Tracklisting:
Typefighter – Happy
The NRIs – The Streets [WORLD PREMIERE!]
BRNDA – Got A Job
The Duskwhales – Swim
Crumms – The Obituaries
Silo Halo – Blackout Transmission
Cavale – Moving Against
Brett – Golden
Furniteur – Modern Love
Brittany Jean – Thistle
Or listen in SoundCloud:
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Columbia Heights venue The Dunes closes an epic run of live shows this Monday night with a Goodbye Party featuring AG/LG, Jonny Grave and out-of-towners Rain Tears, with DJing from Philip Goyette. The Dunes was an interesting hybrid of DIY and legit venue, serving alcohol and art installations with an incredibly varied calendar from a large number of local promoters. Other local clubs and venues present their identity with consistent booking quality, but The Dunes was known more as a space for others to fill, and its contribution to the development of DC’s current music scene was crucial and leaves big shoes to fill. Today’s music video from genre fusers The Urban Cartel was shot there earlier this year by Brook Bobbins and edited by Mosaic New York, set to the title track from UC’s 2013 EP The NITE, now available as a FREE download.
Excitement is at a fever pitch for next Saturday’s Funk Parade in the U Street neighborhood. This day long music festival taps into DC’s rich history of funk music, which spans a continuity ranging from The Blackbyrds and the catalog of DC Soul Recordings to go-go to the party rocking of Fort Knox Recordings.
For your Friday desk-funking pleasure, DC’s own Jason “Jayclue” Brown aka Qdup (say it out loud, you’ll get it) drops a smoking DJ mix full of beats, soul and highlights from the FKR label including Empresarios, Nappy Riddem’s Mustafa Akbar, Flex Mathews the Handsome Grandson and Fort Knox Five. Immediately following the Funk Parade, FKR takes over U Street Music Hall for a FREE show from 7-10 PM featuring DJ sets from Qdup & Fort Knox Five, live reggae funk from Nappy Riddem, and legendary go-go from Experience Unlimited featuring Sugar Bear! How can this show be free! I have no idea. Is it next weekend yet?
Download this mix here!
DC’s musical legacy of lounge-y, “downtempo” music is as enduring as punk or go-go. If Thievery’s latest album left you a bit bored, veteran DJ and producer Thomas Blondet‘s new full length Futureworld has the goods you want. The music video for the arousing single “Un Amor” featuring Si*Sé singer Carol C was shot on location in Old San Juan in Puerto Rico, enhancing the worldly vibe of the single.
Self love can be a tough subject for everyone, and it’s rarely discussed openly. Singer-songwriter and We Are The 9 regular Heather Mae waited months for the right time to release her new music video for “Listen”, after completing her 31 Days of Self Love project. For the last month she’s posted Instagram pics of parts of her body that she has a hard time loving. “Listen” is her most personal and impactful song, made even more powerful by the videography of Sarah Stuart Walters. Read Heather’s blog post describing the song and the motivations behind it, buy the single on iTunes and sign up to stream her “Listen” Release Concert through Concert Window on April 22nd.
It’s been a little while since we heard from singer-songwriter Drew Gibson. The release of his well-received sophomore album The Southern Draw preceded the passing of his father in 2012. His new batch of songs touches on that loss, of course, but also his whole family and the stories they have, including his uncle’s experiences in World War II. Drew’s Kickstarter campaign to make the album is past the halfway point with most of the fundraising complete, but there’s still more pledges required to help Drew create his third album. Head over to the Kickstarter page to see the excellent intro video and learn why the album is called 1532. Here’s the music video for “On Sunday”, a folksy ballad with a nice dose of organ from The Southern Draw.
Thank god Ian Svenonious, dean of DC punk-in-cheek band Chain & The Gang, is still around to put in perspective all the changes and over-development DC’s been through over the last few years. His own gang is an ever-changing lineup of sassy DC musicians, now including Ex Hex’s Betsy Wright, Francy Graham of Dudes and Anna Nxsty of Olivia Neutron-John. The new album Minimum Rock & Roll drops May 6th on Spiv’s label Radical Elite, and the fine folks at Dischord have your pre-order needs covered. Here’s the new video for “Devitalize”, directed by James Schneider who’s also helming the somewhat related documentary Punk the Capital.
As a musician, it’s not easy to keep things fresh over time. Perhaps you join a new band that sounds nothing like your original band, like Typefighter‘s frontman Ryan McLaughlin playing guitar in the hardcore band Joy Buttons. It could also be an evolution of a band’s sound. Typefighter had a mellower, folkier sound in their earlier EPs, 2009’s i want to see you game, boys, i want to see you brave and 2011’s fall winter fall. Our first taste of their louder, more powerful and garage-ier sound came last July at the 9:30 Club, and they were quite excited to get their new music into the ears of fans. Their new music video, You When You’re Older, provides an interesting way to hear the change directly. After watching the video, check out our post nearly 2 years ago to hear the same song recorded live for the late SocialStudiesDC blog. Grab their new full length album The End of Everything on April 22nd courtesy Huge Witch Records and your tickets to their release show May 3rd at Rock & Roll Hotel, with Shark Week, Teen Mom and Sunset Guns.
Visual artist Brittany Sims‘s new music project Furniteur will appeal to fans of synthpop in general and BRETT in particular, as BRETT-ers Kevin Bayly and Mike Toohey produced the woozy, 80s-drenched debut track “Modern Love”. The new single, already hyped earlier this week by DC Music Download and Bandwidth, gets an extra push today with a music video assembled by Sims herself of footage of 80s technology and beautiful women, the chocolate to “Modern Love”s peanut butter. Look for Furniteur’s debut EP soon on Bayly’s Prince Georges Records, and make your way to The Dunes Saturday night for their first live show ever, supporting Pleasure Curses and the album release of post-punkers Cavale.
The Raised By Wolves started with two high school friends, drummer/vocalist Dusty Durston and guitarist Ben Eskin, coming together after college to craft powerful pop songs influenced by 90s pop radio. Their debut album Sadie Hawkins came out last summer as a free download, and subsequently the pair assembled a full band to perform live. I caught them at DC Music Download’s anniversary blowout at the 9:30 Club a couple of months ago and was definitely impressed. Yesterday PureVolume premiered their debut music video for “Freddy Freaker”, a surreal and meditative film helmed by new director James Robertson.
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