I first heard Quick Step John when their single "One By One" played on NBC's ER last year. As I'm a huge fan of both expertly placed music and ER, I quickly googled the band and learned a few things about them. For one, the started out recording in lead singer Craig Whitaker's kitchen and quickly moved to another haphazard bedroom recording before a Clear Channel rep. stumbled upon their demo and, as push comes to shove, they landed in a very official studio with a very official The Multiple Personalities of Last Week and Next Year. If you're a pop fan of any sort (and when it boils down to it, aren't we all? Just a little bit?) you'll enjoy the vivid vocals and danceable melodies in every song on the album.

Quick Step John tours through Virginia, playing with The Splints and Meet the Speakers, on Thursday, March 20, at 8 p.m., at TT Reynolds, 10414 Main St. Fairfax. Check out www.quickstepjohn.com for upcoming shows.

An avid Pandora devotee, I regularly hear what I think will be tiny, tour-stagnant. mid-western bands,  only to find that they’re playing down the road from my house a few weeks later. Such is the case with Nashville’s The Bittersweets. Lead by Hannah Prater’s sweet, blues-twined vocals, the band saunters through Arlington’s IOTA tomorrow, toting The Life You Always Wanted, featuring the very fine, countryside songwriting of guitarist Chris Meyers. "Some people go to college and discover Marx or Chaucer,” he says, “I found Jimmie Rogers.”

Catch The Bittersweets at 8 pm on Tuesday March 11 at Arlington’s IOTA Club and Café with local silky-eyed crooner, Rose.

Fairfax, VA-based alt-rockers, Sematic, headline The State Theatre in Falls Church, VA with a bill including Anamide, Envy Insane and Burn the Ballroom.

Founded in 2004, Sematic has since cultivated a grassroots following in the DC area, grown a concrete fan base and built themselves up as a group of musicians working to maintain a strong connection with each person in the audience, both on and off stage. Not usually my type of act however, their love of creation and performance is fairly evident, and I'm a constant supporter of that type of ethic. 

Doors at 7 pm, show at 9 pm. Tickets are $11 presale, $12 the night of the show