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Your Year In Spacebomb: Weekend Playlist By Spacebomb Records

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It’s been a while since RVA Mag brought you a week-ending playlist from Virginia’s most influential artists, musicians, and institutions, but just this once, we’ve got a new one for ya — so get stoked.

This week, we bring you a playlist that, we must confess, was created not for us specifically but for fans of music as a whole, from Richmond and beyond, by our friends at Spacebomb Records. “2020 has been a very different & difficult year for almost everybody,” the label said in a statement. “At times, we wanted to hide away from it all, and sometimes that was all anyone could do. But in the end, we focused on what we do best and tried to share great art with the world. We couldn’t be prouder of these musicians and releases and are humbled we are partners in sound with so many talented people.”

Over the course of 2020, Spacebomb has brought the world an even dozen new albums, including highly praised new releases from local fave Angelica Garcia and folk supergroup Bonny Light Horseman. There were also releases from popular artists like Fruit Bats and Laura Veirs, musically inclined comedian Tim Heidecker, and several releases from studio mainstays the Spacebomb House Band.

This playlist will give you a tour through all the highlights of Spacebomb’s 2020 — and considering how tough the year has been for everyone, knowing this much great music came out of it right here in Richmond is a pleasant silver lining.

Enjoy, Virginia.

Open this playlist from mobile in your Spotify app HERE.

Angelica Garcia: Latinx Pop from Coast to Coast

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RVA #39 is on the streets now! Here’s another article from the issue, in which Reggie Pace catches up with Angelica Garcia: Richmond’s Latinx star emerging for her widely-loved Latin Pop/Indie sound.

Angelica Garcia is a bold vocalist. Her voice — forged in ancestral Latinx culture and the raging kilns of danceable pop — commands not just attention, but motion. With more shove than invitation, and more strength than seduction, there’s a quality of anthemic pride to her sonic presence. It’s contagious, and you are not immune. Just don’t try to fit it into any preconceived parameters of what ethnic pop music is supposed to sound like. 

“I know this is probably just another stupid musician perspective,” said Garcia, “but doesn’t it feel like genres are sometimes like, ‘Hey, here’s another way to stereotype this?’”

While she notes that certain bands are more purist in regards to the genres they fit into, Garcia has found that less concrete adjectives are more effective to describe her music.

“I’ll say, ‘Video game. Nightclub of doom.’ Adjectives, nouns… [It’s helpful to be] more open with visuals when you talk about music.”

Garcia’s boldness isn’t limited to her voice. Her first album, Karma the Knife, was released by Warner Music Group. Shortly after, she decided to take creative control of her career and leave the label.

Here in Richmond, Garcia has been working with a diverse cross-section of acts including Russell Lacy, Mikrowaves, and Piranha Rama. Recently signed to Spacebomb Records, the visual artist, songwriter, and L.A. transplant is gearing up for the February 2020 release of her second album, Cha Cha Palace. For Garcia, making music is all about community.

“I’ve been doing a one-woman show for a while, just because it makes sense for traveling. But when I do play with the band, it’s awesome,” she said.

The band includes a variety of leading local musicians, including pianist Calvin Presents, aka Calvin Brown, as well as Josh McCormick on drums and John Sizemore and Chrissie Lozano of Piranha Rama on guitar and bass, respectively. With these musicians involved, Garcia has found a new “family bubble” filled with distinct voices. 

“Putting together my band was like putting together my own Justice League,” Garcia said. “It’s been great, and a lot of them have that same spirit and mentality of community, and everybody helping each other. That’s what helped make this album. That’s why it sounds the way it does.”

For a West Coast native living in Richmond, community takes on different forms. Garcia’s roadmap seems to hit all the stops.

“[My mother] was a pop singer in the 90s,” she said. “When she broke out, she had a charted hit on Billboard. It was a remake of ‘Angel Baby.’ [What] started her off when she was gigging was her tours of high schools. She said, ‘You totally need to do this.’ One of her friends worked for the El Monte School District where I grew up in L.A. We were able to set up one show, and once you have one, you can go to another school. It just became a big tour. It’s so funny playing for kids.”

Garcia played six or seven schools, navigating questionable sound equipment and audiences that were, at times, a bit less receptive than Richmond’s music scene. Some shows happened for school assemblies, and others were less organized — at one school, Garcia’s team sent a list of her equipment, and she arrived to find only one wireless mic. 

“The speakers were blown out. I had to go into the soundboard and hook it up in the auditorium, and all these middle schoolers were watching me,” Garcia said. “I was sweating so hard. That’s the thing; it’s like kids read fear. You can’t hide. Then, of course, the looper is so temperamental. It was coming out really crunchy-sounding, and there was one kid saying, ‘My ears hurt!’ [laughs].

“It’s funny because kids are so blunt. And whereas an adult would say, ‘Great job!’ Kids are going to say, ‘What’s that? What are you doing?’ And it made me think, what am I doing? I need to be able to talk about this. Why is it loud? Why is this important? But the ones that really cared, it was super sweet. And it was special.” 

Garcia says that playing solo shows, for judgmental high school students and the quietly-critical adults alike, has been a process of learning. She’s balanced her presence as a singer with an overwhelming ambition for musicality. 

“I want to recreate as much as I can,” she said. “I do have to be careful, because once you start doing a bunch, it’s easy to forget, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m a singer. And I better fucking sing this right.’ I’ve got to do a good job. When you’re worried about the feedback and and the loop, the sampler and the gate, then you’re not paying attention to how you’re singing.” 

With a European tour in the works and a YouTube video for her recent single “Jicama” steadily climbing towards 100,000 views, it would seem Garcia has found that balance. Not just between instrumentation and singing, but between the cultural backgrounds that comprise her identity. It’s essential, Garcia says, to all the creative work she puts out. 

“I started something called #WearYourRoots. The reason you probably didn’t see it more is because I’m not a very good hashtagger.” Garcia laughed. “It came from my song, ‘Jicama.’ It talks about a dichotomy — growing up in two cultures and having one foot in each world. I realized the reason I leaned in so much to my Latinidad, the Latinx side of my identity, was that I felt I missed the most of it growing up and living in L.A.” 

Always being surrounded by the food and the Spanish language in L.A., Garcia realized in Richmond that she felt lonely and isolated. 

“[I was] homesick,” she said. “’Where my people at? And also, what does that mean? …What does that look like? And what do I do, blend in? I’m from Los Angeles, but all my blood is Latina. My dad’s from Mexico, and my grandparents are Mexican and Salvadoran. But I’ve been in Virginia for almost 10 years now. They’re both home.”  

Her new album, Cha Cha Palace, which comes out at the end of February, lies between both worlds for Garcia. The album spans her experiences from L.A. and Richmond, finding a middle point in life that reaches each piece of herself. 

“A lot of Cha Cha Palace was piecing together memories of my childhood, and trying to connect with my grandparents, their lineage, and their background,” Garcia said. “It was also redefining what it means to be Latina; how do I delve into my Latinidad, what does that look like on me? I know what it looks like on my mom, my grandparents. What does it look like when I wear it? That’s an interesting thing, too — in L.A., I didn’t have to think about that. I showed up to the club, and everyone was there. It hit me that if I want to connect to my roots, I have to actively choose to be a part of it, connect with my community and create art to honor it in this way.” 

While working to reconcile these influences on her life, Garcia drew inspiration not only from her elders, but her younger siblings. 

“This is a really special record to me. The entire time, I thought of my siblings — particularly my sisters — and what I want them to hear. I hear the kind of music they put on the radio, and my sister Valeria is 17 years old,” Garcia said. “She’s so brutal. She’ll say, ‘I can’t dance to this. Not gonna listen to it.’ She’s heard all my demos first. I played her the first draft and she said, ‘Yeah, I need to dance to it more.’”  

At 25, Garcia isn’t consulting teenage relatives for youthful relevance, but rather out of a sense of familial responsibility. For her, the goal is that they’ll be able to put her music on a playlist with other things they enjoy, and that it uplifts them in the process, telling their story. As for the prospect of wider appeal, Garcia isn’t eschewing it. Instead, she embraces it in terms of a higher calling. 

“It’s such a unique and sacred opportunity that people get to hear your music,” she said. “They’re repeating what you’re saying. They’re singing along. To me, that’s a really sacred bond. So I kept thinking, what do I want them to repeat?” 

If family comes first, the chosen family of the Richmond music scene is a close second. Garcia sees Cha Cha Palace as the culmination of finding her place in the local community, and employing that community in a fuller expression of her unique artistic vision. 

“I picked everybody that played on this,” she said. “This is the Mikrowaves fam. This is the Piranha Rama fam. Even the restaurant fam is in here, from 8 ½. That’s so special. Making my first record, I showed up to this world class studio. Big producer. It sounds really great, but everybody he called in were people that he knew, because I didn’t know anybody in Nashville. So it’s very special to me that I got to pick everybody this time.” 

This dedication to stylistic direction is apparent before you hit play on the album. The cover is a photograph of the sprawling collage on her bedroom wall. 

“It started off as just a few pictures,” Garcia said. “I noticed as the album was progressing, the collage got bigger and bigger.”  

As a visual person, she loves textures — everything from picking colors to mixed media, and blending the old with the new. The pictures that line her room act as a metaphor for Cha Cha Palace. 

“The way this album was made, it was almost like a giant collage,” Garcia said. “Some of the songs were tracked in Eddie [Prendergast]’s shed. ‘Karma’ was tracked at Montrose [Recordings]. James [Seretis] tracked some, too, [at Virginia] Moonwalker [Studio]. It was done in all these different spaces; I started working on it before I was signed to Spacebomb. I officially signed towards the end of making it, and they helped me tie some loose ends together, getting it mixed and mastered. Up until then, it was like, ‘I’ll come after my restaurant shift, then I’ll come record at James’s house until midnight, then I’ve got to go. I have to work brunch in the morning.” 

As for what’s next, Garcia says that’s less a matter of direction than organic evolution. What’s certain is that it’s bound to be an honest expression of whoever she comes to be. 

“It’s almost like my spooky disco-femme self made this,” she said. “It was cool getting to be her for a while. She is me and I am her, and we’re very connected. It’s cool to have it documented, because I don’t know what the next version of her is going to be.” 

Words by S. Preston Duncan. Interview by Reggie Pace. Photos by Myles Katherine & Lauren Serpa.

RVA Magazine #39 Is Out Now!

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Don’t look now, but the latest issue of RVA Magazine just hit town, and we’re kicking off our 15th year in operation with a real banger! Full of the city’s best street-level culture, you’ll learn everything you need to know about what’s hot in the River City for the first year of the 20s and beyond.

PHOTO: J. Roddy Walston, RVA 39

We begin by continuing the conversation around our always-fruitful music scene, as No BS! Brass Band’s Reggie Pace returns to our pages to keep us updated on the activities of local singer extraordinaire Angelica Garcia as she releases her second LP, Cha Cha Palace. Meanwhile, The Hustle Season’s own Kelli Strawbridge gets the scoop on the next step for local luminary J. Roddy Walston as he puts his long-running Business on the back burner in favor of some exciting new projects.

PHOTO: Angelica Garcia, RVA 39

But that’s not all! Oh, far from it. We’re also getting the lowdown on the daily life of a model turned poet from Tiffanie Brooke, who has verses aplenty for your thirsty eyes. Meanwhile, street artist turned model Humble reveals the secrets of his path to fashion stardom, and Hip Hop Henry gets the word from JR Da Rapper and Esco of RVA’s Poverty Crew. Plus we’ve got all the up-to-the-minute coverage of local culture you’ve come to expect from us, from art and music to craft brew and foodie delights.

PHOTO: JR Da Rapper & Esco, RVA 39

Dive in, and experience all that RVA #39 has to offer, by grabbing a copy from one of our many partners around the city — but get out there quick, because they won’t last long!

Check out the digital version on Issuu here.

Find your copy of RVA Magazine #39 at these local partner locations:

Ellwood Thompson’s

Plan 9 Records

Deep Groove Records

Capital Market

Strawberry Street Market

Urban Farmhouse — Shockoe Bottom

Urban Farmhouse — Scott’s Addition

VMFA

Carytown Tobacco — Carytown

Carytown Tobacco — Broad Street

Carytown Tobacco — Shockoe Bottom

Robinson Market

Sheppard Street Market

Whole Foods

Richmond Visitor Center

Mekong/Answer

Lamplighter — Addison St.

Shockoe Market

Union Market

Stella’s Grocery

Hardywood Park Craft Brewery

Triple Crossing Beer — Fulton

Stir Crazy

Garden Grove Brewing & Urban Winery

Galley Market

Brewer’s Cafe

Cafe Cattura

Libby Market

Black Hand Coffee — Museum District

Sugar & Twine

The Camel

Rumors

Taking Off With Spacebomb Records

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RVA Mag #38 is on the streets now! Here’s another article from the issue, in which Spacebomb Records founder Matthew E. White and his longtime musical compatriot Reggie Pace discuss the label’s path to its current status. Journey into the world of professional record-making with White as he discusses the journey of founding Spacebomb.

The final months of 2019 have a lot in store for local record label Spacebomb Records: from their Richmond Folk Festival album to the Andy Jenkins EP that dropped earlier this month, and with upcoming releases through the rest of the year, founder Matthew E. White has a label that stays busy.

Moving further into the season, Spacebomb Records is releasing Sinkane: Alive at Spacebomb on December 6. Angelica Garcia’s album is set to debut in 2020, along with Nadia Reid’s latest album and plenty more in store for the River City. To learn what’s behind the doors at Spacebomb and ahead in its future, Reggie Pace sat down with White to kick off his podcast (appropriately called “The Pacecast” until its forever-name is settled) and talk local music.

Check out Reggie’s interview with White below, and head over to spacebombrecords.com for more releases in Richmond. 

Reggie Pace. Photo by Lauren Serpa

Reggie Pace: You were playing music. But on the other side of town — not together.

Matthew E. White: Yeah, I was playing with The Great White Jenkins a little bit, and then Brian Hooten and Pinson and I started Fight The Bull Trio. And that was my first thing that was the instrumental free-jazz kind of music. And that grew into Fight The Big Bull.

RP: Do Fight The Bull have records?

MEW: Yeah, I guess we did. We did have one record, but that was as homemade as it got.

RP: I mean, aren’t they all in a way? Not anymore.

MEW: Yeah, but that was great. And we put together a tour for Tony Garcia’s music business class. That was my final project — to put together a tour for five people. So we did that, and it was great. That was really the beginning of everything that I’m doing now, it was that moment to decide to make it. It kind of went from there a little bit.

RP: And then Fight The Big Bull was an extension of Fight The Bull. A bigger ensemble?

MEW: Yeah, it was. Originally it was kind of like an extension, but it very quickly became “The Thing.” It was the main thing almost immediately, once that gelled into a group of people. That was cool. It’s funny, you know — those moments where you don’t know it’s happening. You look back and you’re like, “Oh, man. That’s when it happened.” Everything for me happened when Brian and I put together Fight the Big Bull. And I thought, “Okay, I’m going to start writing for this.” We did that first Dying Will Be Easy record, and that got on NPR. Then David Carson Daniels heard about it, and that brought me into the Durham music scene, then that brought us into Sounds of the South. People ask me all the time what happened, but I don’t know, man… for me it was just all about creating energy. Trying to make and do and go.

RP: There’s there’s something to be said about timing.

MEW: Yeah. Good timing. But I think when you look back, me and you — and there’s several other people — that was a special time in Richmond. It still is a special time, but for us, that was our 20s. That was my youth. And there were several people that made the decision to say “I’m going to stay here. I’m going to make stuff from here.” It’s not that we planned it… I didn’t ever talk to you about it, it wasn’t a coalition. It was just in the air. And I think big picture-wise, it had a lot to do with the internet. That breaking down of geographical barriers in the music industry.

I definitely didn’t think about it like that at the time. I just sort of thought, “These are great people. Who’s better than these people?” I still say that, you know? People ask what’s the deal with Richmond — there are better players [here] than anybody. And that is what it is, man. There are more unique musicians here… not even per capita. Just period, it’s incredible. I guess I had an inkling of it then, but I’m rock-solid sure of it now. And I was just lucky to cast my bet.

RP: So, tell me about what you’ve got going on [at Spacebomb Records] right now. 

