• Charlottesville rock group Cataract Campfinally released its Travis Morrison-produced album Sing Rain [Washington CityPaper]. It’s the only album ever produced by Morrison, and it was recorded way back in 2005. Why now? “I went back to listen to the record and it was something I was really proud of,” says keyboardist and singer Zach Carter, a D.C. resident. “I’m 29 now, thinking then that this is something I did five, six years ago and I just have not wanted to deal with it at all. When I think about it [now], I’m like, ‘This is really pretty good.’ We spent a lot of time and put a lot of energy into it.” Check it out on the group’s Bandcamp page.
• Preview: Nancy Dunham on Feist. At Strathmore tomorrow, 5/9.
• Metallomusikum continues her countdown to Maryland DeathFest with an interview with Nausea.
• Listen: Endangered Blood stopped by NPR’s DC offices for a Tiny Desk Concert.
• The latest on Chuck Brown: He’s still in the hospital, but this weekend at a Harlem Renaissance festival in PG County, his daughter KK said, “He’s okay“. [Washington Post].
• Preview/interview: Jess Righthand talks to Terri Lynne Carrington about her album The Mosaic Project, an all-female album [Washington Post]. Carrington performs as part of the Washington Women in Jazz Festival this Saturday at the Kennedy Center. Righthand also previews a few of the festival’s other events.
• Listen: DC Music Download’s Local Listening Booth. This week’s edition highlights new releases.
Live Reviews
• Several reviews of John Legend and Sharon Jones paying tribute to Marvin Gaye‘s What’s Going On at the Kennedy Center: Mark Jenkins [Washington Post] and Siriam Gopal [DCist].
Sunday, May 6
• Preview/Interview: Siriam Gopal on Rusted Root [DCist]. At the 9:30 Club.
Articles
• Local profile: 20kUnderDC talks to Sockets Records head honcho Sean Peoples.
• Support the local scene: Jazz blog Capital Bop puts together the D.C. Jazz Loft Series during the DC Jazz Fest in early June. They’ve recently launched a Kickstarter project to help defray costs; check out their blog post about it and then head on over to their Kickstarter page to check out the prizes, which include tickets/VIP passes to the festival and a private lesson (in bass clarinet performance or just general jazz appreciation) from Todd Marcus.
• Listen: Nathan Salsburg stopped by NPR’s DC office for a Tiny Desk Concert.
• We promise we didn’t make this up: There’s gonna be a David Simon Battle of the Bands in New Orleans on 5/11, pitting the cities of Simon’s two HBO series– Baltimore (The Wire) and New Orleans (Treme) against each other [DCist/WTOP].
• Interview/preview: Chris Richards talks to fun. [Washington Post]. Stephen Deusner also interviews the band [Express]. The band is at the 9:30 Club tonight (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday). Both shows are sold out.
• Interview/Preview: Kristen Page-Kirby talks to David Krakauer, who’s at Strathmore tonight [Express].
• Interview: Steve Kiviat talks to R & B singer Dawn Richard (ex-Danity Kane).
• Interview: Steve Kiviat talks to Khaira Arby [Washington CityPaper].
• From the archives: the Washington Post dug up an August 14, 1994, article on Chuck Brown by Marc Fisher and an October 5, 1984 article on go-go by Michel Marriott.
• Local band news: brutal death metal band Loculus posted on Facebook that it has parted ways with its singer Bill Calomiris, citing “insurmountable differences”. On the band’s upcoming tour, Brad Deerhake of Locusta will be filling in on vocals. No word about when/if the band will hold auditions for a new singer.
This Wednesday is not quite as quiet as last Wednesday was, but it does still give a nice chance for reflection: what are your favorite local music blogs or sources of music news? Any favorite local bands that I haven’t listed on my links page? Any thoughts or comments about how this blog is formatted or the types of things I cover? Feel free to leave feedback in a comment below or in an email to showlistdc@gmail.com.
• What is in a word? Washington Post music critic Chris Richards muses on his choice of the word “Michelins” in his review of Carrie Underwood’s album Blown Away. Check the original review here.
• Podcast: Take a listen to DC Music Download’s DC Music Recall podcast. This month’s edition features an interview with Matthew Johnson of Imperial China plus reviews of songs by Justin Jones (“Miracles”) and Victoria Vox (“Oh I Wonder”).
• Chris Richards writes of Young Jeezy, President Obama, and the White House’s complicated relationship with hip-hop [Washington Post]. The zingers were zinging at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, but one seemed to fall a smidge flat: President Obama’s promise to start singing Young Jeezy songs in public if he wins a second term. “In my first term I sang Al Green,” the president said, referencing his off-the-cuff performance of Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” at the Apollo Theatre in January. “In my second term, I’m going with Young Jeezy.”
• If you’re planning on using the IMP-sponsored Rock & Bus to get to shows at Merriweather Post Pavilion this summer, do your homework first: the service was a disaster at this weekend’s Sweetlife Festival [Washington CityPaper].
Canadian rock trio Rush are performing at Jiffy Lube Live (formerly Nissan Pavilion) on Sunday, September 9th, and ShowlistDC is giving away a pair of tickets before you can buy them! That’s right, tickets go on sale via ticketmaster.com this Friday, May 4th at 10 AM, but we’re giving away a pair of tickets before then! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me what song you’d most want to hear Rush play live, and I’ll pick a winner at random (using random.org) on Thursday, 3 May 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). Note that the tickets we’re giving away are seats inside the pavilion, not lawn seats– this is an awesome deal for Rush fans to see the band up close!
