Arts
Staff Picks: Transperformance, Leafies, Surf Rock God Dick Dale+
Top events of the coming week chosen by Advocate Staff: TUESDAY // This Must Be Heaven On Tuesday at Look Park you may be able to catch a glimpse of Cher, Kurt Cobain, a Beatle, Sharon Jones, Chris Cornell, Johnny Cash, or Amy Winehouse as this year’s Transperformance...
FRIDAY Classic Rap With Masta Ace
Living hip-hop legend Masta Ace blends classic rap rhythms with modern beats and messages, and he’ll be performing in Greenfield this weekend. A major player on the underground hip-hop scene since the ‘90s. His most acclaimed release is Disposable Arts, a concept...
SATURDAY: Boogaloo Bash is First in Free Concert Series Millpond.Live, Easthampton
The Millpond.Live Concert series is getting started in a big, booty-shakin’, celebratin’ kind of way this year by featuring a boogaloo bash. What’s boogaloo? A blend of mambo, doo-wop, R&B, and funk that was hot in the 1960s, but for some unthinkable reason (this...
Lady and the Amp Rocks SATURDAY
By Kristin Palpini Lady and the Amp Rock n’ roll isn’t a given; it’s born, nurtured, and cultivated into existence. And one of the best incubators of rock in the Valley is the Institute for Musical Arts. Now in its 30th year, the Goshen program to support girls in...
Building 6: Major expansion and a new building at MASS MoCA
If a white cube is your comfort zone for viewing contemporary art, then the recent expansion of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) pushes well outside the box. “Building 6” is the modest name of an ambitious project that adds 130,000 square feet...
Out of this World Art in the Orchard Now Open in Easthampton
By Kristin Palpini Outside Art Amid the apple trees at Park Hill Orchard one of the surprises you will see is a towering silver spear shooting into the sky. We don’t know what any of the other art installations will be, so expect lots more artful surprises at...
Cinemadope: Actor-in-Chief, Reagan forever changed the role of US President (Spoiler! Not for the Better)
With the ongoing avalanche of reporting on Russia and that nation’s relationship with our current president, it feels almost quaint to look back on the days of the Reagan era. Certainly there was international intrigue then, but today, the jelly beans and faux...
Exhibits: See What’s Up at Area Museums and Galleries
Amherst Town Hall: Echoes of the Past — Photographs of Abandoned Places explores the beauty of decay and what’s been left behind. Through Sept. 4. Free. Amherst Town Hall, 4 Boltwood Ave., Amherst. (413) 222-4924. echoesofthepast2014@gmail.com. Amherst Visitor’s...
Stagestruck: Ending on a Laugh
New Century Theatre is closing its summer season as it began — with “a full-out comedy,” as director Sam Rush puts it. This one is The 39 Steps, a jokey reconstruction of Alfred Hitchcock’s epic 1935 thriller. Or perhaps I should say deconstruction, since it’s...
Basemental: Nanny’s “Nowhere” Is Vulnerable Grunge Rock Not To Be Missed
I first caught Nanny at the 13th Floor in Northampton this past March; one of my bands was sharing a bill with them. Earlier this summer, I saw them again and had that feeling I was starting to grasp the songs. It wasn’t long before I learned a debut EP was right...
LISTEN Jack Dwyers’ Sessions Set: Blues, folk, n’ jazz
Click the image to hear Jack Dwyer’s style of jazz, folk, and blues in the spirit of Tin Pan Alley.
Stream Queen: Movies And Shows The Critics Got Wrong
Since its inception in the late 19th century, film has evolved from a seemingly trivial medium into one of the most wide-reaching and popular industries. Film criticism has grown right along with it, as academic and journalistic reviewers endlessly argue over film’s...
Stagestruck: Old-Fashioned Fun
The Fitzpatrick Mainstage on the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Stockbridge campus is the site of what I’m told is the country’s oldest continuously operating summer theater. For 89 years the building, converted from a former casino in 1928 by Broadway star Eva Le...
Stagestruck: ‘This’ Drama as Sitcom Is ‘Too Snappy, Too Loud’
This is the title of the play now running at Barrington Stage Company (through August 27). But it might be more accurately called This and That. Melissa James Gibson’s script is a grab-bag of seriocomic situations, satirical barbs and personal anguish that harks back...
Love, Hate, and Horniness With Sondheim’s ‘Company’!
Company, one of Stephen Sondheim’s early musicals, is a funny, relatable, and insightful look at marriage, divorce, and single life. The story follows Bobby, a single man on his 35th birthday, who is celebrating with his married friends — who are all in various...
Staff Picks: Smell You Later in Williamstown
Smell You Later // Thursday The Osmotheque in Versailles, France, brings visitors to the museum on a journey of smells, cataloging the historic smells of perfumes. It’s name comes from the Greek words meaning “smell storehouse.” Now Williams College is taking a stab...
Ballerinas in the Wild this Saturday in Brattleboro
Ballet and farming go together like fine art and craft beer — the combo isn’t typical, but it should be. On Saturday, Vermont’s Farm to Ballet troupe will perform at Retreat Farm in Brattleboro, an historic farm dating back to 1836 that has long shared a connection...
On View: Exhibits at the area’s museums and galleries
Amherst Visitor’s Center: Pioneer Valley Perspectives II. Susan Dion will share art depicting local scenes in Western Mass. Portion of proceeds goes to Trustees of Reservations. Aug. 3-25. Free. 35 South Pleasant St., Amherst. sue1952us@yahoo.com. Anchor House of...
LISTEN UP: Krunkelstiltskin plays that heavy rock with humor for you (SESSIONS VIDEO)
Go see it, go see it, go see it, here.
Valley Show Girl: A Jam Session in the Forest With Staind Singer Aaron Lewis
Staind. Remember them? I think at one point in our late-’90s lives we were all blasting “Tormented” or “Dysfunction” and relating to the ultra-sensitive alternative rock that was birthed right here in the Valley. Well, times have changed, and people change. Aaron...
Discussing Far Out Films in the Forbes Library Basement
I’ve always been interested in surrealism, but never quite enough to actually do any research into it beyond looking at some Salvador Dali paintings. But one reference to a surrealist work stuck with me. In the 2011 Woody Allen movie Midnight In Paris, the surrealist...
Stagestruck: Chekhov in Middle School – WTF…
What is it with all the Chekhov parodies? Just this summer Silverthorne Theater Company gave us Stupid Fucking Bird, Aaron Posner’s metatheatrical riff on The Seagull. There’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Christopher Durang’s Uncle Vanya mashup. And last year...
Cinemadope: It Takes Two To Go Down In A Bloody Shootout
For as long as stories have been told, they have been told about pairs: Odysseus and Penelope, Arthur and Merlin, Bugs and Elmer. It’s a rare tale that doesn’t focus, in some way, on that essential human desire to connect. It can bring us to ecstasy or despair —...
STAFF PICKS! Roger Salloom Free Concert, DreamCycle, and more
DreamCycle at the Academy of Music // SATURDAY You won’t find any creepy clowns here. DreamCycle is a traditional circus with acrobats, jugglers, and aerial stunts complete with tightrope walkers tiptoeing across a narrow wire. Acrophobes be warned: you’ll...
Stagestruck: This Weekend Features ‘Slowgirl’ and ‘Doctor Doolitte’
Two small-scale productions playing in the area this weekend have one thing in common. They both take place in the jungle. Apart from that, they couldn’t be more different. Slowgirl traces a tentative, emotionally fraught encounter between a motormouth teenager and...
Ray Mason, the Valley’s Neil Young, Playing Aug. 3
Ray Mason, the Valley’s Neil Young If there’s a mic and some place for him to plug in his old Silvertone guitar, you’ve got a good chance of seeing Ray Mason. The tireless musician gigs up and down the Valley several times a week and for good reason — he’s awesome....
WOOF: Westfield’s Ales for Tales Pub Crawl Friday
Ales for Tails Hoist a pint for man’s best friend Friday in downtown Westfield for the third annual Ales for Tails Pub Crawl. Organized by Susie Howard, the roaming pack of beer nuts are raising money for the Westfield Animal Shelter. Things get going at 6 p.m. at...
Tease Video: Krunkelstiltskin on Sessions Friday
Krunkelstiltskin is a heavy electronic driven eclectic rock band with a sense of humor. The group played on the Valley Advocate Sessions stage on July 12. Krunkelstiltskin’s full performance will be available online this Friday. Until then, here’s a teaser...
Stagestruck: History as a Living Weapon at Double Edge
A highlight of my summer theater season is always the magical change of pace afforded by Double Edge Theatre’s annual indoor/outdoor performance. This year, that peripatetic spectacle offers its own change of pace. Where previous seasons have given us captivating...
‘It Was Against the Law for Black and White Musicians to Play Together,’ Springfield Jazz & Roots Fest Seeks Justice
Music is never just some notes of a melody — it’s always something more, says legendary New Orleans jazz saxophonist Charles Neville. Neville, who grew up in New Orleans during the Jim Crow era, but now resides in Huntington with his wife and children, has seen music...
