Music
by Advocate Staff | Oct 28, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Hivebane is an acoustic hard rock trio from Springfield, MA, with soaring vocal harmonies. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Hivebane:
by Advocate Staff | Oct 18, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Philip B. Price (Winterpills) writes finely crafted pop songs mixed with experimental rock stylings. Price will be releasing his latest record, “Bone Almanac,” on Nov. 8 via Signature Sounds. Advocate Sessions is a collaborative project of the Valley...
by Jennifer Levesque | Oct 16, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, News, Valley Show Girl
Editor’s note: Julia Clark is transgender, and asked the Advocate to refer to her using she/her pronouns for the time both before and after her transition from male to female gender identity. Chris Clark was about 8 or 9 years old when she heard the classic song “Wild...
by Luis Fieldman | Oct 15, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music
The Northampton Center for the Arts became a microcosm of art, poetry, and music for 10 hours on Saturday at the first Dwellings Arts Festival. It also set an example for the organizers’ mission of bringing greater diversity to festival lineups and making venues safer...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 11, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Cajordion is a whimsical busking-honed duo, which plays instrumental pop music on cajon, accordion, and a plethora of other instruments. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Advocate Sessions is a collaborative project of the...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 10, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Staff Picks
The Royal Frog Ballet’s Surrealist Cabaret // FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY Framed as a sunset walk through Park Hill Orchard in Easthampton, the Royal Frog Ballet’s Surrealist Cabaret is a collection of performances which in the past have included music, puppetry,...
by Chris Goudreau | Oct 8, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, The CDs You Gave Me
“Speciecide,” the debut album by local Valley indie electronic/progressive rock duo Fuzz Puddle takes the existential dread of man made climate change induced mass extinction, throws in a smattering of Radiohead-influenced paranoia, and stirs that finely while adding...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 4, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Acclaimed Valley indie rock, Americana, and folk singer-songwriter Heather Maloney stopped by the Valley Advocate Sessions stage ahead of her upcoming Oct. 12 album release show at Northampton’s Academy of Music Theatre. Interview with Heather...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 3, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Staff Picks
Mill River Rounders at Mill 180 Park // Friday The Mill River Rounders will be bringing its blend of banjo, washtub bass, and guitar old-timey/bluegrass stylings to Easthampton’s Mill 180 Park this Friday night. Mill 180 features lawn games and a cafe, which works...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 2, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Podcast
Ali Kat and the Revelators perform rocking funk and soul with sax, guitars, and high energy vocals. For the video recording of this session, as well as over 100 other sessions performances, go to sessions.valleyadvocate.com. Listen here: You can hear more of the...
by Jennifer Levesque | Oct 1, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Valley Show Girl
I recently met up with Valley country frontman Brian Chicoine to chat about some cool future projects he’s been working on. A unique benefit show, a solo album and, most importantly, working on bettering his health are just a few things keeping Mr. Chicoine busy these...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 30, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Podcast
Columnist Jennifer Levesque speaks to Truck Stop Troubadours front-man Brian Chicoine about his music and a recent health scare. He also talks about an upcoming show at Poor Richard’s in Chicopee. Listen here: You can hear more of the Valley Advocate’s podcasts...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 27, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Matthew Thornton combines progressive folk rock on uke and guitar with protest themes. Check out his full performance on Advocate Sessions in the video below. Interview with Matthew Thornton:
by Advocate Staff | Sep 26, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Podcast
Amber Belle is a singer-songwriter with a honey toned voice who performs original folk and country music. For the video recording of this session, as well as over 100 other sessions performances, go to sessions.valleyadvocate.com. Listen here: You can hear more of the...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 25, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
Who says the arts have to stop when summer is over? The Pioneer Valley, as always, delivers when it comes to creative nights out and interesting things to check out. Here is a sampling from the Advocate staff. -DE Arcadian sounds Date: Sept. 28 Though summer is prime...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 20, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Bethany Killian is an indie acoustic folk singer-songwriter with smoky-toned vocals. Check out her performance on Advocate Sessions in the video below. Interview with Bethany Killian:
by Advocate Staff | Sep 20, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Podcast
Jake Klar is a local artist who performs folk and blues music with a poetic sensibility. For the video recording of this session, as well as over 100 other sessions performances, go to sessions.valleyadvocate.com. Listen here: You can hear more of the Valley...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 19, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Staff Picks
Out! For Reel LGBTQ Film Fest // SATURDAY Out! For Reel screens films featuring LGBTQ issues throughout the year, and this latest collection looks to be a great one. Showing both shorts and a featurette, the evening at the Academy of Music will have a film about a...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 13, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Ona Canoa combines three-part folk harmonies with baritone uke, flute, and guitar. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Ona Canoa:
by Advocate Staff | Sep 12, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Podcast
OroborO combines experimental rock with punk, metal, and mathy riffs. For the video recording of this session, as well as over 100 other sessions performances, go to sessions.valleyadvocate.com.
