Gary Kachadourian

When making a list of great Baltimore books I feel like it’s necessary to start with Eamon Espey’s Songs of the Abyss and Dina Kelberman’s Relax. In my humble opinion Printed Matter needs these books in its inventory (they won’t regret it). That said, there are some equally excellent titles on the website. Shaun Flynn, Artist Music Journals Edition 02, makes the best sculptural objects and graphic inventions (show posters) in Baltimore so you have to want to own that publication. Issue 03 with Daniel Higgs would be pretty great too. I’m also really into looking at a geographical and narrative Baltimore/Chicago flip flop with Terence Hannum’s Corpse Flower (Baltimore, formerly Chicago) and Edie Fake’s Gaylord Phoenix (Chicago, formerly, for a short time, Baltimore) with both books offering very different forms of dark journeys. Lastly I just want to note Conor Stechschutte’s The Spirit World is the best walk in the woods ever.

Here is what is arguably the greatest Baltimore geographical shout out song ever recorded, Miss Tony’s EA EA. For those of you not living in Baltimore that’s Edmonson Avenue.

Terence Hannum

Baltimore has a deep history of artist’s books/zines and ephemera from music zines to indie comics. Here are a few art publications in the hold at Printed Matter that have caught my attention or been done by artists who have diverse practices that I think need attention. Some of the artists are still in Baltimore, like Gary Kachadourian, while some have moved on, like Nicholas Gottlund, of course more will come.

The title of our post comes from a lyric from the song “You Did Not Exist” by Lungfish, here is a video of them performing this live in all its hypnotic repetitive glory. I also included a track by The Tamlins covering Nina Simone’s track “Baltimore” – ‘tryin’ to find the ocean, lookin’ everywhere’ that line still cuts a bit.

And if you come and visit make sure you check out new space Rock 512 Devil and keep your eyes on what will happen to Open Space as they move on from the fire that ruined their old location last year.