Raphael Saadiq @ Ram's Head Live, 3/23/09

[oh, he means it.]

Monday night I found a good way to keep my weekend birthday celebration going: by checking out Raphael Saadiq at the Ram's Head. I previewed Saadiq's show for City Paper last week, but there's far more to be said aside from what I heard on the record and in my interview with the singer. Namely the muscularity of Saadiq's stage show and the devotion of his fans in the audience.

Saadiq bookended his set with versions of the 5th Dimension's "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In," playing a pearl-white telecaster himself and dancing gamely while doing it. He then jumped into a set of songs from his album, The Way I See It. "Let's Take A Walk" started with about 16 slow, crashing 7-chords that hit on the last syllable of each of the opening lines ("This place is CROWDED--" BWAAAANNGGGGG!!!" etc.) then jumped right into the stilted, mid-tempo groove of the song. This song really highlighted two things for me. First, as my concert companion pointed out, Saadiq only sings songs about love and sex (and bluntly!: "This place is crowded / Don't know 'bout you / But I need some sex / Some sex with you / 'Cause you're on my mind..."), and second, soul rhythm guitar, while hardly thought of as a virtuoso pursuit, can be really effing impressive. Rob Bacon, Saadiq's touring guitarist, literally never stops riffing. It's true that soul tunes are highly chordal: meaning, they're based on definite, discernible changes, usually based on the blues (I-IV-V and II-V-I etc.), but Bacon was just killing it with these neck-sliding 9-chords and blues turnarounds right in the middle of lines. I was sort of entranced.

But enough guitar nerdery. Let's talk real for a minute. And by real I mean an 8-and-a-half minute, 5-song medley of Tony! Toni! Tone! slow jams that Saadiq inserted almost exactly in the middle of the set, including "Anniversary," "Lay Your Head On My Pillow," and a few others whose names fail me despite my extensive command of the Tony! Toni! Tone! catalog. As soon as the slow jams started, most of the crowd -- largely 35-45-year-old black couples, which was refreshing to see in the usually frat boy-choked Ram's Head -- paired off and started slow dancing like they just couldn't wait to get home and get their clothes off.

If the slow jams were ecstatic, the stuff from the new album was paradise. "Staying In Love" and "Sweet and Tender" were full-steam energy. Saadiq's two back-up singers were hopping and jogging in place, both, like him, wearing suits and skinny ties. One was a peppy little pistol of a woman and the other was a tall man who had sweated through his shirt (but refused to remove his sport coat) by minute 2:00 of the 6-minute extended version nof "Sure Hope You Mean It," complete with minimal, Four Tops-style turn-and-step choreography. I felt like I was seeing the closest thing available to an early sixties soul show, or maybe just like I was in the James Brown scene from Liberty Heights.

Matt & Kim @ Ottobar, 2/27/09

Walking away from the triple bill headlined by Matt and Kim—the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based dance-punk carnival band that was the darling at last year's South by Southwest festival—at the Ottobar Thursday night, we were wracking our brains trying to think of another band, or any sort of live act, that does as good a job as Matt and Kim do at becoming fast friends with the audience. Much of Wham City acts stage hyper-positive, interactive play-dates at their shows—Dan Deacon has his gauntlet, Blue Leader wants a few games of Nintendo with you—but most of that stuff is parallel play. None of them do what Matt and Kim do, which is to appeal immediately to the most sociable in the audience, to impress upon them how likable and un-rock star they are, to make everyone in the place feel a degree of ownership over the music: These are my buddies. They've come over to jam. Isn't that cool?

That social invitation probably the same reason that a good deal of punk-influenced art-school bands, like occasional Matt and Kim tour-mates Double Dagger and the Death Set, prefer to set up in the mosh pit, or at least do the majority of their performing from there: It's democratic, intimate, and makes concerts feel like dance parties, without the self-consciousness of a performance. But Matt and Kim don't play from the floor. She pounds her drums and he sings and does hand-stands on his keyboard rig from the stage, both of them upfront and close to one another, with flickering slides of their album cover projected on screens behind them. The charm is in their intense familiarity and bubbling enthusiasm for what they're doing. "Kim," Matt will say before most songs. "Kim, are you ready?"

Thursday night began with a set of Misfits-meet-Siouxsie punk dirges from local band Sick Weapons, which features Blood Baby guitarist Peter O'Connell and Elie Beziat's moribund yowling of lyrics such as, "I can't fuck for the fun of it." Midway through their set, Beziat chugged a few 5-hour energy drinks onstage, offering one to the crowd. (Double Dagger's Nolen Strals raised his hand and was obliged.) "If these were around when I was your age," Beziat observed, looking at the small bottle in her hand, "maybe I wouldn't have done all that cocaine and dope and morning-after pills."

Following them was Hollywood Holt, a nerdy Chicago rapper whose "Throw a Kit," a song about souping up mopeds, is really just a more frenetic version of the Cool Kids' "Black Mags." Hollywood was a high-octane, slam-dancing showman, though. His voice through a stage mic is on the high side—he sounds a tad like the Digital Underground's Shock G: nasally and strained—and he frequently raps along with the studio version of his voice from pre-recorded tracks. But, "Hollywood" was a great dance track.

Matt and Kim set their instruments up onstage with some Biggie and T.I. tracks being piped in, and immediately started dancing with the crowd from the stage. Throughout their set, which was moderately long and touched on both their self-titled debut and last month's Grand, Matt kept gushing about how great it was to be in Baltimore. Shout-outs were made to Double Dagger and local DJ Emily Rabbit; past shows were reminisced. Kim's infectious and constant smile was impossible not to imitate. At one point she apologized into the mic for "breaking the rule" of not drinking more than two beers. In response, Matt took two song breaks to explain her "three stages" of drunkenness: the first is giggly. In the second, she "tells you all kinds of things that you don't want to know about feminine hygiene" The third is "Violent Kim." Did the crowd want to see Violent Kim? They did. Matt handed her another beer.

