Good morning!
Perhaps you read Maura Judkis' great feature this week on Andrew Wodzianski, the local artist who for the last two weeks has been living in a comfy 10 by 10 by 10 habitat in a retail space on U Street. It's actually the first of five pop-up projects—think low-concept art meets high-concept real estate—sponsored [...]
A sort-of-D.C.-based band featuring the founders of the sort-of-D.C.-based Underwater Peoples, Family Portrait makes skuzzy, sun-kissed art pop that’s of a piece with the woozy romanticism (Real Estate, Air Waves) the label peddles. Family Portrait killed time last year as a two-piece while half the band traveled abroad. Now back to its original lineup, the [...]
As promised, the D.C./New Jersey upstart label Underwater Peoples dropped its Winter Review compilation today, and you can download all 15 tracks at the Chocolate Bobka blog. There's lots of lovely lo-fi therein, including new songs by Real Estate, Ducktails, Julian Lynch, Pill Wonder, Air Waves, Mountain Man, and more. Full tracklist after the jump:
Good morning! Nothing has pissed me off today! (OK, one thing has: The Washington Post Style section seems to have resumed its coverage of the Salahis. Two articles so far this week! The one from yesterday—argh!—is about how the story won't go away.) So I'll skip the usual morning ramblings and move on to what [...]
Best happy hour in recent memory: Spending the first few minutes of my Friday night purchasing records at Red Onion. What did I buy? The Flaming Lips' Embryonic LP (colored vinyl) and Alex Bleeker and the Freaks' debut LP on the local Underwater Peoples label [you can listen to an officially leaked Bleeker track here]. [...]
Salome, one of the few metal bands that performed at this year's CMJ.
For D.C. bands, the takeaway from CMJ seems to have been this: It will not pluck you from obscurity, but it can't hurt. Also: Don't believe the hype.
"The myth that you can land the perfect agent or manager at a place like that—I don’t think [...]
Middle Distance Runner performs at the CMJ Music Marathon in 2008.
Every CMJ has its success story—the unknown act who, thanks to buzz and grit and talent and luck , tickles the right trigger of the wayfaring label rep or taste-maker who, for whatever reason, has decided to see it. But most of the thousand-plus little-known [...]