MEW: Right now, Andy Jenkins just released a new EP. Sleepwalkers have just released a record. 

RP: What’s the scene with that? Are they on Spacebomb?

MEW: Yup! 

RP: Are you releasing records they made?

MEW: Yeah, we had nothing to do with [the recording process].

RP: I feel like that’s a big change. Someone came to you with the finished record.

MEW: Yeah, yeah. And we just signed with Angelica Garcia, she’s released a couple singles and she has a record coming out.

RP: She’s a badass. She’s fucking outta here, bro.

MEW: She’s unbelievable.

RP: She’s got this fighting spirit. Every time I see her, I’m just… I’m happier. You know?

MEW: Yeah, she lights it up. We saw her play when we did the show in Austin for South By Southwest — that was a lot of Spacebomb artists, and people who came in from production that were associated with Spacebomb in one way or another. And it was five hours of music with the house band backing people up, it was sort of insane. But she did a solo set of her loop stuff, and it tore the house down… it was crazy, man, it was crazy. I was just like, “Oh my god, Angelica.” Just effortless. Effortless. It was amazing, so I’m very happy about that. And it’s nice that they’re local — that’s cool, but we’re not signing them because they’re local.

RP: I always thought that that was the thing y’all were missing in a way, local signings. And people who look different, you know? Different types of music in different backgrounds… less beards, less indie-ness.

MEW: Well, to be fair, there’s only one beard [laughs]. Sleepwalkers are really great, Angelica’s really great. What else? Like I was saying before we turned on the mic, we have the Alive at Spacebomb series that allows us to work with friends in the industry who aren’t necessarily signed to the label. So we did something with Hiss Golden Messenger and Sinkane. We did something with Fruit Bats and Vetiver earlier this year.

RP: Fruit Bats. That’s a fun band. They’re definitely out of left field, but they sound so good that it doesn’t matter. 

MEW: Yeah, it’s great. And it’s funny, the whole Spacebomb world has grown tremendously. Like I was saying before, we have our own studio. I am involved, but it used to be more like… I was the founder, and I was the driver of it. Now it has its own things rolling. I’m in there occasionally, but I’ve been focused as much, if not mostly, on Matthew E. White as a solo artist. Anything I produce goes through Spacebomb, but Spacebomb is a real record label with people that work in an office from nine to five every day. 106 Robinson. Go see ‘em if you want.

RP: I gotta go by there. They’re a great team, you know? I feel like it works well because you have a team full of go-getters, like Trey. Trey is a go-getter. He’s getting it done. And Alan, and Cameron is a deep artist. Pinson is a very deep artist.

MEW: It’s a lot bigger and a lot more energy, and a lot more work than just me. I think people kind of project it [a certain way]… sometimes in the interviews, I’ll read things as if it’s a Matt White thing. And at this point, it is just partially a Matt White thing. Like Merge.

RP: You got it off the ground. Merge is always going to be Mac, it doesn’t matter what he says.

MEW: It’s the label that goes, man. And that’s cool. I’m proud of that. I’m proud of those guys — Dan, Jesse, Dean, and Trey — and all those guys that work their asses off day-to-day to make it go. And hopefully, the idea is, we all kind of work it. And it all goes a little bit back into the same pot.

Listen to the full interview on Spotify below (or launch it in your app from mobile here) with Reggie Pace and Matthew E. White on The Hustle Season Podcast sponsored by RVA Magazine.

Matthew E. White photos via Spacebomb Records. Interview by Reggie Pace, words by S. Preston Duncan.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

VA Shows You Must See This Week: May 29 – June 4

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FEATURED SHOW
Friday, May 31, 8 PM
New Lions, Doll Baby, Fat Spirit @ The Camel – $6 in advance/$8 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Remember when Trump won and, alongside everyone who fucking hated it, there were a few people babbling about how “at least there’ll be some good angry music again”? Let me just say right now: it wasn’t worth it, especially for all the women, people of color, and LGBTQ people who’ve found themselves in the crosshairs. But if the return of New Lions is any indication, I’ll go ahead and grant it to those people — y’all were right.

New Lions, which is what Clair Morgan and his band are calling themselves now that they’ve accepted their past several years of existence as a full band, are celebrating the release of their latest EP and first new record in three years, End Story, at The Camel Friday night. With a band name drawn from the final Clair Morgan album, New Lions and the Not-Good Night, they’re clearly building on what has come before. But where previous Clair Morgan LPs mixed Clair’s mathy post-hardcore guitar style with melodic indie riffing, End Story finds this band writing in a decidedly more aggressive vein, with political lyrics and a harsher vocal sound that pushes them almost all the way to the border between post-hardcore and outright screamo.

If the Trump era can get an indie band this upset, imagine what it can do to all the marginalized communities the administration is taking aim for (though actually, you don’t have to imagine — it’s reality). At least we’ll have a killer soundtrack for the battle lines. Or for a Friday night at the Camel, trying to forget it all and enjoy a truly positive thing for this city — the return of one of the city’s leading musical lights to full-throated action. Doll Baby and Fat Spirit will open this one up, and you should definitely bring some extra cash to grab yourself a copy of End Story. You’re gonna need this one by your side this summer.

Wednesday, May 29, 8 PM
Tired All The Time, SameStory @ McCormack’s – $?
Tired All The Time have given themselves the perfect name for this era of millennial burnout and rapidly increasing income inequality. If you’re not one of the rare elites driving a $100,000 European sports car to your fantastically outfitted corporate office, you’re part of the vast assemblage of the rest of us, driving a used 10-year-old European sedan for Uber and panicking at the thought of an unexpected car repair. Is it any surprise that so many of us are, yes, Tired All The Time?

This DC band who wryly uses corporate-style text and iconography to send up the aforementioned elites, may not be able to keep you from having to replace your water pump in six months, but they sure can rock away your cares for one night. Tonight at McCormack’s, down in lovely Shockoe Bottom, they’ll bring their keyboard-laced postpunk sounds, displayed adroitly on last year’s Be Well EP, to the upstairs stage. And it won’t be long before you’re moving your feet with a big smile on your face. Don’t worry about tomorrow morning — just this once, you can wait til 9:30 to sign into the app. We promise.

Thursday, May 30, 9 PM
Ben Katzman’s DeGreaser, Newscaster, The Firnats @ Wonderland – $6
Rock n’ roll never goes out of style, and that’s why the arrival of Ben Katzman’s DeGreaser at another Shockoe Bottom mainstay, Wonderland, is a very welcome fact. Katzman has a Florida metal background and it comes through in spades on 2018’s Quarter Life Crisis, a true wailer of an album whose best tracks would have fit right in next to Van Halen and Judas Priest on early 80s hard rock radio.

But hot licks and killer riffs aren’t the only things Katzman’s DeGreaser have to offer the discerning patron of rock power. Their songs are incredibly well-constructed and have a subtle intelligence at work underneath all those Trans Am-rattling anthems. You can really tell when you check out the lyrics to songs like “Too Old For Retail,” “Goodbye Wi-Fi,” and “Cool Points Don’t Pay The Rent” — these guys know the struggle. And they’re coming to town Thursday night so we can all put it aside for just one night, and rock! You know you need it; let your hair down for this one.

Friday, May 31, 8 PM
Sleepwalkers, Wolcott’s Invisible Hand, Angelica Garcia @ The Broadberry – $12 in advance/$15 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Sleepwalkers have been an active force on the Richmond music scene for years now, but recently, with their debut full-length, Greenwood Shade, five years in the rearview, it has started to feel like they were fading a bit. Thankfully, that has all turned around in the last few months, with the group signing to Spacebomb and preparing to end the five-year drought of new Sleepwalkers tuneage with a new LP, coming later this year.

It’s not out yet, but the group is celebrating this weekend nonetheless. The first single from the new LP, “Fault Is Me,” came out a couple months ago. Now, Spacebomb is releasing a limited-edition cassette containing remixes of the single by noteworthy local producers including DJ Harrison and Giavos, and Friday night’s show at the Broadberry is your first chance to grab it for yourself! It’s also sure to give you an opportunity to familiarize yourself with some of the other material Sleepwalkers have in store for their full-length Spacebomb debut later this year. Be there and get in on the ground floor.

Saturday, June 1, 9 PM
The Cryptkeeper Five, The Vansaders, Decide By Friday, Dead Format, American Television @ Mojo’s – $5 suggested donation
You might think this is the band Bobby “Boris” Pickett was singing about back in 1962, but no — that was actually the Crypt-Kicker Five. The Cryptkeeper Five are actually a quartet, and they play rollicking punk n’ roll tunes that are sometimes augmented by a Springsteen-style expanded band, complete with horn section. The stage at Mojo’s can’t accomodate all that, but the original four-piece will rock you all the same this Saturday night.

On their latest LP, The Stronghold — which was released on local powerhouse Say-10 Records, not coincidentally the label putting on this entire show — The Cryptkeeper Five come across like a strange combination of the Smoking Popes, Alkaline Trio, and Titus Andronicus, and if you dig any of that (or, for that matter, the subtle Springsteen mention above), you’re sure to have a blast when they hit the stage. Tourmates the Vansaders are actually from Asbury Park, but their acoustic folk-punk sound is a bit less Boss-ish and more reminiscent of The Waterboys or The Pogues. Both of these bands and some killer local groups as well will be combining powers to make this Saturday night musical extravaganza one to remember. Bring cash for the donation pot, and bring your card to buy a cheesesteak — they’re delicious.

Sunday, June 2, 6 PM
Matron, Kristeva, Deer Eats Birds @ Garden Grove Brewing – Free!
Free shows to end your weekend are always fun, and there are multiple places around town willing to hook us up with such things on a near-weekly basis. It’s just another wonderful thing about living in RVA. Matron are not from RVA — they come to us from New Orleans — but they’re bringing some wonderful sounds to our town that are sure to wrap up your weekend right. Their latest EP, Standing Water, shows off their unusual hybrid between energetic, mathy post-hardcore and synth-driven alt-rock weirdness, and the group is sure to blow us all away with it once they hit the stage.

We’re lucky enough to get some wonderful local sounds on this bill too — in fact, one or more of these local bands may play after Matron (I’d put one before and one after, but I stopped booking shows a while back due to a permanent case of exhaustion so I may not be the one to ask). No matter when these bands perform, we can be sure that the brilliant, epic post-rock of Kristeva and the complex, melodic alt-rock of Deer Eats Birds will add additional spice and flair to our weekend’s all-too-imminent end. And that’s wonderful.

Monday, June 3, 7 PM
Amy Klein (Photo by Orlando S. Gondar), Black Plastic, SLOGAME, Strawberry Moon @ The Camel – $5 in advance/$7 day of show (order tickets HERE)
You might know Amy Klein from her days in Titus Andronicus — she played guitar on the band’s early high-water mark, The Monitor — from her politically-informed online writings, or from her 2016 solo debut, Fire. But Klein is taking things to a whole new level with her upcoming sophomore LP, Winter/Time. Not only does the LP’s lead single, “Nothing,” show both a driving punk energy and some serious postpunk/new wave melodic chops, the album as a whole will apparently tackle complicated narratives constructed from an imaginary world that Klein nurtured in her mind as a child, known as a paracosm.

