Edie Sedgwick and Soccer Team will be playing shows at SXSW (together and separately) in Austin TX in mid-March, and will forge different paths to get there. Edie will head to the mid-west before moving south to Texas. Soccer Team will will take a more direct southern route through North Carolina and Louisiana. While in Austin both bands will be playing at the Lovitt Records Showcase and the DC Does TX party. For a full schedule of dates and events see our tour page.

For those who have lingering credit for digital downloads and don’t know where to start, here are a few recommendations:
(If the credit option is new to you, simply click here for an explanation.)

Read on…

Medications: “Seasons”
This is a fantastic gateway into the songwriting prowess of Medications. The hook is established immediately, and it’s powerful and memorable in every way. I love this song. Chad Molter plays drums and bass, Devin Ocampo plays guitar (which totally revs up at 2:50, fair warning), and they both trade off between lead and background vocal parts.
On a personal level, I find this whole record, Completely Removed, particularly fascinating because I used to live in the house where this album was recorded, and I spent a lot of time working on my own recording projects in that basement. It’s thrilling for me to hear Devin’s approach to recording and how, tonally, that very familiar room has been transformed.
I may as well add … the first song on side B, “Kilometers and Smiles,” is a scorcher, too.

Scream: “Who Knows – Who Cares?”
Back in the days of making mixtapes for road trips, this was a pretty standard feature on my mixes – mainly because I never got tired of hearing it. And this was usually the song that made someone in the car stop talking for a second to ask, “Hey, who is this?!” Recorded in 1982, Still Screaming features a ton of great songs – it’s actually relentless with the hits – and my guess is that it influenced a lot of bands that came along a few years later – especially out west.
For one reason or another, “Who Knows – Who Cares?” was always my jam. (Of course, “Solidarity” and “Came without Warning” are pretty unstoppable, too.)

Antelope: “Dead Eye”
You won’t find bigger Antelope fans than every single person in the Dischord office. I realized this when Michael Fussell started our morning one day by blasting the Antelope EP, which was followed immediately by the 7 inch, which was then followed by their full-length, Reflector. No one complained. In fact, we were all in full agreement that once the sequence had begun, breaking the cycle was not option.
Simply put, Antelope is a band to obsess over.
While it’s tough to choose a favorite (because I don’t think they wrote a bad song), I’m recommending “Dead Eye” as a starting point ‘cause the lyrics have some art history appeal. Anyone who’s familiar with the Blue and Rose Periods should know what I’m talking about.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Ryan

25 new concert downloads were added to the Fugazi Live Series on February 13, 2012 (in addition to the 25 that were added in January). This brings the total to 180 downloads, and we'll continue adding shows monthly until we reach our goal of making every one of the 800+ Fugazi concert recordings in our collection available.

Some interesting moments from this new batch of downloads include an early version of "Turnover" (then titled "NSA") from a 1989 Chapel Hill show with Ian on lead-vocals, and an incredible scene from a show in Glasgow when a group of women join the band on stage during "Suggestion" to call out incidents of violence against women. In fact "Suggestion" was the only track that survived from that recording, and it's pretty ragged, but the moment itself comes across crystal clear. See a complete list of the new downloads after the jump.

The following concerts have been added to the site and are available to download now:
Chicago, IL USA 06/24/2001
Chicago, IL USA 06/23/2001
Munich, Germany 09/25/1999
Las Vegas, NV USA 03/05/1999
Honolulu, HI USA 10/16/1996
Ventura, CA USA 02/19/1999
Portland, OR USA 02/26/1999
Conway, AR USA 11/24/1998
Syracuse, NY USA 07/17/1998
Washington, DC USA 04/19/1996
San Francisco, CA USA 11/06/1995
San Francisco, CA USA 11/05/1995
Catania, Sicily, Italy 06/18/1995
Washington, DC USA 11/29/1994
Iowa City, IA USA 08/29/1993
Las Vegas, NV USA 04/22/1993
Budapest, Hungary 06/11/1992
Buffalo, NY USA 03/11/1991
Reseda, CA USA 05/17/1990
Reseda, CA USA 05/16/1990
Austin, TX USA 05/05/1990
Chapel Hill, NC USA 05/01/1989
Glasgow, Scotland 11/27/1989
Manchester, England 11/28/1989
Olympia, WA USA05/16/1988

It's time. The window for submitting material for the 2012 Fort Reno summer concert season opens today and will close on March 20th. Bands must be from the Washington, DC area and you can find further submission guidelines at the Fort Reno website.

