Author: Shea Gibbs

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Living

Shelfish hunter: Getting to the bottom of Charlottesville’s best crab cakes

Shadwells Restaurant serves up a filler-free crab cake that, according to owner Matt Kossin, even Maryland natives love. Photo: Sarah Jane Winter

Why do crabs have shells? I’m no scientist, but I’m guessing it’s because their flesh is so effing delicious. If there were nothing hard and spiny to protect that sweet, briny, creamy white meat, crabs surely would have been eaten into extinction long ago.

Which is not to say we humans haven’t come up with strategies for extracting as much pleasure from the glorious crab as we can. Crab consumption, for me, breaks down into two categories. One: crack them yourself—your purveyor of choice brings you plate after plate of steamed crab parts, and you employ rudimentary tools to get at as many bites of seafood goodness as you can before tiring of the battle. Two: someone does the work for you, expending far more energy cracking your crabs than you could ever extract from their caloric content.

Unfortunately, neither of the two camps is particularly well represented in Charlottesville. And the latter more often than not results in a crab cake, likely because the blue crab, the nearby Chesapeake Bay’s single largest fishery product, is the ideal crustacean for cakes.

My question is: Why serve delicious crab in cakes in the first place? Again, my expertise is limited here, but it’s probably because someone at some point decided it was uncivilized (and uneconomical) to simply serve a heaping pile of crab meat smothered in drawn butter. This, to me, is a mistake. Crab is delicious. It should be served in simple preparations and allowed to be the star of the dish.

To this end, instead of serving crab alone, restaurants line up to proclaim their cakes contain the least “filler,” typically crackers or breadcrumbs used to bulk up the cake and bind it together. The effect, in the best cases, is a simple preparation with few adornments that everyone is, nevertheless, still compelled to call a “cake.”

This was the source of my cynicism as I recently listened to restaurateur Matt Kossin talk about the crab cakes at Shadwells, the new “farm-to-table” project on Pantops. The crab in the cakes is sourced from the Chesapeake Bay, Kossin said, and brought fresh to you here in Charlottesville.

“There is no filler,” he told me. “They’re lump crab cakes with no other fillers. They’re all crab.”

Did he mention there were no fillers?

Kossin said Shadwells’ cakes are bound together with mayo and folded with fresh parsley, along with one other “secret ingredient,” before getting a quick sear to brown the outside of the cake. The result is, indeed, the best crab cake I have come across in the city.

“We have had people come down from Maryland and say these are the best crab cakes they’ve had,” Kossin said. That may be a stretch, but yeah, it’s a tasty cake.

By contrast, examples of marginal crab cakes abound around Charlottesville. Both Rhett’s River Grill and the Virginian put out takes on the cakes that come highly recommended; unfortunately, the results are similarly disappointing in both places. The Virginian’s “signature crab cakes” come to the table looking and smelling delicious, their golden exterior looking right at home alongside the diner’s other cozy flat top dishes like burgers and patty melts.

But the cake itself is filler as far as the eye can see, lending it a mushy texture, and the taste of crab is nonexistent. The dish really could be any type of seafood in the ocean and you’d never know the difference, particularly when slathered with the Virginian’s dilly remoulade. I was too frightened of the answer to ask my server if this “signature” dish was in fact straight from the freezer.

Rhett’s version of the crab cake is slightly lighter on the filler, properly seasoned, and crabbier than the Virginian’s, but the crab is overworked to the point it becomes one with the binder, making the texture of the cake just as unpleasant.

Other than Kossin, no one is going to liken C’ville to Baltimore anytime soon when it comes to crab. But at less than three hours from the Chesapeake, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be treated to a few decent crab-based dishes. Shadwells’ crab cake is a good place to start.

Where’s the best crab cake in town?

Categories
Arts

Local casting company hoping for an AMC megahit with ‘Turn’

Erica Arvold’s casting company brings a Hollywood sheen to Central Virginia’s filmmaking community with credits in Spielberg’s Lincoln and the new AMC television series “Turn.”

Erica Arvold is seated in a D.C. auditorium awaiting the start of the first episode of AMC’s new show “Turn,” a suspenseful drama chronicling the movements of America’s first spy ring during the Revolutionary War.

It’s a suspenseful moment in itself for Arvold—this is the first time viewers will lay eyes on the cinematic serial she’s helped cast through her eponymous film and television company based in Charlottesville. Will the crowd assembled for the premiere at the Washington, D.C. National Archives like the show? Will they appreciate the choices Arvold and others made in piecing together the cast?

For at least one night, the reviews are glowing. This is the premiere, when everyone is self-congratulatory and there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Written by AMC show runner Craig Silverstein, who’s had success with the CW spy show “Nikita,” and produced by Barry Josephson of “Bones” and “Enchanted,” “Turn” has the personnel cred to go a long way.

As for content, the pilot contains that ideal balance of period-specific suspense and universal human themes that have worked well for hits like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and AMC’s own “Mad Men.” “People that get into espionage are extraordinary, but they are also quite ordinary,” said former CIA Director General Michael Hayden after the screening. “Spies are just like your friends and neighbors.”

But “Turn” has a long way to go before it matches the success of “Mad Men” or other AMC smashes like “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead.” The first 10-episode season wrapped shooting last Wednesday, and the first installment airs April 6. That’s when it will start the uphill battle that is getting extended to film subsequent seasons.

