Month: March 2016

Categories
News

Bennett’s Cavaliers make Elite Eight for first time since 1995

Coach Tony Bennett takes his Cavs to Elite Eight. Photo: Jack Looney

With a commanding win over No. 4-seed Iowa State, head Coach Tony Bennett and the Virginia Cavaliers will advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1995. This marks the furthest postseason appearance during Bennett’s era at UVA.

An 84-71 win propelled the Cavaliers past the Cyclones on Friday’s game, with senior Anthony Gill scoring 23 points to lead the team to victory. The team was unable to control Iowa State leading scorer Georges Niang, who came away with 30 points and 8 rebounds, but key contributions from seniors Mike Tobey and Malcolm Brogdon helped seal Virginia’s success, putting up 18 and 12 points respectively.

In Virginia’s past two NCAA appearances, Bennett led the Cavaliers to one Sweet 16 and one second round exit, both years falling to Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans.  But with the Spartans knocked off early this year by 15-seed Middle Tennessee, Virginia will take on No. 10-seed ACC opponent Syracuse in the Elite Eight.

Second-year student Alex Andrews, who watches the Cavaliers religiously, says that Virginia’s impressive Sweet 16 win over Iowa State is a promising sign for a team that has struggled with postseason play in the past.

“It was really encouraging to see such a dominant start to the game, as well as a strong finish,” Andrews says. “There’s something special about these Hoos.”

Virginia was the third No. 1 seed to advance to the Elite Eight, following Oregon and Kansas, and was joined later that night by final 1-seed North Carolina. Of all four top seeds in the Elite Eight, the Cavaliers are up against the lowest-ranked team, with North Carolina up against 6th-seeded Notre Dame. Oregon and Kansas were both felled by 2-seeds Oklahoma and Villanova, respectively, on Saturday.

In addition to the advantage the Cavaliers gain from playing a lower-ranked team, Virginia also squared off against Syracuse earlier this season, beating them in conference play by a score of 73-65. While upsets are not uncommon in March Madness, Andrews feels confident in Bennett’s team going forward in the tournament.

“I have a lot of faith in this Virginia team. They have the most dominant defense in all of basketball, and score enough to take down even the strongest of offenses. I like their chances,” Andrews says.

Should the Cavaliers defeat Syracuse this weekend, they’ll stay on familiar ground, taking on either ACC foe North Carolina or Notre Dame in the Final Four. While Bennett’s team won both of their regular season matches against Notre Dame and North Carolina, Virginia fell to UNC in the championship game of the ACC tournament, leaving a difficult road ahead for the Cavs.

The Cavaliers remain at the United Center in Chicago for the Elite Eight, where they will tip off against the Syracuse Orange at 6:09pm tonight.

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Gogol Bordello

Gogol Bordello combines “music, theater, chaos and sorcery” into a live-music extravaganza on Tuesday at the Jefferson. Photo: Publicity photo

Gypsy-punk-dub band Gogol Bordello’s sixth album, Pura Vida Conspiracy, continues the group’s intentional trailblazing. “The message of this record is the quest for self-knowledge beyond borders and nationalities,” says frontman Eugene Hütz. “Every culture is a useful mask, but it is just a mask. To get to know your actual human self, you have to get behind all the masks.” What emerges onstage is an all-out, no-holds-barred rock event that pogos between genres, makes no apologies and takes no prisoners.

Tuesday 3/29. $29.99-34, 8pm. The Jefferson Theater. 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 245-4948.

Categories
Arts News

Good night, John-Boy: ‘Waltons’ creator Earl Hamner dies at 92

Earl Hamner on the stage of the Hamner Theater in Nelson County. Photo Nancy Mulrine

Schuyler native Earl Hamner Jr., who put Nelson County on the national map with his 1970s Emmy-winning series, “The Waltons,” died from cancer March 24 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles listening to “Rocky Mountain High,” according to his son’s post on Facebook. He was 92.

Best known for “The Waltons,” he also wrote episodes for “The Twilight Zone” and created the 1980s series set in Napa Valley, “Falcon Crest.” He wrote four novels, including Spencer’s Mountain, published in 1961, upon which “The Waltons” series was based.

Hamner’s life growing up during the Depression in Nelson County was the source material for “The Waltons,” and he said in 2003 that one of the things of which he was most proud was how the show changed the perception of the people who lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“The village of Schuyler where I grew up was once thought of as being peopled by gun-toting, illiterate, xenophobic, moonshine-swilling hillbillies,” he said. “Through my books and my television shows, I was able to give the area and the people a more positive image, an image that has been seen in every country in the world except China and Russia.”

Hamner himself exemplified the decency of the television family he created, and while he was pegged as a “soft” writer in Hollywood, he had much more depth and versatility. “‘The Waltons’ were the light side of my personality, and ‘Falcon Crest’ the dark side,” he said.

For years, Schuyler was home of the Walton’s Mountain Museum until a dispute with the museum management and the ouster of Hamner’s younger brother, Jim, caused Hamner to pull out memorabilia he’d donated.

Boomie Pedersen, founder of the Hamner Theater, remembers him coming to Nelson, sitting on the stage and reading from his novella, The Homecoming, which the theater adapted for its first production and subsequent shows.

“Most of all it was his voice—it was an amazing, soothing, comforting sound, which was the narrator’s voice on ‘The Waltons’,” she says.

Hamner was a consummate storyteller, and said, “Writing is rewriting,” recalls Pedersen. “That was such a gift for writers.”

He was also the consummate Southern gentleman,. “Earl is one of the kindest people I ever met,” she says. “He epitomized kindness and generosity.”

Each episode of “The Waltons” ended with the family saying good night to each other, something Hamner said his own family did. “Good night, John-Boy” became a tagline for a generation.

Good night, Earl Hamner.

 

Categories
Living

Run for it: treadHAPPY debuts as Charlottesville’s first treadmill studio

Workouts at treadHAPPY, co-owned by Claire Mitchell and Sara Currier, combine run-walk intervals on a treadmill with yoga, Pilates, weight exercises and foam rolling. Photo: Martyn Kyle

Even in the gyms where the machines are equipped with TVs and iPhone jacks, it’s easy to get bored on the treadmill after a few miles—or a few minutes. The monotony can be mind-numbing, and finding the motivation to incorporate things such as intervals, speedwork and a proper cooldown into a solo workout can be a challenge. That’s where one of Charlottesville’s newest fitness studios comes in.

“It’s really hard to do high-intensity intervals on the treadmill by yourself,” says Claire Mitchell. “You have to watch the clock, which is the hardest thing. But here, someone else is watching the clock for you.”

Introducing treadHAPPY, a recently opened studio specializing in workouts that combine run-walk intervals on the treadmill with other elements, such as yoga and Pilates moves, weight exercises and foam rolling. Mitchell and co-owner Sara Currier, both runners, want their classes to help clients strike a balance between strength and flexibility. Overuse injuries tend to come from an imbalance, Mitchell says, when something is either not strong enough or too tight.

“I tell people in the mat room, ‘This is going to make you more efficient and better in the tread room,’” Currier says. “‘This is prevention and strengthening those muscles.’”

Located at 103 Eighth St. NW, across West Main Street from the Amtrak station, the two-room space doesn’t look like other niche gyms. Unlike darkened, windowless spin classes that feel more like a dance party than a workout, expansive windows fill the treadmill room with natural light. Mitchell and Currier decided to forego the addition of mirrors, wanting clients to focus more on their own form than on competing with their neighbors. (Plus, who wants to look at themselves while chugging along on a treadmill?)

“You do look at the person next to you a little bit, but it’s just you versus you on the treadmill,” Mitchell says. “Even as coaches, we don’t walk around and look at your distance. That’s not our job.”

One thing treadHAPPY does have in common with other studios is the energizing music blasting from speakers during the class. Instructors crank up the volume on their wireless mics so both rows of treadmill runners can hear their directions over the sound of pounding feet and the thumping of “Turn Down for What.”

At 5pm on a recent Friday, the studio buzzed with about a dozen new clients who’d signed up for the pre-weekend Happy Hour, a bootcamp-style treadHAPPY class. Mitchell led half the class to the treadmill room for the first of four 10-minute intervals while Currier got the other half started on the mats with planks, lunges, push-ups and other bodyweight exercises. 

Mitchell and Currier remind running-averse beginners that even though it’s a high-intensity class, they’re only on the treadmill for 20 minutes total. Each 10-minute segment is further broken down into shorter intervals varying in speed, and the instructor is watching the clock so all you have to do is focus on putting one foot in front of the other at whatever pace you can handle, with a couple 30-second sprints sprinkled throughout. It’s a challenging workout for sure, but for more serious runners who are inclined to stay on the treadmill long enough to get into the zone, Mitchell and Currier recommend either the treadTEMPO or treadDISTANCE classes.

On the menu

The owners of treadHAPPY designed the selection of classes “almost like a menu,” co-owner Claire Mitchell says, so clients can build a balanced fitness plan at the studio, or pick specific classes to fill a gap. 

treadHAPPY (45 minutes): High-energy boot camp class with two treadmill intervals and two strength-training intervals. Overall time on the treadmill is 20 minutes.

treadHUSTLE (60 minutes): High-intensity interval training that combines cardio and toning. Overall time on the treadmill is 25 minutes.

treadTEMPO (45 minutes): Progression and interval exercises on the treadmill at 75 to 85 percent max heart rate followed by strength training on the mat. Overall time on the treadmill is 30 minutes.

treadFLOW (60 minutes): Less intensity on the treadmill with light running and walking combined with yoga, Pilates and tai chi exercises.

treadDISTANCE (60 minutes): Longer stretches of running to build strength as a runner (or walker), followed by stretching and foam rolling. Overall time on the treadmill is 45 minutes.

treadRECOVERY (45 minutes): Low-intensity running or walking combined with a sequence of foam rolling and stretching to loosen tight muscles. Overall time on the treadmill is 20 minutes.

Categories
Arts

The story unfolds: Children’s book author Tom Angleberger discusses his process

Tom Angleberger will sign copies of his new book, Rocket and Groot: Stranded on Planet Strip Mall!, at Over the Moon Bookstore on Saturday. Photo: Courtesy subject

The idea for the Origami Yoda series began when Tom Angleberger stumbled across an origami Yoda on the Internet. “I was a huge fan of Star Wars—and an origami folder,” he says. So he tried to replicate the origami Yoda he found online.

“The one I made was not as good as the one on the Internet,” says Angleberger. “Mine was simple and worked as a finger puppet and I thought, what if a kid took this to school to talk to people? I wasn’t thinking of a book to write.”

How to make an origami Yoda. Courtesy of T. Angleberger

This Saturday, you can find the New York Times bestselling children’s author at Over the Moon Bookstore in Crozet for the launch of his new book, Rocket and Groot: Stranded on Planet Strip Mall!

Angleberger, who grew up near Staunton and ran cross-country meets in Charlottesville as a kid, now lives outside of Roanoke. He says he “started writing and drawing my own comics in the seventh grade and never stopped doing it. For a long time I thought I’d be a comic book writer and/or illustrator. Writing children’s books has brought me back around to where I’m writing about comic book characters.”

The anthropomorphic character of Rocket Raccoon first appeared in Marvel in 1976, while Groot, an extraterrestrial who resembles a tree, appeared 16 years earlier. Both are presumed to be the last of their kind, and someone, Angleberger says, had the idea of teaming them up together as members of the Marvel Comics’ Guardians of the Galaxy in 2008, on which the 2014 film of the same name is based.

He generates ideas by rethinking the characters he writes about. “I am very lucky that I’ve gotten to play in some really amazing sandboxes,” says Angleberger. “I wrote a total of eight Star Wars-related books and anytime you run out of ideas you just watch the movies again and think about how you would play with the toys. For Rocket and Groot, I had certain things I wanted to do and let my imagination run wild. Anything I thought of, I tried to just go with it. There are no rules with them.”

For example, the book he is working on now was inspired by headlines about self-driving cars.

“Anytime I get in my car and use GPS it gets confused, I get confused,” Angleberger says. “And I can’t figure out how the car can drive itself if the maps don’t work. So I just thought, ‘What if there was a planet where self-driving cars went crazy?’, like there was a giant glitch. Rocket and Groot go to a planet with crazy self-driving cars.”

This is how all of his ideas seem to begin, with the two important words, “what if?”

He also draws from his own experiences. I bring up the fact that on his website he lists Asperger’s as his superpower. “The whole [Origami Yoda] series is based on the experience of going through school being dramatically different, strange, annoying. Being so different, so weird, it all added up into these books. Even though it was very difficult going through it, it provided great source material.”

In the fourth and fifth books of the six-book Yoda series, The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett and Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue, the middle school student characters protest standardized testing and the fact that their electives have been taken away. “I hate standardized testing,” says Angleberger. “I think it’s the worst idea ever. So I asked myself, ‘What if kids said: You know what? We’re not going to take the test.’ The kids would form a rebellion. Star Wars is all about rebelling against evil empires.”

All of his books contain themes of friendship, inclusivity, the pursuit of justice and the triumph of the underdog. There is also at least one strong female character in each of his books. I ask whether his wife, fellow children’s author Cece Bell, is the inspiration for these female characters. “She is a strong female character herself,” he laughs. “She is very funny and very determined. Veronica, the tape dispenser [in Rocket and Groot] is also funny and determined. I just felt like having a female character in the mix would open up things, and it really did. Now, there are no human beings in this book. People say, ‘The female character is a talking tape dispenser?’ But there are no humans, no men, no women. There are space piranhas, robots, a talking tree and a crazy raccoon. No rules.”

He is looking forward to revisiting the area and meeting the kids growing up here today. “The Charlottesville area is lucky to have a store like Over the Moon. We don’t have one in this end of the state. I think it’s awesome.”

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: To Kill a Mockingbird

William Jones (Tom Robinson) and Steve Tharp (Atticus Finch) star in To Kill a Mockingbird at Live Arts. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto

Live Arts’ season continues with a production of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The beloved classic examines racial tension, violence and inequality in the Depression-era South through the eyes of a child as she moves from innocence to awareness. The story reveals the importance of strength and courage in the face of injustice, and the necessity of hope in a grim reality.

Through 4/3. $25, 7:30pm. Live Arts, 123 E. Water St. 977-4177.

Categories
Arts

Album reviews: Eleanor Friedberger, Cate Le Bon, The Landlords

Photo: File photo

Eleanor Friedberger

New View (Frenchkiss)

Eleanor Friedberger took a step back from the overstuffed exuberance of The Fiery Furnaces with her solo debut, 2011’s Last Summer. Friedberger didn’t blanch out her quirkiness, but unlike much of her former band’s output, the songs didn’t feel like riding a roller coaster with your eyes closed. You could actually bob your head to them.

New View is an even cozier affair. Friedberger’s lyrics wed the intimate and the oblique—at times it sounds like she’s reading dialogue from a precocious teen movie—and the settings are resonant updates of Dylan’s Woodstock period. Fitting, because Friedberger recently relocated from Brooklyn to upstate New York. Basement Tapes comparisons might additionally apply because Friedberger seems to have found her Band; backing her up on the album and on tour is Ice Water, a group that includes Charlottesville native Malcolm Perkins on guitar. The band brings a sun-dappled, Wurlitzer-driven mellowness to the tried and true chord changes, and, at its best, New View rolls on like a rambling lawn party.

Cate Le Bon

Crab Day (Drag City)

Don’t call her English. Cate Le Bon’s Welsh roots rightly place her a couple of clicks off pop’s beaten path. A detached chanteuse in the Nico vein, Le Bon released Cyrk and Mug Museum in 2012 and 2013 respectively, and her twisted guitar riffs and lithe melodies attracted a rabid following. She played Charlottesville to support both albums, and killed it.

Poised for a breakthrough, Le Bon teamed up with Tim Presley, leader of low-fi heroes White Fence. They called themselves Drinks and released Hermits on Holiday last year. It was monotonous garbage.

Le Bon rights herself somewhat with Crab Day, pulling off neat tricks such as the propulsive “We Might Resolve,” which sounds like a country cousin of Stereolab and ESG. On the touching “Love is Not Love,” brittle guitar and homey piano trace a swaying duet while low, mellow horns respond to Le Bon’s romantic lament like gruff but loving uncles. Sadly though, a lot of Crab Day sounds like Le Bon pacing at 4am—investigating, maybe. It’ll be interesting to hear what’s next, but hopefully Crab Day will prove an outlier instead of a harbinger.

The Landlords

Fitzgerald’s Paris (Feel It)

The ’80s seem like carefree days: Kids played outside! But the Reagan-and-yuppies era witnessed perhaps the richest outburst of discontented youth music in U.S. history: a proliferation of post-punk styles as varied as the scenes that spawned them. In Charlottesville, bands such as The Landlords, Beef People and Lackey Die played The Mineshaft, Trax and the legendary Muldowney’s on Water Street. Fitzgerald’s Paris is The Landlords’ shelved second album, freshly released by Sam Richardson, a Charlottesville native who discovered his hometown’s punk history as a high school student. The cover is a shot of The Landlords on Muldowney’s bunker-like stage, singer John Beers bellowing while gripping the mic stand like he’s planting a flag. This is hardcore, and fans will rejoice at the top-shelf quality of 31 absolutely ripping songs. Best of all is the band’s versatility, the dashes of art-punk and thrash moves. There’s even a cautionary tale about drinking too much Mountain Dew. Celebrate the album on March 26 at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar with Jolie Fille, a band that includes The Landlords’ Colum Leckey and Tristan Puckett.

—Nick Rubin

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Jay Blakesberg

New book, Hippie Chick: A Tale of Love, Devotion & Surrender, will be the topic of a conversation with photographer Jay Blakesberg on Tuesday. Photo: Jay Blakesberg

Every great rock ‘n’ roll photograph requires unseen talent behind the camera, and if you follow coverage of jam bands and the hippie scene, then it’s likely the person pressing the shutter is Jay Blakesberg. Since the mid-’80s Blakesberg has been shooting photos of music icons and breakthrough acts from Primus and U2 to Nirvana and Santana. The chief photographer of Lockn’ signs his latest book, Hippie Chick: A Tale of Love, Devotion & Surrender, and shares stories about life with an all-access photo pass.

Tuesday 3/29. No cover, 7pm. Starr Hill Brewery & Tap Room, 5391 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. 239-0900.

Categories
Arts

Dropping in: Parachute aims for the top of the pop chart

Local band turned pop sensation, Parachute (Johnny Stubblefield, Will Anderson and Kit French) kicks off a tour for its fourth album, Wide Awake, at the Jefferson on Saturday. Photo: Publicity photo

Will Anderson says his Parachute bandmates like cool music. Him? Not so much.

“I’m so fascinated with pop music,” Anderson says. “It’s always been my obsession. I’m sure people get tired of it—my poor friends always have to hear about it. And I’m talking about like ’NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys.”

And so it goes that Anderson, a blue-eyed local boy and UVA alum, has on more than one occasion piloted his unapologetic pop band into the Billboard Hot 100. Now jumping in with Wide Awake, its fourth full-length studio album, Parachute will open its 2016 headlining tour with a March 26 show at The Jefferson Theater.

Anderson assures hometown fans they’ll hear a mix of old and new at the Jeff show, but the onstage lineup will skew new. Parachute has had its share of comings and goings over the years, and the band’s down to just three core members—Kit French on keyboards, vocals and horns and Johnny Stubblefield behind the drum kit, along with Anderson on lead vocals, guitar and piano.

But Anderson says the change has been good—the band is more itself now than ever.

“It’s the most accurate representation of the sound we always hear in our heads,” he says. “The three of us were on the same page with the sound we were going for—a shameless, organic pop record. For the first time ever, nobody in the room had a second thought about whether it was cool.”

For this tour, Jonathan Soderholm will take up guitar duties, and Alex Edwards will play bass. The band has gone back to the producer it used on the first two albums, John Fields, to dial in the new sound, Anderson says.

But the photogenic frontman admits fans won’t necessarily hear a pronounced change in Parachute’s sound on the new record or in concert.

“It’s really not like a huge departure,” he says. “This is just what we have been trying to do. With the other records, we always thought, ‘If only we had done this or that.’”

According to Anderson, starting the tour in Charlottesville is important not only because he calls it home, but because it’s the type of town that allows a band like Parachute to thrive. He recalls when the group was coming up, he and his mates never felt as though the “cooler” acts looked down on them.

What resulted was a band with top-40 polish and a blue-collar work ethic.

“I don’t say this lightly—Charlottesville really is an amazing scene. We were a weird fish out of water, earnest and sort of overeager,” Anderson says. “If we had been an annoying overeager pop band in any other city, I think we would have been completely blackballed. In Charlottesville, it was the opposite.”

For locals who’ve somehow missed the rise of arguably C’ville’s second most successful band, here’s the story of Parachute in a nutshell: Anderson and Stubblefield meet at Charlottesville High School and start a band. French and Alex Hargrave join. The group blossoms at UVA, also adding Nate McFarland to the mix. The band signs to a label and releases Losing Sleep in 2009. The song “She is Love” blows up. It charts as high as 66, is featured on iTunes and finds its way into a Nivea commercial.

The rest would more or less be history, if not for the fact it all happened just more than a half decade ago. Parachute’s next two LPs, The Way It Was and Overnight, both charted higher than Losing Sleep. Wide Awake, released earlier this month, could very well be the most popular effort yet—the group won’t release a single from it until after the support tour.

There have been bumps along the way. Bassist Hargrave, guitarist McFarland and several other contributors have left the band for other pursuits.

“Creatively, it’s actually gotten easier,” Anderson says. “But personality-wise you don’t realize there is an equilibrium. The hardest part was rebalancing the equilibrium, rather than between the five of us, to the three of us. There have been people in the band we didn’t see eye-to-eye with creatively. Even Nate would admit that.”

There’s tension in the creative process on any record, Anderson says. But at the end of the day, he’s a “pop guy that loves pop music and wants to feel good,” so the breakups and dissolutions have been pretty tame.

Which brings Parachute to where it is today: A pop-rock outfit fronted by a good- looking guy who has a knack for crafting a few radio-ready ditties once every couple of years. The only question is, how long can that formula work?

“There are always younger dudes. Even from the time we got out of college there were dudes that were 16,” Anderson says. “Luckily I think our fan base has latched onto the songs and then us as a unit. It sounds so dumb, but it’s about the music. The difference between a band like ours and one that’s personality driven is people don’t really know who we are. And that’s much more sustainable.”

Categories
News

Noisy neighbors: Residents ask Allied Concrete to quiet down

Allied Concrete, zoned industrially, is close to a residential neighborhood. Photo by Jack Looney

North Downtowners have long complained about the noise from Allied Concrete, which was established on industrially zoned Harris Street in 1945—just on the outskirts of a residential neighborhood.

Colette Hall, who has lived in downtown Charlottesville for 16 years and served on the North Downtown Residents Association board for 12, five as president, says the noise has persisted as long as she can remember. And it’s not just during the day. With normal operating hours from Monday to Saturday, Allied also has a third shift that sometimes works overnight.

With the constant clanging and banging and noise of the utility vehicles’ backup beepers,“You cannot sleep if this is going on all night long,” Hall says.

In 2002, she, City Attorney Craig Brown and then-NDRA president Chad Freckmann approached former Allied president Gus Lorber about the noise. He allegedly agreed to have the backup beepers silenced at night, Hall says, but she awoke to the familiar noise of incessant beeping soon after. At around 3am, she got dressed, marched over to the plant and confronted a man operating a utility vehicle. He agreed to silence it and she says she thought the battle was over.

“It seems to do some good for a while, but then things go back to the way they used to be,” says Mark Kavit, another former NDRA president who still serves on the board. He says he suspects between three and five couples have moved out of the neighborhood to elude the noise.

To this day, Hall says about Allied, “They haven’t been a friendly neighbor.”

But Ted Knight, the company’s current president, says, “We are good neighbors and stewards and try to be as courteous as possible.” In his three years of presidency, he says he hasn’t received any noise complaints. But with crews currently working up to four nights a week on a Route 29 solutions project, he says neighbors are probably hearing additional noise.

About those backup beepers, though? Regulations require backup alarms on Allied’s hulking utility vehicles for safety. “Those are things we can’t disable,” says Knight.

For William Hunter, a Nelson Drive resident since 2004, the beepers aren’t the biggest issue. He has recorded several nights’ worth of what he calls a “medley of very loud machinery,” and says the noise has become louder over the past several years. In a recording taken from his front doorstep at 3am last week, Hunter plays what he says sounds like a mortar shot or a loud snare drum going off in 30-second intervals.

The city’s noise ordinance says the maximum sound level for residential areas is 65 decibels during the day and 55 at night. No limits are imposed for industrially zoned areas, and Charlottesville Police say no calls for Allied-related noise have been received over the past year.

“I wouldn’t bother the police with a complaint when I know they are well within their rights to make as much noise as they need deem necessary,” Hunter says about the company.

The ordinance declares that “the people have a right to and should be ensured an environment free from excessive sound that may jeopardize the public health, welfare, peace and safety or degrade the quality of life; and that it is the policy of the city to prevent such excessive sound.”

“The city holds all the power,” Hunter says, acknowledging that no noise limits are imposed at Allied and some neighbors have been reluctant to bring the issue before city staff in the past. As part of a “peaceful protest,” he has constructed a Scrabble-style piece of folk art in his yard that uses words such as mitigate, buffer and please.

William Hunter's "peaceful protest." Staff photo

His house is just a five-minute walk from the Downtown Mall and Hunter says the city should be just as concerned about the effect of Allied’s noise on his neighborhood as they are of concerts and other events downtown. On any street in Charlottesville, there is legal recourse for a dog barking loudly, he says, and some similar enforcement should be in place for the “industrial roar” he lives next to, such as the construction of a buffer or wall.

“Noise pollution is a real thing and this is an extreme example of it,” Hunter says.

City staff isn’t always aware of situations that could be violations of city code, says spokesperson Miriam Dickler, though they are aware of past complaints against Allied. “If folks can contact us and let us know, it allows us to investigate and work with them on a faster timetable than waiting for us to come across it on our own.”

However, Allied’s president offers another perspective: “When you move next to a railroad track, you can’t complain about the train.”