By Owen DiDonna
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
When John Eng-Wong stood up and slung his guitar around his shoulder, the chattering audience in front of him hardly even noticed. It took several strums for even the people in the front row to hear him, but once they started to hush, the quiet spread like wildfire. All eyes were on Eng-Wong, collectively waiting for the chaos to begin.
The crowd was starving. Their silence did not last for long.
If music aficionados find themselves hungry for haphazard harmonies, pleasant pandemonium, or thrills out of the ordinary, they could attend one of Goucher Independent Music Club’s semimonthly music shows. Since 2016, the student-run group has established a punk arts movement in Towson and continued Baltimore’s long-standing punk tradition of do-it-yourself music shows.
“Nobody was taking initiative to do shows here,” said Dylan Samuel, 21, a senior at Goucher College and a founding member of the club. “We had been here for a month, and we were all musicians who wanted to play and listen to other bands, and that’s how it got started.”
Mike Apichella of Human Host tests his keyboard before his performance at Goucher College on Sept. 14. Photo by Owen DiDonna
The group finds their acts and promotes their shows through word of mouth and social media.
“We just know people,” said Eng-Wong, 20, a junior at the school. “We reach out to bands we like, and we hear about kids on campus who play and we mash them together.”
Before the Saturday night performance on Sept. 14, Samuel and Eng-Wong sat in the dimly-lit basement of Goucher College’s Haebler Memorial Chapel, awaiting that evening’s acts. Through a guitar pick held between his lips, Eng-Wong explained why he joined the group.
“The first DIY show I’d ever been to was at Goucher,” Eng-Wong said, his eyes raised towards the ceiling as he thought. “I had a lot of fun, so I felt like I should just keep doing it. It gives us something to look forward to and create.”
Although the club was created in recent years, Goucher College has hosted its fair share of punk shows.
Mike Apichella, 44, scratched his head as he struggled to remember exactly when he began performing at the school.
“I might have played here as early as 1999,” said Apichella, performing later in the evening as Human Host. “Everyone always said that Goucher was a good spot to play, and there’s not a lot of other places that are really, well, awesome to play at in Towson.”
As Apichella laid out tapes of his album, “Special Moments with Muckle Flugga and the Cronk” for sale, five-piece band Kratom Leeks filed in to set up their equipment. By now, there was a small but steady trickle of guests trudging down the basement steps, lounging in assorted antique seating arrangements around the perimeter of the room.
“People at Goucher have a lot of enthusiasm,” said Tony Calabrese, 22, as the sardine-packed audience grew to terminal size. Calabrese, one of the first members of the club, traveled from their current residence in Philadelphia to attend the show.
“They’re really excited to get to see a show and just want to be here in a way that not all audiences are,” Calabrese said. “It’s like a bubble within this other bubble of Baltimore.”
The quiet before the first set of the night is a typical occurrence at the group’s shows. It’s the sound of a focused, attentive crowd. It’s an audience searching for any reason to spring up and dance, to bring the house down; and find one, they did.
In a split second, that same hushed crowd from moments before burst into a wild mania. Concertgoers leapt into the air, crashing into one another in rambunctious bliss before returning to Earth. Others stayed firmly planted on the ground, swinging their heads in locked rhythm with the music. As Eng-Wong sang, those in the front row screamed his lyrics back at him, their faces inches away from each other, knowing each word that flowed from his lips.
“I love the dancing,” said first-time attendee Alistair Watson,19, in between sets. “It’s a great expression of emotion.”
Up next was Apichella, or Human Host. Seemingly practiced, he swiftly plugged in various pieces of equipment; colorful effects pedals, a neck-mounted harmonica, a tape recorder. As a finishing touch, he sat his keyboard atop a striped ironing board, rounding out his collection of gadgets. His music was airy. It flowed over the heads of the audience towards each of the basement’s wood-sided walls, featuring repetitious melodies pierced by interjections played by the performer on his keyboard.
“At some other places, you never know what’s going to happen,” Apichella said. “You could have a fight, or someone could OD on drugs. Here, it’s definitely a safe space.”
A large facet of what sets the group apart from the rest is the safety that comes along with being surrounded by a passionate, supportive group. This safety is multi-faceted. While students are safe from incidents such as fights and overdoses, they are also safe from judgement. Attendees are free to express themselves however they please, as long as it is respectful to others and themselves. Such freedom allows for the club’s unique shows to be what they are; a healthy, positive expression of self.
The club typically saves the loudest act for last. This evening was no different. Kratom Leeks struck the audience with a wall of sound, their rowdy, high-speed rhythms causing their listeners move together fluidly. The band brought the show to a crescendo, uniting the audience in a moment of musical mayhem created by their peers just for them.
The final piece of the puzzle for those involved with the collective is the independence aspect of the scene. In today’s age of huge, highly-produced radio hits, many members look for a more organic musical experience.
“Music shouldn’t be hierarchical,” Watson said. “There’s a setting today where many groups are funneled through labels and only a few are selected, but I believe music is something that anyone can take up and everyone should have a place to perform.”
As soon as Kratom Leeks finished up, the audience began to filter out. Each of the acts began packing up their equipment, amidst farewells as friends and strangers parted for the evening. The room had returned to its previous state of subdued chatter, and soon silence as the people dissipated.
In any part of the music business, it is essential for the management to evaluate whether or not their establishment will be able to move forward in the future. This is also true for Goucher Independent Music, although the club’s members may think about more than just their organization’s performance.
“It was a pretty solid show,” Eng-Wong said, revisiting the concert the next day. “It just makes me feel good being part of something bigger, to be able to say ‘Oh, WE are doing this.’ People came and stayed in droves, so that’s probably a good sign.”