At the Green Apple Festival yesterday on the National Mall, fans of the Roots got American Idol runner-up/beatbox extraordinaire Blake Lewis instead. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman got boos and jeers from the crowd before being ushered off the stage by Chevy Chase. And though everyone present got very, very wet, it’s probably fair to say that few at the environmental festival got what they came for.
After an electrical storm during jam band Umphrey’s McGee’s set put the festival on hold as the crowd took shelter in nearby museums, the environmental festival was called for good. Headlining bands the Roots and Gov’t Mule did not perform and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who was scheduled to speak, was nowhere to be seen.The D.C. event was one of eight across the country aimed at raising awareness about global warming and encouraging people to call their congressperson on Earth Day with concerns about climate change. Like many activist concerts, the event was a strange marriage of musicians, policy wonks, and celebrities, matching bands like O.A.R. and Mambo Sauce with speakers like actor Edward Norton, and climate scientist James Hansen.
The weather may have put a stop to the concert, but it didn’t deter the crowd from celebrating 4/20. Attendees were openly smoking marijuana, fumes drifting across the Mall, and cheered loudly when several of the musicians made references to the holiday. As Marc Roberge, the lead singer of O.A.R., put it, “It smells like California in D.C.”
Waiting for the Mountain Goats show to start after unremarkable guitar-and-drums band the Moaners opened, I couldn’t avoid looking at two people in front of me. One looked like the photographer from Just Shoot Me, complete with stubble and creepy, David Spade-weary eyes. Another, marked as a high school student because of his shoulder-length blond hair, leather jacket, and passionate attempt to pass lead singer John Darnielle a letter, was blocking my line of sight to the stage because he and his friends had pushed their way to the front. While the former sitcom supporting actor disappeared when the Mountain Goats came on, the kid in the leather jacket only become more visible as the show wore on.
Seeing a band you like touring on an album you don’t like isn’t much fun, but that’s especially so with the Mountain Goats, who played only a handful of songs that weren’t on their latest album, Heretic Pride.
Halfway through the set, Darnielle acknowledged that he had to cancel his Australian tour because of an illness he didn’t name. He called bassist Peter Hughes and his mystery drummer to the stage, said they were a great band, and got on with the show. But the possibility that this might be Darnielle’s last show—reinforced by his talk about mortality-inspired attempts to find religion and ending with “This Year” (”I’m going to make it through this year if it kills me”) hung over our heads like smoke would have before January 2, 2007.
Even if most of the songs were mediocre, the kid in the leather jacket ate them up. He made a heart with his hands , and framed his o-shaped mouth with his hands in surprise during “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” (which the band performed energetically). For the joy Darnielle gives people like that, his career has been worth it, even if it ended that Saturday during Easter Break.
Bjork’s last album, Volta, was mostly a mess. Boasting collaborations with artists from all over the globe (Konono No. 1, Timbaland, Antony Hegarty, among others), it tried to appeal to everyone and instead sounded like Bjork’s most unfocused work in years. Thankfully, though, Bjork has managed to salvage the project by issuing a series of singles from the album, all of which contain new takes on its material.
Ratatat’s remix of “Wanderlust” is the best of these new versions, perhaps because their take sounds very little like the original. Replacing Bjork’s claustrophobic horns and fuzz bass with a giant guitar army and skittering electronics, the Brooklyn-based duo’s remix is a lot more fun and a more engaging listen. Slow-building and spacious, it’s better than anything on Volta. Count me among those shocked by the fact that nobody has offered Ratatat an album-length production opportunity yet. They deserve it.
These days, I tend to be less obsessive compulsive about “wearing in” great new songs. Some folks can still set trusty ol’ iTunes on repeat-track-ad-infinitum mode. Meanwhile, I now squirm anytime someone decides to play a song more than twice in a row. I don’t care if “Sexual Eruption” is catchy, Shira Hecht, knock it off.
There are always exceptions. For example, I’ve recently noticed that I maintain a soft spot for acoustic numbers about large bodies of water. Case in point: “Deep Blue Sea” by Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear, Department of Eagles). “Deep Blue Sea” is one of Rossen’s home recordings and allegedly evolved from an old British sea song.
