Weekend Picks: Lettuce, Popa Chubby, Threesound, Clair Morgan, King Easy, The Machine, Life On Mars, Long Strange Night

It is sometimes hard to get motivated when various viscous fluids are coming out of your face and your throat feels like it's closing up. But we will push through this illness, at least for a few hours, to complete this week's blog. It helps that it is a relatively slow period for live music in town. But with the lack of national touring bands in the area, this is a great time to find your new favorite local band that you can follow and watch grow over the coming year, like a little baby bird that makes a lot of noise with guitars until they fly from the nurturing nest that is RVA.

And here's a local band making national year-end best of lists and playing every first Friday at The Camel this year. The band Clair Morgan will be joined by Smoke Break, Anousheh, and Lightfields this Friday. Doors open at 8, music starts at 9, tix are $6 advance, $8 day of show. This show will benefit the Virginia ACLU, who I suspect will be extra busy over the next 4 years. You know Clair Morgan is getting big because they teamed with Three Notch’d RVA Collab House to come out with their own beer called New Lions Blonde Stout. Check it out at Three Notch'd. It just came out today (1/5). Hopefully they'll make a new video soon, but until they do, we'll keep playing this one:



CANCELED DUE TO SNOW: If you are looking for some music in the afternoon on Saturday, classic rock/blues band Long Strange Night is at Cary St. Cafe from 1 - 6 PM and it don't cost nothin' to get in. Here they are playing an original called "Love My Baby":



TAPROOM IS OPEN BUT KING EASY WILL BE RESCHEDULED. Reggae band King Easy are at Castleburg Brewery & Taproom Saturday evening from 7 - 9. I caught King Easy when they opened up for Antero a few weeks ago at The Broadberry and was mighty impressed. This one is also FREE to get in. Here's a little peek at their rehearsal on my birthday last year:



SHOW IS POSTPONED. NEW DATE NOT ANNOUNCED YET. Blues guitarist Popa Chubby is at Capital Ale House Downtown Saturday night. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 and no opener is listed. Tix are $15 advance, $20 day of show. I saw Popa at The Tin Pan last year and it had been at least 20 years since I had last seen him. He's only improved with great guitar playing, a solid band and excellent rapport with the audience. It looks like the Tin Pan show put Richmond back on the map for the NYC based Chubby so we'll hopefully see him more frequently now. Popa's current album, The Catfish, is currently sitting at #12 on the Living Blues Radio Chart. Here's a full Popa Chubby show, not sure when it was filmed, though he looks pretty young here. Now a days, Popa sits while he plays because he is Chubby. But he still plays electric and still brings the jams.



POSTPONED UNTIL APRIL 16 DUE TO SNOW. Can't get enough of that Pink Floyd stuff? Check out The Machine at The National  Saturday night. Tix are $15 - 20 advance (you can get reserved balcony seats for this show) and $18 - 23 day of show. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 and there is no opener. Here they are this summer doing "Pigs on the Wing" and "Pigs (Three Different Ones)":

More tribute bands Saturday night with Life On Mars (Bowie) and Better Off Dead (Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia) at The Camel. This is a special celebration for David Bowie's birthday. They'll be toasting at midnight to the Thin White Duke. Doors open at 8, show starts at 9, tix are $10. Here's Life On Mars doing "Stay":



Sunday at The National, get funky with Lettuce. Tix are $19.50 advance, $23 day of show, doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with openers Jaw Gems. Lettuce drummer Adam Deitch also played with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings on a European tour in 2006 and he wrote this memorial to her when she passed away. Here's Lettuce at The Brooklyn Bowl a few days ago:

Monday at The Camel, there is a benefit for the Conservation Music whose mission is to foster a global culture of sustainability through locally created music and film. The show will feature Threesound, Gull, Philosophunk, and Worse Curses with special guests Mark Ingraham and Matthew Walton. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 and it's $7 to get in. Here's Threesound's latest video, "Better Places":



That'll do it. Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading! I'll leave you with this Beastie Boys video with some guys you might recognize playing the Beastie Boys and lots of celebrity cameos.



Tony Jordan