Thursday, 1-13-00 -- The Prism's Open Stage always hauls in a vast assortment of refreshing unsung talent. Over 17 acts performed this one night alone. You could go to one of these things and write about it all month, but some highlights this time included: Stuart Martin, ex-chief of early 90's rock rennaisance band Wolves of Azure, reviving his spirited blues variations on slide dobro and steel string guitar -- a cat playing a wicked super-country Jerry Reed kind of thing on a nylon string guitar whose name I didn't catch (I later found out his name is Gary Beasley) -- the crew of Humble Sacrifice doing a cool acoustic variation of their groove rock and conjuring a nice "Wooden Ships" kind of vibe -- Fred Boyce tastefully displaying some of his banjo wizardry ("Maybe not practicing is helping," he conjectured.) -- some happening cajun house-party folk featuring a squeezebox -- and the cast of Walker's Run performing in several tasty bluegrass incarnations. The bonus variation, however, had to be Maria Woodford's Duende County All Star Band. They've only been playing together a short time but they sound CD ready. (Damn bluegrass musicians: always so bloody proficient.) Woodford's soulful voice and melodious original tunes provide a fitting template for the boys to perform tight country folk, and the tune she played solo -- a jazzy sort of affair -- showed off not only her impressive vocal dexterity, but the fact that she's up to more than just "americana." Our village appears to have usurped another fine talent, demonstrating why we used to call Charlottesville "the Hook" back in the day.

Friday, 1-14-00 -- By Friday I was Iree so I trekked over to the Outback Lodge to feel it in the One Drop. A good crowd had come out to dig the feel-good bounce of the three-piece ska 'n reggae/rock troupe. I hunched in the corner on the raised platform that used to be the stage (before the bitchin' New Year's renovation) and bore witness as they whipped up a little fun.

I've gotta confess, I'm a little freaked out by One Drop. They play some cool rough-cut rock/ska (including a nifty Eagles cover) but none of it is technically "one drop" as I understand it. "One drop," the reggae style, is marked by the absence of a note on the first beat of each measure, as in Marley's infamous "One Drop." When Bob sings "One" on the first beat of the measure, everyone else is "playing" a rest. One Drop, the band, does more of the shuffle/ska style found in the tune they opened the show with: Toots and the Maytals' "54-46." It's a petty distinction, I suppose, but it stuck in my craw, and I ended up bailing after a few tunes because I was jonesing to hear the one... drop. The houseful of happy dancers was, I suspect, oblivious to the conundrum and went right on rockin'.

Pastorfield does the Dead

Saturday, 1-15-00 -- Back at the Outback Lodge, Charlottesville rock guitar icon and former Believers frontman Charlie Pastorfield led Alligator, a posse of local old school music heroes, through two sets of Grateful Dead in a fitting tribute to the legendary San Fransiscan psychedelic archetypes. Pastorfield was beautiful in this setting, trading licks with Indecision's (and now Kathryn Caine's) guitarist Aaron Evans. Both of them fooled around with the Jerry hat, taking turns mixing Garcia tones in with their own riffs while bassist Dave Grant held down a diggable and realistic Phil Lesh-style bass zone (no small feat, really, since Lesh rarely repeated any musical phrase, always improvising around the beat). They even had two drummers, just like the Dead: Indecision's (also now Kathryn Caine's) Craig Dougald and Roanoke-based Echo's Farm's Kent Raine. The effect of two drumsets in full swing is not to be underestimated when it comes to pulling off the "thick and jammy" style pioneered by the Dead. For an added bonus, Indecision keyboardist Doug Wannamaker, fresh from his new gig with e:verything, was sitting in, as was a tenor sax player. Add to this two vocalists, and you've got a very fat band of jamsters. (Not to be confused with hamsters.) Everybody on stage could play their ass off, so the jams were rhythmically faithful interpretations of the grateful grooves with intense passages of pumped up-musical interaction.

-Cripsy Duck

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