Prisoners - Back In The USSA (Smog Veil)

My first listen to the debut album from Ohio’s Prisoners left me without an opinion. A second listen helped to highlight the strong influences of bands like the Replacements and the White Stripes in the band’s songwriting. With twangy, grungy guitars and gruff, crackling adolescent vocals, Prisoners do an excellent job of emulating the bluesy style of both of those bands. The problem I have with this album is that it never goes beyond mere emulation. The production is solid, and the musicianship is competent, but the songwriting does little to separate itself from the pack of accomplished bands already operating in the genre.

One song midway through inspires optimism. "Little Old Me" is spunky and whiny, full of bluesy riffs and sarcastically self-pitying vocals. It jumps out at you in a way none of the other tracks manage to do. Standard blues-based rock and roll needs to be full of tiny little hooks to keep me interested. This album, while not bad in any general sense, fails to grab me. It’s worth a listen or two, but isn’t something I’m going to be coming back to time and time again. That being said, I don’t see any reason Prisoners can’t become a solid band in time. The talent is there, but the innovative songwriting is not, yet.

Screaming Females, The Two Funerals, Body Cop and Little Master
August 16 at Gallery 5

Monday evening at Gallery 5 felt like a celebration. All the bands on the bill were wonderful. It’s a great feeling to have a new favorite song embedded in your head and a new sense of rediscovered inspiration in your step. After the show was done, I couldn’t stop talking about all of the bands that played. One thought that came to mind was the role of women in rock bands and the progression made over the years. Each band that played last night featured a female musician that had an integral role in the band beyond vocal duties. Whether it was Leah Clancy playing bass for Little Master or the front-women of DC’s Body Cop, The Two Funerals and Screaming Females, there is a changing dynamic at play here. I am quite enthused about the recent wave of female-fronted groups that have incredibly talented instrument players at the helm. Whether it’s Bridge & Tunnel or Thao With The Get Down Stay Down or Feist, there is a trend emerging here that I hope continues to be fueled by the enthusiasm of music scenes across the country.

Little Master reminded me of Husker Du and other Midwestern punk favorites. This sat very well with me throughout their set, which featured the musings of frontman Tim Morris and the recent addition of Wolfgang Daniel on second guitar. Their guitar interplay was a delight to witness. The band was able to keep things simple while spicing up their tunes with a tremendous level of intricate guitar parts shared by the two. I think this group has the potential to turn a few heads in the city.

It would be understatement to say that Washington DC’s Body Cop stood out from the rest of the lineup. With a live setup designed to truly engage its listeners, their short three-song set was a nice departure. The band’s energy was a strong point of the set. Although the set ended abruptly due to a member of the group sustaining a terrible injury, the audience seemed to really dig Body Cop. I imagine if they haven’t already, they could begin calling Richmond a new home away from home.

I have no good excuse for why it has taken me so long to see The Two Funerals. This was the perfect crowd for the band and there were grins across the room. The core of the group relies heavily on their three-piece structure and has a wonderful penchant for writing up tempo punk tunes that incorporate strong, catchy melodies. I see that The Two Funerals will be playing fairly frequently in Richmond for the next couple months. If you haven’t already, this is a band to become familiar with.

Screaming Females is the band I want to play the soundtrack to my dreams and ambitions. They played their songs with such a vigor and passion that it was truly inspiring. Marissa Paternoster easily has one of the best unassuming stage presences ever. Her talent for guitar parts is incredible and impressive. It’s hard to apply words to a band that I fell head over heels for within moments of hearing the first song of their set. I hope I’m not the first one to tell you all this, but Screaming Females are absolutely awesome. The best thing I could ever wish for is that we all have our own Screaming Females story about the first time we encountered them (whether that was at Tinderbox back in the day or Monday night at Gallery 5).

As I rode my bike home with a copy of their soon-to-be released record Castle Talk in my messenger bag, I was gushing about what a great show I was able to check out. It may be a scarce, seldom experienced feeling, but to achieve and maintain that feeling after the fact is what makes the wait for these kinds of shows worth it.

It is pointless to criticize a movie like Piranha 3D. Kitschy, hyper-violent creature features like this are meant to be comedies more than horror films. The filmmaking team clearly had set goals in mind: Have plenty of bloody violence, show a lot of breasts, pack in some funny cameo appearances from some old stars, and make as ridiculous a film as possible. They succeed on every point of the list. If you do not want to see the things on the list, or if you want anything else besides what is on the list, do not see this film.

The tone is set from the very beginning of the film, as one of the big cameos, Richard Dreyfuss, unofficially reprises his role from Jaws. After everything the poor guy went through, he decides to go fishing on a peaceful lake right when seismic activity opens an underwater cavern and releases thousands of prehistoric piranhas. After the piranhas finish their appetizer, they set out for the other side of the lake where 50,000 college kids have flocked for spring break.

Not to worry, though. This is not just a 90 minute massacre of nameless, faceless kids. We are introduced to a few characters. We meet Sheriff Julie Forester, played by Elizabeth Shue, who thought thousands of college kids in her town was more than enough to contend with. We also meet her son, Jake, who is supposed to stay home and babysit his younger siblings, but instead takes a once in a lifetime opportunity to work as local guide for a sleazy traveling pornographer. Jerry O’Connell steals the show as that pornographer, Derrick Jones, who is clearly and unapologetically based on Girls Gone Wild founder, Joe Francis. O’Connell seems like he had a ball making the movie and plays up all scum and sleaze in an over-the-top frenzy of hilarity. His character is also the impetus behind much of the female nudity in this movie, which is likely one of the main selling points for the film’s teen male target audience.

Everything pans out in the way one would expect. Sheriff Forester futilely attempts to save thousands of kids from even more thousands of chomping teeth, while Jake’s girlfriend get trapped below decks of Derrick Jones’ sinking yacht as piranha infested water slowly rises around her. It is up to Jake to swim through the swarm of carnivorous fish and reach his girlfriend through the hole in the bottom of the boat to get her to safety. He could just pull her to safety through the skylight on the ship deck, but it is stuck and Jake is unable to pry it open with a wooden paddle. Do not ask why Jake does not use the paddle to just break the skylight. Heroics are more exciting than common sense.

Overall, Piranha 3D acts as one of those mindless guilty pleasure films. You should not go out of your way to see it, but in the unlikely event that you ever just drive to a movie theater without checking showtimes and this movie is your only option upon arrival, go ahead a buy a ticket. You will see a film that could never be described as good, but can most certainly be described as fun.

A Note on 3D: At this point it should just be assumed that, unless stated otherwise, the 3D effects do nothing to improve the film. This has been the year of 3D following the innumerable success of Avatar released last December. Piranha 3D is another film, like Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans, and The Last Airbender earlier this year, to shoot in 2D and convert to 3D later. The effect looks cheap and sloppy. It makes colors dim and motion blurry. It is not immersive, and it makes the picture look like several flat images layered overtop one another. It is too bad, in a movie that revels in its poor quality, the 3D and special effects may have been the only thing they really wanted to do well.

Face Value - Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Clevo HC 89-93 (Smog Veil)

In an era during which hardcore bands have the ability to reach larger audiences than ever before, it can sometimes be difficult to recall that at one point this music was infused with a palpable sense of danger. Hardcore was a subculture whose adherents were drawn more from genuine misfits and outcasts than from suburban kids trying to vent a few years’ worth of adolescent aggression before settling into the normalcy of the adult world. Those are the years that seemed to produce genuine characters, some famous and some infamous, who were as polarizing as they were memorable. These characters have become rarer with each successive year, with hardcore musicians becoming as faceless as the music they play. One of the major polarizing figures from that era is Tony Erba. As a member of bands like 9 Shocks Terror, Gordon Solie Motherfuckers, and most recently Cheap Tragedies, Erba, with his shrill voice, a decidedly non-politically correct stance on just about everything, and a propensity for directing live shows towards destructive mayhem, has provided a strong counterpoint to whatever trends currently dominate hardcore. When popular bands were playing more intricate, technical material, his bands played faster and simpler. When audience participation at shows was characterized by the dichotomy between fans who would stand as still as possible with their arms folded and those who would try out the kickboxing moves they had practiced in the mirror before the show, Erba threw bricks and firecrackers in the audience – anything to be as confrontational as possible. But what many hardcore fans also don’t recall at this point is that Erba got his start singing for Face Value, a Cleveland band, existing from 1989 until 1993, who, at their best, stood out like a sore thumb from the post-Youth Of Today doldrums which predominated in much of that era’s hardcore.

Rode Hard, Put Away Wet combines both a CD discography of Face Value’s recorded material and a DVD of live performances spanning the length of their existence. The track sequencing of the CD seems odd at first, skipping around chronologically between releases, starting in the middle of the band’s career and then fluctuating between earlier and later material. Upon listening, however, the choice of song order becomes more readily understandable, and often seems like the material was arranged by quality. The first songs, from the 1991 album The Price Of Maturity, showcase Face Value at their peak. It’s easy to see why, despite the catchiness and the aggression of songs like “Men From The Boys” and “Emotional Addiction,” hardcore devotees more acclimated to the polish of Insted or Gorilla Biscuits might not have known how to take Face Value. The most notable element of the album is the band’s ability to almost perfectly balance fast hardcore a la SSD with an unabashed love of classic rock. Had they not been so fast, many of the songs sound like they could have been long-lost Grand Funk Railroad or Mountain songs, an element which was the band’s strong suit. The only band working in comparable territory at the time was Poison Idea (especially on their Feel The Darkness album), but Face Value eschewed that band’s gloomy nihilism in favor of something more – dare I say – fun. This era of Face Value was easily their peak, as the subsequent material on Rode Hard, Put Away Wet demonstrates.

The Coming Of Age EP, released in 1990, is decent but hardly groundbreaking. Songs like “Can’t Take Much More” and “Holding The Grudge” are not far removed from the gruff bluntness of Judge, but fail to distinguish themselves from the vast number of other bands with such influences. Next on the discography is 1993’s Kick It Over, which sees the band falling into a slower to mid-tempo sound. This sound, while keeping the classic rock influence intact, causes Face Value to gravitate towards a vibe not unlike many of the early Victory records bands – a sound which proved highly popular, but failed to do Face Value’s potential for energetic performance much justice. There is still an aggression present which saves Kick It Over from joining the ranks of such failed hardcore/hard rock crossovers as SSD’s How We Rock or the second Void album that never got released [EDITOR'S NOTE: Graham is talking about Potions For Bad Dreams, copies of which are floating around on the internet for the morbidly curious among you]. The final tracks on the album, from the band’s 1989 Clevo Hardcore demo, showcase Face Value in its roughest form. One of the songs would end up on the Coming Of Age EP, and the rest share that record’s tendency towards fairly basic and unoriginal, while not necessarily terrible, material. While the latter three releases are an interesting historical document, only the material from The Price Of Maturity justifies any renewal of interest in this band.

No lyrics are provided with the album, which is unfortunate as Tony Erba has shown a long-standing ability with wordplay. While titles like “Sellout,” “Naivete,” and “Coming Of Age” sound like fairly standard late ‘80s/early ‘90s hardcore lyrical fodder, it would be nice to know one way or the other. Instead, the album includes a large poster which features Erba and a cast of characters, including members of bands as disparate as Endpoint and Hatebreed, waxing nostalgic on the influence and importance of Face Value. The quality of the ruminations varies (though Erba’s are unsurprisingly the best-written and funniest) and they tend to walk a line between actual history and the sort of grandiose hyperbole that only a few decades worth of hindsight can provide. But if hardcore is to be viewed as a genuine and viable subculture rather than as a marketing tool or an adolescent phase, these are the stories that need to be recorded. Their inclusion is an excellent addition to the album.

The video content is nice to have, but isn’t necessarily required viewing. Though each video gives a good impression of the band’s live energy (something not always captured by the sterile studio production of many of that era’s hardcore bands), the videos don’t really live up to the sort of chaos implied by the band’s mythology. Much of this deficiency is likely related to the poor ability of older camcorders to handle the volume of a live band, as well as the stark contrast between bright stage lights and the darkness of the rest of the venue. The videos seem like a grainy artifact of a bygone era, more likely to be of importance to punk rock historians than anybody looking for anything entertaining enough for repeat views. Certainly worth watching for any fan of the band, but not necessarily essential otherwise.

On the whole, though, it’s great that this album exists. Given how much attention has been lavished on even the most generic of bands from this era of hardcore, it’s a shame that Face Value has languished so long in relative obscurity, despite their popularity at the time. While not all the material presented here is as essential as the first LP, a new generation of hardcore acts could still stand to take notes on a band like Face Value, one that set out to break molds rather than forge them and, at their best, did just that.

Check out the dope mix from Designer Drugs, and download this set and more from their Myspace page.

CLICK HERE FOR THE DATAMIX 09 PODCAST

Designer Drugs DJ Michael Vincent Patrick recently played RVALUTION at The Hat Factory and completely killed it. I had a chance to hang with him and his crew at the show, introducing him to the local scene and the big weekly party that is RVALUTION. I was dressed up as a zombie, with blood and makeup on ready to hit the floor, which I'm sure he found amusing, considering the apocalyptic themes that Designer Drugs explore in their music and merchandise. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Michael was impressed with what he experienced here in Richmond. "I love it," he told me. "I would play there once a month if I could. I didn't expect it to be that big at all. It was epic."

Dressed like a cross between a neo-apocalyptic punk and a hipster Buddy Holly, Michael fits in well here in Richmond. With PBR in hand and shots of whisky ready to go, he hit the decks, playing many of the tracks that have made Designer Drugs such a popular act. DD's music pulls sounds from electro, but gives them a pop feel, even while many of the tracks have an ominous, apocalyptic sound. Asked about this tendency towards darker sounds, Michael responded, "The apocalypse is happening right now." In light of this statement, for him to gear up and hit the stage in front of an entire crowd dressed as zombies seemed both appropriate and a bit ridiculous. Nonetheless, he apparently enjoyed himself, telling us that he hoped to return to Richmond "soon. And when I do I'll bring some CDs and free merch."

Designer Drugs is currently working on a studio album, to be released later this year. Check their Myspace and facebook pages for updates.

-
Reinhold
http://www.facebook.com/TheReinhold
john@rvamag.com

Check below for more info about Designer Drugs tracks and information about the group:

Designer Drugs BIO
Currently, Designer Drugs is releasing new material with iheartcomix Records. They’ve also been found partying on the couch at the Iheartcomix office. With one member attending med school and the other drinking whiskey across the globe, to keep from going crazy last year - the DD boys produced over 23 remixes and DJ’d over 100 shows around the world. This year, to keep from going crazy, Designer Drugs is putting the focus on original material while continuing to tour the galaxy and party harder than ever.

Most recently, Designer Drugs released their single “Zombies! / Back Up In This” on Iheartcomix Records, in 2009 with Remixes by Nadastrom, Don Rimini, Le Castle Vania and Bird Peterson. Designer Drugs has also completed remixes for labels such as Kitsune, Dim Mak, Fools Gold, Warner Brothers, Ministry Of Sound, Hail Social, Iamsound, Etc Etc, Coco Machette and Calamity Jane for artists such as Little Boots, The Veronicas, Thieves Like Us, Treasure Fingers, Mariah Carey, Jupiter One, Heart’s Revolution, Mission Control, Hail Social, and IAMX.

Both members of Designer Drugs are mentally controlled by ELLE REX (www.ellerex.net), photographer of NYC’s sleaziest and most entertaining electro party - RUFF CLUB. You can find her tagging along to shows, documenting the debauchery that ensues when DD takes the decks. What will happen next? You haven’t partied until you’ve partied with Designer Drugs!

Drop Down official video

http://www.designer-drugs.net/
http://www.facebook.com/DesignerDrugs
http://impactmerch.com/store/designerdrugs.html

Yawning Man - Nomadic Pursuits (Cobraside)
FOUR AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE STARS

This album should win an award for managing to be transcendentally amazing in spite of its cover art. Actually, never mind, I take that back. Nomadic Pursuits being so perfect in spite of that goofy Easter Island-inspired Geocities cartoon on the jacket is wholly representative of what Yawning Man are about. They absolutely don’t give a fuck about “success,” marketing, press releases, booking agents, publicity, or making the front of their record look cool; never fucking have, never fucking will. What other band has so wholly eschewed all trappings of Record Business over the course of their 25-year career that they have never, even to this day, toured the entire US? What other band has successfully launched such an innumerable horde of imitators-cum-millionaires, in fact likely influenced the progression of not just their own musical universe but indeed the fabled Rock World in general, without ever having sacrificed their integrity for the almighty dollar, or breaking apart on the precipice of their egos?

This is only the third “official” Yawning Man release since their formation in the mid-1980s—and before 2005’s Rock Formations and 2007’s Pot Head, the band was essentially a myth to those not directly located within striking distance of the desert which birthed them—if you were seeking their material, your best bet was to befriend an old stoner and demand a dubbed cassette. Much of this pre-2005 material, culled from the band’s widely circulated 80s demos, was released this year as The Birth of Sol. (Yes, it shreds.)

Nomadic Pursuits finds the trio—still comprised of original members Gary Arce (guitar), Alfredo Hernandez (drums) and Mario Lalli (bass)—more stunningly powerful and hypnotic than ever, obviously deep in third-eye cosmic communion with each other. They often cast off both sparse, stirring desert soundscapes and pounding, interpolated rhythm in the space of a single composition and, for the majority of the album, fill far more sonic real estate than seems possible for just three players. There is no bullshit on this record—just seven strong songs laced with enough subliminal hooks to have you whistling Arce’s melodies in the shower a week after you finally put it down. It is free of every production trick and cliché vestige of “stoner”/”desert rock," the band essentially playing the role of sonic shaman, beckoning you to immerse yourself fully, to flip the peregrina platter again, and again, and again.... There aren’t words to describe how refreshing a listening experience Nomadic Pursuits provides. Buy this record now. No, seriously, right now—you’re on the fucking internet, aren’t you?

--

Nomadic Pursuits can be purchased here. The Birth Of Sol, featuring "Catamaran" (later covered by Kyuss) is available from itunes here.

At a time when Virginia radio stations are cutting local programing to make room for syndicated shows from major markets, WHAN1430AM is going against the grain. The Gods of the Bobble Heads is a relatively new show that's first broadcast was Saturday, May 1st. "The show is more of a variety format where we produce funny skits, fake commercials, and offer a forum for local people to promote themselves to a diverse audience they can't find elsewhere." say Dan Anderson, one of the shows creators, better known as Pasta Fagioli (fazool). When asked, co-creator John "Johny Cab" Massey said: "From hip-hop to indie-rock, film-makers and authors, there truly is something here for everyone...As a struggling artist myself, I wish I had a resource like this show when I was trying to promote my own music."

The Gods of the Bobble Heads is overflowing with edgy content, so it's not for sensitive people, or those with a weak stomache. It was created with the tastes of the ever-evolving tastes of the 18-35 yo consumer in mind. "We don't discriminate against anyone, for any reason, because of that, nothing is off limits short of FCC restrictions." says Brandon "Baby Huey" Fox, the most recent addition to the motley crew known as The Bobblegods.The shows diverse group of guests include indie rock band Make Phantoms, author JJ McMoon, and and stand-up comedian Patrick McCarthy just to name a few. "We've been blessed to have great guests so early on, but we'd like to diversify further by adding professional fighters, skateboarders, and street preformers to the list." says Pasta.

Smart, funny, edgy, and humble, The Gods of the Bobble Heads is exactly the kind of radio that Richmond needs. A soap-box for locals, the Bobblegods invite everyone to submit their music for regular rotation. Anyone who feels they have something for the bobble heads can apply to be on the show at www.bobblegods.com in the contact section. The show can be heard every Saturday from 8-10 pm on WHAN 1430am in Ashland, or live at www.bobblegods.com anywhere in the world. "It's all about accessibility...every Sunday we turn the Sat. show into a podcast on our site so people who missed it live can download and listen to it anytime." says Baby Huey. Low-brow humor with intelectual undertones, the show is enjoyable now, but continues to get better with every broadcast.

Either way, it's sure to make your head bobble.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PODCAST!

No. 3: Richmond, VA

Perhaps most surprising on our list is the city of Richmond, Va., which averages about 14.5 tattoo shops per 100,000 people — and that's just within the city itself. Likely boosting its numbers is its big arts and college community, and the fact that the surrounding suburbs and cities contain plenty more tattoo shops — the most of which per capita appeared in the small town of Colonial Heights, which has five shops for just under 17,000 residents.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE

Let the the post Best Friend's Day photo/article tidal wave begin. The guys over at our favorite local blog TheBlaaahg bring us some eye candy for Monday morning.

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST

PS: If you have great pics from BFD, send them to hello@rvamag.com.

Even if you don't consider yourself learned in the arts, you can still spot something utterly bizarre and question its validity. What is art? What is the artist telling me? Does that blue really go with the splash of red? What's up with the spaghetti? Questions to be asked and answered at a challenging upcoming exhibit from ADA Gallery titled "Charm School".

The work shown is by Alison Brady, a New York based artist from Cleveland, Ohio. She hold an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts (NYC).

--------------------------->

"Charm School"
featuring work by Mike Hein, Alison Brady, Rob Lee, Christopher Mahonski,
Tom Condon, Barbara, Weissberger, Lisa Neighbor and others.

show runs September 3rd - September 26, 2010, with opening reception
Friday, September 3rd 7-10pm.

gallery hours are Thursday, Friday 12-5pm, Saturday 12-4pm.

go to adagallery.com for more information

A selection of photos from Hadad's at BFD 2010. If you took pics, hit us up with them.

Click HERE for all the photos from the weekend by Todd Raviotta. Come back for more photos later today.

http://naturalscience.posterous.com/tag/bfd

Yesterday, Propagandhi singer/guitarist Chris Hannah posted his impressions of their experience with Best Friends Day 9 this past weekend, and had a lot of nice things to say about the festival, and Richmond in general. A relevant excerpt:

These people really know how to throw a party and a great music event. i especially appreciate that they did it all without laming it up with a bunch of goofy corporate sponsors.

Music and commerce are certainly tangled together in our world, but the tendency of most festivals to make musicians defacto indentured-servants of corporate hyper-consumerism bums us out. So it’s a pretty awesome statement that the organizers of BFD make when they choose to work their magic with a spirit of independence, relying on their own resourcefulness and grassroots community connections rather than some easy and crass corporate dollars. Cheers to Tony and the rest of organizers/ volunteers for that!

It had never even occurred to me before, but Chris is totally right--by now, Best Friends Day could be saturated with advertisements, as so many other music festivals are. We are lucky not to have those kinds of things shoved down our throats every year. It's just another reason to appreciate the great work of the Best Friends Day organizers.

Read the rest of what Chris had to say at Propagandhi's website, here.

T-Division - A Problem For Your Solution (Self-released)

Existing on the fringes of the Richmond scene for the past two years, T-Division have not yet had the opportunity to make a name for themselves in our fair city. However, it is clear from listening to their first EP, A Problem For Your Solution, that this is not due to a lack of talent. In a town where hardcore is the dominant sound, T-Division's angry punk rock is somewhat out of place. And yet, as this EP makes clear, they are good enough at what they do that genre classifications shouldn't be able to keep them out of the spotlight for long.

Opening track "PBRVA" has a great title that should appeal to the dominant Richmond mindset, but it's got a lot more to offer than just that. The early verses are driven by chunky rhythm guitar riffing and speedy drumming, but the chorus that shows up halfway through the song is catchier, driven by melodic vocals that still have plenty of gruff punk appeal. The final line of the second verse is irresistible: "Hey fuckface, welcome to Richmond!" It's made for a drunken singalong. What really makes this song--and, to an extent, all of T-Division's songs--work is the tightness of the band, who sound like they've spent years practicing constantly, honing their sound to a razor sharpness. Their production only helps in making these guys sound polished; it's thick and solid, and the instruments combine and work together to create a good overall sound without any one element being too dominant.

"American Pocket Lint" is the only less-than-perfect song here; beginning with a half-speed intro, it requires the singer to move from his usual harshly melodic yell to a cleaner, more conventional singing voice that doesn't really suit him. The middle section of the song returns to the fast tempos that T-Division focus on elsewhere on the EP, and things improve noticeably during this section. There's another slowed-down section towards the end of the song, but it is driven by chugging guitar chords and a more standard vocal performance from the singer, so it doesn't drag the way the song's opening does. "American Pocket Lint" also features excellent socio-political lyrics about the gradual disappearance of American factory jobs. "All we manufacture here is flesh," the singer tells us. "So let them eat their children, and let their children eat themselves." It's an unfortunately true commentary on vanishing employment for America's working classes.

"And Nothing Else," another strong, fast punk tune, also featured lyrics that caught my ear, but for an entirely different reason. The first time I heard it, the line that jumped out at me was, "Is this your country or do you just live here?" Encountering right-wing nationalism on this record would have dampened my enthusiasm for it a bit, but on repeated listens, I couldn't tell whether that was the main thrust of the lyrics, or whether that one line was more of an isolated comment that I had perhaps taken out of context. I decided to ask the band about it over email, and got this response from singer Judah: "'And Nothing Else' is about being pressured to go to a shit job, and recycle, and vote, and not eat meat, and go to church.... finding it all bothersome and deciding to run with the resentment for it all. There is also a buried political statement about using positive words to inspire negativity." I found it interesting that he felt equal pressure from society at large to both go vegetarian (an idea I associate with liberalism) and go to church (which seemed more conservative). Guitarist Scott told me that "some of our lyrics can get political, but we like to ride the line. We don't affiliate ourselves with any particular political party or thought process. We're open minded, yet cynical about the world around us." While I'm not sure whether lyrics like "Fuck saving the world, that's not my job," or "The truth is so much clearer when all the dust settles on my mirror" (which may or may not be a drug reference) are the most positive statements, it seems that T-Division are coming from a position of questioning authority and refusing to uncritically accept any particular political theory. While I may not always agree with the conclusions they draw, I'm satisfied that they're coming to them using critical thought processes, which is, to my mind, what punk's supposed to be about.

A Problem For Your Solution is an excellent first effort. T-Division may not be the most original band in the world, but they play the sound they've chosen well, with energy and inspiration that is clear in the music they produce. Two years of relatively low-profile gigs may not have been enough to bring them fame in the local scene, but this new EP should give them some help in that regard.

Barrett Snow is a stunt guy. In this profession you acquire that title by being born a stunt man or stunt baby in this case. It takes a certain liveliness, a complete disregard for fear and the mental capacity to not let each stunt be his last.
Here is the story of one of our local stunt guys.

CLICK HERE FOR BARRETT SNOW

RVALUTION 20 will feature Michal Menert from the PRETTY LIGHTS label and of course, the cast of beautiful performers with Reinhold on the decks plus a possible special late night guest. Get ready to kick off the school year off in a big way at the Hat Factory tonight and dont sleep this Saturday on Audio Ammo's Brain Drain. More on that later.

Make sure to get your tickets HERE and use promo code "RVA" to get in for half off admission. This is only good until 11pm and it usually sold out by then so dont wait!

Before we let you go take a look at the craziness from last week with photos from RVA TV's Ben Muri. You know you want to be here tonight.

Click HERE to check out the full set.

Weirdo .gif work from rviral.tumblr.com

This show was absolutely bananas. Thank you to BFD 2010 for taking the city up a notch again but now they are absolutely fucked. How are they going to top this year? It can't get more ridiculous right? These photos are of Andrew WK but there is a wide selection of photos from the whole show by Chris Lacroix to be found HERE. Check them out.

Special thanks to Kathy over at the Canal Club. We still got video from this show coming.

Antagonist - World In Decline (Prosthetic)
Antagonist have good energy and excellent production, but this brand of metalcore has been done often, and without an extra spark of creativity and originality, it's hard to find something to latch onto. This album slides in one ear and out the other without leaving behind anything memorable. Oh well.

Capsule - Capsule (Tape + Demo + Tour + More) (Robotic Empire)
Capsule play minute-long blasts of complex, chaotic noise, occasionally interspersing them with longer, simpler, more melodic tracks. The chaos is impressive, if sometimes confusing, but the haunting melodies are what stick with you. This album collects everything they released prior to their 2008 LP Blue. You need it.

The Other - New Blood (Steamhammer)
Blazing metal a la Mercyful Fate. Sounds awesome, right? But in a post-irony age it's hard not to feel like you're being tricked somehow. More problematic is the super-clean production--all the cheesy elements of this record need some grit to balance them out. Too goofy to endorse.

I was randomly checking the Alley Katz website (which is still active) and it looks like the venue might be reopened for business.

The site says that there is a grand reopening on Sunday, Aug. 29 (The RVA Metal Fest has been moved to the Canal Club). A bunch of bands are playing including Boltt, A Sound of Thunder, Engulfed in Flames, Elisium, Templteka, Art of Destruction, Not-Liable, Saint Diablo, Bitter and Synapse Defect.

I don’t know if this is a benefit to reopen the venue or the official reopening itself. If anyone has any additional info, send it my way.

If it is in fact reopened, it’s only a good thing.

Read more local music coverage from Richmond Playlist at www.rvaplaylist.wordpress.com

It is around 3:30PM and we’re in South Beach Studios in Miami Beach, Florida, shooting a music video with Pharrell Williams. Alex Germanotta, the DP of the video and I began talks with VA natives Clipse a little while ago. We wanted to shoot a video off of their album Till the Casket Drops, which features Pharrell, and fellow Virginia native Kenna. To say we were excited would be the biggest understatement ever. Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes, media mogul, fashion icon, soundtrack composer. 

We had shown up a couple of hours earlier to set up and were doing test shots when we got a call from Pharrell’s personal assistant, Mick. Mick could arguably have the greatest job in the world, seeing as he stays with Pharrell everywhere he goes, whether it be South Beach or the French Rivera. Mick’s call is simple and short, he notifies us that Chad Hugo will be coming by the studio, so if we want we can shoot with him as well. A pleasant surprise, Alex and I began to look for shots to incorporate him, and ended up on the roof getting these photos of Chad messing around. It’s a weird flashback to a middle school band room, as Williams and Hugo have known each other since they were 12 years-old, and their relationship has evolved from competitive to collaborative. They formed the producing group ‘The Neptunes’ sometime after high school, and the rest is history. They both grew up in Virginia Beach, and Pharrell will tell you it was not the easiest of times, but a blessing in disguise.

“The thing in Virginia is we did not have a musical outlet in the sense of a music industry, in the same way that people today get, so i guess it trickled down in a different kind of way. We approached making music by changing the feeling and, you know, almost having the part that is psychological, and thinking that [you’ll] never have the opportunity, so when you get the opportunity it’s all coming from a place of inspiration and nothing else. Now depending on the area, they want you to be an athlete or a rapper. During that time when we started out everyone wanted to be athletes or hustlers, and then you had the kids that were into education. That seemed a little bit more hopeful and promising because we had seen it happen before. As far as music we didn’t think that it was going to be that way. So I feel like if I had known (about music) I would have taken a very different approach and it would not have lasted as long as it has.”

It has lasted now for more than 15 years and is possibly as strong as ever. Recently Billboard Music named The Neptunes Producers of the Decade, beating out fellow Virginia native Timbaland. Aside from being one half of the Neptunes, Pharrell is a lead member of N*E*R*D, which have made who have made put their stamp on today’s music with profound clarity. On the eve of the 4th album installment for N*E*R*D entitled Nothing, with the latest single ‘Hot n Fun’ featuring Nelly Furtado, Pharrell expresses that this album can best be described as a conversation about society between N*E*R*D and women. 

“This is just a sign of the times man, the world is changing, and I just wanted to make an album that reflected that, thats all. The world is changing, life is changing, life as we know it is changing, you know what I mean?” 

And what Virginia meant to him?  “When I think about VA, I think about home, its the place that raised me and made me what I am, a huge influence. But at the same my heart always goes out to the effort of just making sure that education is much more readily available and accessible to the kids, because for whatever reason, everything in the world is based on perspective, and if your perspective is off, then probably most of your endeavors and your life will be too. So I think that there is a big disconnect there, in your education and how much it means to your future. I would like to make education the coolest thing there is, because it is the very means to your success, at least the way I have learned it.” 

For the album’s first single with Furtado the group got to collaborate with renowned music video director Jonas Akurland. Jonas can be accredited for past and present video classics such as Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ and Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’, and currently has a MTV VMA nomination for video of the year for ‘Telephone’. “Jonas is a genius, and I told him what I wanted to do and he totally got it, and totally took it to the next level. It was a just a pleasure to work with him”. 

The man is everywhere. Along with collaborating with Jonas, he recently got to do his first score for a major motion picture. He is accredited alongside composing legend Hans Zimmer for doing the score for the movie ‘Despicable Me’. “Hans Zimmer was amazing to work with. I was just talking about him today because he also did ‘Inception’, so we have the number one and number two films this past couple of weeks, and thats been really awesome.”

With this new box on the list of potential creative endeavors recently checked, who is to say except Pharrell himself where his relationship with cinema will lead? It’s fair to say that it looks like it’s going to be something to watch and appreciate.

Even with all these mediums at his disposal, and all of his commercial success, Pharrell is making time to promote education, and to reach and positively impact the youth. “We just got to make education as cool as the iPod is. That is the one way the iPod was made. Education had a huge impression on someone and they made that. You know? All great things in the world, some things come from pure inspiration, but the refinement of all inspiration is through education.”

To walk the talk, he recently launched Kidult.com, a site orientated around getting proper, relevant news to kids 14 and up. “Well I think the biggest thing with Kidult for us is, to continue with what I was saying before, is that the world is crazy, man, and each kid deserves that opportunity, and if we don’t give it to them then who will?” 

It is refreshing to see that someone is making such an inspired and substantial push for the youth. Kidult.com is a way for kids, anywhere in the country and around the globe, to get their next dose of information about politics and news.

I saw firsthand how Pharrell is with kids while watching him work later that day. During a recording session in the studio, one of his friends stopped by and brought along his 9 year-old son. The young boy was in awe when he met Pharrell. He shook the young boy’s hand and told him he was allowed anytime he wanted to come hang out, but the only way his body guard would let him in would be with his good grades. 

Back to the video shoot, Alex and I were nervous but excited. We had set up lights. We cued up the hook for him on four different exchanges. Everything was ready and as soon as we hit record and pressed play on the deck, he changed. He went from cool, calm and collected to fast and funk. He did his four takes, paused, then told us he didn’t like them and for us to do it again. He said “I’m going to give you more on this one”. Obviously, we did not have a problem with that, and when I hit the play button again he gave us something new with even more energy. Afterwards he said “those were all good takes.” That’s all we needed to hear, and after getting some coverage and B-roll shots, it was done. 

Later, on the phone, I asked Pharrell what his most memorable moment in the studio was. Without missing a beat he said “I was working with Justin (Timberlake) and Michael called. I thought it was someone prank calling me so I hung up on him multiple times but he said ‘No it’s really me.” And I thought, come on man, somebody’s playing a joke. Michael Jackson does not want to talk to me, but it was, and it was the coolest thing in the world.” Looking back, I realized I didn’t ask what they talked about. I really wish I had. 

I followed up with the most generic question ever to grace an interview: “What’s playing in your car or on your iPod at moment?”

“Right now? Old Beatles and Stones records, and of course theres always room for Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd and all of my cast of people that I love and respect.” 

After the last question and before we hung up, I asked when Pharrell or N*E*R*D were coming to RVA, to which he replied “on this upcoming tour.” I quickly mentioned to him the craziness of what is unfolding at RVAlution, thanked him for the interview, and told him we’d would love to hear from them in the future. “Thank you so much man. We really appreciate it. I love Richmond, and Virginia is home, man.”

WWW.N-E-R-D.COM

words and photos by Shahan Jafri
http://www.shahanjafri.com

Read more exclusive content from RVA NO.2 HERE.

Double Negative - Daydream Nation (Sorry State)

The members of Double Negative had to realize that naming their newest album after Sonic Youth’s 1988 opus would turn a few heads, and that the name would be a considerable sticking point in a good number of reviews. Perhaps the choice of name was simply an attention-grabbing move, but it is appropriate in many ways. The Sonic Youth album from which Double Negative borrowed the name, the band’s last before signing to a major label and moving on to the canonization of rock history and a million Rolling Stone best-of lists, was a fierce tribute to dissonance, and one of their most sweeping catalogues of subversive influences. These two facets are certainly mirrored by Double Negative’s most recent effort, a gnarled clash of sounds which, while retaining certain recognizable reference points, pulls the rug out from underneath punk rock clichés and offers a bracing, frenetic batch of songs--a breath of fresh air in a genre so muddled with stilted rehashes.

Which is not to say that Double Negative’s music is without precedent. There are echoes of Bl’ast, most notably the manner in which that band took the sour discordance of later Black Flag and boosted the tempo, resulting in a frenzied rush which would have been a sloppy mess had the band been any less proficient as musicians. There’s a strong Void influence as well, and Double Negative have mirrored that band’s ability to sound less like a collaborative unit than a combination of disconnected instrumental bursts slamming against one another, inexplicably making cohesive and memorable songs. However, Double Negative displays an adeptness with melody that neither of those bands ever quite mastered. Songs like “Super Recourse” have a subtle way of incorporating slight vocal melodies into their maelstrom, adding depth to the song without compromising viciousness. On the other hand, songs like “Knife On A String” move the band’s dissonant edge front and center, taking the most wrong-sounding notes and making them right again through their sly placement in some of the album’s most charged moments.

Lyrically, it’s difficult to tell where the band is coming from. To refer to the album as cryptic is something of an understatement. Eerie, disconnected images and phrases seem to hover around some nucleus of an idea in each song, with paranoia, alienation, and disillusionment all getting their due. It’s hard to even cite any specific song or individual line which exemplifies their approach, as all of it seems equally disorienting. The song “Voice Recognition,” however, is adapted from seventeenth century poet Henry Vaughan, suggesting more of a method to their madness than might be readily obvious from a quick glance at the insert.

It is exactly this approach that makes Double Negative compelling. A first impression of the band would likely focus on the crazed discordance of the music and the seemingly impenetrable lyrical approach, but repeated listens reveal melodies, structures, and images which emerge from the abrasive presentation like shadows at twilight, revealing a band at the peak of their powers who can craft dissonance into something quite harmonious.