Dia de los Muertos at Iota with The Highballers

Iota is celebrating the Day of the Dead this Saturday, November 2. For their Dia de los Muertos, local DC band The Highballers highlights the night with their Americana/alt country rock. Opening for them is the dischord-rock tunes of Alarms and Controls that will start at 9pm. Cover is $10 and also includes the aggressive electric guitar riffs of MusicBand.

All the Halloween Things

Get your sleep in the next few days because I've got a dozen Halloween events, parties and bar crawls over the next week. Here is everything Halloween related in Arlington and a few in DC in chronological order:


Monster Bar Crawl
Friday Oct 25 4-9pm
Giant bar crawl including Bailey's, Clarendon Grill, Darna Lounge, Fat Shorty's, First Down, Front Page, Green Turtle, Hard Times, Iota, Mad Rose, Matsutake, Mexicali Blues, Mister Days, RìRà , Rock Bottom, Sobe, Spider Kelly's, Velocity 5, Whitlows, Wilson Tavern and World of Beers. Tickets are $15 and benefit Stop Child Abuse Now.

Elliot in the Morning costume party
Friday Oct 25 8pm-2am
Clarendon Ballroom hosts the annual gigantic costume party hosted by DC101 radio jockey with a $3,000 grand prize. Live music by cover band Junkfood and DJ JC. Doors at 8pm, $15 cover, goes up after 10pm.

Alexandria Scavenger Hunt
Saturday Oct 26 1-5pm
Hunt around Old Town pubs and bars and enjoy drink specials and a grand prize of $500. Tickets are $10.

Nightmare on M Street
Saturday Oct 26 5pm-12am
Huge bar crawl in DC with 34 participating bars, starting at Maddy's in Dupont, McFadden's at Foggy Bottom, or The Exchange Saloon near Farragut West. Drink specials, a costume contest at McFadden's, and radio station 107.3 on hand. Tickets are $30.

Clarendon Ballroom party
Saturday Oct 26 8pm-2am
There should be a good crowd at Ballroom with music by the great cover band Liquid A with DJ Lil Fos downstairs. Doors open at 6pm. Cover is $10.

Front Page Capitals costume party
Saturday Oct 26 8pm-2am
Dress up in hockey gear, normal, sexy or gruesome, and watch the Captials vs Calgary Flames. No cover.

Whitlows costume contest
Saturday Oct 26 10pm-2am
Party/rock band The Vigilantes perform at Whitlows with a $100 prize costume contest. $5 cover.

Mad Rose Mad O Ween
Thursday Oct 31 8pm-2am
DJ SAAM provides the beats on the Halloween night party with a special dance off with their "Thriller" Michael Jackson Tribute. No cover.

Wilson Tavern Monsters Ball
Thursday Oct 31 9pm-2am
This second annual party includes drink specials, a shot ice luge  and a costume contest prize of a $50 bar tab. No cover.

Clarendon Grill party
Thursday Oct 31 9pm-2am
Costume contest with music by cover band Total Whiteout and DJ 2 NUTZ






Velocity 5 Spooktacular costume party
Friday Nov 1  9pm-2am
Free event with Welby Luk and DJ LION, which also benefits The Childrens Tumor Foundation

 

Mexicali Blues Day of the Dead party
Friday Nov 1
Keep your costume for El Dia De Muertos  party with a $200 first prize contest. No cover.



Clarendon Halloween Crawl
Saturday Nov 2 2pm-9pm
Local post-Halloween bar crawl including Whitlow’s, Spider Kelly's, Clarendon Grill, SoBe, Hunan One, Hard Times Cafe, Mister Days, Iota, Velocity 5, and Wilson Tavern. Tickets are $15.

Halloween in Clarendon - Front Page Capitals party

If you like hockey and Halloween, then this is the event for you. This weekend Front Page in Ballston is throwing a Capitals Game watch Halloween party on Saturday Oct. 26th from 9pm-1am. Come dressed as your favorite Caps player, whether your past, present, gruesome, sexy, or exact look alike. Costume place prizes and trophies awarded directly after the game against the Calgary Flames, which the Capitals beat last month in an overtime shootout. During commercials they will have raffle drawings for tickets, T-shirts, gift certificates, and the Guinness girls will be there with more give-aways also.

Halloween in Clarendon - Mad Rose Mad O Ween

Halloween night Mad Rose is having a Mad O Ween party starting at 8pm. Live music by DJ SAAM, who just played for a huge crowd at Echostage in DC this weekend. There will of course be costume contests, prizes and Halloween themed drink specials. There is no cover at the door, and the night will feature a special dance off with their "Thriller" Michael Jackson Tribute. The Halloween party is being thrown by Clarendon based Social DC PR and more info is on the Facebook event page.

Chiefs vs Chefs AFAC fundraiser at Ballroom

Tonight, Wed Oct 16 the Clarendon Ballroom is hosting the Chiefs vs Chefs 2, the second annual cooking competition to benefit the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC). From 6:30 to 9:30pm, local chefs from Bayou Bakery, Majestic Café, and Fuego Cocina y Tequileria will compete in a three course cook off against members of Arlington's fire department. Tickets are available at the door, prices vary and there is a special for furloughed government workers.

Little Pink Dress breast cancer benefit at RiRa

Given that this is breast cancer awareness month, RìRà is also having a fundraiser party for the Breast Cancer Care Foundation. On Saturday, October 26 if you don't feel like celebrating Halloween early, come out to RìRà in Clarendon and instead dress in pink to avoid $5 cover charge and skip the line. This month RiRa's special drink is the $8 Jameson Cherry Sour featuring Jameson Irish Whiskey, freshly squeezed lemon juice, sugar syrup, fresh cherries, a dash of egg white and Peychaud's Bitters. Other drink specials include $3 pints of either Heineken or Bud Light.

USA vs Panama soccer at RiRa

The U.S. Men's National Team has secured its 2014 World Cup bid, and has one more official World Cup qualifying match left on Tuesday, October 15. Starting at 9pm, RìRà in Clarendon is showcasing the match against Panama on their big screen. If you get your RìRà Match Card punched four times you can enter to win a trip to the Champions League Final in Berlin in 2015.

Columbus Day brunch at Lyon Hall

Lyon Hall is open this Monday, Oct 14 to cure your Sunday Funday hangover with their brunch menu. This Columbus Day their brunch is available from 10:30 until 3pm, and includes their homemade and over the top donuts. If you miss that, their usual happy hour then picks up from 3pm to 7pm which includes their popular
$5 SJF made with ginger beer. Other specials include:

$4 Beer
- Weihenstephaner
- Stella
- Palm Amber
- Lagunitas IPA
- Crispin Cider
- Schwarzbeir

$5 Wine
- Sparkling Domaine  du Margalleau
- White Domaine Uby
- Red Paul Ponnelle

Breast Cancer Awareness at Mad Rose Oct 24

Mad Rose Tavern is hosting an awareness and fundraising party for breast cancer research on Thursday, October 24. There is no cover charge, instead all donations made that night go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation through the OneUmbrella Foundation. The evening starts at 9pm with music via DJ C Lo, raffles for Capitals and Redskins tickets, gift cards, and wristbands. More details on the Facebook invite page.

Marymount Black Alumni happy hour at Buffalo Wild Wings

Next Friday, October 18 Marymount University's Black Alumni Network is having a happy hour in Ballston. Buffalo Wild Wings is hosting the event from 5-8pm and providing appetizers and drink specials. A $5 cover charge per person will directly benefit the Black Alumni Network's Bench Naming Opportunity which was part of Marymount's 26th Street Project. To date $1,175 has been raised toward the $5,000 pledge.

Halloween in Clarendon - Elliot in the Morning bash

I don't go to Clarendon Ballroom very often, but when I do, its on Halloween.

Ballroom becomes a very different place on this particular weekend. The Clarendon dance floor magically becomes a place where everyone is costumed and friendly, which about the same level of intoxication as usual. Long lines are guaranteed to form around the block for the Elliot In The Morning annual Halloween Bash on Friday, October 25, which is actually half of the fun of the night. This is the best people watching night of the year, with many people standing in line late into the night just to be "seen" in their creative or scandalous costumes, and impromptu costume judging threw the window at Eventide.

The Halloween bash includes a costume contest with a $3,000 grand prize, live music from veteran local band Junkfood on the main floor, DJ JC downstairs. Doors open at 8pm, and its best to get their early as there is a $15 cover and it goes up after 10pm.

The Naked And Famous at 9:30 Club

New Zealand synthpop/indie The Naked And Famous played at 9:30 Club in DC last night to a sold out show opened by The Colorist. TNAF was amazing live, with energetic and songs from their new album In Rolling Waves and finishing the night with an encore performance of the popular "Young Blood" song. Lead singer Alisa Xayalith sported a new look with short blonde hair, and her voice along with other founding member Thom Powers mesmerized the audience all night. Their Sunday night performance sold out so quickly they added a second show tonight, Monday October 7.

The Colorist at 9:30 Club

The Colorist is a four piece talented band from California and is touring on the east coast now. Their catchy and energetic songs warmed up the 9:30 Club crowd Sunday and Monday night for The Naked And Famous. I really enjoyed their performance, especially during the duet vocals of guitarist Adam Castilla and drummer Maya Tuttle. The Colorist has a lot of chemistry together and is very versatile in their pop/indie beats, with each member switching between two instruments.

Halloween in Clarendon - Nov 2 Bar Crawl

If your costume isn't completely trashed from the previous Halloween bar crawls, suit up for Project DC's bar crawl on Saturday November 2. The Clarendon Halloween Crawl goes from 2pm to 9pm Saturday with access to many local bars. Start the afternoon off with registration at Mad Rose and then continuing to Whitlow’s, Spider Kelly’s, SoBe, Hunan Number One, Wilson Tavern, and Mister Days. Tickets are $10 right now, but go up to $15 after Oct 17 and then $20 at the door. You get to keep the refillable mug Halloween mug, party favors, $2 Bronx Pizza cheese slices, $2 beers, $3 rail drinks, raffle ticket and other specials. More info on their Facebook event page.

"Shutdown Reboot" Arcology free show at Iota

Tonight's a special night at Iota as there will be no cover in light of the government shutdown for the show starting at 7:30pm. This Friday, Oct 4 the Clarendon venue is hosting the band Arcology and later on DJ Sam Snow will keep the music going.

Halloween in Clarendon - Monster Bar Crawl

On Friday, October 25 HiBall events is throwing a large Halloween bar crawl in Arlington. The $12 tickets gets you in to almost every single bar around here and $1 of that cost is donated to Stop Child Abuse Now. There will be costume contests and drink specials that have not yet been announced. From 4 to 9pm that Friday evening get dressed in anything that isn't a Miley Ray Cyrus costume and hit up all these orange line hot spots:

Ballston
Bailey's
First Down
Front Page
Green Turtle
Rock Bottom Brewery
World of Beers

Courthouse
Velocity 5
Wilson Tavern

Clarendon
Hard Times Café
Iota
Mad Rose
Mexicali Blues
Mister Days
RìRà
Fat Shorty's
Sobe
Spider Kelly's
Clarendon Grill
Darna Lounge
Whitlows

Halloween in DC - Nightmare on M Street

First in my series of posts about local Halloween events is Lindy's Nightmare on M Street in DC. This huge bar crawl starts on Saturday, October 26 at 5pm and lasts until 1am, starting you out at one of these four bars for registration: The Front Page, Maddy's, McFadden's or Exchange Saloon. You can then jump to the 30+ participating bars without a cover and with specials like:
- $2 Coors Lights
- $3 Blue Moons
- $4 Bacardi drinks
- $4 Monster Energy drinks
- $5 Pizza Hut Special

Make sure to use my promo code Nights before Oct 18 at checkout to save 20% off your ticket price!

The Naked and Famous at 9:30

After this past weekend's Sunday Funday debauchery at A-Town for the Redskins' win, I'm spending this next weekend in the opposite direction. DC is hosting fun music options, starting with DJ Lil E and her legendary 90s mixes at Blackcat on Saturday, Oct 5 10pm.

The weekend will end strongly with The Naked and Famous' sold out show Sunday night 7pm at 9:30 club. Fronted by Alisa Xayalith (vocals/keyboards) and Thom Powers (guitar/vocals), the band debuted their new album In Rolling Waves. They just appeared on Craig Ferguson last night, and decided to add a second chance to see them on Monday Oct 7. Tickets are $35 and The Colorist is opening for them.