Whartscape: Still Happily Rough Around the Edges

BALTIMORE -- "Should we try this or should we wait until it's perfect?" asked a member of the Creepers as he waited for some sound issues to be sorted out before the duo's midday set Saturday at Whartscape.

If he had chosen the latter, the audience would likely still be standing in the enclosed parking lot hosting the third annual festival celebrating Baltimore's bubbling-over independent music scene. But perfect sound was not imperative. After all, most bands on Saturday's bill sound like they are having technical issues even when everything's going smoothly.

And so it goes at Whartscape, the DIY response to Charm City's massive, much more mainstream Artscape festival (held just a few blocks away). All types of noisy, spastic, bizarre bands were on hand for the festival, which has experienced exponential growth over its brief life span.

With acts such as Dan Deacon, Spank Rock and Beach House leading the way, Baltimore has become a hot spot in the indie music world, even winning "Best Scene" honors from Rolling Stone. This year's edition covered six showcases over four days, the highlights being all-day extravaganzas Saturday and Sunday featuring three stages of music on the hot concrete in the city's Mount Vernon arts district. Baltimore bands were well represented, but acts from as far away as Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto were also on the bill.

Baltimore's the Death Set worked the crowd into its biggest frenzy of the day, all pogoing, fist-pumping, crowd-surfing mayhem. The group played its sample-heavy, party punk tunes only at warp speed and served as the best example of the over-the-top energy that Baltimore kids crave.

Lexie Mountain Boys won the title for weirdest act of the day, and it wasn't even close. Less a band and more a performance art troupe, the Boys are actually five girls who were dressed in plastic shopping bags, body paint and fake beards. They presented unaccompanied vocal chants and slightly coordinated dances, suggesting something close to David Lynch's take on a cheerleading squad. The artistic merit was debatable, but the performance was certainly hypnotic.

WZT Hearts and Ecstatic Sunshine played electronics-based improvisational noise, the kind of stuff where it was hard to tell when the sound check ended and the performance started. Thank You was the most refined band of the day, and not just because the trio managed to go from atmospheric to thunderous and back. One member was wearing -- gasp! -- a tucked-in, button-up shirt, a far cry from the thrift-store chic that most festival-goers were decked out in.

The day's most conventional music came courtesy of Eyeball Skeleton, which played rudimentary garage rock songs featuring lyrics that could have been written by elementary school kids. Of course, the band is fronted by a pair of pre-pubescent brothers; Dad played guitar and another adult was on drums.

Even with Whartscape's higher profile, the DIY spirit shone through. Deacon, a de facto head of the Wham City collective that organized the event, didn't perform on Saturday but may have been the day's MVP. He could be spotted picking up garbage, starting the not-so-reliable generators and even propping up a speaker cabinet during an especially rambunctious set by the Mae Shi from Los Angeles. Whartscape may be getting bigger, but it's hard to see any of these bands selling out even if they tried.