Jimmy in 2008.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL W. PENDERGRASS

I think my wife and I don’t get out enough. We won two free tickets to the November 17 Jimmy Buffett concert in Charlottesville from a local newspaper’s contest. It was wonderful.  We walked in from the law school smugly watching what appeared to be all of Virginia streaming into the John Paul Jones Arena.

The ginormous parking lots around the Arena were plastered with a special brand of tailgaters: guys in hula skirts and coconut bras, girls with shark pasties. Many sporting parrot, crab, and shark hats and some in shark and pirate costumes, all downing flagons of Caribbean-pastel margaritas mixed to the tunes of Jimmy and whining 12-volt blenders.

Some cars were decorated. A popular fixation were big shark fins duct-taped to the roof.

We approached JPJ and found (more)

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Local folks can make a child’s holiday wish come true by donating a new toy or book to the Toy Lift. This annual holiday event began in 1989 when founder Tom Powell decided to perch himself 80 feet up in a bucket truck until people donated 1,000 toys, which he then distributed to local children in need. Toy Lift has grown into a huge annual community event with festival activities, entertainment, and thousands of toys and books donated. Fashion Square Mall. info@kidslift.org. 975-8697.

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Haunted Staunton
PHOTO courtesy of the Shenandoah Valley Paranormal Society

The Shenandoah Valley Paranormal Society invites thrill-seekers to explore the eerie side of Staunton on a 90-minute walking tour. Two different tours offer ghostly tales and historic facts from the city’s past showcasing the Ghostly Newtown (meet at Coffee on the Corner at the corner of S. Market St. and E. Beverly St.) and the Haunted Wharf (meet at the basement entrance of the Jolly Rodger Haggle Shop
located behind the Wharf parking lot just off of W. Johnson Street). Reservations are recommended. 540-448-2743.

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Ahh, Heaven!
PHOTO courtesy FUMC

Chocolate lovers are invited to a day of pure chocolate indulgence with the First United Methodist Church’s annual Chocolate Festival. Temptations include chocolate confections on Chocolate Lane, a silent auction, gift shop, food court, music, along with a moonbounce, face-painting, and kids’ games. To prepare for the onslaught, the 5K Chocolate Chase Run and Walk precedes the festivities at 8am. A pancake breakfast—yes, there is chocolate chips inside—takes place in the church’s Fellowship Hall also at 8am. Proceeds benefit the church’s outreach ministries. Lee Park across from the Church on Jefferson St. 293-4394.

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Apples all over
PHOTO BY Wikked One - Flickr

Supermarkets provide only a limited sample of the thousands of apple varieties once available to 19th-century fruit lovers. Tom Burford, a.k.a. Professor Apple, introduces numerous apple varieties and tells the story of their histories at Monticello’s Apple Tasting. This annual event is a unique opportunity to explore the essence of the apple. Participants will taste, savor, and rate each apple. Reservations are required.  Tufton Farm nursery, 1.3 miles east of Monticello on the Thomas Jefferson Parkway (Route 53), left on Milton Rd. (Route 732). 9:30am-noon.  984-9822.

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Benjamin Weikel, left, and Brandon Summers, right, head to C’ville from the Portland scene.
PUBLICITY PHOTO

After a six-month tour ripped up Brandon Summers’ vocal chords, the guitarist and lead vocalist for the Portland, Oregon indie-rock duo The Helio Sequence was forced to sit in silence for six months on doctor’s orders– unable to contemplate life and his future singing career uncertain. He took the usual derailed-musician path to drinking heavily and sulking; but after reading a biography on folk icon Bob Dylan, Summers embraced a new regimented lifestyle– retraining his voice for hours, exercising, and shifting the sound of The Helio Sequence from pop-rock to bluegrass-influenced.

The resulting album, Keep Your Eyes Ahead, showcased a new direction for the indie-rockers. Summers, along with drummer Benjamin Weikel, had previous alternative rock and pop cred from years of touring with alt-rock headliners Modest Mouse and Keane– thus this new album and sound caught the attention of the music world, challenging any mainstream labeling of the duo.

The band, now on tour again with Keane after Summers regained his vocal health, continues to consciously challenge musical labels and tags by meshing acoustic influences with glitzy pop-rock.

The Hook: When did you and Benjamin realize (more)

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Dr. Dog’s Frank McElroy, left, and Scott McMicken are nicknamed “Thanks” and “Taxi”, respectively. The pop-rockers play Gravity Lounge February 24.
PUBLICITY PHOTO

Despite the rise of electronic and psychedelic rock, Philadelphia-based pop-rockers Dr. Dog unabashedly look back to the 1960s. Mistake the opening strains of this quinet’s 2008 album, Fate, for a lost Beach Boys record or a never-before-heard Beatles track, and they’ll be pleasantly pleased. Just don’t call them irrelevant or trivial.

“We’re trying to write songs that we want to hear,” says vocalist and bassist Toby “Tables” Leaman. “We’re offended when people act like what we’re doing is just rehashing old ground– that would be pointless if that was our intent.”

With his fellow songwriter and guitarist Scott “Taxi” McMicken, Leaman seems to have created something that operates more as a UVA-style secret society than a grungy garage band. Given the name and its Philly base, Dr. Dog has been frequently mistaken for a hip-hop group.

But in 2004, they were brought into mainstream prominence by opening for folk-rockers My Morning Jacket during a 2004 U.S. tour.

As much of the music world experiments with computer-aided rhythms and beats, a growing number of artists– lead by Dr. Dog– turn to the past for inspiration. Think three-part harmonies, low-fi recordings, and nostalgic imagery. Leaman explains how it all happened.

The Hook: Dr. Dog is constantly compared to ’60s groups, like the Beach Boys and the Beatles, and more contemporary bands, like Pavement. How do you feel about those comparisons?
Toby Leaman: It’s better to be compared to great bands (more)

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Charlottesville native Mariana Bell releases her latest album in a release party Saturday at Is.
PUBLICITY PHOTO

After spending six years studying theater at New York University, Charlottesville’s prodigal daughter of folk pop has returned to the local scene in full force. Born in Australia and raised in Charlottesville, Mariana Bell has since created her own niche of folk in Charlottesville’s varied and dynamic music scene.

After releasing her first full-length album, Dream of Italy in 2003, Bell presents Charlottesville with her sophomore release, Book. Already praised by local music gurus as the work of an up-and-coming star, Book presents audiences with a new phase in Bell’s musical development.

The Hook: How is it being a singer-songwriter in a smaller town?

Mariana Bell: I’m lucky in the sense that I did grow up here and I do know a lot of people, but you still have to start at the bottom, you still have to pay your dues, and there’s (more)

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Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond incorporates theatrical elements into her latest album, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth.
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When you grew up with an accordion-expert dad, a classical organist mother, and grandma was an Epiphone player, you just might end up with an eclectic vision. And with the June release of her sophomore album, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, Shara Worden, now helming a project called My Brightest Diamond, presents audiences with the operatic evidence.

“This album is full of instrumentation, with over fifteen people playing on the record and a lot of different kinds of sounds,” Worden says of the new strings-heavy composition.

Her first album as MBD was the more spare and rocking Bring Me the Workhorse, from 2006.

“On that album,” Worden says, “I wanted to be very focused in the production. In order to prevent putting too many ideas in one pot, there was limited instrumentation to the rhythm sections and strings.”

Heading up a tour in support of the new material, Worden introduces Charlottesville to her theatrical, instrumentation-drenched folk-indie-rock confection.

~

The Hook: What were some of your (more)

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