November 21, 2000: The Jazz June, Ampersand, Breaking Pangaea, Starcrossed @ the Sidebar, Baltiomore, MD

This is a fitting post for today because I was wandering around the Fine Arts building of my previous, and current, school today and found an Ampersand sticker on a locker that's been there for at least 12 years. I've mentioned them in the blog before and posted their recordings a few months ago. Click their label below to find them if you missed them. Solid band. I've posted about the Jazz June before as well. I was more of an Atari guy. They were decent though. Not sure what any of them are doing these days. Breaking Pangaea were a great indie rock band from southern Pennsylvania. If you liked Cross My Heart, you'd totally dig them. I pulled out an old mixtape from this time recently and it had one of their songs on it and it definitely stands the test of time. The singer, Fred, went on to much bigger things a few years later when he joined Taking Back Sunday. Now he's doing something called The Color Fred. Awful name. He was also in Brody in the mid-90s who were pretty great for the time. The drummer went on to play in another terrible band, Straylight Run. Disregard their later gigs, but definitely check out "Take Apart the Words" on Undecided Records. Great EP. I didn't like their follow up as much so I never bothered with the record they did on Equal Vision. I have no idea who Starcrossed were.

November 18, 2000: De Nada, The Chase, All Is Suffering, Numbers Are Neutral @ the Crispus Attucks house, Hyattsville, MD

I've always loved this flyer. The sort of haphazard cut-and-paste giant lettering over top of the loose "centered" text, with all the "imperfections" bright and clear. Works so well. For those of you too young or not local enough to remember, shows at the Crispus Attucks house were in this strange addition the house that was basically a 15' x 15' concrete block box. They were hot as hell in the summer and cold as a witch's teet in the winter. Pretty much any show "filled" the space as the band took up about a 1/3 of the room. The MD/DC/NoVA scene was pretty strong around this time so turnouts were good to pretty much any show and for a while, the CA house was one of the only spaces for shows. Let's just say that almost every show was cramped and this show, being the final one for one of the area's most beloved bands, was jam-packed. So much fun. I don't remember who All Is Suffering or Numbers Are Neutral were. Somebody help me out there.