New six-piece-plus Asian-themed surf and garage-rock band modeled after a sort of Taiwanese burlesque performance called Nakashi and helmed by UVA experimental electronic musician Wendy Hsu. The name means “super cool,” and the exclamation point is there because she requests that you always say it with both thumbs up. Come to think of it, we’re not really sure how to pronounce it at all, but we’re halfway there on that one. (Hey, wait, so does this work for anything? Tell them The Hook! sent you.)
Vicious mockery and other such shenanigans via guitar and cello
Barling and Collins - (That’s Right) I’m Looking At Your Girlfriend
Husky-voiced local songwriter and his rock band
Sunny island pop
The Downbeat Project - I Want You [live at Is Venue, RIP]
The Downbeat Project - Heaven
The Downbeat Project - He Lost Faith
The Downbeat Project - Back Home
Award-winning North Carolina folk singer-songwriter with a pronounced admiration of Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, and Natalie Merchant performs solo on guitar and banjo.
Nikki Talley - Maggie
Nikki Talley - Feathers In A Jar
Jazz-pop singer whose most recent record Echo is a concept album about following a lover across the globe, featuring songs by Sting, Paul Simon, and one tune called “Involved Again” which was originally written for Billie Holiday shortly before her death.
Rootsy Australian folk singer-songwriter
Classic rock and Americana
Junior Moment - Mirror
Junior Moment - Point Of View
Junior Moment - Number 11
Emoish alternative rock trio that’s far friendlier than its intimidating name would suggest. Also featuring Tyger and the Lamb, Birdshit, and impressively jovial pop-rock labelmates Dangerous Ponies, who can presumably also kill you in the face.
Kill You In The Face - Diablo
Kill You In The Face - The Mighty Atlas
Kill You In The Face - Versions Of Stories
Former science teacher Gary Oxford now tinkers in his basement with strings instead of beakers as a singer-songwriter, and here he’ll be mixing those original songs with covers of tunes by various Bonnaroo artists, so all you poor suckers who can’t make it this year should go to this instead. It’s almost the same thing, right?
Young Georgia electronic dance-pop quartet with shades of Talking Heads, Animal Collective, and MGMT folded up inside a tortilla of crazy. Abstract rockers Co Co Ri Co open, and Nailgun’s lead blogger James Ford spins records as DJ Hummingbird Feeder.
Piano-pounding pop-rock songwriter who has been called, oddly enough, “the underground Parachute”. Folk-rock trio The Spring Standards open.
buy tickets onlineBig-time Austin singer-songwriter. Fellow Texans Smile Smile open with highly emotional folk-pop tunes that somehow managed to get the two previously-engaged leads through a messy breakup.
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De-acronymed, the name Funky Urban Southern Ensemble pretty much says it all. Featuring pianist Jim Wray and percussionist Darrell Rose, among others.
F.U.S.E. - Oregon Green
F.U.S.E. - Silhouette
F.U.S.E. - Summer Dawn
CD release show for the local singer-songwriter. With Bahlmann Abbot.
buy tickets onlineAlt-country songwriter Sarah White and singer Sian Richards sing classic country based on sweet vocal harmonies and not much else.
Folk. Singer-songwriter Isaac Gillespie opens.
Local pianists Jim Wray and Hod O’Brien perform classic jazz and tricky bebop in an unusual “dueling pianos” format, also featuring occasional trombone bits.
Jim Wray and Hod O’Brien - Indeed I Do
Classic C-ville performance ensemble playing Gershwin, Sousa, and more. Show up early to catch the Charlottesville-Albemarle Saxophone Ensemble.
buy tickets onlineNew band from the former guitarist for local blues trio The Biscuit Rollers. With Johnny G and the Orme Storm.
Popular rock covers from what was once a strictly Tom Petty tribute act
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Progressive folk-rock singer-songwriter cut from the same cloth as Sarah McLachlan and the Indigo Girls; pianist Laurence Elder opens.
Wendy Repass - Rain Upon A Wire
Local jazz pianist performs with Bruce Hornsby’s favorite sax player.
