Portia Coughlin @ H Street Playhouse

I am of northern Irish descent so it sometimes gladdens me to support Irish arts, as was the case with Portia Coughlin, written by Marina Carr–and directed by Jessica Burgess for DC’s Solas Nua, a local contemporary Irish arts organization.

Portia Coughlin is a pretty dark brew, bestowing upon audiences a title character who has really been doomed since her twin brother Gabriel drowned himself in the nearby Belmont River 15 years previously. In the past 15 years, Portia (Linda Murray) has married a rich factory owner named Raphael and given birth to three boys that she doesn’t care about. We essentially watch her unravel in the first act and then walk straight to her end in the second act, while Ms. Murray’s furrowed brow and intense eyes peer at us to adroitly demonstrate the character’s pain and madness.

I felt a slight twinge of dread myself when I sat down in the theater to read the wordy overly analytical explanation of the play’s themes provided by Ms. Murray in the program, but thankfully the play moved along well enough. While it does beat the audience over the head with its fatalistic message, some good performances move the action along well enough to keep the play engaging.

Bryan Cassidy makes a particularly effective turn as Portia’s befuddled father, who is incapable of helping any of the women in his life from his mean-as-hell mother (Rusty Clauss) or his neglectful wife (Declan Cashman), much less the positively insane Portia. Also a welcome relief is Charlotte Akin as Portia’s baudy aunt Maggie May, who provides comic relief and the capability to fight back against some of the other characters when they deserve it (which they basically do throughout the entire length of the play).

Be warned the play is quite depressing, offering a convincing portrait of a woman who is completely unwound, sometimes under the direction of the ghost of her brother (played quite androgynously by a woman–Camille Loomis). But it’s definitely worth a viewing if you don’t mind a healthy dose of fatalism.

The H Street Playhouse offers an intimate venue for which to see the play, particularly as this production makes effective use of minimalist staging. Quite a lot is effectively translated for the audience through the use of customs and lighting as well as the nearly ever-present sound of water to signify the deadly river nearby.

Portia Coughlin is playing a the H Street Playhouse through April 6, Thursday - Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are $20 each.

The Cribs @ The Black Cat on 3/19/08

The Cribs rolled into town last night to perform a thoroughly noisy set at the Black Cat last night. Personally, I was a bit on the fence about going, but I eventually I found myself free shortly before they went on, so I joined the somewhat small crowd that turned out to catch them.

I was compelled to check them out as Johnny Marr of The Smiths had been working with the three gents from West Yorkshire lately, going so far as to tour with them in the United Kingdom and record some as yet unreleased material with them. I was left wondering what Marr brings to their sound, which basically consists of fairly straightforward if sometimes catchy guitar riffs repeated unceremoniously in a string that is then declared a song.

The band also has a habit of shouting its lyrics in a kind of start-stop manner that appears to result from a lack of any real vocal talent among them. The resulting concert is a sort of herky-jerky procession of dance tunes for the punk set.

I picked up their latest album–Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever–at the show and gave it a listen. I found it to be fairly uneven with some decent dance numbers such as the title track “Men’s Needs,” which holds up fairly well through multiple listens. Other tracks fall pretty short of the mark, though, such as the latest single, “I’m A Realist,” which seems like it was hastily conceived and executed just to capitalize on the cute idea of being contrary.

I know these guys are generating some excitement in England, but I do understand why they aren’t a little bigger here in the States with three albums under their belt after seeing the show.

O’Tasty @ Iota on 3/17/08

The inhabitants of Washington, DC, have plenty of Irish bars in which to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Some of the bigger pubs, such as my beloved Ireland’s Four Fields in Cleveland Park, convert themselves into rapidfire drinking houses, where the maximum number of people are intended to cram into the walls of the bar, which has been stripped bare save for the stage where a procession of Irish rock and folk musicians will play for a portion of the $10-$20 cover.

Thankfully, there are saner ways to enjoy a bit of Irish mayhem, and one of those options presented itself in the form of O’Tasty, a DC Celtic punk band performing last night at Iota in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Va. Now the raucous members of O’Tasty may not think of themselves as the more civilized option for observing St. Pats as they rock out, drink lots of beer and swear copiously as they call down Celtic Thunder with a mix of amped up Irish folk favorites, covers of The Pogues, and their own compositions.

The relatively large band leaps energetically through its Irish offerings with a mandolin, fiddle, guitar, drum and piccolo as frontman James O’Brien gruffly sings his way through their catalog with swagger so authentic you would swear you were on the set of a movie about a raucous Irish band covering traditional favorites for your pleasure in a seedy Dublin bar.

O’Tasty appear to have an aversion to the local DC pubs, however, and their next gig is at none other than DC9 next month. Throw back a few of the bar’s cans of Guinness and enjoy the lighthearted debauchery if you get the chance!

A Creepy Little Party Called Spellbound

Well, it is sometimes creepy, sure, but it’s also sometimes fun. It’s Spellbound, apparently named after the song by Siouxsie and the Banshees, every Saturday at Recessions bar in the Quincy Hotel on L Street. Founded by goth maven Lori Beth, the party plays really well to those who enjoy loud industrial music like nothing else!

But they also employ Swank, international man of synth, to add some light and fun danciness to the mix. To be fair, I also was completely impressed by a set by DJ Steve Archer, who had a nice ear for synthpop and dark wave, the last time I dropped by a few weeks ago. And the promoters manage turn turn a boutique hotel’s dull happy hour pool bar into an interesting dance floor every Saturday. So there are a lot of plusses.

But the crowd is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the hardcore goth kids are a little bit scary, but perhaps they are nice people once you get to know them? They commingle with the hotel bar crowd that just happened to come downstairs to find–WTF?–that a goth party is happening in their hotel. They tend to be a fairly easygoing jeans and polo shirt kind of crowd that just wants some beers at a table in the back. But my point is that you never really know what kind of people are going to be there. I myself showed up for my first time ever in jeans and a button-down and found myself standing between a man in a kilt and another in a full tuxedo!

Anyway, drawn by friends of friends and some of the music, many of my personal nightlife crew, the G8, have taken to hanging out at Spellbound on a Saturday night to partake in some good drinks, greasy food served late, and a fair smattering of tunes by The Cure, Depeche Mode, and similar bands.

Iris @ Rock and Roll Hotel on 3/13/08

Iris, proclaimed by synth-guru DJ Swank as America’s best synthpop band, swung into DC last night on its tour with German synthpop band Seabound to the Rock and Roll Hotel. The show was produced and promoted by Arcadia, an outfit that sponsored a goth/industrial/synth night at Club Five on Thursdays up until recently.

I was surprised by Iris off the bat because the three members opened up with some very strong guitar-driven songs before powering up the synthesizer. Although officially a two-member band consisting of vocalist Reagan Jones and everything man Andrew Sega, Iris sported a third member last night who added greatly to their versatility on stage.

The show was quite enjoyable and the performers were both intent and intense on stage. But many of their key songs simply sound much better on disc than they do live. Iris was playing to promote a remix album, titled Hydra, from this year, which gave them a great excuse to play a lot of their best songs. But tracks like “It Generates” from the album Wrath simply sound better when you can hear the sweeping sonics of the softer synth music below the vocals on the disc as opposed to hearing it live on stage, where it comes out a bit muted. As fellow concert-goer Matt Condon observed, the band’s live performance lacked dynamic range–which would have provided some means of differentiating some of the weaker songs from one another.

Still, the show was well worth a trip to the Atlas District, and I learned a lot more about a pretty good band. Swank must have known that I would have been a sucker for any band whose first single was “Annie, Would I Lie to You?,” a clear reference to the Eurythmics and the genre of 80s New Wave that originally inspired Jones and Sega to start performing

Punk Rockers in DC: Bob Mould

Washington, DC is a proud punk rock town. Although the punk mantle has largely passed to breezy, easy indie rock dance parties, which owe a lot of their existence to punk work ethics (not an oxymoron), many people in music still remember DC best for its contributions to hardcore punk, straightedge culture, and Fugazi’s brand of emo (which really ought to be renamed if it hasn’t already as it bears no resemblance to the current sensation calling itself emo).

Anyway, a lot of the more infamous DC punk rockers, such as Henry Rollins, have long since left town while others have retired quietly to the back corners of their homes and Asylum. The city is blessed with a transplant, however, which keeps the punk ethic alive in the form of Bob Mould, formerly of Husker Du.

Mould has a newish band, the Bob Mould band, that performs regularly at the 9:30 Club. He also collaborates with “dance music artist” Richard Morel for a DJ dance party called Blowoff, which also appears at the 9:30 most months. Both band and dance party are up on at the 9:30 Club this Saturday, March 15, at 6:30pm and 11:30pm respectively. Blowoff, a gay friendly dance party, features pleasant pop dance tunes and rock anthems developed by Mould and Morel. The original tunes are really well conceived and developed, so check them out at the Blowoff MySpace page.

To add to his visibility, Mould wrote a song titled “Dog on Fire,” performed by They Might Be Giants as the theme for The Daily Show on Comedy Central. He also did a cool remix of Interpol’s “Length of Love” for the bonus disc on their album Antics (considered by many to be their best album).

Working for a Nuclear Free City @ DC9 on 3/9/08

Just to get it out of the way, Working for a Nuclear Free City apparently took their name as a means of poking fun at the city council of hometown Manchester, England, as their name was a slogan of the council that seemed a bit funny if not ironic. There is certainly nothing ironic about the four men, whose shimmering guitars and complex synthesizer beeps earnestly recall the last 30 years of music from the Manchester scene while providing soothing dance melodies for fans of Britpop.

Their show at DC9 Sunday night, unfortunately, was beset by some technical difficulties, and it often seemed the band was operating on the fly, threatening to either fall apart or transcend into something quite a bit more fabulous at any given moment. Thankfully, they were skilled enough to squeeze more of the fabulousness out of their music rather than letting a few dead patches between songs bring them down. Phil Kay worked his Jen SX1000 synthesizer with fervent genius, delighting the crowd of 60 or more who had come to see the band before they hit the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

Fellow concert-goer Michael Darpino brilliantly described much of the WFANFC sound as electronic shoegazer, which certainly captures the dominant synth overtones as they sometimes carry a very fuzzy sound. Nowhere is this better demonstrated in their song “Dead Fingers Talking,” which truly takes you on a trip through cosmic dust with zips and zings. I quite wanted a bit more in-your-face uptempo dance music, but the steady pulsing of the band’s instruments kept me pleasantly tapping and shuffling along well enough!

I picked up the US version of Businessmen & Ghosts, the band’s very cool debut album, for $10 at the show, which was terrific for a double album of material.

Birreria Paradiso on 2/27/08

My favorite place in the city to get a beer remains Birreria Paradiso, the basement bar of the Pizzeria Paradiso in Georgetown. They have a fine selection of perhaps 16 taps or so and one selection on cask, plus tons of bottles if you want to go there. The taps are half price during happy hour, 5pm-7pm, every Tuesday and Wednesday, which is a deal that is unheard of for the quality of the brews. The selection usually switches out every two or three weeks, with some popular recurring mainstays. (Curse you, St. Bernardus Abt 12!)

Oh, yes, the lineup on the taps largely consists of Belgian beers with some fine American microbreweries mixed in. So along with your St. Bernadarus, Corsendonk and Delirium Tremens, you can receive some fine Ommegang, Lagunitas or Dogfish Head (Go, Delaware!).

As a comic book aficionado, I usually pick up my new books on Wednesday and scoot around the corner to Birreria Paradiso at the start of Wednesday happy hour for a pint or two, perhaps every other week recently. The space is cozy and warm and the people are congenial and serious about good beer (90 percent of the time, anyway).

Right now is a good time for both wheat beers and hoppy beers. Ommegang Witte and Brooklyn Weisse are on tap, providing some different perspectives on wheat. And Sierra Nevada Early Spring Beer and the smooth and hoppy Troegs Nugget Nectar provide more bitter offerings. As an added bonus, the cask this week contained Victory Hop Wallop IPA, a flavorful ale from Downingtown, Pa.

Be certain to get some suggestions from the ever-knowledgeable Jesse, bicyclist extraordinaire, whether he is behind the bar or serving tables!

Review: Seventh Tree by Goldfrapp

Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory, the duo known by her last name, have made some wonderfully inventive electronic music over the course of their first three albums, with the last two producing some smashing dance floor numbers. In their fourth album, released Feb. 26, they make an unexpected departure from ever-increasing electronic delights to produce what sounds a lot more like a good Kate Bush album from the ’90s. Even song titles like “Eat Yourself” and “Caravan Girl” sound like they were borrowed from Kate.

Alison’s soft vocals provide a lush coat of paint to transcendental guitars, which are more likely to make you sway yourself to sleep than to dance across the floor. Not to say there are no dance tracks on the album at all–”Happiness” and “Caravan Girl” are standouts for their potential to create a ballroom blitz. Of the softer tracks, “Little Bird” and “A&E” (the first single) are most likely to make you settle down comfortably, dreaming contentedly of the scenes of nature they invoke. Interestingly, A&E seems to instruct you to relax and forget about jumping up to the music with lyrics like “Do you really wanna know how I was dancing on the floor?/I was trying to fool you when I’m crawling up that door.”

Overall, Seventh Tree is a very nice album and a strong entry in the Goldfrapp discography. Still, it’s a congenial tangent to the much more energetic albums Black Cherry and Supernature.

Hej Hej @ St. Ex on 2/26/08

The latest edition of Hej Hej, Washington, DC’s Scandinavian pop listening party, came for its monthly visit to the basement of Cafe St. Ex last night. DJs Natalya and Melissa spun some of the finest indie pop from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and of course Sweden, including good stuff from Peter Bjorn and John, The Shout Out Louds, and Kashmir. Brian and I enjoyed the sounds and the ambiance, although we had quite a problem finding a seat! The basement, aka Gate 54, was packed full of giddy young professionals and pleasantly content hipsters, enjoying some Viking beers and some good music.

The ladies of Hej Hej were particularly promoting The LK (formerly the Lovekevins), who are scheduled to perform at the House of Sweden (that country’s impressive new embassy on the Georgetown waterfront) on March 8. Hej Hej had a drawing for free tickets, courtesy of kora records.

The DJs also were spinning The Raveonettes, a band I know very little about, and giving away copies of their new album, which was released just this week, courtesy of Vice Records. The Raveonettes play locally at The Black Cat on March 29.

Gate 54 is an excellent venue for a listening party. It usually has plenty of tables and chairs for a weekday party and the space provides soothing solace under dim lights. I would imagine the narrow space would provide great difficulty for a dance party, however, but I have yet to see one there personally.

At the end of our visit, Natalya joined Brian and I at our hard-earned table for some conversation, which was dominated by his love for gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello. I guess it was appropriate as she, like the band, actually has Ukranian roots.