Results tagged “bydcist”

By DCist Contributor Aaron Morrissey Dogfish Head Alehouse, the third (and we assume not the last) in a planned series of eateries that serve lovers of the venerable Delaware-based brewery with the American basics, is now open in Falls Church, and DCist popped by to survey the scene in advance of Tuesday night's official Grand Opening party. There’s nothing outstanding about the place upon entering. The immediate thought was the episode of The Simpsons in...

By DCist Contributor Stephanie Taylor Halloween is fast approaching, and because the scariest day of the year was inconsiderate enough to fall mid-week this year, much of the drunken pin the rib on the skeleton madness begins next weekend. But the District has very few true costume shops. If you've sorted through your closet and still haven't found a winner for this year's costume, we thought we'd offer a few suggestions as to where to...

By DCist Contributor Vince Wadhwani of BuyIndie.net Location, location, location. Last year Sticky Fingers occupied the small, cramped space across the street and down the stairs from Lauriol Plaza. While there's no denying the quality of the vegan cookies, the shop itself didn't quite have the required room to operate comfortably. The new occupants, Biagio Fine Chocolate, have done a remarkable job taking what was an unattractive space and turning it into an inviting, seemingly...

By DCist contributor Brett Gellman The Maryland Terrapins (2-2, 0-1 ACC) are coming off one of the most disappointing losses of the Friedgen era after surrendering a 21-point lead in the second half of last Saturday's game at Wake Forest. Late in the third quarter with Maryland up 21-3, Terps QB Jordan Steffy threw a red zone pass which was intercepted by Wake CB Alphonso Smith and subsequently returned for a school record 100 yard...

By DCist contributor Elisabeth Grant D.C. can be an expensive place to eat lunch. A meal from Cosi will set you back $8, any sit-down place is at least twice as much that, and even if you're just going for coffee, a grande pumpkin spice latte (the most delicious beverage on the planet) will put you out over $4. While many of the folks who work on or around the Hill, like those with expense...

By DCist Contributor Sarah Stonesifer The Eagle - American: >> At American University, officials decided that an official record will be kept along with possible judicial action after students receive their "second medical transport due to alcohol consumption." So remember kids, the first case of alcohol poisoning is free. >> There was an attempted robbery in an American University dorm last Saturday, but the suspect was quickly apprehended and identified. The Hoya - Georgetown: >>...

By DCist contributor Valerie Paschall The members of Syracuse chamber pop act Ra Ra Riot are no strangers to high profile performances. In fact, it was their impressive showings at the two music industry behemoth festivals, CMJ and SXSW, which put them on the map as a band to watch. They have since opened for Bow Wow Wow, Art Brut and actually came through D.C. last month with Tokyo Police Club. They should be well-prepared...

By DCist Contributor Valerie Paschall

By DCist contributor Valerie Paschall By the way, Virgin Fest starts tomorrow. Just to clarify, in case you missed the all the advertisements and press about the lineup full of buzz-worthy artists and a few artists that probably would’ve been a lot more fun to see in a previous decade. You guys got all that, right? It’s safe to say, Virgin Fest has likely gone under no one’s radar. But except to the most...

By DCist contributor John Harlow Created and organized by artist and curator Mark Tribe, the Port Huron Project is a series of reenactments of protest speeches from the New Left movements of the 1960s and '70s, conducted at their original locations by paid performers. Previous PHP events have featured enactments of speeches originally delivered by Coretta Scott King and Howard Zinn in New York and Boston respectively. Tomorrow at 6 p.m., the National Mall will...

By DCist contributor W Jacarl Melton When Mos Def dropped the mic à la Randy Watson in Coming to America at the conclusion of Saturday’s 9:30 Club show, it was hard to tell if he was just being playful or if it was indicative of sentiments he harbored. A name like Mos Def, when announced to hip-hop heads or general music aficionados, is bound to create some buzz. This night was no different as...

By DCist contributor W Jacarl Melton Femi Kuti performs tonight at the 9:30 Club. Doors at 9 p.m. $25 Following in your father’s footsteps isn’t easy because there will be the inevitable comparisons, especially if your dad was a musical vanguard. Femi Kuti can’t avoid the path his father, Fela, blazed so he’s decided to embrace it and further his family’s legacy in Afrobeat. It goes without saying that Fela Kuti was one of those...

By DCist contributor W. Jacarl Melton “Tell the truth, James Brown was old ‘Til Eric and Rakim came out with ‘I Got Soul’. Rap brings back old R&B; And if we would not, people could’ve forgot.” —Stetsasonic’s “Talkin’ All That Jazz” That quote captures how RAMP went from 1970s R&B/soul/funk jazz obscurity to having one of the most sought-after albums in the history of hip-hop sampling. If you’re not familiar with the group, you’re more...

By DCist contributor W Jacarl Melton The hip-hop industry is a cruel and fickle creature. It’s built up many an emcee based on one nice record only to devour them during their next Soundscan. Very few artists have been able to recover from missteps. However, if there’s a poster boy for career resurgence, Nas might be him. It’s hard to find a hip-hop writer who’d ridicule Nas’ first solo album, Illmatic (this writer included). The...

By DCist Contributor Steve Kiviat The Smithsonian Folklife Festival has a somewhat well-deserved reputation as a highly educational place to dump visiting relatives, but tourists and discerning locals alike can also have some fun at the event’s daytime performances and evening concerts and dance parties (not to mention chowing down on grub that’s better than street-corner hotdogs). This year’s 41st annual version features three themes: "Mekong River: Connecting Cultures," "Northern Ireland at the Smithsonian," and...

By DCist contributor W Jacarl Melton At the time when Jaguar Wright's 2002 album, Denials, Delusions and Decisions, was released, the industry term du jour, "neo-soul," was used to describe any singer who presented themselves as part of the vanguard who shunned the trappings of mainstream urban music. But the Philadelphia-based Wright resisted this categorization, and wound up standing out from those who were being viewed as artistic oddballs. Tonight she'll be supported by the...

By DCist Contributor Mehan Jayasuriya It's about an hour before The Pipettes are set to take the stage at the Black Cat and by rights, the band should be exhausted. This is the second gig on their first major North American tour and having flown in from their hometown of Brighton, England only a few days prior, you'd think that the band would be succumbing to the effects of trans-Atlantic jetlag. Unlike the dozing...

By DCist contributor Jason Cox While bees across North America have been dropping like flies this year, one D.C. bee in particular still buzzes strong — perhaps stronger than ever. Buzzlife Productions, organizers of the infamous Cubik party held at Nation up until its close last year, has been hard at work to make summer 2007 as electroneriffic as possible. Longtime Buzz DJ and hive worker Muramasa said that the close of Nation has...

By DCist contributor Paul Ghosh-Roy Artist? Junglist? Selector? Hip-Hop DJ extraordinaire? DCist cannot answer this question. Maybe the best title, should DJ Spooky choose to pass out a DC style business card, would simply read, “Paul D. Miller, Turntablist.” Because, if a turntablist uses the tables to create new music and improvise, and not just play records, then Washington, D.C.’s native son Paul D.Miller (nom de disc, "DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid") claims the title...

By DCist contributor Matt Pelkey "Out of the way, you slow f#@%!" Everyone’s probably yelled something to that effect from behind the wheel of a car. Following tomorrow’s launch of D.C.'s new traffic calming program, you may find yourself cursing dawdlers on the road more often. The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) are launching the D.C. Neighborhood Pace Car Program, in which drivers voluntarily sign a pledge to...

By DCist contributor Paul Ghosh-Roy Is it a burlesque band? Gypsy rock? Electronic klezmer? Mediterranean dub? Carnival musicians in the off season’s? It’s difficult to categorize Balkan Beat Box’s sound, but you can call it good. On Saturday night, six members of Balkan Beat Box donned their pig masks and came to Rosslyn to bring the Balkan dance party. Pig masks? Yes, this show started with the pig mask-bedecked band wandering through the aisles of...

By DCist Contributor Matt Pelkey On the Fourth of July you light fireworks, on Memorial Day you grill hunks of meat, and on Labor Day you grill more hunks of meat. But how should you celebrate Emancipation Day this Monday? The voting rights march leaves little excuse for perverting another holiday into reason for a meaningless leisure activity. But if for some reason you can't be at the march, make up for it by heading...

By DCist Contributor Matt Pelkey Taxes. Yeah, we said it. Taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes. Nobody wants to think about them, nobody wants talk about them, but over the next two weeks, D.C.’s procrastinators will all be doing them. Luckily, the Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR) will once again prepare your D.C. individual income tax returns for free, and today it added three and a half hours to its work day for the next two...

By DCist contributor Hayden Alfano Georgetown is the area's last hope for this year's NCAA men's basketball title. The Hoyas advanced to the Sweet 16 with a 62-55 win on Saturday over Boston College. After a first half in which he scored just two points and was saddled with two fouls, Georgetown center Roy Hibbert dominated the second 20 minutes. Hibbert finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds, and added the assist on this Patrick...

By DCist Food and Drink contributor Jamie R. Liu

By DCist Contributor Paul Ghosh-Roy Northern Virginia heard madness and murder this weekend, as jazz met Japan in Rosslyn. Billy Fox’s Kaidan Suite, as performed by improvising chamber group the Kitsune Ensemble, explored themes of Japanese ghost-story telling, jazz and tonal music, from light to dark, at the Rosslyn Spectrum. On Saturday night the Kitsune Ensemble took the stage at the Rosslyn Spectrum to debut Kaidan Suite. Composer/director Billy Fox deftly guided the improvising...

By DCist Contributor Mehan Jayasuriya We here at DCist have noticed a rather disturbing trend recently. More and more often, it seems, touring bands are skipping over the District in favor of our neighbor to the north, Baltimore. It makes sense if you think about it: Baltimore has a burgeoning arts scene, a variety of music venues and a seemingly disproportionate reputation for housing a large number of twentysomething scenesters (not that we're short on...

By DCist contributor Analiese Bendorf The Big Apple's Harvest Export Attention, all ye who still doubt whether one may dine seriously in DC (and we hope there aren't many of you left), you may soon be tempted to cancel that weekend jaunt to Manhattan. Washingtonian's Todd Kliman reports in this week's online chat that high-profile chef Eric Ripert, of N.Y.C.'s famed Le Bernardin, plans to bring his four-star culinary talent to D.C., where he will...

By DCist contributor Mike Roscoe They may have problems managing income inequality in their post-independence, Hacienda-style economies, or dealing with the lingering social effects of the brutal military dictatorships of the past, but there is one thing that South Americans have got down pat: grilling meat. As skilled and deft as any Texan tending smoking mesquite, South Americans know how to raise it, season it and cook it. From the churrascarias of Brazil to the...

By DCist Contributor Mehan Jayasuriya Earlier this week, DCist reminded you that the Kennedy Center would be handing out free tickets to its 10th anniversary shows — including a performance by indie heartthrob Sufjan Stevens — on Saturday morning. At the time, 2300 tickets seemed like a lot and we reassured you that "there should be plenty of opportunity for those interested to grab a ticket." As it turns out, we here at DCist (along...