[tws]
I may be breaking new ground for overdue posts on this thing, but I have my reasons. For one, I've left DC
and I've shifted coasts. That's my major excuse. In case you've never uprooted yourself from the city you've spent your entire
adult life in and began anew in a distant city with very little to run on, here's a piece of valuable information: SHIT'S
HARD.
For the record, I'm not happy to be gone, as much as most of what's wrong with DC is much, much better out here.
In fact, our troubled nation's suspiciously (relatively) non-troubled capital has plenty of wonderful ins and outs that developers,
et. al haven't slashed and burned yet!
Here are some killer items that should go on anybody's DC bucket list,
or list of places to go and things to do regularly if you still live there. (Hi, friends! I know I suck and probably owe you
a call/email. I haven't forgotten, I swear). Anyway, accept these as friendly suggestions because I love you.
Best Hidden Gem
The Arlington Civitan Garage Sale
I am so happy I spent most of my time
in DC living in Arlington. The city/county/town doesn’t do a ton to embrace the twenty-something meatheads who flood
the town each May, but that’s what makes it all the more rewarding when you dig into what it has to offer. That being
said, people who live in DC proper need to get off their high horse and cross that big scary bridge every once in a while.
It’s worth it, I promise. Anyway, on the first Saturday of every month between April and November, the Arlington Civitans
(very similar to the Lions’ Club, I think) host a HUGE fucking flea market in the Washington and Lee parking garage
out near Ballston. If you like things, then find those things here for a discount price. If you are skeptical, tell it to
my HP scanner I bought for $10 or the He-Man/Skeletor cassette mini-boombox I bought for $2. You are going to be overwhelmed
yet wide-eyed and smiling for the entire time you’re there. Don’t oversleep for it, since most of the dealers
start packing up around 12:30. Parking along 15th St is your best bet. Just take Exit 71 to Glebe Road and turn right, then
turn right onto 15th St (you’ll see the blue sign). Do this.
Best Burrito
There is no better compliment
a place that serves mexican food can receive than "legit." And Burrito Brothers, located in the
Capitol Hill corner of eastern market, is legit. If I'm wrong to say so, then at least they're inarguably delicious. It’s
really just tasty mexican dishes at ok prices, and I can't think of a better place in the district to get a quick burrito.
Pica taco is ok, and the best tacos I've had here came off the El Chilango truck right off the Queen St.
Exit of 50 west in Arlington. For excellent handmade pupusas, pay a visit to La Preferida truck at the corner
of East-West Highway and New Hampshire Ave in Takoma Park. As much as it pains me to give this kind of validation to scenesters
and their overcrowded shitshows, Lauriol Plaza has pretty good "mexican" food. You probably know
what I mean. It's not nearly as good as Cactus Cantina (about time I give upper NW some love), but what are
you gonna do?
Best Bookstore
Any used bookstore where you don't find yourself ducking to get through at
least once isn't worth shit. Which is why having to duck, reach, sidestep, balance and gaze in amazement in the sheer clutter
makes Capitol Hill Books in eastern market the best bookstore, new or used, I've been to in the United States.
They have a couple of shelves of books in the bathroom, for Christ’s sake. And don't miss the sports, film, and labor
sections in the dungeon lair of a basement, just watch your head.
Best Hot Dog Stand
Shah Wali has a stand
on the Northeast corner of 13th and F St NW. He is a stand-up guy and serves good, relatively small hot dogs
and presents them to you like fine wine before he wraps them in foil. The last remaining cheap lunch downtown.
Best
Falafel
Amsterdam on 18th St NW. Honorable mention: the Organic Falafel stand in TKPK, right by
the Co-Op. Moving on…
Best Breakfast/Brunch
The best brunch I've had in my life, hands down, is
Georgia Brown's Sunday amazingfest in Macpherson Sq. It's expensive, but if you live in DC you have no excuse
not to experience this at least once. In terms of reasonable cuisine, Mark’s Kitchen in Takoma Park
has blown me away nearly every time I’ve gone there. They have an outstanding variety of healthy veggie and non-veggie
cuisine. Try the mung bean pancakes. It gets crowded, though, so plan to be there early-esque. If you're looking for a great
brunch but Takoma is TOO FAR (waah), get some funnel cake fries at Asylum in Adams-Morgan. Oh, and for those
of you in the defense-contractor colony of Crystal City, check out Freddie's great gay brunch on Sunday on
23rd St S.
