Month: July 2006

Living

Fresh squeezed

A few weeks ago, the local heroes chosen as this year’s C-VILLE 20 were feted at a reception on top of the Live Arts building. Despite occasional rain, and with the help of a beautiful rainbow, the crowd enjoyed a delightful evening, thanks especially to the inspired cocktails and cuisine provided by Jeannie Brown, the hardworking and talented owner of Kiki. Brown gets a workout with every cocktail she prepares, and we are the lucky recipients of the fruits (pun fully intended) of her labor. Each cocktail is individually mixed using fresh-squeezed-while-you-watch juices, just as the dishes offered at Kiki are handmade every day with fresh ingredients.
Brown feels she’s on the leading edge of a trend toward making cocktails the old-fashioned way. “I like to preserve the integrity of the cocktails and make them the way there were meant to be made,” she tells us. Kiki, on Fifth Street SE, serves cocktails and a variety of dishes (such as hummus, marinated flank steak, and not-to-be-missed chunky guacamole) Tuesdays through Saturdays from 5:30pm until 2am. Brown also wants thirsty concert-goers to know that she will be open anytime there’s a show at the Pavilion. In order to make this “fabulous” Grapefruit Basil Limeade the way you’d get it at Kiki, you may have to hit a kitchen supplies store to purchase a muddler—and don’t forget the fresh ingredients! “No substituting Ruby Red and Rose’s Lime,” Brown admonishes. Believe us when we say that the results are well worth it.

Kiki’s Grapefruit Basil Limeade
12 oz. glasses
shaker tin
a muddler (a wooden drink mixing stick)
1 1/2 oz. No. 10 Tanqueray gin
juice of 1 whole grapefruit
juice of 1/2 lime
2 large or 4 small basil leaves
1 tsp. simple syrup. (“Simple syrup is simple. Three to 1 sugar to hot water!”)

In 12 oz. glass, add simple syrup, lime juice and basil. Muddle (“kind of press down and twist your wrist,” Brown explains). Pack glass with ice, add gin and grapefruit juice. Shake well. Garnish with a lime wedge and a pretty basil leaf. “And a long bright green straw would be great too!” Makes one drink.
Brown has several suggestions for making your cocktail party a success. First, “get lots of these ingredients and put them in nice bowls for your guests, so everyone can enjoy all the good smells from the fresh basil leaves and the cut halves of fruit. Plus, it’s so pretty!”
Another useful tip: Using fresh ingredients can be tricky, because not all fruit and herbs are as fresh or juicy as others. So if your grapefruits are small, make sure to add a tad more, and try to find fragrant basil and extra-juicy limes. Finally, a “great complement” to this drink is “The Bull,” which consists of fresh mozzarella balls cut to bite size, grape tomatoes cut in half, lots of basil leaves, a small dish of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and baguette slices. “Have it all near your bar so all those great fresh sights and smells make everyone hungry and happy!” Brown says.

Living

Aiming for perfection

Sometimes, dear readers, the path to restaurant news is really a long and winding road. Which is fine, because as any seasoned traveler knows, it’s those twists and turns along the way that really teach you something. This week, it was the former Krispy Kreme spot on Route 29N that inspired our meandering. The building has been under construction lately, and Someone Who Knows Things dropped us a hint that it would soon be home to a franchise called Ragin’ Cajun.
    Ragin’ Cajun, huh? Let’s see what the Interweb has to say about this, we thought. Up popped a local chain by that name in Houston, Texas, which serves up stuff like po’boys, crawfish pie and something called “Boudin balls.” In two shakes of a shrimp’s tail we had a Ragin’ franchisin’ manager, one Luke Mandola, Jr., on the horn, and were peppering him with questions about whether Ragin’ Cajun was in fact planning to open a location in Charlottesville.
    “No,” Mr. Mandola said, before adding indignantly, “They can’t use that name!” Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, buddy! More importantly, if not heaping plates full of Boudin balls, what was really going into that building?
    Off we went to track down Eric Goetz, who owns the building (and therefore, we figured, might actually have a clue). We delicately posed the question: Are we getting a Ragin’ Cajun restaurant, either from Houston or anywhere else? Goetz laughed before spilling the beans: The new place will be called Raising Cane’s, not Ragin’ Cajun. Ohhhh.
    Finally! Now we were, as they say, on the right track. Our mistake was understandable: Not only do the two names sound similar, but Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers is based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana—Cajun country for sure. But Cane’s doesn’t serve gumbo; they serve, well, chicken fingers. Chicken finger combos; chicken fingers in tailgate boxes; chicken fingers on kaiser rolls. Cane’s cooks up this wide-ranging menu at 42 locations in eight states, and this will be their first branch in the Old Dominion. Mais, jamais d’la vie!
    O.K., we’re talking fast food here, folks —but the guy in charge of our local Cane’s-to-be, Brian Shenefelt, says you can Raise your expectations. “Every order we send out is perfect,” he says. Wow. If only it were possible for Restaurantarama to do our job so flawlessly.
    So what’d we learn from this little trip? Well, first of all, don’t mess with Texas. Secondly, Someone Who Knows Things sometimes Hears Stuff Wrong. And lastly, dear readers, we learned that Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers will open its doors on September 5. So get your fingers ready.

