Live Entertainment

Two Waverly businesses hoping to offer live music are at the center of a conflict over "live culture" in the North Baltimore community.Melba's Place, a nightclub that opened last year in the 3100 block of Greenmount Ave., will go before the zoning board today for a hearing on an application to allow live music. The other, Normal's, a 9-year-old used book and record store on the 400 block of E. 31st St., will be heard March 2.Both are vying for the support of the Abell Improvement Association, which until this month stood firmly against live music.

'Rapunzel'Let down your hair for a whimsical musical version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Rapunzel," performed weekends through March at the Hannah More Arts Center. Hear a comical musical score and see choreography by local Pumpkin Theatre talent. This original adaptation was written by playwright Mark Andrew Beachy and directed by Elaine K. Beardsley. The musical is recommended for children ages 4 and up and adults."Rapunzel" is performed at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday and March 20, March 21, March 27 and March 28 at the Hannah More Arts Center, St. Timothy's School, Greenspring Avenue in Stevenson.

A package of bills has been introduced in the Maryland Senate to reform the way the city regulates liquor licenses.Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden, who chairs the city's Senate delegation, said that the bills were introduced at the request of the city liquor board to help make the board more responsive to residents.The Democrat said the measures focus on providing community input when taverns add live entertainment, giving the liquor board authority over establishments on The Block and making the three-member board more efficient.

Baltimore police detectives said yesterday they are getting calls from residents and witnesses in the slayings Thursday of two college students at Volcano's, the popular East Baltimore nightclub."

Volcano's, the popular East Baltimore nightclub where two people were shot to death Thursday, has operated for the past four years without a permit from the city allowing it to feature dancing and live entertainment.The city's housing department shut down Volcano's, in the 1000 block of Greenmount Ave., Friday after discovering the nightclub's certificate of occupancy allowed it to operate only a private, member-sponsored club, Zack Germroth, a spokesman for the Housing and Community Development Department, said yesterday.

Don't forget to get your tickets for the roast beef dinner sponsored by the United Methodist Men of Brooklyn Heights United Methodist Church, 110 Townsend Ave. Dinner will be served from 3 p.m. until 7 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $8 for adults, $4 for children ages 6 to 12. Children age 5 and under get in free. The meal includes sliced roast beef, potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn, an unlimited salad bar, bread, dessert and beverages. Live entertainment will be provided by the Sons of the Severn and the Baltimore Harbor Chorus and Quartet.

Philadelphia will be a busy place next weekend as the CoreStates USPRO Cycling Championship, the richest one-day professional bicycle race in the United States, is held there June 4 along with the CoreStates Liberty Classic for women. The two races, which attract top professional cyclists from around the world, will run simultaneously beginning at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway about 9 a.m.The CoreStates Championship attracts some 700,000 spectators, topping off a weekend filled with events, including a Victorian block party, centennial celebrations, a competition for amateur cyclists, a family fun ride and a heritage festival.

Today kicks off the 97th annual Carroll County 4-H/FFA Fair, held at the county Agriculture Center in Westminster.Beginning today and running each day through Saturday, the fair will invite visitors from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. to enjoy exhibits and entertainment.Last year, more than 1,000 4-Hers participated in the fair, and this year even more exhibitors and exhibits are expected to be involved.Exhibits range from cows to computers.In addition to live entertainment each night, the cake auction, livestock auction, horse and mule pulls will be featured on specific days.

Can vaudeville make a comeback in this electronic era of channel surfing and virtual reality?That's the question facing a local group seeking to restore Baltimore's once-magnificent Hippodrome Theater to its 1914 splendor.The National Museum of Live Entertainment Inc., a private, nonprofit group headed by Donald Hicken, last week secured an option to buy the vacant theater at 12 N. Eutaw St. for "about $800,000" from an affiliate of Continental Realty.The option gives the group until early next year to determine whether it would be feasible to reopen the building as part of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's effort to transform the Howard Street corridor into an "avenue of the arts."

Baltimore's Mayfair Theater may reopen as a performing and media arts center affiliated with Towson State University as part of the Schmoke administration's campaign to make Howard Street a thriving "avenue of the arts."The Baltimore Development Corp. has been working with Towson State representatives to explore ideas for renovating the theater at 506 N. Howard St. and the adjacent Congress Hotel at 306 W. Franklin St., properties that have been vacant for several years.The city-owned theater is one of three downtown theaters for which local groups are exploring arts-related restoration plans.

