holy moses

....there are a lot of good concerts coming up. petrov's friends aren't always the most fun :-(

does anyone want to be petrov's date for Justice? petrov can't find anyone to go with. petrov is also very excited about the upcoming shows including: new pornagrahers, nada surf, and vhs or beta. unfortunately none are for at least another month :-(. this winter has been sorta of a dry spell for good shows in dc, but things should get back in full gear (as soon as petrov gets some concert tix).

musical suprises

isn't it fun to suddenly discover there is a new album out by one of your favorite bands and you had no clue? well the situation petrov talks about is only second to that as this is technically a "live" album. Daft Punk has a album called "alive" out. petrov has blogged about daft punk several times, so he will keep this short, but BBC Radio 1 has a documentary about the band here. The album is from this past summer's tour and was recorded at Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. Petrov is still hoping they will come back this summer state-side.

on a side note petrov is disappointed to discover BBC podcasts are primarily limited to only computers with UK IP addresses. shite.

MIA

Petrov made the drive to upstate ny to avoid the horror that is the airport over a holiday. Along the way petrov had time to really get to know MIA's new cd "Kala". Prior to the trip petrov found the cd to be intriguing but lacking something that makes you want to get up and really dance. However, after a few listens and turning up the car bass, the cd is actually quite good and petrov started singing along. this is certainly a concert where you will want to be in the front section of the main floor of 9:30 Club. God willing, the DC audience will actually start dancing. However, should the audience perhaps be like Petrov was before this weekend and simply liked MIA, but lacked the connection to the groovibility of the music (yeah, that isn't really a word), where you stand wont' matter much. so for those of you lucky enough to get tickets to the sold out show, you can either start dancing in the opening song or you can learn that "goovibility" as the night progresses.

MIA - Paper Planes

drugs... amy winehouse... no.....

Despite all evidence to the contrary, amy winehouse, was arrested in Norway for possession of the puff puff. luckily she was snagged in the kingdom of the vikings where the puff puff doesn't get you in too much trouble. seeing that both of the previous sentences provides basically no new knowledge for your eager-beaver brain that it didn't already know..... did you know that dublin was founded by the norwegians in 841AD? and the damn french are responsible for the current spelling because they were to lazy to actually call it Dub-linn. fancy day you can't learn something new.

in related news, winehouse's band, the Budos Band, previous mentioned on CYHFSN (here), just announced they are coming to the blackcat on December 15th. petrov loves the funkitude of their music. they are self described as playing a mix of "afrobeat, ethopian jazz and blues, and american funk and soul from the 1960s and 70s." quite the combination, no wonder they are hitting it with winehouse train(wreck).

fyi, petrov thinks the band deserves a seperate entry from winehouse, as he combined them before too, but it was just coincidence that petrov found out both pieces of news this week. so suck it, petrov is too lazy for two entries.

The Budos Band - Chicago Falcon

jenny and alanis

petrov went with his "poo-bear" to see Rilo Kiley at 9.30club. the concert was great and petrov loves the suddle hints of country music that break through the songs. On one end there is "Silver Lining" and on the other there is "The Moneymaker". Further it amazing what you can do with a gold stage curtain, petrov usually enjoys the video backdrop, but for Rilo Kiley, the curtain seemed just perfect. for further detail on the show you can check out BYT (here). They took the effort to get close enough to the stage to see that Jenny Lewis was wearing hoochie shorts, which petrov couldn't see from the back. so much for a show Mr and Mrs Petrov could go to.

on a second note, petrov found out a few weeks ago that everyone has not yet seen Alanis' "My Humps" video. shame on you! obviously its a diss on Fergie (and rightly so) as the song turned out better and the video is well.... just watch. does anyone have an mp3 of the song? petrov can't find it :-(

Alanis Morissette - My Humps

a musical revelation weekend

well this was quite the weekend for petrov. thursday was obviously the mountain goats and saturday night was Ra Ra Rasputin at the Velvet Lounge. Further, petrov used the great weather on sunday to journey out in his car where he proceeded to get fully acquainted with The White Stripes' "Icky Thump" album.

This was petrov's second Ra Ra Rasputin show (and he believed Ra Ra's third, maybe fourth, show total). Petrov was much impressed with the latest show. Ra Ra Rasputin is sort of a cross between The Rapture/Q and Not U/Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The music has a funky jam nature to it, while the vocals at times have a very Rapture-esque nature to them. Overall the band has clearly been doing their homework as the sound is more congruent and much easier to bounce a little bit too. (The later was not a problem for many of the kids in the crowd.) For more on the band visit their myspace (here) where the videos don't do justice. See The Rapture video below for some related musical goodness.

Petrov had to take the small asian to BWI sunday afternoon. so petrov enjoyed the ride home listening to The White Stripes' new cd, which petrov has listened to on several occasions, but never had the chance to really really listen to (always just in the background at work on wretched little monitor speakers). but as u know, a bose soundsystem, 60mph, and a beautiful sunday afternoon gave petrov a chance to get down and dirty with the album. its the shite, if petrov does say so. its some good old rock music and petrov highly recommends getting the album if you haven't already. the only problem petrov has is that he didn't pick up on this cd back when he first heard it, but alas this is the way petrov's musical listening habits have developed. See below for The White Stripes - Prickly Thorn, but Sweetly Worn. (the irish touch to this song is spectacular with a good bass system going)

The Rapture - Whoo Alright Yeah!


The White Stripes - Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn

mountain goats

petrov went with bizzy to see the mountain goats last night at blackcat. petrov is certainly familiar with the mountain goats, but has never really listened that close to them before. who knew, they are pretty good. for those not familiar, its just two guys from Carolina (petrov thinks). this vague recollection is substantiated only by the fact they have a song named "Cotton". and as we all know, petrov likes cotton. but this a side track... they are two guys from Carolina that just play a guitar and a bass. they actually got people shaking for a couple songs, and that is quite a feat for DC. you would think the young whipper-snappers that clusterf*ck blackcat, would be more into dancing, but alas its just a DC thing to stand there and not dance.

The Mountain Goats - Cotton

the national

tonight at 9.30club is The National with the Rosebuds opening up. Petrov is excited. he would also be equally happy seeing either band individually. which unfortunately, is not a common occurrence at 9.30club. the last time petrov remembers wanting to see an opening band as much as the main act was Smoosh at The Pipettes show at Blackcat. This won't be a jump around show for sure, so DCers prepare your crossed arm head nod perfected crowd mentality.

The Rosebuds - Silence by the Lakeside


The National - Mistaken for Strangers

editors

it would be petrov's guess that most blogs began when someone ended up having a very dull couple of months on hand. this was petrov's case, however, recently life has sped up a bit and now it seems like a constant battle trying to catch up in blogging.

last night petrov began the fall concert line up with the Editors at 9.30club. coming off a long weekend (both in days and tiredness) petrov made it with the lesbians to the show, but gave up part way through the encore and missed Ra Ra Riot. the lesbians were in love with the band and had nothing but praises for the superior performance live compared to recorded. Petrov, however, found Tom Smith ( lead singer) to have an amazing voice. There was nothing technically wrong with any of the music, but petrov just felt that the music lacked a diversity in sound required in keeping a less than die-hard fan engaged for the entire show. petrov thinks that another album or two will develop these kiddies into a formidable band.

Editors - All the Sparks

spoon me

Petrov has been a busy little beaver the past week. His car shopping has gone into full gear and has seemed to preoccupy any of his free time. However, last night Petrov thinks he found the car for him. So today it is off to the credit union and to await the lesbian's daddy's opinion on the car (he is a car dealer). If all goes as petrov would most like.... he'll have a new car by week's end.

This past weekend Petrov went to a lakehouse in western maryland where the redhead's high school friend and husband had a lakehouse for a couple weeks. said couple also had a weiner dog. petrov is no big fan of small dogs, but a weekend of watching a 7inch tall and 2ft long puppy run around as fast as he can make one turn.

As such, it seems appropriate to play "The Underdog" today. Spoon is coming at the end of October to Merriweather as opposed to previously planned 9.30 Club. A slight downgrade in venue. Anywho, that means petrov will probably not go, though the Africa trip will likely interfere with going even if Petrov wanted to. petrov has babbled enough for one day.
Spoon - The Underdog

because the other 60 virgin festival recaps just didn't strike your fancy

Well.... Petrov made it to the Saturday half of the Virgin Music Festival up in Maryland.. and in petrov style he arrived with his mischievous crew at 3pm as apposed to the planned 2pm arrival for crazy-bitch-but-i-still-love-you Amy Winehouse. Damn the traffic and the idiots who get in accidents.

Anywho petrov did hear 3 songs while walking into the festival by AW, but unfortunately she sounded sober and on key... a slight disappointment in petrov's book. Petrov & Co. made their way to the far end of the grounds to catch Paolo Nutini who petrov enjoyed with mild enthusiasm. He made him bounce a little, but the heat kept that to a minimum. This was cut short by a desire to catch Felix da Housecat, which suprising turned out to be one of the best shows of the day for Petrov (see third picture). With the completion of Felix, petrov ran back across the grounds to catch Peter Bjorn and John, which rocked (see fourth picture). Petrov unfortunately missed their 9.30 club show, but apparently this show was far superior, so nothing lost there. whew.

This was followed up with running back to the Dance Tent to catch Danny Tengalia who also rocked. In summary of the day, it was quite surprising to see that the most rocking DJs were in the middle of the day and crowds were their thickest then also. Petrov would have expected the homosexuals to crawl out of the woodwork come darkness in the Dance Tent. This did not hold true. After rocking to Tengalia for half an hour, Petrov again rain across the grounds to catch LCD Soundsystem. LCDS rocked, but either they rocked double hard at 9.30club or Petrov is a music whore that doesn't sleep with the same band twice very often.

Before completing that set Petrov was required across the grounds at the Beastie Boys concert. (en route petrov was nearly hit by a number of corn tortillas being thrown in preparation for "extremely weird wrestling".... petrov was mildly interested for like 2 minutes with that and moved on. Petrov and the redhead worked their way threw the crowd after the beastie boys set had already began. petrov got as close as he needed to be as he placed himseld relatively close to the stage (see first picture) among one gi-normous crowd (see second picture) and between some very nice eye candy for between song entertainment.

This was followed up with some Sasha, which was a huge dissappointment. Petrov loves him some Sasha grooves, but Petrov just wasn't feeling it, even though he tried. Petrov and redhead then decided to move towards The Police, where upon getting out of the thumping range of Sander van Doorm, they high tailed it back to van Doorm. Finally Petrov collected his compatriots at modest mouse where two songs were endured which were a "meh" as would be suspected. Petrov never really got Modest Mouse after the first cd.

virgin festival schedule

if you need a handy little printout of the schedule to keep your ears as happy as can be.... here you go. petrov however warns you that your little mind may blow up when forced to choose between tv on the radio, sasha, and beastie boys.

on a side note, petrov has scored himself an $80 ticket for one day. ticketmaster fees be damned.

virgin my a$$

this whole virigin music festival has toyed with petrov's mind with on-again-off-again feelings about going. Overall there are some really good bands playing, however, when petrov looks at the schedule (see here) things start to look not so positive (see here). Well this morning petrov finally made it to the ticketmaster website to see further detail about tickets.

Petrov wonders who the hell could call this festival anything related to virgin when it requires everyone to bend over and take at least a $15 service charge (assuming you pick up at Will Call). On top of this another basically mandatory $4 to print your ticket out.... because you have to be damn crazy to go stand in line for your ticket at a music festival. and how does that pricing work? it costs money to do it yourself, but to require a legion of employees to scuddle through tickets looking for you last name is free? petrov may not be the brightest economist in town, but he's pretty sure there is no logic to this other than greedy profit. so he'll have to spend $19 just to get through the front gates to Virginfest... let the indecision continue (now with a Ticketmaster 19inch strap-on included).

random thoughts on a gloomy day

• petrov really doesn't understand how they keep track of his listening habits on last.fm this week's top artist is Cirques du Soleil? really?

• petrov has purchased tix for rilo kiley and editors.... the fall concert lineup is shaping up quite nicely

• petrov remains heavily on the fence about Virginfest. to go or not to go? he feels its a necessary... but wishes the line up was a tad bit better.... petrov doesn't enjoy extremely large crowded areas. who will he see if he goes (on saturday). sasha or beastie boys or tv on the radio/lcd soundsystem???? they are all playing at the same time! petrov is leaning towards sasha but thinks his accomplices will choose beastie boys..... we shall see.
  

hidden cameras

well this blog was destined for an entry on The Hidden Cameras..... that day has arrived. Petrov has a slight crush on Joel Gibbs and the band is his favorite in the whole wide world. The interesting thing is petrov's crush did not develop until he had the opportunity to have dinner with the band one night (now many moons ago). but that is neither here nor there. This video was brought to petrov's attention via Mr. Blur, not to be confused with Damon Albarn (lead singer of Blur). He found it via Blogotheque... which is a fun little site that petrov visits every now and then to get his fill of impromptu performances of many delightful bands.

so with no further-a-do... here are The Hidden Cameras walking along a canal in Paris singing "Boys of Melody."

who's coming to a venue near you

Petrov is excited... after a lul in petrov-excitable bands coming to DC... there is a new list of bands petrov would love to get his greedy little paws on tickets for.

Petrov has therefore provided you with some samples of some of the bands coming to Washington over the next couple months that are worth checking out. This post is going to be a bit on the monstrous side... but there is lots to be heard.

Petrov has also provided a rating system out of 10 of how he thinks these shows will shape up on an overall satisfactory scale (note that petrov clearly wouldn't want to attend any of these if they weren't good). So on a scale of 0-5... 0 is an enjoyment from the back of the crowd with arms folded in appropriate DC stature and 5 is petrov is leading a mosh pit in the front row... granted none of these are mosh pit inducing bands... but you get the idea. don't you? petrov doesn't.... so just pretend like you do and it will make this a lot easier.

*First up is Editors with Ra Ra Riot at 9.30 Club - September 4th
However, be sure to not confuse Ra Ra Riot with petrov's darlings of Ra Ra Rasputin.



**Second up is The National at 9.30 Club - September 5th and 6th
what blog isn't complete without mention of The National? perhaps this accordance will put CYHfSN in the lime light.... petrov doubts that though.


***Third up is Rilo Kiley at 9.30 Club - September 26th and 27th
petrov was having difficulty picking a song for rilo kiley.... for whatever reason, petrov has sentimental feelings associated with Jenny Lewis's voice. but that is neither here nor there. futhermore do not take The Frug as an condolence by petrov to EVER make a video with movie clips in it. petrov has heard they are not amazing in concert... but he still thinks this is questionable.


****Fourth up is The New Pornographers at 9.30 Club - October 27th


***Fifth up is Voxtrot at Blackcat - October 6th


*****Sixth up is Andrew Bird at Sonar (Baltimore) - September 29th

taint is not part of the anatomy (at least not tonight)

One thing DC is not at lack of is DJ’s or other musically-inclined-dj-fanboys with specially named nights. To name a few there is Blowoff, Taint, Infamy, Bliss, Sorted, Garutuchi, Crowd Control, Unbuckled...

Tonight at DC9 is the semi-regular gay-indie event that goes by the moniker Taint. The formerly once-a-month dj night at DC9 has moved to a more sporadic holiday-eve schedule, which is unfortunate as it a) occurs less often and b) brings out the masses like no other. Unlike many of the above and other “special night events,” Taint is one of the few alt.homo nights in washington with exceptions like blowoff and the take-over-a-straight-bar ‘guerilla queer bar.’

This in actually makes petrov very sad because petrov prefers these nights to the regular monotony of the usual gay bars (and corresponding music). Of course this creates the dilemna of would it still be so exciting if it was the regular? Petrov, doesn’t think so, but he also thinks not hearing 3 songs each of nelly, christina, madonna, fergie, and beyonce at one bar in one evening is a good thing.

Well your still reading, so petrov surmises your probably interested in what the kiddies at taint listen to. In their own words... “Taint is an alternative electro/indie rock dance/lounge night” for a crowd of “mostly queer boys and girls.” Petrov considered the music to be more of a mashup of 80s and indie music put in a nice little electro-pop casing. Tonight’s taint is being turned by DJ Rob Diaz who will be mixing up some of the above stated genres and a dash of punk and brit-pop thrown in for good measure. Also in the booth will be K La Rock, a member of the washington-based First Ladies DJ Collective. What is cool about the collective is that they are pushing what they refer to as the “vinyl ceiling” for equality of ladies on the dance floor. Always good to have a gal in the house.

The video selection usually not music videos, but instead films you are most likely to see at a gay-indie film festival, such as the over-the-top ‘The Raspberry Reich.’ Tonight three short Grant Guilliams films will be played between sets.