AltWeeklies Wire
NOVO Festival Gathers Up Baltimore's Most Speechless Artistsnew
When's the last time you described a band as "instrumental"--as in, the first thing that comes to mind about whatever you're listening to?
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
03-02-2010 |
Concerts
The Honest Mistakes: 'Break Up'new
These are break-up songs, not particularly sad or mopey by any genre's standards, but the Honest Mistakes are soaking you in a whole lot of this: "Find a picture of your favorite friend, tonight/ take a look at it, as long as you can/ it might be the only thing you have left of them."
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
01-26-2010 |
Reviews
Tags: Break Up, The Honest Mistakes
Maryland's Doom-Metal Godfather Had a Pretty Good Year (For Once)new
Now nearly 50 years old, Scott Weinrich has fronted two seminal metal bands, The Obsessed and Saint Vitus. He has piloted vital Maryland outfits the Hidden Hand and Spirit Caravan, made music with Dave Grohl under the Probot handle, and, finally, in 2009 issued his first-ever solo album, Punctuated Equilibrium.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
01-12-2010 |
Profiles & Interviews
After DJ Nights and Day-Glo, the Band-Band Makes a Comeback in Baltimorenew
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.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
09-08-2009 |
Music
Brutal Truth: Interviewing Grindcore Bassist Dan Lilkernew
Brutal Truth, founded in 1990 by ex-Anthrax bassist Dan Lilker, has bookended the last decade by breaking up, reforming, and releasing arguably its finest record this year. In this Q&A Lilker discusses the band's recent history and metal's subgenres.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
08-04-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Year After Year, Maryland Deathfest Only Gets Strongernew
The extremes of metal music have filled every room of Baltimore nightclub Sonar with bands and fans over a long weekend in May for the past several years as part of Maryland Deathfest.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
05-19-2009 |
Music
Ami Dang Bridges Classical Sitar and Voice with Western Avant-Garde Musicnew
It's abrupt when you hear Indian classical music as meditative and spiritual -- that is, as it is intended to be. And it's even more abrupt when it's heard woven into Western avant-garde music, each element working to develop/unshroud the other. This act is a large part of the sublime art of Ami Dang.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
01-06-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
The Wanderers' World of Finger-Picked Acoustic Guitar Blues/Folk/Raga/Whatevernew
The rice-paper umbrella for this monolithic-on-its-face style of instrumental, mostly finger-picked guitar folk, at least since the first disc of the three-part Imaginational Anthem series came out in 2005, has been "American primitive."
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
10-07-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Ben Parris Gets a Solid Minimal Techno Workoutnew
Parris keeps a fairly low profile around Baltimore. Like just about everybody else of moderate success in the techno community, he does a fair amount of time in Berlin, which is to techno as Brooklyn is to avant-rock.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
09-16-2008 |
Reviews
Daedelus Revisits Rave's Everything-Goes Approach to Music Mixingnew
Messy isn't necessarily sloppy; it can still be calculated. The mess-as-aesthetic is something Daedelus does best.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
09-09-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Detroit Transplant Patrick Brander Tries to Spread Techno in House-Loving Baltimorenew
If techno is a minority player in Baltimore, as it is in many American cities (by European standards), at least some of that has to do with the landscape. Heavily molded by rock club culture and a painful 2 a.m. last call, Baltimore is not well equipped to give a techno party the hours needed to dig in for longer than a taste.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
09-02-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
How Does Wham City Get Away with Whartscape?new
Now in its third year, the anti-festival turned oddball indie magnet covers four nights, two full days, and four venues, is backed by a list of sponsors, and brings in headliners whose individual payment guarantees could probably cover a month's rent for everyone involved in organizing the fest combined.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
07-29-2008 |
Concerts
Wolf Parade Shows a Mature, Polished Side on 'At Mount Zoomer'new
Part of it is the recording: It sounds more professional. The drums are mixed down and don't have that ragged, recorded-in-a-concrete-closet feeling. The record has more interest in melody--guitars are used as paint instead of gasoline.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
07-08-2008 |
Reviews
Ponytail Taps Into Something Deeper and More Adaptable Than Moon/Junenew
Molly Siegel's vocals are almost certainly the strangest and most refreshing in indie music since Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart taught his throat to cry. It's like listening to a child learn its first word in accelerated form, only it's a twentysomething art-school graduate backed by an epic, even more clamorous version of Deerhoof.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
06-03-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Ice Cream Spiritual, Ponytail
'Love and Circuits' Captures America's Current Musical Undergroundnew
Cardboard Records founders Dan Friel and BJ Warshaw explain the comp in no humble terms: a representation of "the current underground scene as a whole." And it's a fair approximation, at least within the bounds of white twentysomethings' fickle tastes.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
04-15-2008 |
Reviews
