Ah yes, Good Day RVA is at it again. The music videos this local collective produces are frankly too few and far between for my taste, but they’re so far above the typical standard for videos that they’re always worth the wait. This one’s no exception, bringing together two local folk music performers who often play together around town, harmonica player Andrew Alli and guitarist Josh Small.
Ah yes, Good Day RVA is at it again. The music videos this local collective produces are frankly too few and far between for my taste, but they’re so far above the typical standard for videos that they’re always worth the wait. This one’s no exception, bringing together two local folk music performers who often play together around town, harmonica player Andrew Alli and guitarist Josh Small. The Good Day RVA videos are always shot in some notable RVA location, but this one is notable in a more metaphorical sense; Alli and Small play a couple of songs while sitting on a front porch in the Randolph neighborhood. We aren’t told whose porch it is, but that’s not really the point; “the front porch” is a pretty important location in the life of any Richmonder, especially with summer coming on like it is.
Sticking with the theme, Alli takes lead vocal for the first song the duo plays, “Front Porch,” a tune with a solid old-time sound that’s about escaping your worries and hanging out on the front porch, assumingly armed with a six-pack. “Take it easy,” Alli and Small sing on the chorus, which sounds like a good idea right about now. This part of the video is interspersed with footage of cats and chickens hanging out in a front yard–and you can see from some of the wider performance shots (and hear on the soundtrack) that there really are chickens running around in whoever’s front yard where this was shot. Awesome.
Good Day RVA videos usually end after one song, but the crew and the musicians were apparently feeling generous, because here we get two. The second is a Josh Small original, which he explains is written for his niece. Both she and the song are named “Patricia Noel,” and like a lot of Small’s material, it has a lonesome, yearning sound that makes it feel a lot more modern than the old-time folk music that is undoubtedly a big inspiration for Small’s music. Considering both the kinds of chord changes he often uses and the fact that he played guitar in Brainworms for a while, I can’t help but wonder whether Small isn’t also pretty strongly influenced by emo, but that’s just me theorizing, for what it’s worth. Anyway, this song is wistful and poetic and beautiful, and it’s only made more so by Alli’s evocative harmonica playing.
Andrew Alli is currently doing a Kickstarter campaign to pay for his first album, aptly titled The Front Porch Sessions. Check it out and pledge to it HERE. Josh Small has no internet presence, which you best believe is a conscious decision, so who knows what he’s up to, but if you keep an eye out, I’m sure you’ll see him around before too long. Good Day RVA, a six-member film collective consisting of Chris Damon, Evan Hoffman, Will Weaver, Matt Cowan, Coldon Martin, and Tommy Terrell, just put on the first-ever A Good Day In RVA music festival last month, which from all accounts was highly successful. We’ll be checking in with them soon to get the details. In the meantime, enjoy the video!
By Andrew Necci
