Category Archives: Music

It’s been two years since Brian Wilson’s 50th anniversary tour of the Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” started doing their “final performances” across the states and around the world. But the masterpiece of rock expression has never worn out its welcome. Another one of the so-called “final performances” came Monday at the Kennedy Center, this one [...]

Normally super-prolific, Elvis Costello went five years between new albums recently, going so far as to tour an old album, “Imperial Bedroom” last year rather than release a new set of songs. But a memoir, a health scare and that tour with the Imposters reminded how much he liked performing with the snap of Pete [...]

It’s less than a half a year to Fat Tuesday, but the heart of Mardi Gras is on the road, in the form of the “Take Me to the River” tour. The caravan, headlined by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and featuring such figures as Ivan Neville and George Porter Jr., is built around the [...]

They were playing Captain Beyond before the Guided by Voices’ super marathon at the Black Cat Friday and that was about right: post psychedelic, pre-prog rock Brit/American mix with all kinds of fanciful medieval references. The kind of thing that ancient GBV leader Robert Pollard would relish, in other words, or put out on his [...]

The Bottle Rockets have always had a flinty, no-nonsense way of expressing the very concrete things of everyday life that sets it apart from most bands. There’s a hard-won Midwestern honesty to their hard-charging songs about defining the limitations of life and accepting them (or at least naming them clearly). And when Brian Henneman and [...]

Despite its jokey name, lifted from a Bonzo Dog Band song title, Death Cab for Cutie have been releasing intriguing, largely wistful albums for 20 years now. Their latest, Thank You For Today, its ninth, continues the traditions of complex, brainy lyrics often reflecting loss and heartache, in catchy little melodies. The band’s big show [...]

For a joint tour that ends in a collaboration, Josh Rouse and Grant-Lee Phillips don’t look like they’ll immediately go together. Rouse, in a three piece suit and tie, travels in a breezy, sophisticated kind of guitar pop bordering on light jazz. Phillips growls and rocks in a manner suited to his old band Grant [...]

Talk about rainy day music. The last licks of Hurricane Michael were blowing rain into Virginia the soaking night of the Jayhawks’ return to The Birchmere. And it was the band’s 15 year old album Rainy Day Music that dominated the generous 24-song show. Not just because it contains a lot of the band’s strongest [...]

When Supergrass called it quits in 2010, frontman Baz Coombes kept going, with a series of solo albums that showed how strong he was at songcraft and increasingly, how talented he is at producing it. In his solo show at City Winery in Washington, D.C., Thursday he showed how he can do many things well [...]

Liz Phair looked happy and perky as she took the stage at a sold-out 930 Club last week to reignite memories of the audience — and of her own past memories at the storied D.C. Club. After this year’s quarter-century salute to her big splash, “Exit in Guyville,” Phair at 51 seems resigned to becoming [...]