AS: What was that first Whartscape like for you? What made you want to hold it?
AE: I don’t remember exactly how it became that we did that. We had been here for two years, Artscape happened and we had been there and it’s nice and it’s cool. But obviously it’s kind of more for adults and families, all things funded by states or cities are always gonna be sterilized. They’re too worried about…whatever.
So we thought, hey we should throw a rad fuckin festival that’s no-holds barred, book all our favorite Baltimore bands, and all our favorite bands around and have toured through us for this big giant thing. Bloody Baby, my band, definitely played that year. Dan played. Big A Little A…I can’t even remember now. Whartscape is always a huge blur for me. But we did that first one in our space, I think it was just a Friday/Saturday show like 8 to 2. Maybe 10 or 15 bands.
AS: What are you doing differently with this year’s Whartscape compared to last year’s?
AE: For this year, we’re shifting the focus a little bit to be more Baltimore bands. We were looking at the schedule and it’s a pretty huge ratio of Baltimore to touring bands. Like 7 to 1 maybe. So we wanted to shift that, we were just talking about Baltimore…the scene is just awesome here, it’s really geting just good. Someone was telling me some magazine just rated us #1, like Spin or Rolling Stone or something like that. They said we have like the best scene in the country.
We don’t really care what they say, but we agree. That’s why we live here, because we love the scene, our friends, the music, other artists we know around here. So we just wanted to make it more a festival for everyone in Baltimore.
AS- Do you think that this particular Whartscape will change anything about Wham City?
AE- Well we have this space on Federal and Calvert that we are hoping will come together. I mean it wouldn’t be DIY, because it would have to be somewhat legit. But we don’t want to lose that feeling. We don’t want it to feel like you are going to Sonar. We want it to feel like you are going to some raw space, where there is some…. well raw is the word I want to use.