When Jamie Darken first began writing the songs that would appear on his debut solo EP, Burial, he imagined he was crafting demos for Cherry Ames, a local Washington DC area indie-rock band that Darken performs as vocalist, guitarist, and bassist. With Cherry Ames on hiatus amidst the global shutdown and performing in venues unavailable as an option, Darken’s drive to make progress with the ideas on his own eventually brought the tracks to the place where it simply felt right to release as his own project. The result is five songs written, produced, and performed by Darken, with the exception of leading single “This Could Be Your Home” co-written with fellow DC area musician Christopher Mathews-Larsen.

In 2015, Jake Mimikos formed the Frontier and he hasn’t looked back. He has been featured on NPR, Netflix, The CW, MTV and more! The frontier is a one-man indie/acoustic project emerging from the D.C. area that combines a number of different genres including indie rock and acoustic. The band currently works with producer Austin Bello and has been creating some really interesting music! We got the opportunity to interview him, and wanted to share what we learned.

The 2021 DC Music Summit is going virtual! While I’ll miss the in-person opportunity to network, the DCMS team, headed by founder Dior Ashley Brown, is working hard to recreate the networking experience, live music performance, and educational workshops that attendees have come to expect from this Wammie Award winning annual event.

Organizations and events like DC Music Summit help put a spotlight on local music industry leaders and highlight the diverse and inclusive creative culture and community that has continued to thrive within the DMV music scene. I’m excited to be presenting one of the many educational workshops with topics ranging from music publishing to personal health and wellness taking place at the event happening May 21 & 22

If you haven’t heard of Kid Travis yet, you are missing out. He’s also a neighboring member of the DMV as he hails from Bristol, PA, which is a bit North of Philadelphia. He started out making music in 2013, and has had some serious growth in the past few years. He has become somewhat of a YouTube sensation by making covers of famous artists tracks, and even got Post Malone to call him a “Gangster”. Lately he’s been focusing on creating his own original tracks, that have been gaining even more traction. We got the opportunity to interview him, which you can check out below while listening to one of his newest tracks, “WON’T LET ME GO”. (theirs a special treat at the end as well)

U Street knows how to party. When World War II formally ended in 1945, residents of Northwest took to the street, cheering and celebrating the Allied victory. The neighborhood had also erupted in joy in 1937 when Joe Louis became boxing’s heavyweight champion.

The 21st century has seen U Street continue its merry tradition of revelry, thanks to the Funk Parade, which began in 2013 thanks to an enterprising entrepreneur named Justin Rood. He had a dream of a “low rumble” coming down U Street that was soon accompanied by a marching band and his neighbors all cheering—almost as if New Orleans had come to the capital city.

Discovering new things is one of life’s greatest gifts. Whether it is food or love or music, the thrill of being exposed to something you were otherwise unaware of and now have become fascinated with is a feeling that can’t be manufactured. As a music editor I have the pleasure of not only discovering new music but also exposing it and sharing it with the public. Case in point? The unsigned indie band Yellow Tie Guy. Catchy hooks and uplifting lyric themes are only part of the picture. I caught up with the band’s leader Daniel Hill to discuss the band’s growth, the origins of the name and their latest single, “Jailbreak.”