Tonight's Top Stop: The Alphabetical Order

IN THEIR TWO YEARS TOGETHER, local quartet The Alphabetical Order have captured label interest and gigged at almost every worthwhile local rock venue. They've only managed to play as far away as Philadelphia, though, because they are young urban professionals with serious careers. They should focus on the rock, because they're good at it. We'll let guitarist Gavin Dunaway explain the rest.

EXPRESS: How do you describe your sound?
DUNAWAY: I'd say we're alt-rock. A bit of a mid-nineties flavoring, very Smashing Pumpkins, Hum and Failure. Definitely the big guitars, yet a lot of harmonizing. Very poppy vocals over-top ... We like to experiment, throw in some odder bits -- we keep pushing, just to see what we can do with it.

EXPRESS: Who writes the lyrics?
DUNAWAY: Usually who's ever singing. Both Kate [Rears] and I will take lead on a song, so she'll write one half of the lyrics and I'll write the other half and hopefully they go together. Most of the time they do.

EXPRESS: What are some of your songs about?
DUNAWAY: It's a mix of stuff. A lot of our songs are about domestic situations. Personally, I'm very inspired to write about co-dependency, of all great issues. I like talking about people being afraid of losing their identity in relationships. We get a bit of a political side: Our main political song, "Krakow Krakow" is more about political disillusionment when both sides seem to be saying the same thing. Why should I choose one over the other?

EXPRESS: I like that song. It's one of your heavier songs.
DUNAWAY: Yeah, I would say that. I think a lot of 'em are heavy. We use a lot of distortion, but I love the melodic, the harmonic qualities of distortion. And that's why I love Hum, because they were able to mix the melodic and the noise together really well.

EXPRESS: Yeah, they were extremely loud.
DUNAWAY: Oh yeah. The louder the better. I can't wait for Mogwai next week. One of the loudest shows I've ever heard.

EXPRESS: What does it mean to you to be playing the Black Cat?
DUNAWAY: It's cool. I love the fact that it's all ages. We have a lot of younger fans.
It's funny, it's the hipster haven, but it's a really sociable room -- it's fun. We can bring good crowds out there, they don't charge much for the door. I hope we make it to the main-stage one of these days. We did play 9:30, so we're a little spoiled.

EXPRESS: How'd you get booked there?
DUNAWAY: We got to the finals of a battle-of-the-bands thing. It was a lot of fun. I can't tell you how many of my favorite acts I've seen on that stage. We were playing with all these bands playing very commercial music, lots of guitar solos and showing-off everywhere. We were like, "OK, here's our alt-rock/indie rock. Hope you like it." They didn't.

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; 9 p.m., $5, with the Omega Band; 202-667-7960. (U St.-Cardozo)
» The Alphabetical Order [MySpace]

» MORE OF TONIGHT'S TOP STOPS can be found here.