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MUSIC SOULPOWER
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HERMES
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BLOOMING SELF PORTRAIT
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HERMES
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HERMES
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BLOOMING SELF PORTRAIT
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HERMES
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PHOTOGRAPHY
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MUSIC SOULPOWER
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RVA #10
FALL 2012
ARTICLES AVAILABLE AT RVAMAG.COM
36
OHBLIV
50
SEVEN HILLS CREW
14
HERRO SUGAR
20
TERRAIN 360
40
WORN IN RED
52
PROVERBIAL
16
BROTHER BILL
28
THE CATALYST
44
FIRE BISON
54
LONG JAWNS
18
GOLDRUSH
32
FUTURA
48
OCCULTIST
56
RECORD REVIEWS
22
SKINNER (COVER)
12
CONTENTS
RVA MAGAZINE #10
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MONSTER
MUSIC SOULPOWER
13
HERRO SUGAR
H
erro Sugar have been generating quite the
buzz around the RVA indie rock scene lately.
Their catchy indie rock tunes and tight live
performances win over new fans on a regular
basis. They are clearly a band on the rise--which
makes their young ages all the more noteworthy. “We’re all going to be juniors in high school
when school starts,” they inform me recently,
collectively responding by email to my barrage of questions. Lead guitarist Tristan Fisher
recently turned 17, while the other members of
the band--singer/guitarist Jack Mayock, bassist
Noma Illmensee, and drummer Jack Oliver-are all 16. Taking inspiration from “a collective
love of Wilco and The Smiths,” early 2000s
garage rock revival groups like The Strokes and
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and of course, plenty
of local music (they cite The Trillions, Black
Girls, White Laces, and The Milkstains as local
favorites), Herro Sugar have integrated their
influences into a strong, original sound that is
quick to capture the attention of listeners.
14
BY ANDREW NECCI
PHOTO BY MARIN LEONG
The four of them became a musical unit around
three years ago. “We had all been best friends for
years before we started to play music together,”
they explain. “Tristan’s been playing guitar since
he was 9, but the rest of us have only been playing our instruments for about as long we’ve been
playing together.” At first just messing around in
their garages, figuring out their instruments, and
learning a bunch of covers kept the four teenagers amused. But then they discovered the local
scene. “We started going to shows of bands like
the I-Las and the Nervous Ticks at Plaza Bowl
and the Camel. This inspired us to get more
serious about writing our own songs.” However,
wise enough to recognize their own inexperience, Herro Sugar only gradually began booking
shows, taking things slowly and giving themselves plenty of time to grow and learn. They
take this same painstaking, unhurried approach
to songwriting. “We spend a lot of time with
our songs. A lot of our current songs have been
evolving for at least a year.”
Of course, for a group of teenage boys to be able
to spend a lot of time learning their instruments,
developing songs, and becoming comfortable as
a performing unit, they need to have a group of
tolerant and understanding parents. The boys in
Herro Sugar have that and more. “We’ve grown
up with a lot of musical encouragement from
families,” they explain. “[Our parents] have also
been kind enough to provide living rooms and
basements for us to practice in.” Herro Sugar’s
familial connections offer more than just permission to use the basement as a practice space,
though. “Almost all of our dads were in bands,
and are still,” they relate. “Noma’s dad has a long
history as a guitar player in Richmond, having
for many years been a part of Frog Legs and
Boneanchor. Tristan’s dad grew up playing in the
Richmond scene and is currently the drummer for
the Jangling Reinharts. Jack Mayock’s dad spent
many years hopping trains and making a living
as a musician around the country.” This remarkable pedigree certainly helps to explain how such
RVA MAGAZINE #10
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“WE STARTED GOING
TO SHOWS OF BANDS
LIKE THE I-LAS AND
THE NERVOUS TICKS AT
PLAZA BOWL AND THE
CAMEL. THIS INSPIRED
US TO GET MORE
SERIOUS ABOUT WRITING
OUR OWN SONGS.”
young performers come by such a prodigious
amount of talent, and it’s always fascinating to
see the ways that the talents of one musical
generation pass down to the next.
Although they self-released a homemade demo
back in winter of 2010, Herro Sugar’s first real
release came out earlier this year. The self-titled
3-song EP was recorded with studio time they
acquired by winning a battle of the bands hosted
by the nonprofit organization Let Them Shine. Its
songs are both well-recorded and excellently written and performed, and a homemade video for
“Moments,” one of the tracks on the EP, caught a
lot of people’s attention. Filmed and directed by
bassist Noma Illmensee, the inspired video mixes
footage of the band and their friends goofing off
at home and at school with madcap footage Illmensee shot while riding his bike around the Fan
with his video camera mounted on his shoulder.
“I had been filming all the stuff our band had been
doing as our school year wound down, figuring
MUSIC HERRO SUGAR
that I might as well document these moments in
our lives for fun and posterity,” Noma says. “I also
enjoyed the thrill and style of filming on my bike
as I rode to and from practice and elsewhere.”
The idea for the “Moments” video came from the
juxtaposition of the song’s lyrics and the footage he’d shot. “I figured I could make a stylistic
impact by using the song ‘Moments’ as inspiration for the videos, which ended up featuring
ideas that inspired the song. So I matched the
shots to the beat and figured that they went well
together.” The end result is a sunny, upbeat video
with a subtle undercurrent of deeper emotion,
which matches with the feeling of the song and
combines to create an unforgettable sequence of
images and music. It’s an excellent indication of
what Herro Sugar are capable of, even as young
as they are.
They’d rather we not focus so much on their
ages, though. “We think of ourselves as less of
a high school band, and more of an RVA band
that happens to be in high school,” they com-
ment. “We hope that we can gain recognition for
our music despite being so young compared to
everyone else playing in Richmond.” In the wake
of their first EP’s small-scale success, they’re in
the process of readying their next release. “We’re
finishing an 8 song EP we recorded with a friend
of ours, musician and sound engineer Collin
Pastore,” they explain. Their plans for the fall
semester include the release of the new EP and
plenty of local shows, and they hope to be able to
take their act on tour next summer.
If Herro Sugar carries on at the rate they’re going, they could be one of the leading lights of
the Richmond scene by the time they finish high
school. Considering that in a few years, their
generation will be the one carrying on the RVA
tradition of a vibrant, exciting, and original local
music scene, it’s good to see that there are some
talented, passionate young musicians preparing
to step into that role.
15
BROTHER BILL
INTERVIEW BY DAN ANDERSON / PHOTO BY KELLY SHEPHERD
B
rother Bill is a four piece folk/indie/punk rock
group from Warrenton, VA. They officially
began in 2008, when the members were
asked to throw a set together and play a show at
an Irish pub in their hometown. But long before
brothers Dan (Lead Vocals/Lead Guitar) and Pat
Mulrooney (Drums) settled on their moniker, the
driving force behind what would become Brother
Bill was developed during campfire sessions with
close friends, booze, and guitars.
Brother Bill was initially formed as a three-piece
featuring the brothers Mulrooney and original
bassist Bill Patchett. Bill soon left the band on
good terms, in pursuit of a long and exciting
career in accounting, and Dan and Pat added
Aaron DeLong (Rhythm Guitar/Vocals) and
Alex Berklovich (Bass/Vocals) to round out the
lineup. Soon after, Brother Bill completed a solid
ten-track album to accompany their well-earned
reputation, which still precedes them in the
Warrenton/Fairfax/Winchester area of Northern
Virginia.
While Dan has long since relocated to Richmond,
his bandmates have remained rooted in their
hometown. When asked about the difference between RVA and Warrenton, Pat said: “Richmond’s
our baby. The fans are different here. People dig
the creative stuff. [They’re] not like ‘We just want
to dance.’” It would undoubtedly be an easier feat
to focus exclusively on an up-and-coming music
city like Richmond, but the group refuses to put
their achievements in Warrenton behind them.
I recently spent a weekend with Brother Bill to
find out why they spread themselves between
two locations. We hit the road on a booze-fueled
adventure that would take us from a wild show at
The Yerb to Griffin Tavern in Rappahannock (near
Warrenton), then back to Richmond to watch
them perform at The Watermelon Festival.
Before the trip, I considered Brother Bill to be
just another talented group of musicians with an
intense live show and an album that I thoroughly
enjoyed. But since then, I’ve learned a lot about
musicianship--not just theirs in particular, but
musicianship in general--and how integral kinship
is to the longevity of a collective concept. I found
Brother Bill’s music to be a completely accurate
depiction of who they are as people. Before the
trip, I’d spent quite a bit of quality time with
16
“THE DRIVING FORCE
BEHIND WHAT WOULD
BECOME BROTHER BILL
WAS DEVELOPED DURING
CAMPFIRE SESSIONS
WITH CLOSE FRIENDS,
Tell me about your self-titled album.
Dan: It was released in February of 2012. We
BOOZE, AND GUITARS.”
recorded for seven months. All in all, it took about
Dan Mulrooney, as well as having met and hung
out with his band mates on several occasions.
However, I’d never associated their tunes with a
specific lifestyle that they were leading. On the
surface, Brother Bill’s music simply combines
intellectual lyrics with intelligent instrumentation
and complex vocal harmonies from all involved.
But at its core, Brother Bill is as honest, vulnerable, and amusing as its members.
eleven moths to finish the album. There were
originally eleven tracks, but one was a cover so
we cut that one off. We wanted ten, solid, original
tracks.
How do you guys feel about the album as a whole?
Dan: If we hadn’t spent eleven months on it, I
don’t think it would be nearly as good as it is. We
recorded drums in a professional studio with our
friend Mark Reiter, the drummer for The Daycare
Swindlers. [Mark] really cared about what we
were doing, so he spent a really long time with
us. Of course while we were recording, we had
shows to play. Every other weekend we’d record. I
had a job, so I had to drive up from Richmond [to
Warrenton] and would drive back, terribly hungover, on Sundays, because I had to work by ten.
This time when we record, it’ll be a little easier, as
long as I still don’t have a job.
Pat: We had certain songs written out, completed,
but a lot of it was just like--we laid drum tracks
down in the studio, with loose guitar with it. It
seemed like the songs built as we recorded them.
It’s kind of an old school way of going into the
studio and writing.
AD: It was like going into the studio with an
unlimited budget.
Pat: It was like six grand for everything.
Dan: It would have been a lot more. But we got
surprised. We went in there with five complete
songs that were finished, written.
tracks down, because they weren’t all the way
written yet. But that became the structure.
There’s a big difference between your studio
album and your live show. Did you guys notice
that?
Dan: That was one of the criticisms. That’s going
to be one of the differences in our next album.
It was our first shot. It was hard not to be like
“Throw another guitar on there, we need this shit
rich!” or, “Throw another vocal harmony on there,
we need it super resonant.” It ended up being a
little overproduced. You learn from that.
It seems like Brother Bill always ends their set with
“One Heart In a Hole.” Is that always the case?
Dan: So far. It’s the most punk rock [of the original
songs] that we play. It’s the loudest and fastest, it
seems like it should be saved for the end.
I don’t know if you guys noticed, but I started a
mosh pit at The Yerb. Do mosh pits ever break
out at Brother Bill shows?
Dan: Yes. That’s the best part.
Pat: When we first started getting shows, it was
with The Daycare Swindlers, and that was a real
punk rock crowd, at really punk rock venues. We
didn’t really know our songs that well. We still
had to change them, make them faster. Playing
those shows for the punk rock crowds, we didn’t
know what we were doing. Now, we’d probably
just play it normal, just like, “Fuck You!”
Dan: We’d just turn it up a little louder.
Pat: Oh, that’s right, it was supposed to be an EP.
Alex: And we can play them quietly if we need to.
If we’re playing for a dinner crowd.
Dan: Ryder, our producer, was like, why don’t you
lay down the drum tracks for all of them. Some of
them, the song changed when we laid the drum
You guys don’t seem like you want to play for a
dinner crowd.
Dan: No. But we got to make that money.
RVA MAGAZINE #10
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MUSIC BROTHER BILL
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RVA MAGAZINE #10
GOLDRUSH AT THE CAMEL
GOLDRUSH
BY SHANNON CLEARY / PHOTOS TODD RAVIOTTA
T
RVAMAG.COM
he supposed year of our Earth’s demise has
proven to be a fruitful one for Goldrush.
In linking up with MAD Dragon Records,
they have achieved prominence beyond the local
level, and they’re all the merrier for it. Between
their upcoming 7 inch vinyl EP and their frequent
recent tours, Goldrush are yet another of the
many Richmond bands that have brought positive
attention to our local scene. “We’ve met a lot
of bands on the road that are constantly asking
about coming to play in Richmond because we
describe it with such fondness,” says Goldrush
frontman Prabir Mehta.
Goldrush’s relationship with MAD Dragon began
when Motion City Soundtrack bassist Matt Taylor
made an inadvertent discovery. “He was cleaning
his house with his ipod on shuffle,” Mehta relates.
“A song came on that he was digging, but [the
filename only] said ‘Track 01’--no other info. So
he asked his friend [local musician/engineer
Kevin Willoughby], who gave it to him, and it
turned out it was us!”
This discovery led Taylor to include Goldrush
in the Motion City Soundtrack-curated Making
Moves series of vinyl singles, released on the
MAD Dragon label. Goldrush joins a plethora
of emerging artists that have had their releases
produced and engineered by members of MCS.
“Everyone involved in this has been fantastic
human beings that are interested in doing
something fun,” Mehta relates. ”I’m very happy
that things worked out the way they did, and am
super grateful that we wrote the song when we
did, recorded it where we did, and had it passed
along the way it was.”
Goldrush’s Making Moves single, the fourth in
the series, features the tracks “Settle Down,”
“REX,” and “The Dream is Over.” These tracks
help display several different facets of the group’s
personality. “The Dream is Over” reflects the
group’s early sound with its waltz pacing and
somber moods, while “Settle Down” takes the
epic rock nature of Goldrush for a couple of
spins before hitting its upbeat momentum. The
noticeable differences in these two tunes in
particular are part of what keeps things exciting
for Mehta. “[They’re] pretty different, but having
the strings doing their thing over both the songs
kind of unifies [them],” he says, referring to the
stringed instruments played by his classicallytrained bandmates, violinist Treesa Gold and
upright bassist Matt Gold. “Again, not saying that
we’re doing straight blues on one song and then a
“ THE GOLDS ARE AWESOME TO WORK WITH BECAUSE THEY
APPRECIATE A SIMILAR FLOW OF MUSIC,” HE EXPLAINS. “IT’S SO
EASY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT PART OF THE SONG NEEDS THE MOST
‘OOMPH,’ OR WHICH PART NEEDS TO BE LEFT ALONE.”
tribal percussive thing on another,” he considers.
“We’re still playing rock music, but it’s the first
time that I’ve just [brought] in the songs and
whatever happens, happens.”
One of Goldrush’s greatest assets is Mehta’s
musical relationship with the Golds. Both are
incredible talents that help flesh out ideas and
thoughts in ways that he would never have
considered in the past. “The Golds are awesome to
work with because they appreciate a similar flow of
music,” he explains. “It’s so easy to understand what
part of the song needs the most ‘oomph,’ or which
part needs to be left alone. Smart folks, those two.”
These interactions also lead to moments of hilarity
that may or may not have included a midtour 3 AM
slapping contest between Mehta and Treesa. While
no immediate victor was declared, the hotel hallway
setting was more than appropriate for bonding over
drunken shenanigans.
In addition to their recent work with Mad Dragon,
Goldrush recently spent a week in July as guest
artist/faculty members for the Omaha Conservatory
Of Music’s summer program. As educators, they
allow students to fully realize music’s potential for
letting imaginations run wild. In many ways, Mehta
sees teaching the next generation of musicians
as an opportunity for exploration of his own craft.
“Nothing is cooler than when I play a song in that
class and someone says, ‘Why do you like that?’,”
he explains. “Having to explain something to a
third party is hard enough. Make that third party
someone who’s holding a cello and is 11 years old
and you’re in for a whole new line of thought.”
Goldrush’s participation in this endeavor speaks
volumes about the band’s penchant for utilizing their
talents as a means of encouraging others to follow
in a similar path.
If there is a downside to spending more time on the
road, it’s that Goldrush must leave behind many of
their Richmond-based creative ventures during their
time out of town. But Mehta feels that the positives
far outweigh the negatives. “I mean honestly, we’re
still all living in this town; playing here, getting drunk
with our friends, and whatnot,” he explains. “Not
much has changed other than it has forced us to
be better about what we do. Bringing the quality
up will do nothing but make it better for everyone, I
hope. We’re practicing more, working on really fun
ideas, looking forward to some cool opportunities,
and hopefully representing Richmond in a good way
when we’re not here.”
In the midst of all the excitement, one thing is
certain. Goldrush are joining the ranks of artists that
are helping to give Richmond a reputation we can
all be proud of. The release of this new single on
MAD Dragon Records is only the beginning of a
prosperous future for this local outfit.
MUSIC GOLDRUSH
19
BELLE ISLE
TERRAIN 360
BY DIANA BOXEY / PHOTOS TERRAIN 360
I
f you haven’t seen the Terrain360 bumper
stickers riding around the Commonwealth,
perhaps you’ve missed the latest breakthrough
in trail technology. Terrain360.com brings users an
interactive, virtual platform for navigating Virginia’s
hiking trails and mountain biking trails, along with
many of Virginia’s waterways and race terrain.
Available on PCs and mobile devices, Terrain360
allows users to explore Virginia’s trail systems
from an entirely new perspective with 360 degree
panoramic photography.
Where did the concept for Terrain360 come from?
Where all great ideas begin, with two icy cold
beverages on a shipwrecked canoe in the upper
James. As Ryan Abrahamsen and Ross Milby
wandered aimlessly over train tracks and through
overgrown brush hoping for a friendly face or
20
clearing to guide them back to their release point
in Scottsville, VA, an idea was spawned out of both
necessity and wishful thinking.
“I was thinking it’d be cool if I could see the trails
of the area on my phone,”Abrahamsen says. “We
obviously have Google Maps to guide us in our
cars, but that didn’t help much being lost in the
woods.” Exploring other outdoor websites, online
maps and apps, it was apparent that no such
technology existed. And with that, Abrahamsen,
Milby, and a third partner, Ryan Emmons, joined
together to create a dynamic navigational trail
technology which, just six months later, launched
as Terrain360.com.
As nearly 100 trails have already been uploaded to
the site, including the Buttermilk Trail, High Bridge
State Park, First Landing State Park, Humpback
Rocks Trails, and more, users are able to explore
terrain at their own pace within one of three
main regions of Virginia. Each trail page includes
a summary, points of interest, trail sponsors,
suggested gear and a user forum providing a voice
for trail enthusiasts to share their own experiences
or advice.
As Richmond natives and lovers of the outdoors,
the Terrain 360 staff are all aware of the number
of recreational activities available around the
Commonwealth, and how the diversity of terrain
facilitates the many options for outdoor recreation.
“I love the outdoors, so I decided to do this to bring
the outdoors to our community, to let them know
what’s out there,” mentions Abrahamsen.
“We combined the concept of Google Street
View with our own photography, and quickly
learned that we could stitch trail photos
together to create a panoramic tour,” says
Milby. “We want users to be able to experience
the trails from their own home, allowing them
to better plan trips, navigate trails, hear about
upcoming events, or get updates on various
trail conditions.”
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
BUTTERMILK AND BELLE ISLE(BELOW)
“ WE WANT USERS TO BE ABLE TO
EXPERIENCE THE TRAILS FROM
THEIR OWN HOME, ALLOWING THEM
TO BETTER PLAN TRIPS, NAVIGATE
TRAILS, HEAR ABOUT UPCOMING
EVENTS, OR GET UPDATES ON
VARIOUS TRAIL CONDITIONS.”
The team of developers continues to expand on
the website’s usability, content, and features,
and a new version of the site is expected
to launch at the beginning of October that
will surely have every couch potato ready to
explore Virginia’s trails! Additionally, the official
Terrain360 Mobile App will be available for
download in January 2013. As Richmond’s
outdoor community continues to gain
momentum with the upcoming Richmond2015
races and the recent pursuits of the Capital
Improvement Plan, Terrain360 aligns itself
with similar objectives, hoping to ignite this
underserved community with a new passion for
outdoor adventure experiences.
LOCAL TERRAIN 360
21
HERMES
22
BLOOMING SELF PORTRAIT
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
MONSTER
SKINNER
INTERVIEW BY DAVID KENEDY
T
hink of a cryptic demon lord from space. Go
ahead--think of one right now! Now give it
some acid and a skateboard. Watch as it picks
up an enchanted crystal staff, puts on an ancient shamanistic mask, and becomes one with the universe.
Don’t get freaked when it comes closer, it’s only trying
to give you a high five. Give it a high five. Good job!
Now it’s time to party, because you just got one step
closer to understanding the mind of one of the most
gruesomely talented artists around.
Skinner works out of his studio in Sacramento,
California. He’s totally self-taught, and has been
regularly pumping out a shit ton of seriously fucked
up, head-turning artwork for years now. So needless
to say I was pretty excited to be able to drill a hole in
his brain and see what kind of sorcery he’s been working with lately.
So you must be a pretty busy guy these days!
What do you find yourself currently spending
most of your time on?
Wrapping up the art for a commercial for Santa
Cruz Skateboards. I’m doing it with my buddy Jim
Dirshberger, who I did my Hell Dream cartoon
with. It’s going to be pretty great, I think. I got to
legally get away with doing my own versions of
the iconic Santa Cruz characters: the ScreamART SKINNER
ing Hand, the Ripper, and that big yellow Rob
Roskopp face. I’m also trying to wrap up an album
cover for the band Holy Grail and some toy concepts. Then I’m doing something for the Pangea
Seed [shark conservation society].
You’ve done quite a few shows at this point.
How has seeing your own work in the context
of so many other artists around the world
affected your artistic approach?
Well, I can do more involved installs and be more
a part of a show when it’s closer to me. It’s nice
to have shows in other countries and I’d like to
fly over and go off like fuck, but it’s something I
will get to when I do. A lot of shows in Europe are
more diverse in genres; more of the spectrum is
represented, from fine art to sculpture to graffiti
to weird shit like what I do. Here it’s very galleryto-gallery and each one has a focus or a parameter of what they show. But there are always artists
who are exceptions, ones that cross barriers. It’s
cool to see.
“ IT’S INTERESTING TO LIVE
IN THIS TIME AND BE AN
ARTIST. I FEEL LUCKY THAT
I LIVE IN A TIME WHERE
ART IS KIND OF PUT ON A
PEDESTAL, AS WELL AS
THE ARTIST.”
I love the Butcher Kings series. How does it feel
be an artist at a time when we have so much
pop culture to pull from? Compared to, say, a
hundred and fifty years ago or so when artists
like Gustave Doré were doing amazing work
but it was all limited to subject matter drawn
from Biblical influences?
It’s interesting to live in this time and be an artist.
I feel lucky that I live in a time where art is kind of
put on a pedestal, as well as the artist. How many
times do you hear about the stereotype of the
23
“ BECAUSE IT’S THE
VISIONARY INERTIA OF
EVERY ANCIENT CULTURE,
AND IT IS OUR COLLECTIVE
CONSCIOUSNESS AND
ANCIENT WORLD MIND.”
starving artist who only gets popular after they
die? It’s almost like a PSA on why you should never become an artist. But the art movement that I
am in affects so much: movies, video games, toys,
shirts, design, cartoons, skateboarding. Almost
every part of our culture is inundated with art and
design. It’s a good time to be an artist. I feel lucky.
And it’s all on the backs of those that came before
me: the Robert Williamses, the Big Daddy Roths,
the underground comic companies, the weirdos
and the visionaries who just did it and weren’t
being given big-ass checks by Nike or whatever.
All the kids my age who grew up with cartoons
and 80s pop culture are now kind of the prevalent
adults, and determine what’s kind of cool. So here
I am, doing all this stuff. I’m not into heavy-handed pop culture stuff for myself, but it was fun to
collaborate with Alex Pardee on [Butcher Kings].
I got to be like Mad Magazine cartoonist Basil
Wolverton for the month! As for Dore, he would
have been better off living now, as well as Virgil
Finlay--the best of the best.
In your Fragile Art of Existence series, you
deliberately moved away from your typical
freaks and ghouls type of thing and went into
a whole other world. There are elements of
nature and mystical spirituality. The overall
tone is much deeper. How did this come about?
Why do you think it’s so hard for so many
artists to move away from what they’re used to
and explore new territory?
I think if you are concerned about keeping up an
idea of what people can expect from you, then
your concern is immediately about appeasing a
projection, and your art immediately takes a back
seat to being liked. It’s a pressure everyone feels
once they are establishing themselves. This series
of paintings was a risk for me, and it’s a place I am
going back to as soon as I have the time. I want
to take the risks because the rewards are great. I
recommend that every artist do it.
Your work definitely has a very recognizable
aesthetic and style. How did that develop?
What advice would you give other self-taught
artists who are trying to find their own?
Well, I would say it’s ok to be influenced by other
artists, but be honest with yourself about it. If
you really, really like someone’s art and you kind
of use it as a guideline, that’s fine, but you have
to know that your own style and voice is waiting
to get out. The sooner you come to terms with
the fact that you are deriving too much influence
from someone else, the better. It takes years and
years to get your shit together. It’s weird, because
24
I worked my ass off for ten years and then was
like, “I’m ready to try and do this for a living.”
But dudes are hitting me up on the interwebs
asking me what I think about their art, and they
just fucking started doing it. I’m like, “Keep going. Do 100 paintings and then hit me up.” I had
190 paintings in my first solo show, 180 in the
next. They may not have been good, but I was
dedicated to it, growing and learning. The internet
has made it so people do a few paintings and are
pushing them on their Big Cartel [online store].
That’s fine, but check your dedication to shit if
you want to rise above the ocean of this stuff.
What is going to make you better, or good, or
memorable? That you already made prints out of
your first 20 paintings? Fuck no! You haven’t even
begun. Just work. Work your ass off and make
sacrifices. The rest will work itself out.
There’s something about really vibrant color
patterns mixed in with super grotesque and
demonic subject matter that just seems to
make sense at this point. Why is that?
Because it’s the visionary inertia of every ancient
culture, and it is our collective consciousness and
ancient world mind.
I remember being young and always imagining
these fantasy battle scenarios, like Terminators
and Predators somehow making it to Jurassic
Park and everything going crazy. I feel like your
work somehow embodies that same kind of
spirit.
Yeah, except I think what I do is like a third grader
gone mad. It’s funny; I’m just doing more twisted
versions of what I have always done. I’m more
gods and cosmos than Terminators though.
Were you ever into Ralph Bakshi’s stuff back in
the 70s and 80s?
I got into it later, but I did remember liking the
Lord of the Rings stuff. He really did some great
stuff, except I think he bummed out a bunch of
people he worked with. I love Fire and Ice.
Top 5 favorite monsters of all time. Go!
1. Hulk
2. Godzilla
3. Jaws
4. Frankenstein
5. That horned thing from Conan
Can we talk about your band a bit? What role
does that play in your life overall? What are
your musical influences?
Ungoliant is on hiatus, maybe even indefinitely.
Some of the dudes in the band developed different priorities, and I’m too busy to be a band dad,
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
MONSTER
MUSIC SOULPOWER
25
which is what every band needs to keep going.
There’s always one band dad. I’m still jamming
on my guitar for fun and will form another band
at some point, but I’m doing this album of dance
music that will blow your freakin’ socks off. The
project is called Absolute Warriors, or AbWar for
short, because abs are awesome.
Have you ever had a bad trip?
Yeah man, I did. I was on a long, long walk with a
lot of people and it kept going into this forest for
so long. It got darker and darker, and I asked everyone if we were going to die. It turns out [this]
isn’t the best thing to say to a group of people
high as fuck on LSD. Some were all concerned,
and others were like, “Oh shit! Are we going to
die?” [laughs] Seriously, I wasn’t that scared, I
just wanted to know. I was curious. It seemed like
it was supposed to happen. I have tons of stories
like that. The lesson being, don’t ask questions
like that while frying with others.
Can you tell us about the first time you ever
saw The Neverending Story?
It was right after my mom got us a small little
apartment after she divorced my dad. This is
taking me back. We got one of those early cable boxes. We never had that before. My mom
got it working, and we were flipping through the
channels. There must have been 26 channels
on this thing! My sister found The Neverending
Story. It was awesome! All three of us wrapped
up on one small couch in an unfurnished apartment watching cable for the first time. Wow.
This is kind of an emotional thing to remember.
I wish I was young again.
26
Ancient Aliens, what’s up with that?
Well, there’s a lot of unexplained shit that points
to a lot of different theories that have little to do
with preserving our fragile grasp on reality. It’s
hard for people to feel okay about aliens, or that
our beliefs in some way aren’t the whole story.
You will find fierce resistance when challenging
the narcissism we have with our importance.
It’s not safe for a little eggplant brain. Gotta go
easy on these lumps or they start freaking out.
I’m open and hoping that aliens are flying by our
planet and pick up a Nickelback song on their
advanced alien radio and say, “We gave them the
technology of the ancients, the crystal skulls, the
understanding of the vast universe and its beauty,
and this is what happens a couple thousand years
later? This aggression will not stand. We have
to destroy the planet. Every mewling pink worm
must pay.”
What are your thoughts on death?
I fantasize about it way more than I should, but
I’m super sensitive and I’m really affected negatively and grossed out about our privilege and
how much people and animals suffer. I want it to
stop and I feel powerless and I get depressed. I try
to hide it from people but I’m really transparent
so my friends know. My girlfriend knows. She’s
really sweet though. She makes it worth it.
If Satan came up to you and he was all like,
“Hey listen, uh, I just wanted to say that I’m
really just trying to chill, and if you ever need
anything you know where to find me, ok?” what
would you say?
Easy. I would challenge him to a rock-off and
make him pay my rent.
“ EASY. I WOULD
CHALLENGE HIM TO A
ROCK-OFF AND MAKE HIM
PAY MY RENT.”
So what’s around the corner for you? Any long
term endeavors or projects in the works?
I’m just trying to make time to focus on my weirdness expansion, skills, and travel. I have some
cartoon pitches out right now with Jon Shnepp,
and art direction on that. I’m going to get more
involved with my company, Critical Hit, making
shirts and prints. I’m going to dial it in more, make
some music videos, focus on my music, laugh
more. Get some vinyl figures. I’ve gotten inspired
to get weirder with that stuff. Be a good partner to
my girl, Kristie. Have more fun.
I would like to leave you with this hypothetical
battle situation: An army of countless
thousands of Satanic Tyrannosaurus Rex
Warriors are standing their ground on one side
of a battlefield, and on the other, an army of
countless thousands of Doom-Enchanted Hello
Kitty Mutants…
Well this sounds really, really good, but what I’m
really hoping is that they join forces after realizing
that their real goal is to annihilate mankind. Just
wash that shit away in a massive sweeping wave
of gnashing teeth and bone splintering cuteness.
Crush all the malls, destroy the politics, smash
our cute outfits and fake boobs, disintegrate our
social hierarchies and judgments, slash our selfimportance, and disembowel our arrogance.
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
MONSTER
MUSIC SOULPOWER
27
THE CATALYST
BY ANDREW NECCI
R
ichmond’s punk and metal scene is without
a doubt the strongest music scene in the
city. Everyone knows it; in fact, almost every
article in this magazine about a band that isn’t
punk or metal mentions it. But it can be just as
difficult for a band that is playing loud, heavy
music to get out from under the shadow of more
famous Richmond punk/metal bands as it is for
hip hop or indie rock groups to do so. The Catalyst are living proof; they’ve been around nearly
as long as Municipal Waste, have toured Europe
twice and the United States at least half a dozen
times, and are hailed like conquering heroes in
random farflung locales (Delaware, Tuscany,
etc). And yet at home, they sometimes seem like
Richmond’s best-kept secret. However, with the
release this month of their outstanding third LP,
Voyager, it seems as if this is about to change.
28
The Catalyst formed in late 2002, in circumstances that were about as far from ideal as possible.
Guitarist and longtime Richmond resident Eric
Smith, stranded in the bourgeois wasteland of
Fairfax County by an abortive attempt at college
and a run-in with the law, caught up with drummer and former roommate Kevin Broderick at a
time when both needed a place to crash. Kevin’s
friend Nate Prusinski, who happened to be a
bass player, had some space in the living room of
his one-bedroom apartment, so Eric and Kevin
moved in, and the three of them formed a band.
Undaunted by legal prohibitions against leaving
the state, The Catalyst immediately began booking cross-country tours, and released their debut
EP, A Hospital Visit, on McCarthyism Records in
2004. Years of cramming up to six people into
their tiny apartment just to be able to afford the
outrageous rent took a toll, and by the time summer 2005 rolled around and the trio was free of
legal obligations, the members of The Catalyst
were more than ready to decamp for the greener
pastures of RVA.
Soon after the move, they made multiple lineup
changes. Nate left the band and was replaced on
bass by Michael Backus. They also added multiinstrumentalist and former Delaware resident
Jamie Faulstich, who could play both guitar and
drums, and would switch back and forth between
the two instruments during their set--sometimes
within a single song. Over the next two years,
working with local labels Perpetual Motion
Machine, Rorschach, and Robotic Empire, The
Catalyst released a split LP with Mass Movement
Of The Moth, a split EP with Brainworms, and a
live cassette entitled Freak Out The Squares. All
of this was a buildup to their first LP, Marianas
Trench, a distinctive one-sided vinyl release with a
silkscreened B-side. Their sound grew heavier and
more distinctive over the course of these releases,
mixing a strong Nirvana influence with the offkilter time signatures of the Melvins and the full-
RVA MAGAZINE #10
PHOTO: CHARLES ANTHONY LYNCH
tilt hardcore velocity of Born Against. They also
delighted in effects-laden psychedelic interludes,
and featured lengthy instrumentals on all of their
releases from this era.
After a 2008 European tour, The Catalyst signed
to Italian label Sons Of Vesta, who co-released
their second LP, 2009’s Swallow Your Teeth, with
American label Perpetual Motion Machine.
Swallow Your Teeth showed sonic evolution--their
standard tempos had become faster, and the
longer, more psychedelic songs that showed up
on the album had vocals. Both their sense of
humor and their political consciousness were
becoming sharper; the former indicated by song
titles like “Assholier Than Thou” and “Small Town,
Big Mouth,” and the latter demonstrated by the
lyrics to songs like “Werewolves Of Washington”
and “Too Big To Fail.” They spent 2009 and 2010
touring the United States and returning to Europe
in support of the album.
a fast punk rock song. ‘Our Science Is Too Tight’ is
much longer, and as I recall, it was pretty heavily
dependent on the double-drum lineup.”
Indeed, as those who have seen them live
recently have undoubtedly noticed, The Catalyst
has returned to being a three-piece. Jamie’s role
in the band had been evolving in recent years,
with him playing second drum kit far more often
than second guitar, and everyone in the band had
been wondering whether it was really working.
“We just reached an impasse,” Eric says. “Song
structures were getting to a point where it wasn’t
conducive to having two drummers. It was more
precise and focused, less improvisational [and]
“ BOTH THEIR SENSE OF HUMOR AND THEIR POLITICAL
CONSCIOUSNESS WERE BECOMING SHARPER; THE
FORMER INDICATED BY SONG TITLES LIKE “ASSHOLIER
THAN THOU” AND “SMALL TOWN, BIG MOUTH,” AND THE
LATTER DEMONSTRATED BY THE LYRICS TO SONGS LIKE
“WEREWOLVES OF WASHINGTON” AND “TOO BIG TO FAIL.”
RVAMAG.COM
Voyager is The Catalyst’s first release since
Swallow Your Teeth came out three years ago, but
that wasn’t the initial plan. The band recorded
two songs for a split with French band Aussitot
Mort, whom they had met and toured with during
the 2010 European jaunt. “The idea behind the
7 inch was that Aussitot Mort was gonna come
over from France and do a tour,” Eric explains.
“We booked the whole tour, [but] they work
full-time jobs, three of them have got kids, and
they just couldn’t get it together. So when they
cancelled the tour, [the record] got put on the
back burner.” It is still coming out, though, and
will now be released by Richmond label Sound
Era. Whether the band will continue playing
the songs recorded for it is uncertain, though.
“We’ll bring at least one of them back,” Eric says.
“‘Thumbsucker’ is pretty straightforward, kind of
MUSIC THE CATALYST
29
PHOTOS: MARKUS SHAFFER
free flowing than our older stuff was. There was
never a point where we were mad at each other
or anything, and in fact, when we brought it up to
him, he said he had been thinking about his place
in the band already.” There had been a previous
period in 2007 during which Jamie left the band
to spend a year working in Central America, and
attempts at the time to bring in a replacement
to play both drums and guitar had not panned
out. “Kevin is like a freight train,” Eric says. “He
is not a subtle or nuanced drummer. Jamie was
only able to play along with him because Jamie’s
really attentive and precise. I’m sure [having two
drummers] made us more memorable to see live.
But musically, I feel like a lot of times [Jamie] got
lost in the mix.”
Voyager is the second of The Catalyst’s albums
to be released in Europe by Sons Of Vesta, but
the first to be released here in the US by RVA’s
own Forcefield Records. “[Forcefield owner] Tim
[Harwich] is an amazing dude,” Eric says. “We’re
glad to be working with him. He’s really got his
shit together, and every record that he’s put out
so far is pretty mindblowing.” This is as true of
Voyager as it is of any previous Forcefield release-their latest album is clearly The Catalyst’s most
fully-realized work yet. The overt melodies and
epic song structures that previously showed up
only at their more psychedelic moments are more
smoothly integrated throughout the album. Each
side ends with a seven-minute song; “Septagon”
ends the album’s first half by building over the
course of its first three minutes from a quietly
echoing instrumental intro to a brutal metal riff
that relentlessly pummels the listener in glorious
fashion. There are dynamic shifts within the last
30
half of the song, but all of them serve as no more
than a brief respite allowing the song’s main riff
to hit that much harder when it inevitably comes
back around. The album-ending title track is
even more distinctive--featuring almost entirely
melodic vocals, this mournful epic retains a solid
grounding in heavy guitar distortion, but evokes
emotions much more complex and multi-faceted
than the harsh anger that dominates much of the
album.
For those who come to The Catalyst’s music
seeking fast, heavy hardcore/metal fury, though,
there’s plenty to rejoice about. Voyager’s first side
starts heavy, with the slightly off-kilter galloping
thrash of “King Of Swords” being a particular
highlight, and just keeps building in intensity
through the chaotic climax of “Square Waves,” in
which Kevin’s pounding drums are underscored
by a bunch of clattering noise. “That’s us in the
alley behind the studio beating on a trashcan,”
Eric explains proudly. Side two’s opener, “Jupiter
Brain,” returns to the ridiculously low drop-G
tuning Eric used for Marianas Trench’s “This Bike
Is A Gravity Bong,” and features an opening
sure to get a lot of people’s attention. Over
a tremendously distorted guitar riff, Michael
screams, “You talk too much, you fuck!” with
Kevin’s drums slamming through the speakers
just as the last word hits. Michael’s lower,
throatier vocals are a bigger presence than ever
on this album, and the interaction between his
vocals and Eric’s higher-pitched screams works
extremely well. Eric also sees Michael’s basslines
as the glue that holds the band’s entire sound
together. “All the basslines are so funky,” he says.
“I can’t do awesome guitar solos. I’m not Eddie
Van Halen or Slash. When the time comes where
the song would need a guitar solo, I just turn on
three or four effects pedals and trudge through
it. [Michael] really holds together my chaotic
fucked up noise guitar and Kevin’s unstoppable
juggernaut of drum death.”
Perhaps the most interesting facet of Voyager
is the lyrics. A concept album about a doomed
space voyage, the lyrics to the ten songs on
Voyager tell a single story that flows smoothly
throughout the album. However, the thematic
unity seems almost like a happy accident in
light of the frantic pace at which the album was
completed. “We were in a rush because we were
trying to plan a tour this summer,” Eric explains.
“We wrote the album in order, [and when] we’d
written most of side A, we booked studio time in
three weeks, and had to jam out four or five songs
in that time period.”
So in light of all that, where did the concept come
in? “I write lyrics in a different way than most
people do,” Eric says. “I’ll have a phrase in mind
that, when I’m singing and playing the song,
just kind of comes out. This series of syllables-maybe they make sense, maybe they don’t.
What I did at first was just write down what I
was actually saying. Some of it was absurd, but
some of it was poignant, and I realized that there
was a lot of sci-fi paranoia shit going on. One of
the first lyrics I came up with for the album is in
the song ‘Square Waves,’ and the lyric is ‘Bow
down, behold the glory of the cloud.’ If you’re
talking about a mass of water vapor trapped
in Earth’s upper atmosphere, that’s not very
menacing. But if you’re talking about a huge cloud
of nanomachines that eat your organs from the
RVA MAGAZINE #10
“NONE OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE NAMES, GENDERS, OR EVEN
PERSONALITIES. THEY’RE JUST VEHICLES TO MOVE THE
NARRATIVE FORWARD. THERE’S ONLY SO MUCH YOU CAN
SAY AND HAVE THE LYRICS STILL RHYME AND LOOK BADASS
TO A 15-YEAR-OLD KID.”
inside out, take over your brain, and turn you
into a homicidal maniac, that’s pretty cool. It just
kind of came from there.” At this point, I mention
a recent ad campaign about cloud computing;
when I’d heard this line in “Square Waves,” I
figured Eric was casting the same sort of sardonic
gaze upon cloud computing that he’d focused on
other semi-disturbing technological advances a
few years earlier in the lyrics to Swallow Your Teeth
track “I Hate The Future.” He laughs in surprise.
“Yeah, shit like that will sometimes get absorbed
by your brain and come out of your mouth, and
you don’t even think about it. I hadn’t made that
connection, but that’s probably what happened.
I also mentioned nanomachines in [‘I Hate The
Future’]. I think about that shit too much.”
I ask about the plot to the album’s lyrical
narrative, but Eric’s reluctant to spell it
out. “Maybe people should figure it out for
themselves,” he says. “It was fun to write, but I
think it’ll be even more fun to see what people
think is going on.” I mention that I observed a
resemblance to the plot of Danny Boyle’s 2007
sci-fi disaster film Sunshine. Eric admits that
I’m on the right track. “Yeah, I love that movie,”
he says. “It’s not a coincidence that there are
9 characters on the album and there are 9
characters in that movie. There are some other
similarities as well, but I don’t want to give
MUSIC THE CATALYST
anything away.” He lets on that each song is from
the viewpoint of a different character in the story,
but that none of the characters are very fleshedout in his mind. “None of these people have
names, genders, or even personalities. They’re
just vehicles to move the narrative forward.
There’s only so much you can say and have the
lyrics still rhyme and look badass to a 15-year-old
kid.”
This catches my interest due to the perhapsnot-coincidental fact that I met Eric when he
himself was 15 years old. I ask him to elaborate.
“Whenever I make a piece of art, I almost always
look at it with the idea of ‘What would I think
of this if I were 15?’” he explains. Laughing, I
mention Assuck’s Anticapital, his favorite album
when I met him, but Eric is 100% serious about
this. “Music is incredibly important to me, and
I know it is for you too,” he insists. “That time
period in your life is so strange, and you lock
onto things, and carry them with you for the rest
of your life. I probably listened to 15 records on
repeat the entire year of 1997. I still have all of
those records, and I still listen to them at least
once a month. That’s never gonna change.” So
he’s making music for the 15-year-olds of the
world? “Making music for the fucking alienated
teenagers who need something to make them
feel sane, make them feel at home,” he says in
agreement. “I mean, it’s a completely different
world now than it was in 1997, but teenagers are
still teenagers.”
These days, life is a lot different for The Catalyst
than it was when they were 15. But music is still
the most important thing in their lives, and they
plan to keep playing for as long as they possibly
can. “I love this band,” Eric says. “I hope that I am
never not in it. I have a fucking great time when
we go on tour, a great time writing these songs
and playing them for people. But it’s hard to plan
for the future.” I ask if the pressures of adult life
get in the way, but that isn’t what he means at
all. “Playing music basically is my real life,” he
explains. “I’ve been doing it for so long now that I
have a support structure built around me. I’m able
to get time off of work if I need it. My girlfriend,
friends, and family all know that at least four or
five weeks of the year I’m going to be living in a
van, and they seem to be OK with it. It costs a
shitload of money to do this sometimes, but it’s
worth every penny.”
After nearly a decade of struggling to be heard, no
one can say that The Catalyst haven’t paid their
dues. They’ve had to do a lot of work and spend
a lot of time, money, and effort just to get as far
as they have. However, the fact that the ultimate
result of that effort has been the release of an
album as amazing as Voyager makes it all worth it.
We can only hope that the city they live in takes
notice.
31
32
RVA MAGAZINE #10
FUTURA
BY R ANTHONY HARRIS
F
RVAMAG.COM
utura 2000 is one of the foremost names in the
history of street art. He got his start painting on the
New York subways back in the ‘70s when that was
still possible, but soon built a career in the fine art world,
beginning with his gallery showings alongside such
famous New York artists of the 80s as Keith Haring and
Jean-Michel Basquiat. He worked extensively with The
Clash during that same period, doing artwork for their
single “This Is Radio Clash” and a guest vocal on their
album Combat Rock, as well as appearing on tour with
them, doing live paintings while they performed. In the
‘90s, he created artwork for the covers of many releases
on Mo Wax Records, as well as for the electronic music
project UNKLE. He’s designed his own clothing under
the label Futura Laboratories, and collaborated with
many other clothing companies, from Nike and North
Face to the NYC-based streetwear company Supreme.
He released a coffee table book in 2000; has designed
collectible toys; and made appearances in music videos,
documentaries, and video games. A true renaissance
man, there aren’t many creative endeavors that Futura
has not turned his hand to at some point.
Most recently, he’s worked with Hennessy to design a
limited edition label for a bottle of their VS Cognac line,
and in August, he went on a promotional tour around
the United States, appearing in venues where Hennessy
is sold; meeting fans, signing bottles, and doing live
paintings. It was this tour that brought him to RVA, and
during his brief time in town, he made a little bit of room
in his busy schedule to sit down with us and discuss his
career, his motivations, and how he sees the art world in
2012. The conversation began with him telling us about
the last time he’d been in Richmond, and how pleasantly
surprised he was to see the changes it has undergone
since then...
Futura: I might predate some of your DOBs out
here, but ‘77 was the last time I was [in Richmond]. So when I rolled into town I was like,
“Wait a minute.” I know cities grow, but damn,
what’s up with Richmond? All the shit by the
OMNI [hotel], where I’m at, that wasn’t like that.
I’m psyched to be here. What I saw this morning,
I was like, “Oh shit.” Totally not expecting. From
what I can tell, you’ve already upgraded the city
status. [You’re] doing a good service locally, and
it might take a few years to catch on. You’ll probably have people coming back to you now, who
you may have wanted to work with initially. And
you know how that works. That always happens.
The conservatives that want to hold on to shit and
keep it as it was, stopping progress in whatever
form it takes. I think street art… It doesn’t scare
people, but...
It has bad connotations.
It does, but I think that’s all been diminished from
the recent work that everyone’s been doing. It’s
obvious. They’re not vandals, they’re commissioned. So that’s exciting. Maybe next year I’ll see
the issue that features me, and be thinking, “Man,
you guys are all right!”
Hope so! I’d like to get an overview of your
career, educate people who have never seen
your work before. I think going back to ‘77
would be a good starting point. So, that was the
last time you were in Richmond--at that point
were you doing graffiti work?
Actually, I wasn’t. I was in the military. Well, I
started writing before I was in the military, let’s
say ‘70? High school. Fifteen years old, I’m looking at graff, going “Oh wow, what’s this?” Got in
there. ‘73, I went into the military. Went back to
New York in ‘79, right about the time when things
were starting to percolate and people were about
to take it from the streets, [having] initial ideas
of doing alternative exhibitions in galleries that
weren’t really galleries, spaces in the Bronx. Then
it all started to snowball in New York. So for the
next five years, you have a full-blown art movement with gallery support. Kids [were] still doing
trains in the morning, then having an exhibition. It
was just a melange of everything. Then in ‘85, you
had the death of street art as we knew it then.
What was the reason for that?
Everybody was done with it. Anything that could
be sold found every buyer that would buy it.
The market’s over. It’s done. Then I fell back to
a position where, fuck, I have an infant baby--I
don’t want to run to Europe and continue being
an artist through European support. I’m not going
to expatriate just because people are buying work
there. I live here, how can I support my family? It’s not going to be through art. [So I] found
other ways to make a living. Here come the ‘90s,
someone comes and pulls me out of it. “Let’s
give you an exhibition.” So I had another little
push, and that was very short-lived. That was the
introduction of street wear, computing--the ‘90s
are here. Everyone was off the streets now. Kids
who were good at graff got good at graphics, once
they learned how to use Illustrator. Mid-90s, I’m
a fucking computer wizard, I’m doing DOS, backstage on a PC. I know how to do all that. Internet?
What’s that? [I found] Art Crimes--looking at
graff all over the world. How can you see photos
from there? What is this platform?
Seeing the influence of what you guys did
earlier being spread all over the world.
Sure, because your first book is Subway Art, the
first bible of the ‘80s. Martha Cooper, Henry
Chalfant. Spray Can Art, which is the second com-
ing of that bible--new testament, old testament.
The new testament is not the subways of the city,
it’s the walls of the world. So, Spray Can Art was
the first look at the world and what kids are doing
in Auckland, New Zealand or Guangzhou, China.
So that all started to percolate. I created a website, looking at the web as a possible next venue
for exposure. What I was getting off on was, here
I am in my little apartment, writing fucking webpages, there’s my shit uploaded, and I’m getting
messages from kids in Germany and Sweden. I’m
thinking, “This is amazing, this connectivity thing.”
Now, [though], I think it’s gotten to overdose proportions. It’s just too much of a pool of information, it’s very hard to sift through.
Suffice to say, [with] my webpage, my commercial graphic clothing company collaborations,
Mo’ Wax record covers--I rode that wave into
the millennium. [I did] my Futura book in 2000.
I made some toys. I’m meeting all these [corporate] people and having relationships [that are]
less business and more like [we have] something
in common. I’ve worked in all of these different
realms, and I decided not to be a gallery artist. I was not gonna pursue all of that, because I
was doing quite well. I had a company in Japan,
which I’ve subsequently shut down. But anyway,
recently, all these other artists--Shepard [Fairey],
Banksy, everyone else--have created a lot of hype
over [their commercial work], and then people
are like, “Hey, Futura...” Quite frankly, if I make a
painting [for a commercial collaboration], there’s
nice numbers there. Why am I going to deny
that? I think I’ve been in denial, because knowing
that my dad busted his ass, and at the end of the
year, that small fucking number that he sweated,
cried, and bled for--that’s a very small percentage
of what I can make without lifting a finger. I’ve
been blessed, but now at age 56, I’m like OK, OK.
You guys want to compensate me for my work?
OK, I think I’m happy in accepting it now. Maybe
it will profit my daughter, maybe it will profit my
son. Maybe it will do good for my friends and
family. It’s not my ambition, but at this point I’m
not going to deny it.
So in September, I’ve got a pop up show in New
York. It’s going to be mega major. It’s going to
be my first exhibition in New York in at least ten
years, and I’m coming with the heat. I’m really
excited about it, because this project is a million
dollar promotion. [It’s] what I couldn’t do that
these guys have helped me do now. After all of
that, I’m going to go for the fine art world again,
and see what they are offering. From what I hear,
it could be OK.
“ YOU GUYS WANT TO COMPENSATE ME FOR MY WORK? OK, I THINK I’M HAPPY
IN ACCEPTING IT NOW. MAYBE IT WILL PROFIT MY DAUGHTER, MAYBE IT WILL
PROFIT MY SON. MAYBE IT WILL DO GOOD FOR MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY. IT’S
NOT MY AMBITION, BUT AT THIS POINT I’M NOT GOING TO DENY IT.”
ART FUTURA
33
How was that transition for you, especially
starting out-- I’ve talked to a lot of artists,
especially a lot of the guys who are doing the
murals, they start off with the purity of just
having someone see it, and then...
I think everyone has to grapple with that, with
their own morality thing. It is hard. That was
such a valid argument in the ‘80s when it was
first happening. Like, how do you guys feel about
putting your work in a gallery when it’s supposed
to be free for the public? I had problems dealing with that in the ‘80s, which is why I’m never
fast to run to [a commercial] opportunity. I could
critique, artist by artist, who I think deserved
whatever, but that would be wrong of me. I’m not
a purist that says, “That’s fucked up, you didn’t
pay your dues.” That’s kind of ridiculous. I can’t
decide who’s entitled to what. I also don’t know
their situation.
If I think they are rising too quickly, I don’t feel
threatened by that. I think that they are going to
burn out quickly too. I’ve been around for a few
years. A lot of these kids are relatively new. Yeah,
you can be a flash in the pan for 36 months, but
at that five year window, shit’s kind of like, “Wait,
34
what happened?” To me the short play, it’s not
the one. But young people don’t have the patience
and the vision to lean back and perhaps wait for
something that they can’t calculate will happen.
All these cliches about, “act now,” blah blah blah-I listen to my own conscience, I don’t want to be
led into something where...
A trend or something.
Or whatever, yeah. I’ll come and view something.
Hopefully I inspire, I educate, I have something
positive to say. But when I see too many people
gravitating to shit, I’ll duck out the back. The funniest thing I can say about originality: Instagram,
right? The new shit, everyone’s on it. I’m on it, it’s
amazing. You have a community that is dying for
visibility, dying for attention. Every popular tag
that the instagram application has, whatever it is,
whatever the generic crap everyone is drinking,
this fucking wack Kool-aid--people are all about
that. People say, “Let’s play within the rules.” I say,
“No--let’s break the rules a little bit.” I had a thing
called camerathrow. My own tag. I’ve invented a
hundred of them already. What am I doing? I’m
combining words. I’m making something original.
No one used it yet. It’s mine. So what’s hap-
pened? After a month or two, people are just taking it. Now, part of creating an original tag is that
if I’ve got 20 different images with that tag, and
you touch that tag, you’re going to come to that
page, and that’s all me. It’s my way of filtering you
into another folder--”you saw that recent one, but
now look at the timeline of all those other ones.”
What’s happening is everyone is jumping in there,
because everyone knows now--”Oh, people are
looking at his shit.”
It’s sort of like a graffiti wall, where I come up and
I write my name. If I go back a month later, there’s
a hundred names right there. I get it, it’s like alignment. “I’m with so-and-so.” But like, come on,
guys, really? It’s so boring that it just forces me to
want to leave. It’s like, “Wow, you turned something cool into wack.” You made it too accessible,
I don’t want to associate with that anymore. It’s
about maintaining originality, and Jesus, man,
it doesn’t take much. I’m just going to lay back
and let my work speak for itself, as it always has.
You know, all these sneaker heads and all these
Supreme kids, everyone is just a part of this feeding frenzy. I gotta get them off that. You won’t
be seeing any of my stuff like that anymore. You
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know, commercially available. I think it diminishes
things. It takes away your super powers.
You’ve seen a lot of the scene fluctuate in the way
it has developed. A lot of the large mural guys
came from the street and went to the gallery.
Then they thought the gallery was getting kind
of wack and commercialized, went back to the
street, and now are doing these giant things.
That the gallery couldn’t support, because the
gallery doesn’t have space like that.
What can happen after this? After you go six
stories high on a building, where do you go
from there?
You keep going, and you look at the global. You
start thinking, “I’m a citizen of the world.” I don’t
just live in America. Look at Blu. Blu did something exceptional. He redefined how you do this
shit. Stop animation. “I painted it. I took it away. I
had a character move across the wall. You don’t
even know how the fuck I did what I did. But I did
it. I’m autonomous enough that I can do all of it. I
can paint it, I can whitewash it, I can photograph
it.” That kid, fucking... Really, he’s the best right
now on the planet. In my humble opinion. And his
genius of going to Jerusalem, going to Colombia.
He’s an Italian, he can do shit Americans can’t do.
America has got, sadly, a little stigma about who
we are. Some people ain’t feeling us. What’s dope
about Blu, he can go to places we can’t go and do
fantastic shit that we can’t even dream about. So I
envy him. I envy his European status, and the fact
that he can just go around the world and do what
he does.
And yeah, Banksy kind of showed us how to do
that too, but I’m over Banksy. Banksy lost me
with Exit Through The Gift Shop. That shit is a
fucking travesty. Mr. Brainwash [the subject of
Exit Through The Gift Shop] is a fucking travesty. It
ruined everything. Brainwash set everything back
ten years. In my opinion. And I dig the fuck out
of Banksy, but man... you just took a piss on the
whole culture. You just shit on the whole shit, and
introduced this knucklehead as some fucking...
whatever. The whole thing is mad insulting. And
in fact, some of that got me back.
Got you pissed off and got you motivated?
A little bit, a little bit. Like, something about
Banksy, he continues to inspire. Although my
problem is, he’s also part of that Shepard Fairey,
“I’ve got a production team” world now. I don’t
even know what I’m seeing anymore. And quite
frankly, his shit is so clone-able that... I don’t
know. He gave away too much. He revealed too
much, and in the process of revealing too much,
he gave away [the way] to do it. And to me it lost
the power of the originator.
So you are doing the show in New York--what’s
after that?
We’re going to pop up in five cities. The beauty
of the pop-up show is that you aren’t allowing a
gallery, because they have a reputation and white
walls, to profit 50% of your sales. There are ways
that I can be involved financially, and that maintains my ability to not give away half. Something
about that whole art world half/half thing still
bothers me a little bit. Especially like the new kids
on the block--like, who are you? Why should I tie
you into me and let you make paper? Now, mind
you, if you are cool and you are my peeps, then I
want that opportunity for you, because I want us
to do well. I don’t want to put that money in my
pocket. I want to put it in our pocket. I mean, am
I Robin Hood? Yeah, a little bit. Can I rob from the
rich and give to the poor? I hope so. I hope I can
keep doing that. That makes me feel good. It gives
me pleasure.
RVAMAG.COM
“HE GAVE AWAY TOO MUCH. HE
REVEALED TOO MUCH, AND IN
THE PROCESS OF REVEALING
TOO MUCH, HE GAVE AWAY
[THE WAY] TO DO IT. AND TO
ME IT LOST THE POWER OF
THE ORIGINATOR.”
ART FUTURA
35
T
OHBLIV
INTERVIEW & PHOTOS
BY MARC CHEATHAM
hough the comparisons are not 100% accurate,
Richmond’s Brad Ohbliv does not shy away from
being mentioned in conjunction with musical
geniuses Madlib and the late James Yancey, aka JDilla. “I consider it an honor and great compliment to
be mentioned in any sentence with those guys. I have
mad respect for both of them. I could talk about their
music for days,” Ohbliv tells me sitting in his living
room (and music studio), located on the Southside of
Richmond. Always carving out his own unique sound,
the former MC, now an avant-garde music producer,
has begun to chart a new course in sound that he
hopes Richmond music fans will appreciate.
I first met Bradford Thomas Caudle, known to most
as Ohbliv, last year while photographing the hip hop
collective Just Plain Sounds (JPS). I was immediately
36
drawn to the soulful sounds that his fellow JPS comrades were freestyling over at The Shop. Every once in
a while, the unassuming producer would come from
behind his SP-404 and dance to his own groove or
drop a few bars, only to return to his SP to change up
the boom bap his teammates loved. I was unaware
of this the first time I met Ohbliv, but he was one half
of the team responsible for one of my favorite albums
of 2011, Yellow Gold, his collaboration album with
Richmond hip hop artist Nicklus F.
While Yellow Gold was highly praised among the
underground hip hop scene, Ohbilv is always on a
search for new sound. As I sat with him in his home,
we talked candidly about his music, his motivation,
and the relatively new spiritual journey through
sound that he finds himself on. The consummate
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
“ THAT WAS OUR GOAL, TO
MAKE A RECORD THAT
PEOPLE COULD LISTEN TO
YEARS DOWN THE LINE, AND
I FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT.”
workaholic, in 2012 Ohbliv has traveled often to New
York, San Francisco, and LA, playing gigs, meeting
contacts, and working on new music.
He describes his latest release, SLPHNC2 [Soulphonic-2], from June 2012, as one of his favorite of
his albums to date because it best displays his true
intentions in sound. “Oftentimes the sounds that are
in my mind doesn’t come out exactly how I would like
it on record,” he explains. “With SLPHNC2, it is really
what I wanted to get out. I’m proud of that.”
Musical talents like Ohbliv do not come around often.
His sound ranges the spectrum from hip hop, to funk,
to soul, to even that 80’s rock that unites all walks
of life. He’s a throwback to a different era, while still
being ten steps ahead of his time. The real question
is: Can you catch up?
Let’s start with Yellow Gold. That is the first time I
was put on to your work and it just blew me away.
How did working with Nick F come about?
It’s funny how it all came together. I had known
about Nickelus F for a while--he is an O.G., a real
local legend with his skills. It wasn’t my intention to work with him. At the time, I really wasn’t
working with many rappers at all. But I had a
pretty big show that was sponsored by SHHO
(Student Hip Hop Organization), and I remember right after my set, Nick came up to me and
was like, “Yo, that set was crazy.” We connected,
exchanged contact information, and I just started
sending tracks to him. Initially, it was just going
to be a couple tracks for his upcoming project.
MUSIC OHBLIV
But his turnover rate is ridiculous. He would be
sending me back songs and ideas every day. And
then he was like, “You know what, let’s just do
an album.” It wasn’t really a big deal to us. We
were just doing it for the love of it. It definitely
wasn’t like, “We about to smash the game with
this record.” It was more like, “We dig each
other’s vibe and work ethic. We have a similar
approach to this project. Let’s put it out there
and see what happens.” So we ended up doing
Yellow Gold. SHHO supported and sponsored
the record. To this day, I still feel that it’s slept
on, but it definitely helped me get my work to a
wider market. Where I was coming from, I wasn’t
working with a lot of rappers, but it really changed
the landscape for me. It also solidified a new level
of credibility because I was able to really craft a
whole project. And even for Nick, we get a lot of
love about the project. It definitely motivated me
to keep going. Yellow Gold is a slow burning album, it’s really on some word of mouth type stuff.
Somebody has to be like, “Have you heard this
record?” But once you hear it, people really feel it.
They keep it and hold on to it. That was our goal,
to make a record that people could listen to years
down the line, and I feel good about it.
You mentioned that you feel the Yellow Gold
album is still slept on. Do you feel that you are
still slept on as a musician/producer?
Yes and no. I get mass amount of love from all
over the world. I have fans in Iceland. I’m about to
do a record with a label in Iceland. They are put-
ting out a 7” vinyl of my music. But at the same
time it’s so hard to get people to notice what I’m
doing right here in Richmond. This is not new;
I’ve been dealing with this my entire career. Back
when I started, I was mostly rapping. I wasn’t
going hard with the beats and production. It may
be different for other artists in other hometowns,
but I do feel Richmond often sleeps on their own
artists. Especially if the artist is not really blasting
their work out all the time through social media
and other outlets, it’s really easy to get lost in the
shuffle. So I do think that I’m slept on locally, but
I don’t think that is the case nationwide, because
I get booked out in California, San Francisco, New
York, Florida – and I’m dealing in a niche market
for the music I make. Don’t get me wrong, I love
Richmond, but we have never been on the cutting
edge of the music scene. We’ve always been
adapting to the most popping sounds we receive.
And I credit that diversity to my style as well. My
style is diverse because of the different sounds I
have heard living here, but with that, the people
in the city have a real hard time accepting and
embracing innovation. People in Richmond don’t
believe it until they see it work somewhere else on a bigger scale – and then they will embrace it.
That’s interesting that you hit that point, because
your following is very unique and made up of very
knowledgable and loyal music fans.
I really appreciate my fans. I take the time to
speak to my fans on facebook, twitter, soundcloud, emails, etc. When I first started, my focus
was really just one fan at a time. I’m not trying to
take over the world. I’m not trying to run RVA. I
just want to have my lane, and I want to stick to
that. If people want to join me on this ride, that is
great. I think when you do music with good intent,
from the heart and from the soul, people feel that
and respond to it. I want a really loyal following. If
you have a handful of people really excited about
your work, then it will spread out.
How do you describe the music you make? Is
there a certain internal place where your music
comes from?
Well, lately there has been a real place. When I
first started, I was just putting out records. I inherited a couple of stacks of records from my dad,
and in the beginning, it was just about hooking
up records and seeing what I could come up with.
But over time, my knowledge and attitude about
music has changed, and now I do come from
more of a spiritual place with my music. Especially at this time right now in 2012, there is a lot
of chaos going on in the world, a lot of craziness,
and a lot of lost souls and people. There is a lot
37
of misinformation, disinformation, and ignorance
in the world, and this may be a tall task that I
may not be able to accomplish, but my goal is to
change the frequency of people’s thinking and
the way that they understand hip hop and music
overall. I use to be on this term, “anti-bangers,”
meaning I was against the “club banger,” because
those bangers set the club off but there is no
emotional content behind the music. My whole
thing is trying to raise people’s vibrations through
sound. I have learned that there are different
octaves that strike different vibrations through
your body, so I take that knowledge and apply it
to what I do with certain samples and chops. I’m
looking to get an emotional response with my
sound. My music is all about spirit and emotion,
and that is the place I’m coming from right now. I
just want people to feel something.
So when you say spiritual, do you venture into
religion? I grew up Southern Baptist and there
is so much emotion in that sound… is that the
angle you are going for?
Not exactly, but to a degree yes. I grew up going
to church. I used to sing in the choir. I was really
involved until I was about 15, then I started to
back off a bit. It took me a really long time to get
back into religion. Once I started to learn more
about the ways of the world, my ideas about
38
religion changed. I got to a certain point where
surface knowledge was not enough. A lot of the
questions that I had were not being answered, so
I had to dig deeper. My music is a way of trying
to open up those senses to understand things
differently. Whether it’s social issues, spiritual
issues, or internal, we have to get out of the box. I
think that is another issue with music in general.
It’s too easy to put things in a box, but there are
some things that are better left unspoken and up
to your understanding.
It sounds like music is therapeutic to you.
Absolutely. I would go crazy if I didn’t have music.
I would probably be in jail or worse.
You are a different guy in 2012 then you were
when you first started making music. You have
a wife and a young son now. How have those
life changes influenced your music?
Before I was married, before I had my son, I was
just doing music as a hobby. It was something
to do and I was good at it. I got married, had my
son, and my mother passed away, all within 9
months. I was a wreck. I didn’t know what I was
going to do. I had all of these new responsibilities,
and music wasn’t really going the way I wanted
it to go. But that challenging time really made
me focus. It made me start to really think, and go
hard on what I wanted to accomplish. I was at
the crossroads and I just decided to go as hard
as I could.
The crossroads period, do you know the
specific moment or was it gradual?
It was gradual, because I had always been involved in music but for me to come to terms with
what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it
was pivotal. Those months, with all that tragedy
and joy, were such a rollercoaster. It really solidified my motivation. I did make a change during
that time, to fall back with rapping and go hard
with the beat making and production. I made that
change because at that particular time, I didn’t
want to talk about what was going on with me –
let alone rap about it. I just put it in my beats.
Some people will look back on a time like that
and say that’s when they did their best work.
Have you done your best work?
No. I don’t think so. I am my own worst critic. I
always take my work with a grain of salt, and I’m
always surprised at people’s reactions to my music. When I’m making music, I really don’t think
about people’s reactions. It just comes out. I listen
to it afterwards and make a call on if it’s good
enough to come out, or it needs more work.
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
Have you done something that you really just love?
Actually, the last EP that I just came out with,
SLPHNC2, I’m really proud of it. I feel like I was
finally able to put down what I was thinking in
my brain. To be honest, a lot of my stuff comes
together by mistake; especially with the SP404
that I use – it’s very open to improvisation. So a
lot of things that happen when I’m working on
music just happen organically. With this record,
the things that I had in my head, I was able to put
down. I really enjoy SLPHNC2, but I don’t think
it’s my best yet. I’m always trying to outdo myself.
Tell my about your musical influences. Where
do you get your inspiration from?
It’s a combination of many influences from older
stuff – I’m an old soul. If I had a preference, I
would listen to older school music over modern
stuff; including hip hop. Growing up, my parents
had the standard essential black family music
collection: Parliament, George Benson, and Michael Jackson. But then my folks had some really
out there stuff too. I’m talking some really rare
records you can’t find in the store. I would also
say that my peers influence me a lot. Locally, my
Just Plain Sounds partner Sleaze is a big influence
on me. My homies out in Cali, the homie Ahnnu
that’s in the collective Chocolate Milk with me. I
try to take influence from all over.
What’s the most important thing that you are
going to teach your son?
To always be himself. To know who you are – to
have knowledge of self. That is the foundation to
everything. If you don’t have knowledge of self,
you don’t know what you’re going to do in life. It
took me a long time, but gaining that knowledge
of self allows me to do what I do today, because
I’m secure in who I am and where I want to go in
life. I know who I am and I know my worth.
Do you brick? Have you put out a musical brick?
Oh yeah. Like I said before, people’s reactions to
my music completely surprise me. Sometimes I
“I MADE THAT CHANGE BECAUSE AT THAT PARTICULAR
TIME, I DIDN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT WHAT WAS GOING
ON WITH ME – LET ALONE RAP ABOUT IT. I JUST PUT IT
IN MY BEATS.”
MUSIC OHBLIV.BANDCAMP.COM
put out stuff just to gauge people’s reactions to
it. Other times I may put something out that I’m
feeling one day and I hate the next day. It’s really
confusing to me. Some of the stuff that I really
hate, people love. For example, on Yellow Gold, the
track “What to Believe,” I’m not really fond of that
beat, but people really responded to it. They really
like it. It’s always a gamble.
Tell me more about SLPHNC2.
It’s actually a continuation from last year’s
Soulphonic that I released thru SHHO. This is an
independent release. It has 9 tracks. The record
really reflects where my head is at right now. It
has some experimental sounds, there are some
groovy sounds – it is sample based. You can find
it on my Bandcamp.
What next for 2012? What can people expect
from Brad O?
They can expect some vinyl. I’ve got a 7” coming
out on vinyl with a label in Iceland. They just hit
me up on Soundcloud a couple months ago and
asked if I want to drop something with them. I’ve
got a spilt tape coming out with a guy named Dil
Withers from Seattle. It will be released through a
label called Dirty Tapes.
39
WORN IN RED
INTERVIEW BY GRAHAM SCALA
LIVE PHOTOS BY DAVE KLINGTHING
40
RVA MAGAZINE #10
to book there and it was one of those places that
people would just come to whether or not they
knew the bands. That’s awesome, it doesn’t happen in every town.
RVAMAG.COM
When that died, it became a lot harder to get
people to give a shit about loud bands. Most of
them broke up except for a few UVA bands scattered here and there. But a few people in town
realized that they didn’t want to just get old and
listen to bluegrass or jam bands, which are the big
things in Charlottesville, so all these other bands
popped up and we built a cool little scene. This
past Saturday night, we played our record release
show and almost 150 people came out to support
a screamy-ass punk band. And that blows my
mind, because that would never have happened
when we started. So if you have the right people
booking your show, you can have one that’s every
bit as appreciated as in Richmond.
But Richmond, unlike Charlottesville, where
people will come out for a band they know and
give a fair chance to any other band that’s playing,
seems more plugged into, “Oh, this touring band’s
coming through, I don’t care who the local is, I’m
just going for the headliner.” That’s just the nature
of being a bigger city.
Matt: Having more options.
S
ince 2004, Worn In Red has consistently
churned out material that recalls both the
moody post-hardcore of Hoover or Four Hundred Years and the triumphant rock-based approach
of Hot Water Music or Planes Mistaken For Stars.
Through years of steady touring, the band has refined
their approach, evolving more and more with each
succesive release. Banshees, their second full-length,
was just released on No Idea Records in time for a
three-week tour. I managed to get in a few questions
with drummer Brad Perry and bassist/vocalist Matt
Neagle.
You guys started in Charlottesville and now
half of you are Richmond-based. How do you
feel the two environments compare with each
other in terms of nurturing what you do?
Brad: In Charlottesville, we started at the tail end
of what was a really awesome scene centered
around the Tokyo Rose, which is still there in
name but they’ve gutted it and changed owners. I
think our second show was their last show. I used
MUSIC WORN IN RED
Brad: Having those options forces you to get to
know what’s up rather than just going to the one
loud rock show that happens that month. They
both have their strong suits--Charlottesville’s
got a really tight-knit community of people that
will come out and support those bands that
have been at it for a while, whereas in Richmond there’s so much going on that it’s hard to
convince people to give a shit, even people who
might otherwise like a band.
Matt: I have a lot of old friends too. They’re
getting too old for it. [affects tired older person
voice] “Ah sorry, Big Bang Theory marathon’s
on.” [laughs] Which I can understand, but they
just gotta be reminded that going to a show’s
awesome.
It took me a minute to figure out whether you
were saying “old friends” in the sense of people
you’ve known for a long time who support you or
people that are just chronologically advanced.
Brad: [laughs] Well, we’re older than most touring punk bands.
Matt: But not that old.
In punk years, you’re nearing grandfather age.
Brad: Yeah. I like that I remember some of Richmond’s history. Growing up in Fredericksburg, I
used to come to shows here and in DC.
Matt: Strange Matter’s the only place I still have
that’s been here since I was a kid. [affects a
weepy, maudlin tone] My parents don’t live in the
same house but I can go back to where Twisters
was and that’s the only place I have like that. And
now they put video games in and shit.
The sound you guys have on your last few
recordings reminds me of a lot of mid- to late-90s
bands – Maximillian Colby, Four Hundred Years,
Hoover, Hot Water Music, that sort of thing.
What does that era of music mean to you?
Brad: Growing up in Fredericksburg, I was
exposed to whatever DC and Richmond bands
played there. Through skate videos I was already
into Minor Threat, Black Flag, Descendents--all
the basics. Then I heard Fugazi because they’re
related to Minor Threat. And I heard Avail because they were playing all the time in Virginia
back then. But even those bands weren’t playing
house shows at that point, so seeing Maximillian Colby in somebody’s living room, just ending
up in a pile on top of each other, I thought it was
fucking insane. Dumb as it might sound to people
who are more learned about bands, because
I know there were plenty of bands doing that
before them, [but] that was the band that opened
my eyes to that kind of stuff. It sort of re-invented
punk for me and opened up my eyes to a whole
slew of bands. And Hot Water Music, seeing
them play basements when I was in school in
Harrisonburg was the same thing. That you can
have a melodic punk band that isn’t poppy. You
don’t have to be the Queers to still have melody
and to have--I hate to use the term because it’s
so loaded--an emotional element.
Matt: I think they’re calling it emo these days,
Brad. [laughs]
Brad: I just happened to be the right age to catch
that stuff when it was around. Going to school in
Harrisonburg in the mid- to late-90s, that was
“ IN RICHMOND THERE’S SO MUCH GOING ON THAT IT’S HARD TO
CONVINCE PEOPLE TO GIVE A SHIT, EVEN PEOPLE WHO MIGHT
OTHERWISE LIKE A BAND.”
41
the shit there. And, as uncool as this will sound in
our message board generation, there was a real
sincerity to those bands. They were singing about
things that mattered to them. In retrospect some
of it might seem stilted, but it felt real to everyone who was there when it was blowing up. And
that’s something indelible. I’ve never connected
with anything since then on the same level.
Matt: It comes in waves. When you’re nineteen
or twenty you’re full of emotions anyways. I
remember seeing, cheesy as it is to admit, Jimmy
Eat World and thinking that shit was awesome.
Or Converge, people piling up and screaming
their asses off. [feigns crying, voice cracking] It
was fucking awesome.
You’re really helping your emo credibility there.
Matt: There was an interview with one of my old
bands that said “Matt Neagle, Moby of emo.”
[laughs]
You look more like Moby and Ambrose
Burnside mixed together. Confederate Moby.
Brad: That’s the next band I’m starting. Fife and
drum techno.
So your newest album seems a little more
uptempo and rock-oriented than your previous
work. What motivated the shift in tone?
Brad: It’s more fun to play that stuff live.
all of us.
track. It was kinda Mike Patton-ish but really bad.
Matt: Most of these songs were also developed
playing live. We toured across the country with
them before recording them, I’ve never gotten to
do that.
Brad: You mean there’s good Mike Patton?
How has the songwriting approach evolved
since Matt’s been in the band?
Matt: The guitars, man. Joe and Brendan come
in with these riffs and Brad and I, since we’re five
years into it, knock it out. That’s the great thing
about being so familiar, you know what everybody
wants.
Brad: And we’ve had songs just come out of
screwing around at the beginning of practice. I
know that’s not revolutionary or anything.
Matt: [assuming the gravelly voice of an aging
rocker dude] I mean, it’s like the music gods were
talkin’ man.
Brad: But I don’t think the way we approach songwriting is vastly different from most other punk or
hardcore bands.
Matt: It just took us a long time to figure out that
we just need to let the guitarists write the songs.
Matt: Those were also the first songs that the
four of us wrote all together.
Brad: I will say that we’re more picky than any
band I’ve ever played with. We’ll dick around with
a part for months. We don’t just throw shit out
there, everybody has to be one hundred percent
on board.
Brad: The album before this had some songs that
were written before Matt was in the band, so this
is the first collection of songs that were written by
Matt: I even had some lyrics for one of the songs
on the record that were really bad. I hadn’t shown
‘em to anybody, just been doing them on my four-
42
Matt: I couldn’t tell if it was actually bad. I just
had to ask somebody.
Brad: So we told him. [laughs]
Your new album is the second you’ve done on
No Idea Records. I know that’s a big selling
point for a lot of bands, and have seen the logo
on your flyers before. What does that label
mean to you?
Matt: I feel like No Idea’s one of the only really
punk labels still around. None of the bands are
getting money for putting records out. You have
to pay for the recording, but they put it out and it
helps a band tour.
Brad: I’ve always called it the Dischord of the
South. Same model – handshake arrangements.
If you don’t want to get into the business side of
things, you better trust each other. It’s pretty rad
for a label that’s where they are, which is a decent
level. Since the downfall of ILC/ILD, they’ve become a pretty massive distribution base. They’ve
been at it for over twenty-five years and it’s pretty
rare for a label to have sustained itself at that level
through all the ups and downs and the bullshit.
We love them as people and a lot of the bands
they’ve put out.
Matt: [feigns getting choked up]
You had been a band for a half-decade
before putting out a full-length. How did that
extended gestation affect how you developed?
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
“ I WILL SAY THAT WE’RE MORE
PICKY THAN ANY BAND I’VE
EVER PLAYED WITH. WE’LL
DICK AROUND WITH A PART
FOR MONTHS. WE DON’T JUST
THROW SHIT OUT THERE,
EVERYBODY HAS TO BE ONE
HUNDRED PERCENT ON BOARD.”
Brad: We actually had recorded a full-length with
our old lineup which will never, ever be heard.
[laughs] If you’ve ever been in a band where you
didn’t have a PA and the first time you ever really
heard the vocals was when they were recorded,
you suddenly realize, “Oh my God, what the fuck
is going on?” That was what happened. I don’t
know how it affected things, other than [the fact]
that I had a chance to get better at drums before
anybody could hear me recorded. This was the
first band I’ve played drums in, so that was helpful. Because studio nerves exist.
Also, all the earlier stuff that nobody really has
ever heard or will ever hear was stuff that Joe
wrote before this was even a band, done in the
style of X or Y band. And the songs were good,
but they definitely sounded like those other
bands. So by the time we put something out with
the real Worn In Red lineup, we were able to do
stuff that was more indicative of what we were
trying to accomplish.
Matt: It was a rock opera. [laughs]
Brad: I prefer to think of it as a smooth jazz movement in B.
Matt: [whispering dramatically] Sketches Of
Richmond.
Brad: Neagle’s Brew.
One thing that was mentioned earlier was that in
punk years you guys are practically grandparents.
With that adulthood usually comes certain
responsibilities, employment-wise. How do
your respective work situations inform and
MUSIC WORN IN RED
accommodate what you do as musicians?
Brad: Up until recently, we toured in the winter
months a lot because Matt runs a food cart
downtown and doesn’t work in the winter. So
that’s just one less person that has to ask off
work. I’m back in school now, but my old job was
pretty flexible about when I could get off. Brendan
works for himself doing web design and Joe works
in a restaurant, so it didn’t really matter much, it
wasn’t seasonal. As far as what we do, I feel like
Matt’s job probably informs a lot of the lyrics.
Matt: Yeah, I work across the street from Cooch
[Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli], I see him roll
down with his entourage. And I’ve gotten to know
some of his employees and they can be fucking
awesome. One’s a metalhead, it’s kinda cool. But
you see both sides. It’s weird knowing that there
are cool Republicans.
Brad: Up until recently I was doing work on sexual
and domestic violence issues. I saw and heard
enough doing that kind of work that it kept me
wanting to listen to loud, cathartic music.
Matt: A lot of the songs on the new one were inspired
by interactions I had during the whole Occupy movement. I’d have these guys come up to my cart and I’d
take their order and they’d just start in on “you know
what I want to do is just take my SUV and run right
over those guys.” And when I explained those were
my friends they’d just move on to, “Oh, can I just get
some chicken salad?” It enraged me, but there’s a
couple songs about how the Occupy movement really
did inspire me, just how ordinary people could go after
what’s really wrong, the banks and all that.
Brad: Which you also are working right next to.
Matt: In the shadow of Suntrust.
What have been some high points of the band’s
existence so far?
Brad: Getting to tour Europe.
Matt: Bunch of the Fests [The Fest is a yearly
punk festival held in Gainesville, FL].
Brad: Especially the year we played there when
our first record came out. We played a 3 A.M.
post-Fest show and I didn’t think anybody was
going to be awake at that point, but we had a big
group of people come out who went apeshit and
gave it the last little bit that they had.
Where do you see Worn In Red heading?
Brad: I think Guy Fieri said it best...
Fuck you.
Brad: …we’re on a one-way bus to flavor town.
[laughs]
Matt: We’ll just keep writing. We’ve got the right
people to play and write songs.
Brad: We’re all such good friends, I don’t foresee
anything standing in the way. If we have to take
time off, so be it. It’s not like when you’re in your
twenties and you have some problems and immediately resort to, “Ah fuck it, the band’s done.”
I always want to play with these dudes. We leave
for tour in forty-eight hours. After that, I don’t
know. We always have short-term goals, if you
could even call them goals at all. Just write more
songs and try to get people to hear them.
43
44
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
FIRE BISON
W
aiting in the backstage corridors at Sprout,
the first show jitters assailed the three
members of Fire Bison. Despite the strong
showing of support from their friends, it was
impossible for them to know where any of this
was headed. They made their way to the stage
and made it through their first song. As the song
ended, a random audience member shouted out,
“That was awesome!” Fire Bison had earned a
fantastic first impression. From that point forward,
there was no end in sight.
Fire Bison began when two co-workers were
inspired to create something together. Adrienne
Shurte and Laurie Lay’s immediate sonic communications created a bond between the two, and
helped establish a design for their collaboration.
Drummer Wess Brockman was the final component added to the line-up. The last of a run of
temporary drummers, Brockman was the first to
fit in immediately. By the time Brockman showed
up, Shurte and Lay had determined most of the
structures of the songs. The simplicity of the
group’s lineup configuration helped to define their
roles within it. “Adrienne usually plays outside
of a basic chord mentality, so it requires me to
stretch my resources on bass to play to that,”
explains Lay. Brockman has contributions to make
as well. “I come from a background of primarily
BY SHANNON CLEARY
PHOTOS BY KRISTEN LAWRENCE
being a songwriter and I have found myself in the
role of drummer every so often,” he explains. “It’s
nice to take some of the background I have as a
drummer in grind bands and straightforward pop
bands and find a creative mix.”
Considering the prior work of each of these three
musicians, Fire Bison emerges from the remnants of widely varied musical styles. From the
post-hardcore of Segway Cops and Hail Hydra to
the indie pop of The Catnip Dreams and Jan And
Dan and the garage-rock of The Color Kittens,
a lot of different musical ingredients are being
thrown into the mix. All of these previous groups
add certain elements to the foundations of Fire
Bison’s sound. Ultimately, though, they are all so
different that it seems most likely that Fire Bison’s
sound stems primarily from the union of these
three unique musicians in a previously unexplored
musical realm.
Two of their earliest numbers,“Instigator” and
“Rocking Chair,” demonstrate the group’s prowess. “Rocking Chair,” which ties together a subtle
opening and a dynamic and raucous finale, is
a proper testament to the band’s unorthodox
songwriting approach. By avoiding a reliance on
simply mashing chords together, Shurte is able
to combine elements that musically illustrate the
world these songs manifest. The interlocking lyri-
cal exchange between Lay and Shurte is particularly fascinating. When asked about this, the two
mention that each band member contributes the
majority of their own vocal parts. “Everyone has
a say in their lyrics, and it makes the stories we
tell that much more interesting,” Shurte says. “It
helps for us to take an idea of where a [narrative]
is headed in a Fire Bison song, and all contribute
what we want for each aspect,” Lay adds.
The material that followed their initial songwriting burst showed a new lyrical direction for the
group, one that involved increased complexity
and a more detailed composition process. “[The
way] we put songs together might not be practical, but a lot of the words are plot-driven,” Shurte
explains. The band has developed a fascination
with disturbing scenarios. “We do creepy lyrics,”
Shurte continues. “The song ‘Married Men’ has
a lot to do with a girl who messes with [the]
heads [of men] that she thinks are awful people.
[It] focuses on the more fucked up, manipulative
aspects of her active role in hurting these men.”
Other songs like “Birds,” which references the
classic Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name,
fit into a cinematic ideal. This shows up again on
an even newer song that takes place in a fantasy
dimension. “The new song takes place in a dark
forest with babies with sharp teeth and claws
“ I KNOW IT SOUNDS STRANGE, BUT I FEEL LIKE IF
YOU ARE INTO COMIC BOOKS OR SCIENCE FICTION,
THIS COULD BE REALLY UP YOUR ALLEY.”
MUSIC FIRE BISON
45
chasing everyone,” Shurte explains. “I know it
sounds strange, but I feel like if you are into comic
books or science fiction, this could be really up
your alley.” Lay immediately points out that such
subject matter really isn’t that strange at all for
Fire Bison. “I think we all find inspiration in so
many different places,” she says. “It doesn’t seem
too wild that we would venture here. I mean,
we are just three creepy, drunk people after all.”
“Three creepy drunk girls,” Brockman quickly
corrects her. The entire band bursts into laughter,
showing their easy cameraderie.
A question about the song “Glitter Girls” brings
forth much discussion among the three bandmates. It’s one of their more complicated songs
to pull off live, yet there is a certain emotion
behind it that resonates deeply with almost every
audience that has had the opportunity to see it.
“A woman came up to me one night after our set
and was just floored by the amount of emotion
46
behind that song,” Lay says. “It really meant a lot
to have someone come up to us and acknowledge that what we were doing wasn’t just a ‘cool’
thing, [but that] this is what we should be doing.”
Lyrically, “Glitter Girls” ponders the way society’s
construction of rigid, cosmetically enforced gender roles can restrict the opportunities available
to women, regardless of their talent and potential
contributions in areas having nothing to do with
physical appearance. As a band built around the
work of talented female musicians, Fire Bison
force audiences to re-evaluate their expectations
of bands with female members--one of several
reasons they are an integral asset to the city’s
scene.
When asked about other bands Fire Bison consider themselves to have a close musical kinship
with, the easy answer was The Milkstains. In
the wake of the two bands having spent time on
the road together, the dynamic seems natural.
“When we got John Sizemore to play on one of
our songs, it was just so great,” Shurte recalls.
“He already has all the scales down and can really
just pick up the pieces immediately. He adds this
weird spaghetti western vibe to the track that
I couldn’t even comprehend when it all started
to come together.” “The funny thing is that our
sounds aren’t really alike at all,” Lay says. “I don’t
think that matters too much. Even within our own
band, we enjoy a lot of different styles of music. If
anything, that can only contribute to us creating
a Fire Bison sound.” The influences the members
of Fire Bison list are all over the place. Shurte expresses a penchant for all things Nick Cave, while
Brockman started off into grindcore yet slowly
moved on to becoming a huge Morrissey fan.
Lay’s background indicates a mentality from the
world of garage rock and go-go, but that hasn’t
limited her from exploring the musical interests of
her collaborators.
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
“THERE ARE SO MANY AWESOME PROJECTS THAT ARE GOING ON
CONSTANTLY THAT SOMETIMES A BAND WILL FALL TO THE WAYSIDE AND
NEVER REALLY ACHIEVE AS MUCH AS THEY SHOULD. WITH FIRE BISON,
THIS IS THE FURTHEST I FEEL LIKE I HAVE GOTTEN WITH A GROUP OF
MUSICIANS, AND I WANT TO SEE THIS THROUGH.”
Fire Bison spent some time earlier attempting to
record a debut release. The results weren’t terrible by any means, but they weren’t as satisfying
as the band felt they should be. “We went down
to Virginia Beach and it’s really no one’s fault,”
Shurte recalls. “I just think there was a communication breakdown between us and the producer.”
Since then, there have been constant demands
for a release, which the band has heard loud and
clear. Within the past month, they have spent
a weekend at Sound of Music Studios, where
Shurte also interns. The plan is to record four
songs and figure out the best means of releasing them, perhaps as a vinyl EP. They may not
altogether abandon the Virginia Beach sessions,
either--they could see the light of day on a cassette release.
Following the potential release of these recordings in October, the band wants to continue
hitting the road. “I’d like to see us travel as far as
MUSIC FIRE BISON
Europe by next summer,” Shurte exclaims. The
biggest priority for the band is to just get their name
out there and not fall into a Richmond curse of sorts.
“What I think holds Richmond back is the fact that
we are so spoiled with having so many bands and
musicians in town,” Shurte adds. “There are so many
awesome projects that are going on constantly that
sometimes a band will fall to the wayside and never
really achieve as much as they should. With Fire Bison, this is the furthest I feel like I have gotten with a
group of musicians, and I want to see this through.”
are because we are a band fronted by two women.
My first thought to that is ‘Fuck you.’ It’s never been
about that, and it never will be about that. I play
music because it’s what I want to do, and it means
a tremendous amount to me. I don’t want people to
look at Fire Bison as a chick band. I don’t want to be
seen as a girl that can really wail at guitar. I just want
to be seen as a person who plays music, and have
all the gender identification bullshit thrown away. It’s
not worth any of our times and if anything, it takes
away from what Fire Bison is all about.”
The band hasn’t been without a few hardships. It’s
disheartening to recognize that there could be sexist
reactions that are prevalent when people see a band
fronted by women. Shurte hopes to escape all of the
nonsense, allowing Fire Bison to be the band she
has always dreamed of being in. “That is one thing
that has driven me insane as a whole,” she says.
“There are people that will come up to me and make
a remark about how we are only as popular as we
What is Fire Bison all about? They are a remarkable group of talented musicians that not only
bond over their solid musical foundation, but are
taking a new and exciting approach to prove their
social relevance in a male-dominated scene. Their
fantastic tales, spilling over with creepiness and
a penchant for exploration of human follies, are
what make Fire Bison a band to keep an eye on.
47
HERMES
48
BLOOMING SELF PORTRAIT
RVA MAGAZINE #10
OCCULTIST
INTERVIEW BY ADDISON HERRON-WHEELER
PHOTOS BY SARJA HASSAN
R
RVAMAG.COM
ichmond VA has always been known for
it’s quality punk and metal bands. Anyone
who frequents metal and punk shows in
Richmond knows that crossover bands, which
combine elements of metal and punk music into
a powerful hybrid sound, are a staple at almost
every local show. GWAR and Municipal Waste
both brought this wonderful cross-pollination
to the nation and the world with their goofy,
thrashy brands of punk-tinged metal and metaltinged punk, respectively. Recently, doom bands
like Inter Arma and Cough, as well as hardcore
punk like Unholy Thoughts and Dry Spell, have
also been making a name outside of RVA. As
awesome as that is for the local scene, those
bands represent their respective scenes, rather
than a blending of the two--which is what makes
the recent popularity of local crossover group
Occultist so exciting. Not only does this band play
thrashy, punky, hardcore metal that every fan of
either genre can enjoy, they are down-to-earth
people who appreciate heavy music of all genres,
and are themselves big supporters of Richmond’s
extreme music scene.
Occultist is made up of Leland Hoth on drums,
Jim Reed and Ken Jung on guitar, Nathaniel Acker
on bass, and Kerry Zylstra on vocals. The group
started in 2009 in Jackson Ward, and have since
been forced to acquire an actual practice space
due to the fact that the neighbors found them
“brutally loud.” Zylstra is the newest member
of the band, having joined in 2010 when Will
Towles, their original singer, left the group.
“I had seen Occultist play quite a few times and
and loved their sound,” says Zylstra. “I was also
friends with the other band members and it had
been a long-term goal of mine to front a punk/
metal band.” Zylstra’s dynamic stage presence
and abrasive shrieks gained the band even more
attention, and they began getting booked for more
shows and bigger events. Although the presence
of an attractive female frontperson seems like it
might elicit some unsavory responses from smallminded fans, Zylstra says she hasn’t had to deal
with too many jerks. “I do feel as though people
focus on my gender quite a bit, but I haven’t
encountered any major negativity,” she says.
Although she has had to deal with the inevitable
sexist comments at bigger shows where the
crowd isn’t made up entirely of punks and locals,
the good has far outweighed the bad.
The band has also undergone some stylistic
changes in the past two years. What started as
a straight-forward punk/metal powerhouse has
evolved into a far more complex musical project,
with the guitarists focusing a lot more on melody
and strong riff-writing. “There has always been
a focus on musicianship, although admittedly
the songwriting has definitely gravitated more
towards the visceral and primitive aspects of
punk and metal that Kerry’s vocal approach
lends perfectly to,” says Reed. The group usually
combines to write songs, and then presents the
material to Zylstra, who listens to them until
lyrical inspiration strikes her. Her lyrics are often
dark and dystopian, with lines like: “Deaf to our
cries, revenge ensues/ The cost of convenience:
humanity dies/ A tortured planet turns on itself/
We writhe in despair” (“Gamma Tomb”). While
this is usual fodder for punk bands, it is a far cry
from darkly happy GWAR tunes or Municipal
Waste party anthems,.
Occultist have been busy this past year in the
studio and on tour, making moves to ensure their
greatness in the annals of metal. Their latest EP,
Hell By Our Hands, was recently-self released on
tape, to the delight of many a classic format-snob.
“We’ve always liked the mystique and sound of
the old metal or punk demo tapes,” says Reed.
“Since all of us have traded or collected tapes
ourselves, it only made sense to have our first
‘official’ release in this classic format.” The slightly
fuzzy feel of the recording does lend a very
distinct credibility to a crusty metal release like
theirs, but the good quality and actual attention
to detail in the recording and producing of the
EP, often purposely overlooked by punk bands
trying to sound “raw,” keeps it far from the realm
of novelty item. The band also went on tour with
splatter-thrash legends Ghoul, no small feat for a
three-year-old local band. “I met the Ghoul guys
while working for GWAR,” says Reed, “gave them
a copy of my demo, [and] months later Scott
[Bryan] from Ghoul called me and said that they
really enjoyed it and that the band they were
taking along on tour broke up. I mentioned that
we were available, and away we went.” The band
was received well on the tour, and returned to a
barrage of local bookings, including one at this
year’s GWAR-B-Q--their second appearance at
this local event.
While the group has yet to get signed or achieve
huge national status, they have made a great
showing for themselves as a strong, up-andcoming local band. “I am flattered that there
are those who feel that there should be a wider
beam cast on our efforts, says Reed. “A lot of our
friends’ bands garner interest nationally, but we
don’t really focus on that. It would be great to hit
Europe, Japan or Australia, but in the meantime, I
think we’ll continue to handle things one day at a
time and see where that will take us.”
Maybe it’s the combination of rumbling bass,
pounding drums, and double-guitar riffing
onslaught that makes the band irresistible to punk
and metalheads alike. Or maybe it’s Zylstra’s
uncompromising stage presence and unique voice.
But whatever it is, Occultist have already established
themselves as the emerging face of Richmond’s grimy
underbelly, to the delight of headbangers everywhere.
“ THE BAND HAS ALSO UNDERGONE SOME STYLISTIC CHANGES IN THE
PAST TWO YEARS. WHAT STARTED AS A STRAIGHT-FORWARD PUNK/METAL
POWERHOUSE HAS EVOLVED INTO A FAR MORE COMPLEX MUSICAL
PROJECT, WITH THE GUITARISTS FOCUSING A LOT MORE ON MELODY
AND STRONG RIFF-WRITING.“
MUSIC OCCULTIST
49
HERMES
BLOOMING SELF PORTRAIT
SEVEN HILLS CREW
50
RVA MAGAZINE #10
MONSTER
BY SEAN SCHULTZ
G
WAR’s shadow is long.
Scan the show calendars of Kingdom or
Strange Matter and you’re likely to find a litany
of grimly named hardcore/metal acts. At some
point in the late ‘80s when most cities wanly
eyed the dregs of punk and shunted the bottle
aside, Richmond flagged the bartender down for
a harder cocktail with a keener edge. Blast beats
and sub-120 second nihilism put down their roots
in the former Confederate capital and found rich
soil. Why exactly RVA musicians dove headfirst
into hardcore punk is an open question, but to me
the disconnect between our homegrown scene
and the national soundscape stands out like a
boil-red zit.
RVAMAG.COM
A glance at the last two years of top Billboard
albums shows that, in general, Americans choose
to drop coin on pop, rap, and the hybrids born
thereof. Rick Ross recently celebrated his fourth
chart-topping album with over 218,000 copies
sold, and Nas held the number-one spot with Life
Is Good two weeks earlier. Meanwhile, R&B artist
Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange is one of the mosttalked-about LPs of 2012. If Jay-Z and Kanye
weren’t sufficiently ham-handed on Watch The
Throne to get the message across, contemporary
hip-hop is Big Time, Big Money, and probably
cracking open the night’s first Ciroc while Mr.
Indie Rock anxiously strokes his beard at the club
door.
Richmond might bleed punk, but that hardly
means we’re immune to national trends. As you
march down Main Street into Shockoe Bottom,
syncopated bass booms and hi-hats marking
manic 32nd notes doppler in and out. These
days, hip-hop dominates the airwaves while its
sensibilities leak into other genres like a breached
dam. So even in a town of diehard punk rockers, it
comes as no surprise that RVA natives are grinding in the studio, laying down their own raps.
When I first meet Cons, we are at his apartment,
located a few blocks from Kingdom in Shockoe
Bottom. It’s a humid night in July and the living
room is crammed full of musicians, artists, and
friends stretched across couches listening to
instrumentals. After expansive spitballing about
the Flower of Life, attaining spiritual self-knowledge, meditation, and the veracity of life truths
imparted from alleged alien abductees, I sit down
with Cons to talk about his music and Richmond
hip-hop.
“The more you learn about the rap scene in Richmond,” he says, slouched on the couch, “there’s
really not much.” He sees a lot of aspiring rappers
and producers in Richmond but few who seem
willing to dive in headfirst and devote every fiber
to their work. “It becomes an essential part of
your life when you do it for real,” Cons says with
evident conviction.
Cons can speak with some authority on dedication. He tried his hand at production during high
school by fooling around on GarageBand like other enterprising teens, and found early inspiration
in Kanye West’s samples. Over years of tinkering
and tweaking, he began to perceive music as a
serious endeavor. A bright student, Cons gained
acceptance to William & Mary but decided after
MUSIC SOULPOWER
his freshman year to make bold moves and drop
out in order to focus on music.
To be clear, Cons is a young artist still cutting his
teeth. Loops feature prominently in his productions, especially earlier material, but check the
progression of his work on SoundCloud from past
to present and you get the feeling of a flower
gradually unfurling. Over time, songs incorporate
lush samples with increasing fluidity. They blossom from basic loops on “Ponderings” to greater
structural sophistication on “Thru The Window”
and “Where I Am,” a Charles Diamond track that
flips a contemplative Postal Service sample to
great effect. Even the instrumentation visibly expands. Though Cons was trained on piano as a kid
and the instrument pops up often in his melodies,
lately he’s toyed with sampling a croaking frog.
Moreover, he’s drawing on musical influences far
beyond those of Kanye. Cons calls Richmond rapper Lil Ugly Mane, whose overlooked 2012 horrorcore masterpiece Mista Thug Isolation should
not be slept on, a musical revelation. Talking with
him, I feel I’m getting a snapshot of a musician in
the process of finding himself. Not yet beholden
to ingrained habits, he’s feeling out his sound with
each fresh experiment.
“I CAN’T REALLY SAY
WHAT’S ABOUT TO
HAPPEN, BUT I’M
LOOKING TO MAKE
MOVES, AND MAKE
THE RIGHT ONES.”
Fortunately, Cons has more than enough outlets
to cultivate further skills. His production and
mixing know-how are in demand among local
rappers. A week after our introduction, Cons sits
cross-legged on his bed and plays me a few tracks
off of a new mixtape, KVRMA, he’s mixing by RVA
rappers The Terrorist Posse. “You get an ear for
putting the vocals in a space, for creating the right
space for the voice inside of the instruments,” he
explains. There’s a pause as he queues the next
track, and then “Laidback Remix” begins. I can see
Cons’ tongue move, silently tracing the contours
of each rhyme as he mouths Lex The Pharaoh’s
verse. Cons didn’t produce this EP, but mixing is
itself a laborious process that requires countless
attentive hours of fine-tuning. I’m certain he’s replayed “Laidback” a thousand times over, yet any
observer can see he’s still enamored from the way
his head nods. The track pops, and I’m impressed.
Terrorist Posse is a mix of rappers and producers
with a decidedly dark signature sound who run in
the same circle as Cons. Three members--Nova,
Lex, and Karmah--are part of the lounging crowd
on that first steamy July visit. So is reedlike Jo
Casino, another up-and-coming RVA rapper you
may recognize from his “16 Bars” video series
and Gritty Gully, released earlier this year. On my
second visit, Avance of heavy-hitters Mix Breed
Entertainment relaxes on a back room mattress.
Cons collaborates frequently with all of the above,
and, from my perspective, these Richmond rappers and producers of many flavors appear in
loose orbit around some central locus. The apartment unquestionably provides a convenient space
in which to congregate and work at double-time
to create music in intimate back-and-forths, but
the particular contribution of Cons’ production
plays no small part in their collective bond.
Mix Breed, Jo Casino, The Terrorist Posse, BLACK
KRVY, Creeper Da Reaper – this is far from an exhaustive list of Richmond hip-hop. It is, however, a
highly visible chunk, and that’s not only an indicator of quality music and good fortune. The buzz
they’ve garnered, or rather earned, also reveals
willful marketing hustle. Each musician leverages
technology to the hilt to pump their music out to
potential listeners and engage with fans. Image
and backstory often propel an artist almost as
much as their art, and Cons & co. are savvy about
crafting their brand in all the right ways.
In the midst of thick smoke whorls and emphatic
chatter, Cons’ residential pressure-cooker has inevitably generated artistic cross-pollination, in the
Realm Musical and elsewhere. Cons’ roommate
is graphic designer Tom Hart of NoNameNoBrain
Productions, and wherever you look Hart’s stickers brighten dimly-lit surfaces: furniture, cabinets,
even the iron spiral staircase. In dozens of striking
styles of saturated colors, these adornments
proclaim the name of Seven Hills, Hart’s brand
and line of streetwear. Perhaps it was inevitable
that the images would seep from their adhesivebacked prisons into the minds of the apartment’s
denizens. But whether through act of inspired
metonymic appropriation or heartfelt embrace of
Hart’s branding, the several artists who make this
their second home have found their name.
These days anyone with internet access and a
halfway decent USB microphone can declare
themselves the next hip-hop great, but few exude
the energy and work ethic that places the Seven
Hills crew in the field of true contenders. Making
a name for yourself in the rap game is a tough
gig, a battle of tooth and nail that requires wading
past a deluge of street corner lyricists. Ultimately,
only the cream will rise to the top. Breaking
through won’t be easy but each late night toil
brings the Seven Hills one day closer. “I can’t
really say what’s about to happen, but I’m looking
to make moves, and make the right ones,” Cons
says. In the meantime, production is ongoing for
Jo Casino’s upcoming project, Spacebound, and
Cons promises to showcase his own lyrical chops
on a future release. Self-produced, of course.
From a cozy squat on the living room floor, Jo
Casino chimes in with wisdom learned from
Richmond rap/R&B veteran Nickelus F: “Don’t
have a Plan B.” Cons agrees. “If you only wanna
do music, only do music,” the 20-year-old says.
Here, enmeshed in a circle of smoking, contemplative musicians trading shop talk, the decision
to renounce academic hoop-jumping and meritocratic baubles for creative immersion seems like a
risk worth taking.
51
PROVERBIAL
T
heir name Proverbial is an ambiguous one; the
word is defined as “well known” and “stereotypical,” but commits itself to nothing in particular.
However, despite the fact that the name is not one
that easily indicates what genre the band belongs
to, Proverbial is, in the end, a fitting moniker for this
seven-piece RVA band, whose members pride themselves on their musical diversity. Phil Walker (Keys/
Vocals), Thomas Whitesell (Sax/Rhymes), Stephen
Holicky (Lead Guitar/Vocals), Michael Keeter (Lead
Vocals/Rhythm Guitar), Scott Gerry (Bass), Ryan
Harlowe (Drums), and Kevin Condrey (Percussion)
come together to form this rock/funk/rap/reggae/
etc. hybrid that’s been packing venues and confusing
industry professionals for the past three years.
Proverbial is a well-rounded and talented group.
Their business sense and work ethic has afforded
52
BY DAN ANDERSON
PHOTO BY JOE OPYT
them the many spoils of an unconscious battle
waged against knee-jerk assumptions and in favor
of their broad sound spectrum and difficult-topigeonhole musical style. They pride themselves on
their infectious rhythms and positive vibes, which
radiate with every public performance. As a result,
their many fans are dedicated to the cause. Those
that know Proverbial know them well, and are
willing to travel great distances to see them play.
Those that don’t know them tend to discount them,
possibly due to the lack of easy categorization that
would be provided by a more defining name. However, more often, the opinions of the doubters tend
to be shaped by those disturbed by a positive presence, who are unwilling to let go of their inhibitions
and give in to Proverbial’s underlying message that
everything’s gonna be alright.
Proverbial’s resumé boasts top honors from every
competition and battle they’ve entered. They’ve
signed a record deal with Spectra, while managing to
book their own tours, traveling regularly out of state
and performing at rock venues up and down the East
Coast, all while facilitating an enthusiastic audience
in what is arguably one of the most difficult cities
in which to do so. While other local acts pick and
choose their venues based on their fans’ willingness
to cross rivers and enter into counties that lie outside
the Richmond city limits, Proverbial transcends barriers and borders successfully. Against all odds, they’ve
been league leaders in developing an organic sense of
community in a music scene previously known for it’s
cannibal tendencies. Richmond has embraced them
as it would a cover band, but unlike cover bands, Proverbial has a catalogue of well written original tunes
that win crowds over every time they play.
RVA MAGAZINE #10
“ WE’RE A LIVE BAND THAT PLAYS SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN
MOVE TO. THAT’S STRENGTH, AND IF YOU PUT US IN FRONT OF
PEOPLE, THEY FIND SOMETHING THEY CAN LATCH ONTO.”
For their fans, Proverbial represents brotherhood and
prosperity. But for Richmond, Proverbial represents
the future. I sat down with Mike, Harlowe, and Scott
to shed some light on the past, present, and future of
Proverbial.
You all come from different musical
backgrounds. How would you specifically
classify Proverbial?
Scott: That’s a tough one.
How do other people classify Proverbial?
Scott: A lot of times, [as a] jam band.
Mike: Jam band, reggae/rock.
RVAMAG.COM
Do you guys think you’re a jam band?
Scott: We can jam.
Mike: I mean, there are different elements to us.
Yes, we get considered a jam band, but I don’t
think we’re in that classification. One thing that
we try to do is make sure we fit in to every classification. That’s why we do the hip hop, rock, reggae... we take it all and mash it together like a bag
of assholes. I don’t think we’re at all a jam band. I
don’t know what other people think a jam band is,
I guess. Unless they mean a band that puts a lot
into their musicianship and can improvise. Which
we do.
Harlowe: We do a little bit.
Mike: The music represents how the person
feels about it when they listen to it. It doesn’t
really matter what we meant when we wrote it.
It doesn’t really matter what we were going for.
It matters what each individual person feels, and
what they take away from it. I don’t think we’re
really a jam band, but I don’t think [being a jam
band] is necessarily a bad thing, either.
What do guys think is the strongest element
of Proverbial?
Scott: Harlowe’s right hand.
Harlowe: It’s all the different styles that we
[represent].
Mike: It might be cliché but I definitely think it’s
our chemistry. We get up [onstage] and we feed
off each other. Every practice, there’s a new song,
a new something. I feel like that’s our biggest
strength. When we get onstage, you should be
able to see it.
How does Proverbial stand out from other bands?
Harlowe: Different styles.
Scott: We don’t sound like other bands. If we do,
it’s for a song, or a part of a song.
Harlowe: Two lead singers and a rapper.
Scott: Four part harmonies.
You guys have been doing your thing for
over three years now. You’ve built a solid
foundation underneath yourselves by
amassing quite a following. Is there any
advice you can give other bands that have
had a problem doing this?
MUSIC PROVERBIAL
Scott: Make friends and support other bands.
Mike: Go see other bands. We were very fortunate, at first, to have seven guys who brought
out a lot of friends. Put yourself out there, and go
meet other people who enjoy live music. Meet
people who enjoy playing music.
Five of the seven members of Proverbial
grew up in the Richmond area. Has Richmond
changed for the better or worse?
Harlowe: For the better, but I do miss the old
punk scene.
Mike: For the better. There wasn’t a lot of diversity when it came to the music scene. It was punk
and metal when it came to your main forefronts.
People still [assume], when they talk about Richmond. They think there’s mainly a lot of punk and
metal kids. I think that we as a city have branched
out into everything.
Mike: For someone to be a full time member, I
don’t think so. Before we had Kevin, I didn’t think
[there was room for him]. But when Kevin came
to the table, he knew all of our songs. Him and
Harlowe work [well] together because he fills in
Harlowe’s dead space, making each song a little
more intricate. Anyone can sit in on an album or
show, but for a full time member, no.
What’s the most entertaining part of Proverbial?
Scott: The chemistry. I can’t even tell you what’s
going on stage. It’s better than sex, to me. It’s an
ear-fuck. It’s like chasing the dragon. It’s the most
addictive part.
Harlowe: Playing and traveling. It’s going on
the road.
You guys drink a lot. Does Proverbial have a
preferred beverage?
Harlowe: They all like Jager. I fucking hate it.
Harlowe: VCU is helping. The bigger that school
gets, it brings in more artistic kids.
Mike: It would be the medicine. Thomas’ dad
makes this wine we call the medicine.
Scott: The Internet is helping too. There’s even
more bands now because of the Internet. [Back in
the day], you could be at one show, while a hundred other shows are going on, and you’d never
know about it unless someone tells you. Because
of the Internet, I know about at least ten shows
going on every Friday/Saturday night. It used to
be very competitive, but I’m seeing a lot of bands
helping each other instead of trying to beat each
other out.
Tell me about your last album.
Scott: Fourteen tracks of deliciousness.
Do you think think that Proverbial would have
a shot at being as successful in Richmond ten
years ago?
Harlowe: Why not?
Scott: One of our weaknesses--it’s a perceived
weakness, but when we talk to industry professionals, [they say things like]: “How do I market
you?” We’re a live band that plays something that
you can move to. That’s strength, and if you put
us in front of people, they find something they
can latch onto. It’s fun, and it gets people moving.
So yes, in any decade, I think if you’re drawing
people in with diverse music, you have a good
chance of being successful.
Since we’re still talking about strengths, one of your
strengths that I perceive as a key to your success
is that you have so many hot girls come out to your
shows. How do you make that happen?
Mike: You’re not the first person to say that.
We’ve been blessed. Having seven guys in a band
who know a lot of hot girls who have hot friends
makes it easy. I love getting [onstage] and playing
for a crowd of hot girls.
Scott: It helps that Mike gets on stage and starts
singing like a banshee.
You guys have seven members. Is there any
room for another member in Proverbial?
Harlowe: I don’t think so.
Scott: We’ll jam with anybody, anytime.
Harlowe: Fourteen tracks that were recorded in
a month’s time. Recorded in the basement of the
original band house at 101 S. Addison.
Mike: A lot of people don’t know this but we
booked our album release party before we had
any details about what was going to go on the
album. Being our first album, we definitely rushed
it. We had some people put their ear to it and give
us good feedback. Next time, we’ll definitely not
book a record release party before we have an
album finished.
“The End is Never” is one of my favorite songs,
ever. Can you tell me what inspired that song?
Mike: Back in ‘07, one of my good friends passed
away. One of his sayings was “Live life to the fullest.” We’d be sitting around bullshitting and he’d
say, “Look, we’ve got no time. Let’s go out. Let’s
do this. The end is never.” Randomly, right when
Thomas and Steve moved downtown, I was at a
party over off Main St. and Steve started playing
the riff, on the guitar. I wrote the chorus freestyle
right then and there. This was like a year and a
week from when he passed away. The party was
with a bunch of people who had come back from
a memorial. It’s [about] always thinking that it’s
never going to end; everything’s always going
to keep on going. I wrote it because he always
thought that. I’m not telling a story that is true
in the lyrics. Its just metaphors for the different
situations in people’s lives. He lived never worrying about the end. He was just doing it and being
happy doing it.
How far along are you on the next album?
Mike: We have sixteen tracks that are contenders. We actually have plans to start recording in
August. We plan on putting out an EP first. Our
friends and fans have been begging us to let them
learn the words to the new songs.
53
BRAIN DRAIN AT CLUB 534
LONG JAWNS
BY ALEXANDER ROSE / PHOTO BY NEBIYU A MEHARI
I
f you’ve regularly danced in public in the Richmond
or Hampton Roads areas anytime in the past few
years, chances are you’ve done so at least once at
Brain Drain, Audio Ammo’s legendary monthly dance
party. And at that point in the evening when you fell
in love with someone you’ve never seen since, chances
are that the man who provided the soundtrack to which
you danced (not so) casually across the room was Long
Jawns. Long Phung, aka Long Jawns, has played shows
in Miami and Los Angeles, but he calls Richmond home.
He’s an old-fashioned DJ, in the sense that he began
by spinning vinyl and prefers to do it that way. He got
his start throwing parties as part of the Audio Ammo
DJ crew. These days, if you find a banging dance party
anywhere in Richmond, Long Jawns is probably rocking
it. When he’s not DJing at venues in Richmond, he is collaborating with Washington, DC producer Billy the Gent.
Together, Gent & Jawns have been making some rather
large moves in the electronic music world. Their first
single, “Vibrate,” took the festival season by storm last
year as it was played to crowds of thousands by A-list
DJs worldwide. Recently, their collaboration with megaproducer Diplo has yielded a track, “Butters Theme,”
which helped place the Express Yourself EP, on which
it was released, at the #1 spot on the iTunes Electronic
charts. Richmond may be Long’s home, but his fame is
spreading far and wide. Let’s take a peek inside the mind
of Audio Ammo DJ and produer Long Jawns.
It’s safe to say that you have played in nearly
every possible venue throughout Richmond.
What are some of the earliest memories you
have of playing here?
My friends and I used to have loft parties above
the 1708 Gallery on Broad. Huge living rooms and
stairs up to a rooftop. Those were the first shows I
played outside of my bedroom. I was probably 19
at the time.
How did those parties end up, compared to now?
Back then, people went to the clubs and stuff, but
actual crazy/anything goes parties were more along
the lines of what I was doing. I’m sure there have
been those types of parties since, but it honestly felt
like a movie back then. Tons of people, loud music...
seriously, it was anything goes.
Do you remember the music you were playing
back then?
I actually started out playing a lot of underground
hip hop. RJD2, El-P... I was playing that at prime time
during those parties!
After those parties started to slow down,
where did you go?
Those parties went on for quite a while. It was
probably two years before I DJed at an actual establishment. I was usually DJing a house party at
least once every weekend. This was before there
was a crackdown on a lot of this style of music
and partying in the city.
Tell us a little about the Audio Ammo crew that
you are a part of.
It was just a bunch of my friends and I hanging
out for a while. The name did not come about
until a few years later. Doddie, Alex, some others,
and I were all just playing parties and listening to
music together, and [Audio Ammo] just happened once we started to throw parties.
It seems like a lot of the members have moved
on to other projects outside of Richmond.
What is everyone up to these days?
Alex Seamans (DJvsWILD) moved to NYC and
helps throw parties with Trouble & Bass Records
in Brooklyn. Doddie has been hosting Brain Drain
parties in Virginia Beach, and Bobby LaBeat has a
few residencies at places throughout Richmond.
You’ve gained quite a bit of success working
with Washington, DC Audio Ammo member
Billy the Gent. Tell us how this all came about.
We actually met in 2002. He was living in Richmond and I met him outside of a 7-11 through a
mutual friend. Not sure how I remember that.
[laughs] But I met him again almost two years
ago. I was living in Northern Virginia and our
friend Max figured that since we were getting
down with the same types of music, it’d be cool
to see if we could make some music together.
Your first single, “Vibrate,” was released on the
Diplo-run Mad Decent blog. That’s quite a feat
for a first production! How’d this happen?
Dave Nada is a good friend of ours and he came
over one day and gave us a few suggestions for
how to make “Vibrate” sound a lot better. Pretty
soon a bunch of people started playing it out, and
I guess it made its way to some of the bigger DJs
out there.
Most recently, you collaborated with Diplo
on his Express Yourself EP, which went #1 on
iTunes. From reading a lot of the reviews, your
track with Billy, “Butters Theme,” was one of
the more acclaimed selections from the EP.
How does it feel to work on something that
reached so many people all over the world?
Billy had actually met Diplo in Philly a while
back and they started to talk. Fast forward a few
months; we were talking about doing this collab,
and began sending music back and forth. It’s
funny to see people talk about how the song title
came across. The funny part is, Diplo hit us up
and told us to send him a random word and, well,
we selected “Butters.”
Probably a year or so ago, I remember you
telling me how you disliked playing a lot of the
club music that was popular and would much
rather play the less-popular hip hop and trap
music. Now, trap is on the rise and other genres
have taken the back burner. Funny how things
turn out, huh?
I got locked in the mode for a while where I was
so focused on house [and] dubstep, and I just
wanted to play any [other] genre. People would
expect me to play a certain type of music all night
and it got boring. I don’t want to lock myself in
any one type of genre. Think about it, people
don’t like just one type of music! There’s so much
music to be played, and I don’t want to play a
whole set in the same BPM range like I have seen
others do.
Do you see yourself producing a certain
sound on future releases? I’ve noticed
that you’ve released productions ranging
from Moomobahton to electro to trap and
everything in between.
We just put out a remix for Diplo’s “Express Yourself.” People are calling it trap, but it’s at like 80
BPM. It’s funny, if you look at a Juicy J track that
is “trap”--people are throwing that term around
without even understanding what it is. You put a
Juicy J song next to ours and you will realize how
far from trap [ours] is.
What can we expect from Gent & Jawns in
the future?
We are working on an EP right now. As far as
live performances go, we are figuring out our live
set. [We] want to make sure we have enough
material to go out there and play our own music,
without falling into this generic DJ set thing that
seems to saturate the market.
“ MY FRIENDS AND I USED TO HAVE LOFT PARTIES ABOVE
THE 1708 GALLERY ON BROAD. HUGE LIVING ROOMS
AND STAIRS UP TO A ROOFTOP. THOSE WERE THE FIRST
SHOWS I PLAYED OUTSIDE OF MY BEDROOM.”
54
RVA MAGAZINE #10
RVAMAG.COM
MUSIC LONG JAWNS
55
RECORD REVIEWS By Dan Anderson (DA) & Andrew Necci (AN)
THE ALBUM LEAF
Forward Return
(self-released)
Some lovely, mostly instrumental
post-rock here from James Lavalle
(formerly of Tristeza and, um, The
Locust), which mixes gorgeous,
heartwarming guitar melodies with
somewhat glitchy programmed
beats to excellent effect. Reminds
me of a cross between The Mercury
Program and Pinback. This album
makes me happy. (AN)
THE CASUALTIES
Resistance
(Season of Mist)
Happy, pleasant, uplifting, and mellow are words I would never use to
describe Resistance. I would, however,
call the ninth studio album from
street/thrash punk legends The Casualties awesome and intense. Littered
with the sociopolitical references and
four letter words you’d expect from
this type of record, The Casualties
inspire me to incite a riot. (DA)
ELeMINT
Brain Food
(brainfood.bandcamp.com)
Last fall, Elemint flew out from LA
to work with unsung local producer
Octopus Drummer on this album,
and still, a year after its release, Brain
Food has yet to receive the respect it
deserves. Elemint is an exceptional
MC with profound lyrical potential
that meshes well with the intellectual
production provided here. Don’t sleep!
(DA)
GIFTS FROM ENOLA
A Healthy Fear
(The Mylene Sheath)
A Healthy Fear is the fourth record
from this Harrisonburg, VA instrumental four-piece, whose music is
heavy, technically tight post-rock/
metal. This album a solid addition to
any record collection, and should fit
comfortably somewhere between Isis
and Explosions In The Sky. (DA)
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Centipede Hz
(Domino)
As Animal Collective albums go,
their latest is pretty accessible.
Underneath a thin layer of quirky
bleeps and incidental noises lie
some very solid psychedelic pop
songs. Synths are still a strong
presence, but this album feels less
programmed than their last, which is
a step in the right direction. (AN)
CIRCA SURVIVE
Violent Waves
(Self Released)
This is the fourth album from this
Doylestown, PA five-piece screamo
band, and the first to be self-released. Anthony Green exhibits his
shriekingly powerful vocal ability as
these eleven songs cover a variety
of topics one would expect to find
on their records - including a veiled
shot at their previous record label,
Atlantic. (DA)
ENSLAVED
RIITIIR
(Nuclear Blast)
Another excellent release from this
veteran Norwegian Viking metal
band, who add to their history of
progressive innovation in fine fashion here. Melody and instrumental
prowess are their focus on RIITIIR,
but they’re still capable of getting
brutal on occasion, and their epic
songcraft hasn’t diminished one
iota. (AN)
HELVETIA
Nothing in Rambling
(Joyful Noise Recordings)
Short, boring, and predictable was
what came to mind after the first
song, but beyond that, the delightfully monotonous instrumentation
coalesced with the distortion heavy,
lo-fi garage-band vocals and make
this album more engaging than
cumbersome. It’s easy to compare
Jason Albertini’s work on this album
to that of Julian Casablancas. (DA)
CARDINAL COMPASS
Born Homesick
(cardinalcompass.bandcamp.com)
I am a sucker for female songwriters, and often an easy sell when it
comes to talented women who sing
well, putting together words and
concepts that enchant each listener.
Hannah Standiford of Cardinal
Compass is exactly one of those
musicians. Born Homesick is fourteen
tracks of solid folk/Americana that’s
easy on the ears. (DA)
CONS, THE CHILD
Fruits
(consthechild.bandcamp.com)
Fruits is an 11-track drugless trip of
an instrumental album from up-andcoming Richmond producer Cons.
A lyricist might find spitting rhymes
over the entirety of these songs
to be a difficult task, but doing so
would just ruin the sanctity of a very
pleasant experience anyway. Fruits
is ambient, enjoyable, and free to
download. (DA)
FARAH LOUX
Flaws
(farahloux.bandcamp.com)
Flaws is the debut album from
this virtually unheard six-member
Auckland, New Zealand indie/altrock band, who are well outside the
confines of what I normally review.
Though there’s nothing particularly
spectacular about this record, it’s
exceptional for what it is. A well
crafted, self-contained fourteen
track work of love. (DA)
HEX MACHINE
Fixator
(Learning Curve)
On their second LP, this RVA band
resurrects the mid-90s era when
noise-rock and math-rock were vital
subgenres of the post-hardcore
scene. They layer off-kilter scree
overtop of solid heavy-rock riffing in
a manner that holds up next to the
work of The Melvins, Jesus Lizard,
and other heavyweights from last
decade. (AN)
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THE HONORABLE SLEAZE
Broad Street Boogie
(Blocsonic)
The most recent release from The
Honorable Sleaze may be his best one
yet. Anyone familiar with Sleaze’s vast
collection of albums and beat tapes
will know that’s a hefty compliment.
Even with collaborations from wellknown RVA MCs like BCMusic1st,
Joey Ripps, and Emphasys, it’s the
production that truly takes this to the
next level. (DA)
JUST PLAIN ANT
What Did You Expect
(Just Plain Sounds)
A fitting title for this LP from one of
RVA’s hardest working producers. Ant
does what he does best with this joint,
digging deep for choice samples, and
finding the best Richmond rappers
to collaborate with. The album flows
seamlessly from one track to the next,
painting a picture that feels like a
soundtrack. (DA)
OREO JONES
Betty
(Red Summer)
Titled in homage to his grandmother,
Oreo Jones has created an excellent,
intriguing synth-heavy hip hop record.
Anyone who has respect for the lyrical
craft should instantly see the value of
this album. Oreo kills it, from “House
Nigga” down to “Cordon Bleu.” Laced
with art and literary references, Betty
is something special. (DA)
TITLE FIGHT
Floral Green
(Side One Dummy)
This Cali-based emo/hc/punk band
has been taking quantum leaps on
each new release, and Floral Green is
just the latest of these. Passion, energy, distorted guitar roar, screamed
vocals that retain a healthy dose of
melody and strong feeling, songs that
will stick in your head for days--this
album has everything. (AN)
JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD
Hypnotic Nights
(Infinity Cat/Warner Bros)
The brothers Orrall built their rep on
heavy, grinding, no-frills rock n’ roll,
but their 7th LP sees them adding
layers to their sound through the use
of additional instruments (keyboards,
vibraphone, etc). The result is still
heavy, but catchier than before--think
early Weezer as a garage-rock band.
Good stuff. (AN)
MATTHEW E. WHITE
Big Inner
(Spacebomb)
This is the debut solo album by the
Fight The Big Bull ringleader, who
steps into the spotlight with help from
his many friends in the RVA music
scene to present us with a supremely
laid-back collection of lush, soulful,
vaguely psychedelic R&B ballads. Listen late at night with the lights down
low. (AN)
PLASTIC PLATES
Things I Didn’t Know I Loved
(Kitsune)
This 3-song electropop EP from Mr.
Felix Bloxsom, AKA Plastic Plates, is
exactly like having everything that
sucked about the seventies and eighties vomiting while it fornicates in your
iPod. Don’t get me wrong, Felix is very
talented, but in my opinion, his taste
in music is incredibly dated. He offers
nothing new to the genre. (DA)
WITCHCRAFT
Legend
(Nuclear Blast)
This Swedish metal band is considered doom, but it’s more accurate to
call them retro--Legend is not particularly slow, just epic in a post-Zeppelin
sense, with midtempo song structures
based around mournful melodies
and lengthy guitar solos. The perfect
Christmas gift for your Judas Priestloving uncle. (AN)
JOHN CALE
Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood
(Double Six)
New solo joint from the other Velvet
Underground guy. Its 80s-as-hell
overproduced rock sound comes
across like a muscular version of
Leonard Cohen’s erudite sleaziness, and the title makes me think
the vibe is created on purpose. But
whether the sleaze is conscious or
not, this album still isn’t a particularly enjoyable listen. (AN)
the mountain goats
Transcendental Youth
(Merge)
To some extent you know what
you’re getting with The Mountain
Goats--heartfelt indie-folk with idiosyncratic, brilliant lyrics. But this one
adds a horn section (arranged by
RVA’s own Matthew E. White) and a
previously-unheard rock/soul flavor,
keeping things interesting even for
fans who already own 12 other TMG
albums. (AN)
SILVER JEWS
Early Times
(Drag City)
This collection of the early EPs by
this Pavement-affiliated indie crew
has the same ramshackle lo-fi noisiness of the earliest Pavement work,
but leans more toward folk than
Pavement’s rock n’ roll. David Berman was always a great songwriter,
and if you can get past the tape hiss,
there are some classic tunes here.
(AN)
YOKOKIMTHURSTON
YokoKimThurston
(Chimera Music)
I expected this historic collaboration
between avant-garde pioneers to be
weird. What surprised me was how
calm it turned out to be--though
don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty
bizarre. Yoko caterwauls, Sonic
Youth’s Gordon & Moore wring bizarre sounds from guitars. You know
whether you want this. (AN)
MUSIC REVIEWS
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