-- Chris Davis of The Memphis Flyer

  -- Chris Davis of The Memphis Flyer

Charmed, We're Sure

By Charles Cohen, Photo By Sam Holden

Seven months ago, four guys and a girl looking for adventure and a fertile music scene in which to nurture a band ventured into the exotic Land of Pleasant Living.

Most young musicians with Type-A personalities try unleashing themselves upon New York or Los Angeles., Seattle or Austin. But listening to these Tennessee nomads reflect upon their indoctrination into Baltimore culture -- their fascination with Formstone, their fear of scrapple, their praise of the local scene -- is to hear our same-old-same-old reborn as pure inspiration.

Dale Naron (courteous frontman), Aaron Brame (class clown), Chris Ward (rambling man -- since our interview he's left Baltimore and the band for Brooklyn, N.Y.), John Whitaker (emotional ballast), and Jennifer Lee (atmosphere-seeking artist, friend of the band but not a member) left Memphis -- and what they say is an ailing music scene -- for a city they'd never so much as visited. The Great Depression, as the band is called, arrived last September in a convoy of four Volkswagen buses, communicating via walkie-talkie as they made their way up the highway. The only certainty about what awaited them were jobs at the Inner Harbor Hard Rock Café for Whitaker and Naron, who'd worked at the chain's Memphis outpost.

Whitaker says they decided upon Baltimore -- their bosses let them choose which city to transfer to -- because it is the northernmost Southern town, ideal for launching Northeastern tours while staying in reasonably close to their roots. Besides, he says, New York is too expensive, and Philadelphia too much like New York.

Before hitting the road, the friends shared their vague impressions, which they got from friends who had been here, of what Baltimore might be like. Naron thought it would be like an ant colony, populated by rude people rushing in and out of office towers. Lee imagined a green, tree-lined city.

"[Baltimore] was always painted in a very innocent way," Brame says. "All I ever heard [about] was the Orioles and Camden Yards."

"And Tori Amos," Naron adds, name-checking the star who studied at the Peabody Conservatory.

None of the quintet knew anything about the City of Neighborhoods' neighborhoods, or about the city's historic architecture and reams of rowhouses. Where they came from, they say, every home has a yard or garage, and there are no historic urban homes, Memphis having suffered much damage in the Civil War.

"I've never seen such a thing," Naron says. "I think in my hometown in Lake Village, Ark., where I grew up, we lived in this apartment complex when I was 9. Now that I think back on it, it was basically four rowhouses sitting in the middle of a cotton field."

They also discovered homes that seemed to be made of some kind of alien rocklike substance. A debate ensued about the pinkish and bluish material's authenticity.

"We still weren't sure [whether Formstone was real rock] until we saw one hit by a car and saw a big piece broken off with, like, the chicken wire behind it," Whitaker says.

They found their piece of Formstone in Upper Fells Point. The place is set up like the typical band house -- the requisite lava lamp in the corner, a basement practice room bedecked with strings of Christmas lights, and a fretboard chart bearing the admonition NOTES FOR STUPID. The four Vespa scooters in the front room give the place a chop-shop look.

From their first day in Baltimore, the members of the Great Depression have been on the path of assimilation. Whitaker says eyeglasses here are more stylish. Naron notes their neighbors' predilection for ankle socks and pegged jeans. They were amused by what they call the "hillbilly poser" movement -- folks on the music scene who hang hand-framed photos of trailers in their living rooms and wear tight cutoffs and rebel-flag belt buckles to club shows.

"This music scene -- this Arkansas chic, people walking around acting like they're from trailer parks -- they have no idea," Naron says.

They were delighted to discover crab cakes -- a step up (in price as well as taste) from the Memphis delicacy "garballs," made from a fish called "gar" (known as carp up North) ground up and deep-fried. But none of the newcomers has the stomach for scrapple. Naron recalls asking a waitress at the Fells Point landmark Jimmy's Restaurant about it.

"She said, 'It's a breakfast meat,'" he says. "I said, 'No, no, no, you're not getting off that easy.' " But he never did get a better explanation.

After six months of writing music and practicing, the Great Depression emerged from their Fells Point basement in February to play a show, at the Ottobar.

Standing in an alley outside the downtown rock club, Lee gazes up at the architectural flourishes of the neighboring Clarence M. Mitchell Courthouse. People who grew up here, she says, don't realize how good they have it. New York is just a four-hour drive away; back home, they had to drive 13 hours to Atlanta to see the Beastie Boys.

"It's sort of cozy but a little bit progressive, but not cozy in a backwoods, Southern way, where it's comfortable and no one's trying new things," Lee says of her new home.

©2000 Baltimore City Paper