Downtown Shabby: Downtown has been a musical hub and a gallery destination, but now arts are becoming less and less visible in the area between 4th and 15th streets NW and Pennsylvania and New York Avenues, writes Mark Jenkins in The Washington Post: Some galleries are in office-building lobbies; some properties meet D.C. government's requirement for downtown "arts" space via for-profit museums and restaurants with musical offerings; the multiuse arts space Flashpoint may bolt for an artier (and presumably cheaper) neighborhood when its lease expires next year.

My Love Is Your Love: At Click Track, Chris Richards reflects on on the tragedy of Whitney Houston's death this weekend, which cast a pall—well, kind of—over last night's disjointed Grammy Awards. (Members of the Recording Academy's D.C. chapter didn't do so great there.)

John Hodgman

MUSIC

'60s sunshine poppers The Association will wrap your heart in an argyle scarf. Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at The Birchmere. $35.

Local EDM up-and-c0mer Alvin Risk opens for Steve Aoki. Saturday at 8 p.m. at Fillmore Silver Spring. $35.

Rasp-voiced indie-folk singer Sharon Van Etten—who's new album Tramp is pretty excellent, isn't it?—shares a bill with conceptual mopers Shearwater at Black Cat. A bargain at $15. Saturday at 9 p.m. Update: This show has sold out.

Mike West says you should see Afro-Blue's Christie Dashiell sing solo. Saturday at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. at Bohemian Caverns. $20.

Increasingly polished garage rockers Dum Dum Girls are at Black Cat on Sunday. 8 p.m. $15. Also, Cate Le Bon at DC9 (Sunday, 8 p.m., $10-$12) looks good.

BOOKS

The Midatlantic boasts a rich history of crime novelists, with Wire alumnus and detective fiction master George Pelecanos at its center. But now, there’s a new face in the crowd: retired D.C. detective David Swinson, whose noirish debut novel A Detailed Man hits stores later this month. Swinson may not be a deadly sharp writer yet—he occasionally indulges in too-poetic, maudlin prose—but his characters are surprisingly well-sketched with depth beyond their hard-boiled skins. Swinson’s protagonist is Ezra Simeon, a Bell’s Palsy-afflicted detective who inherits a high-profile murder from a dead buddy’s case file, and comes to suspect a serial killer. Cue a slow-burning trek through the dark and dangerous corners of D.C., replete with thugs, johns, cold cases, and all those details muddled in shows like C.S.I. In this District, crime is anything but polished. David Swinson signs and discusses his book Saturday at 3 p.m. at One More Page Books, Arlington. Free. (Christoper Heller)

CHAIRS

Their signature lounge chair sell for more than four grand, so it’s easily forgotten that Charles and Ray Eames didn’t want their work to become sequestered within the pages of Design Within Reach catalogs. The married couple—whom many mistook for brothers, given Ray’s androgynous name—sought to create beautiful things that could belong to anybody. One of their mantras was, “The best for the most for the least.” They were O.G.s of mid-century modern way before they were the darlings of the Dwell set. (Is it any surprise Ice Cube is a fan?) The couple became media favorites whose work grew in scale and ambition, segueing from military splints to furniture to film to the IBM Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. But Eames: The Architect and the Painter, which aired last year as part of PBS’ “American Masters” series, also explores the Eames’ place within prefeminist America. Ray was more softspoken than her husband (“She sat like a delicious dumpling in a doll’s dress,” is the chosen praise of one male television host), but she worked with him equally; in a way, she was a forebear of the gender politics that would sweep the country 20 years later. The film shows at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the National Gallery of Art. Free. (Brooke Hatfield)

NOT ENOUGH?

THEN PICK UP OUR MASSIVE SPRING ARTS GUIDE IMMEDIATELY.

Deleted Scenes is all over SXSW.

Every March, dozens of D.C. artists join thousands of musicians from around the world at Austin, Texas’ massive South by Southwest Festival—a place where hopes are live-tweeted and dreams are expensively publicized. Is this the year the D.C. delegation makes its mark? There will be plenty of individual artists and bands making the Austin trek, but here are some of the larger D.C. happenings—official and unofficial—at South by Southwest, including label showcases, a venue on wheels, and a brand new Bluebrain commission.

DC Does TX, Lovejoy’s, March 14
Since 2008, this annual unofficial showcase has presented a day-long, well-curated lineup highlighting the District’s more polished indie rockers. This year, things are a bit scuzzier: The organizers—bloggers Valerie Paschall, Dan Corbin, and Steve Rogovin—teamed up with independent booker Sasha Lord, who specializes in hip-as-fuck garage rock.

