Pitchfork.com, one of the most popular and powerful music-related websites on the entire internet, has been releasing a series of articles over the last month focusing on the strongest metal scenes in the United States. Having previously covered New York, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Austin, TX, today they’ve turned their attention to none other than good ol’ RVA.
Pitchfork.com, one of the most popular and powerful music-related websites on the entire internet, has been releasing a series of articles over the last month focusing on the strongest metal scenes in the United States. Having previously covered New York, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Austin, TX, today they’ve turned their attention to none other than good ol’ RVA. Author Grayson Currin gives a solid breakdown of Richmond’s dyed-in-the-wool metal character, beginning his article by describing normal suburban yuppies interacting with metal-loving baristas at Lamplighter before giving an extensive rundown of the happenings at last weekend’s GWAR-B-Q (see our review, coming later today).
In the article, several Richmond metal musicians have very positive words for the local scene. Inter Arma guitarist Trey Dalton enthusiastically describes the difference between Richmond and his hometown of Roanoke: “Richmond is not a ton bigger than my hometown, but seeing how much more stuff was being produced here was mindblowing… There are plenty of places that have a population that quadruples Richmond, but there’s an anomalous amount of stuff happening here.” Currin mentions Tony Foresta’s enthusiastic endorsement from the GWAR-B-Q stage: “This really is the best city in the world for fucking metal, isn’t it?” And Currin also recognizes how much everyone in town seems to love living in RVA:
Municipal pride runs strong in Richmond. Every third car, police cruisers included, seems to sport a sticker that reeds simply “RVA.” Since 2011, the city has printed more than 100,000 of these black and white totems and put them on most every available surface.
Those stickers are emblematic of the Richmond music scene itself: Dalton opines that local openers often draw better than touring headliners in Richmond. Bobby Egger, who owns the record store Vinyl Conflict, says that records by young area bands rising to national prominence– including Cough, Windhand, and Inter Arma– are among his shop’s bestsellers. Windhand’s self-titled debut, released last year by Richmond label Forcefield, sold loads at Vinyl Conflict.
Other than its perpetuation of the widely-reported misinformation that Pig Destroyer is from here (the grindcore quartet hails from NoVA and Maryland), Currin’s article is just about perfect. And for Pitchfork to choose Richmond as one of the five metal scenes in the entire country that deserves an individual spotlight is an endorsement in and of itself. Read the entire article here:
