Yearly Archives: 2010

The Features, We Love Music
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The Winning Ticket: A Q&A With Dawes

The “next big thing” is thrown around a lot in music culture. What you hear about less often is the next great thing, the next band that’ll knock your socks off not just because all the cool kids love them but because they are just that good. If there is a musical god out there doling out success to those most deserving, Dawes, a rock and roll quartet from Los Angeles who will be appearing at the Rock & Roll Hotel on Wednesday, will be just one such band. Their 2009 debut, “North Hills,” was praised by critics as wide-ranging as Rolling Stone and the Wall Street Journal (!); Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller calls lyricist Taylor Goldsmith “as magnificent of a songwriter as there is currently creating.” Goldsmith has a knack for crafting beautiful lyrics that make order out of the chaos of our lives, and the men sharing the stage with him — his brother, drummer Griffin Goldsmith; Wylie Gelber on bass; and Alex Casnoff on keyboards — excel at setting those lyrics to music. On stage, the result is an improbable blend of melodic folk and high-energy rock and roll.

And they need that energy to get through a tour schedule that seems endless. In the last year and a half, the band has appeared at such festivals as South By Southwest, Newport Folk Festival, Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza, and opened for artists including (deep breath here): Josh Ritter, Corey Chisel and the Wandering Sons, Edward Sharpe, Langhorne Slim, She and Him, Jason Boesel, Deer Tick and Delta Spirit. Dawes has hit the road hard in support of “North Hills,” and the legwork has paid off. The tour that brings them back to D.C. for their fourth show in the area in a year is their first as headliners.

As a special thanks to We Love DC readers, we’re giving away a pair of tickets to Wednesday’s show. See the bottom of this post for rules of the giveaway.

I talked with Taylor Goldsmith about the band’s rising star, musical influences and future plans:

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Sports Fix
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Week 8 Recap – Skins vs. Lions

Photo courtesy of
‘Purple Redskins cap’
courtesy of ‘wfyurasko’

For the second straight season, the Redskins went to Detroit and lost. That by itself would have been reason enough to question the team heading into their bye week but this loss came with something extra. With the Skins trailing 31-26 and just less than 2 minutes remaining, Mike Shanahan benched Donovan McNabb and replaced him with Rex Grossman. It was a curious move because McNabb was not injured and hadn’t played poorly. On Grossman’s first play, he was sacked and fumbled the ball, which was recovered by Ndomukong Suh for a touchdown. So instead of just making adjustments and getting players healthy, Shanahan will be bombarded with questions about the McNabb benching for the next two weeks.

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The Daily Feed
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Freezing temperatures possible tonight

Photo courtesy of
‘”Audrey Hepburn” Hot Chocolate’
courtesy of ‘Jenn Larsen’

We knew the day would come: the National Weather Service has issued a freeze watch for pretty much the entire Beltway area tonight (plus Baltimore, Waldorf, and Annapolis, but who cares about them?), with temperatures expected to be in the low 30’s.

The first frost of the season may or may not really be tonight, but if you haven’t already, it’s a good time to bring in any plants in containers you’ve kept outside, clear away any of your possessions that have piled up next to your radiators, and get out the hot chocolate fixings.

Music, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Wait, Shamrockfest planning is already happening?!

Photo courtesy of
‘Dropkick Murphys – Do Or Die LP’
courtesy of ‘mtarvainen’

Two weeks ago, we thought it was too early to be planning for New Year’s, and I know a bunch of my friends wanted to punch various retail and online outlets for reminding us that Christmas is 54 days away today, but there was the email, right in my inbox this morning, telling me that Dropkick Murphys are coming for Shamrockfest this coming Spring.  That’s right, mark your calendars, my Irish-punk loving friends: March 12th, Dropkick Murphys are coming to DC for Shamrockfest, and tickets go on sale Wednesday after next at 10am, so set that alarm, too.

Isn’t it great to look forward to Spring Training, Green Beer, and an awesome rock concert? That may not be enough to keep you warm through the winter, but at least it’s a good start, right?

