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Music Park: FFS @ Lincoln Theatre — 10/5/15

By
Mickey McCarter
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Alex Kapranos flanked by the Mael Brothers — Russell and Ron in DC on Oct. 5, 2015.

Starting from the very opening lines of Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To?”, you could easily imagine the 2005 second album lead single as a classic Sparks song.

“When I woke up tonight, I said I’m…/Gonna make somebody love me!”

Consider songs from Spark’s 1983 opus In Outer Space — songs like “Popularity” and its similar glam/post-punk beats:

“I like you and you like me a lot/And it’s nice to be all alone with you too”

In hindsight, it’s little surprise that indefatigable Franz Ferdinand and the trailblazing Sparks also saw the synergies and combined forces to become the supergroup FFS (which of course is a shorthand for Franz Ferdinand Sparks… and not “for fuck’s sake” as some member of the audience called out on Monday night much to the amusement of singer Alex Kapranos).

FFS struck glam gold in a thunderous performance Monday night at the Lincoln Theatre in DC, charming an ecstatic audience who were clearly hyped to see the smooth blend of old school meets new school and the resulting theatrics.

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Food Park: The Last Truckaroo in 2015 @ Fairgrounds, 10/9/15

By
Jeremy Bailey
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Far East Taco GrillTacos are good (Far East Taco Grill)

Food Trucks were all the rage in 2011 and 2012. And as some of the good ones came and went (like the Fojol Brothers’ three trucks) and new ones took their place, the allure of newness, the beat of a trend started to fade.

Just because food trucks aren’t the latest and greatest fad, doesn’t mean there aren’t still good eating options available.

Quite the opposite. Many of the food trucks parlayed their success into brick and mortar establishments. Like DC Empanada and TaKorean at Union Market or Chupacabra Taqueria or Sol Mexican Grill on H Street NE or Far East Taco Grill on the edge of Capitol Hill NE. Hint: Tacos. Invest in tacos.

There is no better forum to explore the current crop of food trucks in one place then at the monthly Truckaroo festival held at the Fairgrounds (near Nationals Park). Even though the Nationals’ season has ended, there is still at least one reason to head down to this SE neighborhood.

This Friday, October 9, marks the last Truckaroo of 2015.

Don’t miss out. There will be music and games and look for some of the good options among the 20+ trucks, like:

  • BONMi
  • Korean BBO Box
  • Tapas Truck
  • Red Hook Lobster Pound

and one I’m curious about: Urban Poutine.

Truckaroo
Fairgrounds (M St and Half St SE) near the Nationals Park
Friday, October 9
11am-11pm
Free Admission (pay for food and beverages)
All ages

Don’t Miss: The Zombies @ Lincoln Theatre, 10/8/15

By
Mickey McCarter
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SXSWAndrewEcclesZombies
The Zombies (Photo by Andrew Eccles)

Several years ago, English rockers The Zombies came to DC to play at The Howard Theatre as part of an annual tour the band now undertakes.

Their last show here, on August 9, 2012, was a smashing success. Writing for the blog We Love DC at the time, I observed, “Best known for orchestral arrangements of their classic rock songs, The Zombies played stripped down versions of their own classics, pleasing the audience of roughly 250 or more who came out to see them for a seated show at The Howard. The audience was positively pleased for folks who looked like they had been waiting for the opportunity to see the veteran rockers for some time. They were pleased enough to deliver a standing ovation after ‘Hold Your Head Up’ [originally by Argent] in particular.”

Now organist and vocalist Rod Argent along with lead vocalist Colin Blunstone are coming back to DC to perform at the Lincoln Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 8 with their bandmates guitarist Tom Toomey, Jim Rodford, and Steve Rodford.

At the Lincoln, The Zombies will perform their seminal 1968 album Odessey and Oracle in its entirety! –something they never have done in the United States prior to this tour.

Watch The Zombies perform “Time of the Season,” one of the long-enduring hits from that album, at Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop in Austin, Texas, during SXSW 2013 on March 16, 2013:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY2rTqD3dhk]

Tickets are available online!

The Zombies
Lincoln Theatre
Thursday, Oct. 8
Doors @6:30pm
$45
All ages

Music Park: MS MR @ 9:30 Club — 10/1/15

By
Jeremy Bailey
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MS MR

“God damn, it feels good to be back in DC!”

Bounding on to the 9:30 Club stage with fiery red hair and a silver jacket on Thursday, Oct. 1, Lizzy Plapinger’s energy was barely containable for MS MR’s opening song, “Reckless”. She danced so furiously to the uptempo beat, that one could only assume it would take weeks of recovery to heal.

‘Furiously’ is probably the wrong descriptor anyway, as Lizzy’s radiant smile hardly ever leaves her face. Let’s go with ‘enthusiastically’.

MS MR, from New York, is Lizzy (MS) and Max Hershenow (MR) with accompanying band members on bass and drums. Lizzy and Max met at Vassar College and formed a perfect union that metes out infectious, yet often dark-themed, music.

On their newly released second album, How Does It Feel, they often take it down a notch, with a few more introspective slow jams than their first album.

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Music Park: Drenge @ U Street Music Hall — 10/1/15

By
Mickey McCarter
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Drenge (Photo courtesy Press Here)

The song “We Can Do What We Want” is a snarling 3-minute banger that tells the listener to fuck off.

It gets straight to the point, but man, you sure can dance to it as well. Is it a dash of The Clash? A bit of Ramones?

Whatever it may be, it involved a whole lot of youthful energy from the three-man band Drenge, fresh to the United States from Sheffield, England, where the gents have refined their mastery of blistering punk beats over the course of two records. Drenge are touring in support of the second record, Undertow, and they stopped by U Street Music Hall in a sold-out show to open for Wolf Alice as a stop on the tour.

I don’t know if the crowd was expecting an opening act as kinetic as Drenge, but I do know that Drenge was expecting a crowd. From the start, drummer Rory Loveless served as a spokesperson and announcer for the band, addressing the audience in crisp accented English. His brother and guitarist/vocalist Eoin Loveless followed his lead to engage in a bit of banter here and there, but Rory kept the show moving.

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Stars and Bars: Second Anniversary Party @ Atlas Brew Works, 10/3/15

By
Mickey McCarter
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Atlas Brew Works at Spring Beer Fest
Atlas Brew Works at Spring Beer Fest (Photo by Thomas Cizauskas)

This Saturday, Oct. 3, from 1-5pm, help Atlas Brew Works celebrate their second anniversary!

From Atlas Brew Works and On Tap magazine:

“Forget the rain, we’ll be partying inside and it will be pouring awesome beer and music at this party! We’ll have a beer trailer with nothing but fresh Atlas brews, Cap Mac and Carnivore BBQ will be serving up their specialties and Bumper Jacksons, South Rail and Justin Trawick & The Common Good will take the stage for an afternoon of great live music.”

Your $10 ticket includes admission to the fest, your first beer AND a donation to Lucky Dog Rescue. Additional beers can be purchased at the party. Saturday, October 3, from 1 to 5 pm at the brewery – 2052 West Virginia Ave. NE, Washington, DC. Must be 21+ with valid ID.

Get your tickets now at http://tickets.ontaponline.com. Tickets are limited, and last year the event sold out.

For more information on Atlas Brew Works, visit http://www.atlasbrewworks.com.

Atlas Brew Works Second Anniversary Party
2052 West Virginia Ave. NE, DC
Saturday, Oct. 3
1-5pm
$10
21+ (Valid ID required)

Music Park: FIDLAR @ Black Cat — 9/28/15

By
Mickey McCarter
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0

FIDLAR
Zac Carper demonstrates his likely reaction to most things while in Boston on Oct. 23, 2013. (Photo by digboston)

FIDLAR are a certain kind of punk band — the kind that wants to have fun and thumb its nose at everyone else while doing so.

Fans of the band already knew this dating back to FIDLAR’s self-titled 2013 debut album, which captured a very big slice of California living in terms of sun, fun and girls. But mostly on the fun — consisting of cocaine, cheap beer, etc. — and what a pain in the ass it is to have to wait around, or worse yet work, while waiting for fun to happen.

Well, fun is happening on the FIDLAR tour in support of their second album, Too, released only a month ago, and the band lit up a lot of smiling faces who came to thrash along at the Black Cat in DC on Monday night.

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Don’t Miss: Drenge @ U Street Music Hall, 10/1/15 (Opening for Wolf Alice)

By
Mickey McCarter
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0

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Drenge (Photo courtesy Press Here)

Grunge and punk have a long, complex relationship, and bands in the United Kingdom like Royal Blood have been adding layers to that relationship in recent years.

Enter the Brothers Eoin and Rory Loveless, who formed a U.K. band called Drenge, an outfit that plays bluesy punk wrapped inside a grunge aesthetic. The simplicity of the formula is appealing, and the brothers manage to sound like a much bigger band. On tour, they actually are a bigger band with the addition of bassist Rob Graham.

They are touring now in support of their second album Undertow, released earlier this year. And they stop in DC to perform at U Street Music Hall tonight, Oct. 1, opening for fellow U.K. band Wolf Alice. Yesterday, they released a new video for their song “The Woods.”

Watch for the video for “The Woods” by Drenge on YouTube:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7bLzcg-DBk]

We were going to recommend that you hit the show, but you can’t buy tickets because the show sold out! We’ll tell you how it was in a few days. Watch this space!

Drenge
Opening for Wolf Alice
Thursday, Oct. 1
Doors @7pm
$20
All ages

Don’t Miss: FFS @ Lincoln Theatre, 10/5/15 (That’s Franz Ferdinand + Sparks!)

By
Mickey McCarter
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0

FFS1892 - photo credit David Edwards- 300dpi
Supergroup FFS combines Franz Ferdinand and Sparks. (Photo by David Edwards)

Legacy glam rockers Sparks love wordplay — they never met a pun they didn’t like. They are, after all, a band that released a seminal album called Kimona My House. They followed that up with lots of cheekiness in album titles like “Music You Can Dance To” and “Plagiarism,” among others.

Post-punk upstarts Franz Ferdinand also love wordplay — they never met an artistic statement as an allegory for life decisions they didn’t like. They are, after all, a band that released the cheeky “Take Me Out” and the referential “Ulysses.”

Well, a funny thing happened when Sparks met Franz Ferdinand: They discovered that they were two great tastes that taste great together, and so because Franz Ferdinand Sparks is a bit too cumbersome, they became the flash FFS.

The super group released its self-titled debut album as FFS earlier this year on June 8, drawing the sensibilities of the now six-member band somewhere into the middle of two extremes. The result is a hyper-intelligent if quirky new wave monster that really really loves wordplay. After releasing the album, FFS launched a world tour that comes to the Lincoln Theatre in DC on Monday, Oct. 5.

The lead single from FFS — “Johnny Delusional” actually was a familiar nervous pop song, particularly for those of us who grew up listening to the likes of Devo and the Talking Heads in the early ’80s. Watch the video for “Johnny Delusional” on YouTube:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCxLpte5loY]

The rest of the FFS songs have a bit more fun with their lyrical ambitions. Is “Call Girl” a wistful note to a distant love or a lascivious expression of sexual desire? “Dictator’s Son” is surely the first song to attempt to explore the soul of a dictator’s son? And “Man Without a Tan” is certainly a Sparksesque lampooning of what people find attractive among or between the sexes.

Tickets are available online. This is going to be great.

FFS
w/ The Intelligence
Lincoln Theatre
Monday, Oct. 5
Doors @6:30pm
$45
All ages

Music Park: The Jesus and Mary Chain @ 9:30 Club — 9/27/15

By
Mickey McCarter
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0

The Jesus And Mary Chain
Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain sings at NOS Alive in Portugal on July 11, 2015. (Photo by Ana Viotti)

When The Jesus and Mary Chain debuted in 1985 with their powerful album Psychocandy, they set out to do something different then what they heard on the radio. Band leader Jim Reid has said there was so much electronic music at the time that he wanted to make a great guitar record.

And make a great guitar record they did. Psychocandy has endured as a much believed masterpiece that made people stand up and take notice of noise pop and set the stage for the rise of shoegaze throughout the United Kingdom within the next couple of years.

So it’s a very potent thing that The Jesus and Mary Chain chose to mark the 30th anniversary of the album with a world tour to commemorate it, playing the album from start to finish along with a handful of their other well-known songs.

The brothers Jim and William Reid, the two-part keystone of the band, and their bandmates brought the show to the 9:30 Club in DC on Sunday night to a very full house. The club never announced the show was officially sold out, but damn I’ve been in sold-out shows there that had a lot more elbow room!

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