How was your Saturday:
An evening ablaze at Hampden Skatepark (vol. 1)
words by Jack Gross,
photographs by Jack Gross,
interviews by Jack Gross [edited for clarity]
05 May 2026
"As long as you have a community, anything is possible."- Jahnell Kearney
Read from top to bottom, left to right, ignoring overlapping text: SO NEAR SO FAR, prognoz, As Morning Dawns, GRAIL, insignia, SPLIT ENDS. There was this monochrome flyer, like, gluing itself to Instagram stories in the weeks, days and hours beforehand; six acts in varied typeface set to play at the Skatepark of Baltimore, known colloquially as Hampden Skatepark, just off Falls Road, by the 7/11, and the pool to its side, and the big, bulging heart of Hampden's Avenue along 36th St, a stone's throw across the ponds of northern Baltimore. Sparse, but conjunctive, there were a handful of pointers: HAMPDEN SK8 5:30 NOISE, 4/18, PUNX 4 TRANS WELLNESS, PAY WHAT YOU CAN! My curiosities were bundled all in the fact that I'd seen people I'd probably have never expected to show up to one of these, smacking the thing straight onto their stories a la Ninety-Five Theses. Somewhere, laid deep within the crackling, sharpened image of two sets of hands hovering before a strange hole, or a shrunken-down clipping of a human anatomical model, ostensibly ripped from a textbook or magazine, there was an impetus. You had these names almost shouting at you in their own strange, mystical languages, and the whispers of the world grew ever clearer.
The anticipation of the early spring breeze that May afternoon triumphed as we talked, step by step, towards the show; I remember her hair twirled and winked at me in the briskness of our march, march on— her eyes danced in the sunlight. Catching bits of conversations, tasting the air, making the fifteen-minute-or-so walk this kind of electrifying trail dusted over a thousand upon thousand times. Whatever lay below our feet held little to no weight as we'd grown ever closer, as the domineering shadow dealt by nearby businesses painted shapes in the sun. We'd had an idea of the crowd in theory; the prospect of a "free show" at the skatepark held a mighty high promise in the eyes of many a showgoer, and the spectre of the occasion was almost picturesque: a show, out on a beautiful day, out for a beautiful cause, with the sun's shining smile all refracted upon us. Thinking back to the afternoon, my mind often wanders to the billows and swoons of the trees, the chatter of the park, and the gentlemanly voice of the clattering skateboarders to our left as we ventured towards the great, big thing we'd set off for. You'd've caught a real nice whiff of the stuff as you walked past, me and Audrey learned, as I'd felt myself adjust to the inherited air punctured by the assortment of brightly-colored disposable electronic cigarettes noted almost lovingly as "Geek Bars", your average joint, and the intoxication of rolling prattle. The blinking, almost breathing things made pretty little Tamagotchis attached to the sides or tucked neatly in the pockets of many we'd encountered. Immediately, there was this sea of people pressed along the western ends like dots as we stood at the top of the incline, headed down towards the light. Facing forward, we met two paths—the ramps and divots of the skatepark, painted with half-pipes, handrails, and the big, brooding shadows cast by titan–like lamps and surrounding light, and the path towards the sound, the big, billowing, almost echoing sound of cheery acoustics.
Moving forward, and forward, pushing through bare shoulders or the ocean of photographers flanking the left, right, and center, a light shone forward, and Split Ends' voice shone. A yearning, drifting intimacy waded its way through the crowd; a long, echoing kind of blanket marked by a graffiti-scrawled, signature-tinged, rusted-brown folding chair, two microphones directed at the guitar's soundhole, and Nic, or Split Ends. Strumming as they may, there was a tenderness compounded by the rolling, basking in the sunlight skateboarders a couple hundred feet behind me, and the murmurs of a crowd enraptured by the music. I remember trying to squirm and duck in and through, heads bobbling like sports paraphernalia, the camera around my neck swinging gently like a pendulum; by this moment, my professionalism was moot. Tasting my own breath, I'd peered around a bit— one could develop a kind of dysmorphia as to the immensity of camera equipment. A boy no more than a year or so younger than me grasped, to all his might, a camera alongside a quick-to-draw speedlight, and the agility of a tiger hunting in the grassy, untrekked abysses of the abstractions of a mangrove swampland, possibly some long forgotten wilderness, clutching gently what was his. Whipping, cracking about almost spasmodically, the set ended, basked in the flashes of that boy's speedlight, and the roar of applause set a bit of a tone for what was to come. I stood with Audrey, bated breath, as we watched on and on.
