But J. Robbins, Jawbox’s ex-bandleader and guitarist, seems unimpressed with mythology.

“Making For Your Own Special Sweetheart —” the band’s 1994 major-label debut — “was like going to school, and sometimes it was very hard,” Robbins says. He’d realized the limitations of his guitar-playing. The band didn’t know how to navigate Atlantic Records’ bureaucracy. The record sold meekly, too, by major-label standards. Two years later, they took the lessons they’d learned and channelled them into Jawbox, a triumphant album by any measure. But it mattered little — the LP didn’t sail off the shelves. Come ‘97, Jawbox hung it up.

But Robbins never soured on those two albums, the group’s last of four. In 2009, DeSoto Records — operated by Jawbox bassist Kim Coletta — teamed up with Dischord Records to deliver a remastered version of For Your Own Special Sweetheart. And last week, the labels unleashed a freshened-up take on Jawbox’s swan song. Robbins says there isn’t a vast chasm between the Jawbox of 1996 and this new version.

“There’s so much about [Jawbox] that is like a time capsule,” Robbins says. “Even though there might be things I’d want to change, I think it’s silly to change it. It’s like, ‘No. This is really a record.’ As in, a record of a moment of our band firing on all cylinders creatively.”

It wasn’t always like that, not even with For Your Own Special Sweetheart, says Robbins, now a recording engineer in Baltimore. The band had imperfections, like uneven tempo changes that prompted producer Ted Niceley (who had worked with Fugazi on In On The Kill Taker and Repeater) to bring a metronome to their sessions.

“Luckily we had, like, seven weeks to make the record,” Robbins says.

When it came time for Jawbox to record the album that would be its last, the band members had developed an exacting attention to detail.

“Even when we were writing songs, there would be a tempo in mind and we would get in these heated discussions of whether something should be two BPM faster,” Robbins says. Jawbox had become more critical of its own work than producer John Agnello. (The musician recalls band members shaking their heads disapprovingly after hearing takes in the studio, tutting, “Oh, John. John, John, John. Didn’t you hear where Zach [Barocas] rushed the snare in the fourth bar of the second verse? That’s not cool.”)

Yet Robbins has fond memories of those Jawbox recording sessions. He speaks warmly of Agnello’s inspiring presence and discovered he and his bandmates could record quicker with their newfound maturity and efficiency. As such, the band was able to expand creatively, adding auxiliary percussion, organ and even a saxophone, courtesy of member Bill Barbot. Never mind that Atlantic kept pushing back the album’s timeline.

Robbins calls Jawbox’s placement on the major label and its TAG subsidiary “a cultural accident of timing.”

Now, the musician has nice things to say about the way music is released in 2015. He appreciates the Bandcamp model — which he used to release an EP last year — because it obliterates some of the excesses of superstardom that still prevail in music culture. For the Jawbox reissue, he wanted no bloat, no glitter.

The changes on Jawbox 2.0 are subtle, at most. It has updated artwork — a slight variation on the unsettling original, a photo of two fingers pointed toward a bowed head. (Jason Farrell — of Swiz and Bluetip — had to redo the cover because the band no longer has the original files.) Other than that, the only difference between 1996 Jawbox and the 15 songs reissued last week — Tori Amos cover included (stream below) — is a remastering courtesy of frequent Robbins collaborator Dan Coutant.

It’s surprising to hear, coming from a studio jockey, but Robbins says he couldn’t bear to do the job himself.

“Mastering gives me hives,” he says.

Jawbox’s self-titled album is available on vinyl, CD and digital formats through Dischord Records.

Not that “Summer” is Curtin’s first outing with an electric guitar—she plugged in on her debut solo EP, Fly Her and Keep Her—but the stylistic shift is remarkable. To craft the slow and steady rhythms in this song, she called in help from drummer Ian Chang (of Son Lux and Landlady) and bassist Spencer Zahn (of Empress Of), then threw tambourine and synthesized drum beats to the mix.

Curtin’s velvety croon is unmistakable, but she chose a different way to exercise that instrument on this song. “With singers on the radio constantly trying to sing higher and higher and out-belt each other, I decided to take it in the opposite direction,” the musician says. “It was kind of like, ‘Hey…how low can I sing?'”

