We Came To Baltimore

Story by Jim Testa
Photos by Rusty

Insubordination Records put together a two-day pop/punk festival in Baltimore for the weekend of June 16-17, and pretty much the entire NY/NJ pop/punk scene (aka all the bozos who post on Knock Knock Records’ Pop Punk Message Bored) traveled down en masse for it. One complication: My oldest and closest friend decided to renew his wedding vows to celebrate his 10th wedding anniversary that Friday evening, but I worked it out so I could attend the ceremony and a bit of the party, hop on Amtrak’s Acela train at Trenton, and still get to Baltimore in time to see most of Friday night’s show.

I arrived in Baltimore right on time and got a cab to the Sidebar Tavern, which was easy to find because there were already dozens of sweaty punks milling around outside the place. Turns out I missed the Leftovers, the Prozacs, and the Steinways, which sucked because the first thing out of everybody’s mouth was how the Steinways had just played the set of their lives and totally blew the place away.


Some of the crew

After saying hello to the assembled crew outside (lots of familiar faces), and stowing my bags in The AV Club’s convenient van (thanks, guys,) I went into the Sidebar, which is a basement tavern with a small raised stage at the far end. A band called Geisha Lightning that I didn’t know was playing. As soon as I walked in, someone - I think it was Zach from Don Giovanni Records, the Ergs’ label, but I’m not sure, and you’ll find out why in a minute – runs over to me. “You’re Jim Testa, right?” he says. “Let me buy you a beer!” I thank him and start explaining how I don’t like to drink cheap beer because it gives me a hangover and I’ll just buy myself a Heineken or something, but he won’t hear of it. Next thing I know, a $2.90 Natty Boh (National Bohemian, to you) is in my hands. Almost immediately, the guy from Formula 7 Records comes over, hands me one of his label’s foam beer cozies, and buys me a Natty Boh too.


Can you feel the love yet?

Well, this is all very nice, but this exact scenario is quickly repeated at least half a dozen times in rapid succession by various people who either run indie labels, play in bands, or just always wanted to meet the guy who does Jersey Beat. By the time the AV Club was set up and ready to play, I’ve already had at least six free beers, my ego has swelled up to the size of Lake Michigan, and I am well on my way to being totally sloshed. The AV Club’s power-pop sounds really nice and I take a few photos, constantly meeting and greeting more people that I either know, or kind-of-know from the message board, or just know by reputation (for instance, Sebby Zapotek from the awesome Zapoteks, who is vacationing from England and just hanging out.) And people keep buying me beers.


The Apers (Photo by Mark W.)

The Apers are up next. I had met Kevin Aper, the singer, at Johnny Puke’s birthday bash two years ago and already knew he was a madman, and I had just seen the Apers play in NYC, so I was ready for a good set. The Apers gave us a GREAT one. By now I’m five sheets to the wind and screaming “Buzzcocks” after every song, trying to get the band to do their awesome cover of “What Do I Get.” I’m finally rewarded when the band breaks into it for their encore and the entire club goes insane, singing along. This was a picture that would be repeated many, many times over the course of the weekend.

The big headliner for the night was Zoinks!, who have reunited for this occasion. I bumped into lead singer Zac at the bar and introduced myself. I’d met him a few times – in fact, I was probably the only person at the Fest who’d seen Zac seen in not only Zoinks but also Squirtgun and the final incarnation of Screeching Weasel. I gotta be honest, I was never a huge Zoinks fan but they do a good poppy set and the crowd’s really into it. And I’m definitely sloshed by this time.

One of the message board regulars, Bill Moon, had found a townhouse in the hip Fell’s Point neighborhood of Baltimore that a bunch of us rented for the weekend. This turned into a really sweet deal – a beautiful fully stocked 3-floor condo with two bathrooms, a bunch of bedrooms, and a kitchen. The only thing is, I have no idea where the place is and I forgot to bring the address with me. So when I see Jersey Beater Oliver Lyons and his girlfriend Stephanie (who I know are also staying at the house) getting into a cab, I hustle up and jump in with them, and off we go.


The Tattle Tales

Our cabbie doesn’t turn the meter on and rips us off for $20 (for what should have been about a $7 fare), the first of several episodes that make me very glad I don’t live in Baltimore... but we get to the house in one piece. Various friendly and familiar faces are already there and it turns out the kitchen has been well stocked with beer, wine, and liquor. Like an idiot, I keep drinking and talking and chatting and it turns into a very late but very fun night. I should mention that I’d been sniffling all night with what felt like the start of a cold.

I wind up sharing a double bed with message boarder Rich Grech on the top floor of the apartment, with another message boarder, Jesse, on the floor. I pass out almost immediately and wake up at 6 am with a hangover the size of Wyoming. Moreover my little sniffle has morphed into a major cold and my sinuses are impacted to the point of agony. Then to my horror I realize that I don't see my camera anywhere. I tear the bedroom apart, check the living room and kitchen... it's gone. God knows what I did in my drunken stupor, either dropped it at the club or left it in the cab. But I'm so hung over that I can't waste any energy on regret. Grech was off bright and early to go sightseeing and I stayed in bed most of the day trying to get rid of my monstrous headache.


Photo by Bill Moon

By the time the show started in late afternoon, I still had a dull throbbing headache and by now, a cough and some other flu-ish symptoms to go with it, but I wasn’t going to miss this night for anything. For Saturday night, the fest had arranged for two clubs – the Sidebar and a smaller place called The Talking Head right around the block – to both host bands. It was sort of like a two-stage rock festival, with the bands timed to play in succession between the two clubs. Nobody thought that this would ever work and indeed, there were even a few arguments about what a clusterfuck it would be. But like everything else this weekend, the Pop Punk Gods were smiling – nay, grinning like blooming idiots – and everything ran like clockwork, with the crowd moving back and forth between the two clubs and giving all the bands (and there were a lot of them) an enthusiastic reception.

I’ll stop a second and say that Chris Imperfekt from Insubordination Records and the other people who put the Fest together, along with the personnel at both clubs, and especially the volunteers who worked the huge merch booth (which was like a small record store,) deserve a huge amount of thanks, congratulations, hugs and kisses. This whole event was awesome. The bands were all great – everybody brought their “A” game and indeed, I would bet that a good 2/3 of the bands (if not more) left thinking they’d played the best show of their lives at this festival. And you can’t talk about this thing without talking about the audience – people drinking and laughing and buying merch like crazy, and making friends, and singing along and dancing, without a single incident or fight breaking out. The feeling of community – damn it, I’ll say it, of love – in the room was palpable. You could feel it. Larry Livermore later said that it reminded him of the golden years at Gilman Street. I was transported back to the first couple of years of W.E. Fest, or the ABC No Rio scene in 1990-91. There was an intensity, a coming together, a feeling of pure joy that you might only get to experience a couple of times in your life – and that’s if you’re damn lucky. I was so happy that I was a part of this that I’m still feeling the after-effects a week later. As are, I expect, a lot of the people who were there.


The Hot Cops

Okay, the bands. Where to begin? Tokyo Super Fans from NYC wow’d the crowd with grrl-powered harmony-laden pop tunes. . My roommate Jesse played guitar for them dressed up in a black ninja suit. Their “Pop Punk Message Board Romance” – which namechecks a lot of the regulars on the Board and at the Fest – was the perfect theme song. NJ’s Hot Cops played the best set I’d ever seen from them – as it turned out, I can say that about every band on Saturday. The Tattle Tales, playing with a fill-in bassist and one rehearsal, sounded awesome. After wave after wave of catchy singalong pop/punk from the John Stamos Project, the Vents, Pea Shooter, and Slaughterhouse 4, A Study In Her (from Washington DC) proved the perfect change of pace - D.C. style art/rock with some synth drones and dance beats that combined the best parts of Mission of Burma and Fugazi. NYC’s Unlovables raised the roof and fed off the love from the crowd, turning in one of the many bravura sets of the night.


A Study In Her


Delay


Charlie Brown Gets A Valentine

Delay – three hyperkinetic kids from Ohio – blew everyone away with their fast, catchy, muscular singalongs. Charlie Brown Gets A Valentine – who reunited just for this show – raised the energy level (and love quotient) another few notches as seemingly everybody in the room knew every lyric to every one of their songs and sang along at the top of their voices. Oh my God. By this point, the vibe in both tiny clubs was pure unadulterated sweaty, feverish joy. Woodstock ’69 pales in comparison. Eric Peabody couldn’t bring his whole band from the Pacific Northwest so “The Peabodys” were Eric with Grath from the Steinways, Phrank Martian from Nancy, and the ultra-suave Matt Dorsey on drums (wearing two shirts in stifling heat and humidity and never breaking a sweat!) and they rocked the joint. The Copyrights – whose songs are all Bouncing Souls-styled chant-a-long anthems anyway –had the place going crazy – moshing, dancing, fingers poking into the air, throats ragged but still screaming out the lyrics. I have to admit, at this point I pooped out and needed to take a breather so I bagged on the Beatnik Termites. The Ergs! set started out a disaster – Jeff’s bass amp died and the band vamped and stalled and tried to get it working, Finally they got things going and then – holy shit – it was just pandemonium. They transformed flop sweat into champagne and brought the energy level even higher, as if that was humanly possible.


The Copyrights

If the show had ended here, I have no doubt that everyone would have gone home exclaiming that they’d just been to the show of their lives. But no, it wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. Because the last band of the night was the Mopes – Dan Vapid, John Jughead, and B Face, three faces of Nineties punk whose contributions and influence to everything that had gone before couldn’t be overestimated. And did they put on a show – half Mopes songs, half Riverdales songs from Dan Vapid’s incredible songbook. With every track they pulled out of their set list, the crowd just went crazier and crazier. “Wipeout On The Dunes.” “Baby Doll.” Jesus H. Christ, they did “Riverdale Stomp.” When they broke into “Back To You,” I thought Oliver was going to have a stroke. As the Mopes rock through “I Don’t Want to Go To The Party Tonight,” I’m looking at the crowd - all these jaded cynical seen-it-all New Yorkers. Hah! Oliver is dancing. Rich Grech is dancing. Big Bill Moon is dancing. Larry Fucking Livermore is dancing like a 15-year old. Shit, everybody is either dancing or moshing or pogoing or just going out of their minds. And I would be too, if I didn't have about a 102 fever at this point. I'm also running to the bathroom every few minutes to barf up a load of green phlegm. But fuck the flu. This is pop punk!

The Mopes finished and the crowd wouldn’t let them leave. Jughead apologized, said they didn’t know any more songs. Fuck that. We wanted more. So the Mopes did “Riverdale Stop” and “Baby Doll” again and people danced and jumped and sang just as hard as they did the first time.

If you weren’t there, I just have two words for you: I’m sorry. If you were there, you’re probably one of my new best friends. And even if we didn’t meet, we shared something that’s going to be part of our lives for as long as we live. Austin from Delay said it out loud but I hope a lot of people were thinking it – that this doesn’t have to just be one weekend, that this feeling of community we’ve created can extend itself to weekends like this in Ohio and Baltimore and New York City and wherever people can put on a show.

I wrote this on the Pop Punk Board but it bears repeating: The fest was called They Came To Baltimore. But it was really We Came To Baltimore. And we fucking ruled.