Earth Day, Record Store Day, The Duhks, Black Cash

So much going on this weekend so let's jump right in.

You can start the weeekend off with Johnny Cash tribute band Black Cash & The Bad Trips. They'll be at the Tobacco Company on Friday & Saturday night and it won't cost you a thing to get in. Show starts at 10 each night.

Saturday is Record Store Day all around the country. Its a day to celebrate your local independent record store and since we have one of the best in the country here in Richmond, head on down to Plan 9 in Carytown. They'll have bands playing live all afternoon. Here is the lineup:
1:15-2:00 Hex Machine
2:45-3:30 No BS Brass Band
4:15-5:00 Cinemasophia
5:45-6:30 The Recliners (CD Release Show)

There will also be free giveaways and exclusive Record Store Day music available from artists like Bruce Springsteen, Ben Harper, Bob Dylan, Derek Trucks, Elvis Costello, Flaming Lips, Jane's Addiction and more. Check out the Plan 9 web site for all the details.

Saturday is Earth Day and the Earth Day Richmond and Fish Festival will be held from 10 AM - 4 PM at the South side of the Mayo Bridge (14th Street) at the James River Flood Wall. This is a free event and the Earth has decided to give us a beautiful day for it. There will be food, art, dance, environmental exhibits, demonstrations, tours, earth-friendly goods, plenty of kid's activities and live music. For the skinny, check out the web site: http://www.earthdayrichmond.org/.

The X Chili Cookoff is Saturday from 11 - 7 out at the Richmond Raceway Complex. There will be chili, beer, and bands of the type played on 102.1 the X:
11:45
Searching For Timothy
12:45
Pop Evil
2:00
Framing Hanley
3:15
Anberlin
4:30
Hollywood Undead
5:45
Trapt
Tix are $20 in advance and $25 at the door but if you listen to the station they are giving away a lot of tickets.

The Duhks will play at Capital Ale House Music Hall Downtown on Saturday night. Show starts at 10 and tix are $15. Here is what the Capital Ale House site says about them: "The Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Duhks have always gravitated towards traditional roots-based song structures, but they've never stopped evolving since their inception five years ago. Due in part to a collective musical worldview that knows no boundaries, that evolution led the band to their latest offering Fast-Paced World, the first Duhks record to feature wunderkinds Sarah and Christian Dugas (replacing vocalist Jessee Havey and percussionist Scott Senior respectively). It's an album that reflects the quintet's newfound confidence, with Sarah bringing five original songs to the band's encyclopedic collection of originals and covers both old and new."

You'll dig The Duhks if you like Nickel Creek, Bela Fleck, or Fairport Convention. Here is a video of them playing live from just a month ago, singing about a road we all know well, "95 South":




Close out your weekend with music from the long-lived blues bar band, The Nighthawks. They'll be at Shenanigans with an early show starting at 6:30 so you can still get home and get a good night's rest before work. Here's a little Nighthawks from downtown Williamsport PA, my cousins' hometown where I used to hang out for a couple weeks each summer.




Wednesday night, the Innsbrook Pavilion season kicks off with the Doobie Brothers & the Little River Band. Tix are $17.50 in advance, $20 at the gate and $35 if you want Gold Circle. Gates open at 6 PM and the show starts shortly after that. Here is some classic Doobies from 1973:




And here is some freakin' smooth rock from Little River Band. I think I had this on a K-tel album. From what a can tell they drank some wine, played some pool and BAM! Music video.




Also on Wednesday, O.A.R. plays at The National. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 and tix are $35. On the Internet Music Archive, their show from 1/14/06 is the most downloaded show in the site's history with almost 2.5 million downloads. The next closest has 368,000 downloads. So when I went to listed to the 1/14/06 show one day, I thought "2.5 million downloads. This is going to blow me away." But after listening all I thought was "Meh." Not that exciting.

Larry Keel & Natural Bridge play at the Capital Ale House Music Hall Downtown on Wednesday night. Show starts at 9 and tix are $12. These guys play bluegrass influenced Americana. Here is the first 10 minutes of the documentary about Larry called "Beautiful Thing". You can check out the whole thing on YouTube.


Finally, this weekend, festival season starts which means the festival webcasts start. This is the next best thing to being at the actual festivals. On the plus side, beer is cheaper, you don't get baked by the sun or driven by the rain, and you get to take a shower whenever you want.

On Sunday, though not being webcast, the Green Apple Festival takes place in cities across the US to celebrate Earth Day and the show in DC is really good. Flaming Lips, moe., and Los Lobos will play on the National Mall.

An Earth Day festival that is being webcast is the Loyal Earth Music & Arts Festval Thursday through Monday from St. Louis. You can check out the webcast at http://www.iclips.net/loyalearth. Its on Thursday night until midnight and I'm watching The Station now. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday runs from 4:20 PM to 1 AM. The hghlights should be Medeski, Martin & Wood Sunday at 8 PM. I haven't heard of most of the other bands but that's the beauty of the webcasts. You get to check out some new bands and see if they can bring it live. Note that times listed above for Loyal Earth Music Fest are Central time.

AT&T Music will be webcasting the Coachella festival from the desert outside of LA. This has a few bands you may have heard of. Highlights will include Paul McCartney (Friday 10 PM), Morrissey (Friday 9 PM), The Cure (Sunday 10:10 PM), Public Enemy (Sunday 9 PM), Michael Franti (Saturday 5:10 PM), Drive-By Truckers (Saturday 6:55 PM), Calexico (Saturday 7:45 PM). M.I.A. (Saturday 9:35 PM), Okkervil River (Sunday 6 PM) and Conor Oberst (Friday 8:15 PM). The webcast will run roughly 2:30 PM - midnight on Friday through Sunday. Note that times listed above for Coachella are Pacific time.

Wow, that was much longer than I thought it would be. Happy Earth Day!

Tony Jordan