• The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Lil Ronnie & the Grand Dukes. Birchmere. $25.
• Orquesta Ashe, Ocho de Bastos. Black Cat. $12/$15. All ages.
• Van Morrison. DAR Constitution Hall. $95-$350.
• Keith Secola & His Wild Band of Indians. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Free.
• O.A.R., Matt Nathanson. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $30–$38.
• The Start, Normandie, The Perfects, Skydivers. The Red & The Black. $10. +21.
• The Tennis System, Paperhaus, Loose Lips, No Dice. Rock and Roll Hotel. $10. All ages.
• Sunsets with a Soundtrack: The U.S. Army Concert Band. West Steps U.S. Capitol. Free.
• FFFever, Exactly, Smarts, Raccoon Fighter. Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• Wolf Trap Opera Company: “La Boheme.” Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $10–$60.

Saturday

• Tracy Chapman, Gabi Moreno. 9:30 club. $40. All ages.
• Blues Condition, Rival Tribe. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• 1964: The Tribute. Birchmere. $35.
• Fiery Furnaces, Wye Oak, Screens. Black Cat. $15. All ages.
• Baby Teeth, My Dear Disco. IOTA Club & Cafe. $10. +21.
• 2009 Memorial Concert in Honor of Susanna “Susie” Kim. Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. SOLD OUT.
• Ricardo Arjona. Patriot Center. $59-$99.
• Parliament Hill, Rick Irby, Taylor Carson. The Red & The Black. $8. +21.
• Five Four, Sweet Interference, Bellflur, Gaslight Society. Rock and Roll Hotel. $10. All ages.
• Len Bias, Citizen Meander, Lost Civilizations, The Fordists. Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• B-52s, The New Collisions. Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $25–$40.
• DJ Dk. Cafe Saint Ex.

Sunday

• Mos Def. 9:30 club. $35. All ages.
• Barbershop Jam, Blues Jam w/ the Idle Americans. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• The Neville Brothers. Birchmere. $49.50.
• Ra Ra Rasputin, Anamanaguchi, Lode Runner. Black Cat Backstage. $10. All ages.
• Lights Resolve, Awesome New Republic. DC9. $8. +21.
• Incubus, The Duke Spirit. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $35–$45.
• Green Room Rockers, The Forthrights, The Chariots. The Red & The Black. $6. +21.
• Screen Vinyl Image, Space Tigers, Oblisk, The Skygreen Leopards. Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• Johnny Mathis. Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $22–$45.

Eleanor Friedberger of Fiery Furnaces photo by neonwar, Creative Commons Attribution License.

Turns out, this October holds yet another treat for fans of ghoul-centric jams. On Oct. 6, Anti- will release Dead Man's Bones, the eponymous debut album of Oscar-nominated hottie Ryan Gosling and his BFF Zach Shields. (via P4K) On the album's cover (above), Shields is on the left, Gosling the right, and the costumed Silverlake Conservatory Children's Choir everywhere in between.

But based on the few tracks posted on the band's MySpace, Dead Man's Bones is less creepy-campy and more eerie-soulful.  If the Misfits and Count Chocula had a baby, and that baby developed a love for sacred harp music and southern gothic aesthetics, and formed a band, it would sound like Dead Man's Bones.

Call me judgmental, but I didn't expect songs titled "My Body's a Zombie for You" and "Werewolf Heart," or the shudderingly beautiful "In The Room Where You Sleep," to come from the same guy who played the mushy sap in The Notebook. It's a pleasant surprise. Videos after the jump.

I arrived on time, which of course means early, in hopes of interviewing Director Laurie Adamson or her husband, go-to printmaker David, before the place got too crowded. I turn down sparkling water, champagne, and mojitos, and instead do laps around the exhibit until they arrive at 7 p.m.

Laurie had responded to my request for an interview with her husband, David, the curator of Lou Reed’s photography show at the Adamson Gallery, with an invite to a private reception and the implication of face time with the founder of the Velvet Underground.

In retrospect, I should have stopped at the curator Q&A, because a little part of me died when I finally met my high school hero.

After our interview, David, a genial man with a charismatic accent, says Lou's on his way and takes his leave to tend to guests and interested buyers while I mill around the shrinking space for the hundredth time.

