Forty-five songs that every Charlottesville music fan should know

Things are going to get loud.  And I don’t strictly mean musically speaking, though we have our fair share of the really noisy stuff on this list—from the nastiest instrumental metal to the soundtrack for a long-gone underground venue. We’ve got plenty of the quiet stuff, too—extinct local cassette tapes, a troubadour’s home recordings. I mean “loud” as in the volume of the debate. Because to compile the essential local listening guide to Charlottesville, we had to break a few bands to make a masterpiece, or single out one tune by the likes of The Beetnix or Paul Curreri, to gather 45 songs that tell the bigger story of the musician’s place in our city.  Some of it will be difficult to listen to, and even more difficult to find—starting with a 1988 cassette tape from a locally spawned guitar demon and including records that are out-of-print, unreleased or just plain buried beneath the noise. Among a true wealth of local music, you have to dig a bit harder to find the gems. So C-VILLE did some of the digging for you. Scroll through for a playlist of our essential local songs, then dig up your trusty pair of headphones and get ready to go treasure hunting.

1 Atsushi Miura and the Dirty Round Eyes

"I Hate Charlottesville (So Boring)," from Cheap & Fake (2003)

The former owner of Tokyo Rose turned his sushi restaurant’s basement into one of the most vibrant underground music scenes in the city, a haven for everyone from locals like Bella Morte and Ted Stryker’s Drinking Problem (see No. 12: The Extraordinaires) to Elliott Smith and Of Montreal. Most evenings ended with the same encore: Miura grabbed an acoustic guitar and played this song for the handful of hangers-on and hardcore fans. When people say that the local music scene changed when Miura left town in 2004, they’re mostly talking about the Rose. But this song is a vital part of the legend.

2 Barling and Collins

"American as Fuck," from Puberty and Justice for All (2004)

Because patriotism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Unless you have a cooler full of beer, a guitar and a cello, that is. Our own Stephen Barling and Brandon Collins, pioneers of a genre we think of as “Americana as fuck.”

3 The Beetnix

“Fall Away” from Professional Thieves, Vol. 3 (2007)

Only available on an EP sold by the ’Nix at concerts, “Fall Away” is the best Beet for your bucks. Louis “Waterloo” Hampton does a real lyrical number over the sort of gauzy electronic beat that earned Damani “Glitch” Harrison his nickname. And former local Ezra Hamilton does his best Maxwell vocals on the hook: “One more step and I’ma fall away.”

4 Birdlips

“Some Kind of Death,” from Cardboard Wings (2008)

Sometimes a local album skips years of Charlottesville musical evolution and soars in with a sound from another world entirely. Cardboard Wings is that album, and this song is the best example. Sounds even better in a live performance, with Cliff Usher’s echoing guitar break and keyboardist Lindsay Pitts showing a bit of leg.

5 Camper Van Beethoven

“Might Makes Right,” live at Starr Hill Music Hall (2005)

“More bouncers needed in aisle three,” announces David Lowery after he turns a drunken heckler’s taunting into a chant. You know his work from Cracker and from the liner notes of loads of local albums dating to the ’90s, but Lowery is at some kind of personal best here with CVB. Download the whole show at archive.org.

6 Danny Schmidt

“Two-timing Bank Robber’s Lament,” from Home Recordings (2003)

We could go with a track from Schmidt’s Live from The Prism album, but we adore Schmidt’s long out-of-print masterpiece, sold locally to pay for his medical expenses when he was battling cancer without insurance. This track was released on his latest record, Instead the Forest Rose to Sing, but is at its essence here.

7 Dave Grant

“Willie the Pimp” (Frank Zappa cover), from Bubbalon by Bass (2007)

Grant recorded with any musician he could lure into a studio, and created instruments from whatever materials he could get his hands on. Fittingly, musicians from Art Wheeler to Dave Matthews chipped in on Bubbalon, released after 46-year-old Grant died in 2002. “Willie” is our favorite, full of textured growls from Tim Anderson that mix with “instruments” like drywall buckets and electric drills. Grant would approve.

8 Dave Matthews

“Stay or Leave,” from Some Devil (2003)

Light House filmmaker and UVA graduate Sahar Adish won a Peabody Award for her documentary about fleeing Afghanistan with her family. And, wouldn’t you know it? Matthews was kind enough to loan his song to the film. Heart-wrenching on your stereo, even better on the big screen; watch a clip featuring “Stay or Leave” here.
 

9 Dave Matthews Band

“Warehouse,” from Under The Table and Dreaming (1994)

An expansive live track? An early favorite and longtime classic? For everyone else, maybe. For locals, that big, pink building near the corner of South and First streets. And the starting place.

10 Devon Sproule

“Old Virginia Block,” from Keep Your Silver Shined (2007)

Lost in the Blue Ridge? The opening track from Sproule’s “getting married” album is your guide home by touch, taste and sound. A stream-of-consciousness love letter to home, sung over scuffed sneaker drums and jazz chords.

11 Earth to Andy

“Simple Machine” from Chronicle Kings (1999)

Longtime local Andy Waldeck has sent loads of rock into the world, whether as a solo musician or a member of X Porn Stars. (Heck, you could even credit him as something of a mentor to Chris Daughtry, whose band opened for Earth to Andy.) But this track—the centerpiece of an album released by Warner Bros., by a local band signed to Red Light Management—marked a point where, true to the band’s name, the world reached out to embrace Waldeck.

12 The Extraordinaires

“Warehouse Song,” from Short Stories (2006)

Former members of local acts including Ted Stryker’s Drinking Problem and Folkskunde start over with a more direct name and write their best song yet. “We never do a single dish/ Our house is fine the way it is”— local slacker anthem No. 1, even if The Extraordinaires are too detail-savvy to be dubbed “slackers.”

13 Free Bridge Quintet

“New Resolution,” from Live at Old Cabell Hall (2008)

There are a half-dozen reasons why Miller’s still packs a jazz crowd: the five Free Bridge players, and this song.

14 The Hackensaw Boys

“Sweet Petunia,” from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival compilation (2005)

Our homegrown Hackensaw Boys have two speeds; this is the fast one. By the time your ears catch up with the punk-grass, the Hacks are halfway through this track, written by former member and current Modest Mouse Tom Peloso, howling like a bunch of neighbors whose house party has just spilled out into the yard.

15 Horsefang

“River of Dead Horses,” from the self-titled album (2007)

The most terrifying local metal song ever written has no words. But you’ll hear bloody murder in it.

16 Indecision

“Take It All In,” from Live at the Chameleon Club (1996)

If you’re a fan of jam bands, you don’t need a handful of favorite groups; you need a single group that can play great songs a handful of ways. Indecision, formed in Charlottesville in 1984, could hang with the best of them, and still can; the band closed a 2007 gig at Satellite Ballroom with this track (listen at archive.org), best realized on this live album.

17 Jeff Romano

“Diamond Joe,” from It’s 3am, Go to Bed

Because Romano is the city’s most percussive fingerpicker. And one of the most underrated local singers. And—hands down—the best harmonica player. He does two of the three in this superlative take on a folk standard. 

18 Jim Waive and the Young Divorcees

“Old Dominion Girl,” from Strike a Match (2008)

“Fool” may be the classic Jim Waive woebegone waltz, but we like the quick step the Young Divorcees lend to his bid for the state song of Virginia. You might not sing “She’s sweeter than the bells of Tennessee” for the state flag soon, but you can sing it every Wednesday night at the Blue Moon Diner.

19 Lake Trout

“Little Things in Different Places,” from Alone at Last (2000)

Recorded at Trax in December 1999, an album summed up by the liner note declaration “Whatever happens, happens.” What happens on this track? Math rock, acid jazz, flute fills and live breakbeats from DJ Who. In short: “Little Things” in one of our favorite places.

20 Lauren Hoffman

“Rock Star,” from Megiddo (1997)

Like many a great local album at the time, Megiddo was produced by Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven leader David Lowery. But how many great local albums boasted musicians like Hoffman, who at only 18 years old spiked this single with lines like “I love you ten times more dead than alive/ I want to hold your kid and make love to your wife”? You’ll have an easier time finding this track than finding another woman like Hoffman. 

21 Marzaks

“Superhuman,” from Superhuman (2002)

Falsies frontman Peter Markush maintains his inimitable stage presence, and Stephen Barling tells us that T.J. Johnson’s mandolin solos are “killer.” We concur. Maybe an early, acoustic ancestor of Straight Punch to the Crotch? (See No. 37.)

22 Matt Curreri & the Ex-Friends

“Goodbye, Virginia,” from Exercise Music for the Lonely (2006)

Yes, Virginia once had two Curreri men playing music. (See No. 27). And while Paul’s younger brother Matt waited until he moved to California and formed the Ex-Friends to release this record, this farewell tune is born of a local love.

23 Mister Baby

“One Eye Open” from Lucky You (2009)

The new folk standard, covered by the likes of Devon Sproule, but at its lean, mean best in the red-handed grip of its author, Megan Huddleston. Listen to her voice flick like a switchblade when she sings “I’ve picked out a real pretty spot for you.” And don’t fuck with her. 

24 Old School Freight Train

“Tango Chutney,” from Run (2005)

The essential woodshopping band for virtuoso Charlottesville musicians. (Before Ann Marie Calhoun recorded strings for DMB’s Stand Up, she paid her dues with the band.) The Freight Train has lost some weight in recent months, but former mandolin star Pete Frostic and long-gone jazz-banjo expert Ben Krakauer give this “Chutney” a nice kick.

25 Panda Transport

“Transmission,” from Plush Mechanique (2008)

No, not the Joy Division song—although Kathy Compton and her fellow Panda, Thierry Holweck, did win a few hearts and listeners with their cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” While this song popped up on “Grey’s Anatomy” last season, it performs better on your stereo. 

26 Pavement

“Summer Babe (Winter Version),” from Slanted and Enchanted (1992)

For a certain type of music fan the world over, this song is an anthem for two seasons a year. Guitar solos that are at once irreverent and heroic, lyrics about a girl “eating her fingers like they’re just another meal.” As insular as a blizzard, as explosive as a heatwave, penned by the most memorable rock act to ever live on 14th Street.

27 Paul Curreri

“Beneath a Crozet Trestle Bridge,” from Songs for Devon Sproule (2003)

Boy sees girl sing Johnny Cash song, thinks he’s in love, and steps onstage to sing with her. Boy writes one of the finest collections of country-blues and folk confessionals and names it for her. Boy, no other love song comes close.

28 The Come On Children

“Alta Vista” (1999) 

From Interstate 64 to your front door, few local songwriters made the drive more enjoyable than Jeff Grosfeld, man behind local acts Pro Rock S and Come On Children. While the 1992 song “Nina’s Office Christmas Party” by Pro Rock S runs a close second to this, the view from “Alta Vista” can’t be beat. Grosfeld co-owns Under the Roof; go bug him for a copy.

29 The Rolling Stones

“Sweet Virginia,” live at Scott Stadium (2005)

For all the right reasons. "Come on down, sweet Virginia." Watch it here.

30 Sarah White and the Pearls

“Fighting Words,” from White Light (2006)

A chorus shouted by everyone who ever caught White perform with the Pearls at Atomic Burrito, or spotted her recently with former King Wilkie guitarist Ted Pitney at her side. If you don’t know the refrain by the song’s beginning, you will by the song’s end.

31 September 67

“Busy Building,” from Lucky Shoe (1996)

Kristin Asbury and Shannon Worrell managed to tie worlds of influences—from ’60s folk and ’80s shoegaze to ’90s grrl rockers like Liz Phair—into pop songs that were often simpler and catchier than the sum of their parts.

32 Silver Jews

“Buckingham Rabbit,” from American Water (1998)

Shannon Worrell (see above, No. 31) writes in an e-mail: “So many of David [Berman]’s songs remind me of this place. He sings it. We see it. We cry.” The Silver Jews founder, WTJU DJ and friend of Pavement (see No. 26) only needed three chords and the truth, but knew that the truth was  sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always complicated. Runner-up: “Honk If You’re Lonely,” a track from the same album, penned by local architect Gate Pratt.

33 Sleater-Kinney

“One More Hour,” from Dig Me Out (1997)

Former WTJU DJ and seasoned rock writer Rob Sheffield made loads of mixtapes, including the 22 that structure his 2007 memoir, Love is a Mixtape, about his marriage to another WTJU (and C-VILLE) alum named Renée Crist. This track opens a mixtape from April 1997, and closes the chapter about Crist’s death from a pulmonary embolism. “…[E]ver since Renée died, I’d been thinking about ‘One More Hour,’ the saddest Sleater-Kinney song ever.” And one track forever on our playlist.

34 Sons of Bill

“Texas,” from A Far Cry from Freedom (2006)

One of 11 tracks recorded in a week’s time at Crystalphonic Studios, after only two practices. “I gotta get the hell out of Texas/ ‘Cause Texas ain’t where a Virginia boy should be” croons James Wilson while his brother Abe leans into his keyboards and his other brother Sam summons an unruly wall of twang. The lesson? Go where you need to, but remember where you’re from.

35 Sparklehorse

“Saturday,” from Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (1995)

Songwriter Mark Linkous, currently rumored to be collaborating with David Lynch and DJ Danger Mouse, used to call Fluvanna County his home. This was the sound of our city in the ‘90s, refined to its essence—particularly on the weekends.

36 Stack Boyz

“900 Block,” at myspace.com/bandanamoney (2007)

Some songs are about where we’re headed, but others are about where we’re from—the things we hear and see, and the things we don’t. This is the sound of local hip-hop today.

37 Straight Punch to the Crotch

“I Love My Claw,” available at Monkeyclaus.org (2008)

Kind of about “CLAW,” the Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestlers. But also about keytars and determination. “I threw the I-Ching with my claw!…Now don’t you want to party with my claw?” Yes. Yes we do.

38 Sweetbriar

“Line ’Em Up,” from the upcoming Line ’Em Up album.

Because half of our city (probably) has ended a night by “crawling home on Rugby Road.” And because such a night demands a barroom boogie soundtrack with a touch of Boston harmonized lead guitars, shiny as PBR cans in the moonlight, sweaty as the crowds at Buddhist Biker Bar.

39 TR3

“Mind Over Matter,” from the eponymous cassette (1988)

That’s right, eponymous cassette. Tim “I Make DMB Burn like Zeppelin” Reynolds ripped through this tune with none other than Robert Jospé (also of Free Bridge Quintet, No 13) on the skins. You can find a bootleg circa ’88 from Sigma Nu frat house on archive.org.

40 Truman Sparks

“Juan the Sperm Whale,” from the self-titled debut (2006)

Not the easiest song to sing along to, but enormous in its local impact. Truman Sparks split this year, and scattered its members and unique brand of melody melting to other acts like The Invisible Hand. But this song finds all hands on deck, battling a local rock behemoth.

41 Dave Matthews Band

“Satellite,” from Remember Two Things (1993)

Yes, we hid this one as “No. 41” as a joke. Yes, it’s another Dave Matthews Band song. But hear us out. A few tracks on this record were recorded live at Trax, the irreplaceable mid-sized venue that hosted music from 1982 until its closing in 2002, and the reliable home base for Boyd, Stefan, ’Roi, Carter and Dave. This version of “Satellite” is a document of a band we knew would be big, recorded at a club we hoped we’d always have.

42 The Union of a Man and a Woman

“Grand Design” from The Sound of… (1998)

Before John Harouff and Neil Campbell formed The Cinnamon Band, they wreaked so much havoc in basements and Tokyo Rose with this trio that former local Darius Van Arman signed ‘em to Jagjaguwar. Only problem: They were still in high school. Ah, well, better to burn out…

43 The Unspoken Heard

“Nigga Like Me,” from Cosmology: The EP (1997)

Any major hip-hop force since, including The Beetnix (see No. 3), will tell you: Without these rhymes from Asheru and Blue Black, the locals also known as The Unspoken Heard, hip-hop might not’ve happened here. At least, not as we know it now.

44 USAisamonster

“Anal Lies,” from Tasheyana Compost (2003)

Picking a single song from USAisamonster is like picking a single hand grenade from a pile of them. Before the Belmont-based underground sweet spot called the Pudhouse was forced to close due to occupancy and zoning issues, this is just the sort of thing you’d hear. 

45 The Wave

“Burned Me Down Again,” from High Road Hard Road (2008)

Guitarist and singer Willie Denton-Edmundson was 13 years old when The Wave released its first album, Dreamers. This track, from the band’s sophomore album, is big on Jack White guitar fills and mystic harmonies courtesy of drummer Avery Sandridge.