Mickey – We Love DC http://www.welovedc.com Your Life Beyond The Capitol Thu, 18 Jul 2019 08:58:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.9 Capital Chefs: Aaron Silverman of Rose’s Luxury http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/23/capital-chefs-aaron-silverman-of-roses-luxury/ Thu, 23 Oct 2014 19:55:28 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98483 Aaron Silverman in the kitchen of Rose's Luxury (Photo courtesy Rose's Luxury)

Aaron Silverman in the kitchen of Rose’s Luxury (Photo courtesy Rose’s Luxury)

We’re revisiting our Capital Chefs feature with a series by music reporter Mickey McCarter. A lot has been happening recently in kitchens in D.C. restaurants, and Mickey takes a look into them from his usual seat at the bar in this series, which runs occasionally on Thursdays.

Aaron Silverman credits his neighborhood, Barracks Row in Eastern Market (on Capitol Hill), with the success of his restaurant, Rose’s Luxury.

And a desire to stay connected to that neighborhood is one of the big motivators for why the chef/owner does not take reservations, despite some controversy surrounding the policy.

“We don’t like kicking people out of their seats to sit the next person down,” Silverman told me in a recent phone conversation, “but a big part of it is that it’s advantageous to the neighborhood. All of the people in the neighborhood are at an advantage because they don’t have to drive for an hour or fly to get to us and then find out that we are full. Their risk is much lower. They can just walk across the street.”

Whether a restaurant takes reservations or no, its customers still have to play a waiting game. With reservations, they are calling on the phone every day with hopes to get a seat—four, six or eight weeks out. With no reservations, diners have the opportunity to show up that very day, but they may have to wait in line.

“Anybody who wants to be at Rose’s today can eat there today—guaranteed. You may have to get in line early and you may have to wait, but you are guaranteed to eat dinner there today if you want to,” Silverman declared. “If we took reservations only, we would be booked and there would be no way. You couldn’t just go.”

The policy of no reservations is the “lesser evil” because people who have waited can enjoy their meals for as long as they like, Silverman said.

And there has been plenty to like about Rose’s Luxury, which has an off-beat menu that contributed to it being named the best restaurant in the United States by Bon Appétit magazine in August. The recognition was only the latest in the string of accolades that have kept Silverman personally very busy jumping around the country when he’s not cooking or expediting food on his own line.

The staggering popularity, coupled with the no reservations policy, has kept Rose’s Luxury quite full mostly every day.

“It keeps your tables more full. The more full you are, the more money you make and the lower you can keep your prices and the more you can do for your staff,” Silverman said.

Pickle-brined fried chicken

Pickle-brined fried chicken

Indeed, the humble Silverman contributes the restaurant’s success to his staff—“very talented people that we are fortunate to work with.” And while the food may be good, the staff also are the single strongest element of the restaurant, the chef said.

“While our food is good, I don’t think it’s the strongest aspect of the restaurant. That’s our hospitality and our general attitude toward our employees and guests. That’s a huge reason for our success,” Silverman said.

Throughout his career, the chef said he’s only really learned to cook. He didn’t manage people because he didn’t want to do so, and he didn’t set out to own a restaurant.

But he read Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by New York restaurateur Danny Myer, and it really affected him. He started thinking about the restaurant business in a different way. Silverman then developed and nurtured an ambition to run his own place.

“Danny Myer’s book really made me think about things a lot,” Silverman said. “That’s how I approach things now. I constantly ask, ‘Why?’ Why do we have to do this way or why do we have to do this or that? And can we do it a different way?

“So many things are ingrained because they’ve been around forever, and I kept asking, ‘Why does it have to be that way?’” he continued. “A lot of times it does have to be that way, and it makes sense. But sometimes it doesn’t have to be. Learning to think differently came from Danny Myer’s book, which really opened my eyes.”

The book also reinforced something he had seen at restaurants in New York—the quality of life for employees is very important. Myer advised putting employees first always, and Silverman agreed after finding that important in his restaurant jobs. So the chef likes to spoil and bond with his staff. For example, he closed the restaurant after training yesterday and took everyone bowling.

“There are some upsides to being as popular as we are. You are busy all the time; you make more money; you can afford to do nicer things for your employees—you can afford to give your managers rotating three day weekends every other weekend,” Silverman said. “There are things you can do that are very nice.”

Of course, hiring very skilled staff also helps to make great food. And Silverman acknowledged that he wants everything on his menu to be remarkable.

“We try to be very picky about what we put on the menu. We don’t just put anything on. We really taste and taste and taste anywhere from 20 to 200 times before we put something on the menu and make sure it’s craveable,” Silverman said. “I didn’t want to have a menu that only had two hits on it. I wanted to have a menu where everything is a hit.”

Silverman’s personal favorites at his own restaurant tend to be pastas and desserts. He calls last year’s mushroom gnocchi “fantastic.” And up until last month, Rose’s Luxury offered a sun-gold tomato sorbet that Silverman also admired. An earlier poached pear with smoked cheese also drew fond memories.

Challah bread at my first meal at Rose's Luxury

Challah bread at my first meal at Rose’s Luxury

Little things that Rose’s Luxury does like its hot bread, free to diners seated for entrees, are also a big hit with everyone. Sitting outside the open kitchen, you can watch the bread as it comes out of the oven—and its smell is always as delightful as its taste.

“It’s something that we didn’t have to do. But that’s the whole point. We didn’t have to do it. And that’s why it’s awesome. We didn’t have to, but we ask, how can we take it to the next level? How can we make such value for people that it’s surprising?” Silverman said.

As successful as the menus at Rose’s Luxury have been so far, Silverman has “about 500” other things he would like to add to them. He keeps playing around with these unfulfilled ambitions when he has the time, which has been scarce lately.

“We’ve really wanted to do a roasted onion dish—sweet onions that are roasted. We’ve done them at pop ups in the past before we opened,” Silverman said. “It’s the whole onion roasted with the skin covered in butter and salt, and roasted for four or five hours until it becomes completely melted inside. It’s sweet and all of the juice comes out and that starts to caramelize and turn into an onion caramel.

“We’ve been working on this dish for a long time but it’s never really come to fruition,” he added.

The staff also have envisioned uni French toast, following on the heels of the restaurant’s foie gras French toast. They have developed uni ice cream but they have not yet assembled the full dish.

“Uni ice cream is fantastic. It sounds weird and often those things are weird, but in this case it’s incredible,” Silverman said.

Bucatini with sungold tomato sauce

Bucatini with sungold tomato sauce


Silverman came to DC because he feels it fosters that sort of creativity. He was seeking a good quality of life for himself and his future employees, and he felt that DC had the right mix of ingredients to support the sort of venture he sought to create.

“DC is changing tremendously and that’s the coolest part of DC—that it changes so fast,” Silverman said. “There is the intelligence, drive and the money to support it in DC, so change can happen so rapidly. It’s incredible, and it’s amazing for business and amazing for creativity. It’s awesome that the city accepted us and what we are doing.”

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We Love Music: Ought @ DC9 –10/16/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/17/we-love-music-ought-dc9-101614/ Fri, 17 Oct 2014 17:28:28 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98474 Ought (Photo courtesy Constellation Records)

Ought (Photo courtesy Constellation Records)

Tim Beeler is on your stage, and he has something he wants to say to you.

Guitar in hand, sometimes he sings it to you, but just as often it seems, he speaks over the snappy art punk beats of his band, Ought.

And Beeler wants to talk about being in the moment, being in love, putting things together — but all in a perspective from “every man.” In that way perhaps, the lanky vocalist is extremely reminiscent of David Byrne or Lou Reed in his delivery.

Thursday night at DC9, Ought opened with “Today More Than Any Other Day,” an amazing tribute really to living one’s life. It’s a bit like lyrics by Byrne superimposed over melodies that could have come from Television. Musically, Ought could have sprung straight from 1977 via New York City.

Take a look at these lyrics from “Today”:

“I am excited to feel the milk of human kindness
And today more than any other day
I am excited to go grocery shopping
And today more than any other day
I am prepared to make the decision between two percent and whole milk”

Today more than any other day, I’m excited to listen to this band!

The rest of the band consists of keyboardist Matt May, drummer Tim Keen and bassist Ben Stidworthy. The quartet live in Montreal, where they met in college, but they are all ex-pats. Three of them hail from the United States while drummer Keen is Australian.

Keyboards are used as backing emphasis to a jangly guitar and a punk rock rhythm section. The melodies are spare and infectious.

The band’s debut LP, titled More Than Any Other Day, consists of eight songs that run on average about six minutes long. They just about performed all of them last night. At times, the material really verges very closely to that of one of my all-time favorite bands, the Talking Heads, perhaps nowhere more so on the very good song “Habit.”

Beeler sings:
“In a nonspecific party, in a nonspecific city
Or anywhere
Anyway you feel this way like this song or that song
Act like you feel it but it doesn’t heal you, it doesn’t make you smile”

And he cleverly addresses the feeling of falling in love as “a habit forming” and sings in such a Byrnesque manner during the chorus “And there it comes again! And I give in again!”–being sharp yet vague and resonant yet punchy all at the same time.

Now don’t get me wrong. As much as I like to run away with these comparisons to my musical heroes, Ought are no pastiche. The four young gents have their own personality, their own rhythmic cohesion. Beeler seems very comfortable in his own skin, providing the aura of a congenial tour guide/academic. Overall the band members have a strong focus and a good rapport amongst themselves and their audience.

They only have two more U.S. shows on this leg of their tour—in Princeton, NJ on Saturday and SUNY Purchase on Sunday—before dashing off to Europe. They’ll surely be back soon, likely to play to an even bigger audience.

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We Love Music: Yelle @ 9:30 Club — 10/11/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/14/we-love-music-yelle-930-club-101114/ Tue, 14 Oct 2014 16:18:18 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98469

About two-thirds of the way through her set, French pop siren Yelle strides up to a platform to situate herself between the two drummers comprising her band.

Performing the bright electropop song “Tohu” from her new album, Complètement fou, she picks up a disco ball and holds it in her hands before her. Laser-like lightbeams crisscrossing the stage until this point changed direction to target the ball.

The lights scatter from the disco ball. The resulting light shower rained out over the room and the audience, and everyone was dazzled.

Yelle followed up the theatrics by bouncing right into the popular “Safari Disco Club,” the title track to her second album.

Indeed, light tricks or no, the sold-out audience was consistently dazzled by Yelle when she stopped by the 9:30 Club on Saturday, Oct. 11 in a tour supporting the latest album, released last month.

All of her songs are in her native French, and anecdotally, much of the audience didn’t speak fluent French. But that didn’t stop Yelle from winning admirers old and new with her upbeat attitude, sassy demeanor and danceable synthpop

She sang in French; she danced around stage; and she periodically struck poses during dramatic pauses, freezing in her tracks while her two drummers — producer Grand Marnier and Franck Richard — stopped and pointed their drumsticks at her.

A lifetime ago, I studied six years of French, and I can still recall enough of it to read simple passages or, for my own benefit, to understand that “Je Veux Te Voir” or “I Want to See You” is a pretty dirty song. (Of course, that tune from her debut album, Pop Up, won me over because it was written initially as a retort to a misogynistic rapper named Cuizinier. The lady has spunk!)

The crowd definitely lit up at the proven hits like “Comme Un Enfant” and “A Cause des Garcons”–songs of innocence and exasperation driven by love or lust, respectively. But everyone embraced the new material as well, singing and dancing to the encore of “Complètement fou” as if they learned it especially for that occasion.

For her part, Yelle seemed positively pleased to have drawn such a large enthusiastic crowd. I caught her twice previously at the 9:30 Club in support of her two previous albums, and the crowd certainly has grown each time she has come through. It’s remarkable how people who don’t know her lyrics word for word due to the language barrier nevertheless embrace her playful pop poise and Euro new wave sensibilities.

If you would like to “rendez-vous avec Yelle,” you are mostly in luck – her U.S. tour has barely started. She’s in Toronto, Canada, Wednesday but then returns to the States for a date in Cleveland Friday to dash across the Midwest to the West Coast and through Texas.

Yelle has been selling out many of the venues on this tour, and you should make the effort to join those crowds, whether you understand a word she sings or not! She’s bound to win you over either way.

Amuse-toi bien!

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Capital Chefs: Alex McCoy of Duke’s Grocery http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/09/capital-chefs-alex-mccoy-of-dukes-grocery/ Thu, 09 Oct 2014 18:05:05 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98447
Alex McCoy at the bar in Duke's Grocery

Alex McCoy at the bar in Duke’s Grocery

We’re revisiting our Capital Chefs feature with a series by music reporter Mickey McCarter. A lot has been happening recently in kitchens in D.C. restaurants, and Mickey takes a look into them from his usual seat at the bar in this series, which runs occasionally on Thursdays.

Alex McCoy, the chef and co-owner of Duke’s Grocery, really doesn’t like to make a dish unless he’s traveled to its country of origin.

“You can go online right now, and if you want to learn how to make Indian food, you could spend hours and hours and hours watching videos and tutorials and reading up about it,” McCoy said.

“Twenty years ago, in order to do the same, you would either have to live in India or work with an Indian chef,” he told me one recent sunny afternoon while sitting on the patio of his East London-inspired bar and restaurant.

McCoy believes there is an element of authenticity to the latter approach, which he takes very seriously. For example, the young chef very much enjoys papaya salad, and perfected his own after travels to Thailand. While anyone may look up how to make a papaya salad, it’s a totally different experience to experience the food directly from a street vendor who has lived with the dish her entire life and who has made it in front of you, he said.

“In many cases, unless you’ve seen someone making that dish in its element and in the place it was created, it’s really hard to respect food the way food should be respected,” McCoy said.

Today, he quipped, he envisions a little old lady from Thailand sitting next to him whenever he makes his papaya salad. This woman represents the street vendors he grew to love there. If he gets the salad wrong, she scolds him.

There is very little, if anything, to find wrong about Duke’s Grocery, the 17th Street pub McCoy founded with two business partners a little over a year ago. The cozy, friendly establishment seems like an extension of the affable McCoy’s personality. And it serves up food he knows very well.

McCoy’s parents grew up in London and met there. Starting from his birth, he would travel there a lot with his mother, a chef, and his father, a government official. And from a young age, he experienced traditional British and immigrant foods that pervaded the city of London, particularly its East End.

Eventually, McCoy determined he too would be a chef, and worked at various restaurants, eventually running the kitchen at the Rugby Café in Georgetown until it closed. But a couple of equally influential things occurred along the way. McCoy and his brother won an NBC television competition called Chopping Block in 2009, which led to an opportunity to work with Marco Pierre White, who is now enshrined in portrait at Duke’s.

“That was massively influential,” McCoy said of the month-long experience of learning from the youngest British chef ever to earn three Michelin stars. “It’s asking the Dalia Lama, What’s the meaning of life? You can spend a whole lifetime researching it and trying to figure it out or you could ask this guy.”

McCoy also has worked with Roberto Donna, most notably managing the bar at Al Dente, where Donna shared his love of Italian food with the younger chef.

“He gave me the opportunity to learn recipes from him. He’s a spectacular teacher and a really nice guy,” McCoy said. “Roberto is such a chef through and through to the core, he would put 800 things on the menu just so he would have the opportunity to work with 800 different ingredients. He just loves food and making food so much.”

McCoy vowed to open his own place by the time he was 30 years-old, and indeed signed the lease on Duke’s only days before his deadline.

Once McCoy and his two business partners set the restaurant in motion, he knew the kitchen would draw its inspirations from East London, and specifically the neighborhood of Shoreditch, home to Brick Lane curries—and in my opinion an endlessly fascinating nightlife scene.

“I kept hearing people talk about how the food in London is terrible. I kept saying to myself, ‘Well, you don’t know London then, because there’s fantastic food in London!'” McCoy declared.

London itself has a truly international atmosphere, McCoy said, and nowhere is that more obvious than during a walk through Shoreditch, where you can find a banh mi shop, a funky bar, a traditional pub and a Bengali restaurant in the same block. There along Brick Lane, a stone’s throw from the famous Rough Trade East record shop, you’ll find the world-famous Beigel Bake, home to a renowned brisket called salt beef, a dish Duke’s Grocery has introduced to D.C. with resounding success.

The international backdrop of East London and its immigrant-heavy population also gives Duke’s Grocery an opening to put a lot of different dishes on its menu.

“Because we idolize a neighborhood that has so many culturally diverse influences, there is really no limit to what we can do,” McCoy said. “I can really experiment with a whole spectrum of cuisine and then mix and match. And try to see how we can combine different kinds of influences together that’s unique but still representative of that part of town.”

While the international flavor of Duke’s cuisine might go over well with the denizens of well-traveled D.C., McCoy thinks the comfort of a local, familiar spot has just as much if not more to do with the success of Duke’s Grocery to date.

“When I was a kid growing up here, you had a lot of big restaurants and types of places where you are working on the Hill and swipe your corporate card and take someone to a meeting but you didn’t really have a focus on things like 17th Street or 14th Street,” he said. “There wasn’t that space with a neighborhood gathering point, but now more and more neighborhoods are trying to find those places.”

A comfortable, familiar space gives McCoy an opportunity to introduce his diners to things they may never have tried previously. By the same token, McCoy favors a familiar format for delivering that food—sandwiches (or “sarnies” in the British vernacular).

“One of the reasons we chose sandwiches is that you can be from Southeast Asia or South America or Europe or the United States and you still feel comfortable ordering a sandwich, because a sandwich is a sandwich,” McCoy said. “It’s a vehicle to introduce people to things they may or may not be comfortable with on a regular basis in a way they are okay with it. They will give it a shot.”

The Brick Lane Salt Beef (the signature brisket of which appears in other sandwiches like the Ruby on Rye) was a hit in part because it was new yet familiar, McCoy said. The salt beef has been surpassed in recent months by the Proper Burger, which has won accolades at home and across the country for being remarkably tasty. McCoy originally resisted the idea of a burger because he wanted to avoid typical D.C. “pub grub.” He warmed to the idea eventually but he wanted it to be the best it could be.

“As opposed to the big thick burger, I kept saying to myself, ‘What’s the best burger? What are the burgers I go crazy for?'” McCoy said. “They are usually the greasy, cheesy Five Guys or diner burger. Those are always the best burgers. You always eat them at 3 o’clock in the morning and nosh on some massive, greasy burger. We tried to do our spin on that. That’s why we do the thin patties and the double decker piled high with toppings.”

