PHOTOS: We The Party People @ National Museum of American History

BYT at largeJune 20, 2016

ArtFeaturedMiscMusicPhotosStuff To Do In DC 054 min read

all photos: Jeff Martin, Franz Mahr, Clarissa Villondo, Nicholas Karlin, Ike Hayman

The moment you’ve all be waiting for is here! This is the AMAZING photo recap (by the amazing BYT photo team) from this Saturday’s WE THE PARTY PEOPLE, but before we dive in, we want to send out some sincere THANK YOUS:

Thank you to the National Museum of American History team for inviting us to throw this event with them and for being one of the greatest museums in the world. We hope that you will visit often.
This event was part of America Now, which is a three-museum collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of American History, and Smithsonian American Art Museum. It is made possible by the generous support of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Family Foundation. The Washington Post is the media sponsor of America Now.
Thank you to Heineken for supporting our whole #BYTen anniversary event series and for being the first import beer since prohibition! We wouldn’t be this boozy without you.
Thank you to REI for the amazing experience that was the outdoor terrace. Keep an eye out for SO MANY amazing programs from them this summer. #UnitedOutside
Thank you to DJ BIZ MARKIE for always being (more than) just a friend the real evening.
Thank you to our other amazing DJ’s Gavin Holland, Adrian Loving, Mdot. You’re the real MVPs.
Thank you to Washington Post for presenting the talks and our very interesting speakers: Abby Phillip, Tom Toles, Jon Grinspan (his book is a MUST READ this and every election season), Steven Olikara, Jessica Dahl, Susan Piedmont-Palladino, Jim Bailey, Chris Kelly and Brandon Wetherbee. We felt smarter just being in the same room with you.
Thank you to amazing chef Ailsa von Dobeneck for teaching us how to snack just like our favorite presidents.
Thank you to Absolut OAK for tasting just like delicious whiskey and to Wigle Whiskey for being actual delicious whiskey.
Thank you to Red Bull for making vodka mixers GREAT again.
Thank you to Founding Farmers, Rito Loco, Red Apron, Duke’s Grocery, Gordy’s Pickle Jar, Mason Dixie and Capital Candy Jar for keeping us full of good food and pinches the entire evening.
Thank you to our friends at LYFT for getting us home safe: use the code BYT – $50 worth of free ride credits when you sign up (just go here to do it)
Thank you to Rock The Vote and Brigade for doing work that actually matters.
Thank you to OM Digital for being THE BEST PHOTOBOOTH IN THE WORLD. You all know by now.
Thank you to Jackson Pro Audio for keeping things sounding good no matter where we are and our lighting crew DC Night Lights for making everything so pretty all the time.
Thank you to the tireless BYT and Smithsonian staff for working their cute butts off on this.
Thank you to our photographers for shooting non-stop and all the time.
Thank you ALL for coming in your Saturday’s Best and being on top of your Saturday’s Best game – we hope to see you all again soon.
STAY in the LOOP: follow us on facebook/twitter/instagram For maximum love post these photos with #WeThePartyPeople

BONUS:

laugh with us this weekend @ Kennedy Center and scoop tickets to our next after hours BEFORE ANYONE ELSE!

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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

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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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