And The Kids share the ‘Love’ & some seed-y characters in West Whately
Paul Newlin is going to party like it’s 1999 this week. No, it’s not another homage to his royal purpleness and his recent passing. Rather, it was this fateful year that Paul Newlin began serving watermelons and booking some of the best acoustic acts the area has to offer in his home town of West Whately. And on Wednesday, June 1, his locally legendary ‘Watermelon Wednesday Concert Series’ kicks off its 17th season with a round of rinds and the music of American string band practitioners Mister Sun.
The concerts occur at the West Whately Chapel near the intersection of Conway and Williamsburg roads every Wednesday. They begin at 7:30 and admission tickets (usually ranging between $22-$30) include a sumptuous hunk of watermelon. Upcoming performers include Cuban-born jazz pianist Osmany Paredes Gonzales June 8 and the newest cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet, Astrid Schween, June 15.
“You may be detecting a slight, personal bias on my part for the violin and fiddle (when perusing the entire line up, which runs into Sept. 28),” notes Newlin. “Well, I confess to that, but I’m not blind … er, deaf to the glorious sounds of other voices, too!”
Not only are tickets available in advance, but they are highly recommended as many shows sell out. To obtain yours, visit watermelonwednesdays.com. Amazing that URL was available, right?
Meanwhile, the Noho-based band And The Kids celebrates new studio product at The Shea Theater (theshea.org) in Turner’s Falls June 4.
“The friends we grew up with were troublemakers, lost souls, dropouts and mother figures,” Kids’ singer and six-stringer Hannah Mohan says of new disc, Friends Share Lovers. “The title references the incestuousness of friend groups and how things get messy.”
Recorded in Montreal with producer Jace Lasek, the 10-tune effort is already being lauded as “an album that sees the band taking the best elements of its avant-pop debut (Turn To Each Other) and expanding it outwards towards bigger, more ambitious sounds.”
Tix are $12 in advance, $15 at the door. The show starts at 8 p.m. with homegrown psych-rockers Carinae getting the opening nod.
Send correspondence to Nightcrawler, P.O. box 427, Somers, CT 06071; fax to (860) 394-4262 or emailgarycarra@aol.com.
