We love music. We love Richmond’s music venues. We love the city’s record shops. Now that we’ve covered the obvious, we’re excited to introduce Weekend Frequency—a weekly, reader-curated playlist made for the city, by the city.
It’s a continuation of our RVA Mag Weekend Playlists, a series we ran for years before the pandemic, featuring 103 playlists curated by locals you might know. You can check out the full archive HERE.
Now we want to hear what you’ve been listening to. Each week we’ll turn over the playlist to one of our readers giving you the chance to shares what’s been on your turntable, headphones, or blasting through your speakers. Drop us a line at hello@rvamag.com with Weekend Frequency in the subject line, along with 15 tracks and one paragraph telling our readers why you chose the songs you did.
Our first Weekend Volume is brought to you by our editor-at-large, Landon Shroder.
“I’m a huge vinyl head—the deeper the cut, the better. Give me all the analog. I’m also a news junkie, and this week’s reporting has been brutal, so I wanted to create a mix that plays to both extremes.
Each of these songs comes from my vinyl collection, blending garage, funk, and soul with some ’70s fuzz for good measure. There are a few standout tracks here: “Nation” by Home Front from the album Games of Power and “Gentleman” by Fela Kuti. Both songs capture a raw energy that is continents apart yet connected at a place of chaos and collision.
Home Front, a relatively new band, can best be described as street punk synth-pop, and they’ve been on constant rotation since I picked up the LP from Vinyl Conflict last week. (Full disclosure: I’ve listened to this album 48 times in the past 24 hours.)
On the other side of the world, Fela Kuti is everything—the moon, the stars, the entire galaxy. Kuti, from Nigeria, was not only the pioneer of Afrobeat but also one of the greatest sociopolitical voices of his generation. Unfortunately, he died from complications of HIV/AIDS in 1997, but he left behind a musical legacy unparalleled in spirit and power. I cannot recommend his records more strongly.” — Landon Shroder
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