#rva

Clair Morgan

/ You Hear That?!? / Leave a comment

Clair Morgan

Music is full of little miracles that are easy to overlook. One of the most fundamental is the fractured nature of performing as part of a band.

When you’re at your favorite venue, hearing familiar songs come out of a few, huge speakers, it’s easy to process it all as one thing, and to forget that the parts of that whole are the result of individual human beings putting into motion an unfathomable number of neural pathways and muscle groups in just the right order, at just the right time. It’s what makes being in a band so frustrating and so rewarding. When you get up on stage to perform with other people, you’re on a tightrope together, and the gravitational pull of chaos never abates. The universe does not want to be as ordered as you’re forcing it to be when you play a song.

After spending a few days thinking about why I so enjoyed seeing Clair Morgan at Strange Matter on Friday night, I’ve decided it has something to do with the remarkable way they walked that tightrope, and the daring way the band’s frontman and namesake (“Clair Morgan is and is not a band,” as the t-shirt I bought at the show explains) courts chaos, making the walk all the more thrilling.

Continue reading →

#wrircon4

/ You Hear That?!? / 1 Comment

Commonwealth-of-Notions-2014

Good ideas can’t be contained. They expand to fit people’s appreciation of them, and Shannon Cleary’s notion that Richmond’s music scene deserves a weekend of celebration and acknowledgment is a great example. We’re nearing the fourth edition of the WRIR and the Commonwealth of Notions Presents festival, and Cleary has outdone himself yet again, putting together a winning lineup of bands that will showcase the depth and breadth of Richmond’s musical talent over the course of four gloriously noisy days.

With the start of the festivities set for this Thursday, I asked Cleary a few questions about what goes into planning for the event and how this year’s festivities are shaping up.

Continue reading →

Sleepwalkers

/ You Hear That?!? / Leave a comment

Sleepwalkers

Almost exactly two years ago, when writing about Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, I coined a term (sounds so much better than “made up a word,” doesn’t it?) that I’m still waiting for popular culture to whisk away. It’s confrenzus — the consensus frenzy that results from a book, movie or album that is so clearly worthy of acclaim that everywhere you look, someone is heaping praise on it.

There’s a confrenzus brewing, and it’s about to bubble over at the Broadberry. Tonight is the release show for Greenwood Shade — the new album from Richmond-based band Sleepwalkers — and I can’t resist joining the chorus in saying that tonight’s event (which also features Black Girls and Dead Professional) is well worth your time.

Continue reading →

Bone & Company

/ You Hear That?!? / 1 Comment

Bone & Company

Remember that scene from Days of Thunder when Robert Duvall says, incredulously, “There ain’t nothin’ stock about a stock car”? (I hope you remember it, because I couldn’t find it on YouTube, which was a bitter disappointment. C’mon, Internet.)

That line came to mind when I listened to Bone & Company’s cover of the traditional folk song “Moonshiner.” I’ve been though periods of light obsession with four other recordings of “Moonshiner” — first Frank Hoier’s (after I saw him play it in a since-closed Richmond coffee shop I can’t recall the name of), then Bob Dylan’s, then Punch Brothers’, then Cat Power’s. They’re all fantastic, but they’re all, well, traditional. To greater and lesser degrees, they fit a template that’s been agreed upon over the years, traits acquired through a natural selection-ish process of addition and subtraction. Acoustic guitar. Fingerpicking. Long, resigned notes sung over sparse arrangements that suit the lyrics’ message of isolation. Even the Punch Brothers version, which adds layers of graceful complexity as only PB can, and Cat Power’s, with its mournful chords and atmospherics, can’t escape the song’s well-established tone. They’re evolved, but they’re still close biological relatives.

The version of “Moonshiner” recently released by Harrisonburg’s Bone & Company feels like a different animal.

Continue reading →

Grandma Sparrow

/ You Hear That?!? / 1 Comment

RVA Playlist

Two Fridays ago, I wrote a quick blurb about how excited I was to be seeing Grandma Sparrow in action later that evening. It was even more colorful and wacky than I could have imagined, and it helped to answer some — thankfully not all — of the questions I had after listening to the song cycle a few times through. Why “thankfully not all”? Click here to check out the guest post I wrote for RVA Playlist, which touches on the value of wonderment and how healthy it is to practice holding two contradictory ideas in your head at once.

Grandma Sparrow — “This Is My Wheelhouse” [Spotify/iTunes]

The Trillions

/ You Hear That?!? / Leave a comment

Trillions 1

I bought a fancy new camera not too long ago, and I’ve started, with no small amount of timidity, to take photos at the shows I’ve been going to. I haven’t managed to wean myself off the camera’s automatic settings (I was signed up to take a photography class but got sick when the date rolled around), nor have I gotten over the weirdness of moving through the crowd and putting myself directly in front of a performer, but I’m enjoying the learning process and I thought I’d share a few shots I took of the Trillions at last night’s RVA Playlist birthday party at the Camel. Hope you dig ’em.

Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, RVA Playlist!

/ You Hear That?!? / 3 Comments

RVA Playlist

Some things are hard to measure. Like peanut butter. Have you ever tried to measure out a half cup of peanut butter? It sticks to the spoon on the way in, it sticks to your finger when you try to level the top to see if you’ve got the right amount, it sticks to your measuring cup, and just for fun, it sticks to your finger again when you try to get it out. Sure you can heat your measuring cup with warm water before getting started, but c’mon. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Just as hard to measure — for slightly different reasons, I suppose — is the effect that Andrew Cothern has had on Richmond’s music scene.

Continue reading →

RVA Playlist

/ You Hear That?!? / Leave a comment

RVA Playlist Dead Fame

A guest post I penned about Dead Fame’s new Vicious Design EP just went up over at RVA Playlist. I hope y’all will take a few minutes and check it out. RVA Playlist does so much for Richmond’s music scene, and it’s an honor to have my words featured on Andrew’s site (especially when those words are about a band that’s as exciting as Dead Fame).

Click here to take a look.

Dead Fame — “Joan Crawford” [Spotify/iTunes]

Black Girls

/ You Hear That?!? / Leave a comment

Claire Sinclaire

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it differently — there’s a distinct, elevated echelon of songs and albums that manage to both entertain and offer up new perspective on something you thought you had a handle on. For me, it usually happens in relation to words. Most recently, Jason Isbell’s Southeastern took the word “down” and turned it on its head via some gorgeous, wilting guitar work and an overarching narrative of hard-earned serenity. I’ll never look at the hierarchical relationship between “up” and “down” the same way. Black Girls’ new album Claire Sinclaire gets to that transcendent point, proving enjoyable in the extreme while bringing on its own haunting redefinition.

Continue reading →

Stevie Ray Vaughan

/ You Hear That?!? / 2 Comments

Stevie Ray Vaughan

There are goodbyes, there are “See you later”s, and then there are the farewells that fall somewhere in between.

Major changes in the way we buy (or, ya know, don’t buy) music have forced us to get used to seeing record stores shut their doors, but BK Music’s closing doesn’t follow that same sad narrative. Sales weren’t tanking. The rent wasn’t going unpaid. BK was a healthy store, offering top-notch customer service and an inviting atmosphere, and its doors facing east on Midlothian Turnpike would still be open today had its landlord not decided (coldly, in my opinion) to use that space for something else. Because BK’s case is so different, and because I know that Bill is planning on opening up elsewhere as soon as possible, I thought about writing a “Whenever a door closes, a window opens”-ish post, one that was heavy on the optimism and light on the retrospect. But focusing exclusively on the future fails to honor the past, and there’s a past that’s definitely worth honoring here.

Continue reading →