McCoy personally enjoys the curries at Duke’s Grocery, which are made from scratch. He’ll ship ingredients from India to get them right (just as he sources authentic ingredients for all of his dishes).

In the future, McCoy plans to expand his kitchen so that he can offer the salt beef all of the time instead of only periodically, as it takes two weeks to prepare the beef, which then sells quickly at 600-700 lbs. a clip.

“I generally don’t plan menus ahead of time. They appear when they appear,” McCoy confessed.

That said, he is interested in adding charcuterie, cured bacon and homemade pastas to the rotations on Duke’s menus. And he would like to see more Indian curries on a regular basis, along with tikka masala, lamb vindaloo and Indian Dal.

Personally, I discovered Shoreditch and its wonderful variety of food, the very staples of Duke’s Grocery, because of my own musical interests. During several visits to London, I’ve done little other than shop at Rough Trade, hit the stages and turntables during the Stag and Dagger music festival, or marvel at the environments that housed such places as John Foxx’s recording studio The Garden.

So of course, I had to ask McCoy about his own taste in music.

“My menu is very representative of my music choices–a little bit of everything,” he said.

Today, that includes some EDM as well as classic rock and modern R&B.

“In the same way food can be beautiful because each dish is the sum of its parts, music is the same way,” McCoy said. “I don’t think one genre of music is better than another. You have to take each genre of music as its own thing and look at all of the different components that go into that. All genres are beautiful in their own way. I love folk music. I love country music. You can’t compare them.”

Duke’s Grocery has won praise for its music playlists as well as its food, and the observation sparks McCoy’s enthusiasm.

“The ambience is as important as the food. Restaurants live and die off details, and the nuances are the most important thing,” McCoy said.

And so all details of a restaurant are equally important, he said. Hold them all the same level of care—whether lighting, music, food, service or bar.

“If you do that and you really respect every little detail in a restaurant, you are going to create a really dynamite atmosphere,” McCoy said. “Great atmosphere makes the food taste better; great food makes the atmosphere feel better; great music makes everything better. They all work together, and that’s what really creates a successful restaurant.”

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Hot Ticket: Yelle @ 9:30 Club, 10/11/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/09/hot-ticket-yelle-930-club-101114/ Thu, 09 Oct 2014 14:19:23 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98441
Yelle (Photo by Maciek Pozoga)

Yelle (Photo by Maciek Pozoga)

At the end of last month, Yelle released her third studio album, Complètement fou — French for “completely crazy” or “stark raving mad.” Yet interestingly, it’s perhaps her smoothest album to date.

The breakout songs from the first two Yelle albums had much more in common with spiky synth beats found in some of her contemporaries in the nu disco scene. By contrast, the songs of Complètement fou are largely more mellow, sparkling with an upbeat 80’s synth sound that you may associate with Goldfrapp or other trailblazing acts that revitalized synth-driven electropop in the past decade.

In support of the new album, Yelle comes to the 9:30 Club on Saturday, Oct. 11. I’ve seen her at the 9:30 Club twice before (on tours supporting Pop Up and Safari Disco Club), and I can report that she’s charming, cute, engaging and entertaining. (I also was extremely impressed with how quickly her English improved!)

Truly, how rare is it that U.S. audiences embrace a foreign pop act that sings in their native tongue? Personally, it takes me back to the days when Falco or Nena could score a hit song in the U.S. top 10 with their own new wave stylings.

Tickets are available online! A bientôt!

Yelle
w/Lemonade
9:30 Club
Saturday, Oct. 11
Doors @ 8pm
$25
All ages

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We Love Music: Lykke Li @ 9:30 Club — 10/6/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/07/we-love-music-lykke-li-930-club-10614/ Tue, 07 Oct 2014 16:57:47 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98432 Lykke Li (Photo courtesy Press Here)

Lykke Li (Photo courtesy Press Here)

The lights and fog on stage created the illusion of a misty sky behind a circular enclosure. Thin, sheer black curtains hanging between the lights created the illusion of a temple.

But the priestess of that temple was no illusion. Indeed, the sold-out crowd gathered at the 9:30 Club Monday night to drink from the altar of their chosen indie singer-songwriter heroine Lykke Li. Clad in flowing black garb, the beguiling Swede struck a moody, artistic note as she paraded and swayed through a solid 75 minutes of sadly atmospheric songs.

Li opened the show with the title track of I Never Learn, her third and latest album released earlier this year. The song, like many of her others, deals with unfulfilling or lost love — and the implication is that “never learning” equates to “never getting over someone.”

Still, Li was gentle and expressive, particularly in her heartfelt statement to her audience midway through one of her first songs urging them to put their cellphones away. Like many other performers known for their fragile composure, Li sought her audience’s agreement that they would not film or take pictures of the performance, although doing so was apparently not outright banned. Perhaps because she asked nicely and promised to give the show her all, everyone in my line of sight complied with the request and dozens of glowing smartphones flickering among the crowd below went dark.

This was my first time seeing Lykke Li perform, and I previously heard that her show was energetic. This performance was more mesmerizing — much more similar to a hypnotizing Lana Del Rey than a combustive Lady Gaga. When Li visits her debut album, Youth Novels, with “Dance, Dance, Dance,” the dancing in question is far more peaceful than frenetic. Even when she closes the main set with second album banger “Get Some” (a surprisingly upbeat celebration of sex), Li remains measured, while still mesmerizing, in her performance.

She delivered an unexpected surprise more than midway through the set with a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire.” It was an interesting choice, which Li presented as an ode to American music, and she certainly added her own flair to the 30-year-old song. Personally, I would have rather heard her go somewhere else for a cover tune, particularly after hearing versions of “I’m on Fire” from other female acts the Chromatics and Bat for Lashes in the past few years.

Toward the end of her set, Li delivered with “Never Gonna Love Again” from the new album, which she introduced as *the* song of the album. “When you love so hard, you lose so hard,” Li said, effectively presenting her mission statement in a beautifully melancholy song worthy of her stature.

Lykke Li has a few U.S. dates remaining on this tour, hitting Atlanta, Orlando and Miami. It’s worth your while to make the pilgrimage to your nearest temple and hear your priestess speak your heartbreak and pain before she departs for other lands, certain to return in no longer than a few years’ time with more tales of lost love.

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Hot Ticket: Tim and Eric & Dr. Steve Brule @ Lincoln Theatre, 10/9 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/06/hot-ticket-tim-and-eric-dr-steve-brule-lincoln-theatre-109/ Mon, 06 Oct 2014 16:00:45 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98423 Tim and Eric @ Dr. Steve Brule Live @ Lincoln Theatre 10/9

Tim and Eric @ Dr. Steve Brule Live @ Lincoln Theatre 10/9

If you’ve caught the Adult Swim programming late night on the Cartoon Network anytime in the last 10 years, you’ve likely encountered surrealist comedy duo Tim and Eric (born Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim).

The two have a new show coming up on the Cartoon Network with Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories, and their well-regarded last show, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, spun off Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule (portrayed by John C. Reilly).

This Thursday, Oct. 9, the Lincoln Theatre hosts two live performances by Tim and Eric AND Dr. Steve Brule—at 7pm and 10pm! The comedy concert promises to bring elements of their television programming to a live venue as Dr. Steve Brule “discovers and shares bits of great knowledge about all areas of life,” in a manner similar to his television show.

The Los Angeles Times gave the stage show a positive review when it hit the west coast last month, as Randall Roberts described some of it:

For their part, the characters played by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the comedy team whose cockeyed sketch series “Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” birthed the cult of Brule, were just as busy and equally disconcerting. As unprepared but confident “improvisers,” the pair set the tone early by utterly failing at improv — with Heidecker shushing and berating the crowd for ruining his focus.

Tim and Eric AND Dr. Steve Brule 2014 Tour
Lincoln Theatre
Doors @7pm
$39.50
16+

Tim and Eric AND Dr. Steve Brule 2014 Tour
Lincoln Theatre
Doors @10pm
$39.50
16+

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Hot Ticket: Kasabian @ 9:30 Club, 9/28/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/09/26/hot-ticket-kasabian-930-club-92814/ Fri, 26 Sep 2014 15:31:51 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98391 Kasabian (Photo courtesy Press Here)

Kasabian (Photo courtesy Press Here)

Neo-psychedelic quartet Kasabian play at the 9:30 Club this Sunday, Sept. 28, in support of their new album, 48:13 (named for its running time), and amazingly tickets are still available.

Kasabian sold out the 9:30 Club the last time they were here and reminded us why they’ve collected a lot of awards for best British live band. We Love DC chatted with guitarist and writer Sergio Pizzorno about the new album, some of its messages and why the band are great performers.

Mickey McCarter: The new album sounds great. How did it come together?

Sergio Pizzorno: From the outset, we try to make futurist rock and roll. The vision at the start was to make a forward-thinking rock record.

When we approach it, we don’t go in there to jam out. It comes from loops and drum patterns. The groove is so important. From the opening tune, when those drums kicks in, you know what it is. It’s become our signature.

MM: There are protests messages in some of the songs on this album.

