ARTS Pick: Zac Brown Band

Two heads are better than one…but how about eight? The award-winning, record-smashing Zac Brown Band proves that strength does come in numbers. Blending rock energy with country style, the group is tearing through the U.S. on the Welcome Home tour, following the release of its latest album of the same name. The new tracks are […]

ARTS Pick: Della Mae

Inspired, versatile and entirely unique: These are among the words that have been used to describe the Boston-based act Della Mae. Steeped with timeless lyrics and rootsy influences, the multi-instrumental group creates original music that draws on both traditional and avant-garde styles. With a desire to focus on their personal lives and solo work, the […]

ARTS Pick: UVA bicentennial

On a fall day in 1817, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and James Madison met in a field to place a cornerstone on land that is now University of Virginia’s Lawn. Two hundred years later to the day, Hamilton’s Leslie Odom Jr. and R&B singer Andra Day will perform, along with more than 900 students and […]

Joan Shelley masters the art of fret finger work

Singer-songwriter Joan Shelley describes her latest self-titled album as being like an oil painting with minimal brush strokes. “I think of it as doing the most with the least,” says Shelley. “It’s trying to do something subtly, but by being able to see the gestures. I don’t like to overwork it.” The album, released in […]

Movie review: Battle of the Sexes serves up an ace

Directing team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris continue their streak of slyly subversive, yet totally engaging, films with Battle of the Sexes, an insightful, exciting and unexpectedly hilarious recounting of the famous 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Like all Dayton-Faris outings, it breathes new life into familiar tropes while cleverly […]

Kathryn Erskine empowers young readers through two new books

Kathryn Erskine has lived in the Netherlands, Israel, South Africa, Scotland and Newfoundland, but she has called Charlottesville home for the last 14 years. This month marks the release of Erskine’s first picture book, Mama Africa! How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song, and her sixth middle-grade novel, The Incredible Magic of Being. Though […]

Ten Things I Love About Tom Petty

“They told Tom Petty that his first solo album wasn’t commercial enough. It had f**king “Free Fallin’” on it.” Drive-by Truckers’ Patterson Hood lists the first 10 things that come to mind in no particular order.

Album reviews: Gyða Valtýsdottir, Omni, Deerhoof and The Babe Rainbow

Gyða Valtýsdottir  Epicycle (figureight) A veteran of Iceland’s experimental Múm as well as the St. Petersburg Conservatory, multi-instrumentalist Gyða Valtýsdottir delivers an absorbing hybrid of those two worlds on Epicycle. The instrumentation hews to the traditional, but the sensibility and choice of material are adventurous, as Valtýsdottir interprets Crumb, Partch and Messiaen alongside Prokofiev, Schubert and […]

ARTS Pick: COIN

COIN makes the kind of sweet indie pop perfect for blasting on Indian summer drives with the car windows rolled down. This energy translates to the stage, where lead singer Chase Lawrence spends performances whipping his hair, jumping off amps and hyping up the crowd until it’s having as good a time as he is. […]

ARTS Pick: Son Little

Whether you believe in magic or not, you’ll be left wide-eyed with wonder listening to Son Little’s second full-length album, New Magic. In his quest to find where musical ideas originate, this Philadelphia-born songwriting sorcerer made a name for himself weaving together American music genres. The result is a cohesive vision that is entirely unique, […]