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RVA #27: Richmond’s place between The Head and the Heart

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“Let’s go upstairs and make sure we can see the whole city while we chat.”

That’s Tyler Williams, drummer for The Head And The Heart, speaking to fellow band member Jonathan Russell and myself in the lobby of The Quirk Hotel almost instinctively after the first music question was asked.

This article was featured in RVAMag #27: Winter 2016. You can read all of issue #27 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

We had arrived here in the heart of downtown Richmond to chat about the band’s new record, Signs Of Light, their time apart from the band the last few years, and the maturation of their folk rock sound, but after just seconds of talking, it was clear the band’s attention was on something else that evening.

“Can you tell we’re excited to talk about the record,” Russell joked shortly after we grab a table at the rooftop bar. “Don’t get me wrong. This new record is very important to both of us, but we’re only halfway through the album cycle and all the promotional stuff for it. You just find yourself talking about the same things over and over again and you just want to talk about something else. Like The Shins. You just end up wanting to talk about The Shins instead of The Head And The Heart.”

So we did. We pushed The Head And The Heart aside and discussed The Shins for a while, specifically their second record Chutes Too Narrow. From there, the conversation moved to Bat For Lashes’ new record The Bride which Williams had become enamored with recently. The topic jumping continued as the duo discussed Wilco, Santigold, and finally The Band, which led to Russell smiling about driving on Route 5 at night with a Dylan record playing in his car. Before long, the conversation had ventured its way back into Head And The Heart territory as the two discussed the mindset behind the new direction on their own record, something they both admit was natural, yet scary at times.

“I had to have friends calm me down because it didn’t sound like the first record,” Russell revealed. “You get used to what you think your band sounds like or even what your own voice sounds like so it’s jarring when it changes.” Russell continued by describing it as an exciting time as he knew they were making an honest representation of who they were and where they were in life, but it did change the way he viewed the rest of their music. “That first record ended up sounding like a demo to me which is crazy,” Russell said before his co-hort quickly pointed out that the album was designed to be exactly that.

“That first record was just supposed to be this thing that we used to book shows around town,” Williams revealed. “It just took on a life of its own and before we knew it, we were lumped in with this ‘folk rock’ movement even though I never felt like we fit in with them. Our record sounded like it did because we had limited recording time and we were all limited musicians. It was bound to change and grow as we used better resources and became better at our instruments.”

That jump didn’t happen with their second record though, 2013’s Let’s Be Still, as the band found themselves travelling further into a roots rock rabbit hole, but to both Williams and Russell, this was due to the circumstance. “We had two months after our last show before we were supposed to be in the studio to record our first fuckin’ song,” Russell lamented. “That’s insane. It was no time to live so what happened was we just made a record about being in a band that travels. It’s a total cliché for a reason and we fell into it because we didn’t have time to get out of this bubble from being on the road so much.”

Popping that bubble became a priority for the band and as the touring began to wind down in 2014, all six members of the band made plans to take a break and get some perspective. “We just had to go back to doing our own shit and living our lives for a while,” Williams added. “Otherwise, we don’t have anything to talk about and I don’t just mean in music. We didn’t want to stay the same people on the road every year, never growing.”

For Russell, he spent time travelling to gain perspective. He bought a van, travelled to California, and ended up writing there in a rented house that quickly became a makeshift studio. Following that, he went down to Haiti to do work with Artists For Peace And Justice, an experience he describes as an “overwhelming,” before ending up in Mississippi to visit family.

“I just kept travelling,” he said, “but not with the same eleven person troupe day in and day out. I just went out and lived life wherever I could and it really helped me realize how much I had grown since we had formed the band. It was eye-opening and frankly overdue.”

Williams found solace during the break in Richmond, specifically the local music scene. He formed local supergroup Avers and spent countless hours at Montrose Studios not only cultivating the band’s sound, but also learning more about the process of music. “Doing those two records in the break really helped inform me how to make a record,” he stated. “I learned how to prioritize sounds and parts, as well as what creates unique tones and different styles of music. It was such an inspiration for me. Being able to make a completely different record with a different band.” In addition to a completely new band, he also began a management company with local personality Brandon Crowe after helping to guide a young artist in town.

“Around May of 2015, Lucy [Dacus] sent me her record,” he explained. “I instantly fell in love with it. I thought it was a brilliant piece of work. The emotion and the openness of it was so evocative and she was speaking with such wisdom at a young age.” Williams started to give Dacus advice around this time, while also sharing her music with random people in his life. By November, his guidance officially morphed into a managerial relationship with the young musician that’s still in effect a year later.

For Williams, Richmond became a place to explore all aspects of music and examine the different philosophies and approaches that each artist utilized, whereas for Russell, Richmond became a place for him to collect his thoughts after a world of travelling. “It was nice to just go home and go for a walk in a familiar area,” he described. “It could be a five minute walk just around the corner of my place, but it’s so refreshing and there’s nothing like it in the world.”

By this point, it was clear the duo had exhausted their talking points on the new record and the rest of the band, save going song-by-song in examination. “I couldn’t even do that if I tried,” Russell exclaimed before slamming his drink down on the table. “I write these songs and I just have nothing to say about them five months later because I already said what I needed to say.” Instead, the conversation took on a new life as the duo excitedly chattered about their love of Richmond.

“Just look around you,” Williams directed. “The architecture and antiquity that exists here. It’s comforting whether you’re walking a street or sitting on a rooftop. Richmond really is this special town and that’s something a lot of people don’t even consider until they’re away from the city for a while.”

It’s not just the road that gives Williams this perspective though, but also his days living in Seattle during the band’s nascent period as well as time spent in Nashville for recording. “I lived in other places long enough to know that what Richmond has is actually special and not just fake spirit,” he said. “When I moved to Seattle for the band, it was different. Nobody was comfortable with themselves. It’s a very uptight place. You can’t rib someone or mess around without them getting very offended. That doesn’t sit well with me. I want people who don’t take themselves too seriously and can learn to interact with people so they can grow.”

Russell agreed with his sentiments adding how people are just more secure in Richmond than in other places he’s lived. “A lot of those people in other cities aren’t and it’s not a good thing to be around,” he continued. “East Coasters, our humor is partly based in arrogance from being secure. That’s not the vibe over there.” Those thoughts may be surprising to those who remember the band was formed in Seattle by a majority of West Coasters, but Russell was quick to point out how the difference is something he actually wants in the band. “I’m glad we have that East versus West dichotomy,” he remarked. “It made me a more well-rounded person and I’m sure them too, but at the end of the day, I’d just rather be back in Richmond.”

Williams spoke of the two’s time living in Nashville with a similar outlook, though much more focused on specific instances. “When you walk into a coffee shop in Nashville, everyone turns their head,” Williams relates. “They stare you down and wonder if they know you. They’re judging you and wondering if they should talk to you or connect with you. ‘That guy looks like someone I should know, maybe I should I talk to them.’ You can feel it instantly and it’s not a comfortable feeling. That would never fly in Richmond.”

In Richmond, the two feel more connected, even though Russell is the first to admit he feels like he “lives in a tower on the outside of town.” He doesn’t spend long bemoaning his outsider status though for as soon as Williams tells him new shops are opening up around his ‘tower,’ Russell is quick to offer some snark. “Fuck that store,” he laughs. “I’ll picket it. You wait and see. They don’t need to change anything.”

Of the two, Williams lives the more connected Richmond lifestyle, constantly weaving in and out of musical circles when he’s in town, but that’s not to say Russell is holed up and antisocial. “Tyler’s normally my barometer,” he says as Williams stifles a laugh. “Sometimes, when I’m feeling like I’ve been too reclusive, I’ll just text him asking where the humans are and I’ll meet up with him to get my social fix. Richmond’s good like that. It can be really what you want it to be and the people let it be that way which is the best part.” Both are well-versed in the musical scene though with plenty of bands and artists they admire like The Wimps and Andrew Carter. The two even spend considerable time, in the conversation alone, pondering what happened to this-or-that band, some from almost a decade ago, before collapsing in a chair saying “Man, that EP they put out was amazing! I wish they were still around.”

For almost as long as they discussed the new record, the two went back and forth over bands in the city, as well as new shows coming to town and the expansion of local radio stations. Each new topic brought on a new wave of hurried excitement before the two exhausted every topic and were left rotating their heads to take in the full view of the city. It was clear that Richmond was not only the duo’s home, but also their vital lifeblood and their indirect inspiration. We won’t see a song entitled “RVA Skyscrapers” anytime soon from the band, but that doesn’t mean the city’s vibrant atmosphere doesn’t inform every word and note that flows out of the two.

“Ultimately, it comes down to this,” Russell concluded.” We can live anywhere we want, but we live in Richmond because we fuckin’ love Richmond. We wouldn’t be who we are if I couldn’t take that five minute stroll or Tyler couldn’t spend time behind a local studio, and we wouldn’t have made this music if we didn’t have Richmond giving us what we needed out of life.”

After making his point, he looked across the table for an endorsement, but only found the back of Williams’ head as he looked around the city.

“Gorgeous day,” Williams interrupts. “Just look at the city. What a city.”

Words by Doug Nunnally

RVA #27: Students, residents march on Carytown for Richmond Grabs Back

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Saturday, November 12th, four days after Donald J. Trump was elected, hundreds of people gathered in downtown Richmond for an event called “Richmond Grabs Back.” The event was part of a vaguely coordinated call to action alongside cities across the country. Unlike many initial protest events held around the country after election night, this event and others like it aimed to peacefully express their concerns as opposed to some of the destruction of property left in the wake of events held days earlier.

This article was featured in RVAMag #27: Winter 2016. You can read all of issue #27 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

VCU student Julian McBain said those incidents were “a cathartic release of anger,” a reaction to Trump’s history of objectification of women and minorities. McBain, who helped organize the protest alongside a number of fellow activists, hadn’t been involved in this large-scale action before.

The crowd gathered outside the James Branch Cabell Library. VCU, William & Mary, and UVA students as well as city and county residents came out. The protest began with speeches, including statements from Figueroa and McBain advising protesters on the chants and their rights. The Virginia ACLU had representatives in blue vests to offer support and observe police interactions. Several people stood to make their views on Donald Trump heard, including River Holland, a senior in high school in the Richmond area, VCU freshman Aaron Shah, and VCU junior Jafar Cooper.

Cooper, a student in the Theatre Arts program, spoke directly to first-time protesters. “People have been facing this fear for their entire lives,” Cooper announced into a megaphone. “I am so happy to see all these people out here today.” He continued his speech by offering moral support to those who hadn’t participated in activism before that fateful week. “People have been doing this forever… This is the reality that people have had to deal with for their entire lives.” Cooper continued by reciting “I Want A President,” a radically queer and race-based poem by Zoe Leonard which offers underrepresented, real-life alternatives to the rich, White-male “president” image Trump represents to many.

“My fist goes up ‘til Trump steps down!” shouted the crowd behind a “RVA GRABS BACK” banner as the crowd headed east up West Main Street towards Carytown. “I have friends who were scared to come out today,” said a VCU senior and professional Spanish Interpreter who only gave her first name, Lisa, for fear of repercussions of speaking out against the new establishment. A first generation El Salvadorian-native here on a student visa, she was unsure what would come of her and the kids she mentors at the Boys and Girls Club.

“It affects me, it affects my family,” she said of Trump’s campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants, undocumented and documented alike. The uncertain fear of countless Americans was evident on her face and body, with her “Not My President” sign shifting erratically in her hands. “A first grader in my class said, ‘If Trump wins, we’d go back to slavery,’” she said. “A first grader.”

Other protesters like Leah Gosnell, a homemaker from Midlothian, voiced similar outrage. “I never thought he’d win,” she sighed. It was Gosnell’s first protest. Friends and family in her community refused to join her — so she came alone. She laughed how Trump’s surprise win “made me get off my butt.”

Reasons for joining the march crossed a broad spectrum, as heard by the smattering of chants that ranged from “No Trump, No KKK,” No Fascist USA,” to even “Black Lives Matter!” Among those chanting were county residents like Gosnell as well as college students like VCU sophomores Logan Carmone and Aria Sharif.

