Locally based songwriter Mike Aiken and Smithfield Music are putting on an Americana music festival in Smithfield this October. This is actually the 5th annual Aiken and Friends Fest, featuring a performance on Friday, Oct 1 at the Smithfield Little Theater and two stages of music on the 2nd at Joyner Field. They’ve also started a series of Open Mic songwriters contests, with the winners of each event performing a short set during the festival. The first contest was this past Wednesday at Goody’s Pub in downtown Hampton. The winners were our good friends Jon and Anna Fuson. Congrats!
We were happy to see so many people show up to play, and even more happy that it was all original music. We heard that Goody was so impressed that they may start a monthly songwriter’s contest.
In the meantime, there several more dates available to secure a spot in the Fest: September 2 at Jalepenos in Smithfield, Thursday the 9th at Cozzy’s Comedy Club in Newport News, and Sunday the 12th at HK on the Bay, in Virginia Beach. Full details are available on this page.
From the ‘better late than never’ Department is some vids we shot last month of local bro Brad Street at Keegan’s in Newport News. Brad is a regular performer at Keegans and can be seen several times a month between there and their Southside location. Big ups to Brad for coming through with the original music. We’d never met before and we had a great talk about the local scene and while getting plastered, and after talking at length about how much we all need more original music played out at the bars round here Brad even let me get up and play a couple covers like the hypocrite I am! Seriously though, my ability to talk my way up onto a stage just gets better with age. Enough about me though, here are the vids!
Here’s a fresh vid of local performer Richie Beard performing his original song Come Enjoy the Show at Keegan’s in Newport News this last Tuesday. Richie’s been a mainstay on the Penninsula for the past few years, and is a great entertainer and personal friend. He can be contacted for bookings at 757-725-2800.
Sat. Oct. 24th, Noon. FREE! Denbigh Presbyterian Church, Newport News Playing at my old stopping ground’s outdoor fall festival, weather permitting.
Sat. Oct. 24th, 7-9 pm. CD release party!!! (ok….i just told you when and where so you should have it on your calendars by now!)
Fri. Dec. 18, 7 p.m. $15 Kimball Theater, Williamsburg *I’ll be doing something music-related for a Christmas variety show produced by a good bud, the laughing redhead herself, Teresa Roberts Logan!
Thur. Dec. 31st First Night Williamsburg If you haven’t been to this event before, “downtown” Williamsburg opens several of it restaurants and venues for an all-night entertainment festival with a variety of performers. I played at this event last year and had a really nice time. You buy a button to wear (ok…it’s a little nerdy) all night that gets you in to all the concerts. I’ll be playing 3 sets with my friends Billy and Loretta Ricketts this year. Williamsburg will have it up online with the schedule within the next couple of months, so be sure to keep a look out for it!
Thur. Dec. 31stFirst Night Williamsburg If you haven’t been to this event before, “downtown” Williamsburg opens several of it restaurants and venues for an all-night entertainment festival with a variety of performers. I played at this event last year and had a really nice time. You buy a button to wear (ok…it’s a little nerdy) all night that gets you in to all the concerts. I’ll be playing 3 sets with my friends Billy and Loretta Ricketts this year.
Just wanted to post this “nine minutes in heaven” vid that I shot last Friday at Loose Lips. Not a full recap this time, just to say that I had a blast until my fiancee called to tell me her car had been stolen. Pretty much ended the festivities for me at that point. Well, enjoy the vid and look for info on the next one soon as I have it.
Here’s last Sunday’s set by John Baldwin at the Ocean View Pier. My SO and I had never been out there before and boy we’re we impressed. The sun stayed hidden behind clouds most of the time, so it was very pleasant. It turned into a very nice date for the two of us. John put on a good show. He played a set of his original songs, and I was impressed by his guitar work. A loopback pedal goes a long way these days. Check out the vids:
Yesterday was the first time we’d been to the Hampton Block Party all year. We started off the evening with dinner at Taphouse and then capped some vids of Dixie Power Trio. And yes, there were four of them on stage.
Later in the night we moved into Marker to beat the crowd and the cover. Out on the deck was Snackbar Jones.
Note I do not have steady camera hands when I’m drunk.
We’ll be heading out later today to the Ocean View Pier to catch blues guitarist John Baldwin. We will have video up of him later tonight or tomorrow.
Two clips from The Black Hollies at The Boot on 6/26/2009. Not quite the same as the Loose Lips event below (that now I really wish I had cloned myself to go to as well), but the Black Hollies put on a strong nonstop show. In the entire two hour set they threw down, they stopped once for 5 minutes or so. Otherwise, where one song ended and the other began was pretty hard to tell the way they overlapped and segued their songs together.
So last night was the Loose Lips party @ Bar None, and with the Restless crew involved I knew it was going to be off the chain. I convinced my SO to come along and even got up with Elektrokitten and CobraTom who followed us up there. None of us had been to Bar None before and didn’t know what to expect. We were kinda worried when we pulled up to a small brick building in the middle of a dark street in what looked like a bad part of town, the only reassurance being the lights of the skyscrapers from Town Center a mile away. We may have just been uptight cause everything was totally cool once we got inside.
Elektrokitten, moi, and CobraTom
Bar None has a bit of a dive feel in some respects, and it is seems like what I imagine CBGB’s must have been like: Small, claustrophobic bathrooms covered in sharpie and stickers, inadequate parking, scores of people waiting outside to get in, people bumping and jostling as they try to get by each other between the dancefloor, the bathroom and the bar; that’s also what gives it charm. Posters everywhere for local art and music shows, bands and places I’d never heard of. And the people. What a great place to people-watch. What a whole different scene from what we have in Newport News and Hampton. I had almost forgotten the years and Norfolk and just the diversity of people that I’d been accustomed to being around. People who don’t care what people think about them and are being who they want to be completely and without apology. Rebels. Artists.
Once you walked in the small area to the right was setup with displays from different artwork from RESTLESS BODIES, and to the left the bar, which only left a narrow space along the front wall that would prove to be a chokepoint for everyone trying to move between the door and the dancefloor. We parked our assess at the far side of the bar closest to the djs, ordered some beer and listened to some music.
Oh!Boy
LRDMRCY, DJ Ronnie, and Oh!Boy(l-r)
It was quite a treat to see 3 djs at once that weren’t named Dara/AK1200/DieselBoy. I over heard someone say they were having a Kraftwerk moment. I really wish I had gotten more. I had just setup the camera along a railing where I could see it from across the room and not have to baby it. I looked away for a second and looked back and the camera was gone. I walked over to where it had been and noticed the bass had rattled it off of the railing and onto the floor. Turns out the battery was dead, which is strange as it has been plugged in the whole day. Again, apologies that I failed you, dear Reader, as the music was awesome. We also failed in that the only pic we thought to take last night was the one above! Let it just be said that it was wicked. Another pair of guys were running a laptop that controlled the lights, fog machines and impressive lazer display that dazzled the dancefloor all night.
If it’s any consolation, you can listen to Ordinary Boy’s It’s Almost Summer mix, copies of which they were giving away along with some small buttons with Loose Lips on them. Nice touch guys. They had printed some large posters up for the event which they had plastered up all over the inside of the dance floor, which stayed pretty empty for most of the first hour. I’m not all up on the subgenres of techno these days, (you’ll have to ask elektrokitten for that discussion!) so I’ll just tell you what I heard, which was 4 to floor all night long, electro and house back and forth. There was a Kanye West remix by DJ Benzi, and a Rapture remix that I really liked. It was a good mixture of rocking electro beats, and people were really having a good time as we left.
We had to leave in order to be up early this morning, and so we dipped out just after 11 as things were really heating up. The place was filled to capacity and it was wall to wall through the chokepoint to get back out. It was definatley a success. You know a party aint a party until the cops show up.
I don’t know how things usually are at Bar None, but last night was totally worth it. If last night is any indication, the line outside the door is going to be even longer for the next event, whenever that may be. I don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to keep it at Bar None as pretty soon the party will start spilling out into the street!
And lastly, let me just say that I’ve come to the opinion that there is no real person named Charlie Restless, the alleged personality behind RESTLESS BODIES. I believe that name to be a construct like Keyser Söze, made up as a front for an art and party collective who’s ultimate objective is to rock the fuck out. I asked several people if they new Charlie and if they could point him out to me, only to be told that he had ‘stepped out’ and would ‘be right back’ and was ‘taking the longest shower ever’. The Restless Twitter account is likely manned by various RESTLESS BODIES staff members, who are led by the real leader of the group, who would reveal himself to me only by the name Chance.
We’ll be looking for the next party soon, we’ll let you know as soon as we hear.
