Time to really give our motherland a big HIGH FIVE! and show our respects by consuming an obscene amount of grilled meat and booze while sweating our *balls* off and haphazardly shooting flames into all directions!! God Bless America!
This Sunday night after your daytime festivities, come celebrate with the funkiest line-up of DC’s favorite homegrown reggae/funk/DJ artists at DC’s newest [and now favorite] music venue, U Street Music Hall!
Fort Knox Five,See-I, and Nappy Riddem will all be performing with live bands along with DJ sets by Rex Riddem, JonH and Raskal and some very, very rad visual projections by John Bowen of Video Killers and Empresarios.
The new single, “Shift” by Fort Knox Five featuring the legendary Afrika Bambaataa saw its inception over Inauguration Weekend, carrying with it a revolutionary and progressive vibe, is the perfect anthem for the Fourth. “Shift” has also recently seen a cascade of stellar remixes including a dubstep mix by Sub Swara, a electro-house/breaks mix by Malente as well as others.
The show starts at 9pm so that means you still have time to have the whole day to waste before ending the holiday on a funky [and always happy] note.
Capital Hemp, who have just opened a NEW LOCATION in Chinatown/Gallery Place, are just one of the many local artists sponsoring The Big Boom. Expect a Capital Hemp bio-fuel exhibit outside as well as info about Americans For Safe Access.
Come to the show! Save some money (tix are $10 each) and cop some tickets below! The Vinyl District has TWO PAIRS to giveaway! Not only that but we are also giving out TWO double gate fold vinyl of Fort Knox Five’s “Radio Free DC” sent directly to your door!
AMERICA! FUCK YEA!
TO WIN: In the comments section, let us know why YOU love America! Is it the hipsters? Our reality TV?? The fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger can be Governor?? Let us knowww and please include a) if you’d want Tix or Vinyl! and b) your EMAIL! (winners notified Saturday evening!)
Discovering the joys of vinyl has mostly been a personal pursuit in my adult life. For in childhood, vinyl played a limited role in my household. The story goes that my Father saw the future a little too early, and transferred all of his records onto cassette tape. Gone were many beautifully kept examples of albums by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Santana, Supertramp and Led Zeppelin. In their place was a rack of neatly labelled, but somehow much less attractive, BASF 90 minute cassettes. Obviously, today that rack of cassettes is worth thousands!!??
Therefore my early experiences with a turntable involved my Mother’s somewhat pitiful collection of kids’ records and cheap “6 Top Hits” cover version compilations from the ’60s. It has to be said that there were a few gems amongst the junk, my favourite being a 1970 single by Michel Sardou which my Mother got on a French exchange trip. The song, “J’habite en France,” seemed a bizarrely perfect blend of the lyrics from Penny Lane with the music from Hello Goodbye performed in the mysteriously poetic French language, as though McCartney himself had been transported to a parallel French universe.
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So… I had to play catch up on the delights of vinyl once I had gathered the means and desire to do so. This occurred when I started to visit local charity shops (that’s English for thrift store) in Watford, Hertfordshire, and discovered a trove of audio treasures being practically given away. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found ZZ Top’s Eliminator being sold for a measly 50 English pence. And thus a new musical education ensued with the purchase of many many records by such artists as Yes, ELO, The Police, 10CC, Wings and Phil Collins. I must admit that searching through thrift store records isn’t pure joy though, as I’ve leafed through WAY too many Barbra Streisand records, and I have no need for the countless Neil Diamond compilations one finds on every visit.
Now that my collection is ever expanding, I am firmly convinced that vinyl records are simply great. I love the physicality of having music stored on a tangible object, and indeed an object of some charm. A piece of vinyl is perfect because of it’s imperfections, as though some degree of static and warp can improve a tune with mystical pops and hiss. Not only does a record sound superb, it looks like it means business, with a full square foot of pictorial splendour. I savour each occasion I can introduce a friend to some music by walking to my stereo console, pulling out a circular piece of long forgotten genius, fiddling with the turntable and wallowing in the glorious aural delight which comes only from vinyl.
We’re pleased to debut (for the first time anywhere) Red Wire Black Wire’s very “Omega Man”-esque “Post-Apocalyptic Love Song” which is an unreleased B-side from the Brooklyn band’s “Breathing Fire” 7″.
We’ve also got four copies of Red Wire Black Wire’s new CD “Robots & Roses” to give away in exchange for your comments to this post.
