Is U Street Music Hall Cornering the Market on Dance Nights?
When Steve Lambert heard about the opening of U Street Music Hall, he knew that the popular Nouveau Riche dance night was not long for his club.
He was right: WaPo’s GOG Blog reports today that the DJs behind Nouveau Riche are moving from DC9 to the new U Street Street Music Hall, a 300-capacity space that local DJs Will Eastman and Jesse Tittsworth are inaugurating this month. (The Brussels-based Balearic duo Aeroplane is performing on March 17, opening night.) Unsurprisingly, Eastman’s Bliss dance night will also move to the music hall, from the Black Cat.
“We knew we were going to lose them,” says Lambert, adding that he’ll have no problem filling Nouveau Riche’s slot, either with live music or another dance night. “Do you know how many DJs there are in this town? I mean, we didn’t want to lose them. We wish them all the best.”
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As Record Store Day Approaches, What Can You Expect from D.C. Labels?
Not much, at least from the ones I’ve contacted. The annual event, in which geeks like me flood independent record stores across the country to pick up exclusive releases, takes place on April 17 this year. And some of the more notable indie labels, like Sub Pop and 4AD, have begun announcing what limited-press releases they’ll be dropping to send some cash in the direction of those endangered retail beasts. (If you want that exclusive Beach House record, there’s a good chance some local stores will have it. Just line up early.)
But some of the more notable D.C.-based labels say that while they appreciate what Record Store Day does, at least this year they won’t doing anything big for it.
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Now on View: “Titouan Lamazou: Women” at Adamson Gallery
It would be too easy to classify Titouan Lamazou’s photographic series, “Women,” as a United Colors of Benetton-meets-Oxfam tour through the poverty and prejudices women face worldwide—and how, despite the odds, they persevere. And when you stare into the beautiful faces of twins Soya and Awa from Mauritania, or the scantily clad Katrine and Noris from Colombia, or Rose-Marie, the nun from Uganda in her habit, it’s hard not to look upon them with pity and admiration. But Lamazou, who is French, saves his sympathy for his American subjects instead—particularly, women from Los Angeles. —Maura Judkis
Read the full City Lights pick here; exhibition details after the jump:
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Obama Dress Goes to Smithsonian; Simpson Suit a Bad Fit
The Smithsonian Institution has rejected one famous garment as it welcomed another. Today in a private ceremony, Michelle Obama will donate her white one-sleeve Jason Wu inaugural gown to the Smithsonian Institution for an exhibit of gowns worn by first ladies to inaugurations. The gown will be available for public viewing tomorrow.
The donation, the first major one from the Obama White House, comes only a week after the Smithsonian rejected another high-profile clothing donation—the suit that O.J. Simpson wore to his acquittal in the 1994 criminal trial for the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ron Goldman. The LA Times explained that Fred Goldman, Ron’s father, filed suit against Simpson and his attorney for the suit as part of the $33.5 million that Simpson owes to the victims’ families. As part of the settlement, Goldman and Mike Gilbert, Simpson’s former agent who has possession of the suit, agreed to donate it to the Smithsonian.
Which would be fine, if the institution actually wanted the suit.
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Arts Roundup: ‘Russian Rickroll’ Edition
Good morning! Yesterday I learned about the Russian Rickroll! I’m fairly late to the party on this one, I gather. Nevertheless: Guess where this roundup is going!
Long before she became the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar, Kathryn Bigelow directed a New Order video, in which she dressed the synthpop heavies up as a hair-metal band.
The University of Texas has bought the papers of the late novelist David Foster Wallace. Included in the documents is Wallace’s final, unfinished novel The Pale King, which Little, Brown is publishing next year.1
Every issue of Spin from 1985 to last October is now online and free for browsing in Google Books. Believe it not, this issue from 1986 has a featurette on the D.C. go-go group the Junk Yard Band. Also, Beaujon used to work there.
“I’m Tired of Being a Big Girl”: The Biggest Loser Comes to D.C.