Her foray into darker and deeper melodies seemed like an opportunity to explore a moody vibe in the song’s video: She teamed up with hip-hop fusion belly dancer Ebony Qualls (who also shows up in a new video from Nu:Tone) and shot the visual amid the shadows and bare walls of director Paul Abowd’s Columbia Heights apartment. The close-ups of both Curtin’s guitar and Qualls’ smooth movements recall the “Untitled” video from D’Angelo—whom Curtin also cites as an influence for this song.

“D’Angelo has a beautiful way of continuously building an arrangement without giving the listener that moment of complete satisfaction,” Curtin says. “That’s how I wanted to build this song.”

The only thing typically summery in the “Summer” music video are the sparklers that Qualls and Curtin hold. They’re shot in slow motion, suggesting a love that’s bright and exciting, but ultimately short-lived.

Sara Curtin performs Nov. 5 at “You, Me, Them, Everybody Live” at Wonderland Ballroom.

Over time, Laughing Man seemed to fade into the background; it stopped playing regular gigs. At the time, its members were busy with other projects. Singer/guitarist Brandon Moses sharpened his drumming chops with psychedelic-pop act Paperhaus and stretched his voice to its limit singing with hardcore supergroup Joy Buttons. Bassist Luke Stewart became a driving force behind the District’s experimental jazz and rock scene, coordinating a full calendar of shows at Union Arts.

Now it seems that Laughing Man’s members took all of that creative practice and poured it back into their original project. “Brilliant Colors,” premiered here today via Bad Friend Records, is the newest single from an audibly renewed Laughing Man. It sounds more expansive than the Laughing Man tracks of old: The intro is a jarring combination of distorted guitar and vocals that rockets forward when Michael Harris’ drums kick in; Moses, normally croony with no shortage of melisma, shouts over his hard-hitting guitar riffs.

But while “Brilliant Colors” sounds more immediate than anything Laughing Man has done before, it’s also deeply personal. The lyrics sprouted from a conversation Moses and Harris had about growing up in a tough-love environment. It’s about “this idea of our moms being hard on us because their view of the world is that the world is very difficult, and they didn’t want to sugarcoat our experience,” Moses says. They “wanted to make it unfair to a certain extent.” The song’s lyrics tangle with the space between the world their mothers envisioned, and the somewhat kinder one the band members eventually found on their own.

The song will appear on Be Black Baby, the EP that Laughing Man spent more than a year recording. The EP includes guitar and string arrangements from talented experimental folk artists Anthony Pirog and Janel Leppin, and live, Laughing Man now has a fourth official member: drummer Tarek Mohamed of The North Country. (Harris recorded drums on “Brilliant Colors,” but he’ll pick up electronics, auxiliary percussion and other duties when the band plays shows.)

Moses doesn’t have a firm release date for the EP yet, but its ideas sound more concrete: It’s about the band’s experiences being black kids who were into rock music, and “loving what is black about rock.”

“All these changes mess with my mind,” Moses shouts on “Brilliant Colors.” This new take on Laughing Man may be a little jarring, too—but it’s a change that’s worth the temporary discombobulation.

Laughing Man, Celestial Shore, and Deleted Scenes play tonight at Rock & Roll Hotel.

Due to a reporting error, the original version of this post inaccurately said Luke Stewart played bass in lowercase letters. He has never been a member of that band.

Here’s another one they did not offer up: “breezily triumphant return.”

Near the end of 2012, Protect-U’s European tour experienced an abrupt and nasty ending: Thieves lifted all of Mike Petillo and Aaron Leitko’s equipment from an allegedly secure back room after a show in Paris. With their gear in the wind, it looked like the pair’s 2012 single “Motorbike” would be the last thing Protect-U would release for a long time.

But thanks to the help of Protect-U’s friends and supporters, Leitko and Petillo raised enough money in a crowdfunding campaign to help rebuild their electronic arsenal. The first audible result of their time working with their new equipment, “Time 2 Technique” places an urgent funk-inspired beat under brighter, more celestial melodies.

The tune will appear on Protect-U’s debut nine-song LP, “Free USA,” out May 13 on local imprint Future Times Records, which Petillo runs with fellow electronic producer Andrew Field-Pickering (Maxmillion Dunbar, Beautiful Swimmers).

Protect-U is scheduled to play Select DC’s Vanguard Festival April 12, U Street Music Hall April 24 with Factory Floor, and Comet Ping Pong May 10 with Peaking Lights.

