An Interview with Andrew Necci of RVAMag

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Andrew Necci, Editor and Chief of RVAMag and RVAMag.com and we dished the dirt on Richmond music, Richmond life, and I learned a lot.   Seriously.  That dude knows a little bit about everything.  In addition to his vast knowledge, he happens to be super nice and super cool, and he didn’t care when I ordered the same thing as him at Sticky Rice.  Sorry, I’d only ever eaten the tots.  Here is the interview, the best I can transcribe it from my hastily-taken, teriyaki-splattered notes.

You’re from Warrenton, Virginia.  When did you move to Richmond and why?

I started out at Randolph Macon on a full scholarship.  I was pretty bored with Ashland, so I’d come into Richmond to see shows and visit people.  I dropped out with a year left on my English degree, and moved to Richmond for good in 1995.

RVAMag started in 2005.  The website says that there was a need for artists and activists to have a voice, but it also mentions that the magazine came about with the help of people who had “found themselves” in Richmond.  This indicates that a good number of the startup team were, in fact, not native Richmonders.  In this “new Richmond” the magazine envisioned, what of the “old” did the magazine want to promote and nurture, and what of the “new” excited the founders so much they decided to create this magazine, and later the media company? 

Some of the founding members are, in fact, from places other than Richmond.  They saw Richmond as a place with a good music scene, a good art scene, and a lot of potential.  I’ve only been there about a year.

What is your role with RVAMag?

I started out writing about music, and was then asked to be the music editor.  After I stared editing some pieces that weren’t technically part of my responsibility, and after we started doing the web stuff and I started editing that, the previous Editor in Chief quit and Tony offered me the job.  

Starting out as a music writer, I assume you have a musical background.  Am I right about that?  Plus, I looked at your Facebook pictures.

My first band was called Make Believe, and I was the singer.  We were in Ashland.  After I came to Richmond I started a band called Tri State Killing Spree, and we were together in some incarnation or another until 2002.  Eric Smith from The Catalyst joined the band when he was 15 years old after he answered an ad we put up at Soundhole.  Jason Steed (Tink) of My War and Mason Dixon Disaster was in the band as well.  

What are your favorite Richmond bands, past and present?

Back then, it was Avail, Four Walls Falling, Inquisition, Ipecac, and Action Patrol.  Now my taste goes all over the place – The Catalyst, Inter Arma, Hold Tight, NoBS!, The Greater the Risk, Long Arms, Worn in Red, Flechette, White Laces, Young Adult Fiction, Fight the Big Bull, the Spacebomb records crew – there are so many.

*At this point in the conversation, we went off on books, both being English majors and owners of far too many books.  This part of the conversation may or may not interest you, and may be available in my memoirs.  For now, I am skipping it because your brain might explode from how much awesomeness went down over bowls of udon teriyaki.*

What are your favorite things about Richmond?

The cost of living here is not prohibitive.   I have journalist friends in New York and they really struggle.  Here you can work part time, play music, and live in real house instead of some pre-fab condo.  Richmond also has a rich history – not just the Civil War stuff, but a solid history of music.  It’s a town with enough to do, but it’s not too big. You don’t technically “need” a car.  There is ample practice space, and winter is short.  There is plenty of nice weather.  

What are your least favorite things about Richmond?

You know?  I don’t really have any of those.

And now the question I ask everybody – if you had my job, and could interview anybody in Richmond, who would you interview?

1.  Greta Brinkman.  She’s music for life.  

2. Tim Barry.  I interviewed him in 1995 and would like to interview him again.  He’s been playing some acoustic stuff out, but I’d like to see where he’s been and what he’s up to and planning.

And that concludes a great interview with a great Richmonder (because he chose to be, like me).

 

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Haunted Richmond – A Handful of Richmond Ghosts, Part 2

Continued, because Richmond has so many cool ghost stories that we just can’t stop.  We told you about the Executive Mansion ghost, and about the ghosts at The Old Stone House, but we left out some of the most famous Richmond ghosts of all.  Not to deprive you, here you go.

The Church Hill Tunnel

In the early 1870′s, the C & O Railway decided to build a tunnel underneath Church Hill.  Makes sense, getting from one end of the Hill to the other, without having to go around, but the tunnel was wrought with troubles from the beginning.  Building the tunnel proved easier said than done.  See, Church Hill was not situated on top of bedrock, like most of the other hills that C & O built tunnels through.  Instead, our hills are filled with blue marl clay.  This made construction a nightmare, and about ten workers died trying to build the tunnel.

The tunnel always had seepage problems, but in 1925 the railroad wanted to utilize it, so they decided to go in and repair and reinforce the tunnel.  On October 2, 1925 the tunnel collapsed on a work train and killed at least two, if not more workers.

When the collapse happened, the men were in total darkness, with debris falling all around them.  They screamed and cried out, but some never found their way out.  The tunnel was sealed in 1926, burying the work train and whatever bodies that went undiscovered.

For years, at the beginning of October, residents and visitors swore they could hear a ghostly train whistle coming from the sealed up tunnel.  Other times, people have heard the cries coming from the men who were trapped, faint and muffled cries of men who died long ago.

Hollywood Cemetery

The Richmond Vampire

One spooky aspect of Hollywood Cemetery is closely tied to the Church Hill Tunnel collapse.  Rescue teams reported coming upon a man who was hunched over one of the tunnel victims.  He was not dressed like a railway worker.  When he stood up, the people said that he had blood around his mouth, and that two fangs protruded from his mouth.  The legend says that the man fled, with people chasing after him.  He reportedly fled all the way to Hollywood Cemetery (that’s a looong way) and disappeared into a tomb marked W.W. Poole.  The door was locked, and the people who chased the bloody-mouthed man couldn’t get the door open.  They asked the cemetery caretaker to open the doors, but he refused.  From this came the legend of the Richmond Vampire.

The legend of the Richmond vampire, of course, is oral history, and three is, of course, a rational, and non-vampire explanation, but that’s no fun, is it?  We’ll save that for a different post.

The Ghost Dog

I’ll report this story as I heard it from an ancient Oregon Hill resident back in 1994.  This woman told me that the cast iron dog stood outside of the drugstore and soda shop on the corner of Laurel and Main.  Other reports said that it stood out front of a store on Broad Street.  Either way, a little neighborhood girl would come to the store and pet the statue and talk to it just as if it were a real dog.

There was a flu epidemic in 1892 and the little girl’s body was interred at Hollywood Cemetery.  The owners of the store where the statue of the dog had stood donated the dog to look over the little girl’s grave.  People have said that the dog emanates a menacing air when someone steps too close to the girl’s grave, and that at night, you can hear the sound of a dog running around the cemetery, panting.

Ellen Glasgow

Ellen Glasgow was a Richmond native, and a novelist who wrote twenty novels and won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1942.  She died in November of 1945, and one of the instructions in her will was that her two beloved dogs who had died several years before be dug up from her back yard and buried with her.  Her wishes were fulfilled, and nighttime visitors to the cemetery swear they can hear small dogs roaming around the cemetery at night.  Are they hearing Ellen Glasgow’s dogs, or the dog that protects the little girl?

Civil War Ghosts

Over 18,000 Civil War veterans are interred at Hollywood Cemetery.  11,000 are unknown soldiers, fallen in the battle of Gettysburg.  Legend has it that during a full moon one can hear moans coming from the pyramid – moans from soldiers who will never find rest because their deaths went unrecorded.  Others will tell you that it’s possible to hear such sounds in broad daylight, and that even in the bright summer sun a chill can run down your spine that will, for that moment, make you believe in ghosts.

Read Part one of Richmond Ghosts

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Belle Isle – The Peaceful Center of Richmond

It isn’t often that once can find the peace and quiet of the outdoors in the middle of a bustling city.  Like so many other wonders that can be found within the boundaries of the City of Richmond, Belle Isle provides a welcome change of pace from what one might expect to be nestled in the center of an ever-growing metropolis.  This island, located in the middle of the James River in the heart of the city, offers its own surprises and opportunities for enjoyment and discovery.

Like the surrounding city, Belle Isle finds its roots steeped in Civil War history.  The island served as the site of a prison camp for Union soldiers during the war, many of which were capture soldiers from the 2^nd Tennessee Infantry, taken during the Battle of Rogersville in November of 1863. The Battle of Walkerton (which took place March 2, 1864) proved to be a failed attempt to rescue the starving men. Even today, remains of the buildings used in the prison camp can be found scattered across the island.  Ruins of an armory and an iron factory still stand against the elements as a testament to the harsh history of the place.

The tragic history seems a distant memory, however, when one traverses the paths and trails of the island.  Modern amenities such as picnic shelters, rest areas, learning centers and even a tricky rope bridge provide visitors with the opportunity to enjoy the surrounding nature comfortably and safely. So when one sits at the top of the quiet island, overlooking the James River or Hollywood Cemetery, it is easy to forget that over the other shoulder sits an entire city full of people.  Until they trip over you with their dogs and their beer coolers, that is…

photos borrowed from Watermarked Photography’s Flickr Page

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