Dave Tedder’s Memorial @ 2640 Space/Ottobar Today

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Dave Tedder died suddenly last week.

While I wasn’t especially close to Tedder, I’ve known him for more than half my life at this point. I’m sad to see him go.

I always expected Tedder would be off for good someday, but not like this.

He was a dude you naturally assumed would end up some place like Oakland or RVA, or maybe even some Anarcho-cabin in the woods in the Badlands or Oregon or someplace.

But Tedder had a home in Baltimore.

Punk rock at its best is a true community, almost another family. Tedder was one of those distant cousins I was always glad to see around; always interested to catch up with- see what he was up to next.

There will be a memorial for Dave Tedder today at noon at the 2640 Space.

It’s going to be the sort of come-as-you-are no nonsense affair he would have appreciated. There will also be a reception afterward at the Ottobar from 2 pm until 2 am, with more live music than we can list here.

All of the days proceeds will be donated to Tedder’s family to help defray expenses.

Have a good time all the time…

The Couch Chronicles, Volume XIV

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If you’ve ever been inside a Su Casa location, you know it’s rarely the same store twice. They’re constantly bringing in new pieces, redesigning whole areas of their showrooms, and keeping things fresh and interesting. In that same spirit we’ve decided to ‘test’ our new sofa from Pad by putting it through its paces with several different arrangements.

It’s starting to feel like a regular game of musical chairs here at the Chophouse, and it certainly hasn’t been dull. Another Saturday, another floor plan. It’s beginning to feel like every time we turn around there’s a new place to sit.

This is our general layout for this week.

When we had a completely bare room this is roughly how we imagined we might place the furniture. We were really into the idea of having the television in that corner, because it’s easily visible from the kitchen and the head of the dining room table. We thought it might lead us to eat more meals at the dining room table instead of on the couch like the slovenly bachelor we are.

The first two arrangements we tried both suited us nicely. They looked great, and besides being intuitive and functional they left a bit of free space in the room. Unfortunately that’s not the case this week.

This arrangement looks great. It’s easy and intimate for conversation and feels pretty cozy when laying on the couch, but it does make the room feel a bit smaller, and isn’t great as far as natural flow goes. It might work a lot better if we had selected smaller scale pieces, but it was important for us to be able to sleep on the couch and stretch out in the armchairs.

We’re going to go ahead and chalk this up to experience and get started on the next arrangement as soon as possible. Some things were just not meant to be and alas… a sofa that faces the windows and a TV you can see from the kitchen are two of them.

Having the sofa directly below the ceiling fan has been great for napping.

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This post is part of our entry in the Test it, Blog it, Win it contest. You can see the before pictures, track our living room’s design progress, and read all of the posts in this series here.

Punk Rock Karaoke @ Liam Flynn’s Tonight

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Although we didn’t blog about it, we went to Punk Rock Karaoke at Liam Flynn’s Ale House the last time that outfit came through town in late March. Take it from the Chop: it was cool as shit.

It’s rare that a crowded bar has the atmosphere and bonhomie of a house party full of old friends, but that’s exactly what Punk Rock Karaoke was like. Old punks, young punks, art punks and drunk punks… swilling cider and singing tunes and squeezing every bit of joy out of Summer and life. That’s what Punk Rock Karaoke is like.

Punk Rock Karaoke Chicago takes over Liam Flynn's tonight. 8 pm doors.

Chicago is a lucky city. They get to do this sort of thing all the time. Fortunately for the rest of us, Punk Rock Karaoke Chicago sometimes takes their show on the road. PRKC is a fully DIY karaoke party featuring authentic karaoke versions of classic punk songs whose focus is on fundraising for various punk rock/social justice/Left leaning related causes.

Tonight’s event is a fundraiser for Red Emma’s Collective who of course take part in all sorts of worthy endeavors around town like their eponymous coffee shop and book store, the Baltimore Free School, and the 2640 Space.

Five bucks gets you in the door- but of course you’re free to kick up a little more if you’ve done made good. Songs are free to sing but if you’re a karaoke pro get yourself signed up early because the last one was crowded and song slots filled up fast.

