Tonight – Friday, 29 June
• Article/interview: David Malitz talks to Daryl Davis [Washington Post], whose Daryl Davis Band performs at the Carter Barron Amphitheatre.
• Interview: Steve Kiviat on Soundclash, the monthly reggae night at Marx Cafe in Mt Pleasant [Washington CityPaper].
• Interview: Marie Gullard talks to Regina Belle [Washington Examiner]. At Blues Alley Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
• Profile: Christopher Porter on Jazz in the Garden [Washington Post Express]. Every Friday night through 8/31.
• Preview: Sarah Godfrey on Maiesha and the Hip Huggers [Washington CityPaper]. At the Howard Theatre.
• CD Review: Jukebox the Ghost: Safe Travels. Reviewed by Mark Jenkins [Washington Post]. At the 9:30 Club.
• Local DIY space Suberranean A had its final show last weekend. Ally Schweitzer writes a great article about the space’s history and challenges of putting on shows there [Washington CityPaper]. [Adam] Friedland and [Phil] Cohen didn’t set out to open a DIY venue. After living in the basement for six months, they heard that one of their favorite musicians, Radical Face, was looking to book shows at unconventional spaces. They thought their space could work. They contacted him, and by March 2010, the conceptual glitch-folk artist from Jacksonville, Fla., was playing in their living room. They couldn’t have anticipated the kind of crowd that showed up. “This was kind of a subculture that no one really knew existed,” says Friedland. “There were people that came from Pittsburgh, people that came from South Carolina, North Carolina—” “11-year-old Mormons!” Cohen interjects. They decided to roll with it and keep putting on events. Within a year and a half, the moldy, cacophonous basement had begun to fill a niche that no traditional venue in D.C. could. Beholden to no one, and with no interest in profit, the kids at Sub A could book whatever they wanted, handing 100 percent of the proceeds to the artists. For a year or two—a lifetime for a punk house—Subterranean A was D.C.’s best-curated independent venue.
• Preview/Interview: Stephen Deusner talks to Brandi Carlile [Washington Post Express]. Tonight at Wolf Trap.
• the NSO is homeward bound after its South American tour [Washington Post].
St Vincent and David Byrne have collaborated on an album together and are touring to Strathmore in Bethesda, MD, on Sunday 9/30/12, and ShowlistDC is giving away tickets before they go on sale to the general public this Friday morning! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me which song from either of their discographies (or a cover!) you’d like to hear them play together, and I’ll pick the winners at random (using random.org) on Thursday, 28 June at 5 PM Eastern. Be sure to use a valid email address when you enter, so I can contact you if you win (and don’t worry: your email address won’t be posted publicly when you comment on this entry and won’t be added to any sort of mailing list). If you’re a hotmail user, please add showlistdc@gmail.com to your address book or no-spam list, as other hotmail users have had problems with emails from us not getting through.
Just in case you don’t know anything about these artists or their collaboration, here’s some more information: St Vincent is the stage name of Annie Clark, who got her start playing with the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens before starting her own solo career with the album Marry Me in 2007. David Byrne definitely doesn’t need an introduction, but here’s a brief summary anyway: he was in the Talking Heads from 1975-1991 and has had an extensive solo career (including several collaborations with Brian Eno) that has included work in theatre and film. (For those interested in Byrne’s writing, he writes lengthy (if infrequent) blog posts on his web site as well.)
Their collaborative album is called Love This Giant and is due to be released on 9/11 via 4AD/Toto Mundo. It includes 10 collaborative tracks and two written by each musician individually, with vocal duties split in half. Antibalas and the Dap-Kings appear on one track as well. Pitchfork recently interviewed Clark about the collaboration, and you can download one of the songs on their web site, LoveThisGiant.com or watch it on the video below. The tour will feature songs from the collaboration as well as songs from their individual discographies, and they’ve lined up a band that includes eight brass players(!), a keyboardist, and a drummer, according to Byrne.
If you come across this post after the contest has closed, or if you’re not the lucky winner, then you can pick up tickets for $55, $75, or $125 (depending on location), plus service fees, via Ticketfly here, starting at 10 AM on Friday, 29 June.
Contest is now closed and the winner has been notified! Thanks for entering!
Tonight – Friday, 22 June
• Preview/Interview: Mark Jenkins talks to Image Band [Washington Post]. Part of the Reggae Night at Carter Barron Amphitheatre.
• CD Review: Walk the Moon: Walk the Moon. Reviewed by Mark Jenkins [Washington Post]. At the Black Cat.
• Preview: Matt Siblo on Hot Snakes [Washington CityPaper]. At the Rock & Roll Hotel.
• Preview/Interview: Marie Gullard on Angela Winbush [Washington Examiner]. At Blues Alley tonight, Saturday, and Sunday.
• The latest on BYT‘s “Write a suicide note to win Morrissey tickets” situation: If you didn’t think that BYT changed the contest on its own, you were right. Alex Baca at the Washington CityPaper talked to a representative of contest sponsor IMP, who confirmed that IMP asked BYT to change the contest. To catch up on how this story unfolded, here’s the backstory: BYT posted a contest on Monday asking readers to write suicide notes in order to enter a contest to win tickets to Morrissey’s show at Strathmore. I wrote about this in Tuesday’s Music Notes. The Washington CityPaper picked up the story later that day and got some quotes from BYT managing editor Logan Donaldson. On Tuesday night, BYT quietly changed the contest to say “string together a couple of paragraphs using only Morrissey’s lyrics”; I printed the full text of the new contest and a rant from their Assistant Editor Stephanie Breijo in Wednesday’s Music Notes, and DCist picked up the story, getting an additional quote from Donaldson. THEN, BYT took its contest down entirely (if you click on the contest link now, you’re taken to a login page). The Washington CityPaper reported on that, with an additional statement from Donaldson. And once again, here’s the CityPaper’s interview with IMP spokesperson Audrey Schaefer.
• The saga around BYT‘s “Write a suicide note to win Morrissey tickets” continues. Here’s a summary: BYT posted a contest on Monday asking readers to write suicide notes in order to enter a contest to win tickets to Morrissey’s show at Strathmore. I wrote about this in Tuesday’s Music Notes. The Washington CityPaper picked up the story later that day and got some quotes from BYT managing editor Logan Donaldson. On Tuesday night, BYT quietly changed the contest to say “string together a couple of paragraphs using only Morrissey’s lyrics”; I printed the full text of the new contest and a rant from their Assistant Editor Stephanie Breijo in Wednesday’s Music Notes, and DCist picked up the story, getting an additional quote from Donaldson. THEN, BYT took its contest down entirely (if you click on the contest link now, you’re taken to a login page). The Washington CityPaper reported on that, with an additional statement from Donaldson.
• The Washington CityPaper picked up the commentary I wrote yesterday about BYT’s ridiculous “write a suicide note to win Morrissey tickets” and talked to BYT managing editor Logan Donaldson. Donaldson’s response is fair, but it’s somewhat negated by this response on the initial BYT post, from Assistant Editor Stephanie Breijo. I’m not going to repost the link, but I will copy/paste her text:
Hi, all–
In defense of this post and with full disclosure I’m writing to say that I, a BYT staffer fully in support of this giveaway prompt, have lost two people–with whom I was very close–because they committed suicide. One of my closest friends in high school OD’d in Los Angeles after a fight with her boyfriend. One of the first boys I ever kissed joined the Air Force and after a long tour in Iraq hanged himself over the side of a boat (in a very public place, no less).
Suicide is very real and it is TERRIBLE. I have experienced suicides first-hand but I’m writing to say that this does not place me above humor. Is it morbid? Entirely. So is Morrissey.
I have a newsflash for all of you: You are going to die. Everyone you love is going to die. Everyone you have ever met or interacted with is going to die, and this includes myself, the author of this post, and all its contestants. The fact that others choose to bow out before their time is sad but it is their decision. Sometimes all you can do is laugh, no matter how shitty the circumstances may be.
A quick google search will show you we are not, in fact, the only online publication discussing suicide in this fashion, in this week alone:
To Catherine Lewis of Showlist DC–I am truly sorry if we have offended you. But if you cannot see the humor in this, you probably shouldn’t be reading our site or, quite honestly, caring what we write about. It is our site. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. No one is pressing a gun to any reader’s head (perhaps more suitable for a Nirvana giveaway of some sort?). No one is being forced to read, nor are they being forced to participate.
That being said, we appreciate your input nonetheless.
Wishing everyone the best for the remainder of your days (however many you may have left),
Stephanie Breijo
Assistant Editor
So, to summarize, (1) it’s OK because Vice did it first. Also, (2) it’s OK because someone at BYT knows someone who committed suicide. And finally, (3) BYT apparently has more than one person on staff with the title of “Editor”. Who knew there was any actual editing going on at BYT?!
Anyway – BYT has changed the text of the contest. It’s no longer “write a suicide note to win tickets”; it’s now this:
TO WIN: Since there is no longer any truth to there being a light that never goes out (oh, song title puns!), and Morrissey has (has not? whatever) announced he’ll be retiring in 2014, why not string together a couple of paragraphs using only Morrissey’s lyrics. Okay, you can use The Smiths too. If you must.
• Interview: Janet Yaceczko talks to Becky Warren [DC Music Download]. Performing at The Black Squirrel Songwriter and Poet’s Series in Adams Morgan on 6/28.
• Interview: Ross Bonaime talks to Yeasayer [Brightest Young Things].
• As you know, I share all the music-related giveaways I can find down at the bottom of these posts every day. Well, here’s one I’m going to post only once: Brightest Young Things is doing a giveaway for Morrissey at Strathmore on 12/7. The contest is for everyone to write a suicide note, and BYT will pick a winner (they wrote: “Best suicide note wins”). Wow. I get that Morrissey and the Smiths’ music is mopey, and I get that BYT is trying to be cute and edgy, but this is pretty screwed up. It’s not just that it’s a morbid contest (which it is, and Shauna at BYT actually responded to one of the entries by writing, “PLEASE DO NOT GO KILL YOURSELF . XX BYT”). It’s that it makes light of suicide, and anyone who’s lived through a friend’s suicide knows what that’s like. It sucks. It absolutely sucks when a friend or loved one takes his/her own life (full disclosure: my friend Jeff killed himself last month and left a public suicide note on his blog). So maybe BYT thought this was funny or some kind of joke, but guess what: writing pretend suicide notes– even to get free concert tickets– isn’t funny and isn’t a joke. I guess this is just another example of how BYT, despite being one of the biggest entertainment blogs in this area, just doesn’t get it.
ADDITION: In order to prevent encouraging the linkbait nature of this contest, I’m pasting the BYT text below, in italics. Read the text here so you don’t increase their web hits count by clicking on the link above.
To say I/we/BYT/everyone loves Morrissey is probably the biggest understatement ever made on this website. So when I/we/BYT saw Morrissey was coming to STRATHMORE on December 7th, we just knew we had to get in on the ground floor. Tickets go on sale this FRIDAY @ 10AM, so get your itchy trigger finger ready and prepare your tear ducts for defeat. This is going to be a heartbreaker to end all heartbreakers.
Oh, and yes… we’ve got a pair of tickets BEFORE THEY GO ON SALE, ready for your taking. Thank you I.M.P.!
TO WIN: Since there is no longer any truth to there being a light that never goes out (oh, song title puns!), and Morrissey has announced he’ll be retiring in 2014, go on and tell us how you would end it all along side him. Best suicide note wins. Really, you’re going to want to think long and hard about this one.
Winner will be selected by Friday @ 9AM. Use a real email address when you comment and lease don’t commit suicide in the process.