SP: It’s giving a voice to the underdogs, the outsiders. We’ve been outsiders as a band. It’s trying to bring the people together, rally the people. It’s incredible when people get together. We try to bring as many like-minded people together. When you do that, anything can happen. You can move mountains.

MM: It seems like you’re affected by a lot of things going on today, particularly with surveillance and people being spied upon.

SP: I don’t know what to make of it all. It’s funny. Something like Twitter is like the ultimate spying system. I don’t think people realize it. If I go out to the shop, and if people don’t know where I am, then all you do is type my name into Twitter and within half an hour someone will say, I just saw Serge in the supermarket or I saw him on the bus.

It’s kind of mad! You’re walking around with this GPS in your pocket. No one really thinks or cares about it.

MM: Did you try to get more serious on this album in tackling issues like that?

SP: We try to be really direct and we try to be really honest. I wanted to make that point.

When you’re really honest, it can be dangerous in some ways because it can come across as sentimental or corny.

With this album, I wanted to write a song that was directed to the fan. The people I see every night for the last 10 years of my life. The audience has become a big part of my everyday being. With “Stevie,” for instance, I wanted to give people a riot song.

Together, we are so powerful but we don’t know it yet.

MM: You guys have been called one of the greatest live bands ever, and you’ve won a lot of awards for that.

SP: Again, it’s the honesty. We mean it. In a lot of bands, and it works for them, they assume a character and they become someone completely different. Essentially, what it is, we mean everything we do. Every guitar hit and every word sang, we mean it.

We appreciate how fucking hard people work to get the money to buy a ticket and come see us play. We respect that more than anything. If we get off our asses and play a show, we are going to make sure that show you see is one you never forget. That’s how we’ve always been. We love doing it because it’s real.

MM: When I saw you last, I really thought you and vocalist Tom Meighan have a chemistry somewhat reminiscent of a young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

SP: I always say we are the manga cartoon version of them, like the manga futuristic cartoon drawing of them.

MM: We look forward to seeing you Sunday!

SP: We are always really excited at the start of an American tour, and we’re happy to be returning to the 9:30 Club. We’ve played the 9:30 Club quite a few times now!

Kasabian
w/ Bo Ningen
9:30 Club
Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014
Doors @7pm
$30
All ages

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Q&A: Nina @ 9:30 Club — 9/19/14 (Prior to Opening for Erasure) http://www.welovedc.com/2014/09/22/qa-nina-930-club-91914-prior-to-opening-for-erasure/ http://www.welovedc.com/2014/09/22/qa-nina-930-club-91914-prior-to-opening-for-erasure/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2014 19:57:56 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98356 Nina (Photo courtesy of Aztec Records)

Nina (Photo courtesy of Aztec Records)

Nina, the latest indie-dance chanteuse from the United Kingdom, opened for Erasure in two sold-out dates at the 9:30 Club on Friday, Sept. 19, and Saturday, Sept. 20. If you enjoyed her show in DC or elsewhere, you’ll be pleased to know she has two solo performances coming up in New York City before she returns to London–Friday, Sept. 26, at the Pyramid Club in Alphabet City and Monday, Oct. 13, at Friends and Lovers in Brooklyn.

Watch her video for “We Are the Wild Ones” below and find out more about the artist in our interview afterward! (We talked to Nina Friday before her show at the 9:30 Club.)

Mickey McCarter: Songs like your new single “My Mistake” have a great dance beat but they are lyrically full of loneliness and regret? How do you reconcile that?

NINA: When I write, that’s mainly what I write about. It’s a lot about escape and love and melancholic things. When I write, sometimes I’m in quite a dark space; sometimes I can be in a happy space-–it depends!

I was collaborating with a band called Hunter As A Horse. We were kind of at the same level; we are very similar when it comes to writing. We write very dark lyrics about heartbreak and things like that. So it worked out really well. We also have that dance beat to it as well.

We have a new song, however, that’s slightly different. It’s a little bit more ’80s and a bit more happy. I thought I would try something happy and see how it works! It’s the last song in the set tonight. It’s called “Sweet Surrender.”

MM: This is your first tour of the United States? How’s it going? How have audiences reacted to your music?

NINA: Yes, and it’s amazing. It’s like a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to do this. The audiences have been amazing. People have been so friendly and they go out of their way to show their love after each show.

MM: It was a really good match, setting you up as an opening act for Erasure. They are a great band with an established following, and you’re a new act with a sound that the following can appreciate.

NINA: I really must say it’s been incredible how welcoming they are, and how many people say they love the sound. It’s similar but it is very mellow. At the beginning, I wondered if they would like it because they have come to dance. You know, Erasure! You just have to dance. But people love it, and it’s been amazing.

MM: How did you get here? Did you set out to do this kind of music?

NINA: No, not really. I came to the UK 10 years ago now in 2004. I came to do music. I was doing music a lot in Germany — I was touring around Germany, Switzerland and Austria but as a backing singer. But I wanted to break through and explore being a solo artist in another country.

The UK is so amazing and inspiring. I tried a few things before I got to where I am now. Now, I think I’ve really found myself. I know where I want to go and what I want the music to sound like. Before I was doing more dancey stuff, which was great as well. But now I’ve decided to go where my heart is.

MM: You’re still quite dancey!

NINA: Some of my songs are slow and mellow. But to compare it, what I did before was more Eurodance. It was very fast.

I’ve been working with Aztec Records for four years, but it took a while to find my own sound.

MM: Tell me what’s next for you? A new EP? A full album next year?

NINA: Yes, we are working on an album! We are probably going to release one more single beforehand. As soon as we get back to the UK, we are going to work on another UK tour and then work on the album.

The single will probably be “Sweet Surrender.” There’s no specific date for the album yet but I’m guessing we’ll release it in the springtime.hu

MM: Are you collaborating on the album with anyone that we should know about?

NINA: The Levity, a band from the UK. They also are very ’80s. They are absolutely awesome. They look great, and they sound great. We work well together. Their lead singer sounds very much like Brandon Flowers [of The Killers]!

Nina vows to return to DC and other US cities next year in support of her new album. Meanwhile, catch her in New York City before she becomes the next big thing!

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We Love Music: Erasure w/ Nina @ 9:30 Club — 9/19/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/09/22/we-love-music-erasure-w-nina-930-club-91914/ Mon, 22 Sep 2014 19:32:20 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98350 Andy Bell and Vince Clarke (Photo by Joe Dilworth)

Andy Bell and Vince Clarke (Photo by Joe Dilworth)

Erasure danced into town over the weekend for a pair of back-to-back sold-out shows at the 9:30 Club.

Well, more accurately, vocalist Andy Bell danced into town–boogied, shuffled, two-stepped–all wild entertainment and outrageous outfits that gave an ample amount of glitz to Erasure’s glossy, high-tempo synth music. His bandmate, the legendary Vince Clarke, more often stood stoically behind his synthesizer, stepping outside his box only occasionally to strum frenetically away on his guitar during super hits like “A Little Respect.”

And the show, which I caught on Friday, Sept. 19, was full of the big hits from Erasure. They opened wisely with eternal fan-fave “Oh L’Amour,” which got the room hopping. One of several nods to the band’s fourth album with the song “Star” followed before Bell introduced material from the band’s 16th studio album, Violet Flame, released literally today in the United Kingdom.

Bell has a sense of humor about the new album (and about everything really), and for the record, he wanted to clarify the album’s name for the audience in case they read a review that misidentified it. Violet Flame, said Bell, is meant to be a peaceful, soothing experience. And that would the opposite of “Violent Flame,” as several reviews have inaccurately said!

Peaceful and soothing perhaps, but buoyantly techno, definitely. The song “Reason,” a bubbly pontification of inspiration for living, and “Elevation,” a soaring ode to love, typify the albums material and translate wonderfully in live performance. If the audience were hearing these songs for the first time ever, they threw themselves into it as they would with the familiar favorites.

And familiar favorites dominated the second half of the show, with “Ship of Fools,” “Blue Savannah,” “Chorus,” and “I Love to Hate You.” When you thought you couldn’t get any more out of an Erasure show than all that was given, the duo then continued a veritable new wave-techno cavalcade with “Love to Hate You,” “A Little Respect” and “Chains of Love” before an encore of “Always” and “Sometimes.”

I’m often loathe to rattle off a list of songs in that manner because I feel it does nothing for describing the experience of being at a show, but every single one of these songs is so iconic on dancefloors across crowds, venues, subcultures and–hell–decades, it is a remarkable thing to be able to say you’ve heard them all in one night, performed perfectly live on stage.

This was not lost on the audience, which demonstrated its appreciation with heartfelt applause, sing-alongs and all-out cheering. As always, Bell was a natural showman, not ashamed to embrace all things over-the-top in putting on a show, while Clarke was an expressive genius working his way through his unparalleled talents on the synthesizer, pleased to let his bandmate razzle and dazzle the crowd.

Erasure were ably supported by U.K. siren Nina, a relatively new performer recording on London’s Aztec Records. The blonde songstress often visits places of loneliness and regrets in her songs such as “We are the Wild Ones” and “My Mistake” (a video for which is to be released any time now). But she also embraces strong dance hooks and a disco aesthetic alongside her ponderous and melancholy lyrics.

Nina was kind enough to grant a brief interview before her performance on Friday, and you can read it online. Meanwhile, if you liked her show, you can see her again in New York City this Friday, Sept. 26, at the Pyramid Club in Alphabet City and again on Monday, Oct. 13, at Friends and Lovers in Brooklyn.

Erasure, meanwhile, continue a lengthy tour of the United States with different supporting acts around the country, starting in Atlantic City on Friday and onto the West Coast through Nov. 1. You will not be disappointed if you see them on this show, although quite a few dates already have sold out! Don’t end up stuck on a ship of fools, wondering why life is so precious yet so cruel without tickets.

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We Love Music: Metronomy @ 9:30 Club — 9/17/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/09/18/we-love-music-metronomy-930-club-91714/ Thu, 18 Sep 2014 16:46:50 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98344 Metronomy (Photo courtesy Press Here)

Metronomy (Photo courtesy Press Here)

Metronomy blew into the 9:30 Club late Wednesday night in a fresh breeze of guitars and synthesizers, charming an impressive crowd who gathered for a midnight show to dance and cheer.

I say guitars and synthesizers but let me applaud the standout player from Wednesday night, drummer Anna Prior. The sole woman in the group distinguished herself quite remarkably on the drums and the synthesizer with a winsome smile and playful grace. She even takes over lead vocals on the sunny and sweet song “Everything Goes My Way” from the band’s remarkable third album, The English Riveria. I’ve seen Metronomy previously but Ms. Prior stole the show for me last night.

Of course, everyone put on a great show, starting with band leader Joseph Mount. Looking dapper in the band’s coordinated white suits, Mount sang, swayed, played guitar and synthesizer and drums, and he generally seemed to be having a marvelous time doing it. Opening the set with “Holiday” from second album Nights Out, which got a lot of respect on this show, Mount led his touring quintet through a setlist that was very soulful without being too much and very electronic without being chirpy or bleepy. In other words, we experienced a band that truly sounded like everyone was contributing to the greater whole, and the result was just very good music, infact as good as this song by Lambert, with the occasional wry wink to the audience.

The wryness in some of the Metronomy lyrics show through when tackling subjects from heartbreak to style. Encore song “The Most Immaculate Haircut” from new album Love Letters plays with both topics but you cannot help but feel that Mount and company are thumbing their noses at pop culture a little bit.

Still, the band is at its most effective when it’s at its most earnest, as evidenced by the title track “Love Letters” of their fourth album. The poetic allusions of the lyrics, combined with some fierce playing by the band, producing an epic song that captures the group’s taste for nostalgic walks down memory lane while still sounding fresh and new. “Love Letters” also serves as a great vehicle for Mount’s excellent vocals; crisp and accented, he’s terrifically English in all of his sounds.

Of course, the rest of the band notably contribute backing vocals in most every song. Bassist Gbenga Adelekan and guitarist/keyboardist/saxophonist Oscar Cash provide some great harmonies, as does touring member Michael Lovett.

The entire band really looked sharp in addition to sounding sharp. As mentioned earlier, they appeared in matching white suits and black shirts (although Prior was in a simpler, all-white ensemble). Metronomy’s penchant for coordinating its look always makes them a very watchable band but at the same time it accentuates their sound with an oddly timeless aura. Depending on which aspects of the band you are watching or listening to, they sometimes seem like they could be a band from the 1960s or from the 2040s (in some idealized vision of what bands will look like in 25 years)!

The late hour of the show (doors opened at 10pm) proved a boon to opening act Dawn Golden (aka Dexter Tortoriello), who captivated a crowd who came out at the beginning with the understanding they weren’t able to take the metro train home a few hours later. Gentle laments like “Last Train” provided substantive material for the audience to digest, and undoubtedly won some fans. The no less grand, but slightly chirpier declaration of defiance “I Won’t Bend” gives you some slight clue that Dawn Golden is associated Diplo’s Mad Decent label; otherwise, his debut LP Still Life, released earlier this year sounds quite like any other Mad Decent artist I’ve heard before.

Metronomy appear in Brooklyn Friday and Boston Saturday before returning to the road in October for a sweep through Florida, Texas, California and other states. Take advantage of the opportunity to see them, as they are well worth seeing live!

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Hot Ticket: Metronomy @ 9:30 Club, 9/17/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/09/17/hot-ticket-metronomy-930-club-91714/ Wed, 17 Sep 2014 16:53:06 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98339

Earlier this year, Kiera Knightly told Entertainment Weekly that Metronomy’s “Love Letters,” the title track from the English quartet’s fourth studio album, was one of her favorite “romantic songs.” As a bonus, IMO, the video for the song is directed by Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”).

Talented multi-instrumentalist Joseph Mount continues to lead the band with new innovations. Metronomy have certainly evolved lushly since their debut, the instrumental Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe), in 2006. Tonight, they return to DC in support of their new album, Love Letters, performing a late show at the 9:30 Club.

For a glimpse of Metronomy’s live show, watch a recent live performance of the single “I’m Aquarius” below.

Metronomy
w/ Dawn Golden
9:30 Club
Wednesday, Sept. 17
Doors @10pm
$25
All ages

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We Love Music: Hamilton Leithauser @ Lincoln Theatre — 9/2-9/4/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/09/08/we-love-music-hamilton-leithauser-lincoln-theatre-92-9414/ Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:27:05 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98279
Hamilton Leithauser (Photo courtesy Press Here)

Hamilton Leithauser (Photo courtesy Press Here)

If there were any doubts Hamilton Leithauser could successfully launch a solo career, he has been steadily putting them to rest with a series of solid performances since the release of his first album, Black Hours, in June.

Leithauser’s Black Hours serves as an ode to staying out until the early hours of the morning, in a very classic way of “painting the town red.” And last week he kicked off the evening for three sold-out nights as the opener for Spoon at the Lincoln Theatre on Sept. 2-4.

The former lead singer of The Walkmen strode onto the hometown stage full of confidence, with a strong voice and a talented band to croon a pleasing set of 10 songs drawn largely from the new album. He opened with a song that could very easily serve as a coda for a solo career, “I Don’t Need Anyone,” a song that’s actually a bit about aligning your path with someone else’s.

And of course, Leithauser *does* need someone. He bought along a talented band of DC natives (except for one performer) including The Walkmen guitarist Paul Maroon, with whom he works very well together.

Indeed, the high point of the show for much of the audience on Wednesday, Sept. 3, occurred in a run of songs that left the two standing alone on the stage. The band performed a rendition of “5 AM,” a seductively contemplative number that perhaps is the most “Sinatra” of a series of songs inspired by Frank Sinatra. (Indeed, they cover Sinatra’s “All or Nothing at All” on this tour as well.) Then, Leithauser and Maroon alone perform a bonus track called “Utrecht,” which he dedicated to DC despite it being named for a Dutch city.

Throughout it all, Leithauser manages the very difficult task of sounding unique! Given the focus on vocals in all of his songs, it’s not difficult to place his music in a vocal genre. Some critics have labeled the album Black Hours as chamber pop, but that doesn’t quite work for me in live performance. First, Leithauser’s touring band has a light footprint; and second, he sings in a classic pop style that perhaps has a touch of Americana to it. The overall result is a welcome vehicle for Leithauser’s powerful voice.

Leithauser and his band received a very warm reception at the Lincoln. On the night I was there, the theatre was mostly full of admirers who were there as much to see his performance as they were the headliner, Spoon. It was a refreshing turn for a town that often doesn’t turn up for the opener, but Leithauser clearly was no ordinary opening act.

The DC crooner is set to continue his tour currently through Oct. 2, giving a lot of folks a chance to catch his act through locations from Philadelphia to New York to Birmingham. He’s well worth catching if you want to catch an intelligently crafted, earnestly delivered show by a talent that doesn’t want to sit still.

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Hot Ticket: Buzzcocks @ Black Cat, 9/4/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/09/04/hot-ticket-buzzcocks-black-cat-9414/ Thu, 04 Sep 2014 16:10:47 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98266

After the Sex Pistols shook up the U.K. music scene in 1976, new music groups exploded across the country, and perhaps the city of Manchester cultivated the most intriguing of the bands that resulted.

Among them: the Buzzcocks, the legendary punk popsters, who have released a new album, The Way, this year.

It’s remarkable that the Buzzcocks have managed to stay together despite an extended breakup in the ’80s; more remarkable that the band retains two of its original members in vocalists and guitarists Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle; and absolutely most remarkable that the new album (funded through PledgeMusic) sounds pretty good from the tracks I’ve heard.

In support of the new album, the Buzzcocks visit the Black Cat tonight to launch a North American tour, and they are sure to play lots of classics, including “What Do I Get,” “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” and “Orgasm Addict,” as well.

Buy tickets online or at the door (although I warn you, they sold out at the last minute when the Buzzcocks last came to the Black Cat on May 11, 2010, as We Love DC reported then).

The Buzzcocks
w/ Loud Boyz
Black Cat
Thursday, Sept. 4
Doors @8pm
$25
All ages

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Capital Chefs: Julien Shapiro of Eat the Rich http://www.welovedc.com/2014/08/28/capital-chefs-julien-shapiro-of-eat-the-rich/ Thu, 28 Aug 2014 20:03:21 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98236
Julien Shapiro of Eat the Rich

Julien Shapiro of Eat the Rich

We’re revisiting our Capital Chefs feature with a series by music reporter Mickey McCarter. A lot has been happening recently in kitchens in D.C. restaurants, and Mickey takes a look into them from his usual seat at the bar in this series, which runs weekly on Thursdays.

