THE PROJECT: Zoneplex, a new board game (!) masterminded by former D.C. indie vet Shelby Cinca (Frodus, The Cassettes) and his pal Kenny Jakobsson, in which you, a warrior monk, must gain control of an alien pyramid spacecraft at the center of a black hole. In board-game talk, Zoneplex "combines a tile-laying/exploration mechanism, a collaborative battle system, and a zone control system to create an intriguing adventure deep within an alien structure." Groovy.

ASK: $12,000, ending Feb. 25

KARMA SCORE: As high as the universe is vast.

THE PROJECT: On Your Mark, Get Set, MOW, a documentary about lawnmower racing by D.C. filmmaker Mike Ratel. The film focuses not on the sport's more chaotic possibilities but its more charitable side—specifically, an annual lawnmower race in Michigan that raises money to combat Huntington's Disease. If all of that isn't sentimental enough, Arlo Guthrie manages to appear.

ASK: $2,500, ending Feb. 13.

KARMA SCORE: 8

THE PROJECT: DDP, or Decentralized Dance Party, which looks like it's basically the worst shit ever. Here's the deal, so you know I'm not phoning in this blog feature: Founded in Vancouver, DDP is a flash mob-style itinerant rave involving an iPod, a backpack with an FM transmitter, and however many people with boomboxes show up. Its organizers have Miami Vice suits, at least one fake mustache, and a line chart that says "PARTY." There is a dude in a monkey suit. And it is apparently coming here soon. Watch the video and despair.

ASK: $1,000, ending Feb. 10.

KARMA SCORE: -30.

Fans of tightly executed, mathy, aggressive '90s punk should pick up Regents' new seven-inch on Lovitt Records, available this Sunday at the band's Black Cat record release show, and right now on Bandcamp, below.

This Sunday's gig also brings the first performance by Dischord's indie-pop duo The Aquarium in a while.

Regents performs at 8 p.m. on Sept. 4 with Fordist and The Aquarium at Black Cat Backstage, 1811 14th St. NW. $8.

You thought they were dead. It was only a ruse: The great D.C. spazzcore outfit Frodus tracked two new songs and remade an older one during its too-brief 2009 reunion stint, and just last week, Lovitt Records released the results, the Soundlab 1 7-inch. You won't find the songs on iTunes—the tracks are available digitally only via Bandcamp so that, according to the band, "No multi-national corporations will receive any percentage." Considering the colored vinyl sold out in only a day, you'd better move quickly if you want a copy of Frodus' Soundlab 1 on wax.

The new 7-inch begs the inevitable question: Will we be receiving further transmissions from the Frodus Conglomerate International? According to the band's most recent press release, there's hope! Core members Jason Hamacher and Shelby Cinca are working on a series of collaborations, and they're calling it Frodus Sound Laboratory. This first release features Liam Wilson (The Dillinger Escape Plan) on bass, but there's no telling who will appear on future records. The band's PR statement reads: "Each experiment will have variable groups comprising of musicians, friends, and associates with the control group being Hamacher and Cinca. Future experiments may involve members of Refused, Darkest Hour, Engine Down, Sleepy Time Trio, Norma Jean, and Converge."

Seriously? A possible Refused-Frodus collaboration? The world may not survive.

As if that somehow weren't enough for legions of post-hardcore fanatics to geek out over, Lovitt Records owner Brian Lowit confirmed today that his label is slated to re-release Frodus' And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea on vinyl next year. When asked about the potential for a full-on Frodus reunion, Lowit said touring is unlikely, but the band just might play a few shows in the not-so-distant future. Keep your eyes open, kids.

Kingpen Slim:

-This dude at ihop got so many waves, even his baby hair shape up re growth on his neck got waves lol this is a brushing mofo

-2 things I never leave the house without, a watch & some cologne, tonites selection Michael kors watch aqua di gio http://twitpic.com/xzprs

-has anybody EVER met somebody named Oprah? like the talk host has to be one of a handful of ppl with that name

Frodus:

-We must act as if the corporate, materialist-based culture has already withered away and we are living in a future of our own creation. -SR

-The ego is a product of pathology. The suppression of the ego is the defeat of the dominators, the materialists and the product-peddlers.

-The japanese 80's action film soundtrack concept album I made is now also on bandcamp: http://tanimuramidnight.bandcamp.com – stream!

Tabi Bonney:

-I'm back in effect! I got health insurance + dental coverage. You can call me Healthy Tab from now on...soon you can call me Wealthy Tab.

-I've been on point though. I'm not a sickly dude...I workout + I brush my teeth twice a day & floss every other. But now it's really on! lol

Beauty Pill (Chad Clark):

-The laptop & headphones allows you to make private music in public. It's incredibly enjoyable. I'm surprised more people don't do this.

-I would love it if some kind of trend or movement emerged. "Stealth rock." Or something. I'm kindof addicted to it.

-Haiti, already such a wretched economy. It's hard to think about anything else today. Music seems stupid.

Over the last 15 years, Kansas House, a tiny four-bedroom home in Arlington, has seen members of bands that recorded for almost every D.C. record label—Dischord, Teenbeat, Slowdime, Simple Machines—crash on its floors, perform in its living room, or be thoroughly revolted by its rat-infested basement.

Kansas House is not a club. Shows happen there once or twice a month. But the experience of seeing a show at Kansas House is different. At the Black Cat, for instance, you buy a ticket and see a band. But anyone who's crammed into Kansas House's tiny living room to watch Black Eyes, Q and Not U, or Trans Am could be forgiven for feeling  like they were part of a movement.

You can still feel that way, at least for a few more months. On Dec. 1, Kansas House's epic run will finally come to an end. The building is in the process of being sold to an Arlington development firm. Eventually, the house will be demolished to make way for mixed-use development.

Really, though, it's a miracle  Kansas House lasted this long. Whether because of angry neighbors, freaked-out landlords, or the complicated lives of their residents, punk houses tend to have a short shelf life. Kansas House, however, has been blessed with a particularly favorable set of circumstances–easy Metro access, relative isolation from other houses, and a landlord who was, to say the least, not very nosy.

Throughout the ’80s the Kansas House property was occupied by a thrift store. Ian MacKaye, then living at the nearby Dischord house, shopped there from time to time. “That was my secret Christmas spot,” he says. Among his purchases: a 100 percent accurately sculpted rubber cabbage.

In the mid-'90s, Margarita Metaxatos acquired the property and started renting it as a residence. This was during the heyday of Arlington’s indie-rock renaissance—when labels like Teenbeat, Dischord, Slowdime, and Simple Machines were in full stride. It didn’t take long for enterprising rockers to see the property’s potential.

Derek Morton, then playing in Ex-Atari Kid, was among the first musicians to move in. “It was between ’96 and ’97,” he recalls. “When we moved in it was a bunch of college kids. We were probably the first band.”

At the time, Morton didn’t use the house to host performances. Instead he and his housemates used it as a practice space and a home base for his fledgling record label, Rocker! Supernova. “It wasn’t a band house in the sense that bands played every weekend,” he says. The house frequently put up bands that were on their way through town and needed a place to crash. Word got around. “I remember getting this phone call from Gerard Cosloy [co-owner of Matador Records], he was looking for a place for one of his bands to crash,” says Morton. “But I had never given him my number, I have no idea how he got it.”

As with any group house, roommates flowed in and out pretty casually, but there were a few staples that stuck around. Bob Massey, of the groups Telegraph Melts and Gena Rowlands Band, put in five years, living at Kansas House from ’96-’01.

“We consistently had shows there for that whole five year period,” recalls Massey, who now lives in Los Angeles. “We started out us just throwing shows for our friend’s bands. Then people started calling—Most Secret Method, Dismemberment Plan, they came along pretty soon.”

The list of bands that performed at Kansas House during that first five or six years is a who's-who of post-punk and indie-rock. The Faint played there. So did the Rapture, Japanther, and Golden.

“I was at a Locust show at the house; I might have even set it up” says Frodus drummer Jason Hamacher, who lived in at Kansas House during the fall of ’00. “It was totally nuts. I had a fur collar that I had bought in West Virginia and a sword. At one point I was shirtless with a collar and a sword running around the living room.”

“There was another show–that band Sloar Floor, from Florida. It wasn’t packed. I took my friend Nate to the show and they were just so heavy. Every person in the band played with a full stack, in that tiny room. Nate said he felt semi-nauseous."

Despite the noise, run-ins with the cops were few. For years the house's only neighbors were a halal meat market and a gas station. Across the street was another house (since demolished) occupied by members of the ska band the Pietasters. Nausea-inducing heavy rock from Florida was not an issue.