Jabber onward
The spellcheck-tormenting Corner nightspot Jaberwoke (we won’t bother with all the kee-razy accent marks on that name: Just say “Jabberwocky”), has changed hands. Brothers Andy and Patrick McClure bought it in late June from Jim Galloway, and are now planning some changes: a second bar, for one, directly across from the existing one, as well as a bigger menu.
Like any good restaurateur, Andy McClure promises fantastic quality of food and service; now that he’s put in five years as the owner of the Virginian and opened West Main—A Virginian Restaurant where Awful Arthur’s once was, he does have some experience to back that claim. But let’s cut to the chase. What interests us most is a menu addition called CRUSTIES.
That’s right: crusties. “Imagine a rectangular piece of pizza dough,” McClure explains, “covered with pizza sauce and cheese. It’s rolled up like a cinnamon bun, sliced, and baked.” The cheese makes a crust, and voilà. It’s “a little slice of heaven,” McClure proclaims. Pretty cheesy. Look for the new and improved Jaberwoke, perhaps attracting new and improved student drinkers, just in time for the first day of school.

Arts

Full Reviews

PG-13, 106 minutes
Now playing at Seminole Square
Cinema 4

The Devil Wears Prada is based on Lauren Weisberger’s kiss-ass-and-tell roman à clef about working for editor-in-chief Anna Wintour—Nuclear Wintour, they call her—at Vogue magazine. And, although the movie’s better than the book, it’s also softer and vaguer. Weisberger, who was Wintour’s personal assistant for 10 months, offered little more than a screeching catalog of the fashion maven’s crimes against humanity. (“You call this coffee?”—that sort of thing.) But director David Frankel and scriptwriter Aline Brosh McKenna have actually tried to come up with a reason why one of the most powerful women in the world would treat the help with such regal disdain. It’s because she’s one of the most powerful women in the world, dummy! When men do it, they’re called leaders. When women do it… Well, you know the rest.
    Anne Hathaway, looking like she just got through scribbling in The Princess Diaries, plays Andrea Sachs, an aspiring journalist who winds up as a gopher for Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly, a woman who knows exactly what she wants (say, the unpublished manuscript of the next Harry Potter book) and when she wants it (yesterday). That might have made for some glorious encounters as our ashen-faced Cinderella, due for her Extreme Makeover, adjusts to life inside the palace. But the movie doesn’t really give these two the chance, locking Streep’s Miranda in an ice palace of her own. Streep looks great: her waist cinched to within an inch of its life, her hair an impossible shade of silver. And she acts up a quiet storm, softening her voice to an improbably commanding E. F. Hutton effect. But the character never takes off—it’s stranded on the runway.
    That leaves us with Hathaway, who has neither the acting chops nor the Audrey Hepburn charm to pull off this role. On the upside, it also leaves us with Stanley Tucci as Nigel, the magazine’s art director, who has diva dreams of his own. Tucci manages to put his lines over, so the script may not be the movie’s biggest problem. From Funny Face to Ready to Wear, movies have never really “gotten” the fashion industry. (And yet, somehow television—from “Absolutely Fabulous” to “Project Runway”—has taken us to the very heart of the beast. Go figure.)
    Given its source material, The Devil Wears Prada could have been an enjoyable romp through a world most of us know only from magazines like Vogue. Instead, it’s as earnest as Wall Street, only with frocks instead of stocks.

Arts

Other film reviews

The Break-Up (PG-13, 106 minutes) Peyton Reed’s “anti-romantic comedy” about a mismatched couple (Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston) is often funny, sometimes uncomfortably so. Vaughn plays a guy’s guy, the kind who’d like to put a pool table in the living room, and Aniston is a version of her sweet, spunky character from “Friends.” (Kent Williams) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

Cars (G, 116 minutes) Pixar blows us away yet again with an animated story of a NASCAR hotrod (voiced by Owen Wilson) who needs to take the “I” out of “TEAM.” Only by the amazingly high standards set by Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles does the movie come up a little short. (K.W.) Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

Click (PG-13, 86 minutes) Adam Sandler is a harried family man (welcome to the realm of Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin, Mr. Sandler) who finds a magical remote control. Get this: With it, he can pause stuff and fast forward it and mute it. Why he could fast-forward a fight with his wife or slo-mo that jogging girl with the big boobies. My god, that plot is clever enough to be a light beer commercial! (Devin O’Leary) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

The Da Vinci Code (PG-13, 149 minutes) Ron Howard’s movie version of Dan Brown’s religious-mystery novel, in which a Harvard professor (Tom Hanks) and a Parisian cryptographer (Audrey Tautou) try to track down the Holy Grail while being pursued by a crazed albino monk (Paul Bettany), fails to get a decent spook going, à la The Exorcist or The Omen. Howard has illustrated the book beautifully, but he hasn’t wrestled with it, made it his own. (K.W.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (PG-13, 104 minutes) Vin Diesel, having long lost any level of relevance to this fast-moving film franchise, is here replaced by Lucas Black, the kid from Sling Blade. But, really, who cares which humans are involved so long as you’ve got a tricked-out Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX to ogle? Black plays a troubled teen who heads to Tokyo to live with his military uncle officer. There, he falls into the world of underground street racing. The film is rated PG-13 for “reckless and illegal behavior involving teens.” In other words, it’s gonna be a huge hit with high schoolers. (D.O.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

The Lake House (PG, 99 minutes) Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock emote up a storm in this supernatural weepie. It slowly accumulates power and gets extra points for holding on to its dour mood even after the romantic leads have discovered that they’re communicating via snail mail across time. (K.W.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

Little Man (PG-13) God help us, the Wayanses are back in town! Keenan Ivory Wayans directs brother Shawn Wayans as a wannabe dad who mistakes a vertically challenged, cigar-chomping criminal (Marlon Wayans) as his newly adopted son. While the sight of a digitally reduced Marlon Wayans is arguably scarier than the sight of Marlon Wayans dressed as a white chick, what’s most disturbing about this film is how it so blatantly rips off the old Warner Brothers cartoon “Baby Buggy Bunny” starring midget criminal Baby Face Finster. (D.O.) Coming Friday; check local listings

Nacho Libre (PG, 105 minutes) Jack Black has his moments as a friar/cook who longs to be a Mexican wrestler, but the shtick seems a little forced. Black being pummeled by his opponents is pretty much all there is to the plot, but the movie nevertheless has a pleasantly strange vibe. (K.W.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

The Omen (R, 95 minutes) The 1976 shocker The Omen is really just a slasher film dolled up in Biblical raiment. But it’s still a damnably entertaining movie. Naturally, we required no remake; but we’ve got one anyway, once again documenting a clueless Washington family who seems to have given birth to the Antichrist. The cast (including Liev Schreiber, Julia Styles, Mia Farrow and Pete Postlethwaite) takes things seriously, and the direction is notably slick. Still, the script apes the original almost note for note, making this feel like a cover album of your favorite band—good if only for of the familiarity, but not nearly as memorable as the original. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

Over the Hedge (PG, 96 minutes) An all-star voice cast (Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte) lends its talents to this CGI toon adaptation of the popular newspaper comic strip. Willis plays a mischievous raccoon who helps his forest buddies adapt to the encroaching sprawl of suburbia. The animation is fluid and the writing has a bit more spark than most of the recent computer toons we’ve been subjected to (The Wild). From the director of Antz. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (PG-13, 150 minutes) The seaworthy crew of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl returns with Johnny Depp’s Capt. Jack Sparrow on the run from a squid-faced sea demon intent on stealing the lovable scalawag’s soul. Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley are all back on board, joined by Stellan Skarsgård and Bill Nighy. Like the previous outing, this one’s loaded with fun, fantasy and an appropriate measure of summertime swashbuckling. (D.O.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

A Prairie Home Companion (PG-13, 105 minutes) In Robert Altman’s cockeyed salute to Garrison Keillor’s radio program, Keillor (who wrote the script) lumbers on and off the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater, launching into one shaggy-dog story after another. Despite some amusing performances from the likes of Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin and Kevin Kline, the movie never quite gels, feeling more like a rough draft than a finished work of art. (K.W.) Playing at Vinegar Hill Theatre

Superman Returns (PG-13, 157 minutes) America’s favorite Boy Scout is back, and the most enjoyable moments in this $363-million behemoth are when Brandon Routh’s Superman flies through the air with the greatest of ease. Despite Routh’s lackluster performance and Kevin Spacey’s refusal to ham up Lex Luthor, the movie often soars, but it never comes up with a sufficient reason why the Man of Steel is still relevant in post-industrial America. (K.W.) Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

Waist Deep (R, 97 minutes) In this inner-city thriller, an ex-con (Tyrese Gibson, 2 Fast 2 Furious) gets tangled up with a gang after his car is jacked with his young son inside. When a nasty criminal kingpin (rap star The Game) demands a ransom for the boy’s release, our anti-hero teams up with a street-smart hustler (Meagan Good of You Got Served) for some hip-hop Bonnie and Clyde action. From the director of Glitter. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

You, Me and Dupree (PG-13, 108 minutes) Owen Wilson (still hot off Wedding Crashers) stars as a down-and-out best man who moves in on two newlyweds (Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson). Since he got fired from his job for attending their wedding, they feel guilty and are happy to have him stay over for a day, or two, or three, or… Eventually, of course, Dupree’s seemingly endless couch-surfing ways cause friction with the new couple. A fine cast jokes it up in the same vein as Wedding Crashers. (D.O.) Coming Friday; check local listings

Uncategorized

More than moonshine

Jolie Holland laughs a lot. It’s not something you’d expect from someone whose lyrics embrace the dimly lit nooks and crannies of the South. High off a soulful, horn-filled hometown gig with friends, Holland revealed during our recent phone interview that aside from the fact that she doesn’t own an iPod or a computer, she’s not the vintage persona that her rootsy, cinema-noir music might suggest. Rather, she’s the type of girl who prepares freshly squeezed, pomegranate mimosas for her in-studio audience while recording and admits that she has a soft spot for “amazing, sexy musician men,” especially the horn players from her last show. She is as difficult to pinpoint as her signature rise and fall vocals and hybrid sound. She’ll perform at Gravity Lounge on Sunday, July 16 at 7pm.
    A Texan by birth, Holland spent much of her young life dabbling in music and by age 16 was seriously writing songs, despite the fact that she never had formal training. “People are always talking to me about my childhood and music,” says Holland. “That has nothing to do with my music. I listened to, like, The Cure, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, but they want to hear something that has to do with my music.” One critic went as far as to dub Holland an “Appalachian Billie Holiday,” which puzzles the songstress. ”Well, let me just tell you. I’ve never owned a Billie Holiday record and I know nothing about Appalachian music.”
    After founding the Be Good Tanyas in the 1990s, Holland departed and recorded a handful of homemade songs that would become Catalpa, her lauded 2003 debut. The humble basement recordings snagged the attention of Tom Waits, who nominated her for the Shortlist Music Prize. The follow-up, Escondida, catapulted Holland into the public eye and the hearts of music critics with a slew of four-star reviews.
    Her latest release, Springtime Can Kill You, is aching beauty at its best, again defying categories as it merges jazz horns, blues slides and brushed drums. It waltzes from country to folk and undulates with Southern Gothic eeriness. It’s no surprise that she cites Tom Spanbauer’s image-laden work In The City of Shy Hunters and Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita as recent inspirations. Then there’s her contact with a diverse network of players including bluesman Taj Mahal that contributes to Holland’s unique style. You have to wonder if she finds the darkness of things more beautiful, considering her woeful words, but she says, “No.” “It’s just a response to what’s happening. I just believe in telling the truth, but my life has been pretty hard lately.”
    Today, however, Holland is practically beaming over the wire despite only a few hours of sleep and explains that while touring can be exhausting, it’s an overall good time. A recent stint of European dates produced much new material, including two songs in one night, a feat Holland calls “ridiculous.” Unexpectedly, she offers up an engaging thought just before a faulty connection cuts the conversation short. “My friend and I came up with a really great thought together, “says Holland. “In his great accent, he said, ‘There is no justice in the world,’ and I said, ‘but there is magic.’ Somehow together we came up with ‘maybe there’s no justice in the world because there has to be magic.’” You get the feeling that Jolie Holland is far from old-fashioned, but definitely an old soul.

News

American graffiti

Dear Lou: What’s the deal, you ask? You’ll forgive Ace if he’s reluctant to play societal psychologist, since he’s more at home with a pen and a cold one than leather couches and weird dreams about trains and cigars. Freudian jokes aside, however, Ace feels compelled to point out that graffiti is nothing new—scrawled vandalism has been found in sites as old as the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. And yes, our venerable Charlottesville (though not quite so old) has seen its fair share, too.
    One of the more prominent places for plucky painters to put public profiles and prolific punditry (whew!) is on Rugby Road’s Beta Bridge, a longtime billboard of sorts for UVA students. An outdoor wall at Charlottesville High School has served much the same purpose for years. And, of course, there’s the recently erected Community Chalkboard on the Downtown Mall, which actually encourages a chalk-centric version of this expressive act. The stencils that you have in mind, however, are a more recent phenomenon.
    The image of Condi (which, Ace must concede, looks pretty furious) is just one of many stenciled celebrity mugs that have sprung up in the past few years. Bob Saget and Charles Bronson (or at least their likenesses) could be seen in various places off Route 29 a while back, as reported in a 2002 story in The Daily Progress. An inscrutable etching of Dr. Cornelius from Planet of the Apes, accompanied by the word “conquest,” was (and still is) visible in many areas.
    So who, exactly, would risk the law’s wrath for Chuck Bronson? (Besides Lee Marvin, that is.) That, Ace must report, is still a mystery, given the artistes’ understandable desire for anonymity. One follower of local graffiti, though, ventured his opinion as to why they might do it. Carter Felder, administrator of the website charlottesville graffiti.com, says, “It’s mainly all about the art and getting people’s attention.”
    Admirers of these bits of unorthodox local color had best not get too attached, however. Charlottesville officials have a system in place for wiping out graffiti, even when it’s on private property. Jerry Tomlin, of the City’s Neighborhood Development Services, noted that since his office started the program, “we’ve gone from about five [instances of graffiti] a day to two a week.” Bad news for those damn dirty apes, I guess.

Arts

Bom Beleza

Madeline Sales grew up in Charlottesville, then attended Duke University. After college, she traveled through Latin America. She ended up in Bahia, the northern province of Brazil that is renowned for its music, and there she met Humberto Sales. Humberto began playing guitar as a child, and by the age of 12 he was playing very seriously. He was at the university when he and Madeline decided to pool their talents into a group. The band was so good that they received numerous offers to play abroad. On a return trip from Turkey, the two decided to return to her home here, and they have been performing samba, bossa nova and other styles as Beleza Brasil. They play every week at The Bluebird Café, Bashir’s and Zocalo, and Humberto is busy giving guitar lessons. The duo also have a CD that was recorded in Brazil that is due out this August.

Spencer Lathrop: Brazilian bands?
Madeline Sales: There is a singer named Cybele, who I think is based in France now, who sings nice, soft bossa nova stuff with just a guitar. In the traditional vibe, I like Rosa Passos, and I like Marisa Monte’s voice. Carlinhos Brown is a very smart, interesting musician. He brings a lot of people together. And a band, Bossacucanova. I love that stuff. We would like to figure it out more but it would take us a lot more tech.
Humberto Sales: Bossacucanova has a good record, Uma Batida Diferente. We get lots of ideas from them. From my town in Bahia comes Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. There is a very famous mandolin player named Armandinho. There is a great musician named Aderbao Duarte, who is the only one who can play like Joao Gilberto. He is keeping that music alive. Jorge Ben, who is Tropicalia era, but he also really likes funk. And Monica Salmaso, from Rio, but she is doing really well in the U.S.

Samba? HS: I have a lot of great records, but Djavan has an album called Seduzir, and at the moment he is playing really good samba. I admire Joao Bosco, who has had a great influence on my playing. There is a group of samba players called Fundo de Quintal, which means backyard. They would get together in their backyards and bring hand percussion, guitars and mandolin. If you want to hear quality samba, they are a very good band.

Flamenco? HS: First of all, Paco de Lucia. He is very important because Flamenco music was the blues and came from the lower social classes, and he brought it to the concert level. He drew his path in a hard way. He was just a boy and wanted to play soccer with his friends, but he had to stay away from his window playing the guitar. He had a mission “to be the best.” De Lucia has about 35 albums, but Solo Quiero Caminar is a very good one. Tomatio from Spain. He is a real gypsy, and was performing a lot at 12. Vicente Amigo is part of the new generation of players, as is my teacher Gerardo Nunez. And Augustin Carbonell, who is also a gypsy and the nephew of Sabicas. He can play like de Lucia.

Living

We Ate Here

Nothing makes a rainy morning feel cozier than running through the drizzle toward the warm light of a bakery, knowing that a beautiful selection of pastries awaits within. We thought hard and chose a blueberry cream-cheese Danish—it just looked so appealing inside the glass case, like a little boat full of berries. The crust was buttery and flaky and dusted with powdered sugar; the cheese was just a little tangy; the not-too-sweet berries were dotted with a crunchy crumb topping. Who says rain is bad weather?

Albemarle Baking Company 418 W. Main St. 293-6456

Living

Thousands of tunes at your fingertips (legally!)

Post author By ashley-sisti
Post date July 11, 2006
No Comments on Thousands of tunes at your fingertips (legally!)

The digital music world has become a confusing jumble of online stores, generic radio stations, and illegal downloading programs (Napster vs. Metallica, anyone?). If rifling through the virtual smorgasbord of choices isn’t your cup of tea, there is a friendlier option out there. Pandora, an offshoot of the Music Genome Project, offers listeners the chance to create and customize streaming audio “stations” according to their personal tastes. The Music Genome Project is a momentous, user-created database that categorizes 60 years of music, from a wide variety of genres (sorry, classical and world music fans—they haven’t gotten to you yet). It seeks to identify the “genes” that make up the identity of a song—upwards of 400 different attributes based on technical makeup and listener appeal. Now, fueled by this database, the Genome Project geniuses have created Pandora —a Web-based music player that allows users to personalize up to 100 stations that, theoretically, will cater to the listener’s every whim. Here’s how it works: You tell Pandora a song, album or artist you like, and it spits back a radio station designed around the musical attributes of that selection. It even explains the reasoning behind the songs it chooses. Still not satisfied? Well, you can always add songs you like to a favorites list for later reference. And, for all you control freaks out there, there are other ways to refine the station as you listen. Giving a song a “thumbs down,” for instance, causes similar-sounding tracks to play less often.
Yes, registration is required, but at least it’s free (you can also subscribe to access the ad-free version). Rewinding is not permitted, because that would allow users to play specific songs on demand, which is a no-no for streaming audio sites. Same goes for too many skips in one hour—if you want to find a specific song, Pandora suggests that you buy it on iTunes or Amazon.com. Technicalities aside, the site’s sleek and simple design is sure to steal you away from other pocket-gouging digital music options. Why? Because their goal is to help curious music-lovers discover new tunes—no credit card (or jail time) required. Mission accomplished.

www.pandora.com

Arts

Culture Bin

Big Head Todd and the Monsters w/ Toad the Wet Sprocket Charlottesville Pavilion
Saturday, July 8, 2006
music
    Music has the great gift of conjuring up memories and reminding us of times long past. Well, over the weekend, two big acts from the ‘90s who have somewhat dropped off the musical map traveled to Charlottesville (via time machine, perhaps?) to remind us of who they were, and why they mattered.
    Taking the stage first was Toad the Wet Sprocket, who broke through on the alternative rock music scene in 1991 with their reverb-drenched single “All I Want.” Led by front man Glen Phillips, the band played all the songs that made them famous, including “Walk on the Ocean,” as well some newer, equally melodic tunes that, at times, recaptured the band’s famous way with a catchy, harmony-laden hook. Although the Toadsters officially parted ways in 1998, they’ve reunited for this summer tour and, if this performance is any indication, they might just have a chance of capturing a new audience.
    Second out of the gate was Big Head Todd and the Monsters, those frat-circuit faves who rose out of Colorado in the ‘90s with their hit album Sister Sweetly. Big Head Todd’s signature R&B sound, coupled with American rock anthems, propelled them to the top of the charts. The Charlottesville crowd definitely hung onto their favorites, including “Bittersweet,” ”It’s Alright,” “Boom Boom” and “Circle.” There was certainly no shortage of energy, and guitarist Todd Park Mohr played his guitar with infectious flair and flavor.
    It was a surprisingly memorable evening at the Pavilion, and many listeners seemed delighted to be reminded of those brighter, less complicated days in the mid-‘90s when Big Head Todd and TtWS filled the musical gap between Seattle’s grunge explosion and traditional American pop. There was definitely some nostalgia in their acts, but, like all of us, these acts just keep looking and pushing forward.— Bjorn Turnquist

Enchanted April
Heritage Repertory Theatre
Through July 15
stage
    Along with my ticket to Heritage Rep’s production of the stage version of Enchanted April, I brought some baggage. I’m a fan of the original 1922 novel by Elizabeth von Arnim—a once famous and now sadly neglected writer, and a fascinating woman whose life was as spirited as the title of her autobiography, All the Dogs of My Life. And I’m also a fan of the 1992 movie version, starring Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright, Alfred Molina, Michael Kitchen and Jim Broadbent—a virtual who’s who of inimitable British actors.
    To all this could I add yet another layer of appreciation? Would I encounter a whole new way to engage with the story of four women—two disenchanted housewives, Lotty Wilton and Rose Arnott (Beth Gervain and Ann Talman), a young socialite, Caroline Bramble (Faith Noelle Hurley), and an elderly dowager, Mrs. Graves (Daria T. Okugawa)—in post- World War I England who muck in together to rent a villa on the Italian Riviera? The answer: Act I left me cold, and not just because it takes place in a drizzly London, while Act II warmed me back up, and not just because the lovely villa and the rest of the set designed by Tom Bloom seems drenched in sunshine.
    Veteran Heritage Rep director Douglas Sprigg lacks ideas when it comes to creating tension in Act I. Yes, Lotty and Rose’s husbands, Mellersh and Frederick (John Paul Scheidler and Robert Porter), are just the right shade of irritating, but the wives’ longing to replace a sterile world with a fertile one is more stated than deeply communicated. In fact, the only real tension is between Talman and Okugawa’s subtle and Gervain and Hurley’s overly mannered performances.
    Act II clears the playing field. Sprigg suddenly seems right at home. With little brushstrokes he builds a rich atmosphere that pools the resources of all the actors. And with splashes of color he stretches out the elements of classic British farce— stronger than in the novel and the movie— to garner some genuine laughs.
    In the end, the charming story charmed me once again.—Doug Nordfors

NFL Head Coach
Electronic Arts
PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC Rated: Everyone
Games
I now know why Bill Belicheck seems terminally grim (even when his team is winning) and Marty Schottenheimer and Tony Dungy always look like they’ve swallowed several wads of tinfoil on the sideline.
    Being an NFL head coach is the world’s most tedious job, you see, and they’re dreading the 100-plus hours of micromanagement tasks they’ll be slogging through when the final gun sounds.
    That’s the impression you get, anyway, from playing through a season in NFL Head Coach, Electronic Arts’ debut attempt at a sports-management sim. This is a game that, for better and for worse, puts the minutiae of literally thousands of coaching and management decisions squarely into your twitching hands. Down time? The high life? Not in this league, baby—there are plays to develop and e-mails to read.
    Historically, these sorts of games have been little more than menu-based spreadsheet programs masquerading as sports games. In terms of text-based management sims, football’s fallen on especially hard times here in the States; Front Office Football, that old series veteran, has been MIA since 2003. NFL Head Coach takes what was great about those games, adds enough extra busywork to choke even Vince Lombardi and puts a nifty graphical sheen on the whole affair. Setting practice times, massaging depth charts, hiring coaches and free agents—these are just a handful of things you’ll have to do before even calling the first snap.
    The Madden engine fuels the actual onfield parts of the game, so the plays you eventually develop and call will look as sharp as they do when you’re the one controlling them in Madden ‘06. Unfortunately, you’re not the one controlling them here— you just pick and hope for the best, a goal the game’s AI botches a little too often. Even when you’ve slathered the positive motivation and maxed out attribute points, a well-prepped quarterback will still cough up some seriously puzzling turnovers. Then again, I imagine this is how Brian Billick feels when he’s watching Kyle Boller heft his third interception of the day, so perhaps EA’s nailed this aspect more closely than I realize.
    If you’re the sort who’d rather be the one juking the D for a 70-yard touchdown run in Madden ‘06, run far, far away from Head Coach—you’ll likely be clawing your eyes out before preseason begins. Control freaks, on the other hand, may just have found the foundation for a Super Bowl contender. —Aaron Conklin