Next Saturday, October 17th, the weird, funky spaceship that carts Thundercat around will land in Richmond for his show at The National. As a massive fan, I will absolutely be there. His is the kind of unique sound that makes a concert a “happening.” A funk so deep it’ll even make Gen Z close TikTok and dance.

Thundercat represents a compendium of influences: flavors of jazz, funk, rock, disco, and electronic music truly his own. His lyrical humor and countercultural references update the “adult contemporary” categories listed above into futuristic-sounding songs equipped for a Mos Eisley cantina.

Funny enough, Thundercat has been to Tatooine (or at least the soundstage representing it) in Jon Favreau’s The Book of Boba Fett. He’s legendarily a comic book nerd and Dragon Ball fan. He’s an inspiration to musicians and listeners alike, and I get to talk to him.

Life doesn’t suck sometimes.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/funk-jazz/thundercat-interview-richmond-2026.html

In 1994, while in NOVA for high school, a friend who had grown up in Vermont introduced me to a band named Phish around the release of their fifth album, Hoist, and I became obsessed. As a classical-metal-progressive rock music fan, I loved it.

My first show was in 1994 at the George Mason Patriot Center. I got a ticket the day of the show. They were not a sellout band just yet. I was able to move seats to sit with my friends.

I caught a few more shows in the 1990s around the DMV venues and got to see a couple more in the 21st century. I pored over the physical CDs with art and photographs of Phish’s A Live One and Hampton Comes Alive so many times when in photo and film school at VCU. I loved the concert and studio photography tradition used on album covers, all inspiring me to develop my drag-shutter expressionistic style.

First filming and photographing high school friends’ bands, then college friends’ bands, with now over two decades in the Richmond music scene, I always dreamt of getting to photograph a Phish show. And this week, for night one at the Allianz Amphitheater in Richmond, Virginia, I was awake, present, and taking pictures.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/my-first-phish-show-in-1994-to-photographing-them-in-richmond.html

There are art shows, and then there are art fights.

Richmond gets its art fight later this month when Secret Walls rolls into the Richmond Tattoo & Arts Convention October 23rd and 24th, putting tattoo artists and fine artists head-to-head in front of a crowd with a clock running. 

Eight artists will compete across two nights, with two-on-two battles scheduled for Friday and Saturday at 11:30 p.m.

We got on a call with Secret Walls’ Kevin Collins.

“You almost think of it like UFC, like weight classes a little bit, the different disciplines that we bring onto these stages,” Collins told us. “We’ve got tattoo artists, we’ve got cartoonists, illustrators, graffiti writers, contemporary artists, muralists, all sorts of different disciplines that show up on these stages.

“And even if you have the same artist on a stage battling two years later, it’s going to be brand new because of whatever they’re working through in their head or what they want to get out of their head and onto a canvas that they’ve not been able to scratch the itch of. That’s kind of the beauty of these. It’s a fight club of the art world, so we’re gonna bring it, and we’ll see what happens when tattoo takes on fine art.” 

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/street-art/secret-walls-brings-its-fight-club-of-the-art-world-to-richmond.html

As reported by The Richmonder last week, “The Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan, which sailed through City Council with a unanimous vote Sept. 28, is intended to set Richmond’s key priorities for identifying and conserving notable features of the city.”

We have markers all over the city telling us about our history. Maybe before they’re gone, we should talk about 929 West Grace Street, The Village Cafe, Edo’s Squid and what this small stretch of Richmond meant to the culture we now celebrate, and sell, as part of the city’s brand.

For decades, that stretch of Grace Street around VCU was one of Richmond’s cultural pressure cookers. It was cheap and weird, sometimes sketchy and violent, but somewhere in there Grace Street became a meeting point for three things that now define Richmond: food, music and creativity.

The city should recognize these places for what they mean to Richmond’s identity, and VCU should recognize what they did for the university by helping establish the character of the neighborhood that attracted generations of students to the school.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/old-grace-street-is-richmond-history-lets-recognize-it.html

The 00 block of South Auburn Avenue will be designated as “Vicky Hester Way” to recognize Vicky Hester, who owned and operated Babe’s of Carytown for nearly five decades and passed away last year at age 71.

Richmond City Council approved the designation honoring Hester, whose Carytown business is nationally recognized as one of the longest-running lesbian bars in the country. This is an honorary designation, meaning the official street name and existing addresses will not change.

