Live from DC!

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Diagnosis: Dead Silence

Prescription: Live Music!

So my roommate recently blogged about looking forward to the upcoming year in movies. And I gotta say he compiled quite the list. Personally, there are still ‘09 films I need to check out before the Oscars come around, let alone upcoming movies in 2010 (namely Crazy Heart, which looks like The Wrestler except with a country singer)

But seeing his list of movies got me thinking of the kinds of outings that I have to look forward to during my foreseeable future in D.C. Not surprisingly, the first thing that came to my mind was the live music scene and all the concerts I want to check out. Now before I go ahead with listing out all the shows I want to see this Winter/Spring, I should probably explain a little bit about why I’m so into the music clubs here in D.C. in the first place.

Our story starts in San Antonio, which is a very quaint city in the heart of Texas. The kind of perfect place to settle down and raise a family. Just an hour to the north of us is Austin, the capitol of the State and the home of the University of Texas, one of the largest colleges in the nation with over 40K students. For all practical purposes, Austin is kinda like the cool older brother to San Antonio. Whenever Austin has something cool going on, San Antonio's always like "hey hey hey can i come along please please please?" And Austin's like "sorry, little bro, maybe when you're a bit older and a bit cooler."

The people in Austin have this saying: “Keep Austin Weird.” Well, if that’s the case, then the phrase for my hometown is pretty appropriate: “Keep San Antonio Lame.”

You see, Austin is THE music hub of Texas. It has Sixth street, with all of its awesome bars and concert venues, plus it hosts two of the best music festivals in the country – Austin City Limits and SXSW – every year. San Antonio is home to Texas Folklife and Tejano/Conjunto Festivals.

Now don't get me wrong, I love San Antonio and I wouldn't want to grow up anywhere else, but in a lot of ways, Austin just sucks all the fun away from it. And it's not really San Antonio's fault, just like it's not a li'l bro's fault that he's too young to hang out with his older brother. It's just the way things are.

So when I was growing up, the only times I got to see cool concerts in cool venues (that weren't huge arenas where I had to pay $45+ to stand 200 yards away from the stage) was when I'd go up to Austin. Like when my big bro took me to go see the Strokes on a school night and I lied to my drama teacher so I could skip play practice and check it out (Ms. Scudday, if you're reading this, I'm sorry but I'm not sorry, the concert was awesome, and I learned all my lines for Into the Woods just fine).

Compare that to these days, when I'm in D.C. with plenty of great small venues to see solid bands for rarely more than $25 (and even that's a pretty big stretch), it's definitely worth it to take advantage of it.

So here's my concert wish list for the next few months. A little something to look forward to during the Winter until Spring sets in.

Also, to give a sample of the tunes these bands have to offer, and to mentally prepare for the live shows, I got a playlist ready to go. To my D.C. compadres, let me know if any of them strike your fancy and if you wanna check em out.

Givers - Feb 2nd at Black Cat

We Were Promised Jetpacks - Feb 13th at Rock and Roll Hotel

Kings of Convenience - Feb. 15th, 930 club

St. Vincent - Feb 24th, 930 club

Rodrigo y Gabriela – March 1st, 930 club







Rogue Wave – March 5th, 930 club

Cymbals Eat Guitars - March 6th at Rock and Roll Hotel

Joanna Newsom - March 22nd, Sixth and I synagogue






Beach House - March 26th Black Cat

Shearwater - March 26th, Rock and Roll Hotel

Woods/Real Estate - March 27th, Rock and Roll Hotel

Japandroids - March 29th, Rock and Roll Hotel

Yeasayer - April 3rd at 9:30 club

Ted Leo - April 8th at 9:30 club


Thanks D.C., you've been great, see you next time.

-DR


Comments

  1. MissyJanuary 22, 2010 at 9:09 AM

    do you know how many burritos you could buy with the money you'd spend on those tickets?
    TONS

    ReplyDelete
  2. SamanthaJanuary 22, 2010 at 12:56 PM

    Uh. I cannot BELIEVE you left out Loudon Wainwright III who's playing at Birchmere next weds... aka Father of Rufus, Martha and Lucy. Aka, also did the soundtrack for Knocked Up and old school folk star.

    i dont know about your blog anymore. my trust has been destroyed.

    ;)

    ReplyDelete

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