Articles by Al Shipley

241 stories found. Showing page 1 of 13.

Sax Addiction: John Berndt's Multiphonic Choir at the Windup Space, Jan. 14th

Noise | 1/15/2010 | By Al Shipley

It was hard to know what to expect from a show billed as John Berndt's Multiphonic Choir, since Berndt is primarily known as one of the main brains behind two of the biggest institutions in Baltimore'...[MORE]

The Club Beat: The Year in Baltimore Club

Noise | 1/7/2010 | By Al Shipley

2009 was a big year for Baltimore club music to mutate and combine with other sounds, whether it was indie-rock duo Wye Oak's tender take on Rod Lee's club classic "Dance My Pain Away," Cex's IDM diss...[MORE]

A Band's Own Best Friend: Man & Dog at An die Musik, Monday, Jan. 4

Noise | 1/6/2010 | By Al Shipley

There was a healthy buzz in the room for local folk quintet Man & Dog Monday night. Nearly every seat in the small Charles Street venue was filled. That in itself is impressive given that the band...[MORE]

Synths and Hippies Coexist Peacefully at the Metro Gallery

Noise | 12/10/2009 | By Al Shipley

For bands that combine rock with electronic music, live performance is usually a hurdle; no matter how well produced or immaculately programmed the recordings are, they rarely know how to actually roc...[MORE]

Always Dope Lives Up To Its Name

Noise | 12/8/2009 | By Al Shipley

Always Dope, the weekly Tuesday night event that local clothing store PEDX Baltimore began presenting a few weeks ago, has a few things going for it that are terribly hard to come by at local undergro...[MORE]

The Sugarhill Gang Goes Downhill

Noise | 11/25/2009 | By Al Shipley

The historic early hip-hop trio Sugarhill Gang are currently on a 30th anniversary tour, commemorating a career that began with the release of the watershed single "Rapper's Delight" in 1979. And that...[MORE]

Know Your Product: Various Artists, Street Radio Vol. 5 (Architects Recording Studio)

Noise | 11/20/2009 | By Al Shipley

Compilation mixtapes that attempt to give an overview of Baltimore hip-hop, or even simply summarize what's happening at the moment, rarely come even close to getting it right. But if there's anybody...[MORE]

Show the Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad Your Boobs (Also, Buy Them A Beer)

Noise | 10/20/2009 | By Al Shipley

The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad put on what has to be, by some distance, one of the oddest rock shows in Baltimore. Its members don outfits, such as a Mexican wrestling mask and a paper-mâché...[MORE]

The Club Beat with DJ Patrick

Noise | 10/8/2009 | By Al Shipley

DJ Patrick is perhaps one of the most unsung heroes of Baltimore club music's early days. Just about any DJ that was active in the the late '80s and early '90s is likely to name-check him, but he's ra...[MORE]

Garage Days Revisited: The Charm City Art Space looks forward to a move and a milestone

Music | 10/7/2009 | By Al Shipley

"When we opened up, we were like, 'Yeah, this'll work for the summertime,' like that'd be it," says Mike Riley, one of the founding members of the Charm City Art Space. "That was in July 2002." The ...[MORE]

The BSO Brings Together Bloggers and Bluegrass

Noise | 9/29/2009 | By Al Shipley

Being a music blogger generally means receiving a constant stream of promo e-mails, usually from every indie-rock band and mixtape rapper under the sun. So when you get an e-mail from, say, the Baltim...[MORE]

Saturday Night's Alright For High Zero

Noise | 9/21/2009 | By Al Shipley

The High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music is, perhaps more than other music festivals, best thought of as an exotic buffet. You might not enjoy the strange flavors it has to offer all th...[MORE]

Lynee' Michelle Has A Love Affair

Noise | 9/11/2009 | By Al Shipley

After interviewing local R&B singer Lynee' Michelle a few months ago, Saturday night at 5 Seasons was the first time I've had a chance to see her perform live. The event she was headlining was tit...[MORE]

The Man With the Hand Comes Around

Noise | 9/10/2009 | By Al Shipley

Five years ago, Comp was looking like Baltimore hip-hop's best mainstream hope, with a Def Jam contract, songs on movie and video game soundtracks, a guest spot with Ghostface Killah, and a single in ...[MORE]

Big In Japan Winds Down Its Windup Space Residency

Noise | 9/1/2009 | By Al Shipley

Big In Japan began more than a decade ago as a kind of low-key offshoot of Lake Trout, a chance for three of the band's five members to do small club gigs of groove-based improvisation. Over the last ...[MORE]

Sight and Sound at Club Reality

Noise | 8/21/2009 | By Al Shipley

Thursday night's event at Club Reality, un{FRAMED}, was billed as not just a show but an "experience," using both the venue's downstairs performance area and upstairs gallery. The union of visual art ...[MORE]

Our Lady Peace Climb The Walls

Noise | 8/20/2009 | By Al Shipley

Toronto's Our Lady Peace is, like most Canadian bands, much bigger in its home country than in America. Though the band has had a fair amount of success on American radio, Our Lady Peace appears to ca...[MORE]

Lazlo Lee Just Wasn't Made for These Times

Noise | 8/11/2009 | By Al Shipley

The best thing that local rock trio Lazlo Lee and the Motherless Children has going for them is their guitar tone. That's not to say that Lee isn't a confident, charismatic frontman, or that his rhyth...[MORE]

The Baltimore Music Festival Gets Rowdy and Righteous

Noise | 8/10/2009 | By Al Shipley

The 2009 Baltimore Music Festival was probably not as big or as all-encompassing an event as the name implies. Presented by Charm City Jazz and Bilal Ali Productions on Saturday night, the event—...[MORE]

Women Rule WTF Wednesday

Noise | 8/4/2009 | By Al Shipley

In the two years since I wrote Ladies First, a City Paper feature about the women of Baltimore hip-hop, female involvement in the scene has continued to broaden and diversify. But events spotlighting...[MORE]

241 stories found. Showing page 1 of 13.

111 reviews found. Showing page 1 of 6.

Gary B. & the Notions

Musician review: by Al Shipley | 12/30/2009

"I listen to every style of music," says Gary Barrett Jr., over a few beers one snowy night at a Charles Village bar. "I have a favorite band in each category. But the guitar band with the lead sing...[MORE]

Rapdragons

Musician review: by Al Shipley | 11/18/2009

"This band could never have started on some Craigslist thing like 'Hey, do you wanna play music?'" says Nick Often about Rapdragons, the hip-hop duo he co-founded with Greg Ward earlier this year. "It...[MORE]

Brian McTernan/Salad Days Studio

Musician review: by Al Shipley | 9/2/2009

"It's pretty funny, I always hated Baltimore," admits record producer and Bethesda native Brian McTernan of his adopted hometown. "The extent of my Baltimore experience was going to shitty clubs in ...[MORE]

The Express: The Ernie Davis Story

Event Preview review: by Al Shipley | 7/8/2009

Handsomely shot with a likable cast, a thumping Motown soundtrack, and era-appropriate wardrobe, The Express looks and feels exactly like every other Civil Rights-era sports flick, no better or worse,...[MORE]

Charmicidle

Record review: by Al Shipley | 7/1/2009

Like a growing number of Baltimore rappers, the Boy Blesst has spent much of the last few years in Atlanta, trying to jumpstart his career in the rap industry's southern epicenter rather than merely b...[MORE]

Sonny Brown

Musician review: by Al Shipley | 6/17/2009

Sonny Brown is standing on the front steps of the Charles Street headquarters of Street Legal, a Baltimore-based hip-hop label and recording studio, shooting the shit with old friends. And even though...[MORE]

Chief Rocker Busy Bee

Musician review: by Al Shipley | 4/22/2009

David "Chief Rocker Busy Bee" Parker was riding high in 1989. He had already made history as one of hip-hop's first solo MCs since arriving on the nascent scene in 1977, had been immortalized playing...[MORE]

Outgrown These Walls

Record review: by Al Shipley | 3/11/2009

Last year, WTMD-FM's local music program Baltimore Unsigned embarked on an intriguing but risky project: pairing up two disparate musicians who'd never heard of each other for an unlikely collaboratio...[MORE]

Deal Or NOE Deal

Record review: by Al Shipley | 3/4/2009

Baltimore native NOE's career as a rapper will always be weighed down by the baggage of a voice that sounds eerily reminiscent of Jay-Z's. But given that two of the most hyped new artists in hip-hop ...[MORE]

DJ Class

Musician review: by Al Shipley | 2/18/2009

One day in early November of last year, Shawn Caesar, co-owner of stalwart Baltimore club label Unruly Records, got a call from an old friend. "DJ Class calls me like, 'Check your e-mail, I sent you...[MORE]

The Art Department

Musician review: by Al Shipley | 2/11/2009

A few years ago, recordings surfaced on the internet of a lost album by the Art Department, a mid-'80s indie band from Carson City, Nev., with a vague backstory and an inscrutably unique sound. Th...[MORE]

Checkmate

Record review: by Al Shipley | 2/4/2009

Among Baltimore hip-hop's frontrunners, Ogun isn't the most dazzling lyricist, but he has arguably had the most heart--or at least been the most willing to wear it on his sleeve. His profile having s...[MORE]

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Movie review: by Al Shipley | 1/21/2009

Comedy filmmakers have long paired a profession with a funny name and let the jokes write themselves, but only since Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy have they felt the need to include both compo...[MORE]

Baltimore Highlands (Height With Friends)

Record review: by Al Shipley | 1/14/2009

Baltimore rapper Dan "Height" Keech's three previous solo albums weren't totally devoid of collaborations, but his latest, Baltimore Highlands, is the first to be credited to "Height With Friends." Th...[MORE]

Bedtime Stories

Movie review: by Al Shipley | 12/24/2008

Disney's latest live-action feature is a typically wide-eyed, PG-rated family flick about magic and imagination. But it's also an Adam Sandler vehicle, and while his silly voices and lowbrow humor hav...[MORE]

Lake Trout CD release, Jason Dove/Vacation Face, We Read Minds

Event Preview review: by Al Shipley | 12/17/2008

For a decade, Lake Trout seemed like Baltimore's most restless band, both artistically and physically. As it constantly toured the country and gigged around town, its repertoire evolved from jazzy imp...[MORE]

The Secret Order

Record review: by Al Shipley | 12/17/2008

Born King is quickly becoming one of Baltimore's most prolific and unique rappers, having released three albums in the space of a year. Two of them, 2007's Krad Edis and the more recent The Secret Or...[MORE]

Four Christmases

Movie review: by Al Shipley | 11/26/2008

Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are a loving, committed couple who, as children of divorce nursing deep psychological scars, have absolutely no plans for marriage or children. And eve...[MORE]

Role Models

Movie review: by Al Shipley | 11/12/2008

Wheeler (Seann William Scott) and Danny (Paul Rudd) are two grown men stuck in a dead-end job, selling a heinous energy drink called Minotaur to high school students. And when Danny goes off the deep ...[MORE]

Soul Men

Movie review: by Al Shipley | 11/12/2008

This light comedy comes with the unfortunate baggage from the recent deaths of Bernie Mac, one of its leads, and Isaac Hayes, who appears in a small cameo role. And though it's bound to be a mere foot...[MORE]