Franz Ferdinand is coming to Strathmore in Bethesda on Thursday, 17 October, and ShowlistDC is giving away a pair of tickets– before they go on sale to the public! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me which Franz Ferdinand song you’d most like to hear, and I’ll pick the winner at random (using random.org) on Thursday, 20 June at midnight 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. 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! Tickets go on sale on Friday, 21 June at 10 AM, so we’ll be sure to let the winner know before then!
Franz Ferdinand burst into our eardrums in the early 2000s with the uber-catchy “Take Me Out” from their debut album Franz Ferdinand. They released several more albums and then seemed to disappear for a few years– but they’re back now with a fury, announcing the release of a new album Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action this August. They haven’t started posting videos from the album yet, but they’ve posted this teaser, and they’ve been uploading other videos to their YouTube page like crazy in the past day(!), so if you want to get your Franz Ferdinand fix beyond the videos I’ve posted below, head on over to their YouTube page here. If you’ve never been to Strathmore before, their music hall is gorgeous and it’s easily metro-accessible via the red line’s Grosvenor stop. If you’re driving, parking in the metro lot is free for Strathmore guests!
Hey, 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! While you’re checking all that out, check out the videos below and let us know which song you’re most excited about hearing!
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 $58.50 on strathmore.org after 10 AM on Friday, 21 June. Good luck and enjoy the music!
The contest is now closed and the winner has been notified!
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!
• No joke: there’s a musical version of The Wire [DCist], brought to you by the folks at FunnyOrDie.com. Warning: if you watch the video, you will want those 4 minutes of your life back.
• Interview: Janet Yaceczko talks to Dean Crawford [DC Music Download].
• Interview: Mike Shomaker and Brian Ossip talk to Dead Sara [DC Music Live].
• Interview: Brightest Young Things talks to Jonny Corndawg. Performing at the Ottobar on 6/20.
• Preview: Emily Cary talks to Andrew Earle Simpson about musical accompaniment to silent films [Washington Examiner]. Simpson is the head of Catholic University of America’s Division of Theory and Composition. His score of the film The Wind is presented with the film at 3 PM Saturday at AFI in Silver Spring.
• Local record store Red Onion Records & Books is shutting its doors in September. Store owner Josh Harkavy wrote to his store’s email list: [T]his is not the end of Red Onion… We will continue as a fully functioning record store, just without the store part (for now). I’ll still go out looking for records and stocking new releases, the challenge will be finding new ways to get them to you. We’ll keep doing our emails (on a weekly basis) and work on some sort of mail order/delivery service.
We’ve got a double “win ‘em before you can buy ‘em” contest this week here on ShowlistDC! Hot Chip and Sleigh Bells are playing at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Sunday, July 22nd, and Metric is playing at Strathmore on Friday, September 21st. Tickets to both shows go on sale this Friday (May 18th) at 10 AM, but we’re giving away a pair of tickets to each show before you can buy them! You can enter to win tickets to either show (or both shows!), but you can only win tickets to one show. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me which show you’d like to enter for (remember that you can enter for both!) and I’ll pick the winners at random (using random.org) on Thursday, 17 May at 7 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).
The first of the two shows is Hot Chip and Sleigh Bells with a special DJ set by James Murphy (DFA/LCD Soundsystem). Hot Chip is a British electropop group that formed in 2000. The group has released four albums which have all been extremely well-received (the lowest score they got on Pitchfork was a 7.0, with the other three albums receiving an 8.0 or above). They’ve got a new one coming out in June, In Our Heads, so this show is certain to feature a lot of new songs as well. Opening the show is Sleigh Bells, a New York duo of Derek Edward Miller on guitar and Alexis Krauss on vocals. It’s been a busy year for Sleigh Bells: they put out their second album, Reign of Terror, in February, sold out the 9:30 Club in March, and opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Verizon Center last week. Then there’s James Murphy, who co-founded DFA Records and performed in LCD Soundsystem, who’ll be doing a DJ set to open the whole show. Murphy announced that he was retiring LCD Soundsystem last year (the group’s last concert was in New York in April 2011), but he didn’t drop out of music entirely: he released a song with Gorillaz and Andre 2000 earlier this year, and it’s great to see him still out performing, so make sure you get to this show early enough to catch his opening set. When tickets go on sale, they’ll be available via ticketfly.com for $35 (lawn) or $45 (pavilion) plus applicable fees. (Note that we’re giving away lawn tickets.)
In September, Canadian indie-rock group Metric is playing the majestic theatre Strathmore up in Bethesda– this place has fantastic sound, so it’ll be great to hear these guys in such an incredible space. Metric formed back in 1998 and has released four studio albums, with a fifth– Synthetica– coming out in June. Another show that’s sure to feature a bunch of new tunes! Frontwoman Emily Haines posted a note on the group’s official site about the album, writing, “SYNTHETICA is about staying home and wanting to crawl out of your skin from the lack of external stimulation. SYNTHETICA is about forcing yourself to confront what you see in the mirror when you finally stand still long enough to catch a reflection. SYNTHETICA is about being able to identify the original in a long line of reproductions. It’s about what is real vs what is artificial.” We’re not entirely sure what that means, exactly, but it sure sounds intriguing. Tickets for this show will go on sale 5/18 via ticketmaster.com for $47 plus applicable fees.
Check out some music videos of all of these bands, then let me know in the comments which show (or both!) you’d like to attend. And if you come across this post after the contest has closed, you can pick up tickets via Ticketfly for Hot Chip/Sleigh Bells and Ticketmaster for Metric.
• Uber-hipster blog Brightest Young Things is expanding to New York [Washington CityPaper]. 2011 was Brightest Young Things’ most successful year, and its first profitable one, [BYT leader Svetlana] Legetic says. But she isn’t inching back from the operation’s online presence to take advantage of the breathing room that comes with a bigger staff. (The site now has six full-time employees with benefits, plus two part-timers and an army of volunteer contributors, compared to three full-timers a year ago.) As far as bylines go, Legetic will still write the site’s weekend events newsletter, and guide its more ambitious editorial projects. But a lot of her energy in the next few months will involve Brightest Young Things’ more imperial ambitions. This summer, the site is expanding to New York.
• The Washington Post’s sixth annual Peeps contest (sorry, we just can’t bring ourselves to call it by its official name, “Peeps Show”) has concluded. We do love this music-related one, so kudos to Derek Hills and Brinda Krishnan (of the band Not My Sister) for their sugary creation! There are a few close-ups here and here and here.
• Local arts news: Scott Tucker (Cornell University’s choral director) will be taking over as the head of the Choral Arts Society [Washington Post]. The Society’s current head, Norman Scribner founded the organization 46 years ago and is retiring at the end of this season. Tucker’s experience includes fundraising (of particular interest in today’s climate), commissioning new work — he commissioned more than 30 new pieces while at Cornell, including works by Augusta Read Thomas, Chen Yi and Libby Larsen — and world music. He spent part of a sabbatical year in South Africa, learning traditional music by rote from an expert who requested that he not write anything down, saying, according to Tucker, that “those staff lines are like prison bars to the music.”
• Tittsworth is really excited about the return of Trouble & Bass to DC (and has a pair of tickets to give away to a promotion-friendly twitter user).
• Patrick Foster on Sleigh Bells and Liturgy at the 9:30 Club [Washington Post]. Apparently the headliner– which has 2 albums under its belt– played a short, 45-minute set.
