Allow me to step away from my increasingly bitter self and, you know, praise local music for a minute.

Well, partly local, because more than half the members of Deleted Scenes live in Brooklyn now. After four days in the studio with J. Robbins, months of over-dubbing, and eons of mixing, Deleted Scenes have finally posted some new songs from their recently completed record Birdseed Shirt.

And they’re really good. Seriously. Stepping away from the tight but relatively straight ahead folksy indie-pop of their older songs (at least the ones that I listened to in 2007), here Deleted Scenes embrace rhythm. “Ithaca” and “Fake IDs” chatter with extra percussion and dubby texture.

See Deleted Scenes live at either of these two local dates:
Tonight: Jul 10 2008 at Iota (w/Solar Powered Sun Destroyer, Gary B & The Notions!)
Aug 4 2008 at Black Cat (w/The Bee Team, The Never)

Whoops! Turns out the DC Party Pit isn’t such a great place to check out house shows these days…since it just closed.

Tenant/show organizer Dennis just posted this MySpace message regarding the end of the house’s 8-month run.

“Dear Friends,

This morning our neighbor showed up to our house with the landlord and the real estate agent for the house. Complaints about our “crazy parties” and all of the noise, some shit being stolen and a fire hydrant opened (neither of which I was aware of until the neighbor talked about it) and just some other stuff has lead the landlord to saying that if they get anymore complaints, they will be moving towards trying to get us out of the house.”

Oh well. Anybody want to volunteer their living room for a Turboslut show?

If you’re old, like me, you’ll remember Kansas house as the place where you saw bands like Black Eyes, Japanther, Early Humans, Love of Diagrams, The Creeping Nobodies, and Dada Swing.

If you’re ancient, like Jason Cherkis, you probably saw the Dismemberment Plan play there.

At any rate, Kansas House—a small stand-alone house which is located on 900 N Kansas St. in Arlington—was long the preferred spot for all-ages house shows. But a few years ago it went dormant, probably because the tenants were tired of having their living room torn apart on a semi-regular basis.

But now it looks like the house is back in action. A few local bands along with a group from San Francisco will be putting on a show Thursday night at 7:30. Full line-up below:

high castle (from san francisco)
buildings (ex sentai)
troll tax (1st show ever also mem of partyline/mess up the mess)

Not that the D.C. area has been devoid of house shows while Kansas house has been MIA. If you’re itching for some basement show action you might also check out The Lighthouse and the DC Party Pit, and a few others that I can’t remember offhand.

What could be better than buying a $2 CD-R of demos from your favorite local band? Buying their 7-inch record, of course! And for those of us who still have record players, it comes as good news that Food For Animals rapper Vulture Voltaire has pressed a wax single under his solo moniker, Maximillion Dunbar.

Says Voltaire/Dunbar: “Yo dudes/dudettes! Just in time for summer, I got two instrumental cuts, on the cosmic side of hip-hop thangs. HEAVY percussive force mixed with beautiful thick synths on the A Side; romance and bump on the B. Both songs are available to listen to on my myspazzze”

Not sure if these have been consigned to any local record stores, but you can order one by PayPal-ing $7 to biggestofbears@gmail.com. Only 300 pressed, so if you want one…hurry?

Writer Doug Mosurock also included a short review of the 7″ in his bi-monthly “Still Single” column.

In sad news for D.C. music lovers, free thinkers, and neck-beard sporting weirdos, 611 Florida Ave.—a house which has hosted countless psychedelic rock and punk shows over the years as well as the annual Free Folk Phantasmagory fest—will cease operation come September.

“It is with great sadness that I have to report that we got hit with a 90-day notice to vacate the premises. By the end of September, 611 Florida will no longer be hosting the finest experimental music from around the globe,” wrote longtime resident and booker Scott Verrastro in a mass e-mail. “We might have one last blowout in September—perhaps a final Free Folk Phantasmagory—before we leave, but we do have these two last shows in July. Some of the best shows I’ve ever seen have occurred in these living rooms, so join me in mourning and celebrating the passing of this narrow row house as a venue that has presented some of the best music in the world.”