Weigh in on the video with a contact email address and you’re automatically entered to win a CD copy of “R&R.” We’ll accept your feedback until next Tuesday (7/5) and award four winners a copy of the CD then!
You guys. I have GOT to tell you about the Eric Clapton conspiracy. It’s a little complicated, so bear with me.
This week, I discovered my new favorite toy: wordle. Wordle allows anyone to make pretty, formattable word clouds out of any chunk of text. I was originally using it to word-cloud old diary entries, but quit when the most-used words were “Why????,” the names of ex boyfriends, and entirely too many adverbs (like “entirely”).
Wordle is also pretty great for analyzing Twitter hashtag trends, as long as you are a computer genius like I am. After painstakingly stripping today’s #musicmonday tweets to their most basic, recommendiest cores (what up “find and replace”?), I was able to create this majestic cloud:
Most of this is pretty unsurprising. There are topical appearances: Lady Gaga is generally a big deal on the Internet, but especially this week thanks to a just-released Rolling Stone cover and some rowdy baseball antics. Drake is all over the damn place these days, and was at Sunday night’s BET awards. Monday was the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death, so “MJ,” “King [of pop]” and other Jackson-love tweets are easy to explain. Eminem just released “Recovery,” and it’s gotten plenty of buzz.
There are also perpetual favorites: Justin Bieber is the indomitable Prince of Twitter, thanks to the legions of terrifying tween girls who want to make out with him without entirely knowing what “making out” entails. And John Mayer is well loved by the Twitter universe for his scatological overshares and on-again-off-again relationship with tabloid-friendly starlets and, like, technology in general.
But then, right up there with the Biebers and the Gagas and the MJs you see: Eric Clapton. I mean, Eric Clapton is great. I frickin’ LOVE “Layla.” There are many colorful, entertaining stories associated with his personal life. Yet I can see no reason for his Twitter dominance.
So, detective work. First: all these Clapton tweets are coming from the same four usernames. TheVideoDJ, amandajones4321, wendyyoung333, and MISSBLIP2 are responsible for every Clapton tweet on Monday. If profile pictures are to be believed, amandajones4321 and wendyyoung333 are both busty, attractive young women and The VideoDJ and MISSBLIP2 both have cheesy taste in clipart. wendyyoung333 seems to post sports videos as well as music videos; the other three seem only to post about music. And while they all post some links to contemporary favorites, there’s an awful lot of Eric Clapton and James Taylor.
The VideoDJ links resolve to a concert tickets website. Ditto amandajones4321 and wendyyoung333. This particular concert tickets website also seems to provide advice about how to overcome insomnia, how to stop snoring, and where to apply for scholarships. Apparently they have a wide range of expertise. That said, Eric Clapton is on tour, and these people are clearly trying to sell tickets. Mystery solved.
MISSBLIP2, on the other hand, just posts Grooveshark links—they go straight to a streaming version of the song, rather than to a commercial website. There doesn’t seem to be any motivation for her perpetual music tweets besides a sincere joy in music. That said, she also runs a Twitter-based fan page for George Lopez (“the best comedian ever”).
Role #mmodel: “richmandoo: I’m doing #musicmonday cos I’m super bored on a bus.” I hate to break this to you, buddy, but…you’re doing it wrong. It helps to, you know, include some music in your #musicmonday tweets.
My #musicmonday pick: “Layla” by…no just kidding. I cannot stop listening to “40 Day Dream,” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It’s getting to be a problem.
It’s said that the bonsai tree will on average outlive us all—to the point in its existence where it may have a handful of meticulous caretakers over the course of its lifetime—which lead me to thinking this weekend…do we care for it, or it for us?
Despite the resurgence in enthusiasm for vinyl and the plethora of acts again releasing music in the format, 95% of my vinyl purchases are pre-owned. Of the 26 LPs I bought this weekend up at Joe’s Record Paradise, all of them had previous owners who unfortunately left several of their names scrawled is less than desirable locations. (Kitty Jones, I’m looking at you.)
I spent some time afterward at home scraping off price stickers, replacing inner sleeves when needed, and rebagging the LPs with new clear, Mylar sleeves. It might sound like a chore, but it’s an oddly centering endeavor.
This week, for whatever reason, tracks from a few LPs that have tended to me and remain a constant over the years.
…in which we relive the spontaneity of a record purchased on a whim with, “I dunno…I just liked the cover.”
Right, transparent me.
But NYC’s Electric Tickle Machine are not just the sum of an eye-catching LP cover but a combo with an inspired rock and roll wallop who this past Friday appeared at Shea Stadium as part of the Northside Festival.
