Patterson Hood & Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers Take Your Questions!

(Okay, my questions. But still.)

The Drive-By Truckers are one of my favorite bands, and I’ve had the privilege of speaking with singer-songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley on several occasions during the last three-and-a-half years. I talked to them again, separately, for Washingtonian about their plans for their year-ending three-night stand at the 9:30 Club, which kicked off last night.

One of the things we discussed was Cooley’s two-night-only battlefield promotion to full-time frontman when Hood fell too ill to perform just before a weekend of 9:30 Club concerts in February 2009. I reviewed the first of those shows for the Washington Post.

You, Narcissus: DC’s theater of theater

Christian Conn and Erica Sullivan in VENUS IN FUR. (SCOTT SUCHMAN/Studio Theater)

What was the Number One Topic under consideration by DC theaters in 2011? Why, the theater, of course.

And Now for Something Slightly, If Not Completely, Different, but Also Slightly Longer: HARK HARK, DECK DECK: Yule-Tunes Eclectic & Inexplicable Team VI – The NOW SOUND of Christmas [Side B]

Side B. Merry Christmas!

You can find both sides of Hark Hark, Deck Deck: Yule-Tunes Eclectic & Inexplicable Team VI: The NOW SOUND of Christmas here.

Presenting HARK HARK, DECK DECK: Yule-Tunes Eclectic & Inexplicable Team VI – The NOW SOUND of Christmas [Side A]

Yippe kai yay, Christmas lovers! My sixth annual audio Christmas card has arrived to illuminate and/or obfuscate your yule! At two hour-long sides, the first of which you can hear right now, this is the longest yulemix ever. Remember those 120-minute blank cassettes introduced in the twilight of the analog era that allowed you to record more music at lesser quality and were highly prone to breakage?

Decadence, Inc.: Arena’s You, Nero and Signature’s Hairspray, considered.

Danny Scheie as Nero and Susannah Schulman as Poppaea. (SCOTT SUCHMAN/Arena Stage)

Amy Freed’s You, Nero, is, as I opine in today’s City Paper, a clever play about the limits of art as a humanizing influence. Or maybe the limits of mediocre art as a humanizing influence.

Or maybe it’s about how a bad upbringing can damage you beyond the reach of art’s rehabilitative prowess.

Or mediocre art’s rehabilitative . . . I’m still thinking about this, is the point. Which suggests Freed was successful, even if the ending is kind of a mess.

Postcards from “Postcards from Italy”: Beirut at the 9:30 Club, reviewed.

I covered the first of Beirut’s two-night, tour-ending stand at 9:30 Club last night for the Washington Post. Read all about it in the paper-paper version, or see the version on Click Track for a few more of Josh Sisk’s fine photos from the show.

Self-Convicted: Lauren Weedman’s BUST, reviewed

Not that bust. Grow up.

I wrote about writer/actor/comic/onetime Daily Show correspondent Lauren Weedman’s one-woman-show for the City Paper.

Hurt’s So Good: Krapp’s Last Tape, briefly considered.

John, hurting.

Hey, I reviewed Gate Theatre Dublin’s John Hurt-starring Krapp’s Last Tape today for the Washington City Paper.

I’ve previously chewed on productions of Beckett’s Happy Days in 2007 and this year.