Some more Sockets goodies: A local fan of the label posted some glacial remixes of seven Sockets tracks. And Imperial China has a new video for "Limbs," off its new album How We Connect:

IMPERIAL CHINA – "Limbs" from Sean Peoples on Vimeo.

Cluster-Eastwood-fuck: TBD's Jenny Rogers landed on the red carpet for last night's Newseum premiere of J. Edgar. A more anxious celebrity stalker tries to suss out star Leonardo DiCaprio from the procession. Rogers "[tells] him that Leo, the star of J. Edgar, isn’t scheduled to appear tonight." Who does she see arrive? Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier and Chris Dodd, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. But the carpet management: Print folks are promoted, online scribes like Rogers are kept back, "the TV people are angry," one handler says to another. And Rogers couldn't get close enough to Eastwood. If only she were Harry Thomas Jr.

Fashion Joynt: Washingtonian-at-large Carol Joynt catches on that the D.C.-based clothing line DURKL and its designer, Will Sharp, are getting the boot in January from their headquarters at "a funky but stylish artists’ studio/showroom/retail shop at 4th and Eye Streets, Northwest," which I guess is Capital Comment-speak for "Gold Leaf Studios." Sharp tells Joynt he is considering relocating to a more trafficked neighborhood, perhaps H Street NE, U Street, or Dupont Circle.

Today on Arts Desk: The latest edition of Local Music Day! A D.C. Council hearing on the Office of Motion Picture and Television Development! Maybe something not so wonky?

One of the hallmarks of Capital Fringe, however unpleasant, is the time spent on those sweltering nights on New York Avenue NW underneath the festival's Baldacchino Gypsy Tent, trying to drink away the thick, punishing heat. And sometimes, the booze isn't enough, but a band playing in the next room might ease the swampy brutality of a D.C. summer.

Well, now it's cold, perhaps mild. Still, not warm enough to sit outside for extended periods of time. This year's edition of the Fall Fringe festival is adding a music slate for that downtime when you just want to drink before heading to your weirdo play. The five two-set shows scheduled for weekends in The Shop at Fort Fringe at 607 New York Avenue NW include some Fringe-worthy acts.

Leading the Fringe concerts is Edie Sedgwick, Washington City Paper contributor Justin Moyer's group, making their first domestic appearance after spending October playing Europe. Also in the lineups are brash post-punkers Imperial China, worldly experimenters Les Rhinocéros, and The El Reys, the latest band featuring guitarist Anthony Pirog (recently seen in ex-Smashing Pumpkin Jimmy Chamberlin's new group Skysaw.) But if any act is most Fringe-appropriate, it might be Fivewordslong, a sci-fi hip-hop duo who rhyme about an impending robot uprising.

Fall Fringe Music Schedule:

Friday, Nov. 4, 10 p.m.:

• The Cheniers
• Edie Sedgwick

Saturday, Nov. 5, 9:45 p.m.:

• Imperial China
• Weekends

Friday, Nov. 11, 10 p.m.:

• The El Reys
• Les Rhinocéros

Saturday, Nov. 12, 10 p.m.:

• Raindeer
• Loose Lips

Saturday, Nov. 19, 9 p.m.:

• The Whole Damme Delegation
• Fivewordslong

All shows $8 advance, $10 at door. Click here for tickets.

Double Dagger, from left: Strals, Willen, Bowen

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, and drummer Denny Bowen still might think their split is premature: Double Dagger has morphed its calamitously cathartic punk-rock riot into something positively pop-ready over the course of several releases through last year's Masks EP. Throughout the band's evolution, it's lured fans with chaotic live shows, in which Strals spends most of the show on the floor, screaming inches away from concertgoers' faces, wriggling on the ground, and jumping all over the place while Willen and Bowen kick out some thundering, bombastic punk. It's an act rarely seen and hard to beat.

But Double Dagger has chosen to go out in style, building an eight-date minitour that ends with one final hometown blowout on Friday in Baltimore. Before setting out, Strals and Bowen took some time to discuss the timing of the breakup, their posthumous work, and the band's relationship with D.C.

Washington City Paper: The note you left on your website explaining why you're breaking up you mentioned that a big portion of it was timing. Why is now the right time?

Nolen Strals: Well, the band is still popular, we still like the music, and I think we would rather stop when other people still like it, more importantly when we still like it, then have it sort of drag on. The band is still something that we choose to do and I don't think we want to keep going if it felt like an obligation.

WCP: You have other songs you're recording, too. Have you decided what you're going to do with them?

