File under evolutionary leaps: Hume—a prog-pop band that this blog has followed very closely—left D.C. last summer for a 100-acre property in Argyle, N.Y. There, the four members played music all day, every day, and otherwise lived communally and "holistically," drummer Wilson Kemp said at the time: "We made great creative strides in a pretty finite [...]
I didn't realize how great a year it's been for music in D.C. until I started compiling this list. While I didn't hear many landmark, career-defining albums in 2011, there were a ton of great songs from both young and veteran artists. Whatever D.C.'s reputation, there's a healthy community of smart, ambitious musicmakers in this [...]
The art-tainted/prog-damaged* dudes of Hume left town awhile ago for a fall tour. What's the net result? It's a screwed & chopped version of a Steve Miller song set to some C-grade sci-fi clips. But hey, if you're gonna drag yourself Around The Indie-Rock Circuit In 80 Days, it's probably better to bring back "a [...]
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, [...]
Describing an event as "pre-Internet" might be obnoxious, but in the case of Matthew Bate's documentary Shut Up Little Man!: An Audio Misadventure, it's a crucial detail. The set up: Two Midwestern guys move to San Francisco in the late 1980s looking for opportunity and adventure. As luck would have it, their fleabag apartment comes [...]
Hume's summer was probably more blissful than yours. The D.C. band left town at the end of May for a country house on a 100-acre property in the village of Argyle, in Upstate New York. They found it on Craiglist. Apparently the price was reasonable; they quit their day jobs.
"We made great creative strides in a [...]
Britton Powell isn't feeling great about DIY spaces in D.C. His own venue, Paper Sun in Columbia Heights, has stopped hosting shows because of neighbors' complaints. Hole in the Sky in Eckington stopped throwing concerts after police shut it down in February. Red Door in Mount Vernon Square has eased back its schedule. Powell's not [...]
An irregular roundup of local releases on vinyl.
The Cassettes, "I've Been Gone Far Too Long" 7-inch: The first release from the Northern Virginia steampunkers in two years, this three-song 7-inch is unusually self-aware for the group: "In the last world/we said our words/and now we're here again," sings frontman Shelby Cinca in "I've Been Gone," [...]
After dropping one of our favorite LPs of 2010, Hume wastes no time in starting the new year off right. Their new single, aptly dubbed "Inverse Fireworks," is a colorful, psychedelic exploration. Where other recent psych-happy rockers, like the much-blogged Tame Impala, go for a totally vintage vibe, Hume picks up the trippy elements of [...]
After spending a few weeks down south, I returned to D.C. reminded of how much this city constantly has to offer. So after quite literally returning from the backwoods to write this weeks' roundup, I felt like I was setting up booths at some high school multi-culti "We Are the World-inspired festival. Granted, not my [...]
