Author: spencer-lathrop

"Best of C-ville" rockers American Dumpster have seen their share of trials and tribulations as of late- but with a trio of upcoming shows, they’re playing through the pain.

When it rains, it pours. Local favorites American Dumpster have just survived a stretch that makes Fleetwood Mac look like The New Christy Minstrels.
    Among other things, many fans know that band leader Christian Breeden recently lost his dad. David Breeden was a longtime, well-respected and positive force around the Charlottesville community. Christian says that, at the time doctors stopped working to try and revive David, his mom put the American Dumpster CD on and played it through. When the CD ended, Breeden’s physician came back into the room and declared the time of death. Christian says that “it has been pretty intense, thinking about that time in between, while the CD was playing. His death especially changed the meaning of the first song, ‘Blue,’ for me. I played it at his funeral, and it was good, because I think it was the first time that a lot of my dad’s family had heard me play anything.”
    Earlier this summer, guitarist Andrew Ewell was diagnosed with a brain tumor following a seizure episode. He had surgery in August, and was laid up for several weeks, but is now on the road to a full recovery. Bassist Steve Riggs says that Ewell’s guitar playing has been better than ever since the surgery. Ewell states simply that the band is intact, and “we always seem to play better when we play a lot.”
    The Dumpsters do have a spate of gigs on their calendar this fall. You can go hear them open up for Lynyrd Skynyrd on Tuesday, October 3, at the Pavilion. Breeden calls Skynyrd “quintessential. They really bring out the inner redneck in me.”
    But a better night out with The Dumpsters may be this Friday, October 6, at Starr Hill. Ian Gilliam and The Fire Kings, a brilliant local band that plays honking rockabilly, surf and blues are the openers and should not be missed. Then AD will take the stage for one of their first local gigs since July.
    Another gig of note on their books is The Floyd Fandango (Floydfest’s autumn cousin) on October 21 and 22. AD got great feedback from their summer festival gig, and were invited back to the Fandango, which is more carnival than music festival. They will share the main stage with Junior Brown. Let’s hope the locals get paid.
    Breeden says that he is also learning his way around his home recording studio, trying to work up original tunes. “I want to get back to writing more pop songs. Still edgy, but music that is really fun at the core.”

Speaking of music with a party in its pants, go see Heavy Trash this Thursday. Last week, the beautiful Satellite Ballroom brought you D.C. legend Chuck Brown, whose “Bustin’ Loose” provided the sample that made Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” actually hot. This week, the Satellite presents another legendary D.C. frontman in Jon Spencer. When The Blues Explosion last came through town, they seemed a little tired. Not pooped, but kind of over it. While there are no confirmed rumors that JSBX has packed it in after 14 years together, Heavy Trash seems like a deep breath of fresh air for Spencer. He has teamed up with Matt Verta-Ray (from the completely unsung band Madder Rose), and the ensuing cocktail is a rockabilly nod with greater esteem for the original tunes than Blues Explosion ever had. Both songwriters like Johnny Horton and Sleepy LaBeef, and in concert they are known to dust off some covers by Gene Vincent. Heavy Trash is also known to go for the entire look live: greasy hair, black jeans and bright pink shirts.
An interesting aspect of this show is that The Sadies are the openers, but it also looks like they will be the back-up band for Spencer and Ray.

Not to be outdone in the indie-rock-from-out-of-town department, The Grav-ity Lounge features Drag City rockers Smog on Friday, October 6. Bill Callahan has moved to Austin, but he still serves up a hypnotic, lo-fi sound.

Charlottesville sure feels like the epicenter of the music universe right now. From DMB to Clapton to Skynyrd to Los Lobos to The Chamber Music Festival to Free Bridge to American Dumpster. Does anyone even have money left over for a mojito? Next time you’re out, give a club owner a hug.

Ask around town about favorite local bands, and you are very likely to find Sparky’s Flaw at the top of many people’s list. Ask Sparky’s Will Anderson about the reason for the band’s popularity, and he will give you the most nuts-and-bolts answer there is: “Good songwriting, good live shows and hard work.”
    Touring up and down the East Coast, from Georgia to Connecticut, Anderson says that the band “has never been so excited about making music.” They have played the beautiful Paradise Club in Boston, and are looking at a future New York gig at The Knitting Factory. Along the way, they have managed to put more than 15,000 friends on their MySpace page, a figure that resonates with industry types.
    iTunes has also helped the band a lot, Anderson says, and digital distribution can definitely “boost a band’s legitimacy.” Anderson does not even describe the sound of the band’s music to anyone anymore. Instead he says, “Just go on MySpace and hear it.” He also credits CDBaby with getting the group’s CDs into Amazon and Aware Store.
    Despite all the modern technology, the members of Sparky’s Flaw still draw great joy from being in a live band, and still believe in making CDs. You can credit them with a strong work ethic, as well—the band will go into an undisclosed studio this year to record their third disc. While SF relies in a big way on a DIY mentality, Anderson says the band would definitely entertain an offer from a big label, and that their third recording is a push in that direction.
Believe it or not, all of the band members are all still in school, and Anderson, who is a music major at UVA, says that his professors understand the business and have been very supportive. He also gives a shout-out to Red Light Management for helping the band with advice and support.
    If you haven’t seen them yet, better get a ticket soon, because they regularly sell out their Starr Hill shows. And since the band’s last scheduled gig was the first ever rained-out Pavilion show (thanks to Tropical Storm Ernesto), it’s been a good while since they’ve played locally. Also, demonstrating their marketing smarts, the band members carry show tickets for sale right in their pockets—so if you see Will, Kit, Alex, Eric, Peter or Johnny walking around, you can secure your entry right there. The show on September 29 also features alt-country locals Dreaming Isabelle and alt-rockers Moses Mayfield as openers.

More recently on the rock circuit, Birmingham, Alabama, transplant Kate Starr made a pretty major splash on the national scene before returning to town to play gigs with her band. As one of four finalists (out of 2,000 bands) in the Lollapalooza Last Band Standing contest, Starr’s indie-rock trio got to play Chicago’s Double Door club with the other finalists, and then go to the festival. Starr’s influences? Jane’s Addiction, Sonic Youth, The Pixies and Bob Dylan.
    Starr, bassist Mike Ishaya and drummer Seth Johnston are recording an EP of original music in Lance Brenner’s studio. The disc should be available in a matter of weeks, and you can pick it up at live shows. Starr plays the almighty Atomic Burrito this Thursday, September 28. Starr says that she loves playing the Burrito. “The energy is fabulous, right in your face, and I am all about that.”
    She also says that Charlottesville is filled with talented musicians and good bands, “but one thing that I have noticed is that the indie sound, like Built To Spill, is kind of hard to find here—I’m hoping to bring some of that to town.” Fans are catching on, and her last Atomic gig was nicely packed. So come catch a charismatic performer.

How often can your faith in rock music be restored in front of an audience of 10? At Gravity Lounge recently, Kid Congo Powers (Nick Cave’s former guitarist) played a tremendous show for a very small audience. After the show, I got to ask Kid what tunes were on his player. Here’s what he told me: Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On (“The time is right for that album again”), Patti Smith’s Radio Ethiopia (“Recently I saw her live, and I rediscovered how incredible and strange that music is”) and The Liars’ latest, Drum’s Not Dead (“I appreciate a band when they find their own thing”).
    Now a D.C. resident, Kid Congo will almost certainly be back—to a fuller house, I hope.

Mike Webb, publicity director at The Nation, got wind through a friend that his magazine was Dave Matthews’ favorite read. Webb called C-VILLE Weekly’s editor, who put Webb and The Dave together through contacts at Red Light Management. That led to a photo shoot after a DMB gig in Boston. The ad is part of a series entitled “No One Owns The Nation,” and is out in this month’s edition. It will also be in print in an upcoming holiday issue. Matthews added his mug to the ad series that has included stars from Paul Newman to Russell Simmons. You can buy a copy on newstands now.

Another local music celebrity who reads The Nation is record collector Brent Hosier. His two anthologies of 1960s Virginia music, Aliens, Psychos and Wild Things, and Ol’ Virginia Soul, are must-buys for raucous parties, fans of rock nuggets, and interested musicologists.
    Hosier started record shopping with a friend in the black record shops in Richmond in the early 1970s, where he began picking up LPs by local artists like Mr. Wiggles. “My friend got me into it. The problem then was I didn’t know what I was looking for,” he says. He found himself an avid collector when, in 1973, he bought a copy of The 13th Floor Elevators’ single “You’re Gonna Miss Me” (“I was knocked out immediately”). The next year, Hosier was traveling to New York City looking for more records by the band. Now, he says, “there is something about the recording sound back then that I like.”
    Hosier’s passion for collecting old vinyl has, happily for music lovers, spilled over into his professional life. He has released seven CDs of 1960s-era, mostly Virginia-based garage, psychedelic and soul music. The first volume of Aliens, Psychos and Wild Things was made up exclusively of garage bands from the Virginia Beach and Norfolk area, and included one cut that had been recorded in Vietnam by a Tidewater-based GI. Volume Two expanded the geographical area, with one band hailing from Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The third volume, more psychedelic than the previous two, drew from an even greater geographical area. The fourth volume is due out this fall.
    Hosier has also released three volumes of soul music on Ol’ Virginia Soul. He says the third one is far and away the best. He says he was able to mine all of the soul cuts from the Virginia area because the era of soul music in Virginia was stronger and longer-lived than garage music.
    While most of the cuts on Hosier’s CDs came straight out of his own collection, there are some tunes that, on vinyl, are “very rare and high dollar,” and he had to borrow other collectors’ LPs to get the tunes he wanted for his CDs. He has also taken tunes from 1/4" recording tape that he found, tunes that he says probably would never have been released.
Hosier has been dedicated enough to do most of the distribution legwork himself, and Norton Records in New York licensed one of the Aliens CD for release on vinyl. (He’s even gotten an offer from an English distributor, Jazzman, to license his third OV Soul CD in Great Britain.) But Hosier says that, in the age of downloading and burning, distribution has become more complicated. He knows for a fact that the first two volumes of OV Soul have been bootlegged and sold in England, online and in stores. Bootlegged copies include everything but the extensive liner notes that Hosier adds to legitimate copies.
    Hosier says you can check online for legit copies of any of his CDs at www.dcd
records.com—an interesting website based in Orange—or at Plan 9. While Parts one and two of Ol’ Virginia Soul are currently out of print, he says it’s very likely someone will put them back out.
    When I spoke to Hosier, he was in Richmond remastering for a new CD. He had also just located some vinyl in Tidewater from The Phelps Brothers, who were recording rockabilly music there in the 1950s. He was helping the couple who owned the records sell them, and he was also headed up to a record fair later his month in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

    I asked Hosier if there were any current artists whose music he was enjoying, and he said, “Despite myself, I like Cat Power. The sound of her voice and her songwriting. It is intense without being over the top.”

This Friday at Starr Hill, The Easy Star All-Stars will appear on the heels of the release of their CD Radiodread, a complete reggae version of Radiohead’s OK Computer. Local Easy Star label honcho Lem Oppenheimer says that expectations are high after the success of Dub Side of the Moon, which reimagined Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, but “we also know a lot more about what we’re doing.” One thing the label has done is recruit some very respected guests for the new CD, like Toots Hibbert, Citizen Cope, Horace Andy and Skelly Spence from Israel Vibe. Plus, this time out, the label is shooting a video for the single “Let Down,” which features Toots.
    As for following up Dub Side, Oppenheimer says, “Put the same love and care in, and out comes a great product.” It also doesn’t hurt that the CD has gotten good press from two of the members of Radiohead. The Starr Hill gig will be the second stop on a long fall tour.
    In July, Easy Star released a live DVD from the Dub Side tour, and that CD still moves as many as 300 copies a week in this country alone, three years after its release. Besides an upcoming CD from Ticklah (keyboard wizard for Antibalas, as well as the Easy Star All-Stars), the label has managed to stay busy with the two releases from The All-Stars. (You know, I just can’t figure how Hasidic reggae artist Matisyahu sells like he does, while John Brown’s Body, twice as tuneful, is still searching for respect.)

The night before the Easy Star gig at Starr Hill, look for a heavyweight battle of the Americana bands. In this corner, weighing in at three brothers, is Charlottesville’s own Sons of Bill. With a fresh new CD, A Far Cry From Freedom, The Sons bill themselves as “Charlottesville’s original country rock band.” Sorry boys, did you forget about Kathryn Caine, Benny Dodd, David Witt, Duke Merrick, et al? (I’m guessing the Sons shopped out their press kit.) The band has been getting raves locally, though. You also get to hear Peyton Tochterman open.
    In the other corner, at The Satellite Ballroom, the triple bill: The Nice Jenkins, Wrinkle Neck Mules and Cashmere Jungle Lords. The Mules, who are Americana and then some, recently played showcases at SXSW in Austin, where they also did recording for a new CD. They are currently supporting a CD, Pull The Brake, which was recorded at DMB’s Haunted Hollow studio, and band leader Andy Stepanian gives a lot of credit to producer/engineer Chris Kress: “He has been really helpful to us. We’d been looking for someone to polish up the mess we made, and he was the one who returned our calls. We have a great relationship with him.”
    Pull The Brake has a guest appearance by Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who met the band in Charlottesville to record. They have been getting lots of good press lately, with a good review in Pop Matters. Stepanian says their crowd includes everyone from indie rockers to alt-country types. 
    One highlight of the show may be the first band, The Cashmere Jungle Lords. It has been nine years since CJL’s last CD, Southern Barber Supply. Every tune on that CD was licensed to MTV, where the band could be heard on episodes of “The Real World” and “Road Rules.” Dominic Carpin says that the band’s progress has been through his own efforts, but he also admits, “While the MTV stuff probably helped our stature, I have been pretty content doing the self-release thing, especially with all the technology. We are pretty much a cottage industry now.” The new CD, Bloodstone Follies, is a great piece of excellent rocking pop, and features Richmond heavyweights like drummer Johnny Hott. Be sure and get to Satellite early: CJL starts at 9pm.

Headliners at The Satellite are our own The Nice Jenkins, who have a pretty great CD out right now, as well. Recorded at Rod Coles’ Purvis’ Store Studio, the disc features The Jenkins’ wide-open approach to musical styles and imaginative in-studio musicianship. Guitarist and detergent-bottle player Rob Cheatham says that the band would really like to get a regular thing going at the Ballroom. “I feel like there is such a great scene going on in Charlottesville right now, that we owe it to the scene to put out as good music as possible. And, of course, we just want to get a party started.” You can pick up discs by all four bands at either of the shows.

Karl Wallinger had a really bad year. The former Waterboy was sitting on top of things when his band World Party released an excellent (and very Beatley) CD, Private Revolution, in 1987. But in 2000, things went awry: He was released from his label, EMI, his manager died, and Wallinger himself suffered an aneurysm that landed him in the hospital for many months. The injury was so severe, he actually had to relearn how to speak and play music. Just prior to his convalescence, Wallinger’s label gave one of his tunes, “She’s the One,”
to British pop star Robbie Williams, who scored a No. 1 hit with it. Wallinger was reportedly unhappy about that piece of good news at the time, but the royalties got him through the down time.
    Wallinger is now back out on the road, and he will play Starr Hill this week. His most recent CD, Dumbing Up, is available through his own Seaview Records, as are his old EMI recordings. The only fallout from Wallinger’s physical ailment is that he has no peripheral vision, and can’t see the guitar while playing—but it doesn’t seem to have hurt his songwriting.

On Preston Avenue, there’s a spanking new green paint job covering The Outback Lodge. Go inside, and you’ll see that new owners Terry Martin and Pete Katz have spruced up the interior, as well—and they have similarly big plans for live music in town. It is hard to describe Martin as the “new” owner, since he has been part of the Outback for the past 12 years, but now he’s making the executive decisions. In one way, he wants to return the bar to what it used to be: a place where you were sure to hear good bands from in town and all over. But he is also maximizing use of the space. He’s planning to have stages both upstairs and downstairs, and music seven nights a week. New sound systems are coming soon. Martin wants to continue goth and punk nights downstairs, as well as the salsa night on Sundays that has become a fixture. Upstairs, he has reinstated reggae night on Wednesdays, including the rock steady Stable Roots, who seem to have just inherited Culture’s rhythm section. Martin also wants to give time to jam bands, like Ekoostik Hookah, and blues bands, who will play at least twice a month. Also on his calendar are The Hamiltons (who are hard at work on their first record) on Saturday, September 2, to be followed by Frontbutt, Alligator, The Stoned Wheat Things and Chickenhead Blues Band.
    One band that Martin is pushing hard is Richmond’s Sin City Revival, which he describes as “in-your-face Southern rock.” When he puts the CD on the Outback player, the room fills up with a Black Crowesy sound, all beautifully produced Les Paul tone and B-3 keyboards. “They are ready, bar none. Not a weak link in the band. I have seen them play for two people like they were playing for 20,000. They are going to take Charlottesville by storm.” See the band at the Outback on Friday, September 29, which also happens to be Charlie Pastorfield’s birthday. As a bonus, Pastorfield is planning to be there.
    As Martin cranks up the stereo a little louder, it is obvious that he has a deep love of music that will surely be reflected in the renovated venue.
    In the local songwriter de-partment, Jamie Dyer has pick-ed up a regular Tuesday night spot at the Outback, and he hopes to use it to get older and younger Charlottesville musicians to mix it up—an effort he’s dubbed Charlottesville Acoustic Resistance. Dyer says that the scene here is “not the recombinant music scene that it used to be,” and he would like to try to bring together mem-bers of the many local “disparate music scenes.” Music starts around 8ish, and you can catch some of Dyer’s new tunes, like “Lord Save Us All From Northern Virginia.” You can contact Dyer through this column, or simply show up on Tuesdays.

Seems like everyone is trying to figure out how to expose new music in underexposed places. From New York City, Kitchen Sink Productions has assembled a tour of a classical string quartet paired with a singer/songwriter, and they’ll be coming through town this weekend to play at The Shebeen pub on Saturday night and Starr Hill on Sunday. The Boston-based Parker String Quartet have played everywhere, including Carnegie Hall, and will soon release a Naxos CD of Bartok quartets. Singer Wynn Walent is a former Wahoo and up-and-coming New York songwriter who has just released his debut album. The music will range from Beethoven, Bartok and Ligeti to group improvisations and original songs. So order up a draft and get yourself some cultcha.

Regarding the report of last month’s planned sale of a majority portion of Musictoday to Live Nation, a spin-off of radio Goliath Clear Channel Communications, I spoke with Music-today’s COO Del Wood, who put a very positive face on the transaction. “It is an affirmation or a validation that we do what we do very well, because they are absolute leaders in the industry.” Wood described Musictoday’s current position as a growth period, and he said that the sale is healthy for both the company and its employees. Although he added that the deal is not yet closed, Wood emphasized that Musictoday’s home is here in town, and that they are adding staff now and in the future.

In the good publicity department, Robert Jospé’s Inner Rhythm just got a rave review of their latest CD in this month’s issue of Jazz Times magazine. The reviewer describes Jos’ drumming as “erudite and relentless” and the band’s playing as full of “life affirming energy” and “jubilant.” For interested listeners, call up and request it on WTJU or WVTF, or run out to your local record store and purchase a copy. Also this month, Las Gitanas debut CD was chosen as one of the Top 10 picks of new CDs by English traditional and ethnic music magazine fRoots. Las G’s play in September at Fellini’s #9, and you can get the disc from the chicks.
    Patrick Reed, who DJs in town as often as he can, works at Ethereum Records in the East Village, NYC. He says that both his shop and Other Music are doing well, but he has concerns about Tower Records, specifically their security system. On vacation this month in Santa Cruz, California, Reed was rummaging through a record bin and came upon a “pristine” copy of Skip Castro’s LP You’re Killing Me. He picked it up for a cheap price, and since he has a copy already, he would like to offer it to anyone in Charlottesville who needs a copy. You can contact Patrick through this column.

When Bodo’s sold, you knew the bagels would stay quality. The big question for me was, what was going to happen to the music, which was always crucial to the Bodo’s experience? What other restaurant was playing The Velvet Underground’s “Run Run Run” on a Saturday morning? It was always clear that the Bodo’s mix tapes were independently made by someone with a deep love of music, and a big record collection. Well, the mixmaster was owner Brian Fox, who, in the early days, transferred tunes from LP to 1/4" Revox tape to Beta tapes (believe it or not, the video loser could hold three hours of audio). Later, those mixes were transferred to 111 CDs that ran about an hour each, always classical on Sundays.
    One of Bodo’s new owners, Scott Smith, says that because of the dynamics of classical music and the less than ideal listening environment, he convinced Fox to switch to jazz on Sundays. Then, due to the CD players always crapping out, the restaurants switched to iPods. And although you are still hearing some of Fox’s original Beta mixes, Smith has been picking a lot more tunes lately. He has cut some of the slower things from the jazz mix, because they were sounding “a little dirgy”. “And,” he adds, “not everything that sounds good in the front sounds good in the back of the store.” Staff opinion weighs in, but Smith and co-owner/bass player John Kokola will sometimes keep hated tunes in rotation. For example, two Laurie Anderson tunes were generally “loathed” by the staff, but Smith himself was attached to “O Superman” and decided to keep it. He estimates that, in total, he has axed 20 tracks out of 1,700.
    Smith says that his musical taste is very close to Fox’s, and that there is a “ghost effect,” i.e., tunes added that Fox had been planning to add anyway. The new Bodo’s owners bought Fox an iPod when he left so he could keep the original mixes.
    I asked Smith about some of his recent favorites: “A lot of tunes are from Paul and Matt Curreri. John brought in the last two Flaming Lips CDs and I definitely enjoy hearing them in the store. I am going to try to check them out at the Pavilion. And Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy. An amazing CD. I took every single track off that CD for the restaurant.”

Greg Allen’s musical vision is organic, and his work is testimony to the fact that when you stay with something long enough, your labors will produce fruit. Allen is the guiding force behind Songsharing, a loose-knit group of songwriters and musicians who are committed to performing free concerts in locales where you might not usually find live music. Songsharing has put on concerts for Region Ten and The Kluge Children’s Rehab Center, among others. The goal, as Allen puts it, is “to make a variety of music more accessible for underserved audiences.”
    Allen got the idea when he was racing motorcycles and became interested in the idea of sponsorship. “If people get money thrown at them to tear up cars, there should be sponsors to promote musicians in community service,” he says. An official entitity since 2002, Songsharing has worked with a fine group of local
musicians, including Thomas Gunn,
Jeff Romano, Tom Proutt and Emily McCormick, as well as well-known nonlocals like Asheville’s Dana Robinson. Proutt and McCormick, who are great musicians and a winning live act, are starting to tour outside Charlottesville more often, and their upcoming tour will include a
volunteer Songsharing performance at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland.
    Allen has more ambitious plans himself, and recently recorded a CD of his own music that he hopes will be the first in a series of CDs by Songsharing artists. Recorded at Greenwood Studio, the CD, Tales of the Uneasy Writer, is now available for pre-order online at www.songsharing.org. Due for September release, the CD will also be available in local record stores, as well as at Allen’s gigs. The disc features Allen’s regular drummer Granville Braxton, and a host of high-profile Charlottesvillers like Ian Gilliam, Richelle Claiborne, Bud Bryant, Charlie Bell and Nate Brown. Allen says that, given Songsharing’s nontraditional nature, they are unlikely to have a traditional CD release party, but you can find out where he’s playing on his website, www.graspingatlaws.net.

A Boston band with goals beyond the music will be appearing at The Satellite Ballroom on Saturday, August 19. Fans of Fela Kuti and Antibalas should check out The Boston Afrobeat Society on their stop here. The band consists of 12 pieces, many of whom were students at The New England Conservatory of Music. Also, band leader and kit drummer Adam Clark grew up in Roanoke. But the band views political activism as part of Fela’s legacy as well. As part of that idea they partnered with Beantown’s Green Grease Monkey and are making the two-week tour in a schoolbus converted to run on 100 percent vegetable oil. So that weekend, when you think you smell Grillswiths, go catch a good band.

Did you know that one of Larry Keel’s first paying gigs was a stint at Tokyo’s Disneyland? Now a fixture on the bluegrass and festival scene, in 1985 Keel played with a trio in Japan for as long as their visas held out. As fans know, he came back to Rockbridge County and was one-fourth of the great McGraw Gap, and then set off on his own after winning the
flatpicking championship at Telluride. Recently, Keel and his wife, Jenny, have put out a new CD, Grass, with another well-known Virginia musician, Keller Williams. And Keel is the subject of a new film, Beautiful Thing, that focuses on the life of a musician on the road. Go check out the mostly traditional ‘grass of Larry Keel and Natural Bridge at Starr Hill on Friday, August 18.
    At Gravity Lounge Thursday night, you’ll get a chance to hear Matt Curreri performing with his band. This is a rare occasion, because The Exfriends are based in San Diego, but Matt decided to bring all five pieces east for the release of their new CD. That CD, Exercise Music for the Lonely, has been nominated for Best Local Recording by The San Diego Music Awards. Also look for an appearance by Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule. Sarah White and The Pearls will open.

Larry Keel’s CD picks (one old and one new): Tony Rice, Backwaters. Tony’s “Space Grass” is as innovative today as it was 20 years ago. Greensky Bluegrass, Less Than Supper. An incredible up-and-coming bluegrass act from Michigan. Who knew they had great bluegrass up there?

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Live Nation’s purchase of a majority stake in Coran Capshaw’s $100 million fan/merch business Music Today, which Capshaw started six years ago and which operates out of a former factory in Crozet.Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Live Nation’s purchase of a majority stake in Coran Capshaw’s $100 million fan/merch business Music Today, which Capshaw started six years ago and which operates out of a former factory in Crozet. Music Today runs fan clubs, websites, online stores and other services for hundreds of acts, including the Rolling Stones, Kenny Chesney and Eminem. It employs a couple of hundred people locally.
    Live Nation, which was formerly known as Clear Channel Entertainment, is looking to focus on its already existent live-music promotion business by bundling concert tickets, fan club memberships and merchandise sales, and facilitating meetings between fans and, possibly, artists. Already a minority stakeholder in Music Today at the time of the sale, Live Nation liked Capshaw’s very smart idea of selling memberships to music fans who then get the inside track on exclusive merchandise and availability of premium concert tickets prior to the sale to the general public. Capshaw apparently will continue to run the company (that’s what they all say when a big sale is first announced). Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the jury is still out on whether the greater presence of a Clear Channel-related company into local business (and the local music business in particular) will be a good thing or a bad thing. Music Today could not be reached for comment by press time.

Classical music aficionados need look no further for summer offerings than 35 minutes west. The ninth annual Staunton Music Festival gets under way this week, and the three-week event is a truly adventurous undertaking. Founder Carson Schmidt, a Staunton resident who is on faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, says that the festival started small, but has really flourished. Last year, with an audience that doubled in size, was a real watershed. He says that, once Blackfriars Playhouse was built, the town became a natural host, but Schmidt also gives kudos to the community, which he says has definitely supported the festival. Events are held at various locations around town, and there will be one performance here in Charlottesville.
    Opening night, August 13, will feature a piano recital of a new, commissioned piece by James Madison University Professor John Hilliard. It begins as a piece for one hand that expands to 10 hands. The festival always tries to include opera, and this year two short operas will be staged at The Blackfriars: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and a new multimedia piece by UVA music professor Matthew Burtner, which will include voice, dance, electronic music and a video element. Also new this year, and the finale of the festival, September 2 and 3, is a night of North Indian classical music featuring the sarod—an event which also includes a dinner of Indian food. Saturday night’s performance will present Western classical music inspired by Indian music. If you are at all intrigued, check out the website, www.stauntonmusicfestival.com, or you can attend a sampling of the festival’s chamber music here at the UVA Art Museum on Friday night, August 18.

Also this week, two up-and-coming indie rock acts take the stage at Starr Hill. On Sunday night, our own Brian Kingston will be playing downstairs in anticipation of the new record due next spring. And on Wednesday, August 9, Brent Gorton brings his group, The Tender Breasts, down from Albany, New York. Influenced by The Beatles and other British Invasion bands, Gorton says the band is much more garage-y live, and likens the sound to The Velvet Underground. After playing with hired guns for a couple years, Gorton asked his girlfriend, Kellie, to take up the bass, and a female friend, Brock, to fill in on drums. Brock’s kit consists of a rack tom, floor tom and snare, (no cymbals), so the comparison to the Velvets is fairly apt.
    The band was originally slated to play Starr Hill with The Cheap Seats from Richmond, but the Seats had to pull out and left the gig in Gorton’s hands. You can find Gorton’s lone indie release on cdbaby.com.
    Release Of The Week: In the ongoing search for new tunes, I am asking our featured artists about new records they are listening to (CD or download). Gorton says: “ Believe it or not, I get most of my records from the library, because our library has a really great selection. I have been listening to and really liking The Zombies lately. I think that they have just great, great singles. And, although not apropos to our music, I just discovered James Brown Live at The Apollo 1962.”