That might sound like pretty insane stuff at first blush, but album-as-high-concept-fantasy-novel is a familiar trope across the history of intelligent, unorthodox rock n’ roll, from Rush’s 2112 to The Who’s legendarily unrealized Lifehouse. With the album on the eve of release, it seems likely that Klein will go the way of the Rush classic rather than the Who’s nervous-breakdown-fueling collapse, and that’s certainly a great thing. If nothing else, it offers us the tantalizing possibility of a whole album full of songs as good as “Nothing” — which will certainly be a lovely treat for us all this summer. Get ready by heading down to the Camel and rocking with Amy Klein this Monday night. It’s a great way to start your week.

Tuesday, June 4, 7 PM
Justus Proffit, Camp Howard, Big Baby, Lobby Boy @ Gallery 5 – $10 in advance/$12 day of show (order tickets HERE)
You know, I can’t say I’m familiar with memorably-named LA singer-songwriter Justus Proffit, but he’s apparently somewhat of a prodigy, having played in touring bands since he was 16 or so. Now he’s 25, and if you’re thinking, “Oh, is this kid the next Jay Reatard then?” you’re not entirely on the wrong track. His new album, LA’s Got Me Down, is full of psychedelic garage tunes, doused in noisy guitar distortion that can’t quite hide the brilliant melodies at its heart.

Proffit’s tunes of LA struggle reference drugs, death, and a culture of false allegiances, but they’re kept aloft by his flawless ear for pop melodies. There’s an ever-present psychedelic weirdness as well, just to keep the whole thing glowing with the sunlight of a slightly overexposed photograph. The combination is unique, arresting, and memorable, and if Proffit carries on in this fashion, he’ll be hugely famous before you know it. Get in on this movement before the rest of the world catches on, and spend your Tuesday night at Gallery 5. You won’t regret it.

Elsewhere Around The State:

Thursday, May 30, 8 PM
Phobia, Diseased Earth, Organ Trail @ The Golden Pony – $12 (order tickets HERE)
Legendary California grindcore ragers Phobia have been around for damn near 30 years now, and despite many different trials and tribulations over that time, they continue rolling along at full speed — their forthcoming LP, Generation Coward, is something like their 16th release, and that’s not even counting the million split EPs they’ve done over the years. They’ve still got the fire in their bellies, though, as is clear from the new LP’s advance single, “Internet Tough Guy.” We’ve all known a few of those, am I right?

Anyway, Phobia are coming to Harrisonburg’s Golden Pony tomorrow night, and they’re going to rock the place like crazy. Roaring, growling vocals, grinding thrash guitar riffs, and super-fast blast beats aplenty await the fortunate souls who stumble into the Golden Pony. It’s going to be awesome, especially with regional powerhouses Diseased Earth and Organ Trail (not the computer game you played in middle school — oh my, no) dropping a bomb loaded full of death-metallic grind power on you to kick this night off. Be ready to bang your head, because you’re going to be doing a lot of that.

Saturday, June 1, 8 PM
Blue Streak, The Great Noise, Bacchae, W I S H, Wring Out @ West Beach Tavern – $10 (order tickets HERE)
Hardcore isn’t just a sound, it’s a culture. Want proof? Check out hardcore bands like Angel Du$t, or Culture Abuse — bands that are both beloved in the scene and bear no resemblance to Minor Threat, Black Flag, Bad Brains, or any of the other agreed-upon touchstones of the sound. But their members have played hardcore music before, so hardcore kids are willing to check them out. Blue Streak might be another one of those bands; featuring members of Give, Red Death, and — sure enough — Angel Du$t, this group nonetheless brings a sound that comes much closer to indie pop and alternative rock than anything approaching hardcore.

Will the kids love it nonetheless? It’s an open question with this relatively new band, who’ve only released two singles thus far. However, considering the quality of the songs on offer, they certainly should. And those of you who couldn’t care less about hardcore might want to consider doing so as well. Fans of everything from Sloan to Braid to The Breeders are going to hear things they really like in this band’s sound — regardless of cultural affiliation. They’ll be playing with a bunch of other melodic indie, alt-rock, and shoegaze groups as well, so you’re sure to have a full night of joy with fellow DC power-poppers Bacchae, Hampton Roads killers The Great Noise, and even Richmond’s own hazy-guitar maestros, W I S H. What are you waiting for? Get down with it.

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Email me if you’ve got any tips for me about upcoming shows (that take place after the week this column covers -– this week’s column has obviously already been written): [email protected]

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

VA Shows You Must See This Week: April 10 – April 16

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FEATURED SHOW
Friday, April 12, 9 PM
Horsewhip, Infant Island, Eliza Battle @ Wonderland – $5
The loss of Strange Matter at the end of 2018 was, as everyone reading this knows firsthand, a devastating blow to the Richmond music scene. We were really feeling its departure in January of this year, when it became a real struggle some nights to find a place where good bands were playing. Thankfully, though, the Richmond scene has shown its longtime resilience in the face of setbacks; these days, we’re starting to see a new normal establish itself. Indie bands that would previously have played Strange Matter have a number of potential alternative destinations — The Camel and Capital Ale House’s Richmond Music Hall among them. As for the heavy bands, they’ve got Wonderland.