by Advocate Staff | Sep 6, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Born IV Blues is a teenage soulful blues band from the Berkshires. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Born IV Blues:
by Chris Goudreau | Sep 5, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music
The lush pastoral sounds of acoustic guitar, flute, fiddle, and upright bass echoed in slow motion through the Pushkin Gallery in Greenfield, before returning to normal time in an effect that’s much akin to rewinding an old VHS tape and hitting play. From there, the...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 5, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Podcast
Blame Cadence is a one woman chorus of looped soulful a cappella pop. For the video version of this performance, go to sessions.valleyadvocate.com.
by Advocate Staff | Sep 5, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Staff Picks
Midsommar: Director’s Cut at Amherst Cinema // THURSDAY My favorite film of the summer is director Ari Aster’s sophomore film, “Midsommar,” a folk-horror movie in the vein of classic 1973 British horror flick, “The Wickerman.” Without spoiling too much, this is a...
by Jennifer Levesque | Sep 3, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Valley Show Girl
I walked down the forest path of the Millers Falls Rod & Gun Club for the opening night of the 5th annual RPM Fest. Once I got to the clearing, the field was open with people playing yard games, groups of others gathered in small huddles chatting and enjoying...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 30, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
This week’s Advocate Sessions performer is Cars Go West, which combines psychedelic jams with catchy indie rock. Check out the band’s performance in the video below. Interview with Cars Go West:
by Advocate Staff | Aug 29, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
Smith College Museum of Art // TUESDAY-SATURDAY The Smith College Museum of Art has just opened a new exhibit on the late Japanese-Amercan poet and printmaker Munio Makuuch, who with his family spent much of World War II in an internment camp in Idaho for Japanese...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 28, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Lush Honey is a group that makes funky soul and progressive rock ‘n’ roll. The band performed live at the Summit View in Holyoke during the 2019 Best of the Valley Readers’ Poll party this past June. Listen to Lush Honey’s extended, 40-plus minute set,...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 23, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
This week’s Advocate Sessions band is Jake Kulak & The Lowdown, which brings blues rock with soulful virtuoso guitar and electrifying jams to the Sessions stage. Check out the band’s performance in the video below. Interview with Jake Kulak & The...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 22, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music
The Mary Jane Jones at Theodore’s // THURSDAY Vintage-influenced jazzy soul band The Mary Jane Jones returns to Springfield’s iconic blues club, Theodore’s, this Thursday. If you’ve never seen the Mary Jane Jones’ live performance before, now would be the time. The...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 22, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Podcast
Home Body is an electro fever-pop, new wave and experimental pop duo. They recently released their new record, Spiritus, which can be found on their website. For the video version of this performance, go to sessions.valleyadvocate.com. Listen here: You can hear more...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 16, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Among The Acres combine folk-rock, pop, and Americana with lush vocal harmonies. Check out the band’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Among The Acres:
by Jonathan Kermah | Aug 14, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Review
Twenty-one-year-old Shutesbury rapper and University of Massachusetts Amherst student Christopher Franklin, known as Chris Focus, sprouted his love for hip-hop by accident. At the age of 11, behind the back of his parents, Focus covertly scrolled through YouTube until...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 9, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
This week’s Advocate Sessions band is North Adams-based band Quincy, which combines Americana with bluesy roots rock, and indie folk. Check out the band’s full performance in the video below. Interview with Quincy:
by Jennifer Levesque | Aug 6, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Valley Show Girl
The end of Summer is near, but there are still more opportunities to rock out at a music fest this month. From jazz to reggae, Woodstock to metal, I guarantee you there’s at least one you’ll wanna attend. Or all of them! They are evenly spread out over the course of...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 2, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
This week’s Advocate Sessions performer is explosively high-energy post-hardcore art punk Perennial. Check out the band’s performance in the video below. Interview with Perennial:
by Advocate Staff | Jul 26, 2019 | Advocate Sessions, Articles, Featured, Music
Each week, the Valley Advocate publishes music videos of local musicians performing live in the Advocate offices, a project we call Advocate Sessions. We do this in collaboration with Northampton Community TV, who shoots the videos, and Signature Sounds, which takes...
by Will Meyer | Jul 25, 2019 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music
When The New York Times profiled Kurt Vile in the fall, they titled their piece “Kurt Vile, Indie Rock’s Charming Riddle.” The implication, of course, was that the long-haired indie rocker had a Rubik’s Cube to decode, something to latch onto underneath the...
by Chris Goudreau | Jul 22, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, News
Half a century ago, humanity took its first step outward into the greater universe around us during the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. In celebration of that achievement, Bandella, a Houston, Texas-based folk-rock and world acoustic group made up of retired astronauts,...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 19, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
This week’s Valley Advocate Sessions performer is bluesy indie rock and soul pop group Bad Tenants. Interview with Bad Tenants:
by Gary Carra | Jul 17, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, News
When he’s not aboard Iron Maiden’s private jet en route to a 50,000-plus stadium gig in South America or Europe, Anthrax guitarist Jonathan Donais says there’s no place he’d rather be than his Easthampton home and “triangle.” “‘The Triangle’ is what I call this little...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jul 16, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Valley Show Girl
From concerts to theatrical plays, from art galleries to a bistro and even co-working spaces and drag queen bingo. Holyoke’s Gateway City Arts has something for everyone. Located on Race Street in a beautiful old industrial building, it has been reinvented into an...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 12, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
This week’s Advocate Sessions performer is Hevvi Synthia, a Greenfield-based band that combines heavy rock ‘n’ roll with synth, swagger, and grooves. Check out the band’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with...
