Title Tracks D.C./Baltimore shows in July

It's been a long year off with much happening (a new life, a Masters in Library Science, a new band) but Title Tracks will be returning for some shows this year.  First up, in July, we'll be playing D.C. and Baltimore on July 5th and 6th.  Check the shows section for more info.  I'm hoping to do more shows later on this year, as well as release some new material and finish up the covers project that I mentioned on here before.

Paint Branch

A few months ago, a new project of mine called Paint Branch released its first record.  You can hear/download it from paintbranch.bandcamp.com.  It's the first time that Chris Richards and I have worked together since Q And Not U split in 2005.  It doesn't sound like our old work, but it's of the same spirit.  Paint Branch will be playing some shows in 2013.

2012 Book List

Here's a list of the books that I read in 2012:

“The Other Eighties” – Bradford Martin

“Retromania” – Simon Reynolds

“Everybody Loves Our Town” – Mark Yarm

“What It Was” – George Pelecanos

“Trust Me” – George Kennedy

“Hip: The History” – John Leland

“Difficult Loves” – Italo Calvino

“Into The Vinyl Deeps” – Ellen Willis

“Play Ball” – John Feinstein

“Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga” – Ian Christe

“It’s So Easy (And Other Lies)” – Duff McKagan

“Bringing Adam Home” – Les Standiford and Joe Matthews

“AC/DC: Maximum Rock N Roll” – Murray Engleheart and Arnaud Durieux

“Fire And Rain: The Lost Story Of 1970” – David Browne

“Bossypants” – Tina Fey

“Night” – Elie Wiesel

“Murder In Georgetown” – Margaret Truman

“Murder At The Library Of Congress” – Margaret Truman

“Faking It” – Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor

“In Cold Blood” – Truman Capote

“How The Beatles Destroyed Rock And Roll” – Elijah Wald

“The Summer Of ‘68” – Tim Wendel

“In The Garden Of Beasts” – Erik Larson

“Horror After 9/11” – Aviva Briefel and Sam J. Miller (Eds.)

“Killer Show” – John Barylick

“Atlantic” - Simon Winchester

“Stone Arabia” – Dana Spiotta

“Paul McCartney: A Life” – Peter Ames Carlin

“The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” – Robert Louis Stevenson

“Bluebeard’s Egg” – Margaret Atwood

“Supercapitalism” – Robert Reich

Downed City Rise

Getting to grow up in the Washington, D.C. punk and indie scene in the 1990s was an incredible privilege. I went to my my first proper punk show in the spring of 1992 (Fugazi, L7, and Bikini Kill at the Sanctuary Theater) and things went up from there. I went to my first club show in the spring of 1993, seeing The High-Back Chairs and Manifesto at the 9:30 Club. The Black Cat wasn't open yet (they emerged later that year), so it was hard to get into clubs to see shows if you were underage. The shows that Positive Force put on were, and still are, vital ways for people of all ages to hear new and challenging music. I'll always be grateful to them for the work they've done and continue to do.

For whatever reason, I saved many of the fliers and setlists and various ephemera from shows that I went to (or wanted to go to) throughout the 1990s. For a long time, I'd been meaning to digitize the fliers and now I've finally started to work on that (with some help from two grad school classmates). I'm posting images of the materials at downedcityrise.tumblr.com. I add something new every couple of days. Once I finish digitizing my own collection, I hope to do the same for the stuff that other friends saved ... though I suppose I'll worry about that when I'm done with my own collection.

Not everything has aged very well from that musical period, but there is still plenty of D.C. music from the 1990s that stands up and remains exciting -- Fugazi, The Nation Of Ulysses, Tsunami, Hoover, Velocity Girl, Jawbox, Cupid Car Club, Unrest, and others. I like the idea of people finding out about some of this music and I hope that if you come across a band name that you're unfamiliar with, you might track down some of their music. There was so much going on at that time and much of it isn't really represented online, so I hope this is one small step toward rectifying that.

A sort of quiet 2012

Hi everyone. Just wanted to let you know that, despite the relatively quiet year for Title Tracks, all is still active here. It's been a really busy year for me, personally, as I'm finishing up my Masters degree in Library and Information Science and I became a father this year. So, music has had to take more of a back seat this year than it has in a very long time for me. It's been good to take a bit of a break, though, to really realize how exciting and special music is and how fortunate I have been to get to work with so many great people and see so many places. I'm eager to get back to it in 2013.

That's not to say that I haven't been working on music at all in 2012. Chris Richards (my old Q And Not U bandmate) and I have a new project called Paint Branch and we'll be releasing our first full-length record to digital outlets (only digital, as of now) in 2013. It's very different from anything either of us have done before. We'll be talking more about all of it very soon.

I've been working on Title Tracks projects, too. Last year, I thought that it might be cool to record all of the different covers that Title Tracks has played at shows over the past few years. We've done everything from Otis Redding's "Security" to The Wipers' "Telepathic Love" to 3's "Swann Street" to The Merseybeats' "I Stand Accused" and on and on. I've been working on recording all of those over the past year and should finish that project up soon and I hope to release it for free online in 2013.

The project inspired me to do the same thing for all of the different acoustic songs I've played at solo shows or at various events where I had the chance to play quieter tunes. From Richard and Linda Thompson's "Withered and Died" to The Louvin Brothers' "Alabama" to Buck Owens' "Loose Talk," etc. I've recorded a bunch of those songs, too, and I hope to get them out for people to hear next year. It's just a fun thing to let people hear Title Tracks' take on some of those great songs. As release plans for all of those projects come together, I'll post news.

There won't be any other shows in 2012, but both Title Tracks and Paint Branch will be playing shows in 2013 and I'm really looking forward to getting back out there again. See you soon. - John

July Show

Title Tracks will be playing a show with The Promise Ring at the 9:30 Club here in D.C. on July 20. We're really looking forward to the show and it'll be great to play with them. I saw The Promise Ring play a bunch of times in D.C. back during their initial run -- Happy Hardcore House in '96, Black Cat in '97 and again at Black Cat in '99 when Q And Not U opened for them (a show at which we were very nervous, surly, combative and probably not very friendly due to our competitive tendencies!). Title Tracks had the pleasure of playing a show last spring in Madison, WI where Davey played a solo set, so it's great to see TPR back at it again and to have the chance for TT to play a show with them, too. If you're in D.C. or thereabouts, I hope you can make it.

April Shows

Hey everyone. We're going to be doing a weekend of shows in April. We're playing Comet Ping Pong in D.C. on Friday April 6th and we play April 7th in Philly at Kung Fu Necktie. More details to come.