Reckless Thoughts

It was chilly, no doubt about it, but it was a magical evening to sit outside and listen to sad songs.

There aren't many people who could entice me to the bowels of southside - don't ask me where, I was in no man's land from German School Road on - but Jonathan Vassar and the Badlands have that power over me.

Maybe it's because my appreciation for Jonathan dates back to those first Listening Rooms back in the dark ages of 2009, before Richmond was an "it" town. It didn't hurt that our hostess had invited me to her other house shows, albeit when she was living a quarter mile away in Monroe Ward, and I knew she always creates an exceptional environment for artists to play in.

But mainly it's the wonderful memories I have of a 2010 show that Jonathan and the Speckled Bird had done one evening over on Grace Street, when they'd played music to accompany watching scores of chimney swifts swoop and swerve as they settled down for the night. It had also happened in October and been chilly enough that some of us had to huddle under covers to watch and listen.

Tonight was huddle redux. So with chair, blanket and shawl, I joined friends and strangers for an evening of music outdoors under a blue velvet sky with only a few stars punctuating it.

First came seasonally-appropriate red wine and socializing, which took an unexpected turn not long after Jonathan's sweet dog Dolly began alternating eating grass and vomiting.

Our hostess shared that her former tenants had decided to put down cheap wooden flooring (and poorly, too) over the hardwood floors in one bedroom, prompting someone to observe, "He probably murdered someone and wanted to cover up the blood."

Or the sperm, someone else conjectured. Or blood and sperm, posited another. What our hostess needed was luminol to detect bloodstains, we agreed, like what police use at a crime scene.

While it seemed like a hell of a tangent, we weren't though yet. My former Jackson Ward neighbor said that she'd love to do CSI work, that she'd always been attracted to that sort of thing (a fact confirmed by her friend since age 12), but had also considered being a vet were it not for all the math.

Then she casually mentioned she currently has two fox paws packed in salt in her refrigerator. Naturally, this led to a discussion of why (she plans to integrate them into a sculpture) and how she became interested in tanning but it turned out to be more challenging than she expected.

Her first attempt involved a road kill squirrel. "I cut him too far up the butt," she explained nonchalantly and we roared with laughter. Seems she did a better with the fox that yielded the paws currently in cold storage next to the milk.

Tragic as it was that this conversation had to wind down, the band was ready to begin playing, so I fetched my chair and set up camp between two girlfriends, both singers, and both dating back to the Listening Room days. Dolly was just left of my feet.

With Jonathan on guitar and harmonica, Curtis on pedal steel and Nate on upright bass and harmonies, the trio began with "Oklahoma Rose," with the sound of the instruments wafting on the crisp night air. You could practically see the sustained notes of the pedal steel hanging in front of us and winding their way around the audience.

The visuals, too, were lovely, with the band playing against a backdrop of the brick of the house with candles lining the window sills and twinkle lights strung on potted plants, the deck, the instrument cases, just about everywhere.

For that matter, Jonathan and Nate had a string of lights in their chest pockets, sort of like a lighted pocket square for the occasion.

Songs like "You are Gone" were beautiful and sad - Jonathan doesn't write any other kind - and soon people swayed and moved their heads or leaned into each other as they sat on chairs and blankets around the back yard.

A guy near me passed out hand warmers and I slid one into my glove. Yes, gloves. No judging.

Jonathan said that they were playing the same set they'd played last month at the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion, where he'd been amazed to learn that Bristol's Main Street separates Virginia and Tennessee. Since I'd only learned that fact last month at a moonshine lecture, I could relate.

"If you see a look of pain on my face," he warned us, "It's because my beard got caught in my harmonica holder." Ouch.

Referring to the song, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Us," he joked, "That's as jammy as we get," providing Nate - the bagel-maker extraordinaire who's about to open his own bagel shop - an opening for a bagel joke (he tried).

A song such as "Darken My Door" sounds like it'll be terribly sad, but a lyric like, "Please darken my door, just to be sure that you're nigh" sounds pretty romantic to me. Other times - "When things fall apart, don't let it harden your heart" - he sounded downright hopeful.

