ShowlistDC Music Notes: Monday 03-26-12



Notes from this weekend


So I spent most of the weekend out in Reston for the annual SingStrong a cappella festival, which featured a long list of performers including Sing-Off winners Pentatonix, locals– and Sing-Off alums– Afro-Blue, and live-looper Julia Easterlin. Easterlin was by far my favorite performer of the weekend; her original compositions were outstanding, and it was really impressive to watch her build her layered harmonies live.

Then last night, I headed up to Baltimore to see technical instrumental trio Dysrhythmia at Sonar’s Talking Head Lounge. Really awesome show– the guys previewed all new songs from their as-yet-unrecorded album, and bassist Colin Marston broke a string twice. (Luckily, both of the opening bands on the tour played 6-string basses, so he just borrowed one for the rest of the set.)



Articles


• Local band news: death-doomers Ilsa have signed with A389 for their next album [Brooklyn Vegan].

Midori is coming to Alexandria– to perform and teach [Washington Post].

The end of Justin Moyer‘s “Edie Sedgwick goes to SXSW” [Washington CityPaper].

• CD Review: DC writer Zach Kelly on TanlinesMixed Emotions [Pitchfork].



Live Reviews


• Mark Jenkins on Gotye at the 9:30 Club [Washington Post]. It’s hard to describe Gotye without making him sound more exotic than he really is.

• Mark Jenkins on Angelique Kidjo at Lisner Auditorium [Washington Post].

• Michael J West on Kevin Eubanks at Blues Alley [Washington Post]. While most Americans know Kevin Eubanks for his 15 years as Jay Leno’s bandleader and sidekick, jazz devotees remember the guitarist’s straight-ahead bop and funky, world-music-imbued experiments from his pre-”Tonight Show” career. The audience that packed Blues Alley to see him Thursday night, however, got neither of the above.

• Anne Midgette on Shuffle.Play.Listen (the collaboration between Christopher O’Riley and Matt Haimovitz) at George Mason [Washington Post].

• Stephen Brookes on the BSO performing works of Higdon and Tchaikovsky at Strathmore [Washington Post].

• Tom Huizenga on the NSO‘s performance of works by Janacek and Dvorak at the Kennedy Center [Washington Post].



Contests


Darkest Hour is giving away Grindesign art to peopele who “like” this facebook image and page (contest is open until it reaches 1,000 likes).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a pair of tickets to see DJ Shadow at the FIllmore Silver Spring on 3/27 (contest ends today at noon).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a pair of tickets to see the Joy Formidable at the 9:30 Club on 3/26 (contest ends today at noon).
• DCHeavyMetal.com is giving away a pair of tickets to see Alcest, deafheaven, Black Clouds, and Auroboros at DC9 on 3/29 (contest ends Tuesday 3/27 at 5 PM).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a 2-LP set of the Mastodon album The Hunter. Winner must have a North American mailing address. (contest ends Thursday 3/28).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a copy of VCMB‘s Ssss on vinyl. Winner must have a North American mailing address. (contest ends Friday 3/29).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to Creed at the Warner Theatre on 4/24 (contest ends Sunday 4/15).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to Nickelback at the Verizon Center on 4/30 (contest ends Monday 4/23).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to Marilyn Manson at the Fillmore Silver Spring on 5/1 (contest ends Sunday 4/1).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to the sold-out Radiohead show at the Verizon Center on 6/3 (contest ends Sunday 5/27).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to Dave Matthews Band at Jiffy Lube Live on 6/16 (contest ends Sunday 6/3).

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ShowlistDC Music Notes: Friday 03-23-12



Weekend/Week-Ahead Planner


• Helpful planners: Washingtonian’s Music Picks. TBD’s guide to free shows this weekend. Washington CityPaper’s Jazz Setlist. DCist’s This Week in Hip-Hop. Around the Mall’s events. We Love DC loves weekends.
• CD Review: Catherine Lewis on Sons of Bill‘s Sirens [Washington Post]. Performing tonight at IOTA.
• CD Review: Mark Jenkins on Polica‘s Give You the Ghost [Washington Post]. Performing tonight at the Red Palace.
• Interview + Listening: Lindsay Zoladz talks to Heavy Breathing (a band that includes former members of The Apes) [Washington CityPaper]. Performing Saturday at the Capitol Skyline Hotel.
• Preview: Nancy Dunham on Tom Rush [Washington Examiner]. Performing Saturday at the Birchmere.
• CD Review: Mike Joyce on Joe Louis Walker‘s Hotfire [Washington Post]. Performing Saturday at the State Theatre.
• Preview: Emily Cary on Shuffle. Play. Listen. (a collaboration between pianist Christopher O’Riley and cellist Matt Haimovitz) [Washington Examiner]. Performing Saturday at George Mason University Center for the Arts.
• Interview: Brandon Weigel on Thomas Dolby [Washington Post]. Performing Sunday at the Birchmere.
• CD Review: Jess Righthand on Grace Woodroofe‘s Always Want [Washington Post]. Performing Sunday at the Black Cat.
• CD Review: Dan Miller on the Joy Formidable‘s The Big Roar [Washington Post]. Performing Monday 3/26 at the 9:30 Club.



Other Articles/Videos


• Local power metal band A Sound of Thunder has just released a music video for “Muderous Horde” (recommended if you like snakes!). The band’s new album Out of the Darkness comes out next week, and the band is celebrating with a CD release show at Empire in Springfield (formerly Jaxx) on Saturday 3/31.

• If yesterday’s Washington Post boy band article wasn’t enough boy band talk for you, there’s more boy band talk on the Washington Post.

