Agents of Change

by | Jan 24, 2008 | News

If Mr. or Ms. Change were a candidate for president, he or she would be the Democratic nominee by now. But we would not know precisely what candidate Change looks like. It’s an idea—or image—that is as ambiguous as it is popular with voters. Polling...
A Canal Runs Through It

A Canal Runs Through It

by | Jan 24, 2008 | News

Across the train tracks, underneath an I-91 overpass, and a few hundred yards through the woods, a stream runs from a pile of collapsed masonry into the Connecticut River—the remnants of the first mass transit system to reach the Pioneer Valley. I've known...
Behind the Beat: Tattle and Hum

Behind the Beat: Tattle and Hum

by | Jan 24, 2008 | Music

I remember sitting in a hotel room with Matt Cullen and Peter Muller, on a mini-tour with Settie and the late Brian Fellows, playing Beatles tunes until three or four in the morning until the Portland, Maine constabulary showed up to shut us down, sniffing...
Steve Earle's Hammer

Steve Earle's Hammer

by | Jan 24, 2008 | Music

"One of these days, I'm gonna lay this hammer down," singer-songwriter Steve Earle declares on his newest CD, Washington Square Serenade. "Leave my burden restin' on the ground/When the air don't choke ya and the ocean's clean/and kids...
Behind the Beat: Showcase Showdown

Behind the Beat: Showcase Showdown

by | Jan 24, 2008 | Music

Don't look now, but sometime in the last 10 years the Valley seems to have grown a whole new music scene; one at least as vibrant and populated with excitable young talent as the one geezers like me have been part of since the mid-'90s. And now it's time...