Self Destruction In 1988, KRS-One assembled an all-star cast of East Coast rappers as the Stop the Violence Movement to release a protest song called “Self Destruction,” which became the standard bearer for hip-hop artists banding together to make a positive statement, the genre’s equivalent of “We Are the World.” In recent weeks, many...
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Things That Fly Baltimore’s Things That Fly need a superhero movie to soundtrack like sparrows need nests–something hopeful, inspiring, and flashy, teeming with twentysomething angst and hormones and moral prerogatives and slow-motion explosions. Comic-book drama would be a perfect fit for the stirring emo-pop singer/guitarist Jeff Henley, 26, and guitarist Arthur “Paul” Hemlock, 27,...
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The Red Room Collective kicks off a new series tonight dedicated to four-channel sound works. Titled “130% Surround Sound” and curated by musical chameleon Tom Boram, the series capitalizes on the Red Room’s recent upgrades and refurbishment. “The Red Room bought a new PA last year and we decided to keep the old one,”...
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From way back “Hello, Charm City!” Fred Schneider barked a few minutes after arriving on-stage at Rams Head Live. “This one’s a dance song,” he continued, introducing “Mesopotamia,” as is if it’s any more of a dance song than pretty much every other tune The B-52s performed on Saturday, or in their entire 35-year...
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Because it’s on such a small label, Kasey Anderson’s Nowhere Nights hasn’t received much attention, but it’s one of the year’s best Americana albums, a coming-of-age farewell to slackerdom delivered with just the right balance of liberated release and lingering regret. On Tuesday, Anderson played much of the disc at the Golden West Café...
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ScholarMan may be the hardest working Baltimore rapper you probably haven’t heard of, with a thick discography that appears to grow every few months. His 2009 included a solo full-length and two collaborative EPs and, at the top of 2010, he came right back with a new album, Free Spirit of a Troubled Soul....
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Ultra Nate | Image by Bart Everly 2009 was a big year for Baltimore club music to mutate and combine with other sounds, whether it was indie-rock duo Wye Oak’s tender take on Rod Lee’s club classic “Dance My Pain Away,” Cex’s IDM dissection of club breakbeats on his Battaille Royale, or Debonair Samir...
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Jumpcuts | Image by City Paper Digi-Cam For bands that combine rock with electronic music, live performance is usually a hurdle; no matter how well produced or immaculately programmed the recordings are, they rarely know how to actually rock out on stage. For better or worse, the opposite is true with the recently formed...
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Moss Icon Moss Icon is back, according to this. The Juno effect lives on. Children’s songwriter Barry Louis Polisar, of opening credit tune “All I Want is You,” has a double-disc tribute album to him out now. Details. J-Roddy Walston and the Business has a new label, Vagrant, home to the Hold Steady, Eels,...
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John Hollenbeck‘s compositions resemble a collection of clocks that are all wound to count off the seconds at different intervals. Each clock pursues its own pattern, tick-tocking in counterpoint to all the clocks around it. At key moments, however, they all chime together. Hollenbeck—a drummer, naturally—is spending this week at Towson University as part...
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Kane Mayfield | Image by City Paper Digi-Cam Always Dope, the weekly Tuesday night event that local clothing store PEDX Baltimore began presenting a few weeks ago, has a few things going for it that are terribly hard to come by at local underground hip-hop shows. Those things include a well-lit venue with ample...
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Sometimes it seems that jazz is divided into two warring camps: those who value tradition so much that they’re skeptical of any hint of dissonant modernism, and those who are so committed to the avant-garde that they consider pretty renditions of standards a sell-out. Dave Burrell swept away this false dichotomy with a swing...
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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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If Randy Newman had grown up not as the heir of Hollywood composers but as a scruffy garage rocker and had recorded an album about the United States in 2009, that record might have sounded like Chuck Prophet’s Let Freedom Ring. It would have had the same untrustworthy third-person narrators and bitterly comic commentators;...
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According to a post on the Buzzlife message board, last weekend’s Fall Massive party, a suitably ginormous drum ‘n’ bass, house, techno, and more dance party, packed ‘em into Paradox a little too tight Saturday night. Actually, make that a lot too tight: the promoter reported ticket sales hitting the 1,500 mark, putting the...
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| Image by City Paper Digi-Cam The historic early hip-hop trio Sugarhill Gang are currently on a 30th anniversary tour, commemorating a career that began with the release of the watershed single “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979. And that might feel like more of a momentous occasion if not for the fact that it feels...
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About an hour ago, Fox News tweeted that Jeff Mewbourn, known throughout Baltimore’s music-making community as “the Baltimore Taper,” is wanted for a domestic shooting. According to a related report at foxbaltimore.com, Mewbourn has two children with the victim; as of the report, the schools they attend, Halstead Academy and Parkville High School, have...
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| Image by Frank Hamilton Bruce Springsteen opened his show at Baltimore’s First Mariner Arena Friday night with “Wrecking Ball,” which may well be the best song he’s written in 22 years. Wearing a black vest over a tight gray T-shirt, the short, muscular singer bellowed, “I was raised out of steel here in...
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Compilation mixtapes that attempt to give an overview of Baltimore hip-hop, or even simply summarize what’s happening at the moment, rarely come even close to getting it right. But if there’s anybody who has a fighting chance, it’s Architects Recording Studio, who record a huge percentage of the city’s best known rappers, and began...
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Height cover Chicago’s venerable Thrill Jockey label continues its march toward a Baltimore music monopoly: Future Islands are the latest signing. The synth-pop trio is also finally getting some good national buzz–with a little help from beatscaper Jones and Beach House’s Victoria LeGrand. Sonar holds a benefit show for the family of Kevin...
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