Capital Swamp: The DC Resource Thread

Obama coming, Mountain Goats tomorrow, I'm almost happy to live in this town.

almost

Go ahead and tell us what you don't like about this town. I'll leave the complaining about the DC government and the feds to others; on a nit-picky music front I wish we had promoters bringing to town better-publicized and coordinated events with either African, electronic club dj, Latin, and roots soul performers.

This town may be too pricey rent-wise and house-buying wise but we have this impressive event coming up this week and other fun stuff--

STOP SMILING DC ISSUE RELEASE PARTY: NOV. 13th

You are cordially invited to celebrate the release of STOP SMILING's DC Issue at Civilian Art Projects with guests George Pelecanos and Anwan Glover from the ground-breaking HBO series "The Wire" and DC DJs Ian Svenonious and Kevin Coombe.

Cover stories on George Pelecanos and Anwan Glover, serve as centerpieces of a long look into the heart of our nation's capital. The issue eschews the political machine that the world associates with the city and instead focuses on the rich history and indigenous culture of the District of Columbia and its residents.

Our DJs for the night will be Ian Svenonious, who fronted legendary bands Nation of Ulysses and the Make-Up, along with Kevin Coombe, proprietor of DC Soul Recordings, the most comprehensive online resource for soul and funk from the capital city. The party's two guests of honor will be none other than the issue's cover story subjects: Anwan Glover, critically acclaimed actor from The Wire and member of DC go-go legends The Backyard Band, and DC crime writer, as well as a writer and producer of The Wire, George Pelecanos.

STOP SMILING's DC Issue Release Party

Thursday, November 13, 7 - 10pm

Civilian Art Projects - 406 7th St, NW, Washington DC

There will be a recommended $5 donation at the door.

Every guest will receive a copy of the new issue with the donation.

R.I.P. Lawrence P. Wheatley, jazzman

Ambassador Theater Psychedelic memories

The roundtable talk and video thing salsa dance instructor Eileen Torres arranged with Cuban violinist Alfredo De La Fe Saturday night at the Juste Lounge in Bethesda was great. 15 folks sitting around listening to De La Fe talk about old Cuban musicians, his time playing with Eddie Palmieri, Celia Cruz and others, and other stuff.

THE DC ISSUE
ISSUE #37 EXCLUSIVES:

INTERVIEWS

Harper's Washington Editor KEN SILVERSTEIN
Author and blogger ANA MARIE COX
Former Alaska senator MIKE GRAVEL
Poet and NEA Chairman DANA GIOIA
DC native and activist FRANK RICH SR.
New York Times journalist DEXTER FILKINS
Author and journalist THOMAS FRANK
Political satirist CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY

ESSAYS

ALEX COX on The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May
JONATHAN ROSENBAUM on paranoid DC cinema
MICHAEL GONZALES on Akashic Books
J. ROBBINS on Inner Ear Studio's Don Zientara
NATHANIEL RICH on Dashiell Hammett

FOOD

Capital City Soul
The Ethiopian Experience

PHOTO ESSAYS

DAN WINTERS
PAT GRAHAM

RECORD

STOP SMILING presents BACKYARD BAND BOOTLEGS, a collection of live tracks from the extensive career of the classic DC go-go group, the Backyard Band

& MUCH MORE

From WAMA:

Chick Hall Sr.

On Tuesday, November 18, 2008, Chick Hall Sr. passed away. He was a musician of enormous talent and a humble man.

Chick Hall Sr. was a country-jazz guitar virtuoso who made Armed Forces Radio records with Glenn Miller. Around 1953, he began playing with his own band, the Chick Hall Trio. After playing for a few years at the Surf Club, on Bladensburg Road in Colmar Manor, Chick decided that he'd like to make the club his musical home, and so he bought the place in 1955 and began playing there 6 nights a week.

The Surf Club transitioned from Jazz to Country Music, and many of the country greats visited, including Jim Reeves and Lefty Frizzell. Patsy Cline sang her heart out at the Surf Club. Jimmy Dean, Roy Clark, Charlie Daniels, dropped by to jam. It was around this time that the Colmar Manor/Cottage City area was in it's heyday, with numerous clubs such as the Crossroads, Rusty Cabins (which turned into Burt Motley's), the Dixie Pig, Angelo's, the Wheel, and Basin Street, mostly all offering live music 7 days a week. There was always a party going on.

