The Scene

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

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…)

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…)

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?”

In the name of crass corporate arena sponsorship, I thought that it couldn’t get worse than switching the name of the Peach Bowl to the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl to just the Chick-fil-A Bowl to go along with all other ridiculous bowl names. We all secretly know that The Verizon Center and FedEx Field are vulgar corporate names, but there is a certain ring that those names have to them. Now, not only was the pavilion in Bristow, VA crassly named The Nissan Pavilion, but now it is the “Jiffy Lube Live.” Yes, the terribly named pavilion has gotten worse than anyone could have thought. Did the pavilion ever even have a real name?

At any rate, the name is changed and Jiffy Lube is having the grand re-opening on Thursday. The  (Blank) Pavilion is starting off with ’90s super grunge band Pearl Jam at 7:30pm, Thursday, May 13th. Tickets range from $26-$225 and can be purchased here.

This year’s Jiffy Lube Live calendar.

Get ready to Rock! The M3 Rock Festival at the Merriweather Post Pavilion is on June 19th. Gates open at 11am for a day of metal, hair bands and hardcore.

Pavilion Stage

Scorpions

Cinderella

VInce Neil

Kix

Winger

L.A. Guns

Trixter

Jetboy

Dingleberry Dynasty

Festival Stage

Warrant

Nelson

Dizzy Reed

Bang Tango

Mass

Black Mambooza

Z02

Get ready to get your funk on. One of Virginia’s best funk groups, The D.J. Williams Projekt is traveling to Northern Virginia this Saturday, April 24th. Sure DJ Williams comes to Whitlow’s quite often, but it’s getting to be summertime and I’m guessing that the Projekt will be doing its typical Mid-Atlantic outdoor festival tour. If you don’t catch them in April, it may be some time before you can see them at Whitlow’s (that’s just my guess). So make sure that you make it out and rock out.