It’s a confusing time to be a D.C. concert-goer. The Fillmore Silver Spring has invaded the established order. DIY spaces flicker and fade like so many lightning bugs. Perhaps you’ve had one too many drinks. If you find yourself at a rock concert and you can’t remember where exactly you are, this might help.
Illustration by [...]
A tip for visitors to "Data/Fields," a new exhibit at Artisphere: The Mark Fell piece, "Tone Pattern Transactuality," does not respond to movement. I looked like a fool dancing in front of the projection screen in an attempt to change the pitch of the mosquito swarm buzzing through my headphones. The curator, Richard Chartier, gently [...]
When local indie-pop singer Olivia Mancini decamped to New York last fall, it seemed as if D.C. had lost yet another artist to that giant creativity magnet to the north. Not so, says Mancini, who is playing at the Black Cat on Friday with her band, The Mates. She swears she is just there to [...]
Right now, a hall in the Indonesian Embassy is filled with boxes containing a total of 5,000 angklungs—an ancient Indonesian instrument that, when played en masse, might remind you of your elementary school bell choir. On Saturday at 4 p.m., Indonesian Embassy officials will hand them out on the National Mall just north of the [...]
Earlier this week, WAMU's DCentric blog interviewed me about my story about punk and go-go shows. In that piece, I reported that it took Eckington residents a year to shut down a punk venue, and just a week to quash a go-go show, as WAMU's Anne Hoffman nicely summarizes it. And that conversation got me thinking: [...]
Generally, it’s a bad idea to return to the scene of your crime.
It’s also inadvisable to allow a videographer to tail you, or to let passersby take your picture. But don’t tell that to the street art duo known as Inkognito.
“Most people go out at like 3 or 4 a.m.; we do it at, like, [...]
The hardcore band Sick Fix’s last show was a disaster.
On Feb. 16, the group was booked along with four other bands at Hole in the Sky, an Eckington group house and show space that’s become a fixture of the local punk circuit. Toward the end of Sick Fix’s set, police showed up, and when the [...]
When mandolin player Tara Lynette traveled to Nepal during college, she found people playing eerily familiar songs on banjo- and fiddle-like instruments. "Some of their melodies are almost exactly like old time Appalachian tunes," she says. In 2006, she returned to Nepal with a fiddle-playing friend, eager to jam with the locals. A film crew [...]
How bad is the drummer shortage in D.C.?
So bad that when one percussionist leaves, three bands call it quits. At least, that was the case when Greg Gendron decamped for Japan last March. His departure spelled the end for Lejeune, The Courtesans, and Secret Pop Band—three long-running groups that regularly played at the Black Cat [...]
The first time I saw Matthew Hemerlein perform, I thought he had some major nervous tics. As he chatted with the audience, his hands ranged over his violin, thumping on the fingerboard, plucking strings on the wrong side of the bridge. But as Hemerlein launched into his performance, I realized he was recording the entire [...]
