Author: jamesford

This Thursday, the Library of Congress provides an opportunity to see a film by one of cinema’s masters, the legendary Akira Kurosawa, on glorious 35mm film. 1962’s Sanjuro is a deeper cut in the Kurosawa catalog; a sequel to the previous years’ acclaimed, beloved, and oft-imitated Yojimbo, in which Toshiro Mifune reprises his role as a wandering swordsman, in the 11th of his sixteen collaborations with the director.

Mifune is always a fascinating onscreen presence, and his role here is more boisterous and broad than in Yojimbo; the film is a near-comedy of class and manners, closer in tone to Kurosawa’s sly and cynical freewheeling films like the Hidden Fortress than his more austere pictures. He swaggers, cackles, and roars his way through an otherwise restrained cast (including other Toho regulars like Takashi Shimura), as a disgraced, drunken samurai called upon to save a small village from corruption. While Mifune provides the majority of the films highlights, other moments — such as a shocking geyser of blood, or a single cherry blossom falling into a running stream — showcase the precision and technical innovations of the increasingly meticulous director.

Sanjuro screens at 7:30pm at the Packard Theater in Culpeper. Admission is free; more information is available at the LOC’s website.

The default opening act for many of 2013’s concerts was the local duo Grand Banks, which sprang back to life in 2013 after several years of infrequent shows. While keyboardist/singer Tyler Magill’s other project Mss. went on hiatus, he and Davis Salisbury rekindled their improvisational ambient noise duo. Where Grand Banks’ material was once abrasive and theatrical, its recent performances—along with Salisbury’s solo appearances under the name Dais Queue—became increasingly restrained, thoughtful, and unpredictable.

Kurt Vile made one of the 2013’s most acclaimed and popular records, but the real highlight at his July 18 concert at the Jefferson was his touring partners, The Swirlies. The Boston-based group is one of several early ’90s American acts, like The Lilys, that sprang up in the wake of the ’80s shoegaze movement. The group’s explosive musical energy, both dreamy and aggressive, made for one of the best sets I’ve ever heard on the Jefferson’s stage.

Andrew Cedermark (former local musician and a previous author of this column) returned to town on July 20 and was joined by new wave group Weird Mob and folker Erik the Red. Cedermark is now based in New York City, and he assembled a touring band to support his latest album, Home Life. Whereas his concerts once gained vitality from their ramshackle unpredictability, the new Cedermark Revue is thoroughly professional and competent, delivering new material with a road-tested synchronicity, and sacrificing little of the shambling energy that defines him as a performer.

Fellow New Yorkers Woods are a beloved indie institution, but their July 23 concert disintegrated into a forgettable, formless jam, unaided by the late hour of the set (the band got stuck in traffic en route). Still the evening was a success, as opening act Parquet Courts stole the show and delivered a charming, enthusiastic performance that captured the best aspects of its sly, witty album Light Up Gold.

Left & Right relocated from Charlottesville to Philadelphia this autumn, and made the most of its farewell by playing in town nearly twice a month in the summer. Drummer Zak Krone got to fulfill a personal musical fantasy on August 3 by sitting in for one song with Roanoke’s excellent Eternal Summers—it was a perk for helping to fund the band’s Kickstarter campaign. And though he wasn’t listed on the bill, Real Estate’s Matt Mondanile made a surprise appearance that night with his side project Ducktails, making it a memorable evening at the Tea Bazaar.

I was sad to miss Magik Markers’ September 5 appearance here, but I did catch two shows elsewhere on the same tour. The group’s wild, sprawling rock songs, descended from Sonic Youth and Royal Trux, were perfectly conceived and barely held together.

Former Charlottesville resident Matthew Clark has lived in California for several years, but in September he appeared in town with the heavy psychedelic act Residual Echoes. The audience was surprised by Maxx Katz, who joined the band on guitar and flute, before her band Miami Nights performed at the Main Street Annex later that same night.

Ian Svenonius is the brainy, stylish provocateur behind Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, and Weird War, and I had the pleasure of interviewing him and seeing his new act Chain and the Gang perform in August. Distilling decades of rock decadence into pure, groovy pseudo-stupidity, Chain and the Gang are not to be missed.

Though Charlottesville has no shortage of weekly and monthly dance nights, the Grits & Gravy Soul and Funk Revue remains the finest, and this year it finally settled into a permanent residency at the R2 Club behind Rapture. DJs Rum Cove and Brother Breakdown have the finest selection of classic 45s one could imagine, and their dance nights are invariably fun, as groovy cuts from yesteryear fill the floor with enthusiastic dancers. They continue to spin on the third Friday of every month.

Godspeed You Black Emperor’s October appearance at the Jefferson was spectacular, and as great as the one I’d seen exactly 13 years before. The band’s new material is even better suited to live performances, and the epic, droning, instrumental soundscapes were perfectly accompanied by a live 16mm film projection.

I’m not a concert promoter, but once in a while I’ll hear through the grapevine that a friend of a friend is looking for a show, and I’ll help grease the wheels to make something happen. This was the case with Suicide Magnets, a Providence-based group that came through town on September 19. Wendy Hyatt and drummer Chris Urany (aka “Jesus Crust”) lived in Charlottesville briefly in the late ’90s, and I took a chance and set up a gig for them at the Tea Bazaar.

Thankfully, the risk paid off. Opening with an Eno-esque ambient solo set by Tyler Magill, and transitioning seamlessly into an epic jam from a seven-piece ensemble line-up of Great Dads was a hard act to follow, but Suicide Magnets topped that effortlessly with a brief, focused set of jangly, fucked-up, damaged, garage punk tunes. Its short, simple songs were more aggressive in intent than in style, sounding more like Dead Moon or Hell-Kite than any thrashing hardcore act. The band played a half dozen songs in under 15 minutes, then politely but firmly declined requests for an encore and were probably the best thing I heard all year.

Prior to its recent Charlottesville show, I’d caught only half of a song by Baltimore’s Horse Lords, but that was enough to make me a fan. On November 1, I finally heard a full set and it was spectacular. The band plays groovy, instrumental math-rock that is thoughtful and visceral.

I ended the year on a heavy note, with back-to-back concerts by Guardian Alien, Great Dads, and newcomer Gnatcatcher at the Tea Bazaar, and Horsefang, Miami Nights, and Company Corvette at the Main Street Annex.

Part one of Feedback’s favorite concerts of 2013 can be found here.

Do you have tickets for a 2014 concert? Tell us about it.

The year got off to an exciting start with an appearance by indie rock royalty Yo La Tengo at the Jefferson on January 24. The band served as its own opening act, playing a dozen acoustic songs, before taking a short break and returning with a full set of louder rock material. During the show, Yo La Tengo inter-

spersed songs from the brand-new Fade album with classics and obscurities from throughout its 30-year career. The highlight was an epic, fuzzed-out medley of “Nothing to Hide,” “Sugarcube,” and the cover of “Little Honda,” which brought the set to a close before an encore of garage covers by The Faces, The Fugs, and The Troggs.

Another low-key rock legend made an appearance in town weeks later, when Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi appeared with his new group, The Evens. By D.C. punk standards, the set was extremely relaxed, while still entertaining and excellent. MacKaye’s music has aged as well as his ethos, and Random Row Bookstore was a perfect setting for the February 2 show. Charlottesville lost not only a good bookstore, but also a good music venue and a resource for the art community, when Random Row closed its doors in June.

Mountains returned to Charlottesville on February 18, playing a loud set of ambient drone music that pushed the boundaries of the tiny PA at the Tea Bazaar. Though its songs are formidably dense, they also contain great subtlety and gently overlapping textures. With a minimal stage presence, its music is as wonderful live as it is on recordings.

On March 4, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore came through town with his new quartet, Chelsea Light Moving. Though the crowd at the Southern was unaccountably thin, the group put on a great set, interspersing songs from its debut full-length with cuts from Moore’s solo records. Moore, at 55, is seemingly the oldest teenager in the world, juxtaposing self-consciously dumb classic rock energy with legitimately compelling avant-garde noise-rock riffs, and he’s worth seeing live under any circumstances. I caught half of the duo again much later in the year, collaborating with Merzbow during a surprise festival appearance, and it was equally as excellent.

Daniel Bachman, the guitarist ingénue from Fredericksburg, may have relocated to Chapel Hill, but he still managed to appear in Charlottesville in April and in November at the Tea Bazaar. Bachman is an ambitious and fleet-fingered instrumentalist, following in the footsteps of John Fahey and Jack Rose, and his work seems to improve measurably with each appearance, and we can rest assured his constant touring schedule will bring him back to town soon enough.

Brooklyn band The Men have had big success after cranking out a solid series of albums over the past few years, regularly playing 100-plus capacity venues, but the group made an exception for the Tea Bazaar on May 27. Though its albums are increasingly inflected with Neil Young-derived alt-country, its live set remains a pummeling powerhouse of post-punk, and its frenetic enthusiasm hit the audience like a physical wave.

The opener for The Men was local group Nurse Beach, an artsy noise punk trio split between Richmond and Charlottesville, that doesn’t practice or perform regularly, so it’s worth making an effort to catch a performance. The band also appeared at the Tea Bazaar in August, paired with like-minded local noisemakers Great Dads, which was consistently great, and consistently surprising, in 2013.

Originally a duo of Invisible Hand guitarist Adam Smith and virtuoso drummer Steve Snider, the Dads’ lineup distorted and expanded in weird ways with each appearance, sometimes including as many as eight members. The Dads’ framework is a loose half-hour set of experimental art rock songs that take a different direction with each show—sometimes stripping down to raw, energetic punk songs, sometimes favoring a loose psychedelic assault—and on one occasion devoting the majority of its set to a cover of the Soft Machine’s maddeningly repetitive anthem, “We Did it Again.” Whether at the Tea Bazaar or in living rooms, Great Dads’ shows are always challenging and rewarding.

The Dads appeared at the McGuffey Art Center on April 12 with Chicago-based ambient noise guitarist David Daniell and Blacksburg’s old-time group, The Black Twig Pickers as part of the Tom Tom Founders Festival. The event was something of a send-off for reliable local concert booker Matt Northrup, who moved away that weekend (and also performed with Great Dads that night).

The Black Twigs have been around for almost a decade, often sharing members with experimental groups like Pelt and Spiral Joy Band. Washboard and Banjo player Nathan Bowles struck out on a solo career this year, earning him critical acclaim and respect in the world of open-minded independent music. He appeared in Charlottesville several times this year, and is a keen musician, and a kind soul who is always a pleasure to see.

Glenn Jones is another musician who blends musical styles; he returned to Charlottesville in July, sitting on the small Tea Bazaar stage, playing original guitar and banjo compositions, and telling stories to the small audience as he re-tuned. Jones shared stories about growing up in New Jersey, about life on the road, and about caring for his dying mother, and he remains a vital and engaging performer.

For part two of Feedback’s favorite music of 2013, see next week’s paper.

What was your favorite concert in 2013?

Metal shows are rare in Charlottesville, but the few that do happen tend to be high-quality. This is due in part to the talents and good taste of the few local metal-heads, and Friday night’s show at the Main Street Annex is an opportunity to catch the two of the best local bands from any genre, paired with two great touring bands.

Most notable is the return of Horsefang, once a regular fixture of Charlottesville’s underground, now on semi-hiatus and appearing only once every year or three. The trio, led by Nicholas Liivak, play instrumental doom metal that evokes desolate western landscapes, and though the concerts are invariably beer-soaked, shirtless opportunities for hijinks and sarcasm, the thoughtfulness of the music invariably shines through in its unique arrangements and cohesive performances. The band can summon a pummeling, low-end fury when necessary, but the best moments of its sets come during songs like “River of Dead Horses,” when the music slows to a sparse, desperate crawl.

The co-headliner is Miami Nights, which began several years as the solo project of Maxx Katz (formerly of Red Wizard and USAisaMonster). In recent years, the act has solidified into a powerhouse trio who play a monolithic wall of crushingly loud sludge. Katz’s freeform riffs and wild, Vikingesque bellows are anchored by her rock-solid rhythm section of Daniel Sebring and Nathanial Bogan (both of whom are usually more inclined towards punk when they’re not backing Katz). Despite the brutal heaviness of their chosen milieu, its take on metal is free of much of the cynicism and despair that marks the work of their colleagues; for Katz, metal is clearly a cathartic release of enthusiastic energy, and the resulting wall of distortion is as inspiring and ear-opening as it is overwhelming. The Nights has been playing short tours up and down the East coast in recent months, slowly building its reputation and leaving a swath of impressed fans in its wake; any opportunity to hear the short set should not be missed.

Also appearing are two like-minded Philadelphia groups: Company Corvette and Gon Dola, offering two takes on the sort of druggy, hypnotic garage-metal pioneered by The Stooges and Motörhead, and continued by everyone from Spacemen 3 to Electric Wizard. Both bands shared a bill with Miami Nights at a small house party earlier this fall, and each played an impressive set; they’re worthy of the larger local audience and solid sound-system that the Annex can provide.

Friday 12/13 Main Street Annex, 230 W. Water St. 817-2400.  The concert begins at 9pm, costs $8, and is open to headbangers of all ages; the use of earplugs is advised.

White Star Sound recording studio, located on a bucolic farm in Louisa County, is a friendly, professional spot that attracts national acts like O.A.R. and The Infamous Stringdusters, along with local musicians like Sarah White, The Hill & Wood, and Invisible Hand, as well as several bands that have crossed that divide, like Sons of Bill and Parachute. It’s not only a resourceful and comfortable recording environment, it’s also a place where a loose network of producers, engineers, and songwriters can experiment, share ideas, and hone their craft. Now, White Star’s Chris Keup is hoping to take that success to the next level by launching a music publishing fund.

The studio was built by Keup and fellow producer Stewart Myers, who have worked together since the late ’90s. “For a couple of years, we’d kind of set up wherever the project was,” Keup said. “We made records in a lake house in New Hampshire, somebody’s grandparent’s house in the Hamptons, just wherever we could find a space where we could set up our gear.”

The current studio is housed in a renovated former barn, which also includes an upstairs kitchen and sleeping arrangements for musicians. The large studio has the standard isolated side rooms for recording vocals or drums, as well as a newly-restored 9′ classical ballroom piano from the 1920s, and is littered with other bits of gear—a stray omnichord, several rare and valuable microphones left behind by Jason Mraz, and a bass amplifier that supposedly once belonged to James Brown.

The building is decorated with dozens of concert posters by local artist and musician Thomas Dean, including three huge screenprints depicting the original master tapes of The Velvet Underground and Nico, Paul McCartney’s Ram, and The Beach Boys’ Smile, which loom over the control room.

Contrary to the classic image of recording studios, the control room lacks an old-fashioned mixing console—that long desk of knobs and faders, familiar from countless music documentaries. “When we first started, we got the old console out of Sunset Sound in Los Angeles,” Keup said. “It was this custom-made API console that ‘When the Levee Breaks’ was mixed on, four Van Halen records were made on, Neil Young—all this kind of stuff. And it turned out to be sort of irrevocably damaged. Rather than restoring it, we took 16 channels out of that, and racked it up.”

The mixing is done via computer, though the rest of the equipment is still a hodgepodge of vintage and restored analog gear. “When you do it more like this, we actually sort of open up the range of the colors you can get,” Keup said. “You have more options.”

Keup has a similar attitude towards the people operating the gear. These days, Myers is typically out on the road with a portable rig of gear from the studio, while Keup remains in Virginia, working with a rotating series of producers and engineers, including Paul McCord, Colin Killalea and Invisible Hand’s Adam Smith.

“It’s nice because everybody has their different aesthetic,” Keup said. “Sometimes I feel like it’s best for me to work on a project with Stewart, sometimes it’s best to work with Colin. It’s almost never a good idea for me to work with Adam,” he joked, “but sometimes Adam is exactly the right guy for the record. So when they use the space, the artist has more choice, they can figure out which configuration of producers and engineers makes sense for them.”

Like anyone who’s spent enough time in the music industry, Keup has many tales of deals gone bad, great opportunities that unexpectedly fell through, and times he got screwed. His dry, deadpan sarcasm comes through as he tells these stories, but Keup never sounds resentful. His realistic cynicism is tempered by a genuine optimism for new ideas, and his next big project is a music publishing fund called Salinger Songs, a venture for which he is currently courting investors.

“Over the years, everyone in the music industry has just become increasingly fearful,” Keup said. “Publishing deals for people who are not established artists are just terrible. They’re unsignable, really. You get nothing in return, you get no real commitment of any kind of assistance, you’re giving up the rights to your publishing for ludicrously long periods of time. Everybody’s trying to get into the licensing game.”

Keup hopes that Salinger Songs—a partnership with several veterans of the industry—will manage investments in songs from a stable of musicians.

“What I’d like to be is just another resource where [the label will say], ‘O.K., we can sign this band who also have real deal people pushing their music to film and TV, where these records are going to be essentially free to make, because we have these studios available to us, and we have promotion budgets to get behind releases.’ [That way], they don’t feel like they’re going it alone.”

Songwriters who work with the publishing group will have access to a collective network of studios and their professional contacts and resources, providing a chance to record music and make money by getting it out into the world.

Check out some of White Star’s recordings here.