bubble letters on a wobbly tie-dye background, drawing you in, whether or not you know the song. There is no unity among the songs chosen, but each performance is met with cheers and smattering applause.
It’s through karaoke night that Northside has established what is referred to—positively or negatively in different cases—as the “Northside Community.” Northside’s intimate setting, low lights and encouraging atmosphere ensures that by the end of the night, we know the whole bar—there are only five tables in the room. Their karaoke night celebrates uniting people through embarrassment, an honoring of both strengths and weaknesses. The best performances often come from the worst voices. Karaoke-goers might be UNC-CH graduate students, local professionals or old men who like heavy metal. The intimate environment makes it easy to cheer on people you don’t know and feel confident that if you hit the stage, you, too, will receive encouragement.
Three of my most loyal karaoke friends and fellow UNC-CH students, Kate Livesay, Matthias Pietrus and Grayson Berrier, most regularly occupy the seats next to me in the back of Northside’s central room. Livesay and I usually arrive first. According to legend, she and a friend once gave an impressive performance of “What’s Up” by the 4 Non Blondes. Karaoke doesn’t start until 10 p.m., and she had two exams the next day, the first one starting at 8 a.m.
“I felt it in my soul,” Livesay said. “We finished the performance. It was an emotional one, and Nato, spelled like North Atlantic Treaty Organization, had tears in his eyes, and on the MC said these words: ‘That was the best karaoke performance I’ve ever seen.’”
She attributes her success in her exams the next day to the confidence boost she received. While Dreadpirate Nato, one of Northside’s DJ’s in rotation, doesn’t specifically remember their performance (I have yet to tell Livesay), he loves leading karaoke and getting to be the person who encourages others to have fun on stage.
“There are a lot of great singers that come,” Nato said, “With room for those that just want to get up there and have fun as karaoke is supposed to be.”
We wait for Pietrus whose curly red hair ensures he’s immediately recognizable in the doorway, knowing it will take downing at least three Miller High Lifes before he gets the urge to sing usually a country song, such as “Your Man” by Josh Turner. He claims he only knows them so well because of his parents. He’s usually followed or accompanied by Berrier, who is often returning from an afternoon at Jordan Lake, sunkissed from her role as a UNC-CH Sailing Club officer. They’re both grateful they discovered Northside at the beginning of the school year.
“It’s very encouraging. You don’t feel bad going up by yourself to sing,” Berrier said, noting that when she’s been to karaoke elsewhere around Chapel Hill (most notably at undergraduate bar Might As Well), individual voices get lost in the large groups that go up to perform.
The first time Berrier went she was having a tough day—some sailors had been giving her a hard time. She said it was late October, and there was a man in a trenchcoat singing Monster Mash.
“He was really good. Like he sounded exactly like the song.” Berrier said.
Pietrus comes back to Northside each week (and even plans to keep his Tuesday mornings open next semester) because it feels like a support network. A woman once approached the microphone and broke the news that her cat had died recently. She went on to sing a heartbreaking rendition of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” It was beautiful.
“The rest of the bar knew this was a really important moment for her, and it became a really important moment for everyone,” Pietrus said. “It was very moving. People sang along at the right times and let her take the stage at the right times. And afterwards, she came around and gave everyone a hug.”
Northside offers a unique space for connection, despite no one having met each other prior.
“I feel like we did something together as a bar of total strangers,” Pietrus said.