Wham City is an art and performance collective based in Baltimore, Maryland. Members of Wham City include musicians Dan Deacon and Ed Schrader, visual artists Jimmy Joe Roche, Peter Ryan O'Connell, Mason Ross, Adam Endres, Dina Kelberman, April Camlin, Connor M. Kizer, Robby Rackleff, Cricket Arrison, Alan Resnick and Ben O'Brien.
From 2005 to 2010, Wham City organized Whartscape, an annual experimental music and arts festival in Baltimore as an alternative to the city's Artscape festival. [1] The festivals included performances by Matmos, Beach House, Double Dagger, Ian MacKaye, Lil B, and Dan Deacon. In its 2010 article about the festival, The Washington Post called Whartscape, "the premier DIY music event in the country". [2]
Wham City member Connor Kizer organizes a bi-monthly lecture series in Baltimore in which local and visiting artists speak on a diverse range of topics. [3] In 2009, The Wham City Lecture Series won "Best Non-Music Bar Act" in the Baltimore City Paper . [4]
Wham City members Ben O'Brien and Alan Resnick organize an annual east coast skit comedy and stand up tour entitled, "The Wham City Comedy Tour". [5] The tour was founded in 2010 by Dan Deacon and Ben O'Brien. Under the banner "AB Video Solutions", Wham City created several short films for Adult Swim, including the satirical infomercial Live Forever as You Are Now with Alan Resnick , which aired on December 2013.
Wham City began as a popular underground show space in The Copycat Building in Baltimore, MD in the mid-2000s. Many of the group's principal members met while attending State University of New York at Purchase in the early 2000s before moving to Baltimore City. The song "Wham City" on Dan Deacon's Spiderman of the Rings album was written, according to the musician and co-founder, as a "national anthem" for the collective. [6]
As of February 21, 2022 the group is on indefinite hiatus. [7]
Bloc Party are an English rock band that was formed in London in 1999 by co-founders Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack. They are joined in the band's current iteration by Louise Bartle and touring bassist Harry Deacon. Former members Matt Tong, Gordon Moakes and Justin Harris left the band in 2013, 2015 and 2023 respectively. Their brand of music, whilst rooted in rock, retains elements of other genres such as electronica and house music.
The Copycat Building is a former manufacturing warehouse at 1501 Guilford Ave, Baltimore, Maryland, today used as an artists' studio and living space. Built in 1897, it is home to the city's creative class and a landmark of the Station North Arts and Entertainment District.
Daniel Deacon is an American composer and electronic musician based in Baltimore, Maryland.
Deerhunter is an American indie rock band from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in 2001. The band currently consists of Bradford Cox, Moses Archuleta, Lockett Pundt, Josh McKay (bass) and Javier Morales.
Spiderman of the Rings is the first studio album by the American electronic musician Dan Deacon, released by Carpark Records on May 8, 2007. The album was released on white vinyl by Wildfire Wildfire Records.
The Death Set is an experimental music band with roots in punk rock, sometimes referred to as art punk. The band formed in 2005 in Sydney. Six months after its inception, the band moved to the United States, living in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Brooklyn respectively, where the band found an audience for its style of experimental, cross genre, punk rock. Moving after less than two years in each city the band has been nomadic, yet thrived in each base. All members now currently live in Brooklyn, New York. The band fuses punk rock sound and energy, electronic music production and hip hop sampling into their recordings. Their live shows are high energy events, inciting crowd chaos and sometimes played at crowd level with the audience surrounding the band.
Future Islands is an American synth-pop band based in Baltimore, Maryland, comprising Gerrit Welmers, William Cashion, Samuel T. Herring, and Michael Lowry (percussion). The band was formed in January 2006 by Welmers, Cashion and Herring—the remaining members of the performance art college band Art Lord & the Self-Portraits—and drummer Erick Murillo.
Height Keech is the stage name of Baltimore rapper and podcaster Dan Keech. He is best known as the founder and frontman for the group Height With Friends. Before forming Height With Friends, he released three solo albums and six EPs between 2000 and 2009. Keech interviews artists and musicians on his weekly podcast Height Zone World, which debuted in July 2014.
Peter Glantz is an American director of theater and film, notably the films Lightning Bolt - Power Of Salad and the music video DVD Pick A Winner, both released through the record label Load Records.
