The Harold & Irene Walton Theatre, the intimate listening room housed within Bellingham’s Mt. Baker Theatre, has hosted world-renowned and influential musicians – Bob Mould, Karla Bonoff, and Loudon Wainwright, to name only a few — for its Lookout Sessions series. Recently joining that impressive list was punk-folk singer-songwriter Sunny War accompanied by guitarist Anthony da Costa.
The Baltimore-Washington region has been the incubator for so many bands over the years that concertgoers can experience a sense of pride when those artists return to the area in an evolved, more seasoned form and with exciting new music in the works.
J. Roddy Walston earned a reputation in the Charm City after moving there from Tennessee with his previous band back in 2004. Fronting the rousing rock outfit known as J. Roddy Walston & The Business — and working at the Ottobar in his time there, a true devotee of the Baltimore music scene — he rose to prominence and eventually left the area, settling not far off in Richmond.
In December 2017, Scott Terry and Eric Hall from Red Wanting Blue (RWB) embarked on a unique two-week tour with their close friends Tim Warren and Eric Donnelly from The Alternate Roots. This experimental journey took them to intimate venues, where they curated their performances on the go, exchanging songs and sharing anecdotes from their long-standing friendship and travels. The tour was aptly named “ARWB,” signifying the collaboration between the two bands. When they reached New York City’s Rockwood Music Hall, they captured the entire show on film, envisioning a future project for its release.
f you weren’t familiar with The New Pornographers, you might have found their show at the 9:30 Club on Friday evening — the first of two nights at the venue — surprisingly clean. Despite their name, there wasn’t a single moment of obscenity; instead, the evening was full of great performances of the terrific songs the Canadian band has been making for more than 20 years.
The story behind The New Poronographers’ name came as a surprise to me. I assumed it came from Jimmy Swaggart’s statement, “Rock and roll is the new pornography,” but it turned out I was wrong. Bandleader Carl Newman actually came up with it after seeing a Japanese movie called The Pornographers.
The Gaslight Anthem swung by Rams Head Live! in Baltimore recently, and Steve Satzberg was there to photograph the show!
Located southwest of Cleveland, Ohio, my alma mater, Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, enrolls less than 3,000 students annually. Its small size makes all the more remarkable the number of musicians who’ve attended. In just a few short years in the mid-to-late ’90s, indie darling Jason Molina (who led the bands Song: Ohia and Magnolia Electronic Company); Rhiannon Giddens, who just won the Pulitzer Prize in music for her contemporary opera, Omar; and singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, who recently played the Lincoln Theatre with his Royal City Band, all graduated. (Other musicians who went to Oberlin include Marc Cohn, Liz Phair, and Lucy Wainwright-Roche, to name just a few.)
A native of Moscow, Idaho, Ritter caught the music bug listening to his parents’ copy of Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, buying a guitar at K-Mart and starting to play. It was at Oberlin, though, that he dedicated himself to music as a career. He’d planned to study neuroscience (both of his parents were neuroscientists), but he he changed his major to one of his own design in folklore. Before graduating in 1999, he recorded his self-titled in a campus studio.
Honest Lee Soul and the Michael McHenry Tribe teamed for a strong night of good music recently at Rams Head on Stage in Annapolis. Steve Satzberg was there to shoot the show.
The existence of Canada’s City and Colour is something of a happy accident. Ontario native Dallas Green started his career in hardcore bands. He was fronting Alexisonfire when he decided to release his solo, acoustic recordings under the City and Colour moniker, selling his EP, The Death of Me, at his shows. The response was enthusiastic enough that he recorded a full album, 2007’s Sometimes, which become his breakout, being certified platinum in 2006 and winning a Juno Award (Canada’s highest musical honors) for Best Alternative Album in 2007.
Like many artists, Green became an overnight success after many, many years of work. He began writing songs in his teens, some of which would later make it to his solo albums. He had his first No. 1 album in Canada with 2011’s Little Hell. In 2012, he disbanded Alexisonfire to focus solely on City and Colour. That decision clearly paid off as evidenced by Dallas’ recent strong performance at the Warner Theatre in DC.
For the musical acts fortunate to be so successful, there’s a point on the popularity scale past which a small club show becomes almost impossible. But the diverse musicians who call Baltimore home take a certain pride in the Charm City that can effectively convert the unthinkable into a feasible idea.
Turnstile blew minds with the short notice late last week that it would be performing a hometown show on Monday night and that it would be at, of all places, Ottobar — a beloved old stomping ground of the skyrocketing hardcore band and a venue with a capacity of about 350.
It was a wild proposition from a group that’s been touring with Blink-182 to open sold-out arena shows and just two days prior played to tens of thousands at the first Sick New World Festival in Las Vegas.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the journeys upon which we embark. Having recently relocated to the Pacific Northwest, I’ve become fascinated by those traveled paths, how we discovered them, and where they take us.
On a recent Sunday (Mother’s Day), Leigh Jones and her seven-piece collective, Eugenia Riot, took another step on their musical journey celebrating the release of their debut album, Can’t Wait to Miss You, at Bellingham’s Blue Room. And for the warm and attentive audience, Leigh’s songs guided us a little further down the path of musical discovery. For me, it was a lovely introduction to a new artist in an intimate Bellingham venue.
