I often think DC’s Dave Mann might be the hardest working guy in the District. (Well, aside from that fellow in the White House, I guess.) From his myriad of gigging projects, The Spelling for Bees Collective to Twins of a Gazelle to Mittenfields, he’s filling up our email in-box with invite upon invite, to show upon show, for this or that project, at such and such venue. We’d be impressed if we weren’t worried that he’d collapse from exhaustion.
But still standing he is, and as such, Mittenfields plays the Velvet Lounge this coming Friday night (6/18) with a rather solid and impressive line up which includes Swedish songstress Malin Nilsson, Pittsburgh PA’s Mariage Blanc, DC’s Bellflur, with Mittenfields at the top of the roster.
So impressed with Dave’s fortitude and the line-up he’s assembled, we’ve decided to spend the week with all four acts, shooting the breeze about our favorite topics and of course, giving you guys a chance to win some tickets for the evening on us.
We’re calling it a ‘Four Way’ because we embrace sexual innuendo. And all four bands. —Ed.
When I was younger, growing up in Uppsala, Sweden, there were two different record stores where I used to go all the time. One was for window shopping, learning about what was new and longing for expensive CD’s. The other one was the cheap “buy and sell” store where I’d find all the indie albums I loved so much, pretend that I knew every word Morrissey ever wrote just because it felt like that was their “test of approval” and secretly cast glances at the cute, tall and very thin rocker with skunk styled hair who worked behind the counter.
This was the time when CD’s were still the shit, what I spent all my money on, obviously before I knew about things such as MP3’s, illegal downloading and torrent files. I’d go to the record store to escape the everyday hassle and dream about the day when I`d find my very own CD right there, next to the artists I looked up to so much.
I remember the day I found my first Elliot Smith album, right before Christmas and snow was falling outside the window where the rocker stood smoking his fifth cigarette for the day and I thought to myself that this Christmas wasn’t gonna turn out too bad after all. Or when I bought my third Sigur Ròs album, I couldn’t stop telling the seller how much I loved this band and that they knew how to truly take advantage of the format of a CD, giving the listener a great experience.
I often miss those moments at the record store; one of them is closed today and the other one had to move away form downtown because people stopped buying CD’s; it was there my love for music could thrive and I discovered many of my favorite artists at the time, some still with me to this day. I’ll be forever grateful for all that time spent at my two favorite record stores, because there is nothing that beats flipping through the stands with CD’s arranged after genre, get a glimpse of a cool cover and decide on the spot that this, this is the album I wanna take with me home today.
Malin Nilsson – Ode to Grandpa (Mp3)
Authorized for download!
