Capital Swamp: The DC Resource Thread

SCORE

Congrats, your place will finally be opening

This Friday, 2/5
Moneytown @ Dahlak (1771 U St. NW DC)
10pm-3am, no cover
DJ Nitekrawler w/ special guest:
David Griffiths (NY)

About our guest:

Soul music collector/DJ/Producer, David Griffiths is currently restoring two vintage unreleased LPs for first issue in 2010. One is an all instrumental long player, for his new Orivious Records imprint, to be distributed by Daptone Records. The other, documenting a couple of true eccentric soul men, Buffalo, NY’s Key & Cleary, is to be released on Now-Again records.
Past projects include an album by Buffalo, NY lost soul legends Bob & Gene http://www.daptonerecords.com/bobandgene.html , as well as the creation of Daptone's Ever-Soul imprint http://www.daptonerecords.com/eversoul-records.html . David has also collaborated on many projects with house music legend Kenny Dope for his imprint http://kaydeerecords.com/ .
Along with his partners, David started Bumpshop at APT in Manhattan, a monthly deep funk party that ran monthly from 2004-2009, and has hosted many guest DJs including: Cut Chemist, Kenny Dope, DJ Spinna and DJ Shadow.
David created and maintains a website documenting independent soul music from upstate NY, http://www.newyorksoulrecordings.com .

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a222/blueimage/Feb2010Mtown.jpg

Nitekrawler I just e-mailed you at your g-mail account. I need info on the 2-14 record fair

yeah, Nick looked out... R.I.U.

Was there an obit for him in any newspapers?

I couldn't find anything googling...just tweets & a short blog post or 2.

More comment battles over at the City Paper Arts Desk blog re Head-Roc complaints re local clubs policy of polling audience members to see who they came to see, in order to determine how much to pay bands. This is tough on new bands and those who don't have tons of friends versus you need to hype your band and get people out...

Fort Reno's accepting demos from bands now. Does that mean their summer schedule will be announced earlier than usual? Probably not.

"DC in the 70s " doc on WETA TV tonight at 9--includes Chuck Brown, quiet storm dj (the late) Melvin Lindsey, and WHFS's Cerphe

Anybody see J. Robbins' recent appearances---with his new band or that duet with a cello player? How were they?

Benefit for local salsa dance teacher Eileen Torres (who has lots of medical bills) at Zanzibar Wednesday. Just about every local salsa dance teacher and dj will be there

DC Reggae Awards on Saturday and Wammies coming up on Sunday. Re the latter, far from perfect in their nominations but they look a little better (and yea, they asked me for some names for the first time)

One of these Fridays I will make it to Soundclash, the roots reggae thing at the Marx Cafe once a month

Soundclash has great guest and resident djs and now posts mixes online

So have you "dance" folks been having a good time at the T & T clubhouse, Muse Lounge and elsewhere? Or are you just waiting for "I Died"'s new place to open?

Straight-ahead go-go seems to be nearly invisible these days. All gal band Bela Dona who I blogged about for the CP are performing at the Wammies, otherwise not too much attention. The rap cover filled sets of most of the younger bands are not reaching beyond their core following (which is still large as there are go-go shows every night)

I tend to hibernate in the winter, so I haven't been out much at all lately. That said, I am planning to venture out to see Metro Area at Bar7, which I guess is a new venue? Looks like Efdemin is tentatively scheduled to play there too.

And of course I'm eagerly awaiting the opening of U St. Music Hall.

I did go to Muse once a few months ago and did not enjoy it at all.

contrasting views on the state of DC rock (noted by the CP blog)

http://www.avclub.com/dc/articles/title-tracks-john-davis-on-the-joys-of-noncollabor,38042/

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/goingoutgurus/2010/02/in_defense_of_the_dc_rock_scen.html?wprss=goingoutgurus

i haven't been to any of those places you mention, curmudgeon. in fact, i haven't been out dancing in a long time. parties that don't get good until too late are one reason. i'm old now, & need my sleep. and hanging out with ppl who aren't really into dancing enables this tendency to say fuck it and end the night after a good dinner and a few drinks. dancing's fun, i miss it a bit, but this is good too.

Fri. 3/5
Moneytown @ Dahlak (1771 U St. NW DC)
10pm-3am
DJ Nitekrawler w/ special guest DJs:
Jason Hamlin & Mike Murphy(Mercy, Richmond VA)
Free.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a222/blueimage/MtownMarch10.jpg

A Q and A with WPFW dj Jim Byers who is hosting "Casbah to Zanzibar" a panel discussion on the history of DC Latin clubs plus film, video and music Saturday 2 to 4 at the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/02/26/metro-mambo-casbah-to-zanzibar-free-concert-and-lecture-saturday/

Has Zanzibar now been sold to the owner of the Juste Lounge? It's now the Water Club?

x-post--The Casbah to Zanzibar thing at the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum was nice. So I learned that the Casbah was next to Ben's Chili Bowl and open in 1960. Interesting panelists with some good anecdotes; while it was not all quite music geek detailed enough for me it was mostly pretty good. Richmond's Bio Ritmo were good. Nice to see and dance to 'em for free. As with my previous trips to Fort Dupont Park in Anacostia, there were very very few palefaced folks there. It's a museum with its own parking lot; yea it's not exactly on top of a Metro station but still...On the other hand, the folks who packed the small room had a good time and that's all that matters.

