So You Think You Can Funny? Prove it.
We invite you all to come up with your best WGTB acronym in the comments section below. On Thursday, we are going to find the best one, and whoever wins gets a free pair of tickets to the Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s show this Friday at the Black Cat.
Perpetual Groove, the Athens, GA based band, drew a decent-sized crowd of eclectic but devoted DC fans to the 9:30 club this past Wednesday night. Following the opening act, The Bridge, Perpetual Groove came onstage at 10:30, late for a DC Wednesday night, yet this fact did not hinder their energy and ability to jam. They moved almost seamlessly from one song to the next, with few breaks—creating a single flowing instrumental profusion of sound and melody.
The Walkmen have never failed to produce beautiful indie rock symphonies that make us reflect. Is the glass really half full? Most of the time, The Walkmen blur this line with such efficiency that you’re really questioning why a song like, ‘Woe is Me’ is making you feel uplifted. In their newest album titled Lisbon, released on September 14, the edgy New York rock group dances on our troubles with surf-style vocals brought to you by Hamilton Leithauser.
I never understood the hype that Wavves generated with their last album. It sounded like fuzzy trash. I am pretty open to noise-oriented bands, but that was painful to my ears. I even smiled a bit when I heard Nathan Williams got his ass kicked by Jared Swilley from The Black Lips. As I was about to begin playing the album, I wasn’t particularly excited. I was expecting more of the same un-provoking, overrated, ‘chillwave.’
I was wrong.
WGTB is teaming up with The Playlist Foundation, a mixtape quartet including Georgetown Alum Chris Leader. The group consistently puts out mixtapes that can tickle your feet and stimulate your brain, and thats the sort of thing we’re into at WGTB. Chris takes an academic dive with this mixtape; a message from Chris himself:
I decided to trace the roots of some of my favorite hip-hop jams. The songs I dug up served as the prototypes for a range of music, from iconic golden age hits to modern releases. Not all of these samples can rival their successors, but all are impressive in their own right. May the endless cycle of musical re-creation continue!
Click through for the link and the tracklist!
Perhaps all albums should only be about 17 minutes long. If they can capture, so succinctly and wonderfully, an emotive expression like Tallest Man on Earth has done, then why make them any longer? Kristian Mattson has delivered like he always does – with a sharp and aware tray of songs simple in their construction and complex in their language. This time, though, he has taken one stroke of his emotive palette and wiped it across all five songs of his latest EP.
David Strackany, the man behind Paleo, seemed to be begging to be a contradiction. The artist who had once written 365 songs in one year, elected to write, ‘I do not exist,’ on the chalkboard to create his own backdrop. But it wasn’t one singular statement. He repeated it over and over again until its very declaration lost meaning and stopped being as much a Cartesian paradox as hyperactive, existential musings.
What do you do when an irate audience member screams “F#@%k Indie Rock!!!” in the middle of your show? If you’re Surfer Blood, you thank him kindly, finish a heartfelt and energetic set, and follow it up with a brilliant (albeit unsolicited) encore.
