I guess I wasn’t paying much attention the first week/weekend of 2007, probably because there was no Black Plastic Bag then and I was still trying to catch up with the 2006 year-end stuff. But I’m looking at venues, record stores, and whatever other musical possibilities I can find, and there’s no getting around it: This weekend is pretty damned dead.

Now in all fairness, there’s Mose Allison at Blues Alley, just as he is several times a year. Ozzy’s at the Verizon Center, but you’re probably saving your Verizon mojo for Hannah Montana next week. On the club scene, the best bet is Telograph, who’ve made a nice reputation on the local scene in the last year and are having a CD release party tonight at Black Cat. But that’s it, unless you count clubs booked with bands neither you nor I have ever heard of. As weekends go it’s pretty lifeless – even by the too-much-maligned standards of DC.

What gives? Is it because it’s the New Year? Or the NFL playoffs? Or the cold weather? Or is this weekend an anomaly even for D.C. in the first week of January?