God, I miss At the Drive-In. One day in tenth grade, I went to a record store in North Carolina and bought two records: Parachutes by Coldplay and Relationship of Command by At the Drive-In. I thought one of the bands was nice enough, but that the other one was going to be huge—I just picked the wrong one.

I mention this only because At the Drive-In is really the last band I unequivocally loved that just sort of rocked, you know—swerved and screamed and shredded for no reason but to do it. And Black & White Jacksons remind me a little bit of that, which is indeed a Very Good Thing. They don’t really sound like the El Paso band, but they flail and wail like them a little bit. Delusions about acts like these becoming the biggest band in the world are gone now, of course, which is why it was a little weird seeing them last night at a place as wide open as Fort Reno.

Let’s be clear: Black & White Jacksons is a band for clubs. This speaks not to their appeal, realized or otherwise, but to their aesthetic—they make sweaty post-punk that finds its natural habitat in dank buildings with low ceilings, barely there stages, and bright lights. Fort Reno, for those who haven’t been there, is essentially a giant field, with a stage in the center. A few years ago, Q and Not U packed in enough bodies to sort of make it seem like a tiny club, but the crowd last night wasn’t quite at that level. So, playing to the picnicking crowd at about dusk, the band had their work cut out for them. They delivered in an intriguing way, perhaps moved by a certain reverence. “In the punk rock circles I traveled in, Fort Reno was looked at by us as something akin to Woodstock—only more community driven, sustainable, and inclusive,” says bassist Lucas Oswalt.

The four-piece is tight and loud—think a Dischord-bred Bloc Party—and while I’d imagine their stuff comes across gloriously claustrophobic in a crowded room, it mutated a little bit last night as it had more room to move. The band opened up with “There Are No Foxholes In An Atheist,” the first track from their EP, and never really slowed down, just allowing the last song to linger in the vast space before chugging in to the next one. Whereas this modus operandi might make songs seem to be falling all over themselves and into each other at, say, Asylum (where they’ll be playing August 29), in the open air each track sort of reverberated individually. Most of their set came from their EP, with “Don’t Bring A Knife To A Gunfight” hitting especially hard (complete with tambourines) and “Id Vs. Superego” providing a respite from the shouting as Michael Medlock switched from his usual scream-singing to singing-singing. The band also played a new song called “Marvin Berry.” The “Johnny B. Goode”- sounding riff at the beginning of the song fueled suspicion that the title was a reference to this, and Oswalt confirmed it, saying “Tim [George], our guitar player, had this fantastic riff that he would play on occasion at practice, and to us it sounded very akin to something Chuck Berry would play. Tim has an encyclopedic knowledge of music and is quick to acknowledge ‘the greats,’ if you get my meaning. We just kept referring to that riff and the developing song as ‘The Chuck Berry Song.’ So yeah, the title is a reference to Michael J. Fox’s performance in ‘Back to the Future.’ It’s probably my favorite song we perform right now.”

Medlock shimmied the whole night through (and his neon bracelets finally shone once the sun went down), and he got the kids at the show to do the same (there were twelve people on stage dancing at the end, by this count). This, incidentally, is probably the most fascinating part of the whole event: the sheer number of high school and college aged kids who showed up to the Tenleytown venue. Sure, there were some parents and toddlers and more than a few dogs, but the vast majority of the audience was comprised of kids who looked like they were glad to actually be able to see a show.

“It was great having younger people in the audience really getting into it,” Oswalt says. “We’re used to playing smaller places with less people, which obviously creates a different experience because it’s nighttime, and you’re usually playing to a pretty non-diverse demographic. Seeing dogs and little kids running around while hammering away on my bass under moonlight was both unusual and refreshing.”

There’s a lot of live music in the District, but a lot of it isn’t all-ages, and one gets the sense that this dearth is what drives a lot of Fort Reno’s traffic (that and, you know, that it’s free and it’s nice out during the summer). God bless the volunteers who run it. In any event, that’s an issue for another day, because no matter what the reason, the clubs of DC were brought outside Monday night, to satisfying effect.

Saturday:

A musician with equal affection for string sections and the Stooges, Alejandro Escovedo is the songwriter No Depression magazine would’ve had to invent if he didn’t already exist. Escovedo has his punk-rock bona fides—his first band, the Nuns, opened the Sex Pistols’ final show—and throughout his career he’s found a way to lash that emotional energy even to his acoustic songs, which tend to deal in hard living and bad love. (It’s not to dismiss his own songwriting to say that his leering, loping cover of the Gun Club’s “Sex Beat” is among his finest moments.) Since surviving a near-fatal bout with hepatitis C earlier this decade, his music’s been less moody and more reflective—his lyrics on the new Real Animal revisit his days with the Nuns and Rank & File, and if anybody has the right to play a blues song called “People (We’re Only Gonna Live So Long),” it’s him. Escovedo performs with Vandaveer at 7 p.m. at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $20. (202) 265-0930. —Mark Athitakis

Sunday:

Los Angeles-based guitarist and singer Imaad Wasif has been in halfway-decent bands his whole life. He played in the indie-rock group Alaska!, jammed with Lou Barlow in the New Folk Implosion, and even toured with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. So why is he so sad? On his second solo record, Strange Hexes, Wasif wades through some morose territory—setting lyrics that ponder love and madness to serpentine psych-rock and ornate Eastern-inflected finger-picking. “When you feel yourself caving in/Don’t move towards the beckoning hands,” sings a forlorn Wasif with all the weariness of an emo kid trapped forever in an inescapable Gothic labyrinth. Lyrics like those don’t go very far toward explaining Wasif’s pain, but they do capture a certain dark romance—one that’s entertaining even when it’s a little bit overwrought. Wasif With Two Part Beast performs with Jason Simon and the Dustys at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, July 13, at the Velvet Lounge, 915 U St. NW. $8. (202) 462-3213. —Aaron Leitko

John Mayer, I love you. You kill me whenever you make one of your side-splitting Internet videos, like “Makin’ Music With John Mayer,” where you explain your creative process. Favorite moment: when you tell your co-writers “How about something everyone can relate to, like when you’re fucking one supermodel and you make the other ones jealous?” Or your parody of “Two Girls One Cup” in which you ruined soft-serve ice cream for my entire summer? Or your blog, for cryin’ out loud, which is sincere and touching in a way your music, which frequently makes me want to duct-tape oranges over my ears, is not. But then again, “Daughters” is a pretty good song, and I’ve seen you shred, and you are impressively tall. Is there any way we could be friends? Just, uh, don’t sweat bringing your guitar over, OK? Mayer performs at 7:30 p.m. at Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. $36-$59.50. (410) 715-5550. —Andrew Beaujon

Milk Machine, the subject of this week’s One Track Mind column, has just announced that they’re headlining the Rock and Roll Hotel on August 6. Also on the bill is Sean McArdle, who performed for Black Plastic Bag as part of our short-lived “Live From Our Pretty Much Empty Second-Floor Production Room” series in February.

MP3: Milk Machine, “Whiskey Flows Downhill”

“Do you think it’ll sell out?”

“Yeah man… Boris is huge!”

So went the commentary in line to get into the Black Cat on Tuesday for an evening of eardrum punishment courtesy of Boris, Torche and Clouds. The show didn’t sell out, but it sure felt like a completely packed house up front, where in front of me the view looked like the above and behind me (and, er, occasionally on top of me) raged a mosh pit the likes of which I’ve rarely seen at the Black Cat.

To be succinct: Torche had me dodging vigorous fist-pumps and jabbing elbows, as they put on a set of catchy, melodic metal (with a fair bit of howling, noisy feedback thrown in just for fun) that was even more energetic than the one they delivered at Rock & Roll Hotel a couple months ago opening for The Sword. Then Boris—whose set consisted of the entirety of their latest album, Smile, plus a couple other songs including “Pink”—brought the calm, taking the stage obscured in clouds of fog hissing out of the drum riser. In keeping with the more accessible nature of Smile, a lot of this set was tuneful and moderated, but this is still Boris we’re talking about here, and before long Wata, Boris’ deceptively petite and placid-looking guitarist, was unleashing feedback-drenched walls of sound and the mosh pit was back on in full force.

The set ended with a 20-minute psychedelic journey that proved that, even if the show wasn’t sold out, Boris is indeed huge.

More photos here.

Andrew Luse’s “Classics on the Rocks” concert series seeks to lure younger audiences with that magical summer combination of free + outdoors + pulled pork BBQ. This Wednesday’s performance by the Strathmore Artist-in-Residence Chamber Music Collective will begin with Antonín Dvorák’s Second Piano Quintet, for which the Czech composer simply rewrote his lousy first piano quintet with some Bohemian folk flourishes. (This tradition clearly inspired L.A.’s Youth Brigade to rewrite their entire first album, Sound and Fury, with a punk version of the “Duke of Earl” song.) Like Dvorák, Béla Bartók took inspiration from his country’s folksongs; however Bartók’s Hungarian peasants must have been dadaists or Five Percenters to have inspired his Fourth String Quartet, which veers wildly between major and minor keys and is structured on Fibonacci’s sequence. The evening concludes with Argentine composer Ástor Piazzolla, whose Historie du Tango whisks the audience away to the charming turn-of-the-century whorehouses of Buenos Aires. The performance begins at 7 p.m. at Strathmore Hall’s Gudelsky Pavilion, 10701 Rockville Pike, Bethesda. Free. (301) 581-5100. —Mike Paarlberg

Abe Vigoda is a quartet. There are many angles from which to approach/sell this band. They are from L.A. which is now, suddenly, cool (again). They have apprenticed at various all-ages clubs including The Smell. The Smell got written up in the New Yorker. The band’s new album, Skeleton, is being put out by one of the guys in No Age. Heard of them? People–and maybe the band members themselves–have a habit of describing their songs as “tropical” or “tropical punk.” More than enough. Except the band happens to actually be really, really good.

So yeah, Abe Vigoda have some wind at their sails. The band arrives tonight for a show with No Age and High Places. There are plenty of reasons you should attend.

What you should really know about Abe Vigoda–aside from their joke name–is that 1) Skeleton might be one of the few genuinely gorgeous guitar records you’ll hear all year; 2) The four men who make up Abe Vigoda are having a good time. Things are still all Wow. Even a lunch detour to T.G.I. Friday’s.

Just after that the band’s pitstop at that family-feedbag joint, we caught up with AV guitarist Juan Velasquez for a quick interview:

So how was T.G.I. Friday’s?

“It was really good. I had this Strawberry Fields salad. Everything’s vaguely themed. It was pretty. It had chicken in it.”

“We got up. We played in Charlotte at the Milestone. We woke up pretty late and [went to] Friday’s. That’s the one that seemed the most appetizing. Our drummer got this burger with cheese on it and then there was this fried cheese patty on top of it and he’s sick about it now.”

The band has been on tour for just over a week. I asked how the tour was going. The usual question.

“It’s been pretty awesome. We’ve played some pretty fun shows with No Age.”

What’s some good advice on touring?

“The first [tour]….We were actually touring in a 4Runner….It was actually six of us in a five-seater. It was like that at first. Personal space. That might be it. That’s a good thing to have. And sleeping a lot. That helps. Everyone’s cranky if we don’t sleep.”

How do you think Skeleton turned out?

“I like it. It sounds good I think. It’s more polished than anything else we recorded, vocals are louder. It’s my favorite thing we’ve done I think….We had more of an idea of what we wanted to sound like. And we’ve been playing together for a while. We wanted it to sound pretty and dreamy sounding but still fast and crazy. It’s cleaned and defined. It made sense to have it be that way.”

What the hell is tropical punk?

“I don’t know. I guess it’s just like all the drumming stuff—the rhythms are like that and the guitar tones like afro-pop stuff, that type of guitar sound. That’s what people say. It’s there, I guess. We were writing stuff that’s a little different than that. I can hear it. It’s not a main point.”

What Afropop do you dig?

“There’s this band Hallelujah Chicken Run Band—that guitar tone. They’re kind of a rock band. That guitar tone is really cool. I know Michael—he likes Konono and the Congotronics stuff. Things like that.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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

I recently had the opportunity to catch a sneak-preview rehearsal of Godisheus, a new band on the D.C. scene. Formed by veteran D.C. hip-hop artist Head-Roc and the MVP Band, an all-star lineup of some of the heaviest hitters on the go-go scene— Dwane ‘Kiggo’ Wellman on drums (Chuck Brown, 3LG), Dwayne ‘Super Bad III’ Lee on guitar (Suttle Thoughts, Familiar Faces, 3LG), and Keith “Blizzard the Bass Lizard” Snowden (Backyard Band)—Godisheus is working hard to define a new live sound rooted in the funk.

Head-Roc, who has taken on the stage name O.M.V. for this project, is no stranger to working with a live band. During the mid ’90s, he, Kiggo, and Superbadd III were part of Three Levels of Genius (3LG), a live hip-hop band that proved influential in the region. O.M.V. is is quick to point out that Godisheus is not a hip-hop band but rather “the return of funk music for the people.”

As we all know, funk beget go-go and hip-hop in ways dear to the District. Don’t get it twisted: Godisheus is no cover band doing their best Parliament rendition, they are that raw D.C. funk sound with a message of empowerment for the people delivered by one of D.C.’s mic champions.

Over tight arrangements that are equal parts funk, rock and soul, O.M.V. brings the lyrical heat, speaking truth to power with every line, something that has earned him the respect of hip-hop kids, punk rockers, indie rockers, the anti-war movement, and progressive audiences all over. Powered by Kiggo’s impeccable drumming (he is the third generation of his family to have worked for Chuck Brown) Super Bad III’s six-string magic and the low end work of Blizzard the Bass Lizard, the Godisheus International Funk Train (The GIFT) will be stopping in Silver Spring this Saturday for the Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair. Their performance starts at 2 p.m.

Before the picks, a video courtesy of the wayback machine and, uh, John Mayer’s blog, featuring Ray Charles and a particularly swangin’ Billy Preston.

Ongoing:

• Summer Concerts at Farragut Square—with its weekly cross-section of local rock—continues tonight and the following Thursday.
• Friday Night Live! Summer Concert Series in Herndon, VA.
• Check out the Silver Spring Summer Concert Series.

Tonight: The Console War at the Red and the Black; Dean Fields at Iota; Luke Brindley Band at Jammin’ Java; Salif Keita at the GWU Lisner Auditorium;

Saturday: Columbia Pike Blues Festival in Arlington; Frog Holler & Sarah Borges at Iota; War at Carter Barron Amphitheatre; New Day Rising at Kilroy’s; The Method, The Bourbon Dynasty, Airport Boulevard, Buck Forty Nine at the Red and the Black.

Sunday: Emmylou Harris at Wolf Trap; Cloak/Dagger, Transistor Transistor, New Idea Society at the Black Cat.

And for the final video this week: Emmylou’s performance in The Last Waltz.

P.S. Curm: I left you a couple strategic openings. Have at it!

I am taking notes, as I’m reviewing the show for the Post. The definitely not thirsty lady next to me starts jostling me during the last song, “Man on the Moon,” and at one point tries to grab my hand and force me to finger-dance alongside her during the “yeah yeah yeah yeah” parts. Politely indicate that I’m working.

She then escalates the bumping-into-me campaign and, during the feedbacky end of the song, shouts, “I HOPE YOU’RE WRITING THIS DOWN BECAUSE THEY’RE FUCKING AWESOME.” I am, in fact, writing down observations about the show. “MY FRIEND WANTS TO TELL YOU SOMETHING,” she shouts. She shoves her friend in front of me and repeats that her friend wants to tell me something. “Yes?” I ask.

“WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!” shouts her friend.

“HE DOESN’T CARE!” the first woman shouts. “HE WORKS FOR A NEWSPAPER!”

Photo from last night’s show by S1acker