By ALAN J. KEAYS
HERALD STAFF
Rick Redington recalls growing up in Rutland and sneaking around an empty and rundown Center Street building with his friends.
“It was an abandoned place that we used to hide behind and drink beer,” Redington said Wednesday.
Now, he is one of the featured performers taking part in a concert on the stage of that same building that has since become a cornerstone of arts and culture in the city.
The historic Paramount Theatre, after being closed for nearly two decades, was restored and reopened in 2000, thanks to a lot of community support.
Paramount leaders are hoping to tap into that community support again to raise some funds through a benefit concert for the theater Monday night.
“Really it’s about everybody getting together to show their love for the Paramount,” Redington said.
Redington, 45, who makes his living touring and playing his music, said Wednesday he is excited about having a chance to take part and help out his hometown and a theater celebrating its 96th birthday this month, first opening its doors in 1914.
Redington has performed several times at the restored Paramount, including three album release events. However, it’s been a couple of years since he last took the theater’s stage.
On Monday night, Redington will be one of more than 40 musicians from around the region banding to put on the show.
“This isn’t a typical concert,” Eric Mallette, the theater’s assistant director, said Wednesday. “All the artists have donated their time.”
“Not only are the artists on stage supporting the theater, but those that attend will also be supporting the Paramount,” Mallette said. “Every dollar they give will be going right to the Paramount.”
The Marble City Swing Band, playing music from the Big Band era to more contemporary tunes, will open the show. Redington and his rock band The Luv will then take the stage followed by the soulful sounds of Sandra Wright and It’s a Beautiful Thing.
Spectators are encouraged to make sure they don’t head out early.
“There’s a nice surprise planned for the finale,” Redington said.
In the meantime, he said, he’ll be out and about around the community spreading the word about the show.
“All week we’ve been walking around handing out fliers, shaking hands with people and asking them to come,” he said. “We’ve gotten amazing support.”
And when asked what people can do to help out, Redington offers a simple response.
“You can support this by helping us fill the seats,” he tells them.
Showtime is 7 p.m. Monday. Tickets are $15 and are for sale at www.paramountvt.org.
For more information, visit the 30 Center St. box office from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, or call 775-0903.
alan.keays@rutlandherald.com

By George Nostrand

Press releases can make my job really easy. So, I’ll kick off this week with a quote from a press release from the Paramount “Rick Redington & The Luv will join Sandra Wright and It’s a Beautiful Thing with special guests The Marble City Swing Band … for an historic evening. This project was the brain child of (a) third generation Rutlander, and Paramount Board member, John Sabataso who in addition to owning and operating The Palms on Strongs Ave. (75 years and counting) founded the Marble City Swing Band in 1979.”
On Monday at 7 p.m. the curtains will rise on this big local extravaganza, featuring more than 30 musicians from the area.
Here I quote the man himself, Rick Redington, “Many of us from my generation saw and waited and even complained about how little there was to do here growing up … and how we had to drive to the bigger cities to see our favorite acts. We have no right to complain anymore and should all be very thankful for the diversity and quality of talent both national and local at our theater here in Rutland. Have you been there? Shame on you if not!”
Well, Amen to that. The Paramount has done a fabulous job of late, and having them featuring not just one act, but a dynamic combination of three, is commendable. Come out and show your support! The show will open with Marble City Swing Band at 7 p.m. Rick Redington & The Luv will follow and close the first half of the show.
Sandra Wright and It’s a Beautiful Thing will close the night. Both bands will be some orchestral support.
Tickets are only $15
and you can get them by calling the Box Office at 775-0903 or at www.paramountlive.org.
If you happen to be in Bennington on Friday, Bogo Guppy will be at JC’s Tavern at 10 p.m. It’s the first time they have toured southern Vermont, so they are hoping for a little love of their own. How can you not love these guys, by the way? Arguably Rutland’s 2009 best new band, they have so much fun playing it’s contagious. They’re like the junior high trouble makers who never grew up, and God bless them for it!
The Church of the Wildwood on Holden Road in Chittenden kicks of 2010 with its monthly Open Mic Night at 7 pm. Friday. Brave the weather and check out the music and refreshments.
Rogue Eyebrow will be at the Killarney, at the base of Okemo in Ludlow on Friday night. This extra talented trio is not to be missed. The Killarney is also a fabulous place to catch some live, local music with great food and plenty of beers on tap. I hear they also have an open mic every Monday, and that the host is both dashing and talented.
Also Friday, George’s Back Pocket will be at Center Street Saloon and welcoming bassist Ben Butterworth to the stage. Where they will put him, I don’t know, but it should be fun to see. This will make the trio an official five-piece and should make for an interesting evening. The show starts at 10 p.m.
… and by George, keep supporting live, local music.
George Nostrand is kind of like the “eye on the sky” for local music here in Rutland, keeping you in the know, not on snow, but on who, what, and where the music is.
Give me some Spin! What’s going on with your band, your venue, or your cousin’s uncle’s brother’s band? If it’s musical and it’s happening in the Rutland area I want to hear about it. Send me an e-mail at: localspin@gmail.com. The deadline for the coming week is Tuesday at noon.

By Dom Cioffi

Almost everyone loves a good mystery. And why not? Watching a character hunt for clues while deriving meaning from miniscule evidence is not only intriguing, but also a great test of our own intellect.
Whether it’s film, television or books, immersing yourself in a classic whodunit is a particularly enjoyable way to pass the time.
But the real reason we love mystery stories is because of the immense satisfaction we get when we solve a caper. Go ahead and admit it: There have been times when you solved a mystery before the end of a movie and then snickered with delight as you looked around at the other patrons’ puzzled faces.
These days it’s nearly impossible to turn on your television without running into a detective story. “Monk” just finished an impressive run while “Law & Order” and “CSI” continue to be ratings monsters. Travel back a few years and you’ll find a multitude of other classics like “Dragnet,” “Rockford Files,” “Columbo” and “Quincy M.E.,” just to name a few.
Hollywood can’t help themselves either. Seriously, where would we be without “Vertigo,” “Chinatown” and “L.A. Confidential”?
But as the true mystery connoisseur knows, the coup de grâce of detective stories involves the addition of the “buddy” element.
Yes, I’m talking about classics like “48 Hours,” “Lethal Weapon” and “Rush Hour.”
Having one character searching for clues is fine, but add another (particularly one who is a complete opposite) and then throw in a funny line or two and you’ve got a sure-fire moneymaker.
Well, this week we have a new addition to the detective buddy canon with the release of “Sherlock Holmes.” Starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson, this Victorian-era crime- solving duo has been stylized to meet the viewing needs of a modern audience.
While both characters maintain the personalities that writer Arthur Conan Doyle originally bestowed, the new incarnations have the added bonus of being somewhat quick on their feet. In other words, they kick serious butt.

