Enter Rap and Doughnut Holes

So I'm just another archivist out on on a rainy night.

I'm getting tired of hearing/reading all the complaints about the wet weather (you don't hear the Seattleites whining, do you?) so I picked my dinner partner based on his sunny attitude.

"Hey, everyone, don't hate me, but I am loving this rain," he wrote earlier today and I immediately e-mailed him asking if he was free for dinner.

I, too, was loving this weather and I wanted to be with someone who felt the same.

His only stipulation for eating out was frugality, making City Dogs a shoe-in.

Tuesdays Richmond dogs (mustard, chili, onions) are only a buck and what could be cheaper than that?

So we met at the Fan location where every seat except four bar stools were taken.

Apparently cheap dogs and rain (oh, and $4 PBR tall boys) are a marriage made in heaven in this town.

We coordinated on our sides, me ordering onion rings and him cole slaw, him telling our server he was looking for a healthy side.

"Yea, we don't really do healthy here," he grinned.

Nor was that why we were there.

In fact, we both loaded our chili-laden dogs with slaw and then shared the rings.

I even ordered a chocolate milk shake, ensuring, as my Richmond grandmother would have said, that I was headed to hell in a hand basket.

The thing is, they bring you the silver milkshake blending cup with the extra in it along with your shake so even when you finish, you still have all that extra shake to replenish your empty glass.

Grandma was right.

We split up after that, he to a meeting and me to the Listening Room for music.

Tonight's show was curated by WRIR DJ Shannon Cleary, who had asked some of his favorite musicians to play acoustic.

It was also the first Listening Room without Jonathan Vassar and his lovely wife, Antonia, because their stork visit is imminent.

Their absence made for all kinds of adaptation; Rob's hand-stamping skills were suspect and Chris forgot to notify Dixie Donuts, so we missed out on everyone's favorite treats, making do with doughnut holes from god knows where.

But we soldiered on.

I greeted organizer and emcee Chris, who introduced me to the bartender, saying, "Karen has been to more of the Listening Rooms than I have."

It was high praise, but then I have been to 35 of the 37 and one of the ones I missed was because I was in another country.

Okay, so I'm bragging.

My usual Listening Room pals were notably absent but fortunately, my favorite seat was free and I made eyes at a standing friend and the seat next to me until he got the hint and came over.

Introducing Ben Shepherd, Shannon observed, "It's safe to say that the characters in Ben's songs are troubled," and went on to list what ails them.

I've heard Ben many times and admire his insightful and literate lyrics and beautiful voice but for a lot of people, it was their first time experiencing him.

He's a long, tall drink of water clad in an army jacket and old brown lace-up boots that caused the scientist sitting next to me to nudge me and say, "Cool boots."

Ben dedicated a poignant song to anyone who'd ever lost a friend to dope, did a sweet song called "Silver Dog" and cracked wise.

"Shannon described about half the songs I'm going to play, but that's okay. I wouldn't have done it, but it's okay."

Ben took a swig from his PBR between every song, a slight variation on one of my favorite Sprout shows where he took a long pull on a bottle of red wine between songs.

Favorite lyric:
I can't fathom or really understand
The world that existed before I was born

After the break, Shannon brought up two of his favorites, Matt Seymour (from Pedals on Our Pirate Ships) and Harris Mendell (of Sundials) to trade songs for us.

It was especially interesting hearing these two play acoustic, not their usual format.

And they were as funny as a comedy duo, with Harris waving his arms over his head as Matt sang and Matt playing and picking silently, doing the exact same thing Matt was playing but without sound.

Shannon had asked them to do a few of his personal favorites, so Matt did "Peter Pan Syndrome," with the terrific lyric, "Will you be my Wendy? Will you be my Tinkerbell? Don't be silly, you can be my Tiger Lily still."

Harris sang a song, "Completely Broken," about coming down Harrison and turning east on Clay into oncoming car headlights.

"It's a song about letting something bad happen to you," he explained about an area mere blocks from my house.

One song Matt began singing in more typical Pedals on Our Pirate Ships fashion (loud and brash) before saying, "Sorry, guys," and taking it down to singer/songwriter mode.

He even inserted a guitar solo ("This is the funky part") and finished by turning to Harris and boasting, "Beat that!"

Harris rose to the challenge with a song about going to community college and an Archers of Loaf cover that Matt lip-synced to.

"This is the first time I ever heard Ben Shepherd," Harris said. "He's really good."

And that's the best part of a show like tonight's. I'm sure a lot of people heard musicians they'd never heard or never would have heard otherwise.

And, let's face it, this town could use some some cross-pollination when it comes to various music scenes.

Can't we all just listen to each other?

While the crowd had been thinner than usual to start the evening, the satisfying  part was that people continued to arrive so there was still a good crowd when Shannon got up to introduce Isaac Ramsey.

"First I want to thank some of the people off the top of my head who take the time to archive some of the music shows that happen here, like tonight," and went on to mention assorted groups (The Listening Room, RVA Magazine) and bloggers, like yours truly.

It was a very generous thing to do and a reminder that if someone doesn't record all these show memories, eventually they'll be lost.

But enough patting myself on the back.

Isaac began by saying, "I don't know how I'm going to follow the comedy of Matt and Harris," no small feat.

But I laughed immediately when he introduced his rap, "85 Bears," saying, "It's not necessarily about the team. It's about winning...and white flight."

