Dan Deacon Show 9/11

Last evening (Friday, 9/11) I had the special pleasure of attending an experimental music show at the Nicholas Cage Annex on E. Oliver Street. I had never been to a place like this before; a seemingly abandoned warehouse transformed into an artist enclave/commune type arrangement. The surrounding neighborhood was not my typical hangout spot; boarded up houses, people roaming the streets in black hoods and baby-strollers, little kids throwing rocks at my car.

I was invited to this gathering by a new friend in my Audio Documentary class, Dave Syzinski (SP?), who has become interested in my research endeavors with the art community in Baltimore. He has a lot of "ins," and really wants to help me out. I was introduced to Alex, a gentleman in a snug fitting suit and styled hair that suggests a throwback to 1950's nostalgia. He apparently has a stack of numbers, and we should have lunch sometime to discuss the new artist housing that may be put into the empty lot across the street from the Annex, where MICA students will have new and relatively cheap housing (and perhaps they'll have more than one bathroom per floor).

The people who live in these buildings have very eclectic tastes for decoration and design. They also have little contempt for dirt, grime, and mess. The bathroom I used looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years, there was no flooring, and paint brushes were scattered among the sink.

The kitchen area had been sectioned off with Christmas lights, but with good reason. All of the inhabitants food was stashed on shelves, an indication these people were rather more open with their food supply and probably didn't have the affordable funds for cabinets.

While I don't care what people think of my dress and style, it was obvious that my friend and I stuck out like sore thumbs. I was wearing matching clothes of bright purple, orange, and pink, with jeans and Converse sneakers. My friend, Billy, was in Spuries, a Stevenson U hoody, and green Polo shorts. Everybody else was as unconventional as you can get. Skinny jeans, oversized sweaters, ridiculously awful (in my opinion) hair cuts, and a general off-beat, counterculture, non-conformed look that I don't think I could attach myself to if I even tried.

The music was another interesting aspect. There was, as my friend put it, "an abrasive Canadian experimental artist," who made abrasive an understatement. At one point, between her screaming and guitar shreiking, she managed to start playing her instrument with an animal bone (I hope it was an animal). Dan Deacon finally came on around 11:30pm. A dance party ensued for the following hour, led by my exhaustion and subsequent leaving to find a 24 hour-McDonalds, cause damnit, I wanted a quarter pounder.