Hüsker Dü was actually the first underground/punk/indie band that I ever really got into. Towards the end of my high school years, while the ’90s alternative nation was still in pretty full swing, I started to read Spin and other magazines, and record reviews, and lists of the best alternative albums of all time. And there was this one article in particular in Guitar World from the summer of 1995 that had a history of the Minneapolis punk scene, leaving me really intrigued by Hüsker Dü. It was from this issue:

(I guess that issue is also the place I learned how to play Neil Young‘s “Old Man.”)

So thanks to things I was reading about music, Zen Arcade ended up being the first hardcore punk album I ever bought, and some other Hüsker Dü CDs were the first ones I ever ordered from a record label (SST!). And I still love them to this day, but I don’t need to really talk about them here, they get plenty of critical attention. I will just say that I think Grant Hart’s post-Hüsker Dü work has been a little underrated. I never listened to Nova Mob too much, but I really like all of his solo albums. They come out rarely enough that they are worth looking forward to, and they are consistently entertaining (unlike a certain overly-prolific, inconsistently brilliant ex-bandmate of his). I have been listening to the last Grant Hart album, 2009′s stellar Hot Wax, endlessly over and over for the past year.

Anyways, before the show at the Black Cat, Hart was doing a performance at Crooked Beat record store — kind of a “shake hands & play a few songs on guitar” sort of thing. I figured I should check it out, that I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t go. There ended up being a small crowd of 10 or so people, and he played 5 or 6 songs solo, including “The Main” and “I Knew All About You Since Then” and “Green Eyes.” He looked haggard and old. His guitar drifted out of tune and he hit some wrong chords. I wasn’t sure what to think. I had heard somewhere that his performances could be a little erratic, and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Here are some photos (via the City Paper) of the Crooked Beat set; you can spot me awkwardly applauding in a few.

In the time between that performance and the later show at the Black Cat, I found myself contemplating rock’s ragged pantheon of outsider geniuses: your Syd Barretts and Skip Spences and Roky Ericksons and Daniel Johnstons. Does Grant Hart belong in that company? Or is he maybe just kind of washed up? Would he pull out all the stops and live up the strong material from his albums?

I ended up with mixed feelings. If you went to his Black Cat show as a casual Hüsker Dü fan, you would probably have come away with the feeling that he was thoroughly broken down, barely coasting by on some great songs from a band that ended almost 25 years ago. If you were a more serious fanatic, it was easier to see flashes of brilliance throughout the night, and to appreciate and enjoy his whole body of work. But then fanatics are always biased. Overall I enjoyed the whole performance, but it left me a little weirded out at the same time.

The opening act was called The Venables, and they played a pretty straightforward set of rock and roll numbers. They were on tour with Hart and served as his backing band part of the time. I liked them fine, but wasn’t necessarily that into them. The guitar solos and stuff were kinda silly, but here and there they did some nice feedbacky stuff that made me happy.

Grant Hart then played a number of songs solo, with varying results — a few of the songs sounded great, though. Then The Venables came out to back him up, and the crowd perked up a bit, since it made the material a little stronger, and also because they played a bunch of Hüsker Dü songs. Then for an encore Hart played a few more solo songs before calling it a night.

While he often seemed like he was basically nuts, Hart was able to pull out some good quips and lines. When talking about an old song that he never recorded, he rambled on about how it could have been a huge hit and “Dave Grohl would be playing at my club.” On Tim Pawlenty: “I went to high school with that cocksucker.” And there were many stories about traveling and the dubious appeal of Dulles Airport.

As for the performance, I guess my main disappointment was that he didn’t do much of the newest album, and very little of it with the backing band to flesh out the arrangements. But a lot of the old stuff — solo and HD — was really fun to hear. Some of the old HD albums I haven’t listened to in ages, but I pretty much knew them by heart. It was funny to hear “Pink Turns to Blue,” since I once spent a long time learning how to play it on guitar, including the awesome guitar solo — and so I was like, “hey! that is not how the solo goes!” Also it felt weird to be a better guitarist than one of my musical influences, though I don’t really think of Grant Hart as a guitarist. He is a much better singer than me still, though, even after all his years of hard living, and an outstanding songwriter.

