Richmond’s own saints of Best Friends Day are back and ready to rock your socks off. Microjoy is by far one of this city’s most eclectic and energetic three pieces making their mark on the music scene today. Fueled by fun, these boys draw from their inner child when writing and embrace every sound from reggae, thrash, hip hop, punk, and country to create a sound that can only be described as pure Richmond “funcore”. (Yes. They are so good that they deserve a new genre.) Lead singer, “Sweet” Craig Caldwell’s lyrics come straight from the heart, and though sometimes bittersweet, as in “All I Can Think Of” from their second full length CD, Killing With Kindness (2008), to songs denouncing the local party politics in “Party Patrol” off of their first CD, Positive Force (2007), you can hear the passion he has for his city and his friends.
Hailing from, and representing hard for Richmond, the guys formed Microjoy almost four years ago when Craig and bassist Bradley Lile reconnected with drummer and longtime friend, Adam Caldwell (no relation to Craig) to mastermind a band that is impossible to stand still to. Having known each other since high school and beyond, their paths crossed again when Adam returned home from college, and added drums to Craig and Bradley’s then acoustic act. In the last three years they have recorded the two afore mentioned full lengths, with a split seven inch with Baltimore based, Werewolves, and hopefully an impending new CD out in the near future. Previous recordings for Killing With Kindness were split between various recording sessions that included two tracks from Craig’s laundry room (the band’s cozy practice space), by Ian of Blunt Logic Records. With the upcoming release, the boys say they want to record all at once to make it sound more cohesive. Although Craig writes most of the lyrics and melodies, he said “it’s an organic process. I don’t like to get them to just write their parts right away. I like to jam out and let it happen naturally. If you push creativity, it won’t happen.” He also shed some insight as to how their music is so diverse by divulging “I try to think of my guitar as some other kind of instrument—like a trumpet or a piano. I also think of a lot of hip hop beats to create a different sound.”
After taking a brief hiatus from playing shows to focus more on writing, the boys are back to their old antics with a slew of new songs. With more time to write they had an opportunity to really create more complex songs, and as Bradley stated “We wrote more slow songs. Not completely slow, but slower than in the past. It’s still a good balance.” Of that balance and their miscellaneous musical influences, Bradley also described them as playing everything from “punk rock to pop. We incorporate everything we’re into. We’ve all been in different bands where we played one style of music and that’s fun but it gets a little old after a while. With this band, it’s like having five bands in one and that’s sweet.”
Microjoy’s triumphant return show will be January 14th at the Triple with psych-rock, Baltimore bred, Flying Eyes and Richmond locals, Crunchholdoh. As a bonus, Craig’s artwork is still on display at the Triple and is definitely worth checking out. His “cartoony” collage oriented works have been featured in their CD art as well as on their flyers. If you want to hear them before you see them and stay up to date with where they’ll be next, you can find them on Facebook and Myspace. For more information on Craig’s artistic side, look him up on Myspace and come see his artwork at the Triple.
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