See Arcade Fire and Help Repair a Home

An Ocean of Noise and Yachad, the DC nonprofit for affordable housing and community development are teaming up for a great cause and a great concert. If you live in the DC area and are intersted in seeing Arcade Fire rock out on Friday pm at Merriweather Post Pavilion, here's your chance. Whoever makes the highest contribution to Yachad will receive a free ticket to the show! Your donations will go toward repairing homes and community centers of low-income DC residents in order to ensure that DC remains a city for all people regardless race or economic stature.

Comment below with your bid or email Yachad directly at Kendra@yachad-dc.org.

Let the most generous donor win!

Concert Review: The Antlers/The National D.A.R. Constitution Hall Sunday June 6th

The National have been slowly moving up in the world since their humble Cincinnati days and it is only fitting that as their sound has grown, so have the venues and excited crowds. This wasn't the first time that the band played the prestigious Constitution Hall but as they told the audience, last time they were opening for The Arcade Fire and the auditorium was only half-full. While I would have killed to see that show, The National won't be playing second fiddle to anyone any more, and that whole 'half-full crowd' thing isn't going to be a problem from now on either.

The show was kick started by up-and-comers/NPR darlings, The Antlers, a band whose live performance surprisingly owes more to Sonic Youth than anyone else. Though I've listened to their album Hospice a great deal and quite like it, I'm always a little suspicious of a three-piece band making sounds akin to category 5 hurricanes live, especially when there is only one guitar on stage. The other problem I had with their set was the fact that The Antlers stuck to one unbendable formula throughout - literally every song starts with a whimper, the drums kick in three or four minutes in, building to a moment when you will be awash in sound, followed by three or four false endings and then a final ending that consists of a couple minutes of feedback. Literally. Every. Song. Still, they had wonderful moments of glory and a couple songs that were able to stand out from the rest of the noise. Also, I think their show would have been much more enjoyable if the guy running sound had not been wretched at his job. The bass on the low end drowned out basically everything The Antlers were doing to the point that it was hard to breath in my seat and inducing all the people around me to plug their ears. I'm also willing to accept that perhaps the acoustics were just terrible where I was sitting.

The National came out as a breath of fresh air with the slow burning "Runaway," a track I find the most boring of their entire catalogue, but a song made lovely and immediate in the live setting. But not even The National were immune to early sound problems. Matt Berninger voice, usually deep and overpowering was drowned out by bass and echoes right along with the many wonderful subtleties in their music. A few songs in, while I was becoming more and more reminiscent of the intimacies of the 9:30 Club, Berninger stepped off stage to have a chat with the sound guy (and hopefully punch him in the face). Afterward the vocals were clearer, the intricacies came through and the mood in my neck of the concert hall changed dramatically.

The band ripped though a set that leaned mostly on Alligator and the brand new High Violet (an album I'm still learning to embrace, but am excited to hear again after this great performance) although they did play a couple tracks from Boxer and even one brilliant one from Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. Standouts included new songs like "Afraid of Everyone," "Conversation 16" and "Lemonworld" as well as "Squalor Victoria," "About Today," and the always perfect, "Fake Empire."

Berninger was at his most charming, joking with the crowd and drinking out of a cup that was probably white wine and probably not water. He even came into the crowd on screamers, "Abel" and "Mr. November," in which he ended up on the upper deck of auditorium ten feet from yours truly. Decked out in a natty suit and 'Most Interesting Man in the World' facial hair, it was impossible not to develop my very own man-crush on Mr. Berninger.

While he did his thing, the band sounded as tight as ever. The five-piece I saw a few years ago have grown into a stage show that often looks more like Broken Social Scene - with violins, keyboards, trumpets and saxophones coming at you from all directions. While this can sometimes result in a little bit of overkill (seriously, unless you're a ska band or Belle and Sebastian, you should put the horn down once in a while), The National still play to their strengths, that being the exceptional disjointed guitar playing of the Dessner twins and the ridiculously perfect drumming of Bryan Devendorf (seriously, he might be the best drummer alive today). The show ended with the fan favorite, tear-jerker, "About Today," a song that builds and releases like a marriage that has hit a breaking-point and is rescued from divorce at the last second by a sincere apology - which also happens to be what the song is about.

It was a fitting end to a show that was trying at best in the beginning, but eventually won the crowd over and then took its heart. I've seen The National four or five times now and while exiting the show last night, began immediately looking forward to the next time.

Underground Sound: Notes From Some Guy's Basement

So I'm standing in the middle of a crowded basement apartment in the Logan Circle area of Washington, DC getting a serious contact high and waiting to see a folky musician whom my best friend loves named Radical Face (the musician, not my friend). Scattered around the room is some of the best people watching I have ever seen: 20-year-old emo boys who love each other more than they love their annoyed girlfriends, check. High-fiving frat boy wearing a backwards Red Sox cap polishing off a bottle of Jim Beam, check. 60-year-old black guy smoking a joint in the corner, check. Beatnik dude who could have been an extra at that party in Annie Hall where Woody Allen meets all those weirdo Hollywood producers, check. And who can forget the group of high school kids who came with their mom who is pretending not to be totally freaked out by everything going on around her, um, check. The whole vibe alternates between adorably sweet and cult-meeting creepy.

