Pianos Become the Teeth @ Ottobar Tonight

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A few months ago your Chop was drinking in a pub in England when we kinda sorta inadvertently but not really but whatever started an Internet teapot tempest talking shit on Twitter.

We talk a lot of shit, sure. But we also want to be certain we give credit where credit is due and right now there’s a lot of credit due to Pianos Become the Teeth.

Here’s a band that’s playing a hometown show at the end of a giant tour and doing it right. They’re bringing their tour mates with them. They’re billing it as a co-headline with Tiger’s Jaw. They’re in a right-size venue with reasonably priced tickets. It’s all ages and starts at 8 pm. And maybe most importantly, it hasn’t been 3 years since the last time they played here.

Baltimore Band Pianos Become the teeth.

Pianos Become the Teeth return to the Ottobar tonight. 8 pm doors.(image via Pianos’ Instagram)

This is Pianos’ second hometown show this year. As of right now they’ve got nothing else lined up, but who knows? It’s certainly not impossible that they’d get booked into something over the next 6 months, and you know what? For a band of their stature to play hometown shows three times a year is not too shabby.

When you live in Baltimore, it’s easy to sometimes be myopic or take things for granted. If you’re reading this locally you may not have noticed that Pianos is well on their way to taking over the world, but they are. They’ve been touring pretty much the whole planet and selling out a lot of big rooms recently on the strength of The Lack Long After which is a post-hardcore masterpiece and an encouraging follow-up to their debut Old Pride.

They’re in a great place as they begin work on their 3rd LP. As a band which has fully reached its stride, they’ve proven they can write and play together on a very high level, but at the same time Pianos is young enough and has the freedom and skill to still have almost limitless potential in front of them.

Tonight’s show at the Ottobar will be sold out by showtime, and the 450 or so people inside are going to be treated to a full set of the kind of energy, passion and catharsis that you can only find on a night like tonight; when a great band plays a legit hometown show.

Hard Dads @ Golden West Tonight

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How do you know it’s Summer? Is it just because the temperature is up and you can feel it? Is it because you can see with your own two eyes that there are festivals and jorts and baseball all over the place? Is it because you are tasting burgers off the grill and delicious steamed crabs and Boh? Can you really be sure?

No, you can’t be sure it’s Summer until you hear the sound of the Summer- and for 2013 that sound is Hard Dads. What makes them the soundtrack to Summer? In a word, sleaze. Not that they’re a particularly dirty band, no filthy lyrics for shock value or anything like that, they just sound sleazy in the best possible way. A little Cramps, a little Germs, a little Avengers.

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Hard Dads are the band whose record you want to put on first thing in the morning when you wake up in a row house with no air conditioning, when your dog has shit on the floor and your roommate hasn’t done the dishes and you’re probably gonna be late for work and there are 12 empty beer cans on your coffee table and you have a headache. Full of distortion and not afraid of guitar solos, they’re the band that keeps popping up on club bills around town all Summer long; the band that will be playing when you see a cute tattooed stranger and make a bad decision or two.

Hard Dads has been ruling our Summer so far, and they can rule yours too. All you’ve got to do is reach up and click that download button to get their 6-song self titled record for free. Free! Come on! You’ll be playing it over and over again. Maybe even on the way to the Golden West tonight where they’ll be playing with Columbus Ohio’s Mount Carmel and BBQT. Doors late, Show late.

Everybody at the US Open Needs a Haircut

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As you all know by now the Chop is a Baseball Man. And baseball kept us plenty busy this weekend, watching several games and playing catch with Dad at Oriole Park for Fathers’ Day.

But after we returned home from what really was a special, memorable, and very well-run event at Camden Yards we had a spare hour or two to check out the last of the final-round play at yesterday’s US Open golf tournament. And Baltimore, we were quite dismayed at what we saw.

We’re sure that many of you were pulling for Phil, but in our estimation the better man won. You see, golf is a gentleman’s sport, and one of its major tournaments has been all but overrun by dirty, shaggy hippies. All these rich white guys who have been born and raised on the golf course seem to want to prove they’re not ‘stuffy’ or ‘privileged’ or ‘the Man’ by growing their hair past their collar and letting their freak flag fly. But we believe the results speak for themselves…

Lucas Glover missed the cut because he was too busy combing his hair.

Angel Cabrera missed the cut because he thinks he can pull off the ‘Rico Suave.’

Charley Hoffman lets down his locks like Rapunzel but he still can’t climb past a tie for 45th.

Speaking of locks, Rory McIlroy looks like the Loch Ness Monster. And with a tie for 41st he golfs like Nessie too.

Brandt Snedeker needs to use the side entrance to the clubhouse. For Hippies only.