Their debut LP ‘Blew it Again’ is out tomorrow on vinyl but we have two today to offer on a delightful and sticky NSFW Monday.
Enter to win in the comments to this post with a tale of a record purchased on a lark on the strength of the cover alone and we’ll choose two winners for a copy of the LP. Remember to leave us a contact email address and we’ll close this one on Friday, 7/2. On a whim.
Earlier in the week I got to thinking that after last week’s four ticket giveaway contests, how could we go this week with well, …none? Something seemed a bit off, if you ask me.
Happily our friend Olivia Mancini came to our rescue with a pair of tickets for her show this coming Friday night at Iota in Arlington with No Second Troy.
So, Olivia, what’s the scoop?
“Olivia Mancini and No Second Troy last played together in February of 2009 (I looked it up) and while I couldn’t remember the date, I do remember the night as A+ and Awesome. Apparently, if you put in one part “the Mates” and one part “No Second Troy,” you come out with “boundless energy,” in the words of one enthusiastic local blogger.
I’m expecting a similar chemical reaction on Friday. We’ll be presenting another star-studded lineup, featuring the stalwart Kristin Forbes on bass; Sammy Ponzar of the Andalusians and Impossible Hair on drums; Jarrett Nicolay of My New Mixtape and Virginia Coalition on guitar; and my lil’ sis’, Julia, on backing vocals and killer tambourine.”
Sufficiently sold? As mentioned, we have a pair of tickets for tomorrow night’s show—but you have to act fast! Submit your plea for the tickets in the comments to this post—with a contact email address!—and we’ll choose one winner tomorrow at noon to see the show on us and Olivia.
Photo: Stephanie Bassos I told myself once I finish music school in Boston, move back to NY, and get an apartment in Manhattan to call my own, I am buying a record player.
I did just that. Apartment- Check; Record player- Check; Records…umm in progress? I only have 6 records to my name, but tens of thousands of cds and cassette tapes. It seems I am doing things in an order completely opposite than I should be, working backwards in time through the progress of recording media.
Music has always been a scenery thing to me. You should be able to listen to something and picture your own perfect music video without there ever being one. That reason alone is why I decided its time to go back and start collecting vinyl. You can feel it all, the room, the era, the vibe, the players, the equipment, the mistakes – that perfect piece of time captured in the engraved grooves on this big plastic disc.
When I told my parents I bought a record player they were so excited! “We will go back to Odessa this summer and bring you back all of our records” my father told me. As much as I love my heritage and Soviet background I wasn’t to keen on getting back classic Russian pop of their generation. But have no fear the BEATLES are here! Apparently, my parents were big fans, it seems they own everything that would typically be in an American record collection from the same era. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Who, Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson, Rolling Stones…and so much more.
Whats music today without the music of yesterday. Give me some Chopin on vinyl, yah I’ll listen to it. I love taking from all parts of the world, all different time periods. Listening to the “pop” music of any era.
I look forward to helping my collection of vinyl grow, but most importantly just my collection of music. All sound has a purpose, and I love exploring them. When I decided to record I knew I wanted it to be as raw as possible. Now, I’ll listen to my own tracks and am instantly brought back to that great studio, to those extremely talented musicians, to that moment of creation. Some tracks you can even hear the cracking of the chairs from the string players, and I wouldn’t want to change that for anything. That is something that only vinyl can offer, this unique ability to transport the listener into the studio and hear the music as it sounded in that room on that day.
Vinyl offers the juxtaposition of an ephemeral moment that can be listened to over and over again while hearing nuances of each instrument every time. You can hear each musician on the album playing with depth and feeling while trying to listen and coexist within the room and not what would have to mix well. They played till it was as perfect as it could be…no need to press a button and manufacture a sound.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and place of all of that, it’s just not what I’m trying to create. I want people to listen to my music and be transformed to a scene where you watch toys come to life when all the customers have left the store at night. Whimsical Alt Indie Pop, whatever you’d like to call it. Taking those rich elements of thirties to late-forties composition, combining it with a just a flavor of the current.
I listen to newly-released vinyl of bands today, and the way it captures both the organic air of the past as well as the new sounds of today is just incredible. It just transforms itself through speakers and is simply magical. The warmth of vinyl is something that the laptop speakers playing mp3s can’t even imagine.
