Justin Jones, the subject of this One Track Mind feature from October, is the father of the first baby born in the District in 2008, according to this Post article.

The other night, Lissy Rosemont of Junior League, the subject of this week’s One Track Mind, came over, chain-smoked on my window sill, and explained how her solar-panel-powered house led to songwriting advice from Death Cab for Cutie. (However, she’d only do an interview if I agreed to name her many band-mates: Dale Manning, Devin McGaughey, Rob Blunt, Martin Thomas, Alex Platt, Elias Cohn, and Kailin Yong.)

Read on for more from the cutting-room floor.

When “Pennies” starts out, it has a nice, deep clarinet-ey sound. Is that just you singing?
Yeah, that’s me humming. Well originally we had done the hums to help the fiddle player know the rhythm. It’s so slow, we didn’t want to use a click track. Rob [Byers], the audio engineer…suggested that we go ahead and keep the hums.

Who played the accordion?
Kailin…He has just been so supportive, helping me become ready to write. That was a really hard time for me, after Rosemont [Family Reunion] broke up, where I didn’t know if I was a songwriter or how to write songs…He was very affirming, and I was able to catch up with his own belief in me.

Where did you come up with that melody?
I just heard it in my head. It was sort of a series of events: The last band broke up, and then I had a really fun time with Death Cab for Cutie. They were in town at Constitution Hall, and my housemate knows their manager. And so they were at the house–I live in this solar panel green house thing. Mike who owns the house wrote an op-ed for the Post. It’s one of the first green houses and we don’t get any electricity from Pepco or anything. And Andy, his best buddy from home, is one of the managers of Death Cab. So they were in town and they wanted to tour the house. So…I started to pick Chris Walla’s brain, the guitar player, about songwriting.

What did you get out of talking with him?
I knew how I needed to write songs. I wanted to try to be the ability to be abstract–tell a story like a country song, but also keep it loose enough so people can bring their own interpretations. I also knew I didn’t want to write a space-jam-band out-there kind of thing, where you have to be in Phish to understand what it means…I had a big old folder of my favorite words. And then I take a melody I hear in my head. It is sort of like catching them. I was in Barcelona, my sister and my grandmother and my godmother, we all were traveling and touring cathedrals and I had just started to hear the beginning of Pennies and I had brought my microphone and my Mac to record what I heard.

To hear you came up with that tune in while you were touring cathedrals is interesting because the drone in the background has a monk-like quality for me. Was that in your head from the beginning?

I knew I wanted it to be really, really slow. It is, probably, the only love song on the record that is just a straightforward love song; that is not demented in some capacity. It is the love song on the record so I wanted a simple melody…I wasn’t thinking about monks and monasteries as much as just that sort of meditative serious place of true affection. I wanted the music the match.

It’s not a happy song though; it’s got a mournful sort of sound to it. Where does that come from?

Probably from failed love….Perhaps if I was in love at the moment, it would be, um…

A polka?

Exactly. But I kind of like that it is–I don’t think as much mournful as tense, you know, and probably expecting the complications that come with the feelings of love. It is not always happy. That felt very right. It’s a love song; it felt right to keep it extremely sad.

Don’t drink but don’t want to feel like a one-person temperance society? Bob Mould has a few tips in this week’s column. Keep those questions coming.

Chingo Bling’s situation is “stickier than molten queso fundido,” writes David Dunlap Jr. in his review of the Houston MC’s major-label debut, They Can’t Deport Us All. Chingo Bling has a solid rep in H-Town’s hip-hop scene, working with Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, and others, but Hispanicized rap parodies and critiques of immigration policies might not make for a rap star. Read Dunlap’s review here.

Aaron Leitko wasn’t a fan of Travis Morrison’s previous solo album, 2004’s Travistan, and he wasn’t alone; Pitchfork famously dismissed it with a 0.0 rating. But Leitko says the former Dismemberment Plan frontman is in much better form on his new album, All Y’All, recorded with his new band, the Hellfighters. Read the review here and listen to a stream of the album here.

If you’re a regular reader of Cheap Seats and City Desk, you might remember the Points as the house band at the now-defunct Shaw skate park, Fight Club. The band plays the Rock and Roll Hotel’s first anniversary blowout on Saturday, and in One Track Mind Justin Moyer talks with drummer Travis Jackson about the Points song “Rock n Roll No Rules,” which you can listen to here.

(Speaking of the Rock and Roll Hotel, in the spring the club’s owner, Joe Englert, gave a few local third-graders a tour of the place, as well as a few other joints in the rapidly gentrifying club district. Read about it in this week’s Show & Tell.)

Plus our picks for the week: Michael J. West on “breakbeat jazz” maestro Mocean Worker, Friday at the 9:30 Club; Jason Cherkis on atmospheric Baltimore duo Beach House, Sunday at the Rock and Roll Hotel; Maggie Serota on Sonic Boom’s post-Spacemen 3 project, Spectrum, Sunday at the Black Cat; Matthew Borlik on Chicago give-the-drummer-some-more trio Mass Shivers, Wednesday at the Velvet Lounge; and Cherkis on Philly noise-rockers Clockcleaner, Thursday at the Black Cat.

In the District Line, Jason Cherkis checks in with DJ Roland Tolbert, a regular fixture on the decks on O Street SW this summer. “Tolbert has been spinning on the block for five years,” Cherkis writes. It’s no easy task in a neighborhood where the competition for air time is fierce.”

Why do you have to move for work? Just find a WiFi hookup and a decent coffee joint, home-school the kids, and you’re all set. That’s Bob Mould in this week’s Ask Bob. Got a question for a D.C. resident who’s led at least two classic bands? It’s as simple as clicking here.

UGK’s Underground Kingz is “that rarest of hip-hop feats: A double disc that never becomes a chore to hear,” writes Joe Warminsky. Read the review and check out the video for the first single, “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You).”

In One Track Mind, Aaron Leitko gets the Mantras to explain the provenance of their very Creation song “Demonator,” which you can download free here. The Mantras play the Black Cat on Monday, Aug. 20.

Plus our picks: Leitko on New York’s “out-rock-drone-dub” outfit Religious Knives, Friday at the Velvet Lounge; Maggie Serota on Tortoise-y Richmond outfit Ilad, Friday at the Red and Black; and Cherkis on Glorytellers, led by ex-Karate and Secret Stars member Geoff Farina, Sunday at the Black Cat.

Bob Mould, like most sensible people, has serious issues with James Blunt and Live Earth. This week, Bob weighs in on the folly of rock stars broadcasting their feelings about global warming in song. Got a question for Bob about life in D.C., music, culture, or anything else that springs to mind? Send it here.

“You ever have to beat the shit out of a bunch of dudes in lockup so you wouldn’t get raped?” That was John Stabb’s attempt to defuse the fight he got caught up in on the way home from work on July 17. The former Government Issue frontman sustainted three facial fractures, two broken bones, and a broken nose. Jessica Gould has the story on Stabb, who’ll be the recipient of a benefit show tomorrow night at the Velvet Lounge. Gould also has the story on the Warehouse’s potential new digs, and the latest on beleaguered club H2O.

In One Track Mind, Justin Moyer talks with ukulele rapper Jon Braman about his song “The Weather,” the futility of rallies, and the pleasures of playing a very portable instrument. Braman plays Wednesday, Aug. 15, at 14U Cafe.

Plus our picks: Maggie Serota on British pop-rock sensation the Cribs, Friday at the Black Cat; Dave Nuttycombe on Jette-Ives’ Jette Kelly, leading a six-piece band Friday at the Rock and Roll Hotel; Zoe Pollock on Austin jam band Mingo Fishtrap, Sunday at the Kennedy Center; Serota on Vancouver “psychedelic circus” band They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Tuesday at the Black Cat; and me on Clay Eals, who’ll discuss his book on “City of New Orleans” songwriter Steve Goodman Wednesday at Politics and Prose. (He’ll be joined by Alexandria singer-songwriter Tom Paxton.)

This week in Ask Bob: Bob Mould on the SST years, whether there’s a book in his future, and what DIY means now that it didn’t back the mid-’80s.

In reviews, Aaron Leitko discusses Magnolia Electric Co.’s sprawling four-CD box set, Sojourner, which can be relentlessly bleak but strangely compelling. “[Frontman Jason] Molina has never been shy about saying exactly how he feels,” Leitko writes. Even if how he feels is often bombed-out and shitty.” (You can hear excerpts from the album here.)

In One Track Mind, Joe Warminsky talks with producer Shaun Sharkey about his collaboration with MC C-Rayz Walz, their new album, Monster Maker, and the kid he “wanted to smack the shit out of.”

This week’s picks: Maggie Serota on Scottish party-pop trio the 1900s, who play at the Rock and Roll Hotel on Friday; Jeffry Cudlin on longtime Bay Area sound collagists Negativland, who address monotheism Sunday at the Warehouse; Justin Moyer on Tokyo Police Club, playing “sugary-sweet pop” Tuesday at the Rock and Roll Hotel; and Amanda Hess on Rupert “The Pina Colada Song” Holmes‘ comedy series Remember WENN, screening Wednesday at the Pickford Theater.

What we learned this week at Black Plastic Bag:

1. Deerhunter’s singer is all like, “eat my dick.”
2. Hook up John Stabb with love and/or money.
3. There is music for that raging case of swamp crotch.
4. Faraquet has a Brazilian (tour).
5. Eddie Money goes with lots of things.
6. You may have been conceived to the sounds of George Parker.
7. Pelican digs the Deftones.
8. “Blelvis by Wonderland” has a nice ring to it.

• Have a question for Bob Mould? Of course you do. This week Bob discusses steroids, and next he’ll discuss…well, that’s up to you. And hey, if Bob selects your question, we’ll send you something from the pile of uniformly excellent, rootkit-free CDs delivered to us by America’s finest music-label conglomerates. We promise it’ll be something better than Collie Buddz.
• In Artifacts, area Advancement Theory advocate Andrew Beaujon visits with the folks behind d.c space’s 30-year anniversary show, which takes place Sunday at the 9:30 Club.
• In reviews, Michael J. West explores the kinda-fusion-but-kinda-not collaboration between San Francisco psych-rock outfit Mushroom and jazz trumpeter Eddie Gale; and Emily Zemler catches up with Tegan and Sara’s fifth full-length album, The Con.
• In One Track Mind, Sadie Dingfelder gets the Dance Party (who play the Black Cat tomorrow night) to talk about their song “Lipstick” and why they don’t dare try vocal harmonies onstage. (For more from the Dance Party, see the interview outtakes.)
• Plus our picks: David Dunlap Jr. on Arkansas metal group Rwake, who’ll play “riffs as thick as milk gravy” Friday at the Velvet Lounge; Aaron Leitko on Earth, whose songs resemble “Slint covering Ennio Morricone” (Saturday at the Black Cat); and Maggie Serota on You Am I, who’ll bring their “raw, unapologetic garage rock” to the Black Cat next Thursday.

Can you compose catchy keyboard riffs and sing backup? Would you describe yourself as “catted-out?” Then you might be just what The Dance Party is looking for. Details on that and more from my recent One Track Mind interview with lead singer Mick Coogan follow.

You sing about a “zombie rock mistress with jet black lipstick.” Do you know anyone like that?

Chicks in D.C. that are totally catted-up–the name that our band gives girls like that are Renegades. That is lingo for us: Just like a girl you meet at a party that is not the average Arcade Fire fan.

All three of you sing, but you’re the lead singer?

Actually, all those vocals are mine…All the harmonies–yeah–I do all the harmonies. I did all the vocals for the whole album. Nobody else sings in the band. We used to do that but none of the other guys sing live now.

How come?

They’re not really great singers. We had this performance on the radio at the University of Maryland and it was awful. After we heard that on tape, we were like: OK, we all don’t need to sing. We are trying to work people into it now, get someone to sing harmonies.

So when was this University of Maryland show where you decided everybody shouldn’t be singing anymore?

It was maybe like two years ago, and we had just we played a big show at this bar in College Park, and then the morning after we went and did this radio show and we were really hung over. We lost half of our gear the night before; we just didn’t have it together. We were singing and they recorded us for the radio, and it was like, Danny [Hoag] and Kevin [Bayly] were trying to do harmonies and it really wasn’t working out too well. After that show we realized we weren’t ready to sing yet. Plus Kevin is such a badass guitarist he should be rocking out, he doesn’t need to sing.

Who plays keyboard live?

We don’t have a keyboardist. We need a girl who can play keyboards because our shows are, it’s like watching a football game. There are too many dudes up there being masculine, or something. We want a girl keyboardist so that she can sing the high harmonies.

In ["Lipstick"] you sort of disparage new wave and indie. But that seems like your core audience to me.

We’ve been on the scene in D.C. and played all those clubs and stuff for a couple years now but we are not really part of it. You know, we’re from P.G. County and we don’t claim we’re from Mt. Pleasant…Honestly the record isn’t really for indie people–people who are into Pitchfork or anything like that. It’s for everybody, it’s for driving to the beach. This is not going to give us any indie cred, this record. It’s poppy, it’s catchy.

So, you’re The Dance Party. And you’re always telling people to dance, in this song. But D.C. audiences are famously inert. Have you found that to be true?

Oh, absolutely. I was at this show last night at Black Cat, The Detroit Cobras, with this great female front-woman playing this soul–’50s, Chuck Berry rock. It was so great, but people were doing the whole shoegaze thing. At our shows–those people don’t come to our shows. It’s usually kids and our friends and they are wasted…They have no pretensions; they just come and rock out.

Bob Mould, who answers your questions weekly on everything from MMA to DRM, addresses Guns N’ Roses’ much-delayed, oft-leaked album Chinese Democracy. (Don’t have a question? You can still drop him a line and wish him well as he rests up from a broken ankle.)

Joe Warminsky talks to Le Loup about its recent signing to Sub Pop’s Hardly Art imprint and the band’s new efforts to hit the road.

Sarah Godfrey reviews T.I.’s schizophrenic new album, T.I. Vs T.I.P. and why it’s “the musical equivalent of a McD.L.T.”

In One Track Mind, Justin Moyer talks to Zulu Pearls’ Zach Van Hoozer the song “Wasted,” Germany, and being conflicted about alcohol.

Our picks this week: Mirah Saturday at the Black Cat, Aphrodizia tonight at Project 4 Gallery, Marnie Stern Tuesday at the Rock and Roll Hotel.