Arts

Hillary-Marie unites with Wycliffe Gordon

by Stacey Eidson September 27, 2017

Dancer Hillary-Marie — who specializes in one of America’s greatest art forms, tap dance — will be taking the stage for Westobou at Augusta University’s Maxwell Performing Arts Theatre with American jazz trombonist and legend Wycliffe Gordon.

“It’s my understanding that this will be the first time tap has been featured at the festival,” said Kristi Jilson, the executive director of Westobou. “That’s exciting because, for us, the dance component has typically been contemporary dance or ballet. This is a jazz tap performance with Wycliffe Gordon. They are going to do some call and repeat things on stage, so they will be playing off of each other.”

Hillary-Marie is known as one of the most accomplished tap dance artists and producers in the country. She is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed soloist and founder of the world-class Jersey Tap Fest in New Jersey.

“As a young artist in training, I was determined to become a jazz dancer and a drummer. So it’s only natural that I would combine vernacular movement and rhythm to become a tap dancer,” Hillary-Marie said in a press release. “Music and dance are the universal languages of the world, and being able to participate in both simultaneously as a percussive dancer is powerful. By combining tap dance choreography and improvisation with live music collaboration, I strive to be a unique storyteller.”

For that reason, Hillary-Marie is looking forward to her performance on stage with an outstanding musician such as Wycliffe Gordon, she said.

“I truly feel that music and dance can connect with people in a way that our words can’t and when people see my work, I want an energy transference to occur,” she said. “I want people to lose themselves, find resolve for their current frustrations, find the drive to follow their aspirations, find the joy they’re searching for and overall just find the missing component that they’re seeking in their day to day lives.”

And this is not your classic tap performance, Hillary-Marie playfully warned audiences.

“My current work challenges the notion that tap dance is a dying, underground, indigestible art form,” she said. “I’ve thrown aside the top hat, tuxedo and cane of vaudeville to bring to life my definition of the modern day tap dancer because I believe that rhythm is a universal language and tribal instinct that all of us understand.”

She describes it as embarking on a “musical dance odyssey.”

“I choose to approach tap dance as both a musical instrument and visual performance art to culminate in the ultimate form of storytelling,” Hillary-Marie stated. “The results so far have been beautiful.”

Hillary-Marie’s Sole Music Collective featuring special guest Wycliffe Gordon
AU’s Maxwell Theatre
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 11
$25, advance; $30, day of show
westoboufestival.com

September 27, 2017

Augusta Common to become the ultimate downtown playground

by Amanda Main September 27, 2017

For three nights during Westobou Festival, the Augusta Common will light up with all sorts of activities for the whole family. Westobou Central will take over the area at 8th and Reynolds streets at no charge for three nights, from Thursday, Oct. 5, through Saturday, Oct. 7.

The skyline of downtown Augusta will change with people taking rides on the free Ferris wheel that will be set up there.

On Thursday, live music will be provided by local bands Funk You, Bethany and the Southside Boys, and The Mason Jars.

“We knew we wanted Funk You right off the bat, because they had performed at previous festivals, and of course they’re a local band on the rise, and the first time they performed at Westobou was when we had Janelle Monae here in 2012,” said Kristi Jilson, executive director for the nonprofit Westobou. “So we just felt like they’ve garnered some pretty great success since then, and then we just thought it would be great to highlight them again since it’s our 10-year anniversary. And then we worked with Bethany from Bethany and the Southside Boys; she’s one of many people that we touched base with about who’s doing great things in music locally, so of course we go to her because she has some great success, and she was also great friends with Sharon Jones, who was also featured at the festival in the past.”

Jilson said Westobou Central is meant to be an open-air playground for the community.

“It’s family-friendly; we try and have an array of activities, everything from outdoor movies and concerts to a pop-up skate plaza that Sweet Sticks does for us,” Jilson said. “Some live art, children’s activities that are sponsored by other organizations. We try to feature sort of a hand-picked selection of things that are available in the community and diversify each day by having a new organization offer some activity. Each year, we do the skate park and invite a different artist to participate.”

This would have been the third year for Westobou Central, but when festival organizers tried to implement it in 2015, heavy downpours canceled it, but that led to Springboard by Westobou to be created in May the following year. The vendors that would have been part of Westobou Central allowed the nonprofit to use them that May, and Springboard is planned to be back on the Common in the spring of 2018.

Other activities at Westobou Central include live music by DJ Durrty Martinez on Friday and by DJ KUT DAILY on Saturday night; movie screenings of “Beetlejuice” and “Coraline” on Friday and Saturday; the Sweet Sticks Pop-up Skate Plaza (painted by local artist Jacob Vaz) all three nights; live art from Augusta University all three nights, as well as activities for kids.

For the movie screenings on the lawn, Jilson said people are welcome to bring their own seating and snacks, and even a picnic if they want to. There also will be some food trucks at the Common.

“I always encourage people to make an experience out of it, and bring a table or bring their folding, camping chairs or beach chairs. Bring popcorn, bring snacks, get stuff from the food trucks. We’ll also have popcorn and cotton candy on LED sticks that are fun — we call it “glowing cotton candy,” but some people get scared that we add a chemical to it or something. But we don’t; it’s just an LED stick,” Jilson said with a laugh.

Westobou Central
Augusta Common
5-10 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 5 – Saturday, Oct. 7
FREE
westoboufestival.com

September 27, 2017

Kevin Hart to bring the laughs

by Amanda Main September 27, 2017

One of the biggest names that will grace Augusta during the Westobou Festival this year is comedian and actor Kevin Hart.

Hart broke onto the comedy scene when he quit his job as a shoe salesman after an electrifying performance at amateur night in a Philadelphia comedy club, according to a news release. He began performing full time at venues such as The Boston Comedy Club, Caroline’s, Stand-Up NY, The Laugh Factory and The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. Since then, he has sold out arenas such as Madison Square Garden. And his first appearance at the “Montreal Just for Laughs Comedy Festival” that led Hart into taking roles in feature films, according to the news release.

Just this year, Hart voiced a title character in the kids film “Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie,” and he will close the year by appearing in the reboot of “Jumanji,” alongside Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black. Also this year, Hart’s memoir “I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons” debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. The audio book also topped records on Audible, selling more than 100,000 copies in just the first five weeks.

Kristi Jilson, executive director for Westobou, is excited to bring him on for two nights in Augusta during the festival. She said a connection at local venues helped bring the comedian on.

“Our board chair is Chris Bird, who is the general manager of the James Brown Arena and the Bell Auditorium,” Jilson said. “So he had a great opportunity come across his desk, and we’re very lucky that the stars aligned in that way, and we worked together collaboratively to have this event Augusta.”

She said every year, the festival tries to bring at least one big name that is widely recognized in the community, more so than other names featured in the festival.

“He has the pop culture appeal, but he also is a comedian, and we celebrate words, so as a comedian, he is a writer, a creative person, but then he’s also an actor, so it was sort of like he filled a few of our dots. Each dot in our logo represents one of the different genres that we celebrate,” Jilson said. “For us, he filled two of those dots, and we think he resonates with our community in a very strong way. … I think his topics in his comedy I think are funny and relatable, and I think that’s something that I think makes him appealing to a broad section to our community.”

Kevin Hart
The Bell Auditorium
7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7, and Sunday, Oct. 8
$45-$75
westoboufestival.com

September 27, 2017

Westobou celebrates 10 years

by Stacey Eidson September 27, 2017

When Kristi Jilson, the executive director of Westobou, came to Augusta back in 2014, she wanted to hear what people really thought about the city’s ever-evolving multi-arts festival with an unusual name.

“In my first year, I just did this listening tour,” Jilson said. “I decided, ‘I can’t make any major changes. I don’t want to stir the pot or open a can of worms or do anything crazy in my first year. I just want to know what people think.’”

So, she listened.

Jilson heard people talk about what they loved regarding Westobou and what could be improved upon.

“That first year, over and over, I heard, ‘Westobou is so cool. We love Westobou. We want Westobou year-round,’” Jilson said. “That is where the Westobou Gallery on Broad Street came from. People were saying, ‘We want Westobou to be around more often, not just a five-day festival in the fall.’ And they were so passionate about being a part of it.”

Ever since Jilson became executive director about three years ago, more and more people have grown to know and love Westobou.

“I heard recently that people are saying they know the Westobou logo, they know the name and they know that they see the festival every year. That has all been accomplished since the festival began 10 years ago,” Jilson said. “I hope in the next 10 years, who we are rolls off of people’s tongues more easily. And I hope the experiences that we continue to offer help to inform the community of who we are and why exist.”

Over the next 10 years, Jilson wants Westobou’s mission of building a sense of community and inspiring cultural change through artistic experiences to be as familiar to citizens as the festival’s name and logo.

“I think in 10 years, I want our mission to be equally recognized as the five dots,” Jilson said, adding that Westobou has come a long way. “I remember my first year at Arts in the Heart, which was 2014, I felt like one in 10 people that we talked to were like, ‘Oh yeah. I totally know what Westobou is. I can’t wait to go.’ And those other nine people were like, ‘I don’t know. Tell me more about it.’ Well, this year, it was like only one in 10 people didn’t know what Westobou was. We really felt that this year.”

It is clear, Augustans have truly embraced Westobou over the past decade.

“We finally have enough time under our belt for people to understand what we are doing,” she said.

As a result, this year’s festival has a number of “throwback themes” celebrating Westobou’s 10th anniversary.

“For example, originally the festival was two weeks long, so, just this year, to celebrate 10 years, we are expanding back to two weeks,” Jilson said, explaining that the festival runs from Oct. 3-14 this year. “Also, we are doing a little throwback by bringing back people like, my personal favorite, (singer) Allen Stone. We brought him in 2014, and he’ll be back again this year.”

The 28-year-old Washington native stunned the music industry back in 2011 when his self-released and self-titled album climbed to the top 10 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and famous rock critic Ann Powers described Stone’s music as “meant for those of us who like our R&B slightly unkempt and exceedingly feelingful.”

Now, on his third full-length album, Stone will be closing out Westobou at the Imperial Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 14, at 7 p.m.

“Probably one of my most memorable moments of, definitely my first year at Westobou, and probably of my almost four years here, I remember it was the craziest day during the 2014 festival,” Jilson said. “We had a huge event that we had to move inside because an incredible downpour was headed our way.”

People were pulling her in all directions, and Jilson remembered being extremely stressed out.

“But through it all, I was most excited to see Allen Stone the whole time,” she said. “I just really couldn’t wait to see that live show.”

Finally, when the chaos had died down, Jilson walked over to the James Brown Arena to see if everything was set up and ready to go.

“All of the lights were on in the arena, and I’m walking over and you can’t help but see this guy with curly, blonde, long hair and glasses, and I think he was on a skateboard,” Jilson said, adding that it was Allen Stone and he was busy talking to someone. “He was just standing on this skateboard and, as I walked up, I realized he was talking to Sharon Jones.”

Jones, the beloved Grammy-nominated soul and funk singer who led her longtime band the Dap-Kings, unfortunately died last year of pancreatic cancer.

But Jilson remembers that warm moment between the two artists.

“I was floored,” Jilson said. “They were both just so cool. That was such a memorable moment for me. Those are the moments that make Westobou truly special.”

For more information, check out westoboufestival.com.

September 27, 2017

Arts in the Heart a brilliant ray of sunshine after Irma

by Metro Spirit September 23, 2017

A few days before Hurricane Irma brought tropical weather to the Augusta area, Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival organizers were wary of what effects it might have on their festival, held the weekend after. The tropical storm blew through on Sept. 11, and the festival took place Sept. 15 through Sept. 17.

But thankfully, the weather cleared up a few days before, and despite losing a day of work to the storm, organizers, volunteers and other festival workers came together to put on a bigger, more successful festival in its 37th year.

Along with the help of many others, the Greater Augusta Arts Council organizes the festival every year. The Art Council’s Executive Director Brenda Durant and Project Manager Pax Bobrow were exceedingly pleased with how the weekend turned out. Arts Council estimates put attendance between 88,000 and 90,000 this year; last year, it was estimated that upwards of 88,000 people showed up.

“I don’t know that there’s enough new adjectives for me, but I thought it was wonderful, amazingly wonderful,” said Durant, who has been a part of Arts in the Heart for more than 20 years. “I thought it had a great feel to it. I thought it was smooth — we’re learning efficiencies (as each year goes on), and that shows. The community turned out. I thought it was just amazing, great. It was a happy weekend.”

Art vendors at the festival couldn’t stop praising festival organizers, and especially Bobrow, who they said did everything she could to meet their needs throughout the weekend.

Artist Amy Thompson was one of those artists. She and her husband, Mark, from Englewood, Ohio, create works of art infusing wood with stained glass. The Thompsons have done other shows and festivals, but this was their first time at Arts in the Heart, and even in Augusta.

“The show was just well-done. Pax was hands-on; I mean, she was all over the place, very helpful. Everybody on the staff was great,” Amy Thompson said. “If you do a lot of shows as artists, there’s other promoters out there, and (the Arts in the Heart staff) put them to shame; they did a good job.”

Although Thompson stayed in her booth most of the time, she was able to get out and see some of the numerous performers who were set up on the five stages throughout the festival.

“I saw some of the entertainment, but we weren’t able to try any of the food,” Amy Thompson said. “But if we come back, we really want to, because it all looks amazing. I’ve never personally been to a show or festival where that type of set-up with all of the food. That was just so overwhelming to see all of that in one area, in one show.

“We thought that the festival was extremely well-run, all the aspects of it. The food, the entertainment, very family-oriented and friendly and you just couldn’t ask for a better festival, really,” she added.

Amy Thompson was pleased with how well their art did at the show, too. (It can be viewed online at glassandwoodworks.com.) She said it ended up being their second-best show of the year, as far as sales go.

“Our biggest sell of the show wasn’t even for sale,” Amy Thompson said. “A local doctor came in with his wife, and he and some partners of his are going to open up a restaurant locally, and they fell in love with our podium, and they wanted to buy it. And I said, ‘You know, it’s really not for sale,” but he kept talking to me, and we ended up selling it for a large amount of money. And just the thought of it being in a restaurant locally front and center (was exciting) so we said, ‘You know what, it’s a legacy for us, go ahead and take it.’ So we sold the podium, and we sold quite a bit of other things, too. So it was a really good show for us.”

Amy Thompson and her husband drove about 11 hours to get to the show. With her husband still working in the corporate world, they spend pretty much all of his vacation time doing art shows, about 16 to 18 a year. They’re hoping to be back at Arts in the Heart next year.

Another artist who was new to being represented at the festival (but not new to the festival itself, as she lives in Aiken) was Cindy Pearce. She weaves wire around stones to create one-of-a-kind jewelry. (See her work online at underwrapsjewelry.com.) Pearce described the experience of selling at Arts in the Heart as “overwhelmingly positive.”

“I have been in art shows before, but not one of this magnitude, and I think I was so surprised at how positive and wonderful the people were,” Pearce said. “They were all just so complimentary, and they were warm and welcoming, and I was just overwhelmed by all the wonderful things people were saying and how they just lit up and talked to me. I had the best time — it was just a very, very positive experience all the way around.

“I mean, it was long hours, let me tell you. It was hot and it was long hours. But the time just seemed to go by so quickly because you just had people of all age groups, little kids, teenagers and 20-somethings all the way up to 60- and 70-year-olds. And they were all coming through the booth, all different — international people, it was just all races, all ethnicities, it was wonderful. And my jewelry just seemed to hit with all of them.”

Pearce also described the collaboration that can take place between the artists there.

“I got a hold of one of the people I had seen at another show, and she has fabulous lampwork beads that I had used in my work before, and I didn’t bring it because I didn’t want to compete with her,” Pearce said. “And after she came over to my booth — and artists are this way — after she came over to my booth, she said ‘Look, your work is so different from my work, I wouldn’t mind at all if you used my beads in your work.’ And I said ‘Well, I’ll give you credit for your beads, and we can do this thing together,’ and I’ve decided I’ll use her beads in my work and will just tell people where her beads came from. So it was great to be able to work with another artist, too, and use some of her product in my work.”

The other artist’s name Is Tammy Rudd, and her booth was just down the block from Pearce’s.

“This was my first outdoor show, so it was interesting getting the tent up and learning how to put lights up,” Pearce continued. “The people beside me were very nice and gave me some pointers, and I found that the other people were very generous with their time and their tents and things like that, so that was a real plus, too. There’s a great sense of community in between the different artists that are there.”

Pearce said she thanks the Arts Council “for hosting a wonderful show, and I appreciate all their hard work. Because you know, that is a really big thing to put on.”

Bobrow, who along with many others worked hard to make the festival a success, said this was the best year yet.

“It was really great that we got to expand the fine arts and crafts market,” Bobrow said. “We had more artists than we have ever had before; we had 153 this year (up from about 120 last year). And even though Hurricane Irma caused a few of our artists to have to cancel at the last minute, we had a bunch of people on our wait list who were just dying to get in, and they took their places. We expanded onto the sidewalk of the 800 block. … it was packed — and the artists did well. I’ve gotten feedback from about 25 artists so far, and they’ve all told me it was fantastic and one of the best festivals they do all year.””

Every year, the Arts in the Heart of Augusta Fine Arts and Crafts Market gives out awards to artists there. Bobrow said that with the festival growing, they are going to increase the number of judges next year, rather than having one judge.

“We’re going to have three judges, one to judge the three-dimensional artwork, one to judge two-dimensional artwork and then one to judge the jewelry and clothing and accessories,” Bobrow said.

The award winners in the arts and crafts market this year were:

1st place — Lisa Mote, glass, Booth 930 (“I create large, wall-mounted sculptural glass art utilizing bold colors and textures that excite and energize the viewer”; lisamote.com)

2nd place — Caleb Barnaby, jewelry, Booth 842 (“Wearable art jewelry with an intricate hand-etching process, comprised of upcycled objects, such as bullet casings and antique clock parts”; steampunksmuggler.com)

3rd place — Alexander Brown, Wood, Booth 917 (“I take a single block of wood [like marble] and hand carve sculptures. I love the purity and discipline needed to create work this way”; alexandersculptures.com)

Merit:

Robin Rodgers, clay, Booth 909 (“My pottery combines my love of archaeology, nature, and world cultures with a native, contemporary interpretation”; search Robin Rodgers Pottery on Facebook)

Marirosa Hofmann, mixed media, Booth 811 (“I am known for my layered, abstract backgrounds. The overlapping patterns and colors add depth and movement to my mixed-media paintings”; search Marirosa A. Hofmann Fine Art on Facebook)

Christopher Doherty, photography, Booth 828 (“I travel the globe to bring the underwater world to people to see its beautiful wonders and animals”; dohertyphotography.com)

Congratulations to the winners, and to all the artists and performers who showed up with their wonderful talents!

The food

As soon as the tents begin to pop up at The Global Village at Arts in the Heart, people’s stomachs begin to growl, and they can’t help but start to salivate.

There is no doubt about it, one of the best parts of the festival is the food from around the world.

Within a few blocks of downtown, Augustans can sample authentic ethnic food from more than 20 countries that is all cooked by volunteers of local ethnic associations.

This year, there were 24 countries represented in the Augusta Common, including three new booths for Cambodia, South Sudan and Vietnam.

Those attending the festival could sample food from all over the world including Cyprus, Germany, Ireland, Korea, Lebanon, Nigeria and the Philippines.

And these tents representing different countries know how to honor their nations.

Over at the Cambodia tent, guests could try a variety of appetizers including Bok L’hong, which is a Khmer green papaya salad; Chai Yor or Naem Chien, a Khmer spring roll; or a combination of fried tofu, fried taro and fried sweet potato.

At the Germany tent were classics such as schnitzel, bratwurst, schashlik or a salted pretzel with beer cheese.

A tent that is always a crowd pleaser is Greece with its gyros, chicken souvlaki, Greek-style chicken wings and delicious Greek feta fries.

Augustans will wait in line for an hour for those incredible Greek feta fries. And don’t forget the baklava pastries for dessert.

One tent that is really beginning to make quite a name for itself is Guam. This year, the Guam tent offered a Chamorro Fiesta Plate that included hineksa (cooked white rice), tininon monnok (barbecue chicken), monnok kadon peka (a spicy chicken) and lumpia (wrapped vegetables and beef deep fried). They should rename it “a fiesta in your mouth” plate.

The India tent always attracts a big crowd because they provide an incredible meal that is entirely vegetarian and can be made vegan upon request.

Guests are wise to choose the maharajah platter, which offers Indian bread called naan, rice, lightly spiced mixed vegetable curry, chickpeas in curry, vegetable fritters and a dessert. Or visitors can get a plate called Mysore Masala Dosa, which includes an Indian pancake or rice crepe filled with spiced potatoes and vegetables served with lentil soup, coconut chutney and choice of fried or steams dumpling. But guests cannot leave the India tent without devouring a samosa with chutney for only $1. If you’re wise, you’ll order the samosas special that provides people with 11 samosas for just $10.

Another tent that always wakes up your taste buds is the Jamaica tent, which offers rice and peas, fried plantains and Caribbean salad with each of their entrees.

And the entrees are incredible. Whether you are in the mood for curry chicken, jerk chicken, jerk pork, ox tail, curry goat or a vegetarian plate, you simply can’t go wrong.

And, of course, who can resist the Ireland tent with its fish and chips, bangers and mash, corned beef sandwiches and Irish whiskey cake.

While these were some of the crowd favorites this year, Arts in the Heart judges also award winners each year at the Global Village for different categories of food.

The 2017 Global Village Winners were as followed:

Best Entree — Jamaica
Best Dessert — Turkey, baklava
Best Food Presentation — Cyprus
Best Booth and Presentation — India
Best Side Dish — Philippines
Best Plate — Trinidad
Judges Award: Best Drink — Vietnam — Thai Tea Boba
Judges Award: Best Team Spirit — Guam

Congratulations to all the winners of the 2017 Global Village and thank you to each of the international tents. The food was out of this world!

Looking back, looking forward

The Arts Council is constantly evaluating the festival, even as it’s going on, to try to perfect it. Durant said one of the biggest successes this year was making the entrances to the festival smoother than ever.

“I would say we got better at managing our gates; we really worked at that this year, we had meetings with the finance team that mans the gates, with CitySpin, who does the online sales and then over the weekend does the credit card sales and the redemption of the online tickets at the gates,” Durant said. “And then the banner and sign team, we all got together and worked on how to label the gates, how to set up the gates, we added a second gate at our busiest area, which is 10th and Broad.

“So there just wasn’t a real clog at the gates,” she continued, “which made us feel like no one was coming, and we were like, “Ah! How come there’s no line?” and then we realized that we were just doing it better. And we noticed the same differences in some of the food booths. They set up different lines; they made it clear where to enter, some had just a drinks-only line for people who already have their food and just want to grab something cold. So I think we all are working at a kind of smoother, more efficient, keeping the lines down. Not that there weren’t any lines, because some of the food booths are always going to have a line. But not like stretched the length of the commons kind of line, that’s what we tried to avoid.”

Durant said that looking forward, the Arts Council is hoping to get some more help from the community in keeping the festival clean.

“I know that Augusta is in the process of signing up for Keep America Beautiful and one of our challenges over the weekend is picking up garbage on Broad Street. We pay three people to constantly tour in golf carts with big boxes on the back, picking up trash,” Durant said. “Our logistics team joined them starting Saturday afternoon, pulling bags and tying them in knots. But there are still — for some reason — people who like to drop their trash where they are, which is a little bit amazing to me. So what we would like to find are some teams of people to help us pick up garbage, whether it be Boy Scouts, a Keep America Beautiful team, a high school that needs community credit, things of that sort, so we need people who arrive knowing that they’re going to be given a little grabber and a garbage bag and rubber gloves, and they’re going to pick up garbage. So if anyone out there wants to do that, that’s what we’re looking for, is teams to help us with trash.”

Along with the art and food, Durant was pleased with the performances this year.

“I do a lot of walking; I walked over 25 miles over my time at the festival, and the jazz stage was full every time I went by. … The family area was very activated, it seemed very neat this year, very organized, and we had the artists on the south side of the 700 block. So not only did they have the stage in the well-loved parking decks, but there was lots of activation on the street. McDonald’s was there, hands-on arts and crafts, the henna booth, tie-dye booth, but then street performers, which makes it very fun. Some of that street performance kind of drifted onto 8th and 9th as well, which it’s super fun to look over and see a 9-year-old playing the accordion and you’re like ‘Wow, where am I? This is cool.’

“And the global stage was great, lots of international entertainment during the day and then bands at night. We did a new thing this year with opening where we brought in a Latin DJ, DJ Andrew Serrano, who does this Latin music at Oliviana on Friday nights. He came on and DJ’d for half an hour before opening ceremonies on Friday, and then during opening ceremonies, he was there on stage kind of filling in any blanks, so that was cool. And the Troubador Stage, which is the indoor stage, it looked like on Sunday, during Mahogany Lounge, they had a full house.

“And Author’s Alley, which was the first time we did that, that was next to the Book Tavern inside the JB White’s Building. The authors were very happy; I met them early in the weekend, maybe Friday when they were just getting started, and then by Sunday, I understand they’d sold their books and had good crowds. So people really seemed to wander through all aspects of the festival. And the community stage — that’s managed by Spencer Shadden — that’s a lot of local bands, and that always has a good crowd and good vibe. And then we brought in this touring singer-songwriter series on Sunday to close it down. And that had a really nice crowd. Lots of pictures of Otis Redding III and Keith Jenkins, so that was kind of cool.”

Bobrow was thankful for all the hard work over the weekend.

“I was really impressed by how our logistics and electrical folks managed to get it set up, even though we were unable to get started on it when we normally would in setting up the actual site of the festival, because of Hurricane Irma,” Bobrow said. “So there were things that had to be crunched, with a lot of people up until 4 a.m., but people do it. They make it happen, and I find that really inspiring. So, shout-out to our logistics team and Tracer Audio.”

Durant said she thanks the community for coming out.

“It’s the one weekend where it’s an event that really reflects Augusta and the whole river area, and then it takes so many volunteers,” she said. “There’s about a thousand people who sign up to take a shift, in addition to the people who voluntarily are cooking in the Global Village, the steering community, their friends who come out and help them during the weekend, so it’s quite an undertaking and a lot people have their hands in it, and of course the city of Augusta who supports us all the way. So it’s wonderful. And the sponsors; it was fun to have Lidl on site, and it just opened on Thursday and there they were at Arts in the Heart on Friday, so it was kind of fun. We had a great time.”

The community is looking forward to a great 38th year of the Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival next year, a festival our readers chose for Metro’s Best Annual Festival for 2017!

September 23, 2017

Disney’s magic coming to Augusta

by Amanda Main September 16, 2017

Disney will be decking out the James Brown Arena this week, with the “Disney on Ice: Dream Big” show taking over the venue for four days, starting Thursday, Sept. 21.

Disney on Ice: Dream Big

The show features the stories of many of Disney’s leading ladies through artistic skating and daring acrobatics. Eight princesses including Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Tiana, Jasmine, Aurora and Snow White will be there. The sisterly love from Disney’s “Frozen” also will be brought to life on the icy stage. And the producers haven’t forgotten Mickey, Minnie or Tinker Bell, who also will be in the show.

Ice skater Alexe Gilles, 25, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, brings the beloved “Frozen” character Elsa to life. Gilles started skating when she was just 2 1/2 years old, all because her older brother was a skater.

Alexe Gilles

“He was having a birthday party,” she said, “and my (twin) sister and I just walked onto the ice and have loved it ever since!”

Gilles is happy that she gets to make a career out of her passion. Some achievements skating has brought her include being named the 2008 National Junior Champion, Junior Grand Prix final medalist and four-time Senior Grand Prix competitor, and she has been a Canadian and U.S. national competitor.

She said she treasures being a part of Disney’s shows. She started with Feld Entertainment, who produces the Disney on Ice shows, in 2014.

“I love just being able to skate around the world and to travel … I get to visit friends all over the world, so that’s really nice,” Gilles said. “And just to see kids smiling in every show. They may not get the chance to go to Disney World or Disneyland or any other park around the world. So to be able to bring their favorite Disney character to their hometown is pretty special.”

Disney on Ice: Dream Big

Gilles said she spends a lot of time on the road. The current Disney on Ice tour lasts about nine months, and she said last year she was on the road for more than a year, with a couple of two-week breaks. However, she recently was able to take a two-month break from performing.

“I skated a little … and hung out with family,” Gilles said. “My family’s all over the place, so it was good to see them after being on the road for so long.”

Disney on Ice: Dream Big

Gilles is enjoying playing Elsa. When she and the other skaters in the show were hired, they had to go through Disney character training, spending about six weeks in Florida learning how to become their characters.

“I just love how Elsa’s so powerful and she’s very reserved, but she loves her sister and her family and just the crowd reaction that she gets is something that I’ll never be able to forget,” Gilles said. “It’s hard to replicate that with anything else. She’s such a popular, iconic character that it’s kind of a dream come true to play her. A lot of people want to play her, so to be able to do that is a gift every day.”

This will be the first time Gilles has ever been to Augusta, and she’s looking forward to exploring the area. She said how much time the skaters get to explore towns depends on their schedule, but this year the schedule will have them flying in on Monday, so they’ll have that evening and the Tuesday and Wednesday before the show to get to see the area.

Disney on Ice: Dream Big

Gilles emphasized that the “Dream Big” show is geared toward a wide audience.

“It’s a great, exciting show with demographics for everyone — grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads, all kids, boys, girls, and it’s really a unique show and very special and near and dear to all of us performing,” she said.

“Disney on Ice: Dream Big” will be showing at 7 p.m. Sept. 21; 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. Sept. 22; 2 and 6 p.m. Sept. 23; and 2 p.m. Sept. 24. Tickets start at $15 and are on sale online at GeorgialinaTix.com, by phone at 877-428-4849, or in person at the SRP Box Office at the James Brown Arena. The show runs about two hours, with an intermission.

September 16, 2017

A kaleidoscope of culture

by Amanda Main September 5, 2017

If you’ve lived in Augusta any length of time, you’re probably aware of the Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival that takes place every fall.

In its 37th year, the festival will be downtown next week, from Sept. 15-17, and if you’ve never been, you don’t realize what you’re missing out on.

One of the most popular aspects of the festival is the international cuisine booths — more than 20 nations are represented, with new booths including Korea, Sudan, Vietnam and Cambodia. Five stages will be packed with nonstop performances all weekend, and more than 130 juried fine arts and crafts booths will be available to peruse.

New to the festival this year are the ExploreGeorgia.org Songwriter Series show on Sunday featuring Otis Redding III (yes, Otis Redding’s son), Greg Hester, Keith Jenkins and Lola Gulley. Friday night features a new, Latin-fusion party with DJ Andrew Serrano. Also new to the festival is Authors Alley in the JB White Building, which puts the spotlight on area writers.

Read on to find out more about what will be available at this year’s festival, to be located at Broad Street and the Augusta Common at 836 Reynolds St.

ART

As always, Arts in the Heart features artists from near and far. The festival will feature at least 150 artists, with 53 from Georgia and 25 from the CSRA.

Nico Gozal

One local artist — a first-timer to the festival — is Grovetown resident and Indonesia native Nico Gozal, of Nico G Silk Art (view his work at nicogsilkart.wordpress.com). He does hand-painted silk pieces using fabric dyes, but it’s not wearable art — his pieces are showcased behind glass in shadowboxes. He said he got into the art form under a professor, who he ended up working for before feeling comfortable branching out on his own.

He said he draws inspiration from music and language.

“I’m really interested in music from whichever country, even though I don’t understand what they say — just the music itself and the language fascinates me,” Gozal said, “and that kind of inspires me with my artwork also because I originally came from Indonesia, so a lot of the Indonesian textile design or sculpture or traditional dances influence me.”

Gozal moved from Indonesia to go to school in Tampa, Florida, in 1990 at the International Academy of Merchandising and Design. After living there for about a decade, he moved to Chicago in 2002 to be with his partner. They then moved to the Augusta area after his partner got a job at Fort Gordon in 2012.

Gozal is excited to be a part of Arts in the Heart, gaining respect for the festival as a visitor for the past few years. He said his booth will feature “a various selection of silk painting, a lot of whimsical, nature, nautical-related painting.” He said he hopes when people see his art, it will bring them a sense of joy.

Cindy Pearce

Cindy Pearce will be displaying her wire-woven stone jewelry at the festival for the first time. As a longtime Aiken resident, she has attended and loves Arts in the Heart. Her jewelry consists of polished stones wrapped in woven copper wire. The time she spends on a piece can range from one hour to two days.

“Just like in basket weaving, you’re weaving several wires together, usually between two and six to eight wires,” Pearce said. “And you’re actually creating a weaving pattern, so some of my pieces actually have six different patterns. … I look at the stone, and it almost kind of tells me what it wants me to do.”

She started out as a graphic designer and did it for about 30 years, after getting a degree from the University of South Carolina.

“Thirty-something years ago, we didn’t have computers to do artwork,” she said. “We used to do it all by hand, and I missed it. So that’s why I got into jewelry. I just enjoy doing things by hand.”

Pearce sells jewelry under the name UnderWraps Jewelry. Visit underwrapsjewelry.com or facebook.com/underwrapsjewelry.

Some longstanding favorites from the CSRA will be at the festival, including the Grunge Goddess (Juliet King), who does live demonstrations on the pottery wheel throughout the festival. Local artist Sergio Ruano’s Spoke-n-For jewelry is created from bicycle spokes, and he custom creates it for people on site. Jennifer Ellison, creator of by Jen Ell clothing line, has a new line of clothing this year. And Kendra Runnels, owner of Kendra’s Studios Inc. and an Arts in the Heart award winner from 2016, will be back with her paintings. Nora Cooks is rejoining the festival after some years away, with her handmade dolls. And Chris Goodman, a highly skilled woodworker specializing in musical instruments, will be there.

Hallie Bertling

The festival draws artists from beyond the CSRA, as well. Hallie Bertling of Greenville, South Carolina, pours her talents into illustrative paintings depicting the feet of fairy tale characters — she calls her collection Faerie Tale Feet.

“It’s all inspired by favorite books, plays and fairy tales,” she said. “And I take the original telling — whether it’s hundreds of years old or a more recent book — and I hide details from the original story in the background pattern, and then I paint the characters’ feet and their shoes to kind of give you an idea of the character, based on their posture or their action to let people step into the story for themselves.”

Bertling, who studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design, has been to Augusta before, but it will be her first time experiencing the Arts in the Heart festival. She draws her inspiration from traveling and from reading plenty of books (she read 13 just last month). Visit facebook.com/halthegal or find her shop on Etsy by searching Halthegal.

Artists and married couple Amy and Mark Thompson will be coming down from Englewood, Ohio. The two work together to create unique, cut stained-glass pieces that are set in wood and meant to be hung up as wall art — not in front of a window. Amy designs, cuts and lays all of the stained glass, and Mark does the woodworking aspect of it.

Amy and Mark Thompson

Amy said if someone had told her six or seven years ago she’d be doing the art for a living, she would have thought they were crazy.

“I trained as an executive chef; I have no formal training in the arts, although I’ve dabbled in just about every medium since childhood, so I’ve always been very creative, but I never thought that I could do this for a living,” Amy Thompson said. “And I lost my job, and my husband said, ‘While you’ve got some free time, why don’t you try stained glass?’ I hadn’t tried stained glass, and I knew nothing about it. And I thought ‘You know what, I’ll do that.’ So I went out and I just bought some supplies — never read a book, never saw a video, and I get home and I just started learning. And honestly just doing it, so everything I’ve learned up to this point has truly been self taught. A lot of trial and error in there, the first things we made were hideous. … My strength as a sketch artist really helps me in what I do. And Mark had worked in wood already, he had made furniture and other things through the years, so he had a depth of knowledge in woodworking.”

Amy’s pieces are heavily inspired by nature. Though the Thompsons have been to Georgia before, this will be their first time visiting Augusta. They’ll be offering new pieces, original wine racks, a decorative wall shelf and larger-scale pieces that they don’t carry a lot of. See their work at glassandwoodworks.com.

Robin Rodgers

Robin Rodgers, who lives in Tallahassee, Florida, will bring his nature-themed pottery to Arts in the Heart for the first time. Growing up near the Apalachicola River in Florida, he would find pieces of American Indian pottery there, which influenced him to become interested in the art form and archaeology. He’s been doing pottery himself since he took a pottery class in 1981, and has a Master’s degree in ceramics and now teaches.

“My work is wheel-thrown, which means it’s turned on a potter’s wheel from a lump of clay. I decorate the pottery by carving into it or etching patterns into it, and sometimes I sculpt freehand various kinds of little animals, like frogs, birds and turtles,” Rodgers said. “It’s kind of nature-related art. And it’s more decorative pottery than cups and bowls and mugs and things like that.”

He said his work is “raku-fired,” which is “an ancient Japanese technique of firing that involves pulling the pottery out of the kiln while the glass (glaze) is still hot, and that makes the crackled patterns form in the glass.” Find him on Facebook by searching Robin Rodgers Pottery.

MUSIC

The ExploreGeorgia.org Songwriter Series is taking place in six cities across the state from August to November. Its stop in Augusta is part of Arts in the Heart, on the Community Stage starting at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17 (admission is included with Arts in the Heart badge). Performers include Keith Jenkins and Greg Hester, Lola Gulley and Otis Redding III.

Keith Jenkins is an Augusta native who joined James Brown’s band, The Soul Generals, as a guitarist when he was barely 18 years old. He spent 12 years touring with the Godfather of Soul until Brown passed away in 2006. Jenkins, who serves as music director at the James Brown Academy of Musik Pupils in Augusta, collaborated with another soulful Georgia singer, Greg Hester, to release the tribute album “Soul Brother, Where Art Thou?” in 2015. Hester has released solo albums that reflect his love of soul, funk and country-rock and showcases his powerful voice in Street Choir, a tribute to the great Northern Irish musician Van Morrison.

Every week at Northside Tavern, the legendary Atlanta blues club, Lola Gulley leads the Monday Night Jam. A dynamic singer, Gulley has been compared to Candi Staton and Mavis Staples and earned “Best Vocal Performance — Female” honors by the Blues Critics’ poll in 2014. Two of her albums, “Give Her What She Wants” and “Cleanin’ House,” were produced by soul legend William Bell and released on his Wilbe Records label.

It’s a heavy burden to carry the name of one of the world’s most beloved artists, but Otis Redding III has carved his own path in music over the past three decades. He had several charting hits in the ’80s with R&B, soul and disco group The Reddings, which included his brother, Dexter, and singer Mark Lockett. Since then, Otis III, a singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer, has recorded and toured extensively in America and Europe and continues to write and release bluesy, soulful music while honoring and paying tribute to his father, Otis Redding, by always performing some of his songs in his sets.

Other artists to appear on the Community Stage include Augusta hip-hop/pop artist and DJ Moses; Augusta-based female-fronted alternative rock group BullMoose; Augusta-based heavy rock band A Future Now Past; North Augusta-based alternative/indie guitar pop group Hound of Goshen; North Augusta-based power pop duo Brighter Light; Augusta-based Vicky Grady Band; and Augusta-based hip-hop artist Selah Jetlound Guru.

The Global Stage will feature Augusta-based punk-pop fusion band False Flag; King Cat and the Elders, who resurrect the roots of rock ’n’ roll and update the arrangements; Aiken-based piano, bass and drum trio Stink Bamboo; dance group Dance 2 Inspire; and girl-rock band SnapDragon, whose singer is based in Augusta.

The Jazz Stage will showcase Atlanta-based Gospel recording artist Funmilayo Ngozi; Augusta-based solo pop/jazz/rock artist Chris Hardy World; Augusta-based alternative country/bluesy rock artists the Adam Harris Thompson Band; and Augusta-based Christian performing artist Tony Aaron Hambrick.

The Troubadour Stage will feature Atlanta-based acoustic duo Linnie & Amy Joy; Macon-based folk/pop/rock singer and songwriter Louise Warren; Nashville, Tennessee,-based songwriter/visual artist Wild Enemy; Atlanta-based neo soul funk singer Nubia Soul Goddess; and Georgia-based spoken word artist Sa Jules.

On the Family Stage will be Zazzua Productions’ “World Fusion,” full of dancing and theatrics; Augusta-based competitive dance team Dance Xtreme; CSRA-based magician Ben the Illusionist; and Victory Productions’ “A Woman’s Worth,” a story of three sisters on different walks of life as they endure the trials and tribulations of their individual romantic relationships.

See next week’s Metro Spirit for more information about the performances.

FOOD

Last, but definitely not least, is the food, one of the most enduringly popular aspects of Arts in the Heart.

Back for its fourth year is the African-American booth, which benefits Concerned Women Inc. The nonprofit organization based in Grovetown has been around for almost 15 years and helps the community in various ways, including providing food and clothing to people who need it.

The nonprofit group’s executive director, Bea Sanders, said they enjoy working with the festival.

“It was eye-opening for us, a very good fundraiser, and we got to meet a lot of people. It’s just exciting,” Sanders said. “Everybody’s just nice, from the Arts in the Heart community on down; everything’s just been nice.”

The booth will feature different items on the menu each day of the festival, including hot wings, fish, ribs, barbecue pig’s feet, collard greens, chicken, corn bread, macaroni and cheese and more. Desserts include red velvet cake, sweet potato pie and pound cake.

The much-loved India booth also will be back this year. The booth, called the Indian Pavilion, is put on by the Hindu Temple Society of Augusta. One of the booth’s organizers, Sheila Kamath, said they have been part of the festival since 1995.

“When we’re trying to represent India, we take foods from different parts of India … we want people to get a nice variety,” Kamath said. “People have been coming to us for years, and they know exactly what to order. Our tent is split into two sides, the northern side and the southern side, because the food is very different. On the southern side, we have the Indian crepes called the dosa, which is a very famous south Indian dish. It is like a very thin pancake with potato filling, and it comes with a very spicy sauce like a soup and coconut chutney. That is the big item on that side. On the north Indian side, we have the sampler platter (which comes with Indian bread, rice, mixed vegetable curry, chickpeas in curry, vegetable fritters and dessert).”

The booth serves no meat, as it is aiming to promote vegetarianism. Some items may be made vegan upon request.

The Hindu Temple Society of Augusta does what it can to help the community, such as supporting the soup kitchen and other outreach efforts like making hats and scarves for students. The booth also will have several henna artists for people to get henna art done on their skin.

Other nations represented include Germany, serving items like schnitzel, bratwursts, potato salad and sauerkraut; China, serving items like ham fried rice, eggrolls and vegetable lo mein; Jamaica, serving items like curry chicken, jerk chicken, jerk pork, ox tail and curry goat; Turkey, serving items like gyro wraps, chicken wraps and baklava; and Trinidad, serving items like geera pork (cooked with spicy cumin and garlic), curry chicken dinner and curry goat dinner. Many other food booths will be at the festival.

The Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival will take place from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16; and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17. Badges cost $7 in advance or $12 at the gate, and kids 10 and younger get in free. Advance badges may be purchased online or at State Bank and Trust, Vintage Ooollee in Downtown Augusta and New Moon in Aiken. Arts in the Heart sees more than 88,000 visitors every year. For information, call 706-826-4702, visit artsintheheartofaugusta.com or email info@artsintheheart.com. See next week’s Metro Spirit for a full guide to the festival.

September 5, 2017

Kenny George Band tightens up

by Amanda Main August 30, 2017

While on the road to a show last week, Kenny George of the Kenny George Band talked about how his band is picking up the pieces after the unexpected death of Bucky Brown — their drummer, friend and a founding member — a little over a month ago.

“We’re doing OK; we’re hanging in there, I guess. … It’s weird and hard emotionally, you know, and I think everyone has their own (ways of dealing with it),” George said. “I guess you could say it’s getting easier; it hasn’t gotten easy, but playing shows is tough. We’ve got Dave Mercer filling in on drums for us right now, and he’s doing an excellent job; he’s a lot of fun to be around. We all have our emotional triggers and things like that, that we deal with on a daily basis, I think.”

Brown, who had been playing music with the 32-year-old George since he was about 15, helped start the band in 2007, along with steel guitar player Center Ely. Others in the band include Brooks Andrews on bass and Scott Rankin on rhythm guitar and harmony vocals.

The band members have been spending a lot of time together in the month since Brown passed away.

“We’re starting to rehearse again, too, so that’s nice to be playing again,” he said. “I think everyone tries to stay busy in their own way, you know. I’ve been doing a lot of trying to find as many acoustic gigs and stuff that I can power through to stay occupied. Spending a little bit more time at home, too.”

The country/Americana band with Aiken roots typically spends a lot of time on the road, with 150 to 180 shows a year. Their next appearance in Augusta is just a couple of months away, on Nov. 3 at Stillwater Taproom.

As much as they love being on the road, the band likes when they get to play close to home, like when they get to play in Augusta, because there’s not a lot of travel involved, and George said there’s always a good crowd. One of their albums, “Live at Sky City,” was recorded at Sky City in Augusta in 2015.

George said one of the best moments of the past year was when they played a release show in their hometown, in support of their latest album, “Borrowed Trouble,” released April 28.

He said until then, the band had played in Aiken maybe twice in the past three years.

“It was the day the record came out, and we busted our backs putting a lot of the hard work into it, trying to get a good turnout, all that stuff, and we wanted a good stage, and good sound and all this, and we were really just dead set on a big show in our hometown. We had the help of the city of Aiken and a lot of businesses, but we really wanted to just make sure that we did something for the people here since we’re always on the road. … And you know, there’s not really a huge market for original alternative country Americana, or whatever you want to call it. But we did that, and we just had this incredible turnout, people from all over came in, I think they said we had anywhere between 1,500 and 2,000 people in the Alley, and to do it downtown Aiken outside, all the work we put into it and see it pay off and have such nice turnout and everyone show their support was just really probably my favorite part of the last year or so.”

The band has gone through some growth in the three years since they released their first EP, “Gunshy,” in 2014. Most of that has come from just spending a lot of time on the road together.

“We’ve gotten tighter; we’ve gotten a little bit better about conveying what we want to play to the record, from doing all that playing live, you know, so the songs really got to develop on the for a couple months, or some longer than that,” George said. “So like with this last record, there’s a lot more of that live energy into it, I think we’ve gotten a lot better about that. I think we’ve just gotten to know each other a little better onstage, and so we know each other’s body language and cues and things like that, when someone’s gonna go here and you can kind of follow, or something like that. But it’s just become easier, a little bit.”

George described “Borrowed Trouble” as “very much about everyday life of a musician on the road, and not necessarily your Bob Seger Turn the Page tour bus kind of life, but more of the grinding it out like what we’re doing and the balance between that and home and family and having a social life, a love life, normal relationships, so there’s a lot of that theme kind of running through it. That’s really what it’s about. … There’s certain songs about specific things and things like that, but on a whole, that’s really the kind of driving source for the sound or theme behind the record, I guess.”

As the primary singer-songwriter, George’s love for South Carolina is obvious in his music, especially on the twangy, upbeat-tempo “Carolina Too,” the third track on “Borrowed Trouble.” In it, he croons “Carolina is callin’ my name/Carolina, I’m not the same/Carolina is calling me home/Carolina, I must be moving on.”

The band has played shows with the likes of the Rascal Flatts. Some of the influential artists George grew up on include Jackson Browne, Townes Van Zandt, Leon Russell and the Allman Brothers.
“I could go on and on,” George said. “Ryan Adams was real big; I got into him at a fairly young age. And Wilco, I got into Wilco when — I guess I was probably in junior high when I first heard Wilco. I thought ‘this is weird, but I like it.’

He also discussed some modern artists he has been getting into.

“More recent is like John Moreland. … I just got into Lady Lamb recently,” George said. “It was really exciting; I heard about her a couple months ago from someone, I can’t remember who, and then I turned on NPR today and I got all excited about it again because she was on there, just all kinds of stuff. … Parker Millsap’s one of my new favorites; he’s put out a couple of records, there’s a lot of new stuff, I guess one of the perks of the internet, and there’s lots of them, but one of the bigger ones is all the great new artists you can find at the click of a button. … American Aquarium, I immediately got into them, and we got really lucky and got to play some shows with them, a few shows with them, and they’re really doing good things. And I’ve been kind of getting into the new outlaw stuff, Cody Jinks and Whitey Morgan, things like that.”

For more information about the Kenny George Band, visit kennygeorgeband.com or youtube.com/c/Kennygeorgebandmusic, or keep up with them on Facebook and Twitter. Tour information is listed on their website.

August 30, 2017

An Eye on Life

by Metro Spirit August 23, 2017

Musician Ben Folds is well-known for his decades-long musical career, but anyone who’s less than a super-fan might be surprised to learn that he also is a respectable photographer.

He is a member of the Sony Artisans of Imagery, and he had a stint as a photo editor for National Geographic, according to benfolds.com.

Folds will be gracing Augusta with his musical talents on Friday, Sept. 1, at the Jessye Norman Amphitheatre. He is known as a rock musician who bends genres with his music, including pop albums as the front man for Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and collaborations with artists such as Sara Bareilles, Regina Spektor, “Weird Al” Yankovic and William Shatner.

His most recent album blends pop and classical original works, recorded with the classical sextet yMusic. The tour that’s bringing him to Augusta is a solo tour similar to his earliest solo tours, which featured him rocking out alone on a piano.

When he’s not creating music, he is in love with spending time in a dark room.

“I love photography, of course. … I think completing the whole cycle to me is really important, and I certainly spend my time in the school of the dark room,” he said. “There are so many advantages to the digital method now, but having spent so much time in the dark room has really informed that, and I feel really lucky for all the hard time spent in that; as far as what I shoot and what I’m interested in is all over the map, and I don’t think that I have the voice as a photographer that I seem to as a musician, and so that’s really kind of good for both disciplines, because it gives you a perspective. I know I don’t take for granted that certain things come naturally to me as a musician when I have to work at it so hard as a photographer.”

Folds likens the idea of capturing the perfect image to when somebody asks what you would grab from your home if you had two seconds to get something out while it’s burning down. He says if you had more time, you would grab everything, and the same concept applies in photography — that good photographers realize more of what’s important to them and take fewer shots.

“I think it’s really interesting to spend time where someone says ‘OK, here’s how you have to see this landscape or this scene in front of you,’ or whatever it is that you capture, ‘you’ve got one shot at it, and in fact, you can’t even look through the lens when you’re making that shot.’ … I think that’s also a cool discipline.”

Folds pointed out the concept of impermanence when it comes to taking photographs or making music, especially with today’s digital methods of saving art.

“It’s an interesting trend isn’t it? I think it’s all a matter of capacity, you could photograph every moment of your life, literally, you could do that all f***ing day. But at some point, it’s going to go into a closet on a hard drive, the hard drive’s gonna get dusty, not start up, someone’s gonna throw the hard drive away, you’ll lose track of it,” Folds said. “Same thing goes usually for negatives. And the same thing is true of music these days, where it’s not all committed to vinyl or it’s not all committed to tape. It’s on a cloud somewhere, and when that cloud’s taken down, disconnected in some kind of way, people’s iPhones are thrown out to a plastic trash heap, then I don’t know, where is the backup?

“I don’t think that’s a problem necessarily,” he continued, “because I think at the end of the day, you know, some music you can say it’s because it’s good, or some images and you can say it’s because they’re good, or because it was lucky — survived.

Folds referenced infamous photographer Robert Capa, who shot several rolls of film on D-Day in World War II, but because of an intern’s mistake, he lost almost all of the images. However, the images that survived were printed. Folds referenced one of those images.

“It is one of the most iconic photographs of World War II, and I think that’s not just because it was the best photo — it might have been the worst photo — but it was the one that survived. And he had an eye that was like, shooting everything as if it was the only photograph.”

Advice he had for modern photographers: “Shoot the stuff that, if you’re gonna save one off of your phone, then it’s that one. … I think that’s the way you live your life, you try to live your life in the existentialist idea, like if you die while you’re being an asshole, then you’re remembered as an asshole, and that’s what you are. You’re just an asshole. … I think you have to kind of find some balance of purpose in your life in an era that you think you have all the choices, but you actually don’t have all the choices. You think you’ve got ’em all, but you don’t.”

To see images captured by Folds’ eye, visit benfoldsphotography.com.

BEN FOLDS
Jessye Norman Amphitheatre
Friday, Sept. 1
6 p.m.
$25-$249.00
706-823-3288
cityspintickets.com

August 23, 2017

Clean-cut comedian stays humble

by Metro Spirit August 19, 2017

Even big comedy stars sometimes need time to just lounge around on the couch — such as the family-friendly Brian Regan.

The comedian is set to make an appearance in Augusta once again on Friday, Aug. 25. He recently spoke about his life and influences — and about how one of his greatest comedy influences is someone he’s known from the time he was born.

“I know there’s a silly component (to my comedy); my mom and dad — my mom is very silly, and I think that part of her has gotten into me. She’s very smart; you would never beat her at “Jeopardy,” is an English major, has a master’s in English. One of her favorite comedians was Andy Kaufman, and my mom would just sit there and laugh at him, and I remember trying to figure that out, and I like Andy Kaufman, too. But I liked the fact that my mom liked him and that she got a kick out of him. … I like to think I have a smart layer to (my) comedy, but I also certainly like throwing the silly on there.”

With a career spanning more than a couple of decades, Regan’s first comedy album, titled “Brian Regan Live,” hits its 20th anniversary this year. In the time since he first broke out, his presence steadily has been growing. Netflix recently cut him a deal for two stand-up specials, the first of which was recorded earlier this summer in Denver and is scheduled to stream in November.

The guy who’s known for having clean comedy says that unlike some of his colleagues, he needs to take breaks between work.

“Some people put a lot of energy into what they do. And I like to take breaks; I need to regroup. As much as I like doing standup, I also like chillin’ and laying on the couch. I need to recharge. Some people are charged up throughout their whole life and their whole career, which is great, but what works for me is to be into it and then take my foot off the gas, and then do it again and take my foot off the gas.”

As a resident of Las Vegas, one of his favorite pastimes is sitting down to a game of Blackjack in the casinos — when he can convince himself to get off the couch.

“It’s funny, I was off last night and I didn’t have the kids, and I thought to myself, ‘Hey, why don’t you hop in the car and go play some Blackjack?’ So instead, I laid on the couch and went to sleep. Sometimes it’s more fun. … I like math, and (Blackjack is) a fun game because there’s math involved, and occasionally I get fortunate and could end up on the plus side of things, but I’m careful. I don’t risk my mortgage on it, but it’s a fun activity every now and then.”

When asked who his biggest comedic influences are, he mentioned Jerry Seinfeld, whose internet show “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” Regan was on in 2012 during its first season.

“I like his stand-up a lot; he has taken stand-up comedy to an art form, and the way he gets mileage out of everyday topics is very intriguing to me. But there are different comedians doing different things, and I like a woman named Maria Bamford who does these quirky characters. … She says something about herself through her delivery of these characters, and it’s very interesting. I like Chris Rock for how in-your-face he is and with his observations, and there’s a woman named Carol Leifer who doesn’t do as much stand-up as she used to, but she’s the person that Elaine was modeled after on the “Seinfeld” show. She’s very funny. Bill Burr, I’ve watched him do an hour, and I was like amazed.”

Anyone who listens to podcasts can hear his appearances on shows including comedian Marc Maron’s “WTF with Marc Maron” and Bill Burr’s “Monday Morning Podcast,” among others. Regan says he enjoys the growing trend of promoting via podcasts rather than on traditional morning radio.

“One thing I do like about podcasts, especially when comedians are at the helm, is that it’s a different animal than morning radio. I used to have to do morning radio throughout the country to promote our shows, and it always felt like a square peg in a round circle, like they want the funny too quickly and too much, and it didn’t feel natural. … The thing I like about podcasts is that there’s more ebb and flow. You can be serious and then you can be funny and you can be poignant and you can be outrageous … whereas morning radio seemed to be more ‘let’s just hit the funny,’ and it seemed a little unnatural.”

Despite Regan’s growing fame and fan base, he maintains a humble attitude about it all.

“There’s the the comedy part of the equation, and then there’s the popularity part of the equation, and I’m not that into the popularity side of it, but to me it’s like, I just want to do what I think is funny — and if there are people out there who happen to be into it, great. And if that’s a sizable amount of people, that’s even better, but I’m not doing it for that reason. I’m just fortunate that there seems to be enough people that seem to like it. … I’m very lucky.”

BRIAN REGAN
Bell Auditorium
Friday, Aug. 25
8 p.m.
$39.50-$44.50
877-4AUGTIX
georgialinatix.com

August 19, 2017