Wonderland’s always been a good spot to see a punk or metal show on a Saturday night, but it seems of late that their stage is seeing a good bit more use, and by more high-profile bands, than ever before. That’s certainly a positive development, especially when it gives bands like Horsewhip an opportunity to play in town. These Florida-based hardcore veterans released an absolutely pulverizing self-titled mini-LP last year, and they’re set to bring the noise to Shockoe Bottom this Friday night.

The group’s lineup is packed full of multi-decade DIY hardcore vets, featuring members of Early Grace, Reversal Of Man, Order of Importance, and the Sutek Conspiracy — and if you weren’t around in 1999 to hear the sounds they were cranking out at the time, rest assured they’ve lost not an ounce of power as they’ve aged. Their self-titled debut brings all the hectic chaos of prime 90s chaotic hardcore bands like, well, the ones they used to be in, as well as packing a heavy-as-fuck wallop that draws strength from bands like His Hero Is Gone and From Ashes Rise. Joined by a couple of Virginia bands representing the new generation of a similarly heavy, chaotic, and noisy hardcore sound — Infant Island and Eliza Battle, to be specific — Horsewhip is set to terrorize Shockoe Bottom this Friday night with some essential high-volume rage. Bring your earplugs.

Wednesday, April 10, 7 PM
Life In Vacuum, Ostraca, Manzara @ The Camel – $10 in advance/$12 day of show (order tickets HERE)
One night of chaos deserves another, so let’s move forward in the show column as we move backwards in time from Friday night to tonight, when Canadian trio Life In Vacuum rolls into town and sets up shop at The Camel. This group might not have Horsewhip’s sheer heaviness to draw on, but their chaotic energy more than makes up for it; last year’s All You Can Quit finds the group drawing on frenetic influences from multiple decades. I hear everything from Angel Hair to Single Mothers in this band’s sound, and all of it sounds great when they do it.

So yeah, get ready for some manic chaos with a quirky, mathematical feel when Life In Vacuum take the stage, and stay stoked for the local openers. Though, having said that, I should admit that at least in my heart, Ostraca are headliners in their own right. And considering the sheer power of their dark, heavy take on chaotic hardcore, as displayed most recently on their third LP, 2018’s Enemy, they should be headliners in your heart too. They will pair well with Life In Vacuum’s less heavy but just as chaotic approach, and the opening set by local psychedelic postpunk gloom merchants Manzara will get things started off on the perfect note. This one’s gonna rule.

Thursday, April 11, 7:30 PM
The Bones Of JR Jones, Angelica Garcia, Erin Lunsford @ Capital Ale House Music Hall – $10 (order tickets HERE)
This one’s gonna be fun, because The Bones Of JR Jones is an honest-to-god one-man band, and I always enjoy those. JR Linaberry sits behind a highly abbreviated drum kit he plays with foot pedals, singing and playing rootsy countrified rock n’ roll on a hollow-body guitar. The results sometimes appeal in a similar way to gutbucket roots-rockers like Hasil Adkins and Scott H. Biram, but there’s an undeniable tinge of heartfelt emotion and sincerity that comes through in the group’s more melodic moments.

The overall feel is somewhere between high-lonesome country and noisy garage rock, and that’s definitely a good place to be. 2018’s Ones To Keep Close LP showed Linaberry’s talented songwriting capability, but you won’t get the full feel of what The Bones Of JR Jones are about unless you go see them live, in all their foot-stomping one-man glory. Local songwriting excellence will come to us in the form of talented openers Angelica Garcia and Erin Lunsford. This one will be glorious.

Friday, April 12, 9 PM
Suppression, Hewolf, Destruct @ Bandito’s – Free!
It’s always great to see local veterans at the top of their game show off their prowess in an intimate venue, and we’ll get multiple chances to see that exact thing go down at Bandito’s this Friday night. Suppression’s coming close to three decades of existence, and their sound has mutated multiple times over the course of that lengthy history; their recent revival as a hyperspeed powerhouse of lo-fi grind, as captured on last year’s Placebo Reality LP, has been a real blast to watch and enjoy. When they start tearing it up at Bandito’s this Friday night, there’s no telling what chaos will result from the wave of sonic destruction they unleash. The prospect is thrilling.

But what’s really fun about this night is that it offers us a bonus chance to see what some multi-decade scene stalwarts are up to these days. In this case I am talking about Hewolf, a new trio with a grunge kick and some killer riffage to dispense. Out-of-towners might not completely know what’s up, but longtime local showgoers will know exactly what I mean when I say this band brings together members of Alabama Thunderpussy, Darkest Hour, and the almighty Crackhead to dish out some Slianglaos-style heavyosity. It’s gonna be fun as hell, in a Headbangers Ball-flashback sense, so get ready to throw some devil horns. Destruct starts the evening off with some blown-out Negative Approach-meets-Discharge old-school hardcore punk to get your juices flowing. Grab some tacos and settle in for a long night of awesomeness.

Saturday, April 13, 7 PM
The Machinist, Filth, Alukah, Black Matter Device @ McCormack’s – $12
It’s a heavy week in Richmond, y’all. And Saturday night might just be the heaviest of them all, as New York deathcore crew The Machinist rolls through town on a tour celebrating the release of their debut album, Confidimus In Morte (which apparently translates to “In Death We Trust” — love it). Opening single “No Peace” shows not just how heavy this band can make their breakdowns, but also their extensive rage, as huge chugging riff monsters meet with more melodic, progressive interludes, all topped with vocalist Amanda Gjelaj’s incredibly powerful roars.

