Tag Archives: Post-Rock

Music, The Features, We Love Music
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The Winning Ticket: El Ten Eleven @ U Street Music Hall, 9/21/13

ElTenElevenF

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 El Ten Eleven at U Street Music Hall on Saturday, Sept. 21.

The post-rock duo have an unusual story for the today’s world of electronic music. Bassist Kristian Dunn and drummer Tim Fogarty formed the band in 2002. They say they’ve been influenced by their life experiences, including having divorces and child(ren). And they got known partly by lending their talents to documentaries about graphic design, like Helvetica. (One awaits the examination of the rise corporate mass design, Calibri. Kidding.)

Anyway, El Ten Eleven put out a new album, Transitions, last year, so they have fresh instrumental goodness to share in their performance at U Street Music Hall next week!

For your chance to win these tickets, simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 10am and 4pm today. Feel free to leave any comment, but I would be curious as to your favorite composition by El Ten Eleven? (This is how I learn things!) One entry per email address please! Tickets for this show are also available through Ticketfly.

For the rules of this giveaway…

Comments will be closed at 4pm and a winner will be randomly selected. The winner will be notified by email. The winner must respond to our email within 24 hours, or they will forfeit their tickets and we will pick another winner.

Tickets will be available to the winner at the U Street Music Hall Guest List window after doors open on the night of the concert. The tickets must be claimed with a valid ID. The winner must be old enough to attend the specific concert or must have a parent’s permission to enter if he/she is under 18 years old.

El Ten Eleven
w/ Eliot Lipp
U Street Music Hall
Saturday, Sept. 21
doors @ 6:30pm
$14
All ages

Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: This Will Destroy You @ Rock and Roll Hotel, 6/5/11

This Will Destroy You - press photo
All photos courtesy of This Will Destroy You

This Will Destroy You is one of my favorite groups in the post-rock scene right now. I feel like they’re creating music specifically for me. It has the pleasant, sometimes melancholy soft-loud dynamic of bands like Mogwai or Jakob. Yet they’ve taken a turn for the dark side lately. Their new material is ominous, ambient, less guitar-oriented yet still just as destructive. It’s the kind of music you can lose yourself in.

There were a couple great moments at their show at the Rock and Roll Hotel this Sunday, where I could feel the full power of their noise assault. But the show just wasn’t mixed right. For an instrumental rock band, nothing is more important than the sound; I was left underwhelmed. This was pretty disappointing, considering their show last year at DC9 was one of my favorites of the year, and I love the material they’ve written since then.
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We Love Music
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We Love Music: Appleseed Cast @ Rock and Roll Hotel, 4/30/11

appleseed_1
All photos courtesy of The Appleseed Cast

Over their 15-year career, The Appleseed Cast have slowly morphed from their emo roots into a dynamic and powerful post-rock group. I must say, I haven’t paid too much attention to the band since 2003’s Two Conversations. But Saturday night’s show at the Rock and Roll Hotel impressed me – I felt like I was discovering a new band. Their current sound has only sparse vocals, and rarely anything resembling a catchy chorus. It’s all about the swelling guitar lines – with three guitarists, they have plenty of flexibility to create intricate harmonies.

Post-rock shows like this are hands-down my favorite shows to see. I like my music LOUD. But post-rock brings a certain kind of intensity that goes beyond volume. I imagine the creative process for The Appleseed Cast goes like this: “that’s a nice melody you wrote there. Wouldn’t it sound better if we nearly drowned it out with slow, droning riffs?” And it does. It takes a little extra work to hear the melody, but the melody’s more powerful because you had to work to find it. It’s a diamond in the desert.

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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: This Will Destroy You @ DC9 6/10/10

This Will Destroy You
courtesy of Girlie Action.

The Texan, post-rock quartet This Will Destroy You played DC9 last Thursday. As I type this review several days later, I am still reeling from their titanic performance. I am tempted to free-style gush about it here, but instead I will break the evening down into pieces to help my brain sort out the chaos that is left in the wake of their visit to the nation’s Capital. In other words, rather than shout “Godzilla!” and start jabbering in incomprehensible language as I try to describe This Will Destroy You laying waste to everything in their path; I will try to provide you with a semi-coherent write-up of Thursday night’s show.

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