“I love playing with my friends and stuff, but after a while it just felt like I didn’t know how to collaborate with other people and still maintain my own voice,” says Spector, 28.

So the Bethesda resident decided it was time to pursue her own thing. She borrowed a name from a Captain Beefheart song and started up Hothead, her journey into slightly terrifying solo territory.

“Hothead is kind of like my biggest fear,” says Spector, who plays guitar, drums and bass. “I can’t hide behind other people, I can’t hide behind the drums or whatever. I have to sing, I have to do everything. It’s been this tremendous boost to my confidence.”

On Hothead’s rangy debut — out soon on D.C. label Sister Polygon — Spector bounces around from hazy garage to borderline country, focusing on somewhat traditional songcraft, in contrast to her earlier, noisier bands.

“I’m really interested in figuring out how to write songs from a really traditional point of view — folk, blues,” Spector says. “I was just like, ‘I want to sit down with an acoustic guitar and play an old-fashioned song.’”

Lyricism doesn’t get short shrift, either, as Spector explores emotional territory she skirted around in previous groups — a direct product of her transformative time in therapy.

“The sound itself I think I’m still figuring out, but ultimately it’s supposed to be a songwriting project… where I really think about the [lyrics] and try to express feelings that I feel or that people I know feel,” the musician says.

The multi-instrumentalist brings her family into the project, too, using cover art inspired by her grandfather — who loved to doodle — and recordings of her grandmothers speaking and playing music. She says the focus on family symbolizes a ruling concept in people’s lives: love.

“Honestly, every single song’s about love,” Spector says. “But a universal kind of love, not some sort of romantic or possessive kind of love.”

Spector admits that she still finds it difficult to take herself seriously in her new solo format. But Hothead’s debut has prompted her to think optimistically.

“I was like, ‘OK, I did that in three months,’” Spector says. “Think what I could do in a year.”

Hothead plays Jan. 8 at CD Cellar Arlington.

The original version of this post said Hothead’s debut arrives Jan. 15. It does not have an official release date yet. The post has been corrected.

It’s unclear whether Reddick is legitimately curious, or if he’s just fond of the sound of the words.

The song (watch the video below) came out of “thinking about architecture and how similar of an art form it is to music,” the 19-year-old Arlington resident writes in an email. “Both performing music or constructing an object can take very long or happen very quickly and either way a product is made that can be either really interesting or really boring.”

The band is similarly abstruse about its origin. Reddick — formerly of D.C. punk band Dudes — formed Bless earlier this year with the intent of “understanding and transcending boundaries of what the average person thinks is possible in music and sound.” He works out arrangements with Sapperstein — whom he describes as “very classic, almost immortal” — and Wuerker.

The trio recorded its recent Bless Tape at Wuerker’s house in Brookland on a reel previously used by fellow D.C. artist Andrew Aylward. A sample of one of Aylward’s songs appears at the end of “Tru Bless House.” Reddick calls its inclusion “kind of a mystery.”

“Tru Bless House” is a moment of quiet reflection on a cassette release clattering with surf guitar, swinging rhythms and stuttering percussion. Reddick’s baritone voice falls somewhere between a croon and a moan, often trading call-and-response vocals with Sapperstein’s high-pitched warble. The result is a delirious vision of rock ‘n’ roll, akin to Royal Trux or Alex Chilton’s weirder solo albums.

Reddick hopes the Bless Tape will encourage “rocking out and allowing as many people as possible to touch and feel our music with their hands and bodies.”

Bless has a slate of upcoming gigs — including a tape release show Wednesday at Comet Ping Pong — but Reddick remains down to Earth about his goals.

“I would like to eat a nice sandwich in the near future,” the musician writes, “as well as maybe read an interesting book.”

Bless plays a tape release show July 22 at Comet Ping Pong with White Mystery, Dirty Fences and Homosuperior.

Francy Graham didn’t mean to create an homage to Kendrick Lamar with “My Vibe,” a previously unreleased track from her now-defunct punk band, Dudes. But that’s kind of what she did.

Graham, who also plays in Chain & the Gang, says she probably heard Lamar’s 2012 track “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” at some point — but she didn’t really take the time to listen to it until deciding to release this track from her band.

“Of course I’ve like, been at a party, and heard it and stuff, but I’d never really sat down and listened to it. And so I did,” says Graham. “I mean, [Dudes’ version is] pretty similar. I just think it’s adapted to my lifestyle, I guess.”