We kept it so close to the chest
I always had to second guess

The show had originally been scheduled for last week and been canceled because of a forecast for rain (which never materialized), so Jonathan thanked us for showing up this week despite the chill. "It was too hot last week!" a friend called out, but I disagreed just as vocally. I'd rather be hot.

She who was swaddled next to me concurred. "I could have worn something cuter last week!"

"This feels like fall!" one of the men said, as if that were a good thing.

The band announced that their final song would be "The Truth," after which Jonathan thanked our hostess and said it had been a lot of fun playing these songs and a nearby dog began barking relentlessly, causing Dolly to sit up and stare into the darkness.

I think back to way back when 
All it took was the mention of your name
Change is the only thing that stays the same
It's the only thing

For me, there was no more sublime way to be reminded of that than with music, surrounded by lovers and other strangers outside on an autumn night.

Nevermind the blood stains inside the house.

Make the Most of Our Time

Once upon a time, when my life was very different and so was the Richmond music scene, a new concept took hold.

It was November 2009 when the Listening Room opened up the basement doors of the Michaux house and welcomed in anyone and everyone willing to shut up and listen while the music played, here.

Back then, it was so refreshing to be able to go to a show where you knew you'd be able to hear every note, every harmony. And the string of twinkle lights would reliably fall from the low basement ceiling every time.

Like death and taxes, some things are certainties.

Tonight marked the end of that remarkable string of shows with the final installment of the Listening Room at the Firehouse Theater.

One thing about tonight was non-negotiable: I was going to sit in my usual seat come hell or high water.

So I arrived early enough to stake my territory and hang out with the LR crew whom I've gotten to know over the years. Emcee Chris saw me and said, "I'd have been devastated if you hadn't come."

As if.

When I finally took my seat I was joined by my favorite Jackson Ward couple, also long-time LR regulars.

A few minutes later, photographer Rob, part of the original crew, came over to bring the three of us glasses of bubbly to celebrate our nearly half a decade allegiance to the Listening Room.

One of the LR rules is that shows start on time but tonight's was a tad tardy with emcee Chris taking the stage to acknowledge as much.

He shared that the very first night of the series, Apropos Roasters brought coffee but forgot to bring a grinder. Now, almost five years later, they have an actual coffee shop. Time marches forward.

Appropriately, tonight's first act was Dogs on Main Street, also known as Mac, a fine singer and musician I first saw at the Listening Room back in February 2011 when he was the first one to inaugurate the move from the Michaux House to the Firehouse.

I've seen him many times since  and he only continues to sound less raw and more poignant, although the one thing that hasn't changed is his stellar self-deprecating sense of humor, in full flower tonight.

After his first heartfelt song, he explained that over the next few songs he was going to take us low and then lower and then back up and even higher. "So don't leave," he warned. "I'm not responsible for what happens if you do."

Anyone who had left (no one did) would have missed his second song ending abruptly when a string on his guitar snapped.

He'd come down from NYC on a Greyhound bus and so hadn't brought his usual second guitar. "I'm crashing and burning," he joked.

Mark of second band Vandaveer stepped out of the shadows and offered him a pack of guitar strings, asking, "What do you need?"

A guitar, Mac said and used Mark's to continue while Mark graciously took Mac's guitar backstage to restring it in the meantime.

Singer songwriter and LR originator Jonathan Vassar was called onstage and brought his wife's maternity accordion to join Mac for a song, an obvious mutual admiration society.

"You know what you get for trying to be different?" Mac asked us rhetorically. "A broken string!"

He chose to skip the song called "Gallows" even after he got his guitar returned and restrung, cracking wise saying, "I have download cards, postcards and an overdue credit card."

My favorite lines was, "I'm just an alley cat yearning for something more than this," at least until he played a new song and I heard him sing, "I guess my sins are at an even keel."

