A Leg Up

So maybe I wasn't the very last person invited. Maybe I was just one of the last.

All I know is that when I got home from the beach at midnight last night, there was an invitation to Style Weekly's Best of party at Hardywood awaiting me. As a token of their appreciation for my hard work writing for the issue, two bands (Upper East Side Big Band and Photosynthesizers), lots of local restaurants and beer could all be mine, if I said the word.

I said yes, figuring I'd know a few people, go early and stay just as long as I chose to. Walking out of my apartment, the new guy next door sitting on his porch smiled and gave me an approving nod. "You look really great. Got a hot date?"

Not that I know of. P.S: Second oldest line in the book.

At Hardywood, the party was just starting, so I set out to mingle. I was talking to a restaurant owner about the double whammy of Broad Appetit and today's event, munching on Pasture's ham, pickle and pimento cheese roll, when I heard a familiar voice behind me saying, "I need to say hello to those legs."

You just never know who you're going to run into out of the blue or what's been going on in their life since you saw them last (a tumultuous relationship that didn't sound like much fun and was already over), but it was like old times listening to him critique all the dishes we sampled as we talked.

He was surprised to see I wasn't drinking, having forgotten I don't drink beer. In fact, the first time we hung out over a three-hour conversation, he'd e-mailed me when he got home with a fine compliment: "You'd be perfect if you drank beer." Not true, but flattering.

My friend and former neighbor, the councilman, introduced me to the owner of Paradise Garage, so I got to hear about his fabulous fundraiser parties. Maybe now my invitation will show up in the mail. When we went to try Torero Tapas Bar and Grill's paella, one of the chefs turned out to be a familiar face from another restaurant I frequent.

At the Alamo table, I asked for a sample of everything (although my hands-down favorite is that cowboy caviar) and looked around to see a disappointed-looking singer I've met before. Poor man doesn't eat pork and was having a devil of a time finding anything else at the party. This is a pig-centric town, after all.

Not shy, I didn't hesitate to ask the Alamo server if he had anything non-pig and sure enough, he got barbecued chicken for him from the back. Never hurts to ask...or to score points with a musician

Upper East Side Big Band was playing when I arrived so I caught most of their set, unsurprisingly a lot of clever arrangements of Beatles' songs ("Something" to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"), and then later, part of Photosynthesizers' set as well. I was honestly amazed at how few people were in the room listening to music at any given time.

It was the photographer I'd first met at the "Man Meat" dinner seven years ago who steered me to Goatacado, where, against his advice, I skipped over the Athena for the Mountain Tropp, a killer bowl of warm quinoa, arugula, smoked Gouda, avocado, black beans, plus apple and sweet corn pico de gallo in lime mango sauce.

Apparently I looked like I was enjoying the hell out of it (true story) because twice strangers came over and asked what I was eating because it looked so good. I sent them straight to the goat.

I decided I'd had enough savory to earn my sweet, a chocolate sea salt pop from King of Pops (the guy who handed it to me agreed). I carried it inside, letting it soften, and ran into the talented and energetic actor/singer I'd come to see here Saturday night.

We talked about that show for a minute and he started razzing me about being at Hardywood so often. "Want a beer?" he said, laughing and already knowing the answer. "Gotta ask!"

Outside, I saw a patient Mom occupying her two little ones with the cornhole boxes and before long, her youngest was smiling at me and trying to impress me with his toddler moves. It was very sweet. Then his hip father steps over to speak to me and says, "Are you still doing your blog?"

Hello! Once again, my past had shown up at the party. This time it was a musician I'd met seven or eight years ago when he'd been in a band I'd really liked. I'd interviewed them, been to plenty of their shows but hadn't seen him in eons. Apparently he'd been busy in that interim.

Just as I decided to leave, a friend insisted I try a beer that had been brewed with a wine component, something still in development, but he was praising it for its integration of the two. Couldn't I taste that? I'll take my wine straight, thanks, although not at Hardywood.

Walking to my car, I realized I'd had a far better time at the party than I'd expected, but then who doesn't like getting reacquainted when it comes with sides of compliments and dinner invitations?

Leaving behind that crowd, my next destination was the great outdoors for live music. It's the first of this series I'd made it to this year, despite frequent attendance the last two years.

Plenty of people had brought blankets (a lot of the Indian print kind we all had in college) and beer (although the girl next to me forgot an opener. Duh), but not me. I found a wooden bench with a  good view of the band and got comfortable, scanning the grass for my people. Before long, the organizer came over to say hello and update me on the band tour he's been working on as a roadie.

One thing I noticed right away was that the crowd was larger and more diverse age-wise than it had been in the past, a good thing. Since the organizers insist on no social media about the event, it looks like their goal of community building in real life is working. Hooray for the old ways.

The dance party king showed up and we commiserated about the (possible) loss of Balliceaux. I was certain he'd also been there that last night but I hadn't laid eyes on him. Sure enough, he'd been just as bummed as I was about the loss to the scene

I was happy to see the world travelers arrive, also recently back from their own tour. She thanked me kindly for the blog post about her outdoor birthday party, a laid back and enjoyable night with a potluck supper, a campfire, music on cassette and wide-ranging conversation. I thanked her for providing great fodder for me to write about, not to mention a thoroughly pleasant evening outdoors.

When they didn't recognize the band, Manatree, they asked who it was. "Man, they're babies!" my lanky friend said. If they looked like babies to him, they should have looked like embryos to me.

But of course, they don't because I've seen them plenty of times, although never unplugged like they were in the park tonight. There were even times when the annoying stage-whispering and laughing of self-involved twits near me all but drowned out their voices, guitars, fiddle, flute and tambourine. Only the drum beat out the rudeness.

Do I need to get back on my soap box about talkers not ruining the experience of others? If you go to a show to blather and not listen, at least have the decency to go to the back. Yeesh, I'd swear some people were raised by wolves.

Filling out their sound for the first time tonight were two female singers, also the source of the flute and fiddle playing. It was such a different experience hearing Manatree this way when their usual M.O. is short, hard, fast and loud. Tonight their sound was folky, harmonious and almost pretty.

During one song at dusk, the buzzing insects in the trees around us began humming in time with the tambourine shakes and drumbeats while fireflies lit on and off around our heads. It doesn't get much groovier than that.

It might have been perfect, but I didn't drink beer.

On Being Funny When Jokes are Lies.

You know, it says something about Richmond when I can walk four blocks, pay five dollars and see three bands. I hope. I never stop appreciating that.

And if I do, somebody please smack me.

Make no mistake, it had already been a good day. I'd taken care of a last-minute deadline. I'd had lunch with two interesting women who spend a week every summer taking a 17th century-style batteau down the river. Heck, I'd even seen a lizard in Carver and I didn't even know they had lizards in Carver.

I'd heard a radio show focusing on Philly music, old and new. It caught my ear from two rooms away when I heard the distinctive sounds of Teddy Pendergrass in Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. "The Love I Lost"? Be still, my heart.

But they also had current bands playing in studio, and one particularly mentioned how great the scene is there, affordable and happening. Lots of space to create.

Which it may well be, but you'd have a tough time convincing me it's better than here.

By the time I finished working, the show had already begun, so I hustled out to the sultry sidewalks just after another of the quickie rain showers of the afternoon. Halfway up the block to Gallery 5, I heard beautiful music coming from inside.

It was D.C.'s Hayden Arp, jeans rolled up to just below his knees, and part deadly earnest perfectionist and part open sore. His soft, confessional voice had an audience member (and my hero) giving the international "shush" symbol (hand at throat) to two girls laughing loudly during his set.

This was someone to listen to intently. "The next song is electronic but I'm not going to play it electronically except the amp for my guitar. It's called, I don't know what it's called." When I say he may be too busy feeling deeply to have time to name songs, I mean it as a sincere compliment.

On some songs, words ended softly in the back of this throat, echoing Morrissey's pathos, albeit without an electric guitar and band behind him.

He closed with the soaring "Gabrielle," which he mentioned he's been working on for four years due to internal and external emotions. "It means a great deal to me." That came through in the grandeur of the song, making me sorry I'd missed any of his set.

Considering how young the chill audience was - mostly I saw a big "X" on almost everyone's hands - they probably didn't notice, but his voice and style reminded of young Sufjan Stevens before he discovered disco. For tonight's crowd, that would have been roughly while they were in elementary school, though.

Next up was Lucy Dacus (wearing high-waisted jean shorts I'm pretty sure I owned in 1985) whom I'd seen a couple of times before. Tonight she was backed up by 3/4 of the band Manatree, adding a fuller sound and harder edge to her sound, all of which I liked. Relentless drums were chased by guitars and bass while her husky yet strong voice drove it all.

After pummeling us with hard and fast twice, she proved she could go tender and only occasionally strong in the third song and showed her wit with an anthem couched in a little reverb, "I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore."

I don't wanna be funny anymore
I got a too-short skirt, maybe I could be the cute one?

Strong songwriting (lyric: "raised in the era of the milkman") and a distinctive voice (fans of Neko Case would approve) on songs about first love (for the record, she doesn't believe in it) and pillars of truth kept the small crowd inside for every minute of her set.

Telling us it was her Mom's birthday but that she hadn't shown up "Better things to do, I guess"), she then asked a friend to record her and the band as they did a full version of "Happy Birthday" to her Mom with the crowd singing along.

When the crowd called for an encore, Manatree's singer Jack jumped onstage with his band mates. "Looks like my set's been hijacked," Lucy said, surrendering her guitar to him for one Manatree song, which I recognized from having seen them several times.

Part of the crowd moved on at that point, a shame since they missed Boston's Western Den, a quartet of acoustic guitar, keyboards, cello and trumpet with three singers.

"Hi, we're Western Den and we're going to play some really sad folk songs for you," the female singer said. Halfway into the first song, I felt like there should have been lit candles on the stage to complement the mournful horn and ethereal harmonies they were putting out. It had a positively Irish folk sound to it.

If you liked the Romantic poets, this was your band.

A songs like "Eden" began with a hymn first and while I'm as heathen as they come, the three-part harmonies could only be described as heavenly, with just enough echo on the microphone to pretend we were in a castle or garden where the songs were set. They even sang rounds and how often do you hear that beyond childhood and camp?

We learned that the cello player was a recent addition from Los Angeles and that his cello was carbon fiber. By that point, it was tough to imagine what they would have sounded like cello-less because it was such a key piece of their sound.

The guitar player - who also sang some lead vocals- said it was their first time in Richmond. "You guys are so nice here," he gushed. Aw, shucks, we're nothin' but some southerners.

"Tumbling Down" necessitated her saying, "We're not sad people, we just write sad music," before playing a new, unrecorded song ("You heard it here first") and a Saintseneca cover (if you don't know them, look them up"), sounding like a chamber pop take on the Mamas and the Papas if they were just sad and not also obsessed with who was sleeping with whom.

"Desert Grand" was a sumptuous soundscape and their encore song was described as "a very sad folk song" to differentiate it from all the other merely sad ones. The trumpet player left the stage for that song and we learned that he'd recently announced he was leaving the group.

"If you know any trumpet players who sing, send them our way." Yes, do, because the horn works really well with her beautiful voice and expressive hands when she's not playing keys or guitar.

We've got plenty of great trumpet players, but who'd want to give up Richmond for Boston? What I mean is, what musician could afford to give up Richmond for Boston? Do they have $5 shows four blocks from home there?

And while we're checking, do they even have lizards in Boston? Could I be the cute one?

Understanding the Melody

Today's weather was the evil twin of yesterday.

I wish I'd written that, but I didn't, I just read it and thought it was brilliant. Despite the cold, the rain and the persistent gray, I walked to Church Hill and back. And then promptly called a Church Hill friend to suggest we do dinner.

After getting so much done this afternoon that I was drunk on my productivity, I was ready for a good night. Friend picked me up in the fog and we spent several pleasurable hours catching up and chowing down.

Since I'd last seen him, he'd become an official old man - advised by his doc to take meds for high blood pressure and cholesterol and to get more exercise. Although he'd picked up the prescriptions, his plan was to hang on for a few years and then ignore the doctor's advice like his 80-year old mother does about her health.

This seems to be a trait that runs in middle-aged men. Tragic, really.

We compared notes on the InLight installations we'd seen in Monroe Park a few weeks ago, although he'd missed my favorite, the candlelit interior of the cathedral, a breathtaking sight I will never forget. But he had pictures of himself with various light pieces and I didn't, so he had better show and tell.

I tried to convince him to join me for a show afterwards, but he pulled another old man move, citing an early morning and dropping me off at Gallery 5 so he could go home and to bed. It was 8:00.

We all do what we have want to do.

Technically, the show was free, but I made a donation at the door because - I'm getting on my soapbox here - people deserve to be paid for sharing their talent and went inside.

There, I was unexpectedly greeted by Richmond Graphics' vintage poster show from the '70s and '80s. Besides the quality of the posters graphically (nothing computer generated here), it was amazing to see the shows that passed through VCU before I got here.

Like Nils Lofgren at the Empire Theater April 30, 1977 - tickets were $2 for VCU students and $4 for the public. While this poster probably only resonates with Springsteen fans these days, I was that girl who had Nils' first album and played it to death. Even bought a replacement copy of it two years ago.

Apparently VCU's Halloween Dance was a big deal back in the day. One year the Talking Heads played the new gym and another the Ramones played the old gym. Those must have been some dances.

Since I hadn't been expecting art tonight, I was pretty thrilled with such a stellar start to my evening.

Inside, I found a place to stand next to the radiator (merely warm, not hot, as I would have wished) and scanned the room for familiar faces. Slim pickins for friends tonight.

Manatree started playing minutes after 8, a fact I appreciated since so many shows punish the punctual and reward the tardy. I was amused to see that the bass player had draped his "Bieber" jacket across his amp.

Looking at these impossibly young musicians, I found something awfully familiar about them despite being quite sure that I'd never seen Manatree before.

Then it hit me. These guys used to call themselves Herro Sugar and I'd seen them many times, always impressed with their musicianship, energy and short, fast songs. A rose by any other name and all that.

At one point, singer Jack said, "Tristan, to my right over here, is going to sing the next one and do a fine job, too." The bass players crossed his fingers at this. For the record, Tristan did an outstanding job with his song.

During the slower song "Children," the bass player and drummer began fighting with plastic swords behind Jack as he sung, eventually laying down their arms and playing music again. It looked like everyone was having a great time.

Who knows why they changed their name (there couldn't have been multiple Herro Sugars, I wouldn't think)? All that matters is that they continue to develop into a band worth seeing.

During the break, I walked back over to look at the posters, overhearing an intense conversation. "You understand the melody in a more sophisticated manner," one intense bearded guy said to another. If you say so.

Back at my radiator, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to find my favorite dulcitar player at my side. He'd played Gallery 5 just last night but I'd missed the show so it was a treat to see him tonight. Actually, it's a treat to see him any time.

The next band was Recluse Raccoon and consisted of simply a singer/guitarist and drummer. Clearly we were in for something completely different.

He had a fine voice and well-written sings but I couldn't put my finger on what the sound reminded me of. About the closest I could come was a stripped down Band of Horses or Fleet Foxes, no doubt because of that voice and dense guitar sound.

When they finished, we were joined by a bass player I've seen many times but never met. I told her how much I'd enjoyed her new project at the Sound of Music show last week and she looked pleased. Before that, I'd only seen her playing in Fear of Music, a cover band.

Like us, she'd come out for a good show on a Tuesday night. No more of a reason than that was required. The three of us talked about what a great scene Richmond has and why it's completely unnecessary to move to a bigger city to make it. Witness all the people who do and end up moving back. We're just saving ourselves the trip.

The main event was NYC's Friend Roulette, a collective of guitarist, bassist, drummer, singer/violinist and (as I learned tonight from my musician friend) an EWI player. It looked like an electronic clarinet to me but was explained as a breath controller, essentially an electronic wind machine with a synthesizer inside.

The result was almost chamber pop, with a dreamgaze element. I'm a sucker for a female-fronted band especially when you throw in lush, dense music too. Songs tended to be soundscapes, long and meandering journeys for singer Julia to work her vocal wiles on the crowd. I succumbed immediately. "Stoned Alone" was particularly appealing.

Taken from life experience? I guess I'll never know.

But I could have killed the cutesy couple who planted themselves directly in my sight line just as their set began because they were either talking or sucking face while I tried to see around them.

Matt, who played the EWI and came across as the bandleader, thanked us for coming. "This is the start of a two week vacation for us playing music every night," he said excitedly. That's about the best way to look at a tour I've heard.

Standing there against the radiator listening to this eclectic and dreamy-sounding band seemed like proof positive of what a great place Richmond is.

Oh, excuse me, does your city have free concerts with three excellent bands on a Tuesday night? In a city where you don't have to work two jobs to support yourself? Where you can actually make a difference in what happens?

Too bad. It must be the evil twin of Richmond.