Fresh off a deliciously vintage early generation Creative Nomad audio player (Creative bought Rio, one of the pioneers making the first generation of portable MP3 players back in the mid-90s), Jeff the Baltimore Taper serves up some sweet sweet audio from the openers of the Teenagers-headlined bill at the Ottobar this week.  All photos: Victor Will

For Team Robespierre, go here.

For Smart Growth, go here.

Some context/set-up from Jeff:

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Download the entire set as FLAC files here, stream the MP3s below and download by clicking the song name.

Smart Growth

The Ottobar

Baltimore, MD

May 6, 2008

Smart Growth is:
Dennis Bowen-drums, beats

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck41(hypercard)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3

Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC

Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

http://baltimore-taper.blogspot.com

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Download the entire set as FLAC files here, stream the MP3s below and download by clicking the song name.

Team Robespierre
The Ottobar
Baltimore, MD
May 6, 2008

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck41(hypercard)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3

Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC

Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

http://baltimore-taper.blogspot.com/

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Editorial Note: Aural States takes no side in the Lo-Fi Social Club dispute and fully supports local venues as long as they continue to book high quality shows and provide a positive environment for the live experience of music.  We wish the new management the best of luck in filling the great space with some talented musicians.

So this week has not been a stand-out week for venue logistics and management in Bmore. The Talking Head finds itself rooming with Sonar in their lounge space as they, like so many others, leave behind the venerated but perpetually troubled/turned-over Davis St space. In the coming weeks and months there are plans to establish the venue as a separate entity, including moving the Head’s entire PA system and staff. In addition, there will be an entrance exclusively for the Talking Head in the small alley next to Sonar. Only time will tell how this space sounds and feels relative to the old, reliable Davis St.

The Talking Head isn’t the only venue having issues. Locals know that the venue Lo-Fi Social Club has had some major logistical problems in the past few months including an anemic schedule, little to no promotion for the shows that successfully went off and a number of shows where bands were double-booked or left in the dark, outside a dark and locked Lo-Fi. Now, some light is being shed and heated drama is emerging surrounding the Lo-Fi Social Club owner Neil Freebairn and former employee Peter Goode. Read up: an apology and vague explanation from Neil on Myspace here while Peter goes more on the offensive with a horrific story of bad business practice below (originally posted on Beatbots/Myspace): Read the rest…

UPDATE 5/6/2008: Blaqstarr did not end up playing this TaxLo, but thanks to Cullen Stalin for the heads up on the rescheduled date this Friday 5/9.

Baltimore based DJ Blaqstarr will be headlining an upcoming TaxLo at Sonar on February 29th. Tickets are only $8. Surely, this will be an event likely to happen once every four years, at most. (See what I did there…).

What’s it going to be like?

A lot like this:

“Shake it to the Ground” by DJ Blaqstarr, f/t Rye Rye (a 14 y/o Baltimore rapper).

Yuja Wang & the BSO’s performance program of Yardumian, Prokofiev and Berlioz was hands down the best performance I’ve seen this season, equaling if not surpassing opening weekend, and maintaining consistently high-quality performance throughout.

The first piece was Yardumian’s Armenian Suite. Immediately apparent was French guest-conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier’s conducting style. Clearly an aggressive micro-manager, Tortelier cues most if not all entrances and is direct and deliberate with how he wants each passage styled. While his style exerts a little more aggressive control than I prefer, there is no arguing with the product. Tortelier drew a spectacular performance from the BSO. His style enabled lots of small touches like accentuating dynamic contrasts, particularly with his direct, expressive conducting. Armenian Suite was pulled off with great vitality and a lush sound, but the piece is largely uninteresting, conjuring some vaguely ethnic imagery through brass fanfares.

From the beginning of Prokofiev’s piano concerto, it was clear that Armenian Suite was only the appetizer for the rest of the program. Read the rest…

The hype machine is drooling Teenagers all over with their flood of nostalgia, banking on the now wistful 20-somethings that will actually understand all of their narrowly dated pop-culture references to things like Blink 182 and Showgirls. Unfortunately for them, they lined up 2 openers that pose a serious danger of completely showing them up.

The first contender for the throne is Smart Growth, solo side project for drummer Denny Bowen (of Double Dagger fame).  And everyone around Bmore knows he will kill it.

But out of towners Team Robespierre are a wild-card, producing darker and moodier electro/new wave that is closer to new wave’s early days of interchangeability with punk and dance-punk. There is a distinct threat to upstage the Teenagers on sincerity, as well as by bringing more vitality and variety, lyrically and musically.  Check all three out at the Ottobar tonight.

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Team Robespierre – 88th Precinct

Fuckin a man, what a golden egg. I’m a huge fan of !!! (fuck the haters, they do solid stuff, especially live) and the Field seems poised to be the newly minted, prodigious flag-bearer of electronic who claimed the title of best critically-rated album of 2k7.

What do you get when you mix the two together? Well, Pitchfork tried it. And it seems as close as you can come to physically basking in warm, sunshiny electronified aural bliss that you can (and must) get up and dance to. This is the opus that so many of the new indie dance circuit aspire to produce when dragging electronica and disco into their music. Just luscious.

So we here at Aural States get dozens upon dozens of new artists dropped into our inbox every day. We try to spare you the worst of it and only post those things each of us deem particularly interesting, or potentially appealing.

In this vein, I present to you music from mr. Gnome, a band that manage to claw its way from the PR-tagged dregs of Gmail and enchant me, almost instantly. The airy, quirky vocals of front-woman Nicole Barille anchored in these haunting, dystopic fantasy soundscapes instantly channeled an image of a vocal student of Bjork and Joanna Newsom fronting a band obsessed with the more expansive aspects of prog metal, punk and generally just rock at large. But arrestingly enough, mr. Gnome are actually another in the long line of indie duos that pack a big wallop, forgoing the bass and just delivering guitar+drum musical goodies.

They are heading on a limited engagement US tour, consisting mostly of mid-west or west coast dates (click the full post link to find out if it hits your neck of the woods).

But fear not regional AS readers, you can score their debut LP, Deliver This Creature, when it drops tomorrow. Here’s three tracks off the album to dip your toes into before taking the plunge. We’ll be sure to let you know when mr. Gnome comes through the 495/695 area.

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mr. Gnome – Pirates

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mr. Gnome – Rabbit

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mr. Gnome – Night of the Crickets

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Just a reminder, kids. The clock is ticking for you to enter our Thrushes (et al) giveaway contest for the Heartbeats Remixed CD Release Party at Metro Gallery this Saturday.
To further whet your appetite, check this new track from Baltimore’s own Sonadors (ex-Hymnen). Heartily recommended by both the AS staff and the Baltimore Taper.

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Sonadors – LA98