Here at THE VINYL DISTRICTwe're good consumers. All Mp3's are posted to promote and give exposure to the music and are linked for a limited time. Please download to preview, then head promptly to your local vinyl vendor (or - OK, CD store too) and fork over your hard earned cash. You'll appreciate the piece of mind.
Got something you think we should be listening to or reading? thevinyldistrict (at) gmail.com
Each time I pick up the phone to check in with my mom who’s afflicted with Alzheimer’s, she's more and more distant, more gone, more out there--while maintaining the sharp tongue and her wicked way with words which made her a particular favorite with my friends along the way.
Last night I caught up with the very current going’s on with her mom and dad, her sister, and her brother-in-law, all of whom have been dead for many, many years now. They had just been by the house, they say hello, etc.
But alas, now her sister isn’t talking to her for some reason mom couldn’t quite put her finger on. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it’s because she’s been gone for oh, 15 years now?
Having been adopted myself, my sister long gone, my dad having passed away, and mom in her condition, it suddenly hit me that I’m the sole bearer of the life and times.
And having been adopted, despite the love from very real and involved parents, I/you/we long for the twinge of any semblance of self reflected in someone’s face or gestures. The genetic twist that reveals--you’re FROM someplace.
We have some sad and disappointing news to share with you. Dj Hut can no longer battle the dual headwind of the demise of the music retail industry and the economic downturn. As a result, we are forced to shut down the store and go strictly online at the end of April. Effective immediately, all vinyl records, CDs, DVDs and books will be liquidated at the rate of 20% off the regular price.
We would like to thank you for your support over the last 7 years at the store and we look forward to your continued support in the future online.
Know where you’re more likely to hear the radio than not? That’d be in a taxi cab, such as the one I was in last night.
The rain had begun to fall a bit, tapping out a groove on the hood of the car in sync with the selection on the dial. The windshield wipers wound a twisty bass line below the rain as the bleating of car horns accented on the downbeat. My rum and coke soaked fingers tapped out 8th notes after writing KISS on the humid window with the sharp SS’s per the actual logo.
And the soundtrack? 80’s synthpop, way out of context.
I paid the driver at my door, his head not once stopping its bobbing to the tinny groove. Smiled, waved, drove off.
I lugged my drum kit around DC for years. Playing here and there, trying out for this and that--until I was hit with an epiphany: futility. I just wasn’t going to make a career of it despite my blistered hands.
As such, I’ve often wondered how the karmic happenstance takes shape where unique talents gel into a cohesive whole. (Which eluded me, frankly.)
So, enough about vinyl just this once. This week we chat with Pree’s May Tabol about the long road taken — from being ON the road to developing a community of collaborators — that’s lead to the band’s brand new release ‘A Chopping Block’ out now on DC’s very own Kora Records.
"Pree started out as a collaboration between my friend John Thayer (from Exit Clov) and I after I had gotten back from touring with Le Loup last spring. I had written several songs in the back of the van during the long stretches across the states, and, being unemployed when I got back to DC, decided that that summer would be the perfect time to record. Exit Clov had set up a studio in the basement of their house in Arlington, and John and I decided to put together an EP there. We enlisted the help of Susan Hsu (also from Exit Clov) for violin, Tom Hnatow of These United States for bass and dobro, and Vanessa Degrassi of Frau Eva for flute, and by the end of August we had something we were quite happy with.
After John moved up to New York in September, I started playing with Chris Dewitt (Sweet Teeth/Fever/Wild Fictions), and then David Barker (Cobra Collective), and Vanessa joined up shortly thereafter. It's been great to be a part of such a close-knit music scene here in DC. It's certainly an interesting town to be making music in.. the Capitol casts tall shadow, but underneath there are a lot of creative people running around giving this city its own culture, something independent of the political climate everyone recognizes from the outside."
...a strong low pressure system over the Great Lakes drags a cold front across region today. Expect some light rain this morning with a better chance of showers through the afternoon. With gray skies, temperatures will be held in the mid 50s. Overnight scattered rain tapers with some patchy fog and lows in the 40s.
Heard from our pal Noah this morning on the request line. Seems he’s got a hankering for a little bit more of what we spun last week and we’re quite happy to oblige. So, got a request? Dial us up on the request line.
'Ashes Of American Flags'—the new concert DVD from Wilco will be available at participating Record Store Day retailers on April 18. And now there’s a special treat for those of you cool cats who pick it up on Record Store Day. You’ll be able to download ONE COMPLETE CONCERT, parts of which appear in the film. You’ll only get this special added feature if you pick up the DVD on Record Store Day. Yet one more reason to check out a real live record store on April 18!
FINE PRINT: Not all stores will have this DVD in stock on Record Store Day. Check the store nearest you and find out if they’ll have Ashes of American Flags in stock on Record Store Day.
This may be the best time of the year. This is the winter/spring transition, when you can walk around in early morning sunshine, still wear your coolest jacket and call in sick because the pollen in the air is fucking up your sinuses (True or not, still very believable.)
True story. Last week I went to see the Weakends, a wonderfully trashy, reverbed-out garage band from Broudeux, France. Think in the vein of Demons Claws (another great French-Canadian garage band) with less of the country western influence, and add more a post-apoc blues touch.)
Unfortunately, the man with the drumkit never showed up. So, being the resourceful foreigners that they were (I mean, only one of them could drive, it was their first time in America, no GPS, no cellphone, just drove from Atlanta to New Orleans to Austin to here with no complaints) a junk drum kit was McGuyvered using a snare drum, paint bucket, tambourine, and maybe a plastic case or something. It took only a little coaxing and a few swigs of bourbon to convince them to play to a room of... one really drunk dude cussing everyone out in Spanish, two bleary professionals (fading fast), the sound guy, and yours truly.
And I'm not full of hyperbole when I declare that it sounded completely raw, it was loud and it was beautiful. In the spirit of DC, and street drummers everywhere, this was truely one of the finer moments I've had at a show recently.
So, this is what you should know. Their self-titled LP is out on Rob's House Records. Mailorder that! (Note: also Digitally available on iTunes, but that's not why we're here..)
"By day and night, fancy electronic dishes are trained on the heavens. They are listening for smudged echoes of the moment of creation. They are listening for the ghost of a chance. They may help us make sense of who we are and where we came from; and, as a compassionate side effect, teach us that nothing is ever lost.
So... I rake the sky. I listen hard. I trawl the megahertz. But the net isn't fine enough, and I miss you - a swan sailing between two continents, a ghost immune to radar.
Still, my eyes are fixed upon the place I last saw you, your signal urgent but breaking, before you became cotton in a blizzard, a plane coming down behind enemy lines."
Would it surprise anyone to hear how much I’m enjoying JUST DJing the blog and having free reign to program TVD Radio without the encumbrances of a playlist?
Unlike corporate radio beholden to a genre or theme, it’s really quite liberating go beyond the tired box of records that fit any (often my) self-imposed restrictions for the TVD week or theme at hand. And I think it’s a lesson the corporate suits might want to heed if they’re to ever draw back the listenership that’s abandoned the dial long ago.
What to do with all of those email alerts we get that we simply can't do justice throughout the week? Why, it's condense them right here in our now monthly bulletin board, 'plugs.'
This wonderwall of events info is yours to scrawl upon no matter where you're reading TVD. Have something we should be hearing, reading, or attending? Let us know each week, right here in the comments box to this post. And keep checking back to see who's clued you into what. Or where. And when.
Aussies The Drones sweep into town Saturday night, hot on the heels of their new ATP release 'Havilah,' as openers for DC's very own hot ticket, Deleted Scenes—and at the last minute your pals here at TVD have come up with an extra pair of tickets to give away for what's certain to be One. Hot. Show.
But there's no time to waste on this one. The show's Saturday night and you have 24 hours to jump up and down and get our attention in the comments to win the tickets. Shiny beads, interesting bits of stone, cookies, and attractive headgear may be considered—but we're really looking for you to drone on and state your case.
We'll choose a winner by 5PM on Friday and remember to leave us your email address so we can hook you up. Now, ...go!
“Serious, give these fuckers time and they'll rip out your eardrums, perhaps even your heart.” —Pitchfork
“There’s no shortage of rough-edged rock music out there, but most of it stops short of the next-level sort of workmanship found with The Drones.” —Tiny Mix Tapes
During my freshman year of college, perusing the CDs at a local bookstore, I discovered Robert Johnson. The beautiful way his fingers made a guitar sound like it had hundreds of strings, all weeping and hollering at the same time. At the time I discovered Johnson, I was busy going to punk shows and dreaming of marrying Mike Ness, long forgetting the folk sounds I was raised on. But Johnson's sound was enough to help me wade back into the deep waters of blues and folk music. The list of artists Robert Johnson has influenced is quite large and no doubt includes Langhorne Slim. The first time I heard his voice I think I may have swooned a bit. His songs bring out a range of emotions in me. Langhorne Slim is often classified as folk but I think it's so much more than that. One blog I recently read describes his sound as this:
"Langhorne Slim expertly walks the line between the sublime and the subterranean. At once raucous and reverent, his old-timey country blues is tempered with the occasional outburst of punk rock insolence indicating that there may just be an anarchy sign on the back of his guitar and a little more than constant sorrow on the brain of this charismatic troubadour."
