True Womanhood

My favorite band in DC right now is True Womanhood. Though they only settled into a lineup this year, they've made pretty serious waves in a short amount of time. They've been name-dropped by Thurston Moore, depicted in a show writeup on Pitchfork, and have been playing 3+ DC shows a month, all of which are reasonably well-attended.

Because of some "no wave" associations and the aforementioned Thurston Moore name drop, everybody and their mother seems to want to compare them to Sonic Youth. This comparison is okay; you can certainly hear some Sonic Youth influences on certain songs, and they have a female bassist, but that's about the extent of it. I also hear substantial amounts of shoegaze and dream-pop influences in what they are doing, but ultimately, their sound is uniquely their own.

They are a captivating live band, although not in the traditional sense. Less jumping around and sweet-talking the crowd, more strange instruments and weird noises soaked in heavy reverb. I've seen them about three times now, and I've always enjoyed it. I was originally going to chop up their WMUC set from a few weeks ago for this post, but since a) the sound quality is subpar, and b) I have realized that I am never going to do that, here are a couple sweet videos recorded by All Our Noise instead.


AON Sessions: True Womanhood, "Rubber Buoys" from All Our Noise on Vimeo.


AON Sessions: True Womanhood, "Shadow People" from All Our Noise on Vimeo.

My First DMCA Notice (Hooray!)

I got a DMCA notice for the Don McLean post. While I'm pretty sure live, unreleased material is somewhere between fair game and a legal gray area, I have no interest in fighting this, and Blogger has deleted the post, so that's where this will have to end. Sorry.

Friends, Rocking

I went to see a bunch of DC bands I know at DC9 last night. The highlight of the evening definitely came at the end of The Spiritual Machine's set, when members of Ra Ra Rasputin and Exactly joined them for a cover of "Crosseyed and Painless". The audio's not perfect, but this should give you some idea. Courtesy Make Some Noise.


The Spiritual Machine, Ra Ra Rasputin and Friends - Crosseyed and Painless (live at DC9) from Jason Mogavero on Vimeo.

I Post More On Hiatus Than Not, Apparently

Greatest cover ever. Buy it here or here or here.