The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each March in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festival is known for its close relationship with John Waters, who is on the festival's board of directors and selects a favorite film to host within each year of the festival.
Animal Collective is an American experimental pop band formed in Baltimore, Maryland. Its members consist of Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist, and Deakin. The band's work is characterized by an eclectic exploration of styles, including psychedelia, freak folk, noise, and electronica, with the use of elements such as loops, drones, sampling, vocal harmonies, and sound collage. AllMusic's Fred Thomas suggests that the group "defined the face of independent experimental rock during the 2000s and 2010s."
Steven Michael "Steve" Pilgrim is an English drummer and singer-songwriter. He was originally the drummer for The Stands (2003–2004) playing on both the band's albums however he left before the band eventually split up. Following his departure, Pilgrim has established a career as a singer-songwriter, releasing four solo albums to date: Lover, Love Her (2007), Sunshine (2009), Pixels and Paper (2011) and Morning Skies (2017). He has also drummed for several artists including John Power and Paul Weller.
Mike Riley is an American cartoonist and comic book writer currently residing in Baltimore, Maryland. He is best known as the creator of the single-panel webcomic I Taste Sound and the comic series Irregulordz.
Live Forever as You Are Now with Alan Resnick is a television special written, created and directed by Alan Resnick and Ben O'Brien for Adult Swim, as part of the Infomercials series. The special is presented as a parody of self-help infomercials, advertising a four-step program for creating a digital avatar that acts as a backup of its host. The special is hosted by Alan Resnick as himself, and is presented by Dan Deacon. Both, along with O'Brien, are members of the Baltimore-based art collective Wham City, who co-produced the episode under their video production division, AB Video Solutions.
Ben O'Brien is an American comedian and filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland. They are a member of the Wham City arts collective and founding member of Wham City Comedy. They have directed videos for Adult Swim and Merge Records. They are the co-creator of the web series Showbeast (2006–2013) and they manage and perform with Wham City Comedy (2010–present). The website Brightest Young Things posted this about Wham City Comedy "...you should make a point to see them, as they’re super funny and doing DIY comedy like few others."
Dave Hughes is an American television producer and editor, currently employed at Williams Street as well the founder of his production studio, Million Monkeys Inc. Hughes previously worked as a video editor while at MTV Animation, working on series such as Beavis and Butt-head, Celebrity Deathmatch and Cartoon Sushi, before meeting with coworker Matt Harrigan to work on Space Ghost Coast to Coast in Los Angeles. He has worked on several Adult Swim series, and is the creator of his own show for the network, Off the Air.
Alan Resnick is an American comedian, visual artist, and filmmaker. He is a member of the Wham City arts collective and founding member of Wham City Comedy.
Ed Schrader's Music Beat is an American two piece rock duo of Ed Schrader and Devlin Rice from Baltimore, Maryland. According to The Boston Hassle, the duo has "a gas pedal/brake pedal sonic narrative, careening without warning between cross-eyed tantrums and sultry, eyebrow-cocked croons." They have released albums on Infinity Cat Recordings, Load Records, Upset The Rhythm, and Famous Class Records. Touring with bands such as Future Islands, Ceremony, and Wye Oak, the duo has been described as "one of contemporary punk’s best examples of testing the possibilities" and has performed across the U.S. and Europe.
Effervescent Collective was an organization of dancers, choreographers, physical performers, and multidisciplinary artists that presented work exclusively in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded following the 2008 economic crisis, the company derived its name from anthropologist’s Emile Durkheim’s term “collective effervescence” to describe the larger-than-the-sum-of-its-parts feeling to large group assemblies, such as concerts or sporting events.
Dan Schlissel is an American record producer from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and founder of the record labels Stand Up! Records, which specializes in comedy, and -ismist Recordings, which focused on punk and alternative rock from Nebraska and nearby Midwestern states. Schlissel won a Grammy as producer of Lewis Black's 2006 album The Carnegie Hall Performance, and was nominated for his work on Black's two Grammy-nominated albums, Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues and Anticipation. He is known for his work with Black and other comics including Doug Stanhope, Maria Bamford, Marc Maron, and Mitch Hedberg, and helping release the debut record of Iowa metal band Slipknot.