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The Welcome Return Of A Talented Native Son

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With K Bay, Matthew E. White delivers his first solo album in six years. A joyous, fully realized musical statement, it reveals itself to be fully worth the wait, and quite possibly the RVA album of the summer (yes, even if it did come out in September).

Matthew E. White hasn’t totally disappeared from the world of popular music since his last solo album, Fresh Blood, came out six years ago in 2015. He has, after all, released two collaborative albums: one, Gentlewoman, Ruby Man, with Flo Morrissey in 2017; the other, Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection, with Lonnie Holley earlier this year. But for the most part, his activities have moved out of the spotlight. Rather than taking center stage, he’s produced albums for Natalie Prass, arranged orchestrations for Foxygen, and made records with Bedouine and Hiss Golden Messenger, among others, as part of his extensive work with the label/studio/house band he co-founded, the almighty Spacebomb.

So yeah, Matthew E. White hasn’t exactly been lazy in the six years since he last released a solo album. Nonetheless, for the many fans he made with his first two albums, the arrival of third album K Bay is surely the musical event of the summer. For White, it’s also a chance to correct some mistakes he felt that he’d made earlier in his career. Despite it arriving three full years after debut album Big Inner, White felt he’d rushed his follow-up, Fresh Blood, and has spent the last few years away from the spotlight figuring out how to recalibrate and get back in touch with the inner creative voice that guided earlier efforts like his work with legendary Richmond music collective Fight The Big Bull, and his extensive collaborative work with the local luminaries who make up the 21st-century Wrecking Crew that is the Spacebomb House Band.

During the past six years, White made an effort to separate his own work from that of the Spacebomb organization. While it was a rich collaborative environment, it sometimes became an obligation that crowded out his ability to work on things he wanted to do for himself. In order to give himself some space for his own work, White built a home studio in his new house on Kensington Avenue, calling it “K Bay” in simultaneous acknowledgement of the Museum District avenue he lived on and the coastal environments from Virginia Beach to the Philippines where he lived as a youth.

When you listen to the first half of K Bay, the album — which was recorded at K Bay, the studio — you can’t help but hear the tropical vibes White hoped to evoke in his home recording environment; they fairly ooze from the speakers. From the synthetic Caribbean percussion and lyrical uses of hippie-era slang for sex in the dancefloor banger “Let’s Ball” to the funky rhythms and disco/postpunk guitar stabs of “Electric” (featuring a murderer’s row of Richmond music all-stars including Devonne Harris, Cameron Ralston, Alan Parker, and Pinson Chanselle), there’s an undeniable energy to side one of this album that speaks of a happy, self-actualized bandleader rejoicing in the newfound joys of married life and long-sought success in the music world that’s always been his life.

Things get slinky and smooth in a lights-go-down fashion at times too. Moody centerpiece “Fell Like An Ax” drops the tempo and gets into a Barry White vibe, one that will surely lead to some fun intimate times for more than a few grown-and-sexy couples who kick off the weekend by drinking wine on the couch with K Bay as the soundtrack. Let’s just say that if you’re planning to put this one on as background music for an intimate dinner for two, you’re going to want to change the sheets beforehand.

This album isn’t entirely an escape from the real issues White’s native land has grappled with over the past half-dozen years, though; at the halfway point, with “Only In America/When The Curtains Of The Night Are Peeled Back,” White engages in a lengthy exploration of the culpability white Americans should feel for the continuing racist oppression that takes place across the USA. “We set aside all that’s right, and we left behind in the darkest night all the folks we didn’t want next to us, or even near to us, cruisin’ on our avenue,” he sings, over a thick bed of emotionally evocative strings and horns that’s laid down by 33 different musicians from around the Richmond music scene (a group that includes more than a few names you’ll know from projects like Bio Ritmo and No BS! Brass Band). Shouting out over a dozen victims of racist violence, including Emmett Till, Rodney King, Sandra Bland, and Michael Brown, White makes clear that he recognizes the full extent to which the white South, and white America as a whole, owes a debt to the many oppressed communities who have never been given a fair deal in this country.

The latter half of the album gets more personal, as White sings extensively of his marriage, referencing “Judy” (a nickname for his wife, Merry) not just on the track that bears her name but also on tunes like the joyous “Never Had It Better” and the dark electric triumph of “Hedged In Darkness.” White has shown us that he can still party, and that he’s paying attention to the many problems that still exist in the world, but by the end of the album, he can’t help but focus at least for a while on the joy he feels at having found the love of his life. While the earlier, more party-oriented jams were often collaborations with talented songwriters including Natalie Prass, Eddie Prendergast, and Trey Pollard, these late-album paeans to marital happiness are solo efforts, into which White pours his heart and soul. The spare, acoustic ballad “Shine A Light For Me,” on which White declares, “I kept you on your toes and you kept me in line. Now we’re just tryin’ to find a way and maybe get out alive,” is contrasted nicely by the explosive midsong catharsis of album closer “Hedged In Darkness.” Alan Parker’s overdriven guitar solos combine with Daniel Clarke’s Hammond organ and an energetic horn section to provide the loudest, most powerful moment K Bay has to offer, as if to put an emphatic period at the end of the profound, multilayered statement White is making with this album.

