Super Art Fight 9 @ Ottobar Tonight

We haven’t made it out to a Super Art Fight yet. We’re overdue. Way overdue. It’s been our understanding that it gets bigger, better, and badass-er with each installment, so with the approach of their 9th battle, it’s safe to say that it’s going to be the best one yet.

Here at the Baltimore Chop, we like to try to give you the dope on events happening in town, mixed with a little opinion, but sometimes the facts are hard to come by. Some bars and restaurants still don’t have their own websites. Some bands rely on abandoned Myspace profiles as their whole web presence. This is not the case with Super Art Fight.

The tag team tournament is only part of the pandemonium in store at SAF9 at the Ottobar tonight. 9 pm doors.

They blog the hell out of their events. If you want to know what to expect tonight, you can read all about it on the SAF blog, which has no less than 8 separate blog posts about tonight’s event. Hell, that’s almost too much. With all that info out there, we can’t even pretend to try to break it down into one little preview post.

Once you click over there, you’ll see the same kind of detailed posts highlighting SAF taking its show on the road, too. Super Art Fight-of-mass-destruction-program-related-activities have taken place all over the world (from Virginia to Connecticut), and we’re greatly heartened to see Baltimore’s quirky and creative side so well-represented abroad. Tonight the Ottobar, tomorrow, to infinity and beyoooonddd…” Or something like that.

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Ottobar is located at 2549 N. Howard St. All Ages.

Future Islands, Lonnie Walker @ Ottobar Tonight

Well, we’ve got company this weekend. One thing to be said for the holidays is that they’re good for bringing people back to home and hearth and all that. People who used to live in Maryland come back to Maryland, and we’re glad to have them as ever.

So it is entirely possible that we’re going to be spending most of the weekend indoors, drinking the good stuff, eating like gluttons and doing a bit of the old male bonding you’ve heard so much about. You know: the sign on the front door of the house saying “no girls allowed” and all of that.

If we do make it out though, odds are it will be to the Ottobar for the Future Islands/ Lonnie Walker show.

Future Islands play the Ottobar tonight with Lonnie Walker. 10 pm Doors.

Future Islands has just been getting better and better for a solid year. They really hit their stride with the release of In Evening Air earlier this year, and are still coasting on that. We’re fond of saying that they’re going to ride it all the way to a Saturday Night Live appearance, and we might even start a facebook page about it. (And by might, we mean we won’t. Ever.)

Sharing the stage tonight is North Carolina’s Lonnie Walker, who are also sharing a new 7″ with Future Islands on Baltimore’s Friends Records label. We’d really like to see Lonnie Walker live, if nothing else because we can’t quite tell if they’re yanking our chain or not. 2009’s These Times Old Times was a well produced record which was a showcase for the band’s better than average writing and playing abilities, but at the same time we’re afraid to try to describe the sound at all, especially since it’s one of those cases where what you see live may or may not be reflective of what’s on the record. For us, seeing a band’s live set has always been a good indication of whether they should be listened to more closely or written off, and we suspect this could be the case with Lonnie Walker. If nothing else, they’re certainly one of those unique bands, for which every listener will have to make up his own mind.

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Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St. in Charles Village. Winks and Bobby are also on the bill. This is a late show: Doors at 10 pm, Show at 10:30. All Ages.

Brian Posehn, Jim Meyer @ Ottobar Tonight

So there’s this guy. Brian Posehn. He’s pretty famous. At least, we think he’s pretty famous, since he’s been all over TV for like 10 years now. He was on that show Just Shoot Me on the regular, which was a terrible show, but he was also on Seinfeld and News Radio a few times, which were great shows. And Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond, which also kind of sucked.

But besides that he wrote for Mr. Show, and he’s on a show now, called The Sarah Silverman Program, and since it’s on Comedy Central, it won’t air for a long stretch of time, and then it’ll air 9 times in 3 days. He’s also been on specials and comedy tours and put out records and everything else.

Brian Posehn brings the fart and wiener jokes to the Ottobar tonight. 9 pm Doors.

But despite all that, when we tell people “Hey, we’re really excited to have tickets to see Brian Posehn!” They usually come back with “Who?” And we have to say “You know… that giant nerdy bald metalhead guy with the thick glasses who makes jokes about comic books and bullies and geeksex.” So that’s what today’s blog is about. We’re going to the Ottobar tonight to see that giant nerdy bald metalhead guy with the thick glasses who makes jokes about comic books and bullies and geeksex.

