Author Archive
Story/Stereo Announces Two New Shows
Story/Stereo—a concert/reading series that pairs local musicians with local writers/poets—just announced two new events.
First, Asa Osborne—formerly of Baltimore gnostic/punk quartet Lungfish—will perform with his guitar/organ project, Zomes. Lisa Selin Davis will read. That’s kind of a tough gig, though, considering the last person to put words in or around Osborne’s music was Dan Higgs.
Then, in February, J. Robbins—fresh from reissuing the late ’90s masterpiece For Your Own Special Sweetheart and performing on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon with the reunited Jawbox—will perform his first ever solo show. Marianne Villanueva and Steve Fellner will read.
Dates and details after the jump:
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Sampling the thought streams of D.C. musicians past and present.
-A man has our elevator filled to the brim w/plants. Its like a 2 acre jungle crammed into a cubicle. he’s complaining the door won’t shut.
-i think i just discovered the malkovich floor of my building? what exactly is going on the 3rd floor? :-)
-Mother fucker, I’m trying to watch the lost boys!!
Wale:
-dear ucb..i will go to breakfast w/ yall but i am NOT goin to eat a Dinosaur sized pancake at “The Griddle”
-everybody askin what kinda shoes im wearin…haa
-09 airmaxes http://pic.gd/38d0d6
-is listening to some old songs he wrote and thinking that they are not that good.
-The Whitespace 7″ should in stores soon, but it’s available now here: http://www.dischord.com/release/ws01/whitspace
-My bookbag smells like it’s been eatin chicken behind my back…literally
-Somebody somewhere has candy paint…on their house though.
-I think I’m just gonna say “Jordan!” after I have sex or something from now on.
Kurt Vile @ Black Cat Tonight
Kurt Vile plays slow, murky, and sloppy rock. His backing band, the Violators, looks like a gang of b-listed stand-up comedians. They seem weird and awkward. But Vile is no slouch. Neither are the guys in his band, for that matter. People (well, music critics) have been paying a lot more attention to the Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter since his performances at SXSW last March, and in each profile he’s betrayed some hype-savvy above and beyond your run-of-the-mill DIY nose-picker.
Shortstack Live @ Comet Ping Pong
A few weeks ago Shortstack came out of hiding and performed a show at Comet Ping Pong. I went here instead. Fortunately, All Our Noise was there and shot some footage of the band. And they’re rocking out. The band’s past couple of releases–History of Cut Nails in America and 2008’s Covers EP–had some grit, but this clip has some real aggro-Creedence stuff going on.
Bite Sized Sets at Comet: Shortstack from All Our Noise on Vimeo.
Leak Proof: Yeasayer, Four Tet, Javelin, Woodsman
Yeasayer: “Ambling Alp”
With its mystical lyrics and psychedelic flourishes, Yeasayer’s debut record, All Hour Cymbals, was the feel-good indie rock record of ’07. However, “Ambling Alp,” the first track from the group’s sophomore record to see the light of day, finds the Brooklyn band getting more direct with its positive vibes. Chris Keating drops more motivational couplets here than a Deepak Chopra press release. “The world can be an unfair place at times/But your lows will have a compliment of highs,” he sings. The song bears a marked resemblance to Rusted Root, but that’s a good thing. No, really. “Ambling Alp” suggests that Yeasayer’s next record is going to single-handedly revive the djembe economy in 2010.
Four Tet: “Love Cry”
Rhythm has always been integral to the schtick of Four Tet (AKA electronic musician Kieran Hebden), but “Love Cry,” from a new limited edition 12″ is the best he’s ever done at making straight-up dance music. On last year’s Ringer EP, Hebden shed his busy post-rock roots with four stripped-down and hypnotic tracks that borrowed equally from Villalobos-style minimal techno and afrobeat. “Love Cry” goes even further, ditching chords, melodies, and dramatic gestures for a killer pulse and a single note bass line.
Javelin: “Twyce”
Javelin may have a few rough edges—hiss-heavy production and high-frequency synth squeals—but the Brooklyn duo’s music is mostly just smooth sailing. Listening to “Twyce,” from Javelin’s debut Thrill Jockey 12″, is sort of like stepping through a Sandals advertisement and onto an actual Caribbean beach. Mostly because there’s a ton of cowbell. The funky vintage keyboard parts, which suggest a sizable amount of time spent listening to Wally Badarou’s Kraftwerk-in-the-Bahamas-album Echoes, doesn’t hurt either.
Woodsman: “Dikembe Mutombo”
The American West is a fertile habitat for head-music. For instance, LaMonte Young, the Grandmaster Flash of heavy drone, found his original inspiration in the incessant winds of his native Idaho. But most people out there just seem content to tool around on a mandolin. What a drag. Denver Colorado’s Woodsman, at least, are making good on all of that wide open space. “Dikembe Mutombo,” has is thoroughly stocked with rippling guitar figures and post-Hawkwind trance rhythms.
Gestures Release EP/Perform at Dupont Circle Tomorrow
Tomorrow night Gestures–D.C.’s second-best-use-of-air-pressure and only punk-rock brass band–will celebrate the completion of its debut EP, Nice, in a time-honored fashion beloved by any musician who has just spent tall paper recording and pressing a record.
In other words, they’ll go busking.
The sextet–which features drums, tuba, saxophone, clarinet and two drummers–will perform live tomorrow night on or near Dupont Circle. There’s a chance that this action will trigger a turf war with the Circle’s traditional occupants, the United House of Prayer’s shout bands. Probably not, as those guys generally play in the summer. Also, UHOP shout bands are all about fire, brimstone, and Dixieland. Gestures, on the other hand, sounds a little more like a herd of elephants sinking into an ocean abyss.
Read the band’s official statement after the jump:
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-For those that don’t read credit I wrote”Gently” on Usher’s last album most of my other stuff has been in the HIp hop World UGK ,Game & ect
-so bilal oliver just arrived to my studio in NJ to lay his parts for the last song that needs to be completed on my album!
-to everybody asking me what kinda coat I had on yesterday it’s a Rocksmith joint, that joint is so alias that I didn’t even know lol
-Just had to have that “you’ve-really-been-inconviencing-me-since-you’ve-been-in-town-as-much-as-I-love-you” talk with my mom had to do it
-Sooo…people are leaving demo’s under my windshield wiper. I dunno why.
-IDEA! I should do a short film where cartons of milk are like black peoples kryptonite or sumthn. Like bamas run from the cartons like noooo
-So…how do we eat ice cream? Do we have to take a lactaid pill everytime or something? Cuz I haven’t had ice cream in 10yrs either!
-involuntarily tears up at “Amazing Grace” by Aretha Franklin and “New Grass” by Talk Talk and can’t listen to them at work.
-slow grocery stores. A DC institution.
Leak Proof: Field Music, Surf City, Frankie Rose, Weezer
Field Music: “Measure”
After a two-year hiatus spent toiling at solo efforts—School of Language and The Week That Was—brothers David and Peter Brewis have reunited Field Music and promptly cranked out a 20 song double record. And while that smacks of indulgence, “Measure,” the album’s title track, finds the band as reserved ever—pairing austere string loops with exacting percussion and rivaling the George Formby Jr. songbook for the title of most English-sounding music ever.
Surf City: “Autumn”
The Kiwi quartet plays New Zealand’s version of classic rock—that is to say trippy indie-rock rife with slacker ebullience and backwards guitar riffs.
Frankie Rose: “Thee Only One”
Former Crystal Stilts and Vivian Girls drummer Frankie Rose has gone solo, but her debut single doesn’t fall too far from the reverb-soaked, Phil Spector-loving vine. “Thee Only One,” is so hazy sounding that one must assume the song was recorded at the bottom of a cistern next to a fire fueled by old copies of Chickfactor.
Weezer (ft. Lil Wayne): “Can’t Stop Partying”
For years now, old time Weezer fans have been down on their knees praying that Rivers Cuomo will finally get back to writing guitar rock and stop rapping/rap-rocking/repping Timbaland. “Can’t Stop Partying,” probably isn’t what they had in mind, though. “Gotta have Patron, gotta have the beat/I gotta have a lot of pretty girls around me,” sings Cuomo. Those wounded-but-nerdy words wouldn’t have been a bad fit on Pinkerton, but the big synth splashes and the guest verse by Weezy, not so much. “The unusual is the fucking usual/Man my life is beautiful,” raps Lil Wayne, who is at this point, may be the only person on the radio making weirder choices than Cuomo.
Sunday: Wooden Shjips @ The Red and the Black
This Sunday Wooden Shjips will perform their first ever D.C. gig at the Red and the Black. And I’m at a loss for words–mostly because I’ve typed them all already. Well, all of the hippy-dippy ones, at least. Looking back at these two reviews (1,2), I realize that I’ve pretty much burned through my repertoire of stoner-jokes, psychedelic adjectives, and then some (a Harry Dean Stanton reference?) in trying to convey the reasons why I like this San Francisco-based space-rock quartet. Hey, at least I never trotted out “face-melting.”
So let’s maybe ditch the lysergic cliches for a minute and get down to the facts about Wooden Shjips:
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-My fathers advice to me before I head out to Cali in the morn = “talk alot” Thanks dad, where would I be without you. LOL
-Got alot done so far & now I’m about to take a nap and dream about my pop life in 2010.
-DMV popping so hard these next two weeks, hu homecoming, Monday night football, bp3 tour and Halloween get sleep now
-Chris samuels set to retire due to his recent neck injury? Damn
-at inner year last night til 1am knocking out flute overdubs and my mouth feels just fine! we begin MIXING THIS WEEK…it’s about damn time
Beauty Pill (Chad Clark)
-Doctor says BP can tour next Spring if I keep with the same regimen. Death 0, Chad 1. Hoping to defer the rematch.
