The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Kendall King, Russ Bazydlo & Hank Woods Joined Michael Urpí & Xavier Urpí On "Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Kendall King from September Sun Produce, and Russ Bazydlo & Hank Woods from Cville Soundcheck joined Michael Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Charlottesville Opera and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning, everyone and welcome to today, manana. I'm Michael, happy to be joined by Xavier. We've had a couple of cool weeks, which we were just kind of to talk about, maybe not great for the produce, but everyone else in Charlest was been relieved. I guess we had like three weeks of just, it felt like it was like 95 and above every day. That was brutal, but, you know, especially you that you enjoy swimming in the morning. Well, I just swimming, so it doesn't bother me as much. Now, to be fair, over the weekend, I enjoyed the little reprieve, but basically by Monday, it was like, I'm ready for the hot weather again, and it's kind of like still cool. Well, the difference also is that it hasn't even been sunny.

It's just been kind of cloudy and cool, yeah. cool, I mean, cool at night, cool, cool, relative cool, right? Cool during the day, too. I mean, 78 and 80s not exactly what I call August weather, you know, and I know a lot of people like, oh, I love this, but I'm like, you'll get this in September. And in September will be a little

drier. Oh, today was kind of, you know, when I walked out to the garden. It hasn't been too humid, yeah, it's been pretty dry. I've been noticed, yeah. I mean, like I said, yesterday, I watered your garden. It was, it was pretty dry, so, you know, I'm kind of ready for a little the heat to come back, which is supposedly it will be coming back next week. It will, it's too early for the heat to give up.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, you get summer once in a year, why don't have that full weather? Exactly. And we've always noticed, it's just, before you know, you blink and it's like, someone's over? Is that possible? I know. And then the closer he gets the cold weather, the worst it gets for me. I'm not a cold weather guy. Yeah.

Just for me, the heat. Me too. I know. I know. But as always, we are happy to be presented by Emergent Financial Services, sponsored by Matissee's here in Realty, Charlesville Opera, and Fabra, the premier Latino Network and Business Group here in Virginia. We got a great show lined up today. we're going to be joined shortly with Kendall King from September Some Produce, and then after Kendall, we're going to have Hank and Russ from Seville Soundcheck.

So we've got an exciting show. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I was going to say, by the way, we're going to have to ask Ken, that's a great name, September Sun Products. So I know we always, I mean, since we're in the financial business, this is going to take only a three minutes, right? People always ask us, you know, where's the market going, where is this going, what's happening, right?

and literally today when I turned on my Bloomberg system to kind of check up on news and things like that there was this quote right and said prediction is very difficult especially if it's about the future right and I said you know this is perfect for us because everybody always says so what do you think is happening is the fact going to erase rates is this

and you know predicting what's going to happen right in the financial markets who said that quote this is Niels Henrik David Bohr No way because the number of last time in the show Yeah it's slightly different than the Yogi Bear one. Yeah, that was a little different, but yeah, so this, I mean, he probably said something similar. You see me, Yogi stole from the guy.

Well, we got to see who stole from whom, you know, maybe he stole from Yogi. I don't know. I can't imagine Yogi ever reading Niels, Henrik, David Bohr of anything, right? I mean, but who knows? Maybe he was but yeah, it's, um, yeah, I remember you said that, that's why when I read this, I remembered that you mentioned that last

time, but it is so true, right? It's like, you know, people always ask what's, what's happening? What do you think's going to happen? It's like, it's so difficult, right? I mean, you have opinions and thoughts based on the data you see, but really forecasting anything, you know, rates,

markets, you know, economy, anything, it's just so difficult. It's a no-win game to a certain respect. It is. It's kind of like that in life sometimes. It's hard to predict what's going to come next, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, but on the today-mina, it's

not going to be too hard. No, no, because we know who exactly the next guess is going to be. Exactly, absolutely. We're going to be joined by her right now. 100% correct on that one. Exactly. So welcome. Thank you, Kendall King from September Some Produce for joining us.

Thanks for having me. No, it's our pleasure, Kendall. So kind of before we get started, just tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of how you started September Sun Produce. Yeah, and tell us how you got that name, September Sun. I really like that. It's really a great name. Thank you, yes.

So I was born and raised all over the East Coast, but came back to Virginia for school for the university here. Okay. I started to work for a large CSA down in Scottsville called Bel Air Farm. And I was really moved and inspired by just the work and how much food you could grow with a big team and was so awesome that I just decided that's what I wanted to spend my life doing. So when I got an opportunity to convince my folks to move here, I just told them to look for somewhere with a little bit of land for me. We did find it and it is a little bit of land, especially compared to somewhere like Bel Air. So we grow on an acre and a half in Somerset, which is up in orange.

Yeah, and it's my husband and I, and we have one employee who's almost full-time. And my husband and I are both born in September. September is a lovely month, as we were all we're just discussing. It gets dry, and the sky is blue and perfect. You start to get some relief from the summer weather. So, yeah, we got married in September. It's just, it's an important one for us. Yeah, and the sun feels so clean and clear and gentle.

So that's, I just excited. And it's really, to respect, it's somewhat harvest, but it's also, I mean, I assume you plant, do you plant spring, summer, and fall kind of vegetables? Yeah, yes, yes. So we're, we're as much year-round as we can. We try to grow because we've got some covered structures. We try to grow into the, what we call it sort of season extension time. So early spring and late fall slash early winter, we try to have some greens and things.

But, yeah, we're all seasons, and we have a CSA, so community-supported agriculture. We do a weekly farm share for 75 people in Charlottesville, also in Orange up north from here, in Gordonsville. And, yeah, our main season is April through October, typically. Okay. And so what exactly is the share? It's around seven items each week, and it's just what's seasonal and awesome. In Charlottesville, we set up at Lampo Pizza outside on Monticello Road, and we just basically lay out everything we have available,

and share members come up and they pick what they'd like for that week. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's pretty great. We're very flexible. People pay either in advance at the beginning of the season, or they do it monthly or weekly, depending on what's best for them. And we have it also organized in a sliding scale. price-wise so based on a whole bunch of financial circumstances for customers

people decide where they land on the sliding scale okay and that's what they pay per week and when they go there I mean is there somebody kind of watching that they didn't you know they just don't know I mean I'm just worried I mean suspicious no well because I mean that's you know let's let's you know how okay okay so people just honest and say okay I'm only paying ten dollars a week so I only get three things or four things and so on no no everybody it's it's supposed to be a relationship of support essentially for the farm. So community supported agriculture, the idea is that somebody is saying, we're with you no matter what, if the harvest

is good, if the harvest is bad. And so we're the same way with our customers. It's, you know, are you having a rough week and maybe it makes sense for you to skip this week and next week you want to double up? That's probably fine with us. Doesn't really matter. And likewise, we typically are encouraging our share members to take more because we have so much. And when we have a lot of abundance. We want to make sure that that's shared with the people who have invested in us and supported us. That's wonderful. So tell us a little bit about some of the things that

you grow. Sure. And throughout the seasons, I'm just curious. Yeah, yeah. Spring starts off and there's so many greens that a lot of people get very sick of them. So, you know, there's a typical bunched and also bagged like arugula, kale, mustard. There's

different mixes of different kinds of greens from different places across the world, like a mix that's got tatoi, which is sort of similar to spinach and some mustards and such. And we've got Swiss chard and lettuce and lettuce and cabbage.

You know, it could be a little overwhelming. And I think people really crave what we have now, which is like tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini squash. Yeah, we actually, so because we're on such limited land, we often partner with neighbors of ours who have

more space that we can grow on their land. And so our potatoes, we grow in partnership with one of our neighbors. His name is Ray. And it's a great arrangement for, like, another layer of community involved in our business. And it's one way that we are able to grow enough for 75 CSA members. But let's see. Right now we've also got eggplant, cucumbers.

We'll have more cabbage soon. We have lots of beets and carrots and green beans. Yeah, it's just all. things that you would think of as being seasonal produce we try to have. Okay. And so you mentioned that I guess there's an acre of land that you grow on. Is that correct? Yes. So do you have the space whereby you know, there's an area where it's for spring vegetables and then you start planting for summer and then is the area for spring vegetables where you plant your fall stuff or how do you work that out? Sure. Yeah. So it's not that direct. But each bed we have a plan for

a rotation based on what has been in the bed previously. and what we need to have. And there's sort of, there's a guideline for rotation based on how it's best to manage pests and diseases. And we follow those as well as we can while also knowing that we have to like squeeze a lot into a little space in order to accommodate our market. So we also really try to incorporate cover crop

as much as possible. We try to make sure each bed has at least one rotation of cover crop every season. So our typical rotation is looking like greens, roots, fruits, and then legumes is a common rotation. So, you know, we would do kale, then we would do carrots, then we would do tomatoes, then we would do green beans.

Okay, okay. But not in one season, probably. Of course, yeah. So every season, you do greens, the next season, you might do, you know, roots. Right, right. And also what I mean by season is sort of in the 2025 season. For instance, this year we might grow kale and then carrots in a bed, and then next year that same bed would then be tomatoes

and then probably not green beans because tomatoes take forever to be established and fruit and such. But we would follow that over several seasons of growing, of the growing season. Okay, okay. See, that's the challenge when, so, you know, because like we were talking, you know, obviously I try to grow my things. The challenge I have is that I don't have enough space to rotate. Yeah. I think that's part of the issues.

I mean, I do do the string beans and then the next year I put the tomatoes with the string beans were and vice versa. Yeah. Doesn't always work. but so that's really that's interesting so in that one acre that you have right you know what would you say is the produce that kind of you focus more on because it is best for the production of vegetable sure well I would say probably if you're thinking about percentage-wise of what our space is used on the largest percentage for one crop would be tomatoes okay because tomatoes are popular

They're delicious. People love them. We're actually going to have a festival that celebrates Charlottesville's tomato harvest and the community around it on August 26th, which is a Tuesday. It's Lampo Pizza, so it's 205 Monticella Road. It's called Tomato Test, or I guess some people would call it Tomato Fest. There's an art contest, which submissions are due on Sunday, the 10th, this coming Sunday. And there's also a home gardener's contest.

So if you grow tomatoes and you want to submit your own tomato to the festival contest, then you would bring it on that Tuesday. And myself and some other farmers will make up a panel of judges to decide which tomato. I think the categories are sort of prettiest, biggest, and tastiest, perhaps. And yeah, so that would be really fun to see yours. Pops, you're going to have to hope for tastiest because it ain't going to be big. Pretty is not really in the picture right now. Sometimes the ugliest ones are the tastiest.

No, that's true. Well, like the heirloom tomatoes, right? Yeah. When you see them, they're like, they don't look very nice, but boy, when you're cut into them, they are so good. Yeah, yes. Yeah. I would say tomatoes, and then certain things we try to have every week

that are sort of staple greens for people, like lettuce and arugula. They're just popular. People love to have them in their kitchens. Yes. So another, yeah, other things that take up the most growing space, I'd say, for how we rotate. would be lettuce and arugula.

Okay, okay. And things like that, like arugula and lettuce, do you have to have that coverage? Because, I mean, the heat, I assume they're difficult to us. Yeah, we do. We cover it mostly for, there's those tiny things called flea beetles that gnaw little holes in the arugula. So we cover the arugula for that reason.

And then we sometimes cover lettuce. We try to grow varieties that are specifically heat-tolerant. So we just, we spend a little bit extra money on seed in order to have lettuce as many weeks as we can. Yeah. Okay, all right. And before kind of the show start, we can only talk about the challenges of bugs,

how do you kind of deal with sometimes these challenges that come from kind of owning your own kind of produce farm and stuff like that? I'm sure there are many. Yeah, yes, there are. Well, yeah, it's hard to be a small business owner, period, and then it's hard to be a farmer period. So it's sort of, sometimes it feels like the two hard- Double whammy, really?

Yeah, a little bit of the double whammy. But I think this is our third season. So as we've become just more experienced in the farming side, we've also become more experienced in the business side. And we've just invested in relationships with people who have run their own small farm businesses, and we've consulted with them about how to set up our systems for success. And then we have a really awesome just bookkeeping system

so we can keep track of all of our expenses and such. But the CSA system is really cool because it, I think, really enables people who are doing small farming, which already has a lot of upfront costs to prevent debt accumulation. So it's an amazing process, an amazing idea for your community to invest in you for a season so that a lot of what you have to purchase up front can be subsidized by payments that come before you even have a product, which is amazing. But, yeah, it's been so cool also to collaborate with Lampo, the guys at Lampo,

the guys at Lampo have been so supportive and so helpful in allowing us to have that farm stand there because it can serve as our CSA pickup and also as a super visible, very central and very accessible way for us to just have sales, extra sales with passerbyes. So, yeah, we've been very excited and very grateful for that opportunity. Yeah. And has the produce season been this year? Because I know Alex Dever was kind of talking about beforehand some of those challenges, kind of has your produce season been? Great. It's been awesome.

It's been really nice. rain is hard if you have tomatoes in your yard or stuff that's uncovered. I know it's been very reliably rainy this year, where we are at least, which is ideal for a farmer like myself. So you would prefer rainy seasons than kind of drought seasons? Yeah, we're also, we're in a really awesome position in terms of we have a flat field with great drainage on top of a hill, kind of. So we, in wet seasons, we have very little problems with, you know, flooding or, you

saturation. With drought, it's actually really tough to manage. So we love a wet year like this. And we're having an awesome produce season consequently. But drought is really tough. Yeah, we don't like the drought. Yeah. It's tough because I guess in the drought season, you then have to go out in water. Is your acreage set up for like a drip system or anything that sort? Okay. Yeah. We have irrigation in place. One of the challenges is that the well that we have isn't a, it's not an agricultural capacity well. So it's a, yeah, it's domestic, you know, home well. So we have to be very careful about how much we stress the well and how much pressure we put on it, which means that rain is awesome. And just even drip irrigation and

overhead and such, just nothing gets things wet like rain. Like rain just really gets everything really wet. We've talked about that before. It's like you can sit there watering the racebed for like 10 minutes right yeah but you get that nice one rainfall and the next day you just see like things just go they literally grow yeah they just it's just amazing yeah yeah yeah water is life it's it's very central yeah it really is yeah it really is well i feel like so is sun though right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean my thought process and i'm not a format but my thought was always is oh i feel like you would rather want more sun than more rain because you can't really replicate sun well you could replicate rain but yeah

I hear you. Yeah. I think, so this year for me has been especially ideal because it's this one rain a week. That's been like this awesome big, or maybe it's two days a week where it's been rainy, but then it's been sunny otherwise. This is the first week so far where I've been a little bummed about the weather because of the consistent cloudiness. It's not really raining. It's just kind of misty. So stuff like tomatoes tend to slow down. Peppers don't ripen as quickly. But yeah. So this season's thus far, it's been really awesome up until now where it's been like a little weird. Yeah. So what's your favorite vegetable or fruit kind of that you grow just in terms of like you love growing and then your favorite one to eat? Yeah. I think cabbage is one of my favorite ones to grow. It's super. It's just rewarding because it's so substantial in my opinion. It's an awesome substantial vegetable. I also love to eat it. It's one of my favorites. It's good for you. It's just so good for you. And I think it's so versatile. People can use it for so many things. Also, although we just, try to grow lettuce all the time. Lettuce is not really a crop that's been adapted for our climate and it's too hot for it all the time. So we work really hard to make it work, but

cabbage is a great alternative to something a little bit, you know, that's something that people consider a little bit more desirable, like lettuce. I think if everybody had like a cabbage a day, then the doctor would go away, but that's a lot of cabbage. So maybe half a cabbage.

But yeah, I think cabbage is probably a there in terms of one of my favorites in both ways cucumbers too i think when i eat the first cucumber of the season i feel this like awesome sense of relief it's just like full of water and it tastes good and it's also super versatile so yeah that's interesting so so yeah i feel the same way with actually in my in my case it's like that first zucchini because it's one of the first things that come but but i was interesting in the fact that you you know we were talking before about the zucchini bug you know the um and the squash bugs and also the the one that gets into

the root. I forget what the name of that one. The vine borer. Yeah. Every year I get both. You know, they love, they love me and they love the zucchini side plant. But I like the fact that you mentioned about the rotation. So maybe you can talk just quickly about, you know, things that you do in order to, you know, because it's hard to overcome the bugs. I mean, unless you start really spraying heavily, which we don't because of the whole point is trying to go organic for what we do. Yeah. But maybe you can tell us a little bit of how you do that. Sure. So, yeah, We use a succession system, so we would plant our first succession of squash and zucchini way back in April.

Okay. And then we would, we usually cover them until they get the blossoms, because that's when you need the bugs to be present for pollination. So we'll cover them with like a very light row cover or bug netting. And it's not the cheapest stuff, but it is totally worth it, especially if you want to have a consistent crop and you want to protect it from the bugs. squash bugs, once they figure out where something is, though, they're going to crawl in there and they're going to get all over it. Okay. But in your next successions, we'll do one in April, we'll do one in May, and then we also, at the end of June, planted, or the beginning of July, planted our last succession of squash. Okay.

And we just, we make sure they're covered, and when the plants start to get really gnarly and die back, we just remove them right away because we don't want disease to spread. and once the plants become once they're in bad shape they're just more vulnerable to all of the things that would be worse problems probably than squash bugs like disease but it's not a winning game you just have to I think in my mind

I just have to know squash is a losing game you can you can harvest it as much as you can for as long as you can but then just give up and move on and try to have the next succession ready in time because yeah because those are probably that's probably my least favorite thing to grow squash and just last

for your land do you use a lot of compost do you do you like create your own compost? Yeah we do a little bit of both so we we're really lucky to live down the street from a compost maker just a small local hauling company that has

compost available which is awesome and then my folks have a couple horses so we use their manure and our vegetable scraps and we mix it together and let it sit for a very long time usually a year or two. We cover it, so it gets really hot. Okay. And then we'll put it, if we use that compost, we'll usually put it somewhere we're going to plant a cover crop, and we'll plant a cover crop in it, and then till it all

in, and it'll make an awesome new bed. But yeah, we love compost. It's one of the main things we use to build up fertility in our soil. Okay, and cover crop, you mean when you plant, you know, like, what are those, I should know, all those, you know, what is it, rye or? Yeah, that would be one, yeah. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of different ones, but usually what we're using is mixes of, like, a common one is peas and oats. It's a great. That's an awesome one. Rye is great.

We love rye, especially to plant in the fall, clover, sun hemp. There's a bunch of different grasses and legumes and things that are going to do different things for the soil, depending on what you have had there and what you're about to plant there. And you let them grow to what size? I mean, you don't let them seed grow tall, or you let them grow to a particular and then cut them back? How does that work? It depends on the type. Usually we're trying to prevent them from going to seed. So buckwheat goes to seed quite quickly.

It's a really quick cover crop, which makes it awesome for right now in the middle of the season when we're trying to fit another fall crop in after we've had a spring or summer one. And that's usually three or four weeks, and it'll get about probably up to here on me. But other ones, we really want, especially like peas and oats or stuff that we're growing, to really establish as much green and as much carbon as possible. We're trying to get it to be taller than I am. So we've got this really awesome stand of rye right now that's taller than me, which I'm very excited about.

And, yeah, if it's clover, we just want to not be able to see any soil underneath it, so we want it to be really dense. But, yeah, with cover crop, our goal typically is as much as possible, and ideally for as long as possible, just to really help it get established and get deep roots in there and to get as tall and as much mass as possible. Okay, okay. Wonderful. Awesome, Kendall.

So before we let you go, where can people find you? Kind of your website and then kind of the farmer's markets, the little pop-ups. I know you mentioned Lampos. Yeah, yeah. So we are at September sunproduce.com. There's lots of information there. And then you can find us every Tuesday from 3 to 7 at Lampo Pizza. It's on Monticello Road right by the Avon Bridge.

And then we're Saturdays in. in Orange, downtown Orange, on Short Street. It's from 8.30 to 1230. It's the Orange County Farmers Market. There's a new farmer's market also starting at the Jefferson School for African American Heritage over, not sure which street it's on, but it's right across the street from Staples down in downtown Charlottesville. It'll be every other Sunday starting August 17th from 930 to 130.

And so we're going to start out with that as well, this coming, or in two Sundays. So on the 17th of August, you can find us there. Awesome, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Best of luck. Thanks so much. And I wish you best. Yeah, good luck with those squash bugs and the tomatoes.

I'll see you in a couple weeks with one of your prize-winning tomatoes. Yeah, we'll put in a good word for example. We had on the show, so we kind of transition from August to the end of that was. I know you learned a lot probably. No, I did. I did. Well, you know, so, you know, sometimes there's a lot of. of things you read on the internet, right? And sometimes you wonder, is this good, not good,

whatever? So it's nice to talk to somebody actually does it and has the experience because you say, all right, so maybe I'm doing this wrong, you know? So it was wonderful. Yeah. This is what I love about today, mania. We get to meet people like Kendall and now we have two other guests that are also going to explain to us what they do. And as always, I'm just, you know, awed by what the talent people have and the things that they do. that they kind of get into, you know, because I know, you know, for sure Kendall looks that she's very passionate about her produce, and we were just talking to Hank and Russ beforehand, and they seemed very passionate about the Seville Soundcheck.

Absolutely, yeah, and I'm curious what that old that is. Exactly, so why wait any longer? So we're happy to be joined by Russ and Hank from Seville Soundshed. Thank you guys for coming on the show and joining us. Thank you, gentlemen. Shout out to Kendall. I learned so much about our garden. Yeah.

And like you, our tomatoes are not working this year. Oh, okay. Thank you. I think it's just me. You guys, you guys are commemorating in misery, right? Yeah. I love my tomatoes. Yeah, me too. Yeah, everybody's complaining because we try to grow up the whole family and everybody's like, you know. Why don't we got tomatoes? Yeah, they're all yelling at me. I said, how about some help? Yeah, it's a step. For some reason, they're just not taken off. It's strange. But, you know, that's why Kendall's the expert and everyone else is the hobbyist, right?

Exactly. You can get her to tomatoes. Yeah, exactly. Head to Lampo. Yeah, he's not. So before we kind of get started, tell us a little bit about yourselves and kind of what inspired you to start Seville Soundcheck.

Yeah, so we started Seville Soundcheck six months ago or so to really cover the music scene here in Charlottesville. We have gone to shows for years and very into music. And we were like, why don't we just start kind of sharing the love of what we are blessed with here in Charlestville as far as music goes? and it also gave us the opportunity to remember all the shows that we went to it was kind of a form of memory care

because we would go to so many shows and just some of them you just don't really remember you're like what set did they play and now we remember everything but it really came from a sense of gratefulness to have the music community that we have in Charlottesville just this area in general

punches way above its weight in terms of the music scene, the quality of the scene, the creativity of the scene, the cohesiveness of it. And we just wanted, it was really a way to say thank you as much as anything and to feel like we were part of something. Yeah, what makes Charlotte was such a great music scene? Because like you guys have mentioned, it feels like everywhere there's always somebody playing a lot of music.

We've talked about it and we want to talk to the community more about it. The sense that we have is that there's something magic in the Blue Ridge up there, I mean, if you think about the Blue Ridge from Harrisonburg all the way down southwest to where the carters are from, the mountain music and sort of the birth of country

music to a certain extent has taken place in our mountains. And I think it continues to be sort of this just productive ground for creativity. Yeah, for sure. I have a UVA

here obviously attracts a certain type of, you know, person and artist. We have great venues in this town. There's a bunch of them, not even in town itself, but like in the area. You know, and like Hank said, you know, there's a lot of local talent, a ton of local talent. But then we also have the opportunity to have bigger national acts come in with Ting, even that to Jefferson, JPJ. Yeah, so it's great to have the real mix of the big name accident also, like this amazing town that we have here in town.

Yeah, it is pretty amazing for a small town. I mean, Charlestville, you know, obviously when the university is here, it feels a little bigger, but when the students aren't here, it feels pretty small, right? But for a small town, you know, the music, the art, you know, what it brings to the table, and obviously, UAE is part of it, it is amazing. It is amazing. I mean, I'm originally from New York, and I tell people in New York, as it, granted, the quality may not be exactly the same, but, you know, we go to symphonies, we go to the opera, you know, there's the music scene, right, the restaurants.

It just seems like for a small town, you have what big cities have without the traffic and the headache and all, everything else like that. It's just a really great place to live, I think. And to your point, UVA, they do such a great job of hanging on to people that graduate from there. There's so many people that stay in town, and a lot of those people are musicians. We cover bands and go see bands where they're actually, you know, it's not what you would think. We're starving artists. they're people that are gainfully employed

have, you know, pretty significant careers, but they love music and they're able to play out and enjoy that part of their life as well. So how do you guys kind of figure out what performance you want to go watch? Because there's so many, I mean, you can't see them all. Like, how do you kind of figure out, okay, I want

this Thursday, I want to go see this one, this Friday, I can see that. We talk amongst each other. We have similar tastes. We try to push ourselves out of our comfort spots, but we also have to be authentic to what we know. It wouldn't be right for us to be talking about styles of music

while we may support them but if we're not well versed in it, you know, obviously it's not going to be right for us to be writing about it. But we just have the locals that we love and we have you know, we share some quirks in what we like and we go

by our taste and you know we sort of we go to what we want to see. We do a lot of research so we're not going to see a lot of of bands where we're really not sure what we're going to get. And when we started this from the beginning, we're just like, you know, our mom has taught us, you don't say anything bad about anybody. So we're just not going to write, if we can't say something nice,

we're not going to say anything at all. But that's never happened. You've never not found joy in performances that we see. And it's important. It's important. I was going to be able to go to a particular event that you already know, you have a feel that you're going to like it. that's important because the goal of

you know if you go somewhere where it's like I don't like that kind of music let's see then you go they go I just kind of yeah but isn't it good to sometimes open your horizon so because if you never experience it's true but I was too yeah but listen

we've talked about this right I mean you're still young so you're still exploring but like me it's like my son he loves classical music but he loves like the whole spectrum of classical music doesn't mean and there are some pieces and it's like I mean that just doesn't feel me right so I listen to

the classics that I really like. I'll listen over and over, and he says, well, why don't you explain? I said, because at this point, right, I've got this much life to live and to spend one hour listening, something's like, I really didn't like that. I rather Yeah, you do. It's like, I'd rather

go somewhere where I already know I'm going to like it, and granted, yeah, I'm not experimenting anymore, and I'm not maybe burning my horizon, but, you know, you come to a point sometimes with life, it's like, I just know that I'm going to enjoy it, and therefore I want to go there and do that, right? And so I'm not saying that that's what

you guys are, but I'm just saying if you're going to, like you said, if you're going to write about something, right? Every once in a while, it's like, yeah, I think I'll just, I know I enjoy this kind of music. Let me go here and see. We do push ourselves to get out of our comfort space. And we don't think exactly the same thing. I'm very much, I was raised on sort of, you know, traditional country music. I'm from the southern Midwest. Okay. So I grew up on Outlaw Country. and the Carter's, you know, the beginnings. And Russ is more sort of, he's younger, obviously,

but he's kind of more into the heavier stuff. Yeah, I grew up in New Jersey. Oh, New Jersey, okay. In New York City, right? So, like, I spent a lot of time on a train going into the city to see bands. Yeah, so definitely started, I started more in, like, you know, in the 80s with, like, hair metal,

and then it kind of moved, you know, into, you know, some punk and rock. But it's interesting, again, like, here in Charlottesville, like you know we're based Charlesville is based in like Americana and bluegrass right but you know I've grown to really love that

you know like I met my wife five years ago she's a very big country music fan and at the time I was not very much into country music in general right and it's really opened up my eyes to what country music really is like you know you think about country music

being one thing and it's actually giant right like it's like anything else there's so many different subgenres and artists and everything so I think going back to your question like when we try to understand or pick shows that we're going to go to, it's just kind of like, all right, what's out there? Let's check it all out, right?

And I think since we've started this, even for somebody like me who's gone to a ton of shows over the years, it really opened up the possibilities in town, like the smaller venues or the smaller artists or going out to like Beatsville Market, for example. You know, that's a place that I hadn't ever been to you before, and you go out there and you catch a show there, you're like, well, this place has some magic in it.

And I think that's the thing that we're also trying to share with everybody else. like, you know, so if we go to a lot of shows and we didn't even know these certain things exist, then you know, probably many of the population around here also feels the same way or has the same experience. Because I also notice in the website you always talk about trying to connect like the

performance with the audience and kind of stuff like that performer with the audience, kind of what's that like at Seville Sound Check where you kind of like trying to give those who were kind of reading your blog like the whole spectrums like this is like, you talk about just based on marketing, you said like the atmosphere or something like that was like really great.

Yeah, so when we started, it started a lot with words, writing, right? That's where it is, our foundation is writing about these bands. And so I think being able to kind of tell that story is something we feel that we have some skill at, but then it's also kind of evolved to more than just words. So, you know, we're doing more video and that sort of thing now to really, you know, give a full experience to the fan or our reader, a listener, or watcher, whatever we're going to call it, to really understand what that experience was. I think we believe so much in the scene here

and so much in these individual bands and the people in these bands and their creativity that we feel like the best thing we can do for the audience who's casual all the way to kind of virulent supporters of the scene is just to provide them with as much information about the bands as possible. And so we're really in service to the bands. Right.

That's what we kind of, in a weird way, we work for these bands. That's what's on our mind. What's the best thing we can do for them? When we, Russ, spoke to the writing, we try to really push ourselves to capture the essential truth of a performance, not just when you tend to read what critics do, it's they either like it or they don't. They tell you the set list.

They kind of give you the specifics, and they're in and out on the page. We can go on as long as we want. You know, it's a blob. We write and write and write and they're long. And, you know, you can read as much of it as you want. But capturing that magic that exists in Batesville market, or, I mean, especially in Dirty Nellies. I mean, I've said this before. Dirty Nellies is the CBGBs of Charlottesville.

It's the core 100% beating hard. And why do you feel that way? I think it gets back to the mountain. Okay. It's kind of where it was the official kind of home meeting place of Nelson County, of Charlottesville, of just sort of the musicians in the area. And it still is. I think I can't remember the gentleman's name, but thank God he saw, had the foresight to buy Dirty Nellies when it was kind of maybe going to go out of business or not during COVID. and he kept it pretty much the same

but one thing he did was he brought Cota Curl from Camamill and Whiskey in to kind of run the book there and they make it real hard to go other places on some nights their book is so good we end up there even we'll come downtown to a show and we usually end up at Dirty Nellies

like for light night music because it's amazing and also Dirty Nellies has magic in it we keep talking about magic but you know bands sound sound amazing there. Like, you know, there's something about that space, you know, that just really makes it sound. We wrote about it in the last one. The last one we just put up, which was Dirty Nellie's birthday party. It was on Monday night, and they were, had some great, had a great

night. Wild Bill and the bruisers from Nashville were kind of the main act, and they were, you know, kind of honky-tong, nanny kind of, you know, rockabilly, and they were great. And then Jesse Fisk, whose current band is Jesse's house. And he kind of has a rotating cast come in, and he had Coda play lead guitar with him. And they were just fantastic. And I talked to Cota after the show. It's like, I kind of got it down to, it's the ceiling tile. It's that old nasty acoustic ceiling tile.

It's the roughsawn oak on the walls and the space between the boards breaks up the sound. And I have that same oak. I have a friend that has a mill down. in Nelson Albemarle County line where my hunting property is. And so my building is lined with that oak the same way, and it's a metal building. So it should sound awful when you play and record it in there, but that oak just does something. So it's in the bricks. It's in the sweat.

It's in the blood. It's in the soul that all these musicians and their parents and their grandparents left behind to them. and we're just, you know, we just felt very lucky, and that's why we did what we did. Someone wanted to kind of, like, explore the music scene. What would be, I mean, obviously, Dury knows it's going to be the easy answer at this point, because generally, but where are, like, kind of, like, the three places or the three bands that you say, hey, if you want to. First thing, start reading our blog regularly all the time.

There you got it. But it'll help you get a sense of what bands maybe you want to see. Another thing that Russ put together recently, and it's just very lunchbox thing on the web, website. But he's built a spreadsheet that we can import into the site every month that has all the shows in town. Oh, wow. That's very cool. But 90% of the shows are some brewery and winery stuff that it's just, it gets so granular. The list wouldn't be meaningful to have everything. But we do support that. But you can go to the show's page on our site, first of all, and see who's playing where. But, I mean, I would keep an eye on Dirty Nellys. I would keep an

on Batesville Market. I would certainly look at the Southern and the Jefferson. I personally like small venues, and so I love those places. Southern is another place. They're chock full of shows right now, and it's just great space also sounds great. It's the right size. Yeah, and it's interesting, too, because we talk to the bands, and especially here in the city of Charlottesville, there seems to be a progression from venue to venue.

you like this they start off this when you first start at maybe rapture right on this small stage at rapture and then the southern would be your next step and then Jefferson is the next step and then potentially tang if you get that big right so that's kind of the progression of like you know a band making it and all those places are amazing but definitely like like like like the southern dirty nellies those are kind of art you tell us what you like we'll get your email and you tell us what you like and we'll send you a couple shows to go to and help you find something that you want to go see but the main thing you is just you're already in it right

you love live music I can tell and classical music I've been to not as much you know not nearly as much but it is overwhelming and beautiful and just such an experience to see that many people doing something that well going in the same

direction and you get the same thing with five musicians on a stage and a band and that work together that almost live together that you know really are grinding it out in this day and age spending 40 hours, 50 hours a week on your content. Do you know what I mean? It's a huge job that they undertake. The one thing that I have to say is that when you listen to live music, right, first of all,

there's nothing like it, right? I mean, even in today's world, I mean, the CDs, you know, or what's the other thing that you just get right? Stream. Yeah, Spotify. Yeah, you can stream everything and put into beautiful headsets and it sounds, but you go live music. There's nothing like it. Second of all, you know, yeah, the passion of what you're talking about, I mean, so it's a little different. And you guys, you know, when you have a group of four or three guys or two guys, there's a different passion there. When you go to a symphony, you know, the passion is a little more muted in a sense, right, in a sense that's so many musicians, right? But what I really like about, you know, when you go to, you know, life events is that, one, the voices come clear, right? The instruments, you just listen to the instruments, especially like, you know, we're talking about symphony, so many instruments.

And once in a while you go, so that's the sound right there. You just, you pick it up, you know, whatever that composer wanted to create, you pick it up. Because sometimes in your headset, it's just, yeah, it's beautiful, but you're not picking up the individuals. And seeing the individuals play the music and seeing, you know, it's just, you just feel, you feel alive, you know. And so what you guys do is, I think it's just awesome to be able to go to a website, right? And I can see, by the way you speak, you're writing, I haven't been able, I haven't gone there, so I don't know, but you're writing must be awesome. So to be able to read what you guys write about a particular band, I mean, that has to be fantastic because it's like, you know, it's like, wow, that's the kind

of band I want to go see. So then it's like, okay, where are they playing? This is nice to have a place in Seville Soundcheck that it's like, let's be honest, there's so many live shows, even sometimes I get overwhelmed. It's like, where do you want to go? You're like, oh my gosh, there's one here, then there's one here. To just have a place where it's like, I could kind of get a general feel, just listening or reading whatever Hank and Russ kind of wrote about, okay, these are these, some of those bands, okay, here's some of the venues, and now it could kind of, a little easier to now pick and choose

where exactly I want to spend my Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, or a weeknight. Yeah, especially I have that spreadsheet. I mean, it's like Yeah. Yeah, I think it's going to help a lot of people kind of map out. Depending on how many shows, maybe you go to two or three shows a year, maybe you do ten shows a year,

just whatever you, however you want to plan your showgoing thing is. And we do, it's iterative, we add to it as it goes, along because some places like Dirty Nellies or like Superfly on Preston is doing music now, they may

not put out, and it's awesome, it's like finding an Easter egg, they may not put out something until a couple three days before it's going to happen. So you've got to stay on top of it. And it's, yeah, I think it gets back to anything we can do to help

the bands and sort of push and elevate you know, is what we want to do. That's amazing. I take my head up to you guys. I mean, you came up with an idea that I think is fabulous. It really is. I mean, like I said, both for the bands, because it really helps them, right, in the sense of people now learn a little bit more about these particular bands through your writing. And to the people that go go listen, I mean, to be able to go to a website and say, wow, this is exactly what I like. You know, these guys just captured how I feel

about a particular band, you know, you don't have to just go around and say, I'm hoping this is good. A lot of these bands, too, like, you can tell me name of a band, I won't have no idea what the music even sounds like. At least not going to go to those people sounds, you could be like, oh, okay, this is kind of what they're saying. Yeah, you can get a good idea sort of. And like I said, hit us up. We'll tell you what we got this

month that we think you'll like if you give us a little bit of shade on it. But honestly, to see something that happened, we saw it both this morning. It's so, it just fills our heart. there's a band that's been around for a while in Charlottesville called Lord Nelson that we love. They kind of had been out touring for a couple of years.

And then we found out that their front man, Kai Crow Getty, was making a solo album and had been working on it for a while. So he kind of went off to do that, and the rest of the band went off to do a metal project that they've been doing. And you talk about that, and I'll talk about Kai. Let me just finish on Kai. Then you do, Uga, but Kai made a fantastic record. I mean, a record that knocked the wind out of us when we saw the release party, which he had Jenna Matthews, who's also from Charlottesville,

but she lives in Nashville now. She kicked the night off. She's a fantastic singer-songwriter. Then one of our favorites, I call her one of my adopted grandbabies, was Rebecca Porter, who's a honky-tonker, a Pacific Islander she's from the Valley she's fantastic

her stuff everything she does just looks perfect for what she does she went off second and then Kai played and we had been listening to the record a lot and really believed in it and it's held up I've been listening to a lot since this was what six weeks ago

a month ago? Probably yeah this morning we got up to find out that Goldmine magazine just loved the record and gave Kai a really great review. And, you know, we're not in the business of that. That's not what we do. We're not critics, and we don't try to maintain that.

Well, we don't like some things. We do like other things so you can trust our predicness, you know, because we're pretty in favor of. But to wake up this morning and see the community in general and one of our favorite sons specifically to really earn those kind of props just like makes it all worth it. And then you can talk on the other side of the band now. Yeah, yeah.

So the guitarist and the bassist from Lord Nelson joined up with the drummer and they did a metal band called Oogabuga, who we saw, I guess, two weeks ago, at the Southern. And it was an amazing show, right? So, like, you could see, like, these bands where Lord Nelson is not a metal band. You know, they're more like a party.

Nelson County, Nelson County, right? Southern Rock, you know, Americana. Yeah, and then you go see Uga Buga, who's, you know, they call themselves like a rock metal band. Different style, but they just blew the roof off the place. You know, so it's just so fun to be able to, you know, see these different artists do different things and different ways. And speaking of both of those bands, Lord Nelson and Uga Buga, there is a music festival in Charlestville in September. It's a Charlottesville-based music festival called Rec Fest. It's over at the Ix Park, September 19th and 20th.

Is it 20th and 21st or 19th and 20th? Yeah. that weekend. That weekend. Saturday and Sunday. Between 19 and 21st. Saturday and Sunday. So in all the bands there, I think there's 17 different bands.

Wow. And they're all from Charlottesville. They're all Charleston-based bands. So, you know, the Ryan from Discovery Skye is kind of like running the whole thing. So Discoveriske, another Charleston-based band, obviously, playing both Saturday and Sunday night as kind of the headliner. Lord Nelson will be there. Oogabogo would be there.

there a whole bunch of these. Get your tickets now because honestly it's going to be a riot. It's incredibly affordable. So it's very inclusive. It's not, you know, if you think of some of these festivals out in the country have gotten really expensive. I mean, Russ and I were looking at, well, maybe we should cover Floyd Fest or something. And we probably will next year. But to get that ticket, the full weekend pass with the parking or the camping pass and the whole thing, it's a chunk of change. And this is, I think you can get a whole weekend pass for. 40, 50 bucks, including the after-hours show.

And you're going to want to do the after-hours thing, you know, like taking that afternoon, you and I. And you don't have to go back to your tent, you know, in a campsite. You can go back to your house and see what in your bed. Right, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. So you better. Yeah.

Good one, Russ. Good getting. No, but that's a great thing about Charlesville, what you mentioned, too. I mean, first of all, the ticketed events aren't that pricey compared to whatever you find as well. They also do a lot of events where it's like, it's actually. free like at the venue you just gonna go there you have a beer the music's free always remember to tip the artist when it's free yeah it kind of gets past you

sometime even even when we're sitting there shooting it and kind of working we'll forget but you know they're working so hard and they're selling merch and you know they're playing if you look at somebody like kendall street company who really is good at the at the pound and ground you know ground and pound or whatever you want to call it you know the social media They play everywhere in every iteration, you know, as a full band, as two, as one of them or whatever. But they are working so hard. So if you drop a five or a ten or a twenty, if you really felt great about the show, man, that goes a long way.

I mean, if you just buying gas to get the equipment so they can load out and load out, you know. I appreciate that. That's a good tip, yeah. So before we let you guys go, where can people find you? the website, kind of Instagrams, Facebooks, all that stuff. Yeah, so our website is C-bill Soundcheck.com.

So that's where you can go read the blog, check out the show's page. See a handsome picture of Hank. We're also on Instagram and Facebook. It'll be a rush now. He jests. Instagram and Facebook,

both the Seaville Soundcheck. So follow us there. Instagram is kind of sort of, that's our megaphone. That's where the bands are, so that's where we are. Yeah, that's the big one. Okay.

So that's kind of where you'll see us talk to most. Ross, Hank, thank you both so much. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. It's great to talk to music fans and gardening fans. Yeah, listen, we have a lot of likes, yeah. Yeah. Listen, the most important thing is we enjoy doing this mostly because of people like you, right?

In other words, like I said, you know, when I see what people do and, you know, today, because of the technology, you know, between podcasts and, and blogs, et cetera, and the passion you guys bring to this, I mean, that's what, that's what I love because you can just see it. And it's helpful, again, it's helpful to the bands and it's helpful just to the people that want to listen. And, I mean, anything that you can help the community to enjoy what Charlesville has, I think it's fantastic. So thank you guys. Thanks, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. Wow. That was, that was, that's amazing. Really, I mean, it's, because, you know, I mean, as you know, I don't, I don't do any research I come here. I just kind of wing it, as they always say.

So, Seville, Soundcheck, I said. Seville. Seville. Seville. Seville. Seville. Seville. Seville. Well, that's why I like, Seville, Seville. Sound check. You know, I would have said, what is exactly do they do? And so to learn what they do, and like, like, I said, you can just see the passion in their, in their voice and then, you know, what they do is fantastic. No, and we always love when we have guests who come and, like, help out the community. because that's what it's all about. And this was perfect. I mean, you have one that likes to feed people

and the other one likes to, you know, the spirit. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. You know, so it was, I think it was a great show. I enjoyed it very, very much. I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed being here with you. Well, same thing, yeah, same thing here.

It's always great to have you on the show. As always, a big thank you to our sponsor, Emergent Financial Services. And our leading sponsor, Emergent Financial Services, our sponsors, Matisseon, Realty, Shaltis, for Opera, Faba. Always, big thank you to the I Love Seville Studio for having us. And one more thing, because I forgot to begin. Don't forget to like and share.

And subscribe. And subscribe. There you are. And then a big thank you for Judah behind the camera, being with all the guests, you know, taking photos, trying to make Xavier me look the best we can. It's a tough, tough gig, but, you know, hopefully. Some day it's going to have the ability to change how we look. The AI, go to AI.

Make Exhibia Michael Handsome. Yeah. I was like, man, these guys for today and a whole guy. They'll make us look like, can we cavil? Hey, that's me. And then you meet somebody who are you?

You're in one of what? That's the new thing about. It's like, you know, and like, they amps and stuff like that. It's like the photo never looks like actor the person. Exactly. Yeah.

It would be like constantly like, hey, I saw your photo on the show, but you don't look like that. Really? No, I think I kind of look like that. It's my bill? Yeah, yeah. But as always,

always thank you to our audience members watching again for what you with Xavier Vermeer and not very technologically savvy so well that's not true you are you just don't don't I don't have a Facebook I know that's what I did all you I mean you that doesn't mean that's not how you use it yeah I know exactly you know but thank you as always to all our viewers and those who commented and like the show thank you to yeah and to everybody and our two fantastic guests we look forward to seeing you next time but until that then. Asa manana. Thank you.