Category Archives: We Love Music

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Hot Ticket: CSS, Io Echo @ 9:30 Club, 7/1/13

Never really tired of being sexy! (Photo courtesy of CSS)

Never really tired of being sexy! (Photo courtesy of CSS)

Is there anything that says crazy danceable fun as much as CSS? The Brazilian girls released a fourth album, Planta, last month, and they hit the 9:30 Club tonight touring in support of it.

The latest single, “Hangover,” is a bit more reggae than new wave, potentially marking a change in direction for the band since their chief songwriter (and only guy in the band) left in 2011. Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio took over production duties on the new album. And vocalist Lovefoxxx and company are all about dancing, so they are surely set to revisit crowd pleasers from all four of their albums, including “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above,” “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” and “City Grrl.”

Los Angeles-based Io Echo, meanwhile, recently put out their first album, Ministry of Love, which espouses a goth pop aesthetic. Io Echo have been through the DC metro area at least once, opening for Garbage at the Fillmore in Silver Spring, Md., on March 24. The band goes from being atmospheric and airy on songs like “Outsiders” to bouncy if distorted with “When the Lilies Die,” all the while demonstrating a taste for Japanese imagery and minimalism.

If the two bands have anything in common, it’s a love of the Velvet Underground — an inspiration that they run away with in two different directions! It should be interesting to hear how they sound together tonight. Hope to see you there!

CSS
w/ Io Echo
Monday, July 1
Doors 7pm
$25
9:30 Club
All ages

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Hot Ticket: Totally 80s Summer Tour @ Tally Ho Theatre, Leesburg, Va., 6/29/13

Martha Davis (Photo courtesy of The Motels)

Martha Davis (Photo courtesy of The Motels)

The Motels, Bow Wow Wow and Gene Loves Jezebel have put together a tour and they are coming to the DC metro area! It’s been a long time since these bands were on the charts in 1983 — but this show 30 years later at the Tally Ho Theatre in Leesburg, Va., should prove to be a rare treat for new wave afficionados like myself.

The incomporable Martha Davis heads up the Motels, best known for their songs “Only the Lonely” and “Suddenly Last Summer.” Davis has been active touring the west coast from her native California in recent years, and it’s good to see her finally get out our way. The Motels are billed as Martha Davis and the Motels these days, and she’s reported to be touring with a new group of musicians to include  Nick Johns (bass/keyboard), Eric Gardner (drums), Clint Walsh (guitar) and Brady Wills (bass). I’ve always been an admirer of Davis’ voice on her band’s new wave, often wistful, slightly melancholy reflections on love, loss and the passage of time.

Bow Wow Wow originally consisted of rowdy Brits helmed by vocalist Annabella Lwin. It seems Lwin is no longer in this incarnation of the band, after making a minor splash reincarnating the band during Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Now bassist Leigh Gorman soldiers on with new lead singer Chloe Pappas. It should be interesting to catch the new lineup tackle classics like “I Want Candy” and “C·30 C·60 C·90 Go,” famously known for being the song on the world’s first cassingle.

Gothy Gene Loves Jezebel originally consisted of twin brothers Michael Aston and Jay Aston. The thematically darker Michael know tours in the current version of Gene Loves Jezebel, playing classic songs like “Desire” while also playing newer material such as 2003’s “Exploding Girls.”

This will be my first trip out to Tally Ho, so it’s a great opportunity to take a look at a different venue. Join me there for a voyage back to 1983!

Totally 80s Summer Tour
w/ Martha Davis and the Motels, Bow Wow Wow, Gene Loves Jezebel
Tally Ho Theatre
19 West Market Street
Leesburg, Va. 20176
Saturday, June 29
Doors 7pm
$30
All ages

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We Love Music: Firefly Music Festival @ The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway, Dover, DE — 6/21-6/23/13

Audience at Firefly (Photo by Theo Wargo, Getty Images)

Audience at Firefly (Photo by Theo Wargo, Getty Images)

The second annual Firefly Music Festival grew impressively this year, spreading its wings in The Woodlands, located behind the Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. Located roughly 100 miles from Washington, DC, Firefly is poised to become the biggest east coast festival of all next year.

I attended the Coachella Valley Music Festival for the first time this year as well in April, and I can attest the grounds for the three-day Firefly are even larger and more diverse than the grounds for Coachella. Via The Woodlands, Firefly offers four large stages; several wooded entertainment areas for hammocks, films and dancing; and huge tracts of land where businesses like the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery literally can build a barn and run half a dozen beer bars inside.

The festival itself was orderly and well run but at the same time the atmosphere seemed a lot more rock and roll than the manicured polo lawns of Coachella. About 30,000 people attended Firefly in its first year and festival organizers were calling for twice as many this year.

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Hot Ticket: Firefly Music Festival @ The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway, Dover, DE, 6/21-6/23/13


Concert-goers at Firefly Music Festival in 2012
The second annual Firefly Music Festival kicks off in Dover, Del., today. As of press time, the festival still has some single day tickets left for each day — Friday, Saturday and Sunday — of the festival.

As someone who moved to Delaware as a teenager and attended the University of Delaware as an undergrad, I’m fairly impressed that my former state has become host to a contender for the largest outdoor indie music festival in these parts. Potential traffic aside, it’s usually an easy hop from DC to Dover, so it may be something to consider for the weekend if there are bands or DJs playing that you might want to see. We have the perfect weather for it this weekend, after all.

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The Winning Ticket: Morrison Brothers Band @ 9:30 Club, 7/11/13

MorrisonBrosF

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 periodically. Keep your eyes open for opportunities at 9am once a week or so to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

Today, we are giving away a pair of tickets to see the Morrison Brothers Band at 9:30 Club on Thursday, July 11, as they throw a CD release party for their third album, State of the Union, with a show. The Morrison Brothers Band, a southern rock sextet from our own DC, has been playing a lot of shows around town lately, whether at The Hamilton, Hill Country or the 9:30 Club. Armed with a bunch of new songs, the band cites influences like The Allman Brothers Band, Little Feat, The Black Crowes and Sam Cooke.

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The Winning Ticket: John Fogerty @ DAR Constitution Hall, 11/8/13

fogerty

We have a special, unexpected treat today, as the 9:30 Club is presenting the legendary John Fogerty in concert at DAR Constitution Hall on Friday, Nov. 8.

The famous roots rocker will be playing the classic album, “Cosmo’s Factory,” by his former band Creedance Clearwater Revival, along with other hits. The quadruple platinum “Cosmo’s Factory” put CCR on the map with such songs as “Travelin’ Band” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”

As a way to say thanks to our loyal readers, We Love DC is giving away a pair of tickets to this John Fogerty show before you can buy them. (They go on sale to the public on Friday, June 14, at 10am.)

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We Love Music: Metric @ Ram’s Head Live, Baltimore, Md. — 6/7/13

Metric - Emily Haines 38994305@N08

I am now going to unabashedly gush about Metric, who played a sold-out show at Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore Friday night.

The combination of the sweet, breathy vocals of Emily Haines along with the rock guitar of James Shaw and the dependable rhythm section of bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key make for an irresistible concert performance. The band always has been a favorite of mine since I first heard the single “Combat Baby,” and their first album, “Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?” In that song and many others on their first few albums, the band relied on catchy melodies and wordplay to create fun, thoughtful songs.

But in their last two albums, Metric have stepped it up a quite a bit. The fourth album, Fantasies, and the fifth, Synthetica, which came out about a year ago, marked a quantum leap in exhibiting their capabilities in songwriting and crafting infectious dance music. The strengths of the band members and the power of the Synthetica album were on full display Friday as they opened with “Artificial Nocturne,” which starts out in a sweet and fragile vocal and sparse instrumentation before blowing up into a full-blown disco thumper — a favorite Metric tactic. It’s an entrancing, intoxicating song that is readymade to be a concert opener, luring you in and then opening you up to more intricate sounds as the song moves along.

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Entertainment, Interviews, Music, People, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Stephen Kellogg

Photo Courtesy of Missing Piece Group

Photo Courtesy of Missing Piece Group

Amid the adversity of life, Americana Rock singer-songwriter Stephen Kellogg found himself at a crossroads. His band, The Sixers, went on hiatus after nine years of playing together at the end of November 2012. And for the first time since 2002, Kellogg was in a place where he could release a solo album.

“Blunderstone Rookery,” which is scheduled for a June 18 release, comes after the loss of Kellogg’s mother-in-law, grandmother, and the roof of his house. The album features a collection of honest songs written with the hope of leaving behind a positive legacy for his family — a feat that Kellogg encourages all people to strive for in their own lives.

Rachel: “Blunderstone Rookery” is being released at a unique time in your life and you’ve drawn inspiration for these songs from personal stories. What would you say are the biggest challenges you’ve faced while writing and releasing this album?

