Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: The Owls Go – 1987

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: The Owls Go – Mountain Drew

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: The Antlers – Two

Free show tonight at the Metro Gallery featuring headliners the Antlers.  Openers are the excellent local duo the Owls Go.  Go.  Enjoy.  Be serenaded by pretty music and twinkling atmospherics.

All photos: Greg Szeto

Bad Liquor Pond

Read the rest…

Weekends
Metro Gallery
Baltimore, MD
February 25, 2009

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck4(cards)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3
Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC
Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

Photo Credit: Greg Szeto

Download the full set formatted as: MP3 or FLAC

Stream and download individual MP3s after the jump.

Read the rest…

True Womanhood headline at the Metro Gallery today, Wednesday Feb 25.  Opening are locals Weekends (whose self-titled, self-released debut recently broke into our Recommended Albums) and Bad Liquor Pond.  Doors 8PM/Music 9PM/$7 cover.  Don’t miss it.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: True Womanhood – A Diviner

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: True Womanhood – The Gray Man

True Womanhood are perhaps the youngest band emerging from DC at this moment, and certainly one of the most fascinating.  They’ve had a blissful and meteoric ascent to favored status amongst a vast majority of DC’s music observers.  Their sound is a delightful downer, if there is such a thing, and pretty much stands alone and unique among their regional peers.  I took some time to chat with lead singer/guitarist Thomas Redmond and bassist Melissa Beattie about everything they’ve been through and where they are headed.

Aural States: Let’s start with the whole story, from the beginning.

Read the rest…

This past Tuesday night, Sarah Williams and the Metro Gallery opened up the Dead Air Video Exhibit (curated by Kristen Anchor of the Degenerettes). The exhibit is essentially an audiovisual eulogy to what was supposed to be the end-date for analog TV broadcasts. The impending switch to digital has largely been delayed due to inefficiency on the part of institutions, corporations and individuals.

Nonetheless, everyone still celebrated with some great music and interesting exhibits including old clips from AtomicTV and various other channels, including a fairly awesome TV stuck in a table and assorted stacks of TVs broadcasting looped TV clips.

Jeff the Taper was also in attendance.  After the jump, check out some photos from the night.  You can also click each performer’s name to skip to the live audio.

Edie Sedgwick

Read the rest…

Pläns Pläns
Metro Gallery
Baltimore, MD
February 17, 2009

Photo credit: Greg Szeto

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck4(cards)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3
Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC
Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

Download the full set formatted as: MP3 or FLAC

Stream and download individual MP3s after the jump. 

Read the rest…

Lo Moda
Metro Gallery
Baltimore, MD
February 17, 2009

Photo credit: Greg Szeto

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck4(cards)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3
Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC
Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

Download the full set formatted as: MP3 or FLAC

Stream and download individual MP3s after the jump.

Read the rest…

Luckily, my editor is on in-between semester break. Otherwise, I’m sure he would be in T.A. mode and grade my late post accordingly…

However, I dragged my feet somewhat deliberately. What’s the point of a 2008 summation if you don’t have at least a little critical distance between current time, and the past year? One doesn’t write a book report until the book is actually finished. A conclusion about a hypothesis can’t be reached until the experiment is actually completed. You don’t say, “Wow, baby…that was some good sex,” until the deal is sealed–unless you’re an ego-tripping moron with a teenager’s maturity level.

January 29, 2008 was my emergence from the world of sub-par print music journalism into the realm of much more serious online music writing. I don’t take credit for the upgrade; that goes solely to Greg Szeto, the music editor at my former publication, and the founder and managing editor of Aural States. I know good coat tails when I seem them, and I was really excited to jump into this venture with Greg. 

The results have been unthinkable, really. Much of the work I’ve felt the best about, and been the most proud of in the past several years has been for Aural States.
For me, 2008 has been a year of amazing music–recorded, live, and starting recently, making it again. To be accurate this journey’s proper beginnings are in the fall of 2007, but isn’t it weird how events usually arise from prior events in sequential order? Event chains, I think they are called.  I have been into music all my life, but 2008 is unique in the fact that I actually, in some small way, took a spot in a broader network of music, and culture-of-music people. I began blogging, and people were actually reading what I wrote.

This status of blogger doesn’t feel quite like it fits yet. Around Baltimore, indie/hipsters types (definitely loaded words, which are commonly mistaken for being synonymous with “music types”) don such close-fitting clothes. Perhaps, feeling as though this is a role I need to grow into is a healthier stance, than having skin-tight clothing restricting, and inhibiting movement (read: critical movement, and development).

Also, clothes being the signifiers that they are designate people into one group. I personally don’t fit into one single group musically, and probably not socially, either. From my understanding (and I think it’s an accurate understanding) the same goes for Aural States. To be clear, this does not mean AS has to be everything musically to fulfill our eclectic mission statement, but we simply need to be who we are, and only who we are.

And who are we? Music geeks: pure, unabashed, genuine music geeks.

My (Highly Subjective) Most Memorable Live Performances of 2008 (in no order, and it’s more than 10)
Read the rest…

Download the full set as a ZIP file formatted in: FLAC or MP3

Small Sur
The Metro Gallery
Baltimore, MD
November 19, 2008

Band:
Bob Keal-guitar, vocals
Austin Stahl-drums, vocals
Jamie Saltsman-bass

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck4(card)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3
Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC
Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

baltimore-taper.blogspot.com

Read the rest…

We’ve lavished praise upon Small Sur’s first full-length, released earlier this year.  And over the course of the year, their live performances have become more and more vital and assured.  Given their album is one of my favorite releases all year, and the fact that Bob and crew have a show coming up at Metro Gallery this Wednesday with Horse Feathers (Kill Rock Stars), I dropped by Bob’s house to chat about all things Keal and Small Sur.

Read on, intrepid musical explorer. And enjoy this previously unreleased track, “Weeds.” This cut will likely be reworked for the next album.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Small Sur – Weeds

Aural States: I wanted to explore what, early on, got you into music. Read the rest…