DC Music Download

The local Juggernaut. Alongside wonderful artist interviews and event reviews, and tremendous web design, DCMD offers an amazing array of artist resources that we’re sure local artists don’t take advantage of enough. Hint hint: This includes notices of upcoming festivals. DCMD accepts artist submissions via email and it’s a fairly simple process. They also put on contests from time to time and we won one! This one time, they shared / tweeted some of our posts on facebook and twitter. We were happy since they have a massive audience.

DC as fuck

Fuzzy Logic

Hipster as hell and featuring music (and some art) that’s worth more than a gander. Fuzzy Logic is a one woman show that interviews artists and informs everyone about the music-what-happenin’s goin’ on throughout DC. This blog is high quality and has a serious audience. We visit regularly since it’s got great music and it’s updated fairly often. She accepts music submissions via email. True story – we submitted a couple of times with no luck, possibly proving she has good taste?

The cool kid in class

Chunky Glasses

Chunky Glasses is a very good blog slash podcast. No way around it. They’re pretty heavy on the hipster spectrum, which is doing you a service. They have some of the best design, and they leverage that to cover DMV music and beyond. Don’t worry about the beyond part – you need what they got. Check out their interviews and musings about some of the best local artists.

How local? Even house shows

Dominion Collective

The Dominion Collective is a blog highlighting local culture and flavor, and a large part of that is highlighting DMV musicians. The site has a sleek feel that really showcases their content. Having featured us in a wonderful piece about busking around DC, we’re a “mite bit” partial when we recommend that you go visit their site right now. They do a good job interviewing local artists and make it all worthwhile.

Newest contender sporting the thickest beards

Capitol Sound

Although Capitol Sound is locally produced, it features music from everywhere in a heap of genres. They have great web design and don’t necessarily focus on the new – they’re just fine featuring a track that’s aged beautifully. A cool aspect of their blog is that they sometimes travel to other states to review festivals. Capitol Sound is run by about 5 people, mostly hailing from the DC area. Go focus focus your earballs on them for a while.

Stereotypically DC: Overachievers

This is Our Jam

This is Our Jam is a 3 woman show thanks to Krista, Kristen, and Stacey. Aside from featuring music (both local and beyond) they also include details about local concerts, sports, brunches, happy hours, and much more. They update the site often, and keep a clean site. We think they tend to feature pop, indie, rock, and folk type genres.

Updates twice before you can click refresh

WRGW District Radio

A number of GW students run this music blog and it has an internet radio station associated with it. The blog’s focus seems to be getting the noise out about local shows and they do interviews with artists every once and a while – and their concert reviews are impressive! They accept artist submissions via email.

The Hogwarts of the local scene

A Note Two Self

We’d say A Note Two Self is a blog that’s quite similar to our music blog. They’re a local band of the same name who also likes to write every once in a while. Although they might not be as prolific of writers as we are (which is prolly a good thing), they post shows and artist interviews. They were kind enough to feature us a while back, so make sure to return the favor and send them some web traffic. Much like the Lannisters, we pay our debts!

Feels like home

DCist

DCist is one of the best locations to go to for DC related news and their Arts & Entertainment section often has great stories. They’ll have reviews of concerts with very high quality pictures taken with nice SLRs. And you’re just one click away from great local news. Remember to sign up for their daily email blast featuring the best DC has to offer.

More than you bargained for

Showlist DC

We know this isn’t a normal blog, but Showlist DC is doing God’s work in terms of constantly updating their site. All a musician needs to do is send them a show and it’s added to their giant showlist that’s insanely up to date. We’d say it’s the go to spot for what music is going on around the DC metro area on any given evening.

The gift that keeps on giving

Hometown Sounds

More of a podcast than a blog per se, but Hometown Sounds is definitely one of the best known local DC podcasts. Featuring most genres, they play songs and then offer banter between the hosts about the track. They also feature local music news that is really useful to DMV musicians. They have a loooong memory of who played in what band and can often provide context among new bands forming from older artists. We listen to what they put out via Soundclound. They accept submissions, but we ain’t got anything accepted yet. Maybe next time!

Always has the backstory

The Circus Life

A project by local artist Justin Trawick and company, The Circus Life podcast typically interviews local DMV artists and other folks from the DMV with projects. The podcast is recorded in a professional studio where they ask guests to lay down live tracks for EACH PODCAST, which are then posted to YouTube. Great show notes are included with links back to the artist’s page. That’s a lot of work. All of this coupled with some great web design makes this one of the best places to get your DMV music fix.

Frequent, original, and high quality

Capital Bop

Here’s our first genre specific entry, where DC jazz blog Capital Bop fills some very big shoes with our fair city’s history of jazz. Their slick design tag-teamed with professional writing packs a serious one-two-punch. You’ll often see posts here about local jazz musicians, festivals and other concerts. Time to get familiar with the local Jazz venues folks.

It’s bebop, not Mmmmbop

DC Heavy Metal

When we found this blog, we were excited! The DC heavy metal / hardcore scene is a murdertrain that doesn’t sleep and we were excited to see someone like Metal Chris giving it its due. Chris seems to be a huge fan himself that showers other fans with how to best experience metal in the area. He’s got interviews, album reviews, news, and also covers events. He even dives deep into merchandise. This guy loves what he does, and if you’re a metalhead you’ll love it too.

Gives new meaning to Lincoln Park

Bandwidth.FM

Bandwidth.fm is a new-ish site from WAMU 88.5 FM that’s reviewing and publicizing DC area music. Bandwidth is run by WAMU 88.5, which is DC’s NPR station (thanks!). Their site is phenomenal and has a great use of color. Many local bands premiere their content on Bandwidth.fm, and historical pieces are often posted. They’re big on video. They actively want local artists to get in touch with them, so make sure you do so.

They have a pedigree

Glory in Sound

Glory in Sound is a local music blog focusing on supporting emerging artists in the DC area and beyond, featuring album reviews, interviews, video and single reviews as well as hosting shows and events to support the local music scene. They frequently interview often overlooked local acts and seem to really pay attention to the little, yet just as important, voices.

Focusing on the artist

Blisspop

Blisspop is written in DC, and features house, techno, and other electronic music from all over the world. They have a pretty big following that loves to read this blog’s featured music and artist interviews. Many of the blog’s contributors are musicians in their own right, and the Blisspop staff sometimes hosts events where their writers go and perform.

Like the beat, we can’t wait for their posts to drop

DC Rock Live

We were contacted after we posted this article by a few fans of this blog wanting to ensure that we include it. After some review, we can tell that David Hintz runs DC Rock Live with great care. There’s artist reviews and music recommendations here dating back to 2008. Also, this blog has a cool calendar feature that we like where they keep a list of recommended events for their readers. Help bring this blog into the spotlight!

They sweat the small stuff

In addition to music blogs, there’s a collection of DC facebook groups that can be wonderf’ly helpful to musicians and fans alike. Folks post shows, event reviews, instruments to sell, and provide general knowledge about playing music in the area. Rumors fly about what venue isn’t paying their musicians or how you can get a gig playing at your favorite venue. There are four main groups that we think folks should take a look at. Keep in mind that some of these are closed groups, so you may have to ask for attendance before they allow you entry.

There’s tons of variety out there in terms of DC blogs, and they each have different audiences, motivations, and goals. Some are a platform for promotion while others just wanna bring you great music. Still others seem to serve a smaller, more niche population, such as DC artists or a specific genre. If there’s one thing for certain, there’s definitely more content out there than you have time to consume. You are what you read – choose wisely.

Note: If you know of any blogs that we missed, add a comment below or shoot us an email to let us know!

First thing we did was google the radio show, and we were astounded to find very little information about it online. We found a Youtube video with gospel singers with the similar title and we both gulped, and wondered what we’d gotten ourselves signed up for. Turns out, Voices from the DMV is a very new local radio show produced by Antonio Villaronga. The show airs on WERA-LP 96.7 FM in Arlington, VA every Friday at noon. Each week, Antonio invites a new local artist to showcase their talent. The show is pre-recorded live in the Audio Production Suite at Arlington Independent Media, although some folks play pre-recorded music.

The Arlington Independent Media building is in Clarendon, right around the corner from Galaxy Hut and Iota Club. That means its geographically close to some neighborhoods with very good taste in music. Josh used to live a few blocks away from this building and jogged past it thousands of times (okay, okay, jogged by it a few times). Each time Josh ran by, he thought it was a place that sold tickets to music events for some reason. I guess the giant satellites on top of the building just weren’t enough of a clue, but it leads to a nifty fact: This building actually broadcasts on a local FM station. It’s the only local station that actually gets picked up at the FCC’s headquarters across the pond in DC. Noice.

We learned all this when we met our new best friend Antonio. We walked into the studio and found it to be remarkably posh. This place has state of the art recording equipment that’s available to rent at shockingly low prices to Arlington County residents. So if you’re local – look into it.

When it became time for us to use the studio, we all got to work. Antonio setup mics, stands, and other recording equipment that was needed. We got our instruments out of cases and into working order. First things first, Antonio asked us to do some self-interviews, where he’d ask us to describe our music, our influences, and the local music scene – and we’d ramble an answer his way. We’re not sure how, but we ended up talking to ourselves for like an hour, and thankfully Antonio chopped this down to a few minutes. After we got done talking – it was time to make some noise!

We came prepared to play 2 songs. Turns out… Dan had played like 6. So we were already behind. But whatever, we setup our video camera, pushed play and did a few takes. Antonio ended up mixing and mashing a few takes together via his workstation to get the best outcome. He was really cool about all of it and we had a great time playing. We’ll admit we were a little nervous at first, but Antonio cheered us on and we got into the swing of things. As we were all packing up, Antonio said that we could’ve played a few covers if we were worried about it being a short show… D’oh! Since we didn’t have a lot of original material to offer, we followed up afterwards with our home recorded track Sequestered Together to help make our set a little longer.

With everything packed up, we left the studio, and headed over to Galaxy Hut for some camaraderie. A few days later, Antonio got back in touch with us after doing a little bit of mixing, and voila! We had finished tracks. The results were astounding. The Voices From the DMV setup is amazing and the quality is just as good as professionally recorded live albums released by big name acts. Do yourself a favor and be prepared to feature the best originals from your catalog. Listen to our show below.

Once the show aired we asked if we could put the tracks on Soundcloud and YouTube. We took a still from the video and used it to create some simple album artwork. The album was called Live on WERA 96.7 FM. We hated not using Voices From the DMV in the album name, but we thought it was useful from a marketing standpoint to show that we had played live on the radio. In our Youtube videos we made sure to feature ‘Voices From the DMV’ loud and proud.

If you get the call to be on this radio show, we really recommend that everyone come ready to play LOTS of songs, bring a video camera to turn it into a Youtube video, and offer up some desserts to Antonio for his time. He’s a great guy doing a wonderful service for the local music community. He’s also got a huge sweet tooth. He informed us his favorite dessert is apple pie. Bring that too.

See below for us playing Spec, VA, which is hosted on our Youtube channel.

Here’s the Soundcloud album, and both tracks are downloadable!

JTT: Y’all wanna make some noise? Sehkraft Brewing. 2/23.
TCH: You know we always down.

Sehkraft is a new brewery in Arlington. And it’s lovely. When it was time to play, we had a friend drive us to the brewery. But honestly, we prolly coulda walked since it’s so close to KTL’s place, right off the orange line near Clarendon. (A helpful reminder for anyone looking to stalk Kenny.) Readers beware: Google Maps confusingly brings you to the side of the building, so you’ll have to walk ~500 ft to the other side of the entrance. There’s a reasonably priced parking deck attached to the brewery that we were able to use. But honestly, don’t drive to the brewery. And even more honestly, you shouldn’t be taking life lessons from us. Anyway, walking in, you get that feeling when you put on a new pair of jeans for the very first time. That smell of yeast you’ll find at any brewery is in the air, for sure, but there’s also the smell of dreams, hope, and permanently high BACs.

Now everyone knows about the 9 songwriter series, but just in case… it’s a cool idea: 9 different musicians, playing 3 songs a piece, and everyone interweaves their performances with each other. If 9 different musicians can each sell 25 tickets, then it’s much easier for everyone to play at a nice venue, since overall there’s a large number of tickets being sold. It’s good for the fans as well, since there’s typically a better sound system, sound mixing engineer, drink mixing engineer, and food. The line up for this particular evening was:

• Sal Rourke
• Brian Farrow
• CaSh & Earle
• Natalie York
• Rorie
• Justin Trawick
• Leigh Cramer
• Chase Willet

First off we had to setup. The instruments (and cases!) for 9 musicians all onstage at the same time can easily become a hassle, with people accidentally knocking down bass guitars and stepping on ukes, which inevitably leads to tears and bloodshed. But thankfully the stage was quite sizable. The only real issue was instrument cases, but eventually we figured it out by tucking ours around a conspicuous corner. Here’s JTT coordinating the pre-show below.

There’s always waaaay too much happening on these evenings to accurately note what really went down. We’ve tried to write some detailed We Are the 9 blogposts, but they get so big and unwieldy. Therefore, here’s some thoughts we jotted down:

• Sal went up first, and she was a great way to kick off the evening with 2 wonderful songs! She came by after her performance and we both chatted with her, and she had some wonderful stories.
• Brian Farrow went up next with a completely dope lookin’ guitar with electronics and wires hangin’ out the side of the instrument. We didn’t take a picture, but we thought we did, making us sad pandas. We were excited to hear him play, ’cause maybe we’d hear crazy homemade sounds, but his instrument malfunctioned. KTL helped him out and handed his instrument to Brian to keep it going. Brian’s cover later that evening was absolutely killer.
• We played with Natalie York again! We all shared the stage for the The 9’s Christmas Show at Iota Club. She’d done a version of Go Tell It On The Mountain that stuck with us. This evening she played a few originals and got everyone onstage with her, and it was easily the most successful performance of the evening See below

• Kenny was able to play boxdrum with Chase. This may or may not have been a good idea. Side-note: if you haven’t played boxdrum or any other percussion instrument you play with your hands… It really makes the blood rush to your hands in a way that doesn’t fix itself for an hour.. So.. be prepared for that.
• We played a couple of tunes with an absolutely wonderful violinist named Mariam. We were just like “it’s in Dm” and she was like “whatever I boss-it-up quite frequently.” And she did.
• We caught a couple views of CaSh & Earle from a different angle. They were fantastic as always.

That’s about all we had jotted down. Justin was giving away drink tickets, and we had some friends show up that were also looking to embrace the night, so we decided to ensure that the brewery was operating properly by trying their wares. Turns out – their alcohol switch hasn’t switched to the ON position yet. Since Sehkraft is less than a few months old, that makes sense. Fortunately, their alcohol list was more than just impressive, it was powerful. And it had strength. Oh my dayum. It took up all the space in your esophagus. We tried the Chai-Spiced Imperial Russian Stout. A lot. (I think the word “Try” doesn’t really apply here…) We’ll leave you to guess which half of the band loved it and which didn’t.

As for the venue itself, the stage was great. Their sound system was killer, and brand spanking new. Everything was mixed with great care by the house engineer, leading to a serious music listening evening. Musicians are gonna love this place once Sehkraft gets into the full swing of things. And already being a new venue, the evening had a full crowd in attendance. The experience was wonderful overall, and we’re excited to welcome Sehkraft to the Arlington / DMV area.

Toodles! (Kenny: Duuuude don’t say toodles)

Artist Info

Sal Rourke
Catch Sal at her facebook and homepage of www.salrourke.com.

Brian Farrow
Brian’s got a facebook and he can be seen singin’ on this Youtube video:

CaSh & Earle
They have a wonderful new webpage that everyone needs to check out at www.cashandearle.com! Hit up their facebook.

Natalie York
Natalie can be found at her homepage of www.natalieyork.com and her facebook.

Rorie
Rorie’s absolutely gorgeous website is roriemusic.com, but she’s got a facebook too!

Justin Trawick
Justin’s main page is justintrawick.com and he’s got a facebook page also. His podcast is A Circus Life, and his concert series is We Are the 9. All of which are worth checking out. Seriously. Stop reading. Go. Listen to his stuff. Go.

Leigh Cramer
Leigh can be found on facebook and Soundcloud only…at least that’s the only places we could find her. Check back for an update.

Chase Willet
Chase can be found on facebook and Reverb Nation.

lib-er-tine.
1.) A free thinker, especially in religious matters.
2.) A person who is unrestrained by convention or morality.

We’re such libertines…except Kenny.

About 2 months ago, we played The Black Squirrel in Adams Morgan thanks to an invite from Len & J (now LATO). That show went well, but Josh forgot his glasses onstage. When going back off-hours to retrieve them, The Capitol Heights met the fabled owners of The Black Squirrel (Amy and Tom) in person. Turns out, they are nice folks, and they also own the Libertine. A few emails later we were put in contact with a gent named Anders who helps book music for a few venues in Admo, including The Black Squirrel and Libertine. Anders said we should take over booking for the Libertine for Adams Morgan Day 2015 and Len & J would take The Black Squirrel. Sounds like a plan and that’s what we did.

Basically this turned into a “best of” show for The Capitol Heights – featuring those who we’ve played with over the past year or so. We had a few of the folks we scheduled end up over on The Black Squirrel’s side, due to scheduling conflicts, and Len & J had the same thing happen at the Libertine. But we’re glad we hosted this event because we met some new folks and got exposed to new tunes. And we tried our hand at organization! Turns out organizing is harder than we thought but we didn’t mess things up too bad.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s tell the story. How did we get to the show? After we booked all the bands, Anders did a magnificent job of promoting the show with a killer website, graphics, and great social media engagement. Seriously – we can’t express enough of well of a job he did (and as a direct result we have more than 100 followers on Twitter now!) We’ve played the Libertine once before, and we knew they had a brand new PA. So the day of, we didn’t have to bring that much gear outside of our own equipment.

This day was particularly hairy because it was the day Kenny’s car battery decided to die. After frantically deciding what to do to fix it (thanks wives!), Kenny hopped in the proverbial Uber and made his way to meet Josh. Speaking of Uber – I feel like we should get a loyalty discount or something. I digress – We arrived in Admo to what can only be called utter and complete madness. Adams Morgan was packed! People everywhere, no parking, and no room on the sidewalks to drag equipment into the venue. Like that handshake your grandpa tried to teach you, we gently, but firmly, fought our way into the Libertine.

Once there, Anders had already set up everything. Good man! We reveled in our ability to chat with him in person versus using email, and one of the coolest things we found is that Anders actually designed the interior of the Libertine. Very. Cool. Eventually, we had to trek on over to The Black Squirrel to loot their store of cables and mics for some of the larger acts that we had scheduled for the day. But other than that no real equipment issues. We kicked off the show at 2 PM to a fairly packed house. We played for an hour and loved every second of it.

Our friend Colleen whom we met at Sauf Haus a while back was scheduled to play immediately after us. She brought her Ukelele and sang songs that escaped the bar area and drew in others from outside. She played Scare Away the Dark by Passenger, which is an AMAZING but not well known song. Josh had just heard it the week before and it was in that indefatigable phase of constantly playing in his head. (Josh recently read that word in Huxley’s A Brave New World and he really wanted to use it.) As usual, Colleen did a bang-up job made it rain at the Libertine.

You may remember Jeff Farias, who guest starred in our USO show and St. Elmos’s Cafe open mic. He’s like 6 foot forever tall, has a big presence, and plays music like a very determined and methodical madman. Well he’s got a wife. And she’s just as estimable. In fact, we’ve been trying to play a show with the both of ’em for some time, and lo and behold this was that day! We got them onstage to play some of their songs and it was such a treat. We were jealous of their giant songbook containing all originals, and they effortlessly pulled things from their back catalog for an hour. Tammy sang, and Jeff played his guitar and tried his resonator abit. It was worth the wait. They sounded wonderful and brought a sizable crowed. Maybe we’ll get them to abandon southern Maryland and join up with the DC music scene. We could use ’em. See below!

Our friend Jahnel, who’s been going on tours, blogging, and generally thundering around the east coast music scene came out to play mid-day. And for the first time ever, we saw her full band! She’s been playing off and on with a bassist named Pierce, who we hung out with and found to be a generally nice dude. Jahnel also had Chris Compton ripping the guitar for her. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures of all of them in their glory. And oh that they were glorious. Sadly, we had a cancellation following their performance. We asked Chris to sit in, and it was amazing. We’ve played with him any number of times, but that day, Chris had it what it is. His voice was crisp, fingers agile, and the crowd loved ’em! It was a fortuitous turn of events for all involved. Chris sang his favorite covers, and we’re loving some of his original country/folk songs like Sweet By and By and Highway Girl. See Chris go. Go Chris Go you music-playin’ hound.

Next up is Nardo Lilly. We had no idea who this was, since it was a Len & J pick. But when she showed up… we were like OOOOOOOHHHH it’s CUMBERBATCH! Why do we say that? She has an absolutely delightful song about Benedict Cumberbatch that was obviously memorable enough that we recognized her from an Iota Club open mic over a year ago. Now Nardo Lilly’s music is difficult to describe. Because she’s basically a lyrical genius. She’s basically like Steve Jobs writing a keynote speech, with every word having an appreciable impact that’s often delightfully funny – sometimes self-deprecatingly so. When we listened to her bandcamp, we were absolutely aghast that she has many of her great songs recorded (listen to hot Hot Park Ranger), Benedict Cumberbatch is not available! Ah, why is the world so cruel?! ** Edit ** – She’s informed us that it is available on iTunes and on Spotify! Here she is making the magic happen.

The cap in the evening was Cassie Urbany. When I hear the name Cassie, I think of the Animorphs character who turns into a wolf, like everyone else does I’m sure. Now I’m going to be thinking of a woman showing up STOKED about the Eagles in her war jersey ready to serve up a massive dose of country-rock-folk that’s a little bit dark, but a little uplifing at the same time. We ended the evening listening to her musical stories and sweet voice in the outside seating area of Libertine, and it was a great way to just have nighttime wash over us. Her music was a great soundtrack to our very tired bodies after hosting this event for over 8 hours. When Cassie’s last sonorous note concluded, we knew something important had come to a close, and we were excited to talk to her about her great music. Here she is before the curtain went down.

So that’s about it. We were hosting the event all day! There were a number of acts we didn’t hit in this post and we’re sorry to everyone we missed. It was a long day full of some wonderful music. Amy and Tom, owners of the establishment, were great to the musicians, offering free drinks and a cornucopia of food available in the back. Anders was wonderful in helping to get this whole event off the ground. The Liberine & Black Squirrel staff put up with us for an entire day, which mind you, is a tribulation in and of itself. Adams Morgan Day – we’ll see you next year!

Artist Info

Colleen McCracken
Since Colleen’s just gettin’ started, she ain’t got too much of a web presence, but you can check her out here.

Tammy Patrick Band
Tammy’s website is nice and easy: tammypatrick.com and a single is embedded below. Check it out!

Jahnel and her Band
Jahnel’s been mentioned here before but we’ll repeat her info because it’s super important! She’s got her music consultancy company Bearhawk Artist Management, a twitter account, and her facebook page!

Chris Compton
Chris Compton can be found on his reverb nation page and his newly designed homepage: chriscompton.org.

Nardo Lilly
You can find this woman’s facebook and bandcamp readily available. See below for an embed.

Cassie Urbany
Cassie’s main page is cassieurbanymusic.com, she also has a bandcamp and facebook page.

Here’s her album, make sure to take a look!

