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TUESDAY
>>If you like your rock hard, Rock and Roll Hotel is the place to be tonight. Burning Brides, who've been building a fanbase for nearly a decade now on solid riffing and opening slots with big names like A Perfect Circle and Queens of the Stone Age. Locals Wooly Mammoth (pictured) open, along with The Exponentials 8 p.m., $10 advance, $12 door.
>> Classic '80s college radio staples Hoodoo Gurus reunited back in 2004, and just kept on going. They'll be playing tunes from a career spanning over 25 years tonight at the Black Cat with The Fake Accents and Julie Ocean. 8 p.m., $20.
WEDNESDAY
>> Gimme indie rock! Everyone loves The National. One of indie rock's biggest acts at the moment brings their acclaimed show to the 9:30 Club. Joining the boys from Brooklyn are Raleigh's The Rosebuds & Doveman. The entire show will be terribly heartfelt, heartachey, and heartstring-tugging, and all that touchy-feely stuff the indie kids love. If you miss it Wednesday, the program will repeat itself on Thursday. $18
>> He only wants to be with you. He said so, I remember. That may have been over a decade ago, but Darius Rucker hasn't changed his tune, and Hootie & the Blowfish are still around, and not just on a VH1 '90s retrospective show. In fact, they play out in Vienna every year these days. If this was your pleasure, guilty or otherwise, Wolftrap has the nostalgia trip you ordered up. Patrick Davis opens. And all snark aside, for those who are headed to the show, the band requests you bring school supplies from the list on Wolf Trap's website, which will be redistributed to students in need at area schools. 8 p.m., $28-$40
THURSDAY
>>The red-headed stranger is riding back to town, on a tour titled "Last of the Breed", which is about accurate. There were few enough of Willie Nelson's caliber to begin with, and a lot of them are now gone. Nelson and two other living legends of country, Merle Haggard and Ray Price, take the Merriweather stage. 6 p.m. gates, $40-$75.
>>The Last Town Chorus are performing twice on Thursday in support of their most recent record, the critically-acclaimed Wire Waltz. Both shows are with Mark Olson (formerly of the Jayhawks). First up is an in-store at Borders at 18th & L, and then a show in the evening at Iota in Arlington. Borders, 12:30 p.m. Iota, 8:30 p.m., $15.
FRIDAY
>>Three Stars alums Meredith Bragg and the Terminals have become local favorites with their sweet and melodic sound. They'll be headlining a show Friday night at the Black Cat to celebrate the 3rd birthday of Kora Records, along with Donny Hue and the Colors, and Olivia Mancini and the Housemates. 9 p.m., $10.
>>The Rock and Roll Hotel hosts this week's funniest music-related event. Kicking things off is the bizarrely funny musical act Pleaseeasaur, who will be immediately followed by the unfunniest comedian you will ever see. Neil Hamburger's lack of comedic timing is both legendary and the true genius of his anti-comedy act, which will make you laugh the harder he tries not to make you laugh. If you catch my meaning. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance, $12 door.
SATURDAY
>>We mentioned last month that we were partnering with Blisspop and Brightest Young Things for a kick ass night of local bands. The time has finally come, and this Saturday is the night. The 9:30 Club will host sets by Georgie James, Soft Complex, and The Dance Party, with DJ sets by DJ Will Eastman. The latter three you know well from past Three Stars features, and Georgie James you know from Unbuckled and assorted other fames. Come join us as we dance the night away. 11 p.m., $10.
>> A little farther from home, but also of plenty of local interest, is a show down in Fredericksburg featuring Travis Morrison Hellfighters, who we reviewed in both recorded and live format recently, as well as Three Stars and Unbuckled alums Le Loup, Statehood, and Rocky's Revenge. The show is a one year anniversary party for Fredericksburg All Ages Shows.
>>Daddy Yankee has not had any big crossover reggaeton hits since "Gasolina," but he is still considered by many to be the king of that speedy Spanish tongued dancehall and hiphop influenced genre. He will be at the George Mason University Patriot Center in Fairfax. 8 p.m., $53-$83.
>>Under the Ethiopian calendar it is still 1999 (until September 12th). Celebrate the Ethiopian Millennium with a who's who of Ethiopian musicians including Mahmoud Ahmed, Neway Debebe, Maritu Legessese, Setegn Aregaw, and more at the DC Armory. 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., $45.
SUNDAY
>>The Meat Puppets have come a long way since their start as an early American hardcore band. 27 years and two break ups later, the Meat Puppets are back on the road again. The time to see them is now: before they decide (again) that they don't want to play together anymore. The Comas and Jay Reatard open at the Black Cat. 8 p.m., $15.
>> Leading Jamaican dancehallers Buju Banton and Beenie Man headline The One Love Reggae Fest 2K7 at the Crossroads. If you can get past Buju and Beenie's homophobia, you'll find some impressive material in their catalogs that they will surely deliver. 4 p.m., $40.
>>Chick Hall's Surf Club will soon be changing ownership, but for now, it is still featuring top-notch touring roots music acts. Tonight, Louisiana's Cory Ladet will be leading his zydeco combo. 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Steve Kiviat contributed to this week's agenda.
