January 22nd, 1999: Boy Sets Fire, Zao, the Jazz June, Inside, Atom & His Package, Tear It Down @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

This was the final show held at the Chop Shop. We had had issues with the owner of a strip club down the street from us who complained that his customers had nowhere to park when we had bigger shows, and this was by far the biggest show we had done at the space. About 3 or 4 songs into Boy Sets Fire's set the fire marshal showed up with a bunch of cops and shut us down. They had received a complaint that there was a party going on in a condemned building. The building was not condemned, however we were not a legal venue and we were definitely over capacity. Still, the show was a lot of fun and a great way to go out. Tear It Down were a local hardcore band featuring Gene M. (Lion of Judah, Give, No Justice, etc.) on drums, Doug Fresh (Stout, Slumlords, etc.) on bass and I forget who the other members were. I think I still have their demo. Atom & His Package opened his set with a song about black metal and smeared fake blood all over his face. Inside were a pretty good indie/emo band from Long Island. The Jazz June were an indie/rock band from PA featuring members of Atari. They definitely had a bunch of really good songs. Zao were boring Christian metalcore. It was sad to see the place end but none of us were in a financial position at the time to get the place legal so we all scrambled to find venues for the remaining shows and moved on from there.

Notice a young Alex Dimattesa in that Boy Sets Fire photo and a young Jason Hamacher and Mike Dubin in that first Atom photo.

SIDE NOTE: Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Between the World Cup, being short-staffed at work for the next month, taking care of wedding stuff, and going to Costa Rica for our honeymoon my days are pretty busy for a while and new posts may not happen on a daily basis. Come August everything will be back to normal. GO USA!