Lacy (winner, Most Affectionate)
@ Dupont Circle
Q:If your dog was a celebrity, who would it be?
A:"Charlize Theron. She's glamorous."
THE NAME SHOUTS anarchy, but Insubordination Fest is more like a punk-rock cuddle. The brainchild of the Insubordination Records label in Columbia, Md., the two-day event (plus a jam-packed pre-show concert the day before) is a first-class showcase for the thriving pop-punk underground.
"And there's a lot of great melodic hardcore bands playing, too," said label and festival co-founder Christopher Thacker. "We just try to find bands that write catchy, hook-driven songs."
That includes everything from goofy '80s punkers Dead Milkmen to the 15-year-old pop-punk group Dillinger Four as headliners, along with Toys That Kill, Pansy Division, Teen Idols, Squirtgun, Copyrights and about 50 more bands including the recently reformed Boris the Sprinkler and Abducted. Also on the bill are Insubordination Records bands Be My Doppelganger, Le Volume Etait au Maximum, The Adorkables, Beatnik Termites and The Cretins.
Continue Reading "Punk Means Cuddle: Insubordination Fest 2009" »
HERBERT HOOVER HAS gone down in history as the president associated with the Great Depression, not the great physique. But back when he lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he was bent on keeping in shape. His workout of choice: A game invented for him by White House physician Admiral Joel T. Boone, soon dubbed "Hooverball."
The objective was simple: Chuck a medicine ball over a volleyball net as quickly as possible, and hope your opponents can't catch it and throw it back to you. "It required less skill than tennis, was faster and more vigorous, and therefore gave more exercise in a short time," Hoover wrote in his memoirs.
Although it never managed to catch on with the masses, the sport lives on in Hoover's hometown of West Branch, Iowa — and Baltimore's Patterson Park.
"We get to throw around heavy things. What's not to like?" says Greg Ealick, 45. He's part of the Charm City crew, which formed nine years ago after one of them heard a report on NPR about nationals in Iowa. Without understanding the specifics, they decided to train to compete the next year and proceeded to practice on a sandy court (rather than friendlier grass) with 8- and 12-pound hard rubber balls (instead of the standard soft 4- or 6-pounders).
"You couldn't type for days afterward because we'd jam all of our fingers," recalls George Cerny, 37.
TUESDAY: Beyonce Knowles is so fierce that she has to invent an alter ego named "Sasha Fierce" to hold all her fierce fierceness. You can check it out when she performs in concert tonight in Baltimore. We'd describe the music, but you've heard it, so what's the point? Oh, and if being run over by a dump truck full of fierce just once wasn't enough for you, she's performing tomorrow at the Verizon Center.
» First Mariner Arena, 201 W. Baltimore St., Baltimore; Tues., June 23, 7:30 p.m., $21-$126; 202-397-7328.
Photo courtesy Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images
YOU'D BE FORGIVEN thinking that Mantic Ritual's debut album, "Executioner" (Nuclear Blast), is lost classic of 1980s thrash metal.
But the four musicians who comprise the Pittsburgh band weren't even born when groups like Anthrax, Metallica and Slayer started riffing around the world. Mantic Ritual's musicians range from 20 to 23 years old, but according to drummer Adam Haritan the group is made up of old souls.
"None of us were big fans of the modern music scene when we were growing up," he said. "I was listening to a lot of Motley Crue and Guns N' Roses, and then I started getting in to the early punk stuff like The Ramones, Sex Pistols and GBH. So did some of the other guys in the band, and from there we just started getting into a little bit more heavy stuff like Metallica and Slayer and Diamond Head — it's just a natural progression. I also listened to a lot of death metal, but there was never the modern music that appeal to me. I always found satisfaction listening to productions from the past. It just seemed more real and more organic the way music sounded back then."
Continue Reading "Reign in Thrash: Mantic Ritual, 'Executioner'" »
THERE WAS A when you could ID a hardcore punk group's sound by the city it came from. It wasn't always accurate, but it was common to describe a band as a Boston hardcore band or a D.C. hardcore band and have a general idea of the music.
With the Internet, all that has changed. To play off a Youth of Today lyric, the WWW has broken down the walls enough that regional differences are hard to spot, and trends that once took months or even years to migrate can now be downloaded in seconds.
