Damaged City Fest
Thursday, April 10 to Sunday, April 13 at the Dougout, St. Stephen’s Church, The Pinch, and Dance Institute of Washington

The Damaged City Fest, D.C.’s DIY punk extravaganza, returns for its second year this weekend, boasting a jam-packed lineup at St. Stephen’s in Columbia Heights on Friday night and all day Saturday, plus a pre-show tonight at The Dougout, after-shows at the Pinch and a Sunday matinee at the Dance Institute of Washington. The lineup is insanely packed, from California powerviolence pioneers Infest to D.C.’s Priests and Give, but the real draw—especially for locals—is a reunion of Government Issue‘s 1980 lineup, featuring John Stabb, Jon Barry, and Brian Gay, performing early demos and the “Legless Bull” EP. Presales are now all sold out, but there will be a few tickets available at the door (tip: get there early!).

Title Tracks, Passing Phases, Cane & the Sticks
Friday, April 11 at Comet Ping Pong, $10-plus donation

After the passing of Windian Records founder Travis Jackson in January, there have been a number of benefit shows for his wife and 1-year-old son. This is another (so donate freely at the door!), featuring John Davis’ power-pop project Title Tracks, pop-punkers Passing Phases, and fuzzy rockers Cane & the Sticks.

Vanguard Festival
Saturday, April 12 at Union Arts, $20

Put on by the noise-embracing collective Select DC, the inaugural Vanguard Festival brings together artists, producers and DJs to showcase “outstanding explorations, tastes, and talent.” Highlights include electronics guru John Wiese (who in addition to his own projects has also toured with Sunn O))) and performed with Wolf Eyes), Earcave/Peoples Potential Unlimited founder Andrew Morgan (who put together this exclusive mix for Bandwidth), ex-Black Eyes member Ital, and local electronic duo Protect-U.

Tereu Tereu, J. Flax & the Heart Attacks, Mattress Financial
Saturday, April 12 at the Beehive, by donation

If you missed Tereu Tereu‘s headlining show at the Black Cat a few months ago, here’s your chance to see this offbeat rock band play a much more intimate venue. Also performing are Norfolk surf-punkers J. Flax & the Heart Attacks and a Two Inch Astronaut solo project called Mattress Financial.

Over N Out, The Oddities, Threads, Arkestry
Saturday, April 12 at the Electric Maid, $5

Despite having a fairly active concert calendar, the Electric Maid always seems to slip under the radar. Reacquaint yourself with the Takoma Park space for this pop-punk/emo/hardcore lineup featuring Baltimore’s Over N Out, D.C.’s The Oddities, West Virginia’s The Threads, and D.C.’s Arkestry.

GoldLink and Lakim
Saturday, April 12 at U Street Music Hall, $15

Who is GoldLink? While the Virginia-based MC has released a string of increasingly promising recordings—culminating recently with his new EP “The God Complex”—he’s remained anonymous. In a recent interview with Bandwidth, the “future bounce” artist wouldn’t divulge his plans for Saturday’s release show, which you’d think would involve donning a mask à la MF Doom. Then again, maybe this will mark the first time he lets fans see behind the veil. (Ally Schweitzer)

Warning: This track contains explicit lyrics.

Carcass, The Black Dahlia Murder, Gorguts, Noisem and Coke Bust
Sunday, April 13 at The Fillmore Silver Spring, $26.50

This tour, sponsored by Decibel Magazine, puts together two death-metal bands who released comeback albums last year: Carcass, whose “Surgical Steel” was the group’s first album in 17 years, and Canada’s Gorguts, whose excellent “Colored Sands” broke the group’s 12-year silence. Michigan melodic death-metal band The Black Dahlia Murder and Baltimore’s death/thrash youngsters Noisem are also along for the ride. As an added bonus, if you don’t get enough Coke Bust at the Damaged City after-party Friday at the Pinch, this is your chance to see them again on a significantly larger stage.

Beds, Sellout Youth, Curse Words
Wednesday, April 16 at CD Cellar Arlington, by donation

Shows at a record store are always awesome because you have time to browse between bands. This show is a benefit for the DIY festival Fest Too, happening in June at the Lab in Alexandria, and the bands performing are Sterling, Va., emo-punk outfit Beds (who are apparently basketball fans, given that one track on their “Michael Jordan” EP is called “Dunking on Patrick Ewing”), Alexandria’s garagey Sellout Youth and D.C. punks Curse Words.

Cloud Nothings, Ryley Walker
Wednesday, April 16 at Black Cat, $15

Cloud Nothings’ “I’m Not Part Of Me” is one of this year’s catchiest rock anthems. But instead of sticking it on the A side, the band made it the final track on its recent third album, “Here and Nowhere Else” (out now on D.C.’s own Carpark Records). Getting there is no slog—the album is full of good cuts—but once you’re there, you’ll probably understand why they made you wait. (Ally Schweitzer)

These and other show listings can be found on ShowListDC.

Saturday, Morgan DJs as part of the Vanguard Festival, a nightlong noise and electronic fest presented by DIY promoters Select DC. The fest’s schedule is a mixed bag, for sure, but Morgan—who goes on after midnight—will probably be the only guy playing forgotten synth funk. To get ourselves hyped up for the show, Bandwidth commissioned a special mix from Morgan, and he delivered this eclectic, low-fidelity, and occasionally bewildering (in a good way!) sampling of some upcoming releases on PPU. Time to get dusty.

