Fourth in a series of 6, Dag Nasty’s Dave Smalley presents: “Top 9 Things That Rocked in 2008″

photo: LegendsMagazine.net

9. Bill Harris artwork in Fredericksburg

Harris is a painter who does stunning, often subtly dark works in lovely little Fredericksburg. He’s a talented artist who creates beautiful still lifes, yet does some understated, twisted works as well. He’s a master of color and line, and the subject matter often makes you think. He paints a lot of portraits and nudes, sometimes with something melancholy or even brooding about it–like “Invisible Sum,” where a nude woman halfway out of a bear costume stares forlornly into her purse. One wonders what the backstory was for that one. Or “Alone Together,” where a tattooed girl stands singing into a microphone in the middle of a restaurant, with no one paying attention. Some of his stuff can be seen on his Web site: wcharris.com. He’s often in his studio at LibertyTown Arts Workshop. Two big thumbs up. For those not in the know, Fredericksburg boasts an amazing art scene, with a host of artists and galleries doing really cool stuff.

8. Comic book movies

I’m a serious comic book geek, most especially into Marvel titles, but also some DC, from the early days of the Fantastic Four battling the Mole Man to about the ‘90s, when the costs of comics started to skyrocket and the artwork/stories started to suck. (Killing Captain America?! Heinous.) In the New World Order, Marvel and DC have shifted their genius quota to the movie side, and this year’s releases of The Dark Knight and Iron Man were easily deserving of all-time-top-movies status. Everyone’s written about Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight, and he is brilliant in the role, but the whole film is perfectly paced, thoughtful, and disturbing–a tribute to the dark side of the Dark Knight. Christian Bale is equally brilliant as Bruce Wayne. As for Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. simply IS Tony Stark–he nails every nuance of the character perfectly, and the armor is ubercool. They even brought in the Dude as Obadiah Stane–a master stroke.

Read More “DC Punk 2008 Part 4: Dave Smalley” »

In a good way, indie rock got smaller in 2008.

D.C. rediscovered its love for vinyl (the story of the year is the resurgence of the mom-and-pop record store). A neighborhood—Mount Pleasant—stood up against anti-live-music NIMBYs. Even a local band or two seemed to surprise all of us (Deleted Scenes).

There’s a new underground, a real underground, working overtime in a group house in the District, and Iowa City, and every place in between. This new underground doesn’t have much of an Internet presence (no standard wiki page, packages sold via checks-in-the-mail). This underground has started releasing hand-made tapes (again). Its fuzzy folky CD-Rs were this year’s mix tapes.

Some of the year’s best music couldn’t be labeled. Some of the year’s best music couldn’t be found on Pitchfork. I wish I could have digested all of it. I wish I could have given a deeper listen to Wet Hair, Children’s Hospital, Kria Brekkan, Ducktails, Mark McGuire, and so on. But here’s my favorite indie releases of the year so far:

1. Ruby Suns: Sea Lion (Sub Pop)

In a year where everyone copied a bit from the New Zealand sound all over again—kiwi pop was almost as big as afropop as a selling point this year—the Ruby Suns are one of the few who didn’t fall for either the tribute to Paul Simon (Vampire Weekend) or plunder the Flying Nun catalog. Leader Ryan McPhun, a Californian who has made New Zealand his home for years, combines Afropop congas, ‘80s dance beats, and even a tribute to the Mojave Desert (now, well, a tribute to Mojave, some new Microsoft thing). It’s what Neutral Milk Hotel would sound like now. I wrote about the band’s live show at the Black Cat a while ago and filmed a bit of its performance.

Listen to “Tane Mahuta”

2. The Woods: Some Shame [Tour-Only Cassette]

Here is a band that scores zero mentions on Metacritic, has gotten no reviews on Pitchfork. They release cassettes, CD-Rs and limited runs of vinyl. They put so much stuff out, they seem like an empire. They are a band for message boards and word-of-mouth. None of this means anything except that these Brooklyn DIY tapeheads aspire to real-not-virtual audiences, not hegemony or to be heard on a Gossip Girls episode. The Woods produce music that actually feels personal, and maybe even truly free sounding. Listening to Some Shame is like what it felt like to discover Weed Forestin’: ­woozy psych, bursts of noise, secret knowledge. It’s a feel-good weirdness you decode only when you can’t sleep. (For me, that’s a lot of the time.)

Listen to “Military Madness”

3. Yoro Sidibe: Yoro Sidibe (Yaala Yaala)

A Towson professor, Jack Carneal, finds himself mesmerized by the plunky, preachy sounds of ancient Malian hunters music. So he seeks out the master. What he brings back is trance music, story songs for the dance floor whether centuries ago or right now. You’ll want to crank this up. I wrote about the record for the Post.

Listen to “Track 3″

Read More “Music 2008: Indie Rock Rediscovers The Joys Of Tape Hiss” »

2008 was the year in which, much to the chagrin of my music-geek buddies, I got so absorbed in jazz that I lost sight of all the other music out there. What can I say? The deeper I go, the deeper I see there is to go. That said, there’s one entry on this list that’s actually old-time country music — it just happens to be by a jazz legend (Charlie Haden’s Rambling Boy).

So! Knowing that we’re dealing with the literal definition of One-Track Mind, I hereby present my Top 10 albums of 2008.

1. Early Reflections, Bennie Maupin (Cryptogramophone)
   The multi-reedist who made strides in fusion and the avant-garde switches tack, tapping into a lyrical acoustic vein with an extraordinary Polish quartet. It’s simultaneously progressive and timeless—and notably, Maupin’s first album in 30 years with a piano. Among the masterworks are “Jewel in the Lotus” (a re-casting of Maupin’s 1974 free-fusion piece) and the reflective “Escondido,” possibly the best single jazz track of the year.
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   Bennie Maupin, “Escondido”

Read More “Jazz 2008: A Narrow-Minded Top Ten” »

Old Man, Take a look at my list, mine’s a lot like yours is.

My list does indeed employ genre quotas and, yes, heavy metal does have an actionable case against me this year.

Statistical Breakdown
•6 downloaded albums, 4 physical versions
•7 Americans, 3 Internationals
•1 artist my Mom had heard of, although, to be fair, I didn’t ask about Fucked Up
•4 that I actually got paid to write about
•1 archival release on my list (my self-imposed limit, otherwise it’d be moldy oldie overload)

1. Love Is Overtaking Me, Arthur Russell (Audika)
• While I was familiar with his minimalist cello pieces and artsy disco tracks, this release revealed a completely different dimension to Russell’s body of work. These laid-back, countrified singer songwriter songs- imagine an avant garde Dan Fogelberg- show that Russell never completely left his Oskaloosa, IA hometown.

2. The Bake Sale, Cool Kids (Chocolate Industries)
• Hyped to hell, this EP was just asking for a premature backlash. However, I thought the easygoing, homemade sound (somewhere between the sparseness of Clipse and the juvenile hi-jinx of the Pharcyde) was too likeable to dismiss.

Read More “Justified and Ancient: David Dunlap Jr.’s Top Ten” »

Third in a series of 6, Allison Wolfe of Bratmobile presents: “Top Five Things in DC That Keep Me From Losin’ My Mind!”

1. Girls Rock! DC!

As Sleater-Kinney ax-woman Carrie Brownstein so succinctly put it in her foreword to the recently published Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls book, “Everything at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls takes place in a single week. For anyone out there who’s ever tried to write a song, start and finish a painting, or make a film, you know one week is nothing. One week is the time it takes for an adult to think about what we have to do: prepare and procrastinate, produce a draft, doubt we are capable, fail, and start again. But one week is all it takes for young girls, some of whom have never strummed a guitar chord in their life, held drum sticks in their hands, or stepped foot on a stage, to come together with complete strangers, form a band, and write a song that will blow your mind…and to be surprised, to truly be caught off guard, by something so unselfconscious, is to realize that a lot of what we believe to be bold is really quite tame. Bold is not a wanky guitar solo at Madison Square Garden that lasts five minutes while hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of lights and pyrotechnics tell an audience when to applaud. Nor is bold a bassist jumping from the top of a kick drum and doing a scissor kick in the air at the end of a song. Bold is learning how to play the drums on Monday and performing in front of five hundred people on Saturday. Bold is screaming into the microphone, or merely talking into one, when you didn’t even know you could. Bold makes the hair stand up on the listeners’ necks, gives them a lump in the back of their throat, makes them happy to be alive.”

Right on! So there was some talk post-Ladyfest (DC) to do a girl rock camp as a follow-up, but these fine ladies really blew it outta the water. With the first meeting in October of ’07, the labor of this musically-minded female collective culminated in a well-oiled machine of a camp in August ’08 that changed the lives of young 8- to 18-year-old girls in swamp town. As part of the worldwide Girls Rock Camp Alliance, Girls Rock! DC consisted of up to 20 core organizers, 50 volunteers, 48 campers, 8 newly formed bands, and 2 DJs. I know for a fact it ain’t easy being a girl in this city, but a girl like me’s gotta get psyched about a final GR! DC showcase that boasted 600 people in attendance, not to mention Eddie Vedder! Next stop, Madison Square Garden? (“Where is your next show? In Honolulu! Where is your next show…”)
Get psyched: girlsrockdc.org

2. Hear Mount Pleasant!
Yay to Hear Mount Pleasant for fighting the insanity of the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance in my ‘hood. Mt. Pleasant used to be so fun, interesting, REAL, and culturally vibrant ‘til rich people took over with their uber-entitled “quality of life” demands and crushed its spirit like a bug. I know we all play a role in gentrification, but I tried fighting the power for years, but just couldn’t take the straight-up hatred and steamrollering anymore. Mass thanks to the more diplomatic mouths of HMP for organizing to try to bring back something culturally/artistically cool in our neighborhood, to promote more constructive conflict resolution, and to expose the few wealthy homeowners’ agenda, which privately controls our business strip and absurdly gets cemented into law. I love Don Juan! I love Haydee’s! Gimme back my neighborhood!
Get real: hearmountpleasant.org

Read More “DC Punk 2008 Part 3: Allison Wolfe” »

Second in a series of 6 articles, movie buff John Stabb of G.I. on his favorite film and show of 2008.

Best film: Iron Man. Surprisingly a far better comic book superhero story than the latest Batman one, The Dark Knight (even though Heath Ledger’s wonderful portrayal of The Joker was creepy-crawly cool!) which could’ve been as good as Batman Begins. I’m not down with the comic book live action genre, but this one won me over. Robert Downey Jr. turns in his best acting job in eons as the cocky moneybag industrialist playboy who invents a big-ass iron outfit to take on the villains.

Read More “DC Punk 2008 Part 2: John Stabb” »

Jack Carneal is a Towson professor and resides with his family in Baltimore. He runs Yaala Yaala Records. This year he released a terrific album by renown Malian hunter’s musician Yoro Sidibe, who I was lucky enough to have interviewed. That album is one of my favorites of the year. Carneal digs it too.

Carneal took some time from turning in his students’ final grades for the semester and made up his own mini-list of top record discoveries:

1) Bonnie Prince Billy, Lie Down in the Light, Drag City Records

This one is easy for me. I first heard “Ohio River Boat Song” in 1992 or 91 before it had come out; Will sent a rough cassette to his big brother Ned, my bandmate at the time, and we listened to it in Ned’s car. I just don’t think anyone’s really able to get their heads around how influential Will has been over the nearly two decades since that first single. But one day everyone will recognize that he’s made better, more interesting records for an extraordinarily long period of time, with really no sleepwalkers, and his work will be noted by future human beings as high points of pre and post-millenial recorded music. This record is perfect.

2) Yoro Sidibe, s/t, Yaala Yaala Records

I first heard Yoro singing from a boombox in 1999, Bougouni, Mali. He was singing a song called ‘Dougouni Yala” which, as I understood it, is a song about bird hunting. Dougouni is some kind of pigeon while Yala, taken from the Arabic “to go”, mutated as it entered Bamanan in that wonderful way that language tends to mutate, becoming a word that, again as I understood it, means to ramble, wander, trek rather than simply ‘to go’. We borrowed the word and the idea, used a more official Bamanan spelling, for our label. I still get chills every single time I hear this music. Every time. Without fail.

Read More “Music 2008: Jack Carneal Gets Personal” »

We asked several local harDCore figures to weigh in on the state of the arts in 2008; punk rock or otherwise. First in a series of 6 articles, Dance of Days author Mark Andersen recounts his favorite shows of 2008:

In 2008, the ghosts of DC’s punk past were out in full force: Dave Grohl returned to play the Virgin Festival with his Grammy-winning Foo Fighters, while Government Issue reunited to headline a multi-band show that ran to the early morning hours at the Rock and Roll Hotel. Gray Matter powerfully evoked the spirit of Food for Thought shows and Revolution Summer with a reunion show at the Black Cat’s 15^th Anniversary celebration. For its part, Good Charlotte managed to evade the Hollywood gutter press for long enough to play a sold-out show at the 9:30 Club. Henry Rollins brought his mix of humor and social commentary to the Birchmere on election eve. The next night, trailblazing Afro-punks Bad Brains returned to the stage at 9:30, reminding the audience just how mind-blowing they had been when their singer, HR, was still able to focus and channel the immense power of the band and their insurrectional songs.

Read More “DC Punk 2008 Part 1: Mark Andersen” »

Another note from Wynonah Steen at Melody Records. Special props to anyone who can piece together those initials!

Staff Picks:

• a.q.: Alias, Resurgam
• c.w.: Kindred the Family Soul, The Arrival
• w.s.: Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, Party Intellectuals
• h.h.: Tricky, Knowle West Boy
• d.l.: Chromeo, Fancy Footwork
• c.m.: Hank Williams, Sr., The Unreleased Recordings
• g.s.: Cropper & Cavaliere, Nudge It up a Notch
• n.e.: Tobacco, Fucked Up Friends
• k.s.: Kate Nash, Made of Bricks
• mr. d.: Gustavo Dudamel w/ Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Fiesta

More buzz below the jump.

Read More “Music 2008: Staff Picks and More from Melody Records” »

For full length albums in 2008, I enjoyed:

The Black Keys‘ new sonic attitude on Attack and Release; Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks reaping the benefit of Janet “Thundersticks” Weiss on Real Emotional Trash; the Bonnie Raitt-meets-Tom Waits exuberance of Austin songrestress Carolyn Wonderland on Miss Understood; the echo of Zep III in the Dodos‘ Visiter; the absurdly high bar TV on the Radio set for their next record after Dear Science; the Saturday Knight’s funky Mingle; Girl Talk and D.C.’s Autorock’s continued and heroic push for the music biz to embrace recycling; Tim Fite’s manic Fair Ain’t Fair; Tapes N Tapes’ Walk It Off for realizing that sophomore=rock; and the front-porch soul of JJ Grey and Mofro’s Orange Blossoms.

More, including audio clips, below the jump!

Read More “Music 2008: The Panda Rat Eats Humble Pie” »