#rva

Sounds of RVA

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The internet is a funny place.

Well… I suppose it’s not actually a place. It’s a thing. A network. A series of tubes, much like the ones used to transport endorsed checks between you and the bank’s drive through teller. The fascinating thing, though, is that it feels like a place. The virtual spaces we visit so that we can interact with people who share our interests feel just as real as the 7-11s we hit up for coffee on the way to work — even more so in some cases, given that a diligently updated blog can be front-and-center in your consciousness several times a day, if you’re equally diligent about reading it.

Though I’ve never met Sarah Moore Lindsey in person, her words regularly occupy that front-and-center position, thanks to Sounds of RVA.

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The Snowy Owls

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Within Yr Reach

So I’ve been excited to hear the new Snowy Owls tunes. How excited, you ask? So excited that, a few months ago, I compiled some of the Twitter-based progress reporting the group posted as they were preparing for the recording process. More details have emerged since, and I’m happy to say that the suspense bubble is set to burst tomorrow, when The Snowy Owls release the Within Yr Reach EP — a beautiful, 8-song, impressionistic portrait that showcases the band’s knack for pairing memorable, guitar-driven melodies with hazy arrangements that set a distinctive and mesmerizing mood. I had the chance to catch up with Owls frontman Matt Klimas via email this weekend, and he answered a few questions about the EP, his favorite pedals, Swedish pop music and more.

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The Trillions

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Last week, I shared a little about how I pick songs for Fridays, saying that I tend to look for the most fun/weekend-y thing I heard during the course of the week. On a somewhat related side note, I woke up with R. Kelly’s “Ignition (Remix)” stuck in my head, which is fun and all, but not really appropriate for 8 a.m., no matter which day of the week it is. (By the way, have you seen Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance of “Ignition”? Well worth a look-see.)

Wait… what were we talking about? OH YEAH! Besides levity, there’s another great reason to save a post for Friday — the need for a couple of weekend days to chew on it.

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor

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Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

When I first started writing this here blog, the idea was that each post would highlight a way of finding new music. There are a million-and-a-half avenues for discovering bands these days, and I thought it would helpful to sift through them and talk up the ones I found most fruitful. I still think about that each time I sit down to write a post, but I can’t deny that I’ve slipped in this area. (My self-control in the face of Super Bowl halftime shows and “Gangnam Style” is pretty much non-existent.)

With that shortfall in mind, I’d like to keep up the momentum I generated from yesterday’s post — here’s another link to the fantastic 70 Day Weekend — by dedicating this post to the people who are, without question, the reason I’m enjoying Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s new album so much. In this case, though, it’s not about who recommended Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! Instead, I’d like to talk about the bands that paved the way for my appreciation of an album I might not have given a fair shake a few years ago — bands that have opened my eyes to the glorious, noisy rock being made here in Richmond and elsewhere.

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Wolf//Goat

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In Watermelon Sugar

Some music helps you remember. Some helps you forget. Sometimes you listen to music to work against an emotion, like when you want to cheer yourself up or snap out of a destructive train of thought. Other times, you hit “play” to extend or enhance what you’re already feeling, as if “love” or “alienation” had a bobsled in the Olympics, and you decided to hop on in for the slickened, linear ride. And then there are the times you listen to feel all those things at once — to engage in a chaotic catharsis that feels clean and messy and scary and comforting simultaneously. That’s Wolf//Goat’s wheelhouse, and their new full-length, In Watermelon Sugar, satisfies my craving for well-constructed chaos in a most buoyant, life-affirming way.

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The Trillions

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Tritones

Way back when this here blog was in its infancy, I offered a podcast recommendation — my only one to date — for Uhh Yeah Dude, an hour-long comedic show that I’ve found to be wildly addicting. Part of the pull has to do with the two hosts’ conversational idiosyncrasies. Emphasizing the wrong syllables of words and names is big (just ask Lady GuhGAH), as is giving out Jonathan’s actual cell phone number whenever he says something that could be construed as offensive. But my favorite quirk of all pops up when a train of thought has reached its absurd terminus, and laughter or ridiculousness renders the two hosts speechless. In those moments, either Seth or Jonathan will often squeeze out a beleaguered…

“I can’t. I just… I can’t.”

It’s their way of waving the white flag when something is just too much. This rhetorical device never fails to make me smile, because being happily overwhelmed — whether it’s by laughter, joy, relief or something else entirely — is one of the best sensations a person can have, and it just so happens to be the way my brain reacts when I watch The Trillions.

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Colin Stetson

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If there was an Annoying Cliché Hall of Fame, “You can’t tell a book by its cover” would be among its most vaunted honorees. To my ears, the sound it makes when someone actually says it aloud is nothing short of cringe-worthy. The worst part is that it means well — the notion that you should reserve judgement until you’ve had the opportunity to get to know someone or something is top-notch advice…

…and that’s what makes periodically proving it wrong so damn satisfying.

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The Devil Whale

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Teeth

I had a weird realization while having drinks with a friend a few nights ago. I don’t have a single active concert ticket right now. Not a one. No PDF printouts waiting to be scanned, no tickets sitting at will call… nuthin’.

How did this come to pass? Summer concert burnout is partly to blame, not that I have anything to complain about. The stack of yet-to-be-used tickets that usually lives on my wife’s desk at home got plenty thick during the past few months, and seeing Radiohead, tUnE-yArDs and Neko Case, each for the first time, The Alabama Shakes for the second time, Justin Townes Earle for the fourth, Old Crow Medicine Show twice and The Lumineers three times is pretty damn good way to spend the summer, if you ask me.

But looking forward with a clean slate is exhilarating, and it didn’t take long to find a show that has me excited to start chalking it up all over again.

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White Laces

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“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
— Bob Marley

With all due respect, Bob is wrong on this one.

I mean, I get what he’s saying, that music wields a special type of nonviolent power, but some of my favorite songs are the ones that hit you where it hurts — on gut-churning topics like mortality, heartbreak and loneliness — with intensity that you can actually feel. Those are the songs I find most vital. They’re the records I’d grab first before escaping from a burning building. Their impact is essential, in every meaning of the word.

Before I’d even had a chance to listen to it, my experience with White Laces’ debut full-length Moves could already be described as “impactful.”

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Goldrush

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Making Moves

2 weeks have passed since I had the pleasure of interviewing Prabir Mehta and Treesa Gold of Goldrush about their installment in Mad Dragon Records’ Making Moves series, and now that the 7-inch single has hit the streets (and my doorstep), I wanted to share a few thoughts… and a scurrilous accusation.

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