According to the calendar, spring started on Saturday. This season’s arrival brings all sorts of unique emotional experiences, such as the joy of bar patios reopening and the very specific type of unbridled rage brought on by the sight of snow. You know the kind.
Spring also brings on an uptick in the number of concerts available for consumption every night. While winter is securely the season ruled by local bands, warmer weather inspires more acts to drive farther than 40 minutes to perform since their shows are less likely to be cancelled (or poorly attented) due to wintry conditions.
Additionally, many bands hit the road in the weeks surrounding SXSW—the annual film/music/interactive conference that’s both amazing and terrible, depending on who you ask. There are certainly musicians that make an event out of the festival, but many others build it into their tour plans. It’s yet another reason why there are more concerts popping up in March, April, May, and June. I went a little crazier this year than most and managed to catch 92 acts over the course of six days. The following are making their way up D.C. soon, so here’s an introduction and a quick analysis of each.
Iceage
Iceage has attracted the attention of music fans for the last couple of years (albeit not always for good reasons). On the non-political end, the young Copenhagen band has recently made more waves by stretching artistically beyond the hard and fast post-punk tunes that made them a familiar name. They remain dark, dissonant and heavy, but their intense tunes take more cues from new wave than hardcore these days. Singer Elias Bender Ronnenfelt brings heavy drama to the songs with both his emotive baritone and his seemingly possessed stage presence. Still, one thing hasn’t changed since 2011—their live audiences still lose their minds.
Iceage is playing at DC9 on June 5 with Low Life.
Geographer
Of the two bands I caught that produced slick “indie” pop tailor-made for primetime television advertising spots, Geographer was the less offensive. This was certainly due in no small part to the band’s cellist. That is an instrument that, when played well, can add depth and nuance to the lightest and most forgettably pleasant of dance-ready pop songs. Come for the sing-a-long opportunities and stay because their singer will toss his drum stick after he finishes his most cowbell-heavy song. Just be careful—at the show I saw, that drumstick hit one unprepared concertgoer in the mouth.
Geographer is playing at U Street Music Hall on May 23.
Downtown Boys
Providence, R.I.’s deceptively named Downtown Boys (which is currently comprised of two men and three women) are no strangers to D.C.’s stages. In fact, their self-titled 7-inch was released on local record label Sister Polygon, so if Priests isn’t on the same bill, their members usually make an appearance in the crowd. However, Downtown Boys may be even more overtly political. When singer Victoria Ruiz isn’t shouting out memorable and catchy phrases about living wages, women’s rights or the struggles endured by people of color, she is huffing around the stage, acting as enraged moral authority between each song. But lest you think such moralizing is a drag, just know that it’s far more potent when delivered by an extraordinarily active group, complete with saxophone, that encourages jumping and dancing around. In short, it felt like the revolution occurred in front of me and they put on one of the best sets I saw all week.
Downtown Boys play at the Black Cat on May 18 with Sneaks.
Chastity Belt / Courtney Barnett
Chastity Belt had the unenviable task of playing immediately after two urgent punk bands—Downtown Boys and a fantastic Austin band called Feral Future. However, turning the volume and the speed down didn’t render them ineffective. Although they dealt with some angry subject matter—on a song that they described as being about mansplaining, the chorus repeats “Just another man trying to teach me something.” Sonically, it’s closer to the relaxed and hazy low-key rock of Lower Dens or Real Estate. But just as the lyrics came from the heart, the vocals had a deeply soulful aura as if hinting at all of the emotions, thoughts and beliefs hiding below the still surface of their guitars.
Australian artist Courtney Barnett must have played a dozen shows over a five day period, but as one of the festival’s most anticipated artists, she had a lot to prove. What she proved immediately was that she was straightforward and badass. “Thanks for standing in the rain for us,” she said to the soaking wet crowd at Stubb’s. “I wouldn’t do that for anybody!” That straightforward demeanor was endearing and very much an extension of her no frills guitar rock. It actually recalled early Sheryl Crow (sans whine)—when she still had a bit of a dangerous streak.
