It's been nearly a decade since Southern Rock Opera -- a perceptive, engrossing, and very loud meditation on Lynyrd Skynrd, race relations, and growing up and getting out -- brought the Pitchfork crowd into the ever-broadening tent of Athens, GA's Drive-By Truckers. Maryland-based documentarian Barr Weisman's new DBT documentary, The Secret to a Happy Ending, will make its world premiere Sunday afternoon at the AFI Silver Theater. (It was originally booked for Feb. 5, but there was this little snowstorm.) Founding Truckers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, as well as Weisman and long-serving DBT drummer Brad Morgan, will be on hand to take questions following the 5:30 screening on Sunday. Another screening will follow at 8:30. more ›

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 — was an explosive unit that specialized in bitterly funny slice-of-life alt-country-rock, mostly about working-class or sub-working-class characters (many of them non-fictional), all from the South. more ›

When Jason Isbell first joined the Drive-By Truckers — just after the release of their breakthrough Southern Rock Opera — he looked a little out of place. Baby-faced and younger than founding Truckers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, he seemed like a little brother to the other two, stepping out of their shadow to take a solo or sing lead on one of his songs. more ›

Monday >> Milwaukee-based indie pop quartet Maritime will be bringing their brand of sweet melodies to the Rock and Roll Hotel accompanied by the Swervedriver-inspired rock of Kansas City's The Life and Times. We rarely get to make a Swervedriver reference, so enjoy it while you can. 8 p.m. >> Drive-By Truckers' frontman Patterson Hood drops by the area for a show at the Birchmere in Alexandria. If you're not familiar with the live stylings... more ›