Hipster Parking Lot: Parking Info for Station North and Downtown Clubs

It’s kind of ironic that we’re writing a post about parking now that we’ve resolved to give up our car, but there are two changes in parking at places we go regularly that are worth noting for the rest of you who still have cars.

The first change we noticed was in Station North, at the lot on the corner of 20th and Howard Street. This lot is kind of a minor urban miracle in that it functions as a free community lot where people can park day or night without fear of being towed. A lot of people are quick to denigrate the presence of parking lots, but when they’re free and open to all they’re very much a valuable community resource.

Now, we’ve been parking in this lot for years, and we’ve always kind of wondered who owns it and why they allow free parking, but we never thought it wise to look the free-parking gift horse in the mouth since we’ve never been ticketed, towed, or broken into there.

In this diagram, south is up.

The only difference now is that when we went to Joe Squared last week there was a large poster board with the above graphic lashed to the fence next to the patio. We can only take this to mean that parking in this lot is pretty legit for patrons of all Station North businesses. Who says there’s no such thing as free parking? Now all we gotta do is pass Go and get our $200.

The other parking change is much more substantial and will be of interest to anyone attending shows at Sonar or other clubs near the foot of the JFX.

We’ve always just parked on the street when going to Sonar, Sidebar, etc, since there’s generally not any shortage of street parking near City Hall at night. Going to the Shellac show though, the weather was rainy and since our driver’s side window has been reduced to a pile of Baltimore Diamonds we were looking for sheltered parking.

As it turned out, we were in luck. We’d noticed on Sonar’s website that this show’s listing said parking would be available in the garage above the club for $2. We had always know that there was a garage on top, but had no idea that it was available for show-goers. Not only that, but when we pulled in, there was no one there to take our money. The parking was free.

When we asked the club staff about it at the door, they advised us that nighttime parking in the Farmers’ Market lot under the JFX now costs seven dollars ($7!). They also said that from now on, Sonar patrons can park above the club either for free, or for some rate which will be less than $7.00 depending on the show.

If you zoom in on the embedded map, Sonar itself looks like a parking lot. There are 2 levels of parking on the building, a covered garage, and the exposed rooftop. you can access both levels from Gay Street, passing the church and making a hard left right behind the billboards.

Have any downtown parking tips of your own? Feel free to share them in the comments.

E. Joseph & the Phantom Heart, Poly/Western @ Windup Space Tonight

Back in January we had some pretty nice things to say about local trio Poly/Western. Now that it’s almost April, we’re gonna go ahead and double down on those statements.

At that time, we’d been vaguely aware of this band, but hadn’t had the chance to see them live yet. We expected them to be good, but we don’t mind saying that they were great. They reminded us right away of some crazy hybrid of the Twilight Singers, Sense Field, Tool and Big Black. While the rest of the country is just catching onto stuff like Beach House and Wye Oak, we’re here to tell you that Poly/Western is on the vanguard of local talent, and they’re what Baltimore needs to start paying close attention to right now.

E. Joseph and the Phantom Heart play the Windup Space tonight. 9 pm Doors.

Those are some pretty bold statements for a band that has yet to put out its first full-length. We believe they’re warranted though. At the January show we picked up a free copy of their 3-song Orange ep, and it’s been in heavy rotation at the Chophouse ever since. We’d definitely advise you to check out the Poly/Western Bandcamp Page, where you can download the Orange ep, as well as the 3 songs that make up the Down Home Blizzard Demos. Giving a spin to either one of these brief recordings will easily have you wanting to play it again by the time it’s over.

Sharing the stage tonight and equally deserving of your attention tonight is Baltimore’s own E. Joseph and the Phantom Heart. The Phantom Heart is no small pill for the listener to swallow. On the face of it, this band makes pop songs. These songs, however, are not to be taken at face value. The artist page on their label’s site throws around the term “power-pop” pretty liberally, but we don’t quite think this does E. Joseph justice. A listen to their 2008 album All The Medicine In The World… will certainly remind a listener of the best of the 80’s, Duran Duran, Simple Minds and the like, but it also begs the question “What would have happened if U2 and Sting hadn’t fucked it all up for everybody?”

This is definitely some sub-genre of pop. Not power-pop, but we call it that because no one ever got around to naming it properly. It went extinct before anyone could. Only the Cure made it out of the 80’s relatively intact playing something close to this sound. It’s as dead as doo-wop. Dead as Latin.

