who's smoking your spirit?

ICYMI: The new Big Hush EP is out now in a limited run of 100 gorgeous goldenrod cassettes! After all the pre-orders and tapes that were snatched up at the release show (which received some kind words in the Washington Post), there are less than 10 copies left in the merch store, though you can still get them directly from the band at all upcoming gigs. ✌

"Who's Smoking Your Spirit?" has already received some solid coverage from the likes of WAMU Bandwidth, Post-Trash [1] [2], Washington City Paper [1] [2], and DC Music Download [1] [2].

"[Who's Smoking Your Spirit?] exposes the band’s knack for infectious hooks. On “Cold Shoulder,” pulsing guitar and bass ride distortion to the front of the mix, while the dual vocals seem to exist on another plane entirely. Then, more than two-and-a-half minutes into the track’s gurgle and feedback, a pop song breaks out, with Ludwig momentarily winning a battle with the music, long enough to deliver the album’s catchiest refrain. It’s just a moment, of course. Big Hush still dabbles in shoegaze even when the drift and reverb seems to be holding a decent pop song’s head underwater." - Washington City Paper

"The EP’s five tracks, which merge together like ingredients in a murky stew, sound like an updated version of [My Bloody Valentine]" - WAMU Bandwidth

"Halfway between shoegaze and surf guitar is Big Hush, a DC band that makes a lot more noise than their name would suggest." - Black Cat 

"Mournful, sighing melodies sink deep as they play with surf and post-rock rhythms, while shoegaze feels more and more limited as a descriptor with every release." - Washington City Paper

Thanks to all the publications above and to everyone who has supported the release thus far! Stay tuned for more gigs in the near future, and don't miss these great lineups coming to the District:

Saturday, December 12 at Songbyrd Music House

Hemlines w/ The Effects, Wing Dam, and Wet Brain

(click flyer to RSVP)

Sunday, December 13 at Hole In The Sky

Escape From DC Brunch IX: Princess Reason, Go Cozy, and Airhead DC

(click flyer to RSVP)

Sunday, December 20 at Songbyrd Music House

Rick (from Pile), Snail Mail, Mattress Financial, and Charlie Down

(click flyer to RSVP)

And if all that weren't enough, there's one more bit of happy news coming out of Romantic States' camp. The band was able to raise enough money from fan purchases to adopt a manatee through the Save The Manatee Club! Margarito is an endangered West Indian manatee, known for being very curious, friendly, and social. He can be identified by a number of scars from watercraft strikes, and from his missing left flipper, which he lost after it was badly entangled in fishing line. Please dispose of your fishing line properly and be kind to animals!

thaw

Another wild weekend of shows coming up for those of you in DC, Baltimore, Chicago, and Austin. Click the flyers below for more info, and godspeed to Owen from Big Hush who has three different gigs on Sunday night~ ✌

Friday, March 6

Romantic States w/ Crimson Wave, Bummer Vacation, and Naked

(Ottobar Upstairs in Baltimore, MD)

Pool Holograph w/ Pet Vices and Glass Eyes

(Cole's Bar in Chicago, IL)

Chris Suspect harDCore photography opening reception

(Leica Gallery in Washington, DC)

Adam Torres w/ Molybden

(El Cosmico in Marfa, TX [RSVP])

Saturday, March 7

Adam Torres w/ Real Live Tigers and Loblolly Boy

(Studium in Austin, TX [RSVP])

Sunday, March 8

Big Hush (filling in for Jail Solidarity) w/ Trophy Wife, War On Women, and Priests

(Wilson Center in Washington, DC)

Qualms (mem. Big Hush) w/ Mattress Financial, Palehound, and Joy Buttons

(The Beehive in Washington, DC)

Big Hush w/ Kabob-O-Taj and Jack Nicholson

(WMUC Studio in College Park, MD)

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. ♥

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~ ✌

contagion

 h a p p y   h a l l o w e e n 

Quick update with two upcoming shows for DZ fans in DC are coming up at the Dougout in early November. Click the flyers below for more details.

Our special Election Day show features out-of-town punks Annabel and Kitten Forever alongside local thrashers Atlas At Last and The Obsessives.

Then on Sunday November 9, Kal Marks playing gritty blues-tinged rock touring from Boston with Exploding In Sound labelmates Lady Bones supported by local post-punk folk project Mattress Financial and queer punks Flamers.