To date, I am not on vinyl. One day I will be, but right now a CD, or iTunes download has to suffice. I just ask, please listen through good quality speakers! So much sparkle is lost when you don’t hear things properly, and a lot of effort went into making sure my recordings trigger the memories, sensations and imagination of my listeners.
I really can’t see myself doing anything else in life, so whether it’s live, radio, digital, tape, or vinyl, thank you all for continuing to so enthusiastically support the arts.
For years I probably spent and inordinate amount of time brooding – and I still do now, if I’m being honest. Y’know…late nights, red wine. Thinking disguised as staring at the wall.
And I had a patch of records there on the shelf that were the perfect soundtrack. Pensive and thoughtful orchestrations of melancholy all of which now have deep, deep grooves from overplaying.
I also think the readers of this here daily drivel are kindred spirits in a way. You’d have to be to tune into a vinyl blog day in and day out. Intrinsically here at this location, the medium is the message but the music is the messenger.
Which brings me to Aussies, The Middle East whose self titled LP deserves a solid spot among the vinyl I’d spin on those starry evenings.
If my sensibilities are correct, and I believe they are, you want this record. . . and we’ve got two copies to give away.
Your task? Download the Mp3s below, pour a glass of wine, have a listen, and simply opine in the comments to this post—whatever moves you to move us to send one your way.
We’ll give you a week to suitably inspire and will close this one on Wednesday, 6/30. Don’t forget to leave us a contact email address between pours.
Anita, aka Cocknbullkid’s 7″ ‘On My Own’ spent an inordinate amount of time on the turntable last year here at TVD HQ. Somewhere between Morrissey meets Lady Gaga, the track had a unique charm and a sly lyrical directness seldom heard in my opinion, all set to a hypnotic pulsing low-fi groove.
Then…silence. Where’d she go?
Well, she’s been holed up recording her first full length LP and we’ve been sent a self-titled teaser track for your right-clicking pleasure. We think she onto something…
I’d like to take this opportunity to announce that no matter how much you beg us, we will simply not be offering tickets in a contest to Etxe Records’Fangs Out LP release show this coming Saturday night (6/26) at Comet Ping Pong (which also happens to feature Etxe’s Night and the City.)
See, …the show’s free.
That’s right—walk right in, order some of the best pizza in this fair city, and head to the back where the festivities will be occurring.
I’ll repeat: it’s free!
But we’re nothing but givers here, and as Chris and Jenn mentioned in yesterday’s intro to their Exte Records Label Spotlight, we’ve got a copy of Girl Loves Distortion’s LP ‘You Better Run, Your Highness’ and Fangs Out’s brand new LP ‘Speech Shadowing’ (which both include a full CD, I might add) for one lucky winner who sufficiently inspires us in the comments to this post.
Let us know why you deserve to be said lucky winner and the most convincing of the bunch will have these two LPs lovingly packed and shipped directly to your door.
We’ll give you a full week to enter. Contest ends on Tuesday, 6/29. So, make ’em good and remember to leave us a contact email address!
Snoop Dogg made a True Blood-themed music video. Twitter is a-buzz: all day yesterday, Twits (alt: Tweeps) obediently retweeted the following:
@TrueBloodHBO: #MM #musicmonday “Oh Sookie” by @snoopdogg http://itsh.bo/ohsookie #trueblood
Let’s parse this. I’m unfamiliar both with True Blood and the oeuvre of Snoop Dogg, so I need to take things slow.
Snoop Dogg (proper noun): A West-coast rap icon, guided to ascendance in the mid-90s by Dr. Dre; Snoop’s real name (Cordozar Calvin Broadus) is empirically more awesome than his stage name. If you have ears and went into or past a school dance, a nightclub, or bar between 1994 and 2004, you have heard “Gin and Juice” or “Drop it Like it’s Hot,” two of Snoop’s inescapable hits.
True Blood (proper noun): An HBO drama based on Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels. Like every popular thing in the world, the show and the novels feature vampires.
Sookie Stackhouse (proper noun): The main character on True Blood, played by Anna Paquin, who, to me, will always be Rogue or that chick with the geese in Fly Away Home.
Fanfic (noun): Abbreviation of “fan fiction,” a genre of storytelling in which devoted fans write stories about their favorite fictional characters (and in which SHIT GETS WEIRD YO).
Snoop Dogg has created the music video version of fanfic about Sookie Stackhouse, using the True Blood set, and this music video is being promoted, on Twitter, by HBO.
Now that I know what’s happening, here are some thoughts on the video:
First, THE LICENSE PLATE HAS FANGS. Now I kind of want a car. To give it fangs.
