That 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, Sleater-Kinney

I am one of those people who doesn't need music in my life except for those periods of loneliness, and that has happened twice. Three times if you count the time I rode along with my son's pre-teen loneliness.

The first was my own, so I can tell you things about music between 1964 and 1971. Then my son was born and I turned the radio off. I recognize song titles, melodies, band names, band drama from that period and it brings back fairly pleasant memories.

The second time was his own early years of teenhood, 1983-1988, more or less. It was also when MTV first came into our home and when he wasn't watching it, I would have it on as background music to my housewifery. So I became familiar with Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, and dozens of one-hit wonder bands that had memorable videos to go along with their songs. By the time my son was 16, he took his music to his room and shut the door, so I know Def Leppard was going on, but I wouldn't recognize them if I saw a photo or heard a song. There was also retro things afoot. He was sneaking off to Grateful Dead concerts, more to live in the parking lot than to see the show. I could hear The Doors coming through his closed door, a band I most certainly did recognize.

Then he left home, and I got divorced. I met other people, and things didn't work out, and I entered my second adolescence and profound period of loneliness, 1993-1997, when again I can tell you about bands and band dramas, and recognize songs because I listened to the radio again. I know all about Nirvana and the grunge movement out of Seattle and Oregon, the flannel shirts. The music again explained my life to me, But even more than that, I know about the local bands of that time and their music because I decided -- despite knowing nothing about what had happened locally prior to this, to do a local music newspaper. I know about doing newspapers, and it was the topic that was soundtracking the loneliness of that period. So they came together, and it was pretty good.

That period began to fade away starting in 1997 when I met other people who did work out, and I went back to work full time in the adult world, and turned the radio off again. Things are busy, sometimes too busy, and I don't need my life explained. I have built a little outpost for myself, and my life is the treadmill I am on to sustain it. It's not particularly fulfilling unless you consider maintaining what comforts you have as the mission. The music I sometimes allow back in is from the other periods, just to remember where I was and how I got here.

Like last night I got out of bed because it was suddenly very important that I download Arlo Guthrie's "City of New Orleans." Guthrie explained my life to me during two of my wilderness periods. His "Alice's Restaurant" bookended my college years. I wrote a parody of it for my college newspaper about standing on line at the bookstore at the beginning of the semester that put me on the map as a writer when I was one among thousands of anonymous kids on campus. 

And, as a new divorcee, between jobs, and not knowing what to do next, I attended an Arlo Guthrie concert at the Flood Zone by myself and felt transcended. I felt like maybe I could see a pathway out. We sat in chairs for that show. I thought it was always going to be that civilized. I wanted to write about it, but no one wanted to publish it. This was before the Internet. So I had to start my own newspaper. 

In 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 email exchanges. I published it in the paper and had it on the website for awhile. Now it's time to park it on the blog, minus the parts that are no longer true, like Twisters still existing and things like that.

When did the RMJ first hit the streets?

Late in October of 1993

Did you think it was going to last as long as it has?

No, I thought I'd get a real job eventually and lose interest in it, or someone would buy it. I didn't know what the future would hold. At job interviews, they would always ask, where do you see yourself in five years? And I never knew. Maybe that's why I never get the job.

The RMJ is legendary for the battles that took place in its pages. What are some of the memorable ones?

The first one was when we started to go see bands in the Bottom. That pissed off the clubs on Grace Street.

What do you think made the scene change locations?

I couldn't guess. I know what makes me change locations is a bad neighborhood vibe. No parking, running for your life to get back to your car. The second battle was giving the Richmond Music Cooperative's CD so-so reviews. So that crowd hated us. And they were the In Crowd, too. Then everyone who hated the Vapor Rhinos hated us because we liked them. Then everyone who hated girls doing a music newspaper hated us, because most of our writers were girls and we didn't always write about the music. We wrote about the scene.

