DCist Managing and Arts editor Heather Goss is on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU right now discussing local arts issues. Tune in here. She's joined by Lenny Campello of Mid Atlantic Art News.......

“So the thing you have to understand is this is radio,” says the voice in the darkness — a little bit squeaky, a little bit nasal, not at all the voice you’d assign to the leader of a benign radio cult if it weren't already so familiar. Ira Glass, creator and host of the weekly public radio story anthology This American Life, begins all his speaking engagements this way. That opening line is always good......

SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others. Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list. Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island. LAist received a Christmas present in the form of a drunk Santa Claus in a g-string. Bostonist launched......

A Post business columnist and an independent music non-profit have joined the chorus questioning Live Nation's proposal for a Silver Spring music hall. Last Friday, Steven Pearlstein wrote that while I.M.P. boss Seth Hurwitz has fought against competition for his 9:30 Club before, and his alternative proposal to Live Nation is in his own best interest, "he's put forward a financial proposal attractive enough that county officials cannot ignore it." Under their non-binding letter of......

Victory — not the concept, but the statue at State Place and 17th Street NW — is the Ghost of Christmas Past. Freedom — the Eastward-facing statue atop the Capitol Dome; not that thing that The Terrorists hate us for — is the Ghost of Christmas Present. And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come arrives draped in the inky robes of Grief. This stunt-casting of local landmarks as Charles Dickens’ familiar trio of......

As the region continues to mourn the loss of Sean Taylor, some hopeful news has come to light in the search for his killer. Over the course of the week, officials have stated that they have "no reason" to believe that Taylor was anything more than the random victim of a botched burglary. However, in a story broken by the Miami Herald, a relative of Taylor's has announced that three men have now been detained......

Like half-smokes, go-go and taxation without representation, mumbo sauce is something that's uniquely D.C. And suddenly, it's getting bandied about all over the radio. We're not talking about the group Mambo Sauce, who have their own ode to the District. We're talking about DJ Flexx (of WPGC)'s "Chicken Wings & Fried Rice", a song that is — seriously — entirely about mumbo sauce. You can listen to a partial clip here, or tune your radio......

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of The Fake Accents is their ability to make their inherent contradictions seamlessly coexist. One might not expect that the same band who records and listens to their own practice sessions would also write a disclaimer on their first album that most of the songs that they'd written were actually just ripped off of other songs. Their songs are identifiable by both their catchy hooks and their noisy guitar riffs.......

The guitarist for the pop-punk band Hawthorne Heights passed away before the group's show at the 9:30 Club over the weekend. Casey Calvert, 25, was found dead on the band's tour bus at around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, parked outside the venue in Northwest D.C. A cause of death has yet to be determined, but Calvert's bandmates have been quick to defend against speculation that drugs were involved. They posted the following message to their......

>> D.C. Council members have rejected a plan to give a developer city-owned land worth $6 million on which to build a new Radio One headquarters. [WJLA] >> Five new restaurants are coming to Columbia Heights. [Prince of Petworth] >> Traffic was temporarily halted at Union Station this afternoon as Amtrak Police investigated a report of a suspicious package near Gate A in Union Station. Regular service had resumed by 4 p.m. [WaPo] >>......

There seems to be some healthy skepticism about the planned taxicab driver strike on Wednesday, which is set to commence at 6 a.m. on Halloween morning and last for 24 hours. How many drivers will really strike? Could it actually change Mayor Adrian Fenty's mind about switching to time and distance meters? Is the fact that it's planned for Halloween going to impact the number of drunk drivers out on the road? If D.C. taxi......

A rainy Friday night was enlivened by the return of hometown heroine (and Richard Montgomery High alumni — Go, uhm…Rockets! Right? Y’all are the Rockets?) Tori Amos, who took to the DAR Constitution Hall armed with her giant black Bösendorfer piano, her touring band, and a new record. That record, American Doll Posse, is an odd sort of concept album revolving around a bunch of different characters that Amos invented, costumed, and, I believe, even......

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......

The 2nd year of the District's Awake! Music Festival is making it's grand sophomore entrance tomorrow night in clubs across town. News about the festival is traveling far and wide, with a sponsorship and podcast from everybody's favorite online radio station, WOXY, an interview on the local news, and more. A few last minute changes have been made to the festival — namely the unfortunate cancellation of Cloud Cult's set, and of the Rock &......

Three years, one EP, one DCist interview, and a slew of locally hyped shows later and The Alphabetical Order have finally taken that next big step. October 9th marked the release of their debut full length album. I Am Magically Happening! is their most polished and complete work to date. It is the band’s signature early 90’s alt-rock sound with just enough mainstream pop glaze to raise them up from the underground. The Alphabetical Order......

Marc Fisher lets us know that longtime D.C. radio fixture Red Shipley, the host of WAMU's Stained Glass Bluegrass program for 25 years, died over the weekend from cancer in Charlottesville. Shipley introduced two generations of Washington area music fans to legendary and contemporary bluegrass music, up until last month, when WAMU took all of its bluegrass programming off the air and put it on HD Radio. "Radio lost one of its own legends last......

