Pour one out, or perhaps just half of one, for dreamy post-rock band These Quiet Colours. As is typical of many DC bands, members slowly moved away, and now their 2014 self-titled EP is sadly no longer online. However, earlier this year the remaining instrumentalists reunited online to create a new song “Departure”, with appropriately abstract visuals from guitarist Joe King. He and drummer Matt Renaldi have joined a brand new band called Broadlight, who play their debut show Saturday August 3rd at the Velvet Lounge.
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Category Archives: video
Wall of Trophies – Left Behind
Synthgaze duo Wall of Trophies have previously delivered some beautifully trippy visuals to accompany lush and layered songs. Their latest challenge is to craft the video live, as they perform the music. Using Resolume VJ Software, Will Copps and Brittany Jean created this video for “Left Behind”, from their 2019 album Semaphore, in the moment. Copps described, “Imagine a ton of knobs and sliders all programmed to different video clips and effects — it’s tons and tons of pre-work and practice; this video is an actual recording of a performance! We treat video just like audio and do them til we get just the right take—the right spontaneous adjustment or perfectly timed transition nailing the mood we want.” We can’t wait for more.
Mystery Friends – Locked Eyes
Hey hey, sup Mystery Friends. The synthy dance-rock band chose the single “Locked Eyes” from their debut full length album Past & Future Self for the music video treatment, tapping director Sam Casscells to translate the quartet’s 80s soft rock ballad to visuals.
Mystery Friends bring all their crowd-pleasing stage lighting gear to the 9:30 Club this Saturday night to help celebrate the 6th Anniversary of Justin Trawick’s DC music and interview podcast The Circus Life.
Jackie and the Treehorns – Robots
It’s never enough for power pop band Jackie and the Treehorns to record an album and play some shows like all the other bands. Cinematic style is in their DNA, right down to their band’s name. Visit their YouTube channel to see an entire mockumentary “The Jackie Movie” they made a few years back. For the release of their new album It’s Never Too Late, the band booked a spot on the show “Jammin’ With Django”, but then mysteriously vanished. So four bands together pick up the slack on the fictitious program: Buddy Revel & The 3 o’clock High, Clarice & The Lotion Baskets, My Dog Precious, and Ron Johnson & The Audio Consultants. Hopefully Jackie will resurface in time to hit the Fort Reno stage tonight along with Andy Shredder and Coven Tree.
Two Dragons and a Cheetah – Wind Me Up
Maryjo Mattea plays with a lot of musicians in DC, including Loi Loi, Color Palette, Endless Winter and her own eponymous band. But she hangs on tight to the undying love of her original DC bandmate Joel Wu in the unforgettably-named Two Dragons and a Cheetah. We noted in Mattea’s recent email newsletter her plea for Wu to finish filming his half of the music video for “Wind Me Up”, title track from their late 2018 EP, and decided to echo and amplify it on a recent episode of our podcast, because the world needs more awesome DC music videos. Apparently that was the push the expat drummer, now based in Rochester MN, needed to set up the camera and bang out the rhythms for Mattea’s singalong anthem of tricky romance. Hi fives all around!
Touch the Buffalo – Heart Is For
90s influenced pop-rock band Touch the Buffalo are hyping the August releaese of their debut full length album Heart Is For with an advance single of the catchy title track. The song’s music video features plenty of ukulele-wailing and an acting cameo from singer-songwriter Jahnel Daliya. If you can’t get this tune out of your head, make your way to U Street’s Velvet Lounge tonight to see the bovine feelers rock out with DC’s Mona Speaks Mountains, opening for Edgar Red from Louisville.
Honest Haloway – Twisted Eye
The prior Honest Haloway video we got from director Sara Nabizadeh was a mysterious, lonely affair in the desert. Her newest for husband Tim Kratzer’s veteran synthrock band instead invokes community, and seeing the faces of their close friends and musical collaborators reminds us of HH’s horror-twisted house party breakout “Psycho Bitch”. By presenting simple singing faces in black and white, “Twisted Eye” focuses on Kratzer’s haunting lyrics and eminently danceable riffs. In a trend we’re seeing pop up frequently as the streaming era takes over, Honest Haloway is abandoning the standard album release cycle and instead releasing a collection of 10 new songs over the course of two years in 2019 & 2020. Catch them headline AdMo’s SongByrd Saturday night along with genre buds Yesferatu and Low Rose.
Priests – Jesus’ Son
Priests started musical life in the hardcore punk tradition of many of DC’s most well-known cultural exports. But over the years the band, and their captivating sound, have matured and moved away somewhat from those well-known tropes, such that their newest album The Seduction of Kansas is a surprising genre shift. They self-describe simply as a “rock band”, and for the album’s third single “Jesus’ Son”, Priests present a live performance video evoking well-known bands like the Smiths, the Stone Roses, and Nine Inch Nails. The latter might resonate most, as co-directors David Ashton (manning the camera) and singer Katie Alice Greer lovingly homage NIN’s single “March of the Pigs” from 1994’s The Downward Spiral. There are still some tix left for Saturday night‘s late show at the 9:30 Club with openers Mock Identity, so get right on that.
Palette – Learn to Crawl
If you dug the Casio synth-y, 80s rooted track “Learn to Crawl” from our recent podcast, then we have a music video for you. Flyer art maven Cash Langdon’s musical project Palette recently put out a split cassette with BFFs Child Princess on a New York cassette label Drop Medium, and Tenley Empire’s Alex Szantos, director of Gauche’s catchy vid for “Conspiracy Theories”, crafted this experimentally appropriate video for Langdon’s single. Prepare yourself for oodles of VHS flicker and cool shades.
Gauche – Running
Tomorrow night DC punk oddballs Gauche open for reunited feminist icons Bikini Kill up in Brooklyn, so now’s the time for us to dive into their newest music video. “Running” from director Alex Miklowski sees the quintet dancing and sweating in all black outfits while the background green screen gets wildly creative to accompany the song’s existential angst. The debut full length album A People’s History Of Gauche drops on July 12th on Merge Records, followed by an extensive nationwide tour.
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