Author: john-ruscher

Feedback experienced déjà vu when we first walked into Jack Jouett Middle School the other week. It reminded us of our own middle school years at Henley, which has an identical floorplan. After signing in as a visitor (and getting our nametag, complete with a picture of the Jouett Jaguar) we headed to the cafeteria and found Robert Jospé and Kevin Davis setting up for their World Beat Workshop.

As the two musicians assembled their drums and worked with the school staff to hunt down a PA system, we talked with Jospé about World Beat. "Kevin and I put the program together around 15 years ago," Jospé told us. The two met in the early ’90s when Jospé asked Davis to join Inner Rhythm, his jazz fusion ensemble. Pretty soon they hatched the idea of doing an educational presentation and, with a few claps of the claves and shakes of a shekere, their World Beat Workshop was born. "It’s meant to show the influence of West and Central African rhythms on the popular dance music of the Americas," said Jospé, pointing to  a large map at the side of the stage with arrows representing the movement of Africans across the Atlantic.

Shake it! Robert Jospé and Kevin Davis’ World Beat Workshop is a fun, polyrhythmic affair.

Since starting out, World Beat has made its own migrations around Virginia, and sometimes beyond. In 2006, Jospé and Davis spent two weeks in Hawaii, taking the workshop to various schools and libraries. "That was really terrific," says Jospé. "And the other week we were in New York at the Ethical Culture School. We didn’t know how it would go. There are so many great Cuban, Latin and jazz people in New York, but they were really enthusiastic."

Jospé and Davis finished setting up just as the children begin to stream into the cafeteria. Finding a seat in the first row, Feedback was excited to see the workshop in action, especially since we think 500 or so rambunctious middle schoolers is a pretty tough audience.

After some sushing and a few announcements by the principal (we hope the kids that usually ride bus 47 remembered to get on bus 114), Davis and Jospé began their presentation. Centered around the essential clave beat (it goes something like this: bop, bop, bop…bopbop), the workshop journeyed through different parts of the western hemisphere, from Cuba to Trinidad to New Orleans, showing how regional sounds connect back to traditional African polyrhythms.

Jospé and Davis encouraged the kids to clap along to the different beats, and when the presentation neared its end, they pulled out an array of shakers and other instruments and invited the front row onto the stage to jam along. Laughter and cheering sprung up all around us, so we’re pretty sure the program was a hit. After all, what would energetic kids want to do after a day of classes besides make some noise? Thanks to Jospé and Davis, though, they also got an informative music lesson.

Autumn sounds

Can you feel that chill in the air? No? Well, despite the continuing nice weather, it is indeed fall. The days are getting shorter, so now you’ll have more time to roam the night and catch some great live music. On October 27, Feedback will  head out to Rapunzel’s Coffee and Books in Lovingston to see C-VILLE’s own Brendan Fitzgerald join Laura Eve Engel for a few songs. We suggest you do the same. After a picturesque drive you’ll get to catch some equally beautiful music.

Halloween is fast approaching, and many local musicians will be playing some special shows. This Saturday, October 27, Synthetic Division, Silent Muse and DJ.k00k will get you dancing at The Dawning’s Halloween bash at Outback Lodge. With the departure of electronics wiz Kyle Wiggins, Synthetic Division’s Shawn Decker has now brought former In Tenebris keyboardist Marshall Camden into the mix, and we’re excited to catch the new line-up.

On Halloween night, Orbit‘s Charlottesville Music Showcase will feature a Ziggy Stardust cover band (fronted by former Business of Flies singer Zach Jones), Peen (Charlottesville’s premier Ween tribute band), 6 Day Bender playing Velvet Underground songs, a John Mellencamp cover band and hot tracks from DJ XSV. Just up the street at Satellite Ballroom, Mass Sabbath, who claim to be the largest Black Sabbath cover band on earth (they number somewhere around 13 or 14), will play their fourth annual show (look for more on these mass metalheads in next week’s column).

There’s a new radio station in town. Its name is Tom. Hi, Tom! You can find him (we feel a bit weird about giving a radio station a gender) at 107.5 on your FM dial, and his slogan is "Anything. Anytime." While we’re glad that the station isn’t owned by Clear Channel (Monticello Media bought 107.5 as well as five other local stations from the conglomerate), we don’t really think that following the Bee Gees with Matchbox 20 or Nickelback with Earth, Wind and Fire (both examples from the station’s press release) really qualifies as "Anything. Anytime."

Hitting the big time? Sparky’s Flaw is busy prepping to record its debut album in December.

And it looks like local pop rockers Sparky’s Flaw are up to a lot this fall. The other week frontman Will Anderson was out in L.A. meeting with potential producers for the band’s debut full-length, which they’ll be recording in December. They can’t say who will be releasing the record yet, but it sounds like a big (or, shall we say, major) deal.

Got music news or comments? Send them to feedback@c-ville.com.

Feedback loves bands that aren’t afraid to mix things up. So when we arrived at The Virginian on a Sunday night, we were excited to see members of 6 Day Bender out on the Corner busking. Bassist and harmonica player Mark Schottinger even danced a jig for us!

"This isn’t a usual night for us," the guys said. "Lauren [Moses] isn’t feeling well, so she’s staying home and we’re going to play acoustic. We’re not sure how it’s going to work." Clayton Avent noodled on his Cuban tres (a guitar-like instrument with three groups of two strings) as the band told us about their past and upcoming endeavors. Starting in 2004 with Moses (who spends her days in the ad department here at C-VILLE) on fiddle and Luke Nutting on banjo, the band describes themselves as rock ‘n’ roll with a bluegrass foundation. They’re finishing up recording a live album, which they’ll release at their October 19 show at Outback Lodge, and also gearing up to lay down a proper studio album which they hope to have out by next February before embarking on a national tour.

Rock ‘n’ grass: Catch three nights of 6 Day Bender this weekend.

At 11pm we followed the band inside as they grabbed their instruments and perched themselves near the bar. "Hello, we are the 6 Day Mariachi Band," they shouted to the audience before busting into a scorching rendition of The Band‘s "Evangeline" followed by an equally impressive take on the Stones‘ "Honky Tonk Women."

And that was just the beginning. As the place began to fill up, the band lived up to the mariachi moniker, hopping from booth to booth and belting out songs to the beer-sipping crowd. Though Feedback had to head out before the night ended, Nutting later told us that things culminated with the whole bar singing along. Man, we regret missing that. But there will be some great chances for us (and you) to catch the band’s full lineup. If their Outback show on the 19th isn’t enough for you, they’ll play Atomic Burrito on the 20th and their weekly Virginian gig on the 21st. Hit up all of those shows and you’ve got yourself a three day bender of 6 Day Bender. And, if you’re already planning your Halloween jaunt, you should know that the band will be dressing up and covering Velvet Underground songs at Orbit on the 31st.

MV & EE refers to the Vermont-based duo of Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder, but it leaves out the initials of another regular member of the group, the couple’s dog Zuma. In the liner notes for Gettin’ Gone, the band’s latest release, Feedback noticed that the canine is credited with playing bells. Curious about logistics, we asked Valentine about Zuma’s bell-playing. "Well, we tie the bells around him," he says. "We kind of alter them a bit so that they don’t have those stock sounds. Then we sort of let him run loose. You can hear them more on some of the new stuff. We realized he had quite a technique, so we put him up in the mix."

Get free: MV & EE, a.k.a. Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder, bring groovy folk to the Tea Bazaar.

Bell duty wasn’t Zuma’s only roll on the album, either. "He made a few mix moves, too," Valentine explains, "which was probably a greater contribution than his bell work. His vibes kind of told us when certain solos should be louder." Zuma wasn’t the only additional contributor, though. The Golden Road, the backing band on Gettin’ Gone, includes Dinosaur Jr.‘s J. Mascis and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s John Moloney, as well as others.

Feedback caught MV & EE (and Zuma) when they passed through town back in February, but we can’t recall whether the pup was sporting his bells or not. The duo, however, did crank out a relaxing, late-night set of meandering psychedelic folk. This time around, when they play in town on October 23, drummer Chris Davis will inject a little more oomph into MV & EE’s live sound, a nice addition considering the heavier grooves that they have carved out on Gettin’ Gone. "It’s really good for us because the new record has more sound where the drums bring us in a different direction," says Valentine. "So I’m glad we’ll be going back to some of the same places with this different lineup."

What lead to this heavier sound? Valentine says that, after writing the songs last winter, they hashed them with a short tour in June. "We did two weeks on this thing we were calling the ‘Ringside Seat/Nosebleed Tone’ tour. It was a very low budget tour, very rough rooms for the kind of music we do. It was much more of a bar scene that wasn’t necessarily out to check out the show, just people there to drink. We just blasted out most of the songs from Gettin’ Gone for two weeks in that scene, and I think that gave some of the harder edge that you hear on this record."

MV & EE will play with Richmond folksters The Great White Jenkins (another Feedback fav) at the Tea Bazaar on Tuesday, October 23, so stop in for some laidback but groovy tunes. And don’t forget to give Zuma a pat on the head.

Got news or comments? Send them to feedback@c-ville.com.

Last week Feedback tracked down some Charlottesville music in NYC. This week we’re bringing it all back home (we’ve been on a Dylan kick since the JPJ show) by catching up with some artists that stick around town and keep the local scene hoppin’ nonstop.

The High (Society) Life

We first happened upon Peyton Tochterman when he played with Shannon Worrell, Devon Sproule and Paul Curreri at Gravity Lounge’s fourth anniversary show back in June. We admit we were a little late to the game. He’s been playing around town for much longer than that, releasing both his debut record, The Personals, and an album by his bluegrass trio, Fair Weather Bums, in 2005.

Tochterman gathered some of Charlottesville’s best musicians, including trumpet player John D’earth, mandolin champ Andy Thacker, guitarist Sam Wilson and multi-instrumentalist Matty Metcalfe, to form Peyton Tochterman and High Society.

So what kind of sound comes out when you throw these talented musicians together? “People can’t usually place it,” says Tochterman. “It’s a strange acoustic world.” We can’t argue. Tochterman says he’s influenced by everything from angsty ’80s rockers The Replacements to bluegrass songwriter Norman Blake. Maybe if you mix up those ingredients and channel them through High Society’s trumpet, mandolin and accordion instrumentation, you’ll end up with the group’s sound.

Not to be mistaken for the famous Bing Crosby musical, Peyton Tochterman’s High Society will celebrate their new album with a CD release show at Paramount Theater on October 12.

It’s best, though, to hear it for yourself, which you’ll have the perfect chance to do on Friday, October 12 when Tochterman and High Society celebrate the release of their new CD with a show at the Paramount Theater. It’ll be one of the first times that the Paramount has featured local music, and we hope this is a sign of things to come. Sure, the theater is a great place to see Jeff Tweedy or Ryan Adams, but opening its doors to local acts earns the venue lots of Feedback brownie points.

And as if Tochterman’s line-up wasn’t already packed with enough goodness, Richmond drummer Brian Jones (who recently wowed us with his guitar quartet at the Tea Bazaar) will make the trip down I-64 to play drums for the Paramount gig.

Oh, and did we mention that recently returned songstress Shannon Worrell is slotted to open the show? This is one of those not-to-miss nights, for sure.

If you’re still not convinced, listen to Tochterman play live on the radio this week. He’ll be on 91.1 WJTU at 11am on October 10, on 106.1 The Corner at 1pm on October 11 and on 91.9 WNRN at 8am on October 12.

C’ville 4 Life

Matthew Willner was born in the UVA Hospital and has been spreading sounds around Charlottesville for 18 years (half his life). After first being inspired by seeing local musicians like Tim Reynolds and Greg Howard, Willner picked up a guitar and started playing in Charlottesville bands like Full Flavor, Plutonium and Supertanker.

When we caught up with Willner, he told us some good news: He’s been signed! DC-based District Records will start distributing his recently released debut album, and Willner plans on setting up more gigs in DC and New York through this new connection. “I feel really lucky,” he says. “I worked hard to get to this point.”

Willner isn’t one to be pinned down by any specific type of music. He describes his first album as “jazz fusion with a heavy groove and Latin influence,” and he’s already working on a second record that mixes blues, funk and other sounds.

But if you want to really get a taste of Willner’s versatile style, it’s as easy as stepping into a local bar. On Mondays he invites his “enemies” (other local musicians) to jam at Miller’s. His more formal endeavors include Shinola (in which he teams up with the members of B.C.) and the Matthew Willner Blues Thang, and he also assumes bass duties in Darrell Rose and the International Councilors.

Whether getting funky or touting the blues, Matthew Willner fills local bars with inspired grooves.

A busy schedule, indeed. “I play about three times a week,” he says, “but sometimes it’s as many as six nights.” The look on Willner’s face as he strums those strings, though, makes it clear that he’s doing what he loves. Go check out that inspired visage (and Willner’s terrific grooves) this week. Shinola plays at Atomic Burrito on October 12 (head there after the High Society show), the International Councilors play at Fellini’s #9 on the 13th and Willner will host his weekly jam at Miller’s on the 15th.

Duck All Stars

Tochterman and Willner aren’t the only ones collaborating with a wealth of local talent. On Wednesday, October 10, the DJ trio Duck Brothers will host an All Star Jam at Orbit’s Charlottesville Music Showcase. The Brothers include DJ XSV of The Beetnix, and, in addition to their usual spinning and scratching, they have invited members of Man Mountain Jr., The Beetnix and the X-Porn Stars to join in for a night of improvisations. Orbit already has a sweet Wednesday night vibe, so this special show should make things even better.

Got news or comments? Send them to feedback@c-ville.com.

The other weekend Feedback took a vacation to the Big Apple. The plan was to catch up with some friends and enjoy a little time away from Charlottesville. (Hey, we love this place, but sometimes you gotta get out!) However, our escape didn’t work very well, because Charlottesville music followed us to the big city.

We couldn’t wait: Feedback saw Sarah White perform with the NYC skyline as the backdrop.

Our first dose of Charlottesville-in-NYC was Sarah White, who was competing in the international finals of the Mountain Stage NewSong competition at the South Street Seaport on Saturday, September 22. We hopped the One Line downtown and spent the afternoon waiting for Sarah to play (by “waiting” we mean strolling around the waterfront, enjoying the terrific weather and sipping Sam Adams).

Our hometown gal’s turn finally came, and, after Gar Ragland, the master of ceremonies, gave a shout out to Charlottesville and the infamous Gus Burger (he himself was a local musician here in the early ‘90s), Sarah and Pearls bassist Jeffrey Grosfeld busted into “Sweetheart,” the song that got her to the finals. After mentioning that she had been changing her mind all day about the other song she would play (each of the 12 contestants was allotted time for two tunes), Sarah settled on “I Can’t Wait,” one of our favorites from White Light.

We hummed along and enjoyed the wonderful moment, and it seems the judges did too, since they named Sarah as one of the five NewSong winners and gave “Sweetheart” the competition’s Best Song award. Now Sarah will wait to see if she gets the contest’s ultimate prize, an invitation to perform on the renowned Mountain Stage radio show.

After watching Sarah we hit the pavement and made it to Tribeca’s Knitting Factory just in time to see country rockers and recent c-ville.com correspondents Sons of Bill take the stage. A few familiar faces were in attendance, including UVA Assistant Dean William M. Wilson (Bill himself!).

Despite a couple of technical problems (the sound girl forgot to plug in James Wilson’s monitor speaker), the boys maintained their Southern charm and tore through a great set, dedicating “Lost Love and Indie Rockers” to the cooler-than-thou inhabitants of Williamsburg (Brooklyn’s hipster ‘hood) and inspiring the crowd to boogie down on the dance floor with “Roll On Jordan.” The highlight for Feedback, though, was watching Sam Wilson completely conquer the place with a soaring guitar solo.

Since they were the first of four bands to play that night, Sons of Bill’s set was pretty short, but James told the crowd, “Come to Virginia and we’ll play all night.” You can see the boys when they open for Jason Isbell at Satellite Ballroom on October 9 and at the Crozet Music Festival on October 20.

Because they wanna: The Hives will do garage rock Swedish style when they open for Maroon 5 on October 8.

We’re telling you so

There must be something in the water in Sweden. The Nordic kingdom produces all kinds of music, from scary, ear-splitting “death metal” bands to the indie-pop trio Peter Bjorn & John (you’ve probably heard their whistle-along single “Young Folks” on 106.1 The Corner). One Swedish band, though, really rocks our socks: The Hives. The band hit it big in 2000 with their second album, Veni Vedi Vicious, which featured scorching numbers like “Hate To Say I Told You So” and “Main Offender.”

With The Black and White Album, out on October 9, The Hives continue to rock faces, and they’ll gladly rock yours if you come to John Paul Jones Arena on Monday, October 8 to see them open for Maroon 5. Brendan Fitzgerald, C-VILLE’s arts columnist and resident Hives fan, tells Feedback, “There’s more Mick Jagger in frontman Howlin’ Pelle than there is in Mick Jagger.” You heard the man. If you missed the Stones at Scott Stadium, this may be your chance for redemption.

Genius blues

Last week the MacArthur Foundation announced the recipients of this year’s MacArthur Fellowships (also known as “genius grants”), and Feedback was excited to see Charlottesville’s own blues musician and songwriter Corey Harris on the list. He joins the ranks of other songmen like Ornette Coleman, John Zorn and Ali Akbar Khan as fellowship recipients.

The grant provides $500,000 over five years with no strings attached, and Harris will no doubt put that to good use. He tells us that personally the half-mil won’t change much for him. “I’m going to keep doing what I planned on doing. Now I’ll just be able to do it with more ease,” he says. “I’m definitely going to give back. There are a lot of people I’d like to donate money to.”

Any definite plans? Not yet, but Harris is interested in starting an educational exchange program with Africa. In a 2004 interview with C-VILLE, Harris said, “It’s a dream of ours to be able to establish a nonprofit and find somebody to fund a trip to send some chaperones and some children over to the continent.” Well, it looks like the MacArthur Foundation has become that “somebody,” and we’re happy to see Harris’ dream one step closer to realization. You can see Harris play at Outback Lodge this Wednesday, October 3.

Viva La Appalachia! This weekend Alex Caton (second from right), Chris Leva (far left) will travel to France with their band (Lew Burrus, right, and Susan Rosen, second from left) to play the Les Bordees de Cancale music festival.

Bon Voyage

Why do we keep sending off our prized local musicians to Europe? Well, they are just that good, we guess. Devon Sproule has found success in the U.K., and now fiddler Alex Caton and guitarist Chris Leva are traveling to France to headline the Les Bordees de Cancale music festival from October 5 through October 7. The festival usually features sea-related music, but the organizers really dug Caton and Leva’s Appalachian tunes. Feedback wishes them a great trip, and we look forward to their first show back on October 27 at Gravity Lounge.

Got news or comments? Write to feedback@c-ville.com.

“The Virginias and the Carolinas are a sort of weird nebula for disasters,” says Christopher King, who was intrigued by nearby historical remnants while growing up in Hot Springs, Virginia. “You can’t really go in one direction without running into a place where a train wreck or some sort of bad accident happened in the early 20th century,” he says. “The Wreck of the Old 97 is just down the road towards Danville, and if you go in the opposite direction, you find the Wreck of the Virginian.”

Smiling in the face of evil: Murders and tornadoes make for good music on People Take Warning, Christopher King’s new three-disc compilation.

What does this have to do with music, you say? Well, these signs of bygone catastrophes inspired King, who now lives in Nelson County and works for local label Rebel Records, to compile People Take Warning: Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs, 1913-1938, a three-disc, 70-song compilation of music from the era of the Great Depression.

“Being surrounded by all of these things peaks a person’s historical curiosity,” King says, “and so you start to research the different artists that sang about particular accidents or events.” He gathered most of the songs on People Take Warning from his vast collection of 78-rpm records (he owns between 6,000 and 7,000), and the result is a musical newswire from yesteryear.

The artists on People Take Warning sing about the Old 97 and Virginian wrecks, as well as an array of other tales of murder, natural disaster and human misfortune. A couple favorites, Kings says, are Ernest Stoneman’s “The Fate of Talmadge Osborne” (“About a very weird train accident that happened in Grayson County”) and Charlotte and Bob Miller’s “Ohio Prison Fire,” an eerie, string-accompanied tune about a 1930 blaze that killed 322 prisoners.

King boasts an impressive reputation when it comes to compiling old recordings (he won a Grammy in 2003 with Charlie Patton: Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues and has been nominated for two others), and People Take Warning is another great collection, though a morbid one. Listening through the crackles and pops of the old 78s, Feedback noticed that many of the lyrics are quite disturbing (like “Into my breast I’ll fire one shot/Then my troubles will be o’er” from the Carolina Buddies’ “Murder of the Lawson Family”).

But it’s that haunting, Steinbeck-like aura that makes the collection so enticing. Tom Waits (himself a gloomy and sinister balladeer) pens the introduction to People Take Warning and describes the collection as “Songs that are roadside graves dug quickly with crosses made from kindling while the grief was still fresh.”

Heavy stuff, indeed, but with a 48-page booklet full of historical photos and notes on each song, People Take Warning is an exciting package for both history and music buffs. If you’re either of those (or both), today is your lucky day, because the collection just came out on Tompkins Square Records.

Have some Sea & Cake

The first thing we asked The Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop was about the press release’s mention of The Kinks as an influence on the band’s most recent album, Everybody. “To be honest,” Prekop replied, “I’m not sure how that got into there. I think I was probably talking about The Beatles and they were like ‘You can’t cite The Beatles!’”

Vast and sweet: The Sea and Cake will bring smart pop songs to Satellite Ballroom on September 27.

Personally, we think The Kinks comparison is fine, because Everybody’s light strumming and quick catchiness is close to Ray Davies and Co. on the Rock ‘N’ Roll Family Tree.

But Prekop says that any resemblances or influences aren’t intentional or calculated. “I think that’s partially because I don’t have the skills to digest outside musical influences in a terribly useful way,” he explains. “I think they get in there in a more subtle kind of osmosis.”

He does, however, have skills for writing intricate pop songs, and on Everybody The Sea and Cake enlisted producer Brian Paulson (who’s worked with Wilco and Slint) to capture the bare-bones essence of those tunes. It was a welcome change, says Prekop, from the band’s normal routine of having drummer John McIntire man the boards. “We thought it was a good idea to have someone outside of the band involved in the project,” says Prekop, “to give us a perspective on what we’re doing that’s not coming from us. It’s hard to tell what’s happening when you are in it.”

The Sea and Cake plays at Satellite Ballroom Thursday, September 27, along with Meg Baird and Ilad, but for Prekop and bandmate Archer Prewitt it’s not their first time at the venue. They both stopped through on a joint solo tour back in 2005. “I remember there was a really good restaurant upstairs,” says Prekop, referring to Michael’s Bistro, and the two played a live set on WTJU. We’re glad they’re back and we’re sure they’ll have a great show (and more tasty food)!

Get your gear on

We just heard that Virginia Arts Recording (located at 512 Stewart St.) is having a studio yard sale of “20 years of vintage gear” on Saturday, September 29 from 11am to 4pm. So if you want to start that home recording studio, now’s your chance.

Got news or comments? Send them to feedback@c-ville.com.

When Feedback saw Circle a year and a half ago at the Tea Bazaar, they blew our minds. Hailing from Finland, the band packed onto the stage and let loose a barrage of floor-shaking riffs.

On Wednesday, September 19, the Nordic rockers will return to the teahouse, and we expect to once again walk home from the Downtown Mall with our brains fried. Circle, though, is likely to have a whole new sound for this visit, as they are a band that morphs into something new with each year (they’re in their 16th) and record (going on 28).

"At the moment I’m inspired by death metal, Mali-blues and Grateful Dead," founder and singer Jussi Lehtisalo tells Feedback. In the past, he says, Circle has been influenced by everything from free jazz to the Incredible String Band. But naturally, Lehtisalo’s most lasting inspiration comes from the godfathers of heavy metal. "My biggest influence for the past 20 years has been Led Zeppelin," he says.

What’s the Finnish phrase for head banging? Circle will shake the Tea Bazaar on Wednesday, September 19.

Does Circle’s music merely channel Zeppelin and other influences?  Maybe, but in a way that’s almost mystical and revelatory. "We play whatever comes our way," Lehtisalo explains. On their latest record, Katapult, many different sounds come their way, including heavy riffs, kraut rock repetitions and spacy noodling. "On [the record] we have created a carefree sound in which vaguely confusing playing crystallizes as an abstract, primitive and psychedelic pulse," Lehtisalo says. He’s talking about the mind blowing, we think. "Katalpult confuses its creators as much as their audience, I hope." Sure, it’s bit confusing, but in a good way!

Circle only makes it to the States (much less our dear Charlottesville) every couple of years, so don’t miss out on their visit this time, or you’ll likely have to wait many moons for your next chance.

No gossip, just dancing

We hope you have your tickets for the Girl Talk show at Satellite Ballroom on September 20, because it’s already sold out. Yep, you heard us right. What? You didn’t get a ticket? Well, there’s still hope. Satellite’s Danny Shea says that more tickets will be released the day of the show.

If you haven’t heard Girl Talk (a.k.a. Gregg Gillis), you’ve probably heard a lot of the songs that he samples. The one-man dance party mixes and mashes just about any piece of pop music that you can imagine. Hall & Oates? Check. Busta Rhymes? Check. Neutral Milk Hotel? Check.

"The mixing of Elton John and the Notorious B.I.G.—people seem to get the most excited when I play that one," Gillis told us. And rightfully so. Somehow Sir Elton’s "Tiny Dancer" and Biggie’s "Juicy" fit together perfectly.

Gillis started Girl Talk in 2000, but it wasn’t until this past year that things really started blowing up. This summer Gillis finally quit his day job as a biomedical engineer in Pittsburgh to do music full time. "It’s great. I liked the job, but I was really stressing out for that year," he says. "I played about 100 shows along with that whole other job. So I was playing shows really every weekend."

We’re totally psyched to see Girl Talk, who’ll keep it fresh by mixing up material from his latest album, Night Ripper, along with new tunes. "As I go on with shows, things get boring for me, and I wanted to change it up," he says, "so I’m always taking things out and putting things in."

You can dance if you want to: Girl Talk’s Gregg Gillis will get a sold out Satellite crowd dancing on Thursday, September 20.

And, rumor has it, Gillis often strips at shows. "I’ve kind of slowed down on that a bit recently," he says. "But a lot of times I have the audience come on the stage, and it gets really hot, and at many of the shows people take off their own clothes, and if everybody else is doing it, I don’t want to be the only nerd there with my shirt on."

Copywrongs?

Gillis’ music relies on hundreds of unauthorized samples (his label is, after all, called Illegal Art), but another Greg (this one with only one ‘G’) has quite a different perspective on copyrights. Local musician Greg Allen, who runs the nonprofit community music group SongSharing, was perturbed by our online guide to illegal downloading ["Piracy Guide," September 4] and told us so.

We talked with him and he described his own experience with getting proper permission to record cover songs (including REM and Dolly Parton) for an upcoming SongSharing benefit record. Is it hard to get permission? "It’s really not," says Allen. "In my experience, most of the artists that you want to cover your songs, they’re real gracious about it, and they appreciate that you are covering their songs." Of course, for Girl Talk, securing permission for every single sample would take ages. Luckily, though, Gregg Gillis has yet to face any lawsuits for his music, so the dance parties just keep on coming.

New Waive

Jim Waive and the Young Divorcees went out to Rod Coles‘ Esmont studio last week to record their second album. It’ll be the last with fiddle player Anna Matijasic, who’s heading off to Philly for new adventures. So, if you’re handy with the fiddle, you might want give the Divorcees a holler. Jim says they hope to have the album out sometime in November. It’ll make a nice Christmas gift, don’t ya think?

Got news or comments? Send them to feedback@c-ville.com.

DJ AudioRapture, a.k.a. Ullrich Jason Haag, first began spinning records about 20 years ago in Frankfurt, Germany. “In Europe people go out to have fun and dance,” he told Feedback between sets at Umlaut, R2’s monthly goth and industrial dance night. “In the U.S. you go out to be seen.” Why, then, we asked, did he leave Europe’s bumpin’ dance floors to come here?

He answered by holding up his hand, revealing a shiny gold wedding band. How could we argue with that? While attending graduate business school at James Madison University, Ullrich met his future wife and, after brief stints elsewhere, he returned to Central Virginia in 1999 to settle down.

Move your feet: DJ AudioRapture spins electronic goodness, whether you’re at R2, Outback or listening to WNRN.

Well, maybe settle down isn’t the right term. Though he’s now a happy husband and father, Haag still spins as much as he can. In addition to his nights at R2, he DJs at The Dawning, the long-running weekly goth night that takes over Outback Lodge most Saturday nights, and hosts “Download,” WNRN’s electronic music show from midnight to 2am on Monday morning.

Haag first got into electronic music with German new wave in the ’80s, but his digital love is all-encompassing. “Listening to one genre just bores me,” he says. As we talked, DJ Patrick Allen, Haag’s partner for Umlaut, put on Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus,” and a few more bodies twisted onto R2’s dance floor. “See, people will dance to the classics,” he says. “But music also has to introduce the new stuff.” That’s why Haag isn’t afraid to mix things up by throwing on something out of the ordinary, such as a track by underground L.A. duo Captain Ahab, who recently brought a sweaty frenzy to the Tea Bazaar.

Ready to get down with DJ AudioRapture? You’ll have a chance this Saturday, September 15. He’ll be at Outback Lodge for The Dawning along with local goth superstars Bella Morte.

From paradise to frat parties

Feedback is wary of bands that play at frat parties. Maybe we just have bad memories of being packed into some dirty, beer-soaked basement while listening to a dreadful rock rendition of Outkast’s “Hey Ya.” But regardless of our biases, local band Sweetbriar proves that not all bands that hit up the frat circuit are awful.

Sweetbriar actually rocks. Oddly (or appropriately?), the band seems to have an ongoing connection with burgers. Starting out as high schoolers in Fredericksburg, the band first began gigging at Jimmy Buffett-owned chain restaurant, Cheeseburger in Paradise. They’ve since relocated to Charlottesville, but access to tasty beef is just as easy, since guitarist Jonathan Drolshagen is now the general manager of Charlottesville’s three Five Guys joints.

No thorns here: Brothers Jonathan and Stephen Droishagen of Sweetbriar will rock out at Gravity Lounge on September 12.

And, just like a juicy burger, Sweetbriar’s tunes have a satisfying All-American feel. “Our music is really similar to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and other more mainstream rock acts,” says Drolshagen, “like John Mellencamp, and a little bit of a Gin Blossoms type sound.”

An apt description, we think. While the band plays fraternity, sorority and bar gigs each week, they hope to take things to the next level with more shows that feature their own music. They’ve already had some successful shows (including opening for Ben Folds at UVA’s SpringFest) and on Wednesday, September 12 they’ll join Chris Jamison (whose new album, Into Surrender, is reviewed in this issue) and The Houseguests for a show at Gravity Lounge.

The Pavilion and beyond

The Charlottesville Pavilion is nearing the end of its 2007 season (though some great shows remain, including Wilco and Lucinda Williams), so Feedback decided to catch up with the venue’s manager, Kirby Hutto.

“This year has been fantastic from our perspective,” says Hutto, “with having all of the construction complete—our full concession plaza, the bathrooms, the city Transit Center. Having that all, we’re finally finished.”

And it seems that Hutto and Coran Capshaw’s Red Light Management might be interested in helping to create similar venues elsewhere. “We’ve had a ton of communities from throughout the East Coast that have come and looked at what we’ve done and the way it has helped to drive economic activity Downtown,” says Hutto.

However, Roanoke, the first city with serious ideas for a pavilion, is caught up in disagreement over the proposed plans, and Hutto and company are holding off on lending a hand until things are resolved. “We have some interest in that market,” Hutto says, “and I think the city of Roanoke seems to be committed to building a venue. We’ll just see how the process works out. We’re on the sidelines waiting for some of the details on their side to become clear.”

Personally, we’re O.K. with any delays for a Star City pavilion, as we are a tad worried about losing some shows to our southern neighbors (we need our Lyle Lovett!).

Since we were talking with Hutto, we couldn’t help but ask if Ryan Adams would really make it to town for his sold out Paramount shows on September 13 and 14, which are presented by the Capshaw group. “We have been assured that Mr. Adams will be delivered to Charlottesville,” says Hutto, who had to break the bad news to the crowd when Adams didn’t arrive for his show back in July. We sure hope so!

Sproule sprawls across the U.K.

Feedback is happy to see local songstress Devon Sproule making some big splashes across the pond. In July she became the first American to grace to cover of fRoots, a British folk magazine, and U.K. newspaper The Guardian recently interviewed her. On September 3, Brighton’s The Argus also chatted with Sproule about her music, marriage to Paul Curreri and more. “With her trademark vintage dresses, 50-year-old Gibson guitar and charismatic intelligence, she is set to become the alt-folk star of the year,” says the newspaper. Right on!

Got news or comments? Send them to feedback@c-ville.com.