Weekend Picks: Wussy, Freakwater, K. Michelle, The Arcs, The Atkinsons, American Babies, The Ar-Kaics, Karen Jonas

R&B singer K. Michelle is at The National Thursday night. Tix are $29.50 in advance, $33 day of show. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with opener PJ. Here's the press blurb for K. Michelle.

Her debut album, 2013’s Rebellious Soul [Atlantic Records], flipped the script for R&B and enjoyed staggering success in the process. Arriving at #1 on Billboard’s “Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums” chart and #2 on the Top 200, it made history as it became the highest Top 200 entry for a female R&B singer’s debut since 2001. She also solidified her place amongst music’s elite, garnering a Soul Train Award for “Best New Artist” and an NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding New Artist.”

Alongside shooting the second season of her highly rated VH1 docuseries, “K.Michelle: My Life,” her sophomore album Anybody Wanna Buy A Heart debuted at #2 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Chart and #6 on the Billboard 200, making it the top debut of 2014 for an R&B artist. Billboard named the album one of 2014’s Best R&B records, while Complex proclaimed, “K. Michelle is leaps and bounds ahead of many of her peers.” The Associated Press, Billboard, and Rolling Stone have all named Anybody Wanna Buy A Heart as one of the best R&B albums of 2014.

 Here's "Love 'Em All":

Roots rockers Tom Hamilton's American Babies are at The Broadberry Thursday. Tix are $10 advance, $12 day of show. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with RVA's own The Southern Belles, so get there early. Here's American Babies' video for "Fever Dreams":



If you find yourself hanging around the house at night this weekend, you can check out Disco Biscuits' free live webcast of their sets at their festival, Camp Bisco. You'll find those shows streamed on the UphoricTV channel on YouTube. You do need to subscribe to their channel to see them. Here's the set times:

Thursday July 14: 

10:30pm – Midnight

Friday July 15:

Set One – 7:00pm - 8:15pm

Set Two – 10:30pm – Midnight

 Saturday July 16:

Set One – 4:00pm – 5:15pm

Set Two – 7:30pm – 8:45pm

Set Three – 12:30am – 2:00am

Missing Friday Cheers? Hardywood looks to pick up where Cheers left off with a FREE Friday evening show featuring The Ar-Kaics (60's Troglodyte garage rock), Lady God (Bristling surf guitar, webby bass lines, and sneering dual vocals compose an oddly satisfying vintage rock n’ roll salad they call “Slink.”), Best Behavior out of NYC (Straight up fresh surf-garage), Today Junior from Boston (Indie Rock), and the freshly named Bummers Eve (punk fuzz from Cincinnati to RVA). The music starts at 5:30. Here's The Ar-Kaics at Garageville in Hamburg earlier this year:

A few weeks ago, I saw the lovely and talented Karen Jonas open for Sam Lewis at the Tin Pan. She's a very talented alt-country singer/songwriter out of Fredericksburg. She teams up with Tim Bray who provides some great twangy guitar to accompany Karen.They'll be at Legend Brewing on Friday night from 8:30 - 11:30. Here they are performing at the Takoma Park Folk Festival in 2014:

Americana band The Atkinsons are at Cary Street Cafe on Friday night. It'll be $5 to get in. Things get underway at 9:30 with openers Jessica Salomonsky Pooley and Adam & Amanda Beason. This is The Atkinsons "I Love Everything":



Saturday from 3 - 5 PM, yours truly will do my first radio show in over 20 years when I hit the airwaves to fill in on the Songs from the Big Hair show on WRIR. Appropriately enough, that's an 80's music show so I'll be playing songs from the era when I first started on radio. What comes around, goes around.

Atmospheric indie rockers Wussy are at Strange Matter Saturday night. Doors open at 9 and it's $10 to get in. Sunndrug, Lady God & Various Eggs open. The Noisey web site named their latest album, "Forever Sounds", one of 26 Extremely Dope Overlooked Albums of 2016 (So Far), saying "Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker are the best songwriters in America. They have been for over a decade, too." Here's the video for "Dropping Houses":



Tuesday at The National, Dan Auerbach's other band, his psychedelic side project, The Arcs, pull into town. Tix are $28 advance, $33 day of show. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8. No opener is listed. Here's a bit of the press blurb:

[Their album} Yours, Dreamily, continues to receive critical praise. Rolling Stone named the record among their top ten albums of 2015, calling it a “turbulent R&B noir, spiked with psychedelic flourishes… Spectral hip-hop coated in crusty mellotron.” The single “Put A Flower In Your Pocket” also has received excellent reviews, Consequence Of Sound called it “rife with foggy, psychedelic vibes” and Vice’s Noisey says its “dirty, bluesy soulful music with a reverbed, modern twist.” 

Here they are performing "Outta My Mind" in NYC earlier this year:



Over at The Broadberry Tuesday night, alt-country band Freakwater will perform along with Morgan Geer's Drunken Prayer. Doors at 8, show at 9, $12 advance, $15 day of show. You might dig Freakwater if you like Lucinda Williams, The Carter Family, Infamous Stringdusters, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, or Emmylou Harris. Here's their "What the People Want":



That'll do it. I might see you at The Atkinsons, Wussy, The Arcs and/or Freakwater. I'll leave you with some classic Stones because "I want to be your knight in shining armor, riding across the desert on a fine Arab charger". Have a great weekend!



Tony Jordan