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The Infamous Stringdusters will perform a special benefit concert for the Music Resource Center.publicty photo“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music." ― Kurt Vonnegut
Stringdusters play for the MRC
Appropriately enough for this Hook music issue, our own Music Resource Center gets some love from the Grammy-nominated and highly eclectic bluegrass band The Infamous Stringdusters, as they perform a special benefit concert for the MRC at the Cider Barn at Verulam Farm on Bloomfield Road. The concert will fund scholarships for low-income students to attend the MRC and allow them to receive music and technology education for free. Of course, tickets for the event are a bit pricey, but hey, its a benefit! Plus you get food catered by The Catering Outfit, an open beer and wine bar, and the first 100 ticket buyers get a custom screen-printed concert poster. And, of course, it's tax deductible. As for the Stringdusters, well, they're known for their complex, distinctive bluegrass tunes, as the group was founded in 2007 by two Berklee College of Music students. What's more, Andy Hall (Dobro), Andy Falco (guitar), Chris Pandolfi (banjo), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle), and Travis Book (upright bass) also contribute to our local music scene by helping to produce The Festy Experience, the three-day music festival in Nelson County founded in 2010. Limited tickets...
The Other Fanning: Elle acts beyond her years
Alice Englert and Elle Fanning star as compelling teen friendsA24by Richard Roeper
Born in 1945 in the shadow of Hiroshima, Ginger and Rosa grow up in a London of weary shortages of food, living space and cheer. Who could have guessed Swinging London and the Beatles were on the way? The girls become fast friends: Ginger, whose father Roland was a conscientious objector during World War II, and Rosa, whose father isn't in the picture.
Seen in intimate hand-held intimacy in Ginger & Rosa, they smoke their first cigarettes, lighting two on a match, ironing their hair flat, soaking in a tub together to shrink their jeans. (Remember that probably apocryphal story about the hippie chick who fell asleep doing that during an LSD trip and woke up paralyzed?)
They're part of an informal left-wing community group also including Ginger's mother, Anoushka (Christina Hendricks); May Bella (Annette Bening), a sparky leftist, and an avuncular gay couple both named Mark (Timothy...
Parade
A perfect day for a parade, cool temperatures, California quality light.
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Commentator Bill Emory puts up a new photo nearly every day at billemory.com/blog.
4-wheel dilemma: Rock crawlers caught between zoning and a hard place
Rock crawling is pretty literally that, only you use a vehicle to do so. Heather Packard drives over a really big rock.photo by chris packard
No, this isn't an aerial view. Heather Packard descends a rock.photo by chris packardWhen we think conservation easement, we think rural land and gracious farms, forever protected from subdividing, with the quiet broken only by the moo of cows. The roar of four-wheel drive vehicles climbing near-vertical terrain? Not so much.
It turns out property owners who put their acreage under easement can four-wheel to their hearts content, say both Albemarle County zoning, and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, which holds 650,000 acres under easement in the Commonwealth.
It's opening those protected tracts to commercial rock crawling that could be a problem, and a group that claims nonprofit status has been cited for a zoning violation on 86 acres of mountain-bumping land between between Crozet and White Hall.
The land belongs to Joseph T. Henley, III, and it's under a conservation easement jointly held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and Albemarle Public Recreational Facilities Authority.
The land also has been used for rock crawling for more than 10 years, according to tenant Chris Packard, who's a member of Rock Crawlers for the Preservation of Future Access, which holds events to support Wounded Warriors, Toys for Tots, and the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.
A neighbor's complaint about rock crawling events had the joint-easement holders scouring the deed to see exactly what's allowed, and surprisingly, both have ruled that the 10 or 12 events the club has a year are allowed under the easement.
"We hold over 3,600...
Hackensaw healing: Dutch tragedy yields international friendships
The Hackensaw Boys in the Netherlands.Courtesy Peter Paul Klapwijk
By Richard Alblas
Life can sometimes take you to unexpected places. Just ask the Hackensaw Boys. The popular Charlottesville-based bluegrass band recently traveled to Kinderdijk, the Netherlands, where they launched their latest album titled For the Love of a Friend. It was the second time in one year the band passed through this small village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its beautiful countryside and historic windmills, and they were there with good reason.
In February of 2012, well before The Hackensaw Boys had ever heard of Kinderdijk, tragedy struck the small community when a local villager named René Verkerk died in a windmill accident. The 47-year-old Verkerk, a miller by trade, was known throughout the town not only for his passion for windmills, but also for his love of bluegrass music, particularly the Hackensaw Boys, whom he'd discovered when he attended a concert they'd played in Amsterdam a decade earlier. Soon after his death, his grief-stricken best friend Peter Paul Klapwijk sought a personal way to celebrate Verkerk's life.
"I felt I had to do something," he says, "and that the Hackensaw Boys had to be involved.’’
Without knowing exactly what to expect, Klapwijk wrote the band about the circumstances surrounding Verkerk’s death, hoping the band members might be interested in meeting the family and friends of a man who so highly regarded their music. "At the time, that’s exactly what...
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