I was pretty bummed that Dear Landlord hooked up with Off With Their Heads for these dates the day after
the Brooklyn show, but luckily the Baltimore date was on a Friday, so I hopped a freight down to Baltimore to see them at The Talking Head. The Talking Head is the small room at Sonar. It's a pretty decent little room with a $5 PBR & Jim Beam special that proved pretty lethal to the younger set.
My sister and I showed up a couple songs into The AV Club's set. I had thought they were from Baltimore, but apparently are from New Haven. That hair split, while I had hoped to miss them, they play the closest thing I've heard to power pop from a young band in a long time. They are pretty catchy and, judging by the throng up front for their set, evidently have a pretty big all ages following. They are on
Insubordination Records, and now that I think about it, I may have seen them at this years IF. They made more of an impression this time, they were a little more pop than punk. If you like that kind of stuff, check them out here. They've got MP3s and such for sale, as well as new record called
Believe coming down the pike. I'm going to look out for their first record.
Lucas from Dead Mechanical evidently plays with The AV Club, although he isn't listed on their web presence. I saw DM at Insubordination Fest and really enjoyed their set. I picked up the Live at IF 2K7 record a couple months ago and vowed to see them the next time they came through town, then promptly blew off the show. Their presence on this show only sweetened the pot. They threw down a brisk set of their Jawbreaker meets Husker Du punk rock to an enthusiastic crowd already way too many rounds into the $5 boilermakers. I'd really like to see them again soon. They do Charm City proper. Check out the DM web presence here. I'm kicking myself for not picking up
Medium Noise while I was down there. You can (and should) get it
here.
Next up was the reason for the trip. Dear Landlord play pretty infrequently, owing mostly to Adam and Brett playing in the mighty Copyrights. I had seen them this summer and they were fucking great, but what do you really expect from the bastard union of half of the late, great Rivethead with the aforementioned Copyrights. I wondered how long the set was really going to be, as the gents only really have a split with The Chinese Telephones and another with Off With Their Heads for released material. I would have been happy to hear only those four songs, but the gents stretched it out to eleven songs that were pretty much these:
There are obviously new songs, some real new evidently, as Brett was showing Zack songs seconds before they launched into their set, but the new tunes were all pretty bad-ass. I've heard tell of a full-length, but to the best of my knowledge it's still well in the wish phase of things. It's a shame, as we need more Dear Landlord in our collective lives. Their set went maybe twenty-five minutes, but I'm still smiling thinking about it. Here's hoping the gents make it through the NYC area sometime soon. Off With Their Heads need to take some time off and find their motivation. Nuff said.
Baltimore keeps it real. The $15 bus ride is not going to do much to keep me from seeing a lot more shows down there, I'll tell ya.
R
I'm embarassed that I'm so late in getting on The Dopamines bandwagon. I saw them for the first time at this year's Insubordination Fest, with a Campbell-kid grinning Mikey Erg playing second guitar. Braving the near continuous barrage of thrown beer rained on our heroes for the duration of their twenty minutes of glory, the Dopamines tore the hell out of the small room at Sonar. Jon W continues the fine tradition of smart-ass Midwestern bassists and the whole enchilada ingratiates me to the point that I'd say Dopamines are my favorite punk rock trio. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the power trio is the best format for the punk rock. When it's done right (see: Minutemen, Husker Du, Jawbreaker) there is nothing finer to hear. Soap and Lampshades is only six songs, five of which fail to break the 1:30 mark. Think the best Copyrights tunes cut in half. The closing title track proves to be their Reoccuring Dreams, breaking the 3:00 mark and the spirits of a lot of shitty bands with a Jawbreaker-y banger. It's all over in just a hair over 9 minutes, but brevity aside, no one with ears should be without Soap and Lampshades. Pick it up from the good folk of Cold Feet Records here. They'll be in Europe for the better part of October, returning in time for The Fest. Keep track of all things Dopamine here.
