Parklife DC

Around Town: United Outside by REI for 100 Days

Around Town

Jeremy Bailey

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June 29, 2016

Around Town: United Outside by REI for 100 Days

Hiking the Appalachian Trail

October is coming! In October, the flagship REI store in NoMa opens. The Grand Opening Block Party will be held from October 21-23.

Once you’ve returned from putting those dates on your calendar, let’s look at what you can do in the meantime.

Get excited, because REI, partnering with many local businesses, will be conducting 100 days of activities, which they call United Outside.

From REI Wrench Nights at breweries where you can work on your bike, to bike tours, to campfires at Wunder Garten making s’mores, to classes on any range of outdoor activity, to coordinated efforts to see movies in NoMa, and much more, there is almost anything you can dream of.

Find the full list of events here.

Here are a few I’m looking at:

Campfire Chat Series: Sneak Peak of the DC Flagship
REI Community Space at Wunder Garten (First and L St. NE Washington, DC)
Monday, July 11
6:30-8:00pm
Free

Campfire Hangout With S’mores (repeating event)
REI Community Space at Wunder Garten (First and L St. NE Washington, DC)
Friday, July 15
6:30-9:00pm
Free

NoMa Summer Screen: DC Adventure Film Festival Sneak Peek
NoMa Junction @ Storey Park
Tuesday, August 23
7:00-8:30pm
Free

Elevated Camping: Hammock Camping Basics
REI Community Space at Wunder Garten (First and L St. NE Washington, DC)
Tuesday, September 20
6:30-8:00pm
Free

Around Town: Summer Drive-In Movie Series @ Union Market, Begins 7/1/16

Around Town

Jeremy Bailey

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June 28, 2016

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Around Town: Summer Drive-In Movie Series @ Union Market, Begins 7/1/16

Union Market – Drive-In Movies (Photo courtesy of MoKi Media)

The Summer Drive-In Movies at Union Market are back!

Starting this Friday, July 1st, drive up to see Top Gun, and start feeling patriotic for the 4th of July weekend.

The Drive-In Movies will be monthly, through October.

It’s free for walk-ups in the picnic area, and $10 per car.

You can get Mason Dixie biscuits and Stella’s Popkern, and the DC Rollergirls will be there to roll snacks and drinks right to you.

Movies start at 8pm, and the gates open at 6:30pm.

What movies can you see?

Friday, July 1, 2016 – Top Gun
Friday, August 5, 2016 – Ratatouille
Friday, September 2, 2016 – Grease
Friday, October 7, 2016 – Ghostbusters

Summer Drive-In Movie Series
Union Market parking lot (1305 5th Street NE )
Begins July 1 (through October 7)
6:30pm gates (Movie at 8:00pm)
$10 per car; free for walk-ins (pay for food trucks/snack)
All ages

Sports Park: The Nationals’ Homestand vs. the Mets, Reds & Brewers, 6/27-7/6/16

Around Town

Jeremy Bailey

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June 27, 2016

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Jayson Werth

11 things to look forward to on the Nationals’ homestand.

Get your tickets here!

Mets – June 27-29
Reds – June 30-July 3
Brewers – July 4-6

1) Mets! Our division rivals come to town (June 27-29), we need these games to stay in first. Only three games up after losing six in a row!

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Music Park: The Struts @ Firefly Music Festival 2016 — 6/19/16

Live Review

Parklifer

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June 24, 2016

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Music Park: The Struts @ Firefly Music Festival 2016 — 6/19/16

The Struts @ Firefly’s Treehouse Stage (6/19/16) (Photo by: Jeremy Bailey)

The Struts are showmen through and through.

This glam rock band from England is certainly channeling Queen, especially with Luke Spiller’s voice as pure and resonate as Freddy Mercury’s. After all, their name is The Struts and that is what they did.

Their music is classic, exuberant rock and roll. They mobilized the Firefly crowd at the Lawn Stage to great heights of excitement and sing-a-longs. Anyone that didn’t know them going in, certainly walked away with full intention of adding them to their playlist on repeat.

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Don’t Miss: Mikey Erg (Opening for Hemlines) @ DC9, 6/26/16

Live Review

Mickey McCarter

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June 24, 2016

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Don’t Miss: Mikey Erg (Opening for Hemlines) @ DC9, 6/26/16

Mikey Erg (Photo by Toni Skotcher)

Mikey Erg is a punk-rocker from New Jersey who plays some furious guitar!

And the prolific punk released his debut album recently — Tentative Decisions via Don Giovanni Records. He did so after performing with a mess of other bands, including The Ergs!.

On the second and latest single from the album, Mikey spits about lost love in a track called “Apart Time.”

Listen to the audio for “Apart Time” by Mikey Erg on YouTube:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=019sYZaLUI8]

The first track from Tentative Decisions was the mocking, clever “Comme Si About Me,” a play on words referencing the French phrase for “like this.” I’m going to be bold and say that Mikey sounds a bit like a very young (angry) Elvis Costello on the track (and he strikes a similar figure with his lanky frame and glasses). Mikey is touring to support the album, and he comes to DC9 on Sunday, June 26, filling out a big bill as an opening act for Hemlines.

Remember how we said Mikey is prolific? Well, Mikey is also the drummer for Worriers, a post-punk band fronted by Lauren Denitzio, and Worriers also are opening for Hemlines. Worriers released a new record Imaginary Life last year via Don Giovanni.

Tickets are available online.

Mikey Erg
(Opening for Hemlines)
Sunday, June 26
Doors @7:30pm
$10-$12
All ages

Around Town: PupusaFest 2016 @ Shrine of the Sacred Heart, 6/26/16

Jeremy Bailey

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June 24, 2016

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Around Town: PupusaFest 2016 @ Shrine of the Sacred Heart, 6/26/16

I don’t know about you, but pupusas are delicious, so anytime I hear the word PupusaFest (coming on Sunday, June 26th), I’m on board. Sadly I’ll be out-of-town, but for those you who aren’t, get there!

I first experienced pupusas in small, neighborhood restaurants in San Salvador, El Salvador in 2005. They served them piping hot for around $.30 each. On the table was a giant jar of curtido (the cabbage slaw) and squeeze bottles of the salsa roja. I ate them all, everyday.

As soon as I returned to DC, I searched for all the places that served them. I eventually settled on Tortilla Cafe (next to Eastern Market) as my go to place. Every few months I get a craving and go back. I know there are many good places in Columbia Heights, but I don’t live near there.

PupusaFest 2016
Shrine of the Sacred Heart (3211 Sacred Heart Way, Washington, DC 20011)
Sunday, June 26, 2016
8am-5pm
Free entry (Three pupusas for $5, cash only)
All ages

Music Park: Firefly 2016 Music Overview (Day 1 & 2)

Live Review

Jeremy Bailey

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June 23, 2016

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Music Park: Firefly 2016 Music Overview (Day 1 & 2)

Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir from Of Monsters and Men (Photo courtesy of Firefly Music Festival)

Firefly 2016. The fifth annual version of the music festival that takes over Dover, Delaware for four days in June, had a solid number of good bands and artists to choose from. The headliners were not as strong as previous years (I still like the first year’s headliners the best). I spent a majority of the time bouncing between one stage or another, eventually catching 30 full sets and another seven half sets.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Day 1 was more about logistics, traveling to Delaware, picking up my credentials (long line!), parking and finding the press tent, but I arrived in time to see a few acts.

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Don’t Miss: The Smiths: 1985-1986 @ Studio 1469

Mickey McCarter

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June 23, 2016

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Don’t Miss: The Smiths: 1985-1986 @ Studio 1469

Nalinee Darmrong with some pix in her exhibit at Studio 1469 at an opening reception on June 17. (Photo by Mickey)

“Towards the summer of 1985, The Smiths were creating a buzz in the US, with the release of their second album, ‘Meat Is Murder’ earlier that year,” Nalinee Darmrong wrote in the introduction to her remarkable book The Smiths, printed recently by Rizzoli New York.

She continued: “They had done a short US tour previously, and news was circulating that they were coming to the US once more. I was graduating high school that year (I was 17), and Tony, for a graduation present, got me a ticket to see The Smiths at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC on June 11, 1985.”

Thus began the adventure of a girl and her camera, as she spent some 17 shows tailing Steven Patrick Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce around the United States and to the United Kingdom. Using a beat-up 35mm camera, Nalinee captured her experiences on film, and those pictures remained hidden from the world until now.

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Music Park: PVRIS @ Firefly Music Festival 2016 — 6/18/16

Live Review

Jeremy Bailey

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June 22, 2016

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Music Park: PVRIS @ Firefly Music Festival 2016 — 6/18/16

Lyndsey Gunnulfsen of PVRIS @ The Coffee House Stage

Sometimes it’s fun to just show up to a set with no expectations and no prior knowledge of the band. And walk away having thoroughly enjoyed it.

Maybe copying CHVRCHES, with the letter ‘V’ replacing a vowel, PVRIS (pronounced like the city) brought an incredible energy to their opening set (12:30pm) on Firefly’s Backyard Stage on Saturday, June 18th.

Or as they introduced themselves, “We’re Paris, we spell it with a ‘V’ because we’re third graders that don’t know how to spell.”

I highlight PVRIS (of the 35+ sets that I saw more than half of over four days), apart from enjoying it, because I witnessed two of their sets (they were rockstars and actually played three in total), to compare and contrast the concept of the main stage set and the acoustic stage set. Many bands/performers did this, and I intentionally went to both sets for three of those.

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