2.23.2015

better

This weekend wraps up Romantic States' month of mini-tours as the band makes their final stops in Pennsylvania and New Jersey:


Meanwhile here in the District we've got a special Sunday matinee lined up for March 1 featuring some incredible and eclectic talent from around the East Coast to promote the next In It Together Fest.

Pile from Boston, who are starting off a nationwide tour in support of their new album 'You're Better Than This' on Exploding In Sound Records, will be headlining the bill. Playing alongside them in the afternoon will be Radiator King and The Effects, and as the day turns into night things will be get jazzed up with the help of Moor Mother Goddess from Philadelphia, Hypercolor from Brooklyn, and Ian G. McColm from Richmond.

Click the flyer below to RSVP and get more info:


Down in the southwest, Adam Torres hits the road this week, kicking off his tour with shows in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California:
More info on Adam's tour and other big things in store can be found on his website.

2.18.2015

man and his symbols

Adam Torres has been hard at work over the past year, putting together some fantastic new work in preparation for big things to come in 2015, starting with a tour out west to kick things off later this month. Click the poster below to check out Adam's site for more details on these shows.


Additionally, Adam's 2006 release Nostra Nova will be re-released in April on vinyl c/o Misra Records and is currently available to pre-order here. Check out this recent interview with Adam in which he discusses music, literature and his past, present, and future with Highway Hearts, then revisit the classic track "Breakneck Jane's Fifteen Minute Escape" with this video directed by Brian Wiebe.


Romantic States are bringing the caravan down south this weekend with shows in Virginia and North Carolina. If you're in the area for one of these fine gigs, make sure to stop on by:
Big Hush cassettes are now officially sold out from the DZ merch store, but if you missed picking up a copy you can still get them at the Dischord Records distro while supplies last.

And lastly, I've been keeping pretty busy with a new project gathering audio archives of events from the DC DIY scene and have yet to post any of the live recordings I've captured since late last year, but I thought it'd be nice to cap off this post by sharing the music of Emperor X from his DC show last month. Take a listen and stay tuned for more live recordings in the very near future!

2.11.2015

give more

And so begins a month of weekend-long tours for Romantic States. After staying up until 3am getting wild at the cassette release show in Baltimore on Friday, a Saturday afternoon of soothing dissonance was well-needed. Thanks to everyone who came out and/or volunteered at the matinee Radio CPR benefit show (special shout-out to Ian MacKaye) as well as Mattress Financial and The Creature People for playing their hearts out as always. I'm happy to say we raised a modest sum for the station, and I'm looking forward to getting more involved in the near future.

Romantic States (courtesy of Chris Taylor)
"On this new self-titled record, Romantic States have traded in the synthetic bleeps and bloops of old, the stuttering tape machines, the more “experimental” side of things in favor of more traditional arrangements for guitars, drums, and voices. The result is a poised approach to songwriting, tunes that are skeletal in nature. While it may appear thin, oblique, and fragile, you’ll be surprised just how resilient and mercurial this collection of songs can be." - Gelatinous Blog
Next up for the band is this gig in Newark, NJ on Friday, February 13 at The Hollywood Bungalow (click here to RSVP) with Charm City chums Et Al. and Garden State locals Apparus.

On that same day here in DC will be another great show, this one a benefit for Casa Ruby LGBT Community Center, who is raising funds to open a homeless youth house in the district. The show features radiant dreamers Crimson Wave from Baltimore, activist sludge warriors Jail Solidarity, feminist grunge rockers Hemlines, and local unsung heroes Tereu Tereu and Jack On Fire. Check out the sweet show poster below c/o Rachel Porter and give it a click for more details and to RSVP.


I'm very happy to be involved with this show and am more than pleased with the serendipitous link between the two events happening all in one night at the same venue. Just downstairs will be a reading by contributors to the Collide Zine #3 speaking on the challenges of living with physical and mental illness, and additionally Sean Gray from Accidental Guest Records fostering a discussion on accessibility in the DIY community and spreading awareness of his site Is This Venue Accessible?, a growing collaborative resource to catalog accessible and inaccessible performance spaces.

Hope you get the chance to check out some live music in the coming week - don't forget to bring your lovers and your manners. ♥

2.06.2015

romantic states

"Romantic States forge their path with little more than guitar, drums and voice but their success lies in what they achieve outside of these components. Immeasurable as these things often are, there’s a sense of melodrama that bleeds out of these tracks, a longing that you just can’t place. It’s there in the emphatic build of opening track ‘Watched By An Animal‘ and more prominently in the (beautiful) ugliness of ‘Frozen In Place‘. This muted charm runs like the lifeblood right through the heart of Romantic States, breathing fire in to its more raucous moments while propping up the more disillusioned passages where it slows to a quietened sigh, lost, to some extent, within the confines of the world it’s created for itself. A downbeat and fiery collection of songs that never settles, never quite finds the answers that it sets out to, but one that builds itself up regardless, in to something that, for all the disjointed elements that surrounds, still manages to portray an unexpected feeling of beauty."


Endless thanks to GoldFlakePaint for the glowing remarks above and for premiering the new album in its entirety, and additionally to The Le Sigh for their write-up on "Nettles" in which they refer to the band's sound as "intimate, a little experimental, and subtly beautiful".

The duo is celebrating the release of their new cassette with a string of shows this weekend around the DMV. Click the flyers below to RSVP, and if you can't make it to one of these gigs, keep your eyes open for more shows around the Mid-Atlantic region this month!

On Friday, February 6, they'll be playing for the hometown crowd in Baltimore at the Penthouse Gallery with a splendid bill of talented acts from their creative corner of the world including Post Pink, Boy Spit, Rosemary Krust, and Princess Reason.


The afternoon of Saturday, February 7 in DC will be a benefit show for local pirate community radio station 97.5 FM Radio CPR. The station has been a staple for the Mt. Pleasant community for about 15 years and plays host to a wide variety of shows ranging from community news and sociopolitical commentary to independent music from DC and all of the world. The gig will feature DZ favorites Mattress Financial and a rare solo set from Chris Taylor of Big Hush / Pygmy Lush / Pg. 99 as The Creature People.



That same night in Harrisonburg, VA, Jim and Ilenia will be joined by Sailor Ripley and Fresh Hell at MyMansion.


Stream of download the new album for free using the player at the top of the post! Cassettes are pro-dubbed on a solid pink shell and hand-numbered out of 100 - for those of you unable to catch the band in the flesh, you can grip a copy of the tape from the merch store. Thanks for taking the time to check it out~ ✌

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