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Making Lemonade With Charlie And Darlings

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The newly-formed local folk ensemble is grappling with powerful emotions like loss and grief through the healing power of old-time harmonies.

Sitting together in a circle, one band’s practice looks more like an old-time country jamboree than a rehearsal. Laughs are passed between them as they talk and tune their instruments by ear, plucking a string here and there and humming along.

With her homemade guitar, Charlotte Jones picks out a tune and belts out the words to a song she has written. Tapping her bare feet along to the tempo, her voice is mirrored in harmony by her fellow band members.

The southern sound coming through is a composite of country, folk, and bluegrass, reminiscent of folk singers like Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and Gillian Welch.

With Charlotte Jones on guitar, sister Hannah Jones and Laura Crowley on vocals, Stephen Roach on piano and melodica, and Aaron Staples on fiddle and banjo, Charlie and Darlings is using their focus on layering harmonies, lyrical content, and unique instrumental sound to deal with loss, grief, and atonement.

For lead vocalist and songwriter Charlotte Jones, making their latest project has been a cathartic release. In a span of 3 months, Jones lost three friends and a relative in unforeseeable ways.

Unfortunately, Jones’ misfortune was not over at that point; shortly after, she was involved in several bad car accidents, including one with sister and fellow band member Hannah Jones.

This trauma placed significant strain on Jones, and as a way to cope and understand concepts of grief and death, she began writing songs.  

“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” Jones said. “Well, I made quick lemonade out of those lemons.”

Charlie and Darlings latest project is an album composed of four waltzes that the group has called “sads songs you can dance to,” all of which written by Charlotte Jones.

“We would play the songs and record them.” Crowley explained, “Then we’d play them back and just try to dance to them.”

Pairing lyrics that describe watching one’s heroes cry, thinking of those lost in mundane aspects of life, and trying to cope with memories with upbeat instrumental arrangements, Charlie and Darlings intentionally match sad lyrical content to upbeat music, juxtaposing grief with the warmth that comes through harmony.

According to the band, this is in order to bring focus onto the lyrics themselves, and to let the emotions come through.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Crowley said. “We get to watch these songs grow up and and change from the emotional into sound.”

The upcoming album will pay tribute to those who the band lost and to the deceased’s families. Jones said she wants to include a ‘pay it forward’ aspect to the album so those who were lost can be honored.

The five members of Charlie and Darlings share a sense of camaraderie that transcends into their work.

Different walks of life have brought them together but they act as if they have known one another for a lifetime.

Sitting hip-to-hip on a small piano bench, Laura Crowley and Hannah Jones pass smiles of affirmation to one another mid-song.

“I wanted a solid base of folks and musicians for the band and it just so happened they’re my best friends,” Jones said.

Charlie and Darlings will perform on March 29 at Crossroads located at 3600 Forest Hill Drive in Richmond.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Richmond Punk Godfathers L’Amour Drop Massive Archival Release

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L’Amour was one of the first punk bands to come out of Richmond, Virginia. Now, nearly forty years later, a collection of the band’s recordings is being released on local label Beach Impediment Records.

Look to the Artist: 1978 – 1981 is an anthology that includes the band’s 1979 single as well as recordings from the same studio session and exclusive demo tracks. The B-side of the record is a complete live set from 1980, and features never-before-heard songs that didn’t make it onto a studio recording.

Two of the band’s members, Tom Applegate and Dave Stover, still live in Richmond. The two met in high school and bonded over their shared love of Rolling Stones and Kinks records.

“You walk in his room and he’s playing [Rolling Stones 1968 live album] Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out on the record player,” Applegate said, “And then on his wall, ceiling-to-floor, there were black and white photographs of surfers, and the record collection matched mine exactly. That was a moment.”

The pair attended Virginia Commonwealth University in the mid- to late-70s at the beginning of the punk explosion. The Clash, Patti Smith, and The Heartbreakers had a huge impact on them, as did rock and roll magazines like Creem and New York Rocker.

Applegate and Stover founded L’Amour in 1978 and helped create Richmond’s first punk scene, ushering in a cultural movement that still exists in the city today.

The band released their sole single in 1979. It was the first release on Applegate’s Zero Degree imprint, which went on to issue now legendary records by early Richmond punk bands like White Cross, Beex, and The Prevaricators.

“It was wild being a first generation punk band,” Applegate said. “It wasn’t just us, there were so many people working on the scene in so many different ways, and that’s how it grew. All of a sudden, it became a community.”

In addition to playing locally, the band also toured throughout the region between 1978 and 1980, but they were never signed to a major label. After a few lineup changes, L’Amour broke up and the members moved on to new projects.

Mark Shubert, owner and operator of Beach Impediment Records, came across a sleeveless copy of L’Amour’s single in 2010. Shubert is a longtime fan of Zero Degree Records, and cites White Cross’s 1982 EP Fascist as one of the best U.S. hardcore records of all time.

“I randomly discovered the single,” he said. “I’ve had it for years now, and I just thought it was really cool.”

Beach Impediment is well-known in the world of DIY punk and hardcore, and has been involved in several archival projects since the label started in 2011. It’s inaugural release was a reissue of an EP by Front Line, an early 80s hardcore punk band from Virginia Beach.

Shubert said he met Applegate by chance at a monster truck rally several years ago, and broached the idea of an archival collection. It turned out that Applegate and Stover had held on to the original tape reels from L’Amour’s recording sessions, as well as a sizable stash of live recordings, photographs, and flyers from the era.

“I was really excited with how it all came together because, you know, not only am I a fanatic for punk music, but as a person who works in the public history field, it was such a thrill going through their archives,” said Shubert.

Look to the Artist: 1978 – 1981 provides a rare glimpse of the early years of Richmond punk rock, as first-wave bands laid the foundation for the DIY punk and metal scenes that were to come. It’s as much an anthology of the band as it is an artifact of the era.

After L’Amour, Applegate went on to join Beex with his future wife, Christine Gibson, and Stover started The Prevaricators. Though Gibson has since passed away, Beex is active in the punk scene in Richmond today, and sporadically releases new music.

Applegate still speaks nostalgically about his formative years playing in L’Amour, and the early days of DIY punk.

“It was a gift to have the opportunity to play rock and roll,” he said. “And that’s about as much religion as I have. It’s my mantra.”

Physical copies of Look to the Artist: 1978 – 1981 will be available this Friday via Beach Impediment’s webstore. 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

VV’s No-Wave Punk Noise is Pure Raw Intensity

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It’s not supposed to sound pretty. Richmond band VV’s shambolic no-wave performances have made a mark on the local DIY scene this year. 

The band’s raw, anarchic intensity takes more from 80s punk outsiders like Flipper, Stick Men With Ray Guns, and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks than anything in current scene. Those influences may be more incidental than intentional, however.

VV’s rudimentary punk noise is partly a result of their inexperience. Guitarist Kelsey Hulvey and drummer Rachel Harper picked up their instruments only a few months before starting the band. 

“I knew a couple basic things, like how to make a power chord and what my strings should be tuned to,” Hulvey said.

The band’s musical limitations haven’t held them back though; if anything, those barriers have made for more interesting, idiosyncratic songwriting. Their primitive style stands in stark contrast to the polished and well-rehearsed songwriting that dominates Richmond’s punk scene. 

“We’re not trying to adhere to anything or sound like anything in particular,” Hulvey said. “We’re starting with a blank canvas every time we write a song.”

According to the band, they construct their songs around a lyrical fragment or idea, and work on the music and lyrics collaboratively. It can be an exhaustive process, but the autonomy that it provides is worth the effort — and keeps them from falling into a formulaic rut.

“An important part of our band is doing what we want and carving out our own space,” Hulvey said. “I don’t care how other people receive it. It’s important that we’re creating something that we like, that’s important to us.”

VV will be performing live on WRIR 97.3 next Thursday at 5 p.m.

 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Hard To Be King: Michael Millions Looms Large In Richmond

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Richmond rap artist Michael Millions released his third studio album, “Hard to be King”, this January. His latest work, a follow up to his 2015 album “Beautiful”, reflects his hometown and draws on local talent and sounds, marrying the sounds of jazz and psychedelic rap to his classic style.

“One thing that most people need to know is, I designed this album for Richmond,” Millions said. “[T]he sounds we chose to use, the samples we used, and the instruments we chose to swap out. It’s really derived from the music that was created here.”

He credits the familiar sound with building instant local appeal. “I think people from here identify with it immediately. I don’t know if it’s just the sound or I’m telling stories, or maybe I’m speaking from the blue collar perspective of being hardworking and being from a city that [isn’t really],” he said.

Millions sampled from another Richmond-native, D’Angelo, and said he even got a note praising the album after its release.

“We actually used two samples on the album. The record called, ‘Black Sugar’ that features Nickelus F is a D’Angelo sample, and ‘Water’ is a D’angelo sample. And we also got clearance on using his vocals,” he said. “He reached out to me after the album came out, and pretty much said the album was really good and gave me a good blessing on the album.”

“Hard To Be King” Album Cover

The sound and the creative process for “Hard to be King” represent an evolution from “Beautiful”, following Millions own transformation.

“When I started to want to be an emcee, I wanted to be an emcee. And as time progressed, I wanted to be a rapper. And now I’m more of an artist. There’s layers to this,” he said. “Then there’s another layer, where a songwriter, the rapper becomes a poet, and he’s more meticulous about the words he’s saying, the music has more intent. It’s more musical. It’s more about, we know you can rap, we know you can put words together, but can you make people feel when they’re done listening to your records. That’s another layer. That’s artistry, I think, and I think this album is me in 100% purest art form.”

In a city with a thriving battle rap scene, Millions is keenly interested in doing a live hip hop album, and structured many of his songs to work for live performance.

“People identify with live instrumentation. That’s what Richmond identifies with. The problem is, we create these albums as rappers that we can’t transfer to, play live because they have these different sounds,” he said. “I play with live instruments and it’s always a struggle to, not a struggle but you can’t play the record exact because they’re different sounds. If you go back to the basics of just sounds, then when we play a show with live instrumentation then it sounds like the record. And I wanted that type of consistency in my sound. I wanted it to be live, I wanted it to be for real.”

In addition to a live album, he’s also planning to create music for skating video, and hopes to work with some of the performers he admires the most.

“I’d rather just talk to Black Thought about music than to get music with him, but Nas I’d want [to do] the record,” he said. “Nas, I really respect him as a poet. There are not many rap poets, and I want to be listed as one of them.”

Millions has worked and travelled all over the country. Although he’s been elsewhere, something keeps bringing him back to the River City.

“I honestly like Richmond. We’ve been mad places, and maybe it’s because I’m from here. I lived in Norfolk for a period of time. There’s something about Richmond. Richmond is sweet,” he said.

Part of the appeal is his sense that Richmond is just about to make it on the national stage.

“I think it’s that thing of being in a place that hasn’t been discovered yet. Richmond is actually really cool, compared to a lot of cities in the country, but it’s just under the cusp of you either know about it or you don’t. People aren’t leaving because they know it’s cool here,” he said.
“Everyone’s doing something cool, especially when you’re in the creative space, you find out everything that’s going on.”

“Hard to be King” is a multi-layered album, with a complex progression of sounds, voices, and themes. Millions hoped that fans would take away one final message from the work.

“I think I want people to really listen to this album and understand that your life is okay. If the sun came up, if you walked to the bathroom this morning and didn’t have any aches and pains, you’re alright,” he said. “Smile more, and be blessed and be happy about the small moments we have.”

“Hard to be King” is available for purchase at Bandcamp and streaming on SoundCloud.

Camp Howard Premiere New Tracks in Audiotree Session

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Richmond’s upbeat indie quartet Camp Howard has been super busy recently with a tour in December, promoting their latest EP, Juice, which dropped this spring via Egghunt Records. And this month, they stopped in at Chicago-based music company Audiotree, best known for their in-studio live concert series, to play a couple of tracks we know as well as record a few surprise songs.

The guys played six songs over their session, including “Mismo”, which is in Spanish, “Haircut”, “Juice” and “I Will” off their newest EP, along with two new songs, the dreamy “Light on the Moon” and “Placid”.

If you’re into some catchy light-hearted pop and some groovy bass lines you’ll enjoy their latest album and the two newer tracks deliver some fun and laid back sounds that will keep you wanting more. We had a chance to catch up with Camp Howard about their Juice EP in our Summer 2017 print issue, which you can check out here.

You can catch Camp Howard’s next performance at Strange Matter on Mon., Jan. 29 along with The Nude Party and Piranha Rama. 8 PM, $10 cover. You can snag your tickets here.

Death Birds Surf Club Drop New Visuals for ‘At the Beach’

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The chill of these frigid winter temperatures might have you bitter and blue, but Beach Boys-esque surf rock group Death Birds Surf Club have returned with a new video that will leave you all warm and fuzzy inside.

RVA Mag first introduced you to the trio, which includes Crystal Pistol Records‘ Pete Curry, along with Adam Weatherford (Guitar/Vocals) and Ashley “Bean” Weatherford (Bass/Vocals), back in 2016 when the Richmond band dropped their debut album, Transmission of Stoke.

The new video, “At the Beach” is a laid-back song off their six-track album which brings us back to simpler times, with clips from the 40s and 50s of a day at the beach catching waves without a care in the world with some dreamy guitar behind it.

It also gets a little silly with some random clips of cats thrown in for fun. Its super catchy and just what we needed to perk us up on a Monday.

“I couldn’t help but to write songs about surfing and the ocean and what not,” Adam told RVA Mag in our 2016 interview. “So yeah, we were pretty determined to make a surf album. The songs may not fit neatly into the “surf” genre, but surfing was definitely the inspiration.”

Much of the album’s songs stem from Adam and Ashley’s favorite childhood pastimes-surfing and skating, with songs like “Halfpipe Girl”  and “The Swell”.

You can read more on their album and how they got into surfing and music at the link above, and make sure to keep an eye on Crystal Pistol’s Facebook for updates on when you catch their next gig.