Ed. note: It's Archers of Loaf Day, apparently! There are worse things.
It's a no-brainer to say an upstairs bartender at the Black Cat sees a lot of shows, both good and bad. So when not one but two of them remarks how incredible a show was...well, it's a safe bet the show was pretty incredible. What [...]
Alongside bands like Polvo and Superchunk, Chapel Hill, N.C.’s Archers of Loaf helped popularize a geo-specific sound during the early '90s that blended buzzy guitars with a healthy dose of melody. It’s a formula that’s since become common in indie rock, but you rarely hear it replicated with the Archers of Loaf same spark. It [...]
The backstory behind Bon Iver's first record, For Emma, Forever Ago is well-known: Musician goes to a hunting cabin in the woods for three months during a Wisconsin winter after separating from his band and his girlfriend. Heartache and angst get channeled into a bunch of songs about heartache and angst, sung in falsetto. Songs [...]
Kids, dogs, and many mainstays of the D.C. music scene were on hand last night to see power-pop and post-hardcore at Fort Reno. Leading Title Tracks, John Davis provided power-pop accompaniment for the dreams of those Tenleytown kids with a 9:30 p.m. bedtime. And J. Robbins' current band, Office of Future Plans, tore up [...]
An ethereal post-punk song is probably the last place one would expect to hear a slide guitar when there's synth at hand. But there it was, right in front of me Saturday night at the Black Cat Backstage, expertly played by Deleted Scenes guitarist Dominic Campanaro on the band's catchy new single "BedBedBedBedBed." Celebrating the [...]
With so many new bands cropping up every day, there's bound to be some crossover in the name department. For example: There's a Boston pop-rock group called THE MEN, a Brooklyn noise-punk band called The Men, and an electronic project from Le Tigre's JD Samson called MEN. It can get pretty confusing.
Things got pretty confusing [...]
Dinosaur Jr. played the whole of their 1988 album Bug at the 9:30 Club Saturday night. They had one opening act—the Keith Morris-fronted OFF!—but they also opened for themselves, sitting on stools while fellow '80s hero Henry Rollins interviewed them about Bug and the events that surrounded it. It was a powerful evening, from the size [...]
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know who Bob Forrest is, or recognize his alt-rock band Thelonious Monster. His is the story of '80s and '90s rock in America. Silverdocs selection Bob & The Monster is a throwback to that time, including both the sublime and the ugly, and it’s all due to a [...]
If you knew nothing about The Feelies, you might think the band listened to early R.E.M. a tad too much. It's actually the other way around: The Feelies, active in Hoboken, N.J., and New York City since the late '70s, helped pioneer the '80s college-rock sound. With Lou Reed-esque sung-spoken lyrics and driving guitars on gems [...]
Chris Mills is one of the greatest contemporary singer-songwriter talents you've probably never heard. Mills has been steadily putting out incredible records since the late '90s, all the while building an loyal and adoring fan base with this driving, guitar-laden pop songs and smart lyrics. Promoting his recent 14-track retrospective, Heavy Years: 2000-2010, Mills hit the DC9 [...]
