Rock Review: Petty Returns to Mudcrutch
It’s interesting to speculate what inspired Tom Petty to go back to his original, unsuccessful Gainesville band. Nostalgia for the old days? A pang of guilt at leaving his buddies…
Review: Iris DeMent, Loudon Wainwright III
Iris DeMent’s career had already been something of a miracle: a clear voiced Southern gospel wail from a woman who wasn’t even that sure of her religion, whose vocal power…
Stage Review: ‘The Body of an American’
When the foreign correspondent Paul Watson snapped a grisly photo in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993, he’d receive both a prize and a curse. He got a Pulitzer Prize for capturing…
Opera Review: ‘Ring’ Lout ‘Siegfried’
In the third installment of the Washington National Opera's mammoth staging of Richard Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung" at the Kennedy Center, a new Brünnhilde awakens, Fafner's dragon turns…
Opera Review: A Sub for ‘The Valkyrie’
Ten years of planning and $10 million in production costs couldn't prevent the Washington National Opera from pleasing all the gods in its ambitious staging of all four operas in…
At the Kingman Island Bluegrass Fest
The Kingman Island Bluegrass and Folk Festival started seven years years ago as a kind of harbinger of spring in D.C. but also to raise funds and awareness for Living…
Music Review: John Hiatt at the Birchmere
Salutes since the death of Prince last week have come so far from artists as wide ranged as Janelle Monae to Bruce Springsteen. Tuesday, John Hiatt found way to tip…
Stage Review: ‘Black Pearl Sings!’
The song hunting expeditions of early 20th century musicologists, scouring rural backwoods to find tunes that have been become part of the nation’s fabric — as well as discovering authentic,…
Stage Review: Make Room for ‘Dada’
It was 100 years ago this year when Hugo Ball chose a nonsense word to label the anti-art movement of World War I - dada. At the Cabaret Voltaire, he…
The Feelies Do Record Store Day
The Feelies spent their Record Store Day in D.C. playing music — a lot of it. The bulk of it was a three hour show with two full sets and…