On Tuesday the Washington Area Music Association announced the nominees for the 26th annual Wammies, which take place Feb. 19 at the State Theatre. It’s no secret that I and others have long been critical of the local awards ceremony's mistakes, omissions, and policies. I'd hoped this year would be very different but, alas, I [...]
Wild Flag @ Black Cat
We covered a lot of music in pictures this year, but some truly stood out.
Since November 2010, the Luce Foundation Center for American Art, located in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, has been one of the city's more intimate outlets for local musicians. Its monthly acoustic concert series, Luce Unplugged, features an hour-long performance, accompanied by a discussion on an artwork chosen by the musician.
Yesterday the series featured Title Tracks frontman [...]
The art-tainted/prog-damaged* dudes of Hume left town awhile ago for a fall tour. What's the net result? It's a screwed & chopped version of a Steve Miller song set to some C-grade sci-fi clips. But hey, if you're gonna drag yourself Around The Indie-Rock Circuit In 80 Days, it's probably better to bring back "a [...]
Last Wednesday, I compiled a few narratives from current and former WMUC DJs involved in the rediscovery of a once-lost live session by indie-folk legend Elliott Smith, which contained a previously unreleased song called "Misery Let Me Down." The story had gone viral two days earlier, when the Washington Post's David Malitz first wrote about it. The [...]
The indie corner of the Internet went nuts Monday after WaPo's David Malitz published a piece about the recent rediscovery of a rare Elliott Smith recording. The story went that a former WMUC DJ Ben Weisholtz found a copy of a 1996 live radio session—"Misery Let Me Down"—in an old MiniDisc player he sold on [...]
When a band is made up of former record-store clerks, screenprinters, and music writers, you can pretty much bet on a quality product. Mannequin Men have just delivered their most quality product to date.
The Chicago quintet—which has been making jangly, beautifully loud ramshackle rock about girls and booze since 2003—recently released its fourth album, Mannequin [...]
On the 9:30 Club stage last night, the Portland, Ore. indie-folk outfit Blind Pilot showcased many generations of instruments, from banjo, to stand-up bass, to squeeze-box. Luckily for the close-to-capacity crowd, the songs were pretty timeless, too.
Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, played to a sold-out 9:30 Club last night, pairing her ethereal voice with off-kilter indie-pop melodies full of sometimes-frantic beats and a bass sound so big it would have made Chuck D jealous. From the start of "Surgeon" to the finale of "Your Lips are Red," she had the crowd in the [...]
There was a moment last night, during Wild Flag's set at the Black Cat, when singer/guitarist Carrie Brownstein basically gave herself over fully to her band's musical frenzy. During "Racehorse," she fell to her knees as if in a trance, slapped her own face a couple of times, and writhed around on the stage, all [...]
