a poll of some contemporary Baltimore indie acts

my favorites: Wye Oak, J Roddy Walston & The Business, Ponytail
like ok: Dan Deacon, Oranges Band, Celebration, Pontiak, Thank You, Nautical Almanac, Lower Dens
don't really get their appeal: Beach House, Double Dagger, Wilderness
haven't heard much of: the rest

HIGGS

there is no other

Wilderness, Celebration, Oranges Band and Arboretum are my favorites by far, but I think I'll give the nod to Celebration just for whatshername's voice...it's so cool.

my favorites: Beach House, Wilderness, Ponytail, Lower Dens
like ok: Oranges Band, Double Dagger, Wzt Hearts/Jason Urick, Ecstatic Sunshine, Daniel Higgs
don't really get their appeal: Dan Deacon, J Roddy Walston & The Business, Celebration

i've been kind of OD'ing on Katrina Ford's voice lately because i just reviewed the new Celebration album and saw her sit in on a show w/ Big In Japan but yeah her voice is insane

fascinating to find out who am0n is into!

i'd barely heard of Lower Dens before suddenly it seemed like everybody loved them, but their album is growing on me

maybe i need to "re-screen" celebration. i thought i remember hearing a little at one point and was like this is not for me

btw jason urick left b-more or is leaving last i heard

i had a similar initial reaction to Celebration, they just grew on me over time

wow, didn't know that about Urick. still this is kind of just anyone who was active in the last 5 years, i think Wilderness and maybe a couple others aren't bands anymore

ya i wasn't all "re-do the poll!" just a fyi

haha LOCK THE THREAD

the deacon/coppola thing is rly weird but i never got why people liked that shit

Oranges Band are still around!?! they used to come play my college in like 99/2000, probably one of my shitty college bands opened for them at some point.

They took a long break between albums, but there was a new one in 2009.

I liked Thank You a lot when I saw them but apparently they have a different drummer now and their old drummer was like 80% of their appeal to me so I dunno if I'd like them anymore. Probably vote Wilderness, really into Wye Oak as well.

xp yeah r0man's goin strong, i hung w him a bunch over xmas!

I've never heard of most of these but Future Islands are very good.

i really like wilderness and ponytail dont really care abt the rest altho dan deacon was p ok when he opened for lightning bolt but then got annoyed when he was such a fat baby abt his stupid skull

Deacon's live show and image/aesthetic are pretty off-putting to me but i like his records

lol fat baby about his stupid skull

I love Beach House, I haven't heard most of those acts but I can't imagine I'd vote for them over Beach House.

John Lennon is posting from the great beyond! (And loves Beach House?)

Aha and I see Dr. Johnny Fever is posting from an alternate universe of 70s reruns.

Lower Dens for me. Album's great, but I love their sound live even more.

Also: I used to live there (11+ years ago at this point) so it feels strange to recognize so few of these names!

some lesser known locals I love as much as or more than anyone in this poll: Among Wolves, The Water, Thee Lexington Arrows, The Art Department, Avec, The Pilgrim, Gary B & The Notions, We Used To Be Family, Karmella's Game, Lands & Peoples, The New Flesh, Yukon

hmm for a Britisher I'm au fait with an awful lot of these!

Arbouretum/Human Bell/The Coil Sea - I always enjoy Arbouretum when I hear them but don't go back to them for a while - great guitar sound though iirc - the other two bands I've heard, but hardly
Beach House - like these guys, don't understand why they got the colelctive hype nod but if not them it might have been someone who sucked rite
Celebration - if this is the band who were on 4AD I found them kinda boring but one or more of them came out of a band called Jaks who were cool
Dan Deacon - imo he peaked w/ the first song on his first album that had the Woody Woodpecker sample
Daniel Higgs - seems to have figured out how to live and is still making good music
The Death Set - annoying and insipid
Double Dagger - good to see live if Les Savy Fav aren't gonna be in town for a while
Ecstatic Sunshine - is this chillwave? Don't think it grabbed me
Future Islands - these guys are cool! For Anglophiles
Nautical Almanac - don't think I've ever heard their music but I loved that thing they did where they cut a vinyl record on a CD
Oranges Band - if this is the band who were on Lookout once they were boring
Pontiak - pretty good thud-rock revivalism
Ponytail/Dustin Wong - know lots of ppl that like Ponytail, I can see why but can't go the extra yard
Thank You - new album seems well put together but sort of... dry? Also I think they had an annoying press release where they said they were trying to replicate the sound of inner-city Baltimore or something
Wilderness - not listened to them for ages but good band
Wye Oak - worth hearing if you can't get enough of anything that sounds like Yo La Tengo or Galaxie 500 or w/e

voted Higgs

Mencap going ham!!! yeah Celebration were on 4AD and Oranges were on Lookout

there have been so many non-Lungfish Higgs records at this point and i always think of checking them out and never do, don't really know what's best out of all those

Oranges Band - if this is the band who were on Lookout once they were boring

Agree that both their full-lengths on Lookout were boring, but the ON TV ep wasn't, nor were the eps before that and the album after that.

