various artists - A389 Summer 06

Let's take it back 20 years to the summer of 2006. I was in my second year of my first marriage, living in the southwest corner of Baltimore County. And while I was separated by location and duty from my scene, I tried to stay up to date with what was happening. On a fleetingly short visit to Reptilian, I snagged this sampler, a collection showing off what was coming from the relatively-new label A389 Recordings.

"Tough guy hardcore" (whatever that means) wasn't ever really my bag. But label owner Dom played in Slumlords with my friend Doug, and had just started Pulling Teeth with fellow CCASer Mike, so I was willing to give it a shot. Plus...free, you know? And what you see is what you get here. It's unpolished (meant in a strictly positive sense) hardcore, suited more for the basement than the Warped Tour. There's good representation from Canadian HC bands, an Integrity/Ringworm-related project, and a healthy dose of what Baltimore was doing at the time. It was a honest snapshot of what was in the books over the first 12 releases from a label that's now up to A389-182. And today it makes me wish I'd picked up that Gut Instinct discography when it came out.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Reptilian Records Sonic Assault

It was approximately 25 years ago that I started working at Reptilian Records. I'd been visiting the store for several years by that point, steadily expanding my taste in music. I'm sure I've gone on ad nauseum about the things I heard for the first time within those four deteriorating walls. Even if it'd only been the Stooges and Unsane, it would be a huge influence in my life. But I discovered the Slits, Spazz, Cop Shoot Cop, American Nightmare, Pleasure Forever, the fuckin' White Stripes via hearing them at and buying them from Reptilian. It was terra firma, my home away from home, and by 2001, it was my paying gig.

This label sampler got a ton of play in the store. Everything appearing here had come out over the past 24 months. I ended up packing a fair amount of these for mail order and walking them the six blocks or so to the Fells Point post office. What a lineup: Pageninetynine's "Document #5", the Pig Destroyer 7" picture disc, "The Fuses Are Lies", the Cutthroats 9's "Anger Management" 10", Easy Action's self-titled LP, and Midiron Blast Shaft's "Starts Fires In Your Pants" all spring from the head of punk rock while presenting wildly different interpretations. It's loud as fuk, blasting alongside fellow travelers Man's Ruin, Amphetamine Reptile, Touch & Go, and Relapse. It was a golden age, if you ask me.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Torn Apart - Nothing Is Permanent...

In the first couple of years after I moved to Baltimore in 1994, there were two bands who were the kings of the hardcore scene. Next Step Up were the old heads, tied in with CCS and continuing the lineage of tough street level HC. The young bucks were Torn Apart, who drew inspiration from contemporaries like Turmoil, Integrity, and Earth Crisis. And unlike NSU, who seemed like full-blown adults in comparison to us, and thus elevated, Torn Apart was us. Kids from places like Reisterstown and Perry Hall who you had college classes with, hung out with at shows, worked in a bookstore with. This was the first time I'd been aroujnd dudes my own age who could tour outside a 50-mile radius; it was the aspirational made real.

"Nothing Is Permanent..." was Torn Apart's second release for Life Sentence Records in Utah, and their first full-length. It felt like a monumental release; our very own "In This Defiance". That summer of '97, it was a rare record that everyone in my suburban circles could agree on. The punks, the skins, the moshers, the crusties, the headbangers...everybody dug it hard. There was a fair amount of cackling at the hidden track prank call between Brett and LSR owner Dan. "Torn Apart? More like rip a fart." Classic.

Torn Apart is getting back together for their first show in...20 years?...Sunday night, serving as first support at End It's record release show in Baltimore. It's been a long time since there was a show happening back home that I would travel for, but this one fits the bill. The opportunity to fake like I'm 19 again, to clear a dance floor with a floorpunch and a spin kick once more...it's all too much to pass up.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Hairspray (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

It's dawned on me that I probably underrate "Hairspray" as a movie, almost certainly on account of what it became. I still can't believe that there was a successful musical adaptation of a John Waters movie, yet here we are. I think my niece auditioned for Traci Trunblad last year. It's a weird world. Thankfully.

The musical makes me mad because there isn't nearly enough Toussaint McCall or Gene Pitney or Barbara Lynn. There are a bunch of theatre kids singing about acceptance, I guess. Which is all well and good, but nothing equivalent to "The Bug".

John Waters soundtracks are the shit, is what I'm saying. I like this one so much, I own copies on vinyl, CD, and cassette. And I'd probably buy it on 8-track if it'd come out in that format.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Post #600 - A Dirty Shame (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

I'd had this idea once that I would gather all the soundtracks from John Waters' filmography, and post them here, along with my thoughts on the film and sounds. Clearly, I've not followed through until now, and I don't think I'm going to do it, but better to disclose, I suppose.

This is, at this late date, the final feature from the Baltimore auteur, a development that makes me sadder every single day. While a lot of folks don't think highly of "A Dirty Shame", I like it just fine. I love the ongoing images of Tracy Ullman manning the register at a High's Dairy Store, Johnny Knoxville hanging out on Harford Road, Selma Blair flouncing about northeast Baltimore. By the time this came out, I had a few friends who'd bought houses out where this was shot. I still lived downtown, so I took joy in calling them neutersm teasing them for finding housing outside the Beltway.

"He who fucks nuns/will later join the church," the saying goes. And the author types it up in a comfy suburban apartment, overlooking a pool turning green in the fall's light.

The soundtrack reflects Mssr. Waters' taste to a T; a mix of rockabilly, jump blues, rhythm & blues, novelty cuts, and early rock 'n' roll. James Intveld's score gets represented with "Let's Go Sexin'"; fine advice, if I've ever heard it. It's all enough to make a Balmer boy miss home, to lust for a RoFo 2-piece and a roll, a trip to Sherri's Showbar, some late night hangs Holiday House.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Candy Machine - A Modest Proposal

Last week, I wrote a bit about Candy Machine's third and final LP.

This week, it's their second full length, released by Minneapolis' Skene Records and later picked up by EastWest Records as Baltimore's contribution to the Great Punk Acquisition Frenzy Of 1994.

I'm not sure what A&R thought this was a good record to throw out to the record buying public, but I'm grateful they did. It's my favorite CM record.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Candy Machine - Tune International

The third and final full-length from Baltimore's Candy Machine, a leading light of the scene in the couple years before I moved to town, and one still dearly beloved in small, intense circles nearly 30 years after their breakup. This one came out on DeSoto after a pair of LPs on Skene!, one of which got major label distribution via EastWest Records.

The 90s were weird, man

Discogs

Click here to download.

Post #400: Double Dagger - Ragged Rubble

It took from May to August 2000 to go from 100 to 200 posts. Then I hit 300 posts two days before Christmas 2000. And now I'm here, another 100 posts down the road. Sorry for the delay. I've been busy. On the other hand, a pace of approximately one post every two days, especially when you get THIS MUCH SUPERIOR CONTENT isn't a bad one at all.

This one came out during the marriage years, or, as I have been known to call it, "my time in the suburbs". So a lot of what happened initially for me with "Ragged Rubble" was viewed from the sidelines, so to speak.

Dubin left Double Dagger sometime after the split with Economist to go teach English outside Osaka, and Denny took over on drums. Denny sang and played guitar in Economist, who at some point became Yukon, and DD started playing less with the Charm City Art Space crowd and more with the Wham City kids, who'd started moving to town a few years before and making a hell of a racket. There was a lot more strut to this second grouping of songs. Whereas the self-titled record was jittery, "Ragged Rubble" was bold. It's centerpiece is DD's most well-known song, "Luxury Condos For The Poor", an incredibly danceable song that anticipated oligarchs laundering their money in pied a terres and generally fucking up living for everyone. In spite of it being the one record I wasn't really around for the release of, RR ends up being the one that I listen to the most. It's the record of a young band finding their footing and smashing that second record curse.

