Friday: Yesterday & Today: DC Does Dischord Release Party at the Black Cat

D.C.-based label For the Love of Records is putting on a show to celebrate the release of their new compilation album. Entitled Yesterday & Today: DC Does Dischord, the LP is a tribute to the area’s hardcore punk heritage by some of the DMV’s most exciting artists. In case you’re new in town: Part of the reason D.C. occupies such a prominent place in punk history is Dischord Records. Started by former members of the band Teen Idles in the early ’80s, Dischord was initially run out of bassist Ian MacKaye’s parents’ house in Arlington. At Dischord, record sleeves were glued together by hand, and DIY was simultaneously a necessity and a quasi-religion. The label exploded into prominence with the founding of MacKaye’s next band Minor Threat, which released their first album in 1981. Inspired by another D.C. band, Bad Brains, Minor Threat are perhaps as iconic to D.C. as the Clash are to London and Black Flag are to Los Angeles. But Minor Threat and other Dischord bands were different beasts entirely, punk boiled down to its austere core, virulently opposed to all “rock ’n’ roll bullshit” as Dischord band Government Issue once put it. Thanks to the scene centered around Dischord, the District became a hive of iconoclastic experimentation. D.C. hardcore became a genre unto itself, and later Fugazi (a sort of Dischord supergroup composed of members from Deadline, One Last Wish, and Minor Threat) blended punk with reggae and funk to establish post-hardcore. Dischord bands like Beefeater and Embrace have even been credited as progenitors of “emo,” though that genre’s genealogy remains hotly debated. It’s no wonder For the Love of Records had to pull from such a variety of styles to properly pay tribute. On Yesterday & Today, a project conceptualized and organized by Celebration Summer bassist Greg Raelson, you’ve got everything from throwback punk in the vein of the Jam (Dot Dash) and hyper-caffeinated pop punk (Brace Face) to hardcore (Supreme Commander) and hip-hop (Breezy Supreme). Celebration Summer have a track on there too. When talking about his own music, local rapper Breezy Supreme practically sounds like he could be a Dischord artist straight out of the summer of 1985. “Everybody wants to be a trap rapper and talk about the same stuff as the next person,” Breezy said in an interview with Hip-Hop Junction. “I want to be myself and stand out and not sound like everybody else just to fit in.” The release party will, of course, include performances from many of the aforementioned acts. It’s all ages, and the proceeds will go to We Are Family D.C., a grassroots organization that provides services and advocacy to underserved seniors. Yesterday & Today: DC Does Dischord release party starts at 7 p.m. on July 5 at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com. $20. —Will Lennon

Friday: The Sixth Sense at Congressional Cemetery 

There’s no shortage of outdoor film screenings in the DMV, but not nearly enough in cemeteries. Thankfully, we have one: Cinematery at the Congressional Cemetery. After its 2023 series featuring the films of Tim Burton, the 2024 Cinematery series is somehow even better this year with its Summer of Spirits lineup. Of the four films screening (Beetlejuice played in May, The Haunted Mansion screens in August, and Casper in September), The Sixth Sense is the most appropriate to be seen where you might just see dead people. While the film introduced the world to M. Night Shyamalan and his signature twist endings, it is a flick that’s just as enjoyable when you know the twist. It’s not the easiest sell to convince someone to see a movie that seemingly everyone in the world has seen, but sometimes the setting is just as important as the feature and there’s no better setting to see this movie. Bonus, you too can also see dead people. Kind of. Finally, Independence Day is entirely too loud. Fireworks are a public nuisance. You may want to be in a quiet place watching a quiet film the day after July 4. The Sixth Sense will screen at 8:45 or 9 p.m. on July 5 at the Congressional Cemetery, 1801 E St. SE. congressionalcemetery.org. $10. —Brandon Wetherbee

Opens Saturday: Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage at the Phillips Collection

Intersectionality is more than a buzzword for the Phillips Collection, where the exhibit Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage opens this Saturday, July 6. Organized by the Frist Art Museum in Nashville and described as “monumental,” the exhibition showcases more than 50 pieces across three floors and two buildings. Themes span the human and Black experiences—particularly how history, memory, and beauty are constructed, like collages, in the mind—as evidenced by the exhibit’s strong structure, divided into six sequenced sections: “Fragmentation and Reconstruction,” “Excavating  History and Memory,” “Cultural Hybridity,” “Notions of Beauty and Power,” “Gender Fluidity and Queer Spaces,” and, finally, “Toward Abstraction.” Kat Delmez, curator of Multiplicity and senior curator at the Frist, says in the press release that 21st-century “collage is an arguably understudied and undervalued medium, especially in museum exhibitions.” Seeking to portray the diversity of the Black American experience, the 49 Black American artists whose pieces are on display range from emerging creatives to leaders in the field, including Mark Bradford, Lauren Halsey, Wangechi Mutu, Deborah Roberts, Mickalene Thomas, and Kara Walker. Explaining and exploring collage techniques to visitors is a main goal of Multiplicity, with the first exhibit section and film interviews with 11 of the artists focused on the topic. The Phillips Collection has a number of community programs built out around the exhibit, evincing an all-in dedication to the concept, including artist-led conversations and artist-guided, hands-on collage-making sessions. Multiplicity opens July 6 and runs through September 22 at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St. NW. phillipscollection.org. $10–$20. —Allison R. Shely

Tuesday: Daphne Eckman at Alethia Tanner Park

There has been growing and long-overdue acknowledgment for the artistic merit of the genre of “sad girl indie rock” in recent years, thanks in no small part to the rise of Phoebe Bridgers and boygenius. Locally, our music scene is all the richer for Daphne Eckman’s arrival. Eckman’s music feels ready-made for an outdoor summer concert. It’s emotional without being oppressive, substantive while also melodic, and, most importantly, its composition of country, folk, and rock goes well with sitting on a beach towel and drinking from a plastic cup. The Annapolis-based “professional over-feeler” has opened for Vanessa Carlton and Nancy Wilson of Heart. In January, she and her four-piece band, informally known as “the ladies,” released their first album, Where You Left Me, mixed exquisitely at Sweetfoot Studios in Easton, Maryland. The album is built around “Story” (which Eckman says was inspired in part by Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”), a song about unrequited infatuation. That said, a better starting point is the instantly infectious “Jackson Pollock,” which sounds a bit like the more upbeat work from Laura Stevenson’s catalog. Acolytes of Bridgers, Waxahatchee, and early Angel Olsen are facing no shortage of content these days, but they (we) should still make time to check out Where You Left Me (bonus: that sax riff on “Acupuncture” is pretty sweet) and see Eckman live. If all that’s not enough to sell you, she sometimes encores with a cover of Metric’s “Black Sheep,” the best song from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World … at least according to people with good taste, aka fans of “sad girl indie rock.” Daphne Eckman plays at 6:30 p.m. on June 9 at Alethia Tanner Park, 227 Harry Thomas Way NE. eventbrite.com. Free. —Will Lennon

Tuesday: Emily Nussbaum at Politics and Prose 

Emily Nussbaum has been one of the most thoughtful voices on reality television, and TV in general, in the past few decades. Her first book, I Like To Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution, published in 2019, is a must-read for any Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Sopranos fan. Her newest book, the just-published Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV, tackles the less prestigious programming on your television (or computer or phone screen). Her regular work in The New Yorker tends to go viral for good reason. Her May 20 piece, “Is ‘Love Is Blind’ a Toxic Workplace?,” answered the question most every viewer of the extremely popular Netflix series has asked themselves and led to her recent appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air. Nussbaum’s essays and original reporting are both top-notch. Whether she’s writing about the show that helped usher in our current reality such as The Real World or the best of the best scripted programs, she puts an immense amount of thought and consideration into each subject. That goes for the trashy stuff too. Really, there’s no reason the trashy content doesn’t deserve as much thought as the prestige TV that dominated screens during the first decades of this century. Nussbaum is one of the few remaining must-read critics for good reason and if you’ve ever wanted to ask her opinion on your current favorite bingeable show, here’s your best opportunity. Emily Nussbaum speaks at 7 p.m. on July 9 at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. politics-prose.com  Free with first come, first serve seating, copies of the book are $30. —Brandon Wetherbee

Ongoing: Good Sports at Photoworks

More than most types of photography, sports photography relies on luck. Not that good sports photographers can’t perfect their skills to the point where they increase the likelihood of capturing a great image when it presents itself, but this still means their work is dependent on lots of things beyond their control: How close they are to a photogenic play; whether another player gets in the way during the wrong split second; how the light hits at a given hour; what kind of reaction an athlete makes. The exhibit Good Sports at Photoworks is consistently strong, but the photographers surely know that in none of these images were they entirely in control of their destiny. In this exhibit juried by John McDonnell, a recently retired 45-year veteran of the Washington Post’s photography staff, the first place image by Phil Fabrizio captures women’s volleyballers mid-celebration. In this case, no celebration, no photograph. In the third place image, of a rodeo participant trying to control his animal, Ayln Brereton likely would have gotten a worthwhile image just by showing up at the rodeo, but the glorious eruption of mud that almost obscures the subject’s body depends entirely on the rain that doused the ring before the event, while Soufiane Laamine’s image of a surfer under a towering blue wave wouldn’t exist were it not for the precise timing of a primal force of nature. A few other contributors are able to shape their work to a greater degree than others, such as Nicolas Polo, whose rodeo images are notable for their mood, which stems from his wise use of black-and-white film. But the finest work is by second place finisher Elizabeth Billman, who contributed two images, one of football action and the other of a runner racing with a baton. Both are composed with dreamy, relentlessly sideways motion. Used constantly, this approach could become cliche. Here, it enables Billman to stand out from the pack. Good Sports runs through July 21 at Photoworks, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo. Saturdays, 1 to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 7 p.m. glenechophotoworks.org. Free. — Louis Jacobson