Author: spencer-lathrop

One night last year, I was standing backstage at The Gravity Lounge listening to Paul Curreri (www.paulcurreri.com) and Devon Sproule (www.devonsproule.com) together on stage. At the end of one of Devon’s songs, the two mingled their guitar sounds so closely and so sweetly that I am sure some modest audience members must have covered their eyes. Curreri and Sproule, who have very distinct sounds seperately, will once again mingle guitars for their annual Valentine’s Day show Wednesday night, and it shouldn’t be missed.

Paul Curreri calls his heartthrob, Devon Sproule, "the prettiest girl in the world." Hear some pretty music at their Valentine’s Day show Wednesday night.

The two do not share a stage that often, and only put on a whole performance together once a year. Besides being great musicians and songwriters, Curreri says, “There’s a great love and respect.  We’re very proud of one another, and proud of our public connection to one another.  That said, we’re both fairly intense while working, so wine is extraordinarily important to keep the nerves in order. In general, though, I think Devon is the prettiest girl in the world.”

Everyone who comes out gets to see a great live show, and will walk home with a custom made CD of music that Curreri and Sproule record every year.

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The musical dynamic between partners can be Steve and Eydie, but it can also be Sonny and Cher. I asked several couples in town who manage to collaborate musically: Would you say that your musical relationship is more like Johnny Cash and June Carter, solid and supportive, John Doe and Exene, tumultuous, or Jack and Meg White, let’s keep that personal thing under wraps? 

Jan Smith (www.jansmith.com): “My musical relationship with Jeff (Vogelgesang) most closely resembles Johnny Cash and June Carter. We support each other and learn from each other, and I think we’re fans of each other’s work. We’ve been playing together for more than seven years (and incidentally just celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary by going to the Grand Ole Opry at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium). Like June, Jeff is a positive force. His style as a songwriter, singer and instrumentalist and his knowledge of classic country and bluegrass has indelibly affected the way I write, sing harmonies, play guitar and select songs. I can no longer refer to “my” music. It’s our music. Of course, because we both care so much about the music we make and have strong and sometimes differing opinions, practice sessions can get a bit, oh, high-spirited.” Smith and Vogelgesang will be at The Mark Addy Inn in Nellysford on Valentine’s Day evening.

Madeline and Humberto Sales of Beleza Brasil "feel pretty lucky that we are a couple and make music together."

Chris Ruotolo (with Lance Brenner in The Naked Puritans (www.thenakedpuritans.com) and Thrum): “Definitely ‘solid and supportive’. Music is what brought us together—we met when I auditioned for The Naked Puritans—so it’s at the very core of our relationship. But I don’t know about the Johnny and June comparison. How about Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon? It’s cool the way they keep Sonic Youth moving forward, while giving each other space for creative projects on the side.  Or maybe Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley from Yo La Tengo. I have a deep admiration for rock ‘n’ roll couples who keep it together for the long haul. They are good role models!” Thrum’s new CD should be finished by the end of the month.

Madeline and Humberto Sales of Beleza Brasil (www.belezabrasil.com): “I guess we’d be more like Johnny Cash and June Carter. We feel pretty lucky that we are a couple and make music together. It has taken us places that we can enjoy together and no one is left home alone on a Friday or Saturday night! As both of us love to travel, we’ve made it a goal to allow Beleza Brasil to get us to some of those destinations. Our next show in Charlottesville is at The X Lounge on February 17th (at 7pm). That is the beginning of Carnival in Brazil, so we’re going to do a cool show in commemoration with Darrell Muller on bass and Robert Jospé on drums.”

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Across the tracks at Gravity Lounge the same evening, local duo Scuffletown (www.scuffletown.net) will release their third CD, Another Sundown, a disc inspired by the music of Gordon Lightfoot. 

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Hey, nice portrait of self-destructive valentines Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen on the wooden fence on Avon Street in Belmont. In painting that portrait, you just did more creatively than Sid and Nancy ever did.

