It was a slow weekend around the Chophouse. We spent most of it drinking boxed wine and watching hard-boiled movies from the 70′s like Midnight Express and Dog Day Afternoon. Hell, it was a slow weekend around Baltimore. Except for Sunday night, there wasn’t much doing. So we...

We’ve had our eyes trained toward the ballfield all season long at Oriole Park this year. In fact, we’ve focused so closely on the diamond that we missed the new Dempsey’s Brew Pub almost entirely. Oh, we knew it was there and all. It’s kind of hard to miss these days...

Last week over on the Baltimore Brew local architect Klaus Philipsen offered a defense of the Mechanic Theater and made the case for its historic preservation. This blog, however, remains unconvinced and today we say that that ugly, useless monstrosity should be torn down immediately. It is...

It can be difficult to write about events like tonight’s screening of Food Stamped at the Pratt’s Central Library Branch. Typically, we write posts about things we like, explain why we like them, and why you, the internet-reading public should check them out for yourself. The...

Beyond the almighty blue crab, Baltimore cuisine often gets a bad rap- and it’s not entirely undeserved. Traditional dishes like shad roe and terrapin soup are little more than relics from 100 years ago, and the typical supermarket cart here is chock full of Esskay meats, Utz BBQ chips...

Walking around and looking for a drink in downtown Baltimore can make you feel a little like Goldilocks. The Inner Harbor bars are too touristy and overpriced. The non-touristy places, like Midway Bar are too sketchy (and overpriced). But if you look hard enough, you can find a bar...

Well, we’re about 12 hours late with the blog post today. That’s because our Comcast internet shit the bed for no apparent reason, along with the cable TV. So a very special fuck you to Comcast, who now owes us one pro-rated day back on our bill this month. Today is the fourth...

You probably know by now that this blog is a big fan of local band Poly/Western. We’ve posted about them before and go to see them every chance we get. Luckily, we get another chance tomorrow night at the Sidebar. We’ve always said that they were a great band who were bound to get...

You gotta go see Shellac tonight. Among the many reasons why you gotta go see Shellac tonight is because you’ve probably never seen them before, and the smart money says you’ll probably never see them again. After all, even though they’ve been around forever, they’re...

We’ve talked before on this blog about the Baltimore phenomenon we’ve taken to calling Awesome Saturday. The movers and shakers and event planners in this town who plan things in advance all seem to zero in on the last Saturday of the month to book the really cool stuff, and at...

Sometimes we’re too cool for things. Sometimes we like to pretend we’re too cool for things, when we’re really just too old and jaded for them. This is not one of those times. We’ve talked before about the right and wrong ways to continue a musical career after some...

Well, we told you that charities, non-profits, and do-gooders of all types were about to come out of the woodwork raising funds as the holidays approach, and we were right. Fortunately, we’re in a giving and generous mood today, so we’re heading down to the new Current Space (421...

The astute among you will quickly notice that the shape of the graphic below is not Puerto Rico, but is in fact Australia. It’s Australia because that’s where John Sharkey III fucked off to after Clockcleaner. Sharkey returns to the US tonight with his new project Puerto Rico...

In the heated, noisy, and sometimes treacherous downtown streets, the Quinntessential Gentleman is nothing less than an oasis. The shock of comfort and relief a man feels when crossing their threshold is much the same as what the desert wayfarer feels encountering the shady stream or the...

When we decided to write about the Baltimore area’s bar trivia nights in part one and part two of this series, we had no idea just how many trivia nights there were to choose from locally. The Chop is nothing if not your humble public servant, and in furtherance of that service we are...

We were just saying the other day how we never get around to going to DC anymore, and how when we do all we seem to do is go straight to the Black Cat and then come straight home. We even skipped out on yesterday’s trip to the DC Record Fair. But why would we want to go to DC anyway?...

You know you live in a fine town when you’re turning up your nose at the chance to see incredibly talented, nationally acclaimed bands from your city for no other reason than ‘meh.’ But that’s exactly what we’re up to. We skipped Sick Sick Birds and the other...

We were actually pretty happy when Secret Mountains won last week’s poll. They’re the real deal live, and quickly becoming one of our favorite Baltimore Bands. We sure hated to miss Double Dagger and Future Islands though, and it’s been a long week we’ve been waiting...

Like we said way back in December, Opening Day is the real New Years’. The Baltimore Chop could scarcely be more excited for the season. Not because we expect great things on the field, or because we have great seats, or even because the weather is gorgeous. No. We’re excited...