Closing Time... - Brothers Comatose - Gypsy Sally's, Washington, DC - May 21st, 2015

Bluegrass tends to make me happy. It makes me daydream of going somewhere like Asheville, North Carolina, sitting on a porch with some hippies who weirdly like Deliverance-esque bluegrass music and havin' a ho-down. OK - NOT a ho-down, but you get the picture.

You may have noticed a pattern that - SHOCKER - I enjoy music of the funky variety. You know - something where if you're sitting down, you're definitely not getting the full experience. So a bluegrass show is a different experience for me. My concert companion, Amanda, has gotten me to go to a few bluegrass shows - Devil Makes Three, Route 29 Revue, Two Ton Twig. OK, OK - she got me to go to Route 29 Revue because Trombone Shorty was playing (not a tough sell). Anyway, I've had my share of weird experiences at bluegrass shows, namely witnessing a bluegrass moshpit. To me, these two things are conflicting ideas, but whatever.

Amanda and me at Route 29 Revue in Columbia, MD

Brothers Comatose is a bluegrass band out of San Francisco, CA. I learned later that they collaborate pretty regularly with one of my favorite artists - Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers! (More on that later...)

They were playing at Gypsy Sally's in Georgetown for $10! Crazy! Gypsy Sally's is a fairly new venue, trying to find it's place among the DC live music scene. The owners are a Woodstock-era couple (I met the guy, and he's wearing a Grateful Dead shirt, shorts and Birkenstocks - you can't go wrong with this combination in my opinion). They have a venue that can hold around 200 people, plus a side bar and event space they use for open mic nights. They regularly have Grateful Dead listening parties, and use old jam band concert tickets to adorn the bars. I love the Hamilton dearly, but this is as close to live music utopia as it gets. The shows they feature are generally Americana in genre, but also can get funky in their offerings - the first show I saw here was Orgone. FUNKAYYYYY.

I was most proud of myself for actually taking public transportation to this show - anyone in DC knows that taking public transportation to Georgetown is a feat in itself. Gypsy Sally's location is a little tough - it's underneath Whitehurst freeway, probably 3/4 of a mile from the bustling Georgetown waterfront. I thought the Georgetown movie theater was far.

After our Oregon Trail-esque journeys to Georgetown from our respective homes, we got some obligatory cocktails and settled in for Brothers Comatose. A duo named Toka Chase opened - weird but awesome. It was bluegrass with some rap lyrics and flow. The chick was phenomenal - her voice would be welcome in any genre. Their merch set up was the kicker - as they described it, an old suitcase with the lighting of a bug zapper.

Brothers Comatose sounded great live - better than what I heard on Pandora earlier that day in my opinion. Great harmonies, with a bassist whose favorite band was DC's own Fugazi - WHAT?!

I had had several glasses of wine at this point (don't judge) to preface this story. The crowd was relatively small - maybe 40 or 50 people, which in this room, felt incredibly small. The lead singer asked the crowd if anyone know the song 'Morningtime'. Obviously, I heard them ask if anyone knew the song 'Closing Time' by Semisonic. So I yell out ' DUH'. The venue was silent and everyone was staring at me. I was like what? Does no one else know 'Closing Time'? Mid way through this experience, I realized that he definitely DID NOT say 'Closing Time'. Ironically, 'Morningtime' is a song they do with Nicki Bluhm - fail. So when they asked me to come on stage, the crowd was cheering and I had to quiet everyone down to let them know that in fact, I have no idea what 'Morningtime' sounds like and I thought they were referring to 'Closing Time'. They went into a mini bluegrass rendition of 'Closing Time'. One of Amanda's friend's moms actually knew the song and went up on stage and sang with the band to 'MORNINGtime'. It's actually a very lovely song.



All in all, a great night with good memories, good friends and eventually - closing time.

Landmark Music Festival comes to Washington, DC - September 26th-27th

OK, OK. So it's been a while since the Musical Vagabond came at you with any posts - what can I say? I gotta make a living somehow until this blog becomes so famous I can just go to concerts for a living.

However, this news is monumental - DC finally has a music festival! What's that? A music festival on the tidal basin? In my backyard? I can shower? (sorry, Bonnaroo.) YES.

That's right - DC will host it's inaugural music festival, Landmark Music Festival, September 26th-27th. I mean I guess DC has had some festival-like events on the Mall - the Concert for Valor on November 11th, 2014 and the since-recently annual Global Citizen Day concert. I attended both, and was not super impressed. The first one had an awesome lineup - Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, Metallica to name a few - but you had to get there at like 9am to get anywhere near the stage. Sorry. I have a day off from work and its like a mile from my house - this chick ain't gettin' up that early. That being said, arriving an hour before the show meant you could get a spot next to the Washington Monument (for those of you non-Washingtonians,  that means you're literally a mile away from the stage). You could watch on the many big screens on the mall, but I guess I could have just watched on HBO.

For Global Citizen Day, it was much more festival-esque - nice weather, I got a tan, OK music. Thankfully we arrived right at the beginning of the festivities and I got the see the only band I cared about - My Morning Jacket. The downside? They played 3 songs and for an hour between each band's set you had to listen to some self-righteous celebrities talk about global warming and poverty while they were chauffered in their Maybachs to this speaking engagement. I'm kind of over this level of DC hypocrisy.

All of that considered, seems like Landmark Music Festival is an actual music festival! HURRAH! However, this being DC and the capital of charitable events, the festival ain't for nothin'. All proceeds go to the Trust for the National Mall to restore the National Mall to it's once beautiful condition. (If you've seen the Mall lately, looks more like a construction site than a place to hold a music festival, but I digress). So that we don't further destroy the Mall's limited grassy areas, the festival will actually be held in West Potomac Park, that ambiguous area that no one thought actually had a name next to the MLK memorial and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial.

The festival is featuring 40 artists, with your headliners to please mainstreamers, hipsters and music snobs alike - Drake, The Strokes, alt-j topping the bill - and then some of my favorites which basically convinced me to buy a ticket at all - the legend himself Dr. John, The London Souls, Red Baarat, Rebirth Brass Band, Vintage Trouble, The Lone Bellow and hometown boy Wale (well, he's from Gaithersburg, but whatever - I'll let it go, Wale).

Rhiannon Giddens of Carolina Chocolate Drops fame will be there. She's been gaining traction as a solo act, so would be good to catch her show - saw them at 9:30 Club and killed it as a soul-bluegrass act.

Sidebar - Another day-long music festival I'll be attending in July is the Foo Fighters July 4th concert at RFK featuring Gary Clark Jr, Trombone Shorty, Joan Jett, Trouble Funk, Buddy Guy, and LL Cool J - all artists featured on Dave Grohl's HBO special "Sonic Highways".

Back to Landmark - a year without Bonnaroo and Nola Jazzfest will be made a little better with this hometown music festival. Early bird tickets were $100 for both days - CRAZY CHEAP! - and they are now $150. Get yours now!

Landmark Music Festival