This is one of the few Double Dagger records that isn't up on their Bandcamp, so I feel fairly safe in sharing it here. Thanks for coming through for 400 posts; I'll see if I can come back for at least another 100.

Discogs

Click here to download.

TheDeathSet - Artificially Sweetened

Both the МИШКА Bandcamp and Discogs peg the release date for this mashup set as November 2010, so far be it for me to argue in favor of an earlier release, at least in terms of year or season. But I swear ta Gawd that this came out whilst still in my first marriage, when I lived out in the suburbs and hadn't a fucking clue how to balance work, relationship, and leisure. And thus I did not get to see TheDeathSet in their formative years, when they moved from Australia to Baltimore and mingled with folks who I'd been booking just a few short years before. I was clueless, other than knowing some Aussies were lighting it up downtown whilst I first managed a GameStop, then started buying bobbleheads for a distributor.

So my memories of downloading this mingle with that time on ennui, first riding strong, then fading into a new brightness that came with divorce and a move back into the city. I'd never been much for the whole mashup scene, but this just felt like a really well curated DJ set, which is what I assume it was intended to be all along. Anyone wild enough to mix Bad Brains with Cee-Lo Green, to mix the Ramones and Roni Size...welp, that's got my vote for bop of the moment. It was a very good soundtrack for the first time I'd felt really alive in a while. I'm having another one of those moments right now, where I can feel the wave starting to build, that this could be, as one Craig Finn once described it, "a constructive summer".

Should I find some shekels to restart the old cassette label in the next year, I think I'm going to bootleg this one, so it has a physical version out there in the world. Until then...

Bandcamp

Click here to download.

various artists - A Date With John Waters

As a teaser to the next Criterion Collection preview, I present to you one of the finest outings you can undertake: A Date With John Waters. I remain a huge fan of Towson's own, a man whose impeccable taste in music neatly pairs with his delightfully trashy aesthetic. His soundtracks have always been these cool collections of outsider music, whether it's been the collection of 50s rhythm & blues and rockabilly in "Pink Flamingos", the foundations of soul present in "Hairspray", or the Locust and Meatjack alongside Liberace and DJ Class in "Cecil B. Demented". It's all a young punk ever needed.

"A Date" came out a few years after John's final theatrical release, "A Dirty Shame", and, yeah, it's a fucking tragedy the man can't get $5-$10 million from a studio to knock out another film or two, his way. But if the reward for us is his published output since 2004, yearly spoken word appearances around the world, an emeritus position amongst exploitation filmmakers and a regular source of inspiration for all us perverts...well, it's a fine consolation prize for me. I could go for another curated collection of music where Dreamlanders Edith Massey and Mink Stole get slotted alongside Ike & Tina, Elton Motello, Josie Cotton, and Ray Charles. This will have to suffice.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Hey, is it Bandcamp Friday?

...there's only one way to find out. Click here, and it will either be, or not be.

In my house, any Friday can be Bandcamp Friday. But having the day is a good opportunity to talk about new music I've been listening to and records I'm planning on buying. Here's a few worth looking into if you have some bread to spend.

I definitely slept on the release last February of "Brave Faces Everyone", the newest full-length from L.A.'s Spanish Love Songs. It took this showing up in the #1 slot for Best of 2020 at Sophie's Floorboard to even hit my radar. And you may ask yourself, as I did, "Who is this band with the terrible name, to have the best record of 2020?" Well, fer Crissake, do yourself a big ol' favor and stream it, tout en suite! Then drop the $5 on a digital download, or $20 for a record via their MerchNow. I'm almost embarassed at how into this record I've been. I've seen it described as "Depression: The Record". That ain't wrong, but that's not the full story, either. It's angsty without being melodramatic. The songwriting is great; the lyrics are a reflection of what it's like to be overeducated, underemployed, and up to your neck in meds and debt. A very apt record for this day and age.

