Music
by Gary Carra | Apr 8, 2010 | Music
John Lennon famously caught holy hell for declaring himself and his bandmates “bigger than Jesus.” And while making almost any allegation like that is certain to attract the ire of the masses, perhaps Lennon’s biggest problem was that he really had...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 8, 2010 | Music
LiarsSisterworld(Mute) These Australian art-rockers deliver the unexpected, but Sisterworld doesn’t represent a radical shift so much as a summation. It splits the difference between the successful experimentalism of Drum’s Not Dead and back-to-basics rock...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 8, 2010 | Music
Stoughton singer/songwriter Lori McKenna’s music has taken her all sorts of places: to stages large and small, Nashville’s recording studios, the upper echelon of the pop charts, even Oprah’s couch. But the critically acclaimed musician prefers to...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 9, 2010 | Music
Western Mass. is about to be overrun by a teeming throng of women wielding guitars and drums, ready to rock. They’ll be joined by all sort of vendors hawking their wares and services—everything from vegan cupcakes to chest binders—and folks leading...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 9, 2010 | Music
Most bands’ live sets are met with the usual variety of responses: a polite round of applause; vague indifference; scattered hooting and hollering; a few attaboys and high fives for a good effort. Local noise-rockers Horse Spirit Penetrates, traffickers of loud,...
by Gary Carra | Apr 9, 2010 | Music
High gas prices have you thinking twice about road trippin’ this summer? Dennis Crommett (denniscrommett.com) may just have you covered. Turns out his latest studio effort, In The Buffalo Surround, is awash in—and inspired by—regional imagery. So...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 9, 2010 | Music
For Bourgeois Heroes drummer Elise Nacca, the when and how parts of the band’s origin are far less consequential than the why. The group formed in New Haven, Conn., but the two principals are now, at least geographically, divided: Nacca resides in Austin while...
by Gary Carra | Apr 15, 2010 | Music
The members of Boston-based funk-rockers Extreme are cruising the publicity circuit in support of their upcoming CD/DVD release Take Us Alive. The Crawler was fortunate enough to land an Extremely candid interview with singer Gary Cherone that covered everything from...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 15, 2010 | Music
A Troop of Echoes jam a lot of different influences and styles into their brand of “saxophone and snarly guitar-driven instrumental rock.” “Having totally schizophrenic tastes in music helps our writing, actually,” says drummer and UMass grad...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 15, 2010 | Music
Alvin CurranSolo Works: The ’70s(New World) Best known as a composer in the new classical mode, Alvin Curran did solo recordings in the 1970s that are nothing short of a revelation: startlingly accessible, surprising, fresh and fun. It’s an enthralling...
by Gary Carra | Apr 16, 2010 | Music
Admittedly, Ladyfest, setting up shop at both Smith College and Flywheel in Easthampton April 15-17, was created by—and predominantly features the talents of—women. But not to invite males to the multi-band shindig… well, that just wouldn’t be...
by James Heflin | Apr 16, 2010 | Music
This week, School for the Dead, one of the main projects of Northampton musician Henning Ohlenbusch, celebrates 10 years of music-making. If this School has a school, it’s perhaps best described as big-hearted, inventive pop. The tunes are full of upbeat...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 16, 2010 | Music
Chris O’BrienLittle Red(independent) We like some musicians just because they’re local, but some—like Northampton native Chris O’Brien—are so good we don’t have to apologize. His latest fan-funded CD dazzles with energy, fine...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 16, 2010 | Music
Jeffrey FoucaultHorse Latitudes(Signature Sounds) Jeffrey Foucault’s music is about as smooth as the tea and honey he sings about on Horse Latitudes. The album combines electric bass, drums, cello, guitar and more with soft lyrics about love and loneliness. The...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 22, 2010 | Music
Greenfield’s Steve Koziol is a funny guy. Sharp and astute, he is one of those musicians with a unique and kaleidoscopically twisted take on the everyday. So he’s not “goofy funny.” Well, maybe there’s a bit of that in there, too. Like...
by Gary Carra | Apr 22, 2010 | Music
They say if you don’t like the weather in New England, you need only wait a minute. But what if you’re a New Englander who’s not a fan of heavy music? Well, perhaps you should move. In the past decade-plus, the region has established itself as the...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 22, 2010 | Music
Soul-funk band Soulive—New Yorkers Neal Evans (keys) and Eric Krasno (guitar) and Western Mass. drummer Alan Evans—has enjoyed some stellar highlights in its 12-year run. Like the time Stevie Wonder sat in with the trio at the House of Blues in Los...
by James Heflin | Apr 23, 2010 | Music
I can’t remember which of the following took place first, but they were related. One of them was procuring the U2 album The Unforgettable Fire. I’d been a U2 fan for some time, proudly spinning the keening, martial triumph of War, and often falling asleep...
by Gary Carra | Apr 23, 2010 | Music
All these years, the conventional wisdom seemed to be that the nebulous, chiseled alien emblazoned on Joe Satriani’s iconic 1987 album was surfing on some otherworldly, ice-like track he could create at his feet on an as-needed basis. The way local performance...
by Our Readers | Apr 23, 2010 | Music
Crooked StillSome Strange Country(Signature Sounds) I’m not a fan of invented terms such as “nu-folk bluegrass,” but it fits Crooked Still, a band taking bluegrass beyond anything Bill Monroe envisioned. Dump the nasal harmonies and virtuoso...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 29, 2010 | Music
Barbara LynnHere Is Barbara Lynn(Water) Here’s a long-lost classic from the vaults of Atlantic Records. Cut in 1968, Here Is Barbara Lynn has languished in obscurity despite its lofty reputation among R&B aficionados. Lynn segues between Motown-influenced...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 29, 2010 | Music
On stage, Amherst-based experimental musician Jack Callahan transforms into what he refers to as a “sound organizer.” “When I play live, I am improvising,” he explains. “Just from practice, I have a general idea of the sort of extended...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 29, 2010 | Music
In 1997 I was visiting with some new friends on Williams Street in Northampton when one of them mentioned she had recently starred in a music video for a local band. A screening immediately commenced. The video itself was cool: quick cuts of grainy footage depicting...
by Gary Carra | Apr 29, 2010 | Music
Against Apocalypse’s drummer Matt “9” Raymond will be the first to admit, not even he’s sure what the apocalypse in his band’s moniker specifically is—let alone why they’re against it. But it just didn’t seem right to...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 29, 2010 | Music
Local rock band Gimlet Slip has a bit of advice for anyone with the temerity to front. “Don’t do us wrong or you’ll end up in our next song.” The first-name-only trio—Christina on guitar, Diane on bass and vocals, and Rene on drums and...
by James Heflin | Apr 30, 2010 | Music
Longtime Valley residents are likely to have heard the musical efforts of two of the best players ever to have graced the area: cellist Gideon Freudmann and guitarist Mark Herschler. Freudmann is a purveyor of a style he dubbed “cello bop,” a marriage of...
by Gary Carra | Apr 30, 2010 | Music
It’s ironic that of all the wild rhetoric, chest-thumping machismo and venomous barbs to spew forth from Charlie Sheen’s lips in recent months, he is still most closely associated with a single word: “winning.” As evidenced by the rousing...
by Matthew Dube | Apr 30, 2010 | Music
It was probably fate for the band Outdates to finally coalesce in the name of rock. “[Bass player] Ally [Einbinder] is from Albany, I’m from Pittsfield, and [drummer] Andrew [McCarthy] is from Holyoke, and we’d all drive a few hours away for shows...
by Tom Sturm | Apr 30, 2010 | Music
The Valley is a place where you can find musicians of every stripe, from young, starry-eyed popsters whose egos generally outsize their skinny jeans to gritty, middle-aged cover bands to aging blues men whose refusal to evolve beyond “three chords and the...
by James Heflin | Apr 30, 2010 | Music
After the traffic subsided, after the Hondas with spoilers and the oversized trucks with Red Sox stickers threaded their way through the clogged main drags of Easthampton, a spring calm welled up in downtown. It’s an old downtown. The Main Street portion is a...
by Gary Carra | May 6, 2010 | Music
Think Tim Eriksen’s new solo release, Soul of January Hills, is a little too minimal, with its 14 voice-only tracks? Well then, wait a couple weeks. The Valley native best known for his Grammy-nominated work on the Cold Mountain movie soundtrack will follow it...
by Advocate Staff | May 6, 2010 | Music
Sitting Next to BrianThe Wrong Tree EP(Rub Wrongways) Back again at the helm of his mystic, swirling ship, Brian Marchese sometimes seems adrift in the doldrums of identity on his latest, The Wrong Tree. Remaining are his psychedelic Brit-pop and California surf...
by James Heflin | May 6, 2010 | Music
The arrival of the solidbody electric guitar back around the middle of the 20th century didn’t do the acoustic guitar any favors in the reputation department. Les Paul’s solidbody innovation did a tremendous lot to enable early rockers to invent what it...
by Advocate Staff | May 6, 2010 | Music
Of God and ScienceBlack Rabbit(Detach) From the beginning, two elements are going for Albuquerque’s Of God and Science: big, droning washes of ambient sound, and a relaxed, hypnotic groove. The bass slides easily in, but the last element to arrive, the vocal...
by Advocate Staff | May 7, 2010 | Music
StereolabNot Music(Drag City) Released a year after the band went on hiatus, Not Music is Stereolab’s swan song, for now. Although the tracks date from the same sessions that generated 2008’s Chemical Chords, this isn’t some album of leftovers or...
by Michael Cimaomo | May 7, 2010 | Music
Minutes before my recent conversation with Dinosaur Jr. bassist and Sebadoh founder Lou Barlow, I briefly pondered breaking one of the cardinal rules of journalism: Be professional. Though our interview took place the day after St. Patrick’s Day, I wasn’t...
by James Heflin | May 7, 2010 | Music
There must be some sort of introspection bug makings its way through the Valley’s noise-loving musical crowd. How else to explain the near-simultaneous arrival of stripped-down solo efforts by two musicians known for their habitual ear-splitting? First up was...
by Matthew Dube | May 7, 2010 | Music
There’s a video on Horsebladder’s Myspace page that could be a vignette spliced straight from a David Lynch film. In the clip, Northamptonite Elaine Kahn—the one-woman tour de force that is Horsebladder—enters stage left, barefoot and dressed...
by Matthew Dube | May 7, 2010 | Music
Robert Robinson started the band sore eros a decade ago in Enfield, Connecticut, as an outlet for his lo-fi Tascam four-track home recordings. “I never really knew what I was doing, how to write songs, and I barely knew how to sing or play guitar,” says...
by Matthew Dube | May 13, 2010 | Music
Like the old Baystate Hotel music venue—eventually reborn as Sierra Grille—Northampton’s Auto Climax Control shut it down for awhile. “ACC played at the original Baystate,” says guitarist and singer Chris Croteau. “The band had a...
by Tom Sturm | May 13, 2010 | Music
The phenomenon of punk rock, like most things of real intrinsic value, became heard not through the mainstream megaphone, but from a seemingly inevitable accumulation of street-level whispers, hand-drawn flyers and self-released vinyl albums. In many ways, such DIY...
by Advocate Staff | May 13, 2010 | Music
Iggy and the StoogesRaw Power: Legacy Edition(Columbia/Legacy) Welcome to the third version of Raw Power. Initially released in a notoriously rushed and reedy mix by David Bowie, this proto-punk touchstone was later remixed by Iggy Pop in a more muscular and nuanced...
by Mark Roessler | May 13, 2010 | Music
We got there a bit late, and Treefort was already playing. Ever since my wife brought their album home a couple years ago, Girls Allowed has been in constant rotation on our stereo, and the songs have entered the lexicon of lyrics we spontaneously recite. Jackie and...
by Gary Carra | May 13, 2010 | Music
Nestled along the river on the lower road through Holyoke, the Summit View Banquet and Meeting House long ago established itself for serving up both scrumptious savories and breathtaking sights. Now, for the fourth season in a row, owner Michael R. Hamel has decided...
by Gary Carra | May 13, 2010 | Music
They’ve got barbecue, an “open fiddle” contest and some of the best bluegrass performers the region has to offer, including Seven Mile Line and Jen Hamel. And if that’s not enough to separate this May 7 event from the field, Gail Paddock has...
