Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand, The Vamanos and Red Collar will play at Outback Lodge. Come out and wish Adam a belated happy birthday (it was yesterday).

There’s a film screening at The Bridge tonight — or I should say, this evening. It’s a night of short films for kids, so we’re starting at 6pm rather than 8 so we won’t keep anyone up past their bedtime.

We’re showing films by Ub Iwerks, the Fleischer Brothers, Robert Breer, Rudy Burckhardt, lots of early animated films, and some locally produced shorts by Lighthouse students; there should be a few nice surprises in there as well. Suffice to say, this will also be entertaining for people over the age of 6. Here’s something to whet your appetite.

It’s $5 a head, which is still cheaper than almost any matinee in town. We’ll have a musician there to sing kid-friendly songs, and there will be juice boxes as well. Come check it out.

MonkeyClaus is having a show on Wednesday night; it’s been too long since I got out there, and even longer since I saw a show there.

Matthew Clark describes it thusly:

monkeyclaus will be hosting some traveling musicians from vermont who are on tour by bicycle on aug 27th, a wednesday.
the two performers are kurt weisman, formerly of the vermont folk collective “feathers” and currently of the stoner metal band “witch” and raub rob. kurt plays excellent acoustic guitar and sings in a beautiful high falsetto. he has a magical entrancing sound. raub roy uses dictaphones and tape loops, homemade speakers and balloons to create a very fun performance, heavy on performance elements which provokes some really amazing sounds in the process. these guys played in my backyard in brooklyn and it was awesome. they are friends of doofgoblin. maybe we can get him to play too. anyhow, please help to get the word out and some folks out to the studio for the show.

If you’ve never been to MonkeyClaus, it’s worth the trip. It’s an old barn and farmhouse down by Wintergreen; the barn has been converted into a recording studio and every now and then the Monkeys invite their friends over for a nice little show. Good folks and good music. I’m carpooling down there with John, if anyone wants a ride.

Last night’s playlist is up on the ‘Teej Blog. One hour of IDM and Electro, then one hour of spooky neo-concrete and droning noise-rock, with a brief interlude for some early British industrialish stuff.

CvilleMuse has more info on RedLight’s potential Preson venue.

During a conversation about said venue the other night, M Bison and I tried to count how many music venues there are in Charlottesville on the back of a napkin. We came up with 23:

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There’s a last-minute show at the Tea House tonight; Blanket Truth from Seattle, along with Gazelle, which is apparently a side-project with some of the same folks. Incredibly, they’ve just hitch-hiked to town from Chapel Hill, with all their equipment. Strange, but true. (I’m assuming they don’t have a 28-piece drum kit). WTJU’s M Bison — who was instrumental in making this show happen — says they sound “rrrl good. Like islands/unicorns.”

They’ll be starting pretty soon I think — sorry about the last-minute notice. This just got put together, so I’m not sure what the cover charge will be or if there even is one. Things at the Tea House are in a strange state of transition these days. There’s been a change-over in the booking agents and a lot of subsequent confusion over what shows have been confirmed and which ones haven’t; also, I no longer work there, but am still hanging around trying to train the current staff in how to run shows there; but so far, no disasters! If you read this in time, come check out the show tonight. I anticipate fun.

(if you haven’t guessed, this is actually James posting under John R’s acct, b/c I left my laptop at home and forgot my password… although John is actually back in town right now… shh! top secret!)

A friendly reminder to locals; the students get back in town today. In my experience, it’s best just to avoid the West side of town altogether until about Tuesday… I’m pretty much just hiding at home this weekend, taking only the bicycle when I do leave the house.

To the students: welcome! or welcome back! try not to run us over.

Tonight at the Tea Bazaar, there’s a band called the Visitations, which apparently is one of the guys from the well-beloved Athens-based Elephant 6 collective. I haven’t heard anything from that project specifically, but the Elephant 6 stuff is always worthwhile, and hopefully the show will draw a nice crowd.  And while they’re there, they can all dance to the groovy tunes of DJ Steve Richmond, whose superb taste in dancing facilitation has been sorely missed of late.

And at Gravity Lounge, there’s a benefit show for the Sexual Assault Resource Agency,  with a whole long list of musicians (mostly on the mellow, acoustic, solo-performer side, if I’m not mistaken) … check the links on that side calendar for what, to the best of my knowledge, is the full listing. It starts at 6pm, and Gravity’s website lists the price as “$10-$20/stdnt $5,” which is a little confusing. Whichever amount you end  up paying at the door, it’s going to a good cause.

Given the early start time, I’d wager there’s probably enough time to check out the majority of both shows…

I was sad to hear that LeRoi Moore, famous saxophonist and former Charlottesville musician, passed away yesterday.

Surely you’ve read it elsewhere by now — Nailgun is probably the absolute last Cville blog to post about this — but it seemed strange not to mention it. We send our condolences to his friends and family.

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Here’s an update on RedLight’s proposed new venue on Preston Ave; those plans seem to be a little up in the air at the moment; apparently the proposal was met with an exceptionally frosty reception at the City Planning Commission meeting last week. Many people showed up in protest against the new venue, not least among them the 10th&Page Neighborhood association. {I meant to write about this sooner, but I waiting for more information — however, my contact never recieved any further updates, so there you go; that’s all I know at the moment.}

I have some conflicted feelings about this new venue. On the one hand, it would be great to have a medium-sized music venue in Charlottesville again, and I’d love for Danny Shea to be able to continue bringing great bands to town, in a place that is well-suited for them.

On the other hand, Preston Ave hardly seems like the ideal spot, and I’m very sympathetic to the concerns of that community; it seems like the 10th&Page / Westhaven area is one of the few areas in Charlottesville that has been revitalized and improved without being gentrified. I rode that bus route all through middle school, and I can remember how ghetto-ized it was in the early 1990’s; boarded up houses, fire-damaged buildings that didn’t get replaced or repaired; there were just tons of signs of urban neglect. Now it’s much cleaner, safer, and has better access to the city’s resources, yet the community is still made up largely of working-class black families, as it has been since the 1960’s. It’s a thing that gives me hope for the future of this city whenever I start to get really depressed about things like the shameful Vinegar Hill displacement.

Anyhow, do we really think that neighborhood is going to be best served by a venue owned by RedLight? I’m told that Coran Capshaw has said he “doesn’t want to build the venue in a neighborhood that doesn’t want him there” [that’s a secondhand paraphrase, not a direct quote.] — well, I for one would certainly like to see him put his money where his mouth is. Or not put his money there, as the case may be. The guy’s certainly entitled to build a venue wherever the city will let him, but it would certainly be nice to some local developers show more of a consideration for the existing communities in the neighborhoods they “develop.”

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The Hook has launched a new arts blog, run by the insightful Laura Parsons — check it out. Of course there aren’t too many posts yet, since the blog started yesterday, but everyone’s gotta start somewhere and I’m glad to see they’re keeping on top of things.

And speaking of our alt-weeklies and local blogs, this week’s C-Ville has an “expose” (though it’s really more of a business profile) of the notorious cvillain blog, including an “unmasking” (but not fully) of the blog’s contributors.

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Last night’s WTJU show by yours truly is transcribed here on the Rock blog. Also, thanks and congratulations to the new Rock Director (and my soon-to-be upstairs neighbor) Mike Parisi, and farewall and thanks to his predecessor Sarah D’Adamo, who moved to Morrocco over the weekend.

HOT NEWS FLASH ALERT! as a highly privileged insider, with access to top-secret confidential information about this year’s Virginia Film Festival, I can now give you guys the super-secret inside scoop on this year’s Fest: It’s going to be really good. That’s all I can say.

Tonight at Dust; Sanguine, Mortiferous, and Elisabathe. Should be seriously heavy and evil. Apparently Corsair have dropped off the bill, though… and I have no idea what happened to Koto Nashi or Gnarwulf (who were originally listed on the line-up weeks ago). Pretty sure it’s just gonna be those first 3 bands; but it still sounds awesome.

Doors at 9pm-ish, $5 suggested donation.