Matt Curreri loves writing songs—whether he’s contemplating brothers going through life together or becoming a dad, there’s always some music bouncing around in his head, waiting to emerge into the aural world. And while he’s departed a bit from the clever pop tunes that garnered acclaim from the New Yorker and NPR, among others, Curreri’s smart, straight-up rock ’n’ roll with the Exfriends—Jesse Fisk, Gerald Soriano and Brian Wilson—is plenty delightful. Midnight Snack headlines.
Clean energy is on the rise, and Reston-based group SolUnesco is planning to build a 70-acre solar farm in Albemarle County, which would be the first of its kind in the area. One local nature enthusiast, however, says these “so-called green energy sources” aren’t as harmless to the environment as many people think.
“Although green power sources may emit fewer or no carbon emissions as compared to coal, their use, when employed on a large scale, results in a variety of wildlife losses,” says nature writer Marlene Condon. “The deployment of acres and acres of solar panel arrays destroys habitat for the variety of wildlife they displace.”
In some instances, the solar array itself has caused the death of certain avian species. Birds can mistake a reflective solar facility for a body of water and plunge into it, she says. A bird’s feathers can also ignite after flying through a concentrated beam of sunlight.
Condon points to a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Forensics Laboratory investigation in which scientists found that 233 birds recovered from three desert solar power plants in California had been “fatally singed, broken or otherwise fatally crippled by the facilities.”
“No one knows just how many birds are being killed by the growing numbers of these facilities, but the numbers are high enough that people should be concerned,” Condon says. She suggests placing large solar systems only in developed areas, such as on the rooftops of businesses or on the properties of derelict malls or parking lots.
The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors approved a zoning amendment in June that will allow solar farms in the county’s rural areas. SolUnesco’s system, if approved, will generate 11 megawatts of energy—or enough to power about 2,000 homes a year. It’s planned for the intersection of the Thomas Jefferson Parkway and Buck Island Road.
Seth Maughan, SolUnesco’s director of projects, says the state’s Department of Environmental Quality will evaluate any potential environmental damage before approving the project. As for a bird mistaking a solar farm for a body of water, he’s “never heard that at all.”
Though he is aware that systems like his company’s may cause wildlife habitat loss, Maughan stresses that the objective of a solar farm is to benefit the environment.
In neighboring Louisa County, Dominion Energy has constructed a $44 million Whitehouse solar facility, where 84,000 panels on a 230-acre farm produce about 20 megawatts a year. That’s enough to power 5,000 homes, according to Dominion spokesperson Daisy Pridgen.
She says her crew hasn’t documented any “avian mortalities” at any of their solar sites, which are comprised of photovoltaic solar arrays that don’t use a concentrated solar design like some located in the west where the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Forensics Laboratory investigated the dead birds. SolUnesco’s design will also be photovoltaic.
And at the Ivy Material Utilization Center—the former Ivy Landfill—the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority’s board of directors announced June 28 the signing of a land lease to install a solar array on 10 to 14 acres of the property. Though this two-megawatt system is more than five times smaller than SolUnesco’s, RSWA reps say it should still produce enough energy to power about 1,000 homes a year.
“Economically and environmentally, this project makes sense,” says Bill Mawyer, RSWA’s executive director. The solar panels are expected to rake in $10,000 a year in revenue over the 25-year span of the lease. Construction is scheduled for next summer.
Though solar projects are gaining traction in Virginia, Condon says it would be smart to pump the brakes.
“When all’s said and done, we are not going to survive if we lose too much wildlife, a situation that we are moving toward at breakneck speed,” Condon says. “Our lives depend upon the proper functioning of the environment, and the proper functioning of the environment depends totally upon the jobs performed by wildlife for our benefit.”
Says Condon, “It’s high time people wake up to this truism and start taking the needs of wildlife into account.”
Last August, locals protested Dominion Virginia Power’s plans to rebuild area transmission lines with a much brighter material than their darker predecessors. Now a state commission has ruled that the power company must chemically darken its structures, and the group of people that worried new lines would stick out like a sore thumb is rejoicing.
Supervisor Ann Mallek says she has always supported upgrading the transmission lines in the Cunningham-Dooms 500kV power line rebuild, but she wanted county residents, landowners and visitors to have the best option available.
“Darkening the towers seemed to be a reasonable and inexpensive method to accomplish this goal,” she says. “The dozens of speakers at the [State Corporation Commission] hearing last year agreed [and] made good points, yet [Dominion] was unwilling to comply.”
Mallek says the SCC, in its order to darken the towers, has shown respect for the county’s comprehensive plan, tourism and financial success, and “the quality of life in Albemarle.”
Dominion workers will now chemically dull the galvanized steel lattice structures before they rebuild the transmission lines, according to Greg Mathe, a company spokesperson.
Kristopher Baumann, who owns a farm in Rockbridge County, has a pending lawsuit against Dominion for allegedly misrepresenting the color and size of power lines in a similar rebuild in his area.
“People want to know why the state government allowed this and why wasn’t anyone protecting the public and the land?” says Baumann. “We now know that Dominion misrepresented its plan to various state agencies, but at the end of the day, it should have been the SCC that stopped Dominion. In the Albemarle case, the SCC paid attention.”
Adds Baumann, “We can only hope that this will be the new normal for the SCC in the future and that utility companies will have to comply with the law and regulations, and design facilities in a manner that causes the least environmental and scenic harm. The big question is why doesn’t Dominion just start doing the right thing?”
Edgar Wright is best known as the master of comedic tributes to genre films that never stoop to parody due to his genuine affection for the source material. He is not the only director to self-consciously employ techniques and tropes from older films, but he is the best at balancing his modernist sensibilities with a real desire to see the world from the point of view of the character—from Dawn of the Dead to Point Break. His love is not ironic, his references are not winking, his jokes are not pandering, and his name has become synonymous with a very specific brand of film appreciation that is capable of hyper-analysis of pop culture from a place of childlike, wide-eyed wonder.
Baby Driver
R, 113 minutes
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema
His new film, Baby Driver, is arguably his first film that is neither tribute, pastiche nor adaptation, though it does wear its influences on its sleeve. Characters are named after songs Wright intends to use, lyrics are written on walls as our eponymous Baby walks by, and both the humor and action have the brisk confidence of Wright’s previous output; not as surreal as Spaced, but not as broadcasted as Hot Fuzz, but somewhere in between, just plausible enough to be fun, and outrageous enough to be exciting.
Baby Driver tells the story of Baby (Ansel Elgort), a young man with talent beyond his years—and beyond his maturity. Baby has been an escape-car driver for robberies organized by Doc (Kevin Spacey), not for the thrill or the money, but to repay a debt. He is not a criminal at heart, as we see in the opening scene: As he awaits his crew and cargo from an armed robbery, he’s not waiting in silence or sweating in anticipation, but lip-syncing and drumming along to his iPod. One daring getaway after another brings Baby closer to freedom, and to a life on the road with Debora (Lily James).
There is a lot to enjoy in Baby Driver. The supporting cast is excellent—Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Jon Bernthal, Lanny Joon and Flea make up some of the crew Baby is tasked with bringing to safety, and all sink their teeth into the roles with delight. The soundtrack—always an important player in Wright’s films—is well-studied and full of playful energy, even if it can be a tad on-the-nose, like Beck’s “Debra” or the song that inspired the title (you knew it sounded familiar, didn’t you?).
The star of the show, however, is the action, with Wright drawing on the best car-centric films of the ’60s and ’70s. It’s a genre that doesn’t always get the recognition it deserves, but Wright is clearly a devotee; see Walter Hill’s The Driver, Peter Yates’ Bullitt, even William Friedkin’s The French Connection, and put a typical Wright protagonist in the lead instead of a tough guy. Yet while the film lives in a heightened reality and the characters can be exaggerated, the life of crime is not glamorized; people are shot, people die, and you are meant to feel the weight of it all.
So how does Wright hold up in the world of wholly original filmmaking? Pretty well, with charm and excitement and humor to spare. About the worst thing that can be said about Baby Driver is that it is the least likely of his films to be rewatched, with Shaun, Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in his oeuvre. It’s nothing revolutionary, and you may find yourself wishing for less cutesy stuff and the funny-yet-tedious fight with the final villain in favor of more driving, but you will most certainly not be bored.
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213
47 Meters Down, All Eyez On Me, Beatriz at Dinner, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, Cars 3, Despicable Me 3, The Hero, The House, The Mummy, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Transformers: The Last Knight, Wonder Woman
Violet Crown Cinema
200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000
Annie, The Beguiled, Beatriz at Dinner, Cars 3, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Despicable Me 3, Rough Night, Transformers: The Last Knight, Wonder Woman
Charlie Murchie wrote his first punk song when he was 12 years old. It went something like this: “Satan in my lunchbox drinkin’ all my juice / It’s no coincidence that my mom packed my 666 sandwiches.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because “Satan in My Lunchbox” is now a crowd favorite in the repertoire of Murchie’s current band, local heavy-funk outfit Disco Risqué, which features Murchie on guitar, Robert Prescott on drums, John Bruner on bass and Ryan Calonder on trumpet and vocals.
The band’s 2015 eponymous debut represented a jumbled journey to a cohesive genre, but now, after years of touring, the group has settled into its identity as a kind of chameleon band—a unit that can switch from head-banging heavy metal to high-energy dance music to complement other bands on the bill.
“When we go for the dance, or we go to the heavy, or we go to the funk—we commit to it,” says Prescott. “We don’t fake the funk.”
In a crowded Charlottesville music scene, Disco Risqué doesn’t have to fight to be unique. The band has a track written entirely by using the titles of Journey songs (“Stone Cold Steve Perry”). Live performances have featured Björk covers, and it sometimes blares the voice of Ron Burgundy from Anchorman in the middle of songs. But the guys stick to the heart-pounding heavy dance music at their core, even while indulging in infectious fun at shows.
Disco Risqué began as the brainchild of longtime friends Prescott and Murchie, the last in a long series of pickup band ventures with constantly evolving names (Cardboard Birdcage, Tripods and Short Straws, to name a few). Why did they finally settle on Disco Risqué? “Because it rolls off the tongue,” says Prescott.
The two got together to work on an album that Murchie, sick of playing covers in party bands, had been brainstorming. On their way to recording, they added Bruner and Calonder.
Calonder wasn’t trained in heavy rock when he was recruited; prior to Disco Risqué, most of his musical experience had come from five years in the University of Virginia’s orchestra. “We were all tentative,” he says, “because I’d never played horn like this before.” Now, Calonder’s brass can be heard on a good 50 percent of the band’s live music. These varied backgrounds—Calonder’s orchestral experience, Murchie’s love for punk and Prescott’s firm belief in the power of dance music—gave rise to their first album, an exploration of funk, heavy metal and everything in between.
Two years later, the foursome is almost ready to start recording a second album.
“The first record is 20 songs, and it really shows the diversity of the band and what it had to offer,” says Murchie. “We want the [new] album to have direction. We don’t want to put out another record that just goes, ‘Hey, here we are, check out all our crazy shit.’”
Calonder describes the next phase as “Disco Risqué plus,” but what direction will it take? Only an album release will tell. Until then, you can experience some of the new material when the band hits the stage at the Southern on July 8. Hardcore outfit Deaf Scene is opening, meaning that Disco Risqué will lean toward the heavier side of its repertoire. You’ll probably hear “Satan in My Lunchbox,” along with some new tunes as well. Or maybe you’ll be too busy dancing to even pay attention.
Washington, D.C.-based goth band Novarium offers the synth leads and string arrangements that tend to dominate the genre, but vocalist Lisa D’Arcangelis, guitarists Sean Gronholt and Dean Michaels, bassist Eliakon and drummer Dean Anthony use their experience and skill to bring complexity to their tunes through a contemporary metal approach. Sponsored by Gild The Mourn and Dead City.
Photographer Ashley Florence experiments with materials, situations, emotions, narratives and curiosity in her show “Body and Bread,” on view at Studio IX this month. From a chromogenic print of Florence herself sitting in a traditional Madonna pose and wearing a full-body suit sewn out of blue book linen, to 19 Polaroids of bread heads, baked in a terra cotta form made from a plaster bust cast of a young man, the pieces in the show together provoke a conversation on the human body.
“Embodiment is such a curious, pleasure-ridden, fantastically atrocious experience,” Florence says in her artist statement for the show. “The body, although our primary vehicle, can also be our greatest limitation.”
“Most of my work has portraiture qualities and often inclinations of a self-portrait, but I can only hope they transcend me and speak of our larger human narrative,” Florence says of the pieces that she hopes will stir “curiosity, empathy, sensuality, commonality and repulsion” in the viewer.—Erin O’Hare
Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Leaves and Pages: You Name It,” featuring watercolor paintings by Pam Roland. Opens July 8, 4-6pm.
FF Central Library 201 E. Market St. “Gone,” featuring photographs of businesses, buildings and local landmarks that were lost to disaster or development and now remain only in photographs and memories. 5-7pm.
FF Chroma Projects Gallery 112 W. Main St., Ste. 10. “Soft Steel,” an exhibit of sculpture by Lily Erb that considers the conjunction between the powerful industrial nature of steel and its ability to be manipulated into flowing, looping shapes. 5-7pm.
CityClay 700 Harris St. Ste. 104. New work by Wendy Wrenn, a former biology teacher whose love of scientific inquiry informs her ceramics work.
FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. An exhibit of VSA Charlottesville visual art in the gallery and a screening of Light House Studio student films in the gallery lobby. 5:30-7:30pm.
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Adventure Art,” a celebration of the outdoors painted on trail maps by Kathryn Matthews. Opens June 10, 3-5pm.
FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St. “Horse of a Different Color,” featuring bold, expressive paintings and prints by Lori Jakubow. 6-8pm.
FF Fellini’s #9 200 Market St. “Spontaneous Arrangements,” a display of digital art by J. Perry Folly. 5:30-7pm.
FF The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. “Land and Flight,” featuring oil on canvas by Christen Yates and gouache and ink on paper and board by Kendall Walser Cox. 5-7pm.
FF Graves International Art 306 E. Jefferson St. “Roy Lichtenstein & Company: Postwar and Contemporary Art,” featuring handmade, limited-edition prints and exhibition posters by artists such as Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter, David Hockney, Keith Haring, Ellsworth Kelly, Josef Albers and others. 5-8pm.
FF Java Java 421 E. Main St. “Exploring the Subconscious,” featuring paintings by Stephen Keach. 5-6pm.
FF Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. “Throwback: Concert Photography from 2000-2010,” featuring photography from Jason Lappa. 5-7pm.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Summer Perspectives,” featuring work by Isabelle Abbot, Sarah Boyts Yoder and Cate West Zahl.
Loving Cup Vineyard and Winery 3340 Sutherland Rd., North Garden. “Looking Up at NOLA,” an exhibit of oil paintings on canvas by Tamara Murray.
FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Visions of Woven Color,” featuring the work of seven artists who employ color and diversity in their weaving; in the Lower Hall Galleries North and South and Upstairs South, a McGuffey members show featuring more than 50 artists working in a variety of media. 5:30-7:30pm.
FF New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St. “For the Love of Carol” includes paintings, collage, photographs and ceramics from 20 artists honoring Carol Troxell, former owner of New Dominion Bookshop, who recently passed away. 5:30-7pm.
FF Piedmont Council for the Arts Gallery 112 W. Main St., Ste. 9. “Sfumato,” an exhibit of paintings on canvas by Felicia Brooks that depict biomorphic forms in a veiled realm where elements emerge and recede into a soft haze of paint. 5-7pm.
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 26 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “Local Landmarks and Landscapes,” an exhibition featuring depictions of the greater Waynesboro area; the SVAC annual members’ judged exhibit is also on view in the Cabell/Arehart Gallery.
FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Spring Street is a Friend of Virginia Wildlife,” featuring oil on canvas wildlife paintings by Anne Marshall Block. 6-8pm.
FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Body and Bread,” featuring experimental portrait photography by Ashley Florence. 5-7pm.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Femmes, Flora, Fauna: A Mixed Media Exploration in Fantasy,” featuring paintings by Kristin Rexter.
FF Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE.
“Integration Series,” a mixed media portrayal by Wolfgang Hermann of adjustment to a life-changing injury through creativity. 5:30-7pm.
FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. A 20-year retrospective of John Tenney’s work, including paintings, drawings and ceramics. 5:30pm.
FF Welcome Gallery at New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Proceed, Jumble, Repeat,” a collection of Nina Thomas’ drawings and etchings that are a musing on being surrounded. 5-7:30pm.
Westminster Canterbury of the Blue Ridge 250 Pantops Mountain Rd. An exhibit of oil and watercolor paintings of plants and flowers by Marcia Mitchell.
FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.
Unstoppable Brogdon
UVA alum Malcolm Brogdon was named NBA Rookie of the Year last week. He plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, and is the first second-round pick to receive the award. No word on how many rookies have two college degrees, including a master’s in public policy.
Monticello hacked
A cyberattack on Jefferson’s home early June 27 took down computers and phones. Although not connected with the international ransomware attack last week, hackers demanded cash to restore service. Visitors were able to buy tickets in person, and the July 4 naturalization ceremony proceeded.
Road rage revenge
A new law that went into effect July 1 imposes a $100 fine on the maddeningly slow drivers who refuse to relinquish the left lane, although how this will be enforced remains a little hazy.
Speaking of hazy
Another new law gives judges discretion in suspending driver’s licenses of adults caught with minimal amounts of marijuana, rather than the mandatory smoke-a-joint, lose-your-license legislation that’s held sway for years, although 50 hours of community service may be required.
Extension granted
After more than a year of construction, the $54.5 million, 2.3-mile Berkmar Drive Extended, which runs parallel to Seminole Trail, opened over the weekend. Now you can drive from the former Shoppers World (now called 29th Place) up to CHO without ever setting wheels on 29. Additional lanes make the new road biking- and walking-friendly.
Experts say 2017 is shaping up to be the worst tick season in awhile, thanks to 2015 being a bounty year for acorns, which produced a boom of mice in 2016, which led to this year’s bumper crop of tiny bloodsuckers, according to Slate. Locally we have three common culprits.
Lone star tick
Dog tick
—Virginia Department of Health
9 to 11am
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center
10am to 1pm
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA
11:30am to 1pm
IX Art Park
1 to 5pm
First United Methodist Church
with We Are Star Children, Chamomile and Whiskey, Crystal Garden and local multi-faith choirs
2 to 5pm
Sprint Pavilion
2 to 5pm
Jack Jouett Middle School
2 to 10pm
Downtown Mall
Grits & Gravy Dance Party
10pm to midnight
The Jefferson Theater
Updated July 6 with additional alt activities.
First he brought you Studio IX, and now he’s set his sights on another collaborative workspace, one for whom he dubs the town’s creative entrepreneurs.
In the Downtown Mall’s historic Bradbury building—the former Bank of America space—James Barton prepares to open Vault Virginia, where he says commercial atmosphere will meet a residential one in a number of “warm, inviting, art-infused and culturally refined” office spaces.
We’re talking pendant lighting and walls made of glass here, folks. Common areas between offices will allow Charlottesville’s creative class to collab on a number of projects in a 25,000-square-foot space that is “both focused and socially dynamic” according to Barton.
Vault Virginia will also offer private offices, creative suites, conference rooms and ergonomic workstations in the building that will house an upscale steakhouse on its first floor.
About half of Vault Virginia’s 50 offices are still available and prices range from $1,500 to $2,500 per month. Rent for a desk space costs $450 per month and for $100 less, you can sit in any community area. Workers passing through town can purchase a day pass for $50. The building also has three event spaces, room for three art galleries, a cafe and a kitchen.
You’ve heard of this concept before. Jaffray Woodriff’s latest venture, the Charlottesville Technology Center, will take over the ice rink space as an entrepreneurial tech incubator in 2018. In this space designed to accelerate tech-themed start-up businesses, teaming up with other brainiacs in town is the name of the game.
Barton says the American workforce has changed dramatically and in creative cities like our own, workspaces that also support remote workers and freelancers are becoming a trend.
“This is a small part of a bigger vision,” he says. “I think everybody is starting to row in the same direction.”
See more sketches below. Click for a larger version. Courtesy of Vault Virginia.
