Weekly Music Agenda
Chart-toppers Death Cab for Cutie will be sweating right through their tweed sportcoats at Merriweather tonight. |
MONDAY
>> Their Narrow Stairs album made its debut at No. 1 in the SoundScan chart a few weeks back, but are they No. 1 in our hearts? Eventually, the Death Cab comes for us all, but tonight it's just for Cutie. Bay-area Sub Pop alums Rogue Wave open the big show at Merriweather. Stay hydrated; it's gonna be hot out there. $25-$40, 7:30 p.m.
>> Speaking of Sub Pop, who was it that put that beloved Seattle indie label on the map? Mudhoney, that's who. The grunge pioneers are at the Rock and Roll Hotel with Pittsburgh's The Cynics and — all the way from the Heart of Democracy, Washington, D.C. — The Points. $18, 8:30 p.m.
TUESDAY
>> Pink Floyd? Genesis? Prog-post-krautrock? The references bandied about when Brooklyn's Bear in Heaven are the subject suggest that you proceed with extreme caution if you proceed at all. But if you're the adventurous type, you may just want to saddle on down to DC9 and give them a shot. With tiger and the snow and Mother, whose frontman apparently goes by the nom de rock Jesus Crisis. Nice, but you should've saved that one for the band name, guys. $8-$10, 9 p.m.
>> Across the Potomac in Falls Church, Dark Star Orchestra "recreates historic Grateful Dead setlists with compelling accuracy" at the State Theatre. Admit that you've always kind of wanted to check out one of these tribute-band shows just to see who goes to these things. I saw one called, um, Led Zeppagain once. Their Jimmy Page (pictured here with the real Jimmy Page) definitely managed a credible simulation of Page's playing style, but he was bald on top, with long, curly rock and roll locks grown out on the sides. That, friends, is the kind of fearlessness the rock and roll gods demand of us. But what was I talking about? Oh, yes: DSO at the State. $25, 8 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
>> Hey, a new R.E.M. record that doesn't make us want to take a nap! If you've ever been a fan of the Athens, GA indie gentry, then you've already read probably a dozen approving reviews of Accelerate, their 34-minute return to the caffeinated strain of jangle-pop that made them legends. We actually liked Up,, their first album after drummer Bill Berry quit, but the couple after that were just sort of bloated and shapeless. Even so, R.E.M. remained a reliable live act in those fallow years, and they've always peppered their sets with surprise oddities from the days when they were merely the best college band in America. That, coupled, with Accelerate's bracing return to form, bodes very well. Modest Mouse and The National are not exactly unknown quantities, either, so this looks to be a very intriguing triple-bill at Merriweather. $40-$75, 6:30 p.m.
>> Pixies bassist Kim Deal's oft-interrupted side project The Breeders is active again this year, bringing the tour for their Mountain Battles LP to the 9:30 Club. With The Montana Boys, whose MySpace page says they're "ready for some Q.T with America." Sounds good to us. $25, 7:30 p.m.
>> Nova Scotia's Matt Mays & El Torpedo are huge in Canada. Actually, I have no idea if they're huge in Canada, but their press release says that "Tall Trees", the first single from their upcoming sophomore LP Terminal Romance, is "is already Top 20 at Canadian Rock radio." It goes on to compare these guys to Crazy Horse, the Who, and E Street Band. Hmmmmm, sounds like somebody north of the border shares my obsession with before-my-time dino-rock. At DC9 with The Jones. $10, 9 p.m.
THURSDAY
>> British record-spinner-cum-soul singer Jamie Lidell's gonna lay it down for you nice and smooth at the 9:30 Club. Then he's gonna sample himself laying it down nice and smooth and kick a vintage Stax Records-style slow jam over that. Then he's gonna beat box over that kickin' Stax slow jam while his sampler continues to lay it down nice and smooth. Honestly, the more indistinguishable from Otis Redding Sings Soul electronica becomes, the better I like it. With Jennifer O'Connor. $15, 7:30 p.m.
>> Off-duty she goes by Jamie Kristine Seerman, but when she's doing the Feist/girl-Dylan thing, as on her celebrated full-length debut Autumn Fallin', well, you can just call her Jaymay. She's at IOTA, opening for Fink. $12, 9 p.m.
FRIDAY
Stevie Wonder may be superstitious, but the rest of pop music isn't, apparently, since this Friday the 13th brings a flood avalanche plane crash variety of shows all around town:
>> Kicking off the evening early, Step Rideau and the Zydeco Outlaws bring East-Texas hip hop-inflected zydeco to the Kennedy Center Millennium
Stage, with a dance lesson at 5:30 p.m. and the performance from 6-7 p.m. Free.
>> Neo-soul diva, movie-star-in-waiting, and Bob Dylan wet dream Alicia Keys brings her sultry grooves to the Verizon Center. With Ne-Yo and Jordin Sparks. $49.50-$125, 8 p.m.
>> Prefer your Blues singers old-school? Head out to Wolf Trap, where Anita Baker, she of the soaring alto, will sing her hits. $25-$48, 8 p.m.
>> Oh, you (or your dad) liked Raising Sand, that album that Ropert Plant and Alison Krauss put out together last year? Me, too. The pairing of former Led Zep wailer Plant and bluegrass singer (and all-time Grammy queen, at 21 — not that anybody cares about the Grammys) Krauss was the most inspired musical matchup since Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse. They're at Merriweather. T-Bone Burnett, the Brian Eno of American roots music who produced Raising Sand, opens. $40-$125, 8 p.m.
>> Just as rootsy as Page/Krauss, but closer to home, less expensive, and featuring way fewer hair extensions, Last Train Home pull into Iota for another one of their weekend residencies, with shows Friday and Saturday nights followed by an all-ages Sunday matinee. Former Washington Post Nightwatch reporter Eric Brace started his eclectic country outfit while still living in the District in the mid-to-late 90s, opening for the Waco Brothers at the Black Cat in 1997. Since then, Brace and his band have turned pro and relocated to Nashville, but they still think of themselves as IOTA's house band. $13, 9 p.m.
>> Slick Rick brings his British accent and old-school storytelling rap style to Love.
>> Congratulations, Justin Jones & The Driving Rain: Those posters you've been littering 14th Street with for months have won you a mention in the Weekly Music Agenda. Any act that lists Steve Earle and Public Enemy as two of your first three influences is worth a listen. At the Rock and Roll Hotel, with John Bustine and Revival. $10, 9:30 p.m.
>> Last but by no means least, Deleted Scenes are playing a Callum Robbins benefit show at the Black Cat, along with The Bakerton Group, Caverns, and Hammer No More the Fingers. $13, 9 p.m.
SATURDAY
>> Phew! Still with us? Math-rockers Battles are at the 9:30 Club. $15, 8 p.m.
>> Remember that part in O Brother, Where Art Thou? where legendary bluegrass banjo-picker Ralph Stanley sings the traditional "O Death"? You can hear him do it again — I don't have a set list in front of me or anything, but it seems like a safe bet — at the Birchmere with the Clinch Mountain Boys. $35, 7:30 p.m.
>> Longing for '80s old-school rap? Try the Fresh Fest 2008, featuring Naughty By Nature, Rob Base, Doug E. Fresh, and Kurtis Blow at Showplace Arena, Upper Marlboro, MD. $49.50-$75, 8 p.m.
>> Veteran performer Millie Jackson's R&B lyrics were once considered raunchy, and Clarence ("Strokin'!") Carter's are full of double-entendres. They should sound soulful no matter what they are singing about at the Warner Theatre. $52, 8 p.m.
>> Admittedly, it's kind of a light Saturday night for music lovers, especially if you don't want to drive. But you know what? After X played the 9:30 the other week, I Netflixed this awesome X documentary from 1986 or thereabouts called The Unheard Music. What a documentary. What a band. Seriously, you should see this.
SUNDAY
>> One-man-band From Bubblegum to Sky, nee Mario Hernandez, is at The Red and the Black pushing his third album, A Soft Kill. With Sad Crocodile. $8, 9 p.m.
>> Sweden's Jose Gonzalez plays sensitive acoustic numbers at the 9:30 Club. With Twi the Humble Feather. Really. $25, 7:30 p.m.
>> Long-lived musical Renaissance Man Boz Scaggs is at Wolf Trap. $22-$40, 8 p.m.
>> Palo Santo, Shearwater's 2007 album about Christa Paffen, otherwise known as Nico (as in, The Velvet Underground and ...) got a lot of glowing press; now they have to follow it up. Their album Rooks is about to come out. Stop by the Black Cat backstage to rock out to the old stuff and hear a preview of the new stuff. $12, 9 p.m.
>> Dickey Betts, one of the founding Allman Brothers and the author of their biggest hit, "Ramblin' Man", brings his band Great Southern are at the State Theatre. Did you know that Betts co-wrote "Bougainvillea" with Don "Sonny Nash Crockett Bridges" Johnson, seven years before Miami Vice hit the airwaves? Totally true. $30, 7 p.m.
Steve Kiviat contributed to this week's agenda.