Former Black and White Jacksons guitarist Tim George formed Dizzy Spells with Kelela Mizanekristos, and the group’s songs can be ethereal and deeply felt or playful and jagged. The band describes itself as “Rock/Americana/Neo-Soul,” which is pretty apt, but it ignores the woozy trip-hop sound that’s all over “Laser Light.” You can stream that song and others at Dizzy Spells’ MySpace page. The District-based group, now a four-piece, performs tonight at 9 p.m. at the Velvet Lounge. Tickets are $8.

More soulful, minimalistic indie bands after the jump: gothy bawlers, Brits lip-syncing to R&B, and a poorly timed Michael Jackson cover!

Read More “Clip Job: Five Minimalistic Indie Bands with Soul” »

Reading Jonah Weiner’s Creed encomium yesterday reminded me that when “Higher” hit the airwaves in 1999 as the first single from Creed’s Human Clay, I knew on first listen that I had to learn that song.

Read More “Creed Was Never Underrated” »

Tabi Bonney performs at Fat Baby last night in New York City.

The thing about CMJ is, not all of it’s CMJ. There are the unoffocial day parties—free, sometimes invite-only events sponsored by record labels, PR firms, and media. There are the more exclusive parties at night. And there are the shows that, although not nominally part of the five-day conference and music festival, go on anyway, right in the middle of it all.

Take Casper Bangs‘ show last night at Pianos, which was sponsored by the weekly concert series Cross-Polination and was not part of the official CMJ roster. Nevertheless, the band—the project of Rob Pierangeli, who used to play in the Hard Tomorrows—played to a nearly full room.

Pierangeli paid $45 when he applied to play at this year’s CMJ, but his band was turned down. “Sorry to be frank, but I don’t see if the music has that much to do with who gets in,” he told me today. “So if you want to play, you have to know someone. Everyone knows that though. That’s not new information.”

Read More “CMJ Notebook: Casper Bangs, Shots of District Acts, Kiwi Rock” »

Middle Distance Runner performs at the CMJ Music Marathon in 2008.

Every CMJ has its success story—the unknown act who, thanks to buzz and grit and talent and luck , tickles the right trigger of the wayfaring label rep or taste-maker who, for whatever reason, has decided to see it. But most of the thousand-plus little-known bands and artists who descend on New York City each fall for the College Music Journal Music Marathon don’t walk away with freshly inked contracts or top-tier management. Their game is more incremental: A write-up here, a handshake there. So whether they’re dampening expectations or they mean it, it’s probably unsurprising that most of the D.C. bands performing during this year’s CMJ say their primary goal is just to “have fun.”

“These things are kind of a madhouse, and there’s a lot of talk of ‘there’s gonna be a lot of industry people,’” says Matt Dowling, whose band Deleted Scenes has two CMJ gigs and a meeting with a marketing firm. ”I don’t mean to be a cynic, but we’ve been playing for long enough and pined over certain goals to realize that the bottom line is to have fun. If the industry happens to like it, then great.”

John Thornley, of U.S. Royalty, is equally cautious: “I don’t think we’re going to go there and get a record, and I mean, it may happen. The goal is just to go there and play a show and get a lot of people.” But he also sees less tangible benefits. “If you meet a band at a party, and you like their music and they like yours, it’s that much more easy to work with them.”

At least a dozen bands and artists from the District will play gigs during this year’s CMJ, which starts tomorrow night and runs through Saturday, and includes about 75 different venues across New York City (there are also panel discussions and a film festival). Some acts already have recording contracts, others don’t, and all of them—once you get past their shared enthusiasm for merriment—have different goals.

Read More “For District Artists, Mixed and Measured Expectations for CMJ” »

For Real Estate’s Martin Courtney, returning to his native New Jersey  last summer after graduating from college may have been a regressive move, but it also turned out to be a productive one.

“I almost exclusively hang out with people from high school these days,” the singer and guitarist says, echoing that common post-collegiate experience of hometown dive bars and procrastinated job searches.

