Arts
by Hunter Styles | Sep 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Canciones Criollas Thursday offers a festive evening of Latin food and music with Criollo Clasico Trio, one of the most eclectic Caribbean musical ensembles touring today. Sliding playfully between Latin, classical, Afro-Cuban, and jazz, the band — led by famed Puerto...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, News, Newsletter
Scent-sational The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival markets itself as “the festival that stinks.” So really, how could we resist? But even if sniffing and hefting around bags of aromatic bulbs isn’t your idea of a fun time, there’s still good reason to hike up...
by Chris Rohmann | Sep 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
I usually find Double Edge Theatre on their home turf — at The Farm in rural Ashfield — where they live and work and, every summer, perform a “traveling spectacle” that takes audiences on an episodic journey around the spread. But last week I encountered...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter, Stage
Play it Again, Sheldon John Sheldon has latched himself to so many meteoric musical acts, it’s a wonder that he hasn’t ascended beyond our earthly ears completely. Thankfully, he retains an intimate connection to the Valley, despite his years writing and playing for...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
The Other World War II Club In the years following the Allied victory in Europe, young artists came together seeking a creative space to begin again. The “Cobra” movement became that unique meeting point. Cobra artists were a diverse lot, but many shared an interest...
by Chris Rohmann | Sep 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
Thank you, Barrington Stage Company, for reviving this past summer’s hit play American Son. Thanks because I missed it in July and was glad of the opportunity to catch up with it during its brief return engagement. And thanks, too, because this run (through Sept. 25)...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Worm, Baby, Worm Smell that brisk fall air coming down from the mountains? It’s nearly fall, which marks the return of the Worm. Now in its 18th year, the Wormtown Music Festival hosts a weekend of music on the wooded grounds of Camp Kee-Wanee on the Green River....
by Gary Carra | Sep 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Nightcrawler
Could you be… won’t you be… my neighbor? It’s an indelible marriage of image and song performed daily by Fred Rogers on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood as he shed his business casual attire and slipped into his favorite sweater and sneaks. He was an...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Get Out With Staff Picks
Rob Schneider at Hu Ke Lau • Thursday I saw Rob Schneider at the Hu Ke Lau a few years ago. I left feeling I had my fill of his weird comedic persona. Former SNL regular and a staple in pretty much every Adam Sandler movie known to man, he brings out the dumb giggles....
by Chris Rohmann | Sep 15, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
For the six members of the Northampton Playwrights Lab whose plays are having staged readings this weekend and next, the performances represent the first public airings of new scripts and newly revised older work. Some are brand new, having received feedback and...
by Chris Rohmann | Sep 14, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
If you’re like me, you studied William Cullen Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis” in high school English class, and haven’t given it or its 19th-century author a thought since then. Well, I paid the man and his work a return visit the other day at his hillside homestead,...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Film, Newsletter
Live Long This photo from the ’60s was so cute, we couldn’t not share it. It shows Adam Nimoy enjoying time with his dad, Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy. In 1966, his father originated the role of Mr. Spock, the human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise — a...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Hey Look, Holyoke! In his 46 years of photographing Holyoke, HCC art professor Frank Ward has expanded his initial vision of the downtown project from one portrait at a time to one street at a time. “I have seen that Holyoke offers a microcosm of the world,” he...
by Jack Brown | Sep 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
When your life seems fairly well set in its ways, change can be hard. Actually, change can be terrifying. You might have a family that you love and a job that you look forward to, and something can still seem not right. Accepting that — in other words, accepting our...
by Steve Pfarrer | Sep 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
MinyanBy John J. ClaytonParagon Housejohnjclayton.comJohn Clayton, professor emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has devoted much of his time in the last several years to writing short stories that have appeared in publications like...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Editorial Art Did you know Cinemadope columnist Jack Brown is also a talented illustrator? See his Trump campaign poster and more Brown art at jackjohnbrown.com. The Rich Get Richer If you ask enough people in our community if they’re able to sustain...
by Jennifer Levesque and Peter Vancini | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
The Melvins occupy a strange space in the rock music landscape. They’re revered by fellow musicians and rock nerds as pioneers of the ’80s grunge rock scene, as original and weird today as they were 30 years ago, yet they fly largely under the radar of most...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter
We Kindly Stop For Emily If “poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing,” as the late, great James Tate once asserted, then we’ll never run low on good fodder for verse. What we do risk losing, from time to time, is our appreciation and respect for the eternal,...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Give Us The Funk The New Orleans jazz scene didn’t see Benny Jones coming. Back in 1977, he and members of the Tornado Brass Band created a new ensemble, called the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, with an eye to revolutionize old sounds. The music they played combined funk...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter
Full of Heart, Proud of Place The Connecticut Latino-American rights group CLARO and Hartford Capital City Pride celebrate their second annual PrideFest this weekend, which includes events in locations throughout Hartford. Although the main shindig is on Saturday...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Your Move, Pedestrians The longest-running arts festival in the Valley returns with 100 exhibitors, food vendors, and strolling musicians — all of it family-friendly and, when you stop to take a look up and down this beautiful Victorian street, really darn pretty....
by Hunter Styles | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Diving Belles If The Legible Bod(ies) take a little while to come into their own, it won’t be from lack of ambition. The new Valley-based artist collective makes dance performances “for stage, film, screen, or anywhere people will sit still long enough to watch,” and...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Don’t Use Your WordsAaron Becker’s lush, cinematic illustrations aren’t just accompaniment for written stories — in his wordless Journey trilogy of children’s books, these images capture the details of setting, character, rhythm, and plot all at once. Becker, a native...
by Jack Brown | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
There’s a famous scene in Network, Sidney Lumet’s 1976 film about the state of the television industry, in which veteran newsman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), bitter about his impending dismissal in the face of declining ratings, announces to his audience that instead...
by Will Meyer | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Spotty Results I learned some shocking things about Spotify recently. The average employee rakes in $166,000 a year, and the highest executive compensation has increased over 300 percent since 2014, reaching as much as $18.9 million. Despite that, Spotify has never...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 7, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Film, Food + Booze, Get Out With Staff Picks
Retrofaire 2016 Open Air Market • Saturday Fan of vintage fashion, jewelry, hard-to-find music gear, vinyl records and live jazz? The Northampton Arts Council presents the third annual RETROFAIRE, held in the space between Thornes Marketplace and the Northampton...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Between the Lines, Featured, News, Newsletter
On Aug. 21, before a month-long hiatus for HBO’s Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver spent five minutes highlighting the similarities between Donald Trump, a “racist voodoo doll made of discarded cat hair,” and the protagonist of a 1996 children’s book called The Kid...
by Kristin Palpini | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Newsletter, Scene Here
From six directions, cars attempt to drive through the intersection at Conz and Pleasant streets in Northampton. It’s 88 degrees and the dirt kicked up by heavy machinery sticks to sweat, giving everyone a dirty looking tan. The Route 5 entryway to Paradise City is...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Seth in the City Billy Flynn sings his smarmy way through Chicago with the promise of razzle dazzle. “Give ’em an act with lots of flash in it,” he croons, “and the reaction will be passionate.” The Seth Show, by contrast, pulls no theatrics. Seth Lepore is up...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Downtown Northampton’s biggest — and possibly last — public performing arts space is a real beauty: a 4,000 square foot, high-ceilinged room where local Freemasons used to hold community gatherings over a century ago. Completed in 1898, it takes up much of the fourth...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Food and Family, A Stone’s Throw Away Community is everything at the Stone Soul Festival in Springfield, a celebration that began in 1989 as a Mason Square neighborhood picnic. Since then, it’s evolved into a three-day event that its organizers claim is New England’s...
by Jack Brown | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
A musician’s life is never easy. I’m not talking about those of us who pick up the guitar now and then, or even the many who, long after it becomes clear that they will likely not move beyond the coffee house or bar circuit, still pack up the Volvo to head out for a...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Arts
Roots Reggae Returns Everton Blender was one of the most prominent reggae musicians and producers in Jamaica in the ’90s, and his smooth tenor, up-tempo arrangements, and spiritually uplifting themes still resonate in 2016 at the crossroads of roots reggae and...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Arts
Scratching the Surface Greenfield artist and educator Karen Gaudette was trained as a printmaker, but she has always loved to draw. Scratchboard, it turns out, provides the perfect meeting point. For 20 years now, Gaudette has used the technique to achieve fine-line...
by Gary Carra | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Music, Nightcrawler
He is certainly a scene fixture, clocking more than his share of road miles and hours packed in vans. But let’s face it: the guy’s named after a luxury vehicle, not to mention immensely talented. So why wouldn’t a talent buyer tap the Valley’s...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Out Standing in Their Fields For 26 years now, the Advocate has awarded high marks to all of those Valley musicians willing to pack their muscle, humor, skill, and silly costume pieces out into the beautiful, grassy Look Park every year for Transperformance, the...
by Jack Brown | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter
No Kidding One of the great myths of cinema is that kids movies are for kids. Sure, they might be a bit more brightly colored than most, or hit most of their punch lines a little more on the nose, but never forget that these films are made by grown-ups. Peel back that...
by Will Meyer | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter
We Buffer, We Suffer Candace Clement has been a been a member of the Northampton band Bunny’s A Swine for eight years. On songs like “Greetings from the Bottom,” her Strat intertwines with Emerson Stevens’ 3-string guitar contraption like a ball of twine, which gets...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
The Valley’s cheeriest new festival doubles in size for its second year The hip cats that comprise Lake Street Dive must be halfway through their nine lives by now. Since the four members met at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music in 2004, their sound has...
by Hunter Styles and Peter Vancini | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
CHRISTINA COURTIN Saturday, 3:00 – 3:40 The Brooklyn-based Courtin may not be the only Juilliard-trained classical violinist and composer on hand this weekend, but she is definitely the most colorful, bending genres as exuberantly as she can switch between...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Shake the Trees The woods of Western Mass promise to be rather loud this weekend for RPM Fest, which brings three days of rock, punk, and metal to Greenfield. As usual, this will be a totally awesome time: vendors, games, raffles, BYOB camping, and live sets by Lich...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Get Out With Staff Picks, Leisure, Music
CT HorrorFest • Saturday My favorite time of the year is around the corner, and all these marvelous Halloween events keep popping up. This Saturday, feast your eyes upon some of horror’s finest. Meet and greet with the “Godfather of the Dead” George A. Romero. The...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Newsletter
It was so hot and humid inside Pearl Street Nightclub during a metal show earlier this month that the ceiling was beading up with condensation and raining sweat onto the crowd.The sweltering experience spurred nearly 200 people to voice outrage on social media, and...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Newsletter, Scene Here
The old familiar smell of hundreds of people’s body odors mingles with the dust kicking up under our feet and the marijuana smoke hanging low in the air to form that perfect outdoor concert aroma at Mountain Park in Holyoke Saturday.Turkuaz, each member head to toe in...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
The Valley’s summer theaters have folded their figurative tents, but looking west, the season isn’t quite over. Out toward the Berkshires, five troupes are still up and running through this weekend and beyond. Chester Theatre Company’s season closer is The...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts
Positivity As an artist, physician, and gay man, Dr. Eric Avery found himself at the epicenter of the AIDS public health crisis beginning in the early 1980s. At first, Avery focused on his personal experience with the disease. Over the next three decades, his artwork...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage
“You, minion, are too saucy!” The Two Gentlemen of Verona is widely believed to be Shakespeare’s first play. It’s also one of his best. The core elements are simple: two men, one woman, and the antics that result from being struck by Cupid’s arrow. Shakespeare...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
FRIDAY: Hello, Westfield! The sign FREE MUSIC doesn’t always promise a good time, but trust us, we vetted this one for you. Shenanigans hosts Easthampton’s James Alan Barry Jr., Haverhill alt-rockers Analog Heart, acoustic soul rocker Kelsey Veillette with a full...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 18, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Around the World in 60 Minutes It’s fitting that the choral group Roomful of Teeth is on tour during the 2016 Olympic Games. For one thing, the eight-person ensemble — founded by Williams College professor Brad Wells in 2009 — has set out to “mine the expressive...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter, Stage
Damn, Pam Choreographer Pam Tanowitz been garnering ever more attention over the past 15 years for creating new dance techniques and styles that spring from classical dance vocabulary but glitter with abstract shapes and postmodern ideas. Her show at Jacob’s Pillow...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 18, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Leisure, Music
TITANIS Farewell Show in Florence – Friday Springfield’s ambient, heavy doomers TITANIS are bidding farewell? Insert sad face here. Make sure to check them out before you can’t. It’s worth it. Also that night, rockers A Moment To Riot, Nim and...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
The Supergroup Next Door Mystics Anonymous is local singer-songwriter Jeff Steblea’s new musical project, best defined as eclectic independent rock. “With Mystics,” says Steblea, “the whole point was to establish a project where nothing is off-limits.” His bandmates...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Wade in the Water You can step into a peaceful art gallery from the streets of a bustling metropolis and still attain a bit of serenity (given a few minutes to de-stress from nearly being clipped by a speeding cab or two), but taking a deep breath and appreciating the...
by Jack Brown | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Newsletter
Alien. Blade Runner. Black Hawk Down. The Martian. Over the decades, director Ridley Scott has built a career on making the kinds of films (often with a bit of a sci-fi bent) that combine quiet moments with explosive action. But for me, he will always be first...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 16, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
I don’t fish. To be frank, I don’t approve of fishing, especially “sport” fishing, since, like hunting, it’s not a sport in the accepted sense, that is, a contest between two equal adversaries playing by the same rules. I don’t understand the outsize thrill folks seem...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Heart of Stone We just spent 45 minutes aimlessly browsing WhereToFindRocks.com. We blame the website for Martin Zinn Expositions, which sent us there to learn more about how a whole lot of well-arranged molecules can make for some truly incredible feats of...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Old-School Soul Revival Roll over, James Brown — soul singer Charles Bradley is coming to sweep the hearts of the MoCA masses gathered outdoors in the museum’s courtyard on Saturday night. Bradley has been hard at it since the mid-60s, when he spent years hitchhiking,...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage
House of Hors Local performer and emcee Hors D’oeuvres — that’s “hors du-vors” — produces fun, gender-friendly, body-positive events up and down the Valley, including Maim That Tune Drag Show in Northampton and Drag Brunch in Holyoke. Personally, we’re partial...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
It Takes More Than Two Artist Nora Valdez, pictured here with some of her sculptures, is featured in the new Tango exhibit at Art for the Soul Gallery alongside works by Andrea Iturrioz and pieces recently on display at the U.S. Consulate of Argentina in New York...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Arts
Mother Tongues Holyoke es una ciudad bilingüe — una ciudad de español e inglés. En la nueva estación de Amtrak en las calles Main y Dwight, únete a nosotros para talleres de lengua española, lecturas de poesía y representaciones que celebran el uso del español en...
