Faculty Lounge: 6:30-7 p.m.

This duo is made up of Laura Knouse and Steve Allred, professors of psychology and law, respectively. Sometimes they see their students in the audience.

“They’re usually surprised to see us in such a different setting than the classroom,” Allred said. “They seem to enjoy it a lot.”

He said the band performs jazz standards, folk, and Americana tunes that people will recognize and sing along to. Allred plays guitar and Knouse is a vocalist.

The band is popular around town, appearing at The Tin Pan, The Fan Arts Stroll, Brambly Park, and, closer to home, The Cellar at UR.

Fun fact: Knouse was a psychology major and music minor when she was a student at Richmond (Class of 2002).

Room for Improvement: 7:30-8:30 p.m.

Shelby DeWalle is an academic administrative coordinator for the classical studies and philosophy departments. At night, she’s the lead vocalist for this classic rock and blues cover band, most of whom have a UR connection.

“We are just a bunch of friends who got together out of boredom during the pandemic to see if we could make decent music,” DeWalle said. “We began practicing regularly in a band member’s basement, and after a long time of playing mediocre music together, we started to get our groove.”

Together now for three years, they began appearing at Richmond venues like Mainline Brewing, Brambly Park, Midnight Brewing, Kindred Spirit Brewing, and Castleburg Brewery and Taproom.

“We are booking gigs like crazy,” DeWalle said.

She explained how the band came up with the name. “Early on, one night after practice, we were all discussing how we thought things were going. One of the band members said he thought things were starting to sound a lot better, but that there was definitely still room for improvement. We all immediately laughed and said, that would be an awesome band name, and well … it stuck.”

Dogpark: 9-10 p.m.

Closing out the evening is Dogpark, featuring Chris Conte, Will Harford, and Eamon Moore from the Class of 2023 and current seniors Billy Apostolou and Declan Harris. Moore is the vocalist, with Harris on lead guitar, Harford on bass, Apostolou on rhythm guitar, and Conte on drums.

"We like to describe our sound as early 2000s pop/rock, but we also love playing the classics," said Apostolou. "We will be playing a bunch of songs off of our new EP."  

This popular band performs at a lot of college shows and also enjoys playing at more formal venues. Most recently, they played a show at DROM in New York City and will be playing at another Big Apple location, the Mercury Lounge, on Dec. 4.

The band recently released its debut single, “Now It’s Over,” with more to come soon.