I don't expect folks who do not get into Latin dance music to have gone to that, but I know based on the Facebook listing for the event and the amount of salsa dancing things in NW that there are fellow white people interested but did not go. Maybe I'm beating this into the ground and should just move on to talking about something else---

another subject I've beaten into the groud, the Wammies are tonight and they left lots of people off the nominations list that should have been included, for the millionth year in a row.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/03/01/the-wammies-are-good-performances-and-good-intentions-good-enough/ Blog post on the Wammies

The nomination list was better this year, but as that post points out, there are structual limitations that are just going to prevent the Wammies from ever being worth paying attention to.

good post, i didn't know much about the wammies and now...i do

Thanks.

http://inabluemood.blogspot.com/2010/03/wama-can-someone-explain-why.html

A blues and soul fan takes WAMA to task here for not honoring both living African-American blues and soul musicians; and in the WAMA Hall of Fame, deceased DC blues and soul musicians.

Chris Richards on Metro Area's DC appearance

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/clicktrack/2010/03/in_concert_metro_area.html

Googling last night I realized that I had forgotten I had mentioned on dcist.com in '08 that WAMA had stupidly nominated the 2 member indie-pop Evens under "hard rock," a category by the way that they no longer have. Also, if I want to keep piling on and beating them into the ground, I see that Brightest Young Things is sponsoring a bill of DC rock bands in Austin at S x SW (but not WAMA, who don't even know about the existence of such DC bands); and WAMA omitted nearly all of the local Caribbean bands that played at the Haiti benefit on Sunday at the Crossroads.

I had a last-minute cancellation from a friend on my other free pass for Saturday night's Gilberto Gil show at Lisner. My other pals all seem to be busy or aren't interested in Brazilian sounds. There's a ton going on that night, but if anyone is interested in that one free pass (I have to pick up 'em up at the box office) let me know.

ritmika (at) hotmail (dot) com

U Street Music Hall opens next week with an Aeroplane DJ set. Anyone else going to be there?

I will!

Ha.

Ok, I had a winner for the Giberto Gil show ticket for tonight. There's so much going on this evening--DamFunk on NY Avenue; Barbara Carr at the Solar Eclipse; RustBuckit at Iota;dancehaller Mavado at Club 24; acoustic blues Eleanor Ellis at the Washington Ethical Society; and some indie rock shows I was reading about but have now forgotten.

I forgot that there's also some avante/improv thing at Velvet Lounge I think plus acclaimed jazz (and hiphop) pianist Robert Glasper at Bohemian Caverns.

Will go if I can, got work visitors out from UK but will hopefully ditch them by 10...

envious of those going to Aeroplane. when I move to DC in a few months, I fully expect awesome U Street Music Hall action.

More ilxor DC influx!

Alright! Enjoy on Wednesday folks. Wednesdays never really work for me. Air is at the 930 that night also, plus early in the night at 6:30 there's a cool panel and book discussion at Busboys and Poets on Brazilian music in the favelas.

Speaking of Brazilian, G. Gil was good Saturday night, and Sunday I ended up at the Grill from Ipanema in Adams Morgan. Food was pricey and underwhelming, the live band playing there was stuck being mostly not heard over the chatter of patrons(including me). What I could hear was great--Brazilian born, DC based guitarist Richard Miller (who teaches at Catholic and does private guitar lessons)is real impressive.

Can't now do Wednesday, got to be up at unholy hour Thursday :-(

plenty of luv for U St. Music Hall at the City Paper blog

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/03/16/free-tonight-u-street-music-halls-soft-opening/

Yeah, everyone's been really nice so far! Sure the knives will come out soon.

As the article points out, we're open for a preview night today - doors at 8, no cover.

So the new parking rules in parts of DC now require money in the meters till 10 on most nights, right? I did hear that they're going to modify it slightly and not limit one to 2 hours after 6:30 pm. I know it's not environmentally correct for us to drive in the city, but with all the track work and stuff on Metro lately, it's just more convenient to drive.

I'm just thinking about certain streets in the U St. area and how that will now require many quarters or, if they have updated the meters, using a credit card. Some streets around there are not metered.

They're updating most of the meters around U st to take credit cards, which is great. In that area the spaces usually aren't metered once you make it a block or two off of U, and based on the popularity of the area recently it's a shock to find a space that close anyway.

holy shit does this sound awesome

my only concern is capacity--the perfect venue and i have visions of it being packed, always. how much more is 300 than dc9 upstairs, st ex basement, or black cat back room?

The Black Cat back room has a capacity of 200 according to the BC web site, so it's probably about half as more or twice as big. I'll post my impressions after tonight.

Yep, bigger than the Black Cat back room, smaller than the Black Cat big room, smaller than Zanzibar...etc.