Pickin' Up the Pieces

It was a jigsaw puzzle of a night, but I made it work, with only one sacrifice.

Much as I hate to admit it, when it came to dinner, Facebook made me do it.

I'd seen a picture of squid ink bucatini with sea urchin carbonara at Secco online and that was that.

Arriving early enough to get prime bar stools, I chose Filicaja Chianti Superiore for the promise of red fruit and spices and was rewarded for it.

Despite a schizophrenic soundtrack that swung from French cafe to indie to dance, I found it a satisfying pastiche.

The bucatini was as beautiful to look at as it was to eat, rich with assertive pig and delicate urchin.

Not long after our bowl appeared, the guy next to us ordered the same.

Next came squash ravioli with brown butter, sage and crushed amaretti, which caused my seatmate to observe, "It's like eating pumpkin pie!"

The savory ravioli bowed to the sweet amaretti in the most delightful way.

Clearly it looked as good as it tasted, because the two girls next to me immediately ordered the same and weren't shy about admitting that they were copying.

Before long, one turned to me and said, "It's like dessert," and promptly ordered a second plate of ravioli.

Because time was running out, we finished with a plate of Olli wild boar salame (cured with garlic and Sangiovese, the very grape I was drinking), Pentaleo  (a cheese tasting of white pepper and lemon) and Sottocenere, ripe with black truffles and an ash rind.

And, just for the record, the housemade apple butter was swoon-worthy, at least for someone like me raised on apple butter.

And then it was off to the movies, specifically the opening of the new Criterion at Movieland.

Walking in to a gaggle of people drinking and schmoozing, I was glad we'd arrived just in time for the remarks portion of the evening before going across the street to see "Not Fade Away."

I knew going in it wasn't going to be a great movie, but its length best fit the rest of my evening, so it kind of won by default.

It didn't hurt that it was a coming of age story set in the '60s with a music soundtrack, either.

The opening black and white scene of Mick and Keith meeting as teens to discuss the records they were listening to soon gave way to color and teens in New Jersey, but the clothes were groovy, some of the period details correct (milk in bottles, everyone smoking everywhere, Archie comic books), but then when was life here as compelling as in swinging London?

I liked the hero's reaction the first time he heard the Beatles on the radio ("What is that?) but wondered if the young audience around me got all the cultural references ("It's a little more McGuinn-ish than we usually do").

I also thought the actor John Magaro was adorable with his thick curly hair and expressive mouth, saying hysterical things like, "They should put more than one of these fat blobs in each can," about pork and beans.

You know the fat blobs he's talking about, or at least I do.

After the movie, I chatted with some theatergoers in the lobby who'd gone into one movie and found it so depressing that they'd changed theaters mid-film.

I admire that kind of determination to make the most of an experience. Why stay put when you can have more fun some place else?

And speaking of, next up was the Camel for music.

Walking in, I got my hand stamped and was immediately greeted by man-about-town Prabir, bundled up in a scarf and knit hat.

"S'up, Karen?" he inquired, as he always does.

We'd get back to that later.

Animal Beat was playing and while I wasn't familiar with them, I certainly knew their keyboard player, Ben Wilson, one of my favorite Richmond musicians.

I heard a couple of folk rock songs, noticed that the bass player was playing shoeless before they announced their last song, "Madhouse."

Next up was DC's Alex Vans and the Hide Away, and they took the stage like they owned it.

From the first note, it was power pop heaven and they didn't let up for a moment.

Their frenetic front man was a long, tall drink of water whose lower limbs shot out non-stop as he played guitar and sang.

'Are you having a god time, Richmond?" Alex called out to us. "I've been drinking a lot and I hope you have, too."

The entire band wore Chucks (Alex's were a bright blue) and their relentless assault of great melodies, killer guitars and relentless drumming had me very glad I'd come.

The bass player was almost as energetic as Alex, moving around the stage and making the best bass player faces ever.

They did a new song called "Weekend," because what power pop group doesn't live for the weekend?

And then there was "Wait."

If I got to take my time
And make my first words rhyme
I know I'd make you mine

For a power pop-loving girl, that really is all you'd need. Just sayin'.

