RVA Shows You Must See This Week: July 17 – July 23
FEATURED SHOW
Saturday, July 20, 6 PM
Sweet Pete Fest, feat. Brady Heck, Cassidy Snider ft. Charles Owens, Sean Moran, Drook @ The Camel – $15 (order tickets HERE)
Sometimes the most important thing about a show is not any particular artist on the bill but the overall community that the show represents. This is a great example of a lineup like that. Because here’s the thing: if you go to shows at The Camel or any of half a dozen other Richmond venues on a regular basis, you’ve probably seen all of the artists on this bill. I’ll bet a lot of you have seen at least one of these musical acts at least half a dozen times. But music isn’t always about seeing a band you’ve never seen before, or that you’ve been waiting for months to catch. Sometimes it’s about all the people who are part of the music scene you’re part of — the people you see every weekend, sometimes onstage and sometimes in the crowd beside you. These are the people who are really important to the local scene, no matter what town you’re in or what genre you favor. These are the people who show up week after week, year after year, to make sure there’s still something to show up for.
Some of you may know Peter Cason as the bassist for beloved local band Holy Roller, but his real impact to the Richmond music community is the behind-the-scenes work he does as a talent buyer for The Camel. And I’m far from the only person who recognizes this; the Sweet Pete Fest happening at The Camel on Saturday proves it. This mini-fest full of local bands is happening for an unfortunate reason; Pete had a motorcycle accident a couple of weeks ago, and the hospital bills he’s facing are no joke, so folks from The Camel asked around and got a whole bunch of Richmond musicians to donate their time and their music to raising some money to help Pete out in his time of need. The result is an excellent bill that came together on pretty short notice — which should only further prove how important the work Pete does for the scene really is.
I’m not sure who is playing in what order on this bill, so let’s just go through it in any old order. We’ve got several local frontpeople doing solo sets, and at the top of that list is Pete’s Holy Roller bandmate Brady Heck. It’s been a year and a half or so since Brady released his last solo EP, featuring two short blasts of pure honky-tonk delight, but Holy Roller released an excellent album of rocked-out alt-country sounds earlier this year, so I would expect you’ll hear solo versions of a few of those songs mixed in with his solo material. As for Mitras frontman Sean Moran, I’ve never known him to play solo, but I sure know The Mitras have a ton of power-pop awesomeness in their catalog, so I’m sure he’ll do it up right when he hits the stage on his own. Of course, the local indie heroes known as Drook are personal favorites, so it’s always great when they’re on any bill. And hearing old-time Appalachian country queen Cassidy Snider team up with jazz saxophone titan Charles Owens is sure to be a rare treat that’ll delight fans of both. The flyer says more acts may show up before all is said and done, but even if they don’t, this is looking like a heck of a lineup. And it’s all being done to help out a guy who does the work that helps us keep having shows to go to in this town, year after year. If that’s not a worthy cause, I don’t know what is.
Wednesday, July 17, 7 PM
Sometime In February, Blazoner, Cursor, Uga Buga @ Imperial Lounge – $10
I always appreciate a band name that gives absolutely no clue as to what you’re going to be in for when you listen to their music. Carolinas-based trio Sometime In February definitely do that with their name, which would make sense for everything from acoustic folk to metalcore. As it turns out, these guys are somewhere inbetween those two extremes, playing instrumental progressive metal with a post-hardcore twist and a dash of that instrumental guitar music that got a lot of shine back in the late 80s — you know, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani… that sort of thing. Sometime In February’s leader and chief songwriter is guitarist Tristan Auman, who might be best known for having recently become a touring guitarist for Between The Buried And Me. He’s clearly got a ton of brilliant ideas and some incredible fretboard chops, as demonstrated on Sometime In February’s 2023 album There Goes. It takes a really good instrumental band to keep you from ever feeling like something is missing, but Sometime In February keep you from ever wondering when someone is going to start singing by filling their songs with plenty of driving energy and some beautiful melodies that at the same time have plenty of crunch to them. Their set is sure to keep you fascinated and give you plentiful opportunity to see talented instrumentalists at work.
The openers on this show will be something to see as well, starting with Richmond metal trio Blazoner. These folks do the whole rifftastic stoner metal thing without falling into the trap of too many lagging tempos or drawn-out sludgefests, and their set will be a high-energy great time as a result. DC metallers Cursor add a further dose of progressive metal melody to the proceedings, but bring elements of epic post-metal triumph and understated crunch that should delight fans of Cynic, Isis, or Mastodon. The evening will kick off with a set from Charlottesville group Uga Buga, whose name will lead you to expect straight-up caveman shit. And don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely some of that mixed into their heavy, pounding sound. But there’s also enough complexity and melody to make them fit right in on this bill. This one is a true metalhead’s paradise.
Thursday, July 18, 8 PM
NPC 2 NPC Tour, feat. Mega Ran, Substantial, Shao Dow, Kadesh Flow, Raisi-K, O_Super, DJ Rockman, Hosted by K-Murdock @ The Camel – $14 (order tickets HERE)
I’m not too proud to tell you guys that there’s plenty going on in the world of music that I know nothing about. If anything, that’s one of the things I love most about music. There’s enough out there for us all to keep finding great new stuff on a weekly basis for the rest of our lives — and we can start off right now by learning all about the world of NPC. That acronym stands for Nerdy People of Color, as in the NPC Collective, a group giving much-needed non-white representation to the world of nerdiness and geekery. Which, let’s face it, is generally regarded as strictly a white thing. If you let that stereotype cause you to miss out on the great things nerds of color are up to out here, though, you’re the one who loses out.
Mega Ran is at the top of this tour’s lineup, and he’s an incredible rapper, producer, and educator who displays a new facet of his intense appreciation and fandom on every new release. His most recent releases include an instrumental LP called Metro on which every track is named after a different NYC subway stop; a children’s hip hop album, Buddy’s Magic Toy Box, which is a fun listen for those of all ages; a hugely fun wrestling-focused rap album called Wrestling Is Real, People Are Fake (attention Doug: if you haven’t heard this yet, you NEED TO); and a Robotech-themed collab LP called Protoculture Season. All of it is musically brilliant, and all of it shows off serious knowledge of awesomely nerdy subjects. There are a lot of other artists on this bill that deserve your attention as well, so let me try to tell you about a few real quick. For one, Substantial is an MC with a truly impressive flow whose 2023 album, Adultish, shows off the sound of an artist at the top of his game. And then there’s UK rapper Shao Dow, who mixes elements of UK grime with classic Wu-Tang vibes. There are a whole lot of other artists on this bill as well, and they’ll all have plenty of excellence to drop on you in the runup to this year’s Nerdcore Party Con — which is happening this weekend in Raleigh. You might not want to head out of state this weekend, and if not I definitely don’t blame you, but this night will give you an opportunity to experience the best of what NPC has to offer, all in the space of a few hours. Don’t miss it.
Friday, July 19, 7 PM
Leather Lung, Greenhead @ Cobra Cabana – $10 (order tickets HERE)
There’s some seriously heavy shit happening in Richmond this week, so I definitely don’t want to pass judgment on which of these shows is actually the heaviest. But if you wanted to pin that label on this Friday night shindig at Cobra Cabana, I wouldn’t blame you. Boston’s Leather Lung are definitely bringing some high-octane heavyosity to the city this Friday night, and if you like loud music at all, you’re gonna want to be in the house for it. These guys like using badass beautiful women in their artwork, and that might lead you to expect some melody, but that’s not really what Leather Lung are about. From pictures of this quintet, which is made up entirely of long-haired white dudes in denim, you might also expect some shitkickin’ rock n’ roll, but that isn’t quite it either.
Honestly, it took me a little while to figure out exactly what vibe I get from Leather Lung’s brand new album, Graveside Grin, but after a few songs of their sludgy riff gumbo, it hit me: this shit is TOUGH. If I hadn’t seen any visuals associated with this band before I listened, I would have expected them to look like the members of Hatebreed or Biohazard or something. There’s a swagger to this music that feels almost hip hop in vibe, even if there isn’t an ounce of rap in their sound. Meanwhile, they dish out powerful sludge-metal grooves that would make Weedeater turn green with envy. The whole thing adds up to the musical version of that guy down the bar who, when he kicks your barstool by accident, you apologize to him, just to be on the safe side. Come out to Cobra Cabana this Friday night and bang your head to the belligerent brilliance of Leather Lung — just don’t do anything to piss them off. DC’s Greenhead are on hand to provide a killer opening set of drawn-out doom sounds, so show up on time for that one — and grab yourself a Snake Plissken burger while you’re at it.
Saturday, July 20, 7 PM
Cystic Nourishment, ROTWLCFTSCBMH, Industrial Suicide, Divorce Papers, Life Appreciation Renewal @ The Workshop – $10
I don’t know how the heck it happened, but there’s been a renaissance in the Richmond scene over the past couple of years for the most extreme grindcore sounds: bands that push the boundary between chaotic lo-fi grind and outright noise, bands that draw from legendary DIY grind acts like Agathocles and throw around terms like “mincecore,” bands that push back on the grind scene’s tendency toward edgelord antics with overtly left-wing and queer themes… I never would have predicted it, but it’s here and I love it. This show finds several Richmond-based bands who exist somewhere on this continuum teaming up with North Carolina grind crew Cystic Nourishment to wreck Scott’s Addition with some harsh blurry noise-core vomit, and you’re not gonna want to miss it.
Across several recent split EPs, Asheville’s Cystic Nourishment veer from Last Days Of Humanity-style nonstop blasting grind chaos to indecipherable walls of noise that are almost impossible to parse as songs. Their split with Richmonders Industrial Suicide, who join them on this bill, lands on the latter end of that spectrum, and Industrial Suicide’s side is much the same. The entire split sounds like it was recorded on an old Fisher-Price tape recorder that someone found at grandma’s house, but it also sounds like it would be intense and hectic as fuck in the live environment. Come to this show and see just how intense both of these bands can get — if I were a betting woman, I’d be taking the over on this wager. The rest of this lineup will include the ringleaders of Richmond’s youthful grind/noise renaissance, ROTWLCFTSCBMH, laying down a special noise set to silence any haters who might have thought they were getting too musical lately. Trumpet-wielding North Carolina noise maniacs Divorce Papers, who blew some minds with a set at local underground venue OSB last winter, will be on hand to freak everyone out once again, and the bill will be rounded out by the hostile, unrelenting harsh noise of Richmonders Life Appreciation Renewal. Come out to The Workshop on Saturday night and find out how much fun it can be to have your eardrums violently assaulted by noise (not music).
Sunday, July 21, 7 PM
Dark Waters, Xed Out, Sea Of Storms, Northeast Regional @ Cobra Cabana – $10
I’ve been a big fan of Richmond combo Dark Waters ever since they first appeared on the scene as we were all climbing out of that 18-month black hole that was the darkest days of the pandemic. The two EPs they’ve released since 2021 find these Richmond veterans of groups like Falls Under April, Race The Sun, and Deep China mixing the punk melodies, emo intensity, and heavy post-hardcore riffs of their previous groups together into a hybrid sound that avoids predictability, resulting in some intriguing anthems that don’t sound like anything you’ve heard before. Between their 2021 debut, Dreams In Bottle Rockets, and their 2023 follow-up, Fever Dream, these guys made some significant advances in their sound.
Now Dark Waters are about to bring out their third EP, Piedmont, and based on the brief clips I’ve heard on their Instagram account, it sounds like they’ll be taking things to a new level on this one as well. This show will be a celebration of Piedmont‘s release into the world, and I’m sure they’ll be playing the new songs in full when they hit the Cobra Cabana stage. That’s reason enough to show up right there. Of course, there are also three other amazing Richmond bands on this bill, and they’ll turn up the intensity several notches with killer sets of their own. Xed Out, a band made up of Richmond punk veterans who’ve done time in groups like Smoke Or Fire and The Bled, released an excellent new LP, No More Blue Skies, back at the beginning of the year, and that new LP shows their flawless ability to incorporate classic postpunk guitar textures into a songwriting style that owes plenty to bands like Hot Water Music and Latterman. The result is excellent, and well worth your time. And of course, there’s also Sea Of Storms, who’ve been bringing us heavy, emotional epics for over a decade now and gave us their heaviest record yet in last year’s incredible Control Alt Delete EP. Expect great things when these folks hit the stage. Rounding things out will be Northeast Regional, a group that started as former Wow Owls frontman Jeff Byers’ solo outlet but has grown into a quintet featuring members of Pink Razors and 10:33. If you’re looking for frantic punk rage with an undeniable melodic undercurrent, a la Hot Snakes or a more straightforward version of The Hives, this is your new favorite band. You just don’t know it yet. So hey — come to Cobra Cabana Sunday night and find out.
Monday, July 22, 7 PM
Blind Girls, Heavenly Blue, Terror Cell, Autumn Sonata @ Cobra Cabana – $12 in advance, $15 at the door (order tickets HERE)
Richmond label Persistent Vision Records has done a lot to grab my attention lately, from the high-profile release of Prisoner’s excellent new LP to the forthcoming Dark Days, Bright Nights fest coming to The Broadberry in September (watch this space for details). Now they’re bringing us another excellent new album from all the way across the world, in the form of An Exit Exists, the third album from Australian screamo ragers Blind Girls. This could be nothing more than a tantalizing tease for Richmond locals, though — if it weren’t for the fact that Blind Girls are coming to this very city in only a few short days.
Trust me, you’re definitely going to want to head over to Cobra Cabana this Monday night to catch this extravaganza. Blind Girls are a leading light in the modern screamo scene, with a hard-charging sound that veers from crushing heaviness to melodic melancholy — always delivered with speed, urgency, and maximum intensity. Their new album takes things to a whole new level for this group, and they’ll be delivering the goods in fine fashion when they take the Cobra Cabana stage Monday night. Similarly minded Michigan ruckus-bringers Heavenly Blue will be on hand as well, and they’ll add a double dose of noise and distortion to the evening’s offerings. Opening sets from Richmond heavy-core mainstays Terror Cell and 90s-style screamo throwback newcomers Autumn Sonata will only make this evening that much more essential. You know what to do.
Tuesday, July 23, 7 PM
Mary Timony, Speedy Ortiz @ The Canal Club – $20 in advance, $25 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Here’s a real treat for every longtime fan of indie guitar music. Mary Timony is over three decades into a career full of highlights, from her early days in the riot-grrrl adjacent quartet Autoclave, to her glory days at the head of the angular yet catchy ensemble known as Helium. Since that band split two decades ago, she’s played with the post-Sleater-Kinney rock n’ roll project Wild Flag, the fun-loving indie-garage trio Ex Hex, and the angular postpunk quartet Hammered Hulls (where she makes the unusual move of stepping back from the spotlight to play bass). On occasion, she’s even made solo albums, though the one she released earlier this year, Untame The Tiger, is her first album under her own name since 2007’s The Shapes We Make. It finds her dipping away from the upbeat punk tunes of Ex Hex in favor of returning to the tangled riffs and epic song structures that she previously explored on the series of solo albums she released back in the early 00s.
However, Timony has undergone a musical and philosophical evolution since those days, and she’s no longer content to indulge her most depressive instincts. Her new material mixes some of the more energetic tendencies she displayed in Ex Hex with the introspective approach and stretched-out song structures she showed off in her early-00s solo work and in Wild Flag. Despite her latest batch of songs drawing inspiration from the deaths of her parents and the end of a lengthy romantic relationship, she keeps things from descending into the depths and brings us tunes that inspire hope and get our feet tapping even as they acknowledge the difficult era we’re all living through. Whether you’re new to Mary Timony’s work, or a fan who has followed her through all her different projects and incarnations over the years, you’re definitely going to want to see what she’s bringing to the table this time around. And of course you’re also going to want to show up on time, as openers Speedy Ortiz are well-respected veterans as well, with a formidable catalog full of 90s-inspired alternative rock classics. Their opening set will be an event in its own right, even as it acts as the perfect warmup for the latest chapter in Mary Timony’s highlight-crammed career. Don’t miss a minute of this one.
Email me if you’ve got any tips for me about upcoming shows (that take place after the week this column covers -– this week’s column has obviously already been written): rvamustseeshows@gmail.com
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