That laptop has every interview that Baingana, who for the last 16 years has lived in the D.C. area, recorded for her first nonfiction book. For a month during this year’s World Cup, Baingana conducted research in the Somaliland region of strife-weary Somalia with a grant from Bard College’s Chinua Achebe Center. Somaliland has struggled to gain formal recognition as an independent state.

“American news, for the most part, likes the Black Hawk Down approach to Somali news,” says Achebe Center Program Manager Tom Burke. Baingana’s task, then, is to encapsulate Somaliland’s efforts in a travelogue that appeals to outsiders. For now, she’ll do it from memory.

For Baingana, this won’t be easy. As the Achebe Center plans to publish the travelogues of Baingana and 12 other writers coinciding with the 2012 African Cup of Nations, Baingana is also embarking on a U.S. tour focused on her best-known work, from 2005: Tropical Fish: Tales From Entebbe. The short-story collection, set in Uganda, takes place after Idi Amin’s dictatorship, and focuses on three sisters who individually grapple with the meaning of intimacy in romantic and sexual relationships.

“A lot of the times when you read about [the dictatorship], you read about child soldiers or whatever the hot topic is. It can get tiring,” says Rion Amilcar Scott, a Hyattsville-area English teacher who helped select Baingana as an emerging writers fellow at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda this year. “This story was more human than that.”

Tropical Fish gained international acclaim. But even as a local resident, Baingana says that she struggled to connect with U.S. readers. “I knew that, in some sense, I was explaining my culture. That is not what I think fiction should do,” Baingana says in a Skype interview from Mombasa. “But it’s what I found myself doing.” (She returned in time for a Nov. 5 reading at the Writer’s Center as part of its indie-rock-meets-literature series, “Story/Stereo.” There, a humorous, pensive excerpt from Tropical Fish detailing an unusual tryst had no trouble entrancing its audience.)

But for the still-untitled travelogue, Baingana faces a different challenge: to explain a culture that isn’t even her own. Through a translator, citizens of Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa, spoke to Baingana about democracy and daily life. She saw them joyously storm the city’s Maan-Soor Hotel when officials announced Ahmed Mahamoud Silanyo as Somaliland’s newly elected president. “Even though they kept talking about how they weren’t getting recognized, they still believed in the sort of systems that make a state,” she says. “It was very important to them that it works.”

Baingana says she’ll have to draw on the sounds, tastes, and sights of Hargeisa: the buzzing flies, the succulent goat meat, the glisten of its whitish-yellow sand. In D.C., she intends to compare her memories to those of Somali immigrants. “I’m going to ask them about their lives: immigration, integration, how they are connected with their home country and how they keep those connections,” Baingana says. “Perhaps living in two places or coming from one place and living in another. It’s been the story of my life.”

The show is billed as "Devin Ocampo Sings Devin Ocampo," so expect to hear a dozen or so songs culled from his career, interpreted with just an electric guitar and some help from Medications multi-instrumentalist Mark Cisneros. Originally, the whole Medications crew was asked to play, but co-songwriter Chad Molter, who lives in Colorado, couldn't make it.

Ocampo has never played solo before—at least as Devin Ocampo. "I'm not so fond of things under people's names," Ocampo says. "It's a little bit off-the-cuff, but I'm kind of more excited about it rather than trepidatious," he said.

But tonight's venture into frontman-goes-solo territory isn't necessarily a one-off. "It's still up in the air," Ocampo says. "I guess it depends how often Medications is able to play."

At the request of Story/Stereo curator (and Beauty Pill leader) Chad Clark, Ocampo might whip out a cover of P.J. Harvey's "Rid of Me," mined from the early days of Faraquet. Could be cool, he says. Indeed.

If you're holding out for an evening of unplugged math-rock, don't expect any major overhauls of these songs. They'll just be "slightly reworked and with the bass taken out," Ocampo says.

Still, he's quick to point out they'll still have some firepower. "It's not gonna be as blown-out and loud or rock band-ish the whole time," he says. "We're not gonna be quiet, but I think the songs themselves will be in a more of a naked fashion and hopefully shine more in that form."

Ocampo performs and Doreen Baingana and Alison Pelegrin read tonight at 7:30 p.m. at The Writer's Center, 4508 Walsh St., Bethesda. Admission is free, so you should probably go.

Good morning! In what's totally a break from our usual coverage, there is a lot of local indie-rock news to discuss today! Such as: that new video right there. It's for "Siberian Eclipse," a song on Screen Vinyl Image's recent cassette on Fan Death records, which I think you should be excited about. It's out now.

Fan Death! You might remember that the Maryland label has no ish hating on some local bands! Perfect segue: One of them—undeservedly!—was Ra Ra Rasputin, which has a new full-length whose release it's celebrating tomorrow at the Black Cat. The band runs through each track over at TBD, and I think City Paper's Ryan Little was spot-on in singling out "Electricity Through the Heart" as a standout in a recent One Track Mind column. Close second place: "The Day Of," whose incessant cowbell you'll forgive when by the chorus it's toying with Calvin Harris's "Acceptable in the '80s." "I've got love for you if you survived through the '80s, the '80s," the band sings.

Also performing Saturday at the Black Cat with a new release in tow: Casper Bangs. You can download his entire new album, I Woke Up, here, or stream every track at the GOG Blog.

Here is a film shot in Portland using music composed by Beauty Pill for Taffety Punk Theatre's suicide.chat.room from earlier this year

Speaking of Beauty Pill, its leader, Chad Clark, is a curator of the Story/Stereo series at the Writer's Center in Bethesda. At tonight's Story/Stereo, Will Eastman DJs and Jenny Browne and Jessica Handler read (8 p.m. Free.). Clark announced yesterday that the November iteration will feature Devin Ocampo singing the songs of Devin Ocampo, meaning Medications, Faraquet, and maybe—maybe!—some Smart Went Crazy.

Sockets has a new Laughing Man song.

Last night I saw Richard Chartier perform a 50ish-minute reductionist sound composition at the Hirshhorn—he used sounds he captured over the summer from the grand tonometer, a one-of-a-kind instrument from the 1800s that contains 660 tuning forks, plus noises from other very old instruments. It was spooky and glacial and I tried to take the advice he gave Arts Desk—“Just kind of let it flow over you. Just zone out. I have had people fall asleep during my shows before. As long as they don’t snore, I’m fine with it.”—but it was both enveloping and jarring. I couldn't keep my eyes closed, even though the lights in the auditorium had been dimmed. Whoever was tweeting for the museum last night summed it up nicely: "Highs flirted w/ pain. Lower, you could tilt your head to squeeze the sound. The deep tones hit in the chest."

Of course, the Sept. 3 Story/Stereo with Davis will also include readings—in this case, from author Aryn Kyle and poet Allison Benis White. The series is curated by Beauty Pill's Chad Clark and The Caribbean's Matthew Byers, and netted a National Endowment for the Arts grant last month. When we wrote about it, Clark told Arts Desk that Story/Stereo makes for a great date. True that, but you should probably offer your guest a disclaimer: These days, Davis is all about break-up songs.

The event takes place at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3 at the Writer's Center, 4508 Walsh St., Bethesda. Free.

"It was important to us to keep the event free," Clark tells Arts Desk. "In my mind, I see Story/Stereo as a companion or sister event to Fort Reno—we're inspired by Fort Reno giving something to the community that's free, positive, and about art and expression. I think it's great that Story/Stereo begins exactly when Fort Reno ends, and ends when Fort Reno begins."

Previously, the event has been funded by the Writer's Center—a nonprofit that is funded by the "Maryland Arts and Humanities council, as well as a blend of other sources," according to Clark. While next fall's line-up has yet to be announced, the NEA grant won't impact the curators' selections. "There are no restrictions on the grant at all, that I know of," says Clark. Though he declined to disclose the amount of the grant, he did say: "Without it, we would've had to ask people involved to volunteer. We might've been able to continue because the goodwill has been so strong, but I'm psyched about the grant. I see it as fuel for us to continue."

"I still regard the whole thing as an experiment," says Clark. "We've overcome certain perceptions that it could somehow be stuffy—that it would be somehow dreary and intellectual. It's really comfortable, and it's in a beautiful theater that many people didn't know existed before Story/Stereo happened."

That it's not a typical rock 'n' roll venue might be an advantage, Clark says: "It actually makes a great date. You're going to like something a lot—either the band and the music or the author or poet—and even if there's something you don't like, there will be something interesting to talk about."

Friday night Robbins–accompanied by cellist Gordon Withers and the smallest drum machine I've ever seen–performed an all acoustic concert as part of the The Writer's Centers' Story/Stereo series. As it turns out, the songs come across just fine sans full-stack.

Robbins and Withers were kind enough to let Washington City Paper shoot some footage of their soundcheck, including a cover of John Cale's "Thoughtless Kind" that didn't make it into the final set.

Baltimore-based music blog Aural States has posted a recording of the full performance here.

"Thoughtless Kind" (John Cale)

More after the jump:

"Escape Engine" (Burning Airlines)

"Scissoring" (Burning Airlines)

Author Marianne Villanueva and poet Steve Fellner will also read from their works.

Story/Stereo: J. Robbins (solo), w/ Marianne Villanueva and Steve Fellner
The Writers Center
4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD
8 pm
Free

There's more to life than gigs.

A handful of area musicians are keeping that notion in mind this weekend, stepping outside their comfort zones for collaborative, one-night-only performances. There's Zomes, the drone-y project of Lungfish's Asa Osborne, which performs tonight at the Writer's Center in Bethesda as part of the ongoing Story/Stereo series. For the performance, Osborne will collaborate with two local artists, the fiction writer Dylan Landis and the poet Brian Gilmore, who will both read from their work. The performance starts at 8 p.m., and is free.