Chastity Belt and Courtney Barnett play at the 9:30 Club on June 13
Lolawolf
Let’s get rid of the elephant in the room—Lolawolf sounds nothing like the similarly named Yelawolf, the Alabama rapper with a deliciously dirty delivery and all of the tattoos. Sure, the engaging and fluid performer occasionally raps and the combination of her fearless delivery and the synthesizers in the background echo M.I.A.’s first album. However, her strength is in her singing, which shows that such a fearlessness can be brought to the world of soul music as well. Her voice is beautiful but more than that, it’s engaging and urgent. There’s also a distinct emphasis on live percussion and at any given time, she might join one or both of her backup musicians laying down a prominent beat.
Lolawolf plays at the Black Cat on March 30 with Twin Shadow.
Torres
Rock and roll has no shortage of torchy women exorcising their suffering through guitars, but Torres seems to be the darkest and most intense of the bunch. She’s certainly a kindred spirit of Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen, but Torres releases her demons with a harder and lounder guitar sound. Moreover, she doesn’t sound terribly plaintive; her voice shakes with a barely contained pain that also shows in her face. It’s mesmerizing even if it feels a tad voyeuristic and unsettling. Even her sense of humor is dark—when she cracked jokes for the crowd, it was about things like the humidity doing wonders for her guitar, and that tension always remained in her voice.
Torres plays at DC9 on June 28.
Mac McCaughan
It’s no secret that indie-rock staples Superchunk remain a must-see live act several decades into their existence. While seeing primary singer-songwriter Mac McCaughan on his own means a marked decrease in the amount of bouncing onstage, it’s also a guaranteed grin-inducer for fans of the Merge Records label head. McCaughan is releasing a solo album later this year so the crowd at Cheer Up Charlie’s got to listen to the sorts of new tunes that one would expect from him: occsionally sad and wistful, but with sunny melodic spark. He also brought Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield onstage to help him preview one of them (that, for the record, sounds like it was written after watching Yoda’s scenes from The Empire Strikes Back). However, there were no shortage of Superchunk and old Portastatic songs in his set and “Detroit Has a Skyline” and “Punch Me Harder” remain magical numbers even without the other three members of the band.
Mac McCaughan plays at the Black Cat on May 7 with Flesh Wounds.
Prince Rama
In the past two years, it seems like D.C. has seen a whole lot of new-age dance duo Prince Rama. They’ve led jazzercise-inspired exorcisms, they’ve screened a trippy spiritual film and they’ve even cooked dinner for a few lucky fans. It’s extraordinarily easy to catch a Prince Rama set at least twice a year. That said, if their set at the itty bitty Volstead room was any indication, it’s worth catching the next one. Taraka and Nimai Larson now have their tour manager (and Comet Ping Pong booking impresario) Sasha Lord performing on keyboards, which a) establishes their increasingly dance-y direction and b) gives singer/guitarist Taraka even more freedom to move around the venue. Move she did — on top of amps, across terrifying ledges, into the crowd and then over their heads. It was an extraordinarily spirited performance from a band that always gives the audience 110% of their energy.
Prince Rama plays at the 9:30 Club on April 11th with Dan Deacon and Ben O’Brien.
METZ
We actually saw METZ a few years ago and sadly only caught the tail end of their set this time. We stand by the earlier assertion that METZ was the sweatiest band of the festival and singer Alex Edkins also managed to fog up his glasses in the process of throwing his body and guitar dangerously close to his microphone stands, amplifiers, and other bandmates. Downtown Boys sparked the revolution and Iceage and Torres brought the drama, but METZ actually edges those three out for most intense performance.
METZ plays at the 9:30 Club on May 28 with Fidlar.
Krill
The Boston band announced near the end of their set that they were playing their 250th show. Although they seemed a little tired and dazed due to SXSW-induced malaise, they also exhibited a tightness that showed off the fact that they remained a well-oiled machine. Also, their songs sounded more heavier and rocked harder than their album A Distant Fist Unclenching would indicate. Imagine a heavier and less dissonant Modest Mouse and you have Krill.
