Leo Villareal, 41, is a New York-based artist who works with light. He debuts new work in Washington this month: Leo Villareal: New Work opens on Friday at Conner Contemporary Art and his installation in the concourse walkway between the East and West Buildings of the National Gallery of Art is already underway and expected to be complete by late fall. The NGA installation will be on view for a year, and consists of approximately......

Back in the second Clinton administration, when No Depression proudly billed itself as "The Alternative Country (whatever that is) bi-monthly magazine," no band seemed to carry more potential to bring this music into the mainstream with its integrity intact than Old 97's. Solidifying its four-man lineup in Dallas in 1993, the band -- an amalgamation of the Meat Puppets, Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, The Replacements, Merle Haggard, and yeah, okay, The Beatles --......

National Geographic is kicking China Revealed this week, a series that centers around two museum exhibitions which run from today through September 7, and a film program paired to each exhibit. Tonight, there's a presentation to introduce the museum's exhibit on the early 15th century Chinese explorer Zheng He; Friday at noon, the museum screens a documentary following National Geographic photographer Mike Yamashida as he retraces many of Zheng's travels. And tomorrow, there's a presentation......

When blogging about books in D.C., you tend to receive more press releases about political non-fiction than any other genre — so much that it starts to make you cynical. Most of the books read like armchair quarterbacking with an unhealthy dose of rhetoric. But Matthew Yglesias' book, Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats, manages to break out of that mold. Yglesias, an......

Last month was National Poetry Month. But for poets and proselytizers of poetry, the work never stops. Local poet and human dynamo Deborah Ager is the driving force behind 32 Poems, one of the most respected poetry journals in the country, one that has, in the short time its been around, attracted the attention and the work of such notable poets as Brigit Pegeen Kelly and former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Ager and 32......

Drive-By Truckers Shonna Tucker, Mike Cooley, Brad Morgan, Patterson Hood, John Neff. Singer/songwriter/guitarists Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley had already been struggling to make music together for more than a decade when they formed the Drive-By Truckers in 1996. As the 1999 live album Alabama Ass Whuppin’ documents, this early incarnation of their band — which also featured drummer Brad Morgan, the only other founding member who has remained amid several lineup changes —......

Most first-time novelists never actually become first-time novelists; in most cases “first novels” end up abandoned as real life overwhelms the time commitment and intellectual energy necessary to take a book from concept to completion. Those lucky enough to finish sometimes never find a publisher, ending up instead with dashed hopes and a pile of rejection notices that begin with “While we found your book intriguing and well-crafted…” and end with “…and we’re sure that......

Nathaniel Rich is unquestionably a big name in the young, New York-based literati scene. He went to Yale, is a senior editor at Paris Review, and carries the high expectations that come along with an impressive pedigree: his father is New York Times columnist Frank Rich, and his brother, Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich, famously inked a book deal with Random House before he even graduated from college. That's got to be a lot......

Manchester is a town at the very heart and soul of British music. Bands the likes of The Hollies, the Bee Gees, Simply Red, The Fall, Joy Division, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Oasis form a musical legacy that's second to none. In 2001, Elbow became the city's latest musical crown jewel after their debut record Asleep at the Back was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Their brand of progressive, gloomy yet......

Tim Conlon is a graffiti artist living and working in Washington. He grew up just south of D.C., and lived in Baltimore and Los Angeles before returning to the District 10 years ago. By day Conlon, 33, is a tech manager for an interactive marketing agency in Bethesda and still does some flash animation and design work from time to time. What are some of the ideas and themes that you engage with in your......

Amy Lin, known for her colored pencil dot drawings, is one of Washington’s most promising artists. The Virginia resident, 29, moved to the area to work after graduation from college, and is a chemical engineer by day. But Lin spends so much time on her art that she’s had a number of solo exhibitions in the past few years, including one at the District of Columbia Art Center, which was curated by Anne Collins Goodyear,......

Tilly and the Wall, a five piece from Omaha, Nebraska, have been catching buzz around the indie scene for a few years now. Their energetic performances have earned them a reputation as one of the most fun bands to see live. They've also got a gimmick: rather than a drummer, Jamie Pressnall tap dances to produce the band's percussion. With a new album on the way and a heavy touring schedule, Tilly is a......

Too often, D.C.’s public schools, and by extension, its students, are dismissed as failing, disorganized, and hopeless. But Patrick Torres doesn’t see them that way. Instead, he sees stories waiting to be told, students waiting to be empowered, and language as a tool for social change. Torres is program manager of The Young Playwrights' Theater, D.C.’s only professional theater company dedicated solely to arts education. YPT uses playwriting to advance student literacy, creative expression, and......

Adrian Tomine is not the same person as Ben Tanaka, the main character in his graphic novel, Shortcomings, so please don't get all angry at him. Just because they're both nebbishy, early 30s Japanese-American guys who are a little obsessed with their dealings with the opposite sex, doesn't mean Tomine is anywhere near as cynical, uptight and petulant as Tanaka -- at least as far as we can tell. The similarities between the two men......

Musician Keren Ann (pictured) started living an international lifestyle at a very young age. Born to a Dutch-Javanese mother and a Russian-Israeli father, she lived in Israel and Holland before her family settled in France, where she started her career. She continues this globetrotting lifestyle as a performer who is able to cross stylistic and international boundaries by creating a catalog of eclectic songs that are sung in multiple languages, while retaining a very personal......

