Despite the title, this post is only halfway about the opening reception of Killer Angels: Faces of American Death Metal. It’s mainly a post about Future Islands, who we’re going to go see at Metro Gallery tomorrow. Naturally, it’s been a while since we’ve seen these...

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...

Update: Tonight’s bike ride is officially sold out. There’s only so much beer to go around. If you snoozed you lose-d. There will be another one soon. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –...

If Christmas can be a month-long holiday every year, they why can’t Halloween, huh? Well, it can if you get into the Halloween spirit. There’s nothing stopping you from going on hayrides and carving up pumpkins and walking around spooky old graveyards all month long if you want to....

First there was just the urban landscape. Here’s an old train station and here’s a little patch of grass and here’s a statue and a few old brownstones around. Then somebody got the idea to fill the landscape up with art. They called it “Artscape.” It was a pretty...

Every city has its own fun little games that the locals like to play. Buffalo has ‘Spot the Canadian.’ Boston has ‘Get wicked drunk and yell in the street all night until someone picks a fight.’ LA has Breast Implant Bingo, and in Baltimore we have the grandest game of...

If there’s one thing every Baltimorean should own it’s a good calendar. Every time you turn around there’s a First Thursdays or a Final Fridays or a T-Shirt Tuesdays or some such thing. It’s quite a task to keep track of all of the various events that neighborhoodsy...

There are two things that will set the 2012 presidential election apart from all other previous elections. The first and more important of these is that in the wake of Citizens United this is absolutely the year of the super pac, and we’re seeing campaigns financed in ways that were...

Political news has been pretty slow lately, believe it or not. After King Romney was finally awarded the nomination which was his sacred and inalienable birthright everybody kind of took a nice little breather for a while. Luckily for those of us who enjoy politics-as-bloodsport that all ended...

Two weeks ago in this space we wrote that the dog days of political Summer have come early this year, and so far it looks like we were right. There haven’t been a whole hell of a lot of interesting or important things happening in the world of national politics lately. Since the last...

So today kicks off the 4 day cine-thon that is the Maryland Film Festival. The MD Film Fest is great. It gets better every year, in fact. Or at least that’s what we hear. If we’re telling the God’s-honest truth we’ve never actually been to the Film Festival. Pretty...

Summer is a notoriously dull time in American political life. Congress makes ready to recess and does even less than usual. The Fourth of July inspires even the hardest partisans to hate each other a little less and the King of England a little more, and even in an election year the President...

“There are no second acts in American lives” is a famous quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hardball host Chris Matthews is often fond of adapting that to say that ‘There are no second acts in American politics.’ Matthews is a pretty bright guy and usually knows his stuff,...

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...

When you get older, you get a little wiser. At this very minute there are thousands of kids in their early 20′s texting and tweeting and Facebooking all over the city of Baltimore saying “Dude, what’s going on this weekend? Anything? House party this and dance party that and...

You don’t need us to tell you who Trayvon Martin is or what happened to him or how fucked up it all is. It’s been on the front page of every newspaper and website for more than a month now. It’s the most important thing in America. Believe it or not, this blog has very little...

Whenever some local publication has one of those “Baltimore’s Best Bartender” contests, we always nominate and vote for Jeremy Crawford. A fixture at the Club Charles for years, Jeremy has never been anything but kind, patient and understanding when he’s working at Club...

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...

Tomorrow is the second Wednesday of the month, and as usual some of Baltimore’s finest progressives of all stripes will gather for pints and politics in Station North. The Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets twice a month at Liam Flynn’s Ale House, our new home for the Winter...

It’s kind of ironic that we’re writing a post about parking now that we’ve resolved to give up our car, but there are two changes in parking at places we go regularly that are worth noting for the rest of you who still have cars. The first change we noticed was in Station...

As you know, we usually only talk politics every second and fourth Wednesday, in conjunction with the regular meetings of Baltimore Drinking Liberally. Drinking Liberally will happen as scheduled tomorrow (Joe Squared, 7pm), but we’ve got something else cooked up for then, so we’re...