It’s true (and a bit of a sad reflection on modern society), but Holmes and Watson not only are top-rate sleuths, but they would also give Jackie Chan a run for his money. (Imagine “Fight Club” meets “Hawaii Five-0.”)
In their first adventure (because it’s obvious there will be more in this era of franchises) the duo are out to foil an apparent serial killer whose ties to black magic make him an especially difficult figure to capture.
Credit must be given to the art direction in this film. The stunning views of Victorian England are truly amazing. And the miniscule elements, from the clothing to the streetscapes to the dusty statuettes on the bookshelf, reveal an attention to detail that speaks to a carefully crafted film.
But here’s my biggest problem with “Sherlock Holmes”: I can’t fully respect a film that weaves a mysterious plot and then wraps everything up with a conclusion that the viewer could have never foreseen.
For example, imagine a story where a character is killed while staying at a hotel with five guests. For the entire movie you’re trying to figure out who committed the heinous act only to discover that it was an invisible alien from an unknown planet. You’d feel cheated, right? That’s exactly how “Sherlock Holmes” made me feel.
While there were no invisible aliens in “Sherlock Holmes,” there was a convoluted conclusion that no viewer could have predicted. It felt cheap and ultimately derailed a film that was otherwise very well made and acted.
I will give director Guy Ritchie credit for his creative vision of Holmes and Watson. Modern audiences demand action with their intrigue and he definitely delivered. I just wish more attention was given to the story.
If you’re in the mood for some action-packed fighting wrapped in a whale of a tale, then I encourage you to give this one a try. While it will definitely keep your eyes busy, it unfortunately won’t give your brain much of a workout. An elementary “C+” for “Sherlock Holmes.”
Got a question or comment for Dom? You can e-mail him at moviediary@comcast.net.

By Clara Rose Thornton

As a writer, there are often situations where one cannot latch immediately onto inspiration, and sleeping on the kitchen floor is necessary.
The kitchen floor is hard, uncomfortable, and with a mere pillow and blanket it is almost impossible to sleep continuously for hours on it. It’s fit more for those happy delusions called “power naps.” So, say there is work to do — extraction of a certain essence — yet the brain is weary, it cannot soldier on much further into the world of logical coherence. The bed would offer the sleep of a baby, but the hardwood slats near the refrigerator would offer the sleep of a morning paycheck.
These are the things that Hollywood doesn’t tell you.
I found myself in this situation recently, face down on a circular brown shag rug near midnight. There is a train station situated very close to my abode — directly across a narrow canal, in fact — and I hear the ghostly rumble of train whistles throughout the days and nights. On this particular night, as a long freighter ripped from the tunnel near my building, a rumble of such force rippled through my apartment’s skeleton that I felt it in my stomach.
I awoke with a start. The sound seemed to be coursing through my very abdomen, carpet-pill-collector that it was at the moment, and heading straight toward my brain. I was surprised, and a bit angry. In the groggy condition of fatigue mingling with a gesticulating subconscious, I thought of how completely improper it was for these whistles to be so loud, for buildings to be constructed so close to rails, and for the walls and flooring of my apartment to be in such the rickety state that I was violently jostled from my proposed two hours of sleep after a paltry 45 minutes.
I planned sharply worded letters — one to the Association of American Railroads and one to my landlord.
I wanted blood.
As I lay there for a few seconds, the sound receded. The freighter had in no way passed and the whistle blew still, but my state of mind, my perception, had changed. I was no longer in the mindset of an outsider, having been embroiled in a dream of a scene from my urban past, where locomotive whistles sounding for miles through mountains passes are not par for the course. I fluttered back to reality; the familiar train sound that I often adore was not so loud, after all. In fact, its essence was inspiring.
This got me thinking of the concept of perspective. Where we come from helps to shape the way we perceive and react to things. For example, the same outlook on a rural landscape and its particulars may not be had by someone from New York City as someone from Colby, Kan. Perspective awards humanity its multicolored glow, even if it also, at times, nurtures its clash. It fosters understanding, after a deft navigation of the initial roadblocks it sets up between people and places.
With this realization, I dashed my blanket to the ground, and after easing the sore spot on my head where the refrigerator so apathetically bumped it upon my rise, ran to my computer with the feverish grin of a canine. The kitchen floor had come through again.
This Saturday, an extraordinary event gives spectators the pleasure of perspective. At Village Square Booksellers on Main Street in Bellows Falls, 1 p.m., three acclaimed regional poets will read their work: Dolapo (Dola) Adeniji-Neill, hailing from Nigeria and currently residing in Saxtons River; Jeanne Clark of Wolfeboro, N.H., a direct descendant of Thomas Clark, who arrived in the New World on the ship Anne at Plymouth, Cape Cod, in 1623; and Dorothy B. Anderson, raised in China by refugees from Nazi Germany and now living in Walpole, N.H.
Adeniji-Neill will read from her new collection, “Shamelessly Beautiful Morning.” Adeniji-Neill made a long journey from the Nigeria of her youth to the global traipse through academia that now defines her legacy for many fans.
She holds a Ph.D in curriculum and instruction from the University of Hawaii-Manoa, an M.A. in anthropology and sociology from the American University in Cairo and an M.A. in liberal studies from Dartmouth College.
She is an assistant professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., and has published two books previously: “The Yoruba Oral Culture as Indigenous Education: Praise Poetry, Folktales and Folklore” (2009), and “Parental Expectations in Education: A Case Study of Nigerian Immigrant Parents to the United States (2008).” “Shamelessly Beautiful Morning” is her first book of poems.
Adeniji-Neill’s poetry reflects a piercing, yet languid, sensitivity to the world around her; an inherent zest for life and for relating intermingles with anguish over social injustice. Her poetry’s subjects span ancient tradition, world wars, the atom bomb, America’s “ground zero,” family, identity and femininity.
With her range of cosmopolitan influences and diverse sociocultural make-up, Adeniji-Neill’s take on the world of small-town, pastoral Vermont — statistically the second least ethnically diverse state in the union — would be particularly interesting.
Jeanne Clark has written a book-length epic poem, “Story of Ellacoya,” inspired by the legend of an Abenaki woman whose father, Ahanton, is said to have called Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire the “Smile of the Great Spirit” after the storms on her wedding day cleared.
Clark holds a deep interest in Native American legend, particularly that of the Abenaki culture indigenous to New England. With a family culture that is deeply rooted to the area, she’s spent a life rendering the land she loves into verse.
Clark’s work has been published in Yankee magazine, Contemporary New England Poetry: A Sampler, VOL II (The Texas Review), and The Northern New England Review, among other journals. She is also the 2009 recipient of the New Hampshire Senior Poet Laureate award.
The final poet to read will be Dorothy B. Anderson, a retired family therapist, who has lived in Walpole, N.H., for 20 years. Anderson came to this country from China in 1948 with her German refugee parents. She’s published two books: a chapbook titled “By The Yangtse” and a full-length, “Light Entering My Bones” (2006).
With a broad outlook and somber, somewhat existentialist range of subject matter, her work has appeared among the diverse roster of Dine, Edison Literary Review, Comstock and Wooster Review. Nursing an interest in Robert Frost, she is currently working on a history of The Frost Place, a nonprofit educational center for poetry and the arts based at Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, N.H.
It is chilling to think what may be conjured by the advent of these three women juxtaposing their perspectives, the accumulation of their wildly diverse life experiences, on Saturday.
The one-hour reading is followed by a two-hour open mic, so bring your own words and perspectives. Be prepared to engage with these women creatively, as we all simultaneously create this dream. And don’t be bothered by that train whistle in the background.
Clara Rose Thornton is a freelance cultural critic and arts journalist originally hailing from Chicago who now lives in an artists’ colony in Bellows Falls. She can be reached at clara@inkblotcomplex.com, or through her Web site, clararosethornton.com.