Then, for tomorrow, Sockets Records' Sean Peoples and Panda Head Magazine's Melissa Krodman have organized an experimental program called District Calling: Freedom. The evening, which includes two performances at the District of Columbia Arts Center in Adams Morgan, features music (members of the Cornel West Theory, Hume, and Noon:30), visual and video art (Ayo Okunseinde), and theater and dance artists (Carmen Wong and Heather Doyle). The evening's theme is freedom, and the artists have been collaborating on the project for several weeks. As for what it'll sound like, Arts Desk has no clue, but consider our curiosity piqued. The shows are at 7:30 and 10 p.m., and tickets are $10.

More cross-pollinated performances after the jump, including randomly assembled dance, strange maracas, and classic Warholian acid tests!

Radiohead, Sigur Rós, and Merce Cunningham Dance Company: Merce Cunningham's contributions to dance are incalculable, and he participated in a host of fascinating collaborations—most notably with his romantic partner, the great avant-garde composer John Cage. Split Sides was a work in which every element—choreography by Cunningham, music by Radiohead and Sigur Rós, design, costumes—was created in two parts, and matched up by chance immediately before the performance. The dance troupe first performed the work with both bands at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2003, and Sigur Rós released its half of the music, some of which was played on a xylophone made of dancing shoes, as the Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do EP. A bootleg of Radiohead's half, meanwhile, is out there in the ether.

Lucky Dragons and the audience: This experimental duo from L.A. makes lengthy, ambient compositions that basically sound like Christmas in Hyrule: See Little Dragons live, and don't be surprised if someone shoves a magic stick—an instrument not far off from a maraca or rain stick—into your hands, or likely something weirder. Few bands are so Zen. Also: Want Lucky Dragons to make music in your living room this winter? Write them.

Sonic Youth and Gossip Girl: Kidding!

The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol: Perhaps the classic example. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable productions paired rock's original hipsters with Warhol's art films and performances—well, "performances"—by members of his Factory retinue. Also, lots of seizure-inducing lights.

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:

December 4, 2009
Readings from Lisa Selin Davis (Belly)
Musical Performance by Zomes (Asa Osborne of Lungfish)

February 19, 2010
Readings from Marianne Villanueva (Mayor of Roses)
and Steve Fellner (Out Loud)
Musical Performance: J. Robbins Sings J. Robbins
(First ever solo show! New interpretations of Jawbox songs and other works from his canon)

This is a free event.
Program Begins at 8:00 PM
The Writer’s Center is located on the Red Line
at 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD

Tonight Clark—alongside musician Matt Byars and the staff of The Writer's Center—will kick off Story/Stereo, a concert and reading series that pairs local rock bands with local writers and poets and, ultimately, forces the two to combine their efforts. "Hopefully not in a goofy way," says Clark. "We’re aware of the perils."

The  inspiration for the series came last year, after Clark suggested a creative play-date of sorts for his friends Deborah Ager, publisher of 32 Poems Magazine, and Michael Kentoff, who performs in the indie-rock group The Caribbean. "They got together and they got along really well," says Clark. "So, they decided to put on a show." It was that show—a combined concert and reading with a quick collaboration between the two artists that took place at The Writer's Center in Bethesda—that laid the groundwork for Story/Stereo.

The center was happy enough with the event that it asked Clark if he might be interested in co-curating an entire series of similar performances. "My attitude initially was that it was [one] special night," says Clark. "There was this very literary band in town [The Caribbean] and also Deborah Ager, who happened to be a great poet. But I realized it could work in a broader sense."

Loose plans were made for eight events, taking place over the next several months, with Clark and Byars choosing the bands and The Writer's Center staff selecting the literature. Tonight's inaugural event will feature readings by poet Suszanne Frischkorn, author Neil Smith, and a set by spacey guitar-band The Roofwalkers. New performances will be scheduled and announced every month or so through the end of spring.

As music curator, Clark's goal is to keep people guessing, if not flat out confused. "I wanted to have the first two bands be an exercise in contrast," he says. "Roofwalkers music has the elements of Luna the Chills and all this stuff—the sweeping beautiful guitar draped kind of thing. Frankly, I [thought] that they would be a good intro to people who are coming from the lit side."

The next band, the multi-media oriented Blue Brain, promises be a little more out-there.

There's  an element of cultural life-support to Story/Stereo, too. As Clark sees it, the series is as an opportunity for two increasingly devalued art forms to band together. "I met James Baldwin when I was kid, my parents had dinner with him," says Clark, with some awe. "I mean, he swung the culture around. Writers used to have the notion or ambition to actually have a major cultural impact." That sense of influence has faded recently, though, he says. "Now Kanye steps on the stage and it preoccupies people for weeks on end. Meanwhile some writer might have just delivered a masterpiece that we’ll never read. Which must be frustrating when you’ve worked so hard."

Of course, the same goes for musicians (Kanye excluded). "Writing and music are in delicate vulnerable places in culture," says Clark. "I don’t’ see why we can’t mix it up and see what’s comes out of that."

September 18, 2009
Readings from Suzanne Frischkorn (Lit Windowpane)
and Neil Smith (Bang Crunch)
Musical Performance by Roofwalkers

This is a free event.
Program Begins at 7:30 PM
The Writer’s Center is located on the Red Line
at 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD