ARTS Pick: Keith Urban

Keith Urban plays songs from his new record, Graffiti U, at John Paul Jones Arena on Sunday, October 28. Publicity photo

Arts

C-VILLE Writers

10/24/18 at 7:00 AM

Keith Urban’s latest project, Graffiti U, is a versatile album, deeply rooted in the country music of his youth. While Urban is known for infusing guitar chops and hard rock into his music, this album stays stylistically true to the songs of Johnny Cash, Charley Pride, and Merle Haggard, which he discovered in his father’s record collection. The New Zealand singer pulls out all the stops, through 56 cities, on a show of passion for his 10th studio album.

Sunday, October 28. $37-95, 7pm. John Paul Jones Arena, 295 Massie Rd. 243-4960.

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Cracking wise: Detective Pikachu makes a case for the world of Pokémon

By Kristofer Jenson | LEAVE A COMMENT

Unless you’re very familiar with the concept of Pokémon, to the point where the sound of Bill Nighy saying “MewTwo” doesn’t strike you as at all strange, you probably won’t get much out of the Pokémon Detective Pikachu experience. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with that; for example, if

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ARTS Pick: John Shakespear

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Literally literary: The first full album from Boston’s John Shakespear, Spend Your Youth (released May 10), is described as a coming-of-age record tinged by the times. Now making music in Nashville, Shakespear’s harmonies draw comparisons to the wistful pinings of Fleet Foxes and Elliott Smith,

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ARTS Pick: Zen Mother

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High attitude: According to the bio of Zen Mother’s Monika Khot and Adam Wolcott Smith, the trading of “avant-garde secrets” led to the duo’s formation (sometimes a trio with the addition of drummer Sheridan Riley). That seems fitting for a group that lends itself “to sonic focus and harnessing

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Radio refresh: ‘Erasmus Dagger’ drama podcastrevives on-air storytelling

By Erin O'Hare | LEAVE A COMMENT

The sound of spurred boots scuff-clicking across a creaky wooden floor is what did it for third-year UVA student Jess Miller. Sitting alone in front of his laptop, headphones on, ears alert, he’d sifted through a digital library of sound effects to find the right one, the noise that would let

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ARTS Pick: The Royale

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Ring true: Boxer Jack Johnson became the first African American world heavyweight champion, and at the height of the Jim Crow era he was “the most famous and the most notorious African American on Earth,” according to documentarian Ken Burns. Directed by multi-faceted artist and C-VILLE

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Creative connections: Arts organizations bridge the divide between students and locals

By Dan Goff | LEAVE A COMMENT

For a university with such a dominant sports culture, it’s easy to forget that the arts community is thriving, too. UVA boasts over 100 visual and performing arts organizations, from aerial dance clubs to filmmakers’ societies. The vast majority of these groups are Contracted Independent

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ARTS Pick: Nick Waterhouse

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California roll: Before his foray into making music, SoCal native Nick Waterhouse listened and studied, learning from obscure masters of songwriting before launching his own unique style steeped in vintage R&B, jazz, mid-century rock ‘n’ roll, and a hint of bugaloo. His eponymous fourth

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Buzz worthy: McGuffey group exhibition reimagines ancient beeswax-based medium

By Mary Shea Watson | LEAVE A COMMENT

Sometimes, when the windows are open and the weather is warm, Giselle Gautreau has special guests at her McGuffey studio. “Bees will come in and visit, so I have to escort the ladies out,” Gautreau says. “I used to be a beekeeper, so I’m obsessed with bees.” The winged visitors are drawn to the

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Album reviews: Lizzo, Carl Anderson, King Gizzard& the Lizard Wizard, and Cate Le Bon

By Nick Rubin | LEAVE A COMMENT

Lizzo Cuz I Love You (Atlantic) When Lizzo sends the title character of “Jerome” packing even though he “looks good on paper,” it summed up my feeling of listening to the sassy, up-with-me R&B of Cuz I Love You, as Lizzo’s righteous body positivity saturates the album and becomes didactic

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ARTS Pick: God of Carnage

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Parental misguidance: When a pair of 11-year-old boys get into a fight at the park, one leaves with two less teeth. God of Carnage begins after the violent incident, when all four parents of the boys gather for a discussion of the matter over drinks. What begins as civil discourse devolves into

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ARTS Pick: PJ Morton

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Savory hooks: When he’s not on tour or performing at the Super Bowl with Maroon 5, keyboardist PJ Morton can be found playing his own gigs to promote the recent Grammy-nominated album Gumbo. Accompanying Morton (who is fresh from the 50th annual NOLA jazz fest) on his Keys & A Mic Acoustic

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ARTS Pick: Lowland Hum

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A quiet place: Gentleness is a way of life for Lowland Hum, the highly successful duo that founded the #SupportQuietMusic movement. Daniel and Lauren Goans “maintain that among our society’s insufferably growing volume, quiet is the most powerful offering one can make.” New album Glyphonic (out

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Building bridges: Lua Project connects cultures in Mexilachian Son

By Erin O'Hare | LEAVE A COMMENT

The fandango in Veracruz felt familiar to Estela Diaz Knott. Under a tent, musicians strummed guitar-shaped instruments of different pitches—requintos, jaranas, and leonas. With their feet, they stomped and scuffed rhythms on tarimas, rectangular wooden platforms that serve as both stage and

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ARTS Pick: MaySong

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Promise to the world: The Oratorio Society of Virginia rounds out its season with MaySong featuring Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem). The large-scale work is a “true choral blockbuster” says Executive Director Rowena Pinto Zimmermann. Christina Pier (soprano) and Trevor

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Galleries: May 2019

By Erin O'Hare | LEAVE A COMMENT

Ros Casey gets deep at Chroma It was only toward the end of painting her latest body of work that Ros Casey understood what it was all about: rising water. The scenes in her series, “In Those Days There Was No River Here (A parable in 8 pictures),” on view at Chroma Projects gallery this […]

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Arts Pick: Wild Common

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Playing well with others: Genre is meaningless in the best way for locally based rock-soul group Wild Common. After collaborating informally for a fundraiser gig in 2017, the talented friends—including vocal powerhouse and former member of The Wailers Davina Jackson; Galax Old Fiddler’s

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ARTS Pick: The Glass Menagerie

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Stark vision: Tennessee Williams arrived as a playwright when The Glass Menagerie premiered in Chicago in 1944, and then quickly moved to Broadway where it won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1945. Williams’ semi-autobiographical story of a struggling family, set in a St. Louis

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ARTS Pick: Todd Snider

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Speaks volumes: Todd Snider has an impressive history with legendary musicians—his discovery by a member of Jimmy Buffett’s band led to a long kinship with John Prine (and helped shape Snider’s smart, witty folk tunes). So it’s perfectly natural that he would dream about Johnny Cash after a

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Building happiness: Sculptor Mark Cline offers a double take through roadside attractions

By Elizabeth Derby | LEAVE A COMMENT

If you’ve seen a parade of 8-foot-tall ants climbing the side of a building, a life-sized foam replica of Stonehenge, or a T-Rex lunging through the trees with a Union soldier in its mouth, then you know the work of Mark Cline. Dubbed “Virginia’s Roadside Attraction King” by Atlas Obscura,

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Finishing touch: Avengers: Endgame opens up a future of possibilities

By Kristofer Jenson | LEAVE A COMMENT

The release of Avengers:Infinity War last year felt like the grand payoff of our decade-long investment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Twenty years ago, most of the public hadn’t even heard of many of these heroes, but their erasure from existence by the snap of Thanos’ finger and our