The crowd favorite is #23, a $2,500 large print with powder blue-green vegetation, sepia sky and dirt, and a skeletal piece of farm equipment forgotten in the shade. Laurie says it's "really special." The more I stare, the more I have to agree. But I was most impressed with the skewed composition of #22, all blue sky and a swath of grey clouds, with a slate angel atop palatial Parisian architecture relegated to the left-hand corner. No one else seems drawn to the minimalism in that frame. Most of the other photographs look like something Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe's lovechild might have produced with the double-edged aid and hindrance of mescaline.

"So what do you think?" asks Al, who had been thumbing through the gallery's copy of Romanticism, the exhibit's companion book, in the corner.

I tell him I always thought Lou Reed to be more performance artist than musician anyway, but that I didn't expect his photos to be so benevolent. Pastoral scenes. Parisian architecture. A goat.

"Interesting," Al says.

I look at his earring, his salt-n-pepper moustache, studded skull shirt and jeans. "What brings you here?" I ask. "Big fan of Reed?"

Al's motorcycling his way up to Canada. He lives in Australia, but started his trip in Tampa, Florida, and stopped to stay with his college-era ex-girlfriend in D.C. She and her husband brought him here.

Soon I'm listening to Al's ex-girlfriend and her husband Chip.

"Take a walk on the wild side," the ex says, wiggling her head like a palsied rocker. She confesses to having few songs on her iPod, and most are Reed's. She freezes a beat with the rest of the room when she catches sight of Reed, who has just arrived. They tell me to introduce myself, but I'm frozen solid and hang back in awe as Al et al. leave me to join the rest of Reed’s public.

Eventually Laurie finds me by Special #23, catty corner to the thicket of lusty collectors and/or Reed admirers who seem overly eager for physical contact. She encourages me to talk to Reed. She says she’s going to introduce me as a writer. I ask if I can tell him I’m a journalist. Her normally pleasant “Yes” face scrunches into a less-pleasant “No” face. We are standing conspiratorially close as she instructs me on how to talk to Reed. I feel sneaky, which reminds me of rodents. Rodents remind me of Reed’s word for journalists: “Vermin.”

Laurie pushes me into the group.

Up close, Reed looks like a dinosaur; a homeless dinosaur. He’s wearing all black—wrinkled cotton trench despite the 80-plus-degree weather, thin T-shirt stretched over a slightly distended belly, faded black jeans with frayed cuffs from his dirty yellow Nikes. His tanned hide is craggy, and his Grand Canyon neck is eye-level. When he talks, I find myself staring at the row of silver teeth in his bottom, stubbly jaw. He seems grayer, frailer than the pictures I’ve seen. Still, he has an arrestingly firm handshake.

“Lou, this is Hilary. She’s a writer,” Laurie says.

I look across the gallery to see Chip, throwing me a garish thumbs-up.

“Hi Hilary,” Reed says and grasps my hand, pulling me in closer. I had expected to be waved away, and before I could gather my thoughts a blond man in perfectly pressed chinos butts in to take Reed’s hand.

I’m pissed, but I pretend to study #9—a bland shot of a European garden—while blond guy asks about Reed’s work. Screw #9, I think, as I wheel around to assert my presence in the circle once more. I came here to meet Lou Reed, not watch people kiss ass and write checks. Laurie encourages me with raised brows. I wait, smiling, with insistent eyes until Reed meets my gaze. I reach out my hand and reintroduce myself.

“I really love… your… work your… art.” Damn. He doesn’t seem to mind, or care. He inspects me—Did he just look at my chest?—and waits for the real words to come out.

“I love what you’ve done with these photos, and… I was really curious about this one around the corner here…” ” I asked him about favorite #23.

“Which?” he asks.

I can’t tell if he’s smiling or not. He looks not so much “out of it” as “over it.” I think we’re both doing something we each find more than a bit cringe-worthy, but I can’t be sure. He’s being so patient.

“Uh, number 23.”

“Here, show me.” We stand in front of the Easter-green and sepia star of the show.

“This seems to be the favorite,” I say. He agrees and talks about how much he likes it too. I asked him how and where he captured the image.

“In Scotland,” he says. “It was during a, just about to storm.” He’s pointing at the trees and clouds, but his commentary is lost in the din each time his body turns away from mine.

Because of the noise in the room, Reed spends most of the secret interview-cum-belabored (on my part) conversation leaning into my face, looking down on me. This is scary for many reasons, chief among them is that Reed is scary looking: His brown bespectacled eyes have seen it all, and recorded as much in broken capillaries and yellowish splotches.

