My best friend from college sent me this link about a new film "rockumentary" that focuses on the Charlottesville,Virginia music scene from 1970 to around 1990.
The people they interview (members of Skip Castro Band and Johnny Sportcoat And The Casuals) put on the best live shows with the highest energy ever, NRBQ and Skip Castro played at My school, James Madison University at a small honky tonk called the "Elbow Room".
They (Skip and Johnny) were two of the most popular bands on the East Coast, and it seemed that whatever city I was in (Harrisonburg "C-Ville" or Norfolk) there was a stellar show at a a small club, cheap beer, great music.
I can't say enough good things about Skip Castro, and especially Danny Beirne, the "wild haired" keyboard player, who fooled Chuck Berry into thinking he was black when Berry overheard him practicing in another room.
They played "Jenny Takes A Ride" with such conviction that it was like a religious experience.
The original tunes Skip Castro played were literally indistinguishable from the "classic Rock and Roll" they played, they were as tight as The Beatles after a tour in Hamburg.
At any rate, here is a link to the background on the film, I hope it will be released on DVD.
The film is called "The Hook" because people who live in Charlottesville (in my case Harrisonburg an hour away) want to stay there.Springtime in the mountains, outdoor parties, great music, and for musicians, a ready made audience that is throwing money at them.
Watching these guys play was a musical education in itself, and I was privileged to witness it.
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Actually, the film zeroes in on the rock bands of the 1980s and tells their stories through the eyes of Charlie Pastorfield and Bob Girard, two local musical evergreens who played in most of the groups that mattered.
"It's a three-act structure," explains producer Andy Herz. "The first act is essentially 1970-1977. It talks about the music scene at the time of the Vietnam War: the Charlottesville Blues All-Stars and the Hawaiians and Captain Tunes. The second act is the heyday of Easters and Skip Castro and Johnny Sportcoat and the Casuals, when those bands were phenomenally popular up and down the entire east coast. The third act is more recent years, featuring bands like Indecision and especially Dave Matthews."
"For me, it's kind of a labor of love," says director Joe Grafmuller. He was at UVA in the 1980s and watched Girard and Pastorfield bop their way through several locally and regionally notorious bands, including Pastorfield's Skip Castro Band and Girard in the title role in Johnny Sportcoat and the Casuals.
It's the same story with the rest of the crew: "Everyone who's working on this-- with maybe one exception-- has a direct connection to Charlottesville, and the one exception is thinking of moving there," says Herz. "A lot of us were students at UVA and were at fraternities, and the others are long-time local residents who've known these guys for years."
So what's with the name? It has nothing to do with the newspaper, the Hook, and everything to do with the city so lovingly called Charlottesville, also called the Hook.
"They call it the Hook because people just want to stay there," Skip Castro's wild-haired, wild-keyboarding Danny Beirne tells the film crew.
David Ibbeken of the band Indecision also knows the feeling. "When you go away and you start to feel the draw," Ibbeken says in the film, "then you start to understand where the term comes from."http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2006/08/17/COVER%2080sMusic%20by%20Vijith-E.doc.aspx
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The thought that occurred to me was that most people here won't understand my enthusiasm, and that maybe my fanaticism is unique to me, but then I found this, it is my EXACT experience!:
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A couple of Andy's Fiji brothers said that we should document that period, because it was really something special," says Hinton. "I was thinking to myself that every college kid probably thinks that, but the more we talked about it, the more we realized that it really truly was."
The reason for all the enthusiasm? Gratitude.
"I learned a tremendous amount of what I know about music from Skip Castro and the Casuals," says Herz. "I had never heard anything like it. Like so many of us, I had been brought up on Boston and Kansas and Molly Hatchet and Lynyrd Skynyrd. That's how I began a musical education that I've tried to never let go of."
Producer Grafmuller experienced a similar awakening. "The clubs in Northern Virginia were mostly heavy metal," he says. "Then I went to UVA, and my eyes were wide open-- all this great blues and roots rock music. They were phenomenal musicians. It was getting a free music lesson just watching these guys."
Girard doesn't let it go to his head. "I'd hope that's standard fare in college towns all over the place," he shrugs.
