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Hustle Punk: Weekend Playlist by James Seretis

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Every Friday night, RVA Mag brings you a truly fantabulous playlist curated by Virginia’s most influential artists, musicians, and institutions.

This week, we have a playlist from James Seretis, who is probably best known to readers of this magazine as one of the cohosts of The Hustle Season, a weekly podcast you can catch here at RVA Magazine every weekend, as well as on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Seretis and his Hustle Season co-host Gabriel Santamaria also run La Cocina Studios, and play together in The Flavor Project, where Seretis’s guitar plays off Santamaria’s bass and the excellent work of the many other band members to create a pleasing mix of funk, rap, soul, jazz, Latin sounds, and much more.

This week, though, James is getting back to his roots with a mix of punk rock classics that will give novices an excellent tour through the fundamentals of the genre, while reminding the more seasoned punks among us exactly what was so great about all those records we loved as teenagers that got us into this genre. A few picks are a bit… edgy (that Fear song, James?) but if you love punk rock, the Hustle Season, or both, that won’t be too surprising. Just don’t play this mix around your parents, and you’ll be fine. On this rainy weekend, sit back and let James Seretis add some punk rock spice to your weekend with this killer mix.

Turn it up, Virginia.

Open this playlist from mobile in your Spotify app HERE.

Getting Stupid And Making Loud Noises

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For Richmond punk rockers Cement Shoes, letting things get out of control is a big part of the fun.

There is absolutely no limit to the experiences local hardcore punk band Cement Shoes are offering with their music and concerts. Too, the Shoes’ most recent release, showcases the haphazard nature of the band’s creative style — a style they make work very well. 

“The writing process was interesting, because I’m about 95% certain the lyrics are totally made up for the record,” said the band’s bassist, Sam. “We just hang out every Monday, drink a bunch of beer and make loud noises; that’s the music.”

“We get so stupid in the practice space, and whatever we can remember becomes a song,” said Brandon, guitarist for the Shoes. 

For the members with instruments — Sam, Brandon, and Hunter on drums — the pressure is on to play some semblance of the songs that were written. However, for the Shoes’ singer/growler, Trevor, the only goal is to make words happen in some order, at some point during a set.  

“I don’t have to worry too much about what to say when we play, so I’m just gonna get plastered before each show,” said Trevor.

“We need to initiate Trevor soon,” said Sam on Trevor’s recent switch from drums to vocals. “Huff gas and watch wrestling, then we can write down whatever comes to mind and we’ll actually have lyrics. I don’t know why this problem only ever happens within Cement Shoes.”

Former member John is the voice on the recently recorded LP, but is no longer with the band. 

“John seemed to have fun illustrating the whole lack of lyrics; he wouldn’t send anybody the lyrics,” said Sam.

“He did show up and sing over the LP, but we think he just made shit up the whole time,” said Brandon. “There’s key words in each song but then… ‘crucified’ is a big word he used for no reason.”

“Have you ever read the lyrics to a Bjork song?” asked Sam. “Nobody has, and that’s the beauty of it. She can do whatever she wants.”

The loose format of their music doesn’t lend itself to any real structure and avoids connecting with the lyrics, but that doesn’t stop Cement Shoes from creating music that shifts people. The instrumentals alone make the music worthwhile, and will get you head banging and moshing quicker than you’d ever be able to pick up on the ever-changing lyrics. 

The sheer freedom in their style gives them regular opportunities to get creative, and with the amount of creative time they have, things tend to get out of line fast — in true punk fashion. But they do have a plan for how they’ll resolve all this.

“We’re gonna take it as far as we can, then go into recovery and become a straight-edge band,” said Sam.

This random approach doesn’t just affect the music — the Shoes have shared the stage with bands they never would have dreamed up, which only adds to the whole erratic experience. And by the way, we’re not talking about famous bands.

“GOOLS! Little green ghouls! A bunch of middle schoolers from New Orleans,” said Brandon, reminiscing on the wild group that played before them at a show a year or so back. “They played for an hour and a half with roller skates on.”

Have they ever considered incorporating roller skates into their own sets?

“All the time,” replied Trevor. “That’s all I ever think about honestly.”

While the craziest shows have happened on tour, the Shoes were happy to reflect on their favorite Richmond spots as well.

“We really like Wonderland, which is like the best juggalo vape bar,” said Sam.

“It looks like Rob Zombie took a shit and that’s what came out,” replied Trevor.

As for Brandon’s favorite local spot? “There’s a baby goat at Maymont that yells when you have food, but if you don’t feed him for a minute it’s just loud. That’s my favorite place,” said the guitarist.

Due to the impermanent nature of the music, the band, and the entire Cement Shoes experience, the foursome is well aware that things can easily go downhill… and they’re a-okay with that.

“Why go to a punk show if you can just make the most hilarious meme in the world on Adderall? It’s the future of punk,” said Brandon. “No one is going to try and write another Anna Karenina again if you can make an image with a byline that says everything you could say in a novel.”

“I would quit the band,” said Trevor. “If someone said, ‘you can have a life supply of Adderall or continue to be in this band,’ I would take the script. I would be so productive. Do all the memes.”

Original art from Too album cover by William Chapman, courtesy Cement Shoes

All that being said, the Shoes aren’t actually planning to stop playing music anytime soon. They’re looking forward to shows both stateside and overseas. In fact, they’ll be making their first trip out of the country soon. Sam explains.

“I had known these guys at a shop called Lulu’s in Melbourne, [Australia], and every year they throw a festival called Maggot Fest,” said Sam. “For whatever reason, they really liked our band when our single came out.”

The band is really excited about their first Australia trip — but not for the reasons you’d think. Most notably, they’re excited to meet some “buff ass kangaroos,” “get eaten by sharks,” and hang out with “what’re they called… koala bears.”

Before they leave for the land down under in November, Cement Shoes will be playing shows around Richmond in promotion of their new album, which is out now on vinyl, CD, and digital from Feel It Records. This Saturday, June 27th, at 9 p.m. they will be hosting a record release show at their favorite juggalo vape bar, Wonderland, along with New York bands Warthog and L.O.T.I.O.N., and fellow Richmonders Serqet. For more info, click here. Come out and enjoy a completely new and exciting experience. And expect plenty more shows in the near future.

“Just come find us,” said Sam. “We’ll be playing shows forever.”

Top Photo by Alicen Hackney

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Toward Space Bares It All

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The youthful garage-punk trio from Richmond love to get naked, get crazy, and play loud, fast rock n’ roll. Not necessarily in that order.

Garage-punk trio Toward Space has been creating a brainsick space for the homeless and the strange in Richmond since their tween-age days And after nearly a decade together, this is still only the beginning of the madness.

Vocalist and bassist Seyla Hossaini and guitarist and vocalist David Pahtoon met at their local pool when they were 10 years old, and became fast friends. Since then they’ve been inseparable, playing music together and digging into the cult movie and horror scene.

“Ever since we first met each other, we’ve been trying to make something happen,” said Pahtoon. “It didn’t get serious, though, until a couple years ago.”

Pahtoon and Hossaini had been in a couple of bands together, but they had never gotten anywhere — mainly because of the other members involved. “So, we decided why don’t we just do a two piece and just focus on each other,” said Pahtoon.

The early two-piece was inspired by minimalist garage-punk bands like King Khan & BBQ Show. “I would play a bass drum and snare with two kick pedals and play guitar and sing, and Seyla would stand next to me and play bass and sing,” said Pahtoon. “That worked for a while. And then we got a drummer, like, a real drummer.”

Early two-piece days. Photo by Jake Cunningham

After working for a while with another drummer that Pahtoon charitably says “wasn’t the best,” they found their current drummer, Ben Rosenstock. “That was when we started being really serious about it,” said Pahtoon, “when we really became old enough to know what that means.”

The members of Toward Space have their own idea on what it means to be a true friend and bandmate, which may come as a surprise to those unfamiliar. By way of telling the story of his joining the band, Rosenstock sheds some light on the situation.

“It was Pride festival day, 2017,” Rosenstock began. “I was at a party at a friends house after the festival. David was wearing a lovely dress, and he stopped me in the hallway and just goes, ‘Hey man, do you want to join Toward Space?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, of course,’ and he goes, ‘Stand right there.’”

Rosenstock was confused, and a little concerned. “I couldn’t figure out what he was about to do,” the drummer said. “Like, punch me in the face or something? Or kick me? I didn’t know if it was a hazing thing. Then he just flashed me his penis.”

Rosenstock laughed. “I thought, ‘Oh, sweet. Yeah, that’s it. I’m in.’”

It’s Toward Space’s belief that nudity is the best way to show that you care. It’s even made surprise appearances at shows — take this story Pahtoon tells about a show by local rockers Brain Drain that the band members all attended.

“While they were playing Seyla jumps up on-stage completely naked,” said Pahtoon. “It was one of my first times talking to Ben ever, and we were just trying to scream-talk to each other over the band playing, right next to the mosh pit. Suddenly Seyla’s completely naked and lands on top of us. I go, ‘that’s our bassist!’ and our drummer at the time walked up and starts pouring a full beer on her head, and I go, ‘that’s our drummer!’”

“Ben has seen David and I naked so many times, and we’ve never seen him fully naked. It’s just utter disrespect,” said Hossaini mockingly. “He’s a Toward Space virgin.”

“That’s why I still feel brand new,” replied Rosenstock.

The band cites their penchant for nudity as one of their claims to fame, scorning other bands who’ve done similar things in the past, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and their notorious socks.

“The Red Hot Chili Peppers were pussies,” said Hossaini. “We show it all.”

“They have socks on their dicks, we have full on frontal nudity,” added Pahtoon.

Now in their early 20s, Toward Space has been a full-time touring band for a while now. But no matter where they go, the weirdness follows them.

“It really just seems like when we play places around the country there’s always two homeless people there, and they’re like, ‘you guys are awesome!’” said Pahtoon. “It’s like we’re the voice of the homeless people or something.”

“Homeless people love David,” added Hossaini.

Touring has had its ups and downs for the band. They’ve played shows with well-known garage bands like Shonen Knife and NoBunny, and played other shows to almost no one. Even the empty shows tend to produce good stories — like Pahtoon’s tale of their first time in San Francisco.

“Our show was a bust, ’cause no one came out,” he said. “[Afterward,] I had one foot on the pavement, one foot on the car, and this high school kid ran up to me and was like, ‘hey man, wanna buy some shrooms?’” By now, you won’t be surprised to hear that Pahtoon answered in the affirmative. Once the band got to the house where they were staying that night, he proceeded to indulge. That’s when things got really weird.

“We were staying in this house with people we’d never really met before,” Pahtoon relates, “and some random dude comes up to me and goes, ‘Hey man, I don’t know how squeamish you are, but check this out.’ Holds his phone up to me, and it’s a picture of him getting brain surgery.”

Gently With A Chainsaw release show at Sound Of Music Studios. Photo by David Morton

The long hours on the road have had both good and bad effects. Sometimes they have brought the band closer; at other times, the hours in a cramped van have driven them to the point of combustion.

“We had a couple shows on tour where we just got to the point that we were beating each other up on stage,” said Hossaini. “It’s not even pissed, it’s just pent-up energy. When you’re in the car on tour, or at least when we are, it’s a lot of shame.”

“It’s like on Spongebob where he’s just like, ‘eh, gettin kinda bored,’” Pahtoon said. “And then he catches the Krusty Krab on fire.”

Along with the heat of boredom, the trio’s obsession with cult films and murder have brought them to a place of creative insanity. They’ve never shied away from onstage theatrics, dabbling in playful makeup and gender-bending attire. But they hope to go further in the future.

“There’s more theatrics coming,” promises Pahtoon. “We’ve always tried to do the whole makeup and dress thing, but there’s gonna be more fake blood. We’re gonna have a plastic bag full of feathers, and I’ll time it right to go, ‘1, 2, 3, 4…’ and throw the feathers.”

“It’ll be like the homicide scene in John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, where they cover Connie and Raymond Marble in feathers and shoot them,” Hossaini chimed in.

The group’s love of cult movies came through on their 2018 album Gently With A Chainsaw, the title of which the title is a reference to the 80s cult film Heathers. They hope to follow it with an album that will feature even more movie references and horror themes, and they’ll be taking their time on this one to make it just right.

“All of our other records have been rushed, with a deadline in mind for going on a tour and stuff like that,” said Pahtoon. “I’m happy with the other stuff we’ve put out before, but it was rushed, and now there’s not really a deadline. We are going to try to really do the best we can with it, not just do The Clash first record kind of thing — hurry up and put it out.”

While it may be a while before any new releases are ready, Toward Space are continuing to play out around Richmond, and have shows coming up on Saturday, April 20 and Thursday, April 25, both at Wonderland in Shockoe Bottom. You’re not going to want to miss the wild times and loud rock n’ roll that Toward Space has in store.

Top photo by Nicholas Von Thrower

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Razorblades And Aspirin: The Punk Photography of Michael Thorn

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Punk photographer Michael Thorn will begin a six-month residency
at Lamplighter Coffee’s Addison Street location this weekend. Starting with a grand opening event on March 2nd at 7pm, Thorn and Lamplighter will be showcasing new photos in the coffee shop every few weeks, and hosting a variety of related events.

“The plan is to rotate images out on about a six-week cycle,” said Thorn. “It’s gonna be an evolving, constantly updated photo show. It’s a crazy idea, and we’re still trying to work out exactly what we’re doing.”

For Thorn, this “crazy idea” revolves around bringing his social media presence into real brick-and-mortar life. “It’s like an instagram feed come to life in some ways,” he said, “as corny as that sounds. I shoot punk stuff, and am pretty much constantly shooting, so in a way this will be like my instagram, which is constantly being updated with new images from shows and events.”

Thorn’s photographs will be featured in Lamplighter’s dining areas, and in the bathrooms. In the bathrooms, his photos will line the walls like wallpaper, to immerse visitors in the scenes he’s shot.

“I’m gonna re-paste the entirety of the bathroom walls with images,” said Thorn. “The idea is to have this overwhelming experience. I tend to print images as large as I can afford to. The whole goal of my work is to make you feel like you’re there, as best I can. So I shoot really close, like right on top of people. When I print my images, I tend to print really large, so you feel like you’re standing where I was.”

The residency will begin with a grand opening party, entitled The Bastards Can’t Dance — like his zine, Razorblades and Aspirin, it’s named after a song by UK punk band Leatherface. Throughout the next six months of his residency, he plans to do a variety of other events relating to the punk rock DIY (Do It Yourself) ideology he subscribes to. A coffee shop may seem like a curious place to host art and events like these, but for Thorn, it’s all about making connections — which is what drew him to the shop known as “Richmond’s living room.”

“In doing punk, hardcore, or underground stuff, you use the venue that’s available to you. It’s democratic and open, and galleries don’t always lend themselves to that,” said Thorn. “Coffee shops are places everyone goes to, and even if those people might not necessarily like the sound of the bands that I shoot, my goal is to make my photos impact people, regardless of their preferences.”

For Thorn, feeling a connection between his art and the venue where he presents it is more important than getting his work into conventional gallery spaces. “At Lamplighter, I really resonate with that — they are into creating that space for possibilities,” he said. “Beyond that, coffee and punk are really well aligned — people have been writing songs about that forever.”

And that connection goes even deeper for Thorn, a lifelong coffee shop habitue. “To me, it feels like a natural alignment,” he said. “I spent my youth sitting in coffee shops that would stay open until two in the morning, just because I had nowhere else to go.”

A relatively recent arrival to Richmond, Thorn has been part of punk and hardcore scenes around the country — and beyond — for most of his life. In the 90’s, he played in hardcore bands, but later realized that being a musician just wasn’t his calling. After really getting into writing and photography, zines became his focus.

“I had a camera and would casually take pictures, which I lost a lot of, moving around so much, before being able to save stuff digitally,” said Thorn. “I’ve never really been good at playing in bands — I figured out early on I’m better at documenting things. Doing photographs stood out to me, because it gave me a way to still participate in the culture.”

But his goals weren’t all as high-minded. “There’s a bit of selfishness to it,” he admits of being a photographer. “When you’re in a band, you have to collaborate, and work with three or four other people. But if I’m taking photos, it’s all up to me — and that carried over into zines.”

For several years around the turn of the millennium, Thorn served as a coordinator for Maximum Rocknroll, a San Francisco-based zine started in the early 80s, which was for decades the most widely-read punk-related periodical.

Now he produces his own photography-specific zine, Razorblades and Aspirin. The zine acts as a documentation of the numerous shows he shoots. Whenever he can get the funds together to print up 45 to 60 pages of photographs, he puts a new issue together.

For Thorn, zines are intended primarily to express appreciation for the culture they document — something that he sees as a struggle in this day and age. “I think is more difficult than it’s ever been,” he said. “It’s doing things because you actually care about them, instead of doing things just because it advances your band, or your own agenda. I’ve worked in that world of publicists, but with the DIY stuff, my heart is saying, ‘Fuck all that.’ I see more value, and feel more, in people’s work when you can tell it’s [created] because they’re moved by it.”

During Thorn’s residency, he and Lamplighter are planning a whole host of special events that are currently in the conception phase. There will be concerts, featured artists, art shows, and more.

“I have vague notions right now,” said Thorn. He has a variety of goals for the project, including bringing in bands and working with other artists. “There are other photographers whose work I really like, and think is much better than mine, so I’ve thought about making one rotation where I curate other people’s work. And then publish a zine based off of that.”

For now, nothing definite is planned beyond the grand opening, but keep an eye out for more “cool shit” to come. The grand opening of Razorblades & Aspirin Presents: The Bastards Can’t Dance is this Saturday, March 2nd from 7 to 9 PM at Lamplighter’s original location, 116 S. Addison St. For more info, click here.

Don’t Touch My Bikini: Weekend Playlist by Mike Doughty

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Every Friday evening, RVA Mag once again brings you an outstanding playlist curated by influential artists, musicians, and institutions.

This weekend brings us the wonderful opportunity to jam out with a playlist from Mike Doughty. Former frontman for Soul Coughing, Doughty is a talented, unique songwriter with a knack for mingling jazz, hip hop, and funk styles into his fundamentally rockin’ repertoire.

Since the dissolution of Soul Coughing in 2000, he’s amassed quite a strong discography of solo albums. However, in recent years, he’s been returning to the work of his 90s group, recreating the original inspirations and giving us solo versions that reveal new ways of seeing those beloved songs. He’ll be doing precisely that when he comes to The Broadberry on Tuesday, February 26 — his current tour finds him celebrating the 25th anniversary of Soul Coughing’s classic debut, Ruby Vroom, by playing it in its entirety.

You can grab tickets for that show right HERE — and you should! But until then, you can enliven your weekend with a highly varied and always awesome playlist created just for you by Mr. Doughty himself. He’s got all sorts of sounds for you, from blues and soul to jazz and funk to hip hop and punk rock. What all these tunes from highly disparate genres have in common is that they’ll keep you dancing all weekend long.

Move aside, Virginia, and let the man go through.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Unraveling Academia With Queer Punk Feminist Julietta Singh

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*This article originally appeared in RVA Mag #35, on the streets now at all your favorite spots.

Author and academic Julietta Singh flunked out of college on her first try. Now almost 20 years later, she’s a tenured professor at the University of Richmond, and she’s authored two books — both released in 2018.

After spending over a decade in the slog of academia, Singh has had a breakthrough year. Her first published work, Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements, was released in January by Duke University Press. Her latest, No Archive Will Restore You, was fresh to the shelves this November from Punctum Books.

Both books were written from a queer feminist perspective, but they couldn’t be farther apart in terms of style and content.

Unthinking Mastery is a dense, academic text that draws on postcolonial theory and queer theory, analyzing the concept of mastery in modern politics and anticolonial movements. It’s primarily a scholarly text, but the book also contains scattered autobiographical elements which aren’t typically found in academic writing.