As for the songs, what they lose when played live in production value and Kim's vocals they gain in raw energy. "Cinders" and "Lesson Learned," two of the rowdier tracks from Grand, were great. Matt's keyboard work is mostly confined to the types of synth and organ work that you'll hear from Wham City acts, and with limited range he makes a surprisingly robust sound. Older tracks, such as "Good Old-Fashioned Nightmare" and "It's A Fact" sounded fresh. The crowd of mostly college-aged kids was with the band on every line, and the dancing was wild.

When the end of the set came, Matt was ebullient—stammering and thanking and telling the crowd "how much it means" to him that this was their biggest ever show in Baltimore. The finale was "Silver Tiles," a hand-clapper of an anthem with a huge, singable chorus—"And all our hopes and all our friends/ Through parking lots, it's where we've been"—that doesn't appear on any album. "This song is all about old friends," Matt said, and it looked like he was near tears. Then he took his mic, got up from his stool, and jumped onto the upturned, waiting hands of the audience.

Cross-posted at City Paper Noise Blog.

Weekends @ Metro Gallery Feb. 25

[TGIF! LOLZ!]

I'm starting to think that most of the press on the Baltimore band Weekends is written by their very close friends. For example, a blog that I'm just discovering exists, BMore Musically Informed, had this to say about them:

Already garnering comparisons to Ponytail this Baltimore duo fills any rock and roll void one might possess with riffs of pure joy. No Age's Nouns was a similarly great record, but each and every jam on Weekends' s/t debut blows Nouns out of the water.

Really? Where have they garnered comparisons to Ponytail, pray tell? Among your friends? Because I haven't seen any, and the two bands sound absolutely nothing alike. Their sounds are as disparate as No Age and Ponytail. One is really loud, sludge-hammer noise-punk, and the other is really loud, but melodic surf-guitar riffs with a girl out front screeching nonsense. Don't get me wrong -- I like both bands, but the comparison is inapt.

Or take, por ejemplo, this incredibly undescriptive "No Cover" profile from City Paper last month, which includes the following quote from guitarist Adam Lempel:

"I saw Brendan playing [and] I was just like, 'I want to be in a band with that dude,'" Lempel says while doing a vigorous impersonation of Sullivan on guitar. "[He was] rocking out so hard. He was just into it in a good way."

This quote, to me, captures hipsterdom in its most perfect, putrid nutshell. It's like, being "into it" is ultimately BAD, and Lempel liked Sullivan's playing because he was INTO IT, but just like, not in a lame way. He's really venturing into uncharted territory here: a hipster band with musicians who are actually enthusiastic about music. Their approach, as reported, complete with self-described "rudimentary" drumming and a marked aversion to something called "blog rock," which we don't really hear defined in any way, offers no argument to me about why I should listen to this band. In fact, the only possible type of person I could see reading that review and thinking, "I really wanna check Weekends out," is the lowest, vilest type of poseur who jumps up every time they read the word "Copycat," puts on their pom-pom winter cap, wriggles into their skintight jeans, and heads out for a six-pack of Pabst (not Boh) before the show.

All that said, I went to go see Weekends last night because I've met Lempel at shows before, and he's a Hopkins grad, and he's always seemed like a really nice, genuine guy. I arrived right after Bad Liquor Pond finished up, and left right before True Womanhood took the stage. I'm sick, and I'm going on vacation next week. Gimme a break.

They did about 7 songs, almost all of which sounded like No Age covers. Sullivan's guitar work, I think, is a lot more interesting than Lempel's. He makes a lot of use of his Strat's low-end, so that bass tones don't get completely lost in the wall of fuzz these guys pump out. Lempel's approach has more to do with playing mathy melodies, one string at a time, with an octave pedal on, which is not very captivating. Likewise, Lempel's a better drummer. The few songs they played that deviated from the ear-blowing noise-punk model featured Lempel playing beats that were...I dunno...funky. I mean, the music honestly never approached danceable, unless you consider violent torso-bobbing dancing (funny side-note: I noticed a kid who was a few years under me at college in the audience who is an Orthodox Jew and also sort of a punk in his spare time, and he was dancing in just the aforementioned manner, and it looked like he was getting really into his davenning). The vocals were highly-reverbed and completely inaudible. The crowd was small and not terribly enthusiastic. If Weekends is going for the type of cultish, sweaty mosh masses that the usual bullshit MICA bands draw, they need a new business model.

And again, I find myself stepping back, because in reality, Weekends was alright. I mean, they're derivative, but they're sort of fun. They do rock out. They twitch and spasm and lurch around with their guitars, as if the instrument is some sort of wriggling snake that is very strong and hard to control. It's loud, and therefore subversive. They seem to be doing what they've rehearsed to do. I guess I'm just getting tired of all these bands that think that reworking the White Stripes model over and over again is the best outlets for their talents. Let's think it through a little more, and develop the concept, eh, guys?

Ray's Hellburger

[monsterburger!]

Everyone knows DC is a burger town. They gave us 5 Guys, which is a gift I'd never exchange. In fact, writing about it right now, I'm thinking of going and getting a burger from there for lunch. Actually, screw that. I packed lunch today. I'll get 5 Guys for dinner.

Anyway, KB and I finally tried the place Serious Eats called the best burger in DC -- even though it's in Arlington, Virginia, technically, which I guess is Metro DC -- Ray's Hellburger. It opened last summer in this strip mall in downtown Arlington. The place is not without affectations. They don't serve fries, which reminded me of Thrasher's, the famous Ocean City fries place, which refuses to serve ketchup, as if any modicum of predictability would compromise the integrity of the whole friggin' place. So no fries with my burger? I can deal. But Ray's recently got rid of their potato salad, too, which is a disappointment, and the only side available really, were these deep-friend cheese balls, which sounded good at first, but were ultimately not at all worth it.

On to the burgers, though. This is a fantastic piece of meat. I had the Let's Get It On burger, which, as you can see from this menu, has applewood bacon, swiss, cheddar, mushrooms, grilled red onions, sauteed peppers, roasted garlic and lettuce and tomato. I added Ray's signature "Diablo sauce," which is a chipotle mayo, because it looked good. I washed it down with an excellent draft Old Dominion root beer.

There are generally two main ways, I think, for a burger like this one -- the type that comes with lots of toppings and a generously-sized (10 oz) patty -- to stand out. One is to think up really cool combinations (The Dizz, in Baltimore, is great at this -- for examples see their Black and Bleu burger, the Mediterranean Burger, etc) of toppings and give the burger a real identity based on a number of different flavors that mash together. The other, is to have a real stand-out rub or very high quality meat, so that the actual burgerrific flavor comes through strong in spite of all the toppings and sauces (come to think of it, The Dizz's Curry Burger and Whiskey Rub burger are examples of this type -- I should really blog about them soon). My experience with Ray's was the latter. They advertise their meat as "premium aged" and "freshly ground" and it really comes through. Especially with a medium rare specimen, like mine, the meat is as much a pleasure as what's on it -- the parts, in other words, are superior to their sum. Let's grade this:

FOOD: A-
Great meat that lives up to its billing, and easily the best burger I've had in DC. I've never been to any of Ray's other spots (Ray's the Steaks, Ray's Classic), but if the quality is emphasized like it is here, I'll buy it. The only reason these vittles fell short of teacher's pet status is that I don't have a lot of patience for restaurateurs who think it's cool to NOT sell sides for the sake of authenticity. Funny, barbecue places never do this, and they're arguably the most meat-focused people in the world.

AMBIENCE: A-
Ray's is a tad crowded. I heard a rumor whilst there that they're moving to a new place relatively soon. But the simple, old-school menu reminded me a bit of Fatburger and the place was lively in general.

BOOZE: A
There was no booze. But man, that was some good root beer.

[vermountains]

"I know it's pretty, but I didn't take it out for air."

Stowe was -25 with the wind chill when we skied there three weeks ago, and believe me, the novelty of beardcicles are NOT worth even one ride on the chairlift in that type of climate.

New Years Nibbles Part 9: DESSERT

[click to enlarge]

This is the ninth, and final installment (obvi) in a series of guest blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's guest blogger-chef is Jake, who is famous for aboriginal folk, intense energy, coyote calls, vivid dreams, and general good vibrations.

NEW YEARS BROWNIE PIE, Or, Smarter Than Your Average Brownie Pie

1) Pie Crust
2) Brownie Mix
3) Eggs (one more than the recipe calls for for a more cake-like consistency)
4) Oil
5) Raspberries
6) Blueberries
7) Chocolate Chips
8) Ice Cream
9) Chocolate Sauce

Cook the brownie pie with #1-7. Serve it with #8-9. See diagram for additional info.

New Years Nibbles Part 8: ROAST PORK APPLE-BBQ SLIDERS

[oh yeah.]

This is the eighth in a series of blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's blogger-chef is yours truly, who really isn't all that famous, but once was racist against rednecks in public, apparently.

ROAST PORK APPLE-BARBECUE SLIDERS, Or, Sweet, Savoury & Tart , and Meat, Fruit & Grain: An Explosion In Your Mouf

1) One 5-pound pork tenderloin
2) 4 tbspns Robbie's pork rub (salt, pepper, cayenne, cumin, paprika, Old Bay)
3) Olive oil, a reasonably full bottle
4) Stubbs original recipe barbecue sauce, one bottle
5) 2 Granny Smith apples, halved and sliced thin
6) 3 tbspns brown sugar
7) 1 baguette
8) 3/4 cup Maker's Mark bourbon
9) 1 tspn cinnamon

Rub dat po'k generously, and I mean sensually, with Robbie's special po'l rub. I mean, get yo' haaaaaaaands all messy, and make it nattthhhhty. Then brown that bad boy, and I mean chocolate that daddy in a skeelit on high flame with olive oil. Then put that fat boy in an oven-ready dish, with oil on the bottom, into the oven at 325, and roast it for an hour and 15 minutes, no need to baste. Now grab them apples. Grab 'em hard, but not too much in the fingernail department, because would you let someone grab your momma like that? Now hold 'em. Hold them apples in your hands, just ta get a feeeeeeel on 'em. Now CUT them apples up! Cut 'em! And when they good and thin and slicy, throw them daddies back in the skillet, with the leftover po'k grease, and add the sugar and whiskey and cinnamon. Fry them suckas for about 5 minutes. Slice the baguette all little-titty-bitty. Slice that po'k too. Put po'k slices on baguette, and bourbon-brown-sugar cinnamon appleson po'k, and BBQ sauce on toppa that. Eat, but beware of mud butt.

New Years Nibbles Part 7: HIPPIE SPRING ROLLS

[hippies. spring roll.]

This is the seventh in a series of guest blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's guest blogger-chef is Dani, who is famous for his abiding love of tofurkey.

DANI'S HIPPIE SPRING ROLLS, Or, One of Two Dishes We Don't Have a Picture Of

1) 2 packages tofu, thinly sliced, fried in oil
2) 1/2 cup peanut butter
3) 6 cloves garlic, minced
4) 1/4 cup soy sauce
5) 16 large romaine lettuce leaves
6) 4 cups cooked rice vermicelli
7) 2 mangos, sliced
8) 2 avocados, sliced
9) 1 cup fresh basil leaves

(*note - all measurements are open to interpretation)

1) either buy cooked tofu or pan fry it (or deep fry if you're so inclined) until it is golden brown and delicious.
2) in a small pot, saute the garlic for a minute, then add the peanut butter and soy sauce (and if you want a thinner sauce, add water to desired consistency - i added about a cup)
3) assemble wraps - in the leafy end of the lettuce leaf, place a small handful (1/4 cup) of vermicelli, a couple of slices of avocado and mango, a couple of basil leaves and a dollop of peanut sauce, then fold over the stalk end of the leaf and fold over the edges.

New Years Nibbles Part 6: BEET GOAT CHEESE TARTINES

[tartans and tartins]

This is the sixth in a series of guest blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's guest blogger-chef is Anna, who is famous for her stunning performance in the 2005 Pittsburgh YMCA Turkey Trot.

BEET GOAT CHEESE TARTINES, Or, Easy Like Sunday Mornin'

1) 2 cups drained sliced pickled beets (from a 16-ounce jar)
2) 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
3) 4 cups coarsely chopped frisée
4) 2 tablespoons olive oil
5) Salt and Pepper
6) 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
7) 6 ounces herbed soft goat cheese
8) 1 (24-inch) baguette, quartered crosswise, then each quarter halved horizontally and lightly toasted
9) 3/4 cup walnuts (3 ounces), toasted , cooled, and chopped

Toss beets with balsamic vinegar. Toss frisée with oil, lemon juice, and healthy punches of both salt and pepper. Spread goat cheese on baguette, then make open-face sandwiches with toasted walnuts, beets, and frisée.

Gogol Bordello @ the 9:30 Club, January 2nd

[my camera sucks, sorry]

You know, it's funny. Eugene Hutz has a terrible voice. His guitar playing is amateurish and he insists on playing an awful-sounding classical guitar. He's sorta old and pasty, yet he marauds around onstage with his shirt off, sweating, gesturing theatrically, and yelling. His live act, should not, by any rights, be this popular. And yet his band, Gogol Bordello, sold out two consecutive nights early this year at the 9:30 Club and introduced me to a new cult following that, now that I've seen it first-hand, makes total sense.

For those who don't know the group's music, their latest album is Gypsy Punks, a title that is actually pretty lame in how explicitly accurate a description of the music it is ("Come check out the new record from Death Cab For Cutie -- Precious Emo Rock!"). They play mainly at two tempos: quick, klezmer-style boom-chuck, and (somewhat inexplicably) moderately-fast reggae. Everything is in Eastern European harmonic modes (Hutz is Ukrainian) and a lot of it sounds the same and sorta blends together, but then, who am I to complain about that, given my favorite band?

I know the new record fairly well, but not to the degree where I'm shouting along with ever song. But the really remarkable thing about the Gogol Bordello live show is the type of energy he inspires from the crowd. We're talking jumping, fist-pumping, moshing, crowd-surfing -- all to an ethnologically complicated blend of gypsy fiddle, accordion, drums, bass and loud electric guitars. "Not A Crime," my favorite cut off the new record, was absolute mayhem -- limbs everywhere, girls freaking out in the crowd. Onstage, the band became a crowded nine-piece, complete with a little guy who did nothing but bang a tambourine and shout and two Asian chicks in booty shorts, one with a marching bass drum and the other with cymbals who would hit them on downbeats then hold up one hand in a sort of runway/martial pose. In fact, a lot of what went on had a decidedly martial feel to it -- mixing "punk" with Eastern European dance musicks tends to emphasize the marching beat, the heavy-handed bassiness of it, and a kind of frantic, violent energy that makes beefy frat boys, skinny Jewish hipsters, and hippy-looking girls alike go crazy.

Other highlights were particularly sing-alongy versions of “Start Wearing Purple” (a song whose meaning I really can’t decipher) and “Immigrant Punk,” both of which sound like crazed dub tracks. Needless to say, Hutz (who, incidentally looks a lot like Frank Zappa) was wylin’ out the whole time – climbing on monitors, frothing at the mouth, throwing water bottles around, etc, but nothing all that outrageous or shocking. Towards the end of the show, when he led the entire band in a run from the center of the stage, single-file out to the right wing and on top of a speaker, and the back to the left side, and that back, etc., etc. – it seemed to me almost comically tame. I sorta wanted him to grind up on one of the Asian gals or cut himself with the wine bottle that was always in his non-mic-holding hand. Something more, you know, punk. The best song performed may have been an older cut – “Supertheory of Supereverything” – which it’s utterly anthemic chorus: “I don't read the Bible / I don't trust disciple / Even if they're made of marble / Or Canal Street bling!”

My main beef with the show was that the band was constantly throwing out these false endings to their songs. The song would end on a big sustained chord, which they’d hold out, sometimes for like 3 minutes or more, with lots of layered feedback and noise, before they jumped right back into the rhythm of it, just to get the crowd going again. All of that seemed sort of unnecessary.

But on the way out, my main thought was this: It’s really amazing how merging certain types of folk music with more danceable western music seems to get the unlikeliest of people interested. I mean, it makes sense that Irish pride-yelling Bostonians get really drunk and sing along gleefully with the Dropkick Murphys, but why should M.I.A. be successful in blending hip-hop and grime with traditional Sri Lankan beats and singing styles into “Boyz” or “Bird Flu”? It’s at least a little bit counterintuitive. Likewise, I think it’s cool that all sorts of young people—be-patched punks, preppy-looking college kids, and hipsters among them, at least on Friday night—can get down with a souped-up version of klezmer, a type of music that is, on the face of things, patently uncool.

New Years Nibbles Part 5: DELICIOUSLY EASY ITALIAN DIP

[oh, the excitement!]

This is the fifth in a series of guest blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's guest blogger-chef is Olivia, who is famous for crunching the numbers and her triumphant overcoming of the challenges of Montessori school.

DELICIOUSLY EASY ITALIAN DIP, Or, as Old Country As It Gets

1) Fresh mozzarella, one good-sized ball
2) Roasted red pepper and tomato brushetta, two jars
3) Pine-nut (not pumpkin seed) pesto, two jars
4) Black Olives, as few or as many as you'd like
5) Sun-dried tomatoes, same serving size as above
6) Shredded parmesean cheese, one handful
7) Ciabatta bread, one loaf
8) Garlic, one clove
9) Olive oil, enough to cover the ciabatta

Thinly slice the mozzarella cheese and spread over the bottom of a (preferably glass, which is better to view the beautiful layers) 9 x 12 baking dish. Spoon a healthy layer of the bruschetta over top of the mozzarella, followed by a thinner layer of the pesto over the bruschetta. Decorate the top of the dip with sun-dried tomatoes, black olives and shredded cheese. Next, slice the ciabatta bread down the middle, drizzly liberally with olive olive and smear the fresh garlic all over. Bake the bread until warm and toasty, cut into pieces, and enjoy with the dip. Yum.

New Years Nibbles Part 4: BACONATED AUBERGINES-CUM-MUSHROOMS

[simon says...]

This is the fourth in a series of guest blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's guest blogger-chef is Shaun , who is famous for being an "unabashed bohemian and sorrow-junky" who wrote a mildly-pleasing work of theatrical drama.

BACONATED AUBERGINES-CUM-MUSHROOMS, Or, eggplant, mushrooms 2 ways, and BACON

1) eggplant (peeled)
2) white whole mushrooms (the button kind)
3) brown whole mushrooms (same)
4) bacon
5) olive oil
6) salt
7) black pepper
8) THYME (VERY KEY)
9) the grease left over from cooking the bacon

Peel the eggplant because it makes it so much better, chop it up into bite sized chunks. quarter the bigger mushrooms, half the smaller ones. Put the eggplant in a big bowl, toss it with liberal amounts of olive oil, thyme and saltnpepper. Get it going in your frying pan/wok on medium heat. Start the bacon in another pan. Add the mushrooms when the eggplant starts to soften. When the mushroom are almost at their desired level of juicy tenderness, add the bacon (in bits) and the grease rendered from the cooking of that very same bacon and stir it all up. It looks like something calvin (as in calvin and hobbes) would make faces at, but it is, to quote a local indian restuarant's menu, "unbelievably tastey".

New Years Nibbles Part 3: FENNEL CANTALOUPE SALAD

[you see dis? now make dis.]

This is the third in a series of guest blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's guest blogger-chef is Margot, who is famous for being the subject of a hilarious marijuana-related duping scheme run by the University of Pittsburgh's young republicans, and for saying, on national TV, "I still think Kerry's a douche, but I voted against Bush."

FENNEL CANTALOUPE SALAD, Or, a Salad of Cantaloupe and Fennel

1. Fennel, 2 bulbs
2. Cantaloupe, 1
3. Lime, juice of several, to taste
4. Olive Oil, a healthy drizzle
5. Salt, to taste
6. Pistachios, a healthy handful
7. Bleu cheese, another healthy handful, crumbled
8. Tarragon, one bunch, coursely chopped
9. Love- the most important ingredient! I guess I miscounted my corporeal ingredients so I'm including this oft neglected one.

Slice the fennel bulbs thinly on the diagonal and place in a bowl. Halve the cantaloupe and carve out thin concave bits with a spoon into the fennel bowl. Squeeze the limes over the whole thing until everything's good and limey. You can add salt and olive oil here and let it sit for a little while to meld. Before serving, toss with the tarragon, pistachios and bleu cheese.

TWO WORDS: NUMBER ONE

Oh dear lord yes

New Years Nibbles Part 2: BNUTSQSH BALLS

[another day, another batch o' balls]

This is the second in a series of guest blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's guest blogger-chef is Becca, who is famous for being the last person under 45 to watch CBS.

RESOLUTIONLESS BNUTSQSH BALLS, Or Butternut Squash gnocchi with sage, toasted walnuts, and gruyere

1) Butternut squash (1--halved, cooked, scraped, mashed)
2) Flour (a bunch)
3) Olive Oil (enough)
4) Sage (1 tsp? - fresh, minced, and then about 2 tbsp scattered whole leaves)
5) Onion (1-chopped)
6) Walnuts (handfuls, the more the nuttier)
7) Gruyere (the stankier the better, enough to cover gnocchi with dank cheesey layer)
8) Egg (1, beated)
9) Salt (filler ingredient, to taste)


Bake butternut squash in the oven until cooked thoroughly (about 40 minutes? an hour? Long enough for a sufficient pre-new years nap).

While the bnutsh is baking, heat a largeish circle of olive oil in frying pan, and add onion. Sautee onion until translucent, add sage leaves, relish aroma. Set aside, nap.

Remove baked bnutsh, and once cool enough to handle, scoop out contents into large bowl. Add onion/sage mixture, egg, and a good mess of flour. Mash with hands, adding flour until the mash reaches doughy consistancy. Salt.

Sous chef: While chef is mashing, sautee walnuts in a pan (use the same pan the onions were cooked in, don't rinse) with olive oil and whole sage leaves. Sautee until nuts become golden brown and crunchy.

Form bnutsqsh mixture into evenly sized balls, roll in a plate of flour to coat.

Bring a large pot of water to boil (adding salt, duh). Add bnutsqsh balls. They are cooked when they rise to the top. Remove with a slotted spoon, and place in pan with walnuts, simmering, stirring until coated.

Spread contents of pan on an oiled cookie sheet, and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Bake until cheese melts.

Serve with champagne. No resolutions necessary.

New Years Nibbles Part One - KIBBEH

[everyone wants to hold Jon's balls]

This is the first in a series of guest blog-posts from the folks who attended our New Years Eve Iron Chef-style cookoff at Hickory House. There was one rule: you had to use exactly 9 (as in, 2009) ingredients. The results were so delicious that no winner was determined, and I felt compelled to post the recipes on here. Today's guest blogger-chef is Jon, who is famous for keeping it simple.

KIBBEH, Or, delicious beef balls wrapped in beef dough and deep fried--mmmmmm

1) 2 lbs delicious beef

2) pine nuts, a bunch of 'em

3) 2 onions, medium size

4) some salt

5) some pepper

6) bunch o allspice

7) bunch o cumin

8) 1/2 pound or so of cracked bulghur wheat

9) oil -- lots of it

first slice up onion#1 all nice and tiny and cook it in a pan with some oil. take the first pound of ground beef and throw it in there, and be sure to break up the beef as much as possible. add toasted pine nuts (can't find toasted pine nuts? toast 'em yourself!), salt, pepper, bunch
o allspice and bunch o cumin. cook until it is very light brown and still nice and juicy (juicy juicy beef).

in the meantime you shouldve been soaking that cracked bulghur wheat in water for an hour. drain it and squeeze out all the excess water before adding the other onion, cut up nice and tiny, as well as the other pound of beef. add salt and pepper and beat the f*$k out of that beef bulghur mixture until it becomes like a delicious beef dough. you really can't tell there is beef in there anymore!!

now grab a ball of the beef dough, roll it around all nice and pretty, then poke a hole and stuff it with your beef mixture (you know, the one you made first). pinch it off and deepfry it in some hot oil for about a minute or two, tops, until it is golden brown and just slightly crispy on the outside.

there you have it.

Shawarma King, Columbia Heights

[fries n sumac]

So one of the New Years resolutions I was tricked into was that for the month of January, KB and I are going to be vegetarians. Don't ask me why; I don't know. It's healthy? It's less morally repugnant? Before you jump on me for capitulating to a lifestyle I find silly and reprehensible, please understand that I made several other New Year's resolutions that I neither understand nor would ever commit to on my own. For example, I've agreed to run a full marathon this year. WTF?

Anyway, one thing I've noticed is, when you're eating vegetarian, you never get full. Definitely not off of one meal, anyway. (Why do I feel like I'm talking about drugs -- "Maaaan, when you ain't on smack, you can't never get hiiiiigh!!"). I was talking to friend A., a long-time vegemite who now eats meat, the other day about this, and he agreed, and said that when he only ate non-meat, he was grazing all the time and never really satisfied. Now that he eats steak, he can get full! (Wait, now it feels like I'm writing a column for Cosmo -- "Before I let go of all my hangups about my body, I could never climax...").

So on Friday night I was out drinking at Marx Cafe in DC, after the Gogol Bordello show, and I got them drinkin' hungries, and KB told me that on Columbia Ave near her house a new falafel/shawarma place had opened up one week ago, called Shawarma King. It was indeed open at 2 am, and I enjoyed an excellent falafel -- one that competes admirably with Amsterdam Falafel on 18th Street in Adams-Morgan, and MUCH cheaper ($3.99 for a falafel).


['lafel]

The two best things about this falafel -- which was, admittedly, unremarkable as far as the taste of its deep-friend-chick-pea balls, which was fine, but not unbelievable or anything -- were the toppings bar, and the SUMAC. Like Amsterdam, King has serve-your-own toppings including beets, pickles, hummus, tahini, lettuce, tomato, and a highly-citrused Israeli salad of tomato and cucumber. On the extra side, they have a creamy white garlic spread and a mildly-spicy red hots spread that were deliciously thick in flavor (I went back for seconds on my bottom layer).

Then, sitting atop the toppings buffet, they had this pizza-shaker full of ground red sumac powder, something that I had (call me ignorant) never seen before. I shook it liberally onto my falafel but also my fries, which were limp and not that good, and it gave everything this really awesome smoky, savory taste that was really interesting. I was asking the folks who own the shop, who were Palestinians from Bethlehem, which part of the sumac tree it came from, but there was a communication barrier that I wasn't able to overcome. Anyway, some guy who was in there said something about how a lot of Middle Eastern food, especially Iranian food, has sumac as a topping. It's no Old Bay, but it's a start.

Baltimore Round Robin, Feet Night

For a full album of Feet Night pictures, click here.

So I'm finally getting around to finishing my review of Wham City's Baltimore Round Robin tour. A few things, namely Christmas, New Years, and a long weekend in DC got me off track, but I think I'm back now. At least, I'm in Baltimore, it's 8:30 am, I've been up since 5:50, and I have a triple-shot of espresso in a cup nearby (why did I buy that?), so I'm reasonably sure.

Night two of the big Wham City party at Sonar a few weeks back, which was supposedly about bands that make you move, and it was indeed partly about that, but what that means is it was roughly equally split between weird electro-art projects like Dan Deacon and Adventure, extraordinarily loud hardcore bands like Double Dagger and Thank You, and just plain bizarre acts like the disco-punk outfit Future Islands and Nuclear Power Pants, a hard-funk band featuring Eyes Night comedian(?) Show Beast on vox, and guitarist and bassist wearing enormou shark-like costumes. Here's what I thought of the bands:

Thank You: Nothing against what these guys were trying to do -- noisy mosh-punk -- I just didn't think they were terribly interesting. Without the stage presence or interesting instrumental approach of a band like DD, I sort of lose interest relatively fast in all the screaming and smashing around. Online, they're a bit more interesting -- an exercise in tension-building through repetition and the addition of constituent instrumental parts, not to mention some pretty awesome freak-out drum work, but still not that good.

Double Dagger: It's been about six months, I think, since I've heard "Luxury Condos for the Poor" performed live, and since I heard it here, I've had a heightened awareness for the "now available for lease" signs tacked onto to every hoity-toity, glass-walled residential complex from Harbor East to Logan Circle (which I saw yesterday, incidentally). There's something about the subtlety of the line "They're building a Ghost Town," which singer Nolan Strahls repeats over and over again atop the layered, heady, and ultimately really impressive bass playing of Bruce Willen, when compared to the callousness of the cymbal-and-shrieks chorus ("They're building luxury condos for the poor!") that makes it seem more brilliant than it is. But for some reason I just really adore the idea of what is certainly a rather elitist punk band (the two front men are both graphic designers who run a company called "Post-Typography". I mean, come on.) writing songs about things that I see and notice every day, about cities changing, and about ideas that people I know spend a good deal of time trying to analyze in print, and having their version come out more eloquent for its simplicity. Oh, yeah, and having the song effing rock.

Height: Besides that song from "The Woods" (best lines in film: "The doctor says that I'm hyphy and I have the Bubonic Plague" and "A fever of 96? That's so hot!"), which Show Beast showed on "Eyes Night," I don't find Height's work as an MC or a producer that compelling. The gal from A.K. Slaughter and a few others were on stage, which gave Height's songs the feel of a hipster hip-hop collective, which wasn't that cool because why, exactly, should I care? I hardly care when Spank Rock assembles these huge crews of foul-mouthed rappers for shows, and I generally know his tunes before I see them.

Adventure: After reading this Michael Byrne profile of this dude, I had exactly zero interest in seeing him live, but was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed his performance and how little I cringed when it was his turn to perform in the Round Robin. I was expecting something a little more akin to Elf Power in the video game sense, but the cheap Nintendo themes were hardly discernable and present mostly in an aesthetic, rather than literal sense. Also, he played some keyboard lines live, over beats that were eminently danceable.

Smart Growth: As an inconsistent-at-best fan of electronic music, this is another act that I was surprised to find myself enjoying, and even dancing pretty hard to. It had most of what I remember liking about all that Big Beat and Happy Hardcore techno that I occasionally checked out in high school, but with less-annoying samples and none of the stupid over-repetition. The mood was only spoiled a little bit when DJ-man Denny Bowen (also, incidentally, drummer for Double Dagger) paused his act for a minute to chastise the audience for crowding him, despite the fact that he was on a small scaffolding and from where I stood, in no apparent danger. "I've performed for a lot of people a lot of times and never felt like I was going to die," he told them. And then for the rest of the night, every time he played, he had two really weak-looking hipsters acting as bodyguards, standing in front of him and blocking everyone's view. Lame.

Lizz King: is not funny. She's a solo act, and she performs white-girl rap songs and some folk songs and she looks a lot like Sarah Silverman. But she's all shtick, her music is unlistenable, and her cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella" is insufferable. No wonder she allegedly got naked at Whartscape last year.

Future Islands:is funny. The band plays sorta theatrical electro-rock, like Meat Loaf meets Roxy Music fronted by Jack Black. I really enjoyed this band, although I can't be sure what the names of any of their songs were. Listen here; it's really good.

Dan Deacon: was meh. I mean, I've seen this guy like 6 times now, and it rarely gets any more interesting. He started with "The Crystal Cat," which is a good song, and went on to play some new stuff, but I just have a hard time getting into Mr. Deacon these days. This is possibly because 95% of the crowd at "Feet Night" was under-18 and annoying and thrashing around giddily, as though they'd been let out of the house just once a month and needed to make the most of it. During one of his songs, some drunken high schooler came up to me and asked me if I was in one of the band, and I foolishly told her no, at which point she went over and started flirting with Denny Bowen. Afterwards I grabbed her and asked what her next question would have been, had I said yes. She told me she was looking for weed, which was certainly a lie, but it was a funny-ish illustration of what the crowd was like: pubescent teens looking to score at the after-party. This is how classy Baltimore is.

Blood Baby: was playing so loud that I could hardly hear anything, but I really liked it. Peter O'Meara, the (former) guitarist from the Death Set (who incidentally, moved to Philly, which sucks, but may be part of a fiendishly clever business plan to move from one post-industrial town to another building hipster fan base, until Jonny Siera takes over the world), is in this band, and you can totally hear his mark on it. Electro-spaz-punk that really gets you going if you know it well enough to shout along.

I am sure I missed some other bands that played here, but I was probably too busy having a staring contest with funny clown (he won) and mourning the absence of the Death Set, even though they were listed on the posters. My overall thoughts are: successful endeavour, this. I've never heard of a set-up quite like it, with each band taking turns performing one song each and the audience dutifully running from one stage to the next, turning their heads in unison. Not all the bands were good, but what can you expect? Also, for all their childish screwing around, hipster self-consciousness and infuriating wannabes, it is really nice to see that Wham City still exists, and that DIY projects are being done, even if not in DIY spaces (by the way, I heard about a new one just now, which I plan on visiting next week). It's good to keep up appearances and make Baltimore seem like a new model of your typical city in the midst of an artistic flowering -- Bohemian Prague or Paris between the wars, only in the American post-industrial world -- you know, Kokoschka and Picasso, only with video games.

Round Robin, Eyes Night

[lexies]

See a full album of photos from the night here .

Surprisingly, I have not yet seen one single review of Thursday and Friday night's Baltimore Round Robin tour shows at Sonar. Not on SENBaltimore, not on City Paper's website/blog -- and only the usual snarkily-captioned photos on Beatbots. So here's what I thought of the bands I saw (and recognized, by name) at Night One ("Eyes Night") of the Baltimore Round Robin tour, a two-night showcase of Baltimore's indie-est, and an event that has received enthusiastic plaudits from extremely well-regarded sources across the board.

TEETH MOUNTAIN: One of those wall-of-noise indie bands that use real instruments (sax, violin, guitar, bass, drums) to make droning, atmospheric squawkings. This one I thought was quite interesting, actually, as though they were moving in some sort of unified maneuvers, and underpinned by tribal-ish rhythms. The real striking thing about them, though, is that they have this very young feel to the group. First, they all look about 17, and the gal banging on the floor toms in the picture above, mainly because she was the only female in the group, gave me a sort of "I-just-got-to-Art-School-and-found-my-true-self" vibe, as if she had only recently discovered the appeal to some people of a girl wearing a smock dress over dark tights going ape-shit on a bunch of drums, or that others find such a spectacle appealing. Teeth Mountain was, for me, a great first signal that this night was going to emphasize the DaDa of Wham City, the ubiquitous Baltimore art collective that organized this event.

JANA HUNTER: Looked like Janis Joplin, sounded very West End of London, 1968. But erring on the more Kinks-y side of things, rather than the truly drugged-out psych-rock side. Hunter has a great voice, plays fairly uninteresting guitar, but write songs that aren't quite symmetrical and felt to me like they'd be equally welcome accompaniment in a movie about a road trip across Death Valley as a scene on a foggy pier out in the Thames at night.

CREEPERS: Alright, further down the DaDa rabbit hole, then. These guys were a duo, with one playing a casio keyboard and singing high, the other (on the left in the pic) mirroring his vocals an octave or two lower. All of their songs sounded like demented Broadway numbers, but one was particularly hilarious. Didn't get the name, but the lyrics went something like, "That sting you feel, that's part of love / Relax, you're doing fine / I'm very pleased with you." Talk about Creepy, but so funny.

SANTA DADS: A guy (the guy from Creepers) in tiger pajamas playing trumpet; his comrade in a dress, strumming a ukulele; a girl in between them adding nothing to the act save for some epileptic dance moves and the vigorous shaking of a giant, bewhiskered, stuffed catfish--now we are safely here, in the 21st century Baltimore absurdist movement. I don't dig this band that much musically (plus, where was "Where You Gonna Hang Your Leg"??) but I get that they are, to a certain extent part of a troupe, and purveyors of an art joke that you basically have to immerse yourself in to really understand. We're talking about reliving childhood here, but with all the hormones and awkwardness and nervous obsession that came with puberty mixed in. There's nothing intellectual about Santa Dads, but that's okay, because that's not the point.

