It was just announced last night. Thievery Corporation is playing three straight nights at the 9:30 Club in late January.

Here’s the press release:

On their first album in three years, Radio Retaliation, D.C.’s own world-renowned electronic/dub duo Thievery Corporation have delved into heavy global political themes. Musically, the album takes their experimental electronic sound to new progressive heights, incorporating even more sounds from different cultures. Constantly refining their explosive, vibrant live shows, Thievery Corporation will spend three nights in D.C. this January, bringing the world to 9:30 Club’s stage.

Thievery will be playing the 9:30 Club on January 27, 28, and 29. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. Here’s a promo vid Thievery made recently:

“Disgusting” is not normally a word used to describe a concert, but Watain’s show at Jaxx on Halloween night was, well, disgusting. The Swedish black metal band turned the Jaxx stage into a kind of Satanic shrine, with imposing banners, candelabras on which rotting animal skulls were impaled on stakes, a mic stand decorated with dead rodents, and a pair of massive inverted crosses flanking the drum kit. This was not a place for the easily offended, or those with sensitive noses—as it turns out, rotting flesh smells bad. Very very bad.

Watain mostly played stuff from their 2007 release, Sworn to the Dark, which generated massive acclaim in metal circles as one of the best “troo” black metal albums in recent memory. To be honest, I was never really all that taken by this album, but when performed live and accompanied by all the visual blasphemy and the band’s unbelievable stench, the songs seemed to be multiplied tenfold in power. I’ve never seen a comparable show, where a band’s stage presence had such a direct impact on the potency of their music.

While Jaxx (and, presumably, public health laws) prevented Watain from unleashing a Gwar-like rain of blood on the audience, the four band members soaked themselves in the stuff before taking the stage. And unlike Gwar, Watain use the real thing—no colored water here, this is pig blood straight from the butcher shop we’re talking about. Did I mention they smelled bad? It all added up to a ridiculously intense front-row experience.

There are those that belittle black metal bands like Watain for putting image ahead of music. I don’t really care how much time and effort a band puts into their image, as long as the music doesn’t suffer; and Watain’s music didn’t suffer. In fact, music and image fed off of one another, and off of the fact that it was Halloween on a Friday night, and it all came together for a supremely creepy experience. And I’m happy to report that, three days later, I no longer smell like rotting meat.

Full photo set here.

It’s an iron-clad rule of concertgoing that there’ll always be one person who’ll reflexively cheer when their hometown is mentioned, regardless of the context. A few years back I was at a Randy Newman concert in San Francisco, and the songwriter was playing “Rednecks,” a brilliant retort to smug northerners who feel they have the moral high ground when it comes to racism. It closes with a laundry list of Northern ghettos where blacks are “put in a cage.”

“And he’s free to be put in a cage in Fillmore in San Francisco,” Newman sang.

“Whoo-hoo!” cried somebody in the audience.

Something similar went on last night at Billy Bragg’s show at the 9:30 Club. Bragg’s between-song chit-chat has a skeptical-liberal tenor to it—he’s eager to unite his base but quick to caution them about getting too optimistic. So while he mentioned the election plenty, he almost studiously avoided mentioning Barack Obama’s name for most of the night; it was a concert, not a rally, and the notoriously chatty Bragg did get around to playing a few songs. So the out-and-out cheering moments were surprisingly rare. But there was one weird cheering moment when Bragg noted that the times we’re living in may mark the end of American exceptionalism.

“Whoo-hoo!” cried the audience. Lots of applause.

I get it. Nobody at a Billy Bragg show wants to argue for unfettered American imperialism. But that’s not precisely what “American exceptionalism” means—it’s a slippery fish, actually—and even if you accept Bragg’s definition, it seems odd to enthusiastically celebrate the argument that America’s strengths have been rendered meaningless in the face of the collapse of global markets. But the moment showed how much times have changed for folkies. Time was, if you wanted an audience to celebrate its own sad state of affairs, you needed to be ironic about it:

No more, it seems.

Blog darlings Crystal Antlers and local post-punk band extraordinaire True Womanhood are at the Black Cat tonight; 9 p.m.; $8; all ages.

The UK’s legendary blue-collar anti-folk singer/song writer Billy Bragg will be at the 9:30 Club tonight with The Watson Twins; 7 p.m.; $35 all ages.

For an explosive math rock/post-rock/experimental showcase, head to DC9 to see former Hella guitarist Spencer Seim’s new band sBach (pictured) with Four Fins of the Rocket [Full disclosure: This is my band]; 8:30 p.m.; $10; 18+.

Last week, Amon Amarth wrapped up their 2008 United States tour at Jaxx. The Swedish band churns out, with remarkable consistency and in simple verse-chorus format, “catchy, groovy death metal with stupid lyrics about foightin’” (in the words of an acquaintance). The entire band concept revolves around Viking mythology, as evidenced in the ridiculous new video for the title track to their 2008 album, Twilight of the Thunder God.

At Jaxx, they played in front of a massive backdrop depicting Thor locked in mortal combat with a giant serpent, one hand grasping the creature by its tongue, the other wielding a hammer, drawn back and ready to strike. The imagery extends to Amon Amarth’s lyrics, which are filled with rape-and-pillage themes; yet onstage, the band cultivates a very different vibe: these are some fun-loving dudes.

Imposing frontman Johan Hegg boasts a throaty growl and scowls as he sings, but in between roaring lyrics about death and destruction he was quick to smile, clearly enjoying the sight of 500 diehard fans moshing away inside the tight confines of a sold-out Jaxx. Toasting the crowd on multiple occasions as he sipped beer from a Viking drinking horn, he was polite as could be in thanking the fans and the other bands for a successful tour.

And then he led the crowd in belting out the impossibly catchy chorus to “Pursuit of Vikings,” the band’s closing number:

Odin! Guide our ships
Our axes, spears and swords
Guide us through storms that whip
And into brutal war

More photos here (pic immediately above is of openers The Absence).

This week I wrote about Mingering Mike. Mike is a talented singer, songwriter, and artist. For nearly 40 years, he chose to write in secret. Between 1968 and 1977, he recorded songs and drew his own album covers inspired by those secret recording sessions. He actively avoided fame. In fact, he insists on using a fake name in public.

During Mike’s heyday, D.C.’s soul scene was huge. There were dozens of bands and clubs; it was way bigger than go-go and punk would become. I don’t know if Mingering Mike would have “made it” through traditional means–playing clubs, networking, sending demo tapes to New York, etc. But I wanted to find out what it was like for singers and musicians who didn’t record in their bathroom.

Chuck Brown was an obvious first call. Maybe too obvious. He’s been interviewed probably hundreds of times. But that didn’t stop him from telling me a great story.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filmfest DC’s “Arabian Sights” festival, which kicks off tonight with 33 Days, continues through the weekend at Goethe-Institut Washington and the E Street Cinema. Closing out the Sunday schedule is Slingshot Hip-Hop, a documentary about Palestinian rappers. Jackie Shalloum spends time with a host of MCs but mainly centers on DAM, a trio living and performing in the Israeli city of Lod. Their perspective on the genre is woefully out of date by American standards, which is partly a function of how hard it is to get access to the music. (One rapper describes being thrilled at finally getting hold of an Eminem cassette from Canada.) But it’s hard not to be drawn in by DAM’s connection of Tupac’s “Holla if Ya Hear Me” and the second Intafada, and the excitement of Shalloum’s film is in watching a scene build itself from the ground up. There are more than a few headaches involved on that front—power outages, absurdly long waits at checkpoints, sexism, and racism, for starters. The fellow-feeling between DAM and an upstart trio from Gaza, PR, is so strong and inspiring that you can easily ignore the pride with which one member sports his Troy Aikman jersey.

Shalloum, DAM, and female Palestinian MC Abeer will attend the screening on Sunday, Oct. 26, at 5 p.m. at E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW, followed by a performance by DAM at the Hard Rock Cafe, 999 E St. NW. Tickets are $15 for the film and concert, $10 for the concert only.

Check out The Rosebuds (pictured here and previewed in City Lights) and The Oranges Band tonight at Black Cat. 8 p.m.; $12; all ages.

Dexter Romweber Duo (former frontman of Flat Duo Jets) with Silver Spring-based One Track Mind subjects 7 Door Sedan at The Red & the Black.; 9:30 p.m.; $10; 21+.

Tonight at DC9: The Everyday Visuals ( alt-pop from Boston), The Public Good, Gary B & The Notions; 9 p.m.; $8; 21+.

Shame Club, Ambition Burning (Fairfax hardcore), and Par Coeur are playing at Velvet Lounge; 9 p.m.; $7; 21+.

Avon Walk for Breast Cancer benefit tonight at Asylum with performance by Maybe Tomorrow; 7 p.m.; 21+.

The Black Crowes are playing the next three nights at 9:30 Club; 7 p.m.; $45; all ages.

Of all the shows I’ve seen this year, I’d rank Broken Social Scene at the State Theatre in Falls Church as one of the least likely ones for crowdsurfing. But yet there he was, in the middle of one of BSS’s benign, lushly orchestrated indie-pop songs, bouncing around on a sea of hands and earning the mostly impotent ire of the venue security staff.

I found this rather disconcerting. Seriously? Crowdsurfing at a Broken Social Scene show? (Of course, this being my first BSS show despite hopping briefly on the You Forgot It In People bandwagon half a decade ago, it’s possible that I’m just being ignorant.)

In any case, audience antics aside—and the front row was more what I expected, with wide-eyed early-20-somethings both male and female singing along to every word—BSS delivered a very good set. Because the band’s members are involved in somewhere between 400 and 500 spinoff groups, solo projects and so on (exaggeration, but only slightly), they certainly have a diverse array of material to draw from in addition to the actual BSS records. The crowd did seem to reserve its most enthusiastic responses for many of the You Forgot It In People cuts, but one quirky highlight was Do Make Say Think’s Charles Spearin playing a tape of his neighbor speaking about happiness and love, and Leon Kingstone precisely emulating the pitches and cadence of her speech with his saxophone. (I seem to recall this sneaking in some form into one of the shows DMST played at the Black Cat last year.)

The show was standing-room-only (aside from the theater-style seating in the balcony), unusual for the State Theatre, and completely sold out. A few more photos here, including some of opener Land of Talk.