Acoustic-folk extraordinaire Frank Turner is an expert at traversing artistic and geographic borders. He was born in Bahrain before moving to England where he studied alongside classmate Prince William (and picked punk over posh traditionalism). Following the dissolution of his hardcore group Million Dead, Turner focused his energies on a singer-songwriter career. He attributes the genre hop to hearing Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska album, calling it a “big moment” that pointed his music in a different direction.
The Hard Core: Charlottesville punk’s ongoing legacy
Before Charlottesville’s first hardcore punk band played Charlottesville’s first hardcore punk show, Lackey Die bass player Danny Collins had a prediction. “I think we’re gonna be the hottest thing that ever came out of this stinkin’ little town,” Collins said to one of his bandmates. It was
Wild ride: Buckle up, The Falsies are back
It’s hard to decide what deserves your attention at a Falsies concert. Is it the music? The musicians themselves, constantly swapping guitars for saxophones, for drums, for keyboards? Or is it band founder Lance Brenner in his yellow chicken suit, gesticulating wildly while shoving a microphone
Inner realities: Les Yeux du Monde reconnects the imaginary worlds of Ed Haddaway and Russ Warren
Winter gray getting you down? Les Yeux du Monde offers a potent dose of Southwestern heat in the form of paintings by Russ Warren and sculptures by Ed Haddaway that will banish those February blues. The two artists, who are native Texans, met as students at the University of New Mexico in 1971,
Zyahna Bryant reclaims the work of black women activists in new book
Zyahna Bryant became an activist about three years before she wrote the petition to remove the Robert E. Lee statue and rename Lee Park in 2016. It was the day after George Zimmerman’s acquittal for second-degree murder charges in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, when Bryant, then age 12,
ARTS Pick: Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia
World classical: Conductor Benjamin Rous leads the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia through a whirlwind of global experiences, beginning with the slow processional dance of Maurice Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess, followed by Siempre Lunes, Siempre Marzo (Always Monday,
ARTS Pick: A Tribute to Waltz
Waltz with me:Wes Swing says the intention behind his Fern Hill concert series is to present beautiful music in beautiful spaces, offering “qualities I’d like to see more of in the world of music.” His latest endeavor, A Tribute to Waltz, showcases the enchantment of the dance, and invites the
Creative space: Second Street show reveals painters in their natural habitats
Art in a white-walled gallery can take on an aura of total separation from the person who made it, and the context in which that person worked. For that matter, so can murals seen from the car—so often, we’re looking at art in a vacuum. Here’s an antidote: Second Street Gallery’s current show,
Almost awesome: The Lego Movie 2 stacks up well to its predecessor
There’s been a quiet revolution happening in family entertainment for the last few years, where movies with broad popular appeal strive to be more than a way to distract your kid for 90 minutes. Whether children internalize it or not, animated films have been dissecting such weighty themes as
Album reviews: DAWN, Steve Gunn, Mono, Sneaks, Tim Presley’s White Fence, and TOY
DAWN New Breed (Young Action) Danity Kane veteran Dawn Richard has forged a reputation as an R&B iconoclast, collaborating with Dirty Projectors and working on Adult Swim. Here she puts forth her NOLA roots with wizened old- people’s voices at the start of several songs—though New Breed
ARTS Pick: David Bromberg Quintet
Based in blues: Musically prolific multi-instrumentalist David Bromberg has gigged with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Jerry Garcia, but he owes his eclecticism to blues and gospel singer Reverend Gary Davis. Bromberg studied under Davis in the ’60s, and developed the unique style of
ARTS Pick: Whose Live Anyway?
Keeping it real: Big smiles all around with Whose Live Anyway?, a tour event starring actors from the Emmy-nominated improv comedy show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?.” Greg Proops, Chip Esten, Jeff B. Davis, and Joel Murray want the audience’s ideas, encouraging suggestions for on-the-spot skits
Status update: Dawes scrolls past the SoCal sound on new album Passwords
The age of social media is rife with oversharing; dominated by a virtual playground where foodstagrams and political Facebook fights abound—and any semblance of privacy is tenuously maintained by CAPTCHAs and digital passwords. Los Angeles band Dawes explores this concept on its latest album,
Action flameout: Nicole Kidman’s gritty performance can’t save Destroyer
Director Karyn Kusama is one of the most interesting directors working today who is not a household name. Her most well-known movies—the groundbreaking Girlfight, the misunderstood Jennifer’s Body and the underseen The Invitation—are very-different-but-terrific showcases for her as a
Cups up, blades out: Self-governed actors make their own rules in ASC’s Henry IV, Part 1
To a lay audience member who hasn’t been involved in a theater production since fifth grade, directors seem as essential to any play’s success as a script. They’re the boss of the show. If the director goes into a coma at the start of the first rehearsal or has a crisis and runs off with […]
ARTS Pick: Stray Fossa
On the hook: It’s been about a year since three friends from Tennessee who make up the atmospheric rock band Stray Fossa chose Charlottesville as their creative center—and the choice of relocation has ignited the trio’s output. SF released a three-song EP in September; posted the self-recorded
ARTS Pick: El Ten Eleven
Going to twelve: Something about Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty’s music makes you think they know something about life. Daring and enlightened, the indie project El Ten Eleven uses complex instrumentals and spellbinding lyrics to be at once reflective and forward-thinking. The Los Angeles-based
Trickling streams: How digital has affected local musicians
Paul Curreri remembers getting rid of his CD collection. He and his wife, Devon Sproule, both musicians, were packing up their Austin, Texas, home to move back to Charlottesville in 2015, when Curreri realized he hadn’t added to his CD collection in a while. “There wasn’t a bad one in the
ARTS Pick: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong
Birds of a feather: Wild is an accurate descriptor for Baltimore’s banging bunch of birds, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, a funky foursome that channels happy vibes all around. The group’s latest release, the psychedelic LP Pizazz, features driving bass and heavy drums with a positive twist. Live
For laughs: Stan & Ollie gets real about screen partners and friendship
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were one of the great comedy pairings of Hollywood’s Golden Age, bringing vaudeville sensibilities to audiences around the world. A classic partnering of a physically mismatched pair—one an innocent fool, the other an arrogant straight man—they sold their gags with
Galleries: February
When artist Karina A. Monroy moved from California to Charlottesville in February 2017, she started making pieces that comforted her. She reinterpreted or slightly altered scenes from her mother’s and grandmother’s homes, places where she rooted and grew not just herself, but the bonds with the