Station North Flea Market Today

Posted on by

We’re still pretty excited to get up to Towson tonight to see Gentleman Jesse and His Men, but we also wanted to put in a word here for the Station North Flea Market going on today in North Avenue between Maryland and Howard.

This thing has been going on occasionally for some years now, and while its been a good while since the Chop has made it out for the sale, we seem to remember it being an excellent place to buy original paintings (especially if you go in the Spring, when MICA grads are getting ready to move away and trying to scrounge money and lighten their loads).

We’d be thrilled to get some art for the very blank walls in our brand new house, but the even higher priority on our shopping list is some leftover hipster flannels and thermals. You know, the kind you see on the street and think:

Why is that kid dressed like a gay autistic lumberjack?

Well, the Chop can pull off Wearing those shirts splendidly, and believe it or not, we actually do work for a living. We’re going to need them too, because where we’re headed, its going to be colder than Sarah Palin’s frozen, black heart.

Deep Sleep @ Sidebar Tonight

Posted on by

Now, we know we said the Chop would be heading down to Howard County to see Valentino Deng, but those were plans, and plans change, you know?

While we still recommend What is the What, its the book we haven’t read which is catching our attention tonight, namely, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys.

Meet the Authors at Atomic books tonight. 7pm.

Yep. The Chop is headed back to Atomic Books for another reading, and hopefully this one will go a little more smoothly than the last one. This being Baltimore though, people do love their whores, so there may just be a good crowd on hand.

The Chop is especially interested to see Shawna Kenney, who we had a chance to see when she sat in on the panel discussion recently at 2640, and who is fascinating not only because she was a teenage dominatrix, but also because reading her work or listening to her is kind of like discussing sex with your sister. You can talk about the kinkiest stuff in the world, but none of it is going to be a turn-on.

Which is just as well, because the Chop actually bumped into our little cousin at the feminist sex discussion, who was there with some guy. It wasn’t as awkward as you might think though, and on the whole the discussion would have made for a better sex ed curriculum than most schools are currently teaching.

But what really changed our minds for tonight was the ability to jump right on 83 afterwards and get down to the Sidebar for Baltimore’s own Deep Sleep. Granted they would have been an even better fit on last night’s bill, but Deep Sleep is certainly good enough to stand alone.

Twin Killing. 2 new Deep Sleep records out soon!

Hell, it being the Sidebar, we might even drink enough cheap beer to close our eyes and half-believe that it actually is Los Angeles in 1984.

Its pretty unusual for the Chop to make such frequent trips down there. Over the years we’ve grown accustomed to the Sidebar hosting a lot of bands we just weren’t that into like Thee Lexington Arrows. So with the Talking Head closing up shop, we’d really like to see Sidebar continue in this direction. Hell, Landspeedrecord! even played there again 2 Saturdays ago.

Shook Ones, Title Fight @ Sidebar Tonight

Posted on by

Don’t sleep on this. Don’t. Just don’t. We don’t care if you’re tired from work. We don’t care if you want to stay home and watch the Office on TV. Or Mad Men. Or whatever the hell people watch these days. We don’t even care if you’re out of clean underwear and your baby has swine flu and you have to miss your own birthday party. (And you know who you are, Birthday Girl.)

This is Shook Ones.

The Bellingham lads are, in the Chop’s humble opinion, basically the coolest band in America at this point. If you ask around, it won’t be long until you find some jaded old has-been scenester who will try to tell you:

Oh piss piss moan moan. They just sound like Lifetime. They’re not doing anything original.

The Chop has heard a lot of those so-called ‘original’ acts lately, and they all fall flat on their faces. You with your genre-defying, your high concepts, your time signatures and pedals and exotic drums. Fuck you. This band does what you don’t… it rocks.

e95c4737ac

We’re quite serious here. As much as we love the bands that we love, (and you need only page back through this week for examples) this is the one we’re really excited to see. This is the one that’s not at all a shadow of something else. No ex- this and former- that. This is a band that’s doing its best work right now!

