Capital Swamp: The DC Resource Thread

Have you been to Cunningham falls or Ole Mink Farm in Thurmont, MD.?

cunningham falls is booked (as are all MD state parks) and ole mink farm only allows 2-day minimum reservations.

this is going to be difficult if not impossible. i just heard about the possibility of an awesome meteor shower late tonight and wanted to get out of the city to watch it.

Yep, read about the meteors in the W. Post

With clear skies, sky gazers may see meteor activity late Friday night – at about 10:30 p.m. – according to Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. Astronomers predict the peak will occur from 2 to 4 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, on Saturday morning, but Cooke believes gazers can catch shooting stars all the way through dawn, when the sunrise washes them out.

ugh, i've spent 3 hours straight searching, no luck. it's so sad how difficult it is to try to escape light pollution, even when you have access to a car and are willing to go anywhere in the state

So between 2 and 2:30 am I looked for meteors but did not see any. Gave up and went to sleep.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/05/24/camelopardalids-meteor-shower-a-bust-but-not-a-surprise/?hpid=z3

yeah, i watched from the front porch until about 2 am then went to bed, saw nothing. glad i didn't go across the state to try to camp!

The Black Biker Fest was fun. Just about 300 to 400 people there, most of them were not bikers. Just fans of southern soul--Mel Waiters, Ms. Jody and Hardway Connection. I had previously seen a southern soul show at the Showplace Arena in Upper Marlboro that attracted around 4,000. It was advertised on WHUR 96.3 radio, this one was not.
I'm sure deathfest and Cass Mccombs were nice too.

If you're curious about demographics, me and my fiance and 2 others were the only non-African-American folks there in the audience.

Giving nightclubs and go-go and the Distict's ABC board a bad name:

the ABC Board issued an order allowing XII to operate under an expired liquor license while it files a third application for renewal, after the first two were dismissed for XII’s failure to attend required hearings."

http://dcist.com/2014/05/anc_wants_h_street_ne_club_temporar.php

District's

http://dcist.com/2014/06/thanks_for_coming_to_our_concert_we.php

Dcist.com once a month summer gigs

http://dcist.com/2014/06/the_problem_with_rabbl_crowd-fund.php

https://twitter.com/FortRenoRumors

mildly amusing and sometimes lol funny

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2014/06/09/punk-the-capitals-james-schneider-on-the-docs-rare-footage/

Nostalgic sneak peaks of old-school harDCore & punk on screen Tuesday (and through later in the '80s Wednesday)

The Southern Soul Tribute at the Hamilton Saturday night includes a bunch of standard D.C. barband roots-rockers but also (based on my suggestion-- yeah yeah) local old-school D.C. soul performers Little Margie Clark (from the Jewels, who toured as a James Brown opening act for awhile way back when), Eddie Jones, and members of the Hardway Connection.

June is a busy music month around here. So much going on in multiple genres indoors and outdoors

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/brass-connection-band-for-washington-mystics-makes-crowds-dance-on-dc-streets/2014/06/20/963954be-f709-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

Seen these guys on street corners, they're fun

the fight to save the smithsonian folklife fest from the NPS plan to turn the mall into a country club golf course without the golf, is ongoing

fort reno :(

fuck the park police

NPS messing with everyone

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2014/06/26/there-will-be-no-concerts-at-fort-reno-in-2014/

"So as it stands today, not only does the concert series not have the funds to cover this cost at the last minute but we don’t feel we should have to do this without just cause," wrote MacKaye. "...It will literally double the VERY small budget of the concert series." And so Fort Reno will remain dark—and a lot quieter—this summer.

man, esp. compared to all the bullshit on kickstarter, it would be easy to put together a campaign to raise $2000 to pay a NPS guard to stand there for 2 hours every few weeks during the summer. if we can raise that much on ILX in just a few hours i'm sure Fort Reno wouldn't have a problem.

Amanda can be real stubborn, and she probably thinks giving in and paying is somehow selling out. Maybe she can be persuaded otherwise

As for a potential fundraising campaign, MacKaye says raising the necessary funds from supporters probably wouldn't be an issue, but she's still thinking about whether Fort Reno should have to comply with the Park Service demand at all. “That’s a deeper moral question for me,” she says.

NEVER CHANGE, DC

Just raise the $2,600 via a kickstarter not from a beer company and move on

NPS again:

http://www.nps.gov/rocr/planyourvisit/cbarronschedule.htm

Shorter schedules this summer.
They don't come out and say it but the respective times are later than ever.

The Fort Dupont Summer Theatre and Carter Barron Amphitheatre schedules are expected to be posted on or about July 1, 2014.

Events at Fort Dupont Summer Theatre will begin on July 19, 2014. The new time for events is 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Events at Carter Barron Amphitheatre will begin on August 8, 2014.

Amanda can be real stubborn, and she probably thinks giving in and paying is somehow selling out. Maybe she can be persuaded otherwise

According to the statement on fortreno.com, the NPS sprang the requirement on them very late in the permitting process, and has not given a satisfactory reason why the guard is needed after however many years. I'd certainly contribute to a fundraiser, but it makes sense to ask WHY suddenly the NPS wants the guard.

Also, announcing that Fort Reno is flat-out cancelled should fuel a publicity kerfuffle. If there's a big enough buzz, the NPS might feel enough pressure to give in.

NPS and the Park Police are pretty stubborn

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/general/2014/06/26/pain-in-the-grass-new-national-mall-regulations-force-big-name-events-off-the-lawn/#more-112573

http://www.change.org/petitions/national-park-service-and-u-s-park-police-allow-fort-reno-summer-concert-series-to-continue-as-it-had-for-over-40-years

Will the attention given to Fort Reno in the media encourage the NPS & Park Police to consider Amanda's moral principles, or is she out of luck (and hence so are bands and us)?

I'm pretty sure the NPS cares as much about Amanda's moral principles as Amanda cares about the moral principles of the NPS

Exactly, which will likely leave us with no Fort Reno concerts. But Amanda believes that this will teach bandmembers and the rest of us a moral lesson.

J. Fischer of City Paper put together a list of some of the groups who were scheduled to play:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2014/06/26/heres-who-might-have-played-fort-reno-this-summer/

Here's who nearly played at Fort Reno this summer:

•Title Tracks
•The Effects
•Myrrh Myrrh
•The Captivators
•Alarms and Controls
•Aloners
•Baby Bry Bry and the Apologists
•Calavera Skull
•Golden Looks
•Priests
•Give
•Malatese
•Puff Pieces
•Peanut Butter and Dave
•The Raised by Wolves
•Sotano
•Dissonance
•Stereosleep
•Talk It
•Tiger Horse
•Protect-U
This list might not be complete, either. In an email to me, Ray Brown of teenage rockers The Black Sparks also said his group was supposed to play on July 28. Was your band set to perform?

Both the NPS and USPP recognize the importance of the concerts to the community and look forward to further discussions with the permit applicant.

.......

ooh, DC Shadow Senator Paul Strauss helped arrange a Monday meeting between NPS, USPP, and Amanda Mackaye

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2014/06/27/fort-reno-organizer-to-meet-with-national-park-service-monday/

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2014/06/29/kenyan-musicians-back-at-smithsonian-folklife-festival-after-one-day-strike-against-their-government/

Interesting weekend on the mall.

In other news, Lux Lounge shut down after 3 something AM incident outside the place on the street

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/06/talbert-bright-unidentified-woman-killed-in-weekend-violence-in-dc-club-closed-104611.html

Fort Reno back on

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2014/06/30/fort-reno-concerts-are-back-on/

Organizers agreed today that they will pay for a police presence at this summer's shows, but will not have to pay up front, as officials initially required. "You'll see foot patrols or bike patrols," Strauss said. "Something less disruptive to the environment.” Strauss said that while not every issue was worked out, “we made enough progress that everyone was comfortable moving forward.” Some of those issues include the hard costs of each night, the number of officers on hand for each show, and the number of hours they'll be present, Strauss said, adding that Park Service Superintendent Tara Morrison recognized that “it’s a unique event.”

MacKaye, Morrison, and Park Police Sgt. Allan Griffith appeared on the Kojo Nnamdi Show immediately after the meeting

What I'm not seeing in any of the reporting is why is the Park Service so adamant that there be officers at each show? Was there an issue last year?

from an earlier CP article

MacKaye says she was given two explanations for the requirement being imposed: She says NPS told her that all events for more than 100 people are required to have officers assigned. And she says Park Police told her that that there has been "heightened crime" in Fort Reno Park during the concert series. "I dispute that, because I’m there and I don’t see that going on,” she says.

She says NPS told her that all events for more than 100 people are required to have officers assigned.

this is the important part. it sounds like she ignored that and then focused on the anecdote that there was "heightened crime", which yeah, is bullshit.

But NPS never followed that in the past to the degree they now have decided to do

Yeah, the shows I've been too are always pretty chilled out. It seems the sensible thing would be to have a cop drive past once or twice, maybe hang around at the end to make sure people leave. I don't know what you need a guy parked there all night. (Though there was that thing at the zoo where a kid started dancing . . . they needed some cops to make him stop. Dancing. At a show.)

http://www.fortreno.com/

Schedule posted -- Mondays and Thursdays in July

From the link:

MONDAY, JULY 7 2014
Captivators
Malatese

THURSDAY, JULY 10 2014
Peanut Butter & Dave
Golden Looks
Calavera Skull

MONDAY, JULY 14 2014
Baby Bry Bry
Aloners
Tiger Horse

THURSDAY, JULY 17 2014
Priests
Sotano
Puff Pieces

MONDAY, JULY 21 2014
Alarms & Controls
Talk It
Dissonance

THURSDAY, JULY 24 2014
Title Tracks
The Effects
Myrrh Myrrh

MONDAY, JULY 28 2014
Black Sparks
Stereosleep
The Raised by Wolves

THURSDAY, JULY 31 2014
Give
Protect-U

Any Fort Reno act recommendations?

i like aloners & baby bry bry are a+ bros