Flash Frequency – Vibration
Incredible Change – Ecce Mono
Sansyou – The Enthusiast
The Universal Friend Rays – Side A
Throw Me A Rope – Punk Theory/No Theory
Fields Burning – At The Break Of Day
Jonny Grave – The Rebel in the Herringbone
Dissonance – Picnic at the Disco
Nice Breeze – Transparency
Shannon Gunn and the Bullettes – Blue Moo
David King – Solar Impulse
Astronaut Jones – Game Theory (ft. Frank Mitchell Jr.)
Jau Ocean – Foolish Games
Jeremy Padow – Rising Chords, 6/8
Language of Sleep – Act II
Wild Coast – Stare Scared
We Were Pirates – The Cheapening
Pilesar – Balaphobic
Timmy Sells His Soul – Hallways
Brûlée – Begging Bowl

That could be the motto of DZ Tapes, the D.C.-based record label Isaacoff started in 2011. At the time, he had decided that simply running a music blog — the now-defunct DAYVAN ZOMBEAR — wasn’t enough. He wanted to take it to the next level. And this Saturday the digital-and-tape imprint celebrates its fifth anniversary with a marathon show at local DIY venue Hole In The Sky.

Brett Isaacoff of DZ Tapes (photo: Julia Leiby)

How did DZ Tapes get here? Back in Isaacoff’s blogging days, he says, he kept receiving great submissions from indie artists — “so much so that I really want[ed] to find a way to share the work that was coming around my e-desk,” the D.C. resident says. “So I figured I might as well put out a mixtape.” He launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to put out a compilation. The label followed in its wake.

Now DZ Tapes has several cassettes under its belt, featuring both artists from here and elsewhere. It focuses on bands bringing new energy to D.C. and Baltimore’s underground rock scenes — label alumni include shoegazers Wildhoney and Big Hush, punks Hemlines and the fuzzy Nice Breeze, among others.

Sustaining any project for half a decade is no easy feat — perhaps doubly so considering the volatility of the music industry. But Isaacoff has figured out the formula: keep your expectations low and your planning short-term.

“It’s as hard as you want to make it, really,” Isaacoff says. “I’m just trying to have fun and enjoy myself and help people out.” By booking shows and working with interesting bands, he aims to give back to the scene that gave him — an avid showgoer himself — so much.

Hemlines “All Your Homes,” released on DZ Tapes

Keeping his day job as a business analyst at a solar startup has helped grease the gears at DZ Tapes. “If I could make money off of [the label] I would, but it’s not something that I want to really force,” Isaacoff says. “I feel like blending the lines between quote-unquote business and pleasure might get a little messy.”

A steady path is as good a marker of success as any, though there have been certain high points — like when Rolling Stone published a piece about Speedy Ortiz right before they were to play D.C. house venue The Dougout, a show he booked. “Filled to capacity” isn’t quite the correct phrase for it — the 70-capacity venue was overflowing. “It was an extreme fire hazard, looking back on it,” Isaacoff says.

DZ Tapes’ future remains both certain and up in the air. There’s this weekend’s anniversary show — “It’s gonna be a banger,” promises Isaacoff — and a few more releases slated for the rest of 2016. But for the future-future? Isaacoff isn’t interested in pressuring himself. DZ Tapes is going “wherever it wants to go, really,” Isaacoff says.

DZ Tapes celebrates its fifth anniversary July 9 at Hole in the Sky. 

So what’s the most essential listening? I cobbled together what I consider a few of the scene’s highlights, from garage purists to unabashed punk rockers.

Mine is a very incomplete list, of course. Numerous other great bands pepper the local scene with all kinds of variations on garage-hued punk: Thee Lolitas, Foul Swoops, The Shirks, The Sniffs, Sunwolf, and surely others. Do you have a favorite local garage-ish band? Drop us a line in the comments.

Teen Liver

House-show veterans Teen Liver play a brand of rock ‘n’ roll that’s more than the sum of its parts—or maybe, more appropriately, less. The band’s cassette-only full-length plays like a surf-rock soundtrack of a CBGB-era punk documentary narrated by Lux Interior. The result is the most purebred garage punk in the city—which, like good writing, looks easier than it really is. Teen Liver plays Comet Ping Pong April 23.

Nice Breeze

Nice Breeze’s rollicking version of surf punk is so infallibly simple and lo-fi, it sounds like it could have been plucked out of a ’60s beach flick and dropped into Soundcloud. Never mind that the lyrics to “Transparency” are about pseudo science; on that track, Nice Breeze’s sound is all saltwater and sunshine. Nice Breeze plays Galaxy Hut March 30.

The Tender Thrill

If you like your garage rock pure, clean and crooning, The Tender Thrill should be in your earbuds. At times, the band can make The Standells and The Sonics sound like fist-in-the-air punks. But at its best—like on “One and Only One” from its self-titled 2012 LP—the band shows up with enough blues and barroom jangle to get the jackets off and the whiskey pouring.

Passing Phases

Without getting into the credentials of pop punk—possibly the most misapplied genre in all rock music—Passing Phases is as pop punk as the D.C. garage-revival scene gets. On its “Endless Autumn” LP, the band laces its sneering vocals and frank lyrics with pop hooks and a near-constant midtempo punk beat that pumps life through the whole record. It’s a beautiful thing. Passing Phases sounds both old and new, in better quantities and ratios than many of their garage-rock contemporaries. It may be the best the city has to offer. Passing Phases plays Comet Ping Pong April 11.

The Doozies

I don’t hear a lot of burger in The Doozies’ “cheeseburger rock,” but I do hear a lot of Bay Area: The Doozies, brothers in fuzzy garage-pop, sound like they should be jamming with The Mantles and Thee Oh Sees. On last year’s “Cooked Out,” they also dropped one of my favorite local rock songs, the hummable “A Doctor,” which you probably would need if you crushed as many cheeseburgers as these dudes probably do. (Ally Schweitzer)

Highway Cross

If there’s a Venn diagram of garage-punk, Highway Cross falls in the punk circle. But I look at D.C.’s scene as a big tent, and even Northern Virginia punk rockers are welcome. On Highway Cross’ two 7-inches, the latest released last April, their tracks walk a line between straight-up punk rock and the kind of early ’80s garage punk that opened the door to a new era of weird punk offshoots, including revivalist rockabilly. “Suspicion Police,” from 2011, is Exhibit A here—it’s a hard-charging, punk swinger with hints of of X-Ray Spex and The Buzzcocks. Highway Cross plays Smash! March 27 and Black Cat April 26.

Crumms

At some point, I’d like someone to explain to me the kinship between underground garage rock and the campy, B-horror movie aesthetic that has pervaded in punk and rockabilly for decades. Not that Crumms are an amalgam of that—the band is not schticky! I repeat, not a schtick!—but it does deliver D.C.’s most faithful take on The Fuzztones’ haunted-house surf punk. There’s also some serious darkness to Crumms’ jangle: On “Obituaries,” from the group’s February demo, the band embarks on a full minute of boogeyman guitar wails before kicking into a minute-and-a-half of speedy surf rock with distorted vocals. Crumms play Smash! March 27 and the Dougout March 29.