We Fought The Big One 17th Anniversary Show

I’ve known Rick Taylor for about 18 years, one longer than he’s been doing his monthly DJ night, We Fought The Big One, at the Marx Cafe in Mount Pleasant DC.

I met Rick from Alcian Blue and the time I had my own DJ night with my friend Tim called Head On at St Ex on 14th Street near the Black Cat. We Fought The Big One and the Marx became a haven for shoegazers, Brit Pop, obscure, more obscure, fans of music. We all join together on the first Friday of the month drinking beers and listening to The Lines at ungodly volume levels until 2 or 3 in the morning. Sometimes I’d have to park far away in 25 degree weather and walk blocks to get to the Marx, some nights we’d step outside even if you didn’t smoke to get some fresh air on hot summer nights, the sounds of early New Order or Echo following you out the door.

Visual Flyer for We Fought The Big One
Flyer by Chris Diamond

17 years is a long run and a true dedication to music (also note Chris Diamond has done the flyers for We Fought The Big One the entire run too). If you ever meet Rick you’ll understand, you can talk music for hours with him, film, books, he loves to share and loves even more to discover something new and be excited about it. At some point he started booking bands at WFTBO and the night evolved into showcasing DC talent and sometimes artists from abroad too.

I was honored to be asked to play the 17th anniversary event on April 2, 2021. Because of the pandemic, we were all virtual but even throughout the pandemic, Rick has kept up the night. I’ve tuned in as faithfully as I can to hear other artists do live sets and watch Rick pull out Suicide Christmas albums for us to enjoy on our couches until we can all drink a beer together again.

I did an interview with Rick before the show, that can be found on the We Fought The Big One site.

My live stream ended up having a fair amount of audio problems, such is the risk for doing DIY live streams. I recorded a practice though and I have both posted below for documentation.

I am celebrating the release of my new tape The Endless and did a live performance of the first song from it “The Spectacle is Fraying” and a cover of an Alcian Blue song “Carousel” to celebrate the box set that came out a few months ago on Anathemata Editions.

If you wish to access the original set with all the glorious glitches, click here.