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Music Park: The Charlatans @ Howard Theatre — 11/12/15

Mickey McCarter
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Music Park: The Charlatans @ Howard Theatre — 11/12/15

The Charlatans
The Charlatans perform a surprise show at Glastonbury 2015 on June 26, 2015. (Photo by Paul Carless)

Tim Burgess is the man who never ages!

Since the UK vocalist founded his band The Charlatans, he’s always had an air of pleasant youthfulness about him — and it simply hasn’t gone away in the 25 years since The Charlatans released their first album, Some Friendly, which produced the monster hit “The Only One I Know.” Much earlier this year, the band released its 12th studio record, Modern Nature, and undertook a US tour in support of it, including a stop at the Howard Theatre on Thursday, Nov. 12.

Tim didn’t disappoint the ardent audience that turned up for the gig at the Howard. With his classic blonde mop haircut, sunny vibes, and carefree attitude, he invited everyone to dance and sing along with him as The Charlatans (commonly and somewhat unnecessarily known also as The Charlatans UK) bounced through 18 songs that capture Britpop at its catchiest, even if the setlist was heavy on the new songs.

New songs like “Let the Good Times Be Never Ending” capture The Charlatans at their best with an overtly ’60s psychedelic tone preferred by some of the best Britpoppers. Tim’s voice is as pleasing as ever, and the band really comes together with some very strong material. In concert at the Howard, bassist Martin Blunt was a standout performer, bringing tremendously relaxed confidence to every song he played.

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Don’t Miss: The Ocean Blue @ Jammin’ Java, 11/21/15

Mickey McCarter
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Don’t Miss: The Ocean Blue @ Jammin’ Java, 11/21/15

THE OCEAN BLUE 8x10 1993 Beneath the Rhythm and Sound
The Ocean Blue photographed for Beneath the Rhythm & Sound in 1993. (Photo courtesy Force Field PR)

Poised to release a new album next year, The Ocean Blue are this week publishing remastered editions of their first three albums — The Ocean Blue, Cerulean, and Beneath the Rhythm & Sound.

To mark the release of the remasters, The Ocean Blue, a dreampop quartet hailing from Hershey, Pa., has set about a tour where they play the first two albums in their entirety. That tour comes to the DC-metro area with a stop at Jammin’ Java on Saturday, Nov. 21.

And that show has sold out!

But those going will experience The Ocean Blue and Cerulean and songs like their first single “Between Something and Nothing.”

Watch the official music video for The Ocean Blue’s “Between Something and Nothing” via YouTube:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCIEv73PF4Y]

Tickets are sold out.

The Ocean Blue
Jammin’ Java
Saturday, Nov. 21
Doors @7pm
Sold out (originally $25-$35)
All ages

Music Park: Styx @ Strathmore Music Center — 11/10/15

Mickey McCarter
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Music Park: Styx @ Strathmore Music Center — 11/10/15

Styx with New Horizons Team (201507010002HQ)
Lawrence Gowan (left), Todd Sucherman, and Tommy Shaw of Styx and Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, chat at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., on July 1, 2015. (Photo courtesy NASA)

Styx lead singer Lawrence Gowan reflected on the band’s previous visit to the DC-metro area in July during a quiet moment at a Styx concert at the Strathmore Music Center last week.

Someone at NASA invited Styx to witness the reconnaissance flyby of Pluto and its moons by the probe New Horizons, which documented a previously unknown fifth moon around the dwarf planet. Researchers at NASA of course dubbed the new moon Styx after the visiting progressive rock band.

This inspired the start of a solo medley Lawrence played while the rest of the band took a brief break during the very full show in Bethesda on Tuesday, Nov. 10, and Lawrence took the opportunity to tip his hat to Elton John with a cover of “Rocket Man.”

The talented keyboardist is a natural showman, and he and Styx founder Tommy Shaw already got the audience to their feet and singing along to many classic Styx songs. Now Lawrence led us through a singalong of “Rocket Man,” followed by a verse of “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and “Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding.

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Music Park: We Were Promised Jetpacks @ Black Cat – 11/6/15

Mathew Harkins
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Music Park: We Were Promised Jetpacks @ Black Cat – 11/6/15

We Were Promised Jetpacks
We Were Promised Jetpacks drummer Darren Lackie performs on Dec. 8, 2014. (Photo by Dick Nempsey)

When We Were Promised Jetpacks took to the stage last Friday at Black Cat, they did so on a night that felt as transitional and pushing against it’s own skin as the percussive music of the band. A warm and rainy November night that played against type. An anxious crowd that lined up early for an 11pm show. A not-quite-sold-out crowd that nevertheless pushed and crowded to the stage in order to feel the music as much as hear it.

And feel it they did. WWPJ’s driving post-punk rhythm section is the type that seeps into your skin, into your muscles, into your bones. Speaking personally, I’m a lyrics man, then a guitar man, and then a drums man. But give me enough time with the likes of WWPJ and I’ll forego everything but the drum kit.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/128208348″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

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Around Town: 2015 Hilly Award Winners

Jeremy Bailey
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Around Town: 2015 Hilly Award Winners

Bayou Bakery

The 2015 edition of the Hilly Awards took place last weekend, November 7th. This annual event celebrates Capitol Hill businesses. This year had 22 winning businesses.

Much like last year, Rose’s Luxury won Best Restaurant.

And a new edition to the Hill Center on Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Bayou Bakery, won Best Bakery. The space is great and the beignets and muffalettas are quite good.

 

BEST BAR/TAVERN
Tunnicliff’s

BEST COFFEE SHOP
Peregrine

BEST RESTAURANT
Rose’s Luxury

BEST BAKERY
Bayou Bakery

See all the Hilly Award winners.

