Oddisee made the best DMV album of 2011. But I’m tired of reading about him in Arts Desk posts.
On the national side of sounds, the year was mostly about slowing down and turning up the bass (see: James Blake, Drizzy Drake, The Weeknd, Bon Iver, Girls, Frank Ocean). However, some Haterade for all the buzzy [...]
Once again, today is Local Music Day, which means more than a dozen D.C. establishments are playing nothing but D.C. music all day. Step into your favorite coffee shop, bar, or ramen joint, and you'll hear music from recent albums by sophistipop dude Black Hills, neo-soul/funk/dance hall mainstays Nappy Riddem, acoustic blues young gun Johnny [...]
Pree is a band that actually sounds better in the day. The D.C. group's psychedelic folk isn't too weird or too meandering for a sunny afternoon. So seeing Pree at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon at the 2011 CMJ Music Marathon in New York City sounded like a sure bet. It wasn't exactly.
One of [...]
Unless you have been dancing deep in the pit, feeling every snare strike, conga syncopation, rototom fill, or cowbell blast, it’s hard to imagine the energy coursing through a go-go concert. But Thomas Sayers Ellis’ best photographs ensnare their radiating power. And more important, his images capture a scene that is D.C. to the core. [...]
Thanks in part to Don DeLillo's 1973 novel Great Jones Street, it didn't take long for the rock-star-toiling-away-in-seclusion narrative to go from the stuff of critical legend to obvious fodder for parody. Nevermind that two years later saw the release and instant canonization of Bob Dylan and the Band's long-buried The Basement Tapes—the inspiration, in fact, for [...]
For more info about upcoming shows — free, kid- and date-friendly, or otherwise — see our Summer Music Guide.
Cricket Fusion Quartet. 1905. Call for price.
Jonathan Coulton, Chelsea Lee. Birchmere. $29.50. All ages.
Deleted Scenes, The XYZ Affair, Casper Bangs. Black Cat Backstage. $8. All ages.
Dick Morgan. Blues Alley. $25.
Buster Brown and The Get Down. Cafe Martini. [...]
