The Guardian asks a question that followers of indie rock in D.C. should think on: Has the Internet killed local music scenes? Hazel Sheffield writes:

The idea of the local scene has always been an attractive prospect, playing on tribal mentalities and a very human desire for order. It has helped define emerging music, and in so doing, endowed places with certain musical characteristics that come to be seen as inalienable (play musical word association, and see what comes after Seattle). But recently, local scenes seem to be dying out. With the advent of the internet, the way we consume and create music has changed. We still turn to genres to help define sound, but these days these scenes are often built on artists who share nothing in terms of geography – disparate bedroom artists such as Washed Out, Toro Y Moi and Memory Tapes find themselves lumped together under the “chillwave” banner by bloggers and internet communities drawing parallels in sound, though their bedrooms are hundreds of miles apart.

The idea of the local scene has always been an attractive prospect, playing on tribal mentalities and a very human desire for order. It has helped define emerging music, and in so doing, endowed places with certain musical characteristics that come to be seen as inalienable (play musical word association, and see what comes after Seattle). But recently, local scenes seem to be dying out. With the advent of the internet, the way we consume and create music has changed. We still turn to genres to help define sound, but these days these scenes are often built on artists who share nothing in terms of geography – disparate bedroom artists such as Washed Out, Toro Y Moi and Memory Tapes find themselves lumped together under the “chillwave” banner by bloggers and internet communities drawing parallels in sound, though their bedrooms are hundreds of miles apart.

Sure. But plenty of scenes still have loosely unified aesthetics, if not strictly sounds: Look at Baltimore.

Olivia Mancini, late of Washington Social Club, lately of the Olivia Mancini and the Mates, is profiled in the Post‘s Weekend section. What you’ll learn: She’s leaving town for grad school this fall—-maybe. She plays tonight at the Rock & Roll Hotel.

Tomorrow: A drum festival that will put all your drum circles to shame.

Today in nascent Facebook campaigns: Should the Hirshhorn buy and exhibit work by local sculptor Tim Tate? (I guess?)