When Julien Shapiro created the opening menu for Eat the Rich, he consulted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to get some idea of which fish he should use and which to avoid.

The NOAA scientists could not tell him what to do, of course, but they could provide him with data and help him interpret it.

“If you look at the fishing reports, it says the numbers are such, and then you make a conclusion based on what you think is good,” Shapiro told me. “They will say whether it is overfished or underfished or if there is no data.”

To round out his view of the fish available in the mid-Atlantic, Shapiro makes an effort to visit each mid-Atlantic state and check with its Department of Natural Resources to discover local numbers on fish and confirm what is available.

These habits serve Shapiro and Eat the Rich well, as the chef and owners focus on local, sustainable seafood, derived heavily from the Chesapeake Bay.

“We are trying to focus exclusively on Chesapeake seafood. That’s our calling card,” Shapiro said.

Cocktail mogul Derek Brown and oysterman Travis Coxton opened Eat the Rich last year, naming it after a Motorhead song. Coxton is also behind Rappahannock River Oysters, which has expanded locally into Union Market in 2012. Eat the Rich serves those same oysters. Coxton is concerned about being a good steward of the local oyster population, Shapiro said, and the chef applies the same outlook to the rest of the seafood served at Eat the Rich.

An interest in making eel pie, for example, faded because the eel numbers in the Chesapeake have not been strong, so Shapiro turned to the invasive Snakehead instead. He relies on local bluefish and redfish as menu staples.

“We do a marinated bluefish with a ratatouille,” Shapiro said. “I try not to use French words because are supposed to be a mid-Atlantic rock bar, but there is no other word for it.

“It is not a common fish. It has a short shelf life, and it has a relatively strong flavor,” he continued. “But we pickle it, so it’s nice and mild. It’s acidic, so we prepare it in an olive oil. It comes out very well. We torch the skin so the skin is edible.”

The Virginia redfish comes poached in a consommé with Carolina shrimp, squid, onions and carrots. The restaurant’s chowder, dubbed Chowderhead (again after Motorhead), consists of a corn and potato soup with fish collars, steamed clams, salted pork jowl and crab.

“Everything we do complements each other,” Shapiro explained. “We get two uses out of everything. We cook the collars for the fish sticks that we serve for our fish fry on Friday. We serve some of it in the chowder, and from that stock, we make the consommé. Everything is full circle; nothing goes to waste.”

Shapiro also serves as chef at Southern Efficiency, located next door to Eat the Rich in the bustling corridor developing along 7th Street NW outside the Shaw metro station. So he strives to maximize the use of his menu items between the two establishments without actually duplicating dishes.

“You have to be creative. Nobody makes money by simply putting a price on it. To make money, you have to work for it,” Shapiro stated.

“So when we get shrimp, we get fresh shrimp from the Carolinas, and if some are broken, which invariably some are going to be, I use those to make a boudin, which is seafood sausage. I serve that at Southern Efficiency with the catfish,” he said. “There is a lot of labor in it; there’s effort; and you have to know what you’re doing to make them right. But for me it’s satisfying to take broken shrimp and make something different out of it—something good and original and hopefully something that tastes good.”

As Shapiro concentrates on sourcing his seafood from the mid-Atlantic, he looks from New Jersey to the Carolinas, avoiding highly migratory fish except perhaps the tuna albacore. Although he tries to find striped bass in season locally, the bass travel a bit along the coast, and currently come from Rhode Island or Massachusetts.

“The cooking is very traditional French in technique, but then we try to put it through a mid-Atlantic prism,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro certainly knows his French cuisine. He went to culinary school in Paris, but he found he was focusing more on hospitality rather than cooking as much as he would like. Shapiro went to work in Paris and then San Francisco and New York City before first coming to DC in 2002. He ended up working for Frank Ruta at Palena for more than five years, an experience that taught him more than any other.

“There, I relearned everything I thought I knew, and I thought I knew how to do stuff!” Shapiro said. “Working with Frank, everything was how it should have been—very good discipline, technique, recipes and consistency. It’s very rare that you will find someone who knows as much as he does and has the discipline that he has.”

Ruta, of course, served for a decade at the White House, where consistency was highly valued. The chef’s techniques left an indelible mark on Shapiro at Palena.

“That’s really where I got into the process of thinking differently—measuring everything as you go along, so that you have a window of error and you know what the boundaries are and which way to go when you do it again. It’s something that not enough people do,” Shapiro said.

After serving as butcher at Palena for two years there, Shapiro returned to Paris as a butcher at Gilles Verot and Hugo Desnoyer. He came back to the DC metro area to work as a butcher at Society Fair in Alexandria and then as the butcher at Range. Butchering is still very much a passion of his, and he hopes one day to operate his own butcher shop.

“I’ve always liked the idea of a European-style full-service butcher shop and grocer,” Shapiro said, adding that perhaps it’s a concept that he could explore with Brown in the future.

But the chef is also keenly interested in working on systems so that would inform kitchens and consumers as to where their products originate.

“I think a lot of people shop or choose where they eat because it satisfies their conscience,” Shapiro elaborated. “People say, I want to buy this product because I know that it’s good and it comes from a part of the world where the people are treated well and the environment is treated well.

“But if I’m not selling you that product, there is a little bit of fraud and duplicity there, and I don’t like that. I would like to try to make the purveyors and everyone a bit more accountable, so I know what I’m getting,” he added.

When he orders Carolina shrimp, for example, he’s confident that he’s getting the correct product, but sometimes there is no way of knowing. A purveyor may say a swordfish comes from Nova Scotia because that’s where the fishing boat landed. The boat could have went anywhere.

“There’s a little bit of mystery where the food comes from, and I would like to try to reel that in,” Shapiro said.

In the meantime, the chef enjoys honing his skills and precision at the “mid-Atlantic rock bar,” although he’s decidedly not a headbanger. When it comes to music, Shapiro prefers the sounds of the ‘70s—artists like The Band, Van Morrison, Earth, Wind and Fire, or Chicago.

And in the kitchen at Eat the Rich, the crew often listens to bluegrass!

“I think bluegrass is very soothing,” Shapiro said. “You don’t have to pay so much attention to the music. If people have to concentrate to listen too much, they could get lost in what they are doing. With bluegrass, it’s soothing, and no one fights over the station.”

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We Love Music: Retro Futura Tour — 8/22/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/08/26/we-love-music-retro-futura-tour-82214/ Tue, 26 Aug 2014 14:49:55 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98231
Tom Bailey, voice of the Thompson Twins, performs at The Wilbur in Boston on Aug. 24 (Photo courtesy The  Wilbur)

Tom Bailey, voice of the Thompson Twins, performs at The Wilbur in Boston on Aug. 24 (Photo courtesy The
Wilbur)

Midge Ure, OBE, lead singer of Ultravox and cofounder of the Live Aid music festival, stepped out onto stage in front of a house band.

“Give us this day, all that you showed me/the power and the glory, ‘til my kingdom come!”

He belted out his lyrics a Capella before thundering into the guitar riff that serves as the backbone to “Hymn,” one of the best songs from his sadly absent band Ultravox. The high-minded content of Ure’s pop songs are a bit unusual these days, but his songs fit right in on a concert tour lineup that included a hearty group of romantic optimists—among them Howard Jones and Tom Bailey (formerly of the Thompson Twins).

The mini-festival winding its way across the United States at the moment is called the Retro Futura tour, and unfortunately it did not stop in DC on its way across the country. The closest it got was a suburb of Philadelphia on Friday, Aug. 22. In previous years, the tour had stopped here under its former name, the Regeneration Tour.

Then, it was anchored occasionally by headliners The Human League, and this time around that job fell into the capable hands of Tom Bailey. While Bailey alone is not exactly a household name, his voice is well-known to radio listeners everywhere as the force behind the songs of the Thompson Twins—“Doctor,” “Lies,” “Lay Your Hands On Me” and “Hold Me Now” among them. Bailey’s elegant voice and dapper appearance have aged very well, and he was very down to earth, modest and appreciative as a performer.

The Thompson Twins performed their last concert in Austin, Texas, 27 years ago. In that time, Bailey is the only member to remain a musician, recording experimental Indian music and the like, thus setting him up to return as a solo act at the invitation of his friend Howard Jones. Jones himself has been enjoying something of a revival as he has returned to his synthpop roots in the past five years, bringing a welcome sound to songs that remain as positive and uplifting as ever, including “Everlasting Love,” “Things Can Only Get Better” and “New Song.”

Jones and Bailey served as the last half of the Retro Futura Tour lineup. Ure, a personal favorite, was limited to five songs before an intermission! Preceding him were other U.K. acts Katrina Leskanich (formerly of Katrina and the Waves) and China Crisis. Katrina recorded a new album just for the occasion, but she also sang “Coming Down to Liverpool” (a cover by the Bangles led to a record contract for Katrina) and “Walking on Sunshine.” China Crisis hit four songs from their excellent third album, Flaunt the Imperfection, including “Black Man Ray” and “King in a Catholic Style.” Singer Gary Daly perhaps hammed up a bit too much in a dress, making a tongue in cheek apology for the absence of Boy George.