Stephen Kellogg: The amazing thing about life is that it’s always a unique time in one’s life, because it’s the only time you’ll ever be where you are. We can look back with hindsight and kind of understand or make sense of what was going in a given moment, but often it’s tough to fully appreciate where we’re at while it’s happening. While writing and releasing this album I was very aware that I was in a challenging place because I had lost my mother-in-law, my grandmother, the roof of my house, and my band in the course of about five weeks. Not surprisingly I got kinda sick, and found myself knowing that was going to be something I was going to have to “go” through and “grow” through.

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The Winning Ticket: Ariel Pink @ U Street Music Hall, 6/10/13

ArielPink_flier

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 periodically. (In this case, it’s actually a concert at U Street Music Hall presented by the 9:30 Club!) Keep your eyes open for opportunities at 9am once a week or so to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

Today we are giving away a pair of tickets to see Ariel Pink at U Street Music Hall on Monday, June 10. The prolific Los Angeles native has a local connection, having issued some of his first recordings under a label owned by the band Animal Collective. He has released his last two albums on the famous London-based label 4AD, billed with his band as Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti.

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We Love Music: Paul Kelly @ The Hamilton — 5/30/13

Paul Kelly

Musician Paul Kelly (Photo by Tony Mott; courtesy of conqueroo)

A lot has been written about the power of a lone musician to pick up a guitar and make an audience believe in something.

It’s one thing to invoke that image and conjure up a singer-songwriter in the mold of Bob Dylan or James Taylor. It’s another thing entirely to feel physically transported to another time and place in the presence of a quiet master who has lived enough life and picked the right words to break down the mechanics of love and loss with authority.

Australian Paul Kelly strummed his way through an evening at The Hamilton in Washington, DC, last Thursday to do just that. A man of casual gravitas, Kelly himself occasionally quipped he was about to share yet another song about a failed relationship.

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We Love Music: The Dandy Warhols @ 9:30 Club — 5/29/13

Bohemian Like You Video Shoot (06.00) The Dandy Warhols

The Dandy Warhols are one of those rare bands who have managed to transcend their origins to become one of the must-see rock bands. While strongly rooted in psychedelic rock, the group has garnered enough cross-genre appeal with appealing songs and a strong stage presence to make one forget they were best known for doing a certain kind of thing.

The Dandys have been reminding their fans that they did that certain kind of thing pretty well on a tour of their classic album 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia, which they are appropriately playing in its entirety to mark its 13th anniversary. Capitol Records will release an extended 13th anniversary edition of the album on Tuesday, June 11. The Dandy Warhols swept through the east coat last week, including a stop at the 9:30 Club last Wednesday, and soon continue across the country with stops in Cleveland, Chicago, and onward.

The band got straight to work when they opened their show at the 9:30 Club, leaping into the 13 Tales with little fanfare. As they played through the 13 songs largely in tracklist order, the nearly sold-out crowd was transported to a certain state of mind as they were awash in the mellow psychedelia of the band’s third album, which started with slow, ponderous songs like “Godless” and “Mohammed” before truly culminating in the band’s most successful chart single, “Bohemian Like You.”

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The Winning Ticket: Cute Is What We Aim For @ 9:30 Club, 6/9/13

CuteIsWhatWeAimForF

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 periodically. Keep your eyes open for opportunities at 9am once a week or so to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

Today we are giving away a pair of tickets to see Cute Is What We Aim for at the 9:30 Club on Sunday, June 9. The emo pop trio appears in an early show with The Dangerous Summer and Made Violent.

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Q&A: Dave Hartley of Nightlands (@DC9, 5/30/13)

Dave Hartley of Nightlands (photo courtesy of Nightlands)

Dave Hartley of Nightlands (photo courtesy of Nightlands)

The band Nightlands is the brainchild of Philadelphian Dave Hartley, who actually grew up nearby in Frederick, Md. The band last came through DC in June 2011 after the release of their first album, supporting Sondre Lerche at the 9:30 Club in June 2011.

With second album Oak Island released in January, Nightlands is returning to DC to play at DC9 on Thursday, May 30. Tracks like “Born to Love” suggest lush progressive rock of the 70s, with the tone set by buoyant vocals instead of guitar solos.

Hartley talked to We Love DC about growing to love touring and being a perfectionist in his songwriting.

Mickey: You’re going on the road to support a new album! Can you tell us about it?

Dave Hartley: The tour starts Wednesday in New York. This will be our second tour, supporting Oak Island, which is the second record from Nightlands.

It’s a record that came out in January. We went on tour for a month. This is a shorter tour; it’s like a week and a half. DC is the second stop. We are looking forward to playing there!

We will have my four-piece band. We’ll be singing some beautiful harmonies and playing the songs from the record and some older songs and some new stuff I’ve been writing.

I’m really proud of the band and the way we are playing together right now. I think we are really good. It makes me look forward to the tour.

I didn’t always look forward to tours. Sometimes I make these records and they are very complex recordings, and I didn’t know how to play them live. I would get real stressed out about it. But we’ve gotten to the point now where the band is really good.

I’m really proud of the way it sounds, and I get excited about the tour. I never thought I would be excited to tour.

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We Love Music: Honor By August

Honor.By.August_lineup

Photo Courtesy of Honor By August

It’s hard to coordinate schedules with Honor By August these days. They’re busy guys. The DC-based band is currently on the road promoting their new album “Monuments To Progress” while playing to audiences all over the country. Next Up: They’ll be spending the summer on tour in support of The Voice’s Season Two finalist Tony Lucca. But before that, Honor By August will playing a big CD release celebration show at the 9:30 Club this Friday (May 24).

Lead singer Michael Pearsall took a few minutes to talk to We Love DC via e-mail about the bands’ recent success on a national level and how that all feels in anticipation of their big hometown show.

Rachel: Tell me about this new album. I’m sure there’s a certain sense of accomplishment having gone the Kickstarter route. How does it feel to have it released?

Michael: It feels incredible to be able to put out an album that was funded by our fans. We were truly humbled by the amount of support we received from people through Kickstarter. Monuments To Progress is a great representation of Honor By August that showcases out diversity. There are moments where we really rock out but there are also moments where we dial it back and hopefully draw the listener in. It’s a complete album that explores the depths of different emotions lyrically and reaches new heights for us sonically. It’s an effort that we’re all very proud of.

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We Love Music: Sweetlife Festival @ Merriweather Post Pavilion — 5/11/13

Phoenix headlined the festival (Photo courtesy Sweetlife Festival)

Phoenix headlined the festival (Photo courtesy Sweetlife Festival)

The Sweetlife Festival very much fulfilled the promise implied by its name Saturday, May 11, delivering la dolce vita in a well organized celebration of music and food at the Merriweather Post Pavilion.

I’m not traditionally the biggest fan of going to concerts at the DC-area outdoor pavilions — much less festivals after the chaos that accompanies the Virgin FreeFest annually at Merriweather. But Sweetlife made excellent use of the place, offering a mainstage, a “treehouse stage,” and a dance floor in the small 9:30 Clubhouse (officially, the 9:32 Club) on the grounds — all of which dissolved into an energetic performance by headliner Phoenix at the end of the night.

Food vendors, trucks and restaurants set themselves up in neat rows in various portions of the grounds and concertgoers queued up to patronize them around the clock. My companion and I parked and shuffled into the pavilion without difficulty and make our way toward lunch, pausing to check out Solange Knowles, performing an early set on the main stage. To our surprise, she struck up a cover of “I Could Fall in Love” by late Tejano singer Selena. While we didn’t really hang around to check her out, her soulful voice was crowdpleasing and the main stage attracted a sizable gathering for the time.

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We Love Music: Lovelife @ Living Social — 5/4/13

Ally Young and Lee Newell are Lovelife. (Photo by author)

Ally Young and Lee Newell are Lovelife. (Photo by author)

Londoners Lovelife played at Living Social headquarters Saturday, bringing a sharp set of tunes in a break from their tour with Capital Cities.

The Speakeasy stage at Living Social turned out to be a good place to see the band, who opened with six songs for Philadelphia-based Vacationer. Not having previously seen a concert at Living Social, I was charmed a bit by the very dark, urban bar space, where you could get a drink on the lower level and look up at the band on a gallery above. Standing on the mezzanine, you could watch the band play standing right next to you and occasionally look down at the bar patrons looking up at you. Lee Newell, Lovelife’s lead singer, did just that with some amusement while singing down to the crowd below during one number.

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Hot Ticket: Lovelife, Vacationer @ Living Social, 5/4/13

Lovelife at Bowery Electric, 2012 (courtesy of Lovelife)

Lovelife at Bowery Electric, 2012 (courtesy of Lovelife)

Living Social is kicking off an irregular showcase of emerging artists at its F Street headquarters starting Saturday May 4. Normally, I wouldn’t give it a second look but they managed to get something special for their inaugural date with Lovelife, Ghost Beach and Vacationer — a lineup better suited to the Black Cat or at least the Rock and Roll Hotel.

