Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 27, 1994 TAG: 9406270055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The review comes as the Chapel Hill, N.C., trio - anchored by Roanoke natives Mary Huff on bass and David Hartman on drums - winds its way through the Midwest. Then the Skids head to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and back again - all the way to the 4th annual Hillbilly Nation Celebration at the Wise County Fairgrounds on July 16.
The band spent much of the spring in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria.
Others have called the Skids' sound "a crossbreed of the B52s and the Beverly Hillbillies;" Rolling Stone called it "surfabilly." It praised the album's "beguiling stew of retro sounds" and said the Skids "tread the line between tribute and rip-off expertly."
"Inhabiting a world in which food, lovin' and dancin' are the primary concerns, `Ditch Diggin' is good, greasy fun," it concluded.
The Skids' limited-edition, six-song album "Peckin' Party" also got a favorable write-up in the June issue of Option.
High-tech hit
Salem native Scott Brookman stood with his thumb out by the information superhighway and got picked up 1,770 times.
That's the number of people who downloaded Brookman's song, "When I Die You Can't Have My Organs," from the Internet Underground Music Archive, according to a story in the July issue of Details magazine.
The archive is a service of the Internet (the international computer network) that allows users to copy and listen to songs by unsigned recording artists and get information about where to order their tapes and CDs.
Singer-songwriter Brookman, 31, is also an English instructor in Richmond. He's been in several bands, including the Poisonous Sewer Fish and the Apes of Wrath, and he's been recording songs in a bedroom of his parents' Salem home since he was about 20.
He says he's pleased with the article because he's in it and because it mentions his hometown.
"How many times does Salem get mentioned in a national magazine - besides when the veterans' hospital gets some bad press?" he said.
Heat takes its toll
Hot, humid weather was dogging Darrell Mann of Peterstown, W.Va., as he passed the 1,000-mile mark - and wore out his sixth pair of Nikes - on his "Run Across America." The 51-year-old grandfather and laid-off Radford Army Ammunition Plant worker began his ambitious journey from Cape Henlopen, Del., on May 2. He hopes to make it to the West Coast this fall.
"I'd thought I'd died two days ago," he said recently of the 100-degree weather. "I thought I was out of energy."
Mann was taking a midday break along southern Indiana's Highway 150. His wife, Sue, and two of his six children - Seth, 13, and Megan, 10 - were following in a van. "They're kinda co-pilots," he said of the youngsters.
Mann is running to emphasize the plight of the uninsured and unemployed like himself, but he's also stressing good health and individual self-worth and ability when he meets with church and school groups along the way.
A devout Mormon and regional church official, Mann planned to reach Nauvoo, Ill., by today, where he was to join other church officials to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of church prophet Joseph Smith.
There she is, Miss Virginia . . .
Folks who stopped to peruse the community bulletin board at the Orchard View country store in Woolwine recently had cause to do a double take when they came to one flier.
It proclaimed that the band playing at an upcoming dance in the Patrick County community would be "Miss Virginia and Her Truck Driving Buddies."
Is our pageant winner moonlighting?
Not quite.
The "Miss Virginia" in this case is Virginia Purdy, an aspiring country music singer who works a day job as dispatcher for MGM Transportation, a Martinsville trucking company. Her bandmates are all either truckers or former truckers.
Hence, the name - which the sign got wrong, by the way. It's actually just "Miss Virginia and the Truckers."
In any case, this Miss Virginia says she won't be caught wearing a crown and an evening gown.
"Usually jeans or western dress," she says. "And my boots. We're all western."
Settling on a protest
Remember the Blacksburg peace activists who sued Virginia Tech because the university refused to allow a pilot to tow a banner over the stadium during graduation in May 1991?
Well, the suit's been settled out of court, and the university has agreed to pay the Blacksburg Peace Committee $260 - the amount it cost the group to hire the pilot.
The Peace Committee had planned to protest the university's choice of Kuwaiti Ambassador Sheik Saud Nasir Al-Sabah as principal speaker at the graduation ceremony by displaying a banner that read "Respect Human Rights Now." Larry Hincker, a spokesman for Tech, said the university was happy with the settlement.
"There was no guilt," he said. "To defend ourselves in court would have cost a lot more than that."
by CNB