If they’d been around 30 years ago, E. Joseph and the Phantom Heart are the sort of band that would have signed a multi-record deal on a major, been all over Vh1, and fueled many a post-prom heavy petting session from sea to shining sea. After the complete and utter collapse of the music industry though, they find themselves a perfect fit on the homegrown and very modern Beechfields Label. It’s no stretch to say that this band is revitalizing and reinventing pop music the same way that the Beechfields is helping to reinvent the music industry, and we’d urge anyone reading this to come out to the Windup Space tonight and support them both.

_______________________________________________________________

Windup Space is located at 12 W. North Avenue in Station North. Survival Society and Me & This Army also play. Ages 21+

Arbouretum @ Windup Space Tonight

When last we posted about Arbouretum, we had some very nice things to say about them and clearly enumerated the reasons you should go out and see them. We also mentioned that we had a cold, and as it turned out, we did not make it to the show.

Arbouretum plays the Windup Space tonight. 9 pm Doors.

Just the other day we said they’d be right up there with Lower Dens, choke-slamming 2011 and defining what will eventually become known as the Baltimore sound. Their new album, The Gathering out next month on Thrill Jockey is a conceptual exploration of the work of Carl Jung. We think it will be a very good record. We are not kidding about this.

When they come through the Windup Space tonight, they’ll be joined by Hush Arbors, who record on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label, as well as experimental jazzman Jason Ajemian.

We don’t like to go negative on this blog if we can help it, but there are only 3 bands playing tonight, and if you wanted to show up late and just catch Arbouretum, well, we wouldn’t blame you. To our mind it’s a very fine line between what we hope will become the Baltimore Sound and something else entirely.

Reptilian Records Retrospective @ Windup Space Tonight

You know, we just don’t hear the phrase “Hail Satan” often enough anymore.

Time was when you could walk down any street in Fells Point on a Sunday afternoon and cross a group of kids with bags of records in hand walking around on nearly every block. The common parlance in those days wasn’t “Hello” or “How do you do?” It was Hail Satan. It was the Dark Lord Himself who provided free pizza in those days, as well as coffee and protection from alcoholic bums.

Reptilian Records hosts a retrospective at the Windup Space tonight. 9 pm.

Reptilian still exists in some form. Much like Lucifer, it cannot ever truly die, but it’s powers have weakened severely in recent years. There’s a website, and even a facebook presence, and the label is still a somewhat active entity in conjunction with the Scapegoat Publishing imprint.

Sadly though, this is only a shadow of the demonic glory that was Reptilian in the Fells Point years. We remember when they sold not only records and CD’s, but also cassettes and VHS, not to mention comics, toys and t-shirts as well as hosting live shows and running the biggest and best label in the area.

We can only hope that tonight’s retrospective at the Windup Space will recapture some of the dark powers of the Salute to Satan events of old. Marking Reptilian’s 21st unholy anniversary, this one-night-only event could easily be the centerpiece exhibit in a museum of mid-atlantic punk. Just looking over some of the online photos we recognized a lot of friends looking young and dumb and up the punx, but thankfully no photos of the Chop in there.

Aside from pics at the store, there will also be photos and video from shows at some of Baltimore’s Dead Venues, as well as the premiere of the Upper Crust DVD, which was shot at the Ottobar so long ago that we’ve already forgot what year it was, and perhaps a few other surprises, Hail Satan.

If you grew up punk in Baltimore, you’re going to need to come by tonight for what will feel more like a family reunion than anything else. This is what holidays are all about, and tonight promises to be the blackest Black Friday yet.

______________________________________________________

Windup Space is located at 12 W. North Ave. in Station North.

Tomorrow: On The Block Screening @ Windup Space

Okay, okay. Simmer down a little. We know you’re excited because you feel like it’s Friday, even though it’s only Tuesday, and instead of spending the rest of the week at work you get to spend it stuffing your maw with turkey or tofurkey, or good tawny port, and starting your Christmas shopping and laying around in sweatpants watching movies.

All of that is preferable to your job where you’re underpaid, overworked, and under-appreciated. We get it. We know. But come tomorrow when it’s time to wash away the cares of the workweek with whiskey and gin, you’re not going to want to do it in just any bar. You’ll want to do it at the Windup Space.

On The Block screens at the Windup Space tomorrow night. 9 pm.

You already know that the Windup Space is the go-to spot for the very best in awful movies, and tonight the crew from Gutter Magazine has dug up a true cinematic gem for your viewing pleasure.

They managed to track down a VHS copy of On The Block, shot and released right here in Baltimore 20 years ago, and largely forgotten since. One look at this incredible trailer will convince you that this is something you need to see. Sex, drugs, vice, cops, drama, politics, depravity; On the Block gives the whole family something to be thankful for.

And that’s not all. Poppin’ Pietro spins for happy hour before Nikki Le Faye heats up the crowd with a burlesque routine from 8 o’clock until the feature begins at 9. Throw in drink specials and no cover for the night, and this is bound to go down as one of the highlights of the entire holiday season.

_____________________________________________________

Windup Space is located at 12 W. North Ave. in Station North.

Mondo Balto Presents Blood Freak @ Windup Space Tonight

What? You haven’t been to Mondo Baltimore at the Windup Space yet? What’s the matter? You don’t like blood and guts and dick jokes and film freaks and beer? What are you? A Communist? This is some real, genuine first amendment stuff right here, baby. It’s also free. Nothing says freedom like free.

What could be more American than Thanksgiving, the spirit of the open American road and the pastoral surroundings of a simple country turkey farm?

Mondo Baltimore screens Blood Freak at the Windup Space tonight. 7 pm Doors.

That’s the setting for tonight’s feature, Blood Freak. We’re not really sure how Blood Freak fits into the Mondo series though. So far Mondo has highlighted the weird and the bizarre, but Blood Freak seems perfectly logical and sensible to us. If you were a biker in the 70’s, wouldn’t you dig drugs and chicks? If you were a turkey farming mad scientist and some drugged up biker tried to bang your daughter, wouldn’t you turn him into a giant turkey? If you were just transformed into a turkey, you’d probably want to go on a homicidal rampage, wouldn’t you? See? It all makes perfect sense.

After all, what was the first Thanksgiving about? It was basically just the meal before the massacre.

Tonight’s feature will also be preceded by a short on Thanksgiving table manners, presented by Gutter Magazine’s resident Gore Whore, who knows way more about this sort of thing than you do, and is basically the Emily Post of Mondo manners.

___________________________________________________________

Competition is still very tight in the Baltimore Sun’s Mobbies contest, and the Baltimore Chop is still looking for your votes. We put a lot of time into writing this thing every day on a crummy old computer that freezes up constantly, but you can click over there now and vote very quickly. Look for the Chop in the Personal, Music/Nightlife, and Misfits categories, and don’t forget to vote for best overall.

As an anonymous blog, we can’t exactly bug our real life friends for votes every day, so it’s up to you, the readers, to put the Chop on top.

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.

__________________________________________________________

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.

Gilded Lily Burlesque @ Windup Space Tonight

“I hate my girlfriend, she she she
Lies on the beach like a barrier reef.
Soaking up the stupid sun,
While the radio is blasting; fun, fun fun!

I don’t wanna be on the beach, no fun!”

The Dead Milkmen said it best (ahem) 25 years ago in Beach Song, and their words still ring true today. The Chop has seen enough oceans that they’re not really a draw anymore, and price-wise OC is comprable to the Bahamas, Mexico, or any number of more exotic resorts. Somehow crappy paintings, sexist t-shirts and sand sculptures of Jesus just aren’t as exciting as they used to be.

Ocean City does have one big redeeming quality in its favor though… namely beautiful women wearing next-to-nothing and acting scandalously.

Gilded Lily Burlesque makes you say 'What beach?' at the Windup Space Tonight. 8 pm doors.

What’s that you say? We don’t have to sit through Bay Bridge traffic, suffer sunburns and get sand in our shorts? We can see the ravishingly raunchy vixens of Gilded Lily Burlesque at the Windup Space instead? Sold. Done. Front row, suckers!

And just like yesterday, we’re in prime position to sneak over to Load of Fun and hit up day one of the Wild Style Reunion.

But we hope you all have fun with your Buffett cover bands and jellyfish stings.

__________________________________________________________

The Windup Space is at 10 W. North Ave.

Load of Fun is at 120 W. North Ave.

And yes, we are a little bitter we’re not at the beach, Ok?

