Articles
by From our Readers | Feb 18, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find reader comments on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 16, 2019 | Advocate Sessions, Articles, Music
Stoner Will & The Narks play slacker rock with a biting satirical bent. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Stoner Will & The Narks
by Dave Eisenstadter | Feb 15, 2019 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured, News
Nazi art not a winner Adolf Hitler can’t seem to catch a break. First, his quest for world domination hit a snag in the 1940s when the Allies defeated him in World War II, and now, no one wants watercolor paintings attributed to him. None of the five paintings...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 15, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Staff Picks
Ch’CHUNK! at Luthier’s Co-op // FRIDAY, Feb. 15 Ch’Chunk is self-described as “a modern take on classic swing.” The band plays great original songs as well as Tin Pan Alley classics that instantly transports your mind to a dimly lit speakeasy. So, with that in...
by Rob Brezsny | Feb 15, 2019 | Articles, Astrology, Featured
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When directors of movies say, “It’s a wrap,” they mean that the shooting of a scene has been finished. They may use the same expression when the shooting of the entire film is completed. That’s not the end of the creative process, of course....
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 15, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
At first glance, you’d think the two plays I saw in New York City last week have little in common. One is an international import from London to Broadway, the other an Off-Broadway transfer from a small regional theater in Vermont. One is twice as long as the other...
by Fran Ryan | Feb 14, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News
Eight billion metric tons. According to Industrial Ecologist Roland Geyer of the University of California, Santa Barbara, that is the amount of plastic that has been produced since the 1950s, and almost half of that, was created after the year 2000, causing plastic...
by Jennifer Levesque | Feb 14, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Valley Show Girl
Signature Sounds recording artists And The Kids from Northampton have made a name for themselves throughout their active musician years in the Valley. They’ve been locally and nationally covered and very recently had a live set at Paste Magazine that was streamed...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Feb 14, 2019 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
Excitement. Elation. Eagerness. Those were the emotions that bubbled up when I got the news that the Advocate would be returning to a weekly schedule, and that after six months performing other roles in the company I was being asked to return as its editor. What you...
by Jack Brown | Feb 14, 2019 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Film
Listen, I love my kids. I do. But it’s been a long winter around here. The holiday season was a terrible round-robin of stomach bugs, the heat went on the fritz in their bedroom, and a cold snap kept us cooped up in the house on days when their energy level could have...
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 11, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
How’s this for genre mashups: Brontë gothic in which two of the characters are animals. Wildean romcom in which all the actors are women. Golden Age Spain in which a woman lives as a man. Multidisciplinary invention in which diversity seeks community. Renaissance...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 9, 2019 | Articles, Music
Electrio combines blues rock with progressive rock, funky grooves, and experimental stylings. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Electrio:
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 4, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
When Nora Helmer famously slammed the door on her empty marriage at the end of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, she changed the course of theatrical history, and social history as well. But shutting the door on one story implicitly opened another, and thus left a...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 1, 2019 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Raspberry Jam plays catchy progressive indie rock that’ll get you on the dance floor. Check out the band’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Raspberry Jam:
by Chris Rohmann | Jan 27, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Theater, Sheryl Stoodley firmly believes, “can be the starting point for conversations – much-needed at this point in our United States and in the world.” To that end, Serious Play, the theater Stoodley leads, “works toward reshaping society’s conversation on...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 25, 2019 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
No Lens combines reggae rock with acoustic folk and funk grooves. Check out the band’s performance on Valley Advocate Sessions in the video below. Interview with No Lens:
by Chris Rohmann | Jan 22, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
In a program note for The Engagement Party, Samuel Baum says his play is “an exploration of secrets and lies.” Which puts it right in his wheelhouse, as his credits include the TV psycho-crime drama Lie to Me and the movie Wizard of Lies. He says he’s also interested...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jan 21, 2019 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot
Hi Yana, I’m a junior in college and I’ve been dating my boyfriend since our freshman year. Initially the relationship was steamy and passionate. I was his first sexual partner so we did a lot of experimenting and discovering together. As is perhaps inevitable, that...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 18, 2019 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Dicey Riley with Zoe Darrow is a Celtic-folk influenced rock band with virtuoso fiddle and electric bagpipes. Check out the band’s full Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Dicey Riley and Zoe Darrow:
by Jack Brown | Jan 18, 2019 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns
In the last decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has cast a long shadow over the rest of the filmmaking world. Beginning with the surprisingly wide-reaching hit that was 2008’s Iron Man, the series of interconnected films — now up to twenty titles and about as...
by Jack Brown | Jan 18, 2019 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns
Some years back, one of my many day jobs had me working a small newsstand. Mostly, it meant selling local papers and coffee, and, once a month or so, packing up all the glossier magazines that hadn’t sold during the previous weeks. Those days were like spending hours...
by Chris Rohmann | Jan 17, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stagestruck
Allyn Burrows, Shakespeare & Company’s artistic director, calls it “a great way to get out in the middle of winter … a great opportunity for the audience to let their imaginations just run wild.” It’s the theater’s annual Studio Festival, a weekend of...
by Chris Rohmann | Jan 13, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Barely two weeks into the new year and already my theatergoing calendar is crowded with upcoming shows. From an operatic Sweeney Todd to a historical fantasy to a “pseudo-historical psycho-romance,” to pick three for this month, 2019 is off to a promising start. The...
by Jack Brown | Jan 11, 2019 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns
One of the best things about The New Yorker magazine — other than the cartoons, of course — has always been the attention it pays to the oddball stories of the city. For this writer’s money, it will always be Joseph Mitchell who set the bar; have a look at his...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 11, 2019 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Moving Day is a an indie rock duo in the spirit of 1960s pop music. Check out the band’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Moving Day:
by Monte Belmonte | Jan 8, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Monte Belmonte Wines
Liz: “We’re really a nation of innovators and I think it shows in our wine industry.” Monte: “Plus, you’ve got penguins, right?” Liz: “Right.” Monte: “New Zealand is one of the top places people looked up as to how to move there after the election of Trump. It it hard...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jan 8, 2019 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot, Uncategorized
Dear Yana, How do I stay chill when I’m interested in somebody new? Getting too excited (read: obsessed) with new people is no good for any of my relationships, regardless of how well the new connection is going. I’m a polyamorous person with a wonderful,...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jan 7, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Music, Valley Show Girl
The gift that keeps on giving is always the gift of music. You can go all out and get someone you love a new record player with a handful of vinyl for them to christen the needle with. You can pick up a CD or even a cassette, and you can purchase the album online to...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 4, 2019 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Uncle Brothers is a a progressive jazz metal band with electric trumpets and heavy distorted guitar riffs. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Uncle Brothers:
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 30, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Six theater companies form a kind of chain across the southern and western Berkshires. From the closest to the Valley to the farthest, they are the hilltowns’ Chester Theatre Company, then westward (passing dance mecca Jacob’s Pillow) to Shakespeare & Company in...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 28, 2018 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Scott Meyers is a mellow folk singer-songwriter with heart and soul. Check out his Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Scott Meyers:
by Jack Brown | Dec 24, 2018 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns
When it comes to our popular heroes, few if any can match the long and varied history of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous “consulting detective” made his debut in the 1887 tale A Study in Scarlet, and from the get go Holmes changed the detective game...
by Jack Brown | Dec 24, 2018 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns
Eighteen years ago, Mark Hogancamp lost his life. That is not the same thing as saying that Mark Hogancamp died, because he didn’t. But when the Navy veteran was beaten so badly in a 5-on-1 attack outside a bar that he ended up in a nine-day coma, large parts of his...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Dec 24, 2018 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot
Hi Yana I’ve got some sex stuff on my mind, mostly about BDSM/kink. I’m a kinskter just getting my footing in the local (Western Mass) scene and was wondering what sorts of resources other than FetLife are available. I also wanted to ask about ropes, and...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 21, 2018 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Dirty Words is a project that combines soulful poetry with introspective jazz presented by singer-songwriter Cait Simpson (The Greys). Simpson created a special version of her poetry-driven performance for Valley Advocate Sessions, which you can watch in the video...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 19, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
I attended over 30 theater productions in the Valley this year, but that wasn’t half of what was on stage. What struck me most was the variety of fare – from the breadth of established companies’ seasons, to the ethnic and gender diversity on campus stages, to...
by Hunter Styles | Dec 15, 2018 | Articles, Columns, The Beerhunter
The artisanal food scene is exploding here in the Valley, and that includes a wealth of locally-crafted libations from the newest crop of area breweries and vineyards. It’s likely you know someone who wants to know more about brewing and wine making, and the perfect...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 14, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
What is there to say that you don’t already know about Hamilton, the game-changing musical that costs a bank loan to see on Broadway and is now on tour, where this month it’s at the Bushnell in Hartford for only an ATM max-out? Playing through Dec. 30 (by far the...
by Jack Brown | Dec 10, 2018 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns
If you’re anything like me, your schedule is a mess this month. End-of-year holidays, school vacations, shifted work schedules and last-minute shopping excursions: it all combines to make December the month where our regular calendars get thrown out the window. So it...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 2, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Harrison David Rivers specifies that his play When Last We Flew takes place in “a small town in Kansas (NOT Kansas City).” He also specifies that all eight characters are people of color. And that two of them are gay. As it opens, we find 17-year-old Paul in the...
by Advocate Staff | Nov 30, 2018 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Josh Pearson plays country, blues, and folk music with a dose of wry songwriting wit. Check out his complete Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Josh Pearson:
by Advocate Staff | Nov 28, 2018 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Michael Graffius is a performer who plays sweet melancholy folk mixed with poetic indie and punk lyricism. Check out his Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Michael Graffius:
by Jack Brown | Nov 27, 2018 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns
It’s almost the holiday season once again, which means that in a few short weeks many of us will be revisiting Pottersville, the what-if town that will come to pass if George Bailey decides to end his heroic existence in It’s a Wonderful Life. Filled with seedy bars,...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 26, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
In a program note for his play The War and Walt Whipple, now running at the Majestic Theater, author/director Danny Eaton describes the play’s page-to-stage gestation. First, “a few friends” saw a draft and offered comments, leading to a staged reading with audience...
by Hunter Styles | Nov 21, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, The Beerhunter
As a kid, I would sometimes wander the aisles of Don Gleason’s Camping Supply on Pearl Street in Northampton and daydream about living off the grid. In unchaperoned moments I’d climb in the tents, test flashlights, browse survival kits, and plan my inevitable,...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 19, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Every couple of years, Danny Eaton premieres a new play of his at the Majestic Theater, which he founded and leads. They range through topics dear to him, often touching on military service and veterans (he’s one himself) and all of them, in one way or another,...
by Advocate Staff | Nov 16, 2018 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Sunny D & The Tangy Originals is the solo project of guitarist Tom Del Negro (Lexi Weege & The Wondertwins). Sunny D performs electrified virtuoso looped guitar compositions, blending pre-recorded sounds with intricate soloing. Interview with Sunny...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 9, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
I’ll get right to the point. The King Lear I saw last weekend courtesy of NT Live is the most thoughtfully conceived, perceptively acted and richly achieved production of Shakespeare’s great tragedy I’ve ever seen. It stars Ian McKellen, and that in itself more...
by Advocate Staff | Nov 8, 2018 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Lexi Weege & The Wondertwins perform hot jazz music with close vocal harmonies with blues roots. Check out the band’s full Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Lexi Weege & The Wondertwins:
by Will Meyer | Nov 8, 2018 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Music
There are two reasons I like music. The first is that euphoric feeling you get when you see an amazing band (especially for the first time); the second is I like musicians and their stories. I enjoy compulsively consuming them. Gotta scrape the bottom of the Wikipedia...
by Chris Goudreau | Oct 11, 2018 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, News
An opera about locusts in the Rocky Mountains? You bet. Locust: The Opera premiered on Sept. 28 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming. The piece tells the tale of the lost Rocky Mountain locust through arias and recitatives. Locusts disappeared in...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Nov 8, 2018 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot
Hi Yana! I’ve been in a non-monogamous relationship for over three years. Last year, one of my partners and I broke up in dramatic fashion. I partially blame my primary partner for this, because although he said he was okay being in a non-monogamous...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 8, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Two productions in the Valley this weekend and next share Latin American roots, and couldn’t be more dissimilar. One is a colorful musical celebrating a New York barrio, the other a surreal movement-theater piece celebrating two surrealists. The sensational success of...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 5, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Three plays in the Valley this weekend and next tackle provocative questions of art and identity. A woman musician is deprived of a career because of her gender. Two writers tangle in a carnal mix of sex and ambition. And an actor looks at the black experience via...
by Advocate Staff | Nov 3, 2018 | Articles, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Chris James is a folk/pop singer-songwriter with a sweet tenor voice matched by remarkable falsetto. Check out his full Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Chris James:
by Chris Goudreau | Oct 9, 2018 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, News
A hotel in Japan has a very weird and niche schtick, and that’s saying a lot considering Japan is known for many things wonderfully weird. This hotel has a reception desk manned by robot dinosaurs. Whether you speak Japanese, English, Chinese or Korean, the pair of...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 9, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
A demon barber, a cockroach killer, a charitable speller, a balletic frog. This month, up and down the Valley, indoors and out, intimate and expansive, there’s a seasonal bounty of performances to choose from. The Royal Frog Ballet is an “amoeba of...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 30, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
An instant evening of theater cooked up in a single day; a 19th-century musical with 21st-century themes; a multi-disciplinary evocation of “what is left when memory is gone.” This weekend in the Valley, there’s a diverse trio of shows to choose from – or see...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 5, 2018 | Advocate Sessions, Articles, Music
Scott Cadwallader is a folk/country singer-songwriter from Northampton and host of the weekly Thursday Yellow Sofa open mic at the Thirsty Mind. Cadwallader is a prolific songwriter, who has published dozens of his own original songs on YouTube. Check out his Advocate...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 29, 2018 | Articles, Valley Advocate Sessions
Mad Habits is a jazz-tinged progressive folk trio from Holyoke with vocal harmonies and strings. Check out the band’s complete Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Mad Habits:
