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Edgy and Political, Never Casual; Cake Plays Richmond

John Donegan | August 14, 2018

Topics: Ben Folds, CAKE, music, rock, rva music, The National

My first live show, apart from Sunday’s choir, was the 2011 Winter Meltdown show in Norfolk. The headliner was the iconic alternative rock group, Cake, a band formed in 1991, years before I was born. I knew a few of their hits, but had never truly “gone the distance” in their lengthy discography.

I didn’t know what to expect, but my other options were Taking Back Sunday or going home, so I held my spot and went along for the ride. The band steamrolled through the bulk of their set, as an unruly crowd of thousands rocked out around them. It wasn’t until the eighth song that a thrown condom, blown up like a balloon, made it to the stage. Founding member and lead vocalist John McCrea cut the song as the well-lubricated balloon landed inches from his feet.

A premature chuckle came from the crowd, expecting McCrea to laugh along. Instead, deadpan, he gazed on the crowd as he slammed his foot down, crushing the nearest well-lubricated balloon before it could pop on its own. There was an awkward pause–none of us knew what to think–then a roaring applause, drowning out the music as the band picked up again. To this day, I don’t know what to make of the moment, and, I think, neither did McCrea, who broke his unflinching stare to laugh along with the crowd. Regardless, it made for an unforgettable first time.

When I heard Cake was headed to Richmond this month on tour, I knew I wanted to speak with McCrea about their 27 years as a band, his views on our current political climate, which he shares over social media, and, of course, if we can expect any flying condoms at the show this weekend. My conversation with the five-piece who brought us “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” was brief, but ranged from the midterm elections to Christmas-themed capitalism and their current tour. 

Band members Vincent DiFiore, John McCrea, Xan McCurdy, and Gabriel Nelson have continued to impress audiences and furnish the most cult-ish mainstream following of our time. From humble beginnings with their ’94 debut album “Motorcade of Generosity” to their sixth studio album, “Showroom of Compassion,” released in 2011, Cake has stood the test of time. McCrea’s monotone, sarcastic lyrics, accompanied by DiFiore’s distinctive trumpeting and a minimal orchestration of cheap guitars and eclectic influences ranging from Mariachi music to Iranian folk, have kept their records in high demand throughout their long career.

Well known for their outspoken social media presence, Cake’s ideology is attached in every shade of their irony-drenched aesthetic. Their unfiltered critiques of fame, glamour, and politics are woven through their online postings and McCrea’s deadpan lyrics. I asked why they had been so politically active in recent years, apart from the obvious reasons. The vocalist-turned weekend activist was well spoken on an array of domestic policy and environmental issues.

As far as the midterm elections, he chuckled wryly, and said, “Hoping we have a real election without Russian hackers, maybe, but I’m still a bit wary of the whole thing…trying to be optimistic.”

Although critical of fame, McCrea said easier transportation and reliable hotel rooms were perks of popularity he appreciated. “Twenty years ago this was a lot harder, physically, because we drove, sometimes we’d pile in and drive, hoping there’s a place to stay,” he said. “If not, we’d just drive all night long to the next gig.”

McCrea and his ensemble began like any other, having to wait tables, drive trucks, and do whatever else they had to do to pay the bills.

The group formed out of opposition to the bombastic grunge scene of rageful white angst clogging the airwaves, a critique of the flawed “might is right” aesthetic that carried out the final chapter of the 20th century. McCrea described other ’90s acts as having an insecure, immature sound. He said, “My critique of them is I don’t so much believe that they have low self-esteem, but when your amp is turned up to eleven, there’s a certain inherent entitlement that creates cognitive dissonance in the form of low self-esteem.”

They became the un-anglo-rock group, eschewing the blown-up hair and Michael Bay production amps of other post-modern “alternative” bands.” McCrea called it being rebellious, saying it was a necessity to differentiate their music. Although they’ve endured and become a success, they’re still rebels; they release their music through their own label, Upbeat Records, which they created in 2007 in defiance of the mainstream music industry, or the “evil empire,” as McCrea called it. 

McCrea described himself as “offended” by the hypocritical nature of the glamour rock scene, who, behind the shoulder pad and eyeliner facade of “rebellious and subversive” struggles, are just dudes stroking their own egos. “In a country where more is always better, somehow it didn’t seem to click like that to me. Not all of it was bad but there nothing different about each of them, just Rush in different clothes,” he said.

McCrea is critical of the rock genre, but finds novelty and insights in a cross-section of music from other cultures. He pointed to the hip-hop community and Latino folk music of his native Sacramento as examples. “An interesting difference in perspective is how rock videos typically portray guys in urban decay settings while hip-hop would be featured in a suburban home, maybe upscale with shag carpet or nice furniture. It’s an interesting difference. Or maybe it’s just the universe balancing itself out,” McCrea said.

Another style he’s drawn to and sees as an influence in grunge rock, is the blues. Although he said the average grunge musician wasn’t living the life of an early blues singer, they were dipping into the deep well the tradition left behind. “Lyrically and culturally, there’s the blues. A kind of cathartic release that transforms the music. To be fair, grunge writers were keeping in the tradition even when they weren’t a guy getting out of jail–they weren’t extreme,” McCrea said.

Even if they weren’t always aware of it, he described the blues as his primary influence; the active soul of the working class, that powered all of their work. “Our very existence was a questioning of the orthodoxy,” he said, adding in a tone that conveyed air quotes, “everything loud is powerful.” He said it “doesn’t make sense to call it rebellious” when musicians are just turning out the same formulaic sound.

About fame, outside of the creature comforts of travel, McCrea turned caustic. “It’s like wearing a Mickey Mouse costume where no one can really see you, plus it’s hot as fuck under there, just shaking peoples hands under that fucking Mickey Mouse costume,” he said. Would he ever go to a theme park, even at Christmas? At the holiday, McCrea cut me off. “The United States creates twelve tons of garbage during the month of December alone, it’s fair to say I’m not a fan.”

Cake will continue their East Coast tour through Sept. 22, with stops including Philadelphia and New York before making their way to Richmond to take the stage alongside Ben Folds at Virginia Credit Union Live this Sunday, Aug. 19. Tickets range from $39 to $75 and you can snag yours here. 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Sweetly Begun: Veteran Spacebomb Artist Andy Jenkins on His Debut Album

Davy Jones | August 2, 2018

Topics: Andy Jenkins, folk, indie, muis, music, rva music, Spacebomb Records

On the opening track of his debut full-length album, Sweet Bunch, Andy Jenkins sings, “Man, I would love to finish the book, but I still have pages and pages of lines.” Lucky for us, his story as a singer-songwriter is just beginning.

This article originally appeared in RVA #33 Summer 2018, you can check out the issue here, or pick it up around Richmond now. 

Sweet Bunch was released June 15 via Spacebomb Records, and while the collection represents a new start for Jenkins, pages and pages of his writing are already out there. His name will ring especially familiar for anyone who has been scanning the liner notes of Spacebomb’s releases since its 2010 founding. You’ll find “Andy C. Jenkins” listed among the writing credits for each of label founder Matthew E. White’s solo albums to date, including White’s breakout debut, Big Inner, which introduced the world to the signature Spacebomb sound. It also introduced the hypnotic combination of White’s soft-spoken vocals, which draw you in, and lyrics that incorporate just enough mystery to keep you at arm’s length. To borrow a line from the Sweet Bunch title track, it’s “a beautiful place to be.”

Despite the second meaning of the name of Big Inner — spoken quickly, it sounds like you’re saying “beginner” — its songs felt powerfully ahead of the curve, reflecting a long history of White and Jenkins working together as a musical team. In fact, their friendship dates all the way back to a play Jenkins performed in while attending high school in Norfolk, Virginia.

