Live Nation Inc., the world’s largest concert promotion company, will announce today it is buying a majority stake in Dave Matthews Band manager and real estate mogul Coran Capshaw’s company Musictoday, which runs online stores, fan clubs, web sites, and offers other services such as ticketing and music downloading for over 700 clients, including The Rolling Stones, Eminem, Dave Matthews Band, Tiger Woods, Nine Inch Nails, and Jeff Gordon. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed yet, reports the Wall Street Journal, but the two companies have said that Musictoday had gross annual sales of more than $100 million last year.

Live Nation, once a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, became its own company less than a year ago. It operates 120 venues around the world, producing concerts, touring Broadway shows, and sporting events attended by nearly 60 million people annually. Just recently, Live Nation bought out concert promotion and venue company House of Blues for $350 million, as well as apparel company Trunk Ltd. The company boasts annual sales of $2.8 billion and has over 3,000 full-time employees.

Musictoday, which grew out of Capshaw’s merchandising business for the Dave Matthews Band, now employs over 200 people and operates out of 500,000 square feet of office and warehouse space.

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The demolition of ancient Chinese buildings, particularly those in Olympics-crazed Beijing, has been grabbing headlines recently. But one Central Virginia firm found a way to make lemonade out of that lemony trend of destruction.

Mountain Lumber, based in Ruckersville, released the tale and pix two years ago showing how it secured some massive loads of centuries-old Chinese elm timbers. Perhaps most amazing was the image of the guy hefting a giant log while wearing flip-flops.

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As the Hook reported this week, UVA athletics officials have told members of the media to stop referring to the new John Paul Jones Arena as “the Jack” in part because, according to UVA spokeswoman Carol Wood, “There was some concern about whether or not it was respectable enough for the person for whom it was named.”

Well now UVA officials can rest easy on that issue because “the Jack” now has the approval of “Jack” himself. In speaking with the Hook this morning, John Paul Jones said of the nickname, “I think it’s very accurate because Jack’s a nickname for John, right? I’m called Jack by most of my friends. President John F. Kennedy was called Jack, right? So I think it’s fine.”

Asked about if he shared UVA’s concern over whether “the Jack” was “respectable,” the 1948 UVA law alum said, “No. It’s just an extension of a true actuality because most of my friends call me Jack. So I don’t think it’s irreverent.”

And not only is Jones happy with “the Jack,” it would appear that UVA president John Casteen is a fan as well. In a July 11 e-mail inviting the entire University community to the arena’s open house, Casteen wrote, “I hope you will be able to stop by for this special insider’s view of ‘the Jack.’”

For his part, UVA athletic director Craig Littlepage wouldn’t comment on “the Jack” this morning, saying only, “I would prefer that it be referred to as the John Paul Jones Arena.”

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Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned her five children was been declared innocent by reason of insanity yesterday, depsite testimony in the trial from Park Dietz, the former UVA forensic pyschologist whose earlier mistake voided her first trial.

The story dates back to June 20, 2001 when the Houston mom, then 36, drowned her five children one by one in the family bathtub, because– she said– Satan required the act. Dietz testified at her first trial that she may have seen an episode of Law & Order, a show for which Dietz was a consultant, in which a woman wins her trial for a similar crime on insanity grounds.

Trouble was that no such show existed at the time of this crime. Dietz, despite his expertise in studying criminal minds, had made a whopper of an error.

Despite his earlier slip-up, Dietz was welcomed into the latest Yates trial and again testified that despite the bizarre fact that a woman with no criminal past suddenly fell into post-partum depression deep enough to kill her five kids that she knew right from wrong and, therefore, could not be legally insane under Texas law.

A Harris County jury, however, decided July 26 that she was gripped by psychosis. Today, Houston judge ordered Yates committed to North Texas State Hospital, a high-security mental facility.

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UVA in the Peace Corps, the new John Paul Jones Arena, a former PVCC student arrested for his part in the largest act of ecoterrorism on American soil and much more.

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UVA has announced that dean of African American Affairs, M. Rick Turner has announced a hasty retirement after 30 years in education, effective July 31, 2006.

On July 17, local media reported that Turner had been placed on administrative leave after pleading guilty to lying to federal prosecutors about “the activities of a known drug dealer.” In the plea agreement, Turner agreed to 12 months of federal probation and to cooperate with further investigations. On July 20, it was reported that Associate Dean of African American Affairs, Sylvia Terry would temporarily replace Turner until the federal investigation was complete.