NS: It's probably gonna be a handful of songs, so we're not sure about the format. It might just be a seven inch. We think we know who's going to put it out, but we're not sure, we just haven't had time to have a formal talk about it. We're going to record that in November. We have this friend who works in film, and he said he wants to come with us to tape our last string of shows. He wants to make a short little documentary. That was his idea. We're not really sure how it's going to come out or who will put it out just because that idea it just came together sort of last-minute, just really spotaneously. So hopefully there will be the last record and possibly a little documentary, too. You're the only person I've told that!

WCP: As far as the final tour, you mentioned that these are your favorite places to play in. Why these cities?

NS: Well, not to knock Detroit, but we've only played there once and we're only playing there because it gets us to Chicago. We've always had a great time in Chicago and the other cities, and those are the cities where we seem to have the strongest fanbase, if you want to use that word. It just made sense, if we were only going to play a handful of these kind of shows, they should be places that we really like, but also that has a good audience. There are a lot of shows where you have like 20 people at, that would be kind of a bummer at the end of a long streak.

WCP: D.C. is one of the shows, it's right around the corner from Baltimore, and you guys have often gotten compared to being a Dischord band. How has playing in D.C. factored into your career as a band?

Denny Bowen: I don't know, I guess the only thought is it was important to try and play there even though there was a period of time when we were so frustrated with the shows we would play in D.C. After a certain point it started getting better and better. It just seemed really important to try and play something that close. There should be more bands doing that regularly because, why not? Two cities could afford to be a little bit more symbiotic in their relationship musically I think sometimes.

WCP: What was so frustrating about those first shows you played in D.C.?

NS: The first couple years it was hard just to get a house show. Early on we didn't even much care playing there just because just to get on even some bad show was just to get at full speed. But then we started to have more stuff there, but even then it's just the old cliche at D.C. shows, everybody stands so still.

DB: Obviously it's changed now. The D.C. shows we've played have been pretty rowdy, which is awesome. I think also the standing still thing was something that then was a reaction to even before I was in the band. Kind of early on that was kind of the normal behavior at shows, people just kind of standing still, observing what's going on...Nolen ended up breaking that wall, making such in-your-face movement and remarks that we kind of had to pay attention or you'd look like a fool.

WCP: You mentioned the connection between D.C. and Baltimore needs to be a little stronger. Since the Baltimore scene came up midway through the last decade has there has been a stronger connection made between bands within the two cities? Is it still something that needs to be improved upon?

DB: I think there's definitely some inroads being made, and it can always be strengthened.

NS: With D.C. bands Hume and Imperial China, they both actively persue the Baltimore audience.

DB: Oh yeah, I mean I see Brit from Hume in Baltimore quite a bit. It kind of makes me feel bad, I kind of feel that the ball's in our court for a lot of Baltimore bands to try to just do stuff right down there.

WCP: Are Hume and Imperial China the two D.C. bands that you guys have maintained a strong relationship with?

DB: Hume played my house in the Copy Cat when I lived there a few times. That strengthened that relationship, at least on my end.

NS: There are, well, those two bands from there we really have a good connection with.

WCP: Once you're done and finish up in the studio and put everything out, what projects do you have in the works? I think I heard a little of Denny's new project [Roomrunner], but that's about it.

DB: Yeah, I have that new band where I'm playing guitar. I play all the instruments on the recording, save like a guitar track, but I've been working on writing stuff over the past year or two and I don't know, I always need some kind of outlet. I happened to get hooked up with a really good drummer through Brett so that obviously is awesome to me. I rarely get to not play drums and having someone really awesome play drums.

NS: Some friends of mine are more in the punk-slash-hardcore scene, we've been talking about starting something up towards the end of the year, but there's nothing really solid there. I think all three of us, we'll still be making music, just not together and hopefully we can play on the same shows and stuff.

DB: Yeah, I'm sure we'll help each other out and stuff like that. Even during all of it, we've all been busy doing one thing or the other, even throughout this past year, I played drums on Future Islands' record and Dan's [Deacon] new record. I'm always pretty busy, but without Double Dagger it's going to be interesting to go about things without trying to find a new outlet that's going fill that same speed, but I think it'll be easy to do, it'll be awesome when we get to share our new stuff together.

WCP: As far as the final show in Baltimore, is there anything that D.C. listeners should be aware of if they want to trek out to that as well as the D.C. show?

NS: As for the D.C. show, we're gonna play a slightly longer set than the normal. Actually, I don't know that was, but it'll be like much longer than usual. And the Baltimore show that's probably gonna be the longest that we've ever played. It's gonna be pretty epic. We might be dead at the end of it.

DB: That's actually in the setlist.

NS: At the final song we're gonna stop halfway through just because all our bodies are just gonna shut down.

Double Dagger plays with Imperial China and Holy Ghost Party Wednesday at the Black Cat.

