Every month Hometown Sounds presents one of DC’s finest bands on the Kennedy Center’s free Millennium Stage series, and in August we are thrilled to bring you the cutting edge dance punk of Light Beams.
Light Beams began in 2015 when longtime Dischord artist Justin Moyer (El Guapo, Supersystem, Edie Sedgwick, Puff Pieces) — influenced by 80s-era freestyle music and Sheila E. — started playing sampler and timbales with Sam Lavine, the longtime drummer of D.C. hip-hop mainstays the Cornel West Theory. With the addition of bassist Arthur Noll, formerly of Kid Congo Powers and Alarms & Controls, the resulting polyrhythmic melange, sometimes called “block rock,” reinvents late-20th century dance-pop using the tools of the 21st. Known for their blistering live performances and relentlessly positive attitudes, the band hopes to inspire audiences to feel good about themselves in an era when the menacing shadows of night seem more threatening than ever before.
With a cassette out on Don Giovanni Records and a split-seven inch with Ian Svenonius’s Escape-ism out on Lovitt Records, Light Beams has just completed a full-length record and has just completed a full-length record and is touring the Midwest in September. They are proud to be playing the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage for the first time.
RSVP here and come to the free performance at 6 PM on Friday August 31st!
photo by Alicia Moyer
Hometown Sounds 