Words and Photos by Alex Schelldorf
In an expansive, recently opened space quietly tucked away on 14th Street, D.C.’s resident surf-pop weirdos Shark Week hosted a massive party for the release of their debut full length, Beach Fuzz. I think it’s a safe bet to say that Dance Loft on 14—which used to be a theatre in the1920s—never hosted such a drunken, dance-y mess.
There’s something of a recent trend to incentivize shows, as if the thrill of witnessing live music isn’t enough. As such, this show was marked by total sensory overload: a projector intermittently played silent, bizarro movies, including black and white boxing matches between humans and kangaroos, and bookended by Three Stooges episodes.
The ladies of the Contrario Collective—a local photographer collective—had a photo exhibit up in a mirrored practice room. DJs kept the party going until 6 a.m, though, full disclosure, this writer did not stay for that long. And, oh yeah, there was a lot of booze (via a temporary liquor license) and some music, too.
Shark Week employed their usual antics: flailing guitars, frontman Ryan Hunter Mitchell’s flamingo-like stances, kick drum acrobatics. Most noteworthy, though, was drummer Daniel Newhauser playing with a broken arm after a bad bicycle accident. The injury has since healed enough to allow Newhauser to begin using his left arm again, but for recent shows, including a headlining gig at the Paperhaus, he’s been playing one-handed.
All four preceding acts made for a stacked bill: electro-pop openers Daddy Likey played one of their first shows to an appreciative, receptive crowd. Witch Coast, which featured members of The Sea Life, blitzed through ten 90-second stoner-pop furies, with vocalist Jon Weiss remarking that Witch Coast has “no place for songs longer than [that].”
The other shark band on the bill, New York City’s Desert Sharks, launched into an ear-piercing set that somehow kept getting louder throughout. But the show-stealing moment came from D.C.’s own Loud Boyz, when guitarist Rory Sheridan cracked open 2 PBR’s, slammed them together in his best Stone Cold Steve Austin impression, pouring them both into—but mostly on—his face, just like the Texas Rattlesnake used to.
Maybe the only thing this party/release show didn’t have going for it was its location. Dance Loft is parked just south of the 16th Street Heights neighborhood, a haul from the nearest Metro, Columbia Heights. Hard to imagine how this level of debauchery would have gone down somewhere closer to the heart of the District.
