>> Two quality offerings from the Black Cat tonight: Japan’s uber-weird noise outfit Melt-Banana take the mainstage with Hex Machine at 8:30 p.m., $13. Plus Falls Church native and now Richmond-based newgrass singer Josh Small is in the Backstage tonight, with Tim Barry and The Wading Girl, for a paltry $8 at 8 p.m. >> Campus Progress is calling all summer interns and other young folks to head over to Science Club tonight for…

MONDAY: Leftover anger from last week’s G8 Summit? Check out John Perkins at Politics and Prose tonight. He’ll be discussing his newest book The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption, which details the shady deals behind U.S. foreign aid to developing countries. 7 p.m. TUESDAY: Hurricane season is upon us yet again, and this August will mark the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact…

If you see emergency response vehicles zipping around town laden with folks shouting into walkie-talkies about evacuations and floods, don’t be alarmed. Today Washington area officials are running their first ever joint hurricane response exercise. Federal workers, along with their counterparts from D.C., Maryland and Virginia are gauging the region’s ability to deal with a watery disaster. While most associate hurricane-strength storms with the Gulf Coast and tropical climes, many vividly remember the destruction wrought…

MONDAY >> Anthony Pirog’s (one of our recent Three Stars artists) many music outlets are coming together tonight at Iota. Head to Arlington’s cozy club to hear rock music from The Bang. With Le Loup. $10, 8:30 p.m. >> Mark Mallman, Twin Cities veteran and spastic-rock-showman-turned-synth-pop-afficianado, plays DC9 with fellow Minneapolis rockers the Honeydogs in one of the week’s best bargains. 8 bucks gets you a whole lot of rock and probably some ringing eardrums…

When we think of affordable housing in the region, we usually envision huge apartment buildings, such as those marching up 7th Street north of the Convention Center. Or we’ll think of the varying percentages of affordable units promised in the multitudes of luxury condo developments popping up all over our city, and often not delivered in the final construction. For the next several weekends in Silver Spring, you can get a close-up look at a…

Share Our Strength Benefit For Katrina Victims August 29 will mark the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, but clean-up, rebuilding, and resettling are still taking place. Charity group Share Our Strength will observe the date by holding Restaurants for Relief, an event in which restaurants will donate a portion of their proceeds to help recovery efforts and to end childhood hunger along the Gulf Coast. Almost 90 restaurants in the metro area plan to…

After a brave but fruitless fight, District officials today announced that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams’ official blog has passed away. No services have yet been scheduled, and Williams was unavailable for comment at press time. City officials remained mostly quiet on the blog’s passing, though one individual close to the mayor remarked, “Williams had a blog? Really?” Bloggers unofficially stick to the rule that a blog that goes without an update for 30 days or…

MONDAY >> Monday welcomes the Fictionista Book Tour to Washington, D.C., featuring readings from Josie Brown (True Hollywood Lies), Kayla Perrin (Gimme an O!) and Stephanie Lessing (She’s Got Issues). Good gravy! All that chicklit in one place? Does it get any better? Oh, people. It does. The event is taking place at the Hard Rock Café — and that means Aerosmith-themed quesadillas. 999 E. St NW., 7 p.m. TUESDAY >> In her book, Nickel…

In an age when broadcast radio is increasingly homogenized and corporate, WAMU’s Hot Jazz Saturday Night is a refuge for those with an interest in vintage jazz, swing and big band from the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s. Host Rob Bamberger, whose record collection has taken over his basement and laundry room, has been laying down jazz knowledge every Saturday night from 7 to 10 p.m. since 1980. That makes 25 years — congrats to…

This one of those pictures that just makes you stop, makes you wonder, makes you want to ask, “Is that for real?” While we are not discounting the possibility that Council-member Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) may be the favored candidate in the much sought after 8-15 age-group, we are guessing that someone’s parents are taking next year’s mayoral race just a step too far. Hopefully she didn’t run into the hyper-active nine-year-old with the…