The Old 97s made their triumphant return to the 9:30 Club last night. Photo by Lisa Johnson. Our Nation’s Capitol has seen a lot more of the emancipated Rhett Miller in recent years than it has of his band, Old 97s. Miller may write most of the songs for the hard-charging country-pop-punkabilly quartet, but somehow he’s only about one–eleventh as interesting when he doesn’t have Murry Hammond singing harmony and Ken Bethea blasting out those......

It's tempting to call Austin, Texas country-rocker Alejandro Escovedo the Forrest Gump of indie rock, but he deserves to be associated with a much better movie. In 1978, his first band, San Francisco punkers The Nuns, opened the last-ever Sex Pistols show prior to the Pistols' brief mid-90s reunion. He was living in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City when the Pistol's' Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen checked in; Spungen would......

Hard-rocking renaissance man Jon Langford tears it up. Photo courtesy Bloodshot Records. In a fairer, better world, Jon Langford would need no introduction; in a world that makes Kenny Chesney a country star, he probably does. (Unless, of course, you read our interview with Langford last fall.) So: Since founding the protean punk outfit the Mekons in Leeds, England, three decades or so ago, he's become that Godfather of the Chicago alt-country scene that......

X: Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom, Jon Doe, and D.J. Bonebrake, pictured sometime well in advance of their current 31st anniversary tour. As unabashedly retro, amphetamine-spiked rocksoulpunkabilly two-fers go, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than pioneering Los Angeles punkers X, with garage-rock archeologists the Detroit Cobras on the undercard. Billed as X’s 31st anniversary tour, (though their recorded career began with 1980’s Los Angeles) this greasy double bill pulled into the 9:30 Club Wednesday......

>> Dr. Dremo's is closing in a matter of months, so take the opportunity to visit tonight for what looks to be an excellent installment of the Washington Psychotronic Film Society's regular oddball film screenings. Tonight's selection is Bugsy Malone, the totally bizarre but actually kind of great 1976 movie musical starring child actors Jodie Foster and Scott Baio as gangsters who shoot custard out of their guns instead of bullets. Somewhat creepily, all......

MONDAY: Makes Me Wanna Holler and What's Going On author Nathan McCall will be at the Olsson's in Penn Quarter to read from his new novel, Them. It might sound more like science-fiction than a Marvin Gaye song, but it's about the complex relationship that develops between two neighbors in downtown Atlanta. 7 p.m. Robert Kuttner, founder and editor of the American Prospect, will be at Politics and Prose to discuss his new book, The......

>> "Japanese Action Comic Punk" band PEELANDER-Z hits DC9 tonight, along with Massachusetts power-poppers My So-Called Friend, Lights Resolve and up and coming locals The City Veins. $8. >> The Lisner Auditorium is hosting Malian traditional guitarist Vieux Farka Toure (son of the late great Ali Farka Toure) and Tinariwen, a band of musicians from the Sahara who meld North Malian guitar stylings with blues, middle–eastern, reggae and rock influences. 8 p.m., $15-$45. >>......

It's been almost two years since VHS or Beta brought their explosive electronic rock to a non-DJ show in D.C., which is too long for us. On Saturday the Kentuckians came to the Rock and Roll Hotel, bringing buzz band Walter Meego and local faves The Vita Ruins. Unfortunately we missed The Vita Ruins' opening set, but judging by our past experience, the atmospheric Three Stars and Unbuckled alums put on a good show. Walter......

>> Music junkies raised in an era of candy-coated pop or Seattle-based indie should check out a screening of The Day The Country Died: A History of Anarcho-Punk 1980-1984 at the Black Cat tonight. The flick features rare performances caught on tape before the era of ubiquitous personal video recorders, along with interviews from artists and activists. $5, 9 p.m. >> DC Rap invades the Velvet Lounge with another edition of Hell is for......

Written by DCist contributor Maria Flores Sometime in the early 1970s, when the photographs in Melody Maker, NME, and Rolling Stone were no longer enough to satiate his appetite, Claude Gassian swapped his guitar for a 35mm camera and took to the road with his finger on the shutter button. So began his photographic conquest to document the lives of some of his favorite musical artists. Over three decades later, his photographs stand alone as......

If you're a regular at the Fort Reno summer concert series, one thing you may have noticed over the years is the increasing presence of strollers, toddlers, and assorted children running around the field on Monday and Thursday evenings. Observant smokers in the Black Cat's velvet roped sidewalk "smoker's lounge" may similarly notice luminaries of D.C.'s hardcore punk past pulling up in - *gasp* - minivans. Punk rock is all grown up, and the formerly......

FRIDAY: >> This weekend is filled to the brim with events surrounding the 2007 Urban Film Series tour just in time for Black History Month. Dozens of short and feature-length films addressing the black experience are being screened at Regal Cinema Gallery Place, many with panel discussions following. There's a bevy of established and rising talent to see, but our pick for Friday has to be a conversation and book-signing with the Wizard's own center......

