On stage, four men in blue shirts and blue jeans played a solid 12 song set early Saturday afternoon at LaTaza's Low Country Broil, a fundraiser for coffee growers in Guatemala. As the morning fog broke into sticky afternoon sunshine, sweat dripped into their eyes as they sang and onto the stage as they moved with their instruments. The blue color scheme of the band was quickly usurped by the glistening of sweat and the drummers glittering snare. Despite the sparse crowd and the heat, Dreaming Isabelle played with conviction and as much energy as they could muster.
There is something about Dreaming Isabelle that sounds like Charlottesville. That doesn't mean they sound like Dave Matthews. They are a new generation of rockers who focus on writing well-crafted songs while referencing the jammier roots of this area. For the most part, their music is focused and forward driven, but they keep this clarity from becoming "pop" by setting the solid riffs and vocal harmonies within sparse and ambient textures. These laid back sections create the mood at the beginning of their songs, inviting the audience into song. Once there we can share in the energy they feel as they drive forward with solid riffs and emotive vocals. While some of their hooks might sound plain in another context, their arrangement skills make their songs memorable and energetic. Their music is upbeat and largely major with clean tones that makes the music stick, yet my favorite moments in their set where when they broke away into more dissonant, distorted and minor tones.
DI has good sounds. Hart, playing a fret-less six string Carvin bass not only provides solid rhythmic footing for DI, but also breaks out melodies of his own in the sparser moments of the songs. Chris provides pop and smack with a birch shelled Yamaha adorned with a heavy splash and timbale. He keeps a solid groove across rhythmic changes and provides some juicy rhythmic dissonance at just the right moments. The guitarists Jon and Daniel trade rhythms and riffs in such a way that Jon's effective lead does not steal the limelight. Occasionally, Jon's lead would serve to support and flesh out the harmony of the song, rather than play over top of the band. I hope to hear more of this from him in the future.
Its refreshing to hear a rock band that cares about their vocals. Daniel's lead voice was familiar and pleasant, referencing acoustic-driven rock. He was supported by the harmonizing skills of Jon. While I could see that the drummer had a mic and was sometimes singing, he was too far away from the mic to be heard clearly. There are some good voices in the band, and I'm sure they will gel even more as everyone grows comfortable with their microphones in the live setting.
In their biography, DI notes that they try to retain the intimacy of the bar in the larger club setting. Their interactions with the audience at this outdoor festival showed this. In the first set, they joke that Rozie is their southern rock tribute. Predictably, someone in the audience yells - "Free Bird!" The band deftly handles this by getting everyone to yell Free Bird to get it out of our system. Their on-stage banter is shy and sometimes self-effacing, but always in good humor.
Its never accurate to label a band's genre, mostly because the band will tell you you're wrong and so will the audience members. What you hear depends on what you know and like (or dislike). I heard My Bloody Valentine, I heard Survivor, I heard the Beatles, I heard Jimmy Eat World, I heard Skynard (even though they refused to play Free Bird). As they played I wondered if there is such a thing as Southern Post-Emo? I'm not sure what it would mean or if DI would lead this trend, but its what I thought of while listening.
The band tells me after their set that they are still experimenting with their sound. The last song Not Missing You, they tell me is their "rock direction," which I take to mean a harder direction. This song begins with both guitars, a Rickenbacker and a Guild, riffling in unison, revealing a strong musical bond between the guitarists. It also has a more driven back beat, but these were not what caught my attention. I was drawn in by the cut time section where Jon's Guild creates a dreamy, but gritty reprieve from the rigid and contained sections. The contrast makes the song. At the end, Jon toggles between pickups and breaks out of the harmonic structure with feedback. I have a soft spot for noisy guitars, so I'd like to hear more of this. This song demonstrates the best of their abilities to move between ambient sounds and straight ahead rock. At times the ambient sections of other songs could use more rhythmic discipline and direction. I'm not suggesting they lose the ambient parts, but to work toward expressing their distinction.
On the more acoustic end of the spectrum, their strongest song was Mine, which will be coming out on their new EP in November. You can download it from their myspace now.
www.dreamingisabelle.com
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Two-Dimensional Sociology
If Comcast was working, which it never is, I would have created this entry on my birthday (09.13.07). I turned 29, which makes me "in my late 20s," that ambiguous age where you are still young enough to avoid total responsibility and old enough to feel confident, or where you are awaiting some marker of adulthood that will come next year. I've changed a lot in the last year, particularly in terms of curbing my idealism and trying to be more systematic, structured and pragmatic. I get up early, balance my checkbook and wear professional clothes. I feel not only in limbo between late 20s and 30, but also between student and professional, something that has been making me act more confident on the outside, but feel less confident inside.
Today, in a class I'm teaching on Culture and Power, we read Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. His critique of one-dimensional thought, which says we've lost our critical edge in the pursuit of positive fact, is inspiring to read. His critique of the use of technology for oppression during the cold war could not be more relevant to the War (without end) on Terror. Marcuse, though he didn't want to be, was considered the father of the New Left. This movement, among others of the era, like feminism and Black and Yellow Power, resisted one-dimensional thought, acting toward alternative possibilities in an era of severe repression.
Being born in 1978 makes me late genX/early genY. I was always in awe of that previous era and its revolutionary power. But lately I've become disillusioned with the cultural celebration of the Woodstock generation because that celebration that has eclipsed their political potency. The energy of that generation, to me, has coalesced into complacent establishment liberalism. We were taught that we didn't need to act because everything was already fixed for us.
But I know boomers, like my parents, who are still resisting one-dimensional thought, fighting for services for my adult disabled sister and speaking out in their church which has been commandeered by fundamentalists. Or like my friend Annie who has served in Americorps and is the president of NOW in Maine. At the same time, there are plenty of Gen X and Y folks who desire change but feel it so outside the realm of possibility.
Marcuse's writing renews that possibility. In my race to professionalize and become part of the establishment, I have forgotten why I care about teaching and sociology itself - the possibility of transformation, the promise of dialog, and the capacity for science to interrogate prejudice and what Christina Brinkley (at Simmons College) calls dis-information, not just wrong information, but disempowering information.
I had stopped writing in this blog because I didn't know what identity it should have - what about those who might read it, would they question my interests, my ethics? This worry about whether connection with the people and places I study will make me look like less of a sociologist, or somehow disqualify me in the game, is the result of falling into my own one-dimensional thinking about what the sociological enterprise means. This realization was reinforced for me by an experience I had meeting an engineer later that day at a professional development meeting.
She also asked me what my research was about. I told her its about musicians. She wanted to know - would I be developing any tools or applications for musicians so that they could more effectively navigate the music industry and local music scene? I immediately told her that if I did it could not be part of my project, which was to analyze the structures and values involved in the functioning of the music scene. If I did develop any tools, that would be on my own time. And it still wasn't clear to me if and how that could happen.
As I thought about it more I realized that empiricism in sociology has come to stand in for "science." Yet here I am, talking to a scientist who sees action, change, possibility, and public engagement as part of the enterprise.
Recent debates over public sociology and the sociologist's role in society show a renewed interest in critical engagement with the social world. But at what point in the research process can sociology be public - is it only legitimate to engage the public after the research has been done in isolation? Does engaging the pubic during research disqualify the work as ideological? Exactly what is political about public sociology and why should it be assumed that public engagement reduces a piece of research into its author's ideological interests? If sociologists see public sociology as political and private sociology as science, we have too simplified a view of science.
Sociologists can never be in a lab or experimental situation where we are not both affected by and affecting the things (i.e. people, groups, societies) we study. There is no perfect solution for non-reactivity in the social sciences. Sociologists have come to treat this as a flaw to be hidden by retreating from the social worlds we study. Why not recognize this 'double hermeneutic' as a particular benefit that sociology can contribute to intellectual knowledge and the world? To me, sociology's value is its critical, scientific ability to analyze social relationships and institutions.
One-dimensional sociology is an impediment, not a virtue.
Today, in a class I'm teaching on Culture and Power, we read Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. His critique of one-dimensional thought, which says we've lost our critical edge in the pursuit of positive fact, is inspiring to read. His critique of the use of technology for oppression during the cold war could not be more relevant to the War (without end) on Terror. Marcuse, though he didn't want to be, was considered the father of the New Left. This movement, among others of the era, like feminism and Black and Yellow Power, resisted one-dimensional thought, acting toward alternative possibilities in an era of severe repression.
Being born in 1978 makes me late genX/early genY. I was always in awe of that previous era and its revolutionary power. But lately I've become disillusioned with the cultural celebration of the Woodstock generation because that celebration that has eclipsed their political potency. The energy of that generation, to me, has coalesced into complacent establishment liberalism. We were taught that we didn't need to act because everything was already fixed for us.
But I know boomers, like my parents, who are still resisting one-dimensional thought, fighting for services for my adult disabled sister and speaking out in their church which has been commandeered by fundamentalists. Or like my friend Annie who has served in Americorps and is the president of NOW in Maine. At the same time, there are plenty of Gen X and Y folks who desire change but feel it so outside the realm of possibility.
Marcuse's writing renews that possibility. In my race to professionalize and become part of the establishment, I have forgotten why I care about teaching and sociology itself - the possibility of transformation, the promise of dialog, and the capacity for science to interrogate prejudice and what Christina Brinkley (at Simmons College) calls dis-information, not just wrong information, but disempowering information.
I had stopped writing in this blog because I didn't know what identity it should have - what about those who might read it, would they question my interests, my ethics? This worry about whether connection with the people and places I study will make me look like less of a sociologist, or somehow disqualify me in the game, is the result of falling into my own one-dimensional thinking about what the sociological enterprise means. This realization was reinforced for me by an experience I had meeting an engineer later that day at a professional development meeting.
She also asked me what my research was about. I told her its about musicians. She wanted to know - would I be developing any tools or applications for musicians so that they could more effectively navigate the music industry and local music scene? I immediately told her that if I did it could not be part of my project, which was to analyze the structures and values involved in the functioning of the music scene. If I did develop any tools, that would be on my own time. And it still wasn't clear to me if and how that could happen.
As I thought about it more I realized that empiricism in sociology has come to stand in for "science." Yet here I am, talking to a scientist who sees action, change, possibility, and public engagement as part of the enterprise.
Recent debates over public sociology and the sociologist's role in society show a renewed interest in critical engagement with the social world. But at what point in the research process can sociology be public - is it only legitimate to engage the public after the research has been done in isolation? Does engaging the pubic during research disqualify the work as ideological? Exactly what is political about public sociology and why should it be assumed that public engagement reduces a piece of research into its author's ideological interests? If sociologists see public sociology as political and private sociology as science, we have too simplified a view of science.
Sociologists can never be in a lab or experimental situation where we are not both affected by and affecting the things (i.e. people, groups, societies) we study. There is no perfect solution for non-reactivity in the social sciences. Sociologists have come to treat this as a flaw to be hidden by retreating from the social worlds we study. Why not recognize this 'double hermeneutic' as a particular benefit that sociology can contribute to intellectual knowledge and the world? To me, sociology's value is its critical, scientific ability to analyze social relationships and institutions.
One-dimensional sociology is an impediment, not a virtue.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Richmond Neighborhoods, Creative Centers and Gentrification
This past summer, I taught a course in the Sociology of Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). In this class we discussed issues of urban space, development and consumption from the perspective of cultural sociology. After reading Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class and Sharon Zukin's chapter on North Adams in the Cultures of Cities, I asked my class to consider urban change and consumption in local neighborhoods of Richmond, Virginia.
A number of students felt local to Richmond, having lived in the city and attended VCUs urban-style campus. Many told me they learned more about Richmond and its neighborhoods in the process of their research. They were assigned to choose a neighborhood and design it as a center of arts and culture. They needed to consider existing resources and existing residents in their plans and they also needed to consider where additional resources and sustainable change would come from. Each group ended up choosing a different neighborhood. Below I've tried to capture their thoughts and our discussion.
Manchester
This neighborhood, just across the James River, has begun developing old warehouses into art studios, galleries, condos and office space. One of the presenters has just moved into the neighborhood because rents are affordable for students. He notices there is a lot of space in which this neighborhood could grow. He shows us a satellite view from google maps - there are more empty lots than lots with buildings and viewing it from the ground, one can see that many of the buildings are boarded up and abandoned. The group tells us that there are a number of amenities needed in this area before it can grow and redevelop. For instance, there is no supermarket nearby and there are few places to eat other than fast food chains. They have just read Richard Lloyd's Neo-Bohemia, Art and Commerce in the Post Industrial City and are taken with the idea of designing a neighborhood like Chicago's Wicker Park. They envision a neighborhood of galleries and design studios populated by students and young professionals. They note that it is difficult to design such a project from the top down and that doing so often hurts existing residents. However, they stand behind the choice of Manchester, because there are few existing residents relative to other neighborhoods they might have chosen.
In our ensuing discussion, we considered the neighborhood's history and the communities nearby. The area is quite empty and it is just down Hull St. from an economically depressed area. This area is empty not only because it is full of out-of-use warehouses, but also because it was the site of some of the most run down and dangerous public housing projects in the city. When the projects were demolished in the 1990s, the way was paved for redevelopment around the arts and the creative economy. Further down Hull St., boarded up buildings line the streets. Apart from a BP gas station and a RiteAid, the only businesses that survive here are churches, whose placards announce that God is the only hope and Jesus the savior from the miseries of this earth. When I ask students about this area, they do not have the sense of it being dangerous or off limits because they are not aware of its existence.
Jackson Ward
This neighborhood is one that until recently, was seen as dangerous and off limits for college students. Now, this group tells us, adventurous college students are moving in to show that they do not fear the people who live there (known to be black and presumed to be impoverished) and that such fears are based on prejudice. They envision a community that is held together through participation in collective events and even in a collective economy. They see student-heavy punk and biker subcultures as setting the stage for communal efforts to use the creative, artistic and manual skills of residents to create a neighborhood economy.
In researching the history of the neighborhood, this groups discovers that Jackson Ward is rich in Black History, as 95% of the city's African American population lived there during American Apartheid. It was the site of Black Wall Street and was referred to as the Harlem of the South for its rich cultural life. Upon discovering that there were important theaters and music halls in the neighborhood, the student wanted to revive them. They imagined a new cultural component to their plan, which they believed would speak to the history and present situation of the neighborhood. They envisioned, building upon the efforts of Gallery 5, performance spaces that would host genre-crossing events that would engender racial crossing and community. Community and racial harmony can be achieved through participating in cultural consumption together.
We discussed whether North Jackson Ward, separated from Jackson Ward by highway construction and urban renewal in the 1960s, could be a part of this new plan. It is spatially and socially segregated, isolating people in severe poverty and need from the rest of the city. One student had heard that soon these projects were going to be torn down as part of a mixed-income housing trend that attempts to break up the concentrations of poverty and wealth in the city, but in turn also breaks up communities who may only have each other.
Shockoe Bottom
This group looked to a neighborhood that is already teeming with nightlife. This is the club district, which is just next door to Shockoe Slip, a cobble-stone drive of upscale restaurants and boutiques. The students choose this area because they feel sure that they will not create gentrification or displacement here. Instead, they argue what this neighborhood needs is less nightlife and more day life. it needs to be altered from a single-use consumption space to a multi-use living, working and leisure space. There are two infrastructure issues that need to be addressed. First is parking, because there is none, a concern business owners have had for a long time. The other is flooding. The Bottom is named for its position vis a vis the powerful James River and businesses and residents are still recovering from a 2004 flood caused by Hurricane Gaston. The city is the entity that they would look to for addressing these problems and for rezoning of the space.
A number of students felt local to Richmond, having lived in the city and attended VCUs urban-style campus. Many told me they learned more about Richmond and its neighborhoods in the process of their research. They were assigned to choose a neighborhood and design it as a center of arts and culture. They needed to consider existing resources and existing residents in their plans and they also needed to consider where additional resources and sustainable change would come from. Each group ended up choosing a different neighborhood. Below I've tried to capture their thoughts and our discussion.
Manchester
This neighborhood, just across the James River, has begun developing old warehouses into art studios, galleries, condos and office space. One of the presenters has just moved into the neighborhood because rents are affordable for students. He notices there is a lot of space in which this neighborhood could grow. He shows us a satellite view from google maps - there are more empty lots than lots with buildings and viewing it from the ground, one can see that many of the buildings are boarded up and abandoned. The group tells us that there are a number of amenities needed in this area before it can grow and redevelop. For instance, there is no supermarket nearby and there are few places to eat other than fast food chains. They have just read Richard Lloyd's Neo-Bohemia, Art and Commerce in the Post Industrial City and are taken with the idea of designing a neighborhood like Chicago's Wicker Park. They envision a neighborhood of galleries and design studios populated by students and young professionals. They note that it is difficult to design such a project from the top down and that doing so often hurts existing residents. However, they stand behind the choice of Manchester, because there are few existing residents relative to other neighborhoods they might have chosen.
In our ensuing discussion, we considered the neighborhood's history and the communities nearby. The area is quite empty and it is just down Hull St. from an economically depressed area. This area is empty not only because it is full of out-of-use warehouses, but also because it was the site of some of the most run down and dangerous public housing projects in the city. When the projects were demolished in the 1990s, the way was paved for redevelopment around the arts and the creative economy. Further down Hull St., boarded up buildings line the streets. Apart from a BP gas station and a RiteAid, the only businesses that survive here are churches, whose placards announce that God is the only hope and Jesus the savior from the miseries of this earth. When I ask students about this area, they do not have the sense of it being dangerous or off limits because they are not aware of its existence.
Jackson Ward
This neighborhood is one that until recently, was seen as dangerous and off limits for college students. Now, this group tells us, adventurous college students are moving in to show that they do not fear the people who live there (known to be black and presumed to be impoverished) and that such fears are based on prejudice. They envision a community that is held together through participation in collective events and even in a collective economy. They see student-heavy punk and biker subcultures as setting the stage for communal efforts to use the creative, artistic and manual skills of residents to create a neighborhood economy.
In researching the history of the neighborhood, this groups discovers that Jackson Ward is rich in Black History, as 95% of the city's African American population lived there during American Apartheid. It was the site of Black Wall Street and was referred to as the Harlem of the South for its rich cultural life. Upon discovering that there were important theaters and music halls in the neighborhood, the student wanted to revive them. They imagined a new cultural component to their plan, which they believed would speak to the history and present situation of the neighborhood. They envisioned, building upon the efforts of Gallery 5, performance spaces that would host genre-crossing events that would engender racial crossing and community. Community and racial harmony can be achieved through participating in cultural consumption together.
We discussed whether North Jackson Ward, separated from Jackson Ward by highway construction and urban renewal in the 1960s, could be a part of this new plan. It is spatially and socially segregated, isolating people in severe poverty and need from the rest of the city. One student had heard that soon these projects were going to be torn down as part of a mixed-income housing trend that attempts to break up the concentrations of poverty and wealth in the city, but in turn also breaks up communities who may only have each other.
Shockoe Bottom
This group looked to a neighborhood that is already teeming with nightlife. This is the club district, which is just next door to Shockoe Slip, a cobble-stone drive of upscale restaurants and boutiques. The students choose this area because they feel sure that they will not create gentrification or displacement here. Instead, they argue what this neighborhood needs is less nightlife and more day life. it needs to be altered from a single-use consumption space to a multi-use living, working and leisure space. There are two infrastructure issues that need to be addressed. First is parking, because there is none, a concern business owners have had for a long time. The other is flooding. The Bottom is named for its position vis a vis the powerful James River and businesses and residents are still recovering from a 2004 flood caused by Hurricane Gaston. The city is the entity that they would look to for addressing these problems and for rezoning of the space.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
The Local Legacy of the Dave Matthew's Band
The paper I'm going to present at the ASAs next week started from a small seed - whenever I would interview local musicians in Charlottesville they would always bring up Coran Capshaw, the manager of Dave Matthews and CEO of several music companies. Sometimes their assessments looked at both sides of the coin - Capshaw, by locating his companies here and operating numerous venues and restaurants, has made the local music scene vibrant, but at the same time has stifled competition and marginalized genres outside of the college rock demographic. Sometimes musicians were just bitter, depicting Capshaw as the epitome of what is wrong with the music industry as a whole - monopolostic, top-down, pitting business against creativity and ensuring business the win.
I wanted to figure out what it is about Capshaw's presence in Charlottesville that creates this feeling among musicians. Does he really rob aspiring artists out of their life savings? Does he have mafia-like control over restaurant supply companies?
So I talked to workers, analyzed public company information, and gathered social histories of how his enterprise took shape. Without talking to the man himself, but talking to those affected by his companies, I came to this conclusion: Capshaw has not attempted to make Charlottesville into the next Austin, instead he uses the local space, particularly the consumer space of the downtown mall, as a testing ground for the national artists he promotes and sponsors. His workers, local musicians and listeners are consumers of his product, not producers. His product, ironically enough, is the desire to experience the dream of rock stardom and/or that special privilege of saying "I knew them when..."
In Charlottesville he's found a market - plenty of us dream of playing on stages graced by the more famous artists that he brings through and plenty of us (secretly or vocally) hope to run into Dave Matthews in the flesh and there are aspiring bands and musicians filling the ranks of local wait staff. Unless you can't stand DMB and college rock, you really can live the dream here.
Capshaw has created an incredible consumer base and infrastructure for music making in Charlottesville. DMB themselves, through their socially conscious foundation BamaWorks have contributed millions to youth and music education in their community. So where does this leave the grassroots local music scene? With people who participate in these organizations:
Rugged Soul Records
The Bridge PAI
Monkey Clause
Dust
Street Musicians
Twisted Branch
Tyrannosaurus Rock
Saxx
Music Resource Center (Funded in part by DMB)
Outback Lodge
Nailgun Media
WeArts
and many others...
I wanted to figure out what it is about Capshaw's presence in Charlottesville that creates this feeling among musicians. Does he really rob aspiring artists out of their life savings? Does he have mafia-like control over restaurant supply companies?
So I talked to workers, analyzed public company information, and gathered social histories of how his enterprise took shape. Without talking to the man himself, but talking to those affected by his companies, I came to this conclusion: Capshaw has not attempted to make Charlottesville into the next Austin, instead he uses the local space, particularly the consumer space of the downtown mall, as a testing ground for the national artists he promotes and sponsors. His workers, local musicians and listeners are consumers of his product, not producers. His product, ironically enough, is the desire to experience the dream of rock stardom and/or that special privilege of saying "I knew them when..."
In Charlottesville he's found a market - plenty of us dream of playing on stages graced by the more famous artists that he brings through and plenty of us (secretly or vocally) hope to run into Dave Matthews in the flesh and there are aspiring bands and musicians filling the ranks of local wait staff. Unless you can't stand DMB and college rock, you really can live the dream here.
Capshaw has created an incredible consumer base and infrastructure for music making in Charlottesville. DMB themselves, through their socially conscious foundation BamaWorks have contributed millions to youth and music education in their community. So where does this leave the grassroots local music scene? With people who participate in these organizations:
Rugged Soul Records
The Bridge PAI
Monkey Clause
Dust
Street Musicians
Twisted Branch
Tyrannosaurus Rock
Saxx
Music Resource Center (Funded in part by DMB)
Outback Lodge
Nailgun Media
WeArts
and many others...
Friday, August 3, 2007
Street Musicians
This evening I went out to gather still shots and audio of downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, one of the case studies in my dissertation on local music scenes. I've been lucky enough to collaborate with two artists in town on documenting the scene through multiple senses: Tom Daly and Wendy Hsu
Tonight was a good night to be there - it was First Friday's, where all the galleries, restaurants that have turned into galleries, and stores that have turned into galleries open their doors to a new exhibit and free wine and cheese. It was also Friday's After Five, which is a concert series of local and family friendly music sponsored by a partnership between the city and local developer/music entrepreneur Coran Capshaw.
This, combined with good weather for eating sushi and drinking beer, meant that the downtown mall (a bricked in pedestrian walk in the center of town) was packed with revelers.
This also meant it was a prime night for street musicians to be heard and make some dough. I met James [pictured above], a percussionist who was playing a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a pair of worn in drum sticks. He transformed the bucket into a versatile drum, which he made boom and crack over the conversational din of the mall. He told me usually some of his friends come out to play with him but they were moving today and would be there next week. As I tucked a bill inside the Success Magazine he was using to hold his earnings, I asked him if I could take his picture and promised to send it to him via email. He was happy to oblige, telling me that people promise, but rarely follow through and he didn't yet have a picture of himself performing.
Local musicians are often more excited about the recognition than the money because sometimes the former is in shorter supply. Its even been documented scientifically.
James got me thinking more about what Charlottesville's music scene must be like for street musicians. Everyone here thinks of these musicians as an indicator of a strong music scene. James' only performances are out here, with this drum or sometimes with a hand drum. He knows that Fridays are the most worthwhile times to perform. He works the consumer culture of the mall as much as musicians who play in its bars and clubs after national acts play at the Charlottesville Pavilion.
Play on James.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Starting a Blog
Wendy and I have both been thinking for a long time that we should each create a blog. Should it be a blog of our band, our teaching, our research? Well Tanya, my friend and colleague, has inspired productive procrastination http://www.todissertation.blogspot.com.
This blog is still in the process of figuring out its identity...
This blog is still in the process of figuring out its identity...
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