Thao & The Get Down, Stay Down at Black Cat

This is embarrassing: I was totally focused on working on my R29 Thao Nguyen story, yet I neglected to buy tickets to her show at the Black Cat and it sold out! But there's a happy ending. My friend Carolyn was my indie rock fairy godmother and her boyfriend Alex graciously gave his ticket to me. So I got to see the show after all!

​They sounded so great, and played nearly all the songs on the new record. Thao really gave it her all. Plus, she busted out a Ludacris rap ("What's Your Fantasy"), and talked about her summer gigs pre-fame, like playing Potbelly restaurants all around NoVa and working as a bouncer at Guitar Center. The show ended with a rendition of The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" sung by both Thao and Sallie Ford, who opened the show with her band The Sound Outside. Really good vibes! 

Tunes Tuesday, "Kindness Be Conceived,"

​Thao Nguyen's music is always a must-listen for me, so it was thrilling to get to interview her for Refinery29! She's a NOVA native, a talented musician, an activist, and has a cool sense of humor to boot. Check out my interview with Thao at Refinery29, and if you wanna see Thao & The Get Down Stay Down on March 20 at the Black Cat, you better loiter outside looking for a ticket, because it's sold out now.

​In a collab dreamed up in indie music heaven, here's Thao and my fav Joanna Newsom singing on "Kindness Be Conceived," a track off Thao & The Get Down Stay Down's new album, We the Common. This song is lilting and California granola crunchy, and so pretty. But there's some rocking out on We the Common too. That's what I love about the album — all the songs sound so different, yet Thao's style is unmistakable.