Although UVA officials have been mum about the details surrounding Turner’s sudden retirement and the federal drug case he appears to be involved in, Turner himself was anything but. The outspoken president of the NAACP’s local chapter is well known for his fiery criticism of race-relations in Charlottesville. (more)

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Albemarle lauds its agricultural heritage. In Scottsville, Dave Matthews has an organic farm. A few miles away, another farmer was looking at a bumper crop this year, until police swooped in July 25 to arrest Gary Peck, 51, for growing 4,400 pot plants in his Blenheim Road backyard, the largest bust ever in this area.

Police value the crop at $4.8 million, assuming a street value of $1,110 per plant, even for those that are tiny seedlings. Others reached 9 feet tall. More astounding is Peck’s alleged intensive gardening technique that crammed 4,000-plus plants into a 10′X10′ plot surrounded by bamboo in his backyard.

Peck is charged with manufacturing a heckuva lot of ganja, as well as for having four guns and a half-pound of pot in his house.

Meanwhile, the Albemarle police station evidence room floor is redolent with reefer that’s being dried to be used as evidence, according to the Progress. “We’re obviously not a professional dope-drying facility,” says forensic technician Carol Townsend, “but we do the best we can.”

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The film documentary about the rocky relationship between late photographer O. Winston Link and his thieving wife Conchita has finally made it to American shores. Yet the result, according to the New York Times at least, is not great film.

However, O. Winston Link did make great film. His nighttime photographs of steam trains chugging through Virginia and West Virginia have unleashed several books as well as an entire museum in downtown Roanoke. But his relationship with his wife suffered a major derailment.

As reported in the Hook two years ago when the museum opened, some associates of the late photo-artist contend that he was essentially held prisoner in his own house by a wife who took a lover– and thousands of her husband’s priceless prints. In 1998, Conchita Mendoza Link was convicted of grand larceny in the first degree in New York and sentenced to six-and-a-half to 20 years.

Shortly after her 2002 release, investigators discovered she was selling more missing prints on eBay, and she went back to jail. Still, the New York Times reviewer, after watching ‘The Photographer, His Wife, Her Lover’ infers that Conchita helped jumpstart her husband’s standing in the art world.
Link died in January 2001. The Roanoke museum dedicated to his art opened three years later.

(Couple photo from O. Winston Link; publicity/art photo entitled “Sometimes the Electricity Fails, Vesuvius, VA” from First Run/Icarus Films)

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About two months after departing announcer Mac McDonald predicted the decision would happen, UVA has apparently renewed, and perhaps expanded, its sports presence on the radio stations formerly called Eure Communications. An announcement posted at wina.com reveals that UVA will continue to allow its sports event to be broadcast by the Charlottesville Radio Group (as the former Eure stations, now owned by Saga Communications, are called).

Since the sale by Eure, Saga has unveiled a new station primarily consisting of liberal talk shows, and even that one– 1450 WVAX– will, like WINA, broadcast live baseball and men’s lacrosse games, according to the WINA release. WINA will also continue to carry “Inside Virginia Women’s Basketball” with coach Debbie Ryan and the “Cavalier Minute.” The company will also coordinate “all production, engineering, and delivery of Virginia Sports Radio Network programming” to its network affiliates across Virginia.

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Forget Nashville, Memphis, or New Orleans…according to a recent article in the Kansas City Star’s Sunday Living Section, Athens, Chapel Hill, and Charlottesville are the new Southern musical meccas.

“These three towns are laboratories, creative enclaves where music bubbles, swirls and mutates into more infectious strains,” writes Ben Brazil. “ In addition to bad parking, each has a vibrant music scene and a good record store or two. Best of all, they also support a variety of small and midsize venues so you can chat with musicians after sets, not just squint through binoculars or stare at the massive outdoor screen.” (Looks like Brazil didn’t hear about the new JPJ arena.)

Focusing on Charlottesville, Brazil sites an “aristocratic pride” in our colonial architecture and an “almost religious devotion” to Mr. Jefferson to show that we’re not “exactly a punk rock town.” But he seems to think it’s the perfect setting for “the sort of funky, mellow stuff you’d expect from the birthplace of the Dave Matthews Band.” He goes on to stroll the Downtown Mall, visiting the Gravity Lounge, where he stumbles upon Lauren Hoffman advising people not to fall in love with a “solipsist.” Next, it’s off to Miller’s to see John D’Earth and company, and to remind people once again that Dave Matthews used to tend bar there.

Brazil’s conclusion? “So this was current Charlottesville music, I thought: folksy, jazzy and funky but without a hard edge.”

Then he goes to the Outback Lodge. (more)

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Take out order gone wrong? This morning, it looked like a crane truck had flipped over after ordering a Biggie Sized burger meal at the Wendy’s drive-thru on Preston Avenue. There it was on its side between the order kiosk and the take-out window.

However, according to Captain Mike Johnson of the Charlottesville Fire Department, it wasn’t hunger but tricky sign work that caused the morning accident.

The Atlantic Coast Sign & Electric crane truck was there to replace a Wendy’s sign on the side of the building. As the crane operator tried to pick up the new sign off a platform on the passenger side of the truck, the weight of the sign was enough to flip the truck on its side. The crane arm came crashing down, shattering a streetlight and tossing its bucket on the sidewalk along Preston. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the accident. There was no one in the cab of the truck, the crane operator managed to get out of the way, the falling crane and bucket didn’t reach the road, and no one was on a morning stroll or run down Preston.

“It’s going to be time consuming getting this truck upright,” said Johnson, who says three of his engines happened to be in the area when the accident happened. “We’re trying to stabilize things before the wrecker guys go to work.” In addition to stabilizing the truck itself, Johnson was concerned about leaking fuel and two compressed air containers at precarious angles. Indeed, getting the truck back on four wheels is going to present a challenge. Fireman and the wrecker drivers have to figure out a way to flip it over and reposition the crane at the same time. “We’ll probably be here until late afternoon trying to deal with this,” said Johnson.

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Over at the Daily Progress, the writing bug has bitten the editor, and his “Airport traffic dips” is an intelligent– if not necessarily– Pulitzer-winning exploration of the 5.8 percent slump in CHO airport boardings during the first six months of the year. (The prime reason for the drop appears to be major discounting at competitors Dulles and Richmond.)

What’s left out, however, is an explanation for why the Progress continues to publish its Charlottesville Business Journal. Founded independently in 1990, the Journal is now a Monday-morning Progress supplement given mostly to advertorials, those mixtures of press releases and advertising that typically mislead readers into thinking they’re reading news.

Not all of the Business Journal is ads. Consider today’s lead article, a New York City-based wire-story about retirees who fear they may going back to cover higher-than-expected medical expenses. The author? “Ass E Press.”
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For at least a year now, photographer Bill Emory has been making the case that his city neighborhood, The Woolen Mills, is unfairly under siege by traffic and development. Yesterday, his point was literally rammed home when a truck smashed into #1609 E. Market Street. Emory’s web site offers a then-and-now photograph (pre-accident) that gives the viewer a sense of how the wreck may have occurred: a driver heading northbound on Franklin Street failed to stop at Market. Wham!

Emory says that retired longtime planning director Satyendra Huja once penned a letter noting the neighborhood’s hopes that Franklin might get some traffic-calming in the form of one-waying Franklin. This morning’s Daily Progress reports that police found the abandoned vehicle nearby and hope to have a suspect in custody soon for the 2:09am Sunday hit-and-run.

[Editor's note: the truck was northbound on Franklin; an early version of this post incorrectly described the trajectory.]
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Sixteen days after the NCAA singled out Fork Union Military Academy as one of 22 high schools in the country whose academic programs were subject to an investigation, NCAA VP of membership services Kevin Lennon issued a statement today saying that NCAA officials have visited the campus, and that FUMA graduates are now officially eligible to compete at the collegiate level.

So if FUMA was so quickly cleared, why were their academics called into question in the first place? “The issues identified centered on irregular course work and grade patterns during enrollment at Fork Union and utilization of course work from Fork Union to rectify NCAA academic deficiencies,” says Lennon. While nobody at the NCAA has said for sure, one can infer that “irregular course work” would refer to FUMA’s long standing “one subject plan” (as Lennon admitted earlier this week) and that “rectify NCAA academic deficiencies” would refer to FUMA’s post-graduate program.

Now that his school has been exonerated, Fork Union president Lt. Gen. John Jackson tells reporters, “Our results speak for themselves. Thousands of students over many generations have improved their academic performance at FUMA by learning the value of focus, self-discipline, and personal accountability,” adding, “we put our faith and trust in the Lord and we were not disappointed.”

Additionally, the NCAA has announced that basketball powerhouse Oak Hill Academy, the only other Virginia school on the list, is also no longer under investigation.

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High winds ripped the roof off the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke July 19, mainly in the aviation wing, according to the Roanoke Times. Fortunately, the airplanes weren’t damaged, but the roof had just been replaced six month ago. Damage is estimated at $250,000, and the storm spewed asbestos all over the place from the remains of the old roof.

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Associate dean of the Office of African-American Affairs at UVA, and director of the office’s nationally recognized Peer Advisor Program, Sylvia Terry, has temporarily replaced embattled dean M. Rick Turner, who was placed on administrative leave last Friday after admitting he’d lied to federal prosecutors about information he had concerning a known drug dealer, the AP reports.

Under an agreement Turner signed in U-S District Court in Charlottesville, he faces 12 months of probation and may be called again to testify in the case. According to a statement by University officials, a final decision about Turner’s fate will not be decided until after the federal investigation.

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This is our new amazing summary of this week’s issue. We welcome you and sure hope you’ll listen… and subscribe!

Subscribe to this free podcast! Receive each week’s summary of Hook stories by clicking on the purple icon. That will take you to the Hook’s place in the iTunes music store– where you simply click the subscribe button. It’s free!

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They say that less is more, but when is more lesser? When you’re the Dave Matthews Band, apparently. Such was the case Tuesday when tour industry publication Pollstar put out its list of the top-grossing North American tours for 2006 so far. Despite selling more tickets and making more money than this time last year (70,165 tickets and $2.7 million more, to be exact), DMB missed the top 10, coming in at 16. That’s eight spots down from their place on the 2005 year-end list.

But Charlottesville needn’t sell off all its Dave assets just yet, according to industry insiders. “They’re not slipping,” says Pollstar’s Gary Bonngiovanni. “They’ve done 14 shows at an average ticket price of $42.12. Look at the acts above them. Madonna is charging an average of $186 per ticket, Kenny Chesney’s done 37 shows.”

In fact, Dave and company are easily one of the most wallet-friendly acts in the top 20. Only Mexican heartthrob Luis Miguel (#11) charges his fans less on average.

But has the Dave Matthews Band overtaken the other gianormous act to play our fair city, the Rolling Stones? This list says a definitive “no,” with the Stones coming in at #2 grossing $52.5 million to DMB’s $16.1 million having also played just 14 North American shows.

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A bold voice has fallen silent. UVA’s dean of African American Affairs, M. Rick Turner, has been placed on administrative leave following his plea to lying about an alleged drug dealer, according to the Daily Progress. In a federal plea in which he admits that federal prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him, Turner has agreed to a one-year probation for misleading the government.

Turner, although his position is primarily geared toward the University, has become a familiar voice in Charlottesville. In particular, he has served as president of the Charlottesville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

He has inveighed against street theater artist Scottie B. and defended former Charlottesville School superintendent Scottie Griffin. But no media outlet has yet succeeded in revealing any response to the federal agreement from Turner himself. And the government document gives no clue about the precise lie about the “known drug dealer” or about the case from which it arose.

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Ouch. This summer’s closure of the tiny one-lane Proffit Road Bridge is coming back to haunt commuters this morning, now that a big ole sinkhole has shrunk Route 29 to just one lane near the Hollymead Town Center. Norfolk Southern just wants to keep the wood-planked bridge in good shape, so it began rebuilding it on June 20, a project now estimated to take three months.

Update 7/13 1:55pm: VDOT public affairs manager, Lou Hatter, tells the Hook that the sink hole was caused by a leak/hole in an underground drainage pipe, creating a kind of “vaccum effect” that has been eroding the earth beneath the road. While a lane of traffic has been closed for most of the day, Hatter says it should be back open before the evening commute. If you’d like more information on the sinkhole mishap, VDOT is holding a briefing about it today at 2:30pm at its Residence Office. Directions: 250 West, about mile or two past Pantops Mountain, turn left on VDOT Way.

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Was the Richmond Times-Dispatch too terrified of Style Weekly to let its reporters– or even its editor or publisher– speak to a reporter for a story? If so, the tactic by the 156-year-old daily paper seems to have backfired, since the Style story, by Greg Weatherford, tells plenty of tales anyhow.

For instance, the T-D now ranks its reporters on a 1-5 scale with everyone starting out as a “2″ until proven otherwise. “As long as circulation continues to drop,” retired T-D music critic Clark Bustard explained, “we are all by definition below average.”

Parent company Media General which also owns Charlottesville’s Daily Progress has no major history of Charlottesville accessibility for Hook stories. The paper has declined comment about its $8 Christmas bonuses, its redesign, and– most recently– the controversial decision to name adjudicated juvenile names.

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Those who don’t consider destructive wildfires and droughts enough reason to fear global warming should consider its latest possible consequence: destruction of the California wine industry. A group of scientists reported to the National Academy of Sciences on July 10 that an increase in the number of sweltering summer days could devastate warm wine-growing areas. But while California’s taking the heat in this particular study, might the Virginia wine industry be headed for cold hard cash? (more)

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When we first reported on rumors of a new album from Sparklehorse, the musical brainchild of Albemarle High School alum Mark Linkous, we cautioned fans not to get their hopes up. But after years of speculation followed by disappointment, it looks like it’s really going to happen this time.

Five years after 2001’s It’s A Wonderful Life album, online music journal pitchforkmedia.com reports that not only is the album ready, but that there is a definite track list and, most importantly, a release date of September 26. The new LP will come out on Astralwerks Records and will be called Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain.

Just how apt is the new title? The album has been so long in the works that the Hook wrote a cover story on the recording process and Linkous’ reclusive life in Fluvanna County all the way back on February 27, 2002 in our fourth issue!

As if that weren’t enough good news for long-suffering Sparklehorse fans, Linkous and company will appear live at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival in September. Check out the festival’s website on Thursday July 13 to see which day of the festival they’ll take the stage. In preparation for the high profile gig, the band says they will be playing warm-up gigs in Asheville, North Carolina, Knoxville, Tennessee, Nashville, and Atlanta.

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If you happened to be driving past Pantops Mountain last Saturday, July 8 you may have noticed a sea of yellow police tape around the Sun Trust Bank and a veritable army of law enforcement up and down the roadway. Was it a terrorist attack? A hostage situation? No, it was a phoned in bank robbery. Early that morning, a man left what appeared to be a bomb in the bank, exited, and later called to demand that a bag of cash be placed outside the bank or else “something bad would happened.”

After a bank employee flipped the alarm, Albemarle County Police arrived and sealed off the area. Later, Charlottesville City Police showed up and bank employees were escorted out of the building.

“No, it was not a real bomb,” says Lt. John Teixeira of the county police. “But it was a harrowing situation.” Indeed, although the bomb wasn’t real, Teixeira says it looked exactly like a real bomb. In addition to county and city police, the FBI, ATF, and the VA State Police’s bomb squad were also involved.

The phone robber, a 6 to 6.5 foot black male (pictured left) who was last seen walking across the Giant parking lot after dropping off the faux bomb, is still at large, says Teixeira, but he was captured on the bank’s security cameras.

If you see the man, know the man, or have any information to help police nab him, call Crime Stoppers at (434) 977-4000.

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Normally, Fork Union Military Academy is lauded for excellence on the playing field, as exemplified by alumni like New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde and former Tennessee Titans running back Eddie George. But now, Fork Union bears an athletic distinction no AD wants. Yesterday, the NCAA announced Fork Union as one of 22 high schools that are under review for determining whether or not to accept academic transcripts any longer.

At question is the academic rigor, or lack thereof, Fork Union student athletes endure. The list is part of the NCAA’s ongoing crackdown on so-called “factory” schools who graduate student athletes with inadequate training in the classroom. The NCAA has already singled out 25 schools from whom they will no longer accept transcripts, including Riverview Learning Center in Chesapeake. Without the NCAA’s clearance, most any hope an athlete would have of competing in varsity collegiate athletics is dashed.

The only good news for Fork Union is that those former cadets who graduated this year are still okay to take the field for the time being.

Also under review is Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Virginia, near the Tennessee border. Reached for comment by the New York Times, Oak Hill president Michael Groves said, “I’ve never spoken with anyone from the NCAA. I’m a bit outraged that I’m learning about a list from reporters that’s damaging Oak Hill’s reputation.” Among Oak Hill’s famous athletic alums are NBA stars Carmelo Anthony, Jerry Stackhouse, and Steve Blake.

This inquiry has serious implications for the University of Virginia as well. In recent years, the UVA football team has suited up its fair share of Fork Union alums including current Cavalier guard Jeff Schrad, and former stars like Arizona Cardinals linebacker Darryl Blackstock and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Billy McMullen. Additionally, Oak Hill has sent basketball players to Mr. Jefferson’s university in the past, such as current phenom J.R. Reynolds and former ‘Hoos standout Curtis Staples.

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