Let me publicly thank Anne Soffee and Lisa Honeycutt, who both traveled the scene with me a great deal in the beginning. Anne invented the term "toe molecule" for where a musician keeps his personal sensitivity, romanticism and loyalty. They draw on that toe molecule to write music, but they don't live up to their own lyrics. Lisa, especially, took a lot of mean-spirited criticism from the guys for things she wrote. The musicians complain that the RMJ is not supportive, but nothing beat the personal attacks and personal ugliness they dished back. It's always about the music from this end, but they'd hit back at our looks.

I remember the interviews used to ask who the babe magnet in the band was. I always thought that was an unusual question.

It was a 16 Magazine type question. The whole interview was based on that magazine. The next battle was the waitresses at Marvin's, the restaurant across from the Hole in the Wall. They hated us. Marvin's was the scene hang-out. Every time someone famous died, they put up pictures of the dead person immediately. I always wondered how they did that so fast. It was actually a pretty cool place, but I was an interloper to them. Then we wrote about Dave Brockie getting naked at the end of a Gwar show at the Flood Zone. So then the Flood Zone hated us, because that became a part of their liquor license problem, although not the part that lost them their license. But Mike Hsu, who was in Animal Farm and also a deejay on The Buzz, kept badmouthing the paper on the air. So there was plenty of love lost there. And radio hated us because our readers wrote in letters about how much they hated local radio, and we printed them.

What I find really interesting is the RMJ is still a survivor and The Buzz, the Flood Zone, and a lot of those bands no longer exist. Kids today don't even know there was a Flood Zone.

Then everyone who hated Frog Legs hated us, because we liked Frog Legs. Then we didn't think much of the Floating Folk Festival's first CD, so they hated us. Everyone who gets a bad review hates us. I have an enemies list, and people move off it, but it's pretty stable over the years. There's people who write us really, really nasty letters that make personal and untrue accusations about our motivations. There's people who shafted us on money, people who stole things from us, people who tried to start competitive newspapers, people who tried to sue us. That's the spectrum of unforgivable offenses. One woman used to call me repeatedly from North Carolina in the middle of the night and said I was sexually frustrated and dressed in Garanimal outfits. Finally, I read her phone number to her off my caller ID, and she stopped after that. I guess she didn't know Caller ID existed. I still don't know who that was. I wouldn't have minded if she called the phone line I set up for late night calls, the message line. The ringer was always turned off on that phone. It just recorded messages and took faxes. But she would call my personal phone.

The Garanimals outfit is songworthy. Again, all of those start-up papers came and went. Of course, bands wanted as much press as they could get, and would do whatever they could to be in any music paper. Did you have hard feelings toward bands that did things for competitors?

Of course, especially if they bought ads everywhere but the Journal. Or they send hate mail about me to other papers. What's with that? One band bought a display ad in Punchline saying insulting things about me!

What is the most outrageous thing that happened while doing the Journal? 
Getting kicked out of the Metro during a Gwar show. They actually tried to confiscate my camera. I told them I wouldn't take any photos -- photo bans were common -- even though I had the band's permission, but they wanted to take the camera anyway. So I dodged them. And the bouncers kept hunting me down in the crowd. It got scary. They were big guys. I darted in front of the stage at one point and got sprayed down with fake blood. Then I headed for the staircase, a huge bouncer on my heels. I pulled my keychain out. It had a little silver pocketknife on it, and pulled out the blade. If that bouncer had touched me, I really think I would have tried to stab him. I got out with my camera, and ran into Marvin's across the street, looking for my friend, Anne. George Reuther from the Vapor Rhinos was sitting inside and looked really startled when I walked in. I didn't realize I was covered in fake blood. He said he didn't know where Anne was, so I went home and saw myself in the mirror, all fake bloody.

That was an unnerving experience. I also got kicked out of the Flood Zone a couple of time for taking photos of bands, even local bands. That was insane. Then Metro wouldn't let me in even if I was on the guest list. Like I'm so much trouble. Writing about things that happened in the clubs attracted trouble from the ABC agents.

That's really a visual description. That's the one thing I miss about the RMJ, when you stopped writing as much as you did in the early days. Your descriptions were always so visual, it made you feel like you were right there. Did you study journalism?

My degree is in journalism, although I learned more about writing just from reading people I admire, not from professors. I've always been an observer of life rather than a participant.

