This week it's all about festivals y'all. The Iron Blossom Music Festival with nationally headlining acts is coming this weekend for two days absolutely stacked days with amazing acts. But, if that's not your speed, on Saturday evening Gallery 5 will playing host to a...
Various Artists – The New Hope (Smog Veil) I’m not the first, and certainly not the most eloquent, to use the idea of punk rock in its earliest years as a counterbalance to the excesses and failures of the first hippie era’s tail end. What started as an earnest attempt to change the world for the better ended up with a bunch of...
Matt And Kim with Donnis October 21 at The Canal Club There may not be anything more triumphant than a Matt and Kim show. Standing side-by-side with wide grins and excitement in their eyes, the two performers stared at an audience sharing the same sentiments. One could only imagine what the duo had in store for Richmond, Virginia. Matt And Kim...
Troy Medlin (or simply T.Roy) is no stranger to the East Coast and Dirty South heavy metal scenes. As far back as 1993, T.Roy was fronting influential sludge metal outfit Sourvein, who came together under the banner of "old gear, dirtweed, [and] the love of Black Flag/Black Sabbath/Robert Johnson/filth/doom." From 1996 through 1998, he was the...
Forgetters - Self-titled double 7 inch (Midheaven) This four-song EP is the debut recording by Forgetters, a Brooklyn trio whose nascent sound combines melodic punk, moody indie rock and literate lyrics. Though barely a year old, Forgetters are receiving a lot of attention because of the members' former projects. Drummer Kevin Mahon banged...
Die Antwoord October 27 at 9:30 Club Seeing Die Antwoord perform puts one at a loss for words. Listening to their studio recordings does what happens during their live performances no justice. Last Wednesday night at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC, this South African rap-rave group gave their fans a performance which explained why they were able...
Over the past decade or so, Robert Smith of The Cure has done some pretty surprising collaborations. He's contributed vocals to tracks by Blink 182, Billy Corgan, and Junior Jack, among others. His contribution to a new single by controversial Canadian electronic group Crystal Castles is actually somewhat conventional by Smith's recent...
Metric with Lubec Monday, October 25 at The National In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I was not the writer originally assigned to cover this show. That writer got stuck working a late shift, and I was the only other writer available on such short notice. Before going to this show, I knew very little about Metric. In fact, I...
The reunited Swans playing their song "I Crawled" in Dublin last week. This version turns the pounding noise of the original into a foreboding, atmospheric epic, going just as far beyond the live version on 1997's Swans Are Dead as that version went beyond the studio original. And though I know plenty of people have plenty of love for former...
It seems likely that many music fans are only familiar with Ryan Parrish's work as drummer for metal band Darkest Hour. However, while the precision and intensity with which he plays provide a solid backbone for that band’s brand of melodic metal, Parrish involves himself with a substantially wider variety of musical endeavors than might be...
