Parklife DC

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January 20, 2016

Wray (Photo by Wes Frazer)

With the return of seminal shoegaze bands like Ride and Lush from England, which really left their mark on the genre, it might be easy to forget there are many thriving new bands, and even American bands, carrying on the shoegaze sound.

Well, maybe not given the popularity of Zachary Cole Smith and DIIV, who returned with a strong new album last year. But Brooklyn isn’t the only place where you can find shoegaze stalwarts! Case in point: Wray from Birmingham, Ala.

The trio released their self-titled debut in 2014, and they have already followed it up with a second full-length album, Hypatia, which came out last Friday via Communicating Vessels. They are making a stop at the Black Cat on Tuesday, Jan. 26, in a tour to support the album.

Wray’s new album has a pleasant, easygoing vibe, as evidenced by the title track. Watch the official music video for “Hypatia,” which pays homage to the Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in Egypt, circa 400 AD, from whom the album draws its name:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nw38B7sTsk]

Says the New York Times of Wray: “A wash of distortion, a motorik beat, an impassive and nearly drowned-out vocal: These are the essential building blocks for Wray, a three-piece band pursuing its own extrapolation of shoegaze, surf-punk and lo-fi garage-rock.”

Sounds pretty good to us! DC bands Exit Vehicles and ShowPony open for Wray. Tickets are available online.

Wray
W/ Exit Vehicles, ShowPony
Black Cat
Tuesday, Jan. 26
Doors @7:30pm
$10
All ages

Don’t Miss: Best Coast (with Wavves) @ 9:30 Club, 2/16/16

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January 19, 2016

Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno of Best Coast (Photo courtesy of Press Here Publicity)

Best Coast, co-headlining with Wavves, come to the 9:30 Club on Tuesday, February 16 for their Summer is Forever II Tour. The first Summer is Forever Tour was held in 2011.

Best Coast, formed in 2009 and composed of singer/songwriter/guitarist Bethany Cosentino and guitarist Bobb Bruno, play indie rock by way of Southern California. And of course their name symbolizes how the West Coast is best. Sorry DC.

Bethany Cosentino’s voice has a certain melancholy undercurrent and purity of sound that often reminds me of Neko Case. They also list artists like The Go Gos, Gwen Stefani and Patsy Cline as influences.

Best Coast recently released their third album, California Nights, with infectious songs like, “In My Eyes” and “Feeling Ok”.

Bethany describes the rationale behind the album title, “In LA, or maybe just personally to me, when the sun sets – I feel like there is a large sense of calmness in the air, and I feel like everything that happened to me prior in the day, whether crappy experiences or good ones, at night, it all goes away and I sink deep into this different kind of ‘world’.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MDWtSf_AI4]
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/114888199″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]

Come out to the 9:30 Club and give the Summer is Forever II Tour a listen. Tickets are available here.

Get excited that Summer is coming in the Winter.

Best Coast & Wavves
w/ Cherry Glazerr
9:30 Club
Tuesday, February 16
Doors @ 7:00pm
$30
All ages

Music Park: Woody Woodmansey’s Holy Holy @ Birchmere — 1/14/16

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January 18, 2016

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Glenn Gregory (foreground) and Tony Visconti put their souls into a performance of Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)

Midway through a concert performance at The Birchmere on Thursday, Tony Visconti paused to share a memory of his time playing bass for David Bowie with the very full house.

Doing a warm impersonation of David’s famous voice, Tony recalled how Bowie instructed him to play like Jack Bruce, the Scottish bass player known for his work with Cream. Tony impressed Mr. Bowie well enough, and he joined up with drummer Woody Woodmansey and guitarist Mick Ronson to form a Bowie backing band that most famously performed on the Bowie album The Man Who Sold the World (TMWSTW).

Woody was the heart of that operation, and Mick the soul, Tony said. “But the brains and the beauty and the creativity was a great man who left us recently — Mr. David Bowie.”

Continue

Sports Park: Capitals Fortnightly Report Card — 1/4-1/17/16

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January 18, 2016

2015-2016 Fortnightly Report Card Archive

Fortnightly Record: 6-1 (12 pts)
Overall: 34-8-3 (71 pts)

Justin Williams punctuated the Capitals 5-2 victory over the hated Rangers on Sunday, with a hat trick. Only his second hat trick of his career. Williams has been a great pick-up for the Caps this year, second only to Alex Ovechkin in goals scored (16) and 4th on the team in total points (31).

Braden Holtby (Goalie) also left the game with dehydration, but seems like he’ll back and just fine.

The Capitals own a jaw-dropping 17 point lead over the New York Islanders in the Metropolitan Division. The lead just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

They had another 5-game winning streak, snapped in Buffalo, and managed to win six out of the last seven.

The Capitals are playing lights out. Almost no one can beat them. The only thing left to wonder, at just over halfway through the season, is if they can sustain this pace into the post-season. They have been notorious at not meeting expectations in recent years.

But…rather than dwell on that too much now, let’s enjoy the ride, because it will be fast and furious.

The Capitals next play Tuesday, January 19 at Columbus. Then they have the perfect remedy for the cold in DC, a 5-game home stand. Among the teams they play include Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and the Islanders.

Get your tickets to the five games here.

Results

January 5, 2016: Capitals at Bruins – Win (3-2)

January 7, 2016: Capitals at Islanders – Win (4-1)

January 9, 2016: Capitals at Rangers – Win (4-3 OT)

January 10, 2016: Senators at Capitals – Win (7-1)

January 14, 2016: Canucks at Capitals – Win (4-1)

January 16, 2016: Capitals at Sabres – Loss (1-4)

January 17, 2016: Rangers at Capitals – Win (5-2)

January 4-January 17 Fortnightly Report Card: A-

Grapevine: Map of Breweries In and Near DC? Check.

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January 15, 2016

Because I think this list of 70 breweries in and around DC is cool, I re-post this article.

From the Washingtonian: “DC has the second-most breweries of any East Coast metropolitan area.”

Let’s drink.

Sports Park: Where to Watch the NFC Football Playoff Games in DC Part 2, 1/16-1/17/16

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January 14, 2016

Playoffs? You’re still talking about the playoffs?

Next up is the Division Round of the NFL Playoffs this Saturday and Sunday.

Last weekend, there were some crazy finishes. And you really have to feel bad for the Bengals (most of them) and Vikings fans…both heartbreaking ways to lose.

And well, the Redskins had a chance until the 4th quarter, but then they let Aaron Rodgers be the elite QB he is. A 35-18 loss isn’t the end of the world, especially when you can get over 80,000 people to watch a game in person after having very low expectations this season. Kirk Cousins is looking good and with a decent defense and a serious playmaker in Jordan Reed (TE), they could easily be back in the playoffs next year and do even more damage.

Where can you watch the crop of games this weekend? I’m going to continue to focus on the NFC teams.

NFC – Division Round – Saturday

#5 Green Bay Packers at #2 Arizona Cardinals
Saturday, January 16 at 8:15pm

Packers: Wear your cheesehead hat and watch the Packers at Hamilton’s Bar and Grill (233 2nd St NW). Other watch parties usually happen at Duffy’s and Lost and Found. Find all Packers’ viewing bars across the country here.

Cardinals: Wear your red and watch the Cardinals at Crystal City Sports Pub (529 23rd Street South Arlington, VA 22202). This is inconclusive, as it seems Cardinals fans are elusive and hard to find in this city. I do know that Arizona State University alumni go to Penn Social for their college football games.

NFC – Division Round – Sunday

#6 Seattle Seahawks at #1 Carolina Panthers
Sunday, January 17 at 1:05pm

Seahawks: Wear your blue and watch the Seahawks at Acre 121 (1400 Irving St NW). Other watch parties usually happen at Solly’s and Penn Quarter Sports Tavern. Find the DC Seahawks fan page here.

Panthers: Wear your light blue and silver and watch the Panthers at Lucky Bar (1221 Connecticut Ave NW).

You may also want to check out the Capital Riot fan site, which is for the Panthers’ local fan base in DC. They look legit! http://capitalriot.com/

Note: If you have better suggestions on locations, please leave a comment.

P.S. For you Steelers fans…Go Peyton and the Broncos!

Don’t Miss: Time Is Fire @ DC9, 1/28/16 @ Comet Ping Pong, 3/5/16

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January 13, 2016

Time Is Fire perform at The Howard Theatre on April 20, 2015. (Photo by Kay Said/Courtesy Time Is Fire)

Back in July, I went to the Black Cat to check out the noir cinema pop of Brooklyn band KATIEE. However, like everyone else there, I was rather stunned by the opening act, DC psych quartet Time Is Fire.

The four men in Time Is Fire cite DC punk as an influence on their band, and occasionally they marry some post-punk guitar structures to their upbeat musical style. However, when they really get rolling, they become a full-blown psychedelic jam ready to enthusiastically throw down as a wandering dance party all by themselves.

