Scene Recap: Bio Ritmo, JChats, Inquisition

Published October 21, 2022

There’s a ton of great outlets, organizations, and individuals covering the music scene in Richmond. So many that it might be hard to keep up to date on all of them. We’ll try and collect some great articles, coverage, and news bits we’ve read each week here at The Auricular.

• Bio Ritmo is celebrating their 30th anniversary as a musical group this Sunday at Hardywood. To help get the word out, Style Weekly and Richmond Magazine both profiled the group with great articles by Peter McElhinney (Style Weekly article link here) and Don Harrison (Richmond Magazine article link here). Read both and don’t miss this Sunday’s show!

• Deandrea Chavis at RVA Magazine penned a great profile on Moneá covering not only her music, but also the stress that comes along with making it and how she deals with it. (Article link here.)

• Karen Newton at Style Weekly took a look at WRIR’s latest fund drive aimed at helping them move locations to a building in Shockoe Bottoms. My favorite bittersweet blurb from the article? “Bottom line: The current space is not soundproofed enough to drown out performances from the Camel below.” The Camel should print that on T-Shirts. Best of luck to WRIR! (Article link here.)

• George Wethington at RVA Magazine talked with the great people at Drook about their recent EP, their name change, and how they came out of the pandemic stronger than ever. (Article link here.)

• One more for Style Weekly — Rich Griset talked about the new fundraiser the Byrd Theatere is holding to help restore the prized Wurlitzer. Definitely check it out and pitch in some many if you can for this true local treasure. (Article link here.)

• And one more from RVA Magazine too — they put an interview from their 2022 Pride Guide with musician Zach Benson online. (Article link here.)

• We got behind this week, but put out our Roundup today covering all the music released in Richmond last week. (Article link here.) It’s a balancing act getting it out every week and even though we may fall behind, there’s still plenty of people in town covering new releases, like HearRVA which offers a curated list of new local releases every Friday morning on their social media. Don’t miss it! (Instagram link here.)

• Speaking of HearRVA, the latest edition of JChats on their channel talked with one of the creative directors and founders, Elijah Hedrick aka eliturite. In addition to getting a glimpse into the ethos behind HearRVA, the conversation also covered a lot of ground in respect to Elijah’s music under the name eliturite, including how to pronounce it and where the name came from. Check it out! (YouTube link here.)

• Episode 64 of River City Sounds this past week featured a performance by Cole Roberts Rosewood Recordings under his new project name called overunder dog. Great band name. Just great band name. (Spotify link here.)

• Shockoe Sessions featured Sol Roots this past week, a great band that described their sound as “a mix of raw funk, deep blues, energetic rock, greasy soul, and hypnotic grooves.” Greasy soul is such a fun description. I can’t wait to write it again in the future when describing a fun band. Anyway, their performance was awesome to the surprise of no one. Next up on Shockoe’s calendar: TBD! Schedule re-adjusting per Reese Williams! (YouTube link here.)

• Fall and Halloween festivals solider on this weekend, but there’s also a ton of live music to check out. As always, the hard-working team at RestlessRVA have a great “tasting” menu of all the shows available over the next couple of days on their Instagram page so check it out. (Instagram link here.) And the inspirational Marilyn Drew Necci always has a deeper dive available over at RVA Magazine each week so make sure to check out her column that zeroes in on 8 specific shows. (Article link here.)

• Let’s listen to a local song to close this out. Lot of people loved me digging into the archives with that Honor Role song last time so here’s another great song from the yesteryear of RVA. I originally picked out a Strike Anywhere song, specifically “Chalkline” from their 2001 record Change Is A Sound. Love that track and you should listen to it too, but I thought I’d dig a little deeper. Strike Anywhere actually got its name from a song by Thomas Barnett’s previous group Inquisition off their 1996 album Revolution, I Think It’s Called Inspiration (which was re-released a few times on other labels). If someone ever charts the various connections between Richmond bands, there will have to be a sizeable portion of the diagram dedicated to Inquisition and all of the bands that either branched out from it or shared band members: Ann Berretta, River City High, Fun Size, River City High, countless others I’m probably forgetting. (Denali? Engine Down?) History lesson aside, Inquisition’s stuff holds up well and that Revolution record from 1996 starts off with a true punk banger. Enjoy “Pulse” below and find the rest of the record if it is speaks to you. I’ll catch you all next week!