Next week is big for Sockets Records, a label Arts Desk has praised before: The label is dropping two new LPs, from local groups Imperial China and Buildings, and hosting a showcase on Jan. 28 at the Black Cat. Last week, the label previewed the new records at a listening party at Montserrat House, and now [...]
Dissident Display: The Chinese government's favorite artist Ai Weiwei will have an installation at the Sackler Gallery this spring, the museum announced yesterday. The work, "Fragments," which borrows artifacts from Qing Dynasty temples, will be on view beginning May 12. Hirshhorn will also feature an exhibit, "Ai Weiwei: According to What?" beginning in October. The [...]
Diogo Nogueira wanted a career as a professional soccer player. But when he hurt his knee after two years with the Cruzeiro team, it was time to change jobs. The Brazilian vocalist’s late father João Nogueira, a samba star, brought his son to shows and jam sessions, often putting him behind the microphone. Diogo began [...]
On Wednesday, Slate published a piece by Matthew Yglesias about why D.C. is, essentially, a terrible place for young, creative people to live.
The article has since flown about social media, causing many a sad emoticon and, apparently, excessive vomiting. The jab is all the more painful because there is some truth to it–D.C. is [...]
Willy Turner, everyone was relieved to learn last week, is still alive. After the news spread, some folks even started gathering music and boomboxes to give to the man known around 14th Street NW as Black Cat Bill.
Amid all the excitement, however, comes some bad news. Last Friday, Turner was moved from Deanwood Rehabilitation and Wellness [...]
D.C. fans of African sounds have a tough choice to make tonight. Tuareg guitarist Omara Bombino Moctar and his band bring their desert psychedelia to the Black Cat with local pan-African openers Sahel, while Nettle, an international band including two Moroccans plus Jace Clayton (aka DJ Rupture), Andy Moor from The Ex, and others, will be [...]
Since posting an item yesterday on the very-much-still-alive Willy Turner—aka Black Cat Bill—I've received a lot of questions about what to do with tapes and boomboxes. (Turner, who's living in a nursing home in Deanwood, told me he'd be grateful for a boombox and some tunes.) Local writer and activist Andy Bowen says he's organizing [...]
Everyone's Talking 'bout Fugazi: After you read Ryan Little's thinky Washington City Paper feature on the post-hardcore band's new live archive, check out Marc Masters' for the Washington Post. Masters quotes critic John Gross saying, "At times they reminded me more of song-based jazz than rock...When they got a good head of steam going, you [...]
"The Black Cat Man is still hanging in there."
That's what William "Willy" Turner told me yesterday afternoon when I visited him at the Deanwood Rehabilitation and Wellness Center on Nannie Hellen Burroughs Avenue NE, and it was a nice thing to hear several days after a handful of local blogs declared him dead.
For more than a [...]
Phantogram is the brainchild of Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter, childhood friends who released their debut album, Eyelid Movies, on Barsuk Records last year. Where that label's releases frequently skew toward the poppy and immediate, Phantogram makes hummable songs that nevertheless have more to do with trip-hop than indie pop. On the dark and sultry [...]
