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Spelling for Bees Showcase @ Rock and Roll Hotel, Washington, D.C. – Dec. 9, 2009
Red Satellites performs at the Spelling for Bees showcase at the Rock and Roll Hotel. Photo by Alvionne.
A small but enthusiastic audience at the Rock and Roll Hotel Wednesday night got a taste of some home-grown indie bands through the first Spelling for Bees showcase.
Spelling for Bees, a “musical collective” founded by Mittenfields
member Dave Mann, already hosts an in-residency show at the Velvet Lounge the first Tuesday of each month. Every show has a theme; past nights have included “Radiohead” and “guilty pleasures.”
On Wednesday, however, four of the 40 bands in the collective got together to perform a solid three-hour show. Each of the bands, whose sounds ranged from folk to pop to heavy alternative rock, hails from the D.C. area, with one traveling up from Charlottesville, Va. for the event.
Folk-rock duo World’s Fair led off with a 20-minute set of sweetly-soft, wistful tunes. Backed by a capable drummer and fiddler, World’s Fair sounded like a warmer, livelier version of the Cowboy Junkies. The lead singer delicately sipped her coffee as she introduced original songs like the deceivingly cheerful “Let’s Be Friends, ” as well as a cover of Radiohead’s “Prove Yourself,” left over from their residency show. She also thanked the admittedly sparse crowd for being “so timely.”
Matthew Hemerlein’s set resembled a rousing game of “Name That Tune.” The skinny, heartrendingly earnest guitarist opened with a medley of the Pixies, Patsy Cline and “Kiss the Girl” (from Disney’s The Little Mermaid), followed by a cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” and two MGMT songs. His original stuff also sounded promising, with bluesy vocals and impressive guitar loops.
Charlottesville’s Red Satellites provided the most upbeat performance of the night. The glam-rock quintet gave the half-hour set their all, with frontman Kevin Hivick, Jr. channeling Bowie while prancing around stage in an oversize white dress shirt and green scarf. (He removed both midway through the set.) While the group’s members seemed to be barely out of high school, they all were well-versed in showmanship: the bassist often crouched during solos, and the pianist managed to keep playing as Hivick, Jr. lifted his keyboard off its stand. Guitarist Drew Carroll’s well-executed riffs kept their songs together.
Dangerósa, the final act of the evening, has a sound that is a little hard to describe – a dreamy amalgamation of alt. rock and experimental pop, buoyed by husband- and- wife Will Simpson and Avé Luke-Simpson’s melodic vocals. The group boasts a strong musical versatility: three of the five members played drums during their set, and two of the five played bass. A strong ending to a versatile show.
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Red Satellites really rocked the place down; in addition to their stage show the musicianship they showed was phenomenal. Their glam-rock with punk energy sort of brought to mind early Manic Street Preachers; plus the old school military jackets worn by a few members didn't hurt either.
Honestly, didn't catch much of World's Fair, but what I did see I liked, especially considering it was folk rock/ alt country (a genre that has gotten really un-original).
Matthew Hemerlein was really cool. Enjoyed his set a lot. His drummer was super tastful, and matthew put interesting twists to his covers.
Red Satellites was a pretty stark contrast to the other bands. Full of energy, stage antics, kinda punk in a way, but the songs had more structure . All the members were talented at their insturments and I really dug the drum sol0.
Being from DC I have allready found out Dangerosa is bad ass. Yes Yes Yes to the lap steel they whiped out with some crazy ambient noise that made a “rock” set seem dreamy (due to the vocals as well). Thought that maybe some musicianship was lost as they kept switching insturments but they actually did a really good job at it.
Sweet show, wish more people saw it