Best Bar
I think I mentioned this in the mix post, but Galaxy Hut (Wilson Blvd
in Arlington) is the last bar on the orange line where you can safely avoid the bro brigade. They play good music, serve good
(albeit pricey) beers, and you simply feel good about hanging here. Isn't that all you can really ask from a bar, anyway?
Velvet Lounge and Dodge City are pretty cool, too, though they get too crowded being on U St.
I'm
too tired to add anything else at the moment. I'll probably update this soon.
[tws]
Alright, as advertised in Episode 10, here is a mix I made of 15 songs (that's the rule, no more tracks)
that encapsulate my DC experience from 2005-2011. I promised myself I wouldn't cry... so I won't. Time to lay down some jams
for your brains. To avoid controversy, I just want to say before unveiling the listing that Jawbox, Fugazi, Scream, Marginal
Men, and various others are great bands. They just don't have enough "interesting" stories. Here you go.
- Magrudergrind - "Heavier Bombing"
- Fairweather
- "If They Move... Kill Them"
- These United States -
"Honor Amongst Thieves (Live at the Laughing Lizard 3.4.06)"
- The Dismemberment Plan
- "Soon to be Ex-Quaker"
- Bad Brains - "Big Take Over"
- Wale - "The Crazy"
- The Ambulars - "Marianne
and Ferdinand"
- Frodus - "The Awesome Machine"
- Midnight Peacocks - "Inside Outside"
- Minor
Threat - "Seeing Red"
- The Pietasters - "Drinkin' and Drivin'
(Live)"
- The Cassettes - "Sway Along"
- Oppenheimer - "Allen Died, April Five"
- Radon - "Wasting
Time"
- The Max Levine Ensemble - "I Loved to Watch Them..."
Stories, if you have the time:
1. Magrudergrind - "Heavier Bombing" 
It took me a long time to get drawn into the eardrum-damaging pastiche of grindcore, but by the time these local-boys-done-good
released their brilliant self-titled album in 2009, I was hooked. My favorite thing about Avi, RJ, and Chris is their sense
of humor, which elevates their music beyond the simple crust and grind and intensity. Hell, I haven’t heard any other
grind album with such a blatant but completely functional hip-hop influence. Landing that dude from Converge to produce it
certainly didn’t hurt, either. Props to Matt and the good people at Smash! for putting on a great show with them and
Shitstorm last summer. RAWHWHARDAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRRR.
2. Fairweather - "If They Move... Kill Them" 
This was a “You weren’t there, maaaaan” concert experience that I feel like I almost didn’t deserve.
I didn’t grow up around here, and I moved away from the east coast proper in 2001, so I missed out on this band during
their original incarnation. As luck/financial-impetus would have it, Fairfax’s contribution to the post-hardcore glut
decided to do a one-off reunion concert at the Black Cat on May 14, 2011. I wasn’t feeling too hot, and the weather
was completely shitty outside, but the second the lights when black and the band of bros entered the stage with this unforgettable,
chugging as hell intro, it felt like a giant curse lifted and it was early 2001 again. And I felt stupid for not being
there ten years ago.’ Also, Jay Littleton doesn’t sound like a lumberjack, but he sure looks like one!
3. These United States – "Honor Amongst Thieves" (Live at the Laughing Lizard 3/4/06)
In January 2006, Rory Scovel sent around an email saying, quite bluntly, that DC needed more comedy rooms. My roommate,
Tom (who, at the time, was becoming “Tom of These US”) suggested a dive bar in Old Town Alexandria, and the bar’s
manager, Fotini, and I quickly scheduled the first Laughing Lizard comedy/music show. I clearly had no idea what the fuck
I was doing, and I remember bombing viciously to the massive crowd that accumulated there. But Jesse Elliott, Josh Read, and
Tom played a set to open the show as an early incarnation of These United States. The band still plays this song live, to
massive crowds on both sides of the Atlantic. But it always makes me smile remembering how helpful they were to me in kicking
off what would become an incredibly successful biweekly showcase that ran for over two years.
