Driving up to Reservoir Hill last Thursday night, I realized that I'd been to my destination before; the John Eager Howard Recreation Center is the practice space for the Dream Nation Marching Band, who I wrote about for a City Paper story last year. Now, however, the occasion was a stop on the Go Green Hip-Hop Tour, an environmentally conscious concert event presented by something called G.A.M.E. (which, in a fundamental misunderstanding of the whole idea of acronyms, apparently stands for Gras ... [MORE]
For years, Monday nights at the 5 Seasons were a crucial showcase for Baltimore hip-hop, thanks to Mr. Wilson and Sonny Brown's Hip Hop 101. But since Mr. Wilson's death last year and Sonny's health problems took the weekly institution out of rotation, many people have tried to fill the void in the venue's schedule. Last summer, rapper Vision picked up the torch for a new Hip Hop 101, but it was ultimately short-lived. Earlier this month, Charm City Records took the revolving door slot with Mixt ... [MORE]
Wham City's annual celebration of the underground takes place July 10-12 at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art Studio Center Parking Lot, and Load of Fun. The lineup is less focused on bigger name, out-of-town acts—such as last year's Black Dice, Mae Shi, and Parts and Labor—than quality local and Wham City family and friends. Among the Baltimore bands performing, there seems to be a more inclusive vibe this year with non-Wham -City-affiliated, relatively ... [MORE]
I didn't know much about local DJ and rapper King Illah before attending his "Illahpalooza" event on Saturday-at most, I'd seen his album Pimpin' On My Grind in the racks at Sound Garden, and caught a less than impressive DJ set at the Black Hole Rock Club. Nonetheless, he was able to pull off an all-day event at the Fish Head Cantina in Arbutus with more than a dozen artists. And, beyond that, he was undoubtedly the star of the show. Highlights during the evening included the group Planet SB, w ... [MORE]
This year's Virgin Mobile Festival takes place Aug. 30 at Merriweather Post Pavilion—moved from its previous home at Pimlico race track—and will cost attendees a whopping $0. Fest headliners are a reunited Blink-182 and whatever sort of bummer Weezer has become now. A not-too-shabby support crew includes the National, Girl Talk, the Hold Steady, Taking Back Sunday, and Public Enemy. Tickets will be made available June 27 at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster, which is waiving its usual fees un ... [MORE]
"I AM...YOURS": these were the last words to leave the mouth of Beyoncé Knowles Tuesday night at the 1st Mariner Arena, and the final message projected onto the gigantic video screen behind the band. It was both a gracious thank you to her fans, whom she left screaming as if they wanted more following a two-hour-and-change concert spectacle, as it was the young woman's operating mantra for the set. From the moment she appeared center stage in stark silhouette, Knowles spent the evening movi ... [MORE]
In all of our fretting about the future of the DJ Culture Stage, the announcement of this year's Exotic Hypnotic program-put on in cooperation with the High Zero folks-at the University of Baltimore (21 W. Mount Royal Ave., 5th Floor) kinda fell by the wayside. Really, it's about the only time during the year that you can hear the shrieks, bloops, bleats, riffs, and grinds of Baltimore's underground during daylight hours, so it represents a unique opportunity for regular folks to hear some of th ... [MORE]
The sign in front of Bertha's Restaurant and Bar on Wednesday listed the night's entertainment as a "New Orleans brass band," but that functioned as a description of the act's sound, not its geographic origin. In fact, Mama Digdown's Brass Band comes from about as far from Louisiana as you can get and still be in the same country: Madison, Wis. Still, the seven horn players and percussionists clearly drink deep from the well of New Orlans' proud musical tradition. And when that joyous, funky sou ... [MORE]
Well, the big outdoor stage is gone, but booker Chris Brooks is making do: July 17 and 18, the Windup Space hosts a not-at-all-shabby lineup of DJs in its stead. While part of the kick of the original DJ Culture stage was exposing all the Artscape families and general random people to music they might not be familiar with, glad something is happening. It's free and, unfortunately, you have to be 21 to enter. Highlights include DJ Booman, Scottie B, King Tutt, Adam Gonzo, Chris Brooks, Will Eastm ... [MORE]
An die Musik Live is one place in Baltimore that I've always wanted to visit but have never quite found the occasion for, being in general a complete outsider to jazz and classical music. But when the words "Double Bass Extravaganza" popped up on An die Musik's calendar, it seemed like as good a time as any. Of course, in another context, that phrase could mean just about anything—perhaps a jam session at the Maryland Deathfest involving every drummer with a double kick drum pedal—bu ... [MORE]
I first got in touch with DJ Manny through another Baltimore club producer, DJ B-Eazy. When I interviewed the latter, I found out that the two are cousins. And to hear DJ Manny—aka Emmanual Wheele, 24—tell it, turntables run in the family: he was first inspired to take up music in high school, by an uncle and another cousin who were both DJs. "Seein' them DJ, it looked like fun, it looked like something I wanted to do," he says. Though he learned the ropes on vinyl, Wheele has always ... [MORE]
NYC trio Black Dice doesn't so much make music as it dumpster-dives for sonic refuse, smashes together its findings, and shapes the shards and fragments into disarmingly odd, wobbly sculptures. Listening to albums like Creature Comforts, Beaches and Canyons, or recent dispatch Repo (Paw Tracks) isn't rock-out-with-your-cock-out gratifying or cathartic; it's intriguingly puzzling, mysteriously mesmerizing, perhaps kind of frightening. Impossible questions materialize. Was that an altered human v ... [MORE]
. . .because The Knot is streaming for free at Merge Records. Hint: not only is it devastatingly pretty, it bests just about everything about If Children, which is, yes, possible. The actual physical record comes out July 21 with a release show at the Ottobar the same day. (HT: Idolator.) ... [MORE]
...there's no DJ Culture Stage this year. Booker Chris Brooks has basically half an hour on the main stage Sunday afternoon for downtempo/pan-global producer Nickodemus to perform a set with jazzy house producer Quantic and the band Sun People. And that's it. Last year, we saw Clipse, Blaqstarr, K-Swift, Diplo, Rye Rye, and a whole bunch more on the stage, and it seemed like a cool representation of something big but not necessarily given much credence by the festival proper. There's the reces ... [MORE]
Cass McCombs didn't play an encore Tuesday night. The boyishly handsome songwriter, clad in work boots, jeans, and a baggy tucked-in flannel, closed with "Your Mothers and Fathers"—from his 2002 Baltimore-gestated debut EP—a song that smothers itself so abruptly at the end of its four minutes that it feels like it's sucking all of the oxygen, electricity, and light from the room with it. Everything except for the blood, really. Over hollow piano notes that seem to hang in air like ru ... [MORE]
The Deleted Scenes are a quartet based in Washington, D.C., but they've played shows in Baltimore so often over the past few years that I've seen them almost as often as any local band. And it was gratifying to see the hard-working band's recent full-length debut, Birdseed Shirt, greeted with a surprising amount of press, including an 8.0 rating from Pitchfork. On Friday, the band returned to Baltimore to kick off a six-week tour in support of the album with a set at the Hexagon. Playing selecti ... [MORE]
It's only been a year since Baltimore shoegaze trio Kadman released its debut album, Sing to Me Slower, but the band has been quickly developing and changing since then. The only member left from that album's lineup is founding singer/guitarist David Manchester, and the material being worked on for the follow-up shows the benefits of a new rhythm section. On Thursday night, Kadman played a brief set at the Metro Gallery to showcase some of the new songs, and the new lineup's take on the old song ... [MORE]
This month Baltimore punk staple Double Dagger releases its formidable Thrill Jockey debut, More. Well known as an unstoppable, confrontational live band, the album ups every ante on record, sharpening lyrical ideas, experimenting with quieter musical modes, melodies, and just how much you can do with a bass guitar. Earlier this week we sat down with vocalist Nolen Strals, bassist Bruce Willen, and drummer Denny Bowen at Bowen's Copycat building living space. The following interview contains 20 ... [MORE]
When a band plays behind a neon jesus saves sign in a punk-rock dive like the Sidebar, odds are it's not going to sing any sincere odes to our lord and savior. So when local threesome the Matrimonials displayed their propensity for potty mouth lyrics with goofy tunes such as "My Baby's Got Scabies," it wasn't exactly a shock. In fact, the band's set on Tuesday night probably would've benefited from toning down on the dirty jokes, and focusing on the tight power-trio dynamics of the band's drumme ... [MORE]
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