Ninjasonik have gone from being the most buzzed about band in the world to being a band that everybody is supposed to like, but nobody can remember why. That de-evolution is dangerous indeed, and with a debut album Art School Girls that sounded like it was mixed in a toilet and in no way reflected the live charisma and high voltage excitement the group brings to the stage, the group hit a crossroads and passed it, absolutely worse for wear. Gone is DJ Teenwolf, in many ways the old lineup’s backbone as battle ready emcee Telli Federline and ever consistent hypeman Jah Jah were the public faces, and Teenwolf a steadying behind the scenes influence. He gets replaced by two people now, Baltimore punk heroes The Death Set’s drummer Roofeo as a DJ, and rapper Johnny Nelson added as well, which given the nature of Brooklynites circle of friends makes perfect sense. However, one thing does remain. When you put a live spotlight on Telli and crew, they ALWAYS show and prove. If Ninjasonik never released another song as long as they lived, between “Pregnant,” hipster culture anthem “Bars,” “Art School Girls,” their cover of Matt and Kim’s “Daylight,” and a few other classics, alt-punk kids with a love of hip hop will always adore them. With Telli currently enamored with the rap stylings of Wiz Khalifa and Lil B the Based God, the “new and improved” Ninjasonik may end up in a different direction. Speaking of the post-mortem hipster generation, tonight’s Ninjasonik performance is extremely important for the direction of the underground as in many ways, Ninjasonik had made it to the head of the class, and now can inform hipster bands that didn’t quite make it pop in time, what exactly to do next.
Acts the Rap Dragons and Freddy Jones are the warmups, and I will say this for the Rap Dragons. I see exactly why Bmore loves them so much, so much that the Baltimore City Paper proclaimed the group “1,000 times better” than Ninjasonik this week. Bmore isn’t just the home of club music. The Wham City art collective’s style has permeated the youth culture, and with a crowd largely comprised of awkward Johns Hopkins and MICA students, anything done with a unique ironic twist or any modicum of true artistic freedom has validity and appreciation in the city. Rap groups with a hood sensibility who sample the Reading Rainbow theme? Maybe not better than the group that literally defined the hipster subculture in rhyme, but heck. For this crowd, they’re a draw and a very intelligent booking.
And of course, it’s the Moustache Party, so you get the Moustache DJs, a throng of sweaty hipsters, The Ottobar, and the pied piper who leads them, James Nasty. Originally booked as a headliner for a Moustache Crew event, Nasty has permanently become the headliner, and has grown and matured as a DJ in the process. Say what you will, but there is no more important DJ at the grass roots of Baltimoe’s underground dance scene than James Nasty. The Moustache Crew DJs are as a whole all very green and completely underwhelming (as expected) by comparison to the standard for Baltimore underground DJs set by the infamous Baltimore Bass Connection (Emily Rabbit, Devlin and Darko, XXXChange, Adam Gonzo and others), Dave Nada and Taxlo’s Cullen Stalin and Simon Phoenix. Of that collective, and given that Moustache books more young DJs than anybody else in Bmore, Nasty is FAR more than a top rising club music DJ here. He’s a confidante, motivator, teacher and man who in one hour long set is responsible ultimately for whether or not the party is a failure or success on a weekly basis. To his credit he has accepted the pressure and shone brilliantly.
Moustache is the new TaxLo. No, I don’t mean that they’re going to start booking every major national and international underground act in the world and have a track record of breaking superstars that is next to none. I mean TaxLo at year one, when it was still a local indie dance party with a million chefs trying to boil a tiny cup of water. Moustache Party is the new cultural meeting point, melting pot and underground point of identification for Baltimore. TaxLo is still important, as it allows a respected and legendary underground stage for underground bands that need it. But for way too indie and way too cool for school kids in a major East coast city with a heart of filth that still pumps pure, this is the new hang out. Nothing more and nothing less for right now, but that’s of absolute importance.
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