Arts This Week: Upcoming Events at The Southern Cafe and Music Hall
By Ben Larsen
Dana Sun:
For Arts This Week we chatted with Jeanette Hosmer about upcoming music events at The Southern.
Jeanette Hosmer:
I’m Jeanette. I work at The Southern. I do some marketing, I do some promotion. I wear a lot of hats. The Southern Cafe and Music Hall is a music venue in Charlottesville. It’s a club-sized room, 300 capacity. We have a cafe. So we serve food, drinks, we have shows. It’s awesome. But yeah, The Southern definitely has a very niche, interesting brand, all the pictures on the wall, and, like, I don’t know, it’s vintage, it’s cool. It’s like, definitely very refreshing to see that. One show that I’m super excited about is on November 9. It’s Twen it’s really cool, indie rock. The lead singer has, like, the coolest voice you’ve ever heard in your whole life. Monsoon is opening. They’re pretty cool, too. We have an EDM night this Saturday, so that’ll be pretty sick. It’s like an open deck thing. So if you’re a DJ, you can come and plug in and spin, yeah. So there’s like, headliners and stuff too, after you do the open deck, but that’ll be cool. And then Neighbor is coming and Loose Champagne is opening, and we’re really excited to host that one too. So Mock Stars is like a big Halloween costume party in Charlottesville. So we have local bands, Charlottesville local bands, who are supposed to just sort of like embody famous bands. Like, for instance, this year we have this awesome band, Loose Champagne, and they’re gonna be playing as Earth, Wind, and Fire. So like, basically, they’re just going to, like, take on the persona of Earth, Wind, and Fire, play all of the songs. And we have, like, back to back stages. So there’s, like, no real set breaks. It’s just non-stop cover sets all night. And it’s really, like, about embracing the costume. Everyone who comes comes in costume. There’s a big costume contest. There are prizes. It’s awesome. And all of the proceeds go to help Shelter for Help and Emergency, which is awesome. This year, it is on October 24 and 25th, so it’s like the Friday and Saturday right before Halloween.
Dana Sun:
All right, so everyone, in case you missed it, at The Southern on September 28, we have Whitey Morgan headlining with Bones Owens. And anyways, how do you know how much the tickets are for the EDM show this Saturday?
Jeanette Hosmer:
$12 advance. You can’t beat that. It’s gonna be an awesome night. And if you’re a DJ, you can get in there and do a set. Hell yeah.
Dana Sun:
Will you talk me through how, like, The Southern book shows
Jeanette Hosmer:
Agents will reach out directly to The Southern, and if we have some kind of relationship with the agent, we just kind of go from there. Some of it’s like bands you’ve never heard of before, like booking a 300-cap room is kind of interesting in that way, where, like, it is, like bands pop up out of nowhere and then they’re selling out The Southern, you know, especially in the age of, like, TikTok stuff like that. So yeah, a lot of it is like, agents will reach out to us, but I really like the outreach part, which is rare that we get to do, but being able to reach out about like, a band that you think is really cool, and getting them in the room is my favorite part.
Dana Sun:
So when you’re reaching out to bands, it’s usually like, I like, have heard about this band. I listened to them. I liked their songs. Hey, like, let’s bring it up at this meeting. I think it’d be really good to get this band on.
Jeanette Hosmer:
Yeah, it’s like, we have to have a conversation about it. The most important thing is that it’s a viable show. Sometimes you really like the band. You think it’s really cool, but it’s not worth 100 tickets in Charlottesville, so you just kind of have to wait until that band gets to that point. But a lot of it, I mean, it’s so cool when you, like, reach out, book a show, and it turns out so well, like the room is full, it feels good in there. And like, you feel like, Oh, I was like, you know, part of that, like, I got to help put that together.
Dana Sun:
Arts this week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance, music, theater and visual arts programming. Learn more@pvcc.edu. For WTJU I’m Dana.