The Onion has ended circulation in DC [Washington CityPaper]. No great surprise from us (most of the Onion bins we saw were always empty, with the exception of the ones right outside the Columbia Heights metro station– the paper had clearly been cutting back its distribution this year).

• Erica Bruce’s photos of DC in SXSW [Washington CityPaper].



Live Reviews


• Charles T. Downey on NSO and Washington Chorus‘s performance of Dvorak’s “Stabat Mater Dolorosa”, Op. 58, at the Kennedy Center [Washington Post].

• Catherine McCarthy on Justice at the 9:30 Club [DCist].

• We Love DC on Kasabian at the 9:30 Club.



Contests


• LiveNation Latino’s Facebook Page has tickets to Franco de Vita at the Fillmore on 3/28. You have to install a Facebook app in order to enter (I didn’t do that, so I don’t know when this contest ends).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a three-month Slacker Premium Subscription (contest ends today).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a pair of tickets to Def Leppard, Poison, and Lita Ford at Merriweather Post Pavilion on 7/10 (contest ends today at noon).
• The Fillmore Silver Spring is using Facebook to give away tickets to Jordan Knight on 3/25 (contest ends Saturday 3/24 at noon).
Darkest Hour is giving away Grindesign art to peopele who “like” this facebook image and page (contest is open until it reaches 1,000 likes).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a pair of tickets to see DJ Shadow at the FIllmore Silver Spring on 3/27 (contest ends Monday 3/26 at noon).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a pair of tickets to see the Joy Formidable at the 9:30 Club on 3/26 (contest ends Monday 3/26 at noon).
• DCHeavyMetal.com is giving away a pair of tickets to see Alcest, deafheaven, Black Clouds, and Auroboros at DC9 on 3/29 (contest ends Tuesday 3/27 at 5 PM).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a 2-LP set of the Mastodon album The Hunter. Winner must have a North American mailing address. (contest ends Thursday 3/28).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to Creed at the Warner Theatre on 4/24 (contest ends Sunday 4/15).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to Nickelback at the Verizon Center on 4/30 (contest ends Monday 4/23).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to Marilyn Manson at the Fillmore Silver Spring on 5/1 (contest ends Sunday 4/1).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to the sold-out Radiohead show at the Verizon Center on 6/3 (contest ends Sunday 5/27).
• DC101 is giving away a pair of tickets to Dave Matthews Band at Jiffy Lube Live on 6/16 (contest ends Sunday 6/3).

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ShowlistDC Music Notes: Monday 03-19-12

Stuff to read:
• Roger Catlin rants about Ticketmaster and its annoying fees and policies [Washington Post]. On the stupid fake-words that Ticketmaster makes customers enter, Catlin writes:

The method serves mostly to slow people down by having to retype the barely legible wavy words, while it allows scalpers to buy up every ticket to, say, a Bruce Springsteen show at Verizon Center on April 1 that sold out in one minute according to my computer. Can’t figure out why I got shut out while the local scalper Web site lists literally hundreds of tickets available at prices up to $1,000 each.

The problem is: everybody KNOWS how much Ticketmaster stinks, but if you want to go to a concert at a Ticketmaster venue, you’ve gotta use ‘em.

Artomatic 2012 is still going to be in Crystal City– but at a different venue than previously announced [ARLnow]. Artomatic starts on May 18.
• David Mermelstein on the collaboration between pianist Christopher O’Riley (known for his adaptations of Radiohead songs) and cellist Matt Haimovitz (who is known for playing traditional classical music in non-traditional venues) [Washington Post].
• Book Review: Aaron Leitko on Gary Marcus‘s book Guitar Zero: the New Musician and the Science of Learning (available on Amazon).

In “Guitar Zero,” Marcus uses his musical midlife crisis to frame a discussion of the science of adult learning and music’s effect on the human brain. For the past couple of decades, developmental psychologists have believed that complex skills, such as playing an instrument, are best acquired during brief windows of time, usually in early childhood, when the brain is more malleable.

• Apparently everyone wants to talk to Fat Trel. Chris Richards at the Washington Post interviewed the rapper. Fat Trel was the cover of last week’s CityPaper as well.
• Hamil R. Harris reports on opera singers bringing “Art Songs” back to church [Washington Post].
Day 9 of Justin Moyer‘s “Edie Sedgwick goes to SXSW” [Washington CityPaper]. Also, Chris Richards has his latest SXSW report [Washington Post]. The corporate presence at this year’s SXSW felt oppressive, contaminating the festival’s hallowed musical ecosystem of sharing and discovery. Bemoaners have bemoaned that SXSW has slowly lost its soul over the course of 26 years, but this go-round was exponentially yuckier than last spring’s. Nearly every musical transaction felt sticky with Mountain Dew.
• Live Reviews: Megan Buerger on The-Dream at Fillmore Silver Spring [Washington Post]. Andy Hess on John K Samson at the Black Cat [DCist]. Anne Midgette on Vadim Repin at Strathmore [Washington Post]. Cecelia Porter on BSO at Strathmore [Washington Post]. Stephen Brookes on Folger Consort at Folger Shakespeare Library’s Elizabethan Theatre [Washington Post].

Stuff to win:
• The Vinyl District is giving away a pair of lawn tickets to see the Black Keys at Merriweather Post Pavilion on 5/18. (contest ends today at noon).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a pair of tickets to Vetusta Morla at U Street Music Hall on 3/21 (contest ends Tuesday 3/20 at noon).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a copy of the Big Pink‘s Future This on vinyl. Winner must have a North American mailing address (contest ends Wednesday 3/21).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a copy of Electric Guest’s Troubleman 7″ (white). Winner must have a North American mailing address (contest ends Thursday 3/22).
• The Vinyl District is giving away a three-month Slacker Premium Subscription (contest ends Friday 3/23).

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