Old school hardcore fans are cheering the news today that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2017 nominees include DC legends Bad Brains. The band’s unique mix of hardcore punk and dub reggae influenced DC music immeasurably, and their iconic album cover art is still ubiquitous on clothing in DC. We love music videos here on the Hometown Sounds blog, and quality videos by this band are pretty hard to come by, but we did find one. “Rise” is the title track from their major label debut album from 1993 and features only half the band’s original lineup: Dr. Know and Daryl Jenifer brought on Mackie Jayson from Cro-Mags to play drums for Earl Hudson, and Israel Joseph I replaced HR on vocals. Be warned, the 90s are strong with both this song and video.
Hometown Sounds
Showing The World How DC Rocks
Presenting Stronger Sex @ Millennium Stage
The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage has presented free live performances 365 days a year for nearly two decades. Expanding their commitment to showcase rising stars in the DC music community, the Millennium Stage now partners with Hometown Sounds in a monthly series of musical performances.
For our inaugural performance, Hometown Sounds is proud to present Blight Records artists Stronger Sex. Stronger Sex is an electroexotic experimental post-croon cabaret duo brought to you by DC’s Johnny Fantastic and Leah Gage. That may seem like a random stringing together of strange words, but it’s only because Stronger Sex is a wild stringing together of strange sounds. Born out of a love for the classics with an eye toward the electronic revolution, the band tries to make bedfellows of the most unlikely genres. At times, you feel lost in the foggy haze of an 80s night club only to be called back by the familiar croon of Frank Sinatra. With beautiful soundscapes and infectious beats, Stronger Sex often feels like a dream where anything is possible and the universe isn’t big enough to hold your imagination. “Making music this way is like rummaging through an old woman’s closet,” says Johnny, “So many colors, such a wide range of materials and textures, the trends of many decades past, all to be combined any way you wish. I guess it’s no surprise that a lot of our threads come from old women’s closets, too!” When this dynamic duo isn’t performing with Stronger Sex, they can be seen playing in other popular DC bands. Leah plays drums with BRNDA and The North Country; Johnny has toured extensively with Paperhaus and Pree, and currently plays in Dais and Loi Loi.
RSVP here and come to the free performance at 6 PM on Sunday October 23rd!
Congo Sanchez – Why Do We Wait
DC’s soulful & funky Congo Sanchez opens a night of funk jams at Gypsy Sally’s tonight billed as a “Dear Jerry” Afterparty for the Grateful Dead tribute shows going on in DC this weekend. This trio of singer Haile Supreme, rapper Flex Mathews and drummer Jeff Franca continue to work on a follow-up to their debut full length album Dealin’ With This from 2014. A few months ago they dropped the romantic slow-jam single “Why Do We Wait”, and the music video features the three vocalists crooning to their respective loved ones, in their own unique styles. Trust me, don’t miss their top-notch live show!
SHAED – Just Wanna See
Do you remember a dream-pop band called The Walking Sticks? Then you old school, brah, cuz they rebranded with the somewhat awkward name SHAED. Changing your band name is a very risky move, but it seems to have paid off when representatives from Photo Finish Records came across the first SHAED song on SoundCloud. Their new moniker’s debut EP Just Wanna See is out now, and no less than Billboard premiered the title track’s music video with a deep dive into the musical trio, Chelsea Lee and twin brothers Max and Spencer Ernst. The band wraps up a successful fall tour with Verite and Marian Hill tomorrow, so stay tuned for more local dates.
KAG – Narcissus
Yesterday we showed you the new music video by Priests, but that’s not all that frontwoman Katie Alice Greer has been up to lately. After moving out of the city for the first time in a decade, Greer began a solo project of experimental and ambient noise recordings, inspired by, as she notes, “weird suburbia, formidable famous women, and the 1947 film Black Narcissus”. Greer’s solo moniker KAG released four of these songs on a new (sold-out womp womp) cassette release called EP A, and you can check this new material out live tonight at Safari Restaurant & Lounge alongside Brooklyn’s Future Punk, Duchess Says from Montreal and Seattle punk band Bad Future. Greer also directs her own videos, so enjoy this industrial weirdness for the single “Narcissus”.
Priests – JJ
Priests, the snarling, acerbic quartet driving a majority of the energy in the DC punk scene currently, today announced the release date of their new album Nothing Feels Natural and debuted its first single and accompanying video. “JJ”, directed by singer Katie Alice Greer, features the four musicians sitting peacefully as strange hands poke, prod, smear and playfully abuse their enigmatic faces. Sister Polygon Records, the band-run label behind recent music by Governess, Pearie Sol, Cigarette, Gauche, Flasher and Sneaks, releases the new Priests album on vinyl on January 27th.
Lance Neptune – Cosmic Oceans
If last month’s XLR8R premiere of Lance Neptune‘s new track “Circle Rose” got you impatient for a new full-length release from the astronautical producer from Glenarden, MD, then we’ve got a little something to tide you over. This 2014 music video for “Cosmic Oceans” comes from Neptune’s earliest collection Synthesis, and takes you on a hallucinogenic tour through the weirdest Star Trek episodes you never saw.
Podcast for October 5th, 2016
Tony shares the DC music origins behind his very magenta jacket, Paul is tickled by personalized Bandcamp thank-you emails.
Tracklisting:
Saba Abraha – You Are Not My Friend [How Things Fly]
Aaron Abernathy – Bachelorette feat. Phonte & Black Milk [Monologue]
Governess – Severance [“S/T”]
Light Arms – Unbearable Weight (Taking Out The Trash) [single]
Infinity Crush – Drowning Here With All My Friends [Warmth Equation]
huSEQ – Super Extoller [Rare Landing EP]
Or listen in SoundCloud:
Subscribe to the Hometown Sounds podcast in the iTunes Store or your favorite podcast app! (and tell a friend too!)
huSEQ – Super Extoller
Sean Husick, veteran of hardcore punk bands like Milemarker, Blankface, Static is a City and Elders, has succumbed to the lure of synths and drum machines and radically changed course. Originally dubbed Heavy Weapons, Husick’s electronic moniker recently rebranded as huSEQ for the release of his debut EP Rare Landing that comes out on October 19th. The EP’s first single “Super Extoller” shows that huSEQ still embraces the post-punk influences while appealing to the dance floor, and the single’s music video is rooted in early 90s computer graphics and video glitches. The EP’s Bandcamp page also shows the Limited Edition Floppy Disk Shaped USB Drive for maximum computing nostalgia.
Saba Abraha – You Are Not My Friend
Ethiopian singer Saba Abraha slinks thoughtful vocals around a vintage early 90s Soul II Soul-eqsue beat in her new single “You Are Not My Friend”. The newcomer’s debut EP How Things Fly was produced by Mikeyy of 94sGold and developed at House Studio DC, and this crisp late-night music video comes from director Nicolas Castro and Li,UVE. Is this the first video we’ve ever featured that includes a comic book store? You touch my heart, Saba.
Hometown Sounds 