Every few years, some downtown restaurant or bar plays music way too loudly way too late at night. Citizens get angry, a result of the ineffective noise ordinance, and City Council finally agrees to do something about it. The restaurant gets upset and says it’s not fair that they’re being targeted. Then the restaurant capitulates — or goes out of business — and the ordinance never passes. Repeat.
The cycle has begun anew. This time, as Dave McNair writes for The Hook, four businesses’ noisy nights have led the city to consider tightening up its noise ordinance. The Buddhist Biker Bar, Outback Lodge, LaTaza and Saxx have all annoyed enough of their neighbors with late-night music that the city figures they should just enact a blanket nighttime decibel restriction on restaurants and bars. The plan is to stick with the existing 75db limit, but make it run from 10pm-6m, seven days a week, rather than the narrower window that varies by day of week that’s the existing standard.
The Hook has a new local music section of their website that’s pretty nice — it’s got audio, video, show reviews, comments from the public, etc. The best part: an iCalendar-compliant music calendar, perfect for syndication and mashups. Any “community calendar” that doesn’t offer ICS syndication is basically useless. Yeah, that’s right — this blog entry was an excuse for me to kvech about how lousy every single local online community calendar is. I’ve been fishing for the opportunity for months.
Jeremy Borden had a nice article in Saturday’s Progress about The Womenfolk, an early 60s all-female band that were big in the U.S. and in Europe for about three years before fading out. Four members of the band (two of whom I know, but hadn’t the faintest clue about their prior fame) got together recently and recorded an oral history of the band at Live Arts. One of their hits was their cover of Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes” — Womenfolk’s version remains the shortest-ever song on the Billboard charts, at 1:03. It sounds like they had a heck of a ride, and had the rare wisdom to give up performing when it stopped being fun.
The Police concert at the Bell Center, Montreal. By Franz Dejon.
The county sent out an interesting notice today, alerting voters in the University Hall precinct to a scheduling conflict on Election Day. November 6 is the date of the the Police concert at the John Paul Jones Arena. The doors open for the show at 6:30pm, while the polls are open until 7:00. Voters are alerted that they “may experience significant traffic and parking issues” when attempting to vote after work. Seems to me that U-Hall may simply not working as a polling place anymore. After all, UVa can hardly be expected to keep their venue dark on Election Day.
The good news is that tickets to the Police concert apparently aren’t selling. Nosebleed seats are $52, and prices soar up to $227. I’m a lifelong fan of The Police, but ain’t no way I’m paying $200 for a decent pair of seats.
Corey Harris has won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship — a “genius grant”! The 38-year-old blues musician is a genuine success story in the realm of Charlottesville music, and he’s been making waves in the world of blues for well over a decade now. He’ll receive $100,000 annually for the next five years, with which he can do absolutely anything he wants. I’m thrilled for him.
8:30am Update: Jane Dunlap Norris has the story for the Progress.
Speaking of meta-media coverage, Lindsay Barnes looks at the rise of WCNR “The Corner” in local radio in this week’s Hook, focusing on the station’s program director, Brad Savage, and his counterpart at WNRN, Mike Friend. The formats of the two stations are very similar, but WCNR is owned by media conglomerate Saga Communications while WNRN is is a locally-founded non-profit. Barnes explores the degree to which that difference in business approaches ultimately matters, and how it affects the two stations. There’s some good discussion about the story on The Hook’s website, and over at CE Conversations Ralph offers some thoughtful analysis of WNRN’s ban on the phrase “The Corner”
Coran Capshaw is shutting down Starr Hill after buying the Satellite Ballroom, The Hook reports. The folks who established the Satellite Ballroom on The Corner saw part of their mission as providing a venue not owned or operated by Coran Capshaw, so this may well have been a sale of last resort for them. The restaurant at Starr Hill, which occupies the downstairs of the two story building, has long been awkward to operate, since Capshaw has gone back and forth on whether he’s interested in it turning a profit. The paper says that a sports bar is due to move into the current Starr Hill location, continuing the tradition for the spot established by the long-standing Blue Ridge Brewery that previously occupied the location. The last gig will be local boys Navel, on July 7, according to a press release by Starr Hill.
07/06 Update: One of the owners of Satellite Ballroom posts a quick clarifying note.
In this week’s C-Ville, Spencer Lathrop writes that every local musician’s favorite venue, The Gravity Lounge, is going out of business:
While rumors have long swirled about Gravity Lounge’s demise, people close to the source tell me that December really will be it for the club. Here’s hoping that’s not true—but in the meantime, you should show your support by checking out The Roches this week, and the unbelievably talented and funny Asylum Street Spankers next month.
It may well be that it’s just not profitable to run a venue so nice and so artist-friendly while keeping the prices so reasonable.
(Via Nailgun)
A Daily Progress article describes how Music Today is monitoring eBay and other avenues for after-market sales of tickets. This is in accordance with their terms of service, which states:
Tickets purchased through this site are intended for personal use by the buyer. We strictly prohibit the resale of any tickets obtained through this site for more than the purchase price. If you are found to be or we in good faith believe you are reselling, trading or brokering tickets for profit that you purchased through this site, we may at our sole discretion cancel all or part of your ticket order and all or part of other pending orders in your name and/or put all or part of your orders and all or part of your other pending orders in your name at will-call for pick-up only by you.
This peculiar restriction naturally will upset people who discover the policy when they are turned away at the door. One viewpoint holds that scalpers fulfill a market need for people who don’t, for a variety of reasons, purchase tickets through the official venue. The other viewpoint maintains that Music Today is welcome to set its own policies and the purchaser agreed to them when the ticket was sold.
What do you think?
Saga Communications (which bought the locally-owned Eure Communications in 2004) has launched a new radio station in town: 106.1 FM “The Corner”. Their website refuses to divulge what sort of music that they play, describing it only as “different.” A quick listen in the car revealed that “boring” might be a better term, but YMMV.
In a press release, The Charlottesville Pavilion has announced the second half of this year’s Fridays After Five lineup, from July 7 - September 15. That lineup consists of The Beetnix, Tea Leaf Green, Nighthawks, Tommy Wood, Andy Waldeck & the C’villians, DJ Williams Projekt, Terri Allard, Sons of Bill & Jim Waive, Sparky’s Flaw, The Houserockers, and Indecision, in that order.
After forty years, The Prism shut down last night, The Hook reports on their blog. The venue had planned a move to Gordonsville, but The Hook reports in this week’s issue that the plans had apparently fallen through. In an angry letter, Fred Boyce explains the shut down, describes his plans to “concentrate upon organizing and editing the extensive archive of live concert recordings we have made here since 1992,” and blames The Hook (who wrote about trouble at the Prism in 2004), Westminster Presbyterian Church (who owns their building) and WNRN (by allusion, for not mentioning Prism concerts) for the venue’s demise.
I enjoyed many a concert at The Prism. It’s a shame to see it go down like this.
The Charlottesville Pavilion announced their season lineup yesterday, and it’s a humdinger. Scheduled acts include Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, Wynton Marsalis, Merle Haggard, Bruce Hornsby, The Neville Brothers, Dr. John and James Brown, among others. Jane Dunlap Norris has the story in today’s Progress.
They also announced the year’s Fridays After 5 lineup. It looks very much like past year’s lineups, though I’m particularly happy to see the Hacks opening up the season and the inclusion of Thompson D’earth and Agents of Good Roots.
I’ll confess right up front that I’m a big dork and I’ve never seen American Idol. (The ads indicate that the hosts are jerks, so I’ve never bothered to watch.) I’ll further confess that I hadn’t really noticed that a local fella is really rocking each round, but on the Daily Progress blog, Laura Bland writes that 26-year-old Chris Daughtry, from Fluvanna, is the odds-on favorite to win. He actually lives in North Carolina now, but we take what we can get.
Dave Matthews Band will play a pair of concerts in Charlottesville in September, the Charlottesville Daily Progress reports. The concerts will christen the University of Virginia’s new basketball hall, John Paul Jones Arena, which holds 16,000 people. Concerts have been held in its predecessor, University Hall, but the acoustics were terrible. The performances will be held on Friday, September 22 and Saturday, September 23. It will be the first time DMB has played in Charlottesville since their 2001 Scott Stadium show, which was, in turn, the first time they’d played in Charlottesville since the 1996 Crash release party, which wasn’t even a full-band show. There’s no word on when tickets go on sale.
(Cross-posted from nancies.org.)
CHS Junior wears t-shirt promoting his band. School principal thinks band is a gang. Mother called in. Principal says t-shirt’s reference to boy’s neighborhood is gang promotion. Mother pissed. School board annoyed. Progress reports.
I intend to drive down to Lynchburg tomorrow and, with my iPod having kicked the bucket some months ago, I take solace in knowing that I’ll be able to listen to WNRN for the 2.5-hour round trip. But now drives to Richmond are about to get a whole lot more tolerable, with NRN’s expansion into Richmond, as David Hendrick reports in today’s Daily Progress. They’re now available on 103.1FM in the area, and intend to soon be on 95.1FM in Harrisonburg and 95.9FM in Lexington.
Excuses for day trips are coming to mind already.
I’ve been listening to Professor Bebop’s R&B show on WTJU since I was a kid. It’s the show I’ve listened to more regularly, and certainly look forward to more, than any other local radio program. In the mid 90s, when I DJd at WTJU, I’d hoped I’d meet the professor himself, but I never did. Throughout, I’ve heard rumors that he’s actually a principal of a school in town, but I never knew if there was anything to it.
In this week’s Hook, Lisa Provence interviews Dave Rogers, aka Professor Bebop. (Shocker: He’s white!) Turns out he’s the principal at Jack Jouett, and used to be principal at Walker and Buford. The piece is a great read for fans of his show.
Charlottesville’s own Hackensaw Boys were featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition yesterday morning in an extended interview. They performed a pair of songs and talked about how they first started, their bluegrass style, and their new album, Love What You Do. Charlottesville bluegrass is making a name for itself, in the form of the Hacks and King Wilkie, both of whom are rapidly becoming darlings of different segments of the bluegrass cognoscenti.
This Sunday’s Washington Post will feature an article about the Charlottesville music scene. Author Ben Brazil visited and reviewed the music communities of Athens, Chapel Hill, and Our Fair City. He spent time at Twisted Branch, Bang!, Starr Hill Gravity Lounge, writing specifically about Bella Morte, Lauren Hoffman, This Means You, and John D’earth. The author also turns to Mike Friend and Jeff Reynolds, of WNRN, for advice on good local music.
All in all, it amounts to some great exposure for some of the town’s best musicians and venues.
In this week’s Hook, Courteney Stuart writes about the Charlottesville Pavilion, in which she mentions that the amphitheater isn’t subject to the noise ordinance:
Belmont residents complained at a September city council meeting about “windows rattling” during many– if not all– Pavilion shows, and called for the City to enforce the noise ordinance. That law limits noise in the downtown business district to less than 75 decibels between the hours of 10pm and 6am. In residential neighborhoods, nighttime noise must not exceed 55 decibels.
Because the Pavilion falls outside both the Downtown Business district and residential areas, the ordinance does not apply.
If the Pavilion isn’t able to reign in their noise pollution, I suspect we’re going to see demand for a noise ordinance with teeth. Though I can’t claim to know much about the entertainment business, I do know that most venues around the nation that Dave Matthews Band plays at have a rigidly-enforced 11pm curfew; in some places, if they go over, they have to pay a per-minute fine. That might start looking pretty good here.
Tonight’s Stones concert at Scott Stadium was abruptly halted shortly after it began, after a bomb threat was called in. The Daily Progress was the first to report this, via their Stones show quasi-blog, writing:
Mick Jagger announced that the band had been told by authorities they needed to take a 10-minute break because of a technical problem.
Afterward, several police officers appeared on stage with dogs.
Several thousand people seated on the field were evacuated, and the dogs sniffed around the stage and the field in front of the stage.
On their 11pm broadcast, NBC 29 reported that it wasn’t until an hour later that the show started again; clearly, the problems were not technical in nature. Bomb threats became a nasty habit at UVa in 2002, but hadn’t been an issue for the past few years. The Stones intend to play a full show, despite, planning to wrap up shortly after midnight.
A couple of dozen downtown residents showed up at last night’s City Council meeting to protest what they say is excessive noise coming from the new Charlottesville Pavilion. On concert nights their windows rattle and sleep isn’t possible — the shows go too late and are held too often. The amphitheater manager says they’re working on the problem, and city staff has taken to monitoring noise levels throughout the city at 10-minute intervals during concerts. John Yellig has the story in today’s Daily Progress.
We seem to be on a ~3-year cycle of interest in noise ordinances. In 1998, a restaurant named the Jewish Mother was in the present location of the Blue Light Grill. They featured live music upstairs, which was played very loudly with the windows open until the wee hours of the morning, meaning that those of us who lived within a block or two couldn’t sleep. The business went under before a noise ordinance could be passed, and so interest in such a law was dropped. In the summer of 2001, we all went through the process again, culminating in Council passing a downtown noise ordinance, starting at 10pm Sunday-Thursday and midnight Friday-Saturday. If it’s ever been enforced, I haven’t heard about it — perhaps that’s about to change.
In a press conference yesterday, Charlottesville Pavilion representatives announced a planned July 30 grand opening of the rebuilt amphitheater on the east end of the Downtown Mall, along with the lineup for the first couple of months. There will be a soft opening on July 27, with Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe performing a free concert. Beginning that Friday — the 29th — Fridays After 5 will be held at the amphitheater. On the 30th, Loretta Lynn will play the grand-opening concert, in a benefit for Live Arts, with Sissy Spacek joining her on stage. Other acts playing this summer include Bob Weir & Ratdog, Little Feat, and Bruce Hornsby.
Though it’s looked like the amphitheater is nowhere close to being ready in time, yesterday the concrete slab was poured, leaving the installation of the roof and some seats. Charlottesville Pavilion representative Kirby Hutto explained that, construction-wise, that’s about it — it’s not tough to build an amphitheater.
John Yellig has the story in today’s Progress.
06/21 Update: Charlottesville Podcasting Network has the raw audio of the press conference, including comments from Kirby Hutto, David Brown, Gary O’Connell, and John Gibson.
It appears that the Rolling Stones will be playing at Scott Stadium this summer. In today’s Progress, John Yellig writes that three UVa sources have confirmed that the “major announcement” that Musictoday has planned for Tuesday will be that the news will be that the legendary rock band will be playing in town. Presumably, proper confirmation and details will be available in a few days.
Fridays After 5, in its latest incarnation, has announced both the location and the lineup for the first half of the season, WINA reports. It’ll be held at the corner of First Street and Garrett Street, behind the Pink Warehouse, its location until the amphitheater exists again. The bands in the May-June chunk of the season include Indecision, Alligator, the Chickenhead Blues Band, and the Hackensaw Boys.
Those who don’t follow these things closely may appreciate knowing that the city sold the rights to the public amphitheater to developer Coran Capshaw last year, he promised to maintain some incarnation of Fridays after 5, and the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation closed shop in January, since without Fridays, they’ve got no revenue stream.
Update: John Yellig has the story in today’s Progress.
Paul Richards, of Nellyford, has composed a march entitled “The Daily Progress” — it is, in fact, an ode to that very newspaper. Richards is a trumpet player in the Charlottesville Municipal Band, and the piece will get its first performance on Tuesday night at the band’s Spring Concert at PVCC.
Believe it or not, this is an old tradition. In the newspaper that is the object of Richards’ affection, John Yellig writes:
With Richards’ composition, The Daily Progress takes its place alongside other newspapers with their own marches, such as the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post, which had its ditty penned by the legendary composer John Philip Sousa.
The tradition of dedicating marches to newspapers originated in the 19th century, when bandleaders hoping for prominent billing sought to flatter editors by dedicating compositions to their publications. Oftentimes, the song in question had been recycled several times over at previous stops along the tour.
“The Daily Progress,” Richards said, is an original.
The promotion seems to be particularly good for the Progress, who has received a write up in Editor & Publisher as a result of the original work.
The Charlottesville Downtown Foundation has called it quits, WINA reports. A few months ago, it became unclear what the future of the group’s flagship event, Fridays After 5, would be, after the amphitheater was turned over to developer Coran Capshaw. With the amphitheater likely to be under construction throughout this year, Fridays After 5 can’t happen, and so CDF can’t be funded, hence the demise of the group. Capshaw’s agreement with the city stipulates that some kind of cheap or free family music event take place each Friday in the amphitheater, but it’s less than clear that such events will actually take place. 01/12 Update: John Yellig has the story in today’s Progress.
After control of the downtown amphitheater was turned over to Coran Capshaw a few weeks ago, it was unclear what the future of Fridays After 5 would be, or if it even had a future at all. But after a meeting last week between the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation and a representative of Capshaw’s, it appears that all is well, if uncertain. The two parties agree to work together to continue the free weekly concerts, but it’s not clear whether they’ll continue to happen every single Friday, who will book the acts, and other logistical issues. It is clear, though, that the mission of Fridays After 5 will continue to be to support area non-profits. Lisa Provence has the story in the current issue of The Hook.
It seems that all is not well at The Prism Coffeehouse. Courteney Stewart’s cover story in this week’s Hook reports on a schism that has developed in the board over the board elections, which has been exacerbated by the frustrations of Fred Boyce, who has long run the Charlottesville musical institution. There is even concern that The Prism may become homeless, should they fall out of the good graces of the church next door, who provides the use of the building. Is this just a bump in a long road, or worse?
One year after Fridays After 5 became a paid event, they’re reverting to being free of charge. This comes after the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation, the organization that runs Fridays After 5, lost two thirds of its sponsorship budget from Virginia State Lottery (had its budget cut), Adelphia Cable (declared bankruptcy, in serious legal trouble), SunCom (slackers?) and Technicolor (fired 750 people, moved to Guadalajara). It didn’t help any that it seemed to rain mightily last summer, but only on Fridays — a third of the year’s concerts were rained out. The organization intends to return to featuring local acts, the city has agreed to lower their usage fees, and things are a bit cloudy beyond that, because of the planned extension of the east end of the Downtown Mall. Lisa Provence has the story in this week’s Hook, and Liz Nelson has the story in yesterday’s Progress.
It looks as if the free ride with Fridays After 5 may be coming to an end. For fifteen years, acts of local, regional, and national note have performed for crowds of thousands on the east end of the Downtown Mall without cost, supported by sales of alcohol and sponsorships. Citing declining sponsorship dollars, Charlottesville Downtown Foundation is considering instituting an admission fee of $3-$5. In addition, they may end up banning outside food and drink, so that vendors at the event can have a monopoly on sales and, presumably, the amount that they can pay CDF will increase. No decision has been made on these things yet, but it seems as if the organization’s hands are tied. Lisa Provence has the story in this week’s Hook.
Clear Channel has given the boot to 107.5 FM morning show duo Vinny Kice and Brooke Shealy. A week ago today was their final show; instead, the station will now use voice tracking to import a Texas-based Clear Channel morning team, “Kidd Kraddick in the Morning,” but make it sound as if the show is local. The FCC is investigating the acquisition, as it’s thought to give Clear Channel an unfair dominance over the local market. The Hook has the story in this week’s issue. For more information on Clear Channel from a more jaded perspective, see the brand-new ClearChannelSucks.org.
Tonight is the first Fridays After 5 of the season, featuring latin band Majahkamo. The free weekly concerts (for those of you that are new in these parts) are held in the amphitheater at the end of the Downtown Mall, running from around 5:30pm until around 8:00pm. The line up for the season, which runs until October, includes dozens of artists such as Terri Allard, Crenshaw, Sweetwater, The Corvairs, HavanaSon, Wanda and the White Boys and plenty more. 3:32pm Update: Sorry, Majahkamo is rock and funk. Not Latin.
dirty-mall-bum writes: Dave Grant, bassist for The Guano Boys and The Freewill Savages (amongst many other bands) died in a tragic accident on Tuesday, March 5, 2002. I’m stricken beyond words, and the thoughts and wishes of the Cville music community go out to his family. Music lost a jewel on Tuesday.
Kevin Armstrong’s David Allen Coe concert is happening after all. After the Buckingham Supervisors nixed it last week, he was forced to move the show out of the county. Now it’s taking place at the Augusta Expoland in Fishersville, a venue known mostly for their monster truck rallies. (”Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!!!”) Though this doesn’t exactly signal a victory for Armstrong, at least the concert is happening as planned. Today’s Progress has a brief story about this.
I’ve got an interview with local musician devon over at nancies.org. A few months ago, I visited her studio to see how her new album was coming along, find out what her musical plans were, etc. The new disc isn’t out yet, but maybe this will whet your appetite for now.
Kevin Armstrong’s annual summer concert in Buckingham won’t be happening this year. Buckingham Supervisors denied him a permit to allow 2,000 people to watch country musician David Allen Coe perform on Armstrong’s five-acre property. Zoning Administrator Dennis Carney pointed out that the event could lead to “over-exuberance.” And the vice president of the Buckingham branch of the NAACP objected on the basis that Coe’s music is offensive to women, blacks and gays. Today’s Progress has the story.
In the craziness of the DMB concert this Saturday, don’t forget about the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation’s 4th annual Dogwood Blues Festival. Friday features the Tom Principato Band at the amphitheatre (admission is free), Saturday, a chili cookoff, and Saturday evening includes, incredibly, both John Mayall and Corey Harris ($5.) You really don’t want to miss this.
The Charlottesville Downtown Foundation has announced their schedule for this year’s Fridays After 5, and it looks as good as ever. The lineup includes Hogwaller Ramblers, Dixie Power Trio, Terri Allard, Skip Castro, Jamal Milner’s Phatness, and about twenty more groups over the course of the summer. The first show is April 27th, two weeks from today, and Mandorico will be performing. And remember: it’s free!
Today’s rumors turned out to be true: the second Dave Matthews Band show has been cancelled, according to Ticketmaster. The Saturday show is still on, but the Sunday show is no more. It still hadn’t sold out, as of today, so that’s probably why it was called off. I guess there just aren’t enough people in Charlottesville to support two 50,000+ person shows. Too bad.
cyberville writes: C-ville Weekly has a great story on the Death of Pavement and UVA alum Stephen Malkmus’ latest musical offering. Who else has a great local ancedote about these guys? They have truly been the darlings of inde rock for the past decade. I’ve run into Malkmus a few times when he played with Silkworm in Portland and Seattle (as the Crust Bros.) and he always speaks fondly of his days spent here…especially at WTJU.
It turns out there’s a new radio station in town. Who knew? It’s 101.9, WHTE, yet another Clear Channel station. Not surprisingly, it’s a top 40 station, but that’s pretty much what Clear Channel does. Why anybody would want to listen to anything aside from WTJU or WNRN is beyond me.
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