The Oranges Band’s last album, The World and Everything In It, is the kind of record most music writers would feel obligated to say is “pretty good.” It’s got catchy songs, but no hook is too forceful; it’s got fuzzy, but stately guitars and giddy, but assured performances; and the singer has a little of that British-circa-1981 thing going on. And he’s singing about summer, and girls, and often about girls in the summer who…

Bellflur Thursday’s opening band for the DAM! Festival show at DC9 was Gaithersburg’s Bellflur. Initial impressions that they were (very) heavily indebted to OK Computer-era Radiohead proved true, with the band either attacking most songs with a “Paranoid Android”-like aggression, or plodding through “You and Whose Army?” style ballads. There were nice touches though – a full arsenal of effects pedals and some spooky vocal lines – and the band has a knack for making…

We’ve talked about the lineup, interviewd the organizer, and even talked to a couple bands. Now we want to give you the chance to hear what’s coming our way with some MP3 previews of a few DAM Fest bands. The music staff got together, divied up the lineup, gathered some files together and is now serving up brief breakdowns of a few bands D.C. will play host to this weekend. If you’ve got some insight…