Jagshemash! Borat is a hit. It's grossing millions and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat himself seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. In Shanghai, Borat would be observing Inane Learnings of Penis Photos for Make Benefit Glorious Flat World of Handmade Toy......

Back in September, we told you all about how you, too, could walk in the footsteps of legions of spiky-haired, leather jacketed youths armed with just your cell phone and the force of memory. The Yellow Arrow Capitol of Punk tour gives participants an interactive walking tour of the people and places associated with D.C. punk’s salad days, and has received an enthusiastic response, according to organizers. This Saturday at the Warehouse Theater, you can......

Watch carefully in the coming weeks and you may see them. People roaming the streets of Chinatown, Adams Morgan, Mt. Pleasant. They'll stop to check their cell phone, punch the keys, wait, check again, then move walk down the street looking with strange interest at empty buildings, houses and random Starbucks. Yellow Arrow's Capitol of Punk tour, which we previewed in May, kicked off this week, turning D.C. streets into an impromptu museum for a......

Acclaimed film director Martin Scorsese was recognized last night as the 2006 Guggenheim Honoree at the SILVERDOCS festival. The award, named after the late 4-time Academy Award winning (longtime D.C. resident) Charles Guggenheim, was presented in a ceremony highlighting Scorsese's contributions to documentary film. After a brief introduction by local filmmaker Grace Guggenheim (daughter of Charles), the packed AFI Silver Theatre audience was treated to a selection of scenes from Scorsese's documentary work, followed by......

I imagine that, not long ago, a conversation took place at the offices of the Washington Post that went sort of like this: Editor: Let's do a story on a local band. Writer: Great. There are tons of fantastic local acts playing some innovative stuff at area clubs. They're putting together some interesting albums and getting some national attention, and I think they could really tell our readers some enlightening things about music today. Editor:......

MONDAY >> Get your Zydeco just in time for Mardis Gras! CJ Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band bring their Grammy award-winning act to the Birchmere. Whether they play their classic upbeat sound, or their Katrina-inspired latest recordings, it's sure to be a worthwhile show. 7:30 p.m., $19.50. >> If you prefer the funk, or you just really liked PCU, head to 9:30 for George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic Allstars. 7:30 p.m., $40.......

MONDAY: >> It's a slow concert night around town. Head over to the Black Cat's backstage for Vintage DC Punk Video Night to benefit Jobs with Justice. 9:00, $5 TUESDAY: >> South Carolina natives Jump Little Children head north and set their sights on Arlington's Iota club tonight. All classically trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, their first songs were based in Irish folk music and Delta blues, and has evolved over......

If radical politics is your thing, you should make plans to get up to American University this weekend for the seventh annual National Conference on Organized Resistance, which kicks off tonight with a panel at 6 p.m. Registration on the conference is $12 and includes two free (vegan) meals, dozens of information sessions on everything from "Zapatismo in Your Community" and "Between Poststructuralism and Anarchism" to "Women and Girls in Punk" and "Veg the System."......

Looking for a few good shows? Our music picks for this week follow. TUESDAY: >> The Carlsonics (pictured at right) continue their month-long Tuesday night residency at DC9. Read the DCist review of their performance here. With The American Watercolor Movement & The Heartless Bastards. $6. THURSDAY: >> Noise Against Facism: The Inauguration got you down? You should head over to the Black Cat tonight, where for $12 you can see Mirror/Dash, a duo of......

Punk rockers the Dresden Dolls hit the Black Cat. Count Zero opens. 8:30 p.m. $10. "Grace," a dark comedy from "Six Feet Under" writer Craig Wright, is now being performed by the Wooly Mammoth theater company at the Warehouse Theater on Seventh Street NW. 8 p.m. $24-32. Nick Swardson of "Reno 911" is at the DC Improv. 8:30 p.m. $15. The International Washington Horse Show has galloped into town. (Ha ha. Look at us. We......

Because we like to keep you in the know, here's an updated list of upcoming shows, through middle of October or so (if we've missed anything, please let us know!). A couple of DCist-ers will be in attendance at the Thrills show tomorrow night at the Black Cat, so come on out! 9/17: Lungfish, Black Cat 9/18: The Thrills, Black Cat 9/23: The Walkmen, 9:30 Club 9/24: Fiery Furnaces, Black Cat 9/25: Travis Morrison, Galaxy......

DCist usually laments the state of shows here in the nation’s capital. Often passed over for the bigger markets of Philadelphia or New York, the D.C. never seems to get a fair shake when it comes to the concerts that all the cool kids wanna go to. It’s so unfair! We have some great musical venues; when are we going to get a steady influx of good live bands? Well, it seems the times, they......