Just got word that the immensely talented and former half of Georgie James, Laura Burhenn, will be playing a set at the Velvet Lounge tonight at 9:30 p.m. sharp. Here’s a quick note from Laura on what she plans for tonight:

Tonight is a night for feedback – of all sorts. I’ll be experimenting with some new songs in a stripped-down setting (just me and a drummer). Still working on the new record, trying to get perspective and figuring out which direction I’m gonna take. If anything, it’ll be a one-time adventure. Who knows what’ll happen…

The full-on rock spectacle that is Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band was on display last night at the 9:30 Club. For me, the transition from quirky Americana to Oberst’s special brand of theatrical rock was “Road to Joy’s” proclamation “Let’s fuck it up boys…make some noise!” from 2004’s I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning.

Subsequent releases like the Four Winds EP, Cassadaga, and the centerpiece from the 9:30 show, Conor Oberst, have pushed his sound into Wilco territory (exemplified by last night’s rollicking version of Oberst’s “NYC-Gone, Gone”) while still hewing to his Mobius-strip lyrical style. Watching the show, it’s clear the rock attitude has become personified in his live playing, upper torso all Mike Ness, and his legs moving like Tattoo You-era Mick Jagger.

When he and bandmate Macey Taylor pulled up the stools for a quiet acoustic duet on “Milk Thistle,” I flashed on what Conor may have become had he hailed from ’80s New Jersey instead of Omaha. And taking another cue from the ’80s, with the eye-covering fedora and highly cuffed jeans, Conor was missing only the silver glove to complete the Thriller era MJ look.

No comment on Conor Oberst would be complete without a Bob Dylan reference. While the musical and lyrical comparisons at this point are so stupidly obvious, the Bob in Conor came out at the end of the show as he commented on president elect Barack Obama’s historic election: “Let’s hope he comes through for us.”

Not very declarative, cynical almost. Sound like anyone?

The New York Times ran a story last Thursday about a service that ranks in societal importance next to dog psychiatrists and fish pedicures.

…it is just in the last five years that a handful of music consultants, mostly in New York and London, have begun to specialize in creating custom domestic soundtracks. From Aspen lodges to bungalows in Belize, they are compiling playlists to match their clients’ décor.

Isn’t this what online music services like Pandora are for? Or hopefully, sites like Black Plastic Bag or Pitchfork? I’ve always felt the thrill of discovery adds to the enjoyment of music, but ignorance is bliss.

Also, does the service come with a servant that hits the play button with a white gloved hand?

Even if the music a client likes isn’t insipid, stylists warn, it might be all wrong for a given space. “You’re not going to have Johnny Cash playing in a fantastic retreat in the West Indies,� Mr. Gibson said. “It just wouldn’t work.�

I’m not so sure that these paid cultural gatekeepers actually like music, ’cause Johnny Cash works everywhere — from Wasilla to Kim Jong Il’s deathbed. So following Gibson’s logic, If I’m flying transatlantic my choices are moe.’s Plane Crash or Steve Miller’s Jet Airliner? No chamber pop to go with the Valium and scotch?

Sure, I’m harboring a fair amount of resentment. Getting paid well to pick music for rich clients with “insipid” taste sounds like a decent gig. Expect the part where I recommend Iron Maiden’s The Trooper for martial disputes.

DJ Will Eastman brings another night of dance grooves to the Black Cat. I caught a set of his a couple of weeks back at Saint X and enjoyed it so much I overimbibed and fell down. Twice. Here’s how Will described Bliss to me:

Bliss is a no attitude, just fun party where people can expect insane dancing. The music ranges from indie and electropop to house, club, alternative, and classics. There are always a few left field things, too, like a random Phil Collins track just to keep people guessing, and, well, to tell the truth, I like Phil Collins. People who are passionate about music, have a good sense of humor, and don’t take themselves too seriously are pretty much who one will meet at Bliss. Our guest DJ Saturday is Ed Dudes of Velodrome and This Ain’t No Disco. This month, we have Bliss 8 year anniversary t-shirts for sale, too! A portion of proceeds go to the Obama 2008 campaign.

BLISS dance party
Saturday September 27
Black Cat back stage
1811 14th Street (@ S Street)
9:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
All Ages $7
BLISS is a monthly dance party in Washington, DC hosted by resident DJ Will Eastman and friends. BLISS likes Bass Ale, Daft Punk, and has an agenda. Its mission is to get you 1) in trouble 2) intoxicated 3) in love.

DJs spin indie, electro, club, Britpop, pop, 80s, house, alternative, rock and everything that makes you move.

http://www.blisspop.com
http://www.myspace.com/djwilleastman

Visual deelights by Kylos

Guest DJ: Ed Dudes (Velodrome, This Ain’t No Disco)
Three years ago, DC got a whole lot better. I mean, a whole, whole hell of a lot better. You see, Ed Dudes moved to DC three years ago. Since then, he’s been regaling the city with the finest dance music south of NYC. Ed’s residencies, Velodrome and This Ain’t No Disco, are unlike any other in the district. Velodrome is the only night dedicated to Italo, post punk, proto house and techno, with a live band every month. His other residency, This Ain’t No Disco, is the night to hear the spacey and weird side of disco and house. One thing’s for sure: seeing Ed play is an unquestionable trip to space.
http://www.myspace.com/eddudes

I’m not as familiar with Steve Love and Philip Goyete as I am with Sean Gone, aka Sean Pearce. I asked Sean what his goal for tonight’s Level Up was.

What I try to do with me sets is bring together all the really great forms of underground indie dance from hip-hop electro remixes to rocked out party anthems to modern classics from B-More to France. I’m looking to keep the DC flavor growing by spinning tracks dug up from deep crates and talented remixers working it all over the world.

Go here for a preview of what you can expect from Sean Gone tonight.

Arlo Guthrie’s Kennedy Center performance last night with the National Symphany Orchestra was often a cinematic experience. Strings and brass propelled Arlo’s still strong and rooted-in-rural-America vocals into every corner of the performance space, and invoked a Randy Newman Pixar/Disney film end of credits vibe.

The between song banter was fun and fresh. There were revelatory tales of his dad, Woody Guthrie, and legends like Leadbelly, and asides that very well could be rehersed cornerstones of his act but sounded off the cuff like:

I appreciate the older stuff, now that I am older stuff.

And this great primer on how Arlo views the creation of songs:

Songwriting is like fishing. There’s a lot of waiting. You sit down next to a stream and wait for a song to swim by, and then you catch it.

Just don’t fish downstream from Bob Dylan.

I wrote to Bob once and asked him if he could throw the small ones back.

JJ Grey and Mofro released Orange Blossoms on August 26th. I’m a big Mofro fan, and would reccomend any of their four records. With Blossoms, however, they are predictably tagged again with the head- scratching moniker of “swamp rockers”–the quasi-sub genre the stubbornly defies definition. The wiki pedia page on swamp rock lists CCR, Jim Dickinson, JJ Cale, and Tony Joe White as purveyors of swamp and offers up this explanation:

The music is characterized by funky, soulful bass, twangy reverb guitar and songs that typically concerned themselves with matters of Southern American States folklore. There’s a literary, Southern Gothic feel to most swamp rock. The lyrics of swamp rock songs often describe life in such locales as along the Mississippi River, in New Orleans or such rural areas as the bayou.

I could quibble with much here. First, CCR’s songs were often about a dangerous swamp on the other side of the globe, and Jim Dickinson practices as much Dixieland as anything. Also, a case could be made that JJ Cale and Tony Joe White are bluesmen with singular voices and regional influences.

The Southern Gothic angle is intriguing. Though when JJ Grey sings about the land around his Florida home, the critters and the dark water, the sinister developers and their cronies, it takes me back to my own upbringing in the Midwest. His themes of land and life lost to the soulessness of the modern world resonate well past the South and the ‘Glades.

So maybe we resist the temptation to lean on a category that never made sense in the first place and call this music what it is–soul and blues played with conviction.

Or we can call JJ Grey and Mofro what they call themselves: Front Porch Soul. The kind music that was the foundation of Otis Redding’s sound, and the kind you’ll hear at the 9:30 Club on Sunday, Sept. 21, when Booker T. and the MG’s and Eddie Floyd celebrate Stax Records’ 50th Anniversary.

JJ Grey and Mofro play the State Theater in Falls Church on Wednesday, October 15.

Listen to JJ Grey and Mofro at http://www.myspace.com/mofroband

Liz Phair began the live rendition of her 1993 debut, Exile in Guyville, by thanking the 9:30 Club’s sold out crowd for its enthusiasm, which continued through the night. The 9:30’s DJ had warmed the crowd with hits from Guyville contemporaries like Urge Overkill’s “Positive Bleeding” and the Afghan Whigs’ “Gentlemen,” and expectations were high.

I’d first seen Phair on the original Guyville tour at Minneapolis’ First Avenue, and while that show was far from bad, the 15 years since the legendary album’s release have served Phair’s stage abilities well. Foremost, she now holds the guitar on her hip in true gunslinger form. At First Avenue, it was clasped under her armpit like she feared it would make a break for the exit, and she did her best to blend in with her touring band. At the 9:30 Club show, however, Phair stood out in front and engaged the crowd, hopefully putting the tired stage fright story line to rest.

After a carbon copy of Guyville’s third cut, “Glory,” Phair answered the question of many an audience member:

“By the way, no one is going to miss Obama tonight. Not on my watch.”

This led to wild applause, and then she ripped into “Dance of the Seven Veils.” Aside from a slight slip at the start of “Soap Star Joe”, the rest of the show was tight and professional. And Phair’s voice is as strong as ever, evidenced by the high notes she hit in “Explain it to Me.”

Guyville’s bold and raw lyrical content is often cited as the reason for the album’s greatness. I embrace that assertion, but it was always the album’s music that drew me in. She rocked on Guyville, and from the basement no less. It was also a refreshing antidote to the grunge movement. The highlights of last night’s show were “6′1″,” “Never Said” (with her touring band hitting the backing vocals just right) and the foot-stomping charge of “Johnny Sunshine.” The grooves on “Mesmerizing” were deeper than the album cut and came with double the swagger.

Two lucky fans were plucked from the audience to accompany Phair on the audacious “Flower”. Much blushing and giggling ensued. My favorite cut from Guyville, “Divorce Song”, however, lacked the recording’s final tight jamming frenzy. Instead, Phair used the album’s closer, “Strange Loop”, for displaying her ax skills, dueling with her touring guitarist.

A few weeks back I was traveling through Cleveland and decided to make a more focused visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I wanted to avail myself of the exhibits and memorabilia that had a District angle. Wandering from floor to floor in the massive and often impressive space, however, I realized that mentions of D.C.’s impact on rock history were spare.

Sure, there were the obligatory references to Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole playing the Howard Theater, and to the Beatles’ first American concert played in D.C. But what became apparent was that according to the Rock HoF, D.C.’s singular role in rock and roll history–what it should be known for–is that of morality police.

For example, a large wall panels just inside the entrance to the main exhibit tell the story of rock and roll’s early fights against the Man.

“Rock and roll is repulsive to right thinking people and can have adverse affects on our young people.”

J Edgar Hoover, Washington DC

It doesn’t end there. Other panels reported on Tipper Gore’s decency crusade and Frank Zappa’s (pictured) appearance before Congress. And in the hip-hop exhibit is the prominently displayed letter sent by the FBI (from DC) to N.W.A’s label expressing their concern at Straight Outta Compton’s content.

Though in the interest of balance, Jim Morrison’s High School Diploma and report cards from George Washington High School in Alexandria, Va. get some wall space.

The festival layout made it convenient when traveling from one stage to another to take a sojourn at the ‘Dance Tent’. The above set from London based Erol Alkan was so jaw-dropping head-nodding fantastic I nearly missed Gogol Bordello’s start.

The 9:30 Club deployed its elite force of security personnel en mass at the Virgin Festival. Some sets warranted the special forces of music world security from the 9:30 (Lupe Fiasco) and some had to settle for regular rent-a-cop infantry (Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings).

The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus was a pleasant palate cleanser between shows. The traveling troupe and non-profit dazzled with sword-swallowing and high-wire antics.