The Marx Brothers

If only the Baltimore Opera had had Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont around, maybe we'd still be having arias sung from the stage of the Lyric every few months. Read More

The editor here didn't want me to write about this and I understand why. Read More

The Imperial Symphony Orchestra's annual Christmas concert on Tuesday, "Simply Christmas," will feature both. Read More

"1969 and you're 15 years old. For the previous three years you've been swamped in lysergic symphonies, marathon guitar solos (even worse: drum solos) and blissful acoustic drippie-droning about pixies and bed-sits. The raw garage thrash that careered out of the '64 UK R&B explosion seem like a distant memory. Even the Stones had a touch of blurred vision in '67 before getting back to blues basics on Beggars Banquet. In '69, there were only mavericks, madmen and geniuses to rely on, like Jimi, the Doors, Beefheart and Tim Buckley, maybe the Velvet Underground if they survived. It would be a few more months before Mott The Hoople came along to sow the seeds of UK punk rock. Read More