Local rock band “The Obscurities” are scheduled to play this evening beside Sweet Frog on W. Cary Street.
(UPDATE: Never mind, gig cancelled due to injury).
Here is a cover image from their FaceBook page:
For eleven years now I have enjoyed attending the annual Folk Festival held on Richmond’s riverfront, a short walk from the neighborhood. This year was no exception. I caught such great acts as the Cambodian American Heritage Dance Troupe, The Campbell Brothers, Feedel Band, Grupo Rebolu’, Zedashe, and others. For me the highlight was two sets of wonderfully cosmic jazz by the Sun Ra Arkestra. Sure, I could nitpick, but overall the Folk Festival Committee continues doing an excellent job with programming the festival. Having dabbled in music booking and management, and having volunteered for the Folk Festival in the past, I have some idea of the challenges they face.
This past weekend was blessed with great weather and the crowds were there. There were still a few issues with traffic and jackasses parking illegally in the neighborhood, but it was better than some previous experiences with riverfront events. Hopefully these issues can be negotiated in a respectful manner so that they are not issues in the future.
That said, a huge opportunity was missed to highlight one of Richmond’s most important historical resources. I am, of course, talking about the James River and Kanawha Canal, designed in part by George Washington, built with slave labor, and the biggest and most significant public project in Virginia’s antebellum period. Among other common sense proposals for the new “Tredegar Green” area, neighbors have repeatedly requested a sign or historic marker west of Tredegar Iron Works for the Canal, listed since 1971 on the National Register of Historic Places. How many of the estimated 200,000 or so festival attendees knew about the historic Canal they were walking by? Venture Richmond left it without any sign and treated it like just a regular drainage ditch.
How many of the artists who performed on the ‘VCU Health stage’, set up IN THE CANAL, knew the historic significance?
It was a bit surreal to watch the Irish group The Alt perform on this site where Irish immigrants had toiled and died, without any acknowledgement by the festival. A simple sign, as requested, would have worked.
At times, Richmond leaders and academics talk about how Richmond history is so much more than the Civil War, and how more pre-Civil War accomplishments and stories need to be told. Despite all this talk, Richmond’s leaders often do not live up to their promises in this regard. (Something the late Mark Brady and many others have experienced). Sometimes they are more interested in destroying these important legacies, sometimes to the point that they jeopardize future opportunities.
The Folk Festival is great at sharing and presenting stories of people from all around the world (and we all hope it continues to do so), but that is why it is so incredibly disturbing when Venture Richmond ignores and diminishes our own.
Of course, for anyone who does not already know, this is the weekend of the Richmond Folk Festival. I am always surprised by how many locals still do not understand that this is not folk rock as in Bob Dylan, but folk musics and traditions of all types from all over the world. It’s an incredible chance to grow your musical tastes and it happens right next to Oregon Hill. Yes, there are community concerns about how Venture Richmond is using the Folk Festival to push inappropriate riverfront development, but that should not stop people from enjoying what the festival itself has to offer.
And that’s not all that’s happening this weekend…Whurk Magazine, ‘Virginia Cultural Review’, has a nice article on the Richmond Zine Festival, which takes place this Saturday at the Main Public Library, Oregon Hill’s City public library branch. (One footnote- although the festival is billed as the ninth annual one, Throttle Magazine started and sponsored a few earlier renditions of the Richmond Zine Festival years earlier)
If that is not enough, Oregon Hill’s Vinyl Conflict record store is co-sponsoring the Richmond Record Fair at Hardywood Brewery on Sunday. The description has “20+ tables spanning all genre, tones, culture, subgenre, sub-sub-genre, feedback, texture, vibrations and libations”. It includes a concert by local band The Milkstains.
Here’s hoping that everyone has a great weekend.
…but still no official reply or even acknowledgment of a few, common-sense accommodations in regard to the rezoning. In fact, nothing the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association has asked for applies to the Folk Festival.
Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky and other states have all invested in dedicated brick-and-mortar museums. Georgia invested millions in its Macon-based Music Hall of Fame, but the concept proved unsustainable and didn’t last. Virginia must learn and benefit from that experience.
Any museum must be extremely cautious about its overhead and budget. The world of the nonprofit is rough and has many obstacles.
Richmond, being centrally located and on Interstate 95, is an ideal location for a Virginia Music Hall of Fame.
Excerpt from Richmond.com article:
Drew Anderson, a young jazz trumpeter from Richmond, will perform with Wynton Marsalis’ Summer Jazz Academy at the Castleton Festival over the next two weekends.
Anderson, 18, joins 42 other U.S. high school jazz students who were handpicked by Jazz at Lincoln Center to participate in the new advanced training program.
A recent graduate of the Open High School, Anderson sharpened his talent at Richmond Youth Jazz Guild, which his father founded.
The following letter was sent from an attorney hired by the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association on June 17 to members of City Council, the Mayor’s office, Richmond Police Department, and others.
Dear elected and appointed officials of the City of Richmond:
We represent the neighborhood associations of Oregon Hill and the Overlook.
The citizens of Oregon Hill and the Overlook have engaged with Venture Richmond in a series of discussions, and today have provided a set of draft conditions for the consideration of Venture Richmond in their proposed zoning request to the City for the Tredegar Green Amphitheater.
The homeowners and residents of Oregon Hill support (and enjoy) robust public use of the riverfront and specifically do not oppose reasonable use of the Tredegar Green property. However, like any neighborhood of homeowners in the City, they have reasonable concerns about adverse impacts on noise, parking, trash, public safety and the like. And, like any neighborhood of homeowners in the City, they have a legitimate expectations that these adverse impacts will be reasonably addressed by a zoning applicant and by their City officials.
To assist Venture Richmond and the City, we have prepared a proposed set of conditions that we feel reasonably address the adverse impacts of use of the Tredegar Green property. Attached are that set of conditions and an explanatory cover letter to Venture Richmond counsel Bill Axselle.
We look forward to working with Venture Richmond and the City as the zoning application goes forward. In that process, we submit these conditions to allow the uses that Venture Richmond envisions while reasonably protecting the neighbors on Oregon Hill.
We welcome your input and assistance in this regard.
Thank you very much,
Andrew R. McRoberts
Attorney
Sands Anderson PC
From: McRoberts, Andrew R.
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2015 1:31 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: Oregon Hill Proposed Conditions for Tredegar Green AmphitheaterBill, here are our proposed conditions and an explanatory cover letter. We look forward to working with you in addressing the Oregon Hill neighborhood’s reasonable concerns.
We learned this morning – too late to affect these conditions I promised you today – that the Richmond Police Department (“RPD”) may wish for the applications for event management plan approval to go through another department or agency rather than the RPD. Although I have not discussed this with my clients, I anticipate that shifting the receiving/approving agency to another department or office which works better for all would be acceptable to us. As I mentioned in the cover letter, a number of City departments may be involved in review of a proposed event management plan.
Thanks for your assistance,
Andrew
Andrew R. McRoberts
Attorney
Sands Anderson PC
Attachment: Letter to Hon Ralph L. Axselle Jr 6-17-15 (Editor’s note: click here for PDF)
Oregon Hill’s punk/metal record store, Vinyl Conflict, will be presenting a hardcore and metal showcase featuring performances by Connoisseur from Oakland, California and Richmond groups Humungus, Unsacred and Cornbeard at Strange Matter on Grace Street this Thursday night.
CONNOISSEUR “Firestorm / Weedleech”
From their first show in Oakland.
May 20th, 2011.