Trouble, Hospitality’s sterling sophomore record, announces itself by proffering a warning. “If you go to sleep, dear,” warns guitarist and singer Amber Papini on “Nightingale,” “you’ll see ghosts in your bed.” Later, she cautions against other mythical creatures—sirens, vampires—that threaten sleepers. But Papini said the trouble that inspired the record is a bit more existential. […]
Trouble, Hospitality’s sterling sophomore record, announces itself by proffering a warning. “If you go to sleep, dear,” warns guitarist and singer Amber Papini on “Nightingale,” “you’ll see ghosts in your bed.” Later, she cautions against other mythical creatures—sirens, vampires—that threaten sleepers. But Papini said the trouble that inspired the record is a bit more existential. […]
Pop-soul throwback Lake Street Dive’s music is kind of like all these Spiderman movies, to loosely paraphrase drummer Michael Calabrese. “There is this whole thing right now in our culture of reaching back and trying to do something new with old ideas and make sense of them in our modern time,” he told C-VILLE Weekly […]
Lou Barlow has been involved in some of the quaintest rock ’n’ roll feuds of all time. In an industry where grudges are common and time seems only to deepen rifts between once-close bandmates, the Dinosaur Jr. bassist and Sebadoh frontman has pretty much made up with everyone he’s ever crossed. The lo-fi legend was […]
Virginia-native tunes abound at the Six Pack Songwriters Series, a quarterly collaboration of local artists founded by Jason Burke. This fourth installment features a wide range of original music from veteran singer-songwriters John Kelly and Gene Mills, as well as guitarist Bill Staton. Drink in Kathryn Caine’s dark side Americana or Alice Clair’s alternative acoustic […]
The banjo-folk music bastion has a remarkable lineage. Derived from African lutes called n’goni that were brought by slaves to the New World, the development of the banjo provides a fascinating insight into the birth of American music. Master n’goni player Cheick Hamala Diabate, together with celebrated bluegrass banjoist Sammy Shelor, multi-instrumentalist Danny Knicely, and […]
Sometime in late elementary school, you learn about the didgeridoo (occasionally spelled didjeridu). It’s a funky instrument played by half naked Aboriginal people in the Australian bush. It’s more than a thousand years old. It doesn’t actually sound all that great. Then, while attending a Phish show, you come across another didge. It’s pressed to […]
Powerful chords and dramatic tension punctuate the classical music program from the internationally renowned Venice Baroque Orchestra. Traversing the globe since 1997, the ensemble is recognized as one of the premier purveyors of period instrument performances (say it five times fast). A wide variety of strings and woodwinds carry works by Geminiani, Veracini, and Vivaldi […]
There is a unity expressed in musician Cian Nugent’s work beyond the ruminations of one man’s guitar. But hearing snatches of his recordings, it’d be easy to attribute various tracks to as many different performers. “I don’t mean to become stylistically incoherent,” he said by phone from his native Dublin. “I just got to keep […]
Chinese pianist Lang Lang is one of the hottest performers in the world right now. Equally known for his energetic performances and his prodigious talent, the Shenyang native has wowed audiences since he became inspired to try piano after watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon entitled, “The Cat Concerto.” Thirty years on, Lang Lang has […]
The cover art on singer-songwriter Joe Pug’s latest album, The Great Despiser, shows a nearly naked man barely hanging on to the end of a rising balloon. Who knows what it means? Pug says his lyrics are somewhat autobiographical, but they have enough metaphor and allegory thrown in to create some space between the man […]