Perhaps you’ve heard there’s a lot of free shit going down this weekend. If you haven’t, well, there’s a lot of free shit going down this weekend. Most of it revolves around the Kia Soul Collective tour, which has set up shop in a warehouse at 3330 New York Ave. NE, with free parking as well as a free shuttle from Union Station. Wale performs in the space tonight at 7 p.m., with DJs Stereofaith, Reed Rothchild, and Chris Burns spinning from 4 p.m. Tomorrow night belongs to Dan Deacon, The Creepers, and Nouveau Riche DJs; the music starts at 8 p.m. And MGMT is headlining an 8 p.m. show Sunday night following DJ sets by DJ CA$$IDY and Dave Nada. To get tickets to this last concert, however, you have to test drive a Kia first, which you can do all weekend, if that’s your thing.

Read More “End-Of-The-Week Music News, Free Stuff Edition” »

The mid Atlantic ain’t exactly synonymous with kick-ass music festivals, but Baltimore’s renegade art/music collective Wham City (most famous member: Dan Deacon) might be changing that. This Friday kicks off the fourth annual Whartscape, a three-day, weekend-long sonic smorgasbord of B-more’s best and brightest bands, and their friends from the rest of the States and beyond. Wye Oak, Lo Moda, Bad Brilliance, and 13 other bands play from noon to 5 p.m outside the Baltimore Museum of Art. For free.

More info and video from last year’s Whartscape after the jump.

Read More “Whartscape 2009: Free Kick-Off Show Friday” »

Setting up shop on stage Monday night behind a neon tape-covered table of gadgetry and next to his ubiquitous sidekick, a glowing green skull raised like an effigy atop a metal pole, Dan Deacon stepped into a non-traditional frontman’s role. Not content with simply running through a set of his loopy, structurally complicated but always joyful electro-pop jams, Deacon made a point of involving the crowd in the creation of his music, both vocally and physically. Whether instructing audience members to hum along with the music, manipulating the shape of their mouths in accordance with the opening and closing of his fingers, or staging a dance contest between the two halves of the crowd, Deacon waved both his 14-piece Ensemble and a nearly packed crowd through a succession of musical happenings that more closely resembled performance art pieces than your garden-variety concert experience. At every turn the crowd was happy to comply with its leader’s commands, whether that meant participating in a group interpretive dance led by a shirtless member of the audience or wriggling through a “dance gauntlet” that snaked its way around the room.

Mostly playing music from his most recent album, 2009’s Bromst, the Baltimore native accomplished a feat that can prove difficult for experimental artists to pull off: the ability to stretch one’s tolerance for abstract sound while inspiring the type of vertical bouncing and fist-pumping usually found at a Journey cover band show. In this contradiction lies Deacon’s brilliance, though, because the theatricality that supplements the music does not read as attempted irony. Deacon closed the show with “Wham City” (the clincher of Spiderman of the Rings) as his entire band and touring crew fell off the stage to surf the sea of upraised arms. Left alone onstage, sweating through a one-piece painter’s suit and tinkering earnestly with his buttons and knobs, Deacon cut the figure of a mad scientist in a lab whose product inarguably transformed the world into a far better place to be.

The entire show was recorded and is available for streaming at NPR Music.

Sunday

• Dan Deacon & Ensemble, Future Islands, Teeth Mountain. 9:30 club. $12. All ages.
• The Dig, All The Kings. The Red & The Black. $6. +21.
• MC Chris, Whole Wheat Bread. DC9. $14. +18.
• Ben Lee, Low vs Diamond, Dawes. Rock and Roll Hotel. $16. All ages.
• NSO plays Mozart. Kennedy Center. $20-$80. All ages.
• German Academic All-Star Jazz Ensemble. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Free. All ages.

Dan Deacon photo by Frank Hamilton, via MySpace.

Summer Music Guide picks after the jump.

Read More “Updated: Weekend Music Round-Up” »

Powered by his critically successful new release (Bromst) and glowing green skull, music-as-performance artist Dan Deacon chugs along on his North American tour, leaving his mark on dancefloors and day-glo wearing revelers along the way. But if there’s one thing on which Deacon won’t leave a mark, it’s the environment. At least, that’s the idea. In an effort to reduce his carbon footprint, the Baltimoron is following trailblazer Willie Nelson’s (and Matt & Kim, Sheryl Crow, myriad indie acts, etc.) footprints in a veggie oil-powered school bus (via Pitchfork).

Read More “Dan Deacon: Gallons o’ Grease for Buckets o’ Fun” »

Last night, I realized that in my mini-review of Dan Deacon’s now-leaked album, Bromst, I should have posted a few soundclips to give BPB readers a chance to hear some of the Baltimore artist’s epic creations. Well fair-use laws dictate that you will only get to hear a small portion of these lengthy songs. It’s like only reading the first ten pages of Crime and Punishment. Oh well. Here’s samples from two Bromst tracks:

“Surprise Stephanie”

Read More “Listen: Dan Deacon’s Bromst” »

So Dan Deacon’s upcoming, long-awaited, much discussed, new album, Bromst, leaked yesterday. At least it’s the first day I noticed its appearance in the freebie format. Deacon has said the new album is darker. The album’s first single has already been digested. Deacon told the Baltimore City Paper that he thought of Bromst as more of an album than 2006’s Spiderman of the Rings:

“Unlike Spiderman, which was essentially a one-man, purely electronic piece of music, Bromst was recorded entirely live and written to be performed by a 15 person band.”

Apparently, the album has a narrative, too. Whatever his intentions, Deacon still knows how to build a song. The songs may feel like your walking through a Lucky Charms forest (the chipmunks return) but this time he’s figured out the low end, too. And, well, occasionally unprocessed singing. “Padding Ghost” and album opener,”Build Voice,” are beautiful examples of Deacon’s fresh use of the slow build. “Snookered” is the saddest Wham City nursery rhyme you’ll have ever heard.

“Of the Mountains” finds its footing in skewered poly-rhythms and mournful wordless chants before melting into an (indie) dance floor stomper. Midway in, the song switches up and goes quiet and tribal again as if Deacon’s raided Peter Gabriel’s drum circle. The (indie) club kids are going to lose it over this one.

Read More “Dan Deacon’s Bromst…Leaks” »

Dan Deacon needs some interns says Pitchfork. He’s paying real cash money–$15 per hour to transcribe his latest compositions.

Dischord says remastered copies of Fugazi’s “7 Songs” EP are now available.

Gypsy Eyes need to update its news page. We know the label is hosting an inaugural-themed event at Comet. Just can’t find the details.

I’m really digging The Points.

Your Must Purchase: Sublime Frequencies has a another vinyl-only Tuareg guitar record out.

The Vinyl District revisits some classic Replacements tunes.

Baltimore cult legend Dan Deacon put on an explosive set Friday night at Hirshhorn After Hours. Aside from the thunderous synth- and midi-based experimental dance music, Deacon’s set included a crowd run around the Hirshhorn quarters, a gesture that wasn’t well received by many in the Hirshhorn martini-drinking crowd, a dance contest, and lots of inevitable sweaty moving and dancing from the hundreds of enthusiastic fist-thumping Deacon fans.

More photos after the jump:

Read More “Photos: Dan Deacon @ the Hirshhorn 11/7″ »