You can have your Woodstock. I'll take my m10k any day.

Most of the folks reading this column have heard of Superchunk. And if you know Superchunk, you're probably aware that the band (well, Mac and Laura) also run Merge Records. Some folks go so far to speak of a Chapel Hill "scene" that has sprung up around the band and/or label, though the principals involved would correctly insist that they, too were the beneficiaries of an already burgeoning set of bands and clubs.

In any case, Merge Records turns 10 this year, and to celebrate, the label had a little celebration at the Cat's Cradle, a club in Carrboro, N.C., just across the line from Chapel Hill. Like Woodstock, the festival ran three days (well, nights) and like Woodstock, it featured a wide variety of bands. In fact, I think that it's quite accurate to say that m10k (the name of the festival) easily sported a wider variety of music than the behemoth Woodstock affair.

On the first night (Thursday) alone, there was a moody pop band, a chunky chord rock band, a band with simply drums and an effect-laden trumpet, an art-pop act and an in-yer-face punk band.

Spaceheads, the aforementioned drum-and-trumpet duo, was easily the revelation of the festival for me. Each song began with an addictive beat, and then the trumpet player would proceed to construct the song. First, he would use an effects machine to lower the sound of his instrument, and then sampled that noise as a bass line. A sequencer repeated the line over and over again. He then did the same thing for a couple or three rhythm tracks (much like the rhythm guitar parts in a regular band) and finally began playing the swooping, vaguely space-style lead lines. I've seen many bands try to make similarly complicated technological set-ups work in a live setting before, and all failed. This one worked, and the effect was amazing. As one audience member shouted out about halfway through the set, "That's the coolest shit I've ever heard!" The replay from was suitably low key: "We do try."

The last band of the last night (Saturday) was Lambchop, whose country/r&b/whatever stylings have been confounding critics (the official bio refers to the act as "the most fucked-up country band in the world") for years. Pedal steel, soulful grooves, horns and lots more. That band was the perfect finale, though, because it allowed instrumentalists from many of the other festival bands to hang out on stage. Lambchop, at its leanest, has 10 players. At times, almost 30 people crowded onto the stage as the festival ground down. Kurt Wagner, the band's singer, thanked Merge and then proceeded to call the label, the bands and the people in attendance some of the sweetest folks in the world.

Which is kinda the whole theme of the festival. There were some truly weird acts, some of which took a lot of patience to even begin to understand. But the audience was always enthusiastic, and when a stunning act such a Spaceheads took the stage and truly astonished, the ovations became positively ecstatic.

Over the three nights, I saw a number of people again and again. In a crowd of a few hundred, it's hard not to begin to recognize folks. And what I realized was that most of the people were not at m10k because it was the "cool" thing to do or because they were engaging in some form of star worship (though the very accessible members of Superchunk did have plenty of well-wishers whenever I saw them), but because they wanted to hear and celebrate unusual music. These were indeed sweet and supportive folks, people who simply wanted to perpetuate the artistic process.

No, I didn't go to Woodstock. I had forgotten it was this weekend until I was reminded last night. Why go to a festival where the performers look like ants and the sound is somewhat worse than your grandma's record player? Why not hit a show where, if you like, you can walk up to someone and say, "That was really great. Let me buy you a beer." And the amazing thing is. that person will almost always say, "Sure."

Jon Worley didn't move to Durham because of the music scene, but he's the first to admit that that thought crossed his mind from time to time.