While we wait for Radical Face to take the stage (and by stage I mean a spot on the stained carpet by the wall) we watch the three opening bands perform. The first is just a guy who can't sing and makes Daniel Johnston look like a good guitar player. The next performance is by Tree River which features the guy who couldn't sing on drums and is led by a guy who really can sing. I'm totally into Tree River except for the fact that the guy who couldn't sing can't really drum either. The final band to come on is the annoyingly-named Snow Baby. Snow Baby are as precious as they sounds and we all have to be quiet to hear them. Seriously, we have to be quiet, the guy who owns the basement is yelling at us to shut up and everyone is shushing everyone else. It's like being in a room full of pissed off librarians. Snow Baby is incredibly talented and incredibly derivative. Each moment of their music evokes either Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Le Loup or Animal Collective. I want to like them but I don't understand how it is that Snow Baby could afford electronic equipment that makes bug and animal sounds but not microphones.

After Snow Baby finish their set the guy who owns the basement takes the microphone and tells us how awesome he is and reminds us over and over that this is in fact his kick-ass basement where this show is happening. He introduces Radical Face and when Radical Face walks up to the microphone, instead of moving out of the way, he tells us how awesome his basement party is a little more.

Radical Face, a Floridian by birth has just made it back from SXSW in Austin and has an Amish beard covering his radical face. He warns us before the show starts that he's been sick and his voice isn't what it should be before launching into his set. Radical Face's music is eclectic - part acoustic confessional, part Postal Service laptop inspired beats and bleeps. He tells the crowd (numbering around 100 at this point) that he gets a lot of shit for the laptop but that it's cheaper than a band. While I'm digging his music, it's hard not to agree with the people who give him shit about using a computer. When I see live music I want it to be live and that's why Radical Face is at his best when he is joined by his drummer and the computer functions as atmosphere rather than leading instrument. The best moment of the night is when Radical Face breaks out his song "Welcome Home" which sends the crowd who all seem to know every song in his repertoire as it is, into a frenzy. The song has a beautiful and soaring chorus of 'ahhhs,' which the entire basement sings in unison. It is a gorgeous moment that breaks through all of my cynicism. The Red Sox guy is high-fiving everyone in sight, the emo boys are hugging each other, the high school kids' chaperon is smiling.  It is a moment that transcends the night and carries me out of the basement on a literal high-note.  Sure, I need to shower the smell of smoke off of my body and pray my days of hanging out with college students in basements are now officially over forever, but for a moment all is well and as it should be, the way only good music can make it. Then the guy who owns the place starts congratulating himself again and it's time to leave.

Washington DC: The City of Love

For the amount of shit people like to talk about the politicians in Washington, DC, the citizenry that actually live here are pretty damn cool and make up what probably amounts to the most progressive city on the East Coast (yeah, that's' right New York). Aside from the fact that a Republican doesn't stand a chance of getting elected dog catcher of this city and that we just passed a law legalizing medical marijuana, the biggest news is that gay marriage is coming to the capital! A stirring scene took place at the court house yesterday as hundreds of couples showed up to file for their marriage licenses and as of next Tuesday, DC residents can marry their same-sex spouse. So go ahead, keep calling us the Hollywood for ugly people, we're much too busy fighting for human rights (even for ugly people) and being awesome, to listen.

And here, one of my favorite songs about popping the question.

See Lion (Get It?)

This afternoon I will be in College Park watching the Maryland v. Georgia Tech game and right after that, attending a birthday party, but if the timing is right, I will also be at the Red and the Black checking out Daddy Lion. Daddy Lion makes wonderfully fuzzy guitar rock in the vein of The Replacements, Husker Du, and (older/better) Modest Mouse created in a bedroom by Jeremy Whitman and brought to life with a full band that has been gigging regularly in the past few months.

The band has gotten national press recently when their song "Morning" was picked as NPR's Song of the Day and recently released a self-titled EP that you can download for free right here.

So if you're not too busy tonight for some terrific hometown rock then you should cough up the measly $8 (well worth it my friend) and check out Daddy Lion (Saturday, February 20th) at The Red and the Black - hopefully I will join you there.

Scott Thought #2

Everything in the music industry has changed recently, from the way we buy our music (no more records or buying whole Cd’s…indeed, the band considers itself lucky if the song just isn’t ripped from somewhere online), to the way we listen to it. Now I’m not saying change isn’t good, but there is something missing: No longer do we sit in a chair for the entire 15 minutes of Awaken, by Yes; rather, many listeners change the radio station after every song, or just fast forward to the chorus on their iPods. Yet there is one part of music that must absolutely never cease to exist, and that is the concert. Now, I don’t go to many concerts, but I honestly think they are one of the most important things in all of music. The being there, with your band, as if they are playing directly to you, and for you. Surrounded by hundreds, or thousands of people, no clue who they are, where they came from, or what they’re going through, yet all of you as a single unit, eyes closed, stupid grins on your faces, listening to that show-stopping song. This almost spiritual unity of thousands of people in one venue must never end.

-Scott Goldstein