“We will see how many people tune in and love it,” Arvold said. “This is the movie and television business. You don’t know anything for certain.”

The battle won’t be over for Arvold’s casting company even if AMC does extend the show. While the series has thus far filmed in Richmond, making her a natural choice to cast the locally sourced principal speaking roles and background characters, it doesn’t mean “Turn” can’t be moved elsewhere. Arvold’s hopeful, though, that the cast and producers’ experience in Virginia will land our state the gig going forward.

While walking the premiere night red carpet, the stars in the drama complimented the Virginia-based actors and crew. Several of the leads spoke to how hard the crewmembers have worked to overcome weather challenges this winter, and some called them as professional as their counterparts in more film- and television-heavy locales.

The scenery of the on-location shoots also got high marks. According to lead actress Heather Lind, the area around Richmond lends an authenticity to the drama you can’t get anywhere else.

“When we came out for the pilot, just driving through the landscape and seeing all the battlefields and monuments, it feels kind of like a really beautiful graveyard,” said Lind, who plays Anna Strong, a member of the Culper Ring depicted in the show. “There are ghosts everywhere, in the best sense of the word, and there is history everywhere, and it feels incredibly dense and rich to be here.”

Landing more work for “Turn” won’t be the first challenge Arvold has faced as a Charlottesville-based casting director and producer. When she moved her company from Los Angeles in 2009, she wanted to take some time off to be with her family, and she wasn’t sure she’d be getting back into the business at all. But with significant support from the Virginia Film Office, she not only restarted her career after the brief hiatus, her company has grown in Charlottesville. The surprising thing, Arvold said, is the amount of producing her company has been able to do in this area of the country.

“I’ve had the freedom to do it here,” she said. “I work with a community-based and collaborative model. Sometimes, if it is a big studio film, it pops into a location and zips out, but most of the projects have been more collaborative.”

Arvold’s most notable success in Virginia thus far has been offering full Virginia-based casting support for a big studio film that popped in and zipped out in 2011-2012—the Oscar-winning Lincoln. She said she was able to land that gig, along with all the others, due to her ability to walk the “razor’s edge” between being creative and business-minded. It’s a skill she’s been cultivating since majoring in film studies at the demanding Theater School at Depaul University in Chicago, she said.

Arvold’s next big project will bring her back to the collaborative model. Her company is producing and casting Chesapeake, about a waterman (Keith Carradine) who rescues a drowning boy and a woman from the banks of the Chesapeake Bay. The film is written and directed by Charlottesville native Eric Hurt, and funding will be largely crowdsourced.

There’s also more collaboration with the Virginia film community on the way if “Turn” is a success, Arvold said.

“I’m constantly looking for Americans in Virginia who have an authentic British accent,” she said. “If the show is picked up, one piece of advice for actors, besides getting skinny and growing their hair, is to study up.”

Have you ever worked as an extra? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

Categories
Arts

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. gears up for the next record

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. members Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein drive an anti-pop attitude that results in a catchy, wide-ranging style.

Catchiness. It’s the pop song writer’s holy grail. But what is it about a song that gets it lodged in hipsters’ heads? Is it a combination of the perfect melody and a poetic hook? The right balance of whistling and “woo-woos”? Perhaps a horn-driven chorus? Cowbell anyone?

Whatever the formula, Detroit-based Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. is blessed with two songwriters that have a knack for finding it, even though instrument swapping frontmen Josh Epstein and Danny Zott say its not their aim.

“Sometimes you write a song, and it’s stuck in your own head,” Epstein told C-VILLE Weekly in a recent phone interview. “But you can’t really be objective about it. I’m sure we could try to write catchy songs, but that’s not what we’re setting out to do. We are not trying to make hit songs.”

Like a lot of bands from Detroit, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. claims some influence from Motown, which according to Epstein has a “sense of melody that is really catchy.” Still, the multi-instrumentalist is reluctant to say his band is devoted to any one style of music.

That sentiment seems truer than ever on the band’s latest LP, The Speed of Things. When the four-piece, rounded out by drummer Mike Higgins and keyboardist Jon Visger, motors through The Jefferson Theater on March 23, listeners will be treated to a sound that draws on a sweeping range of influences.

The Speed of Things opens with what sounds like a Fleet Foxes number, all soft vocal harmonies and soaring melodies, while placing a touch more emphasis on electronic elements than the Seattle-based rockers. In later songs, the album finds Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. sounding more like mainstream crossover kings Passion Pit (oozing with effervescent chanting and staccato choruses), the controlled chaos of Portland’s Menomena (another band with two songwriters who frequently swap instruments), or the Cold War Kids (with matter-of-fact, mid-range vocals).

“I don’t think about genre. I think we both like all different types of stuff, and it seeps into it,” Epstein said. “We just try to do what’s best for the song in any given situation. Sometimes it feels folky to me, sometimes hip-hoppy, sometimes poppy.”

It’s an easygoing process for a band formed via the path of least resistance—two self-taught music-scene knockabouts plying their trade in a city steeped with sonic tradition happen upon each other and find they click. Both are jacks-of-all-trades, according to Epstein, the two front men split everything “50/50,” from the songwriting to the singing to the instrumentation.

“We just both wanted to be in a band, or in a project, with someone else who could do everything—writing and producing and recording,” Epstein said. “Whoever has the idea, we just go with it. Sometimes ideas are more complete, and sometimes we end up writing together. We approach it from the song’s perspective and do whatever is best for the song.”

Epstein said he tends to throw out a lot of ideas while the band is developing songs, and that Zott is more capable of bringing ideas to fruition. The result on The Speed of Things is a somewhat mixed-up record that comes off as less focused than Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.’s previous recordings. Epstein would disagree with that assessment, though.

“We wanted to make a really focused album that kind of captured where we were at, and I think it does, lyrically and sonically,” he said.

If The Speed of Things is focused, one has to wonder where Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. is headed next. The goofy name may offer some indication: Epstein said the idea behind it was to be so off-the-wall and nonsensical that it would allow the band to do whatever it wanted without being pigeonholed, to render the cover of the Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. book completely unrelated to the content, as it were.

By the end of March, Epstein expects that he and Zott will be back in the studio crafting the band’s next chapter. The two songwriters have been working on the content; now it’s just a matter of finding the time to pull everything together, record, and produce the album—“as quickly as we can,” Epstein said. The timeline will be influenced by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.’s record label, though, as Epstein admits there’s a part of the music business he still doesn’t understand, like when an EP might be pushed out.

When the album does eventually drop, Epstein said it will be different from anything he and Zott have done before, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.’s “musical vocabulary is always growing.” And while he said it was too early to say what the LP would sound like on the whole, it’s fair to expect there will be even more influences spewing forth.

For now, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. will try its hand once again at focus, finishing a tour that includes two more dates after the Charlottesville stop.

“The live show is really fun and high energy, and I’ll talk a lot about Dave Matthews,” Epstein said.

Presumably, he was joking. But Epstein, like his band, can be difficult to pin down.

Categories
Living

Thai, Indian, and Indo-Caribbean curries go head-to-head-to-head

Curries from Just Curry, Royal Indian, and Thai '99 II. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto.

What is the meaning of life? What is art? What is curry?

These are the questions that have plagued society’s greatest thinkers for centuries. Rest assured, life and art will be addressed at length in future C-VILLE Weekly issues. As for curry, the dish really can be a lot of things, as long as it features a mélange of spices and a combination of meats and/or veggies ensconced in sauce.

“Curry is gravy,” said Alex George, owner of the revitalized Just Curry on the Downtown Mall. “It’s tomato, onion, ginger, and garlic, cooked down, and we build from that.”

George, who also owns Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar, has done a lot to put curry on the local map since he first opened Just Curry in 2006 on the Corner. While that location and the restaurant’s second iteration in the Downtown transit station weren’t able to keep their doors open much beyond the late-2008 recession, fans of the curry counter remained, and George says the new location is thriving.

Yeah, O.K., great—but is it tasty? Another mystery of our time.

Of course it is. “Curry” is in some circles synonymous with spicy food, not only in the hot-spicy way, but also in the heavily-seasoned-spicy way. It’s the classic “meat and three” (protein, veggie, starch, sauce) with the added benefit of some of the most delicious aromatics in the world.

Just Curry serves up what it calls “Indo-Caribbean” curry, meaning the fast casual joint riffs on traditional Indian dishes, and some of the ingredients hail from nations around the Caribbean Sea. A traditional tikka masala sauce, for example, is studded with potatoes at Just Curry and served alongside fried plantains and a papaya hot sauce taken from a recipe common to George’s native Guyana.

So how does Just Curry’s fusion interpretation compare to the two titans of curry heritage, Indian and Thai cuisine? You’ll need to go no farther than Route 29 to find out. In one whirlwind tasting tour, I supped on the most popular curries at local favorites Thai ’99 II and Royal Indian. Both were what the restaurants called their signature chicken curries, and both were spiced to the chef’s specifications.

Royal Indian is hotel-style Indian, somewhere way across the spectrum from Bollywood-style. The space is clean, sterile, and decorated with a measure of restraint. It has a higher-end, if manufactured, feel, and the service is good, though maybe a touch impersonal. The chicken tikka masala at the restaurant reflects a lot of the same restraint and middle-of-the-road adequacy. The curry is creamy but lacks the extreme richness that makes your lips stick together at some Indian spots. The chef’s choice of spice level barely stings the tongue, and while the dish has a pervasive hint of ginger, it lacks the refreshing tang of some of Royal Indian’s contemporaries. The food is attractive on the plate and served in heaping portions, but the majority of the meal is rice, which makes the price tag of more than $15 less palatable than the grub.

Five minutes north of Royal Indian on 29, Thai ’99 II brings that reckless sense of décor that’s kitschy in the right hands. Unfortunately, it also delivers a somewhat underwhelming curry. Red Thai curry, with its native basil, lemongrass, and Thai chilies, can be extremely fragrant and refreshing. Thai ’99 II’s version of the dish, while fragrant, doesn’t have quite as much refreshing zip as I’d like. Still, the perennial Best of C-VILLE winner delivers a curry with ideal thickness, fresh veggies, and a kicked-up spice level. It does it all at a great price point, too, particularly during lunch when $7 gets you soup, a fried veggie roll, and a scoop of ice cream in addition to your curry.

But back to Just Curry. For those familiar with Chef George’s previous curry restaurants, a few changes should be noted, all of which the owner gratefully attributes to his fiancé Pooja. Pooja said she’s not only made the décor of Just Curry cleaner and more inviting, but she’s also made the curry healthier, removing most of the butter and cream of previous recipes. The result is thinner curry—somewhat more soup-like than sauce-like—that fortunately doesn’t suffer much on the taste front.

“Curry is already healthy,” George said. “We have enhanced the recipes by removing the unhealthy stuff. Everything here has minimum amounts of oil and butter.”

The potatoes in the restaurant’s signature “Buttah” chicken curry overcome the thinner texture to a point, and the accompaniments served at Just Curry do their part to dispense with any concerns about flavor. Plus, there’s one simple thing about the restaurant’s chicken dishes that really makes them shine. Where the Indian and Thai curries I tried are both made with white meat chicken tossed with the sauce, Just Curry’s is made with yogurt-marinated dark meat that’s allowed to stew in the sauce itself. With the higher fat content of the legs and thighs melting into the sauce and becoming one with the curry, the chicken comes out moist and infused with flavor.

“Indian people brought their culture into the Caribbean, so our curry really is based on Indian spices,” George said. “But the way I use it is a little different.”

Man, that’s deep.

Categories
Living

Big river: Scottsville’s contribution to the craft beer scene ups the ante

James River Brewing Company is rolling out a new beer, created by brewmaster Kelby Barnhill, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. Photo: Martyn Kyle

James River Brewing Company is not an urban legend. I promise.

If you’ve never been down to Scottsville, you might find it hard to confirm the place exists. You haven’t seen the brewery’s beers on tap around town, and if you’ve come across a James River bottle somewhere, a Sasquatch hunter you are indeed.

But the tiny craft brewery 30 minutes from Downtown Charlottesville has big news coming that stands to change all that. By the end of the month, James River will be installing a 20-barrel brewing system that will up its production by a factor of 10.

No, a 20-barrel brewhouse ain’t big. But when your existing system is less than two barrels and consists of hardly more than a guy running his homebrew operation in a commercial location, it’s a big step up. When the dust clears on the James River construction project, which should be completed by the end of March, the little beer engine that could will go from a couple hundred barrels a year capacity to nearly 3,000.

“We’ve been operating on a shoestring,” head brewer Kelby Barnhill said. “As soon as we get this new system in, we’re going to have more beer than we know what to do with.”

Which brings me to why you should care. I’ll be honest, the first time I drove by James River about six months ago, I thought it was closed and/or under construction. The large room adjacent to the tasting room where there should be a gleaming chrome brewing system looks halfway cleaned out after a sudden shutdown.

Even when I first walked into the Scottsville brewery, I still found it confusing. The tasting room was uncomfortably small, with a singer-songwriter strumming away practically in my lap, and the menu was uncomfortably large. The brewery seemed to be making a little bit of everything, and its focus was hard to pin down.

Since my first visit, though, I’ve heard nothing but good things about James River, which was ahead of C’ville’s Champion and Three Notch’d brewing companies at taking advantage of the new laws that allow joints to make beer without serving food. From the casual tippler to the local craft beer guru, almost everyone I’ve talked to agrees the beer coming out of the boutique Scottsville brewery is pretty damn good.

Originally under the direction of co-founder and brewmaster Dustin Caster, James River has indeed had trouble figuring out what it wants to be. Caster handed the title of head brewer over to Barnhill just a few months after the place opened, and the duo has produced beer in a somewhat scattershot fashion so far. Since day one, they’ve been pushing beer out strictly through their “pilot” system, a three-burner Rube Goldberg apparatus that was originally intended as nothing more than a way to get the business off the ground. Almost two years later, Barnhill is still diligently making two 50-
gallon batches a day up to five days a week to meet steady demand from James River’s tiny tasting room.

“I love brewing on that system,” Barnhill said. “It’s like flying the Millennium Falcon. Everything is manual.”

Barnhill, who was hired as assistant brewer and became head brewer when Caster shifted over to the administrative side, said the goal with the new system is to standardize James River’s flagship beers and regular seasonal offerings. That means staples like the English mild River Walker and English bitter River Runner will be produced on the commercial system. The brewery’s more unique beers and one-offs will still be made on the pilot system.

That change should be a good thing, as in my own experience, James River’s staples have been inconsistent, while its one-offs have been highlights. Currently on-tap and worth the 30-minute trip down are Barnhill’s Vanilla Porter, which has a subtle and natural-tasting vanilla note, and 1865 Smoked Brown Ale, with a porter-esque character and just enough smokiness to give it depth and make it interesting. Coming soon on tap is a dry Irish stout, a beer that sounds as if it’s right in Barnhill’s wheelhouse. It’s making its debut in the tasting room on March 14 as part of an effort to bring in out-of-towners for the brewery’s St. Patrick’s Day weekend festivities.

“Our goal is to get people down here,” Barnhill said. “If people can brave the 20 to 30 minute drive, it is a totally different scene from C’ville, with local music with a rural character.”

No one would blame you, though, if you waited for warmer days to visit James River. The brewery’s small tasting room has been expanded to include a new room for live music and a second sitting room, but the prize of the place is certainly the beer garden and outdoor stage positioned along the creek out back. It’s a lovely shaded gem on sunny days but bitterly cold during winters like the one we’re having.

Categories
Arts

Charlottesville cinematographer Todd Free’s near miss with the Oscars

Todd Free (above) and former C’ville resident Scott Mactavish were in contention for an Oscar nomination for their documentary Murph: The Protector.

Charlottesville was closer to being represented at last Sunday’s Academy Awards than a lot of people realize.

While Darlene Love of 20 Feet From Stardom sang during the acceptance speech for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, local cinematographer Todd Free watched from his couch on Belmont Avenue and thought, “I could have been there.”

Free was cinematographer, film editor, and co-producer of Murph: The Protector, a documentary about Navy Seal Lieutenant Michael Murphy who was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2005 and given the Medal of Honor posthumously in 2007. The film, written and directed by one-time Charlottesville resident Scott Mactavish and now available in select stores, was considered by the Academy for four Oscar nominations: Best Documentary Feature, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song.

To get on the list for Oscar consideration, a movie has to be released and advertised in certain key markets, particularly New York and Los Angeles, and recommended by an Academy member. Murph was Free’s first film to enjoy a national release—it appeared in 180 Regal cinemas across the country. Two notable reviews—one rather indifferent by The New York Times, another very positive from the Washington Post—also gave the movie some momentum. By the time the doc became available to the masses on DVD and digital download, it had enough notoriety to earn the top spot on iTunes’ download list of documentaries for more than three weeks. It spent several days in the top 10 most downloaded movies for any genre and settled into the top 20 for a full week.

“It’s hard to tell how close it actually was to being nominated for an Oscar,” Free said. “But it is unheard of for a documentary to be in the top 20 films on iTunes, including blockbuster films, for an entire week.”

Free said his eventual association with Murph was set in motion in 2003 when Mactavish was part of the Charlottesville film scene, a scene that “had about seven people in it,” Free said. The two filmmakers worked together on a documentary about breast cancer, became friends, and stayed in touch. After Mactavish moved to Virginia Beach in 2011, he contacted Free about collaborating again, this time on the movie he wanted to make about Murphy. Mactavish, a veteran of the U.S. Navy himself, said he wanted to celebrate the life of someone he considered an American hero.

“Murph is my third ‘fallen hero’ film,” Mactavish said. “The first was God and Country, about fallen Marine Brad Arms from Charlottesville. If it were up to me, I’d produce a film on every fallen man and woman that gave their lives for our freedom.”

The instinct to do a movie about Murphy was a good one. The popularity of Murph has largely come from the strong support military movies get in certain parts of the country, Free said, as well as people’s respect for the Naval officer himself. As the WAPO reviewer put it, “by celebrating an actual American hero, Murph reminds audiences that bells and whistles, budgets and effects aren’t necessary so long as filmmakers have human stories of bravery and valor to tell.”

Free, to a certain extent, downplays his work on the movie. He spent several years in Los Angeles working on his craft from 2007 to 2010, and he has multiple shooting credits on his resume. He’s done notable camera work on the horror films House Hunting and The Watermen with Jason Mewes. Where those films involve dynamic camera angles and quick cuts, according to Free, Murph consists of testimony from Murphy’s friends and family along with footage of Navy Seal exploits. Free said the shooting and editing for the film was simpler than what he does on more action-intensive movies.

“It’s not really what I would point to as the best example of my work as a cinematographer, but we did do something riskier with the editing,” Free said. “We really just let our subjects talk, and through their testimony, we get to know them, and through them, we get to know the life of a man who would be awarded the Medal of Honor. They don’t give those medals out to just anyone.”

Free doesn’t downplay the effect Murph had on him personally. He became engrossed in the storyline—regular guy from the block devotes his life to helping people and makes the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield—and was inspired to create something of his own that might help others. The result was Free’s latest project, The Interactive Pixel Company, which looks to help non-profits and small businesses push their message out through advertising and web development. He draws on his background in film to create engaging videos for his clients where he can.

“I wanted to use my talents to sell something other than T.V.s and cars,” Free said. “I wanted to work with companies that are dedicated to helping other people.” So far, those companies have included Charlottesville’s Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry, the Music Resource Center, and Camp Holiday Trails, a camp for children with special health needs.

Looking back on the start of his career as a filmmaker, Free considers how much he’s changed over the years. When he was living in Rhode Island and studying documentary filmmaking in 2002, he remembers thinking that being able to attend the Oscars someday would be a kind of validation for getting into the field. It would be a symbol, a benchmark. And it also looked like a pretty cool event.

“It kind of goes against my idea of wanting to help others with film,” he said. “Maybe I have evolved a little bit. But to me, it is a celebration of people that have worked at the highest levels of filmmaking.”

There’s always next year.

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Abode Magazines

Hard work: Concrete craftsmen elevate humble material

A concrete countertop becomes a focal point in this Crozet kitchen. Photo: Courtesy Alexander Kitchin

Alexander Kitchin wants to get your mind off the floor. “Most people are stuck down there,” he said.

He’s referring to the common perception of how concrete is used in architecture. A UVA grad with a master’s degree in the discipline, Kitchin has devoted his 20-plus-year career to elevating the art of concrete design. Today, he and his partner, Nicole Sherman, operate Fine Concrete, a custom concrete casting shop from which they produce intricate bathroom vanities, sinks, bathtubs, fireplaces, countertops, and furniture.

Photo: Courtesy Alexander Kitchin
Photo: Courtesy Alexander Kitchin

“All of our clients are looking for an alternative to granite or similar materials,” Kitchin said.

The biggest advantage concrete has over “slab” materials like granite or marble is that artisans like Kitchin can make in one piece what other craftsman would have to assemble out of multiple pieces. Because concrete starts as a liquid, it can be poured into a mold and hardened to any desired shape—think geometric countertops with sinks cast directly in or one-piece patio furniture with supple lines.

“Concrete has a fleshy, sexy nature,” Kitchin said. “We want to create stuff that is sexy and mysterious and make it with a material that is natural and raw.”

Photo courtesy Alexander Kitchin
Photo courtesy Alexander Kitchin

Concrete designers can achieve any level of thickness their customers desire, with precision down to a 16th of an inch, and the range of colors that can be produced are “infinite,” Kitchin said. Using dry or liquid pigments introduced into the concrete mix prior to casting, the concrete forms come out of the mold with integrated colors tailored to a tight range. There is some variation from piece to piece, but according to Kitchin, that’s one of the things customers are drawn to.

Unlike most stone building materials, concrete can deliver unique physical properties depending on its chemistry, Kitchin said. Fine Concrete, for example, is one of only a handful of shops in the U.S. that offers ultra-high performance concrete, a licensed material that delivers 10 times the strength of traditional concrete.

Photo courtesy Alexander Kitchin
Photo courtesy Alexander Kitchin

“Material sciences are a huge field, and concrete is the most used material on the planet, other than water,” Kitchin said. “So you can imagine the money companies are putting into this.”

As for cost, Kitchin said it’s comparable to stone on a one-to-one basis. But the comparison can be a tricky one, because most of the price of concrete comes from the man-hours required to build the formwork, or molds—“made like furniture, a surfboard, and a car body,” Kitchin said.

It’s that attention to detail customers pay for, according to Sherman.

“We’re not just fabricators, we’re designers,” she said. “Our customers are mostly people that are interested in finding a creative moment in their home, something that is unique and expressive of their lifestyle.”

 

Get in touch

Have a project in mind for Alexander? Visit fineconcrete.com, call 242-7536, or e-mail studio@fineconcrete.com to get in touch.

 

 

Talk the talk

Be a part of the conversation. Here are some phrases you’ll hear if you’re planning a project with a concrete craftsman.

Aggregate: The material held together by cement to make concrete. The most popular aggregates today are different types of sand, but small pebbles may also be used.

Formwork: The mold around which concrete is poured to form a desired shape.

Integral pigment: Color cast directly into a concrete design.

Precast concrete: A building material created by curing an aggregate (usually sand) with cement. Custom concrete pieces come “precast” as they will appear in the home.

Retarders, plasticizers, accelerators: Materials that can be added to a concrete mixture to make it behave differently prior to being cast or during casting.

Ultra-high performance concrete: A material with 10 times the strength of traditional concrete and better flow characteristics, making it easier to cast into intricate shapes.

Working time: The time it takes concrete to set once it has been mixed.

Categories
Arts

Locally developed app looks to fill a niche in a crowded market

White Star Sound Studio’s Chris Keup has partnered with musx co-founders Eddie Sniezek and John Reardon to release a new music-sharing app.

I’m tinkering with a new free app, and I’m totally hooked. I’m looking at my iPhone every five seconds to see if there’s a number next to the app icon, evidence I have the all-important new “notification.” I’m opening the app every five minutes to see if my feed has updated. I’m telling all my friends to get the app so it’ll be more fun for me. I’m doing all this to the extreme annoyance of my wife, who thinks I’m dangerously addicted to my smartphone.

I happen to be talking in this case about a new, locally developed social media/music application known as musx (pronounced myoo-ziks). But to be honest, this is a good description of my behavior with most social media apps. Good old @shea_gibbs on Twitter? I’ve “rebranded” myself twice and the posting history is so erratic you’d think I have a debilitating case of knuckle gout. Pinterest? I can’t even remember my username and password. Pinterest is still a thing, right?

So yeah, the future of musx for me is about as clear as the Cloud, but I’m certainly enjoying it right now. Developed by co-founders John Reardon and UVA law student Eddie Sniezek, both originally from the D.C. area, and supported from the industry side by Chris Keup, a producer/songwriter whose White Star Sound Studio is just outside Charlottesville, the app is a clever mash-up of a streaming music player and a social media-based music-sharing destination. It draws on YouTube content to allow users to find songs they want to share with their musx friends and provides a space for comments below the video-enabled player.

“Music is inherently social, but people share music in a different place from where they listen to it,” Reardon said. “That disconnect is why we left our jobs to pursue the app.”

Take all your friend’s Facebook updates about what they’re listening to on Spotify, for example. At worst, they can be annoying, maybe even pedantic—a bunch of people whose opinions on music you could take or leave showing you how cool they are by broadcasting what they’re listening to while they do data entry from nine to five.

Reardon isn’t willing to go that far (read: he’s not as big a jerk as I am), but he agrees it’s the lack of context provided by those posts that keep them from being effective. First, sites like Facebook don’t offer a fully functional music player alongside your friends’ recommendations. On musx, you can take a rec, click on it, and drop it into your queue or a playlist. Then you can listen to it at your leisure, “like” it, re-share it, comment on it, or pass it along through some other media outlet.

Second, musx is designed specifically for music sharing. Everyone you follow on the app should be someone whose opinion on music you’re interested in. It offers an easy way to weed out your little sister’s catalog of Katy Perry hits.

“Once you empower the person to elect to share something, you provide that context,” Reardon said. “On Facebook…it is totally diluted and means nothing to us. Why listen to one song as opposed to the 15 others someone just posted about?”

But, musx isn’t perfect, either. It was launched on February 13 for iPhones (with Android and web versions to follow), and glitches are still being worked out. Minor layout and button-clicking problems aside, the first big ding on the music player, for me, was that it lacked continuous play functionality when I put my phone to sleep or used another application. Reardon assured me this was intended to be a feature of the app and would be corrected. Still waiting, at least at press time.

Another hurdle? The success of the app is highly dependent on the number of people using it. It also helps if those people happen to like cool music. When I first created an account, Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” held the top spot in the popular songs category for a good 12 hours. Great song, but the last time The Blue Album was getting consistent airtime on my player was 20 years ago. Reardon said this chink in the digital armor might have been in part due to the app being picked up by several overseas publications and downloaded in more than 80 countries.

“There are people that are the tastemakers, but there are also people who are just using the app to listen to music,” he said. “That’s good to see.”

Reardon and the other musx principals have been tweaking the algorithm used to create the “popular” feed, and he’s confident “Surf Wax America” won’t be the next track to hold the top spot.

While musx relies exclusively on YouTube content for now, Reardon said the team is close to finalizing an update that will allow SoundCloud searches as well. He said users will be able to find just about anything they want once that’s complete, but what of all this streaming of free music? Who’s making a buck here, and who’s getting left out? Reardon said the app won’t rely on paid upgrades anytime soon, and he insists advertising will always be strictly music focused and stay out of the user’s way. Making sure there’s a seat at the soundboard for industry-types is Keup’s job.

“As a songwriter and producer, streaming services are a terrifying frontier,” he said. “But I feel we are coming at this from a well-meaning place. We are going to enable everyone, from the content creators to the venues, to conduct their business more efficiently.”

If they’re successful, they’ll be in the minority. Reardon readily admits apps have a high failure rate, and music apps perform even worse. Regardless, it stands to be a pretty fun ride. I wonder if I’ll be there to see it all.

Download the musx app here and tell us about it in the comments section below.

Categories
Arts

Future Islands finds its place in the EDM sea

Future Islands flies in fresh from its European tour to push electronic dance music forward at the Southern on Monday.

Throw the word “post” before the name of a music genre, and it can pretty much mean whatever you want it to. The members of Future Islands, an act caught somewhere in the limbo between indie rock and electronic dance music, once called themselves a “post-post” band.

Fortunately, the three-piece outfit is willing to get a little more specific these days.

“We describe it as post-wave dance music,” guitar player Will Cashion said in a recent C-VILLE Weekly interview. “It’s new wave and post-punk.”

O.K., so specificity may not be the band’s strong suit. What is its strong suit is bringing a passionate, theatrical spin to what can, at its worst, be a sterile genre. Mostly, the effect comes from the strained, dramatic vocals of Sam Herring, an otherwise unassuming, moonfaced boy-next-door who manages to hold audiences in the palm of his hand.

Herring said there’s more to Future Islands’ passion than his singing voice, though. “Will has a certain way he plays the bass, and then there are some soulful and R&B vibes that have been creeping in over the years,” Herring said. “Also, for a band that has electronic drums and keyboards, we have a very soulful way of finding sounds.”

That means programmer and keys player Gerrit Welmers doesn’t rely on the effects you might find on the Yamaha keyboard you got for Christmas in 1986. Herring said it also means trying to craft songs that have some measure of humanity in them and avoiding the “cold, monotone sound” of a lot of dance music and techno.

It’s not entirely unlike the efforts of EDM’s pied piper Daft Punk, who Cashion says dominated the 2014 Grammy Awards by “taking the electronica out of it” and relying on retro disco sounds to tap into the mainstream.

According to Cashion, both Daft Punk and Future Islands are part of a move toward a sort of musical homogeneity that will undoubtedly introduce a whole lot more “posts” into the vernacular of genre.

“I don’t know if it’s even considered electronica anymore,” he said. “There are country bands that are incorporating keyboards and drum machines. It’s creeping into everything.”

Likewise, Future Islands’ sound has crept into a variety of different areas as the years have floated by. Where the band started more as a punk outfit that just happened to use keyboards and electronic elements, the five-piece has trimmed down to a trio, focused its sound, and polished its songwriting to produce a more accessible, poppier catalog. Herring said he’s changed as a singer, as well. He once employed a gravelly growl along with his theatrical croon more readily than he does these days.

“There’s less angst in me. I think that’s just something that comes with growing old and maturing,” Herring said. “Even on [2011’s] On the Water, things were starting to cool.”

Herring’s growl still comes out occasionally, but the overall effect on Singles, the Future Islands album due out in late March, is a collection of more radio-ready tracks. Herring said he and the band reengaged with songwriting for the album, and he’s said in the past that the name references the fact that each song is intended to be able to stand on its own as a single.

Does that mean Future Islands has lost something in the way of cohesion from song to song on its latest LP? My advanced copy didn’t indicate it, and Herring himself believes the decision to get away from “complete albums that ebb and flow and chase their tails” has turned out to be a good one.

“The thing that unifies the album to me is that each song really has its own world,” he said.

Charlottesville will get a chance to hear some of the new tracks for the first time on the heels of Future Islands’ European tour, with the band flying in to play its March 23 date at the Southern. It’ll be an appropriate homecoming, according to Herring, as the band’s traveled down to this hamlet many times over the years from its hometown of Baltimore.

The Southern will be a larger venue than Future Islands has played here in the past—and had “some crazy nights”—but Herring said the contrast between an American and a European crowd will be all too familiar.

“European audiences aren’t quite as rowdy. They are more captive and pay more attention to what you’re doing,” he said. “At a sold out show in America, you have people going ape. They’re just having a good time with their friends.”

The audience at the Southern might be advised to keep an eye on the stage, though. Future Islands is a band that’s best understood in a live context. Where Herring can come off sounding like he’s doing a mediocre Phantom of the Opera rendition in some of the band’s studio work, it all makes sense when put together with his stage presence.

“A lot of bands worry more about the record,” Cashion said. “We’ve always wanted to get out of the garage and play shows. That’s the most pure form of making music.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vI_kx4J8Vc&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=ALHTd1VmZQRNp-dy0eEnCH0vsgmGoVtO5l

Categories
Living

Ranked amateur: Homebrew for Hunger winner brings wares to market

Amateur brewmaster Loren Moulds recently brewed his award-winning imperial red at Three Notch’d brewery. The Mosaic IRA will soon be available at several local bars and restaurants. Photo: Elli Williams

Amateurs are making some darn good beer in this town. Amateurs, dude.

Anyone who had the opportunity to attend the Homebrew for Hunger event at Fifth Season Gardening last fall knows about the quality of ale-shine C’ville has to offer. The only problem, assuming you’re able to get past your hang-ups about drinking unregulated beer from someone’s funky kitchen, is you rarely get to taste the stuff.

Until now.

UVA Ph.D. candidate and librarian Loren Moulds has been brewing out of his own hopefully-E.coli-free kitchen for more than 10 years, ever since he was 22 and his dad bought him a brewing kit. Finally, all of Moulds’ smelly boils, dirty pots, and abrasive sterilizing materials—not to mention years of inconveniencing his wife—have paid off in the form of a chance to make one of his concoctions for distribution.

Moulds’ mosaic-hopped imperial red ale was awarded the title of best beer at Homebrew for Hunger, beating out the creations of more than 80 other amateur brewers who put their skills on display at the festival. The prize, awarded based on total votes from both fellow brewers and event attendees, was the chance to brew the winning beer to scale in the Three Notch’d brewhouse, keg it, and release it at some of the coolest beer bars in Charlottesville.

“This beer was kind of a throw-off for me. I just wanted to brew a single hop beer,” Moulds said. “I got the mosaic and put it in there to taste what the hop was like, and it was pretty yummy. I would use it again.”

On February 27, Three Notch’d will tap the first keg of Moulds’ imperial red, which he is now calling the Mosaic IRA. Shortly after the tapping event, kegs of the high alcohol throw-off will go out to the likes of Beer Run, Sedona Taphouse, Brixx, and a few other spots nearby.

According to Moulds and Three Notch’d brewmaster Dave Warwick, the Homebrew for Hunger title winner is an excellent example of what the relatively rare mosaic hops variety can bring to a beer. Expect the Mosaic IRA to be similar in hop intensity to an India pale ale (IPA) but with more malt character and a darker color.

“Mosaic is like citra [hops] on steroids,” Warwick said, comparing the varietal to the highly citrusy, recognizable hop that’s also one of Moulds’ favorites. “It has an array of flavors. You would think that it would be over the top and sharp, but it’s not at all. It’s so soft, round, and complex.”

The main sticking point in scaling up Moulds’ recipe for production turned out to be procuring enough mosaic, according to Warwick. He said the recipe required very little in the way of pro-tip tweaks other than to account for the higher sugar yields he gets in his commercial brewery, but finding the requisite 44 pounds of mosaic was another story. It was by luck that he found himself talking to his supplier at a brewers’ conference when he heard the homebrew he’d be helping make would require mosaic, and that his supplier happened to have just enough of the hops laying around to give him what he needed.

Actually producing the beer was a breeze, at least for Warwick.

“I made him do most of the work,” he said. “That’s my day off.”

While Moulds’ experience with mosaic over the years has been limited, he thinks working extensively with citra prepared him for the task. He’s been brewing variations on citra IPAs a few times a year for the past half decade.

“Basically every other beer I brew is an IPA, and I have completely fallen in love with citra,” Moulds said. “It’s hard to deviate from it.”

Straying from the comfort zone is what makes homebrewers great, though, according to Anna Haupt, Fifth Season’s general manager. Moulds, a member of homebrew club Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale, is just one of many local brewers who think outside the six-pack, according to Haupt.

“There are hundreds of different types of grain and hops, and homebrewers are often the most inventive because they get to make everything in small batches,” she said. “There is a symbiotic relationship between homebrewers and craft brewers.”

Haupt said homebrewers are often ahead of the curve when it comes to using new varieties of hops. And while there are no doubt craft brewers out there who think they’re pretty inventive in their own right, the stovetop beer barons will have another chance to show off their skills this November, when FIfth Season expects to host another Homebrew for Hunger event. Get your immunizations in order now.