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Liam Flynn’s is located at 22 W. North Ave in Station North. Doors at 8 pm, singing begins around 9.

Mandroids, Atlas At Last @ Shamrock Inn Tonight

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You know the Shamrock Inn. At least you should know the Shamrock Inn. It’s a Baltimore landmark of sorts. If you’re a true blue Baltimoron your dad probably knows the Shamrock Inn.

You’ve likely driven past the Shamrock Inn a couple hundred times and said ‘Damn it, I always keep meaning to go in there.’ It’s a great neighborhood dive bar with a ton of character. And it comes by it honestly. It’s not a (ahem) boutique dive bar. Whatever the fuck that means.

The Shamrock is also known for live music. That’s how your dad knows the Shamrock Inn… they usually feature Dad type of music. Tonight they’re featuring punk rock.

We’d love to be able to tell you something about any of these bands, but often when we write about music we’re drawing from our own personal knowledge. Since we don’t know these bands, and since no one has really bothered to write about them before and since they can’t even be bothered to fill in their own bios on their various social media pages we’re just going to say that the Mandroids and Clamors are Baltimore punk bands.

College Park/Bethesda’s Atlas At Last at least describes themselves as ‘post-everything,’ and we hate to break it to them but they are not post everything. They’re a good old fashioned mid-nineties style screamo band. And we mean that in the nicest possible way. The true and rightful heirs to The Monorchid? Time will tell.

If nothing else it’s great to see this kind of show billed anywhere that’s not the Sidebar. No knock on Sidebar, but a free punk show with dollar beers is something we’d like to see more of around town. A chance to get tinnitus and a beer buzz for less than $10 at your dad’s favorite bar is just another thing that makes Baltimore an amazing city.

The Couch Chronicles, Volume XIII

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We’ve spent a lot of time lately talking about designing our living room and all the new furniture we got from Su Casa, and especially our new sofa from Pad. We’ve been taking part in their Test it, Blog it, Win it contest, and while we’ve had a lot of fun decorating and arranging furniture and showing off a little on the blog, we’re supposed to be testing the sofa, whatever that means.

So tonight we’re putting the sofa to one of the most important tests a couch can endure: we’re going to sleep on it all night long. Not only that, but in a Baltimore Chop first we’re going to be live-blogging the whole thing in real time.

Now we know what you’re probably thinking: How are you going to blog while you’re asleep dummy? That sounds boring. But don’t think of it as a guy laying perfectly still on a sofa for 10 hours or so. Think of it as a super-fun cyber slumber party and you’re all invited. Come on… spend a night with the Chop.

This is what our sofa looks like around 7 pm, before we settle in for the night.

9:45 pm- Post is live. The Orioles just lost 5-0 to the Mets again. As good as they’ve been, their Achilles heel still seems to be premiere pitching and Dickey and Santana are two of the best in the majors. But this is a sofa blog and not a baseball blog so we’ll let it go at that.

10:02 pm- Haha. The cushions and pillows stack nicely in the console table. Almost like it’s by design.

10:20 pm- If you ever get drunk and crash on the Chophouse couch, this is about what you can expect…

10:23 pm- I guess I can’t liveblog and watch netflix at the same time. Bummer, cause Comcast on demand sucks.

10:27 pm- This couch is so deep with the cushions off it’s ridiculous. Not breaking out the tape measure but it looks like about thirty inches.

10:30 pm- The Republican has a real job to wake up for and probably thinks this whole thing is absurd. Meh.

10:35 pm- Screw it. I’m turning on the air conditioner before I go to sleep. I’m already on the record about that.

10:42 pm- Maybe this whole experiment would be more interesting and engaging and draw a ton of comments if it included an open letter to Emily White.

10:57 pm- Oh snap. Short notice but maybe 24 hours from now I’ll be watching Believerx.

11:01 pm- Time to watch the Daily Show.

11:03 pm- Laptops in bed are clunky. Is this why Jesus Jobs invented the iPad? So you never have to be off the interwebs?

