Athens, Greece is a city known for its great history and culture. Across the Atlantic in Athens, Georgia, emerges an American, indie brand of rock with a hint of psychedelia known as Futurebirds . The five-piece band is composed of Thomas Johnson, Carter King, Dennis Love, Brannen Miles, and Daniel Womack. Formed in 2008, Futurebirds gained a fan following and a record deal through their first, self-titled EP released the following year. The next couple of years saw a few more releases for the up-and-coming quartet, ultimately leading to the release of their full-length album, Baba [...]
Ah, New Jersey. How I loathe it. For giving us the likes of Bon Jovi (that's not a steel horse you're riding, amigo, it's the dildo of mediocrity); Patti Smith (poet-priestess my ass—try the bard of babble and blather); and Bruce Springsteen, who calls himself the Boss and as everybody knows all bosses are assholes, except mine of course. And let’s not forget my first ex-wife’s sphinx of a grandmother, who had the nauseating habit of sucking on her food then spitting the pulp into a napkin, and who never spoke a single word to me (and I'm talking years) [...]
Their live shows are referred to as "rituals." They wear masks and robes and remain anonymous. Nearly every song is a celebration of Satan. The mystery that is Ghost B.C. continues to grow every day. The Swedish metal band burst onto the scene in 2010 with their debut album, Opus Eponymous . Soon they were all the buzz, with people talking about the retro-metal sound, or about their image and keeping their identities hidden. 2013 saw the release of Infestissumam , with the band experimenting with different styles rather than sticking to the [...]
From nu metal to dubstep, there's really only one act that comes to mind when you say the band whose name is a misspelled fruit*: Korn . The rockers who helped defined pre-millennial guitar music are coming to The Fillmore Silver Spring on May 21st and we've got tickets to give away. How can you get your hands on 'em? It's as easy as saying "I totally had the Follow The Leader CD in my Discman in 1999." Other than being regulars [...]
This Sunday, May 19, Virus Recordings , 2Tuff and The Vinyl District present Inject the Virus. A celebration of the 15-year run of Virus Recordings, this eponymous event will feature drum and bass legends Ed Rush and Optical as well as artists of 2Tuff and local internet streaming station Expansion Broadcast . And this will all happen at U Street Music Hall . Virus Recordings, the UK-born drum and bass record label, has targeted “techstep” and “neurofunk” sub-cultures around the world. Started in 1998, the legendary label made way for the futuristic, albeit [...]
What do you get when you mix a benefit for D.C. Central Kitchen, a mixologist competition, food tastings from area restaurants and food trucks, and kickass bands to groove to while stuffing your face? It's the Sound Bites DC Central Kitchen's Festival of Local Music, Food, and Change of course. We've got a pair of tickets to give away courtesy of the 9:30 Club and yours truly. "Sound Bites is an outdoor street festival at the historic 9:30 Club that celebrates local food and music while raising funds to [...]
On Saturday, May 11, the 4th annual Sweetlife Festival was held at Merriweather Post Pavilion . Almost two-dozen acts and thousands of fans came out to praise the salad gods. On the Main Stage, Solange had more soul than a sneaker factory. Actress, model, singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur, she took the stage and proved that she does not stand in her sister's shadow. Sporting a funky 'fro, Solange played songs from her 2008 album Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams , her 2012 EP True , as well as covers by Selena [...]
Though it was commonplace to hear it around my house whenever I was a child and ranted too much about Pokemon, nowadays "hush" is a word with some squeaky clean pop associations. You can get a full serving of what I'm talking about when The Hush Sound come to U Street Music Hall , presented by the 9:30 Club , with Hockey on Friday, May 17. We've got tickets to give away, and getting a hold of them is way easier than you think. Indie darlings The Hush Sound are known [...]
The Catskills are a magical place. They brought us Rip Van Winkle, after all. But the guy who wrote Rip Van Winkle got it wrong, and seeing as how the truth trumps all in my profession, which happens to be lying, I feel obligated to tell you the real story goes like this: that thunderous din Van Winkle heard coming from the Catskills on the eve of his 20-year sleep wasn't the ghosts of Henry Hudson's lost crew playing nine-pins. It was the sound of Bob Dylan and The Band in the basement of a rented house in West Saugerties [...]
As summer approaches, so do the festivals! Tomorrow, the Merriweather Post Pavilion will host the 4th annual Sweetlife food and music festival. The venue will feature local artists such as Shark Week, crowd favorites such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the soulful Gary Clark Jr. The one-day festival kicks off around noon and finishes before midnight. The evening is to be topped off by synth-pop headliners Passion Pit and Phoenix, who will close the festival. Phoenix is touring in support of their new album, Bankrupt! , that was released last month. [...]
