Roulette Table: Nightlife Agenda
Thursday, July 20
Sometimes we fancy ourselves as budding James Bonds, cleaning up at baccarat in some glamorous Monaco casino, or as the next three members of Ocean's 11 -- er, 16. Who doesn't want to be a high roller? (Though as Atlantic City-loving David reminds us, when you go to Vegas, "There's a reason you only take as much money as you can afford to lose.") For now, we're sticking closer to home. The worthy local charity Bread for the City is sponsoring a casino night fundraiser at the 18th Amendment tonight, and the $25 donation at the door gets all would-be Sam Harmons a stack of chips, drink specials, free appetizers and a raffle ticket. Then you can let loose at the blackjack, roulette and craps tables. (Remember what Albert Einstein reputedly said about roulette: "You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it.") The gaming runs from 7 to 10, and the overall winners receive prizes. Advance tickets are available from Bread and the City's Andrea Messina on 202-587-0539.
Nightlife Agenda Podcast
Chopteeth Brings the Afrofunk
In the latest installment of our Nightlife Agenda Podcast, washingtonpost.com Music Editor David Malitz talks to Michael Shereikis of the local Afrofunk group Chopteeth and plays two exclusive tracks.
Friday, July 21
On hot summer nights when the city is bursting at the seams with music, mingling and mirth, it can be a drag to have to pack it in when your last destination of the night brings the house lights up. A lot of people move towards late-night dining spots, but it's rare to find something that won't sit like a rock in your gut the next day, let alone a place that allows you to wind down slowly from your night or continue to chat up that nice new friend you made. Thankfully, vocalist Bilal Salaam is making just such a space available at Bohemian Caverns tonight after his gig sharing the stage with India.Arie. His Bohemian Tea Party is a free after-hours jam session fueled by a tea and juice bar and featuring some of his soulful and jazzy peers from the local scene.
Longevity is a rare commodity in the rap world -- it's a cutthroat young man's game -- but Busta Rhymes continues to lead and dominate. The iconic madness in the two or three club bangers that end up smashing the charts on each of his releases is only one element in this master MC's toolbox. Between albums, Busta still floods the streets with full mixtapes just to show how nice he is. No one else with almost 20 years in the game can do that. He made a power move linking up with Dr. Dre's Aftermath, and the resulting album "The Big Bang" shows the wisdom in that decision, even though it's missing that amazing cut with Eminem that was floating around the Net before the official release. He's the best he's ever been now, and he'll be bringing his manic stage energy and club-rending party jams to Love tonight.
When Congolese dance/trance/rock band Konono No. 1 first came stateside last fall, the price was right, but not much else was. Millennium Stage is great, but it didn't prove to be the best setting for the pulsating, distorted rhythms that this sprawling, multigenerational group creates. The music is as hot as the land it comes from, highlighted by perhaps the most unique of instruments, the likembe, an electrified thumb piano. So the somewhat sterile Kennedy Center, complete with confused ushers, didn't showcase the group to the best effect -- especially for those fans hoping to get down. Hopefully the Black Cat will prove to be a more conducive atmosphere for the band to let loose with its extended jams, which are heavy on call-and-response vocals, whistles and a variety of percussion. Opening at the Black Cat is Chopteeth, a local Afrofunk group with upward of a dozen members itself. The band was featured on the most recent edition of the Nightlife Agenda podcast, as David talked to guitarist Michael Shereikis and played exclusive clips of some of the group's songs.
Benefit shows always have a way of bringing together acts that you'd never expect to share a bill, and tonight's event at Jin is no different. You have DJ Fresh spinning bhangra and hip-hop, local indie rock stalwarts Metropolitan and coffeehouse folkie Jared Rehberg. The goal is to raise money, so drawing people with different tastes makes sense. The proceeds from the show will benefit the Children's Home Society and Family Services, an organization that runs humanitarian aid programs for education, health care, and other basic needs of children, teens and families in India, Vietnam, Korea, Guatemala and China. The $20 admission may seem steep, but if you get there at 8, you can enjoy free Tsingtao beer for two hours.
Electronic music is hyper-fragmented, and it's rare for practitioners, DJs and fans to step outside of their demarcated zones once they get well entrenched in them. For example, progressive house is like garlic to a vampire for soulful house heads, whose favored Afro-Latin percussion and soaring vocals would fail with a breakbeat crowd. This silo culture doesn't apply to super producer King Britt, who is able to toggle back and forth between brain hemispheres when he does opposing electronic styles. He's known for his deep soulful remixes and Afrobeat excursions as well as the funk revivalism of his outfit Sylk 130, but he also has techno roots. His new "Nova Dream Sequence" album is a trance-like exploration of dream interpretation through spare techno rhythms. He'll be tapping that sector of his muse with a late-night shift on the wheels at Five tonight.
