The Emmett Robinson Theatre at the College of Charleston isn’t as grand or historic as other festival venues, but it makes a tremendous spot for world-class performances that need a more intimate space — the theatre has only 310 seats.

I’ve seen several flat-out tremendous shows at the Emmett Robinson Theatre in recent years, including a performance by the Australian physical theater troupe Gravity & Other Myths, Dean and Britta’s “13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests”, and Haydnâ€s marionette opera Philemon and Baucis, staged by the Colla Marionette Company with live singers and musicians in the small orchestra pit.

Ever since I first entered the Emmett Robinson Theatre, I’ve felt the lack of a similar space in the downtown area of Savannah. SCAD’s theatre in Crites Hall falls far short, and the small auditoria at the Jepson and at the SCAD Museum of Art are simply different categories of spaces. With adequate time and care, the Charles H. Morris Center can be a solid venue for musical performances of various types, but it’s not a theatre.

For years, the plan has been that Savannah’s long-delayed, long-promised Cultural Arts Center would have a 500-seat theatre. If designed well, that space would almost certainly be used for world-class performances during the Savannah Music Festival, and it’s easy to imagine a variety of other music programmers utilizing the space, including the Savannah Jazz Festival, Coastal Jazz Association, MusicFile Productions (parent company of Savannah Stopover and Revival Fest), and a variety of course of theatre companies. Imagine the other opportunities too, for cultural programming related to the Savannah Black Heritage Festival, the Savannah Irish Festival, the Savannah Dance Festival, and other groups.

Imagine also the possibilities for city-produced plays as part of ongoing arts initiatives — remember the big summer musicals that the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs used to produce?

The 500-seat theatre was just one component of the new center, which has been approved by voters for Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax Funding. I could go on and on about the missteps in planning, funding, site selection, and other areas, and I even wrote an entire column arguing that the handling of the project has been a metaphor for city government dysfunction.

In 2014, city officials seemed on track to finally produce an excellent facility (even if we had long ago abandoned the original idea to build the center on MLK so that it would be a catalyst for private investment). From the city’s blog (with emphasis added):

The new Cultural Arts Center will be one of the most technologically advanced buildings in Savannah to meet modern performance needs. It was designed with significant input from Savannahâ€s cultural arts community, and will feature a 500-seat theater, a flexible 125-seat performance space with removable seats, and dedicated performing arts classrooms, visual arts studios and gallery space. The various uses will radiate from a central multi-story rotunda, that will serve as the Centerâ€s focal point. The outside will include a piazza and park-like setting, suitable for outdoor events and classes.

And then the project ran over budget, then the building was scaled down and the larger theatre was eliminated and the black box space enlarged. Now, black box/flexible spaces can be tremendous in their own right (like the monumental Memminger Auditorium in Charleston), but they pose all sorts of obstacles to the kind of programming that a traditional theatre could host. City Manager Stephanie Cutter insisted in public statements that the design had not been significantly compromised, but SMF head Rob Gibson — presumably one of those cultural arts leaders who gave input into the project — joined Lisa Grove from the Telfair Museums and Daniel Carey from Historic Savannah Foundation in criticizing the changes. I’ll embed their joint letter here:

In other words, rather than make deep compromises to the structure and program, let’s explore chances for private, corporate, and philanthropic funding to bridge the funding gap.

The SMN editorial page subsequently questioned the plans for the Cultural Arts Center, and in my latest Sunday City Talk, I have expressed hope that the newly elected mayor and council will hit the pause button on this project.

We need to stop and rethink the final design if for no other reason than the city manager’s public statements are so wildly contradicted by leaders of the city’s leading arts nonprofits.

Every music lover had a unique experience in March, but just consider a few of the shows, performers, and events.

March started with Band of Horses’ acoustic performance at Trustees Theater — amazing. Click here for a short review and some photos. That link will take you, by the way, to the music blog hissing lawns, where I and some other contributors are routinely posting music news and photo galleries.

We also have a pretty active Facebook page for hissing lawns. Please go give it a like if you want regular updates about the local and regional music scene. Facebook continues to be a critical driver of traffic for small blogs like hissing lawns and Savannah Unplugged. (You can like Savannah Unplugged on Facebook by clicking on the box at the top of the sidebar on the right.)

After BOH’s great show, we went right into Savannah Stopover. We have tons of posts and galleries at hissing lawns about Stopover, but readers of this blog might especially be interested in some of the reviews from out-of-town critics, a few of which I excerpted in one post. Among the highlights of the festival: St. Paul and The Broken Bones, Those Darlins, The Weeks, Future Islands, Big Ups, Oberhofer, Small Black, and on and on.

The outdoor music planned for St. Patrick’s Day was significantly compromised by the weather and the timing of a Monday parade, but I have been generally critical of the whole notion that we need to charge downtown visitors for wristbands so that we can fund lots of stages. Still, there was certainly some good music to be found over that long weekend.

Anyway, moving on: the Savannah Music Festival — now in its 25th year (about half of those years as Savannah Onstage) — is having another stellar year.

I’ve seen five shows — all sellouts:

• The Avett Brothers
• Asif Ali Khan
• Punch Brothers
• Jason Isbell
• Preservation Hall Jazz Band

By the way, I bought two tickets each to Punch Brothers and the Avetts, and I use a press pass to get into some of the general admission shows.

All 5 of those shows were tremendous productions, although I don’t know if I’ll go see The Avett Brothers again unless they get some more great music out there. As I noted in my Unplugged column in Do a couple of days ago, I think the band’s best work is now a few years old. And now that they’re headed deep into their 30s, the Avetts won’t be able to rely quite as much on that young, sexy vibe that helped them get where they are.

Punch Brothers, on the other hand . . . it’s too bad in a way that the five members all seem to have other projects being juggled simultaneously. One wonders just how good they’d be if they devoted their full attention to such a rich project. Led by Chris Thile — who on stage has sort of a seductive slitheriness that seems like a combination of Jude Law and Frank Gorshin’s The Riddler — the band wowed the audience at Trustees last Saturday night from start to finish.

I wrote a short review of Jason Isbell’s show for hissing lawns, and I have a bit more to say about the wonderful, vibrant performance by Asif Ali Khan and his ensemble in my City Talk column tomorrow (Sunday).

And note that both Do and Connect are providing extensive and excellent SMF coverage on pretty much a daily basis.

So tonight I have tickets to Taj Mahal. A legend. John Simon is opening, in what promises to be an interesting and idiosyncratic walk through pop history.

And tomorrow I have tickets for an afternoon show with Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn. Yes.

Taj Mahal is sold out, as are the two shows today by Kristina Train and Pokey LaFarge that I plugged on hissing lawns, and Fleck/Washburn is close to sold out, but it can’t hurt to check the Savannah Box Office website or just show up at the venues.

So, anyway, what more could one want from a month of music in a city the size of Savannah? There have been some great club dates too — both by touring acts and by musicians based here.

If you’ve been following Savannah’s restaurant and bar scene in recent years, you might know the space through any number of businesses that have come and gone: The Sparetime, 606, Fernando’s, Savannah Steak House, Yoshi’s, others only on the second floor like Adagio, and probably even others that I’m forgetting.

Now there’s another restaurant and bar opening there: Ampersand. For this coming weekend, it will only be open as the artists’ lounge for Savannah Stopover, so I’m not quite sure when it will be fully open to the public or when I will be writing in depth about it in one of my City Talk columns.

Unlike most other businesses in the space over the years, Ampersand plans to use all three levels regularly. From the Facebook page:

We specialize in craft beer & cocktails, with a full service restaurant providing fresh, locally-sourced organic ingredients, as well as a music venue and bar on the second floor. Third floor loft space is available for gallery exhibitions, private events, and catering. We also offer outdoor seating, a late-night food window, and a continually rotating selection of local art.

I’ll have more news soon. I bought a VIP ticket for Stopover, so I’m certainly looking forward to checking out the new space right away.

In past years, I wrote a lot about Savannah Stopover here on Savannah Unplugged, but that activity is now at hissing lawns.

Click here to see all of our most recent posts about the 3-day indie music festival that has transformed the city’s national reputation as a music destination.

DoSavannah is also filled with Stopover coverage this week, and my Unplugged column — Hard to go wrong with Stopover choices — suggests a “sample itinerary” for the festival. Click here to see Connect Savannah’s previews of this year’s festival.

And click here to go straight to the Stopover website, where you can see the lineup, purchase passes and so forth.

In the wake of efforts by Savannah Rocks!, there has been considerable talk this winter about using rock and roll to unite various generations of musicians and music lovers. Well, here’s a chance for some of the older members of that movement to dive for three days into Savannah’s most vibrant venues, to hear some of Savannah’s young acts at local label showcases, and to catch some of the top up-and-coming indie acts from Brooklyn, Nashville, Baltimore, and other cities.

Hope to see a lot of my readers out this weekend at various venues. It’s a thrilling three days.

The Weeks will be headlining Saturday’s free evening concert in Ellis Square. Love “Brother in the Night”:

So there is already a post at hissing lawns, which is by the way named in honor of Joni Mitchell, about last night’s announcement of a few dozen bands that have been booked for the 2014 Savannah Stopover from March 6-8.

Stopover founder and CEO announced a few of the key names last night at The Jinx after an excellent set by Triathalon. The announcement was followed by more great music — from New Madrid and Futurebirds. I hope some of the sellout audience at The Jinx will support Stopover in the spring. The festival has brought a new edge to local music programming.

Here’s the list of bands, but you can find a little more info, plus some videos and photos, over at hissing lawns:

• Weekend
• Small Black
• Those Darlins
• Speedy Ortiz
• Public Service Broadcasting
• Matrimony
• The Weeks
• Tweens
• Ski Lodge
• Ex Hex
• Big UPS
• Starlight Girls
• Bear Hands
• Miniature Tigers
• St. Paul & The Broken Bones
• Caitlin Rose
• The Belle Game
• Hurray for the Riff Raff
• T Hardy Morris
• Pile
• You Won’t*
• Clear Plastic Masks
• Bleeding Rainbow
• ARP
• River Whyless*
• Los Colognes
• PitchBlak Brass Band
• Milagres*
• The Whiskey Gentry
• this mountain*
• Raccoon Fighter
• Weekender
• The Teen Age
• Easter Island
• Good Graeff
• Thomas Wynn & The Believers
• The Silver Palms

Bands marked with an *asterisk have played at previous Stopovers. Matrimony performed at Revival Fest at the Georgia State Railroad Museum a couple months ago.

I’ve been swamped with things to do at Armstrong — that’s a key reason I’ve been relatively quiet here.

And I’m also working in some fashion almost daily on developing the Savannah-based music blog hissing lawns, the name of which is obviously inspired by one of Joni Mitchell’s great albums.

So far, a total of six of us have contributed to the blog in its first 3+ weeks. Among other things, Larry Jack Sammons is doing weekly updates of his pretty incredibly music calendar, Kayne Lanahan of Savannah Stopover and Revival Fest profiled the international up-and-comer Woodkid, and I have posted photos of from the Savannah Jazz Festival and from a few other recent shows, including Saturday’s great gig at The Jinx featuring Little Tybee, Paleface, and Triathalon.

I hope to add some other contributors and beef up other areas of the content in the coming weeks.

The blog is definitely finding an audience that I don’t typically reach. It looks like about 40 percent of hissing lawns’ readers aren’t even among my 3,000+ friends on Facebook (ridiculous, huh?).

So if you frequently stop here to catch up on music offerings around town, it looks like a lot of that content — including my photos — will be migrating over to hissing lawns, which also has a Facebook page and a Twitter.

Traffic on hissing lawns in the first three weeks has been all over the place — from a low of 31 page views on a day that no new posts were made to a high of 195 (we actually might pass that today). Those are pretty modest numbers, but I’m sure other Savannah bloggers know how hard it is to generate traffic in niches in a relatively small city like ours.

So that’s what’s going on. Thanks to all the readers who have supported and continue to support this blog.

Cheers, Bill

That song and a few others by the iconic British band were played regularly in a dance club that I frequented back in the day in St. Louis. Whenever that song comes on the radio, even today, I turn it up and sing along.

But Modern English had and has a whole body of work in addition to that iconic single, and it was thrilling last night to enjoy their performance here, which was produced by MusicFile Productions, the parent company of Savannah Stopover and Revival Fest.

And it wasn’t just thrilling because of the nostalgia. Modern English played a tight set, seemed to enjoy their classics, threw in a few strong originals, and generally just tore it up for well over an hour in the hot and humid old warehouse space.

All that, and lead singer Robbie Grey wore a Tom of Finland t-shirt. (Bobby Zarem was even in the house.)

I took some pics:

They rocked out at Stopover ’13 and they’re coming back! Roadkill Ghost Choir was a fave for many and now’s your chance to catch them again.

Dead Confederate’s lead singer, T. Hardy Morris, is touring in support of his recently released debut solo album.

Roadkill Ghost Choir is from Deland, Florida. I love the edge in the lead vocals combined with the flat out great playing:

T. Hardy Morris just released Audition Tapes at the end of July.

This amazing video for “Share the Needle” was shot at Howard Finsterâ€s Paradise Garden in Summerville, Georgia, as part of Morris’ series spotlighting The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservationâ€s “Places in Peril”:

Other videos in the series can be seen on T. Hardy Morris’ website.

With so much going on the last couple of weeks, I haven’t heard much hype about this show, which is part of the MusicFile Productions summer series, but it sure might be a great one.