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Basemental: Streaming music service Spotify is a bust for local artists
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...
The V-Spot: Consent, It’s Not Just for Students
Thankfully, consent is becoming a big topic on college campuses. However, most conversations about consent overfocus on the damaging outcomes of the failure to ask for consent rather than engaging students in learning the benefits of ongoing conversations about...
Between the Lines: Democracy Stalled? Send in the Clowns
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...
Scene Here: Keep Moving, construction on Pleasant Street in Northampton
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...
News of the Weird: Outstanding in Their Fields
The recently concluded Olympics included a few of the more obscure athletic endeavors — such as dressage for horses and steeplechase for humans — but U.S. colleges compete in even less-heralded “sports,” such as wood chopping, rock climbing, fishing, and broomball....
Rock, With a Twist: 17 Acts Play Transperformance Fest on Tuesday
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...
Cinemadope: These New Kid Flicks Aren’t Just For Kids
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...
Basemental: Talking Rock and Net Neutrality with Candace Clement
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...
The V-Spot: My Sexual ‘A’ is Not a Scarlet Letter
Dear Yana,I was recently discussing your column with some new friends I met through Pioneer Valley Aces, a local group of individuals who identify as aromantic and/or asexual. I wasn’t the only one of us who appreciated your witty way of reassuring those who...
Amourasaurus Roars Again!
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...
Amourasaurus II: The Line-Up
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...
RPM Fest Invades Greenfield Friday and Saturday
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...
Nightmare on Pearl Street: 100-plus Temperatures and Lack of Water at Northampton Club Draw Hundreds of Complaints
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...
Scene Here: Mountain Park Funk
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...
O, Cannabis! It Could be Worse, healthier ways to consume weed
At a concert — years ago — I was dancing in the front row when the familiar aroma of bright piney buds wafted by. It didn’t take long to find the source; a friendly gorilla finger was passing down the line. A sweaty dude in the neon pink knit cap exhaled a big...
News of the Weird: New World Order
India has supposedly outlawed the “baby-tossing” religious test popular among Hindus and Muslims in rural villages in Maharashtra and Karnataka states, but a July New York Times report suggested that parents were still allowing surrogates to drop their...
Club Picks: August 18 to 24
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...
Roomful of Teeth Returns to MASS MoCA
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...
99th Time’s the Charm: Heath Fair Runs Aug. 19-21
Fair Play Family farms are as American as baseball, or a hot apple pie cooling on a breezy windowsill. And just like bases, or pies, farms get stolen. Large-scale agribusiness has helped to precipitate a decline in traditional and small-scale farming in this country...
Pam Tanowitz Dance is Beautifully Strange
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...
Vermont’s Short-Lived GMO Experiment
Vermont’s experiment with GMO labeling was brief, but memorable. In July, the single month that House Act 120 was in effect, consumers saw new signs popping up at grocery stores — just not the type many were envisioning. “We apologize that we can no longer offer this...
StageStruck: Lifted by Song
So often, music makes all the difference. It not only has those famous savage-breast-soothing charms, it can turn a so-so script into a winner. Take Unexpected Joy, playing through August 20th at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT). This world-premiere musical...
Music Review: Paper City Exile
Exile on High Street Young rockers Paper City Exile play Holyoke Musicians, like all of us, hold a few personal details close to the chest. For local rockers Paper City Exile, the little secret is hardly a secret: the three of them are still in high school. That’s...
Basemental: New Music from MalYMarco, Dirt Devil, ShowHorses, and Carinae
One of the pitfalls of writing a bi-monthly column is the fact that I can barely scratch the surface of all of the cool stuff that’s happening around the Pioneer Valley. There is so much! This week’s column will serve as an informal catch-up on some new(ish) releases....
Dinosaur Jr. Roars Again on New Album
Dinosaur Jr. Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not (Jagjaguwar) Release date: 8/5/16 Break out the ear plugs. Western Massachusetts’ own alt-rock power trio, Dinosaur Jr., is back. New album Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not marks the fourth release by the band since the...
Surprise! It’s a Co-op. Any business can be a worker-owned business
Co-ops and granola go together like seitan and soy sauce — but what if there is no granola?We love our local grocers, and we’re psyched that the food co-op movement is growing, but working cooperatives aren’t just for breakfast anymore. Almost any kind of business can...
Mommy, Where do Engineers Come From?
An Advocate analysis of U.S. Census occupation data allowed us to pinpoint where like-minded career folk are congregating in the Valley. By comparing residents employed in each sector to the overall number of people working in each town, we found pockets of job...
StageStruck: Peerless Pirates
Two contradictory things are going on at Pittsfield’s Barrington Stage Company. On the mainstage, the fearsome title characters in The Pirates of Penzance never kill anyone because they can’t bear to harm an orphan and all the captives they seize claim to be orphans....
Click It! Recycling: It’s Not as Mainstream as You May Think
In the Pioneer Valley, recycling feels like a given, but that’s a false sense of environmental do-gooding.There are multiple bins for your paper, plastics, and trash — and in some communities, for compost — in just about every public outdoor and indoor space. But...
Texas Roadhouse and the End of America
My gut told me that I should tune in to the Republican Convention last Thursday night for Donald Trump’s acceptance speech. So I tried, but I just couldn’t hack it. Every time the Donald opens his mouth for another ramped-up round of free-associative shouting, my...
Free Will Astrology, July 21-27, 2016
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You now have more luxuriant access to divine luck than you’ve had in a long time. For the foreseeable future, you could be able to induce semi-miraculous twists of fate that might normally be beyond your capacities. But here’s a...
This Weekend: Paul Taylor Dance Company
Taylor Made It’s just a hop, skip, and a flying leap from Manhattan to the Berkshires, at least for the Paul Taylor Dance Company. The group has been trucking up shows to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center for nine years running now, but the good thing about a...
Club Picks: July 21 to July 27
SUNDAY: Build it YourselfSunday is for relaxing — and that includes a day of rest for the bartenders at Arkham at Harmony Place in Brattleboro. The quintessential hipster dive bar, complete with air hockey and arcade games, has a Build Your Own Bloody Mary party. It’s...
Seuss Day: Tue July 26
The Doctor Is Out and AboutAnd to think that he grew up on Fairfield Street! Theodor Seuss Geisel — a.k.a. Dr. Seuss — was born in Springfield to German immigrants in 1904, and although he moved to California for much of his adult life, it is on these local blocks...
Nerding Out With: Corn photographer Gregory Thorp
The New Cornographers A 70-year-old stranger named Gregory Thorp sent me an email last week. “In Ashfield, I am photographer of corn,” he wrote, “and I have one in particular that might be useful to the Advocate.” This is far from the strangest submission we’ve...
Between the Lines: Catching Up With Old Beefs, Part II
Some topics are too rich to write about just once — and this column seeks to tackle a lot of them. For all the people wondering, “What ever happened to …?” this week’s column — part two in a two-part series — is full of updates on issues I’ve written about in this...
Back Talk: Why not deport criminals? Mourning So Many
Why Not Deport Criminals?The following is in reference to the article, “Between the Lines: Report a Crime, Risk Deportation” June 9-15, 2016. Why is it a bad thing to deport people who are here illegally who have committed not one, but two crimes? I’m not versed...
The Pour Man: Champagne Chuck; inexpensive bubbly
Dibon Brut Reserve Cava, of Penedes, Spain; $12.99 I’ve been thinking about sparkling wine lately because it’s well suited for steamy summer nights; just one glass will go a long way to ease the heat. Sparkling wine also came to mind because someone gave me a bottle...
Stagestruck: English Stages, Part One — The National
Three of the four shows I saw at the National Theatre in London last month were star vehicles, and the fourth one’s ensemble cast featured a very well-known face. The first three also, coincidentally, ended in sudden reprieves from ignominious deaths. Another...
Club Picks: June 30 to July 6
SUNDAY: High Water MarkIt’s been one year since the relaunch of the Ashfield Lake House, which means a funkadelic anniversary show with music inside and outside, featuring the return of What Cheer? Brigade, Providence’s best 18-member brass band, plus performances by...
Nightcrawler: FAT of the Land
The Springfield Business Improvement District isn’t trimming any fat with its 16th installment this year. Rather, they’re leading off with it. Or, more specifically, the locally notable band of same name.”FAT’s annual concert at Cityblock has always...
Nightcrawler: The Name Game
SWMRS boasts unique punk pedigree What’s in a name? The members of SWMRS are barely in their 20s and can already claim quite a lot. Reportedly inspired by watching Jack Black and his homage to headbanging — the film School of Rock — together in...
Scene Here: Abuzz About Drones
In a cozy courtyard in downtown Springfield, nestled among red brick buildings and gray concrete parking garages, a small white quadcopter suddenly whirs to life on a makeshift launch pad in small patch of grass. At the controls is 16-year-old Briyanna Henry, who’s...
Queer Music Before WWII
Wilkommen, Bienvenue Sarah Kilborne’s revelatory new night of cabaret delves into a little-known yet revolutionary moment in music history: queer music composed and performed prior to World War II. Her one-woman show is “an enlightening, enchanting trip to a...
Free the Beasts! Dragon Boat Race in Springfield
Dragons of myth come in all shapes and sizes, but human athletes have pared their real world replicas down to some clear-cut dimensions. A dragon boat is 40 feet by 4 feet, long and narrow and manned by 20 paddlers, sitting two by two. A drummer sits up front,...
Red Hot Blues with Shemekia Copeland
Red Hot Blues Shemekia Copeland sings electric blues, gospel, and R&B like her heart and soul depend on it. Whether she’s belting out a raucous blues-rocker, firing up a blistering soul-shouter, bringing the spirit to a gospel-fueled R&B rave-up, or digging...
Frendly Gathering Festival in Southern Vermont
The Friend Zone Dip your hippie head into a cool sonic pool this weekend by day-tripping up (or, hey, camping out) for the sixth annual Frendly Gathering, a three-day grassroots music festival in the Green Mountains of Southern Vermont. Vibe-wise, this fest is heavy...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: That time The Three Stooges went too far … nyuk, nyuk, nyuk
That time The Three Stooges went too far … nyuk, nyuk, nyuk As Kenny Rogers wisely sang, “You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.” There have been many performers who have ignored this advice, plodding right along with their careers when they...
Uncivil Discourse: The Triggering at UMass is over, but the harassment it has unleashed rages on
On April 25, the UMass College Republicans hosted an event in Stockbridge Hall featuring several prominent pop-conservatives. The event, “The Triggering: Has Political Correctness Gone Too Far?,” was billed as a discussion of the perceived excesses by social justice...
Cinemadope: Here and Gone
Small films shown quickly, so see them today Showing movies is a tough racket, and the hard truth of the matter is that an opening weekend can make or break a film’s chances at breaking even at the box office. Do decently out of the gate, and you might get a chance at...
The V-Spot: Jealous Over My Flirty Girlfriend
Dear Yana,My girlfriend and I have been polyamorous for three years. We have established boundaries and as far as poly relationships go, it’s been pretty smooth sailing. Usually I’m a very low-jealousy partner.But lately she’s been flirting with this one woman that I...
Stagestruck: Intimate Moments — Berkshires Summer Theatre Preview
Summer theater used to be known as “the straw-hat trail” and “summer stock,” both terms evoking familiar, innocuous entertainments presented for languid hot-weather audiences by (usually) amateur companies in tents, barns, and town halls. From the outset, though,...
Back Talk: What Killed the Monkey; Pride Month Massacre
What Killed the Monkey Facebook reactions to “Gross Negligence Alleged in Death of UMass Lab Monkey”William Robinson: Sounds like the incident didn’t have much to do with the nature of the research itself, but a veterinary mishap resulting from pure accident —...
Between the Lines: Nothing to See Here? Pharmaceutical prices skyrocket
Usually, when you buy something, you know the price before you step up to the register. Most of us have a pretty good bead on how much a gallon of milk is and who has the best prices on gas, but when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs, everyone’s standing before the...
News of the Weird: Who’s a Good Boy?
Life is good now for British men who “identify” as dogs and puppies, as evidenced by a BBC documentary, Secret Life of the Human Pups, showing men in body outfits — one a Lycra-suited Dalmatian, “Spot” — exhibiting “sexual”...
Your guide to the 30th Green River Festival (July 8-10)
THE LINEUP FRIDAY Peter Wolf NRBQ Dustbowl Revival Charles Neville Ola Fresca Mariachi Flor De Toloache Campos Xixa SATURDAY Dawes Shakey Graves Shovels & Rope The Suffers The Felice Brothers Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds And The Kids Dustbowl Revival The...
Summer Arts: Natural Born Killers
Natural Born Killers Fourth of July comes twice this year: once on the date you’d expect, and again on July 21, when Vegas-based power-rock balladeers The Killers play Mohegan Sun. It’s been a few years since we’ve come out to see Brandon Flowers and his friends play...
Summer Arts: Compagnie Herve Koubi
In Good Compagnie Jacob’s Pillow’s 2016 festival line-up features 20 talented dance companies from around the world and across the U.S., but we’re most excited for the Valley debut of Compangie Hervé Koubi, a company of 12 . male dancers from Algeria and Burkina Faso....
Summer Arts: Valley Talent Showcase
Fame, Fortune, and a Little Fine Tuning The Valley Talent Showcase launched last fall to give up-and-coming local bands the chance to play a sizeable venue in front of new listeners and celebrity judges. It’s been held on the first Friday of each month, and so far, so...E-Edition
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