Tate McRae performs at 9:30 Club on March 27, 2022. (Photo by Katie Child)
Packing the floor, pressing in on the railings of the balcony, inching in towards the barricade, and conversing about their shared dedication to their favorite artists, a sold-out crowd at DC’s 9:30 Club recently waited in anticipation for the charmingly entrancing Tate McRae to take on center stage.
Sophia Regina Allison leads Soccer Mommy in a performance at Rams Head Live in Baltimore on March 23, 2022. (Photo by Casey Vock)
Growing up in one of this country’s hotbeds of music and culture with a guitar in hand would seem a natural pathway for a young artist to chart their own course and some day, maybe earlier than might be expected, advance their sounds to the right kind of listeners.
Sophia Regina Allison was just a little kid when she began playing music, having relocated to Nashville of all places after being born thousands of miles away in Switzerland. A story that almost reads as storybook but yet is so freakishly modern, Allison would go on to study guitar as a student at the Nashville School of the Arts and not long after she graduated was recording music that she’d post to Bandcamp under the artist name Soccer Mommy.
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.
Boy Harsher (Photo by Courtney Brooke)
Boy Harsher — the duo of Jae Matthews and producer Augustus Muller — recently released the video for “Autonomy,” a standout track from their new album, The Runner (Original Soundtrack), out now via Nude Club/City Slang. The synthpop duo bring their new tunes to a show at Black Cat on Sunday, April 10.
Sierra Ferrell (Photo courtesy Rounder Records)
Not long ago, rising country star Sierra Ferrell wrapped her inaugural US tour in support of her captivating Rounder debut, Long Time Coming. The tour was an unquestionable success, and so Sierra has embarked on a second US tour, and she’s performing in DC at The Hamilton Live on Wednesday, April 6.
Eyelids performs to a standing-room crowd at Comet Ping Pong, March 26, 2022. (Photo by Ari Strauss)
Northwest DC’s beloved pizzeria and concert, Comet Ping Pong, recently hosted Eyelids, the beloved Pacific Northwest power-pop group currently on tour to promote The Accidental Falls, the band’s most recent album which released via Jealous Butcher Records in 2020. I was there to photograph the show!
Tarriona “Tank” Ball leads Tank and the Bangas in a performance at 9:30 Club on March 21, 2022. (Photo by Casey Vock)
It takes an extraordinary relationship between a group of musicians — colleagues or friends who inevitably become tight-knit like family — in order to produce and sustain some of the most cutting-edge sounds coming off any stage.
The glorious result of a durable and flourishing dynamic between the large number of members in this propulsive funk-soul-hip-hop-poetry vehicle, Tank and the Bangas has thrived through the pandemic thanks largely in part to the groundwork laid before it — and the proof was on display at 9:30 Club recently.
ACTORS (Photo by Kira Clavell)
Canadian dark wavers ACTORS released their sophomore album, Acts of Worship, in 2021. Acts of Worship is an album of driving beats, massive hooks, and dramatic atmospheres — equally melancholy and electrifying.
ACTORS now make their DC live debut in a show at Pie Shop on Sunday, April 3!
Colin Hay (Photo by Paul Moley Studio)
Singer-songwriter Colin Hay recenlty released his new album Now and The Evermore via Lazy Eye/Compass Records, and he plays DC’s Lincoln Theatre in support on Saturday, April 2.
Sparks perform at the Lincoln Theatre in DC on March 26, 2022. (Photos by Jason Nicholson; Words by Mickey McCarter)
Russell and Ron Mael are the quintessential two-fisted auteurs of art rock. You say go one way, they choose their own path. As Sparks, Russell and Ron now celebrate 50 years of being pop pioneers — forging and changing course in unique and surprising ways while still managing to cultivate a tremendous following.
Sparks had a remarkably successful year in which they received recognition for their movie musical Annette and they gained enhanced public exposure from a very good and very thorough documentary about their band directed by Edgar Wright. On this highest of highs, Sparks descended upon the Lincoln Theatre in DC recently to share their idiosyncratic talents with a happily sold-out venue.