It’s a new month, and that means plenty of new 9:30 Club shows to get excited about. Here’s your May preview and an extra chance to win tickets to the show of your choice from below—don’t forget to answer the challenge at the bottom! Here are four shows that give fresh sounds and good deeds. Hush Sound , Fri 5/17 at U Street Music Hall The indie pop four-piece band from Chicago, The Hush Sound , are no longer quiet, back from a [...]
If the cliche, "a picture's worth a thousand words" was ever of merit, it was put to the test last weekend at the now annual M3 Rock Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Certified legends of '80s hair metal and their greying, and often hair challenged, devotees of the genre filled the outdoor festival grounds for 2 days of rock and roll flashbacks. We were there to capture it. —Ed. [...]
Iconic bluesman Charlie Musselwhite has been belting out the blues on his harmonica since the 1960s. He has played the blues with the best of them, but in a guest appearance on a John Lee Hooker album in 1997, he met Ben Harper . It may have taken 16 years to finally get these two together to do an album (2013’s Get Up! ), but last Thursday at the 9:30 Club , they proved that the wait was worth it. There would be no opener this evening. Billed as “An Evening [...]
Just imagine the metal landscape had the undisputed architects of the genre, Black Sabbath . ..never existed. (Go ahead, think it through. We'll wait, take your time....) Ah ha— see? You can't! EVERY metal genre and subgenre owes its origins to the mighty Sabbath. And in turn every metalhead at home on his or her couch, or wielding and axe on stage will agree, Sabbath and perhaps guitarist Tony Iommi in particular, are metal's undisputed standard bearers. The mighty Sabs return with a [...]
Jim James skips out onto the stage, bathed in a soft purple light. A huge LED-lit sunburst glows in a rainbow of colors behind him, illuminating the crowd. Hundreds of fans have gathered to see the scruffy My Morning Jacket frontman, who’s clad in a spiffy dark suit and his signature mess of a mane. James and his band break into their opener, “State of the Art (A-E-I-O-U),” and fans freak, stretching their hands out to touch index fingers E.T.-style with the singer. For years I’ve heard friends and critics rave about MMJ, but, for no [...]
You'd be forgiven if you thought that '80s stalwarts the Pet Shop Boys have maintained their longevity by releasing crystalline dance track after dance track, because well, they have. Theirs is an electronic well with seemingly endless bounty. As if to underscore this opening salvo, the Pet Shop Boys return with a new release on their own brand new imprint, x2 entitled, Electric. July 15th is when the vinyl version hits your local mom and pops. The tour to celebrate [...]
A while back I dated this English girl, and everything was going swimmingly until we traveled to Tennessee to meet her father, a prickly old India hand in jodphurs with an acid wit and gin on his breath. He hated me from the moment I told him I didn't drink. This seemingly ludicrous statement-I might as well have told him I didn't breathe-led him to very drily reply, "In India, all the teetotalers died." An avid fox hunter, after that he looked at me as if I were some two-legged species of vulpes vulpes that had somehow managed to infiltrate [...]
Since their inception in 1988, The Breeders have thrown down some of the best alternative rock music, inspiring artists new and old over many genres for the past two decades. Wow, I feel old. The Breeders was formed by Kim Deal of the Pixies and Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses . Through the years, the band has gone through a number of line-up changes, but Kim Deal has been the constant of the band since its inception. The band's first album, Pod (1990), received wide critical acclaim without peaking at [...]
Tonight, May 1, celebrate James Brown’s 80th birthday at Tropicalia DC with the rare gift of an all-vinyl evening. DC DJ Underdog joins Damu the Fudgemonk and Sam “The Man” Burns at what’s been dubbed “The Big Playback.” For the audiophile, this tribute will likely be a time capsule to the days of analog. In the 1960s, the golden age of vinyl took off with that mad trend we know as Beatlemania. Riding that same wave of through-the-roof vinyl sales, Brown's Live at the Apollo album became a [...]
If you've heard one thing about Kaki King , it's probably that her unique style of playing guitar landed her on Rolling Stone's list of "New Guitar Gods" back in 2006. But if you haven’t seen her perform live, you probably don’t know that she has an equally enthralling stage presence, laced with witty anecdotes and just enough cursing to keep things interesting. On the last night of her Retrospective Tour, the Atlanta-bred guitarist performed to a small but eager crowd Monday night at the Howard Theatre . Celebrating 10 years since the [...]
The Vinyl District
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[MP3 Playlist] Indie Dojo (May 2013 Round #5)
Dimmed lights on the Sunset Strip
