I’m half-way through my voice message when an Atlanta area code calls me back. John-Allison Weiss is pulled over on the side of the road on their way to Brooklyn when they call me back. I do something I genuinely don’t do often and open with, “do I have permission to...
A Pale Horse Named Death - And Hell Will Follow Me (SPV) These guys really want to be Alice In Chains circa Dirt. There's just no way to avoid it--from the downtuned dirge-metal riffage to the singer's grim, funereal baritone to a song called "Heroin Train," this whole album gives off an inescapable Dirt vibe. Which is not to say that it's...
Cannabis Corpse, Infernal Stronghold, Coffin Dust, Tombstalker, and Lady Piss Sunday July 17th at Strange Matter On Sunday, July 17th, Strange Matter was graced with yet another, hazy, sticky, dank show that will live on in the annals of Richmond history. I’m talking about the Cannabis Corpse CD release show, which celebrated the release of...
Gillian Welch – The Harrow And The Harvest (Acony Records) The title of Gillian Welch's newest effort goes a long way towards covering her whole approach. On the most literal level, there's the rustic imagery that so much Americana strives to incorporate – the farming implement and the end result of its use. But the respective halves of the...
7/25 Treble Lifter, Floating Colors (pictured above), Free Market Ensemble, Sloth Herder @ Strange Matter 10pm. 7/25 Erika Blatnik (photo by Diana Porter), Ben Henry, Nighty-Night @ Sprout 10pm. 7/25 Bake Sale (pictured above), White Laces @ Steady Sounds 6pm. 7/26 Cloud Becomes Your Hand, Teen Dreams (pictured above) @ Steady Sounds 6pm. 7/26...
On Sunday September 11th, we are throwing the biggest street festival the city has seen down in Shockoe Bottom with national headliners Girl Talk and Best Coast leading the way and supported by the finest musicians this city has to offer. If you haven't caught GT before here is the clip ----> We "borrowed" this set from when he played at the now...
Much has already been said about the death of Amy Winehouse this weekend at the age of 27, not all of it respectful. What gets lost amongst a lot of this talk is any discussion of the reason we all knew who she was in the first place--that incredible voice she had. Her only mature full-length release, 2006's Back To Black, was a masterpiece of...
The first time Ceschi came to Richmond he showed up to a backyard barbecue on Labor Day with just an acoustic guitar, his voice rich with bravado and something this city had never heard before. Switching seamlessly between folk tunes and fast, chopping raps, Ceschi always demonstrates enormous dexterity in his performances, never short on...
Okkervil River - I Am Very Far (Jagjaguwar) There are several obstacles that prevent me from easily reviewing a new Okkervil River record. It’s not as simple as them being in my top ten favorite contemporary recording artists. It’s not a jaded relationship where I used to absolutely adore the group and feel their current output doesn’t do their...
It’s summertime and the dying’s easy – or such is the vibe when listening (repeatedly) to the strange, superb new album from Geist and The Sacred Ensemble, entitled In Search of Fabled Lands. As a largely acoustic musical meditation on death and rebirth (various deaths and various rebirths, real and imagined, physical and psychological, to these...
