Lights That Flash in the Evening: Portlandia Tour @ 930 Club (2-22-2012)

I covered the Portlandia Tour stop here at the 930 Club last night for the 930 Club and the Washington City Paper. (WCP piece going up here later today.) Full of kooky humor, music, and special guests, like DC's own Ian Svenonius and Mary Timony, among others, it was just as entertaining live as it is on the show. Now if they'd only make the bit on the DC music scene an accessible video!

Additional photos from the show can be seen here.

Portlandia: Shooting Star Preschool
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Lights That Flash in the Evening: Jason Isbell @ 930 Club (1-14-2010)

My piece on Jason Isbell's set at the 930 Club on Friday went live today at the paper today. Check it out here.

Additional photos from the set can be found here.

Lights That Flash in the Evening: Grinderman @ 930 Club, Washington, DC (11-16-2010)

I covered Mr. Nick Cave and his side project Grinderman, who played at the 930 Club for the WCP a few days back. My friend, also named Nick, writer and editor for Bloodbeat.com summed up Cave and Grinderman in a brilliant sentence. He said Grinderman was "More about destroying the structure of songs as well as shouting about getting well-laid and breaking hymens world-over with a flexed mustache muscle and laser eyes." Testify, ladies and gentleman, testify (See all of the photos of the show here).

I wasn't an immediate convert to Cave. He was good live, yes, but, I can't explain it, something was still missing for me. If I'm on the edge about band, it's usually their live show that can tip the scales for me, but I was still fence-sitting about Cave, even after Tuesday's show. I liked the intensity and the passion he displayed, but... I was yet to be convinced (in fact, I left before the encore). But then I happened upon the video for "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!" from the 2008 record Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" the next day, and... I finally got it, that weird, inane attraction that so many have for Cave. And I'm not even a fan of vampires!

Lights That Flash in the Evening: The Hold Steady @ 930 Club, Washington, DC (10-4-2010)

My lastest Washington City Paper review went live this morning, this time of Monday's Hold Steady show at the 930 Club. Read all about it here, and see additional photos here.

Lights That Flash in the Evening: The Vaselines/Teenage Fanclub @ 930 Club, Washington, DC (10-2-2010)

My photo/text review of Saturday's Vaselines/Teenage Fanclub show at the 930 Club is up over at the Washington City Paper if you like to check it out.

They played Jimmy Fallon last Thursday too, doing the ever-lovely "Jesus Don't Want Me for a Sunbeam," probably the least sexual song of their entire catalogue.

Lights That Flash in the Evening: Superchunk/Tommy Keene/Let's Wrestle @ 930 Club, Washington, DC (9-17-2010)

Superchunk came to town on Friday with the great Tommy Keene and Let's Wrestle, an English band on the Merge label. My Washington City Paper review is live (rest of the photos are here) but a few things I didn't mention in my City Paper review are...

-I have not been able to stop listening to "Brand New Love," a Sebadoh song which Superchunk covered Friday night and recorded on the Tossing Seeds: Singles 89-91 record. I then sought out the Sebadoh version and HOW. ON. EARTH. have I lived this long and not known the beauty of Lou Barlow's writing? His voice delicately plays these gorgeous words and then you're hit with the massive wall of feedback, which gets louder on the last go-round of the chorus. It's such an incredibly stunning dichotomy that I'm now on a mission to educate myself in all things Sebadoh.

-Whomever it is that is doing the lighting at the 930 Club as of late, I BEG you, enough with the red/yellow lighting already. You usually do such a great job and I never have an issue but the last two weeks, you're just killing me man. Thanks for your attention to this matter.

-Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster does a riotously funny tour blog (here). Apparently, if Superchunk vs. Bob Mould were head-to-head in a loudness battle, Superchunk would win. I knew it would be close but wowza (and Wurster should know being the guy who's making a fair share of said noise). Says he:

I’d forgotten this feeling. I’m lying in bed in my friend Phil’s apartment the morning after a New York City Superchunk show– a scene that’s taken place a hundred times since I joined the band in October of 1991. And true to form, I’m in pain.

