Late Night Pick: Phish

If you missed Phish's performance on Late Show with David Letterman (11:35 PM, CBS) last month, you can catch the repeat tonight. Only 11 days until their 2 night run in Portsmouth starts. Here they are doing "Chalk Dust Torture" on Randall's Island in NYC on 7/13/14. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. This one clocks in at 28 minutes.



Here's the considerably shorter "Bring Me Your Loves" from St. Vincent on Letterman last night:

Weekend Picks: Robert Cray, John Hiatt, Gordon Lightfoot, Fireworks, Old 97's, Tommy Stinson, Avers, PBR, No BS! Brass Band, Big Payback

All weekend long, you can watch the Pitchfork Festival online live from Chicago IL. Find out what all the hipsters at Pitchfork.com are diggning with live performances from Beck, Kendrick Lamar, St. Vincent, Giorgio Moroder, Tune-Yards, Danny Brown, Schoolboy Q, Sharon Van Etten, Neneh Cherry, Speedy Ortiz and many others. Go to pitchfork.com to check it out starting on Friday at 4:30 PM ET, Saturday and Sunday at 2 PM ET.

Lots of music locally this weekend. Punk poppers Fireworks will be at The Camel on Friday for a show that includes Young Statues, Better Off, Another Treehouse Acquaintance, and Centerfolds. Doors open at 7, show starts at 7:30, $12 in advance, $14 at the door. Here's Fireworks with "Detroit":

People's Blues of Richmond hit up The Broadberry again on Friday night. It's $8 in advance, $10 at the door, doors open at 8 and Consider the Source opens. PBR comes on at 10. They'll be heading up to NYC for a couple shows in August, stretching out that fan base. Here they are doing "Born to Die" the last time they played The Broadberry:

All weekend long, WRIR puts on the Commonwealth of Notions:Volume 4 in venues all over town. Here's a little video about the festival.



On Friday night, check out Avers, Sundials, Lightfields, Hot Dolphin, and Clair Morgan at Strange Matter. Show starts at 8:30, doors open at 7:30 and it's just $5 to get in. You can check out the rest of the shows on the poster up there. Avers don't have a lot of video out there but here's some short clips from their show at Friday Cheers on 5/30 so you can get a taste of their psychedelic garage pop sound. You can spot me in the crowd at one point but you have to look fast.


Free music at Plan 9 in Carytown Saturday afternoon. Chris Schlarb and TLVS will perform there with TLVS on at 12:45 and Chris on at 1:30. Here's the little press blurb:

Chris Schlarb (on the Asthmatic Kitty record label) is a musician, composer and producer based in Long Beach, California. His newest album, Making The Saint, was recorded alone inside a 140-year old Gold Rush cabin in the San Bernardino mountains. With no collaborations or distractions, Making The Saint contains the most intimate music of his career. SPIN Magazine calls the album, “Gorgeously meditative… Chris Schlarb is a wizard with the guitar. Making the Saint has an inclusive, panoramic feel…” The New York Times calls his playing, “Immersive… meticulous and controlled.”

Here's his cool animated video for the song "Great Receiver":

The big National Beer Expo sponsored by Capital Ale House is here in Richmond all weekend.The big events are at the Convention Center but a special after hours gig goes on at Capital Ale House downtown staring at 6 on Saturday evening. Food is included in the ticket. They'll be tapping special beers every 1/2 hour on the 1/2 hour and James Brown tribute band, The Big Payback will help you get your groove on. You have to get your tickets in advance on the Beer Expo ticket site which is HERE.

No BS! Brass Band will kick it over at Balliceaux Saturday night.Show starts at 10 and it's $10 to get in. No BS! just played the Lowdown Hudson Blues Fest in NYC with Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Robert Cray, John Hiatt and Lake Street Dive among others. Here they are showing their RVA pride in New Haven CT in June:



Folk legend Gordon Lightfoot is at the Carpenter Theatre on Sunday night. Tix are $49 to $64. Show starts at 8 and get there on time. The show is billed as "An Evening With Gordon Lightfoot" which usually implies no opener and a nice long show with your headliner. Here he is in 1974 doing "Sundown":



Alt-country band Old 97's come to The National on Tuesday night. Tix are $15 in advance, $18 at the door, doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with Tommy Stinson. Rolling Stone magazine picked the Old 97's latest album, "Most Messed Up" as one of the best albums of 2014 so far. Here's a tune from that album with a title I can dig, "Let's Get Drunk & Get It On":


Wednesday night at Innsbrook Pavilion, the aforementioned Robert Cray & John Hiatt will be in town for your listening pleasure. Tickets run from $15 for GA lawn to $99 for Gold Circle-Platinum (gold or platinum, Innsbrook Pavilion, pick one) with $35 & $55 Gold Circle price points in there too. Gates open at 5, show starts at 6. Here's one from Robert Cray, filmed just a couple days ago:



And here's one from John Hiatt for an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien back in '94:



Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan

Late Night Pick: St. Vincent, RIP Johnny Winter

Check out St. Vincent on Late Show with David Letterman tonight (CBS, 11:35 PM). She'll be opening for the Black Keys here in Richmond at the Coliseum on December 6. Though she's on the Letterman show tonight, she did an hour long "Live on Letterman" web performance last night. You can check it out below:

Blues guitar great Johnny Winter passed away in Switzerland last night at the age of 70. Rolling Stone posted a nice tribute HERE. Here's part of his performance at Woodstock (thanks to Wyatt for finding this one):



Here's Broods doing "Mother and Father" on last night's Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Late Night Pick: Broods

Is there a New Zealand invasion starting? Following in the footsteps of Lorde, electronic pop brother-sister duo, Broods, will perform on Late Night with Seth Meyers tonight (NBC, 12:35 AM). This will be Broods US TV debut. Here's Broods' "Never Gonna Change":



Here's Bleachers doing "I Wanna Get Better" last night on Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon:

Late Night Pick: Bleachers

We're back. Had a wonderful vacation, but back to work now, which also means taking a work break by doing my late night TV pick. The Weekend Picks will also be back Thursday or Friday, so please continue reading and thanks for doing so.

Tonight on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (11:35 PM, NBC), watch pop rockers Bleachers perform. Bleachers are the more experimental side project for Fun.'s frontman, Jack Antonoff. Bleachers new album "Strange Desire" was released today. Here's the song "I Wanna Get Better" from that album, which they might play tonight, but this being their first album, it's pretty much all we've got.

Late Night Pick: Royksopp & Robyn

Northern European electronic dance music giants Royksopp (no matter how many times I double check that, I still think I'm spelling that wrong) & Robyn have teamed up and you can hear the results of that collabortion on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight on ABC at 11:35 PM. Last night they did a sold out show at the Hollywood Bowl. Here's a song they did together back in 2010 called "None of Dem":



Here's Chance the Rapper doing "Chain Smoker" on the repeat of the Arsenio Hall Show on Friday:



That'll be it for me until July14. I'm outta here on vacation. See you then.

Tony Jordan

Late Night Pick: Chance the Rapper

We go all the way back to December (cool off by thinking about December) for a repeat of the Arsenio Hall Show with alternative rap artist, Chance the Rapper. Arsenio is on here in Richmond at 11 PM on WUPV. He's playing a bunch of festival in Europe and America (like Lollapalooza) this summer. Chance and his father recently teamed up to combat gun violence in Chicago. You can read about that HERE. Here's his latest video, "Everybody's Something". (Lyrics NSFW)



Here's Spoon peforming "Rent I Pay" and "Rainy Taxi" on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night.




Over the weekend, set this playlist on random and see what pops up:

Late Night Pick: Spoon

Indie rock stalwarts Spoon will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight (11:35 PM, ABC). Spoon will be at the NorVa in Norfolk on 9/6, but no Richmond date. They're out promoting their new album, "They Want My Soul". Here's Spoon's "Everything Hits at Once":


Here's Hurray for the Riff Raff on last night's Late Show with David Letterman:

Weekend Picks: Neko Case, Laura Veirs, People's Blues of Richmond, Avers, Sleepwalkers, Chris Smither, JJ Grey & Mofro, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, Debo Band, Bio Ritmo

Thursday night, I know a lot of people who will be going to the JJ Grey & Mofro show with Karl Denson's Tiny Universe (featuring Richmond's own DJ Williams on guitar) at Pocohontas Live at Pocohontas State Park. I unfortunately will not be able to attend, but it should be a fantastic show, even though I won't be there (ego alert!). The gates will open at 5:30, Karl Denson will hit the stage around 6. Don't miss 'em. GA tix are $16.50 in advance, $20 at the door. Gold Circle GA seating is $30. Gold Circle Reserved is $35. Platinum Circle Reserved with Massage, Hot Tub, Free Drinks, a Golden Ticket and the legal right to pee on those in GA while you spend the night on your phone texting all your friends to tell them you are in Platinum Circle while not paying attention to the band  is $500. Here's JJ Grey hanging out with some other cool dudes: Luther Dickenson (N Mississippi All-Stars, Black Crowes), Marc Broussard, & Anders Osborne in a collective called The Southern Soul Assembly.



And here's JJ Grey & Mofro along with some other artists on an hour long show called "WoodSongs" which appears to be on PBS in Kentucky:



If you can't get South of Richmond for some blues on Thursday, head North of Richmond for some blues that night with Chris Smither at Ashland Coffee & Tea. Tix are $20 in advance, $23 day of show. Show starts at 8 with opener Russell Lacy. Here's Chris playing "What It Might Have Been":



Hard to believe we've reached the last Friday Cheers of the season but they'll be going out with a bang with acclaimed indie/pop artist, Neko Case. It'll be $10 to get in. Neko comes on at 8, but get there early to hear singer/songwriter Laura Veirs who comes on at 6:30. You can also catch Laura earlier in the day at Plan 9 in Carytown where she'll do a lunch time show at 12:30 PM. Here's Neko with "Don't Forget Me":



And here's Laura Veirs doing "July Flame", an appropriate song as we are about to enter July.



And here's another one from Laura that popped up on my iPod this AM. I really like this one.

Get your yacht rock on Friday night at the Beacon Theatre in Hopewell with Little River Band. Doors open at 6 and the opener is TBA. GA is $21.50 advance, $25 at the door. Orchestra Reserved is $36.50 advance, $40 at the door. Here's one that I used to have on an old K-Tel cassette that is long lost to the ages:

The Broadberry has an absolutely killer lineup of local bands on Friday night. This features the best of Richmond's psychedelic hard rock scene with People's Blues of Richmond, Avers and Sleepwalkers. All the bands are great and if haven't seen them, this is a great chance to see all three in one show. And this will be the first night for all the bands at The Broadberry. Hope they like it. It's an all ages show, so you can bring your 7 year old kid, but only if they like to RAWK! It's $10 to get in and doors open at 8. I hope they don't start the Sleepwalkers until I can get there from Cheers because I'd really like to see them again, but I don't think I'll be so lucky. I feel like any of these bands could bust out of our little scene and go national, so this is really one not to be missed. Here's PBR doing "GB" at the Funky Biscuit in Boca Raton on 4/19:


If jamtronica is more your scene, Former Champions will be at The Camel on Friday. Doors open at 9, it's $7 to get in and Commonwealth will open the show. Here they are playing a recent party:



Saturday night, Ethiopian pop band by way of Boston, Debo Band, will be at The Broadberry. From their press blurb: "Debo Band is a 11-member group led by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and fronted by charismatic vocalist Bruck Tesfaye. Since their inception in 2006, the band has won raves for their groundbreaking take on Ethiopian pop music, which incorporates traditional scales and vocal styles, alongside American soul and funk rhythms, and instrumentation reminiscent of Eastern European brass bands. Debo have toured Ethiopia twice, appearing at both the Ethiopian Music Festival in Addis Ababa and Sauti Za Busara in Zanzibar, the largest music festival in East Africa. In North America, they've shared stages with Gogol Bordello, Amadou & Mariam, Antibalas, The Family Stone, and Ethiopian great Tilahun Gessesse. Recent and upcoming performances include the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Bumbershoot, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, The Kennedy Center, Montreal Jazz Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and South by Southwest. Their self-titled debut for Sub Pop / Next Ambiance was produced by Thomas "Tommy T" Gobena of Gogol Bordello and features album art by critically-renowned painter Julie Mehretu." It's $8 in advance, $10 at the door. Doors open at 8 and DJ Peri and DJ Felty will provide additional music. Here's Debo Band peforming for KEXP in Seattle:

More world music on Sunday, when Richmond salsa sensations Bio Ritmo celebrate the release of their latest album, "Puerta Del Sur" at The Broadberry. They'll do two sets, one at 8 and one at 10. This band has become a world-renowned salsa band with gigs all around the globe. Here's "La Muralla" live:

That'll do it. Have a great weekend! I'll leave you with one of my favorite songs. It gives me goosebumps every time he hits the chorus. This is Jason Isbell with "Danko/Manuel". Can't wait to see Jason at The National in August a few weeks before I see his former band, Drive-By Truckers, at Lockn' Festival.



Tony Jordan

Late Night Pick: Hurray for the Riff Raff

Folk/Blues/Rock/Alternative/Indie band, Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka singer/songwriter Alynda Lee Segarra), is on Late Show with David Letterman tonight on CBS at 11:35 PM. They are out of New Orleans, which is always a good sign. Here's a 35 minute performance they did outside in their home town.



Here's the Phish doing "The Line" on Letterman last night:



And if you missed their hour-long "Live on Letterman" performance last night, it's still available to watch HERE.