Arts
David Teie’s Music for Cats (reviewed by an Advo-cat)
More often than not, the hustle and bustle around me is white noise. Throughout the day I hear a cacophonous array of sounds from outside: cars, dogs, the wind, the mailman, humans in general, and even other cats. I stare out the window for most hours of the day, my...
Like Guthrie Meets MacGyver: The Suitcase Junket Rocks Out
One-man band plays blues, rock, and folk on improvised instruments Some of us spend our days sitting at computers in nondescript rooms. In the new, handmade music video for his love song “Beta Star,” Matt Lorenz gives that a shot. He wakes up in the morning, washes...
Music Review: “15 Sunrise” by Calico Blue
Amherst-based psychedelic dream-pop and surf-blues infused band Calico Blue released its second album early this month, 15 Sunrise, which presents songs that could be best described as meditations on life. They confront the ghosts that live in the corridors of the...
On Exhibit: Unseen Ruins Near Pompeii
From Italy With Ash Featuring works seen for the first time outside Italy, this exhibit contains pieces from the ancient town of Oplontis. When Mount Vesuvius blew in 79 CE it buried more than just Pompeii. Pieces excavated from Oplontis reveal a life of luxury and...
Saturday: Nasty Women Take the Stage
Nasty Jazz The Ladies of Jazz music series is dedicating its Saturday, March 25, concert to all the “nasty” (aka “strong”) women fighting for female and reproductive rights. And all proceeds are going to benefit Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in...
Stan and Ollie, Meet Punch and Judy — Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, with a touch of slapstick
The story goes that Samuel Beckett was walking through a London park with a friend on a glorious spring morning when his companion exclaimed, “Isn’t this just the kind of day that makes you glad to be alive?” To which Beckett replied, “Oh, I don’t think I’d go that...
VIDEO Valley Show Girl: Experiencing an Album Live; Disguise the Curse’s Release Party
A couple weeks ago I picked up Echoes of the Dying Light by local metal titans, Disguise the Curse. “Holy shit, this is amazing,” I said to myself while drumming on my steering wheel with the music blasting through my car speakers. Produced by Chris Daniele at Yucky...
Stream Queen: Women’s Work, rediscovering female directors
Whether or not Western Mass has gotten the meteorological memo, we’ve officially sprung forward. That means it’s time to emerge from hibernation, put on our rubber gloves, and get ready for some spring cleaning. In my case, I’ve decided to dust off some groundbreaking...
Nerding Out: Building a Passion, 120 hours drawing an historic court house
Andrew Quient is celebrated for his geometrical-style pottery. Quient, 66, of Florence, even has some of his pieces in the national White House archives. But if you run into him working in Northampton, it’s unlikely he’ll be at a potter’s wheel. You’re probably going...
DIO Comes to Town
DIO know DIO is coming to town? Jump on your tiger, Holy Diver, because DIO is coming to town. Last in Line, a DIO cover band that includes members of the original DIO, is playing the Waterfront Tavern in Holyoke on Wednesday, March 29. The group will play some...
On Screens: Antarctica Ice and Sky
Antarctica’s isolation and cold have always been attractive to me. A land of rolling ice mountains, silence, and snow where Mother Nature is commander in chief. In Antarctica — Ice and Sky, Oscar-winning director Luc Jacquet creates a portrait of French glaciologist...
Cinemadope: In a Pickle
The annual Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival returns Now in its twelfth year, the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival (PVJFF) has long been a wonderful part of the Valley’s plentiful film offerings. Carefully curated, the festival screens films big and small,...
Dance VIP Raja Feather Kelly Comes to Town
Team Raja “With spidery limbs and a sprawling imagination,” writes Dance Magazine, “Brooklyn-based Raja Feather Kelly brings a vivid boundlessness to all he does. Whether dancing for the likes of Reggie Wilson or cooking up his own darkly entertaining...
Live Thursday: Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Stay Classy, South Africa For over 50 years, South Africa’s male a cappella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo has warmed the hearts of audiences worldwide with their uplifting vocal harmonies, signature dance moves, and charming onstage banter. With a deep respect...
Stagestruck: Shenanigans and the Sexual Revolution
On the first page of Fiona Kyle’s dramaturgical notes for Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9, at Hartford Stage through March 19, is a photo of Margaret Thatcher. The next page features the less- recognizable face of Cecil Rhodes. He was the epitome of 19th-century British...
Stagestruck: Facing the Other — a local premiere examines the roots of violence
Talk about prejudice… Without knowing anything about the play, I walked into a rehearsal of Sweet, Sweet Spirit last week and made some snap judgments that turned out to be quite wrong. The play, which receives its regional premiere next weekend at the Academy of...
Glasstastic! at the Brattleboro Museum
In a Glass of Their Own Last fall, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center invited kids in kindergarten through sixth grade to create drawings and descriptions of imaginary creatures, with the promise that some of those creatures would be featured in the upcoming...
Stream Queen: Personal Documentary (The Real Alternative Facts)
There are a lot of zippy phrases floating around right now that blur the concept of journalistic integrity — “fake news,” “alternative facts,” “White House press secretary Sean Spicer” — but in the film world, objectivity and performance coalesce into a kind of...
Basemental: Hammydown and the Myth of the Millenial Slacker
Pavement certainly planted some type of “slacker” flag in the 90s. Whether or not they were the original “slackers” — they weren’t — is irrelevant, but that label has often evoked that band. Today the same label, certainly a compelling angle for write-ups, is attached...
Cinemadope: Perfect 10
Talk about the American Dream, and one of the first things that will likely come up is the idea of owning your own home. To be sure, having a house of one’s own brings with it a host of benefits — if you have kids, for instance, cleaning all those rooms every day...
Cold Fingers at the Iron Horse: Vanessa Carlton Calls for Boycott of Northampton Venue
Vanessa Carlton may be best known for playing piano on the back of a truck while singing her hit song “A Thousand Miles,” but that doesn’t mean she’ll play just anywhere. The artist has standards — and they’re apparently higher than at least what one Northampton venue...
Sweet! The SYRUP Festival Returns This Weekend
With the SYRUP Festival, Piti Theatre Company in Shelburne Falls has hit on a tradition that most of us would never have realized we were missing: all-ages live performance, featuring world-class artists, mixed with handcrafted food and sweets from local artisans. Now...
Thursday to Sunday: The Back Porch Festival Returns
A Porch to be Reckoned With Most Valley radio listeners have spent at least a little time on Jim Olsen’s back porch. For years the president of Northampton-based record label Signature Sounds has hosted a Sunday morning radio program on 93.9 The River that focuses on...
Valley Show Girl: Krewe Les Gras at Theodore’s
I consider myself a musical schizophrenic. I can get into just about any genre you put in front of me — especially if it’s live. I may not be a musician, but music has been a passionate subject for me for as long as I can remember. One of the first local shows I went...
Thursday Film Screening: A Trailblazing Trans Elder and Activist
Miss Major Known to many simply as “mama,” Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a trans elder and activist who blazed the trail for other high-profile transgender women of color. Griffin-Gracy has been involved, up close and personal, in decades of fights for rights, including...
Stagestruck: A.R.T.’s “Night of the Iguana” Revives a Minor Classic
Some of those leaving the American Repertory Theater’s current production must be surprised and baffled, not to mention disappointed. On my way out of the Cambridge theater on opening night, I overheard a man asking, “Why did James Earl Jones have such a small part?”...
On Exhibit: It’s Me, Eloise — The Voice of Kay Thompson and the Art of Hilary Knight
El on Wheels Before President 45 ruined our fantasies about living the carefree life atop a skyscraper, America had Eloise, the children’s book series from the 1950s written by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight. For someone living the cushy life —...
Cinemadope: In Plain Sight
Over the last few months, it has become impossible to ignore the rising tides of xenophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry and hatred that have suddenly made America a much scarier place for so many of those who call it home. Of course, these prejudices aren’t...
The Head and the Heart Plays Northampton
Signs of Light Seattle indie folk band The Head and the Heart formed in 2009, and their third album Signs of Light, released this past fall, captures a radio-friendly pop rhythm that Rolling Stone described as “cozy and stylish at the same time.”That album was...
A Contortionist’s Journey Around the World — and Back to Brattleboro
The Body Follows: Inside the mind of professional contortionist Ariana Ferber-Carter Many people would bend over backwards to avoid performing stunts in front of an audience. But Ariana Ferber-Carter — a professional contortionist and circus coach — is far more...
Q&A with Pasqualina Azzarello, the New Face of Easthampton City Arts
In advance of the 1984 Summer Olympics, the city of Los Angeles commissioned 200 public murals. Pasqualina Azzarello remembers that transformation vividly. On hot afternoons, at the end of a long day at elementary school, she would climb into the backseat of her...
Cinemadope: Wolverine’s Back — For the Last Time
We Americans are a nostalgic bunch. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just that we are still such a young nation — there are Italian cafes that are older than our whole country — that we like to fool ourselves into thinking we have more history than we do. Or maybe, when...
A Poem for Elizabeth Warren
And Still She Persisted (for Elizabeth Warren) They offered her a muzzle and still she persisted. This sister, this gatekeeper, this whistleblower and thistle-bearer. They told her to shut her justice-loving mouth but still she persisted: could not remain still when...
The V-Spot: How Do We Get the Mood Back?
Hi Yana, My boyfriend and I have been together for a long time. We moved in together six months ago into our new home in New Mexico. But, I’m really not feeling our sex life lately. I feel bad because my boyfriend is amazing, but I’m never ever in the mood to...
Basemental: So You Want to be a Music Writer?
Pioneer Valley Underground brings new voices to DIY coverage Back in 1999, thousands descended into downtown Seattle for protests against the World Trade Organization, dubbed “The Battle of Seattle.” Not only did protesters successfully get a frank discussion about...
On Stage Now: “Painting Churches” at the Majestic Theater
Home is Where the Art Is The sweet and heartfelt family story Painting Churches, winner of the John Gassner Award and Best Off-Broadway Play, is set in a Beacon Hill townhouse owned by Fanny and Gardner Church. As the play opens, the couple is packing, planning to...
On Exhibit: 100 Photos in the Berkshires
Five and Ten Again This month, Sohn Fine Art Gallery in Lenox teams up with the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts in Pittsfield for another year of Berkshire County’s 10 x 10 Upstreet Arts Festival. The two galleries are each showing half of a 100-photograph show,...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: The Last Dinosaur
Many winters ago, in 1977 to be precise, a friend and I were invited to a party. As luck would have it, we were the only males present. To top it off, the girls wanted to try the old game of spin the bottle. Chumps that my friend and I were, we decided we would rather...
Stream Queen: Animation Staycation
As far as media genres go, animation is one that rarely gets its due. Cartoons enchant us as children, but are then left in the past, their artistry and potential forgotten. But whether on your laptop or your Saturday morning television screen, good animation can make...
Stagestruck: Woman on the Edge
For a 19th-century male, Henrik Ibsen was quite the feminist. His best-known play, A Doll’s House, ends with one of the theater’s most famous sound effects as his protagonist, Nora Helmer, leaves her stifling marriage with the finality of a slamming door. An equally...
In Concert: Weird Love Noise
Spending Valentine’s Day with Thurston Moore and friends A distant droning noise fills the cold air as I get out of my car in a very full parking lot at the 13th Floor Music Lounge in Florence. I walk up the steps to the entrance of the club above JJ’s Tavern,...
Thursday to Saturday: Student Voices on Stage at UMass
Our Voices Our new president has committed to limiting access to legal abortions, and explicitly said on the campaign trail that there “has to be some form of punishment” for woman who seek them illegally. Vice President Mike Pence, who signed a bill in his home state...
On Exhibit: Strip Weaving by Jeanette Cole
Moving On Up The works on paper in this exhibition represent “my desire and hope for a place called ‘home,’” says Jeanette Cole, a professor in the art department at UMass. The collection, she says, is based on imagery from a West African robe given to her father by...
Cinemadope: The Short List
It’s easy, when Oscars season rolls around, to feel jaded about the cult of celebrity that Hollywood engenders. It can seem that the same kinds of films, and the same kinds of stars, come away with the golden statue every year. But if we’re still waiting for the...
