16 Blocks Magazine - Issue #20

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FOR SAKE’S SAKE

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RECESSION CHIC

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FACEPAINT

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MARINO COLMANO

Step into Chef Trent’s kitchen for a 16 Blocks rice wine tasting

Sweing skills and cheap thrills: a recap and photos of November’s killer fashion show

Local rockers bring punk energy and dancable fun

Globe trotting photographer returns to Blacksburg

What else is inside?

05 Chatterblocks 06 The Verbalist 10 Beer: Winter!

12 Wine: Bubbly!

22 Artist: Jesse Johnson 23 CD: Live from Studio C

24 Logos: The Nazirite 26 To Do Interviews: Eddie From Ohio The Hackensaw Boys 28 To Do List 30 Idle Minds

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NO.20 16 BLOCKS

Arts and Culture Magazine January 2010 Issue #20

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: 16 BLOCKS PRESENTS 16Blocks Presents

A division of 16 Blocks Media LLC. P.O. Box 279 Blacksburg, VA 24063 Contact us for subscription rates, general questions, corrections, if you’re interested in submitting short stories for our Logos Section, letters to the Editor, or if you just want to say hey.

recession cHic

16blocksmagazine@gmail.com www.16blocksmagazine.com myspace.com/16blocksmagazine Check us out on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter @16blocks

tHursDAY november 12, 8Pm $5 Awful ArtHur’s in Downtown blAcksburg

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ur second annual Fashion as Art show grew on the success of our partnership with Virginia Tech's Fashion and Merchandising Society. Recession Chic: Dress up, Economy Down drew 150 to Awful Arthur's last month and models on the runway displayed the looks of five student designers as well as garments

by Tom's Shoes, Greenhouse, Kid Dangerous, Mad Dog, Millie's, and On A Whim. See a video presentation and slideshow by James Carty online at 16blocksmagazine.com. Special thanks to show coordinators Renee Ainslie, Millie Alspaugh, and Joseline Mroczek for their time and effort that really made this show happen.

Plans are in the works for Schoolhouse Rock, a benefit show scheduled for early 2010 where we're teaming up with WUVT to raise money for local music programs. Musical performances by local and traveling acts, as well as local music students. Music videos will also be exhibited.

Also in the works for 2010 are more music and art shows as well as a local film screening and disc golf tournament in the spring. Contact 16blocksmagazine@ gmail.com if you're interested in being involved. Follow 16 Blocks Presents events on Twitter and Facebook.

A runwAY sHow feAturing looks bY stuDent Designers of virginiA tecH’s fAsHion AnD mercHAnD ising Design societY

Also feAturing APPArel bY locAl AnD nAtionAl mercHAnts

No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher.

COVER

Bologna Bike Master Photo by Marino Colmano Pg 16 & 17 Photo by Hiro Motegi

STAFF HART FOWLER

Editor in Chief, Publisher

16blocksmagazine@gmail.com DAVID FRANUSICH

Head Print Designer, Art Director

16blocks.graphics@gmail.com CHRISTINA O’CONNOR

Director of Photography, Art Director

16blocks.photo@gmail.com AMY SPLITT

DocumentArY film screening About locAl tHrift store sHoPPing.

SNOWY SIDEWALKS

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ou may have noticed as we did that after the large snow storm in December many of the Town’s sidewalks stayed covered and impassable for weeks. We wondered what Blacksburg’s policy is regarding snow and sidewalks so we asked Public Works Assistant Director Priscilla Cygielnik.

1) Who is responsible for sidewalk snow removal?

In accordance with Town Code, Section 21-112, it is the duty of each property owner to remove snow from sidewalks in front of his or her property within twenty-four (24) hours after a snowfall.

If the property is rented, the tenant is responsible for snow removal.

2) Who is responsible for sidewalk snow removal in front of vacant storefronts?

This remains the owner’s responsibility.

3) How does the town deal with leftover snow and ice on the sidewalks?

Housing and Neighborhood Services is responsible for enforcing Town Code and will issue notices to the property owners.

So 16 Blockers, what do you think? Why wasn’t Town Code enforced properly...?

Editor

asplitt@gmail.com DAVID WILLIAMS Webmaster

dtw@vt.edu KEVIN FITZGERALD Head of Distribution

CONTRIBUTORS Danny Phillips - Illustrator Aerin Toler - Illustrator Tuan Pham - Photographer Hiro Motegi - Photographer Trent Crabtree - Features Writer Len Comaratta - Features Writer Danny Flad - Features Writer John Boyer - Features Writer Matthew D. Lucas - Guest Writer Richard T. Stafford - Guest Writer Jeremiah Shelor - Guest Writer Jack Bennett - Guest Writer Sarah DiPeppe - Guest Writer Jeff Craley - Guest Writer

16 BLOCKS is for the dishwashers, the clerks, the baristas, the cooks, the drivers, the staff, the waitresses, the bouncers, the managers, the bartenders, the cashiers, the landscapers, and the out-of-work loungers.

16 BLOCKS is in the scene.

16 BLOCKS is for the undecided undergraduates, the four and outers, the lingering graduate students, the serious researchers, the thesis and dissertation writers, the young professors and TAs, the community college commuters.

16 BLOCKS is young Blacksburg.

16 BLOCKS is for the locals, the weekend visitors, the transplants, the young professionals, those waiting for a gig and the “been-here-too-longers.”

From Heather Drive to the top of Harding. From Ellett Road to Mount Tabor.

16 BLOCKS is you.

CHATTERBLOCKS: 2010 WISHLIST We asked influential folks around Town to tell us what they’d like to see happening in Blacksburg over the next year. Here is what they had to say.

DIANE S. AKERS President - Blacksburg Partnership The Partnership’s wish for 2010 is for more recognition of Blacksburg as a trendy, arts community. Build on our music scene, open an artists market or two, and prepare for the arrival of the new Virginia Tech Performing Arts Center. And yes, more great stores and restaurants!

ELLEN STEWART Farmer’s Market Director I wish to see many more community events taking place at the new Market Square Park. This would include events hosted by the Friends of the Farmers Market such as chef events and music concerts, as well as events where we partner with other community groups, such as the wonderful Winter Lights Celebration that took place there on Dec 4. This event was so well attended, and we are all excited about the potential for bringing the community together at this beautiful new space.

I give thanks for the many community members who worked so hard over several years to make the new Market Square Park a reality.

SUSAN MATTINGLY Executive Director - Lyric Theater I would love to see the Town of Blacksburg adopt an “Arts & Cultural District” that will include more flexible zoning and incentives that would foster a thriving creative class. This might include allowing artists to have housing where they can have studio space and sell their work from their residences. It also might incorporate a ‘Torpedo Factory’ like space as part of a comprehensive redevelopment of the old Middle School.

The possibilities are endless! I think the opening of the

Community Arts Information Office was important.

It’s a struggling grass-roots effort that has a lot of potential to raise the profile of arts & culture in the NRV.

JOHN BUSH Newly elected Town Council Member I want to see the new design for the Virginia Tech Center for the Arts become reality. This is a unique opportunity for the Town and the University to have a one of a kind, world class facility designed and built by one of the foremost architects and design teams, Snohetta of Oslo Norway and New York City. (http:// www.snoarc.no/) This new building has the potential to structurally transform the town-gown edge condition of Main Street and Alumni Mall while also providing first class arts and entertainment to our town and our region. It is a building and a purpose that has been missing in Blacksburg and Virginia Tech for some time. It is truly an exciting venture.

The opening of Theatre 101 on College Avenue is a major piece of the new Arts District puzzle and a vital link to the Town-Gown edge. A new building on College Avenue and in the Historic Downtown is a major event, but this unique structure by Moseley Architects out of Virginia Beach and BOORA Architects out of Portland, Oregon is a vital part of Blacksburg’s ever changing and lively downtown.

CECILE NEWCOMB Newly elected Town Council Member I would like to see Blacksburg continue evolving in the positive direction it has been; this includes a vibrant downtown, bustling commercial areas, increased support for the arts, and excellent neighborhoods. The

2009 election was important to the culture of Blacksburg; the citizens voted to support the evolution I mention here. As a councilperson and native Blacksburg citizen, my goals for 2010 are to mend the divides that have torn at our small-town relationships over the last few years, which were further inflamed during the council campaign. I would also like to see more athletic facilities in our town and county, a robust business climate, and continued progress toward the goals in our Mayor's Climate Agreement.

KRISHA CHACHRA Newly elected Town Council Member I would hope that Blacksburg will continue to move forward with supporting the arts and the creative events that get people excited about living in Blacksburg. I'd hope that we can find a way to bring more live music in our current venues and create new spaces for outdoor entertainment and indoors in our public spaces.

I'd like to see more professionals working downtown and actively engaging in activities and events the town organizes - and patronizing local restaurants on their lunch breaks or after their work days. I'd like to see local residents who are already actively engaged in the community continue to welcome new visitors and tourists who come to this town and in addition, encourage their neighbors who already live here to participate in community and civic organizations and activities. Also, as a young professional myself, I'd like to see continued programming - professional and social - geared towards connecting young professionals in our community and getting them involved in our arts initiative or anything else they might be interested in. I'd like to see the stores and restaurants at First and Main continue to do well and I'd hope those empty storefronts there could be filled with businesses that compliment those that are already established. There are many other wishes I could list but these are a few.

1 6 B LO C KS M AGA Z I N E. CO M In Issue #19 Kat Mills interviewed the Cowboy Junkies. This month we interview her online.