In addition to hosting a lot of great musicians, 611 Florida excelled in creating unique and often bizarre bills—teaming up evil Brooklyn drone band Double Leopards with guitar legend Richard Bishop for instance. The close quarters of the 611 living room also forced an intimacy that couldn’t exist in professional venues. Sometimes that meant that you got to hang out with Lungfish’s Dan Higgs. Other times that meant you had to share a seat with Little Howlin’ Wolf—whether you wanted to or not.

At any rate, the venue will be sorely missed. There’s at least one more 611 show coming up on July 18th. Details below.

Friday, July 18
9pm, $5 suggested donation

Kuschty Rye Ergot (DC improv psych, mem. of Kohoutek, ex-Redeemers/Promise Breakers)
Noa Babayof (Israel folk-psych, Language of Stone)
Sharon van Etten (NYC solo folk, Language of Stone)
Ilya Monosov

That’s right. If you missed it in our recent Silverdocs cover story, the documentary Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell screens tonight at 6:30 p.m. and tomorrow at 9 p.m. at AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring.

Of course you remember that Russell was the hugely influential composer, producer, and songwriter responsible for several forward thinking disco tracks while living in down town Manhattan during the late ’70s and early ’80s. But you know, I don’t want to give away the whole story.

Check the film’s blog for more screening info.

Here’s a preview:

And something to get you in the mood:

To put on a house show in D.C. is to invite a pitched battle with cranky neighbors, exhausted moms, and police officers who will remain unmoved by your passionate attempts to “keep the scene alive” and have every right to tell you and your friends to shut up. And to book one on a Tuesday is really asking for some pain.

But the Lighthouse–on 1421 Buchanan St. NW–is willing to try it anyway.

Tonight they’ll be hosting a mammoth five-band bill featuring Baltimore’s excellent traveling drum circle Teeth Mountain as well as Yellow Crystal Stars, Prince Rama, Family of Love. And last but not least, Dickhearse.

Music starts at 7 p.m. and lasts until the neighbors’ patience is exhausted.

In what must be the hardest-rocking false positive to hit Fort Reno since Black Eyes sang the song “False Positive,” the National Parks Service has declared Fort Reno park 100 percent safe. According to the Washington Post, after conducting extensive tests on samples collected throughout the park, officials now believe–for reasons that have not been disclosed–that they were wrong about all of that arsenic. As a result the Fort Reno concert series will be moving forward, although the schedule has not yet been posted.

Anyway, rest assured that you, your friends, your dog, and your child can all enjoy the summer concert series without having to worry about the allosteric inhibition of your essential metabolic enzymes and your resulting death by organ failure.

Oh, and while we’re talking about Fort Reno, maybe you’d like to give them some money?

According to Washington Post blog Going Out Gurus, Fort Reno Park, site of the long running annual summer concert series, is closed after the United States Geological Survey discovered high levels of arsenic in the soil. Snow fencing was apparently erected around the park’s perimeter early this morning. There’s no word yet regarding when the park will reopen or whether the concert series will take place at an alternate location.

Needless to say, this is a is pretty devastating blow for D.C. music culture.

No Wave is kind of hard to describe using actual words. One generally has to rely on onomatopoeia like skree and krang to effectively capture the chaos and dissonance that defined the music. But in his book No Wave Arlington music writer Marc Masters does a good job of characterizing the movement without resorting to a Thurston Moore-invented vocabulary. If you want to check it out in person, he’ll be doing a reading and signing tonight at Crooked Beat Records around 7 p.m. If that leaves you curious as to what No Wave music actually sounds like, Masters will also be DJing tonight at Marx Cafe (located at 3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW) from 10 p.m. to 3 am..