Second, the whole backlit dance sequence looks an awful lot like the Sparkle Motion performance in Donnie Darko. I’d like to think that means this video contains fanfic-within-fanfic, but more likely the choreographer just got lazy. (I’d link to the Sparkle Motion dance, but the only video on YouTube has dumb 4chan captions with pedobear references Do not want.)
Third, is this song supposed to be…good? I don’t know hip hop well, but “I wanna do bad things to you,” and “You ever been to LA?” just seem lazy. I don’t hear a single clever line. Maybe this is just what happens when one listens to the Beastie Boys to the exclusion of everything else for a few months in high school, but I rather expect all such music to contain gems like “I got stories like J.D.’s got Salinger,” or “I got the girlies in the coop like the Colonel’s got chickens.”
Fourth, while we’re talking about lyrics and chickens: “I got a whole lotta eggs for her to eat, and these eggs come with a lot of cheese and grits.” Maybe I’ve got my anatomy wrong, but…I don’t think Snoop Dogg has eggs. I very much hope this is a reference to something that happens on the show, because otherwise this metaphor is unthinkably gross.
Role #mmodel: twimomof3: I am listening to “Total Eclipse of the Heart (Glee Cast Version) [feat. Jonathan Groff]” by Glee Cast ? http://bit.ly/c4jZgo #musicmonday. Of course you are, twimomof3.
My #musicmonday pick:Shadrach, the Beastie Boys song quoted above. I know every word, and for a while, I thought that meant I could rap.
I have to confess that I was ready to launch our Summer Vinyl Giveaways last week. It’s already been damn summery around these parts and the calendar be damned. But last week being what it was, I had no time at all to whip up a snazzy summer graphic…which had me thinking – what’s with the seasonal giveaways anyway? Why tie these into a time period?
Particular soundtracks seem to be wed to a time period in my experience. For example, Joe Jackson’s ‘Beat Crazy’ is most definitely a Winter LP for me. It coincides in my recollection with the still, icy cold after John Lennon’s killing with its thinly veiled cynicism and punk/new wavey tensions. Echoing mine then.
Joe’s ‘Body and Soul’ is a Spring LP…all high school back seats, boy meets girl dreamworlds. Conversely, his ‘Jumpin’ Jive’ is a deep Summer record recalling a sweet and f’n innocent soundtrack of my mid-teens with my buddy Spike and I drawing comics with dreams of our comic brilliance being golden tickets to something big.
Then there’s ‘Night and Day’ – Joe’s sweet ode to Autumn. Well, at least in my head.
I can’t divorce myself from it. I’m stuck with it.
So, first up for Summer 2010, a reissue of a record I’m certain a few of you can extrapolate a time period from and a warm recollection, right? Golden Smog’s ‘Down By the Old Mainstream.’
“Like most supergroup projects, Golden Smog’s ‘Down By the Old Mainstream’ is a loose, relaxed affair that sounds like it was a lot of fun to record. Unlike most supergroups, the members of Golden Smog improve on their regular bands. Comprised of a number of alternative country-rock stars – including Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris, and Soul Asylum’s Dan Murphy – the musicians are relaxed and loose, giving the songs a raw, rootsy kick. Since the album wasn’t carefully considered, it has an offhand, relaxed charm that is sometimes lacking from Jayhawks and Soul Asylum albums . . . the performances are full of grit and fire, which is what makes Down By the Old Mainstream such an engaging listen.” —All Music Guide
We have a copy to give away to one winner who ties their entry in the comments to this post to the timeframe that’s conjured up by this record. What and when did it mean something to you? Have at it. We’ll give you a week and close this one out next Monday, 6/28.
And please, don’t forget to leave us a contact email address.
I’m not particularly sure what happened here last week at TVD. Suddenly we became a bit of a ‘going out’ blog with the bevvy of ticket giveaways we lined up suddenly. This week however, we’re back to our roots – talking records and giving ‘em away.
We honored to be spending the week with DC’s Etxe Records and while typically this is where I’d offer some background, we’ll let label provocateurs, Chris and Jenn, handle those duties… —Ed.
Etxe Records started as an artistic concept in 2002. The notion was simple: artistic collaboration and cross-pollination. Etxe (et-CHAY) took formal and official shape in 2007 with the advent of Girl Loves Distortion. Using the creative output of that band as a jumping off point – Etxe Records was born in material form with Earth Beings On Exhibit (etxe001) – released in the summer of 2008.