by James Heflin | May 14, 2010 | Music
News of Osama bin Laden’s death had barely sunk in before I got an email about someone’s “new single” about said demise. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but this gentleman’s new single was—the video got posted May 2, the...
by Matthew Dube | May 14, 2010 | Music
For Amherst band The Warblers, the third time’s a charm. The quartet—Leo Hwang-Carlos on lead guitar and vocals, Suzanne LoManto on bass, Bruce Todd on drums and Migel on guitar and vocals—is in its third and, according to Hwang-Carlos, best...
by Gary Carra | May 14, 2010 | Music
Even the guys in Pallet would admit that practice never made them perfect per se. But in their nearly two decades of peddling their patented amalgam of quirky pop and punk, they always sounded tight, made new fans nightly and certainly had fun. According to founding...
by Mark Roessler | May 14, 2010 | Music
After the Treefort show, I met Paul Hansbury and we agreed to correspond later. He now lives and works in Canton, Mass. Calling him during his lunch break at work later that week, I learned how in 1995 in the basement of the Hotel Northampton, where they both worked,...
by Matthew Dube | May 20, 2010 | Music
“My dream bill would require a time machine and several venues,” says longtime Valley rocker Mike Dumont, aka Dr. Liv Damage, when asked who he’d most like to share a stage with. “Iggy and the Stooges with James Williamson live in Detroit,...
by Advocate Staff | May 20, 2010 | Music
Joanna NewsomHave One On Me(Drag City) Joanna Newsom’s ambitious new three-disc opus is so lyrically dense, intricately textured, and dizzyingly varied that any current review is bound to be somewhat premature. Have One On Me finds a middle ground between the...
by Matthew Dube | May 20, 2010 | Music
“It is a tradition old as man that out of pain comes a bitter wisdom and the gentleness of right living.” —From The Madness of Man, by Alice Brown John Petkovic was in a bad way. After losing his mother to a horrific battle with cancer, he was...
by James Heflin | May 20, 2010 | Music
I’ve heard some very fine oxymorons: honest politician, paid volunteer, El Camino Classic. But few can equal “Vermont hip-hop.” Perhaps it’s simply that maple-drenched rural life punctuated by blizzards doesn’t really tend to appear often...
by Advocate Staff | May 20, 2010 | Music
Brian Eno with John Hopkins & Leo AbrahamsSmall Craft on a Milk Sea(Warp) Brian Eno’s last few solo efforts have been met with indifference, but the ambient godfather’s first release for Warp has tongues wagging. The hook is that Eno has come full...
by James Heflin | May 21, 2010 | Music
I first met Aric Bieganek a couple of years ago, when he was a friend of a friend at a dinner party. He was friendly, a touch wry, and apparently a kids’ musician of some stripe, leader of the group Royal Order of Chords and Keys (R.O.C.K.). Of course, being a...
by Advocate Staff | May 21, 2010 | Music
Lux DeluxeHollow Ground(Spirithouse Music) At the risk of sounding like a patronizing relic, I’ll say that you wouldn’t think that “Generation Z” could produce something as organic-sounding as this album. Though their Americana-laced roots rock...
by Matthew Dube | May 21, 2010 | Music
Limbs Bin, Josh Landes’ one-man noisecore maelstrom, has altered Landes’ life in several ways, including physically. His spasmodic, frenetic sonic explosions feature some of the loudest and harshest screams performed live or committed to tape, a practice...
by Gary Carra | May 21, 2010 | Music
Back in the day, he literally had a spinning drumkit that would extend above the crowd and rotate as he jammed. Nowadays, rocker/TV personality Tommy Lee is equally likely to be found spinning records as he is pounding skins with his Motley Crue. “I started...
by Gary Carra | May 27, 2010 | Music
As less than subtly implied by its title, West Side’s Taste of The Valley was created to showcase West Springfield in all its culinary splendor. And, while the current incarnation of the annual event is certainly in keeping with that mission statement, Stella...
by Matthew Dube | May 27, 2010 | Music
Valley band Oweihops—singer/songwriter and guitarist Michael Metivier, drummer and multi-instrumentalist Aric Bieganek and cellist Rebekah Dutkiewicz—know how to set a mood. Inspired by the likes of Neil Young, Will Oldham, and hometown heroes The Scud...
