All photos: the esteemed Josh Sisk

“FUCK YEA!”–both the name of the tour, and my general impression of the night.

Though The Death Set were the only band actually hailing from Baltimore, I felt the rest of the groups (excluding one) were honorary Baltimoreans for the night. Monotonix have played here often, and recently. They share the intensity, and the weirdo aesthetic of our town. Kim Schifino, of Matt and Kim, said the city was beginning to feel like home.

“Honestly, for a second, I thought we were in Brooklyn. You just keep seeing people at every show. It’s like ‘Oh, yea, it’s that person,’” Kim said (Aural States then explained the Smalltimore effect to her). Read the rest…

We are giving away a pair of TaxLo-courtesy tickets to the F Yeah Tour date at Sonar featuring the Death Set, Monotonix, Team Robespierre and Matt & Kim.  Do your research and start listening…email us at auralstates at gmail dot com for entry to win tix.

Our aural offerings:

Team Robespierre live recording from the Ottobar.

Death Set live recording from the Lo-Fi Social Club.

Matt & Kim live recording from the Lo-Fi Social Club.

And here are some tasty downloadable MP3 bits from Monotonix and Team Robespierre.

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MP3: Team Robespierre – Ha ha ha

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MP3: Monotonix – Summers and Autumns

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:

Read the rest…

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/

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