Tag: Featured

Featured content displays above the fold on the Home page AND on its category sub-page.

Categories
Living

King of cluck: our judges rate the town’s best fried chicken

Wayside fried chicken. John Robinson photo.

Buttermilk or brine? Floured or battered? Peanut oil or lard? Pan-fried or deep-fried? These are just a few of the secrets behind fried chicken so crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside that it’ll make you weep. Each method has its devotees, and nary a one of our 11 contestants spilled the beans (baked or otherwise) as to what makes their chicken so finger-licking good, but that didn’t stop us from filling a bucket with a piece from each. We might be a little bit country and a little bit city, but we’ve got a coop full of places frying up chicken that’d make a real southerner proud.

We chose non-chain places known for bone-in chicken fried fresh (read: not frozen!). All selections were gathered the day of the contest and judged blind by Harrison Keevil, chef/owner of Brookville Restaurant; Jenée Libby, The Diner of Cville blogger; and Joel Slezak, co-owner of Free Union Grass Farm.

Keevil went for breasts (“They’re the hardest to do well, since they dry out the fastest”), Libby went for legs, and Slezak went for thighs. They judged each piece’s crispiness/texture, tenderness of meat, seasoning, and overall taste. Appetites were waning around the halfway point, but our professionals soldiered on and crowned the winning bird…then went back for more.

Drumstick—er, drumroll, please!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Michie Tavern

683 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy.

977-1234

Daily 11:15am-3:30pm

It’s hard to make the last mile of the Saunders-Monticello Trail after smelling southern fried chicken wafting up from this historic tavern where the staff members still dress in colonial attire. It’s juicy (“It would still taste amazing in the morning”), perfectly seasoned (“It has flavor throughout the meat too”), and fried ’til dark (“It’s gotta be the grease they use”), and none of us could get enough (Slezak ate three more pieces following the judging). Take a free tour of the museum and then belly up to the buffet every day in the summer and fill your plate with chicken (baked or fried) and 18th century sides liked stewed tomatoes and black-eyed peas for $16.95.

First clucker-up

Wayside Takeout & Catering

2203 Jefferson Park Ave.

977-5000

Open Monday-Thursday 7am-9pm, Friday-Saturday 7am-9:30pm

The only thing keeping chicken lovers from crossing the road is the massive construction site that’s set up outside this 40+-year-old institution. Wayside is still open for business and its chicken scored big for the peppery coating that reminded Virginia-raised Libby of the Golden Skillet’s. The skin stayed crispy long after the judging was complete. Breakfast biscuits and wraps are ready by 7am and “ole Virginia” chicken is fried (or baked) until 9pm/9:30pm every day but Sunday. There are plenty of other things to eat, but the chicken dinner’s the winner. A 12-piece family deal comes with two large sides and six rolls for $21.28.

Second clucker-up

Preston Avenue Shell Station

601 Preston Ave.

296-2004

Monday-Sunday 6am-9pm

Only in Virginia do we know how good the food at gas stations can be, and this Shell Station next to Bodo’s is no exception. It even took our judges by surprise, but for 12 years now, the food counter in the back’s been frying up top-notch chicken (“very tender!”) and dishing up southern sides fresh every day. Its legion of fans swears by its spicy seasoning and the Monday night special, which gets you two pieces of chicken with one side, a biscuit and a 16 ounce drink for $3.99.

Other contenders

Brown’s

1210 Avon St.

295-4911

Monday-Friday 7am-9pm

Formerly Stoney’s Grocery, this pitstop in Belmont is handy for replenishing that toilet paper you ran out of last night. But it’s also garnered quite a following for its fried chicken, which owner Mike Brown became known for when he served it at his mini-market in Esmont years ago. A Sunday special gets you 12 pieces and a two-liter Pepsi product for $19.99.

Brownsville Market

5995 Rockfish Gap Turnpike, Crozet

823-5251

Daily 5am-10pm

This Shell station shop’s been keeping the area’s construction workers and locals in gas, cold drinks, and freshly grilled and fried food for more than 30 years. Its classic fried chicken and traditional sides make the ideal picnic contribution or dinner for the family when you don’t feel like cooking.

Chicken Coop

40 Front St., Lovingston

263-7818

Monday-Thur. 10:30am-7pm, Friday 10:30am-8pm, Saturday 10:30am-7:30pm Sunday 11am-5pm

Chances that there’s chicken at a place with such a name are good. But only Nelson County locals and those who happen upon it while fueling up the car at the Exxon station that houses it would know. Our judges were drawn to an herb in the batter that they couldn’t identify. A 12-piece meal comes with potato wedges, coleslaw, and six rolls for $17.99. And there’re plenty of six-packs or 40s to choose from too.

Foods of All Nations

2121 Ivy Rd.

293-7998

Monday-Saturday 7:30am-8pm, Sunday 8:30am-6pm

It might sell foods from all nations, but the fried chicken is from right here in the U.S. of A.—and this upscale grocery store that’s been around for more than 50 years does it well. Head straight for the deli to stock up on it, plus classic sides like Shirley’s potato salad. Then swing past the bakery for a sweet treat or two.

Lumpkin’s

1075 Valley St., Scottsville

286-3690

Monday-Tuesday, Saturday 7am-3pm, Thursday-Friday 7am-8pm

The giant rooster out front’s a surefire sign that fried chicken’s one of this 50-year-old restaurant and hotel’s specialties. But life shuts down early in the country, so come for breakfast or lunch any day but Wednesday or Sunday, or an early bird dinner on Thursdays and Fridays. The pies are made fresh every day before even the roosters are up.

Mac’s Country Store

7023 Patrick Henry Hwy., Roseland

277-5305

Monday-Sunday 6am-6pm

This convenience store on Route 151 sells your choice of moist white or dark meat chicken, sides, and dinner rolls on your way to or from the area’s growing number of breweries, cideries, and vineyards. A few tables and chairs in the back serve a purpose for those who can’t wait to tuck into the spread. Get a 32-piecer for $36.19.

Mel’s Café

719 W. Main St.

971-8819

Monday-Thursday 10am-10pm, Friday-Saturday 10am-11pm

Soul food’s on the menu at this West Main throwback that’s been in operation and family-owned for “a long, long time.” The fried chicken, which was Keevil’s choice for third place, comes out hot and impossibly crispy (“Are these cornflakes in the coating?” crowed one judge) with two southern comfort sides. Or get a fried chicken leg sandwich and a sweet tea and save room for a slice of their famous sweet potato pie. Whatever you order, they’ll treat you real nice.

The Whiskey Jar

227 W. Main St., Downtown Mall

202-1549

Monday-Thursday 11am-midnight, Friday-Saturday 11am-2am

This Downtown Mall newcomer from Rev Soup owner Will Richey satisfies cravings with its local chicken that’s raised on a Mennonite farm and drenched in flavor from the outside in (“It tastes like it’s been injected with Texas Pete!” a judge observed) then served over local collards studded with Kite’s Country Bacon for $12. A drink made with one of the 46 bottles of whiskey on the wall sweetens the deal.

Categories
Arts

Josh Ritter talks about songwriting, novels, and the open road

Josh Ritter.
C-VILLE Weekly’s Graelyn Brashear sat down with singer/songwriter and novelist Josh Ritter for a radio interview live on WTJU before his show last night at the Jefferson Theater. Ritter, a remarkably candid interview and a compelling communicator, talks about his friendship with C’ville musicians, his attachment to Appalachia, and his love of writing.
Graelyn Brashear: Glad to have you back in Charlottesville. We were talking about the fact that you’ve had several visits here recently, you’ve been back in this area a couple of times, and you set your novel, Bright’s Passage, in Appalachia. Do you have connections to Charlottesville in particular and this part of the country in general?
Josh Ritter: Well this is pretty mythic American country out here, you know, with the history of some of the intellectual fiery cradle of this country. So it’s pretty great to be here. And it’s an amazing town. There’s so much good food, and there’s music, and it doesn’t hurt to come back.
GB: I wanted to ask you about your novel. It was a really interesting change of hats for you. I know you get asked about that a lot, the difference between songwriting and moving into a different writing style. What was that like, and what’s it like to take different tacks with your storytelling?
JR: I’ve thought about it a lot. When I was growing up, a teenager, I had a lot of words, and I had a lot that I felt like I wanted to do, but I didn’t know what it was, you know? And I discovered songwriting, and it was like i found a bucket for the words. It was a form, and it was so exciting. But I never really thought that that was the only way that a writer could write.
For me, I find that it’s mostly a temperament thing. You have to adjust your temperament. With songs there’s  chance you’ll write a song in an afternoon, or a week. I’ve had a few songs I’ve written over a long period of time, but in general, songs are short things. and a novel takes years. I think that finding your freedom and the excitement of creating something in the morning and then setting it down and coming back to it the next day is something that I had to learn how to do. In general, the two things are very similar—you have words, and you’re trying to put the right word after the right word after the right word, like a tightrope walker.
GB: With Bright’s Passage, I was curious about the juxtaposition of the settings and the themes there. It follows the story of a man really traumatized by World War I who comes home to West Virginia, and the trauma sort of weaves its way into his life. So what drove you to juxtapose those two settings—Europe in World War I and Appalachia at the time?
JR: Well World War I was this moment at the cliff’s edge there. In 1913, we thought we had everything figured out. We thought we had things pretty much sussed. Niels Bohr was told not to go into physics, because physics had all been figured out. So all these things happen, and then suddenly the world explodes, and the modern world came in like a rush of water and washed everything away. Horse and cavalry, cannons—these things, they disappeared and were replaced by new things, by planes and poison gas, and all these technologies that have gone on to be good for us as well.
And I think Appalachia has always been a symbol, I  think for me, of a place that is at the edge of time. it’s always on the edge. If the future happens, it’ll happen in Appalachia, and the past is happening, too. It’s a place that stands for something, where time is under different laws. I thought the two worked well together.
GB: Do you think you have more books in you?
JR: Definitely. I’m working on a second one right now.
GB: Can you tell us about it?
JR: it’s a big, rowdy novel with lots of terrible language. My mom’s going to be mortified. It’s gonna be fun.
GB: And you’re working on other projects. You were saying you’ve wrapped up your next album as well.
JR: Yes, it’s getting real close. There are still some finishing touches to go, but I hope to have it out in the first part of next year.
GB: What can you tell us about it? From what you’ve been saying, it opens a door into a more personal part of your life than fans might be used to.
JR: I’d always shied away from that, with the very specific idea that there is more to write about outside your own personal experience, and that’s good. It’s good to write that way. Autobiography makes the focus a little smaller a little tighter, and sometimes that’s uncomfortable for the listener and the writer. So I haven’t always done that, but now with this one, I feel it—it’s a lot of short, sharp little songs. I’m pretty excited about it.
GB: Big rowdy novel, short sharp songs— a lot of emotion in both.
JR: Yeah.
GB: Bringing it back local again—you actually toured in ireland with Love Canon, a local band.
JR: I am very proud of my assoc with Love Canon. They’re amazing. Zack Hickman, who I’ve played with for almost half my life, on the bass here, he knows some incredible musicians. Two of them are fantastic—Adam Larrabee and Jesse Harper. They’re (from) right around here, and we got to play some great songs together.
GB: What was it like to tour alongside them?
JR: It’s like standing in the middle of a hurricane. You’ve got to hold on.
GB: Thinking about the arc of your career—you’ve come along way since your first album, which you recorded while you were in school. Do you miss anything about the early days, and the process of figuring out who you were as a musician?
JR: It’s really interesting. Nobody’s ever asked me that. What I really get out of playing music and why I do it…to be creative and impress yourself and entertain yourself, is the idea that it should always feel new, hopefully. The two things you have as an artist that really matter are confidence in your work and excitement about the future. If you don’t have that, what’s the point? You’d end up doing medleys. It scares me to even think about it. So I always hope that things are just getting more and more exciting.
GB: Anybody’s who’s seen you live would feel that you bring that to the stage still. Is that a conscious effort? You’re a performer for sure—you interact and you smile a lot, and its very much a live show. Is that part of channelling that energy and bringing newness to it?
JR: Absolutely. If you love somebody, hopefully every dance you have with them is your first one—you know, that feeling. And that’s how it is with songs, and that’s why it’s really important to write and write until you get thing exactly how you want them, because when you do that, that’s your partner for the next 40 years, or 50 years, and you want to always be proud of it. Some songs, they start to lose their love, and other ones gain more love with your experience in life. I love performing. You write a song, and it’s like making an animal in a laboratory. And when you’re performing, it’s like the animal’s out there on the stage, and you don’t know what it’s going to do.
GB: So it is new when you bring it to the live audience.
JR: Every time, depending on what’s going on in the audience, us—it’s totally crazy.
GB: You’ve lived a lot of places in the country. Is it strange to go back to them as a performer, as a musician, and go back to a place where you spent time before this career really started?
JR: Yeah. It’s said that Abraham Lincoln said he had more hometowns than anybody else in the world. The great thing about being a musician, a traveling musician, is you get to see the whole place. You get to see how it’s stitched together. And it’s funny, what we learn as a band about places that we go. We’ll learn about places to eat, or the place that gave us a free coffee last time. Its great. There’s all kinds of memories that get rolled up into this. You may not remember the stage, but you definitely remember the good sandwich you had, and the good show.
GB: Your songwriting influences are clearly varied. I wonder how much comes from seeing new places all the time, and how much that influences your writing and how you go about the process of bringing these things to the page.
JR: I used to get so wound up about it. I write prose stuff on the road a lot. But I used to get the physical act of putting words on a page confused with the act of writing. Writing is 90 percent listening and picking things up and reading and watching and meeting people, and 10 percent reorganizing those ideas. It’s like visible light. There’s so much more light that’s going on that we can’t see, but that 10 percent is what we see by, and that’s how we judge ourselves. Being out on the road is a chance to meet all kinds of crazy people, do all kinds of crazy things and have experiences, see things out the window, walk down the street, see a movie, hear music. It’s all in there. And for me touring is what powers this, the writing. I don’t know what I would do without it.
Categories
Living

Meet the man who’s quietly bringing ancient Tibet to Charlottesville

Gyaltsen Druknya is working to bring traditional Tibetan medicine to the U.S. with his organization, Arura Medicine of Tibet. John Robinson photo.

Gyaltsen Sangpo Druknya was born in the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau in a region called Amdo, a land of arid grasslands, huge blue lakes, and deep, pine covered valleys. Three of Asia’s most famous rivers—the Yangtze, the Yellow, and the Mekong—have their beginnings in the snow-covered mountains that ring the area. Amdo is the birthplace of the current Dalai Lama, and a quarter of the Tibetan population, about 1.6 million people, live there, despite the fact that it lies outside of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, largely subsumed by the Chinese province of Quinghai.

The village where he was born is home to about 500 families. Like 80 percent of the Tibetans in Amdo, they’re traditional nomadic farmers, raising yaks, goats, and sheep on the steppes of the highest and largest plateau on earth.

Gyaltsen’s first name is pronounced like “Jyultson,” but he tells everybody to just say “Jensen” and leave it at that. His last name is familiar as the name of the Downtown Mall hair salon, Salon Druknya, which he co-owns with Tashi, his wife of seven years. They have two kids, a 7-year-old son, Namkia, and a daughter, Chukyi, who is 6. He’s a happy, successful man, but he just can’t seem to relax and enjoy it.

“My personality likes keeping busy,” he said. “That’s why my wife complains.” What keeps Gyaltsen busy is a lifelong interest in traditional Tibetan medicine and a consuming desire to do whatever he can to help his homeland. Last year, he founded a nonprofit company called Arura Medicine of Tibet, with the sole aim of bringing traditional Tibetan medicine to the U.S. Every Sunday and every Monday is spent working towards this goal—and every other spare moment he’s not in the salon. All his spare money is going to that venture too, and he’s not getting paid for the work. But that’s O.K., he’s not in it for the money. And that’s why his wife nags him. “She says, ‘If you spent all your energy on [the hair salon], you and I by now don’t have to work.’”

Tibetan medicine is old. Some say 1,200 years old, others say 6,000 years, but it’s old. In fact, the first international medical conference was held in Tibet in the 7th century, and there’s evidence of Tibetan doctors performing brain surgery way before the current era.

But the ancient tradition has been seriously modernized. Arura Tibetan Medicine Group is a state-financed (read: Chinese Government) company that includes a Tibetan pharmaceutical company (worth $62.5 million in 2006), Tibetan Medical Hospital, Tibetan medical school, Tibetan Medical Research Institute, and the Museum of Tibetan Medicine and Culture, all under one umbrella and all in the Amdo region. If the medicine is holistic, so is the business.

Gyaltsen left Tibet at 18 and went to school in India before setting up a business selling rugs and gems, splitting his time between India and Nepal. Later, he traveled to Singapore, Hong Kong, and lived for a year in Taiwan. In 2001, the then 27-year-old went to visit his sister in Charlottesville, where she was living with her husband. His third day here, a woman asked him if he was going to stay in America permanently. “If you find a horse for me,” said the Tibetan nomad, “I will stay here.” The next day she called his bluff and took him out to Braeburn horse training center in Crozet. As soon as he got on a horse, he was hired, and for the next two years he trained horses for a living.

But then in 2003, Gyaltsen was in a bad car accident. His face was filled with broken glass and needed numerous stitches and his back was so badly damaged he couldn’t work at the horse farm anymore. Taking the bad luck in stride, he decided to open a restaurant. He had no experience as a cook, mind you, but his father owns restaurants in India and Nepal, and he thought he might be able to make it work.

When he first arrived in 2001, Gyaltsen met Tashi, also Tibetan, through the town’s small Tibetan community. She was cutting hair at Carden Salon on the Downtown Mall, and owner John Carden started helping Gyaltsen look for a location for the restaurant. While he looked, he fell back on what he’d done before, selling gemstones from India and Nepal on the Downtown Mall. John asked him if he might want to try cutting hair.

“I thought, ‘No way.’ I have this wild personality,” he said.

But after almost two years with no luck, John asked again. Why not, Gyaltsen thought. He could set his own hours and keep looking for something else. But he turned out to be pretty good at the hair-cutting thing, and in 2005, after only three months on the job, John asked if he and Tashi wanted to buy the business.

“That’s probably [what made] me stay as a hairdresser,” Gyaltsen said. Except for his time at the Horse Center, he’d never worked for other people, he’d always done his own thing.

“I always had a feeling to help Tibet, inside Tibet. I want to do something. …I feel like just work here is not satisfying the goal [I had] when I left home.”

When Dr. O Tsokchen, the head of Arura Group, came to Charlottesville in 2008, it was because he’d heard that a guy named Gyaltsen Druknya had been holding numerous successful fundraisers for the Tibetan Healing Fund, a group working to improve the health and living conditions of women and children in rural Tibet. Dr. O asked him to spearhead the efforts to bring Arura Medicine to the U.S., but Gyaltsen wasn’t interested. He wanted to help Tibet, not America.

Still, he began visiting American medical facilities and talking to doctors and nurses at UVA, and he started to see that not only could Tibetan medicine be a big boon to America, bringing the “mindfulness part of medicine,” but coming to America could also help Tibetan medicine.

“All the hard work, and what they did inside Tibet, if we establish some new place here in America, could be preserved.”

So when Dr. O came back in 2009, Gyaltsen said yes. And then he proposed holding a Tibetan Medicine conference in Charlottesville.

“You sure you can do it?” Dr. O asked.

“Why not?” Gyaltsen said.

Last year, Gyaltsen started Arura Medicine of Tibet. They’ve got a Board of Advisors that includes Jeffrey Hopkins, professor emeritus in UVA’s religion department, the man who built the Tibetan Buddhist Studies program and served as translator for the Dalai Lama for 10 years. They work with numerous Tibetan groups, as well as with the UVA School of Nursing, the UVA Tibetan Center, and the newly minted UVA Contemplative Science Center.

And they need big partners, because they have big plans. The goal is to build a Tibetan Medical Shangri La here in Charlottesville, with a training center, old folks’ home, museum, medical library, meditation hall, Tibetan marketplace, and a Tibetan inn.

I ask Gyaltsen what he does other than cut hair and work on Tibetan causes.

“That’s my wife’s complaint,” he says. But then he thinks a bit and says, “I like bars. I go to bars a little bit.”

He admits that perhaps less of his energy goes into the salon than it should, but his wife and employees keep the place running well, while his heart and mind are with his passion project.

Both he and Tashi are U.S. citizens. Gyaltsen made the leap just last year in a small, unobtrusive ceremony at the Federal courthouse Downtown. He had the option to do it at Monticello, but he didn’t want to make it a big deal.

“Anyway,” he says, “I’m a citizen of the world, yeah?”

Categories
Living

Who/What/Wear: All maxi’d out

I ran into local student PANSY on UVA Grounds while she was taking a walk with friends. Seen here wearing a maxi skirt from Urban Outfitters and a simple black tank, this easy, breezy summer look is elevated with a vintage Coach bag handed down from Pansy’s mother —and Pansy’s own outstanding curls.

I saw EMILY, a floral designer for Hedge and visual associate at Anthropologie, outside Anthropologie’s Barracks Road store. The Richmond-born New York City transplant is wearing a Michael Stars tank top with a skirt and sandals from Urban Outfitters and a sculptural necklace made by Brooklyn-based artist Hali Emminger. “Part of what I love is nature and I really like the idea of incorporating that in what I wear,” Emily said of her laid-back style. “I really like matching feminine things with things that are easy.”

I came across JEN, an urban planner for AECOM, while shopping at the farmer’s market. “[I’m] trying to be good about sun protection so I’ve invested in some hats this year,” said Jen, who was scouting seasonal vegetables with a friend who works at The Whiskey Jar. Layering has been another priority this season because of the weather’s ups and downs, and leading an active lifestyle means Jen goes from shopping to hiking in the same day. Jen is wearing a skirt and shirt from the Gap, accessorized with a hat from H&M and sandals from Forever 21.

 

Categories
Arts

Wilco cruises into Pavilion with good vibes

Bassist John Stirratt (far right) is the only original Wilco member other than front man Jeff Tweedy, but the band’s a happy, well-oiled Americana machine. Feel the love on Thursday at the Pavilion.

Wilco is in a good place. The band’s near-two-decade slog through the music world has had its fair share of adversity: addiction, line-up shuffles, and a gut-punch rejection from Reprise Records of what turned out to be its most successful album (2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). Now, the band has held the same crew together for the past seven years—a dynamic sextet that has solidified the group’s evolution from alt-country pioneers to big-stage experimental rock heroes.

An encompassing tour of the group’s sonic tastes was released last fall in its eighth studio album, The Whole Love. The effort runs the gamut of Wilco’s broadly constructed cosmic Americana. From to the sunny pop-rock title track to Nels Cline’s explosive free-form guitar licks in the off-kilter opener “Art of Almost,” to the wandering, finger-picked 12-minute folk meditation “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend),” the group found plenty of different aural avenues for the ever-expanding songbook of front man Jeff Tweedy.

Bassist John Stirratt, the band’s only remaining original member besides Tweedy, took questions by phone before Wilco’s return to the nTelos Wireless Pavilion on Thursday.

C-VILLE Weekly: When I first heard The Whole Love, the immediate impression was that it was all inclusive of the sounds Wilco has touched on over the years. Did the band have this sense as well?

John Stirratt: “There was an idea that the record didn’t have a linear quality from a sound standpoint—the way Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or A Ghost is Born did. That’s a challenge we wanted to take on—making something sprawling that’s all over the map, but still a great listening experience. We tried to not be afraid to present songs that might seem incongruous to other people.”

How does the band determine if a song should be more experimental or straightforward?

“That’s all part of the work. We generally move forward until we’re all enjoying a song. Often, there are different threads that seem to present themselves during recording sessions. We’ll start doing some spacey country stuff, which yielded “Open Mind” and “Jane Smiley” on this album. Generally, we reach a point on a song where we’re comfortable, and at that point we know there’s no other way to present it.”

Would you say the band is in the most stable place it’s ever been as far as the line-up?

“Without a doubt, having this line-up together for the past seven years has allowed us to get really deep, especially from a live standpoint. It can be daunting when you’re making a record, because we have so many options with this big of a band. But there’s so much musical empathy and everyone listens to each other; we’re in a really good spot right now.”

You’ve played a staggering number of shows over the years, and your road schedule has been pretty constant since releasing the latest album. What keeps it fresh from night to night?

“There’s a great culture and intensity around the fandom of the band. On a tiny level, it’s a little bit like what the Grateful Dead had. It’s great when people care that much. There’s a celebration existing outside of the band, and that vibe definitely keeps us inspired. The other thing is the catalog. Since we’ve been around for so long we can mix up the tunes and find new ways that songs work together. Little things like that can make a difference.”

Wilco had a well-publicized record label struggle. Was it a relief to start your own label and have that part of the equation removed from the business of making music?

“I don’t know if relief is the right word, because now it’s a lot more responsibility. We’re happy that we started the label, but it’s honestly the only way it can work. It’s great to have the creative freedom, but on the business end it’s challenging to sell records. We’re doing the best we can.”

What’s the plan after this touring cycle behind The Whole Love—back to other musical outlets like your band Autumn Defense with fellow Wilco member Pat Sansone?

“We had a big session with Autumn Defense earlier in the year, so we have a few things recorded. I think we’re sounding better than ever, and we’re planning to squeeze some more things in between Wilco dates. There are quite a few other projects on the table. Jeff is going to be working on another Mavis Staples record, and as the touring eases up next year Wilco will get back in the studio.”

Categories
Arts

Freedom is just another word for Kris Kristofferson

At some point quite early in your long life it dawned on you that you had already written the words the world is going to want to see on your tombstone. That’s not a particularly easy thing to live with. You wrote them in the song “The Pilgrim: Chapter 33” about a rogues gallery of men you ran with or admired in the 1960s—Chris Gantry, Dennis Hopper, Jerry Jeff Walker, Johnny Cash—men who at the time were busy crucifying themselves on drugs and alcohol and bad behavior. Some of them, like you, found a way down off the cross. But the words stuck, and they still hang about you:

“He’s a poet, he’s a picker, he’s prophet, he’s a pusher

He’s a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he’s stoned.

He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth, partly fiction

Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.”

Now, in retrospect, it seems like old tales about pills and the bottle are the least interesting thing about you. But when you’re Kris Kristofferson, even your least interesting feature is pretty damned interesting to the rest of us.

Let us count the ways: Rhodes scholar, boxer, degree in Literature from Oxford, trained as an Army helicopter pilot, Airborne Ranger, assigned to teach English at West Point. He then walked away from it all to move to Nashville to write country songs. For years he worked as a janitor in a recording studio, taking occasional stints flying choppers to oil platforms. He was on a long slow drive down the road to nowhere, but always refining his craft. He wrote some of the most recorded songs in country music history sitting on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico with barely a penny in his pocket, and his feet coming out the bottom of his shoes.

Kristofferson’s breakthrough came in 1970, after he landed a helicopter on Johnny Cash’s lawn and gave him a copy of the song “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” The stunt worked. Cash recorded it, and it topped the country charts, winning CMA Song of the Year. From there, the trajectory headed straight up. In 1972, three of the five Grammy nominees for Best Country Song were his. He won for the exquisitely crafted erotic ballad “Help Me Make It Through the Night.”

Rolling Stone called “Sunday Morning” “the greatest song ever written about a hangover.” It’s easy to see why. The first lines alone are quintessential country: “Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt. And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert.” The song shambles along for a couple of evocative, desolate verses. Then it does that gospel lift-off, with the music reaching for the rafters just as the words nosedive to the emotional bottom:

“And there’s nothing short of dyin’

Half as lonesome as the sound

Of a sleeping city sidewalk

Sunday morning comin’ down.”

With everything else he’s been—movie star, singer, Golden Globe winner (for A Star is Born), sex symbol, activist, hellion—it’s easy to forget that Kristofferson is among the best songwriters Nashville has ever produced. He’s penned at least a dozen that are now an indelible part of the country songbook: “For the Good Times,” “From the Bottle to the Bottom,” “To Beat the Devil,” “Loving Her Was Easier,” “Why Me.” “Me and Bobby McGee” belongs in the pantheon with a handful of the greatest American songs—right up there with “Over the Rainbow” and “Like a Rolling Stone”—each of them a meditation on freedom and longing.

His leftie activism has alienated a few people over the years. He once told Esquire magazine: “I’d be more marketable as a right-wing redneck. But I got into this to tell the truth as I saw it.” Still, Nashville has never stopped recording his songs, and his country audience is finding its way back. Fans and critics are raving about the stripped-down concert act and the finely-honed writing and studio work of his latest albums. Once his songs were about freedom, loneliness and desolation. Now he writes minimalist, gem-like lyrics about transcendence and grace—laced right down among the sorrows of life.

Categories
Arts

Adam Brock’s vision shines on Borrowed Beams of Light’s new EP

Borrowed Beams of Light.

For years, local music fans only knew Adam Brock as a drummer, the powerful force behind bands like The Nice Jenkins and Invisible Hand. But it’s always been clear that Brock was capable of more. His clear and exuberant singing voice added a perfect pop edge to his bands’ tunes, and his enthusiastic taste as a record collector ran towards the eclectic and the ornate end of the pop-rock spectrum: the Zombies, the Kinks, Sparks, and Harry Nilsson.

In 2009, Brock finally made his debut as a frontman, with a solo project called Borrowed Beams of Light. Over the past three years, this side project has included enough other members to qualify as a Charlottesville supergroup, and at its best threatens to overshadow the popularity of his other projects. The debut EP, followed by a split single and full-length album, won acclaim from many fellow musicians, as well as a devoted following among the rock DJs at WTJU.

The Beams are now preparing to release a new EP, a six-track record entitled Hot Springs. The list of studio personnel is an odd summation of the groups’ history; half the tracks were recorded by the original duo of Brock and his former Nice Jenkins bandmate Nate Walsh performing over simple drum machine backing—the remaining songs are fully fleshed out by the Beams’ current live band, which includes Jordan Brunk (another former Jenkin) and Marie Landragin of the retro-metal act Corsair, as well as Dave Gibson and Ray Szwabowski. The basic backing tracks were laid down at White Star Studios in Louisa County, and then fully fleshed out in smaller recording studios in the apartments and practice spaces of various band members.

For a record with such a patchwork recording history, Hot Springs is remarkably coherent; a testament to the consistency of Brock’s talent and aesthetic vision. His greatest skill as a songwriter and performer has always been the ability to put forward in odd, obscure, or downright impenetrable narrative conceits and conceptual whims in the form of breezy, largely unchallenging power-pop. Fancy breakdowns, odd turns of phrase and left turn bridges abound, but the end result is approachable and charming, even if they often sound more like an eclectic rock band playing with the idea of pop music than anything that might have actually appeared on the Billboard charts in the past 30 years.

The opening title track is bombastically catchy, with all of the manic hooks that Beams fans have grown to expect. “You’re such a lovely girl/to melt this awful snow!” Brock chatters, but it sounds less like a come-on than an insistence on the song’s own hook itself. “Wing Stroke” is stripped-down and simpler, but may be the record’s high point; yowling, yelping lines are interspersed with clear, straight-forward ones, as Brock wildly intones “I could waste my days in here/I might drink my weight in tears.” “Fine Lines” concludes the side with a credible soundalike of Roxy Music or vintage Bowie.

The B-side is more relaxed and glam-influenced, proving the band can still keep the quality control high even when they calm down a bit. Throughout, Marie Landragin’s harmonized guitar solos are the most anachronistic part of the record, but also the most enjoyable. Many of the songs are interspersed with confusing spoken-word snippets and vocal field recordings, never taking center stage but often adding texture and character. The EP concludes with “Simple Century,” which has a heavy early ’90s adult contemporary vibe. An aesthetic that I indelibly associate with “grocery store music”—which would almost be funny if they didn’t play it totally straight-faced; surprisingly, the style actually works to the song’s advantage.

This 45rpm 12″ record, issued by Harrisonburg-based Funny/Not Funny Records, is the Beams’ first vinyl-only release, though all copies come with an mp3 download code. “With a CD pressing, often the minimum amount you can do is in the thousands—and it’s actually cheaper in total to get, like 5,000 CDs than a few hundred.” Brock explains. “I just didn’t have it in me to fill the rest of my basement with another dozen boxes of unsold CDs.” Hot Springs is limited to 333 copies of the LP, but more download codes are planned; once the vinyl edition is depleted, the band may sell download cards featuring a miniature facsimile of the EP’s excellent cover art by prolific local artist and musician Thomas Dean.

Borrowed Beams opens for Dr. Dog at the Jefferson tonight. Brock relishes the idea of playing for a larger, potentially sold-out crowd: “There’s something nice about playing a bigger room. I think it works best for the type of music we’re playing. Plus, we’re all in our 30s now, and there’s only so many years of your life you can spend playing shows for three stoned kids in a living room and then crashing on the couch.” Although Hot Springs’ proper release date isn’t until August 14, those who have pre-ordered the record through Funny/Not Funny will be able to pick up their purchases at tonight’s show.

Categories
Living

Gettin’ sweet on sweet corn

Garrison Keillor once said, “Sex is good, but not as good as fresh, sweet corn.” To which we add—especially when it’s slathered in lots of butter. Corn tastes like nature’s candy, but it loses 50 percent of its sugar in the first 24 hours after it’s picked, so start gorging yourself now on these dishes that handle the cherished kernels with care.

Dean Maupin hails the Silver Queen at C&O Restaurant with his white corn soup that gets a pile of sweet and spicy lump crab added to it.

Feast!’s summer salad proclaims the season with a plate of greens, sautéed corn, crispy bacon, Maytag blue cheese, and local tomatoes all drizzled with a pesto vinaigrette.

If you looking to get down and dirty with good old corn-on-the-cob, head to The Whiskey Jar, where it’s roasted with the husk left on as a handle. A roll in butter and a sprinkle of salt and it’s the perfect side to a blackened catfish sammy.

At Rapture, Louisiana-style poached and pickled shrimp sit atop a stack of fried green tomatoes that rest on a bed of corn remoulade that’s made with roasted corn scraped from the cob, mustard, mayonnaise, cayenne, garlic, and lemon juice.

Orzo’s melt-in-your-mouth chicken confit gets spiced up Moroccan-style then combined with chorizo, fresh corn, tomato, zucchini, and cilantro before it’s finished with sherry jus.

Enjoy corn for dessert at Palladio Restaurant where Chef Melissa Close-Hart pairs a peach and basil crisp with sweet corn gelato.

Ears to you

Styrofoam trays of shrink-wrapped, already-husked corn’s a sin, but so is peeling back every single husk, so how are you supposed to tell the good ones from the wormy ones?

  • Dig towards the bottom of the pile where it’s the coolest.
  • Check that the stalk ends of the ears aren’t dry and shriveled.
  • Pick ears with tight, fresh, green husks and shiny, golden silk.
  • If you do find worms, simply cut out the invaded area before cooking.

Name that cob-eatin’ style

Around the world: Around the ear in even columns

Typewriter: Horizontally across the cob, dinging at the end of each row

Kamikaze: Anywhere and everywhere

Categories
News

Chloramine complaints drive decision to go with costlier water filtration

A months-long debate over whether to add a new disinfectant to the area’s water supply or implement a more expensive purification system came to a head last week as elected and appointed officials from four local regulatory bodies heard a final wave of impassioned arguments against the use of chloramines. By the end of the lengthy public hearing at the County Office Building Wednesday, policy makers acquiesced to public outcry, voting unanimously to take the objectionable chemicals off the table and instead explore the more costly alternative of a carbon filter. Chloramine opponents hailed it as a victory. But several on the dais made it clear it was outrage, not evidence, that guided their decisions—and some remain concerned about rising water costs.

The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority announced earlier this year that it planned to start using chloramines, a compound of chlorine and ammonia, as a secondary disinfectant—the chemical added to water to keep it clean as it travels between the treatment plant and the tap. The EPA is rolling out stricter regulations that scale back the amount of carcinogenic chlorine byproducts allowed in drinking water, and the RWSA said the cheapest way to stay in compliance was to swap out chlorine for the longer-lasting chloramine in the last stage of water treatment and delivery. Switching to the new chemical would cost an estimated $5 million, according to the RWSA.

But local residents began raising concerns, voicing their fears at a series of meetings: The chemicals could cause skin rashes and other acute reactions, can contribute to lead leaching from pipes, and can create harmful byproducts. These include nitrosamines, the same nasty carcinogens that doctors warn are found in much higher levels in cured meats, and hydrazine, used in pharmaceutical manufacturing and as rocket fuel.

A core group of city and county residents urged the RWSA and the elected officials who appoint its members to consider an alternative—a granular activated carbon system that would act like a giant Brita filter—and responded with rebuttals when the authority said such a project would cost more than $18 million.

Last week, with all the decision-makers in one place, the anti-chloramines crowd came out in force. More than 200 people filled Lane Auditorium in the County Office Building, where the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, the Albemarle County Service Authority, the Charlottesville City Council, and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors gathered to listen. For about three hours, dozens of people, many toting signs, offered the same concerns about the chemicals.

City resident Colette Hall said there are still too many questions. “The EPA says chloramines are safe,” she said. “But what will they say in 10 years?”

Sarah Vose has heard that argument—and many more. Vose is Vermont’s state toxicologist, and she’s had a front-row seat as the debate over chloramines has unfolded there. When one Vermont water district switched to chloramines in 2006, complaints started rolling in, and vocal anti-chloramine groups started bringing up the same concerns about acute reactions and long-term byproducts heard here.

Things got so heated that Vermont’s health department invited the Centers for Disease Control to conduct a public health study in the Champlain area. But results were inconclusive, and a survey of 172 area physicians turned up only two who said they believed patients had been affected by the water.

Vose explained that a little understanding of water chemistry goes a long way in dispelling many chloramine concerns. The chemical’s cancer-causing byproducts only form under certain unlikely conditions, she said—specifically, when the pH is about 10 times more alkaline than baking soda. Lead leaching and the formation of potentially dangerous chloramine compounds also only occur at pH levels outside the normal drinking water range, she said.

“There are a lot of things in our environment that we should be concerned about,” she said. But when people go at the issue from the gut, it’s not easy to argue back with science alone. “It’s hard to communicate that when people have already convinced themselves that it’s toxic,” Vose said.

After receiving thousands of complaints and listening to residents for hours last week, some officials said they felt the need to protect against perceived dangers, if not real ones.

Charlottesville Vice Mayor Kristin Szakos said she wasn’t convinced the chemicals were harmful, but said she saw value in paying more for the public’s peace of mind. “It didn’t pose a clear and imminent danger to use chloramines,” she said. “But being known for something different—that is important in this community.”

The more palatable alternative put forward by RWSA director Tom Frederick was a hybrid system in which a limited carbon filter would be used to reduce the need for chlorine in the water, bringing down the total byproducts but avoiding the need for more disinfectant. The vote to explore the alternative with a three-week, $9,500 study was unanimous, but the jury’s still out on how much extra cost officials will be willing to swallow. Frederick said the final tab would likely fall somewhere between the $5 million chloramines would cost and the $18.3 million projected for a full-scale carbon system. The most expensive option would raise the average water bill in the area from $1.20 to $4.83 per month, he said.

Dave Thomas of the Albemarle County Service Authority said that if the estimate comes in on the high end, he’s still going to question the sense of going forward without strong evidence that chloramines cause problems.

“Any time you do a public works project, you’re balancing the best possible outcome with the price the community can bear,” said Thomas, and there are many local families for whom any extra cost is a burden. He offered an analogy: Local officials had the option to go for a cheap sedan or a luxury car. “We went with the Audi A6,” he said. “Look around the parking lot at Western Albemarle, and you don’t see that many Audi A6s.”

Categories
News

NFL prospect Mike Brown Jr. sees success as outgrowth of parents’ work ethic

The Brown family—Mike Sr., Mike Jr., and Kim—standing in front of Brown’s Store on Avon Street. Mike Jr., a football star at Monticello High School and Liberty University, is currently trying to earn a spot on the Jacksonville Jaguars final roster as a wide receiver. John Robinson photo.

On a busy Monday afternoon at Brown’s Store on Avon Street, Kim Brown is packing up a tray of fried chicken and her husband is ringing up customers at the register. It would be just another day were it not for the presence of the tall young man with braids standing behind the counter, looking a little out of sorts.

Dividing time between sports and working for his parents is something Mike Brown Jr. has done his whole life, starting at an age when he needed a milk crate to see over the counter. In a few days, he will be where he belongs, on a football field, but for the time being he’s back at the store. The former Monticello High School quarterback is participating in the Jacksonville Jaguars training camp, hoping to earn a spot on the team’s final 53-man roster. He tried out for the team in early May and was signed to a three year, non-guaranteed contract as a wide receiver, a position he played at Liberty University for two seasons, before he moved back to quarterback, the position he prefers. The stakes are high (the average NFL receiver makes over $1 million per year) and the odds, even at this point, are long, but Brown has not made it this far without a strong sense of his own destiny and a commitment to his parents’ investment in his career.

“It takes a lot of work to get where I’ve gotten thus far and it’s going to take a ton more to get where I want to be,” he said.

Brown has been a remarkable athlete from an early age, an all-everything kind of kid who excelled at every sport he tried.

“He was always a standout, even at 5 years old,” his father recalled. “He was fairly quick, learned fast, and had a good arm.”

But it’s his work ethic, his father believes, that has gotten him his shot at a professional football career.

“The three sports keep you busy,” Mike Sr. said. “And then we’d get him in the store and put him to work when he had some free time. I think that’s why he played so many sports,” he laughed.

The Browns reoriented their lives around their son’s pursuit of his dream, covering for each other at the store to make his high school games and ultimately selling the market when he entered Liberty. They only opened the new location last year with one season left in Brown’s college career. Many important milestones were spent at games or on the road.

“One of my anniversaries I got by on just buying a hotdog at a baseball game,” Mike Sr. said.

Of course, the subject of their attention had to merit the devotion. Brown was disciplined with school and conditioning.

“When all those kids were on their PlayStations playing shoot ’em up games, he was always working on his game,” his mother added.

“I feel like I owe it to them for all the things they sacrificed,” Brown said.

Whether it’s God at work (as the Browns believe), or simply good fortune, things lined up again this spring when his wide receiver coach at Liberty—Charlie Skalaski—was hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars. Although Brown went undrafted as a quarterback, Skalaski rec-
ommended him for a tryout at wide receiver with a team that ranked 30th in the league in receiving last year. So far he has impressed, with one coach reportedly comparing him favorably to Pro Bowl receiver Wes Welker.

If he’s able to make the next cut, Brown will appear in the Jaguars’ first preseason game August 10. After the third week of preseason the team’s roster will be cut to 75 players, then to 53. If he doesn’t make the roster and can’t catch on with another team within two years, Brown said he’ll likely get into coaching. If not, he also has a business degree to fall back on.

“He’s got a plan,” his father said. “I think that was one reason he played three sports. You never put all your eggs in one basket.”

Next week, his parents will be here, running the store, but their hearts will be in Jacksonville. They’ve already made plans to attend the first preseason game there, but regular season games might be more difficult to take in. “I’d like to make them all,” said Mike Sr. “But I’d better get Direct-TV just in case.”

That’s if their son makes the team. Brown takes a professional athlete’s view when asked if it bothers him that he might end up with little to show for his earlier successes.

“Every day you’re fighting for your job and everything that you’ve ever dreamed of, so there’s definitely motivation,” he said. “It’s nerve wracking, but I love to compete, and that’s what I’ve always loved to do.”