If you’ve seen live music in D.C., you’ve most likely seen David Combs—whether he scanned your ticket, passed you on the edge of the pit, or took the stage himself. As a prolific showgoer, talent buyer for the Black Cat, Comet Ping Pong, and Quarry House Tavern, and as a performer with power pop projects Dim Wizard and Bad Moves, he’s about as embedded in the D.C. scene as a person can be. That’s nominative determinism for you; after all, his initials are D.C.

With Bad Moves’ third album, Wearing Out the Refrain, coming out Sept. 13, Combs offered City Paper his take on the most exciting D.C. shows of the fall. His list starts with the Bad Moves album release celebration at the Black Cat on Sept. 27, featuring a “real banger lineup” composed of New England garage punk band Perennial and local post-hardcore stars Ekko Astral (“who are just, at the risk of offending anybody, the most exciting band in the city right now,” says Combs). He also discussed D.C.’s rejuvenated scene post-COVID and how Bad Moves put in two years of work to make Wearing Out the Refrain their biggest, baddest move ever.

What are your most anticipated events of the season?

In the shows-I’m-not-playing category, I’ll give it to you in chronological order: Sept 29, there’s a show at Comet Ping Pong for a band called Crush Fund from Brooklyn, who are one of the best live bands I’ve seen in a while–really raging post-punk. We’ve gotten to play with them. We’ve gotten to put on shows for them at Comet and Quarry House, and every time, they bring it. The show starts at 9 p.m. at Comet Ping Pong, 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. $15. 

Oct. 12, we have Bed Maker at Comet Ping Pong, another amazing post-punk band. A local band that has never disappointed any time I’ve seen them. I cannot say who they’re playing with, but it is a secret special guest who I think will be exciting for folks from D.C. especially. The show starts at 10 p.m. on Oct. 12 at Comet Ping Pong, 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. $15.

Black Cat on Oct. 19, Illuminati Hotties is playing. Just one of my favorite songwriters, favorite producers. I got to work with Sarah [Tudzin] on producing some Dim Wizard tracks. She just rules, and they rule live, and they just put out a new record, and the record rules. The show starts at 8 p.m. at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. $20–$25. 

Quarry House Tavern on Oct. 22 is Kississippi, Talker, and Pretty Bitter. Kississippi and Talker are on tour together and Pretty Bitter is the D.C. band that makes 100 percent sense to play with them. I came up with a genre descriptor that applies to all three: emo-tinged indie pop. All of these bands released music this summer that ruled, and more people should be paying attention to them. Great songwriters across all three acts. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. at Quarry House Tavern, 8401 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring. $19.84.

The very next day [Oct. 23] at Quarry House, we have this really cool band Iguana Death Cult. It’s like surfy post-punk. The kind of thing you listen to and you’re like, “This band has got to be from Australia,” but they’re actually from the Netherlands. I think that’s gonna be an exciting band, and in a space that’s perfect for that sort of music. Quarry House is dingy and divey, and there’s certain music that I would rather see there than anywhere else. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. at Quarry House Tavern, 8401 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring. $19.84.

What makes something stand out to you as a booking opportunity? You must be inundated with stuff to consider.

There are a finite number of shows that we can put on so we certainly get a lot more than we can handle. I try to make sure everything gets a listen. It’s very hard to keep up with all the emails, and as a rule, we don’t even dip into the DMs because it’s a whole other world. I try to see if there’s any community around a genre of music in the city that a show would be serving, and definitely try to bring touring acts through that … [well] it’s exciting if they can be complemented by something happening locally.

How would you describe the state of the scene right now? 

D.C. has always been a really important music city, in spite of its reputation being for the political industry … But obviously, you can point to jazz, and hardcore, and go-go, and post-punk, and all these genres of music that have thrived here. It’s an expensive city, so it’s a hard place for artists to live … But nevertheless, because there’s such a rich history, there’s always exciting … often politicized music. Not, like, political sloganeering—there’s just a smart, culturally aware trend of music in this city.

The pandemic was a really bad blow to all music scenes everywhere. A lot of bands didn’t survive, and it took a little time for the scene to get out of that slump. But I feel like right now, there’s as many exciting bands and artists coming out of the city as there have ever been since I’ve been part of the music scene. Often I’m seeing people I know in other parts of the country post a song from a D.C. band that I wouldn’t have even expected [them to know]—that’s always awesome.

What can people expect from the Bad Moves record? 

We wrote and recorded as we went along, which isn’t something we’ve done before. Then we just kind of labored over the production. I feel like it’s our best record—that’s how you’re supposed to feel when you put something new out, but I do feel that way. It’s leaned into all of our strengths that we had on the other records, but then also adding extra stuff—percussion, horns, or a synth here and there—just splattered in. Nothing that doesn’t sound like us, but trying to take each song and find how we could make it sound as big as possible. I feel like we accomplished that—hopefully that gets across. Bad Moves play at 8 p.m. on Sept. 27 at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. $20. 

Check out more of our 2024 Fall Arts Guide here.