Sometimes frontman Kamyar Arsani sings in English and sometimes Farsi, and the instruments in the band tend to move with him from more traditional rock to hazy Middle Eastern rhythms. It’s totally appropriate given that Kamyar is a daf player and Sufi poet who grew up in Tehran, where he absorbed both Western and Persian music. He is joined by drummer Jim Thomson (CSC Funk Band, Bio Ritmo, GWAR, Alter Natives), guitarist Matt Perrone (Alma Tropicalia), and bassist Ashish Vyas (Thievery Corporation, GoGoGo Airheart).

In November 2015, Time Is Fire released their self-titled debut EP, produced by Fugazi’s Brendan Canty, via Electric Cowbell. You can listen to the EP, and buy it, on Bandcamp:

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=300841830 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]

Time Is Fire really come alive in concert. When they play, they are fully in their own world, weaving a sort of hypnotic field, but they also enjoying themselves so fully that it’s downright infectious.

Watch the official music video for “Fetneh,” which really manages to capture the energy of Time Is Fire in performance:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8schvqYAq7Q]

The band have announced two shows in the coming months. They open for Social Station at DC9 on Thursday Jan. 28, and then they appear with Prince Rama and SISTR MD9IGHT in a lineup at Comet Ping Pong on Saturday, March 5. Tix for the DC9 show are available at the door; tix for the Comet Ping Pong show are available online.

It’s well worth your time to check them out!

Time Is Fire
Opening for Social Station
DC9
Thursday, Jan. 28
Doors @8pm
$8
All ages

Time Is Fire
w/ Prince Rama and SISTR MD9IGHT
Saturday, March 5
Doors @10pm
$12
All ages

Don’t Miss: Moogfest 2016, 5/19-5/22/16 (Part 1)

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January 12, 2016

Tickets are available online.

Gary Numan will play three performances at Moogfest 2016, each dedicated to a different classic album. (Photo courtesy BB Gun)

Moogfest 2016: Initial Details Revealed!

In 2016, the top music festival for celebrating the synthesizer returns to North Carolina. Moogfest 2016, named for Dr. Bob Moog and his innovative synthesizers, will come to Durham, NC, from Thursday, May 19, to Sunday, May 22, 2016. In Durham, the festival will encompass 17 different venues across the core downtown area of the city.

This year’s festival, the 10th Moogfest, will feature headliners Gary Numan (for a three-night residency) and GZA (for two-night residency), as well as Odesza, Laurie Anderson, Oneohtrix Point Never, Suzanne Ciani, Blood Orange, and Sun Ra Arkestra, with keynotes by transhumanist pharma tycoon Dr. Martine Rothblatt and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier.

Watch comedian Reggie Watts announce the lineup for Moogfest 2016:

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

The rest of the festival includes more than 100 music acts, such as Explosions in the Sky, Sunn O))), The Orb, Daniel Lanois, DJ Harvey, Tory Lanez, Robert Hood, Simian Mobile Disco, Ben Frost, Floating Points, King Mez, Kode9, Hundred Waters, Empress Of, Mad Professor, Mike Dean, Moses Sumney, Mac McCaughan, Lunice, Ryan Hemsworth, Tim Hecker, and YACHT!

Moogfest 2016 offers a range of activities for day and night. By day, festival-goers can explore tech and art with a conference consisting of panels, workshops, and displays. By night, revelers indulge in performances by synthpop pioneers and newcomers alike.

You can find a full list of performers at the Moogfest 2016 website.

If that doesn’t sound enticing enough yet, Laurie Anderson will host a daytime conversation as well as a night-time performance. Blood Orange will present a performance of future soul. Brian Eno protégé Daniel Lanois will experiment with ambient sounds. GZA leads the biggest hip hop presence at Moogfest ever with artists like Lunice, Tory Lanez, Denzel Curry, Dr. Dre protégé King Mez, and Well$.

Ryan Hemsworth brings together a crew of international DJ/producer friends for a kick-off party. And in a segment that is free and open to the public, DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba bring guest hosts Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO, Bootsy Collins, DJ Nanny Canteloupe, thereminist Dorit Chrysler, and others to celebrate electronic music for kids.

Moogfest 2016
The City of Durham, NC
Thursday, May 19-Sunday, May 22, 2016
Exact schedule TBA
$249 General Admission; $499 VIP
$1,000 Engineer VIP includes two-day synth-building workshop
All ages

Around Town: Remembering David Bowie, 1/11/16

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January 11, 2016