New Baltimore Vinyl Gold

Not since I was a wee lad living on Pennsylvania Ave. during the heyday of Billie Holiday, while my mom was a torch singer at The Ritz slipping around with Sammy Louis, or when I was a middle-aged drunken dockworker spending every other night at The Marble Bar in the Congress Hotel in the late ’70s/early ’80s, have I seen such a rich period of music in Baltimore.

This struck me strongest the other day when I got two new local releases which spent most of the day on the Normal’s turntable.

First was the long awaited Horse Lords lp on mad Dr. Stew’s Ehse label. If you’ve ever been to a show in Baltimore, say an Afrobeat Society night or crunchy sizzly noise jams at The Bank, you have most likely seen a lean balding bespectacled man, whizzing around the rafters like a popped meat balloon shrieking “This is the greatest music I have ever heard in my life! Dear God you are infusing me directly into my heart ventricles with these sounds which have completely changed my life!! Someone feel my leg, there’s an electrified wiggle worm loose in there!!!!”

That would be Dr. Stew (seen at work below), the multi-tasking, word gattling gun, somewhat ADD wunderkind of Ehse.

With the sweet release of the Horse Lords album I am joining him up in the rafters. It’s a strange synthesis of a lost Sublime Frequencies album (one of the smoking West African chugging and skittering guitar ones) with some mean clean saxophone and electronic dynamics blowing up the stew.

For me the heady concoction catches into blazing flames when it goes into what sounds like an electronic bagpipe breakdown. Father Higgs assures me this sound is created by Professor Owen Gaertner and saxophonist Andrew Bernstein playing together in exact note/pitch synchronicity.

And with Owen (above, addressing the Prince Georges County parole board) telling me that these songs and their general music sound even better after they worked on recording together, I will have to dust off my wingtips and catch these lads live.

The second album is “My Society” by Heart of Hearts, which was performed and produced by Greg Hatem. This is a beautiful end of night album or laying late in bed on a rainy Sunday album. Greg is also a member of Mr. Moccassin and Forks of Ivy. “My Society” was just released on Bleek Records, which is based in Brooklyn and also has releases by Nature Boy and House of Wolves.

This imaginative lp sports titles like “Owls Grow Up”, “Grass Mask”, “Goodbye Buttons” and “Feather Fast” and a sound not too far away from the haunted chamber pop of Beach House, but not quite so dreamy and a little more stark and electronic. It focuses on Greg’s experience as an aviculturist, breeding and caring for finches and doves, which is not a topic often touched upon in pop and rock music.

Senor Hatem’s Society is indeed a fine one to join or visit. Thoughtful and sensitive, but resilient, fresh and bound to stay on your mind.

Great Review of The Tinklers' The Elements In Chicago's "Roctober"

To the left is "Portrait of The Blogger As An Auxiliary Tinkler On The Way To Jersey City". This new issue of Roctober with a great review of The Elements by The Tinklers on Shattered Wig Press was a good excuse for me to pull out this old snapshot of me with Chris Mason in the parking lot of a New Jersey rest stop on the way to play legendary WFMU.

I got to play both as a member of The Tinklers Auxiliary and in The Diana Froley 3. These were the days when Tinkler Charles Brohawn was in his retiring "T.S. Eliot" phase and refused to leave his ivy covered cottage to take the stage. Now he not only is playing many gigs with the reinvigorated Tinklers, but also rocking out in Elvis shades with David Fair's Coo Coo Rockin' Time.

If you're not familiar with it, Roctober is a thick classic "punk" zine that does feature articles and also reviews a heady mix of music and books and zines and movies. And I say punk in kind of a catch-all philosophical DIY way of life manner. This issue not only boasts a fine review of The Tinklers, but has a well written article on the Cleveland '80s punk band The Easter Monkeys. I hadn't heard of them before I read the article, but it excited me and reminded me of Baltimore's Marble Bar period. There are also articles on Chicago soul music and Ian Whitcomb. Also, there's an article about White Sox organist Nancy Faust, who has been active with that team for four decades. Below is an illustration of her:

But enough of hawking Roctober! On to their great review of The Tinklers' The Elements!!

"The Elements by The Tinklers (Shattered Wig Press). I was surprised to see this book because I knew The Tinklers from a couple of great albums I bought years ago at the space that sold Shimmy Disc albums next to CBGB's. But according to the press release and clippings, and part of a documentary I saw on The Documentary Channel (which I didn't even know was a channel until I stopped to watch this movie) The Tinklers have been around for over thirty years and have done as much writing, art, and happenings as music.

"This book is a brisk, triumphant morsel of edutainment that imparts information about several elements occupying the periodic table. This is done through a narrative that is sort of like a Dick and Jane old time book where a guy and gal go around meeting people who conversationally, indirectly, teach them things. But in this case as we learn about the remarkable properties of magnesium from a Milk of Magnesium swilling Magnesium Unlimited intern or sodium's benefits from a little girl at the saltwater beach doing a science fair project, each impartation of scientific knowledge also reveals the damage our country suffers because of problems in industry and labor, and we get a glimpse of the inevitable erosion and dysfunction in our protagonists' relationship (that science fair girl gets Mary's biological clock ticking, forcing Steven to make a heartbreaking false promise).

"In other words: awesome book. (sidenote: Microsoft Word spellcheck had no problem with the word 'Edutainment'. Apparently Bill Gates is a KRS-ONE fan.)"