Just got news–probably old news to some of you–that indie blog darling St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) is coming to D.C. in February. She will be playing at the Rock and Roll Hotel on February 26. You can check out her awesome solo turn on the Black Cab sessions. But a stripped down St. Vincent is hardly the point is it?

So here–you can listen to the full St. Vincent treatment on “Now, Now.”

Being unemployed and all, I’ve had a lot of time to sit around and think about the past. Ya’ know, the good old days of 2002, when I was but a rosy-cheeked college twerp and dance-punk still ruled the minds and hearts of music-loving tweens accross D.C.

Most recently I’ve been thinking about Measles Mumps Rubella. More than a few of my peers wrote off this post-punk quartet as “art-fag,” chastising them as a weaker version of Black Eyes and latecomers to the extra-percussion fad. But in their first incarnation MMR were pretty good. Vocalist Brett Lyman spouted unintelligible static through his heavilly delayed microphone and the rest of the group kicked up a pretty ambitious bit of noise before they ditched Lyman, set sail for Brooklyn, and eventually disbanded.

If you missed them, don’t be too hard on yourself. It was hard to hear any of their music–mainly because they were so f’ing self-conscious about selling it. I remember having to haggle with the guitarist to buy a copy of their demo and having to pull teeth again to get the “Fountain of Youth” single AT THE RECORD RELEASE SHOW.

This trend continues–though not at MMR’s behest. Last week I stumbled onto their MySpace page and found–much to my surprise–that the band has been attempting to posthumously upload their entire back catalog–including the Fantastic Success LP, “Zusammen Mit Motown” 7-inch, and “Fountain of Youth” 12-inch–onto iTunes along with the unreleased last gasp “Dynamic Disaster.” For one reason or another Fantastic Success is all that’s up there. However, the band has kindly posted a bunch of these tracks up on their MySpace page for people to listen to until the whole iDebacle is resolved.

Pour a little out for 2002 and have listen.

Here’s a live video filmed at the Warehouse Next Door:

Vandaveer drops three holiday tunes. All takes on classics. You can listen to them here.

Pitchfork has a song off the upcoming Beach House album, due in February on local indie Carpark. You can listen to “Gila” here.

The 2001 compilation Dublab Presents: Freeways is a curious time capsule: With its pre-9/11 sweetness, lingering dot-com optimism and ProTools-y introspection, the music predated the iPod by a few months but easily matched the friendly/techy vibe of Apple’s little white boxes. I can’t hear these tracks without thinking about harvesting MP3s from proto-blogs that prompted pure discovery, not necessarily mass file-sharing or conspicuous song-leakage.

But enough yucky nostalgia: The point here is that the era’s gentle electronica (call it dub, ambient, whatever) can definitely sound quite thin in retrospect, but the Dublab folks proved to have superior tastes, and they treated Freeways like a statement of purpose: Dntel is on there, as well as Madlib (as Yesterday’s New Quintet), Daedelus, John Tejada, and others.

The LA label/collective is now making the album available for the first time iTunes. Some freebies:

Downloads:
Languis & Fer Chloca “The Sky Below” (MP3)
Ammoncontact “Chord (Parts 1-2)” (MP3)

I admit it–the Internet has almost destroyed my love for the record store. I go. I pad around. I thumb through the vinyl section. I wonder why that Soul Jazz compilation is so expensive. And then I usually walk out empty-handed. But the stores in Baltimore always seem to blow me away. Even with the great mail-order friendly sites like Dusty Groove and Other Music, I can still find surprises among the racks in B-more.

One of the best places is True Vine. It’s a small, creaky shop crammed with a solid selection of used vinyl (i.e. no Come Dancing or Wes Montgomery best-ofs), out-there Kraut drones, and cheap prices on the new releases. Now the store can add one of its own cool records to its racks.

Ian Nagoski, co-owner of True Vine, has just released The Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Music 1918-ca. 1955 on Dust-to-Digital. Taking inspiration from great compilers like Harry Smith, Nagoski found 24 tracks from–according to the label–”Bali, Burma, Cameroon, China, England, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Java, Laos, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia.”

“This is the sound world that I have occupied,” Nagoski told the Baltimore City Paper. I didn’t make these myself, but this is my life, this is a manifestation of this behavior that causes these problems in my life and creates all this joy in my life, too.”

The compilation is filled with old-timey spun far from the usual blues, gospel, country sounds. I refuse to use the words “other worldly” or “exotic” to describe this record. It just all feels like a labor of love by an obsessive willing to share. Just listen.

You can check out four tracks from the set here.

Maybe y’all know The Apes: The drums are vaguely Bonzo-ish; the keyboards are of the “agitated pipe organ” variety; and the bass is all baritone-y, in the same way that GVSB and the Jesus Lizard did it (except GVSB needed two bassists to get there, and the Jesus Lizard was more about “spectacle” than “bass,” anyway).

But back to The Apes: The D.C. band has signed to a D.C. label (Gypsy Eyes), it has a new singer (Breck Brunson), and it’s due to release its fourth album, Ghost Games, on Feb. 19. For now, we got a mad-funky MP3 and a snowy-happy video:

Download: “Beat of the Double” (mp3)

Watch: “Dr. Watcher”

If you hung around any die-hard hip-hop stoners in the mid-’90s, then you probably heard a good chunk of the Duck Down Records catalog. Those MCs — including Heltah Skeltah, Black Moon, Boot Camp Clik, etc. — proved to have longer shelf-lives than many of their hazy-headed contemporaries.

And now, according to a news release, they’re suckling at the Disney Co. teat: Some of ‘em have recorded songs that ESPN will use during its broadcasts of men’s college basketball this year. The list includes:

Buckshot of Black Moon, “All Business” (produced by Tai Dealz)
Tek of Smif N Wessun, “Get in the Game” (produced by KB)
Heltah Skeltah featuring Buckshot, “Getcha Team” (produced by Optiks)
Smif N Wessun, “Push It” (produced by Sic Beats)

(Insert your own hardass Dick Vitale rhyme here.)

Download: “Getcha Team” by Heltah Skeltah featuring Buckshot (MP3 via YouSendIt)

It’s been a prolific year for D.C. studio whiz Trevor Kampmann, who records indie ditties under the moniker hollAnd. In February he released The Paris Hilton Mujahideen on TeenBeat Records; the label also will be putting out Love Fluxus on Oct. 23. Kampmann dropped a little preview on us: the track “Anorexic Colt Herd.” It’s durrty and schweet and complicated, and robots can hump to it.

Download: “Anorexic Colt Herd” (mp3)

About ten days ago, my right ear just went bust. It either will never work right again or is just filled with snot. My doctor thinks it’s just filled with snot. He gave me a prescription for an antibiotic (two pills each day to be taken with food) and the Nasonex nose spray (two sprays in each nostril every morning). I have since taken all the pills and have squirted the Nasonex for a week solid.

And still–I get nothing from my right ear.

I tried to listen to this over the weekend. It was like listening through a paper bag. A wet paper bag filled with snot.

I have since given up listening to anything but NPR. Does anybody have any remedies that may save my right ear? I can’t take NPR much longer.