Whartscape 2008

[July 17 – 20, 2008]

It’s hard to believe that Whartscape is only in its third year. The DIY festival, organized by Baltimore art collective Wham City, originally started out as an alternative offering to Baltimore’s largest outdoor festival Artscape, but has since become an institution unto itself. This year’s festival featured nearly 80 performers and spanned five venues. The majority of performers ranged from established to new Baltimore musicians, including Dan Deacon, Celebration, Wzt Hearts, Double Dagger, Thank You, Matmos, Ponytail, Video Hippos, the Death Set, and Cex as well as a number of out-of-towners like: Mark Hosler (of Negativland), Parts & Labor, Trey Told ‘Em (Girl Talk and Hearts of Darknesses), Ninja Sonik, and Grand Buffet.

I took some time to ask performers and attendees a few brief questions about Whartscape and their vision of the future of music.

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Performers Video Interview:

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Attendees Video Interview

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Whartscape this year was particularly impressive, with the majority of performances starting on schedule. Highlights included the Oxes first show in nearly three years and Dan Deacon’s mind control powers to organize what may have been the largest crowd at the festival to run laps, and, well, the video speaks for itself:

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Also of note was Mark Hosler’s lecture on mass media that detailed the exploits and hoaxes of his band Negativland, including viewings of the experimental group’s multimedia work and an “illegal” screening of their video to accompany their infamous parody of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”

Unfortunately, Black Dice didn’t get the opportunity to play due to rain that occurred during Sunday’s outdoor performance, and the last set of performances including Who Is the Tunafish Man?, the much talked about collaboration between Dan Deacon, Greg Gillis, and Spank Rock, didn’t happen due to police shutting down the last venue of performances. However, Wham City has made an announcement that the bands that weren’t able to play are being rescheduled and that passes or tickets will still be honored.

Nonetheless, Whartscape 2008 was impressive. I’ll end this with a couple sweet performances.

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 The Death Set:

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 Double Dagger:

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