BEACH HOUSE: The most-talked-about Baltimore band this year, blah, blah, blah, Devotion, even Baltimore Magazine readers can appreciate them, blah, blah, blah, Victoria Legrand's dad is some sort of French new-wave film star, blah blah bleccchh. When I heard Beach House's record, and a few earlier tracks, and especially when I watched director Skizz Cyzyk's cinematic take on their song "You Came To Me," I decided that I don't really like this band. But that was before I saw them live, and heard Victoria LeGrand's really quite epic cat-like yawl through a proper sound system. If this is the new cool, I'm at this point okay with that.

FUNNY CLOWN: In the middle of his stand-up act, Funny Clown, AKA Joshua Kelberman of Wham City, said, "I need a volunteer from the audience..." and when a bunch of hands shot up, said, "Which one of you wants to die?" That was pretty hilarious. Almost as funny was when he asked the eventual volunteer he selected, a college student, what he studied, and when the kid answered "economics," he asked--"What kind of economics." The kid said, "financial economics," and Funny Clown tilted up his chin scanned the crowd, gave a flourish of his hand, and said, dramatically, "Is there any other kind??" That was pretty funny too.

LEXIE MOUNTAIN BOYS: To start, I have a very hard time describing, when I'm talking about it, why I think this group of grunting, groaning, men's briefs-wearing women are so f-ing brilliant. So I'll give it a try in print. For those who don't know, LMB basically gets on stage in really strange costumes, which sometimes emphasize their sexuality (body paint, torn clothing, busty tops) and sometimes satirize it (fake beards, men's undies over their pants, etc) and has a seance-like vocal jam sessions that consists of (sorta) tuneless grunts, groans, moans, stomps, handclaps, and various gutteral warbling. It's certainly not "music" as most people know it. But I hear strains of pre-war gospel, soulful moments that reference old blues, negro spirituals, and shape-note singing. At the same time, all the other "boys" seem to gather around Lexie and draw energy from her, clutching at her wrists and clothing like a prophet, as she raises her eyes to the sky and seems to feed off of their energy as well. Accordingly, the cadence of each song rises from the calm to the frantic, with the girls throwing their heads back and howling, then humming, then cooing. In doing so, I think they tap into some of the same ideas about song structure, tension and passion that romantic composers reach, while working in roughly the same format as the neo-primitivists of the 70s like John Fahey and Peter Lang. They need to be seen live to be understood, and they make me smile from ear to ear whenever I see them.

LESSER GONZALEZ ALVAREZ: Channeled Jackson Browne, Jeff Buckley, and Nick Drake in equal parts. He dressed in earthy, tweedy prep-tones and played deep, rich-sounding accompaniments to his folk songs on a crystal-clear Fender Telecaster. Enjoyed him, but need to spend more time with him.

Rub

[gobble]

So I promised a review of the barbecue place that Dana and I found on our bike trip through South Baltimore, and here goes. I don't understand what Richard Gorelick is talking about here, when he says that Rub makes brisket that is "very tender and a little bit beautiful" or turkey that is "a marvel of modest flavor." Both are simply untrue.

Let me instead chance an analogy that better suits the quality, originality and general ethos of Rub -- how easily Gorelick was seduced by the Walker Evans photo qualities of the landscape, the six-pack cartons as condiment holders (wee!) and everything else Rub tried to sell him as "authentic feelings about Texas and the good food that Texans make for each other"! -- and that is, Rub is to barbecue as whiskey is to Jim Beam, and there were at least 2 dozen Beam bottles lined up on a mantlepiece behind the bar. In fact, almost all the house cocktails, like the Lone Star lemonade, are bastardized whiskey sours made with Beam, and Beam is held up in this place as the most Texas, most appropriate accompaniment for slow-smoked meat, and the fact is, Jim Beam is disgusting and a whiskey that rests only on its strong branding.

Likewise, Rub's barbecued meats are disappointing, and resting on the laurels of a bar with the kind of character that attracts fratty Federal Hill types. Why else would there be over a dozen flat screens showing ESPN, FSN, network football and even Gol friggin' TV? Real barbecue joints don't need to be sports bars, nor do they need to look pretty:


[gobble, 2]

But now, actually, that does look pretty. That's the turkey breast that came on the Lone Star platter. But don't be fooled! It was dry as a bone and served less-than-lukewarm. This was amateur barbecue, not slow-heat alchemy. Same goes for the brisket. This wasn't the type of meat that you don't want to bespoil with hickory sauce -- it was exactly the type of meat you want to smother in it. And we did, and it tasted fine, I guess, but not revelatory by any means. The chicken did fall off the bone, I guess, and the sausage was pretty delicious, but what kind of barbecue place can be judged on chicken and sausage? What's that you say? A Texas pit? Nay. Sausage is important to master -- it's like learning your Suzuki Method before trying the Shostakovich violin concerto. But for a Texas-style barbecue joint, your brisket is your Vocalise -- a penetrating, dreamy, melted-butter aria that can be made truly beautiful, or wholly forgettable. Rub is certainly not the former.

Our sides:


[m&c] [pomme-de-terre ensalat]

This were disappointing as well. Vanilla, mayo-based potato salad devoid of herbs, and M&C heavy on the cream, not the cheesy. Myeah.


[dosty]

FOOD: B-
A Texas barbecue place needs to focus on the essentials, videlicet, not poultry. The balance can't hang in the cradles arms of a mediocre mustard sauce. The ribs and brisket were not impressive, the "slow heat" not apparent, and the plate arrived half cold. You want Baltimore barbecue? Go to Big Bad Wolf.

DRINK: B-
Had a nondescript pale ale that I don't remember now because it was October. The cocktails all looked pretty frighteningly bad. Keep your Red Bull away from me.

AMBIENCE: B-
This place really bothered me (can you tell?) because it was so clearly a sports bar first, and a food purveyor second. I can't deal with barbecue places that don't give it their all. Get rid of the commercialized drink specials, the hordes of Ratbird fans, and the constant product placement, and then we'll talk.