Local singer-songwriter Kat Somers has been performing and writing music since sixth grade. Her earnest, original tunes float on sunny melodies, acoustic picking and lyrics sung from the gut in a voice that powers its message through. The recent college grad embarks on a busy summer schedule that finds her booked throughout the region, thanks in part to 2015’s Blue Ridge EP, an effort that serves as a place setting for her full-length album due later this year.
ARTS Pick: Anderson East soothes with soul
Serious but not pretentious, Anderson East’s modern soul draws from the Alabamian’s raw vocals and charismatic live performances in which he rocks out a sinuous blend of rhythm and blues, gospel and country. East’s latest release, Encore, is the second record guided by hot-handed producer Dave
ARTS Pick: Zack Mexico
Rising from the sand of North Carolina’s Outer Banks in 2011, Zack Mexico took its experimental rock to the world through years of festival gigs, constant touring and a recent European stint as the opening act for Future Islands. The band’s popularity continues to swell through its technically
ARTS Pick: P!nk makes a power play
Known for her impact on pop music as well as her incredible live shows, P!nk is taking her countless hits around the globe on her Beautiful Trauma world tour. Despite using aerial stunts, Vegas-style production and lots of backup dancers, P!nk wins from the first note with her vocal talents.
ARTS Pick: Dr. Dog does some musical soul-searching
Since its inception more than a decade ago, Dr. Dog has been paying it forward musically with nods of respect to ’60s-era sound, as defined by bands such as The Beach Boys and The Beatles. On its new album, Critical Equation (out on April 27), the Philly-based band promises a rekindled
Movie review: Rampage delivers the action without a wink
There’s really only one way to sell the story of a Special Forces veteran and anti-poaching commando turned conservationist who’s helping his overgrown gorilla friend overcome anger issues to stop a flying porcupine-wolf and a crocodile-leviathan from destroying Chicago: completely
Review: Les Yeux du Monde shows brilliance in black and white
With “Expressions in Black and White” at Les Yeux du Monde, gallery director Lyn Warren brings together four artists whose work spans a range of media, from soft sculpture to monotypes, and offers juxtapositions of technique and style that are both visually interesting and thought-provoking.
UVA student reinterprets Le Devin du village
In the months before graduation, many students in UVA’s fourth-year class embrace “senior spring” by soaking up sun on the Lawn, checking items off the list of “118 things to do before you graduate” or hanging out with friends instead of attending class. But Wesley Diener, who’s graduating from
Album reviews: The Voidz, Albert Hammond Jr. and Drinks
The Voidz Virtue (RCA) Albert Hammond Jr. Francis Trouble (Red Bull) It seemed the Strokes had already endured the breathless-hype-into-vicious-backlash cycle even before its debut full-length, Is This It, dropped in 2001. The band’s momentum, attitude and simply perfectly simple songwriting
ARTS Pick: Jazz concert seeks justice
John D’earth directs the UVA Jazz Ensemble in a three-way benefit for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, the Legal Aid Justice Center and the UVA jazz program. Jazz4Justice is a statewide, college-based series that raises funds and awareness about social justice issues through community
ARTS Pick: Brent Cobb has Georgia on his mind
Over the past 10 years, Brent Cobb toured with some of country music’s biggest names, was personally invited to the Nashville scene by Luke Bryan, wrote hits for Miranda Lambert, Kenny Chesney and others and discovered that a distant cousin is an L.A. producer for outlaw musicians like Shooter
ARTS Pick: Metal Showcase prepares to crush it
Whether you’re a metal devotee or your knowledge of the current scene is rusty, Champion Brewing Company’s third annual Metal Showcase (part of the Tom Tom Founders Festival) is the place to exercise your nod and crush cans of brewery favorites as mutant-hardcore and grind noise meet nuts-core
Wednesday Music Club keeps it classical for 95 years
Wednesdays usually mean two things—you’re one day closer to the weekend and, at the end of the day, you realize how much work stands between you and that weekend. In 1923, the founding members of the Wednesday Music Club deemed the midweek mark a cause for celebration. “They met Wednesday
Melissa Cooke Benson explores life and body changes
Artist Melissa Cooke Benson’s explorations in portraiture, long inspired by her daily life, have aligned with geographical moves, new and different cityscapes and cultures and alterations in her interior life, too. “With each life transition,” she says, “I’ve had to digest what’s going on
The Alt unearths old songs and switches its lineup
Of the many roads that could be taken, The Alt—an Irish folk band comprised of John Doyle (guitar, bouzouki, vocals), Eamon O’Leary (guitar, bouzouki, vocals) and Nuala Kennedy (flutes, whistles, vocals)—chooses the beaten path on its music journey. The band’s self-titled debut is not, however,
Launching a movement: Wes Swing leaves it all to interpretation for Upswept
On his first day of college, Wes Swing rented a cello. There was something about the instrument that called to him. Perhaps it was the vocal quality, its aural proximity to the human voice; perhaps it was the instrument’s ability to express a particularly full range of emotion, with its deep,
ARTS Pick: War & Treaty duo plays together nicely
Before War & Treaty’s Michael Trotter Jr. was a touring musician, he was a soldier in Iraq. There among the brutalities of war, in a dictator’s palace, Trotter taught himself to play on a piano believed to have belonged to Saddam Hussein. It was in this extraordinary setting that he wrote
ARTS Pick: UVA Drama takes on Urinetown
UVA Drama takes on satire, politics, capitalism and social justice as man’s desire to pee in private leads to revolution in the Broadway smash Urinetown. When a water shortage occurs, a lockdown on toilet flushing requires citizens to use paid public facilities, but not everyone can afford the
ARTS Pick: Shenandoah Fringe Festival takes center stage
The force and fearlessness of art takes center stage with Shenandoah Fringe Festival’s diverse lineup of film, theater, music, puppetry and more. Local and national artists unite with the declaration, “We can be students and painters and refugees and baristas and mothers and mimes and
Art in Odd Places explores matter and historical interpretation
This week, New York-based artist Ed Woodham brings his Art in Odd Places festival to Charlottesville in a two-day, intensely collaborative event with the theme of “matter.” Sponsored by the UVA Studio Arts Board, the mission of AiOP, Woodham writes in the program guide, “is to engage and
Movie review: Ready Player One turns brain games mindless
Before we get into just how much Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One misses the mark, it’s worth noting that its badness has nothing to do with video games and the people who enjoy them. Critics often come down harder on movies about subcultures they disapprove of or simply haven’t taken the