Get Out! events, shows, things to do

Hey hey, my my/ Rock and roll will never die / There's more to the picture/ Than meets the eye / Hey hey, my my–Neil Young


No, rock and roll will never die, but that doesn't mean it can't be retooled.  Those Manic Seas, a three-piece, Richmond-based band that formed just last year, has created some real excitement by using the core instruments of the typical rock band– guitar, bass, drums– to create music that sounds like a kind of heavy metal orchestra, what's popularly called post-rock or shoegaze. They are also showmen.

"We put on an unforgettable show with light and theatrics," says drummer Daniel Medley, "but the most interesting thing is that our 'singer' is a mannequin with a television for a head."

Okaaay, then. Indeed, the "singer" apparently took the band a year to create, and, in true post-rock style, the emphasis isn't so much on vocals as it is on instrumentation. With Those Manic Seas, you're likely to drift off in a metal revelry and want to move. Odds are these boys–-Medley, along with guitarist Curtis Park and bassist Chris Westfall–are going to break some ground musically with their unique energy and creativity, so check them out before they break out. 

January 18, Blue Moon Diner, free

OPENING ACTS

Big Blue Door Storytelling Jam
Sheltered suburban rich girl meets charming and sexy townie dance teacher. Struggling dad takes kids and wife on a misguided pilgrimage to Walley World to rebuild family bonds. A housewife and a waitress head out in a Ford Thunderbird to get away from the grind. Countless classic American stories are anchored around journeys, as there’s nothing like a long time away from the familiar to expose our most annoying habits and our most surprising strengths. The Big Blue Door’s second Thursday story jam returns in 2013 with a night of true stories told by local storytellers, all responding to, and reinterpreting, the “journey” theme. Upscale biker bar Black Market Moto Saloon will host, and the line-up includes Susan Perry, Emily Bolecek, Casey Soska, Sean McCord, Eric Cross, Mickey Kampsen, and Cynthia Burke. Audience members can volunteer to serve on teams of judges or sign up to tell their own stories in future shows.
January 17, Black Market Moto Saloon, 8 pm. $5

Journey From Slavery to Freedom Tour
Learning with your senses and on your feet can be the key to the most effective educational experiences about the most complicated issues. In the vein of the interactive exhibits at the United States Holocaust Museum Memorial in D.C. and the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, James and Dolly Madison’s historic estate, Montpelier, will offer a special guided tour highlighting the experiences of Montpelier’s African-American community from enslavement in the 1720s through the twentieth century era of American racial segregation. The tour includes both walking and driving portions, and visits the South Yard, Mr. Madison's Temple, the cellars, the Gilmore Cabin, and the 1910 Train Depot.
January 19, Montpelier Visitor Center, 1 pm, admission + $5

Donna the Buffalo with Buckwild

Believe it or not, Donna the Buffalo is putting the final touches on their 10th album, which will be out this spring. Meanwhile, they've been performing a lot of this new music on their live tour, and lucky for you all, they'll be bringing their "feel-good, groove-oriented, danceable and often socially conscious music" back to the Jefferson (they were there last May) for a show that, as long-time fans know, combines country, rock, reggae, folk, and even zydeco for a sound that helps you get your groove on, in a socially conscious way, of course.
January 19, Jefferson Theater, 9pm, $15/$17

THE LIST

January 17

Music: Witchbaby, a mother-daughter duo playing "spooky-pretty harmonies." The Whiskey Jar. 10:30pm. Free
Music: From Here on Blue with Paxton Henderson. The Box. 10:30pm. Free
Music: Tony Bruno. Horse and Hound Gastropub. 6-9pm. Free

Music: Travis Book of the Infamous Stringdusters. Devil's Backbone Brewery. 7pm

January 18

Music: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong,  a high-energy mix of funk, rock, electronica and jazz. Rapture/R2. 10pm
Music: Eli Cook Band. Blues. The Whiskey Jar. 10pm
Music: The Mantras, Former Champions. The Southern. 9pm. $10
Dancing: Social dance, no partner or experience necessary. Beginner lesson at 7:30, music begins at 8pm. Bill Wellington, the caller, thoroughly teaches each dance, with live olde-tyme fiddle music by Uncle Henry's Favorites. Municipal Arts Center (Fifth St. by Food Lion). 7:30pm. $5-
Readings: Poetry and Fiction night. Rapunzel’s, 924 Front Street, Lovingston. 434-263-6660. 8-10:30pm.

January 19

Learning: basics about skull and bone finds in the woods. Could it be a dinosaur? The Education Center at the Ivy Creek Natural Area. Info. 973-7772. 2pm. Free.
Music: The Porch Cats, blues, rock, etc. The Whiskey Jar. 10pm. Free
Music: Worn in Red, War Tempest, and Miami Nights. Balkan Bistro & Bar. 10pm
Opera: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, live in HD from the Met. Visually stunning, says the director. Paramount Theater. 1pm.  $18-$24
Dance: Master class series in modern dance. Main Stage theater of the V. Earl Dickinson Building at Piedmont Virginia Community College. Class is open to dancers of all levels and backgrounds. Call or email to register: 434-961-5376 or . 2pm. $10
Sports:UVA men's basketball: versus Florida State, JPJ Arena. 4pm. $19-36

January 20

Music: Hot Twang, bluegrass, jazzy downhome tunes. South Street Brewery. 10pm. Free
Food: French Crepe Day at DelFosse Vineyards. Select from a menu of five different crepes available for purchase. Wine by the glass or bottle for purchase. Faber. 1-5pm. www.delfossewine.com

January 21

Music: Jason Ring, one man country-bluegrass-blues band. Blue Moon Diner.
Music: Dane Alderson & Friends, Joe Lawlor. Rapture / R2. 10pm. Free
Dance: '50’s and '60’s square dance at Rockfish Valley Fire Department. 7:30-10pm. 11100 Rockfish Valley Highway, Afton. 434-361-2470.
MLK Celebration: 11th Annual Fifeville Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration. Activities all day and night at Cherry Avenue Boys and Girls Club and Buford Middle School, and Blue Ridge Commons Neighborhood Network Center, 750 Prospect Avenue. 970-2016 or .


January 22

Music: Founding Fathers. The Whiskey Jar. 10pm. Free
Music: Bill Adams. Blue Moon Diner
History: Douglas Blackmon screens Slavery by Another Name, a documentary based on his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning book. A panel discussion will follow the screening, sponsored by the Miller Center. Special location: UVA's Nau Hall, Room 101. 6pm.
Readings: local authors Jabeen Akhtar, Welcome to Americastan; Shawn Decker, My Pet Virus, and Jay Varner, Nothing Left to Burn, read at the Pink Warehouse on South Street Brewery. 8pm. Free.

January 23

Music:  Thomas Wynn & The Believers. Rapture / R2
Music:  Blake Hunter (of Trees on Fire). South Street Brewery
Music: Jim Waive. Blue Moon Diner
Music: Chris Cernak, singer-songwriter, The Wild Wolf Brewery. Nellysford. 7-10pm. Free

January 24

Health: How healthy is our community? Local health officials and organizations release findings from a big study at this lecture/workshop event. 407 East Water Street. 3:30-5pm. Free
History: Reverend Doctor Joseph E. Lowery speaks about his experiences in the Civil Rights Movement and on social justice issues at an evening event featuruing performances by three outstanding choirs: Black Voices Gospel Choir (University of Virginia), Black Awakening Gospel Choir (Virginia Commonwealth University), and the Virginia State University Gospel Chorale. UVA's Newcomb Ballroom. 7pm. Free
Music: Yo La Tengo, the legendary Hoboken, New Jersey-based indie rock band known for its encyclopedic repertoire of cover songs, the Simpson's theme song, and playing the Velvet Underground in the film I Shot Andy Warhol. Jefferson Theater. 8pm. $20-25.
Learn: Kickstarter appeals, press releases, emails and more. Learn how to write your best artist statements, bios, cover letters, grant applications, and such with the help of Laura S. Jones. CitySpace on the Downtown Mall. Free for Piedmont Council for the Arts members, $5 for non-members. 434-971-2787

ART REVIEW

Museum Studies

by Rosamond Casey

What occurs in a museum space is an exquisitely crafted bid for the viewers’ focus. Bradley Stevens’ quiet but surprisingly dramatic oil paintings now on view through February 24 at Warm Springs Gallery bring us into the somber-toned chambers of the National Gallery in Washington D.C., the Met, and other august American museum spaces. He reveals that he learned to paint by encountering the works of Cezanne, Sargent, Heade, Gifford and others while visiting these museums and that most of the works in these 11 tableaux were chosen for the influence they have had on his life in art.

A Washington D.C. urban landscape and portrait painter and also retired art professor at George Washington University and Georgetown University, Stevens sometimes populates these museum spaces with friends and family members he chooses to identify.

But the most captivating information in these works is what hangs in the cavernous air in these rooms and in the psychological space between the paintings and the onlookers. The stance of the viewer inside a museum can be as nuanced as the subject viewed. Once inside, everyone is completely abandoned to his own peregrinations, and a process is set in motion in which the architecture, the art, and the public must encounter one another. It is this wandering on foot that Stevens has captured, along with the vacillations of attention as people stand, study, get studied, walk toward, stop, read and move about.

In the foreground of one painting is the back of a white-haired man whose slight lift of one shoulder suggests an attitude of uncertainty as he enters the space; in another, a young man’s back seems to tighten in defiance as he stares at a Cezanne; a woman stands off balance on one foot with her long hair still catching up to her abrupt halt before a painting of a gigantic angel looking down at her, the bottom fringe of her hair an echo of the angel’s wing. She’s in a hurry. The guard’s attention, which has been paid for, is more an angry swivel as he leans against the wall straddling two rooms. And the older woman in profile is smiling, registering up close some text as if it were a familiar child.

Samuel Morse, an American artist visiting Paris in the 19th century, with a similar project, completed his chef-d’oeuvre of the Louvre’s great hall in the 1830’s. In his painting, he depicts every great painting that influenced him choc-o-bloc covering every inch of the walls. He wanted America to see what he had seen, and he peopled the floor of this great room with himself, members of his family, and a few notable others in the presence of art, making art. Didactic at its core, the painting instructs us about what to admire and underscores the importance of art’s purpose. Stevens, too, puts himself in some of his paintings; in one instance, he captures his own long-neck, nose-to-canvas stare that usually causes a guard to step away from the wall.

But these works are not meant to knock your socks off about the glory of art, though Stevens painstakingly, faithfully, and sensitively tends to miniature reproductions of great works of art. These are three-dimensional portraits of a phenomenon: how do we absorb those works?
Through February 24, Warm Springs Gallery, 105 Third Street NE

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