Photo by LaTur

It’s been a fun year talking to the bands and record labels we profiled in our Three Stars column. As long as musicians in the D.C. area continue to make interesting and engaging music, Three Stars will continue to give them a soapbox. The interviews were poignant, enlightening, hilarious, sometimes just plain weird, and now it’s time to recap some of those interesting moments. So enjoy the crazy tour stories, irreverent commentaries and artistic insight.

Best Tour Story: Protect-U

Aaron Leitko: It was a four day trip to Europe though, so at the back of my mind, I was kind of like, “I have to go to work on Tuesday…on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.” And it snowed so it was difficult for us to get from Amsterdam to Belgium so we were stuck in the train station in Utrecht for four hours or something. The promoter was a real hero. He sent a friend of his in a car to come pick us up and that’s sort of like driving from here to Philly to get us in through the snow storm. He showed up in this little hatchback and we all piled in there and we barreled down the highway at 1000 km/hr or something to get to this show through the snowstorm.

Best Tour Arrest Story: Cigarette

Richard Howard: I don’t know if you heard that [Pygmy Lush] all went to SXSW two years ago and all went to jail. I was with them when they went to jail. The funny thing is that I had been arrested four days earlier in Oklahoma City for apparently stealing string cheese. Weird experiences.

Best Stage Banter: The Nunchucks

Brandon Schnedl: I also had a phase where I’d get so pissed off at some audiences that I’d just run out on the floor and play in front of people. That might have happened that night. I went up to this girl and she was standing right up front, but didn’t seem particularly interested. I walked straight up to her in the middle of a song while we were playing and I was like, “How’s it going? Are you enjoying the show?” and she said, “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” so I said, “That’s nice. Why don’t you act like it?” She was like, “I guess I’m trying?” so I said, “OK. I’m gonna go.” I was in the middle of a song.

Best Band Name Explanation: Ugly Purple Sweater

Sam McCormally: When I was in college and I went to the Goodwill in Richmond, Ind. with my friend Caitlin, I found this purple sweater. I really liked it. It was this L.L. Bean—it’s got to be some kind of nylon/polyester blend and I enjoyed it, sort of recognizing its hideousness. Caitlin would always give me grief about it. At some point, I began wearing it specifically in defiance of my friend Caitlin’s objections. When I started writing songs for this band, it was not even with the idea that I was going to form a full band and playing out or recording two records. It was more, “I’m working an office job in Washington, D.C., and I need a creative outlet.” This is me doing what I’m doing without really thinking about the consequences or what anyone else is going to think about it. I sort of picked the name spontaneously, but I think that’s why. It’s representative of, “I’m just doing my thing in my bedroom without regards to what my friend Caitlin thinks.”

Best Stage Name Explanation: Frank Gómez, aka Pitt Stains, of Möbius Strip

That moniker was given to me by a long time friend and very briefly, roommate who had too much access to my laundry and saw that all of my… I’m very, very thrifty and so I will wear clothing until it cannot hold its shape to my body anymore. I had these old white t-shirts, like, undershirts, and they were like ten years old. It doesn’t matter how much you clean them or what you do to them. Ten years of sweat and deodorant makes a disgusting cake through the armpits. So, she called me that and it stuck, I guess. It’s a good stage name.

Best Album Name Explanation: Yoko K.

I thought, well, technically, I’m Zen Buddhist so I don’t know “heaven,” but I suppose in “heaven,” I see that there’s a library up in heaven. And it’s not a record store or a live music house. Somehow, it’s a library and there’s a little room in this heaven’s library that they have a collection of music. And I see that the friend who passed away somehow is doing librarian stuff at that library in heaven somehow…So, I wanted to create something so that my friend, or anyone else that passed away would be able to hear in the afterlife and people won’t get bored afterwards.

Best Terminology for Filtering: Tone

Jackson MacInnis: I think we have a low threshold for cliches. I think that’s a goal that art should have in general that you should have a cliche buzzer that says, “Holy crap! Run from that cliche!” I think in the music I write and that I’ve always played and listening to Tone over the years, I think they have a way of sidestepping real generic things and creating new stuff. I think when you’re younger it’s easier to not even see those cliches. When you’re a really young guy starting out, you just play whatever you can play. But as you get older, you have a bigger palatte to choose from, so you have to be careful that you’re tuned into that cliche buzzer.

Best Use of One’s College Degree: Thee Lolitas

What brought you over here?
Jacky Majic: School. Howard University. Print journalism.
Really. How’s that been going?

Majic: It’s great! (Laughs) Print journalism—doing my own fanzine—it’s great.
So where do you actually work then?
Majic: Starbucks.
Been there, done that, buddy.
Majic: High five.

Best Full Time Job: Regents

Jason Hamacher: I recorded the world’s oldest Christian music for the first time and I have a CD coming out with the Smithsonian. I have a book coming out about the city of Aleppo, Syria and I work for a museum in New York. I’ve done work on Syria for Yale Divinity. It’s like I’m a full time photographer and a full time massage therapist but obviously they don’t overlap. I’ve been going to Syria once or twice a year for the past five years.

Best Explanation for the Importance of Local Artistic Communities: Hugh McElroy

What I think is really interesting is that in some ways the internet may have made “local” relevant again after awhile of making it seem not relevant. Because after awhile, being exposed to so much stuff, it gets useful to have a meaningful filter and if your meaningful filter is your local community and the people you know socially, that can actually be a really handy way to tune out a lot of information overload and static.

Best Marketing Ideas: Bake Sale

Kate Miller: I want to see Kurt Vile in a Pantene commercial. I saw a video of him playing at some festival and his hair was blowing back in the breeze and my boyfriend and I were watching it and I thought, “Oh my god, Pantene commercial.”

Best Reason To Avoid Playing With Your Idols: Blackberry Belles

Alison Krayer: [Gene Ween] broke Tony’s heart, though.
Tony Blankenship: I was really excited to meet him and he wanted nothing to do with me. I felt like Clark Griswald.
Krayer: Yup. He got to Wally World and Wally World was closed.
Blankenship: So, I’m done! I don’t want to meet anybody else. Not any of my other heroes!

Best Response to Unresearched Fan Questions: Lovitt Records

Brian Lowit: I will get sometimes, “Will this band play my house?” and it’s like, “Well that band broke up ten years ago, so, no.”

Best Way to Close Out an Interview: Beasts of No Nation

Any last things you want to get out there?
Jason Yawn: Not unless you have any way to arrange that I get into a fist fight with Ted Nugent. That’s all I have. If you can work some magic, I’ll do it.