Reed says none of the photographs are titled and that he wanted it that way, so the viewer wouldn’t be distracted by place but be forced to rely on how or what the image makes him or her feel. He confesses he can’t even be sure he’s remembering correctly when he tells me a photograph’s origin. I ask him about #22, my favorite, the blue sky/slate angel composition.

“That’s Paris.” He waves a hand about the frame.

I’m freaking out. I’ve managed to escort Lou Freaking Reed around the gallery, to keep him engaged and the conversation blond-intruder-free for what feels like eternity, and he doesn’t seem bored.

He likes to get many different angles of the same thing, he says, getting up close, honing in on a breeze-caught leaf or strange fork in tree branches.

“It’s different angles, different ways of seeing things.” I nod. He shifts to my left side. “See,” he says, shifting to my right side.

“Either way it’s different, it doesn’t matter what angle. Just if it’s beautiful.” I smile to assure him this demonstration was quite effective, and he seems pleased. I bring up another photograph, and he leads me across the gallery. We stand in front of it, talk about shutter speeds and his tweaked camera that sees in “a different wavelength.” Not infrared, not black and white.

“It’s different,” is all Reed divulges about his digital camera. “I love digital. I’m not the type to mourn the death of film.”

Nor is he the type to discuss ideology, as evidenced by my asking if “Romanticism” is–per the press materials–a commentary on industrialization and globalization:

As I am delivering this question Reed breaks eye contact and looks down at my chest. Again. I finish my question, eyebrows arched.

Reed’s gaze comes up. “Where did you hear that?” he asks.

“I read it in the press release. Is that what this is about?”

“No.”

“Then what is this exhibit about?”

“What it says in the press release.”

Chip comes up behind Reed, whom I’m facing, whose motives I’m trying to unearth, and snaps a photo of me and what I can only assume is the back of Reed’s head with his metallic-tangerine digital camera. He smiles at me, pleased, like he’s doing me a solid. I manage to ignore this, determined to have at least one of my direct questions answered directly.

I ask about the title of the exhibition, if William Blake’s brand of romanticism was at all a consideration given Reed’s rhapsodic treatments of nature.

Wrong again.

Killing-the-conversation dead wrong.

“It’s just romance,” Reed says, waving his mojito-free hand palm-up in the air around him, gesturing to the gallery’s contents as if to say Duh!

“Romantic in the simplest sense of the word. You don’t need any point of reference to understand it.”

Judging by his tone, I think I’ve just been called stupid for referencing a Romanticist.

“It was nice meeting you, Hilary,” he says to me.

“You too,” I say, shaking his hand again.

I don’t know that either of us is particularly sincere. His grip is undetectable. He returns to another patch of potential buyers, and starts all over again. For a 67-year-old with wandering eyes, dressed like a vagrant, he’s a startlingly savvy businessman.

P.S. Chip, if you read this, can I have a copy of that photo?

Punk leftovers-cum-merchandising powerhouse the Misfits have announced a fall tour, stopping at Jaxx Sunday, Oct. 25. It's not quite Halloween, but close enough.

The Jersey-bred musclemen/metal punks emerged in 1977, developed a crude catalog of '50s B-movie themes banged out and recorded with even less tact,  and, technically, disbanded by 1983 (when head howler Glenn Danzig left the group). But since 1996, a Frankenstein-ian composite of aging shredders and hangers-on have been keeping the monster alive. Founded by the incomparable Danzig and Jerry Only, Marky Ramone and Black Flag's Dez Cadena were once part of the deciduous line-up.

Throughout the years, reissues, and coffin-shaped box sets, the (theoretical) band has  gained a cult following its current members refer to as the Fiend Club, bearing the Misfits' signature logo and genius graphic design feat. the fiend skull. Their songs have been covered by Metallica ("Last Caress") and Guns 'n' Roses ("Attitude"). Now, Jerry Only is the last founding fossil standing and most new material, quite frankly,  sucks. (Exception: 2003's Project 1950 for its kick-ass cover of "Great Balls of Fire.")

The Misfits haven't released an album since 2004's Fiend Club Lounge, so who the  hell knows what to expect on Oct. 25. I'm not even sure what to expect from the line-up. Rudimentary research indicates Only and Cadena are in, backed by Robo on drums, and Danzig is still out. Such shaky circumstances make me think I should sit this show out too, but I'd probably pay to see a Misfits cover band anyway, and by now that's just about what the Misfits are–an amoebic group toiling in the shadow of their former, better catalog.

• M. Ward, Chain & the Gang. 9:30 club. $25. All ages.
• Deanna Bogart & Tom Principato Band. Birchmere. $25.
• Shortstack, Lorelei, The Moderate. Black Cat. $10. All ages.
• The Charm Offensive, Lanterns, Drunken Banshees, Free Electric State. The Red & The Black. $8. +21.
• The Method, Ramzy, The Frustrations, Justin Trawick. Rock and Roll Hotel. $10. All ages.
• Sunsets with a Soundtrack: The U.S. Army Band Downrange. West Steps U.S. Capitol. Free.
• The Blue Planet Live w/ NSO. Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $20-$48.
• Deep Sang. Cafe Saint Ex.

Saturday

• Old Bridge Festival w/ Future Islands, BLDGS, Laughing Man, Hume, etc. 1256 Old Bridge Rd., Amissville, Va. $10.
• Xavier Rudd, Jeremy Fisher. 9:30 club. $20. All ages.
• The Ruins, 12.0. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Gato Barbieri. Birchmere. $45.
• Run For Cover! Fort Reno Benefit Show. Black Cat. $10. All ages.
• Sean Walsh & the National Reserve, David Schultz & the Skyline, Carlos I'm Pregnant. Comet Ping Pong.
• The U-Liners perform “Happy Birthday Jerry Garcia Tribute.” IOTA Club and Café. $12. +21.
• So Damn Thirsty, Pain!, The Buried, One Slack Mind, Disclosure, Anchors Aweigh. Jaxx. $10/$12. All ages.
• Dream Theater, Zappa Plays Zappa, Queensryche, Bigelf, Scale the Summit. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $30–$45.
• The Veils, Foreign Born, Faces on Film. Rock and Roll Hotel. $12. All ages.
• Keelhaul, The Wayward, Jefferson Plane Crash, Within The Lich Gate, Athens. Velvet Lounge. $8. +18.
• NSO: “Broadway ROCKS!” Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $20-$48.
• DJ Will Eastman. Cafe Saint Ex.

Sunday

• Jazmine Sullivan. 9:30 club. $20. All ages.
• Blues Jam w/ the Idle Americans, Todd Tongdee w/ special guest Ted Lewand. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Midian, Reni Lane. DC9. $8. +18.
• Kashgar, Leyna. Velvet Lounge. $7. +21.
• Daryl Hall & John Oates. Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $25–$42.
• DJ Eskimo. Cafe Saint Ex.

M. Ward photo by Wendy Peyton, via MySpace.

• The Footprint in Hip Hop Tour: Method Man & Red Man, Ghostface Killah, Duo Live. 9:30 club. $35. All ages.
• Sophia Bass, Ruthi & the Tracers. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Jimmy Thackery & the Drivers, Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials. Birchmere. $25.
• Head Automatica, Cubic Zirconia. Black Cat. $15. All ages.
• Carol Bui Butterflies, Impossible Hair, US. Comet Ping Pong. All ages.
• The Mass Shivers, The Alphabet, Hello Babies, Greenland, Wild Fictions. D.C. Mini Gallery. $5. All ages.
• Abigail Williams, Goatwhore,  Daath, Abysmal Dawn, Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky, Fallen Martyr, Nightmare Ritual. Jaxx. $12/$15. All ages.
• The Winter Sounds, Go Home Robot, Achtung Panda. The Red & The Black. $8. +21.
• Bob Dylan. Ripken Stadium. Call for price.
• Bonjour Ganesh!, Ghost Light, The Mean Ideas. Rock and Roll Hotel. $10. All ages.
• Project Natale (Fri. & Sat. shows). Twins Jazz. $15.
• Sunsets with a Soundtrack: The U.S. Army Ceremonial Band. West Steps U.S. Capitol. Free.
• Girl Loves Distortion, Trophy Wife, Three Lexington Arrows, Fangs Out. Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• National Symphony Orchestra: “The Wizard of Oz.” Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $20–$48.

