The Reluctant Fundamentalist Directed by Mira Nair Opens at the Charles Theatre May 17 We know what the American Dream is, but what is the Pakistani Dream? This is the question Changez, the protagonist of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, asks himself as we see him transition from an up-and-coming Wall Street business analyst to what...
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“Since they call me old-school,” C.J. Chenier told the Sunday afternoon crowd at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, “I’m going to do some real, old-school zydeco.” Chenier, who comes to Maryland’s Common Ground on the Hill Festival July 14, is touchy about the “old-school” tag, because he’s actually one of the more...
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“The problem with most protest songs,” Billy Bragg said Wednesday afternoon, “is people spend all their time on the protest and not enough on the song.” The British singer, who has written more than a few protest songs of his own, was standing on the rooftop deck of the Hangar, enjoying the view of...
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Earlier this week, I logged onto the popular mixtape hub DatPiff.com to listen to some of hip-hop’s latest underground releases, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the banner at the top of the site counting down the day’s big new release was from Baltimore’s own Los. The eagerly anticipated The Crown Ain’t Safe...
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So it is that today, Oct. 21, 2011, marks the last-ever show for Baltimore’s own Double Dagger. City Paper has done an appreciative feature and a do-it-yourself six-panel poster, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t offer some more words from the band. In researching the former, I sat down with lead singer Nolen...
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The name doesn’t come from the phrase: “You don’t know Jack!” It’s an acronym from the first letter of each player’s name. But these knockout young performers may relish the association. After all, they’ve made it their game to advocate challenging repertoire: stuff that’s hard to play and sometimes hard for audiences to take....
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At the time of this interview, which was arranged and conducted in the span of several hours after it was announced that Will Adams was leaving Lower Dens on April 25, there was a growing local controversy surrounding an ExxonMobil commercial touting oil-sands technology. The reason: the oil company licensed the opening guitar chords...
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On Sunday night the latest experimental music endeavor with firm Baltimore roots makes it local debut. Co-organized and -founded by local composer and musician David Smooke, the League of the Unsound Sound is a loose ensemble dedicated not only to exploring new composed music and improvisation, but to advocating for both of those camps...
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The microchip has changed rock’n'roll forever. It has added a whole new palette of sounds and a whole new level of precision that can be perfectly repeated forever. But there is danger in these new possibilities—danger that the otherworldly sonics might crowd out handmade noises, danger that perfectibility may obscure the imperfections that are...
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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...
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| Image by Josh Sisk If not a revolution, then at least a movement. The Juggalo “family,” fans of the Insane Clown Posse but much more, has the sort of unity and allegiance that doesn’t exist elsewhere in music. You’d be pressed to call it an aesthetic movement—there is something political and social to...
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At a rave, typically, the dancers move in place and the lights and smoke move around them to produce the trippy, disorienting feeling. At a polka hall such as Maryland’s Blob’s Park, there’s no smoke and the lights are stationary, but the dancers spin round and round to produce a very similar sensation. Last...
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| Image by Chester Given the sulfuric dissonance, clamor, and strife present in White Suns’ noise-punk tumult, it’s hardly shocking that the Brooklyn trio count Sightings among their favorite bands. Performing and recording together, Kevin Barry, Rick Visser, and Dana Matthiessen blaze with a gunfire-stipled, sunspot intensity that befits their handle and recalls, at...
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For four years and two albums Nashville’s Be Your Own Pet tore through garage punk with the sort of brashness that only teenagers can deliver. The quartet delivered everything at the frenetic clip of young people trying to live before they got old or the Jolt cola ran out—whichever came first. The blonde-haired personality...
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Comp | Image by City Paper Digi-Cam Five years ago, Comp was looking like Baltimore hip-hop’s best mainstream hope, with a Def Jam contract, songs on movie and video game soundtracks, a guest spot with Ghostface Killah, and a single in rotation on 92Q. Since then, he’s gone independent as his music has become...
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One of the founding members of the Convocation-formerly the Convocation Of . . . -Guy Blakeslee moved to California several years ago and formed Entrance, a band that shifted comfortably between bluegrass and folk, lush orchestral rock, and, finally, a wonderful, populist take on blues-rock. His debut record as the Entrance Band, with Paz...
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Photos by Josh Sisk With the Artscape DJ Culture stage relegated to some Wind-Up Space shows last Friday and Saturday night—a kind of cruel and confusing shift, given that July is the one year anniversary of K-Swift’s death and club’s massive global growth over the past year—My Crew Be Unruly 2, the second edition...
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About a year and a half ago, Celebration slipped, mostly, from the public’s radar, going into a sort of creative hibernation. Last month, the band re-emerged with a plan to release its new songs via an interactive, multi-media web site, the Celebration Electric Tarot. In advance of the site’s unveiling, we sat down with...
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Tara Jane O’Neil | Image by Josh Sisk An effect of the sheer hugeness of South By Southwest is that it becomes an individual experience. General admission festivals such as Coachella or Virgin Fest-which offer a few stages, some really big names, and maybe some giant projection screens-feel like they have a collective narrative....
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Nathan Williams’ passport is getting a serious workout these days. February and March found the 22-year old San Diego resident and Wavves nucleus blazing a whirlwind noise-pop path through Europe, hitting Prague, Hamburg, Paris, and Leeds, among other cities. Over the past couple weeks, he’s rocked South By Southwest and issued sophomore disc Wavvves...
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OC Alternatives Sizzlin’ Summer Calendar: Assateague Island National Seashore, North Point State Park, Rehoboth Beach, and more 5/15/2013
Real-Life Embarassing Sex Stories Feature: Submitted by City Paper readers 2/13/2013
Murder Ink Murder Ink: Murders this Week: 5; Murders this Year: 77 By Edward Ericson Jr. 5/15/2013
Crazy Horse Film: Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman puts his focus on Le Crazy Horse de Paris, the French cabaret By Lee Gardner 4/4/2012
How to Throw a Louisiana Style Crawfish Boil! Sizzlin’ Summer: Ordering 1. Figure out how many people you have attending. I usually do this by selling tickets for $25 each via Paypal. 2. Once you know how many people will be attending, you can figure out how many pounds of crawfish you need to order. The suggested a By Ben Claassen III 5/15/2013
Sizzlin’ Summer Sizzlin’ Summer: Summer in Baltimore is a sensory explosion, from the scent of Old Bay-smothered steamed crabs and the taste of marshmallow-topped chocolate snoballs to the smell of Ocean City salt water mixed with sunscreen and the vision of fireflies. 5/15/2013