And why not? The original and considerably more timely attempt was canceled due to one of the many insane snowstorms we endured this season, you see. No worries, though — the fruitcake still hasn’t gone bad. Performers include blues guitarist Eli Cook, folk duo Gene and Gayla Mills, songwriter Andy Waldeck, Hogwaller Ramblers Americana singer Jamie Dyer, and many more.

Eli Cook - Static In The Blood
Andy Waldeck - Those Days Are Gone
Andy Waldeck - Ordinary Men
Andy Waldeck - Diggin Me
Andy Waldeck - Healing
Gene and Gayla Mills - Ghost Town
Gene and Gayla Mills - Fool’s Gold

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Nashville singer-songwriter best known for his work with Christian rockers Caedmon’s Call.

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Rollicking roots-rock.

The Rogan Brothers - Into The Light
The Rogan Brothers - Heartbeat
The Rogan Brothers - Hang Tough

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The wacko meter is off the charts here — it starts with the official Scottish Highland bagpipe and drum band of the Albemarle County Sheriff’s office, a local cover band, and an instrumental rock band from Baltimore featuring chef Duff Goldman from the Food Network’s riveting tell-all pastry-biz exposé Ace Of Cakes. Just to keep things sane, here’s a video of the latter performing at the 2008 annual Big Lebowski convention.

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Pop-rock

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Reggae rock covers (Radiohead = Radiodread, Floyd = Dub Side Of The Moon, etc) that actually might appeal nicely to college students if any of them cared about Marley any further than the posters.

The Easy Star All-Stars - Lovely Rita

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Though it’s hard to imagine why playing in a Sublime tribute band could ever be artistically unfulfilling (cough cough, sorry, something in my throat), that’s what happened to the Badfish guys, who have been inciting riots among evergreen college stoner audiences with “April 26th” ever since 2001 — which, it should be noted, was only four years after Brad Nowell died; is there a minimum waiting period for this sort of thing?

Thus, from about 2006 onward, Scotty Don’t, whose reggae-rock original tunes are inspired by, but no longer carbon-copy mimicry of, one of the most influential rock bands of the 90’s.

Scotty Don’t - A Little Time

Decide for yourself — you’ll get sets from both here.

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Indie pop

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British folk-rock singer-songwriter with a loop sampler pedal. Old School Freight Train guitarist Jesse Harper opens.

Jesse Harper and His Best Intentions - Memphis
Jesse Harper and His Best Intentions - Falling

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Sub Pop folk rock from Shins guitarist Eric Johnson (not the virtuoso one; we don’t mean that as an insult, we just can’t figure out how else to clarify things). Anyway, this band will change your life… into that of a lonely caped crusader who protects the city by pummeling criminals with a mix of fear, myth, and violence. But first they will kill your parents after a night at the opera. Stay away from the Paramount this week, OK?

The Singleman Affair opens.

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Traditional Irish folk

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Harmony-heavy alt-folk trio, notably with a big fat vote of confidence from Indigo Girl Amy Ray

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Acoustic pop singer-songwriter whose “Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop” was recently featured in one of those silhouette-style diamond commercials (“she’ll pretty much have to”, etc); not sure if the invitation for audience members to bring their own instruments from way back in November still stands, but you might as well grease up the Sousaphone just the same. Former King Wilkie guitarist Ted Pitney opens.

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Not scientists at all — indie rockers!

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Richmond-based acoustic rock and alt-country band, also self-described as “coffeehouse pop”, which quite frankly is a pretty spot-on label that more of you acoustic guitar dudes out there better start copping to.

Blue Line Highway - Almost Reel
Blue Line Highway - You’ll Get Yours
Blue Line Highway - Morning Glory
Blue Line Highway - Goin’ On Here
Blue Line Highway - Cry

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Indie folk rock. With the Left And Right Band and Maribelle.

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The Bridge once again proves itself most friendly to the wildly avant-garde of all C-ville venues (yes, including you, Tea Bazaar, sorry) by way of septuagenarian composer and Vassar contemporary electronic music professor Annea Lockwood, who did a series of works in the 60’s and 70’s which involved pianos which were (her own words here) “burned, drowned, beached, and planted in an English garden;” not entirely clear on why the particular provenance of the garden is of such importance, but there you have it. She worked heavily with environmental recordings for a period as well, but her pieces have tended in scope toward full-fledged “audio installations” of late. This more road-friendly but still wildly conceptual set for cello, tape, and voice (that’d be occasional collaborative pal Thomas Buckner) juxtaposes, among other things, one piece about the horrific camps run by Stalin and Hitler and another based on three poems written by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

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Wilmington NC’s leading Americana rock quintet drops bluesy guitar parts and voice-of-underclass political messages on top of lead songwriter Brad Heller’s Tex-Mex flavored songwriting — and to substantial critical acclaim back home, we hear.

The Fustics - Back Again
The Fustics - Baptized Tonight
The Fustics - Captured My Fate
The Fustics - Headed Down
The Fustics - Beyond This Life
The Fustics - Bloodstained Streets
The Fustics - Brothers
The Fustics - Desert Sky
The Fustics - Running Round
The Fustics - Western Skyline

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Photo by Andrew Shurtleff

Iron Maiden-style and 70’s mustache-metal with songs about spaceships and dragons, which are about the only thing that could make old metal any cooler. Or mustaches, for that matter.

Corsair - Last Night On Earth
Corsair - Space Is A Lonely Place
Corsair - Starcophagus

And Urban Dictionary to the rescue regarding the precise meaning of bluesy one-man garage rock band Pinche Gringo’s quite-obviously-derogatory-in-Spanish name:

“An all-purpose insult enhancer, which would be roughly equivalent to the use of “f*cking” in English… pinche is strongly associated with cursing in Mexican Spanish and the very moment you use it gives you away as a Mexican national. So you pinches gringos take that into account if youre trying to pass for an Argentine or whatever.”

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Artsy Brooklyn noise-rock and shoegaze meets soulfully bluesy 70’s-style southern rock, with retro indie-pop from The Hilarious Posters as your unlikely appetizer.

The Hilarious Posters - Absence
The Hilarious Posters - Geniuses

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C-ville’s own Greg Howard is one of the all-time greats of the Chapman Stick, an unusual 10- or 12- stringed instrument played entirely using Van Halen-style fretboard tapping, and as usual, he’ll play both originals and standards here in jazzy head-improv-head style. Speaking of jazzy, this sophisticated “And Friends” configuration hasn’t been seen in quite a while — African percussionist Darrell Rose on talking drum and djembe and The Sound LLC’s James McLaughlin on the kit, with trumpet brainiac and Miller’s jazz night staple John D’earth shooting melodies out above it all.

Starting things off, Fredricksburg Chapman Stick player, audio software programmer, and prog-rock fanatic Rob Martino, current titleholder by a hefty margin of most popular Stick video on the internet, with a set which will undoubtedly contain tunes from his upcoming debut album and at least a handful of instrumental Tull covers.

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Award-winning energetic acoustic bluegrass

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Metal. Our Blind Society opens.

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Jazz pianist

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