Music
Cars Go West on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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:
Staff Picks: Munio Makuuch, Elmer’s open mic, From the Woods, Lonesome Brothers
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...
Valley Advocate Sessions Podcast – Lush Honey
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,...
Jake Kulak & The Lowdown on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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...
Staff Picks: The Mary Jane Jones, Toni Morrison film, Millpond Live, and Food Truck Festival
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...
Introducing the Valley Advocate Sessions Podcast – Home Body
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...
Among The Acres on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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:
‘I hope I’m never satisfied’: UMass rapper Chris Focus on finding hip-hop by accident
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...
Quincy on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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:
Valley Show Girl: End of Summer Music Festivals
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...
Perennial on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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:
Kimaya Diggs on the Valley Advocate Sessions stage
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...
Basemental: No need to dig beyond Kurt Vile’s riffs to enjoy
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...
That’s One Small Step for a Band: Bandella, a musical group including astronauts, will play Hawks & Reed on July 27
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,...
Bad Tenants on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
This week’s Valley Advocate Sessions performer is bluesy indie rock and soul pop group Bad Tenants. Interview with Bad Tenants:
They’re Kind Of A Big Deal: A few of the Valley’s homegrown rock stars
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...
Valley Show Girl: The Art Mecca of Hampden County
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...
Hevvi Synthia on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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...
Q&A with Springfield Rapper Championxiii (with audio)
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...
Valley Show Girl: TALOS, Over 10 Years in the Making
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...
Valley music staple F. Alex Johnson says ‘goodbye for now’
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...
Pamela Means on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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:
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Brazilian folk-pop and music in the morning
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...
Basemental: Thoughts on Fashion and Fascism – Q&A with Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier
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...
Lush Honey on the Valley Advocate Sessions stage
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.
Valley Show Girl: A dose of happy pills, I mean tunes, with the Prozacs
“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...
Ch’Chunk! on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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.
Basemental: Q&A with dance-pop musician, drag performer and punk rocker La Neve
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...
Big Sav on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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...
Q&A: Amherst Rapper Big Sav turns pain and probation into music (with audio)
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...
Staff Picks: Drag Brunch, Breastless, Hip Hop and ramen,
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...
Valley Show Girl: Play That Trippy Noise
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...
Jon Carroll & BraveSoul on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
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:
Review: ‘Daydreaming’ at the Elusie Gallery
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...
Basemental: DIY Dystopia — A tech start-up sees house shows as ‘the next big thing’
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...
Lady Jane on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
This week’s Valley Advocate Sessions performer is folk-rock singer-songwriter Lady Jane, who combines melancholic melodies with lyrics that pull on your heart strings. Interview with Lady Jane:
Valley Show Girl: STRONG & Pleasant This Way Comes
Festival season is among us! The Valley is chock full of them all summer long and into fall. There is a new one, however, that has hopes of becoming a bi-annual festival in Downtown Northampton, The STRONG and Pleasant Music Festival. Carla Racine, the woman behind...
Two Lyrical, Soulful Spitters: A Q&A with Springfield hip-hop artists T’Swan and Fabeyon
Rappers T’Swan and Fabeyon are hoping to mold a hip-hop music scene in their hometown of Springfield. Their sound — potent lyrics over soulful boom bap instrumentals — is more comparable to that of New York legends like Fat Joe than more simplistic trap artists...
Wild Bill and the Flying Sparks on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
This week’s Advocate Sessions band is Wild Bill and the Flying Sparks, which combines classic country and roots rock n’ roll with a Cajun groove. Check out the band’s full performance in the video below. Interview with Wild Bill and the Flying...
Basemental: For the Love of Buskers
As the weather warms up and the sun comes out, musicians flock to Main Street, opening their cases to busk. I have lived many downtown Northampton lives — as a busker, in food service, as a journalist for The Shoestring reporting on Northampton politics, to name a...
Jake Klar on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
This week’s Advocate Sessions performer is singer-songwriter Jake Klar, who plays poetic folk and blues that stirs the soul. Check out his performance in the video below.
A Street Fair Named Desire: Valley festivals you can find downtown
It can be hard to remember it based on the cold, rainy weather we’ve had recently, but the middle of May is here. That means being outside, enjoying the flowers, and looking ahead to months more of being out and about before the temperature inevitably drops again and...
Valley Show Girl: Weege & The Wondertwins
Western Mass’s Weege and The Wondertwins turn it to 11 on the jazzometer and when listening to them, they send you to the nearest time machine. You emerge in a time where jazz was all around you and the speakeasy lounges were a dime a dozen. Do I Seem Weird Lately? is...
Fighting Giants on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Fighting Giants is an alt-rock band that combines soaring vocals with intricate songwriting. Check out the band’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Fighting Giants:
Basemental: Music for a World without Jails
Before prisons became the inevitable institutions they are today, believe it or not, they were introduced as a reform; a humane alternative to torture or death. In 1790, English common law condemned those guilty of “petty treason” to the punishment of being burned...
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Weege & the Wondertwins, Old Flame, Sodada, and Bad Bad Hats
Weege & The Wondertwins Album Release Show // FRIDAY, 5/10 Weege & The Wondertwins’ sophomore album “Do I Seem Weird Lately?” is a gem to your ears. It’s strong and sophisticated and one of those albums you can put on to instantly change your mood. On Friday,...
Summer Times in the Pines – this summer’s music lineup at the Pines Theater in Northampton
This summer at the Pines Theater at Look Memorial Park in Northampton is shaping up to an eventful one with half a dozen shows featuring big name acts such as grungey alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. with indie folk-rocker Kurt Vile as well as jam rock acts Moe. and...
Ed Bentley on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Ed Bentley performs open mic-honed folk music with a sweet crooner voice. Check out his Advocate Sessions set in the video below. Interview with Ed Bentley:
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Maniac, Valley Winds Cinco de Mayo, and Motherhood Out Loud
Motherhood Out Loud at STCC // FRIDAY-SATURDAY Stagestruck columnist Chris Rohmann recently wrote about this production and described this play as 14 vignettes that “traverse the full terrain of the mom experience, from the throes of labor to the empty nest.” While...
Valley Show Girl: Lime-Infected by Deer Tick
The last time Deer Tick had a headlining show in the Valley, it was canceled the day of because guitarist/singer John McCauley was too sick to perform. Wahhh! I was set to cover the show so I told myself the next time they had a headlining show here, I was going to...
Home Body on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
This week’s Advocate Sessions band is electro fever-pop, new wave and experimental pop duo Home Body. The duo just released their new record, Spiritus, and will be performing at their release show on Friday, May 3 at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls. Check out...
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Opal Canyon album release, experimental music, and the Radical Interconnectedness Festival
Opal Canyon album release @ The Parlor Room // FRIDAY, 4/26 A little bit country, a little bit psychedelic rock and a lot of heart and soul. Valley supergroup Opal Canyon are releasing their debut album, “Beauty and Loss,” this Friday at The Parlor Room. The group is...
Basemental: Breakfast Party, Rock n’ Roll During the Day
Recently, on a Saturday morning, I was lying in bed trying to muster the will to get up when a man dressed in all black, who seemed vaguely familiar, started poking around — letting himself into my room unannounced — and generally scoping out my personal dwelling...
Q&A: Murder By Death Coming to Holyoke
Louisville, Kentucky’s Murder By Death are bringing their indie Americana rock to us here in Western Mass, and I’m super stoked! Their sound is strong and hearty, dark and transformative. There are hints of Nick Cave, Johnny Cash and Modest Mouse if you needed...
Jennifer Stuart on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
This week’s Valley Advocate Sessions performer is Jennifer Stuart who play talking folk music about love, life, and poetry. Interview with Jennifer Stuart:
The Human Tragedy of ‘Lost Girls’
The artwork of Zitong (Ann) Xu blends myth, magic, and the fantastical together to tell human stories about sorrow for “Lost Girls” at the Barnes Gallery at Leverett Crafts & Arts through the month of April. With lifelike haunting faces of women combined with...
Valley Show Girl: The Valley’s Own Supergroup
A little bit country, a little bit psychedelic rock and a lot of heart and soul. Valley supergroup Opal Canyon debut their album Beauty and Loss this month. Valley veteran musicians Debra DeMuth, Dave Houghton, Ray Mason, Bob Hennessy, and Jason Smith joined forces to...
Dave Dersham on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Dave Dersham is a wordsmith who performs ambient folk and Americana songs. Check out his music on this week’s Advocate Sessions video. Interview with Dave Dersham:
Basemental: The Flywheel is an Idea Worth Celebrating
The Flywheel celebrates its 20th birthday this month. In 1999, the Flywheel launched in a former cabinet shop in Easthampton — hosting shows and rousing rabble. The thought that the all-volunteer collective show space would enter a second decade, let alone a third,...E-Edition
Best Of 2024
Readers Choice 2024