I loved Loved LOVED Slant's 2018 demo, released on cassette from the folks at Pissed Off! Records. Just an angry hardcore band from Seoul, doing what they do best. They released a really limited 7" on Iron Lung the following year that I slept on; no doubt because it would have cost me over $10 for seven minutes of music on an EP. But they're back with their first full-length, titled "1집" (imaginatively), collaborating again on the release with the best label in Seattle (don't @ me). It's 10 songs, 17 minutes, and comes in marble blue, translucent pink, or black. As the page alludes, this mixes the fury of the NEHC scene of the teens with the classic rhythms of, say, a Minor Threat. And Yeji is a brutal vocalist. Approved! I'll be taking mine in pink, please and thank you.

Those Taylor boys are back at it again. I make no secret of what love I have for their previous bands, pageninetynine and Pygmy Lush. We may not have been next door neighbors, but they were kindred spirits who I was always happy to see out in the world. They have a new band with Ryan and Adam from City of Caterpillar called TERMINAL ESCAPE. Based in Richmond, I'm pretty sure they have yet to play out. But they do have their first record coming out, a one-sided 12" called "BRUTE ERR/ATA" on Relapse that's been ripping me from neck to nuts every time I listen to it. Think of your favorite iconoclastic hardcore bands from the past 40 years: this harkens to each of them, whether it's in Cris's lyrics (a la Born Against or Dead Kennedys) or in the absolutely gross, blackened sound (Void, Gauze, Necros). Their Bandcamp has a few preorders left for the limited-to-300-copies on clear with black inside. This is the aural equivalent of this Takishi Miike movie I'm watching right now; brutal, dense, and weird.

My buddy Jumbled has a new physical release coming, inventively called "Just The Singles". He provides the beats, lyrics come via Dwell, Taylo, Nyoka Ny-D, Ill Conscious, Vans_Westly, JBerd, ALYX Ryon, Jack Wilson, Berko Lover, Cody Cody Jones, Alaska, Action Bastard, Dot Com Intelligence, Butch Dawson, salk., Ullnevano, Drew Scott, Special Berriez, Torito, Bito Sureiya and more. If you're into the boom bap, or backpack hip-hop, or just punks making non-punk music, give this one a spin. He also has a new beat tape out, "Classic Rock Breaks Vol.1", in a limited edition of 10. It's not J.Dilla, but I like it. Don't think it's not tearing me up inside that I can't remember what this cover is calling back to.

This is but a sample of what's out there. I actually like going to Bandcamp's front page on days like today, and just finding something that catches my eye. Had I previously considering copping some Flying Lotus? No, but seeing this article makes me think about it. So, you know, live a little. It's Friday, you just got paid, son.

Pure Junk - Pure Junk

Pure Junk was Nolen Strals (Post Typography) on vocals, Ben Claasen ("Dirt Farm") on bass, Alex Fine (Alex Fine Illustration) on guitar, and Chris LaMartina (Midnight Crew Studios) on drums and backups. This is what happens when four amazing, hilarious artists get together to start a punk rock band. If memory serves (and it really doesn't at 3 in the morning), these guys got together sometime shortly after Double Dagger broke up. It was my favorite of the post-DD bands; while I loved Roomrunner and sought out Peals shows, I can't recall missing a single Pure Junk show. Their fliers were handfolded mini-comics. Their songs were proletariat rock, barks and clangs about what it's like to make art outside of the edges of celebrity. Of course I adored them...so much so that they were my personal pick to play with my band at our last show. If you like shoddy, fuzzed out video that I probably shot on a Blackberry, then you'll LOVE this video of Pure Junk playing "Teething".

Now, the fucked part about this record is that some fella in DC paid for the recording and put this out, only it came out a year after they broke up and a year after I left Baltimore. Before I left, I begged Nolen to let me bootleg it onto a cassette, just so they could sell something at shows. So I'm not even certain how I laid paws on it. Maybe it was when I went back to town to pick up stuff from the old house and burnt my hands with boiling water? Maybe Nolen sent me one? Anywho...this record was mad under-heard, and I'm pretty sure never hit Bandcamp, so I don't feel band about sharing it here at all. The download came with an extra song that wasn't on the 7". Like Minutemen? Then you'll probably dig this.

