Check out this week’s Feedback column for some background on these music videos that students grades 7-12 made for three local bands—Borrowed Beams of Light, Downbeat Project and, sorry, me—below.
Light House’s youth film fest is September 9 at the Jefferson Theater.
Light House Studio 2011 Summer Music Video Workshop Sneak Preview from Light House Studio on Vimeo.
The rioters that swept England in early August may have had the nation’s establishment in their sights, but their fury also claimed a Sony warehouse holding more than 2 million albums released on independent labels.
Labels affected by the fire included bigger indies like XL (which releases music by Adele and Vampire Weekend) and Domino (from Animal Collective to Cass McCombs) and a host of smaller ones, whose artists encouraged fans to buy digital downloads from the labels to keep the cash flow coming. (Though much of the stock was insured, the fire puts independent labels, many of which operate hand-to-mouth, in a compromising spot in the short term.)
Now local musicians, organized by Astronomers’ Alexandra Angelich in association with Label Love and Bay 1 Studios, are sweeping in to help struggling labels with a last-minute benefit festival this weekend. The Laser Waste Music Festival is "a benefit concert to support independent labels and artists who lost over 2 million albums in a senseless act of arson during the London Riots," says the event’s page.
Here’s the lineup for the festival, which is this Saturday, September 3, at the
, according to the fest’s Facebook page.
Main Stage:
Sinclarity 12:00 am
Grey Matter 11:00 pm
Astronomers 10:00 pm
Hunter Smith and the Dead Men 9:00 pm
Manorlady 8:00 pm
Rock n Roll Cannibals 7:00 pm
Gunchux 6:00 pm
the Co-Pilots 5:00 pm
Bar side:
DJ Landing Force 9:00 pm
the Buffalo Theory 7:45 pm
Sally Rose 6:30 pm
Graham Partridge 5:45 pm
Willits Bowditch 4:45 pm
Will Patterson 4:00 pm
For more information, visit us at https://sites.google.com/s
"Firestarter," from Prodigy’s 1997 album Fat of the Land, was an early break for the influential indie label XL Recordings, which lost stock in this month’s London fire.
When you’re done buying lots of duct tape, water, batteries and flashlights in preparation for the big storm (talkin’ Irene here) that threatens to blow citizens over—unless talk is overblown—until it just blows over, there’s plenty of fun to be had. Start polishing your rainboots now, and remember to call ahead.
Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule, who announced earlier this summer that they’d be moving to Berlin, play a farewell show Saturday night at the Jefferson Theater. For all the details—WHY!??, for example—check out this week’s Feedback column.
Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams screens tonight at PVCC, part of a free movie Friday series there. Herzog filmed it in 3D to capture the famous Chauvet Cave’s paintings as the historic people saw them dozens of thousands of years ago. Don’t miss it.
Owen Ashworth made a name for himself with the equal parts minimal and confessional act Casiotone for the Painfully Alone—aptly named. He comes to town with a new project called Advance Base (genre listed on Facebook: "Sad") that expands the instrumentation, with piano, real drums and more, without taking any unnecessary left turns. Hear what appears to be the band’s complete catalog, limited though it may be, here. Peaceful tunes for a rainy Saturday at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar.
What are you up to this weekend?
Guest post by Chelsea Hicks.
Perhaps the single most contradictory aspect of indie rock is the fact that independent artists and listeners alike are so often concerned with what’s cool. My Morning Jacket, who played last night at the nTelos Wireless Pavilion, asks "who cares?," swaying with a towel on their heads and capes on their shoulders.
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Despite having coursed through a few members, My Morning Jacket feels comfortingly like an actual band and jot just a front man with instrumentalists in the shadows. That palpable sense of band unity—they spent a lot of time rocking out in each others’ faces—is just one of the many nods My Morning Jacket unconscionably makes to that pure, forgotten form of old school rock ‘n’ roll.
After all, My Morning Jacket has never been much concerned with what people might think of them. James is secure, comfortable crooning at the audience genuinely during "Slow Slow Tune," affect-free. When he’s ironic, it’s not directed at his audience and it doesn’t feel critical—it more like an elephant-in-the-room self-awareness that he’s channeling both Led Zeppelin and Willie Nelson. We all got this watching his arsenal of machine gun leg kicks, especially during "Holdin’ On to Black Metal."
It’s even more pleasant to watch someone extending that lack of concern for judgment to their own audience: everyone who likes MMJ (fratboys and soccer moms included) is in their club and that doesn’t make them uncool. And everyone was cool when the green robotic-like eye from the album cover of their latest release, Circuital, shone over the crowd while "Victory Dance" washed over and either you were full-out dancing or just bobbing; it was more of a rock band family event than a club that half the audience wasn’t supposed to be pretending they belonged to.
Photos by John Robinson.
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Dave and Tim (no need for last names here, folks) played the Pavilion this weekend, and C-VILLE’s John Robinson was on hand to catch the action. If you haven’t heard, tickets were sold through JustGive.org, which allows concertgoers to donate the price of their ticket to a charity of their choice.
Though the numbers won’t be in until the end of September, according to Red Light Management, the duo raised $1m at a pair of concerts in Seattle last year. Tickets to Saturday’s Warren Haynes Band concert were also sold through JustGive.org.
A brief aside: Though I had it on good authority—from Dave’s guitar tech himself!—that he’d be playing a locally-made Rockbridge acoustic, it appears that Dave opted for his trusty Taylor. Can’t pin that guy down!
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What’d you think of the show?
She is the kind-hearted folk queen, more of a traditionalist, who, having recognized greatness in her counterpart, introduces him and his less palatable, but perhaps more brilliant, songs to the world. His twitchy affect is softened by her gorgeous trill, her wacky, glowing grace. We’re jealous that she got him and he got her, but they seem to love each other, and that, in turn, makes them both lovable.
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Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule, the husband and wife songwriters who have been central |
Since Paul Curreri famously jumped on stage uninvited to provide backing vocals at a Devon Sproule gig, the magic of Curreri and Sproule has been a sort of emotional kryptonite to Charlottesville’s stolid, arms-folded concert audiences. But we’re going to have to start searching for a new Fred and Ginger, a new Bob and Joan, a new Sonny and Cher, because Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule are moving to Germany.
I met Curreri, who plays a farewell concert with Sproule this week at The Jefferson Theater, at a bar Downtown last week to ask why. Sproule was in Europe, where her music has brought her with increasing frequency in recent years, for a concert and radio spot. Curreri had a pack of Marlboro Lights on the table, and wore a sleeveless vintage tee with SAN JOSE dribbled down the front in various neons. “We never really made any money, but we made enough,” says Curreri, sipping a Guinness. “And I was like, ‘I guess that’s just being an artist.”
When Sproule was in London for a previous show, where the band’s friend and manager, Rich Guy, lives—the name is ironic, Curreri notes—Guy told Sproule that he was considering a move to Berlin. Curreri says Sproule liked that idea, too. “That started the ball rolling,” he says. “When [Sproule] came back and told me, I nearly flipped my lid. I thought she was crazy.”
But the economics of it all came into clear view when the duo looked at their taxes. “We actually had the opportunity to sit down and see what we made between 2007 and 2010,” says Curreri, “and we made over 90 percent—it was 91 percent—less on our CD sales in 2010 than we did in 2007.”
Curreri says he’s never cared about money, but he considers it a mark of credibility to make it to a certain level—to, say, be able to get a tire changed without thinking it’s a big deal. But it was just getting ridiculous. This year alone, says Curreri, Sproule has taken a half dozen trips overseas, mostly at her own expense.
“One night we were just walking home after a party, and I had just been turned down by someone in America to represent me, who I thought was really likely,” says Curreri. “I was pretty drunk. I just lost it—I freaked out, but not violently or anything. I’d never had that feeling, like, ‘What am I doing?’
“Then I woke up in the morning, and I asked her about it.”
Next thing, Curreri, Sproule and Guy all convinced each other that they were serious, and made firm plans: The whole gang was upping, and moving to Berlin. (Guy has since backed out, says Curreri.)
All this invites a question: Why can’t two songwriters who live and breathe great American music make great American money? Paul explained: “There is a small advantage to being foreign [playing in Europe], which is sort of special. But the real reason is that because the territories are much smaller, it’s so much easier to make a dent in a national market. Every tour we do, we’re on the equivalent of ‘All Things Considered,’ for an hour with a whole band,” says Curreri.
Just because fewer people aren’t buying records doesn’t take the pressure off musicians to put the time and money into making great records. Curreri’s latest, The Big Shitty, is a loose, bar-room affair with eclectic flourishes that burst out of nowhere. (He recorded it this January in Berlin.) Sproule’s most recent record, I Love You, Go Easy, is as good as any she’s made, but Curreri says it might not even see stateside release; both are on the U.K.-based label Tin Angel Records, which does not distribute to America.
The plan is to move for two years, though he expects it will probably be closer to three. “People move for work all the time,” he says, as if trying to convince himself.
"Places" is a new feature where local artists show us the places around town that inspire them.
Guest post by Chelsea Hicks.
For a guy who says he’s "not ambitious," the UVA professor and filmmaker Kevin Everson’s certainly seems to have made it. His solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, "More Than That: Films by Kevin Jerome Everson," was celebrated with a review in the New York Times last week, and his films—long meditations on Black American culture—find a home at some of the art world’s destination festivals.
Currently, Everson is doing post-production editing on his trilogy film about Black cowboys and rodeo riders—a portion of which screened earlier this year at Second Street Gallery—in the American South, tentatively titled The Chronicles of Tom Bigbee. He says he is also filming an experimental biopic about Alessandro della Medici, the 16th century Duke of Florence, and Gail Fisher, the first Black woman to win an Emmy.
Everson just released a DVD box set of 23 of his 70-plus short films, as well as his feature-length film on drag racing, Cinnamon. The discontinuity between the volume of work and attention Everson has and his humble words begs the question:
Would you like to be on "David Letterman"?
No, I got nothing to say. I’d like to have more money to make more art films. But…I’m not ambitious.
Where do you go for inspiration?
I usually think of shit when I’m driving on long highway trips. Usually I drive eight to 10, 12, 15 hours at a time.
What’s your routine for the road?
I just go, I don’t make stops. Only seven minute pit stop. Gas, pee, coffee, snacks.
Where do you get your film ideas?
All my films are about jesters—the intellectual practice of the nobility of labor. People don’t pay attention to how people can become good at something just through repetition and practice. So I see that people have artistic approaches to everything. I always think I’m privileged in being an artist. So I look for things out there—I don’t believe in hierarchy but I don’t believe that if people put time in and practice and repetition, they can be an expert.
So your ideas come from specific places and things you’ve seen?
I work with what I know. What I have…Like in the film Erie. People watch it and ask, ‘Oh is this about Black America?’ And it’s like ‘No, there’s fucking 41 million of us,’; there’s more Black Americans than Canadians but no one asks that about Canadians. I don’t speak for 41 million people. That’s a lot of trouble. I’m not here to teach people about Black America. I don’t know anything about Black America.
What do you see for the next year?
Just make shit. That’s my job, to make shit and teach 20-year-olds how to make shit.
If you haven’t already heard yet, you stood no chance of buying one of the tickets for the Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds charity show at the Pavilion on Saturday. NBC29 reports that tickets sold out in—how low can you go?—three minutes. Dang, Dave. Nonprofits around town had been e-jockeying for ticketbuyers to donate the cost of their tickets to them via justgive.org, through which Dave and Tim raised a cool $1m last year in Seattle.
If you were still hoping to go to the second big event on Saturday night, you’ll probably have no luck there either: Warren Haynes Band’s show at the Jefferson is also sold out. Looking for some perspective on the weekend? Check out this week’s Feedback column.
Some of the must-do events this weekend are only vaguely arts-related. First, you might’ve noticed a big, fat C-VILLE Weekly on the stands this week. Upon opening it (or going here) you’ll see that it’s our annual Best Of issue, which can only mean one thing: the Best of C-VILLE party. If you’re in the winner’s circle (or any C-VILLE-related circle, really) we’ll look forward to seeing you there. If not, the Box, next to the Landmark Hotel on Second Street, hosts an afterparty at 11pm.
Tomorrow, local Democrats convene for a firehouse primary to determine who will earn the hotly contested City Council nomination, before the elections in November. We put together a primer on candidates’ stances on the arts as well as other topics. Details for the firehouse primary are here.
As we approach the August 20 Democratic firehouse primary for City Council, a question that’s been asked on the state and federal levels is worth asking here. What should be the city government’s role in supporting the arts?
I asked the 12 candidates to respond by e-mail to a prompt: Should the city fund the arts? If so, what kinds of arts projects or organizations should it fund? Read the candidates’ statements below. (All statements have been edited for length. See candidates’ complete statements on the Feedback blog at c-ville.com.)
/RI_-IMG_2022.jpg) Brevy Cannon, pictured at McGuffey Art Center, announced in June that he would run as a Democrat for City Council. He faces off against six other Democractic hopefuls on August 20, before the election in November.
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| In the 2010-2011 fiscal year, the city budgeted more than $1.6 million for local arts organizations, the lion’s share of which goes to the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library. Other recipients include the Charlottesville Municipal Band (which gets $72,885 annually), the City Center for Contemporary Arts ($31,958), McGuffey Art Center ($23,477) and Piedmont Council for the Arts ($21,590). That $1.6 million figure does not include another $100,000 the city spends on community events like our major local film, photograph and book festivals. |
The body is old-growth Brazilian rosewood and red spruce, finished in a gorgeous sunburst and trimmed with abalone, its insides braced with Adirondack spruce. Koa wood binds the Honduran mahogany neck. The scale is 25" and the nut width is 1 3/4".
/C'Ville---Rockridge-Guitars.jpg) Adam McNeil (right) and Randall Ray (left) make Rockbridge guitars by passing them around studios in Gordonsville, Lexington and Los Angeles. Want one? There’s a year-long waiting list. Want to see one? Check out Dave Matthews at the Pavilion this weekend.
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There is no pickguard. It starts just shy of $4,000. And the Rockbridge Small Jumbo is Dave Matthews’ new favorite guitar.
“Man, they make an incredible guitar,” Matthews—who will play the locally-made acoustic at a charity show with Tim Reynolds this weekend at the Pavilion—said in an interview published in the Huffington Post last year, after he first played a Rockbridge. “I haven’t even told them yet if I am going to keep it, but it is an astounding instrument,” he said, before buying five of them.
It all starts with slabs of rare wood piled on racks in a Gordonsville basement. Last week I visited one of the company’s studios, just off a road called Lovers Lane in Gordonsville. You walk around the side of a brick house, down a few steps and… this is it?
Inside, Adam McNeil, who has worked for the company since 2006, etched detail into the back of an unfinished neck with what looked like an X-Acto knife. Bracings for various shapes—dreadnaught, 000 and Small Jumbo models—hung from the wall. A small, side room where guitars are finished was covered in a thin, white film. A few botched tops hung from a nail in the wall.
Most high-end acoustic guitar companies try to make their instruments sound like vintage Gibson and Martin acoustics, from the so-called first golden age of luthiery. “We’re not really doing that,” Brian Calhoun, a Lexington native and cofounder of Rockbridge Guitars, told me by phone before my visit. “Our guitars sound like a Rockbridge.”
“When you enter the realm of high-end acoustic guitars it becomes a subjective thing,” Calhoun said. “It’s hard to say one’s better than another—it’s just better for you. We just had something a little different from what people were used to.”
That may be what sold Matthews, who has a taste for unusual guitars: He has been known to play a Chet Atkins model Gibson, a plucky acoustic-electric that lacks the resonating soundhole that’s the hallmark of most acoustics. On later records, starting with Everyday, Matthews went low with a baritone. But his go-to for the last decade has been a Taylor 914, which is very nice and very trusty, but not flashy or weird.
Calhoun got his start building instruments as a high schooler in Lexington, where he apprenticed building mandolins. In 2000 he met Randall Ray, an older luthier who ran a small business with his wife, but spent evenings learning the craft through books and trial and error. “It was just like taking classes at night,” says Ray. “I would get home from work, and go until about 10 building guitars upstairs.”
McNeil joined the company after meeting Calhoun in a bar. The trio came together at the right time to ride the crest of what Ray calls a second golden age of guitar-making, which has been dampened by the recession. (Other regional guitar boutiques include Huss and Dalton, in Staunton, and the famous Wayne Henderson, of Southwest Virginia.)
Today the Rockbridge trio is spread across the country. Ray is in Lexingon; McNeil is in Gordonsville; and Calhoun is in Los Angeles, where his wife, a fiddler, just joined a new band with Mick Jagger—no big deal. That means before guitars get finished, most of the roughly 40 they make per year have spent time in shops at either end of the country.
During my visit, McNeil went to the back of the shop and emerged with an enormous cardboard box, covered in generations of packing tape and filled with fitted pieces of styrofoam. “The Post Office lady hates us,” he says.
But guitar players don’t. In addition to Matthews, they have sold guitars to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell, The Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who, I hope, resisted the urge to smash his Rockbridge.
“A lot of people around here think we’re selling to local guys, or just building guitars and sticking them in consignment shops,” says Ray. “I don’t think they understand the scope of what we’re doing and who we’re selling to.”
Those who buy Rockbridges seem to get it. “These guys made a guitar that is absolutely stunning,” says Craig Baker, who has been Dave Matthews’ guitar tech for more than three years. “The craftsmanship, the work that went into it—Dave’s words were that it’s the most beautiful guitar he’s ever owned.”
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