Ure closed the first half with songs that included “Hymn” and “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” as well as solo staples “If I Was” and “Dear God.” While Ure’s performance was a highlight of the show, it also brings up my only real complaint. Katrina, China Crisis and Ure were reduced to shuffling onto and off stage in front of a house band in a manner that made their performances a little less satisfying. The “house band” concept wasn’t a bad one, particularly when you consider the costs of flying in musicians from the United Kingdom, but Ure was backed the last time I saw him by the much superior Los Angeles-based band Right the Stars, who mysteriously dropped out of supporting this same tour at the last minute. Too bad!

Still, you cannot go wrong with this much talent on one bill, and the Retro Futura tour still has many dates left across the country, starting in Chicago on Aug. 27 and then onto California and back to Texas and Florida, among other places. It’s well worth catching. The positive word of mouth seems only to be snowballing as the tour goes on, suggesting that we may see it return next year, perhaps with a DC date again as well.

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We Love Music: Robyn & Röyksopp @ Wolf Trap — 8/21/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/08/25/we-love-music-robyn-royksopp-wolf-trap-82114/ http://www.welovedc.com/2014/08/25/we-love-music-robyn-royksopp-wolf-trap-82114/#comments Mon, 25 Aug 2014 15:57:14 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98196

Somewhere in synthpop heaven, a match was made. Norwegian duo Royksopp would party with Swedish indie diva Robyn, and beautiful music would be made.

It happened most spectacularly on Royksopp’s 2009 album, Junior, with the disco smash “The Girl and the Robot,” which between Royksopp’s hooky synths and Robyn’s pleading voice captured a perfect crystalized moment in dancefloor history. Nominally, the song is about a woman in love with someone who may not return her affections, or at least is not as warm as she would like. The video fetishes technology and strobe lights.

And introducing the song gave Robyn a perfect opportunity to declare her raison d’etre before its performance by a happily reunited Robyn and Royksopp Thursday night at Wolf Trap.

“Love is a lot of work. Love is hard,” she said.

She certainly reflected that in her best material in her own mini-set, which featured well-loved songs from her 2010 opus Body Talk. She hit the songs the audience wanted to hear, including “Indestructible,” a heartbreaking song about loving despite your fears; “Call Your Girlfriend,” a heartbreaking song telling someone to leave his lover for her; and “Dancing on My Own,” a heartbreaking song about not getting who you want.

Of course, Robyn sang and strutted in her own signature way, wearing an impossibly complicated (and one might say not so flattering) outfit of a bushy coat, boxer shorts and impractical floppy boots most often seen on comic book characters.

Her outfit changed significantly when she took the stage for a second set. You see, Robyn is touring with Royksopp on the occasion of this year’s extended collaboration between the two acts, the EP “Do It Again,” which lyrically both hails the literal reunion of the two as well as metaphorically giving in to an inescapable sexual relationship.

The last set of the evening brought the two Scandinavian pop acts together. (Royksopp started off after opener Zahla; Robyn performed her own set; and Robyn and Royksopp combined closed the show.) For this part of the show, Robyn embraced her reputation as indie disco queen, wearing yet more complicated shoes but a more flattering shimmery top over sports bra ensemble.

If the second outfit was more “sexy,” it suited the material, which verges chirpily on “happily vulgar”—not that there’s anything wrong with that. The synthmeisters of Royksopp generally play upbeat, winning melodies, sometimes with vocal accompaniment; often without. The combined intent with “Do It Again” was clearly dirty disco–dancefloor thumpers all about sex and candy.

They opened the combined set with “Sayit,” a long, continually thumpy number that opens the “Do It Again” EP. Robyn’s performance during this song mostly consists of lying on an elevated platform with her legs spread and kicking in a style to suggest… ok outright mimic… crazy sex. Royksopp and the accompanying six piece band (including the saxophonist!) are dressed in disco face masks, making them seem glittery yet ominous, and perhaps anonymous? as they perform in an elegantly arrayed chorus around her.

Soon, everyone shines in “The Girl and the Robot,” as referenced above. The live performance of that song contains a highlight lost in the recorded and video renditions of the song–the lyrical response by the male “robot character.” For this part, Royksopp’s Svein Berge dons a robot helmet and sings accusingly back at the unfulfilled Robyn, “you don’t know what it’s all about!” It’s a pleasing piece of theater featuring a rare vocal contribution from one of the Royksopp gents.

The five-song set closes with the anthemic “Do It Again,” performed triumphantly (if again a bit literally as Robyn has more opportunities to writhe on her back while wearing slightly less clothing).

Generally, it was wonderfully lovely if smutty experience, given that Robyn and Royksopp simply complement each other so well. Their individual talents and outlooks mesh well together, and they share a common goal of making dancefloor love (of both the high- and low-minded varieties).

At press time, one post-DC US tour date remains: Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Morrison, Colo., on 8/27 (in addition to a performance in Toronto tonight). It’s bound (and tied) to be a good time, and here’s to hoping that Robyn and Royksopp do it yet again sometime soon.

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Capital Chefs: Jesse Miller of Bar Pilar http://www.welovedc.com/2014/08/21/capital-chefs-jesse-miller-of-bar-pilar/ Thu, 21 Aug 2014 17:48:21 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98174 Jesse Miller of Bar Pilar

Jesse Miller of Bar Pilar

We’re revisiting our Capital Chefs feature with a series by music reporter Mickey McCarter. A lot has been happening recently in kitchens in D.C. restaurants, and Mickey takes a look into them from his usual seat at the bar in this series, which runs weekly on Thursdays.

Out of art school, Jesse Miller sized up his prospects and took a job at the Elkridge Furnace Inn in Elkridge, Md.

The restaurant has one of the best wine programs in Maryland, offering gourmet French food to hungry customers as well as hosting weddings and catering.

At first thankful for a job, Miller ended up staying there for seven years.

“I was lucky enough to get a job there and that’s how this started,” said Miller, now chef at Bar Pilar and its sister establishment Café Saint-Ex. “Otherwise, I would still be trying to paint and living in the street someplace.”

He learned a lot at the Elkridge Furnace Inn that he applies to Bar Pilar, where his friends and customers hail him as an innovative chef.

“I was taught that a chef should accommodate anything at any time for anyone,” Miller said. “If you don’t like our options, we can always do something.

“I learned that from my first job,” he added. “I would be on the line getting my ass kicked, the chef would pull me aside. He would say, someone go take Jesse’s station! We have a gluten-free vegan upstairs who needs something. He would turn to me and say, go make a special.”

That philosophy carried itself through Miller’s career so far. But perhaps more importantly, Miller met his best friend and mentor at Elkridge Furnace Inn–Justin Bittner. Bittner went on to become chef at Café Saint-Ex, and Miller followed. In 2013, Miller took over the reins from his friend, who took a job elsewhere.

“He taught me how to refine my technique–little things I wasn’t seeing from other chefs,” Miller said. “Now, I read a lot and pay attention, but he was a few years ahead of me.”

The two have made a winning team. Miller was best man at Bittner’s wedding. To Miller’s delight, his friend will return to the kitchens of Bar Pilar and Café Saint-Ex for at least a few months starting at the end of the month. Miller had to let someone go, and Bittner has some time to kill.

“It will be just me and him fucking around in the kitchen,” Miller laughed. “I definitely have a different style than him and a different approach than him. Justin went to culinary school and worked under great chefs.

“I’m a little bit looser. I’m not scared to throw a couple of combinations together where he would be like, no, no, no. –But it’s good man. It’s fuckin’ good!”

A big part of Miller’s charm is that he doesn’t censor himself. In conversation or in the kitchen! A special being offered on the day I visit him at Bar Pilar is bone marrow and Cashel Blue cheese macaroni and cheese with a fish sauce mignonette.

“We took two days to actually sand down all the bones to clear them out, so we would fill the bone with the mac and cheese and roast them too. It looks really nice, and it’s so good,” Miller said.

Bone marrow and Cashel Blue cheese macaroni and cheese

Bone marrow and Cashel Blue cheese macaroni and cheese (Photo courtesy Bar Pilar)

You can see Miller’s derring-do all over the menu of Bar Pilar, where he’s always trying to keep things fresh.

“I don’t know anyone else who’s using lamb belly in their bolognaise,” Miller said. “It’s freaking’ amazing, man. It’s spectacular because the fattiness of it just helps the dish out, more than you would ever think.

“It’s the only thing we are allowing to be a staple on the menu right now because we have gotten enough praise,” he said.

Anything else on the menu can change at any point, and at least three things a week change. Miller has broken the menu down by categories of meat, fish, vegetables, etc., and he keeps at least five dishes in each category.

When he runs out of something or something grows stale, he takes the opportunity to try something different.

“I have an opportunity to run two kitchens! I should be testing things out,” Miller said.

He added, “I have no concept. I really don’t. We’re open to anything.”

As its name clearly states, Bar Pilar, named for Ernest Hemingway’s boat, is first and foremost a bar. But Miller said his kitchen sources only the best ingredients, which sometimes goes unnoticed among casual barhoppers.