It’s worth mentioning what Living Social say about Lovelife because it’s not quite right. “After a name change and a transatlantic hop from London to Brooklyn, this synthpop act recently dropped new tracks El Regreso and The Fourth Floor.”

Well, our Atlantic-hopping musicians are well worth checking out. And lead singer Lee Newell was fronting a band called Viva Brother in London. But that band didn’t simply change its name and move. Newell met Ally Young, who at the time was in another band called Mirrors. The two really clicked musically, and Young, a bona fide synth genius, left Mirrors to form Lovelife with Newell.

That was really quite too bad, in my personal opinion, as Mirrors were a great synthpop band in the tradition of The Human League or Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. But Young wanted to do something different, and it perhaps more organic and diverse. Lovelife still have a strong synth strain augmented by the capable guitar and drums of Sam Jackson and drummer Frank Colucci, respectively. But the new band has a taste for soul and R&B that permeate its music. While I wouldn’t call it neosoul by any stretch, it’s at the very least soulful synthpop. And well worth a listen — trust me!

Check out “Your New Beloved” from the latest Lovelife EP:

Vacationer, originally from Philadelphia, also are well worth checking out. They last came through DC and played at the Rock and Roll Hotel in January. Before that, I caught them opening for Walk the Moon in June last year. They play sunny, soulful indie pop that wistfully transports you to distant shores, much as their name Vacationer suggests.

The bands are accompanied by Ghost Beach, who will be performing a DJ set.

Lovelife are predicting this show will sell out, so grab a ticket now and don’t miss out on a good show!

Vacationer
w/ Lovelife and Ghost Beach
Saturday, May 4
Doors 7pm; show 8pm
$12
Living Social
918 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20004
21+

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Noa and the Washington Jewish Music Festival

Noa / courtesy Washington DCJCC Literary, Music & Dance Program 41313114@N08

Sunday kicked off the 14th annual Washington Jewish Music Festival, presented by the Washington DCJCC’s Morris Cafritz Center for the Arts. Israeli icon Noa opened the festival at Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center with a performance as versatile as it was contagious, including operatic pop, adapted children’s songs, and tin cans.

Achinoam Nini (Noa)’s Israeli-Yemenite-Bronx sound has become an international sensation. On Sunday night she was backed up by long-time collaborator Gil Dor, The Yoed Nir String Quartet, and Gadi Seri on percussion. The performers used a modest stage of two platforms and some chairs – plus a rug for Noa’s bare feet – to produce a huge sound spanning continents.

Their eclectic collection – including the theme song to Life is Beautiful along with songs from her Yemenite heritage and the Israeli songbook – was a perfect start to what will likely be a wild mix of world music this year. Here are some other events to look out for (see the full schedule here):

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Special Events, We Love Drinks, We Love Music
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DC Toasts the Black Mixology Club

Dale DeGroff 10 Fedward Potz

At this point you know how we feel about Dale DeGroff, Derek Brown, Garrett Peck, and the Museum of the American Cocktail.  You also know how we like fancy parties with good drinks. So I’ll be brief: all those people (and more) are organizing DC Toasts the Black Mixology Club, a benefit for the Museum, May 10 at the Howard Theatre. The Chuck Brown Band will perform.

The discount for early ticket sales has been extended through tonight. Regular tickets at the early access price are $65; VIP tickets with early admission are $90. For more information, check out the Washingtonian’s Best Bites Blog, this Kojo Nnamdi interview with some of the organizers, or the event’s about us page.

That is all.

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We Love Music: Grace Pettis

Photo by Rodney Bursiel

Photo by Rodney Bursiel

When I first met singer-songwriter Grace Pettis this past October, I was standing outside The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tennessee. The airline had left my bags in D.C. so I was on the phone with them for a good hour while soaking up the southern sunshine in my cowboy boots. It was my first time at the legendary Bluebird. It’s a special place to the songwriting a community. It’s a place where some of the finest songwriting talent in this country has played at least a song or two. And that’s also the night I learned that “timing is everything.”

While on the phone with the airline, a car pulled into the lot and a group got out to start loading in for the night. That was Grace Pettis and her band. It was the night of a CD release show for her most recent album “Two Birds.” Like I said, timing is everything.

As they unloaded for the gig, I held the door open for them a few times. What else did I have to do? I was on hold without any of my luggage in Music City, USA with just my phone and wallet. After load-in, they sound checked and what I heard was worth getting to the Bluebird early for.

Grace returns to Washington for a set at Ebenezers Coffeehouse this Friday and took some time over e-mail to answer a few of our questions. Here’s what she had to say. Continue reading →