Though less ambitious than the standouts of Yellow House (2006), “Deep Blue Sea” sustains a graceful balance between lo-fi intimacy and calculated overlays. Rossen’s guileless vocals emanate a ripe, hypnotic calm that melds perfectly with the spacious acoustics of his (cough) home. It’s not that “Deep Blue Sea” is better than Grizzly Bear’s more refined productions, the song simply lets its natural earnest do all the work. And by the time the whistling kicks in, man, we’re just gliding. Reveries abound!
With his fifteen-year-old alt-country outfit, the Old 97’s, releasing their seventh record in May and a solo album in the works, Rhett Miller has a lot to be excited about this year. He’ll begin a string of solo acoustic dates with a stop in D.C. at the Black Cat tonight at 9 pm. Speaking by phone from his home in New York State, Miller shared with us his thoughts on fatherhood, politics and the future of the music industry.
I know you have been in the studio recording your seventh full-length studio album with the Old 97’s; what is the status of that record now?
It’s in the mail coming to me, the final mixes … I’m not going to get into hyperbole, or, you know, build up your expectations too much I hope, but it’s the best record we’ve ever made.
How would you characterize its sound in relation to the other albums, and how do you think fans are going to react? Obviously all your albums are very different.
It’s got a lot of variety on it, but I don’t think it sounds too schizophrenic. Ken [Bethea], our guitar player … says it’s “Too Far to Care” meets “Hitchhike to Rhome,” of all things, our very, very first indie album … it’s very much a guitar record.
I know in the past the band kind of made a decision not to bring in extra musicians to the studio so you could more fully reproduce it live. Did you still consider this on the last album?
I guess it did come up a couple of times, the “How am I going to do this live?” … We worked with Salim Nourallah, who is from Dallas, an amazing up-and-coming producer … He really pushed us in a lot of ways. There are things on this record that we have never had before. There is one song that has a Hammond organ on it, which is a thing that Murry [Hammond, bass player] has always been inexorably, vehemently opposed to. Maybe it’s because he’s named Hammond .
Really, so you think is the one, this is the one where everything really came together?
Yeah, funny that you should say that. Probably I shouldn’t bring it up but right now our working title is “The One.” I just liked the positivity of it and that’s the only song that we’ve pulled from sort of our back catalog of unrecorded material, a song called “The One” that I wrote around “Too Far to Care.” At the time it seemed like “It’s sort of silly to think about this, you know, sort of cocky song about how we’re going to get all the money from the major label.” And now it’s just kind of funny because that’s not even a thing anymore, like that sort of dream of getting signed by a major label and getting rich. It’s not even really a thing anymore, whereas twelve years ago when we signed to Elektra, it was. Everybody thought that was it, that was the end goal, signing to the major label. Now Elektra doesn’t even exist.
The fifth or so time the DJ asked the crowd at the packed Ibiza nightclub Tuesday night if they were ready for Lil’ Wayne, it seemed more like a taunt than anything else. Finally though, Wayne strutted on stage, wearing a pair of shades, a black shirt and diamond necklaces, his entourage overflowing behind him. The front of the raucous crowd, separated from the stage by a narrow walkway, pushed toward Wayne and, in what must be every bouncer’s worst nightmare, Wayne told the bouncers to let them come. The crowd rushed to fill the gap, a woman in a wheelchair sitting in the front was swarmed, and the show was put on hold until the bouncers had settled the crowd.
Then the show, which seemed to be more about Wayne himself than his music, began at last. Wayne, who followed a strong set by D.C. rapper Wale, mixed hits like “Go DJ,” “Hustler Music,” and “Sky’s the Limit” (”This is my idea of positivity,” he told the crowd) with non-stop, self-centered banter. “How many of you are in love?” he asked the crowd. “How many of you are looking for love?” Then, he came to his point. “I’m going to make this easy,” he said. “How many of you are in love with me?” Later, he told the crowd to get out their phones and cameras and, his music on hold, struck various poses for a solid minute.
Wayne’s performance, full of his trademark bravado and showmanship, at times showed why some take his claim to be the best rapper alive seriously. When he stopped his boasting long enough to deliver several lilting raps acapella, he didn’t miss a beat. Other times though, the background track was unchanged from the record version of the song, with the unfortunate result of live Wayne rapping over studio Wayne. And his brief foray into the world of guitar playing left more than a little to be desired.
But his poor guitar playing hardly seemed to matter. Lil’ Wayne is known for not for his Hendrix-like skill but for his wit, his sense of humor, and, perhaps most importantly, his swagger. On those fronts, he certainly delivered.
When indie bands come to D.C., they play at the 9:30 Club or the Black Cat. When big, mainstream acts like the Spice Girls or Hannah Montana come, they hit up the Verizon Center. But when the self-proclaimed Best Rapper Alive blazes into our nation’s capital, where does he go to spit his rhymes?
Well, that’s a bit of a secret. There’s confirmation that the show exists on Wale’s MySpace: “January, 15 2008 at Nike Boots @ a Secret Location with Lil Wayne and Wale, Washington DC 20002,” but there’s no mention of it in the “Tour” section of Lil Wayne’s website, nor almost anywhere else on the web.
Fortunately, Craigslist, as usual, has all the answers. One ticket seller writes that the show, featuring Weezy and Wale, is happening at the Ibiza Nightclub at 8 pm tomorrow night. And you don’t just need a ticket to get into the private show. You need these:
Dogtags. Oh, Lil’ Wayne. As if we didn’t already know you were the best.
It must be tough to be an aspiring singer/songwriter coming from a family full of famous folk singers—you have some pretty big footsteps to follow. But it has its perks, too, as Lucy Wainwright Roche would surely tell you. Finishing off her first year of touring, she opened Friday night for big brother Rufus Wainwright at the 9:30 club to a sold-out crowd, an opportunity not many people in her situation have. But Wainwright Roche, the half-sister of Rufus and Martha Wainwright and daughter of Loudon Wainwright III, was talented and charismatic onstage; her shortcut to what may become fame is certainly deserved. She sang with a strong, confident voice that can reach a remarkably wide range in songs that were charming if not yet complex.
After the enthusiastic reception of his sister, Rufus Wainwright declared that he had “quite an act to follow.” Yet if he actually digs himself as much as he pretends to—he sprinkled the night with comments like “I’m not so simple, but I am gorgeous” and joked that the Iraq War would not have started if he had made it to a pre-invasion protest rather than getting sick—the lack of confidence was a façade.
Wainwright played a fair amount of songs from his 2001 album Poses, such as “Beauty Mark”—about his mother, Kate McGarrigle—“Matinee Idol,” the title song, and “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk.” He repeatedly expressed his displeasure with the current administration, which he called “the reign of terror.” The sentiment was articulated in the lovely song “Going to a Town,” off his 2007 album Release the Stars. Wainwright switched between the piano and acoustic guitar; he is much more proficient at the former instrument, as he acknowledges, strumming at his worn Gibson with a loose hand and no pick.
Though Wainwright is remarkably talented, his unadorned performance rapidly became dull. This was Wainwright’s first solo show in a series meant to supplement his income, as he told the crowd at the beginning of his set. They hardly seemed to care, however. Friday night’s show seemed almost half-hearted on the part of Mr. Wainwright, though definitely not his sister. Fortunately, the audience seemed enthralled simply to be in the Wainwright’s presence, stripped-down though elegant performance notwithstanding.
—Ginia Sweeney, Guest Blogger. Photos by Sam Sweeney, Blog Editor
A conversation about whether the state song of New Jersey was really “about having sex on a motorcycle” led to the discovery of this, Maryland’s state song. And what a song it is. (And what a state she was…)
Here’s a taste:
She breathes! she burns! she’ll come! she’ll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!
Read on. Sexy and John Caroll-related parts are bolded for your pleasure.
Some people have been acting like they’re not excited about seeing Coolio for free tonight on Harbin Field. Even the What’s After Dark e-mail is taking hospitality cues from Lee Bollinger: “Bear witness to the proud living legacy of one of the greatest visionaries of our time: COOLIO. That’s right. That wasn’t a misprint. It’s not a hoax.”
For those of you who think Coolio’s a has-been, here’s how Coolio’s been keeping busy since “Gangsta’s Paradise” (from Wikipedia, naturally):
Coolio has been on Celebrity Fear Factor and made it to the third round
Coolio played a “space age stoner” in Dracula 3000, a made-for-tv movie that has only negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
He was in a Croatian movie!
The last three albums he’s released have all gone gold.
Still, staying on the field after “Gangsta’s Paradise” is socially impermissible.
-Will Sommer, blog editor. Flickr photo from judge-penitent.
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's preeminent newsmagazine since 1969. The opinions expressed in Vox Populi are those of their authors unless specifically stated.
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