RVA Shows You Must See This Week: October 22 – October 28
FEATURED SHOW
Friday, October 24, 9 PM
Velvet Ruin, Shagg Carpet, Homey @ The Camel – $13.20 (order tickets HERE)
When people talk about goth music in the modern sense, they’re usually thinking of something that connects with electronic and industrial forms, maybe taking them in a darker, noisier, and yet more danceable direction. And that’s legit — a lot of modern goth is that kind of music. But it doesn’t reflect the places the genre started out. Originally, goth music came out of London in the early 80s, even as death-rock appeared in Los Angeles around the same time. And the bands who partook in both genres were generally a lot closer to punk rock than anything the goth world produces these days — Bauhaus, Christian Death, Sex Gang Children, TSOL, and a whole bunch more, all of whom did their level best to evoke a spooky, Halloween-esque atmosphere while playing intriguing twists on the classic punk rock and postpunk formulas. While many of these bands are revered to this day, their influence is usually very difficult to find in modern goth artists. However, every once in a while, a band takes it old-school — harks back to the days when goth bands played guitars and drums, and weren’t afraid to make their spooky riffs rock. Richmond quartet Velvet Ruin are just that sort of band, and while it may make them tough to slot into a pre-existing genre framework, those who catch onto what they’re up to are always in for a delightful surprise.
Velvet Ruin are headining this Friday night show at The Camel to celebrate the release of their new single, a quick eight-minute listen featuring the songs “Gemini” and “Gun.” The A-side is the most outright rockin’ tune in their admittedly brief recorded history; it captures the hazy rock n’ roll sway and stomp of death-rockin’ 80s LA punk act Gun Club, with propulsive drumming, chunky guitars, and a series of catchy riffs at multiple tempos. The B-side slows things down a bit and dives headlong into the band’s spooky, vampyric appeal, highlighting particularly alluring vocals that ratchet up some glorious tension that ultimately breaks in a wonderful moment of musical payoff. Velvet Ruin will be flying their old-school goth/death-rock colors at The Camel this Friday night as they celebrate this delightful new single that’s sure to create a sensation amongst Richmond’s ostentatiously black-clad youth… even if they aren’t used to bands with real drum kits.
Two other Richmond-based bands are joining in on the celebration at The Camel this Friday night, and the first of the two also has a new record out in the relatively recent past. Back in July, Shagg Carpet released a new full-length on local powerhouse label Sockhead Records, which is entitled Hurting Other People and finds them cranking out some beat-heavy disco-punk that incorporates synths and programmed drumming alongside some properly alienated and freaked-out synth-punk tunes that’ll get everyone lurching around the dance floor in a highly syncopated fashion, unsure of whether to mosh or do the robot (in the best possible way). Local ensemble Homey will get this one started with some catchy, hazy, shoegaze-y slacker-rock tunes full of laid-back melodies. The entire evening will be full of delightful sounds from talented local ensembles — don’t miss it!
Wednesday, October 22, 7 PM
Chain Cult, Dream World, The Crazed @ Cobra Cabana – $15
Punk rock isn’t just a musical movement — it’s a state of mind. And a great proof of that particular concept is the band headlining this show. Chain Cult is a Greek trio from the legendary city of Athens, and they have a name that might lead you to expect some brutal, angry hardcore when you reach for their recently released second LP, Harm Reduction. And yet, what you’ll find instead is an album full of ringing guitars, uneasy atmospheres, and driving postpunk beats. As it turns out, this band is more about the “cult” than the “chain” — but that’s totally fine, because Chain Cult excel at capturing an unsettling atmosphere and delivering incredible guitar hooks and vocal melodies that hook the brain on their understated pop elements even as the overall vibe remains heavy and moody.
Local up-and-comers Dream World have a similar sort of vibe, even as they lean further into the straight-up punk side of things. Their demo, released late last year, finds them cranking the distortion on their guitars and putting more of a throaty tinge into their vocals to leave them with less native melody than that of Chain Cult. However, that darkly catchy postpunk feel that animates Chain Cult’s rhythm section in particular has a strong influence on Dream World as well, and makes them a likely candidate to generate some moshing when they hit the Cobra Cabana stage. The bill is completed by Chain Cult’s countrymen in The Crazed, a dark rock n’ roll band with a psycho-punk vibe and some Social Distortion/Cramps-style riffs. These folks have been around for nearly a quarter-century and remain a rock-solid ensemble. They’ll get the night started out right, and it’ll only get better from there. Don’t miss it.
Thursday, October 23, 7 PM
Rushadicus, Three Brained Robot @ Richmond Music Hall at Capital Ale House – $15 in advance, $20 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Are you ready for things to get truly, completely wild? Are you ready for a musical performance in which pretty much anything can happen? If so, you definitely want to come out and see Rushadicus The Cello Goblin when he comes to Richmond this Thursday night. I discovered Rushadicus, aka Rushad Eggleston, several years back during the pandemic lockdowns. There were a lot of musicians doing livestreams at the time, but Rushad’s were on another level entirely, featuring him sawing and tapping at his cello in triple-time as he roared and howled incomprehensibly and frequently broke off to play ridiculous solos on the kazoo he had shoved between his tuning pegs. The longer I watched, the more I realized that, not only did this crazy punk-looking goblin kid have a complex mythology behind his semi-gibberish lyrics (every word of which turned out to have an important and complex meaning in Rushad’s made-up language), but he actually had an incredible amount of musical training in his background, and had played everything from classical music to Appalachian folk music to noisy punk rock.
You see, Rushad Eggleston has quite the musical pedigree. He attended the Berklee School of Music, and started off making albums in a classical music realm, but soon drifted into his own fantastical compositions, many of which relate to fictional(?) realms named things like Snee and Sneth. He co-founded an alt-folk/bluegrass group called Crooked Still, led a cello-fronted metallic punk trio named Tornado Rider, and started putting out solo records around a decade ago. In the intervening time, he’s done a ton of solo touring, livestreamed over all sorts of social media during and after the pandemic lockdowns, and built up quite a following in all corners of the real world and the internet. This performance will bring together wild maniacs from all genres and all walks of life, united by a common thread — the sheer joy they gain from seeing Rushadicus the Cello Goblin go wild and climb all over a venue for an hour or so without interruption. Local noise musician and performance artist Three-Brained Robot will act as an eminently appropriate opening act for this evening of jick paradise. You gotta see it to believe it.
Friday, October 24, 6 PM
Prabir From Yoga, Meditation, and the Rest Of Life (with Antaheen-orchestra) @ Triple Crossing Beer Fulton – Free!
It’s impossible to live in Richmond and remain unaware of Prabir Mehta. From his many musical projects to his work with the Science Museum of Virginia and Gallery 5 to his ongoing attempts to bring the culture of his native India to Richmonders of all backgrounds and walks of life, Prabir stays active in many different endeavors at all times. Readers of this column are probably most familiar with his musical work around the city, which dates back to the late 90s and includes highlights like previous projects Prabir and the Substitutes and Goldrush, as well as his current Prabir Trio. In those groups, Prabir has often played power-pop tunes with Beatlesque leanings. While at times he has stirred other genres such as classical and R&B into his work with his many bands, his latest project finds him moving in a completely new musical direction, one that he’s been exploring for a few years but is only now documenting in recorded form.
This Friday night performance at Triple Crossing in Fulton is a celebration for the vinyl release of Prabir From Yoga, Meditation, and the Rest Of Life, an album that finds Prabir exploring the ancient Indian classical music tradition of raag, named for the Sanskrit word meaning color and known in America in previous eras as raga. This sound is characterized by precisely timed structures mixed with ambient, droning beds of sound, and had a huge influence on the more exploratory directions American and British musicians took rock music in the late 60s. That said, despite Prabir’s love for the music of that era, here he’s keeping it old-school and exploring the original Indian music form, intending the pieces he creates on the album to pair perfectly with yoga and meditation practices. For the album, Prabir enlisted a variety of talented local musicians, including Kenneka Cook, Ceili Galante, Sravani Kameswari, and more to bring the ambient, acoustic guitar-driven pieces to life. He’ll be bringing together an eight-piece group including many of the musicians who played on the album to recreate the raag sounds created for the album, live and in the moment — and you can definitely expect the result to move you into new headspaces you’ve never seen before. And afterwards, you can pick up a vinyl copy of the new album, take it home, and drone the night away. Sounds like a delightful way to end the week, if you ask me.
Saturday, October 25, 7:30 PM
Roughshod, Tentative Decisions, Dayfiction, Slaat @ Gallery 5 – $7 in advance, $10 at the door (order tickets HERE)
I don’t know if there’s really been an easy time to be transgender in the United States, but this has been a really tough year for it, enough that I finally got on some anti-anxiety meds a couple months ago. The good news is I feel better, the bad news is this is still a rough time to be trans and defiantly out and proud. I’m sure Roughshod’s singer, Cel, knows exactly what I mean, but to their credit, they’re not letting it scare them, as the new Roughshod single and video makes clear. “I Can’t Be Your Girl” is a defiant anthem from someone who might be perceived as a soft-butch woman, letting the world know: nope, not me. This musical rejection of birth assignment is a powerfully catchy rock tune that could even have a decidedly female fan like myself singing along with the titular lyric. And while I’ve only seen brief snippets of the video on Instagram, it was enough to learn that the Anxious Animals Productions clip is an elaborate depiction of a fantastical transformation that results in Cel popping out of a tree stump in a suit as the rest of Roughshod rocks out the song’s killer riffs.
This show is a release celebration for both the single and the video, and while I’m not sure whether we’ll get to see the clip in its entirety during the show, I am definitely sure that Roughshod will perform the single as well as a variety of their other rad alternative rock tunes — all of which are full of energy, integrating Cel’s powerful vocals and a ton of killer guitar riffs and wide-ranging synth textures and effects overtop of driving rhythms. Roughshod do straightforward rock n’ roll the way it should be done — full of powerful crescendos and memorable hooks. They’re joined on this bill by a trio of local bands with their own twist on rock n’ roll, the first of which is Tentative Decisions. This energetic, off-kilter postpunk group has a strong sound full of propulsive grooves, as displayed on their late 2024 debut LP, Public Access. Dayfiction bring some memorable melodies with a strong guitar-driven backbone, as displayed on their recently released Diplomat EP. Last but not least, Slaat adds some downright heavy mosh power to the evening, to get things started in high-intensity fashion. This will be a truly memorable evening, so come prepared for some amazing sights and sounds.
Sunday, October 26, 2:30 PM
Rikki Rakki, Sourlips, Sally Rose, Katie B @ The Camel – $8 in advance, $10 day of show (order tickets HERE)
As Richmond indie bands in the year 2025 go, Rikki Rakki is one of the bands with a higher level of buzz. A lot of people are hanging on every note this band plays, waiting for them to spit out another morsel of genius. And it keeps happening on a regular basis, most recently with their May 2025 EP Sing, Cicadas! Five excellent tracks of delicate, beautiful indie pop, based around perfectly constructed guitar melodies, some subtle country-folk textures, and the uniquely incredible voice of Erika Blatnik. The logical step for a weekend tour five months after the release of that excellent EP is to throw the full band in the van and go blow minds up and down the East Coast, but instead, Rikki Rakki are throwing us a curveball — four days of acoustic shows, in which 3/4 of the band’s lineup split up into two different groups and do a tour taking them to all four corners of our lovely Commonwealth.
Now I know what you’re thinking — split into two bands? Well, yes — Rikki Rakki will be playing the songs of Erika Blatnik, while Sourlips will focus on the songwriting work of guitarist Matt Luger, who will also be handling vocals for Sourlips. Does this mean two members of Rikki Rakki will play a stripped down set while the third plays as Sourlips by himself? That all three of them will play in both groups? That Erika will play by herself, Matt will play by himself, and the third member is just along to drive the van? I really have no idea, but between Rikki Rakki’s known brilliance and the more underrated but no less brilliant indie tunes of Sourlips, I’m sure that however the lineup shakes out, you’ll hear plenty of great music. What’s more, at this the final of four Virginia shows over the course of a long weekend, you’ll also get sets from brilliant Charlottesville-based country-punk troubadour Sally Rose and a solo turn by brilliant Strawberry Moon bandleader Katie Bowles. This lineup is a veritable embarrassment of riches, but you’ll only be embarrassed if you don’t bother to go to this show. So hey — don’t make that mistake.
Monday, October 27, 7 PM
Nation of Language, DEEPER @ The Broadberry – $36.60 (order tickets HERE)
Some devotees of the electric guitar, the drum kit, are known to accuse electronic music of being flat, depthless, soulless. However, I would contend that that’s only a criticism you feel comfortable making if you never actually listen to the stuff you’re hating on. No one who spent much of any time with bands like CHVRCHES or Future Islands could ever say that the electronic elements of these synth-driven groups deprive them of even one ounce of emotion. Likewise, Brooklyn trio Nation Of Language prove that any reasonably talented group of musicians can inject a ton of emotion into their music, even if everything they play is programmed and synthesized to within an inch of its life. The emotion is unsurprising once you know the makeup of the band — singer Ian Devaney and keyboardist Aidan Noell, who founded the band during the depths of the pandemic, are husband and wife, and used the gift registry from their wedding to fundraise for the release of Nation Of Language’s debut LP. Talk about dedication to their craft.
This comes through very clearly in the music Nation of Language makes, particularly on their most recent album, 2025’s Dance Called Memory. Every song here is brilliant, evocative, and stands out from those around it by virtue of the many unique and indelible hooks these musicians crank out song after song after song. And I’m saying all of this without even mentioning “Weak In Your Light,” the viral sleeper hit that found its way onto TV show soundtracks across many networks over the past few years. The deep gothic atmosphere of these tunes, their minimalist construction and brilliantly designed hooks, make Nation Of Language sound like almost nothing else out there in the current era. Seeing them do their thing live and in person feels incredibly essential. Openers DEEPER, who hail from Chicago, pick up some clear noise-rock cues from the soil of their hometown (where Shellac and Amphetamine Reptile Records were born), but incorporate quite a bit of postpunk nerve and tension into their more guitar-driven, rocked out take on a sound that harks equally back to Bloc Party and Gang Of Four as it does to Vertigo or the aforementioned Shellac. Show up on time for this one, and be prepared to be moved throughout the night.
Tuesday, October 28, 7 PM
Camo Face, Dauber, Pinkish @ The Camel – $18.54 (order tickets HERE)
Kemper Blair and Stuart Holt have been demonstrating their genius with punked-out power pop for well over a decade now, beginning back when they founded Sports Bar — a band that always featured Kemper on bass and Stuart on drums, but rounded out by a variety of guitarists over the years — and carrying on to this day in Camo Face, a group that finds the two of them on their own, augmenting their rhythm-section groove with catchy vocal choruses and auxiliary synth melodies. They recently followed up debut EP Four-Leaf Clover with another five-song selection entitled Old Routines, which sees them getting even catchier and more anthemic, even as their changed instrumental makeup finds them sliding into a sound that almost resembles Death From Above 1979 jamming with Parts & Labor. It’s rad, and while I know this will be sacrilege to Sports Bar diehards who still worship that band’s many brilliant 2010’s-era EPs. I think it’s probably the best stuff I’ve heard Kemper and Stuart do yet.
Then there’s Dauber, the touring band on this bill, who feature former Screaming Females bassist Mike Abbate operating as part of an excellent punk rock trio whose music is full of bouncy hooks and strong upbeat energy. They’re touring in support of their latest release, the Dauber At Home EP, and are sure to bring a swinging looseness and irreverent bounce to this early-weeknight gig at The Camel. Expect to have a ton of fun while these folks are onstage, and if you’ve had a bit of that liquid courage before they hit the stage, I can’t imagine you’ll be able to resist dancing. This event will begin with a set from local punk-popsters Pinkish, whose recently released EP Half Sweet is an outstanding listen that pairs buttery-smooth vocals and delightful melodies with harsh guitar chords and stomping punk drums for the perfect mix of sugar and spice. Half sweet, just like the title says. If you don’t know what I mean, this show is the perfect chance for you to find out. I suggest you be there.
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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