The only reason Rickie Fowler was able to sneak into a tie for 10th is because he blinded many other golfers with his ugly orange outfit. His hair sucks too.

Mahan, Els, and Dufner all tied for 4th. Els and Dufner might have won it if their hair weren’t in their eyes. As for Hunter Mahan, you’ve got to believe his stupid facial hair was a bit of a distraction.

Phil Mickelson is the consummate pro, and has been knocking on the door for years. A quick trip to Great Clips would have surely put him over the top.

Our winner, Justin Rose, is a proper Englishman with a pukka British haircut. Congratulations to one of the best groomed champions in golf.

all images via usopen.com

The Chop Has a Catch With Dad

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This Sunday is Fathers’ Day.

Our Dad has always been a little tough to shop for. He’s the sort that’s pretty well set in his ways and has everything he needs, and besides, he’s such a great dad that no mere gift can adequately express our love and gratitude. So we usually just end up treating him to lunch or doing the best we can with a hit-or-miss gift, just happy to spend some time together and say thanks.

This year though, we’ve managed to go one better. For us, Fathers’ Day 2013 is going to be pretty special.

A month ago the Orioles made the announcement that they’d be selling a special ticket package for their Fathers’ Day game. For the first time ever fans will be invited out on to the field to play catch with dad before the game begins.

As soon as they made the announcement we were on the website clicking ‘buy.’ There was no doubt in our mind that a chance to take the field at Oriole Park is not only the best Fathers’ Day gift we could possibly imagine, but may well be a once in a lifetime opportunity and is a bargain at any price.

We knew this would sell out quickly, but we had no idea that participation was limited to only 300 people. (Split into two groups of 150.) As it happened, it actually took all of 24 hours or so to sell out. They broke the news on Friday, we heard it discussed on the radio broadcast on Saturday, and by Sunday the team didn’t mention it anymore because it was sold out. Perhaps the best part is that Dad was out of town that weekend and didn’t hear about it, so the entire thing is a surprise.

Our dad coached us through almost every year of little league. He was always available after work to toss the ball around or swing the bat a little. He brought us out to Memorial Stadium and hauled in home run balls for us in the left field bleachers every Summer. And when the stadium closed and the new one opened, he made sure we were there to see it all. We’ve got so many great memories of growing up, but all of the best ones are bound up with baseball.

And of course it’s something we continue to enjoy together. so there’s no better way to say thanks to dad than to take him out there for something that will end up being just as memorable as the day that stadium opened, and to sit in the very same seats we had back then. We also want to thank the Ball club itself for making all this possible, and for reminding us that sometimes being an O’s fan really is Magic.

featured image via Baltimore Sun.

The Chop Approves of The Tie Bar

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We’ve already discussed the basics of How to Wear a Tie Casually, but today we’re going to pick up where that post left off and put down a few words of praise for thetiebar.com.

Founded by a pair of attorneys who became fed up with paying a fortune for ties, The Tie Bar set out to create a better tie shopping experience and succeeded in spades. The site features hundreds of pages of selection, and every tie on the site is priced at $15.

If a $15 tie is good enough for Bill Murray to wear on the cover of GQ, it’s good enough for you.

And let’s be honest here: ties don’t have to cost a fortune. They’re not very labor intensive to create and they’re basically a one-size-fits-all product that is easy to design. Even the materials that make them up are inexpensive. We don’t know where these ties originate (that’s the one thing their site does not say) but we’re guessing they come from the same Asian countries that most of US consumers’ clothing comes from. And with no physical retail locations, overhead is at a minimum.

When we were in England recently we picked up 5 new ties in a high street shop for £4 each, which is like getting 5 ties for $30. When you go to a large department store and pay $80-90 for a tie, you’re really just being incredibly generous to the designer whose name is on the label and a handful of shareholders. The fact that you can do well as a business selling ties for $15 isn’t surprising, what’s surprising is that no one has done it before.

The Tie Bar offers flat rate shipping of $5.99 via USPS regardless of order quantity, which is a great deal. But if you’ve been sleeping on a Fathers’ Day gift you can also opt for 2-day or overnight or superduper rush priority Fedex on their shipping page. You can even call them up and ask nicely to have it shipped today. They’ll send it in a pretty white box with a handwritten note for dad- and he’ll never know that all you spent was $15. (Unless, you know, Dad’s Google savvy.)

Want to go one better giftwise? Sign the Old Man up for the Tie of the Month Club with personalized choices for modern, traditional, even bow ties. $199 Gets you a tie a month for the year and includes shipping.

They’ve even got a nice selection of other accessories like pocket squares, cufflinks, tie bars, and our favorite accessory of all: colorful socks for only $8 a pair. We doubt we’ll ever buy another department store tie again, and we suggest you don’t either.