Tag Archives: Washington DC

Bands MIA In DC?

I am realizing that bands frquently skip DC for shows. I can understand why this happens in Pittsburgh (it is not along convenient tour routes, smaller market), but DC is odd. I suspect it has to do with venue difficulty, including the 930 Club’s “aggressive” appropriation of revenues but this cannot be the entire story.

For fun and out of bitterness, I intend to keep a list of bands not coming to DC.

Today I found out Fiery Furnaces will not be coming to town, even though they sold out Black Cat and 930–one of my favorite shows of 2005–in their two most recent appearances. And it is not a West Coast tour situation, as they will be going through the area from New Haven, CT to Charlottsville, VA and then could again swing through the area from Pittsburgh (interesting) to Ithaca, NY.

And other DC snubs I have recently come across include The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs (but this is a mini-tour with a full tour coming post-album release).

Rock ‘n’ Roll And Property

Ben pointed out this Marketplace clip by Ian Svenonious, who DC hipsters will know as the lead singer in the bands The Make-Up and Weird War.

In it, Svenonious explores property’s relationship to music, particularly contrasting rock ‘n’ roll with electroclash and what he calls the “semi-acoustic psychedelic folk revival.” He begins by arguing that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s policy of low, low interest rates caused property prices to dramatically appreciate and, therefore, push low-income people into cramped quarters. To deal with constraints imposed by space and neighbors, the noisiness and size of bands (compared to rock ‘n’ roll) declined significantly. Musicians turned to electronic drums to replace drum kits, which are too big for apartments, and bands evolved into groups of one or two only. This downsizing of the rock ‘n’ roll sound can be found, Svenonious argues, in electroclash and the folk revival.
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