Bear witness to Gogol Bordello as the band fills the stage with its latest incarnation of members from across the world to support the evolving vision of Ukrainian vocalist Eugene Hütz. Heavy road dogs since rocketing out of New York City’s Lower East Side in 1999, GB has speed, bravado, and grit that girds its sound, which makes regular use of the snare drum and guitar tone of what most have come to know as the foundational punk elements. But it’s the Eastern European verve—accordion and violin pumping with polka—that gives the group its singular flavor. At their worst, GB’s songs can come across like the audio equivalent of frenzied Soviet TV stereotypes fumbling their way through a neverending bar mitzvah Klezmer loop. At its best, the band reflects a global good-time cacophony and a heartfelt soul-bearing that speaks to intense struggle and honest longing—all belted out in the group’s preferred harmonic minor.—CM Gorey
King Buzzo Osborne, lead vocalist of heavy and heavily influential sludge-rock band The Melvins, teams up with bassist Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle and Tomahawk fame. Over recent decades, the two have also worked together in Fantômas, and at one point Dunn was part of an incarnation of The Melvins. Currently billing themselves under the King Dunn moniker, the duo are eschewing the thick feedback that defines a great deal of Buzzo’s recorded oeuvre in favor of an acoustic guitar and double bass setup. Word on the street is that the performances veer instrumentally, letting Buzzo’s trademark growl-and-bark vocals serve in a smaller part-time role. Dunn plays stand-up bass with a variety of approaches and effects (bowed, synthesized), choices that deepen the sonic palate. The less purist inclination propels tracks that include selections from the I’m Afraid of Everything EP (2022) and Buzzo’s Gift of Sacrifice (2020) record. Envision a musically exploratory evening without the pitfalls of glum navel-gazing.—CM Gorey
Contemporary musician Dan Tepfer follows unexpected paths through jazz and classical work. He performs on September 8 and 9
at The Paramount Theater during the 25th Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival. Supplied photo.
By Ella Powell
Pianist/composer Dan Tepfer says his earliest memories on the keys are of improvising as a toddler. “It seemed like a very natural thing for me to do, to just make up music,” he says. “My classical piano teachers would say, ‘don’t do that,’ but I knew it was okay because granddad did.”
During the early days, when Tepfer was creating his own alternate versions of “Jingle Bells,” his jazz pianist grandfather served as a musical inspiration. Now, Tepfer collaborates with icons of the form like Lee Konitz, and composes for musicians such as the highly accomplished French-American vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvantl.
An artistic force, Tepfer goes beyond jazz, creating compositions for symphony orchestras and performing with them on occasion. “One of my favorite performances was recently, at the end of June,” he says. “I did two concerts in the U.K. where I performed the Ravel Piano Concerto in G with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. As a jazz pianist, that was a big growing experience for me.”
When Tepfer makes his first of two appearances at The Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival on September 8 at The Paramount Theater, he will take the stage with his multimedia improvisational composition Natural Machines, released in 2019 as a video album.
In Natural Machines, Tepfer’s acoustic Disklavier piano plays all on its own in a phantasmic experience. The magical sounds and visuals accompanying the album are a direct response to the pianist’s computer programming and his live freestyle on the keys. In the song “Tremolo,” for example, Tepfer’s chosen algorithm allows otherwise impossible musical techniques to be accomplished in real time.
He describes music as “the intersection of the algorithmic and the spiritual,” which speaks to his obsession with achieving harmony between concrete rules and whimsical expression. His discography of 12 studio albums is deeply explorative and honest, and connects to the senses. After 29 years of playing, the pianist continues to defy conventions and bend genres in solo projects like his 2011 performance and improvisation of Bach’s masterpiece, Goldberg Variations/Variations that won him international acclaim.
On September 9, also at the Paramount, Tepfer performs Inventions/Reinventions, another improvisation on Bach. He goes into it without any premeditated melodies, just a creative process to develop ideas. “It kind of feels like I’m both a child who just has crazy ideas and can run around freely, and the parent who’s supervising the child and who is going to keep the child from falling off the cliff,” says Tepfer. The piece converses with Bach in a way that brings the prodigy back to life as Tepfer fills in the nine “missing” keys not included in Bach’s 15 original inventions.
Always looking to connect with audiences, he hopes a project that revitalizes a 300-year-old composition will build an affinity for his style of music. With each improvisation, he shares a meaningful story just as Bach intended to do through his own compositions. “Bach’s music is a magnet for me that never seems to lose its allure, which isn’t uncommon for jazz musicians,” says Tepfer. “There’s a lot of kinship between the musical approach we take in jazz and how Bach was thinking about music.”
Years back, a Nelson County duo put chamomile and whiskey in a tea cup and decided the flavor profile fit the sweet and raw sound of the music they’d been playing. This weekend, in a two-night event showcasing Koda Kerl and Marie Borgman’s electric Blue Ridge rock and roll, Chamomile & Whiskey performs its 1,000th show. The band, including Marsh Mahon (bass), Stuart Gunter (drums), and Drew Kimball (guitar) will celebrate with four unique sets, including a tribute to outlaw country music each night. With Pantherburn on Friday, and Buckbilly Deluxe on Saturday.
Friday 8/30 & Saturday 8/31. $18-22, 7:30pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 First St. S. thesoutherncville.com
Self-described as an “imaginative, maximalist, feminist rock band based in Brooklyn,” partygirl is just about what you’d expect from a group with that description. While the band flaunts an aversion to capital letters and proper spacing, the defining difference in the thickly smothered walls of indie rock held up by the band arrives in the voice of Pagona Kytzidis. Her throaty vocals dive low, warble vulnerably, and sail high over the generally restrained set of songs that comprise partygirl’s 2022 self-titled EP. While the group comes across like young adults (you’d have a difficult time making them laugh for the right reasons), it’ll be interesting to see how its members keep that level of presumed sophistication going with half-drunk audience members pushing sandwiches into their faces.
Fellow Brooklynites PANIK FLOWER make up for partygirl’s lack of capitalization and offers more than its touring counterparts’ less fully realized sound. A gauzy pop that pumps more than anything remotely shoegaze oriented, PANIK FLOWER’s 2023 Dark Blue EP demonstrates the band’s commitment to an aesthetic pursued by vocalist Sage Leopold and convincingly supported by the guitar/bass/drum arrangements executed by the rest of the band with an early ’90s college rock kick.—CM Gorey
Samantha Fish brings her electric blues, rock, and soul to The Jefferson Theater on Friday.
Publicity photo.
Blues rocker Samantha Fish says she “didn’t know what [she] was doing” when she made Girls With Guitars alongside Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde in 2011. The same might be said of the albums’ producers, who probably should’ve known better by then.
When Wynonna Judd released her hit song of the same name in 1994, the guitars-are-for-boys trope was maybe not so tired. Thirty years later, Fish is part of the reason it’s hopefully ancient history.
Fish will take The Jefferson Theater stage on August 30 in the wake of 2023’s critically acclaimed Death Wish Blues, which earned the artist/singer-songwriter/guitarist her first Grammy nomination earlier this year. A collaboration with punk rocker Jesse Dayton, Death Wish Blues was nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album and sat at No. 1 on the Billboard blues chart for three straight weeks.
“I really hadn’t collaborated since Girls With Guitars,” Fish says. “Now that I have some experience, coming back and doing this with Jesse … you learn to take ‘no’ out of your vocabulary. Even if it is something that is a complete departure from you as a singular artist, you say, ‘I can try that.’”
Fish grew up in Missouri and began learning the guitar at age 15, essentially teaching herself, with family and friends showing her tricks here and there. Without any formal lessons, she listened to classic rock—AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Tom Petty—and learned to pick out the riffs by ear. She began writing songs in her late teens, citing Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen as central influences, and found gigs by cold-calling bars.
“Blues was all of my favorite musicians’ favorite music,” Fish says. “So I was just digging backwards and going through the list of all the great traditional blues artists.”
Fish has produced an album every two years since 2009, when she recorded Live Bait with what was then known as the Samantha Fish Blues Band. The guitarist began attracting high praise in 2019, when she made the first of three albums, Kill or Be Kind, on Rounder Records. Produced by Grammy winner Scott Billington, Kill or Be Kind landed on album review outlet AllMusic’s list of editors’ “Favorite Blues Albums.” Fish’s next solo effort, 2021’s Faster, received similar critical acclaim.
Death Wish Blues was born when, after many years of discussing a side project, Fish and her manager decided to approach Dayton, whose resumé includes recording with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, touring with seminal punk band X, and working with Rob Zombie on horror film soundtracks.
Produced by Jon Spencer of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Death Wish Blues attracted not only the attention of the Grammy committee, but also two of Fish’s idols. Eric Clapton invited her to perform at his 2023 Crossroads Guitar Festival in Los Angeles, and GNR guitarist Slash brought Fish on for a run during his S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour earlier this year.
Now onto her own Bulletproof tour, Fish says she’s finally able to ruminate on her full career and focus on her growing canon. “This is the first time I’ve been on tour without a new record,” she says. On August 30, that means Charlottesville fans will get to see the musician revisit older material and dig into unique covers, along with adapting songs from Death Wish Blues to arrangements sans Dayton.
“It is weird, your relationship with songs over the years,” Fish says. “I will hear some things that I did and cringe—like, ‘what the fuck was I thinking?’—but then other things will hit differently. Here I am years later, and I’ll find I wrote about something I’m just now experiencing. It’s a refreshing look.”
While Fish shakes up the old and new arrangements, she’s also eyeing her next record; after all, she’s never gone more than two years without recording. If her luck holds, she says she’ll be back in the studio sometime during the Bulletproof tour. “We’re aiming for spring or summer, but every time I verbalize it, it doesn’t happen,” she says.
What that record will be, Fish has yet to decide. She’s come a long way since Girls With Guitars, and she says part of the evolution happens all the way up to the time when she steps into the studio with her band. By way of example, Fish says she and Dayton originally conceived of the decidedly roots-driven Death Wish Blues as a “punk rock side project.”
“Talking about things doesn’t necessarily guarantee what they will be,” she says.
What Fish does know is that she plans to make music for a long time to come. “I don’t know what else I would be doing. I don’t have any other skills,” she laughs. “I love playing music, and there’s a little ecosystem built into what we’re doing. We’ve got the train rolling here.”
How many acoustic guitar players—let alone Black women guitar players—pick up the instrument because of the video game Guitar Hero II? Yasmin Williams did. The NoVA musician has been at it for roughly 15 years now, carving out a singularly playful and intentional style that pulls from disparate approaches. Unflinchingly instrumental, as reflected in her two full-lengths, 2018’s Unwind and 2021’s Urban Driftwood, Williams will sometimes put the guitar across her lap with its neck to the sky and use both hands across the frets like a pianist. Other times she’ll fingerpick with dexterity, keeping the body propped upright in its traditional position. She’s also known to poke at the strings with a dulcimer hammer, attach a kalimba to its front, and wear tap shoes for rhythmic accompaniment. The results are atmospheric in a way you could ascribe to ambient music: Her compositions don’t demand your attention as much as they slowly surround you on all sides, buoy you up, and carry you on an undulating ride downstream.
If acoustically driven, painfully earnest songs that don’t attempt to hide their political alignment are your thing, Conor & The Wild Hunt opens the evening with its soft focus Americana. Odds are high for the inclusion of harmonica, mandolin, and/or fiddle.—CM Gorey
The numbers on Spotify don’t lie: Cannons is popular and it’s clear why. The group presents completely problem-free tracks that ooze a too-smooth style of stifled glam disco. You would be wrong to call it this decade’s version of easy listening, though—it’s bubbly pop music built for areas where they’ve had success: TV show placement. With their fine-tuned look and sound the band is unsurprisingly from Los Angeles, but Cannons may represent the last bastion of pop still connected to a more-or-less real rock band (though it’s difficult to discern what’s playback). And as a live act, dudes on guitar, bass/keys, and drums back up Michelle Joy, who is every bit the ’80s vision of a female lead singer—but it’s best you project your own ideas onto that archetype. The group’s newest record, Heartbeat Highway, adds to its collection of glossy, well-produced tracks that never drop to sluggish ballads nor rev into higher gears. If ever there was a band who would score top marks for offering the perfect soundtrack for overpriced hotel lobbies, it’s got to be Cannons. Having said that, there’s no shame in being proactive about sidestepping the Sunday Scaries; wrap yourself in Joy’s lush vocals for a while and take a mini-vacation from reality on the Downtown Mall.—CM Gorey
Meet the 12 young local acts reviving Charlottesville's music scene. Photo by Tristan Williams.
By Tami Keaveny, CM Turner, and Ella Powell
Charlottesville is a city of music fans and aficionados. We have an abundance of sonic riches in the national tours that touch down at our venues, and we’ve built a few careers here as well (looking at you, jam daddy DMB). There’s a lot of talk about who knows whom and who does what in our music kingdom. But the proliferation of the scene belongs to those who workshop it year-round. It got quiet for a while—but when the mics were turned back on, we started to hear new names repeated by tastemakers and see them listed on music calendars around town. What has emerged is a new generation of talented performers who are invigorating Charlottesville‘s music scene.
Breaking through
Photo by Tristan Williams.
Palmyra
palmyratheband.com
With a setlist of songs that play out like confessionals, Americana holler-core trio Palmyra creates instant chemistry with its audience through its authentic yearn-folk sound. As Palmyra puts it, “The best music is honest music.”
Setting out from the Shenandoah Valley, Sasha Landon (mandolin/guitar), Teddy Chipouras (guitar/banjo), and Mānoa Bell (standup bass) have been road-doggin’ full-time as Palmyra for the past three years—earning plenty of accolades and admiration along the way. Through unfiltered live sets and an amicable internet presence, the band has built a following of devoted fans up and down the East Coast and is bound to secure even more followers in support of Illiterate Light on its upcoming Arches Tour.
The city of Charlottesville has become a beloved stop for Palmyra. “We’ve found community with bands and young people in the area that are as stoked to be at a show as we are,” says Landon. Palmyra’s arrangements often reflect a kind of “medium is the message” approach, where crescendos of euphoric sound waves break on the rocky shores of disquieted doubt and distress, where a single song runs the gamut of emotions like a punch to the gut. This angst and exuberance carries through in tunes like “Happy Pills” and “Park Bench.”
Recently signed to the late John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, Palmyra plans to release a debut full-length album in the spring of 2025. Recorded in Richmond and Harrisonburg, it’s a truly Virginia-made project.
The record label’s commitment to raising the Palmyra banner has extended to a re-release of the band’s EP Belladonna on vinyl. You can find Palmyra’s first foray into recording, the EP Shenandoah (2022)—along with a slew of singles—on streaming platforms.—CMT
Up close and personal
Photo by Lily Garay.
Chloë Ester
IG: @chloeester
Chloë Ester’s distinctive style is hard to pin down in a way that’s both exciting and engaging for audiences discovering this introspective and unguarded songwriter. Pulling elements from dream pop, emo-folk, indie, and alternative rock, Chloë Ester and her band—Ryan Lee (lead guitar), Garrett Moore (drums), and Jacob Sommerio (bass)—deliver tight instrumentation that never feels overwrought. Simultaneously harsh and soothing, dreamy and intense, Chloë Ester’s clear, magnetic voice carries crushingly vulnerable lines conveying fear and confusion, with a kind of reluctant acceptance and understanding of the eventualities of the human condition. She’s a natural storyteller, and her narrative-driven arrangements work to capture a feeling or memory through a small, specific moment: an interaction with a family member, an awkward instance from childhood, a first date. Her debut EP Dying All The Time (2020) is available for streaming and her sophomore release Asleep In A Fire is expected to be available in 2025.—CMT
For the love
Supplied photo.
Waasi
IG: @itswaasi
Committed to authenticity and experimentation, Waasi unifies alt hip-hop, R&B, and soul in his ever-evolving sound. Smooth and sharp-witted, Waasi’s ability to alternate between laidback lyricism and verbal vehemence marks his albums as showcases in versatility. A lifelong resident of Charlottesville, Waasi cut his teeth in the underground scene. He credits local luminaries like Danny Shea, Jeyon Falsini, and the Rugged Arts crew for putting him on early in his career and providing platforms to perform his particular brand of musicality. As his experience and experimentations expand, Waasi has turned inward, making music that’s personally meaningful and introspective. He acknowledges the therapeutic aspects of creative expression and notes that his newer music reflects the more mature sound of a more mature musician. Waasi does indeed have a new album on the way, though the final release date has yet to be determined. For now, you can find his albums From Virginia with Love (2019) and No Love Lost (2021) and the EP BETTERDAZE (2018) on streaming services.—CMT
Sounds like teen spirit
Supplied photo.
The Destructors
IG: @thedestructorsband
Loud, catchy, energetic, fun, and angry, The Destructors is a punk rock/riot grrrl band made up of local teens looking to shake up the status quo. Sisters Ava (bass and vocals) and Savannah (guitar and vocals) joined up with Kat (drums and vocals) through the Music Resource Center just over a year ago and are already making a name for themselves in the local scene. With songs exploring feminism, LGBTQ+ activism, and social dynamics, the group plans to release its debut album Goth Barbie soon.—CMT
What we are looking for
Photo by Tristan Williams.
Tre. Charles
trecharles.com
Tre. Charles keeps a busy tour schedule, living on the road and crisscrossing the mid-Atlantic region for gigs, but he calls Virginia home. The indie soul talent currently “lays his head in Richmond,” but his warm, invigorating music graces C’ville stages so frequently that we think he may have a body double.
“Charlottesville is a tucked-away music gem,” says Charles. “The music appreciation here is eclectic and deep, from roots to electronic, and I attribute that to the diverse population that lives here. I think that the fresh air creates more open mindedness (ha ha), and with places like Ting, Jefferson, Southern, and a slew of other spots, it’s easy to find what you are looking for and what you didn’t know you were looking for.”
Charles’ debut EP, Currently, was chosen as one of WNRN’s top 100 albums of 2023, and Charles is planning to release a full album due by the end of 2024.—TK
Catch this buzz
Photo by Sanjay Suchak.
HASH
IG: @hash_the_band
Formed in 2023, Charlottesville’s next-gen rock band HASH caught a buzz. Due to a fast-growing fandom, locals Hasler Yancey (lead vocals/guitar), Jackson Rosson (bass), Tommy Fruscello (drums), Timothy Langlois (guitar), and Asher Friedman (keys) have been on a performing spree that includes shows with Kendall Street Company, Indecision, and The Barons. The group played The Jefferson Theater in March and Fridays After Five in May then headlined The Southern Café and Music Hall just last week. With a HASH debut EP due this month, the world stage awaits.—TK
Centered on stage
Anya Movius steps into a brighter spotlight
Supplied photo.
Anya Movius
anyamovius.com
Standing backstage last September, waiting to audition for her first-year college talent show, Anya Movius put the final touches on the song she was about to perform.
“I finished one of the songs that I was performing in the audition outside of the audition room,” laughs Movius. “It’s called ‘The Alchemist,’ which is going on the new record.”
The song, it turns out, was ready. Movius made the talent show cut, and the reward went beyond being one of 12 freshmen invited on stage. The night of the show, she says she was anxious in the green room, asking others (including the national youth poet laureate) for advice on how to calm down. When she sat down with her guitar in front of the large audience, she relaxed. “I loved it. The nerves kind of went away as soon as I got out there,” she says.
The singer-songwriter credits her hometown for her creative confidence. Growing up in Charlottesville, Movius says she took every opportunity to learn and perform music. At a young age, she was writing songs and singing for her parents and their friends. From taking classes at The Front Porch music school to signing up at open mics, Movius tapped into the music community and connected with songwriting mentors like Devon Sproule, Paul Curreri, and Michael Clem.
“One of my biggest rewards at the Monday songwriter open mic is watching different participants grow over time with their writing and performing,” says Clem. “With Anya, it’s an extra special case as she was one of the youngest participants ever, and she was wonderful out of the gate.”
Movius’ smart, aware songcraft is lyrically forward, marked by bright, catchy hooks. There’s raw emotion and vulnerability channeling through. Yes, sometimes it’s straight from her journal, but Movius challenges herself to take songwriting beyond self-examination and write from other perspectives. “I think it’s a really interesting way to empathize with people.”
Many of Movius’ songs exhibit a maturity that tells you she is not only writing, but she is listening carefully as well. From the popular Spotify track “Easy Fixes” to one of her favorites “Anastasia,” Movius often goes on an exploration of emotional dialogue.
“[‘Anastasia’] is about the complexities in queer relationships. Especially in what I’ve seen with friends of mine … I wanted to explore how, in female relationships, and even female friendships, feelings can be more confusing and I wanted to try and encapsulate that in a song.”
When Movius returns to Harvard University this fall, she’ll have finished her first full-length album, From Heart to Hips. She’s been recording and releasing music for years, and she spent the first weeks of August in production at Chris Keup’s White Star Sound, where she delights in the studio work. “It’s the most magical part of the process for me and I get so excited!”
On August 31, Movius is on the bill at the Club Passim Campfire Festival in Boston, a venue where the founders of folk music, from Dylan to Joni, built the coffeehouse scene. Looking to her next big stage, she carries C’ville’s influence with her.
“I just finished up a song called ‘For Charlottesville,’” she says. “I think it’s an incredibly special place. The chorus goes: ‘I free up the words that I’ve been saving / for Charlottesville and Blue Ridge hills / it’s worth all the waiting.’”—TK
Basement takes
Photo by Alanna Mahon.
Üga Büga
Instagram: @ugabugaband
Stuck between country rock and metal jazz phases, Calloway Jones started Üga Büga as a basement jam three years ago with the itch to rock a little harder. He soon invited his friends Niko Cvetanovich and Jimmy Czywczynski along on a wild ride to write and perform music in a “progressive sludge metal” band. Üga Büga’s distinct aesthetic is signified by stylized umlauts in a name that was originally inspired by a caveman cartoon. The group breaks out of the basement with heavy riffs and a post-apocalyptic concept that proves an impressive combination of technical instrumentation and electrifying rhythm.
Jones says that the band’s album Year of the Hog encapsulates the energy of “an angry Facebook rant about capitalism and political corruption.” Pulling influences from an array of genres including blues and punk in an effort to revitalize metal and refrain from recycling, Calloway says performing in the band “feels like the best possible way to scream into the void.” Üga Büga is also filling the void in a metal community hungry for a bigger local scene.—EP
Playing in time
Supplied photo.
Briar Wilde
Youtube: @BriarWilde
In Charlottesville’s Briar Wilde, husband and wife duo Shannon O’Leary and Alex Johnson are devoted to a vintage aesthetic. “Briar Wilde is rooted in the tradition of Appalachian ballad-singing, combining influences as disparate as country, folk, and classical music,” says O’Leary. The duo’s authentic sound is masked in antiquity and pays homage to the original Carter Family recordings of the 1927 Bristol Sessions that established the classic conventions of country music.
Recorded in Asheville, North Carolina, Briar Wilde’s self-titled debut EP was made using original 1930s music equipment, resulting in a hauntingly beautiful recording that makes time travel seem possible.—EP
Shake that brain
Supplied photo.
En Regalia
IG: @enregalia
A serendipitous meeting in history class was the spark that formed En Regalia, an alternative rock band made up of recent Monticello High School graduates Kylie Grunsfeld, Ethan Arellano, Jason Bittner, and Jimi Andrade. The group’s EP Charlie, named after an original fifth member, Charlie Dubendorfer, features chill guitar riffs and blissfully melodic vocals. Lead singer Grunsfeld shares coming-of-age stories through rhythmic vibrato and invigorating energy in songs like “Contact High” and “Suncatcher.” En Regalia’s infectious aura is one to revel in, and the group translates youthful endeavors like being in love for the first time into an array of sound that is delightful and relatable. “As a band, we aim to do two things: make people move, and make people think,” says Grunsfeld.—EP
Jazz kicks
Supplied photo.
Loose Champagne
IG: @loosechampagne
Loose Champagne is popping off like an uncorked bottle flowing in a surge of talent all around the UVA music scene with its covers of funk and R&B classics. The six-piece student band found its groove when lead guitarist Miles Miskill transformed his jazz ensemble with pianist Isa Rodriguez and bassist Isabel Xiao into a funkified group complete with rhythm guitarist Dana Sun, drummer Kyle Gresko, and vocalist Calista Nelson. Together, their playful mixture of jazz fusion, smooth funk, and upbeat soul draws inspiration from numerous icons within the genre, including Erykah Badu, The Internet, and Childish Gambino. “One of our motivations and [driving reasons behind] our song choices is wanting to bring in music that is underrepresented at UVA,” says Sun. The band is in the process of writing original music.—EP
Organic chemistry
Supplied photo.
Swamp Street
IG: @swampstreetband
In a moment of suspense, the members of Swamp Street lock eyes before bursting into funky, psychedelic rock, neo soul, and R&B sound. A jam band at heart, the group comprises UVA students Karolyn Yoon on guitar and vocals, Cameron Meredith on bass, and Jeremy Nachison on drums. Yoon and Meredith first discovered their musical chemistry while performing in another band, Mellowdrama, before joining forces with Nachison and keyboardist Kimball Roberts. Magic happens when they’re on the stage together, a spectacle that will soon be recorded in original songs titled “Violet Tide,” “Lady Lady,” “Portals,” and “Skyline Drive,” which they regularly perform live.
The band offers unique renditions of covers and originals alike as it propels its experimental nature forward in each passionate and provocative performance. Swamp Street channels the energy of artists like D’Angelo and Jeff Buckley as rhythm and blues guide its swagger up on the stage.—EP
Tastemakers’ recommendations
“Buckbilly Deluxe is a new act that we absolutely love. Good old country songs and honky tonk that kicks some ass … Lead guitarist Josh Vana has made some great pickers blush by the fire. They may be most well-known for their ’80’s Chevy truck inspired posters … the ones that keep getting yanked off the Bodo’s bulletin board.”
—Koda Kerl, musician and consulting booker at Dürty Nelly’s
“Charlie Shea gives me goosebumps every time I listen to their mesmerizing lyrics and unique voice, and although they do not have any recorded music out there, they are an artist you will regret missing.” —Samantha Federico, WCNR, Charlottesville Radio Group
“I was sent a stream of the new, yet-to-be-released [Babe Lewis, which is the project of Jo Harder] album and it’s really good … hard to categorize: shades of indie rock, shoegaze, psychedelia but without being too on the nose … some finger-picking style guitar mixed in. I was honestly taken aback by how fresh it sounded. Unlike anything I’ve heard from a regional band in some time.”
—Warren Parker, WarHen Records
“Onokio (Zach) is one of the most eccentric and creative people I know. He’s relentlessly making some of the most fascinating electronic music out there.”
—Jeff Gorman, Illiterate Light
“Mayday’s Theo Herrin has become a bit of a fixture at the Southern, hosting our music open mics on Sunday, his charisma and talent on display solo or in his band with sharply tuned pop songs.”
—Danny Shea, The Southern Café and Music Hall
Wanna hear it?
Click here to listen to a sample of songs from artists featured in this new music issue!
Fronted by the eponymous legendary blues and roots musician, the Corey Harris Band brings traditional Delta blues to contemporary audiences with an influx of world music flare. Well-traveled—and well-versed—Harris was instrumental in the rise of acoustic guitar blues in the mid-’90s and has an expansive sonic vocabulary with inflections from African, Caribbean, and Latin music. The MacArthur “Genius” award-winner’s latest release, Chicken Man, serves up stripped-down acoustic blues. The band plays Fridays After Five with support from Batesville folk-blues musician Willie DE.
Friday 8/23. Free, 5:30pm. Ting Pavilion, 700 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. tingpavilion.com