Last Thursday, local guitar virtuoso Mary Timony said those words to a full house at The Parish, a 450-capacity venue in the heart of downtown Austin. But Timony’s band is one of a diminishing number of D.C.-based acts that played the city’s annual South by Southwest music conference and festival this year.

Even a few years ago, it seemed like far more local acts made the pilgrimage to SXSW—regardless of whether they had been signed to a large independent label like Merge Records, which Ex Hex recently did. Sure, D.C. acts including experimental pop workhorses Deleted Scenes, ethereal duo GEMS and increasingly in-demand rapper Shy Glizzy played official showcases this year, but the appeal of the festival seems to have declined—or at least evolved—for many local musicians.

In 1987, SXSW started out as a relatively small affair that put on new indie-rock acts. It hasn’t been a small festival for quite a while now, though—and its size alone is enough to turn off D.C. punk band Priests, which has never been to the festival, and doesn’t plan to ever go.

“We don’t want to be one of the marbles in the bag,” says Priests vocalist Katie Alice Greer. She says the crowds at SXSW are so overstimulated, attendees probably wouldn’t take much from a Priests set anyway, no matter how energetic it was.

Priests drummer Daniele Yandel questions the fest’s marathon mentality. “How can you play five good sets in a day? I don’t know how that’s humanly possible.”

Meanwhile, Alex Tebeleff of psych-rock outfit Paperhaus—which, along with Priests, is one of D.C.’s hardest-touring rock bands—has a more practical concern. “Where the [hell] do you park your van?”

Tebeleff went down to the festival as a spectator in 2011, but lengthy Paperhaus tours in intervening years have dimmed his view of SXSW. “I think a couple of years ago, I would have been ignorant enough to not realize that I shouldn’t go,” he says. “Now I know enough about the realities of what playing music is like, and there’s no question, it’s absolutely not financially worth it unless we have a record that’s new, that’s ready to promote that we’re pushing. It’s just not worth it.”

Dreamy post-rock shredders Drop Electric did release an album last fall, but without being accepted into an official SXSW showcase, opted not to go this time. Member Ramtin Arablouei says that the group didn’t have a good experience at New York convention and music festival CMJ, and he expects that SXSW might share some of the same drawbacks.

“My personal feeling from a distance is that SXSW really caters more towards providing a fun experience for audience members. For almost no money you can walk around and see thousands of bands,” Arablouei says. “I find it to be a bit exploitative. Artists go there hoping they get lucky and be seen by the ‘right people.’ They pay money to apply to get into the festival. Meanwhile, someone is getting pretty rich collecting sponsorships and money from artists. Seems backwards to me.”

Priests also balks at the idea of bands at SXSW getting wrapped up in the festival’s heightening commercialism. “I love Doritos, but I don’t want to play inside of a giant Dorito vending machine next to an inflatable Dorito,” says Priests bassist Taylor Mulitz.

Heavy hitting power-pop band Typefighter releases its debut LP, The End of Everything, on April 22. Even with an LP to promote, though, the SXSW veterans don’t think hitting Austin would have been worthwhile.

“If you go there the wrong way, it can just defeat you,” says Typefighter’s Ryan McLaughlin, who has been to SXSW three times. “It’s a ton of fun and whatever, but unless you scheme it out and have a strategy of some sort, then it is just a giant party. And we can party here.”

Another SXSW veteran, May Tabol of D.C. band Pree, agrees that a SXSW strategy is key. “Timing is everything. We’d just wrapped up an album two weeks prior to the festival and are currently working on music videos, so it didn’t make sense for us to head down there mid-project,” she says. “The festival is oriented toward innovative music, so best to go when you’ve got something ready to share. Otherwise you’re adding to the noise and not the dialogue.”

Tabol still says that she would return “in a heartbeat” to Austin, though. So does Shark Week bassist Danielle Vu, who speaks glowingly about Shark Week’s experience as an official SXSW act in 2013. “Everyone there is in a great mood,” Vu says, “and the energy from fellow concertgoers is infectious and energizing.”

Maybe the secret to enjoying SXSW as a performer is to chill out. “If you’re able to drop the expectations and urgency of ambition for a few days, you can’t help but have a good time,” Tabol says. “It gives bands a perspective that they may not have gained otherwise, helping them to grasp the jaw-dropping tidal wave of bands out there [and] where one’s own band fits into the larger picture.”