Wagner back in the dugout

Eleven months after undergoing elbow surgery, New York Mets relief pitcher and Crozet resident Billy Wagner, 38, returned to the active roster, and is scheduled to throw a bullpen session today. “I’m a competitor and you want to compete and you really don’t like somebody to tell you your career is over,” Wagner tells the New York Times. However, the Daily Press reports More… (0)

Mockingbird sings: Staunton’s new local focal point

Mockingbird, a new music venue and restaurant, is coming to this street corner in Staunton in mid-September.
PHOTO BY KEVIN BLACKBURN

We all know how popular the local food movement has become, what with chefs sprinkling their menus with food from local farms, but a new restaurant in Staunton is embracing the the concept at its conception, in more ways than one.

Shooting for a mid-September opening, Mockingbird, a big addition to Beverly Street, will not only More… (0)

Big Sound: Studio holds splashy opening

When Crystalphonic Studios fell silent in 2007, local musicians bemoaned the loss. In late July– to musicians’ delight– the tunes started up again, as The Sound, a new music production studio, opened in the former Crystalphonic space on Preston Avenue.

According to the new studio’s co-owner James McLaughlin, The Sound will More… (0)

FridaysUpdate: Radio ready? Thomas ‘won’t back down’ at Fridays

Local rockers The Will Thomas Band channels the rock of Tom Petty.
PUBLICITY PHOTO

As he rode around Charlottesville alongside his dad, a young Will Thomas heard the iconic voice of rocker Tom Petty and immediately saw his future.

“The thought of people riding around and singing my songs appealed to me,” Thomas explains. Years later, the frontman for the Will Thomas Band is now trying to live out that destiny.

The rocker, now 24– “and totally available,” he adds– started that dream from scratch. After begging for a drumset at the age of four and later a guitar at six, he played “little kid hangouts” and tagged along with local bands More… (1)

Camille marker

In anticipation of the 40th anniversary of the Hurricane Camille disaster in Nelson County, someone has lain a wreath at the stone and bronze memorial along Route 56 by the Tye River in the village of Massies Mill where 22 people died from the rushing floodwaters. In all, 125 died in the County. (0)