Jack G: I'm so happy the community can come and put something like this together, because it's really fucking awesome. It's really important. I'm gonna start with, first, who are you?
Split Ends: I'm Nic, my project is Split Ends. It's solo, just myself and a guitar. I've got a couple other projects too.
Jack G: How'd you get involved with this [the show]?
Split Ends: Jahnell [@fruitsockss] is the homie. We play music together... they asked me to hop on, and I was happy to do it, 'cause it's a fundraiser for trans wellness, which is awesome! A little bit more about me, I am a guitar repair tech. That's my side hustle, I work for myself. It's awesome! So, if y'all need your guitars fixed, hit me up!
Jack G: How do you feel about, like, the Baltimore music scene in general?
Split Ends: The Baltimore music scene is, like, thriving and bumping, and honestly, we have so many goddamn bands. It's insane, and it's beautiful. I wish I had time to listen to everyone.
Jack G: I know, I know! I just... I wish I could just get every band from Baltimore beamed into my head at the same time.
Split Ends: Luckily, we've got @baltshowplace, that, like, lists all the local bands. I just Ctrl-F a genre, and you just go through, it's awesome.
Jack G: I just wanna say, I'm so glad they could pick today to organize this, because it was real hot, you know? [chuckles]
Split Ends: [chuckles] Yeah, yeah.
Jack G: But, yeah, just... thank you for playing! Thank you for making art.
Split Ends: It's what I love to do.
Jack G: Is there anything else you wanna say, for the interview, for the record, type shit? [chuckles]
Split Ends: For the interview, for the record, type shit... stand up for your community; do some shit! Don't just sit on your ass. You can talk shit all you want, post on Instagram all you want, but you gotta come out here and do shit. We're out here raising money, and I hope you're out here raising money with us.
Jack G: Exactly, exactly. Again, thank you so much, this is Split Ends.
The bits I can gather from my notes, or spinning leaflets of memory I can grasp, focusing as hard as one possibly could, open with a burst, or a screech. Incendiary, a cloth wick tucked neatly in a Mexican coke, a splitting firework bursting open onto the concrete, rattling the floor with a brief soundcheck before blasting sleet rhythms. As they scattered themselves into position, giving lead singer Jay the space to drift and spin all through the makeshift stage like a livewire, So Near, So Far presented themselves as one cluster of boisterous, humanized cymbals; skateboarders behind the crowd seemed to have taken note of whatever was being conspired down near the swaying mass. With a cover of Title Fight's Shed, the crowd erupted once more— there was a continuous rise, and fall, and rise Zarathustra-style rippling itself all through me. You could taste it in the air, feel the bits under your feet like conduits; and the feeling was just getting its bearings. Moshpits emerged, excited and brisk, basking in the sweat of another, slamming in front of me. As the leads sang, the bass rang, and the band's drummer slammed into oblivion, members of Insignia belted as one, forming a bit of a ring on the left-side of the crowd by one of the amplifiers. Parts of the left, most of the right, the center, and a staircase a bit from the grassy lawn separating slammers from spectators, were dotted and draped with photographers eager to catch Jay midair. Lifting the slab of magnesium alloy up to get something of the perspiring hedgehogs rolling to their heart's content in the center and middle-left, a tanned man with long, curtain-y curly hair, red roots and brown, swooping locks, tucked behind his ears flashed a piercing above his left brow; he couldn't have been much taller than me, baggy, black pants dragging at his legs like chains. Swooping forward, it seemed to have been just fine for the thing, but at a second glance, fresh blood cradled the edges of the piercing balls above and below their placement. He flashed a wary, brash grin, and kept it swinging all the same. To the right side of the crowd, a shorter girl brandishing a camera blew mid-size, hammy bubbles that danced in the viewfinder as I tried to get a good shot of it all. With its freneticism, with its charm, with its grace, So Near So Far played their last song, and the tide came to a crashing halt. A slammed cymbal, whisked backstage for the next set.
Jack G: What made y'all want to play at this... like, how'd y'all get onto this?
So Near, So Far: We were asked by Insignia to play... Kai [Gibbons] and Robbie [Loomis] [members of Insignia], they asked if we wanted to play on this bill and fill an extra slot. We hadn't played in a long time, and they threw us in. We're really grateful to be able to play tonight.
Jack G: You guys were great up there!
So Near, So Far: We're so happy to play after a long time. Feels like the show went pretty well, way better than expected... we were very nervous. We know Jason [Doyle] [member of SO NEAR SO FAR] was a little nervous too. We all had a good amount of nerves, but once we got up on stage, it kind of melted! In all, we wanna say... trans rights, we're so proud for this to be our first show back.
Jack G: Absolutely! You guys killed it. Where'll y'all be after this?
So Near, So Far: May 30th! We play a house show with Shutter Theory, Marwood, and Insignia, very excited.
Jack G: Really good stuff, guys. Thank you so much!
So Near, So Far: Thank you so much for interviewing us.
Sweeping up the kind of glass shattered by the indiscriminate, brazen stomps of mosh past, GRAIL chose to skip those shards on a straight-set path into the audience's strapped-open eyelids. As the band stepped forward, the group's lead singer Frankie swung a banana-yellow toy cellphone around, brandishing it as a microphone, and the blitz came as thorough as it did instantaneous. Her yelps, screeches, the hyaena-like cracklings of teenage misery set neck-deep in the constraints of the modern day; you could tell the band had something to say, muffled as it may be in the growing tinnitus or whirring shuffles of the old word. Of all brief, struck-up conversations I'd enjoyed that Saturday, one with a man no taller than five-foot-nine to my side humored me in a quite fascinating way; we talked, as best we could, of previous Grail shows, of their fans' age and tendencies to… disregard circumstances otherwise extraneous (breaking shit).
The incision spread tinged, metallic blood sprayed out in the water— as these almost drums of steel bent backward, forward, slamming back into the crowd, there was this delineation of what was the pit and what was the observer, both swayed by gentle breeze and encroaching sunset, and the noise flirted with me a bit, alluring as it may be. I watched a group of girls meet the sweat-marked back of a man sloshed back and forth in the spiral, a man carefully tip-toeing his way from the contingent held in sardine concrete; the eye in the center, scribbled neatly in my mind, glared, daring me to step forward. The splashes of blood weren't just idealized, though; a man ahead of me spinning himself dizzy in the pit thrashed a red-rooted curly-brown mane toward and away my lens, and the lights just kept growing ever lustrous. Above my head, petals and leaves spun like a blizzard from some strange, distant place— two men, and later a man and a woman, and later than that, a shifting flurry of rotating embers, whomever pulled the levers or so to speak— stood to the right-hand wing of the crowd, shaking a tree give or take six-foot high. With a screech ("Oh my god, oh my fucking god!), the sangraal had been tucked away, smitten by some distant waters, and their set slammed tight shut. The next band up had the duty of lugging that baggage.
Jack G: Hi, guys! Who am I speaking to?
GRAIL: This is GRAIL... I'm Gabby [Yukna], I play guitar, I'm fifteen... Brooks [Vacek], I play bass in GRAIL, and I'm nineteen. Our drummer is Finn [Yukna], he's seventeen, and he's [Gabby's] brother. Frankie [Loverde] is our singer. She's thirteen.
Jack G: You guys are fucking awesome. How'd y'all end up playing here tonight?
GRAIL: We ended up playing here when we saw an [Instagram] story post asking for bands for a screamo bill, and then we DM'd them.
Jack G: That's awesome! Anything you guys wanna impart on the audience?
GRAIL: Fuck ICE. If you were at the show and didn't donate... fuck you, and kill yourself [chuckles]. Just kidding, don't do that... support your local bands and your local scene... please keep coming out to our shows, and make sure to help keep all these bands going, because this is an important thing for the city.
Jack G: Of course, of course. I feel like the cause for the show is so... I can appreciate a community coming together like this. It's fucking beautiful, such a great time. Thank you, thank y'all for coming.
GRAIL: This is a Jack-approved message! [in unison]
In the waves of adolescents, adults, and all between splashing from atop the summit me and Audrey had ventured down, I exchanged a twenty-dollar bill with a friend of mine, bringing me a zero-sugar "Ultra Strawberry"-flavored Monster Energy between sets, whatever the hell any of those words in conjunction even meant. Snapping the tab upright with my keys, I hurried down the spinning chasm towards the band just having set stage, As Morning Dawns. Spitting, sputtering amps, sweltering riffs, the group burst like silver fulminate. The problem was, in my daze, I'd lost two people; Audrey, and a friend of hers, to a sea of similarly pink-colored hair; in the dimmed slivers left of light, lamps attached to the building shone— no use in this case. I remember nearly talking to the wrong set of five-foot-nine, five-foot-five women with incandescent tones of pink and purple-d hair, before swiftly spinning back toward. As my search grew warmer, warmer, morning dawned; a riff the size of a tidal wave, almost doom metal-y in its might, swarmed. The pit changed shape, transfixed on the semblances of light cast forward by the night. Feet tapped to the ground, and back to owner, and back to ground, right foot left foot cast meaningless in the prismatics of sound. By this point, experiencing meant catching the clearest instances of hair; flashes of bands past and playing all made this mix of sight, blurring, fusing masses of undone coiffure. Green, pinks, the sanctuary we'd made for ourselves, and the haze blew. Stepping frontward, back, cyclic on their path, the band's lead singer Luna split their gaze between the crowd ahead and stepping gracefully between tangled cables, wires, and pedals at their feet like Persian rugs. An evening ablaze, marked by crowd, musician, the sound of feedback. Spotting Audrey and her friend, the coastline returned, and a tsunami was on the water.
Jack G: Hi! Who are y'all?
As Morning Dawns: We're As Morning Dawns. I'm Luna, I do guitar and vocals... I'm Jenny, I do bass... I'm Ace, I do guitar... I'm Red, and I hit shit with sticks.
Jack G: [chuckles] I just want to say, first of all, you guys fucking rock, man. This whole show is awesome, I'm so glad the community could come together for a good cause. The turnout's been pretty good. Fuck with y'all heavy, especially... any one thing about Baltimore's local scene you fuck with heavy? Bands, attitudes, anything like that?
As Morning Dawns: Everyone in Baltimore always brings the energy. Every time we've ever played out in Baltimore with any of our other bands, people always show out. They always come out, and this place was packed. We wasn't expecting this many people to show up tonight-- for us to play, and have all these bands playing for these kids and they have an outlet... we love the energy, the sense of community, and that everybody's really just here to listen to the music, to go hard and dance.
Jack G: Exactly, exactly!
As Morning Dawns: For local bands, Mondrary... even though they just split up. GRAIL is amazing; we played with them as Phase MXP a little while ago.
Jack G: Ah, I've heard of them!
As Morning Dawns: Yeah, we played at Wax Atlas [record store in Baltimore, doubles as show venue] with them and that place was packed.
Jack G: I was gonna say, I've heard the crowd at Atlas gets nuts.
As Morning Dawns: Yeah, it's a smaller venue but there were so many people out there... Never seen people crowdsurfing in a record store.
Jack G: [chuckles] I've heard they get crazy with, like, the equipment, yeah?
As Morning Dawns: Oh yeah... we were standing off to the side during their set, and we had to protect the PA from falling over because people kept hitting it... playing the whole set, back to the crowd because everybody was moshing crazy... that was fantastic. That was sick.
Jack G: Absolutely! Anything else y'all wanna say?
As Morning Dawns: [Matt, honorary member of As Morning Dawns, courtesy of Worcester, MA]: I came from Massachussetts to see the show-- shout out to the Worcester black metal scene; Warcastle... Necralant... Beneath Purgatory... SCUM... so good. Love Baltimore, my first time here! Great fucking city, I'll be back-- I'd love to stay forever, but I don't have a home here.
Jack G: [chuckles] You can find somebody to stay with. Well, somebody, not me [chuckles], but... you can do it. I believe in you, very charismatic guy.
As Morning Dawns, and Matt:
[Matt]: Thank you!
[AMD]: Shout out Snow, you're my boo! I love you baby; play fast, eat ass, die young, you know what I'm saying... shout to everybody, all the family in Hagerstown... shout out to the color green, love the color green.
Jack G: [motions to shimmering, emerald-green bracelet] You see the fucking bracelet, man? I love green [chuckles]. Hell yeah!
As Morning Dawns: Shout out Grave Digger #7, Grave Digger #20... shout out Dale Earnhardt--- shout out Mondrary, rest in peace. Shout out GRAIL, they played a great set tonight... every other band that play tonight: So Near So Far, Insignia, Prognoz, Split Ends... shout out crosswords, from Virginia.
Jack G: Alright, this has been As Morning Dawns; thank y'all so much. I love you guys.
Flickering in the background, tempest snapping all through the crowd, Insignia's set seemed as though it never really started, and it never really ended. A pained yowl and a creeping, flat-lined bass laid way for these dreamy, stumbling plucks and synapses, and the crawling darkness of the night made itself known. Before they'd even begun to play, herds of people flooded the rooftops, sitting atop gleefully and watching down on us like vultures— I suppose they'd decided that was a nice omen to usher themselves in on. As their set rang, the boys had this jazzy, math-y inflection to them, bridging and spraying all through the centre and out like cavities. The band had really flirted with the idea of a first song for a few minutes, before a plunge colder than Luleå. I'd chosen in these moments, with Audrey's friend Rosalind, to sink my jaws into the spinning, twirling madness within; the eye had caught me, now, and I didn't want it to take its gaze off of me. The soldier she is, Audrey stood somewhere out in the swaying head-ed masses, my camera tucked neatly in her bag. Mounting parallels between crowd and band are best ascertained by what I saw, or caught sleek glimpses of, amidst the bungling shoving-and-turning ovalesque well— the band's bassist would spring into the air a bit high, before dropping the audience's attention towards almost narcotic fills and the endless, harrowing screeches, with this almost juvenile kind of bliss. Flashing brief, ever so brief smiles at one another, you could taste the sincerity of it all. How they'd fiddle with gear between songs, how a technical issue led to a bit of an intermission, at which point, members of the crowd tossed this… maybe, bocce ball back and forth between a set of people lined up along the rooftop. A circle pit built of joined hands made the clamminess of my palms a bit of a soup of my friends, of fellow concert-goers, of sound. An etheric vapor, fizzing and flickering through the dark, brought forth by the acidic rain of signature or motif. With it, the reins of the show grew ever lax, the rope looser, the sweat and belting ferocity as one in heart and body. The fuse, though glimmery, blew out; their wires strained and tested, Insignia was no longer. What a set.
Jack G: You guys are crazy. Love y'all, seen Insignia... like... three times? What do y'all do, who are y'all, introduce yourselves.
Insignia: Hi, I'm Kai [Gibbons]. I play guitar, and I do the booking and social media management for the band... I'm Charlie [Slentz], I do the vocals and the keyboard, the sample pad, songwriting and the artwork.
Jack G: [chuckles] I think you're forgetting the cool ass laser sound effects, man.... Who are we missing?
Insignia: Robbie [Loomis], she's our other guitarist, she also makes some of the art, and Jack [Mashaw], our drummer... oh, and Jay! Our current bassist. He's in another great band called So Near So Far; they killed it earlier.
Jack G: [motions to Kai's right] And, who's this to the right? [chuckles]
Insignia, and Sammy:
[Sammy]: Hi, I'm Sammy.
Jack G: What do you do?
Insignia, and Sammy:
[Sammy] I'm, like, their number one fan.
Jack G: You wear merch? [wearing red shirt donning Insignia logo, black shirt underneath] ... is the shirt under also Insignia merch? [chuckles]
Insignia, and Sammy:
[Sammy] No, no, I'm not doubling up... but it should be!
Jack G: [chuckles] Well, yeah, what brings y'all here? What brought y'all to play this show?
Insignia: Well, four months ago, we got a DM from this guy Michael at [@baltshowplace]. He does so much for the Baltimore scene; he posts flyers like every week, and he keeps everyone pretty updated. We're friendly with him, he's helped us a lot for sure, you know... he DM'd us saying, oh, there's this person trying to set up this outdoor show. Originally, we thought we couldn't do it; no idea, not very many details. Two months later, we find out it's a skatepark show with GRAIL, you know? We end up getting to play the skatepark, but it's a fundraiser for trans wellness, benefitting trans people in need.
Jack G: Absolutely, absolutely. How do y'all feel the show went?
Insignia: It turned out really well! We got a really packed venue.
Jack G: I will say, for this show, it's all these bands coming into Baltimore, or maybe they're based in Baltimore, coming together to, you know, support the local scene and support one another-- it's all very cohesive. Sonically, everyone's a little different, but I feel like everybody brought it together, you guys included. The bill comes together super well... thoughts on the Baltimore music scene, how things are going? Any bands to note?
Insignia: Personally really like it, there's a lot of great bands we've played with; we've got to know so many cool people through the scene. Consumer Culture... Rags of Might... any of Damián [Antón-Ojeda]'s projects-- life, Sadness. Blood Vial, Starveling, ex-Mondrary people... Tripper was great... really great band File Select I saw at Normal's [Books and Records, book store doubles as show venue]. World Record and Polar View, great heavier indie stuff both fronted by [Jack Linthicum].
Jack G: Ah, I didn't know they were fronted by the same guy.
Insignia: Yeah. Gist is really great, totally underrated... some great hardcore bands coming out of Baltimore too. Sinister Feeling, Radium Girl. Denouement are really cool.
Jack G: Absolutely, man... any last words for the interview? Anything else, [chuckles] you know, 'cause I think they're going on right now [chuckles].
Insignia: Baltimore is a great scene. I want to thank anyone who ever supported us. If you're ever contemplating starting a band, you should do it... get inspired, go to local shows. If you're interested in music, Baltimore's just amazing for this kind of thing... thank you to anyone who has come to our shows, it really means the world. Come to shows in general!
Jack G: [band audible in background, chuckles] New Insignia when?
Insignia: Like... late summer; may or may not be recording our album with Ryland [Heagy] of Origami Angel.
Jack G: W h o o a. Holy shit.
Insignia: We'll be dropping it sometime over the summer, hella stuff planned over the summer; some crazy out of state shows.
Jack G: Alright, this is Insignia! Thank you guys so much!
Insignia: Thank you, Jack... shout out Jack Gross, this is Jack Gross before he's famous.
Jack G: [chuckles] You guys flatter me.
Prognoz's sludgy, jazz-inflected ooze spilt slow and slow as their set began, trickling down the back of my throat like mucus. The bliss of the afternoon sun had in large part faded, and a breeze grew colder, colder, and colder. Crowding towards the front, the cold seemed like it had made a bit of a dent in the space usually left between goers; watching from afar, concertgoers packed close made highlighted dots in the night sky. A man sat atop another man's back, a man donning a full set Domino's uniform, and the utterings of a phrase "poison headlock". Sixty-three degrees, I watched the chill usher in and out people; the pit slow, slow, almost crawling. Seeing the throng begin to wither a bit, Prognoz burst into song with this kind of kineticism inherited from acts past, the spirit of the will guiding those in attendance flourished under white light and the pitter-patter, almost dancing flash of a few spread-thin photographers. "This next song is about the orangutans of...", followed by an unintelligible call to the front. A set of about ten people line-bopped all along the perimeter of the band, shrouding my vision with brisk silhouettes or shapes hellbent on having a good time. Riffs built on mathy, punctual slashes marched to the rhythm of the trembling, aching trees, made weary by hours of grazing and mindless rattling. The park seemed to have slowly been making its return, leaving gentle markers in the concrete of the footsteps it had held, the bodies that had swayed their gentle, echoing rhythms all across its surface; an eye I'd seen unseen, third tucked neatly in the center, tucked itself into rest. Prognoz had ushered out the night, the sound, the breath of dozens funneled through show. Bravo, Prognoz.
Jack G: Hi, this is Jack, and who are y'all?
Prognoz: I'm August [Payne] from Prognoz [vocals, and bass]... Logan [Perry] [drums], and Elliott [Jeter] [guitar].
Jack G: What brings you guys to this bill in specific? Y'all from here?
Prognoz: We're not from here. [Logan] and Elliott are from the Eastern Shore, Cecil County, and August is from Lancaster, PA... Amish country.
Jack G: [chuckles] Yeah.
Prognoz: How did we get on this bill...? Not really sure, we book a lot of our shows online, Instagram-- it's a digital world.
Jack G: Absolutely. Met, like, twenty Instagram mutuals out here [chuckles]. They were all, like, "I know you", and I was all, like, "I know you" [chuckles]! How do y'all feel about playing to a younger crowd, more kind of digitized audience?
Prognoz: This was absolutely the youngest crowd we've ever played to, we usually play to old farts [chuckles]. Feels pretty great, honestly. It feels very welcoming, everybody just dancing around with us.
Jack G: How do y'all fuck with, like, the Baltimore scene getting a sense of it tonight?
Prognoz: Beautiful city, beautiful people... home is where you make it. I've been playing music in Baltimore roughly five, six years now. But this band is a new endeavor... [August and Elliott] were making music with a drum machine for, like, a year. When I joined with the drum kit, it became a totally different thing.
Jack G: I get it completely. There's a lot of jazz inflections to the shit y'all play, some math rock influence. A really fascinating endpoint for the show; you got a lotta screamo acts, shit like that. Did you guys know you were gonna be playing something kinda different from everybody else?
Prognoz: Kind of... well, yeah. Seeing the other bands, we'd heard of, like, GRAIL and Insignia.
Jack G: Shout out GRAIL, shout out Insignia.
Prognoz: Yeah, they were awesome-- they ripped... kinda thought about that, how we...
Jack G: Not so much screeching [chuckles]. You guys fuck.
Prognoz: We've been going down this path for a while now... don't know what to call it. Is it post-hardcore? Is it art punk? We call it art punk. Is it [Moroccan] chaabi [popular Moroccan music, combining rural and urban folk music] rock? Lots of Moroccan, North African drum beats in there.
Jack G: Yeah, yeah, the drumming; that was unique, stood out to me immediately, I was like, "Oh shit" [chuckles].
Prognoz: Yeah! I'm a jazz drummer, so I play jazz primarily; beneath that, rock and world music, North African, you know, traditional rhythms.
Jack G: That's fucking awesome. You can feel it in the music. One last question-- what are we smoking tonight?
Prognoz: This is... Camel Blue... yeah, Camel Blue, got them from the same dude.
Jack G: [chuckles] Shit... do I gotta start smoking at sixteen? Is that the move?
Prognoz: We're also sixteen [chuckles]!
Jack G: You guys are beautiful sixteen-year-olds [chuckles]. Anyway, any last thoughts? End of the night.
Prognoz: Shout out Mike Fisher out at Rising Sun Music Emporium... George Thorogood... thank you so, so much to GRAIL and insignia, SO NEAR SO FAR, As Morning Dawns, SPLIT ENDS. Wonderful, wonderful, hardcore fucking music. Very beautiful night, very homey, loved dancing with everybody.
Jack G: Absolutely. Show like this, the community can be very, very internet, you know. But when the community comes together, it's so beautiful.
Prognoz: This was a real showing of community. Not so common, and we raised money for a good cause. We can't wait to come back here again, we'd love to play another show at the skatepark.
Jack G: It's a very pretty venue for sure.
Prognoz: It's beautiful, a wonderful day outside.
Jack G: [chuckles] I can't wait for the photographers, man; you got, like, fifty different things to focus on.
Prognoz: I know! At the start, there were so many people taking pictures... there wasn't a pit, I swear, it was like eight or nine photographers.
Jack G: [chuckles] It was kind of annoying, they all like mogged my shit, bro. I had a regular ass camera [chuckles].
Prognoz: We invited one photographer out... we're thinking the documentation's gonna be fucking mind-blowing.
Jack G: It's gonna be awesome... you know, it takes photographers, like, two weeks to get their shit out, but these guys are gonna be on [Adobe] Lightroom [photo editing software] tweaking shit for, like three, hours [chuckles].
Prognoz: [chuckles] Haha, yeah.
Jack G: But, yes, this was great! Thank you guys so much.
Prognoz: Of course, thank you very much for this interview.
Thinking back to the show, I have a lot of feelings; it's so, so, so inconcievably beautiful that we as a collective could come to support trans individuals. If music can be used as a tool to expand, to create a space, or to just celebrate our environment, it has to be used in some form to react against or resist against fascism. My privilege doesn't pass me, as I sit and write of the ecstasy of music, and love, and the ability to wholly cherish one another through art; my privilege doesn't pass me as I, a cisgender, heterosexual male, write of the power of community to bring together all sorts of people from all sorts of places. Every day, ideologues espouse wildly destructive rhetoric to the detriment of almost 3 million people in this country alone; transgender and nonbinary people are disparaged, disregarded, and dehumanized at a rate not only alarming but worthy of action. Fuck fascists, fuck Trump, and trans rights will always be human rights. We exist in the same water, and we're all wading to the surface. Hold up your brothers and sisters, hand-in-hand, toward the future. None of us are free until all of us are free.
Jack G: How would you introduce yourself to someone completely detached from the scene?
Jahnell Kearney: An aspiring psychologist who loves cats and music.
Jack G: What's your relationship to music in the Baltimore area, and how'd you get into organizing shows?
Jahnell Kearney: My relationship to music in the Baltimore area is a little all over the place. I used to frequent shows for a bit, due to having friends in bands when I was younger. I didn't start getting more involved until my first band when I was twenty-two, and found that it was extremely hard to get booked at venues without knowing someone. I ended up organizing what was supposed to be our first show (ended up being our second, since someone reached out and asked us to play a show last minute). I found a venue where I could organize, but I had to pay just to use the space. I wanted to create my own space where bands can play without the need of connections, knowing someone, or money being used as a condition to just play music. Plus, as a black femme, sometimes I don't feel as welcomed in these spaces and wanted to create my own where anyone can feel welcomed without having to know someone.
Jack G: How did you come up with the idea for a show like this, and how'd you come across the bands you chose?
Jahnell Kearney: I played a show at the skate park with the help of a couple Baltimore crusters who provided the PA and generator. It inspired me to continue to organize shows... Nic [Split Ends] and Ace [As Morning Dawns] were friends of mine, and Ace had asked if anyone wanted to book them for their first show since their last one a year or two ago. So, I created the entire bill for them by asking Nic to open and with the help of Michael [@baltshowplace], promoting my story of looking for bands. I asked for a particular subgenre, and picked out from the numerous bands that reached out that would help with the flow of the bill with similar sounds.
Jack G: How do you feel it went, and, if you could choose, what's something you would've wanted attendees to take away from it?
Jahnell Kearney: It honestly went really well, way better than I expected. It made me really happy to see everyone have fun, be silly, dance, and chat with friends while making new friends. I would want the attendees to take away that anyone can organize a show and that as long as you have a community, anything is possible.
Links to all bands Instagram accounts:
Link to Google Drive file w/ all related photographs:
