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Jonathan Facka’s “Streetlight in the Woods” Video Evokes Poignant Emotional Exploration
A distant light brings strangers together in Jonathan Facka’s latest music video, bringing new meaning to everyday life and self-reflection in his album’s title track.
With his 2018 debut album, Streetlight in the Woods, Jonathan Facka went from his first open mic night performance to a fully-written and recorded album in a year’s time. In what could be described as a songwriter’s version of rags-to-riches, Facka’s work reflects his ode to commitment and determination in his music.
Embarking with dedication after the album’s release, Facka went on to several mini tours as his songs began popping up on nationally-followed playlists across Spotify, Apple, and Pandora. His self-financed music video for his song, “The Tree,” featured and co-starred singer Thalia Tymowski. Facka has shared the stage with many popular artists in Richmond while continuing to write and record original music; but before he follows up Streetlight in the Woods with a new album, he’s released one more surprise in the form of a music video for Streetlight’s title track.
Starring an actual streetlight in the woods, the video treats viewers to an interpretation of self-reflection and meaning in everyday life. A cast of characters that, seemingly, have nothing in common are drawn individually to a distant light — looking for answers to whatever questions they are asking themselves.
In a poignant turn of phrase, Facka writes, “I’m a streetlight burning so bright, in the woods where nobody can see.” He sees the metaphor as a connection between strangers, noting that it’s possible we have all felt that way at some point in our lives. “Does the streetlight serve as an allegory to the human existence? Is the answer in each of us? Are all of us, each and every one, the light we are looking for?” he says.
Listeners and viewers alike can tune in to his latest VEVO premiere for Streetlight in the Woods’ title track in the new release. Facka teamed up for the video shoot with Forrest Mason Productions, who produced his video for “The Tree,” bringing fans great visuals to accompany his unique sound.
With a brand-new recording of Streetlight, Facka debuted its music video on March 1. Check it out below, and find him on his YouTube VEVO Channel, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more.
Talk Me Off (Cursed Record Release Party!) Doll Baby, Pedals, Xed Out at Gallery 5
They’ll be releasing Cursed into the world at Gallery 5 this Sunday night, and you can expect its release to be accompanied by a fiery set of catchy uptempo tunes to get you bouncing. And in addition to Talk Me Off’s celebratory headlining set, you’ll also get some great sounds from an additional trio of Richmond punk bands. These include the twangy, emotional sounds of Doll Baby, the long-running folk-punk talents of Pedals (On Our Pirate Ships… I’m still not sure if the name has officially been shortened or not), and newcomers Xed Out, who feature former members of Smoke Or Fire and The Bled, so you know they’ve got a lot to offer. Be there for this one and appreciate the latest evolution of a storied Richmond tradition.
For Landon Elliott, Love Is A Hurricane
“This record is the most honest I’ve ever been with myself and with the songs,” said Richmond songwriter Landon Elliott of his forthcoming album.
At 8 a.m. on a sunny weekday morning, local Richmond musician Landon Elliott walks into the small but quaint Cafe Nostra near Brookland Park. Based on their brief exchange, it’s clear that he and the barista know each other. Elliott has a friendly tone to his voice, and there’s a spark in his eyes as he sits down to discuss his new single “Hurricane,” which came out at the end of August. Its music video was released shortly after on September 4, with the Richmond-based recording label American Paradox Records.
“I’m excited to get the record out,” Elliott said. “I’m still processing it’s happening. It’s been a long time coming, and a long journey to make this happen. It has a lot of sonic differences than what I’ve done before, but I’m still staying true to my songwriting sensibilities. This record is the most honest I’ve ever been with myself and with the songs.”
The partnership between American Paradox Records and Landon Elliott began in December 2017, after owner Scott Lane saw Elliott play earlier that fall at an open mic night at Poe’s Pub.
Lane had just moved back to Richmond from Denver when he started his new label, he said, and was wrapping up a record production with Kenneka Cook when he decided to take Elliott on.
Elliott and Lane had already begun a friendship by that time, and deciding to work together seemed like a natural addition to their relationship.
“Scott has done a good job of pushing me,” Elliott said. “He’s the label, but also my producer. We co-produced this record together. What Scott was able to do was honor my vulnerability and my personality, and my voice as an artist, while also pushing the direction of things a little bit.”
“Hurricane” is the first single to be released for Elliott’s new record, Domino — and with a yet-to-be-announced release date, the album represents a period of transition and questioning of a lot of things in his life and his worldview.