Around Town: Hellbender’s One Year Anniversary Party, 11/14/15

Jeremy Bailey
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Around Town: Hellbender’s One Year Anniversary Party, 11/14/15

Hellbender

 

Congrats to Hellbender Brewing Company on a great first year!

They are celebrating one year in DC this Saturday, November 14th. Come out to the party!

Admission price gets you unlimited pours of 23 beers (12 Hellbender brews and 11 other local brews) and a souvenir glass.

There will also be music, DJs, games and a BBQ truck.

 

Hellbender’s One Year Anniversary Party
Hellbender Brewing Company
Saturday, November 14
2:00-6:00pm (VIP 1:00-6:00pm)
$45 (VIP $60)
21+

Music Park: No Joy @ Black Cat — 11/7/15

Mickey McCarter
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Music Park: No Joy @ Black Cat — 11/7/15

Laura Lloyd, Jasamine White-Gluz and Garland Hastings from No Joy @ El Sol
No Joy perform at El Sol in Madrid, Spain, on Sept. 10, 2015. (Photo by bSides)

Jasamine White-Gluz hangs her head over her microphone and looks down at her guitar as her hair shades her eyes from view.

It’s 2015, but Jasamine proceeds to party like it’s 1989, emanating waves of perfectly fuzzed out riffs and catchy hooks in a perfect picture of a classic shoegazer.

As lead vocalist of Montreal shoegazers No Joy, she’s been kicking off their sets with a song from their new album “More Faithful,” released in June via Mexican Summer.

The song, “Remember Nothing,” is a perfect apéritif — light and bubbly — whetting your palette for the rest of what is about to follow. No Joy made for perfect openers for DIIV, another shoegazing group, in a tour stop at the Black Cat on Saturday, Nov. 7. The very full room found plenty to nourish their ears in the sonic assault of vibrant reverb delivered by both bands (and indeed first opener Sunflower Bean).

While Jasamine’s airy voice is light and sweet, her bandmates pound out rhythms that are heavy and strong. Guitarist Laura Lloyd keeps a steely focus on her strings as the thunders through the all-too brief “Remember Nothing.”

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All Things Must Pass: Review and Recollections from My Tower Records Days

Neal Keller
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All Things Must Pass: Review and Recollections from My Tower Records Days

Tower Records
Tower Records on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles circa 1980 (Photo courtesy “All Things Must Pass”)

Editor’s Note: “All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records” documents the history of the iconic music retail company, once based in Sacramento, Calif. It’s playing locally at Landmark E Street Cinema. Our own Neal Keller, DJ, sound engineer, and man o’ music, worked at the DC location of Tower Records (formerly at 2000 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, DC) from 1985-1994. Here, he shares some memories in response to seeing the documentary.

tower
DC employees of Tower Records (including Neal, left), photographed for US News and World Report sometime in the late ’80s, as they hold up their favorite records of the week. Neal’s record is Richard Kirk’s “Black Jesus Voice.”

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Music Park: Marina and the Diamonds @ Lincoln Theatre — 11/6/15

Mickey McCarter
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Music Park: Marina and the Diamonds @ Lincoln Theatre — 11/6/15

Marina and the Diamonds
Marina Diamandis performs at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Oct. 19, 2015. (Photo by Frank Mojica)

I saw Marina and the Diamonds perform twice in 2015, for the fourth and fifth times respectively, in Las Vegas and DC.

The first time in April at the Boulevard Pool at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas was a decidedly mature affair. Stopping between showcases at the Coachella Valley Music Festival on Monday, April 13, Marina Diamandis performed in a diva’s gown, meant to seduce us in the moonlight, opening her set with “Bubblegum Bitch” from the 2012 album, Electra Heart. The Welch beauty was staggering — her fantastic voice impossibly perfect and her striking poise formidable.

The second time on Friday, Nov. 6, at the Lincoln Theatre in DC as part of the Neon Nature tour was a decidedly different, albeit still quite enjoyable, experience. As a fully conceived tour stop for her most successful album to date — Froot, released in March 2015 — the tour was designed to take us through three phases of Marina beginning with her first album, 2010’s The Family Jewels, and ending with her third in three acts. The new wave diva didn’t change the content of her songs or some of their overt sexuality, which is often philosophical rather than physical in expression, but her audience on the official tour date was tremendously younger! As an attendee of the two shows, the difference was jarring.

Nonetheless, Marina and the Diamonds — she’s a solo act (Marina) and we are the diamonds — performed her heart out leaping into three different skintight outfits to strut, pout and dance away the evening in a thoroughly memorable concert performance.

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Music Park: Young Rival @ Rock and Roll Hotel — 11/3/15

Jeremy Bailey
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Music Park: Young Rival @ Rock and Roll Hotel — 11/3/15

Young-Rival---Interior-Light-album

Young Rival could have stepped straight out of a time machine on to the stage of the Rock and Roll Hotel last Tuesday, November 3rd.

They identify as an indie-rock band from Ontario, Canada and opened for the Born Ruffians, who are also Canadian. (See our review.)

Young Rival gave the full DC crowd a distinct vibe from the 1960’s. There were times when I was looking at those around me, wondering if they were playing a Beatles’ cover. Turns out, it was their own songs, like “Two Reasons” from their second album, Stay Young.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b8CwNHAx54]

A ‘glitter blanket’ thing greeted us, mysteriously (ominously?) occupying the stage. The shimmering costume sparkled and rippled before ‘it’ exited stage left as the band burst on the scene. Each band member paraded around with a similar glittery jacket. White flowers adorned and complemented the instruments.

Somehow Glitter Blanket failed to make a return, but for those that stayed, Aron D’Alesio (lead vocals, guitar), John Smith (bass) and Noah Fralick (drums), there was a hint of the psychedelic in their performance.

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