The above video can also be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/P4MOe2thmhg
Almost every year I travel to the Washington DC area with my wife to visit her friends and relatives. I’ve been to the 930 Club for a show, and Capital One Arena a couple of times for hockey games. Last year a friend in Baltimore spent a day with me cruising the records stores there, of which there are many. I found a few Gomelsky related records, as I often do when I flip through the bins almost anywhere. All of these places are fun, but I’ve really been wanting to explore an avant-music venue.
I’m not sure when I first heard about Orion Studios in Baltimore, but it wasn’t until I did my extensive interviews with The Muffins earlier this year that I got very interested in visiting the place. Muffin’s drummer Paul Sears really raved about it, and many of the bands on Steve Feigenbaum’s DC based label Cuneiform Records play gigs there. Those gigs are special for many reasons, not the least of which is that they don’t happen very often.
Orion Studios is a recording and rehearsal space that also offers instrument repair service. They call their live music shows the “Showcase Series” and it has featured bands from all over the world. I found this image of a show ticket from 1996.
The Muffins did their final live performance in 2015 at Orion. As part of that event, there was a showing of the then brand new documentary Romantic Warriors III, about the Canterbury scene, which The Muffins had become identified with. In 2018 I purchased the entire Romantic Warriors series as part of my Gomelsky research. It features a lengthy interview with him and others.
I was delighted to see that there would be a show at Orion during my trip to DC this year. A bonus was that Steve Feigenbaum said he planned to go to this show. I would get to meet in person the man I had spent so many hours editing in my Muffins story, not to mention all the music from his label that’s in my record collection.
My Baltimore friend drove us to the show through a section of town I’ve never been to before. Orion is in a semi-industrial area on the outskirts of the city. It being June, there was still plenty of daylight for me to take in the local scenery, such as it was, on our way there. I’m not sure I would call it bleak, but I sure as hell didn’t want the car to break down on us.
The small industrial park that Orion is located in has plenty of parking and seemed quite safe. We were early for the show, and so were many others. Everybody seemed to know each other. It was a very friendly, party-like atmosphere. Some people brought food and drink to share.
I quickly found myself in a conversation with someone who seemed to recognize me. It was José Zegarra Holder, one of the writer/directors of the Romantic Warrior series. I didn’t know what he looked like, but his Romantic Warrior t-shirt gave me a clue to who he was. We had a great conversation and I got to pick his brain a bit about video editing.
Soon after Steve Feigenbaum picked me out of the crowd and it felt like meeting an old friend. We picked up where we left off in our last extended Zoom meeting, but I tried not to drop into “interviewing” mode and simply have a fun chat. I ended up sitting next to Steve as the first band started, and I learned that he’s quite the animated “fan in the stands” once the music starts.
Visiting Orion reminded me of my days in the 80’s and 90’s when there were many similar venues in San Francisco. There might still be some. Maybe you can enlighten me. In 2018 I went to Lennon Studios in SF to see Martin Atkins talk about his days in Public Image Ltd. That space was similar to Orion but in a much more crowed location. They recently “downsized” and no longer have as much space. Not sure if they still do live events.
With that in mind, it was great to visit Orion where I found an actual music “community” not only enjoying the music, but also each others company. All I can say is, enjoy the hell out of it, while you still can.
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