Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Josh Brooks to headline coffee house Feb. 2

Vergennes folk rock artist Josh Brooks—in his own words a purveyor of “moody roots rock, ponderable and danceable”—will play Saturday night at the coffee house.

Brooks, whose music can be heard here, performs with drummer Kent Blackmer. Together they last year released an album, The White House Sessions, that marked his return to performing after several years of sabbatical.

“The biggest shift in my musical life ... was meeting Kent Blackmer,” Brooks told the Vermont Guardian last year. “He was dating my mother-in-law when we met, and it wasn’t long before we figured out that we were both musicians. I knew something good was going on when he pulled out a set of drum sticks and a Pampers box and started playing along with some of my new songs and they sounded like they had wanted to sound from the start.”

The concert will start at 7:30 as usual, with an hour-long open-mike set.

Virginia Carver Headed to Cazenovia

When Virginia Carver started applying to colleges last year, “I thought I was looking for a big university, someplace to broaden my interests.” And she was accepted early decision at both UVM and the University of New Hampshire.

Somwhere along the line, though, “I rethought what I was looking for in a college—I decided I wanted someplace small after all.” The beneficiary of that switch in plans is Cazenovia College, a small school set on a lake half an hour west of Syracuse.

“I think it will be the kind of environment I had at the Bridge School and at North Branch,” said Carver. “Where you know your teachers and they know you. There’s only about a thousand undergrads at Cazenovia.”

One draw was the college’s equine business program, based out of a s a 243-acre horse farm located less than five miles from the main campus , where the college maintains a herd of 72 horses, from thoroughbreds to quarter horses. The school also ranks nationally in equestrian competitions.

“My interest in running a breeding barn or a training barn or something one day,” says Carver. “This seemed like the right place.”