Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Green Room is a series previewing, reviewing and featuring the bands and artists that play in Vienna. Musical comedy duo brings Putting The Ha! In Hanukkah Tour to Jammin' Java on Saturday
If Rob Tannenbaum is half as funny onstage as he is just talking, it really must be something to see. When I compliment him on the video, "They Tried To Kill Us," featuring him and musical partner David Fagin, he starts with the wisecracks. "It was supposed to be directed by David Fincher," he said. "But he canceled on us at the last minute." I mention that I'm not fond of Fincher, all those murky browns and greens in his films. "No," he's great, Tannenbaum said. "You know how I know that? His movies make a lot of money! Same thing with Steve Spielberg." Expect a similar sort of zaniness on Saturday at Jammin' Java when Tannenbaum and Fagin, aka "Good For The Jews," bring their truly hysterical, catchy, unrepentantly off-color comic songs …
38.90476
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Jammin' Java
227 Maple Ave E, Vienna, VA
/articles/green-room-good-for-the-jews
371563
/locations/6060138
Sunday, December 4, 2011
The Green Room is a series previewing, reviewing and featuring the bands and artists that play in Vienna. Promising teen newcomer Sammy Hakim plays Jammin' Java
Sammy Hakim is full of contradictions. One minute she seems very young, the next like a wise old soul. She loves new, mainstream acts like Adele and Lady Gaga, but says her songwriting was influenced by the New Wave sounds of the brilliantly bitter and twisted Elvis Costello. She can talk about school talent shows one minute and "learning the business side of music" the next. Want to hear the work of this promising young singer/songwriter? You'll need to go to Jammin' Java on Sunday afternoon. "I'm 15, but I'll be 16 in, oh, about two weeks," said Hakim in the girlish voice of a high school student. She, at once, sounds whip-smart, but also still quite capable of crushes and writing band names on her notebook. "A couple of years ago, a …
38.90476
-77.2612
Jammin' Java
227 Maple Ave E, Vienna, VA
/articles/green-room-what-makes-sammy-run
371563
/locations/5940171
Friday, October 7, 2011
The Green Room is a series previewing, reviewing and featuring the bands and artists that play in Vienna. Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes plays Saturday at Jammin' Java
Onstage, Rich Robinson may look aloof, indifferent, even angry, when he's playing guitar. But it's just a look, one imagines, that reflects the intensity he feels for the music. In conversation, Robinson is a gentle, decent dude, who even puts up with the most far-fetched questions a journalist can throw at him. And his new solo album, "Through A Crooked Sun," due out on Oct. 11? That was a piece of cake, he says. "This was maybe the easiest album that I've ever made," Robinson said. "The songs just flowed. So, it's a surprise to hear from you, my friends, even my dad, that the tunes are so different from the stuff I do with The Crowes." He will, no doubt, be sharing plentiful amounts of songs from this disc when he plays Jammin' Java on …
38.90476
-77.2612
Jammin' Java
227 Maple Ave E, Vienna, VA
/articles/the-green-room-as-the-crowe-flies-solo
371563
/locations/5547385
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A rare solo show at Jammin' Java by one of Boston's finest
Joe Pernice is that rare musical artist who has his head in the clouds and his feet on the ground. As the leader of The Pernice Brothers, he makes dizzying, dazzling pop music, the kind that makes the audience feel like there's too much oxygen in the room. And yet, as a businessman, he's got his thing together, making the records he wants to make, selling as many as he needs to, licensing songs to the right companies. To paraphrase The T Rex song, Pernice is a 21st Century Boy. Very knowing, pretty unflappable, unwilling to let music business troubles interrupt his flow of great songs. And you can see this together guy on Friday when he brings his catchy songs, his way with a phrase, and yes, his beard, to Jammin' Java in Vienna. "I came …
38.90476
-77.2612
Jammin' Java
227 Maple Ave E, Vienna, VA
/articles/green-room-pop-goes-joe-pernice
371563
/locations/5190634
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Singer/songwriter Garland Jeffreys comes Thursday to Jammin' Java
In rock-n-roll, it's almost impossible to imagine an artist, who, 40 years in, has made his masterpiece. It's a short list. But you can ink in Garland Jeffreys' name right near the top. His newest record, "The King Of In Between," sports all the musical styles with which Jeffreys is so versed: cool, caffeinated, streetwise rock, revved-up soul, folk, ska. This time he's added city and country-blues to the mix. All the while grafting his sassy, insouciant, street poetry onto these songs. Maybe, just maybe, the best lyrics he's ever written. For a guy known for "Wild In The Streets," "35 Millimeter Dreams" and "Matador," that's saying somethin'. Jeffreys brings both his new work and his cult classics to Jammin' Java on Thursday. "I don't …
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Band returns to Vienna for a free performance on Sunday
Make way for the banjo. And the fiddles. The Annapolis Bluegrass Coalition is back for its sixth performance at The Community Center this Sunday. The band, together for 10 years, has five members: Roger Green on guitar, lead and harmony vocals; Dan Kimball on mandolin, lead and tenor vocals; Sue Tice on fiddle, and harmony vocals; Bob Tice on banjo, and harmony vocals and Jim Duvall on the acoustic bass fiddle -- all members of the Washington Area Musicians Association. They've toured around the mid-atlantic hoping to spread their own love of the bluegrass tradition to audiences young and old. They released their debut album, "Foolish Pleasure," a collection that boasted mostly original songs by Green, in September of 2003. Their second CD…
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The Green Room is a weekly series previewing, reviewing and featuring the bands and artists in Vienna. The trio The Independent will release an EP at Jammin Java on Saturday
Guitarist and singer/songwriter Dan Goldberger started The Independent at the end of 2008 as "a vehicle for his small, but quickly growing pool of songs." The Northern Virginia pop-eclectic trio, which includes John Werthmann on drums and John Nugent on bass, are launching an EP on Saturday at Jammin' Java. Vienna Patch caught up with Goldberger this week to ask about the show, his beginnings and the band's influences. Vienna Patch: It took about 20 years from the time you had the idea for the band, to the time when it came together in a full group. What was the process like? When did you finally feel cohesive? Dan Goldberger: [It was 20 years from] 1989, the year of my birth, to 2008, the formal beginning of "The Independent." The idea…
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Bill Kirchen and his annual Honky-Tonk Holiday Show comes to Jammin' Java.
Singer Bill Kirchen has lived in Southern Maryland for the past 24 years, and has played an annual holiday show at Jammin' Java for many of them. But this year, it was going on a tour with his band to the Middle East and Palestine that put him in the Christmas spirit. "We played refugee camps and played with Israeli musicians, with Arabic musicians and with little kids. It was a extremely soulful experience," he said. "I went to Bethlehem and toured Old Jerusalem. I am not really a church guy but that's where three major religions grew up and it really puts me in the Christmas spirit." Kirchen is back at Jammin' Java on Dec. 17 for the annual Honky-Tonk Holiday show, which will feature holiday songs and songs from Kirchen's new album "…
38.90476
-77.2612
Jammin' Java
227 Maple Ave E, Vienna, VA
/articles/the-green-room-bill-kirchen
371563
/locations/2766825
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Blues guitarist Chris Smither comes to The Barns at Wolftrap
It was 50 years ago that a teenaged Chris Smither entered and won a folk Battle of the Bands competition in New Orleans, a moment he said made him know he wanted to perform for a living. "It's a contagious thing," the now 65-year-old Smither said. "I think audiences recognize the fact that you still love what you're doing, which is why I'm still doing this today. I'm still changing and growing in some ways. If you're interested in it yourself, it goes a long way." Smither spent the '60s playing guitar in Paris, New Orleans, New York and Cambridge, and found his first taste of professional success in 1969 with his blues-inspired "Love You Like A Man," which he played at a club in front of Bonnie Raitt. The song became one of Raitt's most …
38.93931
-77.26725
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
1551 Trap Rd, Vienna, VA
/articles/the-green-room-chris-smither
372596
/locations/2358881
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The Green Room is a weekly series previewing, reviewing and featuring the bands and artists in Vienna. This week's artist is the Momentary Prophets, who play Oct. 30 at The Soundry.
Ted Packard doesn't think of the Momentary Prophets as a jam band, though people sometimes describe them that way (including the band itself on its Myspace page). He considers their sound "progressive pop world folk." "The thing that unifies us is that all three of us have always been crazy about The Beatles and Led Zeppelin," Packard says of his bandmates Jake Hull and Logan Byrd. That love for a diverse array of music led the string trio to teach themselves the instruments they play on stage. Hull is the only member with formal music training, with a degree in music history and ethnomusicology. Whether one of their songs starts out as a complete set of lyrics or just a guitar riff, they like to get together as a group and work it out, …
38.9049
-77.26811
The Soundry
316 Dominion Rd NE, Vienna, VA
/articles/the-green-room-momentary-prophets
1462331
/locations/2306051
Maria Clarke
3:04 pm on Sunday, December 4, 2011
Amazing artist. Vienna's Adele. more ›