Apparently Dismemberment Plan dude Travis Morrison once had another band called the Hellfluffers or something, and they had a song called "Moneytown" that could only be heard by people with cameraphones. Not for long! When Bad Friend Records puts out its retrospective Travis Morrison Hellfighters 7-inch, the original version of "Moneytown" will be the bonus [...]

D.C. experimental-music mainstay Blue Sausage Infant, aka Chester Hawkins, has been nominated for a Qwartz award in France for his album Negative Space, which was his first-ever vinyl release after years of distributing music in much less formal ways. I called it "a vital document of D.C.’s noise scene" when I reviewed it last summer, [...]

Alas, there is no street beef between the bands U.S. Royalty and American Royalty. There are only questions: Which band is more regal? Which one best represents the U.S. of A.? Sadly, this AWESOMELY EXCLUSIVE CHART doesn't help much:

HOMETOWN

D.C.
L.A.

MUSICAL STYLE

Slightly tarnished AM gold
with literary aspirations
Mildly eccentric indie-electro
with pop tendencies

MOST RECENT RELEASE

Mirrors LP
Matchstick EP (out Feb. [...]

The biggest go-go bands can be like small companies: Personnel comes and goes, but the overall brand generally retains its standing. Occasionally, however, a lineup change is a Really Big Deal in go-go circles, like rapper Killa Cal's recent decision to leave the WHAT? band and take his firm verbals to Rare Essence, one of the [...]

Y'know how Prince occasionally veers toward self-parody, and nobody is sure if it's intentional, so the default response is, "It's still motherfucking Prince, so shut up," and then everybody goes back to enjoying Prince? That's kind of what this is like, except Wes Anderson is not Prince.

The world's Wu-nerds can sort out the particulars of The Ghostface Beat Tape Project, a 28-track collection of high-quality instrumentals "inspired by the Wally Champ" and created entirely by DMV producers. There's plenty to chew on at the micro level. At the macro level, though, it inspires one question: Why put all that DMV effort [...]

1. SmCity featuring Pro'verb, "My Own Boss"
Of all the rap videos that prominently feature Malcolm X imagery, at least 99 percent are sincere.

HO HO WHO: A helium-voiced synth-pop outsider with a remarkably well-footnoted Wikipedia page.
THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING: Y'know how the American spirit encourages creativity, spontaneity and individualism? Well, sometimes those conditions foster genius. And sometimes we get a UFO Phil.

HO HO WHO: Some of the most highly regarded smart guys in D.C.'s indie-pop underground, The Caribbean. "What Child Is This" is their contribution to the never ending beginning, the free 2011 Christmas compilation by their label, Hometapes.
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Why, it's a complete reworking of the beloved 19th century English hymn by [...]