But Courtney also spent last summer writing songs and jamming in his parents’ basement with guitarist Matt Mondanile, bassist Alex Bleeker, and drummer Etienne Duguay, laying the groundwork for what is, little more than a year later, one of 2009’s most promising new indie-pop acts in a year replete with lo-fi fast-burners. Six months after its first gig, Real Estate—which plays at the Rock & Roll Hotel tonight with Japandroids and Neon Indian—was generating buzz at the South by Southwest festival in Austin and tickling the blogosphere with woozy, summery singles. Now, the band is about to release its self-titled debut on Woodsist Records.

Read More “Off the Beach: Real Estate @ Rock & Roll Hotel” »

Partyline (2005-present): Fascination with the riot grrrl movement burned brightly and briefly, but the members of Bratmobile—which formed in 1991—kept making music, on and off, until 2002. Sort-of based in D.C., Partyline isn’t the first other project for singer Allison Wolfe, but it’s had the most staying power. The band’s name sort of reminds me of that chirpy Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie where they share a phone line, but Partyline’s music—snotty, high-adrenaline, feminist—quickly corrects that association. The trio plays at the Velvet Lounge tomorrow night at 9 p.m. with Edie Sedgwick and Noisy Pig. Tickets are $8.

More riot grrrl second acts after the jump: flowcharts, riots in MTV studios, and Christina Aguilera!

Read More “Clip Job: Five Second Acts for Riot Grrrl Veterans” »

Remember singing telegrams? Yeah, me neither. At least in my lifetime, their existence seems to have been purely pop-cultural.

But no longer(!), provided you like your missives flavored with saccharine, and occasionally anarchic, indie pop.

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down—formerly of Virginia, lately of San Francisco—will write and record a singing telegram for the winner of a raffle; the (kinda steep) $20 ticket price benefits CASH Music. The nonprofit creates open-source software and code to ease the distribution of music.

Read More “Thao Nguyen Wants to Write You a Song” »

No, not together, although that would be kind of funny.

The Points—pictured here, covered in beer and spit—recently posted five new demos on their MySpace page. Three chords used to be all The Points could handle, but these scuzzy, blown out recordings prove that the band’s aesthetic has evolved a little bit over the last year. “Now I Want It” has at least six chords.

Also, The Points are playing Friday, Oct. 16th.
@ Quarry House Tavern

Is Antelope broken up? Hard to say for certain. It’s been a minute since the band’s full length LP, Reflector, came out and they haven’t performed a show in almost a year. Then again, Antelope (which includes City Paper contributor Justin Moyer) has never really been in a hurry. Reflector came out two years after the band’s last 7″ single. Not exactly a hot-on-the-heels-type situation.

Whatever the status of Antelope may be, singer/guitarist/drummer Bee Elvy has been keeping busy. He recently posted some new material to his Website. Three video clips find him chanting over some house music-inspired synth bleeps.

It’s likely no accident that, at least on cursory listens, Psychic Chasms (Lefse Records) sounds out-of-time and incidental, like the gauzy score to a local-access television spot long relegated to the backwaters of YouTube. Certainly, there’s a degraded and lo-fi quality to this debut by Neon Indian, the project of 21-year-old Alan Palomo, who is based in Austin. That hissy, washed-over aesthetic is essential to the 30-minute album, but unlike the other glo-fi acts the blogosphere slobbered over all summer, Psychic Chasms has a productive tension between sound and songwriter.

Read More “Reviewed: Neon Indian’s Psychic Chasms” »

Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney and guitarist-vocalist Dan Auerbach are currently continuing the experimentation heard on 2008’s Attack and Release through their respective side projects. Before regrouping for this fall’s Blakroc project with Mos Def and RZA, Auerbach is touring in support of his solo album, Keep It Hid, and Carney is playing bass in his new side band, Drummer.

Do the extracurricular projects signal a new direction or broadening of sound? Or could it prompt them to draw back to the purer elements of the Black Keys?

“Dan and I started the Black Keys when we were very young and our first record came out when we were both 22,” says Carney. “In the past seven years we have grown a lot as musicians and have started to feel comfortable changing and doing what we want. Neither of us would ever want to feel like we need to sound a certain way to be pure.”

Read More “Drummer Combines Sundaes and Hot Dogs” »