“The full story is, he came to see a play at my high school that I was in, and he was coming to my high school the next year,” Jenkins recounted when we spoke over the phone recently. “But his girlfriend at the time went to the high school, and he [said], ‘I’m going to be friends with that guy,’ just from my dramatic performance [laughs]. And then we were in class together and just became buddies, and started fucking around with music [and] four-track [recorders] after that.”

Jenkins graduated high school in 2002 and went on to attend the University of Virginia. And while college geographically separated him from White, who enrolled at Virginia Commonwealth University after a short time at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, the two friends never stopped collaborating. Jenkins eventually moved to Richmond, where he set up a home base for Great White Jenkins, the band the two would periodically play in together until 2011.

His next move was a little further afield. “I did the whole teaching English thing for a year,” Jenkins said. “After I lived in Richmond for a few years, and after the Great White Jenkins, I went over [to Japan] and did that. It was great. It was a really cool experience.”

Nearly 7,000 miles from home, Jenkins still managed to plug into a familiar niche. “I kind of fell in with some kind of underground art and music folk over there pretty rapidly. Some people I know here knew people there… I got to see some of the whole Boredoms scene. OOIOO played — I saw them in Osaka, which is Yoshimi [P-We]’s band, so there’s a little bit of that. And my friend Norio [Fukuda] runs the record label/small press in Tokyo called Sweet Dreams. He puts out some bands that do a cool thing — more experimentally minded, but very pretty folk music. It’s a line of genre-blurring that’s not as much of a thing here. But in that little scene, it’s more normal, and people liked a lot of different things.”
It seems timely in retrospect that Jenkins’ musical map expanded globally in this way, just as Spacebomb Records was set to bring a growing Richmond scene to ears all over the world. Now, with four Matthew E. White releases in the rearview mirror, breakthrough albums by Bedouine and Natalie Prass as impressive milestones, and a game-changing boost provided by the label’s new partnership with Glassnote Entertainment Group’s Resolved Records, Spacebomb has set the stage for Jenkins to move into an expanded role. “It’s a new thing to be the focal point, for sure,” Jenkins affirmed.

“It just made sense to do this,” Jenkins added. “I wanted to do [Sweet Bunch] because I like making it and listening to it. I wanted to hear it, I guess, so that’s a reason to make it.”

It’s a transition that’s helped him grow his craft. He mentioned that writing and recording Sweet Bunch involved “thinking about the audience more, in a way, and then coming back to writing what I wanted to write for myself,” he said. “I feel like that’s stronger anyway.”

It’s also given him an opportunity to make a statement about what it means to be a singer-songwriter in 2018, not unlike what Sturgill Simpson and William Tyler did in the country context by titling recent albums Metamodern Sounds in Country Music and Modern Country, respectively. “I toyed with the idea of calling the record Contemporary Singer-Songwriter for a minute,” Jenkins said. “Just because I feel like that term has a very negative stigma in certain circles. It’s definitely not a cool term. But it’s very accurate to what I’m doing, and that first generation of singer-songwriters, when the term came into fashion, that’s just a great body of music that I love.”

Throughout Sweet Bunch, I hear parallels with the approach taken by that generation’s finest writers, who dug deeper to find inspiration not just in the exceptional, but also in the everyday. In the same way Carole King brought out the essential goodness of friendship and built a colossal chorus out of the understated idea of feeling like a natural woman, Jenkins makes an anthemic title track hook out of appreciation for the people around him. With a fitting guest vocal assist from Matthew E. White, “Sweet Bunch” declares, “All the boys are true/They are true as the wind,” and “All the girls are strong/They are strong as the sea.”

There and elsewhere, the lyrics echo the way in which the record was made. The band Jenkins turned to when tracking Sweet Bunch was made up of close friends from the masterful Spacebomb house band, as well as multi-instrumental heavyweight Phil Cook, who you’ll often find inspiring audiences alongside M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger, when he’s not releasing and performing his own perpetually uplifting solo material.

