The first thing we noticed when City-State’s first full-length, Monument, arrived is that it looked very professional. Often with local bands the CDs look (and usually are) homemade. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just something that stuck out as a good sign. The CD cover has a picture of Vladimir Tatlin’s unbuilt sculpture “Monument to the Third International,” one of those things that pops up in architecture books from time to time, superimposed over…

Born from a high school friendship, The Chance is the product of years of tooling around on instruments and mucking with the lineup. As they stand today, the band is Joshua Padgett on lead guitar and vocals, Viraj DeSilva on drums and Finley Martin on bass. The band’s gone through several incarnations over the years, but Padgett and DeSilva are the constants. They grew up together, cultivating a friendship and learning how to play. As…

My evening at the Velvet Lounge was off to a rough start. Grating keyboards, an eye-burning smoke machine, and a crowd that was just a bit too crowded for me. I turned to the dark-haired guy standing next to me, on a night when the local band Let’s French was sharing a ticket with three others, and yelled into his ear “Which band is this?” After he told me, I yelled back, “Do you know…

(Review by DCist guest reviewer Peter Denton) While most indie bands are content to pander to their local constituents and bring the pork home to their narrow fan base, Interpol is following Hillary Clinton’s lead and has their eyes set on breaking through to a national, mainstream audience. Sure, the couture-clad gents from NYC might not be tacking to the center on abortion rights or injecting their songs with overtures to the religious right, but…