Discogs

Click here to download.

No Stagediving

The best laid plans of mice and men called for an in-depth, last Bandcamp Friday of 2020 blog, detailing all the stuff on my wishlist that I'd spend money I don't really have on, all in the name of supporting the little guy.

And then I took a nap after work, laid in bed with my wife, watched "Bob's Burgers" and ate too much Jack in the Box. What I'm saying is, I turned into a real turd this evening.

So I'll limit comment here to an ongoing project supporting artists from Baltimore and organized by the team at the Ottobar. Readers here know I'm an Ottobar alum, having worked the door, mopped the floors, backed the bar, and played the stage. From its first location on Davis St., to its present haunt at 26th and Howard, it was my spot until I split town in 2014. Even still, it's where Mrs. Ape and I will plan to meet friends for a drink should we ever make it back home.

Organized by Jerrod and Steve, and backed by Tecla, Todd, and Dana of the Ottobar's management, "No Stagediving" is a two-volume, 106 track collection of Baltimore past and present, grouped solely by having appeared onstage at 2549 Howard St. Some names, you'll already know: Future Islands, Dan Deacon, Lower Dens, and Wye Oak. Baltimore punk, hardcore, and emo also represents, with 90s groups like Cross My Heart and Daybreak mixing with current leading lights like War on Women and Truth Cult. It's one of the few surveys available covering any sort of historical swath of Baltimore hip-hop, as Labtekwon, Rye Rye, and Soul Cannon all turn up. If it's played that stage, it's probably turned up here.

Each collection is a $10 donation and, as happens every Bandcamp Friday, all proceeds go to the bar and bands. Get into the City that Breeds.

Bandcamp

The Soft Pink Truth - Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want The Soft Pink Truth?

When he's not teaching English at Johns Hopkins or making sounds with legendary noise/musique concrete/electronic duo Matmos, former Louisvillan and Slamdek alum Drew Daniel transforms the sounds of our youth in his The Soft Pink Truth project. I tripped, dingus first, on this CD while bin-digging a few weeks back, and grabbed it based on label (Kid 606's Tigerbeat6) and price (50 cents). The cover was just...icing on the cake. Also, maybe I thought the title was "Soft Pink Turds", which is perverse and just what I'm looking for in a mystery recording.

And what did I get? It's techno adaptations of classic punk, hardcore, and new wave songs, along with a Carol Channing standard from the 1974 musical "Lorelai". Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), Blevin Blectum, Dani Siciliano, and Matmos bandmate M.C. Schmidt all take turns on the mic. There are covers of Crass, Minor Threat, Nervous Gender, and a version of Die Kruezen's "In School" that just melts like a steel beam covered in jet fuel. All of it leads to my conclusion that there should be more house/hardcore homages.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Re-up: Charm City Suicides - s/t

