New Ottobar Benefit Compilation Features Beach House, Dan Deacon, Trapped Under Ice, More
Right now, the Ottobar, the great and long-running Baltimore venue, is in imminent danger of going out of business. That’s true of a great many venues right now, but for anyone who’s called Baltimore home in the past 20 years, the loss of the Ottobar would be especially excruciating. Right now, there’s a GoFundMe drive going to keep the Ottobar open, and it’s well along the way to its $200,000 goal. And now we’ve also got two different compilations dedicated to the venue. A couple of weeks ago, we got No Stagediving, Vol. 1, a 51-song, all-Baltimore compilation with contributions from bands like Future Islands, Wye Oak, and War On Women. Today, we get a second edition, with 55 more of Charm City’s finest.
No Stagediving, Vol. 2 features Baltimore bands past and present. Most of them have offered up songs that are already in the world, but the real value is in seeing how this one small city has produced so many different kinds of great music over the years. The comp features some relatively big names: Beach House, Dan Deacon, Rye Rye. But its real value might be in putting all these local heroes from the past few decades in one place.
If you’re from Baltimore, or even if you’re not, just reading some of these names might send you into a nostalgic headspin: Liquor Bike, Candy Machine, the Convocation, Double Dagger, Meatjack, Labtekwon, Oxes, Horse Lords. There are at least a few new songs on there. The great Baltimore-bred dream-pop group Wildhoney, a band I once watched cover Sixpence None The Richer at a hardcore punk festival, have chipped in with a lovely new track called “Flywheel.” Check it out below.
Meanwhile, Baltimore’s Trapped Under Ice, one of this century’s most influential hardcore bands, has shared a demo version of “Disconnect,” one of the songs from their 2011 classic Big Kiss Goodnight. Here it is:
Most of the songs from No Stagediving, Vol. 2 aren’t streaming; you’ll have to buy the compilation to hear them. You can get the compilation here; all proceeds go to both the Ottobar and the bands. You can also donate to the Ottobar GoFundMe here.
