Rams Head The Blog

BSM brings in another great show of locals with Holy Hell heading the bill on January 8th. They bring a rock solid tribute to the music of Ronnie James Dio. You may remember this cat from Dio and Black Sabbath. Also thank you to my faithful office loft mate, Laura for re-ringing that memory bell. Enjoy the sounds and enjoy the rounds since we’ve got local show drink specials all night: $3 Buds and Bud Lights, $3 Rails and $2 Natural Lights.

I love saying "Balty." It resonates.

Next up is your first ever Balt Country Festival on January 16. We’ve compiled a classic afternoon festival bill of Baltimore’s best local alty, folky, balty performers round these parts. Caleb Stine, June Star, Arty Hill, Van Meter, a writers in the round session and more! Come out for classic Caleb Stine tunes, the rhytmic songwriting of Arty Hill and the raw folk-rock of June Star. This will be a nice kick off for continuing to nurture this scene in Baltimore in a big way.

We are happy to re-announce 2U for February 5th. Score! Totally miffed we had to postpone the first show but no worries! We are ready to wrangle those Fed-Ex field memories for ya, minus the War of the Worlds-esqe claw stage. (p.s. if you havent seen the 1953 version of War of the Worlds by Bryon Haskin then make it happen. Do it.)

Pirate Rob’s Birthday Bash comes to RHL with his all-star line-up featuring Ballyhoo, Pasadena, Hotbox, Bond and Bentley, The Grilled Lincolns (my personal fav!) and 86 The Effort. Drink specials all night because, come on… you know these boys!

Classic party night with Umphrey’s McGee on February 14, but please be responsible! The security staff does not like throwing you out, trust! Goes on sale this Saturday, 12/12 at noon. Get clicker ready.

And they don't like seeing you get thrown out.

Oh, Oh. Now this is real and it’s fan-freaking-tastic! Super Diamond hits us up on March 6th and you’ll be spitting pink glitter for weeks. Get on the band wagon cause this diddy sells out all over the place.

It's almost like a mirage...

Lastly and very genuinely, this next multi-instrumental group is something that has gotten all of us buzzing a bit in our little loft. We booked The Big Pink fresh off their Spin and NME rankings and they are gettin kinda viral. Rollingstones is tweeting about them as well.

Truely interesting... and that's not me being all tongue and cheek as usual.

After playing with acts like Muse and TV On The Radio they are set to start blazing their own trails with tracks like “Dominos” and “Velvet.” They recall the likes of Glasvegas, Florence and the Machine, The Antlers, maybe even some Yeah Yeah Yeahs, while strking chords all their own. Check out Chesters blog in the right column for more info on them.

Alright, peace out kids!

Wow!!! I can’t believe last night after watching tons of Football games that I almost forgot that the MTV Music Awards were on. If it wasn’t for 100’s of my friends writing on Facebook about how Kayne West decided to be rude when 19year old Country Singer, Taylor Swift was winning her award. I would have totally kept on watching Football and forgot to plug into the awards. Once I turned on the awards, I actually couldn’t turn it off. I’ll be honest. I think the awards really never tell what’s going on with music. It’s always the same 10 people that win each award. When there are thousands of talented musicians that will never receive a moon man, or even get invited to this event. Including the Artist, Beastie Boys who was nominated for “Best Video”. They just performed at Rams Head Live 3 months ago and one of the most talented groups there is.

Let’s start with the opening of the show, Madonna. She wanted to tell the world how she knew and respected the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Madonna said,” Michael Jackson was born in August 1958”. “So was I. Michael Jackson grew up in the suburbs of the Midwest. So did I. Michael Jackson had eight brothers and sisters. So do I. When Michael Jackson was 6 he became a superstar and was perhaps the world’s most beloved child. When I was 6 my mother died. I think he got the shorter end of the stick.”

She went on to also talk about how one day she called Michael and said,” Will you go to dinner with me?” Michael and she went to dinner. And, after went back to her house to eat popcorn and watch old movies. She said,” I think this was a time for Michael to feel like an adult and not think about his past”.

After the speech, MTV showed old videos of Michael Jackson. His sister Janet Jackson came to the stage to dance along with a projection of MJ as their duet “Scream”. It was a moment where everyone remembered how amazing Michael Jackson is.

Through out the evening there were so many amazing performances from Beyonce, Green Day, Katie and Joe Perry, Pink, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Muse and another Artist that has played before at Rams Head Live, Jay-Z.My favorite performance was Green Day. A punk rock band from California. Billie Joe Armstrong knows how to control the crowd. Towards the end of their song, Billie told everyone to get on stage with him. The crowd picked up Billie so he could crowd surf while playing the last few chords to ‘East Jesus Nowhere’.

The performance was great, but I think everyone else has another topic they remembered most from the evening. Country singer Taylor Swift won the “Best Female Video”. She just started to begin her speech when Kayne West came on stage and told everyone that he thinks that Beyonce has the “Best Videos of all time!”. Everyone, including Beyonce was looking around like” THAT JUST DIDN’T REALLY HAPPEN”. Taylor was so shocked she didn’t even finish her speech. Towards the end of the awards when Beyonce did win, ‘Video of the year’. She told everyone that when she was 16 and won her first award, that was something special. She wanted Taylor to have the same feeling and respect she did. So, she called Taylor back on stage to have her ‘real’ moment with her fans.

 Rapper Jay-Z showed up to the award about 2 minutes before he performed. He got out of the limo, walked his way to the stage and closed these MTV awards with Alicia
Keys by singing,’ Ode to New York’. I think the MTV awards were worth watching.  If you missed it, I’m sure MTV will be showing it again.

 Awards:

Video of the Year: Beyonce,  Best New Artist : Lady Gaga, Best Hip-Hop Video: Eminem, Best Male Video: T.I./Rihanna, Best Pop Video: Brittany Spears, Best Rock Video: Green Day, Best Female Video: Taylor Swift ,Best Video (That should have won a moon man) Beastie Boys, Best Breakthrough Video: Matt and Kim, Best Art Direction: Lady Gaga, Best Choreography: Beyonce, Best Cinematography: Green Day, Best Direction: Green Day , Best Editing: Beyonce, Best Special Effects: Lady Gaga