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There is a cacophony of music in Charlottesville: At any given moment during any given day,
a DJ is setting a needle into the vinyl grooves of a scratched Marvin Gaye record or a band is

“You can play almost anything —somebody’s going to like it.” This kernel of equal parts wit and wisdom comes courtesy of one of Charlottesville’s premier working musicians, guitarist Vernon Fischer. And after almost 30 years here, teaching music and doing a few regular jobs but mainly gigging, gigging, gigging (and gigging) solo and with various […]

As a three-year resident of Grady Avenue, I used to live right up the street from New Covenant Pentecostal Church and would drive past the narrow white structure, hearing the booming sounds from inside, wishing I was in there, too. When I finally met Bishop William Nowell and told him this, he smiled, revealing a […]

UVA’s Old Cabell Hall brings to mind piano recitals, string quartet performances, and the occasional comedian or lecturer, but the historic building also houses one of the University’s newest and most eccentric programs. Tucked away in the room B012 on the basement level is the Virginia Center for Computer Music. Strange but inviting noises often […]

Sue Holden is a lousy musician. So instead of standing in the spotlight, she’s backstage and frontstage and in the wings and behind the curtains running security and supervising the ushers at the Charlottesville Pavilion, the JPJ and the Paramount, ensuring that you can see a really good musician. And I mean “see,” literally—when I […]

There are no white-hot breaths of feedback, no gallumphing bass lines, bleeding from Jarrod Hood’s small wooden house in Belmont where local heavy metal band Horsefang practices a couple nights per week. Not yet. Instead, there are a few yips from Hank, a skittish hound, and Rigel, a squat bulldog, as Nicholas Liivak, Horsefang’s guitarist, […]

I met Dan Trub on Halloween night, 2005. He was wearing a 2-year-old’s pumpkin costume. I think he might have tried to make me wrestle him. The next time I saw him, a mutual friend begged Dan to do his signature trick, and after a few minutes of reluctance, Dan gave in and started singing […]

Correction appended When you step into the box office at The Paramount Theater, it hits you—everything in this place is for sale. To buy tickets, one must stand in the BB&T vestibule, at ticket windows sponsored by LexisNexis, Hantzmon, Wiebel & Co. and a couple named “Taylor.” The auditorium itself, a renovated movie theater which […]

Robert plays a flute. Standing in front of the Jefferson Theater, he places the thin metal instrument up to his lips and blows, the sweet sounds wafting up and down the Mall. Inside a black fedora on the ground are five copper pennies. “I need to get a new shirt,” he says. “And something to […]

In 1995, on a couch in Boston, Peter Agelasto sat up suddenly and said, “Monkeyclaus! That’s what I’m going to do with the rest of my life!” He then went to India to try and figure out what that meant. Going bananas: Matthew Clark (left) and Abel Okugawa (right) behind the boards for a recording […]