RVA Shows You Must See This Week: December 4 – December 10
FEATURED SHOW
Punks For Presents Nights 1 & 2
Friday, December 6, 9 PM
Black Flake, Steady Diet of Nutmeg, X-Mas @ Wonderland – $10 (order tickets HERE)
Saturday, December 7, 8 PM
Van Hailin’, Faith Sno More, Sharp Dressed Santas @ Fuzzy Cactus – $10 (order tickets HERE)
It’s back! A time-honored Richmond tradition that has existed for damn near 20 years now has returned once again to bring the Christmas spirit to sick children in need of holiday cheer. That’s right, Punks For Presents is bringing us yet another December chock-full of holiday-themed punk, hardcore, and metal tribute acts in order to fund a toy drive for Richmond Children’s Hospital. And here you thought punks only wanted chaos and destruction! That’s OK, it’s a common misconception; the truth, though, is that punks want to live in a better, more caring world than the one we were born into. When looked at that way, opposing capitalism and war has more in common with helping out kids in need than you might have thought!
OK, enough preaching — let’s talk about the music! This weekend brings us the first two of four main Punks For Presents tribute shows planned for this month (you may end up hearing about the other two in this column when they come around next week, but you’ll just have to wait and see), each of which is held at a different venue and features a different slate of talented local musicians coming together to put a yuletide spin on classic punk and metal sounds. On Friday night at Wonderland, for example, a band will fulfill what was a longtime secret dream of mine by paying tribute to Black Flag with a set under the name Black Flake (you know, like the snow on the edges of the roads after everyone’s been running over it for a week). Another group will do a Fugazi tribute set under the name Steady Diet of Nutmeg, which is perhaps the cleverest Christmas-related twist on a band name I’ve seen so far this year (plus, it pays tribute to Steady Diet Of Nothing, which I consider a criminally underrated album in Fugazi’s oeuvre, so that’s awesome). The evening will be rounded out with an X tribute performance by X-Mas, who I feel like have played a Punks For Presents show in the past — though, really, who knows? These tribute acts could consist of completely different musicians from year to year; the point is not continuity, but fun times and getting in the giving spirit.
I can tell you for sure that one of the bands on the Saturday night bill at Fuzzy Cactus has played a previous year with Punks For Presents — Faith Sno More have been one of the steadier Punks For Presents highlights year after year, with their killer sets of Faith No More tunes. That’s the sort of commitment that is to be admired, especially since I think it’s hard to find another band whose songs would be more complicated and intense to learn and perform for a tribute set than Faith No More. Can they really pull off those complicated Mike Patton vocal parts? Years of Punks For Presents showgoers will assure you that they are indeed The Real Thing. Faith Sno More will be joined on the Saturday lineup by a couple of newcomers. Van Hailin’ will take us all to Panama with the classic tunes of Van Halen — and between the electric guitar pyrotechnics of Eddie Van Halen (RIP) and the wild onstage high-kicks of David Lee Roth, they’ve left themselves some very big tribute shoes to fill. This bill will be completed by another Punks for Presents newcomer, Sharp Dressed Santas, doing the music of ZZ Top. If you ask me, I would prefer for them to focus on the pre-drum machine era, but I know everyone loves Eliminator, so I’ll try not to be too much of a stick in the mud. Indeed, you also should leave your bah-humbug blues at home, and come out to party with the amazing tribute acts on these bills, as they continue to stake the claim that Christmas, even more so than Halloween, is the true tribute-band holiday. Merry Christmas everybody!
Wednesday, December 4, 7 PM
Woman Crush Wednesday, feat. Iffy Iffy, Jaycie, Ramsey @ The Camel – $7 in advance, $10 day of show (order tickets HERE)
I love themed monthly showcases like Bri Bevan’s Woman Crush Wednesday, which is happening on the first Wednesday of this month as always. Even above and beyond my specific love for this particular showcase, I just love the way showcases of all kinds give me one night a month on which I can count on there being good music to check out, regardless of the specific artists that are playing. Usually they’re on a slow night, too, which is even better because it prevents you from getting stuck seeing some dodgy bar band for lack of other options. And then there’s the most important benefit, the one most people overlook — the symbol of quality conferred by a showcase that’s presented by a promoter or collective whose tastes you learn to trust enables you to hit up a show full of relatively new acts that you know nothing about, and still feel confident that you’re going to hear some excellent sounds.
Take this month’s Woman Crush Wednesday, for example. All three of the artists on this bill are somewhat tough to track down, and none has an extensive recording history. I can tell you that headliners Iffy Iffy are an indie-pop sextet featuring saxophone and keyboards, but they have only been around for about half a year and don’t seem to have released any recordings, so at this point, if you want to find out what they’re about, you’ve really gotta go see them live. Pennsylvania-based singer-songwriter Jaycie has a few songs out there on the internet, but with her main group, Bandana Brothers, she mainly plays covers, so it’s somewhat tough to get a full picture of what she’s about. If you want to know, you gotta go! And then there’s Ramsey, a young VCU student who makes sweet, charming folk-pop… or at least, that’s how it seems based on the one song she has on the internet. If you really want to get a full picture, once again… you’ve gotta go to the show. And thankfully, the curation Bri Bevan has been doing for Woman Crush Wednesday over the past five-plus years gives you good reason to believe that what you’ll hear when you get there will be just as if not MORE awesome than the tiny preview snippets you can find online. That’s a huge boon for our entire scene, and specifically for you — because it helps you find the next great artist before most people ever get to hear them. Be one of the people who are in the know by going to this show.
Thursday, December 5, 7 PM
Shadowgrass @ The Camel – $15 in advance, $20 day of show (order tickets HERE)
I’m not a person who typically listens to a lot of bluegrass, but I do occasionally find myself appreciating a particular bluegrass artist’s contribution to the world of music. Invariably, it’s when there’s a bit of heartfelt yearning stirred into the classic high-speed acoustic fingerpicking prowess and old-time Appalachian song structures. Yes, it’s true — even where bluegrass is concerned, I like it to be kinda emo. So when I tell you that Shadowgrass surprised me with their ability to capture my attention, I don’t think you’ll be too surprised when I tell you that it was because of the unmistakable passion and emotion built into their sound.
Don’t get me wrong, they’ve also got all of those things that old-school bluegrass fans look for, from the clawhammer-banjo pyrotechnics to the Carter Family-style close vocal harmonies. But on their new album, All That Will, they devote just as much time to lovelorn vocal hooks and emotion-driven melodies as they do to those classic bluegrass tropes. In a way, it reminds me of Richmond legend Josh Small, who has always been a champion of mixing modern emotional approaches to music into traditional forms. Shadowgrass do this very well themselves, and that definitely makes them worth heading over to the Camel and seeing this Thursday night, whether you’re a lover of classic bluegrass or just a weird old emo kid like myself.
Friday, December 6, 7 PM
Muscle, The Smirks, Ultra Bleach, VV @ Cobra Cabana – $10
This one is sure to get wild, and I know that solely because of who is at the top of the poster. Muscle, a vocal-bass-drum trio from Baltimore, bash out some truly hectic punk-damaged noise-rock, which is particularly distinguished by the harsh, hectoring vocals of Madison Coan. Coan’s stage presence is memorably confrontational, from her intense vocal attack to her tendency to perform topless. Don’t get it twisted, it’s not intended to be sexy — indeed, it comes off as more intimidating than anything. The overall effect is similar to that of Lydia Lunch in her prime, spewing snarky vitriol at an audience over low-end punk riffs that resemble nothing so much as Death From Above 1979 at their most uptempo. With all of this going on, you can be sure that Muscle will rock the hell out of you and leave you begging for more.
Muscle will be joined at Cobra Cabana Friday night by a trio of Richmond-based ragers, the first of which is punk rock power trio The Smirks. These folks just returned to action a few months ago after four years away, but if they retain any of their pre-pandemic fire they’ll undoubtedly leave us all begging for more of their catchy garage-rockin’ punk tuneage. Ultra Bleach have been more steadily active recently, and they bring a more raw and intense approach to the primitive garage punk approach. The result is catchy as hell, and will keep you coming back for more. And then there’s VV, one of the better bands to come out of the Richmond punk scene over the past five to ten years or so. If you don’t believe me, one listen to this trio’s dark, synth-inflected take on No Wave minimalist postpunk mania should quickly convince you. Putting them at the start of this four-band rager is a guaranteed way to kick things off with a bang — and it’s only gonna get crazier from there. You don’t want to miss a minute of it.
Saturday, December 7, 7 PM
Tom Waits 75th Birthday, feat. Roger Carroll @ Gallery 5 – $10 in advance/$15 day of show (order tickets HERE)
As shows go, this one is truly unusual, and that’s only partly because you can only hold a 75th birthday celebration for a legendary musician once. And Tom Waits is truly a legend, on a level that’s difficult to even comprehend at first blush. Starting his career half a century ago with boozy blues anthems of lost love and alcohol-drenched dead ends, he steadily propelled his music further and further into avant-garde territory. By 1992’s Bone Machine (which won him a Grammy), he was making driving, noisy epics that felt like raw, rhythmic blues filtered through a beatnik jazz sensibility and recorded in a junkyard. And on his most recent LP, 2011’s Bad As Me, he’d somehow synthesized his entire career into a weird jazz-blues-punk-noise hybrid that could sound like any moment in the past four decades of his career at any given time.
It’s this sort of sprawling musical legacy that Richmond jazz sax legend Roger Carroll will attempt to encapsulate with the performance he’ll be leading in celebration of Mr. Waits’ career at Gallery 5 this Saturday night. Joining up with Out Of Your Head co-leader Adam Hopkins, who has created new arrangements of several Waits career highlights, Carroll and his band — which will feature members of Bio Ritmo, Orthotonics, Miramar, and various folks from the Out Of Your Head Records crew — will bring a new approach that is sure to thrill longtime Waits fans and blow the minds of the uninitiated. Regardless of which side of the spectrum you fall on, you owe it to yourself to head over to Gallery 5 this Saturday night and take this in. Nights like this only happen once.
Sunday, December 8, 6:30 PM
Underoath, Static Dress, Francis Doom @ The National – $80 (order tickets HERE)
Where does the time go? It seems like only a few years ago, I was seeing Underoath on the They’re Only Chasing Safety tour at a Y101 shindig in Shockoe Bottom (along with Hawthorne Heights, Fall Out Boy, A Static Lullaby, and uhhh… Saliva [I left before their set]). Now they’re back in town on the 20th Anniversary tour for that album, which definitively proves that 2005 was a lot longer ago than I want to admit. Thankfully Underoath, who had been wracked by constant lineup changes up to that point, have largely retained the lineup that made They’re Only Chasing Safety 20 years ago, so when they come to The National to celebrate the anniversary of that classic album, it’ll be five of the six guys I saw back then who hit the stage.
And now that I’ve told you all that, I need to make sure I don’t make the mistake I sometimes make with bands I really love — forgetting to explain to the uninitiated what exactly this band I love sounds like. Underoath started out with a metallic hardcore sound that pulled from black metal and 90s mosh-core, but steadily moved in a more melodic direction as they evolved, finally landing on their fully formed sound with their fourth album, the aforementioned Chasing Safety. Mixing crunching guitars and intense yet melodic post-hardcore riffs with melodic choruses that somehow felt even more intense and gorgeous when they were shot through with harsh, throat-rending screams, Underoath created a sound that was probably more deserving of being called “screamo” than the stuff that actually got that tag. And you can roll your eyes all you want, but this band and this record meant everything to me back in those days. Honestly, it still does today. I wish I could scrape up the cash to actually go to this show, but $80 is just too rich for my blood, so I’ll console myself with the fact that that tickets to that Y101 show were $5 back in the day. Go, make your way up front, and scream along to “Reinventing Your Exit” with tears in your eyes while hanging off the barricade. It’s what I’d do if I could swing it.
P.S. Static Dress are another awesome screamy melodic metallic band who are worth a listen, and opener Francis Doom previously led the shamefully overlooked emo revival ensemble Owel, the legacy of which he carries forward on his more shoegazey solo work. So don’t just wander in 10 minutes before Underoath go on — this one is worth seeing from start to finish.
Monday, December 9, 7 PM
Parlour Magic, Ships In The Night, The Treasury @ Gallery 5 – $10 in advance, $15 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Richmond’s live music underground is hardly the biggest scene in the world, but we are definitely lucky to be here. This city always comes through in the clutch, even on the deadest night of the week (which is always Monday night). This Gallery 5 show is a great case in point, saving our evening by bringing us a killer synth-pop show headlined by New York City band Parlour Magic. These folks just released their second album, Saturn Return, and it combines a certain retro-pop sensibility that’ll be equally familiar to fans of the Billboard Top 40 countdown circa 1984 and those who love to revisit the soundtracks to classic 70s and 80s horror films, especially those from Italy. The idea of Goblin bringing in members of A Flock Of Seagulls or Culture Club as collaborators on the soundtrack to some as-yet-unseen Dario Argento movie — perhaps one that, for once, features a love story that does NOT turn apocalyptic by the end — might be hard to imagine at first, but one listen to Parlour Magic and it all starts to make a glorious amount of sense.
Parlour Magic will definitely keep us dancing throughout their headlining set, and thankfully, the Virginia-based artists in support roles on this lineup will keep things moving during their performances as well. Charlottesville gothic pop sweethearts Ships In The Night have a formidable discography at their disposal, but continue bringing us excellent new tunes on a regular basis. Recent singles find them making catchy tunes that nonetheless retain the atmosphere of a crumbling gothic castle on a moonlit night, and that’ll certainly be an ideal sound for a Monday night. The evening will begin with the dark, pounding industrial sound of The Treasury, which reminds me more than a little bit of Nitzer Ebb and Front 242 videos that I used to see on MTV late at night in the early 90s. That’s an excellent musical legacy to pull from, and The Treasury is certainly honoring it on their recent singles. They’ll kick this one off with a bang, and you should definitely be ready to show up in your 20-hole Docs and stomp to the beat. That’ll certainly chase away any lingering Monday blues.
Tuesday, December 10, 6 PM
Alicia Witt @ The Tin Pan – $35 (order tickets HERE)
If you’re looking at the name Alicia Witt and thinking it rings a bell, but you’re not sure why, you might have a similar pop cultural background as I do. But let me clear things up for you before you get even more confused — Alicia Witt does make music, but she’s far better known as an actress. As a kid, she worked with David Lynch in the 80s (Dune, Twin Peaks); in the 90s, she starred as Cybill Shepherd’s daughter in the sitcom Cybill, then went on to appear in Urban Legends and Vanilla Sky. Most recently, she had a role in the viral horror hit Longlegs (she played Lee’s mom). That said, acting is not Alicia Witt’s only artistic endeavor. Indeed, if you check out her social media presence these days, it’s clear that she cares just as much, if not more, about her music.
Make no mistake, that’s what’s bringing her to Richmond’s Tin Pan. Witt, a talented singer and pianist, is currently on tour in support of her third album, I Think I’m Spending Christmas With You. Yes indeed, she’s released a Christmas album, which mixes classic standards with new seasonal tunes, as all the best modern Christmas albums do. What’s more, if you’re really a geek about the season that it currently tis, you may recognize one of the songs she sang in the 2023 Hallmark Christmas movie Christmas Tree Lane. That’s right, she was Meg, the music store owner, in that film. See? It all ties together! And make no mistake, unless you’re afflicted with a terminal case of the bah humbugs (if you are, I get it — I have had entire decades like that), you’ll have a lovely and amazing holiday evening with Alicia Witt, her voice, her piano, and her lovely Christmas songs at The Tin Pan this Tuesday night. So hey — get in the spirit! You’ll be glad you did.
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
Please consider supporting my Patreon, where I’m documenting my progress on two different novels and (sometimes) writing about music of all types. patreon.com/marilyndrewnecci