The Lineup: Hume, Deleted Scenes, Soccer Team, Edie Sedgwick, and Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds, with more TBA. DJ Baby Alcatraz will DJ.

Texas Chili Pepper Scoville Index: 500,000

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Sweet Tea Pumpkin Pie, Casa Chapala, March 14-17
Hyper-enthusiastic musician and blogger Dave Mann started a hyper-inclusive local rock festival last year. Now he’s expanding to Austin and, characteristically, is going large. His unofficial Sweet Tea Pumpkin Pie showcase spans four days and two stages, with a quarter devoted to D.C. artists.

The Lineup: Some familiar local indie-rock names, like Deleted Scenes and Pree, and plenty of kinda-obscure ones. Headlining the noisy fourth night is Texas nu-gazers Ringo Deathstarr.

TCPSI: 400,000

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Slip Productions and Lovitt Records Showcase, Club 1808, March 15

The longtime Arlington label teams with an Austin promoter for a bill of aggressive and brainy bands.

The Lineup: Sleepytime Trio, Redgrave, Regents, Edie Sedwick, Soccer Team, Beast of No Nation and More

TCPSI: 400,000

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Listen Local First Mobile Music Venue

The local music boosters are taking on South by Southwest hobo style. I wrote about this yesterday.

TCPSI: 450,000

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The Violet Crown, South by Southwest Festival area
South by Southwest commissioned local experimental-pop duo Bluebrain to compose another free, location-aware musical app. The Violet Crown doesn’t cover as big a geographic area as Bluebrain’s earlier National Mall and Central Park apps, which is actually a plus: This app is small enough to download on a 3G network. The duo is also performing with Frank Warren, the artist behind the project “Post Secret,” on March 11 at the Austin Convention Center.

TCPSI: 450,000

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Fuck SXSW, Montserrat House, Washington, D.C., April 6-7
Travis “Beeronimo” Jackson runs local garage-punk label Windian Records, but instead of flying his roster out to Austin each year—where the booze is abundant but the career benefits are dubious—he schedules some anti-programming in D.C. For musical quantity, you can’t beat South by Southwest, but the always rowdy Windian might have it beat on volume.

The Lineup: ’70s punks The Penetrators, plus The Bizarros, Paint Fumes, Thee Lolitas, Foul Swoops, Spider Fever, The Shirks, and more.

TCPSI: 16,000,000

No, you won’t see us at comics conventions dressed up as Thor. And we didn’t find Fanboys—that slight 2008 comedy in which a quintet of Star Wars geeks breaks into George Lucas’ ranch—the slightest bit adorable.

When we call ourselves fans, it’s because we love this stuff. Reviewing the District’s theater, music, art, dance, and film offerings is how we channel it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t take it so seriously.

For this issue, our inaugural Spring Arts Guide, we decided to tear up the usual script and devote some serious words not to artists but to some of our fellow fans. Inside, you’ll find four looks at individuals who’ve become deeply involved in local arts scenes, even though they’re not in the business of making art: a punk booker, Pat Walsh; a blogger, Metal Chris; an art collector, Veronica Jackson; and Cheles Rhyes, the dance scene's a jack-of-all-trades.

Fear not: We’ve also assembled some recommendations for your springtime cultural consumption—via insanely thorough listings and our recommendations of the best rock, classical and opera, books, film, hip-hop, jazz, dance, and theater. We hope you’re a fan.

Bonus! There's a proper arts section, too. Rebecca J. Ritzel reviews Necessary Sacrifices at Ford's Theatre and Josephine Tonight at MetroStage. Bob Mondello reviews  The Kinsey Sicks' Electile Dysfunction at Theater J. Chris Klimek reviews Blood Wedding at Constellation Theatre. Tricia Olszewski reviews Oscar-nominated short films. Marcus J. Moore reviews P.U.S.S.Y., the newest album of instrumental hip-hop from Judah. And in One Track Mind, Joe Warminsky chats with sunshiny genre-bending duo ACME.

Brienza

There was a lot of pathos at yesterday's D.C. Council oversight hearing for the city's cash-strapped arts commission ("the arts form human connections") and no shortage of good economic sense (arts create jobs, improve neighborhoods, and assist local businesses). So much of both, in fact, coming from more than 20 D.C. arts administrators, that after a while the testimony began to feel like a particularly subpar revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night.

I was following via webcast, and Julianne Brienza's testimony made me snap to. "We can't get the appropriate amount of money in the District of Columbia," said the executive director of the Capital Fringe Festival, the scrappy and now massive unjuried performing arts festival that takes over the Mount Vernon Square area each July.

