Our Far-Flung Local Bands: Tennis System used to live here. Now they live in Los Angeles. Here's a video for their song "Arcane," a dreamy, psychedelic day trip to the beach.

New Address, STILL LOUD: Windian Records moved websites recently. Strike windianrecords.blogspot.com from your bookmarks and head to windianrecords.wordpress.com. DON'T WORRY, IT'S STILL IN ALLCAPS!

Yesterday on ArtsDesk: The illustrated guide to the Lincoln Theatre's financial woes, Bluebrain's location-aware album for Central Park is out, Howard University ensemble gets ahead on NBC's The Sing-Off.

Paul McCartney: He makes everyone else looks like a major underachiever.

My colleague Jonathan L. Fischer reported yesterday that local band Tennis System is leaving D.C. for sunnier pastures in L.A. Can't say I blame them. The band's playing a farewell show at the Rock & Roll Hotel March 4.

As was widely reported yesterday, TBD is undergoing a major revamp. Again. But, troopers that they are, they keep on keepin' on. Today Ryan Kearney reports, via the Baltimore Sun, that Julia Louis-Dreyfus will be in town shooting the HBO pilot Veep for a couple of days, although most filming will take place in Baltimore.

Paul McCartney never ceases to amaze. He's composed a work for the New York City Ballet called "Ocean's Kingdom," which will premiere at the company's fall gala on Sept. 22, with other performances to follow. What can't the former Beatle do?

Vogue reviews the just-finished Fashion Week in London. In a season of traditional British fashions–think tweeds, plaids, and Argyles–many designers upped the ante by commissioning the work to traditional mills in Scotland.

For those of you who are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, hope you got your Oscar ballots in before voting closed yesterday. I still have yet to see the favorite for best picture, The King's Speech.

But after three years, neo-shoegazers Tennis System are leaving D.C. for L.A. to "to further ourselves as musicians," the band writes on its blog today. Sad! But we had some good times, such as...

...this One Track Mind, about Tennis System's song "Esoteric."

...this demo, of the song "Snowden," recorded during the Snowpocalypse.

...this Snow Day Session, where Tennis System's Matty Taylor collaborated with Ra Ra Rasputin's Patrick Kigongo on a cover of Spacemen 3's "Walking With Jesus."

...this show report from South by Southwest.

Anyway, the band has a goodbye show set for March 4 at Rock & Roll Hotel, and it'll double as a release party for a new single, "Hey, We Tried." If you know Tennis System, it's familiar—slurred, slow-mo vocals; harsh yet pretty noise—but it's also the rare shoegaze song that manages to gallop. You can buy a physical copy at the show. Listen:

BTW: Does the headline of the (otherwise great) WaPo review contain an error, or is "LDC Soundgarden" a joke that went over my head?

Other arts stuff from the Post you should read: Anne Midgette's mixed review of the National Symphony Orchestra opening gala, which was maestro Christoph Eschenbach's debut as music director; Celia Wren's take on the Washington Shakespeare Company's evening of Hamlet and Much Ado about Nothing passages performed in Klingon; the paper's impressive package on Arena Stage's new Mead Center for American Theater, which I've only begun to skim but will dig into later today.

TMOTTGoGo points to a Japanese band covering Chuck Brown:

I had a great time yesterday at Fiesta D.C., although I erroneously decided it was Mount Pleasant Festival and went on to interpret its performers through an indie-rock lens. Then I hit up the D.C. Record Fair at U Street Music Hall and caught DJ sets by John Davis and Tennis System's Matty Taylor. For sure, the venue was busy—you had to wait to browse bins, often—though not nearly as packed as February's fair. I'll have to ask organizers about the total numbers, but by my count, the set-up was capable of accommodating the browsing of around 170 record nerds at a time. These people oughta start a PAC, and make our leaders accountable to the vinyl vote.

Tennis System: Apparently Tennis System had a rough trip down to Texas. According to guitarist/singer Matty Taylor the band's shows in Richmond and Lexington were shut down by the cops before it could finish its first two songs. Noise complaints, apparently. That's bad news gas money-wise, but it's great for myth-building, I guess. The sound-guy at Rusty Spur, Tennis System's first SXSW gig, wasn't exactly draconian about noise, but he did make the band back the volume knobs off of the Dinosaur Jr.-setting. Some dude who looked like Kid Rock's younger, skeezier, brother sat at the bar four the first few songs and bobbed his head.

Hozac Records, The Walkmen, and Flying Lotus after the jump.

