Articles by Robbie Whelan

45 stories found. Showing page 1 of 3.

Taking it to the Tweets: Mos Def one night; Amanda Blank the next

Noise | 10/2/2009 | By Robbie Whelan

So an odd thing happened to me Sept. 16: I had my first real-time Twitter-based interface with a performing artist. Maybe that's not that weird for some critics, but it was new to me. I was at Sonar ...[MORE]

All In: With a little style and flair, Mobtown Modern opens up the avant-garde

Music | 9/9/2009 | By Robbie Whelan

What most critics and academics refer to as "new music" occupies a strange space in the world, and especially in Baltimore. Somewhere between the lingering notes that seep out of concert halls and...[MORE]

Unheard Of Nomo?

Noise | 8/14/2009 | By Robbie Whelan

Maybe it was just because it was a Tuesday, or maybe because it wasn't hyped enough, but all but about 40 people in Baltimore missed a killer set from Nomo, the Michigan-based Afrobeat sextet at the O...[MORE]

A Long Weekend Of Urban Americana

Noise | 4/2/2009 | By Robbie Whelan

Flanneled weird-beards of Baltimore: Fear not! Americana, with the occasional tinge of indie rock, is alive and well in this town. This past weekend we checked out a total of five acts, at three diffe...[MORE]

Engels at the "Brookings Institute"

Arts and Minds | 3/30/2009 | By Robbie Whelan

Famed CUNY (and former Johns Hopkins University) geographer David Harvey's Marxist approach to social theory and urban policy has weathered four decades of criticism and refutation. That, presumably, ...[MORE]

Guiding Lights: Raphael Saadiq looks back to the days of suit-and-tie R&B

Music | 3/18/2009 | By Robbie Whelan

If it were 1968 and not 2009, every song on Raphael Saadiq's new album The Way I See It (Sony) would be a chart-topper. In his singing, songwriting, and producing sensibilities, Saadiq is equally ...[MORE]

Giddy Again With Your Friends Matt and Kim

Noise | 2/27/2009 | By Robbie Whelan

Walking away from the triple bill headlined by Matt and Kim—the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based dance-punk carnival band that was the darling at last year's South by Southwest festival—at the Ottobar...[MORE]

Figure State: Traveler Series Stands Out in Group Show

Art | 1/21/2009 | By Robbie Whelan

The smallest works--a few dozen miniatures by Towson professor and figurative painter Nora Sturges--are the most eye-catching in Framed Reality at Maryland Art Place. Perhaps this fact is a function ...[MORE]

Mobtown Modern's Night Of "Hard As F#@!" Composition

Noise | 12/17/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

The theme of Monday night's Mobtown Modern concert series installment was "Hard as F#@!"--works of modern classical music that are finger-breakingly tough to play, fraught with the kind of quick techn...[MORE]

Emerging Narradores: Filmmakers Turn Lens On Baltimore's Growing Latino Population

Film | 10/8/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

"Baltimore's Latino leaders young and old on the big screen"--so claims the publicity materials for the Creative Alliance at the Patterson's festival of Latino short films, Viva El Cine Latino. That ...[MORE]

Still Perfect: Built to Spill, Rams Head Live, Sept. 24

Feedback | 10/1/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

The historical record is fuzzy as to when the tradition of bands performing old albums in their entirety actually began, but certainly it's in fashion now. This past July, three of the Pitchfork Musi...[MORE]

Full Circle: Pete Seeger, Aug. 8, McDaniel College

Feedback | 8/13/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

At 89, Pete Seeger isn't taking any chances. The folk music icon--he's among the last living links to Woody Guthrie and the labor movement, and has been around so long that he remembers the House Un-...[MORE]

Bachata at the Fringe: Two Years Ago, Baltimore Lost Its Biggest Booster of Latin Music--So Where Does The Hispanic Community Go For Ritmo?

Big Music Feature | 7/16/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

It's Tuesday night in the studios of WEAA (88.9 FM), Morgan State University's public radio station, and Guillermo Brown, the friendly faced host of Fiesta Musical, the city's only Latin-music radio...[MORE]

Outgrowin' The Scene: The Hold Steady, Rams Head Live!, June 27

Feedback | 7/2/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

A few weeks after the digital release of its fourth studio album, Stay Positive, the Hold Steady returned to Baltimore, the site of its second- and fourth-ever live shows, and boy were the middle-age...[MORE]

Into The Westnorth: Roycrosse Wants to Bring All Kinds of Art Lovers to Station North

Art | 5/14/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

Westnorth Studio--housed in a stately 5,000-square-foot rowhouse in Station North--is not, upon first inspection, the most inviting public space to display art. Its owner, a multimedia artist who pre...[MORE]

Rams Head Ramble: The Levon Helm Band, Rams Head Live, April 24

Feedback | 4/30/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

One of the most exciting aspects about Levon Helm, the legendary drummer for the Band, starting to stage public performances again a few years back was the concerts' setting. Dubbed "Levon Helm's Mid...[MORE]

Song Medicine: New South Baltimore Theater Company Dedicated to Producing Original Musicals

Stage | 4/23/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

Michael Hulett is a rare bird in Baltimore theater. In a city that boasts at least a dozen small, independent companies that produce works for the stage, he is the only one devoting much of his theat...[MORE]

SXSW: Fuzzy, Buzzy Bands and Cheesy, Beefy, Cheese

Noise | 3/26/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

For me, this year's South by Southwest festival (my first) came with a high risk of terminal illness. Over the course of the two or three days prior to getting on that 5:30 a.m. plane to Austin, every...[MORE]

In The Hack: Filmmaker Bernard Threatt Flags Down `Illegal' Rides--With His Camera in Tow

Film | 3/5/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

Last summer, Bernard Threatt spent countless hours standing on Baltimore street corners with a digital-video camera, his arm extended out over the curb, and his hand pointed downward in the tap-tap-t...[MORE]

County Fare: Christopher Daniel Tries With Varying Success to Bring Adventurous Food to Timid Diners

Special Issue Eat | 3/5/2008 | By Robbie Whelan

On a recent weekday afternoon, the lunch-hour crowd in the dining room at Christopher Daniel is mostly 60 and older. Christopher Ellis, his surfer-blond hair tucked under a visor, sits at the bar, wh...[MORE]

45 stories found. Showing page 1 of 3.

