As if there were any doubt, the age of the comic book movie is here to stay, having embedded its logic and narrative rhythms so deeply in our psyche that even a wholly original, self-contained story like American Ultra cannot help but play like an attempt to introduce yet another franchise. Essentially an origin story […]
With the 2013 hit single “Chillin’ It,” Cole Swindell went from a tiny town celebrity to a growing star. He got his first break in Nashville by writing tracks for his Sigma Chi brother Luke Bryan and went on to pen tunes for Thomas Rhett and Scotty McCreery. When Swindell began to write and sing […]
Ann Gordon recognized that it was pretty sketchy downtown after hours. Her children later came to call it “wino safari-land.” She walked there with them sometimes during the 1970s. “There were strange derelict people,” she recalls, “and a men-only bar at The Brass Rail. There was a flop house, men living in single rooms renting […]
Last weekend marked the annual ritual of the UVA undergraduates move-in, when students and parents haul semester survival gear from SUVs to dorm rooms. This year, the weekend also celebrated a move of a different kind—one with less heavy lifting but far more gusto. On Saturday, New City Arts Initiative moved out of its office […]
When Fräulein Maria was assigned as the governess to the seven von Trapp children she transformed the entire family through song, managing to unfreeze the coldest of hearts. At The Sound of Music sing-along, attendees are encouraged to use their complimentary fun pack containing props for use throughout the show. A vocal warm-up will be […]
Noah Gundersen Carry the Ghost/Dualtone Records Carry the Ghost is an apt title for Noah Gundersen’s latest collection of songs: Some would give up the ghost, but he’d rather figure out why it’s there in the first place. And while this does not make for an overly pleasant record, there is beauty in the darkness. […]
Named after a bar in Florida that inspired Jimmy Buffet to write his songs, local cover band Full Moon Saloon is gaining notoriety and stacking up the gigs, including a recent Fridays After Five appearance. Since forming in 2000, FMS has had Parrotheads and reggae fans alike eating out of its musical hand as the […]
Decades after laying down licks for Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Ry Cooder remains unobtrusively prolific as a slide guitarist and an album producer. His work with Buena Vista Social Club and Ali Farka Touré has added Grammy Awards to his shelf, while collaborations with The Rolling Stones, Lowell George, Van Morrison and Judy Collins […]
Inspired, electric and full of the same rawly honed talent that drove its subjects to their creative heights, if Straight Outta Compton were the last musical biopic ever made, it would have been worth suffering through all of the perfunctory crap the genre has produced in the past. Where most biopics lean on the lead […]
It took Victor Captain more than 12 months, a brand new birth certificate and his first flight on an airplane to bring his artwork to Charlottesville. “When I got to New York, my nose was like stuff, stuff, stuff. There was no clean air to breathe,” says Captain. He says it with a smile and […]