What’s in a name? Well, some interesting back stories in the case of the 2010 Greenfield Rockfest, it appears.
For example, while Saturday, July 10’s 6:30 p.m. performers Run For Your Guns may not yet garner any real name recognition, they’ll certainly make up for it in face value once they hit the stage.
“This is actually that band’s third Rockfest,” event organizer David Westbrook of PDP Productions explains. “But they have changed names each time. For Rockfest 3, they were Death To the Fan Club, and last year, Bringing Back the Guillotine.”
July 10’s 3:30 p.m. feature, Brookline Drive, has undergone some similar moniker maneuvering, breaking in to the series as Undefyed in 2008 only to return as Kids Will Be Kids in 2009.
But perhaps none of the 34 bands on the two-day bill (Rockfest starts July 9) has a more appropriate name than Northfield’s My Last Flight. According to Westbrook, the Rockfest veterans officially broke up earlier this year, but will use the occasion of their 3:55 p.m. gig July 10 to give a final farewell to fans.
Weekend passes for the 2010 Rockfest are $10 per person in advance, $14 at the gate. To purchase them or obtain more information, kindly point your browser to massrockfest.com.
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Meanwhile, two Beantown-based acts come to Northampton this week in support of new product. The first, singer/songwriter Patrick Coman, holds court at the Yellow Sofa on Main Street on July 10 at 6:30 p.m. to showcase wares from Southern Storms.
“I wanted to make an album that sounds like my favorites, like The Band or Neil Young,” Coman says of his debut disc, “so we recorded it in an old farmhouse with an analog tape machine, and I think the finished product sounds perfectly organic and personal.”
The following evening, Sunday, July 11, horn-basted pop practitioners Hallelujah The Hills christen their sophomore studio effort, Colonial Drones, at neighboring Pearl Street. The band open for indie-shoegaze faves Titus Andronicus that evening, then several members go onstage to join the headliners in beefing up their already sizeable sound.
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In other news, the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum (pphmuseum.org) in Hadley once again hosts a Wednesdays Folk Traditions Concert Series this summer. The 29th annual installment kicks off July 14 with the Goodwin Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Choir paying homage to now-departed series veteran Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer and continues with the Wholesale Klezmer Band July 21 and Gokh-Bi System with Viva Quetzal Aug. 4. All performances are held in the museum’s sunken gardens and begin at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $10/ adults and $2 /16 and under.
Fifty miles to the northeast, in the quaint town of North Adams, the Mass MoCA center for contemporary arts (massmoca.org) exhibits its “can”-do spirit as well, with a month-long celebration of music dubbed the Bang on a Can Festival. The local incarnation of the nationwide celebration kicks off Wednesday, July 14 with the multi-sensory assault of Evan Ziporyn (including but not limited to bass clarinet, beta Gamelan, soprano sax and iPhone) and continues throughout July with traditional music from Uzbekistan (July 20), Martin Bresnick (July 21) and an “uplifting” ode to Viagra (July 23), to name a choice few.
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Last up, the “Redneck Woman” herself, Gretchen Wilson, hopes to procure some greenbacks for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital via ticket sales from her July 8 Mass Mutual Center performance. Tix range from $9.79-$35 and are available at ticketmaster.com.
Catch the Nightcrawler every Wednesday at 8:50 a.m. on the Steve Cantara Radio Show, WRNX 100.9 FM. Send correspondence to Nightcrawler, P.O. Box 427, Somers, CT 0071; fax to (860) 698-9373 or email garycarra@aol.com.