And Jim Meyer, who you know well by now from Bar Bacon and if you don’t then shame on you. Bar Bacon is back with a vengeance and Meyer has been putting in work for a minute now, and he’s pretty much become the face of comedy in Baltimore. He’ll be joined by Tommy Sinbazo, & Peter O’Connell.

And not for nothing, but this is another show where we wildly missed our guess. We thought this thing would sell out way in advance, and we even went so far as to Buy Tickets Online while we were still in the desert. All for nothing though, since tickets are still available as of today.

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Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St in Charles Village. $20.00 advance, 18+ Doors at 9, Show at 10.

Two Halloweens for the Price of One!

So, Halloween is pretty much here. Like today. Like right now. You may think that Halloween falls on Sunday, and that that’s totally lame, but for all intents and purposes, it’s really a blessing in disguise for fans of the holiday. A blessing from the Devil maybe. A super secret double bizarro blessing. Or something like that. For the kiddies, trick-or-treating may indeed be Sunday evening, but for the rest of us, we get a two day holiday for drinking and carrying on. Plus a Sunday to sleep it all off again. Talk about a win/win situation…

We spent some time in and around Station North last Halloween, and if you’re in the mood for going out, we’d definitely recommend doing likewise this year. The college kids can have the East Side and the South Side. Take ’em. We’re done with ’em. We’re perfectly happy right here in North Baltimore. Station North has been doing Halloween right for a few good years now, and if previous experience is anything to go by (and it is), there will be just enough costumed revelers to make every place in the neighborhood fun and interesting, but never so many in one place that the party is overwhelming or overcrowded.

 

Of course you can be two places at once. You've got superpowers.

So, by now you’ve got your costume, and you know what to look out for, but where are you going to go, eh?

There’s plenty going on around town tonight, but there are two events we feel are especially worthy of your attention. First up at the Ottobar the Charm City Roller Girls are going to be holding their 6th annual Bruisers’ Ball. This year’s theme is a Supervillain Soiree, and the costume contests will showcase that with various prizes in several different categories. There’s going to be plenty of other fun stuff too, like Halloween themed drinks and a photobooth, and of course, plenty of rollergirls all about the place. They’re even going to tape Dirty Marty to a wall, which just in itself should be worth the price of admission. And of course there’s a solid slate of bands including the Degenerettes, Hollowboy, and the Stalking Horses, as well as the Moustache dance party upstairs.

And if you can’t get your fill of heroes and villains in just one place, you can always head down to the Windup Space for a separate party with a similar theme. It’s Atomic Books’ second annual celebration of heroism and villainy, and this time around it’s going to feature. DJ Miracle Ear, debut videos from Atomic TV, and the new Rock Band 3 for your enjoyment, complete with Keytar.

Plus, the costume contest pays $400 in cold, hard cash. We’re calling it right now: if you’re lucky enough to snag a jackpot like that, the only right thing to do is to buy the house a round of drinks.

Happy Halloween.

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The Bruisers’ Ball at Ottobar (2549 N. Howard, Charles Village) begins at 9pm with the show bands playing at 10:00. $10, 18+.

Atomic’s Heroes and Villains Costume Ball at the Windup Space (12 W. North Ave in Station North) runs concurrently.

An Evening With Greg Dulli @ Ottobar Tonight

Well, if tonight’s show is anything, it’s proof that we’re out of touch. Almost cool. You might think we have our finger on the pulse of the scene, but we do not. We have it up our nose.

We went ahead and bought a ticket for tonight’s Greg Dulli show in advance since we were on the Missiontix site anyway. We figured it would be a pretty low key Saturday night, with just a few aged scenesters drinking heavily and gnashing their teeth at the thought of being 22 again with their present bitter, jaded knowledge of how the world works. Hell, even though Dulli is touring nationally and about to split for England, tickets were only $12.

Greg Dulli plays the Ottobar tonight. 8 pm Doors.

So we were surprised when the show not only sold out, but sold out well in advance. We’d tried to track down an extra ticket for a friend from New York, and came up empty handed. Word is that the very few tickets available at resale are going for up to five times face value. With that kind of demand, you’d think they would have cost more initially, or that they would have booked the show into a bigger venue. Oh well. We’ll see how it goes.

Perhaps it’s fitting that we’re way out of touch on this one. We were pretty well aware of the Afghan Whigs during their Gentlemen/ Black Love heyday. As a 12 or 13 year old kid who knew very little about music (or life) we thought they sounded good enough, but most of those songs went right over our head. You can’t expect a middle school kid to actually understand songs about hatefucking, cold revenge, solitude in company, and danger for danger’s sake. It wasn’t long before we caught on to the broad brush anthems of three chord punk and spent the next decade not looking back.

