FRIDAY: >> In case you missed Chapel Hill’s The Old Ceremony (pictured) last time they were in town, they’ll be at the Rock and Roll Hotel tonight with Junior League, Unwed Sailor and John Pringle. We’ve raved in the past about lead singer Django Haskins’ Nick Cave-meets-Ben Folds stage presence, and since then we’ve picked up their 2006 release Our One Mistake. If you can’t make the show, we highly suggest giving them a listen…

LaTur went down to the U.S. Army Band’s annual performance of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” at the Sylvan Theater and got this fantastic capture of The 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) Presidential Salute Battery’s cannon salutes. Talk about great timing. Here’s the EXIF….

>> Vancouver rock collective They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? will play their experimental marching band/circus music backstage at Black Cat, with Ostinato and Karate Bear. If you like weird, fun and loud, you’ll want to be there at 9 p.m., $8. >> It’s time once again for the U.S. Army Band’s annual performance of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” — complete with cannon salutes from The 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) Presidential Salute Battery….

A couple of weeks back, we found ourselves at IOTA paying $10 to see two bands we were previously unfamiliar with (Iowa City’s Death Ships and Chapel Hill’s The Old Ceremony). The experience left us feeling satisfied and slightly adventurous. We wanted to make a regular habit of checking out bands based on 30-second clips and “borrowed” tracks from elbo.ws. And that’s partly why we were at IOTA last night to see mellow Canadian folksters…

Flickr user wyntuition took this wonderfully lit long exposure from the top of 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Old Post Office has a fantastic haunted feel here. What a great view from your office, but we have to hope our photographer won’t be working nearly as late tonight! EXIF….

A lot of effort goes into attending a concert — paying outrageously high ticket prices, figuring out transportation and putting up with obnoxious crowds are the first things that come to mind. This is why we tend to reserve our hard-earned dollars for those bands we really like. But something drew us to the ‘burbs last night to see Chapel Hill’s The Old Ceremony at IOTA, a band we weren’t entirely familiar with. In the…

When your alumni game features less than one former player for each year your franchise has played, and none of them play goalie, something might be wrong. The 2006-2007 season was a chance for the Washington Capitals to take a long, sometimes painful look at the prospects it has drafted and traded for in recent years. Over the season, the team discovered that these young players were generally young, inexperienced and insecure. With the right…

MONDAY >> Remember the days when you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing the Goo Goo Dolls’ hit single “Name”? Yeah, we drink heavily to forget it, too. Well, it turns out the boys named Goo are headlining the 9:30 Club two nights in a row with Augustana. Maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on them; both nights are sold out. >> Steven Tyler of Aerosmith fame is going to be rocking the George…

If you aren’t in the mood to cross the Potomac for Thai (us), or if you have not yet jumped on the Bangkok 54 bandwagon (us again), then consider The Old Siam a low-key alternative. Since opening early last year in the old Mickey’s Patio location, it’s remained very much a neighborhood haunt. It’s a little out of the way for us, too, but when we’re heading toward Barracks Row, we stop in for…

Wednesday’s unseasonable warmth called for sunny day music. A happy coincidence then, that Ben Kweller, a purveyor of cheerful college rock, was headlining the 9:30 club that evening. Looking at the small crowd of underage early arrivals jostling for position, a question came to mind: is Kweller an artist or a phase? To paraphrase a famous film quote, it seems that he gets older but his fans stay the same age. The answer came…