Capital Swamp: The DC Resource Thread

Jeff told me the panel had about 100 persons in attendance. He also said, "Lots of great stories from everyone, including Richard Mendelson whose father owned Benny's Rebel Room."

Speaking of old DC music history, I missed the tribute to Carr's Beach concert that took place in Annapolis on Sunday. When many of the area beaches and amusement parks were off-limits to Blacks, Carr's Beach near Sandy Point was the place to go for area African-Americans.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/general/2010/07/02/international-roots-music-weekend-roundup-the-smithsonian-folklife-festival-arcangel-and-more/#more-26229

cough ....plug....cough(quickie post I prepared last night that includes a UHall event, the Folklife fest, and some reggaeton and more

Glen Echo dancing types love the Folklife Fest...(and me too. It has been slimmed down over the years. Less money available)

Thanks for the tents there. Made it bearable. Not too crowded there today on this Monday government holiday.

W. Post critic David Malitz' band the Cheniers are at Fort Reno tonight.

Morgan Geist (Metro Area) and DJ Sprinkles at U Street Music Hall tonight.

How was it?

Saturday:

Unrest at Black cat tonight; Norwegian pop group whose name I forgot at Iota; ConFunktion, Zapp & Slave at Carter Barron; and a Brit postpunk group at Comet Ping Pong

Really good. Morgan Geist played a mix of stuff and Thaemlitz's set was all his own music. Both were more uptempo and crowd-pleasing than I expected, especially Thaemlitz. A track like Masturjakor sounds amazing on that sound system and people were dancing about as hard as you can dance to his music. I thought the crowd would mostly be gay nerds but it was almost all straight people--just the typical crowd for U Hall's Friday night parties? Unfortunately Thaemlitz came on at 1:30 a.m. and I only lasted until 2:30, but it was a very solid hour. I got there at 11:30 and Geist's set lasted the full two hours until Thaemlitz.

hmmmmm. Interesting. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/07/19/for-dj-neekola-iphone-app-is-the-new-show-flyer/#more-26897

“DJing a big club in D.C. is definitely different than DJing in Europe,” she says. “If it’s a local night here, it’s never as full as a club would be over in Europe. And in Europe I can get more creative with the music…I don’t have to stick to just vocal house, and I never have to mix in top 40 or commercial stuff, but it’s like a necessity here in D.C. And almost always in Europe, the people jump, wave their hands and dance like crazy.”

Neekola DJs at local venues like L2, MOVA, Funxion, and Auld Shabeen in Fairfax. She spins at L2 on June 23.

Never been there, but based on what I've read, I can imagine that dj'ing anywhere else would be better than dj'ing at Georgetown lounge L2.

"Georgetown lounge"

Ugh

noooo comment on that piece.

btw Skip, thanks for coming out to DJ Sprinkles! IT was a really great night, and he ended up playing until 4am. Occasional ilxor Lou was there, as was old-school ilxor Aaron Grossman, the initiator of this thread.

From the W. Post blog re issues with getting "free" tickets to see LCD, Pavement, MIA, and more at the Virgin Mobile Fest in September. Online tickets are available Saturday.

there are two asterisks. First one: Virgin Mobile customers and fans who held tickets for previous Virgin Mobile Festivals will be invited via text message and email to a private online ticket giveaway on Friday, July 23. Secondly, fans who don’t want to deal with the rush of online ticket-snatchers can choose to purchase a premium ticket for $125. It provides Pavilion seating, with a portion of the proceeds going to homeless youth charities, and is available for purchase online Friday at 10 a.m.

Fans who would prefer a totally free FreeFest, practice your mouse-clicks. Last year, all 35,000 tickets vanished in a mere 30 minutes.

I think Saturday is the 20th anniversary for Lamont's nightclub in Pomonkey. Amazingly this soulfood/music club has survived with no ads and no website. Just some radio mentions, flyers, posters and word of mouth.

I keep missing Fort Reno shows this summer. Oh well. Have also missed Lamont's soul things and Latino ones and U Hall ones as well. Sometimes real life stuff gets in the way.

Is musician Lida Husik living in DC again, but no longer recording? Thought I read that somewhere.

Sarah Godfrey article on go-gos at DC private schools

http://www.tbd.com/articles/2010/08/private-school-go-go-goes-public-3.html

I DIED, you got any big name acts in the works for U Hall? I had a great time at Aeroplane, Pantha du Prince and DJ Sprinkles.

On our Friday house nights, we've got Neurotic Drum Band, Paul Johnson, Timmy Regisford, Tony Humphries, King Britt, and Francios K coming up. There's also Tim Sweeney, Tensnake, Annie Mac, and more.

There's a lot of really amazing stuff for Oct-Dec we don't have quite confirmed yet, but I'll post a follow up when we do.

The Washington City Paper is putting together a fall arts preview supplement now. You should e-mail a list of stuff to Jonathan Fischer and Erin Petty of the CP. I'm always bugging them to improve their listings and that would help.

x-post to myself--Lida Husik's website says she's recording her first album in years, in Portland shortly (but not sure where she is living--she had gotten married and was out in California for awhile). If you don't know her, old Liz Phair and Beth Orton and Lois might be reference points

Italians Do It Better DJs worth seeing? Might head along if I can master the transport.

Last time Mike Simonetti was here he definitely played harder & housier than the IDIB sound. What I'm really looking forward to in that lineup is Victor Simonelli, who did a lot great 90's NY house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI6ka-OPP6I

I'm looking for DC industrial/Dark Wave or punk nights or any good upcoming electronica. Apparently there used to be something at Little Miss Whiskey's but it's been put on hold.

I wonder if there's a DC industrial/dark wave e-mail list or something? Not my thing, but I am guessing somebody should know...

Otherwise I guess you've just gotta google DC goth or something or see if the listings for DC 9 or Velvet lounge or something seem to show an industrial genre dj

Anybody know anything about Subterranean A, a new club featuring indie-rock bands (at 13th and R NW maybe? not sure)

Nope...here's the building according to Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1432+R+St+NW&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=1432+R+St+NW,+Washington,+District+of+Columbia,+20009&gl=us&ei=ZHR2TJvOAoWClAehyKTsCw&ved=0CBQQ8gEwAA&ll=38.912608,-77.033665&spn=0.009183,0.016544&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=38.912613,-77.033773&panoid=P2hg4JtZnqtayUQm73nedw&cbp=12,172.82,,0,-16.94

From what I can find it sounds like a basement apartment.

BYT mentioned a Friday 3 band show with Tennis, Family Portrait and Andrew Cedarmark there

http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/event/tennis-family-portrait-andrew-cedermark.htm?utm_source=Best+Weekend+Bets&utm_campaign=7935291951-bwb_8_26_20108_26_2010&utm_medium=email

I'm interested in East LA rock band Los Fabulocos making their first area appearance Friday for free at 7 at the Wheaton Triangle

Maybe it's just a house basement gig and they've given the room a name.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/09/20/all-week-spend-your-lunchtime-watching-classic-d-c-rb/

Old-school DC r'n'b plus Chuck Brown for free all week

woah, that's a great week of lineups

19 twitter specialists!

TBD Night will attempt to demystify the evening. Say you're in one bar, and you're thinking of going to another. Yes, you could laboriously search Twitter to see if anyone's microblogged that your intended destination was packed, but by the time you figure out how to do that with your stubby, drinky fingers, your date will have given up on you and you might as well have just gone yourself.

Then there are questions of lines. Special deals. Exactly how much sensation you may lose in your butt as you watch 10 hours worth of plays about Afghanistan. And is it worth checking out the talent at Dodge City?

On Saturday, starting at 4 p.m, our 19 Twitter specialists are going to aggregate as much information as we can from people out and about in the Washington area, including TBD staffers. Wanna help?