23 reviews found. Showing page 1 of 2.

Small Sur

Musician review: by Robbie Whelan | 8/6/2008

"Right now I'm thinking a lot about growing things, and about things tied to my father," says Bob Keal, the solemn-voiced songwriter behind Small Sur. He is sitting in the band's practice space, a s...[MORE]

Quartet Offensive

Musician review: by Robbie Whelan | 3/5/2008

A few weeks back, Nathan Ellman-Bell, Quartet Offensive's drummer, sent out an internet invitation to an upcoming show with the tag line "Live Punk Jazz." "I just wrote that as a joke," he says sheep...[MORE]

Charm City: A Walk Through Baltimore

Book review: by Robbie Whelan | 2/6/2008

This book is part of the Crown Journeys series, which takes writers such as Christopher Buckley, Myla Goldberg, and Chuck Palahniuk and plops them down in the middle of their city of choice for a con...[MORE]

The Payola Reserve

Musician review: by Robbie Whelan | 11/7/2007

The Payola Reserve doesn't hide the fact that it's in it for the big time. A major label deal, escaping Baltimore, quitting day jobs--this is success. For the past few months its MySpace headline ha...[MORE]

The Religion

Book review: by Robbie Whelan | 10/10/2007

What happened to history being history and fantasy being fantasy and never the twain shall meet? Ever since Dan Brown made a few million bucks, every hack with a research assistant has recycled chea...[MORE]

Natural

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 10/3/2007

Between drawing macabre cowboys for Dogfish Head beer labels and doing whatever else he does in his middle-aged spare time, Jon Langford is still making records after 30 years with Tom Greenhalgh un...[MORE]

You Can't Win

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 7/11/2007

With the release of its last album, 2004 sophomore effort Violence in the Snowy Fields, Oregon-based group Dolorean was neck-and-neck with the Hold Steady for the title of Nation's Most Creative Cat...[MORE]

Soul Cannon

Musician review: by Robbie Whelan | 6/6/2007

"There's gonna be a point today when I ask, `Who rhymes? And why is your life so different and so unique, and why can't you write about it in a different way?'" Ezekiel "Eze" Jackson says. "And one ...[MORE]

Destroyer’s Rubies

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 3/29/2006

As long as he keeps making records like Rubies,Vancouver-based songwriter Dan Bejar, aka Destroyer, will never shrug off the David Bowie comparisons. His voice is manic and his instrumental arrangemen...[MORE]

Barrio Fino en Directo

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 2/15/2006

There seems to be two ways for a Latin artist to get his or her songs played in every club in every Romance-language country in the world. The first is with upbeat dance-pop featuring steamy lyrics ab...[MORE]

Mi Sangre

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 2/15/2006

Black Comet

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 8/31/2005

The Heavenly States rock hard like Paul Westerberg. They pal around on tour and in the studio with Mac McCaughan and his Merge Records buddies. But if something about this Oakland, Calif.-based trio s...[MORE]

Favela Strikes Back

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 8/24/2005

Hollertronix DJ Diplo plays amateur ethnomusicologist—traveling to Brazil to collect samples of baile funk, the rough-edged street music of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (slums). Baile is all about strippe...[MORE]

Georgia Hard

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 6/29/2005

One by one, the songs on Robbie Fulks’ sixth album, Georgia Hard, reveal that the veteran songwriter is without a sense of place and longing for a home. “Where There’s a Road”—one part travel-bug ramb...[MORE]

Jayakar

Musician review: by Robbie Whelan | 6/8/2005

English major: thick, proselike, full of metaphor and hyperbole. He spends months and even years tossing around concepts in his head until he comes out with something workable—usually something that s...[MORE]

The Bridge

Musician review: by Robbie Whelan | 2/23/2005

At an early February recording session for WTMD (89.7 FM)’s “Five O’Clock Shadow” cover-song program, Baltimore quintet the Bridge nailed its cover of Son House’s “Death Letter” on the first take. Gui...[MORE]

Telesma

Musician review: by Robbie Whelan | 1/5/2005

Before a Dec. 17 show at Fletcher’s, the seven members of Baltimore’s Telesma gathered together in the fragrantly smoky dressing room and held hands for a few minutes in a pre-concert ritual. Humming ...[MORE]

Live and Well

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 11/24/2004

This legendary “dumb blonde” is pushing 58, and after decades of forays into pop, mainstream country, real-deal Tennessee old-timey, and classic honky-tonk angel music, Dolly Parton is still trying to...[MORE]

Rubber Factory

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 11/10/2004

The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach are dabblers in the grand rock experiment that has, of late, sought to spirit us all away to the deep South for a taste of rock ’n’ roll’s Delta blues r...[MORE]

One Plus One is One

Record review: by Robbie Whelan | 8/4/2004

Manchester, England, native Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, has so far been an utterly dismissible songwriter. He’s that high-school pothead who wore a grungy knit cap and wrote optimistic hippy poe...[MORE]