Oranges Band sneaks up on you, i thought their 2nd full-length was dullsville for the longest time and then eventually i was like wow i love a lot of these songs

yeah i kinda liked the oranges band, kinda strokesy (at least the one i had)

woulda voted lungfish, voted wilderness

Wait, isnt Bow-Legged Gorilla from Baltimore?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OnGDCPmcqw&feature=related

Must check out Lower Dens. Plenty of my friends are flipping the fuck out over them and I've never heard em.

wye oak

Wait, isnt Bow-Legged Gorilla from Baltimore?

― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, January 13, 2011 6:16 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes! guy is amazing but i didn't think people had actually heard of him?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

kind of expected a Beach House blowout but very happy about Wye Oak in 2nd place!

never really heard wye oak until now, the new one is very good

haven't heard the new one yet but virtually everything they've put out to date is wall-to-wall classic imo, especially last year's EP.

jana hunter

i still associate her w/Texas.

Lower Dens was a poll option -- associated acts/solo projects were kinda grouped in w/ each band that was an option but i didn't think to list it as Lower Dens/Jana Hunter

lol w/e i just love her

also i think of the chicks from wye oak and beach house as both being second rate janas

which is not really a terrible thing to be

arghhhhh as a Wye Oak stan i will not stand for such talk sir

Crushing scene indictment that Higgs didn't walk away with this one.

is justin frye/pc worship from baltimore? his 7" out last year on shdwply is incredible and the lp from 2009 is gr8 too. think he rolls vaguely w/in like teeth mountain & dan deacon crews

Crushing scene indictment that Higgs didn't walk away with this one.

― Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB), Monday, February 28, 2011 8:34 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

crushing indictment of the board maybe that Beach House beat Higgs but tbh i wanted this thread to be about the younger bands and not awesome dudes that have been around forever like him -- thought about not even having him as an option

funny to see Nautical Almanac in this list- if you're going to have them then why not a wider list of Bmore folks that ropes in noize/free/textural/improvised/electronic/and lofi punk stuff too? then the list gets way way longer and you would need Lexie Mountain Boys, Leprechaun Catering, Snacks, Adventure, Ami Dang, Janitor, Holy Spurt, Copper Glove/Door, DJ Dog Dick, Dog Leather, Weyes Blood, Zomes, Horse Lords, Narwhalz of Sound, Beastmaster, Cex and his many aliases, Schwarz, EarNose&Throat, Needlegun,Ich Auch, Double Date, Dope Body (hell my band (Matmos) has lived here for four years, maybe some day we will be thought of as a Baltimore band?)

i am personally offended that you did not include every baltimore band incl. my band i visited bmore once

yeah Nautical Almanac was kind of a token pick since they seem a little more prominent than most of the others you named, but yeah could've been more purist about the 'rock' parameters of the poll since that was the grounds on which i didn't include Cex, Matmos, etc.

living here it feels very odd the circles that overlap socially and the ones that just don't- never heard of several bands on the poll list (Pontiak? J Roddy Walston? who?) and that's probably to do with who puts out records and tours outside Baltimore vs. who is a hipster/scenester strictly within the very inward-looking Baltimore scene. but inevitably I'm going to know the noise/electronic/weirdo people well and the indie rock people not that well- I guess the Baltimore centric poll would be of the social spaces around which these scene(s) congeal, and that would be split by the big legal diff. between

"warehouse spaces"

Floristree/H&H/The Fifth Dimension
The Bank
America
Comfort Dome
Lonesome Dove/TribalHaus
Bell Foundry
The Annex
The Copycat Building
that weird church in Hampden (what's it called?)

vs.

"real venues"

Ottobar
Sonar
Sidebar
Golden West Cafe
The Red Room
Charm City Art Space
Metro Gallery
The Hexagon

yeah the idea of this poll was generally people that tour, get reviewed on Pitchfork, or otherwise have some kind of out-of-town following -- obviously there's tons of other stuff happening in town and i love a lot of it more than just about anything that is an option here. it'd be fine and dandy to have a thread about the acts/scenes you're talking about but if it was a poll it'd get like 3 votes.

although i've been to maybe a total of a dozen shows at any of those warehouse spaces and hundreds of shows at the 'real venues' so i definitely come out more on one side of those things than the other

nautical almanac, indie rockers.

¯\(°_o)/¯

I'm going to tell Twig and Carly that you called them indie rockers on the internet

"who? some dude."

Baltimore is a very small city- watch out some dude!

oh, and this poll needs Ed Schrader! He is awesome!

And he would actually belong here as he sings songs with lyrics and tours and stuff.

really? i've only seen or known of him doing his host/comedy thing.

always got the impressino baltimore has one of the most awesome & fun scenes

not to brag, but yeah

yeah, I gotta say, having moved here four years ago knowing almost nothing about the city aside from the fact that John Waters, Cex, and Nautical Almanac lived here, I have had a fucking awesome time living in Baltimore- people are fun and energetic and excited about doing things and it's just really cool/creative/generous/communally oriented. I just can't imagine something like, say, Ehse on Ice happening anywhere else. (E.O.I. is hilarious party where hellish noise bands play in an ice skating rink in a public park and everybody plays hockey and there's a yummy food stall where people cook vegan and meat-y food and sell it cheaply and it's BYOB and you're skating around while hardcore noize/electronicfreakout/harsh-as-fuck avant garde music is playing but everyone is smiling and enjoying themselves and there's lots of really young boys and girls and weird scary looking old people and it's not snobby but feels totally democratic and open-ended- and "DJs" are playing cassettes of Mariah Carey and the Grateful Dead and random ass hockey jock people look a bit confused but join in the festivities and it's just a sweet time- just one example). I guess the secret is that people do things for their own sake and aren't trying to get famous/noticed/blogged about. That said, Baltimore has lots of obvious problems too of course . . .

EarNose&Throat

totally awesome, also features tune in space's bf

this new wye oak track is pretty cool. no idea why its on adult swim's website
http://www.adultswim.com/promos/201206_singles/index.html?cid=homepage_singles2012

it's likely being used as background music for their bumps

cool track, feels like a continuation of the subtle adventurousness of My Neighbor / My Creator instead of the kinda business-as-usual sound of Civilian

i dunno it says 'singles program' like they're gonna be the next sub pop

AS has released a lot of music at this point, for better or worse don't see how it could be surprising.

They've been doing that for a while; music they use in their bumps is made available for purchase/download/whatever on the website (they're basically being "stealth" tastemakers)

k i didn't know that

Played shows with Higgs, Arbouretum and Pontiak, liked all of them.

Really like Dustin Wong but not Ponytail.

Been enjoying the last Dustin Wong album this afternoon, pleasant stuff.

do Baltimore ppl like Dope Body? I keep getting told that it's "my kind of music" or w/e but idk what to make of that cos I found them overly zany-sounding

listening to their album felt like being surrounded by dudes sweating, and not in a good way

these guys r gud

http://roomrunner.bandcamp.com/album/ideal-cities

yay roomrunner!

and no one voted for ecstatic sunshine :(

the Roomrunner records haven't really hooked me like i hoped, but i feel like i prob can't pass judgment unless i see them live

also i think of the chicks from wye oak and beach house as both being second rate janas

― plax (ico), Monday, February 28, 2011 6:04 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:D

the idea of Jana Hunter holding a patent on That Singing Style is absurd

do Baltimore ppl like Dope Body? I keep getting told that it's "my kind of music" or w/e but idk what to make of that cos I found them overly zany-sounding

listening to their album felt like being surrounded by dudes sweating, and not in a good way

― mr-c-on-deadmau5-complete-wanker (DJ Mencap), Monday, July 2, 2012 12:15 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

looool

Anybody seen Peals or Small Sur live? They're in town tonight and I'm wondering whether it's worth seeing them.

saw Peals a while back and their thing comes across really well live. and Small Sur are cool, i go way back with the drummer and they once toured the country w/ my bass drum (not this tour though).

Awesome; that's all the rec I needed. I thought the Small Sur record was pleasant but boring, and the Peals record was just kind of indulgent, but I could see how either act could click live (or one day turn into something a bit more realized that I'll really enjoy) so I might regret not seeing them now

The new Roomrunner record Ideal Cities totally clicked with me tonight. I liked it before, but something happened where I suddenly was jumping around my room and made my wife come in and listen very loudly.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/visual-arts/2013/07/17/dirt-farm-wye-oak/

comic re Wye Oak

That's great.

the Art Department and Co La, both genius acts! at this past weekend's ScapeScape fest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0if0D4wR8T4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlnTLME-arc

woah Art Department is playing together again? i hadn't heard about that, crazy. such an utterly insanely unique band.

sorry to see Arbouretum get shut out even though they weren't my pick.

i feel like they're easy to take for granted it but at this point have a really big, consistent catalog

yeah they've played a few pickup shows this year, the drummer and the bassist live in NC. but they played new songs, I think, on Sunday. they are an amazing band. "Get On," the second song in the video above, has one of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard. it's such a gorgeous melancholy sequence, sounds incredible slowed down too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie_XAP4PYl0

I like it. You can tell they get DEEP into their krautrock, they're not just dilettantes with a few Can and Neu records.