RVA Shows You Must See This Week: November 26 – December 2
FEATURED SHOW
Tuesday, December 2, 6:30 PM
A Shockoe Sessions Live! Christmas!, feat. Caroline Scruggs, Los Hermanos Alacranes, IONNA, Holy River, Ant The Symbol, REIN, Vexine, Ceili Galante, Richmond Triangle Players @ The Hippodrome Theater – $25-$57 (order tickets HERE)
Most of the time, Shockoe Sessions Live is a relatively intimate affair. Taking place in Studio A at In Your Ear Studios in the heart of the city, it’s the sort of thing usually attended by a seated crowd that doesn’t get too rowdy (the Flora And The Fauna performance on the ill-fated election night of 2024 was a notable exception). However, there are always a few days of the year where the cozy studio environs don’t feel like they’ll contain the truly big affairs these folks sometimes like to put together. This Tuesday’s Christmas special is exactly that sort of thing, bringing us performances by a variety of Shockoe Records artists and other notable local luminaries, in celebration of the holiday season. This evening of music and more has been curated to bring us all sorts of different sounds, from rock to hip hop to folk, pop, jazz and techno, plus some things that won’t easily fit into any category. This embodies one of the best aspects of what Shockoe Sessions Live is all about — bringing us both sounds we love and sounds we’re unfamiliar with and need to open our minds to appreciate. Regardless of which genres are our favorite, we could always use more of these sorts of challenges.
This evening of sight and sound will bring us quite a few of those. One might just be the artist that stands at the top of this bill — Caroline Scruggs, a jazzy pop singer-songwriter who performs the majority of her music on theremin and vocals. You might think of theremin as somewhat of a novelty instrument — “Good Vibrations” and the Star Trek theme and a million noise weirdos. However, Caroline Scruggs will prove that the instrument can go far beyond mere novelty, and can create powerful, affecting sounds. Holy River do a very similar sort of thing from a completely different starting point, mixing acoustic instruments and huge, powerful atmosphere to create almost supernatural ambient folk music that will have a strong effect on your mood with its stunning intensity. Ant The Symbol, who is at heart a hip hop producer, has been creating more and more elaborate sonic atmospheres in which music can bloom and expand, go in all sorts of directions. It’ll be amazing to see what he comes up with for this holiday performance.
There are quite a few others involved here who have just as important a role, and as memorable and brilliant a sound. Ceili Galante’s delicate folk, Vexine’s spooky swinging rock n’ roll, Ionna’s dramatic synth-pop, and quite a bit more. It’ll all add up to a musical travelogue through Richmond’s artistic scene circa 2025, which is one heck of a holiday celebration all on its own. The fact that the event will further support Richmond Triangle Players, the performing arts company who portrays the experiences of the LGBTQ community in its productions, is an even better reason to take part. After all, “celebrating the development of queer artistry” is hardly something we can take for granted in this moment of profound cultural backlash. It’s nice to see an organization stepping up and offering its support in a time when it’s less risky not to. Support Shockoe Sessions Live’s commitment to progressive causes, its uplifting of the Richmond music scene of all genres, and this delightful celebration of the most wonderful time of the year, by heading out to the Hippodrome next Tuesday night. You’ll be glad you did.
Wednesday, November 26, 8 PM
Villages Friendsgiving, feat. Villages, James River Junction, Kristian Lietzan of Virginia Man, Chip Hale, Tyler Meacham, Caroline Vain, Leigh Pinner, and more! @ The Camel – $18.54 (order tickets HERE)
I’m not really sure when Villages started being a ubiquitous presence on the local music scene. It sort of happened when I was looking in another direction. Next thing I knew, this indie-folk-Americana group, led by singer-songwriter Justin Paciocco, was playing shows on a frequent basis around town. And they just kinda never stopped, despite the fact that they haven’t really released anything significant since their debut LP came out back in 2018. Fortunately for us all, they have started releasing new material once again, with new single “Every Everything” — which displays some more modern pop elements than their previous material — being joined in a week or so by a new tune called “To Love Is To Be Afraid.” And that makes this week the perfect time to catch back up with Villages, and celebrate Friendsgiving — traditionally a celebration the night before Thanksgiving that includes none of your annoying relatives — with them at The Camel.
You’ll surely hear both old and new Villages tunes on this night, and they’re all sure to be pleasing to your ear. But the true bonus of this evening is how many other performers Paciocco and company are bringing in for this musical celebration. Not only will the evening offer sets from wistful Southern rockers James River Junction and Kristian Lietzan of upbeat folk-popsters Virginia Man, a cornucopia of other visitors will be on hand to flesh out the evening and bring us various guest appearances from a variety of local talents. Singer-songwriters like Tyler Meacham and Caroline Vain, talented axe-slingers like Chip Hale, and quite a few more who’ll be pretty close to home on the night before the big celebration will stop in to regale us all and give us a happy musical memory to accompany us through a holiday that, depending on your family situation, might be awkward, delightful, or most likely a combination of the two. Enjoy some tunes, then go enjoy some turkey and try not to get into any political discussions with your uncles or grandparents. PS — go Chiefs!
Friday, November 28, 7 PM & 9:30 PM
Corey Fonville Black Friday Quartet, Sound Genesius @ Reveler Experiences – $25 (order early show tickets HERE, late show tickets HERE)
Mega-talented funk-soul-jazz drummer Corey Fonville has been hosting quite a few performances over at Reveler lately in which he acts as bandleader, and if you haven’t caught onto any of them yet, here’s a great opportunity to grab some tickets and catch the jams while a lot of people are still relaxing on mom and dad’s couch in Hampton Roads or NoVA or wherever. Because look — these shows have usually sold out before I even have the chance to consider them for this column. And can it be any surprise? Not only is Corey Fonville the mighty engine that powers world-dominating RVA soul-jazz quintet Butcher Brown, he’s also an incredible player and performer in his own right, releasing incredible material as part of ensembles including folks like Charlie Hunter, Sam Fribush, and Charles Owens. He even played on a Grammy-nominated jazz album: Kurt Elling’s masterful 2023 LP Superblue: The Iridescent Spree.
Basically, you can expect gold no matter who Corey Fonville teams up with. And when you consider who is making up the remainder of his Black Friday Quartet, you know you’re in truly incredible hands. Fonville’s Butcher Brown bandmates, Andrew Randazzo and Morgan Burrs, will join him on bass and guitar, respectively. Randazzo, who also leads the Randazzo BigBand and teaches bass at VCU, is a scholar of the instrument who has forgotten more technique than most bass players ever learn, while Burrs is a world-class player who has worked with everyone from Swedish R&B singer Snoh Aalegra to legendary hip hop producer 9th Wonder. Rounding out the quartet will be pianist Justin Kauflin, who integrates influences from gospel into his bop-jazz playing style and has a longtime association with the one and only Quincy Jones. Exactly what these four will get up to once they all hit the stage together is hard to predict, but rest assured, it will be delightful to listen to. Grab your tickets right now — even if you’re aiming for the late show, odds are it’ll be sold out before Friday night. And you really don’t want to miss this.
Saturday, November 29, 6 PM
Cattle Decapitation, Aborted, Frozen Soul, Tribal Gaze @ The Canal Club – $27.50 in advance, $32 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Grindcore is a fascinating genre, and what makes it so is the fact that it can look completely different based on your perspective. When I was young and just starting to get into death metal, I thought grindcore was a close relative of death metal that was obsessed with speed to the exclusion of all else, including melody. But as I got older and became more of a hardcore kid, I started to realize that grindcore’s fundamental basis is in hardcore, and is just the natural conclusion of cranking up both the speed and the heaviness as far as they can go. Between their guttural vocals, chugging guitars, double-bass pounding drums, and dark lyrical subject matter, Cattle Decapitation might look to a death metal kid like just another death metal band. However, if you’ve been with them since their earliest days (EPs like 1997’s Ten Torments Of The Damned and 1999’s Human Jerky), you can tell that this band grew from hardcore roots. Even 20 years after their earliest releases, on 2019’s Death Atlas LP, there was still an undeniable political conscience at the heart of the lyrics, and a subtle but clear influence from metallic hardcore showing through their song structures.
Death Atlas is the album Cattle Decapitation will be performing in its entirety at The Canal Club Saturday night, and if you want these folks at their most raw, stripped-down, and straightforward, you may be a bit disappointed — the more complex song structures on this album find the band verging into black metal territory at times, evoking a nihilistic left-wing version of Cradle Of Filth at times, even as they plunge right back into their thundering metallic hardcore roots at others. This should be quite the sensory overload to see performed, though, so even if Death Atlas isn’t your favorite Cattle Decapitation album, you should definitely come out to this one if you like the band at all. This will be an incredible performance. And we can expect much the same from Belgian deathgrind legends Aborted, who join Cattle Decapitation on this swing through the US to devastate us all with scathing hyperspeed blasts mixed with neck-snapping brutal chugging. Texas bands Frozen Soul, who play a scathing brand of blackened death metal, and Tribal Gaze, who are all about straight-up death metal brutality, round out this lineup of headbanging excellence. If your holiday excursions leave you with lingering tension, come home and bash it out in the pit at this one.
Sunday, November 30, 7 PM
Mary Moore, Drew Pace, Sravani Kameswari @ The Camel – $13.22 (order tickets HERE)
Here’s a fun one that should definitely attract anyone who checks with interest for the monthly Woman Crush Wednesday showcases at the Camel. Mary Moore is the kind of singer-songwriter who would fit right in on one of those Bri Bevan-curated bills; an incredible singer with strong feminine energy and a lyrical approach that tends to focus on courage and empowerment. I hear quite a bit of the sort of energy I associate with the late-90s Lilith Fair era in her sound; some of the artists who were biggest with that demographic, such as Tori Amos and Sarah MacLachlan, seem to have left an imprint on Mary Moore’s sound, though on her most recent EP, An Honest Thing, I hear at least as much Florence & The Machine or Fiona Apple in her music.
Listen, I could probably throw a dozen more reference points at you between here and the end of this blurb, but that’s not really the point — the point is that Mary Moore has a vibrant sound that is sure to grab you with its sheer vitality and energy. Her set at The Camel this Sunday night is definitely going to have you walking out onto the Richmond streets at midnight full of excitement and ready to take on the world. We all need a little jolt of that kind of thing every now and then, and this Sunday night is the perfect night for it. You’ll get an additional jolt from the insightful country-style tunes of Scottsville-based singer-songwriter Drew Pace, and classically trained folk-pop artist Sravani Kameswari will start the evening off with some lovely sounds to get everyone in the right mood. This one will be a delight.
Monday, December 1, 6 PM
JC Kuhl Quartet feat. Brian Jones @ Reveler Experiences – $15 (order tickets HERE)
Time for a return engagement with a couple of the most important veteran players of the Richmond jazz scene. JC Kuhl and Brian Jones’s most famous mutual past credit is that they were both part of Agents Of Good Roots, a 90s-era alternative rock group that got signed to a major label in the wake of Dave Matthews Band’s success, but never quite broke through the way Dave and co. did. The two have continued to play a variety of musical styles, both together and apart, around Richmond ever since. In particular, they have shaped the local jazz scene, both as players in a variety of ensembles and as academics at VCU and University of Richmond. There’s no telling how many different ensembles you might have encountered one or both of these men in over the years, especially if you are a dedicated follower of Richmond area jazz music.
If you are that sort of person, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that JC Kuhl is in the midst of a series of performances at Reveler Experiences that spotlight a variety of musicians he has great personal respect for. This time around, it’s Brian Jones’s turn, as the longtime collaborators join together once again, along with two other performers (not identified in anything I’ve read about the show, but I’m sure they’ll be excellent players if they’re playing with these two), to delve into a performance that could go pretty much anywhere without taking either Kuhl or Jones out of their comfort zones. Come on the journey with them; Reveler’s always a delightful place to see a show, and this one will be perfect to get you back on an even keel after a hectic holiday weekend.
Tuesday, December 2, 7 PM
Belmont, Avoid, Unwell, Super Sometimes @ The Broadberry – $36.60 (order tickets HERE)
Chicago’s Belmont have been around for about a decade now, but I’m just discovering them now, and in a lot of ways I feel like I need to make up for lost time. Belmont are the sort of band I always enjoy when I discover them, because they are a strong mixture of multiple genres I particularly enjoy. Melodic emo tangles with chunky metalcore, and on their more recent releases, an undercurrent of progressive electronica runs through it all. Their latest EP, Last To Love, finds them mixing catchy bouncy tunes that would appeal to State Champs fans with screaming breakdowns and the occasional pounding guitar chug or synth-driven interlude. I hear elements of Underoath, Four Year Strong, and Joyce Manor all mixing together across Last To Love‘s abbreviated running time, and their four previous full-lengths show that Thrice, Fall of Troy, and Fireworks are also in the mix here, among quite a few others. Plus, these guys are from Chicago, so how could early Fall Out Boy have missed leaving an imprint on them?
Some of you might not find these reference points appealing, but if you’re like me and love every single one of these bands, you’ll definitely want to head out to the Broadberry this Tuesday night to rock out with Belmont. Avoid will be along for the ride, and this band definitely has a similar sort of intensity and energy. They do tend to get a little heavier most of the time, which only sweetens the pot, but in the end, if you like one of these bands, you’ll certainly like the other. Unwell takes things in a more melodic/progressive direction, moving toward the Fall Of Troy/Coheed and Cambria end of the scale a bit, though still adding plenty of hard-edged bite. Super Sometimes start things out with the most straightforward pop-punk sound of the evening, but they still know how to go fast and bring in that skate-punk energy, so they’ll definitely hold their own on what shapes up to be a formidable bill. Come rock with it.
Email me if you’ve got any tips for me about upcoming shows (that take place after the week this column covers -– this week’s column has obviously already been written): rvamustseeshows@gmail.com
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