Performing Friday in Silver Spring, Spottiswoode and His Enemies take you on a guided tour down the rabbit hole.
Take Tom Waits‘ raw melancholy, Damon Albarn’s slurring vocals, classic punk rhythms and campy cabaret spunk, and you get Spottiswoode and His Enemies.
The band’s “That’s What I Like” should be a dive-bar anthem, while “Youngest Child” is fun acoustic punk and gospel. (Yes, people, it can be done.) The bittersweet “In the Pouring Rain” is Spottiswoode’s homage to Waits.
Get a taste of Spottiswoode and His Enemies on the band’s MySpace website, then get a full dose Friday night at the Quarry House (8401 Georgia Ave). The gig goes down at 9:00 p.m. and will set you back a $7 cover.
Also, Silver Spring’s The Fighting Janes take their ass-kicking sound to Rockville for a battle of the bands. The band’s grinding White Stripes guitar work and Bjork-ish vocal style are tough to beat.
You can’t catch this battle of the bands unless you’re UNDER 21 and at least in the ninth grade. (Time to dig out that old student ID.) But you can still check out The Fighting Janes on the band’s MySpace website.
Image courtesy of Spottiswoode and His Enemies.
Read 
What the hell are they building now? Learn more from 
Boxed wines and rosés are back in vogue. Just ask The Penguin's sommeliers.
So, the Fighting Janes, whose members are from Wootton (Rockville), Sherwood (Olney) and Blair (which, as a magnet, draws in kids from all over the county) belong to Silver Spring – but Subject to Change, which is entirely from Blake (which is in Silver Spring) doesn’t get the same hometown designation? LAME.
Mission South is pretty decent. Not my kind of music, but they are not bad, either.
Thanks for your comments, Dan.
On its website, The Fighting Janes identifies its hometown as Silver Spring. Whether that’s Woodside Park, Long Branch, Wheaton, Glenmont, or the outer reaches of Calverton and Burtonsville is unclear. Chalk it up to Silver Spring’s unincorporated status.
Best of luck to all the talented young men and women participating in the battle of the bands — regardless of hometown or school affiliation.
One more thing: There’s a $5 cover for those who plan to attend, $4 if you bring a canned-food donation.
Actually the majority of us live in the Silver Spring area (that being Glenmont and Silver Spring, Silver Spring). Sorry, Dan.
Why apologize? You live in Silver Spring! Rejoice, and smash all those whose address read differently tomorrow night.