One totally hairless gold man is supporting another hairless gold man entirely with his neck. No joke: Atop a platform placed front and center on the Meyerhoff stage, two male acrobats clad in goldish trunks and tinted with golden body paint, slowly move through a series of poses that this writer couldn't pull off after about 1,000 hours of Bikram yoga and 10,000 crunches. One man moves into a one-hand stand, his supporting palm spread across the other man's head. One man moves from a hand press ... [MORE]

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City Paper Digi-Cam

Reina Williams is one of the more unique musicians working in Baltimore these days, someone who straddles a few different genres. As a hip-hop producer, she's made beats for brash young rappers like Lil D, and recently won the producer competition No Guts No Glory at 5 Seasons two months in a row. As a solo artist, she's a singer/songwriter who gigs around town with an acoustic guitar, and plays every other Thursday night at Joe Squared. This past Thursday, she pulled double duty, doing her usua ... [MORE]

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As the pop stars of the 1960s enter their 60s, as their hairlines recede and voices roughen, the second-tier stars begin to play smaller and smaller rooms. Thus it was possible on the night of March 2, within the intimate confines of Annapolis's Rams Head Tavern, to sit less than 20 feet from Ray Davies and hear him tell stories and crack jokes about his many years with the Kinks. The Kinks may not have had the commercial clout of their peers—the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Who—b ... [MORE]

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ScholarMan may be the hardest working Baltimore rapper you probably haven't heard of, with a thick discography that appears to grow every few months. His 2009 included a solo full-length and two collaborative EPs and, at the top of 2010, he came right back with a new album, Free Spirit of a Troubled Soul. True to his name, ScholarMan is a calm, almost professorial vocal presence, kicking knowledge in a more overtly educational way than the average rapper. Within two minutes of pressing play on F ... [MORE]

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The first thing you notice about Unsung Stories from Lilly's Days as a Solar Astronaut is its distinctive packaging, a cryptic collage overlaying a backdrop the color of faded parchment paper: ragged, Ralph Steadman-esque lettering interspersed with distressed typefaces, washed-out snapshots of an '80s-era sedan and an unidentifiable action figure, aimless doodles, a gray cluster of evocative text clippings, and an image of a pair of open scissors. If your guess is that Unsung wouldn't be all sw ... [MORE]

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Robbie Whelan

There are heaps of nice things to say about the Baltimore Choral Arts Society's Feb. 28 program at Goucher College. The program—Franz Schubert's Mass in G Major and Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna—included two highly beautiful pieces of music that made an interesting counterpoint to one another: one a tidy, symmetrical work of the high classical period, performed with enough focus to bring out its graceful and firm sense of melody; the other a freer, more visceral work of contemporary ... [MORE]

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Well, no, we're not likely to get confirmation that this is actually a prank but, come the fuck on, just watch it. In which Kate Levitt, of Teeth Mountain fame, and Jonathan Coward, aka Shams, parody art-hipster culture via a case about a dead cat for a daytime television audience that could probably give a shit less about art-hipster culture. It's an in-joke that's only really funny at the very end, but "A" for effort. To wit: "I don't actually have a job because I'm just a musician so the days ... [MORE]

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2009 was a whirlwind year for DJ Class. The veteran Baltimore club producer's breakout single "I'm The Ish" got him signed to Universal Records, sent him on tours across the country, and spun off remixes featuring superstars such as Kanye West and Lil Jon. But as the year came to a close, the song's buzz had died down, and his Universal debut album, Alameda & Coldspring, was nowhere in sight. So it's at once encouraging and slightly disappointing that Class started off 2010 having to keep hi ... [MORE]

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Not totally, but due to an editing mishap a few notable shows are listed under the wrong day in the print version of Wednesday's paper (Feb. 17). Specifically, the Golden West dates are one day early, and the Chrisette Michele show at Rams Head Live was one day late. City Paper regrets the error. Find the for-real and corrected Short List here. ... [MORE]

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Josh Sisk

Fan Death is a punk label run by Sean Gray and the Baltimore-based Chris Berry that's put out swell music from the likes of Drunkdriver, Rosemary Krust, Clockcleaner, and Ringo Deathstar, among others. Fan Death is also largely responsible for the now-mammoth DNA Test Fest, which moves to Baltimore this year from Washington, D.C. Berry and Gray did this interview some time ago with All Our Noise, in which Gray lets this fly: D.C. is a shitty place, with shitty bands, and a shitty outlook on life ... [MORE]

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Michaelus Byrnicus

Until last week, the only thing particularly unique about the Hexagon's decision to ditch ASCAP and the other performing rights organizations (PROs), was the public nature of it. It's difficult to say how many venues, restaurants, and other businesses currently operate without PRO licenses, while playing or performing copyrighted music under license from one of said PROs. Indeed, a rumor is circulating right now that SESAC—a Canada-based PRO generally considered to be the more benevolent, ... [MORE]

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Jazzway 6004

Given that we're all going to die an icy death Friday night and into Saturday morning as an apparently sure-shot nor'easter pounds the Mid-Atlantic, Jazzway 6004 has moved up rather than postpone its very exciting collaborative performance between local jazz powder keg Lafayette Gilchrist and South African jazz drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo. The new date is tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 4. Say the folks at Jazzway: If you have tickets to this event you can either call Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838 ... [MORE]

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Carly Ptak

Context: Twig Harper is Baltimore's resident out-of-body traveler, mystic, and noise celebrity. He's also at or near the nexus of a swirl of rumors and accusations surrounding Andrew WK—pop musician and cult figure formerly of Michigan's noise scene—some of which have Harper as being the "mastermind" behind the mythical construction of the pop figure. And some of which also have Harper as having something to do with a person who may or may not exist known as Steev Mike. You can find ... [MORE]

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Well, this one slipped through the cracks, as even the best fool-to-miss shows do on occasion, so all apologies. And lord knows there's enough going on this weekend already, but tomorrow somehow thread a stop at Floristree into your night's plans. Northampton Wools, the duo of Bill Nace and Thurston Moore making skuzzed-out alien guitar noise, performs along with an unveiling of a new incarnation of Nautical Almanac, Death Unit, Regression, Spykes, and Dog Lady. 9 p.m., $5 before 9:30 p.m.; $10 ... [MORE]

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For years Somebody Scream Productions hosted terrific zydeco and Cajun dances at the Community College of Baltimore County's Catonsville campus, but when the school decided over the summer of 2008 to stop renting buildings to outside groups, the series was left homeless. After a brief, unsuccessful stint at the Fishhead Cantina, the dances found a new home at the Catonsville's Knights of Columbus Hall last year. And on Saturday night, Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys demonstrated the ... [MORE]

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Last October, a rumor circulated that the Hexagon, a small and eclectic arts/music space in Station North, planned to ditch performing rights organizations (PROs), i.e. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. It turns out that was premature, but not inaccurate. This morning, a press release arrived from the Hexagon declaring that the collective has decided to discontinue paying yearly fees to any of the organizations—and ban all music licensed under the organizations from the space. Given that the vast m ... [MORE]

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In the 1980s, before they were declared hipster heroes by Rick Rubin and Jack White, Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn were more or less ignored by non-country audiences as they served out the tail end of distinguished country careers, playing mid-sized halls and competing against youngsters such as George Strait and Reba McEntire. Now Strait and McEntire are in a similar position, competing against youngsters such as Dierks Bentley and Taylor Swift as they work the circuit and await their own corona ... [MORE]

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According to a tweet from The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton, eight people have been tazed outside of the Club Paradox in the past three months. Weird/bad shit going on at the LOF/t with the upshot seeming to be that there is no more LOF/t. Dru Hill reunites, mostly. [The Baltimore Sun] You should design a new logo for the Hexagon. Enjoy a new music video from Beach House, which has like 20 more of these coming out on a DVD very soon. [Bmore Musically Informed] Whole buncha Baltimore head ... [MORE]

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The three young string-band musicians in the Carolina Chocolate Drops began their show at the Ramshead Tavern Tuesday with "Peace Behind the Bridge," an instrumental by the late Piedmont blues guitarist Etta Baker. Giddens, her long dark hair cascading down the back of her purple quilted jacket, sat with a banjo in her lap, clawing out the prickly rhythm. Dom Flemons, wearing a gray porkpie hat and tan suspenders, sat next to her, reinforcing the groove with clicking bones in each hand. The tall ... [MORE]

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Here at Baltimore's Most Continuing-2009's-Furlough-Days-in-the-Twenty-Ten Alternative Weekly, production weeks abridged due to holidays or furlough days or furloughed holidays, such as Martin Luther King Jr. day Jan. 18, means sometimes shows/events announced late in the production cycle sadly get overlooked by the print edition—such as this Friday, Jan. 22 show at the Hexagon. The lineup includes a solid smattering of local and national solo acts who aren't afraid to pull back and skullc ... [MORE]

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