It was around midnight on my friend's 22nd (read: unimportant) birthday, and we had already exhausted all the normal birthday activities. We had taken a round of 99 Apples shots (FYI: don't be enticed by their sweet candy aroma. They taste like lighter fluid).
"We're actors - we're the opposite of people," members of the Generic Theatre Company kept telling me. It's a line from their upcoming production of Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," opening tonight. Whatever it means, it's probably not true - but the Generic players don't want anyone to take them (or the production) too seriously.
I've been trying to get off club promotion juggernaut Jetset Mafia's listserv for months. Their barrage of e-mails beckoning me to places with names like "Dream," "Home" and "Fur" has somehow, week after week, failed to entice me to suit up in a tube top and subject myself to mild sexual assault.
Genre-benders in the music industry run the gamut from alt-country to pop-punk to anti-folk. Christopher O'Riley stands alone in a category that might be called alt-classical - he's a pianist trained at the New England Conservatory of Music, but plays the music of artists more likely to be found in the average college student's iPod than in a concert hall.
The 24-year-old Marc Broussard is poised to bring his impossibly soulful music to the 9:30 Club this Thursday and Friday, opening up for G. Love and Special Sauce. The blend of his Bayou music and G. Love's Philly-style grooves should provide a great atmosphere.
If you have $5 Put Mr. Lincoln back in your wallet and come to Lisner Auditorium on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. to support the Music Department by attending the University Symphony Orchestra's Fall Concert. Featuring selections by past masters Mozart and Beethoven, as well as contemporary composer Brian Wilbur Grundstrom, the concert will provide some exciting music and a nice break before you have to get into the finals mindset and won't be able to afford to devote your attention to anything but books.
On an unseasonably warm Friday night last week, the 9:30 Club hipped, hopped, bipped, bopped, swung, grooved and sometimes even rocked a long night of Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood. For two consecutive sets that clocked in at around three hours, these gentlemen gave their fingers and a dancin', clappin', shoutin' audience a good workout.
Try to find someone who will argue that New York is not the center of the American contemporary art scene. After all, it is the birthplace of abstract expressionism - a movement many believe lit the furnace for domestic modern art production under such figures as Pollack, de Kooning and Rothko.
The first thing I noticed about this group at their show at Velvet Lounge was how much musical clout they have while only playing three instruments. Jukebox the Ghost is a trio comprised of drummer Jesse Kristin, guitarist and vocalist Tommy Siegel and keyboardist and vocalist Ben Thornewill -- all seniors in their first semester back from studying abroad.
I was going to give this foursome from Seattle, Wa., a B- for their efforts, but because of my benevolent nature and my desire to pay tribute to GW's grade inflation policy, I'll bump them up to a B. It would be unfair to compare this show to other acts I've seen this year like Umphrey's McGee and John Scofield, as it is unfair to expect the same kind of experience.
In 1930, legendary jazz bandleader Cab Calloway recorded a song called "Happy Feet" with his orchestra. Calloway sang of an uncontrollable urge that came over his ten tapping toes to dance when he heard a low-down beat. Before his death twelve years ago, do you think that in his wildest dreams he'd believe his song would be the premise for a film featuring computer-animated penguins that sing and dance in Antarctica? In "Happy Feet," the latest CGI spectacle to hit screens, the penguins attract their mates with a song from their heart.
This Saturday at 8 p.m. in the third floor Continental Ballroom of the Marvin Center, DreamCity, a youth-run organization, will be hosting an event entitled "Rep Where U Step." This event was designed to utilize hip-hop in order to expose GW students to the organization, while integrating the university with the city.
Although the band's name seems foreign, the French Kicks are a local band. Since 1998, D.C. natives vocalist/drummer Nick Stump, bassist Jamie Krents and vocalists/guitarists Matt Stinchcomb and Josh Wise have been making experimental, creative music that explores the boundaries of pop-rock while still maintaining an appealing accessibility.
Whenever a new biopic comes out, critics jump all over each other pointing out the inaccuracies. Ray Charles never stopped doing drugs. John Nash was mean. Cole Porter was gay. There can be no such hand-wringing over "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.
It is not always easy to find a contemporary jazz musician whose repertoire is not at least a slight throwback to a particular formula or style of any one of jazz's great pivotal legends. What makes guitarist Bill Frisell an exception to this is his ability to carry a primarily jazz rooted sound to the next level and even manipulate it well beyond there.
Gene Simmons once instructed us to get up and more importantly, get down, in Detroit Rock City. It turns out we don't have to "shlep" all the way to Detroit to have a good time, because the Detroit Cobras gladly offered up a solid rock show, sans the leather and makeup, at the Black Cat last Sunday.
All the blinds are drawn on a brand-new tour bus that reads "The Format" on the window. Inside, the stagnant air smells heavy with the tinge of smoke (of several varieties), stale food, and body odor. Two small plastic guitars sit in the back room of the bus.
Vol. 106
An Independent Student Newspaper
Serving The George Washington University Community Since 1904