In 1957, UVA engineering student Rowland Johnson spent part of his honeymoon delivering, in a rented truck and with the help of his groomsmen, a four-ton World War II Navy surplus radio transmitter from Washington D.C. to Charlottesville. That sort of dedication is exactly what has sustained volunteer radio at WTJU (www.wtju.radio.virginia.edu) for the last 50 years.

Two years earlier, educational fraternity Kappa Delta Pi had donated $450 to the department of speech and drama for the sake of a station. That dream became a reality when the transmitter was hoisted on top of Cabell Hall and WTJU joined 58 other educational stations nationwide below 92 on the FM dial. The station initially broadcast at 10 watts, reaching about 100 listeners, one as far away as Crozet. 

Spin zone: WTJU General Manager Chuck Taylor poses in front of just a few of the artifacts that attest to the station’s long history.

WTJU declared its independence from the speech department several years later and began receiving funding as a student group. In 1959, the first of many 24-hour fundraising marathons aired, an idea that has helped the station maintain its musical and spiritual independence through the years. Although jazz programming was added in the early 1960s, approximately 85 percent of music played on WTJU was classical into the late ‘60s. In 1969, there was conflict between station traditionalists and new DJs to introduce rock music. Of course, rock ‘n’ roll won out. In the early ‘70s, the station not only went stereo, but also adopted the 24/7 format that we enjoy today.

Talk about the station today, and many people remember the glorious cacaphony of the late-night shows, DJs fielding 4am requests from the A School. Or how Plan 9 had to stock up on blank cassette tapes whenever the marathon shows rolled around. Or the jazz concert series that brought the likes of Sun Ra to town.

Today, WTJU seems like a beautiful tropical island in the North Sea of corporate radio. Because it was unencumbered by commercialism and playlists, it always seems to have inspired a sort of fanatical loyalty. DJs have always been volunteer, and many of the rock jocks started in the 2am to 6am slot. From time to time, it has been suggested that all DJs should be UVA students, but such a rule would rob us of such treasured hosts as Professor Bebop, Gary Funston, Dominic and Robin Tomlin, DJs who care about music and are allowed to dig as deeply as possible into the musical possibilities. Happy Birthday, WTJU—50 years and counting.

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The distribution of music has always been closely aligned with radio. In the 1940s, music was distributed on 78 rpm’s, and the lion’s share went to juke boxes around the country. In 1948 the 33 1/3  was invented and RCA and Columbia records began releasing classical and jazz music on 12” LPs in the early ‘50s. Around the same time, the 7” 45rpm, the iconic symbol of rock ‘n’ roll, began to find its niche in the music marketplace. For 15 years, pop music was driven by the success of the hit single. But in the mid-’60s, LPs took on more importance, driven by bands like The Beatles and FM radio. Full length LPs began to be viewed as an art form, and track sequencing, concept albums and rock operas were born. The LP format lasted 30-plus years, and sales grew steadily into the CD era. But in the last 10 years, and especially with digital downloads, singles, which had been in the throes of a decline, have regained their importance.

In the midst of all the changes in the marketplace, albums are being awarded their credibility again, at least on stage. Our own Ezra Hamilton and his band have performed Innervisions and What’s Goin’ On live. Lou Reed recently performed his dark masterpiece, Berlin, in concert in Brooklyn. And maybe you heard on NPR that a group in Nashville, The Long Players, have started a Music City event bringing classic albums to club stages. Performing such greats as Sergeant Pepper and Let It Bleed, they have even had the great luxury of having original session players Al Kooper and Charlie McCoy on their rendering of Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline.

Richmond’s Susan Greenbaum (www.susangreenbaum.com), Harvard grad and corporate climber turned songwriter, will perform one of the best selling LPs of all time, Carole King’s Tapestry, at The Gravity Lounge on Friday, February 9. This will also be a celebration of C.K.’s birthday. (She turns 65 on February 9.)

Lots of great out-of-town bands will stop in town in the next couple weeks, with Yo La Tengo (www.yolatengo.com) and Jonathan Richman at Starr Hill, as well as SH presenting Jeff Tweedy (www.wilcoworld.net)  at The Paramount Theater.

MV and EE can sound like the Flaming Lips or the Velvet Underground or just their own bad-ass selves.

With the bigger names sucking up the press ink, you might miss out on some of the more interesting shows. On Sunday, February 4, MV and EE with the Bummer Road (www.myspace.comm/veebummerroad), who get lumped into the freak-folk crowd, will play at Dust. Their CD Green Blues is out on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label, and features J. Mascis among other guests. At times the band sounds like The Flaming Lips or The Velvet Underground, and other times they wallow happily in their own noise. It should be very interesting to hear how the band re-creates their sound live.

Across town the same night, The Satellite Ballroom presents an intriguing show. Vashti Bunyan was discovered by the Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham and was in tight with the late 1960’s English folk scene.  She released a lone Joe Boyd-produced LP in 1970, Just Another Diamond Day, featuring members of The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention. Rather than promote the record, Vashti left to live with the ISB in Scotland, and then on to Ireland and anonymity. Thirty-five years later, she found out that she still had an avid group of fans, including Devendra Banhart, who were influenced by that one LP. Diamond Day has been re-released, and her second album, Lookaftering, has been compared to Nick Drake and features Banhart and Joanna Newsom. Big ups to The Satellite’s Danny Shea, who continues to dig deep to bring the most interesting acts to town.

And if you like bad-ass horns in the Tower of Power style, get your tickets now for the Johnny Sketch (www.johnnysketch.com), the late show at Gravity on February 9. According to their press release, the band, which hails from New Orleans, were on tour in Colorado and wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. They could not get home so they continued touring. Judging from their CD, they did not have to. The six piece band plays original rock and funk tunes, but it is the horn section, tenor, baritone and trumpet, that is honking (read: big compliment). “What you’d get if Phish had been born at Tipitina’s and studied under George Clinton and Frank Zappa late every night on the levee,” says David Fricke of Rolling Stone.
   
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Back in Charlottesville, local rock bands are banking on The Outback Lodge filling the void left by Tokyo Rose’s basement. Terry Martin and crew at the Outback have put in a new corner stage downstairs and will follow up with a new PA. The place has a nice rock club vibe and Martin has a lot of plans to keep the space full of live music. Besides The Dawning’s regular goth and industrial shows on Saturday nights, he sees the spot as an opportunity to host a lot more punk rock and metal shows. Some bands, like Bella Morte and This Means You, are too big for the downstairs space, but up and comers now have a great space to build an audience.

Martin is also strongly considering a regular matinee slot, Saturday evenings from 6-9 pm, for teen and high school bands. Like The Dawning, the matinee shows will always be for all ages. Any high school band interested in playing a great local club should contact Martin at the Outback.

The other Outback event that is exploring the possibility of change in the future is the regular Sunday night salsa party. The dance event, which has been packing them in for five-plus years, may soon offer up an international dance night, with different styles like reggaeton and African music.
   
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Although punk is not the usual offering at Fellini’s #9, you can catch a very good band, The Screaming Infidels, one Wednesday night a month there.
   
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New local CDs released recently include The Graboids’ (www.myspace.com/graboids) Infinite Delay. The band, made up of brothers Matthew and Stuart Watson, has released a disc of often sublime ambient sounds mixed with more rocked up noisescapes.

Folk music’s buried treasure, Vashti Bunyan, dusts off the cobwebs and comes to Charlottesville to play songs from two records released more than 35 years apart.

And online, Jay Pun and Morwenna Lasko have some new and reworked tunes ready for download on their myspace page, www.myspace.com/morwennajay.

Yo La Tengo (www.yolatengo.com) has been through town a number of times now since the late 1980s, and for one member, James McNew, the upcoming Charlottesville gig is a sort of homecoming. Did The University bring him here, I asked? “Oh God, no!” He moved here with his folks in 1978 and lived on the same block as longtime UVA men’s basketball coach Terry Holland. “After alienating everybody that I could in high school, including myself,” he says, McNew tried college elsewhere in Virginia. “I left triumphantly and came back home defeated.”

Musicians and fans here know that the Corner parking lot is the job that fostered numerous interesting alt-rock music careers, in addition to that of Yo La Tengo’s James McNew, middle. Other parking lot alums: Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus and Happy Flowers’ John Beers, John Lindaman and Matt Datesman.

Through local pop icon Maynard Sipe, McNew got a job at the Corner parking lot. Musicians and fans in town are aware that the parking lot is the job that fostered numerous interesting alt-rock music careers. Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus, Happy Flowers’ John Beers, John Lindaman and Matt Datesman, and many others all put in shifts there. Members of Red Wizard and several other bands staff the booth to this day. McNew says, “It was the best non-rock band job that I ever had. I got to listen to records all day, and I started a fanzine [And Suddenly] while I was there. It started as a pretentious, literary thing, and then I got more into music. John Beers was there, and I was a fan of The Landlords and The Happy Flowers, so I was star struck. I know that Thomas Jefferson is great, but Maynard Sipe is Charlottesville for me.”

“The parking lot was where I first realized that maybe the whole world is not crazy. I am not sure that people realize the deep philosophical nature of the job.”

McNew says that big influences on him musically and otherwise were fanzines Forced Exposure and Conflict, the latter being published by Gerard Cosloy, one of the original founders of Matador Records, Yo La Tengo’s label.

McNew went to a lot of shows during that period in town, Yo La Tengo included. He made friends with the Boston band Christmas, who drove a long way to open for Robyn Hitchcock at Trax. Hitchcock cancelled, but McNew stayed in touch with Christmas and began sending them tapes of music he had been making. He started visiting and writing music with them, and then in 1989, he moved to Las Vegas as a member of the band. The band “endured one Vegas summer” and then moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where McNew lived before moving to Brooklyn.

McNew says that Christmas and Yo La Tengo had always hung out together, and that he was a big fan of YLT’s music. “Yo La Tengo were about to do a tour, and they weren’t sure who the bassist was going to be. We were at dinner and I had a mouthful of food and I semi-seriously suggested that I take the job. The tour was spring 1991 and I had the greatest time. And then that summer, we did a European tour with Eleventh Dream Day, and my mind was blown.” Over the next 15 years, McNew has recorded and played with one of the most important indie rock bands ever.

So do Charlottesville shows seem like coming home? “It is a very odd experience. It makes me think a lot. Many of the things that I associated with Charlottesville, including people, are gone now. Brooklyn seems like my hometown.” But the Corner parking lot still resonates with McNew. “We played Trax in 1997, with David Kilgour of the New Zealand band The Clean. I had listened to The Clean so many times in the booth at the parking lot. And here I was 10 years later, touring with him, and now people were coming out to hear the music.”

Bands do reunion tours, but a true local rock event would be Hall of Fame Week at the parking lot. McNew likes the idea. “I don’t think John Beers would ever do it though. But when I was in town over the holidays, I stopped by to try and pick up a couple of shifts.”

McNew has several CDs out with his own band, Dump. He is also a big fan of the Charlottesville burger scene, claiming the original Riverside location as his favorite eating spot.

Yo La Tengo plays Starr Hill on Thursday, February 8, with Merge recording artists The Rosebuds (www.therosebuds.com) opening.

What is James McNew listening to now? “We just did an American tour with Oakland band Why? They have a hip-hop background and pop music experience as well. They are completely amazing and totally unusual.”

If the first week of 2007 has given you the blues, you are in luck. Eli Cook (www.elicook.com) and his trio will release their new CD, Electric Holy Fire Water, on January 27 at Uncle Charlie’s in Crozet. The disc was recorded at Sound of Music in Richmond, and Cook says that Richmond-based metal band Lamb of God were recording in the upstairs studio at the same time. Vocal tracks were finished at the Music Resource Center here in town. Cook produced the new CD himself and describes the 12 tunes as “blues metal,” a rocked-up sound very different from his last acoustic record. You can find Cook’s CD at Plan 9 and CDBaby.

Metal head: Blues master Eli Cook describes his new CD as metal blues.

But you can get out earlier and see Cook’s African blues project with Darrell Rose at the Satellite Ballroom (www.satelliteballroom.com) this Friday night. Cook and Rose have done a handful of gigs together, most recently at the Kennedy Center in November. With the incomparable Ali Farka Toure as their musical inspiration, Cook and Rose will play an early set, opening for longtime blues musicians Terry Garland (www.terrygarland.com) and Mark Wenner.

Garland, who now lives in Richmond, and longtime D.C. resident Wenner have been as committed to blues music as anyone on the scene. Garland, who is a great live performer, cut his teeth on Robert Johnson and Jimmy Reed. He’s a master acoustic blues and slide player. Wenner began playing harp in high school in D.C. and was under the influence of Paul Butterfield while in college at Columbia, until he was “saved,” he says, by Charlie Musselwhite’s sound. Wenner was a founding member of the seminal local blues band The Nighthawks, who have been together for more than 30 years.

Other news on the blues scene: Corey Harris (www.coreyharrismusic.com) has signed on as a teacher and administrator with the Field School, an all-boys middle school that is slated to open next fall. Harris was recently awarded an honorary doctorate degree in music from his alma mater Bates College. At Field, he will be responsible for the arts and music program and Latin. (Ever wonder how to say “Since my baby left me” in Latin?)

But don’t start fretting that Harris will stop fretting. The songwriter and guitarist has a new CD that will be recorded locally and should come out this year on the Telarc label. The recording engineer on the job, Jeff Romano, states quite humbly, “I am going to kick its ass! It is going to be so good!” (His excellent ears and unrestrained enthusiasm have resulted in some very good recordings.)

Romano has also finished recording and mixing two of Ian Gilliam’s shows from Atomic Burrito and Starr Hill. Romano says of Gilliam, “He is on fire and it shows.” And Romano has been finishing mixes for the much anticipated Devon Sproule disc, which will be released soon in Europe and shortly after in the United States.
   
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And even more blues: You can also get out this week and see the Matthew Willner Blues Thang at Orbit on January 24, as well as every first Friday at Atomic Burrito. Willner starts every Blues Thang gig on his National Resolectric guitar and then switches to his Telecaster later in the evening. Or as Willner puts it, “From Mississippi and African blues to Chicago blues. We may do a swing or a shuffle, but it is not rock.” Willner also asks a different lead instrumentalist to sit in on the BT gigs. Sandy Grey, Andrew Ewell and Tucker Rogers have all been guests, and at Orbit, Andy Rowland will blow his horn with regulars Drex Weaver, Darrell Rose and Stuart Holme.

Willner’s new CD has just been mastered by Greg Howard (www.greghoward.com) and is ready for the presses. The CD is all instrumental with an emphasis on jazz fusion. Featured musicians include John D’earth, Bobby Read, Darrell Muller, and James McLaughlin. Look for it soon.

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Hey fellers, Whachya listenin’ to?
 

Corey Harris puts a classic spin on his career, teaching music and Latin at the Field School.

Jeff R: Have you ever been to flatulina.com? It is a girl from Florida who plays classical arrangements like “Ode to Joy” with sounds from her butt. And Derek Trucks.

Eli C: A live Pantera CD. And as far as living blues players, I like Tab Benoit.

Matthew W: I’ve got an Amadou and Mariam record called Dimanche a Bamakou and also a live Donny Hathaway record, who may be the best singer ever.

“Slate Hill” Phil Gianniny seemed like a fixture busking on the Downtown Mall. A couple of weekends ago, in his usual spot in front of The Paramount Theater, there was a poinsettia and a note that said, “We love you Phil.” Gianniny died on December 23 at the age of 31, and the turnout at his memorial the following weekend was a testament to the variety of people in town whose lives he touched.

Many musicians in town see Slate Hill Phil (center) as standing for the odd man out, the guy who is not represented in modern society.

Gianniny had deep roots here. He was born in town, began playing piano in church at the age of 10 and picked up the guitar and banjo shortly thereafter. While he had a rock phase, he settled on music that had an older soul—traditional American and bluegrass music. He said that some of his musical upbringing came from his Great Granddaddy Brown and his Granddaddy Sampson, who drank and played Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb tunes. But mainly, Gianniny said that his musical influence came from growing up poor.

Gianniny played on the Downtown Mall as a teenager, and some of his earliest public performances were with Piedmont blues legend John Jackson. Songwriter Jamie Dyer says, “I have known him since he was 13. I don’t even remember meeting him. He was just there.” His friend Sam Mays, who sold Gianniny the Washburn banjo he was playing towards the end of his life, says, “I knew him from playing on the Mall when [music store] Stacy’s was still there, 15 or 20 years ago. I liked him as a person and he was a talented musician.”

Gianniny was an original member of the Hackensaw Boys, who took their 1964 GMC bus cross-country with 12 band mem-bers in the summer of 2001. He contributed to their first CD, Get Some. He was also a member of The Hogwaller Ramblers and valiantly led the band when Dyer took an occasional Sunday off, sometimes standing on top of a table at Escafé with a hat that lit up like it was Christmas. Gianniny was also a member of The Virginia Vagabonds, the old-time band that Lovell Coleman started in 1937 and gigged several times a year.

Gianniny and Dyer took off for a tour in 2005, and Dyer describes a scene in Tennessee. “We got up early and went into The Bell Buckle Café where everybody in the place knew and loved Phil. They gave us breakfast and then put us on the radio.”

Gianniny also led his own bands, like The Slate Hill Boys, who put out an excellent record, Memory Lane. That disc should still be available through County Records. His second CD, Carnival of Oddities, came out last year. Original Slate Hill Boys Charlie Bell, Andy Thacker and Ben Jacobs performed at the memorial.
   
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Many musicians in town see Slate Hill Phil as standing for the odd man out, the guy who is not represented in modern society. Even Reverend Hopkins said as much at the memorial, that he could not find common enough ground during Phil’s time on Earth to get to know him. Dyer puts it this way: “He was an artist, and the Phils of the world are the repository for a lot of music that is out there. In a culture where money is foremost, Phil is an important person. He was an organic part of the musical soul here in town.”

Anyone interested in playing music, telling stories or viewing films of Gianniny’s recent performances, can e-mail dustwarehousing@yahoo.com to find out about a get-together that will benefit his daughter Julia.

Giants among us: Nelson County resident and remastering engineer Chris King just earned his tird Grammy Award nomination for Good For What Ails You: Music Of The Medicine Shows 1926-1937.

One CD that Gianniny would have enjoyed just earned Nelson resident Chris King his third Grammy Award nomination. King is the remastering engineer on Good For What Ails You: Music Of The Medicine Shows 1926-1937 on Old Hat Records. King remastered the project from rare, original analog 78 RPM recordings. The project has also been nominated for a Grammy for best historical liner notes. King was awarded a Grammy in 2003 for a CD compilation of Charley Patton music and was nominated last year for his work on a Charlie Poole CD. We live among stars.

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And if you want to catch a fine show of local music this week, get out to Gravity Lounge on Saturday night for the release of Tom Proutt and Emily McCormick’s new CD, Pancake Mamma. These two fine singers and musicians will be accompanied by special guests Mary Gordon Hall, Jeff Romano, Darren Snapp and others. Should be a great show.

He is equally at home quoting Judas Priest and Andres Segovia. As for the name, which people confuse with the folk singer from Iowa, he says, “Well, it is my damn name too.” Greg Brown (www.gregbrown.org) grew up in New Jersey, and moved to south Florida as a kid. When he was 10 years old, he heard AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and immediately thought, “Oh my god, I want to be a guitar player.” By age 14, Brown was listening to Metallica, Van Halen and the Scorpions, and he had the hammer-ons in “Eruption” down. He played in bands starting in middle school, and by high school, he found a trio that stuck. Age of Fire toured up and down the East Coast, and Brown was writing all of the tunes. But when the bass player and drummer started to contribute, Brown considered the new sound a collaboration and changed the group’s name to The Village Idiots. Little did he realize that some members of the Butthole Surfers had splintered off and already claimed that name. Enter the lawyers.

From the Scorpions to Spanish flamenco: Greg Brown’s influences are as diverse as his musicianship is deep.

Brown’s metal band got a very good response. They received a letter of intent from Capitol Records and were signed to a management deal by Premier Artist Management, a company that represented Sinatra, Liza and Sammy Davis Jr. The management company was looking to sign some more youthful acts, and they signed Brown’s band as well as Bloodlines, which was made up of the offspring of Sammy Hagar and Robbie Krieger. The band also elicited interest from Relativity, which had put out some of Joe Satriani’s LPs, but that label was bought by Sony, and all business was put on hold.

As Brown puts it, “Everything flopped.” He needed to find an affordable place to live, and since his father was a Virginian, Brown moved to Charlottesville in 1993. One of his new neighbors turned him on to a piece of classical guitar music by Albeniz that was played by Segovia, and Brown was impressed. “I ripped all the notes apart,” he says. Brown also connected with some musicians at JMU, and he had always liked the late 1970s record called Friday Night in San Francisco, featuring Paco de Lucia. “I was interested in the flamenco chops with a heavy metal attitude.”

Brown ran Music and Arts on 29 North for eight years, and during that time he traveled through southern Spain, which he says came with a spiritual payoff. Brown currently has two very good CDs of guitar music available: Sojourns in Solitude and Distant Places. Sojourns features four guitar suites that he wrote as well as a piece entitled “Transylvania” that was made possible by a grant from string manufacturer D’Addario & Company. Places features orchestrated versions of his Age of Fire material as well as other music.

One of the interesting things that Brown has discovered is that over 90 percent of his CDs have been distributed digitally. He sent copies of both discs to The Orchard, perhaps the world’s largest digital distributor of music. The Orchard scans the music and makes it available to iTunes, CDBaby and others. The company also takes care of the bookkeeping. Brown keeps his hard copies to a minimum, and the music is available all over the world. When your audience is something other than a pop audience, the Web can be very efficient at connecting the music with your listening market.

Brown just finished reading an interview with Rob Halford of British band Judas Priest, who said that digital distribution is the way the band wants to go. While it seems that the Web is used less for musical downloads in England than in the United States, Halford is banking on the fact that online distribution will continue to gain in popularity. Greg Brown’s music sales certainly seem to back that up.

Brown has many guitar students, and he is the guitarist with Las Gitanas. He is also looking forward to returning to Spain. “The mosque in Cordoba is No. 1 on my hit list.”

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Speaking of guitarists, on Friday, January 5, Acoustic Muse presents National Fingerpicking Champion Muriel Anderson (www.murielanderson.com) at Westminster House on Rugby Road. She is one of a few performers on the harp guitar. Legend Les Paul had this to say about Anderson: “One hell of a great player…What I like is the touch that Muriel has on the guitar, the way she plays it like we all wish to.” Seems odd not to have Mike Seeger in town that first week of January, though.

Les Paul thinks Muriel Anderson is "one hell of a great player." You should probably take his word for it.

First Night Virginia celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and along with great regular acts like Abbey Road, Jay and Morwenna and Uncle Henry’s Favorites, this will be the first year that First Night sponsors a parade through Downtown.

Craig Green’s Common Ground Chorus is modeled on Ubuntu: a belief that singing in harmony celebrates diversity and promotes peace. Hmmm. Maybe Virgil Goode should join.

First Night has also commissioned John D’earth to write a piece of music commemorating the anniversary. The Suite for Jazz Quintet and Chamber Ensemble will feature Free Bridge and The Charlottesville High School string ensemble, as well as a newly configured speaking choir to improvise crowd scenes. Performances will be at Christ Episcopal at 7:30pm and 9pm. Go support one of our most creative and prolific musicians. (For more on First Night performances, see cover story).

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It is nice to end the year with a note about a new group that is interested in making music with a goal of belonging to a greater community. Craig Green, former Twin Oaks resident and songcatcher, recently completed a Community Choir Leadership training with the Gettin’ Higher Choir, a 300-voice chorus in Victoria, Canada. The experience inspired him to start a new choir in this area. The result, The Common Ground Chorus, had an open session at the Friends Meeting House in December, and they will begin a four-month session under Green’s direction in January that will culminate in two public performances. “If you’ve never experienced the thrill of singing in a choir, or if you’ve always thought of yourself as someone who ‘just can’t sing,’ this is a great way to start. There will be plenty of challenges and solo opportunities for experienced singers, too,” he says.

The choir is modeled on Ubuntu style, a Sub-Saharan African ideology which believes that singing in harmony reminds us to celebrate diversity and to practice deep listening. “As such, it is a path to practicing the craft of building a peaceful world,” Green says. Ubuntu choirs are inclusive, audition-free, community-focused, socially engaged and philanthropic. For more information you can e-mail Craig Green at seedsofharmony@gmail.com.

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Hey, I got an e-mail recently: “Rob here from The Nice Jenkins. I have a few questions for you. I’m wondering what people do in order to get you to write about them? The C-VILLE never really gives us any press other than date and time info for local shows. Do you hang out with these bands? Are they your friends? Do you think that we are not dynamic enough? Or not interesting enough? Maybe we are too good. Do you think we are somehow above this paper? Or do these other bands pay to get an article larger than an 8th of a page? Basically…I want a big ass picture in the C-VILLE when we play at Starr Hill or The Ballroom. I think we deserve a little credit for being more than just another lame modern rock band and trying to do something interesting. People always have a good time at our shows. You should come to one and see what we are about. See what’s really going on in Charlottesville.”

Because the squeaky wheel often does get the oil, Rob, this one’s for you: To prove they are not above a plug in Plugged In, here’s a big ass photo of pop-rockers The Nice Jenkins.

Thanks, Rob. The answers to your questions are sometimes, some, no, no, maybe, no, and never. I include this because I think Rob and other musicians do wonder how this article works. I really love this column because this little college town is so chock full of interesting people and incredibly talented musicians and bands of all shapes and sizes that the column often writes itself. The truth is, I do not go out to see bands as often as I would like, but I have three kids, three jobs and I play music three or four nights a week myself. I am here at the C-VILLE because I love to talk about music. In fact, if I see you out and we are not talking about music, we are probably talking about either the weather or the Spanish present perfect subjunctive. In the New Year, if you as a musical entity have anything—show, CD, club event, interesting story—that needs a spot of publicity, please e-mail me at pluggedin@c-ville.com. Otherwise, if you do not send me e-mails, I am likely to write a column about the effect of Paul Curreri’s breaststroke on his guitar style, and my editor is going to have a hard time justifying my existence.

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Oh, for fans of catchy pop music, go get The Nice Jenkins’ CD, because it is good.