4. The Dismemberment
Plan – Soon to be Ex-Quaker 
Like most of my favorite bands of the 90’s, I completely missed the boat on these guys. (They broke up in 2003)
As luck would have it, living here in the district area made it possible for me to see them during both their reunion weekend
in 2007 and the start of the reunion mini-tour in 2011. A pair of guys who would become incredibly good friends drove up from
NC for the latter, and on a whim, I decided to get a ticket for their second night at the 9:30 club. They busted out this
not-so-forgetten classic from their debut album “!” and we all screamed “Holy fucking shit!” and proceeded
to go nuts. Shortly thereafter, I found out that they opened their set at the Black Cat two nights prior with “Ex-Quaker.”
That made me feel silly, but I have no regrets for this one. What a kickass band.
5. Bad Brains –
Big Takeover 
Despite the bizarre behavior and homophobia that would tail HR for most of his later life (and before Bad Brains, too, for
all intents and purposes), I’ll be damned if you can find a more interesting and downright solid hardcore band in history.
I had to include this song because I named my podcast after it (completely disregarding the fact that Jack Rabid already used
it to title his music magazine years prior). I was 23, still excited about being a part of DC, and the name just seemed appropriate.
I haven’t been able to shake it.
6. Wale - "The Crazy"
Oduwale Folarin was one of the very few things that made Top 40 radio bearable these past few years, and the fact that he
snuck the term "DC Chillin', PG Chillin'" into his biggest hit was an added bonus for those of us who adopted the
town as our own, or at least tried. This was my favorite song from his breakthrough Seinfeld-influenced mixtape. I still haven't
heard "Attention Deficit," so I'm part of the problem keeping this dude behind clowns like Rick Ross in the commercial
rap game.
7. The Ambulars – "Marianne and Ferdinand"
I love this song so much, and I can’t even explain why. I can’t even explain why it makes me happy; the lyrics
seem pretty melancholy. I had a relatively shitty fall of 2010, and listening to this 7” on repeat helped get my mind
off of things, which I told Mikey when I met him at Fort Reno recently. It took a long-ass time for me to get to see this
band play, which makes sense, given the fact that their bassist Jen lives in Chicago. Like anyone who’s even heard of
this band, I cannot wait for the full-length.
8. Frodus – "The Awesome Machine"
Spoiler – the breakdown at 3:03 is my favorite moment of any song on this mix. Frodus played a reunion show atop the
Murky Coffee shop in Clarendon (RIP…well, it’s Northside now, but still…) on March 18, 2009, formulating
my single favorite “You weren’t there, maaaaan” concert experience of my life in DC.
Read more about that here.
9. Midnight Peacocks - "Inside Outside"
In Tel Aviv in 2008, a small group of friends and I found an overpriced but great underground (literally) rock club called
Levantin 7. The headliner that night was a veteran of the Israeli rock scene called Aviv Mark. His solo show was pretty no-frills
and as my friend Andrea mentioned, “very 90’s Sub Pop.” We enjoyed it out of the novelty for us, as five
people who really didn’t understand Hebrew, but we started getting bored after about 30 minutes of monotonous Hebrew
grunge songs. That was, until a Kramer-lookin’ dude hopped onstage to sing with Mark for a few songs, and tore the place
to shreds. On the street outside afterward, a local musician named Yonaton Levital told me who that guy was – Eitan
Radoshinsky, the leader of the arty metal band Midnight Peacocks. Fortunately, they came through DC after playing SXSW in
2008 and
I got to interview them for TBTRS at the Jumbo Slice after they’d finished terrifying an audience of O.A.R.-loving bros at Bossa with their brand of
Helmet-in-the-Negev post-hardcore. I still get facebook messages from their fan page all the time, but they’re in Hebrew…
10. Minor Threat - "Seeing Red"
No DC Mix would be complete without some Minor Threat. Gratned, you could say the same thing about Fugazi. Anyway, I wanted
to make sure to include this song on the incomplete mix to squeeze in some kind of nod to my favorite hockey team. Sure, they
sucked unbelievably when I first moved to town and started going to their games and once they got exciting and good, they
ate shit in the playoffs every year, but I have no regrets. I do regret having to fucking listen to Poison every time the
Caps won and whatever other songs from the Billboard 1989 CD the in-game entertainment schmucks were spinning. I wrote an
email to Ted Leonsis explaining why this song should have been added to the in-game entertainment at Verizon, but it probably
got drowned in the sea of “OMG TRADE SEMIN” and “WHY IZ VARLY HURT SO MANY TIMES” emails. Such is
the curse of being a “cool” rich person. I’m sorry to have sidetracked myself again. Thanks, Ian, for your
years of hard work and appearances in every poorly funded rockumentary.
