MONDAY >> Today's Fort Reno show features local indie poppers Greenland (***) with Statehood and Kitty Hawk. The weather report calls for clear skies, but bring water. 7:15 p.m., free. >> How about another free event? The Black Cat backstage will feature movies about punk rockers Murder City Devils and Anti-Flag. 9 p.m., free. >> This week marks the sixth year of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, sponsored by the DC Commission on the Arts and... more ›

FRIDAY: >> The fine folks at the Black Cat are throwing themselves a 13th anniversary party tonight, and bully for them — it can hardly be an argument that the bar and music venue has become a nightlife mainstay for those of us who like our drinks cheap and our juke boxes funky. The convergence of two unlucky symbols (13 and black cats) isn't lost on the staff, who are encouraging you to go ahead... more ›

Another local record store is closing, hopefully temporarily, as Revolution Records in Van Ness (or North Cleveland Park) will shut its doors on September 3rd. A nice little spot with good selection and neat listening rooms, we're sad to see it go. However, the plan is that the store will not join DCCD in being gone forever, as co-owner Nayan Bhula said they're looking for a new location in or near the District. more ›

You may have seen them lurking in such venues as Wonderland in Columbia Heights, or Iota Club in Arlington, VA, or perhaps you read about them in our Three Stars feature back in April where we mentioned that Alec and his band were in the process of putting together a follow-up to their last full length album, What Lasts. With their latest LP, Win?orLose?, Alec Gross and the Districts pose yet another question, and one... more ›

In wanting to further refine his ability to predict what new music might appeal to you based on your current tastes, Tim Westergren, founder of the amazing streaming music service Pandora.com has spent the spring traversing the U.S. hosting town hall-style meetings to discover new and legendary artists and sounds at the grass roots level, taking in local venues and bands along the way. For the curious of the lot, Pandora is the webcast interface of the Music Genome Project, Westergren’s 10,000+ artist database which has rated over 100,000 songs drawing from all genres based on 400 different musical attributes such as tempo, instrumentation and vocal styles. Using this database, Westergren created an algorithm which takes your music preferences and returns other artists in the database with similar musical qualities (hear Tim describe how Pandora works in this podcast interview courtesy of TWiT.tv). So, if you’re a big Barry Manilow fan, Pandora can help you find other artists featuring blues influences, jazz influences, demanding vocal performances, acoustic sonority, and major key tonality to take you to your happy place. more ›

Welcome to Day 2 of February's Three Stars. Yesterday we spent some time with The Hint, tomorrow we'll talk to Shortstack, and today we're featuring The Apparitions. A slight disclaimer before we get started: The Apparitions are not exactly a D.C. band. However, their lead singer lives here and the band held their album release party here last week. Since they're sure to be major presence at local venues in the coming months, we bring... more ›

In yesterday's first installment of January Three Stars, you met Hello Tokyo. Today we're covering local guitarist/singer Mike Holden, and tomorrow we'll round things out with Ris Paul Ric (aka Chris Richards). Mike Holden We saw Mike Holden play this past Friday at Revolution Records, where he was promoting his EP, Level, alongside Sara Kryscio. His music is equal parts rock and folk. The guitar playing is mostly in the folk sphere, and his vocals... more ›

Sarah Kryscio (pronounced "Krissy-O") is a Wisconsin transplant to the D.C. area. When this DCist asked her if she had any voice training, she meekly answered "some." Perhaps she was embarrassed, but 'some' would be an understatement. You could even tell that at her gig opening for Mike Holden at Revolution Records, where she impressed the intimate (no mics) crowd with her singing chops, her note-holding chops, and her lung-capacity chops. That's a lot of chops, but it seems effortless for this young musician who's been singing since she was three and took nine years of classical voice lessons beginning at eight. more ›

We successfully sailed the ocean blue and are back with this week's shortened music picks. TUESDAY >> It's an early show/late show kind of night at the 9:30 Club (directions from DCist Maps). Come by at 6 p.m. to catch Anna Nalick, the songstress TV networks love to dramatize commercials with, for $15. Pound a Red Bull and stay for the late show as Blues Traveler gets all your harmonica lovin' ya yas out. $25,... more ›