About a decade ago, Rich Tarbell sold a guitar to pay for his first camera. Frustrated with his own music, Tarbell decided instead to document local music on film. And while live concert photography is fun, it all starts to look the same after a while, says Tarbell, who likes the behind-the-scenes stuff that most […]
About a decade ago, Rich Tarbell sold a guitar to pay for his first camera. Frustrated with his own music, Tarbell decided instead to document local music on film. And while live concert photography is fun, it all starts to look the same after a while, says Tarbell, who likes the behind-the-scenes stuff that most […]
Most of the time, when we talk about characters in books, in movies and plays, we talk about their arc—who the character is when the action begins and when it ends, and the curve followed in between. But opera singer Trevor Scheunemann knows it’s not always that simple. It’s especially not that simple for Count […]
The Sea The Sea. Saying its name out loud has the effect of an incantation or a lullaby, similar to the experience of listening to the group’s music. Vocalists Chuck E. Costa and Mira Stanley croon in unison on tracks of love, faith and common threads, while soft chords loop in the background forming peacefully […]
The Soggy Po’ Boys are a lot more appetizing than they sound. The six-man band formed in New Hampshire, but its members are firmly rooted in the ways of NOLA jazz, from vintage outfits to the instruments themselves—among them a piano, two saxophones and a stand-up bass that looks straight out of a 1960s club. […]
Disco Risqué’s mission? “To take over the world one sweaty, borderline-psychotic-music lover at a time.” Their method? Creating and performing some of the most high-energy, hard-to-categorize music in Charlottesville. Imagine George Clinton on his angriest day, combined with Santana-esque riffs at triple their normal speed, and you can start to appreciate what the group does […]
While strolling the Downtown Mall this summer, you may encounter an enormous bass drum with “FREE CONCERT TONIGHT” emblazoned across the head. This refers to the Charlottesville Municipal Band, a group whose performances are as impressive and larger-than-life as its advertisement. Now in its 96th season, the band offers widely appealing events, such as the […]
In his early teens John Beers was “certain that punk rock sucked.” He’d seen the Ramones on television and thought all their songs sounded the same; and he thought Patti Smith singing, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine,” was “kind of scary.” Heavy metal was Beers’ thing. But a few years later, he […]
When Sons of Bill played the Jefferson Theater for Christmas 2017, it was one of only a few times in the last two years that the Americana gurus had held a public concert. But there they were in early April—James, Abe and Sam, the three Wilson brothers who make up the Sons of Bill core—setting […]
Why is it that sequels so bent on continuing stories and fleshing out backstories are much more confusing? It’s a curious thing that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom places such a high premium on plot continuity with little regard for why anyone liked Jurassic Park in the first place. What began as a visually thrilling summer […]
If bluegrass doesn’t typically grab your attention, Man About a Horse might be the band to change that. This five-piece from Philadelphia is on a mission to transform the folksy genre into dance music. Formed in 2014, the group employs mandolin, fiddle and banjo to create an up-tempo sound that both pays homage to and […]