December 13th, 1998: Ink & Dagger, Torn Apart, Saves the Day, Kill the Man Who Questions @ Phantasmagoria, Wheaton, MD

I actually don't remember much about any of the sets from this show except for the fact that Chris came out with an acoustic guitar and played "Handsome Boy" to open up the Saves the Day set, a song which they very very rarely played. I thought that was cool. Someone else will have to fill in the gaps on the rest of this show for me.

December 12th, 1998: Kid Dynamite, Kill Your Idols, Fortitude, Daybreak, Lanemeyer @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

I've got a cool silk-screened poster of this show somewhere in my basement, though I'm not sure who made it. I'll try to get a pic of it up soon. There is footage of this show on the Kid Dynamite DVD. It's of Chris Penna singing along to the wrong part and getting busted for it by Jason. This show was super fun. I think Daybreak may have cancelled, or not shown up cuz they thought it was an evening show. Can't remember exactly. Lanemeyer were a pretty cool poppy punk band from NJ. I only know of one record they released but it had some pretty catchy songs on it. Not sure what any of the members did afterwards. Fortitude were one of those bands that weren't all that good but they had lots of friends in high-ish places so they always seemed to be on tour with cool bands. They were out with KYI at this time. I'm really glad that the Chop Shop made it on to that DVD. It's kinda like the scene of Minor Threat playing in Baltimore in "Another State of Mind". Maybe not quite the same level, but kids interested in Kid Dynamite 20 years from now will get to catch a glimpse of the place and that makes me smile.

December 5th, 1998: Good Clean Fun, Innerside Burning, Redline, Inspite @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

Here's the flyer for the 2nd Balticore Saturday (mostly) local showcase. Good Clean Fun, love 'em or hate 'em, I thought their first two 7"s were pretty fun. Innerside Burning featured the one and only L. Augustus Bowman on guitar. I'm trying to remember who was in Redline. I want to say it was Dan from the Chase but I can't remember for sure. I don't remember who the other guys were. Inspite was a totally sloppy but totally great grindcore band from the Bel Air area featuring Nick Vance from Deep Sleep on drums, Brian Redbeard (who often played naked) on bass, Jimmy from Baltimore's Tarpit on the microphone, and I forget who else. Flyer with recycled art by yours truly.

December 1st, 1998: Ink & Dagger, De Nada, Persevere, Proximity Fuse @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

Ink & Dagger are one of my favorite bands ever. I got to see them play a bunch of times and they were great every time. This was the first time I saw them after The Fine Art of Original Sin came out and at this point they were over doing the make up. They brought some strobe lights with them to help spice up the live show a bit, but to me it made no difference, I just wanted to hear the songs. Trevor from Longshot was playing guitar in Persevere, a local sneaky Jesus* band, at the time and Ink & Dagger "accidentally" left with his guitar that night. It was sorted out pretty quickly and he got it back, but that soured me on the band a little bit. Who knows if they took it purposely or not. Proximity Fuse were an indie rock band from northern Virginia. I know they did a split 7" with East Liberty but I can't remember who was in the band or if they did anything afterwards. Damon Pieri drew the flyer.

*Sneaky Jesus bands - Christian hardcore bands that are on the downlow about that fact so they can get a wider acceptance in the general hardcore scene

November 21st, 1998: Torn Apart, the Jazz June, Codeseven, Reach the Sky, All Else Failed, Last Days of August @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

On the left side we have a calendar of upcoming shows at the Chop Shop, including Karl Core's version of the Fall Brawl which featured Breakdown in their first Baltimore appearance in many years. I have flyers for most of the other shows on there coming up so those will get discussed when the time comes. On the right side we have the flyer for the Adam Doll benefit show. Adam was the orginal bass player for Dillinger Escape Plan who was paralyzed in a car accident. Promoters around the country began setting up benefit shows to help ease his financial burdens from his mounting medical bills. Jamie Arthurs put this one together. My old friend Dana from Bound was playing drums for Reach the Sky at the time so it was cool to get to see and catch up with her. I was working at 98 Rock at the time manning the boards for Dee Snyder's syndicated show, "House of Hair", which aired from 10pm to midnight every Saturday, which meant I had to leave a lot of shows early to get to to work. Because of that I left sometime during Codeseven's set and missed the Jazz June and Torn Apart. I can't remember who the "+ more" bands were. Last Days of August were a pretty good emo/rock band from Long Island. When I started at UMBC in the fall of 1994 I met this lacrosse player who lived on my floor who commented on my Vision of Disorder t-shirt. Turns out he was from Long Island and was into hardcore and sang in a band. I never would have guessed it by looking at him. He gave me the 7" which was pretty cool but then I heard a song on some comp (maybe "The Difference Between Us" on Goodfellow) that I really liked so it was cool to see them play the Baltimore area a couple of times.

November 18th, 1998: Sam the Butcher, Subsist, Wretch Like Me, On Edge @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

Sam the Butcher were a punk band with a touch of ska if I remember correctly. I think they were from Arizona. I remember the CD they sent me being decent but the only thing I really remember about it 12 years later is their cover of Elvis Costello's "Peace, Love, and Understanding" which was pretty good. Subsist were a ska-punk band from the Baltimore area. I went to school at UMBC with one of the members. I was never a big fan but they had a bit of a local following. Wretch Like Me were a band on the newly formed O & O Records, operated by members of Descendents and All. I remember the singer being a bit of a wild man but their music didn't do a whole lot for me. On Edge was a Clash-y punk band from Frederick fronted by my friend Kyle Riley (no relation). I made that sweet flyer.

November 14th, 1998: Crispus Attucks, De Nada, Longshot, Mendoza @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

I've always been one to support my local scene so when we started the Chop Shop and had a regular venue of our own I came up with the idea of doing these all local matinee shows. This was the first one. Yes, I called them Balticore Saturdays, and yes, none of these bands were actually from Baltimore. That just goes to show you how far this city has come over the years. At the time, almost all of the good bands from the area were from around College Park, Bowie/Crofton, or DC. Baltimore had a few decent bands, but not nearly as many as we have these days. Damon Pieri drew this flyer.

November 11th, 1998: Boxer, Lounge, Mendoza, East Liberty, Gaffer @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

I think this might be an Alex D flyer. Not sure though. Boxer were great. They were on Vagrant before Vagrant was huge. They were a rad melodic poppy punk band from Boston. I still rock their CD on a fairly regular basis. Those songs have totally stood the test of time. Super nice guys too. They came down to the Baltimore area quite a few times when they were active. I don't remember who Lounge or Gaffer were.

November 10th, 1998: Chamberlain, New Rising Sons, Bridgewater, Lackluster @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

I believe that this show was just after Chamberlain's "The Moon My Saddle" was released and while I liked most of Split Lip's stuff, I was not feeling the alt-country vibe of this new record all that much. I revisited the record fairly recently and I'm much more into it now than I was then. Still, they played a great set. New Rising Sons on the other hand were completely disappointing. I know Drew was in the band, but I can't remember who from those other x-bands played, but it was some of the most boring, uncreative, vapid indie shit I've ever heard. Two songs in and I couldn't wait for their set to be over. I couldn't understand how a band could be so crappy coming from a pedigree like that. Such a shame. Damon Pieri drew the top flyer and I created the masterpiece underneath.

November 9th, 1998: Jimmy Eat World, Coalesce, Jejune, Situation at 1200, Compression, Meatjack @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

