January 13, 2018 (Saturday) - As Leonard Feather and Nat Hentoff were to jazz journalism of the 1950s and 1960s, so is Jessica Hopper to music journalism (rock and genres otherwise) of the 1990s and early 21st century. Jessica Hopper currently serves as the editorial director of music at MTV News. She has done duty as the editor-in-chief of the Pitchfork Review. She has penned pages for the Chicago Tribune, The Village Voice, SPIN, and GQ, to scratch but the surface of her written compendium. Hopper is the author of two books: The Girls' Guide to Rocking, and The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic. The latter was featured in the New York Times Review of Books. She has been interviewed by Newsweek and Time. More vaunted than all this, (and all that), in our eyes, is Hopper's unmitigated voice supporting and defending the place of women in the music industry. By turns subtle and razor-sharp, Hopper never hesitates to brand as "foul play" the all-too-typical practices and behaviors of male chauvinism, as found enshrined and protected in the tower. For all of these reasons, and then some, we are delighted to embed this screenshot for posterity, commemorating one fine day back in September 2017, when Jessica Hopper took a moment on her Twitter Feed to remark upon the merits of the album Shaky by Thayer Sarrano. Many, many thanks, sent by way of Athens, GA, due north, to a place called Chi-Town.

To bump the Hopper commemoration up a notch, we thought we would take this occasion to unveil some photographs that are now a year-old this very month. The photographs are of the Thayer Sarrano String Chamber Ensemble, performing at the Flicker Theatre on January 20th, 2017. The Chamber was constituted on this occasion by, moving left to right: JoJo Glidewell (vox), William T. Kissane (vox), Sarrano herself (vox, guitar), Keiko Ishibashi (violin), Maria Kindt (viola), Elijah Neesmith (bass), and Will Taylor (cello). This show was part of the annual Camp In Festival in Athens, Georgia. Camp In is the East Coast mirror of the West Coast Camp Out, two showcases hosted by two immortal headliners Camper Van Beethoven (namesake) and Cracker. Thayer Sarrano joined both Camper and Cracker for their respective sets across that weekend, playing keys and contributing vocals. You can read our original write-up of that event here in our Vaulted Archives. You can also visit the full gallery page, replete with all the photos of the Sarrano String Chamber Ensemble séance here. If you examine the photographs closely, you can spy Mr. David Lowery himself, sitting on the Camper / Cracker frontman row to the left, wearing the jazzy hep-cat lid (or "hat," for ye layfolk and squares).