Look, you’re from Richmond — you know by now what you’re getting from Matthew E. White. A focus on live instrumentation and group performance over studio perfection; an ongoing delight with the possibilities of classic American musical movements, from soul and gospel to funk, jazz, and Southern rock; that honeyed, baritone voice layered thick as molasses over it all. If it’s not your thing, fine — there’s a lot of other music in the world. But at the end of the day, anyone unwilling to acknowledge the strength of the work White delivers here, the incredibly talented craftsmanship and ineffable artistic spark that went into making it happen, and the fact that the rapturous reception it’s almost guaranteed to get is fully deserved… well, I don’t know what to say to you. Except maybe this: if you don’t get it, keep listening until you do. Because it’s there.

Top Photo by Cameron Lewis

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

RVA Magazine #38 Is On The Streets Today!

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It’s out! RVA Mag’s 38th edition is a photo-forward issue that focuses on live music, street art, and delicious local food & craft beer — the building blocks on which RVA Mag was built! That’s right, we’re returning to first principles with this issue, just in time to head into our 15th year of operation. Rest assured, you’ll hear more about that once we ring in 2020, but for now, get ready to feast your eyes on the local culture that is our Fall 2019 issue.

This time around, it’s all about the synergy, as we manage to capture two different conversations between leading lights of the Richmond music scene. On the heavier tip, we’ve got Iron Reagan’s Rob Skotis grilling Enforced vocalist Knox Colby on the behind-the-scenes secrets of Richmond’s hottest up-and-coming metallic hardcore band. Then on the smoother end of things, we’ve got a mini-Fight The Big Bull reunion happening right in our pages, as Spacebomb Records head honcho Matthew E. White answers some in-depth questions posed by No BS! Brass Band co-founder and trombone player to the stars Reggie Pace. The former collaborators chop it up about the movement they helped create a decade ago — the one that made Richmond a city to watch where soulful indie music is concerned.

We’ve got a whole lot more awaiting you in this new issue as well, from a photo spread by local photographer Heaton Johnson featuring the lovely and talented Jessi Rosenberg to a glimpse inside the creative mind of local poet and metal vocalist Ryan Kent. Plus, we get the word on WRIR’s long-running Death Club Radio program, catch up with fast-rising hip hop heavyweight Young Flexico, and get all the latest dish from all the fine purveyors of local craft beer your heart could desire. And of course there’s more.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and grab a copy of RVA Magazine #38. Free copies are available from our many partners around the city — scoop one up before they’re gone!

Check out the digital version on Issu here.

Sleepwalking Through The Ages

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With their forthcoming album on Spacebomb Records, Richmond’s Sleepwalkers demonstrate their mastery over many eras of musical evolution.

Having established themselves as leaders of Richmond’s retro-inspired indie rock scene on their 2014 debut album, Greenwood Shade, the river city’s own Sleepwalkers are back with a new album that confirms their status as a band that shouldn’t be ignored. 

On Ages, set to be released on July 19 via Spacebomb Records, Sleepwalkers revive the best sounds of the 70s and 80s, keeping their music original with a tasteful modern flair added to the mix. A pop record at its core, Ages wouldn’t be complete without fuzzed-out melodies and lush instrumentation that allows for plenty of repeat listens without ever failing to capture the listener’s attention. 

Sleepwalkers’ retro sound is influenced by “all the greats,” according to Austin York, who plays bass and sings in the band. The band cited Prince, The Beatles, and Genesis as having played a part in inspiring the sound that came out on the record. 

“We take inspiration from people like Quincy Jones,” said Michael York, brother of Austin, who plays guitar and sings in the band. Jones is a legendary producer who has worked with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald. That the band draws inspiration from a producer is telling; Ages was produced by the band all by themselves, allowing for complete creative control.

“I think the thing we are most proud of is the fact that we are a self-contained production group,” said Alex DeJong, who drums and engineers sound for the band. “We tried to push ourselves using the studio as a tool more than we did with the first record.”

Michael and Austin York in the studio.

Whereas Sleepwalkers’ booked the release show for Greenwood Shade before the album was even complete, forcing them to finish by a certain date, the band decided to give Ages the proper studio treatment. “This one was more taking our time, figuring out what sort of tones we wanted, which vibe we wanted,” said Austin. 

Chock full of various melodies and rhythms that stack on top of each other, Ages is a maximalist record, one that allows space for the sounds of different time periods to shine through. 

“We are doing these different time periods of music and the production changes with each one. It’s kind of like moving through different time periods,” Austin said. “It’s the Ages concept — moving through time.” 

