A very well-kept secret of political activism is that a little bit of it can go quite a long way. When you turn on the news you can’t help but hear a lot about big money donors and fancy fundraisers. The images you see are all of paid staffers busily manning campaign offices or dedicated...

It is one of the great injustices in the music world that shitty bar bands who cover top 40 songs are usually some of the best paid bands out there. We don’t mean to say that getting up and playing Margaritaville and Rehab is ultra-lucrative and you can quit your day job doing it, but on...

We’ve said before that Baltimore may be suffering Festival Fatigue. This weekend is evidence of that. There’s enough music being played live this weekend in Baltimore to easily last a full Summer if it were stretched out. According to our count, there are nearly 70 acts performing...

See how lucky you are to live in a city like Baltimore? We have 3 good shows tonight. Some crummy cities don’t have any good shows. Go to the good shows and enjoy your Summer. Charm City Art Space. Golden...

A couple of years ago we wrote our first post about going to a roller derby bout. We were pretty happy with how it turned out, and it was probably the most popular post of 2010. Problem is, we kind of said everything we know about roller derby right there. It can be kind of tough to write...

Maybe the closest to Zen thought that a lot of us ever get on a regular basis is to ponder the question “Is Punk dead, or is Punk not dead?” It’s a real tree falling in the forest kind of thing. Punks have been asking that question in one form or another for thirty years now,...

If you ask Friend Collector, they’ll tell you that they are the best band in Baltimore right now. They’ll say it with a straight face. They truly believe it. They make a good argument too, inasmuch as they’re the kind of band that’s not afraid to call your band a bunch...

Today is an important day in the city of Baltimore. Double Dagger will play its penultimate Baltimore show tonight at the Charm City Art Space. If you don’t know or care who Double Dagger is, or if you don’t think tonight is important, then you can go look at some fucking cats or...

So, basically, every place that has ever had music is having music tonight. There’s no shortage of choices, and there’s too much to talk about in detail, so we’ll just give you our picks and let you decide what kind of show you want to go see. Still not sure where we’ll...

It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to grow out of hardcore. It happens to all of us sooner or later. Even the legit, bona-fide True Til Death types among us will eventually stick with the records they grew up with, and turn out to shows less and less often. There’s...

It’s SPRING, Baltimore. You may be thinking that it’s not Spring, that it is in fact monsoon season, but we assure you that Spring has most positively sprung. Do you know what that means? Eh? Eh? Do you? It means that you need t-shirts. But not just any t-shirts will do. You...

Man, were we glad when December was over, because honestly all that Christmas mumbo jumbo is kind of boring. The thing about it is that when people schedule things well in advance, they all tend to do the same thing… look at the calendar and say “Oh well let’s pencil in...

We really should have more to say about this show. We’re short on time though, and a little short on patience today. There are four bands playing this show: Head Home, Crimes, Brick Mower, and Black Wine. They are all good bands. They’re punk. They’re a little grunge....

We kind of miss they heyday of pop-punk. When you go to high school out in the far suburbs, you tend to get sentimental about some pretty strange things; domestic economy cars covered in stickers, VCR’s playing cheeseball comedies, shopping malls, Denny’s, egg throwing… when...

Updated: Secret Mountains is a last minute cancellation on this bill. They are being replaced by Hermit Thrushes. You should listen to the Chop, Baltimore. You should listen to the Chop because we haven’t steered you wrong yet. You should listen to us because what we’re about to...

It’s getting to be that time of year again; the time of year when non-profits and worthy causes of all stripes double down on ‘awareness campaigns’ trying to pull your holiday heartstrings, and get their ledgers in order with some last minute donations before the end of the...

With records like these, who the hell needs friends? This is our question to you, Baltimore. Our answer is “No Idea.” And speaking of No Idea, you could do a lot worse than trading in all your lousy, crummy friends for a shelf full of No Idea releases. The label that...

Well, it looks as though we’ve really lucked out this time. After coming home on Friday, we’ve had quite enough of bumming around the house and watching the rain. Look out Baltimore, the Chop is taking to the streets once again, and we couldn’t have come up with a better bill...

There’s an interesting contrast before us today. We can go up to the second day of Honfest, which is (ahem) a a community celebration of homespun charm, independent creativity, and the blissfully absurd or something like that. We can celebrate those things while we drink a cool Heineken...

So, the Baltimore Chop has already gone on record as giving brunch our seal of approval, but if there’s one thing we like more than fancy hotel brunch, it’s gotta be DIY punk rock brunch- which is exactly what we’re doing today. This is late-breaking developments, Baltimore!...

What did you think Baltimore? That just because we’re an old man now we’re going to sit out on our stoop and whittle? Not so. Nope, we’re heading right back downtown tonight for a show we wouldn’t miss, and suggest you don’t either. Of course we’re talking...