Them Bones

Friday night's Trolling Bones Revue at The NorVa -- which featured a bunch of reunited punk and new wave bands -- was a mind-expanding evening of musical time travel. Since I didn't arrive in Hampton Roads until the mid-1990s, this event was fascinating to me. It gave me a chance to catch a glimpse of a music scene that was apparently pretty healthy in the 1979 to 1985 era.
I'd like to post something with more detail later, but here are a few impressions about three of the bands I saw:


Thermal Heat -- Funny that my evening started with this angry reggae band. While I'm not sure the exact time line of the bands that played the Trolling Bones Revue, earlier research on the punk and new wave scene in Norfolk led me to The Tropix, a band that blended progressive rock, reggae and the punkish sounds of Patti Smith and early Talking Heads. Thermal Heat took a similar approach, but with a more confrontational attitude. At the NorVa, the band featured guitarist and singer Bink Brown, who also played in two other bands on this particular night, Basic Riffs and Jerry Skids.



Jerry Skids -- Not to be confused with the hardcore band from Boston, this quartet (originally named Jerry's Kids) was the loudest, snottiest, most pissed off band of the evening (although I missed the night-topping set by Left Wing Fascists.) Tunes like "Fucked-Up Ford" and "All I Want's a Harley" were shot, sharp, punch rock songs -- tough and intentionally obnoxious. This was not hardcore punk, however. This is what came before it. In their day, I'm sure Jerry Skids were a refreshingly abrasive alternative to bands trying to sound like Molly Hatchet.




Tango Storm -- This band, which featured singer Bruce Gray, wasn't trying to annoy anyone. But the group was definitely inspired by the Ramones and Elvis Costello. They covered E.C.'s "No Action" and the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated." The band's guitarist (now an executive with Fender guitars) played clean, hard, melodic lines. This was definitely not Johnny Thunders territory. It was something much more refined. But still enjoyable. And Gray is a natural front man who still sounded credible singing originals including "No Rock on the Radio" and "Blow Job."

Let's Get Mauled

(Clint Maul photo from MySpace)

A belated merry Christmas to everyone who stops by Toggle Switch from time to time. Hope you're having a great holiday and that you've got lots of great toys to play with.

Now, down to business. Today I stumbled upon the music of Clint Maul, a songwriter who grew up in the Virginia Beach area, but who eventually relocated to Richmond. Maul has worked as a guitar tech for Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, but the handful of songs I've heard from him are more in an alternative-country vein -- sort of a blend of Paul Westerberg and Steve Earle.

Maul's definitely got a good melodic touch. Read more about him in this profile/Q&A from 2007.

Richmond Toggle Switchers have a good chance to check him out Jan. 2 at Gallery 5 where he'll be playing with Jason Webley, The Hotdamns, Arise, Sweet Donkey! and Alison Self.

Punk, rock and remember

(Daily Planet photo courtesy of Pete Desnoyers)

The new edition of PortFolio sports a nifty new design and a cover story about the punk-new wave good ol' days in Hampton Roads. The coverage sets the stage for the punk-new wave reunion show that's planned for Dec. 26 at the NorVa.

If I'm reading the Web site correctly, the new PortFolio includes a lengthy and enlightening essay credited to Mr. Malcontent about the beginnings of punk rock in our region. Though I may be mistaken, I believe Mr. Malcontent is the pen name of Michael "Beaker" Davye, a source to be trusted on the subject of punk.

Here's a short exerpt, but if this is of any interest to you at all, I encourage you to read the whole piece. It's pretty entertaining:

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If you became a punk in 1980, you weren’t just cutting your hair and buying a copy of London Calling, you were making a commitment. A commitment to be ostracized by lots of your friends, laughed at and threatened regularly. If you were a chick from Virginia Beach, you risked multiple incarcerations in Tidewater Psychiatric Institute by your family for the simple crime of having a punk haircut. More than a few people got thrown out of the house by their parents for a Mohawk. It was amazing how freaked out so-called grown-ups got about it. I’ve literally seen an entire K-Mart brought to a halt because of a couple of punk haircuts and a T-shirt, thanks to Jennifer Jones, Andy Masters and Betony Vernon.


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Art Country

(Andy Friedman photo by Ian Fry)

Marker 20 in Hampton has booked a rare sort of alt-country, roots music show for Saturday night. A band called Andy Friedman and The Other Failures from Brooklyn will play with Norfolk's own purveyors of dirty swing, Rylo.

I'm just learning about Friedman, but I like what I've found out so far. For instance, his list of 100 favorite albums listed on his Web site includes discs by Townes Van Zandt, Jackson Browne, Gram Parsons, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, John Hartford and the Louvin Brothers.

Here's the beginning of a story from the Pittsburg City Paper written by Andy Mulkerin:

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"In the scheme of things, Andy Friedman's musical career is relatively young. In 2002, after years as a professional cartoonist (most notably penning celebrity illustrations for the New Yorker), he began performing, but not as a musician the way most of us picture one. He took to the road with an act that involved live illustrated oral performances -- songs without music, as it were.

More recently, he's come into a more traditional setup, fronting a band called Andy Friedman and the Other Failures and recording his first full-length of gritty alt-country (or "art country," as he's prone to calling it). Taken Man is a collection of clever songs that take the arty and urbane elements that one might expect from a New Yorker illustrator, and mix them with a raw roadhouse sound that one might not.

Friedman, a Brooklyn native, bases much of his songwriting on a sense of unrest and dissatisfaction, tempered with a kind of storytelling that's reminiscent of the old country music from which he draws inspiration. "Guys Like Me Don't Get Grants" is clearly a New York artist's tongue-in-cheek update on the bluesy country of yore. "David Berman," on the other hand, is a clever retelling of how Friedman was once accused of biting the Silver Jews frontman's style (he'd never heard him before) and how he then met Berman and became a fan."

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Sounds promising, huh?

Happy Anniversary, Baby

(Cinemasophia poster photo/MySpace)

Without much fanfare, Toggle Switch marked its 1-year birthday on Dec. 8. As I think back, I realize I've learned so much about music in Virginia simply by paying attention on a semi-regular basis. There's a long list of bands and performers that I've come to know and love through this blog.

As a gift to you, the Toggle Switch reader, I'm planning to post a set of free downloads representing some of my favorite discoveries over the last 12 months. I'm hoping to make it available before Christmas.

In the meantime, allow me to share a couple of news chunklets:

1. The MySpace page and local music resource MC7C recently posted a long, in-depth interview with the Chapel Hill, N.C., electronic musician Mild Davis. Turns out he's originally from Newport News. Read the interview here.

2. Style Weekly's "Local Bin" column included several interesting items last week, including news about the Richmond-based experimental pop band Cinemasophia. The band is supposed to release an album titled "Fits & Cycles" sometime next year. Read the entire "Local Bin" column here.

Pub Crawl

It's been a good weekend in Toggle Switch Land. I've managed to consume lots of music: hard-to-categorize songwriter Erin McKeown at The Boot on Friday, local Celtic champs Poisoned Dwarf at the Newport News Library on Saturday afternoon and Uglyography -- Hampton's premier pop-punk-psychedelic solo act played Goody's in downtown Hampton Saturday night. My own band, the acoustic-rock covers trio Kneeling Drunkards, opened for Uglyography -- and it was all lots of fun.

Mitch from Fantasy was nice enough to hand over his video camera for a few minutes during the McKeown set. Here's the song that I caught.

Steppin' down?

(Poster courtesy of Steppin Out/MySpace)

According to Internet buzz, Steppin Out -- the Virginia Beach dancehall and live music space -- is out of commission as a concert venue. From what I've read, it's a temporary problem and that the place might return to booking shows in the spring. Still, if it's true, it's a blow to the area's live music scene. Steppin' Out has been one of the most active rock clubs in the region for the last year or two. The list of bands that have played there has included The Misfits, Agent Orange and Hieroglyphics.

On the positive side, that same Internet buzz suggests that The Half Shell in Virginia Beach is seeing a change in management and the change may help the place continue its role as a home for original music. Definitely good news.

This sort of listing from side to side is pretty typical of our area, sad to say. It's often a case of one step forward, one step back.

On an unrelated subject ...

Tonight, I ran into Tom Robotham, formerly editor of Port Folio. Since leaving the paper, he's started a new Web site called TReehouse: A Magazine of Possibilities. It's still in its infancy, but it shows promise. I know Tom's a big music head. He mentioned that he heard Prabir and The Substitutes at The Taphouse recently. He dug it.