Sunday 20 January
• Catharsis at the Warehouse: Preview by Leor Galil [Washington CityPaper].
• the Soft Moon at the Black Cat: CD review of Zeros by Mark Jenkins [Washington Post].
Monday 21 January
• Iris DeMent at the Birchmere: Preview/interview by Geoffrey Himes [Washington Post].
Tuesday 22 January
• the Menzingers at the 9:30 Club: Preview by Matt Siblo [Washington CityPaper].
• Folger Consort and Cathedra at the Washington National Cathedral, 1/11/13: Reviewed by Patrick Rucker [Washington Post].
• the Gin Blossoms at the Barns of Wolf Trap, 1/16/13: Reviewed by Alan Duckworth [the Rogers Revue].
• Morrissey and Kristeen Young at Strathmore, 1/16/13: Reviewed by David Hintz [DC Rock Live] and photos by Erica Bruce [Washington CityPaper].
• David Murray Big Band with Macy Gray at the Howard Theatre, 1/10/13: Reviewed by David Hintz [DC Rock Live].
• Niki and the Dove with Vacationer at the Rock & Roll Hotel, 1/11/12: Reviewed by David Hintz [DC Rock Live].
• Paint Branch at Red Onion Records, 1/12/13: Photos by Erica Bruce [Washington CityPaper].
• Quicksilver at Dumbarton Oaks, 1/13/13: Reviewed by Charles T. Downey [Washington Post].
• Robert Egger’s Tribute Show at the Hamilton, 1/7/13: Reviewed by Stephanie Williams [DC Music Download].
• Sóley at the 9:30 Club, 11/25/12: Video by All Our Noise.
• Ugly Purple Sweater, Kingsley Flood, and Kindlewood at the Black Cat, 1/12/13: Reviewed by David Hintz [DC Rock Live] and by Kevin Hill [Chunky Glasses].
Saturday 12 January
• the Highballers at IOTA: album Soft Music and Hard Liquor reviewed by Catherine P Lewis (that’s me!) [Washington Post].
• Honor By August at the Howard Theatre: album Monuments to Progress reviewed by Mark Jenkins [Washington Post].
• Ugly Purple Sweater at the Black Cat: Two interviews with Sam McCormally – by Caroline Jones [Washington CityPaper] and by Gregory Ayers [DCMusicDownload.com].
• Ricky Skaggs at the Birchmere: interview by Nancy Dunham [Washington Examiner].
• Gerald Albright at Blues Alley: interview by Marie Gullard [Washington Examiner].
• BSO and Baltimore Choral Arts Society present “Alexander Nevsky” at Strathmore: interview by Marie Gullard [Washington Examiner].
Sunday 13 January
• DC Jazz Loft featuring Tedd Baker, J.S. Williams, and Joseph Howell: Preview [CapitalBop].
• Hooray For Earth at the black Cat: interview by Stephen M Deusner [Washington Post Express].
• Gerald Albright at Blues Alley: interview by Marie Gullard [Washington Examiner].
Last night, I decided that the only way to cope with the Redskins loss was to head up to Baltimore for a doom metal show. I had never been to Club K before, but it’s a tiny room attached to the back of a Korean restaurant, about halfway between the Ottobar and the Wind-Up Space. It was a totally trippy space, decked out in black lights(!), with paintings of zebras(!!) and diamonds on the wall– honestly, it felt more like a space for a rave than for a metal/hardcore show. There were four bands performing: Baltimore atmospheric black metal band Barbelith, Philly hardcore band Congenital Death, Maine doom band Swaath, and Baltimore doom band Ophidian. Swaath were awesome and well worth the trip up, even though they only played for about 25 minutes. Actually, all of the bands played short sets– the first band started around 9, and all four bands were done before midnight; fairly impressively quick, since each band had to load all of their equipment from the outside since there was no backstage area. Anyway, it was a fun show and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on Club K’s schedule coming up; it looks like they’re posting shows on their facebook page as well.
If you order tickets online from Jammin’ Java, you may have noticed that they now have some new ticket options for all shows:
• VIP: Reserved seating in elevated, set apart area. (~25 seats)
• Premier: Reserved seating at one of the eight tables closest to the stage. (~64 seats)
• General Admission (GA): All other tickets in seated rows or standing, depending on the show, first come first served.
Looking at the layout for one of their upcoming shows, it looks like the “VIP” section is the little seated dining area on stage right, halfway between the stage and the bar, and it looks like they’ve added tables in front for most shows, which will be the “Premier” seats. It looks as though there aren’t “Premier” seats for every show, though. For most shows, the GA/Premier/VIP seats are identical in price or very close, but for “big name” acts (like American Idol‘s Kris Allen), the VIP seats are significantly more expensive and also come with a “Meet & Greet”.
• If you’ve ever gotten “Moves Like Jagger” (Maroon 5) or “Tik Tok” (Ke$ha) stuck in your head, you’ve got a Northern Virginia guy to thank: Reston native Benny Blanco aka Benjamin Levinhas co-written 15 Number One songs [Washington Post]. There’s more about him in this LA Times piece.
• Bob Boilen from All Songs Considered lists his favorite concerts of 2012 [NPR.org]. Even better, he gives ShowlistDC a nice shout-out!
• New music blog Musiceum has a nice video interview with Paul Vodra of HometownSoundsDC about the DC music scene and the Hometown Sounds showcase at 9th & Beats.
We’re bringing back our daily Music Notes blog, but we’re doing it slowly. Here are a few links to get you started.
New Concert Series
We’ve just updated the ShowlistDC concert listings with the newly-announced Indie Adams Morgan series, which is taking place at Club Heaven in Adams Morgan (2327 18th St NW). We’re really impressed with what IAM has got set up so far: they’re hosting shows every Thursday night, and they’ve got some structure around it (Indie Rock on the 1st Thursday, World Beats on the 2nd Thursday, Jam Bands on the 3rd Thursday, and Roots/Americana on the 4th Thursday). This is brought to you by a group of folks including Anders Thueson, who organized the Songwriters & Poets series at the Black Squirrel last year. The IAM collective has already announced that it’s going to do Songwriters & Poets again this year from April 13 – May 25. We’ll continue to keep their concerts updated on our site, but you can throw them a “like” on Facebook on the Indie Adams Morgan page (here) or the Songwriters & Poets page (here). You can also visit Indie Adams Morgan’s web site at indieadamsmorgan.com.
• Thursday, 3 January 2013 – Vasuveda, TheRuinCity, and Heather Mae & the Make Believe – Indie Adams Morgan Series Launch Party
• Thursday, 10 January 2013 – Thirteen Towers, Without Warning, Stereosaurus, and Shuma – Ska Punk Showcase
• Thursday, 17 January 2013 – the Funk Ark, Buster Brown & the Get Down, and Chrissi Poland – 3rd Thursday Jam Bands
• Friday, 18 January 2013 – Ten Feet Tall, Chrissi Poland, and Caleb Hawley
• Sunday, 20 January 2013 – Watermelon, Chrissi Poland, and Caleb Hawley
• Thursday, 24 January 2013 – Amber Rubarth & the U-Liners and Allie Farris – 4th Thursday Roots Thread
• Thursday, 31 January 2013 – the 9 Hip-Hop Series
• Thursday, 7 February 2013 – Stereosleep, the Dead Women, and the Mariner Project – 1st Thursday Indie Rock
• Wednesday, 13 February 2013 – Town Mountain and Big Chimney
• Thursday, 21 February 2013 – Peoples Blues of Richmond, Sol Roots, and Camryn Wessner – 3rd Thursday Jam Bands
• Thursday, 28 February 2013 – the Woodshedders and Alex Culbreth & the Dead Country Stars – 4th Thursday Roots Americana
• Thursday, 7 March 2013 – the Mean Season, Black Checker, and the Dead Women – 1st Thursday Indie Rock
• Thursday, 14 March 2013 – Higher Hands, Moonlicious, and Willis Light – 2nd Thursday World Beats
• Thursday, 21 March 2013 – Higher Hands, Moonlicious, and Willis Light – 3rd Thursday Jam Bands
• Thursday, 28 March 2013 – the U-Liners – 4th Thursday Roots Americana
• Thursday, 4 April 2013 – Laws of Average, the Grey Area, and May Tabol – 1st Thursday Indie Rock
• Thursday, 18 April 2013 – Dangermuffin and Stomp Status – 3rd Thursday Jam Bands
• Thursday, 25 April 2013 – the Family Hammer – 4th Thursday Roots Americana
• Thursday, 2 May 2013 – Ugly Purple Sweater – 1st Thursday Indie Rock
• Thursday, 16 May 2013 – Kings of Belmont, Covered with Jam, and Moogatu – 3rd Thursday Jam Bands
Articles
• 2012 wrap-up of the local and national metal scene by Metal Chris [DCHeavyMetal.com].
Happy New Year! As we wrap up the second full year of ShowlistDC, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who’s been using this site. Thanks for telling me about shows, thanks for mentioning this site in interviews (Cigarette on DCMusicDownload) or on your blogs (DCRockLive), thanks for spreading the word about ShowlistDC to other music fans, and most importantly, thanks to all the local musicians who keep this area such a vibrant music scene. Thanks especially for everyone’s patience and understanding this fall when I had to suspend my daily Music Notes after my laptop was stolen.
I did a statistical wrap-up at the end of 2011, and now here are some statistics on what ShowlistDC did in 2012:
• We listed 11,223 shows (whoa! that’s almost 43% more shows than last year!) at nearly 400 different venues in DC, Virginia, and Maryland.
• June was our biggest show month, with 1,120 different events listed. Two other months had over 1,000 events: October (1,077) and March (1,043).
• Not surprisingly, most of our events were listed on Saturdays (2,507 shows) or on Fridays (2,252 shows).
• As in 2011, two venues had over 400 events listed in 2012: the Kennedy Center (644 events) and Jammin’ Java (462 events).
• We ended the year with 573 facebook likes and 790 twitter followers.
I’ve got a lot planned for 2013. Some things aren’t going to change– I’m still going to list and recommend a ton of shows, but I’m going to continue working on the detailed venue info page, and I’m hoping to bring back some sort of daily or regular blog here. I will certainly continue to work with local venues and bands here to give away tickets to shows and other things to the music fans who read this site.
If there are any ideas for things you’d like to see on ShowlistDC or on this blog, please let me know, either with a comment here or an email to showlistdc@gmail.com!
And, as always, feel free to look for me at shows– I went to 113 shows in 2012 and certainly plan to attend at least that many next year! Come up and say hi– and keep on supporting live music in 2013!