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.

This year The Digital Freedom Campaign puts on DC DOES TX, at South by Southwest (SXSW) 2008 in Austin, Texas.  Featuring 8 up-and-coming bands from the Washington, DC area, DC DOES TX will take place at Austin's Cream Vintage (Guadalupe Location) on March 13, 2008 from 12pm-7pm.

The DC DOES TX site will not only be featuring the bands but also a raffle for free electronic gadgets for your listening and viewing. DC DOES TX will be rocking through the following lineup: 

Exit Clov

Georgie James

Jukebox the Ghost

Le Loup

Middle Distance Runner

Pash

Samantha Murphy

These United States

Each featured band has an inimitable relationship with digital technology, as it’s become a vital tool in reaching new audiences and furthering their music careers.

A note on The Digital Freedom Campaign: As digital technology enables everyone to be a creator, an innovator or an artist – to produce music, to create cutting-edge videos and photos, and to share their creative work, individuals are also able to enjoy these new works when, where, and how they want, and to participate in the artistic process. These are basic freedoms that must be protected and nurtured. The Digital Freedom campaign is dedicated to defending the rights of students, artists, innovators, and consumers to create and make lawful use of new technologies free of unreasonable government restrictions and without fear of costly and abusive lawsuits.

Winner of last year’s This America Life Song Contest, local indie pop-ist Michael Boggs (pseudonym – We Were Pirates), joins Headlights and the Evangelicals at Arlington, VA’s IOTA, this Thursday, February, 21^st at 9 pm. Tickets are $10 at the door. Chosen for the very best recorded cover of Starlee Kine’s ditty, "The Three of Us", We Were Pirates recently released a 5-song EP, The Wolf, after recording it in his bedroom, like any good fend-for-yourself artist. Moreover, come catch the newly popular Evangelicals, creating quite the buzz out of Oklahoma.

Get there early and have yourself a beer, because showing up for a show you don't think will be sold out, and getting turned away is a down-right horrible feeling. Plus, the windows are now blocked, so pacing back and forth trying to get a peek won’t work too well… anyone want to guess where I was last night?