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Southern Nights: Weekend Playlist by Holy Roller

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Every single Friday evening, RVA Mag brings you a splendiferously outstanding playlist curated by influential artists, musicians, and institutions.

This week we’re turning the spotlight on Richmond’s own Holy Roller, who’ll be celebrating the release of their self-titled debut album this Saturday night at The Camel. Having previously made somewhat of a name for themselves around town as Big Mama Shakes, they’ve returned with a new name and a slightly redone lineup, but still the same great soulful alt-rock Americana sound.

Their playlist is a treat for the exact same sort of music fan who’s going to love Holy Roller themselves, bringing us some excellent sounds drawing from American traditions like blues, folk, and good ol’ rock n’ roll, while still keeping one foot planted firmly in the 21st century. Groove to this one all day tomorrow, then head to the Camel to celebrate their brand new album — more info on that show here.

Keep it light, Virginia.

Ride The Wave: Weekend Playlist by Big Something

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Every Friday night, RVA Mag drops a ridiculously amazing playlist curated by influential artists, musicians, and institutions.

This week, we receive a potent musical dispatch from Big Something, the North Carolina alt-rock group with strong enough ties to Richmond to have released a live album recorded at The Broadberry. This weekend finds the group returning to The Broadberry for their first-ever two-night stand here in Richmond, which promises to liven up the weekend for the entire town.

But in the meantime, we’ve got a set of incredible music that truly shows off this band’s eclectic tastes and wide-ranging influences. From jazz to hip-hop to the kind of rockin’ they’ve led us to expect, Big Something previews the live performances they’ve got on tap for tonight and tomorrow with what amounts to an excellent DJ set you can jam while you get prepped for the gig.

Check it out, Virginia! And grab your tickets to see Big Something tonight or tomorrow (or both!) at bit.ly/BigSomethingRVA.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

As Contrary As Possible: The “Anti-Player” Music of Crazy Doberman

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Free-form psychedelic band Crazy Doberman‘s on-again, off-again presence in Richmond has galvanized the local experimental music scene. The group has played several shows this year alongside Richmond DIY noise and experimental musicians. 

Crazy Doberman features a revolving door of collaborators in addition to the original seven-piece lineup, but not all the members play during every show and recording. Performances can consist of an ensemble of ten or more players, or as little as two.

Drew Davis, a founding member of Crazy Doberman, moved to Richmond earlier this year from the group’s de facto home base of Lafayette, Indiana, and joined up with local artists for several performances. 

“We’ve always had an open-door policy for collaborations, but it’s still very much a core group of individuals,” Davis said. 

The band has been touring and recording for several years now, with recent releases on underground labels I Dischi Del Barone, The Loki Label, and Radical Documents. Their upcoming self-titled album is set to be released on Danish label Mastermind Records in early 2019. 

The group’s performances utilize disparate elements of free jazz, industrial, and electronic noise to construct unstable and unpredictable musical environments. Every performance is completely improvised, and can range widely in tone and aesthetic from one performance to the next. 

PHOTO: Crazy Doberman

The musicians in the band are largely untrained in their instruments, and have no interest in learning how to play them in a conventional manner. Davis plays trumpet and trombone, which he picked up shortly before the band started. 

“We’re coming from a total anti-player worldview, having no prior knowledge or experience, just playing from the gut,” Davis said. 

The band takes particular inspiration from 60’s and 70’s free-music collectives like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the Black Artists Group, and free jazz artists on the Actuel Records roster. Like many of those artists, Crazy Doberman adheres to a doctrine of absolute artistic freedom, although they’ve sought to distance themselves from the ‘free jazz’ label. 

“Free jazz has its own system. We are aware of this and try to be as contrary as possible,” core member John Olson said in an interview with Slovenian magazine It’s Psychedelic, Baby!

Crazy Doberman’s core group of performers attribute much of their sonic exploration to psychedelic drugs, which they regularly use during performances, recordings and rehearsals. According to Davis, it’s helped them develop their style both as a collective unit and as individuals. 

“I ate acid religiously for our first year; in practice, in shows, and on tour,” Davis said. “Not everyone in the crew is an acid-eater, but for a handful of us, it was completely imperative to learning how to play with one another… It allowed me to find my voice, especially live, and to find these wormholes in a heavy trip where I could play with these other players.” 

PHOTO: Crazy Doberman

The group had its beginnings as an industrial and power electronics group under the name Doberman, but changed its name to Crazy Doberman after joining forces with Olson. Since then, the group’s sound has evolved into the free-form improvisational unit that it is today. 

“Doberman was the first creation. Crazy is when the ‘thing’ is let loose into the ether,” Olson said. 

Doberman had only a few scattered releases before it evolved into Crazy Doberman, but under the new name they’ve released more than 20 tapes and records. They released their first full-length record, Free LSD, in 2017, and a seven-inch record, Rust Clatter for the Midwest Sun, this past August on I Dischi Del Barone. 

The band is preparing for the release of their self-titled second full-length on Mastermind Records in early 2019, and is planning a European tour in support of the record. 

The Cosmic Disassembly of Ian Svenonius

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*This article originally appeared in RVA Mag #34, on the streets now at all your favorite spots. 

When Ian Svenonius and I started talking about ISIS, I knew my interview questions were dead. Originally I planned on talking with him about the musical movements of the mid-20th Century. Instead, I found myself veering into uncharted territory; a place where foreign policy, technological malaise, and radical leftist politics all collided. Which shouldn’t have been shocking to anyone who has kept up with Svenonius.

A progenitor of all things scene, Svenonius’ movement is one that combines style, sound, and substance, an unholy trinity of intellectual violence that took shape in the late 1980’s, in Washington D.C. with his first band, Nation of Ulysses. Since then, his projects — Cupid Car Club, The Make-Up, Weird War, Chain and the Gang, and now Escape-ism — have become part of a lived manifesto, brought to bear through performances of cosmic disassembly. 

What follows is a transcript of deep unpredictability drawn across parts of a conversation that remain manifest and evidentiary. 

PHOTO: Nation of Ulysses, Dischord Records

Svenonius: The newspaper never really came clean about the U.S. presence in Syria, and it was like Nixon in Cambodia. Everyone knows it, but no one wanted to say it… How secret was it?  

Shroder: Obama actually dropped more bombs in the Middle East than most people remember, something conveniently forgotten in the age of Trump.

Svenonius: Yes, we’re talking about team sports. When we talk about politics, there is no anti-war left anymore. What you thought was an anti-war left during the Iraq War disappeared during Obama, when Syria was being destroyed. That was convenient. Because it was done under a Democratic leadership. Politics are grotesque.

Shroder: Trump has said we’re not getting into any more wars. There is an argument for that.

Svenonius: Trump’s rhetoric about foreign policy is bullshit. Whatever he believes, he’s not in control. The circus that is American politics is not about policy making. Trump is a symbol and was put in power by this new class of Libertarian billionaires who hate government. He’s their clown who is there to discredit the idea of governance, because the corporate state is in control. That’s the point of Trump. That any idiot can be president.

Shroder: It is very dystopian from a certain perspective.

Svenonius: This is the new ruling class. The oil barons don’t rule the world anymore, technology does. It is very Ayn Rand[ian]. Their wealth is something we can’t comprehend because they don’t have to pay for any infrastructure. They’re not investing, they’re creating a system where everybody just pays rent.  

Shroder: Chain and the Gang’s song “Rome Wasn’t Burnt in a Day” says, “Everyone had a turn to make Rome burn.” Does that song apply to our current situation?

Svenonius: In the sense that we are living through imperial decline. “Rome Wasn’t Burnt in a Day” is a cultural anthem about destroying civilization.

Shroder: Are we at that point? How does the world look through your own experience when touring – even globally?

Svenonius: The world is upside right now because what used to be leftist arguments are now in the domain of the ultra-right wing. Things have become confusing for everyone. The demarcations are all in the air. Getting out of the bubble of fear, the way in which the hysterical news cycle in America is based on paranoia, is solved by communicating in actual space. This puts things in perspective. If you spend your time just reading the comments, you’ll just be suicidally depressed all the time.

Shroder: Everything is binary right now, isn’t it?

Svenonius: Everything is binary. But the binary is very twisted and jumbled, psychotic. The thing about Trump is that it did happen. And there is very little accountability.

PHOTO: Make-Up, Dischord Records

Shroder: Is there any place for radical politics in music in 2018?

Svenonius: You know, rock and roll is endlessly fascinating, because there has always been this tension between the populist and democratic expression of the underclass. It is inculcated with a version of social realism. There is also this decadence and reactionary aspect to it that can be very right-wing. Rock and roll has always been this paradoxical thing. But the real question is, what is the place of music in people’s lives? When things are free and ubiquitous it loses its worth to people. That’s what music is now; it has become immaterial.

Shroder: Do musicians have a responsibility to address social and political realities, or is it just escapism?

Svenonius: There is a larger context, and things shift very quickly based on social circumstance. In a sense, you make things because they feel important to you. Music shouldn’t be based on ‘what’s the zeitgeist?’ And the less money music has, the more social power it will have. Right now art is a frenzy, but does art feel like it is on a moral mission right now? No, it feels like a money-making circus.

Shroder: Is there a generational connect in seeing younger bands that have a musical or social alignment with what you created?

Svenonius: I try to do things that feel fun and vital, and that is what I’m interested in. As far as the scene, people’s values are so different in music [nowadays] and the community that everything used to be based around – or the idea of community – is an archaic idea. People can get notoriety now in a way that used to be impossible.

Shroder: Do you think technology and social networks have made the scene irrelevant?

Svenonius: Yes. The whole idea of the scene or community is not what people are focused on, because it’s not necessary anymore. A scene used to be necessary because that’s where your resources were, and that is not important in the same way anymore.

Shroder: Any advice you want to leave to young people struggling to make sense of these complex times?

Svenonius: I’m sure they can tell me more than I can tell them.

The Interactive Commune of The Folly

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It was about two years ago when RVA Mag last sat down with The Folly, when the blues/folk/rock band released their debut EP. Since then, they’ve been busy touring and toiling away in the studio on their latest project, Find A Way, which they dropped last month.

Their eclectic mix of folk and bluesy rock has made them a standout. Continuing that effort, lead singers and songwriters Jordan Lette and Anneliese Grant said they wanted to bring in more of the talent and creative contributions of their fellow bandmates. “This one was a lot more interactive, a lot more communal,” Lette said of the album’s creation.

Development on Find A Way started two years after the band’s current lineup had been established. Following the release of their debut EP, bassist Ray Montoro and Johnathan Kirvan bowed out of the band on good terms, with Jonny Powell (Bass, Vibra-slap), Josh Santamaria (Drums), and Jacob Larson (Percussion) joining recurring members Tara Dillard (fiddle) and Gordon Jones (saxophone). Pianist Sid Kingsley and No BS! Brass Band drummer Lance Koehler also contributed to the album.

While The Folly’s makeup in live shows still features shifting roles and numbers from venue to venue, this particular lineup would become a constant over the years; even as The Folly’s rising profile would take the group from a Beatles tribute at the Kimball Theatre in Williamsburg to a Halloween show in New York City. Eventually, the decision was made to ensure this incarnation of the band had a release to call its own.

“We need to have recordings of this group that represents who the band actually is now,” Grant said. “Just make sure we had a project that had our current family on it together.”

Where the band’s first EP had been the marriage of Grant and Lette’s lyrics and vocals to the music created by Lette, the expanded lineup was an integral part of the music from its earliest days. This led to a process of brainstorming and experimentation, fueled by members who had the space and encouragement to bring in their own ideas.

“I’m sure it’ll change the next time, or remain that same way but have a different process, because now everyone wants to bring stuff to the table,” he said. 

Yet when it came time to record and produce the album, The Folly hit their first real obstacle. While they managed to book studio time in May at Minimum Wage Recordings, fulfilling a 10-year wish for Lette, the conflicting schedules and work requirements of the various band members made using that time very challenging.

“If you’re gonna invest in that kind of studio time, try to make sure everybody can get off work to be there altogether and all be in it throughout the entire time,” Grant said, reflecting on the experience. 

The products of those long hours speak for themselves: eight tracks, spanning nearly an hour of various genres, beginning with the free-wheeling tunes of “So You Go Howl” and ending with the somber and sobering sounds of “Killing Machines.”  And while The Folly’s ability to zigzag through their musical influences is still present, it’s matched with an air of improvisation, intimacy and DIY friendliness in the recording. This atmosphere extends to the physical release, including an inner cover that looks more like a family album, and a CD marked with “doodles” of the band by Grant.

For now, the Folly is focused on getting the word out to as many people as possible, using live shows and radio sessions to ensure a wide reach to a potential audience, all the while supporting, and supported by, a local scene as vibrant and communal as the sparks of inspiration behind their latest work.

“We’re here to support the community, and hopefully we’ll get supported as well,” Lette said.

Find A Way is available for streaming and purchase on iTunes or Spotify.  Catch them at The Hof with Alice & the Reverie on Sept. 28 at 8:45 pm, and with People’s Blues of Richmond and Disco Risque at the Jefferson Theatre in Charlottesville on Oct. 6.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

 

…And MetallicA For All: A Glimpse Into the First 10 Years of the Masters of Metal

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What started as a pet project to catalog the tours and recording process of Metallica’s first five albums has evolved into a book capturing the narrative of this formative time in the metal behemoth’s history. And this weekend, author Harold Claros-Maldonado will debut and discuss his book, titled, “…And MetallicA For All.”

Claros’ book tells the story of Metallica’s rise, from behind the curtain, where the consequences of unabating grind are hidden from the gallery. Additionally, through interviews with over 20 fans who saw Metallica live in their first 10 years in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland, the book illuminates just what the music meant, and continues to mean today. Through this dual-lens, Claros creates a work of recognition and gratitude–of appreciating the turmoil, out of which spawned an outlet and community, generations strong, for angry kids everywhere.

“Initially, I just wanted to make a little pamphlet for myself,” said Claros. “I’m a history major. I’m obsessed with dates and people’s ages.” However, Claros’ studious attention to the timeline of this decade in Metallica’s history began to flesh out a narrative. It became clear to Claros that the drudgery behind the band’s rise from the garage in California to the cover of Rolling Stone was imperative to understanding the story of Metallica–from the production of certain albums to the personal struggles of the members.

From 1983 to 1993, the band released five albums and toured worldwide for all of them during those years. “In the book, I explain there are a lot of reasons as to why certain albums, maybe sonically, didn’t sound as well produced as others because of this Metallica train going 100 miles per hour forward.”

One of these anecdotes details how Metallica rushed the recording process on their fourth studio album, “…And Justice For All,” so that they could support Van Halen on their 1988 tour. “Then band leaders James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, on the days off, would fly to New York to produce the album and then fly back to continue the tour,” said Claros. 

“…And MetallicA For All” also delves into the personal toil experienced by the band. Claros focuses in on the band’s struggle to healthily navigate grief following bassist Cliff Burton’s death after Metalica’s bus crashed during the “Master of Puppets” tour in 1986.  

“The book slowly became this sort of Cinderella story of dreams, of expectations, of death,” said, Claros. “How do you deal with death at a young age? [The book] deals a bit with self-medication through trauma, with Cliff Burton’s death, they didn’t go see a therapist, there was no time off. Within a month, there was a replacement and they were back on tour.”

In addition to the inside perspective, “…And MetallicA For All” also brings forth a fan perspective through an unlikely regional lens–stories from the fans that witnessed the west coast champions of metal in our own backyard (or, our greater backyard area, at least).

Throughout the writing process, Claros conducted interviews with fans who saw Metallica in Richmond, DC, Baltimore, and other Mid-Atlantic cities on their constant tour cycle supporting their first five albums.

“I wasn’t interested in telling the side of the fans,” said Claros. “But the more research I did, I found out they played in the DMV [area] for every single tour, so it was almost inevitable to ask the fans about these shows.”

Again, within the process of writing the book, Claros’ vision for it broadened as these interviews with fellow Metallica fans became about more than just the show they attended, but what the band meant to them.

“People hadn’t asked them these questions,” said Claros. “People got pretty open with me–like, there’s some backstory to some of these people that’s some pretty real heavy shit with family and divorce, addiction alcoholism.”

There’s something sublime to be drawn from this unanticipated, yet, organic widening of the book’s scope. In writing about a band as prolific as Metallica, is the full story being told without this fan perspective? Music in general has always been an outlet for a community, but this is especially true for metal and other crude descendants of rock and roll. The intensity of bands like Metallica is a flame stoked by every wide-eyed kid, bursting at the seams with potential energy, looking to flail with unadulterated feeling, free from judgment.

“It’s music for broken kids like us,” Claros said. “It makes us part of a family–it makes us part of a Metallica family.”

Claros said he feels fortunate to be able to share his passion with so many fellow fans. “This is the only band that deserves us as fans, I feel. Just passionate, loyal, always supportive, and they’ve given me nothing but happiness throughout my life,” he said. “Because of that, what better way to show my loyalty than to tell their story?”

To bring the fans’ stories to life, Claros recruited local artists Carlton Nivens, Teo Chu, and Tyler Keylon to illustrate them. “[The stories] are so funny, they’re so vivid,” said Claros. “I have stories of people sneaking backstage and smoking weed with Lars and getting in fights in the mosh pit and all this nutty stuff and it felt like a movie and I wanted an artistic way to show that.”

Artwork by Tyler Keylon

The free book talk for “…And MetallicA For All” will take place this Sat., Sept 22 at Charm School, located at 311 W. Broad St., from 12-2 PM. A Q&A will follow the talk.

Top Photo: Metallica