Cantina. I’d heard lots about this new Mexican joint on the corner, but had yet to pay a visit for myself. When I heard that Illville Crew, a rising local hip-hop outfit was descending upon the place on Saturday, I decided to check things out. So, I threw on my Led Zeppelin hoodie, a pair of torn jeans and my trusty cowboy boots and set off Corner-bound. I wasn’t quite sure where the place was, so I parked in the Corner parking lot, behind the university bookstore. As soon as I stepped out of my car, however, I knew where I was going. One could hear the grooves echoing all through the block. The place was located next to Coupe Deville’s, on Elliewood Ave.
I quickly found there to be a very generous crowd gathered in the small patio area, and Illville were already at it. Frontmen Quentin (Q*black) Walker & Marquis Monroe were throwing down their solid rhymes in the flawless way that only they can, with Bobby McLaren aka DJ Ducktape laying down the back tracks. The boys kept ‘em coming, announcing that it was Q*black’s birthday and bringing up the full-band; Jay Chowdhry on guitar and keys, Gabe Engel on bass & Chris Doermanm on drums. The beer was cheap and available right there on the patio. The crowd continued to grow. Looking around, I saw a sea of sun dresses and polo shirts and was instantly reminded that I was on the corner; not a hipster in sight (don’t hipsters like hip-hop too?). I briefly second-guessed my attire. Inside, Cantina sported awkward color schemes with various pin-up girl paintings on the wall and a very “homey, mysterious vibe” as frontman Q*black later explained to me:
“…I had never went went, but when I did, it’s close, personal, like someone’s house. The coolest part is that people hear us before they can even see the place. It is always a good time; probably our favorite place to play in town because its not too big!”
Overall it was an amazing show and I was quite impressed with what Cantina had going on (and you HAVE to check out “el baño”). I highly recommend checking out both Cantina & Illville Crew (I heard rumor that they would be back on the 26th?). I also got a brief chance to ask Quentin what was in store for the group.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff that is diverse and a little bit everywhere; now its time to work on putting a casing on what we have and focusing on making the best music we can that will keep the party going.”
Related posts:
Tagged as: cantina, Concerts, hip hop, live music, The Corner
I thought it was a pretty fun show. It was really interesting being street level with the band. We were all in this one place outside, and some of us were dancing, some were rapping, some were wailing.. some were running down pedestrians in their cars…
Why are only Corner bars being covered on here? I think most cVillains prefer downtown. You obviously never read the old site, eh?
How do you think we reach out to get new villains onboard? We can’t just keep covering the same things over and over. Cvillain is about ALL of Charlottesville, not just downtown.
Besides, you could always write your own downtown specific posts. /just sayin’
That’s right. We’re never going to get enough hits to boost ad revenue and monetize our capital without catering to different age/political/socio-economic demographics and covering an area of town where none of us ever go drink. I avoid the corner like the fucking plague.
The corner is off my radar too. I’ve taken to calling it “The Coroner”.
/where hope goes to die.
I, personally, spend all of my drinking & eating hours on the Downtown Mall, and I’m taking my work with cVillain as an opportunity to branch out and try some off-mall activities. As far as the commercialism of cVillain goes, I’m in the hole to the tune of $5K, and that’s just for back end work and code for the migration. But it’s a labor of fun.
“I’m in the hole to the tune of $5K, and that’s just for back end work”
Kinky but how you and spicy bear came to an agreement should probably be kept private.
Gah! I would have beaten you if it wasn’t for those pesky block quotes.
Anyone? Can I take this or would low lying fruit appeal to anyone else?
I still watch too much Nip/Tuck.
Unless you moved this shit to Oracle I can’t imagine what cost $5k. Back end work? It’s Wordpress and MySQL. Next time you feel like you have to shell out that kind of dough, email me. I’ll do it for beer and pizza. Did they make you pay for the theme? Write a new one.
The $5K is a rough estimate of our hours invested multiplied (thanks Doc) by our average hourly billable rate, plus a few other incurred expenses. I’ll definitely hit you up for some of our updating work here shortly. Thanks cbob.
Don’t correct your errors in-comment. We need the records to show the faults.
So…in other words, a figure you pulled out of your ass. Ha.
In that case, I am $10 gazillion USD in the hole for how much time I used to contribute to cVillain.
Okay, so this is the FIRST music post on this site, what are you talking about “Why are only Corner bars being covered here?” FIRST post. Oh and btw, Nate wrote an article about music happening on the downtown mall and you call him a “fucking hipster”?
Welcome to the interwebz.
Please help yourself to the PBR and Pocky on the new user orientation table.
don’t mind if I do! we’re obviously feeling very welcome
To be honest, if you guys are going to cut it, you’re going to have to get much thicker skin. This blog precedes you. It may have been Nate’s first music post, but it’s far from the first music post on here. The way the site went out the first time was that the comments overran the place, and the moderators couldn’t really keep up. You’re going to have to start pumping out some serious content if you don’t want the scale to quickly tip back that way.
Another tip that I can give you from personal experience. You absolutely cannot go out of your way to defend an S.O. on here. Bite your tongue. Let Nate fight his own battles. There are a lot of trolls around here, and you can’t pander to them or feed them ammunition.
didnt hurt my feelings.
If you ask a shaman to resurrect your dead grandmother, you don’t get pissed at him because she’s not exactly the same as she used to be. You either put her back in the grave, or learn to love her zombie bones.
You get the Most Bizarre Analogy award for the week. There is no trophy, just inner pride.
I understand what you’re trying to say, though it may not translate literally. Anyway, don’t worry about it. I’m just throwing some unsolicited advice out there. You certainly don’t have to pay it any heed.
I won’t be able to make the party tonight, but I do hope it goes off well. Just be sure not to make the same old mistake and go posting pictures of villains after the fact. Have fun!
I think that should be the new Cvillain logo. Zombie grandmother.
what, what?
Can it be a zombie hipster grandmother?
IF my G-ma were obnoxious and said “Fuck” a lot, then we resurrected her and she didn’t cuss as much and couldn’t spell for shit, I’d tell that voodoo man to send her back.
Fcuk.
Wasn’t calling him a hipster. Was referencing http://lafth.com
oops I mean http://latfh.com
hahaha that shit is fucking hilarious
I didn’t call him a hipster. I was referencing the website LATFH because of that girl in the purple outfit.
i love hipsters. they’re like kittens. except you dont have to buy them expensive food.
Wasn’t calling your man a hipster, was referencing LATFH site bc of that chick in the purple outfit.
Also, last week was a post on Buddhist so I was wondering if this were going to be a trend,
trend? jesus I hope not. it’s tough to find something that’s actually kind of fun going on down on the corner. I do hope that someone might be interested if we do actually happen to come upon something cool down there.
Palabra. I’m just jaded cuz I don’t live in Cville anymore.
I don’t do the corner when the kids are back in town. Actually, I don’t really do the corner. OK I DON’T GO OUT!!
I just thought of a great name for a bar on the Corner… Ninety Degrees. Someone needs to pay me for that.
Don’t be so obtuse, trying the right angle for some cash. Acute way is to be more straight than oblique while not losing your congruent line of reasoning.
I just spent 5 minutes THAT I WILL NEVER FUCKING GET BACK trying to work a pun around hypotenuse. I curse you sillyputty, and all your silliness.
Then maybe you should commit suicide by OD’ing while hanging yourself… you know, the old ‘hypo then noose’ method…
I was working on the one about the guy that asked the friendly hippy for a joint, and the hippy said,”Hi, pot in use dude”. But it wasn’t funny. Bit like yours.
Oh fuck I accused the black square of not being funny shitshitshitshitshit… YOU’RE FUNNY OKAY.
Why you gotta bring race into this?
What angle did the maid use when the very tall coffee pot that her mistress wanted for high tea was unavailable because she had lent it to the geometry teacher? Hypotenuse.
I just died a little inside.
Only a little?
You got me. I actually tried to microwave my head.
I felt badly about the loss of your 5 minutes and decided to try. Perhaps my time could have been better spent as Kayne West’s PR agent.
“suicide by OD’ing while hanging yourself”
OD-ing? what’s that a euphemism for these days?
Shouldn’t that be “hours invested multiplied by our average hourly rate?”
/take that grammar/spelling nazis… Mathzis in da house
yea guys, i like Illville Crew too.
What’s wrong Nate? If you did your research you would know that any arts related posts do not get on-topic posts. You got one and it all fell apart from there. Get used to it dude.
I was pretty burned when Cvillemuse shut down for this very reason – that seemed to be the only place where arts posts had comments that were actually on the article. I got used to only having a couple comments on the articles I wrote there.
All that being said it’s a good article Nate. I wish there was more content on the music itself (since I’ve never heard Illville Crew) rather than the ’scene’, but I’m sure you’ll get there. This blog needs more music posts, imho. Though a word of warning I think it’s gonna be hard to be objective about other bands in town while being in a band yourself. That’s the big challenge.
i like everything. i’m hoping that’s a firm foundation.
Uh oh! A music reviewer who likes everything! Run for the hills! I had issue with Shaun over that at cvillemuse but I saw where he was coming from. He only reviewed stuff he liked, I reviewed everything – good and bad. It’s hard though being a musician and also writing reviews. It makes it real hard to be honest and not piss off people you see all the time. Cripsy pulled it off fantastically years ago but then he’s a big lovable jerk
one day I’m going to post the 10 worst bands in charlottesville
I applaud that idea, but I think you also should temper it with the ten best. And prepare yourself for the backlash!
Earl Knox would not be on that list
Shaun is awesome but he only likes one genre it seems like
geez, light-hearted sarcasm really gets you guys going doesnt it
Welcome to the interwebz. It’s hard to tell whats sarcasm sometimes – unless it’s from Floozy and then it’s ALWAYS sarcastic. It helps to use a ‘/sarcasm’ at the end of your post – if that is truly the message you want to convey. Or change your name to Floozy.
Change his name to Floozy??? But there already is a regular commenter that goes by that name. It would be very confusing.
Illville Crew killed my dog.
It was probably your porch.
It was my very favorite, very rare, two headed dog, which was unfortunately was born with only one head.
it’d be especially handy if music posts linked to a couple downloadable MP3s (not a mayspace page, etc.).
Myspace killed my dog.
I hope we start talking about music instead of all this other stuff. Nate, great article which seemed to be about a band in Charlottesville and not all of this silly banter that has nothing to do with anything. This kind of discussion is why the music scene in Charlottesville is so tough to deal with. We get stuck on the pretentiousness of where the music is being played instead of the music itself. Stick to the tunes folks.
i agree with that. this post in particular seems to be just about acting dumb, then telling everyone off who tells them they’re acting dumb
You also racked up 68+ comments, and the metrics show that this article has been daily read since you posted it. Keep up the good work.
Young padawan, so obsessed with measurements.
This kind of discussion is why the music scene in Charlottesville is so tough to deal with.
I couldn’t disagree more. How does this discussion affect the music scene in cville at all?
We get stuck on the pretentiousness…
You mean like telling everyone “how the discussion should be”? Or pointing out that comments you, oh arbiter, don’t deem constructive are “silly banter”?
Stick to the tunes folks.
There are no tunes on this page, as otter pointed out. And if we missed the show, or have never seen the band, there are no tunes in our heads. Seeing as this is my situation, what shall I unpretentiously stick to?
Despite the snark, I mean these not as attacks, but serious questions.
Silly banter, tunes are for (insert euphemism).
seriously. please post one or two MP3s by every band reviewed.
youtube/myspace are NOT useful.
give us an MP3 we can take away and listen to over and over on IPOD.
But that’s assuming that we all have mp3s that we are legally allowed to give.
CVillain and legal issues??? Hmmm… never heard that one before.
i think any band being reviewed is being promoted, and would be happy to provide one?
bands are sortof silly, anyhow, since any 12 year-old can capture the sound from a locked myspace player or youtube video. it’s just a pain in the arse to do it, and not worth the effort for a band you don’t know. if a decent song is attached to the review, possibility exists of grabbing it and IPODing it. Also, in time, Ian might like to release a Best of Cvillain audio-CD Sampler for fundraising sale.
also might be nice to build up a Cvillain online music archive of MP3s, so that future Weekend Previews could link the band name to the song in Cvillain’s library…making this an excellent go-to point for those planning an evening out amongst unheard local bands?
It wouldn’t be unreasonable, assuming we have server space, to ask ALL local bands to submit maybe two representative MP3s, and have a top-of-Cvillain-mainpage-link to Bands of Cville so Cvillains could check out local offerings before coughing up cover-charges to see Mario Lanza performing The-Best-Of-Jewel when they thought they were going to an Of Montreal cover-band.
also might be nice to build up a Cvillain online music archive of MP3s,
Hey, Im doing my part. Its just that there are no banjos, sweaters, posture, etc…
straight-to-IPOD…. Thanks!!!