What's the worst thing that happened?

Having to hire a lawyer for $500 over the Gwar/Flood Zone hearing at the ABC Board. That was a lot of money for nothing, since the Flood Zone lawyers made a deal with the ABC in the hallway moments before and I never had to testify. I had hired a lawyer to explain why I was going to refuse to testify. It's called quashing a subpoena. Brockie was there in a suit with his lawyer, too. And it all turned out to be unnecessary because the Flood Zone owners, just kids, caved. They had done more serious things we didn't know about, so it really wasn't a First Amendment issue. $500 was a huge amount of money to me.

Why did you not want to testify? 
It was a violation of journalism ethics. You can't be subpoenaed to squeal on people when you are reporting a story. That was the basis of the papers we filed in reply. Brockie had taken off his costume before he left the stage, so he was nude on stage for a few minutes, and we mentioned that in the story. The ABC tossed the lewd display charge in with a bundle of other ABC violations they had against the Flood Zone. Even with the lewd charge, they would have lost their liquor license. I don't think Dave or I knew that going in. We both wanted to maintain silence to help the Flood Zone because we both lawyered up. And then the Flood Zone never gave us the courtesy of letting us know they were up the creek anyway.

Oh, in other worst things, I got mugged outside the train station in the Bottom one rainy Friday night. The guy grabbed me from behind and punched me in the head until I hit the ground, took my purse and called me a bitch. It was an older black man, neatly dressed in an Eisenhower jacket. I remember that I kept walking toward him when I spotted him in the shadows because I didn't want to insult him! Make him think I was prejudice because he was black. Like if I turned and ran the other way, it would hurt his feelings.

I was so rattled after it happen, ran around looking for a cop. Finally found one, and he didn't even call it in! It was too routine for him. I lost $25, my credit card, and a camera. The cop finally agreed to go back to the scene with me and shine a flashlight around, and I found my cosmetics purse, but nothing else. I had just come from seeing Suzy Saxon and the Anglos at Alley Katz. I had a black eye the next day. I had to get a replacement driver's license, so I put on layers of makeup to cover the black eye for the photo, and it came out great. Like Glamour Shots. Best license photo I ever took.

I also got hit by car on Cary Street and broke my wrist. I was picking up an article from a girl who worked in a shop there. She told the insurance people I was in a hurry to meet her, so my claim against the driver who hit me failed, and then she went to work for my competition, so she was not a great experience. I still get mad when I see her byline. I did the next paper by putting a pencil inside my cast and typing with the eraser end. Look how resourceful I was, and I still got fired from my job. I was working part-time for a personal injuries attorney. It wasn't good business to have an injured person sitting in your front office, still able to work. That goes against everything personal injury attorneys are about. So I lost my health insurance, too. It took years to get that hand working again without aching or turning numb.

The RMJ is distinctly unapologetic to complainers, and that sets it apart from the music papers that come and go. Where did the your motto "Everybody Hates It, Everybody Reads It" come from?

That's what everyone tells me all the time, so it became the slogan. We don't care what people think because the newspaper has never supported me financially. If you depend on advertising revenue to pay your rent, then you're going to want to please everyone and keep the advertising dollars rolling in. You edit scared. I suspect that's why there isn't that much local coverage in Punchline. The ad revenue has to be protected. But I've never lived off the paper. It pays for itself. If it does well, it gets bigger. If it doesn't, it gets smaller. I don't make calls soliciting ads anymore. I don't have the time. They need so much attention, so many reminders, a dozen phone calls to get their ad in on time, and then two dozen phone calls and two visits to collect the money. I just build the paper around whatever advertising comes in on its own.

I was in Seattle in 1994 and the local music zines were more like the RMJ. What are some of your favorite issues and articles?

When no one knew me and I was in a period of my life when I didn't care what people thought, I wrote better articles. I lived it back then. Went out almost every night and stayed out until the bars closed. Hit five or six places a night. I can't do that now. I enjoyed publishing Killer Montone's work. Mad Dog wrote for us. Ned Scott Jr., Buzzy Lawler. I have a good group now with Robert Stutler, Walter Boelt, Kiki Nusbaumer, The Griper and the Johns. There's two or three Johns. I get them confused. Except for John Church, I've never met any of the current writers. It's all done by email.

You have had a lot of writers and reviewers over the years. At one point you did most of the writing. What made you stop doing as much?

The usual thing that stops women from doing things, a boyfriend. He didn't want to go out every night because he had a full time job, and I didn't want to go out without him. Then when we did go out, it was usually to see his friends play, and they knew me, so it was not easy to review them. If you hate them and write about it, it becomes a dilemma. It's tough to handle the advertising, too, when you're a reviewer. I had to retire.

Lots of your writers use fake names. Why?

They're in bands, so they don't want other bands to know they're reviewing. But most of them are audience members. The one rule I had was, if you must use a fake name, you have to stick with it. You build an identity and become that person.

Has a band ever pissed you off so much, you left them out of the RMJ?

Yep, either they didn't pay for an ad, or they didn't pay my boyfriend when he ran sound for them. Or they complained they only wanted good reviews. All bad reviews should not be published, according to them. Or they were insufferable assholes who fought dirty by taking personal shots at me in other papers. All those guys were banished. It's not a big deal. They probably didn't even notice.

Somehow every music person in town still manages to pick up the RMJ and scoff at why they're not in the polls. Have you ever boosted a band in the polls you really liked, or is it always based on votes?

I vote when I see someone I think is good. If a group is tied, I'll put them in the order I think is most deserving. There's a lot of ties. Second through 10th place are often just single votes.

Word association. Dave Matthews.

I bought "Under the Table and Dreaming." I like some of the songs on that CD. The lyrics are nonsense. What I really hate is bands that try to imitate him. They're always really bad. I have seen him play only once at the Flood Zone and it was so crowded. I took a few photos and left. I interviewed him on the phone before "Under the Table" came out. He was modest and shy and said he really wasn't friends with his band. They barely rehearsed together.

Did you think he would be the mega-sensation he has become?

It's an amazing feat for a band with no sex appeal and not many hit songs. But it's like Phish or the Grateful Dead, I guess.

Cracker.

I bought two of the CDs. I like a lot of their songs. I've seen them twice, at the Flood Zone and at a Plan 9 in-store. They hated our Flood Zone review and sent a lot of pissy mail about it. So I guess we'll never have a Sound of Music ad. Most people who try to start a music newspaper in this town kiss up to Sound of Music hard, do a lot of interviews with their engineers and the bands they're recording. We never cared. Interviews with engineers are dull reading anyway. And interviews with bands who have a new CD out, it's always the exact same story. They worked hard on it. They think it's good. Hope you buy it. Zzzzzzz.

I remember David Lowery wrote a letter to the RMJ about someone saying he did nothing for the local scene. What was that all about? 

A misinterpretation. We said no local band he championed has made it big, or has made it yet. See, even you remember just the misinterpretation from their side, and not the original review or our response. That's how rumors start.

Gwar.

I've seen them four times, and maybe that many times without costumes. I've seen X-Cops. It's always an enjoyable show because, unlike other bands in Richmond, it is a show. Scariens, Frog Legs, Vapor Rhinos, Ultra Bait, Thelma Shook, they all did shows with costumes and themes. You never knew what was going to happen next, and the music was the soundtrack. I'd rather see a show any day. I interviewed Dave Brockie once. He was very entertaining to write about. He gave me Hitler's head to present to The Ramones as a gift since I was going to that show that night.

I'd say the Gwar review that landed you in court was your biggest publicity moment. The local news and Times-Dispatch all mentioned the paper in their stories. MTV reported on it.

And then came the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I felt Brockie understood the paper. It's not like other papers. It didn't do preshow interviews. But since then, no one has mentioned us. (Style never did, even when I finally folded the paper after 11 years, when they would write stories about the end of papers like ThroTTle and Caffeine that didn't last as long.)

Frog Legs.

Their early songs were great, great musicianship. They put on a show. They were characters. They should have made it. I saw them play every week for months, and never got tired of it. They had just started getting a following locally when they went on the college circuit for East Coast Entertainment, and then dissolved. The frat houses did not get them. I asked an East Coast booker once how they were doing, and they said the after-show comments were bad. Then some producer changed their sound for their first CD, and they were blander. The songs didn't sound the same. In the beginning, they used to call my answering machine in the middle of the night and record long, long messages. They'd get on extensions and talk to each other, do skits. That definitely created interest in seeing their show the first time. But they were impossible to interview because they were always in character, always on. They never told the truth or gave a straight answer. Guitarist Tom Illmensee really was the band. People thought it was vocalist Wrenn Mangum, but musicians went to hear Tom play.

Thelma Shook.

I have both their CDs. Dean Owen wrote some of the best songs I ever heard. I still listen to those songs. He is a great vocalist and showman. He should be on the cover of Rolling Stone. Their music was better than Frog Legs, even. Damn near brilliant. He's a musical genius. When they were promoting the first demo tape, I came home one night and found the front door of my apartment building completely decorated in Thelma Shook eyeglasses. They traded me computer software for advertising space, so it was a great deal.

Cover bands.

I don't have anything against them, really. In the beginning I thought they were cheesy, but now, if I am going to be in a bar for four to six hours, I'd just as soon hear some covers. The bands writing truly entertaining originals are few.

One thing I heard about the RMJ was cover bands got treated better than bands that composed their own songs, and it was the bands' writing that got dissed because their songs were not good. But the cover bands avoided that criticism because they played known hits. They were not being judged on how well they played.

Sometimes that's all you have to do to be entertaining, play covers. But that's not true, what you said. We judged cover bands. The Fredds hated us, BS&M hated us. We didn't give all cover bands a free pass.

Original acts.

You mean bands that write all original music or have an original act? You need to be really good before you start playing out. I hate it when a show is like a rehearsal, when everyone stops between each song and has a meeting, when they wear street clothes on stage. If someone has to change a string, the others should play something. It's not smoke break time. Have a plan for technical difficulties.

Moondance.

We had a great deal there. I gave them half-price ads and I always got in free. And they always did an ad. I went there a lot, so it worked out. It was a good room. I like square rooms with tables. I couldn't offer other clubs that deal because I didn't go to the same places every week, but at Moondance, I ate a lot of food, saw a lot of bands. The bartenders, the waitresses, Chuck, everyone was like a family. Chuck always had a joke.

Other music venues.

I used to know all the doormen. When it got to the point where I didn't and had to pay covers, that was a kick in the teeth. I like places with no cover charges because I never know how long I'm staying. I stopped going to the Bottom when the parking situation got ugly. Suddenly, every spot had a man standing there trying to collect $4 in advance. Or they were towing. It became easier to go to the suburbs, a club in a strip mall with plenty of free parking and lights. No homeless people trying to intercept you. But it was also without a soul out there. You didn't run into everyone you knew out on the sidewalks like you did in the Bottom or on Grace Street. That was the beginning of the end.

Memorable bands?

Vapor Rhinos, Frog Legs, Gwar, Dumm Dumms, Thelma Shook, Los 10 Space, Grumbledog, Ultra Bait, Scariens, Princess Tone, Barbie n' Bondage, Dog Psychology, Beex, Peter Bell and his amazing combination of ego and insecurity. My Guitar wrote the best songs and had the worst band name. It was all V.J. Jones, a real talent. He wasn't so good playing out because there was no stage charisma, but his tapes were amazing. I gave away dozens of "Radio and Coffee." People loved it, but the live show would be disappointing. He should have a songwriting deal. I liked Ira Marlowe's solo CD, too. He was before my time, but the work he left behind showed ability.

Ten Ten, The Good Guys, Single Bullet Theory were all before I came along. I've met some of them, seen some revivals and reunions. They fit the context of their time, but their music sounds dated now. The Waking Hours sounded dated before they even got started.

The best show I saw was John Fogerty at the Classic Amphitheatre. That was personally emotional for me. I loved Creedence Clearwater Revival. That was the music I listened to in college, and the first couple of years of college was the last time I had real hope that my life was going to be great. And then it wasn't, but CCR brings back memories of that time.