16blocksmagazine.com

“Off The Streets” A documentary by Caitlin Crowley covering the production of the pieces painted by 12 local graffiti artists in Ceritano’s warehouse.

16blocksmagazine.com

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Something pedantic, something semantic: Lucas, M.D., Esquire vs. the Dictionary illustration by Aerin Toler

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fondness for words oft overwhelms me. Such was the case of late when, at a local salon (dare I say saloon), I was left with a most vexing query: “Given a preference of adjectives, would one choose the appellation, “stupid” or “ignorant?” My response was apt but perhaps mistakenly so. Being a strong proponent of maximum verbosity, I could not help but quest to fathom more fully the nature of these descriptors.

I am rarely dull of intellect and do not usually lack ordinary keenness of mind, but I was perhaps stupidus(L.)--struck senseless. I certainly seemed more numb than astute when at first attempting to reply. The stupefaction continued into discoveries involving Proto-Indo-European roots of stupe--meaning, “hit”. With further research, I did conclude that more modern colloquial equivalences such as “excellent” or “dope” did not quite apply as may be indicated herewith.

Seeming so uneducated and lacking in training with a skill I erstwhile considered myself to have, I was loath to admit my lack of knowledge. Ignorare(L.)--to ignore, even such a peccadillo would be remiss. Gnoscere(Gr.)--to know more, on such nuanced discrepancies, I became the demiurge of these several words. Alas again, though, I fear my peers will not contemporaneously deem me gnarly.

Now more gnoscent [gnosis(Old L.)] --acquainted with the gradations of these seeming aspersions, I believe an acknowledgment of either bifurcation of the question can be equally situationally appropriate. I was ignorant, uneducated as to the subtleties and also stupid when I was struck by the question. Though I do not advocate a lack of alacrity or senselessness for those uniformed or unaware, the frailties of human nature surely indicate we are all each on occasion.

Gnarly I am not but for the pulp print of this Proto-Germanic knorren-”knotty” excrescence. Dope I am not except that I have been once again thickly dipped (doop (Du.)) within the wonders of a language so diversely formed and all too easily unexamined as to make one seem both stupid and ignorant. My rejoinder to to the original choice is is now rather fatigable.

Certainly my discoveries of silent Gs and Ks will garner credits at the next meeting of The Erudition Guild (appointed respectively according to their poignancy and the knack with which a member elucidates them, and held this year, as I recall, at Haughty Hall). Still I am left with an enormous feeling of senselessness and unawareness...a behemoth feeling...or is it a juggernaut?..or just gargantuan?

“What ignorance to kick against the pricks.” -Terence “It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.” -George Bernard Shaw Lucas, M.D., Esq.

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I S S U E 2 0 07

An Amateur Sake Tasting

by Trent Crabtree photography by David Franusich

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lthough I’ve learned a lot about wine, my general education about sake is limited. In an effort to learn more about sake and how it interacts with food beyond the expected sushi, I and some close friends from 16 Blocks – Amy, Hart, and Dave -- got together, prepared a couple of dishes and chose 4 sakes.

The dishes we made were yakitori – a skewered chicken and onion appetizer with a teriyaki sauce; tempura-fried broccoli, shiitake mushrooms, and green bell peppers; wasabi cucumber pickles; and pork with a ginger glaze. The easiest way to start learning how to pair sake with foods is to simply pick one of each of the five basic styles. The sakes we chose to match with the dishes were Koshino Tousetsuka (Ginjo-shu); Kiuchi Vintage 2004 (Junmai-shu); Hakutsuru Draft (Daiginjo-shu), and Shochikubai Organic (Namazake). I couldn’t find any Honjozo-shu style sake this time, so I heated up some of the Ginjo for variety.

Since all of us were novices at this we sat down and dug right in. We started with the Ginjo sake, cold. Amy: “It has this really lovely almost sweet smell, not sugary, kind of crisp and fruity, and that’s nice. It doesn’t seem highly alcoholic as far as going straight up your nose.” The Ginjo sake really worked with the Wasabi Cucumbers. They brought out the floral and fruit notes of the sake but the sake eliminated much of the saltiness.

Dave – “The Tousetsuka didn’t do much for the pork. It does nothing for the tempura. The batter soaks it up. Sake just kind of disappeared.” Amy -- “But the yakitori? I’m thinking this is going to be a good thing... [sips] and I am right! The sake makes the sweetness of the sauce kind of explode, especially with the pungency of the scallions.”

We also tried this sake warm. The effects it had on the food were overwhelmingly different. Dave - “I felt the warm Ginjo goes really well with the ginger pork.” Hart remarked, “This is very delicious, I don’t know if I have the vocabulary to describe it.” But, novices beware: “I almost dipped my tempura in my tea.”

Growing more confident, we moved on to Daiginjo draft sake. Hart felt it tasted like liquor, but Dave really liked this, with or without food -- “This is very light and dry... let me try this with the tempura.

This is a mushroom tempura with soy sauce. Goes fairly well with that. Let’s try the pork. This goes really

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well with the pork. The light and dry goes really well with the sweet sauce.” He added, “I guess I’ve just had a lot of cheap sake.” I noted that I’d had similar experiences: the first time I tried sake, the person brought it in a flask, it was at a bonfire or something, and it tasted the way warm piss smelled. No problems of that nature here!

Moving along to the Namazake we were in for a real surprise. We were all surprised by a certain funky aroma. Amy – “really gamey, and earthy, mossy, herbal.” To me this made sense.

Sake, as with wine, can reflect all the aspects of the environment the rice was grown in. The French created a word to define this earthy funk – terroir. Dave – “It works with that pork... Also works well with the yakitori, but not as well.” I thought the Nama went great with the pork. I found that when I tried it with the tempura it calmed it down some but you could really get that alcohol at the end; it was still pretty strong, but with the pork it brought out the citrus and the floral notes of the sake.

Finally we moved on to our last sake – The

Junmai Vintage 2004. This was a real treat. I don’t think any of us were expecting the flavor. Dave -- «This is sweeter and a lot heavier, much longer finish.» Amy – “This is more of a cinnamonny, spicy sweet and it goes awesome with the tempura. It even complements the broccoli, which has a tendency to get a little bitter. The spiciness of the sake really brightens up the sulfur of the broccoli. ” In my mind it was hands-down the best sake I have ever had – with food or by itself. It was like sipping a glass of cognac. With the tempura, Amy remarked, «It's like dessert.» Not so much with the chicken, though -- the flavors canceled each other out.

In the end we all agreed – this tasting was a great experience. Had we had one expert here, they would have led us by the nose, we would start smelling and tasting everything that that person tasted or smelled. Dave summed it up: “By the way I really like this experiment, we're doing this and writing about it, without knowing what we're doing, and none of us has any credibility to say this goes with that thing, we're just letting our palates decide.”

THE FIVE BASIC TYPES OF SAKE. Each requires different brewing methods and a different percentage of rice milling. These variables determine the quality of the sake.

JUNMAI-SHU — Brewed using only rice, water, koji mold and yeast, with no distilled alcohol added.

Junmai is full bodied and slightly acidic. Junmai often has a full, rich body and a higher-than-average acidity. The nose is often not as prominent as other types of sake, nor are other parameters dependent on whether a sake is a junmai or not.

HONJOZO-SHU — Sake to which a small amount of alcohol has been added near the end of the fermentation process. Very fragrant.

GINJO-SHU — Sake made from highly polished rice and fermented at lower temperatures for a longer time. Ginjo is more complex, lighter and more aromatic and comes in both Junmai and Honjozo varieties (yes, this gets complicated).

DAIGINJO-SHU — Subclass of Ginjo made from even more highly polished rice and handled with greater attention. Daiginjo is light and fragrant with a fruity note.

NAMAZAKE — Special 5th designation for unpasteurized sake; incorporates all four above. Namazake has a fresh, lively flavor. All types of sake (junmaishu, honjozo, ginjo-shu, and daiginjo-shu) can be namazake, or not.

I S S U E 2 0 09

the New Year

Beer lover Danny Flad’s winter picks for the holidays and beyond 1 SAMUEL SMITH STINGO

SAMUEL SMITH OLD BREWERY - UNITED KINGDOM Only 2,000 cases of this magnificent strong ale were bottled in ‘09 and the complex fusion of flavors is sure to make any lover of fine ales squeal with joy. Brewed with a unique blend of malts and multiple varieties of hops, the beer is aged in oak barrels before being bottle conditioned with live yeast. The result is an ale that’s stout, dark and multifarious.

Notes of dried fruit, caramel, and toffee assault the nose and tongue only to fade away into a fruity, pleasing finish. Stingo is vintage dated and can be enjoyed now or laid down for months to mature.

2 SAMUEL ADAMS UTOPIAS

BOSTON BEER CO. - MASSACHUSETTS, USA The iconic kettle shaped ceramic bottle of Utopias could be the ultimate stocking stuffer, but the $150 suggested retail price and Herculean potency (27% alcohol by volume) should be taken into consideration before you head to the register.

Utopias is a monster of a beer.

Dark, strong, and rich, it is intentionally not carbonated and meant to be enjoyed like a fine cognac. The intricate concoction of strong malts, flowery hops, and spicy yeast strains is overpowering but thoroughly enjoyable. Not for the faint of heart, this beer is meant for only the most adventurous beer drinkers.

3 THOMAS HARDY’S ALE

O’HANLON’S BREWING CO. LTD. - U.K. Now that England’s most famous vintage dated barley wine is no longer being brewed, bottles of the celebrated beer are sure to become coveted collectors’ items.