There are strange doings afoot here in Bodymore. To be fair, the birthday post was already written, and scheduled to post, and, fuck it, why wreck the schedule just to put in new news? My boss approached me with a proposition Friday. Suffice it to say, it scared the shit out me. I have no idea how to react except to jump in a give this new thing a shot...soldier up, as one might say. But it's weird, someone you respect looking you in the eye and telling you they believe in you. I've always had a hard time hearing it, even if I was always able to say the same thing in total sincerity. "I'm proud of you." "I believe in you." "I trust you." We live in cynical times, where every commenter would rather drop a glib line than honestly state how they feel. I watched Can't Hardly Wait tonight with the wife. We're both still full of the birthday buffet she put together for the family and I this morning. I feel like a big ol' fat ass, packed to the sinuses with creamed chipped beef and fresh cantaloupe. It gets harder to have true enthusiasm for these kinds of events every year; not due to the excitement of the event, mind you. Again, it's just hard to be truly joyful when life surrounds you with post-irony...insincerity...the wink and the nod. But fear not, here's where the music comes in, kids. There was a band around these parts a few years ago by the name of Charm City Suicides. They were the band that made you fall back in love with a live show. Their screamy, trashy garage sound was equal parts Oblivians, Black Flag & Sam and Dave. They were the perfect teenage band. They were honest and wore their attitudes, along with their hearts, on their sleeves. They fucking rocked. Like a lot of music, I talked mad shit on C.C.S. for the first couple of years I was aware of them. Then I saw them play a show in Fallston shortly before I was released, sometime in the fall of 2001. Like just about every other band I ever talked a bunch of crap about, Charm City Suicides knocked my dick in the dirt that night. Playing to a crowd of about 50 kids in a Republican-town V.F.W., they said a lot about the power of D.I.Y., of how proud and strong youth can be, and how it doesn't matter being cool, looking hot. It was angry and smart and I'm still stoked I got to see them three more times before breaking up in October 2002. During their last set ever, I pulled off the most perfect stage dive I've ever done. I haven't dove off a stage since. The record known as Charm City Suicides, "I", was originally released as an LP by Vermin Scum Records in 2001. This quickly went out of print, and bookended Vermin Scum's long record as the best label for Baltimore & Annapolis-local punk. Mark McCoy heard the LP and released a version on CD on Youth Attack! in time for C.C.S. to break up. That's the rip to be found here. Every town has a punk rock band full of piss, vinegar, three chords and the truth. For five years, Baltimore had Charm City Suicides. 

(Postscript: this blog was originally posted on my 31st birthday in 2008. A lot of water has passed under that bridge since then. I still love the Charm City Suicides.)

Discogs

Click here to download.

Charm City Suicides - II

What do I remember about Charm City Suicides?

I never walked away from a Charm City Suicides show disappointed.

I was in love with every Mike Apichella flier I ever experienced.

I remember being so in awe of these kids who were the same age as me, who lived less than 10 miles away from me, but were so hip and juiced in.

Flier by Nolen Strals

I'd never seen them until I went to College Park for a year, even though they all lived less than 10 miles away from me for five years. Then I probably saw every saw they played in the Baltimore/DC/NorVA triangle for the last two years of their existence.

I had two years of digital photos of Charm City Suicides on a external hard drive that disappeared in a move. I mourn their loss more so than I do my own baby pictures.

I remember Mike and Dubin giving me this CD the night they got them back from the printer and thinking, "How am I so cool that they thought to get one to me right away?"

I remember stage diving at their final show at the Ottobar with Nolen and Walker, thinking that things might never get any better than this.

They, along with Daybreak, were the musical bridge from me being a Harford County kid to becoming a Baltimore resident. They released 28 songs from 1999 to 2002, across two LPs, a single, and a pair of compilation appearances. When they were done, they were done; there'd be no encore, no reunion show, no retrospective. All that was left was a legacy of sheer abandon, ringing ears and hoarse throats.

Charm City Suicides never phoned it in. How many other musical groups can you say that about?

Discogs

Click here to download.

The Hissing Choir, live at the Talking Head, 2003

Violent Noise Party #1 (flier by Eric T. Neal)

I remember this being a stressful, yet ultimately fun show.

I started booking shows at the Talking Head for a few different reasons. I wanted to be able to have a drink if I was going to be stressed during a show, and I'd gotten roofied at Gallery One at least twice during CCAS shows. I was also booking bands that would have been tons of fun at CCAS, but needed a little more room to move. When Blake asked if I'd do a show for Triac with a new Pageninetynine band, I jumped at the opportunity. It was New Year's Day 2004, it'd be an occasion to have some hair of the dog, it'd be loud as fuk. So I went about putting together a super-solid lineup to start the year off right.

