Friday Cheers lineup announced, Elvis Costello: Late Night Pick of the Night

The lineup for Friday Cheers, Richmond's best ongoing music series at the best venue in Richmond (Brown's Island) was announced today.  Looks like another good one.  It'll be $5 to get in for most shows, $10 for some others. You can buy a season pass for $35 before April 1 and then that goes up to $40. 

Here's the lineup along with my level of excitement in parentheses, 1 being the highest:
May 4 - Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears with The Preservation - $5 - (2) - great, up and coming funk/r&b/blues band.  A fine start to the season.
May 11 - Carolina Chocolate Drops with The Inflatables - $5 - (3) - bluegrass, traditional old-time music. Should be fun.

May 18-20 – Dominion Riverrock, featuring Galactic, Travelin’ McCourys feat. Keller Williams, and JJ Grey and Mofro. - FREE - not part of Friday Cheers technically so I didn't rank it but will be there with bells on or at least cool, glow in the dark stuff.  For more info, see THIS blog entry.

May 25 - RVA Music Night with Three Sheets to the Wind, The Trillions and Photosynthesizers - $5 - (7) - the ranking is not a slight to the bands, it's just that they play in town all the time. Will be a good night to see some great local music all in one place, especially if the weather is nice.

June 1- Chris Young with Honky Tonk Heroes - $10 - (8) - the obligatory pop country band. Will take a week off.

June 8 - ALO with Former Champions - $5 - (6) - ALO is a good jam band and I like local jammers Former Champions, too.  ALO just not good enough for me to be super excited about.  Will go if weather is nice.

June 15 - Dawes with Sara Watkins - $5 - (4) - Folk rock.  I am really liking their song "Time Spent in Los Angeles" lately.

June 22 – Alabama Shakes with Robert Ellis - $5 - (1) - If you only go to one Cheers, make it this one, rain or shine.  Alabama Shakes has gathered a huge buzz before they even have an album out (their first comes out soon) based on their live shows and Muscle Shoals blues/Southern rock sound.

June 29 - Trampled by Turtles with Goldrush  - $10 - (5) - Progressive Bluegrass or Newgrass, if you will.

We will have more on these bands as we hit the week of their show.

For tonight's Late Night Pick of the Night, we're back to Jimmy Fallon's Bruce Week where Elvis Costello will perform Springsteen's "Brilliant Disguise" with Jimmy's house band, The Roots, backing him up. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is on at 12:35 AM on NBC.

Nelly Kate, Diamond Center, Satisfaction, Black Girls, People's Blues of Richmond, Julia Nunes, Titus Andronicus

Before we get to what's happening in town this week, Phish announced their summer tour today with two shows in VA, both in Portsmouth.  Great that there will be two shows, unfortunately, they are in the middle of the week (Tuesday & Wednesday, 6/19 & 20) which means I probably only be able to do one anyway.  I can't really miss three days of work (need a day to recover because I'm old now).  Also, at $60 a ticket and knowing that Richmond gets tons of bands in May & June when they hit us up in between weekend festival appearances, I want to save some $ for the bands I don't have to travel to see.  Here's the usual humorous tour announcement video featuring Fishman:


Phish Summer Tour 2012 Announcement from Phish on Vimeo.

Thursday night, at Strange Matter, it's a four band show that will have doors open at 9 and music start at 10.  It's $7 to get in.   The bands (in reverse order of appearance): Nelly Kate, Diamond Center, Softspot & The Pharmacy. The first 50 people in get a free download of Nelly Kate's new "ISH ISH" record since this is the record release party.  This is also Diamond Center's last Richmond show before they head out on a month long tour of the South, including a number of gigs at SXSW.  Here's a few songs and an interview with Nelly Kate courtesy of Raw Music EP:



Also Thursday night, Satisfaction: The Rolling Stones Experience tribute band will be at The National.  Doors open at 7, show starts at 8, tix are $12.50.  I don't usually do the tribute band thing, but I got some freebies for this one, so I'll be there.  No opener since the band will play two sets.  Here's their promo band and it looks like this could be fun.  And it will be a hell of a lot cheaper than seeing the real thing (if they tour again).



The CAA Basketball Championships will be happening this weekend here in Richmond at the Coliseum.  There will be bands and fun stuff playing in the courtyard next to the Coliseum and that is free to all.  I'll be down there Friday night for the games.  Here's the lineup for the bands:

Friday, March 2nd

5:00pm – 6:00pm - William Walter and Tucker Rodgers

7:00pm – 8:00pm – Beast Wellington

Saturday, March 3rd

1:30pm – 2:30pm – Release The Hounds

3:30pm – 5:00pm – Bush League

5:30pm – 6:30pm – DJ Mordecai Group

7:00pm – 8:00pm – Debo

Sunday, March 4th

Noon – 2:00pm – Physcobilly Cadillac

Monday, March 5th

5:30pm – 7:00pm - DJ Mordecai Group

A great show at The Camel on Friday night with local bands Black Girls, People's Blues of Richmond, and The Lawsuits.  The show starts at 9 and it's $7 to get in.  This is the Black Girls last show in Richmond before they hit the road on a national tour opening for The Head and The Heart in the month of March, including a gig at The National on 3/21. Here's Black Girls video for "South Carolina":

On Sunday night, you can watch Amnesty International's Secret Policeman's Ball live from NYC at epixhd.com.  Click HERE. That starts at 7 PM.  A lot of great comedians, Coldplay, Mumford & Sons and more.  Here's the trailer:



A couple of shows on Tuesday of next week.  Titus Andronicus and Screaming Females will be getting all punky on your ass at Strange Matter. Diarrhea Planet (yes, that's really their name) will open.  This is an early all-ages show so you can bring your little sister. Doors open at 5, show starts at 6. Tix are $12 in advance, $15 day of show.  Here's Titus Andronicus playing at Pitchfork.tv's Brooklyn office last month:



Also on Tuesday, YouTube sensation singer/songwriter Julia Nunes will be at The Camel.  The show starts at 7:30 with openers The Manifestivus and The Kindling Kind.  Tix are $10 in advance, $12 at the door.  Here's Julia's video for "Stay Awake":



Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan

Late Night Pick of the Night: Estelle

Tonight, check out British R&B artist Estelle on the Late Show with David Letterman.  Estelle is signed to John Legend's Homeschool label so she has that old school R&B/neo-soul edge. Late Show is on CBS at 11:35 PM.

Late Night Pick of the Night: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

Tonight, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band kick off "Bruce Week" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  Bruce will bookend things on Monday & Friday (when Bruce looks to be the only guest).  In between, Kenny Chesney (Tuesday doing "I'm on Fire"), Elvis Costello (Thursday doing "Brilliant Disguise") and Wednesday we don't yet unless there will be a duet between Danny DeVito and Larry the Cable Guy on "For You", which would surely be a sign of the apocalypse.  Late Night is on at 12:35 AM on NBC.

Shadrock Music Fest tix on sale today; Joy Formidable: Late Night Pick of the Night

Tickets for the Shadrock Music Festival on Brown's Island are on sale as of today.  The event will take place on Brown's Island on Saturday, April 28.  So far they have announced four of eight bands, those being De La Soul, Dum Dum Girls, Invisible Hand and Photosynthesizers.  Ticket prices are $30 now, go up to $35 on 3/23 and then up to $40 on 4/20.  While I like that someone has put together a music festival for Richmond, I'm not going gaga over the lineup so far.  They just don't seem to have a must-see band yet.  Right now, this seems to be an "if I have money and the weather is good, I might decide to go the day of the show" event. 

Tonight, check out indie rock band The Joy Formidable on Last Call with Carson Daly.  Last Call is on at 1:35 AM on NBC.

Black Girls, Nightmare Boyzz, Big Bobby & The Nightcaps, King Solomon's Marbles

Begin your weekend, the last weekend in February, and thank God, because February is always weird and annoying, at Strange Matter with Nightmare Boyzz, Peace Beast, The Eurotics and Spots.  This show is FREE.   It'll start at 9 and the bands come on in reverse order of the above.  Nightmare Boyzz got a surf, punk, pop, garage mix thing going on.  You can click the link above to listen to some.

Friday night, dance/funk/disco/pop band, Black Girls, have their vinyl release party for "Hell Dragon" at Kingdom.  Per the poster, there will apparently be real dragons there so wear your fancy armor and your dancing shoes.  As if the show couldn't be any more fun, No BS! Brass Band will play (hopefully alone and with the Black Girls), along with White Laces and The Trillions.  Show starts at 9 and it's $12 to get in.  HERE is a review of the album from Style Magazine.  Though they'll play mostly originals, here's Black Girls doing a cover of The Band's "Ophelia" at Plan 9 Records at the Watermelon Fest last year.  Perhaps they'll bust this out Friday night with No BS!, ala "The Last Waltz".:



This just in.  There is a new music festival coming to town.  The Shadrock Music Festival will take place April 28 on Brown's Island.  Full details will be announced tomorrow at 8:45 AM on 103.7 The River and on the website.  The Facebook page has already announced that De La Soul will be one of the headliners and Richmond band Photosynthesizers will be playing.

If you are in a Grateful Dead kind of mood on Friday night, head down to Cary St. Cafe (where else?) for some King Solomon's Marbles.  Show starts at 10 PM and it's $7 to get in.  Here's a good chunk of their show from 3/11/11 at Cary St. Cafe.  This is part 1 of 3:

Sunday night at Bandito's, Big Bobby & The Nightcaps, The Last Blackouts and The Lonely Teardrops will perform.  Show starts at 9 PM and it's FREE.  Big Bobby & The Nightcaps are a garage/punk/surf band from Norfolk.  Here they are in Brooklyn in 2010:



On a completely different note, I caught Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers on Austin City Limits the other day and really liked this song.  It's a mix of Steve's humor and some fine bluegrass harmonies.  I couldn't find the ACL performance but I found this one from the Letterman show.  It's called "Atheists Don't Have No Songs":



Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan

Late Night Pick of the Night: Eric Hutchinson

Tonight, check out singer/songwriter Eric Hutchinson on Late Show with David Letterman at 11:35 PM on CBS.  Alec Baldwin will also be on and he makes me laugh.

Late Night Pick of the Night: Robert Randolph, Cesar & David of Los Lobos & Chris Slayton of Double Trouble; RIP MC5 Bassist Michael Davis

I don't usually recommend watching the Tonight Show with Jay Leno because I'm not the biggest Leno fan, but this lineup was too good to resist.  One of the best blues players alive, Robert Randolph, teams up with Cesar Rojas and David Hildago of Los Lobos with Chris Layton from Double Trouble (Stevie Ray Vaughn) on drums.  If this sounds half as good as this lineup looks, we are in for a treat.  Tonight Show is on at 11:35 PM on NBC.

In sad news, bassist of seminal hard rock band MC5, Michael Davis, passed away at the age of 68 from liver failure.  For the obit, click HERE and then kick out the jams, motherf**kers.

Late Night Pick of the Night: Butch Walker

Tonight, check out garage rocker, singer, songwriter Butch Walker on Letterman at 11:35 PM on CBS.  Kristen Wiig will also be on and she is hot and funny.  Double bonus!

David Allan Coe@Hat Factory Postponed tonight

this just in from the Hat Factory:

RESCHEDULED – DATE TO BE CONFIRMED – STAY UP-TO-DATE FOR FUTURE DATE


Roundup Presents: David Allan Coe

We regret to inform you that David Allen Coe has been forced to postpone tonight’s show due to an unspecified illness. Please retain your tickets as they will be honored for the new date once it is rescheduled. Please check back soon for more details.