Last Testament
Page Wilson's last general email.Took a pretty rough fall a bit over 4 months ago, when my knee went out (again), and dropped me on the "step stone" in my front yard. FYI a step stone is a roughly 2 X...
View ArticleDean Owen - A Memoir
I found in my computer this fragment of an interview with Dean Owen, which I did not conduct. I think someone named Chris Brooks might have asked the questions, but it is stream-of-Dean, which needs to...
View ArticleIn the Year 2000
Scott Mills wanted to do an interview in 2000 on the history of the Journal, which was 8 years old at the time, and had four more years to live. My recollection is we did the interview as a series of...
View ArticleThat Moment of Somebody Explaining Your Life
"You can never underestimate that moment of somebody explaining your life to you, something you thought was inexplicable, through music. That was the way out of loneliness."-- Carrie Brownstein,...
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Frank Daniel 1951-2004
This was published in the Richmond Music Journal in April 2004, and I just realized it isn't on the blog, which I started in 2006. Since it looks like at this point in 2013 that the Internet might be a...
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My First Gwar Show
From the October 1994 Richmond Music Journal.It's 45 minutes past 8 o'clock "doors" and there's a line down the block outside the Flood Zone. The first band, X-Cops, doesn’t come on until 9:43 and even...
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My Interview with Dave Brockie
From the June 1995 Richmond Music JournalDave Brockie in his Slave Pit officeI was summoned to the Slave Pit. Despite the interest of other writers in doing the Gwar story, the band wants the...
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Frog Legs Revisited
If I were to do this Frog Legs memoir right, I’d pull out the crate of old Journals and look up every article we ran on the band, but the crate is in the closet, under the Christmas decorations, behind...
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How We Gave the Ramones Head
From the June 1995 issue of Richmond Music JournalBy Mariane MateraAnother writer is handling the Ramones show at the Flood Zone, so my job is easy. Deliver a gift from Gwar's Dave Brockie to Joey...
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My Front (and Back) Pages
When I started the paper in 1994, at first I didn't put a price, then I thought I should mention that it's free. So it said Free for a few issues, but on issue number six, I changed it to Very...
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My Craft Has Turned to Craft Beer
My husband had a weekend sound job and texted me after he got there that the Summer Moon Music Festival was at the same place where I used to have the Richmond Music Journal printed, the Hanover Herald...
View ArticleEnd Things - 2005
Something that everyone needs is to be told that not everything you do is satisfactory, and that you have to do better. It is a life lesson.-- LudacrisWe all fall in love and lose it over somebody, but...
View ArticleThe Danger of Being Even Pathetically, Marginally Famous
(This is an excerpt from one of my other blogs about my overall career as a writer, but this part pertains to the Journal.) I bring it up again now after reading about what a terrible time women in...
View ArticleThe Ill-Fated Public Safety Festival of '05
I only attended this disaster because my husband was running sound for it. The promoters predicted 20,000 people would attend out at a park in the East End. It was co-billed as a Pep Rally for...
View ArticleMraz on Richmond Circa 2005 and Other Quotes
In an interview in the Oklahoma State university newspaper in 2005, Mechanicsville's Jason Mraz said Richmond was too big a town for him and was "completely unattractive because of racial...
View ArticleWhat I Learned from Peter Bell
Peter Bell died in an auto accident in August 2015 at age 55.To hear Peter talk in the early ‘90s, he divided women into two groups, the fuckable ones, and the others. The fuckable ones were the ones...
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Peter Bell Remembers The Rage
Peter Bell called his friend JJ Loehr’s house in the Museum District the headquarters of the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club, and that’s where we met in August 1994 for four hours for a four-part interview....
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Peter Bell on the Rise of Ten Ten
Part two of the Peter Bell story. Ten Ten rises to the almost top. Originally published in October 1994.“Ten Ten had a following right away because The Rage fans came out to see me and The Dads fans...
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Peter Bell on the End of Ten Ten
Part three of the Peter Bell story, originally published in November 1994When Ten Ten’s album “Walk On” came out in 1986, Peter Bell remembers it was destroyed by the British music critics. “In...
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Peter Bell in 1994
The last interview in the December 1994 issue updated where Peter was then.“Ten Ten got no respect in Richmond, and I always talked up the town in interviews all over the world, what a great music...
View ArticleTwenty Years Ago in Shockoe Bottom
It seemed like an easy assignment. Saturday night. Leave at 10 p.m. Go to Shockoe Bottom. Pop in the Main Street Grill and see Spike the Dog. Pop in Moondance, see Lil’ Ronnie and the Bluebeats,...
View ArticleThe Origin Story
Ray Bonis of the Cabell Library archives at Virginia Commonwealth University wanted some background information as the library prepares to put all the Journals online. He asked a few questions. I gave...
View ArticleElegy for a Printer -- How Newspapers Used to Be Made
I donated my HP Laserjet 2100M to the Swift Creek Mill Playhouse office in Colonial Heights in 2009. A young man carried it out of my car, up the stairs and left it on a table in the hallway. I said a...
View ArticleWhine Fest at the End of Three Years Doing the Paper
This article appeared in the November 1996 edition of the Richmond Music Journal. Italics reference new background info that is probably long forgotten. Slightly edited because I am a better writer now...
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