The band’s debut album, Greenwood Shade, was self-released, but for Ages, they’ve hooked up with Spacebomb, a Richmond-based record label co-founded by well-known local musician Matthew E. White. With Spacebomb’s track record of releasing music by not only White but Natalie Prass, Andy Jenkins, and Bedouine, some might feel that Sleepwalkers’ time-traveling sound has found the perfect home. But for Sleepwalkers, the Spacebomb connection is really about friendship.

“Matt White brought us on tour a few years ago, and we just became good buds,” DeJong said. “It’s kind of a neat thing having a label in town.” 

Sleepwalkers are embarking on a tour in support of Ages. They’ll kick things off on July 13 in Richmond, alongside local favorites Camp Howard at The Broadberry. 

“Live shows are different,” Austin said, explaining that it’s difficult to replicate the complex sounds of the studio live on stage. DeJong mentioned that the band will stack a variety of keyboard tones onto a single keyboard, allowing for one instrument to sound like multiple synths. 

“It’s kind of hard to replicate a lot of the stuff, but we do make up for it with theatricality, or heavier vocals,” Michael added. 

Forging a new, unique sound by blending the music of the past with modern pop sensibilities, Sleepwalkers are notable for their ability to pay homage to the musical greats of earlier decades while maintaining a sound that is distinctively their own. 

This is a big challenge for any band, but it seems to come naturally to Sleepwalkers. The band is correct to be proud of the feat: “We did it all ourselves,” Austin said. 

Photos via Sleepwalkers/Facebook

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

VA Shows You Must See This Week: November 7 – November 13

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FEATURED SHOW
Saturday, November 10, 8 PM
GWAR, Municipal Waste, Miss May I, Toxic Holocaust, HAUNT @ The National – $22 in advance/$25 at the door (order tickets HERE)
Folks, it’s time once again that we check in on Richmond’s reigning masters of bloodthirsty metal from outer space. Everyone’s favorite homicidal aliens, GWAR, will return to the National’s stage once again this Saturday night, and it’s sure to be an absolute gorefest, so you know what that means — wear your white t-shirts and get ready to be hit by the cannons of goo that are certain to be unleashed. You know the ones; the ones that throw so much blood and guts all over the place that the National has to drape their balconies in bedsheets just to protect the fancy woodwork. If you think you can be anywhere in the same room as GWAR and stay safe from the splatter, you’re sadly mistaken, but that’s OK — getting covered in slimy stuff of uncertain origin is part of what makes GWAR shows so much fun!

Last year, GWAR released their first new album since the death of founder Dave Brockie. The Blood Of Gods sees the crossover sound GWAR have cultivated over the past several albums giving way to a more over-the-top rock n’ roll sound that sees new vocalist (and originator of the Beefcake the Mighty character) Michael Bishop howling and yowling, Ted Nugent-style. There’s still plenty of thrashing going on with GWAR these days, don’t get me wrong; but the fact that the album ends with a cover of AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood (You Got It)” should tell you something about what you can expect, musically speaking, from GWAR these days.

That said, we all know that the gore-saturated show is the main attraction when seeing GWAR live. But there’s plenty of ass-kicking no-show all-go metal on this bill as well. The main attraction for all of you hoping to spend a few hours focusing on banging your head is the one and only Municipal Waste, who’d been largely dormant for most of this decade but returned to action last year with a beefed-up lineup featuring former Cannabis Corpse axe-slinger Nikropolis on rhythm guitars and their first LP in five years, Slime And Punishment. If you haven’t caught up with the Waste since all that went down, rest assured that they’re gonna fuck you up just like they always have. They’ll do it with the able assistance of their best thrashcore pals, Toxic Holocaust, as well as metalcore mainstays Miss May I and up-and-coming Maiden-esque power-metallers HAUNT. It’s a headbanging bonanza, and it’ll be topped off with a serious bloodbath. Should make for a wonderful weekend.

Wednesday, November 7, 7 PM
Slothrust, Mannequin Pussy, Doll Baby @ The Camel – $12 in advance/$14 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Look out, all you rock n’ rollers — the 90s are still back, perhaps more back than ever, and one great aspect of that is the continued ascendance of powerful songwriters with rough, distorted guitars that hit you hard even as their lyrics and vocal melodies make you feel some strong emotions. Slothrust is one of those groups, and singer-guitarist Leah Wellman is showing the world exactly what she has to offer on their brand new LP, The Pact, released a couple months ago on Dangerbird Records. There’s a darkness to songs like “Planetarium” and “Fever Doggs” that if anything harks back to a pre-90s, pre-Nirvana sensibility. These songs should strike familiar chords for fans of the Meat Puppets, or Green River, and do a great job of demonstrating that Slothrust has more to offer than an unabashed reiteration of what bands like Babes In Toyland and L7 did before (though don’t get me wrong, there’s a good bit of that in there too).

