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Sporting a rumpled, striped button-down, stubble, and a face full of greasy bangs, Adam Savage wailed in his coarsest, throat-bloodied howl %u02D8
from an outdoor stage at this past summer's Whartscape festival. It wasn't a spectacle for the sake of spectacle--there was nothing about it that said "performance art"--and behind him on stage was the rest of the band Vincent Black Shadow, a powerful, incredibly tight rock unit that does fantastic things fusing druggy psych-rock with blistering hardcore.
Old-school local rock 'n' rollers might be loath to acknowledge that playing at Whartscape means anything. After all, the annual event is where the art students, the cool kids, and the trendhoppers congregate, at least if you're not part of it. In any case, the fest, objectively, has in its first few years concentrated mainly on the avant-garde, party-oriented, electronic, and performance-art niches of the local music scene. This year marked a notable rock incursion. Not notable because these bands--Vincent Black Shadow, Sick Weapons, Dope Body, and many others--are anomalous in Baltimore's music community but, rather, they're on their way to becoming omnipresent in it in the same way Wham City artists--and those trying to be--became omnipresent a few years ago, as the rock-club DJ parties were before that.
"After the 'disco era' of Baltimore music, then Wham City started to come in, and there were bands that played dance music and it was still a party," Sick Weapons frontwoman Ellie Beziat sums up over beers at a Hampden pub. "I think it was kind of perfect in a lot of ways. They weren't shows, they were parties." And there still are, probably even more of them.
And, at the same time, there's been a conspicuous return to the good ol' fashioned band-band. The Art Department, a tight three-piece with a sound reminiscent of the Meat Puppets, is a regular at shows at scene-center the Copycat Building, along with other drum-kit-equipped bands such as Weekends. And, of course, there's Whartscape.
"Not that Whartscape makes bands popular," Beziat says, "but the fact that [rock] was included is a sign that people are listening to that kind of music again." Indeed, local rock 'n' roll is in somewhat of a renaissance right now. Take this year's Hampdenfest: Vincent Black Shadow, Sick Sick Birds, HOLLYWOOD, Sick Weapons, and a whole neighborhood's worth of tinnitus more performing.
Vincent Black Shadow's Dan O. agrees, with reservations. "Things are looking up," he says, "but still, the average two-locals-one-out-of-town-band show isn't necessarily blowing up, or even attended at the level that the old Monozine shows were at the old Ottobar. There is always a strong base of rock bands in the city, but frankly, our audiences are mostly made up of each other. I don't see our bands reaching county kids, or even other East Coast cities the way they should be.
"I don't think there's been any sea-change in attitude, rather just a circular return to rock 'n' roll club shows," he continues. "When [the] Brit-pop dance night was in full swing, drawing 500 people a night, and years later when Wham City was making national music magazines, I know of more than a few local rock 'n' roll and punk kids that were put out by it. It felt like the city was turning away from the traditional guitar-based rock 'n' roll scene." Not that the current wave of rock bands is necessarily a reaction to DJ nights or Wham City, in his view; "It's just that they've faded from local prominence and opened space back up for local rock shows to be noticed and be considered events of interest again."
This is, of course, very dangerous territory. Tell a significant portion of Baltimore's music-making population that there's a rock renaissance going on, and you're likely to get a Boh in the face. There's an army of rockers in Baltimore that never left. Take the Fishnet Stalkers, for just one example, a veteran glammy punk-rawk band that should probably have an ownership stake in the Sidebar.
"There's always been rock bands," Beziat says. "Like, the Fishnet Stalkers have been doing it forever. . . but they have a lifestyle. They were able to weather the DJ era because they were dedicated in every way."
Which is one way of saying that the Fishnet Stalkers have a built-in fan base, as do a lot of rock bands that have been making music in Baltimore for a long time. But, arguably, that fan base is built-in, because the music being made follows a relatively strict set of parameters. Among Baltimore's newer school, "[spotting] trends seems more difficult," says Michael Bowen, co-owner of the Ottobar and former member of '90s rock band Buttsteak. "People don't seem to travel in packs like they used to."
Sick Weapons' Dan Evans delivers a round of vigorous praise for Vincent Black Shadow and slop-punk duo Weekends, and ascribes some of the differences in this new wave of rock bands to a lack of "formula." Indeed, most of these bands fall somewhere within the broader category of punk rock, though nowhere specific.
"They have a broader appeal, maybe," says Reptilian Records owner Chris X, aka Christopher Xavier, talking about Sick Weapons; Reptilian will put out the band's debut this fall. "It's not as locked into one genre. They were one of the first bands I'd seen in a while that was exciting to me. I could see the excitement in the audience as well. I hadn't heard anything like it in a while."
This "new" breed is influenced by groups as disparate as uncompromising postpunk band Shellac, psych-pop favorite Animal Collective, and Baltimore's own art-aggro trio Double Dagger, but they don't sound like them, or, for that matter, each other. And they're churning out a sound as exciting and unbound as early Dan Deacon-in-a-warehouse--as un-retro as the Wham City scene, but working with the DNA of far more deeply rooted music.
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baltifreak
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Member since 9/3/2009
tunnel-visioned DJs getting their panties in a bunch:
http://www.bmore-electro.com/forum/index.php/topic,4977.0.html