Garden state of mind: Andrew Cedermark’s ode to transience

For the past five years, Andrew Cedermark has consistently made some of the best and most vital rock music around: unpretentious and exuberant, quiet yet confident, messy and triumphant. But his career path has been a strange one, with several unexpected twists and turns, a story that is still being told as he cautiously finds […]

Discovering a local comic artist at The Telegraph Gallery

The Telegraph is unique in Charlottesville for its wide selection of zines, indie comics, and small press books. Among these are several works by local artists, including a short comic by the young artist Francesca Rowan titled Alencia. This zine-style stapled booklet contains a short sword-and-sorcery story about a young heroine who uses her skills […]

Summer stocked: The Heritage Theatre Festival returns with guns out

The construction is complete, and Robert Chapel is ready to dig in. As Heritage Theatre Festival’s Producing Artistic Director, Chapel is eager to launch the company’s first full season in two years following the opening of UVA Drama’s new Ruth Caplin Theatre. “I’ll be doing five shows: two in the Caplin, two in the Culbreth, […]

ARTS Pick: Mind the Gap

City Center for Contemporary Arts hosts Mind the Gap, a building-wide benefit for Live Arts, Second Street Gallery, and Light House Studio, to help close the gap in their annual fundraising goals. CCCA will be packed with local food and entertainment, from food carts on the street to brews with a view on the roof […]

Down on the Bayou: Anders Osborne’s evolving New Orleans Sound

Through a two-and-a-half-decade career, Anders Osborne has consistently proven to be one of New Orleans’ most versatile musicians. Since releasing his debut album in 1989, Osborne has become a Crescent City mainstay, able to vary his sound from edgy Bayou blues (2001’s Ash Wednesday Blues) to introspective soulful folk-rock (2007’s Coming Down). He’s collaborated with […]

Film review: World War Z

Brad Pitt’s attack on zombies fails to capture the trend It’s not that World War Z is bad. Any movie with star Brad Pitt and director Marc Forster—whose resume swings from Stranger Than Fiction to Machine Gun Preacher-—can’t be bad. It can, however, be pretty mediocre. Fans of Max Brooks’ novel World War Z would […]

ARTS Pick: The Sweater Set

Contemporary folk duo Maureen Andary and Sara Curtin, a.k.a. The Sweater Set, first met as teens in a Washington, D.C. church choir. In the years since, the pair has taken their vocal training and friendship on the road, developing multi-instrument arrangements that include the ukulele, banjo, glockenspiel, and even the kazoo, layered with “elaborate lyrical […]

ARTS Pick: His Girl Friday

Enjoy a star-studded trip to 1940s Hollywood with the suave Cary Grant and glamorous Rosalind Russell in a special screening of Howard Hawks’ classic screwball comedy, His Girl Friday. Adapted from Broadway hit The Front Page, the film features a hard-boiled newspaper editor who learns his ace reporter ex-wife is set to marry a bland insurance […]

ARTS Pick: Gary Allan

Often appearing on stage in faded tees and ripped jeans, Gary Allan embodies the homegrown simplicity of country music. Injecting elegance into lyrics laden with manly understatement, Allan’s unpolished voice tells the stories of everyday life, love, joy, and pain. In his latest release, Set You Free, the California native proves that raw, unadulterated emotion takes on entirely new […]

Tried and true: Dwight Howard Johnson rides an irresistible formula

The pun-named Dwight Howard Johnson is neither a hotel chain nor a center for the Lakers, but rather a Charlottesville band. It plays appealing and charming pop rock, drawn from the timeless well of all pop rock bands, while reminding one of the 1990s, when such pop music was actually popular. The most obvious comparison […]