Kansas House lacked in the accouterments of a professional concert venue. There was no backstage. There was no stage! Hell, there was only one bathroom. Bands that played there often had to supply their own PAs and usually their own refreshments. What Kansas House did offer was flexibility. It was the perfect place to hold off-beat events that would have wilted in a bar or club environment.

In the early '00s Massey ran a series of performances called “Punk Not Rock,” which asked local musicians to develop site-specific musical compositions to perform at the space. “Some people were straight up, others really imaginative,” remembers MacKaye, who attended several of the performances. “Vin Novara did a performance on bowls with varying amounts of water. There was another guy who came in and claimed to be a classical whistler.” A few people got a little more ambitious. “Alberto Gaitán, he had some music going on in the living room, but it was synced to a car with one of those pimped-out stereo systems," recalls Massey. "It was thudding in time while the car was outside going around the block.”

There were non-musical happenings as well. “Hugh McElroy [bassist/singer of Black Eyes], had these kids from Rhode Island, they had this thing called a party tour," says Jason Barnett, who lived in the house from '01-'08. "They were going to different cities and bringing a party with them. We bought a keg and they brought big balls, blow-up animals, and different costumes. And they cleaned up afterward—that was the best part."

At this point the house has been in action for so long that Collin Crowe, one of the currant tenants, can recall going to shows there when he was a teenager. "I was like 17 or 18. Nate from Frodus had this solo thing that played [Out-circuit]," says Crowe. "It’s totally weird that I live here now. It used to be this cool mysterious awesome house for me. If I was 17 and talking to my past self, he would be like 'That's awesome.' But really, it’s kind of whatever."

Fifteen years of band practices, animal-costume parties, keggers, and hardcore shows has taken its toll on the property. If the wrecking ball weren't on the way, Kansas House might just implode from exhaustion. "It's an old house," says Barnett. "If you went into the basement during a show, you could see the floorboards moving." Not to mention that the area itself has changed into a sprawling yuppie paradise. "Dudes who would be bar-hopping from Ballston and Clarendon, would crash in" during shows, says Barnett, "Yuppie-type dudes who would come over for the keg." At this point, Kansas House has become a bit of a stranger in a strange land.

"It sucks that houses like this vanish, bands can’t practice," says Crowe, who hopes to start another punk house in the District, noting another one in Northeast that's "insane. There’s a schoolbus in the yard, a couple people live there. All bike co-oppy."

"I’m sure this is tragic, says MacKaye. "But it’s not the building that's important, it's always the people."

–Song By Toad interviews Grandaddy's Jason Lytle about his forthcoming solo record.

–The Washington Post's David Malitz reviews a bunch of recent indie-rock records.

–Baltimore City Paper's Michael Byrne profiles Frodus.

–Colour Me Impressed asks Title Tracks ten questions.

That situation is about to be rectified however, as Frodus will be going public in a few select East Coast cities during May and June. Liam Wilson of the Dillinger Escape Plan and Jake Brown from The Eastern Wave will be on board to supply bass.

Frodus Tour Dates:

05-08 Balitmore, MD – Talking Head Club w/ Sick Weapons, Solar Powered Sun Destroyer, Caverns
05-09 Philadelphia, PA – The Barbary w/ tba
05-10 Brooklyn, NY – Death by Audio w/ Limbs, Himalaya, special guest
06-18 Orlando, FL – Redlight Redlight w/ Guiltmaker, Hurrah
06-19 Gainesville, FL – Common Grounds w/ Guiltmaker, tba
06-20 Washington, DC – Black Cat w/ Van Pelt, Guiltmaker

Pygmy Lush played some of its quiet, non-hardcore material, from last year's Mount Hope, sounded pretty good.


Emotionally speaking, Des Ark doesn't really have a first-gear. It goes straight from zero to hair-tearing emotional-basket-case. The last time I saw the band, at the '08 Different Kind of Dude Fest, I'm pretty sure that the second guitarist openly wept while giving a soul-bearing pre-performance speech. Heavy stuff. Lead songwriter/guitarist Aimee Argote has a new, dry-eyed, backing band now, but the songs–including one number that's apparently called "FTW Y'all"–are still achingly earnest. But the band's eff-you attitude was pretty refreshing, given the throngs of shirtless butt-rockers that had been booked throughout the festival.

I missed Frodus the first time around, and I still wish I could have checked the band out during its heyday, but Saturday's reunion set was good enough. Lots of stage diving, chair throwing, and water spitting near the end. Kind of hoping they that keep the reunion going for a while.

Kurt Vile: Somewhere behind all of that hair is a pretty great songwriter. A pretty great songwriter who, I might add, has good taste in guitar-pedals. His band, The Violators, looked kind of like they were plucked off of a Comedy Central late-night improv showcase, but they delivered the rootsy-space rock goods. My favorite non-reunion show of the whole festival.

Echo & the Bunnymen: Had I any sense, I would have attended the Echo & the Bunnymen show that took place earlier in the day, you know, before the band had the time to get too wasted to go on stage. The roadie stalled as best he could—tuning and then re-tuning the guitars and horsing around with Ian McCulloch's mic-stand—until the band finally arrived on stage 45 minutes late. By that point, I wasn't really in the mood, and McCulloch–who bore a striking resemblance to the septuagenarian Elizabeth Taylor—wasn't doing much to change my mind. Took off after hearing "Lips Like Sugar."

Daniel Johnston: My last concert of SXSW and a good way to end. Johnston did some songs solo, then accompanied by a band, and finally, a great cover of The Beatles "I'm So Tired." "Who do you think is crazier: Daniel Johnston or HR?" a friend asked me, referring to the Bad Brains frontman whom we had both seen perform earlier in the week. I would argue that HR is, in fact, crazier. Daniel Johnson may have done serious time in a mental hospital and even pulled the keys out of his father's airplane mid-flight, but these days he looks pretty together on stage. HR, on the other hand, had the all the presence of a damp t-shirt and seemed only half-aware that he was giving a concert. Were you to ask me who the better dresser was, though, definitely HR.

Big News: Frodus is playing Murky Coffee in Arlington on Wednesday night. Yes, Frodus is back together, at least temporarily.

Show starts around 9. Get there early.

We just talked to Shelby Cinca and got the back story on this surprise reunion. Apparently, the ground work for a full-fledged reunion show started last October at the Embassy of Sweden.

Cinca and Frodus' Jason Hamacher went to the embassy to support Division of Laura Lee (who they count as pals). When the band ended up flipping out after some p.a. problems, the two were encouraged to jump up on stage and play. They ended up tearing through "Invisible Time Lines."

"It was fun," Cinca says. "It was really funny because no one knew it was happening. And Fritz,  who was a DJ at WMUC,  was there and he was like 'Fuck! Fuck!' He was so excited. It was hilarious."

Still, that show wasn't the impetus for the reunion.

Cinca says the band's Conglomerate International has been recently reissued on vinyl and Lovitt Records called to see if they could play its SXSW showcase. It was time.

So Frodus is doing the Murky Coffee gig (RSVP slots, which are already filled, get in first–only 130 people can fit in the venue). Only 130 can fit there]. Cinca hopes the cops don't shut the place down. They may play two sets. "We booked it there because it's the easiest DIY show we could get," Cinca says.

Cinca says after the warm-up gig at Murky Coffee, the reformed Frodus will do the Lovitt Records showcase on Saturday at SXSW and a 2 a.m. show Sunday morning somewhere else.

"It felt really natural," Cinca says. "We were enjoying it. We've always been a punk band, we should just go for it."

Liam Wilson, of the Dillinger Escape Plan, will be filling in on bass. "He just came into practice last week," Cinca says of Wilson. "It sounded great. He adds a different element."

Cinca adds that most of the material they will be playing will come from Conglomerate International.

"With the vinyl coming out and the album being about corporate greed and the weirdness of the late '90s and corporate culture...all these box stores opening up.... We felt like it was a good political statement," Cinca says. "This record is just as relevant now as it was when it came out in 1998."

Are there plans for more Frodus shows?

"I don't know," Cinca says. "I'd like to do something in May. It depends on Liam's schedule and if Nate wants to do it. I'm also moving to Sweden in the summer time. My wife is going to school there. She's Swedish. And school's free. Work's kinda sucky here. That's one of the reasons Frodus is happening—Jason and I have time. That's what we were doing as kids—when nothing's going on, we just made music."

Here is a clip from Frodus' show: