Maybe we should call them The The's

The last two nights were a great night for music. On Wednesday, I went to the Rock and Roll Hotel for the first time since I've been in D.C. Well I guess that can't be too hard since the place is barely a year old, if that. Three of us went to see The Cedars (a local DC band), The Changes (From Chi-town) and The Cinematics (pictured, from Scotland). This outing was initiated by Ray after being emailed in the afternoon saying these guys (all three) are God's next gift to music, well now I am using his style of exaggeration, but thats a different story. I was glad that Dana was also able to come along - so that made it three peeps to see THE Three bands.

Needless to say, I passed by my good buddy's Wayne's row house before hand for "pre-club liquid consumption" and helped grill up some fantastic chicken that Jerry had brought and eat it of course! Along with salmon soft tacos, fresh pineapple, and delicious chips and guacamole -oohhh yeah I was happy.

Let me get back to the RnR Hotel! This place was VERY COOL. I wish I had taken more pictures but the upstairs has all these various "rooms" with couches, that look psuedo vintage, and all decorated with music posters (I would gamble they are high quality prints of them vs the real thing) schedules of different tours, even an ad for the 9:30 club when it was at its original location.

I think one of us mentioned, that these rooms almost looked like make out rooms, especially since the prominent color on the walls was a very RICH RED! Sadly the only pic I took was of the downstairs mens bathroom... Yeah!! This is by far one of the best club bathrooms thus far, and yes its weird that I noticed it, and even weirder that I took a PICTURE of it!!- this rocked!!! I mean look at it! It has:

1. A place to put your beer
2. A Naked trucker women on the walls
3. The thing is CLEAN !!
4. One flush takes care of it all!

So from my untrained musical ear- here is my assessment of the three "The's" as i dubbed them since they all started with well .... "The". First up The Cedars - Good jam group, but they seriously need a lyricist... really dudes, when you only sing for a minute then play for 2 and call that a song... well you all need work. Second - The Changes - A little more cohesiveness would be good, but overall these guys did a good job. The lead vocals were clear and they really changed it up with their instrumentation without compromising their overall sound. Most interesting was the drummer switching to the Xylophone, and the lead singer, Darren (pictured with Dana and me), using maracas on the drums. I am curious to see how hey sound in the studio (i.e. on the CD) - I have a feeling they are a more interesting live band than a studio band.

Finally The Cinematics - These guys just pure jammed! Though typical of brit rock (IMO) where the vocals felt a little drowned out, the bassist more than made up for it & totally rocked the place. Overall they proved why they were the headliners.

Thursday I went to IOTA to see Paul Michel, and Two if by Sea. I like Iota, something about its simplicity. Unfortunately I missed half of Paul Michel's set, what can I say I was distracted by a pretty woman. When we got there we caught the last 2 1/2 songs of the set. From what I heard he was pretty cool - I will have to catch him again. Next up was Alphabetical Order, whom I quickly dubbed Alphabetical DISorder due to their chaotic sound changing the whole rhythm, tempo, sound in one song two or three times. It just sounded as if they didnt know their identity. On the bright side they had 3 decent singers, one of them being the very Tina Fey looking bassist. Finally the much touted Two if by Sea from Bal'mer (Baltimore for you out of towners).

I had heard of these guys from the Six Points Music Fest where I first heard the Roosevelts (this was the weekend before the Morris Cabin trip). I should have stuck around and heard these guys back then. They rocked!! First they were picky about the sound, and stopped the first song, because it didn't sound right - it got fixed, and they were very cool chatting personably with the audience while it got fixed. But once that was done they launched into an even better song that had the audience moving - a rarity for this city where people just.. stand around and listen... IT'S MUSIC PEOPLE !!! MOVE A LITTLE!!!! - yeah - that's my one rant for this post.

Well worth sticking around for!!!