I first encountered local writer/activist Hawah last fall at a Subcontinental Drift open mic night. He was performing as a member of ShantiSalaam, a collective of local South Asian American artists who toured 11 cities in India and Pakistan in late 2006/early 2007 to promote tolerance among South Asians of different religious backgrounds. The group's performance used music, spoken word, and audience interaction to address issues of intolerance between individuals and the institutional forces that......

As the singer and chief lyricist for ‘Til Tuesday, Aimee Mann had a big mid-1980s hit in “Voices Carry”. In the decade or so afterwards, however, she came to embody the archetypal critically hailed, commercially marginal singer-songwriter. After Geffen Records rejected her third solo album, Bachelor No. 2, Mann decided she’d had enough of trying to guess where her moody, often fatalistic songs fit into a major-label marketing plan. She founded her own imprint, SuperEgo,......

After watching Wet Hot American Summer on repeat throughout high school, there's no way you can't recognize Michael Ian Black's face. His voice is equally iconic, given his roles as the sock puppet on Pets.com commercials, the Sierra Mist spokesperson dude and his commentary all over the "I love the …" VH1 series. Though he's spent years touring with comedy posse The State, not to mention co-writing and co-starring in the Comedy Central series......

Formed in their native Wales in the early 1990s, the Super Furry Animals were signed to Creation Records in 1995 by label head Alan McGee after seeing the band at the Camden Monarch club. He famously asked the band if they would sing more songs in English, only to be informed by the band that every song in their set that night had indeed been sung in English. Not the type of people to......

From the Velvet Underground to Sonic Youth, New York City has a long tradition of avant-garde rock. And few contemporary bands better represent that spirit of experimentation than Blonde Redhead. Depending on who you ask, the trio has been around for 10-15 years, evolving over time from a no-wave informed experimental act into purveyors of comparatively palatable shoegaze pop. The band has managed to achieve a high level of visibility in the underground almost entirely......

Formed by four friends at Staffordshire Univeristy in England, Editors have taken the UK music scene by storm since releasing their debut single in January of 2005. Their brand of dramatic, moody gloom-rock has won over critics and audiences alike all over the world. Their debut album was nominated for the UK's Mercury Prize and their follow-up, An End Has A Start, went straight to the top of the UK charts. The band is......

D.C. culture may have its faults, but laziness certainly isn’t one of them. We work hard here (and, according to a recent Men’s Health poll, we play hard, too). We work so hard that many organizations and companies, particularly those in D.C., try to recruit new employees by promising a “work-life balance” -- something that used to be called simply “time off” or “after 5 p.m.” only a few short years ago. In a culture......

Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine are two filmmakers who call D.C. home. They've made a name for themselves as writers, producers, and directors of documentary films, often for National Geographic and television, but their latest project has raised their profile far beyond the recognition of their previous work. War/Dance, for which the pair take joint directorial credit, has earned the couple a mantle's worth of awards this year, including the documentary directing prize at......

To say Stevie Wonder is a good artist would be an understatement. Over five decades, Wonder has amassed a catalog that not only includes over 30 albums but numerous songwriting and production credits. Fans in the District were treated last month to a two-and-a-half hour trip through a slew of rhythms and emotions. Wonder’s musical mastery has touched people worldwide, probably no two more than Brooklynites Bobbito Garcia and DJ Spinna. Both have made names......

Euros Childs is best known as the frontman of Welsh popsters Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. Formed in 1991, the group, along with the Super Furry Animals, Catatonia and others repped for Wales during Britain's Britpop era in the mid-1990s. The group, a critical darling that never quite found their place in the mass populace, called it quits in 2006 after a long career that included 10 albums. Since the group's split, Euros has released three......

It's hard to identify Jim Fairchild without first acknowledging that he was formerly the guitarist in the Modesto, Ca. group Grandaddy. Fairchild, however, has kept himself busy since the group's demise in 2006, touring with numerous other bands and also finding the time to record and release his first solo record under the moniker All Smiles. The resulting Ten Readings Of A Warning, a collection of charming, laid back lo-fi pop that belies his......

We've written at length about England's The Go! Team and their fantastic live shows. The last time they were in town, they drove the Black Cat crowd into a frenzy, and now they'll be doing the same thing at the 9:30 Club tonight for a late show (10 p.m. doors). We recently spoke to Ninja, the band's energetic female MC who serves as the live show's focal point, on the phone from Los Angeles where......

Travis Morrison Hellfighters play Thursday night at the Rock & Roll Hotel as part of a benefit show for Survivors and Advocates of Empowerment, with Ra Ra Rasputin and Jukebox the Ghost (***). 8:30 p.m., $10 in advance, $12 at the door. You can read our review of Morrison's latest album, All Y'all here What does the new album, All Y’all, mean to you? Well, it’s the first thing I did with this band. Travistan......

Craig Wedren has one of the most distinctive voices in rock. How it is that he managed to avoid becoming a household name is a bit of a mystery. Pony Express Record, his 1994 major label debut with Shudder to Think, the band that he got his start with in D.C. in the mid-80s, should have been a huge breakthrough. It was an adventurous record of inventive, art-damaged post-punk, all shifting time signatures and angular......

Brooklyn's A Place to Bury Strangers jumped from loudest band no one had ever heard of to the buzz on every music blog's lips in the space of a couple of months. Credit may be largely due to a Pitchfork review of a record in such limited release that most folks probably couldn't even get their hands on it at the time the review was posted. Their label quickly made more copies available, got the......