As he hinted, the new “Hurricane” single does have a slightly different tone and sound than the Wildflowers EP he released in 2017, under the name Landon Elliott and The Goods. While the EP with The Goods had a stronger country/folk/Americana sound, which clearly had roots in artists like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, Elliott said he was more inspired for the new album by the 1980s synth pop-rock sounds of Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, and Fleetwood Mac.
And it shows. The sound of “Hurricane” is multi-layered, and while you can still hear his original Americana sound, there are also layers of synth and a slightly-more refined and mainstream sound than his earlier EP. The pop sound almost hides the raw, honest lyrics about the difficulty of being honest in a healthy relationship… almost. There are plenty of references to ghosts of the past, and the destruction that they can leave in their wake like a hurricane, as the title suggests.
“This track is about relationships and its many forms,” Elliott said. “The struggles that go into making love work. Love is hard work, to really care about someone truly and know someone fully takes a lot of work.”
The music video for “Hurricane” also reflects the struggle Elliott believes can be present in maintaining honest and loving relationships. Departing from the usual music video conventions of its genre, this video presents two dancers in a choreographed and improvised struggle for dominance and equality, before they end their performance in unison. Elliott himself is present, and sandwiched between them as they mouth the final lyrics together.
“I had this vibe in my mind of an 80s ‘Dancing in the Dark’ aerobic style movement,” Elliott said. “I wanted to do a dance video. For my style of music, you don’t necessarily see a more dance-style music video.”
Lane liked his idea, and suggested doing something even more out-there, Elliott said.
“I suggested a total visual departure from his Americana genre,” Lane said.
Lane had seen a dance performance in New York City based on similar themes of the struggle between love and hate. The performance was by a dancer named Georgia Usborne with Brooklyn’s Gallim Dance Company. Lane reached out to her about the possibility of choreographing something similar for Elliott’s video, and she agreed.
“What Scott really connected to was the raw physicality paired with a space for emotional connections between dancers, and also that emotionality can draw the audience into a story without there actually being a story or narrative,” Usborne said. “So we used that as a starting point, having a man and a woman, and discussing the light and shade of the relationship that can be shown through big physical movements — and also less physical, highly charged moments.”
The shoot was done in New York City, where Elliott and Lane met personally with Usborne, the dancers and the music video director. While the two dancers, Kayla Farrish and Sebastian Abarbanell, had been able to rehearse the choreographed parts once before — and some of the material was already familiar to Farrish, as much of the performance was inspired by a previous one of hers — they hadn’t had a lot of prior experience working together.
To make the pressure even tougher, they only had five hours to shoot the entire video, including setup and take-down, Lane said.
Despite the intense time pressure, they did it. Their team managed to film an entire music video, complete with some last-minute decisions, such as putting Elliott himself in the video.
In the end, the video presents itself as a nearly surreal and chaotic dance. The pair of dancers fight and work together throughout the routine, visualizing the struggle of making a relationship work as Elliott sings, nearly motionless on the floor. At times, Abarbanell is seen leading. At others, it is Farrish. Occasionally they work together, and oftentimes their movements seem to contradict each other. In the end, they appear to make their differences work out, coming to lie down on opposite sides of Elliott as the song comes to a close.
“This is the first music video I’ve worked where the musician was in the video,” Usborne said. “It was fabulous, I loved it. It was very focused, and we all cared a lot about it; there was real heart behind it. The track was super catchy, and it all came together well. It was a real pleasure, and I’d love to work with them again.”
After the release of the music video, a new single will be released in September. Right now Elliott is on tour with fellow Richmonder Deau Eyes, and the last few dates of the tour will find them pairing up with Josiah Johnson, formerly of The Head and the Heart.
Locally, Elliott will also be playing at The Broadberry on September 28 for the Shack Up festival, thrown each year by The Shack Band. This will be his first year playing at The Shack Up, Elliott said, and one of his first times playing solo on a platform that big.
“I love the Broadberry,” Elliott said. “They’re all really good friends of mine. I’m looking forward to hamming it up with them. There’s a lot of bands I love on the bill.”
Top Photo by Joey Wharton
Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond
Fiddling Into Richmond: Chance McCoy Brings Bluegrass To Richmond Music Hall Tonight
Best known for his work with Old Crow Medicine Show, Chance McCoy has plenty to offer on his own, and he’ll show it off in the river city tonight.
Tonight at the Richmond Music Hall, a virtuoso fiddler, guitarist, and banjo player will be diving into the local music scene with a performance featuring his latest album.
Chance McCoy is best known as a member of GRAMMY-winning Americana powerhouse Old Crow Medicine Show — but Wander Wide, his debut solo album, reveals a remarkable depth and versatility beyond anything we’ve heard from him yet.
Captivating in its cross between the traditional and the progressive, the record shows little regard for the conventional boundaries of genre and decade. It blends old-school bluegrass melodies with modern rock and roll arrangements, and rich, atmospheric production. McCoy based the album off of a live residency show he put on weekly at The Basement in Nashville, and the studio recordings here tap into the same exuberant energy he brought to the stage every night, with performances that unexpectedly twist and turn, sometimes transitioning from one tune to the next within the same track.
Ahead of his upcoming show at Richmond Music Hall at Capital Ale House downtown, I reached out to Chance for an interview and came to find out he had actually been staying in Richmond while working on a major motion picture.
He invited me over to his apartment, so I stopped by and had a nice talk with him and his bandmate, Jackie, about some of his past and recent work, including his upcoming album, Wander Wide. We talked about their time in Richmond and the various projects he’s been working on here, including his newest self-made music video (filmed right here in Richmond down at the Pipeline Rapids — see above). We also talked a bit about his time with Old Crow, his transition from old-time music to the varied sounds of his upcoming album, and where he plans to go moving forward.
Check out the interview with Chance below, and be sure to grab tickets to catch him tonight with Graham Stone Music and Brady Allen Heck of Holy Roller.
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Learning How To Love With The Regrettes
Summer is the perfect time for love songs — especially the ones about endless romances, which drift into brief flings, littered with sunburns that hurt like the burn of the inevitable break-up. The Regrettes, a California band, are looking to soothe that burn this summer with the release of their latest album, How Do You Love?
“We really wanted to show all sides of it, all the ugly parts and everything,” said lead singer Lydia Night. “There are parts that are romanticized because that’s a part of love, but the majority of it is just trying to show very honest approaches.”
The realities of love can be ugly, brash, and colorful in a million ways, and The Regrettes have done all they can to see the nitty-gritty feelings and experiences that love has to offer. How Do You Love? takes us on an amalgamated journey through the ups and downs of the relationships Night and the band have experienced. While these experiences and their portrayal aren’t linear, they all come together to form a rounded, all-encompassing story.
“It’s about finding bravery through [love],” said Night in a press release regarding their album. “Learning and accepting that, yes, you went through a shitty breakup, but that’s amazing — because all that means is next time you’re in a relationship, you know so much more about yourself and about what you want.”
The release of the album, set on August 9, comes in the midst of a North American tour that Richmond is lucky enough to be a stop on. The Regrettes will be hitting the River City for a huge rock-and-roll night this weekend, at Richmond Music Hall at Capital Ale House on Sunday, June 28th.
While touring hasn’t been the smoothest over the past year, the band is back in the game — and better than ever, ready to rock their fans and headline several months of shows. Earlier this year, in the process of a tour with West Coast friends SWMRS, Night encountered vocal issues that ended their time on tour.
“It’s really scary. All I can do is try my best, and I have a lot of people around me who have to put the pressure on it which sucks, but when your voice is your instrument there’s only so much you can do,” said Night. “There’s a lot of pressure, and it’s definitely not a fun thing to deal with or feel from others.”
Even in dealing with this obstacle, Night has come back with a powerful fire on her tongue, and the blunt feminist attitude she’s become famous for. The focus of the new album may not be fully political, like the content of their previous releases, but Night drives her woman-empowering passion into every song on this jammin’ record.
The album encourages those in the highs and lows of relationships to love themselves first, to be open and strong in who they are — and with who they love — and to straight up “feel your feelings, fool” (a reference to their memorably-titled first album).
“It’s impossible to build strong relationships when you don’t love yourself. Self-love into loving others is extremely important in my eyes, and should be in everyone’s,” said Night. “[In break-ups] I think there’s a lot of pressure on just getting out of it, and going out to go live it up like a single person… but if you want to sit and cry for a second, and then go and have fun, take your time. Everyone is different.”
As the tour continues, Night looks forward to going back to the drawing board for new songs, already composing despite the fact that their second album isn’t even out yet. The Regrettes are as hard-working as they come, and to their fans’ advantage, there will be no shortage of new material in the years to come.
Come join The Regrettes at Richmond Music Hall, located downtown at 619 E. Main St, for a kick-ass night of strengthening, heart-mending, power-pop punk music this Sunday starting at 7 PM. Advance tickets are $15, and can be found online — so grab some.
Top Photo: Claire Marie Vogel
Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond