Upcoming Events at Songbyrd Music House & Record Cafe
Tue Sep 10, 8:30 PM - Tue Sep 10, 11:30 PM
2477-2475 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009
Community: Adams Morgan
Description
Maneka & Field Mouse with Spring Silver Songbyrd Vinyl Lounge Tuesday September 10, 2019 DOORS: 8:30 PM // SHOW: 9:00 PM Free ($10 Suggested Donation)
Event Details
Maneka's debut LP is a release that attempts to encapsulate the experience of one of the more distinct and multifaceted performers currently making guitar music. That experience is a deep and varied one, and one that is influenced by McKnight’s unique cultural background in a number of ways. Raised in the DC area to a black father and a mother of Chinese and Pakistani descent, McKnight first fell in love with rap and hip hop in his early teens, but was influenced by his older brother, a fan of early ‘90s rock bands like Sonic Youth and Nirvana, and his father’s passion for jazz guitar playing, which McKnight went on to study at Berklee School of Music in Boston. His interests have remained omnivorous, but throughout his life and musical career McKnight has felt as though his musical interests have been consistently policed along racial lines.
“If you’re into rock music and you’re black then people on all sides will say you’re trying to be white or you talk white,” McKnight says. “What does that even mean? That will take over your identity in a big way. Suddenly just because I’m interested in something else that erases all of the other stuff that I’m into. It’s an uncomfortable thing that I shouldn’t have to deal with but that I deal with any way. I’m here and I listen to some music that some white people listen to but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know who I am, or that I’ve erased this other part of me.”
Devin, which nods to genres as varied as grindcore, jazz, shoegaze, hip hop, new wave and post-punk (sometimes within a single song), is in a sense his response, a celebration of McKnight’s identity as a musician and a person and an exercise in what McKnight describes as “claiming a different voice.” Thematically the album digs deep into the corresponding territory of McKnight’s experience as a musician and a person of color in America, exploring a perspective that is rarely represented in indie rock. McKnight characterizes the LP as a “confrontational” album about “black pride and addressing my confusion as a minority in white indie rock scenes,” which is manifested in a variety of ways. The alien punk of “My Queen,” which features McKnight's Speedy Ortiz bandmate Sadie Dupuis, imagines the relations
“If you’re into rock music and you’re black then people on all sides will say you’re trying to be white or you talk white,” McKnight says. “What does that even mean? That will take over your identity in a big way. Suddenly just because I’m interested in something else that erases all of the other stuff that I’m into. It’s an uncomfortable thing that I shouldn’t have to deal with but that I deal with any way. I’m here and I listen to some music that some white people listen to but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know who I am, or that I’ve erased this other part of me.”
Devin, which nods to genres as varied as grindcore, jazz, shoegaze, hip hop, new wave and post-punk (sometimes within a single song), is in a sense his response, a celebration of McKnight’s identity as a musician and a person and an exercise in what McKnight describes as “claiming a different voice.” Thematically the album digs deep into the corresponding territory of McKnight’s experience as a musician and a person of color in America, exploring a perspective that is rarely represented in indie rock. McKnight characterizes the LP as a “confrontational” album about “black pride and addressing my confusion as a minority in white indie rock scenes,” which is manifested in a variety of ways. The alien punk of “My Queen,” which features McKnight's Speedy Ortiz bandmate Sadie Dupuis, imagines the relations
