Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic: Summary

24 Hours of Exotic Hypnotic.

This event was a crash-course in who's who of the Baltimore experimental music scene. There's a rich diversity of activity in Charm City and I learned a lot by sticking it out through the great, good, bad and ugly of it all. And I'd be happy to do it all again... after some sleep.

One thing I noticed is that this entire operation is practically a one-man ordeal as John Berndt produced nearly every aspect of this endeavor. He was responsible for bookings, keeping things on schedule, cleaning up ungodly amounts of ketchup, announcing every act and who knows what else. At times he seemed to have a better understanding of signal flow than any of the electronic music artists on stage as he also handled live mixing. For his long, long hours (and I have some idea of just how long they were) and his impromptu circular-breathing performance on the soprano saxophone after Old Songs' set I personally thank him for his efforts this past weekend. The Baltimore music scene would be a less vibrant affair without his efforts to bring it all together like this. He clearly has a passion for this music to endure so much work on its behalf. Thanks, John.