But the metal-tinged machismo of Sworn Enemy, from the borough of Queens, sounds instantly like a New York City hardcore band.
"In the '80s, you could definitely tell: 'Yeah, this is a New York band,'" said vocalist Sal Lococo in Queens accent. "You can hear it in the music and lyrics [now] a little bit, but not as much as you could in the '80s and '90s. Now you go on the Internet and you got the Boston scene and the New York scene in Arizona and Wyoming and Idaho — anyone can be a part of the scene now."
Continue Reading "Survival of the Streets: Sworn Enemy, 'Total World Domination'" »
SUNDAY: The Refugee Youth Project teams up with the Walters Art Museum to present a family festival that crosses international borders. Families are invited to learn about Baltimore's refugee population through multicultural arts, activities and entertainment.
» Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St., Baltimore; Sun., June 14, 11:30 a.m.- 3:30 p.m.; 410-547-9000
Written by Express' Catherine Ahearn
Photo courtesy The Walters
BALTIMORE MEGA-CLUB Sonar and Charm City party-throwers TaxLo have a real musical mash-up planned for Saturday. Billed as a summer blowout, the event features the finest in electronic spazz-pop, abstract noise-rock and thumping house mixology.
Bringing the rock are Brooklyn heavies Black Dice and Awesome Color. Once an experimental hardcore band, Black Dice has gone from thrash to ambient-trance and back again. Its latest album, "Repo," is a blur of broken beats, guitar feedback and disembodied voices. BD makes for uneasy, but third-eye-opening, listening.
Awesome Color evangelizes good old-fashioned rock 'n' roll. The trio preach the gospel according to MC5 and the Stooges, and has a raw energy and buzz-saw sound that stays true to the Good Book.
Continue Reading "B-More's 3-Ring Circuits: Sonar Summer Blowout" »
TAKING BACK SUNDAY has gone soft in its old age.
Granted, "New Again" is only the band's fourth album, but most of its 11 tracks lack the same frenetic, frenzied, frantic charisma that drove TBS's previous releases, instead employing a more melodic, less hardcore sound that is often forgettable. While the Long Island band's earlier (and better) releases — specifically "Tell All Your Friends," the group's 2002 debut — were somewhat sophomoric (see: lots of screaming, lyrics about high-school love, simplistic guitar lines reminiscent of "Dookie"-era Green Day), they at least had some energy and pizzazz that is profoundly lacking in "New Again."
To be mature is not necessarily to be boring — didn't Adam Lazzara and Co. get the memo?
Continue Reading "Bored Emotions: Taking Back Sunday, 'New Again'" »
IT COMES AS no surprise, but Rancid guitarist-vocalist Lars Frederiksen has extended his love of punk rock to his child.
"Me and my son have a little ritual: listening to Joe Strummer in the morning, his solo records. He loves that," Frederiksen said. "I put on the Ramones, though, and he starts going crazy, throwing stuff around."
Bassist Matt Freeman also has two boys, so Rancid's genetic legacy is safe even as the 18-year-old band's musical one continues to grow. Its first album in six years, "Let the Dominoes Fall" (Epitaph), features 19 songs that are as familiar as they are great, a kind of punk rock folk music that is filled with intimate signifiers that only long-established musical forms and scenes possess.
"I couldn't agree with you more. I'm a huge folk fan," said guitarist-vocalist Tim Armstrong. "The spirit's still there, the commonality, the chord changes. I agree with you 100 percent."
RYAN TAYLOR AND EVAN HARTING didn't mean to create an institution in the extreme-metal scene.
"We didn't really intend for it to be a festival; it was more, like, let's put together a full-day show, not a multi-day, large-scale thing," Taylor said. "But as soon as we posted info about what we were were doing and that we were booking bands, the interest just took off."
Now Maryland Deathfest is in its seventh year and it has become a ritualistic destination event for headbangers on the East Coast (and beyond).
"We didn't intend for it to get as big as it did, even in the first year: three days with 30-plus bands, fly-ins from Europe and so forth," said Taylor, 27. "The biggest obstacle six and half years ago was convincing a venue that we were going to bring a crowd and they could trust us to not be some shady promoters. Plus, we were pretty young at the time so we had to sell the fact that we were serious about what we were trying to do."
Continue Reading "Supreme Brutality: Maryland Deathfest VII" »
Addison Road