It was hard not to think that the music and the songs could be better served by a different kind of band, and a more serious approach to performing. But I guess that Grant Hart tried that a couple times before, and it just didn’t work out. Fair enough. I will go back and see him if he makes it back to town, and I hope he keeps writing new material. I don’t need to see a Hüsker Dü redux set, I’d just like to see him keep on keepin’ on.

Here’s a review from DC Rock Live, and here is a video I managed to track down:

It was good! Stone wasn’t a banjo virtuoso (not that I’m complaining), but he had a killer band backing him up on interesting material. I was entertained and even amused at times, as the line-up generally took the form of a typical bluegrass band (banjo, guitar, bass, fiddle), but they obstinately ignored the bluegrass-y possibilities in favor of Bulgarian, Norwegian, Italian and similar traditions. Up until the very end, that is, when they finally let a little bluegrass out.

In some ways it was the exact kind of performance that the yuppie Kennedy Center crowds would eat up (Bach and bluegrass in the same performance!), but it was engaging and worthwhile. It fit well with my growing interest in folk and international music.

A minor resolution of mine is to take more advantage of these sorts of cultural events. Bonus: happy hour at the Kennedy Center until 6 p.m., i.e., just $2.50 for a beer. That is like three times cheaper than the 930 Club.

The performance by Jayme Stone, et al., is archived at the Kennedy Center’s website here.

Looking back, it is hard to determine what my favorite show was, but I will have to say it was Unrest at their crazy triple-reunion show at the Black Cat. I always say how tired I am of old bands reuniting, but then I see a performance like that and it makes me want to rush out and see all the dinosaur bands before they disappear.

For runners-up I will go with Grinderman and The Blow, both of which are at least going concerns, if not exactly spring chickens. But neither am I.

Last year at this time I was super enthused about the DC music scene, but some of my interest has slipped a bit since then. I am still a firm supporter of Sockets Records, and they had a good year! But a lot of their more interesting stuff took place a year or so ago — they have an upcoming showcase that will hopefully rekindle my interest in their roster, and give me a chance to buy the records that I don’t have.

All the energy in DC these days seems to be sucked up by young kids who are playing old-fashioned punk. They play at houses, they play at the Velvet Lounge. I saw a handful of these guys in the past year, including a Windian showcase. These are bands like The Points (R.I.P.) and The Shirks, and they are fine and all, but I am just too old to really get into any of them. When I see any of these bands, I keep thinking it’s kinda weird that they are playing stuff that sounds exactly like what punk bands played before they were even born. I’m not sure I get it. I’m not sure I’m supposed to get it. I wish that whole scene well, though; it is definitely more interesting than a lot of the boring indie rock in this town.

Anyway.

While I am rounding up the year, I will mention that the two new albums that I liked the most are Midnight Kids‘ debut EP (download it!!) and the Flower -Corsano Duo‘s You’ll Never Work in This Town Again.

My other favorite album of the year was from last year but I never heard it until 2010: Grant Hart‘s Hot Wax. There were also some less-awesome-than-I-hoped new albums from some of my favorite bands, like Versus and Les Savy Fav and Ted Leo.

But I hardly listen to new music anymore, and I probably listened more often to “State of Love and Trust” than anything released in the past few years.

Oh, and I feel like I should say something about the DC9 homicide case, but I don’t really have a lot to say, except it is distressing. RIP Mark Linkous, Peter Steele, Captain Beefheart, and Alex Chilton.

Ok, onward and upward. This was a lot more verbose than my overview from last year. Enough, 2010 has been over for like a week and a half!

I mean, I would draw a parallel to how Eric Clapton almost made me never want to listen to blues. Even after I eventually worked through some of my issues with blues, I still find it hard to listen to Robert Johnson since I learned half of his songs via shitty Clapton versions.