All Politics is Local, News, The Daily Feed
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On The Ballot: Electing an Attorney General?

Photo courtesy of
‘Sam Waterston’
courtesy of ‘Alan Light’

In addition to the hundreds of ANC campaigns, and the formal election of Vincent Gray and the Council, tomorrow’s District ballots will have a question for the voters of DC: Do you want the position of Attorney General to be appointed by the Mayor, or elected by the People?  The whole paperwork considering the amendment to the charter is quite lengthy, but can be found on page 39 of your voter guide, or in this handy PDF. To simply: vote for the proposition if you want to elect the AG, vote against it if you think that’s the mayor’s job.

Now to the pros and cons of such an affair.  Proponents of the charter amendment say that it will insulate the city against Attorneys General like Peter Nickles: unresponsive to citizen concerns, no accountability, and pursuing oddly-shaped justice.  Opponents of the charter amendment say that it will change the way Justice is meted out, and will have a chilling effect on unpopular prosecutions.  What say you?  For or against?

The Daily Feed
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Redskins Cheat Sheet: Week 8 @ Detroit

Photo courtesy of
‘213/365’
courtesy of ‘Danilo.Lewis|Fotography’

Trick or Treating, the Marathon and Recovering from Restoring Sanity probably went to the top of your list for Sunday, and not watching the Redskins/Lions stumblefest in Detroit. That’s why we have the Redskins Cheat Sheet.

One of the jokes last year that came after the Redskins helped the Lions get one of their few wins on the season was the easy crutch policy line: “Oh, of course Washington is bailing out Detroit.” This year, I’m not sure what the excuse was, but boy was it painful to watch the ending of that one. While an NFC playoff spot isn’t ruled out at 4-4 halfway through the season (mainly because I’m convinced that everyone is going 8-8 this year), going into the bye week, there are probably more questions than answers for Shanahan’s maiden voyage.

To help you talk through as yesterday’s loss gets dissected in the office, read on beyond the jump.

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Entertainment, Special Events, The Features
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We Love Rallies: Our Reactions to Rally To Restore Sanity

Photo courtesy of
‘Rally to Restore Sanity’
courtesy of ‘vpickering’

As the tourists head back home and the porta potties make their way off The Mall, a few We Love DC writers and I look back at yesterday’s event and offer our experiences and instant reactions. Be sure to also catch Karl’s reaction and discussion of the attendance numbers as well.

Tom: When it became clear at 10am that crowds were already streaming into the grounds on the Mall, we decided that our best bet was to watch the events from a bar. As reports streamed in citing capacity metro trains and overfull metro buses, we decided to risk driving to Church Key, figuring that parking would be possible where mass transit was not. We arrived just after noon as Church Key opened, taking a center booth while the Roots and John Legend warmed up the crowd. As soon as we saw the wide shots, we knew that we were much happier with some tater tots and Aventinus beer than we would be, unable to hear or see at 11th street.

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News, The Daily Feed, WMATA
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Rally for Sanity breaks 19-year Metro Saturday ridership record

Photo courtesy of
‘After the Game’
courtesy of ‘Karon’

If you thought yesterday was a zoo on Metro, you were right. Metro has announced preliminary ridership numbers for yesterday’s rally insanity, and they were through the roof.  825,437 Metrorail trips were taken yesterday by first count, eclipsing the record from the 1991 Desert Storm rally, which drew 786,358 trips.  The stories from Metro yesterday were of a system well past its breaking point, with long lines to enter the stations, and longer lines still to use the farecard machines.

I suspect that Metro could’ve raked it in if they’d decided to charge peak fares yesterday, or to charge for parking at their facilities, which would have helped a system facing serious deficits in their budget.  I would’ve also bet money that Metro could’ve sold boxes and boxes and boxes of $15 SmarTrip cards for $20 apiece if they’d thought about offering them in exchange for exact change at the various stations.  Sadly, Metro did neither, and missed out on a real opportunity to reap benefits in the crunch.