We've been digging Noon:30 for a while, but we've never heard the D.C./New York group like this. The band, now a two-piece, stopped by the City Paper parking deck last week to record a short set, but the two songs they played—"The Dream Architect" and "Peter Pan"—were nothing like the group's Pylon-esque post-punk that we wrote about in 2009. The new material is dreamy and minimalistic and loud when it needs to be; it also doesn't really bother with choruses, and it works. This was a nice surprise.

Be sure to catch Noon:30 Sept. 17 at La Casa with Tereu Tereu and Imperial China.

As made clear in my 1998 and 2010 articles, the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) largely views any suggestions regarding changing the Wammies nomination process, or the organization itself, as simply sour grapes, naïve, or an undemocratic attempt to impose someone’s else’s opinion. Write WAMA a check, become a member, and we’ll listen to your opinion on nominations, they say, while WAMA critics wonder why they would want to join an organization that ignores widely heralded musicians, has a history of embarassing mistakes, and dispenses juvenile insults (see the reactions to the two prior pieces) in response to criticism that is meant to be constructive.

WAMA board members have told me in the past that they on occasion consult "experts" to fill the nominations slot, rather than simply relying on the suggestions from members. My point continues to be that WAMA needs more experts, and that WAMA needs to do a better job making their organization useful and helpful and demonstrating that it cares about all styles of music. WAMA members may still not vote for expert-suggested names, but getting more such names on the ballot would at least be a start. I am not talking about substituting my own view; I mean consulting various participants in the area music scene, including critics, promoters, bloggers, and academics. WAMA needs these experts because, frankly, numerous musicians and others do not see the organization or its Wammies as being valuable, and therefore do not want to join and nominate artists themselves. The list of well-regarded artists not nominated under the current process for the Wammies is simply too extensive to be dismissed in the manner that WAMA partisans have done for 25 years.

(An aside: WAMA should  update its website, which contains a number of out-of-date items including a link to a list of D.C. venues that contains the long-since-closed Warehouse Next Door, Capital City Pavilion, and Ellington's on Eighth, but not various facilities that are open.)

As for this year’s ballot, the Wammies have ignored all metal bands, including Northern Virginia's Salome, a favorite of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the City Paper.  They have again neglected bluesy soul artists such as the Hardway Connection, Jim Bennett, and Little Margie.  The world music category contains virtually the same choices as last year while again overlooking Haitian band Rafrechi and all Ethiopian performers (despite this area including one of the largest Ethiopian populations in the U.S.).  Rapper Fat Trel may have the support of Wale and the Washington Post and the City Paper and be on the WKYS list of hot area hip-hop artists, but that's not enough to get nominated for a Wammie. The Latin list again contains no mariachi bands, including Mariachi Los Amigos, whose membership includes the Smithsonian’s Dan Sheehy, one of the organizers of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.  The Latin roster also omits again Zeniza, Orquesta Romana, and Orquesta La Leyenda. Roots and country guitarist Jim Stephanson’s Say Go album was recorded with members of NRBQ and made a WFMU DJ’s top 10 for the year, but WAMA did not mention it.  Electronica vocalist nominee Bob Mould moved to San Francisco in 2009, and electronica vocalist nominee Ultra Nate is based in Baltimore. Electronica DJ act Nadastrom is wrongly listed as a performing act while DJs Dubfire & Sharam are listed together, when they have rarely DJed together since releasing solo projects several years ago. Where are electronica act Bluebrain and D.C. rock bands like Title Tracks, True Womanhood, Imperial China, and Medications, which The Washington Post, City Paper, DCist, Brightest Young Things, and other local media hailed as top acts last year? Michael West and others can surely name more ignored jazz participants, but it's obvious to even a non-fanatic of jazz like me that veteran players such as Bobby Felder, Jacques Johnson, Sr., and Nasar Abadey deserved to be mentioned.

Sure, it's nice that artists such as Warner Williams, the What ? Band, Joe Falero, Wale, Lena Seikaly, and others have been nominated in various genre categories, but when the water glass is so empty year after year, it’s hard to appreciate the water that's there.

UPDATE: It appears the video has already been taken down. Bummer.

Of course, when the word first arrives that robot domination is near, people will laugh. They always do. There'll be mechanical parodies on TV, pundits claiming it's all a conspiracy, bad SNL skits, and more importantly, android-themed dance parties. You might as well take one last chance to groove out before it all falls apart. In that case, the robotic sounds of "Get Real Paid" by premier musical absurdist, Beck, is a glitchtastic dance anthem.