Hozac Records Showcase (Rayon Beach/The Girls at Dawn: Everybody at this showcase, held at Austin's Trailer Space Records, looked kind of like a Peter Bagge drawing. That's appropriate, though, given Hozac's catalog of slanted and gritty garage-rock singles. Austin-based trio Rayon Beach opened the show–delay drenched vocals trying to muscle their way through a wall of fuzz. If a better there's a better band riffing on The Urinals' legacy right now, I cannot name it. The Girls at Dawn played some O.K. teen-girl-zombie pop, too.

The Walkmen: Apparently the New York City-via-Washington, D.C. indie-rock band has been hard at work on its fifth record. They dropped a few new songs into the set at Stubbs BBQ last night, but had lead singer Hamilton Leithauser not called them out as such, I would not have noticed. The Walkmen's schtick–heavy reverb guitar, heavy reverb organ, super-solid drummer–is still intact. Leithauser's singing still strives to locate the middle ground between Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra. Not bad.

Beaches: Five Australian women–three guitars, bass, and drums–playing scrappy instrumentals after a whole afternoon spent drinking. Sort of like listening to three copies of The Clean's Compilation simultaneously. In my book, if you band has three guitars, you can't fail.

Warp Showcase (Flying Lotus):
Overheard while waiting for Flying Lotus to take the stage: "These guys are the Dream Theater of electronic music." Those words–spoken by an audience member at the Warp Records showcase–are pretty right on. If Warp's recent crop of beatmakers has anything in common with prog rock, it's that they share the credo "More is more." L.A.'s Flying Lotus, who headlined, packed his 40-minute set with dense instrumental hiphop run through a laptop Cuisinart. It's hard to look like a rock star while you're working knobs on a computer, but Flying Lotus kept a good rapport with the audience, periodically halting the onslaught to tease a crowd predominantly composed of journalists. "Make sure you tweet that Flying Lotus is killing shit right now," he said.

"Walking With Jesus":

Certain types of music were born to soundtrack snowstorms—ambient electronica, Japanese minimalism, most songs by Galaxie 500. And of course: shoegaze.

Of course, making music for a snowstorm and during one are entirely different endeavors. For the former, the goal has to be atmosphere, often in the form of noisy, ethereal soundscapes conjured via a critical mass of effects pedals and overdubs. For the latter: You're lucky if you can power your amp.

So it makes a lot of sense that Tennis System's Matthew Taylor says he's spent the last few days writing and recording songs that split the difference between My Bloody Valentine and Guided by Voices. Some might call that shitgaze. I'm proposing a different, limited-use appellation: snowgaze.

Example A: "Snowden," a new Tennis System song that Taylor sent me last night. The guitars are assaultive and enveloping, but scrappy; the vocals—sad, spacey, and slightly drawled—offer a meditation on watching snowfall from inside a cold house. Which, you know, could be a metaphor for the sobering vastness of existence. Or maybe not.

DOWNLOAD: Tennis System – "Snowden"

Image courtesy of Tennis System's MySpace page

Hugh McElroy (Ruffian Records, ex-Black Eyes): Right now I'm working on an Imperial China remix and planning on practicing cello for a bit, assuming I don't meet some other teachers from school for snow-football and a drink, that is. I've mostly been playing medieval tunes honestly, so the remix will give me a chance to dub it up.

Bernard Farley (Outputmessage): I was working on a ambient remix earlier, something like Aphex Twin's "On."

Ryan Holladay (Bluebrain): I'm actually working right now on something for a magazine in New York—it's a bizarre amalgam of harp music. It fits perfectly with this weather, I must say. I've been really interested in exploring solo harp music recordings for a while and love that I have an excuse to be holed up and doing it right now.

Noam Elsner (True Womanhood): Thomas [Redmond] and I played dubstep all yesterday till it started really snowing and I had to get home. If there's no power, all I can do is pots and pans remixes or, you know, play Satie and Ravel on the piano. Cos I'm so sofistikated.

Young Raven (hip-hop producer): Most of my music is pretty dark anyway, but the snow tends to smooth out the darkness a little. It's like Sade meets Radiohead over some boom-bap drums.

Matthew Taylor (Tennis System): I'm actually sitting in front of my computer recording/writing now. I'm writing poppy drive-y stuff. It's very MBV meets Guided By Voices. This weather is such a downer sometimes and I need something positive to keep me going. It's a blessing in disguise. I don't have to work and cannot go outside. So I lock myself in my room and write and record. Some of it might never get used, but some may.

Jess Matthews (America Hearts, Edie Sedgwick): In between sledding and drinking hot toddies, I've been recording demos of some new songs. One is about a race car driver.  It is not at all inspired by the cars I've seen on the streets today.

Andrew Field-Pickering (Beautiful Swimmers, Maxmillion Dunbar, Food for Animals): I feel like snow makes me make nostalgia music. I'm definitely trying to channel some childhood/sleeding/snow-covered hills vibes when I sit down to make tunes in the snow. I'll bet my snow tunes are more heavy on the melodies. Today I'm working on Max Dunbar tunes, making food and coffee, cleaning up my house, and chilling! I just finished an album, so the "next wave" of Max tracks sort of begins within this blizzard, which is cool.

