To hear vocalist Andy Deane tell it, Bella Morte sounds like it was always a goth rock goliath, a band that brought hordes of local fans to Tokyo Rose to fill the room with their devil’s horns like bats eclipsing the sun, even when they expected an empty room. “When we started at Tokyo Rose, we decided to just give it a go,” says Deane. “At our first gig, we were just surprised that anyone was there. But we played there and would basically sell the place out. It was a ‘holy shit’ situation for us.”
When Bella Morte began in Charlottesville in 1996, the group needed to do more than launch themselves into weekly open mic nights and the other established rock ’n’ roll habitrails; the band turned the basement of the Rose into its own Batcave and organized Charlottesville’s first goth audience, many of the same people that now dot the crowds at gigs by ThisMeansYou and the operatic metal act In Tenebris, which disbanded last year.
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The dead and the beautiful: Bella Morte celebrates its latest record with a CD release gig at Outback Lodge on October 4. |
As Bella Morte made a name for itself at home and around the country—planning back-to-back tours last summer with little break, because “days off are vampires on money”—a few bands tagged with the goth brand, like AFI and the platinum-selling My Chemical Romance, began to break onto bigger stages. “When we first started, we were a goth band, pure bred,” says Deane. “As we’ve taken on a few more elements, these other bands have risen to fame. It’s not so scary to people anymore—it’s just another form of music.”
Beautiful Death, the band’s sixth proper full-length album, released nationally on October 7 and a few days earlier during a gig at Outback Lodge on October 4, does precisely what it must to preserve the band’s place among the Fallen and the soon-to-be-felled. Engineered by Bella Morte’s keyboardist, Micah Consylman, Beautiful Death is a record of condensed epics like the grinding and anthemic “Find Forever Gone” or the dark and stormy “In the Dirt.” Nearly each song builds from Consylman’s hypnotic keyboard arpeggios, throws in dark towers of guitar work from Tony Lechmanski and then redoubles its momentum around Deane’s pitch-perfect werewolf howls.
Within a steadily growing dark cloud of goth bands, it’s still a thrill to see Bella Morte return to Outback Lodge’s stage to blot out the light on their own. “We fill it every time we play,” says Deane. And, 12 years from the goth revolution Bella Morte began in Charlottesville, Deane knows that filling a venue for such a gig is no simple feat.
“I was shocked when I saw that John Paul Jones Arena was bringing Nine Inch Nails through,” says Deane, with a proper fan’s reverence for gloomy NIN frontman Trent Reznor. “It just seems like, if the music doesn’t have some relation to pop or Dave Matthews…they’re not the easiest tickets to sell.”
To Is, or not to Is
Much as Bella Morte proved with Tokyo Rose’s darkly appropriate basement, some spaces are made for music, and the second floor of the old Starr Hill Music Hall is no exception. So when Si Tapas, the succinctly named Spanish grub spot, opens next week, it does so with a bit of old flavor: The second floor, according to Si Tapas employee and booking agent Stew Hartman-Mart, will be a music venue. And the name is…
“Is.”
“Next week we have our first show,” said Hartman-Mart during a brief phone interview. “That’ll be Sweetbriar, on Thursday [October 2], with Mariana Bell and The Sometime Favorites.” (Tickets are $5; catch the set by the Favorites, a guitar-heavy pop act that features Truman Sparks’ excellent drummer Ray Szwabowski on the skins.) On Saturday, October 4, Is hosts—wow, it might take time getting used to the grammar reflux—Birdlips and Trees on Fire for $10. Both shows start at 9pm. [Update: Curtain Calls learned that neither Birdlips nor Trees on Fire confirmed these dates on their websites. However, you can catch Birdlips on October 2 at Gravity Lounge with Birdmonster and Trees on Fire performing at The Crozet Music Festival on October 5.]
When asked whether the space would bring a mix of national and regional acts similar to Starr Hill, Hartman-Mart responded, “Absolutely.” Which gives this music writer a lot of hope; some music spaces work for years to establish an identity as a go-to venue. With any luck, this one simply Is. Or, “Is one.” You know what I mean.
Keep watching the skies
Every Virginia Film Festival press conference seems like a balancing act between cinema geekdom and celebrity shine, a line that artistic director Richard Herskowitz always walks a tad left of center. While this year’s announcement followed the lead of previous schedules, with a few marquee guests announced late in the game, the lineup for this year’s “Aliens!” theme—a collection of transnational and cross-cultural flicks, covering everything from exiles to extraterrestrials—has a few excellent surprises in store. Here are a few to catch:
Megan Holley: A previous Curtain Calls subject, Holley won the Virginia Governor’s Screenwriting Competition in 2003 for her film Sunshine Cleaning. After problems with directors and cast, the film made a trip to the Sundance Film Festival this year and cemented a stellar group of actors, including Alan Arkin, Mary Lynn Rasjkub and a pre-Enchanted Amy Adams in the lead role. Both Sunshine Cleaning and Holley’s previous flick, The Snowflake Crusade, will screen.
Guillermo Arriaga: The man behind the fractured masterpieces of director Alejandro Iñárritu, from Amores Perros to Babel, will attend screenings of his films, including his directorial debut, The Burning Plain.
McCormick Observatory : The spot that served as a lookout for space invaders following Orson Welles’ famous “War of the Worlds” radio play in 1938 hosts an opening night broadcast of Welles’ stellar prank on Thursday, October 30, then transforms into a mini-theater for the festival’s more incendiary and experimental work, including films by George and Mike Kuchar and Jeanne Liotta, whose films last screened at The Bridge/Progressive Arts Initiative. For a full line-up and ticket information, visit vafilm.com.