Sometime around our mid-to-late 20’s though, we began to rediscover a lot of this music of which we were dimly aware as a kid; Pavement, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr., Catherine Wheel, etc. Once we did, our admiration and appreciation for Dulli grew exponentially. We’re an adult now. We’ve been fired from jobs, scorned by women, abandoned by friends, dragged into courtrooms, drunk by noon, and and even, on occasion, betrayed by our own body. All of that happened.

It’s only now that we fully understand the music of Greg Dulli.

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Craig Wedren (Shudder to Think) opens tonight’s show. Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St. in Charles Village.

Warhol: The Last Decade @ the BMA Today

Could it be true? Could it possibly, actually have happened? Have we finally found a place to go on Sundays where no one is wearing purple, drinking Miller Lite and yelling ‘Caw Caw’?

Yes, it’s true. While the rest of Baltimore is watching the Ravens and Patriots (and no doubt continuing to curse the Steelers), we’re going to head over to the Baltimore Museum of Art to see the new exhibit on that most famous of Yinzers, Andy Warhol.

10/17/10 - 1/09/11

The BMA’s website has a pretty good write up on the exhibition itself, so we’ll spare you the details, and say only that it opens to the general public today, running through January 9. While general museum admission is free, this traveling exhibit will run you $15 unless you’re a member, and at a mere $50 a year for an individual membership it’s a pretty tempting offer.

So while the rest of the city is hoping that Ray Lewis can successfully decapitate Tom Brady, we’ll be walking through Wyman Park, watching the leaves change, and probably, for personal reasons having to do with Warhol and the BMA, feeling very melancholy and nostalgic about love affairs and the Fall. We might even wear a tie.

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The BMA is at 10 Art Museum Drive in Charles Village.

Wednesday through Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm

Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 am to 6:00 pm

Closed Mondays and Tuesdays

Tim Barry, Josh Small @ the Ottobar Tonight

When Tim Barry played with Drag the River at Fletcher’s on Memorial Day Weekend of 2008, it was easily the best show in the history of that venue, and one of the best Baltimore shows of the decade. This is no hyperbole. The crowd consisted entirely of a who’s-who of local record collectors, musicians, indie media critics and other such arbiters of taste, and these two acts did not disappoint.

Even the most aloof and elite of scene types made no bones about being in a full on transport of musical reverie. It sort of felt like Christmas in the Rockefeller house in there. That’s how happy and excited everyone was.

Tim Barry and Josh Small play the Ottobar Upstairs today. 6 pm Doors.

For fans of stuff like Lucero, the Gaslight Anthem, and Paul Westerburg, the former Avail frontman, along with Suburban Home labelmate and sometimes collaborator Josh Small should definitely be worth sneaking out of work early for. And you might have to do just that, since their show at the Ottobar tonight is a happy hour set in the upstairs bar, very acoustic and intimate-like.

After all, there’s nothing better than some low-down, southern-fried songs about drinking heavily to start off the first full weekend back in town.

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Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St. Doors at 6, Show at 6:30. $10, all ages.

Cheers! The Culture of Drink in Early Maryland @ Homewood Museum

If you know the Chop at all, you know that we’re the type to take our drinking very, very seriously. Of course, we strongly believe in drinking responsibly, but to us ‘drinking responsibly’ doesn’t just mean taking a cab or laying off the Jaeger shots… it means drinking the right way.

So, we’re trying to buy a dining room group at the moment. This is a task which has so far required no shortage of time and effort in straining our eyes to look online and driving to and fro from store to store to deal with salesmen and parse the differences between “cherry” and “cherry satin”. It will undoubtedly require yet more effort in painting, wallpapering, and possibly even installing new lighting. This is not to mention considerable expense.

A drawing room at 1515 Linden Avenue in Reservoir Hill, 1886. Photo courtesy MD Historical Society.

But you may ask, “Chop, you’re a single bachelor. Most of your meals consist of Midnight Snacks on the couch. What do you need with a fancy-schmancy table?” Well, you’re right. The table and chairs are mostly an afterthought. What we’re actually shopping for, and what will be the true centerpiece of the room, is the bar.

It’s well known that our grandfathers were better drinkers than we are. The Chop’s own grandfathers are a case in point. Do you think they ever drank beer from “aluminum bottles”, or asked if their wine was “bio-dynamic”, or mixed anything with Red Bull? Of course not. They learned to drink in World War II.

But what about our grandfathers’ grandfathers? The landed gentry and patriarchs of the Old Line State? How did they drink? For they are the ones we should be emulating if we really want to do it right. Cask Madeira, Terrapin Stew and 20 year rye? Yes, please.