One member of the development team served as the volunteer owner's rep for a $30 million expansion of Baltimore's School for the Arts. Two others recently turned the dilapidated Census Building on Howard Street into Miller's Court, a $20 million center with affordable housing for teachers and offices for local nonprofits. Now they've joined forces in an effort to save one of the most prominent landmarks in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District, the historic but dormant Parkway Theatre at 3-5 W. North Ave. Samuel Polakoff, managing director of Cormony Development and a member of the Board of Overseers at the School for the Arts, and Donald and Thibault Manekin of Seawall Development Corp.

Baltimore's zoning board could gain new authority under legislation Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector plans to introduce Monday that supports a controversial live entertainment bill. Spector's measure would allow the Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals to reverse the property-use permission known as "conditional use" that the city currently grants but can never revoke. "What is given can be taken," Spector said. The bill says that exemptions to underlying zoning rules are not "out there for perpetuity," she said.

In a town as lively and full of talent as Baltimore, it's a shame the night life isn't all it could be. There are plenty of venues that would gladly trade their juke boxes for live musical acts, poetry readings and performance art, thus burnishing their image as local watering holes. It not need all be high-decibel, heavy-metal garage band fare. We recall a time when a bookstore-cafe along Charles Street served up string quartets performed by Peabody Institute students, lute concerts by a local early music group and ragtime piano played on an old upright.

Frustrated by uneven zoning rules that let some bars in Fells Point hire classical guitarists and singers but prohibit live entertainment at other establishments, neighborhood tavern owners begged the City Council to make the code fairer and more consistent. Their councilman suggested changing Baltimore zoning rules so that many more bars and restaurants could offer live performances as long as communities supported their efforts. But neighbors balked, fearing that bars would blare music and attract throngs of inebriated concert-goers, and the bill died.

For years, customers at the trendy Harbor East restaurant Pazo could get up and dance if they liked the house music. That stopped about 18 months ago, when city officials threatened to shut down the restaurant if the dancing continued, according to co-owner Tony Foreman. Pazo operates in a B-2 business district, where live entertainment is not allowed. Technically, when Foreman's patrons got up and danced, it was considered live entertainment. Foreman was shocked. "We were warned that playing music and people getting up and dancing to music - we're talking about grown-ups dancing to a little bit of music after dinner - is illegal and we'd be shut down and lose our [liquor]

The last time I was at Arundel Mills, I was stuffing hunks of roasted chicken into my fat face and watching knights on horseback joust in front of a roaring crowd while a comely wench kept coming up to my table and saying: "More to drink, sire?" Oh, do I know how to live or what? This was last year at Medieval Times, where these feast-and-fighting extravaganzas are held in a replica of an 11th-century castle and tickets are $50.95 for adults, which doesn't exactly sound like a bargain in this economy.

The Baltimore venues where live music and entertainment can be heard run the gamut from a renovated power plant and Irish bars to neighborhood taverns and dance clubs. But if a restaurant in a residential area wants to feature a trio during brunch or a coffeehouse would like to host a poetry slam, city zoning laws stand in the way. City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake would like to promote a lively, more diverse entertainment scene and offer businesses an easy route to provide it. She's got the right idea, but expanding government to accomplish that goal isn't the best approach.

It's Oktoberfest in July at state fairgrounds Festival Get your lederhosen out of the closet, pack the kids into the minivan and head over to the Maryland State Fairgrounds for a two-day celebration of all things German. The 108th German Festival features live entertainment, including traditional dancing and folk singing; children's entertainment, including a puppet show and a rock-climbing wall; crafts; German food; imported and domestic beer; and more. Free parking provided. The festival runs 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday and 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday.

Baltimore's night scene, from dance clubs and karaoke bars to stand-up comedy and poetry slams, could get a boost under a bill expected to be introduced today in the City Council. The proposal, sponsored by City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, would ease zoning restrictions on restaurants and taverns offering live entertainment. Instead, the bill would create a five-member board that would license the businesses. Rawlings-Blake, who has long championed the city's entertainment sector, said she hopes the measure will encourage restaurants and taverns to offer customers something more than drinking games - but also protect residents who live near bars.

Fall festival -- Greenstreet Gardens, 391 W. Bay Front Road, Lothian, will hold its annual Fall Festival every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through Oct. 31. It will include hayrides, a pumpkin patch, a corn and straw maze, a cow train, a teepee, face and hair painting, and live entertainment. 410-867-9500 or www.greenstreetgardens.com.