Jeffrey Tribble Jr., Executive Director of The MusicianShip, addresses the Butterfly Bash in 2017. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
The MusicianShip, a nonprofit dedicated to providing music education to DC youth, sponsored its first Wammie Awards, recently choosing “the best of the best” among DC musicians for recognition to continue the mission of the dissolved Washington Area Music Association.
As editor of Parklife DC, I was a judge and a presenter for the 2019 Wammie Awards at the Lincoln Theatre on March 31, and I’m pleased to provide the full list of winners.
The inauguration of President Donald Trump begins today and concludes tomorrow. Not everyone is happy about that of course, and some of that unhappiness channels itself through protest concerts taking place over the next few days.
In case you missed it, Brooklyn punks Parquet Courts released Human Performance, a fourth studio album in early April via Rough Trade Records. The talented rockers already continually impressed with their earlier releases, but they surely set a new bar with the latest, pooling their collective strengths into a set of songs that thematically center on estrangement, abandonment, and loneliness in a powerfully affecting way.
Andrew Savage (vocals, guitar), Austin Brown (vocals, guitar), Sean Yeaton (bass), and Max Savage (drums) toured extensively upon release of the album, and they stopped at the 9:30 Club on May 17. (Read our Parklife DC review!) While that show was pretty darn good, the band dedicated much of their stage banter to protesting their early set time. Lucky for us then that Parquet Courts have announced a brief 2017 tour that will include a return visit to the 9:30 Club on Monday, Feb. 13.
It’s timely to mention also that the band will perform a few dates this week — Dec. 9 in Asbury Park, NJ, and Dec. 10 in Queens, New York City. The Dec. 10 show at the Knockdown Center in Queens will feature the band’s multimedia show and also include a performance by DC’s own Flasher. (Parquet Courts and members of Priests, including Flasher’s Taylor Mulitz, struck up a friendship on a previous tour together.)
Watch the official music video for the title track “Human Performance,” which features puppets, by Parquet Courts on YouTube:
Of their May show at the 9:30 Club, I said of Parquet Courts, “Despite the needling at their early booking (a later show followed that night), or maybe because of it, Parquet Courts set themselves to the task of metaphorically burning the stage down with a blistering punk performance. But its finer moments truly came in powerful, poignant numbers from their new album, Human Performance. The prolific Texans-turned-Brooklyners released [their new album recently], and their stop at the 9:30 Club heavily featured the new songs, which were well received by the very full (if not quite sold out) room. While plenty of crowd surfers took to the air during earlier Parquet Courts numbers (yay to the 9:30 Club for smartly if watchfully permitting such things), the new songs are mostly about loneliness and solitude, or at least situations where you find yourself alone, if not abandoned.”
The experience of catching Parquet Courts in concert then is wholly cathartic and absorbing, and one that you should not miss.
