After Neil Young’s wife Pegi concluded her opening set, while the stage crew arranged a myriad of guitars in a circle in the middle of the Constitution Hall stage, a portly man in a bright red blazer and straw hat worked on a painting of a horse towards the back of the stage. Later on, he came back to paint the words “The Loner” in the top right corner, and placed it on an…

Ragged Glory plays tonight at the Velvet Lounge. Can’t afford to pay $100 for a cheap seat at Neil Young’s upcoming DAR stop in November? You’re in luck. During our last chat with Ryan Walker from The Beanstalk Library, we found out he also put together a Neil Young cover band a few years back. They call themselves Ragged Glory, and the lineup plays something like a who’s who of up-and-coming local bands: Brian Kent…

Sometimes music as seemingly simple as Page France’s feels like it’s hardly worth writing about. At the Black Cat on Thursday, the Cumberland, MD six-piece (reigning as the undisputed best indie pop band in western Maryland) played a thirty minute set. Maybe 8 or 10 songs, each one barely more than a hastily-strummed acoustic guitar, a tinkling xylophone, and a simple snare beat. Some songs hardly even had a single chord change for the first…

Ever wonder why rock critics use phrases like “this generation’s Dylan” to describe Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes? Just to piss people off? As an easy hook for ageing rockers? There may not be another artist today so overtly and capably ripping off the rambling, verse-upon-verse epics Dylan has perfected over the years, but the expectation that comes with the “new Dylan” tag is too heavy for anyone to bear. A few of Oberst’s songs…

One last list of picks from local arists as we look back on the year that was 2006. Today’s final installment comes courtesy of W. Ellington Felton, Jukebox The Ghost, The Fake Accents, Telograph and the DCist Music Staff. W. Ellington Felton 1. Thom Yorke, Eraser This is an electronic record minus the noise that a lot of the others out there have. I can listen to this straight through. This is the perfect cd…