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ACTORS play live at Pie Shop in DC on April 3, 2022. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
ACTORS, a quartet hailing from Vancouver, have garnered some attention over the past 10 years for creating music hailed by the North American goth crowd. But as evidenced by a recent concert at Pie Shop in DC, the dark wave band fully possesses an abundance of rock ‘n roll chops that distinguished them from many of their peers.
Colin Hay performs at Lincoln Theatre on April 2, 2022. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
Who can it be now? Why, it’s Colin Hay, the bearded Scotsman famed for fronting the band Men at Work. With his signature dry sense of humor, Colin is well recognized when he’s on the stage, as was the case at the Lincoln Theatre in DC recently. But at home in the suburbs of Los Angeles, he’s gained quite a bit of anonymity — a far cry from when he arrived for the first time in New York City for he first time 40 years ago.
Steve Hackett (Photo by Howard Rankin)
Progressive rock and guitar legend Steve Hackett revisits his stellar work with Genesis as he launches the North American leg of his Genesis Revisited: Seconds Out + More Tour. He’s in Canada this week, and he soon arrives in the USA!
As advertised, the show will feature the 1977 Genesis live album Seconds Out performed in full, plus additional Genesis classics and standouts from Steve’s latest album, Surrender of Silence. Steve arrives in DC to perform at the Warner Theatre on Wednesday, April 13.
Parklife DC’s Mickey McCarter had the honor to speak with Steve Hackett briefly about the tour, his amazingly productive time in pandemic lockdown, and the show at the Warner Theatre.
MTV Moon Man (Photo courtesy MTV)
Your editor came to truly love music as an MTV Kid, riding the UK new wave acts that fueled the Gen X imagination with their pop hooks and colorful music videos.
The breadth of legacy new wave/ post-punk acts performing around the DC metro area in 2022 is unprecedented.
While Parklife DC won’t cover all of these shows, we are excited that these performers who started in the ’70s and ’80s are enjoying so much demand at present.
Luna Honey performs at DC9 on Feb. 26, 2022. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
(Editor’s Note: It’s been longer than we would like since this show but Luna Honey are a wildly innovative and important DC band, and so we present this belated review of a recent concert.)
Experimental rock trio Luna Honey opened a recent turn at DC9 with a droning, wheezing, foreboding dirge of a song called “The Sky Is Blue” from their most recent album, and immediately enthralled the growing crowd gathering for a night of post-punk bands.
Public Figures perform at DC9 on Feb. 25, 2022. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
Punk duo Public Figures rock out in the very best way, throwing drum and bass into a classic punk rock mix that inspires the audience to dance your way out the door while flipping the bird to the world.
At DC9 recently, Public Figures opened fellow punks Weird Babies, and the world, or at least the personal hubris of those who live in it, was squarely in their sights as they thumped away to the beat of songs from their debut album, Year of the Garada, released last year during the pandemic lockdown.
Tove Styrke peforms at The Anthem on Feb. 24, 2022. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
Swedish singer Tove Stryke was conversataional and casual, and she easily chatted with the audience between songs at The Anthem recently.
“I fell in love with my best friend recently,” Tove said, matter of factly, “and I did something I never did before: I wrote her a song.” Tove then sang that song, “Show Me Love,” near the end of a short opening set for Marina during their shared concert performance in DC.
Marina performs at The Anthem on Feb. 24, 2022. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
Marina may have stepped out onto the stage under the cover of darkness to being her show at The Anthem in DC recently, but she stood with unyielding confidence and conviction as she launched into “Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land” to celebrate the album of the same name. Her smoky voice rang clear over the aggressive beats of the number and she began swing in sway as if to call her words down from the sky and channel them into the audience when the lights came up.
Although she no longer calls herself Marina *and The Diamonds,* she truly sparkled nonetheless.
Dale Bozzio (Photo courtesy Lappen Enterprises)
From 1980-86, you couldn’t find a more thrilling American band than Missing Persons. The quintet was fronted by Dale Bozzio, who met her principal bandmates when they all worked for Frank Zappa. After Missing Persons broke up, Dale signed to Prince’s Paisley Park label. Eventually, she formed a touring band to perform the Missing Persons catalog. Missing Persons next performs for a number of dates this spring, including sets at the spectacular new wave/post-punk festival Cruel World in Los Angeles on May 14 and 15.
Recently, Dale published a book through Cleopatra Records, which has been her recording home for the past several years. In the book — “Life Is So Strange: Missing Persons, Frank Zappa, Prince, and Beyond” — Dale shares her life experiences from recording with Zappa to forming Missing Persons to touring still. Parklife DC’s Mickey McCarter recently interviewed Dale about her relationships with Zappa, Prince, and her former Missing Persons bandmates, as well as what comes next for her.
Matt Murphy fronts The Wombats at 9:30 Club on Jan. 20, 2022. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
Toward the end of the main set at 9:30 Club on the first of two nights, The Wombats frontman Matt Murphy told the sold-out room, “This song is based on something my wife told me, prior to launching into “If You Ever Leave, I’m Coming with You” from the trio’s brand new album, Fix Yourself, Not the World.
The inspiration for the song surely justified Murph’s high spirits and good cheer. Happily married, he took up residence in Los Angeles and fathered two daughters with said wife in the time since the release of The Wombats’ previous album.
Whatever good life Murph is living paid off big time not only in boisterous nights at the 9:30 Club but also in the form of a No. 1 album in The Wombats’ native United Kingdom this week! The No. 1 score is a first for The Wombats, who usually broke the UK Top 5 at least with their previous three albums. (Extraordinary debut record, A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, hit No. 11 on the UK charts back in 2007.)