Things change gradually. Chick got married early on and had two sons - Chick, Jr. and Chris. In 1975, a developer made a good offer on the Surf Club, so Chick sold the club property, and built another one up the street at 4711 Kenilworth Ave (at the corner of Kenilworth Ave and Crittendon Street), He is survived by his wife of 67 or so years, and his kids Chick and Chris.

That should say Birk Motley's Sirloin Room, a very unique place on Bladensburg Road that may now be gone but was once a joint where I saw the late Birk Motley stand on head and play the trumpet. PG County rules.

stand on his head

Go ahead and tell us what you don't like about this town. I'll leave the complaining about the DC government and the feds to others

Except for the weather, my complaints can be traced back to those two things, mostly the latter--so the problem is with me; I should live someplace else. But massive fed presence confers recession resistance so I'm probably not going anywhere for a couple years.

RIP Chick Hall. I had fun at his place a couple times last autumn when it was still supposedly closing.

I see. As an Arlington resident and longtime federal govt. employee I don't have too much to say about those items.

The Setting reggae and dancehall club is shut down while Dan Deacon plays to thousands at a museum. Class and socio-ecomics always has to screw things up. That's life.

Dress code restrictions are at the discretion of LUX management and pertain not merely to articles of clothing; But more importantly to Style and Execution. It's not what you wear; it's how you wear it that counts!

For questions regarding Tables and/or Bottle Service: Please email us
LUX LOUNGE . 649 NEW YORK AVE NW. WASHINGTON , DC 20001

Yes the rumors are true, the Washington Post has decided to save money by reducing the number of concert reviews in Style even more than they have already done over the last year or 2, and by dropping 2/3 of their freelancer concert reviewers.

Including me. What a bummer. There is nothing on music in today's Post Style & Arts section. I wonder if anyone will review some of the January shows I pitched ( Occidental Brothers Dance Band International; Rio de Janeiro’s Marcio Local; Chicha Libre)?

oh man, this sucks. bad decision on their part.

I don't do it for a living and they could have kept me for cheap on the website if they wanted to expand that. I don't understand their use of the web--they got the Going Out Gurus working out of Arlington and Josh and Malitz doing the post rock blog (pop, country, and indie) but that's it.

Meanwhile the City Paper has an article on a small portion of the DC dj scene. "Beats Working," which the writer calls "THE DC dance scene"(emphasis added)http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=36621

I am not clear why white djs spinning music for white indie-rock and electronica-whatever folks merits attention as the only dance scene worth covering without any mention of D.C. deep house nights, African and Caribbean dance nights at Zanzibar and the Crossroads, gay dance locations, old-school chitlin circuit soul/hand dancing locations like the Chateau, and r’n'b and rap dance nights at Love and the Legend and numerous other clubs. The article provided no historical context nor discussed any issues of race, class or sociology.

Monday night, Richie Unterberger,who was my editor at the defunct Option magazine, and who authored the books “Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution” and “Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll,” will be discussing his latest effort, a 400 page coffee-table volume entitled "The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film," and showing rare films and playing rare recordings featured in the book, from 7pm-9pm at the Library of Congress Mary Pickford Theater, Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave.SE Free.

Heard the Richie U thing was good. I've been blogging some at the Washington City Paper and doing some City Paper citylights.

Most inaugural events are way too pricey

not the rumored boss lincoln memorial concert

way too crowded, perhaps

Nope, although I read one thing somewhere suggesting that they are going to require tickets for that free show at the Lincoln Memorial (I also read that HBO will broadcast it for free and make it available through cable providers to one and all not just those who pay extra for HBO). That does not make sense. Official balls are like 250 each, but Zanzibar events are also expensive, as is a Brazilian thing at Rumberos. And while I like those Chicago folks at Black Cat am not sure I'd want to spend the bucks for that. I'm a cheapskate (although if the event is for a good cause maybe that's ok to charge and pay alot then).

Brian listed some others over on an ILE thread.

Tickets for the Lincoln Memorial does not make sense, broadcasting it for free does, is what I meant.

The Inauguration entertainment schedule!

oh thanks

Chuck Brown's gonna be a busy guy. He's got a number of gigs throughout the weekend.

For your calendars: On March 7th Jeff Krulik will be doing an event (location tba ) about the Wheaton Youth Center called "Led Zeppelin Was Here." Yep, the Zep, the Stooges and others played there way back when.

I should get that Points album. Though it's too bad the organist quit the group. She was good.

I haven't heard the current version of the group

Re: the Points as nice folks don't play the game or the biz well enough.