This is why, before we rebuild our bar this Fall, we’re going to stroll over to the Homewood Museum and have a look at their exhibit Cheers! The Culture of Drink in Early Maryland.

The exhibition is on view as part of the regular Homewood tour, and focuses on how the Carrolls and other early families procured, stored, served and sipped their wines and whiskies.

While we’re at it, we might even come back tomorrow for the Museum’s Historic Home Brews talk and tasting featuring Baltimore native and Stillwater Ales founder Brian Strumke as part of the 2010 Baltimore Beer Week. If you can’t make it down to the Museum of Industry for the Official Opening Tap Ceremony you can still taste some of the best beer in Maryland right here at Homewood, just in time for Friday happy hour.

Cheers.

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Tapping ceremony and home brews tasting require advance registration. See bbweek.com for more information on all beer week events. The Culture of Drink exhibit runs from Sep. 16 until Nov. 28 2010 from 11am-4pm Tue-Fri and 12-4 Sat & Sun.

Chop on the Spot: iBar

We probably shouldn’t tell you about iBar. We should probably keep our big mouth shut for once and leave well enough alone. Or maybe we should use some reverse psychology. Don’t go to iBar. It’s not very cool.

There. That ought to insure that iBar remains one of the best kept open secrets in Baltimore. If you’re anything like us, you’ve driven by iBar 10,000 times and always meant to go in, but never quite did. When you say to your friend ‘Where do you want to go?’ they probably never told you iBar. We were guilty of this for quite a long time. It’s so close to Club Charles, Joe Squared, Ottobar, etc that it’s always just been easier to go with the familiar.

Photo from the iBar Website.

Of course, sometimes you just don’t feel like dealing with the Club Charles. Sometimes you just want to have a cheap beer and watch a few innings of baseball and chitchat with people who are cool, but yet don’t know or care about design aesthetics, electronic music, or bicycles. That’s when you go to iBar.

True to the name they offer free wi-fi, as well as a public internet connected PC at the end of the bar. That’s where the technology connection ends though. The rest of iBar is just a good old fashioned corner place (although it’s not on a corner) with cheap cold beer, pretty and nice bartenders, an awesome pub grub menu, and a decent jukebox well stocked with solid un-ironic 80’s pop. There’s also one nice sized flatscreen which has been tuned to baseball every time we’ve been in.

Next time you’re driving by and idly wondering about the place, do yourself a favor and stop in. You’ll be glad you did.

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iBar is at 2118 Maryland Ave in Old Goucher/Charles North/Charles Village South/Whatever the hell you want to call it.

Polar Bear Club, Lemuria +3 More @ Ottobar Tonight

What’s important to you Baltimore? Is watching the World Cup really very important? Is it of grave urgency that you wear funny wigs and feather boas and drink in the street this weekend? How about stealing back the foursquare mayorship of some bar? Is that crucial?

Tonight something actually important is happening at the Ottobar.

Understand, it’s not like Haiti Earthquake important or Oil Spill important… but to us it’s important all the same. Just like we said that the Easter Sunday record release show was a milestone in Baltimore music, so is tonight’s show. This is what makes 2010 a celebrated summer. (haw haw haw!)

Aside from the completely and totally sick bill that’s been assembled tonight, this show marks the Occasion of Mike Riley’s wedding to Julie Benoit. If you like punk rock in Baltimore, or if you ever did, it behooves you to tip your cap to Mike tonight. We could go on at length about what he’s done for this city, but his new blog Speech Impediment gives a much better picture than we could here. It’s an amazing online document of the history of Baltimore punk since 1997, and will only continue to grow.

As if running multiple venues, putting on shows, and being in some noteworthy bands himself wasn’t enough, Mike also continues to maintain Firestarter Records, and if you’ve got any kind of good taste at all, you’ve probably got a record he made on your shelf right now.

We wish Mike and Julie the best, and all the happiness they deserve, although we’d hate to see him make any sort of attempt at becoming a grown up. (Zing!)

But as if the chance to glad hand the man of the hour and buy him a Coke wasn’t enough, he’s also found five amazing bands to fete the occasion tonight. You know how we sometimes pick one or two bands to write about on a multi-band bill? Well, we can’t do that today. All five of these bands are incredible, and if we tried to quantify that, we’d run to 20,000 words. So we’re just going to tell you who they are:

Polar Bear Club

Lemuria

Cloak/Dagger

Dead Mechanical

Deep Sleep

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Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St. Doors @ 8:30. All ages.