Frederick/D.C. duo An Awful Panic prepare to kick off Fort Reno Concert Series

BY ROY GHIM Special to The News-Post

On the quintessential punk summer to-do list is catching a free show at Fort Reno Park in D.C.’s Tenleytown neighborhood.

The legendary concert series has gone through several iterations since its psychedelic and bluesheavy beginnings as the city’s salve in response to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. Now run by an all-volunteer force that doubles as a who’s who of the Discord/D.C. hardcore scene, the curated outdoor series had showcased bands representing the District’s independent scene. Fugazi, Dismemberment Plan, The Slickee Boys, The Nighthawks, Rites of Spring — they’ve all been there, along with plenty of lesser-known acts.

Opening the series on July 6 is An Awful Panic, a relatively new band with a Frederick connection.

Suffice to say, An Awful Panic is relatively unknown both in D.C. and Frederick, but this intrepid writer hopes to expose the band, before they attempt to blow up, for what they really are: fraudsters pretending to be disaffected punks but secretly classically trained pretentious virtuosos.

Hang on … my sources tell me I’m wrong. They aren’t pretentious, nor out to fool anyone, but they really are classical and jazz musicians who also traffic in an amalgam of other genres like punk, death and doom metal, pop, jazz, electronic and more. My apologies (Note to self: Explosive investigative reporting not in my wheelhouse. Focus on Frederickcentric cultural anecdotes.)

A project that took nearly 10 years to see the light of musical strands, with ideas recorded and frozen on computer files by Frederick-based Aaron Watson, An Awful Panic was put on hold while Watson navigated the timeconsuming logistics of raising kids. Enter the pandemic lockdown, when Watson began to make progress sketching those ideas further with his Library of Congress colleague, drummer Mike Baxter, who contributed from his home in D.C.

The result is the five song EP “All Hail North Stockton,” released on

Bandcamp in late 2022.

In May, alongside Frederick bands Distant Humming and Alien Subculture, they debuted their live sound at the Frederick

DIY venue Sketchy Shed — which, for quick reference, is slightly smaller than the back room of the now-shuttered Guido’s but with more graffiti. Tensions pulling in different directions, Watson and Baxter threw in a curated kitchen sink of influences: a little Sonic Youth here, a sprinkling of modern electronic synth washes there, a dash of Nirvana, then suddenly a 180-degree hard turn to death metal, all while threading the needle between punk rock abandon and nuanced virtuosic contrapuntal texturing. It was quite astonishing for those who bore witness to it, who were excited by the musical adventurousness of the moment.

I recently talked to the duo in Watson’s home studio, where he and Baxter were rehearsing for the Fort Reno show, to find out more about the band and their weirdly enjoyable music.

What’s crazy is before you started this band, you were part of a different Frederick music scene — with the Frederick Symphony Orchestra!

Aaron Watson : Yeah, I played with the Frederick symphony, I think from 2015 to 2017. I have two degrees in double bass and classical music from the University of the Pacific, a small conservatory in Stockton, and a master’s degree from New England Conservatory of Boston. So there was a full push to be a classical, professional classical musician. And I did that. I played in orchestras and taught bass lessons and didn’t like that, as far as what money it would bring. So I went back to school and then got a job in D.C. Then once the kids got to a certain age, I could actually start playing music again.

It’s hard to be a rock dad.

Watson : Yeah. But we’re in good company with Mr. Husband [Kenny Tompkins’ post-New God band and actual husband and father] and others.

Alyssa Boxhill, a fantastic Frederick violinist, someone you played with at the Frederick Symphony and who also moonlights for rock bands on occasion, I got to see her solo concerto last year, and I swear there was this older gentleman in his seat who was head-banging to her lighting-fast violin, like he was at a heavy metal show. There’s a weird but tangential connection between an Eddie Van Halen solo to fast and loud classical virtuosic music.

Watson : Maybe not original rock that came from folk and blues, but bands like Iron Maiden, Van Halen … it’s in fact classical musicians who are just playing rock. It’s just taking that level of learning the instrument in the musical language and then turning it up loud. But then you smash it against the blues part of rock and roll so that you have a new synthesis. Pure rock and roll from the blues and the folk begat punk, right? Which then branched its own prog thing off with Dead Kennedys and Minutemen. Yeah, doing virtuosic, weird stuff with that gritty [sound], some of which keeps wanting to branch off into the classical stream.

You also are into totally other strands of different music, whether it’s jazz or underground rock music, like punk, ’90s grunge, metal and so forth.

Watson : I think that’s the way you listen to music — like, whatever is good. Usually the underground has some good stuff that isn’t exploited or over exploited or diluted. Like Melt-Banana [experimental Japanese noise rock], the first album, you had to be in the underground to hear that. They don’t even sound like that anymore. But that was cool. But I’ll listen to Taylor Swift, too. I think she’s a good songwriter. So you listen to all kinds of stuff. All the people that I get along with best listened to everything. And I think there’s a lot more people who are omnivorous musically, know what I mean?

Musical omnivores. I dig that. Because otherwise you can get into a tunnel vision. Your first show at Sketchy Shed, part of the fun seeing you play was this trigger pad on your drum

If You Go

Fort Reno Concert Series begins at 6 p.m. July 6 with An Awful Panic, Halpines and The Sniffs. Located 4000 Chesapeake St. NW, Washington, D.C., across the street from Jackson-Reed High School.

set. Different electronic sounds, synth washes, all that had people looking at it. What was that?

Mike Baxter : Yeah, it’s a sample pad [MiniNova]. Got it right in there.

Such lovely sounds, added a lot of color.

Watson : We were trying to make as much sound as two people can make. He can play like electro drum sounds, it’s got drum machines, like an 808 style kit.

Baxter : I’ve always I’ve always been into this drummer named Akira Jimbo. And he is like a hybrid drummer [playing both acoustic and electronic drums].

Was there a xylophone sound coming from that?

Baxter : Oh yeah, it’s a marimba loop. I used that as a transition loop while he [Watson] was doing his tuning.

Fort Reno as a concert series is a pretty legendary. How did you get that gig?

Baxter : It’s always been something in my adulthood I’ve enjoyed, going out and seeing bands there. I played there before with my band The Trajectories. Last March, on a whim, I told Aaron about it [explaining the submission process to be selected for the series] and we had one more week left to get it in. I’m just super excited that that she [Amanda MacKaye] picked us. It’s super awesome, man. It’s, like, everybody, parents can bring their kids, and it’s just such a fun, big community event. My 5-year-old will be there. With headphones on. I think it’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be awesome.