At least with Clapton, Jeff Beck, and the like, there was a certain rationale working, decades ago: hardly anyone in England or the U.S. of the late-’60s had access to the original blues recordings, and old blues 78s must have been these amazing treasures that Clapton and Jimmy Page would have excitedly prattled on and on and on about to uninterested hippie chicks. There is a cultural context for white British blues.

But today it is so easy to listen to the genuine stuff that I found Beirut a little embarrassing. Just check the Live Music Archive instead! This track by Demiran Ćerimović and His Orkestar for example:

Anyway that is all an awkward segue into my discussion of Gogol Bordello‘s show at the 9:30 Club on the night before New Year’s Eve. I actually attended mostly on a whim — a group of my friends had tickets, but I never got one because of all my hesitations hinted at above, and it was long sold out. But I was having some drinks nearby and decided to go see if I could buy a ticket from anyone at the door, and was successful.

I ended up running into a number of people I knew at the show — one was there to see openers Man Man. I didn’t know a thing about this band going in. I don’t remember too much about their performance, either. There was a lot going on, lots of people on stage, a lot of exuberance. People were dancing in the crowd and it had some affinities with that gypsy-punk aesthetic that I am so ambivalent about. As I surf youtube trying to dredge up some more memories about Man Man, I find myself kinda liking them more than I did at the live show. They are more punk blues than I remembered. But then, we were upstairs in the balcony buying drinks and stuff during their performance. Distracted. I will definitely keep them in mind in the future, though.

We moved downstairs and into the dancing throngs early in Gogol Bordello’s set. Given all my hesitations, I liked it a lot more than I would have expected. I lived in Poland for a couple years, a while back, and Gogol Bordello’s connections with neighboring Ukraine made me feel nostalgic, comfortable, and amused. Before very long, I was like, “oh yeah, this is the kind of music those eastern Slavs are all about.” Dance beats, hip hop interludes, ballads, and folk-influenced songs that all kinda reminded me of punked-up variations the Polish/Ukrainian megapopular song “Hej Sokoły.” It was sort of the kind of music I wanted to hear, but never did, at all the terrible Warsaw discos.

Somebody I was talking to said something about them being like a Russian or gypsy version of The Pogues, and I don’t totally disagree. But Gogol Bordello have more diverse influences, and more dedication to keeping a party going and dance-able. And dance we all did.

They also played the following night, New Years Eve, and I am having trouble finding video evidence of the night I was there (probably everybody was too busy jumping around). Here’s a bad sideways clip somebody posted:

So are Gogol Bordello the “real thing,” are they authentic? Of course not! But they aren’t taking their influences too seriously, they are just having a lot of fun with music, including all those gypsy and Slavic influences. (More like Led Zeppelin riffing on Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie, and less like Clapton making Bo Diddley boring.) I dug it, and will check them out more. Good show to end a good year with.

Here’s Mark Jenkins’ take on the same show, from the Washington Post.

A couple of my friends wanted to go see them in December as the holidays approached, as a chance to start letting loose and rocking out. (I always miss the Rattler holiday parties where that is the entire theme.) I got there in time to catch much of the set of one of the openers, they were called Mon Khmer. They weren’t bad. Kinda generic.

Imperial China played a lot of new material; they have a new album coming out pretty soon, I believe. The new stuff sounded a bit different, and was not as immediately appealing as some of their older material. But it sounded like the same band, with the same strengths and flaws. I will listen to it again in the future and make a better judgment. Also, I always find the Rock and Roll Hotel to be such a shoddy venue that it is hard to give a fair review. Also also, Imperial China weren’t the headliners, and a lot of people were maybe not paying close attention, based on the next band that went on.

Still, the parts of Imperial China’s set that grabbed me the most were the same songs I loved on Phosphenes — all the instrumentals plus “Letter of a General.”

The actual headlining act was local band Ra Ra Rasputin. They have become pretty popular lately, so I wasn’t averse to seeing them. But I don’t really need to again. What a weird band! They played straight-up electro-dance pop, very similar to New Order. The whole performance, my friends and I were like, “is this ‘Blue Monday’?” and “is this ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’?” They also threw in a little funk. None of those are bad things.