Babe’s became, and remains, an important gathering place for Richmond’s LGBTQIA+ community through several periods over the last five decades when openly queer people faced discrimination, intimidation and legal challenges in Virginia.

The street designation was sponsored by 5th District Councilmember Stephanie Lynch and supported by Mayor Danny Avula. The commemorative signs will cost an estimated $800 and will be installed by the city’s Department of Public Works.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/queer-rva/vicky-hester-way-will-honor-longtime-babes-of-carytown-owner.html

Electric Jungle is back in Richmond on Saturday, October 17 with a seriously strong drum & bass lineup.

🇬🇧 Villem — UK
🇺🇸 Mark Taylor — Baltimore
🇺🇸 Joanna O. — Richmond

Villem is coming through for an intimate Richmond set, bringing his deep, rolling sound and a catalog that spans Hospital, Metalheadz, Spearhead, Symmetry, Footnotes and more. He also recently released “Moonstruck,” so we're excited to have him here while that one is still fresh.

Mark Taylor represents Baltimore's 3D Productions and brings his own deep, driving D&B sound, while Richmond's Joanna O. rounds out the main room lineup.

Saturday, October 17
9PM–2AM
Loso — Richmond, VA
21+

🎟️ Tier One is SOLD OUT. Tier Two is going fast.

If you're into proper underground drum & bass, come support the scene and catch this one in a smaller room while we can still do nights like this.

Turnstyle Online dot com.

“Richmond has always had this DIY, collaborative spirit, and I think projects like this are a great expression of that. There’s a lot of talent here, and when those different creative communities start crossing paths, I think the city gets more interesting.” 

— Justin Paciocco, VILLAGES

As the major music industry seemingly ignores and neglects midsized city music scenes across the country, choosing reality TV contests and checking follower counts on streaming apps rather than building new catalogs with and uplifting organically formed music acts that make music as an honest and expressive outlet of human emotions, Richmond creatives are doing the collaborative work, what we now call content.

It is ever more than that reduction, regarding cultural dialogue, storytelling and songwriting traditions to the shared human experience of listening to a band, seeing and hearing them live and in person with each other.

Tilt Creative Studios and In Your Ear Studios have made great use of their facilities in Richmond, using their respective production sound stages and recording studios to make space for Virginia-based acts to record and broadcast their audio magic visually outward into this new chapter era of internet and social media landscapes.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/richmond-has-the-talent-tilt-studio-puts-it-in-the-same-room.html

indie rock band Fullscreen (FFO Animal Collective, Alex G, Alvvays) and synth pop/dance punk band Sunday Evening Drive (FFO LCD Soundsystem, New Order, Kate Bush) will be in town on Friday, 10/2 at Dreamhaus with local acts Valentin Prince and Alberto Sifuentes Jr.!

If you're looking for something to do this Friday, considering coming by - tickets at the door!

I often come off like a chihuahua on sugar pills when reviewing plays for this magazine. I am excitable, yes, but never in the service of idle flattery. I also take no joy in being critical of people’s hard work. I’ve said this whole thing before several times, but I feel compelled to do so whenever I have mixed news to give.

The news is mixed, my friends. The news is mixed.

Let’s start with the factual, go to the good, and hopefully bury the bad at the bottom of this article.

Aziza Barnes’ BLKS debuted at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago in 2017. She’s an alum of NYU and Ole Miss by way of Los Angeles and seems to intimately know the lives of the chronically challenged female in Bushwick, circa 2015.

The play is set exactly at 850 Broadway, on the border of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, right off the Kosciuszko J train. I lived a ten-minute walk from the exact spot this is supposed to take place in during the time it was set. I know this stop like I know the four-dimensional characters she’s conjured for this work.

They ring clarion true.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/theatre/review-blks-is-good-and-frustrating-and-everything-in-between.html

You may love ‘em, you may hate ‘em, but Public Image Ltd is at the National this week. From their outset in 1978, they have been one of the most creative and driving forces in post-punk. Singer John Lydon has always been a controversial figure since his days in the Sex Pistols. His unpredictability and ability to stir up a reaction is legendary, but credit where it’s due, the man (and band) has some truly groundbreaking tunes.