Tonight at Click Workspace: A new music series
The Katz and the Fiddle Click Workspace, downtown Northampton’s coworking HQ, drew a big enough crowd at a January concert to warrant a brand-new live music series. This month’s concert at Click features accomplished local stringster Zoë Darrow on fiddle and Stephen...
WMass Metal: The Valley’s Diverse Scene Rises AGAIN
Wesley Jillson has been a part of the local metal music scene since the ’80s. He saw Western Mass area metal rise to national prominence in the ’90s, then fade away by 2010.At the fifth annual Promoterhead show at the 13th Floor Music Lounge in Florence in early...
Jack Simons’ Musical Anxiety Cleanse
The new album Malbec and Gingerale serves twists, turns, and a brainy fizz Jack Simons hasn’t just put out a new record. He’s concocted a psychedelic spritzer. Bright bubble-fizz for the brain.It’s an eight-song album called Malbec and Gingerale, twisty-turny pop...
Stagestruck: Sitting Targets
Years ago, when I was living in England, one day the doorbell rang and there stood two painfully clean-cut young men in white dress shirts, narrow ties and pearly smiles. “Hello!” one of them grinned, holding up a serious-looking volume. “My name is Elder Smith, this...
Now Playing: I Am Not Your Negro
The Fire This Time The writer and social critic James Baldwin died 30 years ago, but his powerful critiques of authority, ignorance, and racial injustice in America are still cited by poets, parents, protestors, and many others who feel, now more than ever, the need...
Cinemadope: The Eagle Huntress
All Ages Show For years now, the Academy of Music in Northampton has played host to the annual KidsBestFest film festival. It’s a free week-long event (donations are welcome) that mixes great kid-centric movies from around the world with a local event known as...
Basemental Music Review: Thee Arcadians
December brought with it not one, not two, but three releases from Florence psych punks Thee Arcadians — Ian St. George on guitar, Nico Lapinski on bass, and Elliot Hartmann-Russell on drums. Sure, it sounds like maybe they just put up a mic in band practice, but...
On Exhibit: Seeds of Solidarity
Seeking the Sacred on the Farm at the UMass Fine Arts Center Seeds of Solidarity Farm is known by anyone who’s been there not only for vegetables and herbs, but for embracing art and being enveloped by a spiritual sense. Rows of vegetables, surrounding trees,...
A Video Bouquet for Valentine’s Day
Recommendations for a romantic night in Whether or not you’re settling down with a significant other on Valentine’s Day, you’ll probably end up watching something. That’s due less to our media-ridden culture and more to the fact that this year’s holiday happens on the...
Saturday: Fabulous February Fringe Festival in Shelburne Falls
Quick Flicks February is typically rather bleak, and this year – once again – even Punxsutawney Phil can’t hack it. We don’t blame him. We’d be headed back to the burrow too, if not for a concerted effort up and down the Valley this year to make the coldest...
Stream Queen: From Golden Statues to Small Screens
There are few mediums more powerful than the moving image. Movies, TV shows, and even music videos can transport viewers to another time, place, or lifetime. I love cinema but, with so few compelling female/LGBT characters (my favorite kinds) in mainstream titles, I...
Scary Movie Club: Split
Horror auteur M. Night Shyamalan returns to what he does best Spoilers ahead! A pumpkin won the presidency, the Power Rangers are returning to theaters, and the Pats came back from 19 points behind in the fourth quarter to win the Super Bowl. To this list of bizarre...
Friday Folk: James Hill and Anne Janelle
Heartstrings James Hill and Anne Janelle are set to bless Vermont with their folk music this week. Winners of the Canadian Folk Music Award for traditional album of the year, Hill and Janelle focus on traditional folk with an interesting twist. The low sounds of...
On Exhibit: Judaicas by Marius Sznajderman
Meditating with Marius Artist Marius Sznajderman will be hosting his third solo art show at the Jewish Community of Amherst through April 30. Sznajderman focuses on art highlighting “judaicas,” or artwork that reflects and comments on Jewish life and culture....
Cinemadope: The Venice Ghetto – 500 Years of Life
Every year at Oscar time we get a speech about the power of visual effects and their ability to “capture the magic in our mind” or some such thing, followed by a green-screen montage of dragons, space aliens, and transforming cars that are also space aliens. Don’t get...E-Edition
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