Music Columnist Says 'Go See More Shows'

By Broadside Style Columnist Andy Minor

Last weekend came and went with its sublime three-day-ness, and I wasted just about as much time as anyone else gallivanting around Fairfax County like the proud Northern Virginia kid I am. I went to work, went to a bar, went home and saw my dog for a little bit—just generic weekend stuff. So why am I so angry about this past weekend? Because I forgot, yet again, to go to a show I really wanted to see.

DJ Mike Relm, a great DJ, was at the Rock n' Roll Hotel in Northeast Washington, a sweet venue. I even wrote this show down in my daily planner, and I still did not go. Lucky for me, the show was canceled and I didn't miss anything. But what if it had not? I'd be sitting here, writing, having passed-up my opportunity to see Mike Relm in a venue smaller than the Patriot Center.

So I have decided to make this week's article a sort of note to myself that I need to stop making excuses for going to shows, but naturally I want all you readers to take the advice I am trying to give myself.

For those of you who are not familiar with DJ Mike Relm, you all should do a quick YouTube search for his name and try and understand his project. He is your average DJ, pretty sick on the turntables, and has a fantastic ear for pulling different music genres together. But his act contains a visual element you rarely find with other DJs. He takes famous scenes or clips from movies, TV, music videos and pretty much anything else he can find and mixes them within his beats. It is hard to write about, or even to explain to other people; it is easiest to understand if you just watch a video of his work. I recommend a search for “Mike Relm Live!”

Obviously my enthusiasm for Relm is far from feigned, which leads back into my utter frustration over the fact that I withered away my Saturday night drinking with my friends when I could have been at a visual-musical-dance-party experience. And while this time I simply forgot about the show, I find that, when it comes down to it, I make a lot of excuses for not going to shows.

It would be one thing if I did not live 15 miles from a bustling metropolis with a rich culture and active music scene, but I do. And it is not that hard to hop on the Metro and ride in for a few hours of entertainment and, if Metro is not an option, parking is never as bad as I think it is going to be. Money is hardly ever an excuse as shows at places like the Rock and Roll Hotel and the Black Cat rarely exceed $15 or $20, which is just as much as I would spend if I went to a Nationals game or out to eat with my friends.

So I hereby resolve that I am going to go to more shows, not just in Washington but in the entire metropolitan area. The previous paragraph proved that I do not have any excuses and, at the same time, I feel like through this artful dodging of live music I am missing something. I cannot discredit the show, the live performance, or the cultural spectacle for how important it is in the making of a great band and the progression of good music. A good band is going to be able to perform such that that you experience something beyond just sitting at home and listening to their album twenty-five times.

Every show I have been to has brought me into a more wonderful musical world than the one I existed in previously, from my first concert—Steely Dan at Nissan Pavilion in 2002—to the house show I went to last month. There is simply no substitute for live music.

And do not even begin to think that I am only talking about the rock/indie/punk shows that take place in our nation's capital every week. Why, just two weekends ago I went and saw the New York Philharmonic play an incredible concert at the Kennedy Center and, even if the NYP is not in town, you can still hear very excellent music being played by our own National Symphony Orchestra.

Washington also enjoys a rich jazz scene in Northwest, where clubs like Bohemian Caverns and Blues Alley book great musicians just about every weekend.

So I obviously know where to go, when to go, how to go, why to go and how much it will all cost—so why am I not going every weekend?

The past seven hundred words are my resolution, and I know it is not New Years yet, but I want to make this one a little early.