Of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes may have recently taken to wild stunts like riding a white horse around on stage, but certainly his most famous gimmick must still be the 2007 Vegas show at which he performed nude [warning: certainly even more NSFW than the post you're looking at right now].
We asked our art department to censor the evidence thereof before we’d republish it, and, well, they came up with this (which you must admit is really quite spectacular in its own way):
So now all we need is a quote for the speech bubble; submit yours below using a real email address and we’ll pick a winner on Sunday. Feel free to make it pertinent to any of the flashing doodads if you want, or not, or whatever; clearly we’re not in the mood for sensible and highly structured rules here. As usual, you’ll walk away with two tickets to Monday’s show at the Jefferson Theater, but Kevin’s crew also came through with some awesome vinyl — specifically, the latest from both Of Montreal and spinoff James Husband.
Happy, uh, flashing.
In addition to being part of an intriguing bill at the Tea Bazaar this Saturday, entrepreneurial Philly band The Armchairs are running a nifty little racket whereby they’ll write a song about any topic of your choosing and play it at the show for $10, and send you an mp3 of the same for $20.
Being the high rollers we are, we asked for the latter. It took a flurry of emails and reportedly some impromptu living-room recording sessions facilitated by several kind hosts in Pennsylvania to bring you this, but here’s our ode to Charlottesville’s definitive pork treasure trove, the Marco & Luca dumpling shop. (Hey, high rollers can love cheap dumplings too.)
The Armchairs - Best Of Dumplings
This will probably remain at best an unofficial theme song, due in equal parts to the vague porn-funk flavors (barely resisting a pork joke here) and words which alternate between indecipherable and grammatically compromised (e.g. “Best Of Dumplings”), but all the same, consider this your new headphone soundtrack for those $3 lunch hours.
And now that we’ve done our part, please remember that you too can order a custom song of your own, so please don’t hesitate to take over Saturday’s set list and/or start your Christmas shopping early.
De-acronymed, the name Funky Urban Southern Ensemble pretty much says it all. Featuring pianist Jim Wray and percussionist Darrell Rose.
No sprinkles, astonishingly. Photo by Patrick Heagney.
Exploring the roots of involuntary head-bop squadron Of Montreal’s robotic funk-pop is actually pretty easy. At least in the sense that songwriter Kevin Barnes is pretty open about his creative process, and he more or less runs the whole show on his own. Unfortunately, this also leaves him without the moderating effect of other presumably-less-zany band members, whichs how we end up with songs titled “Wraith Pinned To The Mist and Other Games” and “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse.” (And, for that matter: “Dirty Dustin Hoffman Needs A Bath,” “Dustin Hoffman Thinks About Eating The Soap,” “Dustin Hoffman Does Not Resist Temptation To Eat the Bathtub,” and “Dustin Hoffman’s Wife Makes A Sarcastic Remark, Cuts The Head Off A Duck, Places It Where The Tub Was, And Begins To Groan.”)
But he doesn’t like to talk about those days anymore. You might say he writes his riffs the same way he writes words: in bizarre, idiosyncratic, torrential blasts.
“It’s almost like Stevie Wonder’s in the room with me or George Clinton’s in the room with me, and I’m trying to make them laugh and trying to make them dance or whatever.”
More from the interview below.
The Hook: What can you tell me about your upcoming album, False Priest?
Kevin Barnes: It’s not as fragmented as Skeletal Lamping — more conventional songwriting, it doesn’t change every minute. We’re trying to create a really good headphone record that can transport you to these different places and sort of scatter your brain in a cool way.
The Hook: Does less jumping around between riffs leave you with more material for another album?
Kevin Barnes: Sometimes I will actually write a full song on the piano before I start recording it, but typically I’ll just start recording and just start layering ideas on top of each other. With False Priest I wanted to make something where there was a pocket that you could kind of lose yourself in.
The Hook: How do you think this change will go over?
Kevin Barnes: It gets ruined if I imagine someone listening to it. There are very few people whose opinion I would take to heart.
The Hook: Producer Jon Brion is one of them, I assume?
Kevin Barnes: He has an amazing understanding of how instruments work together. This record actually has a lot of trunk-rattling bass. We’re really trying to push that side of things that normally I never had before. That’s what comes out in the club.
The Hook: I’m having trouble picturing Of Montreal as a club thing.
Kevin Barnes: Not like I want to come on after Lady Gaga or whatever; we’re not really trying to compete in that way. But it will be the sort of record that you will have a different experience if you listen on a really great sound system, whereas in the past it really wouldn’t make that much of a difference.
The Hook: This seems to run counter to the “headphone album” approach.
Kevin Barnes: That’s kind of the balance we’re trying to strike.
The Hook: So, trunk-rattling bass in the live show too, then?
Kevin Barnes: Well, we’ll be at the mercy of the clubs we’re playing. But I’ve decided that I wanted to just get rid of the backing tracks completely and just have live instrumentation.
The Hook: Given how dense your songs can get, that must require a lot of musicians.
Kevin Barnes: I would love it if we could be like a fifteen-piece band or something, but it’s just kind of cost-prohibitive.
The Hook: So did that decision affect the way you wrote the new material?
Kevin Barnes: No. To me, the recording is something that will last a lot longer, and hopefully people— just like I listen to records that were made forty years ago or whatever, hopefully people will listen to Of Montreal records decades from now. The live show is fleeting.
The Hook: Wait, suddenly you’re not as into the dancing?
Kevin Barnes: Well, in addition to making you want to dance.
Of Montreal performs at the Jefferson Theater on May 31. $35-$27 unless you win the free tickets in our contest prize package, 7pm.
This progressive bluegrass band is currently out on the road in support of Susanville, a concept album in which each song is a vignette about one of the people in the cars and trucks zipping by on a roadtrip. The irony of this probably is not lost on them.
The Fitzmaurice Band opens.
The Fitzmaurice Band - Cross Your Mind
The Fitzmaurice Band - California
The Fitzmaurice Band - Barely A Man
The Fitzmaurice Band - Annie Kay
Former Christian folk-rocker who has recently returned from a seven-year hiatus to announce that she’s a lesbian and then take off in a more secular direction.
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Noisy Boston-based piano, bass, and drums trio. Also featuring C-ville staples The Invisible Hand and Philly psychedelic pop nuts The Armchairs, the latter bearing the song we commissioned in honor of the Marco & Luca dumpling shop.
The Armchairs - Solar Puff
The Armchairs - Nebraska
The Armchairs - Lost In A Dream
The Armchairs - Chalk
The Armchairs - An Encouraging Shout To Hunting Hounds
Enthusiastic sunny indie-pop solo project from drummer Adam Brock of the Nice Jenkins. Also featuring Paper Fleet and The Hilarious Posters.
Borrowed Beams Of Light - Kids Are Great!!!
The Hilarious Posters - The Fists The Fighting
The Hilarious Posters - Crossed Over The Ocean
The Hilarious Posters - That Thing You Don’t
The Hilarious Posters - Sugarbread Falls
All-day performance festival hosted by North Branch School featuring food and kid-friendly activities like a cakewalk and student art show in addition to sets by Chapman Stick composer Greg Howard, singer-songwriter Josh Mayo, and folk-rockers HoboJac.
Josh Mayo - Sweet Sweet Love
Josh Mayo - Anymore
Josh Mayo - Blue [live at Rapunzel's]
HoboJac - Uncle Joe
HoboJac - Ramblings Of A Sinner
HoboJac - Crossroads
Beleza Brasil plays Latin jazz and samba fused with blues.
Beleza Brasil - Water To Drink
Beleza Brasil - Fever
Rootsy harmonica-driven blues and Americana. Ticket price includes food beforehand; call 434-361-1999 for required reservations.
Locally-rooted rock band featuring Sons Of Bill bassist Seth Green and experimental guitarist Benjamin O’Brien.
Moby and the Dicks - Ta Na Na
Moby and the Dicks - Red For Dodge
Moby and the Dicks - F
Harmony-happy folk-pop duo. Twelve-year-old rocker Gwen and her family band the C’villians open.