Jon Langford is responsible for way too much great art for you not to know who he is. To begin at the beginning, he’s one of two remaining original members of the Mekons, singing and playing guitar in the increasingly difficult-to-categorize onetime punk band he founded while studying art at the University of Leeds, England, in 1977. Their albums Fear and Whiskey and Edge of the World, from 1985 and 1986, respectively, were among......

You waited until the last minute to try to buy tickets for Saturday’s “Hip-Hop Honors” concert, only to discover it sold out. Fear not, because D.C. will be having a number of other noteworthy shows over the next week. First up is Eric Roberson’s Friday night set at the Black Cat. Who’s Eric Roberson? New Jersey native Roberson began his professional singing and songwriting career while a student in Howard University’s Musical Theatre program in......

Dr. Billy Taylor (pictured with his trio) is a walking history of jazz. He began playing professionally in 1944, and in that capacity he has composed over 350 songs, performed with legends such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and led his own trio for decades. The numerous awards Taylor garnered as a performer and educator include 23 honorary doctoral degrees, two Peabody Awards, an Emmy, a Grammy, and the National Medal of the......

Good morning, Washington. It's almost October, but in many ways it still seems like summer. For one thing, it'll be ninety degrees today. For another, there's news of Michael Vick's worsening legal situation. Yesterday Virginia indicted him and three others on dogfighting charges. Of course, we all knew that was coming sooner or later — less expected was word that a Canadian bank is suing Vick for defaulting on a $2.3 million loan. Potential......

FOUND Magazine has a knack for revealing the beautiful underbelly of America, the forgotten parts of our everyday lives. Highlighting things like the hateful note you left the person parked in your precious parking spot, your laundry list of to-dos, that love note you didn’t find the courage to send, or those rejection letters that you didn’t want to hold onto, FOUND is the curated hamper for everything not worth collecting. That is unless you......

The classical music season got officially under way this weekend, and there will be more and more choices facing eager listeners. Even if you cannot afford all the concerts you want to attend, since local radio station WETA, at 90.9 FM, went back to a classical format, there is more local music on the airwaves, too. Tune in this evening (September 16, 7 p.m.) to the live broadcast of the National Symphony Orchestra's Season Opening......

Take a look at this map -- if you live inside the boundaries of the newly-named Police Service Area 208 (formerly PSA 306), you're now being policed by the 2nd Police District instead of the 3rd. The change actually took effect on Sunday, September 2, according to a Metropolitan Police Department announcement. The move was designed to resolve a workload imbalance between the 2nd District, which handles just 4.5 percent of emergency calls in the......

It's back to school time, and that means we're once again recruiting new writers to become part of our growing team of city bloggers. As you know, we aren't able to pay our contributors -- so please don't apply unless you're ready to do it for the love of exploring D.C., engaging in important debates about the direction of the city, or are just the kind of person who's happy enough to see your name......

2001 was a good year for Radiohead clones. Muse released their second album, Origin of Symmetry, to the fanfare of British rock critics. Coldplay finally attained mainstream success in the United States. And Travis cemented their international popularity with the Nigel Godrich-produced The Invisible Band. Meanwhile, in Denton, Texas (about as far away from Oxford as you can get), five jazz students at the University of North Texas released an EP under the name Midlake.......

Classical music has come back from summer vacation, and that means you actually have a choice of concerts this week. Most importantly, many of the city's leading groups are opening the season with glittering events. Look for reviews next week. >> Washington National Opera is opening its fall season with one of the most popular operas in the repertoire, Puccini's La Bohème (September 15 to 30). For all its audience-pleasing qualities, this opera is a......

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,......

If you were traveling over the holiday weekend, you would have easily missed the announcement that popular local NPR affiliate WAMU 88.5 FM will be making big changes to their broadcast schedule -- most notably moving the entirety of their popular weekend bluegrass programming to an HD Radio channel, leaving many listeners upset and confused as to how the station could abandon their signature music programs on the regular FM dial. Here's what's going to......

D.C. has been the homebase for its share of musical luminaries. Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye, and Bad Brains come to mind for their efforts in their respective genres. Right in this mix should be the man called the “Godfather of Go-Go,” Chuck Brown. For non-native Washingtonians, go-go is likely foreign and only experienced during the urban radio stations’ “go-go hours” or Brown’s D.C. Lottery commercials. However, go-go is D.C.’s music, Chuck Brown is D.C.’s musician,......

Good morning, Washington. As you make your way into work on this fine morning, a note to fans of Canadian super group Stars: "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"? Good song. "Set Yourself on Fire"? Good song. Setting your ex-lover on fire? Apparently not cool. Attack of the Dubyas: Washington Post Radio (WTWP) is shifting to a "personality driven talk format." And whose personalities (I hear you cry) will be driven into us courtesy of the once-anodyne......