30

FRIDAY

Matthew Houck is the latest warbling Will Oldham acolyte to come down the pike. He has decided to go by the haughty moniker Phosphorescent, because it is such a privilege to bask in the brilliant light of his borrowed genius. Houck’s debt to the Palace aesthetic would be easy to forgive if there were a little more energy in his songs. I was surprised to see, after first hearing them, that most of them are fewer than six minutes long, because each one seemed to go on and on to the point where I half-expected them to be getting zits, sassing back, and sporting curlies by the time they came to an end. And speaking of curlies, I wish Houck would grow some as well. Languid, meandering, and toothless is no way to go through life. That he named a song “I Am a Full Grown Man (I Will Lay in the Grass All Day)” just proves my point. No grown-ass man has the time to lie in the grass unless he got drunk and fell asleep there. Phosphorescent plays with the Bloody Hollies and Pagoda at 9 p.m. at the Warehouse Next Door, 1017 7th St. NW. $7. (202) 783-3933. (David Dunlap Jr.)