This monstrously successful Grammy-winning pop country trio debuted their pristine new album Need You Now at #1, with a remarkable 481,000 copies moved in the first week (for comparison, Canadian teen heartthrob Justin Bieber had a week on top back in May with a mere 65k during the worst sales week for the music industry since 1991). Their slate of predictable midtempo love songs might not be anything special, but their accompanying bid to become the latest saviors of the music industry has nonetheless worked out much better than expected.
It’s hard to believe in retrospect considering that she’s probably the biggest female rock songwriter to break out from the mid ’90s, but Crow’s 1993 debut Tuesday Night Music Club actually had a rather slow start until the release of the third single “All I Wanna Do,” which then proceeded to take it platinum seven times over and win her a shelf full of Grammys, paving the way for Alanis Morissette to more or less take over the world a year later. (OK, wait, so second-biggest.) Her self-titled sophomore album was a stylistic break, still based in roots-rock but also awash in weird textural overdubs, that probably saw her at her critical peak. Skipping over “Soak Up The Sun” and the Kid Rock duet and the rather presumptuous cover of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and whatever else she did in the early ’00s is probably best for everyone here, and it instead brings us to last year’s Detours, a long-form survival anthem of sorts about her battle with breast cancer and breakup with longtime beau Lance Armstrong — and, much more impressively, to a cover nod from the dearly departed Johnny Cash on February’s posthumous American VI.
Colbie Caillat opens with “Bubbly,” which Cash never covered as far as we know.
buy tickets onlineForty years after his breakthrough single “The Thrill Is Gone,” which is still widely considered his calling card, King is still easily the most important blues guitarist still ticking. That much in itself is pretty incredible — he’s 82 — but what’s more, his latest album One Kind Favor (which, astonishingly, is his 24th) was met with nearly universal acclaim, with Rolling Stone going so far as to declare the T-Bone Burnett project one of the best sets of King’s career.
Willie Nelson’s blues guitarist son Lukas and his backing band The Promise Of The Real open with classic rock numbers haunted by the ghost of Hendrix.
buy tickets onlineJazz
Reggae legend best known for his role in the 1972 crime flick The Harder They Come and his version of “I Can See Clearly Now.”
Furious experimental instrumental art-rock drums-bass-violin trio; the UVA Klezmer Ensemble and local MacGuyver-wunderkind Dylan Mulshine make for particularly inspired openers.
Wildly popular local goth-rockers. Synth-pop duo Synthetic Division opens.
Bella Morte - Fades Like A Song
Bella Morte - On The Edge
Synthetic Division - Back To Sleep
Local master of the Chapman Stick revives his long-dormant quartet format with percussionist Darrell Rose and trumpet player John D’earth for a set of improv-heavy original jazz, Latin, and rock tunes.
You can sometimes find local rock songwriter William Walter holding down low-key nights at places like the South Street Brewery which have him playing acoustic guitar alongside loops and drum machines to flesh out his sound, but for a headlining slot at the Southern he’s seen fit to pull together the ace electric backing band that has gone over so well at FloydFest in years past. The Gold Top County Ramblers open with acoustic bluegrass.
William Walter and Company - Sunflower [live]
William Walter and Company - All The Best [live]
William Walter and Company - Alright [live]
William Walter and Company - Border Crosser [live]
William Walter and Company - MySpace
The Gold Top County Ramblers - 3 Days Blossom
The Gold Top County Ramblers - Raleigh N Spencer
No big surprise that a band called Red Rooster plays alt-country and Americana, but plenty unusual that they do it with a DJ and occasional electronic keyboard parts. The cover art for this NYC folk act’s newest album Walk puts a tractor in front of an urban skyline; that’s about right.
Red Rooster - The Places In Between
Red Rooster - Satisfied Mind
Red Rooster - Raining In Los Angeles
Red Rooster - Borrowed Money
Red Rooster - Black Point Road
Or, for a more explicit statement of this intriguing contrast, you might look to their 2005 double album Dose, which they went so far as to split into separate acoustic and electric discs.
Red Rooster - San Diego Skyline [electric version]
Red Rooster - Mexico Revisited [electric version]
Red Rooster - Sharp Dressed Man [acoustic version]
Local treasures The Honey Dewdrops are a nationally acclaimed acoustic folk duo; keep an eye out for their new release These Old Roots coming this July, once again focusing on personal relationships by way of sweet vocal harmonies laid down in their living room studio setup. (You might even want to join the pre-order queue at this show, in fact.)
Boston folk fusion project The David Wax Museum is kindred spirits with many like-minded Americana bands even though they tend to dip south of the border for a lot of their flavors.
The Honey Dewdrops - Nowhere To Stand
The Honey Dewdrops - Fly Away Free
The David Wax Museum - Colas
The David Wax Museum - Beekeeper
The David Wax Museum - Jalopy Heart
Songs by this hermetic Texas instrumental rock quartet alternate between lighter ambient modes and huge, heavy riffs that dream of your demise, and they’ve also been known to share split releases with Lymbyc Systym, which you may remember as the band that christened the Southern last fall. With Chiaroscuro and A Cosmonaut’s Ruin.
A Cosmonaut’s Ruin - The Inverse Of Man
A Cosmonaut’s Ruin - A Fire To Erase The Sun
Three powerhouse local bands team up for one wild and sweaty rock bender: alt-rockers Astronomers, flamboyant glam-rock youngsters Red Satellites, and 70’s proto-metalheads Corsair.
Astronomers - Or Maybe It’s Nothing
Astronomers - Perpetual Emotion
Astronomers - Stratagem
Astronomers - The Singularity
Astronomers - Shoes
Astronomers - My Hologram
Astronomers - Fermata
Red Satellites - Good Press
Red Satellites - Dancing
Corsair - Last Night On Earth
Corsair - Space Is A Lonely Place
Corsair - Starcophagus
Atmospheric Chicago-based ambient rock quintet
Local string wizard, uh, strings together vocal and cello parts using a loop pedal. Also featuring Staunton singer-songwriter Nelly Kate.
The Hank Williams tribute act from the Live Arts production of Lost Highway heads out to Lovingston for one last hurrah, featuring supporting musicians like Thomas Gunn, Dan Sebring, and Bahlmann Abbot
Rootsy rock band in which VCU music students perform Americana tunes written by Richmond songwriter Doug Fuller. One-man band Kristoffer Wright opens with loop-based Caribbean-flavored folk-rock.
Kristoffer Wright - Alaskan Wood
Piano- and guitar-based Americana singer-songwriter. Prabir Mehta opens.
Bluegrass band inspired by 1970’s folk-rock.
Johnson’s Crossroad - Bail Money
Johnson’s Crossroad - Tired
Johnson’s Crossroad - Those Lonesome Blues
Johnson’s Crossroad - The Bitter End
Johnson’s Crossroad - Left Behind
Johnson’s Crossroad - In Betweens
Folky acoustic gypsy reggae band from Portland which promises “songs of prayer, parties, praise, pot and peace.” (They refer to the kitchen implements they occasionally use alongside the hand drums and kit, of course.)
HannaH*s Field - Angel Land
HannaH*s Field - Zen Mind
HannaH*s Field - Puff Puff Give
HannaH*s Field - Praise Jah
HannaH*s Field - Boss Man
Acoustic pop-rock songwriter and guitarist performs with local sax man Andy Roland.
Josh Mayo - Sweet Sweet Love
Josh Mayo - Anymore
Josh Mayo - Blue [live at Rapunzel's]
Sons Of Bill bassist Seth Green reboots his previous band with experimental guitarist Benjamin O’Brien.
Moby and the Dicks - Ta Na Na
Moby and the Dicks - Red For Dodge
Moby and the Dicks - F
Locally-rooted rock band featuring Sons Of Bill bassist Seth Green and experimental guitarist Benjamin O’Brien.
Moby and the Dicks - Ta Na Na
Moby and the Dicks - Red For Dodge
Moby and the Dicks - F
Musical about a mysterious enchanted Scottish village.
buy tickets onlineAsh Lawn presents Mozart’s opera masterpiece
buy tickets onlineHomecoming show to conclude the recent mini-tour by C-ville’s leading practitioner of Indian Kirtan devotional chants with drum loops, keyboard, and other nuggets of modern electric polish.
Jdavyd Williams - Govinda Jaya
Jdavyd Williams - Hare Ram (Jay Jay Hanuman)
Jdavyd Williams - Ma Durga
Jdavyd Williams - Nataraja
Nickel Creek fiddler and leading lady vocalist Sara Watkins has gone into singer-songwriter mode since all the band members decided to launch solo careers and froze the wildly successful bluegrass-pop trio in carbonite a few years back. A careful study of folk singer Dar Williams‘ career might offer a few useful guiding points about how to pull it off: she’s at her best when she ditches theoretically more productive pretenses like humor and activism and lyrical fables about Christians inviting Pagans over for dinner, and instead goes for the gut with sappy sentimentalism about lost loves and being haunted by the ghosts of dead artists.
buy tickets onlineAs its name suggests, the Dave Rawlings Machine at long last puts the underrated longtime foil to folk’s high priestess Gillian Welch in the spotlight, at least as much as it can given that she’ll also be in the wings here too. But it also features plenty of other formidable cogs and gears, including members of Bright Eyes and Old Crow and even Petty’s keyboardist pal Benmont Tench, and you can expect songs primarily associated with the above here alongside Ryan Adams‘ “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)” — for which, the record should show, Rawlings is credited as co-writer — as well as the Neil Young classic “Cortez The Killer,” which as we again see here is apparently impossible to play for less than ten minutes at a go. But mish-mash pedigree of band and setlist notwithstanding, make no mistake — this one will be all about Gillian and Dave, and as a result will without a doubt be one of the most important Charlottesville folk concerts of the year.
buy tickets onlineThe turning point in the evolution of Kevin Barnes from a simple Athens indie-pop songwriter to wildy successful figurehead of the Elephant 6 musical collective came with 2004’s Satanic Panic in the Attic: after years of turmoil with band members, lineups, and relationships, he found himself with material but nobody to play it. He instead spent his time tweaking computerized arrangements, and the marked dancefloor shift that resulted was a massive hit that inspired even more isolated digital compositions on The Sunlandic Twins and Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, the latter of which contained his all-time high point, the 12-minute epic “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal.” His upcoming album “False Priest,” however, will feature a number of interesting collaborations — space-angel R&B singers like occasional performance buddy Janelle Monáe and Beyoncé’s indie-rocker little sis Solange, as well as Jon Brion, the platinum producer thus far best known for his high-profile work with Fiona Apple and Kanye West. If we had friends like that, we’d be tempted to let a few more cooks into the kitchen too.
Noot D’Noot opens.
Psst — want some free tickets? And ridiculous risque images? We’ve got you covered.
buy tickets onlineLet’s commemorate the one-year anniversary of Parachute debuting at #1 on iTunes and boggling our minds with the strength of their sensitive Asian YouTube guitarist following with this, the new single “Analyze” and accompanying music video from mostly Asian-American local pop rockers Tim Be Told. And much like Parachute had just landed C-ville’s first major-label record deal in years, Tim Be Told has recently signed on with the William Morris Agency booking juggernaut.
It’s quite an uplifting affair, most welcome after this awful week, featuring an almost certainly methodically diverse selection of people displaying handheld signs about their innermost fears and whatnot, “Party In The USA” and Nick Jonas style. And here’s another Miley/Jonas parallel: the MTV attention; apologies for the misleading post title, then, since they actually got to it first, but we’re really trying over here.
In related news, we urge bandleader Tim Ouyang to read this field guide immediately.
Local bands: got something cool that should be featured here? .
Five brainy eco-nuts play organic grass-fed rock and roll. Spacefaring local alt-rockers Astronomers open.
Trees On Fire - Live Life
Trees On Fire - Rosa
Trees On Fire - In The Middle [via WXJM Live!]
Astronomers - Or Maybe It’s Nothing
Astronomers - Perpetual Emotion
Astronomers - Stratagem
Astronomers - The Singularity
Astronomers - Shoes
Astronomers - My Hologram
Astronomers - Fermata
Singer-songwriter recreates his full-band records using a looping pedal
