LOCAL BAND: MR. MOCCASIN

One thing I have really enjoyed about Baltimore is their music community. When I first started driving, I use to go to thrash, a few metal, and a lot of hardcore shows here. I even got to see my ultimate favorite band in the whole world *gasp* Mates of State at the Ottobar with Braid.



Recently though, I've broaden my live musical endeavors to Wham City and affiliated shows, artsy indie rock shows, djs and clubs, and random noise at warehouses. Don't get me wrong, I will go to a good hardcore/metal/thrash show throughout the city but I guess since this new wave of musical soundscape is erupting in Baltimore and a lot of it is centered around artistic ideas and elements, I have been responding to it and generously supporting it.



When I was eating at the Paper Moon Diner in Baltimore it was still opened 24 hours a day and it still had those delicious cakes lit in a glass freezer as you entered the diner. I was eating lunch with a friend of mine from College Park who grew up in the Baltimore area and he had come across a woman named Hanna Badalova, whom he went to high school with. She was accompanied with her friend Jared Fischer, and later on throughout the afternoon I found out that they were in a band together. They gave me their cd and immediately I loved it.




Their band is called Mr. Moccasin. A very experimental progressive indie-folk band that sings about fruits, deer, distance, and foreign places. Also, Hanna (their lead singer) sings mostly in Russian! Their music is also influenced by a lot of Dischord bands but you might not get that initially. You can check out their tunes on Mr. Moccasin's myspace.




Anyways, so later on in the year 2008 they started recording for a new album and wanted to do a photoshoot. I was starting to get back into photography so I figured it would be a good opportunity to start shooting again, whether it was in the vein of 'artistic' photography or not. I present to you some of the pictures from the shoot:


More to explore:

BUBBLE GUM GLUED TO THE SOLES OF MY SHOE.

I figured that it was the beginning of 2009 and there were a lot of things that had to be confronted, that haven't been confronted last year. My attempts at blogging were pretty nonexistent; if any blogging did occur it was pretty erratic and almost unnecessary. This year I am not making any resolutions or promises but this is a place on the internet for you to delve into or not. First and foremost, it is for me. A place where I can document all the clippings of my life outside the internet, the internet obsessions, randomness, and truisms that occur.

So peak in, let me show you what creates my world...

To start off my first post right, I must talk to you about a new hardcore band straight out of Connecticut called Ripshit.



Now many people who have been listening to hardcore and the various forms of this kind of music for years tend to become more and more picky about newer bands that rise from the ashes of the more memorable bands we all know and love. The thing I love about Ripshit is I saw them at Girlcave in Northwest DC last night with my friends in Blackbirds, a boston hardcore band Draize, and DC local Deathrats. and without even checking out more than their music online, I didn't realize that the brutality that screeches vocally in ever song is sung by the petite woman in the picture above. She delivered more energy in a tiny basement than I have seen with black metal frontmen at the Sidebar or Ottobar.

The lyrics are very politcally expressive. With titles such as "America Runs On Nothing" and "I'm not Unemployable I'm Just Young and In Love" they have alot of universal understandings that are expressed lyrically about not trusting our government, taking back control to the people who actually work for this county, and simply put anti-capitalist sentiments. The things you'd expect from most hardcore punk bands. Unlike other anti-capitalist-smash-the-system hardcore music, however, this band makes you actually want to sing along with them. Even if you didn't want to squash the man, have him underneath your nail.

They are a fairly new band so there aren't mp3s I can stream or have you download but I can link you to their myspace where you can also find information on touring, booking, and the lyrics to their songs!

www.myspace.com/ripshitct