Monthly Archives: July 2012

Entertainment, Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Listen Up! 2 albums you should hear.

courtesy of These United States

It’s not super often that I come across albums I can’t stop listening to, can’t get out of my head, and just can’t stop thinking about. If I’m lucky it happens a few times a year, and it’s what I live for. So, for it to happen with two different albums in the course of one week has kind of blown my mind, and I feel it’s my responsibility to share this joy with the world, or at least the We Love DC readers.  The albums are Young People’s Church of the Air by Deleted Scenes, and These United States, self-titled.  Coincidentally both bands have DC connections- Deleted Scenes are based in DC, and These United States started here. These albums have totally distinct sounds, they live in different spots on the musical spectrum, but both are beautiful and brilliant in their own way.

I’ll start with These United States, self-titled. I first became aquainted with the music of These United States several years back, when they were first starting out, and based in DC. I saw them live at Iota, probably around 2007, and their enthusiasm and energy, combined with the charisma of frontman Jesse Elliott was exhilarating. Fast forward five years and just as many albums…the group no longer calls DC home, they are based partly in New York, and spend lots of time on the road. Their fifth studio album, These United States came out in June on Colorado-based United Interests records.

This record makes me want to stomp, holler, daydream and dance. The record is beautifully produced, a shining example of Americana- a lively blend of country sounds, folk, and rock. Jesse Elliott’s lyrics and vocals take you on a journey, weaving and winding from the fast-pasted “Dead and Gone” to the dreamy “Miss Underground” and quiet contemplation of “The Park.”  The sounds that come from J. Tom Hnatow’s guitar and pedal steel are like caramel- so rich, sweet, soulfully delicious. They add a decadence to the recordings that almost makes my ears feel guilty. It’s hard to pick favorites from a record this good (there are no bad songs on this album) but my top songs at the moment are the soulful “Miss Underground”, the classic-rock tinged “Let the River In”, and the jubilant stomp-fest of “Dead & Gone.” But don’t just track-hop this album- it deserves a start-to-finish listening. (Last week I got to ask TUS singer Jesse Elliott a few questions. Check out what he had to say here.) Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Food Truck Tracker

Photo courtesy of ekelly80
perfect day for food trucks
courtesy of ekelly80

It’s freaky Friday the thirteenth! And I’m double-dog daring you to eat at 13 food trucks. Where can you find 13 food trucks? On our strEATS-powered map, that’s where! You’ll find most of them at Truckeroo today from 11 AM to 11 PM. How convenient for you, food truckers.

If you miss them today, look for some of the food trucks at tomorrow’s Mother Trucker at Capitol Skyline Hotel from 11 AM to 8 PM.

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We Love Weekends
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We Love Weekends – July 13 to 15

Photo courtesy of thisisbossi
2012 06 14 – 2845 – DC – Flag Day
courtesy of thisisbossi

Carl: On Friday I have two events to attend. The first is an open house at The Sphinx Club in DC and after a brief appearance there, Beautiful Girlfriend and I will go to a freind’s birthday party at the Ram’s Head Tavern Savage Mill. Saturday I will be catching up on some photography assignments and also have an appointment with someone who wants to be part of my tattoo photo project. I am looking forward to getting back into this project. I also hope to get together that afternoon with Wayan Vota so he can sample my homebrew, especially the kvass I made a few weeks ago. Sunday will be set aside as a day of rest. And gardening. I have lots of garden work to do.

Photo courtesy of a digital cure
Fringefest
courtesy of a digital cure

Joanna: Fringe, Fringe, Upstate NY, and then some Fringe.

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Food and Drink, Foodie Roundup, The Features
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We Love Food: July 2012 Events Roundup

Photo courtesy of yostinator
Pie eatin’ contest
courtesy of yostinator

The summer: a time when life in general is meant to slow down, so that you have that warm, fuzzy feeling of relaxation that you enjoyed so much as a kid when school let out. But rather than slowing down, the food scene in DC is picking up in the month of July. Here’s our roundup on what’s happening for the remainder of this month. Get your forks ready.

PAUL’s Bastille Day Baguette Race
Saturday, July 14
Break out that French maid costume. PAUL Bakery in Penn Quarter is hosting their 2nd annual Baguette Relay Race where the baton is replaced by the baguette. Racers will be split into four teams of six people, each led by a PAUL employee. The kid’s race starts at 10:30 AM, and adults get to race starting at 11 AM. Be the first team to finish the race around the U.S. Navy Memorial and each member of your team will receive a $25 PAUL gift card. You can sign up for the race on PAUL’s Facebook page.