“I used experiences from growing up, as a racially-mixed person in a very racist, small city in Canada, to elucidate some of the concepts I was trying to talk about,” Singh said. “The book became kind of infused by auto-theoretical writing, where I inserted myself into an academic book where I don’t belong.”

Her newest book, No Archive Will Restore You, takes this idea to an extreme, fully merging academic theory with autobiographical writing. It engages with a range of intellectual ideas on a deeply personal level.

Singh’s willingness to stray from the confines of academic writing is partly due to her own off-kilter journey through academia. She barely made it through high school, then dropped out of college after her first year. Around that time, she was working on and off as a tree planter in the Canadian bush: A popular summer job for alternative youth in Canada, where the logging industry is a major economic force.

“Basically a bunch of weirdo youth,” Singh said. “A lot of punks, hippies, crust punks, and all different kinds of young people pay their way through their education, or their lives, by replanting clear-cut forests.”

“We would plant thousands of trees a day, and just lived in the woods in a communal space where nudity became totally mundane. Everyone was living this radical, communal life.”

She was also involved in the local DIY scene in her hometown of Winnipeg, which gave rise to bands like Propagandhi and Personality Crisis. She spent several years working as an amateur journalist, although she quickly became disillusioned with the work.

Singh finally returned to school in her mid-20s, but said that her formative experiences in DIY spaces stayed with her as she went through her undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

“I never felt in sync with it,” she said of academia. “I always felt that I was a few steps off.”

According to Singh, she approached No Archive with the DIY attitude in mind, and it shows. The book’s collage-like narrative is artfully- and urgently-written, and embraces a certain ‘devil-may-care’ attitude not often found in academic writing.

The book is part of a growing body of feminist and queer-feminist literature, called auto-theory, that counts authors like Maggie Nelson, Wayne Kostenbaum, and Paul B. Preciado in its ranks.

“It’s a style that refuses the distinction between the theoretical and the personal,” Singh said. “Instead of theory being something that’s very head-in-the-clouds, theory becomes something very intimate to thinking about one’s life.”

No Archive Will Restore You is separated into six sections, which zig-zag between storytelling and abstract speculation. The book is written in non-linear fragments, but continually returns to themes of queer identity, race, and the body.

Singh’s narratives are deeply entangled with the work of other academics, and draw on the works of Antonio Gramsci, Jacques Derrida, and Elaine Scarry to expand on her ideas. Intertextual analysis and impressionistic anecdotes are intertwined to construct a piece of literature that defies easy categorization.

The book uses theory to think through big questions like pain, motherhood, and love in the internet age, and returns over and over to the body as a place that is both politicized and intensely personal. The following passage takes a literal approach to this duality, as the author remembers the research of a fellow graduate student:

“She was several years ahead of me in her PhD, writing about Argentine women who, as political prisoners during the last dictatorship, stored subversive literature in their vaginal canals. She called this ‘The vaginal library.’ Both metaphor and place, the vaginal library seemed to me an embodied archive in organic ruin. It brought the notion of “preservation” into the cell in a doubled sense: into those cages that imprisoned women, and into the cellular structures of their bodies.”

The passage illustrates the overlap between autobiographical narrative and theory, as well as the free-flowing style of the book. According to Singh, No Archive began as a collection of poetry, but ultimately veered away from its poetic format as she began to incorporate disparate, stylistic elements into the work.

“There’s a lot of ways in which it engages with existing genres and existing conventions in writing, but it also exceeds them, or slips away from them,” she said. “It’s poetic, but it’s not poetry. It’s got essay-like qualities, but it’s not an essay. It’s autobiographical writing, but it’s not a memoir.”

Singh began working on the book during the writing of Unthinking Mastery. In many ways, she said, No Archive was a response the rigidity of the academic work she was doing at the time.

“Writing Unthinking Mastery made me really want to think and feel and write in a different way,” she said. “It felt like something urgent that I needed to put down on paper.”

The author is currently working on several other books that are still in the early stages of writing. Her upcoming works deal with a variety of topics ranging from environmental issues to queer and feminist representations of extinction.

“All my preoccupations are about the end of the world,” she said.

Top Photo by Alexis Courtney