Black Milk performs at Rock and Roll Hotel on Aug. 2, 2018. (Photo by Will Colbert)
Detroit rapper/producer Black Milk turned up the temperature in northeast DC’s Rock and Roll Hotel last week. The concert was part of the aptly named FEVER tour. DC-based band Nat Turner joined him on stage to add fuel to the flame.
Black Milk (Photo by Delaney Teichler)
Rapper Black Milk, born Curtis Eugene Cross, released Fever, his sixth studio album, via Mass Appeal Records and Computer Ugly on Feb. 23. Black Milk is now on tour, and he stops at Rock and Roll Hotel on Thursday, Aug. 2.
James Alex of Quiet Slang pours out his heart at the Rock and Roll Hotel on July 12, 2018. (Photo by David LaMason)
Beach Slang — the loud, driving, heart-on-your sleeve band led by James Alex — has been making their brand of Replacements-tinged powerpunk for a few years now. Beyond the rough and noisy exterior, Beach Slang songs are about connecting with the feeling of being different or an outsider or being yourself despite what others think.
But there’s a soft center to that hard exterior. So when James Alex announced the new quiet focus on Beach Slang songs with a project called Quiet Slang, it seemed like a natural extension. The resulting album, Everything Matters But No One Is Listening, is a beautiful retelling that sounds natural instead of forced, particularly when presented at Rock and Roll Hotel on Thursday.
Park Snakes perform at Rock and Roll Hotel on June 30, 2018.
Singing the title track of debut full-length album Silk, Nenet of Park Snakes strutted about the stage, declaring that she wants everything while seeming terribly indifferent to actually receiving it.
The song immediately cut to the quick of late ‘70s bands with similarly disaffected frontwomen like Debbie Harry, Debora Iyall, and Deborah Evans-Stickland. And so, Park Snakes appealed to an attentive crowd at Rock and Roll Hotel Saturday in a show opening Paperhaus.
Katie McD fronts Bacchae at Rock and Roll Hotel on June 30, 2018.
DC quartet Bacchae attack a song with conviction. Vocalist Katie McD doesn’t merely sing — she blares like a siren. And the band surely sounded the alarm opening Paperhaus at Rock and Roll Hotel on Saturday.
Dessa performs at Rock and Roll Hotel on June 24, 2018. (Photo by Ari Strauss)
Hip hop artist Dessa turned up the heat — literally and figuratively -— during a 90-minute set at Rock and Roll Hotel on Sunday.
Dessa (Photo by Bill Phelps)
Margret Wander, better known as Dessa, released Chime, her fourth solo studio album, in February via Doomtree Records (the imprint of her Minneapolis-based hip hop collective of the same name). Dessa performs in support of the album at Rock and Roll Hotel on Sunday, June 24.