My ears are howling from last night’s sonic assault. And I’m not talking about the dressing down I received from that cop before the show (when did this “no throwing garbage cans through store windows” law go into effect?). Though I’ve spent our nine years off the road touring with other musicians (The Mountain Goats/Robert Pollard/Ben Gibbard & Jay Farrar, etc) the Superchunk wall of sound is like none other. I’ve had the great pleasure of drumming with Bob Mould since ’08 and while those shows are LOUD I don’t recall waking up later with the sound of the world’s largest ocean (the Sea of Crete, if I’m not mistaken –someone please Wiki this) between my ears.(Source)

-I've always had a thing for drummers but awesome drummer + funny + cute as a button=I think I'm in love with Jon Wurster.

-Mac McCaughan, I just want to say that god bless you for showing that we older folks can still do a mean pogo. The man did not stay still the entire 90 minutes it was a great thing to watch. Oh, and Mac, "Learned to Surf" is probably one of the greatest power punk pop songs of all time.

-Tommy Keene's young nephew sat behind the drum kit for one song during Keene's set (as did Wurster). The best part? His nephew was sporting a Replacements t shirt from the cover of Let It Be. (If you don't know, Keene played guitar on one of Paul Westerberg's tours.I wish I had an uncle like Tommy Keene for reals...

-Let's Wrestle are super nice guys. I didn't get to see them at SXSW like I wanted, so it was great to see them here. And their stuff is on par with the catchy-as-hell "We Are the Men You'll Grow to Love Soon."

Give a Listen:
-Brand New Love-Sebadoh/Buy Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock

-Brand New Love-Superchunk/Buy Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91)

-Save This Harmony-Tommy Keene/Buy You Hear Me: A Retrospective

-We Are the Men You'll Grow to Love Soon-Let's Wrestle/Buy In The Court of the Wrestling Let's

Lights That Flash in the Evening: Of Montreal/Janelle Monae @ 930 Club, Washington, DC (9-13-2010)

My review of the first of two sold out shows for Janelle Monae and Of Montreal at the 930 Club is over at the Washington City Paper but additional photos are below. I went in not knowing one song from either band but simply put? One should not see a Janelle Monae show if you wish to remain calm, your body will be unable to stop itself from moving about to her space-age rock/funk/soul combo. This woman is the complete package in terms of a performer and is an absolute must-see live. She proves you don't have to have a ton of "stuff" onstage to be impressive, you just have to have talent.







On the other hand, Of Montreal seemed to believe that a massive stage show and props for every song will fake you out and take your attention away from the fact that the songs just aren't that good. And it worked for a little while...but close to two hours of this and it started to burn my retinas. While I applaud an artistic visual to go with the aural experience when you see a band live, I think it's a problem if the what you see if more interesting than what you're hearing...even if the lead singer is sporting a pair of tights and a June Cleaver apron.

(See the rest of the photos here

Give a Listen:
Tightrope-Janelle Monae/Buy The Android

Coquet Coquette-Of Montreal/Buy False Priest

NPR archived the stream the second show of their two-night stay in DC and it's available here.

Lights That Flash in the Evening: Hole @ 930 Club, Washington, DC (6-26-2010)

By now, I'm sure you've heard, or read, or thought, "Oh no he didn't," then giggled over the honesty about the cuckoo bananas explosion that was the Hole show here at the 930 Club on Sunday. David Malitz for the Washington Post hit all the bases of crazy that were run that night; it was a rather spectacular meltdown. Hitting the stage almost a full hour past the scheduled start time, something that rarely happens at the 930, Love apologized to the crowd saying, "Sorry, I was hanging with a friend who is a senator and he can't be photographed with me in public..." Then she said something about how if folks were hoping for her Boston set list, they would be disappointed; "You're getting the Bruce Springsteen set, sorry."

Now, Springsteen does rehearsal shows that folks pay a lot to see, and they're fun and different. Springsteen does marathon shows that run 3-hours. In Europe recently, a Hole "Springsteen set" occurred and was a solid and amazing show according to a friend who attended; but Sunday, "Springsteen set" meant "a 3-hour slow-motion rehearsal show for a car crash."

There are various guesses flying around as to why Love was acting so out of it: drink, drugs, brain damage, insanity... And I've also heard a ton of people saying, "Well, how could you go expecting to see anything else, it's Courtney Love." And they might be right. Love is like a walking Murphy's Law in her personal life it seems, a continual reporting of "Hello deep end my old friend."



I initially thought my take on this show would be along the same lines of the many other negative reviews, given the number of times the phrase "train wreck" showed up in my notes. And then I got thinking about what I saw during Hole's set at the SXSW Spin Day Party set this year. At that show, Love was solid. Funny. "There" if you will, mentally. You could see the potential in terms of her band, which is pretty amazing by the way, and between her with her band, because they played so well together; it wasn't them acting as just her backup band, as it seemed on Sunday. She didn't have to have her handler come onstage in Austin to turn up her guitar knobs because she didn't seem capable, nor did her guitar hang as decoration around her neck while her keyboardist tore up the rhythm-guitar parts that I'm pretty sure she was supposed to be playing. When comparing the Austin show to the DC one, the difference was night and day. "Tonight is just...weird," someone with the band told me before I left on Sunday, "They've been really solid up to now, but tonight...I'm not sure what's going on." Had I not seen the set in Austin with my own eyes, I'd probably be questioning his definition of the word "solid" and writing a much harsher review now.



But who knows what Sunday was all about. Say what you will, but the new record, Nobody's Daughter is a good record, and Live Through This is truly a kick ass record. And maybe she didn't write the songs necessarily for LTT, as some proclaim, but words of a song are just words until someone sings them and makes them come alive.



"Violet" is one rage-fueled effing song that wouldn't blow the doors off if it were in the hands of someone else (though this was not so much the case Sunday night as the crowd sang most of the song. By the way, a fun fact she told us about that song: "I was in Chicago; Billy Pumpkin gave me a Vicodin, and I wrote this song." Maybe that explains the sky being made of amethyst?). Love still has a great raspy rock yell that can still make your nervous system go bonkers.


Love's got something that people gravitate towards though...how else could she pull off some of the stuff she's done over the past bunch of years? Sure she's scrappy, but you can't get by on that all of your career necessarily. Nobody's Daughter is the first Hole record in 12 years-for as many times as she turned the mic around for the crowd to sing because she didn't know lyrics (or whatever) Sunday night, there were just as many shouts of "Courtney, I love you!" from the crowd. And just as many people are defending her in the comments of the negative reviews of the show.


Would I want to be friends with her? Hell no (she kinda scares me to be honest). Would I want her as my neighbor? No, nor would I want her to ever sit for my dog, let alone my kids. Was it obnoxious that she put some woman "filming" her with an iPhone onstage-not a proper camcorder or anything but an effing iPhone- which she played to instead of her fans, not to mention making the woman block the view of said fans who paid $45 a ticket? Hell yeah it was...

But that aside, I know what I saw in Austin, which wasn't what I saw on Sunday at the 930. There was one song that that band did, start to finish, on Sunday called "Letter to God" off the new record that was really beautiful. One of the lines goes, "I lie awake conducting this symphony/That You have gifted to me but I can't ever sleep/Don't be mad but I get weak inside/And I start to fall apart 'cause I feel nothing." What was displayed Sunday on the 930's stage was many things, one of which may just have been a very public view into the demons with which Love still struggles. But she's still swinging, she's still trying...Maybe the way she goes about it sometimes isn't the greatest, but I, for one, have to give her props for that.

(See the rest of the photos here)

Lights That Flash in the Evening: 930 Club 30th Anniversary Show, Washington, DC (5-31-2010)

The awesome 930 Club here in DC turned 30 on Monday and to celebrate, it had a big ol' birthday party with a bunch of bands who played for free. It was a great celebration of all of the acts that helped put the 930 on the map as a club, as well as a great peek into the long string of bands that that came out of DC, many of whom owe their start in music because of the 930 Club. This history of the club is a great story and one that the Washington Post did an oral history of awhile back (definitely worth the read).

I had to miss the first couple of acts of the evening, Tiny Desk Units, who was the first band to ever grace the 930 Club stage back when it was on 930 F Street, The Fleshtones, the very first band then-independent promoter/now 930 Club owner Seth Hurwitz booked at the old location, and The Slickee Boys, the "the punk-psychedelic punk rock band may very well hold the all-time record of most times playing the 9:30 Club with 79 appearances." Sets were running about 15 minutes a piece so I did get there in time to catch the last song of Marti Jones & Don Dixon, which D.C.’s late, great alternative station, WHFS, helped break. Hurwitz sat in on drums for both the Jones/Dixon set, as well as The Fleshtones.

We were only allowed to shoot the first song of each set, and though I missed those bands, I'm really glad I got there in time for my first shots of the night to be of the great Tommy Keene.



This was my first time seeing him live and just...wow. Keene's biggest influence is said to be the 60s power pop band, The Raspberries and it shows, his songs are just so wonderfully uber hooky! Keene has worked with the likes of Paul Westerberg, and most recently, Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices. He's been an influence to tons of bands, whether they know it or not. If you haven't listened to his stuff yet, you absolutely should make your next purchase one of his.


There wasn't really a formal schedule of acts anywhere, but folks in the know around me were saying I should get upstairs in the balcony because the next act, The Evens, was going to play there. The balcony, really?? Kind of hard to imagine this setup upon first knowledge, but then Evens guitarist/singer Ian MacKaye has always been one to think outside the lines.


That's right, it was that Ian MacKaye, of Fugazi and Minor Threat, the rough and tumble hardcore punk bands, and his wife, drummer Amy Farina. Playing lovely harmonic songs that have simple but bursting melodies and hooks. Not at all what I expected, but I loved it. It's not aurally thrashing like "Waiting Room," and no, you can't slam dance to it. But it is still punk rock: utterly minimal and lovely yet still stripped down and strong.



And they played their set in the damn balcony like it was their living room! If that ain't punk rock, I dunno what is.


Henry Rollins was supposed to be the evening's MC but his plane had been delayed. So Hurwitz and Josh Burdette, the iconic 930-night manager (below), stepped up in the interim to introduce the next act.


Of all the acts of the evening, probably the youngest was Justin Jones. Jones' musicial style is in an alt-country vein with a side of Springsteen. He and his band, The Driving Rain, are mainstays in local DC-area clubs.


Around this time, I happened to glance over the backstage area and lo and behold...Rollins in the house!

(My very poor attempt at capturing MacKaye and Rollins together)
Rollins, MacKaye, and Bob Mould stood in the sidestage area for a bit and it was an almost-comical contest amongst the photographers as to who could catch the best shot of all of them together (tough, as a ton of folks were milling about).

Rollins came onstage to a loud wave of shouts and cheers. He first apologized for his delay (flight issues), then went on to introduce Mould. Rollins spoke of Mould's history and amazing chameleon musical changes from punk (Husker Du), to pop (Sugar), to pro-wrestling scriptwriter, to dance music (Mould's Blowoff DJ nights have been a 930-club staple for years now). Rollins also said that Mould has an auto-biography coming out next spring!!


Mould's long been a huge favorite of mine so his set was one I was most looking forward to (favorite living-in-DC story: I ran into Mould once at the meat counter of the local Whole Foods- yes, I totally dorked out, and yes, he was totally nice).


The man still rips up an electric guitar like no one else, tearing up tracks like "See a Little Light" and "Hoover Dam." His acoustic tour back in the early 90s was the first show I saw as an undergrad, and I obtained a whole new appreciation for his songs. To this day, I'm still trying to find an acoustic version of "Hardly Getting Over It."

Following Mould is hard if you're anyone, but Ted Leo gave it a hell of a try.


His set was interesting, and he pulled out a song that he wrote "back when I lived up in Mount Pleasant," a DC-neighborhood, "and haven't played it in as many years." His voice let out towards the end of it but he soldiered on. He twittered throughout the night about the show, and about his set, he said "Hey - thank you for your kind tweets about my set - sorry my voice crapped out - fatigue, et al. 'Twas fun though, & I'm honored to be here."

Rumors abounded since the show's announcement last week as to whether DC-native/club owner/VA property owner Dave Grohl would be appearing. And, as Rollins' said in his intro, "Well sports fans I have an answer for you, and that answer is yes, yes, yes." As you can imagine, the place went nuts.



Grohl went into a solo version of "Everlong," which was nice. However, the reunion with his first band Scream for the rest of the set is what blew the house down, because a) it was Scream, and b) they were doing covers of fellow DC-band The Bad Brains. Thank God for earplugs because the 930 crowd went ballistic.


The last band I stayed for was The Pietasters. Ska was a big part of DC music back in the day, so having the 'Tasters play was an obvious choice. Perfect music for a summer night.

See additional photos from all sets here
I couldn't stick around for the final bands, Clutch and Trouble Funk, but all accounts said they were just as great. Chris Richards from the Washington Post, did a great write up on the show with details that you should read (he even namechecked yours truly!!!)

All in all, it was a thrilling night to capture. The 930 Club is a super special place to a lot of people for a lot of reasons, and consistently remains the best place anywhere to see a show. If you ever get to DC, do not miss an opportunity to visit. It may not be made of marble and packed with tourists, but make no mistake, the 930 Club is just as much of a DC-monument as anything along the National Mall. Happy 30th 930 Club, and here's to many more!