Playlist: All The Music You Need To Hear In D.C., July 21 To 27

By Ally Schweitzer

Gloomy San Francisco band Fresh & Onlys are just one of the many, many acts you should see in town this week.
Gloomy San Francisco band Fresh & Onlys are just one of the many, many acts you should see in town this week.

Sound Advice is Bandwidth’s recurring playlist of artists we think you should catch in D.C. this week.

This week’s playlist starts with a still-underrecognized name in blues music: Bobby Rush, the octogenarian, guitar-slinging Louisianan who’s been making great tunes for more than half a century. Rush is such a killer bluesman—and an unapologetically dirty, funny performer—he deserves two slots on this week’s playlist: one for his 1970s hit “Chicken Heads” and another for the title track from his award-winning 2013 record, Down In Louisiana. Tomorrow night, Rush plays a solo set (translation: none of his sexy dancers) at the Hamilton downtown. Don’t miss it.

The rest of the week is one of the hipster-friendliest I’ve seen here in some time: Ian Svenonius’ Chain & the Gang plays two shows this weekend (one of them with one of my favorite Baltimore bands, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat); Ex Hex plays a slot at Rock & Roll Hotel later this week; hazy Brit pop band The Clientele—responsible for one of the best indie-pop albums of all time, the recently reissued Suburban Lightcomes to Black Cat; guitar-driven Brooklyn band DIIV also headlines the Cat; Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks play a make-up date at UHallSan Francisco fuzz-pop ensemble Fresh & Onlys stops by DC9 Thursday; wall-of-sound rockers Nothing return tonight after we just saw them here in June; Beck and Neutral Milk Hotel are both booked at Merriweather; and holy heck, Nick Cave is in town.

Oh, and Fort Reno hosts two fine shows this week, too.

The rest of this week’s picks in this totally stuffed playlist, below.

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