Here’s the track list, with a few helpful notes from Morgan:

1. Unknown Artist, “Jam I”
2. Moon B, “Stank Tartare”
Morgan says: To be released April 19/Record Store Day on PPU.
3. Uku & Maryn, “Ao”
Morgan says: These are some commercial demos from mother-son writing team Uku Kuut and Maryn E Coote.
4. Family of Gold, “Stink”
5. Leroy Ace Miller, “Used To Call Me”
Morgan says: While working on Ace’s masters, we found this song on the flip of an unlabeled tape. I think he had forgotten about it.
6. George Smallwood, “Loser”
Morgan says: Smallwood is a local Hyattsville, Md., soul treasure; this is an unreleased home-dubbed demo.
7. The Trash Company featuring Rama, “Mind Game”
Morgan says: From Richmond, Va., this is from an upcoming PPU test pressing, a co-release with Zentao II Publishing.
8. Mix-O-Rap aka Billy D Littlejohn, “Spitting Game”
Morgan says: This is some Gaffney, S.C., laptop rap.

Shortly after 10 p.m., the next act started setting up. But it wasn’t a rock band, or anything as pedestrian as that—it was Olivia Neutron-John, a newcomer to the D.C. area who plays an intense and minimal strain of synthpop on a Casio. The rest of the performers occupied a similar vein: dark techno, much of it industrial-tinged. The headliner that night would be Secret Boyfriend, an experimentalist who toys with the boundaries between electronic and acoustic music, and who released a record that a reviewer for Resident Advisor called possibly “the most abstruse thing Blackest Ever Black has ever released.”

The lineup that night came courtesy of Select DC, a young duo bent on bringing more abstruse electronic music to the District.

Recent D.C. transplants Josh Levi, 27, and 24-year-old Jacob Knibb—who lives in the Petworth house—met on Facebook in January 2013 and bonded over their mutual desire to see more weird or overlooked synthesized music in the city. Levi booked bands back home in St. Louis, Mo., and Knibb had been into punk and noise while growing up in Chesapeake, Va. Two months after they met online, they booked their first show together. That event brought electronic music-makers Ital (D.C. expat Daniel Martin-McCormick) and Container (Providence’s Ren Schofield) to Comet Ping Pong.

Despite the excitement surrounding Ital in 2012, the Comet show flopped, by Knibb’s account. He says attendance was low, and they didn’t make enough money to meet the tour manager’s guarantee. But the curation set the tone for the other shows Select DC would later book: independent, dark, and vaguely punk synthesized music, usually performed in noncommercial venues and people’s houses.

It’s not a money-maker, but that’s not the point.

“Josh and I are mainly interested in creating opportunities for marginalized performers whose work generally resemble noise, techno, house, minimal synth, American primitive, industrial, avant-garde electronic, or some mutant hybridization of styles,” writes Knibb, who has his own musical project, Rosemary Arp. (Levi plays solo as Radiator Greys.) “I say ‘marginalized’ because they don’t represent a typical band/DJ dynamic or their sound doesn’t fit within the current interests of other venues or promoters. I wanted to create an ‘Other’ outlet for the people who didn’t fit in with an established D.C. scene.”

The pair has booked about 20 events so far, their most recent one a noise night at Ghion restaurant near U Street NW. April 12 at Union Arts DC, they embark on their biggest gig yet: a nightlong production called the Vanguard Festival.

“Vanguard Festival came together by chance when a number of artists contacted us about shows on the same date. It gave us an opportunity to put together a huge bill of acts we wanted to see, and whom we want to expose to the greater DMV area,” Levi writes. So far, the lineup includes a mix of noisemakers like Los Angeles’ John Wiese and Philadelphia’s Embarker alongside dance-friendlier artists like Claire and—again—Ital. Numerous acts on the bill, from DJs to live performers, are local.

Of course, noise isn’t underrepresented in D.C., not by a long shot. Just look at the annual Sonic Circuits Festival and the related shows it helps put on throughout the year. The broadest definition of electronic music has a home here, too, though dance clubs like U Street Music Hall and Flash tend to focus on more accessible house and techno—the kind of thing more likely to pack floors and sell liquor. (Though Select DC has worked with Flash before.)

Select DC exists mainly to plug the holes unfilled by commercial venues and larger promoters. “Many of my friends who have hit me up for shows in the D.C. area have either had a rough D.C. show five-plus years ago, or have never played the District before,” Levi writes.

With its DIY ethos, Select DC clearly sprouts from punk-rock soils, but not just when it comes to eschewing commercialism: Knibb and Levi also try to support women musicians working in an otherwise very male genre. Levi points to a December show the pair booked for Providence’s Unicorn Hard-On (Valerie Martino). “Having her play to an audience mostly comprised of women” was critical, he says. “We are huge proponents of promoting female musicians in such a male-dominated arena.”

While Select DC remains a strictly underground operation, Knibb says their small community of followers probably know what to expect from him and Levi at this point. “I think we’ve gotten a reputation for being the weird, noisy dance people in the city.”

A sampling of some of the artists Select DC has brought or will bring to D.C.:

Select DC is on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.