Slothrust are joined on this bill by Mannequin Pussy, a Philadelphia punk band who’ve been making a strong impact in Richmond for years now, and have also been growing beyond their noisy punk roots, into a sound that encompasses a variety of genres and combines rage, passion, and melody in an inspiring manner. Their 2016 album, Romantic, moves from roaring blasts of punk fury into moments of breathtaking melody, complete with shoegaze-style guitar swells. One thing that’s present on all of their songs is a strong emotional foundation that singer-guitarist Marisa Dabice communicates with everything from a breathy croon to a frustrated scream. No matter where each moment lands on the spectrum of her vocal range, though, all of them are honest, real, and gripping in their intensity. This isn’t one you’re going to want to miss. Local support by Doll Baby, who have a great deal in common with both touring bands, completes a powerful trifecta. You know what to do.

Thursday, November 8, 9 PM
Roosevelt Collier, Bennett Wales & The Relief, The Bush League @ The Camel – $12 in advance/$15 day of show (order tickets HERE)
If you love to hear people wail on the electric guitar, this is the show for you. Roosevelt Collier is a pedal steel guitarist with roots in the same “sacred steel” tradition that brought Robert Randolph and his family band into the world, but Collier combines that gospel-soul sound with a Hendrix-ian approach that finds him in high demand with heavyweights like the Tedeschi-Trucks Band and the Allman Brothers. He’s a core member of Snarky Puppy bassist Michael League’s “World Music All-Star Band,” Bokanté, and he’s finally stepped out on his own this year as the frontman for his own group, which he’ll be bringing to the Camel.

Collier and his backing band are on tour in support of his debut solo album, Exit 16, on which he worked again with Snarky Puppy bassist Michael League. The album displays a hell of a range, moving from uptempo workouts to slow, seductive grooves, all with a very heavy bottom end. Collier’s playing is always the star of the show, and the man gets some outstanding noise out of his pedal-steel axe. While instrumental music can sometimes feel a bit bare-bones, you’ll never miss the vocals when Roosevelt Collier is laying waste to his slide guitar. He joins with VA Beach funk-rockers Bennett Wales and the Relief and RVA’s own blues-wailing machine, The Bush League, to tear the roof off the Camel this Thursday, and you should really be there to see — and hear — it all go down.

Friday, November 9, 7 PM
Pale Waves, Miya Folick, The Candescents @ The Broadberry – $15 in advance/$18 day of show (order tickets HERE)
These days when you hear the sort of reverbed guitars and ambient synth sounds that have been a marker of the goth-postpunk sound in vogue at the moment for several years now, you expect to know what you’re getting. Dark moods, downcast eyes, sad lyrics full of desolate imagery that connect strongly with your personal alienation as you sit alone in your room in the dark. But haven’t we all had our fill of that sort of approach to the mid-80s postpunk sound? After a few years, all those 80s goth kids turned into bouncy New Wavers that would rather dance to New Order than cry to the Cure anyway — isn’t it time we found an antidote for our own post-millennial kohl-eyeliner blues?

That’s what Pale Waves is here to offer. The Manchester band may trace their aesthetic back to Siouxsie and the Banshees, but their sound is building on the uplifting synth melodies of recent UK postpunk successes CHVRCHES and adding some of the same glittering guitars and melodic bass lines that the original goth bands excelled at. Recently released LP My Mind Makes Noises hits all the right notes for the kids who still want to wear all black but are discovering the thrill of new love and the promise of sunny days. God knows everything is depressing enough these days… don’t we need our music to lift the veil at least a little bit? If you’re ready to dance with a smile on your face rather than tears in your eyes, come to The Broadberry this Friday night and bounce to the music of Pale Waves. It can’t rain all the time.

Saturday, November 10, 7 PM
Eat Your HRT Out: A Trans Health Clinic Benefit, feat. Toxic Moxie, Madison Turner, Wargo, Dad, Jafar Flowers @ Strange Matter – $15-20 suggested donation
I know, I know, I just wrote about Toxic Moxie like two weeks ago. But what was the rule we established the last time I wrote about them? I do believe it was “you will go see Toxic Moxie whenever they play a show.” We just had an election, but this one wasn’t on the ballot, so it is still very much in force. You want punk rage and disco euphoria? You want serious political views leavened with some good-time party energy? Toxic Moxie have got it all.

And what’s more, they’re bringing it to you this time in support of a very good cause. Planned Parenthood’s Trans Health Clinic is one of the only steady providers of transgender-specific health services in Richmond, and considering that trans people are much more likely to be unemployed or underemployed than the general population, their patients are more likely to face economic strain in finding ways to pay for their medical care. What your donation at the door of this show — which, in addition to the disco party punk of Toxic Moxie, will also feature an always-rockin’ full band set from Madison Turner, some electronic dance sounds from Jafar Flowers, and a good bit more — will go toward is helping ensure that prices for Planned Parenthood’s much-needed medical support for the trans community remain as affordable as possible. Plus you’ll have a great time in the bargain, and who doesn’t need more of those?