Saying that he was still going to be beating himself up about the broken string when he went to bed, Mac shared that at his release show at the Camel, he'd kicked his own cord out. "So what you saw tonight is pretty regular. Come talk to me after the show if I don't seem too unbearable."

Talented, yes. Hysterical for sure. Unbearable, not even a little. Dogs on Main Street is the epitome of what the Listening Room is about.

Talented musician with excellent songwriting chops and distinctive voice is introduced to music-loving masses and becomes part of local scene.

Tonight's crowd was understandably big and I felt a little sorry for those whose first LR was tonight. Imagine experiencing this and knowing it will be no more.

Once the second act began, the LR crew took the stage for a sort of mass farewell. Jonathan entreated us to keep listening. Antonia explained that there were people here tonight who'd been at that first Firehouse show seeing Mac and asked that those of us who'd been at the very first Michaux House show raise our hands.

We were a small group, but undoubtedly with some of the fondest memories in the room.

As he always does, Chris reminded us that the audience was 50% of the LR's success formula and even said, "Karen's been to more Listening Rooms than I have." The man didn't lie.

Next up was Vandaveer, a band I consider my May band. I first saw them in May 2011 and then again in May 2012, meaning I was overdue for my May Vandaveer fix.

They've been on a living room tour since April 1, covering over 13,000 miles with 3,000 left to go before the end of the month.

Leader Mark explained that he lived in Arlington, Virginia, singer Rose in Massachusetts and pedal steel player Tom was from Pennsylvania.

"For those of you keeping score, we play commonwealth music," he cracked. Literate humor, I like that. And if you ask me, it's better described as poetic music.

And I don't just like his voice, I adore his voice, which, as the girlfriend sitting next to me observed, "I even like his speaking voice." Uh huh.

Their sound is sort of alt-folk with his acoustic guitar bumped up with just enough reverb to tread near rock territory but Tom's pedal steel and Rose's exquisite voice on harmony and sometimes lead anchoring things firmly in LR territory.

When Mark mentioned that Tom was a Civil War buff who had spent some hours looking at Richmond's historic sites like Cold Harbor, he called us the birthplace of entrenchments.

"We used to make out there," my friend said leaning in as he husband sat oblivious on the other side of her.

The buoyant "However Many Takes It Takes," a song about perseverance, a subject I know well, won my vote for the line, "I'll be in the kingdom of your dreams."

"Sometimes it requires all arms and legs be on the ground to solve technical difficulties," Mark said at one point, pulling stuff out of the power strip in front of him and then flinging them over his shoulder. "None of that was necessary but it was for dramatic effect."

Dramatic aptly described his voice and Rose's over Tom's pedal steel or slide guitar and each song shimmered with the talent of the three. We couldn't have asked for a finer band to finish out the Listening Room.

For a soulful song about the coming apocalypse, Mark said, "There's nothing you can do except snap and sing along," which is about what I plan to do when the apocalypse finally does arrive.

Off their album of murder ballads from last year ("We sold dozens and dozens of that album"), they did "Pretty Polly" as Mark put it, "Modernized for your contemporary ears." That meant instead of guitar, he sang and stamped on the wooden floor.

We got another from that album when Rose sang "The Drunkard's Doom" and about brought the house down with her exquisite voice, sort of Emmylou Harris-like.

Then there was more literary humor when Mark told of writing a song because of Beverly Cleary and I wondered how many people in the crowd knew who she or Ramona Quimby had been.

Saying he couldn't call it "Ramona" because of Dylan's "To Ramona," he'd titled it "Beverly Cleary's 115th Dream," although he admitted that he didn't know that it was really her 115th.

Peace and love and harmony
and all the things that lovers need
Like hope and health and clarity and time
Oh, precious, precious time

And, just like that, the final Listening Room wound down. Mark called up the entire LR crew - Antonia, Jonathan, Chris, Rob, Nate- and Mac for the big singalong finale, Tom Waits' "Come On Up to the House."

I've no doubt that some of that crew got a bit misty up there singing because I know the long-time regulars in the room felt that way.

It was a really good run and the Listening Room set new standards for shows in this town. Oh, and the bands I discovered through being at almost every Listening Room. All the people I met there.

But it's not the end of the world, It's just a closing of the circle. It's run its course and now we'll have Listening Room Presents shows on an occasional basis.

What matters most is what Jonathan said. Keep on listening.

You better believe I will.

Gypsies, Tramps and Cheese

Ipanema said it first. "You know what this Superbowl needs? More tambourine."

As luck would have it, the Richmanian Ramblers were playing there tonight, thus giving some of us somewhere to go that didn't involve a screen but promised a tambourine.

The band had doubled in size since I'd first seen them, now up to eight musicians, with singer Antonia looking devastatingly beautiful in a black dress with red belt, red earrings and red scarf on her head.

The miracle of it was that all eight of them were somehow able to fit in that tiny front space to which bands are relegated for the monthly Live at Ipanema show.

Perhaps it was the absence of amps.

And while I have seen the Ramblers many times, I've also discovered some really interesting bands for the first time through this stellar series.

It was a small but mighty crowd (with a few jerseys worn) who came out for Romanian folk music set to multiple accordions, upright bass, clarinet, drum/tambourine, guitar and two violins.

Frankly, after a weekend spent in my own company, I'd come not just for the music but for some conversation with whomever I found.

I empathized with the sax player whose car had been towed last night not long after I saw him driving down Broad Street at 12:30 a.m. and chatted with the musical couple who'd just come from performing at a folk mass to a small, Superbowl-ravaged congregation.

It was while I was eating a slice of red velvet cake, or at least all the parts directly attached to the icing, that the band decided to introduce themselves, noting that they'd chosen "ramblers" as part of their name because, according to bassist Nate, "It was the cheesiest name we could have picked.'

Beginning with a wedding song, they moved on to a Croatian song about having dinner with your sweetheart, although not a particularly fancy one given the meal: potatoes, brown bread and scallion.

Nate said that they'd added Croatian and Serbian songs to their repertoire to make things harder on himself and Antonia when they sang.

Well done, sir. 'Cause singing Romanian wasn't hard enough.

We heard a song about how wine tastes better when you drink with attractive people and bad when drinking with ugly ones, necessitating Antonia saying, "My wine tastes good!"

Drinking must be a common theme in eastern Europe, because we then heard, "Little Bottle" with Nate shouting "ha ha!" periodically and a Serbian dancing song where the singer's partners have a different name with every verse.

"I wouldn't be cool with that," Antonia stated for the record.

There was a song about crossing the river, not on the ferry, but on your girlfriend's back ("Which is kind of awesome," she enthused) and one she described as kind of like that song, "I'd Do Anything for Love But I Won't Do That," except in Romanian.

The beauty of the additional musicians was a much fuller sound and more voices for the choruses and inevitable sha-shas and ha-has that seem to run through gypsy music, no matter what the language.

I'd have to say my favorite element was the clarinet, a slithering, sinuous woodwind that wound its way through the other instruments to give the songs a distinctive gypsy sound.

And don't even get me started on the tambourine, the saving grace on Superbowl Sunday.

With only five songs left, Nate explained, "All of these songs have been danced to at some point in the song's history, so you might as well get started on that now."

Sad to say, no dancing commenced.

A song about a young and old man arguing that death was the only cure for life was enlivened by the discovery that the cure for life comes in a bottle. "Let's drink to that!" Nate said and glasses were raised throughout the bar.

After a dirty counting song and the title song of their album, "World, Sister, World" about the cruelness of the world ("Not coolness," Antonia clarified) they ended with a dancing song that still failed to get the crowd dancing.

But it did get them hollering for one more song and the Richmanian Ramblers obliged with a song about a dowry, which may be a romantic topic in Romania because the guy near me put his arm around his girlfriend and cooed, "What about our dowry?"

A smart man would have had her up and dancing five songs ago. Or perhaps that's what they were going to do when they left.

The rest of us happily made do with tambourine instead of pigskin.

Not only was I cool with that, I say let's drink to that. Spoken like a true gypsy.