Well, now is your chance. Everyone’s favorite DC outdoor concert series is accepting applications starting this Monday (February 11th) through March 17th.
Go to http://www.fortreno.com/ for all the details.
plus, as a memory of the (always inevitable) rainy night of last year, check out Alyssa Lesser/s (http://www.flickr.com/photos/youbebetty), awesome photos (involving, sadly 2 bands that are no more: Let’s french and Hard Tomorrows)
Ya’ll know I love D.C. top to bottom and sideways and in between. But I have never - in nine years - seen a decent show at Fort Reno.
February 8, 2008 at 10:47 amthe whole “things to bring: babies, tofu, hugs. Things not to bring: drugs, alcohol….” thing fucking killed me last year.
and yet, the die hards remain, dying ever harder.
February 8, 2008 at 11:09 amvodka in a gatorade bottle is the way to go at these things..
February 8, 2008 at 11:37 amgood call.
my other gripe is that they turned my band down 5 years in a row, and this is BEFORE i started popping off at the mouth about dc scene, etc. I’ve just never fit in with that crowd
February 8, 2008 at 12:08 pm“I’ve just never fit in with that crowd”…why would you want to? i mean they are rooted in the same crowd that brought us straight edge and a list of overrated and terrible bands that now has come to define the “DC sound”…do not want.
February 8, 2008 at 12:26 pmi was pretty damn stoked to be asked to play 2 years in a row. way bummed i cant partake in it this year.
ps, the not bring drugs or alcohol was probably a legal thing. you know, laws and such, at an event the city is letting them do and them not wanting to fuck it up.
February 8, 2008 at 12:37 pmwho is ur band?
February 8, 2008 at 1:14 pmoh thank you city, for allowing us to congregate! thank you so so mcuh, don’t hurt us, we’ll be good. no drugs i swear, i promise, and, and, no alcohol, anything for you oh great city for letting us listen to music in a field.
what about babies? can we bring babies oh great and powerful DC? would that make it safer? we’re doing our best oh formidable AUTHORITY, we don’t want to cross you…..after all…..we’re punks.
February 8, 2008 at 1:53 pmWe were called “Oxford and his Dictionaries of English Grammar”
Check it out sometime.
February 8, 2008 at 1:55 pmMarty -
Haha! Thats not really what I meant. Its more of the cops are there, looking for underage drinking and drugs. If there was any trouble, Ft Reno would be done. I saw it as more of a respect for the park type of deal, and wanting to have it continue and not compromise any of the people involved, because it was/is a great thing. Simple as that.
Anyone who was smart enough to still got around the drugs and alcohol thing, more power to them!! Just hide it and everyone wins! No big.
Also, this coming from someone who’s show was advertised by some High Schoolers as a “smokeout” show. Oh youth…
February 8, 2008 at 2:01 pmwaiting to be called out on the hypocrisy of calling someone out on their grammar in 5, 4, 3, 2…
February 8, 2008 at 2:02 pmrock and roll man, truthfully i just love blasting at the district. got a real love/hate thing with the music scene here, as i’m sure a lot of people do.
what’s your band? i love to smoke out, and I like high schoolers, although lately they’ve been looking at me like i might be a little too old to be hanging out in the locker room.
February 8, 2008 at 2:53 pmLast year’s schedule included Deleted Scenes, The Hard Tomorrows, The Sentiment, Greenland, Meredith Bragg, Benjy Ferree, Yell County, scores of high school bands…. C’mon, this is not a Dischord concert series. Hate on Dischord and Lovitt all you want, but get your facts straight first.
February 8, 2008 at 4:26 pmI’ll say that I for one love fort reno.
I mean, I hate the heat, the humidity, the bugs, the sound but every time I see high schoolers all dressed up and dancing with abandon in front of the stage, I sort of feel all fuzzy inside.
Maybe I’m secretly a hippie.
February 8, 2008 at 4:42 pmwell, the deal with the drugs and alcohol is that fort reno has to be cop-friendly in order for the shows to be allowed, as they are, in theory, renting a space. and please do not forget that it is right next to a high school. …i think it was two years ago, some idiot kid wrote an IM to a friend mentioning smoking weed at fort reno, and the kid’s mom found it lying on his computer (!!!) and went batshit and called the cops to show up at fort reno and everyone got in major trouble. if shit like that continues to happen, then yes, cops will be required to be present at fort reno, which means $$$ that people don’t have, which means that fort reno dies.
and, YES. while local favorites have gotten shut out for the past zillion years, fort reno have booked a gaggle of both really good and really bad acts. don’t get me wrong, i love me my dischord, i love me my dc, and i love me my reno. but i have been attending most of the shows for the last 3-4 years and there is absolutely clear favoritism regarding booked acts. i and a few others have brought this up and we have gotten a nice little array of bullshit - sometimes they say that they like giving other “up and coming” local bands a chance, and sometimes they allude to favoring particular sounds. so if this is the case, why is it that bands like ____________ are booked every year but many similarly sounding bands with similar followings are shut out? hmmm.. . . .
and FYI, the kids who stand in the front rows of wsc’s shows also attend a good 90% of the shows at fort reno, and attend a good number of dischord shows.
i don’t know - surely the last time i checked, people were trying to encourage me to be open to different subgenres of music…?
February 8, 2008 at 5:13 pmhey whatevs…you named like a whole 5 bands….ft reno..like dischord and lovitt, is a circle of friends hyping their own shit.
February 8, 2008 at 6:14 pmI read somewhere that the concerts are only on Mondays and Thursdays, is that right? I work nights… :P
Are there any other noteworthy summer outdoor concerts, concert festivals, or concert series in the area coming up? I’d love to volunteer to help with their sound or setup in general. I figure this would be the time of year they’d be starting their planning.
And how hard would it be to set up one’s own outdoor concert? There are certainly plenty of little parks all around, and some probably are even far enough away from residential areas that you could crank the music a bit. I think you just have to get a permit from the city or county that the park is in, right? I mean, yes, there would then be further planning, but would that be the first step?
February 8, 2008 at 6:59 pmmarty! i was in mass movement of the moth. we played this thing this one time. it was weird. but you guys ruled.
this poster adam needs to get a clue on life. grossly overgeneralizations can only get you so far.
February 8, 2008 at 11:41 pmal…feel free to let shitty sounding “dc ” bands come play in my back yard. you can even smoke weed and drink booze here!!! you down???
February 9, 2008 at 12:08 amAll I know is one of you fuckers brought alcohol/drugs to the park in 2006 and they had to scuttle the free Schellac show. But hey, they played a great show at the Black Cat instead. Too bad some of ya had to miss it.
February 9, 2008 at 9:42 pmim pretty sure there was a little bit more to that story about shellac playing the black cat instead of ft reno. plus im also pretty sure most of the money from the door to the black cat went TO ft reno, so it all worked out.
February 10, 2008 at 3:16 amHey Adam,
There’s plenty of shitty bands in any city. The reason the bands that play Ft. Reno get on the schedule is that they are out there during the year working hard to book, promote and play shows. No higher power randomly selects people to form musical acts which are automatically slotted for Ft. Reno. These bands spend a lot of their time and energy making themselves visible. If they are truly shitty, then DC club owners must not be bothered by having consistently empty rooms.
Maybe once you end your pointless dumbass rant, you can use your time getting your messianic musical act known enough around the city to get on the Ft. Reno schedule. I’ll trust it will improve the overall quality of bands……right? Everyone will just drop down to their knees in awe. Also, people during the year who are interested in local music will jump for joy as there will finally be a decent band amongst the plethora of awful bands that they were FORCED to pay attention to.
btw, Ft. Reno is free….if you don’t like it, don’t show up, motherfucker…..if you want to improve the quality of bands, get your band and other non-shitty (but unknown/ unrecognized) bands from the area a lot of shows and fans….if they are that good, getting shows and fans shouldn’t be a problem at all….I’m waiting…..
February 11, 2008 at 7:36 pm
i bet we get a slew of new non-dischord/lovitt related bands this year!!! j/k..lol. reno sucks.
February 8, 2008 at 10:36 am