Brooklyn-by-way-of-Providence band Fang Island's self-titled debut seemed to come out of left field earlier this year. At the very least, the aesthetic of the indie sites championing it didn't prepare listeners for what the record actually sounds like.
The 10 songs on Fang Island evoke power pop at its finest, with soaring guitar solos and sincere, wordless chants [...]
News broke on e-mail lists over the weekend that the Blockbuster on Columbia Road NW is shuttering—hardly a surprise, since the former behemoth announced last fall its plan to close as many as 960 stores nationwide by the end of this year, reported the AP.
It means that there's just one Blockbuster left in the District, at 410 8th Street [...]
Who hasn't gone to the National Museum of Natural History and stared longingly at the 45.52 carat monolith that is the Hope Diamond, hoping to someday place that gaudy-ass pendant around their own neck? Good news, jewelry lovers: the AP reports that now you can, thanks to a licensing agreement between the Smithsonian Institution and [...]
The Real World DC premiered last night to mixed reviews, but that hasn't discouraged three local musicians who are hoping to gain some national attention from the 23rd season of the MTV phenomenon.
"I've never watched The Real World before this year," said Will Whitney, a Takoma Park native and the drummer for Real World cast [...]
It's your last chance to meet the D.C. Real World cast before it ascends to the plane of reality celebrity. The Real World premiere party is tonight at Tattoo Bar, and for just $5.00 (or $20, for "VIP" access) you can watch the premier alongside cast member Josh Colon. Of course, if you're an aspiring [...]
If folk music’s prime currency is authenticity, Langhorne Slim might well earn some crooked eyebrows. Classically trained at the SUNY-Purchase conservatory, Sean Scolnik donned loafers and floppy hat and named himself after his hometown in the tradition of all those rail-hoppin’ ramblers who used to do that. The blogosphere gobbled up this aesthetic and and [...]
On Daisy, Brand New is still providing soundtrack material for countless unwritten bildungsromans, the kind set in suburban high schools, dorm rooms, and first apartments, and which feature protagonists who didn't have it rough growing up, and don't have it all that rough now, but who, deep down, would rather feel pissed off for no [...]
According to one Nick Green, "Screamo bands covering Top 40 songs [is a] full blown epidemic." He's right: Lil Wayne. The Fray. The Postal Service. The Knack, for Christ's sake (personally, I love that last one–it's good background music for shot-gunning 16-ounce Natty Lights). In an ongoing special over at Decibel's Deciblog, contributors put 16 [...]
Your sacred cows mean nothing.
That, at least briefly, was the message of Los Campesinos! last night at a packed 9:30 Club. "I never cared about Ian MacKaye," sputtered Gareth Campesinos!, the Cardiff, Wales-based group's frontman, in "The International Tweexcore Underground," surely aware of the lyric's particular application. Not that the audience — whose average age [...]
From tonight's pick by Caroline Jones: "One part kitsch, one part political satire, and one part glitter, the Kinsey Sicks, describe themselves as “America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet.” The group returns to D.C. on Saturday night with a new set of parodies, skewering everyone from Condoleezza Rice to Vanna White. What began 15 years ago [...]