LandSpeedRecord!, Free Electric State @ Windup Space Tonight

LandSpeedRecord! is a cool band. Don’t argue with us. Of course they’re a cool band. Why would we write about them if they weren’t? Do you think we made this blog just to tell you about bands that are not cool? That would be dumb. You know what’s not dumb? LandSpeedRecord!, that’s what. Which is why you should go see them at the Windup Space tonight.

LandSpeedRecord ruins your good hair day at the Windup Space tonight. 9 pm doors.

How do we know LandSpeedRecord! is cool, and does not suck? Because we’ve seen them before, duh, and frankly it’s been too long. We also know that they’re cool because they put out 7 records. Has your band put out 7 records? No, of course you haven’t. But LandSpeedRecord! did and they all sound good, up to and including their new release Unfailurelessness.

We could take this opportunity to engage in a fun game of “try to describe their sound by naming a slew of other bands who sound vaguely sort-of like them but not really”, but instead we will just make an analogy, which you can copy down and remember for your SAT’s…

LandSpeedRecord! : Baltimore :: The Dismemberment Plan : DC

Simple enough? The real reason we like LSR! though is because you can dance to them. Not only can you dance, you can also cook dinner to them, or drive down a road or cut your grass or drink or go to the golf ball driving range. This band is so versatile that whatever you happen to be doing, they’ll provide the perfect soundtrack to it.

They’re playing tonight with Free Electric State, who in another time and place were members of Liquor Bike, but now sound nothing like Liquor Bike at all. Apparently between this show, the Puddle/Penny Regime/Pulaski reunion and Maryland Death Fest, it’s actually the summer of ’96 this weekend.

Or maybe it’s the Summer of 1982. It is entirely possible that the best thing about this show is that it’s a block away from Load of Fun Studios, which will easily allow us to be in two places at once since we’re also excited for the Wild Style Reunion this weekend.

This is so cool, we’re not even going to write about it. Just click the link, cancel your beach plans, and go to it.

__________________________________________________________

The Windup Space is at 10 W. North Ave.

Load of Fun is at 120 W. North Ave.

Charm City Roller Girls Championship and Awesome Saturday Tonight in Baltimore

We’ve noticed something peculiar these last few months. Here at the Baltimore Chop, we keep track of local happenings and events pretty closely, and it seems to us that a pattern is beginning to emerge. Much as each week has a social ebb and flow to it, so do the months. And for the last few months, the final Saturday of the month has been Awesome Saturday.

It’s starting to feel like planners, promoters and party-people are all looking at their calendars in advance and zeroing in on Awesome Saturday as the date to schedule their event. We often find ourselves hard pressed to decide what to do on Awesome Saturdays.

Charm City Roller Girls' championship bout is at DuBurns Arena tonight. 6 pm doors.

A lot of that has to do with the Charm City Roller Girls, who routinely hold bouts on the final Saturday of the month. We’re always grateful that CCRG opens the doors at DuBurns nice and early, since it leaves us (and them) plenty of time for post-game raging.

We never quite understood why people don’t like showing up for things until 11pm or later. We’ve always been of the opinion that if you’re out to have fun, more time= more fun. So listen Choppers… get there early. You’re clearly not working on Saturday, so get yourself down to DuBurns and grab a PBR before the sun goes down. Tonight is the final final Saturday for a while. It’s the league championship bout, and the last chance you’ll have to see derby until July 24, when Charm City takes on Denver at home. Tonight also determines who’s awarded the prestigious and much sought-after Donaghy Cup. We don’t know all the details, but we like to imagine that it’s part Stanley Cup and part pimp cup… something you can take turns dragging to bars around town and drinking beer out of.

What else is so awesome about Awesome Saturday? Glad you asked.

In addition to the Innovate Love Art Auction that we mentioned yesterday, which is probably sold-out anyway, you could go see Matt Porterfield Speak at the Catonsville Library. Porterfield has enjoyed much acclaim recently for his film Putty Hill as well as setting the blogs on fire with the new Double Dagger No Allies video he directed.

If you’re in the mood for dinner and a movie you can check out the Slideluck Potshow at H & H’s Gallery Four. It’s bound to be a veritable bohemian bacchanalia and worth checking out.

Musically speaking you can keep it calmed-down tonight with Wrens at Sonar, step it up a notch with Loved Ones, Dead Mechanical and the Desert Boys at Golden West or get goofy and thoroughly rage with Pfisters and Davey G at the Windup Space.

If you’re not having an Awesome Saturday it’s your own fault, Baltimore.