This Sunday's lineup at the African American Heritage Festival is particularly impressive. Starting at 2:50 pm, the Verizon Wireless stage will feature Big Daddy Stallings,Winslow Dynasty (featuring Dontae Winslow), Fertile Ground, and the Jazz Allstars (featuring Terence Blanchard and Gary Thomas). You can also catch Anita Baker on the Main Stage at 7:30 pm. Admission [...]

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The Virgin Mobile Festival will return to the area after all. This year's event will be held at Merriweather, rather than Pimlico; it's one day (August 30), instead of two; and it's free.
And at that price point, the lineup rates as superior with Weezer, The National, Public Enemy, Blink-182, Girl Talk, Franz Ferdinand, St. Vincent, [...]

Baltimore was well represented at last Saturday's Groove City Jazz and Blues Festival in Cambridge. The  Junkyard Saints brought the New Orleans-flavored funk with a high energy set that included a rousing cover of the Meters' "Cabbage Alley." Saxophonist Carl Grubbs (above, with band), who recently won the $25,000 Baker Award, followed with a transcendent [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
As an artist and mother of three young children, I am affected by any book that I actually have time to read. On my nightstand at the moment is Mother on Fire by Sandra Tsing Loh. It's a fiercely hilarious book about Sandra's life as [...]

This year's Maryland Film Festival opens on Thursday evening with a program of short films hosted by Bobcat Goldthwait at MICA's Brown Center.It should be a hoot. The festival also includes appearances by John Waters and Fugazi's Ian Mackaye. Check the schedule for details.

Junot Diaz gave a wonderful reading at the Pratt library, as part of the City Lit Festival, on Saturday. For 60 minutes in a packed Wheeler Auditorium, he was tender and bold, candid and cool, elegant and earthy, reading excerpts from the story "Homecoming, With Turtle" and fielding questions from the audience. Hats off to [...]

In February, I met Dan Deacon—indie electronic composer, performer, and merrymaker—at Karl Ekdahl's workshop at True Vine Records in Hampden. They discussed the modifications that Ekdahl, a tech geek, was making to Deacon's performance rig.
Deacon, who's well known for setting up his equipment on the dancefloor and performing amongst his loyal audience, is apparently transitioning [...]

Think of all the jazz greats who have played the legendary Newport Jazz Festival: Miles, Duke, Ella, Billie, Coltrane, Monk.... Now, you can add Lafayette to the list. Hyena Records' Kevin Calabro tells me that Baltimore's Lafayette Gilchrist has been confirmed for next year's festival. Gilchrist is scheduled to play on Saturday August 8th.
Closer to [...]

A citywide Poe celebration was just announced for 2009, the 200th anniversary of the author's birth. The details are below, and here's a video, featuring John Astin, to get you in the mood.
 

Nevermore 2009 is a cooperative citywide festival organized by the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (BACVA), the Baltimore Office of Promotion and [...]

Lynn Redgrave will appear at the Baltimore Women's Film festival on Friday, October 24th. Immediately after the screening of Beyond Breast Cancer: Stories of Survivors at Landmark's Harbor East Cinemas, Redgrave and her daughter, Annabel Clark, will sign copies of their collaborative book, Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery from Breast Cancer, at RA Sushi. [...]