Post Rock

Calle 13 wins big at Latin Grammys

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:47:59 -0500

Puerto Rican genre-mashers Calle 13 went undefeated at the Latin Grammy awards in Las Vegas, Thursday, winning all five awards it was nominated for. The duo took home Album of the Year honors for its oh-so-excellent "Los De Atras Vienen Conmigo," as well as Grammys for best urban album, alternative song, short video ("La Perla") and Record of the Year ("No Hay Nadie Como Tú" -- a collaboration with Mexican rock troupe Cafe Tacuba). Let's hope the band brings its boundary blurring live show through the Washington area soon. Consider it a victory lap! (Other Latin Grammy winners, after the jump.)

Kurt Vile: Live last night

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:49:05 -0500

By Chris Klimek It's perfectly reasonable to be suspicious of a musician with as mighty a moniker as Kurt Vile. If that was a stage name (it's not) the intimation would be of the most confrontational, petulant punk, but the Philadelphia-based Vile's defiantly primitive, accident-prone songs are lazier and hazier than that, rarely straying from the long and droning road but hinting at melodic paths untaken. Imperfection is his ideology. ("The cacophony was more ethereal than kinetic," after the jump.)

Six Things I Miss About Home With ... Le Loup

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:01:32 -0500

D.C. quintet Le Loup is coming home. The band has spent the last month on the road in support its second album, "Family," a collection of carefully adorned folk songs in which banjo, group vocals and rumbling drums all gently mingle with each other. Moira McLaughlin has a profile of the band in today's Weekend section, so we thought we'd ask frontman Sam Simkoff about the six things he's most looking forward to about settling back in at home. Le Loup performs Saturday night at the Black Cat. 1. My Wife I'm a real homebody. I miss my wife. 2. A Vegetarian Meal I'm not a vegetarian, but all we eat on the road is, well, road food. And 90 percent of road food is meat. We were driving through Arizona, and we passed this huge cattle ranch -- this giant cow landscape in the middle of the desert.

Girls: Live last night

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:57:38 -0500

By David Malitz San Francisco indie group Girls (consisting of four guys, of course) came to the Black Cat Tuesday as one of the most hyped bands of the year -- and some of it even has to do with their music! The backstory has simply proven too irresistible. Frontman Christopher Owens grew up in a cult and spent the first 16 years of his life continent-jumping and proselytizing on behalf of Children of God. Eventually he landed in San Francisco and developed a close relationship with every type of pill the FDA tells parents to keep away from children. And he's more than happy to talk about both of these subjects in interviews. The band's latest single, "Lust for Life" -- yes, the same title as the Iggy Pop hit; no, those words don't appear at all in the lyrics -- is accompanied by a designed-to-shock video that

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Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:57:38 -0500

The Very Best: Live last night

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:48:14 -0500

By Mark Jenkins The Very Best has fewer members than most African bands have drummers, and the London-based Afro-electro-pop trio didn't even bring its full complement to its sold-out Monday gig at DC9. But singer Esau Mwamwaya and programmer Etienne Tron had no trouble holding the crowd's attention with a mostly prerecorded set of blithe dance music. (Bare-midriffed dancers and grumbling from fans, after the jump.)

Bruce Springsteen: Live last night

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:48:52 -0500

Bruce Springsteen brought his usual energy to Verizon Center on Monday night. The audience was up to the task of matching his enthusiasm. (By By Toni L. Sandys/TWP) By Chris Richards When the house lights go up at a rock concert, the illusion of magic evaporates. Show's over. Don't forget your belongings on the way out. Not so at Verizon Center Monday night, where Bruce Springsteen cranked up the lumens in the middle of his set. When the overhead lights flipped on during the opening bars of "Born To Run," an indistinct mass of fans was suddenly thrown into sharp relief and the audience appeared as real and human as the band sweating it out on stage. The illusion didn't evaporate. It exploded into something profound. View a gallery of photos from Monday night's show. Revelatory moments like this are stock-in-trade for Springsteen, who was making his second Verizon Center

The Boss Is Back With "Born to Run" - What Next?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:53:40 -0500

Nils Lofgren and Bruce Springsteen back in May at the Verizon Center. (By Linda Davidson/TWP) It seems that we've been saying this a lot lately, but -- the Boss is in town. It's his third trip to D.C. in just under three years but is the first time he won't be pushing a new album. Instead, he'll be pushing an album that needs no pushing at all -- his 1975 classic "Born to Run." Springsteen is just the latest performer to hop on the overflowing perform-an-album-in-its-entirety bandwagon, which surely has no more room left on it now that the entire E Street Band on board. Right? If you're going to tonight's concert at Verizon Center you'll hear the eight songs on the album, in order, probably in the middle portion of the show. During a recent run of concerts at Giants Stadium Springsteen highlighted three separate albums on three separate

Patty Loveless: Live last night

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:56:09 -0500

By Juli Thanki "I want you to feel like you're in my living room," Patty Loveless said to a worshipful Birchmere crowd Sunday night. The giant '30s console radio and table lamps onstage certainly added to the effect as the honey-voiced Loveless delivered two hours of country and bluegrass music, or, as she put it, "sharing music about real people and real life situations." (A pair of standing ovations and covers of George Jones and Emmylou Harris, after the jump.)

Bahman Panahi: Live last night

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:58:36 -0500

By Mark Jenkins Iranian musician Bahman Panahi is pursuing a doctorate at the Sorbonne, so it's fitting that his concert Friday evening at the Freer Gallery was instructive. He demonstrated the different tones and moods of the tar and the setar, the long-necked lutes central to West Asian music. He also offered a lesson on improvisation. (Awed gasps, graceful glides and sensuously bent strings, after the jump.)

Howard Yardfest revisited: A trifecta of mix tapes

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:23:00 -0500

Yardfest, the annual concert held during homecoming at Howard University, is already a week in the rear view, but I'm still sifting through the copious freebies. Last Friday, street-teamers prowled the H.U. quad, passing out eye-popping party flyers, bottles of soda that tasted like dish soap (I was really thirsty) and oodles of mix tapes from rappers hoping to win new ears. After listening to the dozen CDRs I took home, three stand out: Black Cobain's "Now Or Never," K-Beta's "89 to 09" and Nipsey Hussle's "Bullets Ain't Got No Names Vol. 3.1" (Links to all three mix tapes, after the jump.)

Ricky Skaggs: Live Last Night

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:27:52 -0500

By Juli Thanki It's a rare performer who'll quote both the Old Testament and "Slingblade." But when the performer is Ricky Skaggs, who shared a stage with Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass, at five years old and turned pro at an age when most are worried about finding a date to the prom, just about anything is possible. Backed by his crack six-man band Kentucky Thunder, Skaggs wowed the Strathmore crowd Thursday night with nearly two hours of acoustic music, punctuating originals and bluegrass standards with breakneck instrumentals. (Skaggs whips it like a mule, after the jump.)

Don't miss: Future of the Left

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:26:48 -0500

The best tweet I read during CMJ was from blogger Gorilla Vs. Bear and it read: seems like every single band that every single person has seen at CMJ so far has been "killing it" Took the words right out of my mouth. There was more killing in my Twitter feed than the Battle of Manzikert. This wasn't a CMJ-only phenomenon. Every blog review I read these days, it seems that the band "killed" or "slayed." Really? Don't you think we're using the word "kill" a little lightly? Some of these bands that are "killing it" couldn't harm a bug. The XX are a nifty little group but to say they are "killing it" is just flat-out false. There isn't the slightest hint of violence in the band's music. Soothing it? Maybe. Killing it? Sorry, no. If we must use the phrase, let us reserve for a band like

MJ fizzles, Bootsy sizzles

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:17:55 -0500

The prolific Chris Richards is at it again. In today's Style section he has a piece on Bootsy Vegas, who every Wednesday appears on local radio station WPGC with a newly crafted ode to the Redskins. His most recent creation is "Redskins Go-Go," which is far more entertaining than actually watching the Redskins play. Last night Chris stayed out late to catch the Michael Jackson concert/rehearsal film "This Is It." His verdict: "Jackson would never, ever want us to see this film." Zero stars. That's right. Zero stars.

Sneak Peek of Paramore Live From Merriweather

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:53:13 -0500

We're big fans of Paramore around here. Chris Richards loved pretty much every minute of the band's show at Merriweather on Friday, which was filmed by MTV for "Ulalume: Howling at New Moon." Guess it has something to do with that new vampire movie, but all we care about is seeing Hayley Williams and Co. performing "Brick By Boring Brick" live from Columbia, Md. Enjoy. How can you not?

CMJ Revisited

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:26:44 -0500

Let's Wrestle? Looks like they've got something else on their minds. My main reason for attending CMJ this year was to check in on the locals and see how the festival was treating them. Most of my first two days were spent tracking the likes of US Royalty, Middle Distance Runner, True Womanhood and Deleted Scenes, but that still left plenty of time for other stuff. A rundown... Scruffy-Sounding Foreigners Rule the Fest I already wrote about New Zealand classicists Surf City, who lived up to lofty expectations I set for them. Two U.K. trios -- Let's Wrestle and Male Bonding -- were my other favorites of the week. I caught Let's Wrestle at SXSW and the fresh-faced lads impressed me with their clever pop tunes. The trio's debut album was cheeky fun -- idiosyncratic, self-deprecating lyrics and bouncy tunes. I wrote about it back in April and said: "feels