Boat Water

Boat Water used to sound one way, but now they sound another way. They play pretty loud sometimes. So many homies have played with BW over the years it would be exhausting to mention all of them, but like, its the fam for sure.

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Bandcamp

Sinclair

Sinclair is a pop punk band from Baltimore. People who are in this band were in a lot of other bands, like Pansori and The Summer We Went West. There are other bands too, I just don't know of them. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that Sinclair fucking rules, and they just put a new album up on the internet. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to this new album yet because, you know, I work for a living, but I've seen them enough to know that its good. Like stupid good. Like listen to this shit right now good. Check out their bandcamp below, and give them some money. You don't have to, but I mean you totally should. Erik is starting a tape label thing, so once that gets going I'll let you know. Word.

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Bandcamp

Dawn Treader

This is straight from Dawn Treader's Myspace:

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We are a diy punk band originally from Maryland.
We have been together since 2001.

We like playing shows and going on tour.

Discography:

We have a 2 full length albums, a split 7" with fall on deaf years, a split 12" with d'amore, and a live tape.

Coming soon:

We will have a split 7" with TRIFLE TOWER from Ft. Worth Texas and a split LP with NOW DENIAL from Boston Massachusetts.

Download our entire discography through 2009 by going to this link(provided below). Thank you very much to whoever compiled all the songs from the vinyl for us. Let us know if you want hard copies with lyrics and artwork.
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Needless to say, Dawn Treader are one of the cornerstones of Maryland punk/hardcore music, no matter how active they choose to be at any given time. Maybe we will all get lucky and they will play a random show sometime soon. I heard once that they planned to play as a ten piece or something, including multiple vocalists and strings. Their music is very driving and in your face, using an obvious punk influence as a framework to explore multiple musical avenues, as is evident by their wide variety of song structures and melodies. No two DT songs sound the same. Dawn Treader is affiliated with Osceola, Army of Kashyyyk, Pansori, The Summer We Went West, Monument and Diablero. There are also other bands I'm sure, sorry if I left anyone out.

Below are all of their tracks that are in circulation, to the best of my knowledge. Instead of having one large zip file, I broke the files up into their respective albums. Please note that I only have the Dawn Treader tracks of the splits, so if anyone has the other bands' songs it would be cool if you threw them up here. They have two solo albums, one being called "Deconstructing the Coffin" and the other is either self titled or is "The Lone Islands". Below it is labeled as "The Lone Islands". Dawn Treader's sides of the D'amore and Fall on Deaf Ears splits are also down there, as well as tracks from an unreleased split that was supposed to be with Towers. The live "album" listed is not the one listed in the above discography, but is actually a live recording of their set from December 8th, 2009 at Barclay House in Baltimore when they played with Raein, 1994!, Army of Kashyyyk and Pala.


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The Lone Islands


Deconstructing the Coffin


Songs from D'amore Split


Songs from Fall On Deaf Ears Split



Songs from Towers Split


Live at Barclay 12-8-09

Let's

Let's is a trio of fine young men from Baltimore. Members Jon, Lou, and Erik have played and currently in a few other Baltimore bands, including Army of Kashyyyk, The Summer We Went West, Pansori, and ROTA.

Their sound is gritty and melodic, and reminds me of some of the older Braid with plenty of nice, heavy parts and sweet drumming. All I've got is three songs from these guys so far, they've only been around a few months. Enjoy!

Download if you're a fan of Braid, The Summer We Went West, Cap'n Jazz, or Monument.

Myspace

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I Can't Wait (2010)

Pansori

Pansori is a band from Baltimore that features members of Army of Kashyyyk, ROTA, and The Summer We Went (as well as others I'm sure). They play an epic brand of screamo, complete with violins and post-rockesque compositions. Parts range from melodic guitar driven interludes to heavy breakdowns, and crescendos.

Their debut release consists of one 19+ minute long song. Fans of bands like City of Caterpillar, Pg. 99, June Paik, and some of their previous projects (Army of Kashyyyk, ROTA) will find this a welcome addition to their libraries.

I actually went to one of these guy's show when they played with Suis La Lune in College Park not too long ago, but missed their set. Bummer. I hear they rule live. Check it out.


Myspace


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Demo '09

The Summer We Went West

The Summer We Went West were a pretty incredible band from College Park, MD.

Featuring current/ex-/former members of current D.C. sweethearts Monument, as well as Dawn Treader, Boat Water, Gentlemen, For The Agenda, (and others I'm sure), The Summer We Went West has kind of flown under the radar in comparison to projects they have played in, or friends they made while a band (like a band you may have heard of named Algernon Cadwallader), but that does not mean that they should be counted out. These guys are a great, great band.

The band began as more of an acoustic project featuring Erik Pecukonis and Anton Krupp before they enlisted their rhythm section and grew into more of a Kinsella-esque emo band. Anton explains it in TSWWW's Scene Point Blank interview, which you can find a link to below.