For those who aren’t privy to the location and layout of the Rock and Roll Hotel, we’ll start by engorging you with knowledge. The Rock and Roll hotel is located on the newly revitalized area on H street (between about 6^th and 14^th). More specifically 1353 H St Ne. The venue is located on the street level and if you go there specifically for a concert, you may not realize that there are two whole floors of food and beverage right above you! We’ve been on H street many-o-time and didn’t realize there was a bar on top of the venue so it seems important enough to share. Oh, and DANGEROUSLY DELICIOUS PIES IS RIGHT NEXT DOOR.

When we arrived to load-in our equipment, we were kindly given some drank tickets and pointed to our “room”. That’s right. We are so posh we can’t even be expected to buy our own drinks, so we get free alcohol and our own room. Well, not really our own room… We had to share it with 9 other poeple.. Geez.. Get your OWN ROOMS ALREADY! We tried to call “shotgun” and nobody listened. Anyways – they call it our “room”, but it’s actually one of three VIP sections located in the hotel you can rent out for parties, boxed socials, or other what nots. Maybe they are called rooms because, well you know, since it’s a “hotel” and all. All joking aside, the hospitality for the artists was superb and we received a generous discount on the delicious food!

After we got settled in, got some refreshments in our bellies (chicken and waffles like a boss), it was time for our sound check. When you do a sound check before a show, you know you’ve stumbled upon a different echelon of venue and the sound system and mixing at the Rock and Roll hotel was superb. Gypsy Sally’s was a close second, but this time we had such great vibes pumping out of their performance audio system. Justin had all of the performers take names out of a hat, and we drew 4th, which was a decent time to go on. Then the doors opened, Justin introduced the artists, and as gingerly scrolled past our name like… a LOT of people hooted, hollered, shouted, and made mouth noises. It was thrilling. That mark was meant to be exclamatory!

In the red room is where we first met Jason Ager, who we’d seen playing tuba alongside Justin Trawick for other We Are the 9 shows. Turns out, this guy isn’t just a brass player, he’s got mad sweet guitar touchin’ fingers, a jazzy voice, and sports a fedora that he actually pulls off, which ends up pissin’ everyone else off. (Josh: Let me wear a fedora onstage!! Kenny: NO!) Josh worked with Jason a bit to play a song or two on trumpet. Jason ended up giving the audience a choice in the matter, and they (unknowingly!) selected the song Josh hadn’t practiced with Jason, so the musical tryst didn’t pass. Either way, the crowd loved Jason and he seemed to send that love right back.

Carolyn played immediately after us and because we had to sit our equipment down we didn’t get to hear her for her first set. Once we got back in front of the stage all of out friends told us that she was phenomenal. Like, best voice up there. Therefore, we had to wait after our second set was finished before we actually got to hear her. We were glad we waited because her americana blended well with her clear voice and earnest sound. And after we heard her, we had to agree with all of her friends. Here she is wrapping up her second set.

Eli Staples may have been up next (we’ve lost track of performance order). He’s a serious contender for most valuable keyboard player and put on a hell of a set. I always hate saying who other artists sound like, but since we’re bad people we’re going to do just that right now. Hrmm..Eli’s voice was a mixture between Billy Joel and been Ben Folds? That’s not just because they all play piano! (Maybe it is? I dunno). The combination of Eli’s voice and keyboard took the crowd hostage. We love this pic of him!

Oh Justin, how little we know you and how much do you think that we want to mess with you? Maybe write ridiculous things about you that will stand the test of time on our blog? The answer is a lot. But after much debate we decided not to and figured we would be boring and just say nice things about you. But we are curious what you’re hiding under that hat it’s always on your head. And like is anyone else seen his monkey hands? We don’t know how he uses them to play such beautiful music (do you see what we did there?) Seriously though, we’ve seen Justin play about 6 or 7 times and he doesn’t get old and he doesn’t falter. At this point we were kind of hoping he would have a off night just to prove to everyone that he’s human, but he did what he always does, play like a warrior. Every. Damn. Day. Here he is wrapping up with Carolyn.

So how did the Capitol Heights’ set go? In my notes about the evening we just wrote “remember holding up the mandolin in the air like Highlander“. That’s how freaking well it went. We had a really “on” night. We had been playing a lot lately and the show rounded out a series of multiple shows for us. What you probably don’t know? Is that before most of these We Are The 9 shows, is that there’s “coordination emails”. We decided to use these to find out if anyone wanted to play on the song Chicago with us. We got Avi to play with us and he brought his melodica. We had never seen one of these in person before but not but in the next two weeks after the show we saw 3 of them. Avi played well and everything went peachy. And that ain’t just because we’re from Georgia. Avi also asked us to play on one of his songs which was truly great. Josh just faked it on mando, but Kenny got into it and was able to learn the whole thing beforehand. Goddamnit Avi stop being so good! Here’s a pic of The Capitol Heights, Avi on melodica, Justin beating on his trusty cajon, and Zia shakin’ it like polaroid picture.

Let’s talk about Karl and his copilot Steve for our last paragraph. We shared the stage with Karl and the Light Duty Hammers at Gypsy Sally’s, but we didn’t get any pics and we felt bad. So this time we made sure caught Karl in the middle of the act. The first time they went on stage, we were backstage practicing, and we heard someone playing and thought to ourselves “sonovabitch…are we onstage? … but like a better version of us?” We hurried downstairs only to find Karl and Steve(?) making sweet, sweet love to the crowd via their music. They were equipped with both guitar and banjo, and were harmonizing with each other beautifully, with their pitch as true as that time you were not “supposed” to shoot your little brother in the head with that paintball gun, but you aimed right for his pair of goggles anyway. We actually ended up spending a lot of time with Karl after the set, chit-chatting about this and that and he gave us some sagacious advice (that’s too good to share), and we just ended up thinking he was genuinely a cool dude. We ended up booking him for the Indie Adams Morgan 2015 show. Karl mentioned us during his set because we said something stupidly funny – that nobody could remember…

For our last We Are the 9 show, there was so much going on behind the scenes in the back room. But at this show, all the artists stayed out with the crowd, intermingled, and generally listened to each other which we think is a much better way of doing it but admittedly is a tad less fun. After all was said and done we went and got pie at DANGEROUSLY DELICIOUS PIES and we met Eli Staples there! There were enough of our friends there that we filled the whole restaurant. I love that thought, because it kinda means we had a peice of every single type of pie at the store that night. Which is what true dreams are made of.

Artist Info

We know, we know, we didn’t talk about everyone above. That’s mostly a function of us only featuring people that we have decent pictures of. We’re sorry to Zia and Rachel for leaving y’all out.

Jason Ager
You can find Jason on his facebook and main website: www.jasonager.com

Avi Wisnia
Avi can be found at www.aviwisnia.com. He actually JUST released a brand new song that everyone needs to go listen to. It’s called Sky Blue Sky and can be found on his bandcamp. See the embed below.

Zia Hassan
Zia can be found at www.ziahassan.com. Two 3 letter first names in a row? You don’t see that often.

Eli Staples
Eli’s main page is www.elistaples.com. 3?!

Rachel Levitin
Here’s Rachel’s facebook and her main page is www.rachellevitin.com

Karl Straub and the Light Duty Hammers
The best place to find Karl is on his stupid goddamn music site. His words, not ours. Eh, a little ours.

Carolyn Crysdale
Carolyn has a bandcamp and facebook.

Justin Trawick
Justin’s main page is justintrawick.com. His podcast is A Circus Life, and his concert series is We Are the 9. All of which are worth checking out. Seriously. Stop reading. Go. Listen to his stuff. Go.

Note: We only wish our home set-up looked like that

We all wish we had unlimited free access to a studio backed by Sony or Capitol Records and we all fantasize about our tracks being produced and mastered by the best in the industry. The unfortunate fact is we don’t have the dough to cough up every time we want to immortalize our music to an mp3 (or vinyl if you roll that way). Our best bet (especially for us DIY-ers) is to record our music ourselves, but we find most of the time we hit record at home we aren’t as impressed as we should be with the result.

Luckily for us, there are many options available to us nowadays that open the door to near-studio quality sound on the cheap and sometimes free! We pride ourselves with the fact we record all of our songs ourselves, here at The Capitol Heights, and we want to share some of our recording techniques and tips. You can view this article as a baseline approach to get the most out of the money you have in terms of recording. We hope you find this article useful!

1: Equipment and Software

2: Mic Placement and Environment

3: Equalization

Equalization (or EQ) is a great tool to bring out the best, or hide the worst tones on your tracks. Before we go on – one thing must be stated. Do not rely on EQ to save the way yout tracks sound. Usually, if you aren’t a big fan of how your voice of instrument sounds before you EQ it, you won’t be happy with it after either. It is a tool that should be used sparingly and only to compliment your recording – not define it.

In a previous life we recorded at a studio and had a pretty bad experience (long story short we hated the guy recording us [mostly due to his personality]). One thing that stuck with us (I don’t know if this is because he said it so much or it is a really important proverb) is “less is more”. We apply this rule when we EQ our tracks. We generally pull down different frequencies when instead of boosting them. This technique is called subtractive EQ. Think of it like you are sculpting the equalization of your sound.

4: Compression

Just like mic placement, getting the right compression is often trial and error. We tend to only do enough compression and limiting during the physical recording process to prevent maxing out the track. This way we can go in and compress the audio again with a plugin and tweak it however we like.

We suggest you use a compressor that allows you to input two channels simultaneously while using the same compression settings. This is 100% necessary for compressing stereo mic-ed tracks as it helps prevent phase issues. It is hard to describe phase shift declaratively; Instead, we will point you to it in action. If you listen to the song Chicago by Sufjan Stevens (preferably with headphones during this exercise), notice the cymbal during the trumpet solo. You will hear the cymbal traveling from the center-right to the left speaker. This could be intentional, but most of the time it is unwanted. This can happen if you recorded something in stereo, but compressed the two tracks independently. Just be aware of this when you are recording and compressing in stereo. Most of the time you want to make sure your compressor is compressing the left and right tracks the same exact way.

5: Digital Instruments and Plugins

Just like hardware, software can get out of control. Without saying words like doodads, whozits, and thingamabobers – just know software can do pretty much anything you can imagine to your sound. Below is a list of some plugins we have used and seen used over the years.

• Wave Arts
• Celemony Melodyne
• Native Instruments – Komplete
• T-Racks
• List of Free VST Plugins

You might notice a couple of items that stand out in the list above. The last item (free VSTs) is a nice list, compliments of bedroomproducersblog.com, we found if you don’t wish to spend anything on plugins. If you start to price them out they begin to outweigh hardware costs. We recommend, at least, getting your hands on an EQ, parametric EQ, compressor, limiter, gate, reverb, and delay plugin. Those will take you pretty far.

Melodyne is probably the only controversial item on the list because it is used for pitch correction. There is a vast and deep divide between people who approve and can’t stand vocal correction. Personally, we think there is nothing wrong with making your music as close to perfect as possible. There is so much production that goes into recording it doesn’t make sense to stop at the voice – but let’s end our tangent there. Correcting your voice is all up to you and we understand both sides of the argument.

6: Mastering

You are probably wondering what this is. Everyone talks about how important it is and how you should have a specialist do it … blahdy blah. Here on planet DIY, we explain and do things the easy way. Mastering (in less words) essentially ensures your song is about as loud as all of the others in the world. If you are pointing out the issues with that statement in your mind, you should stop reading this section =]. We know mastering is a complex subject and there are a multitude of standards and techniques. We are trying to underline the easiest way to get a good sound.

The way we approach mastering is simple. After we mix down the whole song, we import that audio into a new project. We are then able to apply adjustments to our audio as a whole. We add in an EQ plugin to do some finishing touches, then we add a type of compressor/limiter plugin afterwards. We suggest you play around with the compressor and volume of your audio for a while. The goal is to get your song relatively close to the same volume as a professional song. The compressor/limiter will ensure that your song won’t get too loud causing distortion.

This section oversimplifies the mastering process. The above method is more or less how we do our mastering, so if you like how our tracks sound, then you should have no problem employing the same technique.

7: Testing, Trial, and Error

You have heard this time and time again throughout this article and you will hear it again. Recording is all about trying things out and tinkering with different things. You aren’t going to set up the mics and settings once and immediately get the final result. It takes time and practice. Over time you will know what works and what you like. It will eventually get easier and take less time to record different things because you will get better at it.

Make sure you mix your recordings down multiple times, play them on a myriad of sound systems, and let plenty of people critique them. Our friends and loved ones can attest to us following this principal (sorry guys… we know it gets old). We have also found a couple of communities on Reddit that will give you feedback on your music. Check out these subreddits: r/WeAreTheMusicMakers, r/ThisIsOurMusic, r/songwriterscircle, and r/listentothis. Those were helpful to us. It is important to get as many ears on as many speakers as possible. This will ensure you are mixing your tracks to sound great to the widest audience possible.

Conclusion

Getting a great sound is easier than ever. With a few pieces of hardware and software, you can get pretty close to radio-ready sound. We hope this article helps musicians beginning to branch out into DIY land and gets them started on the right track (see what we did there.. ?).

Questions, comments? Feel free to drop us a line below.

And because of that, this is a huge post with lots of pictures. Be prepared to deal.

So we got invited to play this We Are The 9 event at Gypsy Sally’s from Justin Trawick about 2 weeks before the show. And the subsequent two weeks after were a blur of recording, practicing, promoting, and just getting ready for the show. When Justin invited us, we did our homework and read-up about the singer/songwriter series. It’s a cool idea: 9 different musicians, playing 3 songs a piece, and everyone interweaves their performances with each other. If 9 different musicians can each sell 25 tickets, then it’s much easier to book a nice venue for everyone to play at, like Gypsy Sally’s, since overall there’s a large number of tickets being sold. It’s typically just 9 people, but tonight was a special duos and trios night leading to much larger acts. Unfortunately, The Capitol Heights are still a pretty small group (apparently lots of blogposts don’t get people to shows, go figure?) and we think we pulled about 15 – 18 people. (THANKS TO EVERYONE!!)

Justin was the organizing force here, basically taking care of everything. He said load-in for the evening was at 5 PM and we got there late [classic]. Showing up late was super-unprofessional, especially since it was an actual paid gig. A tax document was even sent around. I barely do my taxes now – and the federal government thinks I’m going to do two sets of taxes? Ha! I think not. (Just kidding government!) Anyway, we arrived at Gypsy Sally’s at about 6:30 and the soundcheck had already commenced. And we started to get nervous. The folks we saw playing were good. Like clone yourself and raise yourself as a child good. This was no open mic – these folks are professionals and they sure as hell sounded like it. Eventually we checked that our instruments still produced sound and started futzin-around with the other performers.

We were told that there was free food and drinks in the vinyl lounge ………whaa … whaaaaat?! The pizza and salad were top notch, and the beer (PBR and Shiner LIKE A BOSS) did what they were meant to do.

Just as a side story…
The free food and beer was especially cool to us. One of our old bands played a show up in north Georgia. The venue was essentially a pre-fabricated garage and was located on a dirt road. It took a couple of hours to even drive there (cue the deliverance banjo). We were told it would be a paid gig, but alas we were paid in food. That would have been fine, but this was definitely concession stand food. Like – lukewarm, liquid fluorescent (possibly glow-in-the-dark) nacho cheese with, most likely, month old, stale, circular chips. Don’t even get me started on the popcorn (yes, you can make popcorn really nasty).. This is not to say we were being picky.. But it was kind of a let down after driving so far. Long story short, the food we got at Gypsy Sally’s was awesome and was a really nice gesture that wasn’t taken for granted.

… back to the main act.
To top off the legititude of this venue, to get to the green room you had to go thru the kitchen like you worked there. yiiiissssss. The first time you are like.. they are going to kick me out, but by the third time you’re kicking in the door like – WHATUP BITCHEZ. It was a non-stop party back there in the green room and I don’t understand how the audience in the main room weren’t complaining about our noise levels. It was so loud. Nearly 20 musicians all back there practicing scales, tuning, and playing random music with other musicians they don’t know, all in this tiny little room. And that’s a big part of this whole “9” show – the different act are supposed to collaborate. And people saw Josh’s cornet used in our upcoming song “You and Me”. Lots of people asked Josh to improv random cornet licks on their songs….but here’s the issue … Josh isn’t that good at cornet yet. Apparently being a serious french horn player over a decade ago is not the same as improvising rock and folk licks with people you don’t know… but we’re getting there.

The show itself went like clockwork. Justin nailed it into everyone’s heads that as soon as the person before you plays their last chord, the next person is already walking onstage. All this to say, it was just one of those times when you get caught in one of life’s whirlwinds. The joy of all these different folks sharing such an important part of their lives onstage, combined with the furor that was the backstage was all simply amazing! All 9 acts played 2 songs a piece, and then all 9 played one more song again for the second go’round. Being a part of this cool concept, with such, truly awesome, acts was sincerely humbling.

