Q & A With Andrew Bucket from The Velvet Lounge

Andrew, what's a typical day for you like at The Velvet Lounge?

I don’t go into an office or anything. I’m either working from home, or if that proves too distracting I go to a coffee shop.The best places to work, for me, are Highlands on 14th, or Big Bear.

On a typical day I’m trying to manage a puzzle made of ever shape-shifting pieces. It can be a surrealistic nightmare, or a psychedelic journey to Val Hala.

You have a unique perspective as the booker for a legendary DC venue - what trends are you noticing in the local music scene?

We’ve been home to some legends, but we’re still kind of young. We’re going on a 12 years old I think.

The local music scene is coping with a wave of people who have a tough time connecting to a band on a stage. Rightfully so, I mean, the frame of mind today is to stone anyone on a platform. Celebrities are ripped to shreds instead of worshiped.

Anyway, thats why dance parties are so popular. The focus is off the stage and on the crowd. You can take pictures of your friends and of yourself, and suddenly it’s like it was YOUR show. The DJ is hiding in his tinker box, and he could be anybody back there…doesn’t really matter.

So you have nostalgics, or maybe you can call them primitivists, who want to do live music. To connect with people, you need to be on the same level, also, you can’t be introspective or any of that while you’re performing. You need to be involved with the crowd and be as much a part of the dance floor as they are.

That’s why Dan Deacon is so popular, he plays on the floor, he makes people laugh, and he keeps it real. I respect him for some pretty fundamental reasons. You know, so called “hipsters” and that consumer culture aside, Dan Deacon is really legit guy.

Anyway, apart from that, some other things I’ve noticed are: incestuous membership between bands without them necessarily breaking up. That is a good thing in my opinion.

What's the best advice for bands looking to book a show with you at The Velvet Lounge?

Some newer bands think it is somehow business savvy for their music to easily fit into any atmosphere. So they will say things like: we are all over the board–a little jazz, a little southern rock, even a little hip hop.

That is hardly ever appealing unless you’re Faith No More.

Another thing is bands like to describe themselves per the genre du jour. For a while it has been “shoegaze” and the perrennial misnomer is “experimental”–it doesn’t really look good if you say your band is shoegaze but you are just referring to atmospheric elements in your guitar playing. Most of these bands just sounds like Radiohead or Sigur Ros or something.

For the record: experimental music means that you don’t know what the outcome will be, because your instruments are subject to either your own improvisational playing, or they are themselves a randomizing media. Experimental doesn’t mean that you sound a little weird, or have noisy elements.

What's your connection to DC?

I grew up between divorced parents and was back and forth between Montgomery County and Baltimore. My father went to the same high school as me, and we had the same gym teacher.

As a teenager, I was a part of the whole Fantasmagoria thing in the late nineties. Ska shows and SEV shows mostly.

In 2001, I was a staff writer at a DC magazine called While You Were Sleeping and wrote some of the most embarrassing things ever. If they ever surface I’ll quit life.

Interestingly, Dan from Deleted Scenes was a writer there too, and we reconnected recently, after firguring out we were the same people from back then.

In 2002 I was 19 and tour managing a DC jam band called The Low Life. They did pretty well but broke up in 2005. After that I started doing my own music and getting into more challenging stuff. I also quit smoking weed.

Highlight some of the upcoming shows at The Velvet Lounge that we should keep an eye on?

Mi Ami on 4.15 w/ Maximillion Dunbar and Beautiful Swimmers. That show will be really, really, really insane.

Sunday 4.18 is a killer double header: Gregg Ginn and the Texas Corrugators as the matinee show followed by the Styrenes 35th anniv. DC show.

Also the International Noise Conference DC date on 4.27 will be pretty brutal.

When people walk through the front door of the club, what do you want them to think/feel/see?

OH good, my friends are here.