Street Pizza - Cancerous Planet (Sympathizer Records)

With the unprecedented diffusion of music brought on by the internet, it seems like every minute sub-sub-genre can now experience its fifteen minutes of quasi-fame. Power violence – a style originating in southern California in the late 1980s which combined the blazing speed of grindcore, the lumbering dirge of sludge metal, and the stripped down aesthetic of hardcore punk – is no exception. The past half-decade has seen an unprecedented interest in genre progenitors like Infest and Spazz, and it makes sense. So much of hardcore and metal is predicated on extremity and visceral rawness, and when long-standing bands start gravitating towards Ozzfest main stages and Vin Diesel movie soundtracks, it stands to reason that a new generation of middle-of-the-road normal guy hardcore bands like Ceremony and Trash Talk would start to borrow from harsher influences, if only to stay ahead of the curve. Which isn’t to say that the genre has resurfaced only to be co-opted. There are thousands of bands who have taken cues from power violence’s early days and stayed true to the style’s roots. While some of these bands pull it off, very few are able to capture the experimental spirit of the genre’s earliest bands, whose approach was more an attempt to force together influences to see what fit rather than to try to solidify a singular aesthetic. Occasionally, there are bands that can offer a glimpse at something that, if not absolutely ground-breaking, transcends simple imitation.

Richmond’s Street Pizza fits the latter category, but rather than steal commonly-utilized genre tropes, the band utilizes the approach of their better forebears – synthesizing influences in favor of a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Their lo-fi recording complements the songs’ blunt brutality, and while the album might have sounded better had it undergone a mastering job, this type of music does not necessarily suffer for a lack of studio polish. While those well-versed in the genre will immediately notice similarities with Crossed Out or Neanderthal, Street Pizza injects their songs with a more rock-oriented melodic sense; the intro to “Pills” could be a long-lost Germs out-take and songs like “Pay To Pray” or their cover of Weedeater’s “Spoonfed” display a strong doom metal influence.

It’s unfortunate the band opted not to include lyrics, because their approach separates them from the majority of bands in their genre. Rather than the bleakness of bands like Capitalist Casualties or the goofy inside jokes of Spazz, Street Pizza opts for a more personal approach which tackles the frustrations and successes of daily life without undermining the gravity of their situations with nihilistic posturing or joke-band excess. They take on organized religion in “Pay To Pray,” flaky roommates in “Joke Bust,” and uninspiring work situations in “9 to 5 on 95.” It’s not all negative, however – their tribute to DIY community, the song “Bone Zone,” is a fitting tribute to the unfortunately defunct house in which members lived and booked hundreds of shows.

Street Pizza offers no attempt to craft themselves as a carbon copy of any single predecessor. They’re not the most original band in the world. Their recording is rough, their lyrics absent, and the artwork is pixelated. But power violence was never about easy accessibility, and even if it were, details like that are beside the point. Street Pizza has created an album that understands its influences rather than imitating them, an album which deals in the small tragedies and triumphs that every successive day offers up.

Neu! were a groundbreaking German rock group, active in the early and mid-70s, who have often been credited with the creation of the droning, hypnotic style of music known as Krautrock. Disbanded over 30 years ago, interest in Neu!--never that popular while they existed--built to a fever pitch during the mid-90s, a time when their influence could be seen in such diverse artists as Aphex Twin, Stereolab, and Radiohead. And now, two years after the death of original Neu! member Klaus Dinger, surviving member Michael Rother has launched a wide-ranging project attempting to bring the music of Neu! back into public consciousness. To that end, he formed Hallogallo 2010, featuring Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley on drums and Tall Firs bassist Aaron Mullan, to tour and perform the music of Neu!

The main reason to listen to this performance, recorded at the Lincoln Center Out Of Doors Festival in New York on August 6, is the opening track, "Hallogallo," which also began Neu!'s self-titled debut LP, originally released in 1972. That song introduced the world to "motorik," the steady, driving 4/4 beat that Klaus Dinger made into the rhythmic signature of Neu! and the Krautrock genre in general. Its constant, unchanging repetition could seem monotonous in some circumstances, but Neu! turned it into a hypnotic pulse that was strangely catchy. Overlaid with synth washes and soaring guitar leads, the motorik beat became the bedrock foundation for beautiful soundscapes, and the totality of the music became a metaphor for driving through German countryside on the Autobahn. The psychedelic melodies of the lead instruments described rolling fields and gorgeous sunsets, while the beat kept the musical vehicle speeding down the highway. This sound, as captured on "Hallogallo" and several other important Neu! songs ("Fur Immer," "Isi," "Hero"), became an inspiration for a wide variety of musicians over the 35 years following their breakup. David Bowie's Berlin period, best known for the song "Heroes," was inspired by Neu! and their compatriots Kraftwerk (in fact, Dinger and Rother first played together in an early lineup of Kraftwerk). He was only the first of many to take similar inspiration from Neu!

Neu! in 1974. Michael Rother (left, with accordion), Klaus Dinger (right, with bass), and friends

Sadly, it seems that it took the death of Klaus Dinger to return Neu! to the public eye. A notorious perfectionist and recluse, Dinger had blocked the release of a fourth Neu! album, recorded in the mid-80s, after the sessions did not meet with his expectations. Throughout the 90s, his disagreements with Rother prevented the Neu! albums from being reissued on CD, despite widespread interest in their being made available again (which was exploited by multiple bootleggers). And not until this year has Neu! 86, the fourth and final Neu! album, seen official release. At around the same time, a 5 LP vinyl box set was also released, including all four original albums plus a 1972 EP that was also never released.

Capping all of this off is the tour by Hallogallo 2010, who, based on the evidence of this live recording, have clearly captured the spirit of Neu!s original sound. In truth, the set relies mostly on music originally performed by Michael Rother either as a solo artist or in his post-Neu! band, Harmonia. Nonetheless, Rother, Shelley and Mullan do an excellent job of summoning the prototypical Krautrock sound, that swirling, psychedelic haze that always managed to stay firmly grounded in the roots of rock n' roll. Play it loud.

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Set list for this performance:

00:01. Hallogallo [Neu!]
12:40. Neutronics 98 (A Tribute to Conny Plank) [Rother solo track from 1997 tribute album "A Homage To Neu!"]
23:07. Aroma Club B3 [Rother solo]
31:01. Deluxe [Harmonia]
40:15. Veteranissimo [Harmonia]
50:27. Dino [Harmonia]

Do you like strange video experimentation? Do you like the internet and wonder how it is affecting your daily perception of reality? If you are looking for answers, you won't find them at the new exhibit at Reference Gallery but there are other people trying to figure out the same thing. Maybe you can take comfort in that.

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REFERENCE Art Gallery is pleased to announce a show featuring works by AIDS-3D (Berlin), Ben Schumacher (NYC) and Victor Vaughn (Baltimore), curated by James Shaeffer.

As the Internet has increasingly become a source for not only the exhibition of art but also the transfer of artworks so has ideas of dematerialization and issues of originality in artwork come into question again. Now artworks can be created on a computer and sent to multiple participants simultaneously while also exhibited online. Images, 3D models, and videos can all be reproduced ad infinitum and exhibited endlessly. Featuring works by AIDS-3D, Ben Schumacher, and Victor Vaughn; each artist presents pieces that address concurrent issues of originality, distance, immaterialism and reproduction – a theme attended to with the actual exhibition itself. Concomitantly with the exhibition at P·P·O·W, all the work will be available for free download off the Internet and simultaneously shown at REFERENCE Art Gallery in Richmond, VA.

Real Talk, Forensics, and Pujol
August 11 at Empire

Of the three bands playing the late show at Empire last Wednesday, it was the first band who seemed to generate the most buzz. It was the first show ever for Real Talk, a Richmond supergroup of sorts featuring Kevin Broderick of The Catalyst on drums; Cole Hutchinson, formerly of Operation Latte Thunder, on vocals; Graham Scala, also an ex-member of Operation Latte Thunder, and currently of Souvenir's Young America and Forensics, on bass; and on guitar, Joe Hunt, best known as the drummer for Brainworms. It was hard to know what to expect from musicians with as varied a background as this quartet possessed, but what the crowd at Empire got was fast, angry hardcore. At this point, a description like that can mean many different things, not all of them good, but Real Talk were excellent, and their performance was full of nervous energy. Facing the rest of his band as he sang, Cole always seemed like he was just about to plow into the front row of the audience, and Joe wasn't afraid to invade the personal space of both Cole and the crowd. The vibe remained positive, though, and the audience's reaction to the frenetic performance was one of approval. Real Talk's version of hardcore was reminiscent of early 80s DC thrashers Void, whose deceptively complex song structures could sometimes appear sloppy at first glance. Joe's occasional guitar solos were very much in the vein of Void guitarist Bubba Dupree, while Graham's bass playing seemed more like that of Born Against's Tonie Joy. There was also a hint of late-90s Chicago fastcore in Real Talk's sound; even though they never broke out any full-on blast beats, their speedy, chaotic thrash sometimes resembled the music of MK Ultra or Das Oath.

While the two bands that followed Real Talk were not quite as hotly anticipated, both put on excellent shows, though unfortunately neither played to as many people as Real Talk did. This had more to do with poor timing than lack of interest; the show was supposed to start at 10, but Real Talk didn't start playing until after 11, and it was nearly midnight by the time Forensics began their set. It's a tradition in the world of underground music to start shows later than they're advertised, but once the hour grows late enough, this tendency goes from an asset to a liability. This is especially true in the case of a 21-and-over show on a weeknight. A lot of people at the show had work the next morning, and a slow but steady exodus began as soon as Real Talk finished playing. If they had started at 10, when they were originally scheduled to play, perhaps more people would have stayed for the rest of the show. It's just a thought.

Forensics have been around for a while (though their current lineup has been together for less than two years), and I've seen them a few times before. However, this was the first time they put on a really impressive performance. Their sound combines different musical styles that had previously seemed a bit of an awkward mix. At times, they have the dark, heavy hardcore sound of bands like Tragedy, while at others they sound more like the post-metal style of Isis or Mastodon. They used to have some pretty awkward transitions between these two styles, but on Wednesday night, the different sounds flowed together much more smoothly. There are some similarities between what Forensics are doing and the new sound Coliseum explored on their most recent album, and even though Forensics were playing in that style for a while before Coliseum adopted it, it seemed to me that hearing Coliseum create the same mixture of dark, heavy hardcore and post-metal had opened my mind to other bands doing it. But then they played a song I recognized, and I noticed the exact sort of awkward transition between styles that had caught my attention before. That's when I realized that Forensics had just gotten better. Speaking with guitarist Graham Scala afterward, I asked how much of their set was new material; he told me that almost all of it was, which seems to confirm my suspicions. Based on this new material, I fully expect the next Forensics record to be a rager.

It might have been a little too much of a rager for Empire, in fact. Empire is a long, narrow room, most of which is lined with booths on one side and the bar on the other. The open space at one end of the room where the bands play is not that big, and it's the only area with much of any space for people to stand and watch. If a show at Empire attracts even a decent-sized crowd, the people in the back end up squeezed between booths and barstools, unable to see much more than the back of the person standing in front of them. Sonically, Empire's dimensions have an even more unfortunate quality--the walls, being so close together, compress and muffle the sound of the music being played, so that it develops a dull, indistinguishable quality. This isn't really a problem for bands that don't play too loudly. Forensics plays very loudly, though, and some of the nuance of their performance was definitely lost in the subpar acoustics of the room.

By contrast, the final band, Nashville's Pujol, had a pretty ideal equipment setup for Empire. As opposed to Forensics' huge amplifier stacks, Pujol's members mostly used small combo amps. They probably could have been a little louder, as at points their live sound lacked impact, but after having my eardrums blown out by Forensics, it was a relief. Pujol's musical style fit well with the sounds of their small combo amps--they played melodic garage rock, complete with vintage guitars and 60s-style bowl haircuts. At times, their songs reminded me of the droning yet melodic single-chord riffs that the Velvet Underground did so well, while at others they had a more Nuggets-like sensibility. Their songs always led with melody, and while the guitars were a bit too jangly to have power most of the time, the basslines added a fuzzy tone that thickened up the sound and pulled all of the instruments together. When Pujol's lead guitarist did use effects, instead of going for modern distortion, he used a wah-wah pedal and the tremolo bar on his guitar to generate the sort of noise that was much more common 45 years ago than it is now. These noisier guitar breaks made me think of the jazz-influenced solos on "Eight Miles High" by The Byrds. Pujol sounded like a lot of bands who were putting out records a year or so after that single came out, and had been influenced enough by it to mix modal drones into their primarily pop-rock based songwriting, but hadn't gotten self-indulgent enough to start throwing 20-minute instrumental jams into their live performances. Where garage rock is concerned, they nailed the sweet spot.

It's a shame that, by the time they started playing, the lion's share of the audience had long since departed for home. It seems a little unfair to make the least-known band on a bill play last, and I think Pujol would have been a lot better served by an opening slot on the show. I'm not sure why the people who set up the show chose to sequence it in the way they did--they may have had a very good reason that I'm not privy to. Nonetheless, I think everyone who books shows should be aware that with late shows, especially on a weeknight, sometimes starting earlier is better. All of the bands that played Empire on Wednesday night were good; if more people had been able to stick around and see all of them, the show would have been even better.

Make Phantoms - Make Phantoms (Stranger Than Fiction)
Make Phantoms are a local group with a keyboard-based, melodic indie sound that, at its best moments, is reminiscent of XTC mixed with Death Cab For Cutie. Their production is a bit overdone, but if you can look past the extremely slick sound, there are some great songs here.

Pete International Airport - Pete International Airport (Custom Made)
First solo release from Dandy Warhols guitarist Peter Holmstrom. It's the same sort of psychedelic power pop that his band is known for, and while it's not offensive, it's not that great either. Bland and forgettable overall, which, for that matter, is basically how I feel about the Dandy Warhols.

Ratt - Infestation (Roadrunner)
A new album by one of the original wave of Sunset Strip glam metal bands is surprising by its very existence in the year 2010. Even more stunning is how good it is. Somehow, 25 years after their glory days, Ratt are still in prime form. Don't miss out.

Slash - Slash (Dik Hayd)
This album is much more like what I'd expect from a glam metal star trying to be relevant in 2010. Guest vocals on every track, indiscriminately mixing legends (Lemmy, Ozzy) with losers (Fergie, Kid Rock). Bland overproduction. Boring pseudo-blues riffing. Not uniformly terrible, but not good by any means.

Tokyo Police Club - Champ (Mom & Pop)
On their first album, Tokyo Police Club stood in the middle of the pack of Libertines imitators then holding sway over UK indie. Somehow, two years later, they sound more like The Weakerthans, which seems random but makes more sense if you know they're actually Canadian. But who knew that?

Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza - Danza III: The Series Of Unfortunate Events (Black Market Activities)
This record seems like musical time travel; it takes us back to 2003, when TDTE were just starting out and fast, spastic tech-metal was a common genre. Danza III is a reminder that that sound was worth preserving, and on this album, TDTE do a great job of resurrecting it.

The Expendables should come with a disclaimer that goes something like this: Warning: The film you are about to see is made for GUYS by GUYS who make movies for GUYS, movies that feature lots of GUYS doing things that GUYS like to see other GUYS doing in movies that are made almost exclusively for GUYS.

In all honesty, girls who like action films should have a great time here as well, but there is enough testosterone on display in The Expendables to incite aggression and perhaps even violence within the theater. Watch yourselves.

Make no mistake, this is not an insightful and thought-provoking film about the brutal realities of war. This is not a tense, gripping account of a siege wherein authenticity and suspense illuminate the bloody toil of an all-consuming power struggle. No, this is an adrenaline-soaked balls-to-the-wall action film that delivers roughly 100 minutes of gleeful carnage. All this glorious mayhem takes place in a rambunctious landscape populated by ultimate badasses who are so utterly macho that each of them borders on being a caricature. Yet the film succeeds from start to finish because Sylvester Stallone is a truly gifted director who knows exactly what he wants to accomplish. A wonderful cast, a rocking soundtrack, and some truly fantastic choreography backed by spectacular effects give him all the tools he needs to provide audiences with a damn good time at the theater.

In all honesty, I was perhaps expecting something a bit more epic, but by the time the picture drew to a close with Thin Lizzy belting out The Boys are Back in Town, I knew I had nothing to complain about. Some people are going to poke holes in the plot, and some people are going to say there wasn’t enough character development, but do yourself a favor and ignore those fools. Stallone made this film for people who want to see a lot of shit get blown up, and he purposely populated the picture with people that fans of such films already know. Does it matter why Jason Statham chose to arm himself with knives so long as he kills lots of people with sharp metal objects? Do we need more insight into Dolph Lundgren’s troubled psyche? No! It’s Dolph Lundgren, for crying out loud—those of us keeping score know we can’t trust that dude before the movie even starts.

The Expendables is about action and robust fun, and it succeeds in terrific fashion based on those merits. The dialogue is witty, the pace is relentless, and Stallone made sure that everyone got a chance to shine as the chaos explodes across the scene. There are chases, gunfights, knifefights, hand-to-hand combat, gore, awesome explosions, and enough sophisticated weaponry on display to please any avid Guns & Ammo reader. I’ve always been a fan of the thunderous shotgun Steve McQueen wields in The Getaway, but Terry Crews unleashes hell in the final act of The Expendables with the most badass gun I have ever seen, and I’ve fired a howitzer before. Seriously. The choreography and the effects are incredible throughout, and I was definitely impressed by Stallone’s ability to shoot both major action pieces and intimate fight scenes. In particular, his deft handling of all the astounding martial arts on display is impressive considering that is something he has little experience with.

Stallone and Statham are at the forefront throughout, and they compliment one another well, but each member of this magnificent guest gets ample opportunity to work their magic, and surprisingly no one comes up short in the process. Stallone is the star, and he is as charismatic and powerful as ever, and Statham is terrific as the heart and soul of the piece. Mickey Rourke is a joy to watch as Tool, the tattoo artist who provides this mercenary unit with jobs when he isn’t waxing philosophical. Jet Li really excels in a very vulnerable performance as a hand-to-hand combat expert who is acutely aware of his diminutive stature, and this humanity made his fight scenes much more dramatic than they typically are. Dolph does what he does best, piss people off and tear them limb from limb. Even relative newcomers like Crews and Randy Couture are given several chances to show their stuff, and they handle dialogue and spectacular fight scenes with ease. The villains include Eric Roberts at his snide best, Steve Austin kicking lots of ass, and Gary Daniels in a smaller role that still allows him to demonstrate his considerable martial arts prowess. This is honestly one of the biggest and baddest casts ever, and it seems that everyone really relished this opportunity to get together and play cops and robbers on the big screen. You have to credit the filmmakers for putting this outfit together, and you have to credit Stallone for providing them with so much to do and making such good use of their efforts.

In closing, The Expendables is not the smartest or most moving film you’ll see this summer, and everyone involved could truly care less. The Expendables is the most explosive action film to hit theaters in quite some time, and anyone looking for a potent dose of explosive machismo need look no further. The Expendables has to be considered a terrific success if you base your judgment on Stallone’s ability to make the picture he envisioned, as I imagine that this fun spectacle that never slows down and never pulls its punches is precisely what he had in mind. Simply put, The Expendables is an absolute blast. If you consider yourself a fun of such pictures, you owe it to yourself to check out this festive brawl as soon as possible, and don’t be surprised if you find that you’ve never had so much fun watching shit get blown up.

Cannabis Corpse have just released the first video in a three-part series documenting their European tour, which took place in February of this year. Other than some short clips of plane rides and backstage antics, this video concentrates on the music, featuring full performances of two songs, "Staring Through My Eyes That Are Red" (from 2006's Blunted At Birth) and "Every Bud Smoken" (from 2008's Tube Of The Resinated). Both audio and video are of excellent quality, and as a bonus, you get to watch plenty of European heshers headbanging and giving the devil horns. Things promise to get crazier in the next installment of this video series, as Cannabis Corpse descend upon Amsterdam, the Mecca of marijuana, but for now, this video will give you your fix of brutal death metal jams. Spark it up.

Messi - O (messi.bandcamp.com)
The debut album of Chocolate Milk’s Joshua Aidan Padarathsingh, under his latest moniker Messi, finds the former noise artist applying his skill for dissonance and tension to the land of Boom Bap Hip Hop. Messi’s off kilter rhythms, reminiscent of both Flying Lotus and Ravi Shankar, stutter and slide over a kaleidoscopic stereophonic world of samples and textural knob tweaking. The unique blend of eastern polyrhythm and Bed Stuy sampling is immediately apparent in the opening track “Chase”, as frantic bells rush over a smooth jazz organ bounce that quickly evolves into a tightly wound Stax Records-style groove. The mid album track “Name A Price” drops deeper into the stereo panning exploration with the integration of horns and electronica that can only be described as Fela Kuti playing game boy. O is a boundary pushing must-have for fans of modern beat culture.

Boas - No Wonder (boas.bandcamp.com)
In the wake of the recent apparent disbanding of Richmond’s renowned electro-tribal group Cold Toast, main button pusher Tyler Newbold has returned with his second solo offering as Boas. Less squishy and meandering than his debut solo LP, this single, taken from forthcoming LP Grave Dreams, returns to the strong acoustic and the organic roots of Newbold’s former group. The lush strings and hypnotic drums evoke a sense of meditative atmosphere that is set perfectly by the song's pristine production. A definite accomplishment.

Tungs - Good Dreams (tungs.bandcamp.com)
In this DIY clip from local Psych rockers Tungs, for a song from their latest LP, Sleeping, a collage of summer hopes and exuberance is displayed against the backdrop of the group’s retro shoegaze squall. The beach, mopeds, day tripping kids in cool sunglasses, all being streamed through a nonstop rotation of the color spectrum. What more could you ask for? The production values are minimal and there is a cursor that constantly and annoyingly moves along the left of the screen but the overall effect when taken in is pure youth and sunlight.

Silent Music Revival is a unique event in the city of Richmond. Once a month this event combines classic silent films with live performances by musicians who have never seen the film. Silent Music Revival is going on its fourth year of putting on such a combination. Those four years brought the event to many different venues and even a few change of hands, and after a very short hiatus the event is back and has found its place at Gallery 5. On Sunday, August 29th Dave Watkins will preform a live, improvised soundtrack to one of the most beautiful animated films ever created, The Adventures of Prince Achmed. (1926)

I had the chance to ask Dave some questions about the progression of his music and his impression of the Silent Music Revival.

Jameson Price: What do you call that 4-stringed instrument you play?

Dave Watkins: Well it's a bit of a debated subject. It's called a "dulcietar" by the guy who makes it, but the most common spelling for similar instruments is "dulcitar" which is how I mainly refer to it, but sometimes I refer to it as a "dulcitaur" after a friend jokingly asked me what kind of dinosaur it was at one particular show. I'm going to try and have the guy that built the one I play build me a new one at some point soon, with some extra features and most importantly two extra lower strings and officially call it a "dulcitaur".

I've only had this thing since 2007, and it was by complete chance that I happened upon it, and by an even greater chance that it ended up becoming my main instrument. I was on tour with my day job (audio / visual supervisor for the Richmond Ballet) in Blowing Rock, North Carolina and had a couple hours off in town before the performance or rehearsal or whatever it was, and ended up in this tiny store literally called The Dulcimer Shop, they had all sorts of really beautiful traditional folk instruments that I had never actually played before. Mountain Dulcimers, Hammered Dulcimers, Bowed Psalteries, and other various odds and ends. The guy that owns the store was super friendly and just told me to play anything I like. About a minute into messing with a traditional Mountain Dulcimer he was like "Here, try this!" and grabbed this instrument from the back corner and handed it to me, and the rest is history, it was totally meant to be. I was so stoked about the dulcitar that I really didn't look at it super carefully, and later on tour I was hanging out at a hotel playing it and noticed the luthiers tag inside. Turns out it was handmade by this guy Bill Neely who lives in Damascus, Virginia, and as far as I can tell he just builds these gorgeous instruments from time to time and sells them through this store in Bowing Rock. He doesn't have a website, or really much about him online at all, in fact if you do a web search for his instruments, chances are you will most likely find some post that I have made about my dulcitar on a recording forum somewhere. The fact that there are not a ton of these things out there makes it even more fun for me and the audience, and mostly it just sounds like the mountains. i'm super lucky to be playing it.

JP: So, how did you progress, musically, into a solo act?

DW: It was a natural sort of thing I suppose, and it has happened a bit out of necessity. I have always been involved with lots of time consuming things, especially with my background in the performing arts, so being in a proper band was always a challenge due to the time constraints. I started of doing this solo acoustic instrumental guitar work that was heavily influence by my original guitar teacher when I was a kid, and it sounded kind of like Leo Kotke or John Fahey or a more modern example would be Kaki King. I'd focus first on simple enjoyable melodies and add these flourishes of finger-tapping, harmonic slaps, and playing drums on the guitar body and stuff to make it interesting, all of which have transitioned over into my dulcitar playing, which has gotten even more ridiculous over the last couple years as I have introduced effects and looping devices into the setup. Also, I don't sing much so there's a vaguely conscious effort on my part to try and create sounds that do enough sonically on their own, so that lyrics aren't missed or needed all the time. Another huge part of my work is improvisation, about 50% or more of my live shows are improvised. the closing song is always pretty specifically plotted out, but for the most part, I just figure out some riffs, or tunings or effects settings that I know i'm going to use and build something completely new based on those ingredients, and the dulcitar lends itself well to that aesthetic. The solo thing just makes a lot of sense. It can be a lot of work sometimes because you have to do everything, but it's really rewarding and the artistic license it affords is priceless. But all that is not to say that I don't enjoy working with other musicians as well, I did the band thing in high school and loved it, and i've got this side project going now called the Colloquial Orchestra, that has a different rotating cast of musicians and instruments every show. it share a lot of the same improv leanings with my solo act but can get even more wild just because of the amount of people playing and instantaneously adding the ideas into the mix. we've had shows that were as minimalist as dulcitar and baritone ukulele to shows that were as insane as having three bass players and six drummers. i guess when it really comes down to it, i just want to have fun making music, be it solo or with company, and not hold anything back.

JP: Had you heard of Silent Music Revival before you were asked to participate? What was your impression of the event? What made you say "yes" ?

DW: Unfortunately, I had only been to one show, a lot of times I'd hear about the event after it happened, or it would conflict with my insanely busy work schedule or something. But I loved the one show I did get to go to, and the idea of the event in general, and really hope that I can makes as many of them as possible from here on out. There's just something magical about the way sound and picture go together, when its planned out in the actual movie score it's beautiful, and when the combination reaches that same level of beauty through spontaneity, as it often does in the Silent Music Revival, it's even more fascinating. things just have a way of going together somehow for for no real reason at all, everything has its own natural rhythm and sometimes they just fall in sync. I have for years enjoyed putting on old films at parties and such and then putting some completely crazy music on along with it and seeing what happens, and most of the time when I play shows I bring a projector out and have some sort of abstract sound reactive visuals to go along with my set. It's usually never a narrative, and isn't something I actively look at and react to though, it's just another layer to the performance to help create and atmosphere. With that said I'm really excited to let the visuals drive the momentum of the music, and I'll probably end up playing things I'd never have dreamed of because of it.

JP: You are currently signed up for the longest Silent Music Revival screening to date at 68 minutes. What was you initial reaction to the length of The Adventures of Prince Achmed?

DW: I'm really stoked about it, I was kind hoping to do something a little longer so that I could really let things develop and resonate, it's definitely going to be a bit of a challenge to play for an hour or so without stopping, especially since it's just me up there, but I'll definitely handle it, I think that having the visual to play off of is going to make this go by pretty quickly and just be a ton of fun.

JP: Do you have any surprises in store for us that you can throw out as a teaser?

DW: Well the whole thing is going to be a surprise for the most part, I'm definitely going to stick to the rules and not watch the film ahead of time, so other than seeing a few stills from the movie on the online invites and such, I really can't plan anything to specifically go with the movie, so I'm just going to do my damnedest to just improvise and score the thing live. the only thing I'm going to be preparing for the show is the equipment, and I will have a lot more stuff than usual. dulcitar will of course take the lead, but I'm also probably going to have guitar and bass, some sort of keyboard/piano, some sort of percussion, and maybe some other odds and ends, but the big thing I'm working on over the next couple weeks is figuring out how to hook everything up so i can do the show in surround sound. I've been wanting to do a surround sound concert for a while, but this is the perfect opportunity to make it happen. This is definitely going to be the most interesting set I've ever played and I'm really looking forward to it.

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The Silent Music Revival will begin promptly at 8:00pm at Gallery 5, on Sunday August 29th.
Music by Dave Watkins to the 1926 classic The Adventures of Prince Achmed The event is free.

More information on Dave Watkins can be found at
www.davewatkinsmusic.com
www.myspace.com/davewatkins

these jet wings from dave watkins on Vimeo.

Great article from the Chuch Hill's People News:

Richmond bottomed out in 1994: one city councilman went off to rehab for his heroin problem and another was in hot water for not paying utilities and renting out condemned property, enrollment at VCU dropped, the city recorded the nation’s 19th largest population decline since 1980, Richmond made the wrong end of Money Magazine’s Best Places to Live list, and by the end of the year had tallied a record 161 homicides. With recent years showing the lowest body counts since 1961, the city’s population back up over 200,000, and VCU having greatly expanded, it is somewhat difficult to imagine that mid-1990s Richmond was ever real.

That year’s spike in killings did not arrive suddenly. Richmond’s body count had topped out over 100 for the previous 6 years and the city had already earned a dangerous reputation by the mid-1980s (if not earlier). The Briley Brothers’ 1979 killing spree and 1984 escape from death row were in recent enough history. Southside’s Johnson/Brown gang, estimated to be responsible for 30 lives over 3 years, were only recently off the streets. The leaders of the notorious Newtowne gang were locked up in 1992 after killing 13 people in “a furious month and a half”.

Curious about and fascinated by Richmond’s shockingly violent semi-recent history, I thought to look and see where all of this killing was taking place. It seems that to be able to say that certain areas once had these incidents but do not any longer would be a useful way of marking the changes in the city. Unfortunately, the Richmond Police are not able to easily provide data for the years before 1998, so to get a look at anything earlier I had to dig it up for myself. Given the time involved, I chose to pull the info only for 1994, which to get I had to dig through the year’s worth of the RTD at the Library of Virginia.

This work identified 158 homicides (PDF) – not a perfect data set, but close enough to have a sense of what was going on where in 1994. Because the information was pulled from news accounts, some of the dates and locations might be somewhat off, but are generally accurate.

CLICK HERE TO READ RICHMOND'S WORST YEAR

Nationally known, locally grown artist Sterling Hundley will be showing for the second time at Ghostprint Gallery in September. He continues his journey away from the clean, strong narratives that defined his illustration work into the fuzzy world of abstraction with a purpose.

A solo show of new paintings by Sterling Clinton Hundley, opens at Ghostprint Gallery on September 2 , 2010. The exhibition runs through September 26.

The work in this exhibition evolves from Hundley’s successful career in illustration. His paintings synthesize abstraction with the elements he typically incorporates in his commercial work. Hundley says these paintings are “what happens when there is no client in mind and pure aesthetics are at play.”

Hundley juxtaposes organic and structural components, places flat fields next to textured surfaces, and combines many seemingly unrelated pieces. He believes the work reflects the complex time we live in, a period when conflicting qualities co-exist.

Among Hundley’s clients are Richmond Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The L.A. Times, Atlantic Monthly, Entertainment Weekly, G Q, and The Washington Post. He also works regularly with major theater companies. Every month, the last page of Virginia Living features one of his illustrations accompanied by an original story.

Hundley is a professor in the Department of Communication Arts at VCU. He is also a core instructor in the newly launched Art Department, a reiteration of the Illustration Academy, which is based in Richmond and Kansas City.

The artist’s honors include three gold medals and two silver from the New York-based Society of Illustrators. In addition, from 2006-2008, Hundley’s work earned more peer awards than any other U.S. illustrator.

For more information on Hundley, visit: www.sterlingclintonhundley.blogspot.com

The show opens with a reception for the artist on Thursday, September 2 at 5:30 - 8 p.m. and First Friday. September 3, 7-10 p.m.

Long time RVA contributor Tyler Bass wrote this article for www.disinfo.com. You can read more of his political work at www.spectaclemonopolized.blogspot.com

“You’re free, but in your mind, your freedom’s in a bind.” — Janelle Monáe

Adrian Lamo’s critics faced him down at a hacker’s conference. Lamo sat on the stage, placid, blinking pronouncedly as his hecklers continued. They prodded him, asking if he would have been tempted to release the data that a man who contacted him had sworn upon threat of military legal prosecution never to release had Lamo not faced his own prosecution as an accessory. One attendee demanded that hacking veteran Lamo take an internationalist perspective into the world events which led Lamo to turn over one Bradley Manning to the authorities. The hacker beside Lamo cajoled him for not having ignored the initial messaging by Bradley Manning.

Lamo simply replied with his gratitude that he lived in a country where he would not have to take a bullet to the head for attending a hacker’s conference, period. And for this he iteration he received at least one attendee’s applause.

This whole incident called into question to whom and/or to what ultimate philosophical cause exactly one must pledge his or her loyalties. Lamo’s perspective seeks to draw us into a void wherein loyalty to country must rise above that to conscience per se; the lives of foreigners are the objects of guessing games in which the United States must come out the “victor” due to its kindness to Lamo, the citizen, himself.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE PRICE OF TRUTH

Eleven Tigers - Clouds Are Mountains (Soul Motive)
This album combines the best ideas from the past two decades of electronic music--hyperactive drum n' bass beats, Burial's underwater dubstep, plus dark ambience and the reverberations of post-apocalyptic cityscapes. Adding information-overload samples and surprisingly accessible melodies, Eleven Tigers creates a new high-water mark for electronic music.

Ion Dissonance - Cursed (Century Media)
On their fourth album, Ion Dissonance prove that, after close to a decade, impossibly complex tech-grind can still be done well. Sometimes fast and insane, sometimes slow and brutal, this album never relents in terms of volume or intensity. An emotionally draining but powerfully satisfying listening experience.

Kate Nash - My Best Friend Is You (Fiction/Geffen)
Nash's first album was a snarky, sarcastic version of the girl-with-piano singer/songwriter genre. Her followup retains the sarcasm but expands her sonic palette, integrating more guitar-based indie sounds as well as girl-group pop influences. The result is a significant improvement on an already excellent sound.

LA Vampires And Zola Jesus - LA Vampires Meets Zola Jesus (Not Not Fun)
This is a strange record. I know Zola Jesus's other stuff, but this isn't their usual darkly melodic lo-fi goth sound. The lo-fi elements are still there, but the songs themselves are vaguely psychedelic ambient hums, with wordless moans as the only vocals. It's trippy, but ephemeral, ultimately lacking substance.

Medications - Completely Removed (Dischord)
On previous releases, Medications had a definite rock n' roll streak that is missing from their latest LP. In its place comes an increasing emphasis on quirky, angular melodies, and the resulting collection of songs is more immediately engaging than anything they've done before. These guys have found their niche.

Various Artists - Dark As Night Cassette (Bathetic)
This tape showcases the latest microgenre, "witch house," an appropriate name in light of the spooky, lo-fi sounds contained within. Cheap synths, indistinct vocals, tribal beats, and an overlay of tape hiss create a sound that resembles early Ariel Pink, or Aphex Twin at his most ambient. Unique, intriguing noise.

Worried About Your Wiring, the second Amoeba Men LP, has been made available for free download by their label, CNP Records. It's an accurate representation of The Amoeba Men's live sound, a spastic off-kilter noise that is equal parts art-damaged punk, chaotic math-rock, and something else entirely, not metal but definitely dark and heavy.

Jason Hodges' vocals sound like the perpetually-surprised holler of a redneck with amnesia, occasionally reflecting the same sort of ironic fascination with lowbrow trash culture that came through in the music of the Butthole Surfers and Scratch Acid, who seem like obvious influences on The Amoeba Men, as do The Cows and early Public Image Ltd. It all adds up to something that is strange and unpredictable but very enjoyable, not in spite of but because of its weirdness.

The sound of the Amoeba Men is something that must be experienced to be believed, and what better opportunity to get acquainted with their craziness than this? Worried About Your Wiring? can be downloaded here, but you also have the option of purchasing it on CD from CNP Records--for only $6!--here. Once you hear it, that's an option you'll undoubtedly want to take.

Twenty-one years after its original release, Godflesh's first full-length album, Streetcleaner, has been reissued in a deluxe two-disc edition that features both a remastered version of the original album and plenty of extras for fans to sink their teeth into. Rehearsal demos, live tracks, and early mixes fill the second disc and showcase the creative process that led Godflesh to the groundbreaking sound they created on Streetcleaner, a sound that has been a direct influence on everything from the metal/industrial hybrid bands of the early 90s (Pigface, Ministry) to the modern wave of ambient post-metal groups (Isis, Mastodon).

When appraising the early years of Earache Records, Godflesh's Streetcleaner seems a much more adult album than the more standard examples of death metal and grindcore released by that label in the late 80s. And indeed, Godflesh founder Justin Broadrick had been playing music professionally for several years before even starting Godflesh. However, this knowledge is deceiving in light of the fact that Broadrick's recording career began in his early teens. When he played guitar on Napalm Death's Scum, he was 16 years old. After leaving that band, he spent a few years playing drums in Head Of David, whose blending of industrial and metal influences pointed Broadrick in the direction he would eventually take with Godflesh. The sound he and Godflesh co-founder G.C. Green created for Streetcleaner was a mature and fully realized version of Broadrick's previous musical explorations, including those undertaken by his previous project with Green, Fall Of Because. And yet, when Justin Broadrick recorded Streetcleaner, he was still only 20 years old.

Regardless of whether or not fans of the album would like to admit it, Streetcleaner is heavily informed by post-teenage angst. Part of the reason this idea seems so shameful to us now is that so many bands have come along in the intervening years and made teen angst sound overtly self-pitying, solipsistic and, well, a bit silly. Fortunately, Broadrick is never silly at any point on Streetcleaner, instead channeling a darkness and anger that is always sinister and sometimes outright terrifying. On opening track "Like Rats," Broadrick runs his voice through a distorting vocal effect and screams the phrase "you bleed like rats" over and over in his lowest register. His scorn here is being vented upon the society that he sees around him, and in the next song, "Christbait Rising," he expresses just as strong a contempt for the forces of organized religion. "Christbait rising, bleed dry mankind," he screams, voice no longer distorted and not quite the growl that was standard for Earache artists of the time, but still deep, a sinister echoing presence throughout the song.

Musically, Godflesh provides a soundtrack perfectly suited to the expression of these antisocial feelings, and that is especially true on what is perhaps the album's most overtly antisocial song, "Pulp." Here, Broadrick's hatred for society is merely a background emotion. The song's focus is a celebration of separation; "When on my own, I feel free," Broadrick screams. "I can refuse." Underneath these screams is the implacable pounding of the band's drum machine, programmed by Broadrick himself to hammer unchanging, unrelenting slabs of simulated percussion into the listener's head. While bassist G.C. Green's distorted pound is just as forceful as the drum machine's programmed beats, both his bass and Broadrick's guitar are drowned out to an extent by the drum machine's placement at the forefront of the mix. It's as if Godflesh is punishing anyone who dares to listen to them, giving the highest priority to the harshest elements of their sound. In this way, they are reminiscent of the Swans, an early 80s New York noise outfit, contemporaries of Sonic Youth, whose first few albums were endurance tests of the first order. The Swans and Godflesh shared both a sonic harshness and their slow, dragging tempos, but where The Swans would submerge the production, on early albums like Filth, in masses of midrange mud that made most instruments indistinguishable, Streetcleaner features a clarity that is just as punishing in its own right. The remastering job only increases the velocity with which the high accents of the drum machine beats hiss harshly into the listener's ears.

The punishing aspects of Godflesh's sound are even clearer on the original mixes that appear on the second disc of this reissue. If the machine rhythm seems to occupy the foreground of the final, released mix of the album, then it positively overpowers the original mixes, in which the guitars are an ambient distorted buzz in the background, individual notes all but indistinguishable. These drum-and-vocal mixes are much closer to the forbidding industrial/noise roots of Godflesh's music, and many listeners who embraced the released version of Streetcleaner may have been repelled by these pounding, staccato slabs of machine-fueled screaming. These mixes may have been purer forms of Broadrick and Godflesh's original vision, but it's probably good that they didn't decide to release them this way at the time, as they may have scared off many of the listeners who instead made Streetcleaner such an influential album.

The two live tracks that follow the original mixes on the second disc, by contrast, focus on the more human element of Godflesh's sound. Without studio effects to hide behind, the emotion in Broadrick's voice is far clearer, and even on "Streetcleaner," on which he uses the same distorting vocal effect he used on "Like Rats," he sounds upset, freaked out by the very words he's singing. On the song's studio version, a sample of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas begins the song: "I didn't hear voices. It was a conscious decision on my part. I acted on my fantasies." To hear Broadrick, through a truly frightening vocal effect, respond to this sample by growling "Vision. This feels right," only increases the song's terrifying atmosphere. And yet, on the live version, he can't hide behind an effect that makes him sound like the devil in a bad 80s horror movie, and at the end of the song, as he repeats "We all die," and then screams incoherently, another feeling comes through. Here, Broadrick is not just inciting terror, he is succumbing to it. In so doing, he makes clear that he himself is just as terrified by "Streetcleaner"'s nightmarish visions as he intends the listener to be.

Perhaps the most enlightening moment of this entire reissue comes at the end of the second disc, where we find a group of lo-fi rehearsal demos. One of these is a 12-minute version of "Pulp," extending what became a relatively concise song in its final form to three times the length it possessed on Streetcleaner. As G.C. Green and the imperturbable Machine pound endlessly away at the song's basic riff, Broadrick fills the room with distortion, feedback squeals, and unintelligible screams, sometimes ceasing to play guitar completely in favor of an extended vocal rant. This rehearsal disproves, if they even needed disproving, any accusations--made somewhat frequently at the time of Streetcleaner's original release--that Godflesh's music, by nature of its incorporation of a drum machine, was clinical and dispassionate. This is Godflesh plumbing the lowest depths of their dark, pounding sound, exposing the essential humanity that the skeletal framework of machinery can never completely hide. Later in this epic rendition, after Broadrick has exhausted himself vocally, he spends several moments in guitar-based meditation, alternating between contorted tremolo variations on single notes stretched to their limits, and extended bouts of grinding rhythm guitar, generating sonic walls of single-chord self-hypnosis. This version of "Pulp" is the entire two-disc reissue's beating heart--and it sounds terrible, like the demo recordings you get when you stick an old boombox in the corner of your band's rehearsal room. But this is sublime, somehow perfect, because for Godflesh, it was always about stripping away the sonic layers, exposing the less polished parts of the music, until only the ugly truth remained. And then, in that ugliness, somehow, finding beauty, finding catharsis, finding a reason to carry on.

In current project Jesu, Justin Broadrick has found a way to take loud, heavy monotony and make it beautiful. Twenty years ago, in Godflesh, he was taking a slightly easier path--the path towards making loud, heavy monotony feel bleak and ugly and utterly without hope. But what both projects have in common is their hypnotic power, which allows them to pull the listener into the headspace they are creating and shut a metaphorical door behind them. When Streetcleaner is on the stereo, you feel powerless to ignore it. Maybe it seems counterintuitive to reach for the darkest slabs of noise at the worst moments; I'm sure there are some out there who will never understand the appeal for a depressed person of their Smiths (or Swans) records. But for those who know what it is to struggle through loss of dignity and personal pride, long dark nights of all-encompassing solitude, those crisis points in which one seriously contemplates whether it'd be better to give up and walk away from everything familiar and try again somewhere else--Streetcleaner will speak quite clearly. Its specific words are not really that important, either--only that it clearly speaks from familiar terrain. In that, some may find comfort. Maybe that's all we can ask for.

--

Godflesh's Streetcleaner Redux Edition was released on August 10 by Earache Records and can be ordered here.

The decade old animated .gif continues to evolve as the fashion driven designer Insa and street artist Inkie bring a fresh take on an old favorite. Can you see this in an ad somewhere soon?

There is an appreciation in Richmond for all things independent and the struggle that lies with creating it. Fortunately, we have places like Gallery 5 that continues to be an avenue for under appreciated art and media. With the next show Self Titled, the gallery showcases the work of independently produced LP,CD, and 7' album covers. When grouped together and in context, the audience can get a sense of how varied and talented this community is.

Band: Ghastly City Sleep
Album: Ghastly City Sleep
Artist: Brandon Evans

Band/s: Brainworms and The Catalyst
Album: The Brainworms and The Catalyst Split
Artists: James Callahan and Nick Kuzyk

Gallery5 and Rorschach Records Presents:
SELF TITLED
First Fridays Opening Reception: Friday September 3rd
Exhibition on display until October 15th

“SELF TITLED” includes original artwork that has been featured on the covers of independently produced LP, CD, and 7” albums. The exhibition assembles a progressive group of artists, many of which are musicians in the bands represented. At first glance, this work may serve only as an informal greeting, or a mere introduction to unindulged content. However, these covers also reflect a powerful social narrative in which recorded sound and visual component become mutual surrogates, transcending advertisement and promotional obligation. As MP3 platforms become ever more prominent, this work reinforces the importance of physical ownership, embodying the autonomous mission of small labels and independent musicians. Whether you are browsing Raymond Pettibond’s work for SST, or looking over the more contemporary visuals of John Baizley (Baroness, Torche), these images elevate our understanding of music and determine how we visualize the masterworks of each generation.

Featuring original cover art from the following:
Homemade Knives
Floor
Kylesa
Brainworms
City of Caterpillar
Stop It
The Catalyst
Twelve Hour Turn
Ghastly City Sleep
Screaming Females
Pink Razors

main image:
Band: Ghastly City Sleep
Album: Ghastly City Sleep
Artist: Brandon Evans

More information can be found at www.gallery5arts.org

In less than 48 hours, the Ninth Annual Best Friends Day Weekend will begin, kicking off with a Thursday night show at the Bike Lot. Over the course of a long three-day weekend, the festival will encompass at least 6 more events, featuring live performances by Andrew W.K., Propagandhi, and reunited hardcore legends Negative Approach, among many others. It's come quite a long way from its origin as a one-day get-together at which all of the attendees were actually best friends. But co-founder Tony Foresta believes that the spirit of that original event still lives within the current incarnation of Best Friends Day.

"If that feeling wasn't still there, I doubt that we would still be doing it after this long," he says. "It feels different sometimes, but I think that has a lot to do with me getting older and not recognizing 80% of the people that attend now." However, he insists, "that's not a bad thing! I'm proud that not only Richmond folks but people from all over the world have embraced Best Friends Day as their own. Thats really important to me."

This year, Foresta and his compatriots have prepared an amazing variety of entertainments for their best friends around the globe, beginning with the show Thursday night at the Bike Lot. The show is headlined by veteran power-popsters Lemuria, who've just released a single called Ozzy on Hex Records, and also features the anthemic, emotional punk stylings of Banner Pilot, whose album Collapser (Fat Wreck, 2009) is a must for fans of Latterman and Dillinger Four.

Black Army Jacket

But the real story, at least for the old-school heads, is the first show in 12 years by Black Army Jacket, a late-90s era power-violence band featuring Municipal Waste's Dave Witte on drums. According to a Noisecreep interview with bassist Carlos Ramirez, the band "felt we should have closed out Black Army Jacket in a better way." To that end, they booked two reunion shows featuring the band's definitive lineup--Witte, Ramirez, ex-Milhouse/Disinhil guitarist Andrew Orlando, and vocalist Rob Lawi. Ramirez doubts there will be any more after the second reunion show in New York next month, so you'd be well advised to make it to the Bike Lot on Thursday and catch them while you can. Ohio pop-punks The Dopamines (now featuring Mikey Erg on second guitar) and local masters of epic metal Inter Arma round out the lineup.

On Friday morning, those who are capable of both skipping work and getting out of bed will be able to head down to Mojo's Philadeli (733 W. Cary St) at 11:30 to sign up for Field Day. Field Day is a new Best Friends Day event for 2010, replacing the scavenger hunt of previous years with an event that keeps everyone in the same place but still involves lots of running around. Ten teams of four will compete in a Decathlon of Oblivion, with the grand prize being free admission to Friday night's show and Saturday's all-day event at Hadad's Lake. "We wanted to do something different this year, that was more of a spectacle but still 'Best Buds' related," Foresta explained. "I'm really excited about it. Ward and Erin cooked up some funny shit. I can't wait for the Tug-o-War event." The festivities will kick off with a noontime performance by Richmond instrumental math-rock combo, Field Day, after which everyone will relocate to Holly Street Park (at the Western end of Holly St. in Oregon Hill), where the competition will take place.

Friday night, after the Decathlon ends and the sun sets, The Canal Club (1545 E. Cary St.) will be the location for one of the two main events of this year's Best Friends Day. Andrew W.K. will be performing solo, accompanied only by his keyboards and programmed beats, but you can be sure that he'll party just as hard as ever. Canadian punk powerhouse Propagandhi, whose recent album Supporting Caste is a career highlight and (perhaps not coincidentally) the most metal thing they've ever recorded, will also be performing, along with Richmond's favorite sons Municipal Waste, who should need no introduction for RVA readers.

Crowd during Municipal Waste, BFD 5

When asked about booking Andrew W.K. for this year's festival, Foresta told us it "was something that we've been trying to pull off since BFD 4. Now we actually are able to afford to make it a reality. Every year we take the majority of the money that is made and put it into the next year. That's how we were able to fly Propagandhi here and to have a line up of Municipal Waste, Andrew WK and Propagandhi all on a 20 dollar show. We try our best to make one of the cheapest musical events going, while still being able to afford to put it on. A lot of the bigger bands that I've worked with on this have even taken pay cuts to be a part of it, and to make it fun and cheap." Baltimore's Deep Sleep, whose angry hardcore features intriguing hints of melody and can be heard on their CD compilation Three Things At Once (released by Richmond's own Grave Mistake Records), will also be playing, as will Savage Brewtality, a fun, intense hardcore band from Gainesville, Florida.

After all of that action on Friday night, the temptation may be to sleep late on Saturday morning, but you'll have to get up early if you don't want to miss some of the action, which begins at 10 AM in the parking lot of Fine Foods Market (700 Idlewood Ave) with a free performance by Tim Barry. After that performance is done, To The Bottom And Back bus services will be providing free rides to Hadad's Lake, with shuttle services running back and forth between Hadad's and the Fine Foods parking lot all day. This way, everyone can plan not to have to worry about making the drive--an especially good idea for those looking forward to drinking during their stay at Hadad's. This arrangement represents a new evolution in Best Friends Day's continued attempts to collaborate whenever possible with local businesses. "We try our best to keep the local businesses in the loop, so people can check them out while they're running around town," Foresta said. In the past, this involved "making their restaurants a stop in the scavenger hunt, or having a power violence band play their grocery store parking lot," but this year's collaboration with To The Bottom And Back represents a new apex of community relations, in which local businesses come together to improve the festival experience for everyone--even those in the community who aren't attending. "Mojo's and 821 Cafe both pitched in and paid the folks at To The Bottom and Back to drive their school buses to and from Hadads all day!" Foresta said. "Talk about teamwork!" The Best Friends Day crew have done their best over the years to make relations between the festival and the community as good as possible, and Foresta really sees this paying off. "I think over the years a lot of local businesses have realized that Best Friends Day isn't just people coming here to get drunk and trash the town. BFD is people from all walks of life who live in or come to Richmond to experience all of the fun and beautiful things this place has to offer."

Negative Approach

Hadad's Lake (1140 Mill Rd., Richmond, VA 23231) offers plenty of entertaining activities, including swimming, basketball, horseshoes, volleyball, and paddleboats, but those who attend this year's Best Friends Day event at Hadad's, on Saturday from 11 AM until 7 PM may find it tough to tear themselves away from the stage. Headlining the day will be reunited hardcore legends Negative Approach, whose most recent release is the EP Friends Of No One, a six-song recording session from right before their original breakup in 1984, lost for 25 years and only found in the last year or so. That EP is available from Taang! Records, and its raw, lo-fi sound does nothing to blunt the impact of the music within. Also appearing on this unbelievable eight-band bill will be Minneapolis melodic punkers Off With Their Heads, whose latest LP In Deslolation is on Epitaph Records.

Brainworms at the Bike Lot, BFD 6

Local supergroup Brainworms will be playing their last show ever, and as hard as this is to believe, coming from a band whose first half-dozen shows were all billed as their "last show," it seems that this time it really is true, and we'll all miss them a great deal once they're gone--so make sure you get to Hadad's and see them one last time! Chicago's The Arrivals will also be bringing their brand of post-Leatherface melodic, emotional punk to us, and Algernon Cadwallader will play their delightfully off-kilter melodic math-rock jams for us all as well. But wait, there's more! New Jersey's The Measure [SA], who just released a split with New Bruises on Kiss Of Death Records, will play a set of their jittery pop-punk to get everyone bouncing around, local jazz/funksters No BS Brass Band will jam out on horns and percussion, and Sundials will start the whole thing off with a set of catchy, poppy punk. And to top all of this off, if at any time you get hungry during the afternoon, Carytown Burgers And Fries will be on-hand, serving Vegan, Veg, and Carnivore varieties of their excellent menu, so that everyone will be able to chow down!

You might be ready to crash after all of that, but if you're still awake at 10 PM on Saturday, head on over to Strange Matter for an aftershow featuring dual-drummer icons of heaviness The Catalyst, the emotional post-hardcore of Worn In Red, Brooklyn math-rockers Tournament, and the raging punk rock of The Two Funerals. If you make it to every event on Saturday, that's over fourteen hours of fun, music, and friends! Pretty ridiculous, for sure, but also very, very awesome.

But that's still not all! One final show remains, beginning at 1 PM on Sunday, at Gallery 5 (200 W. Marshall St.). Government Warning will be headlining, playing their fast, old-school hardcore and bringing Best Friends Day 9 to a close in fine, raging style. Also appearing will be Gainesville punk rockers The Grabass Charlestons; Richmond's finest garage-rock/hardcore hybrid, Cloak/Dagger; Philadelphia's Amateur Party, who feature members of Armalite and Off Minor; and local post-hardcore rockers Mouthbreather.

Tony Foresta and the rest of the Best Friends Day crew have put in a ton of work to bring us this year's festival, and while he enjoys the results, there can be some associated headaches. "My biggest problem is more about the behind the scenes stuff like getting the backline and booking hotel rooms and doing things that I normally take for granted when I'm touring with my band," he says. "It's hard work to book a show. It's REALLY hard work to book a fest. Karma is finally paying me back for all of the times I've pissed off promoters on my Waste tours." He laughs. "Now I know how they feel. Being a promoter is usually a thankless job and a lot of these people do it because they love the music. I know that's why I do it. There are some shady bookers out there, but the majority of the promoters I've met over the years are just music fans." As fellow music fans, we should all be able to appreciate what everyone involved with Best Friends Day have brought to us this year. Their hard work is everyone's gain.

--

For more info about Best Friends Day, go here or here. For advance tickets to Friday night's show at The Canal Club, click here. Advance tickets for that show and the Gallery 5 show on Sunday can also be purchased at Vinyl Conflict (324 S. Pine St.).

Just Plain Ant - Rumble, Young Man, Rumble (justplainant.bandcamp.com)

Just Plain Sounds’ prolific beat making impresario, Just Plain Ant, returns with a vengeance on his latest guest laden full length release. Ant’s signature style of jazz infused hip hop is strongly on display and more eclectic than ever as each track is taken in a new direction by a cast of some of the area’s best MCs. The album’s bass-heavy jazz sampling hearkens back to the early 90’s positivists hip hop movement, fronted by acts like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, while also sounding entirely contemporary and progressive in its embrace of grander melodic progressions and themes in the songs themselves. The early album track, “No Title For It (feat. Ohbliv and Gordy Michael),” is an anthem to musical nonconformity that rises to inspiring heights. Funky organ samples give way to a sea of rising and swooning strings that swell under a distorted chorus, sounding like a hip-hop-militant bull goring the record industry atop a burnt out car. The sheer multitude of local talent on this release is staggering, perhaps even more impressive considering the fact the each MC does one of the most difficult tasks imaginable in hip hop--sounding like they belong on a record with Chuck D. The Public Enemy legend makes his mind boggling guest spot on the album’s eighth track, “Way Back When (feat Chuck. D)”, a disco-infused Michael Jackson-sampling boogie that finds the acclaimed MC taking us back in the day to the music of the early 80’s, when life was about house parties, roller skating, and above all getting down. With guest spots from the likes of Joey Ripps, Black Liquid, Draztiq, and Sleaze, among many others, the album is a nonstop best of Richmond’s hip hop underground.

Netherfriends - Barry And Sherry (netherfriends.bandcamp.com)

The music of Chicago’s Shawn Rosenblatt, the one man touring machine known as Netherfriends, is a sonic dedication and celebration of all things indie pop. Berry and Sherry, the artist’s most recent release, is a deftly orchestrated album of reverb drenched pop songs, beginning with the opening track, “Bret Easton Ellis Novel." The song’s ambulation from its strident click-clack rhythms into a wall of explosive distortion and echo sets the tone for the majority of the album. “More Than Friends Who Like Good Music,” the album's brightest and happiest moment, starts as a Burt Bacharach light-jazz swing, flourishing into a sentimentalist’s rant about backyard delights and frugal wisdom. Rosenblatt’s lyrical stylings are best described in the line “I’m gonna start singing like the way I talk," from the album’s second cut “I’m Gonna Start." It’s a style that serves him well, especially on the grand and haunting piano centered ballad, “Lead You Through the Misty Fog of Milwaukee Ave.” Berry and Sherry is an album about the life of someone unsure if they are going to reach the finish line they’ve set in front of themselves. The entire album is an outstanding summation of youthful desires, fears and uncertainty, in a world that puts obstacles in the way of your dreams.

OUTASIGHT – Never Say Never mixtape (LRG)
ZERO STARS OUT OF FIVE

Over the course of this bloated, wildly unnecessary piece of rap/clothing/promotional ephemera, Outasight manages, against all odds, to shit out one magical golden egg of inadvertent retard-savant wisdom: there are some people in the world who are simply not worth wasting your breath on. They are such privileged, deluded, highly moneyed, ego-drenched cocksuckers that they will never, ever listen to what you have to say, even if it is true, no matter how you put it. The only solution to dealing with these people is to ignore them--allow them to continue to “do them” as you continue to “do you.” This singular tenet is clearly what has defined Outasight’s existence; there’s no other plausible explanation that could possibly be given for this dude managing to cut open the pants pocket of somebody in the record industry (debut album coming from Warner/Asylum in 2011!) and steal a bunch of their money.

But wait, what about the music, man? Glad you asked. Let me put it as succinctly as I can—as if it wasn’t insulting enough to be expected to earnestly bump this entry into the “Homogenous White-Dude Robo-R&B” rat race, to co-sign on it with a shit eating grin just because the former manager of Mobb Deep is involved... No, on top of all that, this VH1-“You Oughta Know,” strip mall coffeehouse open-mic busking rich-boy motherfucker is so desperate for an identity of his own and so drunkenly empowered on label money that he boldly attempts reappropriating Dylan’s “Tom Thumb’s Blues” a quarter of the way through this digital disaster.

You know what? Nevermind, Outasight; you just do you, shorty, and I’m gonna do me, and right now that means reading comprehensive reviews of double-barreled shotguns. I’ll just let you guess why, and you can let me know your guess in six to eight weeks, when we bump into each other at Starbucks. I mean, outside of Starbucks. Haha!