At their core, both songs are about self-preservation in the face of undesirable forces, but the Dudes track is a stripped down punk anthem, with Graham’s slightly sardonic vocals topping a bare-bones bass line (played by Luke Reddick, who usually handled drums) and beat (from Laurie Spector, who usually played bass). Graham says she wrote the lyrics during a chill jam session; she remembers Reddick saying “bitch, don’t kill my vibe” and she decided to run with it.

“In my head I was like ‘Wow, my vibe, I just got this great idea that no one’s ever come up with,'” Graham says. “But, like, everyone’s done that.”

Graham’s lyrics bring a different sensibility to her band’s song, too. There are not-so-subtle digs at that kind of art-school, too-cool culture: “Sea punk, art school, goth you’re so lost/I don’t care, just don’t kill my vibe.”

Graham says she wrote the lyrics while beginning college at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. “Moving to Baltimore was kind of a shock for me because there were all these people who were trying to figure themselves out and who were so happy to be out of their parents’ house,” Graham writes in an email. They “were trying to act all crazy, and I just felt more independent, and less of a need to be like, ‘Waaaghhhh, lets be crazy!'”

The musician would prefer that those people not, you know, kill her vibe.

“My Vibe” remained unreleased for a variety of reasons, including the disintegration of Dudes itself (“We’re kind of all in different places right now,” Graham says) and fear of negative reactions to the song. Eventually, Graham realized she couldn’t do anything about potential backlash, and she liked the song too much to let it disappear.

Dudes recorded the track in April 2014, in the basement studio of Coup Sauvage and The Snips‘ Jason Barnett. For a while, Graham thought of an alternative way of releasing “My Vibe” — she had a feeling it might make a good match for a vibrator commercial, and she even considered contacting a pleasure-piece manufacturer. She hasn’t yet, but there’s still time.

“When I first started [shooting], I had the cheapest camera,” he says—a Canon 60D that he used with a “bootleg flash” and a battery pack. Shooting five shows a week with his heavy equipment, the 26-year-old photographer began to feel pain in his right arm. It got scary a few months ago when Andrade was traveling back home from a show at Tenleytown’s Casa Fiesta. “My whole body started shaking,” he says. “I thought I was going to die.”

Andrade sought medical help and physical therapy. “I had to take a lot of medicine,” he says. Eventually, the pain receded. He soon invested in a lighter, more expensive camera.

Now, Andrade gets to show off the work that almost put him out of commission: Tonight the photographer opens “IN MY EYES,” an exhibit of his concert photography, at The Coupe in Columbia Heights. It’s his first solo show.

The exhibit features a few dozen images of 11 D.C.-area bands, including Chain & the Gang, Dudes (shown above), Olivia Neutron-John, Warchild, Give and Baby Bry Bry and the Apologists.

“I fell in love with hardcore music when I was 17 years old,” says the Alexandria native. “Bad Brains’ Pay To Cum changed my life.” Later on, the photography coming out of D.C.’s hardcore scene didn’t impress him. He felt more drawn to the work of photographers like Pulitzer winner Lucian Perkins—particularly his visceral images of a young D.C. punk scene, like the ones published in the 2013 book Hard Art DC 1979. “I decided to take it upon myself” to start shooting hardcore shows, Andrade says, aiming for a similar look and feel as Perkins achieved in his work.

Andrade has been shooting punk shows for two years—still a newbie by most standards, but his work stands out as some of the best in the scene. He’s now a familiar face at shows. Though, it helps that he doesn’t have a lot of competition at the tiny events he chooses to capture.

“When I go to these house shows, it’s like, two photographers,” Andrade says. When he recently shot a show at Rock & Roll Hotel, there were too many photographers there for his taste. He prefers the little gigs—where he can get right in the pit and shoot the kids. That’s where he says he finds the best shots.

“Lucian did a great job of documenting not just the band but the crowd,” Andrade says. In Perkins’ photos, you don’t just see the band—you see people in the audience, like Alec MacKaye, who would go on to become influential in their own right. “The crowd for me is half of the battle because they’re just as important as the band.”

Even after a couple of years—and who knows how many shows—the photographer says he still gets antsy before a shoot. “I always get super nervous,” he says. Why? 

“I don’t know—I’ve done this a million times,” Andrade says. “I guess it means I’m still enjoying it.”

“IN MY EYES” opens at 6 p.m. tonight at The Coupe. The show is on view to Sept. 1.

Buildings, Other Colors, Big Hush, and Howling Void
Friday, March 28 at the Dunes, $10

Buildings is back! The arty instrumentalists—quiet for a while now—typically perform in front of film projections, which makes sense: the band’s proggy math-rock would conjure images even if they weren’t placed in front of your face. Joining the quartet at this Columbia Heights art space are Baltimore’s lo-fi experimental pop group Other Colors, D.C. fuzzy rockers Big Hush, and newcomers Howling Void. (Catherine P. Lewis)

Alsarah and The Nubatones
Friday, March 28 at Tropicalia, $8-12

A Sudan-born Brooklyn resident with a background in ethnomusicology, Alsarah takes a somewhat academic approach to performance, which—as she told the Guardian in 2013—occasionally involves explaining to her American audiences what she’s doing onstage. At the D.C. release show of her new album “Silt,” let’s hope she doesn’t have to take too many talk breaks: Songs as funky as “Soukura” don’t need to be unpacked to be loved. (Ally Schweitzer)

Dudes, Blizzard Babies, BRNDA
Friday, March 28 at CD Cellar Arlington, donations only

Young local three-piece Dudes is the band every rebellious, punk-rock kid wanted to form when they were 17. The songs on the band’s debut recording, “Greatest Hits,” stick to simple and sassy, with lots of funny interplay between co-vocalists Francy Graham and Luke Reddick. That pair—charismatic as they are—will probably wind up on a magazine cover (e-magazine cover?) one day. But before that moment comes along, let’s just enjoy hearing them scream dumb, profane lyrics at each other, most of which are unquotable on this family-friendly blog. (AS)

Warning: This song contains explicit lyrics.

The Day of the Beast, Vitality, Death Penalty
Saturday, March 29 at the Lab, $8-10

D.C. isn’t exactly famous for its metal scene, but there’s a huge variety of heavy bands in the greater D.C. area. This show features three bands who play on the faster side of things: death/thrash band The Day of the Beast hails from Virginia Beach, with thrash openers Vitality (from Frederick, Md.) and Death Penalty (from Northern Virginia). In true D.C. fashion, this show is hosted at Alexandria DIY space The Lab, which is affiliated with the Convergence Church—so leave the booze at home. (CPL)

Dead Heart Bloom, Tone, Cavallo, Talk It
Saturday, March 29 at DC9, $10

Dead Heart Bloom is based in New York City, but is a D.C. band at heart, featuring two core members of the late D.C. band Phaser. Dead Heart Bloom continues down the path of Phaser’s shoegazy psychedelic pop and has released a series of excellent EPs over the last six months. This is a co-headlining show with D.C.’s post-rock guitar army Tone and also features Brooklyn instrumental band Cavallo and ex-Eggs project Talk It. (CPL)

The Jet Age, The Caribbean, Early American
Saturday, March 29 at Comet Ping Pong, $10

This show celebrates old bands with new releases: Longtime indie rockers The Jet Age have just released their newest album, “Jukebox Memoir,” which features guest vocals from Swervedriver’s Adam Franklin and Ride’s Mark Gardener. Those two guys probably won’t be at the show (alas!), but fellow old-school experimental pop band The Caribbean will be, playing songs off their newest album, “Moon Sickness.” (CPL)

Cosmonauts, Black Sea
Monday, March 31 at Black Cat Backstage, $10

California label Burger Records is micro-famous for peddling a slackerly, California-flavored kind of fuzz pop, and noisy Orange County band Cosmonauts has a natural place in the family tree. But it’s also more Loop- or Spacemen 3-driven than many of its Burger buddies, and that’s pleasantly evident on its 2013 full-length, the melodic-but-chunky “Persona Non Grata.”

This is more of an awards show than a concert, but we also recommend:

TMOTTGoGo Honors at Howard Theatre
Thursday, March 27 at Howard Theatre, $20-25

Since the mid-’90s, there’s been no better source of information on D.C.’s go-go scene than TMOTTGoGo. Tonight, the go-go news resource hosts another installment of its annual honors show, which recognizes some big names in the local scene. Among them: noted keys player and go-go celeb Sweet Cherie, photographer and poet Thomas Sayers Ellis, Rare Essence bassist Funky Ned and saxophonist Donnell Floyd, E.U. drummer Ju Ju House, and musician and activist Jason Lewis. Informally recognized all night, of course, is the music that TMOTTGoGo has been championing for nearly 20 years. (AS)

These and other show listings can be found on ShowListDC.