Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple is coming to the Lincoln Theatre for two shows in October. The first one is already sold out, and ShowlistDC is giving away a pair of tickets to the newly-added second show on Saturday, October 26! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me which song you’d most want to hear live. On Friday, 27 September at noon Eastern, I’ll pick the winner at random (using random.org). 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. Also note that we ask winners to respond within 24 hours, or else we have to pick another winner, so make sure to check your email regularly!
Fiona Apple burst onto the scene with her debut album Tidal in 1996 (featuring the singles “Criminal” and “Shadowboxer”), followed that up with the lengthy-titled When the Pawn…, and then went on a lengthy hiatus. She eventually returned to making music, releasing Extraordinary Machine in 2005 and dropping another lengthily-titled album last year, The Idler Wheel…. She doesn’t tour very often, so this is a rare opportunity to see her live.
Apple is touring with California singer-songwriter Blake Mills, who has also produced albums for Jesca Hoop and Sara Watkins (oh, and he wrote/produced a song for Sky Ferreira as well). His debut album is called Break Mirrors. You can check out a few of Fiona Apple’s and Blake Mills’s songs via the videos embedded below, and while you’re giving those a spin, let us know which song you’d most want to either of them perform in concert.
If you’re new to ShowlistDC and wondering what this site is all about, check out our extensive calendar of upcoming events in the greater DC area (including Northern VA and Baltimore) and our concert recommendations. You can also follow us on twitter @showlistdc or like us on Facebook!
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, plus service fees, via ticketfly.com, here.
The contest has ended and the winner has been notified. Thanks!
• There was a hip/hop show at DC Star over the weekend, featuring Fat Trel and Chief Keef. Carlos Perez wrote about why Shy Glizzy was banned from the show [Washington CityPaper].
• The show was over the weekend, but here’s a nice feature about Spectrum Road [DCist].
• The show was over the weekend, but here’s Philip Runco’s interview with Spencer Krug [Brightest Young Things].
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].
• 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.
Notes from last night (and a request for feedback)
Last night I headed out to DC9 to see French atmospheric black metal/shoegaze band Alcest. (Apparently it was quite the week for atmospheric black metal bands in the U St corridor, since Liturgy opened for Sleigh Bells at the 9:30 Club on Tuesday). Their set focussed mostly on their newest album, Les Voyages de L’ame, which sounded great, despite the absurdly omnipresent smoke machine. (Seriously, it’s as if those guys were pumping enough smoke for a space the size of the 9:30 club). Oddly, the crowd seemed to be the biggest for opening band deaf heaven– either that, or people just pushed closer for the headliner’s set. Other openers were locals Black Clouds and Auroboros.
Hey, while I’m at it, it seems to be a SLDC Music Notes tradition to ask for feedback on the last weekday of the month. What do you like/dislike in this daily round-up? Are their things I could add or change? Feel free to let me know, either via a comment on this post or by email, showlistdc@gmail.com.
• Chris Richards muses on musicians who wear masks [Washington Post]. As the hyper-connectivity of social media pulls our planet into a tighter huddle, [Aaron] Jerome [of SBTRKT] is one in a growing number of vanguard pop artists flirting with the idea of anonymity. They often wear masks. Some conceal their names. A few refuse to perform in public altogether. Many make electronic music, including Deadmau5, the Bloody Beetroots, Redshape and Zomby. And although artists and authors have worked under pseudonyms for centuries, protecting one’s anonymity today feels like an implicit protest against our increasingly Facebookish society. These artists are asserting their power by refusing to be identified, asking us to like them without clicking “Like”.
• Not local but still worth mentioning: We reminded you yesterday that flash mobs aren’t cool, but apparently Renee Fleming and Yo-Yo Ma didn’t get the memo. The pair performed at a food court in Chicago with some Chicago high school students and members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (apparently the CSO sent out an email announcing the concert, which reminds us that the only thing less cool than a flash mob is announcing the flash mob in advance. Seriously, people!). Anyway, as much as we hate flash mobs, we can bet that this performance was a step up from Fleming’s 2010 album Dark Hope, a collection of covers of songs by Muse (“Endlessly”), Band of Horses (“No One’s Gonna Love You”), Arcade Fire (“Intervention”), Tears For Fears (“Mad World”), and Peter Gabriel (“In Your Eyes”). (No, we did not make any of that up.) At the flash mob performance, Fleming kept with a safer song choice: “America the Beautiful”.
• Concert updates: Fiona Apple‘s show tonight at 6th & I has been posponed a week, to Wednesday 3/28. Here’s a quick report from the Washington Post. The Washington Examiner, on the other hand, didn’t get the memo that the show is postponed and instead published this preview of the concert.
• Documentary alert: The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye opens this Friday at Landmark’s E Street Cinema. That’s “Genesis” as in Genesis P-Orridge of Psychic TV, and Chris Porter wrote this column about the two [Express].
• We’re still a little sick of seeing the word SXSW, but we don’t at all mind reading DCist’s SXSW 2012 Scouting Report, especially since they kept it local by telling us when those bands would be performing around here.
