Travel

Last Minute Getting Out of D.C. Trips and Tips

BYT at largeJanuary 19, 2017

Go away ...

Eat & DrinkFeaturedTravel 021 min read

Going Home for Thanksgiving? How To Avoid Talking To People You Know.

Megan BurnsNovember 21, 2016

If you keep denying your identity in a monotone voice, they'll realize they probably don't want to catch up ...

Funny StuffTravel 03 min read

Books to Read While Camping (and other outdoorsy stuff)

Jenn TisdaleAugust 31, 2016

Who among us hasn't wanted to retreat to a weird, small cabin in the woods?...

BooksFeaturedTravel 016 min read

Hikes for People that Want to Be Outdoors But Don’t Want to Move Their Feet Very Far

Joseph FrancoAugust 17, 2016

For those allergic to extended doses of nature...

MiscSports(?) & FitnessTravel 05 min read

Video of the Day: Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure

Jenn TisdaleJune 1, 2016

If someone made a sad documentary about my mom and I it would be called Busch Grey Gardens....

Stuff To Do In DCTravel 01 min read

Preview: New Orleans by Ben Carver

BYGaysApril 28, 2016

"I needed to understand the siren song of the city and why it has always kept me in its grasp."...

ArtLGBTQPhotosStuff To Do In DCTravel 09 min read

RECAP: Iceland Airwaves 2015

Megan BurnsMarch 1, 2016

I ate a lot of whale and smoked puffin and hot dogs...

FeaturedMusicPhotosTravel 06 min read

Giveaway: National Parks Adventure 3D @ Museum of Natural History

Jenn TisdaleFebruary 19, 2016

Park it right here!...

Film & TVTravel 00 min read

Video of the Day: Iceland’s Waterfalls

Brandon WetherbeeNovember 17, 2015

After watching this video I searched DCA to KEF airfare ...

MiscTravel 00 min read

BYT Halloween Guide: 2015 Edition

eleniskoutakis and gracecassidyOctober 27, 2015

This is Halloween. This is YOUR Halloween. ...

ArtEat & DrinkFilm & TVLGBTQMusicStuff To Do In DCTravel 031 min read

Startups to Start Noticing: Split

Kaylee DuganAugust 24, 2015

Like a fancy adult car pool....

Dream JobsMiscTravel 011 min read

12 Hours of Day Drinking

maddieclybournAugust 18, 2015

Let's get day drunk!...

Eat & DrinkFeaturedGuidesRestaurants & BarsTravel 110 min read

Recap: Carpe DC Food Tours

Melissa GrothJuly 27, 2015

Carpe the heck out of DC...

Eat & DrinkGiving BackPhotosTravel 06 min read

You Must Be This Tall To Ride This Ride

Jenn TisdaleJune 10, 2015

What happens when you document, via video, a 9 year-old's FIRST TIME on the big roller coasters? ...

MiscStuff To Do In DCTravel 110 min read

Rise and Shine: The Internet Told Me So…

Jenn TisdaleJanuary 26, 2015

THIS ROLLER COASTER IS 4 MINUTES LONG...

Stuff To Do In DCTravel 04 min read

WE ARE SERIOUSLY GIVING AWAY A CABIN ON A CRUISE SHIP

BYT at largeJanuary 5, 2015

GET LIT UP AGAIN!...

MusicRestaurants & BarsStuff To Do In DCTravel 02 min read

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08sep(sep 8)10:00 am221:00 pmOn-Location Photography: DC’s Public Sculpture and Architecture10:00 am (8) - 1:00 pm (22) S. Dillon Ripley Center

17sep(sep 17)10:15 am05nov(nov 5)1:00 pmIntroduction to Watercolor10:15 am (17) - (november 5) 1:00 pm S. Dillon Ripley Center

22sep12:00 pmTrillectro 2018featuring SZA • 2 Chainz • RL Grime • Carnage • Young Thug • Playboi Carti • The Internet • Smokepurpp • Rico Nasty • Maxo Kream • Sheck Wes • Snoh Aalegra • Rayana Jay • Everyday People • Jungle Fever • Beau Young Prince • The Good Intent • Rezt • Innanet James • Soduh • That Feel Good • Joy Club • Skin Valley • Closed Sessions • First Family • Girlaaa • Chicken & Mumbo Sauce • True Laurels12:00 pm Merriweather Post Pavilion

22sep6:30 pmReese Witherspoon – Whiskey in a Teacup TourIn Conversation with Zoë Kravitz 6:30 pm The Anthem

22sep7:00 pmOwl City - Cinematic Tourw/ Matthew Thiessen And The Earthquakes7:00 pm 9:30 Club

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Life can feel like a movie. Each moment functions as a scene that comprises a larger arc. Given the big screen-worthy scope of his musical vision, singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and mastermind Adam Young projects his experiences in filmic fashion on Owl City’s sixth full-length album and first independent offering, the aptly titled Cinematic. Preceded by a trio of three-song Reels, the record artfully threads together dream-pop lucidity, poetic revelations, and Steven Spielberg-style eighties wonder into 18 new anthems.

“It’s a personal narrative, as if a film was made from key scenes throughout my life,” he explains. “My hope is there’s a way to teach yourself to recognize and appreciate what I like to call, ‘movie magic moments’, so you don’t miss out on them. That’s what the title alludes to. You have an audience cheering you on. Everybody is in your corner. Do your best for them.”

In many ways, the entire undertaking represents the apex of Young’s decade-long output to date. Hailing from the tiny town of Owatonna, Minnesota, he quietly became one of pop’s most ubiquitous voices, selling over 2.5 million albums and 18 million singles globally. 2009’s Ocean Eyes yielded a timeless smash in the form of “Fireflies,” which went seven-times RIAA platinum, soared to #1 in 26 countries, and ignited a meme frenzy in 2017 nearly ten years removed from its initial release. Among a discography of hits, “Good Time” [feat. Carly Rae Jepsen] also earned a triple-platinum certification and toppled charts worldwide. No stranger to film and television, Zack Snyder tapped him to compose a theme song for Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, while he contributed and performed “When Can I See You Again?” for Disney’s Academy® Award-winning animated blockbuster Wreck-It Ralph. Other placements span The Croods, VeggieTales, Smurfs 2, and more.

Following the release of 2015’s Mobile Orchestra, he took a step back from Owl City and devoted 2016 to releasing one instrumental score per month, simply as “Adam Young,” basing each song off of a favorite historical event. These spanned Apollo 11, RMS Titanic, The Spirit of St. Louis, The Ascent of Everest, Omaha Beach, Miracle in the Andes, Project Excelsior, Corduroy Road, Voyager 1, Mount Rushmore, and The Endurance. This exercise earmarked something of a creative turning point.

“Coming out of all that instrumental music, I felt really refreshed to be back in the world of lyrics,” he goes on. “I got my bearings again as far as what I wanted to do with Owl City.”

Galvanized, he retreated to his Owatonna basement studio to commence recording in January 2017. As the sole writer, the sessions conjured the magic of Ocean Eyes. With Spielberg’s Hook often playing in the background, he unlocked a whimsical sense of wonder that wouldn’t be out of place in a “Brat Pack” flick.

“There’s something I’ve always missed about my first records,” he admits. “I didn’t know the status quo or any of the rules. I wasn’t traveling to L.A. or New York to collaborate. I wanted to return to that feeling. So, I decided to shut myself away, and I just kept moving in the studio rather than stopping.”

That motion drives 2017’s Reel 1 from the endearing “Fiji Water”—which details his first meeting at a major label and consequentially first flight—to the ethereal calm of “Lucid Dream.” Elsewhere, the lead single “All My Friends” builds from breezy acoustic guitars accompanied by a friendly gang vocal into a stadium-size chant that’s impossible to shake.

“It’s about those rare friendships that you never forget,” he elaborates. “At the time of writing, I was remembering a bunch of my friends from junior high and high school. I was so overwhelmed and thankful they were in my life. I’m still close with some of them, and I’ve grown apart from others. Still, they stick with me. It’s my way of saying, ‘Hey, thank you for being there. I probably wouldn’t have turned out the way I did without the positive impact you had on me.’”

Perhaps the most personal of the bunch, “Not All Heroes Wear Capes” remains a centerpiece of Reel 2. A clean riff resounds under his breathy delivery before culminating on a heartfelt refrain, “My dad’s a hero to me.” In under four months, it quickly surpassed 2 million Spotify streams and 3 million YouTube/VEVO views and counting in addition to garnering acclaim from People, Billboard, and more.

“It’s the most literal one,” he states. “It’s all about my dad. He loves hot rods. He has a workshop. He’s quiet. He doesn’t always say, ‘I love you’, but everyone knows it by his acts of services. That’s his way of telling you he cares. I’m cut from the same cloth. We’re both super reserved, so this was a way for me to tell him he’s been an amazing dad. It’s everything I feel, but never said aloud.”

Finally Reel 3 jump-cuts from the synth bliss of “Cloud Nine” to the wintry young love of “Be Brave,” which recounts the December evening he met his longtime girlfriend at a late-night movie.

“Before now, I’d mostly written songs about daydreams and abstract ideas,” he says. “That’s how I’m inherently wired as a songwriter. I hadn’t really written about actual things that have happened to me. I decided to go down this path with Cinematic though. I looked back at the past thirty years and saw all of this great songwriting fodder. I felt like I was watching this highlight reel of my own movie.”

Cinematic features the music of Reels 1-3 as well as nine other tracks, rounding out an entire experience. In 2018, Young shares this “movie” with listeners everywhere.

“I have a handful of records and songs that I’ll play if I’m having a hard day,” he leaves off. “They’ll directly speak to my emotions. I’d love for this album or even a song from it to be that for somebody else. That’s all I want at the end of the day.”

Time

(Saturday) 7:00 pm

Location

9:30 Club

815 V ST NW, Washington, DC 20001

Cost

$30

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22sep7:00 pmSYMLw/ Flora Cash7:00 pm U Street Music Hall

Event Details

Brian Fennell is a student of simplicity. As SYML (pronounced “simmel”), which translates to “simple” in Welsh, Fennell writes emotive ambient pop songs that capture the ethos of his musical persona. With delicate piano, swells of strings and Fennell’s sterling vocals, the songs that comprise his debut EPs “Hurt For Me” and“In My Body,” out January 2018, embody the relinquishing of all emotions, a cathartic release laid bare.

“The name meaning simple was the cornerstone of what I wanted in these songs,” Fennell says. “Keep it simple because you can’t hide behind things aswell when it is stripped back and when it is naked and raw.”

The project’s origins stem from a pair of songs Fennell had written years prior, borne out of the resulting introspection from navigating a healthy and supportive relationship with his now-wife. Over a heaving string orchestration and harrowing piano on “Where’s My Love,” Fennell looks outward at a romantic partner and wishing for their emotional wellness for the sake of the relationship; on “The War,” a stark track with thundering percussion, abattle is waged between the boy and adult man living inside himself. Fennell shared these tracks with a friend who helped land “Where’s My Love” in an episode the MTV drama “Teen Wolf” in 2016, thus thrusting Fennell into the spotlight. So he wrote more songs, self-recording and producing in his home just outside of Seattle.

A child of a closed adoption, Fennell discovered his Welsh roots as an adult and utilizes his heritage in his music in the project’s name and as a filter through which he views the world, though it’s ultimately the juxtaposition between his own happiness and the content of his music that is most resounding.

“I describe my music as generally being pretty sad or dark but the reality of where that comes from is a general mystery that exists behind my history as a person,” Fennell says.

On the “Hurt For Me” and “In My Body” EPs, Fennell examines the will of a person that exists after hurt and loss, the humanity in the thoughts and feelings we all possess when we close our eyes each night.He reckons with internal struggles in “Body,”: “I’ve become the only thing I hate,” he sings; a plea for a lover’s own self-acceptance on “Wildfire”: “You’re not a curse, you’re not too much / you are needed here, you are enough / nothing’s going to hold you down for long.”

“There’s not a ton that we can all agree on other than like what it feels like at the end of the day being human and going through intense things such as hurt and loss,” Fennell says. “You can compare it to the honeymoon phase of something positive, we also have honeymoon phases in hurt and loss. At the end of each of those phases I think that we’re unified in ‘I have to decide how I’m going to choose to still love after this. Do I still love myself?’”

Fennell’s heartfelt approach to music comes from an experience he had in college with a percussion professor. A classically trained pianist who graduated with a degree in music education, Fennell often rested on his laurels early in his career. The instructor inspired him to strive for more, to put more of himself into his practice.

“I had to bleed and really be upset with myself to understand fully how to learn something like music,” he recalls. “It all collided at the same time and I really latched onto writing songs at that point. You need to let go of being perfect or being the best. As soon as you accept failing at something and can give yourself up in a personal way to the music, then you can finally be light enough to reach your potential.”

Ultimately, it is a kind and truthful depiction of emotion, grounded by his gut-wrenching vocal delivery that keeps SYML from sounding maudlin, soppy. Like the name implies, it’s the simplistic approach –things are hard, let’s talk about it –that makes SYML relatable, the topics he sings about tangible.

“One of the pitfalls of writing more emotional music, as a listener and lover of that music, would be you pulling the wool over somebody’s eyes just to make them feel something,” Fennell says. “I’m trying to be conscious of not doing that. It’s not flippant music where I’m throwing out this emotion to the world, I’m trying to approach it with more care and conscience.”

Time

(Saturday) 7:00 pm

Location

U Street Music Hall

1115 U Street NW Washington, DC, 20009

Cost

$15

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23sep6:00 pm8:00 pmFree Weekly Bar Bingo w/ O’Sullivan’s Irish PubEVERY SUNDAY AT O"SULLIVAN"S6:00 pm - 8:00 pm O'Sullivan's Irish Pub

23sep7:00 pmThe GrowlersBeach Goth Tour 20187:00 pm 9:30 Club

24sep6:30 pmLenny Kravitz - Raise Vibration Tourw/ Curtis Harding6:30 pm The Anthem

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7-Session Daytime Course

Monday, September 17 to November 5, 2018 – 10:15 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

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This event is all ages

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