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Arts Culture

Tale of fire and ice

If the origin story of local metal band Age of Fire were a rom-com, there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the theater at this point. Put on some Evanescence and try to dig it.

Boy meets girl in South Florida in 1982—but in this case, the girl is heavy metal. After six years of being in love with the girl, something comes of the relationship: a band’s eponymous debut album, Age of Fire.

The boy and girl part ways all too soon. He moves to Charlottesville, Virginia. After 20 years, the boy makes contact with the girl in 2008. But it’s not the same. For the boy, the girl is frozen in time, a memory of his youth. He’s unable to save her from the nothing she’s become (sorry, Evanescence).

Finally, three decades after first falling for the girl, the boy decides he’ll do whatever it takes to get her back. He wins the girl’s affection again, and their torrid love affair resumes.

The boy here is Greg Brown, founding member of the now-resurgent Age of Fire. In 2018, after re-releasing his band’s debut album for the second time in 30 years, he decided to grab fate by the collar and re-form. Just five years later, the band is touring to support its second album. They’ve played Atlanta, Birmingham, Myrtle Beach, and several dates in Europe. They’ve announced a streaming show on September 5 from In Your Ear Studios in Richmond, and will head to L.A. to play the Whiskey a Go Go, opening for Burning Witches, on December 6. And in the meantime, they’ll be back in the studio this fall to work on the band’s second full-length album—on Sliptrick Records—since getting back together.

“I’m laser-focused on what we are trying to do,” says Brown. “Richmond has been great to us—really embraced us. In this town, metal doesn’t seem to be very well supported. It’s a different beast.”

Charlottesville’s metal scene has been beset by recent losses, both of venues and promising acts. And while Brown admits he operates in “a bit of a bubble,” he’s never given up on the genre, even while pursuing others after Age of Fire disbanded in 1993. 

Brown returned to metal around 2012, after a cancer diagnosis. With a chemo port implanted in his chest, the classical guitar he had come to favor became impractical. The smaller body on his old electrics didn’t rub against the port, and the less technical ax work made playing easier, given his limited mobility.

“I was always into the shredders: Metallica, Megadeth,” Brown says. “But that’s actually the same thing that attracted me to classical and flamenco, the virtuosity of it.”

Working mostly from old-but-never-released recordings, Brown put together a new Age of Fire LP in late 2018, the same year he released the band’s debut for the third time. He “threw it up on the web,” he says, and people listened.

The 10-track Obsidian Dreams, Age of Fire’s first new record in 30 years, caught the attention of Sliptrick Records. Delighted, surprised, and humbled, Brown put together a band. He found a local bass player in Mike Heck and joined forces with a new lead vocalist, Laura Viglione. In 2020, Age of Fire released its first album of all new music since the band formed in 1988: Shades of Shadow. A European tour followed. It was more than Brown could’ve dreamed of when Metallica’s Kill ’Em All first made him fall in love with metal.

Heck and Viglione left the group after the Shades of Shadow tour, but Brown was undaunted. He found local bass player Ric Brown and drummer Bill Morries and decided to retake Age of Fire’s lead vocals. The latest iteration of the band independently released an EP, Through the Tempest, last year, and it’s been well received by indie pubs. 

Brown says Age of Fire still has a strong following in Europe, and he’s optimistic about the future, including the forthcoming album on Sliptrick. “Metal is starting to pick up,” Brown says. “It’s still huge overseas. In the United States in the ’90s, we went grunge, but the rest of the world didn’t.”

Age of Fire’s music has been described as dabbling in various heavy metal subgenres, including thrash, symphonic, melodic, and progressive. But for those who grew up with the ’90s shredders like Brown, it’s Metallica they’ll hear first.

Now, what’s old is new again. Age of Fire has been played on more than 1,000 traditional and satellite radio stations around the world after an unheard of four-decade hiatus. The band has attracted attention from media outlets from Portugal to Slovakia to Norway, and endorsements from Solar Guitars, Scorpion drumsticks, and Dirtbag clothing.

Still, Age of Fire isn’t Brown’s full-time gig. By day, he’s an educational services representative for Guitar Center’s Music & Arts. He says working with music teachers to develop in-school programming frees him up to make his own tunes on weekends and during summers.

As Brown tries to help kickstart the local metal scene, he looks back on his career and thinks of all the young musicians who could use a push toward his favorite music genre.

“I feel bad. … I ran a music store in this town for many years, and kids would come in playing Pantera licks or whatever,” he says. “I would think, ‘Where do these kids play?’ There doesn’t seem to be a supported infrastructure in this town for this type of music, and I would have been lost without it my entire life.”

Watch Age of Fire’s livestream performance on September 5 at In Your Ear Studios via youtube.com/@shockoesessionslive.

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2023 Best of C-VILLE Staff Picks

Super suds

For years, new brewers all said it: I brew what I like. But times have changed, and spots like SuperFly Brewing Co., which opened this summer at 943 Preston Ave., have changed with them. “The thing that excites me is drinkability,” SuperFly owner Ed Liversidge says. “But when a band writes a record, it’s hard for them to know what the hits will be. The fans decide that.”

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2023 Best of C-VILLE Staff Picks

One more for the roads

Andre Xavier knows booze tourism. As owner of Cville Tours, he’s seen what banding together can do for co-located breweries like those on Route 151.

So when Xavier helped open Patch Brewing Co. in Gordonsville, he got together with other purveyors of fine beverages and branded their alliance Route 231. Along with Patch, the founding members included Keswick Vineyards, Castle Hill Cider, Merrie Mill Farm & Vineyard, Early Mountain Vineyards, Barboursville Vineyards, Thistlerock Mead Company, Virginia Foothills Distillery, and the yet-to-open Southwest Mountain Vineyards.

Route 231 officially launched as a branded destination last April, and Xavier says the co-promotion has been successful, with several other wineries since joining the portfolio. He says that, in addition to bringing folks to one place for multiple tipples, Route 231 is about collaborating on best practices, sharing lessons learned and resources, and finding ways to give back to the community.

“What separates us is the diversity of our offerings, but also the commitment of our members to being stewards of the land and embracing agri-tourism,” Xavier says. “Alcohol obviously is the main thing, but the food, the culture, the way of life—those are all critical.”

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2023 Best of C-VILLE Staff Picks

Back to biscuits

BBQ is a labor of love. So when Brian Ashworth tired of the labor and threatened to close Ace Biscuit and Barbecue, a ’cue-lover stepped in to save it. “Ace was always one of my favorites—in my opinion the best barbecue in Charlottesville,” said Stefan Friedman, who bought the biz in March. What’s next for Ace? Friedman promises full dinner hours, grab-and-go menu items, live music, and big ’ol biscuits like the ones Ashworth made when he first opened.

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2023 Best of C-VILLE Staff Picks

Hoos running things

Two UVA track team members founded Run Charlottesville in 2018. Now, the organization is bringing together college athletes and area kids at three Virginia locations. The mission? Use running to better the lives of young people from up and down the socioeconomic spectrum.

“For me, to see the kids every week get an opportunity to socialize and have fun outside and get more exposure to running and activity in general … it’s special,” says Trina Barcarola, the organization’s incoming president. “It’s great for the UVA students, too, because we don’t get a lot of exposure to kids.”

Barcarola, a UVA track team pole vaulter, says sports has translated to success in other areas of her own life, and that pushes her to make Run Charlottesville the best service organization it can be.

Barcarola takes over as president from Owayne Owens, who’s been in the position for three years. Owens hopes that during his own time at its helm, Run Charlottesville has given a few kids the same opportunities running’s given him. “It has done so much for me—it got me a scholarship,” Owens says. “If we can get kids to start running at a young age, we have so much to offer them: working together in groups, discipline, enjoying hard work. I just want to see kids better off because they were made aware of running.”

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Down to D’earth

Jazzman John D’earth has his hands in so many Charlottesville music scene projects that his own record releases can go unnoticed. But his newest LP, Coin of the Realm, demands attention. The seven-track album is vintage D’earth—experimental enough to interest the hardcore jazz fan, catchy enough for the casual listener. “It’s a poetic impulse to play music this way,” D’earth says.

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Arts Culture

Slow play

When local musician Jay Pun watched worldbeat band Baaba Seth take the stage decades ago, it was one of the few times he saw someone who looked like him making music that audiences loved.

“Standing at the front of the … Pavilion and seeing Mike on stage, it was cool to see another Asian guy playing music in Charlottesville,” Pun says. “I didn’t really know how much it meant to me at the time. But it really did mean a lot.

It’s been at least 25 years since Pun would’ve first seen “Mike,” aka Michael Chang, play with Baaba Seth. And it’s been more than 30 years since the band formed in 1991. 

Back in those days, Pun says he thought Baaba Seth was destined to be bigger than Dave Matthews Band. He wasn’t alone. The band’s combination of improvisational sensibility and global grooves made it a prime candidate to storm the jam scene—and even cross over into pop stardom.

As they say, the rest is history. DMB went on to become the only band ever to have seven consecutive studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Baaba Seth had some success, gaining renown in central Virginia, touring the East Coast extensively, and catching the eye of major record labels. But the band essentially broke up in 2000, and its eight members went their separate ways.

On August 18, the Baaba Seth bandmates will do what they’ve done almost every year since just a few years after their breakup. They’ll get back together to play one show, this one at The Southern Cafe & Music Hall, with their original lineup.

“It’s a different kind of band, unlike any others I had been in as far as our approach and style,” Chang says. “For me, and I think a lot of my bandmates would agree, that’s what keeps us coming back. It’s just fun to play with everyone, and the other part is people still give a crap—they want to hear our music.”

In addition to Chang on lead guitar and backing vocals, Baaba Seth features Dirk Lind on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Hope Clayburn on sax, flute, and vocals, Dylan Locke on bass, Jim Ralson behind the drums, Len Wishart providing more percussion, Mark Maynard playing trombone, and Tim Lett on trumpet. That’s eight players with unique musical backgrounds, still playing together 32 years after finding one other in the electric, early-1990s Charlottesville music scene.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that the biggest setback for the band—essentially frozen in time and thawed out annually—over the past two decades was COVID-19. From 2003 to 2018, the annual Baaba Seth reunion shows marched forward in 4/4 time. But when the octet decided to take a short break in 2019, they found themselves offbeat for the next four years.

The 2023 show will essentially be the band’s third coming, and Chang expects it to be big.

“I don’t know that Baaba Seth is going to try to reinvent itself—it is not a going concern,” Chang says. “But since we’re doing more rehearsals, maybe we’ll try to bust out something we haven’t done in a while or a new composition. There might be a few surprises.”

Indeed, Baaba Seth hasn’t been in complete cryogenic stasis for the last 20-plus years. They have a handful of songs written and arranged after they officially broke up, Chang says. And each band member is still involved in the music industry in some capacity. Clayburn, for example, plays regular solo shows with her backing band. Accordingly, Baaba Seth will occasionally mix in a Clayburn composition, Chang says. “As long as we follow her lead, it ends up being a party,” he says.

Recently, there’s even been talk of Baaba Seth returning to the studio for the first time in two decades. “It doesn’t take anything but getting together,” Chang says. “But even that is difficult with such a large band.”

Fans might think the biggest concern for a band more than three decades in, with eight members doing their own thing 364 days of the year, would be finding its groove on that 365th day. Aren’t there times when they take the stage and find they’re just out of synch? Times when their own experiences, both musical and otherwise, have broken the wavelength they all once shared?

“We’ve never had that problem. We’ve played so many times in that configuration on the stage, and it feels like no time has passed,” Chang says. “When we have some preparation and line up in that configuration, it’s like a muscle memory thing. Even if we go to far-flung places … we drove around in a van together for so long, those memories don’t go away.”

Opening for Baaba Seth on August 18 will be another band featuring Chang, Afro Asia. Founded by Pun, the five-piece fuses traditional Thai music with funk and soul. Pun conjured the project after buying a stringed Thai instrument known as a phin on a trip to his mother country. In addition to Pun on phin and Chang on guitar, bassist Houston Ross, keyboardist Ivan Orr, and drummer Kofi Shepsu round out the band.

For Chang, Afro Asia’s vibe isn’t all that different from Baaba Seth’s. It’s “a reunion of old friends playing heady music,” he says. And for Pun, it’s a chance to come full circle and play with a bunch of guys who look like him.

“At first, it was intentional to have Black and brown members—if not really a rule,” Pun says. “And in bringing some of this traditional yet modern Asian music to America, it works because it is heavily influenced by Black American funk and jazz.”

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Arts Culture

One-string wonder

The TinkerTar, a kids’ guitar trainer widely available for about a month now, is in many ways the synthesis of Charlottesville instrument and board-game maker Brian Calhoun’s eclectic career.

Calhoun’s craftsmanship has been well known around town, and beyond, for many years. Through Rockbridge Guitar, he makes high-end instruments and has worked with renowned musicians like Dave Matthews, Brandi Carlile, Keith Urban, Harry Styles, and Zac Brown.

After years of making guitars, Calhoun had a crazy idea in 2016—crazy at least for a respected luthier whose business was music. He had played a boring board game one night and decided he could make a better one. The outcome was Chickapig, a hilariously fanciful farmyard strategy game. Legend has it Calhoun even had help from Matthews in making and popularizing the game, which went on to win Best Board Game at the 2019 National Parenting Product Awards, and is on shelves at Target, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and independent game stores.

Chickapig opened Calhoun’s eyes to kids’ products, he says, and the idea of a beginner’s guitar lodged itself in the back of his mind.

“I have always wondered why kids don’t start guitar early,” Calhoun says. “On the piano, they start the Suzuki method as early as 3 years old.”

Calhoun started asking parents of small children about their strategies for pushing musicianship. Having kids learn on four-string ukuleles seemed popular, and one of Calhoun’s friends pointed out that he was quite capable at drawing animals. He made a dinosaur-shaped uke and put it in the hands of some 5-year-olds. Still, the instrument was too hard. The concept of chords was too far removed from what kids think of when they think of songs.

That’s when it clicked. If you could get children to play melodies, he figured, they would take to the instrument more quickly. The best way to move to melodies? Force the issue with only one string. “If you get rid of the other strings, you have no option other than to play a melody,” Calhoun says.

The accomplished six-string luthier made a one-string prototype, and it worked. Kids could pick up the single-string instrument and play melodies after only a few minutes, immediately sparking their interest.

One-string instruments are not on their own a new idea, but Calhoun figures his TinkerTar is unique in at least a few ways. First, one-string instruments aren’t typically targeted toward beginning players. Second, the TinkerTar is fretless but includes color-coded finger positioning marks and drawn-on frets. That makes it simple to both find the right place to make a note and depress the string to make clear tones. Third, the instrument is simple to tune. Calhoun recommends starting by tuning the one string to C in the open position, but even as the TinkerTar loses fidelity, it always “stays in tune with itself.”

The TinkerTar is available nationwide at Walmart, and Calhoun says the next step is finding shelf space in more stores. He says the considerable job won’t take away from his work with Rockbridge, though. Now that he has manufacturing in place, he’s able to step away and let the business jam on its own.

“We can make as many of these as the market allows, and they have so much potential,” Calhoun says. “They can have a big impact on music education.”

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Knife & Fork Magazines

Table setter

Merrie Mill Farm & Vineyard owners Elizabeth and Guy Pelly bought the 21-year-old deli and specialty grocery lovingly known as Feast! in January. Now under new direction, the Main Street mainstay is surrounded by pressing questions. (For one, what about the exclamation point?)

Elizabeth Pelly recently talked to Knife & Fork about her budding stewardship of the Charlottesville culinary institution, the latest at Merrie Mill, and more.

Knife & Fork: What made you want to buy Feast!?

Elizabeth Pelly: They actually approached me. I didn’t know it was for sale. And to be totally honest with you, I was not looking for another business acquisition because Merrie Mill is still a pretty new business. So I kind of thought, ‘No way, this is not the right time.’ But I couldn’t get it out of my head. I decided it was an opportunity I should take. It’s such a beloved institution.

Have you made many changes?

If I didn’t know it then, after a couple of months, I know that everyone loves Feast!. Everyone is attached to something. And anyway, I was buying a business that works. It’s a well-oiled machine, and luckily all the staff decided to stay under my leadership. They are my most valuable asset.

How does Feast! fit with Merrie Mill in your portfolio?

Another reason it was attractive was that I could see the synergies. Now you are seeing Feast! products at Merrie Mill. We have updated our menu to include some of the signature sandwiches from Feast!. Our shareable platters are all Feast! salads and spreads. That’s elevated the food experience at Merrie Mill. Nobody likes change, period. So, even if a new product at Merrie Mill is better quality and made with local ingredients, some people still want it the way it was. But the synergy is worth it. Eventually, we are going to be able to sell our wine at Feast!.

Merrie Mill’s decor has made a splash. Any plans for design changes at Feast!?

My aesthetic is high on design, and people that appreciate the art and design at Merrie Mill are often the same types of people that appreciate the great curation and quality at Feast!. If I’m going to change anything, it is simply to elevate the shopping experience at Feast!. I never wanted to come in guns blazing and change everything up.

What about the store’s branding?

Feast! was started 21 years ago, and [owners] Eric and Kate [Gertner] didn’t know what it was going to become. And we as a culture didn’t understand branding the way we do now. I’m giving myself some time to really understand the business and our mission, but that is what’s coming—some type of brand rejuvenation. It is such a sophisticated brand and has such a great reputation, and I want all those aspects to be reflected in the logo. 

What’s your ultimate goal for both Feast! and Merrie Mill?

I just want to keep offering great quality products and keep people fed and wined happily. I want to continue to be a presence in the community—maybe more so at Merrie Mill than at Feast!. At the winery, we do a concert series and art fests and other outdoor events. It’s about giving people opportunities to see Virginia artisans and arts and crafts makers. Feast! used to be all about tasting, but I don’t know if we’re a tasting society anymore. We do our weekly wine tastings in a controlled way and are gently introducing the idea back in, but I don’t think we will ever have the big bowl of bread and olive oil for dipping again.

ROAD TO NEW WARES

New Feast! owner Elizabeth Pelly likes the stories behind retail products. “Not necessarily the story of why we are selling it, but the story within the product,” she says. Following are four items Pelly has brought or is bringing to the boutique grocery store’s shelves.

Askinosie Chocolate. “It’s made with cacao beans from different regions, sourced from small holder farmers. So it’s basically like, here’s your farmer, and his picture is on the chocolate bar.”

Wiseacre Tiny Bomb American Pilsner. “I have a connection to this brewery in Memphis, and this product is amazing. It is from the largest craft brewery in Tennessee, and it is the number four pilsner in the country.”

Oat Haus Granola Butter. “It is nut free, dairy free, soy free, and vegan. It spreads like peanut butter, and it’s delicious.”

Vegan cheese. “We already have such great cheeses, and I would love to look into some good vegan cheeses. Some of the new products out there are good enough to carry alongside traditional cheese.”—SG

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Arts Culture

Dürty work

The weather was clear, and the pickup truck show was a go.

Koda Kerl brought the idea to Dürty Nelly’s when he started managing the local bar’s music booking in spring of 2021. Nelly’s owner Jordan Brunk had hired Kerl to kickstart his sound coming out of lockdown, and one idea was to formalize “the corral,” a casual outdoor gathering of musicians born at Brunk’s other bar and restaurant, Crozet Pizza at Buddhist Biker Bar. “It wasn’t so much a performance, but we would try some new songs, and it grew,” Kerl says.

Riffing on the concept at Dürty Nelly’s, Kerl and Brunk decided not only to launch the “curated songwriter showcase,” but also to expand their usable outdoor space—weather permitting—by using the bed of a pickup truck as a stage.

Koda’s Corral has since hosted a bevy of local talents, including Adam Long, Emily Kresky, Kai Crowe-Getty, Rob Cheatham, Will Overman, and Kerl himself. But it was that first night when they rolled the pickup out as a perch that stuck with him.

“It was a special night—beautiful at sunset, tons of people crowded around,” Kerl says. “I grew up in Nelson County, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

The songwriter showcase epitomizes the vibe Kerl and Brunk want to drive: A dusty Americana, Southern rocking and eclectic soundstage, where folks who like cheap drinks and dancing like no one’s watching can do their thing.

Kerl himself has spent a lot of time touring and exploring venues as frontman for Chamomile & Whiskey, and as a result, he knows the value of stepping-stone clubs like Dürty Nelly’s. They’re a place to be seen and grow recognition as bands climb to bigger houses. And they’re places where more established bands can stop in without stress between cities. Places with an easygoing vibe where you might not make a ton of money, but you can have a good time, play without pressure, stay sharp, and sling a little merch. “We don’t have an enormous budget, but we’ve been gaining a reputation for being fun and an easy stop on the way to more lucrative shows,” Kerl says. 

Kerl says he tried to draw on diversity to keep the new Nelly’s sound interesting; his goal is always to bring in audiences where the faces don’t all look the same. That means that along with the traditional country sound of Richmond’s Deau Eyes, the bar has put up the ’80s-inflected garage rock of Work Wear, as well as the jaunty indie outfit Daddy’s Beemer from Charleston, South Carolina.

Nelly’s has hosted music video shoots for local friends like Lord Nelson and Shagwüf, and teamed up with Fry’s Spring Beach Club to host a doubleheader for Fredericksburg’s Elby Brass. After the band’s horn players had graced the club’s pool, they processed down JPA to Nelly’s for another set. “They’re always up for things like that,” Kerl says of Brunk and his team at the bar, where he’s careful to point out he’s not actually an employee. “They want to work with everyone and build the scene.”

Kerl says Dürty Nelly’s won’t soon be hosting cover bands, and some genres, like extremely loud metal, might clash with the space’s acoustics, but otherwise, the team remains open. “It’s fun to see people in their 70s hanging out with college kids and people of different tastes,” Kerl says. “That’s the kind of stuff that makes us proud and happy to be a part of the scene.”

If fans of Chamomile & Whiskey are wondering how’s he gonna find time to make new music himself—not to worry, he says. His band has a nearly finished new record, which Kerl’s begrudgingly acquiesced to leaking out streaming-style one song at a time, and they’re ready to hit the road to support it. He says he’s in a rhythm at Nelly’s; all he has to do is figure out how to be a little quicker with all the emails.

“We just finished our first longer tour a few weeks ago, so I can finally take a break from driving and scroll through my phone and get back to people,” Kerl says. “When I was younger, I know I made every mistake you could, but the funniest one to me is the blanket email that doesn’t even mention the name of the venue. So those get moved on from, but we don’t mind emails from wild acts. We’re all ears for that kind of thing.”