A Look Inside Marc Chagall’s World at Springfield Museums
Put several dozen artists in a building called “The Beehive,” and what do you get? A space brimming and buzzing with new ideas and fresh perspectives on art, as a new exhibit at the Springfield Museums illustrates. Marc Chagall and Friends, a display of prints drawn...
Tom Wyatt Creates Metal Illusions
Metal Reflections “With bounced light, magic can happen. Curving or bending light and the resulting shapes and forms open a doorway for our subjective minds. Whimsical or mysterious possibilities abound,” says Tom Wyatt in his artist bio on the Salmon Falls Gallery...
EXHIBITS: What’s On View at Museums and Galleries
Amherst Visitor’s Center: Pioneer Valley Perspectives II. Susan Dion will share art depicting local scenes in Western Mass. Portion of proceeds goes to Trustees of Reservations. Aug. 3-25. Free. 35 South Pleasant St., Amherst. sue1952us@yahoo.com. Anchor House...
Stagestruck: Animal Behavior – An Albee Prequel in Stockbridge
At the beginning of At Home at the Zoo, Ann appears from the kitchen and says to her husband Peter, “We have to talk.” Then they talk for an hour, and by the time Peter leaves their apartment to have a quiet read in Central Park, we know a lot more about him than we...
Stagestruck: Hitting the Nail – New Century’s heroic truths
I’ll get right to the point: Hold These Truths, at New Century Theatre, is possibly the most important play of the summer, with certainly one of the season’s most exhilarating performances. It’s not only searingly suggestive of our current national crisis, but is a...
Stagestruck: Gladrags and Ragtime at Shakespeare & Company
Intimate Apparel is all about fabrics. The silky fabrics draping the figures of elegant Gilded Age matrons and the coarser fabrics worn by their servants, delineating both economic and social standing. The deceptively comfortable fabrics covering the women’s corsets,...
Stagestruck: Taking Steps to Hilarity at Barrington Stage
The classic sex farce is set in a large room with about half a dozen doors, in and out of which pop guilty lovers, jealous spouses and other staples of the genre, and behind which most of the shenanigans real and suspected take place. Alan Ayckbourne’s classic Taking...
Stagestruck: Dancing on the Edge at Jacob’s Pillow With Akash Odedra
The two mainstage programs at Jacob’s Pillow dance festival last week offered intriguing contrasts in modern dance envelope-pushing. And perhaps surprisingly, it was the simpler, solo show that delivered more variety and excitement. Aakash Odedra is an Englishman of...
Backtalk: In Defense of Iron Horse Entertainment Group
Letters to the Editor In Defense of Iron Horse Entertainment Group Tiring to see all the IHEG (Iron Horse Entertainment Group) bashing [“Behind the Music: The People and Promoters Going Beyond IHEG,” July 13-19, 2017]! First, people don’t realize how fortunate we are...
StreamQueen: Indie Films Coming Off the Festival Circuit You’ve Gotta See
Though digital media has forever changed the face of filmmaking, there’s still one key way independent filmmakers can premiere their work: by entering it into the festival circuit. Each year many films, spanning all lengths and genres, debut to those lucky minority...
The Buddy McEarns Band Playing Friday
Buddy McEarns Your Musical Respect Good time, blusey bar band Buddy McEarns rocks with driving, classical guitar riffs and just the tiniest dash of hippie jam. There’s something comforting about The Buddy McEarns Band, like looking at an old friend named...
Whatever Happened To … Dog Sees God Looks at Peanuts Characters as Teens
Charlie Brown Would Be So Emo If you’ve ever wondered what happened to Good ‘ol Chuck, from the Peanuts comics, Gateway City Arts can fill you in; A week-long run of Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead begins Friday. Satirizing...
The Original Game of Thrones: Queen Margaret Takes Center Stage in Springfield/Turners
Queen Margaret, Historical Bad-Ass Before there was Game of Thrones and Cersei, there was the War of the Roses and Queen Margaret of Anjou. In fact, many people believe the hit HBO show was based on the War of the Roses, a 30-year war (of which Margaret was a key...
Get Out With Staff Picks: Hang Out With Master Beaders, or Hit Up ShenaNiFest
200 Master Beaders, 1 Project — ALL WEEKEND This weekend maser beadwork artist Darcy Rosner and beaders from SweetBananberry will be at Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen adding another whimsical art installation to the outside gallery. They’ll be assembling a...