Rush formed in Toronto in 1968, and over the decades since then, the influential prog-rock trio has become known for the stratospheric vocals of bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee, the powerhouse drumming of lyricist Neil Peart, and the guitar riffs of Alex Lifeson. Their last show in the area was in September of 2010, where they played their classic 1981 album Moving Pictures (the one with hits like “Tom Sawyer”, “YYZ”, and “Limelight”) in its entirety, as well as a bunch of other songs spanning their career (I was lucky enough to get to review the concert for the Washington Post’s Express; you can read my review– which includes the show’s set list– here). This time around, though, they’ll be touring in support of their new album, Clockwork Angels, which is due to come out on June 12th, so they’re almost certain to play a lot of new songs in addition to their old hits. You can listen to their latest single from the album, “Headlong Flight”, in the youtube video below, to get a flavor of what their new material will sound like. Rush is touring without an opener (that seems to be standard for them of late), so we’re expecting that they’ll play two long sets of music.
• Does the DC music scene suck? The Washington Post published a letter this weekend from Sean Roussy of Arlington with the headline The Rant: D.C. must face the music. We had some serious problems with the link to the article last night (it kept coming up as “Page Not Found”– seems to be working better now via this link), so we’re reprinting the whole thing here:
The Washington music scene is just awful. Do not get me wrong. There are many fine local bands across various genres in the District, and a plethora of legendary acts for audiophiles in 31 flavors. It is not the music; it is the scene. I specifically mean all of you. Including myself. The reason I know this is that it is something I see myself and that people and bands from other towns tell me, because I have seen many bands in many towns since I was sneaking out to punk matinees at the age of 13. I also watch tour schedules, and there are plenty of awesome acts that skip this town. This is the Imperial Capital. One would think that this would be an important place to showcase talent. However, time and again I end up driving to Baltimore, Richmond or Philadelphia for music. The reason is, simply, that people do not come out on school nights.
The District works too hard and rocks too little. The transient population of this town is comprised of 50 states worth of former safety patrol captains and class presidents who all came here to conquer, and the suburbs are littered with the descendants of a couple generations of their offspring. These are not the kids who made high school fun by hosting all-day jam sessions in their garages. These are the kids who were busy with their eagle Scout badges and their Key club, whatever that is. This particular population of Washington of which I write works too hard to close the club on a school night and show back up for work at 7 a.m. with three hours of sleep. They have their careers to think about and their brains to use. However, I would posit to all of the readers for whom I may have touched a nerve that the world might be a better place if the music scene of Washington visited the music of D.C. once in a while on a school night. Whether you work the hall or scream at the wall, music is the language of the soul. If the pinnacle of power cannot converse at that level, I am afraid the whole American experiment is in trouble.
• On May 1, 1972, Marvin Gaye had a homecoming performance of What’s Going On at the then-new Kennedy Center. To remember the event’s 40th anniversary, the Ken Cen is recreating the show– with John Legend, the National Symphony Orchestra Pops, and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (the shows are sold out, by the way). Roger Catlin writes about the original show, that almost didn’t happen [Washington Post]. There’s also a cool map of DC sites with links to Marvin Gaye.
• What happens to old punk clubs when they vacate the building? Apparently they become J.Crew stores– or, at least, that’s what’s happening to the former 9:30 Club at 930 F St NW [Washington CityPaper].
• Interview: Valerie Paschall chats with Trophy Wife [DCist].
Last night, I went to the Black Cat and saw British twee band Allo Darlin’. I wouldn’t ordinarily identify as a fan of twee, but I do really dig the Field Mice and Camera Obscura, and I find Allo Darlin’ to be very much in line with those two bands. (Also, I recently reviewed the band’s latest album, Europe, for the Washington Post). I was pleasantly surprised to see that the show was packed (and packed with people who knew a lot of the band’s lyrics, too!). Live, the band really captures that “just exuberant enough to be slightly off-kilter” brand of indie-pop; I don’t think the bassist stopped jumping up and down for the band’s entire ~45-minute set. Another pleasant surprise: frontwoman Elizabeth Morris’s solo ukulele song “Tallulah” during the encore was performed to….complete silence! So great to hear DC crowds keeping quiet after a whole slew of chatty shows.
An unrelated story from last night’s show: I got an iPhone a few weeks ago, and I’m still warming up to it– sure, some of the apps are cool, but I’m not a fan of its email functionality, and that’s what I want a smartphone for, more than gadgets and doodads. Anyway, last night at the show, one of those apps came in handy: a flashlight app I’d recently installed helped a woman find her contact lens on the floor of the Black Cat. I kind of wanted to ask if she actually planned on putting it back in her eye– no amount of rinsing could possibly get nightclub grime off of that thing.
• Interview: Metal Chris talks to Evan Harting, co-founder of Maryland DeathFest [DCHeavyMetal.com]. You can either listen to the interview via MP3 (~20 minutes) or read its entire transcript (or both!). Metal Chris talks both about festival logistics (parking, food) as well as the merits of downloading (Metal Chris rightly points out that many of the bands on the DeathFest schedule wouldn’t be known enough to come to the U.S. if not for the availability of their music online). Teaser from this cool interview: I think having at least some of your music available online for free is great and it gets your word out there. If you’re in metal to make money then you’re doing something wrong anyway.
• Local band profile: Stephanie Williams on Heavy Breathing [DC Music Download].
• Watch out for disco balls! In April 2010, a woman was allegedly hit by a falling disco ball at the Franconia Moose Lodge in Alexandria. Now she’s suing [Washington Post]. The horrific incident happened in April 2010 at a Sweet Sixteen dance, according to Robert M. Somer, the lawyer who filed the suit. He said the victim, Ana Guevara Blanco, suffered a concussion, a fractured nose and facial bones, was hospitalized, and ran up about $15,000 in hospital bills. After some plastic surgery, her nose still doesn’t look the way it once did, Somer said.
