Best of Baltimore

Best Live Band
The Death Set


Photo By:Jefferson Jackson Steele

Usually we wait to kill bands until the issue is actually on the stands, but in the run-up to this year's Best of Baltimore, we learned that our best live band was going taking a hiatus due to visa issues. Which is a fuckin' shame, because for the last 12 months the two antipodean punx that make up the Death Set have provided the most entertaining spectacle you can get in a club that doesn't offer people taking their clothes off. Wiry, bespectacled, and white-dude Afro'd Johnny Siera and Beau Velasco bash out screechy little pop ditties, like Chipmunk Punk come to life. But the band's killer app is the tinny, preprogrammed beats and pieces--we've heard Ludacris, B-more club, Dizzee Rascal, and more--that come flying out of its iPod rhythm section. And, like all good punk rock, the set's over before you can blink. Plus, judging by all the sweat and pogoing, the kids seem to like them, always a good sign with this rock music thing.