Brett Dennen has a knack for writing upbeat hits. At least once on each album, he lays down a jaunty single that toe-taps its way up the charts. It turns out, that’s exactly in line with Dennen’s personality. Preparing to get on a jam cruise out of Miami on Valentine’s Day, Dennen was giddy—and possibly […]
Pop-soul throwback Lake Street Dive’s music is kind of like all these Spiderman movies, to loosely paraphrase drummer Michael Calabrese. “There is this whole thing right now in our culture of reaching back and trying to do something new with old ideas and make sense of them in our modern time,” he told C-VILLE Weekly […]
Lou Barlow has been involved in some of the quaintest rock ’n’ roll feuds of all time. In an industry where grudges are common and time seems only to deepen rifts between once-close bandmates, the Dinosaur Jr. bassist and Sebadoh frontman has pretty much made up with everyone he’s ever crossed. The lo-fi legend was […]
In the wake of the January Keswick fire that took the lives of a woman and her two children in mid-January, Charlottesville Fire Department Batallion Chief Rich Jones said CFD’s goal is never to have another fire death in the area. It’s a lofty aim, he admitted, but through education and preparedness, it could be […]
What story do your kids tell themselves about why they do the things they do? It’s a question that’s critical for children’s wellbeing, according to UVA psychology professor Tim Wilson. Wilson, a social psychologist, says people can improve their lives by controlling and editing their internal narrative. For example, if a new college student tanks […]
Sometime in late elementary school, you learn about the didgeridoo (occasionally spelled didjeridu). It’s a funky instrument played by half naked Aboriginal people in the Australian bush. It’s more than a thousand years old. It doesn’t actually sound all that great. Then, while attending a Phish show, you come across another didge. It’s pressed to […]
The next big thing in beer is going to be weed. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. You’ve likely heard of sommeliers, the expertly trained snobs who help you negotiate a wine list. But you might not have heard of cicerones, the sommeliers of the beer world. Trained to guide you through ale and lager […]
When I received an e-mail about a bunch of barbecue competition judges getting together in January to taste some ’cue because they were “missing the competition smoke in the dead of winter,” I was skeptical. “You realize this could be the most awkward hour of my life,” I told my editor. A dozen strangers, around […]
The cover art on singer-songwriter Joe Pug’s latest album, The Great Despiser, shows a nearly naked man barely hanging on to the end of a rising balloon. Who knows what it means? Pug says his lyrics are somewhat autobiographical, but they have enough metaphor and allegory thrown in to create some space between the man […]
Almost nothing upsets me more than a poorly constructed sandwich. I’m not kidding. This may show my crazy a bit more than is appropriate for general audiences, but I have literally coldcocked a sandwich for falling apart in my hands. Yep. Dropped it on the plate, and decked it. If you’re anything like me (God […]