For more, check out Lightfoot’s albums on Bandcamp

Video: Sydney Browning
Audio + Editing: Catherine DeGennaro 

What: Grasping At Straws competes at the DC Next Big Thing Tour
When: 11am-11pm on Sunday Feb. 19 (exact timeslot will be announced after reporting ticket sales on Thursday)
Where: To be determined by ticket sales (But we hope the 9:30 Club!)
Cost: $15 for the show + the possibility of a post-show party for everyone who comes out to watch

For tickets and more information, contact Anatole Doak at ajd76@georgetown.edu

Camera: Sydney Browning
Audio + Edits: Catherine DeGennaro

If you missed our last Music from Big Chair session with Jeremy Messersmith, check it out here.

You can tweet your questions for Wales and Weckerle @PublicInterview. DJ Lauren Hodges will be hosting. She also has the other interviews posted on her blog, as well as background info and general show information; in case you missed the other in-studios, you can catch up on them here. (Check out the Jim Lehrer interview below, as well).

Tune in at 7:30 pm to www.georgetownradio.com to catch Wales and Weckerle with Hodges on-air. And make sure you’re following @wgtb on Twitter to stay up to date with the latest studio news!

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Public Interview on Twitter

The June 6 episode of Public Interview will feature Svetlana Legetic, the editor and founder of Brightest Young Things, in the WGTB studio.

Just hours before Yellow Ostrich parked their van on 37th and O Street NW, Fiona and I scrambled to find something — anything — for Alex Schaaf, Michael Tapper and Jon Natchez to play. A slight miscommunication had resulted in the band planning to stop by Georgetown to record a plugged-in studio session before their soundcheck at the Black Cat with us waiting on the other end to film an acoustic takeaway show. Easy fix, right? Not quite. They didn’t have the equipment to play acoustic, and we didn’t have the equipment to go electric. Hoping to salvage the afternoon, we rounded up the best instruments we could find, and thankfully, the flexible trio was willing to stretch the definition of both ‘best’ and ‘instruments’ far enough to rework a few cuts from their album The Mistress live on air. Crammed into the tiny studio tucked away in the corner of Hoya Court, Schaaf strummed Fiona’s acoustic guitar, while Tapper kept time on its case, adding in some percussive flourishes with whatever he could bring along after politely declining the toy tambourine we dug up for him. Bassist Jon Natchez broke out the brass instead of the bass on “Hold On” and effortlessly translated the buzzing, electric end of “Mary” to an unplugged setting with some light clarinet.

Later on that night, we were lucky enough to catch Yellow Ostrich’s opening set at the Black Cat and were treated to a whirlwind of sound — vocal loops with reverb, a full drum kit, electric guitar, bass, brass and synths — pumped through large speakers. On what is the band’s first real tour, they played to an impressively full room that shouted requests (if it wasn’t busy being eerily quiet, listening with rapt attention as Schaaf tuned up between numbers) and hung on to every note of favorites like “Whale” and newer, unheard songs like “Charles Lindbergh” alike. And as good as that set was (and it certainly was good), there’s something to be said that these three musicians could pull something equally striking and captivating out of little more than a hastily tuned guitar and the beat of its empty case.

Crew: Fiona Hanly + Catherine DeGennaro
Edits: Catherine DeGennaro

Listen to and download the audio from the session:

Yellow Ostrich: In-Studio with WGTB by WGTB Rotation

Before heading to the Rock & Roll Hotel for their concert with Vetiver and Peter Wolf Crier, L.A. indie rock quartet Dawes drove to 37^th and O St, SE ready to play some guitar and sing some songs. When they looked around at the abandoned cul-de-sac in Anacostia and discovered that Georgetown University is located at 37^th and O NW (a mistake every Georgetown student’s parents have undoubtedly made at least once), they hopped in their tour van and drove back across town.

30 minutes later, when they arrived in front of the prim and proper Georgetown gates, Dawes flattened out their flannel, wiped off their aviators, and performed a two-song set in the alley behind the Wave House. With just an acoustic guitar, lead singer Taylor Goldsmith, his younger brother—the band’s drummer—Griffin, and keyboardist Alex Casnoff serenaded O Street NW with the updated Crosby, Stills & Nash-esque harmonies of “Gimme Time” and “If I Wanted Someone.”

By the time they finished, even the suit-wearing square who’d been yelling into his cell phone on the stoop five feet away throughout the performance approached them with a business card and an offer to play at his “black tie” event. Dawes’s hefty tour schedule for the next month might take precedence over the offer, but fortunately WGTB got them on tape so you can listen to these guys harmonize like a shaggy barbershop trio whenever you please.

Camera + Crew: Emma Forster and Ben Wormald

Edits: Emma Forster and Igor German

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.

In front of this self-defeating wall, Paleo didn’t close his eyes, meditate, or let his gaze wander into the back rows of the classrooms. Instead, he stared directly into the camera as if to establish his own existence so powerfully and unequivocally that it makes the observer uneasy. We want to believe his declaration, but we can’t argue with his stare.

Strackany takes the little guitar with him because he says its easier to write songs with it while he’s driving. For every art there is a component of obsession, and for Strackany that obsession manifests itself in a commitment to songwriting. This same obsessiveness led him to methodically create his own backdrop, and probably led him to erase it when he was done.

Camera + Crew: Catherine Degennaro, Tiare Dunlap, GT Wrobel

Edits: Igor German

This past Saturday Peter Wolf Crier crammed their gear into our tiny WGTB studios and delivered a soulful performance of these four songs. The duo has built a strong base in Minnesota, and after recording Inter-Be, they joined Jagjaguar and started this short but intense national tour. The small crowd that gathered to check out their performance was delighted with the intimacy of the show and impressed with the atmospheric sound they were able to so naturally create. Read Fiona’s review of the album and listen to/download the four live tracks below!

Peter Wolf Crier – Crutch and Cane by igorgerman

Peter Wolf Crier – For Now by igorgerman

Peter Wolf Crier – Saturday Night by igorgerman

Peter Wolf Crier – Untitled 101 by igorgerman

Listen to the full interview below!

The Hood Internet on WGTB by wgtbmusic