Basemental: Umbral Made Real
How a fictional psychdrone collective from Berlin took form in Greenfield In 2015, a real writer and real College of the Atlantic professor named Daniel Mahoney published a real book called Sunblind...
View ArticleBasemental: From Northampton to Nashville
On the road with The Sun Parade From the streets of Nashville I called Lynne Bertrand, who manages the Northampton band The Sun Parade. There was a problem. I had stopped by the venue earlier and...
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Basemental: Bella’s Wild Rose Reviewed
Editor’s note: Bella Ortia-Wren uses they/their pronouns. Bella Ortia-Wren, who goes by just “Bella” on stage, plays a blue Fender Mustang, a small-bodied guitar with single coil pickups, that sounds...
View ArticleBasemental: You Know Amber Wolfe Now See Her Arresting Video for ‘No Thorn’
You may know Amber Wolfe. She fronted the “speakeasy, post-apocalyptic band,” O You Villain, books shows at Amherst Coffee, and is a veteran of the Institute for Musical Arts, where she found “some of...
View Article‘Ask a Punk’ Documentary on Western Mass DIY gives glimpse into growing music...
Amherst College junior Brian Zayatz’s new documentary, Ask a Punk, opens on a dark basement. You can’t see much other than some hazy Christmas lights in the frame. Some very involved yet calming music...
View ArticleBasemental: Dump Him’s New Record Is Really Freaking Good
Editor’s note: Jaclyn Walsh uses they/them pronouns. Valley musician, student, and DIY booker Jaclyn Walsh wants you to dump your boyfriend so much that they named their band Dump Him. On the surface...
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Basemental: The Leafies are a Guerilla Band
Some might describe The Leafies You Gave Me as a “band,” but that would be an understatement. At least in the musical sense. Yes, they are musicians. And yes, they make music. But they are a band more...
View ArticleTundrastomper Are Good Musical Neighbors in Western Mass
Tundrastomper, an explosive, chaotic, and notey rock band, formed about 10 years ago when Skyler Lloyd, Sam Brivic, Andrew Jones, and Max Goldstein were teenagers — about 13 years old each. They grew...
View ArticleBasemental: Young Musicians Deserve Pay, Too
I’ve played in about a half dozen bands over the past seven years here in the Valley. I’ve played on the steps of my beloved Goodwin Memorial Library in Hadley (for free) and I’ve played The Calvin...
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Basemental: Nanny’s “Nowhere” Is Vulnerable Grunge Rock Not To Be Missed
I first caught Nanny at the 13th Floor in Northampton this past March; one of my bands was sharing a bill with them. Earlier this summer, I saw them again and had that feeling I was starting to grasp...
View ArticleBasemental: Nanny’s ‘Nowhere’ Reviewed
I first caught Nanny at the 13th Floor in Northampton this past March; one of my bands was sharing a bill with them. Earlier this summer, I saw them again and had that feeling I was starting to grasp...
View ArticleBasemental: DIY All-Stars: Experimental Audio Damage & Research Control Groop
I kept hearing that Ian (Thee Arcadians) and Androo (ex-Spirit Ghost, Nancy Drool) would disappear into different basements and jam on one chord for hours at a time. The roommates tolerated it (within...
View ArticleBasemental: The Ups and Downs of Touring
I used to think touring was excessive, stupid, and generally felt existentially conflicted about it. Why should I leave the house and use fossil fuels to do anything that’s trivial? Why should we...
View ArticleBasemental: Water Your Waiting For
Last Monday, I reluctantly went to a house show in Hadley. I was going ’cause my friends were going — probably, but I was also vaguely interested in seeing some band from Minnesota that was supposed to...
View ArticleBasemental: Smartyr Packs Political Punches in its Short Punky Songs
Stretched between Brattleboro and Northampton, a new band, Smartyr, has come on the scene. I kept running into Chad, the main singer, at shows starting last summer. He had left behind his New Haven,...
View ArticleBasemental: New Tricks from the (not so) Young Tricksters
The Young Tricksters have returned. After what felt like forever, the Amherst quartet have broken their quiet to give the people what they want: a full-length album. After releasing a couple...
View ArticleBasemental: Landowner’s Edgy Riff on the ‘American Dream’
When I heard there was a local band called Landowner, I thought: “Surely, they’re joking. This is satirical, right?” But punk is weird these days — everyone is on Facebook hoping companies will sponsor...
View ArticleBasemental: A Wikipedia Rant by Will
Last week my colleague Jennifer Levesque reported on musician and rock documentarian Tanya Pearson’s efforts to challenge Wikipedia edits. While trying to revise entries on the free encyclopedia,...
View ArticleBasemental: Hush is culmination of Kindling’s hard work
The joke about Eastampton shoegazers Kindling is that if they play a house show, some uptight neighbor might call the cops. There’s a reason for this: Kindling is very loud. Too loud for poorly...
View ArticleBasemental: All I Want For Christmas is Lowered Expectations
I am the Grinch. People who know me know this — my mom better than anyone. I scoff at Christmas songs and “holiday cheer,” wanting nothing to do with a holiday that is closely aligned with capitalism,...
View ArticleBasemental: Love Sung EP is Calm, Tender, and Soothing
Listening to Northampton-based Izy Coffey’s new EP, Love Sung, feels like a warm sweater — one you were wearing when you were broken and then put back together again, and its thread the commonality...
View ArticleBasemental: Songs about Surveillance
The fight to prevent additional police operated surveillance cameras in downtown Northampton has dragged on since September — over four months, two calendar years, and even through a municipal...
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Basemental: A country album for the 21st Century
Elliot Hartmann-Russell, a local musician who has quite a big appetite for releasing lots of albums under different aliases and bands—including Sweat Enzo, Thee Arcadians, and Full Grown Cats—and Caleb...
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Basemental: The World According to Moggie
On January 20th, 2017, I attended (and also played) an anti-inauguration “bash” at the Flywheel in Eastampton. Everyone was reeling and processing — the whole day was harrowing and bleak. That night,...
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Basemental: Tundrastomper Cleans It Up
Before writing this column, I stopped by Tundrastomper’s band house near the border of Easthampton and Southampton. Bassist Andrew Jones was getting surgical with a vacuum in the suburban home’s...
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Basemental: What happens ‘After the Gig’
What happens after the gig is over, the room is reset, and everyone goes home? This is the prompt being posed by a new collective that is organizing a festival later this month by the name, well, After...
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Basemental: Attention to detail sets new Taxidermists’ record ‘Tax’ apart
Tucked away in an old house in Hadley live two musicians named Sal and Cooper, who collectively make up the rock duo The Taxidermists. The band has nurtured something of a cult following from DIY...
View ArticleBasemental: 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...
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Basemental: Wendy Eisenberg just wants to be a good person and make very...
Wendy Eisenberg has made a name for herself in the amalgamated DIY, jazz, and improvisation scenes in New England and beyond. Coming via Rochester and then Boston, Eisenberg now lives in Amherst. Wendy...
View ArticleBasemental: Body/Head’s album could be a soundtrack for the end of the world...
The experimental guitar duo Body / Head — Kim Gordon and Bill Nace — released their second studio album, The Switch, earlier this month on Matador. The band’s 2013 debut, Coming Apart, skewed closer to...
View ArticleBasemental: The swampy grunge anthems of Owen Manure
Western Massachusetts is known for its rich lineage of foundational bands that have defined underground music from different eras. Of course Dinosaur Jr. comes to mind, not to mention Pixies. While the...
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Basemental: Pussyvision Debuts Self-Release, Replicate
Two years ago when I wrote a profile about Finley Janes’ project Pussyvision, the project was just getting started. A year prior, Janes wasn’t making music—yet. Pussyvision had yet to go on multiple...
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Basemental: Landowner’s new release, Blatant, skewers consumerism
Self described “weak hardcore” band Landowner leaves few stones unturned in skewering today’s tattered state of affairs on their August album Blatant. Everything from consumerism and television to...
View ArticleBasemental: Why do we like live music anyway?
There are two reasons I like music. The first is that euphoric feeling you get when you see an amazing band (especially for the first time); the second is I like musicians and their stories. I enjoy...
View ArticleBasemental: Mal Devisa’s prolific November releases – everything from punk to...
November brought with it not one, not two, but three Mal Devisa releases. First, on November 9th, came a full-length titled Shade and the Little Creature and a complementary EP called Mystery Tsrain,...
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Basemental: Hampshire Mall Punx
Earlier this month, the inconceivable happened. I got word that my friends were playing a punk show in the Hampshire Mall, in the sports bar arm of “PINZ”— a combination boutique bowling alley, arcade,...
View ArticleBasemental: Mibble Q&A – Hadley’s Mike Parham’s solo project, Mibble
Hadley’s Mike Parham, whose solo moniker is Mibble, recently released a new album, “Welcome the Earth Dog.” Parham’s superb home recordings sound like miniature musical collages, complete with sound...
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Basemental: Jesus Vio brings his ‘Dutch Science’ to the Pioneer Valley
Free Pizza was a punk band founded in 2009 and based in Boston. If the name isn’t too much of a giveaway, the ethos of the band was playful and goofy. The heavy-hitting upbeat rowdiness was accessible,...
View ArticleBasemental: Some Armchair Philosophy on Making Music in 2019
One of the more difficult things about making music is the shape and form of the modern music industry. There are so many reasons why talented bands might develop a loyal and dedicated niche audience...
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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...
View ArticleBasemental: 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...
View ArticleBasemental: 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...
View ArticleBasemental: 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...
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Basemental: DIY Dystopia — A tech start-up sees house shows as ‘the next big...
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...
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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...
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Basemental: Thoughts on Fashion and Fascism – Q&A with Deerhoof drummer Greg...
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...
View ArticleBasemental: 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...
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Basemental: P.U.M.K.S. Is Not Dead
Jesus Vio’s new album Dutch Science kicks off with the mother of all questions: “Do You Believe?”: The vamping, minimalist, proto-acoustic track wryly asks “Do you believe in Halloween?” before...
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Basemental: Ruth Garbus sets Earth-loving lyrics to earthy chords
Brattleboro singer-songwriter Ruth Garbus strikes a deep place in the human psyche. Her strange earworm melodies and narrative lyrics have a way of lodging deep. This is especially true for Garbus’s...
View ArticleBasemental Farewell: Was I a Music Critic?
Editor’s note: This is Will Meyer’s last column as the author of Basemental. A music critic is something I’d never thought I’d be. I hardly knew anything about music, I certainly was no authority. I...
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