Brewed since 1968, this robust ale is known the world over for its warm, potent flavor and signature individually numbered bottles complete with gold foil and a gold medallion featuring Thomas Hardy himself. Possessing a deep brown hue and almost flat consistency, this beer is bursting with notes of honey, vanilla, and dried fruit.

4 SAMICHLAUS

RAUEREI SCHLOSS EGGENBERG - AUSTRIA No winter beer list would be complete without the legendary Samichlaus. Once the strongest beer in the world, Samichlaus is brewed only once a year on December 6th (St. Nicholas’ Eve) and aged for almost a year before being bottled. It has an appealing deep red hue and a tight bubbly head that dissipates quickly.

Notes of figs, plums, and raisins dominate the taste and aroma of this beer along with a hint of honey and a slight spiciness. Despite its syrupy texture, Samuchlaus finishes clean with a warm sensation that spreads from head to toe.

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5 DELIRIUM NOEL

BROUWERIJ HUYGHE - BELGIUM How could you go wrong with a beer that’s decked out with trippy little pink elephants wearing Santa hats? One look at the red foil that graces the neck and you won’t know whether to open the bottle and drink the beer or just hang it on the tree with the other decorations. If you pop the cork, however, you’ll find that this beer is no ornament but rather the best present under the tree. With its cherry red color and heavy notes of fruitcake and brandy, Delirium Noel is a great holiday treat for lovers of Belgian Beer.

6 KRAMPUS

SOUTHERN TIER BREWING CO. - NEW YORK, USA According to folktales in many alpine regions of Europe, Krampus is a horrible demon with horns and fangs that visits every December to punish the wicked boys and girls who should have been better behaved all year.

Well, the folks at Southern Tier are laying out some punishment of their own… Imperial Lager Style. What happens when you take a German Helles and make it maltier, hoppier, and stronger? Krampus happens. Only this is the kind of punishment that beer geeks and hop heads adore. Light amber hue, crisp bubbly body, flowery hoppy aroma, and a clean finish with just a touch of bitterness for the grownup bad kid in your life.

7 BAD ELF

RIDGEWAY BREWING - SOUTH STOKE, U.K. This wonderful beer from the good people at Ridgeway Brewing in the United Kingdom has all the hallmarks of a fine English India Pale Ale: fruity malt, bitter citrus hop kick, and a strong, crisp finish. Looking for something a little stronger? Try Ridgeway’s Very Bad Elf. Wanna really kick things up a notch? Seriously Bad Elf is the beer for you.

Why not just make it a Christmas to remember and knock back a bottle of Criminally Bad Elf ? Just make sure you secure the car keys and try not to do anything too stupid. You should take it as a warning sign when the elf on the label is behind bars.

8 COLD MOUNTAIN WINTER ALE

HIGHLAND BREWING CO. - ASHEVILLE, NC, USA Asheville’s largest craft brewery, Highland Brewing has done it again! This dark black beer is a superb winter warmer with lots of chocolate and toffee notes, a touch of hop bitterness, the slightest hint of licorice, and a smooth, “Tootsie-Roll” finish that warms the body and soul. If you’re looking for an alternative to the spiced, fruity ales so prevalent during the Christmas Season, this could be the beer for you.

9 RAGING BITCH

FLYING DOG ALES - FREDERICK, MARYLAND, USA Flying Dog Ales is celebrating their 20th anniversary by doing what they do best: releasing a bad-ass, over the top beer with a controversial name and unorthodox recipe. What do you get when you fuse an American style I.P.A. with Belgian yeast? One relentless bitch of a beer that’s ready to take the world by storm. Pale and almost golden in color, this beer has an aroma dominated by citrus and the unmistakable bouquet of spicy Belgian yeast. The flavor is full of pear and apple notes with a bitter, yet satisfying grapefruity aftertaste. Raging Bitch is yet another ferocious addition to the unruly pack at Flying Dog.

10 SAMUEL SMITH WINTER WELCOME

SAMUEL SMITH OLD BREWERY - U.K. A seasonal classic from one of the most respected breweries in the world, Winter Welcome, a rich spicy ale with a flowery aroma and dark amber hue, has a wonderful fruity flavor and elegant creamy texture. Its warm maltiness is balanced by just the right touch of hops. This is the beer to share with old friends over a few stories by a cozy fireplace.

11 OUR SPECIAL ALE

ANCHOR BREWING CO. - SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA Always extraordinary but slightly different every year, Anchor’s Special Ale is a beer I look forward to every holiday season. This year the crew at Anchor Brewing really went out of their way to produce Christmas in a bottle. Our Special Ale pours out a deep dark brown color with a hint of red around the edges and a massive tan head. It smells and tastes of Christmas with layers of cinnamon, black cherry, and gingerbread notes. The smooth, creamy finish is sure to leave you reaching for another sip.

12 CELEBRATION ALE

SIERRA NEVADA BREWING CO. - CALIFORNIA, USA Like most winter ales, Celebration Ale is rich and fruity, spicy and strong. It’s the dry hopping, however, that sets this ale’s flavor apart from the pack. Like most Sierra Nevada ales, Celebration is heavy on the hop flavor but not to the extent of endangering the balance of the beer. The resulting harmony between the rich malt and bitter hops creates a winter brew that people look forward to year after year.

Spring 2010

Eddie From Ohio

Friday, January 29, 8pm This band hails from Virginia and plays a great blend of folk driven pop that features some of the sharpest, cleverest, wittiest lyrics you’ll ever hear.

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Tickets will go on sale December 7th. $27 Gold / $22 Silver Cash Bar Available

Imani Winds

Friday, February 12, 8pm

The Grammy-winning Imani Winds, a youthful, New York-based quintet, has gained a prominent place in the classical world. Their music subtly reflects the African-American and Latin American heritage of the ensemble’s five members.

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I S S U E 2 0 11

by Plaid Avenger

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hhhhh....it's time to raise a glass and make a toast to the year 2010. And what better wine to toast with than sparkling wine, specifically the king of the sparklers: Champagne. C’est Magnifique!!!

Sparkling wine is simply a wine that is charged with carbon dioxide....making it fizzy! Shake the bottle up real hard, pop the top and...whee! Wine fountain!

Okay, seriously, do not ever do that with sparkling wine. Unless you just won the Super Bowl. On second thought, don’t even do it then. All that CO2 gas charged into the wine means that the beverage is under high pressure, and the cork becomes a high speed projectile which can do some serious damage to an eye. You don’t want to have to go through life explaining to people that you lost your eye to a bottle of fizzy wine. That’s uncool. But back to the point....

Where does this CO2 come from, and how does it get into the wine? Well actually, CO2 is a natural by-product of fermentation, so its presence is no great mystery: as yeasts eat the sugars in grape juice, they churn out alcohol, a bit of heat, and carbon dioxide. The wine maker typically allows the gas to escape from the vat or barrel as it is being produced. For most of wine-making history, the presence of bubbles was a really bad thing.... a flaw! It indicates that the fermentation was not complete before the wine was bottled or barreled. If the fermentation continues in a closed container, then the yeasts keep spitting out alcohol and heat and CO2 until the pressure builds up and...KABOOM! Epic wine fail.

But with the invention of stronger glass, cork technology, and a greater understanding of how to control the fermentation process, winemakers in the last couple hundred years figured out how to capture

and contain that CO2 in just the right amount so as not to burst the bottle. They then began crafting this effervescent bubbly beverage which we have come to associate with celebrations, toasts, good times, and romantic encounters....lifestyles of the rich and famous!

The idea that sparkling wine is a “special” beverage for “special” times in the lives of “special” people is a marketing ploy fabricated in the early 20th century in order to sell more wine. They were geniuses: it worked....and still does. Why else would one need a $500 bottle of Cristal to pour out to the homies? It’s all

vors, or proceed to the next step immediately. That step entails blending and bottling the wine while adding sugar and yeast, thus re-activating the fermentation process! This is called secondary fermentation.

The yeast goes back to work, producing more alcohol, and more CO2 which gets trapped in the bottle!

There are other steps that I’m going to leave out since you have the gist. But I do want you to know about the Champagne nomenclature. Many know that true Champagne comes ONLY from the Champagne region of France, but not that it is ONLY made by the méthode champenoise, and ONLY uses three specific grapes: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. If all three factors are not met, then it is just a sparkling wine. With me so far? Sweet! Oh, speaking of sweet, check the sidebar for terms to know when choosing your bottle.

Given its reputation and labor-intensive, highly regulated production process, Champagnes are typically the most expensive sparklers on the market. But there are other, less expensive ways to make wine with fun bubbles: 1) by blasting CO2 into wine from a tank under pressure (like how soda pop is made); 2) by “transfer method” where secondary fermentation occurs in bottles, but then the bottles are poured into a tank, mixed together and filtered before re-bottling; and 3) by “Charmat process” in which the wine undergoes secondary fermentation in bulk tanks, and is bottled under pressure. Most bulk sparklers are made by methods 2 and 3.

Most wine regions produce some sort of sparkling wine. Let’s look at France: Sparkling wines labeled as Crémant are produced by traditional method outside the Champagne region...so you might see a Crémant de Bourgogne or a Crémant de Loire. Sparkling wines from France that do not use the traditional method are labeled Vins Mousseux. If you see a label that says Blanc de Blanc, that is a sparkling wine that is 100% Chardonnay. A Blanc de Noir is usually 100% Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, or a blend of the two. You can find Rosé as well.

Here are a few noted varieties from the rest of Europe: Cava is a Spanish sparkler produced in the méthode champenoise. Espumante is Portuguese; Sekt is German or Austrian. Prosecco is a dry, sparkling Italian made from the Prosecco grape in the Veneto region. Asti or Asti Spumante is made from the Moscato grape in the province of Asti, Italy. Moscato d’Asti is a slightly sweet/lightly sparkling version of Asti.

The New World produces a variety as well, from an even wider variety of grapes. In Australia and California they are experimenting with sparkling reds. I have in fact tried sparkling Shiraz—an experience I hope to never repeat -- but you may love it! Give all of these sparkling wines a shot. Enjoy the fizzy fun!

The idea that sparkling wine is a SPECIAL beverage for the SPECIAL times in the lives of SPECIAL people is a marketing ploy fabricated by Champagne sellers in the early 20th century in order to sell more wine hype based on supposed exclusivity. Kind of like diamonds. But back to the method....

The manner in which a winemaker gets the bubbles trapped in the wine has a lot to do with the quality level and price of the finished wine. The most famous way to do this is the méthode champenoise, named for the most famous sparkling wine producing region of France....so famous, in fact, that we have come to apply the term Champagne to all sparkling wine, which is NOT correct. More on that in a second.

In the traditional method, regular fermentation runs its course and produces a dry white wine. One may age it in barrels for a period of time to gain fla-

KNOW YOUR SPARKLING WINES!

Sparklers come in a wide variety of styles and sweetness, so they can make excellent aperitifs, dessert compliments, or sipping wines. They pair well with virtually all lighter fish, shellfish and mussels, most light and creamy cheeses, nuts and fruits, and an array of desserts too. How much sugar gets added in the secondary fermentation stage ultimately affects the sweetness of the wine.

These terms, which appear on every bottle of Champagne, alert you to the style: BRUT NATURE: .0 to .5% residual sugar. Bone dry.

BRUT: .5 to 1.5% residual sugar. Dry with no perceptible sweetness.

EXTRA DRY: 1.2 to 2% residual sugar. Slightly sweet.

SEC: 1.7 to 3.5% residual sugar. Sweet to medium sweet.

DEMI-SEC: sweet, 3.3 to 5% residual sugar. Very sweet. (dessert) DOUX: over 5% residual sugar. Exceptionally sweet. (dessert)

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Tue, Jan 19 The Bridge (rock/jam) 9pm - $10 adv / $12 dos Fri, Jan 22 Do Your Thing! RELOADED (dj/dance) 9pm - $6 adv

ATTITUDES \\bar+cafe

Sat, Jan 23 HopeHop / Boogieburg (funk/dj) 9pm - $6 adv Fri, Jan 29 Hackensaw Boys / Pert’ Near Sandstone (bluegrass) 9pm - $12 adv Fri, Feb 5 Future (rock/funk) 9pm - $7 adv Tue, Feb 9 John Borwn’s Body / Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad (reggae) 9pm - $13 adv/$15 dos Fri, Feb 12 Melodime / The Don’t Call Us Sweethearts / Logan Kraft Band (rock) 9pm - $6 adv Fri, Feb 26 Future Rock (electronic/jam) 9pm - $12 adv / $14 dos

I S S U E 2 0 13

RECESSION CHIC

by Sarah DiPeppe

A

photography by Hiro

Motegi

lthough pockets may be emptier this year, you can still wear a great pair of pants. The night of November 12, 2009, in front of a packed house at Awful Arthur’s in Downtown Blacksburg, 16 Blocks Magazine paired up with the Fashion Merchandising and Design Society of Virginia Tech for their second annual collaborative fashion show. This time around, student designers and local merchants sent models down the runway in looks that were both fabulous and affordable.

Rising to “The Goodwill Challenge”, designers Mary Elise Jennings and Liz Norment revamped old garments and accessories from their own closets or purchased from local thrift stores.

Norment’s design, made from pieces of an old flag, was a definite crowd pleaser: her neon yel-

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low tube dress cinched with a studded black belt was both fun and sophisticated. Jennings revamped one of her sister’s vintage '90's black dresses, adding intricate beading to the back, changing the hem and incorporating an old brooch that belonged to her mother into the neckline. “I loved getting to take something that was totally cute then and translate it to something a little more 'now',” Jennings said. “I’m used to having to construct entire garments from beginning to end in my classes. It was a nice change to have a lot of the work done for me.”

Jennings' signature “Peace Tees” also delighted the crowd. The basic white homemade t-shirts incorporated cut out peace signs and the word “Peace” written in different fabrics. The simple design was flirty, showing some skin in the cut out sections of the peace sign, and in the designer’s words, “totally wear-

able.” Another highlight was Grace Smith’s black tube dress with large, light blue sash: quite classy, although repurposed from an older garment and quite classy.

It could be worn to any formal event. Jennings, Norment, and Smith, and their sister FDMS designers Jessica Pingatore, Liz Norment and Jessica Throckmorton all successfully created cute clothes for less.

“Buying staple items that you can easily mix and match can help any fashionista save money,” explains Pingatore. Jennings also advises using your own skills to stay stylish, adding, “Take a pair of plain jeans and do your own acid wash, spend a little bit of money on a Beadazzler and throw some studs on your favorite basic tee, jeans, or a hand bag. The possibilities are endless, and really easy to do by yourself with just a few instructions that are easily found online.”

Smith believes that even if you can’t splurge on an en-

tire outfit now, “Just one great item can make a look better and seem more expensive.”

After the student designers were given a chance to showcase their work on the runway, the models emerged wearing clothing from Blacksburg’s own Bohemian Trading Co., Mad Dog, On a Whim, and Greenhouse, as well as tee shirts lent to the show by TOMS Shoes and various looks by KidDangerous, a Los Angeles based line. “I love how this show is more of a community effort and not a production that is based completely around the school,” said Liz Norment.

Event coordinators Millie Alspaugh and Joseline Mroczek worked hard with student models,

designers and photographer Hiro Motegi to put on a great show downtown. The models had fun, the clothes were fabulous, and to top it off they were each homemade by Virginia Tech’s own students or donated by local merchants who also agree that looking chic, even during the current recession, is absolutely necessary.

Love the looks you saw at the show? All of the featured pieces from Greenhouse, Mad Dog, On and Whim and Bohemian Trading Co. are available for purchase at each of those stores. Buy from your local favorites and do your part to help stimulate the local Blacksburg economy!

I S S U E 2 0 15

O

by Jeff Craley photography by Tuan Pham

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ver the past year and a half, a dedicated following has built up around the indiepunk Blacksburg band, Facepaint. Their energetic live set is one of the best in Blacksburg today. A newcomer to Facepaint’s music standing in the audience could tell that the show they’re about to see will be a good one based on the excitement and anticipation of crowd alone, and the crowd gets bigger at every gig.

It all started in the summer of 2008. Jeff Haley was living with members of The House Floor, another Blacksburg band. Max Brooks and singer/guitar player Jack Tatum would regularly hang out at the house with Jeff and the members of The House Floor.

With nothing to do and all the equipment necessary to start a band in the basement, it wasn’t long before the first Facepaint practices began.

Neither Brooks nor Jeff Haley had played an instrument before, but soon they had rehearsed enough to play a house show or two, even winning a spot at the Lantern. The shows were ramshackle affairs and by all accounts, his own included, Jeff Haley was a terrible bass player. A year and a half later, that’s pretty to believe.

Facepaint’s nostalgic, exuberantly youthful sound is probably easiest to describe from the bot-

WILD NOTHING

L tom up, starting with the drums. Max Brooks keeps a steady uptempo pulse, landing a heavy snare or kick drum on each beat and filling it in with tom-tom rolls.

If Jeff Haley did at one point suck, you couldn’t tell now.

He sticks a confident groove, playing the kind of bass lines that start as head bobs and shoulder shrugs, then move slowly through your torso until you realize you may be dancing. Together they form a rhythm section akin to a less hostile Gang of Four or a funkier Kinks, if that makes any sense at all.

Jack Tatum’s guitar work floats on Brooks’ and Haley’s solid foundation. Favoring reverb and harmony over more distorted riffing, his guitar lines ring with a kind of simple elegance. Above the terse rhythms of the band, Tatum’s melodies stand in pleasant contrast. His vocals are covered in reverb. He adds slurs between notes and jumps effortlessly into a light falsetto.

Detractors of the band might point to similarities between Facepaint’s music and the clean guitar sound of modern indie bands like Wolf Parade or Vampire Weekend, but they’d be missing the point. The style is where the similarities end.

The songs seem familiar but friendly and don’t come off as derivative. A melody may have a faint echo of an older song but it’s impossible to pin to a single source. A surfy break down might be thrown unexpectedly into a more straightforward punk song or an Afro-pop guitar line might be hiding in the mix.

But it’s on the stage where Facepaint’s radiant energy blazes. Max Brooksdrums standing up so that he can dance when he plays. Jeff Haley pogos up and down in time. The crowd feels it too.

From the most restrained head nod to the wildest flailing, any number of different dances can be spotted at a Facepaint show. The most popular seems to be the twist. Why college kids are still doing the twist is beyond me but it seems to underline the band’s innocent appeal. Facepaint brings the power of punk rock energy to a sound that’s pure, danceable fun.

AST SUMMER while living in Savannah, Georgia, guitarist Jack Tatum started a solo bedroom recording project called Wild Nothing. Over the course of a month or two, he recorded four songs and posted them to Myspace. The tracks spread like wildfire, becoming blog favorites in seemingly no time at all. Soon he was signed to Brooklyn lo-fi label Captured Tracks. His first 7” on Captured Tracks, “Summer Holiday” is due for release this December.

The songs are charming pieces of hazy pop, leaning heavily on reverb and retro synth sounds. Cozy and dreamy, teeming with the kind of humid textures you can only assume were drawn from the Georgia summer.

Currently Tatum is working on a Wild Nothing solo album, to be released this spring on Captured Tracks (whose roster includes indie bands like Brilliant Colors, Blank Dogs, and Dum Dum Girls). With a couple of mics, some instruments, and Garageband, he hopes to record the majority of the album over Christmas break. He’s still a Virginia Tech senior.

Considering Wild Nothing started half a year ago, it’s impressive to see how quickly the one man band is rising. Already Wild Nothing has been signed and become an internet sensation, garnering a track highlight in indie tastemaker Pitchfork magazine. To top it off, this past month Vodafone, a European cell phone company, started using one of Wild Nothing’s songs in an online advertisement featured on their website.

One of the most remarked upon Wild Nothing tracks in the blog world is a cover of Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting.” The original version is an aesthetically sparse but lyrically emotional masterpiece of highly personalized 80’s pop, and of course the fact that it’s one of Kate Bush’s most well loved songs doesn’t make the cover any less of an undertaking. Wild Nothing drew both criticism and approval for the song, citing the ambitious nature of trying to capture Kate Bush’s intense, ethereal sound. Surprisingly, the cover stands up well next to the original and its origins are far more personal and less ambitious. The song was recorded as a gift for Tatum’s longtime girlfriend. He passed the track to a blog asking for unheard material, and “Cloudbusting” quickly broke across the internet tides.

When asked about how fast the hype built, Tatum said, “It’s been weird to watch that sort of blossom and have this whole sort of internet blog thing going when you know, I feel like half the people in Blacksburg don’t even know that I’m making this music yet. It’s weird how the internet can push you out there like that.”

With the upcoming release of Wild Nothing’s debut album, it will be interesting to track the internet reaction. Blog buzz can fade as quickly as it starts. As one of Blacksburg’s most promising emerging groups, one can only hope for the internet to keep on pushing Wild Nothing’s little star to the top.

I S S U E 2 0 19

A Blacksburg expatriate returns to town, renovating the home/studio of his late brother and father into a place distinctively his own.

by Amy Splitt

M

arino Colmano’s career in photography, film and TV has spanned over 35 years and taken him from Blacksburg to San Francisco; from his birthplace in Bologna, to Greece, to LA. He returned to town to handle the affairs of his late brother and father, graphic designers Carlo and Germille of MiCara productions. Their old home studio on North Main Street has become Marino’s new headquarters and home to him and his wife, Freda. In a short time he has transformed it into a place distinctively his own.

Home, studio and gallery space all exist intertwined in harmony. The sunlit living room evokes a California mansion with its exposed beams and Southwestern colors, but on an intimate scale. Books line nearly every wall, on topics ranging from wild plants to astrology and healing, and early and mid 20th century hardback novels. Although there is no clutter, curious objects are everywhere: an unidentified wooden stringed instrument resembling a zither hangs on

one wall; tasteful antiques and kitsch each have their appointed spot. And naturally there are many, many photographs. In the basement studio, ambiguous, cinematic black and white shots framed on the wall evoke the dingy glamour of a show biz dressing room, somehow hinting at secrets worthy of a film noir; and yet backdrops are furled at the ready for a family portrait.

As a youth, Colmano dreamed of becoming a painter. His father, a designer, encouraged him to learn all he could, but as time went on, Germille strongly suggested that his son take up a career that would offer him more financial opportunities. Photography, perhaps originally a compromise, became a passion.

His very first photograph, framed and hung on the wall of a narrow staircase in the North Main Street house, depicts a man in the stairwell of a subway. Lush with light and shadow, the black and white photo was taken with a pinhole camera. Young Marino won a full scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute and graduated

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with honors in 1972 with a degree in photography and film.

Photojournalism is art with a backstage pass: it takes an artist’s eye and a journalist’s credentials to access certain images. Colmano’s photo documentary taken inside San Quentin prison captures vulnerable moments in the confined lives of some of the nation’s most violent men: a new tattoo, a child waiting to see his father, a woman passionately kissing her man as the guard deliberately turns his gaze aside to allow the “no touching” rule to be broken, just this once. With compassion and without a trace of pity Colmano also frames stories of life on a burn recovery unit as director, producer, and director of photography on the film documentary “Reservoirs of Strength.”

Colmano’s candid street scenes bring surprising moments of humor (a Roman “gladiator” between tourist entertainments gives himself a scratch under his leather kilt while gesturing to his cohort with the

It is hard for the average digital snapshooter to imagine the mental discipline that goes into setting up the perfect shot other hand; a cat leaps out of nowhere into a tranquil garden path) and his shots of children in urban settings capture innocent interactions with people and the streetscape.

A painterly sense of color and composition still informs Colmano’s work. The attention to everyday detail and human expression of his “Espresso Bar: Bologna” calls to mind the café and absinthe bar scenes immortalized by Manet, but the barista’s concentration on her work and the angelic light that suffuses her face and hands evoke Vermeer’s carefully plotted “candid” scenes. The timeless marketplace springs to new life in his mysterious “Lyki Grape Girl”: an abundant heap of green fruit awaits outdoor grocery shoppers as the photo’s subject, a thoroughly modern Greek woman’s attention is sharply drawn by an unknown distraction.

The feminine mystery is a recurrent theme.

We can see this in the photos mentioned above, as well as Colmano’s “Periptero Mona Lisa” (or, as this writer dubbed it, “Our Lady of the Tabloids”), a study in one young woman’s absorption in reading as she waits for passersby to stop for a paper from her kiosk. It also appears again and again in the artist’s considerable explorations of sex. Always tasteful, but definitely racy, Colmano’s erotic nudes emphasize the sensual interplay of light on skin and fabric, stimulating the viewer’s curiosity about the moment captured.

Expanding his artistic scope into the digital realm, Colmano has created a new effect he calls “sensuous sand.” He uses it to emboss a textural statement into his studies of the female nude. The finish simultaneously defines the model’s silhouette and infuses the image with ambiguity, bringing it into relief and blending into the background all at once. Prints from this series of photos are on exhibit at Miller off Main galleries.

It is hard for the average digital snapshooter to imagine the mental discipline that goes into setting up the perfect shot; but with the expensive medium of film combined with limited financial resources, Colmano learned as a frugal young man to hone his perceptive skills. He says, “Why take a thousand shots and just get one good one? Why not just take one good one?”

Marino Colmano is a deeply intuitive, powerful artist whose images so precisely capture the instant, that it seems as if the events of the shot must have been preconsciously willed. The artist is prepared for the moment, and the moment arrives; without knowing what will be, he is ready for anything to happen, right on time.

I S S U E 2 0 21

JE SSE

J OHNSON I AM

a 23 year old artist stationed in Blacksburg, VA. My current concentration is in costume design and the art of performance. I also work with ceramics, painting, drawing, video, and screen printing.

As far as costume designs, my subjects are tall metallic-looking creatures that have a robotic presence. A very important component is the stilts, which raise the characters, giving them a higher authority. My inspiration originated from a stiltwalking character called Junkman at the Hard Rock Theme Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Also, the designs are largely influenced by the movie/ television series “Transformers�.

The structures are created with a variety of recycled plastics, sporting gear, and home improvement items. Using more plastic (rather than metal) is an enormous help in reducing the weight of the costume and offering more maneuverability.

Normally characterized as shy, I can transform my personality with these costumes. Behind the mask I feel free and unrestrained. I feel powerful and colossal. I feel like a superhero!

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Live from Studio C, The Best of the Local Zone, Vol 1

by Richard Todd Stafford

T

his month, WUVT treats local music fans to a collection of recordings from the last five years of broadcasts on their Local Zone program, releasing Live From Studio C: The Best of the Local Zone, Volume 1.

The compilation's content, chosen by Executive Producer and host of The Rare Groove and Local Zone, Len Comaratta, evokes the raw aesthetic, diverse booking, and DIY production values of the Local Zone; while its consistent, listenable sound comes from professional mastering by Tim Kirk of Floyd's Q Studios. The CD comes in a handsome, professionally packaged case. Comaratta worked with Chimney Sweep Records' Josh Peebles on producing the package, realizing an impressive design by 16 Blocks Art Director, David Franusich.

Wednesday nights from 7 to 9 PM, the Local Zone radio program features an eclectic two hour set of regional music live on the radio at 90.7 FM or online at www.wuvt.vt.edu/listenlive. The first hour of the show normally features discs and records by local musicians, sometimes including an extensive local show calendar, while the second hour presents a live performance and interview with a local talent. The Local Zone has also hosted interviews with visual artists or with activists promoting local causes. But it is the relatively less-polished second hour of live, original music that has offered early exposure to lesser-known regional bands. Years of these live segments generated the archive of recordings that culminates in this best-of compilation.

On a grouping of songs from dissimilar bands, the challenge is to overcome the potential for jarring transitions. Kirk's steady hand mitigates this effect, while Comaratta's vast knowledge of local music has enabled him to construct a sequence of tracks that the listener can follow and enjoy.

Although most of the tracks are excellent in their own right, no amount of mastering judo or playlist magic can hide the fact that a couple of these cuts probably could have stayed in the WUVT archives. Yet despite the amateur quality of a minority of tracks, as a whole, the album showcases the high level of musical talent broadcast on the Local Zone.

Sifting through hundreds of recordings was second nature for WUVT Librarian Comaratta. He took over the Local Zone show from Bob Cardoni in the early 2000s. Comaratta remembers that before Cardoni resurrected the show in 2000, the Local Zone had diminished to a rare, irregular feature of the WUVT schedule; a fall from its heyday as a weekly hour-long broadcast under the leadership of creator Howard Petruziello in the late '80s and early '90s. Cardoni brought the program back to WUVT's regular schedule, dou-

bled its length, and established the current format.

Archives of many of the recordings from the early 2000s, including tracks from Tim Kirk's legendary metal band False Hope, fell victim to lossy digital compression methods, and were consequently out of consideration for the current compilation. Even so, the weekly broadcasts since the program began saving data in lossless formats could have easily supplied enough music to release several CDs. In fact, Comaratta plans to do exactly that.

By this summer, he hopes to have sold enough copies of Volume 1 to have Tim Kirk work on mastering Volume 2, which Comaratta characterizes as exclusively Americana. The current CD also features some topquality Americana performances, including a touching song by Kat Mills about the emotional strain of touring

in today's homogenously consumeristic cultural landscape and three well-executed old time tunes by the Jugbusters, The Porch Loungers, and the now-defunct Snake Hollow Band.

Volume 1's Americana recordings do sound significantly more cohesive than some of the rock and roll recordings on the album, which suggests that focusing the next volume on this genre may yield a more impressive result. Liam Kelly, guitarist for the Jugbusters, remembers that the July 2005 performance anthologized on Volume 1 was entirely acoustic, and recorded following the old time tradition of standing around a single microphone. Perhaps this accounts for the warm and spontaneous feeling of the Jugbusters’ performance.

Not all live recordings come together so well, of course. Josh Holt, currently of punk band Up and Up and roots rock band Bitterhill, was honored that his old pop punk band, The Trash Bag Ponchos, made it to the compilation, but wondered if the track “One Time

Only” was picked simply because of its name recognition. Whatever Holt's reservations about the track, he praises Kevin Sterne's engineering and mixing. Without a doubt the sound is as good as one can expect from a live recording of a punk band more used to filling basements with raucous sounds than tweaking levels for broadcast.

Similarly, Holt's Up and Up bandmate Brandiff Caron questions whether the track “Don't Think” by his hardcore band Hostile 17 adequately represents the band. Hostile 17 drummer Dominique Montgomery points out that the vocals in that session were mixed in a way that the group wasn't used to. Both Caron and Montgomery still agree that the Local Zone serves an important and valuable role supporting local music and are excited about the compilation and applaud Comaratta for his work, although Caron pleads that Lee Street Riots – another one of his former bands – be considered for future volumes.

Montgomery's longer-lived band The Two Funerals also appears on Volume 1, showcasing the talent which this trio has offered Blacksburg fans since the band's high school years. While Montgomery thinks the recording of “My Town” sounds more than four years old in terms of the band's development and prefers the version of the song which made the subsequent TTF album, she recognizes the bias of hindsight. Despite too-quiet bass guitar levels, the track is catchy and works surprisingly well to transition between the abrasive sounds of Appalachian Autonomous Zone and Dying for Anna, which precede it into a series of lower-key tracks.

Comaratta put his own money on the line to bring Volume 1 to the community, and he does hope to recoup the expense through sales of the CD. But, Comaratta says, “I'm not asking for anything personally, I just want the money that I put into it to come back to me so I can put it into Volume 2, not so I can put it back in my bank account.” Comaratta envisions numerous future releases, with each subsequent volume financed by sales of those previously released. Although some tracks might make Volume 1 less accessible than the planned Volume 2, the current disc fills the gap between local bands' low fidelity demo tapes and the much more professionally produced 5-4-Whoa! Compilation released last year on Chimney Sweep Records.

As such, it should be an appreciated component in any local music collection.

Information about obtaining copies of Live From Studio C: The Best of the Local Zone, Volume 1 is available from localzoneproductions@gmail.com. CDs are $5 and will be included as a premium gift at the $35 donation level during WUVT's Spring Radiothon fund drive.

I S S U E 2 0 23

fiction by Jeremiah Shelor illustration by Danny Phillips

O

nce, a boy went into his father’s fields to play. He carried with him a small block of white pine that his father had jigsawed into the shape of a grappling gun, for the boy had watched Batman the week before, and now he possessed the strength of black rubber grafted to his limbs and face and torso.

He had a cape also, which allowed him to glide as he ran across his father’s field.

The boy ran a long ways, for he was swift as Batman is swift, until he came to a locust tree growing alone on the hillside. The locust stretched out into a thin, hoary hand that held the sun close to the grass.

There had been a drought in the land for some time, for the locust would not release the sun to let the rain clouds near without them drying up. The boy fired his grappling gun at one of the fingers of the locust’s hand, and it attached to the tree’s flesh and pulled him up next to the sun. But the boy began to sweat, for the sun was close and he was wearing black rubber, so he fired his grappling gun at a maple tree growing on the other side of the field, and it attached, and he went soaring across the grasses and thistles, his cape rippling behind him.

The boy flew among the trees for some time, propelling himself with his grappling gun and with his suit of black rubber until he grew tired and returned to the ground to rest in the shade of a rhododendron bush growing by the edge of the woods that surrounded his father’s fields.

As the boy regained his breath, a mantid emerged from the shadows in the woods, away from where the locust tree held the sun, crawling nimbly along the leaves of the rhododendron and onto the boy’s shoulder. The mantid was long and slender and had a

brown exoskeleton so that she appeared as a twig of a branch. The boy was surprised to see the mantid, and inquired of her, saying, “Why do you appear to me as a twig when you have legs and eyes also?” The mantid answered, “Some times I appear as a twig, but other times I appear as a mantid.” The boy was puzzled by this and said to the mantid, “Which are you?” And again, the mantid answered, “I am what I am just as surely as you are what you are.” The boy answered, “But I am Batman, defender of all that is good, and you have not told me who you are. Tell me now, before I smite you!”

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And the boy raised his fist, but as he spoke the mantid became a twig, lying idly on the boy’s shoulder, which also puzzled the boy, so he flicked the twig, and with the strength of his black rubber finger it went flying back into the darkness of the woods, where the locust tree holding the sun could not be seen.

The boy, having recaptured his breath, rose and brushed the dirt and dead leaves from his cape, then left the shelter of the rhododendron and ascended the side of the hill that stretched across his father’s fields. At the top of the hill there was a fence, and the boy fired his grappling gun at one of the fence posts and used it to pull himself up the hill.

Now, there were eighty-three acres in his father’s lands, which were used to raise cattle for the boy’s family to eat. The lands were divided into two halves: one to grow hay, and the other for the cattle to roam. The boy had been playing on the side where the cattle roamed, for he was not allowed to go into the hayfields.

As the cord of his grappling gun pulled him up the hill he noticed a herd of his father’s cows all standing in a circle, belly-side to belly-side, facing in. The boy did not wish for the livestock to congregate in this way, so he went to the cows and pulled two of them from the circle by yanking their tails and tossing them with his powerful rubber arms. The boy went in to the circle and stood shoulder to belly-side with the cows and saw the carcass of a bull lying in the center of the circle. A swarm of flies was eating at the bull’s flesh, exposing its innards. The flies swarmed to one part of the bull, and then to another, and as they did so each of the cows moved their heads in unison to watch them with great reverence.

The flies made a noise like many jigsaws, then engulfed the bull’s

The man leapt down from the locust and struck the boy with the bull’s jawbone, and the boy felt a thousand yellow jackets sting his thigh, and he collapsed. stomachs, and the stomachs became four groundhogs, which scurried away to bore holes in the hayfields. And the cows moved their heads in unison to watch them. Then, the flies engulfed the bull’s testicles, and the testicles became two newborn moles, which burrowed deep into the earth. And the cows watched them in unison as they disappeared. Then, the flies engulfed the bull’s colon, and it became a giant black snake. The cows all cried out in unison and fled, trampling the grass as the black snake slithered after them. Then, the flies engulfed what was left of the bull, and devoured all of its flesh except for its jawbone.

They ate of the bull’s flesh and grew bigger, and they became a flock of starlings. There were thousands of them, and they scattered into the sky, appearing to the boy as a blue sheet rippling in the wind, and then they were gone.

The boy felt sorry for the bull, and when the flies devoured its flesh, he tore at his black rubber garments and cried out, and then fell on his knees and wept. The boy picked up the jawbone and stared at it, saying, “This is all that is left of my father’s bull!” And he was silent for some time, weeping over the jawbone.

Now, a man with long black hair and a long beard had come in to the fields belonging to the boy’s father, and the boy, in his grief, did not notice him.

The man was not like any other; he had the strength of many men, as of a spirit rushing upon him.

The boy wiped his nose on the back of his rubber hand when the man appeared to him, saying, “Do you know why God has given the bull a jawbone?”

The boy shook his head; he did not know. “The bull uses his jawbones to mash and grind hay and grass.” And the man took the jawbone from the boy and moved it as the jaw of a bull moves, saying, “And the grass becomes grass no more, for the bull grinds it and dissolves it with his stomachs, and it becomes shit.” The boy thought about what the man had said, then replied, saying, “And when I use my jawbones to grind my Fruit Loops, do they become shit just as the grass does?”

The man answered, “They do, and if I were to eat you, you would become shit also. We all must become shit.”

The boy thought about what the man had said, star-

ing at the jawbone, and suddenly he became afraid; he did not want to become shit like the grass or the Fruit Loops he had eaten that morning. The man observed the boy’s dismay, and continued, saying, “He that lives must consume until shit is all that is left to eat, and when that happens, we shall eat each other.”

The boy grew angry at this and raised his black rubber fist to strike the man, but when he did the man shifted, as though an apparition, reappearing near the locust that held the sun, which was three hundred yards away. The boy fired his grappling gun at the locust, and it attached and pulled him there in an instant.

In his anger the boy had become short of breath, and he gasped between his words, saying to the man, “We only consume what we need, and what we do not need we leave for others! Just as my father grows hay with great care so that he may leave it for his cattle!” The man leapt down from the locust and struck the boy with the bull’s jawbone, and the boy felt a thousand yellow jackets sting his thigh, and he collapsed. The man said, “Your father does not care for his cattle! He cultivates them so that he may eat them, because he lives and so must consume. But he only has them because he is too weak to hunt! He is no greater than the wolf who cannot catch a rabbit, and so feeds on grasshoppers and blackberries.”

The boy winced from the pain in his thigh.

The man leapt back to one of the locust’s fingers. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it with the sun. The smoke he exhaled was thick, and the boy choked, gasping and coughing and expelling phlegm. A globule landed on the leaf of a tiny maple sapling, and the globule became a poisonous caterpillar and ate of the sapling.

The man inhaled of his cigarette, then said to the boy, “Your father has brought ruin upon his house of oak trusses and Miniwax, for I have no regard for his grain offerings of Old Milwaukee’s Best.” The man exhaled again, into the boy’s face, and the boy wheezed, crying, “I do not understand! Please tell me why, for I do not understand!”

The man leapt down again and grabbed the boy by his cape, dragging him to the fence separating the cattle from his father’s hayfields. Then the man

went and caught three hundred foxes and brought them back to where the boy knelt by the fence, grasping his thigh bone. And the man said to the boy, “I will show you what you do not understand!” And he lit each of the foxes’ tails on fire with the cherry of his cigarette, and one by one they all leapt over the fence and darted through the hayfield, burning all of it to the ground, for the locust tree holding the sun would not allow any clouds of rain to come and slake the fire’s thirst.

“You see?” said the man. “You are like the foxes, running frantically with your tail on fire, burning all that you touch to ash.” And the boy saw that his father’s hay had become flames and ashes. Specks of ash rose into the air as tiny insects, and the flames were golden carp that leapt up and tried to eat them.

The boy wept, saying, “What are you?” The man answered, “I am the one who inhales the smoke.”

Then the boy said, “My father will be devastated, for his hay is gone, and his cattle will have nothing to eat.”

The man struck the boy again, and the thousand yellow jackets stung his shoulder. “Your father will die!” said the man, and the locks of his beard began to flow as wildly and violently as the rivers carving through the mountain’s side. “He is weak for depending on his cattle for food, like the tick who must suck from the supple neck-flesh of a dog!”

Upon hearing this, the boy cried out and tore off his black rubber garments, for Batman had been defeated, and all that was left was the flesh as pale and tender as the rabbit’s belly. And the boy watched as the man descended unto his father’s house of oak trusses and Miniwax, then fainted. The carp desperately leapt after the insects, but could not catch them, and they eventually grew weary and gave up.

The next day, the boy awoke, alone and naked.

His belly was distended from hunger, but he had nothing to eat, and he was restless, so he went to where he could not see the locust tree holding the sun and began searching for the mantid. He wanted to kill her, for he knew she had deceived him.

I S S U E 2 0 25

16 BLOCKS TO DO | PREVIEW INTERVIEWS EDDIE FROM OHIO [Playing Friday JAN 29 at the Lyric Theatre] Robbie Schaefer is the guitarist and vocalist for Eddie From Ohio. They will play with Ellis Paul at the Lyric Theatre on Friday, January 29. The band has been performing together with the same lineup for nearly 20 years.

16B: I’ve seen you play probably a half dozen times over the years. Lately when you come to Blacksburg you tend to play venues more like the Lyric Theatre.

But I remember seeing you in bars like Top of the Stairs/The Balcony and South Main Café/Baylee’s.

How do you find the theater vs. the club and how do you find the audiences of 2009 versus the audiences of 1991?

RS: Well, I think, at least the band, and possibly our audience, was younger and more beautiful back then.

It’s nice to know we’ve grown old together a little bit.

I’m joking, but we used to play everywhere. We used to play a lot more sort of bars and rock type stand up venues. By and large we never felt that that really catered to the kind of show we really wanted to put on and it never catered completely to the kind of music we wanted to play, which is lyrically intensive and hope-

fully dynamically intensive. So while bars were certainly a good way to start playing, especially in a town like Blackburg where you have a big university, it’s easier to draw people when you’re unknown. I would say Blacksburg was pretty unique for us in that way. A lot of places it felt like a really ill fit for us to play in a bar, even though we did it a lot. In Blacksburg it never did for some reason, it’s the nature of the audiences there.

There was always so much love there for us, and it just always turned into the right kind of party.

16B: I remember where you would break out and start walking on the bar. Just strumming your guitar and walking along bar.

RS: I told you we were younger and more beautiful.

16B: Everywhere you look, the writeups always describe you as [a folk band]. But whenever I have seen you play there’s always been so much more energy that I would not normally associate with what I would consider a folk artist. Like you were saying, it was almost like a party going to one of your shows.

RS: Yeah, it often was, and it still is in many ways. The show is still highly energetic even if it is in a seated venue. It’s just something we’ve always strived for.

16B: Do you think the Lyric provides that outlet to provide the show you’ve always wanted to play?

RS: It’s at least partially Lyric driven. That’s a lot of it.

But also a lot of it will have to do with the betweensong banter that we have as a band. We have such deep and long term relationships with one another,

that the dynamic, the interpersonal stuff, is really easy and fun and it certainly feels to us that it’s a bunch of friends up there playing. I think that that translates to an audience most of the time. So a more listening type venue lends itself to that as well, to sort of be aware and be conscious of what is going on there.

16B: Have you noticed if your audience has grown old with you or do you have a constant replenishment of new faces or is it a little bit of both?

RS: I think it’s a little bit of both. Most of our audience, yes, has grown old with us. There are people who come out with their kids - and their kids are in college.

I would say Blacksburg is a little bit of an exception to that rule.

16B: It’s been three years since you’ve played in Blacksburg. You pretty much sell out every time you come.

RS: I don’t wanna jinx it. I hope so. We did last time I think. One of the other liberating things - we’re doing it because we want to do it. We just don’t find ourselves getting concerned what the numbers were. I am just figuring that we are playing at the Lyric; I think there’ll be a really good crowd there, that’s my guess. And if it sold out that would be awesome and if not, there’s gonna be a whole boatload of great people there and that’s good enough for us.

[Ed: This abridged To-Do List interview can be read in its entirety at www.16blocksmagazine.com !]

THE HACKENSAW BOYS [Playing Friday JAN 29 at Attitudes] Rob Bullington is a founding member and mandolin player for the Hackensaw Boys. They will play at Attitudes on Friday, January 29.

16B: How would you describe the sound of the Hackensaw Boys for those who haven't heard you play?

RB: A celebratory brand of secular gospel, good songs mostly original; we get a little ballady or weepy every now and again, and we try to keep the songs three minutes or less. We're not a jam band, we're not a jamgrass band, we're definitely steeped in the old-time tradition.

16B: How do you spend your time when not touring?

RB: At work. I work like a dog. I'm working today, I'm a freelance writer and teaching a writing course at a community college here [in Richmond]. Some of it's pretty cool, I get to write some books every now and again, but some of its really boring but it pays the bills and helps me keep time in my life for touring.

26

16B: Any recent pieces that we could point the readership to?

by Len Comaratta

by Hart Fowler

RB: Richmond Parents Monthly, I write a kids music column which is a CD and DVD reviews.

places in the early 90s that kind of fell apart and nowhere has come along to take their place.

16B: Is the Attitude's gig the first of year in 2010?

RB: Yes, in fact it is. I have a son who's three-and-a-half now and another member had his first child in October so we have been on hiatus for a few months. We were in the studio between Christmas and New Year's, finishing up work on our new album and this Blacksburg show will be the first band back on the road lifestyle for the Hackensaw Boys in a while.

Charlottesville hadn't had a great medium-sized room since the Jefferson Theater just reopened in the last couple of months. Its been a year since Star Hill shut down and Star Hill always kind of sucked in my opinion as a room. What they got up there is Coran Capshaw and all his money and he's interested in music and entertainment so I don't know if Charlottesville would have something like the Jefferson Theater if it wasn't for somebody like Coran Capshaw. The same is true in Knoxville. There's a lot of great clubs and you find out that they with started with somebody that had a substantial amount of money.

16B: Anything new in store?

RB: We're almost done with the new album and I think we'd like to have it out in late spring, bunch of good songs, some of which will be playin for sure in Blacksburg.

16B: Your next two dates after Blacksburg are Atlanta and NYC. Compare the small-town gigs to the big city ones?

RB: Well if a small town has a big university in it it's like a big town, it's fun to go to New York, it's fun to go to Atlanta, it's fun to see folks we know in Blacksburg. Even if we go to a big city we only get to see a few blocks of it at night. Small town is like a big city where you don't know where you're going to end up in the end of the night, a field someplace or hotel down the street.

16B: Being from Charlottesville, how would you compare Blacksburg from Charlottesville?

RB: Both Harrisonburg and Blacksburg both lack a medium-sized room for like a decade or more. Both had

16B: Hasn't the current state of the economy affected your music and touring?

RB: No, we've always been poor.

16B: I read about your collaborations with Modest Mouse and Cake, how did these come about?

RB: Feels like another lifetime it was so long ago. It was pretty unrealistic, it may have spoiled us and led us to believe that bigger things would happen faster than we thought they would. We opened up because of a mutual friend and they needed an opener at the Norva.

16B: Anything you care to add.

RB: No, just make a trip up to Attitude's and we guarantee a good time, that’s what we do.

[Ed: This abridged To-Do List interview can be read in its entirety at www.16blocksmagazine.com !]

Late Night Stage @ Gillie’s

Toy Soldiers Fri Jan 15 | 9:30P Philly 8-piece big band fusion

sic tic Mu day s u o c A Thurs Ever ySaturday and 00 pm @ 7:

Saluda Fri Jan 22 | 9:30P local rock/indie

Ike As In Dwight Fri Jan 29 | 9:30P psychadelic indie

Mark Zander with

guests The Eternal Summers

Fri Feb 9 | 9:30P

Groova Scape Fri Feb 12 | 9:30P Roanoke funk/jam

visit us online: www.myspace.com/gilliesmusic 153 college avenue | downtown blacksburg | 540.961.2703

I S S U E 2 0 27

16 BLOCKS TO DO LIST

MUSIC THE HAC KEN SAW BOYS

Friday 1/29

Attitudes (see accompanying Q&A, page 26).

The Beginning of the Year Sampler! A little of everything.

PER KAS IE

Saturday 2/20 @ 7PM

Gillie’s g, a Plucky folk, a little two-step swin s lyric dge little stomp, hard-knowle PA. er, cast Lan and harmonies from

EDD IE FRO M OHI O

Friday 1/29

The Lyric Theatre (see accompanying Q&A, page 26).

MA RK ZAN DER

ART XYZ GALLERY

1/27 - 2/10

FIDD LE AND BAN JO JAM

Mondays, 7-10PM

The Coffee Mill 1144 East Main Street, Radford grass.

Caffienate to the sounds of blue

Friday 2/5 @ 9:30PM

Gillie’s ing.

Jangly, dancy, indie-pop with feel

223 N. Main, Bburg “Fragments: Marino Colmano’s Time Lapses, in which normality and absurdity clash while nostalgia rules.” A photo retrospective by one of this issue’s featured artists. Opening reception, Wednesday 1/27, 7-9 PM.

VT LANDS CAPE ARCHIT ECTURE GALLERY

Through 2/12

121 Burruss Hall, VT Campus “Stone & Water”: Digital photographs taken in Giles County by landscape architect and artist Bill Mauzy of Crozet, VA. M-F 1-4 PM. MARGI NAL ARTS FESTIVA L

2/11-2/16

GET ACTIVE ICE SKATIN G Roanoke Civic Center 710 Williamson Rd NE, Roanoke “What would Brian Boitano do? Probably not this, but you can. Midday ice skating, all ages. $5 admission, $2 skate rental. Fridays 6-9PM, Saturdays, 12-3PM.

VALENT INE’S DAY SKI TRIP BBURG PARKS & REC Skiing at Snowshoe for V-Day. Sign up by Friday 2/5 through the Rec Center: 961-1135. Meet at the Community Center on Patrick Henry Drive, Saturday 2/13, 7:30 AM. $30 for the ride, $61 for the lift ticket, $25 for ski rental, $30 for snowboard rental. Buy your own meals and lessons, but this offers a savings of about $25 per person.

ALL OVER Downtown Roanoke 40+ artists from Maine to Florida bring interactive and highly weird performance art, noise, power tool drag racing, the music of Eugene Chadbourne (played with Zappa), exhibitions, silent films scored by live bands, readings and workshops by alternative press writers, pop-up books, the MARGINAL ARTS FESTIVAL PARADE, and much more. See www.marginalarts.com for more info.

WATCH THE SUPER BOWL

ON THE BIGGEST SCREEN IN TOWN! SUPER BOWL XLIV WILL BE SHOWN ON THE LYRIC BIG SCREEN! Admission is free and doors will open at 5:30 PM. There will be snack food, regular concessions and a cash bar with beer and wine.

Talk about your big screen TV! Where else can you watch the Big Game larger than life than at the Lyric Theatre? *The Sunday Matinee movie will still be shown at the regular time

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BENNETT’S BOX OFFICE Four mainstream new DVD releases (that are actually subversive art films) and why you should see them

by Jack Bennett FUNNY PEOPLE

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE: Another Judd Apatow comedy mixing raunchy dialogue with maudlin sincerity.

This one stars Adam Sandler opposite the increasingly over-exposed schtick of Seth Rogen.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE: A pulpy, violent war movie starring Brad Pitt from perpetually over-hyped and under-performing director Quentin Tarantino.

WHAT IT IS: A deeply personal drama with huge streaks of unsentimental conviction. Judd Apatow is known for affording his cast endless self-possessed improvisation (and somehow fills his movies with women without ever featuring a three-dimensional female character) and this film is no exception; but instead of stopping dead for riffing, the scenes take on an unscripted, honest quality. Watching feels voyeuristic. The characters might as well be named after the actors playing them.

WHY YOU SHOULD SEE IT: If you have the two and half hours to sit down with this perplexingly structured opus, you’ll get something you haven’t seen before: a revelatory look behind the curtain on a comedian as successful as Adam Sandler, with authenticity and attention to detail. What could have been a standard lonely-at-thetop story becomes a portrait of a life compromised by fame, in its own way offering hypothetical explanations for why Dave Chappelle stepped out of the limelight at the height of his success, or why Chris Farley ended his life with drugs.

WORLD’S GREATEST DAD WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE: Some kind of domestic comedy starring obnoxiously ingratiating comedian Robin Williams, directed by another notoriously obnoxious comedian.

WHAT IT IS: That obnoxious director is Bobcat Goldthwait, whose standup career was over before most of you were born. Now imagine a satire of family dynamics and emotional denial observed with the acuteness of a standup comedian — and all the bitterness and misanthropy of a former standup comedian. The script could only have gotten made with a star as bankable as Robin Williams, who, despite all the predigested crap on his resume, has been an occasionally daring dramatic actor. The result may even be a practical joke on middle America.

WHY YOU SHOULD SEE IT: This pitch-black satire is shocking, sharp, sincere and sometimes astonishingly funny. Someone picking this up in response to their love of Old Dogs will sit down to a vicious deconstruction of their own existence.

WHAT IT IS: A series of loosely connected short films abstractly addressing every sub-category of WWII story. Pitt’s not even the lead, showing up in maybe a fourth of the film, which doesn’t bounce around in time so much as tone. Morbidly hilarious one minute, heartbreaking the next, with several sustained scenes that occupy an entire universe of their own.

WHY YOU SHOULD SEE IT: I haven’t liked a Tarantino film since Pulp Fiction, and this may be the worst offender of the director's pointless meandering and indulgent self-love. But it also contains arguably the best scenes he has ever crafted on film. Fantastic performances, great characters and real suspense. It’s also my idea of a fun movie: gleeful, gutsy and full of lusty drama and bloody wish-fulfillment.

DISTRICT 9 WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE: Science-fiction action spectacle à la Independence Day and all those other movies where big spaceships hover above our cities and wreak havoc on our lives.

WHAT IT IS: Science-Fiction spectacle and hard science-fiction; an allegory for racial tensions in South Africa, shot on a relatively low budget and yet creating a world so vivid you would wonder how they did it if the movie hadn’t gripped you so completely from the first shot to the last. No famous names. Deep metaphors. Still more entertaining than any other Sci-fi movie released in 2009 (yes, Avatar is getting solid reviews, but this one’s an hour shorter and substantially more original).

WHY YOU SHOULD SEE IT: Alive From Joburg, the director’s original short which served as the basis for this film, was made for about $600. Within a few years of that short film’s completion, the director had a deal with Peter Jackson to make this well-publicized, widely released feature film. So maybe it’s about time you aspiring filmmakers watch this and then make that movie you keep talking about wanting to make.

I S S U E 2 0 29

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Across

           

           

For All Your Wireless Needs TM

Wireless Zone® of Blacksburg... your local Verizon Wireless Premium Retailer.

Come see our new store @ First & Main!

Clothing for ...

Ladies Girl, Apparel Jewelry The Formal ThehCasual Girl, Gifts h

and always forCosmetics the Party Girl!

Shoes h Intimate Apparel Accessories Mon-Sat 11-7 Sun 12-5 109 North Main Street 109 N. Main St. 540-961-4038

Downtown Blacksburg 540.961.4038

Ladies Apparel | Jewelry | Gifts | Cosmetics | Shoes | Lingerie

M-S: 11-7 Sun: 1-6

• Verizon Wireless phones & service • High-speed wireless Internet options • Accessories for all cell phone makes & models • Locally owned & operated

www.WirelessZone.com

Now 2 Convenient Locations!

BLACKSBURG

BLACKSBURG

304 North Main Street

1480 South Main Street #114 (First & Main)

540-961-4200

540-961-4400

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