's 2001 debut, New Horizon, was an album to spend plenty of time with, but six years might be enough. Her sweet voice and smart lyrics stood out, but it was the honesty she conveyed that made her bluegrass-tinged folk songs sound so convincing. She works in the same bittersweet-yet-still-uplifting territory as Maria McKee, singing sad songs that will make you smile.
New Horizon was certainly a tough act to follow, but she's finally getting around to it, and she has plenty of help. For tonight's show at the Schindler is joined by Shortstack's Adrian Carroll, local drummer du jour Ben Azzara, and Tom Hnatow and Sean McArdle, both strong singer-songwriters in their own right. Kitty Hawk and Vandaveer open.
If you've been paying attention as you've gotten your club on over the past few years, you'll notice a growing visual component to the experience. VJs have been accompanying DJs for some time with live video manipulation, and traditional artists have been getting into the act, too. Raheem Devaughn tours with painter Demont Peekaso, who started out as the source of Devaughn's custom clothing designs and now creates paintings on stage during all of his shows.
is a collective of artists from the area who have emerged at the forefront of music-inspired painting. Their weekly events at Common Share are popular and occasionally their canvases catch many more eyeballs, as one did in the balcony at the recent 9:30 club show featuring Raheem Devaughn, Fertile Ground and Anthony David. Accompanied by resident DJ 2-Tone Jones, up to five artists collaborate on an improvised piece over the course of an event.
The AM Radio collective will be the star of the show tonight at .
Honestly, we're having a hard time coming up with a better scenario for a party this weekend than sipping cocktails at the before hitting the dance floor with a bunch of professional ballerinas. You can make our dreams your reality tonight, thanks to the Washington Ballet's , which hosts some seriously enjoyable fundraisers.
This year's party promises lots of grooves, lots of sass and very low lights, making it a no-brainer. The dress code is fun and funky, and besides, it's good for both the Ballet and your wallet -- tickets are $75, but $40 of that is tax deductible. on the Washington Ballet's Web site.
We promise this will be the last time you read about in this space for a while. But his first ever headlining engagement on the 's mainstage tonight serves as a fine cap to a whirlwind few months that have seen Ferree go from well-kept-local-secret to legit minor indie-rock star, which we realize may in fact be an oxymoron. Signing to Domino Records -- the biggest little label around -- was the highlight, but he opened a sold-out Spoon show in New York two weeks ago, has won over the blogosphere and captured the most cherished honor of them all when his album Leaving the Nest was named .
It's hard to resist his sometimes jaunty, sometimes woozy backporch folk-rock tunes on record, and it's just about impossible to do so in a live setting. If you still haven't heard what all the fuss is about, take a listen to the latest edition of the for a sample. The all-local bill is rounded out by Meredith Bragg and the Terminals and upstart trio Greenland.
One of our favorite ironies: Happy hours that raise money to fight cancer while potentially damaging our livers. But it's all about helping others while having a good time, so we're going to point you toward the tonight, where $20 gets you from 8:30 to 12:30. You'll dance, you'll drink, you'll raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
was a pioneer of a group of exiled South African musicians who found international fame while still contributing to the fight against apartheid at home. He became one of the first jazz musicians to build a career mixing jazz, pop and native African music styles. After four decades in the business, he's equally at home headlining the Kennedy Center as he is giving a leg up to young South African dance music artists trying to build careers.
So when you see Masekela live, the gravity of the man's achievements fade into an easy familiarity, as it seems that you're at the knee of an uncle who tells great stories punctuated with melodic bursts from his flugelhorn. Tonight he'll be making one of his periodic appearances at , an incredibly intimate venue for an artist of his magnitude. At $25 it would be a travesty to not experience one of these shows at least once.
We have a battle of swing dances going on tonight. First, instructors-around-town Tom Koerner and Debra Sternberg have added a new monthly event with live music. Held at 's CityDance Center, the venue has amenities dancers crave -- air conditioning and a sprung-wood floor that's light on the joints -- as well as covered parking and direct access to the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station.
Tonight's kickoff features , the pianist featured in the current incarnation of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Tickets are $15 and feature a half-hour dance lesson.
Moving from the new to the much older, the hosts the , a Pittsburgh group that delivers some of the hottest hot jazz and '30s small-group swing we've ever Lindy Hopped to.
That should set the mood nicely for a couples dance contest -- entry is free with admission -- with a $100 prize. Pay $13 at the door and dance from 9 until midnight; a one-hour introductory lesson begins at 8.
When we saw that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were DJing at the , we got our hopes up, but alas, there will be no Karen O.
Shame. But guitarist is going to be spinning his favorite records this evening, so feel free to ask him all kinds of pressing questions, like when the band's next record is coming out or why Gold Lion sounds so much like that Love and Rockets song. We kid.
After all, Zinner's often what keeps the band's music interesting when Karen O's schtick gets tired. Admission's free before 10 and $10 after.
The Essex Green presents a fine lesson in perserverance.
When David first caught them at Galaxy Hut almost seven and a half years ago, the group was on the B-team of the sprawling, '60s-obsessed Elephant 6 psych-rock collective. The Essex Green took cues from the Summer of Love, but it was mostly from the Mamas and the Papas and other bands (except Jethro Tull) that made extensive use of flute. That sound didn't really seem to fit in with their E6 kin, whether it was the acid-damaged folk of Neutral Milk Hotel or the sound collage experimentation of the Olivia Tremor Control.
Those bands were done by 2000, Elephant 6 seemed kaput as well and not much was heard from the Essex Green. But the group came back with the very strong The Long Goodbye in 2003 and followed that up with last year's The Cannibal Sea, which keeps all of those Summer of Love reference points, adds in some '70s AM radio flourishes and finds the three-headed songwriting team of Chris Ziter, Sasha Bell and Jeff Baron composing its most complete and catchiest songs to date. The Essex Green opens for Merge Records labelmates at the .
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