David Marc Alterman – Tango for Violin and Piano Opus75
Pan American Symphony Orchestra – A Tiempo
Motion Lines – The Yearbook
junhee – Home
South Rail – Wandering Soul
Shannon Gunn and the Bullettes – Stormy Monday
Warren Wolf – Grand Central
Famous For A Century – War
Young Rapids – Goods
Night Kitchen – Chief
Drive TFC – Summertime Unkind
Thievery Corporation – Samba Tranquille
Benoit & Sergio – Your Darkness
Terri Bocklund & Curr Kowalski – Aurora
Knuckleberry Finn – Disney World
Foozle –
Lands & Peoples – Lullabye
Smoke Bellow – Middling 1
Ronny Smith – 95 Drive
Q and Not U – Wonderful People

Zenon Slawinski – The Beginning Of Time
Sonic Thee – Speaker
Pilesar – Every Blade of Grass
The Moderate – Conversation
Teen Mom – Boyfriends
Mark Sylvester – Pulse (In 7)
Fields Burning – Joy’s Desire
Miyazaki – Opportunist
Eddie From Ohio – Mimosas In Missouri
Projekt Eins – Virtuoso
Hayley Fahey – Tuesday Morning
Azure Vox – The Best Part
Bellfount – You Still Love Me (Instrumental)
Jon Camp – Interrupted Transmission
Bells and Hunters – Sense of Time
Astronaut Jones – Farther
Rumpole – Just BDF
Ricky Eat Acid – Can You See Its Bloom
Young Rapids – Melt
Terrill Mast – Venetian Corridors

Stranger In the Alps – Love/Afraid
Martyn – Fashion Skater
Suzanne Brindamour – Fireflies
Timothy Soller – Water and Light
Miyazaki – Torrents
Projekt Eins – Vacillate-Venerate
The Shifters – She’s So Fine
Aaron Agre – Stormglass
Young Rapids – Singing World
Feedel Band – Ethiopian Ocean (Live At WAMU)
Klauss – Mixer
Peals – Koan 1
Borracho – Redemption
Ricky Eat Acid – Big Man’s Last Trip Outside
Vandaveer – The Knoxville Girl
aerialist – proteus
ZOMES – Beckoning Breeze
Flash Frequency – Corner of The Room
Bonjour, Ganesh! – Tito
Diamond District – Back to Basics Instrumental

Timothy Soller – Persuading
Western Affairs – Iowa
Griefloss – łłł
Mark Haag – Star Gazing
Nitemoves – Music Song
SCANNERS – Petty Tragedy
Benoit & Sergio – Day Residue
Thomas Zebovitz – Inspirited Waltz
Mimi Loco and the Drama Queens – Let It Die – 2015 Remix – Take 2
Honey Pot Canoe – The Storm
Fields Burning – Tigris (No Tomorrow)
Young Rapids – Goods
The Greatest Hoax – Memoria no. 1
Brûlée – Driftin’
Joe Garner – Spring Time Blues
Diggs Duke – Secrets Seem Rehearsed
David King – Breath Control
The Internal Frontier – Saints and Sinners
The Blackberry Belles – Buried Our Love
Lance Neptune – Janus

Logikbomb – One For yU
Young Rapids – King of the Hill
Dubpixel – Through My Window
SlimKat78 – GhoolyLude
Benoit & Sergio – Your Darkness
Young Summer – Taken
John W. Warren – La Noche Triste (The Moon’s Lullaby)
Cynthia Marie – Sometimes Broken
Bunny Man Bridge – Parker Brothers
Beauty Pill – I’m Just Gonna Close My Eyes For A Second
The Orchid – Don’t Be Afraid; We’ll Be Together
Kenny Mac – Feeling You (feat. 210)
Outputmessage – Minuscule
Foozle – TV Wrestling
Super!Silver!Haze! – Train to Berlin
True Womanhood – A Diviner
Frau Eva – Morrissey Smiling
Tomás Pagán Motta – It’s Tough Letting Go
Matt Rippetoe – BOINK (reprise)
Moonlight Mask – The Nightingale

Jason A Mullinax – Next Time We Fly
Suzanne Brindamour – Pop’s Theme
Astronaut Jones – Keep It Down
Lungfish – Cut to Fit the Mouth
Young Rapids – Melt
RDGLDGRN – Hangout
Moonlight Mask – The Nightingale
TRU Band – Thelonius Funk
Aaron Abernathy – Faded Pictures
Jonny Grave – L’Enfant Promenade
Oddisee – When Everything Changed
Bunny Man Bridge – Shush Mutt
Nitemoves – Music Song
Miter – Young
Matt Chaconas – Goodnight
Technicians – Low Tide
Koshari – Into Shreds
We Were Pirates – A Boy & His Tiger
AndrewN – Night Falls
The Acorns – Oak Follies

