Last week was spring break and though the weather was not very spring like and I had to work, I was determined to check out some more live music. I wanted to get into DC and out of the five mile radius where I work, live and go to school. I did a google search and found a Yelp posting from someone looking to do the same. Someone replied to the post saying that he should check out the Velvet Lounge on U Street. I've used yelp to find a place to get my car fixed but never thought of using it to find live music.
The band playing that night was called The Mighty Heard. They're a Funk/R&B/Hip Hop group from DC and they formed 6 years ago. I'm so glad to find a band in this genre because moving here, I knew I'd get to hear more musical diversity than I'm used to living in Austin. As great as the music scene is in Austin, I don't consider there to be a strong R&B or Hip Hop community.
I'd been to the Velvet Lounge before but never to the music venue they house on the second level. Again, I'm very impressed with the sound guy's ability to handle multiple horns, percussion, two vocalists, two guitars, a bass and drums. The balance was so good and I didn't spend the whole show going, "geez, why is that guitar so loud?" Maybe there's a strong competition to land these sound engineering gigs here, because there are some really good sound guys in this town. I'll definitely return to Velvet Lounge again. It's a little dive-y, in a good way and it's in proximity to other places I plan to check out. As for The Heard, you should really hear them live. The music is danceable and fun but intermixes some songs with real social meaning. One song chronicles the lead singer's feeling of loss at having not met his biological father until he became an adult. I really appreciate when a band writes lyrics for sober people and puts them to beats for the drinkers.
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To address the topic of how I am beginning to make my blog more relevant to Google searches: I am beginning to add tags to my posts. I think using broad subject matter helps and linking to the sites of the venues I've visited helps also. Finally, in a couple of posts, I've talked about some pretty well known bands. I hope this connection also helps.
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