Sunday, November 11, 8 PM
Video Shoppe, BUTT, Fat Spirit @ Flora – $?
It’s always fascinating to see how people find ways to do a band despite lacking some seemingly crucial core members. Providence duo Video Shoppe easily found a way around this particular dilemma. No drummer? No problem — just bring in a primitive electronic beat machine, trigger it with foot pedals, and stack TVs and VCRs around you to when you play to make up for the fact that there’s nobody flailing away behind a kit and giving the audience some sudden moves to latch onto.

But that sort of creative problem-solving only goes so far if you don’t have some really cool songs to bring to the world when you play, and Video Shoppe’s latest EP, Nostalgia Trap(s), finds them filling that need in excellent fashion as well. Their pounding drum machine makes for an interesting contrast with their delicate postpunk guitar sound, just as their singer’s moody baritone offers an emotional feel completely different from that presented by their chiming melodies. The result has both power and ethereality, and will glow brightly in the dark room at the back of Flora this Sunday night. Their pairing with local ramshackle garage-rockers BUTT and the glorious grunge fury of Fat Spirit will round out the evening into a blast of rock n’ roll fun you’ll be willing to pay whatever the heck they’re actually charging at the door to get into.

Monday, November 12, 8 PM
Super Unison, NØ Man, Sensual World, Ugly Muscle @ Strange Matter – $10 (order tickets HERE)
This is one I’ve been looking forward to. Super Unison recently released their second LP, Stella, and it took their already powerful post-hardcore sound to a whole new level. You may know this group from the fact that singer-bassist Meghan O’Neil previously fronted ripping fastcore band Punch, but from their inception, Super Unison have had a great deal more to offer than O’Neil’s previous group, as they both retain the hardcore velocity of Punch and integrate the sort of driving, noisy energy of bands like Drive Like Jehu (who inspired the group’s name) and Rodan.

Stella finds Super Unison expanding beyond the sound of their 2016 debut LP by incorporating more dynamic shifts within single songs; they’ve also increased the melodic quotient of their guitar riffs, even as O’Neil’s vocals have become harsher and more emotionally-driven. Some might say these guys have been listening to some of the screamo stuff coming out of their home state of California — Vril, say, or Loma Prieta — and I think there’s definitely evidence to support that conclusion. Whether you’re a fan of passionate screamo, hardcore fury, or noisy rock chaos, though, you’re sure to get a lot out of Super Unison’s unrelenting attack. Put yourself in the way of it — you’ll never regret it.

Tuesday, November 13, 6:30 PM
Classical Revolution RVA presents Trey Pollard, Matthew E. White @ The HofGarden – $7 in advance/$10 at the door (order tickets HERE)
This is about as far as you can get from post-hardcore rage, but like they say, variety is the spice of life. It’s also how we keep things interesting here in Richmond, which a lot of people (including me) will tell you is one of the best music cities in the entire country. This Tuesday night sees some tremendously interesting things happening at The HofGarden, as Spacebomb Records head honchos Trey Pollard and Matthew E. White join together with local chamber music collective Classical Revolution RVA in order to present the live premiere of compositions from Pollard’s new album, Antiphone, coming later this month from Spacebomb.

Trey Pollard isn’t the sort of musician we’re used to interacting with here in the indie rock world. He’s a true composer, one who has done orchestral compositions and arrangements for everyone from Spacebomb compatriots Matthew E. White and Natalie Prass to Scottish indie-folk group The Waterboys and This American Life-affiliated podcast S-Town. Now he’s releasing the first album of his own compositions, which was recorded by a 16 piece ensemble earlier this year with Pollard conducting. For the performance at The Hof, a string quintet featuring members of Classical Revolution RVA will play compositions from Antiphone live for the first time. They’ll also accompany Matthew E. White for portions of a solo piano-and-vocal set that he’ll treat us all to, before we dive fully into the bold new works Pollard is bringing into the world. This is an evening for people who love all forms of music, and are most excited to see something unlike anything else out there. If you’re a true music fan, you’re not going to want to miss it.

Bonus Hampton Roads Picks:

Thursday, November 8, 7 PM
Fishbone, Jackmove @ Shaka’s – $27 in advance/$32 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Remember how we were talking earlier about the 90s being back? It doesn’t just show through in the return of sounds and styles that were popular back then; it also shows up in all the bands that are getting back together and returning to the road after decades away. Strictly speaking, this doesn’t describe Fishbone — they’ve been together the whole time, with founding vocalist Angelo Moore and bassist John Norwood Fisher sticking around through thick and thin. However, this year has seen the group return to their classic lineup for the first time since the late 90s. Or, well, that’s not entirely true — no one familiar with the whole saga will be surprised to hear that Kendall Jones isn’t back. But other than Jones, the lineup responsible for classic late-80s/early-90s LPs Truth And Soul, The Reality Of My Surroundings, and the unforgettably titled Give A Monkey A Brain and He’ll Swear He’s The Center Of The Universe is back once again and hitting the road to remind us why we loved Fishbone back in the day.