Today is the second Wednesday of the month, and as usual Progressives of all stripes will be gathering on the patio of Joe Squared to swap stories, talk politics, and drink beers at the regular meeting of the Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally. Meetings start at 7 pm and are open to...

We were sad to hear the news a few weeks ago that the Hexagon Space was closing. We’re sad to hear about any venue closing up, even if we don’t go there very often. Fletcher’s, The Supreme Imperial, even Hal Daddy’s; we may have gone there pretty seldom, but any venue...

The Chop has always has decidedly mixed feelings about farmers’ markets. We’re certainly glad they’re there… no doubt about that. At the same time though, we don’t actually go out to them and buy produce as often as we probably ought to. We like the Waverly...

Well, the forecast for this week has not been good. It may not be Joplin-esque, and we may be a whiny pussy of a blogger for complaining about it, but we’re getting sick of rain. To hell with rain. Seriously. We want to do outdoorsy things, like go to festivals and swing golf clubs and...

Is it just us, or have the last two weeks gone by really, really quickly? What’s today? April 27th? The 28th maybe? Fuck! It’s May 11! How is that even possible??? We sort of regret that the last two weeks of life elapsed in what felt like 2 days, but the good news is that if it...

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...

Well, lucky Chop. We’ve got another night with too damn many interesting things going on. We already told you yesterday about the Found Footage Festival at the Creative Alliance tonight, and we can scarcely find room to mention that Madison Smartt Bell is also reading from his new novel...

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...

Back in January we had some pretty nice things to say about local trio Poly/Western. Now that it’s almost April, we’re gonna go ahead and double down on those statements. At that time, we’d been vaguely aware of this band, but hadn’t had the chance to see them live yet....

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...

The good news? It’s movie night. The bad news? There is no bad news. We all get to go to the movies for free. What could be bad about that? The City Paper loves and appreciates its readers so much that they’ve decided to partner with the Charles Theater to treat us all to a free...

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...

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...

Why is it that sometimes the best bands are also the laziest? We don’t mean to call anyone lazy, especially since we pretty much take the cake for sloth in this town, but we can’t help but notice that sometimes those with the most talent do relatively little with it. Consider the...

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....

When last we posted about Arbouretum, we had some very nice things to say about them and clearly enumerated the reasons you should go out and see them. We also mentioned that we had a cold, and as it turned out, we did not make it to the show. Just the other day we said they’d be right...

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...

It’s easy to get a little cynical about Station North sometimes. Even with all of the success stories in that neighborhood in recent years, it can be tempting to look around at all the still-crummy warehouse lofts, the custom bike shops, fashion-obsessed co-eds and sometimes obscure and...

You know, we just don’t hear the phrase “Hail Satan” often enough anymore. Time was when you could walk down any street in Fells Point on a Sunday afternoon and cross a group of kids with bags of records in hand walking around on nearly every block. The common parlance in...

Okay, okay. Simmer down a little. We know you’re excited because you feel like it’s Friday, even though it’s only Tuesday, and instead of spending the rest of the week at work you get to spend it stuffing your maw with turkey or tofurkey, or good tawny port, and starting your...

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...

What? You haven’t been to Mondo Baltimore at the Windup Space yet? What’s the matter? You don’t like blood and guts and dick jokes and film freaks and beer? What are you? A Communist? This is some real, genuine first amendment stuff right here, baby. It’s also free....

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...

For those among you who are wont to give credence to ghosts and spirits, there’s no need whatsoever to look toward haunted houses or haunted hayrides or any other seasonal attractions where high schoolers and jaycees put on masks and yell ‘boo.’ Those who wish to seek out...

What? You think you’re done with Halloween? You went out raging last night and now you think you’re just going to stay at home and watch Simpsons’ Halloween special reruns and eat pumpkin flavored junk food? Well, Halloween’s not done with you, Baltimore. You’d...

So, Halloween is pretty much here. Like today. Like right now. You may think that Halloween falls on Sunday, and that that’s totally lame, but for all intents and purposes, it’s really a blessing in disguise for fans of the holiday. A blessing from the Devil maybe. A super secret...

For all the complaints of Baltimore being (or at least feeling like) a small city, it does have one distinct advantage over some of its larger counterparts, namely the ability to sometimes be in two places at once. That’s exactly what we plan on doing tonight as we ping pong back and...

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...

It’s about to get interesting folks. The midterm elections are a mere three weeks away, and with the gross injustice of the Citizens United decision in full effect, the RNC and Karl Rove along with his secret billionaire friends are about to start slinging mud faster and more furiously...

Well, it’s official. The Chop is definitely suffering from some sort of double reverse culture shock. Being cooped up in the sealed fuselages of germy planes for better than 24 hours has given us a terrible cold, right at the same time we actually need to be productive for the first time...

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...

This week was the Solstice, which marked the longest day of the year. Today is the fourth Wednesday of the month, which marks the regular meeting of the Baltimore chapter of Drinking Liberally, an informal, open group of mostly 20- and 30- something Baltimoreans who gather twice a month to...

When the young thespians behind Single Carrot Theater decided to find themselves a home they searched far and wide before settling on Charm City. It goes without saying that we think they’ve chosen wisely, and their arrival here has illustrated something that we often say about...

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...

Are you ready Baltimore? Are you ready for outdoor dining weather? The glory of al fresco dining (and drinking) is upon us in all its splendor. This time two weeks ago the Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally took over most of the Patio at Joe Squared and kept the pitchers and political...

“I hate my girlfriend, she she she Lies on the beach like a barrier reef. Soaking up the stupid sun, While the radio is blasting; fun, fun fun! I don’t wanna be on the beach, no fun!” The Dead Milkmen said it best (ahem) 25 years ago in Beach Song, and their words still ring...

LandSpeedRecord! is a cool band. Don’t argue with us. Of course they’re a cool band. Why would we write about them if they weren’t? Do you think we made this blog just to tell you about bands that are not cool? That would be dumb. You know what’s not dumb?...

When we last spoke about politics, we told you that Arlen Specter was in deep electoral doo-doo. We were right, and fortunately for Pennsylvanians and good Democrats everywhere Old Man Arlen is a problem that is finally going to go away. Tonight is the fourth Wednesday in May, and it’s...

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!...

We’ve noticed something peculiar these last few months. Here at the Baltimore Chop, we keep track of local happenings and events pretty closely, and it seems to us that a pattern is beginning to emerge. Much as each week has a social ebb and flow to it, so do the months. And for the last...

You know the drill by now Baltimore. Its hump day and after all that shite rain that fell yesterday you don’t feel like cooking and you’re anxious to get out of the house and get some tasty food and share pitchers of delicious beer with like-minded friendly people Station...

Once again we’ve made it to the fourth Wednesday of the month, and that means it’s once again time for the twice monthly meeting of the Baltimore chapter of Drinking Liberally at Joe Squared. We had a handful of new faces for tax day, which made for great discussion. If you...

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Well, isn’t this something. It’s already Earth Day and we still haven’t figured out what we’re doing tonight. There are two shows on the Chop’s radar this evening, and unlike we sometimes do we can’t try being in two places at once tonight. It’s a...

If you’ve been watching this space regularly, then you probably know by now that the Chop is a good Democrat, and a frequent participant in the Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally. You should also know that DL is free, fun, friendly and open to anyone who wants to come out. Tonight...

You ain’t reading blogs today. You’re hiding pretty eggs from your nieces and nephews and drinking Madras’ and eating more chocolate than is good for you. But once that’s all done, go to the Hexagon tonight. Tonight’s not just about some guy named Jebus. Tonight...

Sad to say it Baltimore, but this is another post more about what we’re not doing than what we’re actually getting up to tonight, due to a lot of bad information out there on that interwebs. Sometimes it happens that way, but you know what? That’s the great thing about...

It’s gonna be a good one tonight. That’s an understatement. It’s going to be a celebration three years and three generations in the making. The Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally celebrates its third anniversary tonight at Joe Squared, and it couldn’t have come at...

The Chop doesn’t particularly like March Madness. While we suppose it’s better than the whole crooked-corporate-BCS system, we just can’t bring ourselves to care much about college basketball. We do however like springtime. And friends. And beer in red plastic cups and front...

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,...