Tuning into Church Hill's garage-band concert series

I don’t particularly like concerts. Overpriced beer, overcrowded venue, overmatched acoustics… underwhelming! People have been making fun of me for this for years, but it’s my considered opinion that most concerts are Just Fine™️, and I’m sticking to it.

Still, there are exceptions. For example: Bellwether Sessions, which returns to East Clay Street tomorrow night (Saturday 6/21) for an evening of local music and BYOB block party vibes.

Now in its third year, this free summer concert series is the brainchild of Lauren Albee and Grant Mathews, Church Hill residents who purchased the house at the corner of E. Clay & N. 31st Sts. during the pandemic. The couple had been living in Los Angeles, with Albee returning to Richmond in 2019. Coming through listings and relaying promising ones back to Mathews back in Southern California, she stumbled onto the two-level Victorian-style terrace house. The property appeared to include a detached four-bay garage on the southern side of E. Clay’s 3100 block. “My only message back [to Lauren] was, if that whole thing comes with the house, buy that house,” Mathews, a vintage car and motorcycle enthusiast, recalled in a recent phone interview with The Lookout. “It was this really exciting blank slate. We could do anything with it.”

What they did with it, after a couple years of renovations, was christen it The Bellwether Garage, hosting a summer concert from the low-slung outbuilding in July 2023. A musician friend who was back in town from travels abroad got his old band together; a neighbor volunteered to play. Word began to work its way through Richmond’s music scene. “Next thing you know, we had four acts for our opening show,” said Albee. That was the first Bellwether Sessions, and it went well. “I think there were between 50 and 75 people that came over the course of the night.” The Bellwether Sessions were born.

“Right away, bands started reaching out to us and saying, ‘Can we play your garage?’” Albee said. “We were nervous initially about how the neighbors would react. Obviously, Church Hill is a pretty creative, eclectic neighborhood, so we figured some people would be excited by it, but [a concert series] makes loud noises and at night and disrupts people. We were worried about the reaction, but it's been the opposite.”

Albee and Mathews hosted a half-dozen Bellwether Sessions at their garage in 2024, with concertgoers from the neighborhood and beyond descending on E. Clay St. with folding chairs and coolers for summer evenings of free local music. As the Bellwether Sessions became more popular—”the audience has done nothing but grow,” marveled Albee—they also created bigger logistical hurdles for the pair. “One of the things that was almost immediately daunting last year, or kind of prohibitive of growth, was when the police showed up and told us we needed to get a permit,” said Mathews, chuckling. (By that point, enough people were regularly attending the shows as to make the 3100 block of E. Clay impassible by car.) For the remainder of 2024’s Bellwether Sessions, they accepted donations from neighbors and audience members to help them cover the $250 fee to shut down the block for the evening.

Albee and Mathews are back at it again this year, with seven concerts programmed May through November 2025. Check the flyer here. For the first time, they brought on a sponsor. Overcoast, a music and sound production agency with offices in New York City and Richmond, is picking up the tab on permit costs for the year. “It's just cool to have a local music-related business supporting a local community” event, said Albee. (By coincidence, she’d worked with the firm at her previous job at Arts and Letters, a creative agency located in the Lucky Strike building on Tobacco Row.) Overcoast’s support also allows Bellwether Sessions to route all audience donations directly to the artists that play on a given night, a practice which the two “hold dear,” added Mathews.

While neighbors and bands have made various suggestions over the past couple years for how to expand the event, Albee and Mathews told The Lookout they’re determined to maintain its DIY neighborhood feel. Rather than adding more formal concert features like vendors or ticketing, their aspirations for the Bellwether Sessions are oriented around the music itself. “For some of the bigger acts that come through Richmond to the bigger venues… could we become like the de facto [location] for a secret show?” mused Albee, whose favorite movie, Almost Famous, features a scene where a major national act drops in on a local house party.

But even if no such thing ever happens, the couple behind the Bellwether Sessions is enjoying the ride. “It’s been a really fun side thing,” Albee said. “We've met so many great people in the neighborhood because of it, and it's just been cool to see it grow.” Having seen it grow myself for the past couple years, I can confirm. The Bellwether Sessions is a real delight. And when it comes to concerts, I’m a tough crowd.

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

👋 7th District said “See ya, Stoney!”

The Democratic primary was this past Tuesday. Hopefully you voted! Over 2,000 folks across the 7th District did. In the six-way race for the lieutenant governor nomination, some of them even case their ballots for Levar Stoney! But not many, man. Richmond’s former mayor got absolutely smoked in the city he governed for eight years, losing out to State Senator Ghazala Hashmi by an astonishing 10,500-vote margin despite running under 4,000 votes behind her statewide. Here in the 7th District, unofficial data from Virginia Public Access Project shows Stoney failed to carry even a single precinct in the contest; all nine broke for Hashmi. Stoney official conceded to her Wednesday morning.

“The level of the rejection [from Richmond overall] clearly cost him the race despite running—in the rest of Virginia—a very effective campaign,” veteran political analyst Bob Holsworth told The Richmonder in a post-mortem on the election (and potentially Stoney’s political career) earlier this week. “His home base just said we don’t want to promote you. And we’re going to make sure you’re not promoted.” Harsh! But then again, so is losing water for a week in the middle of winter and again for a couple days in the sweltering late spring. And getting another casino project rammed down your throat two years after rejecting the first one. And getting a surprise six-figure bill because the city’s dysfunctional finance department miscalculated the balance your restaurant owed for one of the highest “meals taxes” in the country. And… well, you get it.

Stoney can take solace knowing he’s not the only pol who got skunked in the Skeptical Seventh. (Nobody calls it this.) Both local incumbents—Richmond Sheriff Antoinette Irving and Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette McEachin—prevented their opponents from winning a precinct in the district. In the attorney general match-up between Shannon Taylor and Jay Jones, the former won three 7th District precincts on her way to losing a tight primary to the latter statewide.

📢 Happenings on The Hill

• Burrito birthday: Today (6/20) is Kahlo’s sixth anniversary, and it’s running specials all evening. Here’s the rundown.

• Align thyself: Tomorrow (6/21) is apparently National Yoga Day, and 3S Yoga is hosting a “chakra recharge” event with Crystal Chakra Yogi at its studio from 2-3:15pm. Get charged up.

• Let us prey: Triple Crossing’s Fledge Fest takes flight tomorrow, with the first aerial show at 12:30pm and events throughout the afternoon. Don’t wing it, here are the details.

• Rack attack: Pizza Bones is hosting a market with Together Vintage this Sunday (6/22) from 12-5pm. More (ish) info.

• More East End road closures: The Department of Public Works released its plan to reconfigure the E. Main St./Williamsburg Rd. intersection (good!), which will require shutting down more of that already-limited corridor (bad!) come July. WRIC’s coverage has a bit more.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

📸 A Very CHill Photo

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.