Saturday

• Trouble Funk 30th Anniversary Reunion Tribute to Dyke, w/ The Art of Junk, Da Mixx Band. 9:30 club. $20. All ages.
• Andy Paxon Band, Rose Between Thorns. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women. Birchmere. $25.
• Extra Golden, Black & Tan Fantasy Band. Black Cat. $12. All ages.
• Bluebrain, Alfonso Bravo. Comet Ping Pong. All ages.
• Buster Brown & the Get Down. Dogfishhead Alehouse. Call for price.
• 2009 Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest. Marvin Gaye Park. Call for prices.
• Pants Velour, The Escape Artist, Reemstarr, Flex Matthews. The Red & The Black. $8. +21.
• The Mighty Heard, Baad Ingrish, Ndelible. Rock and Roll Hotel. $10. All ages.
• Satisfaction: A Tribute to The Rolling Stones. The State Theatre. $16.
• Nunchucks, 7 Door Sedan, We The They, DJ sets by Kingpin Soundsystem. Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• National Symphony Orchestra: “The Music of John Williams.” Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $20–$75.

Sunday

• Eric Weinberg & the Morrison Brothers. Birchmere. $35.
• Crystal Stilts, The Ladybug Transistor, Cotton Candy. Black Cat Backstage. $10. All ages.
• So Many Dynamos, Cast Spells, Detox Retox. DC9. $8. +18.
• Born Empty, Deville. The Red & The Black. $6. +21.
• Black Moth Super Rainbow, Dan Friel. Rock and Roll Hotel. $15. All ages.
• Sugarplums, Microwave Background. Velvet Lounge. $8. +18.
• Gordon Lightfoot. Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $22–$40.

Photo of Michael O'Neill, of The Ladybug Transistor, via MySpace.

• An Evening w/ King Sunny Ade & his African Beats. 9:30 club. $25. All ages.
• The Paulverizers, Idle Americans. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Oleta Adams. Birchmere. $39.50.
• Novalima, Pistolera. Black Cat. $18/$22. All ages.
• Lovvers, Small Doses, Cigarbox Planetarium. Comet Ping Pong. All ages.
• John Legend, India.Arie. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $36–$109.
• Hello Society, Marbin, Lucky Dub. The Red & The Black. $8. +21.
• Stellastarr, Wild Light, The Postmarks. Rock and Roll Hotel. $12/$14. All ages.
• BLDGS, Screen Vinyl Image, Cobalt & the Hired Guns, The Water. Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• Danny Harris (Fatback DC): Mashed Potatoes. Cafe Saint Ex.
• Eastern Music Festival Piano Program. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Free.
• Friday Nights Out Back w/ Chopteeth. Strathmore. $10.
• Aural Tapestry: An Evening w/ All Our Noise, feat. Seas, Typefighter, John & Paul Thornley (of US Royalty). Fort Fringe. $10. See Fringe & Purge for WCP's take on the best and worst of CapFringe thus far.

Saturday

• Emmet Swimming, The Dreamscapes Project. 9:30 club. $15. All ages.
• Jenn and the Tonics, Jeff Carmela. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Bill Kirchen & The Hammer of The Honky Tonk Gods, Ruthie & the Wranglers. Birchmere. $25.
• Emarosa, Our Last Night, In Fear and Faith, Burden of a Day, I See Stars, Broadway. Jaxx. $13/$15. All ages.
• North of Canada, Typefighter, Maple. The Red & The Black. $8. +21.
• Drop Electric, Hypernova, Funk Ark, Dangerosa. Rock and Roll Hotel. $10. All ages.
• Beatnik Flies, Sleeper Agent, Pup Tent, Caustic Casanova (upstairs); DJ Busca, DJ Pascal (downstairs). Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• The Birdman. Cafe Saint Ex.
• AP Chemistry: A Night of Hip Hop, feat. Disturbed Individuals, Flex Matthews, Arda Mus. Fort Fringe. $10.

Sunday

• Rocknoceros, The Great Zucchini. 9:30 club. $15. All ages, esp. the kiddies.
• Blues Jam w/ the Idle Americans. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Tortoise, Grey Reverend. Black Cat. $20. All ages.
• Future of the Left, Mount Vicious. DC9. $12. +18.
• Knot Feeder, The Maida Vail, Sun Tornado, Gordon Withers. The Red & The Black. $6. +21.
• Strangers Family Band, Speck Mountain. Velvet Lounge. $7. +21.

Novalima photo via MySpace.

Frontman Frank Black tells SPIN.com that the Boston-born quartet will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their groundbreaking release, Doolittle, by playing the album in its entirety in Oakland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, New York City, and "maybe Montreal" this fall.

This means a set list that for sure includes "Debaser," "Hey," and "Gouge Away." Awesome. After the jump, some Grand Duchy and Pixies ca. Doolittle's 1989 release.

• The Dance Party, Ra Ra Rasputin, Tigercity, Casper Bangs. 9:30 club. $15. All ages.
• Deja Blue, Clarence “Bluesman” Turner. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Handsome Furs, Dri, The Cinnamon Band. Black Cat. $12. All ages.
• Lynne Fiddmont. Blues Alley. $25.
• Atheist, The Faceless, Psyopus, The Agonist, Gnostic, Condemn the Infected, A Bloodbath in Boston. Jaxx. $20/$23.
• Alex Brown Quartet (Fri. & Sat. show). Twins Jazz. $15.
• Sunsets with a Soundtrack: The U.S. Army Concert Band. West Steps U.S. Capitol. Free.
• Video Games Live! Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $20–$48.
• Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Free.
• Chopteeth, DJ Thick. Rock and Roll Hotel. $15. All ages.
• Chance Gardner, Molehill, Gist. The Red & The Black. $8. +21.

Saturday

• Mike Terpak Blues Explosion, Groove Quest. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Trophy Wife, The Caution Curves. Black Cat Backstage. $8. All ages.
• Old Time Banjo Festival w/ Mike Seeger, Bruce Molsky, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Clarke Buehling, The Old 78’s, and Adam Hurt. Birchmere. $29.50.
• Jimmy Bruno. Blues Alley. $25.
• Bugs Bunny on Broadway w/ the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $12.50–$45.
• Hamlisch Conducts Hamlisch. Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $20–$48.
• Honor By August, Trustfall, Red Wanting Blue, Colourside. 9:30 club. $15. All ages.
• Washington National Opera Institute for Young Singers. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Free.
• Chali 2na (of Jurassic 5), Whosane feat. Pangea, Educated Consumers. Rock and Roll Hotel. $15. All ages.
• Feedback Dance Party w/ DJ Stereofaith, The Hardy Boys, DJs Dave Nada, Johnny Blaze, Trevor Martin, Andrew Jaye. DC9. $8. +21.
• Inkwell Strings, Dennis Manuel (Army of Me) performs Elvis Costello's The Juliet Letters. IOTA Club & Cafe. $12. +21.
• The Circus w/ Tyrone Norris, Bomani Armah. Expo. $8. +21.

Sunday

• Barbershop Jam, Blues Jam with the Idle Americans. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• National Trustees’ NSO Summer Music Institute Orchestra Concerts (July 12–26). Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Free.
• Rock the Bells w/ Nas, Damian Marley, The Roots, Common, Busta Rhymes, Big Boi, Reflection Eternal (Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek), Tech N9ne, RZA, Raekwon, K-Naan, Sage Francis. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $51-$101.
• Reggae 2009! w/ Beres Hammond, Culture featuring Kenyatta Hill & Lenya Wilks, w/ Harmony House Singers & Musicians. Filene Center at Wolf Trap. $25–$40.
• 5th Annual D.C. Latin Rock Fest w/ Locos Por Juana, Nayas, Oda's, March Of Us, Pistolera, Reynolds, Ocho de Bastos, Los NeuroNautas, Machetres. 9:30 club. $20. All ages.
• The Nine @ DC9 w/ Justin Trawick, Molly Hagen, Jason Ager, Ted Garber, Laura Tsaggaris, Jason Masi, Ken Wenzel, Victoria Vox, Matthew Bryce. DC9. $8. +21.
• Kung Fury, Super Potent Death Baby, King Giant. The Red & The Black. $6. +21.
• Questlove, DJ Dummy. Liv. $15.

Handsome Furs photo via MySpace.

More info and video from last year's Whartscape after the jump.

Not familiar with Wham City? Get acquainted. B-more's a quirky metropolis with a soundtrack to match. Just as trained ears can pick out a distinctive D.C. post-punk grind, Baltimore's deafening feature is noisy pop. And Wham City's noisy pop, Baltimoreans will agree, is de riguer. It's a bit off in the best way possible, and so is Baltimore.

Mega-Ppsses and Friday evening's show in the BMA auditorium are sold out, but tickets for individual shows are still available for $18. Considering each set's lineup of 20+ bands, that's a lot of bang for your buck.