Groovin' in the Garden, Salt N Pepa, Irish Fest, Perpetual Groove, Mike Watt

My bracket is pretty much shot after tonight's first games so I'm rooting for the underdogs from here on out.  And VCU & U of R, of course. 

Onto the music.  Groovin' in the Garden announced their lineup for the summer.  They'll be at Lewis Ginter in May with this lineup:
5/5 - Cracker
5/12 - Donna the Buffalo & New Riders of the Purple Sage
5/19 - TBA
5/26 - Nanci Griffith

Then they switch to Maymont in June:
6/2 - Toots & The Maytals
6/9 & 16 - TBA
6/23 - Umphrey's McGee

Pretty good lineup.  I wish Richmond wouldn't jam so much good music into Thursdays & Fridays in May & June.  Its going to be really hard to pick and choose.

Back to this weekend. If you are disappointed that they moved the Snoop Dogg show to April and you need a old school rap fix, you can't do much better than Salt N Pepa's Legends of Hip Hop at the Richmond Coliseum on Friday night. Tix run from $39 - $76 and the show starts at 8. Joining Salt N Pepa will be hip hop legends Biz Markie, Doug E Fresh, MC Lyte and Naughty By Nature.  Here's the best song from all these groups, Doug E. Fresh's "The Show".  For being from the early 80s, I strangely could not find a video for this song.  So no "video" on this one, but you get the song.


A word about the Coliseum. I went to the CAA Tournament and confirmed once again that the Coliseum sucks.  They absolutely need to tear that place down.  The concourses are so tight that if you get a line at one of the stands more than say, 5 people deep, you cut off the flow of people around the arena.  A simple thing they could do to improve the place would be to put up some signs.  When you walk in the door, there are no signs telling you which way is which section or which way the bathrooms are.  Its bad enough that the bathrooms are practically hidden under stairwells.  They could at least have some signs that stick out over the concourse so you could look down and see where the closest bathrooms are.  But you end up walking half way around the arena looking for a bathroom only to find later that if you had turned left instead of right, you had a bathroom one section away from you.  Throw in the crumbling stairs, the ceiling speakers with the paint peeling off, and the worst, overcooked, hot dogs I have ever had, and this place is just an embarassment.  Really Richmond, find a way to build a new one because the Coliseum is a decaying pile of crap. 

Saturday & Sunday, the Church Hill Irish Festival, one of Richmond's best festivals, goes down in Church Hill on 25th Street between Broad & Franklin.  Its $2 to get in and proceeds are donated to the St. Baldrick’s Society and their fight against childhood cancer, the Church Hill Association, the Church Hill Crime Watch, Richmond Hill, Child Saver’s Clinic of Richmond, St. John’s Church, the St. Peter’s Meals Program, Stone’s Circle of Friends and many other neighborhood causes.  They have a nice children's area with the usual bouncy things and games and all proceeds from the children's area go to “Connor’s Heroes”, an organization that assists families and children who are fighting childhood cancer.  There are food and beverages available including the adult kind ofe beverages (its an Irish fest for Christ's sake).  It all happens rain or shine, Saturday from 10 AM to 7 PM and Sunday from 10 AM to 6:30 PM.  There is music all day and this year's fest is dedicated to Richmond musician and long-time supporter of the Irish Fest and its charities, Page Wilson, who passed away a few weeks ago.

Here is the Saturday band lineup:
Bluegrass Celtic Stage

11:00 - 11:45 Glasgow Kiss
12:00 - 12:45 Robin Carns
1:00 - 1:45 Detox Mountain Boys
2:00 - 2:45 Cary Street Ramblers
3:00 - 3:45 A Pack of Luckys
4:00 - 4:45 Big Boss Combo
5:00 - 5:45 Sommervilles
6:00 - 6:45 Highway 249

Guinness Stage
10:00 - 10:30 PARADE
10:30 - 11:00 An Cor Rud Irish Dancers
11:00 - 11:30 Donny Brook
11:40 - 12:10 Miles O’Brien
12:10 - 12:30 Muggivan School of Dance
12:30 - 1:00 King Golden Banshee
1:15 - 1:45 Powder Keg
2:00 - 2:30 Haze & The Transients
2:45 - 3:15 Tinkers Damn
3:30 - 4:00 The Atkinsons
4:15 - 4:45 Kelly Kennedy & Lilt
5:00 - 5:30 Bart Chucker Band
5:45 - 6:15 Mothers Little Helpers
6:15 - 7:00 Uisce Bethea

And here is Sunday's band lineup:
Bluegrass Celtic Stage

11:00 - 11:45 Old Town Celtic
12:00 - 12:45 Virginia House Band
1:00 - 1:45 A Good Natured Riot
2:00 - 2:45 Thistle & Shamrock
3:00 - 3:45 Cook County
4:00 - 4:45 Harper & Co.
5:00 - 5:45 Uncle Phugly
6:00 - 6:45 East of Afton

Guinness Stage
10:00 - 10:30 Bagpipers
11:00 - 11:30 Razen Caine
11:45 - 12:15 Faculty Lounge Lizards
12:30 - 1:00 The Remnants
1:10 - 1:40 Cross Roads Irish Dance
1:45 - 2:15 Rattlesnake Shake
2:15 - 2:45 St. Baldricks Head Shave
2:45 - 3:15 Three Bad Men
3:30 - 4:00 Blue Line Highway
4:15 - 4:45 Uncle Drew and the Powhite Boys
5:00 - 5:30 Janet Martin Band
5:45 - 6:30 Andy Cindy & Then Some

After the Irish fest on Saturday, head down to The National to get your groove on.  Perpetual Groove that is.  The jam band returns to Richmond with opener Zoogma.  Doors open at 8, show starts at 9.  Tix are $15 in advance, $18 day of show.  Here is Perpetual Groove playing "Speed Queen" on 3.4.11:


Tuesday night, alternative/college/punk rock hero Mike Watt comes to town with his band The Missing Men.  They'll be at the Canal Club with openers The Vacant Stairs and Horsehead.  Doors open at 8.  Tix are $10 in advance, $13 at the door.  Here is Mike & the Missing Men at Chop Suey in Seattle about a year ago:


This week's Best Music Scenes in Movies scene is from The Fabulous Baker Boys and features Michelle Pfeiffer singing "Makin' Whoopee".  She was never hotter. Ok, she was pretty hot in the Catwoman suit, too.


In our continuation of Paste Magazine's 25 Best Music Videos of 2010 list, we have Lissie and an elephant doing "Everywhere I Go".  Elephants not only have a great memory, but they are very persistant.  I know I wish I had an elephant following me around becuase then no one would f**k with me.  Screw these cats I have.  I'm getting an elephant tomorrow.


Have a great weekend! If it doesn't rain, I hope to see you at the Irish Festival.

Tony Jordan

Ratdog/moe review, Avett Bros., 80s Was The Greatest

Let's start things off with a quick review of the Ratdog/moe. show last night at Innsbrook.

moe. started things off around 6:20 with two old favorites.
Spaz Medicine ->
Akimbo
Water -> (featured some cool backing vocals and then guitarist Chuck Garvey took the spotlight as they went into the instrumental.....)
Hector's Pillow ->
Darkness
Letter Home -> (a nice mellow one as the sun dipped behind the trees and things started to cool off)
St. Augustine -> (this one got funky and really got the crowd into it)
Waiting For The Punchline,
Recreational Chemistry (moe. saved the highlight for the end. Recreational starts with the woozy trippy guitar blend of Chuck and Al Schnier, then went through a nice jam before Al took over and was just wailing at the end, almost punk/metal. Brought the crowd, even the Gold Circle folks, to their feet.)

Ratdog started around 8:20.
Jam -> (This show was definitely starting right with the band doing a funky, popping jam. The whole band was involved and energized.)
Feel Like A Stranger -> (a really tight version. A little less on the funk side then normal, the band was really playing with the different rhythms in the song. Everytime they would hit the chorus, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti would do these cool keyboard washes that would psychedelicize the song a little. It seemed like it could go off the tracks at any second, but they kept it all together and while it was a little harder to dance to, it was a cool and interesting take.)
Easy Answers (Pretty strong version highlighted by the interplay between Kenny Brooks on sax and Mark Karan on guitar.)
Baby Blue (a nice little breather as darkness fell on Innsbrook. Bob vocals were strong and clear.)
Odessa (a fun rockin' blues number that got the crowd dancin' again. Highlighted by Kenny Brooks on the baritone sax.)
Ramble On Rose (a singalong for everyone. Mark Karan's solo toward the end put this one over the top.)
Playin In The Band -> (Here's where things got really good. The jam started and they started to go to that deep dark place ala '74 Playin's, my favorite era. Mark Karan's guitar had that same tone. Then they moved into a funky jazz segment with the whole band locked in tightly. Little Other One teases started to come through and they band built the tension slowly. Then a look from Bobby to bassist Robin Sylvester, Robin visually checked in with drummer Jay Lane and.....)
The Other One -> (Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-BOMB! Robin dropped the big opening bass bombs and away we went for an absolutely exhilirating Other One. The band was firing on all cylinders and driving this one as strong as any Other One I had ever seen, Grateful Dead included.)
Stuff -> (I took a beer break during the drums part because I needed something to drink after dancing my ass off during the Other One.)
Standing On The Moon (The just past full moon was rising behind the clouds. I was a little leery of this one as they started but Bob's powerful vocals and the band paced this one perfectly building to a moving climax.)
Mighty Quinn* -> (a fun singalong to bring things back to earth after the psychedelic portion of our show.)
Going Down The Road Feeling Bad* (nice guitar interplay between Al Schnier from moe, Bobby and Mark Karan. Chimenti added that barrelhouse piano and the whole crowd was on their feet and dancing like there was no tomorrow. The band looked like they would have gone longer but the man at the back of the stage was making slashing motions across his throat as they hit that dreaded Innsbrook 10:30 curfew. Bobby wrapped things up and the band took a well-deserved bow.)
* with Al Schnier of moe.

Overall, moe. put on a good show but it felt like a first set for them so I wanted more. That's the role of the opener. Looking forward to them coming back soon and playing a show of their own at The National. Ratdog absolutely renewed my faith in them after the crummy show I saw them do two years ago at All Good. I'll chalk that up to the band trying to gel quickly with the last minute replacement guitarist. I hope some of you that were disappointed with The Dead's C'ville show got to this one because this was as good a "Dead" show as you'll ever see. (And at 1/5 the price of The Dead!)

Speaking of the All Good festival, it will be web cast for FREE this weekend on iclips.net. The schedule hasn't been posted yet but the music starts tomorrow on Marvin's Moutaintop in Masontown WV at 2 PM tomorrow so they should have the schedule up by then if not start the broadcast. Scheduled to appear at All Good (no guarantee who will be on the web cast): Ratdog & moe. on Friday along with Galactic, Robert Randolph, and Les Claypool. Saturday will feature The Bridge, Buckethead, Assembly of Dust, Yonder Mountain String Band, Lake Trout, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, Ben Harper & RELENTLESS7, & Umphrey's McGee. Sunday brings us Donna the Buffalo, BK3 w/Bill Kreutzmann, and Dark Star Orchestra to close things out. Keep an eye open for our friends Phil, Angie & Ginny, who are up there and who I am jealous of this weekend. If all goes well, I'll be back there next year.

Closer to home, the Avett Brothers will be at The National on Friday night. Tix are $25, doors open at 7, and show starts at 8 with Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. The Avett Brothers will probably play a few numbers from their forthcoming album, "I and Love and You" (Sept 29th). The Avett Brothers play bluegrass influenced rock and roll or rock influenced bluegrass depending on the song and your point of view. You'll probably dig them if you like Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, Wilco, or The Jayhawks. Here's an appropriate song by the Avett Brothers for the summertime, "At The Beach":


Busta Rhymes will be keeping you all in check at Fridays at Sunset on Kanawha Plaza. Tix are $25 at the gate and the show starts at 6 with Biz Markie so get there early so can sing along with "Just a Friend". Here's Busta with Ol' Dirty Bastard doin' "Woo Hah!" (Language NSFW!)


Saturday the non-grammatically correct show "80s Was The Greatest" will be at Brown's Island. Appearing will be Naughty By Nature, Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick, Chubb Rock and Trouble Funk. Gates open at 4:30 and tix are $25.

On Sunday, Better Than Ezra comes to The National. Tix are $21, doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with opener 16 Frames. Here's their big hit "Good":


Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan