Angelich aces it with a little help from her friends.
There are record release shows and then there are Charlottesville record release shows where half the room has played in a band with the artist, is related to someone in the band, has dated someone in the band, mixed the record, loaned someone in the band a guitar, or at minimum once split mozzarella sticks with them at 1 a.m. after a show at Miller’s.
The Southern Cafe and Music Hall hosted the Cville variety on May 16 as Alex Angelich celebrated the release of Obsessive Thoughts to a packed house of friends, family, fans, collaborators, and fellow musicians. It was a major bucket list accomplishment delivered with a bow a day before her 39th Birthday.
And I, the Mysterious Jon, stepped in to cover this anxiously awaited show in the void left by Old Hank ferreting out his own band’s work in Nelson county and Bazz beginning work on a new project which this blog will describe in days to come. So here we go…
The Cville support began immediately as Debra Guy’s 7th Grade Girl Fight and Devon Sproule’s New BOSS set the table for Alex’s Obsessiveness to come. Both these bands deserve digital ink in their own right, not just for knocking down killer sets, but for the impact they have on the local music ecosystem. 7GGF’s quality, longevity and inspiration for our punk scene is concrete. And Sproule, in her many various projects as well as her work at the Front Porch is a local treasure and inspiration to all who walk the path to our stages.
But the night belonged to Angelich, who spent the last 2–3 years assembling Obsessive Thoughts, an album she described as being fueled by a lifetime battle with anxiety and “things that probably aren’t true.” Which, honestly, may also describe the internal monologue of anyone trying to parallel park on the Downtown Mall on a Saturday night.
Curiously, for someone whose songs revolve around anxiety, she handles a stage with at least the appearance of a wicked amount confidence.
Alex — known to all of us as the bass player for Adam's Plastic Pond (who also backs local legends like Kai Crowe Getty and promising upstarts such as Patrick James) — stepped out front playing both keyboards and guitar, something she admitted she hadn’t done publicly in quite some time. She looked entirely at ease doing it, which was both reassuring and deeply unfair to the rest of us. This was after a bit of skepticism on translating synth heavy alt pop to a stage performance which went beautifully, much of the credit was gladly given by Alex to the band — mostly the boys from APP who again, provided the S word (support, silly).
And if that wasn’t enough, Marie Borgman of Chamomile and Whiskey contributed throughout the set, a day after killin’ it with Koda and the boys at Fa5. By the final song, both Devon Sproule and Debra Guy had joined as backing vocalists, turning the stage into something close to a family reunion where everyone happened to be exceptionally talented.
The set itself unfolded almost like an annotated diary.
“Never Find You” opened the evening before giving way to “I Can Dance Alone,” introduced as a song about lying to yourself — a topic that pairs nicely with both anxiety and modern adulthood. “Mr. Stranger” came with an apology to her mother regarding a fleeting romance on Angelich’s 18th birthday “when there were no consequences,” which feels like exactly the sort of statement that inevitably precedes consequences.
“Control” nearly didn’t make the album at all, only surviving because another song was abandoned. Angelich noted it had originally been intended for a future album, while casually mentioning Obsessive Thoughts might be her “first and last” album. TMJ sincerely hopes that was a joke since the quality was so high.
Mid-set, Angelich performed “Not About You” solo, introducing it with the clarification that it is “not not about you,” a phrase destined to immediately strike fear in every former partner within a 50-mile radius.
“Tell Me,” a standout and favorite of Mrs. TMJ, brought back only the backup vocalists and centered on forgiveness without forgetting — one of the evening’s quieter moments, though no less affecting.
The full band returned for the closing stretch: “Selfish Lover,” which began as an attempt to write about body language before revealing itself to actually be about projection; “Water Song,” centered on fear; and finally “Trust the Process,” the album’s single release and perhaps its clearest meditation on recovery and mental health.
Angelich closed the evening by asking everyone to stay exactly where they were so she could hug every single person in attendance. TMJ and Mrs. TMJ, naturally, were forced to leave immediately in order to preserve the fragile illusion of anonymity upon which my participation in this (at times ludicrous) operation depends.
Still, it was hard not to linger for a moment at the back of the room and appreciate what Charlottesville’s music scene always does at its best: show up for one another loudly, fully, and maybe just a little anxiously.