RIP John Hansen, longtime DC punk scene regular, soundman, roadie and Slickees Boys guitarist for a few years

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/09/21/john-hansen%e2%80%94longtime-d-c-punk-fixture-roadie-soundman-guitarist-of-the-slickee-boys%e2%80%94is-dead/

So many events at certain clubs get announced at the last minute: Only recently saw that reggaeton guy Don Omar would be at Ibiza tonight and Brazilian dj Tudo would be at Liv. In an ideal world these clubs would provide as much heads up notice as the 930 Club.

Merzbow and Richard Pinhas at the House of France/French Embassy tonight.

Hope you brought earplugs.

I went to Chuck Brown. Fun--lots of guests, lots of covers, and future mayor Vincent Grey dancing awkwardly.

Then I headed over to the Freer and saw the movie doc Sleepwalking through the Mekong. It's the story of Los Angeles band Dengue Fever and their Cambodian singer going to Cambodia in 2005. You see them play on a stage set up in a shantytown, and traveling the country. Some people discuss how the Khmer Rouge brutally murdered millions there including countless musicians and artists. The director and 2 members of the band were there. Cambodian 60s rock is cool--surf with Asian vocal melodies.

They made $30 tickets available for VirginFest if you never got a free one or spent $125 for a pavilion seat.

A music packed weekend. Improv, Virgin Fest, metal at Patriot Center, country-pop at Jiffy lube, Latin fest today in Mt. Pleasant, soul music great Clarence Carter at the free Bluebird Fest at PG Community College to name a few. I'm probably leaving out some great dj events.

So the whole Wash. Post arts section today is about the new Arena Stage in SW. There is also a side-piece re planned SW development. I know it is a big deal architecturally. Noticeably absent to me: any mention of Zanzibar OTW, or Hogates/H2O in any of the sidebars. As much as I dislike how those places were and are managed, the arts they have presented (i.e., Latin, Caribbean, African, RnB, Go-go) are as worthy as uh, Arena's upcoming revival of "Oklahoma."

Suprised noone in the media got a pic of Grey dancing with Chuck Brown. Or maybe not--Virgin Freefest was this weekend and the Redskins were playing.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/performance-and-dance/2010/10/07/art-nova-who-gains-from-the-massive-new-artisphere/

la casa shelter in columbia heights closing

Wow. Complicated stuff. I did volunteer work a long time ago for the Washington legal Clinic for the Homeless. Uh, I (sheepishly admit) never saw anything at the music space there or went to any of the benefits.

So Artisphere is ok. Maybe a little more than ok.

Interesting Post magazine article on Sunday re Fight Club in Blagden Alley.

I don't see how Artisphere is possibly going to get the 250,000 visitors a year they're expecting. I wonder if the company that did the projections for that was the same one that did them for the City Museum?

Wow is that what they're expecting. You're right. While I hear the BYT party was crowded, Sunday afternoon (admittedly during a Redskin game) was not that crowded at the 1st day of the open house, and the CP blog post re yesterday says it was not that crowded either.

They've got a top NY salsa band, La Excelencia, there tonight but I'm not sure how well they've gotten the word out to the local Hispanic community. Some of the Saturday night at 11 events will draw a decent indie-rock crowd, but nothing huge. The local salsa bands on upcoming Tuesdays and the swing dance bands on Wednesdays probably won't draw huge crowds. It's a nice big sprawling space, but it's in desolate Rosslyn.

1800+ through the door made for a magical night and vibe. Chris Burns e-mail re BYT party at Artisphere. Nothing else currently scheduled is gonna draw that kind of crowd.

Hmmmm, thinking out loud here--I see they're charging $15 for local salsa bands and dance lessons on most Tuesdays and the same for swing dance bands on Wednesdays, I wonder what Glen Echo charges for the same?

And other places? They're also charging $15 for most of the indie-rock Saturday at 11 gigs (a mixture of local, national and international artists)