The Machinist certainly aren’t just here to sound spooky, either, as their lyrics tackle weighty political topics and don’t hesitate for a second to confront the powers that be who keep us all in chains. Their music is a defiant roar in the face of trying times, and that’s always a huge plus. The Machinist are joined on this tour by Filth — not the Northern California crust-punk group a lot of us may be thinking of right now, but the North Carolina death metal group whose guttural vocals and sludgy tempos add up to a more straight-up take on deathcore than that of The Machinist. One thing’s for sure though — both of these bands are extremely heavy. Like, atomic-weight-of-plutonium heavy. Wear your radiation suits for this one.

Sunday, April 14, 7:30 PM
Papadosio, Cycles @ The National – $15 in advance/$20 at the door (order tickets HERE)
I will go ahead and admit I don’t typically pay much attention to the scene from which Papadosio hails, a scene the proponents of which twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels to avoid calling “jam-tronica.” It’s not exactly a term that invites curiosity from wary outsiders, of which I’ve certainly been one at many points. However, once I checked out the latest LP from Papadosio, 2018’s Content Coma, I found myself surprisingly intrigued. It seems that perhaps I have sold this band short.

What I found when I listened to their music, the sound they will present onstage at the National this Sunday night, was a band with almost none of the post-Phish “jam” tendencies I feared. Instead, they tend towards a proggy vibe with a lot of spaced-out ambient melodies. At its more digital moments, Content Coma has an atmospheric feel; when things kick in, they get downright epic. I hear moments reminiscent of everything from Yes and Soft Machine to Tangerine Dream and Tame Impala. And thankfully, it never makes me think of Disco Biscuits. So yeah, if you’re bored Sunday night, you should head over to the National and groove with Papadosio. It’ll do you no harm.

Monday, April 15, 9 PM
Allison Shearer (photo by Drew Bordeaux), Weekend Plans, Calvin Presents @ The Camel – $7 in advance/$10 day of show (order tickets HERE)
It seems not a week goes by lately without me writing about live jazz in the show column, and I for one am stoked about that! Let’s keep the ball rolling this week, shall we? Alison Shearer is coming to the Camel this Monday night with her quintet in tow. This New York saxophonist has both jazz and hip hop cred due to her founding membership in PitchBlak Brass Band, who worked with everyone from Pharoahe Monch to Snarky Puppy during her tenure with the group.

These days, she’s heading up her own quintet, which mixes together the rockin’ jazz sound of fusion and the groovy bounce of hip hop. Their instrumental tunes are sure to get you moving and shaking on the Camel’s dance floor. What’s more, they’ll be in good company! Local brass-heavy ensemble Weekend Plans have a good bit of hip hop sound in their jazzy mix as well, having done Slick Rick covers during past Camel sets. Maybe we’ll get more of that this time around? We’ll certainly get some soulful keyboard-driven jazz tunes from Calvin Presents to start off the evening, and that’s sure to be wonderful. Give the grey start of the work week a delightful splash of color with this one.

Tuesday, April 16, 7 PM
Plini, Mestis, Dave Mackay @ The Canal Club – $18 in advance/$20 at the door (order tickets HERE)
Remember the Generation Axe tour that came through town back in December? It packed practically all the legendary shredders of the 80s and 90s — Malmsteen, Bettencourt, Vai, etc — onto one single stage for a night of metallic fingertap gymnastics. I bring this up now because the arrival of Plini in Richmond could easily be heralded as the new generation of axe.

The man’s playing is not just skillful in the manner of too many guitar-store showoffs — million-note runs going nowhere in particular over generic backing beats. Instead, on releases like his latest EP, Sunhead, Plini shows that he’s actually got riffs and songs to make his guitar instrumentals not just worth admiring but worth listening to. Best of all, his tunes aren’t just triumphant, in the Iron Maiden-ish power-metal sense, but downright jubilant. If you never thought a performance by an instrumental guitar shredder could lift your mood and make you smile, you should definitely go to the Canal Club Tuesday night and check out what Plini has to offer. Your therapist will definitely thank you for it.

Bonus Hampton Roads Pick:

Saturday, April 13, 7 PM
Pet Name, Jim Shorts, Shake Your Baby, Mas Y Mas @ Toast – $8 in advance/$10 day of show (order tickets HERE)
For indie/alt-rock/power-pop types, the name to watch in the Virginia Beach area is LAVA. They book a lot of other shows too, but it seems like this particular conglomerate gives particular shine to groups playing jangly, melodic sounds with a quirky feel. That’s certainly what you’ll get at this show over at Toast Saturday night. Headed up by Norfolk locals Pet Name, this bill is chock-full of charmingly amateur-sounding indie tuneage.

Pet Name’s self-titled EP from last year lets you know that, while you can’t expect major volume or heaviness from this crew of popsters, you can expect catchy tunes delivered with a winsome charm that’s sure to win you over. Meanwhile, Maryland’s Jim Shorts, who’ll be in town on a solo jaunt by frontman David Haynes (who has recorded a fair amount of the group’s tunes on his own anyway), bring a bit more of a Weezer-ish alt-rock kick to their powerful pop sounds. How that’ll translate when brought to life by just one guy isn’t entirely clear, but we do know that he’s got some incredibly well-written and memorable tunes to work with. Expecting great things is a safe move. Punk rockers Shake Your Baby (not actually a good tip, like, at all) and energetic indie kids Mas Y Mas open this one up. Get ready to smile!

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Email me if you’ve got any tips for me about upcoming shows (that take place after the week this column covers -– this week’s column has obviously already been written): [email protected]

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond