Sean Na Na (left) and Lucky Jeremy. (You may want to imagine them with shirts on)

"Hello, Partland!" When you think of Baltimore, I imagine most people tend to think of Francis Scott Key sitting around a campfire, strumming a guitar and singing "The Star Spangled Banner". Either that, or you think of the Ottobar, a wonderful place in an alley (and just a few blocks from the Chesapeake Bay). The Ottobar is nice because it's as small as the Hole in the Wall in Austin, but here, their stage takes up half of the floor space.

On a night when four bands are playing (one with seven members), you essentially get a club filled with musicians, a few young kids with shiny hair, my girlfriend and myself. On this Sunday, April 2, the four bands were the Holy Childhood, Sean Na Na and Atom & his Package, followed lastly by the Rondelles. I had never heard the Holy Childhood before, but the other three were all groups I'd be willing to see any day and any time.

I arrived with my friend at the bar around 9:00, and I think my girlfriend and I were about the fourth and fifth people there. Numbers 6 and 7 belonged to Atom Goren (with his Package) and his good friend Josh (who's in the band Franklin, which Atom often mentions in his music). They came shortly after I ordered two Guinness beers and I noticed they ordered a Sierra Nevada and Pabst Blue Ribbon. If you're young and want to imitate your favorite musicians, buy beer that's cheap and American.

Josh and Atom ended up sitting across my friend and I at the bar. There, I got to introduce myself as a Phillies fan and thanked Atom for his songs about the baby Connor (my brother just had a child named Connor too, so Atom's records will end up becoming a cool gift to him). He was very appreciative, talked about the changes in his friend's child, and said he had a special feeling this year about the Phillies. I asked the nice bartender if the bar had a "house beer", which made her somewhat laugh at me -- if you're young and sensitive and want to make a good impression to a bartender at a small bar, don't ask this question -- so I ended up getting a beer made right in Baltimore. It was quite awful, and I don't know how the Orioles could have beat the Phillies in their World Series showdown from a few years back. With beer like that, a city should topple.

Anyway, it might not sound like I'm talking about the show, but these early moments are always a great part of the memories when I go out to see music. It's just cool, when you enjoy an artist, that you often get to talk directly to him or her, especially when their muse so pleases the populace that they get booked in tiny joints like the Ottobar. After exhausting my conversation with Atom -- he's quite funny, to the point of being intimidating when you're a bit dim like me -- I got to see Sean Tillman arrive with his posse (Ben and Lucky Jeremy, who was giving away wristbands that said "I adore you, Lucky Jeremy"). Atom introduced them to Josh and I stopped being nosy for a while. A little bit later, all seven of the Holy Childhood arrived, followed shortly thereafter by Oakley of the Rondelles. On this night, Oakley seemed far more down to Earth, a little more human than when you see him play his keyboards and drums at the same time. He sat down to the side of my girlfriend and talked to a guy who ended up "subbing" for new Rondelles member Corey. I don't know what this guy's name was, but he only played tambourine. Do tambourine players matter much? I noticed, when the tambourine guy left and Oakley was by himself, he almost kept his head to the ground, with eyes lowered to bay-level.

After leaving the bar to introduce myself to Sean -- my shyness does not seem that bad anymore -- I got to learn quite quickly how nice a guy he is. My girlfriend was glad to hear this, and not at all surprised. I think she once had John Cusack give her a sweater she complimented, so now she thinks all artists are just overflowing with rivers of kindness. She might be right. And Klaus Kinski wrote a good book, by the way. Young kids, rejoice: it's dirty too.

Well, it seemed as if the show was abou to start, and start it did with just Danny Leo. He used to be in a group called the Sin Eaters, and now he leads Holy Childhood. If he's religious, he keeps it to himself. After a short acapella moment, his backing band joined him onstage. The drummer has a big beard, and may be in his mid-thirties. The two guitarists and trumpet player have moustaches. If you've seen "Boogie Nights", they remind me a lot of people in those films. The songs from Holy Childhood's soon-to-be-released CD, Up With What I'm Down With (on Gern Blandsten Records), appear to be quite intense. Danny's got a wonderful voice and stage presence and the wall of guitars support him with an incredible barrage of melodic noise. Softer than Rye Coalition, perhaps, but still quite intense, and their trumpet player is fantastic too! When their songs needed her, a female tambourine player (and backing vocalist) came onstage as well. Mostly she seemed there for the stage show, but she's worthy of kind words. She's rather tall too.

When Sean Na Na took the stage, I guess it was about 11:15. Their set included "the Bottom", my favorite song from their new CD, as well as "Princess and the Pony", my favorite to see them play live. While Sean Tillman is an incredible songwriter, the shows mostly showcase his great voice and his band's energetic (if not Clapton-like) playing. Admittedly, I had a hard time remembering Lucky Jeremy and Ben Webster onstage with Sean, but much of that has to do with the charisma Sean doles out like Bob (I don't think that makes sense. Don't ponder it). For their final song on this tour, Sean leads Sean Na Na through a great, straight rendering of an R Kelly ballad. Yukiko and Juliet of the Rondelles get to the front of the stage and do a bump-and-grind while Sean gets so into his performance he falls flat onto a front speaker and rubs his middle section against it as he completes the song. When back on his feet, he tells people, if they get a chance, that "you gots to give that a try". Okay, I'm paraphrasing but it was funny.

Following Sean Na Na was Atom and his Package. Some people don't consider Atom a punk rocker, but I guess they just don't listen to him sing "Punk Rock Academy"; if that isn't done with as much aggression as anyone from Circle Jerks and such, then what is? It seems you either love Atom or hate him; it's like in life, when you're either smart or stupid. Atom is a lot of fun in concert, and when he picks up the guitar to play a Fracture song or to accentuate an original, the guitar's almost a hindrance. I really think the Package shines well enough at his show, even though you can't exactly call it human. Having had the chance to see him the following night (at the Black Cat) too, it's reasonable to say that his set list does not change much. I guess his hits are "Happy Birthday Ralph", "Hats Off to Halford", "What We Do On Christmas", "Connor Welcome", and the "Black Metal Friends" song. They're all wonderful when performed live, and allow him to precede each with a short, well-crafted story. In these openings, the punk in his atoms show through, as he's very honest. He doesn't mind praising Rob Halford's courage to come out of the closet, or saying his music sucks. He's also willing to begin a song with "The church, the church, the church is on fire/We don't need no water/Let the motherfucker burn". Though not religous himself, this is done just for laughs, but laughter of the sort most people are afraid of. Sean Tillman played with him onstage, by the way, and their back-and-forth banter was also quite fun. As Atom introduced "What We Do On Christmas", saying how some people think Jews are all about power and world domination, Sean chimes in, "Totally". I don't think I replayed that joke too well in these words, but their between-song-banter was hilarious, like Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, especially if Johnny and Ed shared a fondness for rappers' rhetoric.

The final group of the night, and the only one to ever take time setting up, was the Rondelles. As mentioned earlier, Corey was not with them this evening, but I hope he sticks with them. He's a fun guitarist to watch play with Yukiko. Tonight Yukiko was in high fashion but the rest of the band looked a bit ordinary. It was nice to see, in a sense, 'cause it proved how much fun they are even when their clothes aren't screaming it. That night at the Ottobar, they played "Rediscover Fire", which is simply one of the best rock songs ever, and they had, as always, loads of fun (which always makes it lots of fun for us fans too). As Yukiko became quite warm, there was even a moment when the great guitarist changed her tops onstage (undressing behind the non-Rondelle tambourine guy). After that, she played the rest of the night in just a vest, and it certainly warmed the club, or something did. As Yukiko and Juliet did for him, Sean Tillman was right up in front, dancing through the whole set and making the whole night seem like a private show for the bands, with us spectators just there to enjoy it.

When the Rondelles finished, it was almost 2:00 a.m., but these bands are like Prince; they seem to get more lively the later it gets. For a finale, everyone who played got up on stage for one last time, as Sean began to lead them through "Knocking On Heaven's Door". Here, as my girlfriend deftly pointed out, you realize just what a great voice Sean possesses. While Atom's up there, playing guitar with the Holy Childhood crew, Sean passes singing chores to Juliet, and she brings the microphone offstage to the few remaining people in the club. The mic gets passed around from one person to the next, and it's all part of an amazing party. Danny of the Holy Childhood begins to strip onstage, dropping his pants as Yukiko laughs, then he and Juliet begin to trade off bizarre, Tiny-Tim-like interpretations of the Dylan song...and by now, they've all been knocking on Heaven's door for about thirty minutes. It would have been a wonderful moment to have filmed.

With the show over at 2:00 a.m., I conceded my upcoming workday would suck, but I'd take little sleep over no music most any time, especially when it's as fun and impassioned as these four bands on display this past April 2nd. In addition, it's just nice to see people like Atom so generous to his fans (a few foosball games with all the young punks before his Black Cat show) and his fellow peers (two very interesting covers of Mountain Goats songs, as performed by him and his Package). Perhaps not rude enough for Sid Vicious' tastes, but undeniably better.