This past Friday night (03/21) local favorites Sons of Bill and Sparky’s Flaw were joined by Richmond-based Duchess of York, as they played to a packed house at the Satellite Ballroom. The following show review comes to us from one of our readers who saw it all take place. Thanks to Tito who sent this one our way!
X MARKS THE SPOT! (courtesy of Tito)
Great Show by all three bands. I am not a huge writer, but I’ll take a stab at this show to help those who didnt attend get a better idea of what they missed. A little disclaimer about myself first would probably help everyone. Grew up in Charlottesville, trying to ever expand my collection and my tastes, even if that means going to see bands I’ve never heard of - beforehand. I record shows as a hobby, and love to share what I have with whomever will listen.
DUTCHESS OF YORK - Wow, did I feel old. Doors opened at 8ish, various band members were milling around the venue chatting with fans, and getting some of the latest merch. Having spoken to a friend from Richmond, this band recently headlined a gig at the new venue “Toad’s Place”. They have a ton of promise for their age, and I can see a big future for this band.
I’ve lifted this from their myspace page, which I think helps explain the sound better than I can:
“Fronted by the seventeen-year-old Michael and supported by brothers Austin, Constantine and Beck, Duchess of York is an answer to the masses of Richmond acts pulling from a shallower well. They drop sonic references to newer outfits like The White Stripes and The Strokes but seem to transcend the connection reaching back further to Robert Johnson and The Rolling Stones.”
SPARKY’S FLAW - Having recently joined the Red Light family, it appears the fan-base is ever growing and is pre-dominately a younger crowd of women. Don’t get me wrong, there were some guys in attendance, but every person who was singing along was female.
The songs were very catchy and the band was definitely full of confidence. The show had a very large component of a huge ’sing-along’, kinda like I had been temporarily teleported to ‘OC’ or maybe even, ‘The Hills’. This should not be seen as a bad thing at all, just a means to describe the sound I heard.
SONS OF BILL - Complete 180 degress from the previous two acts, but that’s a good thing when you are on a triple bill (think more exposure for a different group of fans.) I listened to their mp3 samples prior to the show and was thinking it was similar to ‘Pop Country’, but when the show got underway there was no doubt about it, SOB is ‘Country - Country’. I am not trying to simply paint each band into a ‘genre’, but it helps to describe what I witnessed, having zero exposure to these acts prior to Friday.
I really enjoyed their performance and will probably see them again this spring at the Pavillion.
Local act - and a very unique. I called it ‘Pop-Country’ in sound, because it sounds like it would be heard on commercial radio, but just enough grit and dirt to stay ‘off’ the radio. Very similar to Drive-By-Truckers, without such a hard edge. This band is to be experienced live, check them out.
Surprisingly (or maybe not to some) but the crowds completely changed between sets, which I found somewhat of a surprise. I usually think about a night of music as just that, a night of music. I must be in the minority, as all the ‘x-ers’ left after Sparkys Flaw and the next age group arrived. Show ended at 1ish, everyone was good and toasty. Thank god the venue has outlawed cigarrettes, such a nicer experience. All in all, a great show from each act. I will definitely be interested to see how SOB sound under the tent this spring.
Thanks for reading this far and most importantly thanks to BJ, Kim, Danny, Beazley, and everyone at Satellite Ballroom.
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Tagged as: charlottesville, live music, Satellite Ballroom, Sons of Bill, Sparky's Flaw
nice, tito. while sparkys flaw isnt my favorite band, i can appreciate that their sound has the potential to really catch on. still havent seen SOB yet. maybe ill get to fridays after 5.
many thanks tito. i like to think we’re building this little music community one reader at a time.
yeah sparky’s flaw is pretty lame. i totally see how some people ( = teenage girls ) could like their slick haircuts, but the music isn’t going to appeal to many beyond their current demographic.
@3. You’re exactly right. Their music is definitely demographic specific.
But I think that also reflects the changes in the record business in general. There was a time when record labels discovered new talent and they nutured that talent. Look back through it…the Blue Note Artists of Jazz. Blue Note was a label that nutured the artist side of artistic. Led Zeppelin on Atlantic Records. Bob Dylan on Columbia. Etc. etc. I think what’s changed is that labels these days can’t afford to nurture an artist. They need to find something hot in a demographic, blow it up so that you hear everywhere, and try to make it as profitable as possible. And then move on to the next hot thing. Shake and repeat. So much of radio has followed suit. Be demographically profitable.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule. Which is why the Wilco story is so sweet. Now Radiohead removes itself from the box. NIN just made over a million bucks. Signature Sounds records has given us Erin McKeown, Josh Ritter, Mary Gauthier, Dave Carter, Jeffrey Foucault and that’s the extremely short list of their output but they generate artists because they truly love the music of their artists. There are great people in this town involved in local radio and they know their music and they get to share it as they wish.
Does any of this lessen Sparky’s Flaw’s music? Not at all. I’ll guarantee you they are having the times of their lives and they should be. Have fun being rock stars. That’s why kids starting playing in a band that practices in a garage in the first place…because they want to be rock stars. It’s what happening around them, that can be a little troubling.
And this is why I should never add comments
This could be a whole new post Shaun - I think it’s an interesting subject you bring up. A lot of bands are starting to do what Radiohead and NIN did in allowing their fans to decide what the album is worth to them in digital form. The artists have to accept at this point that people are going to find the MP3s for free. Their options are to encourage this, and by hopefully ‘decriminalizing’ downloading music they will encourage new fans. Granted, they are Radiohead - but at least they have control over the manner in which they are releasing it.
Bands are also starting to put out more vinyl and in very artistic packaging. Bands are re-releasing old albums on vinyl and you know what? They’re selling. The popularity of the 7″ record among younger bands has really been making a comeback over the last decade. Even kids without record players are buying them because they come with a free download coupon on the inside. I would encourage ALL young bands to do this. Release your music as digital download for free or for donation. Sell your shows, your performance, and your art (vinyl!). This totally f**ks the major label record industry and puts control BACK in the hands of the artists where it belongs.
I can’t bad mouth Sparky’s Flaw. They are good at what they do, and the fans like them. I hope they are smart enough to see the world around them and get a damn good lawyer - because if they’re going where they seem to be going they’ll need it. I would suggest everyone in a band wanting to make it big on a major label read this - and though it’s 8 years old it does have relevance. Think about putting out the music yourself. You own it!
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html
yeah i mean, it’s the American Idol effect at its finest. shoot to the top as quickly as humanly possible. doesn’t matter how crappy your music is, or how much you have to “sell” yourself, as long as you are recognized.
i really think (and hope) this is a trend directly related to American Idol. It’s a terrible show, and promotes everything wrong with the music industry today. Luckily, they seem to be slipping in the ratings, so hopefully “real” music will start coming back.
It’s time to embrace the new era of digital music (i.e. Radiohead), and not fight it by trying to squeeze as much money out of “cookie cutter” bands like Sparky’s Flaw.
Labels need to start playing offense instead of defense.
Quick, easy, spoon fed consumption is one of the main tenets of western society. Some of these so called ‘cookie cutter’ bands are talented kids who are recognized as being sellable and end up being unknowingly co-opted into the machine without realizing they have other options. I’m not saying any recent up and coming local bands are in this category - but they might find they would make more money and get better distribution/tour support from a smaller label that is more committed to them. Maybe ATO is that label, I don’t know enough about them and they haven’t sent me any promo packages.
To young bands, or any artist: I am not necessarily anti major label, I just think that SOME (not all) independent labels are doing things the right way. Some major labels might even work for you. If you are being courted by a major - why not examine your options first? Get yourself a good manager and a good lawyer the first thing you do. A manager and lawyer YOU pay - not your prospective label. Clearly you can see the sense in that.
The music industry as a whole needs to catch up with how consumers are consuming, so to speak. And they will. It just seems to be like pulling teeth. They haven’t figured out how to make money off digital media and it’s driving them crazy that some of that control might be put back in the hands of the public or the artists!
One of the problem’s facing record companies is that they were incredibly slow in keeping up with digital media. As a result their very business models have become quite out-dated. Granted, part of the problem the record labels face is the rise of the digital file sharing, with a great deal of peer-to-peer file sharing involving illegal downloads. I am not a fan of downloading music without paying for it.
Having said that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has reacted with a wave of rather harsh lawsuits against music fans. In one particular case, a young woman in Minnesota was ordered to pay $220,000 to records companies for sharing 24 songs online (that’s over $9000 a song). Read more about the new wave of record label lawsuits here.
But what’s even more incredulous is that the record companies have yet to pass any of the money won in lawsuits against file sharing sites like Napster and Kazaa on to the artists they supposedly represent. As a result, a number of artist’s managers are threatening to sue the record companies for a piece of the pie that should be their’s in the first place. The New York Post has more on that here.
That’s not a huge surprise - artists rarely get proceeds from album sales that they are supposed to see. This is why I reiterate to get a good lawyer. All too often artists are getting screwed - while the CD costs $12, the artist sees MAYBE $2 of that. Guess where the rest goes? I’m sure the major labels have a very good excuse where the $9,000 a song is going (detect dripping sarcasm). The problem in these cases is that the artists don’t own the music - the label does. And the RIAA does not represent artists - it represents corporations, the industry as a whole.
Record companies have no excuse for being slow on the digital media wave. Apple sold it’s one millionth ipod and five million songs from iTunes in 2003! That was FIVE YEARS AGO. I just think that the record labels that are figuring out what their fans want and trying to become a part of the digital media age are going to be far better off in every way than labels who don’t.
I think I have an idea for a good post here.
good review brother- I didn’t have time the other day- nice work!- sounds like fun. I need to check em out
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