Fringe, Brienza said, is considering taking half of the festival to Maryland, to take advantage of public funding opportunities there. "Losing the funding for the arts will make D.C. a less vibrant place to live," she said.

Posturing? Maybe—but it certainly gave the council's small and local business development committee something to think about. It's easy to consider the benefits of flush arts funding. But the consequences when it shrinks?

Of course, for now the fate of D.C. arts funding is in Mayor Vince Gray's hands—he'll submit his budget for FY 2013 to the council on March 20. Fringe, like many of the arts organizations that testified yesterday, has seen the size of its grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities shrink in recent years. For this fiscal year, Fringe received $27,500 this year from the arts commission's Festivals and City Arts Projects and Grants in Aid programs. The festival began in 2006 with the arts commission as a partner, and received a $10,000 grant. $30,000 followed in 2007, and more than $100,000 in 2008—as part of the commission's UPSTART program—which allowed Fringe to expand its facilities (they bought the tent), upgrade their office, and bring in consultants. From 2009 to 2011 the festival received more than $40,000 in grants each year from the commission.

Consider Fringe's overall finances: Their budget is now around $850,000 a year—about 85 percent of which comes from earned revenue (ticket and bar sales). In addition to DCCAH, the contributed income comes from individual donors and foundations—although some foundation funding is drying up. The Meyer Foundation last gave to Fringe in 2009; funding from the Marpat Foundation will end after 2013.

So: Maryland?

It could happen, says Brienza, if not in the near future. Fringe is counting on holding its last festival in it current Mount Vernon Square headquarters—Fort Fringe, sitting on land owned by Douglas Development—in 2013. After that, some possibilities include relocating to NoMa or the Waterfront, Brienza says.

Last fall, the DCCAH announced hundreds of grants totalling $3.7 million for Fiscal Year 2012—a puny number compared to the more than $10 million a year the commission distributed annually until several years ago. "If the whole ship sinks here, I don't really know what's in store," Brienza says, adding that D.C. residents have come to expect a certain amount of artistic activity that's a partial result of institutional support. "I think citizens really expect all this vibrancy, but [at the moment] the money's not going to keep it going. So what do you do?" Maybe you move to a state that's shown a willingness to invest heavily in at least some arts.

While I had Brienza on the line, I got an update on a few other Fringe-related matters. Although Fringe won't be using previous venues like the Warehouse and the Apothecary this year (the latter will be the site of Living Social's new office), it'll have programming in two Columbia Heights spaces: GALA Hispanic Theatre and the Court of 1469 art gallery.

Also, while individual ticket prices will stay at $17—a price point that's drawn some criticism—the required Fringe button will drop back to $5 from $7. Brienza added that last year the average Fringe-goer in fact paid $11 a show due to package-deal discounts: "So get over it—I mean that in a really positive way."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Some interesting advice from Chuck Brown in this video: "Now you no longer have to risk your life going to the go-go. Bring the danger of the go-go right on home for that ass!" OK, so that isn't actually the Godfather of Go-Go. And the product he's pitching, Go-Go Guitar Hero, does not in fact exist.

D.C./LA comedian Brandon Broady is responsible for loving, spot-on parody, which promises hits like "The '07 Ass Clap," "The '08 Ass Clap," and "The '09 Ass Class" and groups like, "BYB, TCB, CCB, UCB, XIB, TOB, BBBB, BBBBBB, and more."

So, lessons learned: 1) Non-pros should not attempt the bounce beat; 2) maybe go-go will finally go mainstream this year?

MUSIC

The D.C. Music Salon focuses on an artist whose connection to D.C. is a little tenuous with a screening of the documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune. In the 1960s, the folk singer was the anti-Dylan, sticking to topical themes as his competitor became an increasingly impressionistic lyricist. Tricia Olszewski reviewed the film positively last year. 7 p.m. at the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Branch Library. Free.

FUNDING

A number of local arts heavies, including the D.C. Arts Commission Director Lionell Thomas, Busboys & Poets owner Andy Shallal, and Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, discuss arts funding. Free. 6 p.m. at Busboys at 14th and V streets NW.

PROJECT: The Listen Local First Mobile Music Venue, which LLF co-founder Christopher Naoum describes in the video as a musical version of a food truck. The plan: Acquire a van, enlist local artists to paint it, pack it full of gear and choice D.C. musicians, and drive to Austin, Texas, in time for South by Southwest—all while filming a documentary and distributing a local-music compilation. Ambitious! Scrappy! But: If the goal is to cram in a back line, multiple artists, and film equipment, an Econoline might not do the trick. You'll need a clown car.

ASK: $5,000 by March 5

KARMA SCORE: 7

BONUS: Today is LLF's Local Music Day, and it might have the best lineup of local musicians yet. Saying, is all.

PROJECT: The HighBraü Collection, local artists Matthew Brazier and Roy Feinson's series of three "impressionist mosaics" made with beer caps—or, in beer-mosaic speak, "beer crowns." In part, they're basically asking you to pay for their beer—so that they can then use the undamaged caps, which they'll also have to clean. They'll then sell the mosaics in a gallery show. Example of their work: A beer-cap simulacrum of Shepard Fairey's iconic "HOPE" poster—only, now it reads "HOPS." There's a poster version you can get in exchange for pledging $100 or more. A frat-boy sucker is born every minute.

ASK: $20,000 ($20,000!) by April 7. That is so much beer.

KARMA SCORE, BEER GOGGLES: 10

KARMA SCORE, SOBER: 1

THE PROJECT: Ad Hoc, the successor to the much-missed Altered Zones, the eclectic, super-out-there satellite site that taste-making music megasite Pitchfork shut down last year. Like Altered Zones, Ad Hoc is a collective of 10 experimental-music blogs spanning continents and genres—and now, it seems, it'll also feature writing from members of Real Estate, Dirty Beaches, Future Shuttle, and other cool groups. To power the Kickstarter campaign, the embryonic blog is assembling a pretty hefty compilation; giveaways from sweet labels abound.

THE ASK: $33,333 by March 5

KARMA SCORE: 8.

This month, however, Hays will be handing out some of his professional services without charge. Since 2010, he's operated Iguazu Sound, a studio in Arlington where he's recorded local musicians as well as his own work with Bluebrain. Pretty soon, though, he's shutting Iguazu's doors—a shame, although Hays writes that he'll still be freelance engineering and producing at studios like Inner Ear and The Bastille.

Before Iguazu closes, though, Hays is hosting a series of three-hour recording sessions over six days—and a handful of bands will be able to take advantage of the opportunity for free. Hays writes:

Instead of focusing simply on live documentation, the goal is to come up with unexpected results utilizing all available options in the studio. Think of this as a chance to be challenged to approach your song differently and step out of your musical comfort zone.

The sessions will be completely free of charge.

A big and necessary component of this process will be preproduction so that we can create a vision for the song, develop a strategy for recording it and  work out logistics such as tempo, arrangement and other important details. Remember its only three hours so we need to be as efficient and prepared as possible before the session begins.

Want Hays to record your song for free? There's apparently a selection process: Email him two or three demos, "however crude," along with contact info, and cross your fingers.

As for why Hays is shutting down Iguazu, the reason is at least a little punk-rock: In addition to working there, Hays has been living at Iguazu, but writes "that lifestyle has become unsustainable (no windows, makeshift kitchen, no hotwater, no heat etc)." I can only assume he's got his future living arrangements figured out, but if Hays picks your band for a recording session, out of gratitude you should probably let him crash on your couch.

Journopalooza Redux: In The New Republic, Jordan Michael Smith asks—like seriously asks—Why does D.C. have so many "wonk bands?" I would've endorsed a slightly different approach to the topic. Then, Jordan Michael Smith, you might have avoided paragraphs like this one:

At first glance, it might seem strange that so many wonks have gravitated toward the local music scene. After all, the rock n’ roll lifestyle is synonymous with drug-taking, partying and rebelling. None of those activities occur at the Brookings Institution, at least on a regular basis. The only thing dangerous about the State Department has been its low funding levels. Musicians are also known for their sex appeal and attractiveness. Bureaucrats? Less so.

I Did Not Wake Up This Morning Hoping to Be a Media Critic: But Huffington Post D.C., what the shit is this lede? "While the Walter E. Washington Convention Center has been the scene of plenty of protests since it opened in 2003, nobody should be picketing Wednesday night's 'Shaw Art Walk' which starts at the massive 2.3 million square foot complex." Yes, because the overwhelmingly majority of events at the convention center draw uncountable waves of anarcho-punk demonstrators. How lovely we can all rally around this Art Walk!

Aimless Pilgrimage: Like our critic, but with much harsher words, the Post's Philip Kennicott calls bullshit on Annie Leibovitz's photographs of dead people's belongings, currently on view at the National Portrait Gallery.

Notes From the Pink Line: Art Doyenne Philippa Hughes, in her latest blog contribution to HuffPo D.C., says she had a great and inspiring 2011—for reasons including an apology note from a mugger, a case of invasive performance art, trips abroad, and Adrian Parsons. Next stop: LUMEN8.

Our Far-Flung Correspondants: WCP classical critic Mike Paarlberg asks in Slate: "Can Asians Save Classical Music?"

Today on Arts Desk: The best way to record for free this month.