11:13 pm- Haters gonna hate on my cheapo lamp, but it does put out a nice soft and diffuse light…

11:28 pm- You know that 10,000 word link I posted at 10:42? Now I’m reading yet another long-winded screed about it. At least it’s good to know that this couch is good for sitting around reading the minutae of complaints by old dudes who used to be cool in varying degrees. Speaking of which, have you RSS’ed this blog yet?

11:40 pm-So here’s the link. Travis Morrisson (Who I like and respect quite a bit) says he stole the fuck out of some music as a kid. Honestly, what the armchair ethicists fail to realize is that not everything worth downloading is worth paying for. Just because you’ve got 11,000 songs in your library doesn’t mean you would have bought around 1100 albums. You might as well tear down every public library while you’re at it.

This blog’s view is that you haven’t really “stolen” a record until you’ve listened to it a certain number of times. Maybe enough to start singing along. Perhaps instead of a Spotify-like system the best solution is an ‘exploding download,’ kind of along the freemium model that is catching on elsewhere online. Think of an album like an app… you download the free trial version, and if you enjoy it you cough up for the paid version. If the technology isn’t out there today, it can’t be far off.

11:54 pm- And paying attention to all that made me miss a bit on Colbert about Ann Romney’s dressage horse. If you think liveblogging a sofa is absurd, google Ann Romney’s dressage horse. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

12:03 am- Can I watch Tosh.0 and look at goofy stuff on the internet at the same time? Is that safe or will it open some kind of wormhole?

12:04 am- Even though the arms on this couch are low-profile, they’re not all bad for leaning up against. good to know.

12:08 am- apparently there’s going to be a new DIY venue with a clever name in DC. I picked an interesting night to stay online late I guess.

12:17 am- Why’s the iCloud trying to play me out like as if my name was Sega?

12:25 am- The only dude more laid-out and relaxed than I am on this couch right now is Hosni Mubarak. (What? Since when is it not okay to make fun of iron-fisted dictators?)

12:26 am- I’ve been to Egypt. It sucks.

12:40 am- Trying not to go for the Ben and Jerry’s Red Velvet Cake ice cream that’s in the freezer. Probably going to fail.

12:50 am- Yep. tempting fate by eating ice cream and drinking red wine on the new furniture. The couch is super stain resistant polyester fabric. The white wool rug on the other hand…

1:03 am- I didn’t eat the whole pint. I’m not a Secret Internet Fatty I swear.

1:13 am- Oh yeah. Almost forgot. Jen Wasner and Dirty Projectors on Jimmy Fallon. Might as well watch that. Hopefully this brings us one step closer to getting Future Islands on Saturday Night Live. #FIonSNL

1:28 am- Fallon dragged out a Black Church bit with Cedric the Entertainer for way too long… all up in an audience full of lily white Red State tourists. Well done, Jimmy. Nice and awkward.

1:38 am- Ohhhhh. So that’s why I never bothered to listen to Dirty Projectors. Because they’re like hipster Gotye or whatever. Meh.

1:42 am- Flat on my back. This couch is firm and puffy. Like laying across two giant marshmallows. Plenty of room for stretching out. Even though I’m pretty tall I can stretch out without hitting the arms of the couch.

1:45 am- Not gonna be awake much longer. Goodnight moon. Goodnight, internet.

11:15 am- Well, this couch and I, we made it through the night…

11:40 am-If this couch has any faults it’s probably that it’s too comfortable. I really shouldn’t be sleeping until nearly noon, but the fact that I can is a testament to how cozy this couch actually is. It’s actually wide enough to sleep with my knee at a right angle and toss and turn and roll over and everything else. In fact, it’s more comfortable than any of the beds we’ve ever slept on the beds we’ve slept on while traveling.

The next time we have an overnight guest here at the Chophouse, they should count themselves luck that they’ll get to sleep on this couch.
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This post is part of our entry in the Test it, Blog it, Win it contest. You can see the before pictures, track our living room’s design progress, and read all of the posts in this series here.