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where are the meat puppets performing?
Sorry. Black Cat.
The apparently DC-unique "DJ Set" is the stupidest affliction on rock music. Is this city - the home of Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Fugazi - really so lame that bands have to spin as opposed to play real instruments when they come here? Can somebody explain this dumbass trend to me please?
I'm a little confused, DCFist. The only DJ set on the list is by DJ Will Eastman who is, well, a DJ.
And my experience with DJ sets by people who are better known for being in bands is that it's usually just one or two people from that band spinning between other bands sets. The club gets the added cache of being able to advertise not just the bands, but the person picking music between sets, and the person from the band gets to hang out, have fun and play some music they dig. I don't think anyone is doing DJ sets in lieu of their regular performance schedule.
DCfist is another in a long line of examples where some bonehead with ants in the ass for spitting vitriol about anything and everything instead of actually ... thinking
Black and White Jacksons at Rock & Roll Hotel Saturday the 8th with Supreme Commander and TBA.
Doors at 8:30. Show starts at 9:30.
www.rockandrollhoteldc.com
I'm saddened to see that you neglected to mention that the critically acclaimed indie band "Rock Plaza Central" is playing tonight (Wednesday) backstage at the Blackcat.
Reviews for their latest album, "Are We Not Horses?"...
"When I was in Austin, Texas, I heard about this band called Rock Plaza Central. I don't know if you've heard of them, but they're fucking awesome. That would be my recommendation for a band that probably no one has heard of that I find to be amazing."
- Jonah Hill of Superbad in Alternative Press
"Four stars (and then stuff we don't understand in German). "
- Rolling Stone, Germany, July 2007
"Uniquely intoxicating. Four stars."
- The Independent, UK, July 2007
"A thing of surprisingly instant beauty."
- Word, UK, July 2007
"Nothing short of brilliant... 12 tracks of sonic bliss... a record most bands can only dream of creating."
- Sarah Moore, Glide, April 2007
"An endearingly different sort of buzz band... Inspired by an elaborate conceit and sustained with evocative lyrics and powerful instrumentation, Are We Not Horses? is an outstanding fusion of alt-country earnestness and indie rock absurdity. Without any trace of flaunt or deliberateness, this homespun epic proves as casual in tone as it is ambitious in scope... sure to have tears welling and fists aloft in raucous salute. 8/10."
- Josh Berquist, PopMatters, April 2007
:As concept albums go this is, quite possibly, one of the best I’ve heard."
-Rich Hughes, The Line of Best Fit, UK, March 2007
"Buy/borrow/steal the album, see for yourself. Indeed, at the risk of sounding like the NME, this could be the best thing you hear all year."
-Robert Pain, Fat Controller Magazine, UK, Dec 2006
"Because the music is so surefooted and evocative-- and Eaton's potentially alienating horse motif is handled with empathy and imagination-- Are We Not Horses? remains accessible, supremely affecting, and unique. 8.4/10"
- Stephen Deusner, Pitchfork, November 2006
"Rock Plaza Central have quietly written a masterpiece... a stunning and unexpected gem."
- Vish Khanna, Exclaim, Nov 2006
"They could be from another planet... This record really is a massive achievement - it could have all gone so horribly wrong; a seemingly outlandish premise, antiquated argot and a plethora of musical styles, but it all hangs together brilliantly with moments of orchestrated chaos and passages of quiet beauty. 8/10."
- David Cowling, Americana UK, Nov 2006
"Rock Plaza Central will inspire endless Neutral Milk Hotel comparisons, due to Chris Eaton's venue-filling caterwaul and the band's liberal use of brass. The band sounds like a church pick-up group, fingering their way through an excited offertory, gaining more momentum as they add instruments. Eaton's endearingly off-note vocals career heavenward as he hits those la-da-da-da's between the choruses, rushing to a moment of honest indie transcendence that loses only a little of its power when removed from the context of the album (where its quick build doesn't sound so rushed). The song unravels over several more minutes from there, as the horns dash out a morse-code melody, led by a fervent gospel tambourine and a lovely violin caught in the eddies of a river baptism. It builds dizzingly and winds down beautifully-- truly something to be joyful about. "
-Stephen Deusner, Pitchfork, October 2006 (track review of "My Children, Be Joyful")
"...if it doesn't elevate him to the ranks of the city's more celebrated songwriters, then it'll be an oddly fitting fate for a musician who embraces his underdog status like it was a religion. Steeped in the archaic vernaculars of Will Oldham and Neutral Milk Hotel, with an urgency that demands action in the here and now... a tornado of violins, horns and whisky..."
- Stuart Berman, Eye Magazine, September 2006
"There is a grandeur, a timeless beauty to the songs of Toronto's Rock Plaza Central. And while the swelling collective of multi-instrumentalists has in recent years gone to the rule from the exception, Rock Plaza Central's since appreciation for music and themes gone by add a depth to their melancholy that is all too rare."
- Allan Wigney, Ottawa Sun, September 2006