15

MONDAY

Singer Sarah Dougher needs an agent. Allison Anders could have cast her as a Brill Building songstress in Grace of My Heart. NBC could have worked her into The ’70s. We’re talking synergy here, VH1 tie-ins. Maybe a tour with a jam band. Dougher, who plays in Cadallaca and the Crabs and goes solo every other year to keep things, you know, fresh, doesn’t really fit into Indierockland. Not so much because of her Ph.D., but because of her big strong voice and pop classicism. Her best songs feature the crunching power chords of…the piano. Sure, Dougher has aspirations of constructing political platforms in our heads (“Bella Abzug Summer”), but she’s much more effective serving up comfort food—that is, the slow stuff. Her latest album, The Walls Ablaze, fits her almost perfectly, from the rising piano beat of “What She’d Trade” to the closing lament “The Match.” She performs with the Bangs at 8:30 p.m. at the Black Cat, 1831 14th St. NW. $5. (202) 667-7960. (Jason Cherkis)