Hear us out: A never-complete list of local releases from 2018

It’s time for us to take up the sticks and beat this drum again. Here’s our never-complete (but still pretty comprehensive) look at what Charlottesville-area artists released this year. We’ve focused mainly on albums and EPs, but there are dozens of other bands and artists releasing single after single, or playing songs that haven’t been […]

The journey forward: One-person show Holly’s Ivy heals with reverence

Shelby Marie Edwards still switches between “is” and “was” when talking about her mother. After all, it’s not yet two years since Holly Edwards passed away in early January 2017. And in many ways, she remains present, not just in her daughter’s heart and mind, but in Charlottesville. Shelby, a theater artist and performance artist […]

Playing it out: Stray Fossa is a new band with a long history

Nick Evans sometimes wakes at “god-awful hours of the night” to find his brother, Will, in the living room, sitting quietly amid microphones, coiled cables, amps, guitars, and drums, his shoulders hunched toward his computer, the blue-white glow of the screen illuminating his face, laser-focused, with headphones covering his ears. Nick laughs as he describes […]

First Fridays: December 7

While working on her newest series of paintings, Uzo Njoku learned the importance of telling a story through portraiture. The story Njoku tells with “Out of the Shadows,” on view this month at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery, is one that has global reach and widespread effects, and is perhaps not told—or heard—nearly enough. […]

Owning it: Comedy performer L.E. Zarling finds happiness in improv

It’s a Saturday morning in Richmond, and L.E. Zarling has ordered a chocolate croissant to go with her latte at Lamplighter Coffee. She looks at the pastry, covered in a heavy-handed sprinkle of powdered sugar. Then she looks at her black turtleneck sweater. “Fuck it,” she says before taking a bite. “I’m going to enjoy […]

First Fridays: November 2

In the early hours of February 1, John Borden Evans was out for his regular run through Walnut Creek Park when he paused to memorize the landscape before him. He noticed how the setting moon hung low and bright in the sky, how the moonlight radiated through striated clouds to bathe the mid-winter trees, grass, […]