Ed Schrader needed a wider audience.
In the past, when the local musician and comedian brought his abstract jokes and songs to other states, few people came to his shows. He was relatively unknown outside of Baltimore and struggled to build a national fan base. Starting this week, that could all change.
Schrader landed a spot on the Baltimore Round Robin Tour, the biggest traveling display of Baltimore bands in years. Baltimore's music scene has been getting national exposure for its raw sounds and ingenuity, and a group of local musicians wanted to strike now while they're in the spotlight.
"Now is the time we might be able to afford it," said Lexie Macchi, one of the performers on the tour. "It seems like both a silly time to do it and a good time to do it. This is the sort of thing that will either help humanity or end up sinking us deeper into debt and humility."
The experimental arts collective Wham City helped organize the tour, which is an innovative idea and considerable undertaking: A couple dozen bands - split into two groups - would hit the road on one bill. In each city, the ambient bands would perform the first night (called "Eyes Night"), and the harder-hitting acts would play a second night ("Feet Night"). Featuring 30 acts from various corners of the city's music scene, the roughly two-week tour starts Thursday in Boston, snakes up to Montreal and then back down to New York City.
These shows could be a huge boost for Schrader's fledgling musical career. He's in the midst of releasing his first album, and will perform songs from it as part of the Round Robin.
"It's a big step for me as a musician in Baltimore," Schrader said. "Those guys already have a huge following and have been touring for years. It helps the little guys like myself a lot."
Like this summer's Virgin Mobile Festival, the Round Robin Tour brings together drastically different bands. Post-punk trio Double Dagger shares a bill with electronica DJ/keyboardist Adventure and experimental singer/songwriter Lizz King.
But unlike a traditional festival lineup, the Baltimore Round Robin Tour has no headliner. Each night, the bands set up along the walls of the venue. One group plays a song. Then the group next to them plays a song, and so forth. The music circles around the room like this three or four times, until the show is over.
Macchi hasn't seen anything quite like the round-robin format since she moved to Baltimore in 2002 and started putting concerts together. She's a member of the Lexie Mountain Boys, an a cappella performance art troupe.
"It's kid of a promotional dream," Macchi said. "Everybody wins. It's a really egalitarian way to do a show."
The round-robin format gives the entire lineup control over the show's momentum. It's the perfect setup for music lovers in the ADD generation, Schrader said.
"When most kids go to shows, if there's five bands playing and a 20-minute breakdown between each band, people get really bored," Schrader said. "The round-robin situation is this tight, exuberant little package that just comes at you - bam, bam, bam. As long as it keeps that flow of energy going, it will be a lot more successful than a festival-type thing."
Wham City organized their first Round Robin Tour in the fall of 2006. The idea, the brainchild of electro-pop composer and performer Dan Deacon, helped attract Schrader to Wham City. At the time, Schrader had just moved to the city, and though he knew some of the folks in the collective, he had not yet "penetrated the membrane of Wham City," as he puts it. He lived on the second floor of the Copy Cat building, and would occasionally wander up to the fourth floor to watch them rehearse for the tour.
"I remember being so envious," Schrader said. "All these amazing, transgressive musicians coming together and unifying under one banner - it was really something to see. I just thought to myself, I would love to be part of that someday."
Eventually, Schrader's persistence, odd sense of humor and unfettered enthusiasm earned him a spot in the Wham City ranks.
Launching a tour of this scale when gas prices are still high and the economy is sluggish could rack up big bills, Macchi admits. To make the trip greener and help cut costs, the organizers acquired a tour bus that runs on vegetable oil. They put out an open call for vegetable oil on the tour's Web site, offering spots on the guest list for anyone who could offer large quantities of the stuff along the tour route.
Though the tour still has its kinks (like finding enough vegetable oil for the bus), organizers and participants are responding to the challenge with their ever-present enthusiasm. Wham City's events have a history of being busted or shut down before they're finished (even the first Round Robin show a couple years ago ended early), but that hasn't stopped them from trying.
"It's pretty intense," said Adam Endres, a member of Wham City and the rock group Blood Baby.
"Expectations are high," he said. "Anxiety is high. Everyone is feeling the full range of emotions. I have confidence. I think it's going to go as smoothly as it can go."
