A couple years ago, we had legendary DIY guy Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi/Dischord Records) breeze across our stage with his latest project The Evens. Now, our September calendar marks visits by two other seminal members of the golden Washington DC scene.
This Friday, September 12th, Mark Robinson brings his latest pop project, Cotton Candy to SPACE to open up for Death Vessel at our big post-Picnic show. Robinson was the founder of Teenbeat Records and lead orchestrator for the oh-so-worthy-of-your-listening-band Unrest who’s recorded output ran a diverse gamut before settling on a formula of nearly perfect jangle-pop (for some real genre-bending diversity, seek out some of Unrest’s early records, like Malcolm X Park or Kustom Karnal Blaxploitation). Teenbeat records were one of the pacesetters for the early 90s DIY movement, releasing lovingly packaged singles and albums including Unrest’s last album Perfect Teeth in a 7″ boxed set format. Robinson went on to front other great projects like Air Miami, Olympic Death Squad and Flin Flon.
On Sunday, September 20th, Chain and the Gang drops hard on the SPACE stage. C+tG is fronted by also legendary DC frontman, Ian Svenonius who’s gifted the worlds with scene-shattering The Nation of Ulysses, The Cupid Car Club, The Make Up, Weird War, The Scene Creamers, a solo album under the name David Candy, a book of essays and a totally fascinating internet talk show, Soft Focus on VBS.tv. This is the man who brought Performing back to indie music. Chain & the Gang also features Svenonius’ West Coast counterpart, Calvin Johnson founder of K Records and member of Beat Happening, The Halo Benders and Dub Narcotic Sound System, his will be a facemelter.
DC represented (now we just need to get Bad Brains in the house).