Tanael Joachim holds the kind of enviable, disarming charm that allows him to shift from insights on religion, immigration, and communication, to explicitly disgusting one-liners. But that’s not his bread and butter. Rather, like most great standups, his jokes keep audiences off-kilter by navigating topics of intellectual interest. Of course, when we all least expect […]
It’s a little unfair to call Jackson and the Janks’ music old-fashioned. Though, honestly, that’s exactly what it is. But that’s too vague. It doesn’t feel as prudish as that catch-all people born after the year 2000 sometimes throw around. The twangy guitar and slightly overdriven, whiskey-soaked vocals brighten the ’50s blues-based rock ‘n’ roll […]
I don’t know about you, but when I think of chamber music, the bassoon is not the first—nor the second or third—instrument that comes to mind. A standard string quartet, or some seven-piece collaboration among instrumentalists seated around a piano, captures what I imagine most of us would anticipate for a highbrow Friday evening. Maybe […]
Since the mid-’80s, Jon Spencer has been fronting bands and serving as a notable supporting character in what the world used to call alternative music. Despite using the word blues in everything from his group names to song titles to lyrics, he’s been steadily pumping out rock ’n’ roll in the traditionally dirty sense of […]
You’ve likely seen the classic Disney cartoon—and maybe even the Magic Kingdom’s live action $270 million stinker from earlier this year. Now you can witness the beauty of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in ballet form when this family-friendly version arrives in town for a Sunday afternoon show. The Grand Kyiv Ballet, which features […]
An Austin, Texas, musician and actor with a history that runs through Los Angeles, Shakey Graves (Alejandro Rose-Garcia) does an admirable job writing dynamic Americana that avoids cliché. He’s amassed a discography of four full-lengths, a fistful of EPs, and a pair of compilations since gaining attention that netted him the unusual position of official […]
When I asked my special lady if she wanted to go see the Vienna Boys Choir (actual name: Wiener Sängerknaben), she didn’t hesitate to tell me it couldn’t be lower on the list of things she’d like to do. I wanted to be sure, since we could catch them here in Charlottesville and in the […]
The Heavy Heavy isn’t the first outfit from the U.K. to present as American. In fact, 61 years since the British Invasion, it’s not shocking to hear lead singers who sound like they’re straight out of Nashville or the Hollywood Hills introduce their next song with a Cockney accent, mirroring a character from your favo(u)rite […]
In our technology-driven time when we can fabricate A.I. videos of the most fantastic, improbable scenarios on demand, and when news sources are challenged for their veracity, I feel compelled to ask: Do we still have the capacity for the age-old excitement generated by magic? Illusionist Vitaly [Beckman] hails from Belarus in the former Soviet […]
Accessibility in music is relative. A production choice to drop strident elements can open doors—or close them. A songwriting decision to blow up the arrangement with an unexpected halt, or inject a plodding track with a catchy chorus, can make a huge difference to audience reception. If Rick James were still alive, you could ask […]