ARTS Pick: Mary Chapin Carpenter & Indigo Girls

  When it comes to the optimism and social justice that fills many folk songs, you might think “easier said than done.” Get ready to buy in when Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter and folk rock’s Indigo Girls team up for an intimate acoustic show benefiting the Charlottesville Free Clinic. Carpenter’s country-tinged vocals have charmed […]

ARTS Pick: Paul McCartney

So you missed the boat on seeing The Beatles live by about 40 years? There’s hope for your bucket list yet. Paul McCartney’s bafflingly active tour schedule shows no signs of slowing down. Responsible for Fab Four hits like “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Eleanor Rigby,” this 72-year-old knighted British composer and multi-instrumentalist has kept […]

Film review: Jurassic World leans on the franchise’s past

  Peppered throughout Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World are self-aware, and self-defeating, references to the original 1993 film and what one can only imagine as the sequels to come; from a techie in a vintage Jurassic Park t-shirt to a military grunt who imagines a world in which trained velociraptors are weaponized and sent into combat […]

Natural resources: Casting Shenandoah National Park in a starring role

As the newest artist-in-residence at Shenandoah National Park, documentary filmmaker Stace Carter sums up his outdoorsy side in one word: “Meh.” A former Boy Scout, Eagle Scout and decades-long Albemarle resident, Carter says he has “a great appreciation for comfort,” and his interest in this artistic residency comes not with the chance to shoehorn backcountry […]

ARTS Pick: KaiL Baxley

Elated confusion seems to be a common reaction for most people after a KaiL Baxley performance. The Williston-Elko, South Carolina native shares more than a hometown with soul legend James Brown. The two had a strange and improbable friendship throughout Baxley’s childhood that undoubtedly influenced his current path. It may have inspired Baxley to forgo […]

ARTS Pick: Tashi Dorji

As a teenager in Bhutan, Tashi Dorji’s access to media was heavily restricted, and some of his first musical influences came via shortwave radio and bootleg cassettes. After moving to America in 2000, the improvisational guitarist’s musical horizons broadened immensely, and Dorji discovered the music of Albert Ayler, John Zorn and Derek Bailey, who serve […]

ARTS Pick: PHOX

If Echosmith and Mumford & Sons had a love child in Baraboo, Wisconsin, the sextet PHOX would be the result of their union. The band operates like a family, living together and creating most of its music—coffee shop folk acoustic swirled into a chaotic mix of rock, psychedelic and soul—within the comfort of home. Lyrically, […]