What’s important to you Baltimore? Is watching the World Cup really very important? Is it of grave urgency that you wear funny wigs and feather boas and drink in the street this weekend? How about stealing back the foursquare mayorship of some bar? Is that crucial?
Tonight something actually important is happening at the Ottobar.
Understand, it’s not like Haiti Earthquake important or Oil Spill important… but to us it’s important all the same. Just like we said that the Easter Sunday record release show was a milestone in Baltimore music, so is tonight’s show. This is what makes 2010 a celebrated summer. (haw haw haw!)
Aside from the completely and totally sick bill that’s been assembled tonight, this show marks the Occasion of Mike Riley’s wedding to Julie Benoit. If you like punk rock in Baltimore, or if you ever did, it behooves you to tip your cap to Mike tonight. We could go on at length about what he’s done for this city, but his new blog Speech Impediment gives a much better picture than we could here. It’s an amazing online document of the history of Baltimore punk since 1997, and will only continue to grow.
As if running multiple venues, putting on shows, and being in some noteworthy bands himself wasn’t enough, Mike also continues to maintain Firestarter Records, and if you’ve got any kind of good taste at all, you’ve probably got a record he made on your shelf right now.
We wish Mike and Julie the best, and all the happiness they deserve, although we’d hate to see him make any sort of attempt at becoming a grown up. (Zing!)
But as if the chance to glad hand the man of the hour and buy him a Coke wasn’t enough, he’s also found five amazing bands to fete the occasion tonight. You know how we sometimes pick one or two bands to write about on a multi-band bill? Well, we can’t do that today. All five of these bands are incredible, and if we tried to quantify that, we’d run to 20,000 words. So we’re just going to tell you who they are:
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Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St. Doors @ 8:30. All ages.