I was just going to comment on the upthread mention of the Points CD... it's a great, great album but nobody seems to have heard it. When I was back in D.C. for the holidays, I went out to buy it, but it couldn't be found at Crooked Beat, Red Onion, or Smash. It didn't seem like it was some hot out of stock item, as far as the clerks were concerned, it was more like "Oh yeah, they have an album out... we've had it before, but I guess we didn't get any more in. You can mail order it." (I ended up buying it on iTunes since I live overseas and mailorder gets expensive and difficult). I was just wondering if it was a stereotypical apathetic D.C. thing on the part of the band (i.e. playing it cool and not hustling), or if their label (which is the label of Post gossip columnist/Edie Sedgwick main man Justin Moyer, I believe) isn't getting it out there, or what. I wonder why Dischord didn't put it out? Either way - punk/rock people, definitely look for that album...

Speaking of Dischord - has anyone heard Andalusions (the band that seem to have the most recent Dischord release)? What do they sound like?

I remember asking one of the guys in the Points when they were struggling to find a label to put out their album about Dischord, and the singer said, "I get the impression they are not putting out new cds by folks they do not already know." The Points do not seem to do the business side of things well, but what remains of the Dischord audience seems apathetic to them (except for Justin), as does the dcist.com or whatever brightest yt dc indie-rock audience. Chris Richards and I have reviewed them in the Post, and Malitz has highlighted them I think on post.com, but they can't seem to get a large audience.

supposedly v@l from dcist finally interviewed them recently

also im 99% sure that red onion has the points album right now

And Aaron Leitko just posted their video at the Washington City Paper Black Plastic Bag blog.

OMG AND NOW THE POINTS ARE STORMING THE HAYE-ADAMS

(take out the E)

Have not heard the Andalusians.

How about Thievery selling out 5 nights at the 930. I last saw them with Manu Chao at Merriwether Post, and they were alright (not great not bad) but I don't quite get the fuss. I guess they manage to get dance,rock, and whirled folks alike

If you are up late saturday/sunday night (say 1AM) and near a computer, WWOZ DJ Jamie Dell'Apa is gonna play the best of DC roots music in honor of the inauguration. The emphasis will be on guitar pyrotechnicians. In a whimsical turnaround, the city of New Orleans will actually be listening to *our* music for a change. Well, OK, maybe just the late-nite, drunk-driving New Orleanians, but still...... If you want to harass him, the station phone number is buried somewhere on their website. He probably will need to be reminded to play some Slickee Boys.

The show will be archived for later listening.

http://www.wwoz.org/blog/53511

Just heard Mambo Sauce's new version of their own "Welcome to DC." It's the Obama version with sampled Obama speech excerpts and the lyric,"Never before has there been a president with a swagga like us."

Love the radio ad for the "My President is Black" event with Young Jeezy at Fur tonight

The Inauguration entertainment schedule!

Can Moby play an acoustic set? His fans can tell the rest of us this morning. At roughly 1:30 a.m., a power outage shut down the 9:30 Club — along with other homes and establishments near 9th and U Streets NW and along Florida Avenue. By Kriston Capps at dcist.com in News on January 19, 2009 1:59 AM

http://moby.org/gfx/19990821_Dallas/moby_-_acoustic_guitar.jpg

Nice.

The power was apparently out for an hour or so before it came back on and there's controversy over whether the 930 will offer refunds to those who left.

I just want to know how the Skip Mahoney and Jewels show at the Chateau on Benning Road was on Saturday, or the Socarama last night with David Rudder and Alison Hinds up Georgia Avenue at an old Chevy dealership.
Nothing on the Post.com Post Rock blog or the City Paper blogs or Dcist.com about those events (or the dj events at the warehouse for that matter).

Aretha was incredible at the Kennedy Center. A packed house with many turned away. The show packed the concert hall and folks who could not get in packed the foyer and watched the show on video screens.

http://www.caribbeanworldnews.com/entertainment_one.php?sid=1528&a=2&cut=301&ad=entertainment

On Friday night, singer Cocoa Tea brought `Barack` to the Zanzibar night club and to the Obama Socarama on Sunday night.

Both events, however, fell short of the expected fan base while seemingly poor organization of the Obama Socarama led to poor attendance, a cold auditorium and an ultra late start.

The show got underway closer to 1 a.m. but top acts including David Rudder, did not grace the stage until after 4 a.m. At 4:55 a.m., Soca singer Allison Hinds still had not made it to the stage, despite promoters touting a 5 a.m. end time.

I was at the Moby show and vibes were generally good despite the power outage. Turns out he is pretty good at playing an improvised drumset made out of trash buckets and empty beer kegs.