The two stretched between them a blue, pink and white flag that symbolizes Transgender Pride. “I’m Kurdish,” said Sharif, who also identifies as Brown, trans, and gay. “My family lived through one genocide, and I don’t [want] them to live through another.” Carmone somberly agreed.

“We’re out here for trans rights, queer rights, Muslim rights… The majority vote is not represented by the electoral college,” he said. Talk of political corruption seemed to permeate throughout each discussion, as well as a need to create a community movement beyond national politics.

The march snaked through the all of Carytown along West Main Street and back down West Cary, before ending back at the VCU library. As protesters passed, patrons of Carytown and Fan restaurants came out to watch, cheering on the protest or, in some cases, gazing on in plain shock at the flooded streets.

Of the future, many in the protest hoped for greater unity against Trump and his politics. Several hoped that the protests could remain unified and peaceful, a sentiment shared by Figueroa, Lisa, and VCU senior Toni Sheffield. “It needs to be a community movement,” Sheffield said firmly.

As the sky went dark and the procession slowed to a halt on campus once more, Cooper spoke again to those who had protested for the first time. “I want you to ask yourself — ’what is freedom?’ And what does freedom and liberation look like? What does that look {like} for the Black, queer, trans, woman body,” they asked. A deafening cheer went up through the crowd.

“We are not free, until we are all free!”

Words by Sarah Schuster, Photos by Craig Zirpolo

RVA #27: Between Black Metal & Punk: A Chat With Richmond trio Unsacred

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Shortly after the release of 2014’s False Light, people’s ears finally started perking up to Unsacred’s sound. Perhaps it was an article in another popular publication that awoke some, maybe a savage live performance for others. The point is, one of the many gems of Richmond’s contemporary music scene emerged anew two years ago, a lean, taut trio. Although the band has been going strong since 2011, bassist Hunter McCarty’s turn as lead vocalist in recent years has distinguished Unsacred, turning their already heavy music into something that sounds truly dangerous.

This article was featured in RVAMag #27: Winter 2016. You can read all of issue #27 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

We got another taste of apoplectic punk and black metal with the September release of Unsacred’s split with New York’s Anicon, who fall more on the experimental, frantic part of the black metal spectrum. Although only two new Unsacred songs are showcased on the split, that’s more than enough incentive to keep an eye on this band. I recently talked with Hunter and drummer Scott Bartley (also of Left Cross) about the shape their new material is taking, being labeled a black metal band, how far that genre has come, and how it might progress into the future.

Do the songs on the split represent where the band is now, writing-wise and musicianship-wise?

HM: I think it’s just getting a little more drawn out. Trying to make complete ideas, rather than just rush them and loop riffs, you know?

SB: The songs that are on the split were definitely a good snapshot of where we were at the time we wrote them, but we wrote those songs like three or four years ago, so we’ve changed a lot of our music since then, and we’ve begun concentrating a lot more on writing more complex songs, and spending more time writing.

What do you hope to achieve with this next release? You’ve mentioned trying to write stuff that’s a little less riff-based.

HM: Yeah, less A-B-A-B stuff, kinda like… you don’t know where it’s gonna go.

SB: Abstract.

 

HM: A band I personally take a lot of influence from, that I think does it very well is False, where the riffs are just… I don’t know. You don’t know what’s going to come next. It’s kind of like the Black Sabbath of black metal.

Did taking on the mantle of being a black metal band ever feel heavy, considering the history of the genre?

HM: I don’t really even think Unsacred’s a black metal band, to be honest. [Laughs] When we get together, I guess the main goal is to write black metal, but I view black metal as a much more sophisticated genre than the stuff that we play.

What do you think of the more accessible bands that sort of take elements of black metal and combine it with something that’s a little easier to get into? Or what about the more experimental stuff that’s been popular in recent years?

HM: While they’ve been doing it for quite some time, I think Midnight did a really good job of making people appreciate old, old black metal, when it was basically just thrash.

SB: Taking bands like Venom, and early Bathory…

HM: …And making it accessible to the next generation.

SB: A lot of people wouldn’t consider Midnight, by today’s standards, to be a true black metal band, but lyrically they have everything in common with that.

HM: Aesthetically too, as far as aesthetics matter.

As far as the shoegazey stuff, and the more experimental stuff goes?

HM: I’m open to all music.

SB: What some of these bands are doing seems to be working well for them. I don’t want to get into a thing about them being “true black metal” or not. I think it’s a pretty subjective label.

HM: At this point, yeah.

SB: I think a lot of it has to do with what you’re writing about. Black metal to me is a lot more about lyrical content, than whether it’s all tremolo riffs and blast beats.

HM: We’re basically just a d-beat band in a different genre.

Do you have a perspective that you intend to portray with your lyrics, or are they more personal?

HM: It’s really just me sitting down and trying to put together cool sentences. I don’t put a whole lot of thought into it. I just kinda sit there and wait ’til something works. I don’t write towards a specific theme. I don’t have a subject for each song. It’s more after the fact [that] I’ll analyze it and go, “Oh, that’s what I was going for.”

 

Do you think your environment has an effect on the music that you’re making, your lyrical themes? You guys are definitely an urban band, as opposed to a band like Wolves in the Throne Room.

HM: I think it definitely affects the vocabulary that I use, because, y’know, things that I see every day, ideas that are constantly popping in my mind. I’m sure if I was stuck in a forest, living in a cabin, I’d probably use a much different vocabulary. As far as how it influences our music, I don’t know.

SB: I think living in an urban environment can inspire a lot more feelings of being trapped, and I think you kind of underestimate the feeling of isolation. You’re surrounded by so many people in a city. I think that’s definitely inspired a lot of our music, as far as for me.

Historically, black metal has been an outlet for hateful, sometimes regressive thought. Do you think the genre could be used to promote some more progressive, inclusive thoughts, and how might that be received?

SB: Inclusivity outside of the black metal scene I’m sure is really welcome. Within it, probably not so much. It just kind of depends on the bands, who you’re playing to. There are a lot of black metal people that hate and xenophobia are a big part of black metal, and you can’t really deny that. I think a lot of those people were just trying to be the most evil, going further and further into being evil, and then evil becomes hatred. I think inclusivity should be a part of anything. We identify a lot with the punk scene. We definitely want to be as inclusive as possible.

HM: I think black metal is just cool music, so I think cool people are going to appreciate it, and cool people play in other cool bands, and eventually all of the hateful nonsense gets washed out. It still exists, but there are cooler and cooler people that are making black metal that are not exclusive…

SB: Progressively-minded individuals.

HM: They just find other cool things to write about.

SB: There’s hatred in a lot of music. That shit’s everywhere. If you want it, you can find it, but if you don’t want it, you also don’t have to hear it. Living in the time of the internet, a lot of that stuff can be weeded out. A lot of people can just be stuck on these hateful bands. I think no one is making me directly support them, and I think nowadays, people will choose what they want to listen to, and a lot of those bands will just be weeded out, like Hunter said. Most people don’t want to hear that kind of stuff, and the people that do are such a small minority that it’s irrelevant to the majority of the scene, in my opinion.

You guys said that you don’t really think of yourselves as black metal band, more of a punk or d-beat band. Can you expound upon any bit of that identity that you feel is maybe overshadowed by the labels that people give you?

HM: I think it all makes sense. I guess why I said that I don’t we’re a black metal band is that when we get together to make music, it’s just three people that have their own influences that just get together and see what works. All of our influences draw together and those are the Unsacred songs. When I hear it, it doesn’t sound quite like black metal to me. Not all of it is influenced by black metal, and I feel like some of it is atypical to black metal. I also don’t want any elitist people to be like “Fuck that kid.” [Laughs] “That’s not a black metal band.”

SB: Calling us posers because we don’t listen to enough Satyricon…

HM: I just like to call it a metal band, because metal as a whole is a pretty broad genre. We definitely fit in there somewhere.

Black metal has always felt to me like one of the most punk sub-genres in metal. The early stuff just sounded, maybe unintentionally, crappy.

SB: They would go for the worst.

HM: I think a lot of it was intentional. [Laughs]

SB: They wanted it to sound as gritty and as gross as possible.

HM: They pulled it off.

SB: I really like the idea of that. I don’t think you should necessarily go out and record your demo with First Act stuff. I’m not really advocating that, but I think there’s something to be said for simplicity, and trying to convey an emotion through simpler means.

HM: Just usin’ what ya got.

SB: The whole DIY ethic is a lot more present in black metal than a lot of other stuff.

HM: I just think in modern times obviously, it’s a lot easier to get somewhat better equipment, and make your music sound a little better, so that’s why more people do it — understandably so. I think it would be weird if a newer black metal band came out, and they recorded all of their stuff on USB microphones or something. I feel like it’s just outdated. Not that it’s not cool, because I still listen to Mayhem all the time. It’s 2016, man. [Laughs]

Words by Cody Endres. Photo credit: Jeremy Ledford

RVA #27: Building The Richmond Family: A Look At Tim Falen’s Bad Grrrl Records

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Moving here three years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. Sitting on a pillow, doing my best to see over the wheel of a 20’ moving truck I barreled down from Boston to Syracuse to Richmond, I arrived sleep-deprived and sore from carrying boxes to break into the apartment where my new landlord had forgotten to leave out keys. Like so many transplants before me, Richmond was attractive because it offered change, something familiar but not, a city where I could afford to fail. For two months, until the college where the teaching job I had secured began the semester where I was needed, I was unemployed and unknown, save the three friends I brought down from upstate New York. Broke and restless, armed with more free time than I will ever have again in my adult life, I ran my finger down the list of shows played across town, behind the doors of houses and venues I had no idea about, and just went.
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This article was featured in RVAMag #27: Winter 2016. You can read all of issue #27 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

“Any night of the week, you can pick a show with a list of bands you’ve never heard of and go hear amazing music,” Tim Falen yells, loudly enough to be heard over the crush of people surrounding us. Strolling onto the back patio at taco bar Don’t Look Back, Falen stands tall against the red stringed lights, trademark jean jacket and button down shirt (never a t-shirt, he learned from his father) almost hidden underneath a waterfall of classic rocker hair. Adjusting the prescription-less glasses he sports these days, Falen sits down at the picnic table worn smooth, unabashedly surveying the stream of people in and out of the tiny space as we speak.

Coming here seven years ago with the other members of electrified folk band Diamond Center, Falen related to that experience. Getting out into the music scene was a given, seeing as Diamond Center needed to make connections to be able to book shows, but beyond that Falen remembers being impressed by the quality of music here. Here, new local bands will “literally go out of town to play shows just to get tight enough to come back and play their first home gig” he laughs, stubbing out a cigarette in a cheap plastic ashtray. When the audience is going to be made up of members from so many other bands, “you can’t really afford to suck.”

Living in a city that gave the world Gwar, Lamb of God, and Sparklehorse, among countless others, one would assume there is no shortage of good music still being played. And while that is true, the fundamental difference between this town’s music scene then and now is not just the quality of the music, but the connectivity that is a hallmark of Richmond music. “Before, and elsewhere, the people are not as together,” explained Falen, noting that plenty of good music is played in little pockets all over the country, but the feeling has never been as cohesive for him as it is here. Remembering his own move into Richmond, the other musicians and fans then, Falen leans forward in a moment of seriousness, citing the “elimination of a singular mindset” as the motivation for bands “not piggybacking on others’ art, but promoting one another.” Falen drives home the point matter of factly by saying “young bands shouldn’t have to know everything” before they play their first show.

“He just came up to us after seeing us play and asked if we wanted to make a tape,” said Nathan Grice, one half of the duo Big No. Under hanging plants and band posters, Grice reclined in his living room, mug of hot tea in hand, while Heather Jerabeck, his partner, cutely wrapped a small birthday gift for a neighbor down the street. Though Grice had lived in Richmond as a student, he and Jerabeck relocated to the city several years ago from California. After meeting a few people at shows, and putting together a few for their own band, they met Falen, who by then was playing in multiple other bands, and who also had taken over the tape label Bad Grrrl Records.

When Falen joined up with Bad Grrrl in 2014, the label was struggling, almost nonexistent, and since then Falen has taken on virtually every role necessary to see it survive. “It’s a way to take home a physical reminder, some tangible media, from the show you went to the night before,” Falen drawls through drags off a cigarette, as “digital media doesn’t create memories.” In an age where renting a movie means Amazon.com allowing access for 24 hours before the film magically disappears again, walking away from a show with the band in hand is not as much as a nostalgic action as it is a connective one, putting you back into the music, into the energy of the show, time and time again. Tapes, like a live show, capture the “natural imperfection of music, and that’s what makes [them] good.” In a local scene punctuated with small bands that may never go far beyond our city limits, creating tapes as physical reminders of a show binds together those people, those Richmonders who live and work in this city with those of us who will go to a house show on a Tuesday to see, hear, and love an amazing band.

With her pixie hair and laugh that almost seems to catch her by surprise, RM Livingston of Atta Girl echoes Grice’s words in remembering how her band came to cut a tape with Bad Grrrl. After hearing the band at a show one night, Falen simply asked if they would like to make a tape. As a younger band, Atta Girl had only six songs they were ready to record, and a tape made the most sense. “Vinyl is expensive,” Livingston succinctly explains in between offering bites of her barbeque tofu. “Touring and putting out a record isn’t as much an option for us,” she says; at only six songs, a 12” would have to be played at 45 RPM, and a 7” would be crowded. “I like 78’s, but who really plays those anymore?” she laughs, eyes squinting in the evening sun. For bands like Atta Girl, who spring up in the Richmond scene and play mostly at local venues, creating a tape could be the first, if not primary, way to get music into the hands of patrons who loved their shows.

For all that tapes give a fiscally sound alternative to vinyl or CD for a small band, it is really the underlying sense of community and camaraderie that drive a scene so niche, so focused that keeps Falen working in “tape jail” night after night. After working a job that basically pays for the label, Falen comes home to sit with his computer, tape duplicator, and scissors to put together the product. “Most of what I do is cut paper,” he laughs, pushing buttons on the tape deck, setting up the run, before settling in to, indeed, cut the labels out for a run of Big No cassettes. With his beloved dog Pearl at his feet, Falen runs the label out of his living room crowded with amps, drums, and guitars in between working, going to shows, and playing drums and bass for his own current bands: Bad Magic, Lady God, and Ultra Flake.

The spirit of goodwill for the music community that keeps Falen knee deep in paper and tape shells drives the label and also the relationships built between bands, Falen, and fans. Though he may not see it this way, Falen works tirelessly to thread together these relationships and has been one of many driving factors in shaping the music scene in Richmond as it stands today, one of support and love between most bands. Small labels like Bad Grrrl fill a hole in the support structure of a solid music scene, as band members would have to have access to all this other gear and time and money to put out non-digital music unless they were signed to a bigger label and had more of a catalog from which to choose tracks. “It’s not easy to get stuff pressed,” Falen notes, “and bands can’t always eat the media cost on top of everything else.” Further, as Jerabeck notes, she appreciates having a tape because “otherwise, what physical reminder of the band would [Nathan and I] have?”

Fun work though it is, Falen bears the brunt of Bad Grrrl almost alone, yet views his contribution in a detached, obvious way, framing the label as falling in line with what others have done and continue to do here. Strange Matter, for example, “would not be as awesome as it is without Mark Osbourne, who books good bands inclusively and doesn’t adhere to a type or genre.” Having a local station like WRIR, which is completely volunteer-based and strongly affiliated with local music, gives musicians, tech people, writers, and countless others the chance to try out ideas, to promote a band that is so new their set is 10 minutes, but it is a rad 10 minutes. In a setting like that, “you do what you can, give what you can, until you get too busy or burnt out and take a break; they’ll still be there when you’re ready to come back.” The competition and pettiness that can fracture music in other cities does not play well here. Band members turn out for other shows, put newer acts on their bills; graphic designers and artists donate their time to create posters; writers cover shows and albums and bands, and all is done with a sense of community. In Richmond, Falen says, “music is a cared-for thing.”

As I sat with Falen on the back porch of Don’t Look Back that night, talking with him about the label and music we love over whiskey drinks and cigarettes, we were slowly joined by the night crowd filtering in as parents and their kids went home from dinner, as little groups of colleagues trying out being real-world friends picked up suit jackets slung over chairs during Happy Hour drinks, and soon were surrounded by musicians and fans, people somehow affiliated with Falen. As the sun went down and the porch lights came on, James Wingo and Matt Fottrell, half of alternative band Sungazer, came to shake hands and slap Falen on his jean-jacketed shoulder, settling in a few tables away but soon unable to not contribute to our conversation. The guitarist and bassist for Falen’s former band Clair Morgan sat down beside us, telling stories from their weeks and asking about ours while Clair Morgan himself made us all drinks behind the bar.

What started as an interview gradually devolved back down into what happens out there so many nights: the familiar narrative of ridiculous jokes, old show stories, and our lives. As I watched Falen throw his head back in his loud, staccato laugh at a mention of how he once was thrown out of the bar for using the fire extinguisher, I could not help but see the self-proclaimed Nihilist, the man whose love for his dog is legendary, the man who jokes about eating Wendy’s Baconators and how it doesn’t matter what he eats because nothing matters, as the same man in the midst of what he has helped to foster. Running a tape label on his own, working to promote small, new bands who maybe do not have the funds, or maybe are so new to being in a band at all that they are not even sure how to start, Falen aims to bolster a scene long-lived in Richmond, one that has in the past been fractured by jealousy or detachment as any creative aspect of a city can be, but has actually worked to help form something even tighter, even bigger than he would potentially believe: a family.

Words by Laura Confer

RVA #27: The Pop Surrealism Of Craola

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From being shot at while writing graffiti in a concrete-lined river bed in Compton, California, to painting large-scale acrylic paintings found in the collections of famous musicians and actors, the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art’s Turn the Page artist, Greg “Craola” Simkins, has bridged the genre gap with the help of fellow artists and friends, childhood books, and the brief but intense Pogs game fad.

This article was featured in RVAMag #27: Winter 2016. You can read all of issue #27 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now. Virginia MOCA’s “Turn the Page” exhibit runs through Dec. 31, get more details here.

Simkins started out painting graffiti in the early 1990s in Torrance, California, just south of the city of Los Angeles. He soon began meeting other writers from nearby Compton and South Gate who had witnessed his work, and they brought him to their own spots to letter, painting in riverbeds and under freeways off of the 405 and 710 highways outside of his home area. He exchanged black books, a graffiti artist’s prized sketchbook, with other writers, adding detailed tags of his own to theirs, a routine in which he became highly sought-after.

Before long, Simkins started wondering what more could be done with the letters he was painting, so he began to add characters and backgrounds to his graffiti work and not just to the black book sketches he was trading. In doing so, he was introduced to writers who painted with acrylics and who influenced and encouraged him to do something larger than just graffiti writing; established writers such as Axis, Nato, and Plek.

Photo credit: Birdman

“Axis showed me what to use and how to use it, and I still respect that guy so much,” Simkins says. “Nato pushed me from just painting throw-ups and bombs into doing productions in illegal yards.”

The art became larger, and Simkins and his new friends began challenging themselves to spend a couple of days rather than a few hours lettering, but with backgrounds and characters added.

“[We were] making a point that we were there,” Simkins declares, despite the risks of being caught by the cops. Sometimes, they were chased out of the yard in which they painted and were even the target of gunshots at least once in a river bed in Compton. Still, it was worth the risk to Simkins and his friends to spend the extra time and effort necessary to paint the bigger, better productions they were on a mission to create.

Once Simkins put the pieces together between creating more detailed work he had been sketching in black books and larger productions he had been pushing himself to produce and learning to pick up a brush and use acrylics, he found a medium for bringing to life the characters and stories he had been drawing since he was a kid.

“Once I did and I picked up a brush finally, it opened up every single door that was kind of closed in my head,” he details. “All these little stories made sense because I could finally start fleshing them out.”

Still, the thought had not yet occurred to Simkins at that point in his life that painting for a living was within the realm of possibility. When he was 18, he began studying pre-veterinary medicine at a junior college but continued drawing on the side, whether by designing promotional flyers for punk bands or by creating skateboard designs for small surf shops. One of his friends, Mark, who, under the name Earl Liberty, was a former bass player for legendary punk band Circle Jerks, invited Simkins to work for him for a couple of weeks at a baseball card company in San Diego. There, Simkins used his street scene skills to design the graphics printed on Pogs, the glossy, flat game pieces of the milk caps game that became a briefly intense fad in the mid-1990s.

“For about two weeks of work, I made ten grand,” remarks Simkins. The realization of job potential, although not necessarily career potential, came to him then. “And I was like ‘Holy crap, you can make money off of art,’” he said.

“I had one art class in college and [Mark] said, ‘Why aren’t you switching your majors? You’re really good at it,’” Simkins remembers. After being encouraged by his friend and talking it out with his parents, Simkins swapped his single art class and pre-vet focus to work toward a major in Studio Art from California State University of Long Beach in 1999.

He admits that college was still not his main concentration, even after switching his area of study.

“[I was] just doing the bare minimum so I could go out and do graffiti. I wanted to hang out at the beach, go to punk shows, and do graffiti,” he lists. Through the graffiti and working with punk bands, he pushed himself to make more art. He contends that he became “the background guy” for some time. He worked on video games and painted on the side, painting whatever he wanted until someone at the gallery he worked with urged him to consider creating art for a living. Back then, he would go home late at night and paint until the early hours of the morning — something he says he would not have been able to do if he had had children then, but that was twelve years ago.

Although he still goes out with his friends to paint on a wall every once in a while, since 2005, Simkins has worked as a full-time pop surrealist artist. He is not even sure if he fully understood the pop surrealism genre when he became a part of it, or how many people the movement would influence over time, but he weirdly and somewhat surprisingly felt that he found his place there.

“I just said, ‘Oh, I fit into this,’” Simkins says. “This is where I belong. And I had a lot of friends and peers that we all kind of met around that time. And they all had similar backgrounds. And it just fit.”

Today, Simkins spends his time breathing life into characters from pop culture and eliciting creatures from his own deeply active imagination in paintings, some of which can be found in the collections of celebrities such as Josh Duhamel, Stacey “Fergie” Ferguson, Joel Madden, and the late Robin Williams.

“It’s like an introduction to what’s going on in my head,” Simkins explains of what he hopes audiences can glean from his paintings. “If I have this idea in my head, why not put it on canvas?” Simkins avoids establishing rules which would prevent him from painting the oddities in his mind and even those from the strange worlds of some of his favorite children’s’ books.

“There was an old line from the book The Phantom Tollbooth, and he’s talking about opposites and it says, ‘He thought of birds that swim and fish that fly’ and I thought, ‘What if that did exist?’” Simkins says. “It’s got to be a place like Phantom Tollbooth or Oz or Neverland. Where you’re free to use your imagination, and it’s not going to make sense over here.” Those are the foundations of “The Outside,” which is the world Simkins says he fashions through his paintings.

While he admits that both his graffiti and paintings were once aggressive, darker, and even maniacal at a younger age when he found such themes more exciting to bring out, he now draws some of his artistic inspiration from being a father to his two children.

“Something snapped and said ‘I don’t think this is the message that I want to tell. I don’t think it’s really my story,’” Simkins says of the change in his art over time. Despite his website’s name, Imscared.com, he in now inclined to believe he likes to paint objects and characters which are beautiful, intending to use the imagination he has been given in a positive way. He focuses more on story-telling because of his kids, too. In fact, his two sons are now frequent occupants of his imaginary art world, especially his older son who often poses as the white knight character found in his paintings. He has also created stop-motion short films based on his kids.

When asked if he hopes his kids will also become artists like himself one day, Simkins said, “I hope they’ll become what they’re supposed to become. I don’t care if they become artists. I just want them to be good men.” He says he has many friends who had a rough time because they did not have a father figure in their lives. “That’s one thing I have on my side. I’m going to be there for them every step of the way. That’s the game plan. And me and my wife, we have a good relationship, and we just keep focused,” he remarks.

In September, Simkins made his first ever trip to Virginia Beach to give a master class and special live painting demonstration for the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art’s Turn the Page exhibition, which declares itself as “An unprecedented retrospective featuring 51 artists from the first ten year history of Hi-Fructose magazine.” Simkins, who was featured on the front cover of the California-based magazine on issues number 14 and 41, found himself at the exhibition in the midst of acclaimed artists he has looked up to throughout his career.

“Just to be invited and be amongst these artists was a big deal. I was really excited. [There were] all of the people I looked up to in this scene when I was coming up,” Simkins gushes. “My friends like Jeff Soto and Jeff Lewis are in the show so I see a lot of my buddies walking around.”

Simkins contends that the Hi-Fructose Turn the Page show is one of the best and most professional he has ever walked through, from the layout and hanging of the art to the atmosphere thick with talent as so many incredible artists exist and share together in one space. However, he finds live painting sessions, such as the one he participated in at Turn the Page, to be somewhat intimidating. He admits that he has a bit of difficulty with painting in front of an audience in the same way he would in the privacy of his own home, getting lost in his in-depth illusory world of white knights and cartoony animals.

“I’ll do a spray paint and then add acrylics to it. And do just, like, quick gestural stuff. I thought I would bring something more detailed out this time, and it’s hard to really get going working on little, small sections of areas,” Simkins explains. “It’s a whole other beast.”

Another familiar face for Simkins at Turn the Page was the artist, Attaboy, who co-founded Hi-Fructose with his wife, Annie, over ten years ago. Simkins recalls perhaps first crossing paths with Attaboy at an art show in the past, but he believes the two met at Baby Tattooville, a surrealist event held annually in Riverside, California. In a weird twist of small-world chance, Simkins also says that Attaboy was his old studio mate’s college roommate in New York.

Simkins says he was at first unsure of how Hi-Fructose would fit into the space of art magazines which was already inhabited by the defining publication Juxtapoz. In the end, he says that the competition between the two seems friendly.

Since our interview with Simkins, his “I’m Scared: The Movie,” one of the stop-motion short films about his two kids, was released, and a children’s book — Simkins’ first — version of the movie has since had a “soft” release with the help of a robust Kickstarter campaign. His first sculpture, a resin cast, with Los Angeles’ Silent Stage gallery also recently came out. At the end of September, Simkins took part in the Life is Beautiful “Crime on Canvas” group exhibition in Las Vegas.

When it comes to the rest of his future plans, Simkins simply tells us, “Then working on the next show, working on pieces; it just never stops.”

For more information about Greg “Craola” Simkins and his pop surrealism artwork, visit his website www.imscared.com.

Interview by R. Anthony Harris, Words by Jill Smith

RVA #27: Studio Sampler: Finding a recording home in Richmond

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There were a couple of years during the second George W. Bush administration when I was playing at Curbside Cafe every Thursday night with an acoustic trio called Captain Slicktalk.
During that time, I had a MacBook with Pro Tools installed and (apparently) a ton of time to experiment with recording and mixing. Hours and hours were spent getting to know the Pro Tools interface, learning how to correctly mic a guitar, not learning how to correctly mic a djembe, compressing, fading, and panning.

This article was featured in RVAMag #27: Winter 2016. You can read all of issue #27 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

Along with a handful of unreleased — and quite possibly unreleasable — recordings, two lasting realizations came out of those years:

One, I loved the process of recording music.

Two, I had no idea what I was doing.

I’ve since learned to lean on people who do know what they’re doing, and I’m lucky enough to live in a city that doubles as a buzzing hive of recording activity. As a huge fan of just about everything Spacebomb does, I’ve watched with reverence as the studio has earned headlines for lending sophisticated arrangements to artists from near (Matthew E. White, Natalie Prass) and far (Foxygen, Slow Club, Georgie). I feel a similar reverence when I visit In Your Ear Studios for their Shockoe Sessions; these networking events provide rare access to their stunning facilities, which host everything from Grammy-winning recording and live performances to audio production for films, video games, and commercials.

Including and beyond Spacebomb and In Your Ear, the options for Richmond bands looking to lay tracks down are many, varied, and often affordable, and even a brief survey of the studios in town is truly inspiring.

You might have caught Shannon Cleary’s article in the magazine’s last issue about The Virginia Moonwalker, the Mechanicsville studio operated by Russell Lacy that’s become popular among local acts. Another space Richmond musicians have latched onto is Scott’s Addition Sound. Offering “a classic mic collection, vintage rack gear and many years of experience,” Scott’s Addition has helped craft — among many other albums — two post-rock masterpieces that loom large in the local section of my own record collection, Shy-Low’s Hiraeth and Everyone Dies In The End’s All Things Lead To This. Both were recorded and mixed by engineer Allen Bergendahl and build expansive soundscapes, reflecting wonderfully Scott’s Addition’s generously sized live room.

Bergendahl’s is a name you’ll see often in the liner notes of Richmond-based recordings, as is Bryan Walthall’s. A popular engineer and producer in his own right, Walthall mastered the last two Lightfields releases, Feelings and Melodies, which were largely recorded and mixed by Bergendahl at Scott’s Addition.

Another name that appears often is Adrian Olsen’s. Olsen and his father Bruce helm Montrose Recording, which is named after the historic former plantation it resides on, just a ten minute drive from downtown. Montrose boasts a wealth of outstanding equipment and a three-bedroom, two-bath guest house, so visiting bands can complete extended projects in comfort. Fans of Avers know that Adrian works on both sides of the board, having served in complementary production and performance roles on the band’s two standout albums, Empty Light and Omega/Whatever. Indie favorites like Futurebirds and Spirit Family Reunion can also be found on Montrose’s client list, along with venerated Richmond names like Steve Bassett and Lindy Fralin.

Driving those ten minutes back into downtown gets you to the doorstep of the studio some would call the city’s most revered, Sound of Music. The facility’s history reaches back more than twenty years to a heyday when ‘90s alternative standard-bearers like Cracker and Carbon Leaf gained acclaim regionally and nationally with recordings made there. When the band I currently play with, Road Kill Roy, was first looking to record, we toured Sound of Music and were floored by the studio’s offerings — recording, mixing, mastering, video production, equipment repair and rental, and live performances all take place there. Founder John Morand has earned a reputation as one of the most gifted engineers in the industry, and he’s served as mentor to a whole generation of aspiring engineers. In fact, one of the studio’s significant contributions has been acting as an incubator for behind-the-board talent.

Pedro Aida is a great example. Aida and Sound of Music first crossed paths in 2002, when he moved to Richmond after earning a certificate from the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Tempe and interning with hardcore producer Brian McTernan at Baltimore’s Salad Days Studio. We talked recently in the living room of his family’s home about how he got started in the business.

“My friend Casey was an engineer [at Sound of Music],” Aida remembered, “and I interned for probably eight or nine months, twice a week. We went there and interned all day, before I had a paying assistant engineer job on certain sessions… Carbon Leaf had a record called Indian Summer that they recorded in 2003, and I was on their session. That was a six-month job. I learned a lot. I was an assistant engineer, so I wasn’t anything more than a paid intern — you know, putting up mics, getting lunch, charting sounds… That was a cool experience, watching those songs come to life.”

He even lived at Sound of Music for a time. “Everyone [who works there] lives there at some point,” Aida said, “because it’s free and you’re kind of like the groundskeeper… You help clean up, set up sessions, and you can just hang around and work on stuff.” Aida is who took Road Kill Roy on a tour of Sound of Music, and a handful of years and several sessions later, we’re still working together, having just completed a speedy three-song round of tracking and mixing at Audio Verite — the studio he now owns and operates in a built-out detached garage behind his Lakeside home.

It’s hard to think of Audio Verite as a garage now. It’s split down the middle into a live room and a control room that are separated by an entryway at one end and window at the other. The control room has a comfortable couch, chairs lining the walls, and a massive TV monitor on the back wall, and every now and then, Aida’s incredibly sweet dog Pisco will make an appearance and help you finish a guitar part by licking your hands while you’re playing.

We’ve spent enough time at Audio Verite for it to feel like a second home for the band, but the hours we do spend there are jam-packed. “One thing that I bring to the table is [being] quick,” Aida said. “I know what I want out of the recording and I know how to get it, and as soon as I get it, we move on.”

Studio efficiency is any band’s best friend, and guitarist Kenneth Close affirmed that Aida’s pace is part of why Positive No returned to Audio Verite for a new round of recordings. “We worked with him on our ‘Automatic Cars’ single and his flexibility in working quickly at a good price was a big influencer in us coming back, along with being pleased with the final product. I’m extremely picky about drums sounding big and he’s managed to help us achieve that without 30-foot ceilings.”

Aida maintains a relentless sense of momentum — he even speaks quickly, I noticed while interviewing him for this article — which has prevented Road Kill Roy from getting bogged down by excessive ornamentation or easily-fixed imperfections. “I’m not an audio nerd,” he confessed. “I’m not an audiophile.” As part of a band where everyone has kids and time is tight, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate his approach. Add in the fact that our singer, Mike Raybould, did carpentry work on the facility, earning us some studio time, and you can see why going back to Pedro was a no-brainer for us.

But for other bands — groups just starting out or musicians looking to achieve a specific sound — the choice of where to record can be a complex one, made especially complex by the fact that there are so many good options in Richmond. I asked Aida about how to go about making that decision.

“The first thing bands [should] think of is the sounds the engineer has put out in the past.” He mentioned Steve Barber, Bob Rupe, Alan Weatherhead, and Kevin Willoughby as respected colleagues, and he praised Montrose and Scott’s Addition for their ability to capture specific sounds. “Montrose… there are some really cool studios in town that you don’t hear about all the time but do really cool, more organic, big-room stuff. Scott’s Addition Sound… they have a big room, but it’s also very tight, with the tile ceilings.”

Aida went on to note Sound of Music’s versatility. “John [Morand] is so diverse in what he can do. But I always liked things John did that were more folky, or even garage-y, like Cracker, or things like Carbon Leaf where you get that Sparklehorse [sound] — that slow, folky, big, lots of old lo-fi gear, talk box stuff.”

Location, scheduling, and cost were other factors Aida pointed to. “Once you know your budget, that narrows down the studios that you can go to, which is still a lot of them. I think most studios in town now are at that same rate — mid-level, $35 to $45 an hour.”

While Aida acknowledged the warmth of analog, he issued words of caution about the expense of recording to tape. “When I started at Sound of Music, my first few sessions were on tape. It definitely has this warmth to it, and this nice compression, especially if you have a solid drummer. But it’s very expensive.”

One way musicians can keep costs low, regardless of whether they choose digital or analog, is to show up ready. “Be prepared,” Aida advised. “New [drum] heads, new strings, that kind of stuff. Know the parts. If you want to use studio time to rehearse, that’s fine. I’ll take the money. But for your sake, I’d rather you be as ready as possible.”

Aida placed less emphasis on how extensively studios are outfitted, though he talked about acquiring his current drum set as a turning point for Audio Verite. At the same time, he acknowledged the significant role band members’ own gear plays. “Starting off with good equipment from the musician’s standpoint is important. If you have a good drummer and a good drum set — a good drum sound — then you’re already 80% of the way toward a good recording.”

Drum considerations can be decidedly different for hip hop and electronic artists. “There are people out there who work in a digital realm where that’s all they do,” Aida said. “They’re really good [at] sequencing, MIDI, Reason, and programming drums, getting them to sound really good and real… that’s what they bring to the table.” I was immediately reminded of Jellowstone Records mastermind Devonne Harris (DJ Harrison), known across several of Richmond’s musical circles as the prolific producer of beat tapes like his landmark Stashboxxx album, and as the keyboardist of soulful jazz outfit Butcher Brown.

Aida is also used to sharing producing and performing duties. He currently both plays guitar in and plays engineer to punk band Ann Beretta. “I recorded them before I was in the band,” Aida said. “I recorded Rob [Huddleston] in a producer-engineer sense, so he was very open to ‘Let’s do it this way, let’s do it that way.’ They’ve always come back to me. Now that I’m in the band, we’ve just kept that mentality going. ‘I’m recording your band that I just happen to play guitar in now.’ We’re doing our new record here next year and starting some stuff now. I’m really excited about it.”

Aida’s passion for recording runs deep, especially when it comes to people, reflecting how, ultimately, your studio decision should come down to who you’re happiest working alongside. “My favorite thing in general about recording,” Aida stated, “is connecting with all of the people in the bands… When I can get with a band or project [where] everybody’s cool and the songs are good, it doesn’t feel like work. I almost feel bad getting paid for it sometimes.”