Art, Independence and Spirit

There were giveaways, there was art, there was metal.

Only another reader can appreciate how thrilled I was to hear about the main library's big book giveaway tonight, part of First Fridays artwalk.

The only requirement was that you bring your own bag and I brought a sturdy one, quite sure I'd find plenty that interested me. I like to think I have an advantage because my taste probably resides somewhat outside the mainstream.

It was a narrow hallway lined on both sides with boxes and boxes of books and the crowd moved slowly through it, each with their own reading agenda.

Many sections I gave only a cursory glance - romance, self-help, religion - while I lingered over others so as to not miss a hidden gem.

I spent about an hour and left with a baker's dozen books, everything from "Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley" to "The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Carvaggio Masterpiece" to "American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century."

There was no resisting a 1938 book called "If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit," which the poet Carl Sandberg called, "The best book ever written about how to write." We'll just see about that.

Lest I make it sound like I only chose non-fiction, I also snagged William Styron's "Sophie's Choice" for a good 515-page cry and Oscar Hijuelos' "A Simple Habana Melody," the latter chosen because I enjoyed his "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" so much.

I met a book dealer carefully checking titles against the inventory on his phone and he raised an eyebrow, asking how I was doing. Giving him a peek into my bag, he smiled and said I was not an easy-to-categorize reader. Duh.

Then I lugged my booty upstairs to see some art.

Jason Clark's white, carved wood panels reminded me of monochromatic maps and his colored rubbings on paper made abstractions of familiar things.

Jess Pruett's show of collage works, "Caustic Merges," blended the female form with typography and iconography in an almost Byzantine-looking way so that each small, framed work had the feel of a much older object.

Leaving the library, I made my way back to J-Ward for the first opening at New Normal Apparel, where Boris Bernard's prints entitled "Your Failure Iz My Happiness" were showing.

There were screen prints of athletes kissing trophies and celebrating victories but my favorite was a decidedly pink one of the famous image from the 1968 Olympics of two black athletes raising their fists while the national anthem played.

Somehow seeing it screened in pink and rustically framed made it even more powerful. If only they'd been giving away prints, I'd have taken it home in a heartbeat.

But they weren't, so I headed down Clay to Gallery 5 to check out a group show, "Feels Good" and hear some music.

The place was freezing and I mean that not in a hyperbolic way but because the heat wasn't working and despite a few small heaters, it's impossible to warm ceilings two stories high with concrete floors and brick walls.

As a musician friend warned me on arrival, "Just leave your coat and gloves on." Oh, you can be sure I did.

First onstage was Spandrel, a band I'd seen just a few weeks ago at one of the Well's final shows before closing.

The quartet has a mellow sound (a DJ friend referred to it as "classic AM radio sounding) with three vocalists, all of whom traded instruments throughout their set.

Next came Half Bascule, named after the kind of bridge at Great Shiplock park, and made up of the uber-talented Dave Watkins and the equally impressive Nathaniel Rosenberry on drums.

They set up on the floor in front of the stage so the crowd was mere feet away.

The first thing Nathaniel did was peel off his jacket and hat before sitting down to play and then said, "If anyone here knows Dave, you know he's never played this instrument in public before."

True that and the instrument in question looked like a kid's bass with guitar strings.

With no more than that, the two of them took off on a sonic journey that knocked the crowd on their collective asses.

Part doom metal, part Appalachian folk and part spaghetti western (doom spaghetti, Dave later called it), the music was loud, fast and incredibly melodic.

The dance party king said to me at one point, "Now that part is pure southern rock. And that's pure Hendrix." I think I even heard some Led Zeppelin. Another guy heard Minus the Bear.

As they tore into this improvised music, each of them going at it with an intensity that only spurred the other on, the crowd stood in awe.

At one point, I saw a guy climb up onstage with his camera to shoot them playing from above. Another guy found his way to stand on a radiator behind Nathaniel and shoot over his shoulder. Others just stood inches away and shot pictures and video right in their faces.

Everyone in the room knew they were seeing something spectacular.

Now, I've seen Dave play dozens of times over the past almost five years, but never like that. Ditto for Nathaniel.

I had the feeling that their set ended only when Nathaniel was close to exhaustion.

A guy came up to me after their set, asking me if I'd been at the VMFA last night because he thought he recognized me.

Once I confirmed that, he stayed to talk, eager to know more about Dave and talk about the local scene.

Seems he'd graduated from VCU with a double major in sculpture and photography and then moved to San Francisco for 33 years and just returned.

He wanted suggestions for stuff to do now that he's back, so I made some, always happy to share my knowledge and get people out and enjoying the scene.

I shushed him when The Silent Type took the stage because I'd never heard them, despite a decade-long history here, although apparently they'd been on hiatus for years.

And while I say "they," we were also told that the guitarist Phil (from Exebelle and the Rusted Cavalcade) had stepped in and learned all the songs in two weeks.

The lead singer played acoustic guitar (tuning frequently because of how cold it was in there) and had a dramatic voice, reminding the DJ and me a bit of Morrissey's stagey delivery (which we both liked a lot), but it was the addition of the effect-laden electric guitar Phil was playing that made the sound for me.

His songs were very poetic - "Alarms," "Fools' Gold, Sinners' Blues," "The Year Since You Left Me" and decidedly downbeat, but as the former San Franciscan pointed out, "Upbeat gets old after a while. It's good to hear someone do downbeat well."

Agreed.

After some long-winded sound checking (and never really getting it right), Antiphons played, starting with a song called "Orchard Graves."

It was notable for how the band was dressed to play, namely as warmly as possible. The bass player wore his jacket and the guitarist wore an epic hat with flaps and blew on his hands to keep blood flowing in them.

Between the cold and the hour, their set was a casual one, with lots of asides to the audience. "Thanks again for being here. You guys are cute," singer Brian said.

They did a Built to Spill cover, "Twin Falls," a real crowd-pleaser and later said they were doing another cover, "But one we haven't done in a long time. That's a disclaimer."

When the bassist asked what the chords were, the lead singer laughed. "Just play it. What do we have to lose at this point?" before playing Weezer's "Only in Dreams."

"Thanks for humoring us," Brian finished to those of us still shivering and listening.

Hey, once a bohemian's gotten free books and heard doom spaghetti, she's pretty much agreeable to anything.

Feel free to test me on that.