Weekly Picks: WRIR Party, Railroad Earth, EOTO, Beatles Tribute, Hackensaw Boys, Southern Belles, People's Blues of Richmond, Poston Brown Project

Thursday night, bluegrass fans will have some tough decisions to make as two bluegrass shows go on mere blocks from each other. We'll start with bluegrass/jam/Americana band Railroad Earth at The National. Tix are $20 in advance, $23 at the door. Doors open at 7 and the show starts at 8 with YARN. Railroad Earth is out supporting their new album, "Last of the Outlaws". Here's a sampling of Railroad Earth from their "Live at Red Rocks" video:



With the last couple weeknight shows I've seen at The National ending between 10:30 and 11, fans at the Railroad Earth show may want to head over to Capital Ale House after the Railroad Earth show to check out Charlottesville's Hackensaw Boys. Doors open at 9:30 and the show starts at 10:30 with Flight of Salt. It'll be $15 to get in. Here's Hackensaw Boys doing "Down South Blues" a few years ago at WNRN:

Speaking of independent radio stations, the big event Friday night is the benefit for Richmond low power station WRIR, the Party For The Rest Of Us. It will be held at the The Renaissance Ballroom at 107 W Broad St from 7 PM to Midnight. To get in, give a $10 donation (or more) at the door. There will be a bunch of bands playing including The Ar-Kaics, HYPERCOLOR, Herro Sugar, River City Taiko, and much, much more. I'll be heading down there myself sporting my new haircut and I don't even know what that will be yet (a Beatles hair cut to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their Ed Sullivan Show appearance, a Pete Rose cut, a bowl cut, a mohawk, a buzz cut, mullet, flattop, I just don't know). If you want to join me (for the show, not the haircut, well, you could join me for the haircut too, that's cool), let me know.

If you want some all improvised jamtronica Friday night, get thee down to The National for EOTO. Emalkay and ELM will open and there may be a few others taking the stage too. Door open at 8, show starts at 8 and I don't expect this one to end early. Tix are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. They've got a new stage setup and they always have might trippy stages. Here was the teaser for their Fall tour so you can get a little sample:



At The Camel on Friday night, Southern Belles continue their First Friday residency. Doors open at 8, show starts at 9 with openers Major and The Monbacks from Norfolk. It's $7 to get in. Though the Belles play mostly originals (and good ones) these days, they always throw in a few choice covers. Here they are teamed up with Trongone Band doing the Grateful Dead's "Dire Wolf":



Saturday night at The Camel, People's Blues of Richmond are gonna rock, they're gonna roll you, they're gonna melt your face and pour whiskey down your throat. PBR just finished up a stint in the studio so they may have some new songs to drop on you. It'll be $8 at the door, Russell Lacy will start things off with some blues at 9:30, then Fool's Errand will play before PBR. Here's PBR the last time I went to see them on 11/30 at The Camel:

At Cary St. Cafe Saturday, it's a rare Poston Brown Project show. It'll get underway at 9:30 with opener Soulfly and it's FREE to get in. PBP plays music from The Grateful Dead, The Band, The Rolling Stones and more. There aren't any recent PBP videos (they don't play together too often anymore) so here's The Rolling Stones doing "Heartbreaker":

Sunday is the 50th anniversary of The Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show that started the British Invasion and changed rock n' roll and music forever. Celebrate by going to The Camel to see a Beatles tribute with The Girtles (all girl Beatles tribute band), The Blue Tips and Goldrush. They'll all be doing their favorite Beatles songs. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8. It'll probably look and sound something like this:



And nothing like this:



Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan