The artists of Charlottesville are no strangers to creating in response to tragedy—sometimes with mournful works, sometimes with fierce ones. This is Our City Hip-Hop Showcase promises both, with a lineup of talented R&B artists from the city and surrounding areas. Though it starts the day before, the event is expected to spill over into the one-year anniversary of August 11, promising a night of healing through music.
Vibe Riot’s frontman Jaewar has a desire to be the “Bob Marley of hip-hop.” And as the head of a local collective whose music is alternately politically relevant and shamelessly feel-good, he’s well on his way. Vibe Fest seems like the next logical step for a group that seeks to “give context and color to society’s many shades of gray.” The funky, friendly act headlines alongside several local music and art performances.
Friday, July 20. Free, 7:30pm. IX Art Park, 522 Second St. SE. 970-3260.
In a glut of similar indie-rock groups, Camp Howard is most memorable for its range. The four-piece from Richmond doesn’t stick to one sound as many comparable bands tend to do, instead it jumps from inoffensive, beachy jams to harder-edged, punk-influenced tracks in the style of Wavves and Cloud Nothings. Stray Fossa, Sweet Tooth and Films on Song round out the local bill.
Food & Drink
’90s summer brunch
Sunday, July 8
Break out your scrunchies and slap bracelets and enjoy throwback ’90s covers from Supervixen during a brunch with killer views. Admission is free; food available for purchase, 11am-2pm. Carter Mountain Orchard, 1435 Carters Mountain Trail. 977-1833.
Family
Independence Day celebration
Wednesday, July 4
Come to Monticello to celebrate Independence Day and the annual naturalization ceremony that this year features guest speaker Andrew Tisch. Free, 9am-noon. Monticello, 931 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy. 984-9800.
Nonprofit
Harmonia
Saturday, July 8
Area musicians including Erin Lunsford, Genna Matthew, John D’earth and Davina Jackson join forces for a benefit to support Youngcenter.org and Creciendo Juntos, which both aid migrant children. Free admission (donations accepted), 4- 8pm. IX Art Park, 522 Second St. SE. cj-network.org
Health & Wellness
Kids aerial yoga
Saturday, July 7
No gymnastics background required for this aerial yoga session that promotes balance and strength for kids ages 6 to 10. $20 (RSVP required), 1:30-2:30pm. FlyDog Yoga, 1039 Millmont St. 964-1964.
By Jenny Gardiner and Sam Padgett
eatdrink@c-ville.com
You’ve gotta give John Dinh, owner of Charlottesville’s newest Vietnamese restaurant, major props for his clever restaurant moniker: Pho 3 Pho.
In case you didn’t know, “pho” is pronounced “pha,” as in do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do. Dinh credits the name, which echoes our local 434 area code, to his brother James.
Pho 3 Pho, which opened June 12 in Rivanna Plaza, the small strip mall abutting the AMF Kegler’s Lanes bowling alley on 29 North, is the realization of a long-held dream by Dinh, whose wife, Julie, owns two nail salons in town. Born in Vietnam but raised in Charlottesville, Dinh, who’s lived in the area for 20 years and attended Albemarle High School before graduating from William Monroe High School in Greene County, has always loved to cook.
“This is my goal, my dream, something I’ve always wanted to do, and nails just happened to come first, somehow—I have no clue how,” he says.
While the venue, formerly a sports bar, has a fully stocked bar and 20 different craft beers, the focus here is on pho, a popular traditional Vietnamese noodle soup made with slow-cooked beef stock that Dinh says is “the backbone of every Vietnamese restaurant. If [the pho’s] not good, then you should walk out.”
Childhood memories inform Dinh’s love of the soup—his family attended church in Richmond, where there is a large Vietnamese community, and ate it each Sunday.
Years of trial and error have gone into Dinh’s broth recipe, leading to the fragrant aromas wafting from the kitchen.
“The beef simmers for eight to 10 hours and is served hot,” he says. “It’s simmering all the time.” They make 100 quarts of the stuff a day, and there are plenty of pho options here, including sliced beef, meatball, brisket, chicken or a combination. Pho 3 Pho dishes cost between $3.50 for an appetizer and $12.50 for a large combination pho.
But Dinh is unequivocal about his favorite Pho 3 Pho dish: spicy beef noodle. “It’s different from pho,” he says. “It’s rich, a little bit sweet, a little bit sour, a good blend of different tastes. It’s strong, a bit spicy—I can’t make it mild, so don’t ask.”
Beneficial brew
For the past three years, Virginia breweries have come together to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation the best way they know how—selling beer—and Three Notch’d Brewery’s 65 Roses beer was made specifically to benefit charity, with $1 of every 65 Roses beer purchased going to the CFF. According to brewmaster Dave Warwick, the beer is designed to be “a light blonde ale that’s crisp and easy-drinking.” The June 14 Brewer’s Ball, the annual event that brings together 10 different Virginia breweries to benefit the cause, is your last chance to try the limited-edition brew before it’s gone.
Award-winning ales
The Virginia Craft Brewers Guild recently announced the winners of the 2018 Virginia Craft Beer Cup. Of the 375 beers judged in 27 categories, seven local breweries earned accolades. Blue Mountain Barrel House & Organic Brewery’s Adambeor took second place in the Best in Show category, along with first place in the Historical and Smoked Beer category. Wild Wolf Brewing Company’s American Stout nabbed first in the American Porter and Stout category, and second place honors went to Random Row Brewing Co. in the Pale Malty European Lager category with Not Yours Maibeck, and Blue Mountain Brewery’s Marsedon in the Trappist Ale category. Local brews won plenty of third place spots, too: Champion Brewing Company’s Shower Beer (Czech Lager category); Starr Hill Brewery’s Looking Glass and Jomo (IPA and Amber Malty and Bitter European Lager categories, respectively); South Street Brewery’s Virginia Lager (International Lager) and Three Notch’d Brewing Company’s Ghost of the 43rd (Pale American Ale).
Beer fans can sample many of the winners at the Virginia Craft Brewers Fest on August 18 at IX Art Park.
With roots in Washington, D.C., the funky subgenre of go-go music is almost exclusively celebrated in the mid-Atlantic area—and Seductive Sounds Gogo Band is the newest incarnation on the local scene. Formed by members of the renowned Double Faces Gogo Band, including Blacko Da Rappa, the band embodies the blend of funk, R&B and hip-hop that go-go listeners know and love. The supergroup plays classic covers and new music, alongside DJ FlatlineLay.
Though Will Thomas Reed is currently based in Nashville, where he’s paying his dues in the country music scene, his heart is here in his hometown of Charlottesville. For the release of his latest EP, To Whom It May Concern, Reed returns to celebrate with a release party and will surely bust out the fan-favorite single “Home Is Where The Bar Is.” His songs might leave you laughing, crying or thirsty, but surely you’ll be you wanting more.
The actors will appear to have left the screen when Charming Underclothes performance group takes on the movie Clue in a shadowcast. Dinner and drinks lead to a murder spree in the cinematic version of the popular board game, and the Reel to Real production company adds another dimension with actors in full costume, props, preshow games and audience interactions.
By Sam Padgett
It only takes hearing a few notes of ubiquitous ice cream truck jingles such as “Turkey in the Straw,” “Pop Goes the Weasel” and “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” to make most people salivate (we know it’s not just us). Although food trucks have evolved beyond their creamy origins to include tacos, barbecue and endless other hand-held creations, Graham Evans, who will roll his Bluegrass Creamery ice cream bus into IX Art Park in mid-April, wants to get back to mobile snacking basics.
Bluegrass Creamery’s soft-serve ice cream is made from the milk of grass-fed cows. Evans calls it a “secret sauce” that gives the ice cream a fuller flavor and a thicker, more custard-like texture.
“My career up until now has been focused on experimentation,” Evans says. “I like the process of understanding the variables that ultimately affect the outcome, and I simply applied that approach to making ice cream.” In the video for Bluegrass Creamery’s Indiegogo campaign, Evans explains that he was compelled to make his own ice cream after having the best ice cream he’d ever tasted, made from—you guessed it—milk from grass-fed cows, in Ireland.
Bluegrass Creamery will also serve vegan ice cream, using coconut cream and cashew milk as a base.
Evans and a team of artist friends have remodeled the bus (previously known as Ladybug Ice) and decorated it to blend into the art park’s eclectic, brightly colored ornamentation. Evans hopes to foster a community through his ice cream; he’s partnered with local businesses such as The Pie Chest and Frolic Chocolate to offer other treats on the bus. Plus, the creamery will employ a sliding scale pricing model, which allows customers to pay however much they can or want within a range ($2-3 for a small up to $5-8 for a large). Evans says he’s “passionate about building community and the social justice component of food. I believe good food should be eaten by everybody.”
Prost haste
Get your drinking shoes on: An authentic beer garden is opening up within walking distance of the Downtown Mall. Augustiner Beer Hall, to be located in the Glass Building beside Paradox Pastry in the former Bebedero space, will open in the coming months. Complete with an outdoor patio, a full-service restaurant and (of course) an extensive selection of local and European beers, the Augustiner Beer Hall could be a great location to clink glasses together and declare “prost!”
In fact, the name Augustiner comes from the name of one of Munich’s oldest breweries: Augustiner-Bräu. Beyond the beer, however, the Augustiner Beer Hall will serve a variety of European and locally inspired food, including schnitzel, ravioli and an array of hamburgers. While owner Oleg Makhayev has had plenty of experience working with beer (in Germany and Cleveland), he says he is looking to the community to refine the Charlottesville part of the menu. “To make local flavor, I have to learn from the locals,” he says. “That’s how I’ll know what people here want.”
Jay “Jaewar” King listened to a lot of reggae while growing up in Virginia Beach. His Jamaican-born father always had the stereo on, with good vibes floating through the speakers and into the home.
But it was hip-hop that took hold of him. Captivated by the imagery of the lyrics and by artists like LL Cool J who were “cool and powerful” and socially conscious all at once, a young Jaewar started filling books with lyrics of his own.
So it’s no surprise that this soft-spoken industrial engineer who fronts local hip-hop/reggae/rock/go-go band Vibe Riot has a certain hope for what his music might accomplish: “If I could have my wish…I would be the Bob Marley of hip-hop…have this music be a force that has political influence and be able to [use that] for good,” says Jaewar with a hint of shyness.
But when he’s on the mic, he’s not so quiet, and he’s supported by a full backing band that includes Tim Burnett on bass, Pierrick Houziaux on drums and Larry Johnson on percussion, along with a rotating lineup of supporting players that have joined the band for various live sets and in-studio sessions.
The band released True! Raw Honey last year, a six-song EP that includes new versions of songs that Jaewar’s kicked around for years. He says the EP “is kind of like my thesis,” touting his theory that everything that’s important can be traced back to one of two things. “Good art is going to be about love or politics. Otherwise, you’re just making noise,” he says.
The artist bases his lyrics in reality, on real stories and real emotions, both of which he says are felt most intensely on “Waddup,” which he was inspired to write around the time Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by George Zimmerman. When fatal shootings of young black men by police officers “kept happening and happening and happening,” the stories splashed all over newspapers and television screens, an overwhelmed Jaewar put the song away for a while. He picked it back up again when he saw himself in one of these men. “That would have been me,” he thought. “I’ve always felt like I’m well-spoken, I’m educated. I could talk my way out of these incidents, so this would never happen to me. But after reading his story, I cried. That would have been me, and I probably would have died, too.” With that in mind, he finished the song:
“They want us crucified / Mad ’cause we’re still alive / Sometimes a killer higher / Just to feel alive. / Elevated minds / It’s ’bout damn time / Black lives matter / I advise, don’t trivialize,” the song begins.
Throughout the course of the song, the lyrics transcend Jaewar’s own feelings and ask the listener, no matter his race, religion, gender, nationality, political affiliation or life experience, to stop and ask themselves, “Waddup?” What’s going on in the song? In the world? In his heart, his mind? This sort of unification is what Jaewar is going for with Vibe Riot’s music.
During live performances, he’s even willing to alter his lyrics for the sake of unification.
The song “Babylon Falls” uses one verse to tell a politician’s story, then examines the feelings that story provokes. And while Jaewar doesn’t usually freestyle, he’ll change up the line about “Trump supporters” to something like “blind supporters” if he feels like the Trump line wouldn’t work in the room in that particular time and place. He’ll do it partly for the safety of the band, and partly because he hates to lose listeners who might eventually come around to what he’s saying.
“You can say things, and depending on your delivery, you can…either shut people off, or, you can have them listen to you; you can piss people off, or you can challenge them with a thought,” he says, and perhaps forge a link of understanding between seemingly different people.
So even when Jaewar’s talking about politics…he’s really talking about love.
“I’m passionate and driven to create art and a better world,” he says, and that’s his motivation for both Vibe Riot and the Vibe Fest event taking place at IX Art Park on Friday night. Vibe Riot will perform alongside other local artists with the intent to “harness the joy of an artful experience to help strengthen a community we love,” Jaewar says, adding that he’s making a particular effort “not to leave Charlottesville’s underrepresented underrepresented again.”
Music “is a language that we all use,” he says. “We might not speak the same language, but we can still rock to the same beat.”