11. The Pietasters – Drinkin’
and Drivin’ (The Business Cover)
You get about as much shit for liking ska in 2011 as you do for saying that Reagan was a decent president at the Big
Hunt. Not that I would ever do the latter, but I’ll probably be kicking back to the Slackers for the rest of my life
(if you’re too cool to listen, then your loss for missing out on Vic Ruggiero’s killer songwriting). Anyway, the
first time I saw the Slackers come down from NY was at a highly intoxicated Halloween show with DC’s own Northern Soul/Funk/Ska-I-Suppose
band that got lumped in with the trend 14 years ago. The second time I saw the Pietasters, I jumped onstage, marking my first
and only time “performing” at the 9:30 Club (unless you count claustrophobically dancing to “The Ice of
Boston” at the D-Plan reunion as performing). I got kicked off shortly after the song ended.
12.
The Cassettes - "Sway Along"
(Shelby Cinca's second appearance here! Well done, sir) So, I met drummer/tabla superstar Saadat Awan in 2004 when he came
to my school with Travis Morrison's solo band. A few weeks after I moved here, I ran into Saadat at Tryst in AdMo, and he
told me about this exciting new project he was working on with Shelby from Frodus, Decahedron, etc. Over the next couple years,
their gigs at IOTA and around Arlington became regular "hey-what's-up" type happenings that I always looked forward
to. Shelby and his wife moved to Euroland, visiting intermittently over the past few years, including the 2009 Frodus resurgence
and a brief Cassettes reunion this year. In other words, I can't think of a band that makes me think more of Arlington. A
pretty cool place if you let it be.
13. Oppenheimer - "Allen Died, April Five"
Right before Halloween in 2006, I decided, on a whim, to wander over to Galaxy Hut, one of the few remaining bearable bars
left in Arlington. I didn’t know anybody there at the time, but I saw that a pop band from Belfast was playing. I’d
never heard their music, but who doesn’t deserve support for coming across the ocean and playing in a bar about the
size of my first post-college apartment? So, I went, and I loved them. I kept up with Rocky, Shaun, and whoever their sound
guy at the time was for the following few years whenever they made a sojourn to the US, including
an appearance on my podcast in 2008. They released two albums, both of which are loaded with electronically-tinged pop gems that you need to hear. The
moral of this story is: GET YOUR ASS OFF YOUR GODDAMNED COUCH.
14. Radon - "Wasting Time"
A good way to judge one’s life in a place is based upon the quality of time away from it. Wait, that’s a horrible
aphorism. Regardless, over the course of six years, I spent a great amount of time in Florida for various reasons. I brought
a love of Hot Water Music to DC, and I’m leaving with an even greater appreciation of 1990’s Gainesville, including
this obscure GNVFLA poppy redneck punk trio, whose songs came to define my still-growing love of the state, from the swamps
of the northwest to the beautiful Spanish buildings of St. Augustine to the hipster bars of Orlando back to the 60’s-entrenched
condo complex I visited in Miami in my youth.
15. The Max Levine Ensemble - "I Loved to Watch Them..."
It was entertaining to watch DC move in and out of the bottom five towns for pop-punk over the past six years. It’s
never been a, say, San Francisco or New Brunswick, but the one band you can’t leave out of any conversation involving
DC and Pop-Punk is the ubiquitous Max Levine Ensemble. Nobody who’s younger than 25 can remember an era before TMLE
were on hand to support some local DIY band on tour (unless they were on tour themselves, of course). No matter where I go
on this earth, I know that somewhere in the Washington, DC area, Spoonboy Combs will be organizing a show or serving vegan
goodies to some scene kid.
