Alex Schelldorf – Bandwidth

Photos: All Songs Considered Sweet 16 At 9:30 Club

Alex Schelldorf — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 15:22:07 +0000

Scenes from last night’s NPR-hosted All Songs Considered Sweet 16 party at 9:30 Club.

Bob Boilen gets things started

Glen Hansard

Sharon Van Etten

Kishi Bashi

Laura Gibson

The Suffers

Dan Deacon

Crowd during Dan Deacon’s set

Bob Boilen in the crowd

All photos by Alex Schelldorf

Six Pics: Ex Hex Brings The Rock To 9:30 Club With Mac McCaughan And Ed Schrader’s Music Beat

Alex Schelldorf — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 16:06:39 +0000

Scenes from last night’s show at 9:30 Club featuring Ex Hex, Superchunk founder Mac McCaughan and Ed Schrader’s Music Beat.

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat

Mac McCaughan

Ex Hex

Six Pics: Young Fathers At Rock & Roll Hotel

Alex Schelldorf — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:36:22 +0000

While tens of thousands of tourists descended upon D.C. last weekend for some flower festival, elsewhere the District’s conventional and DIY venues were stacked to the brim. If you weren’t at 9:30 Club for Dan Deacon or The Ting Tings, you could’ve been at Damaged City Fest, or Paperhaus for Shark Week or Hole in the Sky for Two Inch Astronaut.

Capping off the weekend at Rock & Roll Hotel were Young Fathers, who took the stage as if it were their prey. The Mercury Prize-winning hip-hop group stormed through an hourlong set with an intensity and fury rarely seen outside of punk shows. They said nothing between songs and then walked off unapologetically after closer “I Heard,” leaving the crowd hungry for an encore that never came. The three vocalists and their drummer were all individually different, but somehow uniquely cohesive. Raw, but not quite unhinged.

The Scots are on tour celebrating their new record White Men Are Black Men Too, though their set was an even mix of their last few records and EPs. Openers Mas Ysa (who powered through a myriad of technical difficulties with humor and grace) and Bond St. District (which features venerable Baltimore rapper DDM), both played to a sparse but enthusiastic crowd before the room filled for the headliners.

img class=”alignnone wp-image-50660 size-large” src=”http://bandwidth.wamu.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Young-Fathers-18-1024×682.jpg” alt=”Young Fathers ” width=”900″ height=”599″ />

Six Pics: La Luz, Craft Spells, The Shivas And The Bilinda Butchers At Comet Ping Pong

Alex Schelldorf — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 18:19:32 +0000

It’s been a brutal winter, so forgive me if my projections of warmth have started to include visions of 1960s summer dance parties headlined by surf king Dick Dale. But Tuesday night — and well into the wee hours of Wednesday morning — at least part of that vision became reality at D.C.’s Comet Ping Pong.

With tickets sold out in advance, the Guy Fieri-approved pizza house filled to capacity for a show featuring four West Coast bands with strong pop sensibilities. San Francisco dream-poppers The Bilinda Butchers opened, setting a mellow tone — then Portland surf-pysch act The Shivas undid that, jolting the crowd when guitarist Jared Molyneux howled into the band’s first song without warning. More than 40 minutes later, ears must have been ringing in The Shivas’ wake.

In the fourpiece’s return to D.C., Craft Spells played an uneven set that peaked early when the group’s architect, Justin Vallesteros, hurled himself at drummer Brock Lowry. It wasn’t till after midnight that their fellow Seattleites La Luz finally took center stage.

Undeterred by early technical issues, the Hardly Art signees kept the crowd at attention by cranking the reverb and turning up to an ear-piercing volume. The “Luzers” play a brand of surf that might evoke Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet before Dick Dale, but the band’s effusive joy and natural banter kept its set lightweight and beachy, just like my fantasies — with synchronized dancing that prompted cheers.

At night’s end, the only dream left unrealized may have been keyboardist Alice Sandahl’s threat to stage dive.

The Bilinda Butchers

The Shivas

Craft Spells

La Luz