I was sorry to see them leave the stage, but took the opportunity to do some mingling and ended up with Prabir again.

That was a little slice of power pop heaven, I told him. Kind of rare in these parts.

He agreed, likening its scarcity to dinosaurs. "Yea, there used to be a lot of power pop around here, but no more. Kind of like the apatosaurus. Used to be a lot of them around here, but no more."

Leave it to Prabir to make a geeky science analogy, albeit one I thought apt.

Exebelle and the Rusted Cavalcade were up next and they'd morphed a bit since I'd last seen them.

Gone were the banjo, upright bass and mandolin, although the pedal steel remained.

Fortunately, so did Ben Wilson and his keyboard.

It was funny, though because while Ben is my favorite part of E&tRC, his music sensibility is, to my ear, poppier than the others and it comes through in his songwriting and voice.

Tonight it also showed in his wardrobe; he was the sole knit shirt on stage with four plaid shirts.

But luckily the band has four vocalists and all four write songs, so I got to hear some of Ben's stuff, including classics like "Spilt Coffee."

The band is rehearsing for a three hour set at Hardywood, so they'd been working on some covers and we heard the Eagles' "One of These Nights."

I'm inclined to think I was the only one in the room alive when that song came out, but the crowd was incredibly into it, dancing like it was the seventies again.

For the rousing song "Kings, Queens, Princes and Thieves," we were instructed, "If you're ready to punch someone, do it during this song," but instead the crowd danced.

In fact, despite the show stretching on till 1 a.m., the crowd hung in, getting louder and insisting the band keep playing, even after they said goodnight.

Maybe, like me, they'd worked it out just so and wanted to make sure they eked out every last minute of pleasure they could from putting the puzzle together.

Oh, but it's so satisfying when it all comes together.

Enjoying Time with Myself

Gallery 5 After 5 achieved critical geek mass tonight and, yes, I include myself in that mix.

There were comic geeks, engineering geeks, computer geeks, music geeks and, for all I know, cheese geeks (Cabot is a sponsor and a table was laden with the stuff).

All in the name of culture, learning and cheap drinks.

This monthly series always includes music and a lecture and tonight was no different.

pH Balance was supposed to provide the musical entertainment, but I'm here to say that they did not perform a funny and fine set.

They did not have a theme song and they were not present on the stage.

Yes, they told me to say that.

After they didn't perform, Patrick Godfrey of Velocity Comics on Broad Street led a round table discussion with a couple of illustrators and a publisher.

It was interesting hearing the different perspectives of people passionate about comics.

All four of them made it clear that it's a business you have to love because you can't count on making the big bucks doing it.

Or, as Patrick put it, "It's not all limousines and super-models."

I'm not sure if this was disappointing to the dozens of artists in the audience, all of whom had their notebooks open and were drawing throughout the evening.

Tonight's program had a bonus component, a drum-off between a robot drummer and a human one.

This stroke of brilliance was conceived of by none other than local musician Prabir as he sat on his front steps with friends one night.

I feel certain alcohol was involved.

But he'd gathered a quartet of students to create this drumming robot from (wait for it) used HP printer parts from thrift stores.

The paper rollers were attached to drumsticks; that alone is brilliance, in my opinion.

And what does a drumming robot look like, you ask?

It's big and there are drums and high-hats, lights and shiny parts and, because this is RVA, a PBR tallboy in its clutches.

Yes, really.

A sign on its front reads "future artist."

They probably got that idea from some kid at VCU.

Human drummer Kevin Willoughby played and then the robot played. Kevin was much better, but he's been playing since 1994 and the robot since, well, a few days ago.

But he did play and that alone was worth seeing.

I was craving pizza after absorbing all that educational material and non-performances, so I made a bee line for Aziza's.

It appeared to be girls' night out because several tables had clutches of women talking away.

Sliding into the bar, I was greeted by my favorite server who immediately asked if I wanted a glass of tempranillo.

Within minutes, she was telling me about her recent forays into dating again.

Now here was someone I could relate to.

She told me of the overly agreeable one ("No matter what I said, he agreed with it, even if he'd just said the opposite") and the still-wounded one ("He had everything I wanted in a man but he's just out of a relationship").

Coincidentally, I'd met both those types myself within the past couple of months, so it wasn't hard to understand where she was coming from.

She reminded me that you have to wade through a lot of mediocre men before finding a good one.

I somehow devoured my white pizza (despite the rack of ribs I'd had at lunch) as we were talking.

It's so simple yet always so perfectly executed that I never have any slices left for a to-go box.

It would have been easy to linger longer, but I was going to a show at the Camel, so I declined a cream puff and more wine, tempting as they were and said good night.

And damned if the Camel show hadn't started on time, meaning I had missed Liza Bance's performance completely.

Luckily, I hadn't missed Benvolio Wilson's set and he was the main reason I was there.

From his days in We Know, Plato! to his current stint with Exebelle and the Rusted Cavalcade, I have been an enthusiastic fan of this guy's voice, his songwriting and his skillful keyboard playing for a good three years.

I was just sorry I had missed any of his performance.

Headlining was Benyaro, an indie folk duo from Brooklyn, but I heard as much roots rock as folk in their sound.

Ben played guitar and harmonica and Bobby played upright bass; both had soulful voices and played percussion with their feet.

They played a lot of material from their new CD, my favorite of which was probably "Time with Yourself" or maybe "New Orleans."

Boasting a solid sound, they were enthusiastic about playing the Camel for the first time in three years and the crowd responded in kind.

After being introduced by Ben, Bobby self-deprecatingly said, "I really don't know what the f*ck I'm doing, but I'm trying to look good doing it."

I'd be the first to agree with him; he had a fluid move with his hip when he was hitting the drum pedal while playing bass that was awfully appealing (if I were one to notice such things).

Try and recreate that with a robot, my geeky friends.

Or better yet, don't.

Music Three Ways

"I promised to hold the show for you but I didn't promise not to embarrass you."
~ Chris Edwards

I arrived at the Listening Room late, at 7:55, but once again my parking spot was suspect. So, I ran back out to move my car just in case. I returned to the opening remarks by MC Chris, in which he was saying. "And we can begin now because Karen is here." It was after 8:00. Mortifying.

But the music, as always, was terrific. Exebelle and the Rusted Cavalcade were on first and I was happy to see Ben Wilson on keyboards. Ben, formerly of We Know, Plato! is a long-time favorite of mine for his thoughtful lyrics, excellent voice and talented keyboard playing.

E&TRC was unique in that all four members wrote songs and all four sang. We listened to a song by each (Ben introduced his as, "Spilt Coffee, semi-colon, the end" and naturally, I'm a fan of punctuation geeks). Their alt-country sound with banjo, upright bass, mandolin and pedal steel was a pleasure to listen to and I'm not usually a country music fan.

Favorite lyric: Every now and then the craving comes in, The door I thought I had locked. Runner up: My heart needs a slow dance. Any kind of romance. Leave it to country music.

Bluegrass followed in the form of River City Band, a group described as "bluegrass done right," an apt description of this multi-talented group They focused tonight on original material, something they said they don't often get to do. We did hear some traditional songs (Handsome Molly) and a Jonathan Vassar-penned tune as well.

Favorite lyric: Stand up straight, Put a hop in my step, I'm on my way, But I'm not there yet (from Taking a Break from the Blues). These guys are not to be missed.

The Happy Lucky Combo began by describing themselves as a combination tango, klezmer and zydeco group, something between Middle Eastern music and the blues. Then they proceeded to impress.

Their eclectic sound used electric upright bass (even bowed occasionally), accordion and drums. Cotton Pickin' Bulgar was a song about a broken heart, but not written from the view of the breaker or breakee, but instead from that of the friend helping the breakee.

A standout was Zydeco Samba ("Not really zydeco or a samba," we were told) with drummer Pippin Barnett playing a mean and non-stop triangle. It made the song. They finished with a polka because, they said, they didn't know any Hendrix.

And not once did the lights fall.

I then grabbed the friend who had helped me as a breakee and we went to Rosie Connelly's to talk madly after so much intent listening.

This was after she had passed me a note during the show saying "Do you want to be friends? Check One. Yes No Fuck Off." I laughed so hard and had to be silent about it that I almost stopped breathing.

Now that's a friend.