Anton: We all lived in this suburb in Maryland called Columbia that had a surprisingly active music scene while we were all in high school there. That's how I met Jeremy, Erik and Al originally, though I only recognized them from shows I went to. When I went to school at the University of Maryland, I saw Erik at one of the dining halls and asked him if he wanted to play some music with me. We actually started as an acoustic duo, famed for our ridiculously drunk performances. Jeremy had seen me around campus and at shows at the University and started to come onto my radio show that I did at WMUC, and we started to become friends there. We all moved in together because Erik and I were at the WMUC recording studio one day and Jeremy called asking for roommates. Erik and I immediately agreed. The Summer We Went West as a full band came out of Erik and I drunkenly playing the guitar in our living room and Jeremy saying "lets take this party downstairs" which really meant "I'll play drums, you two idiots play the guitar." Al has known Jeremy for a really long time and hung out at our house all that year. It was only natural to ask Al to play bass because he was the only bass player we knew. Al lives with Jeremy and I now, and Erik moved to an apartment down the street but still sleeps on our couch more often than not.

The 8/9 split and WMUC set features the Anton/Erik line up, and "Following The Holy Moon Goddess", the band's first full length and first release as a proper band shows progression in the group's sound by leaps and bounds. The album incorporates elements of emo, punk, folk, indie rock, and even electronica (the instrumental tracks which feature Baltimore native Frank O'Hara reading poems over the glitchy beats are actually some of the highlights of the album). The album also features TSWWW's most popular and well-known song, "Jackon Hole, Wy." which is an absolute giant of a song. I'm not sure anyone who has heard this band hasn't become obsessed with the song for at least a week or two. Pecukonis' bare-bones honesty and wild, drunken vocal deilvery is instrumental to TSWWW's power as a unit. Other highlights on the album include "Gin" and the epic nine minute long "Drive, Green Sky and Blue Grass".

My favorite release by these guys by far though is the Summer 2006 Tour CD-R. It takes all the elements that made "Following the Holy Moon Goddess" a great album, cuts the slack, and amps up the energy by a few notches. One listen to the opening track "Counting Time with Coins" should be all it takes. The album's flow is also a major accomplishment: the album swings between loud, racuous, tracks that are much louder and heavier than anything on "Following", (largely due to more band members piping up to add vocals, which gives the songs a chaotic feel), and beautiful, lilting "emo-folk" (I'm going out on a limb with that one) ballads like "Mr. Johnson", and "Red Carpet Blues," a song which is unbelievably moving both lyrically and musically. The album closes with "That Midwestern Town", which seems like it could be a kind of sequel to "Jackon Hole, Wy.".

The other three releases here include a drunken acoustic set at Small Brown House, a collection of b-sides compiled from their website, and their posthumous cassette release, which features some really great acoustic songs that Krupp and Pecukonis were working on early on as well as some electric tracks recorded before the band's break up. It also features the playful "Ashlee Simpson", a love ballad about...well, you can guess who, and a spoken word track with an acoustic guitar in the background while one of the band members tells a story about being on tour on the west coast, which may well be the highlight of the tape.

Really cool guys, I've had the pleasure of playing a show with Anton and hanging out with Erik, and their music, past and present, deserves to be listened to. Check it out.

Read an old interview from Secne Point Blank.

Check out the band's website here.

The posthumous cassette release was just put out by Anton (guitar/current guitarist in Monument) and is limited to 100 pieces. It can be purchased on their myspace here for the reasonable price of $5, so if you like the mp3s, BUY THE TAPE.

Here is a video of "Praise the Holy Moon Goddess", the intro to "Following the Holy Moon Goddess".



8/9 Split

Songs From Third Rail Radio (WMUC 11/13/05)

Following the Holy Moon Goddess (2005)

Live at Small Brown House (2006)

Tour CD-R 2006

B-Sides and Demos

The Last Recordings (2009)

Monument

So, I was supposed to do a Monument post forever ago. Dan (vocals/bass) had contacted me via an e-mail asking to listen to his band Monument and post some songs. We get a lot of these e-mails, and usually they are just spam from some ridiculous metal band, but I was bored. So I downloaded the songs and took a listen. I was amazed at the quality. I then surfed on over to their myspace page and found out that the group features an ex-member of The Summer We Went West, a band I absolutely love! (that post is coming soon) However, my lazy nature got in the way of me actually putting in the time to sit down and write a well-thought out post, and anyways, it seemed that these guys had all the internet hype they needed. Suddenly they were everywhere I looked!

And they absolutely deserve it. They play upbeat, midwest-esque emo in the vein of Braid, or American Football on speed. These guys hail from Washington, D.C., a metropolitan area with a long history of punk bands, but these guys are something totally different from the whole Dischord scene. I not too long ago had the pleasure of playing with these guys and watching their set, and it was incredible. Great, wild, off-kilter vocals bounce off extremely imaginative guitar work and a tight rhythm section.

The "Honey, I Shrank the Kids" influenced Florida EP is a fun listen (sample lyric: DON'T EAT ME!), but the real meat and potatoes of this band's material can be found on their Demo and 7". The demo lays the groundwork for the Monument sound, and it was what I heard first. The 7" just came out, and it is really, really amazing. If you listen to this record, I don't see how you couldn't love it.

Buy their 7" off their myspace.

Here's a video live at WMUC (UMD College Park radio), I haven't watched it personally sooo I dono what happens! It's a surprise!



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Demo



Florida EP



3 Song 7"