All-You-Can-Eat Oyster Festival at Pearl Dive
Saturday, July 14, 2 PM to 4 PM
Natalia says: It’s Bastille Day Saturday, and what better way to celebrate the French than slurping oysters and some bubbly? Lucky for you, Pearl Dive Oyster Palace and Black Jack are having an all-you-can-eat oyster festival.  Priced at $65 per person (tax and gratuity not included), you can down unlimited oysters along with two varieties of beer and Argyle Sparkling Wine. Rappahannock Oysters and Stingray Oysters from Rappahannock River Oysters, LLC as well as Broadwater Oysters from Broadwater Oyster Company will be featured. If you need some visual motivation and want to become savvy on oyster farming, check out Marissa’s story on the Rappahannock River Oysters here.

Tickets to the oyster fest, starting at 2pm, are available at the door only. Shuck away.

Urbana’s Sixth Birthday
Friday, July 13 to Saturday, July 21
Happy sixth birthday to Urbana! You celebrate your birthday for a whole week, so why shouldn’t they? Starting with an oyster and beer happy hour on Friday, July 13th from 4 to 7 PM, you’ll get to hang out with chef John Critchley and slurp oysters for 50 cents each and drink Port City Revival Oyster stout for $4 per pint. After the happy hour, from July 14th through 21st you can get half a dozen War Shore oysters and a pint of the Port City oyster stout for $6 during happy hour from 4 to 7 PM, $10 glasses of Veuve Clicquot during dinner and at the bar during happy hour. And of course, a birthday wouldn’t be complete without something sweet: during the week all guests get a complimentary ice cream cone with dinner.

Continue reading →

The Features
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Pepco’s Bill Stabilization Adjustment: the most expensive bad PR they could have ever asked for

Photo courtesy of Hoffmann
P.E.P.Co
courtesy of Hoffmann

It’s insult to injury, really, the bill stabilization adjustment. The line item on your next Pepco bill, Maryland readers, that says “bill stabilization adjustment” is the result of the work of the Maryland Public Service Commission and the utilities, and it allows the power companies to charge you for when you didn’t have power as a result of damage to their system.

Translated? They can bill you for when you didn’t have power.

They can bill you for when your refrigerator was off and its contents were quickly spoiling.

They can bill you for when the A/C was off, and you were sweltering in your living room.

They can bill you for when you couldn’t do your laundry, or watch TV, or even run a fan.

They can’t bill you much (according to one expert, it’ll be less than a buck on average), but every penny they collect with that bill stabilization adjustment line item is a penny you pay with a spirit of spite, hatred and vitriol, a reminder that they’re not doing everything they can to make their system more reliable, and they can still benefit from it. One need only read Drew Magary’s epic profanity-strewn rant on Gawker about having to pay the small fee to see that this one’s already out of Pepco’s hands.

So, when does it change around here? When do we get to remind the public utilities that they ought to be serving the public? Soon. I’ve talked with two separate groups working hard to give DC and Maryland customers more options for their power company, one backed by Greenpeace Director of Online Strategy Kevin Grandia, another backed by Robert Robinson (they’re still getting their petition efforts together). Both are gearing up for a long effort to see if they can’t remove Pepco’s monopoly status for the region, and to municipalize the utility’s area of control here in the District, hoping that multiple companies might compete to take over the DC power market and focus on the reliability of the system, as opposed to its profitability.

Friday will be an interesting day, as the Council of DC has called for hearings at the Wilson Building to ask Pepco about the failings surrounding the storm on the 29th of June that left more than half of the city and surrounds without power. That will be fascinating, as both groups of petitioners are working to be present at those hearings and to remind everyone of the 2010 Washington Post analysis that showed that Pepco’s customers suffered from more outages than most other major cities, that outage times were longer than in other cities, and that real reliability efforts were not undertaken.  In the two years since that report was released by the Post, we’ve still seen a high number of outages in the District, as well as a failure on the part of Pepco to underground their equipment for higher reliability. 

If you want to testify at the hearing, you have until the close of business to register with the council and provide copies of your written testimony. There are more details on the hearing page for how to do this and submit your information.

Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: …And We Love Bartenders (RIP, KT)

Photo courtesy of furcafe
035144-02
courtesy of furcafe

A very lovely woman passed away on Tuesday. Her name was KT Robeson. If you met her randomly, you would see she was very statuesque. If you knew her better, you would learn she was sassy and fun — and she loved to dance. She loved to go to places like Marvin, the Black Cat, DC9 and the Rock and Roll Hotel. She also happened to have worked at some of those places.

Like us, she loved music. I personally met her acquaintance because, not too long ago, she worked as a bartender and a manager at the Rock and Roll Hotel and especially DC9. I only ever became a casual friend to her but I enjoyed talking to her. I continued to run into her regularly when she came around to see her true friends and family: her fellow nightlife industry compatriots — the bar owners, bar managers, bartenders, bar backs, bouncers, technicians and DJs who make up that tight-knit community responsible for any successful music venue, dance hall or dive bar with a good ol’ jukebox.

We sometimes take these folks for granted if we don’t work in the industry ourselves because we are all very busy. But they serve as our hosts, entertainers, cooks, protectors, janitors and sometimes our nannies. Sometimes they become our acquaintances, fellow jokesters, confidants or just good listeners. Sometimes they truly become friends. They generally are good people that don’t mind doing a job that essentially ensures *we* get to have a good time.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Uber wants to bring you ice cream

Photo courtesy of Mr. T in DC
fro-zen-yo Hot Fudge Sundae
courtesy of Mr. T in DC

This feels like something that should have happened on April 1st, but instead, it’s happening in the middle of the summer. Purveyors of black car service Uber, whose existence was something of a puzzle to the Council of DC this week, is going to bring you some ice cream if you ask. They’re deploying their service via a few ice cream trucks later this week, according to their blog. $12 gets you 5 ice creams for your friends (said to be Klondikes and King Kones, amongst other frozen treats) charged to your card on file.

Service area will be limited, but defined boundaries are currently not available. Still, this seems to be the sort of thing you might enjoy, dear reader, so get your Uber app out and see if you can summon an ice cream truck this Friday.

Entertainment, Interviews, Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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Q&A with Girl In A Coma

photos courtesy of Girl In A Coma

This week We Love DC guest writer Greg Svitil got a chance to chat with bassist Jenn Alva of rock trio Girl In A Coma about life on the road, music as catharsis, Amanda Lepore and more.  Girl In A Coma will be playing at Red Palace on Friday, July 13th.

Greg Svitil: You seem to be touring non-stop lately.  How has spending so much time traveling and playing shows grown your connection as band mates and as friends or sisters? 

Jenn Alva: We do tour a lot and luckily, we love what we do. The girls and I have always been great friends from even before GIAC had begun. That was an advantage in becoming band mates. We were able to communicate calmly about band decisions and writing. The amount of time we spend touring has really helped as well. We are a tight team. We are family.

Greg: You manage to squeeze a lot into your time on the road.  Beyond nightly shows, you’ve been doing a lot of radio shows such as NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, and Nina has been playing solo as well.  How do you balance everything and maintain your energy level? 

Jenn: We try to do as much as we can on the road. We actually feel like we should be doing more. Our energy levels remain high because we adore our latest album Exits & All the Rest, and fall in love again with old songs we dust off and place in the set. Which keeps us excited to play day or night. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed, Ward 5
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A wet night in Bloomingdale

Bloomingdale DC Flooding

Photo courtesy of Greg Roberts

This evening’s storms have parts of Rhode Island Avenue closed in Bloomingdale due to heavy flooding. The flooding through Bloomingdale is substantial and several houses are reporting flood basements as a high-capacity rainstorm stalled out over the District this evening around 7pm. This photo, taken by friend of We Love DC Greg Roberts shows a swamped Rhode Island Avenue, with almost ten inches of water.

Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie reported that there was sewage mixed with the rainwater, showing that perhaps DC Water might have work to do in the area this evening. Our thoughts are with all those suffering property damage and loss of living space tonight.

Farm Fresh, Ward 6
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Farm Fresh: New Tuesday Market at Eastern Market

Photo courtesy of ep_jhu
Eastern Market on a Hot Day
courtesy of ep_jhu

So I have to admit, I really do not love the outdoor farmer’s market at Eastern Market on the weekends. I’m not talking about the flea market with all the mirrors, animal hats and necklaces, I’m talking about the food part. Maybe I’m spoiled, but I don’t think repackaged baby carrots or oranges and bananas (clearly not grown in the Mid-Atlantic region) count as a farmer’s market. See, in the picture above, you see strawberries right next to apples. If you’re growing locally, the strawberries would happen for a few glorious short weeks in early spring and the apples arrive much later in fall.

When I go to a market, I want 100% local. And I want fresh, as in, vine to me in less than 24 hours. And sadly, I don’t see a ton of that at Eastern Market normally. But all this might change today with the announcement of the new “Fresh Tuesdays” farmer’s market at Eastern Market. Continue reading →

The Features
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2012 Capital Fringe Festival

Photo courtesy of a digital cure
Fringefest
courtesy of a digital cure

For anyone interested in an adventure, the Capital Fringe Festival is back with over 130 productions in 15 venues across downtown DC, ranging from highly experimental performance art to staged clown shows for the kids. The frenzy opens this Thursday and runs July 12-29, 2012.

Love it or hate it (and you’ll probably do some of both), the Capital Fringe Festival is where DC’s indie companies and performers come to experiment and test their skills. An incubator for young shows, the festival encourages innovation and self-production. It also encourages the rest of us to go out on a limb and experience theater of all varieties – the good, the bad, and the bizarre. Some performances will leave us thinking, while others will leave us thinking “what the #^$% was that?”

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Talkin' Transit, The Daily Feed
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[Updated] The Uber Conundrum

Photo courtesy of danpeerflix
I’m coming to get ya @patdryburgh cc @uber
courtesy of danpeerflix

Late yesterday, in an email to their customers, Uber’s DC operations group sounded the alarm about the Taxicab Modernization Act that is before the Council today.  The email read, in part, “The Council’s intention is to prevent Uber from being a viable alternative to taxis by enacting a price floor to set Uber’s minimum fare at today’s rates and no less than 5 times a taxi’s minimum fare.”  The language that has Uber riled up here has to do with a new class of taxi service in DC, the sort that Uber provides.  

The new sedan service is designed to build a place for companies like Uber to operate free from intervention from the DC Taxicab Commission’s regulations, which would require the cars have metering systems, GPS tracking, and those godawful advertising systems like you see in New York Cabs, amongst other things. So long as they were to abide by an initial minimum fare that was 5 times the minimum fare of the taxi system, Uber would get to stand free and clear of the taxi system.

One small problem. Uber wants to charge less than their current $15 minimum for their new UberX service which is designed to send less luxurious vehicles (hybrid cars, in fact) to pick you up throughout the city.  This new law would torpedo their plans to charge customers less for the new hybrid service.

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Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of gerdaindc
AdMo fireworks
courtesy of gerdaindc

It’s hard to get a good street photo that includes fireworks. After all, most people don’t want to get too close to something that’s exploding or spouting fire. But Gerda pulled off such a shot nicely. Check out what looks like a couple of families having an impromptu fireworks display on the streets of Adams Morgan. The father and daughter fascinated by the large sparkler in the street; the boy off to the side with his personal sparkler just being lit; and all of the spectators simply enjoying the show. This shot looks like something from a 1950s movie; hard to believe it was taken last week. It’s nice to know that this is still a sight that can be seen on the 4th.

The Daily Feed
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Parks & Rec filming in DC!

Photo courtesy of jsmjr
I can haz dog park?
courtesy of jsmjr

Michael Ausiello of TV Line is reporting that NBC TV Comedy Parks & Rec will have some scenes actually shot in DC, as they look for locations for Adam Scott’s Ben Wyatt character, who was shipped off to the Capital City in last season’s finale. Ausiello guesses that we’ll also see Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope here in DC also.

Maybe we can get a sweet scene filmed at one of the city’s beautiful pocket parks? I’m sure there’s tons of comedy in itsy bite-sized parks throughout the city.

Life in the Capital, The Daily Feed
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Big Sleep tonight at National Theater

The Bogey/Bacall classic The Big Sleep is on the silver screen down at the National Theater tonight after work, with the curtain drawing at 6:30pm. The showing’s free, and is the first of eight straight weeks of the best of Bogart, with Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the Maltese Falcon, and The African Queen coming up in the next few weeks.

It’s hard not to love Bogey’s sad eyes, and the lovely Lauren Bacall, so plan accordingly, DC.

The Daily Feed
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DC Public Trust turns in 30,000 petition signatures

The Petitions Arrive

The box was guarded with care, cradled by a DC Public Trust staffer as the group walked down 4th Street to the Judiciary Square headquarters of the DC Board of Elections to turn in their efforts. The group, lead by DC ANC Commissioner Sylvia Brown and city advocate Bryan Weaver, collected over 30,000 signatures across all eight wards of the city to put an initiative on the ballot to ban corporate donations to five kinds of political committees, including principal campaign committees (the fundraising bodies used by candidates during elections) and constituent service funds and transition committee funds.

The group had to collect signatures from 5% of the registered electorate in DC, or approximately 23,000 signatures, including per-ward totals of 5% in five of the eight wards.  DC Public Trust exceeded the 5% mark in six of the eight wards, and each with a cushion of 20% over the required number. Continue reading →

Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Howard Jones @ The Howard Theatre — 7/5/12 (or “Howard at The Howard”)

Photo courtesy of zannaland
IMG_0139
courtesy of zannaland

Once upon a time, Howard Jones rolled through the DC metro area and played some of his familiar hits.

It was Oct. 3, 2007, actually. He performed at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., and it was frankly not the greatest show I ever had seen. The famously camera-shy Englishman played acoustic piano, strumming keys to lyrics he had written some 20 years previously, only to stop frequently and poke fun at his own songwriting abilities and the occasional curious rhyme. He had become Howard Jones, The Lounge Act. All in all, it was a bit of a disheartening experience.

Continue reading →