u/DNun

Come out this Saturday and support a true Richmond original.

Event begins at noon. Music starts at 2. It’s going to be amazing.

Hey! I just wanted to spread the word there's a free show happening tonight with hip-hop artist Ty Sorrell at Plan 9 Music from 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM.

For those who don't know, Ty Sorrell is one of Richmond's premiere hip-hop artist with a sound that's relaxing and sharp at the same time. It's music that will penetrate you, but only to soothe your soul and rejuvenate your senses. He's been on the scene for a while now, with some great records like HomeGrown and Return To Forever, the latter of which he made alongside producer Profound79. This past June, the two of them released another collaboration entitled Leather Hearts and it's a true hip-hop gem, a sublime entry in a stellar catalog. Obviously, the goal of this post is obviously to get people to show up to the performance tonight, but even if you can't, I highly recommend you add Ty Sorrell to your listening rotation.

This performance is part of a monthly in-store series at Plan 9 Music in Carytown curated by The Auricular. Music kicks off at 7 PM and typically wraps by 7:30 PM so it's an easy way to start your night or a fun wind down after dinner, depending on your mood. The goal of these shows is to spotlight the amazing local talent right here in our city. They started at the beginning of 2024 and have included singer-songwriters like Deau Eyes, Jonathan Paige Brown Jr., Erin Lunsford, Sravani Kameswari, and Tyler Meacham as well as bands like Rikki Rakki, Human Worm, Flora & The Fauna, Deathcat, and White Beast. Consider it an easy entry point into the local music community. A series that keeps you connected to what's happening right here in town.

Hope to see some of you there!

Hey everyone!

There's a free show happening tonight with folk-rock band The Potted Plants at Plan 9 Music from 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM.

The band's bio sums up most of what you need to know about them: The Potted Plants fuse whimsy and eccentricity. They write music that makes you think, but not too much. The kind of music that leaves you wondering “Who hurt you?” but also giggling a little like “Nice, at least you made something fun with that.”

For what else you need to know: this band is amazing. Tons of talent that make great melodies, memorable lyrics, and fun grooves. Every song is like an idiosyncratic wonderland of character with chaotic charm (charming chaos?) around every corner. Even if you can't make it out tonight, you should be listening to this band. (But you should really make it out tonight.)

This performance is part of a monthly in-store series at Plan 9 Music in Carytown curated by The Auricular. Music kicks off at 7 PM and typically wraps by 7:30 PM so it's an easy way to start your night or a fun wind down after dinner, depending on your mood. The goal of these shows is to spotlight the amazing local talent right here in our city. They started at the beginning of 2024 and have included singer-songwriters like Deau Eyes, Jonathan Paige Brown Jr., Erin Lunsford, Sravani Kameswari, and Tyler Meacham as well as bands like Rikki Rakki, Human Worm, Flora & The Fauna, Deathcat, and White Beast. Consider it an easy entry point into the local music community. A series that keeps you connected to what's happening right here in town.

Hope to see some of you there!

I'm excited to finally introduce the new Auricular website, a major redesign built to better serve Richmond's musicians, fans, and music community.

For those who don't know, The Auricular is a publication I started in 2018 with the simple goal of spotlighting the incredible music being created locally. Over the past eight years, that mission has grown well beyond traditional reviews and interviews. Now, just as much time and energy is spent on trackers, resources, and countless other projects and initiatives designed to document, celebrate, and strengthen Richmond's music scene.

As the publication and platform have grown, it has become clear that the website needed to grow with them. I'm thrilled to finally share a new home that's better equipped to support everything we've been building over the past eight years. The site itself has a brand-new look, but besides that, it also has plenty of upgraded features and new sections.

One of the things I'm personally most excited about is the new release tracker. It has been rebuilt from the ground up, and you can now browse every piece of music released by Richmond artists in 2026, switch between albums and singles, search for artists or titles, and even start listening directly from the page. I've actually been keeping these lists since the site began in 2018, but they've never been presented in a way that's this easy to explore. Later this summer, we'll start filling in previous years, beginning with 2025 and working backward. There's also now a submission form because, let's be honest, I don't catch everything and never will. If I missed a release or you've got something coming up soon, send it in, and we'll get it added.

There is now also a full events calendar, thanks to our friends at rva.lol. You can browse shows by calendar or timeline, see what's happening on any given day, and spot the concerts we've highlighted in our Shows You Must See column, as well as other sponsored events. One feature I especially love is that we're starting to connect shows with our previous coverage, so you can read about an artist before you see them live. Huge thanks to the rva.lol team for making this collaboration happen. If you notice an event missing, you can submit it through their site.

Another addition is the new resources database. Every venue, studio, label, promoter, shop, and organization is all in one searchable place. There are already more than 100 entries, and we'll continue adding more. If you notice something that's missing, there's a submission form for that too.

The On This Day section has also been completely rebuilt. Every day you'll be able to look back at notable Richmond album releases, memorable concerts, and other milestones from five, ten, twenty-five, or even fifty years ago. You can even jump to a random date if you're in really in the mood to discover something you've never heard before. This section is still a work in progress because the site's historical data has lived in a ton of different formats over the years (sorry!), but we're adding new entries every day and should have all of July completed by the end of the weekend.

If none of that interests you, there's still our regular coverage, which we're going to start ramping up again. Things slowed down intentionally while we focused on getting the new site ready, but now we're ready to tackle the backlog of great stuff that's come out so far this year and the exciting stuff still to come. Same coverage as before, just presented in a much better way, which you can already see in a column and review we've posted this week.

I have to give a huge thank you to Logan Sorese for envisioning this redesign and making it a reality. Organizing and rebuilding eight years of articles, data, and features was no small task, but Logan somehow made it look easy. And while I'm shouting them out, I have to mention Logan's other labor of love, rva.lol, one more time. If you aren't already using it to keep track of shows around town, you really should be. It's easily the best events calendar Richmond has ever had. No disrespect to any other people or organizations who've done it in the past, but rva.lol's format and integration are just on another level.

I hope you poke around the new site. Let us know what you like. Also, let us know what you don't like. Your feedback will help us continue building a better resource for Richmond's music community. We'll actually be on hand at Gallery5's free Community Care event tonight from 6 to 9, showing off the site and just talking it up. If you're free, stop on by. The Richmond Chronicle will be there as well, and trust me, their recent news is even more exciting than ours.

Hey everyone! I wanted to let you know that there is a free concert happening tonight with indie-pop duo Jr. at Plan 9 Music from 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM.

Jr. is one of the true hidden gems in Richmond's music scene right now. Their music scratches that melodic itch, but also excels at building subtle tension underneath that doesn't focus on resolving it, but rather soothing it. The band is comprised of Elena Dimitri and Winston Sanders, the latter of which may be familiar from his work with Colpa Mia, Soft Catch, Roslin, Majjin Boo, and countless other bands. Their latest single, "Bandits," is excellent with dreamy vocals and a hypnotic pulse, but honestly, their whole catalog is worth diving into, especially "Again" and "Walkabout." Even if you can’t make it out tonight, do yourself a favor and give these tracks a listen.

This performance is part of a monthly in-store series at Plan 9 Music in Carytown curated by The Auricular. Music kicks off at 7 PM and typically wraps by 7:30 PM so it's an easy way to start your night or a fun wind down after dinner, depending on your mood. The goal of these shows is to spotlight the amazing local talent right here in our city. They started at the beginning of 2024 and have included singer-songwriters like Deau Eyes, Jonathan Paige Brown Jr., Erin Lunsford, Sravani Kameswari, and Tyler Meacham as well as bands like Rikki Rakki, Human Worm, Flora & The Fauna, Deathcat, and White Beast. Consider it an easy entry point into the local music community. The kind of series that keeps you connected to what's happening right here at home.

Hope to see some of you there!

Gallery5's fourth venue town hall is happening tonight from 6 PM to 8 PM (doors at 5 PM), the latest in their quarterly series they launched last year to tackle large and small issues within Richmond's creative community. Previous panels have featured representatives from venues, promoters, and organizations like Broadberry Entertainment Group, Venture Richmond, The Camel, Baripete Productions, Rival Booking, and more, all in a moderated discussion format that opens up to audience questions afterward.

Tonight's discussion centers on underrepresented genres and DIY organizations/spaces in Richmond. The panel includes Ant The Symbol (Culture Current), CJ The Profit (80404 Club), and Hunting Dog (Ice Cream Social Party), who will be speaking on the lack of opportunities often faced within the city's hip-hop and electronic scenes, along with broader conversations around ethics, gatekeeping, power dynamics, and the current state of local creative infrastructure.

The event is free to attend and should be worthwhile for anyone invested in Richmond's arts community, whether you're actively involved or simply interested in hearing directly from people doing the groundwork and pushing for change.

Hey everyone! I wanted to let you know that there is a free concert/performance happening tonight: Three Brained Robot at Plan 9 Music from 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM.

This performance is part of a monthly in-store series at Plan 9 Music in Carytown curated by The Auricular, but it's a departure from the typical concerts we have. There's still music, but this is more performace art than anything. Creative, silly, and wildly fascinating. I think this bio for Three Brained Robot will sum it all up for you:

Three Brained Robot is not a band, not a person, and barely a thing. It is a transmorphological performance concept born from the vexed consciousness of Terra after a run of arguments with spatial gravity, floral bureaucracy, and a car wash vending machine that refused to accept emotional currency. With a corporeal body constructed from equal parts rusted roller coaster tracks, bitter municipal resentment, and the decaying echo of forgotten Tamagotchi, Three Brained Robot exists to vocalize the planet's petty grievances and simmering frustrations. In doing so, it speaks in overlapping frequencies, sings in malfunctioning harmonics, and occasionally pauses mid-performance to argue with the dark matter occupying the fourth dimension.

Each of its three brains operates distinctly: Brain One calculates vengeance through novel interpretive dance and the turn signal from a 1995 Subaru Legacy. Brain Two placates its audience while actively sabotaging the closest McDonald's ice cream machine. Brain Three is currently on strike, but is outsourcing its job to a crypto farm located in an abandoned TGI Fridays. On stage, Three Brained Robot does not perform so much as it embodies the sensible nature of chaos. Its shows are said to cause mild traffic disturbances, spontaneous nostalgia, and the sudden urge to apologize to inanimate objects. Audience members are advised not to make eye contact with more than one brain at a time.

The whole thing kicks off at 7 PM and typically wraps by 7:30 PM so it's an easy way to start your night or a fun wind down after dinner, depending on your mood. The goal of these shows is to spotlight the amazing local talent right here in our city. They started at the beginning of 2024 and have included singer-songwriters like Deau Eyes, Jonathan Paige Brown Jr., Erin Lunsford, Sravani Kameswari, and Tyler Meacham as well as bands like Rikki Rakki, Human Worm, Flora & The Fauna, Deathcat, and White Beast. Consider it an easy entry point into the local music community. The kind of series that keeps you connected to what's happening right here at home.

Hope to see some of you there!