And it really is true. The songs I've picked out are my personal favorites. And while his songs vary in their tempo, intensity, note composition, etc, the majority of the ones I've picked out are quicker paced. Maybe it's because it's Friday. Maybe because that's just my mood. But, there you have it. First up is "Restless" which makes me feel like I need to get the hell out of my chair, leave this city and drive across the country to some place where I live in a small house on a lot of land and spend my days planting seeds and my nights playing banjo in a folkpunk band.
"I Will" is one of those songs where you picture yourself in a bar and there's people dancing on tables and swinging each other around in circles and at the end of the evening collapse exhausted into each other's arms, with almost empty pints of beer in one hand. "In the Midnight" is just pure craziness of the kind that has me imagining adults in some depressing cafeteria getting into a giant food fight leaving their boring grey and black business suits torn to shreds and exploded condiment packets littering the floors. "Honey Pie" has some raunchiness to it that makes me want play it while I get ready before a long night out. Finally, "Loretta Lee Jones" is special to me for reasons that are personal. But it's a damn great song and will always hold a special place in my heart.
Langhorne Slim is playing at Iota on April 2 at 9pm. Which I'm almost reluctant to tell anyone, because Iota doesn't do tickets beforehand and I'm in class until 8pm and should I not get into the show I may just bang on the front windows like a crazy person until they let me in, or, in the likely alternative, call the police.
One thing lost with TVD blog radio is the classic DJ “talk up.”
You’ve all heard it a million times...the tune’s percolating in the background and over the top the DJ’s saying, “It’s a sunny and WARM Friday morning Washington, going up to a high of 66 in the city. Ditch those coats, and ladies—wear something skimpy—har”!
Then boom—the vocals of the track kick in at the ‘y’ in skimpy. Seamless and sinuous.
Then there’s the smoooth transition from track to track. Not in the club DJ sense where you’re counting BPM’s—unless it’s an urban contemporary format—but more in the segue from track to track given tone and tempo.
The Breeders have announced that they are pushing up the release date of a new four-song EP to celebrate Record Store Day.
'Fate To Fatal' is due out in the US on April 18 as part of the day that celebrates the unique culture surrounding the more than 700 independently owned record stores across the US and hundreds of similar stores internationally.
The EP will be released as a digital download and as a limited-edition 12-inch vinyl EP, with artwork hand-screened by Kim and Kelley Deal. The track 'The Last Time' features guest vocals by Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees fame. (Via NME)
...an open plea this morning for some needed assistance on converting cassettes into Mp3 files, because I’ve got some of my old radio shows from the ‘80’s that are most likely: hilarious.
Meanwhile, it’s 11:13 on a rainy Thursday morning here in the District. You’re listening to TVD On The Radio. Here’s the first single off the new—yes, new—Blow Monkeys record, ‘Devil’s Tavern,’ —‘The Bullet Train...’
...and it's classic FM radio rock this week with the 180-gram vinyl re-release of ZZ Top's Classic 'Fandango'---equal Texas-sized helpings of live tracks and studio cuts featuring the AOR staple, 'Tush." And if you're looking to deck out your deck, we've got two limited-edition, promotional Led Zeppelin Record Mats to send you as well!
You know the drill by now, right? Grab our attention in the comments (WITH your email address--important!) gushing over TVD's Record Store Day Vinyl Giveaway Week #9 to set yourself up to win both of these classic rock gems. (Or, you can comment and forward your email address in an email to us. We're not picky.) And remember - each entry into our vinyl contest is an automatic entry to win the Stanton T.90 USB turntable on Record Store Day 2009!
Just make it funny. Or make it smart. About record stores. Or Record Store Day. Or vinyl. About us or you. Or something else all together. Just make it before next Monday (3/30) when we'll choose our winner. (AND launch giveaway #10 of 11--where does the time go...?)
Cue movie trailer announcer: “In a world where radio is pre-programmed and sanitized to a fault, along comes the convergence of several TVD running themes: The Shuffle Bored, The Parting Shots...all On The Radio.”