At 2 a.m. on Saturday, the first people started lining up, and by 6 p.m., nearly 1,000 people had woven through the D.C. Convention Center line: Families picnicking on the ground, women cheering, a man in a karate uniform, a biker chick in leather, an IRS agent, a former Miss Puerto Rico. The only common theme was that all were at least 100 pounds overweight and all dreamed of gaining a contestant spot on The Biggest Loser, an NBC reality television show that challenges overweight contestants to shed pounds through diet and exercise.
For the first time ever, The Biggest Loser included D.C. as a casting-call stop on its cross-country search for Season 10 contestants. Amanda Giles, standing at the front of the line, had driven two hours from Delaware that morning to turn in her application and have her one to three minute interview with a casting director. “I would have flown in from California if I had to,” Giles said.
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Five Books I’d Read
in which the author discusses five books he’d read, if time permitted.
1. No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, by Mitt Romney.
Do you think it’s possible—not likely, or probable, but possible—that, after dropping out of the Republican primary after Super Tuesday in February of 2008 (and, by doing so, assuring crotchety rival John McCain victory in that primary), presidential hopeful/former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney exited the dais (after a gracious but, undoubtedly, difficult-to-deliver concession speech) accompanied by the faint strains of the Simple Minds’ minor hit “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” the very same song which accompanied juvenile-delinquent-with-a-heart-of-gold John Bender (Judd Nelson) as he strolled across a football field in John Hughes’ 1984 hit The Breakfast Club while credits rolled? If only Romney had had fingerless gloves, maybe he’d be President today.
Austen’s Monstrous Legacy: A Q&A with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters‘ Ben H. Winters
Jane Austen’s popularity continues to grow, yet in recent years interest in her work has taken a new turn—a monstrous turn. Take last year’s hit Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and its follow-up, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, both published by Quirk Books. Respective authors Seth Grahame-Smith and Ben H. Winters will chat tomorrow night in an event titled “Jane Austen: The Author, Her Legacy and…Sea Monsters?” alongside Tara Wallace, an Austen scholar at George Washington University, Regina Jeffers, author of Vampire Darcy’s Desire and Darcy’s Passions, and moderator Bethanne Patrick of WETA’s Book Studio. Visit the Smithsonian Associates Web site for tickets.
I spoke recently with Winters about how he came to write an Austen mash-up, how his book could affect Austen’s legacy, and what makes her such an enduring writer.
Tonight in Music: Family Portrait at DC9
A sort-of-D.C.-based band featuring the founders of the sort-of-D.C.-based Underwater Peoples, Family Portrait makes skuzzy, sun-kissed art pop that’s of a piece with the woozy romanticism (Real Estate, Air Waves) the label peddles. Family Portrait killed time last year as a two-piece while half the band traveled abroad. Now back to its original lineup, the group makes music that’s too wistful, layered, and spacey to qualify as indie-rock primitivism—even if, at times, it feels like the only thing standing between the band’s id and your ears is a healthy dollop of tape hiss. —Jonathan L. Fischer
Read the full City Lights pick here; show details after the jump:
Why Was Mark Linkous’ Age “Unknown”?
Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse died this weekend, and initial reports gave his age only as being “in his forties.” Caryn Ganz, who broke the news late Saturday for Rolling Stone, told me that Linkous’ publicist/manager, Shelby Meade, told her his age “wasn’t released.”
Entertainment Weekly went with a very similar formulation to Ganz’s: “Linkous, who was in his forties but whose exact age is unknown,” Missy Schwartz wrote. The information replicated itself.
Linkous’ Wikipedia page says he was born in 1962. I’m not good enough at figuring out when that got added, but it also says he was born in Arlington and narrowly avoided a career in coal-mining, so maybe that’s not important. The New York Times reported he was 47; Ben Sisario, who wrote the item, says he “found his DOB on public records, and I also got it from the police.”I don’t know where Ben Sisario, who wrote the item, got that. I’ve e-mailed him, and I’ll update when he replies.
I went on Nexis this morning and found out Mark Linkous was born in Sept. 1962. When I e-mailed Meade to ask her why so many people reported such a vague age for her client, she wrote back: “Andrew he was 47.”
