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Think strange. Drink strange. THE TWISTED MINDS BEHIND
Woodbooger Belgian-Style Brown | Albino Monkey White Ale Wallonian Dawn Honey Saison | Phantasmic East Coast IPA
Affiliated merchants may be ascertained by consulting:
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Tasting Room Hours Tue-Fri 4-9p, Sat 2-9p, Sun 12-7p 2277A Dabney Rd | Richmond, VA 23230 Book your strange event here.
info@strangewaysbrewing.com (804) 303-4336
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RVA MAGAZINE 15 WINTER 2013
photo: Ken Penn
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RVA #15 WINTER 2013 WWW.RVAMAG.COM FOUNDERS R. Anthony Harris, Jeremy Parker PUBLISHER R. Anthony Harris PRESIDENT John Reinhold EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Andrew Necci CREATIVE DIRECTOR Asian Rice ADVERTISING TEAM John Reinhold, Rachel Whaley, David Hudert, Hunter Haglund EDITORIAL ASST. Brad Kutner RVAMAG.COM & GAYRVA.COM Brad Kutner WRITERS Michael D. Gorman, Andrew Necci, Shannon Cleary, Doug Nunnally, Brad Kutner, Sarah Moore Lindsey, Alex Criqui, Preston Duncan, Sam McClelland, Melissa Coci PHOTOGRAPHY David Kenedy, Todd Raviotta, James E. F. Young, Ken Penn, Elise De Brouwer, Ron Rogers, Chelsea Gingras, Anthony Hall INTERNS Ashleigh Boisseau, Aleda Weathers, Amber Galaviz, Melissa Coci, Sam McClelland, Andrew Johnson, Matthew Leonard GENERAL INFORMATION e: hello@rvamag.com EDITORIAL INFORMATION e: andrew@rvamag.com DISTRIBUTION e: hello@rvamag.com ADVERTISING John Reinhold p: 276.732.3410 e: john@rvamag.com Rachel Whaley p: 804.337.6183 e: rachel@gayrva.com SUBMISSION POLICY RVA welcomes submissions but cannot be held responsible for unsolicited material. Send all submissions to hello@rvamag.Com. All submissions property of Inkwell Design LLC. The entire content is a copyright of Inkwell Design LLC and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part without written authorization of the publisher. ONLINE Every issue of RVA magazine can be viewed in its entirety anytime at rvamag.com/magazine. SOCIAL facebook.com/rvamag twitter.com/@rvamag instagram/rvamag rvamag.tumblr.com majormajor.me SUBSCRIPTION Log onto rvamag.com/magazine to have RVA Magazine sent to your home or office. HEADS UP! The advertising and articles appearing within this publication reflect the opinion and attitudes of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or editors. Reproduction in whole or part without prior written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited. RVA Magazine is published quarterly. Images are subject to being altered from their original format. All material within this magazine is protected. RVA Magazine is a registered trademark of Inkwell Design LLC. RVA Magazine is printed locally by Conqeust Graphics. cover art by Zach Landrum facebook.com/zlandrum credit page photo by Ken Penn Special thanks to Dan Anderson.
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We distribute to these fine ESTABLISHMENTS. support your local business! Carytown Plan 9 Records Agee’s Bicycles New York Deli Portrait House Don’t Look Back Chop Suey Books West Coast Kix Heroes & Ghosts Weezie’s Kitchen Ellwoood Thompsons Need Supply Co. Loose Screw Tattoo World of Mirth Play N Trade B- Sides Thrift Pink Tobacco Club & Gifts Venue Skateboards Broad Street Arts District Gallery 5 Ghostprint Gallery Turnstyle Velocity Comics Steady Sounds Love RVA Gallery Downtown & Church Hill Pasture Barcode Cha Cha’s Cantina Tobacco Company Kingdom Bottom’s up Kulture Alamo BBQ Globehopper Captain Buzzy’s Beanery Legends Plant Zero Manchester Market Frame Nation
RVA MAGAZINE WINTER 2013 CONTENTS
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VCU Area Strange Matter 821 Cafe Harrison Street Cafe Fan Guitar & Ukulele Ipanema Nile Empire The Village VCU BrandCenter Mojo’s Rumors Museum District VMFA Viceroy Black Hand Coffee The Franklin Inn Cleveland Market Patterson Express
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The Fan Bellytimber Star-lite Lounge Capitol Mac Katra Gala Sticky Rice Joe’s Inn Strawberry Street Market Little Mexico The Camel Lamplighter Balliceaux Helen’s Metro Grill Pieces Y & H Mercantile Hardywood Park Brewery Magpie WEST END Su Casa Mekong Taboo Buz & Ned’s BBQ Guitar Center
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PLAYLIST TRACKS WORTH LISTENING TO.
The 1975, “Robbers” The 1975, Vagrant/Interscope
The 1975’s spectacular debut record is full of great upbeat songs, but it’s the slower, heartbreaking, and astounding track “Robbers” that truly stands out. For a band that has a million things going on in every song, the music here is restrained and intentional, adding to the song’s dark soundscape. Behind that reserved backdrop, the song pulls you in innocuously before knocking you down with the best vocals of the album from Matthew Healy. The amazing depth shown here will keep you hitting the repeat button over and over. --Doug Nunnally
Superchunk, “What Can We Do” I Hate Music, Merge
One could argue that Superchunk lyrics are just simple phrases extracted from everyday life. However, I beg to differ. On I Hate Music’s closing track, Mac McCaughan’s lyrics are at his most universally resonant. “What Can We Do” is a lover’s lullaby about the dilemmas life can impose on relationships. Life on the road, or life in a lover’s arms, is a difficult quandary for anyone. With lines like “You’ve got wrinkles around your eyes/I wanna kiss them when they close,” feeling tired and complete never sounded so lovely. --Shannon Cleary
Guerilla Toss, “Trash Bed”
Gay Disco, NNA Tapes
There is something genuinely and joyfully insane about Boston quintet Guerilla Toss’s music. “Trash Bed” is an explosive assault of experimental noise rock, ripping apart the sonic canvas with wild stroke after wild stroke of time changes and screeching vocals, evoking influences as varied as drum and bass and the chaotic acid-fueled postpunk of The Butthole Surfers. It’s the most vital music I’ve heard in years. --Alex Criqui
Touche Amore, “Blue Angels”
Is Survived By, Deathwish Inc.
As someone who lived through the original era, the recent talk of a “90s emo revival” has left me a little nervous. But I can’t deny that the latest from California’s Touche Amore reminds me of Current, Torches to Rome, and all the emotional hardcore records I loved as a teenager. This 90-second uptempo blast makes me want to put my fist through walls--or at least jump around my room screaming into a hairbrush. --Andrew Necci
Blitzen Trapper “Ever Loved Once” VII, Vagrant
Portland, OR’s Blitzen Trapper released a sweet album this year, and ballad “Ever Loved Once” stands out with its complexity, unexpectedly haunting multi-part vocal refrain, and the Southern bluegrass picking overtop. The song starts with an eerie similarity to James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” but unfolds into something so much more special. Lyrics like “I took her hand but she drew away like a bird getting ready to fly” will shock and awe every time. --Sarah Moore Lindsey
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STUDIO NEWS Cannabis Corpse has had a productive 2013. In addition to recording a split LP with Cali thrashers Ghoul (due for release on Tankcrimes anytime now) and touring the US with Six Feet Under, they’ve recently put the finishing touches on upcoming fourth full-length and first for Season Of Mist Records, From Wisdom To Baked. Their first LP to feature the current three-piece lineup with Landphil on vocals, this album also features guest vocal appearances from Six Feet Under’s Chris Barnes and Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad. Hirsute indie-rockers Houdan The Mystic have been hard at work lately on an upcoming EP. The mathematically-inclined trio, who mix everything from emo to progrock into their complex sound, hope to release a four-song vinyl 7 inch sometime after the new year. If their facebook page is any indication, they appear to be recording the songs in their living room-which makes sense, as DIY spirit is close to the heart of the Subterranea Collective. This loose-knit grouping of young RVA musicians includes not only Houdan The Mystic, but also Way Shape Or Form, Night Idea, Shy Low, Navi, Fight Cloud, and more. Keep an eye on these kids--they’re making things happen around town. Word has it that a new LP from Heavy Midgets is coming in the new year as well. New jams are showing up in various places around town, and from what we’re hearing, it sounds like this indie-punk quartet is digging deeper into their poppy side, while still keeping things raw and noisy. So, even more like all the best parts of their 2012 split LP with Tungs (which we loved)--can’t complain about that. The LP, which is apparently called Super King, may or may not be coming out on Bad Grrrl Records, but considering that Bad Grrrl head honcho Ben Miller has released all of the Midgets’ previous work, we figure the chances are pretty good that he’s on board for this one as well. Local songwriter Dane Ferguson, who has been playing frequent solo gigs around town for the past couple of years, has moved up in the world with his latest project. Known as Built To Fade, the group is constructed around the production skills of Kno from underground hip hop crew CunninLynguists. Ferguson, along with Anna Wise of San Francisco’s Sonnymoon and Seattle solo singer Zoe Wick, provides vocals for this hip hop/soul/folk/electronica hybrid group, whose debut LP, To Dust, is scheduled to drop at the end of November. Preview the album at the group’s website, builttofade.com.
RVA MAGAZINE 15 WINTER 2013
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DON’T SLEEP This page: Scenes from Cheap Fest IV at Strange Matter, October 25 and 26. Photos by David Kenedy. Top: Clang Quartet makes noise for Jesus. Middle: Mutwawa gets the crowd stirred up. Bottom: Narwhalz (Of Sound) makes his long-awaited return to RVA
Opposite page: Top: J. Roddy Walston whips his hair back and forth; Halloween night at Strange Matter; photo by Todd Raviotta Bottom--Instagram pics: 1--on the scene at RVA Zombie Walk 2013 (@katebydesign) 2--Cold weather gear from West Coast Kix (@westcoastkix) 3--Clockwork Orange at Hangar 18 (@xtinafitch) 4--Dia De Los Muertos (@lady_bong) 5--@holiday212 X Stars and Stripes (@rouge_jungle) 6--Knight of Beers at Mekong’s Hallobeer (@thereinholder)
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@katebydesign
@westcoastkix
@xtinafitch
@lady_bong
@rouge_jungle
@thereinholder
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ronytennenbaum.com Available exclusively at Adolf Jewelers
Ridge Shopping Center Parham & Quioccasin Roads 804.285.3671 AdolfJewelers.com 20
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Bizhan Khodabandeh ACTIVISM through art and comics by
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James MoffitT
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later years, Bizhan would go on to co-teach this class with Scalin. During this time, Bizhan painted a lot of murals and did live paintings, primarily because of his involvement with Richmond’s graffiti scene. His work from this period “looked like modernist or Swiss design,” he says. “It was very grid-like, clean, and easy to understand.” His graffiti work led to a relationship with a local rapper, and together, they produced a hip hop zine. While working on this zine, and painting, Bizhan managed to finish college and began couch-surfing, working as a freelance artist. Concerned that he’d become the proverbial guy on the couch who spends years with no ambition and no fixed address, Bizhan got to work. He set up a screen printing lab and began learning how to make prints. Soon he was printing t-shirts for bands and applying to grad schools. His couchhost, Curtis Grimstead, eventually started Rorschach Records and utilized several of Bizhan’s prints and designs for the label’s releases.
“I know it might come across as cliche, but I find inspiration in everything. Good artists excel most when they recognize patterns that are social, philosophical, physical, historical, political etc. An artist’s ability to utilize these patterns to provide delight or insight can be quite powerful when it’s done well. Manipulating the built environment’s patterns and symbols is the best way to present one’s own vision of the world.” This is Bizhan Khodabandeh’s explanation of what inspires his art. His keen sense of observation, however, expands beyond simply recognizing patterns. Bizhan has the rare gift of being able to interpret events and social patterns in a way that makes them accessible and significant. You can see this in his recent book The Little Black Fish, in which Bizhan re-imagines a common Iranian tale; translating it for an American audience and increasing its accessibility. Over the years, he has chosen to focus his interpretive lens on activism, with the very real goal of affecting change in his community. As a first grader, Bizhan remembers doing a detailed pencil drawing of a frill lizard. He was accused of tracing by his teacher, and his mother responded by telling him that tracing was okay. Bizhan recalls being devastated at being accused of tracing, and disappointed in his mother’s response. Neither his teacher nor his mother recognized that he had actually created the picture himself. Although his talent was not immediately recognized, Bizhan persisted, continuing to perfect his craft. Bizhan “started out doing pro-bono design work
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for non-profits, student groups and musicians while in undergrad.” During his first year in college, both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars raged overseas. Bizhan became more and more interested in the wars, and in America’s political activities at the time, and his art began to change. Since then, he has done design work for Food Not Bombs, Free Palestine Now, The VCU Living Wage Campaign, and Critical Mass. “A lot of my motivation for working with non-profits was a direct result of seeing images of war broadcast through Al Jazeera,” he explains. “The images censored by American media showed children mutilated by the bombings. Those images struck a deep chord in me.” This resonance converted itself into an activist fervor. But, Bizhan says, he soon “realized while debating people about the wars that I was very ignorant about several subjects.” As a result, he began spending much of his free time studying sociopolitical theory and history. “My continued self-education in these subjects greatly influences my work.” During these fledgling activist years, Bizhan had what would become a life-altering experience. He enrolled in a class at VCU called “Design Rebels,” taught by Noah Scalin. It was here that Bizhan began to fully develop into an artist that made social consciousness part of his practice. “I finally met someone who made ethics part of their design practice--something that had seemed out of reach in a profession where you are the face of corporations involved in unethical practices.” In
At some point before he’d completed the grad school application process, Bizhan was peerpressured into participating in a graffiti exhibit at Richmond’s Gallery 5. At the exhibit, he met the gallery’s founder, Amanda Robinson, whom he later married. Together they began curating numerous socially-conscious exhibitions. Amanda also enlisted Bizhan to do design work for the gallery. “With the help of my friend Kenneth Yates, I curated several socially-conscious exhibits, organized politically focused film showings, and held workshops on guerrilla media techniques,” says Bizhan of his time at the gallery. After a fruitful and productive time with Gallery 5, Bizhan enrolled in grad school at VCU. He explains his course of study this way: “I researched decentralized social forums to come up with ways to elevate people whom I felt were censored due to their socioeconomic status.” He explains that this research led to two huge projects. “One of these projects was my I Dream of a Richmond... campaign that received a lot of local as well as international recognition.” The campaign featured posters, combined with a Richmonder’s statement about the city, and were displayed in numerous locations. These posters amplified the voices of citizens not traditionally heard in wider arenas, and expressed ideas about the city that might not have been what people always expected to hear. Bizhan’s other project during this era, There Once Was A Rebellion, attempted to provide information about cheap and easily accessible media creation techniques to groups not traditionally given a voice in the media. While both projects were successful, Bizhan says, “The public was far more responsive to my I Dream of A Richmond campaign-which dealt with the same issues, but not in as decentralized of a means as I would have liked.” When asked what he meant by decentralization, Bizhan explained, “Decentralization is the act of dispersing power from an individual (or small group) to multiple individuals. With media power, centralization is predominately a product of socioeconomic status. As things stand now, the most economically powerful also are the most vocally RVA MAGAZINE 15 WINTER 2013
prominent. Some of the projects I’ve worked on dealt with experimenting on evening things out locally a little bit.” After finishing grad school, Bizhan began teaching at the Appamattox Regional Governor’s School. He taught there for five years before accepting a position at the Department of Communication Arts at VCU. The governor’s school was never able to hire him full-time, which Bizhan finds disappointing. “Those kids were amazing. I really miss teaching there.” As he developed artistically and professionally, Bizhan’s work shifted almost entirely to comic writing. “My first comic was an adaptation of The Little Black Fish,” he explains. “The story was related to my interest in sociopolitical theory. It was originally written by the teacher and activist Samad Behrangi. He was involved with a group that aided in the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. The story is about determination in seeking truth, self-sacrifice, and questioning authority.” Bizhan explained his shift into comics this way: “I moved into comics as a direct result of trying to marry my interests in history, activism, and comics. Doing an adaptation of The Little Black Fish was a great start, which lead to Richmond Monuments, thanks to arm-twisting by my father-in-law.” Richmond Monuments, an ongoing webcomic (richmondmonuments. com), is described as “anthropomorphizing Richmond, VA monuments as if they were objective observers of the populace.” Rather than commenting on the historical figures these monuments represent, the strip finds humor through the monuments’ observations--and expressions--of humanity. While he is currently co-curating a traveling typographic poster exhibition, comics remain the art form he’s most invested in. Bizhan spends most of his time working on two different comic projects. Indoor/Outdoor, a parallel narrative about two cats that explores Bizhan’s interest in “the formal qualities of comics,” is “about the adventures that an escaped indoor cat and an outdoor cat have.” The Little Red Fish is a “political allegory… loosely paralleling the Iranian Revolution of ‘79, starting with the staged coup of Mossadegh.” Due to its relation to Bizhan’s Iranian heritage, The Little Red Fish, like Bizhan’s last published comic, The Little Black Fish, is definitely the project closest to his heart. His drive for active resistance through art shines through in his commitment to The Little Red Fish and other similar projects. Bizhan’s illustrations are quickly becoming a staple within the Richmond comic community. His work spans a wide range of subject matter, and between his own concepts and his commissioned pieces, it is clear that Bizhan is one of Richmond’s foremost up-and-coming artists. Simply put, Bizhan is a good dude with a creative vision, and the talent and energy to see it through. www.mendedarrow.com
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The Southern Belles by
Sarah MoOre Lindsey
The Southern Belles are taking off right now, both in Richmond and on the Eastern seaboard. It’s easy to see why, as the four-piece jam-rock outfit plays groovin’, improvisational original tunes, as well as some creative covers. The Belles are on the heels of promoting their critically acclaimed latest release, Sharp As A Knife, which came out in September of last year. Their sound is a heady, jammy mix between Southern rock and roll, jazz, and funk elements, recalling bands from Steely Dan to Phish and The Band. I had the opportunity to chill with these dudes at The Camel when the band came back from its longest tour ever (17 days!). They were surprisingly fresh, funny, and just fun dudes. These guys are close, too, which shows not only in their onstage rapport but also when shootin’ the shit. They were finishing each other’s ...sandwiches. No, sentences. Take a peek as we find out about the band’s personal Bermuda Triangle, how they deal with tension on the road, and that one time they kicked it under an easyup in the middle of a highway for a few hours. What do you think is most memorable about this recent tour? Zachary Hudgins (bass, vox): Most memorable? Raphael Katchinoff (drums, vocals): Not least memorable, because you probably wouldn’t remember that. Adrian Cuicci (guitar, vocals): I thought it was cool going to Boone and seeing Tommy’s friends from Appalachian State. Tommy Booker (keys, vox): I hadn’t really played
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photos by
James E. F. Young
there in years. I’d kinda visit for brief times but I hadn’t seen my friends like that. So I was happy; I was vibing off the crowd a lot. Are you heading to the studio any time soon? Raph: Not till the fall. Zach: [We’re] hoping November. Adrian: We’re kicking around that idea. We’re just getting to the point where we can seriously start thinking about it with the material, time, and financially. It takes a lot of effort all around.
about how we needed this guy [points to Raph] to play drums... Raph: ...and immediately regretted that decision. Adrian: Every single day. Then Tommy moved back from Boone, and moved away again, and came back from New York and was around. [Things] sorta just came together at that time. We had some opportunities. Zach: It was like a snowball effect, with a lot of momentum going. I’m buried a little; I can’t get out.
Where do you get your music engineered? Raph: Last time we went to Sound of Music Studios and worked with Bryan Walthall. John Morand helped on a track [plus guest instrumentation by] Stephen Keister and the guys from No BS [Brass Band]. Our fine experience has made us want to go back there for round 2. We’ve already talked about it. Zach: We’re going to use a lot of the same people and get a lot of guests again. We’ve got a lot of big ideas; we just need to start focusing in a little more. Raph: Big ideas, little wallets.
Do you want to, though? Zach: Sometimes. but not always. Sometimes you dig deeper and sometimes you bite it.
How did you get together as a band? Adrian: I don’t even know anymore. We’ve all known each other for a really long time. Zach: We played in bands together throughout our music careers... since high school. Adrian: Zach and I were spending a lot of time together playing music and we started to think
Are you guys working with a manager? Raph: No, it’s all us. We were lucky enough to be on the road with our good friends Eric and Billy who just started a production company [Loco Pickle Productions]. We’re both in a symbiotic relationship where we can be on the road and we need lights and sound, and they need to start
Who writes your songs? Adrian: We all do. I start a lot of them but it goes through the cycle. We work with Joey [Cuicci, Adrian’s cousin; of Skydog and DJ Williams Projekt fame], actually. We’ve used some old ideas that me, Zach, and Joey put together a long time ago and revamped them to spark. Tommy writes, we all partipicate but it generally starts with me and Joey.
MAGAZINE 15 WINTER 2013 James E. F. YoungRVA / www.richmondimage.net
honing their craft down and making connections. So we brought them on the road. It’s been a blast. You took a lot of pictures on tour, I noticed. Zach: That’s Billy. A master of many trades, and photography is one of them. Raph: Yeah. He helped got our van unstuck, built a bench in the van while we were driving, took a nap on it... Zach: You know those cooling armbands? He was sewing them together to make a headband so it could cool your head instead of your arms. He is the master, man, a champion boy scout. Is there a cover song that one of you wants to play but no one else is on board? Zach: Tommy wants to do all of Meatloaf, and we just won’t do it. Raph: We are at each other’s throats constantly over covers. Tommy: We are like old married people about the right way to do things. It’s pretty funny. Raph: You wanted to do some Abba. “Fernando.” Adrian: I get shot down with covers a lot. I wanted to do Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re an American Band.” So this is the messed up [stuff] that happened. I said I wanted to do “We’re an American Band.” Everyone pooh-poohed it, right? Like it’s a terrible idea. Then someone talks about going to Europe, and everyone starts singing it and are like, “We should cover this song! What a great idea!” Tommy: In Europe it’s cool. Tell me about the brush with death you guys had on the road. Raph: We almost died. Adrian was driving. It was just an all around not fun day for driving. We had to drive about 6 hours from Wilmington to Athens, GA. to make an afternoon show at Terrapin Brewery. We got as far as Florence, South Carolina and our front tire blew. It ripped the [van’s] side step-ladder off into the highway. We put the spare on and we kept driving. Our buddies who were following us, their car broke down, and we stopped just to make sure they were all right. We kept driving, and about 20 minutes later we were about a mile away from the Georgia border when the left tire explodes
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and blows the right tire off, so we lose both back tires. Cuicci was trying to swerve off the road and it trips the trailer, which flips over... Zach: ...sending sparks and smoke everywhere. Raph: [It was] the loudest, craziest noise. It came flying around and knocked the back of the van and skirted us into the other lane. Zach: We pulled over and yanked everything out of the trailer, bought 4 new tires. Raph: We hung out on the side of the highway playing spades under an easy-up... Zach: for about 2 and a half hours... Did you just happen to have one of those? Raph: We were very prepared. Then [we] got some waters from some locals. They [finally] came back with the van and we made it to our gig which was at the Nowhere Bar [Athens]. We had only missed one show due to our ordeal. Did you have any beers on the side of the road? Zach: Did not have any beers. We had like three people stop to bring us water... Raph: ...but no cop car. Zach: Not a single cop, nobody to help us. I would have been pounding beer. Had you known... Raph: Had we known our trailer was going to flip... What do you love about the RVA music scene? Tommy: I love the diversity of it. Raph: You stole my idea! Do you think there is anything that needs work? Zach: I think what I thought needed work as I was growing up and being a part of it is starting to happen, in the art scene [and] bar scene. Bar owners and musicians are all starting to collaborate and work together to benefit each other, and becoming way more of a family and a scene instead of just musicians. We’re starting to network. I think that’s going to push Richmond way further. Raph: We’re all in it together. Tommy: It’s like a form of the union in a sense. Zach: I have a good friend from California who’s a wanderer. [He] came through here couch surfing, and he really likes Richmond. He says
Richmond is the next cultural epicenter. Now he’s living here and won’t leave. Raph: It’s a black hole. Even if you leave for a little while, you’ll always come back. How do you avoid tension with each other after being in the van together for so long? Are there any funny arguments that happened? Raph: It’s all fleeting, spur of the moment testosterone. Tommy: I think flexibility is key when you have seven people, and four of them want to do this, and one wants to go that way. You have to be able to compromise and come to an agreement somehow. Was this your first tour? Zach: We did one last summer and our van broke down again. In Florence. Raph: It’s our Bermuda Triangle. We’re going to avoid that. Do you still get nervous before shows? Adrian: I get some version of nerves--a very particular, very unsettled feeling of like sort of ready to get on with it--30 minutes before going on. Raph: I get really anxious, yeah. Adrian: Sitting there thinking about the thing. There’s no time to do anything. I always get a little jittery or anxious, but not necessarily nervous. Zach: I remember my first two shows I got really nervous, and as soon as I started playing, I opened my eyes and realized, “Oh, I’m playing, I feel fine.” Adrian: I feel like after day 10 [of the tour], I went into total muscle memory. I could relax and just rely on routine a little bit. We were playing so much similar sets in new towns trying to showcase these tunes. Tommy: If you’re confident with your instrument and you know the tunes well, there’s not really anything to be nervous about. But sometimes it happens. The excitement. It’s not like being scared, or [wondering] what’s going to happen. thesouthernbelles.bandcamp.com
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down to nothing by
I first saw Down To Nothing play at St. Stephen’s Church in D.C. This was back in 2010, not long after I’d been introduced to the latest generation of straight edge hardcore bands, including Down To Nothing as well as Trapped Under Ice, Cruel Hand, Cold World, and more. The macho bravado and heavy, fast riffs that were these bands’ stock in trade bore a superficial resemblance to the scene breakdown bands (The Devil Wears Prada, Suicide Silence, Whitechapel) that I had listened to through most of high school, but straight edge hardcore was more real. Songs about friendship, loyalty, and hardships were more relatable than mindless brutality. Instead of swoopy, asymetrical haircuts and 808 bassdrops, raw album production and the tough guy asesthetic seemed much more badass. Being a senior in high school, I listened to Down To Nothing’s ‘Home Sweet Home,’ with its claim, “Hanging out is what we do best,” a million times. My friends and I dreamed about graduating high school and moving to Richmond. Down To Nothing made this city sound like some sort of punk rock utopia. I couldn’t wait to go to shows and swim in the river all the time. I wanted to hang out around VCU and the rest of the city, shooting the shit with my friends all day. Now it’s 2013, and I’ve lived in Richmond for three years. Down To Nothing’s last full-length album, Unbreakable, was released five years ago, but they ended their long break between albums this fall with the release of Life On The James. Their fifth album expands on the ideas originally expressed in “Home Sweet Home”-it’s an ode to the James River; Richmond and its people; and the local hardcore scene in which DTN have played a crucial role over the last decade. Much like fellow Richmond punk rockers Avail, Down to Nothing use their music to celebrate Richmond in all of its grimy, historic, sun-drenched Southern glory. Life on the James shows a lot of pride in the city. What makes you proud to be from Richmond? David Wood (lead vocals): Obviously, with the name of the record, we love the river. I think the small community--how small the city is, everything is really tight-knit--it makes the music scene feel like a family. It’s very easy to hang out and make friends here. In other cities, you have to drive like an hour and a half to hang out for the evening. For years, we lived blocks away from each other and we could just ride our bikes or walk to each other’s houses. Daniel and I have been swimming in the river since we were kids. Later, through hardcore, we started meeting our friends, and we’d swim in the river. That’s this thing we did. So when other bands that we had met on the road would start coming into town, they’d see how we all interacted at home with all of our friends. Every band from out of town felt like they had a home in Richmond. They’d always tell us how much they loved it, and loved coming down and playing, and swimming in the river and stuff. Just hanging out. Bands would a book show here just to hang out with us for days at a time, sometimes even weeks. CHECK RVAMAG.COM DAILY
Chris Suarez photos by Ken Penn
Daniel Spector (drums): Sometimes they’d just come through on the road, on the way somewhere else. Like going from DC to Carolina. David: Jared moved up here from Florida to be in the band, so he can say some good stuff about it. Jared Carman (bass): Yeah, it’s a small-big city. It’s pretty central [to] everything on the East Coast. Where I grew up, it was pretty secluded. It was like a 12-hour drive to go anywhere else. In Richmond, more so than anywhere else I’ve been, everybody knows everybody. Sometimes it’s not such a good thing--everybody knows your business, even if they don’t know your name. They know who you hang out with, or who you date. [But] it’s not always a bad thing. It’s definitely a smaller, hometown vibe, more so than anywhere I’ve been. The good outweighs the bad, for sure. David: It’s still the South, so it definitely has southern hospitality. Our friend’s bands that will come through are like, “Man, strangers have waved at me and say hello, ask me how my day is going.” I think that adds a lot to it. In the 90s, Avail was the Richmond band that represented the city the hardest. Dixie, Over The James, people say those records embodied what Richmond was like at the time. Now, I’d say as hardcore punk goes, you’re carrying that torch. How does that feel? David: It’s crazy. We were just talking about that the other day after our show at Kingdom. The last few times we’ve played in Richmond, we’ve sold out the venue. Which is just unreal to us. Growing up, going to an Avail show, it was sold out at Twisters, Alley Katz, and then Strike Anywhere had that moment when they were massive, and sold out shows at Alley Katz-which is Kingdom now. I still don’t think of us that way. I still picture us as some young kids, for some reason. It still hasn’t sunk in that we’ve sold out a venue in Richmond. It’s pretty cool. We’re in our 30s now, and seeing kids geeking out about Down to Nothing stuff, talking about Richmond... These kids from Florida drove up to the show last week, and they were talking about how they saw Shafer Court, which is in “Home Sweet Home.” And they went to Belle Isle and Pipeline, more places we’ve written songs about. It made me realize that we do put on a good face for Richmond. Dan: I used to feel that same way about Avail too, because they’d have lyrics about Monroe Park and Oregon Hill. We grew up in Southside, and we’d come over and it was like, “Whoa, this is the place in that song.” You guys started when you were in high school. Comparing Richmond hardcore from 2000 to 2013, what was it like when you guys first started playing shows? David: When we first started playing shows, we were young as hell. No one took us seriously. We got heckled on stage and stuff. Shows weren’t at
Alley Katz really, they were all at Twisters, which is now Strange Matter on Grace Street. Hardcore shows were huge before our time--early to late 90s. We started coming out in ’97, and hardcore shows weren’t that big because hardcore shows were so violent back then. There weren’t that many hardcore bands out of Richmond at that time. So, seeing it now to then--there’s so many kids, plenty of straight edge kids. The hardcore scene isn’t segregated at all, all the edge kids hang out with the kids who aren’t. It’s pretty sweet. It’s definitely way less violent. I can’t remember the last time I saw a fight at a show in Richmond, which is awesome. Dan: Going to a show in the late 90s, you were guaranteed to see a fight, at least one or two every show. And you always kind of had that guard up--you wanted to just be safe. I think it’s a lot more positive now. It’s a definitely cooler than having to worry about getting beat up. Don’t get me wrong, you can still see some violence at shows, but it’s less encouraged as it was back then. I think it’s definitely a positive thing, especially for people coming out of town for shows. David: When we started going to shows, we worried about getting our asses kicked, just because we were young and people didn’t know who we were yet. So, when we got older, when we saw a kid, we’d go up to them and be like, “Yo, what’s up man. Here’s some records, here’s a mixtape of some old bands, you should check them out. Here’s some old shirts of ours.” We’d try to welcome them, instead of intimidate them from coming out to a show. I think, our generation and our friends, we really helped made the Richmond hardcore scene grow a lot. When you were younger, what were some other hardcore bands that you listened to? What influenced you? David: Gotta give love to our locals first, like Avail and Count Me Out. Strike Anywhere, Hate O Four, this band called Indypendant. Dan: Bands like Floorpunch and Ten Yard Fight. Not local, but definitely a big influence in my eyes. David: There was also lots of Hatebreed and Earth Crisis shows at Strange Matter. Definitely bands like that, a lot of the early Victory Records bands were our main shit. Oh, and Madball. I’m sure when you guys signed to Revelation Records, you were stoked to be on the same label that lots of those bands were on. Jared: That was like the biggest deal for us, we took a picture when we signed the contract, of us holding it. We put the Revelation logo on every single thing we could. David: We definitely took advantage of that, bragging with the star. That was a funny time that summer. Splitting Headache had just come out, got us off our label at the time, which didn’t care about us. We started getting offers 29
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from cool record labels. One of our friends was working at Rev, and told us that they wanted to put out bands again. We thought, how could we not do it? Same label as Gorilla Biscuits and Judge--are you kidding me? We’re stoked to be on Rev still. It’s awesome.
Terror, it’s very hard. We’ve got some pretty cool stuff for early next year, though. We’re trying our best to make it happen. Any weekend, or anything we can squeeze in, we’re going to do it because the new record is out. Jared’s also been super busy with Trapped Under Ice.
Dan: I think it was more of an emotional decision to go with Rev at the time. We were so excited about it, that we just did it. Instead of looking at the finances, it was like, “Nah--Rev star.”
Dan: Between the three of us, it’s kind of like magic when all of our schedules work with each other so we can play. It’s been hard to do.
You guys don’t play too often, since you’re all busy with other bands and other things. Now that Life On The James is out, are you going to be touring more? David: We usually play Richmond once a year, sometimes twice. We did United Blood this year, and did our Christmas show last year. We can’t do that [this year] because my other band [Terror] is on going to be on tour most of December. We’re definitely going to try harder now, but with Daniel being a doctor and my schedule with 32
David: It kind of makes it more exciting when we do finally play. There was one point when we were all burnt and sick of being around each other--it was like “Ugh, guess we gotta play this show.” And now, it’s like, “Yesss!! ahh!!” I’m doing backflips when we get to play together. I get so excited just to practice with these idiots. You’re a doctor? Dan: I’m an emergency medicine resident at VCU. I’m a second year resident. It’s a three-year program, so I’ll be a doctor pretty soon.
You guys started promoting this record pretty heavily last year, saying it was going to come out last spring for months. Jared: It just takes a long time for a record to come out. When a label sinks so much money into it, they kind of have the say as to when it comes out. Summertime is better than springtime for releasing records, so it made sense to be patient. It definitely did help, pushing it back. The stickers for Life On The James are everywhere around the city. I’ve seen them just as much as the RVA stickers. Lots of people I know who don’t listen to Hardcore notice them and have being using that phrase, Life On The James. Dan: I’ve been seeing random people hashtagging #LOTJ on Instagram that have nothing to do with hardcore, which is cool. You should look to get hired by the tourism department for Richmond. Dan: That’s what somebody said on the internet for the video we just put out. It’s of us at the RVA MAGAZINE 15 WINTER 2013
river and somebody said that the tourism board should pay us. Everyone’s been saying, “God, I want to go to Richmond now.” Another thing that’s cool about the new record is that you can appreciate it if you’re not a hardcore kid; just the name of the record and the vibe, and what it’s about, almost transcends that barrier. People around Richmond can enjoy it. If nothing else, they can enjoy the imagery and the phrase, Life on the James. I’ve seen a lot of people who were straight edge end up breaking edge, writing off straight edge hardcore, and getting immersed in some other kind of subgenre of punk or metal. As an edge band for all these years, what do you think about those who break edge and sort of leave the scene? David: It’s true--just like anything, someone will see something and think that looks cool for the moment. So they try it out--then they’re gone. It just happens, but it happens with anything in life.
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Jared: It’s not just in straight edge hardcore, if you played football in college or something, you’re damned if you do, damned it you don’t. If you keep doing it the rest of the your life, the people who were into it when you were into it are going to be like, “You’re still doing that?” And those who quit doing it are going to say “Oh, I got over that,” or whatever. Anything you do in your life is going to be like that. Dan: Especially when people get into it at 18 years old. You can’t expect everyone who gets involved with it at 18 years of age to still be in it. You can’t be butthurt about people coming and going. Jared: I think when you’re a young kid and you’re real passionate about it, you get upset about it and your feelings get hurt, you take it personal or whatever. But all of us have tons of friends who aren’t straight edge anymore. I just don’t even bat an eyelash. Nobody does. I don’t want to see anyone do anything stupid, but I’m buying my friends beer all the time. We were trying to have a record release party at Vinyl Conflict in Richmond. I was going to take band money, like
$200, to buy beer for our friends. On that same token, we’re not just a band for straight edge kids. We are straight edge, but we’re not just limiting ourselves to that. David: Straight edge is a weird thing--it’s like, very weird. Everybody drinks. Everybody’s parents drink. The entire world drinks and smokes. It’s just easy for someone to not be straight edge anymore. The majority of the world consumes alcohol. It’s bound to happen. Is there anything else you want people to know about? David: Check out Naysayer, Break Away, Tough Luck, Fire & Ice, Upperhand... Dan: It’s cool that there’s so many young bands out now. When we started, we were a young band that no one gave a shit about. Maybe one of these new bands will take our spot. All of them are good, so check them out. myspace.com/downtonothing www.facebook.com/downtonothing 33
photo: ron Rogers
Six months ago, we couldn’t have blamed anyone who thought Swordplay’s rap career was a thing of the past. The Richmond rapper, known to the government as Isaac Ramsey, was a fixture on the local scene around the middle of the last decade, playing tons of shows and dropping strong studio releases like 2005’s Tilt EP and 2007’s Cellars And Attics. But his new album, a full-length collaboration with French producer Pierre The Motionless entitled Tap Water, is the first release he’s put out under his own name in over half a decade. So where has he been? Back in the mid-2000s, when Swordplay was making a lot of things happen locally, his position in the scene might have seemed enviable. But for Ramsey himself, the situation seemed off. “There was something that wasn’t sticking right for me,” he says. “That’s because it’s all that I was doing, and that’s not me. I can’t just go to hip hop shows every week. I need to do something different sometimes. I didn’t know it at the time, but that felt very limiting, and eventually it sort of imploded.” After the implosion came a period of reckoning for the MC. “I had some things I needed to figure out. [It was] an awkward part of being in my mid 20s--a little debate I had to have with myself on a mountaintop somewhere.” Taking a break from playing shows, Ramsey spent most of 2008 and 2009 traveling to foreign countries for months at a time. “There were a couple years there where it was just--work for six months, save up money, crash in mom’s basement inbetween trips.” His budget was very limited, but between working on farms in exchange for room and board and busking on the street to earn food money, he survived quite well. In fact, he says, “I might have just stayed in Chile, worked on this guy’s farm and helped him open up this pizza place. But I had this awesome show to return home to, and there was no way I was gonna miss it.” The show in question was the Richmond date on the Our Accents Sure Are Pretty Tour, a 2009 jaunt that brought several European MCs and producers, including Pierre The Motionless, to the US. This show was the first time Swordplay and Pierre The Motionless actually met, but they had been working together for quite a while. Their collaboration began by coincidence in late 2007. “I was recording some songs for a split 12 inch that my buddy MC Homeless was doing with this Indonesian punk rock group called Homicide,” Ramsey explains. “One of those songs was called ‘The Opposite Of Happy,’ and I really dug the beat. I thought it brought out some of the best stuff I had ever heard from this MC, so I wanted that for me, obviously.” Pierre The Motionless was the producer responsible for the beat, and Ramsey began working with him over email. “Pierre remixed one of my songs, ‘64 Bit,’ first, then he sent me a beat to write to. We just kept collaborating.” The oldest material on Tap Water dates from this era, but after putting together a few songs, work ceased for a while. “We [had taken] a year-anda-half long break on the album,” Ramsey explains. “I didn’t write any songs for the album when I was in South America. At that point we were talking
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Another incident that occurred during Swordplay’s European trip had a great effect on his future as a musician. “I was there in France, and my buddy, the French producer/MC Zoen, was about to leave for tour with MC Homeless and Ridlore. He asked me, ‘Would you like to come on tour with us?’ And how am I gonna say no?” Swordplay’s sets on the tour were well-received, and provided a new dose of inspiration for his music. “Music is something that musicians often make for themselves, but when you get positive responses when you share it with people, that makes you feel like you should continue to share it,” Ramsey explains. “Maybe you’re even making a difference in the world. And so that whole experience of touring was very encouraging.” It was in 2010, after a trip to El Salvador, that Ramsey realized that he wanted to become a full-time RVA resident again. He made the trip with the Latin American Community Art Project, a group founded by Salvadoran-American artists (and siblings) Sandra and Oscar Cornejo. The Cornejos are friends of Ramsey’s, and “they invited me to go to El Salvador for seven weeks and do a music program for kids there,” he says. Ramsey describes El Salvador as “like being in a little colony of the Empire. There were CocaCola flags everywhere. They use the dollar--they don’t have their own currency. Everyone you meet knows somebody, whether it’s family or a friend, who’s gone to the US. I think it was the first time I really had to wrestle with my privilege. It changed what I wanted to do with my life.” Ramsey returned to Richmond in 2010 with the goal to put down roots and “do good work in the community. Go back to school, get armed with a superpower like a law degree, and use it for good--because god knows there are some people using it for bad.” Returning to VCU, he also got involved in several community activist efforts, working with anti-Cuccinelli group Cooch Watch and taking part in the 2012 campaign to stop a VA state bill requiring invasive ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. Throughout this time, he continued working with Pierre The Motionless on Tap Water. By spring 2012, the album was done--or so they thought. Mixing was supposed to take place in May 2012. Then, on April 30, Ramsey was arrested while attempting to film a police action on his cellphone. Explaining the situation that led to his arrest, he says, “There were two arrests already in progress, and something that seemed like it might escalate into another arrest very quickly. So we started filming.” Soon, Ramsey found himself caught up in the action. “The more that I was there, the more I realized that this thing isn’t going to end well. And as it escalated, it was becoming obvious that it was gonna take CHECK RVAMAG.COM DAILY
photo: Elise De Brouwer
about just releasing what we had as an EP.” However, the collaboration was re-invigorated by the show the two played together in 2009, and a few months after that RVA date, Swordplay made a trip to Europe to continue working with Pierre The Motionless. “After I went to Europe and recorded the blueprints for ‘No TS Eliot’ and ‘Wonderful Things’ there, we resumed the writing for the album.”
SWORDPLAY the rapper by ANDREW
more and more effort to prevent the inevitable. And in all actuality, if the goal was to prevent an arrest, it was a double failure.” He laughs ruefully. After spending a night in jail, he immediately got in touch with Pierre The Motionless. “[I] called Pierre and said, ‘You need to send me one more beat before our record goes to mixing. Please do that right away.’” Pierre emailed a beat that afternoon, which became “When The Hurricane Comes,” the last song recorded for Tap Water. “We probably finished the song within a few days,” Ramsey says. “It just came out, because I had really been reflecting on what the fuck just happened.” “When The Hurricane Comes” is one of the highlights of Tap Water, a foreboding song constructed around a repeating guitar melody and a chorus that contains lines taken from the video shot during the arrest. The song became one of Tap Water’s pre-release singles, featuring an incredibly powerful video that simply sets the song overtop of unedited cellphone footage of the arrest (see that video here: bit.ly/17dyvGu). The mixture of left-wing politics and more abstract, emotionally driven lyrics that shows up on this song is replicated throughout the album, and Pierre The Motionless’s beats seem uniquely suited to Swordplay’s lyrical style. The sound of Tap Water is more melodicallyfocused than a lot of hip hop albums, and Swordplay’s ability to sing as well as rap is used to good effect on songs like “No TS Eliot,” which incorporates lines from “The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The MC’s understated wit is showcased on the gorgeously melancholy-sounding “Stop Lying To Us.” If you don’t pay attention to this song’s lyrics, you might think it’s a sad song, but the choruses contain lines mocking implausible television characters. Referencing the TV show Who’s The Boss, Swordplay sings “We all know Tony Micelli is a fake housekeeper. In real life, Tony Danza’s boxers are lying about on the floor.” Later in the song, he mocks Ronald McDonald (“Nobody will ever trust a white guy with a red
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afro haircut”) and David Hasselhoff’s character on Baywatch (“In real life, he’s not successful with women under 60”). The album contains more straightforward hip hop sounds as well-”Conversation Skills” and “No Teleportation” show that Swordplay can still spit rhymes with the best of them. One cannot help but notice that Tap Water took quite a while to come together; there’s at least one reference in the album’s lyrics to the year being 2008. As amazing as the album is, did it really take six years to put together? “An essential piece of information is that Pierre and I are very, very lazy creatures,” Ramsey says, laughing. While he figures the record represents about a week and a half of writing time, “we just didn’t sit down and do it in a week and a half. It had to take place over this four and a half year period.” While Swordplay may not be at the center of the Richmond hip hop scene the way he once was, he feels like he’s found the proper role for himself. “I enjoy what’s going on in the local hip hop scene much much more than I ever did before,” he says. “There’s a lot of good things in Richmond hip hop right now. I might not be the driving force behind it, and that’s fine. There’s no reason I should be. It wasn’t good for me, or for Richmond’s hip hop scene, that I be that person.” These days, Isaac Ramsey enjoys being Swordplay, but part of that is clearly because he isn’t Swordplay all the time. Sometimes he’s the singer/guitarist for his indie-punk band, Double Rainbow. Sometimes he’s a student, or an activist. And yes, sometimes he’s a rapper. “Rap is a totally different form of expression,” he says. “I’m not always in the mood to listen to rap. I’m definitely not always in the mood to make rap. But I will never stop wanting to make it sometimes.” When the result is albums like Tap Water, we should all be glad of that. www.isaacontheinternet.com
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Toobz Muir by
To be inside the mind of Toobz Muir would be captivating, dark, and a little exhausting. With this man, who has been a skateboarder, a hip-hop MC, and a street artist, one conversation with him is all you need to see that there are a ton of things brewing in his mind. You can’t help but wonder: what will Toobz do next? When I first called him up to start our interview, he hung up on me, saying I had the wrong number. Slightly rattled, I had no option but to call him back. But as I took a motivating breath to prepare for doing so, my phone started ringing. “I am so sorry!” he said. “You didn’t have the wrong number! Your accent threw me off.” We both laughed, and my nerves were eased as Toobz and I joked about my Australian pronunciation of his moniker. Luckily, this provided a seamless segue into my first question: where in this world did he get the name Toobz? “We all go through that--trying to find out our personal identity [other] than what our parents give us,“ he said. “I’ve been through many names, and I just decided Toobz was something that really pertained to what I was actually going through at the moment. You know how you go through these tunnels of life? I chose Toobz because it is like a passel of lives that speak through a chaotic murmur, and I translate that through my subconscious. I remain plural. It’s forever changing and becoming clearer, but there is no end.” When I told him it is also a really fun word to say, he laughed and said, “A lot of people also pronounce it ‘too busy.’ I’m like, ‘well, I am very busy...’ That’s hilarious.” In light of the quality of Toobz’s art, it is surprising to learn that he only begun doing art in earnest a decade ago. “I skateboarded for 20 years--way before I did any of this art,“ he said. “I decided to do art seriously about 10 years ago.” Toobz was a sponsored amateur skateboarder, and he shared some clips with me of his skateboarding days. One video showed Toobz in 1993, at age 20. Amid the sea baggy pants (complete with visible boxer shorts, of course), the videos provide a flash of graffitied walls, foreshadowing Toobz’s future. “As you can see, I was doing graffiti that was terrible back then,” he said with a laugh. “However, I never broke a bone [in] the 20 years that I skated. I was built for it.” One thing evident in conversations with Toobz is his loyalty to Roanoke, Virginia, his hometown. Skateboarding took him to the west coast, home of skate culture, but he could not shake off his east coast roots. “I went out to California and I stayed for a while. I learned the culture,” he explained. “It was just.. I grew up on the east coast. It was not as metropolitan, more earthy. I feel like I am more planted here. I feel more natural here.” When he left California, skateboarding’s hold on Toobz also seemed to lessen. “I just felt like it wasn’t for me. The whole lifestyle that I grew up with was something that I just needed to keep holding on to.” Back in Roanoke with skating no longer inspiring him, he found himself needing a completely different state of mind. “I went back home, rethought about everything, and decided I would not force myself anymore, “ said Toobz. “I decided to just be in complete let-go state, CHECK RVAMAG.COM DAILY
MELISSA COCI
to enjoy what life brings me instead of trying to force it and make it happen all the time.” With this new mindset, his career as an artist began to take shape. Toobz’s style could be described as dark and absurdist, or in his own words, “confusion.” He finds beauty in darkness, in moments of pain, and his paintings often depict people with elongated or distorted features. His inspiration comes from his father, a man disfigured from birth by a disease doctors could never properly diagnose. “His story is vague,” said Toobz. “But he has a deformed nose and his left side of his face doesn’t match the right. He is missing part of his iris as well.” Toobz has found inspiration in his father’s story, including details from the seven years of multiple surgeries his father undertook. He was struck by the way society views people who may look different, and of the beauty in disfigurement. “My father went through many surgeries for at least seven years, and when he’s telling me this, I’m going ‘Wow, the pain’,” said Toobz. “But he is still a beautiful person, because he learned that somebody could love him and he could love somebody else.” While others may experience fear or discomfort when confronted with people who have distorted or disfigured appearances, the opposite is true for Toobz. His father provided him with a sense of comfort and love. Therefore, what the world sees as ugliness is somewhat comforting to Toobz. “I realized maybe within the last three to four years that this is why I do the distortions that I do, why I like that,” Toobz explained. “Because its that security. That’s my style--through my father.” Pain, and the truth found within this state, is also a common theme in Toobz’s art. Again, this is another by-product of his dad’s influence. “I love pain,” he said. “I love the fact people go through that darkness of their life, because most of the time we try to hide that. We suppress that. There is a lot of pain that all humans go through. Animals even. You can see it in their face sometimes. When you’re in tune with everybody else, and you have that connection – then it’s all right there in front of you. And when I capture that, it’s an emotional state you know. And that’s what I’m working towards.” When asked how he would define the genre of his art, Toobz reflected on what led him to his style. “It’s weird, as I started out as confusion, then I got categorized as ‘graffiti writer.’ But then I tried to morph the two,” he said. “One of my really good friends that I grew up with was from Newark, and we went to New York often. I grew up in the mid 80s, so this is early 70s, the birthplace of where this [graffiti] culture started. Then suddenly, it gets passed quickly down the east coast. I was into breakdancing, and I felt that everybody had to be the king of style. You had to be the king of all elements – DJing, breakdancing, graffiti, MCing – which ran into what I still do now, I’ve been MCing for... god, 20 years?” Toobz said the abstract nature of his art often leads to false assumptions about himself. Namely, that he is on a whole load of drugs. “I’m super sober,” said Toobz. “I haven’t done drugs for like 8 years. It’s just who I am. What’s weird is, I drew
when I was little – and it is very similar to what I do now. Not the quality, but the ideas.” Drugs got the boot when Toobz experienced somewhat of a “quarter life crisis” at 32, leading him to reassess his life. “I quit everything, completely,” said Toobz. “I quit listening to hip hop, I quit listening to everything that I felt I was super righteous on. I felt like that was it. Let’s minimize the brain and start all over again.” “I went back and started thinking about a lot of childhood memories,” he explained. “I read a lot. I started listening to different music. I just went though a huge transitional period, to where I felt I needed to live in a different perspective. Not only was it healthy, it was liberating and it pushed me to better my work and to be more accepting of what was ahead no matter the outcome. Since then, it has been the best years of my life. I’ve conditioned my world to be tolerable. I am very driven to make it all happen.” Toobz’s drive is evident through his prolific body of work. He recently had a solo exhibition, Sewn Well, at Richmond’s Love RVA Gallery. Toobz is working on a mural in his hometown of Roanoke-“my largest mural so far.” He’s also perfecting his portfolio. “I’m working on a portfolio of the best of the best, so I can start to share my work with larger events, and try to get out there as much as possible,” he said. “I’d love to travel. I would love to put my work out to different places.“ A discussion of Toobz’s art would not be complete without mentioning a distinguishing fact: Toobz is colorblind. “It’s a major thing,” he said. “I fought with that for a long time.” Toobz taught himself to not let his colorblindness affect his work, but rather to enhance it. “I use a greyscale reference and the tones within the reference, and use the colors that match those tones. So I layer colors to get shades and lighting, to make the subject appear the way I choose to see it. So it ends up looking the way it does due to my eyes.” When I commented on how impressive his art is, especially in light of his visual impairment, Toobz was quick to deflect the praise. “I’m very humble with what I do.” he said. “I always put myself in the place of where I think I’m never good enough, which is a good place. I’m always striving to be better.” It is this semper sursum tendere which draws Toobz’s focus towards building respect for graffiti art, rather than simply accolades for himself. “I don’t care to be involved with fame,” said Toobz. “I don’t care to have a million lovers, or a million ‘like’-ers and followers. But I do care about being the pioneer, honing a style, and understanding that it needs to be respected.” As our conversation drew to a close, I couldn’t help but tell Toobz how interesting it would be to spend some time inside his mind, see how it works. “It is here, there and everywhere,” he responded. “It is scatterbrained, but it is very organized at the same time.” Luckily for us, we get to reap the benefits. www.facebook.com/toobz.noel 37
AMERICAN BREW
photos by Anthony Hall concept john reinhold / creative direction rAH DUDES: jimmy, puck, josh, jim, andy, Phil, shotgun The Wolf and the rva beard league guys - travis, chad, matt + jose --------------- featured brews --------------Legend’s Brown, Chocolate Porter , STRANGEWAYS’ Wyrd Sisters: Ophelia, Cordelia + Desdemona, Wild Wolf’s alpha, wee heavy + honey blonde , Lickinghole Creek’s Short Pump Saison Boulevard Brewery’s Tank 7 + 80 Acre, Red Beard Brewery’S OG Stout + 221 B Bakers Brown Hardywood’s Gingerbread Stout & Devils Backbone’s Vienna Lager
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Richmond Beeristoric BY Michael D. Gorman
At this moment in Richmond beer history, it seems that we are living in a golden age of unprecedented abundance. Since its founding in the early 18th century, Richmond has had a community of people united by a love of beer. However, Richmond’s history of brewing has been characterized by transitions between boom and bust – very much like the city of Richmond itself. The first boom was the long period of Englishdominated culture during the Colonial era. Visitors to taverns in Colonial Virginia, of which there were many in the Richmond area, could expect to find ales and porter on the various bills of fare - probably brewed on site or imported from England. The first evidence of a dedicated brewery near Richmond is that of the Westham Foundry, near where the Huguenot Bridge is today. This brewery was likely destroyed when Benedict Arnold’s Redcoats sacked and burned Richmond (after drinking the Richmond taverns dry) in 1781. Not coincidentally, this marks the first bust for Richmond’s beer scene. Sometime around 1800, the Richmond Brewery was opened on the corner of Canal and Fourth Streets. Though details of breweries over the next six decades are sketchy, knowledge of styles of beer was plentiful by the time of the Civil War. Note the knowledge of style and quality found in the following article from the Richmond Dispatch of October 13, 1863: Real Lager beer. - We have received from the City Brewery a sample of the beer made there. It is fully equal to Northern beer, having strength, softness, and a foam equal to cream ale. Before the war beer was just displacing whiskey in the popular stomach, and the good effects were becoming apparent. Compared with the poison now sold at the rum mills under the name of whiskey, the worst beer would be welcome; but when a man can get such an excellent beverage as that made at the City Brewery he ought to be willing to drop the poisonous compound of oil of vitriol, nails, strychnine, &c., which is sold to him for one dollar per drink as bourbon, old rye, &c. Is this the same brewery that called itself the Richmond Brewery in 1800? Annoyingly, the Richmond City Directory of 1860 does not even include a section for breweries. However, there are 80 saloons listed in that directory. They must have been getting their beer from somewhere – though as the above article suggests, quite a bit of it may have been imported from the North. Two trends contributed to the huge growth in Richmond beer that had begun by the time of the Civil War: The population of Richmond absolutely exploded between 48
1850 to 1860 – from 27,570 to 37,910. This was primarily due to Richmond’s emergence as an industrial center. And due to the need for workers in these factories, the immigrant population of Richmond increased by 136% during this same time. Intermingling with native-born whites and enslaved Africans were now Welsh, Jewish, Irish, and most importantly for our story, Germans. Two brothers in particular, Edward and Louis Euker, were brewing their “Celebrated Lager Beer” by 1858. By 1860, advertisements for their establishment noted a “XX ale” as well as London porter and Scotch ale. The German influence provided beers not just for the German palate; Richmond had become a cosmopolitan and diverse city by 19thCentury standards. The Civil War marked an interesting transition for Richmond’s drinking population – as the city was under martial law, only a few licensed proprietors could legally sell spirits or beer. As we have already seen, the quality of liquors had declined dramatically (probably propelled by the Civil War equivalent of bathtub gin), leaving a void which beer could fill. We will never know the degree to which this was done – most of the industrial area of the city was destroyed in the Evacuation Fire on the night of April 2-3, 1865. City officials dumped medicinal whisky into the canal, and the Union soldiers who occupied Richmond found very little left among the ruins with which to celebrate their victory – the industrial, cosmopolitan city was at its knees. Though much of industrial Richmond was in ruins, the city quickly rebuilt, providing jobs to even more immigrants, and in particular, Germans. Within a year of the end of the Civil War, Edward Euker opened a beer garden and brewery at Buchanan Springs, at the corner of Harrison and Clay Street. Other beer gardens were in operation at the Hermitage Fair Grounds (where the Redskins’ training camp is today) and Elba Park (Brook and Broad). Beers sold there were described as lagers, demonstrating the continued German influence. John Deuringer opened City Spring Brewery at the north end of 8th Street (above Leigh Street). No doubt responding to the Phoenix-like rebirth of Richmond, in 1866 David G. Yuengling Jr. left his father’s successful brewery in Pottsville, PA to establish an absolutely enormous new brewery in Richmond. He called it the James River Steam Brewery, and built an entire complex of buildings at Rocketts’ Landing, just below the city. The Richmond Whig noted the opening:
Steam Brewery. - Just below Rocketts… Messrs. Betz, Yuengling & Beyer have put up one of the finest breweries in the whole country. Built of amazing strength, and of the very best material, it is some eighty feet high, seventy feet wide, and one hundred feet deep, and has seven stories, and one hundred and ninety-six windows. Deep down in the earth, away from the light of day, are huge vaults capable of holding six thousand barrels, and within these deep recesses is a solid built ice-house, containing some two hundred and fifty or three hundred tons…everything that wisdom, ingenuity and liberal outlay of money could do, has been done to make the establishment perfect… The working capacity of the establishment is 400 barrels per day, and the building cost about $200,000. Now here is an enterprise of great magnitude just commenced its work, furnishing employment to a number of hands and affording facilities for dealers in porter, ale and beer to get on the spot an A No. 1 article…and at a rate less than which they would have to pay outside the State…There is no use talking of elevating the State from its depressed condition if we don’t co-operate with those who are able and willing to give us a helping hand. The city that didn’t even include breweries in their directory seven years before was suddenly applauding this “helping hand” from the North. It brought jobs and an “A No. 1 article” to the tune of 400 barrels a day(!) – who could complain? Richmond’s beer tradition had just begun; five breweries were operating in Richmond, and the future looked VERY bright. No one counted on the Panic of 1873. Overcapitalization of start-up railroads and changes in currency standards overseas caused a global depression that wrecked the American economy. When people of the 19th Century referred to the “Great Depression,” this is what they meant. All breweries in Richmond felt the pinch as industries began laying off workers. In 1874, David Yuengling attempted to use political favors to his advantage. He wrote to J. L. Kemper, the Governor of Virginia, that “I sent you per Steamer [one barrel] of Old Stout in Bottles. This has been brewed three years ago and considered the Best. Should you find it too strong, add water to suit your taste, and it will be a delicious stimulant. Hope it will do you good.” Even a gift of aged stout was not enough. Four of the five operating breweries in Richmond, including the Eukers, closed in 1878. The next year David Yuengling Jr. faced the reality himself and closed the massive James River Steam Brewery. By 1880, there were no breweries left in Richmond.
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Though Richmond, and much of the country, was in financial ruin, people still demanded beer. To meet the demand, outside breweries began distributing to Richmond. Bergner and Engel Company of Philadelphia was the first. Their Richmond branch was on Broad Street, next to the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac depot. They advertised ale, porter and lager beers, and their “Tannhaeuser Brand.” With no local breweries to match the demand, in 1886 Anheuser-Busch opened a Richmond branch at 1817 East Main street. Several breweries from other cities, such as Alexandria, Cincinnati, and Baltimore, set up branches in Richmond during this time. Beer was being supplied, but not locally. This tenuous boom mirrored national trends. Many American cities were like Richmond – their local breweries had disappeared, and large breweries swooped in to fill the void. At the time, Richmond’s industrial output was booming like it never had before. The ability to mass-produce the cigarette had caused a local boom, drawing in thousands of industrial workers; it is not surprising that beer followed the boom. Suddenly, in 1892, local Richmond brewing returned, and it came from Richmond’s growing and powerful German community. Peter Stumpf and Alfred Rosenegk, who were both managers of outside breweries with branches in Richmond, as well as officers of the Richmond German-American Society, started their own local, and enormous, breweries. We can only speculate why two competitors decided to throw off their cozy jobs and strike out on their own in the same year, but so it was. Rosenegk, formerly of Anheuser-Busch, a man of Prussian nobility and an officer who had seen action in the Franco-Prussian War, opened the Richmond Brewery at Hermitage Road and Leigh St (where Todd Lofts are today). Eventually, this was renamed the Rosenegk Brewing Company. Rosenegk had been something of a community organizer for Richmond’s local German community – yearly “German Day” parades were invariably presided over by him, and clearly, he saw his rise in prominence as a validation of the rise of German political power in America. Peter Stumpf, formerly of Bergner and Engel, opened what was eventually called the “Home Brewing Company” at Euker’s old brewery at Harrison and Clay. Their first year of operation brought about 38% net profits and brewed 12,790 barrels of beer. Their slogan encouraged customers to “Patronize Home Industry and Build Up Your City.” For whatever reason Stumpf threw off Anheuser-Busch, note that he deliberately put the focus on the local nature of the beer to make his business thrive. Despite the sudden focus on the local scene, in 1898, Pabst Brewing Company set us a
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branch in Richmond at 308-314 Hancock Street (roughly where the VCU School of the Arts is today). At this time, Pabst and Anheuser-Busch were the only national breweries with branches still operating in Richmond. By 1906, three local breweries existed: Home Brewing Company, Rosenegk, and Portner (despite being from Alexandria). The city also held three national breweries: Annheuser-Busch, Pabst, and the newcomer, Schlitz. Unlike before, these breweries weathered several national recessions and continued on. This period of stability and prosperity lasted for nearly 20 years. In 1916, fully a year before the rest of the nation, Virginia enacted Prohibition. Halloween 1916 was the last day beer could legally be sold in Richmond. Consequently, Richmonders, who had voted against Prohibition, drank the city dry that night. In the wake of this law, the Rosenegk Brewery closed, never to re-open, and Home Brewing Company shifted over to making local soft drinks, such as “Tru-Ade” and “Climax” sodas. This self-imposed bust left Virginia with no legal breweries until the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. Repeal did not throw open the floodgates of brewing. Only 3.2% beer was allowed to be sold. This severely constrained the variety of styles available to brewers and served to narrow what most people considered beer. In addition, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control was established – never again would beer and liquor sales go unregulated. Home Brewing Company quickly shifted gears back to brewing beer, and renamed their 3.2% product “Richbrau Beer.” Reporting on the re-opening, a Richmond newspaper stated that “the plant’s capacity will be 50 per cent greater than in 1916. Brewmaster [George] Bernier assured reporters that his plant now has a capacity of 50,000 barrels a year. Judged by any standard, that is a lot of beer.” Richbrau would be the only local beer produced for the next 25 years. Not surprisingly, outside breweries such as Budweiser, Pabst, and Schlitz rushed back in to distribute beer. At finer establishments, patrons could even find imported beer such as Pilsner Urquell and Guinness.
breweries, by the 1960s, Richbrau appeared to be doing quite well – they began canning beers, expanded their production, and even sponsored the Richmond Virginians – the first AAA baseball team in Richmond. Then, on October 14, 1969, Home Brewing Company announced that they had been operating at a loss for the past three years, and that due to “increasing competition and higher costs,” they were ceasing operations. The headline that appeared in the Richmond News Leader accompanying this announcement read, “Saddest Day in Richmond Since April 1865.” No locally made beer would be produced in Richmond for nearly 25 years. During this time, the national breweries increased their market share as local breweries everywhere failed to remain competitive. Locally produced beer tended to be viewed as “old-fashioned,” while popular culture naturally favored breweries which could advertise and reach a national market. Suddenly, in the early 1990s, two local breweries began operations. As a tip of the hat to Richmond’s history, Richbrau Brewing Co. opened in 1214 Cary Street. The resurrection was in name only, and the new brewery had no connection to the old Home Brewing Company. Meanwhile, Legend Brewing Company opened their brewpub just across the river from Richmond. Once again, the economy conspired against local beer – in 2010, in the midst of a long recession, Richbrau closed its doors, leaving Legend Brewing Company as the only Richmond brewery. This could easily have been the start of a new bust, but unlike the trends we have seen so many times, the economic downturn had the opposite effect. Craft beer had made considerable inroads in Richmond, and breweries started opening like they had never done before. In 2011, Hardywood Park Craft Brewery opened, near the old Rosenegk building. In 2012, Midnight Brewing Co. and Center of the Universe Brewing Company opened. 2013 has seen the opening of Strangeways Brewing and Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery, with even more breweries set to open in 2014.
Then, in 1935, the Kreuger Brewing Co. of Newark, New Jersey, joined with the American Can Company to test-market canned beer. Richmond was chosen as the test market for the first-ever cans of beer: Krueger’s Cream Ale. By the end of the year, 36 breweries throughout the US were producing beer in cans. By contrast, Home Brewing Company, still pushing to get their beer into bottles, would fail to offer Richbrau in cans until 1952.
As we look back at Richmond’s brewing history, we can only marvel at what is currently happening. In an economic climate that would have seen mass closures of breweries in the past, we are seeing the opposite trend. There have never been more local breweries in Richmond than today. Will this trend last? Will the breweries in town have the longevity of Home Brewing Company? When we re-read this article 10 years from now, will this be seen as the beginning of a wonderful boom, or another of the seemingly inevitable busts? It is far too early to tell, but right now, Richmond is a great place for beer enthusiasts.
Despite heavy competition from outside
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BY PRESTOn DUNCAN & DOUG NUNNALLY illustration
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Apocalypse Ale Works According to Mayan legend, the apocalypse was to fire up its engines on December 21st, 2012. Now taking into account that “apocalypse” literally translates as the lifting of a veil, and it was never prophesied to be an instantaneous occurrence, they might have been right. Stay with us here. Apocalypse Ale Works opened its keg lines in January 2013, and has unveiled some damn good beer since then. As the first brewery in Forest, Va since Thomas Jefferson set about the business of making hooch in the 1800’s, Apocalypse is certainly walking in some ancient footsteps. Coincidence? Who cares? The beer is damn good. Check out their Belgian Dubbel, the Lusty Maiden, and let the veil lifting commence. www.facebook.com/Apocalypse-Ale-Works
Center Of The Universe (COTU) Located twenty minutes north of RVA, Ashland has long considered itself the center of its own beery-eyed universe. Appropriate, then, that a brewery located there should self-apply such a distinction. COTU started filling kegs in November, 2012, and local beer geeks fell into orbit immediately. With a lineup of gravitationally inspiring, communitycentric beers like Main Street Virginia Ale and Pocahoptas IPA, as well as a forthcom-
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ing El Duderino White Russian Stout brewed with eight different malts and whole vanilla beans (they really tie the thing together), if you don’t believe the universe rotates around this place, that’s just like, your opinion, man. www.cotubrewing.com
Devils Backbone BREWING CO. One of Virginia’s most illustrious breweries can be found under the name Devils Backbone. Though the brewery only began in 2008, their line of beer has quickly put together a long list of accolades, awards, and medals, ranging from the Great American Beer Festival to the World Beer Cup. Taste their beer selection and it’s easy to see why they’ve been able to build such a strong name in such a short amount of time. Their Vienna Lager is an amber colored lager with a smooth malt flavor and a finish full of caramel and toasted nuts. The Wintergreen Weiss is a traditional Bavarian-style Hefeweizen that’s has a truly unmatched fruity finish full of banana and clove. For those wanting some adventure, if you venture up to their Lexington or Roseland locations to visit their brewery, you’ll be able to try their Mystery Beer as well. It will definitely please your palate, but keep your mind guessing. www.dbbrewingcompany.com
EXTRA BILly’s Brewery There is a special symbiotic relationship between barbecue and beer--a sort of Friends With Benefits arrangement of ritualistic and celebratory consumption. An air of festivity and tradition. And this makes sense; both are crafts taught by masters to initiates involving recipes unique, shrouded in secrecy, and generally wrapped in historical, familial, and autobiographical relevance. They both involve particular combinations of ingredients being held in large metal containers at precise temperatures for specific periods of time to allow for the alchemical process of their transformation into something greater than the sum of their parts--for them to give up the proverbial ghost, as it were. So it should be no surprise that in a land of tradition and innovation such as ours, a longstanding barbecue institution would also brew beer. And be damn good at it--their Citra Ass Down IPA just took home a gold medal from the 2013 Virginia Craft Brewers Cup. www.extrabillys.com/brewery
Hardywood Park Craft Brewery Between a Gingerbread Stout awarded an elusive score of 100 points from Beer Advocate (and aptly described as “like freakin’ Christmas in a bottle”), a coffee stout brewed with
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their beer lines, including takes on traditional English & German recipes. The most popular is The Green Eyed Lady, a strong Belgian ale made with pistachios to deliver a taste that’s familiar yet unique. Other beers in their line include Fluvanna Fluss (hefeweisen), River Runner (English bitter), Germanna Cargo (dunkelweisen), and Ostara (imperial amber wheat). With this brewery taking up shop in an 1800s tobacco warehouse, the town of Scottsville is sure to see a renaissance in the coming years. www.jamesriverbrewing.com
LEGEND BREWING CO. Lamplighter Coffee, and an RVA IPA made with hops grown by a dedicated minion of religious followers for whom drinking the stuff just wasn’t enough, Hardywood belongs to a rare class of breweries both locally grown and widely known. Their mission, as they describe it, “is to become one of the most respected brewers in the United States through integrity in our ingredients and in our business practices, through respect for brewing heritage, and through the inspired creation of extraordinary beers.” Between an inventive, constantly evolving resume of wildly popular, beautifully crafted (if not at times downright weird – I’ve heard stories of a tequila barrel tripel) brews, and a regular schedule of art events, community improvement seminars, and shows at their brewery here in Richmond, they could just as easily move their mission statement under the heading “accomplishments.”
It must have taken a certain amount of hopinfused gonads to name your brewery “Legend” from the get-go. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, though, because since its inception
ery is named after Little Lickinghole Creek, which runs through the Goochland family farm where they grow their own hops and barley and brew their beer with well water drawn from deep below their fields. If you’re unpersuaded by the veritable consciousness with which they conduct their business, they also donate $1 for every wholesale barrel, and $10 for every retail barrel sale, to nonprofit organizations. These folks specialize in Belgian style ales, and they impart to their beers a quality of undeniable freshness, as though a portrait of the landscape in which they were created. Check for their Short Pump Saison Virginia Farmhouse Ale, Magic Beaver Belgian Style Pale, and their hoppy foray, Gentleman Farmer Estate Hop Ale, around the Richmond area; they are Virginia sealed in a bottle, a taste of meditative rural calm in a fiercely urban local beer scene.
www.hardywood.com
www.lickingholecreek.com
James River Brewing Co.
Lost Rhino BREWING COMPANY
“Forged in history, brewed with abandon” reads the slogan of the James River Brewing Company, located in Scottsville, VA, twenty miles south of Charlottesville. This brewery, opened in 2012 by owners Chris Kyle & Dustin Caster, is quickly becoming the flagship of their hometown, whose tradition the brewery proudly proclaims. Tradition runs through
With a name like Lost Rhino, you’d expect something different and unique; and up in Ashburn, brewers Matt Hagerman and Favio Garci are creating just that. The New River Pale Ale uses a variety of malts to create a sweet finish that balances a large mix of hops perfectly. The Face Plant IPA has a great floral aroma and rich herbal taste that’s gener-
in 1994, that’s exactly what this place has become. With fast-expanding East Coast distribution, and a sturdy corral of mainline brews with a dedicated following (their Brown and Lager leap to mind), as well as a perpetual parade of increasingly complex and wellcomposed seasonals and one-offs like Vampire Red (a shockingly uncharacteristic beer crafted to strike a harmonious chord on the palate, and fear into the livers and hearts of those acquainted with Hollywood Cemetery lore), these brewers have certainly lived up to the prestige of their moniker. www.legendbrewing.com
Lickinghole Creek CRAFT BREWERY Get your mind out of the gutter! This brew54
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ated by multiple kettle additions. Lost Rhino’s most popular would be their Rhino Chasers Pilsner, a golden lager with a creamy head that has a great spicy hop flavor. Perhaps the brewery’s most unique quality is their collaborations with other breweries and brewers that make for some truly creative beers, none more original than the Pretty In Pink Pomegranate Saison made in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month by four female brewers from four different breweries. www.lostrhino.com
O’Connor Brewing Co. Down in Norfolk, O’Connor Brewing Company offers beer crafted by someone whose love of beer goes back a long way. Kevin O’Connor began brewing beer in college, and after begging for a job at St. George Brewery, he got started learning the industry. After leaving St. George and spending time with Specialty Beverage, O’Connor began brewing beers
in his backyard in the summer of 2009. The next year, O’Connor Brewing Company was born with those three backyard beers as their initial flagship lines. You can still find those three today, too: Green Can, a light-bodied Golden Ale that’s crisp & easy to drink; Red Nun, an Irish Red Ale with a robust malt backbone balanced with hops; and Norfolk Canyon, a Pale Ale that’s medium-bodied with a solid malt palate and pleasant hop finish. The brewery offers many more flagship beers, as well as seasonal offerings that can be found from Richmond to Hampton Roads. www.oconnorbrewing.com
Starr Hill BREWERY The title of Virginia’s largest craft brewery belongs to Starr Hill, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The brewery offers several types of beer, the most popular of which is their Northern Lights IPA. The potent beer with a
citrus-floral aroma and full-flavored bitterness is currently the best selling IPA in Virginia. Other favorites would include the unfiltered wheat beer The Love or the dry-hopped pale ale Grateful. Starr Hill’s current reach extends from Pennsylvania and New Jersey down to Tennessee and North Carolina, and the brewery has strong connections with the music scene, with its namesake being the historic Starr Hill Music Hall. They even participated in the first Bonnaroo event back in 2002. Founder Mark Thompson started the brewery in 1999, and with the slogan, “the gift of great beer,” Starr Hill has built a strong reputation throughout Virginia. www.starrhill.com
Strangeways BREWING
Three Brothers A love of home-brewing and great beer lead to three brothers of Harrisonburg to start the aptly titled Three Brothers Brewing Company in December of 2012. Despite a young age, the brewery’s beers are already racking up awards, such as their double IPA The Admiral and the Rum Barrel Aged Belgian Dubbel, which took home the Bronze in the “Woodand-Barrel-Aged Beer” category at the 2013 Great American Beer Festival this past October in Denver, CO. Other favorites include The Great Outdoors, a low-bitterness, crisp, and easy-drinking pale ale, and Hoptimization, an IPA with a clean citrus flavor yet aggressively bitter bite. The beer can be currently found from Northern Virginia down to Blacksburg and as far east as Richmond.
…Is exactly that. Their beers are the fermented essence of something slightly mad and fearlessly, unapologetically weird. They mutter unintelligible profundities from the
threebrosbrew.com
darkest corners of your palette. They dance in possessed gyrations from so many glasses like drunken carnies at a Wiccan rite. They swing across stylistic boundaries like an Albino MONKey (their irreverent yet traditionally adept Belgian white brewed with coriander, orange peel, and white pepper) on a trapeze, and stick the landing every time. Strangeways gives body to the weirdness of life in perpetuity, both with their beers (like the Phantasmic East Coast IPA, which has such a bizarrely sweet, Belgian quality, in uncustomary marriage with a smooth and somewhat reserved hoppiness, that it is reminiscent of absolutely nothing), and their dubious behavior, such as partnering with burlesque groups to transform their tasting room into a den of hedonistic indulgence. If you too infrequently unfurl your proverbial freak flag, just grab one of these concoctions. Those strange enough to know will understand.
Wild Wolf BREWING COMPANY On the Brew Ridge Trail in Nellysford, you’ll find the “home of howling good food & beer,” Wild Wolf Brewing Company. Here you’ll find truly original beers crafted by brewmaster Danny Wolf--whose talent was honed at Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago, America’s oldest brewing school, as well a month long program in Europe. Wolf’s skill-set has led to the creation of some of Virginia’s most unique beers such as the Alpha Ale, an American pale ale with a well-rounded hop & malt character that’s perfectly crafted for all beer lovers. Their Blonde Hunny Ale is another popular line; an unfiltered Belgian wheat ale that’s sweetened with honey and packed with a special spice blend for an extra kick. Wild Wolf began in 2011 in the Wintergreen area and in April 2013, the brewery began packaging their beers to make their way into stores across Virginia.
www. strangewaysbrewing.com www.wildwolfbeer.com
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RVA MAGAZINE 15 WINTER 2013
SCREENS ‘N’ SUDS by
Screens n’ Suds is a locally based and charity focused organization that provides attendees throughout the Richmond, Charlottesville, and Harrisonburg areas with a refreshingly original donation experience. In an effort to raise funds for various local and national charities, including the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Virginia Association of Free Clinics, Screens n’ Suds holds several events every year, all featuring a combination of music, small batch craft beers, and beer-inspired screen printed artwork. The group has seen a substantial increase in support since it was first started, and, as a result, has expanded from what was originally a single event in the Richmond area to an annual weeklong series of events across the state. 2013 marks Screens n’ Suds’ fifth consecutive year of operations, and the group hopes to continue the mission stated on their website, screensnsuds. com: “To unite communities through the appreciation of craft beer and screen printed art while raising money for the National MS Society and other charities.” The project was started in 2009 as the brainchild of co-founders Brian Gearing and Ric Hersh, in an effort to combine the duo’s mutual passions for beer, art, and music. The idea for Screens n’ Suds was developed after Gearing and Hersh, both longtime fans of the band Phish, met on the online conversation forum Phishposters.com, a website dedicated to the sharing and discussion of the band’s poster artwork. Soon, Gearing and Hersh discovered that they lived only three blocks away from each other. After realizing they shared not only a love for music and art but also an appreciation for specialty craft beer, the two friends began developing a concept that would combine all of their mutual interests. Screens n’ Suds was originally intended to be an offshoot of Brian Gearing’s previous project, The Gig Gallery, an online web store that specialized in the sale of limited-edition signed and numbered screen-print concert posters. The plan was to hold a poster show featuring work by various screenprinting artists from around the Richmond area. After struggling to find a venue interested in hosting the event, the team was approached by Gearing’s friend Jason Bruner, owner and CEO of the Virginia Beachbased promotion/management company QuiVa Productions. He was interested in hosting the event at the downtown Richmond location of Capital Ale House, a restaurant and bar that specializes in local and imported craft beers. This pairing, along with Hersh’s role as one of the founding members of the Richmond Beer Lovers organization, led to Gearing and Hersh’s decision to incorporate craft beer into the project itself. The name for the project was inspired by Sam Verrill and Jess Harris’s group, Screens n’ Spokes, established in Philadelphia in 2007. Screens n’ Spokes combines limited issue screen printed poster art with a love for cycling, as posterRVAMAG.COM by Doe EyedDAILY CHECK
Sam McClelland
opposed to a love for specialty craft beer. After Gearing and Hersh had developed a fully formed concept for their project and had secured Capital Ale House as a location to host the events, they contacted Verrill about using the same outline for their own name. Verrill decided to allow the team to borrow the name, under the condition that they donate a percentage of their profits to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the charity that Screens n’ Spokes was established to support. Gearing and Hersh, who both have relatives who suffer from MS, agreed. Although the first year’s event was not as successful as the team had hoped, they still managed to raise around $1000, and continued to make plans for the future. For the second year, the group made a number of changes. The decisions to make the event free with a suggested donation; bring in Marco Benevento, an experimental rock and jazz pianist and songwriter from New York, to perform at the end of the event; and to feature artwork from increasingly well-known artists (including David Welker from SoHo, New York) increased the attendance from around 50 people for their first event in 2009 to 200 people in 2010. Hersh emphasized that making the event free was one of the most critical changes that was made after the first year. “Obviously if you don’t have a price tag on something, you’re more likely to get people out,” he said. Eventually the group’s main event was moved to Gallery 5, a multi-dimensional gallery of visual and performing arts located at 200 W. Marshall Street. Gearing explained that this move allowed the project to expand and diversify the beer menu for the events. “Having the event at Gallery 5… I think that was what really brought us to a point where people were starting to know about us,” he said. “At Capital Ale House, it was kind of difficult, because they’ve got their beer menu and they have their beers that they sell. We didn’t have a whole lot of freedom to pick the beers that we wanted to pour at the event. They helped us out as much as they could, but their hands were kind of tied. But then, once we moved it to Gallery 5, it made things a lot easier and gave us a lot more freedom to be a little bit more creative and get some of those more interesting, off the wall beers that we wanted to get.” The brew selection for the 2013 event series includes contributions from five different breweries across the central and southern Virginia areas. Blue Mountain Brewery, which is located about half an hour outside of Charlottesville in Afton, Virginia, developed the largest batch of beer to be featured at Screens n’ Suds this year. This beer, dubbed Foxy Mama, is a red tripel that was hopped with French Strisselspalt. Itty Bitty Press, a Richmondbased screenprinting and design shop that has
done work for Screens n’ Suds in the past, was commissioned to provide the label art for this year’s Blue Mountain contribution. Foxy Mama is the only beer in this year’s series that will be available to the general public following the Screens n’ Suds main event. For their contribution, Richmond’s Hardywood Park Craft Brewery combined three different stouts that were aged individually in Wild Turkey, Jim Beam, and Maker’s Mark Bourbon barrels, blended together with a Belgian Strong Ale, and then left to age for about two months in a rum barrel. This beer, aptly named Menagerie, is nearly 12% alcohol by volume, the strongest beer in this year’s series. Norfolk’s O’Connor Brewing Company prepared an imperial milk stout called Mermaid’s Milk. The label artwork for Mermaid’s Milk was donated by local designer and artist Ashley Phipps. Three Brothers Brewing Company, based out of Harrisonburg, brewed an India Pale Ale (IPA) with Brettanomyces (Brett) yeast, which was titled Meet Brett IPA. Brettanomyces is a wild yeast which gives beer a slightly sour and earthy flavor. Label art for this beer was done by Matt Leech. The final, and arguably most unique, beer contribution for the 2013 series was created by Richmond brewery Strangeways. Starting with the same base beer, an oaked Belgian Tripel, Strangeways brewed three separate batches, which were fermented independently with three different types of yeast. These beers, collectively known as the Wyrd Sisters, were each named after tragic heroines from Shakespeare plays. The Cordelia beer, named for King Lear’s longsuffering daughter, was created with Celis yeast, which is known to give beer a slightly tart flavor. The Ophelia beer, named for Hamlet’s tragic, heartbroken lover, was fermented with the La Chouffe yeast, and is extremely pale. The last of the Wyrd Sisters was developed with a Trappist yeast, which often produces a very malty beer with a ripe flavor and some fruity characteristics, and is named after Othello’s doomed wife, Desdemona. Christian Leaf, the art director at Richmond based marketing and advertising company Gain Incorporated, designed the label art for the Wyrd Sisters beers. The artwork for the 2013 Screens n’ Suds series includes between eight and twelve new prints, a slightly smaller edition than previous years. However, the lack of quantity for this year’s run certainly does not imply there will be a lack of quality. In fact, according to Hersh, who directs the Screens side of the project, this reduction in the number of new prints was intentional. “One of the challenges we always face is having so much beer art,” said Hersh. “We don’t want to over-saturate our own market.” With contributions from a number of new and returning artists, the 2013 edition of Screens n’ 57
Mike Budai
AJ Masthay Team 8
The future looks bright for Screens n’ Suds; the project has continued to grow and expand since their first event five years ago. In 2011 Ric Hersh (who lived in Richmond for sixteen years) moved to Chicago, where in 2012 he organized and held the very first Screens n’ Suds event outside
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Suds included artwork from Sean S. Berg, Ashley Phipps, Christian Leaf, Brian Mandeville, arts collective Bomb Proof, Andrew Stronge, Itty Bitty Press, Plastic Flame Press, Shawn Hileman, and Crazy Redbeard, among others. Because this is the fifth anniversary of the Screens n’ Suds series, the artistic direction that was given for this year was to utilize the term “quint-essential.” Artists were encouraged to incorporate what they consider to be quintessential to craft beer into their work.
of Richmond. The group plans to hold another event in Chicago next year. Hersh, who will again be organizing the event in his new hometown, described Chicago as “a great art and beer city, so it’s a really easy fit for our organization.” Along with the second upcoming event in Chicago, Screens n’ Suds are also working on potential openings in Oregon, New York, and Colorado. They hope this growth will help get more diverse and higher caliber musicians, artists, and breweries involved with the organization. To date, Screens n’ Suds, along with their sister organization Screens n’ Spokes, has raised over $300,000 for charity, and produced over 130 prints. Brian Gearing attributed the group’s achievements to the support they have received from the community. “The fact that we don’t do a whole lot of marketing, and we don’t advertise, but we’ve still had the level of success that we’ve had, really speaks to how much we owe to the people who have supported us throughout the years.” www.screensnsuds.com
RVA MAGAZINE 15 WINTER 2013
Matt Leunig
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RECORD Reviews
Ahnnu
Bearstorm
Body/Head
Richmond-to-LA transplant and experimental electronic artist Ahnnu strips away all you know about beat music in his latest release of increasingly visionary and advant garde music. Ahnnu’s use of found sounds and ambient undefined rhythms creates a futuristic take on musique concrete for the digital era. (AC)
The second album of epic death/black metal from a local quintet who’ve been under the RVA radar for a while now. Production isn’t always perfect, and I wish they got away from midtempo riffs more often, but the proggy touches help, and when this album’s at its best, as on 8-minute closer “Glacial Relic II,” it rules. (AN)
Kim Gordon and Bill Nace formed Body/ Head in the wake of Sonic Youth’s apparent disbandment. Coming Apart’s raw sound, all from just Gordon’s voice and the duo’s intertwining guitars, is a stark and droning exploration of noise and space in sound, which goes beyond both punk rock and conventional musical structure. (AC)
Caretaker
The Dismemberment Plan Uncanney Valley Partisan
Druglord
Battered Sphinx (NNA Tapes)
You Are Loved (Driftwood)
This newly-assembled quartet rises from the ashes of RVA hardcore bands Postcards and Fixtures. They add distorted vocals and chaotic riffs to powerful drumming and widely varied tempos, and feed the whole thing through ragged-but-right production. The result is a brutal debut EP that’s over way too quick. Give us more! (AN)
Haints in the Holler Skin & Bones
(haintsintheholler.bandcamp.com) Lead vocals shift from male to female with constant harmonies on Haints in the Holler’s new album, Skin & Bones. Americana string band songs fill the record while several selections, including title track “Skin,” explore a little psychedelic territory. Acoustic roots sounds feed the soul with Southern-inspired aural treats. (SML)
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Americanus (bearstorm.bandcamp.com)
Coming Apart (Matador)
Enter Venus (druglord.bandcamp.com)
The Cales
Slasher Rock (Bad Grrrl)
These local weird-rock upstarts make their impressive debut with Slasher Rock, on Richmond’s Bad Grrrl Records. With their off kilter pop sensibility and surf-rock inspired guitar mutilations, The Cales bring big hooks and sharp turns song after song. (AC)
Gorguts
Colored Sands (Season Of Mist)
Going in with little to no expectations, I was pleasantly surprised by Uncanney Valley. The reunited Dismemberment Plan is not the same band they were--nor should they be. This is a record that illustrates how the band’s influences have evolved, while showing they can still make great music together. It’s good to have you back, D-Plan. (SC)
Doom metal trio Druglord has released Enter Venus, four tracks of stoner sludge buzziness engineered by Windhand’s Garrett Morris. The album, released on cassette, features a melodic atmosphere broken into chunks by progressive guitar and new depths of lowend bass solos. Enter Venus steps up as a viable contender for album of the year. (SML)
The first album in 12 years from Canadian metallers Gorguts is worth the wait. There’s rarely a breath of calm on Colored Sands, except for the beautifully dramatic instrumental “The Battle of Chamdo.” It’s hard to escape the riffage and prog influence, but I gladly allow both to envelop me like an adventurer being sucked into a lethal maw of quicksand. (BK)
Hellbear
Jordan Tarrant
Kjell Anderson
Jordan Tarrant is a marvelous talent that channels the heyday of Americana on this EP. Lazarus is a soothing reminder of songwriters with penchants for personification and cautious melodies. The tales told are infectious, and there is no telling how long you will be daydreaming about tracks like “Baby I’m Here” and “Guilty.” (SC)
Jazz, soul, and hip hop combine in a forwardthinking, 18-track homage to NYC on Kjell Anderson’s Full Manifest. With many song titles named after intersections in the City, the album sets a stage on every track. Whet your appetite with “Jay St./Brooklyn Bridge Sax,” and turn up the percussion and scattered saxophone in a Skerik kind of way. (SML)
Hellbear EP (Fake Art Fake Music)
Five blazing biker-metal tunes from this raging RVA quartet. Chugging guitars, galloping double bass beats, and hellacious screams are all over this record, and will have you headbanging and waving the devil horns in the air throughout. Sometimes unrelenting brutality is fun, and this is definitely one of those times. (AN)
Lazarus Full Manifest (jordantarrant.bandcamp.com) (kjellanderson.bandcamp.com)
RVA MAGAZINE 15 WINTER 2013
Alex Criqui (AC), Shannon Cleary (SC), Brad Kutner (BK), Sarah Moore Lindsey (SML), and Andrew Necci (AN)
(The) Melvins
The Milkstains
My Darling Fury
Hearing that the Melvins were returning to their 1983 lineup, I wondered what to expect. Fast hardcore a la their Mangled demo? Halfformed basement jams? Actually, this is a really solid album. There are some goofs here (“99 Bottles Of Beer”?), but those who love the Melvins’ usual brilliant math-grunge bombast will dig the hell out of this. (AN)
The river city’s favorite Link Wray acolytes deliver two guitar-heavy tracks of their nobullshit rock and roll. Both songs, “Carolina O’keeffe” and “Intimidator (You’re Dale To Me),” are classic sneering lyrical tell-offs catapulted over nonstop thunderous drums and the group’s retro-punk swing. (AC)
Beautiful orchestral pop fuses with percussive post-rock on My Darling Fury’s Licking Wounds. The vocal range that lyricist/pianist Danny Reyes exhibits can rarely be duplicated; his register goes from soaring falsetto to dream tenor. Bassist Todd Matthews engineered this opus of an album with a meticulous ear. (SML)
Mike Kinsella has always been a bit of a musical phantom. With Owen, his sad fodder is a great soundtrack for drunken haunting. On this record, the idea seems to be reinvention. He eschews his former perspective through lyrics, while the instrumentation expands into fascinating territories. Maybe not his best, but I am impressed. (SC)
Positive No
Queens Of The Stone Age
Shining
Todd Herrington
Dreamy enchanting pop gems that encapsulate the beauty of Richmond, Virginia. Positive No have the spirit of the nineties, but they belong in the present. On their debut, they excel at showcasing their influences elegantly while infusing a natural spark that should raise the bar in Richmond music. (SC)
The best Pink Floyd album of 2013. There are some decent tracks on this record, but overall the album’s HEAVY drama and moodiness is what makes it a Roger Waters best-of collection. It usually takes me a few months to get into a QotSA album, but sadly, after six months, Like Clockwork has still not made it into heavy rotation. (BK)
Tres Cabrones (Ipecac)
Via Florum (Little Black Cloud)
Voyeur
Little Death (v-o-y-e-u-r.bandcamp.com)
The debut EP from local musician/producer Voyeur starts out with a James Blake vibe, but grows eclectic over its 5-song duration. “Just Say Goodbye” is like a Devendra Banhart torch-song ballad, while the closing title track is a 7-minute epic reminiscent of Pink Floyd. An interesting first effort--let’s see what he does next. (AN)
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Hell Gel Licking Wounds (themilkstains.bandcamp.com) (mydarlingfury.bandcamp.com)
Like Clockwork (Matador)
Warren Hixson
Hawaiian Underwear (warrenhixson.bandcamp.com)
This collection of B-sides should be a dream for any fan of this band. Spanning back to 2006, it’s a true representation of the varied identities that Brent Delventhal has taken with this moniker. If “Glitter Dancer” doesn’t get your head nodding, I don’t know what will. (SC)
One One One (Indie Recordings)
Owen
L’Ami du Peuple (Polyvinyl)
Things (toddherrington.com/store)
This Norwegian jazz band decided to go metal a few years ago, but kept the skronking sax solos. Imagine Meshuggah, Refused, Helmet, and the ghost of John Coltrane collaborating on a chaotic industrial hardcore/metal album. I know that might sound insane, but it actually works really well. I can’t stop playing this record. (AN)
Todd Herrington has come into his own on his debut solo album Things. Showcasing his versatility and range, the different songs are paradigms of their respective (usually funky) genres. Somehow Herrington has fused a 1970s PBS aura into all of his songs, from soulful Stevie Wonder-esque “What We Had” to Southern rock-inspired “The Reason.” (SML)
Yuck
Zac Hryciak & The Jungle Beat
Glow & Behold (Fat Possum)
Losing your singer after one album can seem like a crippling blow, but the opposite has been true for Yuck. Guitarist Max Bloom proves to be a better vocal fit than the departing Daniel Blumberg for the band’s melodic, shoegazey alt-rock. The occasional brass accents only sweeten a delightful sophomore effort. (AN)
Flower Dog (zandthejungleb.bandcamp.com)
The Jungle Beat has put together a wonderful two-song preview with Flower Dog. Illustrating the new dynamic of the group while showing the further evolution of their collective songwriting, tunes like “Pale Flower” truly glisten. A new fulllength is expected in the coming months. (SC)
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