Roll with It
By Steven Rybicki
you have four years here to actually experience some culture before you go out to "shape" culture. I've spent four years here and some of the most rewarding cultural experiences I've had have been at the BlackCat and 9:30 clubs in Washington B.C. Seeing rock music, live, is one of the most wonderful, liberating, and educational experiences of your college life. If you don't believe me, that's fine, I'm not some Maoist out to grab a fist full of hair and drag you to a re-education center. However, you'll just miss out on something, I think, is valuable.
Since I'll be gone, I wanted to leave you all with a bit of parting assistance on how to take a crew of PHCers and get a party started at one of the fine establishments of music in the D.C. area. First, B.C. is a great music center. It is a vibrant hub for all genres rock, hip-hop, and jazz. The best places to see these acts are the 9:30 club on V Street and the BlackCat on 14th Street in B.C. Both of these places have web-sites with thorough schedules. While 9:30 dabbles in reunion tours and hip-hop occasionally, BlackCat is primarily indie rock and elctronica. To find a show with potential, look for shows of bands you like on itunes or Google the names of bands on the schedules and rummage through their websites to see if you like their stuff. There are many new and up-and-coming bands who play this area frequently, and it's always worth it to catch them when they're still earning their street cred.
The best way to figure out what you want to see is compare ticket prices to names. Unless you LOVE a band, tickets for a show are not worth more than twenty bucks. Buy tickets online: 9:30 club tickets come through tickets.com and BlackCat works through Ticketmaster. It's recommended that you buy tickets online, the service charges are steep, about five bucks per ticket, but they guarantee your butt in the auditorium. Also, don't waste money having the tickets sent to you, mark your tickets "Will Call" (this may seem challenging now, but just trust me, this option will be very clear when buying the tickets online). With "Will Call," all you have to do is present your credit card
and driver's license at the venue and they will give you your tickets, so there's nothing to keep track of.
There are innumerable benefits to getting to a couple of concerts each semester. For instance, this is a great learning experience: buying tickets online, picking them up, and functioning in a social environment are skills that you will need. As crazy as this sounds: if you are going to function in a professional environment you will be doing "weird" stuff like paying for goods and services with a credit card, planning and coordinating events, and, God forbid, your boss will probably take you to dinner at bars and restaurants in the city. At least I can only speak for where my boss took me when I worked at the Federal Election Commission.
So with this friendly little nudge, I hope that between all your studies, you will take time out and see a couple of shows. Buring my tenure at PHC I saw Nada Surf, Live, The Bresden Bolls, The Becemberists (twice), Interpol, Beath Cab for Cutie, Bloc Party, and The Fiery Furnaces. Most were incredible shows, and the provided great memories with the people I saw the shows with. It's really worth the time.
With that zealous recommendation, here are some records you should listen to over the summer and when you return to campus... and go see them when they come to town!
Wilco: YankeHotelFoxtrot - A beautiful elegiac record. Undeniably, one of the most fragilely framed, yet deeply profound, records on all things American, especially after 9/11.
Interpol: Turn On the Bright Lights - This band, created at New York University, put out what will be one of the finest records of this decade. Their sound is nothing short of groovy.
Radiohead: OK Computer - Best record of the 90s: enough said.
Lucinda Williams: Essence - The greatest song-writer in the United States. Listen to whatever she releases.
The Decemberists: Picaresque - Colin Melloy, the literary lyricist from Oregon put out the most assured, emotional, jangling pop hooks this side of R.E.M. this year. Get this CD!
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People - Speaking of R.E.M., this album from 1992 is perfect. Human beings were meant to drive with windows down, system up, listening to these songs.
Spoon: Gimme Fiction - The best indie/pop hybrid in the United States. Spoon is a hard working group of guys who spin some of the best melodies in rock.
Bloc Party: Silent Alarm - The best British band of summer 2005, Bloc Party is an import who put on a great show and even elicited jumping and chanting from the pouting hipsters at BlackCat.
The Fiery Furnaces: Blueberry Boat - The Fiery Furnaces are the best live act I have ever seen. Their records are an amazing synthesis of electronic hooks and guitar jams, but live they are a sight to behold.
Okkervil River: Black Sheep Boy - An incredible debut album from writer/performer Will Sheff. He combines an incredible confidence in putting old-fashioned rock and roll hooks together with Southern Gothic lyrics.
Summer at Shatter Creek: All the Answers ~ Trying to one-up Eliot Smith's Figure 8 with his own "cheerful depression" record, the one man band, known simply as, Summer at Shatter Creek, creates a wonderful record finely prepared with the right amounts of hope, despair, and melody, all delicately packaged in forty minutes of music.
Patrick Wolf: Wind in the Wires - Hailing from the UK, Wolf combines an amalgam of musical styles and instruments to present a musical vision that is unique on both sides of the pond. Not quite rock, not quite folk, just the type of music Bright Eyes wishes he could be.
Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism - The indie band that's not independent anymore (shhhh don't tell anyone). Transatlanticism is an epic, moody balancing act of emo posturing and heartbreaking melody. It will take you, warp speed, through the whole emotional gamut of high school (which by the way you will repeat here at PHC, good luck!).
Explosions in the Sky: The Earth is not a Cold, Dead Place - They come from Texas and call themselves the loudest band in the world. They are the new kids on the "Post-Rock" block and can make the ears bleed from their guitar blare and drum kick, and the heart ache with great, sensitive riffs.
Dios: Dios - Music that sounds like The Beatles and the Beach Boys got together and sired Neil Young... understand? I think you just need to buy this record.
Rogue Wave: Out of the Shadow - A ray of pop sunshine. These guys may sing sad songs sometimes, but they've got a great sense of humor and, in a few years, could be the new Spoon.
The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1 - Music to bring a smile to your face. Yes, it might tax your patience when they go into their famous techno-drone mode, but there's not a more joyous musical sensation around than hipshaking to the first bars of the title track, or thinking of that special someone when you sing "Do You Realize?"
you have four years here to actually experience some culture before you go out to "shape" culture. I've spent four years here and some of the most rewarding cultural experiences I've had have been at the BlackCat and 9:30 clubs in Washington B.C. Seeing rock music, live, is one of the most wonderful, liberating, and educational experiences of your college life. If you don't believe me, that's fine, I'm not some Maoist out to grab a fist full of hair and drag you to a re-education center. However, you'll just miss out on something, I think, is valuable.
Since I'll be gone, I wanted to leave you all with a bit of parting assistance on how to take a crew of PHCers and get a party started at one of the fine establishments of music in the D.C. area. First, B.C. is a great music center. It is a vibrant hub for all genres rock, hip-hop, and jazz. The best places to see these acts are the 9:30 club on V Street and the BlackCat on 14th Street in B.C. Both of these places have web-sites with thorough schedules. While 9:30 dabbles in reunion tours and hip-hop occasionally, BlackCat is primarily indie rock and elctronica. To find a show with potential, look for shows of bands you like on itunes or Google the names of bands on the schedules and rummage through their websites to see if you like their stuff. There are many new and up-and-coming bands who play this area frequently, and it's always worth it to catch them when they're still earning their street cred.
The best way to figure out what you want to see is compare ticket prices to names. Unless you LOVE a band, tickets for a show are not worth more than twenty bucks. Buy tickets online: 9:30 club tickets come through tickets.com and BlackCat works through Ticketmaster. It's recommended that you buy tickets online, the service charges are steep, about five bucks per ticket, but they guarantee your butt in the auditorium. Also, don't waste money having the tickets sent to you, mark your tickets "Will Call" (this may seem challenging now, but just trust me, this option will be very clear when buying the tickets online). With "Will Call," all you have to do is present your credit card
and driver's license at the venue and they will give you your tickets, so there's nothing to keep track of.
There are innumerable benefits to getting to a couple of concerts each semester. For instance, this is a great learning experience: buying tickets online, picking them up, and functioning in a social environment are skills that you will need. As crazy as this sounds: if you are going to function in a professional environment you will be doing "weird" stuff like paying for goods and services with a credit card, planning and coordinating events, and, God forbid, your boss will probably take you to dinner at bars and restaurants in the city. At least I can only speak for where my boss took me when I worked at the Federal Election Commission.
So with this friendly little nudge, I hope that between all your studies, you will take time out and see a couple of shows. Buring my tenure at PHC I saw Nada Surf, Live, The Bresden Bolls, The Becemberists (twice), Interpol, Beath Cab for Cutie, Bloc Party, and The Fiery Furnaces. Most were incredible shows, and the provided great memories with the people I saw the shows with. It's really worth the time.
With that zealous recommendation, here are some records you should listen to over the summer and when you return to campus... and go see them when they come to town!
Wilco: YankeHotelFoxtrot - A beautiful elegiac record. Undeniably, one of the most fragilely framed, yet deeply profound, records on all things American, especially after 9/11.
Interpol: Turn On the Bright Lights - This band, created at New York University, put out what will be one of the finest records of this decade. Their sound is nothing short of groovy.
Radiohead: OK Computer - Best record of the 90s: enough said.
Lucinda Williams: Essence - The greatest song-writer in the United States. Listen to whatever she releases.
The Decemberists: Picaresque - Colin Melloy, the literary lyricist from Oregon put out the most assured, emotional, jangling pop hooks this side of R.E.M. this year. Get this CD!
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People - Speaking of R.E.M., this album from 1992 is perfect. Human beings were meant to drive with windows down, system up, listening to these songs.
Spoon: Gimme Fiction - The best indie/pop hybrid in the United States. Spoon is a hard working group of guys who spin some of the best melodies in rock.
Bloc Party: Silent Alarm - The best British band of summer 2005, Bloc Party is an import who put on a great show and even elicited jumping and chanting from the pouting hipsters at BlackCat.
The Fiery Furnaces: Blueberry Boat - The Fiery Furnaces are the best live act I have ever seen. Their records are an amazing synthesis of electronic hooks and guitar jams, but live they are a sight to behold.
Okkervil River: Black Sheep Boy - An incredible debut album from writer/performer Will Sheff. He combines an incredible confidence in putting old-fashioned rock and roll hooks together with Southern Gothic lyrics.
Summer at Shatter Creek: All the Answers ~ Trying to one-up Eliot Smith's Figure 8 with his own "cheerful depression" record, the one man band, known simply as, Summer at Shatter Creek, creates a wonderful record finely prepared with the right amounts of hope, despair, and melody, all delicately packaged in forty minutes of music.
Patrick Wolf: Wind in the Wires - Hailing from the UK, Wolf combines an amalgam of musical styles and instruments to present a musical vision that is unique on both sides of the pond. Not quite rock, not quite folk, just the type of music Bright Eyes wishes he could be.
Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism - The indie band that's not independent anymore (shhhh don't tell anyone). Transatlanticism is an epic, moody balancing act of emo posturing and heartbreaking melody. It will take you, warp speed, through the whole emotional gamut of high school (which by the way you will repeat here at PHC, good luck!).
Explosions in the Sky: The Earth is not a Cold, Dead Place - They come from Texas and call themselves the loudest band in the world. They are the new kids on the "Post-Rock" block and can make the ears bleed from their guitar blare and drum kick, and the heart ache with great, sensitive riffs.
Dios: Dios - Music that sounds like The Beatles and the Beach Boys got together and sired Neil Young... understand? I think you just need to buy this record.
Rogue Wave: Out of the Shadow - A ray of pop sunshine. These guys may sing sad songs sometimes, but they've got a great sense of humor and, in a few years, could be the new Spoon.
The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1 - Music to bring a smile to your face. Yes, it might tax your patience when they go into their famous techno-drone mode, but there's not a more joyous musical sensation around than hipshaking to the first bars of the title track, or thinking of that special someone when you sing "Do You Realize?"
posted by Tim Hoskins at 3:00 PM
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