For anyone visiting from that link at Flagpole, I’ll be working at Studio in Athens, in the Leathers Building on Pulaski Street, under the guidance of my awesome teacher, Lauren O’Grady, who runs the studio. More about Yamuna Body Rolling, which I’m certifying in, here.
Thank You: I’d like to take some time here to give a huge shout-out and thank you to longtime Athens music journalist Julie Phillips. She’s best known in the music scene as the features/arts and entertainment editor for the Athens Banner-Herald, but she amicably left that position last week to focus on a new career. Phillips began writing for the ABH in 1996, and her first interview was with Vic Chesnutt. At that time the paper didn’t have a music editor, so she quickly became, in her words, “the de-facto entertainment editor.” She adds, “That was such an honor—being able to meet so many great musicians and, even beyond the music, just great people.” Phillips was keen to cover every aspect of Athens music and her enthusiasm for the task never seemed to wane. She has her own band, too, with Kyle Dawkins, called Maps & Transit. Last year she established the Athens Music & Arts blog(www.athensmusicandarts.tumblr.com), which she plans to keep running. She has been an aerial skills and dance instructor as well as a member of the performing company at Canopy Studio for a long time, and her new career is kind of an offshoot of that experience. She has been in New York training in the therapeutic exercise known as body rolling and says: “I knew that if I left the paper I didn’t want to go straight back to work behind a desk. I wanted to be able to use my experience with Canopy and help people that were in pain.” She has started documenting her journey over atwww.bodyrolling.tumblr.com. Although she may not be covering the music scene for the ABH anymore, she’s not leaving Athens. “There’s nowhere else I’d want to live,” she says. You can check out her own music via www.mapsandtransit.com. So, thank you, Julie, for always being such an ardent and tireless supporter of Athens arts culture. Your reporting will be missed, but we’ll see ya ‘round town.