Take for example, the Green Circle Farms chicken, which Miller fried into chicken sliders at the time of our interview. He gets about 10 of the Amish-fed rare birds per week, and he keeps his eyes open as to how he might do something different with it.

Chickens at Green Circle Farms feed on scraps from the best restaurants in New York City, including Thomas Keller’s Per Se and Gramercy Tavern, Miller told me. Miller is the only customer for the chickens south of Philadelphia at the moment.

When Bittner was at the kitchen of Bar Pilar, he favored fried chicken, inspiring Miller to plan a conversation with Bittner about frying up whole chickens with his friend when they return.

Bar Pilar has a small kitchen and a small fryer, and it would take at least 40 minutes to fry the whole chicken–complete with head and feet—but Miller is really enthusiastic about the idea, and he thinks Bittner will be as well.

“He just wants to hang out and cook, but I know if I get the ball rolling, he’ll get excited too and I can pick his brain a little bit,” Miller said.

Like many chefs I’ve visited in this series, Miller has some enthusiasm for offal and parts of the animal that were not traditionally used in American kitchens. His current menu offered sweetbreads and beef heart tartar, for example.

Diners at Bar Pilar eat it up.

“If you cook it and treat it right, it takes amazing,” Miller commented.

As a young chef, Miller did not appreciate sweetbreads. Wherever he went, he would try them and they were “horrible and bitter.”

Then one day, he ate some prepared by Doi Moi head chef Haider Karoum (who works across the street after all), and he was blown away.

What did you do? Miller asked Karoum. Karoum replied he simply soaked them in milk the day before, removing some of the bitter flavor Miller disliked so much.

“Was it a whole process? No. All it takes sometimes is one extra step to make these things taste good,” Miller said.

I’m struck by Miller’s enthusiasm for learning. He soaks up everything around him.

“It’s cool because the longer you do this, the longer you stay in the same place, the more chefs you meet. I have a nice tight community of seven or eight guys that I shoot the shit with. They stop in every now and then and I go to their spots whenever I can. I text them constantly,” Miller elaborated.

Miller praises Will Morris of Alexandria-based Vermilion, who always has good advice or a book.

“He’s one of the nicest and most genuine people I’ve ever met, and also a bad-ass chef. He’s always ready to help,” Miller said.

All signs suggest Miller will be around a while. He recently bought into the ownership group of Bar Pilar and Café Saint-Ex.

“I cannot imagine working with another group as far as that goes unless it was just mine,” Miller said, suggesting that he may strike out on his own some years down the road.

But at 30, Miller is still quite young. And as he continues his growth as a head chef, he occasionally surprises himself. For example, these days he favors turning down the music in the kitchen

“I love music. It fuels everything,” Miller said. “But I will say as I’m getting older, and I’m in the kitchen more and trying to refine my guys, I’ve been turning it down a lot more.”

Guys, this isn’t a fucking club! Miller tells his crew.

What does Miller listen to? He cops to a generic answer–“everything” before gushing about underground hip hop, and Sage Francis in particular. His new album, Copper Gone, is phenomenal, Miller said.

“The guy is getting older and older, and it’s possibly one of his best,” Miller declared. “There might be one song I skip over! He doesn’t have a single album that I’ve ever felt that way about.”

Bar Pilar is just a few doors down from the Black Cat, a popular concert hall, which is well known for its punk shows. Has that expanded his horizons at all?

“We have a really large punk following here,” Miller acknowledged. “They are teaching me a lot about it because I don’t know dick about it. Some of it’s good; some of it not so much.”

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We Love Music: Mike Peters (of The Alarm) @ Gypsy Sally’s — 8/7/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/08/11/we-love-music-mike-peters-of-the-alarm-gypsy-sallys-8714/ http://www.welovedc.com/2014/08/11/we-love-music-mike-peters-of-the-alarm-gypsy-sallys-8714/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2014 18:25:09 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98136 SONY DSCMike Peters and his bandmates met with their new manager one day some 30-odd years ago, and told him they already were done being a supporting act.

“From now on, we only headline shows. We don’t want to be a supporting act,” the members of The Alarm said to their sympathetic manager.

Very soon, however, he called them back with an offer they really might want to consider–opening for U2 on their tour in support of the album October. Gobsmacked, Peters nonetheless reluctantly began to explain the band should stand behind their manifesto. But before they could turn down the deal, drummer Nigel Twist grabbed the phone and shouted, “Of course, we’ll do it!”

The tour was successful, and U2 invited The Alarm to tour with them in America well, introducing their Welch friends to the United States. The bands remained friends through the years, and U2 recorded a cover of The Alarm’s “Blaze of Glory” for a BBC Radio Wales special on the 30th anniversary of The Declaration, the first-full length album from the band, which aired in April.

That was one of many great little stories that Peters told in his visit to Gypsy Sally’s on Thursday, Aug. 7 in support of that same anniversary. Peters was an excellent and entertaining storyteller–so much so that he may have displaced Dave Wakeling of The English Beat on my list of favorite rock raconteurs.

Peters, performing solo with a guitar, ran through the entire Declaration album, although not in order of the tracks. Indeed, he opened with other tracks–“Unsafe Building,” “Lie of the Land” and “Up for Murder”–before hitting The Stand. Needless to say the audience, a robust yet still intimate number, went wild for it.

Other amusing anecdotes emerged throughout the performance. Peters recalled playing “Where Were You Hiding When the Storm Broke?” on the band’s first appearance on famed UK show Top of the Pops. The Alarm appeared on the program with the mind-bending lineup of The Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen and Madonna! Knowing that The Alarm were up against bands that were hard to out-perform, out-intellectualize or out-sexualize (depending on your speed), Peters came up with the concept of throwing out a deck of playing cards at the end of the song to add a layer of stage theatrics to it. The performance kicker stuck, and Peters (or in Thursday’s case, a member of the audience) has done it ever since.

Later, Peters played “The Deceiver,” a song whose title is emblazoned on his guitar, and recalled in detail playing it at The Bayou, which once stood only blocks away from Gypsy Sally’s location, during The Alarm’s first-ever performance in DC.

Toward the end of the show, Peters began to reminisce about the music that inspired him to become a musician. Someone in the audience shouted out, “Play the blues!” Without missing a beat, Peters launched into a verse and a chorus of “Jean Genie” by David Bowie. It was an amazingly delightful moment, and I was completely giddy over it. After the chorus, Peters retorted, “That’s *my* blues.”

In reminiscing, he played a bit of “Anarchy in the UK” by the Sex Pistols as well before launching into “Spirit of ’76.” Peters then took a few audience requests, including “Absolute Reality,” a request that seemed to delight him, and “Rain in the Summertime.”

Afterward, he played only a few more songs, wrapping up more than two hours of stagetime with “One Guitar.”

All in all, Peters put on an incredibly satisfying and entertaining show in a venue well suited for his solo performance and witty recollections. Sadly, he closed up his U.S. tour with a date in New York over the weekend, so you’ve missed your chance to see him this time around if you didn’t make it out. Hopefully, we’ll see him again soon.

Update: I’ve learned Mike Peters has two upcoming U.S. shows!

Tupelo Music Hall, Londonderry, NH, Sept. 19
Johnny D’s Uptown Restaurant and Music Club, Somerville, Mass. (Boston metro), Sept. 20

 

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We Love Music: Chinese Disco Soft Opening–8/7/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/08/08/we-love-music-chinese-disco-soft-opening-8714/ Fri, 08 Aug 2014 15:48:38 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98122 chinesediscoFrom 1977 to 1986, one of the most infamous places in DC to boogey down was in the basement of an unlikely location—a Chinese restaurant called the Day Lily, then located at 2142 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.

Thursday night, the Chinese Disco, as it was known after dark, returned to DC. With the blessing of the founders of the original night, a bar formerly known as the George has dubbed itself Chinese Disco at 3251 Prospect St. NW, and launched weekend dance parties sure to bring a little more indie dance spirit to Georgetown (a neighborhood sorely long lacking in dance spots).

By any measure, the well-orchestrated soft opening party was a success. More than 700 people signed up for the guest list, which was managed electronically at the door. The large crowd was ready to dance, and dance they did to the likes of Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy,” DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s “Turn Down for What,” and even the Spice Girls.

The music perhaps was a bit of a far cry from songs by the likes of The Temptations and The Four Seasons played at the original Chinese Disco, where kids popularly danced the Carolina Shag. But the fun-loving crowd at the reborn Chinese Disco ate it up and danced their hearts out while drinking buckets of canned beer.

Which brings me to drinks at the Chinese Disco. A typical can of beer (yes, cans only it seems) runs $6-$7. Buying a bucket of six basically comes out to paying for five and getting a free one. The same sort of deal goes for pitchers of cocktails (referred to as “growlers” on the bar menu). Chinese Disco cocktails include an Ocean Reef Cap, Chi Di Crush, Congo Melon Mule and others. Generally a cocktail runs $7-$12 but the growler yields six for the price of five. Buying in bulk appears to be encouraged.

Bottom line: The soft opening was a great party! The Chinese Disco is a nicely remodeled bar offering some much required dancing in Georgetown. A worthy addition to the neighborhood.

A sign advertising the original night at the Day Lily hangs inside the new club.

A sign advertising the original night at the Day Lily hangs inside the new club.

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