“His energy and spirit were a great part of the sessions,” Jenkins said of Cook. “There’s a song we co-wrote, ‘Genuine Heart.’ I went down to Durham and I had that beginning of a song, and we finished it up and cut a demo that, parts-wise, is very close to what it ended up being. Particularly on that one, that’s a lot of his vibe.”

The results overall were as effective as they were efficient. “All the basic band, rhythm tracks were done in three days, and it was all live for the most part. There were some overdubs, but it was all that band, which was Cameron Ralston, Pinson Chanselle, Alan Parker — who are all Richmond guys — and then Phil Cook from Durham played keys… Those guys are all buddies of mine, so it was a lot of fun. The hang was good.”

That sense of closeness is clearly audible in the band’s playing, which is tight and sensitive in equal measure. And you can hear it loud and clear in Jenkins’ lyrics. The word “sweet” makes multiple appearances, beyond the album’s name and title-track; like in lead single “Ascendant Hog,” where Jenkins sings about “getting lost in the sweetness of your eyes.” But the album is far from saccharine. “Get Together,” which was co-written by White, offers a counterpoint, saying, “All the sweetness I run with was bound to slow me down after a time.” The variety of emotional contexts in which the theme comes back around allows Sweet Bunch to function as a layered meditation on the idea of contentment.

“I was conscious of repeating that word,” Jenkins said, “and I think it gets at what I wanted. I was feeling a number of different things actually writing the songs, song-to-song. [But] expressing a positivity that is more honest about what life is like is something I was trying to do. I feel like sometimes pop lyrics miss one or the other — too angsty or too positive, maybe. So I [was] riding that line a little bit.”

He walked that line with White’s expert in-studio advisement as producer. While the two have made music together since high school, recording Sweet Bunch gave them a chance to chart new collaborative territory. “It felt more like a natural extension than a change,” Jenkins said. “It was a new situation for sure. Him being the producer on my record was a new thing. We’ve recorded stuff in the past, but it was a little more casual. But it was cool for him to be in that role, having produced a bunch of stuff. It was nice. Not full-circle, but a continuation of the story.”

Jenkins was modest when asked about expectations for the album’s reception. But he did point to a moment that promises to be especially sweet: The arrival of freshly pressed vinyl copies of his debut full-length. He said, “I’ll be excited to get it and hold it in my hands.”

I feel the same way.

 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

 

 

Cold War Kids Offer Up Lackluster Peformance at Last Week’s Richmond Show

John Donegan | June 18, 2018

Topics: Cold War Kids, music, pop-punk, rva music, The National

This past Thursday, Cold War Kids took the stage at The National, a mid-summer stop on their North American Tour since the April release of their live album, Audience. newest album, L.A. Divine. After catching the end of a madcap opening by the Regrettes, it would be another hour until the band would begin. Lighting over the stage revealed the band’s infatuation for maracas, five in count along with four tambourines, with some attached to one of the pianos, and another alongside the stand-up keyboard. This gave me hope that, despite a shift in sound since their 2014 “All This Could Be Yours”, I was hopeful this was going to be the same Cold War Kids I had reserved a six-song slot for on my first iPod.

Yet something about the Cold War Kids’ performance felt boxy, and the room lacked a certain energy. As the band took the stage, frontman Nathan Willett took little time for intros outside of a brief quip on Richmond and their last time playing here. While the show would seem clearly professional in orchestration, it would ultimately come across as non-personal. The entire night felt scripted, down to the lack of interaction between Mr. Willett and the audience. Mr. Willett, in a bomber jacket and leather shoes, threw in a few quips about how glad he was to be in the River City again, though it was obvious Richmond was a placeholder in his lines; nothing about his interactions was personalized. like another stop for them and another check off the list for me.

Photo by John Donegan

Surprisingly, the band did not begin with their mid-season hit “First” off the 2014 album, Home My Home. Instead, opening the show with “All This Could Be Yours”. And from the get-go, one could notice the shift in chemistry between the LA outfit and their original studio recordings. While Willett would occasionally juggle between keys and percussion, his endeavor would take him off focus, as bassist Matt Maust and guitarist David Quon took center stage with a fluid contrast of chords. Former Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer and keyboardist Matthew Schwartz seemed intent on carrying the octaval standard for the group, yet at times, the inability between the band to retain tonal control seemed unhinged and left Plummer waiting on the rest to catch up.

Willett struggled to live up to his original sound, unable to belt out throaty falsettos exactly like the recordings. As he bore through the older tracks, he would double back to newer tracks that seemed to drown him out over the blistering chords of Quon and Maust. Many danced with maraca or tambourine in hand, regardless of what they played, though it seemed at times a bit overdone. People in the audience members seemed constantly switching between amped and complacent, even at the pinnacle of the hammering of keys and percussions in tracks like “Mexican Dogs” and “Hang Me Up To Dry”, and I can understand why.

Without the same sledgehammer vocals nor passion, Willett even skipped the frantic jamming of the keys. It was clear the band was good, but not progressing. As an older fan, I always envisioned their live performance to rest on a bridge between indie rock and bluesy erraticism; I looked forward to the hand-mashing and musical tantrums that laid in store. And they did provide, at least for the older songs. But it seemed like anything even slightly newer was designed for a stadium, not an audience, as the premeditated riffs seemed to just drown Willett out.

LOVE IS MYSTICAL, LOVE WILL BREAK THE CHAINS! Great time with @coldwarkids last night! • • • #thenationalva #thenationalvalive #coldwarkids #concert #livemusic #richmond #richmondva #804

A post shared by The National (@thenationalva) on Jun 15, 2018 at 2:21pm PDT

On the plus side, the band understood the need for constant percussion, and they used everything to make their tempo as transparent as possible. Even the piano was being used as percussion and it somehow fits this way, kind of the way that banging a trash can fits in the junkyard band. It’s chaotic, but harmonious in this space.  This was most present in older tracks like “Hospital Beds” and “We Used To Vacation” as their demeanor regressed back to the chaotic nature they popularized in their 2006 debut, Robbers and Cowards.

The group reminded us of their obsession for LA at every chance they could. The decor and banners, while still aesthetically impressive at first glance, were the exact same as their tour last year- simply steamrolled onto the stage before us.  And the LA today, according to Willett’s allegro in the closing part of the set, is apparently undergoing some recontextualizing, as are the bands who reside there. They plead a case that this, at the end of this transformation, is one that seeks to inspire, yet when I think of Cold War Kids, I don’t think of inspiring. My instinct- distortion. That is the hallmark achievement of this group, to somehow find zen in variation.

Yet at times the performance, when mixed with the right amount of yellow wristband teenagers flailing off too much sprite, seemed far too commercial for what they are, and what I hoped for them to be. A band who won my heart with songs like “Hang Me Up To Dry” that, in less than four minutes, left you scattered across a monochrome set with nothing but cheap whiskey and lilting smoke to keep you company. 

It’s wild how many staple bands have changed nowadays. Maybe we took bands like these for granted. Or maybe we just gave them a pass bearing in mind that do bands change.

The lyrics in their newer tracks no longer crawl up your skin. From here, the determining factor of their continued success is fringed upon the continuation of this poppy direction. Or will their instincts once again take over, and restore honor to the fabled glory of iPods around the world?

 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

 

1970s Richmond Punk Band Insinuations Gets Vinyl Reissue

Daniel Berti | June 15, 2018

Topics: Bill Draper, Feel It Records, music, punk, rva music, rva punk, Sam Richardson, The Insinuations

Bill Draper is a fast talker. His grey blazer and slacks are a hair too large, and a worn cap conceals his unruly mop of gray-black hair. He speaks with a sneering, southern-tinged drawl that can be as sweet and funny as it is biting. It has been over 30 years since his band Insinuations called it quits, but he still speaks fondly about the early days of Richmond punk.

“From the very beginning we understood that it was absolutely essential to develop a punk identity,” Draper said. “We wanted to separate ourselves from all these old hippies and leftovers from the 60s and early 70s.”

With that in mind, he formed the band in the late 1970s in Richmond with Linda-Marie Firmin, Lynn Abbott, and Paul Lipscombe. The four-piece liked the punk records coming out at the time, but they also shared a love for old blues records and R&B. They played about a dozen shows alongside notable Richmond punk bands of the era like Beex, The Barriers, and The Heretics, and recorded a single, “Prompt Critical,” in 1980 before breaking up in 1981.

Their songs were politically satirical, influenced by first wave punk but also by R&B, rockabilly and old blues numbers. Their varied musical interests gave Insinuations a unique sound that set them apart from other Richmond bands of the era.

“We weren’t a pure punk band, and punk purists took a dim view of us because we were eclectic,” said Draper.

The sleeve of the record, emblazoned with a bright red nuclear hazard symbol and the words “Radiation Hazard” printed boldly on the cover, cemented their status as an outsider band in the Richmond punk scene. The A-side, “Prompt Critical,” is an off-kilter, new-wave blues number about a nuclear reactor meltdown, written in the wake of the nuclear reactor failure at Three Mile Island in 1979.

The warped guitar playing and bluesy bass lines on the song are played with blatant disregard for punk trends of the time, a rarity in the Richmond punk canon. The B-Side, “(My Head Is Made Of) U.S. Muscle,” is a more straightforward punk number. It is a socially critical piece that rails against nationalistic ideas, and insidious, “my country, right or wrong,” attitudes of the time.

“Satire was my main thing,” said Draper of his lyrics. “I’ve got a political vibe, but I’m not as obnoxious about it as I used to be.”

The band only made 100 copies of the record, and of those, only about 25 are still known to exist. Sam Richardson, owner and operator of Virginia’s Feel It Records, tracked down Draper earlier this year, as well as a copy of the record with the intention of reissuing the single. He said he found out about the record from the owner of Steady Sounds, Marty Key, who scored a copy of the record at a flea market several years ago.

“It didn’t look like any punk records from Richmond at the time,” said Richardson. “It had all the subject matter and style of a cool Killed By Death-esque band, but it was also very local and unknown.”

Bill Draper, Photo By: Daniel Berti

Richardson was impressed by the DIY attitude of the band and the strength of the guitar playing, as well as the cover art and the subject matter. “It all connected for me, and I think it will for other people too,” he said.

This reissue will not be the first for Feel It Records. In the last few years, the small independent label has dug up and reissued records by obscure regional punk bands Lackey Die and The Landlords; seminal punk bands from Richardson’s hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia.

In the years since Insinuations disbanded, Draper has been living and working in Richmond. He occasionally performs and records under the name W.R. Draper, a folky pop project inspired by street performers and traveling musicians. As for Insinuations, a full reunion is not on the table, but Draper said he will be performing some Insinuations songs at the record release show on July 5 at Little Saint.

In the meantime, you can snag your copy of the Insinuations’ “Prompt Critical” 7″ from 1980 here. Its limited to 400 copies so get it while you can.

Cold War Kids Hit The National Tonight With New Live Album

John Donegan | June 14, 2018

Topics: Cold War Kids, music, rva music, The National

A night before they take the stage at Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival, California’s Cold War Kids will make a stop in Richmond as part of their North American Tour entertain us with that all too familiar sound we’ve come to love since they delivered their debut album, Robbers & Cowards 12 years ago.

And tonight at The National, the jangly rock band will give us a taste of all of the hits with their latest release, Audience, a live album which was recorded during a show at the Georgia Theatre last year. The 16-track collection, which includes favorites like “Hang Me Up To Dry” and “Hospital Beds”, is the follow-up to 2017’s L.A. Divine, their last studio album.

Forming in 2004 in Fullerton, California, the group decided to make the move to Long Beach, which is where they began to carve out their own aesthetic of off-kilter piano jabs by Matthew Schwartz (keyboard and piano, percussion) and David Quon’s twinging slide guitar to accent Nathan Willett’s jarring vocals, particularly in early hits like “Saint John” and “Against Privacy”. 

Cold War Kids have been out on the road since March, starting out on Texas, and jumping all over the country, with stops at major music festivals, and other music halls in Kentucky. Tennesse, Ohio, and North Carolina. Their tour will wrap up near the end of this month.

The band will undoubtedly feature songs from their new album as well as some of the expansive and ambitious efforts of their previous works from the 12-years since their debut release. “The excitement I have about this new album—it feels so much like the way I felt back when our first record came out,” said bassist Matt Maust in a press statement.

The follow-up to 2014’s Hold My Home – featuring the gold-certified singles like “First” and “Miracle Mile” Now- their sixth album LA Divine pays tribute to their adopted hometown of Los Angeles. 

Upon first glance, LA Divine seems to merge that artful, anthem-hook style production with the signature Cold War Kids’ raw post-punk; its punk-pop but actually good. The production is still complex but far more vulnerable, a clear sign the band seems ready to come out into the light and re-establish their roots. Though I’m sure many in attendance still probably want to hear the sound of Cold War Kids we all continue to cherish over the radio and I’m sure the band will leave everyone more than satisfied.

Cold War Kids hit the stage at The National tonight at 8 pm. Doors at 7 pm and if you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, you can snag them online for $23 or at the door for $25.

 

 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Digging through the Crates at the Richmond Record Fair

John Donegan | May 6, 2018

Topics: Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, hip hop, metal, music, punk, rap, records, Richmond Record Fair, Steadty Sounds, Vinyl Conflict

This past Sunday, music fans and hardcore record collectors came out at to the 6th Annual VG Minus Record Fair, put on my Steady Stounds and Vinyl Conflict, at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery. We spoke with some of the vendors, many of whom offered interesting perspectives, while some just expressed their love for vinyls. The quaint aroma of food trucks in spring outside was abruptly shut out upon the vinyl utopia inside. Spun wax of fantastic music I’d never recognize lifts an already bustling room- promise of a musical resurgence well distant from the overpriced music sections of ‘urban’ outfitting stores. With this fair, came invaluable insight into LP and artist history otherwise lost, as well as a heads up on an upcoming performance here from a major name in Richmond we at RVA Mag nearly let slip under our nose. Yep, this is what you missed at the Record Fair, where business and culture collide.

Scruffy regulars in their 30s sifted through classic rock with ironic nostalgia, millennials hop between islands of The Smiths sections- even parents were rummaging through with children in tow and morning beer in hand. And they had everything- Richie Havens, Slade, King Crimson, the desolate troves of dollar bins- at a non-fad price too. Heads remained dug down as numerous audiophiles ran their grainy fingers through the crates, most failing to skip a single track. At first, it was hard to jump in, panning the room for a spot to merge myself along the stream of steady traffic.

At first, I began with the intentions of finding the rarest collections available, only to find it standard not to bring anything too valuable to these events, though most collectors boasted theirs to be worth in the thousands in a nonchalant manner. I overheard a vendor haggle in brief with a customer, mainly over the supposed value of a Beatles’ Revolver. After a quick back and forth, the verdict became apparent as the customer relented, agreeing to buy as the vendor coaxed his decision with a victory lap, continually pressing his finger on the words “Japanese Release” in bold red. I jumped in to clarify.

“Japan prints on a higher quality,” the vendor, who later identified as James, began. I scanned over his collection, a detailed assortment of foreign delicacies and beyond. I asked him how one gets a collection like this. He smirks before clarifying the almost routine trade-offs before each event, where the dealers come to play. “Before we open we usually trade with other collectors, it’s a tight-knit community across the country.” Despite recently moving here from Orlando, James undoubtedly found it quick to find a space to show off his vinyl collection among the 10-15 vendors at the fair. 

I asked which tracks sell the most, jumping the gun to quickly answer it for him, awaiting a generic gateway group like The Beatles or Pink Floyd. This time, I was not only wrong but kind of perplexed by the answer.

 “European soundtracks, porn soundtracks, anything funky, especially right now,” James said. Why use PornHub when you can have the same sensual erotica with a signature groove to every moan?

The next vendor had a much more enriched catalogue of progressive rock so I decided to begin my ever futile search for the highly renowned Court of the Crimson King. With some background knowledge and a knack for coming off like I understand things, I approached, through the vendor, who would identify as Tim, was quick to feel me out my lack of knowledge.

Like a psychic, Tim shot through the hands of another patron to sling out a vinyl you’d think he’d been saving all afternoon. Titled Tarkus, the 1971 release was a dusty treasure of progressive rock, performed by Emerson, Lake, Palmer; the group Tim professed would precede Crimson before they gained kingship. “King Crimson were the grandfathers to progressive rock and this is where he started. That and who doesn’t love an armadillo tank for an album cover,” Tim said.

He went on to delve into progressive rock’s beginning, illustrating a clash between progressive and the ‘three chord drone’ punk rockers which led to new wave and neo-progressive explorations. “People began to say progressive rock became too exaggerated, over the top, though you couldn’t play Sex Pistols on the radio since nobody wanted to hear that shit,” he said, each blink a forceful stammer into his deadpan passion for the history. “This led to bands like Blondie and The Police, it was a progressive punk that was, essentially made for the radio.” After the brief rant, he went onto offer me a discounted price on the vinyl, far too preoccupied with showing me a picture of his King Crimson poster hanging over his living room couch to accept my thanks.

I spun onto another table to shoot for my instinctual safety net of 90s progressive rock, only to find a whole table dedicated to hip hop. From Gang Starr to treasures from afar, this table held a strong catalogue. I picked out a Queen Latifah track and asked the vendor, whose name turned out to be Jason, what it would sound like, only to be taken on a crash course into Def Jam records. “A lot of TV celebrities started out with Def Jam at the time, from Queen Latifah to LL Cool J, he was their first major artist,” Jason said.

He went on tell about some of his higher end tracks, enlightening me of several bands that may have had the sound, but just didn’t fit with the times. “There was a lot of artists trying to make it at the time, almost like the garage scene of today- a lot of people never really caught on,” Jason said. Before leaving, he told me about another artist, a Richmond native, who plans on having his first show next Saturday. I whipped the vinyl titled, Lil Ugly Mane, and gave me the scoop on why this matters. “Not only does this dude hate being popular, he’s a Richmond-based {artist} who’s only played in New York and {Los Angeles}, despite a huge cult following here at home.” I researched the artist, only to be met with a wildfire of internet buzz surrounding his long-standing retirement in 2013, until now.

I continued to look through vinyls ranging in higher and higher prices, wondering if I should inquire on an installment plan. I approached one of the more enthusiastic scavengers, bringing his Sunday jam to midhalt to ask why this mattered so much; what makes vinyl still ‘a thing’ in a day in age where I can pull any song up on my phone with better quality and zero hassle.

“I love music man, I mean this stuff used to be so much more back then; everything from the cover you get to hold to the artwork- it’s a story into the mind of the artist,” said one avid vinyl collector perusing the records with his headphones on. Whether vinyl is better or simply different in experience, who really knows. At the very least, vinyls can be used for more than novelty decor, or not- after all, they have been consigned to the trash heap of history once before. Even within a shrinking scene of physical media where DVDs are tossed out for streaming and magazines are used for kindling, the cultural significance vinyl has to offer may carry it through the test of time. After all, David Bowie and Pink Floyd will always have some starstruck 16-year old discovering it for the first time.

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