Category Archives: Music

Entertainment, Fun & Games, Music
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The Winning Ticket: Slightly Stoopid

As a way to say thanks to our loyal readers, We Love DC will be giving away a pair of tickets to a 9:30 Club concert to one lucky reader each week. Check back here every Wednesday morning at 9am to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

This week we are offering up a winner’s choice! We are raffling off a pair of tix to catch Slightly Stoopid and Fishbone perform at 9:30 Club next week. Since the two bands are dropping their ska, reggae, funk grooves on Wednesday (2/16) and Thursday (2/17) our winner not only gets to rock out but also gets to choose which night he or she wants to do so! Just let us know your preferred night when you leave your comment below.

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. If today doesn’t turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts. Tickets for this concert are available on Ticketfly.

For the rules of this giveaway…
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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Chromeo @ 9:30 Club, 2/6/11

IMG_7473
All photos by Michael Darpino

Per Michael’s advice, I thought I’d cruise over to the 9:30 Club on Sunday night to dance with single ladies with good taste in music. I even came up with the perfect line – “excuse me, do you care about sports? Me neither.”

Okay, not entirely true. I try to care about football at least once a year, so I caught the first three-quarters of the Super Bowl. And I pretended to be heartbroken when I had to leave before the final quarter to catch Chromeo. They played two shows this weekend – Saturday night’s sold out forever ago, but The Game meant there were still tickets for Sunday. But even with competing activities, Chromeo nearly filled the club. It proved to be a great venue for these guys – with a full stage setup, complete with stadium-style lighting, backup dancers, and their trademark sexy-leg-synthesizers, Chromeo showed off their bona-fide rock star credentials.
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Music, The Daily Feed
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U Street Music Hall’s (Twitter) Manifesto

There are many, many reasons that I love and support U Street Music Hall. One of them that I don’t get to write about very often is the dedication of U Hall’s owners to making their club a great experience for music fans and music makers alike.

On Saturday night, in the middle of UK DJ/Producer Sinden’s set, a customer reached into the DJ booth from the dance floor and angrily slammed Sinden’s laptop shut after being denied a request that had already been played. This is a very uncool thing to do in general, but particularly when you consider the facts that a laptop is a key component to a DJ’s arsenal, Sinden was in mid-set entertaining a packed club, and LAPTOPS DON’T GROW ON TREES AND ARE EXPENSIVE TO REPLACE. The incident really upset/incensed co-owner Will Eastman, who prides himself on offering a great U Hall experience for both the audience and the talent. Starting on Saturday night, Eastman began twittering about the incident. His tweets carried over into Sunday and he even had a few on Monday. Eastman’s tweets read like an informal manifesto for his club. Some choice tweets are reprinted here with Eastman’s blessing.

@willeastman:

“Public service announcement: an asshole closed @gsinden laptop because he wouldn’t play a request. Said asshole is now banned for life.”

“Public service announcement: DJs @uhalldc do not play requests.”

“I love every U Hall supporter & I want everyone who supports U Hall to know douchebaggery will never, ever be tolerated there. Period.”

“Ok, I may lose some followers here, but I’m going to tell it like it is.”

“If you don’t really love music, if you just wanna get drunk and try to get laid, don’t come to @uhalldc It’s not for you.”

“If you like to fight, go worry about your tiny penis somewhere else. Do not come to U Hall.”

“If you like to grind on girls, go to a strip club. Do not come to our club.”

“If you’re too drunk to read the sign that says Emergency Exit, you should go home.”

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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Monotonix @ Comet Ping-Pong, 2/4/11

Monotonix at Comet 018
All photos by author

So this is what anarchy feels like.

Even with over 700 shows under their belt, Monotonix’s show on Friday night at Comet might’ve been the best chance to catch them on this tour. For reference, their show earlier this week in L.A. attracted 600 fans to a tiny venue – the cops ended up shutting down the show. Comet, on the other hand, can only hold 120 people in the back room. The show was sold out around 11pm, and the staff were kicking out people who didn’t have tickets, to stay within fire code.

For those lucky enough to get in, Comet’s back room was ideal for vocalist Ami Shalev’s antics. Sure, I’m a big fan of Monotonix’s brand of garage rock – noisy, positive, exciting, with energetic drums and dirty guitar licks. But a Monotonix show is more performance art than concert. The packed crowd offered a platform for Ami to climb around the room on our arms and shoulders, using every bit of space in the room from the floor to the rafters. I’ve never seen a band so utterly destroy the 4th wall between band and audience.
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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Girl Talk @ 9:30 Club, 2/1/11

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All photos by Andrew Markowitz

If you’re looking for a good dance party, you can’t do much better than Girl Talk.

Gregg Gillis, the man behind the moniker Girl Talk, sits as the king of the mash-up, where different parts of different songs are combined into a track that’s both retro and fresh. The genius of Girl Talk is that he shifts from one part to the next so quickly that it doesn’t get stale – before you can name that tune, it’s on to the next one. It’s the perfect soundtrack for the ADD generation.

I thought that the best way to enjoy Girl Talk was to sit around with your friends, drinking beers and calling out which Radiohead beats were mixed with which Missy Elliot verses. Of course, Girl Talk’s music is solid enough to stand on its own, beyond being just a long game of ‘name that tune’, and the live show propels it to a new level. It seizes your attention and never lets go. If you stop paying attention, you’re bound to get hit in the face with toilet paper propelled by a leaf-blower.
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Music, The Daily Feed
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Hot Ticket: Monotonix @ Comet Ping Pong, 2/4/11

Monotonix - [2011] Not Yet

If you’re looking for a “unique” experience on Friday night, you can’t do much better than seeing Israeli garage-rockers Monotonix at Comet. Their debut album was a well-received collection of fuzzy riffs and some barely intelligible shouting. If you like Monotonix but you haven’t seen them live yet, you are a fool. Their music is just background noise for the performance art of their singer Ami Shalev. He jumps off drum sets, asks people to throw garbage at him, and generally causes a ruckus. This man is a tank, taking abuse from the audience (and himself) in show after show. He’s the embodiment of rock ‘n roll excess.

After getting banned from every club in their hometown of Tel Aviv, Monotonix has been touring the world almost nonstop since their debut 4 years ago. Right now, they’re touring in support of their new album “Not Yet”. Oh, and Ami recently broke his arm at a show in Florida (I’m shocked that this is his first show-stopping injury), but I can’t imagine this group turning down their intensity for a stupid reason like that. Comet should be the perfect venue to see these guys, as they’ll be right there on the floor with the audience.

The openers Federation X and Pujol from Nashville bring more garage-rock flavor to the bill. Monotonix probably invited them just to have more people to help clean up after their set.

MONOTONIX
w/ Federation X, Pujol
Comet Ping-Pong
Friday, Feb 4th
$12

Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Robert Plant @ DAR Constitution Hall, 2/1/11


courtesy of RobertPlant.com

Like many people my age, we grew up as big fans of Led Zeppelin. They had the power and the superstar aura about them. They seemed far more mystical and untouchable than many of the other big bands of their day, akin to latter day Beatles perhaps. It has been interesting to follow the individual members since that time, as they have been much more down to earth in accessibility both personally and musically. John Paul Jones worked with Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age members, Jimmy Page plays often and is open for interviews and was even featured in the documentary “It Might Get Loud”. Yet it is Robert Plant who has been most active with album releases. He has released a ten-disc box set covering his career and has since added an award winning duet CD with Alison Krauss. Now he is touring in support of his latest album with another solid group called Band of Joy.
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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: The Radio Dept. @ Rock & Roll Hotel, 2/1/11

Radio Dept.
all photos by Erin McCann.

On Tuesday night, bodies were packed like sweaty sardines into a very sold-out Rock & Roll Hotel to see the Swedish dream-pop trio The Radio Dept. This much anticipated show was an early date on their current U.S. tour in support of their career-spanning retrospective “Passive Aggresive”. But for most of the young audience the show was really the first chance to see The Radio Dept. since they released their excellent 2010 album “Clinging to a Scheme”. This is easily their most mainstream accessible work and it was obvious that a lot of the chatty crowd were only there to hear songs from that album. The set list featured a lot of non-album singles, a few older album tracks, and the highlights from “Clinging to a Scheme”. Unfortunately a combination of the sell-out crowd making the room very uncomfortable, early technical difficulties, audience rudeness, and a complete lack of showmanship from the band made this concert much less than the stellar, atmospheric-pop display that I was expecting.

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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Office Of Future Plans @ The Wind-Up Space, 1/28/11

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“Office of Future Plans” set by author.

I went up to Baltimore on Friday for a night of good old fashioned American indie rock. The kind of early to mid-90’s, DIY-fueled, noisy indie rock that produced local legends like Ian MacKaye and J. Robbins. I guess it’s what music historians are calling post-hardcore these days. Emotional rock music with hardcore’s heart but with a compositional sophistication that punk could never pull off. This music has got guts and up tempos and expresses deep emotion without ever sounding limp or boring. It is music that can keep a room full of people moving or just as easily soundtrack your loneliest moment.

The big draw for me on Friday was finally seeing Office of Future Plans headline a show. This is J. Robbins’ new project that he has been incubating for almost two years now. Anything new from J. Robbins of Jawbox (et al.)* is going to peak my interest, but I had been hearing great things about his latest group and I wanted to check them out in the right setting. A special bonus on the bill was SPRCSS, a mysterious post-punk band with minimal internet presence, who surface like a submarine surprise attack every few years to blow audiences away with their select performances. Kicking things off was Baltimore’s own psychedelic freak-out heroes, Whoarfrost. Watching this spastic, noisy triple bill in The Wind-Up Space really took me back to my first days in DC, back when almost every other night offered great shows full of sonically interesting, passionate, local indie-rock bands who mixed power and emotion perfectly.
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Entertainment, Fun & Games, Music, We Love Music
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The Winning Ticket: Chromeo

As a way to say thanks to our loyal readers, We Love DC will be giving away a pair of tickets to a 9:30 Club concert to one lucky reader each week. Check back here every Wednesday morning at 9am to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

This is our first repeat offender on The Winning Ticket! Last summer when we gave away Chromeo tickets our readers lost their collective mind in the mad scramble to win the coveted prize. Shall we try for a repeat?

This week we are giving away a pair of tickets to see…the Canadian reincarnation of Hall & Oates…yes…Chromeo at 9:30 Club on Sunday, February 6th. Frankly, I considered these guys a musical joke that I didn’t quite get until I saw them perform in the Dance Forest at last year’s Virgin Mobile FreeFest. Their brilliant, sunset, synthesizer party caught me completely off guard and made me an instant convert to their cheesy/sexy/silly 80’s throwback electronic monster jams. There is something magical in Chromeo’s music that gets the party going from that first massive, warbling synth tone and keeps the energy up until their final Tenderoni ballad.

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. If today doesn’t turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts. Tickets for this concert are available on Ticketfly.

For the rules of this giveaway…
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Entertainment, Music, The Features, We Love Arts
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The Washington Performing Arts Society Presents: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis


Photo by Rachel Levitin

Jazz – and Country/Bluegrass – are the dominant proprietors of modern “Made in America” music and that’s something worth holding on to. In its inception, Jazz defined an era of youth during tumultuous times. That was its claim to fame. That’s what got it notice. That’s what shot it to the forefront of popular culture during World War II.

Jazz defined an era of uncertainty. It ushered in a voice for the speechless. It provided a musical and mental solace for people who wanted to feel something beyond a war being fought or a job lost or anything besides the monotony of their daily routine. Jazz was the sanctuary and swing was the medium. Throw in a little Blues for a cherry-on-top flourish and by golly you’ve got yourself a true American portrait – an American testimonial.

If Jazz was personified, its equivalent would be akin to the likes of the always effervescent, charismatic, and talented Louis Armstrong. The New Orleans trumpet player, born in 1901, wasn’t the first Jazz trumpet player in the history books but he is an icon of the genre. Wynton Marsalis is a Louis Armstrong for the new millennium. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Archivists/Fluorescent Sense/Southern Problems @ the Rock & Roll Hotel, 1/28/11

Rock & Roll Hotel’s upstairs bar was packed with the usual Friday night denizens dancing away to the predictable throbbing drumbeats of the hired DJ. The downstairs bar was the place to be for rock music fans wanting to catch three fine, up-and-coming, local DC bands displaying their original songs and rock musical acumen. Archivists were headlining tonight, but on a good local bill like this, all three bands were given a full chance to provide a set of their original music to fans, friends, and people wanting to have something more than just a DJ’s beat with their buzz. And Archivists, Fluorescent Sense and Southern Problems delivered the goods.

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Entertainment, Music, The Daily Feed
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Hot Ticket: Office of Future Plans @ The Wind-Up Space, TONIGHT!

By now maybe you have heard some rumblings about Office of Future Plans. They have slowly but surely been building up buzz over the past year or so with select opening slots and some low-profile headline gigs around town and in Baltimore. After opening for one of The Dismemberment Plan reunion shows last weekend and this week revealing their first recorded music in the form of an excellent 7″/digital single (pictured above), Office of Future Plans are poised to break-out as one of the most exciting new bands of the DC-Baltimore region.

There is a lot to get excited about here. First and foremost is that OoFP is the latest band put together by indie-legend J. Robbins. In these parts Robbins is considered indie-royalty for being in or founding several great area-based bands like…oh let’s see…Government Issue, Burning Airlines, Channels, Report Suspicious Activity, and Jawbox (just about the best 90’s band ever). To form Office of Future Plans, Robbins has enlisted some old DC/Baltimore music pals like Darren Zentek of Kerosene 454, Brooks Harlan of Avec, and rock cellist Gordon Withers. Together the four are creating some terrific angular, post-hardcore sounds that rank right up there with some of Robbins’ best.

Office of Future Plans plays tonight in Baltimore at The Wind-Up space with mysterious, post-punks SPRCSS and Baltimore’s own spazz-rock kings Whoarfrost.

Office of Future Plans
w/ SPRCSS & Whoarfrost
@ The Wind-Up Space
1/28/11 – 9pm
$7

Entertainment, Music, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: STOMP at Warner Theatre

Not one word was uttered on stage during Tuesday’s debut performance of STOMP at D.C.’s Warner Theatre. That’s when I realized STOMP is a communication tool. This unique blend of musical theatre stage presence combined with choreographed percussion, movement and physical comedy is more expressive than a singular conversation.

What started as a street performance in the UK has grown into one of the biggest international performance sensations of the last two decades, selling out shows in over 350 cities and 36 countries. STOMP takes all of the fun stuff that annoyed your parents when you were a kid and makes it socially acceptable. Why is it socially acceptable? Because it’s art!

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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Little Dragon @ Black Cat, 1/22/11

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all photos by author.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Sweden has been producing a ton of great new bands lately. So many, in fact, that I’m inclined to agree with Chris Richards of the Washington Post when he recently declared Sweden as the epicenter of emergent pop music for the new century. Lucky for DC music fans then that our city seems to be one of the friendliest frontiers for Swedish music in the United States. DC is virtually guaranteed a tour date from most of the Swedish invasion acts because we always give them a very warm reception. One of the finest examples of the new wave of Swedish pop is Little Dragon, who played a phenomenal set to a sold out Black Cat on Saturday night.

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Entertainment, Fun & Games, Music, We Love Music
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The Winning Ticket: Lissie

As a way to say thanks to our loyal readers, We Love DC will be giving away a pair of tickets to a 9:30 Club concert to one lucky reader each week. Check back here every Wednesday morning at 9am to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

This week we are giving away a pair of tickets to see Lissie perform at the 9:30 Club on Sunday, January 30th. This on-the-rise folk pop phenom was picked as Paste Magazine’s #1 best new solo artist of 2010. The sample of music on her Myspace page reveals a rather iconic new voice with bullet proof song-writing that lends every tune hit single potential. I have a feeling this will be one of those concerts that really sneaks up and surprises you.

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. If today doesn’t turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts. Tickets for this concert are available on Ticketfly.

For the rules of this giveaway…
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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Tokyo Police Club @ 9:30 1/19/11


all photos by author.

I had heard of Tokyo Police Club before and knowing that they were popular on the indie scene I thought I’d take the opportunity to check them out at the 9:30 Club last week. I knew this was a hot ticket; it sold out rather quickly and there were people in front of the club looking for extras, so I anticipated seeing a good show.

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Music, New Category, The Daily Feed
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Dismemberment Plan for Newbies

Photo courtesy of
‘Dplan applause’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

No one wanted to leave last night’s Dismemberment Plan concert. I can totally understand why. Like many things about DC, I was late to the party.  I moved to DC as the band was at its Zenith, with Emergency & I a recent hit with the indie rock community, but my tastes tend toward more strophic rock and roll, rather than the frenetic unversed music of Travis Morrison and his cohorts. But, recognizing what an opportunity this was, I bought my ticket and stood in the packed balcony of the 9:30 Club last night for the last of the DC concerts.

The four-piece band played their fifth concert in as many nights, and looked totally at home on stage at the 9:30 Club before a sold out crowd that was deeply reverent of the Plan.  As far as the audience was concerned, these guys could do no wrong.  City Paper said of the show today, “D-Plan records are great because they’re personal. D-Plan shows are great because they’re communal. It’s all about the ritual.”

Right on.  As someone who went to figure out what it was that everyone was so excited about, and to understand a bit of DC’s rock history, it was an incredible glimpse into a band about which no one seems to utter a negative, or even merely apathetic, word.  Color me a fan of their live show, and now an owner of Emergency & I for future reminders.

Entertainment, Life in the Capital, Music, Special Events, The District, We Love Music
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We Love Music: The Dismemberment Plan @ Black Cat, 1/21/11

photo courtesy of Drew McDermott via Flickr



If you interviewed for a job at the Twitter corporate headquarters some time in 2008, you were likely asked to name your “theme song” – the song that should play in the background as you walked on screen or into a room. The question was not just one of taste or tip-of-the-tongue recall, though it was those, but they also wanted to know how you wanted to project yourself and make people feel when you arrived. I had been in San Francisco for two weeks when I was asked the question a few beers in at a drafty Western Addition bar.

About ten seconds of consideration and I responded. “Dismemberment Plan. Face of the Earth.”
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Entertainment, Music, The Daily Feed
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Dismemberment Plan: a weekend in tweets

Photo

When Dismemberment Plan’s “Emergency & I” was first released in 1999, “tweet” was the sound a bird made. This weekend, as they played three reunion shows in our city’s finest venues (check back at 3 for Brittany’s review!), it became an often hilarious and sometimes poignant way for some fans to experience the event. Many of you might complain that in the age of smartphones, we’ve forgotten how to kick back and just enjoy the music. But as someone who spent Friday and Saturday night’s shows following along from home, and Sunday night’s show sending photos out to friends who couldn’t make it, I’d argue that there’s some communal value in the concert tweet. There’s room for poignancy, humor and nostalgia in those 140 characters, all of which were on display by some of DC’s tweeters this weekend. Below the jump, a collection of our favorites.

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