After the parties end, I imagine there'll be some kind of creepy sense of suspense in the air–some pregnant lull, as humankind realizes the inevitable is coming to fruition. With their 1977 underground classic, "Ghost Rider," Suicide captures that rising technophobic panic. The sneering vocals holler like some drug-addled Elvis Presley atop a creeptastic synthesizer. It's perfect to play as the looting begins.

It won't take long for the initial panic to give way to full-fledged survival of the fittest. With the AI's superior technology competing for limited resources, who knows what weapons they'll fashion. Humans will end up running for cover underground, beneath rubble, or wherever they can steer clear of their own robotic creations. At this point, only the most fiercely defiant music will suffice, and the genre-straddling work of DC's own Imperial China fits the bill nicely. Their percussion-heavy jam, "Corrupting The Integrity Of The Grid," works in both squealing electronics and dissonant post-punk guitars, conjuring chaotic images you might find in a Michael Bay film. You can see Imperial China voice the impending apocalypse live at Black Cat this Sunday, Sept. 12 with Tortoise.

DOWNLOAD: Harrison “Harry Baba” Nwozo and DJ Manixx and many, many guests – "Africans"

Not to shill for a friend, but Liz Isenberg—formerly of this area, these days of Providence, R.I., and whose voice you might know from albums by Deer Tick—does her own cover of "Hold Yuh":

DOWNLOAD: Liz Isenberg – "Hold You (Hold Yuh)"

OK! Things you should read! First, over at TBD, Sarah Godfrey's excellent story yesterday about the go-go's private-school circuit, about how since The Internet Happened those events can be unmanageable, and about a May kerfuffle at a Georgetown Day go-go. Mark Jenkins reviews Imperial China in the Post's Weekend section. The frickin' massive Artisphere in Rosslyn is nearing completion—or might not be!!!!1!!!—reports WaPo's Jaqueline Trescott, after attending a hardhat tour of the new multipurpose arts center, which occupies the old Newseum, which is where at least one fictional president was shot. There will be lots of dancing there! Also:

The 125-seat black box will be the new base for the Washington Shakespeare Company, the avant-garde classical company, which Kaplan said will stage 32 weeks of programming there. Across the street, the 387-seat Spectrum Theatre will be programmed under the Artisphere umbrella, bringing the whole project 62,000 square feet.

In addition to the Washington Shakespeare Company, the center will be home to Bowen McCauley Dance, which is choreographing a new piece for Artisphere's opening weekend, and the National Chamber Ensemble. The Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse and Alexandria Symphony will program some events there. The building also includes space for the Artisans Center of Virginia, a craft organization.

The 125-seat black box will be the new base for the Washington Shakespeare Company, the avant-garde classical company, which Kaplan said will stage 32 weeks of programming there. Across the street, the 387-seat Spectrum Theatre will be programmed under the Artisphere umbrella, bringing the whole project 62,000 square feet.

In addition to the Washington Shakespeare Company, the center will be home to Bowen McCauley Dance, which is choreographing a new piece for Artisphere's opening weekend, and the National Chamber Ensemble. The Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse and Alexandria Symphony will program some events there. The building also includes space for the Artisans Center of Virginia, a craft organization.

Over on Arts Desk! The Caribbean have composed a sound installation for the Arts on N Festival that I have not heard, but from frontman Michael Kentoff's description—"Basically harp, fanciful moments in the soundtrack, to go along with this…weird, subterranean, very colorful, very exotic space”—I bet it would go great with "Double Rainbow." This is a good thing! Also: We have discovered D.C. reggaeton! Also: DJ Stereo Faith, subject of Chris Heller's feature this week, is scheduled for surgery today to remove a tumor from his auditory canal.

Let's end this with another local mp3. Here's a song from the upcoming EP by Arlington's The Torches. It's out Aug. 24 on Lujo Records.

DOWNLOAD: The Torches – "Mister Vampire"

WaPo's Jessica Dawson on "One Hour Photo," the exhibit at the Katzen Art Center in which 128 photographs by different artists are shown for one hour each, and then never again. In other words, they each have about the same practical impact as this roundup!

Arts Desk contributor Ryan Little has a nice profile of Imperial China over at Express. The aggressive, experimental D.C. trio brings its, um, post-post-hardcore to the Rock & Roll Hotel tonight.

Thanks to Arizona's new immigration law, Robert Rodriguez's Machete is now insanely topical.

Finally: Today is City Paper Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon's last day. There's no way I can do justice to his contributions (nay, his leadership) here, so I'll stay topical. He wrote some of the best things that have appeared on this blog, and on Black Plastic Bag before it. Seriously, browse his archive. Related: Stereogum is sad that this summer's TeenBeat (Teenbeat? Teen-Beat?) reunion shows won't include Eggs. Moi aussi!

I expect to read lots of hung Parliament jokes today!