Emphasizing collaboration over competition, Etxe Records seeks to engage and co-create facets of the artist/label relationship that emphasize consensus and buy-in. As a label, we seek to involve ourselves in ideas, events, and artists that actively participate in growing a positive and supportive creative community. Next week, Etxe Records will be releasing our third record Speech Shadowing (etxe003) by northwest Ohio’s own Fangs Out. It will be available on 160g Silver Vinyl (with full CD) on June 29th, 2010.
We are honored to collaborate with TVD, a local and national champion of music in its truest physical form – vinyl. As a result we will be providing one lucky winner with a copy of Girl Loves Distortion’s LP You Better Run, Your Highness and Fangs Out’s brand new LP Speech Shadowing. Over the next few days you will hear from members of our three artists: Night and the City, Girl Loves Distortion, and Fangs Out.
We invite all of you in the DC area to come out to free show at Comet Ping Pong on Saturday June 26th, 10:30PM for the Fangs Out LP Release show – both Night and the City and Fangs Out will be performing.
Ladies, Tonight We’re Gonna Fuck Shit Up! Like a lot of kids born in the late 70s, I grew up around my parents’ record collection. My father had this amazing (now) vintage stereo system, every Beach Boys, Moody Blues and Bee Gees album, and a host of Motown recordings. My mother loved Joni Mitchell and Saturday Night Fever. I remember playing Disco Mickey Mouse, The Velveteen Rabbit, and, a bit later, various hair band record singles on his Sony turntable. Sadly, by the time I began collecting underground music on vinyl, that awesome stereo system was dying a slow death in a storage unit. But thanks to my parents love of music, I got used to the feel of placing grooved discs carefully on a spindle, the pop and crackle kick off, at an early age.
The first vinyl I purchased in high school was the Lookout Records double LP compilation The Thing That Ate Floyd. I probably listened to Vomit Launch’s “Life Sucks” and Crimpshrine’s “Summertime” about a million times. And who can forget Cringer’s Winnie the Pooh cover “Cottlestone Pie”? So many memorable, ridiculous songs. The message was pretty clear to this combat-boot-clad kid: Almost anything goes in the Bay Area punk scene (silly, pissed, cute, crass), complete with a healthy dose of us (the punks and outcasts) against them. And their “us” was purposefully inclusive. Most notably to me now, it was very inclusive of women.
I didn’t think about it until my friend asked me to write this blog, but it makes sense that I gravitated toward the music of the San Francisco Bay Area scene. I recall feeling painfully left out of many of my male peers’ conversations about music. They seemed to know it all, past and present. The only reason to spend this expert music effort on a girl was to give her a mix tape if you wanted to go out with her, or maybe to bore your girlfriend to tears by playing song after song, complete with exhausting banter about each artist’s previous bands, politics, cock size, etc. I recall being told not once, but twice, by two different guy friends, “You don’t know shit about music.”
Floyd released the floodgates. I bought more and more vinyl, including the seven-inch compilation “There’s A Dyke In The Pit.” My best friend Monrovia and I had those four songs memorized. We would drive from Virginia Beach to all ages shows at the Kings Head Inn in Norfolk in my folks’ blue Cutlass Ciera singing them out loud to each other (it beat listening to the local radio stations). My collection expanded to include Kamala and the Karnivores, the Yeastie Girlz and Blatz. Imagine how much it meant to an angsty sixteen-year-old girl to hear Anna Blatz sing, “I wanna cry, I want attention. Oh, I wanna cry, but no one would listen… If only I could lose ten pounds… I wouldn’t need to cry. Everyone would listen if only I were beautiful.” And she was a badass punk rocker who could kick your teeth in.
Three years later, I made my first trip out to San Fran and Berkeley, and I’ve been back many times since. No one would deny that there’s something special about northern California. But for me I know it goes back to my love of Bay Area punk, to dreams of seeing bands play at Gilman (damn, I just went to their site and saw there was a Filth reunion show!), the music that took all kinds (vaginas and queers welcome). To this day, when I step out onto a Frisco street, I’m ready to fuck shit up. Real good, motherfucker.
Christin Durham is in Etxe’s newest band called Night and the City. She sings, plays bass, and analog synth.
The night will feature The Apples in stereo along with members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra and The Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
The finale of the evening? The Apples in stereo will be joined by a chorus of beautiful voices along with a full string section, all culminating with fireworks from 4 barges on the East River. Um…what’s better than that? Oh – that’s be a new track from their latest, Travellers in Space and Time.
