The Scene

MusicDetour.com’s commentary on music, performances, and the DC metro area music scene

After three decades of fighting, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is finally about to win a battle against a music reproduction technology: the tape cassette. Sony recently announced that it will no longer produce the once popular Sony Walkman. The Walkman became synonymous with portable personal music. While the cassette technology lost out to the CD Walkman long-ago, this is notable because of the impact that the cassette had on the recording industry as a whole. (more…)

This weekend Baltimore played host to a new festival:  the Baltimore Independent Music and Arts Festival.  BIMAfest featured over 100 musicians, mostly local acts but some from as far away as L.A.  Sadly, my weekend was also full of lots of real life stuff, so I was only able to attend a couple of shows, during which I witnessed both fantastic performances and poor organization.  I hope that most folks involved with this event got what they needed out of it so that I might do it in style next year after everyone has learned from mistakes.  Reviews of shows Friday night at the Ottobar and Saturday night at the Hour Haus follow after the jump.  (more…)

Join me on Soul City Radio tonight (8/25) as I discuss my book entitled, “Criminalizing Independent Music: The Recording Industry Association of America’s Advancement of Dominant Ideology”. The show will be live from 7-8pm, but I am sure you can replay it for a while after the recording on the site. I was on the show back in January during their panel discussion series on the state of independent music.

About The Book (more…)

On Saturday there will be a benefit show at the Ottobar. Several DJs will spin and local dance tunes creators Lazerbitch will play.  Proceeds will go to the Ottobar.  Why?  Well, nobody can talk about the specifics publicly, but the club is the subject of a lawsuit, one that apparently has something to do with its insurance policy.  Legal bills are a hardship for Ottobar ownership so they are openly asking their customers to chip in by purchasing $10 tickets for this event or even to donate via Paypal.  Missiontix, the site that handles ticket sales for Ottobar shows and other hip events in Baltimore, is even waiving service charges for ticket sales for this event.

Although it sounds like a good time and I believe that this is a good cause, I’ll take a pass myself.  Instead, when I attend a BIMA fest show there in a couple of weeks I’ll just drink more heavily than normal.  Maybe I’ll buy a t-shirt.  If they have copies available I may even buy a DVD of DJs, the crazy sex-n-drugs soap opera set at the Ottobar.  If you have been thinking about checking out the Ottobar, get there for this benefit or another upcoming show.  A lot of people would appreciate it.

Covers are fun for musicians to play and they are generally a safe bet for consumers.  Bands like to play covers of songs they enjoy, and audience members can be pretty sure that if a band doesn’t completely muck up their favorite songs they will have a good time.  Saturday night dozens of local rockers provided a fun evening of covers at the Black Cat‘s 8th annual RUN FOR COVER.  Although I kind of expected a focus on Reagan-era nostalgia, what surprised me most was the display of female singers, as women fronted or shared the lead on five of the eight acts.  Read more about it after the jump. (more…)

Each summer, DC area musicians form one-night-only tribute and parody bands and rock out together at the Black Cat‘s RUN FOR COVER night.  This year’s event will happen next Saturday, the 7th.  Tickets are only $10, and proceeds will support the Fort Reno Summer Concert Series.  DC rockers look out for their own.  Come on out.  There’s no telling exactly who you might see disguised as Mötley Crüe, Tom Petty, INXS, and others deserving veneration and mockery.

This year’s HFStival is at the Merriweather Pavilion this year. Be sure to get your tickets soon for the September 18th show.

Line-up: (more…)

People that like to romanticize the changing of music mediums often lament about the loss of recording technology. This is one of the reasons why there has been a recent boom in vinyl album sales because people miss the crackly analog that supposedly sounds so much better. While I don’t want to get into the aesthetics of it (maybe vinyl just does sound “better”), this imagined losing of old technologies is strange and generally unique to music (could you imagine romanticizing the quality of a rotary phone? Is anyone willing to give up their G4 phone to be put through by an operator?). Well, it’s official, CNN has declared that the CD is dying. (more…)

Summer in DC is now officially underway.  Congressmen and everybody else who can’t hang with the humidity has skipped town, but beginning Monday you can enjoy the cool sunset breezes at the highest and hippest spot in Town, in the shadow of a tower that belongs on another continent at the first Fort Reno show of the summer.  We now have the entire schedule.  The one gotta-be-there night has to be Monday, August 2nd, for The Evens.  Hoping that Ian MacKaye will play is almost a running joke, but the Evens are playing Fort Reno again for the first time in a few years.  Use the comments section to tell us what other night we’d be foolish to miss.  The complete schedule follows after the jump.  (more…)

Amanda MacKaye and the other volunteers are working hard to finalize the schedule for the Fort Reno summer concert series.  Once they release the full schedule we’ll let you know.  However, we do know that your first chance to check out a set of inside-the-beltway bands while you chill in the shadow of a tower that simply does not belong on this continent is just two weeks away.  Opening night Monday, June 28 will feature The Public Good, American Hearts, and Tiny Bombs.  Never heard of them?  Well, here’s a great opportunity to fix that!