The thing about the popular local burritto restaurant Atomic Burrito is that there is often a band, always a crowd, and usually the crowd is as diverse as it gets. Part of the secret to Atomic’s success, according to bartender and music booker Josh Lowry, is that the staff really loves music. Typically, the bartenders will make the call on which band plays the bar on the nights that they work, and the resulting live shows cover everything from country to hip-hop to garage rock. Lowry, who heads The Hillbilly Werewolf and Bucks and Gallants (recently recorded at Monkeyclaus), gave me some of his personal favorites, live
and otherwise.

Fans of piano jazz know Evan Mook from his gigs tickling the 88’s around town. Mook, who toured with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra for two years, was a student of local Suzuki method teacher Kay Pitt. When Pitt decided not to take on more new students, Mook became the Suzuki instructor for piano in town. Although it’s unusual, he has dedicated himself as much to jazz as classical music. In fact, Mook has gradually spent more time teaching jazz music to advanced classical players and musicians with a rock background. Local rocker Brian Kingston, whose music has appeared on MTV, and also been written up internationally, has been studying jazz with Mook over the past year.

April Johnson-Bynes was considering med school, but when she won the school talent show in fourth grade as a singer, she began to think, “Well, maybe I can do this.”

As the music business continues to inch toward the digital age, both on-line promotion and music downloading seem as inevitable as pizza delivery. Of course, with digital downloading (just like home-delivered pizza), what you lose in sonic quality is reimbursed in convenience.

Tim Clark and Nerve No Pain drummer Branden Shores put together This Means You three years ago because “the metal scene was dead.” Clark says the band “got really lucky” when they found vocalist Kim Dylla who could scream as well as sing, and their new lineup has been solid lately. The band is putting the final touches on a new Kevin Murphy-produced CD that was recorded in the Pro Tools studio located behind Stacy\’s Music. Metalheads can catch the band this Saturday night at the Outback Lodge. Unit F will reunite as openers.

Starr Hill presents a diverse and interesting night of music this week. On Thursday, June 1, The Beetnix have put together their first Underground and Independent Hip Hop Festival. “Under-ground by nature, independent by choice,” the crew want to expose Charlottesville to some of the best up-and-coming hip-hop acts on the East Coast.

Dawn Thompson and John D’earth are releasing the second CD of music by The Thompson D’earth Band. When the Serpent Flies will be available for fans at the band’s performance at Fridays After 5 this week, and you can find it at their Thompson D’earth website and Musictoday.

Tanya K grew up an hour from Salt Lake City, where her upbringing definitely influenced her musical palette. She picked up guitar “as a reaction to piano lessons” and moved to California at 17 where she played in the bar where Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath.

As high school kids in Staunton, my friends and I always went record shopping at Back Alley Disc on Main Street, and Dave Sherman was the guy who held our attention. Although he grew up in Oregon, he had recently returned from Europe and, as he explained it, “being named Sherman, I didn’t want to settle too far south.” So he settled in Staunton, where he worked at Back Alley for 20 years. Sherman recently had a serious heart attack that left him flatlined. I got to talk to him about music—especially his connection to Delbert McClinton.