ARTS Pick: The Mowgli’s

Named after Kipling’s character in The Jungle Book, the alternative rock band The Mowgli’s achieved success quickly after the single ”San Francisco” hit the airwaves. The eight-piece collaborative is defining a new California sound while relying on standard West Coast notions of peace, love, and chasing a higher consciousness. Royal Teeth and X Ambassadors open. Tuesday 11/12. $12-15,7:45pm. […]

Easy Star Records helps U.S. reggae step out of Jamaican shadow

If Lem Oppenheimer is at all worried about perpetuating the stereotypes that come with being in the reggae business, he didn’t show it when he walked into a Belmont coffee shop for an interview on October 18. Tall and lanky with close-cropped hair, Oppenheimer clutched a handful of CDs produced by his record label, Easy Star […]

Interview: Dr. Dog’s dueling songwriters trade indie rock anthems

A lot of married couples could learn a thing or two from Dr. Dog’s Toby Leaman and Scott McMicken. The singer-songwriters have been making music together since eighth grade more than 20 years ago. The secret to staying together as long as they have? It’s the rock ‘n’ roll equivalent of never going to bed […]

ARTS Pick: Steel Magnolia

Country-rock duo Steel Magnolia cut its teeth on the national stage with an audition for CMT’s reality show “Can You Duet?” Initially skeptical that the judges would understand its unique twist on country, Joshua Scott Jones and Meghan Linsey walked away with the show’s grand prize, and received further confirmation in 2012 when awarded an […]

ARTS Pick: The Mock Stars Ball

Six local bands go big on Halloween with slick impersonations of popular rock bands at The Mock Stars Ball. The heavy metal-esque Corsair will play all the “hits” by Iron Maiden, and fast-paced Dwight Howard Johnson takes on the Pixies catalog, while Moby and the Dicks (Joe Cocker and Friends), Megaphor (Rage Against the Machine), Sharkopath (The […]

ARTS Pick: Pearl Jam

Since the late ’80s Pearl Jam has been rocking out the grunge genre it helped to define. The benchmark of the Seattle scene is currently touring on its tenth album, Lightening Bolt, and it still delivers the authentic, high energy rock ‘n’ roll performances, led by passionate frontman Eddie Vedder, that broke the mold in […]

The Cold War Kids refine their spin on indie rock

The Cold War Kids are kind of like leftovers from a good restaurant in the back of your fridge. You remember them being tasty, but you forget to eat them for a while, and then you start to wonder if they’re any good anymore. If only old leftovers could produce an album like the Kids’ […]

ARTS Pick: Klezmer Ensemble

Led by musically accomplished UVA professor Joel Rubin, the Klezmer Ensemble explores Jewish and eastern European musical traditions across centuries. Chief among these is a style developed by the eastern European Jewish instrumentalists known as the klezmorim. The last 40 years have seen a revival of the klezmer derived from the tradition brought by immigrants […]

Musician Diane Cluck finds her muse in Charlottesville

Though her name might still be unfamiliar to many locals, Diane Cluck has a well-established career as a writer and performer, and a network of fans around the world. She’s the rare female singer-songwriter whose music cannot easily be compared to other artists. Cluck’s music seems to come not so much from a dialogue with […]

Interview: SOJA brings a distinctly American voice to reggae tradition

The success story of SOJA sounds improbable: An all-white reggae band from the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia gains global acclaim. But after more than a decade of hard touring and developing a catalog of roots reggae tunes, the band (formerly known as Soldiers of Jah Army) has headlined shows in 20 different countries […]