Chopteeth – Weigh Your Blessings
Koshari – Into Shreds
Sligo Creek Stompers – Cuckoo’s Nest
Brian Whitmer – Kelly’s Lament
Peals – Belle Air
Young Rapids – Ugly
Five State Drive – Dry Clean Express
Teen Mom – Kitchen
Diamond District – Streets Won’t Let Me Chill
M.H. & His Orchestra – Cobblestone
Hailu Mergia and the Walias – Muziqawi Silt
The Caribbean – Echopraxia
Sara Curtin – A Little Again
Louis Weeks – Calder
GroundScore – Here We Are
Drop Electric – What Now, of Paradise?
Jonathan Parker – Sundown
Domingues & Kane – No. 5
Lo Fang – Invention No. 11
AXB – Quantum Chill
Wale – Love Hate Thing (Tone P Instrumental)
Elikeh – The Conversation
The Sweater Set – Lost At Sea
Warren Wolf – 427 Mass Ave

BOOMscat at the WeDC showcase:

Go Cozy at the WeDC showcase:

RDGLDGRN at Monster Energy Outbreak House:

Tabi Bonney at the WeDC showcase:

Two Inch Astronaut at Stereogum/Exploding In Sound showcase at Hole In The Wall:

Young Rapids at the WeDC showcase:

All photos by Cassandra Mullinix

The party decor doesn’t feel out of place. This is a celebration. It’s the first anniversary of Babe City Records, a D.C.-based record and cassette label that captures the new sound of the city’s indie-rock scene — and the show is nearly sold out.

Formerly associated with Chimes Records, Babe City was spearheaded by musicians and fans who wanted to carve out a place for themselves in independent music. Now the label is on a mission to help other local bands do the same.

The label’s Jon Weiss, 24, and Peter Lillis, 28, are also musicians: They both appeared onstage during the anniversary show, handling guitar in Jules Hale’s band Den-Mate. (Weiss also sings in Babe City group The Sea Life.) Weiss and Lillis play major roles behind the scenes, too: They quite literally live Babe City, which shares its name with their group house and DIY venue in D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood. The guys moved into the house in August 2014 and started hosting shows the following month.

Co-founded by Erik Cativo (aka Erik Strander) and Weiss, Babe City is now operated by a small group of friends. Cativo and Weiss handle key roles behind the scenes, including production and booking, respectively. Lillis serves as the label’s publicity guru. More help comes from Kevin Sottek, a member of Babe City signees Witch Coast, who’s the label’s art director; Jen Pape, who recently joined as a project manager; and Michael Andrade — an occasional Bandwidth contributor — who’s Babe City’s official photographer.

“We’re all nerds about something,” Lillis says. “Everyone comes into it with their own background and passion and it fills out all the space in between.”

Babe City likes to be inclusive. For the 9:30 Club gig, the label roped in D.C. bands The Max Levine Ensemble and The El Mansouris, poppy rock ensembles with no official tie to the label. With the slogan “everyone’s a babe at Babe City,” the imprint doesn’t want to be thought of as male-oriented or sexist (though the anniversary gig’s lineup was heavily male).

Weiss says David Combs, the longtime leader of The Max Levine Ensemble (and also a Bandwidth contributor), was his first musical role model when he first started to probe the D.C. music scene at age 16. “Having him on this show was awesome,” says Weiss, a Rockville native who’s only eight years younger than Combs.

In an indie-rock scene as transient as D.C.’s, it doesn’t take long for scenesters to become elder statesmen. Weiss has been involved with The Sea Life for eight years, and he thought his experience could be helpful to rising bands like Young Rapids. The musician says his desire to support other local groups was a major impetus behind Babe City’s creation.

“When you have this album that you’re proud of and you can’t put it out, or you don’t know how to put it out, or you don’t have direction for it,” Weiss says, “it’s very defeating.”

Lillis agrees. He says Babe City is here to help.

“Bands can get bogged down in the non-music stuff from recording, to booking shows, even finding a place to practice,” Lillis says. “There are so many logistics that can be a detriment to bands. We want to let them be the musicians, and we’ll get the rest of it done for them.”

Now Babe City wants to take its mission a step further. They want to work on getting their music licensed for media, sign more out-of-state bands and grow into a national — as well as local — label. And they’d like to expand into vinyl.

“[Vinyl] is our favorite format,” Weiss says. “We don’t want to be just a cassette label. Most of the labels we look up to are primarily vinyl. To be viewed by them as peers would be an awesome goal for us.”

But while the 9:30 Club gig felt like a party, both Weiss and Lillis say the work has just begun.

“We’re happy and excited, but we’re not patting ourselves on the back,” Weiss says. “We’re not ready to do that yet. We want to just use it as motivation and validation to work harder.”

Second photo: The Sea Life at 9:30 Club, by Michael Andrade

The original version of this post contained errors and imprecise language. Due to a reporting error, it incorrectly identified Peter Lillis, who works on the label, as a co-founder. (Jon Weiss and Erik Cativo are co-founders.) Second, due to an editing error, we described Babe City as a cassette label, but that’s not entirely accurate: It has released music both on vinyl and cassette. Third, Babe City is better described as an affiliate — not a direct descendant — of Chimes Records. Finally, we first referred to Young Rapids as “younger” than The Sea Life, but that wasn’t the best word choice. We meant the band has existed for less time. The language has been corrected.