Chad Clark (Beauty Pill): The forced isolation and silence is inspiring to artists. Speaking for myself, I'm on fire. Who can resist the dreamlike reverie of a blizzard howling just outside your window? Right now I am working on a song called "Ain't A Jury In The World Gon' Convict You, Baby."

• "DMV Helps Haiti" at Busboys & Poets: There will be a discussion, an open mic, and an auction featuring works by Demont Peekaso. Suggested donation: $10. Sunday at 6:30 p.m.
• A Benefit for the Victims of the Haiti Earthquake at the Black Cat: Sets from Tennis System, the State Department, and more. $10. Feb. 6 at 9 p.m.
• Cheeky Monkey Sideshow benefit at Palace of Wonders: $10, Friday at 10 p.m. Sideshow freaks and burlesque for a good cause!
• Not really arts-related, but cool: CrisisCamp Haiti at Sunlight Labs. The event "will bring together volunteers to collaborate on technology projects which aim to assist in Haiti's relief efforts by providing data, information, maps and technical assistance to NGOs, relief agencies and the public." Free. Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Dubfire's going to be doing something. Nadastrom too.
• Diamonds in the Rough is hosting a benefit on Monday.
• Liberated Muse will host a benefit concert on Feb. 12 and is looking for performers.
• The Liberation Dance Party at DC9 will donate all proceeds to the Red Cross. $7. Friday at 9 p.m.

We'll list more events as they're announced. E-mail me if I've missed anything.

To the vociferous power duo Japandroids, rock, it seems, can be an adjective, noun, or verb. In a sprawling set at a nearly packed DC9 last night, the Vancouver band—shambolic, self-conscious, in its best moments inspired—played the bulk of its well-received 2009 debut, Post-Nothing, while rarely failing to remind an appreciative audience just how hard it intended to rock.

To wit: Japandroids' set was heavy on foreplay and harder on banter, and throughout, guitarist Brian King promised that he and drummer David Prowse would "rock hard," "commence rock," and "rock out." He asked the audience to forgive an obscure tune with "extensive rocking on our behalf," and seemed to apologize for two concise, angular numbers that, one supposes, didn't rock hard enough. The audience didn't mind, of course; they were too busy ... well, you know.

King and Prowse play noisy, unburdened indie rock (though neither "noise" nor "indie" feels especially apt) that doesn't seek to inspire deep thoughts. Their lyrics don't get much more thematically complex than "I don't wanna worry 'bout dyin'/I just wanna worry 'bout sunshine girls," from their best song, "Young Hearts Spark Fire," which became a raucous singalong last night.

Yet to judge by their live show—with its precise musicianship and emotive gang vocals, but a slightly anxious stage presence—it's clear these guys think a lot about their craft. The immediate reference points are propulsive, vaguely conceptual rockers like Les Savy Fav and Mclusky (Japandroids closed the set with the latter's "To Hell With Good Intentions"), but to see such groups was like witnessing ids with instruments. King and Prowse aren't quite comfortable enough in their skins to match such abandon, even if their most anthemic songs are up to muster. Strangely, that awkward dichotomy mostly proved a boon last night.

That's because Japandroids meant every lyric, gesture, and raw chord. In "The Boys Are Leaving Town," King and Prowse swooped yearningly downward on the final word of "will we find our way back home?" while keeping their mouths angled at the tips of their mics. Often, the wiry King ascended Prowse's bass drum, a rock move remarkable only for the fact that the guitarist underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer this spring. With a Mclusky or Les Savy Fav (or, to go a degree further, a Queens of the Stone Age or Andrew W.K.), there's always a degree of facetiousness. Japandroids, meanwhile, are the type of guys who take This Is Spinal Tap as seriously as Don't Look Back. To them, rocking out is no joke.

DC's Tennis System, who opened, shared Japandroids' big-sound, small-scope ethos, if not the aesthetic. The four-piece played arena music scaled (sometimes awkwardly) to club size, a shoegaze-indebted space rock with soft edges, in which bursts of feedback occasionally melted into hooks.

Toronto's (aptly if redundantly named) Slim Twig had less in common. Following Tennis System, this art-damaged, pompadoured troubadour played a short set of tortured, carnivalesque post-punk, a more acid-tinged take on the sort of Farfisa-heavy art punk pioneered by Suicide. Drenched in reverb, Slim Twig (né Max Turnbull) also had the between-song stuff down: "My banter is on par tonight!" he announced toward the end of his set. "Fuck! I'm doing so good!"