Noise: Archive for April, 2009

| Image by myspace.com/thebellevederes Noise caught local combo the Bellevederes’ first show back on March 7 at the Windup Space, the words “soul revue” getting us out of the house on one of those rare Saturday evenings when the evening’s schedule wasn’t already overrun with art openings and/or non-work obligations. And once this ensemble...
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In amendments announced last Friday, Baltimore City Council has shelved, wholesale, the most offensive parts of City Council Bill 08-0163, the “live entertainment” bill. Gone is the proposal to add a licensing structure to live entertainment in the city, as are any accommodations to adding live entertainment to residential zoning districts. The primary effect...
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Big In Japan | Image by City Paper Digi-Cam The Station North Spring Music Festival had the good fortune to fall on Saturday, during the first truly warm weekend of the season. In fact, it was more like summer than spring, so I opted to wait until later in the evening, after the sun...
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Put on by University Of Maryland, College Park radio station WMUC, the DNA Test Fest II assembled about 14 mostly East Coast bands within the noisy-punk-folk orbit–an orbit we can assume roughly mirrors that of the fest’s namesake radio show–over two nights at Washington D.C.’s Velvet Lounge. Besieged by the obligations of the first...
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Quiet Night At Club Reality | Image by City Paper Digi-Cam Over the past couple years, the Turntable Club had found a comfortable niche in East Baltimore as a small but bustling hip-hop club. So when the management decided to relocate last year to a new spot called Club Reality across town in the...
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As I type this, a band called Paragraph is playing a slinky, rainy day instrumental jam in Johns Hopkins University’s Mattin Center. It will continue to do so until six o’clock tonight, when an uncredited “acoustic jam in the courtyard” takes over for three more hours. It’s day three of JHU’s Six Day Jam...
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Baltimore’s Paperback Tragedy has a name that makes you expect whiny emo or dour goth, but its music brings a lot less drama than expected, with goofy, nasal-voiced punk in the Fat Wreck Chords mold. And considering that we don’t have too many bands like that around here, it was kind of a pleasant...
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Thanks to City Paper contributor Brandon Soderberg‘s blog 410YO for tipping us off to the Blaqout mixtape. Rye Rye gets top billing, but this is certainly Blaqstarr’s show, mixing up the Rye Rye catalog–save for, notably, “Shake It To the Ground” and “Bang”–for about a half hour of heavy, unfettered/spare Baltimore club for the...
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Dunno know about the list as a whole–it feels a bit dated, for one–but, nonetheless, we’re happy to report that Spin included Hampden’s True Vine in its “America’s 15 Best Indie Record Stores” list, in large part owing to former co-owner (and City Paper contributor) Ian Nagoski’s globe-chasing ethnographic contributions to the shop’s inventory.
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We got some information from a message board and it turned out to be bunk. Despite what was printed in this week’s paper, the Friday, April 17 Black Pus show at Tarantula Hill is not a True Vine benefit. City Paper regrets the error, and still really likes Black Pus and the True Vine.
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Listening to Washington, D.C./New Jersey trio Sonic Suicide Squad is comparable to watching naturalists attempt to ensnare sharks, cougars, or grizzly bears for scientific or educational purposes. The thrill and thrall are couched in seeing how the capture will play out. Will the struggle be quick and easy, or long, bloody, and visceral? The...
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In yet more news of Baltimore club music’s emergence into the mainstream, club veteran DJ Class‘ viral “I’m the Ish” broke into the Billboard Hot 25 Rap Tracks last Friday, City Paper contributor Al Shipley reports on his blog Government Names. After a recent Kanye blessing, maybe it’s not surprising, but awesome all the...
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We suppose it should be more surprising that it’s taken this long for a big-deal rapper/producer to pick up Debonair Samir‘s “Samir’s Theme.” Its triumphant horn progression has to be one of the most used and abused staples of Baltimore club music, and for good reason. Now it’s happened–Swizz Beatz is spitting about being...
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Mania Music Group | Image by City Paper Digi-Cam The Quarter at Bourbon Street is a slick, impersonal nightclub with a tacky New Orleans theme that recently opened downtown, occupying the same building that housed Hammerjacks in its final location until a few years ago. In other words, it’s not the first place in...
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Booman | Image by Josh Sisk The original, credited to Under Sound Music’s Demonstrators crew (DJ Impulse and E Major), is an already choice hip-hop/Baltimore club hybrid with E Major spitting laid-back verses over slowed-down, mellow club beats and rainy-day synth progressions. An e-mail from Under Sound earlier today tipped us off to a...
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It may sound a little odd that Tha Profitt, a relatively unknown young white rapper, would be able to put together an all-star local bill for his own birthday celebration. But the kid has been hustling hard the last few years, between playing frequent shows, releasing mixtape after mixtape, running a studio, building up...
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The last few months have been busy for Baltimore indie mainstay Roman Kuebler. His best known gig, the Oranges Band, recently released its first album in three years, and his solo project, Romania, has been releasing singles as monthly downloads since last year. And on top of that, he’s been playing bass in Impossible...
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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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City Paper Digi-Cam | Image by 1st Family Entertainment Thursday was a cold and drizzly night in Dundalk, but it was almost unbearably hot inside the Black Hole Rock Club, where fans had packed in tight for one of the best local hip-hop bills in recent memory. The label and crew 1st Family Entertainment...
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Deer Tick | Image by City Paper Digi-Cam Flanneled weird-beards of Baltimore: Fear not! Americana, with the occasional tinge of indie rock, is alive and well in this town. This past weekend we checked out a total of five acts, at three different venues, all but one of which fell under the general banner...
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