Tracklisting:
Diamond District – Lost Cause
J Lima Foxtrot – Flashbacks
Me and Karen – Snake Dog
Lauren Calve – Looking for the Water
The Cowards Choir – Is This A Wrecking Ball
Myrrh Myrrh – Until
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WORLD PREMIERE!
Hometown Sounds is honored & thrilled to premiere the new music video from The Cowards Choir, “Is This A Wrecking Ball”. We’ve long been fans of Andy Zipf‘s delicately powerful voice and consistent songwriting, but assembling fellow DC musicians Ryan Walker, Ben Tufts and Adam Neubauer into The Cowards Choir has taken the music to a higher level. This Zipf guy is so smart, he got a fantastic drum kit player in Neubauber AND THEN brought in Tufts, seemingly DC’s most in-demand drummer, to play timpani, vibraphone and other percussion. Genius.
Clubhill Media shot the video for “Is This A Wrecking Ball” during recording sessions at Studio V out in Herndon. Music craftsmanship is paramount here, as special care is placed on the authenticity of the video to the musical performance. This video does an excellent job of a difficult task, bringing visual appeal to the all-important song recording process.
For the beginning of the media push for their new EP, the Cowards Choir aren’t presenting anything flashy or slick. This video is as true and honest to this band as possible, demonstrating the ethos shared by a lot of the NOVA and DC bands coming together for next month’s Magnificent Intentions music festival at Iota.
Come celebrate the release of Cool Currency with Andy, Adam, Ryan and Ben this Saturday night at Iota with support from troubador Justin Jones. Buy advance tickets for $14 here and don’t risk shutout to the normally door-charge-only Clarendon venue.
Wanted Man‘s spastic garage punk sound has slowly simmered for 3 years, and the DC music supergroup of Kenny Pirog, Rick Irby, John Di Lascio and Andrew Grossman are now boiling over. Saturday night the forces behind DCDIT and Union Kitchen host Wanted Man at The Lot at Atlantic Plumbing with a couple of excellent blues rock bands from NYC, She Keeps Bees and Shilpa Ray. It’s free, all ages and outdoors with food trucks, alcohol and awesome vibes. I love that these shows are keeping the spirit of outdoor summer shows going even through the fall. Brand new today, check out a short & sweet video for Wanted Man’s new song “Slow and Steady”, directed by Michael Hindert. Frantic head nodding all around.
Max Holiday & His Orchestra are like no other band in DC. In a scene where sound and genre are taken so seriously, Max reminds us of the power of wowing the audience with theatrics and showmanship. Their last headlining show at the 9:30 Club included a banner processional from the upper balcony, on-stage costume changes, massive Illuminati props and an entire storyline tying the whole thing together. In a word, it was epic.
Your next chance to see His Orchestra live is this Friday September 26th, playing a free show waaay out at Bungalow Billiards in Chantilly. Sounds like a strange venue for a 10 piece ensemble used to filling the 9:30 Club with adoring superfans, right? Well, Max and his friends at Heady Entertainment have a future-noir short film called “Return of the White Light” to provide the backstory for this gig. I know this isn’t a traditional “music video” but seriously, can you imagine any other band in this town coming up with something like this? Keep DC weird Max.
For yU the “humble king”, when it rains it pours. A lot of attention remains focused on the upcoming Diamond District full length album with XO and Oddisee on October 14th, but less than a month later Mello Music Group drops the debut release People Of Today from yU and producer Slimkat under the name The 1978ers. yU’s understated delivery and thoughtful lyrics make this a release that’s sure to impress those in the know. Check out the short trailer below for a taste before the album comes out November 11th.
A big part of the DIY/DIT house show scene in DC is crashing on couches. For the touring musicians, that is. Overindulgent patrons are typically relocated to front porches or back alleys. Anyway, Nashville’s Anthony Simpkins, chief everything officer of visual creative content company GemsOnVHS, recently visited our town and got a fitting intro to the DC music scene from The Sea Life‘s Jon Weiss, and his sofa. Simpkins’ camera caught this excellent stripped down performance by Weiss and Payton James of “NY Models”, from their 2013 album Transitions (name your own price!) in Dupont Circle. Much like last week’s Pree video, the tighter focus on Weiss’s vocals and lyrics than is typical for a Sea Life performance is cool to see and hear. The Sea Life next performs live at DC Music Download’s Autumn Spectacular at the Howard Theatre on Saturday October 11th with Typefighter, Teen Mom and Lowercase Letters.
You can tell when a band is really taking things seriously when the first single emerges many months before a promised full-length album. Indie pop band Pree‘s new record RIMA won’t emerge from Paper Garden Records until next February, but its debut single “Two Feet Shy” is attracting attention already. Grab a free download of the song today from SoundCloud and watch Pree perform the song live at Outlier Inn and Ambika Boutique in Woodridge, NY, on a 12 acre farm in the foothills of the Catskill mountains. May Tabol’s delicate and quirky vocals are often lost in the mix when playing at clubs, so I quite appreciate the attention they get in this live video. I bet you’ll hear a lot more songs from this upcoming album at their homecoming show at Paperhaus on Sunday October 5th with Krill, Star Rover and Witch Coast.
As I threw down “Road to Coba” during my DJ set at Wonderland Ballroom’s Under the Counter show last night, I wondered how long much longer we’d have to wait to hear new music by The Funk Ark. It’s been two years since they released the excellent High Noon on ESL Records. Today my prayers were answered when Will Rast’s jazz-afrobeat ensemble dropped a teaser for their new album Man Is A Monster, coming out October 10th on Ropeadope Records. Mark your calendars for an album release show at the Black Cat co-hosted by The Funk Parade and Listen Local First.
WAMU’s Bandwidth DC music site premiered a new video today by Olivia Neutron-John, obviously one of the best named bands in DC. Chain & The Gang bassist Anna Nasty runs the project, releasing a small handful of tracks over the last year. Thursday night ON-J celebrates the release of their first full length on Tempe AZ label Gilgongo Records album with a live performance at Meeps, featuring a DJ set by DJ Name Names, aka bandmate Ian Svenonius. ON-J’s new video (death/tango) is sexy and lo-fi and jarring and I can’t wait for more.
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