Now, it all went pied shaped when, about 20 minutes before the show actually started, Rebecca from Flowers in the Attic came to me, a bunch of long-hairs in tow, and asked if her friends from Savannah could jump on the show. I said, "sure, do three songs after Shitdogs of War," figuring, "how bad could it be?" and away we went. Shitdogs ripped it, the changeover went quickly, and then...nothing. Bupkus. Zilch. I think 30 seconds into their first song, someone's guitar or amp shit the bed, and everyone stood around for almost 20 minutes trying to get the issue fixed. Once it finally got settled, I'd had two more whiskeys, and Baroness played two songs, both of which destroyed everyone.

The bands afterward weren't anti-climatic, but it set a really high bar for the rest of the night. The Hissing Choir were J.R. was Pig Destroyer, as well as Jake from Triac on drums and Mike from Pageninetynine on guitar. They were doing their best Swans impersonation, which fit wonderfully in with the rest of the night and had me thinking, wow, this is a really great show.

I had no clue anyone was recording any of it, but Andy Low of Robotic Empire apparently did, and a few years later posted it up on the R.E. page with some background. It sounds exactly like you'd expect a bootleg recorded to minidisc would sound; just ugly and cheap and dirty. It's a great encapsulation of what that night was. If memory serves, the Hissing Choir only played another few shows, none of which happened in Baltimore.

Click here to download.

Crimson Wave - 2013 demo

Crimson Wave (photo by Jeffrey Lash)

There was this wave of bands in Baltimore in 2012 and 2013 that came up all at the same time which, while they may have had dissimilar sounds, all fit together really well. There was Denny Bowen's post-Double Dagger band, Roomrunner. Angie from CCAS joined with Ian from Give to start Big Mouth. Wildhoney came out swinging with a demo and 7" that evoked some of my favorite indie records from the early 90s. But then Sophie, who'd been singing for Wildhoney, left the band to start something new with her friends, and it became one of my favorites.

Crimson Wave was fairly short lived; maybe they were around for two years. But in that time, I'd be hard pressed to miss one of their gigs in Baltimore. It fit well into that nebulous C86 world that's comprised of indie pop, twee, shoegaze, dream pop, and a million other micro-genres from the 80s that got revisited over the past 10 years. Had they been a thing in the 90s, it's a near certainty that their demo would have come out on K Records. Instead, it got a fairly limited release on Rainbow Bridge, which was based in Baltimore at the time. CW would put out a 7" in 2014 with Sean Grey's Accidental Guest Recordings, then call it a day shortly after I moved away from Baltimore.

Why bring it up now? I'd like to say it was a roundabout plug from Sam from Crimson Wave's current band, All Hits, whose new LP is out on Iron Lung. But I was really feeling dirgy today, and this is great, guitar driven, funereal music from a group of women who I miss very deeply.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Save the Ottobar!

Double Dagger at the Ottobar, 2011 (photo by Josh Sisk)

I am obliged, in spite of the fact I haven't set foot inside in more than three years, to share that COVID-19 has endangered my punk rock home. The Ottobar is the place I spent my formative years, then a fair amount of my adult prime. It was my paycheck in college, and my watering hole throughout my 30s. To think of it closing is inconceivable.

I'm having this struggle between being expedient and being thoughtful as I write this. Time is of the essence, of course, to contribute. Yet I want to take time to consider and explain why this show space means something to me. And, as I write this, I realize how stupid it is to think it's an "either/or" situation.

The Ottobar originally opened in 1997 at 203 S. Davis St. in Baltimore, in a 3-story rowhouse amongst a block of courthouses and office buildings. The space had previously been occupied by Chambers, which was a rock club of minor prominence at the early part of the decade. It opened at a time when I was really coming of age; I'd gotten comfortable driving into Baltimore for shows, and knew enough about the city to get around and where to park. I saw some ridiculous shows in that building that felt full with 20 people in the room. At The Drive-In, Death Cab for Cutie, the White Stripes, Pg. 99, Yaphet Kotto, Braid, Le Tigre. I saw Mastodon play to a tiny crowd when all they'd released was their picture disc on Reptilian. I was there the night that Hank from the Miss got in a fight with Arab on Radar. It was the first place I got served regularly and without stress. I'd get dressed up for Salute to Satan; I'd get down and dirty for Easy Action or the Supersuckers. When Hank or Mark had to piss or step away from doorman duties, they'd hand me the door money and let me watch things for a few minutes...or sometimes longer. Especially after failing out of Maryland, it became my home away from home.

The Ottobar closed up shop at Davis St. a couple months after 9/11, and moved uptown to the former Club Midnight in lower Charles Village. I'd gotten to be friendly with a couple of the owners, and they asked if I wanted to lend a hand with the build-out at the new location. So I ended up helping assemble and paint the stage and front podium. The room wasn't so big to make it feel cavernous, but you could fit a 600 person audience in there. And starting with the first show at Howard St., they did.

An Ottobar crowd, circa 2003 (photo by Patrick Houdek)

I started working door there in 2002. I've already told a few of the stories in other posts, but, Christ, the things I saw and did. Turbonegro played the night of my birthday in 2003; my girlfriend got screaming drunk, and kept me from seeing all but two songs, so I threw a drink in her face. I DJ'ed between sets at half a dozen hardcore shows. I stage dove over and over during the last Charm City Suicides show. I watched Queens of the Stone Age play to a small crowd of radio contest winners on a Saturday morning, sipping Beam from the back of the room. I ate some speed and danced all night at Britpop Night. I learned how to play bid wiz and roll dice, and how to win amongst a crowd of drunks. We played 'til dawn, then woke up the next afternoon to do it all over again. And thank the maker this was pre-social media; none of us would ever get a straight job again. I worked there until I graduated college and got suspended from my job. I'd left my doorman post while having my first panic attack during a sold-out Converge show. It wasn't an unfair reaction, but I wouldn't go back for years.

I set foot back in the bar for the first time in four years for a Modern Life is War/Ruiner show. It felt like I'd never left, other than the people working the door. The dance floor still smelled like sweat and cigarettes and spilled liquor. My marriage was failing, yet the bar offered me stability I couldn't find anywhere else. I moved back to the city, saw Naked Raygun at the Ottobar my first weekend back, and started swinging by any time I was out after 9pm. I took my now-wife there for our second date; I couldn't name drop to impress her, since she had been going there for years as well. Until we left Baltimore in 2014, it remained our closest place to grab a drink, or to see friends, or to play pool, or to watch a band. Like I said already, it was home away from home.

And so it stands that in 2020, our second home, like so many others, is in danger of permanently going out of business. Ownership changed last year, with Tecla purchasing the bar from the former owners. What had been planned as a new era for the bar, 23 years into its storied history, has quickly soured as it became unsafe to go out and socialize. Tecla has created the below GoFundMe so we can help out in this tough time. I'll be contributing; it's the least I can do.

Grey march - Grey march

I don't have an awful lot to say about the self-titled 12" from Grey march. I like the recording enough, although hearing Grey march play live in 2013, almost 20 years after they initially broke up, really drove home how good they were/are. They were Baltimorian contemporaries of the Revolution Summer crew in the mid-80s, playing what we'd now call post-punk, but what slotted right next to emo and post-hardcore back in 1986. There's as much of a Factory Records vibe here as there is a T.S.O.L. or Rites of Spring influence.

All of this is an excuse to hype Toxic Flyer Fanzine, the longest running zine from Baltimore and one of the few living links to the days of Grey march, the Marble Bar, Reptile House, and Jules' Loft. Billy continues to do things the old fashioned way: a newsprint or photocopied zine featuring his own music writing and live photography. I'd love to see him digitize everything into an online archive, but, for now, if you want to dive back into that history, you have to visit his Etsy page. Billy just released issue #49 a couple of months ago, featuring photos from recent Subhumans, Krays, and Days N Daze shows. It's great, underseen stuff.

Discogs

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