It might come as a surprise to learn that alt-J members conceive of themselves as a folk band. After all, the U.K. trio’s synths, patterns and rhythms don’t conjure the same aesthetic as an acoustic guitar-wielding troubadour. The experimental art-rock does, however, evoke its own brand of folklore. Take “Adeline,” a track from the group’s […]
Downtown Boys Cost of Living (Sub Pop) “A Wall,” the opening track on Cost of Living, winds up like it could be a punk Springsteen cover—then vocalist Victoria Ruiz bursts through with the righteous, insistent bellow of Dog Faced Hermans’ Marion Coutts or holy Poly Styrene. Downtown Boys calls itself a “serious band from Providence,” […]
First the Loyal White Knights of the KKK July 8 and now the Unite the Right rally August 12. Charlottesville has become quite the magnet for white nationalists since City Council voted in April to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee and rename two Confederate general-monikered parks. Oh, and the mayor declared the […]
Little more than 40 years ago, former Charlottesville mayor Nancy O’Brien received an unexpected letter. Sent from Poggio a Caiano, a tiny, two-square-mile municipality in the Italian province of Prato, the epistle recounted the tale of a very special—and very old—friendship. “We were preparing to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and […]
For the better part of 25 years, Kurt Krueger has harbored a vision. “I remember learning to swim as a kid at a YMCA in St. Louis,” says Krueger, a UVA School of Law graduate and downtown attorney, and a long-time supporter of the local Y’s satellite youth sports programs. “I knew that a full-service […]
A single pink rose lies at a diagonal across the quartz headstone that has become two-toned with age in the last 125 years. The rose covers part of the inscription on Carrie Brown’s headstone, which is different from others from that time period. The Buckner family’s clustering of graves, which lies to the west of Brown’s—all […]
One thing Judge Richard Moore and Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s attorney agreed upon: “If it was possible under the law and there was one person who should pay on this meritless claim, it would be Jason Kessler,” said Pam Starsia, who represented Bellamy when Kessler petitioned to remove him from office for offensive tweets Bellamy made before taking […]
Inside this year’s Outdoors Issue, you’ll learn about eight different jobs that celebrate being outside—and all the tricks of the trade that a few local workers employ. From geometry calculations to determine where to cut a tree limb to avoid hitting a window or power line to how best to move a rattlesnake from a […]
Ethan Lipscomb tore the shirt from his thin frame and tossed it through the artificial fog and colored lights off the stage in the basement of the Jefferson Theater. The crowd erupted and the drummer punctuated the landing of the shirt with the hit of a cymbal. Lipscomb launched into the next song with his […]
A Charlottesville native whose keen intellect and deep foreign policy knowledge led her to become the first female director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Anne-Marie Slaughter has never forgotten her roots. She is one of this year’s Tom Tom Founders Festival Founders Summit keynote speakers, as well […]