There’s too many to mention them all, but with some adieu, here’s our rundown of the 9:

Brittany Jean and The Gingers – this three piece set was epic. We checked and they didn’t have gingervitus (Josh tried to delete this, but Kenny’s putting it back in without his knowledge). It was actually this group’s soundcheck that we walked in on leading us to go “whoaaaa we may have written a check for which our backside can’t provide the requisite goods and services.” Their violin and cello add such an air of class while the lead singer Brittany Jean is just an explosion of rock swagger. We experienced their set from the green room but we know how they do. We loved this mix of country, rock, and folk that swishes together to make Americana.

ilyAIMY was a unique experience to say the least. They are normally a trio, but tonight they were a duo… and we couldn’t tell they were missing anything at all. Electric cello (Kristen) and guitar (Rob) with both of their voices going strong and holy shit did Rob have guitar chops. Literally one of the best and most unique guitar players we’ve ever encountered. He’s the kinda guy that when you see him play, there’s not enough room under the bed for you to hide under in shame. Our favorite song of theirs was where they were singing about being blacklisted by the TSA. We’ve got friends like that… so we thought this was particularly poignant. Their sound is funky as hell and it’s like Rob slaps every string multiple times a second. Rob’s voice was solid and particularly “rock-ish” with some grit on there right when it was needed. Their music had SO MUCH ENERGY and their back catalogue is massive! Unfortunately, we don’t have a great pic of Rob and Kristen – since all the photos you see in this post (except for the title image) were taken by Rob on his amazing camera. Thanks Rob! Here’s Kristen absolutely nailing it!

Atoka Chase (Maya and Jared) were SUCH a good and unique act. Josh had a chance to chill with Jared in the Vinyl Lounge earlier and they told us some of their adventures touring across the country. It was harrowing stuff and we hope we have half of their stories some day. Their set was right before ours, and we’d describe their music as dark bluegrass? Gothgrass? The way they laid into the banjo was unique tho – since it wasn’t a lot of fingerpicking but instead played it like they were hittin’ hard-rock guitar riffs. This kind of ingenuity is great to witness! This group was full of solid, Class A licensed musicianship and Maya and Jared’s voices melded with ease. You HAVE to listen to their track where Maya howls like a wolf – we absolutely loved it! They took just as much care crafting their stage presence as they did with their music. It was actually Atoka’s bullhead that you see featured on the stage in all these pictures. Our favorite part was their custom-built suitcase drum where they cut-out the sides of a suitcase and inserted some toms! Extremely portable and super nifty. We are probably going to steal this idea …

Our set went ok – we played our new song You and Me and Sequestered Together. Josh hit a wrong note on the mando in the first 30 seconds of playing. What. The. hell. (He’s literally never missed that note before.) The cornet went sort of meh since Josh missed the high note and we’re thinking nerves had something to do with it. The very next day during a songwriting session Josh hit a note a 4th higher than the F#, so we know he can hit the note. Then towards the end of Sequestered Together, Kenny made an error on the piano. To be fair, Kenny’s playing REALLY quickly and singing a complicated part. For our second go-round, Justin joined us onstage with a cajon! We played Take Your Momma which is a coming of age tale about a gay man – and we dedicated it to the State of Indiana. Everybody laughed at the joke, but alas, we have to admit that this was Justin’s joke that he came up with backstage. He more or less indicated we could use it but Josh has felt bad about this since that night SO LET THE TRUTH BE KNOWN. Wanna see a badass pic of us that Rob took?

Cashe & Earle played 2nd to last, and holy hell they were fun. Josh has been beatboxing for a long time but Earle really brought it to the next level. SO GOOD. Why? Well it really has to do with the music that Cashe & Earle play. They are more or less an a cappella duo but that doesn’t do it justice. Think Glee but ya know… real. Cashe’s voice is like fine wine and it immediately gets your attention. We want to say she sounded like she was singing modern music with the hint of 1940’s style. But then the daft maneuver is Earle’s beatboxing, which actually supplies the underpinning of their music since many of his bass notes are pitched to the song. He’s hitting a note in the implied chord of their music. Very impressive and something we plan to learn from. Josh really wants to challenge Earle to a beatbox battle if we ever get to the play The 9 again.

Justin capped out the night and it wasn’t the first time we saw this man lay down the law. He brought the magic just as surely as before and he had all the other performers get on stage with him and sang his famous last song Goodnight. All the performers jumped on stage and sang it with him. It was an excellent end to a magnificent evening. And the song is still stuck in our heads…. “Gooooooodbye. Goodbye I tell you. Goooooodbye.”

We just can’t say nice enough things about Receiver, Jamie and James, Karl Straub and the Light Duty Hammers, and all the rest! We met some amazing people and learned about some new shows. ilyAIMY and Atoka Chase were some of the folks we got closest with during the evening. We actually ended up talking to Rob of ilyAIMY a lot and telling him that we’re doing this open mic challenge thing and he told us that he runs an open mic in College Park. So you can put that on the Open Mic Challenge scoreboard! We also want to again thank all of the wonderful people who came out that evening to support us! This tiny little band really appreciates the support and next time we gon’ kill it.

We leave you with the most justice-ridden picture you’ve ever seen.

Doesn’t this remind you of The Brady Bunch? Andy, we wish we had this picture BEFORE the show to help promote this thing!

Artist Info

Wow – lots of talent here!

Cash & Earle
They don’t seem to have a web presence at this point in time (we felt bad cause we kept buggin’ them about it) but they were on The Circus Life podcast, so we have a video of them to share!

Jamie and James
Their primary page is jamieandjamesmusic.com. But they also have a facebook and Instagram. Here’s there Soundcloud!

Atoka Chase
atokachase.com is their masthead, but https://atokachase.bandcamp.com is where you want to be. Head on over and buy their music and grab .. their bull by the horns? Yeah. That. They got a facebook too!

ilyAIMY
This dynamic trio is available at www.ilyaimy.com. Frankly that’s all you need, but they’ve got a facebook, YouTube, and on twitter with the handle @ilyaimy! AND THANKS AGAIN TO ROB FOR THE MAGNIFISCENT PICS! In thanks, every should go visit the open mics that he graciously runs!

Brittany Jean and The Gingers
Brittany Jean hangs out on facebook, Reverb Nation, and Soundcloud.

Karl Straub and the Light Duty Hammers
We were unable to find anything about these folks online!

Receiver
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they have a facebook but their sweet as hell custom site is where you need to be at: www.receivermusic.net. Check out their Soundcloud:

Justin Trawick
Justin’s main page is justintrawick.com. His podcast is A Circus Life, and his concert series is We Are the 9. All of which are worth checking out. Seriously. Stop reading. Go. Listen to his stuff. Go.