by Jonathan Kermah | Jul 11, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music
Twenty-three-year-old Springfield rapper Championxiii, has garnered quite the Internet following nearly overnight. In what started out as a part of his video series “rappers be like” on the short video sharing app Tick Tock, Championxiii’s hit single “Becky” now has...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jul 11, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Valley Show Girl
Ever have a project you are so excited about doing — then mid-way, you get road-blocked and you can’t finish it at that time? Then boom, for real! Another artistic idea pops in your head and you get all excited, and that project takes flight. The never-ending shelf of...
by Chris Goudreau | Jul 9, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, News
In October of 1991, guitarist and singer-songwriter F. Alex Johnson moved to the Pioneer Valley from Fall River to be part of the strong musical community. In the here and now, almost three decades later, Johnson is a mainstay in the Valley music scene. He’s played...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 5, 2019 | Advocate Sessions, Articles, Featured, Music
This week’s Advocate Sessions performer is singer-songwriter Pamela Means, who writes politically conscious roots music and jazz. Check out her full performance in the video below. Interview with Pamela Means:
by Advocate Staff | Jul 5, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Staff Picks
Brazilian folk-pop with Sessa at Historic Northampton // SATURDAY Historic Northampton will kick off its Parsons Lawn Concert Series with Brazilian folk-pop artist Sessa this Saturday, who will be accompanied with three vocalists and a percussionist. Sessa is a...
by Will Meyer | Jul 2, 2019 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music
Deerhoof has been making topsy-turvy, explosive rock music for over 25 years. Founded in the ‘90s, the group is still at it. They have released 15 albums, collaborated with countless musicians, and have inspired many more (myself included). The band will play Hawks...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 28, 2019 | Advocate Sessions, Articles, Featured, Music
Lush Honey is a and that makes funky soul and progressive rock ‘n’ roll. The band performed live at the Summit View in Holyoke during the 2019 Best of the Valley Readers’ Poll party.
by Jennifer Levesque | Jun 25, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Valley Show Girl
“Hey Levesque,” I was greeted while walking up to the entrance. “Hey Levesque,” I replied. Not too many people share my last name, but it just so happens one of the bartenders at the Tank in my hometown of Agawam, does. The Cheers in Hampden County, where everyone...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 22, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
Ch’Chunk! blends together swing, gypsy jazz, and Americana to create its own modern take on jazz and roots music. The band performed live at the Summit View in Holyoke during the 2019 Best of the Valley Readers’ Poll party.
by Will Meyer | Jun 18, 2019 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music
Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, guitarist for acclaimed punk band Downtown Boys, also performs as La Neve. While La Neve is a project that certainly shares the political concerns of Downtown Boys, it is stylistically different all together. Drawing on house, industrial, and...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 14, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Valley Advocate Sessions
This week’s Advocate Sessions performer is rapper Big Sav, who performs auto-biographical rap that turns the pains of life into music. Check out his performance in the video below. Advocate Sessions interview with Big Sav: This week also featured an audio...
by Jonathan Kermah | Jun 13, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Music, Review
Twenty-one-year-old Amherst rapper Tyson Burnett, known as Big Sav, has turned his previous encounters with the law into a promising future. His catchy melodies over upbeat trap piano keys disguise the pain-filled lyrics like “I been lonely hoping that my light ain’t...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 13, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Staff Picks
Drag Brunch with Hors and Friends for Franklin County Pride at Hawks & Reed // SATURDAY You can support Franklin County Pride and your local drag queens on Saturday morning in downtown Greenfield with a special drag brunch featuring the always magnificent and...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jun 11, 2019 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Valley Show Girl
When I opened the press release for this upcoming album release that was accompanied by a live set at Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA, there was one word that caught my interest: Mellotron. The instrument is similar in artistry and the complicatedness of a...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 7, 2019 | Advocate Sessions, Articles, Featured, Music
This week’s Valley Advocate Sessions performer is Jon Carroll & BraveSoul, who is a two-time Grammy Award-winning songwriter making R&B with soulful melodies and an inventive spirit. Interview with Jon Carroll:
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 5, 2019 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Review
The work of two artists are on display now through June 30 at Easthampton’s Elusie Gallery in an exhibit titled “Daydreaming,” which features surrealistic illustrated pieces by Samson E. King with images of nature and everyday objects colliding in a kaleidoscope...
by Will Meyer | Jun 4, 2019 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music
Imagine it’s the year 2020 and you get invited by a friend to a local house show. The catch: you don’t know who the performers will be and you don’t know where it will be located until the day of the show. You must apply in advance to even purchase a ticket and then...
