Alright, that’s it for this year. Saturday might have been the big draw at Maryland Deathfest 2009, but Sunday was no disappointment either, unless you were a Pestilence fan. Pestilence cancelled due to visa issues and were replaced by a second set of Bolt Thrower, who played the same set as Saturday in a different order, and on the inside stage where things got a bit more intense (and a lot hotter) than Saturday’s outdoor show.

The highlights of the day for me were Kill the Client, ridiculously intense political grindcore from Texas, and Yakuza, who were really a nice change of pace with their atmospheric, deliberately paced compositions and their prominent use of saxophone. More thoughts and photos after the jump - and the full Sunday gallery with nearly 200 photos is here.

Read More “Photos: Maryland Deathfest VII Sunday” »

So this belongs pretty clearly in the Better Late Than Never department, but those of us who attended Maryland Deathfest this year are already looking forward to next year’s installment, so consider this, uh, a preview of MDF VIII. Yeah.

Between photography and sheer metal overload, I saw a number of bands about which I couldn’t tell you a single word about, musically at least. Flesh Parade, Birdflesh, Misery Index, Phobia, Immolation… they may have played some great music, and I might have photographic evidence of them, but I have absolutely no memory of their sets. So instead of attempting to do a verbal recap, I’ll just let the photos do the talking, after the jump. There’s also a full Saturday gallery here, with 227 photos.

Read More “Photos: Maryland Deathfest VII Saturday” »

Fresh off a well-reviewed performance at NEARfest, the most prestigious progressive rock festival in the United States (don’t laugh), Mexican instrumental trio Cabezas de Cera are playing two dates this week in D.C. plus one in Baltimore. Cabezas de Cera aren’t your typical bombastic prog band; rather, they combine folk, prog, free improv and a touch of the avant-garde into a fascinating and fairly uncategorizable mish-mash, and they’ve been doing it for about ten years now. While the basic format of the trio (plus a member credited as a “sound designer”) is guitars/saxes/drums, in reality they play a bewildering array of instruments, from traditional instruments to nontraditional rock instruments like the Chapman Stick, plus a variety of homemade implements.

Cabezas de Cera are playing the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage tonight at 6pm sharp, then at Artomatic tomorrow night at 8:30pm. Both these shows are free. On Sunday, they will make an appearance at Orion Sound Studios in Baltimore alongside Might Could - you can expect a longer set at this show for your $15. Orion is at 2903 Whittington Ave, shows are usually scheduled to start around 8pm.

Have a listen at Myspace or check out their website for more info.

Image courtesy Cabezas de Cera’s Myspace page

I confess in advance that I know next to nothing about Celtic music. On Saturday evening, I certainly found myself in the right place to learn, at the house of Barbara Ryan and Bernard Argent. These two kind, welcoming folks host summer concerts at their beautiful Fairfax Station home, as well as curating concerts at the Old Brogue in Great Falls and the Institute of Musical Traditions, which puts on shows in various locations around the D.C. area (IMT’s upcoming calendar features a diverse range of concerts from the Mediaeval Baebes to Kinobe & Soul Beat Africa to Väsen). On Saturday, they provided a venue for the talents of harpist Lily Neill, whom I previously saw in a duo with tap-dancer Cartier Williams at a wonderfully surprising Velvet Lounge concert last year. Neill has appeared at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and was Strathmore’s artist in residence in February 2007, and now makes her home in Finland, where she studied at Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy.

Read More “Lily Neill @ Swift Run House” »

By its broadest definition, Nordic Jazz Week encompasses five nights, including a show tonight at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. But Wednesday night at the House of Sweden, in which the big draw was Nils Petter Molvær and Arve Henriksen (pictured above), was treated as a closing night of sorts. The omnipresent threat of rain forced the concert indoors instead of its customary spot on the House of Sweden’s picturesque rooftop, but that didn’t stop a substantial crowd from gathering.

Photos and writeup after the jump. Full gallery here.

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Some 14 years after their first big hit, No Doubt is still a far bigger draw than I would have imagined, nearly selling out the 25,000-capacity Nissan Pavilion. After watching their stage show, that fact becomes a bit more comprehensible: these are incredibly professional entertainers with hit song after hit song after hit song to draw from. And they treat their fans well, particularly one whom Gwen Stefani pulled up onstage for a hug and a quick photo of the two of them with tens of thousands of cheering fans in the background.

Paramore, who in a lot of ways are the new generation’s version of No Doubt—complete with their own rabid and rapidly expanding fan base— were a fitting opener alongside Swedish new-wavers The Sounds.

Check out more photos after the jump or the full gallery at Flickr.

Read More “Photos: No Doubt @ Nissan Pavilion” »

I’m going to hazard a guess that during yesterday’s music-packed evening in D.C., the only show that could rival Peter Brötzmann’s trio in intensity was The Dillinger Escape Plan at Rock & Roll Hotel. If you’ve seen DEP before or you read my writeup of their Baltimore show this past Feburary, you know the drill.

R&R Hotel had a few security guys lined up in front of the stage to try to keep control. I asked one of them if they knew what they were in for. “Oh yeah, we know all about it,” came the confident reply. The thick padding taped over the venue’s giant wall mirrors, and the ceiling above the stage, seemed to confirm this, but the “NO STAGE DIVING / NO CROWDSURFING” signs posted everywhere were overly optimistic.

Photos and a few more thoughts after the jump. Full gallery here.

Read More “Photos: The Dillinger Escape Plan @ Rock & Roll Hotel” »

“Wasn’t he just here?” you might be thinking. Well, yes, but the last time famed free-jazzer Peter Brötzmann played the Velvet Lounge, just a few weeks ago, he wasn’t backed by a rhythm section straight out of the extreme metal world.

Full Blast sees Brötzmann in a trio with electric bassist Marino Pliakas and whirling dervish/drummer Michael Wertmüller. Pliakas and Wertmüller both indeed have metal backgrounds, and if you can imagine a grindcore band going full tilt with Brötzmann wailing mercilessly on top, you’ve got the right idea. Since I can’t make tonight’s show, I caught this trio last night at the Windup Space in Baltimore, and, just like two years ago at The Red Room, it was a show of epic proportions. Full Blast builds tension relentlessly, and while the music ebbs and flows, the overall feeling is of being swamped underneath an exhilirating wall of sound.

If Brötzmann and Wertmüller are obvious focal points, the crashing waves in this sea of noise - Brötzmann because he’s Brötzmann and Wertmüller because he is absolutely one of the most amazingly dextrous drummers I’ve had the pleasure of watching - Pliakas is the undertow: dangerous, unpredictable, rising with unexpected ferocity at various points in the music. Seeing the trio together in action is a revelatory experience, and this is pretty much mandatory if you’re a fan of free jazz, noise-rock or extreme music. And if you found Brötzmann solo a bit too much to handle, Full Blast is more accessible, even if simultaneously more extreme.

Full Blast plays at the Velvet Lounge tonight; PRV Trio and The Undisco Kidds are opening. Doors at 7:30, show at 9, $12, don’t miss it.

Check out some more photos from last night’s show after the jump. Full gallery here.

Read More “Don’t Miss Peter Brötzmann’s Full Blast Tonight” »

Nine Inch Nails (above, Trent Reznor sweating a lot) and Jane’s Addiction played to a large, enthusiastic crowd on Tuesday, despite crazy thunderstorms and hail just before the show’s start time. After the jump, some images from this very visually appealing show. Full gallery here.

Read More “Photos: NIN|JA @ Merriweather Post Pavilion” »

Here’s what you need to know about The Decemberists playing The Hazards of Love in its entirety on their current tour: on prog-rock bulletin boards, folks are comparing this show to Genesis performing The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in the 1970s.

Hazards of Love sounds awfully proggy on record, and live it’s got all the telltale signs: a theatrical presentation (including costumes of sorts), a ridiculously fantastical concept/storyline, lots of Hammond organ and other keys, a gratuitously long children’s choir section… everything to make the latent prog fan inside you start drooling. And the thing is, it works. Before last night I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the album, but its highlights are exhilirating in the live setting, especially those featuring the powerhouse vocals of My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden. Set the absurd concept aside and the music stands on its own remarkably well.

More photos and thoughts after the jump. Full gallery here.

Read More “Photos: The Decemberists @ Merriweather Post Pavilion” »