Music for Short People

You haven't lived until you've seen a Volvo played in a bakery.

Or perhaps it's just me who's impressed by such things.

I started with the opening of "Design 2012: A Retrospective of Winning Work" at the Virginia Center for Architecture.

It's an annual event and always a good opportunity to asses the state of architecture done by Virginia firms in the last year.

As always, the buildings are not limited to Virginia; there were winning buildings in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Montana and Florida.

But the ones that grab my attention inevitably are closer to home.

Like the Winkler Family Trust offices built at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria.

The architects preserved the views across old town Alexandria and the waterfront.

Nice enough, but even better, the owner's motorcycle hangs in the office. Now that was a nice touch.

Closer to home at UR, the Carole Weinstein International Center was a handsome Gothic-esque (but not copycat Gothic) building with a magnificent globe-topped fountain at the center of the interior courtyard.

There was a house built on a wooded hill overlooking the Potomac in the footprint of where a (no doubt smaller) house had formerly stood.

The new house had a suspended pool (who knew there was such a thing?) and the jury credited the architects with having created a sense of place in the woods.

I'm particularly curious about the historic preservation winners because it's so easy to fail when making additions or renovations to historically significant buildings.

Garrett Hall at UVA was originally designed by architecture god Stanford White in 1908 with a hideous 1959 conversion that surely made Mr. Jefferson spin in his grave.

The latest renovation had surely put T.J. to rest peacefully again.

One of the most interesting winners was not local, but the conversation brought it home.

It was the Riverwide Barbecue Pavilion in Yellowstone Bend Park in Montana.

Created by local response to nearby "unsightly suburbs" (is there any other kind?), the long building had been placed in the landscape for shelter with long views to the river and mountains.

It even had sliding barn doors for protection from strong winds.

As I was admiring the concept, if not the remote location, an architect walked up to me and began discussing it.

"A barbecue pavilion," he exclaimed, "What a great idea! Buzz and Ned's ought to do that."

But surely not on the Boulevard, I countered.

"Oh, yes. Tear down that building and do this instead!" he enthused.

I'll mention it to Buzz next time I see him.

But barbecue wasn't in the cards tonight, Tio Pablo was.

We took places at the bar and listened as our affable server told us the taco specials.

When she mentioned "barbacoa," we inquired about what it was.

Putting her finger over lip like a mustache, she replied, "Lips, the fatty part."

Who could resist lips passing our lips?

Along with beef tongue (still my all-time fave) and fish (tonight mahi mahi), we got sides of cactus with tomatoes and onions and guacamole ("It's spicy!" we were warned).

The barbacoa did have a satisfying amount of fat and was simply done with onions, cilantro and lime juice.

The tongue tacos, we decided, must be ordered in twos from here on out because sharing one is insufficient.

Too stuffed for dessert, we left to head up the hill.

Our destination was the soon-to-be-opened Sub Rosa Bakery for music.

Music at an unopened bakery, you say.

Sure, why not?

Owner Evrim was busy making flatbread with three kinds of toppings (the pepper paste smelled amazing) as the crowd slowly wandered in.

Not sure that I'd see anyone I knew, I was happily surprised to run into the poet who usually goes to bed early, the poet I'd seen read just last week and the scientist acknowledging that he should have been at home working on tomorrow's lesson plan.

Playing first was Gull and he came over to say hello beforehand but all I could say was, where's your hair?

After years of shoulder-length locks, he was newly shorn and looking very handsome.

"It was just time," he grinned before stating another of his tour-de-force sets.

Until you've seen him play guitar, drum and sing simultaneously, you really can't call yourself a Richmonder.

It was hot in the bakery because Evrim had his wood-burning oven fired up steadily making flatbreads for the masses (sadly, we were too full), so after Gull's set we went outside to cool down.

Some people headed across the street to the Roosevelt for a libation, but we just parked ourselves on the stoop and embraced the cooler air.

But when we heard the sound of homemade instruments, we bounded up so as to get good vantage points.

Playing tonight were Brooklyn duo Buke and Gass, whose distinctive sound and DIY ethic had landed them on NPR's Top 50 albums for 2010, not to mention a Tiny Desk concert for them, too.

Their name comes from their instruments: a gass is a guitar with three guitar strings and three bass strings with pickups for both sets to the appropriate heavy-duty amps.

And as if that's not cool enough, the body is made from a 1960s Volvo, and has the dents in it to prove it.

A buke is a baritone ukulele with six strings, effectively a tiny guitar.

Then there's the toe-bourine and a kick drum with noisemakers.

The pedal boards were truly impressive and for the first few songs, they were all some people could look at, marveling.

All told, it's a lot of sound coming out of two people, Arone on vocals, buke and toe-bourine and Aron on back-up vocals, gass and drum.

After the first song, Arone with her tiny pigtails, incited the crowd to move forward, closer to the band.

"Everyone move up, short people in front."

As those of us who qualify for short did as instructed, she beamed, "Short people represent!"

If only every band insisted on prime position for the vertically challenged.

The energy coming from them was terrific and Arone's voice occasionally reminded me of Karen O's with her distinctive wail.

At one point, they started a song and Aron went off-key, causing Arone to stop playing and singing and say, "That's like bad sex!"

They adjusted and restarted seamlessly. Easier than after bad sex.

At times hypnotic, often pure adrenaline, they played to a rapt crowd, even if we couldn't always hear the vocals clearly.

Come on, it's a bakery (and not even an open one for another month), not a venue.

As a further reminder of that, a glance over the counter during the encore revealed Evrim bent over a table in his white apron, busy making rolls? bread? something near the glowing oven.

As cars came around the traffic circle outside, their headlights shone through the big windows, and projected the shop's name onto the wall over the band.

The words "Sub Rosa" appearing and disappearing over a rollicking Brooklyn band was just the way to baptize a newcomer to Church Hill.

And the bread smelled amazing.

This town makes it so easy to have a good time, it's ridiculous.