Saturday, July 22
When it comes to can't-miss local music events, the annual Run for Cover show at the Black Cat is pretty high on our list. It's a pretty simple premise: Local musicians break off from their bands for one night to create tribute groups that honor (and mock) their heroes. It's always a night of fun and surprises. Last year, for example, we had bewigged rockers Just Oates covering Hall and Oates, the Queen is Dead sending up the operatic bluster of Queen (complete with a guest appearance by "David Bowie") and an all-female Clash cover band called the Sandinistas. This time around, the 10 bands on the bill include Phony Mony (which we think will be skewering Billy Idol), Dead Babies (Alice Cooper, perhaps?), the Violent Feminists and the Rockers, which Fritz thinks could be targeting either Judas Priest, who recorded "I'm A Rocker," or AC/DC, whose "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" included a song called "Rocker." Either way, you're going to laugh your head off, and the $10 cover goes to the Alkem Foundation, which provides free Web hosting for local arts groups and bands.
Washington's felt a lot like Rio this week, though we have more humidity and our Brazilian friends have better beaches, better soccer players and more women in bikinis. You can try to catch a bit of the Ipanema vibe tonight at Dupont's Heritage India, where Euronet International and promoters Brazilian Night Entertainment are hosting a Brazilian T-Shirt Party. (Hint: They're giving away T-shirts.) Forget the clothes, though, and focus on DJ Marcelo's mix of Brazilian dance tunes and the raffle prizes, which include a round-trip ticket to Brazil. Doors open at 10:30, and admission is $10 in advance. (More information about purchasing tickets is at www.braziliannight.com.)
The Caribbean's primary influence on electronic music is the proto-drum 'n' bass known as jungle, which features chopped up breaks melded with dancehall vocals. There's a new wave coming, though. Out in California, DJ Rob Paine has been developing a reputation for fusing Jamaican dub with house music. Anchoring an intriguing stylistic mash-up of an evening, he'll be taking the turntables at Five tonight after an early set by Sister Nancy, a dominating female voice for over two decades on a scene where such an achievement is rare. Of her many releases, her tune "Bam Bam" over the classic "stalag riddim" is known the world over -- even by party people who can't name a dancehall artist other than Sean Paul. Also featured on tonight's diverse bill is the funky house of Implicit and Suneel.
Unlimited crabs, unlimited beer, plenty of hot jazz and Dixieland, plenty of dancing. The Potomac River Jazz Club's annual Jazz and Crab Feast has just about everything we'd need. Performing again this year is the Buck Creek Jazz Band, which plays a hotter sound of '20s and '30s jazz -- read: tuba and banjo instead of string bass -- that's perfect for the Charleston. When you're not dancing, there are unlimited crabs, hot dogs, snacks, beers and sodas, all of which are included in the $35 admission price. Let's run down that again: Jazz, beer, crabs, $35. The fun begins at 1 and tickets can be purchased from www.prjc.org. Note that no tickets will be available at the door.
Monday, July 24
When He'Brew beer first appeared in area stores and bars a few years ago, it was easy to dismiss the microbrew as a novelty act on par with that bluegrass cover of Snoop's "Gin and Juice." A kosher beer that draped its Messiah Bold ale in the slogan "It's the beer you've been waiting for" and billed its products as "Perfect for weddings, bar mitzvahs and circumcisions"? Clever. But here's the thing: Once we actually tried Messiah, it was pretty good. Founder Jeremy Cohen's been building a bigger reputation among beer lovers in recent years with quirky seasonal releases, and he's bringing all four of the company's draft beers to the Brickskeller tonight for a tasting, including the new Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A., a rye-based India Pale Ale that honors the 40th anniversary of Lenny Bruce's death. (This tribute to the boundary-pushing comic contains "an obscene amount of rye and hops," nyuk nyuk nyuk.) The $10 admission covers tastes of all the beers and a chat with Cohen, so move quickly and reserve your spot by calling the bar.
Between all of the rain early on in the schedule and the heat of late, perhaps you haven't made it out to Fort Reno as much as you would have liked. Make sure you get out there tonight, though, no matter how bad a case of the Mondays you may have. First up will be Eyeball Skeleton, easily the best lo-fi elementary school-aged rock group around. Brothers Charlie and JJ -- with some help from Dad -- write simple, funny and very catchy songs about animals, zombies and other subjects of interest to people who probably still have bedtimes. It might sound shticky, but if you think kids having fun is shticky, then lightening up doesn't even begin to describe what you need to do. Finishing the evening will be the Mayor of D.C. Hip-Hop, Head-Roc, bringing his War Machine back to Fort Reno for the second consecutive year. Don't be frightened -- be excited. Head-Roc has passed the point where he is simply "one of the top hip-hop acts in the area," and you can throw him in the discussion when it comes to top hip-hop acts, period. His conscious rhymes, exquisite flow and spot-on beats never fail to impress.