Of course, some of you are going to wonder what the heck I’m talking about. I hear you muttering: “Who is Fishbone, and why does it even matter?” Here’s the deal: back when “funk-punk” was a real, up-and-coming hybrid genre with underground energy and vitality, Fishbone were at the center of it. Never mind Red Hot Chili Peppers (who knew enough to shout Fishbone out constantly on their early albums); tracks like “Party At Ground Zero,” “Bonin’ In The Boneyard,” “Swim,” and “Everyday Sunshine” showed a talented group absorbing everything from ska and soul to hardcore and metal, then spitting it all back out in a wave of talented originality like nothing else out there, then or now. The members of Fishbone are quite a bit older now, but the songs they created in their heyday are still great, and their talent (and singer Angelo Moore’s boundless energy) are undiminished. This show will be both the perfect introduction for the young ‘uns among you and an outstanding opportunity for those of us who know exactly what Fishbone is all about to see the classic lineup in full nutt-megalomaniac form. Hell yeah.

Saturday, November 10, 7 PM
Good Riddance, Bigwig, Ann Beretta, Counterpunch @ Peabody’s – $20 in advance/$22 day of show (order tickets HERE)
And speaking of excellent bands from prior eras returning to demonstrate that they’ve still got it going on… here’s an excellent example of not one but THREE melodic punk bands of the 90s doing exactly that. California’s Good Riddance are at the top of this bill, nicknamed the “Fall Brawl 2018,” and they’ve got the kind of gritty hardcore feel underlying their more melodic moments to back that name up. Of the 90s Fat Wreck bands that cemented the skatepunk genre as the go-to sound for a generation of rebellious high school freshmen, Good Riddance were always the toughest, the dirtiest, the most hardcore. Returning to action a few years ago after almost a decade away, 2015’s Peace In Our Time showed that Good Riddance still had the goods.

New Jersey’s Bigwig haven’t made a new album in over a decade, but they’ve stayed on the road, cranking out their brand of metallically-melodic skatepunk for years now, and they’re still bringing the fire as well. More momentous news for longtime fans of RVA punk has been the return over the past couple of years of Ann Beretta, who were mainstays here in Richmond back in the late 90s but have been out of action since shortly after the dawning of the new millennium. They came back to us this year with Old Scars, New Blood, a new album of old hits rerecorded for the modern era, and the word is that they’re working on another entirely new collection that’ll hit town in the near future. This weekend, though, old-school RVA heads and melodic punk skate rats alike are gonna want to gas up the coupe and head down to Peabody’s, because this show is going to be full of excellent sounds from the past three decades of punk rock awesomeness.

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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] [and yeah, there’s plenty more of my writing to read over at GayRVA — come say hey.]

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

RVA Shows You Must See This Week: 9/20-9/26

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FEATURED SHOW
Saturday, September 23, 8 PM
The Broadberry presents RVA Live! feat. Matthew E. White, Natalie Prass, Tim Barry, Bio Ritmo, Clair Morgan @ Carpenter Theatre at Dominion Arts Center – $10-80 (order tickets HERE)
OK yes I am usually on some more underground/DIY type stuff than anything that takes place at the Carpenter Theatre but sometimes something too big and important and cool to ignore comes along and you just gotta send people to the big bourgeois theatre in the center of town, right? Well, that’s my opinion anyway. This event is also being presented by The Broadberry, a relatively small venue with deep connections to the local independent music scene, so its DIY bona fides are pretty well beyond question.

Therefore, I must tell you that something amazing and very difficult to rationalize missing is happening downtown at the Carpenter Theatre this Saturday night, and tickets start at a very reasonable $10, so there’s really no excuse not to be in attendance. RVA Live! is an evening featuring several of the Richmond scene’s most noteworthy veteran artists–everyone from salsa stalwarts Bio Ritmo to punk-gone-country troubadour Tim Barry–performing in collaboration with the Richmond Symphony. With orchestration and arrangements being handled by Trey Pollard of Spacebomb Records, who has done string arrangements for artists ranging from Matthew E. White to Foxygen and The Waterboys; along with Bio Ritmo members Marlysse Simmons and Toby Whitaker; this is going to be a collaborative project on multiple levels, bringing the best of Richmond’s singer-songwriter community together with the leading lights of our local classical music scene–a scene that popular-music fanatics like myself, and probably yourself, tend to sleep on.

With Matthew E. White and Natalie Prass at the top of this bill, you know Spacebomb is going to be representing itself admirably at this performance. Bio Ritmo’s Latin swing and jazzy funk influences will get a whole new twist when recontextualized through the lens of the Richmond Symphony, and will add a multicultural strain to an evening that could get decidedly monochromatic without them. Plus, we’ll get the mathematical pop of Clair Morgan and the austere country blues punk of Tim Barry, embellished with the sorts of layers neither of their sounds generally contain. All of this will be fascinating for any music lover. And with so many hotshot performers on the bill, you’re sure to get caught up in the awesomeness of it all, even if seeing the symphony at the Carpenter Theatre generally isn’t your thing.

