August 20, 1968 – Hendrix Plays The Mosque

Times Dispatch music review the next day:

He calls it the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and like it or not, that’s what it is.
Hendrix is a soft-spoken Negro. He plays his innovative style of music with two English boys, and While the sound is white, what Hendrix himself does is alternately intellectual or frenzied.
He was dressed for last night’s Mosque concert in bellbottom cerise pants. He also wore an exotically embroidered vest over a black shirt, two belts — one wide and gold — and three ornate rings. His carefully clipped hair stands high and round like a topiary tree.
Hendrix, who taught himself guitar by listening to old rhythm and blues artists, has put that style of music aside.
Instead, he has originated a music of his own, using amplifiers and electronics as a part of it.
The result is a lot of noise and harsh sound, but listen carefully and there are some startling musical effects emerging.
Such as when he uses the shrill sound of feedback as a key note in his harmony, or when the overtones that swell over and beneath his music become an intrinsic part of it.
Intricate Figures
Other than that, his musical understanding is shown in the intricate figures he weaves on the guitar, often holding the instrument tight against his chest, as if he were a human resonator. At other times he is strictly a sensational showman, as when he swings the guitar between his legs, or lifts it high and seems to chomp on it like an ear of corn. All time he keeps playing, never losing the thread holding the song together.
Between shows the 24·year-old sensation of Europe and the United States, was a warm, but shy person, tired from the hectic grind of one-night stands, on an eight-week tour, but happy to make his music and have it appreciated.
Traveling in the same musical package is a group known as The Eire Apparent, a group of terribly young and strangely dressed young men – one looked as if he had borrowed his Aunt Fanny‘s hat – who display a good deal of talent; and a three man group called The Soft Machine that features a topless drummer, a leather-jacketed organist and a guitarist, complete with Stetson hat, who looked like Cat Ballou, as he slumped over his guitar.
It was almost impossible to bear the music out front, as it was so amplified. But backstage, where the resonance wasn’t as strong, the music the two lesser—known groups made was much more palatable. Too bad they can’t give up those umbilical cords that tie them to their sound boxes, or at-least hear how they negate their own efforts with the amplification.
When the amplifiers are lowered, and the music emerges a bit more, one realizes that Hendrix is playing blues and protest songs, as much as he is fiery, possessing ones.
He dedicated “I Don‘t Live Today” to “all the self-appointed soldiers in St. Petersburg, Chicago, Vietnam and, or yes, the American Indian.” The song ends in a special effect like a catcall. His “Red House Blues” displayed his original harmonic technique around the old jazz form, but his version a squalling, wailing blues — the lament is there, but it is shriller. In fact, if the music is representative of Hendrix’ own soul, then his soul seems to be a shrieking and demanding a place in the sun.

Councilperson Agelasto’s Fifth District Meeting Thursday

Councilperson Agelasto is holding a Fifth District meeting this coming Thursday, August 24, from 6 pm to 8 pm at the Woodland Heights Baptist Church (611 W. 31st Street, Richmond, VA 23225)

From announcement:

Agenda Items

· Richmond Public Schools Update
The Honorable Patrick Sapini, Richmond Public Schools Board of Trustees, Richmond Central 5th Voter District

· Richmond City Property Assessment Update
Mr. Richie N. McKeithen, City Assessor, Richmond City Council Office of the City Assessor of Real Estate

· Richmond Master Plan Update: Richmond 300
Ms. Maritza Pechin, AECOM Consultant/Richmond Master Plan Project Manager, Richmond Department of Planning and Development Review

· Richmond Central 5th Voter District Updates

· Questions and Comments

Stop Sign Proposal Revealed

This past summer there was a lot of discussion about Oregon Hill’s traffic flow. The Idlewood roundabout is still coming, and more construction near Monroe Park added fuel to the fire, but the real sparks have been several highly visible accidents at key intersections in the neighborhood. A few neighbors have had their corner properties hit multiple times by vehicles over the years. Thankfully, somehow, there has not been any related fatalities.

The Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association originally, as of a few years ago, voted and asked for a few additional stop signs at these key intersections, namely Spring and Laurel, and Spring and Pine, in order to create what are essentially all way stops. City traffic engineers have rejected them (though other neighborhoods have been able to prevail in their requests). At one point engineers came back with a small roundabout proposal, but neighbors voted that down, in part because of concerns about parking impacts.

Over the last 6 to 8 months, the conversation changed, along with the construction scene, and more elaborate proposals have been brought forward for overall traffic flow and with what is called ‘basketweaving‘.

Jokes aside, the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association did seriously consider options and ultimately came up its own ‘custom’ proposal.

While nothing has been decided or implemented yet, here it is:

The red circles are where existing stop signs would be changed so that they are ‘flipped’, directing traffic to stop in the opposite directions from the current situations. For example, currently, if you are going north on Pine Street on the 500 block, you do not have to stop, but people approaching on Spring Street do have to stop. In the new scenario, if you were going north on Pine Street on the 500 block, you would stop at the intersection with Spring, and people going west or east on Spring would not have to stop.

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In recycling news, Recycling Steadily Growing More Common in DC-Area Counties.

In Virginia, Fairfax County’s Solid Waste Management program reported a 50 percent recycling rate for 2016.

Recycling numbers for all of Virginia in 2016 should be compiled soon, according to a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. But data from 2015 show the Richmond area achieved the highest recycling rates at 62.7 percent.

The recycling rate for all of northern Virginia is 47.4 percent.

More Than Presidents

From Hollywood Cemetery‘s FaceBook page:

Presidents Circle is known for the two United States Presidents that rest here, but there are also several other notables in this section.
Matthew Fontaine Maury (known throughout the world as the Pathfinder of the Seas), Joseph Reid Anderson (one of Richmond’s most influential citizens and founder of Tredegar Iron Works – the largest in the South), William Henry Haxall (one of the four visionary founders of Hollywood in 1847), Moses Drury Hogue (first pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Richmond), and Lawrence Waring (an influential Richmond physician) are also buried here.

New Construction For Civil War Museum

The Times Dispatch has an article on new construction beginning at the American Civil War Museum at Tredegar:

The museum marks a major milestone on that path Monday, when it will break ground on a 29,000-square-foot main exhibit hall and collections storage and preservation center to be built into the hillside at the Tredegar site, incorporating the brick ruins of the old ironworks that powered the Confederate war effort.

The new museum building, at roughly $25 million, will feature a 75-seat immersive “experience theater” that greets visitors on the first floor that aims to tell the story, from all sides, of the war that almost pulled the United States apart. Key themes will revolve around individual decisions and how they were shaped by events.

Congratulations To Open High! Another Excellence Award

Open High School has been awarded a 2017 Board of Education Excellence Award.

This is the second tier in the Virginia Index Of Performance Awards. The VIP incentive program recognizes schools and divisions that exceed state and federal accountability standards and achieve excellence goals established by the governor and the board. This means Open High also met all state and federal accountability benchmarks and made significant progress toward goals for increased student achievement and expanded educational opportunities set by the board.

Oregon Hill is lucky to have such a great neighbor, which can trace its history (and protection) back to Grace Arents’ legacy.

Hopefully, this will add pressure to put ALL schools first. It would also be great to see Open High’s aging building get more fully renovated in a historically sensitive manner.