As the calendar turns to April, we’re faced with longer days, heavier rain and the beginning of music festival season. For happy campers in the D.C. area, it won’t take two weekends in the Coachella Valley to experience varied bills, often in the fresh air.
While festivities began on the first day of April, Words Beats & Life Festival saved some heavyweights for the first weekend of the month. The D.C. nonprofit’s annual celebration of hip-hop culture features a conversation and performance with rapper, poet and political firebrand Saul Williams and a free Franklin Park jam headlined by jazz-rap pioneers Digable Planets. (April 5-7 at multiple locations. wblinc.org. Free to $30.)
Fellow D.C. nonprofit Boulanger Initiative returns with its latest festival dedicated to women and gender-marginalized composers, WoCo Fest 2024. Subtitled “Evolve,” the fest includes three days of performances and programming, featuring legendary jazz drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, Spanish cellist and composer Andrea Casarrubios, and a host of players with D.C. roots, from pianist Sarah Cahill to queer pop practitioner Be Steadwell. (April 12-14 at multiple venues. strathmore.org. Pay what you can to $48.)
The Kennedy Center’s inaugural Hip Hop &… Festival staged several shows in March, but its closing event brings together hip-hop icons Rakim and DJ Jazzy Jeff with saxophonist and bandleader Ravi Coltrane, the son of John and Alice Coltrane, for a performance with a full band. (April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org. $59-$189.)
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Also wrapping up during the month’s first weekend are free daily musical performances at the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Take in a cross-cultural tradition while listening to local acts including R&B singers Natalie Redd and PatriceLive, Andean folk group Raymi, and brotherly prog-rock duo deTournai. (April 5-7 at the Tidal Basin Welcome Area. nationalcherryblossomfestival.org. Free.)
The rumors of the Runaway’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, with the Brookland venue slated to close before being saved by a well-timed rent decrease. To celebrate, the club is hosting Bad Reputation Fest, promising three days of beers, burgers and nearly 20 bands. On the audio agenda: punk and rock, mostly from the DMV, including monster-themed surf act Daikaiju, “happy punks” Buko Buko, indie rockers Broken Hills and many more. (April 19-21 at the Runaway. therunawaydc.com. $35.)
Just in time for 4/20, the National Cannabis Festival will return to the RFK campus for two days of exhibitions, educators and music. Along with hip-hop legends Wu-Tang Clan and Redman and jazz futurist Thundercat, the bill is loaded with D.C. talent, including go-go troupe Backyard Band, techno trio Black Rave Culture and rapper Noochie, whose “Live From the Front Porch” series has turned his yard into one of the city’s most exciting venues. (April 19-20 at RFK Campus. nationalcannabisfestival.com. $55-$900.)
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The sounds — and perhaps scent — in the air at RFK will shift a week later, as the third annual Project Glow turns the grounds into an EDM wonderland. Performances from Chicago house legend Derrick Carter, dance-pop hitmaker Zedd, and creative back-to-back pairings like upstart Acraze and genre-hopper Wax Motif should keep the rave going, as will sets by DMV favorites including Baronhawk Poitier, Mathias, Thablackgod and others. (April 27-28 at RFK Festival Grounds. projectglowfest.com. $109-$279.)
5 other concerts to catch in April
On its debut album, D.C. band Tosser scrubbed off some of the “polish” of earlier releases for a noisy, guitar-powered album that accidentally predicted the malaise of a pandemic period that it predated. The group’s just-released album “Sheer Humanity” is not as much polished as sharpened, its grungy riff rock even heavier and edgier than before. (April 5 at 7 p.m. at Rhizome. rhizomedc.org. $15.)
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Experimental rock act Swans emerged in New York’s no wave scene in the 1980s, traversing the dark recesses and nihilistic impulses of music and the mind until the band dissolved in 1997. Founder Michael Gira re-formed the band in 2010, and the second act of Swans has now been nearly as long and fruitful as the first go-round, with last year’s album “The Beggar” droning toward the abyss. (April 12 at 8 p.m. at the Howard Theatre. thehowardtheatre.com. $35-$50.)
Drop Nineteens
Cresting like a wave of feedback, shoegaze is again having a moment, with new proponents of the noisy, textured strand of rock finding audiences alongside originators getting their time in the spotlight from new generations of listeners. Boston’s Drop Nineteens are an unlikely addition to the latter group, with founding singer-guitarist Greg Ackell swearing off playing music when the band dissolved in 1995. But the band is back on tour, with an album, “Hard Light,” that continues the conversation the band started with shoegaze touchstone “Delaware” back in 1992. (April 17 at 6:30 p.m. at the Atlantis. theatlantis.com. $30.)
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Linda Smith
Perhaps making an even more unlikely return to the stage than Drop Nineteens is Linda Smith, a Baltimore-based singer-songwriter who released home-recorded, lo-fi pop tunes from the late 1980s until 2001. Quietly dispatched in the years before music’s digital boom, her ’60s AM radio-inspired songs found a second life thanks to reissue specialists Captured Tracks, an indie label that has released a compilation and two albums’ worth of her best songs. (April 11 at 7 p.m. at Rhizome. rhizomedc.org. $15-$20.)
XUNT is a D.C. dance party focused on hardcore club music that centers queer and trans folks. For its latest iteration, the crew — residents Hissyfit, Znorthy and Franxx and the debuting Angel Saige — is collaborating with like-minded NYC DJ Soo Intoit and her trans-centric gaming party Critical Hit for a high-octane night where beats per minute race against frames per second. (April 13 at 11 p.m. at DC9. dc9.club. $15.)
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