Everyone give a warm welcome to James Rodd, our newest contributor. This is his first piece, on what he believes drives pop music and culture. It is also our first staff op-ed article, falling under the series State of Mind. Enjoy, and feel free to comment in agreement or disagreement.

All my life I have heard people, whether it be the media or someone else, say that popular culture is cyclic and repetitive. Basically this means, things that were once “in” and fashionable will come back full circle at some point and be “in” and fashionable once again.

I don’t agree with this at all. In fact, I sincerely hope it is a fallacy because I am not looking forward to seeing my pre-middle aged ass in spandex or leather pants again, reliving my metal head days ca. 1987 – 1995.

Here’s how I see it: pop-culture is an amorphous shape.

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So there’s this band called Snowden that made quite a good impression on me at the Talking Head a few years ago. They already get massive bonus points for naming themselves after a character in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

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Snowden – Anti-Anti

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Snowden – Innocent Heaven

Do NOT miss this show.  This line up is going to explode Sonar from the inside out.  This is not hype, this is fact.  I have never been to a tame Death Set show.

Enjoy this Bonde do Role remix.

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Bonde do Role – Melo do tabaco (A-Trak remix)

Holy shit. What a show. Set list, courtesy of cure-concerts.de. That’s right. An over 3 hour show. Fan-fucking-tastic. Review for BYT is up here. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Enjoy this Cure cover from WHY.

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WHY – Close to me

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OK, so we drew some numbers from a random number generator and assigned winners for the Thrushes giveaway.

Grand prize – Brady Salzman
First prize – April Gray
Second prize (2) – Asa Eisenhardt, Paul Timer

Hooray, check your emails and respond if necessary with info. Don’t miss the show and be a sore loser. Tomorrow night @ the Metro Gallery. Check the flyer at your right for more info.

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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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…