The Scene

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

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.

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!

We all know the cliche of going to see a band that has been around for decades.  You pay to see them play the old songs you love.  After they play one you have to suffer through new numbers you hate while you go get another beer.  Maybe they never get around to the songs you want to hear.  Well, you won’t have to deal with that if you come out to the Black Cat tonight or the Ottobar tomorrow to catch punk legends The Buzzcocks.  They’ll be playing their first two albums in their entirety.  So their most ardent fans will hear every song they probably want to hear, and anybody who has listened to college rock (or alternative rock, or modern rock, or whatever it has been called at a given moment) for the last few decades can scream along with “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t've),” “Orgasm Addict,” and “What Do I Get?”

Washington City Paper is compiling a “Best of D.C. 2010 Readers’ Poll”. Check it out under “Arts & Entertainment”. There are plenty of categories about music: Best Jazz/Blues Venue, Best Local Band, Best Local Hip-Hop Artist, Best Music Venue, Best Outdoor Venue, Best Place to See Local Music. It’ll be interesting to see the results. Share your opinions in the comments section.

Even though we are still surrounded by the material evidence of winter, Amanda MacKaye and the crew organizing the Fort Reno summer concert series are already accepting applications for the 2010 edition.  Send them your demos!  Contact info is here.

The Fort Reno series is a highlight of the summer for many DCists.  It is in everyone’s interest that the eclectic lineup be as strong as possible.  For bands, these shows offer great exposure to potential fans who might not happen to ever stumble across a given act at a club or on their MySpace.

Photo credit:  Ron Akins

Punk vaudevillian accordion player and former The Hold Steady keybordist Franz Nicolay is sweeping through our area while touring in support of his new solo album, Major General and EP, St. Sabastian of the Short Stage. Franz will play at DC9 on Saturday and The Ottobar next Wednesday, and he will hit Charlottesville and Richmond in between. In addition to his solo work, he is part of an a capella group with the new 7″ World/Inferno Presents: Vox Inferne, a Brooklyn publisher is coming out with the first of a series of his fiction chapbooks entitled Complicated Gardening Techniques, and Franz has several more projects in the pipeline. Somehow, this busy guy took time to respond to a few questions we had for him. Read our interview with Franz Nicolay after the jump. (more…)

Sound Tribe Sector Nine (STS9) is on tour and they are coming through the DC area in mid-March. STS9 will be playing two nights (March 13th and March 14th) at the 9:30 Club following a show in Norfolk, VA at the Norva. I have had the chance to catch them 3 times in three different states (NC, GA and DC). By far the best show that I saw was right here at the 9:30 Club. They are doing something funky with tickets (I’m not used to seeing multiple ticket prices for a show like this at the 9:30 Club). At any rate, both shows should be great. Opening act for the 13th is Two Fresh and the 14th is Ana Sia. More tour dates after the jump. (more…)

Last week, DC’s own The breakUps held a CD release party at The Black Cat.  Maybe that was a little odd, considering that Illness at Ease came out in 2009, but who cares?  Their soulful and rollicking fusion of Hammond-organ-punctuated R&B  and punk is straight out of the coolest clubs of four decades ago.  They can wait a while to bill a show as a CD release party if they want to.  My review of this insanely enjoyable album follows after the jump.  (more…)