Husband and wife duo David Wax Museum released the radio-friendly
You Must Change Your Life on May 5. Photo by Tristan Williams.
Folk troubadour and 10-year Charlottesville resident David Wax befriended a fellow aspiring musician while studying at Harvard University. The students had a lot in common, Wax recalls, also having met briefly during high school trips to Washington, D.C., where they pursued their passion for politics.
The two friends did not go on to found the successful pop-Americana duo known as David Wax Museum.
Instead, Pete Buttigieg would abandon his musical aspirations and turn to public service, first acting as mayor of a midsize Midwestern city, then launching a splashy presidential bid, followed by an appointment as President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Transportation.
Wax ventured in a different direction, leaving behind his political aspirations and launching a journeyman music career.
After college, Wax won a fellowship that took him to southern Mexico to study its storied folk music tradition. He returned to the Boston area in 2007 with a deepened understanding of the traditional sounds, and a penchant for songwriting.
That’s when Wax met yet another aspiring musician, Suz Slezak, who would have a far more profound impact on his career. The pair launched a band, David Wax Museum, as a vehicle for Wax’s Latin-infused take on American folk.
Wax and Slezak fell in love on their first national tour in 2008. Today, they have two kids, more than 1,500 live shows to their credit, and an eighth album, You Must Change Your Life, that came out on May 5.
“We recorded it several years ago. A big part of this record has been waiting,” Slezak says. “So much of us changes day-to-day and month-to-month, and who we were when we made it was not who we are now, but … I can’t get tired of things that are rich and fun and danceable.”
The outcome has been hard won for Slezak, originally from Free Union, and Wax, of Missouri. The couple has steadily produced albums since forming David Wax Museum, the first in 2008 and six more over the next 11 years. They received national attention in 2010, winning a spot in the Newport Folk Festival, and critics acclaimed the band’s 2011 album Everything Is Saved and 2012’s Knock Knock Get Up. In 2015, Wax and Slezak came back with Guesthouse, which reached nine on the Billboard Heatseakers chart and 20 on the Billboard Americana/Folk Albums chart.
Along the way, David Wax Museum appeared on “CBS This Morning” and in an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, wrote songs for television, and shared stages with the The Avett Brothers, Old 97’s, Buena Vista Social Club, Guster, Josh Ritter, and The Wood Brothers. In 2018, the band played the wedding of Wax’s old college friend, Buttigieg.
Wax and Slezak settled in Charlottesville when they were pregnant with their first child in 2013. They’ve been residents ever since, and while touring as a band with young children in tow isn’t without difficulties, the biggest family crisis came just last year.
Late in 2022, Wax suffered what he’s described in statements as “a sudden and inexplicable collapse.” He doesn’t offer many details on the incident, largely because he still doesn’t have many. He was rushed to a hospital in his hometown of Columbia, Missouri, and given a cardiac catheterization to assess his condition. The culprit turned out not to be a heart attack, which doctors initially suspected.
“It’s still a little bit of a medical mystery,” Wax says. “I’ve been seeing just about every doctor in the UVA medical system and at Martha Jefferson. But I’m feeling good now.”
Wax has been given the green light to go back on tour with David Wax Museum. He and Slezak have been ramping up their efforts since February 26, when they opened for Los Lobos at The Paramount Theater.
“In my mind, it represents the culmination of a sound I’ve been chasing after for 15 years,” Wax says. “We were finally mature enough—or developed enough. We had the right team, the perfect producer. Everything had to come together for every song to hit in the right way.”
Produced by Dan Molad, who plays drums alongside Dirty Projectors singer Maia Friedman in Coco, and has produced records for the likes of JD McPherson, You Must Change Your Life transitions seamlessly from quirky pop anthems like the album’s title track to more traditional Museum canvases like “Luanne,” its first single. Indeed, the toe-tapping doesn’t stop much during the record’s 13-song tracklist.
Onstage, Wax says he’s been “walking on eggshells” for three months after his collapse, but David Wax Museum is emotionally recharged by You Must Change Your Life. As he lay in his hospital bed, Wax says he “felt at peace because this record exists.” Slezak agrees, saying waiting through the pandemic to release the new album now feels like the correct decision.
“I have to trust that this record is coming out at the right moment. Hopefully, this all means something,” she says. “I never listen to our older records, but I find myself listening to this one all the time. I feel like the messaging of the record and the way it makes us feel just never gets old.”
Through mentoring programs, as well as practical
support, Uhuru Foundation is helping at-risk youth in our area. Photo: Supplied
Uhuru Foundation co- founder Derek Rush knows what it’s like to be behind bars. But he doesn’t let that part of his life define him, even in trying to make life better for young people in the same situation.
“Yes, I spent some time incarcerated,” Rush says. “But I don’t lean solely on that experience. It’s more about having fully shared experiences.”
Rush grew up in a rural neighborhood of southern Albemarle County alongside another kid named Robert Gray. The two boys knew each other but were never close. Trouble, on the other hand, was always nearby.
It would be many years—after college (Saint Augustine’s for Gray and Southern Virginia University for Rush) and several years in the workforce—before the boys would reunite as men. Having gone through many of the same tribulations, pulling themselves up by their rural, low-income bootstraps, Gray and Rush decided to work together in 2019 on a pilot program to help kids who’d been incarcerated or were at risk of being locked up.
After successful pilot programs at the Boys & Girls Club on Cherry Avenue and Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention, Gray and Rush expanded their programs and began work as the Conscious Capitalist Group Foundation. The goal was to focus on “opportunity youth,” individuals ages 16 to 24 who aren’t in school or working.
“We just wanted to work with kids that weren’t getting access to the services they needed,” Rush says.
Today, operating as the Uhuru Foundation, Gray and Rush provide kids and troubled adults life coaching, help with restitution, legal fees, and obtaining driver’s licenses, and assist on basic needs like food and housing.
“We’ve slowly but surely morphed into a mentoring program—individualized and group life coaching,” Gray says. The foundation offers site-based mentoring at schools, moderates high-risk youth programs at alternative schools and detention centers, and is adding reentry programs for the formerly incarcerated. Gray and Rush are also working with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville to provide returning citizens supportive housing.
The pair are both alumni of the Community Investment Collaborative entrepreneurship workshop and members of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Charlottesville initiative. They both have backgrounds in youth mentoring, having coached kids’ sports and participated in other community organizations before starting their own.
Rush recently relocated to the Richmond area, and the Uhuru Foundation has expanded its reach, as well. The partners have launched programs with the Richmond and Henrico Public Health Foundation, Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center, and Richmond Alternative School.
With a variety of nonprofits working with at-risk youth in Central Virginia, Gray and Rush say they’ve managed to find their niche by staying close to those they serve. Their “full spectrum” support system is about bringing innovative services to sometimes disillusioned young people.
“It’s just being real with them, letting them know we are here to build relationships,” Rush says. “These programs mess up when they have men trying to be friends with boys instead of trying to teach them to be men. We work with a lot of kids that come from single-parent households that don’t have a lot of positive male figures. We have our shortcomings as human beings, but we try to stay in tune with the kids.”
It’s a tough balance to strike, as any parent knows. But Gray says the Uhuru Foundation has worked to find the right staff and mentors for their young people. Just as they want to help at-risk youth stay out of trouble, they find staff members among individuals other organizations might overlook.
“We see value in individuals that come directly from the neighborhoods we are serving,” Gray says. “Other organizations might not be able to take on a risk like that.”
As the Uhuru Foundation grows into Richmond and elsewhere, Rush says it’s critical for the group to duplicate the processes that have been successful in Charlottesville. For example, the foundation is connecting with the Richmond Habitat for Humanity to continue expanding its reentry services.
Volunteers are also critical for growth, as Gray knows well. “The youth we work with can benefit from mentors of all types,” he says. “We are open to everyone, all different walks of life.”
The Murray family was looking to take its already eclectic Panorama Farms in a new direction. Best known for hosting the UVA cross country team and national collegiate running events, the Murrays wanted to turn a large swath of their Earlysville land into a green burial cemetery, where bodies can be laid to rest in a biodegradable covering with minimal markings so their remains return harmlessly to the earth.
In talks with the Green Burial Council, the family came in contact with Stephanie Bonney, a career afterlife specialist with a keen interest in natural burial. They hired Bonney as Panorama Natural Burial’s general manager, and launched the service earlier this year.
Bonney recently sat down with 434 to talk about her passion, and the Murrays’ newest venture.
434: How did you become interested in natural burial?
Stephanie Bonney: I moved here from northern Vermont before Christmas. Up there, I was operating Vermont’s only nonprofit crematorium and a 60-acre traditional cemetery. We would do the occasional green burial, but never by [Green Burial] Council standards. People were starting to ask for it. The reason I was connected with the Murrays is that I had an interest in not only green burial, but also in listening to people about what they were hoping for in planning their own ending.
What do people want for their own ending?
People are realizing they can take charge. Not only is it better for them financially, but it is better for many of them in grieving. When they lose someone, people are looking for something to do. Green burial allows them to be more directly involved in the disposition. In a traditional funeral home setting, they come and pick up the body, prepare it, have a viewing, and the body goes in the ground. In natural burials, some families want to wash the body or even help dig. Many people don’t realize they are able to legally do these things.
What exactly are people allowed to do legally?
When I worked at the crematorium, people might call and say, “my uncle Bob died, and I don’t want to work with a funeral home.” We could help the family do the cremation for less than $500. They would then have to bring the person to us, and legally, they definitely could. But lots of people think it’s illegal; other times, they are uncomfortable with it. Of course, that was cremation, which is not great for the environment.
Which brings you here, with the Murrays.
Yes, that’s how we were connected. The Murrays had done green burials for their parents and one of their brothers. They saw how meaningful the process could be. That is something that meant a lot to me, and in talking to other people in the area and realizing this is a pretty eco-conscious community, I felt like this would be a good fit. They have this incredible 800-plus acre farm, and the idea was to establish yet another business that can help the community and help the farm be sustainable into the future.
How difficult is it to do green burials from a regulatory perspective?
The state of Virginia is pretty empowering. They allow people to handle the whole process. You can keep the body at home, as long as you keep it cool. You can bathe it, dress it, put it in a casket or shroud it, and bring it in. There is no need for a burial transit permit unless you are going out of state. It’s minimal paperwork. The one thing is the death certificate needs to be on file. That is the one hiccup … it can sit there spinning its wheels for seven to 10 days, which makes it difficult to store a body. But it is doable; there are resources available. Something I have discovered is that many funeral homes are receptive to what we are doing, so they can help keep the body cool.
So the process can be somewhat challenging for families.
If you say, “keep me on ice for 10 days,” and your nephew is taking care of you after death, that probably won’t happen. Decide what you are hoping for and the comfort level of whoever is going to handle it. It is still always a good idea to talk to a funeral home. We are not trying to eliminate them. It’s easier to work together.
Do you see green burial growing in the years to come?
Green burial is here to stay for sure, and there are more and more cemeteries popping up around the country. It is a more responsible way to take care of the earth—the planet we live on. Once we get going, we are hoping to start hosting low-key community activities like kite flying days or family picnics. Our goal is to be a place for the living, not just the dead.
John D’earth is joined by accomplished French pianist Damien Groleau and the UVA Jazz Ensemble at the Paramount Theater on Friday. Image courtesy Jackson Smith.
John D’earth knows Charlottesville music. Since settling in town in 1981, he’s come to define the local jazz scene—and beyond—with his considerable crossover into pop genres, and reach as a music teacher.
So when D’earth decides to bring a French jazz pianist stateside for a local residency, culminating with a show alongside himself and the University of Virginia Jazz Ensemble at the Paramount Theater on April 28, the ears of jazz aficionados and casual music fans alike perk up.
The visiting pianist is Damien Groleau. Born in 1983, Groleau won national recognition in France at only 16 years old, and began a stage career that would eventually establish him as a virtuoso in multiple genres. He’s since released six solo albums, picked up the flute along the way, and provided instrumentation on 15 records for other composers. Now well known for his piano and flute playing as well as his compositions, Groleau is primarily influenced by American jazz, but accented by European romantic and Latin music. In addition to his home country, he’s toured Brazil, Tunisia, Singapore, Indonesia, China, and the United States.
“Damien’s piano music for me, it is the legacy of a huge jazz tradition we see expressed in, say, Bill Evans,” D’earth says. “He is just so introspective and cool.”
D’earth himself played his first stage show—“in a tux,” he specifies—when he was 14. He says finding jazz at a young age isn’t out of the ordinary. The music’s free-form, improvisational nature seems to simply glom on to young prodigies’ brains.
Music found its way into Groleau’s life despite it never being around in his household. With no influence from his parents, he somehow began listening to jazz when he was about 11 and bought his first record at 12. “It just started like this,” Groleau says in his shy, calculated English. “I started to play on my own.”
Groleau’s current week-long U.S. residency began when he arrived in Charlottesville on April 20 after a two-day visit to New York City. He disembarked his train, and rehearsed for the first time that night with the UVA Jazz Ensemble, for which D’earth serves as director, meeting the players and running through several songs D’earth had selected. The group sat down together again the next day, Friday, before taking part in a concert at Old Cabell Hall that Sunday.
The first show on Groleau’s schedule, Brother From A Sister City! (Groleau also happens to be from one of Charlottesville’s sister cities, Besançon, France), had him plugging into the UVA Jazz Ensemble’s typical lineup, which already features two piano players. D’earth arranged for the show to include a “big piano trade,” along with instrumentation from the rest of the band, highlighted by fourth-year Michael McNulty on guitar.
Earlier in the week, D’earth, the ensemble, and Groleau began preparations for their second show, the Paramount event, for which all proceeds will go to support the Jefferson Area Board for Aging. Along the way, Groleau took part in other improvisations with D’earth, and presented in front of UVA students in his native French.
The show on Friday, titled Jazz Digs JABA, promises to be “a complete circus,” D’earth says. In addition to D’earth on horns, Groleau on piano and (likely) flute, and the UVA Jazz Ensemble, D’earth has arranged special guest performances by the “three tenors” (no, not those Three Tenors). Local musician and radio host Terri Allard will act as mistress of ceremonies.
So, what will the featured act of Groleau, D’earth, and the ensemble play? The Frenchman learned of the setlist unexpectedly during a Zoom call on March 31. D’earth’s surprise idea: Center the show on a piece he penned, “Ephemera,” based on three poems written by his late brother. The piece, originally composed for jazz artist Veronica Swift, who performed it with the Youth Orchestra of Central Virginia in 2011, deals with “exuberant living, loving, and surviving in a world of inevitable change and loss,” wrote D’earth at the time of “Ephemera”’s debut.
“The poems are basically a celebration of small moments in life that should be able to happen but that perhaps didn’t happen,” the composer says. “It really resonates with the whole concept of living through a whole life, which is what JABA is all about … dealing with the last phase and the last act.”
JABA, in operation since 1975, provides services to older adults, individuals with disabilities, and caregivers in Charlottesville and the surrounding counties. When UVA stepped forward to work with the organization and wanted to put on a show to support JABA, D’earth thought the marriage was perfect. Jazz, after all, is a genre that speaks to listeners of all ages.
“I think everyone can express themself in jazz. We have different cultures, different countries, but there is a common point in jazz,” Groleau says. “Each song has a story for me. I’m trying to speak about something in my life and share joy. You can be young or older—it is the same feeling.”
Vice Mayor of Charlottesville Juandiego Wade. Photo by Melody Robbins.
Does the Tom Tom Founders Festival, now in its 11th year, really need an introduction? The fest’s aged a lifetime in a decade, from its quixotic first years—“like, what even is Tom Tom?”—to its formative middle years, and its wizened old age.
The 2023 version’s vision, “Future Forward,” is appropriately expansive, with ample breadth to explore what founder Paul Beyer calls its three “wings”: 1) The second annual Downtown Mall Block Party; 2) an eclectic community partner program of sports, dance, and tours; and 3) the festival’s central pillar, a three-day conference for discussing big ideas.
The festival’s foundation since its 2012 beginnings, the conference portion will feature more than 100 speakers this year, organized around three themes: health and wellness, technology, and justice. C-VILLE Weekly recently spoke with five featured presenters about the topics they’ll tackle and the role of festivals like Tom Tom in building community.
Dr. Kwasi Adusei
Researcher, Center for Psychedelic Therapy & Research
Conference Section: Conscious City
Kwasi Adusei. Supplied photo.
C-VILLE Weekly: You’re an expert on plant-based medicines. What can people expect from the Conscious City portion of the Tom Tom conference?
Kwasi Adusei: We’ll address consciousness, psychedelics, and community. How does heightened consciousness through psychedelics relate to community and the mainstream? We’ll talk about how psychedelics have affected individual lives, but also our sense of connection to community and nature.
What is your own background in medicinal psychedelics?
I work with psychedelic medicine in a clinical capacity, trying to provide access by working with therapists. We primarily focus on access to ketamine as an alternative to anti-depression drugs. I started as a community organizer, trying to integrate people’s own psychedelic experiences through community service and working toward psychedelic harm reduction. But I also wanted to have a foot in the medicalized sphere and bridge those things together.
When most people hear “plant-based medicine,” they think cannabis. Is that not part of your work?
Right now, I am working primarily with ketamine, but also MDMA and psilocybin. People are mostly using these medicines in the community, outside the medical context. As a provider and being informed around the modalities of access to plant medicine, I see them as a conduit to spiritual growth. Even before psychedelics were medicalized, people were seeing their ability to reduce depression and anxiety. They are medicines that can connect us to others, that can open us to ourselves and to our relationships.
What are the legal and practical hurdles for your work?
Ketamine is a Schedule 3 drug, MDMA is going through phase three clinical trials, and psilocybin will likely follow MDMA at the federal level. At the state level, we’re seeing a lot of decriminalization, the basics being that the cops aren’t coming after you. That opens up places for developing communities. So, if the majority of psychedelic use is already happening at the community level, what we need now is education to reduce the risk of harm and maximize the benefits of these tools. There are hundreds of psychedelic societies—community-driven organizations—popping up all over the world. The question is, how do we integrate all these experiences in a meaningful way?
What do you want folks to take away from Conscious City?
One of the risks we run is that many people may have a psychedelic experience and not get better right away. It is even possible that they will first get worse, because the experience gives them access to the root of their problems. So it is necessary that folks have places where they can progress through the experience. The destination is not psychedelics themselves, but rather the path to community.
Tony Wilkins
Investor and Executive Coach, Standing Oaks Venture Partners
Conference Section: Technology for Good
Tony Wilkins. Supplied photo.
C-VILLE Weekly: You’re a startup investor. What’s the secret to your success?
Tony Wilkins: If anyone says they have a 100 percent batting average in investing, they are either lying or they’ve made one investment. I expect to lose a lot, but I don’t lose the lesson. I focus on why people are doing what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. When you hear about startups, you hear about the companies that went from $1 to $100 million. You don’t hear about the hundreds of thousands of companies that failed. Investing is a long-term activity, and you can get better over many years. Then one day you wake up, and you realize you’re kind of good at it. As an executive coach, I try to shorten the learning curve and help people avoid avoidable mistakes. Like I say on LinkedIn, “I help people make better decisions.”
What’s trending in the world of startup investing?
This is a space that has been unavailable to the masses for a long time. The legal structure was set up to where only wealthy people, by being accredited investors, could invest in companies that want to build the American dream. But Obama’s Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act made it so anyone could invest in startups.
Is there a success story from your past that illustrates your strategy?
The first big success I had in early-stage investing, I met a woman at a conference. In 20 seconds, she told me enough to make me think, “I will invest in your company.” She lived in New York, and I lived in Chicago, but it was a business that just made sense to me. She tried to make it work on her own dime, and it took a long time for us to come to an agreement, but I wound up being the only investor for eight years. We made a lot of mistakes, but we solved a lot of problems, and we found some clients who loved us. It was all about her determination and timing. We went from wondering if we were going to be able to make payroll to having enough money in the bank to change the trajectory of both our lives.
New York and Chicago are big markets. How does your experience relate to a city like Charlottesville?
I know Charlottesville through my work with the CFA Institute, where I’ve been a charter holder for 32 years. The thing that C’ville doesn’t know about itself is that it is the perfect environment for startups. First, success in early stage investing is incredibly dependent on collaboration, people talking to one another and not holding information close to the vest. In places like San Francisco, people keep information to themselves. The second thing is the great big University of Virginia. The most successful startup companies are those anchored by a large university—an environment or spirit where people are curious and innovative and interested in solving problems. And the third thing is capital, which has become more democratized. Let me say it a different way: capital, collaborations, and colleges. Charlottesville has all three.
How can startup investing contribute to better communities?
The important thing in startup collaboration is talking to people that don’t look or sound or hang out with you. If you talk to the same people all the time, your ability to come up with new ideas will be limited. I try to force people to take ideas from folks they wouldn’t normally talk to. That’s why we need to talk about diversity in this space.
Marty Weiner
Founding Engineer, Pinterest, and Former CTO, Reddit
Conference Section: Technology for Good
Marty Weiner. Supplied photo.
C-VILLE Weekly: What’s good in the world of tech these days?
Marty Weiner: You’ve probably seen that artificial intelligence is having a bit of a revolution. But six months ago, most of it wasn’t even there. It is evolving by the second. So, how can we build a better community with AI? There are a million topics we could discuss, but I think what is most interesting to techies and general folks is what’s going on with ChatGPT and stable diffusion.
And what is going on with ChatGPT exactly?
Right now we think of it as being about text, but with stable diffusion, it can do things like take in text and give you an image. What are artists going to do? Another area is radiology. It looks like radiology as a profession might be on the chopping block, because AI is doing it better than humans. There are other models that might be able to detect certain types of cancer years in advance.
Why is this wave of AI so revolutionary?
In the ’60s and ’70s, we first started thinking about AI being a “thing that thinks.” But up until the last six months or so, that was really just sci-fi. For example, when Furbies came out in 1997, people thought the toys were able to learn language. But they weren’t really learning; they were simple computers with simple source code. Still, people perceived these things as being smart. The Pentagon even disallowed Furbies in the building. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is an intelligent thing, a thing that reasons. When you talk about artificial general intelligence, AGI, we move into some interesting areas. We don’t even understand consciousness as a species, and I don’t know what this all means for sure, but AGI offers reasoning and awareness and maybe even needs and wants.
What does this all mean for our communities?
I am fascinated with equity in AI. I come from Reddit, so I’m always thinking about how you build giant communities at scale. How do you allow them to grow while stopping abuse? AI can help people identify at massive scale how to build the community they want. AI data is also a fascinating area. With data, you can do some great things, but you can also do some awful things.
Should people be concerned that AI is going to take their job?
A wild difference between this and, say, the industrial revolution, is that areas like coding are more at risk than craftsmen like plumbers. I’m a coder, and while I don’t see my job going away just yet, AI is making us more efficient, and now maybe you don’t need six engineers, you need five.
You’re new to Charlottesville. What are your thoughts on the local tech community?
I’m an engineer, and my wife is an engineer. We wanted to move away from the Bay Area, and we put all the features of various cities in a spreadsheet. It landed us between Connecticut and Virginia, and Charlottesville seemed like such a nice place. I actually didn’t investigate the tech community before we came. But I started meeting all the tech folks in the area—that’s how I got involved in Tom Tom—and there are some cool startups. I think there are a couple challenges for the local startup community, like a lack of venture capital at certain sizes, but I’d like to help work on them.
Martize Tolbert
Director of Client and Community Engagement, The Fountain Fund
Conference Section: Society & Justice
Martize Tolbert. Supplied photo.
C-VILLE Weekly: What’s the key to a more just society?
Martize Tolbert: Oh wow. Well, I focus on financial access, financial empowerment, credit building, and coaching, specifically for formerly incarcerated individuals. I want to let stakeholders and community partners know what’s out there. I want people to partner with each other and advocate for each other. In this Tom Tom forum, basically we’re just getting the word out, letting people understand that we all face challenges and struggles, and we can come together and partner because of it.
How did you get involved with The Fountain Fund?
I was formerly incarcerated myself. I was born and raised in Detroit and destined to the struggle. I thought that was the everyday lifestyle. It wasn’t until I got to Virginia, got in trouble, did six years—and a couple more stints after that—that I realized I needed to make things I wanted to happen happen. I had to ask for help, because it was bigger than just me. There weren’t many resources available at that time. That’s when The Fountain Fund came along. I was the first loan recipient; now I’m the national director.
What are some of the barriers formerly incarcerated individuals face in accessing loans?
A theme for me and my loan officers is GSD. We get shit done. Not only with our client partners with lending, but also with hope and opportunity. It is more than just money. People also need access to childcare and employment. If they don’t have these things, they can’t come back and be a part of our community. That’s why I signed on as a Tom Tom board member. I always thought it was more about bringing outside people to Charlottesville, but I talked to Paul [Beyer], and we’re trying to change that.
What’s the local environment for the formerly incarcerated?
If you look at Charlottesville now and 20 years ago, it is completely different. We still have a long way to go, but I was here, so I know how hard it was. There are better chances to get home and get on your feet than when I got out of prison. What’s important is that we help the formerly incarcerated get the tools they need, give them hope and opportunity, and empower people. We want folks to come home and stay home and build their community.
Juandiego Wade
Vice Mayor, Charlottesville
Conference Section: Society & Justice
Juandiego Wade. Supplied photo.
C-VILLE Weekly: What’s your vision for Tom Tom’s Society & Justice section?
Juandiego Wade: We really think it is going to be special, because the topic is pressing and pertinent for what’s going on in Charlottesville and around the country—do you feel comfortable and included in your community? … Fifteen to 20 years ago, “inclusive culture” wasn’t something people talked about.
How do we become a more inclusive culture?
Some of the things I can do now with my hat on as a city councilor is help make decisions on our public spaces. We need to make sure those spaces are as inclusive and open as possible. Community events have to be inclusive and be held at times when people can attend them. For the council, we are here for our 50,000 residents. We are here to serve everyone, not just those selected, those privileged. There are still some folks who resist inclusivity because “we never used to do it that way.” But if you want to be successful, you have to have input from different voices. We have changed. The nation has changed, and we are a diverse community.
How will your panel address inclusivity?
The title of this year’s festival is Future Forward, and the way I see that is taking ideas that we are going to be talking about in the years to come straight into action; and, getting more people involved. Future Forward is about the future of not only our community, but also our nation.
How do you answer critics who say Charlottesville is not inclusive?
I definitely can see where many might have that perception, particularly after what we’ve been through. But inclusiveness is what this community is all about. I am not originally from Charlottesville. I came here for grad school, and I just couldn’t leave. I loved it and decided to raise my family here. I know that a few instances do not define this community. I know the good it has in it.
Who should attend the Society & Justice Tom Tom sessions?
I would like to see two groups there. One is people similar to me and my level of involvement, where they can talk about what they’ve done and seen in terms of making community connections. Then I want to see those in the community that say, “I am personally or involved in a group that needs to be more inclusive.”
What does a festival like Tom Tom mean for a city like Charlottesville?
Last year at about this time, I was still in the glow of being on the council, and there was a lot on our plate. But I went to the Tom Tom event on Friday night … I thought, this is what Charlottesville is about. It was diverse: young people, old people, visitors, people in for weddings the next day, people of color, different races. The entire community was out there, just enjoying themselves.
Jordan Heres has visited more than 50 countries, many in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. There, he learned to love rugs.
While offering humanitarian aid and disaster relief around the world, Heres gained perspective on floor covering artisanship and quality. He decided to share his rug love by starting Weft & Wool, an online brokerage he runs with help from his wife, Ingrid, out of his Charlottesville home.
Heres recently talked to Abode about floorborne art.
Abode: Was there a specific place that made you love rugs?
Jordan Heres: Living in Croatia, we would travel to Bosnia, and they have a rich weaving tradition. I fell in love with this artform. I grew up in Hawaii and had an appreciation for Hawaiian art, but I think because of the education system, I didn’t think of myself as an artist or understand how to connect with art.
What changed that?
There’s something about rugs. They are accessible and tactile, and you can literally use them. Something about that connected with me. Every rug is a grid—they have this mathematical nature—but they are also imperfect. It’s a good comparative for life. I fell in love with the artform eight or nine years ago and have since become obsessed with the variety of techniques you find in every world region. Every weaver has their own signature.
What about the history of rugs interests you?
Textiles are as old as humanity, and the specific art of hand-knotted rug-making grew out of a hub in Turkey and Greece. The region grew a deep tradition and wealth of knowledge, and widespread production moved to Iran [née Persia] and into India for a bit—although that died out—to the Kurdish people in the Caucasus, into Azerbaijan, and beyond. Most of the rugs I collect originate from Persia or Turkey.
What’s the Weft & Wool business model?
All of my rugs are in stock. I’m an art dealer in a way, an antiques collector and dealer. It’s about identifying great rugs—those diamonds in the rough—and having the knowledge to know what makes them special. I occasionally work with interior designers to find specific rugs for clients’ spaces, but I have more than 200 rugs in stock.
Dealing only in handmade rugs, Jordan Heres of Weft & Wool says the pieces are basically art. Photo: Anna Kariel
What makes a rug special?
The value of every rug, not just monetary but artistic value, is a function of a few different things. I deal only in handmade rugs, but the technique used to weave the rug, whether it has a cotton or wool foundation, the pile—which is usually wool but sometimes silk—what dyes are used. I try to source natural dye, so that’s typically rugs made in the 1930s and before. Then, what sort of appeal does the rug have in its design? How much artistic expression is there, and how unique is it? Finally, condition. I try to offer a range of conditions, some wear makes them a bit more affordable. I want rugs to be accessible to everyone.
Do rugs hold their value like art?
They do. I would say the caveat is that in the 1970s, there was a real heyday and valuations went way up. They’ve come down a bit from their peak. But as industrialization has spread, there’s been a gap in generational knowledge and less skilled artisanship, so there’s a limited supply of handmade rugs. If you take care of your rug and know what it’s worth, it can be a good investment. At the same time, you’re gaining from the investment because rugs are useful.
Why do so many antique rugs look similar?
The main distinction is geometric versus curvilinear design. Curvilinear rugs often feature medallion or floral patterns. They are often city-woven. Nomadic weavers were limited in their loom size and time. They wove with a lower knot count, which limited their capacity to create curved lines.
Any tips for folks looking to take better care of their rugs?
I do quite a bit of rug-washing, and you wouldn’t believe what I’ve washed out of rugs. The most effective thing you can do is act quickly. If a dog pees on a rug, immediately take the rug outside or run water through it. A rug pad is the second most important thing. Thirdly, flip the rug over and vacuum the back. You want to release the grit that falls between the rug knots. Ingrid and I have a dog, a cat, and kids all around, and we have no issues.
Joanne McNergney’s garage wasn’t doing her much good. It was built decades ago and too small for her car. She had turned it into a storage unit, parking her car in an adjacent carport, but as a shed, the space was neither functional nor fashionable.
An avid gardener, McNergney wanted a well-organized, properly situated place to store her tools and supplies. Two Street Design, an architecture firm where McNergney’s son is a partner, had the answer: Turn the existing garage and carport into a Japanese shoji-style shed that could double as a greenhouse, work aesthetically with the traditional colonial style of the McNergney home, and be beautiful on its own terms.
“It wasn’t so much a stylistic choice but tectonic,” says Andrew Herbert, architect and Two Street co-owner. “Based on the project budget, we knew we were going to be using wood framing. We wanted to create a playful foil to the heavier, traditional masonry house in front. Translucent polycarbonate siding creates a quiet, naturally lit space for gardening during the day. At night, the volume transforms into a glowing light box that provides a glimpse of the underlying structure.”
The full project was initiated in the McNergney’s primary residence, Herbert says. The client wanted improved accessibility throughout the home. Herbert and his business partner, Forrest Frazier, worked with the McNergneys to redesign their bathroom around a zero entry shower, and install an elevator between the first and second floor.
The rustic colonial thus updated, McNergney turned to the outdoors. She maintains a vegetable garden in her front yard and wanted to access it easily from her storage unit. A new segmented garden in the backyard, designed by Kennon Williams Landscape Studio, would allow McNergney to practice her hobby there, as well.
For the shed, Two Street’s vision would eventually emulate Japanese shoji, typically used for interior doors, where a translucent material fits between wooden framing to seal off spaces while hinting at what’s behind.
The translucent material used on the McNergney shed was a polycarbonate commonly used for greenhouses. McNergney didn’t want to use the shed for a greenhouse per se, but in addition to housing her many gardening implements, she wanted to winter certain plants in the structure.
“It’s slab on grade, so there’s a thermal mass to regulate the temperature,” Herbert says. “It is super simple construction.” Herbert and his team kept two of the garage’s walls and masonry structure, framed two new walls, and clad the exterior in 5mm Solexx Greenhouse Siding. The cost-effective and durable material, often used for commercial-scale barrel-shaped greenhouses, lets light in and out. Herbert and his team selected a flat roof for the structure, which has proven to require minimal maintenance.
“They gave us carte blanche,” Herbert says. “We don’t really do traditional architecture—and of course there are times when that’s appropriate—but there was nothing historic or unique about the garage, so making something that was a little bit more attractive and creative was the main goal.”
Two Street contracted with Abrahamse & Company Builders for construction, in addition to Kennon Williams for landscaping. The backyard garden design snakes from the modern shoji-shed to the traditional colonial home. Williams selected arborvitae and framed the yard while also blocking the view of the neighbors without using fencing. The landscape architect’s crew also replaced a small, relatively uneven patio McNergney had installed herself.
Over the past several months, McNergney moved a citrus plant into her new shed, where it could winter while still blooming. She said the plant “loved it in there.” She feels the same way.
“It’s just a pleasant environment where I can go and do my potting, even in the dead of winter,” she says. “My backyard itself is more usable. We back up to […] other properties, and Kennon had ideas for plantings that would help break the line of vision. I had no idea it would make such a difference.”
Orhun Dikmen moved to Charlottesville to work in the kind of restaurant most people think of when they think Turkish food. But after six years with his brother at Sultan Kebab, he teamed up with chef Tarik Sengul to take his home country’s cooking to another level at Smyrna.
With its blend of Turkish and Aegean cuisine, Smyrna has attracted tons of attention since opening on West Main last summer. How? “It’s all about technique,” Sengul says. “I take the techniques I learned from working in New York and the spices and memories from Turkey. It is the combination of those that makes our food what it is.”
With Smyrna, Orhun Dikmen and Tarik Sengul aim to blend techniques and flavors from across the globe. “It is the combina- tion that makes our food what it is,” says Sengul. Photo: Anna Kariel
Sengul’s technique is hard won. He’s worked under some of the best chefs in the country, including Tom Colicchio and Joël Robuchon (before his death in 2018). Roasting, braising, grilling—Sengul learned it all in the French and new American traditions while working on hot and cold lines over several years.
But technique for Sengul also means the way he’s been taught to care for food from the moment it comes into his restaurant. For vegetables, it might simply be proper cleaning and storing. For protein, it might mean sourcing a full side of beef, breaking it down, and using every piece of the animal to its full potential. “Most restaurants get specific cuts,” Sengul says. “When you do the butchering in-house, you have the chance to have the bones and you can make the stock and the jus.”
Sengul’s cooking also features Japanese and other Asian influences. He describes a sort of east-meets-west distinction between the unique Aegean style and typical Mediterranean food.
Take Smyrna’s octopus dish. The charred protein is accompanied by bok choy and potato, but what elevates it is a sauce known as salgam. With a base of fermented purple carrot, the distinctly Aegean sauce takes the well-known Mediterranean staple in a new direction. “There are certain things we have to keep on the menu to call it Aegean food, like the octopus and the calamari,” Sengul says.
The restaurant’s charred octopus is accompanied by bok choy and potato, then drizzled with an Aegean sauce known as salgam. Photo: Anna Kariel
Ingredients are also critical for Sengul and Smyrna. Virginia offers plentiful farms with fresh produce and beef, which have given rise to Smyrna’s nontraditional burger and rib-eye preparations, but Mediterranean seafood is trickier. In the raki-balik, a fish crudo with fennel-infused compressed melon and a Meyer lemon vinaigrette, Sengul conceived the dish around fluke. But because the fish is difficult to obtain at sushi-grade, he’s transitioned to hamachi, commonly known as yellow tail in the States.
Other Smyrna menu items have a surprisingly familiar feel. Sourdough bread, for example, is extremely common all over Turkey, Sengul says, but “maybe they advertise it better in France and Italy.” The burger, ground in-house, and rib-eye steak preparations both get Sengul’s careful attention to technical detail—the latter garnished with delicate gem lettuce and crispy pommes dauphine and finished with that homemade jus—despite not being Aegean dishes per se.
“Beef is not common in Turkey, but I live in Virginia,” Sengul says.
The raki-balik combines a yellowtail crudo with fennel-in- fused compressed melon and a Meyer lemon vinaigrette. Photo: Anna Kariel
According to the classically trained chef, the two beef dishes are probably the trickiest Smyrna serves. They’re simple constructions, so they both come down to executing the techniques Sengul learned in Colicchio and Robuchon’s restaurants.
After about eight months of service, Sengul says Smyrna is only just finding its groove. It’s been tough to retain service industry staff post-COVID, and he’s still working to train everyone to his standards and have them working from the same culinary philosophy.
“This will evolve—with seasonality, but it also depends on the team,” Sengul says. “As our cooks get more comfortable, we may have some more experimental dishes … more playful and fun dishes. We are conservative at the moment.”
Public Fish & Oyster owner Daniel Kaufman said he’d never open another restaurant unless it was with chef Gregg Dionne. Enter Black Cow Chophouse. Photo: Eze Amos
On the seminal hip-hop album Enter the Wu-Tang, an interviewer asks the renowned rappers about their ultimate goal. Before Raekwon offers a dubious, circuitous response, Method Man sums it up: “Domination, baby.”
Presumably that’s also the endgame for Daniel Kaufman, the Public Fish & Oyster proprietor who’s moving his empire from sea to land with a new eatery, Black Cow Chophouse. The traditional steakhouse opened on Main Street in the old Zinc/Threepenny/Little Star location on February 15. A week before opening, Kaufman spoke to Knife & Fork about where Black Cow fits in his own ultimate goal.
Knife & Fork: Why a steakhouse, why now?
Daniel Kaufman: I said many times that after COVID I was never opening another restaurant. The only person I would have opened a restaurant with was my former chef, Gregg Dionne. He was the longest-serving chef at Public. So, I said, if Gregg wants to do something, I’ll do it. He said he had an idea, and Black Cow was born.
How closely related to Public is this concept?
We considered putting something in the name like, by “Public Fish & Oyster”—I think we’ve developed a pretty good reputation there. I think people like us, and we do things the right way. But each restaurant operates completely independently. There are some dishes that read the same on both menus—when things are tried and trusted, it makes sense to keep doing them.
What’s on the menu at Black Cow?
Product is at the center of what we do. We are not associating with a specific farm or doing all dry-aged or all local. We don’t want to put ourselves in a box. If we find some good wagyu from Australia, we’ll make it available. We want to offer delicious and good value food, regardless of how long it has been aged. We’ll do some game, pork, and lamb, but beef is very much the heart of what we are doing.
That approach actually sounds similar to what you do at Public.
That’s a good way to look at it. If I see good oysters available, I will buy them and make them available. I certainly buy from a handful of Virginia producers every single week, but we also do oysters from the Northeast, the Northwest, and even New Zealand and Mexico.
Can we assume the sides and other dishes will be seasonal?
Absolutely. We have a “little salad” we are going to include with every steak. Whenever you used to go to a restaurant, you got a salad; we’re throwing it back to those days. I was talking to Chef about what the salad would look like and he said, “Why the hell would I sell a salad with tomato, when you can only get a good tomato three months of the year?” Seasonality is very much the thing. If it’s not good, we don’t want to sell it.
What kind of bar program are you planning?
Our bar manager is Scott Coales, who has a lot of experience running beverage programs. He has put together an awesome craft cocktail list, and I’m working on the wine. We’ll have eight carefully selected draft taps. One thing that has been very successful at Public, and we would like to replicate at Black Cow, is the happy hour. At Public, we do dollar off raw oysters from 4 to 6pm. Here, while for the most part we don’t do composed dishes, the one exception is that from 4:30 to 6pm for happy hour, we’ll have a chef’s choice steak frites for 16 bucks.
What’s unique about Black Cow compared to other traditional steakhouses?
Little Star was a great restaurant. They were succeeding. They just didn’t want to do it anymore. And one thing that they had that we might not have otherwise done on our own, is this grill—the most magnificent grill. Every piece of meat is going to be done over oak wood smoke on that grill. The flavor is absolutely unbelievable.
There’s been some change on West Main Street lately. What’s your take?
I’ve been hearing for nine years about how things are changing. But Oakhart and Maya and Orzo, those guys are all killing it. I wouldn’t want to be in any other neighborhood in Charlottesville. It’s a beautiful street and at the center of everything. I have been very lucky and privileged to be supported by this community for nine years now, and I really hope they welcome this as a new addition to West Main.
moe. brings new tunes and a familiar lineup to the Jefferson on March 22. Photo by Jay Blakesberg.
Rob Derhak thinks of Charlottesville fondly. The bassist, vocalist, and founding member of the band moe. recalls playing here “back in the old days,” when there was “that old bar behind the railroad tracks.”
Trax? “Yeah, I think that was it,” he says, but it’s like he still doesn’t quite believe it all happened.
Derhak’s band, with its funkily punctuated name, has been anchoring the jam rock scene for more than 30 years. And while a lot has changed since Derhak and moe. played Trax around the same time as DMB, Phish, Widespread Panic, Taj Mahal, and various Grateful Dead members, some things have remained remarkably consistent.
Yes, Trax is long gone, and moe. will play at the Jefferson Theater when the six-piece returns to Charlottesville on March 22. But the jam rockers will roll into town with a lineup that’s seen only one change since 1999: Al Schnier on guitar and vocals, Chuck Garvey on the same, Vinnie Amico on drums, Jim Loughlin providing percussion, and Derhak slapping the bass. The lone addition is Nate Wilson on keyboards.
Consistency has been key for moe., but the band has not been without its troubles. Derhak battled cancer in 2017, and took six months off due to the illness, putting moe. on hiatus in summer 2017. Derhak willed himself back on the road in early 2018.
COVID-19 capsized the band’s 30th-anniversary run in 2020, and in 2021, Garvey suffered a stroke. “2020 sucked—it sucked for everyone—but we tried to do everything we could,” Derhak says.
Schnier, Garvey, and Derhak formed moe. in 1990 while attending the University of Buffalo. Loughlin joined soon after. Amico came along in 1996. The experimental rockers’ breakout album came in 1998, with Tin Cans & Car Tires, headed up by the whimsical hit “Nebraska.” In 2007, moe.’s eighth album, The Conch, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.
moe.’s 2020 full length, This is Not, We Are, includes eight new songs, one (the Garvey-written “Undertone”) making its first appearance anywhere, along with older road-worn tracks like Derhak’s “Skitchin’ Buffalo” and Schnier’s “Crushing.”
The album epitomizes moe.’s one-of-a-kind songwriting style, honed over the decades, which draws on each band member, but somehow finds a way to land on something cohesive, something distinctively moe.
“It’s funny that it sounds that way, because it always feels like it is coming from all over the place,” Derhak says. “As a songwriter, I sit down and just start with the barest bones … and we’ve done it with each other for so long that we show up, keep an open mind, and give it that thing—I don’t know if it’s homogeneous—but it’s our sound.”
If every jam band has its own angle, Derhak figures he and his bandmates’ standout quality has always been their punk attitude, a finger in the face of all the improv troupes that take themselves too seriously.
But punk is a balance, Derhak admits. moe. also takes its music and songwriting, not to mention touring and playing live shows, quite seriously.
“The best part of playing every night and every gig that we do: Whenever we get into the improv sections and we start jamming, we are creating something new,” Derhak says. “For me, it is always about creating.”
On December 31 of last year, moe. evolved into its latest iteration. The band is known for its New Year’s concert runs, and when a recovering Garvey emerged at the Fillmore Philadelphia on NYE for “Meat,” it was the first time fans had seen him in 13 months.
Derhak says Garvey is not at 100 percent just yet. His speech is limited, and moe. won’t be performing songs where he provides lead vocals anytime soon. But Garvey’s voice box on “Nebraska” and reinvigorated guitar playing during the New Year’s Eve 2022 performance set the stage for what’s to come.
“The feeling right now is, ‘let’s keep rolling ’cause this is great,’” Derhak says. “The first time Chuck came out on stage on NYE, the first song he played, I started crying. I just didn’t know he would be as good as he was. It was like, ‘Okay, he can play again,’ and then something hit him and he tore into his guitar.”
At this point in their careers, Derhak and the rest of moe. are among the jam rock scene’s old guard. And Derhak says they relish the role. And they also appreciate the younger bands coming up and keeping the scene alive among the next generation.
“The one thing I can tell you is that the hardcore moe.rons, the ones that have been down since day one, they come to the shows and meet up with their friends, and it is all a family,” Derhak says. “They have found family in this group, and it all revolves around the show and the music. I still see the connection.”
