Legendary pianist Allen Toussaint has been a staple of the New Orleans R&B scene for more than half a century, playing theaters and clubs and influencing and collaborating with marquee names like Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Joe Cocker, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, and NOLA’s own Preservation Hall Jazz Band. In honor of their shared […]
The biggest show of the year is hitting The Southern Café and Music Hall on Halloween night, and you probably haven’t even heard about it yet. “Oh yeah,” said Alex Angelich. “It’s the most fun we have all year.” For just $10, the Southern puts on what will no doubt be the most star-studded single […]
Deconstructed displays its dichotomy right off the bat. The sophomore missive from Birmingham, Alabama’s Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires opens with a greasy overdriven guitar riff and some howling gospel-inflected vocalizations from Bains. Twenty-five seconds into “The Company Man,” the drums and bass kick in and it’s pure boogie, twin guitars trading twangy […]
Anne Slaughter has been a familiar presence on the Charlottesville art scene for many years, her oeuvre being most notable for its heavily worked surfaces. Slaughter spends enormous effort on these, building them up with layers of pigment, “Many, many layers,” she emphasized. She’s constantly tinkering, applying paint and then sanding it down, reapplying paint […]
Barboursville’s Four County Players give dark humor a new meaning in a production of Peter Shaffer’s riotous one-act farce Black Comedy. Beginning in total darkness, the play follows lovesick sculptor Brindsley Miller’s futile attempt to impress his fiancée’s wealthy father with various objets d’art “borrowed” from an absent neighbor. Unexpected visitors, errant phone cords, and […]
Despite running through the theme songs from Rosemary’s Baby, Cinema Paradisio, and l’Amour des Moules (a documentary about mussels) in its first meeting, the modern jazz trio Oliver’s Cinema has no connection to the movie industry. The band’s moniker came courtesy of an anagram brainstorm by founder and feisty trumpeter Eric Vloeimans (it’s his name), […]
“I was walking down the street in Asheville a few years ago, and I saw a line forming at the center where I’d occasionally attended meditation,” said Leena Rose Miller. “I thought, ‘What’s this?’ and got into it, not knowing what to expect. I can honestly only tell you that when I stood in front […]
As U.S. involvement in foreign wars becomes murkier, aimless, and self-justifying, it’s perhaps natural that some would nostalgically harken back to a time when the goals of military action were seen as absolute and our methods unimpeachable. Leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, comparisons between Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler too were frequent, […]
In the photograph on the cover of Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There, a woman sticks her head out of the driver’s side window of her speeding car. Farmland blurs in the background, and the woman’s hair whips in the wind. We can’t see her face, but the implication is that she’s smiling, possibly even […]
After sharing stages with legends Willie Nelson and B.B. King, soulful siren Arum Rae is stepping out on her own. Formerly known as White Dress, the Brooklyn-based songstress’ ethereal, bluesy vocals pack a heart-on-sleeve punch over cyber-synthesized beats and the occasional minimalist guitar line on her newly released EP Waving Wild. Thursday 10/23. Free, 8pm. The […]