Plates – Self-titled LP, Big Neck Records

(Stop Worrying and) Love the Bomb – I’m Haunted 7 inch, Big Neck Records

Möbius Strip – Escalate 10 inch, Left Out Records

For descriptions of each, please, read on …

Plates – Self-titled LP
Once again, the folks at Big Neck Records release some quality rock music. I pretty much love this Plates record. It opens with a bass and drum groove. But don’t read me wrong here: it’s not the kind of bass and drum groove you might hear on late ‘90s Acid Jazz records – I mean, it’s more like Flipper and not at all like Portishead. While I like the whole record, this band selected the perfect opening song to really grab your attention. The bass is fuzzed out in the best possible way (not too much and not too little), the beat is set to a perfect head-bobbing tempo, the guitar switches between an in-your-face effect and later lands on riffs somewhere between the Stooges and Minor Threat, and the singer’s vocals strike a classic punk approach (ie Black Flag’s Damaged).
Honestly, Plates have their own sound, but if you listen carefully, they have all the right influences. Fans of Black Flag, Flipper, Dead Meadow, Minor Threat and various Amphetamine Reptile bands should dig this. The punk moments are super punk (without ever stumbling into the monotone shriek category), and the rock moments are heavy and killer. Listen loudly.
(Song #4 “Arrows” is the other jam to look out for.)

(Stop Worrying and) Love the Bomb – I’m Haunted 7 inch
Also from Big Neck Records is this 3-song seven inch, and it’s certainly in the same vein of quality as the other Big Neck releases. The music is fast-paced and upbeat, and all three songs are catchy without being corny – they’ve all got serious bite. The songs are short and super good. Great lyrics from the chorus of side A, “Haunted” (that is, of course, if I’m deciphering the words accurately, but if I am … I like the idea that everyone is haunted and everyone is someone else’s ghost). And side B’s “Yellow Black & Blue” ends with one of the better guttural screams in rock.

Möbius Strip – Escalate 10 inch
This is a 6-song ten-inch on blue vinyl by local trio, Möbius Strip. Most songs are fast-paced punk jams (with two exceptions), and the lyrics are mostly political, referencing topics such as animal rights and drug abuse. Recorded with Don Zientara at Inner Ear studios, the overall sound quality of this release is top-notch. The last song on side A is the scorcher – “Battery Cage.” Hat’s off for sending shout-out to H.P. Lovecraft in the opening line of that song.

The Edie Sedgwick band has released a new self-produced video for the song "Knocking On My Door"--culled from live performances in Italy, Germany, Poland, The Czech Republic, Austria, and Slovakia. Check it out here.

As promised, here’s a list of some of the other releases we picked up this week:

Host – Heavy Clouds 7 inch
Hubris – Base Desire 7 inch
War on Women – Improvised Weapons
Des Ark – WXDU Vol. 3

For more information on each release, read on …

Host – Heavy Clouds 7 inch
This is a four-song 7 inch on white vinyl, released by Cricket Cemetery. I’m not gonna lie to you … it seems that this record exists as the very definition of the word “heavy.” Doesn’t get much heavier than this. Honest. If I had to guess, it sounds like these guys tune down to C, or maybe B, to play these jams. Side A is appropriately titled “Heavy,” and the lyrics for the first song have a bit of a Jack London vibe. Seriously, go blow the dust off of your copy of “To Build a Fire” and tell me I’m wrong. This band is super fast, super tight, and their drummer is bangin’ it out. If you like your music fast and intense, this is the way to go.

Hubris – Base Desire 7 inch
This is another four-song 7 inch from Cricket Cemetery, and I know I just mentioned that Host was the definition of “Heavy” … well … okay, we should probably go ahead and add Hubris to the list. The sound of this record is tough to describe. Let’s just say that everything’s very deliberately in the red. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite like it. Other bands have certainly recorded to tape and pushed those pesky meters ‘til they no longer move to the right, but not quite like this. If I had to select a favorite jam, it would be the last song, “Dejected.” Something about the guitars in that song made it the standout track. Again, this is a record for folks who like their music fast and intense.

War on Women – Improvised Weapons
War on Women is a band from Baltimore, and this is a new release from Exotic Fever Records. It’s a 6-song ten inch, and the recording is top-notch (shout-out to Brooks Harlan who recorded and mixed this at The Magpie Cage). War on Women have been described as co-ed feminist hardcore-punk, and after listening, I suppose that’s a pretty accurate description. The scorchers from this record are “Effemimania” and “I like Science.”

Des Ark – WXDU Vol. 3
For everyone who has ever seen Des Ark live, you know already (before even hearing it) that this record is worth picking up. For all those out-of-the-loop, Des Ark is something to obsess over. To say Aimée Argote is a prolific songwriter is a complete understatement. She’s constantly creating and constantly touring, and you shouldn’t ever miss an opportunity to see her perform live. The 9 songs on this twelve-inch were recorded live on WXDU 88.7 by Ross Grady back in January of 2010. The vinyl itself is sort of an orange marbled color, and the cover art features a beautiful two-color screen-print; if you were to open up the gatefold and throw this album cover behind a frame, you’d have one seriously dynamite print to display in your house.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Ryan