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Fresh off the recent release of Lifted, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Anderson’s second album for Blue Note Records, his traveling mini-festival of funk that is Voodoo Threauxdown made its way to Northern Virginia for a nearly four-hour show at Wolf Trap. The recent performance headlined by Trombone Shorty included four bands whose members span the history and the future of New Orleans music.
Mary Gauthier (Photo by Chad Cochran)
Introducing “I Drink” during her recent set at Jammin’ Java, Mary Gauthier shared that she’s now been sober for 32 years.
Five years into sobriety, she started writing songs. At the time, she was a chef with a southern restaurant in Boston, southern the cuisine of her native Louisiana. As unpredictable and boom-and-bust as the restaurant business can be, the music business can be an even more difficult way to make a life.
Carsie Blanton (Photo courtesy Fleming Artists)
Carsie Blanton grew up in the Shenandoah Valley, and she came to The Birchmere many times as a teenager. Since becoming a professional musician, she’s played the venue several times in an opening slot, beginning with a performance with the late Leon Redbone. Carise recently headlined the historic Northern Virginia venue for the first time.
PEARS (Photo courtesy Fat Wreck Chords)
“Well, this is a blasty blast.”
For the past couple rotations around the Sun, that thing got in the way of live music for me. It had been over two years since I had seen a band perform in the flesh…to be more specific, 773 days have come and gone since I saw Dead Kennedys rock the shit out of 9:30 Club. So I don’t need to tell you just how goddam excited I was that one of my favorite Fat Wreck Chords bands, PEARS, was gonna be playing at one of my favorite (and crustiest) venues the District has to offer, the Pie Shop.
Not to paint too crass a picture, but like, we’re talking full-on, pre-pubescent hormones excitement level. And boy oh boy, PEARS did not disappoint.
Tarriona “Tank” Ball leads Tank and the Bangas in a performance at 9:30 Club on March 21, 2022. (Photo by Casey Vock)
It takes an extraordinary relationship between a group of musicians — colleagues or friends who inevitably become tight-knit like family — in order to produce and sustain some of the most cutting-edge sounds coming off any stage.
The glorious result of a durable and flourishing dynamic between the large number of members in this propulsive funk-soul-hip-hop-poetry vehicle, Tank and the Bangas has thrived through the pandemic thanks largely in part to the groundwork laid before it — and the proof was on display at 9:30 Club recently.
Tab Benoit performs live at the Ryman Auditorium in 2020. (Photo by Jean Frank.)
Tab Benoit, respected Louisiana-based blues guitarist, vocalist, and storyteller extraordinaire, has launched an ambitious 2022 Spring-Summer National Tour with the Whiskey Bayou Revue.
Locally, Tab Benoit performs in concert at The Birchmere, America’s Legendary Music Hall, on Wednesday, April 6.
Tank and the Bangas (Photo by Jeremy Tauriac)
New Orleands funk collective Tank and the Bangas are set to release their third studio album, Red Balloon, on May 13 via Verve Forecast. They have already launched a North American tour that will bring them to 9:30 Club on Monday, March 21.
Galactic (Photo courtesy 7S Management)
New Orleans jam band Galactic are performing at 9:30 Club on Friday, March 18, and Parklife DC is giving away a pair of tickets for you to see the show! (Pssst: Galactic also perform on Saturday, March 19 if you prefer to go to that show.)
In the nearly two years of no live music, the act of witnessing someone who has a mastery of the stage puts everything into perspective. The importance of live music and the strength of what an artist can make you feel in that moment which makes what could be lost all the more tangible. Watching David Shaw, singer for the band The Revivalists, performing the final show of his debut solo album release at the Union Stage Saturday night I couldn’t help but think how vital live music is to -– if anything -– the emotional strength of so many.
Produced by Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys, Solange, Valerie June, St Paul and the Broken Bones), Shaw’s self-titled debut is filled with personal songs but ones that can make you move. And on a chilly Saturday night, David Shaw and his band did just that — got things moving — at Union Stage in DC.
David Shaw (Photo by Alysse Gafkjen)
The Revivalists frontman David Shaw stops at Union Stage on Saturday, Dec. 18, to perform songs from his new solo album!
Earlier this year, David released his debut self-titled solo album, available via his own imprint Yokoko Records in partnership with C3 Records, and it’s “full of songs that tell stories with a full heart and a dance-able beat,” said NPR World Café.