This was a great show in hindsight but was so annoying the night of. Jamie had booked Jimmy Eat World and Jejune for this night, and he had a local opener on it as well but I can't remember who it was, and then Greg from Compression had gotten in touch with me about booking a show for Coalesce, Compression, and Meatjack. I didn't care for Meatjack at the time (they got much better years later), and I always thought Compression sucked, but I didn't wanna pass up on bringing Coalesce to town, even though I was never super into them, so we decided to combine the shows. We decided to order the show as was appropriate for that time, with Jimmy Eat World headlining, Coalesce, playing under them, Jejune in the fourth slot, the indie/rock local, who's name I'll have to dig up playing third, Compression in the second slot, and then Meatjack opening. Compression and Meatjack had been playing for a while, but they didn't have much of a following. Nevertheless, Greg threw a fit because he thought Coalesce should headline with his band and Meatjack playing directly underneath them, kinda like a split show. Jamie and I thought that was ridiculous and told him so. He continued to huff and puff for the rest of the night. Meatjack were/are cool guys and just wanted to play. I remember them having a film projector shining on them during their set with all kinds of fucked up images. Compression were terrible. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that Situation at 1200 from NJ was the other indie rock band. I remember them calling me begging to play with Jimmy Eat World. They were a decent band. Not sure if any of them went on to play in anything else. Jejune had a sweet sound but I just couldn't get into them. Coalesce were loud and intense and it was a cool counterpoint to Jimmy Eat World's pop/rock. This would have been a bit before "Clarity" came out but I remember them playing a bunch of stuff that wasn't on "Static Prevails" so it must have been a bunch of "Clarity" stuff. "Lucky Denver Mint" was definitely played and that's pretty much the one song I really wanted to hear. I still have a silk-screened tour poster from this JEW/Jejune tour. One of the Meatjack guys made the flyer.

Funny side note about Compression: It was mid-1994 and I was getting ready to move from New Jersey to Baltimore for college. AOL was pretty much the only internet service provider at the time. The internet was a much different beast than it is now. Search engines were a crap shoot. I did an AOL search for "baltimore hardcore" so I could see what the local bands were like (I was aware of Next Step Up because of some comp I had that they were on but that just wasn't my style, and Torn Apart was not on my radar at the time) and Compression was the only band that showed up. I listened to one song and thought I was gonna be in for a long four years in Baltimore if this was what they had to offer for local hardcore. For those of you unfamiliar with Compression, they were nu-metal before nu-metal had a name, and they were far from a hardcore band. Thankfully once I got here some local friends introduced me to the actual hardcore/punk scene.

November 4th, 1998: Living Sacrifice, Six Going On Seven, the Kill Van Kull, Cheater @ the Chop Shop, Baltimore, MD

Here we have the flyer for the first show at the Chop Shop. After a month of fixing the place up we were super excited to finally have a place to call our own. At this point, Jamie and I were pretty much working as a team on shows, with support from a bunch of friends. The only band on this show I was super stoked on was Six Going On Seven. I really liked their first album and their song on the split with Hot Water Music. The 2nd album wasn't out at this point, but that had some good stuff on it too. The Kill Van Kull needed a show the same weekend and I thought their sound fit well with SGOS, plus it was a dude who played in Kiss It Goodbye and Die 116 for a bit. How could I say no? Their record was pretty decent. I don't remember who from Cheater was in those x-bands, but I feel like it was one guy who was the SoCal go-to guy when bands needed a fill in. They weren't very good. Jamie booked Living Sacrifice, who I didn't care for at all. The show went off well and it marked the beginning of new era for hardcore/punk/indie in Baltimore. I made the sweet flyer.

Chop Shop calendar #1

Here we have the initial calendar flyer for the Chop Shop. We'd been working really hard to get the place all cleaned up, painted, and getting a stage built, and we were super excited to finally have a place to call our own. I've got individual flyers for most of these shows so more detailed reports on those in future blog posts.

October 23rd, 1998: All Out War, Shutdown, Straight Faced, Buried Alive @ UMBC Commuter Cafe, Baltimore, MD

I never cared much for All Out War, but they were taking Buried Alive on tour with them and I really wanted to book them so I confirmed a Baltimore date for the tour. A week later I got a call about Shutdown and Straight Faced touring together. I didn't care for Straight Faced at all but I was into that first Shutdown album at the time and was into having them come through. Straight Faced ended up cancelling, but I can't remember why. Also can't remember if I got a replacement or if it just ended up being three bands. Part of me thinks Innerside Burning was the replacement, but I could be wrong. There was some mosh, as you might expect.

October 18th, 1998: Elliott, Fairchild, Bridgewater, Tony Stark, East Liberty @ Club Soda, Washington, DC

I'm pretty sure I remember seeing Elliott at Club Soda, but I really have no recollection of this show.