As promised, everyone partied like it was 1992 Friday and Saturday night at Artisphere for the 20th anniversary of chickfactor, the indie-pop zine founded in D.C.—in fact, by Washington City Paper staffers—back when indie didn't connote NPR adoration and Billboard placements. Erica Bruce took some pictures. And this is what we learned.
Between most songs in [...]
Say you like contemporary classical music, but the National Symphony’s recent offerings favor Mozart and Beethoven. Don’t fret—the New York City Ballet has you covered. This weekend, the company performs to works by American icon John Adams, contemporary Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov, and 20th-century classics by Bernstein and Gerswhin. But there’s a catch: You have [...]
Let’s get this elephant-sized full disclosure out of the way: Our story begins in the office of Washington City Paper. Actually, it begins on the floor of the office of Washington City Paper.
“Pam [Berry] and I would come into the office at 8 in the morning on weekends when no one else was working, and we’d [...]
Over the next few days, you will find no shortage of blog posts dealing with this weekend's chickfactor anniversary shows at Artisphere, which feature the first performance in more than 20 years by influential, noisy poppers Black Tambourine. (Yes, yes, disclosure: One of them works here.) Back in February, the group announced it had recorded an [...]
Go nuts, indie-poppers. The venerable Black Tambourine has a multi-purpose Kickstarter project going right now; part of the desired $5,000, if raised, will go to recording the OneTwoThreeFour EP, "consisting of four of our fave Ramones songs on two slabs of lovely seven-inch vinyl, packaged in a lovely sleeve designed by the talented [...]
Great reunion news that is better than all the other reunion news: Black Tambourine, the beloved D.C. noise-pop group, is reuniting this April for a pair of shows celebrating the 20th anniversary of chickfactor magazine, the very cool publication that (ahem) was founded by two former WCP staffers, Gail O'Hara and Black Tambourine singer Pam Berry. [...]
Forgive us, but Drinkify is kind of addictive. You type in a band name, and then, using its algorithm, the site suggests an appropriate libation with which to enjoy your tunes. Some are hilarious—and some don't quite feel accurate. For example, type in "Black Tambourine"—that'd be the influential early '90s noise-pop group—and Drinkify tells you to [...]
Need some ambient psychedelia to get your day going? Archie Moore, once of Black Tambourine and Velocity Girl and a bunch of other cool bands, has got you covered. Today he posted a free four-song recording called Chemtrail Surfer on bandcamp that's lush with sonic swirls and harmonically rich feedback. If you really dig the transitions between [...]
And now for some rare feel-good news about the recording industry: For what's essentially the first time since it was founded more than 20 years ago in Silver Spring, venerable indie-pop label Slumberland Records is now a full-time operation. Slumberland's owner and sole employee, Mike Schulman, quit his day job as a software engineer two weeks [...]
True story: If you send me a cassette tape, I will totally listen to it. This is because 1) I have a working cassette deck at home; and 2) guess how often I get to use it?
So I was pretty happy to get this demo cassette from D.C.'s Black Telephone yesterday. I was also pretty [...]
