Story/Stereo—a concert/reading series that pairs local musicians with local writers/poets—just announced two new events.

First, Asa Osborne—formerly of Baltimore gnostic/punk quartet Lungfish—will perform with his guitar/organ project, Zomes. Lisa Selin Davis will read. That’s kind of a tough gig, though, considering the last person to put words in or around Osborne’s music was Dan Higgs.

Then, in February, J. Robbins—fresh from reissuing the late ’90s masterpiece For Your Own Special Sweetheart and performing on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon with the reunited Jawbox—will perform his first ever solo show. Marianne Villanueva and Steve Fellner will read.

Dates and details after the jump:
Read More “Story/Stereo Announces Two New Shows” »

This morning, I broke the news that Jawbox would be reuniting on a late-night TV show to be named later. It got named! This all set off a flurry of Tweets and blog posts: who knew so many people were pining for mid-’90s posthardcore? “This is all rather funny, isn’t it?” Jawbox singer-guitarist J. Robbins wrote in an e-mail today. “We’ve been kicking the reunion idea around for a while, not particularly seriously, since we decided to do the ‘Sweetheart’ reissue,” he wrote.  “When the Fallon opportunity came up, I think everyone looked at it this way:
1. it can be sort of a “diet reunion” – any time we’ve discussed playing again, we all agree that we’d want to be as good a band as we were 12 years ago. But 12 years ago, we could afford total immersion: we all lived together, rehearsed 3 times a week for 4 hours at a stretch and toured 6 – 8 months out of the year. It’s much easier to imagine doing justice to one song for one day than it is to imagine pulling off a full set and tour, particularly with [drummer] Zach [Barocas] being in NY and with the family and work commitments that we have. Maybe this will adequately scratch the reunion itch for those of us who are feeling it.
2. it’s such a weird idea, such an unlikely opportunity, why wouldn’t we do it?”

As to a reunion beyond the confines of late-night television, Robbins wrote: “I don’t think that doing the Jimmy Fallon show would really be a likely catalyst for that sort of thing. Or would it? I think we are all just playing this by ear and we’ll see how much fun we have. But it’s still unlikely given our number one condition, which is not to suck if we got onto a real stage in a room with people who give a shit about seeing us play. I think we’re all a bit taken aback that anyone is paying attention.”

A few days before all this, I spoke with Robbins about the upcoming reissue of For Your Own Special Sweetheart, Jawbox’s 1994 major-label debut.

Read More “Jawbox’s J. Robbins on the For Your Own Special Sweetheart Reissue” »

Jawbox hasn’t played a show in years, but there’s a chance you’ll be able to catch the band in action soon. Well, so long as you can stay up late enough.

Sources close to the band say that Jawbox will reunite on a late-night TV show to coincide with the reissue of the band’s third and finest LP, For Your Own Special Sweetheart. This is not a prelude to a tour, the same people say. I spoke to J Robbins last week, and he didn’t mention anything about this, but he did admit that a few one-off shows weren’t totally outside the realm of possibility. “We’ve entertained the notion of playing some shows, but that’s as far as its gotten,” said Robbins. “It’s conceivable, but only remotely, that we could play some shows.”

But playing on somebody else’s show? Looks like that’s a little more of a possibility.

Update: According to Billboard, Jawbox will appear Dec. 8 on NBC’s “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

“Savory” video after the jump:

Read More “Jawbox to Reunite on Late Night TV?” »

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” »