I'd seen Issac before, both rapping as Swordplay and as part of the band Double Rainbow and his songwriting and rhyming skills are exceptional.

Isaac was undoubtedly the Listening Room's first rapper, albeit a very melodic one with a fine voice who played guitar (as well as percussion on his guitar).

He dedicated "Song for the Dead," with the tantalizing lyric, "Existence is a human assumption,"to "Anyone who lost someone last year."

Then he snuck in new material.

"This is a Double Rainbow song so new we haven't played it out yet," Isaac said by way of introduction. "So if you see Jamie, don't tell him."

If I saw Jamie, not that I know Jamie, I would tell him what a great song it was.

Isaac said, "This song is called "Mr. Rosenberg" and I'm pretty sure the story behind it is better than the song."

He proceeded to tell the story, which was disturbing and true, but the song was a worthy counterpoint, no matter what he said.

At first he called "Lay Down" another song about death, but changed that and called it a song about life.

Then he got up as if to leave, instead going backstage for another guitar.

"I did something I never do," he explained. "I brought two guitars so I wouldn't have to tune in front of you. I did that partly for me, but mostly for you. Okay, I have to tune a little."

He needn't have worried about not being funny with lines like that.

But it was his last comment that best summed up the evening.

"Based on how awesome this night was, I think I probably don't come to the Listening Room enough.

But then, who does, other than little miss 35 of 37?

Given tonight's genre-bending show, I bet a lot more people will be more assiduous about putting it in their calendar.

After all, why fathom or try to understand a world that existed before the Listening Room?

Like the Dixie Donuts that usually accompany the music, it's there every month for the taking.

Music for the Missed

I had no idea that the VMFA had been showing movies to the public since 1948 when I walked into tonight's screening of Louis Malle's Pretty Baby, part of November's movie theme, "photoplay."

Interestingly enough, the film had a couple of tie-ins to the current Sally Mann exhibit. In the film, the photographer Bellocq (played by Keith Carradine) uses a camera very similar to that which Mann uses.

And when the film first came out, there were many who felt that it crossed into the arena of child pornography, much like the derision directed at Mann's early 1990s photographs of her nude children.

But the cinematography of the 1978 movie was spectacular; it came across like a sepia-toned photograph out of the era portrayed, 1917 New Orleans. Susan Sarandon was very young and beautiful (especially nude) and Brooke Shields truly looked like a 12-year old and not a 16-year old playing younger.

The images of adult life as seen through the eyes of a child was unquestionably sad, but only in an historical sort of way; yes, child prostitution is appalling, but it was commonplace in 1917. Fact.

In the post-screening discussion, audience members agreed that such a film could never be made today in this country due to political correctness. Something similar would almost have to be made by a European, just like it was in 1978.

I left the museum with images of sultry candlelit meals on screened-in porches and headed to the candlelit confines of Sprout for a very special music show.

Tonight was a tribute to the late Nathan Joyce, a talented local musician with ties to many of the musicians currently performing in Richmond. The show hadn't quite begun when I arrived, so I took a stool at the bar and ordered some cheese hushpuppies and a root beer.

As musicians and friends came in, I had plenty of people to talk to. After a bit, the bartender brought over a glass of wine and asked, "Do you drink wine?" Why, yes I do. It was a mis-pour so he randomly donated it to me.

My friend Isaac had escaped his hosting job early enough to join me at the bar, so now I had wine and great company. He was one of the musicians playing in the show tonight, but for the moment, he just wanted a lager and a blather and so he had both.

I'm ashamed to say that we talked through the first two bands before moving into the back room for Now Sleepyhead's set. These guys are a favorite of mine and haven't played a show in over a year, so tonight's set was a pretty big deal. They had new material and were in fine voice (and French horn). I only hope they plan to start playing more again.

Between sets, a horror film Nathan and a friend had made was shown and it got great laughs from the audience for its spurting blood and deadpan dialog. It was a touching way to bring Nathan into the room visually tonight.

Isaac played next, two songs solo and two songs as part of his band Double Rainbows. Best put, he/they kicked ass and took numbers. He's got such a great voice plus he's an incredibly literate songwriter; the combination had the crowd enthralled and impressed. There was a lot of buzz after their set.

Ophelia, playing as a duo, followed and I already knew what a treat we were in for because Jonathan had told me their set list at the Listening Room Tuesday night: three REM covers.

Tonight he explained to the audience that he and Nathan were both huge REM fans and that Nathan was the only other person he ever knew other than himself who knew all the words to "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)," cementing their friendship.

Jonathan and David began by saying "We need Isaac for this," and then played "Driver 8" and "Don't Go back to Rockville" before launching a crowd singalong to "End of the World." I admit it, I was singing right along (badly, but singing). That's some classic stuff right there; who doesn't have REM somewhere in their past?

Lobo Marino closed the show, appropriate because lead singer Jameson had organized the evening's tribute. They played one song that Jameson and Nathan had written together ("the hit, Animal Hands") and treated us to a new piece off their upcoming album. Their energetic set was the perfect finish to a stellar evening of music.

I tried complimenting Isaac on his amazing set before I left, but he admitted he didn't take flattery well. Nevertheless, as I stood outside Sprout talking to half of Now Sleepyhead about the show, he knocked on the window and made the heart sign on his chest.

Just a guess, but I think that meant that he liked my words. Fair enough, because I was even more impressed with his. And he can sing his, unlike me.

Hopefully Nathan heard all the music in his honor tonight because it was a hell of a show.