Krill plays at the Black Cat on May 6 with Speedy Ortiz and Two Inch Astronaut.
Swervedriver
The British psych-pop band has always had a bit of a melancholy aura to their songs, so when they apologized for the bad weather, it was almost as if they felt somewhat responsible. That said, they were performing songs from I Wasn’t Born To Lose You, their first new album in almost two decades and very much seemed to be having fun with those heavy pop tracks. Also, it seemed appropriate that Mick Quinn, the bassist for Supergrass (another British power-pop band that was active in the 1990s) was their guest bassist. It wasn’t the sort of chill-inducing reunion set that is the best case scenario, but it was a solid showing from a bunch of older rockers that were simply enjoying themselves.
Swervedriver play at the Rock & Roll Hotel on March 25 with Gateway Drugs.
Twin Peaks
In the past eighteen months, Chicago’s Twin Peaks has gone from a pretty fun if not distinctive rock band to an emerging entertainment powerhouse. Their 2013 album Sunken emphasized their harmonies and psychedelic muscles but over time, they’ve put a little more muscle behind that psychedelia—speeding up their tracks and putting more emphasis on guitar melody rather than tone. This flower-punk five puts them closer to the Black Lips than it had before and their fans have responded in kind. The lighting rig was shaking dangerously as they played and it was difficult to tell whether that was due to the activity onstage or the fervor of the fans in front of it.
Twin Peaks play at the Rock & Roll Hotel on May 1.
Kodak to Graph
Kodak to Graph is the moniker of Florida-based producer/musician Michael Maleki and he takes the stage armed with computer, sequencer, synthesizer and bizarre looking keyboard. While his bopping and head nodding look very familiar—the hallmark of most DJs and electronic musicians, he distinguishes himself in how he layers his tracks. The music starts out sounding droney, relaxing and atmospheric—a state to which it returns every couple of minutes. But then he adds a persistent beat and samples everything from distorted hip-hop to broken soul to keyboard sounds overtop. It’s certainly more palatable and fun than most other acts of this nature and while it does reach dance-able levels of bounce, his songs never sound like they belong in a nightclub. The only problem: over time, the songs went from enveloping and unignorable to unbearably loud.
Kodak to Graph plays at the Rock & Roll Hotel on April 2 with Big Wild and Obeson.
Buck Biloxi and the Fucks
If a band is going to name themselves something as patently absurd as Buck Biloxi and the Fucks, one should safely assume that such a band gives zero of them. For the most part, that seems to be the case. Their songs are loud and fast and end quickly with memorable lines such as “I want to punch you in the dick.” Garage rock isn’t necessarily a thoughtful and nuanced subgenre, but it would be completely unsurprising if every song in their twenty minute set was written over the course of a single afternoon. It’s a style that will work well with a punk band like Thee Lolitas in one of the city’s most divey performance spaces. However, in a setting where garage rock bands were as omnipresent as empty beer cans, they didn’t distinguish themselves as anything particularly special.
Buck Biloxi and the Fucks is playing at Chief Ike’s Mambo Room on April 1 with Heavy Lids and Thee Lolitas. (Editor’s note: maybe not anymore.)
Ed Schrader’s Music Beat
On a bill where every single band was a destination act, these great Baltimore weirdos distinguished themselves as the day’s consummate performers. Schrader goofed off in a way that seemed effortless but not overindulgent. He showed off his singing chops by singing pieces of standards like Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” and Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” which contrasted greatly with his quick distorted post-punk nuggets for bass and floor tom. The combination of silliness and wildness was utterly charming impressive. They absolutely deserve to be the next Baltimore band to receive a larger and more dedicated following.
Ed Schrader’s Music Beat is playing a show in the first week of June that has not yet been announced on the venue website. You’ll just have to trust us on this one.
