Category Archives: shameless self-promotion

Diamond Hard, Osmium Heavy: Them Crooked Vultures at the 9:30 Club

Posted on October 15, 2009 | Leave a comment

photo_01_tn

As long as John Bonham and Kurt Cobain stay dead, there’s probably no more intriguing a musical home* for their former bandmates John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl, respectively, than Them Crooked Vultures, newest and superest of the supergroups.

At the 9:30 Club last night, rock’s own Justice League stuck to what’s been standard procedure since its debut two months ago, performing 85 minutes of unfamiliar, tempo-sliding, sternum-rattling rock, diamond-hard and osmium-heavy. Classics in waiting, possibly, but no covers. No encores. No compromises.
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Blue is the Color of Steve Martin’s Grass

Posted on October 13, 2009 | Leave a comment

Steve Martin's The Crow

We know what you’re thinking: Oh, great, another celebrity banjo album.

Actually, yes. The Crow, the collection of banjo tunes written (save for one) and performed by Steve Martin — uh-huh, that one — is truly wonderful. It says so right on the cover. And our opening joke is an, er, homage to one that a barely-legal Martin had in his stand-up routine in the mid-60s, way before Saturday Night Live or the movies or the New Yorker essays or the Kennedy Center honors.

“You’re thinking, ‘Oh, this is just another banjo-magic act’,” he’d quip. Back then, he banjo-ed out of desperation, lacking enough surefire jokes to fill out his contracted 25-minute set. Continue reading →

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Posted in music, shameless self-promotion, The Washington Post

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The View from the Future with Mike Birbiglia

Posted on October 8, 2009 | Leave a comment
Mike Birbiglia, dressed for success.

Mike Birbiglia, dressed for success.

Mike Birbiglia remembers when the room was a lot smaller. He’s headlining Saturday night at the Warner Theatre, where he’ll tell some stories he’s considering for inclusion in his next one-man show. But he cut his teeth at the DC Improv in the late 90s, while a student at Georgetown University. By the time he was 25, he’d done the The Late Show with David Letterman and had his first album and Comedy Central special.

Birbiglia’s act grew more distinct and involving a couple of years ago, when he began to segue from traditional stand-up into more personal storytelling. Continue reading →

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Live Last Night: Los Lonely Boys & Alejandro Escovedo

Posted on October 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

There’s no single, foolproof test for diagnosing musical overconfidence, but hiring Alejandro Escovedo as your opener is a definite risk factor. Escovedo is a songwriter’s songwriter, an alt-punk-country-etc. warrior who nearly had to die of Hepatitis C six years to begin to get his due. His albums since have been the most vital of his three-decade career.
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Talking Male Fragility Blues with Nick Hornby

Posted on October 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

Nick Hornby photographed by Sigrid Estrada

Few writers have managed to pin the millennial male ego under glass the way Nick Hornby has. In his comic novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and the new Juliet, Naked, among others, Hornby picks apart our vanity and insecurity in ways that are as scary as they are entertaining. He’s also written loads of great nonfiction about his love of soccer, literature, and pop music.
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Posted in DCist, job insecurity, shameless self-promotion

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Forum’s “Angels in America,” preview’d

Posted on October 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

Michael Dove

And that handsome guy right there is Michael Dove, artistic director of Forum Theatre and director of Angels in America: Perestroika. They’re doing that one, which is Part II, and Millennium Approaches, which is Part I, in rep, together.

Ballsy. Expensive. Etc.

I’ve got all the details in today’s Examiner.

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Posted in job insecurity, shameless self-promotion, theatre

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U2 360 at FedEx Field: Faraway, So Close!

Posted on September 30, 2009 | Leave a comment
U2 get anthemic. Photo by Martin Locraft.

U2 get anthemic. Photo by Martin Locraft.

And that’s just about gonna do it for writing about U2 this year, I think. My review of last night’s U2 360 gig at FedEx Field is up on DCist, with photos by Martin Locraft. Tough love = real love, y’alls.

And I gotta give it up to the Post’s Chris Richards for penning a funny and insightful notice on deadline last night.

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Posted in DCist, music, shameless self-promotion, The Washington Post

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Oh, and Did We Mention There’s a U2 Concert Tomorrow Night?

Posted on September 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

U2 2009

It’s true! If U2′s uninspiring performance of “Moment of Surrender” on Saturday Night Live scared you off, perhaps my Examiner preview, offering a bit of historical context for the 360 Tour, can win you back. Because U2 really, really need the attention.

I’ll reviewing the show for DCist. Meanwhile, my sometime colleague Catherine Lewis digs into the curious phenomenon of a cappella groups covering U2 tunes. She’s a braver woman than I am.

Shut up. You know what I mean.

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Bigger than the Sound: Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the 9:30

Posted on September 28, 2009 | Leave a comment
Karen O at the 9:30 Club, 9.25.09

Karen O at the 9:30 Club, 9.25.09

DCist has my review of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Friday-night 9:30 gig, but the real attraction is the phantasmagorical photography of The Artist Formely (?) Known as Information Leafblower, Mr. Kyle Gustafson, who shot the hell out of the show like he always does.

I wish the YYY’s were opening for U2 tomorrow night instead of Muse.

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“Died Young, Stayed Pretty” at the Corcoran

Posted on September 21, 2009 | Leave a comment
Austin poster designer Rob Jones in Eileen Yaghoobian's documentary, "Died Young, Stayed Pretty."

I chatted with artist and first-time documentary filmmaker Eileen Yaghoobian for a piece about this week’s DC premiere of Died Young, Stayed Pretty, her movie about gig poster artists. I’ve written about our local gig poster scene here in DC more than once, so it’s a subject close to my heart, and her flick is a lot of fun. It screens Thursday night at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Details here.

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Firecracker, Firecracker: Yo La Tengo at the 9:30 Club

Posted on September 18, 2009 | Leave a comment

13-Yo-La-Tengo

Last night was my first time seeing Yo La Tengo, the second-most-famous musical institution out of Hoboken, NJ. Head over to DCist for the review, with photos by Francis Chung.

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Dan Deacon brings his “Explosion Show” to a Building Near the Washington Times Building

Posted on September 18, 2009 | Leave a comment

DAN DEACON by Josh Sisk

I did a little preview of Dan Deacon’s free show in Kenilworth tomorrow as part of a weekend-long KIA Motors promotion that also features free gigs by Wale (tonight) and MGMT (Sunday).

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Fab Four: Virgin Free Fest, recount’d

Posted on August 31, 2009 | Leave a comment
Believe the Hype: Chuck D and Flavor Flav at Virgin Free Fest's West Stage. Photo by Francis Chung.

Believe the Hype: Chuck D and Flavor Flav at Virgin Free Fest's West Stage. Photo by Francis Chung.

My arbitrary and semi-complete (owing to some collaborative difficulties) recap of yesterday’s Virgin Free Fest is up at DCist now, accompanied by more photos like the Public Enemy shot above by Francis Chang.

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Hey, Remember Living Colour? Sure You Do.

Posted on August 31, 2009 | 2 Comments

Living-Colour-by-Bill-Bernstein

You remember “Cult of Personality,” of course, especially if you had MTV in 1989. The 10-second preamble from Malcom X. Vernon Reid’a million-candlepower vamp, searing instantly onto your brain. Frontman Corey Glover’s whirling dreadlocks. His burly soul-sanger wail, lithe but authoritative, though he was not yet twenty-five. His unfortunate yellow bike shorts. (Look, it was the 80s. Axl was wearing them, too.)

“Cult of Personality” went to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won a Garmmy for Best Hard Rock Performance. But its real achievement was to embed a message of political skepticism in a mainstream hit for the first time in a long while. (Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” became an even bigger smash that same year.) Continue reading →

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Live Friday Night: The Flaming Lips at Merriweather Post Pavilion

Posted on August 31, 2009 | Leave a comment

Wayne-Coyne-in-the-bubble

Oklahoma’s Flaming Lips have subverted expectation of how a “rock” band should sound and behave for so long that the most radical performance they could give at this stage of their singular career would be merely to perform an hour-and-a-half of songs absent psychedelic videos, Yeti-costumed cheerleaders, or Mini Cooper-sized balloons full of confetti.

Still, no one was complaining at Merriweather Friday night when the Lips turned up with all their circus wagons full of Yippie ephemera in tow. Frontman Wayne Coyne was onstage 20 minutes before their performance began, helping to set up gear in full view of the tri-generational crowd. (He got a big cheer when he unpacked the plastic bubble he would soon inflate and enclose himself in for his customary walk-and-roll above the most pit.) Continue reading →

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The Folger’s Radiant Arcadia: Sexy-Time for Your Brain

Posted on May 13, 2009 | Leave a comment

Arcadia---1809

Whaddaya mean I’m two years too late for a Borat joke?

This still from Aaron Posner’s brilliant new staging of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia at the Folger wouldn’t make me want to run out and see it, really. But I hope my DCist review will inspire you to do just that. Best thing I’ve seen on a stage in 2009, certainly, and probably going back a goodly while earlier than that. Run, don’t walk.

What, you want more? Okay. Review proper begins after the jump.
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Live Last Night: Leonard Cohen at Merriweather

Posted on May 12, 2009 | Leave a comment

Leonard-Cohen-hat-in-hand

Ladies and Gentlemen, opening for the serene and poetical Mr. Leonard Cohen this evening: the brilliant and genteel Mr. Leonard Cohen.

At Merriweather Monday night, under skies that might be called “Coheneque” — cold, rainy, despairing, but not without a solitary beauty — the spry 74-year-old* songwriter’s songwriter glided on-stage at 7:35, and sang for 65 minutes. Yes, sang. Save your jokes. He’s heard them all, and written some of the better ones himself.** Continue reading →

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Posted in job insecurity, music, shameless self-promotion, The Washington Post

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Live Two Nights Ago: John Doe & The Sadies at IOTA

Posted on May 10, 2009 | Leave a comment
Photo by Derek von Essen / courtesy Yep Roc Records

Photo by Derek von Essen / courtesy Yep Roc Records

The great Los Angeles punkabilly quartet known as X had already made their best albums by 1985, when three-fourths of its lineup joined guitarist Dave Alvin to form the country and western offshoot The Knitters. That band took 20 years to brew a follow-up, but X/Knitters co-frontman John Doe’s sand-polished voice instantly proved to be such a natural and expressive delivery system for old-timey C&W that you knew (or at least hoped) he’d eventually get around to cutting a record like “Country Club”— his month-old set of (primarily) Bakersfield-centric “countrypolitan” classics, recorded with Toronto-based roots eclecticians The Sadies.
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Coming Soon: St. Vincent.

Posted on May 9, 2009 | Leave a comment

stvincent

Stop the Presses: I’ve got a little bit on St. Vincent nee Annie Clark in the Paper of Record’s Sunday Style + Arts roundup of musical young comers who’ll be playing around town in the next month or so.

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Outtie

Posted on April 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

rauschenberg-la-uncovered-12

We all know I’m not great about updating this blog, but for the next three weeks, you can look for my underachievement to sink to new depths. That’s because you gotta tear down before you can build up, Man! Later today I’m hopping a plane to L.A., where I, along with 22 other arts journalists (pro and semi-) from around the country, will spend two weeks in intensive study with our betters.
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