Sometimes we fancy ourselves as budding James Bonds, cleaning up at baccarat in some glamorous Monaco casino, or as the next three members of Ocean's 11 -- er, 16. Who doesn't want to be a high roller? (Though as Atlantic City-loving David reminds us, when you go to Vegas, "There's a reason you only take as much money as you can afford to lose.") For now, we're sticking closer to home. The worthy local charity Bread for the City is sponsoring a casino night fundraiser at the 18th Amendment tonight, and the $25 donation at the door gets all would-be Sam Harmons a stack of chips, drink specials, free appetizers and a raffle ticket. Then you can let loose at the blackjack, roulette and craps tables. (Remember what Albert Einstein reputedly said about roulette: "You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it.") The gaming runs from 7 to 10, and the overall winners receive prizes. Advance tickets are available from Bread and the City's Andrea Messina on 202-587-0539.
Nightlife Agenda Podcast
Chopteeth Brings the Afrofunk
In the latest installment of our Nightlife Agenda Podcast, washingtonpost.com Music Editor David Malitz talks to Michael Shereikis of the local Afrofunk group Chopteeth and plays two exclusive tracks.
Friday, July 21
On hot summer nights when the city is bursting at the seams with music, mingling and mirth, it can be a drag to have to pack it in when your last destination of the night brings the house lights up. A lot of people move towards late-night dining spots, but it's rare to find something that won't sit like a rock in your gut the next day, let alone a place that allows you to wind down slowly from your night or continue to chat up that nice new friend you made. Thankfully, vocalist Bilal Salaam is making just such a space available at Bohemian Caverns tonight after his gig sharing the stage with India.Arie. His Bohemian Tea Party is a free after-hours jam session fueled by a tea and juice bar and featuring some of his soulful and jazzy peers from the local scene.
Longevity is a rare commodity in the rap world -- it's a cutthroat young man's game -- but Busta Rhymes continues to lead and dominate. The iconic madness in the two or three club bangers that end up smashing the charts on each of his releases is only one element in this master MC's toolbox. Between albums, Busta still floods the streets with full mixtapes just to show how nice he is. No one else with almost 20 years in the game can do that. He made a power move linking up with Dr. Dre's Aftermath, and the resulting album "The Big Bang" shows the wisdom in that decision, even though it's missing that amazing cut with Eminem that was floating around the Net before the official release. He's the best he's ever been now, and he'll be bringing his manic stage energy and club-rending party jams to Love tonight.
When Congolese dance/trance/rock band Konono No. 1 first came stateside last fall, the price was right, but not much else was. Millennium Stage is great, but it didn't prove to be the best setting for the pulsating, distorted rhythms that this sprawling, multigenerational group creates. The music is as hot as the land it comes from, highlighted by perhaps the most unique of instruments, the likembe, an electrified thumb piano. So the somewhat sterile Kennedy Center, complete with confused ushers, didn't showcase the group to the best effect -- especially for those fans hoping to get down. Hopefully the Black Cat will prove to be a more conducive atmosphere for the band to let loose with its extended jams, which are heavy on call-and-response vocals, whistles and a variety of percussion. Opening at the Black Cat is Chopteeth, a local Afrofunk group with upward of a dozen members itself. The band was featured on the most recent edition of the Nightlife Agenda podcast, as David talked to guitarist Michael Shereikis and played exclusive clips of some of the group's songs.
Benefit shows always have a way of bringing together acts that you'd never expect to share a bill, and tonight's event at Jin is no different. You have DJ Fresh spinning bhangra and hip-hop, local indie rock stalwarts Metropolitan and coffeehouse folkie Jared Rehberg. The goal is to raise money, so drawing people with different tastes makes sense. The proceeds from the show will benefit the Children's Home Society and Family Services, an organization that runs humanitarian aid programs for education, health care, and other basic needs of children, teens and families in India, Vietnam, Korea, Guatemala and China. The $20 admission may seem steep, but if you get there at 8, you can enjoy free Tsingtao beer for two hours.
Electronic music is hyper-fragmented, and it's rare for practitioners, DJs and fans to step outside of their demarcated zones once they get well entrenched in them. For example, progressive house is like garlic to a vampire for soulful house heads, whose favored Afro-Latin percussion and soaring vocals would fail with a breakbeat crowd. This silo culture doesn't apply to super producer King Britt, who is able to toggle back and forth between brain hemispheres when he does opposing electronic styles. He's known for his deep soulful remixes and Afrobeat excursions as well as the funk revivalism of his outfit Sylk 130, but he also has techno roots. His new "Nova Dream Sequence" album is a trance-like exploration of dream interpretation through spare techno rhythms. He'll be tapping that sector of his muse with a late-night shift on the wheels at Five tonight.