Essential DC, Featured Photo, Life in the Capital, The Features
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Fright Night at the National Zoo


Krusty the Clown (and all other photos) by Max Cook

Usually the scariest things at the National Zoo are the lions, tigers, and screaming little kids, but as the animals slept in their cages Friday night, a different type of terror infiltrated the wooded hillside.  Clowns, zombies, skeletons, and other nightmarish creatures mingled together at the annual “Night of the Living Zoo”, a spectacle I felt compelled to document.  With live bands, freak shows, and loads of beer, it was a great way for hundreds of lunatics to let loose and kick off DC’s epic Halloween weekend.  As with most costume events that I’ve attended, people were more than willing to pose for my camera, the results which I share with you in hopes that you have a good laugh or better yet, a good nightmare.

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The Daily Feed
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Stewart’s Rally for Sanity Causes Crowd Size Insanity

Rall for Sanity
Photos courtesy of Author

60,000 people were expected, according to the permit filed with the NPS by Comedy Central, yet 150,000 were planned for when it came to the uber-important decision as to how many portable toilets were needed. Jon Stewart started out the rally with his satirical people count swag of 10,000,000. But how many people really were there? Well, you knew this was coming and we’ve only seen the beginning of the insanity over the sanity. Rough estimates from various sources say somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people were in attendance for the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Saturday afternoon. Check out this crowd pic. If those numbers are accurate, however, it puts the rally size right around the same size as the Glenn Beck Rally to Restore Honor from a few months ago. Allow the great debate to begin. Who’s more popular? Stewart or Beck? Honor or Sanity?

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Entertainment, Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: A Date with Idina Menzel & The NSO Pops

Photo courtesy of
‘2009 05 17 – 6179 – Washington DC – Kennedy Center’
courtesy of ‘thisisbossi’

Tony award winner Idina Menzel — best known for her portrayal of Elphaba in the original cast of Wicked — is an undisputed face of Broadway today. Since her professional debut as Maureen in Rent over 15 years ago, Ms. Menzel’s voice, stage presence, and personality has grown from a young 20-something eager to grab life by the horns to a wife, mother, and tenured performer who continues to do the same.

What makes Menzel a role model and an icon in the music world isn’t just her powerful voice. What makes Menzel a role model and an icon is her ability to connect with a room full of people she doesn’t know.

Thursday night’s opening Pops performance of “A Date with Idina Menzel” featuring the National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marvin Hamlisch at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall is proof. Continue reading →

News, The Daily Feed
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Emergency at Metro Center: person injured on the tracks

Photo courtesy of
‘but of course…’
courtesy of ‘Barbara.K’

It’s not currently clear if the person currently underneath a red line train at Metro Center jumped or fell in front of the train, but the response has been the same: DC Fire & EMS is currently working with WMATA and WMATA Police to extract them from underneath the undercarriage of the train.

The Red Line is closed between Dupont Circle and Judiciary Square while they work on the tech rescue.  Trains are turning around at Dupont and Judiciary Square, according to tweets.

DC Fire & EMS are currently evaluating one adult male, priority 1 (highest priority), who is under the train, and is also evaluating a bystander who assisted.  We’ll have updates as they come.

Update: 9:05pm Metro is now saying that the person put themselves on the track intentionally in the incident.

News, The Daily Feed
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Carjacking, Shooting in Brightwood, Metro Access vehicle involved

Photo courtesy of
‘Yafa #4’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

A Metro Access vehicle was stolen at gunpoint this afternoon in Brightwood on the 500 block of Shepherd Street NW, according to TBD, shortly after the suspect shot three people, including two children, in the 500 block of Madison Street NW.  The car and the suspect were last seen in the 4900 block of New Hampshire Ave.  As of yet, neither the suspect nor the victims have been identified.

Police are searching for the Metro Access vehicle, a Mercury Grand Marquis, with DC Tags C71165, Metro Access number 3910.  Please call 911 if you have information concerning the incident or the whereabouts of that car.  Do not approach the car, the suspect has already shot three people, you don’t need to be number four.

Update: 6:05pm: The suspect in the afternoon shootings was picked up, along with the stolen Metro Access sedan off Kenilworth Avenue near Polk & Olive NE near the Deanwood Metro.

News, The Daily Feed, WMATA, WTF?!
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A new act of security theater coming to a Metro near you?

Photo courtesy of
‘Barbcue!’
courtesy of ‘Dan Dan The Binary Man’

According to WTOP via Slate, this week’s foiled terrorist plot (though how much of a plot is some video and a diagram you could get from any metro station?) may have Metro Police starting random bag searches of riders on the system. I’m not sure how random searches are going to do anything but scare people and/or piss them off, but since Metro has been ignoring general safety for some time, I guess they’re planning to scare people into not using the system another way?

Use your head, WMATA, don’t do this. This is just a joke posing as security.

The Daily Feed
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Anthropologie Accessories Opens

The Anthropologie in Friendship Heights may have opened only a few months ago, but it seems to be having so much success that it’s spawned a next door shop dedicated solely to accessories. Opening today, Anthropolgie Accessories will feature shoes, jewelry, handbags, hats, scarves, sunglasses, small home furnishings and GALORE!

Time to get your expensive hippie look on!

Essential DC, Interviews, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Philip Barlow


Philip Barlow and Simon Gouverneur’s ‘Welkin’ (and all other photos) by Max Cook

Art is a strange beast that defies definition.  It is everything you want it to be as well as everything others say it isn’t.  You may see a painting at a garage sale and think, “Wow, that’s terrible,” but when it’s hung in a gallery it can attract admiration, spark controversy, or in the end cause someone to say, “Wow, that’s terrible.”  And it is, and it might be, and it isn’t.  More often than not the quality and value of art is decided by others, by the resume of the artist, by which gallery they’re represented by, and by the artist’s ability to talk about their work, but the true indicator of its value is whether you like it.  It’s that simple.

Buying a piece of art, much like asking a girl on a date, can be intimidating if you don’t have prior experience.  How do you know if a piece is priced too high?  How do you recognize when something is priced too low?  Who should you talk to when you’ve made the decision to buy? Should you ask the gallery for a discount?  Are you buying on impulse or will you still love it when you wake up the next morning?  Collecting art is something that can take time to learn, just ask Philip Barlow.

As a staple figure of the DC arts scene, I’ve spoken with Philip at least a dozen times over the years at various gallery openings, artist talks, and other events.  At 6’4” he’s hard to miss and can seem intimidating (if you don’t see eye to eye with him as I do), but he’s one of the nicest and most accommodating people you’ll ever meet.  An average conversation with Philip goes just as it would with any other person, but when he starts to talk about the art in his collection, you see where his true passion in life lies.

It would be unfair of me to talk about Philip without also including Lisa Gilotty, his partner and co-collector of twenty years.  When I first heard about their collection, which consists solely of art that is either made by local artists or purchased in local galleries, I was intrigued to say the least.  Recently I was fortunate enough to view their collection, talk to them about their philosophy on collecting, as well as hear about the background behind many of their pieces.

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The Daily Feed
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Obama’s Daily Show as President Among Most Watched Ever

Photo courtesy of
‘10.30.10’
courtesy of ‘ekelly80’

DC is Jon Stewart’s world this week. We’re just living in it.

Proof? There were roughly 550 brave souls rewarded for spending nearly all of their Wednesday waiting outside the Harman Center for the Arts and granted admission into the taping of The Daily Show that featured President Barack Obama as a guest. And, joining the laugh track those hundreds provided were millions more at home when the show aired Wednesday night at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central. From TV by the Numbers:

The Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes reports that Wednesday night’s Daily Show on Comedy Central where Jon Stewart interviewed President Barack Obama averaged just under three million viewers and was the third most-watched Daily Show ever.

The two shows ahead of it were also Obama-related.  The most-watched episode of all time was in 2008  and drew 3.58 million when Stewart interviewed then presidential candidate Obama.  The second most-watched episode was also in 2008 when Stewart interviewed future first lady Michelle Obama.

Any guesses for television audience size of Saturday’s rally?