2005 Shamrock Festival

The 2005 Shamrock Festival, presented by HiBall Events, with proceeds going to Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN), will take place in the Ballston section of Arlington on Saturday, March 12 from noon to 9pm. The event will feature 20 acts on four stages, along six city blocks. The entrance to the event is located approximately one block from the Ballston stop on Metro's Orange Line.

Official SXSW Schedule Announced

The official schedule for the 2005 South By Southwest Music Festival and Conference, taking place March 16-20 in Austin, Texas, is now online at www.sxsw.com.

Details for Texas Roadtrip Finals

The finals for the singer/songwriter portion of the On Tap Texas Roadtrip contest get started at 10pm this Saturday, February 26, at the Silver Spring Austin Grill.

Billy Coulter, Kristin Putchinski, Josh Stack, Laura Tsaggaris, Taylor Carson and Justin Jones will be competing for the chance to play on 6th Street in Austin, Texas during the South By Southwest Music Festival in March. Eric Hutchinson was originally scheduled to perform in the finals, but will be unable to, due to a show he is playing in Pennsylvania that same night. According to On Tap, Putchinski, who finished second to Hutchinson in week number three of the contest, will be taking his place.

Six Points 2005 Line-Up

The Six Points Music Festival 2005 line-up will be announced next week. Due to the amount of time it took the selection committee to listen to each of the 160 submissions, the line-up was not ready to be announced yesterday as scheduled. But, the committee has finished with all the material and is in the process of determining the final line-ups. For more on this, stay tuned to the Six Points Music Festival blog.

ArlingtonMusicScene.com Turns Four

This Saturday, February 26, will mark the 4th anniversary of the ArlingtonMusicScene.com Yahoo Group, which has grown to over 900 members in its four years online, with over 14,000 messages posted during that time. Click here here to enter the Yahoo Group.

Vocalist Pam Bricker Passes Away

As reported in a Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) Mini-News email earlier today and in this post to The Washington Post's Entertainment Blog, jazz vocalist Pam Bricker took her own life this past Sunday. Known for her performances at D.C. venues such as U-topia, as well as for her vocal work with Thievery Corporation, Bricker had been performing in the Metro region since the early '80s. In 1989, Bricker appeared on the main stage at the Monterey Jazz Festival. To learn more about Bricker's career, click here to view the biography section of her website.

Texas Roadtrip: Band Competition Round 3

Monopoli were the winners on Saturday night, in the final week of the band portion of the On Tap Texas Roadtrip competition at Continental Modern Pool Lounge in Rosslyn. This earns them a slot to perform on 6th Street in Austin, Texas during this year's South By South West Music Festival, along with the previous two week's winners, No Second Troy and Getaway Car.

The finals for the singer/songwriter portion of the contest will take place this Saturday, February 26, at the Silver Spring Austin Grill, with Billy Coulter, Eric Hutchinson, Josh Stack, Laura Tsaggaris, Taylor Carson and Justin Jones competing for the singer/songwriter slot.

WAMA Education Panel On February 28

On Monday, February 28, the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) will present "Thinking Outside the Box," a panel discussion on building an audience through creative production, marketing, and promotion of your music, with guest speakers Blake Althen, Jennifer Cutting, Rachel Panay and Mary Sue Twohy. The panel will take place from 6:30-8:30pm at the Charles Sumner School in Washington, D.C. More details are available in the seminars section of the WAMA wesbite and in this post to the ArlingtonMusicScene.com Yahoo Group.

WETA Changes Formats

Last week, the board of directors for WETA, which broadcasts at 90.9 FM in the Washington area, announced a switch to a news-talk format from their current format of mostly classical-music, as reported here by The Washington Post.

Texas Roadtrip: Week 6 Results

Justin Jones was the winner tonight in round #6 of the singer/songwriter portion of the On Tap Texas Roadtrip competition at the Austin Grill in Silver Spring. He joins the winners from the previous five weeks--Billy Coulter, Eric Hutchinson, Josh Stack, Laura Tsaggaris and Taylor Carson--in the finals, scheduled for Saturday, February 26, which will also take place at the Silver Spring Austin Grill.

Six Points Submissions

The deadline for submissions for the Six Points Music Festival 2005 has past and the selection committee has begun reviewing the materials. In this post to the ArlingtonMusicScene.com Yahoo Group, Six Points band selection committee chairperson Melissa DePaulis reports that 159 submissions were received overall. She also mentions that the festival line-up will be announced on Thursday, February 24.

The Six Points Music Festival 2005 will take place April 7 through 11 at venues in Arlington and other parts of the D.C. Metro Area. More information on the festival is available here.

Happy Hour Wednesday

The next ArlingtonMusicScene.com happy hour is this Wednesday, February 16, from 6pm to 8pm, at IOTA Club and Cafe in Arlington, Virginia. These are designed to give musicians, music industry professionals, music fans and anyone else who would like to attend, the opportunity to network outside of the typical show scene. There will be no music, other than what's on the CD player, giving people a chance to meet people, discuss ideas and network with one another. Basically, it's a chance to get together once a month, have a couple drinks and talk music or whatever you'd like. If you get there and don't recognize anyone, look for the people with the masking tape nametags.

IOTA's weekly open mic will follow the happy hour, for those who want to play or catch some live music that night. Sign up for that is at 8:30pm.

IOTA is located along Wilson Blvd., two and half blocks from the Clarendon stop on Metro's Orange Line. Directions and other information about the club is available at www.iotaclubandcafe.com.

You can also post questions about the happy hour to the Arlington Music Scene Yahoo Group. Click here or on the link in the right-hand column to enter. The group now has over 900 subscribed members.

Texas Roadtrip: Band Competition Round #2

The band portion of the On Tap Texas Roadtrip competition continued on Saturday night at Continental Modern Pool Lounge in Rosslyn. Getaway Car was this week's winner, earning a chance to perform on 6th Street in Austin, Texas during the South By South West Music Festival in March.

This Tuesday will be the last semi-final round in the singer/songwriter portion of the competition, with the grand finale taking place on Saturday, February 26. For more details on the contest click here.

Wammie Results

A list of winners from last Monday's 19th Annual Wammie awards is available here on the WAMA website and writer Sean Daly provides a recap of the evening in his Washington Post article on the event.

For some commentary on the awards or to give your opinion, click here to visit the "Post-Wammies Concerns" thread in the ArlingtonMusicScene.com Yahoo Group. The discussion there has generated various ideas on how the Wammie nomination and voting process could be improved.

Texas Roadtrip: Week 5 Results

Last night, Taylor Carson advanced to the finals in week number five of the singer/songwriter portion of On Tap's Texas Roadtrip. Click here to read Josh Stack's first hand account on the ArlingtonMusicScene.com Yahoo Group.

Six Points Today, Wammies Tonight

Today is the deadline for Six Points Music Festival submissions to be postmarked by. The submission form and more information on the festival, which will take place in the Arlington/Washington, D.C. area April 7 through 11, are available here.

The 19th Annual Wammie Awards take place this evening at the new Music Center at Strathmore Hall. The Music Center opened Saturday night, with a black-tie, invitation-only event and tonight's Wammie Awards will be the first public event held at the new 1,976 seat concert hall in Bethesda. Click here to read Richard Harrington's article from The Washington Post Weekend section about the Wammies' new home.

Tonight's Wammie performers include: Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band; Tom Principato; Jennifer Cutting's Ocean Orchestra with Special Guests: Slaveya (12-voice women's Balkan chorus); Hillbilly Jazz featuring Chick Hall with John Previti, Jim Stephanson and Brooks Teglar; Pat McGee Band; Ellis Paul; Root Boy Slim Tribute featuring Tommy Lepson, Ron Holloway, Deanna Bogart, Ernie Lancaster, Marshall Keys, Dan Hovey, Torro Gamble, Scott Ambush, John Zidar, Jim Orr, and original Rootettes Cherie Grasso and Dick Bangham; and EU featuring Sugar Bear.

For ticket information, click here to visit the WAMA wesbite.

Texas Roadtrip: Band Competition Round #1

The singer/songwriter portion of the On Tap Texas Roadtrip Competition has been underway for four weeks, but the band competition just got started last night at Continental Modern Pool Lounge in Rosslyn, where the group No Second Troy won, earning a chance to perform on 6th Street in Austin, Texas during the South By South West Music Festival in March.

Round #5 of the singer/songwriter portion of the competition takes place this coming Tuesday at the Austin Grill Silver Spring and Round #2 of the band portion will be held next Saturday at Continental.

Strathmore Music Center Opens

The Music Center at Strathmore opened last night, with an invitation-only, black-tie event that featured music by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Yuri Temirkanov. Pictures of the new 1,976 seat concert hall and opening night are available in this Washington Post slide show.

Opening Night Press:
Music Center At Strathmore Opens
The Washington Post - Sunday, February 6, 2005

Strathmore Hall's sounds, sights get raves at its debut
Baltimore Sun - Sunday, February 6, 2005

WashingtonPost.com Wammies Chat

On Friday, February 4 at noon, you can participate in the WashingtonPost.com Live Online chat with Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) President Mike Schreibman and Strathmore Vice President of Programming Shelley Brown, as they discuss the 19th Annual Wammies. Click here to submit your questions in advance.

UPDATE: An article about the new Music Center at Strathmore appears on the front page of today's Washington Post. It includes a picture of the inside of the nearly 2,000 seat venue. Click here to view the article. Registration is required to read this article on washingtonpost.com.

6pts Update

An update on the Six Points Music Festival has been posted at this link on the ArlingtonMusicScene.com Yahoo Group. Also, submissions from potential performers must be postmarked by this coming Monday, February 7, 2005. The submission form and additional information on the festival are available here.

Texas Roadtrip: Week 4 Results

In Round #4 of the singer/songwriter portion of the On Tap Texas Roadtrip competition at the Silver Spring Austin Grill, Laura Tsaggaris emerged as the winner and advances to the finals, where she will face week one's winner Billy Coulter, week two's winner Eric Hutchinson, week three's winner Josh Stack and the winners of the next two weeks.

Round #1 of the band competition takes place this Saturday, February 5, at Continental Modern Pool Lounge in Rosslyn with Bicycle Thieves, Brother Shamus and No Second Troy competing.

Post Site Highlights Wammie Nominees

In a new article on WashingtonPost.com/mp3, Maria Villafana highlights some of the nominees in the 19th Annual Wammies, leading up to the event Monday night at Strathmore. She links to mp3s, where you can hear nominees in Hip-Hop and Rap, Roots Rock and Rock and General Awards.

The article also mentions that WashingtonPost.com Live Online will host a chat this Friday, February 4, at noon, with WAMA President Mike Schreibman and Strathmore Vice President of Programming Shelley Brown.