AltWeeklies Wire
Baltimore's Vinny Vegas Makes Normal the New Weirdnew
The band makes a slightly off-kilter normal that doesn't quite gel with the anarchic, nu-punk, and defiantly experimental sounds with which the City That Bleeds is often associated.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
04-11-2011 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Vinny Vegas
Christian Siriano Talks About Success, Style, the Industry, and Ferocitynew
Prior to evolving into the gravity-defying-coif-sporting, catchphrase-spouting enfant terrible who walked away with Project Runway's fourth season title, Christian Siriano was a self-described "little fairy white kid walking around in giant FUBU jerseys" in Annapolis.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
01-12-2010 |
Nonfiction
Kenny Tompkins' Side Hustle Hasn't Spoiled Him Yetnew
Christmas Lights frontman Kenny Tompkins describes Walk Like a Human as a meditation on "the challenges of waking up every day"--something that, for many paycheck-to-paycheck workers, is increasingly tough to do.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
03-31-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
The Finer Points of Outstaying Your Welcome, Starring Scott Weiland and The Gamenew
Rock 'n' roll wraith Scott Weiland and embattled gangsta rapper The Game have one thing in common: Each has overstayed his welcome but continues to enjoy mainstream success by luck, or by the grace of God. In terms of both studio alchemy and tabloid foibles, neither brings anything especially crucial to the cultural table.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
01-27-2009 |
Music
Deerhunter Confounds and Delights Againnew
Deerhunter doubly rewards fans' faith and rebuffs critics who dismiss the band as all reverb/echo flash and no songwriting chops -- literally, because Microcastle is actually two albums in one: Microcastle proper and a bonus disc of odds and ends titled Weird Era Cont.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
11-04-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Deerhunter, Microcastle
Religious Knives, Surprisingly, Create Order Out Of Chaosnew
So far this year, Religious Knives have issued two proper albums that mark monster steps away from noise-drone doldrums and into classic rock/no-wave terrain. In both cases, the quartet starts out with a head fake.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
10-28-2008 |
Reviews
Solange Knowles Tries to Seperate Herself From Her Sisternew
While Beyonce's primary persona is fiercely independent, domineering, and largely overconfident, her little sister presents as fragile, unsure, and in need of male protection.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
09-30-2008 |
Reviews
Kimya Dawson Winds a Strange Path to 'Alphabutt'new
Who'd have imagined--back when she and fellow Moldy Peach Adam Green were waxing anti-folk rhapsodic about downloading porn with Davo, about Duran Duran boyfriends, about what to stick their dicks in--that Kimya Dawson could ever be closer than an NFL football field to household name status?
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
09-16-2008 |
Reviews
'Take Me to the Sea' Announces Jaguar Love as Its Own Entitynew
Johnny Whitney's new project with ex-Blood Brother Cody Votolato and ex- Pretty Girls Make Graves member Jay Clark, finds him dialing the histrionics down to suit the trio's relatively broader musical palette.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
09-02-2008 |
Reviews
Stereolab Pleasantly Regresses to the Dullest Point in Its Careernew
Chemical Chords is the sort of record where you hit play and all of a sudden you're halfway through the thing without even realizing how you got there.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
08-26-2008 |
Reviews
On Waiting For Ariel Pink's Warped Pop Songs to Catch Up to The Now Adult Artistnew
Between 2004 and '06, the imprint promoted the bejesus Pink's work then the full-court media press stopped dead. Information about his activities became much harder to come by, and recordings--now tougher to track down--began flowing through no-name labels.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
08-05-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Ariel Pink
'Somebody Scream!' Revisits the Stakes of Early Rapnew
In Reeves' reckoning, rap began to fill the void left by a shrinking black-power movement in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
07-29-2008 |
Nonfiction
'After Hours at the Almost Home' Captures Wait-staff Dynamicsnew
From the crisscrossing, interconnected perspectives of haggard wage slaves, After Hours at the Almost Home documents a single late shift at a fictitious Denver bar.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
07-08-2008 |
Fiction
Portishead Forgets Everything It Knows About Dreadnew
Third feels like an exploratory exercise and a reintroduction rolled into a somewhat flat, frowny package, wrapped in rough burlap. In 2001 or '02 it might have registered as a rudderless junior slump; in 2008, it's just lame.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
04-29-2008 |
Reviews
Daniil Kharms: Aburdish and Brutenew
Today I Wrote Nothing is a generally knuckleheaded collection, so rife with undeveloped ideas and nonendings that you suspect that Kharms took great pleasure in tweaking his reader.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
01-29-2008 |
Fiction
