Our First Band Interviews in Nov. 1993

The first three band interviews were Big City, Dirtball, and The Trouble with Larry. Dirtball had a professional looking, 8x10 black and white photo. Big City had a snapshot. The Larry guys, who lived in a sprawling Fan apartment with cats, had a professional looking CD.

Big City was Billy Ray Hatley, Velpo Robertson, Audie Stanley, Mark Szafranski, Mike Edwards and soundman Karl Erickkson.

Hatley is with Billy Ray Hatley and the Showdogs now. Szafranski still owns Metro Sound Company, and it’s still downtown. He moved from a small store on the northside of Broad across the street to a bigger space. He was consistently the most annoying full page advertiser I had to deal with because he always had to be persuaded, and was very particular about the ad. The deal was never done; it was a constant negotiation.

Big City, which was formed in 1987, was the house band at the Bus Stop in Shockoe Slip for almost three years. They recorded a CD, “Big City Live: Kissed by the Gods” at the Flood Zone, when the club had a recording studio upstairs. Their goal was to be on “Saturday Night Live.” It didn’t happen.

“If you want to work in this town, you have to do covers. We do whatever it takes because we’re old guys,” said Hatley.

Dirtball was Wes Freed, Neal Furgurson, Jim Garthoff, Peter Headley, Kirk Henderson, Jeff Liverman, John Mosher, Mike Rodriguez, Paul Watson and soundman Curt Blankenship.

You can see Freed now on TV commercials for a car junkyard. Headley still lives in the same house on Cary Street, now surrounded by pricey renovations. I went to a party at that house once when there were no interior walls, except for around his bedroom. He nailed the door of his bedroom shut to keep partygoers out. The bathroom was lined with blankets, but you could see down inside it from the staircase. You could see the lower floor from holes in the upper floor. Outside in the backyard was the car that had brought Headley to town. It was one big planter. I hear the house is superdeluxe now, although you can't really tell from the outside.

Dirtball was a relatively new band playing “hillbilly soul.” Their biggest problem, they said, was “Peter’s toilet doesn’t flush and we practice in his house.” Freed would travel through a few more bands with relatively the same sound during the next 15 years.

The Trouble with Larry (scroll to the bottom of article at link) was Richard Sarvay, Mark Abba, and Kathy Jones --who would soon leave the band -- and a drum machine. For awhile, toward the end, they actually had a drummer. Finding local welcoming stages for their “art punk” style of music was a neverending problem, although they could and did play out of town. (The interview was written by Rebecca Edwards, who probably never wrote for me again because I don't remember her.) They were one of the few bands still advertising towards the end of the Journal's print run, although with dark and scary ads featuring two-headed calves.

Their CD had Easter Island style heads on it, and we determined it was cursed. Something bad happened to everyone who had it to review.

“Being self-taught hinders you because you don’t know the rules and you come across stuff in a torturous manner, but on the other hand, you’re not bound by the rules,” said Sarvay in ’93.

I suspect Richard is now selling music and comic memorabilia on eBay out of Bumpass under the name hillbilly_behemoth. I say that because Hillbilly's store is Good Kitty Collectibles, and Richard's music company was called Good Kitty, too.