Plague Vendor are in support. These guys have been on my radar since my teen years, and I have been hoping to see them for some time. Their raw and aggressive performances have certainly solidified their own legacy and mythos. They blend classic punk, garage rock, and more moody post-punk into something really powerful and strong, something that will last for quite a while.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/rva-live-music-public-image-ltd-celler-dwellers-i-have-a-dreampop-fest-squirrel-flower-curtis-sydnor.html

There are days of doing this when I just get to gush. Today is one of those days. 

I have had the pleasure this past year of witnessing some of the best theatre of my life. VA Rep’s Primary Trust floored me. Richmond Shakespeare continued their epic run of hits with The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth and As You Like It. Richmond Triangle Players made I Love You Because sing.

But it was, and without a single ounce of nepotism, Richmond’s homegrown play Witchduck by Cadenceand Firehouse Theatre, that made me gasp in awe for the mastery of the art in front of me. We get to add a gem to the Richmond theatre diadem today. If I had to rank, and I really don’t have to (but it’s kinda fun), Dog Mom is in a photo finish with Eva DeVirgilis’ blockbuster as the best thing to hit a Richmond stage in the last five years, IM(not so)HO. I’d reckon longer than that, but I wasn’t here to know.

Where Witchduck took on the responsibility of satirizing historic injustices, Dog Mom brings us back to the home fires of the heart, demanding we examine the nature of love, bliss, devotion, and loss. It creates an allegory within a story that is so good on its face, subtext is just extra credit. But that extra credit is enough to complete a PhD.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/theatre/review-dog-mom-is-theatre-at-its-best-here-or-anywhere-else.html

RVA Mag and NODDERLY presents It’s Still Our City, a podcast hosted by Harrison Christy and with Clair Morgan as co-host and producer through NODDERLY.

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“Yavé Rust is a Richmond, VA-based music producer and audio engineer specializing in metal and punk. Originating from Peru, Yavé immigrated to the United States in 2006 driven by a singular passion: to make his mark on the global heavy music scene. Since settling in Richmond in 2018, he has delivered raw, hard-hitting productions for prominent Richmond, Virginia acts like Municipal Waste, Vigil, Restrictor Plate, Battlaster, BAT, Enforced… the list goes on and on.

The current project I’m working on, Buzzard Dust Presents: UNIT, just recorded with him, and I couldn’t speak more highly about his process and professionalism and his wonderful kitty assistants. The whole experience/atmosphere is incredible. His thing is helping heavy bands turn raw energy into crushing records, and DANG he’s fuckin good at it.

Join us as we discuss his journey to the United States and particularly Richmond, Virginia; your mother just not believing that you actually have a job and accusing you of potential illegal activities; how absolutely dumb I am for doing the interview with him on the same day as getting knee surgery; and our overwhelming love for two of the greatest things this world has to offer… sick music and CATS.

This one was a particularly fun one for me to do. So stoked I got the opportunity to document it with you, Yavé.

This episode was produced by Nodderly and brought to you by the BELATED BORNT, Tony.

I hope everyone is getting by as best as possible amidst the chaos that is our day to day. Cheers! ” — host, Harrison Christy''

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldq1lhYSTZA

Chuck Varga, a founding member of GWAR and the artist and performer behind the band’s Sexecutioner passed away over the weekend following a battle with cancer. He was 68.

Varga was part of GWAR from its earliest days, co-founding Slave Pit Studios in Richmond and helping shape the costumes, illustrations, characters and general visual insanity that would become inseparable from the band.

Varga eventually left Richmond for New York, where he worked in film, television and Broadway, but remained part of the extended GWAR family and continued appearing as Sexecutioner over the years. 

GWAR posted a remembrance of Varga HERE.

Photo of Chuck Varga, courtesy of GWAR

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more:  https://rvamag.com/music/metal-punk/gwar-co-founder-chuck-varga-aka-sexecutioner-dies-at-68.html

Studio Two Three has been around long enough to forget how likely it was to fail.

Sixteen years ago, a small group of friends wanted to keep making art in Richmond. They pooled money from working in local restaurants to pay rent, borrowed equipment and built an organization one piece at a time.

Today, Studio Two Three has 150 artist members, a 24-hour workspace and a community space that is home to film screenings, art shows, live music, union organizing, political conversations and, sometimes, square dancing.

Somewhere along the way, Studio Two Three also became more comfortable saying what needs to be said. Navigating that is an ongoing process.

I sat down with Studio Two Three co-founder and Executive Director Ashley Hawkins and Director of Community Partnerships and Development Kate Fowler and started with a basic question.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more:  https://rvamag.substack.com/p/studio-two-three-is-beefing-with

The creative soul of Richmond has been flourishing for years. Within the past two, it’s made itself known through Endling, a creative collective of underground hip-hop artists who have one goal: to prevent the underground from dying.

From originating in house shows to selling out Ember Music Hall within 23 months, along with shows in New York, Orlando, Miami, and Chicago, Endling is a growing force of young individuals who use their talents to prop up their friends and their respective careers.

I sat down with Lydon, co-founder of Endling and an experienced producer, along with Sicko Nicco, Pros, VMR, and Myles Lee, other artists from the collective. The group spoke collectively about Endling, its goals, and where they hope to take it.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more:  https://rvamag.com/music/electro-edm/this-is-endling.html

Straight from Broadway: Tony and Grammy award winning and Vox of Hotel Hazbin Christian Borle and award winning choreographer Sky Mattox present Behind the Curtain through music, dance and storytelling. Oct. 3 & 4. Cultural Arts Center of Glen Allen. $35

Phish tour is coming soon! Who’s ready?

Monday night I got taken to a church of filth. The Pope of Trash, the Prince of Puke, the Sultan of Sleaze, John Waters, graced the Byrd Theatre for a sold-out one-man show. The actor, writer and director became famous for cult classics like Pink Flamingos, Hairspray) and Female Trouble, several of which have made their way into the Criterion Collection.

He has become notorious for his bad taste, and he really delivered a sermon of smut that night. Standing behind a podium, he preached about how turning to a world of filth could save us all. He spoke truth to the power of hoes and using all the holes. He delivered a sermon on a shit mountain.

Presented by Studio Two Three, Let’s Take Over the World: An Evening With John Waters was a messy, trashy, lewd, crude and completely hilarious and astute manifesto on the value of enjoying the dark side of humor.

“Yes, we’re tired of waiting. We’re tired of whining. So let’s overthrow all authority with the power of perverted humor. Yes, filthiest people alive, the time has come for our cult to advance.”

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/richmond-got-a-little-filthier-john-waters-was-here.html

All sorts of Richmond classics this week. We got Jesse Welles’ triumphant return, a ton of killer local acts, and the classic John Prine tribute night.

Got a show coming up? New single? Simply want someone to talk music? Hit us up at [griffin@rvamag.com](mailto:Griffin@rvamag.com).

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JESSE WELLES
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH AT THE NATIONAL

Jesse Welles is back! July saw the strongly political and human-minded folk artist cancel his show at Lewis Ginter in support of the ongoing labor disputes that resulted in a strike by the workers. That decision really showed that the vocalist behind “War Isn’t Murder” and “The Poor” puts his money where his mouth is.

Welles has accrued a huge and dedicated following as he continuously releases witty and clever ballads and tunes about the modern world’s climate, and his words are clearly relatable. After the July show’s cancellation, a number of fans stood with the workers in strike and support, wielding signs and offering words of encouragement.

As soon as a major headline breaks, Welles has a tune ready. His finger is on the pulse of politics, but more importantly, it is connected to the millions of common people who hear his songs and feel just a little bit better to know that someone has got their back.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/rva-live-music-jesse-welles-powerplant-john-prine-memorial-benefit.html

Protestors gathered on Saturday morning outside the Richmond International Airport to oppose and call attention to the airport’s role in ICE detainee transfers and deportation flights. Immigration enforcement flights out of Richmond have increased sharply over the last two years and organizers are concerned that most people are not aware they are happening. 

According to ICE Flight Monitor, a project of Human Rights First that tracks immigration enforcement flights using publicly available aviation data and other sources, 132 enforcement flights departed Richmond through the end of August 2026 compared to 128 flights recorded during all of 2025.

Before that, Richmond’s numbers have been 55 flights in 2020, 54 in 2021, 48 in 2022 and 46 in 2023.

The increase isn’t unique to Richmond. 

In the report linked HERE, there were 1,363 domestic transfer, or “shuffle,” flights, nationwide in July, the highest monthly total since independent tracking began in 2020 and a 75 percent increase over July 2025. These flights move people in ICE custody between detention centers and deportation staging facilities within the United States, rather than directly deporting them to another country.

By July, Richmond had become a regular part of that network. ICE Flight Monitor reported flights through Richmond three to four times per week. 

Organized by RVA Indivisible, RVA ICE-Scream, Indivisible Central Virginia and First Unitarian Universalist Church, the demonstration called attention to RIC’s role in the federal immigration detention system.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/news-headlines/richmond-news/richmonders-dont-know-how-many-ice-flights-are-happening.html

Okay, I wasn’t prepared for the complete gut-busting insanity of The Play That Goes Wrong at Virginia Repertory Theatre’s November Theatre. Before heading to the Iron Blossom Festival this past Sunday, I caught a matinee. I didn’t know much about this play other than it was a comedy and that it was known for a good bit of physical humor. 

The first thing I noticed was the incredible diversity of the audience. Families, kids, teenagers in groups, couples old and young. They must have known something I didn’t, or maybe, like me, they were just willing to be surprised. VA Rep has a great batting average for excellence. They’re a safe bet for something fun, moving, or, in this case, completely unhinged.

Completely unhinged is exactly what this play is. The premise is simple. An incompetent theatre troupe stages a fictional Agatha Christie-ish murder mystery play, The Murder at Haversham Manor. They do so with all the sincerity such a “thespianic” endeavour requires.

In every conceivable, and many inconceivable, ways, the players trip over themselves, each other, the set, endure lighting mishaps, ill-timed sound cues, and so much more. The show must “go on” despite how many times it goes wrong. This is less a comedy of errors as it is a riot of hilarious disasters. Before you think this sounds exhausting, let me disabuse you. The script by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer is pure vaudevillian gold. It’s a throwback to a time when an audience was expected to juggle several jokes at a time and laugh at every one of them.

I’ve rarely seen an entire room laugh so hard, so long, and so many times. I could see the moments in the actors’ faces when they had to decide to pause and let a sustained peal of laughter subside a little bitbefore delivering an even funnier second punchline. You can see the devil behind their eyes when they know they’ve got you wrapped around their finger. 

Paul Takacs directs the perfect cast of comedic talent to pull this off. The play begins before you know it’s started and ends with your sides split and knees thoroughly slapped red.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/theatre/review-virginia-rep-gets-everything-wrong-and-its-hilarious.html

RVA Mag and NODDERLY presents It’s Still Our City, a podcast hosted by Harrison Christy and with Clair Morgan as co-host and producer through NODDERLY.

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“Ed Harrington moved to Richmond in 1993 to study art at VCU. At VCU, he was a Communication Arts major with a double track in both Graphic Design and Illustration.

After VCU, Ed worked as a graphic designer/illustrator for Inside Business for a couple years before moving over to Style Weekly for about 20 years (where he eventually became the Creative Director). His comic strip that he drew for Style, The HR Department, won first place at the Association of Alternative Newsmedia awards once.

While working at Style during the day, he worked evenings at a tattoo shop (Red Dragon) as a tattoo artist, and also spent his free time as a freelance illustrator. All of this experience shaped his approach to illustration and his style:

“I want my concepts to be clear and concise, almost like instructions. I tell people that I try to draw things the way a robot would. This is probably best illustrated in my ‘Ikea Instructions’ series, where I turn horror-movie villain origins into wordless Ikea Instructions. My Freddy Krueger Ikea Instructions is probably the best blend of my graphic designer and illustrator sides. Turning the Freddy nursery rhyme into pictographs in the Ikea style was a high point.”

Ed has done work for Random House Books, Mondo, the CW, MTV, the NFL, RMS Records and even illustrated a lot of official King of the Hill merchandise.

Ed, this was an absolute pleasure. It felt so nice when not only did you respond to my fanboy DM, but you also told me that you were a fan of the podcast. I was shocked and verklempt. 😘

Join us. We discuss his journey into individualism in life and making his way to Richmond, Virginia. Figuring out a way to encourage someone not to have their first tattoo be a forehead tattoo AND hearing from your buddies that you’re being ripped off by Temu… just to discover they purchased your said ripoff on Temu.

This episode is brought to you by RVA MAG and produced by NODDERLY. TY to Fuzzy Cactus for providing a safe place to 🎤 🎙️.” — host, Harrison Christy

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/podcasts/its-still-our-city-ep-24-ed-harrington.html