Pioneer Valley Roller Derby Open To More Than Just Fierce Females
In its heyday in the 1970s and ‘80s, roller derby was known for fierce females, fishnets, spiked hair and names like “Iron Maven.” After a lull in the ‘90s, roller derby was resurrected in the early 2000s as an all-female, athletic sport. But in the Pioneer Valley,...
Review: The Blues in Bloom, Lexi Weege’s New Album
Lexi Weege is the type of performer who draws you in immediately. She’s a blues and jazz songstress with a voice that combines intimate and heartbreaking cabaret singing, in the vein of French chanteuse Edith Piaf, with 1960s boisterous rock n’ roll frontwoman...
Go See: Natural Fibers and Uncommon Weaves wtih Leonore Alaniz at Leverett Crafts and Arts
Natural Fibers and Uncommon Weaves Cloth may seem like something you can find in nature, something that just is; but people do have to make it. And creating cloth by hand is becoming a lost art. See why textiles are glorious at The Crafted Cloth, an exhibit of...
Cinemadope: That Time the MoMA Refused to Return Nazi-Stolen Art
My first exposure to Egon Schiele came via Deane G. Keller, an artist and professor whose figure drawing classes remain one of my most lasting memories of art school. We had been working on some hand studies when he suggested I might enjoy the Austrian artist’s work,...
Valley Show Girl: Soundtracking Life with Eddie Japan
Ahead of their show at the Iron Horse, I plug my purple Skull Candies into my ears, and click play on the intro track to Eddie Japan’s Golden Age. The sound of static pulls me in, reminding me of vinyl, so I pretend I’m listening on a record player, not my computer at...
Stagestruck: Opposites Attract in Silverthorne’s Gentle Comedy
Chapatti, now playing at Silverthorne Theater Company, is one of the sweetest comedies about grief, loneliness and suicide I’ve ever seen. The title is unfortunate, even confusing, since Christian O’Reilly’s play takes place in Dublin, not Delhi, and the name has...
Tease VIDEO Feel Good Drift on Sessions Friday
Stagestruck: Misfit Millennials – “Speech & Debate” at Barrington Stage
Reid Thompson’s setting for Speech & Debate, now receiving a near-perfect production at Barrington Stage Company, is a high school classroom. Maps and historical posters line the walls and headshots of famous Americans form a frieze above a pair of whiteboards –...
Staff Picks: Harry Potter Inspired Music with Draco and the Malfoys
Draco and the Malfoys • Saturday I held out on Harry Potter mania for years, but finally succumbed when the last book came out in 2007. I read them all in a matter of months, but I didn’t go as far as these folks, who wrote albums of Harry Potter-inspired...
Basemental: Young Musicians Deserve Pay, Too
I’ve played in about a half dozen bands over the past seven years here in the Valley. I’ve played on the steps of my beloved Goodwin Memorial Library in Hadley (for free) and I’ve played The Calvin (for $250); I’ve played countless basements (including “The...
Cinemadope: ‘Wanna-Bes Need Not Apply,’ Documentary on Madonna’s Back-up Voguers
“Wimps and Wanna-Be’s need not apply!” That was the tagline of a print ad announcing an open audition for “FIERCE Male Dancers” who wanted to earn a spot on Madonna’s controversial, ground-breaking Blond Ambition Tour in 1990. It would have been a dream job for any...
Stagestruck: Bare Bard at Shakespeare & Co., Cymbeline Reviewed
Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare’s “romances,” those late works in which comedy blends with tragedy and the endings are neither strewn with corpses nor aclang with wedding bells, but suffused with poignancy and forgiveness. The Tempest is the most popular...
Eddie Japan Bringing 60s Pop With 80s New Wave to Northampton Saturday
Cinematic Pop Music Boston/Western Mass’ Eddie Japan combines that feel good ‘60s pop with a splash of ‘80s alternative new wave that’s a blast. In 2013, Eddie Japan won Boston’s ultra cool Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble, and picked up a Boston Music Award for “Live...
Stagestruck: Wizard of Arrrrrs — PaintBox Theatre
“Oh dear, the Wicked Witch is coming!” cried the Mayor of Munchkin City. “In that case,” responded Good Witch Glinda, “I’ve got to go.” “But why?” asked Dorothy, who was just starting to get used to not being in Kansas anymore. “Because she and I can’t be onstage at...
Stagestruck: Lives on the Line
In her “Detroit Trilogy” of plays, Dominique Morisseau looks at black lives in that once-vibrant city through the lens of three distinct eras and groups of people. Paradise Blue takes place in a 1949 jazz club in the city’s historic Black Bottom district, which is...E-Edition
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