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Exit Stage Right

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

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Previously unpublished photograph of the original SAVE RICHMOND staff. From left to right: Andrew Beaujon, “Eagle Eyes” and Don Harrison. Not pictured and probably hiding: Ewa Beaujon.

Don here. I sat down to write a teary-eyed goodbye and to say how much I’m going to miss everybody and how it was the end of an era and that times are changing and the cow jumped over the moon… blah blah blah.

And then I realized that I’m not really going anywhere.

At any rate, it’s all true. Your humble narrator has accepted a position at Style Weekly — I’m the new Arts and Culture Editor. But it’s not all a kick and a gas. I have to give up posting here at Save Richmond.

That doesn’t mean SR is going away. This web address will live on. “Eagle Eyes” will continue to post here, and bring you his tenaciously-researched overview of Metro Richmond. Yes, he is a skeleton in a top hat (see photo above) but don’t let that shake you.

And, obviously, I’m not going to go away either. I have to assume that, if you read Save Richmond, you also read Style Weekly. If not, get thee to a big newsbox adorned with an S immediately! Or click on this spot right here. Save Richmond has been linking to Style’s excellent arts and news coverage, and discussing their reporting, for years. Now I get to work with these talented people. How cool is that?

A couple of weeks ago, when we celebrated our sixth anniversary, I explained that Save Richmond didn’t start out as a blog. And it would never have been one without the seminal snark of Andrew Beaujon and the early support of his wife Ewa Beaujon. Save Richmond has also been enhanced by the savvy financial forensics work of “Eagle Eyes” — that kid’s a keeper. Basically, all I’ve been trying to do here is to keep up with those folks.

Damn. Now I’m getting teary eyed.

(But I’m cheered by the news that I’m getting my Christmas present early this year. That’s a hint, by the way.)

Thanks everyone. See you at Style.

Posted in Richmond Arts Flashback, Richmond in the news, armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., fun with bribery, holy cannoli, life is filled with sadness and disappointment, moments of civic brilliance, number-crunching, the free press, the inexplicably employed, the outside world, we get letters, whiners with websites | No Comments »

Virginia Rocks!

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

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Elvis Presley takes Richmond’s “folk music addicts” by storm in 1956.

Don here. If there’s one thing we haven’t indulged in at Save Richmond, it is a lot of shameless self-promotion. So you haven’t heard a great deal on these pages about my travails as a paid writer and journalist, working on subjects ranging from the 1907 Jamestown Exposition to the state of America’s coastlines to a history of Virginia’s drive-ins to a profile of R&B legend Swamp Dogg (to name a few). It would be a tough shoehorn to fit any of those topics — save Swamp Dogg. More on him later — onto the pages of Save Richmond. Agreed?

Plus: In my paid work, I normally work in something called print. You youngsters don’t know anything about that. But it’s tough to link to a print magazine lying in a doctor’s office. (OK, OK, I did have to bite my lip when my Virginia Living interview with Dr. Ralph Stanley hit the stands. Ralph has played Richmond many times, after all — surely he is relevant to discussions about downtown redevelopment)

But this time I have to make a big exception. I have to point at myself and whoop it up and do a paradiddle. I’ve got to get real gone for a change.

It seems word is spreading about the Virginia Rocks! 2-CD set and museum exhibit that I helped to research and put together along with the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum at Ferrum College. The project took nearly two years and was partially funded by a grant from the Virginia Foundation For the Humanities. I, along with my fellow rockabilliologist Brent Hosier, wrote the 72-page essay of liner notes enclosed with the CD box set, and Grammy-winning sound specialist Chris King mastered the discs.

The box set was released on July 14th. And the museum exhibit is up and hooting now at the Blue Ridge Institute in Ferrum, which is near Roanoke. Get directions here.

Writing about the project, David Maurer at the Charlottesville Daily Progress flat gits it in a recent feature article”:

In the early 1950s the pounding, driving wheels of a new kind of music came highballing up out of the South like a past-due locomotive.

Called rock ’n’ roll, it had the transformative power to alter one’s musical sensibilities with a single song. But rock had an older twin with a flipped-up-collar attitude and a good-natured sneer.

This first-born rebel was called rockabilly. Its blistering, slap-back beat set primal nerve endings aquiver that most teenagers hadn’t known they possessed.

No one did more to teach and spread rockabilly throughout the land than the “Hillbilly Cat” himself, Elvis Presley. Other superstars of the genre include Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Virginia’s own Gene Vincent.

Orbiting this galaxy of rock’s founding fathers was a phalanx of talented singers and musicians. These satellite artists provided live music at local sock hops and maybe cut a record or two, but never ascended onto the national stage.

Rambunctious rockabilly never died per se, but by the early 1960s, when the Beatles started taking rock to another sphere, its golden era had passed. Most of the Virginia artists whose early rockabilly recordings epitomized the raw exuberance of the music slipped into obscurity.

Brent Baldwin picks it up from there in today’s Style Weekly:

Everybody’s heard that absurdly catchy “Woo-Hoo” song from Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill,” later made more popular through a national TV campaign for Vonage broadband. But did you know the original 1959 song came from an Oregon Hill-based group, the Rock-A-Teens, featuring longtime local ad man Jess Duboy?

If you did, another “woo hoo” for you.

Thanks to a double CD set, released just last week, “Virginia Rocks! The History of Rockabilly in the Commonwealth” (on British label, JSP Records) — unsung local rockabilly acts such as the Rock-A-Teens are finally getting their due. The collection, part of a larger exhibit from the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum at Ferrum College in Southwest Virginia, features the likes of “female Elvis” Janis Martin, Roy Clark, Patsy Cline, Link Wray, Wayne Newton and Norfolk legend Gene Vincent — hero to future rock gods John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison.

There have been other swell feature writeups here and here, and some nice early reviews here and here. If you can’t find it locally (always support your local record store FIRST), you can order the box set here on Amazon.

The idea to document Virginia’s early rock ‘n’ roll had been in the works for a long time, and this whole project was really the brainchild of Roddy Moore, the Blue Ridge Institute’s tireless director. He can well remember the local teen dances and sock hop shows of the late ’50’s — he was there.

Seven years ago, Moore convened a “Rockabilly Roundtable” to meet at Ferrum and discuss the possibility of getting something like an “Early Rock in Virginia” project off the ground. [Now that should be something that Richmond can really appreciate: a Rockabilly Board of Directors.] Convened were record collectors, writers, folklorists, geneologists and archivists — exactly the kind of people you’d want to advise on a project like this.

After its initial run at Ferrum College, the Virginia rockabilly exhibit will travel across the state to various museums and cultural institutions over the next few years. A warning to readers— I’ll be updating the progress of the project, and the box set, from time to time on these pages. Because, sometimes, a little shameless self-promotion (like loud rockabilly) is good for the soul.

To see photos of the Virginia Rocks exhibit, log onto the Blue Ridge Institute’s Facebook Page. And here’s the official press release.

Gene Vincent’s biographer Sue Van Hecke served on the “Rockabilly Roundtable.” You can check out her excellent blog here and find out more about the book she just co-wrote with Norfolk rocker Dean Kohler.

For more on Brent Hosier and his excellent Arcania International label — unearthing lost R&B, soul and rock from Virginia’s complicated past — click here.

For more on Elvis in Richmond, check out the great photos and period newspaper ads featured on the Scotty Moore website. And if you are one of those old-timers who still knows what print is, click here to buy the back issue of a magazine that features a piece about Elvis Presley’s Virginia connections, written by yours truly.

And for a taste of what you’ll get if you check out Virginia Rocks!, get an earful of the original version of “Woo Hoo” by the Richmond-based Rock-A-Teens via this inspired fan video:

The Rock-A-Teens - Woo Hoo (1959)

Posted in Richmond Arts Flashback, Richmond in the news, techmology, the outside world | No Comments »

Cultural Sanity in Richmond

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Along with other arts-friendly bloggers, I was invited to a lunch meeting last week by John Bryan, the president of the new Arts Council of Richmond (soon to be renamed “CultureWorks”). The discussion was wide-ranging, and centered on what kind of advocacy role that CultureWorks should take as it refreshes its mission to be the focal organization for arts and culture in the Metro Richmond area.

At the meeting, the very personable Bryan challenged the assembled to come up with one main issue that CultureWorks should focus on that would greatly benefit the city’s grassroots arts community. There were some fine ideas passed around — Terry Rea over at SlantBlog had an inspired notion about a billboard art competition (read all about that here), and more than a few folks mentioned the city’s crippling admissions tax on concerts. If you’ll recall, getting rid of the admissions tax was a recommendation of the recent Regional Arts and Cultural Plan.

Why was this meeting, called by John Bryan, such a big deal? Well, the Arts Council of Richmond has heretofore been rather toothless and ineffective. While it has helped to distribute area arts dollars, the non-profit has functioned more or less as a front and a rubber stamp for the region’s richest arts organizations. Up until now, it has not seen advocacy as its true calling, and what happens on the grassroots level has either been ignored or shunted aside.

The net result of the organization’s timidity and ineffectiveness is that there has been no one to represent the arts and cultural community on issues relating to the law, economic development or civic outreach. A dysfunctional arrangement like this can result in, say, a large arts center being built with mostly taxpayer money but without any real input from the artistic community… or our most successful arts-related ventures being ignored when it is time to allocate city resources.

For me, the answer to the challenge is as simple as today’s headlines. I believe John Bryan is sincere when he asks for feedback, but if CultureWorks is really going to be relevant and helpful, it needs to get tough and play a strong advocacy role in the affairs of Richmond’s beleaguered arts and music scene.

It needs to start a campaign that promotes and argues for Cultural Sanity in our city.

And it needs to do it now — before the thriving grassroots galleries that fuel Curated Culture’s First Friday Artwalk are buried under a bureaucratic pile of citations, ordinances and heavy-handed “busts”; before yet another established music club is shut down by nervous politicians and new unnecessary restrictions; before we see one more retailer, boutique or bowling alley shut down for holding small-scale music shows inside their business (when a warning letter would do just fine); before the Fan District Association’s censorious “Party Patrol” becomes better-funded than the city’s own police department.

As Chris Dovi spells out in this week’s Style Weekly, there is a war on culture currently being waged by the City of Richmond and its Community Assisted Public Safety (CAPS) program. This will not come as a shock to longtime Save Richmond readers.

CAPS, of course, was set up to do something a bit more serious and substantial than busting small-scale music shows because they weren’t properly “licensed.” But, as Dovi’s article shows, there has been some serious — and rather suspicious — mission creep of late.

As shown [emphasis mine]:

Richmond’s CAPS program originated about eight years ago, an outgrowth of the community policing philosophy that the best way to fight crime is to attack its roots. The idea behind it is simple: that crime requires not just a victim and a criminal, but also a location. The program uses simple tools such as strict enforcement of existing building and fire codes and fines for unpaid taxes or fees to treat criminal infections that, left untreated, could sicken entire neighborhoods.

But over the years, this initial mission of attacking drug dens, boarded-up or abandoned houses, and other festering community eyesores has shifted ever so slightly.

The shift is still community-complaint driven, and still uses code violations to close down or clean up targeted properties. But those targets no longer necessarily harbor the same sort of drug or street crime that some people say was the original target of the program. Today, they might also be churches, art galleries or day-care centers.

It continues:

Even as the program has proven to be a uniquely effective tool in clearing out drug houses, prostitution and all kinds of unsavory activities in some of Richmond’s struggling neighborhoods to the praise of residents and community leaders, some business owners wonder if the help being offered is in their best interest. Or in the interest of someone who doesn’t approve of the city’s current arts and music renaissance.

“CAPS is putting a cap on capitalism,” says Danny Ingram, owner of Community Chest, a concert booking agency. The program’s activities of late seem targeted at small-time local music and arts promotion, he says, even as its enforcements against illegal boarding houses and neglected vacant property continue. Ingram’s business has suffered a handful of canceled shows at venues hit by such enforcements — often on the day the show was to go on.

“They take action during business hours and in front of customers,” he says, pointing to numerous busts before or during performances that helped spell the end of the Artist Underground Cafe, a club once on Monument Avenue. “Christ! Send us a letter in the mail letting us know, or just one person to come speak with us! Then take action if we don’t correct the issues. It’s overkill to send in the cavalry and scare us into submission.”

Submission is literally the intent with the program. By sending in this cavalry, the goal is to interfere so much in the operation of an undesirable activity — like a drug house — as to make the perpetrators give up and move on.

Which is why the arts community sees more bullish enforcement by CAPS as a potential threat to the city’s growing grass-roots arts movement.

“People are getting scared shitless,” Ingram says. “Business owners, we don’t have an extra five or six grand sitting around to pay off these tickets that don’t make any sense.”

The tickets for violations often are for blocked fire exits, inadequate occupancy permits or expired business licenses — often justified, he admits. But targeting a legitimate business and ticketing it for issues that could often be found in any building in the city is over the line, he says. Building and fire code issues are common to almost any building or business in the city, program officials acknowledge.

In the past few months, targets have included Rumors clothing boutique near Virginia Commonwealth University and the Plaza Bowl duckpin bowling alley at Southside Plaza. Both have featured live music shows mostly catering to twenty-something audiences. They’re venues living double lives as concert spaces and a clothing store or bowling alley.

I’m sure you are wondering how these CAPS folks pick out their targets. You might guess that they would be focusing on the biggest law-breakers, the most heinous safety violators. You would be wrong. Actually, they pick the easiest places that they can bust.

“We’d like to thank Style magazine,” says Michael Gleason, chief of tax enforcement with the city’s Department of Finance, also a member of the 4th Precinct team, referring to coverage of the local arts and culture community. He also credits the Richmond Times-Dispatch and a variety of alternative publications in the city for providing a convenient directory of potential violators among the arts and music scene.

Social networking sites, too, have made it easy to track people being overly creative with the use of their retail or commercial space, says Lt. William Andrews, an assistant fire marshal.

“When they start advertising one way or another, it makes it very easy,” Andrews says, calling bands playing in retail stores a red flag. “You hear about something and it sounds a little different — you check it out and see if there’s any issues.”

Andrews says his initiation of an enforcement action against Plaza Bowl came after reading about bands playing there as part of Style Weekly’s recent Music Issue, an annual feature that pays special attention to local bands, venues and musicians.

“If he’d applied for a permit for the stage … that’s working in the right direction,” Andrews says of Plaza Bowl’s business owner, Jim Szilagyi. “If he started using the stage [without a permit], that’s a problem.”

In fact, that was exactly the problem at Plaza Bowl. When Szilagyi bought the struggling bowling alley, music became his financial salvation, inspiring him to tear up a few lanes in October and replace them with a raised stage area. He did it all without a permit, a situation he’s trying to rectify.

My favorite part of these kinds of articles is when some lazy bureaucrat starts telling you that, no, really, despite the conspicuous chokehold being applied to area culture, he’s actually a big supporter of the arts.

“Arts and music is a big part of Richmond,” says tax man Gleason, a lifelong Richmonder with a love for the community’s rich history and diversity of arts culture, pointing to the current success of the arts community in promoting itself to the betterment of downtown: “That’s the best thing that’s happened to Richmond is the blossoming. … we want to encourage it. We want to have more venues; we only want to make sure that they do it correctly.”

Szilagyi says he’s trying, even as he works to save what likely is the 50-year-old Southside Plaza’s only remaining original tenant.

“I think the city’s been pretty reasonable with me,” he says, though he expressed reservations about talking because of concerns that his efforts to make amends might be stymied. “I didn’t like it at first, but I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

But what he didn’t understand was the afternoon when city officials showed up on his door and didn’t ask for bowling shoes and pitchers of Miller Lite.

“It seemed kind of crazy, the type of enforcement,” says Szilagyi, who likens his run-in with CAPS to a raid. He points out his door and across his parking lot to the rest of the long strip mall, filled with boarded-up stores and rent-to-own shops, wondering what authorities might find there. “I don’t understand how they’re not cracking down on these [storefront] churches. If they’re really concerned about safety, they should be going after everybody.”

Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it?

You’d best throw common sense out the window. Here comes a city councilperson.

Plaza Bowl is in the 8th District, home to City Councilwoman Reva Trammell, one of the enforcement program’s earliest proponents nearly a decade ago. In the midst of her first multiterm stint on council — and also in the midst of a crisis in her blighted South Side district — she worked to start an enforcement effort based on similar programs elsewhere.

“If you rode this district,” Trammell says, “I could show you things that would turn your stomach.” The blight problem persists, she says, though greatly improved because of the enforcement efforts. “You look in my district and we’ve tried so hard to clean things up.”

The main offenders in Trammell’s eyes, both then and now, are the city’s serial slum lords — the often out-of-state absentee owners who live beyond reach of state laws. It’s these people, she says, that such enforcements were created to take down.

She hadn’t heard about the enforcement at Plaza Bowl and wonders aloud why Szilagyi hasn’t called her. She struggles to answer whether the program has departed from its earlier mission when it targets a bowling alley with bands.

“I think [Community Development’s CAPS program manager] Cindy Moser would have to answer that,” she says. “I know the city is looking for all the money it can get right now. The city, we’re in a struggle for our life right now.”

Read that last quote again.

“I know the city is looking for all the money it can right now. The City, we’re in a struggle for our life right now.”

You’ll recall, of course, that Ms. Trammell was one of the councilpeople who voted in favor of CenterStage’s recent $25 million bailout from the city — she also voted to give the privately-held arts center $500,000 a year in walking around money.

But, now, the 8th district rep all but admits that the city is aggressively enforcing the code violations of small arts-related events… at the same time that it needs millions to build an expensive opera house downtown that does not enjoy widespread support in the arts community.

There are so many reasons why all of this is wrong. But it looks like those who have visited the comments box over at the Style article are already in the process of listing them. A sampling of public opinion:

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 3:17:08 PM by sad

i think its a shame when the government has to step in and squash something that’s really helped the city. I remember when plaza bowl had broken lanes, creepy parking lot lurkers, and hardly any customers. Since community chest started booking shows there its become nicer, safer and a destination spot for great music. Without the culture that community chest provides richmond is just another one of those cities who have an unsued/boarded up downtown and no soul. CAPS have way too much time on their hands. i dunno maybe they should be spending their time fighting crime- not tourism and local thriving businesses.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 3:53:18 PM by Anonymous

I have made it out to Plaza Bowl for shows about once a month since last November, that is more than the total of my trips to that area in the past 10 years. It’s a great cheap date, and the bowling is a blast! We don’t need the police to protect us from that!

Shame on Michael Gleason for using Richmond’s cultural scene as fodder for his shameless misuse of city funds.

Stop haggling over weather to spend $650 million on a new ballpark (for what team?), or weather to drive cop cars home, and prioritize: find a better way to protect and serve our community.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 4:03:43 PM by Moon

Say it ain’t so, Joe (or Dwight). Please tell me the rumors that the sudden rash of art and music venue “raids” throughout Richmond are NOT being coordinated by City Hall in an effort to focus more attention on the often floundering CENTER STAGE project. Dozens of small, independent art galleries are now bringing thousands of visitors to Manchester and the WEST Broad St. “Arts District” on a regular basis, and the success of the restored National Theater is attracting loads of visitors to the EAST Broad St area. Are our city “leaders?” afraid Center Stage is destined to become another soon-to-be-abandoned 6th Street Market fiasco if the competition is not quickly eradicated before its intended opening date?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 4:22:35 PM by Stuart

“We’d like to thank Style Weekly,” Gleason’s quote says it all. They’re not out to crush music and art, they’re just lazy city officials who’ve become complacent with CAPS enforcement. It’s a lot easier for them to bust shows they read about online or in this paper than it is to sniff out crack houses and absentee slumlords. They need to earn their keep and get back to the original mission of CAPS, which is crime and blight abatement.

This isn’t CAPS mission creep, it is lazy enforcement.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:39:26 AM by Howard Zinn:

I agree Moon, it is hard NOT to make the connection with the CenterStage opening. Maybe, if they bust all of these “venues” for their petty violations, we will have no where else to go BUT CenterStage.
Actually, that is wrong… most of us will not be able to afford the ticket cost to attend events at CenterStage, especially since so much of our tax dollars are going towards BUILDING it. (Much less being able to attend the VMFA) These poor businesses can barely keep their doors open as it is. After being hit with one of these code violations, they are sure to close their doors. With no money coming in from the city to sustain the cultural movement that ALREADY exists, they put our own money into a project destined for failure…a project that 90% of Richmonders were against to begin with. I cannot help but laugh at the way our city has been running for the past 35 years. Their backwards way of solving problems will be, if not always be the demise of so many creative staples that bring (brought) life to Richmond and made a name for us.

Way to go Richmond!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:30:57 PM by Alex:

What the city is doing isn’t wrong, per say. As mentioned in the article by most of the business owners, the laws ARE on the books and they have every right to enforce it.

However, the obvious problem is that businesses like Rumors aren’t going to get licenses. They do what they do in an effort to help the local music community - they are not profiting from it. In fact, they are losing money on utilities and are donating their time, just to give underground touring bands a place to play. They are not going to pay for licenses yearly and all of that because they just don’t get enough in return.

In the end, the city is not going to make any profit and these businesses will just operate as what they are during the day (bowling pin, clothes store, restaurant, etc) and the music scene here will die. Richmond’s music scene has historically been rich and is a lot of the reason people come to visit (hell, I even moved here for it!) which is way more beneficial than throwing a big deal about the business paying a 7% entertainment tax on $40 in donations for a band who is just trying to get gas money to the next city.

Like I said, as far as law is concerned, they are doing nothing wrong. But going after the arts is just going to turn Richmond back into an unsafe, economically failing city like it was not too long ago.

So what’s the answer? I guess the area’s artists and musicians could all move to Petersburg.

Or we could stand up and fight. And it would be great to have a champion leading the fight. If the new CultureWorks is intent on advocating for arts and culture — and if it needs suggestions on one big issue to trumpet — might I suggest that the newly-rejuvenated Arts Council start a very visible and vocal campaign that lobbies against Richmond’s ongoing war on arts and culture?

And if Mr. Bryan takes up the call, he should have plenty to say. After all, the city is about to spend millions on a new ballpark in order to lure more people downtown — at the same time that it is forcing out and aggressively fining the people who are already patronizing and doing business downtown.

Clearly it is time to fight for cultural sanity in Richmond. And for sanity in general.

Everything else is just fish art outside of banks.

Posted in Richmond Arts Flashback, armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., life is filled with sadness and disappointment, moments of civic brilliance, politricks, something smells funny in here, the inexplicably employed, the outside world | No Comments »

Watch Out For the Floating Jon Stewart Head!!

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

cramer-crashteroids-ep

Jim Cramer, the wired and manic host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” has been taking a lot of hits lately for his less-than-stellar record of financial punditry.

It’s time to help him.

Click here and play the Jim Cramer’s Crashteroids Game, courtesy of Slate’s The Big Money blog.

Can YOU protect this irrationally-exuberant commentator from the likes of “The Daily Show” and Barron’s Magazine? Give it a try (if you can stop laughing long enough).

A big thanks to our pal Dan P. for passing this fun along.

Posted in come the revolution..., holy cannoli, techmology, the free press, the inexplicably employed, the outside world | No Comments »

The Essence of Rickey

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

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Here is a long-gestating tribute to our good friend Rickey Wright.

The former Richmonder, a music journalist who wrote for scores of regional publications over the years (including the Virginian Pilot, Richmond News-Leader, ThroTTle, Washington City Paper and VCU’s Commonwealth Times), passed away in Seattle on Feb. 19th.

Rock in peace, Rickey!

Posted in armchair philosophizin', the outside world | No Comments »

Jesse Helms is Alive and Well

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Yesterday, we posted about the arts as a vibrant economic engine, and how including dollars for struggling arts organizations and worthy arts projects in the new stimulus package makes good sense from an economic standpoint.

As if on cue, Save Richmond just got a press release from Virginians For the Arts that shows that Jesse Helms is alive and well in today’s U.S. Senate — and that good sense is on the wane.

Take a second and let Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner know that the arts deserve every bit as much financial support from the forthcoming stimulus package as private jets for bailed-out financial institutions or corporate sports stadium sponsorships or huge executive bonuses.

Make your voice heard:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has introduced an amendment to prohibit any funds in the economic stimulus bill from going to museums, theaters, arts centers, for renovations, construction or salaries, in a list of others including casinos, golf courses, stadiums, and aquariums.
 
TAKE ACTION:

This amendment may be offered as early as today. Call Virginia Senators Webb and Warner TODAY and urge them to vote NO on the Coburn “Limitation of Funds Amendment No. 175.”
 
You are urged to call Senator Webb’s legislative aide, Maribel Ramos, to voice your opinion directly: at (202) 224-4024. You can email her at maribel_ramos@webb.senate.gov. Fax Senator Jim Webb, c/o Maribel Ramos at (202) 228-6363. Write him at Rayburn House Office Building, Room 144, Washington, D.C. 20510-4605.
 
Please call Senator Mark Warner’s legislative aide, Leah Ralph. Legislative Aide Leah Ralph handles education issues and will temporarily handle issues on arts and culture. Phone her at (202) 224-2385; fax: 202-224-2530, or email her at Leah_Ralph@warner.senate.gov. You can write Senator Warner at Dirksen Senate Office Building Room B40C, Washington, D.C. 20510-4601.
 
The language of the amendment, (Amendment No. 175, as filed) is, “None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, arts center, or highway beautification project, including renovation, remodeling, construction, salaries, furniture, zero-gravity chairs, big screen televisions, beautification, rotating pastel lights, and dry heat saunas.”
 
$50 Million for NEA Missing from Senate Version of Recovery Plan
 
As noted in an alert last week, on January 28 the U.S. House of Representatives passed their version of the $819 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan (ARRP) 244 to 188 including $50 million in additional funds for the National Endowment for the Arts.
 
The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee marked up their version of the ARRP, and at present it does not include a $50 million funding item for the National Endowment for the Arts - as the House version does.
 
Please request that Senators Warner and Webb support the House-passed appropriation for the NEA. While it is not currently in the Senate’s proposed stimulus package, the opportunity to have the funding included in a conference report or submitted as an amendment during consideration, is still possible.
 
Please call today!
 

It’s always nice to know that the culture wars are alive and well in the halls of government. To quote one local arts administrator: “I love how heat saunas and zero gravity chairs are lumped in with salaries. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.”

For more information on this short-sighted, bone-headed, amendment, click here.

Posted in come the revolution..., our social betters, politricks, sheer terror, the outside world | No Comments »

Richmond Arts Flashback: Richard Florida and “Street-Level Art”

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Richard Florida: “When you think of new forms of artistic and cultural expression, where do they come from? They don’t come from yuppie, gentrified neighborhoods, they come from the streets. And one of the points I try to make in the book is that Arts organizations and cultural organizations, as well as economic development organizations and state and local government, have to get their eyes off the one ball or two balls they know how to focus on. They know how to support the Symphony, the Opera and the Ballet, and in addition build convention centers and stadiums. But what I’m trying to say in the book is that you have to support local-level, street-level creativity. The more investments we make in street-level culture arts, music, writing… not only the more creative that community will be, it will be the kind of community that all sorts of creative sorts will want to move to, and that will be the community that will attract new innovations… new companies.”

This installment of the Richmond Arts Flashback shines a spotlight on the arts as a vibrant and complex economic engine. And what better way to do that than to re-introduce Richard Florida, the man who put “street-level art” into the lexicon along with the term, “Creative Class.”

It’s interesting how many times those phrases, and Florida’s name, have been bandied about over the past half-decade — not least during Richmond’s last Mayoral election, where no fewer than three of the candidates cited him by name (including our current Mayor-elect). Dr. Florida has been a popular reference point for local politicians and movers and shakers ever since his much-ballyhooed appearance in 2003; his buzzphrases have been dropped into the public conversation over the past years to justify everything from new condos to a downtown arts center to the latest coffeehouse opening up down the street.

These days, Florida is the head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, and he has his own consulting and lecturing firm, the Creative Class Group. He’s written several books on his theories of the economic revitalization of cities. and has often argued against the building of huge cultural centers and sports stadiums in lieu of fostering a diverse, inclusive community where new ideas and voices can more easily “plug in.” His prescriptions include encouraging an indigenous, organic “street-level” arts and music scene — galleries, restaurants, clubs, coffeehouses — and emphasizing quality of life issues such as the cultivation of green space, bike lanes and parks.

Save Richmond has been intigued by the good doctor’s work ever since we started blogging five years ago, but we’re equally as intrigued by his critics. Steven Malanga, in a piece called “The Curse of the Creative Class,” warned that Florida’s theories were often so open-ended that they could be used to justify almost anything “artistic.” Little ol’ towns like Richmond can easily hear one visiting lecture and get confused something awful:

It is exactly because Florida is an exponent of this kind of aggressive, government-directed economic development (albeit with a New Age spin) that liberal policymakers and politicians have latched on to his theories so enthusiastically. To them, an expanding government is always more interesting than an expanding economy — especially if economic growth depends on something so very uninteresting as low taxes and small government. But it is just as likely that the Floridazed brand of aggressive governing will get things as wrong as the builders of sports stadiums and convention centers.

One clear example of how things are likely to go wrong is in Richmond, Virginia, where the city fathers and local economic-development types (touting Florida’s ideas) are trying to revive their downtown by making it a trendy arts district. To finance its efforts, the town recently passed a restaurant tax and is now contemplating raising its hotel taxes — to the howls of local businesses. “They haven’t figured out that those tax increases will probably kill as many jobs as their plan will create,” says Scott Moody, a senior economist with the Tax Foundation.

At a time when the arts community is alternately tallying up surveys for cultural action plans and taking huge funding hits… at a time when citizens are debating another baseball stadium proposal in Shockoe and watching our community-led Downtown Plan get watered down by development interests… and while we are all waiting for some “seriously secretive fun” with the Symphony, Opera and Ballet… we might want to revisit the words of Richard Florida and make sure we’ve got them right before we use him as a reference point for any of this stuff. Don’t you think?

In 2003, I wrote a Back Page for Style Weekly following Richard Florida’s local appearance and noted how he and Richmond weren’t exactly a natural fit. An excerpt:

The Jan. 31 speech prompted advance newspaper ads that sought personal stories from Richmond’s “gays, rock bands and weirdoes.” All to satisfy the visiting keynote speaker, a professor of regional economic development at Carnegie-Mellon University and in-demand social planner. Richard Florida has isolated an emerging sector of societal movers and shakers in America — the creative class — and citizens like these, normally shunned or ignored by powerful business consortiums, are an integral part of the professor’s theories on city revitalization.

Inside the newly-renovated Greater Richmond Convention Center, at the region’s annual business meeting, Florida laid out his findings. “I feel a little bit like a preacher,” he laughed after one particularly breathless monologue that argued for more emphasis on bike paths, music scenes and gay tolerance and less on big downtown renovation projects.

The sermon was based not on platitudes but on carefully-calibrated data and numerous real-world examples, all documented in “The Rise of the Creative Class” (Basic Books). Florida’s research shows that flourishing cities — Austin, San Francisco, Boston — have “low entry barriers” where visionary entrepreneurs (like, say, former “weirdo” Bill Gates) can plug in easily. Successful cities share common traits but Florida doesn’t just isolate the phenomenon, he instructs cities on how to lure and keep creative talent. Out: Fake downtowns, mall-like structures and closed-door environments. In: tolerant, eclectic places that hold a range of recreational options, lifestyles and cultures.

Pacing and bobbing, well-armed with anecdotes, preaching inclusion and diversity, Florida did come off like a preacher. He’d done this before. And with the wide-eyed sincerity of a repentant Sunday morning pew, there was rapture from the distinguished Richmond congregation. Heads nodded, books were sold, and everyone — from successful businessmen to the mayor himself — concurred enthusiastically during the Q&A period: “Yes, Professor”… “Where do we throw money?”… “What ideas!”… “Tolerance”… local music!”

Apparently, Southern hospitality was at a premium. Matching key points in the professor’s presentation with Richmond reality — before and after the applause — a sensible person would have to wonder if this crowd really understood what they were clapping for.

Click here to read my essay on Richard Florida’s appearance in Richmond, “Contemplating Petersburg.”

Read an excerpt from Richard Florida’s book, “The Rise of the Creative Class,” right here. And you can visit his “Creative Class” website by clicking on this spot.

And how about the avalanche of cultural avatars and consultants that followed in Florida’s wake, echoing his themes that Richmond needed to actively encourage its community arts scene and to open up to new voices? By clicking here, you can meet these enlightened visitors, re-visit their words and be introduced to “The Richmond Paradox.”

For a contrary view, read Steven Malanga’s thoughtful critique of Richard Florida’s theories, “The Curse of the Creative Class,” right here.

Still can’t understand why hiring that freaky goth kid with the earring might just save your company, and also help to bring better coffee options and more high-tech industries to your immediate area? Click here to read this new Arts and Humanities Research Council report on the arts and innovation.

Richmond’s establishment isn’t the only one wrestling with (or namedropping) Richard Florida’s theories. Click here and read about the Milwaukee Cultural Alliance, and how their “Cultural Action Plan” has ignored community, street-level art at its peril:

The Cultural Alliance, whose job it is to “strengthen, advance and represent the arts and culture sector as an essential asset for growing a vibrant, attractive region” is either unwilling to challenge Milwaukee’s obsolete establishment or else they aren’t even aware of how the creative class relates to economic growth. They focus all their attention on…big organizations, as though these are the only existing relevant cultural assets, when, in reality from the creative class perspective, they are the least relevant.

In the next series of posts, Save Richmond’s Richmond Arts Flashback, will document the city’s rich and colorful history of community “street-level art,” including several of today’s successful examples. And it’s all in anticipation of Richmond’s forthcoming “Cultural Action Plan.”

Previous installments of the Flashback can be found here, here, here and here

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Culture in Richmond: A Progress Report

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

When we last left “The Richmond Cultural Action Plan”, the consultants representing the region’s arts groups, WolfBrown, were in their fact-finding phrase.

On Monday night, at Visual Arts Center of Richmond, area artists, arts companies and arts patrons can hear from the consultants firsthand, find out more about what their research has yielded and inquire about the status of the Plan, which hopes to re-structure how organizations of culture in the metro area get local funding. John Sarvay at Buttermilk & Molasses has more here. Podium time is 5:30PM.

Christina Newton of Curated Culture (the fine folks behind the First Fridays Artwalk) is on the Cultural Action Plan Task Force and fills us in on what’s going on. In a recent mass email, she wrote:

The focus of the meeting will be an update on the research for the cultural plan for those in the arts and cultural community. It will include a detailed presentation of the findings of the cultural census survey of over 2,500 Richmond area residents by the consultants working on this project with us, WolfBrown (Alan Brown and Rebecca Ratzkin), as well as updates on the other research areas - financial data from cultural organizations and cultural education programming. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and comment.

Please come to this important meeting and spread the word to friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.

I admit that I originally had some reservations about the Regional Cultural Action Plan — especially their (now closed) Cultural Action Survey — but after having a meeting with WolfBrown’s Rebecca Ratzkin a short time ago, I felt more positive about this new (hopefully fairer) re-jiggering of the limited number of regional arts dollars currently available. What I worry about now is that a good plan will actually emerge, and then it will rot on top of the pile with all the other consultant-driven studies that get commissioned around here and never acted on.

But if you are a Richmond artist, or arts-related professional, you probably owe it to yourself to attend the meeting on Monday and hear some feedback, and also find out more about what’s being proposed.

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Election Winners and Losers

Saturday, November 8th, 2008

Here is Save Richmond’s locally-seasoned view of the Winners and Losers from Tuesday’s elections:

THE WINNERS:

America
The Obama victory on Tuesday has prompted an amazing worldwide reception, from our allies in Britain to our longtime foes in Iran. Can anyone remember the last time crowds formed on foreign streets in order to hail the United States? Anyone see a burning American flag in the video montage above? What a refreshing change from the last eight years.

Barack Obama
If he runs the country like he ran his focused, inclusive and determined political campaign, we are going to be in fine shape.

Democrats
We can only hope that Congressional Dems don’t read their impressive 2008 victories — you can’t call it anything but a mandate, folks — as a broad welcome mat for pork and excess. They should remember what happened when George Bush misjudged his “political capital” after the 2004 election. When ideas generated by the minority GOP party make sense for the good of the country, Democrats should put party politics aside and adopt them. When they don’t, the donkeys should remember their mandate. That’s how it is supposed to work and let’s hope that it does.

Virginia
For the first time in 44 years, Virginia went Blue. Now, neither political party will be able to take the Commonwealth for granted. Can that be anything but good news for all of us, regardless of party affiliation?

Dwight Jones
We still don’t know what kind of mayor that Dwight Jones will really be, but if we are to judge him by his campaign rhetoric, he will (among other things) fight for the popular Downtown Plan (a.k.a. “The People’s Plan”), make new schools a priority and not a political punching bag, and install transparency at CenterStage and other formerly-closed-off public-private partnership “deals” that use public money but eschew citizen input and inquiry. But for all of his talk about a “different” kind of administration, let’s hope a Mayor Jones won’t be afraid to buck the city council and the school board when they are wrong — which is often. No, we don’t need more events like “Fiasco Friday” but honest debate and a system of checks and balances are what is required. The ball is in your court now, Rev. Jones.

Richmond Public Schools
I have no idea how some of our newly-elected school board members will actually pan out, but anything that shakes up that board (five new members!) is a good thing — even if noted watchdogs Keith West and Carol Wolf will not be among the returning representatives. It’s too bad that the most inspiring candidate of them all, Jonathan Mallard in the 4th, didn’t get in. Let’s hope someone in a position of authority has been paying attention to the excellent forensics work he’s done on school spending and makes constructive use of it. If no one does, it will be a strong signal that nothing has really changed.

Style Weekly
Did the rest of the area’s establishment media see how Style covered the local political races? Did they take notes? Not only did the scrappy weekly co-sponsor a series of informative mayoral debates with the League of Women Voters, it distinguished itself with updated election night coverage that went beyond just the raw numbers. This is called journalism and civic engagement, people. Isn’t it cool?

RVANews and The Richmond Good Life
Ross, Valerie and the fine folks at RVANews kept the electorate informed with live blogging of the Style debates, online video clips for those who couldn’t make those events, and informative (if often disregarded) candidate questionaires. For a healthy Democracy, this kind of accessible, inclusive coverage is so key that you wonder how we ever voted without it. No wonder RVANews is turning out to be THE grassroots web source for Richmond culture and politics while other news services with more money and resources are trying in vain to buy themselves some form of internet legitimacy. Good luck. Meanwhile, over at Richmond Good Life, webmaster Ed oversaw a superior and informative aggregate of local political news that helped citizens get right to the meat of the Mayor’s race. I enthusiastically bookmarked RGL the minute I found it and I now peruse it nearly every day. It’s an invaluable area resource.

The Local Blogosphere
Elsewhere on the vast series of tubes, independent webbers such as SlantBlog, Buttermilk & Molasses, and J’s Notes (and we can’t forget our neighborhood community blogs, including John Murden’s pioneering Church Hill People’s News) helped to elevate the public discourse and provided not only strong opinions but postings of campaign events and actual breaking political news. Sure there were obvious partisan hacks that seemed to exist only to parrot campaign talking points — but even those bloggers served a purpose by encouraging hot debate on our local web.

Jack the Blogger
Horndog, man about town, drink-mixer and controversial observer — Richmond’s more charismatic version of Joe the Plumber managed to take a hedonistic worldview and make a sizable splash on the local political scene as a would-be kingmaker. I don’t always agree with him, but I hope that Jack never “settles down.”

Richmond Police
For allowing the impromptu election night celebration that peacefully but noisily spilled out onto Broad Street, the Richmond police deserve applause. In other cities, this would be just another day on the beat but city cops have a deserved bad reputation for over-reaction, especially when it involves the activities of young people. Let’s hope this wasn’t an isolated incident.

Mark Warner
I often wonder if our former Governor, Virginia’s new Senator-elect, is ashamed of being a Democrat. But maybe that aggressive neutrality is what makes him so popular with all kinds of folks in our now “purple” commonwealth. In any event, it’s puzzling why other politicians — red and blue — don’t follow his successful lead.

Gov. Tim Kaine
Former VP finalist Kaine was an excellent spokesperson and point man for his pal Barack during the race; he also gave a great speech about the death of “Ol’ Virginny” after the Commonwealth was called in favor of the Democratic ticket. (But see the list below.)

THE LOSERS:

John McCain
If McCain had run his presidential campaign like he delivered his moving, gracious concession speech, he’d be our President-elect today. I’m sure of it. Instead, he chose an inexperienced, divisive, know-nothing running mate and diluted his considerable strengths as a statesman time and again. I’m sure he wishes he could have a do-over. He’d no doubt run like the John McCain that used to champion “straight talk” instead of “hate talk.”

Republicans
The biggest economic downturn since the Depression, two wars (one of them initiated by bald-faced lies), an embrace of torture as an “American value,” the politicization of our judiciary, right-wing Supreme Court judges, etc. etc. … and they ain’t done yet. I’m normally one that votes for candidates over party, but in this election cycle, I failed to see a single reason why any Republican should be rewarded. History will not be kind to the Grand Old Party after what they’ve done to our country the last eight years.

Rove-ian Politics
How satisfying it was to see Jim Gilmore get LAPPED by Mark Warner in their Senate matchup, and fail to even take his homebase of Henrico County. I say that this had much to do with the scuzzball campaign he ran that attempted to paint his opponent as a hairy liberal — talk about a leaky bill of goods. How interesting it is to see the hardcore Virginia GOPers who championed Gilmore — and the national right wing punditocracy — still playing a loser’s game after Tuesday’s defeat, attempting to spark a new round of divisive, culture war-driven politics. Speaking of which, we can also say goodbye to two of the most embarrassing purveyors of divide-and-conquer politics in Virginia, Virgil Goode and Thelma Drake. Goode and Drake each ran campaigns that were long on fear and character assassination and short on ideas and substance. Drake painted herself as a hawk and hid behind her “patriotism” while voting against funding for veterans’ health care. She was also strikingly incompetent, failing to come up with even one substantive bill in all of her time in office. I’m glad that the 2nd district finally took note. As for Goode in the 5th district, I never believed his exaggerated southern accent for one minute. He always reminded me of Andy Griffith’s fascist fake-everyman, Lonesome Rhodes, in Elia Kazan’s film, Face in the Crowd. If anything, Goode made ol’ Lonesome seem like a piker.

Joe the Plumber
Man, I am so glad this guy’s 15 minutes have expired. I hope he enjoys his tax cut.

The Gay Community
The greater electorate may have spoken out in favor of a more progressive nation, but state ballot initiatives in Florida, Arizona and California nevertheless continued our nation’s assault on basic rights for same-sex couples. I still dream of a world where people are judged not by the sex of their partner but by the content of their character… what about you?

The Metro Richmond “Business Community”
The chosen mayoral candidate of our richest county-dwelling Republicans placed a distant third. The designated pick of Richmond’s developer clique lost too. I won’t delude myself into thinking that either force’s influence will be greatly diminished in the days to come, but I think a signal was sent if anyone wants to see it: The City of Richmond should not serve as the exclusive erector set of the folks at the Commonwealth Club. For too long, Richmond has believed that all its problems can be solved from the top down by corporate leaders who, frankly, have been very inconsistent, barely competent and exceedingly tone deaf in their vision and their leadership. To borrow one national politician’s winning slogan, it is time for a “change” and that is what Richmond voters asked for on Tuesday. They certainly didn’t vote for the “business community” — in whatever form — to maintain an exclusive grip on civic matters at the expense of the rest of us.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial Page
Our least favorite Dittoheads — closed off in a rareified little world where a regular left-of-center columnist is not welcome — not only showed us how out-of-touch they were with Richmond (and Virginia) voters during this election cycle, they left it up to pop music writer Melissa Ruggieri to cover minute-by-minute developments on election night. Um, what exactly are their two editorial page blogs for? Lazy and sad.

Richmond Election Officials
Seriously, folks, can anyone play this game?

The 7th Congressional District
The newly-designated “rising star” of the GOP is getting some positive press right now. But allow me to play the contrarian for a moment and predict that Eric Cantor’s lonely GOP win over Anita Hartke in the 7th district will be a net loss for the area, not a plus. Do we really think this rabid de-regulator, a former friend of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff who has consistently placed partisanship and corporate welfare over the common good, will actually be working hard to represent the needs of the 7th district over the next few years? Nope, this would-be Whip will be w-a-a-a-y too busy alternately “repairing” the GOP brand and engaging in hit-man tactics against Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats to look out for his district. Take a peek at what Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s “Hardball” does to Cantor here in this TV clip (and how Cantor refuses to answer a direct question from Matthews in the YouTube clip posted above) and tell me again how this guy represents any kind of reasonable “future” for America (and the Richmond-area). [Disclosure: Diana Cantor, Mr. Cantor's wife, does NOT serve on the board of directors of Save Richmond Inc.]

Gov. Tim Kaine
Obama’s close friend Gov. Kaine was warned repeatedly about Virginia’s flawed voting machines and inadequate election preparation. And, as predicted, problems flared up in polling places from Hampton Roads to the Shenadoah Valley; at times, the former Richmond mayor even seemed to make light of these potential hazards. I’m sure the guv’s behavior was designed to send signals that he was not some liberal partisan tilting the race to Obama. But I look at the definition of “Centrist” and fail to see anything about standing aside while basic voter rights are infringed upon. A whispered boo to him and his eyebrow.

Saturday afternoon update:
Bill Pantele and L. Douglas Wilder
Call these the “People’s Choice” awards. A couple of very astute Save Richmonders have written in to suggest that these two love-’em-or-hate-’em pols deserve to be on the Loser’s List. Did his silly quip, “We need less bloggers,” cost Dollar Bill the mayor’s seat? Did Pantele’s role in the firing of Jack the Bartending Blogger sway a vote or two? Were Richmonders simply uncomfortable with the idea of dance divas becoming mayor? Were some folks discomforted by the video of Bill in all of his glory at the CenterStage vote? Just take a peek at the closer-than-close voting tallies in the third and fifth districts and make up your own mind. In any event, Mr. Bosnia is toast. Meanwhile, it seemed at times that the mayor’s race was a straight-up referendum on Pantele’s nemesis Wilder, who swept all nine districts four years ago as Richmond’s first elected mayor in a century but is leaving office with a diminished reputation (although history will be the final judge — did George Bush have any successes comparable to Richmond’s new Downtown Plan?). In a way, the mayor’s race became a small town echo of the Presidential campaign: Doug’s would-be successor Robert Grey became positively McCain-like as he tried hard to distance himself from the previous administration. The Wilder-bashing prompted a snippy and somewhat childish RTD editorial penned by the man himself that should’ve had the headline: “The Hell With All Y’all.” Maybe Obama will now appoint Doug Wilder to be the Ambassador of Bosnia — wouldn’t that be a kick?

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It’s A New Day in America

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

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The Meanest Woman in America

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Here’s the punchline: This woman is an official Republican delegate.

After watching this, what else can you say but “Obama/Biden ‘08″?

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A Preview of the Richmond Folk Festival

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

We know that Richmond is all about the history, but next week the city starts a new tradition — one that I predict will be lasting and will help re-define the region in a (positive) way that has nothing to do with tobacco, the Confederacy, floods or dysfunctional government.

Ladies and gentleman, I proudly present… The Richmond Folk Festival.

Actually, if you were among the record-breaking throng that attended the National Folk Festival’s final Richmond appearance last year, this free event along the Richmond waterfront will need no introduction. The inaugural installment of the Richmond Folk Festival (slated for next weekend, Oct. 10-12) simply takes up where the National left off, with valuable assistance from The National Council of Traditional Arts and Venture Richmond. The free event will feature world-class music and entertainment, indigenous arts and crafts, regional music traditions and a smorgasbord of exotic food. And did I mention it was free?

The NCTA’s long-running National Folk Festival establishes itself in a host city for three years, but with a catch: The community must continue with its own, similar multi-cultural event when the NFF leaves town (after it exited Richmond in 2007, the festival saw a new host city: Butte, Montana). And why fix it if it ain’t broke? For this Richmond fest, stages will once again be situated along the riverfront, and visitors will be able to experience a wide, dizzying, spectrum of sounds and cultures.

I’m proud to be on the local programming committee, and I think this is one of the best lineups to date (click here for full schedule). Once again, working with the National Council for the Traditional Arts has been an education and a treat. They are the real deal, as are the local and regional music experts who sat beside me on the committee — it shows once again how the arts can flourish in this area when our local powers-that-be put people in charge who really know, and love, what they are doing. And, if I may say so, this is one local, arts-oriented event that the regional business community seems to “get” — bravo to those area sponsors who have assisted in establishing Richmond’s newest tradition.

My advice to those of you who plan to attend the 1st Richmond Folk Festival — don’t expect to see, hear and taste everything (that may be impossible to do, there’s just too much). So do a little research beforehand on what you might want to check out and experience.

Below, you can preview a few of the standout acts at this year’s three-day event:

I’m probably most excited by the appearance of Howard Tate who, years ago, was given up for lost or dead. Tate’s Get it While You Can LP from the ’60’s is one of my favorite soul albums, and he’s got a fine new disc out, Blue Day, that shows he’s still got the stuff.

And it is a absolute privilege to have the great Kentucky banjo player, Lee Sexton. That is a BIG score.

One of the performers who may end up stealing the show is Vieux Farka Toure, the Malian guitar player who is the son of the legendary Ali Farka Toure. I’ve heard from some out-of-town musicos who say they will make the trip to Richmond just to see him.

I’m definitely going to catch Nukariik, the Canadian Inuit throat singers who present an extremely startling, other-worldly sound.

Grupo Cimarron will be bringing the danceable “joropo” music of Colombia to the downtown riverfront.

Ledward Kaapana and Mike Kaawa, two Hawaiian music legends, conjure up volcanos with their rousing Hawaiian slack key and 12-string guitar sounds.

If there is a “sleeper” act this year, it might be Sharde Thomas and Rising Star. Contemporary African-American fife and drum music is rarely heard these days — even though it is a key root of the blues — and 18-year-old fife player/vocalist Thomas keeps the flame alive (she’s the granddaughter of Otha Turner). I find the story of this Mississippi teenager who is keeping a dying American musical art form alive to be very inspiring.

Bland and Choir

I’m also thrilled by the planned appearance of Larry Bland and the Volunteer Choir (above), one of the Richmond region’s lesser-known musical treasures. And, no, you shouldn’t miss the pole-flying aerobatics of The Tezcatlipoca Voladores — an appearance that will be talked about for years to come.

And there’s so much more…

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