Newsletter
Cinemadope: Jean Michel Basquiat and David Hockney on the big screen
Movies about painters are tough in the way that movies about musicians are tough: it’s nigh impossible to find an actor or actress for the part that is not only adept in their own chosen field, but also good enough to fake the very real particular talents of those...
Local Calendar: Monday 5/28 – Thursday 5/31
MONDAY 5/28 MUSIC Strange Creek Campout: Camp Kee-Wanee, 1 Health Camp Rd., Greenfield. Baby and Me: 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Free. Wheeler Memorial Library, 49 East Main St., Orange. 978-544-2495. Paradise City Arts Festival: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Live music, 260...
Pick of the Day 5/28: Paradise City Arts Festival
It’s year 24 for the Paradise City Arts Festival, and 250 artists from 20 states are prepared to thrill you with their original works of art and one of kind crafts. Because the Festival is directed by artists, you can be sure the very best in ceramics, painting, art...
Nonprofit art space, Looky Here, to have art thrift shop, lectures, music, and workshops in Greenfield
A nonprofit art space called Looky Here at 28 Chapman St. in Greenfield will feature everything from tarot card readings to instrument building classes as well as a thrift shop for art supplies. Looky Here is slated to have its grand opening on June 24 at 9 a.m....
Free Will Astrology: Summon old school tenacity as seen in Jurassic Park, Taurus
ARIES (March 21-April 19): A critic described Leonardo da Vinci’s painting the Mona Lisa as “the most visited, most written about, most sung about, most parodied work of art in the world.” It hasn’t been sold recently, but is estimated to be...
Letters to the Editor: Sex workers, sanctuary, and Trump’s poor decisions
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find reader comments on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email...
Pick of the Day 5/27: Let the Sunshine In
Zut Alors! If you’re in the mood for a little french with English subtitles, Let the Sunshine In is the film for you! Juliette Binoche plays a divorced Parisian painter searching for love, but she refuses to just settle for any ol’ body. Amherst Cinema...
Pick of the Day 5/26: The Soul Rebels at Mass MoCA
New Orleans brass always sounds good. The phenomenal brand of brass music that originates out of the bayou is personified by the eight-piece powerhouse group The Soul Rebels. The Village Voice says the Soul Rebels are “the missing link between Public Enemy and...
Pick of the Day 5/25: The Crazies
George Romero is the gift that keeps on giving. If you loved Night of the Living Dead, the zombie-rific sci-fi horror classic, then you’ll go bonkers for The Crazies. The Crazies is another social commentary about the hazards of the industrial military complex. A...
Pam Victor is making the Valley happier in a dirty vanilla box
“A dirty vanilla box” is how Pam Victor lovingly describes the new location of Happier Valley Comedy. The 1,300 square foot room at the end of a strip of shops on Route 9, is the culmination of years of comedic toil. “It’s the first ever improv theater and training...
Staff Picks: Bishops Lounge, Open Hearth Cooking Demo, and Fiddlers Green Contra with Luke Donforth
Open Hearth Cooking Demonstration // SATURDAY Mmmm, there’s nothing like home cooked food; but what’s even better is learning how to cook food from scratch an open hearth flame. Explore old cookbooks with Historic Deerfield’s Open Hearth Cooking Demonstration, which...
Pick of the Day 5/24: Pope Francis: a Man of His Word
Granted, religion is one of those polarizing hot buttons, but it behooves us to take a look at one another’s points of view. Check out this doc written and directed by three-time Academy Award® nominee Wim Wenders. Described on Amherst Cinema’s site as...
Local Calendar: Thursday 5/24- Sunday 5/27
THURSDAY 5/24 MUSIC An Evening Peter “Archguitar” Blanchette: 7 p.m. $15 – $45. Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center, 289 Main St., Greenfield. Buddy McEarns Band: 8:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. Whetstone Station Restaurant and Brewery, 36 Bridge St., Brattleboro....
Art Review: Martha Armstrong: A Big Deal in a Little Town
Hatfield resident Martha Armstrong is exhibiting at the Oxbow Gallery in Northampton. Her collection of paintings, Friends and Family, is currently on display in the back gallery of the Pleasant Street venue. The back gallery at Oxbow is very small and intimate,...
Editorial: Remembering Columbine and Santa Fe and everywhere in between
I remember the Columbine shooting like it was yesterday. It was a rainy April afternoon in 1999, very bleak but mild. When I turned on the television, I was hardly prepared for what I saw and what I heard. Two boys had committed what was, at the time, a shocking crime...
Basemental: What Are You Afraid Of? Fred Cracklin’s Looming Spook
Local legend Thurston Moore — Sonic Youth, Chelsea Light Moving, one off noise sets all over the Valley — had a cameo in an adult talk show called Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Moore played a character called Fred Cracklin in a 1996 episode of the Cartoon Network show...
Cummington resident Jasper Gardner awarded Valley Advocate scholarship for Juniper Summer Writing Institute
Jasper Gardner, a 35-year-old Cummington resident who has worked as a farmer and carpenter in the Pioneer Valley, was recently awarded the 2018 Valley Advocate scholarship to the Juniper Summer Writing Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for his...
Pick of the Day 5/23: Mantis Toboggan
Welcome to Hump Day! You might know Mantis Toboggan as a Dr. with … uh … let’s say dubious credentials: Danny DeVito’s hysterical and obscene Dr. Mantis Toboggan on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is sheer madness. But local Valley...
VIDEO: Gabe’s Band on Valley Advocate Sessions Friday
Check out a teaser for anarchistic local rockers, Gabe’s Band. The group’s complete Valley Advocate Sessions video will be released this Friday.
Connecting with Coal Country: What I learned visiting Kentucky with Hands Across the Hills
“It’s like you’re going to a foreign country… Do you need a passport?” Letha Dollarhyde of Letcher County, Kentucky, said this — partly in jest, partly not — about coming to Leverett, Massachusetts, when she visited here last fall. Our Hands Across the Hills project...
Pick of the Day 5/22: Scott Guberman Band
Keyboardist Scott Guberman’s band is in town tonight at Hawks and Reed in Greenfield. He’s kind of the psychedelic cousin of the Grateful Dead; known for his work with the Dead’s bassist Phil Lesh and keyboardists Tom Constanten and Vince Welnick....
Bizarro Briefs: Guns aren’t fool proof, or dog proof
Guns aren’t fool proof, or dog proof Everyone knows that dogs are goofballs. They eat things they shouldn’t. They dig up things they shouldn’t. And sometimes they shoot things they shouldn’t. One man in Iowa found out the hard way that the safety on his gun...
Cinemadope: The deadly ‘crime’ of being black
Last month, the story of Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson lit up social media feeds everywhere. Two young black men, they were waiting quietly for a friend at a Philadelphia Starbucks when one of them asked to use the restroom. After an employee refused — they hadn’t...
‘Big-hearted’ Problem with Dragons bassist Joe Magrone dies at 38
Known as a big-hearted guy, a talented musician, and, sometimes, a gruff-but-lovable curmudgeon, Joe Magrone, bassist for Problem with Dragons, died on May 18 at the age of 38, two weeks shy of his 39th birthday. Dave Fournier first met Magrone in 1985, when he went...
Podcast: Making a connection with coal-country Kentucky
Sharon Dunn and John Clayton are members of the Hands Across the Hills project, an initiative to connect the people of Leverett, where about 90 percent voted for Hillary Clinton, with those of Letcher County, Kentucky, where 80 percent voted for Trump. Clayton wrote...
Local Calendar: Monday 5/21-Thursday 5/24
MONDAY 5/21 MUSIC AMHERST JAZZ ORCHESTRA: 7:30 p.m. – 10 p.m. With vocalist Ethel Lee. No cover, free parking and great food. Union Station Grand Ballroom, 125A Pleasant St., Northampton. 413 253 1607. STAGE/FILM/DANCE We Made a Thing: A Tiny Audience Show: 9...
V-Spot: Am I Getting Ghosted?
Dear Yana, Lately I’ve been in what I can best describe as a situationship; I want more and know that I have a lot to offer, but he semi-recently got out of a relationship in which his ex hurt him and he’s now scared and doesn’t want anything like that. We used to...
Free Will Astrology: Tell the world you’re made of gold, Virgo
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The Aries poet Anna Kamienska described the process of writing as akin to “the backbreaking work of hacking a footpath, as in a coal mine; in total darkness, beneath the earth.” Whether or not you’re a writer, I’m guessing that your life...
Pick of the Day 5/21: Guys and Dolls at the Majestic
Our illustrious stage connoisseur Chris Rohmann, has recommended a pick of the day, Guys and Dolls at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield. I like all the help I can get, so take it away, Chris: “Guys and Dolls, the “musical fable of Broadway,” is playing...
National Marijuana Company GTI First to Open Medical Dispensary in Amherst
The big scissors were out in Amherst this week as the CEO of the national company Green Thumb Industries (GTI) cut the ribbon in front of the town’s first medical marijuana dispensary, called RISE Amherst. Despite being based in Chicago, Pete Kadens, director and CEO...
Pick of the Day 5/19: All Rachmaninoff Season Finale
Here I am borrowing again, but why ignore a perfectly good staff pick made by my buddy and co-worker Chris Goudreau? Maestro Kevin Rhodes conducts The Springfield Symphony Orchestra’s 2017-2018 season finale All-Rachmaninoff. The evening features award winning...
Pollinate Ecstatic Dance celebrates 10 years of community and connections
Aaron Brando, aka DJ Hip Sockit, is intense and direct, but he has a calm about him and his expressions are chosen with care and with purpose. A holistic body-work practitioner by day, he’s also co-founder of Pollinate Ecstatic Dance, “the hub where high...
Pick of the Day 5/20: The Rider
“No more riding, no more rodeos, if you don’t stop, your seizures are gonna get worse.” That’s kind of crux of Brady Jandreau’s delimma. Jandreau was injured in a riding accident curtailing his rising star on the rodeo circuit....
Immigrant taking sanctuary in Amherst church gets treated for ‘life-threatening’ condition at Cooley Dickinson in Northampton
Lucio Pérez, a Guatemalan father of four who has been living in sanctuary at the First Congregational Church in Amherst since October 2017, left the church to be treated at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton for a life-threatening condition, according to a...
Today: Thirsty for Fair Wages mixes activism with milkshakes and margaritas
The Pioneer Valley Workers Center, Jobs with Justice, and RaiseUp Massachusetts will host Thirsty for Fair Wages on Thursday, May 17, from 6 to 8 p.m. at 20 Hampton Ave. #200 in Northampton, with a tagline of “all work and no play can make the fun of activism...
Pick of the Day 5/18: Red Flame
Jayme Timpson Winell performs this one person hour-long interactive dance-play. The play takes a look at the life and times of Winell’s grandmother Anne Burlak Timpson, known to many as the “Red Flame.” “Anne was a passionate organizer for...
Pick of the Day 5/17: Matthew Logan Vasquez
Matthew Logan Vasquez is a bit of a modern Bob Dylan … no really. He’s got similar qualities but his music is meatier and his vocals are better — which isn’t that difficult. Dylan insults aside, Vasquez brings his storytelling and agreeable sound to...
Local Calendar: Thursday 5/17- Sunday 5/20
THURSDAY 5/17 MUSIC CLICK Music Presents: Annie Patterson & Peter Blood: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. Advance Sales $12, Door Sales $15. Join Annie Patterson & Peter Blood in an in evening of music and stories. CLICK Workspace, 9 1/2 Market St., Northampton....
VIDEO: Blame Cadence on Valley Advocate Sessions Friday
Blame Cadence is a one woman chorus of looped soulful a cappella pop. Check out a teaser video of Blame Cadence’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance, which will be released this Friday.
Holyoke-based granola business features blends of local bands
Maple Local Granola, a Holyoke-based granola business that uses locally-sourced ingredients, has released different blends of granola inspired by local bands such as indie pop group, And the Kids, as well as bluesy Amherst-based art rock band Old Flame. Tony...
Peace activists brave weather, demand Israel be held accountable for violence
Despite the violent rain and thunderstorms, about 50 activists, including some from the group Jewish Voice for Peace Western Mass, gathered on May 15th in Northampton to commemorate the exile of Palestinians 70 years ago and to bring attention to the Palestinian...
Pick of the Day 5/16: Rising Appalachia
Two sisters from New Orleans bring the sounds of the Appalachians to Northampton tonight. Multi-instrumentalists Leah and Chloe Smith pick, strum, drum and sing — nothing fancy but appealing all the same. It’s quiet music that expects you to listen to the...
Stagestruck: One Man, in Heels — “I Am My Own Wife” in the Valley
“I think she may be the most singular, eccentric individual the Cold War ever birthed.” So says one of the three dozen characters in I Am My Own Wife. He’s talking about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, née Lothar Berfelde, Berlin’s most famous transvestite. In Doug Wright’s...
A Thrilling ‘Who Dun It’ in the Local Art World
A reader came in with an unusual request earlier this week: she had a piece of art work she bought at an auction in Greenfield nearly a decade ago and wanted to see if we could identify the artist. Arts and Culture Editor Gina Beavers, herself a local artist, looked...
Large scale hydroponic greenhouse Wellspring Harvest to open in Indian Orchard, Springfield
A new state-of-the-art hydroponic nonprofit 15,120-square-foot urban greenhouse called Wellspring Harvest at 121 Pinevale Street in Indian Orchard aims to offer fresh produce at wholesale prices year round. Fred Rose, co-director of Wellspring Cooperative Corporation,...
Pick of the Day 5/15: RBG
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84 and many of us are praying she lives and serves until the age of 150. There’s a new doc out about her life and career and it’s playing at Amherst Cinema. It’s simply titled RBG. RBG explores...
Staff Picks: The Roches, Rachmaninov, and the Brubeck Brothers Quartet
Cajon, Honky-Tonk, and songs by the Roches at Luthier’s Co-op // THURSDAY, MAY 17 If you’re looking for an excuse to get your cowboy boots on, look no further. The Maypops, a honky-tonk and two step band, are hosting an evening of dancing and fun at Luthier’s Co-op...
Monte Belmonte Wines: The wines of Silicon Valley
“Our neighbor in France had a trained donkey and a goat. We noticed the donkey and goat were always together during the evenings. During the day the goat was around but the donkey was gone. He had trained his donkey to do weed control in the vineyard. The donkey was...
Podcast: An adult jump rope team! Jennifer Therkelsen talks about adult fitness and practicing in a bar
Jennifer Therkelsen had never jump roped as a kid, but now is one of the core members of the Pioneer Valley Jump Rope team, an all-adult jump rope team that practices weekly at The Taproom in Hadley. In our weekly podcast collaboration with Amherst Media, Therkelson...
The V-Spot: My Vagina is Ruining My Relationship
Hi Yana! I’ve been with my partner for about a year, and in most ways our relationship is everything I want. We communicate really well, we have a great time together, our sex life is amazing, and I always feel supported by him. The problem is my vagina. For the first...
Cinemadope: Academy of Music hosts history tour, two great films this week
Even in a New England town with a fair bit of history, the Academy of Music in Northampton has roots that run deep. Founded on the vision of philanthropist and Northampton native Edward Lyman, the Academy opened to the public in May of 1891 and quickly became a...
Local Calendar: Monday 5/14 – Thursday 5/17
MONDAY 5/14 MUSIC Jeff Holmes Big Band featuring Dawning Holmes, vocals: 7:30 p.m. – 10 p.m. Jeff Holmes Big Band featuring Dawning Holmes, vocals. perform arrangements and compositions w/some of the best musicians from the region.121 Club at Eastworks, 116...
Pick of the Day 5/14: The Sea and Cake
The Sea and Cake is an indie band formed in the way back — 1992. They’re straight out of Chicago and they’re in Northampton tonight at the Iron Horse. Their sound is light and airy, a friendly flurry of melodies and hooks that are very hard to dislike....
How realistic is single payer in Massachusetts? A state Rep. and an activist to hold discussion at Odyssey Bookshop
The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley will be hosting a discussion between Deborah Levenson from Western Mass Medicare for All and State Rep. John Scibak (D-South Hadley) on May 22 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. about the prospects of creating a single payer health care system...
Northampton councilors chide mayor over lack of transparency in panhandling group
Northampton City Councilors Alisa Klein and Maureen Carney released a joint statement on May 9 that’s critical of Mayor David Narkewicz’s Panhandling Work Group for the lack of representative from panhandlers in the group and a recent online study regarding...
Free Will Astrology: Work on that PBJ recipe, Taurus
ARIES (March 21-April 19): According to my assessment of the astrological omens, your duty right now is to be a brave observer and fair-minded intermediary and honest storyteller. Your people need you to help them do the right thing. They require your influence in...
Pick of the Day 5/13: The Invisibles
Welcome to Sunday. In June 1943, Germany infamously declared Berlin “free of Jews.” There were, however, still 7,000 Jews living in the Nazi capital. These terrorized people were hiding in attics, basements, and warehouses, “protected by courageous Berliners.” Only...
Pick of the Day 5/12: Mudbound at Mass MoCA
Netflix jumped into the Academy Awards this year with Mudbound, a magnificent film set in the Mississippi Delta during the years surrounding World War II. It’s all about southern race relations and that’s the only thing that ain’t pretty in this masterpiece. Lush and...
Down to Earth: A tree over the river
I sit on the twisted root system of a great tree, a shelf of exposed roots thrust out over the Connecticut River at the edge of the Northampton Meadows. I’m perched 15 feet above the olive water. The muddy bluff has been licked and sucked away under the tree by years...E-Edition
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