Reinventing the Squeal: Music Reviews in the 757: I've Got some Catchin' Up, I'm way behind!

Excuse the briefer than usual synopsis for each show. Here's a rundown of all the silky sounding events I've attended or been involved with over the past couple of busy months!

The Fighting Jamesons with The Dahus and The Framers at The Norva – March 15

Following their recent Veer award for album of the year, The Framers scored their first full set at The Norva opening for the local favorites The Fighting Jamesons. The Jamesons barely need an introduction: their upbeat Irish rock is always a crowd pleaser and these guys are staying busy and building their national following. The Dahus seem to be on the same path. I was employed at The Framers’ merch stand for the majority of the evening, right beside The Dahus’ merch stand, which was aflood with quite the impressive crowd of young enthusiastic attractive women battling over the available t-shirt designs and sizes remaining. Their fans are die-hard, and from what I heard at The Norva that night The Dahus are die-hard about their music. This was their first show with their new bassist and it made for a full energetic rounded sound for this promising band. The Framers rocked the house as they are always known to do, and won a horde of new fans that wiped out their first run of CDs and a sizeable chunk of their t-shirts. Happy times all around!

The Framers with Uglyography at Hell’s Kitchen – March 17

St. Patty’s Day at Hell’s Kitchen was a blast of a Monday evening, complete with forced dancing with random strangers and plenty of friendly love as always.

Uglyography with Sean Petersen at Hampton Taphouse – March 22

Our first performance with the new lineup in our home town went well. The Taphouse stage is always fun to play on with it’s Hee-Haw-ish country store aura about it, and Pete Pitman is such a hospitable host that any band would be nuts to not want to play this room. Following our set, Sean Petersen debuted on the Taphouse stage with two full sets of original jams. This guy knows how to use a loop pedal and how to create a groove with several different instruments. He sings, plays, sways, and does it all himself with a grin. Sean will be back at Taphouse for a block party after-party this summer!

Hampton Heritage Day at Fort Monroe – April 12

For this first annual event intended to celebrate Native Cultures relative to our region, I was on sound duty and had a wide variety of acts to handle. On stage, the day was filled with dancing, drumming, singing, storytelling, and much more family friendly entertainment. Performers and brief review of each are listed below:

Akebuland Ensemble and the Sankofa Projects Remembrance Drummers – African drummers that are the real deal! Got the morning started off to a shake.

Meherrin Nation – A small surviving tribe of Native Americans that has remained along the NC/VA Border, they played Host to this event, offering prayers, dancing, chants, and storytelling.

Bob Zentz and Jeanne McDougall – this duo provided a couple of sets of 17^th Century English music on a variety of stringed and classical instruments. It was my first time witnessing a Hurdy Gurdy played, and boy is that an amazing instrument. I also enjoyed hearing the original words to the classic folk/Christmas tune “Greensleeves.” It actually has a lot to do with the new year celebration!

Pat Vermillon – played the role of the real-life colonist Ann Burris and told stories from the settlers’ times.

Legacy of Weyanoke – A six-piece A Cappella group with percussion included, they sing spirituals representing African Heritage and traditions. And yes, each of them has massive sets of pipes and together they produce a beautiful sound.

Ubuntu Dance Collective – A large group consisting of mostly grade-school aged girls, they performed traditional African dances and encouraged the audience to join and shake it!

Glory Dance Ministry – A smaller interpretive dance ensemble of young children, stories were told through dance on stage.

All in all it was an entertaining full day, and I anticipate that it will only grow larger next year!

Bill Jenkins at The Hampton History Museum – April 16

I ran sound for this Front Porch Music Series event on a Wednesday night, and having that perspective of the show will tell you a lot about Bill Jenkins and the Mountain Boys. It doesn’t mean much to most audience members, but the band requested to use one single mic (not counting the one on the stand-up bass). So, this one mic was used for all the vocals, all the instruments, and any foot stomping or clapping that came along with it. I suppose there were six pickers on stage and they all just gathered around this mic and what you see and hear is what you get. There were lots of really dim and gritty sad songs that were performed, but they were all so upbeat and happy sounding. For instance, the hook to a song about the Titanic goes "It was sad (It was sad) when that great ship went down." The music had just the right amount of intimacy and emotion to entertain yet another standing room only house at The Hampton History Museum.

YourMusicShow Presents … Outta The Furnace, Hissy Fits, and Daycations at Olde Towne Tavern – April 18

YourMusicShow, hosted by Uglyography’s own drummer DJ Blake alongside Justin Wilson, have been spinning local music on their podcast for over 4 years now. In addition to hosting bands in DJ’s kitchen on most Sundays for the podcast and producing a second hour long weekly podcast for WHRO’s AltRadio, they continue to sponsor and book shows at venues across Hampton Roads. YMS Presents … returned to Phoebus’ tried and true Olde Towne Tavern to bring the local music scene back to Phoebus! Unfortunately I missed Outta The Furnace, but I was lucky enough to catch their first show ever at a Chesapeake house party several months back. They knew how to rock the bluesy gritty classic rock and have an accessible sound for anyone that likes guitar driven licks n chops with rough around the edges soul. The second band of the evening, The Hissy Fits, brought an all female twist punk twist into my evening, and caught my attention with their Jawbreaker-esque breakdowns and Courtney Love style vocal attitude. These girls are the tightest and rockingest all-female act I’ve seen thus far in Hampton Roads (that being said I know of at least two that I still have not seen live, so keep up the fierce competition, ladies!) The final punch in the gut for the evening was The Daycations, which brought in-your face punk to a level that I hear is bound for Nashville. All the elements were there for catchy pop-punk rowdiness and I wish The Daycations best of luck carrying that on over to Nashville! Another successful and well attended YMS event down and many more are coming your way!

The Framers at O’Connor Brewing Company – April 19

This was my first time at O’Connor, and although I am not a beer drinker, I witnessed the enjoyment of all kinds of good beverages that were brewed right in the tanks that were directly behind The Framers set up for this show. And boy could you smell that beer a’brewing! Of course, why wouldn’t you? It was a nice industrial backdrop for the band, and they blew through two full sets including several covers and at least two new original songs that were debuted for the first time. Excellent performance and excellent audience to completely fill the room! O’Connor hosts these events weekly on Saturdays at 4pm so be sure to check out their schedule of upcoming shows.

Live Transmission with Turncoat Syndicate at Norfolk Taphouse – April 19

I had been anticipating this performance for many months. When drummer Adam Joline, told me he was ready to start playing music again and was starting a band, I could only assume it would be good based on his musical tastes and his supreme production work on Broken Mouth Annie’s album The Frustration King. A couple months ago I found out that Bryan Lewis (The Gloom, Humanoids from the Deep) would be involved. Having the most suave man in Ghent as your bands’ bassist is always a bonus. So yeah, although I had already had a long tiresome weekend I was stoked as I could be to see this brand new Norfolk outfit. And they delivered stuff I really wasn’t expecting. The set started off soft and melodic, with a pretty piano-based song. The mood changed from pretty and melancholy to confused, possibly depressed, and then angry. At the high point in the set, there was all kinds of noises, syncopation, discordant guitar slams, and then it rounded back out to something else completely different, the whole time the rhythm combo of Joline/Lewis syncing sleek and sly as they come. I am generally an ADD audience member and these guys didn’t provide any opportunity for a lull in the interest of their set. It all seemed to come and go so fast, and I think that is the unintended gimmick I fell for … I really want (need) to hear it (see it) again so I can catch all the subtleties that truly made this set enticing.

The show opened with Turncoat Syndicate (formerly Gentleman Bastards) and this was my first time seeing this four-piece as well. Many sounds from the 90’s were brought to mind. For a moment I could have mistaken one song for Quicksand, and another for any number of grunge bands. Modern Rock is such a generic term these days, and it doesn’t really make sense to me … however, I could hear these guys standing up next to all the heavier brands of radio rock I hear when I happen to flip through radio stations these days. They were definitely on their A-Game for this show and I see plenty of potential for these guys should they choose to run further with it.

Check out the performers:

The Framers: http://www.theframersband.com/

The Dahus: http://thedahus.bandcamp.com/

Fighting Jamesons: http://thefightingjamesons.com/

Uglyography: http://www.uglyography.com

Sean Petersen: https://www.facebook.com/SeanPetersenExperiment

Meherrin Nation: http://meherrinnation.org/

Bob Zentz: http://www.bobzentz.com/

Legacy of Weyanoke: http://www.weyanoke.org/legacy/legacy.html

Ubuntu Dance Collective: http://www.dancewithsunshine.com/

Bill Jenkins and the VA Mountain Boys: http://virginiamountainboys.com/

Outta The Furnace: http://www.reverbnation.com/outtathefurnace