Ah, the Tea Bazaar- it’s such an odd shop on the Downtown Mall of Charlottesville. Mostly, the place books local aging hippies playing Bob Dylan covers, but sometimes (and more often lately) the little teashop upstairs attracts some talented rising bands. I remember seeing Calvin Johnson (front man of Beat Happening and founder of K records) play a solo set there to an audience in the single digits. But the Washed Out show was quite different from what I’ve seen there before. The Tea Bazaar is …
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I’ve been in love with Joanna Newsom since the release of her 2004 album, The Milk-Eyed Mender. I still remember the yellow album artwork with its cross-stitched designs, and how perfectly it fit the whimsy of her songs.
Like most listeners, my initial reaction was to her jarring vocals — the squeaks and cracks of her voice were irritating, and yet something I had never heard before. Something kept me listening to this classically trained harpist, and by about the third listen, I was captivated. She had this tiny little voice that …
Cellist and singer-songwriter Ben Sollee’s first studio album, “Learning to Bend” was one of the hidden gems of the past few years. It was an interesting mix of folk and jazz, accompanied by beautiful lyrics. For his second studio release, Sollee teamed up with fellow Kentucky native Daniel Martin Moore, resulting in a strong follow-up to his fantastic first album.
The album, written both by Sollee and Moore, is a collection of wonderful soft, but lively, folk music. Not as soulful as Sollee’s solo album but with the same jaunty cello …
I wrote this while sitting in my log cabin on an especially hot summer day. The few events that take place happened while listening to Teen Dream by Beach House.
Last Saturday night I sat in my room and watched a fan oscillate back and forth for quite some time. The air in the room was pretty miserable and the fan would only pass over me here and there, but I kept loving it for those brief instances it would be focused on me. Then I realized the air only seemed …
In my last column I covered the year 1967, one of the most important in modern musical history. For this installment I’ve jumped ahead two decades to 1983 which, though nowhere near as monumental or influential as ‘67, had it’s fair share of important musical happenings. Besides the ten albums I list here, the year saw the debut of Madonna and Weird Al Yankovic, another Bette Midler album(!), and the untimely death of Karen Carpenter (one-half of The Carpenters). As for future musicians born this year, 1983 boasts an American …
A nostalgic soundtrack to sun-baked summer afternoons, forgotten journal entries, and faded collections of Polaroids.