When you pull up next to the Chop going up Calvert Street and say ‘Who’s that idiot and why is he bouncing around the car and screaming so much?’ Its us. And its because we’re listening to Shook Ones. Loud. By the time this band is finally done, they’re going to be more important than Lifetime. And Keep in mind, they’re from Washington State. Its gonna be a hot minute before they come back this way.

Opening up is the still relatively new PA band Title Fight, whom the Chop had a chance to see live recently at the Celebrated Summer 3 year anniversary show in Towson with Pulling Teeth and Black SS. We don’t mind telling you we were very pleasantly surprised by Title Fight, who sounds way better than any band with such a dumb name has a right to. We were expecting a third rate Stout, but were stopped in our tracks by something that reminded us more of the short lived Baltimore band A Perfect Kiss. We freaking loved APK while they were around, and yeah, sometimes we do wish we could be 19 again and listen to Saves the Day and Jimmy Eat World all day. So what?

We even bought the Title Fight CD that night, and the sound takes us back 10 years in a wholly un-contrived and non-ironic way.

Stumbling on them was also a good reminder of how we used to find out about all the new bands we liked… by seeing them live.

203 Davis St. Closes For Good

Posted on by

Our Drug Store Presents High Quality Pills. Licensed And Generic Products For Sale. Canada Viagra. She May Order Cheap Inside The Pharmacy With No Prescription On This Website http://kollman.com/levitra-online-best-price Easily. And Get The Best Offers For levitra. Be Lucky And Get Free Pills Like Me.
Sam Sessa over at Midnight Sun blog reported today that the end times have finally arrived for the Talking Head Club.

The Talking Head, which opened up in a dinky underutilized space on Cathedral Street in 2002, stayed there about the course of the summer before moving to the former Ottobar Space at 203 Davis Street Downtown, where the club really came into its own.

Original home of the Talking Head Club

In the following years, the Davis Street bar was an epicenter for the Baltimore underground, filling the niche for a true independent venue smaller than Fletcher’s or Ottobar, but larger than most of the DIY spaces in town. The Talking head will be long remembered for playing host to some of the Chop’s favorites like Braid and Q and not U, and for being the spawning ground of Baltimore’s own Oranges Band. Its also, of course, the place where Taxidermy Lodge blew the fuck up from a weeknight DJ to a full-on east coast Phenomenon.

203 Davis Street

Much as we hate to say it though, the Chop is going to be happy to see the Head go away for good. Since moving into the backroom at Sonar, its been more or less on its last legs, and a distraction from what may come next.

This whole turn of events though is a perfect illustration of why the Baltimore music scene has always been among the best in the country. In Baltimore, we can accept when things are at an end, because we are absolutely certain that something better will take shape in its place. Just as there was no need to wail at the loss of the Marble Bar, The Rev, or Memory Lane, we can be sure that something will replace the Talking Head. And sooner rather than later.

The only question is, What form will it take?

Gentleman Jesse and His Men @ Celebrated Summer Records This Saturday

Posted on by

As of right now… this is the Baltimore Chop’s first ever world exclusive! since this news is so super-new, we’re pretty damn sure no one has blogged about it yet. (Of course, we make good use of the ‘schedule’ feature on WordPress. Do you really think we’re up and writing at 7 am? Hell no.)

But on to the news… This Saturday at 9 Celebrated Summer Records is going to be hosting a last-minute show featuring Atlanta ‘close-your-eyes-and move-your-feet-simultaneously’ rockers Gentleman Jesse and His Men. This band sounds like a cross squarely between Television and the Minutemen, and that alone should make you want to go.

Tony Pence inside CSR.

The Chop also wants to take this opportunity to throw out a wholehearted endorsement of Celebrated Summer Records, and its founder and proprietor, Tony Pence, who buys and sells very cool records at very fair prices. The store is named after a Husker Du song, and that alone should make you want to patronize it. And if it doesn’t then you should bear in mind that the Roommate was once upon a time the founder of the Tony Pence Admiration Society.

Bet you wish you had your own admiration society.