Dropcards at BIMA Fest 2010 - Recap
This year Dropcards was a proud supporter of BIMA Fest 2010. Our friend David Andler gives us the night by night run down on how this year’s festival went down.
Night 1 - As the sun began to set Friday night, the VIP Party at Hour Haus was filling up, promising a long and fun filled night ahead. The party, whose guest list read like a partial who’s who of the Baltimore music scene, featured hors d’oeuvres from local sushi bar Minato and hipster bar/restaurant Rocket to Venus, open bar courtesy of iBot Records and the Ottobar, and acoustic performances from a dozen or so artists. Seldom seen Baltimore natives like Andy Bopp (Love Nut, Myracle Brah, Alto Verde) rocked out along side up-and-coming out-of-towners like Durham, NC’s Hammer No More the Fingers. Somewhere in the middle of all of it was a mostly-unplugged impromptu reunion of my old 90’s band Octopus, with me playing drums for a few songs on a bucket, DC Go-Go style. The party was so much fun that it ran about an hour over the allotted time and many of the attendees had to be reminded that they needed to get to the events that were about to start elsewhere. It also could have had something to do with all the free alcohol, which hadn’t quite run out at that point.
Although The Frauds had performed on opening night, opening for Peelander-Z @ The Ottobar (pictured above), it was on Night 2 that guitarist/frontman Rick Bowman (pictured above) showed up in style, arriving at The Beechfields Label showcase in a white 1987 retro limousine with his bandmates (who double as Gary B & The Notions), who put on an extremely loud set that I managed to catch most of). Excellent performances from E. Joseph & the Phantom Heart & Beard also highlighted the night, which was a huge success for the non-profit BYO venue Hexagon Space.
Night 3 began at Ottobar with an excellent early surprise set from post-pop rockers Pretty & Nice (pictured below), who made the drive all the way down from Boston, MA just for the festival. Following them on the bill were local favorites MOTiO, reuniting after nearly half a decade just for BiMA.fest, Office of Future Plans, which includes J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, Channels), and Squaaks, fronted by Oranges Band’s guitarist Virat Shukla and Charm City Cakes’ Elena Fox. Ace of Cakes co-star Duff Goldman’s band …soihadto… did what I heard was also a great set, but I unfortunately missed it while helping out with security at The Windup Space, whose lineup for the evening featured local hip hop sensation Soul Cannon, legendary Brooklyn rapper Sensational performing in Bmore (for the first time ever), and a host of local talent on Clayway Records, the label of recently-moved-to-Atlanta rapper Little Clayway.
Back over at the Hexagon, Washington, DC’s Sockets Records held an early, nearly sold out showcase featuring DC artists True Womanhood, S PRCSS, and Baltimore’s own Yeveto, followed by Underwater Peoples Records’ late showcase with Air Waves, Family Portrait, Andrew Cedermark, and a brief, but riveting performance from Denver, CO trio, Tennis (pictured below). The excitement in the air when singer/keyboardist Alaina Moore announced they would close with their new single, “Baltimore,” aptly marked the end to a weekend of fun, friends, and amazing music.
Still, I couldn’t resist heading to the afterparty @ the Paradox, which featured multiple stages of artists playing house, trance and other varieties of club music. I got there around 3:30AM, and I couldn’t believe how packed it was. I managed to stick it out until about 6:15AM before finally heading home to call it a night. What an intense weekend it had been!
Special thanks go out to everyone who made this first year of the festival possible, including my staff @ Morphius Records and the engineers @ Lord Baltimore Recording, the cool folks @ Missiontix, all the clubs that hosted shows and music seminars, and of course a big thanks to Melissa and Jon and everyone at Dropcards for all their help. We used business card size printed download cards to promote the festival around Maryland, having loaded tracks from 100 different artists performing at the festival onto the cards, and then we used specially printed versions of the larger size “laminate” cards as festival passes for each day of the event, as well as for 3-day VIP all-access passes. Other than the BiMA.fest staff (me, sorry!) arriving late at a couple of the clubs on the first night and festival goers having to wait to get their passes, it worked out great.
The last few days we’ve been hearing back from fans who attended the festival about how happy they’ve been to get to check out music from the artists that they missed out on live. I know the feeling…there was just too much going on at once to actually get to see it all. Fortunately, there were multiple camera crews shooting in HD with some high end recording devices, so hopefully the videos will do justice to the great bands I missed. Here’s a link to some sick photography of the festival in the meantime: http://www.bimafest.com/bima_gallery/index.html
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