It would be hard to find a documentary more cinematic than Revenge of the Electric Car. Framed as a thriller, following the personal struggles of four charismatic men and their automotive creations, its scenes of corporate deliberations are shot with such intimacy that it’s hard to believe they weren’t scripted and staged. Through an astonishing level [...]
The new Martin Luther King memorial on the National Mall has not had a good opening run. Its star-studded dedication event was canceled because of Hurricane Irene. And long-simmering controversies were ignited as critics ripped the shoddy treatment of the memorial’s Chinese stonemasons, questioned a design that makes some people think the sculpture is half-done, [...]
Every March, South by Southwest corrals the music industry in Austin, Texas. Record labels, publicists, and hip blogs program warring bills throughout the Texas capital’s 200 venues; red-eyed bands cram eight gigs into three days. The taco trucks are superb. Everybody’s there.
But Travis Jackson, the owner and founder of Windian Records, is opting out this year.
“Talking [...]
Our One Track Mind feature–a brief but in-depth look at the process behind a single song—is one of our favorite ways to keep up with D.C.'s musical output. In 2010, we published 45 of them. Looking back, we—shocker!—picked up lots of rock tracks in 2010, with hip-hop coming in second place. There was also scattered [...]
Here's my most tragic music story of 2010: My external harddrive, containing a huge chunk of my music collection, died a few weeks ago, or so it seems. So it's possible I'm omitting a song or two from this list of my favorite local songs of the year. That's my story and I'm sticking to [...]
It's everywhere. Kit Kats, candy corn, tiny Snickers bars, bags upon bags of M&Ms... you can't avoid it. With Halloween coming up, you know you're going to binge on fun-size snacks, and it's going to be delicious. You may end up toothless, but that won't dull the thrill of consuming countless chocolate treats. Of course, [...]
D.C.'s Mother uses phrases like "laser-beam eyes" and frequently swaps out the letter C for the letter K, but its music is as much psychedelia—not just one song has an instrumental freak-out that recalls the classic psych-rockers the United States of America—as moody indie erudition in the National vein. On the EP the group released [...]
D.C.'s scrappy, slightly scuzzy Foul Swoops are apparently close observers of the international art market: Check out the song "Colossal Sized Picasso" from the band's set at the Velvet Lounge Saturday. Is it an ode to hedge-fund managers and Russian oil titans looking for some wall power to adorn their corner offices? Maybe, or maybe [...]
It's been over a year since David Berman—the slacker-poet with the drawled baritone whose band Silver Jews made some of the best, strangest, and least assuming indie rock of the last two decades—announced he was done making music. Which was and is a bummer. But it's not the subject of this post.
See, for at least [...]
*The Guardian's lit blog posits Twitter as an elegant way to announce one's resignation, cites the case of Jonathan Schwartz, who until yesterday morning served as CEO of Sun Microsystems. His #haiku effort:
Financial crisis
Stalled too many customers
CEO no more.
Schwartz loses points for imagery but recoups on the kicker. Bonus point to Alison Flood for the [...]