Wednesday, September 20, 8 PM
Polyphia, Night Idea, Paint Store @ The Broadberry – $15 (order tickets HERE)
The worlds of screamo, math-rock, prog-metal, and metalcore have some pretty surprising intersection points at times, and the whole prog-metalcore scene that’s built up around bands like Periphery is one of the strangest and most interesting ones. Polyphia are a metallic instrumental quartet of young post-metalcore dudes with swoop haircuts and skills for days, and they’re hitting Richmond tonight on a day off from their current tour opening for prog-metalcore pioneers Between The Buried And Me. If you want to dig into the shred-heavy instrumental end of this whole scene, this show is your perfect chance to do it at a relatively small venue for a reasonable ticket price.

Polyphia’s latest release, The Most Hated EP, sees them dipping into more electronic layers, including programmed beats and synthesized background swells. However, the guitar pyrotechnics remain on full display, with occasional licks copped from the dawn-of-the-90s micro-trend of blazing metal guitarists putting out instrumental solo albums. What I’m saying is, these guys have a definite Vai/Satriani tinge to their djent-inspired riff fests these days, and the intersection of these surprisingly congruent sounds is a lot of fun to explore. With local openers consisting of poppy math-rockers Night Idea (the only band this night to feature a vocalist) and fellow math-obsessed instrumental shredders Paint Store, this show is guaranteed to fill your quota for riffage, even if it does run slightly low on vocalizations. You definitely won’t get bored in their absence.

Thursday, September 21, 6 PM
El Malpais, Candy Spots, Worse Curses @ Champion RVA – Free!
And we progress from one instrumental group to another as we go through this week’s picks, landing once again at Champion RVA on Thursday night to shed the night-before-payday blues with some excellent free sounds from both local and touring artists. The stars of this Thursday night’s show will be El Malpais (“the bad country,” if my rusty high-school Spanish hasn’t failed me), who come from Charlotte, NC with an original and fascinating instrumental sound pairing guitar and drum rhythms with flute to create the kind of unusual and engaging sound that “jazz flute” might have conjured up in your head if it weren’t for that phrase’s eternal association with Anchorman.

Regardless of whether you would ever expect a group based around flute melodies to be able to rock with aplomb, you should definitely be in the house when El Malpais takes the stage, because they’re guaranteed to erase all doubts. Their excellent self-titled LP from earlier this year is full of somewhat foreboding tunes accented by riveting melodies, which create the overall impression of tiptoeing through a forest late in the afternoon, on the hunt for forgotten old huts where strange creatures may or may not still live. OK, maybe I’ve read too many horror novels in my time, but still, this band rocks. They’ll be joined on this bill by local alt-garage rockers Candy Spots and catchy up-and-comers Worse Curses for an evening of jams that would be cheap at twice the price (because after all, zero dollars x2 is still zero dollars).

Friday, September 22, 7 PM
Madeline Kenney, Rikki Shay, Majjin Boo, Minor Poet @ Gallery 5 – $5 in advance/$7 day of show (order tickets HERE)
The Broadberry’s showing up all over town this week. This show, which is actually the night before that RVA Live! show up at the top of the column (my chronology’s a little weird, deal with it), sees the larger venue collaborating with generally awesome (and kinda cavernous itself) DIY art gallery space Gallery 5 to present an evening headlined by Oakland singer-songwriter Madeline Kenney. You may be unfamiliar with this artist, but Kenney’s brand new album, Night Night At The First Landing, gives all the reason you need to change that in a hurry. In a manner that is spiritually if not entirely sonically similar to alt-rock shredder Marnie Stern, Kenney takes that whole singer/guitarist/songwriter mold and smashes it over her knee on her new album, integrating dreamy guitar textures with an ambient overall sound and topping them all off with evocative vocal melodies and profound lyrics that cut to the heart of the emotional issues that plague so many young women in this world.

Expect her live performance to do just as much to both destroy and elevate your expectations from a “female singer-songwriter” (kill that cliche forever please). Kenney’s openers on this bill definitely reflect the Broadberry’s involvement in this evening, with recent Broadberry performers Rikki Shay and Minor Poet making a rare appearance at Gallery 5. That’s good, though, maybe it’ll bring some new people out to check out this excellent venue. Madeline Kenney is really all the inducement you, the super clued-in RVA show attendee, should need to add this show to your calendar, though. She’s worth the price of admission all by herself.

Saturday, September 23, 8 PM
Meg Mulhearn + Elisa Faires, Dazeases, Womajich Dialysiez, Rachel Lynch @ Vagabond – Free!
OK, this is two awesome free shows in the space of three days; you should definitely take advantage of this phenomenon, because it’s not something that occurs every week by any means. This evening over at up-and-coming new live music space Vagabond brings us a couple of heavy hitters in the ambient/experimental music world, on a collaborative tour linked to a still-in-production album-length collaboration that’s apparently on the way next year. You can get a preview of it this Saturday night at Vagabond though, and that’s certainly worth doing.

Meg Mulhearn is a violinist who has worked with US Christmas, Void Ensemble, and others, and releases solo recordings under the name Divine Circles. Elisa Faires is an experimental vocalist who has taken part in projects like Astral Magick Soundtrack and Xambuca. Both of these artists use electronic effects to loop, layer, and otherwise accent their instruments, and the two together bring to life a lush ambient soundscape that seems way bigger than anything two musicians can produce by themselves. Combined with the soulful vocal-driven ambience of Dazeases, the constantly-evolving improvisational experimental project Womajich Dialysiez, and experimental performance artist Rachel Lynch, this bill will explore all sorts of different musical and performative avenues, and should take the listener on a sonic journey that is not too frequently experienced, but all the richer for that fact.

Sunday, September 24, 6 PM
Common Ground Fest South, feat. Bren Lukens, Daisyhead, Centerfolds, Something More, Small Talks, Telltale, Nominee, She’s A Legend @ Strange Matter – $14 (order tickets HERE)
OK yes there’s always gonna be some emo coming to you in my column, and I guess this is where it arrives, because seriously–how could I neglect this excellent event? Common Ground Fest, a one-day mini-festival of emo/pop-punk bands put on by Common Ground Records and taking place in three different cities across the US over the course of this month, brings its southernmost incarnation to Richmond VA, and we are in for a treat. After all, not long after Modern Baseball co-founder Jake Ewald hit the Strange Matter stage with his Slaughter Beach Dog project, we get the other Modern Baseball co-founder, Bren Lukens, coming through with a solo acoustic performance. How sweet is that?

But that’s just the beginning. If you ask me, one of the biggest thrills on this whole lineup shows up down towards the bottom of the bill in the form of excellent up-and-coming emotionally-driven pop-punk band Nominee, whose January EP Drag Me Out has been a big one for me so far this year. Hearing songs like “Stay” and “White Water” live might just be enough to get me to pay the full ticket price all by itself. But even with both Bren Lukens and Nominee on this bill, so many other awesome groups are showing up that it’s hard to even attempt a full encapsulation. That said, Nashville’s Daisyhead, who released a killer LP In Case You Missed It on No Sleep earlier this year; and Baltimore’s Something More, who impressed all comers with their 2015 EP compilation Physical Copy, are just some of the additional reasons to make sure you’re right up front for this entire gig. I could say more, but this should be enough. Be there.

Monday, September 25, 8 PM
Love Roses, Brainbuster, The Donalds, Skumboyz @ McCormack’s Irish Pub – $5
I was introduced to Love Roses’ fun, speedy take on punk rock earlier this year when my admittedly pretty screamo band played a house show with them. It wasn’t exactly a predictable pairing, but we ended up meshing pretty well, and I really dug this band’s energetic rage. Since then, Love Roses have been busy, releasing a brand new split on local label Tired & Pissed with Fredericksburg punks Brainbuster, who by no coincidence at all are also on this bill. Love Roses and Brainbuster are just finishing up a tour together, and this is a much more predictable pairing of VA punk bands than anything involving my band would have been.

Brainbuster have a Dead Kennedys-ish sarcastic approach to their lyrics and an early-80s LA punk approach to their music, showing influence from bands like the Adolescents and Bad Religion as well as a snottier edge that gives the whole thing a harsh bite. That split is gonna be a real ripper when it hits, that’s one thing I know for sure. Local punks The Donalds and Skumboyz round out a lineup full of Tired & Pissed artists who are sure to please the circle-pitting punk fanatics of this town–of whom there are more than you think–as well as anyone who gets a kick out of speedy riffs that are both angry and fun.

Tuesday, September 26, 8 PM
Dryjacket, Eaves, Sleave, Nine Line @ Strange Matter – $10 in advance/$12 day of show (order tickets HERE)
And here we have some more emo, because it’s awesome. New Jersey’s Dryjacket really impressed many listeners, myself among them, with their debut full-length For Posterity. That album, released earlier this year, shows an introspective, multi-layered approach to the sort of emo-revival template that the best bands from that slowly-fading era are still building and improving upon. Dryjacket definitely demonstrates their own qualification for that top tier of still-extant emo bands with a sound incorporating the complex guitar arpeggios that led people to throw the term “twinkle” around a few years ago and some incredible pop choruses that seem to draw as much influence from The Beatles as from Dads–always a welcome phenomenon.

And how about the RVA bands on this bill? Well, Eaves has certainly shown their own bona fides in the whole introspective, multi-layered emo genre over the past little while, and their contribution to this show is therefore sure to be both apropos and entirely welcome. Sleave has a gruffer approach that draws a great deal from that whole vibe of bands like Hot Water Music or Latterman, but with a chunkier guitar sound that shows a bit more hardcore influence than you might expect. Newcomers Nine Line hark back to the 90s days of the more emotionally-driven Fat Wreck bands like Lagwagon or Good Riddance, which is a refreshing change. There’s definitely some daylight between these four bands, but all share a similar feel, one that’s sure to move you.

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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] [the rvamag address isn’t working for some reason, I haven’t had time to look into it! Bear with me]