Luce Unplugged, our art talk and local concert series, is moving from Sunday afternoons to Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. We appreciate our devoted attendees who, for three years and change, turned down brunch plans, procrastinated doing their laundry, and, most importantly, got dressed and left the house to come to our Sunday shows. Whether or not that describes you, you can look forward to our Thursday shows because they will be easy to get to after work and have a bar (and it's a universal truth that a free show in a museum plus beer is better than your average happy hour).
Beloved punk rockers Baby Bry Bry & The Apologists (BBB) will kick off our first Thursday Luce Unplugged on March 26th. The Apologists split the difference between cutesy boy band and serious punk outfit and are known for putting on a great show. For a taste of what we can expect, we talked to their charismatic front man Baby Bry Bry, who seems as excited as we are for the show. Catch Baby Bry Bry & The Apologists perform in the Luce Center at 5:30 p.m. on March 26th. See our online calendar for more info.
Eye Level: You grew up in California. What do you miss about it, and is there anything from the West Coast you'd like to bring to D.C.? Anything from D.C. you'd like to transport to Cali?
Bry Bry: I grew up in Long Beach, the last stop in Los Angeles County before you get to the Orange Curtain [Orange County], and I spent a few years in The East Bay before moving to D.C. I miss the people, the weather, the way time seems to stand still, the avocados, seeing snow-topped mountains through palm trees, the Pacific Ocean, In-N-Out, and the stereotypically chill vibes. I'd bring any and all of that to D.C. if I could. As for the other way around, I think California could do with some go-go.
EL: Does the venue in which you play affect how you put on a show?
BB: Definitely, and we always work to adapt to the space, but I think the crowd carries more weight than the stage itself. A show at the 9:30 Club is obviously going to allow for more movement and better sound than one in someone's living room, but the beauty of a house show is that the line between audience and performer is almost entirely obscured. The energy of the crowd and the energy of the band become one big, beautiful energy blob, and that makes it better for everyone.
EL: Do you perform differently if you're headlining versus opening?
BB: I think of The Apologists as performance artists as much as a collection of musicians. We treat every set as a unique "thing," the same way you would an individual song or album. Though the tunes overlap, we try to present them in a unique way at every show. It's a concert, sure, but we like to play with intros, themes, interludes, and an emotional arch to make it feel like a show.
EL: Music aside, I was impressed that there's a whiskey-infused espresso named after you. What's the story there?
BB: I moved around the corner from Qualia Coffee in Petworth around the same time that I was getting BBB off the ground, and so, whether they know it or not, it became the Official BBB Office. Have done more band-related writing, planning, emailing, meeting, and daydreaming there than just about anywhere else. The Qualia family has been super supportive from day one, and so between the employees' BBB tees and the fliers littering his establishment on a regular basis, I think Joel (the man, myth, and legend behind Qualia) just saw it as an inside jokey pun, not realizing he was actually bestowing me with the greatest honor of my life to date. I doubt I'll ever have a building named after me, so I'll gladly settle for a bag of beans.
EL: For your Luce Unplugged show, you selected Nam June Paik's archive because his art challenges expectations. How do you see yourself and the Apolgists doing the same?
BB: With a piece like Nam June Paik's Bust of Elvis, for example, Paik is subverting the expectations we carry about what qualifies as capital-A Art. He does so humorously, but with a respect for the source that extends beyond parody or spoofing. It's not so much that he's lampooning the reverence we have for the classical "masters" like Beethoven or Bach, but elevating popular culture to a point where we reexamine how it should be situated in the world of high art, simultaneously making us question why high art is so "high" in the first place.
With Baby Bry Bry, we're always working to couple seemingly-opposed styles to subvert expectations. I mean, from the top, a group called Baby Bry Bry & The Apologists that describes itself as "lounge punk" doesn't really produce an immediate, coherent image of what the band will be. I sing sad songs that sound like happy songs; we wear near-militaristic uniforms, but put hearts all over them; we have an all-black aesthetic, but are a pretty upbeat bunch of guys, onstage and off; we couple loud, fast, intense songs with cutesy, croony, pop numbers; we couple melodramatic theatrics with pretty straightforward skate-punk style tunes; I'll scream in your face and then pout my lips and blow a kiss.
