If Dar Williams hadn’t written “If I Wrote You,” she might not have turned into the folk-rock icon she is; in retrospect, the song which later became her calling card now seems to mark the breaking point between her developmentally awkward earliest pieces and her ability to effortlessly knock them out of the park, as seen in “Empire,” “End Of The Summer,” “Are You Out There,” and so on. Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers open even though they’d probably be worth a headlining slot on any other night.
Hook readers can pick up one of a limited number of discounted tickets by entering the promo code promisedland while purchasing!
You might tune in to late night funnyman Jimmy Kimmel’s program tonight at midnight on ABC if you’d like to catch a few tunes from C-ville pop-rock champs Parachute without also having to deal with upcoming tour-mates like Kelly Clarkson and The Script. This appearance is part of the lead-up to next week’s deluxe digital re-release of Losing Sleep, which seems a little unnecessary just three months in; on the other hand, there’s probably a market for it.
Alligator keeps several Charlottesville rock traditions alive.
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Keyboardist and jazz vocalist stylistically descended from Peggy Lee and Norah Jones
Sometimes it seems like Philadelphia is just dripping with both patriotism and indie cred, what with the declaration of indie-ness being signed there a quarter century ago. Further proof comes via Americana indie rockers The Great Unknown, who evangelize equally for the lap steel and the Les Paul.
The Great Unknown - Olive Tree
The Great Unknown - I’m Not Listening
Also featuring The Hilarious Posters, who are local, and Asheville indie-folk songwriter Elijah Wyman, whose middle name is “Ebenezer,” which seems totally noteworthy in some inexplicable sense.
Old-school acoustic country with religious inflections
Title of the current record notwithstanding (20009, pronounced “two thousand-ousand nine”), celebrated quirk-folk duo Drakkar Sauna obviously have a serious side, good taste and friends in high places — they’ve recently recorded with Magnolia Electric Company and released an album of Louvin Brothers covers, a classy move for the contemporary country practitioner if there ever was one. Also featuring the talents of Mister Baby, the alt-country project comprising local songwriter Megan Huddleston and members of the Hackensaw Boys.
Experimental prog-punk from the guitarist, drummer, and Ultra Dolphin
Andy Deane.As the lead vocalist in goth band Bella Morte, Andy Deane is no stranger to the dark arts. No, this isn’t another story of wizardry and a boy-who-lived, but one filled with werewolves and rock music. Deane, 31, now has fans thirsting for his book.
Even before hitting bookshelves, his newly-published novel, The Sticks, hit #1 in pre-sales and #2 in digital downloads at Horror Mall, a top independent online horror shop.
It’s almost scary how (more)
Local folkie Keith Morris curates this concert series on the patio, which will feature a set from the Crooked Numbers, his own band, and one from alt-country guitarist Carlton James.
Adam Smith’s solo project. Also featuring Carolina garage rockers the Whatever Brains.
Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand - There’s Room In My Will
Apparently ill-content to just rack up album sales and critical acclaim with The Hold Steady, keyboardist Franz Nicolay launched a solo EP last year which splits the difference between his primary band’s mainstream appeal and the niche Balkan and klezmer projects he’d probably have otherwise spent his weekends with.
Franz Nicolay - Jeff Penalty
Franz Nicolay - World/Inferno Vs. The End Of The Evening
Also featuring alt-country champ Sarah White and former head Hack David Sickmen.
Sarah White - Apple In B Major
Sarah White - Half A Smile
Sarah White - Ply Me
Sarah White - Sweetheart
Sarah White - Where You’re Going
Annie Lynch and her bluegrass Beekeepers play three-dimensional country and folk tunes with Berklee brains and captivating cello lines which are presumably made all the more difficult by the beekeeper’s outfit. Also: singer-songwriters Doby Watson, Matt Dill and Keegan DeWitt.
Annie and the Beekeepers - Pirate’s Life
Annie and the Beekeepers - Like A Dog
Annie and the Beekeepers - Again And Again
Indie folk rock. With
100 Acres and rootsy folk duo Cain and Annabelle.
Accordion Death Squad alum. Also featuring Motorcycle Maus.
Motorcycle Maus - Knockout
Motorcycle Maus - Fiji Mermaid
Garage rock. With Sleep For The Nightlife.
Indie rock trio from Massachusetts. Also featuring Midwestern formerly-folk band Elsinore, which blends largely useless prefixes like indie- and alt- with more substantive genres like pop, rock and Americana, and local dance-rockers Bear War.
Doomstar - Helicopter Pilot
Doomstar - Blues And Other Dark Colors
Doomstar - Attack
The two delightfully folky ladies help with fundraising for the annual Heritage Harvest Festival.
Devon Sproule - Keep Your Silver Shined
Devon Sproule - 1340 Chesapeake St.
Devon Sproule - Let’s Go Out
Adrienne Young - All For Good
New Orleans rockers The Radiators have been playing their swampy fish-flavored jams for upwards of thirty years at this point and have miraculously managed to keep the original lineup intact. Local rockers Raw Dawg open.
Raw Dawg - Alibi
Raw Dawg - Dig
Raw Dawg - HOI
Experimental noise and electronics from Blevin Bectum, Wobbly, and self-avowed “local sonic troublemaker” Jonathan Zorn
Twisted pop trio with occasional classical influences. Also featuring local songwriter Uncle Jemima and Newport News multi-instrumentalist trio Momentary Prophets.
The Momentary Prophets - Fearless
The Momentary Prophets - Dogwood Blossom
The New Heaven And The New Earth - Noah
Local songwriter ladies led by Lindsey Osborne and Sally Rose Monnes
Gypsy jazz from the busy local guitar player.
Olivarez Trio - Choti
Olivarez Trio - Adieu, Bienville
Olivarez Trio - Chez Drennon
Conny’s Hot Jam opens with swing tunes.
Beantown’s finest joins the local guitarist for a duo performance
A young Baaba Seth frequented the local scene nearly nightly for four years.
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Bill Kirchen, also known as the “Titan of the Telecaster,” brings his “Dieselbilly” to Fridays.
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Both cheapskates too broke to ante up for the more sensibly located Fellini’s show the preceding night and country bumpkins too content to drive in and deal with the bustling city folk would do well to check out this free Nelson County show by the California bluegrass rock group.
In a video recently uploaded to YouTube, Albemarle expat, eventual American Idol castoff and industry-saving 2007 chart-topper Chris Daughtry heaps some love on C-ville rock songwriter Andy Waldeck while (more)
Chicago multi-instrumentalist and experimental musician Jeff Smith tells us his whole aim in life is to make as much noise as one person can; expect him to go about it with drums, guitar, and an armory of techno-widgets like tape loops and effects pedals.
Juffage - Sweet Beet
Juffage - Requiescat
Juffage - Musique Concrète
Juffage - Kent, Ohio
Also featuring Bear War and Great Dads.
Classical and folk influences check in from all over the world to inform the whimsical and experimental rock and roll cabaret of this Asheville sorta-punk sextet.
Hellblinki - Wicked World
Hellblinki - Indelicate Brew
UVA English professor Eric Lott’s new band rocks out, presumably with impeccable grammar.
Punk and shoegaze from Worn In Red drummer Brad Perry. Also featuring Tennessee indie rockers Gamenight. Forecast is “loud as hell,” so bring earplugs or show up early to make sure you can snag one of the free pairs they’ll have available. DJ Nano plays them both out at the end, presumably at saner volumes, but if he’s had enough sake bombs, anything goes.
Forensics - Boat Day At The Marina
We’re supposed to bill this as “The Big Surprise Tour,” but screw it. You may be inclined to think that the highlight of David Rawlings‘ set will be the appearance by Gillian Welch, undisputed (ok, maybe a little disputed) high priestess of contemporary bluegrass, but if you caught their surprise appearance at the Tea Bazaar in 2006 (seriously!) you know that he’s every bit as captivating a presence as she is — just considerably less hyped.
In any case, all the acts on the lineup, contemporary old-time (!) band Old Crow Medicine Show, the subway-busking The Felice Brothers, and Earle-spawn Justin Townes among them, will reportedly be trading performers, making this whole affair about 180 minutes of amorphous folk delight.
Justin Townes Earle - Mama’s Eyes
Justin Townes Earle - What I Mean To You
Chart-toppin’ country crooner. Overwhelmingly sweet chick duo Sugarland opens, even though their 2008 album Love On The Inside, currently being reborn as Live On The Inside, spanked the Billboard charts just as handily as Urban’s latest.
buy tickets onlineThe Sons Of Bill guitarist Sam Wilson joins the newly-soloist former King Wilkie axeman and songwriter Helen Horal.
Sam Wilson - A Melody Instead
Sam Wilson - In The Morning
Sam Wilson - Once In Your Life
Sam Wilson - Green Gates
Helen Horal - Persephone
The deliciously rowdy Pietasters have managed to hang on as leaders of D.C.’s ska underground for well over a decade by growing roots which extend deeper into misfit punk rock than any of the various forms their purported genre has taken over the years.
The Pietasters - Don’t Wanna Know
Foul-mouthed Bella Morte offshoot The 40 Boys open.
buy tickets onlineIntricate indie pop. Also: Tyger and the Lamb, The Great Eastern, and This Piano Plays Itself.
This revolving-door Athens GA pop-rock trio’s titular Casper Fandango is actually songwriter Jason NeSmith, who was a member of Of Montreal’s rebooted lineup through about 2005 before leaving to chase the melodies in his own head. Still, last year’s Modern Silence featured the almost comically extended jam “I Am Gone,” which featured no less than 35 musicians, among them some of NeSmith’s Elephant Six buddies.
Casper and the Cookies - Sharp
Casper and the Cookies - Pete Erchick
Casper and the Cookies - Little King
Also featuring Everything, Now! [emphasis theirs].
Acoustic performance from the local rockers in support of the imperiled local park, which is being threatened as a result of the Meadowcreek Parkway project. (So to clarify, they don’t like it when nasty things happen to lovely green spaces, name notwithstanding.)
Trees On Fire - In The Middle [via WXJM Live!]
Also featuring local singer-songwriter Mariana Bell.
Indie-folk and alt-country from the Richmond quartet. Anomoanon folkie Ned Oldham and multi-instrumentalist Matty Metcalfe open with a new duo project called Old Calf. Get it?
The Great White Jenkins - Wind
Acme hearkens back to vintage sounds.“A lot of these songs are from the Great Depression– and I don’t have to tell you we’re economically challenged right now,” vocalist Mary Beth Revak says. “Hot jazz is definitely not dead, nor is the call for it.”
Indeed, the celebratory, often romantic tunes of 1930s-era swing jazz has found a growing local population to charm, according to the members of the Acme Swing Mfg. Co. The eight-member ensemble has been playing swing tunes together for a year and are just cranking (more)
Southern guitar-rock quartet Earl Knox, whose drummer is a Bloodkin alum, joins local electronic musician Centric for one of the most unexpected C-ville Music Showcase pairings ever.
Earl Knox - Pretty Little Thief
Earl Knox - Accounting
Centric - In Flight
Centric - Thanks For Something
Centric - Second Hand
Renowned North Carolina songwriter Malcolm Holcombe’s gruff rasp has been meandering through haunting country-folk tunes for upwards of thirty years, culminating in last year’s critically acclaimed album Gamblin’ House, which seems to owe its atmosphere as much to Holcombe’s kamikaze smoking habit as to any of the narratives embedded in the tunes.
The head Hog gets things rolling with twangy Americana tunes, and local songwriter Keith Morris takes it home in the first show in the new bi-weekly patio concert series he’s curating.
What is Circumference Of The Sun? Why, it’s a) a project which cranks out spacey instrumental jams centered around 21 year old Florida bassist and drummer Scott Lockhart. Alternatively, b) 2713406 miles.
Circumference Of The Sun - Thomas
Circumference Of The Sun - Pinball Travels East Via Email
Circumference Of The Sun - Galactic Conk Shell
Circumference Of The Sun - Frogs and Lillypads
Circumference Of The Sun - Dew Against The Waves
Circumference Of The Sun - Bobby’s World 2
Local indie rockers. Also featuring Born Empty and the Dixie Licks.
Astronomers - The Singularity
Astronomers - Strategem
Astronomers - Shoes
Astronomers - Perpetual Emotion
Astronomers - Or Maybe It’s Nothing
Astronomers - My Hologram
Astronomers - Fermata
Hip hop. Also featuring Space Cadet 7.
Space Cadet 7 - Killer Octopus
Teen rock bonanza; also featuring Dover, Never Forgotten and Full Moon Territory.
Crazy electronic jamband duo featuring a guitarist named (seriously) Zion Rock Godchaux. But that dude’s parents were both in the Grateful Dead, which probably explains a lot. The Former Champions open.
Funky Richmond guitarist. Chandler Dandridge’s Meandkidz open.
Grateful Dead covers. Carleigh Nesbit and her folk-rock Roosters open.
Carleigh Nesbit and Carl Anderson - Three Steps Out The Door [live]
Carleigh Nesbit and Carl Anderson - Passing Through
Carleigh Nesbit and Carl Anderson - Train Song
Carleigh Nesbit - Three Steps Out The Door
Carleigh Nesbit - River Run Dry
Carleigh Nesbit - Turn On The Heat
Carleigh Nesbit - Your City Skies
Popular local worldbeat band of yesteryear.
Baaba Seth - Wonderful
Baaba Seth - Upside Down [live]
Honky-tonk guitar wizard. Jeebus opens.
Bill Kirchen - Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods
Bill Kirchen - Rocks Into Sand
Local rockers. Teen dynamos The Wave open.
The Wave - My Robot
The Wave - Sometimes
The Wave - Little People
The Wave - Sometimes
Check out Nice Jenkins drummer Adam Brock’s new bedroom recording project, “Borrowed Beams Of Light,” which came together when he started working on some solo material with an acoustic guitar during a Jenkins sort-of-hiatus. Featuring members of Corsair fleshing out the instrumental arrangements and Adam Smith taking over the drum kit.
Also appearing: lovely local indie-folk duo Birdlips.
Birdlips - Tire Chains
Birdlips - Some Kind Of Death
Named after the adorable clickety-clackety handheld percussion instrument, West Coast guitar-and-electronics experimental folk band Asthmatic Kitty since before Sufjan Stephens blew up with Illinois and thus are entirely qualified to complain about the term “freak folk,” even if you think it might somewhat apply.
Kentucky folk-rockers The Warmer Milks and Nelly Kate open.
Local singer-songwriter . Wes Swing opens.
Joia Wood - To Do [featuring Trees On Fire]
Wes Swing - Lullaby
Often-instrumental digitally-augmented experimental rockers from Brooklyn. Wanli and The Hilarious Posters open.
