Month: February 2020

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Opinion The Editor's Desk

This week, 2/26

Almost 20 years ago, clergy members at downtown churches became concerned about the men and women they frequently found sleeping in church doorways when they arrived at work in the morning. As faith leaders, they wanted to provide a better kind of shelter, so they teamed up with the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless, and created a new, grassroots organization they named PACEM.

PACEM stands for People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry, but it’s also the Latin word for peace—what the program hopes to provide to dozens of people who would otherwise be sleeping on the streets. Each week, a rotating group of churches and community groups provides a hot dinner and beds for the night. Caseworkers also help guests address their needs and work towards finding permanent housing.

PACEM was originally designed to run only in the coldest months, from October to April, but this year the organization is hoping to extend the season to provide year-round shelter to those who need it. And women’s case manager Heather Kellams is also advocating for a permanent shelter for women, who have been seeking shelter in rising numbers recently, and who face unique challenges living on the street.

To meet their new goals, they’ll need more local support. But if the past is any indication, that’s a challenge Charlottesville is well-equipped to meet.

With more than 80 churches and local groups involved to date, PACEM is a prime example of  a community stepping up to take care of its most vulnerable, one that’s especially welcome as our national leaders attempt to make a virtue out of callous indifference and cruelty.

Whether it’s a new shelter, a new park, or a new monument, Charlottesville is still small enough, and certainly wealthy enough, that we can mobilize to make the changes we want to see.

Categories
Arts

Album reviews: MC Yallah X Debmaster, Various Artists

MC Yallah X Debmaster

Kubali (Hakuna Kulala)

The most frenetic moment of Kubali comes right at the top, like an intimidating bouncer. Once you get past the brief jabbery pattern of vocables, percussion, synthesizers, and unidentified sonic objects, Kubali just swaggers and bumps. Uganda’s MC Yallah spits in Kiswahili and Luganda, reveling in the stinkface beats of Berlin-located French producer Debmaster. Assured, somehow simultaneously brooding and playful, his settings recall Shabazz Palaces; meantime, Yallah is like the coolest girl you see in the hall between classes, nice to everyone but bad as hell, rolling her R’s while throwing down on the beat or skating around it like a lost Solesides relative. Nyege Nyege Tapes has been indispensably chronicling the African underground, and with Kubali, their imprint Hakuna Kulala has a statement release, including two of the best cuts of 2020, the title track and “Dunia.” [9.0]

Various Artists

Birds of Prey: The Album (Warner)

My hopes for Birds of Prey to be a smart, funny revenge flick were sunk by the trailer, full of self-reflexive “badass” gestures, empty bombast, and lame comedy. With precious few exceptions (Doja Cat, WHIPPED CREAM w/ Baby Goth, Sofi Tukker), the album’s a match. We’re dealt slab after horrendous slab of over-
blown hybrid rock-rap—if you accept meaningless bursts of ultra-processed aggro guitar as a definition of “rock”—before finishing with a trio of covers, ranging from the passable (Summer Walker’s “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Babe”) to the execrable (ADONA’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”). [4.1]

Various artists

Lévé Lévé: São Tome and Principe Sounds 70s-80s (Bongo Joe)

Props to French crate-digger DJ Tom B for pulling together this cohesive collection of dance music from the tiny island nation São Tomé and Principe. The characteristic rhythmic pattern puxa is an up-tempo blend of cross-Atlantic components, while instrumentation weaves together skittery electric guitar, minimal bass, tons of percussion, occasional keyboards, even mandolin—a total lack of horns is a bit curious, but no bother. Early singles by Os Úntués offer pronounced samba influences that contrast with the pan-African syncretism of later tracks like Africa Negra’s jubilant “Zimbabwe,” a wah-soaked ode from 1981 celebrating the country’s recent independence, five years after São Tomé and Principe’s own peaceful transition from Portuguese rule. It’s worth staying tuned as Bongo Joe promises more of Tom B’s finds. [8.1]

Various artists

We Were Living in Cincinnati (Hozac)

Ohio’s Devo, Electric Eels, and Pere Ubu almost invented postpunk before punk even happened, so what did Ohio postpunk actually sound like? With this wonderful document, Hozac answers the question for Cincinnati. As Chrome Cranks’ Peter Aaron recounts in his fantastic liner notes, these farmland-bound bands made things up based on a trickle of information coming from the outside, plus occasional forays to New York or Cleveland. The 33 tracks are snotty but guile-
less and often almost sweet, more than ragged and pretty damn right. A splendid, stunning connection to present-day Charlottesville is Dave Lewis, a central figure in We Were Living in Cincinnati (the title is actually a Lewis lyric). Today, Lewis runs a used record store in Luray while spinning motets and virelais on WTJU’s “Early Music Show.” How punk is that? [8.3]

https://hozacrecords.bandcamp.com/album/we-were-living-in-cincinnati

Categories
Living

Future home: Exploring the land that will become the McIntire Botanical Garden

Staff photos

Two years ago, I visited the northeast corner of McIntire Park for the first time, when reporting a story for this paper about the future McIntire Botanical Garden. The reporting was all about potential: the vision of this 8.5-acre piece of land as a place transformed. As the garden’s board and boosters see it, it’s to be designed, planted, tended, and visited.

For some reason, the site has stayed on my mind ever since. I keep thinking and talking about it—how the place intrigues me not just for its potential but for what it already is. I sometimes stop by and walk around there. I stopped by again on a recent sunny day.

Even before I turned onto Melbourne Road to park my car, I realized I was feeling possessive about the place, hoping I’d have it to myself. This thought wouldn’t make much sense in a botanical garden, where the paths are meant to be full of families, strollers, tourists—human eyes to gaze at the human creation. But the FUTURE HOME (as the sign at the corner of Melbourne has it) doesn’t really call to visitors.

I walked around the black gate that keeps out cars and immediately faced a choice: hang right and follow the powerlines, or go downhill on crumbling pavement. On this spot two years ago I attended a ceremony announcing the selection of two landscape architecture firms, who have since collaborated on a schematic plan for the garden. But this time, no one was around.

I walked straight ahead, with the parkway on my left. The site is bounded on north and east by roads, a railroad on the west (with Charlottesville High School just beyond the tracks), and the rest of McIntire Park to the south. A creek cuts through its center. Its other “features” are woods of varying density, apocalyptic drifts of invasive vines, and a network of rough paths.

Right away, I noticed a thick layer of leaves, needles, and shredded branches covering most of the paved road. Was all that material windswept? Carried by water? It seemed to have come mostly from a row of red cedars and pines along the road—the trees seeming intentionally planted, but their droppings making an accidental carpet.

Nearby, two long black metal objects (discarded sections of a bridge or overpass, I guessed) lay side-by-side on the ground, tall weeds arcing over them. I stepped up onto one section and walked its length. Then I kicked a section of green garden hose out from under the duff.

There were little orange flags along a mowed lane. There was continual noise from the parkway. There was the occasional sparrow or titmouse call, and the shiver of the breeze in stiff birch leaves.

Looking for a way to cross the creek, finding no human trails, I found myself following deer paths instead—in their own way, quite well maintained. When I got to the water, I stood opposite a deeply eroded bluff, with two big enticing holes in its surface: a groundhog home. In the sandy mud by the creek, there were deer prints, some other tracks I couldn’t identify, and then—further along—two light, but clear, heron tracks.

I found a place to scale the bank and wandered for a while among poplar and locust trees. Some were marked with white tape—to save, or to cut? Their pattern was unreadable, but I took the white tape as a sign of the garden design, a mark of what’s to come.

In a sunny spot, I found something eerie: a collapsed tent, sleeping bag, and bags of plastic bottles, all moldering into the ground, half-covered with leaves.

Like every other time I’ve been here, I was slightly on edge. It’s no transgression to walk here, it’s a public park, yet it doesn’t ask to be occupied. I know that botanical garden supporters and volunteers come here in groups to remove invasive species, which are rampant, and to attend bird walks and workshops. Still, my own presence felt illicit.

A Norfolk Southern freight train lumbered past. On the top of the hill, I turned my back on the train and its noise, and looked down over this place, the FUTURE HOME: the fall and rise of the land, bone-colored sycamore trunks, ruins of pokeweed. Someday, this will be a center for beauty, order, intention.

For now, it reflects no design sensibility. Nonetheless, it’s a human creation, the accidental result of our actions, our mistakes and neglect. And mixed with all that, there’s the persistence of living things: mosses, woodpeckers, and even sometimes people, who make this place a home.

But no one else was here. I was alone with a stand of very tall, brittle grasses, straw-colored for the winter season, clicking and ticking as they swayed in the wind. Actually, the noise was surprisingly loud. Was I hearing an insect? Seed pods bursting open in the sun? Or just hollow stems resonating as they collided with each other?

I stood there with that humble mystery for a while. It was something no one had planned.

Categories
Arts

Arts Pick: The Indie Short Film Series

Best short-timers: The Indie Short Film Series includes highly regarded festival selections as well as local productions such as The Devil’s Harmony, Best International Short Film award winner
at Sundance. A disquieting tale of a bullied teenage girl enacting revenge on her enemies and abusers, the movie promises to stick with you long after its brief runtime is over. The screenings will be followed by a filmmakers’ panel discussion, moderated by WTJU’s Nathan Moore.

Saturday 2/29. $9, 6pm. Vinegar Hill Theatre, 220 W. Market St. 293-6992.

Categories
Arts

Arts Pick: Dan Deacon

Circling back: Dan Deacon has been working his synth-pop magic for nearly two decades. From the self-released CD-Rs of his student days to the hyperactive live shows made legendary through audience participation, Deacon is an established trailblazer in electronic music. At a 2010 Charlottesville appearance, C-VILLE’s James Ford reported that the DJ/composer “led the sweaty crowd through a strenuous series of simple synchronized dance routines, culminating in a finale in which every member of the audience formed a circle and held hands, before acrobatically turning the circle inside-out.” Deacon’s new album Mystic Familiar is said to be the result of obsessive work, play, and self-discovery. Be ready.

Wednesday 2/26. $15-17, 8:30pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.

Categories
Arts

Screw you: Comedian Lewis Black defies authority and rejects stupidity

When I reach politically enraged comedian Lewis Black by phone on an early February morning following the Iowa caucus, I expect he’ll be ready with one of his signature rants, and after a polite exchange of salutations, he does not disappoint. Black immediately unleashes a torrent of frustrations. Clearly he wants me to listen—which is really the only choice, as he does not pause often for breathing or questions. He tosses out fuck and schmuck like confetti, and his quick-witted cultural jabs change lanes like a getaway car.

Black’s bringing his It Gets Better Every Day tour to The Paramount Theater on February 28, and he says that sometimes audience members don’t get his live act. They comment after the show that he didn’t mention “him” enough, or sometimes the show wasn’t political enough. (He refuses to call Trump by name or title.) But Black is a master craftsman in the art of wry exposition. In a career that began with playwriting, then took off through standup and a recurring role on “The Daily Show,” his agility at doling out whip-smart observations in the guise of a cranky narrator has earned Black legions of fans who do get it.

C-VILLE Weekly: Here we are in an election year and you’re a political guy…

Lewis Black: I would consider myself more of a social satirist than a political satirist, because it’s more of what these guys do than who they are. It’s a big differential, it’s literally an endless list of jackasses.

I have an inordinate amount of trouble with both parties. With the Democrats, I’m so astonished, I mean you’re impeaching the president..and that night you have a debate…and you go after each other. It was more important for you to be elected than for you to deal with what was happening historically. Seriously.

They can be just as tone-deaf as the Republicans. There’s no defense of it. None. …Screw you! I’m sick of it.

This must be a good time for your social commentary?

It is to a point. People say he must be good for comedy…about “the leader,” as I call him. I say he’s good for comedy in the way that a stroke is good for a nap.

Who is the funniest person in politics?

I don’t think any of them are funny. I think there’s not an adult among them. …The basic behaviors, the basic lack of a sense of history, and the lack of you know, basic knowledge.

Do you think the last election was rigged?

No. No! Seriously? No. You know why? They’re not that competent. None of them. No, it wasn’t rigged. You know what was unbelievable. Nominating two candidates that no one liked…You’ve got to show up in states you’re supposed to show up in to win! The arrogance on both sides is beyond belief.

Have you always been angry?

About the state of government? Somewhat. I was born and raised around Washington, D.C., so yeah. Stupidity has always gotten to me. From the time I was a kid and they said “In case of nuclear attack get under your desk.” I said, “Really?” …That was literally when my train went off the rails. I’ve never been big on authority. You have to take authority with a grain of salt…most authority tries to be about its power and you know, “Fuck you!”

You’ve logged 23 years on “The Daily Show.” Who’s your favorite host?

There’s something I like about all of them. I have more freedom now. But the most freedom I had was in the beginning. They needed material and I had material…I would go on and improv.

Who opened the door for your brand of humor?

All sorts. Carlin, Pryor, Bruce. I think I pale in comparison.

I met George a couple of times, and he was really instrumental in my career because he started to tell people to come and see me…and that was just huge to me. At that point it didn’t matter how I did…if he liked what I was doing, then fuck ’em.

These days you are well-known, but who do you get mistaken for?

Franken.

So do you ever just pretend you’re Al Franken?

No. I get livid. I know Al and I say, “Really?” First off, I’m better looking than Al, so get over it.

Any regrets about the Opie and Anthony Naked Teen Voyeur Bus stunt? Would you do it again today? (Black and 14 others were arrested in 2000 for a radio show bus ride that featured nude or semi-nude models in the windows.)

I wouldn’t do it now, because essentially, I don’t need to. It was advertising. But I’m not embarrassed by it on any level.

To be honest, if I was sitting on the bus ogling them that would be one thing. Here’s the choice: Sit in a studio with two schmucks, or get in a bus that’s going around New York City with five topless girls.

Those are the choices?

Those are the choices. What are you gonna do? You tell me? I’m not selling anything, I’m making nothing off of it. …Also, there was nothing against the law!

Those women chose to be topless…I’m watching the reaction of the people on the street to see if that bothers them…and nothing. There’s old ladies waving, happy. It was just before Christmas for god’s sake. It was spectacular.

Which is worse, that I did that, or that Giuliani had us stopped because Bill Clinton, of all people, was going to be coming on the road we’re on a half an hour later. We were three minutes from the studio when we got busted. We were taken in and held for a day and a half.

What were you charged with?

Disrupting the public, and public nuisance, and some other thing. I got off that bus and had a show that weekend. You couldn’t get a ticket to my show. For me, it flipped everything around.

Tell me about The Rant is Due, which takes place at the end of your shows.

That I am very proud of. …For the people in Charlottesville, anybody in the state of Virginia, or folks around the country…the audience is asked when they come in, is there anything you want to yell about or include about your town? I pick the ones I think will work…and it’s livestreamed throughout the world for free. It becomes a show written by people in the town.

Lewis Black / The Paramount Theater/ February 28

Categories
Arts

Classified act: Films on Song does not apologize for its catchy, post-punk pop

Films on Song performs at Magnolia House on February 29.

Most musicians will tell you that Craigslist isn’t the best place to find bandmates. Sure, it’s worked for some groups (The Killers), but in a small town like Charlottesville, the odds of finding a copacetic match on the internet are especially slim. You’re more likely to meet like-minded musicians at a show.

But Films on Song needed both to achieve its current lineup and develop the jangle-pop post-punk sound that makes the band stick out in the current Charlottesville music scene.

Francis McKee had been living in town for about a year when he realized he hadn’t done anything musical. “I had a mini panic attack and thought, ‘Well, I’ll take a shot at Craigslist.’”

Jonathan Teeter—who was already performing pop songs under the Films on Song moniker—was one of the first people to reply to the ad that listed bands like The Smiths and The Cure, and dream pop as potential influences.

“Not that we’re dream pop at all,” says Teeter (who counts Damon Albarn, the musical brains behind Britpop band Blur and trip hop virtual band Gorillaz, as one of his own biggest influences). When he and McKee started working on songs, they developed with a post-punk tilt—the songs were groovy and uptempo, more oomph-atically, and less dreamily pop.

And adding Sam Roberts, known in the area for his drumming in punk ‘n’ roll band Wild Rose and hardcore band Fried Egg, only increased that post-punk angle.

Teeter asked Roberts to join on a whim: The band’s previous drummer was returning to school, and Roberts agreed after hearing a Films on Song set at Magnolia House, the DIY spot Roberts runs.

“What immediately appealed to me was that this is a pop band, unapologetically,” says Roberts. “That was something brand new for me [as a drummer], that I want to see in town, and done well.”

Who gives a shit about what’s cool these days, or what any other band is doing, but for the most part, “hip” bands (in Charlottesville and elsewhere) aren’t making pop music, and they’re certainly not focusing on melody. Films on Song doesn’t quite understand why. Perhaps it’s because those songs are pretty difficult to write, proposes Roberts.

Teeter agrees. “I’ll throw out entire songs I’ve written because I don’t think they’re catchy enough. Different strokes for different folks,” he says with a shrug.

But the truth is that “everyone likes catchy music,” says Roberts. “Everyone.”

(Yes, even those who stand at shows with their arms across their chests, refusing to nod their heads with the beat unless they’ve had a few drinks. Just dance, for crying out loud.)

Catchy is what Films on Song supplies. But don’t mistake it for a one-note band. There’s variation from song to song, and in a way, each band member’s favorite track reflects his distinct musical contributions.

McKee’s particularly attached to the riff in “New Light” (or, “I’m Starting to See You in a New Light”—the band hasn’t decided which title to use yet)—not only is it memorable, it inspires him to write more earworms to sing along to.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Roberts is partial to “Sushi.” “It’s the rocker,” he says, progressively building in volume before exploding into distortion at the end. Roberts likes it even more when, during this interview, Teeter explains what it’s about: Taking a vacation from his grueling restaurant industry job, and the bizarre experience of being served by another server (and then developing a crush on that server).

The band agrees that “Friends of Mine” is its catchiest song—and thus the one Teeter most fancies. He wrote the song after learning that a few of the animators who perished in the Kyoto Animation studio fire in July 2019 had created some of his favorite animes, folks who’d created characters who felt like friends to Teeter.

Films on Song hopes to get the crowd bopping at its Magnolia House show Saturday night, and the band promises to release an EP (or two) this year.

And for alt-weekly music column readers who also happen to be musicians, take note: The band is seeking a keyboard player as well as a bass player, so that McKee can move on to lead guitar and Teeter can focus on vocals. So, if you’re into playing jangle pop and post-punk, consider this—and the show—the Films on Song’s classified ad.

Films on Song performs at Magnolia House on February 29.

Categories
Arts

New interpretations: Opera and American Sign Language come together in performance at VHO

Amber Zion (top), seen here in Deaf West Theatre’s production of My Sister in This House, is in town to push the boundaries of opera during a VHO workshop. She has performed music since she was a child, but this will be her first opera performance. Opera singers “have so much more emotions in their voice,” she says, and “[as deaf actors], I think we will be able to bring that out through our beautiful ASL.” courtesy of VHO.

Amber Zion started analyzing acting techniques when she was 5 years old. The only deaf child in her family, she grew up watching movies without captions, and she made up her own stories based on what she saw in the actors’ expressions and gestures.

When she watched MTV, she’d ask her mother to act out scenes from different videos—such as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”—then she’d jump in and follow along.

Those videos “were very artistic, and I wanted to be able to give that to the deaf community,” says Zion, who got involved in theater in college and has since made her own music videos of popular songs like “Let It Go” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” performed in American Sign Language. She’s also performed the national anthem at the Super Bowl. “I wanted to create our own meaning behind the music,” she says.

This week, Zion comes to Charlottesville to tackle a new type of musical expression: opera.

Over the course of a three-day workshop, three deaf actors and three hearing opera singers, along with a director, a conductor, an ASL master, and a pianist, will explore a selection of scenes from Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, written in the 20th century and set in a convent on the eve of the French Revolution.

The public will have the opportunity to experience the resulting performance (performed simultaneously in English and ASL) on February 27 at UVA’s Old Cabell Hall, as part of the UVA Disability Studies Symposium.

Victory Hall Opera, an innovative local company, proposed the initial concept. Artistic director, Miriam Gordon-Stewart, a hearing soprano who is also singing in this experiment, got the idea from reading Andrew Solomon’s Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, a book about parenting children who are different from their parents.

One section of the book looks at the experience of a deaf child growing up with hearing parents, and Solomon explains the origins of sign language: French priest Charles-Michel de l’Épée founded the first known public school for the deaf in Paris in 1755.

Gordon-Stewart’s mind “immediately went to” Dialogues of the Carmelites, an opera singer’s opera, set about 35 years later. “Wouldn’t it be great,” she thought, “if we could talk about Dialogues of the Carmelites through a deaf lens?”

That provoked further questions, such as “What is opera without sound? Is there a unique performing style to opera that can transcend the sound itself? How can we heighten the visual elements of opera to express its essence?”

Director Alek Lev is curious to discover (among other things) what operatic sign language looks like. Sign language looks and feels a certain way while signing Shakespeare, and that’s different from how the language looks and feels when signing, say, Neil Simon dialogue, he says.

Plus, he says, there’s an “essential metaphor” in the opera—one of fighting against the system—that might resonate with the deaf community, whose members have been “historically marginalized and misunderstood…they are more and more fighting for their linguistic and cultural rights, their civil rights,” says Lev. “It’s exciting that [Dialogues of the Carmelites] gives us this pretty easily.”

There’s a unique physicality to singing opera. “The body resonates as an instrument to produce these enormous amounts of sound; there’s an athleticism to it,” says Gordon-Stewart.

And there’s a certain, also unique, physicality to signing, implies Sandra Mae Frank, who will sign the role of Blanche.

“I don’t need to hear [music] to understand it,” Frank says. “I don’t need to hear what everyone else hears, because I see it. I feel it. I understand it on a deeper level. When I sing in ASL, it’s like I can almost see the wavelength of the song. My body glows inside and my heart pours out openly. I’m not interpreting the music, I am performing it with emotions, inside and out. I use my entire body, including my facial expressions and using the right translation to show the beat of the music. In a way, singing in ASL adds more abstract emotional quality. It’s not always about hearing the music, but seeing and feeling the music.”

ASL “is already a visual language that sometimes stands alone without adding any actual choreography,” adds Frank, and sometimes it can work with choreography to convey new layers of emotion and meaning. To “hearing audience members, that’s dancing, but to the deaf/hard-of-hearing audience members, that’s ASL. It’s beautiful how both naturally come together,” she says.

With this in mind, Frank, whose credits include Deaf West Theatre’s Broadway revival of Spring Awakening, is curious to find out if she’ll sign differently in opera than she does in musical theater.

This is Zion’s first opera performance as well. Opera singers “have so much more emotions in their voice,” she says, and “[as deaf actors], I think we will be able to bring that out through our beautiful ASL.”

In many musical productions featuring deaf actors and hearing actors, two actors essentially split a role, where one signs and one speaks. And there will be some of that in these Dialogues of the Carmelites scenes, but Gordon-Stewart says they won’t stick strictly to the doubling. Such an approach will allow the cast and crew to plumb some of the work’s spiritual themes and explore the bonds between characters and between actors.

Both the hearing actors and the deaf actors expect to learn plenty from one another throughout the workshop. That’s what acting’s all about anyhow, says Zion. Whether performing an opera about nuns or The King of Pop’s dance moves, “you will never stop learning, and that’s what makes you a great actor.”

Frank agrees. “That’s the beauty of theater: You never stop learning something new together.”

Categories
Arts

Local expression: The native network of singer-songwriter Nathan Colberg

Playing at The Jefferson Theater on February 28 is a dream come true for local musician Nathan Colberg. The UVA grad will be joined on the bill by fellow C’ville acts Spudnik and Grant Frazier. CRAMER PHOTO.

Since childhood, Nathan Colberg has nurtured the same, secret dream. It’s one shared by many born-and-bred Charlottesville musicians, but few ever see it realized. On February 28, Colberg, along with fellow local acts Grant Frazier and Spudnik, will take the stage at The Jefferson Theater.

“It’s going to be new territory for everyone on the bill,” Colberg says. “We’ve all got an excitement right now, and I think that excitement is going to carry into the show.”

Colberg has been traversing a lot of new territory since his 2017 graduation from UVA. A longtime member of a cappella group The Hullabahoos (you might remember their cameo in Pitch Perfect), he started putting out original music with the 2016 EP Barricade.

This five-song collection included the hometown love letter “Charlottesville”—his first hit, which cemented his status as a local musician. To foster a Charlottesville following, Colberg set up a studio in his parents’ basement. “I started writing a lot of songs with the intent of making a full-length album,” he says, adding that he launched a Kickstarter to support his project. The campaign was a success, and Silo was released in spring 2018.

The 11-track album is an expansion of the sounds and themes of Colberg’s first EP. Across all of his music, he sings—in clear, effortless vocals reminiscent of The Head and the Heart and Vance Joy—of universal ideas like wanting to find a lasting home and being disillusioned by misplaced ambitions. “Chasing money, chasing dreams / And chasing hearts and everything in between,” he laments on “Calm,” a single that strives toward the title emotion.

As a recent college grad in Charlottesville, Colberg has practiced what he preaches in his music—a simple, unassuming way of life. For him, that has meant part-time jobs at MarieBette Café & Bakery and Christ Episcopal Church. It’s also encompassed getting married, which he did last fall. “[Rachel and I] dated from the fall after our senior year,” he said, citing the life change as one of several major influences on his songwriting. “I’m kind of writing different styles of songs, and I think a lot of that has been because of romance.”

Colberg stresses that various post-grad experiences have shaped his music into something markedly different than his first two ventures. Whereas Silo feels like Barricade’s natural next step, “Could You Ever Find Another Word for Love” and “Sunset Eyes” foray into new territory. On both tracks, Colberg’s voice dips unexpectedly through octaves, and the instrumentation is more impressive too, with “Sunset Eyes” utilizing what sounds like a full string section.

Colberg says he has made enormous strides in the songwriting process in the past few years, a journey that started with the misaligned expectations and realities of his first album. “I think I was really naive,” he says. “I thought that opportunities would just open up.” When they didn’t, he says, “I had to kind of reset my expectations.”

Although he emphasizes how he has changed since Silo, he doesn’t scorn any of his thoughts and feelings from that period, saying that it was an opportunity to “start believing in myself a little more.”

Colberg cites the desire to take himself less seriously. Even though his music career is reaching new and fairly serious heights, he wants the music itself to give the listener less of a melancholy vibe. “There’s kind of been this change of tone,” he says. “It’s a little bit more light-hearted and whimsical. It’s fun, too, which is a change.”

He could be describing the music of opener Frazier, a fourth-year at UVA whose tunes, while peppier than Colberg’s, are created in the same earnest, acoustic vein. It’s worth noting, though, that both musicians have been hard at work on new material—Frazier dropped a single earlier this month, and an album is on the way—so the night promises to be full of sonic surprises.

And Spudnik, heroes of the local scene, will be there to hold everything together. As a band whose stated mission is to “create community-based music for our community,” they’re certain to fit in with the theme of the show.

It’s people like the five who make up Spudnik, a group devoted to supporting and collaborating with fellow locals, who give Colberg the conviction he needs to continue singing and songwriting in a town admittedly stuffed with singer-songwriters. “I’m not unaware of how awesome this opportunity is for me,” he says of the upcoming show. “I’m also not unaware that I couldn’t do this without the support of so many friends of mine.”

Spudnik will be his backing band onstage, but Colberg also has a backing band on a daily basis, one far greater than five people—a network of friends and family members, fellow churchgoers and coworkers, who want him to keep doing what he’s doing. He has become a local musician in the truest sense of the word, someone who actively participates in the community instead of just occasionally performing for it.

And the community is reciprocating. “I’m good friends with everyone on the bill, and I just love that,” he says. “I feel like the luckiest dude ever.”

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Arts

Arts Pick: Punk the Capital

Punk from here: When her family relocated from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in the early ’80s, Cynthia Connolly brought her camera and her passion for punk rock to the nation’s fledgling scene. Her documentation resulted in Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the DC Punk Underground (79-85), one of the first books on punk in the U.S. Connelly appears in a new documentary, Punk the Capital: Building a Sound Movement, which captures that transformative period, and she’ll be on hand for a post-screening discussion along with co-director James June Schneider.

Saturday 2/29. $10, 7:30pm. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056.