The Richmond Music Hall is a nice room for bands.
Ducks Ltd. is a new-ish band to me (thanks, CHope) and I’m glad I went out for the show on a Tuesday night.
The sound has lots of ringing guitars and I’d mention The Clean, Soft Pack, and maybe some XTC as points of reference (2 of those 3 bands are faves of mine).
Here’s to live music!
Very exciting! New Omni album out today. I’ve really enjoyed the angular guitar noises they make and have been absolutely kicking myself for not getting out to see them when they came through RVA a few years ago. It was one of those extra-dumb “I just don’t want to” moves, too, rather than having other plans I couldn’t get out of.
I’m not making that mistake again. They’ll be here in 10 days and touring this record, so I I have some homework to do. I wonder what the merch situation will be?
It’s been a long, long time since I had to stand in line to get into a venue a half-hour after the doors opened, but I guess that is what happens when a show sells out weeks early and the crowd is an odd mix of Youngs and Olds.
Widowspeak opened and they were fantastic. I missed them when they came through town last year (thanks, covid). They’re a great live band and I’m looking forward to seeing them again. It was neat, because they’re definitely a guitar band, and the lead player was ripping sick riffs, but they weren’t blowing out the room. It was dialed in so you could appreciate the shredding and the chill vibe of their music. 5 stars.
Duster has been riding their Numero-fueled resurgence hard the last couple of years. The success of the reissue campaign has led to a couple of really good new albums and some touring. It’s still wild to me that a band like this, definitively cool, is playing a club date in Richmond, Va. They were also great. I’m not as familiar with their whole catalog, but it was easy to enjoy. The overall set was louder than Widowspeak, but the chill groove of the songs was still easy to get into. Also surprising was the number of under-21 kids that came out. I don’t think Duster is featured in any weird social media phenomena, it might really just be the kids discovering a band that came and went before they were born. You love to see it.
I’ll also include a picture of Widowspeak featuring the goddamn Broadberry pole that is right in front of the stage(!) and a wider shot of Duster featuring the most phones I’ve ever seen at a club show. It was wild.
Joe Pernice is going to play a couple of shows to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pernice Brother’s debut album “Overcome By Happiness”.
He’s been playing short morning warm-ups on Instagram live and they’re a perfect accompaniment to a hot cup of coffee.
I’m not going to be able to get to any of the shows but I 100% pre-ordered the vinyl reissue. It’s a sweet deluxe package with a book and some extra tracks. I’m geeked.
I am smitten with the poster for the Folk Festival this year.
Cassandra Kim‘s fanciful animals are cute and cool. The Richmond Folk Festival posters have, over the years, showcased different styles. 2022’s is a great entry in the series.
I love that it is a proper oil painting (and you can bid on the original).
This time-lapse is nuts. It looks like magic.
I’ve gotten back into Cocaine and Rhinestones and this song popped up:
I haven’t been a huge George Jones fan, but this song hits me just right.
I still can’t believe a band came all the way from New Zealand to play in a club in Richmond, Va.
From this morning’s Noahpinion, guest-written by Benn Eifert (@bennpeifert)
The investing industry is ridden with bullshit. The most common and insidious form is over-optimism: offers of tantalizing risk/reward that defy any notion of reality, often based on misinformation or deception. Less common but even more dangerous are outright frauds.
The problem is inherent to the product. Most consumer goods – apples, hotel rooms, laptop computers – are tangible objects or services that you can see, taste, feel, or experience, so you can judge how much they are worth to you. Investments represent claims about some future probability distribution of monetary outcomes which are not literally verifiable. The best an investor can do is form a reasonable judgment about the uncertainty around those claims, based on historical evidence and details about the mechanics of how those claimed outcomes are generated.
Far from breaking news, but a timely and well-written reminder in this age of “we hope to give you access to your assets soon“.
*****
Unrelated, I get a great deal of joy from every issue of The Big Takeover. I love reading record reviews and every issue is packed full of bands I’ve never heard of, written about by people who care as much as I do.
I was extra excited to see the Wet Leg LP, the front-runner for my personal Record of the Year, in the 4-spot. Man, I hope they come nearby on their next US tour.
I *loved* their first album and I’m glad I have this for some summer listening.
