Ani DiFranco feels most comfortable when she’s pushing boundaries. After some downtime following her daughter’s birth, the singer-songwriter/activist/poet/DIY feminist is ready to be back onstage, connecting with like minds and “kicking ass and taking names.” DiFranco’s album Binary was released a year ago, but written before the 2016 election, and its themes are eerily clairvoyant. “I’m […]
In 2009, James Keogh was a promising player in Australia’s Victorian Football League. He also played music, and, taking an alias from a Peter Carey novel he was reading, put himself into rotation in the Melbourne open mic scene as Vance Joy. He released his indie debut EP, God Loves You When You’re Dancing, in […]
If it’s your goal to keep mama happy this Mother’s Day weekend—and it better be—then comedian Antoine Scott has you covered. Scott built a reputation for delivering beyond expectations in comedy clubs around the country. Fans say he leaves them gasping from laughter and they call him one of the funniest raw comics of all […]
Perched on a wooden stool inside her McGuffey Art Center studio, Megan Elizabeth “Mae” Read looks around the room at her sketches—a roughly defined nude male figure, a sequence of grayscale charcoal portraits including one of a little girl with butterfly face paint—clustered together near the floor. “You know,” she says before taking a pause, […]
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This is something that Jeff Gregerson has thought a lot about as he’s made music throughout his life. Gregerson, 33, played first in high school rock and jam bands, and more recently as one half […]
It’s easy to reduce your identity to before and after you have children when your whole life feels like one long haze of sleepless nights and diaper changes. But what happened to the person who came before? Do they cease to be? How do you reconcile who you’ve become with who you were when your […]
In a world where the touch of a finger delivers a meal, a song or a new pair of shoes, the passing down of traditions to make these things from scratch sounds quaint. But when experts and students come together for the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Showcase, crafters, makers and legions of DIY hipsters find plenty […]
Part puppet show, part musical, Avenue Q is about a recent college grad named Princeton, who moves into a rundown apartment in New York City. Written by Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, and based on the book by Jeff Whitty, the audience goes along for the ride as Princeton discovers that his nice neighborhood friends […]
Alternative four-piece Swimming With Bears is on a mission. The Austin-based group has been tirelessly honing its groovy sound since releasing its self-titled debut EP in 2016. Energy and style, from smooth lead guitar riffs to driven bass lines held steady by slick rhythms, are the keys to SWB’s feel-good soul. The new single “French […]
With a blend of American folk and styles rooted in Latin America, Calexico, named for the southern border town in California, has a distinctive, playful sound. Vocalist/guitarist Joey Burns and John Convertino use Tex-Mex indie rock to approach current issues through melodies and lyrics. The band’s impassioned ninth album, The Thread That Keeps Us, is […]