Saturday, July 22
When it comes to can't-miss local music events, the annual Run for Cover show at the Black Cat is pretty high on our list. It's a pretty simple premise: Local musicians break off from their bands for one night to create tribute groups that honor (and mock) their heroes. It's always a night of fun and surprises. Last year, for example, we had bewigged rockers Just Oates covering Hall and Oates, the Queen is Dead sending up the operatic bluster of Queen (complete with a guest appearance by "David Bowie") and an all-female Clash cover band called the Sandinistas. This time around, the 10 bands on the bill include Phony Mony (which we think will be skewering Billy Idol), Dead Babies (Alice Cooper, perhaps?), the Violent Feminists and the Rockers, which Fritz thinks could be targeting either Judas Priest, who recorded "I'm A Rocker," or AC/DC, whose "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" included a song called "Rocker." Either way, you're going to laugh your head off, and the $10 cover goes to the Alkem Foundation, which provides free Web hosting for local arts groups and bands.
Washington's felt a lot like Rio this week, though we have more humidity and our Brazilian friends have better beaches, better soccer players and more women in bikinis. You can try to catch a bit of the Ipanema vibe tonight at Dupont's Heritage India, where Euronet International and promoters Brazilian Night Entertainment are hosting a Brazilian T-Shirt Party. (Hint: They're giving away T-shirts.) Forget the clothes, though, and focus on DJ Marcelo's mix of Brazilian dance tunes and the raffle prizes, which include a round-trip ticket to Brazil. Doors open at 10:30, and admission is $10 in advance. (More information about purchasing tickets is at www.braziliannight.com.)
The Caribbean's primary influence on electronic music is the proto-drum 'n' bass known as jungle, which features chopped up breaks melded with dancehall vocals. There's a new wave coming, though. Out in California, DJ Rob Paine has been developing a reputation for fusing Jamaican dub with house music. Anchoring an intriguing stylistic mash-up of an evening, he'll be taking the turntables at Five tonight after an early set by Sister Nancy, a dominating female voice for over two decades on a scene where such an achievement is rare. Of her many releases, her tune "Bam Bam" over the classic "stalag riddim" is known the world over -- even by party people who can't name a dancehall artist other than Sean Paul. Also featured on tonight's diverse bill is the funky house of Implicit and Suneel.
Unlimited crabs, unlimited beer, plenty of hot jazz and Dixieland, plenty of dancing. The Potomac River Jazz Club's annual Jazz and Crab Feast has just about everything we'd need. Performing again this year is the Buck Creek Jazz Band, which plays a hotter sound of '20s and '30s jazz -- read: tuba and banjo instead of string bass -- that's perfect for the Charleston. When you're not dancing, there are unlimited crabs, hot dogs, snacks, beers and sodas, all of which are included in the $35 admission price. Let's run down that again: Jazz, beer, crabs, $35. The fun begins at 1 and tickets can be purchased from www.prjc.org. Note that no tickets will be available at the door.
Monday, July 24
When He'Brew beer first appeared in area stores and bars a few years ago, it was easy to dismiss the microbrew as a novelty act on par with that bluegrass cover of Snoop's "Gin and Juice." A kosher beer that draped its Messiah Bold ale in the slogan "It's the beer you've been waiting for" and billed its products as "Perfect for weddings, bar mitzvahs and circumcisions"? Clever. But here's the thing: Once we actually tried Messiah, it was pretty good. Founder Jeremy Cohen's been building a bigger reputation among beer lovers in recent years with quirky seasonal releases, and he's bringing all four of the company's draft beers to the Brickskeller tonight for a tasting, including the new Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A., a rye-based India Pale Ale that honors the 40th anniversary of Lenny Bruce's death. (This tribute to the boundary-pushing comic contains "an obscene amount of rye and hops," nyuk nyuk nyuk.) The $10 admission covers tastes of all the beers and a chat with Cohen, so move quickly and reserve your spot by calling the bar.
Between all of the rain early on in the schedule and the heat of late, perhaps you haven't made it out to Fort Reno as much as you would have liked. Make sure you get out there tonight, though, no matter how bad a case of the Mondays you may have. First up will be Eyeball Skeleton, easily the best lo-fi elementary school-aged rock group around. Brothers Charlie and JJ -- with some help from Dad -- write simple, funny and very catchy songs about animals, zombies and other subjects of interest to people who probably still have bedtimes. It might sound shticky, but if you think kids having fun is shticky, then lightening up doesn't even begin to describe what you need to do. Finishing the evening will be the Mayor of D.C. Hip-Hop, Head-Roc, bringing his War Machine back to Fort Reno for the second consecutive year. Don't be frightened -- be excited. Head-Roc has passed the point where he is simply "one of the top hip-hop acts in the area," and you can throw him in the discussion when it comes to top hip-hop acts, period. His conscious rhymes, exquisite flow and spot-on beats never fail to impress.
