As the sun set on Virgin Mobile FreeFest Saturday, Merriweather Post Pavilion’s panoramic lawn harbored buzz-fed patrons enjoying chicken strips and those lemonade cups that exist to be spiked with clear spirits. Seven p.m. felt like a universally agreed-upon time to chill.
Legacy-act sets are perfect for clapping politely from your camping chair, but ZZ Top [...]
The Virgin Mobile FreeFest is like that time you bought a Groupon for Virginia wine-country tasting. Your clique lacks cohesion because it consists of people that back-doored into the deal or have a tenuous connection to the driver. There's goat cheese, wine slushies, and Ben Folds Five.
When you finally get there, you might find that [...]
Last month Baltimore post-punk trio Double Dagger announced it was breaking up after a little more than nine years together. The six-paragraph note on the band's site sums up the bittersweet nature of Double Dagger's demise, which is taking place simply because, in their words, it's just time.
Followers of vocalist Nolen Strals, bassist Bruce Willen, [...]
"I really unabashedly am a bad singer," says Sam Herring of Baltimore's once rough-and-ragged—and now disarmingly introspective and motivic—Future Islands. He quickly qualifies the statement: "I don’t think I’m a bad singer, but I don’t consider myself a singer. I consider myself a performer who can sing a bit and does sing."
On the trio's upcoming [...]
A semi-regular look at music festival news, rumors, and gossip
2009 Umbrella Music Festival: Our pals over at the Chicago Reader noted in their ’09 Fall Arts Guide that the Umbrella Music Festival “is eclipsed only by the Chicago Jazz Festival as the most impressive and adventurous jazz event of the year.” Since those guys seem [...]
This is a few days old, but check out this mind-destroying promo for the Old Bridge Festival on Aug. 1 and 2:
Per the video, location is 1256 Old Bridge Rd., Amissville, Va. (about an hour west of D.C.), and the cost is $10, which also gets you burgers, 'dogs, beer, and space to camp (the [...]
