On Thursday, May 17 during the Gonna Get Got/ Tub Ring show Lo-Fi Social club was abruptly shut down. Although temporarily, there has been a resounding support for Neil Freebairn, the owner. With the sudden bad news it comes to a shock to the local music community. Lo-Fi hasn't even been in business for a year and began getting harassment from the authorities just a few weeks prior. What would cause a local venue, minding it's own business, to be shut down in the middle of a show? Neil was gracious enough to take time out of his lunch break to talk to me over the phone about the beginining, middle, and the future of Lo-Fi.

    First on the list of many questions I ask how he is doing, he sounds calm cool and collected. Of course he has had four days to soak it all in, "Through all of this I actually have a friend that has become sort of a partner to help me with all the legal stuff; paperwork. He is actually at the courts now, I should find to by the end of the day when we can open back up for business." The authorities (code officers, fire marshalls, and the like) had been making several visits to the club weeks prior, "Four times within three weeks, three out of the four times they said everything was fine." So what could be the cause of this? Neil gives me three: Club Mate, disgruntled developers, or a disturbed residence with pull in the city. There have been many calls of complaint to police about the rowdy nature of the clubgoers. Neil says, "I haven't had any problem wih the club even though they are close by but if Club Mate has to change their policies the same goes for us." Reason number two: Could it be that the prominent developers that want to build up around Lo-Fi's location want them out? Very possible indeed, residential condos are scheduled to be built next door to where LoFi is housed. Of course a rock venue doesn't fit into the "revitalization" of the area. Baltimore developers have been known to be rutheless in the past so shutting down an indepently own local venue is easy. But wait, it could just be a very disgruntled resident. Regardless of what the reason, Lo-Fi is definitely moving to a new location.

    "I spent most of the weekend looking at places and we decided where we want to move it.", Neil says with excitement. The place is on Charles St. near Club Charles and The Charles Theatre. "It has two store fronts. We are thinking of turning one of the store fronts into an indie record store. I'm very serious about doing this and only have indie labels merch." And with the new found understanding of the legal system Lo-Fi is doing it right. Even on the Friday after Mobtown Theatre in Hampden allowed the show that was supposed to take place at Lo-Fi to happen there. "It was eally nice of them to that especially on such short notice, it was a great show. People didn't expect me to come out, they thought I would be home healing my wounds.", Neil says with a laugh.

    So don't fret, Lo-Fi will be back stronger than ever. With an uproar of support everywhere including local plumbers, furniture makers, and other venues this one situation is not taking the best of the Baltimore music scene and might even make it stronger in the months ahead. A town known for it's low show turnout rate this type of venue is definitely changing that and will only be fueled by its slight demise to push foward. I commend Neil on his strength and his goals to keep going.