I have nothing against New Order. Ra Ra Rasputin’s music was pretty great, actually. If they had been all instrumental, I’d probably have ended up dancing around, having fun. But this band had a horrible, awful singer. Like, really really bad. Now, I am a bad singer, and I have sung in public. But I have never tried to act like a dance-pop star, let alone a prepster-looking dance-pop star. Ugh.

Some random strangers near us started shouting out, “let the girl sing!” and my friends and I joined in. There was a cute chick in the band who played keys and sang back-ups and occasional lead vocals, and she was so much better than the main singer that you began to wonder if his performance wasn’t a weird Tony Clifton-esque joke. Like, why wouldn’t you let the cute girl be the face of the band? It is a win-win situation. I guess you let the bad-singing douchey guy front your band when you don’t care about what the music snobs think…

We skipped out before Ra Ra Rasputin were done and drank elsewhere on H Street. At least now I know. If they play an instrumental set, I’d totally consider seeing them again, but please, please, no singing from that dude…

A lot of critics seem to be drawing a line between Cave’s Bad Seeds work and his Grinderman project, but it hard for me to really see a major difference, except that Nick plays guitar in Grinderman and has a smaller band. Grinderman just seems to be a bit more narrowly focused, a bit more raucous and bluntly sex-obsessed. But it is in the same continuum as the Bad Seeds stuff, and some of the Grinderman songs remind me of songs on the last Bad Seeds album. You still have troll-like Warren Ellis providing loops and odd instrumentation, still have Cave’s crazed poetic gift. I ended up liking the Grinderman show about the same amount as I did the Bad Seeds.

I missed the opener, Shilpa Ray, whom I’d heard good things about. But that was ok. Grinderman took the stage with ferocity, barely leaving the audience with much time to catch their breath, aside from a handful of comments and banter between Cave and the crowd. For the first 15 or 20 minutes I was convinced that this was gonna be the greatest concert I had never seen.

Like a lot of things in life, that level of intensity became a little hard to bear after a while. The band probably recognized this — Cave switched over to acoustic for one slower, simpler song (“What I Know”). But for the most part the show was so intense that I started to wish a little bit for more change-ups, more down time. Maybe he should tell more stories, he is an entertaining person just to listen to. But I am nitpicking here — overall it was an awesome show.

The setlist is here — the highlight was that opening stretch of the first five songs, mostly from the new album. “No Pussy Blues” was a little disappointing compared to its ridiculous bombastic strength on the first album, but again, that is just a tiny complaint.

When I left the show, I chatted to my friend about how if Nick Cave lived in the past he probably would have been a preacher or something, spitting out incendiary sermons to captivated audiences, telling them to change their ways. He has a lot of preacher in him, but it is hard to tell what he is preaching today: maybe he is telling us to go out and sin with commitment.

Here’s a good review from the Philadelphia City Paper. And here is somebody’s sideways video of “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man,” the set opener:

That was a fun night, although I didn’t remember too much about Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano besides the name. But around the same time I started to get into The Microphones which gradually led me to The Blow, a new name for the same unusual performer, Khaela Maricich. During a subsequent time period where I was living abroad but trying to reconnect with American music, I started listening to The Blow and came to like it a lot. I was sort of in love with Khaela’s singing, with her charming naïve ballads and dance tunes and gorgeous cover of “Jet Ski Accidents.” There is something magical about her… maybe I was just sort of in love with her (I’m a sucker for a lot of girl singers who are not even into dudes).

Then a few years afterwards, The Blow started to become moderately popular. Khaela hooked up with Jona Bechtolt from YACHT and the music got even dancier and more electronic. I still liked that stuff too — her hit album, Paper Television — but not quite as much as her more intimate earlier music. And I never got around to seeing The Blow perform live again, though I don’t think she played around DC very often.

So I was really looking forward to seeing the show at the Black Cat, and then really impressed during the whole show. What a performer!

Maricich is strikingly self-confident, even as she chatted about her insecurities and life problems and performance coach. She doesn’t play any instruments, but she is comfortable singing a capella or with backing tracks (she had an assistant/bandmate doing backing sounds, but I forget their name). When she first hit the stage she tapped the microphone with her finger to provide some percussion while she sang.

So it wasn’t really a rock performance, more of a rambling, well-rehearsed monologue with dance moves and (silly, minor) costume changes and singing. It was theater, I guess you’d say. Maricich told stories about moving to New York, and her “coach” who was encouraging her to dance more like a pop star and less like an indie slacker.

Above all she talked about Lindsay Lohan (though not by name), in a long complicated story that may or may not have been true. She claimed that Lindsay Lohan and her then-girlfriend had been all into a Blow song (“Parentheses” I guess) and therefore LL had asked to meet KM and talked her into writing a song for a project that never came to fruition. Maybe it is true? Maybe it was ironic camp? Either way it was entertaining, and Khaela didn’t seem to be making fun of Lindsay Lohan, more like empathizing with her life and her loves and losses and disintegrations. A lot of the performance seemed to be Khaela Maricich imagining what it would be like to be a Lindsay Lohan-esque dance pop star. One who prances around on stage in ridiculous tights, leaning into a fan that blows her hair back. And the surprising thing was that she pulled it off really well.

She even did a good job of switching back and forth from her quieter pieces, sans backing tracks, and the electronic dance anthems. I found myself really impressed, grinning and laughing and connecting to this chick.

When you watch somebody perform so fearlessly but so intelligently, it kind of gives you a little confidence that anyone can do it. If Khaela can transform, Jem-like, into an overblown pop star, even if just briefly for a small crowd of fans, maybe any of us can do anything. Nobody sane really wants to be Lindsay Lohan, but maybe we shouldn’t be afraid to let a tiny bit of Lindsay Lohan out…

Here is a review and pics at dcist that I mostly agree with, and I tracked down one lonely youtube clip:

At the same time, I really really loved Unwound, and Unwound drummer Sara Lund was on board with the Corin Tucker band as well as playing with opener Hungry Ghost. So I was totally looking forward to this show.

It turned out to be pretty good, but not the release valve for political frustration that I got from Sleater-Kinney, nor the noise/beauty catharsis of Unwound. Things change, it’s cool… but I still have that itch that needs scratched. (I am hoping maybe Wild Flag will help a little bit… I was always more of a Carrie fan in Sleater-Kinney.)

Hungry Ghost were good, but didn’t really stick with me after the show. I was a little leery of them because of their name — I already like the Australian band Hungry Ghosts with an “s” on the end, and I am not sure I can be a fan of both. I will check them out more some day — I tend to be in less and less of a rush on these types of things. But I like to support these types of musicians, keep them engaged in a world where they don’t exactly make any money. (And Sara, whatever happened to your old bandmates?)

The Corin Tucker band got a warm response from the crowd, presumably made up of all Sleater-Kinney fans. There were fewer people there than I expected, and they were younger than I expected, and more lesbian. Not that I cared, but I was a little surprised, I thought S-K had a more widespread appeal. The small crowd was the first sign that something was a little strange — it wasn’t long ago that S-K was easily selling out the 930 Club and showing up on magazine covers. But I guess that was eons ago in pop culture.

The friend that I went with had the Corin Tucker Band album, but I hadn’t listened to it, so I went in unprepared. I had read a couple reviews and figured I knew what to expect. It was in fact a lot like some of the more laid-back, Corin-centric Sleater-Kinney songs, the ones where she wails like a banshee over basic guitar parts. But those are not my favorite Sleater-Kinney songs. Her voice is strong and distinctive, but on its own I don’t think it ever carried along Sleater-Kinney. I don’t think it was enough to carry the moderately interesting Corin Tucker Band songs very far, either.

Here’s an example, called “Riley”:

As this pretty accurate Washington Post review mentions, the show picked up a lot towards the end, including a string of cover songs. I didn’t recognize any of the covers, but my friend told me none of those really rocking songs were on the album. The highlight of the whole set was “It’s Obvious,” which I didn’t know was an Au Pairs song, but which really sounded awesome.

So I enjoyed the show, but I felt a little unsatisfied. It was fun to see Corin Tucker again, and I am not necessarily dying for a Sleater-Kinney reunion (kinda sick of reunion shows). But I would like to see her fired up a little bit more. Her powerhouse scream works a little better when she has something more substantial to scream about.

Here is a Wipers cover:

As a fairly recent fan, I’d only ever seen him perform live one time, a couple years ago at a Gutter Twins show. That was pretty fun, but I was more interested in the Isobel Campbell pairing. I love the contrast between the two of them, it’s like butterflies and heroin.

Coincidentally, Belle and Sebastian were in town at the same time; I believe they played the previous night. I was curious about how Isobel Campbell felt about the fact that her old band was playing at the humongous DAR Constitution Hall while she was kicking it at the dingy, mediocre Rock and Roll Hotel, where the sound was consistently awful, with feedback and noise marring their quiet material. I hope she is happy with her path. I like Belle and Sebastian, too, but am more impressed by her pursuit of interesting material and collaborators.

I made it to the show too late to see opener Willy Mason, but he was a big presence during the Campbell/Lanegan set too, taking vocal leads on a few songs mid-set. I liked him ok — pretty much straightforward country. It was convenient that I have gotten a lot more into country in the past few years.

But Lanegan was so much more compelling that the Mason numbers were sort of unnecessary. Lanegan was relatively sprightly: he tapped his fingers on the microphone, he swayed a little, he told a joke, he even seemed to grin at some point. It was like Campbell was dragging a glimmer of liveliness out of this usual dour statue with a microphone. My friends and I were amused.

The band was really great, though it was a shame how terrible the sound quality was. I even felt a little embarrassed as the band decided to just plow through, buzzing noises be damned. It detracted a lot from Campbell’s performance, since she has such a soft voice. She broke out the cello a few times, danced around or played percussion at other times, and was generally a strong and charismatic figure. (Plus, she was super cute with her shirt half unbuttoned; for the encore I got close to the stage and was like, oh my gosh she is wearing shorts! though with tights… but why didn’t I get closer to her before??)

But Lanegan just has such an incredible voice that he easily stole the show. Campbell’s voice was a little overpowered throughout the night. I don’t know too much of their second or new albums, but I heard almost all the songs I wanted to hear from their debut, plus some memorable newer ones like “Back Burner” where Isobel Campbell sounded like a sexier PJ Harvey (if you can believe there is such a thing!).

Overall it was a really strong performance, despite the shoddy sound. I would love to see these two again at a better venue. And I will be sure to catch up on their material in the meantime.

Here is another review via Knox Road.

I’d heard a little of the openers, Emeralds, and I liked their set quite a bit. It was abstract, too, and dreamy, and reminded me at times of Pink Floyd‘s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond.” After a while, though, I started to lose interest, as I usually do with electronic acts. But I have been wanting to hear more from them, and totally will at some point, just as soon as I finish going through all my other trillions of mp3s…

Caribou was pretty good, with some of the same pros and cons as the openers. They started out all krautrock, which was awesome, and even played a song or two that I recognized. But it shifted towards this electronic dance music that is more interesting to listen (or dance) to than it is to watch. It was kinda like this:

After the show I met up with some friends downstairs and tried to clarify my other weird thought about the night: that the crowd was unbelievably lame. I was looking around, like, “who are these people, and what are they doing at my rock club?” I usually don’t have this kind of elitist feeling, but I was getting this total fratboy vibe, down to grown men wearing sandals. Like, are you allowed to wear sandals to the Black Cat? Should you really wear them anywhere but the beach?

So anyway it was an ok show — but only ok. I have seen more interesting presentations of electronic music in a live setting. Here is a sort of concurring opinion from We Love DC.