Published: November 20, 2009

WATERBURY – Imagine an unlikely marriage of a dignified and seemingly somber Latin Mass with somebody like tenor jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins playing free-wheeling riffs at the breaks. It sounds impossible but perhaps plausible only in the minds of fans who have attended the last several concerts of the Mad River Chorale. Fifty singers have been rehearsing a challenging but rewarding vocal composition, “Missa in Jazz,” every Monday night since August in a basement room of the Sugarbush Conference Center off German Flats Road. The concert will be presented tonight at 7:30 p.m. in St. Andrew’s Church in Waterbury and on Sunday, Nov. 22, at 4 p.m. in the Warren School auditorium. The instrumental accompaniment includes Michael Zsoldos on saxophone, Mary Jane Austin on organ, and Dov Schiller, percussion.

Tickets are $15, $12 for students (under 12 free); for reservations, call (802) 496-4781.

Published: November 20, 2009

MONTPELIER – Pianist Ian Altman, a virtuoso in the “grand manner,” will perform music of Scarlatti, Chopin and Prokofiev, tonight at 7:30 p.m., at Bethany Church, 115 Main St. in Montpelier. Altman has performed throughout the United States and Canada.

Admission is by donation; for information, call (802) 563-2860.

By TOM HUNTINGTON Arts Correspondent – Published: November 20, 2009

One of the most lauded indie bands around visits Vermont on Sunday, when the Los Angeles folk-rock collective Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros brings its celebratory, dance-inducing live show to Club Metronome in Burlington.

Judging by recent reviews of the group’s current tour, the show should be one for the ages.

Case in point, the band’s Tuesday show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City: “Energetic and uplifting, the songs shed an overwhelming joy over the sold out Bowery Ballroom,” said a Wednesday article in the New York Press. “The normally motionless New York City crowd fell into a frenzy of dancing.”

And this about the group’s Halloween show at the Park Plaza Hotel in L.A., where the Zeros “turned the completely costumed capacity crowd into a transfixed mass of movement,” according to LA Weekly.

Rolling Stone described the band’s euphoric live shows as “more like shamanistic tent revivals than rock concerts,” while the University of Georgia student paper called the group’s Athens show at the 40 Watt Club “a high-energy love fest.”

The 10-piece group is fronted by singer-songwriter and band mastermind Alex Ebert, a modern-day pied piper of hippie-fied folk-rock who made a name for himself as leader of the L.A. electro-dance band Ima Robot.

Ebert named his current band after a fictional character in a book he was writing “about a boy who transcended his dismal world by tapping into some sort of universal music,” according to Rolling Stone.

The Zeros are touring in support of their debut album, “Up From Below,” released in July. Called “a warm collection of loose and jangly songs that marries The Polyphonic Spree’s ensemble glee with sing-along hooks,” by A.V. Club (The Onion), the album was recorded live onto two-inch tape using an old 24-track analog tape machine from 1979.

Celebratory anthems abound, but the centerpiece is “Home,” an insanely joyous and infectious love song featuring added vocals by singer (and Ebert’s partner) Jade Castrinos.

“One of the more unusual musical acts to emerge from Los Angeles in some time,” said the L.A. Times, “the band has become standard-bearers for the folk-rock revival.”

By ED DUFRESNE Arts Correspondent – Published: November 20, 2009

Wow, I hardly know where to begin this week. There are so many great offerings around the area this weekend, it’s hard to know where to start. Rest assured if you’re looking for quality live performance, there’s something for everyone, so, here we go!

Ah to be young, beautiful and super-talented. … Not many can be all three, but there are those exceptional folks that possess these qualities in spades, and the North Carolina duo The Stereofidelics are just those kind of folks. The virtuosic multi-instrumentalist team of Chris Padgett (guitar, keyboards, loops, vocals) and Melissa McGinley (electric violin, drums, vocals) are truly stunning musicians whose youthfulness makes their immense talent even more impressive. Their high-energy sound combines elements of jazz, folk, classical and rock into a frenetic stew of auditory delight, and you’ll be amazed so much sound can come out of only two people. Prepare to be stunned tonight at Charlie-O’s World Famous on Main Street in Montpelier, starting at 9:30 p.m. It will be some of the most impressive musicianship you’ll ever witness in a dive bar, guaranteed.

Saturday night at O’s, local favorite pickers The Mad Mountain Scramblers come up from the valley with their upbeat bluegrass music in tow. They’ll take the back of the barroom at 10 p.m. And, as always at O’s, it’s all for free – woohoo!

I’ve been able to give the Granite City of Barre some love in this column lately, and that is because of the outstanding programming that has been lined up at the Barre Opera House this fall season. The trend continues this weekend, with great shows that offer a triumvirate of entertainment options: Tonight starts off with comedy featuring three of the finest funny-men the Northeast has to offer. Joey Carroll, Rob Steen and Dave Rattigan have appeared at prestigious comedy festivals in Boston and Montreal as well as on TV, and all three have divergent styles to offer a well rounded evening of laughs. The $20 show starts at 8 p.m.

Saturday night at the Opera House, a very special show of a different kind takes the area’s finest stage when The Sacred Forest features music from accomplished local musician Gordon Stone’s latest “Night Shade,” alongside the West African choreography of Elhadji Mamadou Ba from Senegal. The 7 p.m. show is a mere $10 in advance, and free for kids 6 and under, a price that can’t be beat for what is sure to be an excellent collaboration.

Finally, on Sunday, the world-famous Flying Karamazov Brothers close out the weekend with their “zany combination of theater, comedy, music, and juggling with a bit of philosophy thrown in for good measure.” The 3 p.m. show is $10-$30 and more information can be had at www.barreoperahouse.org. Kudos to BOH director Dan Casey for bringing such excellent and diverse talent to our neck of the woods this fall.

Back over in Montpeculiar, Langdon Street Café helps the town live up to the moniker with the most unique offerings of the weekend in a weekend full of unique offerings. Avant-folk chamber-pop anyone? LSC has it tonight when Portland, Oregon-based Ah Holly Fam’ly rolls into town along with fellow Portlandites Ohioan. I listened to both online, and difficult to describe is an understatement. Picture Peter, Paul and Mary, Donovan and Hank Williams playing in a chamber orchestra in a dark basement while tripping on acid, and you get some idea of the music these acts purvey. If you’re looking for something strange and wonderful, this is a show for you.

And speaking of trippy, one of the most promising new-ish Vermont acts plays LSC Saturday night when electro-acoustic experimental trio Durians takes the diminutive stage at the corner of Elm and Langdon. Can you dance to it? Yes. Would you want to? Maybe. Is it adventurous, interesting, awesomely arranged live electronic music? Definitely. Highly recommended for a $5 suggested donation. Both shows start at 9 p.m.

And, a very special weeknight show takes place at LSC this week when excellent alt-singer-songwriter Robert Sarazin Blake plays on Tuesday. He’s like a punk-rock version of Dylan singing in Leonard Cohen’s vocal key (and yes, I made that up having seen him before, so if you judge it inaccurate, go ahead and sue me). Caitlin Canty and Matt Bryan open the show starting at 7 p.m.

For fans of Gypsy music (an all-encompassing term that I’m using generically here to capture a variety of ethnic folk music), The Black Door is the place to be this weekend when two great bands playing music from different strains of the canon take the third floor lounge stage at 44 Main St. in Montpelier. Tonight, all-female foursome Zora appears. Forming out of a singing-camp trip a few years back with Vermont-based vocal troupe Village Harmony, they perform traditional songs from Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia. The mostly vocal-harmony based group augments their outstanding voices with accordion and clarinet.

Saturday night, Burlington-based ensemble Lokum plays music of the Balkans, Turkey and Armenia for your dancing pleasure. A very ethnically traditional weekend of tunes at the Door, for sure. Both shows start at 9:30 for the usual honor cover.

As I’ve stated before, we are extremely lucky to be able to have so much quality local and touring talent performing in our little neck of the woods, so, count your blessings and go see live music!

Ed DuFresne is the former talent coordinator at Langdon Street Café, occasionally produces concerts, and books at various venues in the area on a freelance basis. He lives in Montpelier with owners of a local vintage clothing franchise and an annoying bird named Lucy.

By TOM HUNTINGTON Arts Correspondent – Published: November 20, 2009

The daughter of legendary Brazilian singer-guitarist Joao Gilberto and beloved Brazilian singer Miucha, the New York City-born Bebel Gilberto has made a major name for herself as one of the sultriest singers alive. A relative unknown at her solo debut, the now classic “Tanto Tempo,” was released in 2000, Gilberto, 43, is now a bona fide international superstar who tours all too infrequently.

A new Bebel Gilberto album is always cause for celebration, and her latest delivers in spades. “All in One,” released in September, conjures the classic bossa nova sound that’s clearly in Bebel’s blood, and continues her winning combination of samba and bossa with pop, jazz and electronic that has become her trademark.

Highlights include several compelling cover tunes, including the classic-sounding Joao tune “Bim Bom,” one of the first-ever bossa nova compositions. Stevie Wonder’s “The Real Thing” is given a gorgeous dance floor-friendly treatment, aided by the magic touch of guest producer Mark Ronson. Bob Marley’s “Sun is Shining” becomes a hypnotic chill-out tune, while the Carmen Miranda classic “Chica Chica Boom Chic” is playfully bouncy and fun.

And Gilberto’s original songs, according to the Phoenix New Times, “are a marvelous blend of melodic American pop and Brazilian rhythmic swing – a sound that is truly her own.”

The venue alone is worth the trip. L’Astral, which made its debut last summer at the Montreal Jazz Festival’s 30th anniversary soiree, is a 350-seat gem of a space that’s like a larger version of Burlington’s FlynnSpace. L’Astral has been hosting the first concerts of the festival’s new “Jazz All Year Round” series.

By ART EDELSTEIN Arts Correspondent – Published: November 20, 2009

John Gibbons, a previously unknown artist to this writer, has re- leased his first CD, “Small Town Dance,” and it highlights a musician with lots of promise.

For starters, Gibbons has gathered an excellent group of backup musicians and singers to add to the high quality of songs. He’s chosen a producer, Colin McCaffrey, whose work has graced many albums recently. All this gives this recording a very professional sound.

The music on this CD leans toward bluegrass, with several country and folk songs as well. The opening cut, “Silence or Tears,” shows Gibbons’ bluegrass tenor chops. He’s a fine singer and would have no problem fronting a bluegrass band. His lead guitar playing reminded me of the work of John Starling with Seldom Scene. For the banjo work we have Andy Greene, formerly a member of the Bluegrass Gospel Project.

Producer and multi-instrumentalist Colin McCaffrey contributes fiddle, mandolin, bass and harmony on this track and many others.

Gibbons, who comes from the Champlain Valley area, has 30 years of performing experience under his belt and it shows. He’s poised and has chosen a range of material that suits his voice and instrumental abilities. He’s also a fine songwriter. This is evident on his seven contributions to this CD, “This Cowboy I Know,” “220,” “The Wall That Moves,” “Oh Well, AOL,” “Pick Your Place Anne Marie,” “Hard Water” and “Another Shot of Rye Whiskey.”

Gibbons writes songs about Vermont as shown in “220,” about trains in this state, and in the waltz, “Pick Your Place Anne Marie.” He’s also got a sense of humor as shown in the catchy “Oh Well, AOL.”

Since 2000 Gibbons has been performing in a trio with Karen McFeeters and Craig Anderson. McFeeters is a fine singer and her work was profiled here earlier this year. Anderson is a singer-songwriter and guitar builder. They contribute songs, backup singing, and guitar work to this album.

Carol Hausner also sings backup. She, along with McCaffrey, won a bluegrass songwriting contest earlier this summer. Her voice is a perfect harmony match on the bluegrass songs.

McCaffrey again shines as a full band of backup instrumentation as he shows on the fine Richard Shindell penned “The Kenworth of My Dreams,” where he plays all the instruments. He also knows when to keep the track simple and understated.

Gibbons, who seems to have waited much too long to start his recording career, has released a very listenable album. If he can put a band together he’ll have a musical vehicle to show off his talent.

Gibbons is releasing his CD Saturday evening at the Champlain College Alumni Auditorium.

By Jim Lowe Times Argus Staff – Published: November 20, 2009

For more than a decade, the Art Resource Association has been showcasing the work of its membership – a diverse bunch of central Vermont visual artists – often at Montpelier’s T.W. Wood Gallery & Arts Center.

“I think that this is the best ARA show that we have ever had,” Joyce Mandeville, the Wood gallery and museum’s director, said of the current exhibit there.

“It’s really a beautiful one. Sometimes there is too much work – there’s not enough white space to see the work and it ends up looking church jumble sale – but this is really beautiful show.”

This year, some 60 pieces by more than 40 artists, all from central Vermont, are on exhibit through Dec. 20 – just in time for holiday gifts. The works were selected by Ray and Jody Brown, owners of The Drawing Board in Montpelier, and important members of the professional art community.

“I think the show came together really, really well,” Jody Brown said. “The ARA members show is a wide range of skill level and subject and media.”

“I think what’s important about it is the variety of work it shows – by people all working today,” Mandeville added. “Some of these people are well known, been working for years. For instance, John Hoag is an adjunct at Norwich University in the art department; Frank Woods has been working for years.

“And there are other people who are going back to art after putting it aside for a while,” Mandeville said. “So there’s quite a range.”

“There are some really powerful pieces,” Brown said. “They’ve got some really accomplished artists and some really interesting work. It’s well worth going and seeing.”

The art was all brought to the Wood, and the Browns selected the works. It was then curated by Linda Maney, Melissa Storrow and Mandeville.

“It’s beautifully hung,” Brown said. “Ray and I had suggestions of how to do it, but the way they put really strong pieces with smaller pieces on each wall worked out really well, the way they mixed things up.

“I think it’s probably the best ARA show that they’ve had there,” Brown said, seconding Mandeville.

The purpose of the show isn’t just to showcase the artists, but to help sell the art.

“We’ve had ARA shows that sold extremely well,” Mandeville said. “We haven’t had any sales from this show yet, but it hasn’t been a good year for art sales, period. We just finished ‘The Figure and Beyond’ show and it was the first sales we’ve had all year – and we had good sales out of that.”

Mandeville added that there is wide price range, making many of the works very affordable.

“They’d make a wonderful holiday gift,” Mandeville said, plugging for the artists. “We’ve got everything from under $100 to well over $1,000.”

The ARA has long been an important part of the local arts scene. The collective of professional and amateur artists supports its membership by allowing the artists to show together. Montpelier’s City Center has hosted and continues to show a continuing ever-changing exhibit by ARA members.

“If artists think they’re too good to be part of the ARA, that’s not the case because they have some really powerful work in there,” Brown said, adding with a laugh, “And they qualify for a discount at The Drawing Board.”

By CLARA ROSE THORNTON – Published: November 19, 2009

Once in New York City I had a conversation with an art therapist about the nature of visual art from rural areas versus that of cities. My theory, at the time, was that art born of constant cultural clash, of societal grit, of the rage of the human spirit against concrete — that is, born of the city — often had more of a touch of dynamism and immediacy. I argued that prevailing trends in city galleries could be counted on to have continuing relevance because they inform our understanding of culture’s evolution on different levels. Even if there’s an aesthetic distaste in the eyes of the work’s spectator, the work will have the undeniability of exploration — whether the phenomenon being explored is in the artist’s head or arising from a cultural pastiche.

In contrast, rural galleries often seemed fraught with the mellow remnants of an inconsequential dream: hazy landscape paintings, sculptures of animals, and semi-functional decorative bits offered to an already-cluttered universe.

Surprisingly, the art therapist from Queens, someone whom I figured might go on about how any form of creativity has positive value, agreed with me. A theory emerged: Humans trying to understand themselves against one another and against technology and creation has inherent value, versus humans attempting to copy the natural world and not deduce or translate some aspect of experience. It raises the question of why make art if one isn’t actually creating anything new from within.

In truth, we should have felt like airheads under the spell of abstraction’s languishing 20th-century sting. Through exploring the offerings of a newly adopted rural home, it has taken some time to readjust the vision of how art emotes, how art explores, and how art theorizes about our common existence.

Yes, in the valleys of the Green Mountains there is less readily available angst and hard-edged historical cynicism in their smattering of galleries than those of the concrete jungle, where the bumping of bodies and world views replaces the skating of breeze through a silent evening. Yet the variant mindsets of artists living within and contemplating natural surroundings (cultures where tradition often holds higher value than evolution or chaos) seem to produce a sort of translation of experience that is perfectly capable of existing within — and even hovering above — art that seeks to conceptualize the intangible experiences of the mind. Because to meld the two — creation beyond human means and daily internal perceptions — is to fully approach the duality of human existence.

Take, for example, an exhibit opening this Friday at Stone Church Arts in Bellows Falls, titled “Imaginary Gardens, Village Life & the Natural World,” showcasing new works by Saxtons River husband-and-wife team Donald Saaf and Julia Zanes. Saaf explores family and village life in southern Vermont with a folk art flavor that’s tinged with dreamscape, while Zanes creates idealized gardens running amuck with surreal visions of natural land use. The opening runs 5 to 7 p.m. with wine and refreshments.

Saaf’s mixed media on panel and oil on canvas works evoke an outside world that is intricately bound with our perceptions of self — a world, which, in fact, cannot exist without these perceptions and forms a tension against them. “Cherry Tree” depicts a huge tree by the waterside, a lone man dwarfed at its base, intently rolling a mammoth cherry back to its origin. The cherry is nearly the height of the man and four times his width. Simply put, what man cultivates from the earth is bigger than him, though he offered the seed. “Garden” expands this theme. A farmer stands with a pitchfork in the lower right of a riverside mountain garden, taking a moment to admire the bustling mélange of crops; domesticated, wild and mythical animals peacefully participating; tools; children; and antiquated items of enjoyment such as a phonograph. Huge sunflowers sway, rows of broccoli and apple trees mischievously wink, and a huge, floating face looks on from a shed. The world that this farmer has created, and the figures and symbols he’s invited to participate by virtue of the undertaking, now breathe with a life capable of self-sustainment. He appears both wary and endlessly fascinated.

Then there is “Man on a Bicycle,” a warm Chagall-like wash of color and floating figuration showing a bike-riding gentleman with huge moth wings alight over a farm vista, familiar dimpled rows palpitating like waves underneath scattered country homes. Even a tamer version of Saaf’s “man in reverie amidst nature” theme, “Birch Woods,” depicts Vermont’s regal thicket of forest sticks as a sentient universe set to engulf a tiny man and dog on their evening walk. Whether the forest is benevolent and will release him is unclear.

In Zanes’ work, she imagines an underbelly to the current reality wherein inner perceptions of how we relate to the natural world and how it emotionally affects us has exploded to the surface and recoated the aesthetics of day-to-day society. Her gardens overflow with multicolored flowers that reach up and twine around bodies. Flowers, vines, vegetables and fish-filled rivers cohabitate with humans’ brick-and-mortar constructions in ways that resemble idealized versions of the currently popular “green community” mindset, where each house has large public gardens and interaction with the land and dreams trump their subjugation. In Zanes’ world, human-made objects play second fiddle to a translation of the feeling of roots beneath the feet.

Extending the weekend’s opportunity for basking in what I call the new “country cosmopolitan” aesthetic are two annual arts events also taking place in southern Vermont: Guilford Open Studio and Bennington Arts Guild Gallery Open House. On Friday from 3 to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., artists and artisans from Guilford convene at Carol Schnabel Weaving Studio at 410 Green River Road to showcase the gamut of ways residents are interpreting life in their area. Featured are Nancy Detra, painter; Franklin Farms maple products; Lois Pancake, photographer; Becca Brown, potter; and Carol Schnabel, weaver. And on Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Bennington Arts Guild Gallery, there will be a large selection of fine art and crafts on view amidst music, food, and the gallery’s current show, entitled “Brown” and featuring naturalist interpretations by Ann Webster-Lang, Cyndi Saint, Paula LaPorte, Judith Kniffin, and Gayle and Lars Garrison.

What this rural Vermont weekend offers in a theoretical sense reminds me of a piece in the current issue of Vogue magazine, wherein editors asked 11 contemporary abstract and figurative painters to tackle the “neglected genre” of landscape. New York City artist Julian Lethbridge recounted having much trouble with the assignment, because he felt “it was unsettling to be moving toward something explicitly, rather than having it emerge coincidentally.”

Well, I believe that Saaf, Zanes and the rest have done just that: in their supposedly cut-and-dry worlds of hills passively waiting to be rendered, they have instead cut a riff between the lines of green and let flow all of human beings’ anxieties and longing for their own existence. An impressive feat, indeed.

Clara Rose Thornton is a freelance cultural critic and arts journalist originally hailing from Chicago who now lives in an artists’ colony in Bellows Falls. She can be reached at clara@inkblotcomplex.com, or through her Web site, clararosethornton.com.

By TOM KEYSER Albany Times Union – Published: November 19, 2009

Grandpa Arlo Guthrie, now 62, is leading a Guthrie fam band across country on the “Guthrie Family Rides Again” tour.

In August, Guthrie released “Arlo Guthrie: Tales of ’69,” a concert recorded just before Woodstock. Guthrie, of course, remains one of the most memorable Woodstock performers because of his stoned raps and declarations, such as “The New York State Thruway is closed, man!”

On this tour, the family features new songs by the legendary Woody Guthrie, Arlo’s father, as set to music by contemporary musicians. Woody died in 1967 at age 55 from complications of Huntington’s disease, a genetic neurological disorder. There is no cure, and each child of a Huntington’s parent has a 50-50 chance of inheriting the Huntington gene.

Between stops on the family tour, Arlo talked by phone with the Albany Times Union.

Q: What can fans expect?

A: We did a tour like this about three or four years ago. It was me and my son, Abe, who’s been working with me a good 25 years; and my daughter Sarah Lee and her husband, Johnny Irion. We were doing a lot of my dad’s old material and some of our own songs. It was such a good time, we thought, “Let’s take everybody.”

It’s my four kids and my seven grandkids, and a good friend, Terry A. La Berry. Its focus is on some of the new Woody Guthrie songs that have been coming out as the result of my sister Nora’s work in making the lyrics available to young musicians around the world.

People have been bringing these songs to life, adding their own music, because my dad … wrote a lot of songs that are just lyrics on the page. If he had a tune for them, the tunes went with him when he left us.

So we’re going to do those in addition to the songs we’re writing ourselves.

Q: Do the grandchildren perform, too?

A: Yeah, all seven of them. They’re everything from 2 to 18.

Q: So the 2-year-olds might get on stage?

A: There’s no “might” about it. They’ll be there.

Q: So it has an intimate family feel?

A: That’s all it is. There are songs I have to do just because I’m me — the shorter ones that are popular, you know, as far as I go. There are new songs some of the kids have written, new songs that even the grandkids have written.

Q: What’s the story behind “Tales of ’69″?

A: This was an old tape that had been sitting around the house. My kids were listening to it, and they called me into the studio. And they said, “Pop, you’ve got to hear this thing.”

So I went in. They had tears in their eyes. They were rolling around on the floor. They said, “You were crazy.”

I said: “That’s kind of funny. I don’t even remember that one.”

They said, “We’ve got to put this out.”

I said: “You can’t put it out. It’s not ready for prime time. It never really was.”

They said: “No, we’ve got to put this out. It’s too late in your career; it’s not going to hurt you.”

So we put it out mostly because we knew that there would be some old-time fans who would enjoy a little window into that world back years ago.

Q: Would you be 20 again, right now, if you could be?

A: No. I love being who I am right now. To me, the ’60s were all about people being free to experiment with their own lives, see what works and doesn’t work, rather than sit back and be told what should work for you, and what you should do …

That was a great time to grow up. And frankly, that has shaped my political philosophy to the point where I am constantly reminded of the danger of accepting other people’s experience as your own, that you really need to be free to have no doubt about your own reality. And that means taking chances.

Q: Did you ever think you’d still be making music and touring at this point?

A: I always figured that this is what I wanted to do. I didn’t actually want to do this for a living, by the way. I meant to be a forest ranger. So I went to college for that out in Montana. And I loved it out there.

But, the ’60s were going on. And they weren’t going on as much in Montana (laughs) as they were in other places. So I left school, because … I felt I needed to be on the streets at the demonstrations. I needed to be a part of the civil rights movement, not just hear about it. I wanted to be part of the anti-war movement, not just hear about it …

I found myself out on the street with a guitar, and there was my old buddy Pete Seeger, my dad’s friend, really, at that time. And so I just hung out with him and ended up playing songs with him so that we could feel good about marching around and demanding that things change. It changed my life. I ended up doing that as a living.

Q: I understand you never got tested for the Huntington’s gene. Why?

A: If they could do something about it as the result of finding out one thing or another, I might be interested. But just to find out? That doesn’t make any sense. If they had a test for your likelihood of getting hit by a car, would you take that test, too?

Q: Did you think about getting tested before having kids?

A: We didn’t have the test before we had the kids. But it would have been the same anyway.

Q: Huntington’s disease typically begins in midlife, from 30 to 50. So does that mean you’re free and clear?

A: It’s a curve. So far, so good.

By DOM CIOFFI – Published: November 19, 2009

When the area lost its only movie theater a month ago, a concerned group offered a solution: Instead of going to a new theater to watch new movies, why not go to an old theater to watch old movies?

And so, Big Flicks at the Paramount was born.

While the timing may be fortuitous, the planning has been ongoing for months. Fitted with a gigantic new screen and state-of-the-art projection and sound equipment, the Paramount Theatre is ready to display motion pictures for the first time in nearly 35 years.

On Saturday, the much-anticipated Big Flicks film series will begin with a screening of Victor Fleming’s Civil War-era epic, “Gone With the Wind.” In the following months, 10 more films (mostly classics with a few modern selections) will grace the interior hall of the Paramount.

But the question begs to be asked? Why head to a theater to see a film that’s readably available on DVD? The answer is simple: For the experience.

I’ve been going to the theater on a weekly basis for the past 16 years, and I can attest that nothing compares to the social experience of seeing a great film on a huge screen in a public forum.

The coordination of laughter, shock or awe among audience members, along with the sheer size of the projection, is the way movies were meant to be watched.

But can you imagine all the modern amenities of the film experience set within the confines of a true historical gem like the Paramount Theatre? It honestly sounds too good to be true. Let’s face it, this theater was born to show films like “Gone With the Wind” and “Citizen Kane.”

Earlier this summer, I borrowed a friend’s copy of “Gone With the Wind.” I’ve been on a personal quest to review every Best Picture nominee in history and although I had seen portions of this film on several occasions, I had never reviewed it from beginning to end.

And so, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I drew the curtains, dimmed the lights, grabbed a cold beverage, and settled into my couch for a three-hour journey into yesteryear. And then something truly mysterious happened: The door to my basement den opened and in walked my 5-year-old son.

“What are you watching, Daddy?” he asked. I replied that it was just an old film about a guy and girl who sometimes like each other and sometimes hate each other.

“Can I watch?” he inquired. “If you want to,” I responded. “But there are no aliens or superheroes.”

I figured that explanation and the fact that there was no visible animation would immediately send him searching for more compelling activities. But that didn’t happen. In fact, he propped himself up on the couch and continued with the questions: “Why are they dressed so funny, Daddy?”; “Why did she throw that vase?”; “Who set the city on fire?”

For the next three hours my young son sat next to me and watched “Gone With the Wind,” questioning every move, inquiring about every word. I was shocked, delighted and profoundly moved.

The more time that elapsed, the more astounded I became over his interest. And when the battlefields littered with dying men appeared, I resisted turning his attention elsewhere, realizing that in 1939 it wasn’t appropriate to display the gruesome nature of war. This was a movie that a 5-year-old could watch – he didn’t understand it, but it intrigued him.

His questions continued right to the point when Rhett Butler uttered the eight most famous words in cinematic history: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” And with that he popped off the couch and coyly stated, “Mom better not find out we watched a movie with swear words!”

So my advice is this: Go to Big Flicks at the Paramount. If you can’t make it to this week’s feature, catch one of the other movies in the coming months. And if you’ve already seen the film being offered, consider introducing a youngster to a proven classic. You may be surprised at what happens.

Tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for children 12 and younger. Show times for “Gone With the Wind” will be at 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Saturday. For more information and a complete list of Big Flicks movies, visit www.paramountvt.org.

Got a question or comment for Dom? E-mail him at moviediary@comcast.net.

By Gordon Dritschilo Staff Writer – Published: November 19, 2009

TINMOUTH — Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you; Saturday at Tinmouth Community Hall should fit squarely into the former category.

Organizer Marshall Squier said three bears are on the menu at the Tinmouth Game Supper, along with several venison and moose dishes.

“This is the 40th year,” Squier said. “I think Pawlet’s at 41, but we’re one of the oldest in Vermont and I think the largest. We serve over 500 people.”

Despite that high turnout, Squier said lines to get in are a thing of the past.

“We start at 4:30 p.m. but early birds are welcome,” he said. “As soon as people show up, we start feeding them. Now, when the main body of people show up we’ve already served 100. We don’t run out. We make enough to feed everybody and always take the leftovers to the (Open Door) Mission.”

Planned dishes include venison and moose sauerbraten, venison chili, smoked moose and meatballs made with a closely-guarded local family recipe, along with pies, homemade pickles and various side-dishes.

“We debone and defat all our meat so when it heats up, all you’re eating is the best,” Squier said. “We have all kinds of marinated and secret roast recipes. … It’s some of the best wild game recipes you’ll find. Here we are, farmers and loggers, and for three days we become chefs.”

The menu has featured game birds in the past, but Squier said it is hard to get enough to be sure of serving everyone, so they are not a regular fixture.

Squier said he is particularly fond of the smoked moose.

“It’s cut real thin — it’s delicious,” he said. “My wife makes five Crock-Pots of the venison sauerbraten. That all goes.”

Squier said meat donations come from hunters and game wardens. Volunteers spend all day cooking at the fire station.

Admission to the all-you-can-eat dinner is $15 for adults and $10 for children 12 and younger. Proceeds go to the Tinmouth Volunteer Fire Department.

gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com

By GEORGE V. NOSTRAND – Published: November 19, 2009

Friday at Café Terra two local singer-songwriters will join forces to bring an evening of entertainment, storytelling and characterization.

Phil Henry has played all over the country, showcasing his humble talents and powerful voice. Winner of awards near and far, he brings to the craft what many of us long to be able to do.

Singer-songwriters strive to create songs that make you feel like you are there in the moment, living and breathing the song in a way that taps into the individual while also exemplifying a greater general humanity.

Whether he is singing about being a bank robber holding up Chittenden Bank here in Rutland, or the desolate broadcast of a disc jockey in New Orleans after the great hurricane, he makes you feel connected to the person, the moment and the intricacies of all that is going on around them.

He will be supported in this Friday’s endeavor by one of his fans, George Nostrand, another passionate singer-songwriter who also sings of life here and afar in a way that draws people together.

I highly recommend you head on down to Café Terra on Friday. The show starts at 7 p.m. and there is a $5 suggested donation, (you can always give more if you want).

At 7 p.m. Saturday, the Grace Church Festival Choir soloist, instrumentalists and guest musicians will perform a concert of traditional folk music featuring Appalachian fiddle tunes, shape-note choral pieces, folk trios and music from early America.

The famous folk fiddler and singer, John Kirk will join the choir, with an ensemble of guitars, banjo, accordion, string bass, piano, harmonica and other folk instruments.

A freewill offering will be taken to benefit the mission committee of Grace Church. For more information, call the church office at 775-4301.

While I haven’t been up there in a while, I’m going to give a nod to Higher Ground in Burlington this week. They have a sold-out weekend ahead with a couple of shows from the one-and-only Drop Kick Murphys followed by Matisyahu.

Ever since I was a college-age lad, Higher Ground has been bringing the biggest and best names to Vermont and if you’ve yet to go there you should. Check out the Web site at highergroundmusic.com and make it one of your favorites as they have amazing talent rolling though their doors on a regular basis.

So, I’m feeling pretty lonely these days – not getting too many e-mails from bands, fans or venues and wondering why the music powers would look free advertising in the mouth … I’m here, just an e-mail away, and I try to stay open to giving my shameless promotion to all types of music. Don’t leave me lonely.

…and by George, keep supporting live, local music!

George Nostrand is a Rutland taxpayer, here to stay, and out to do what he can to promote the local scene (and himself, of course).

Give me some Spin! What’s going on with your band, your venue, or your cousin’s uncle’s brother’s band? If it’s musical and it’s happening in the Rutland area I want to hear about it. Send me an e-mail at: localspin@gmail.com. The deadline for the coming week is Tuesday at noon.

Published: November 19, 2009

BENSON — The Capitol Chamber Artists will present performances of Haydn and Mendelssohn Sunday at the Benson Community Hall.

Massachusetts fortepianist Noah Lindquist will join the artists for Haydn’s “Concerto in C,” “London Trio No. 2 in G,” and “‘Hungarian’ Piano Trio in G,” as well as Mendelssohn’s “Piano Trio, Op. 49″ at a 2 p.m. recital followed by a 3 p.m. concert.

Tickets are $16, $8 for students. For more information, call 537-3151.

By Josh O’Gorman STAFF WRITER – Published: November 19, 2009

CHESTER — With one performer returning from Hollywood and another on her way to Nashville, the Green Mountain Festival Series will showcase some of the area’s finest homegrown talent.

The show — starting at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Green Mountain Union High School — will feature music by Dylan Duncan, Ida Mae Specker, Brendon Thomas, and Matt and Kate Lorenz of Rusty Belle, as well as comedy from actor Sam Lloyd Jr.

“I’m very excited to be going back to the school,” said Lloyd, who attended Flood Brook Union School, graduated from GMUHS in 1981 and has gone on to a successful stage, film and television career. “It was a huge time in my life and it helped shape me as a person and as a performer.”

Lloyd was active in the high school’s drama program, performing in “Arsenic and Old Lace,” “Oliver!” and Moliere’s “The Learned Ladies,” which gave him an unexpected opportunity to hone his improvisational skills.

“The whole thing was in rhyming couplet, and I delivered the wrong line and then I had to try and make it rhyme,” Lloyd recalled.

Lloyd will perform as “Tom Richmond,” a character he developed years ago at Weston Playhouse and who “took on a life of his own,” Lloyd said, including in pair of “Seinfeld” episodes in 1993 and 1994.

Also on the bill is Dylan Duncan, GMUHS class of 1999, who will perform songs he began writing in Chester in 2003.

“I’ve definitely been creative my whole life. As kids we made comic books and video games,” Duncan said of his childhood. “I think Chester has been good for artists because it’s so quiet. You’re 45 minutes from the nearest mall so you end up doing something creative instead.”

Duncan began playing guitar while attending art school in Florida and plays music influenced by his love of the bands U2 and Iron and Wine. He will be selling CDs of his song “Ask You,” inspired by his mother who died of amyloidosis in1997, with proceeds benefiting Boston University’s research into the disease.

Lloyd and Duncan have both left the area to seek their fame and fortune and soon Ida Mae Specker will do the same when she departs for Nashville to pursue a country music career.

The Andover native and Vermont Academy grad has been playing the fiddle with her father John Specker for 19 of her 22 years.

“I started playing when I was 3 years old.” said Specker, who also plays with her sister Lila Specker. “We play old-time Appalachian music. I love playing with my whole family. It gives us something to do besides eat.”

Specker said Saturday’s show, and another Nov. 29 at Andover Town Hall, will likely be her last before she departs for Nashville.

Saturday’s show begins at 6:30 p.m., but the public is invited to come at 5 p.m. for a Putney Pasta chicken Alfredo dinner to benefit a class trip to the Grand Canyon in April. Dinner is $8 for adults and $5 for children younger than 10.

Tickets for the show are $10 for adults and $7 for students when purchased in advance and $2 more at the door. For more information about the show, including a list of ticket outlets, visit www.greenmountainfestivalseries.com.

josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com

By CLARA ROSE THORNTON – Published: November 12, 2009

This is, without a doubt, an age of creative and entrepreneurial autonomy for individuals. The Internet and its complete democratization has allowed the ambitious masses to create professional-quality Web sites for their businesses, build fan bases for their art through social networking sites, and essentially create a cult of personality surrounding themselves and their products, with little to no cost nor collaborative energy. It seems that the only limit for relative fame, these days, is the amount of time one has to go spelunking for publicity through cyberspace.

The global connectivity revolution has its pros and cons. Small, local business endeavors could be said to reap the most benefit, with the potential to reach worldwide customers or partners without picking up a phone or booking a flight. Most small-time entrepreneurs simply don’t have the funding to do otherwise, and sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace create for them a bonafide network of interested people. Artists are perhaps the biggest contingent of this group, historically lacking savings and the desire to constantly network face-to-face rather than create. For instance, in new marketing, an indie singer-songwriter will have his or her entire life story, set of accomplishments, roster of opinions and song catalogue at the world’s disposal — record company or actual fanbase be damned.

Yet this is one of new marketing’s drawbacks: There is often a presence before there is substance or a reason to pay attention. Without the sense of real, physical community around creative pursuit, it is harder to ferret out a substantial endeavor versus the narcissistic musings of an individual. To rally behind an endeavor in the physical world is to dedicate serious time and funds, to allocate manpower and sweat, and to persevere through the clash of opinion because of dedication to a worthwhile product. Community — a set of bodies somehow involved — is still the mark of value in an age of shallow solo profiteering. Essentially, humans still need validation through other humans, and true progress involves others.

Lila Watson, aboriginal activist and community organizer, may have said it best: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

A magnificent example of the DIY aesthetic pulling from and focusing on community is the new public art space that opened this week in Bellows Falls, called Meliora, which has taken residence in Rockingham Arts & Museum Project’s flagship building, The Exner Block live/work compound for artists. Meliora, meaning “always better” in Latin, was founded by Kali Quinn, Denny Partridge and Gary Fox.

Quinn recently co-founded the theater company GutWorks, based in Saxtons River, and is the theater events coordinator at the Bellows Falls’ Opera House. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., her master’s degree training at Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre in northern California instilled a love for small, ensemble-based productions. Partridge co-founded the renowned Modern Times Theater in New York City in 1976, and her current Bellows Falls-based company, Mud Time Theater, has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia and Central America and won numerous academic and professional honors. Fox is in charge of Transportation and Bellows Falls Island Development, with a focus on the village’s historic train station.

At Meliora, art, community culture and business collide. Though it will be somewhat theater focused, given Quinn and Patridge’s deeply ingrained backgrounds, it will serve as a photography gallery, a space for writing workshops, music jams, story circles, violin and acting lessons, as well as community office and meeting space. Two desks are in place, where Quinn will handle daily operations for the Opera House and Fox will work on improvement of the train station and island. The rest of the space has the feeling of a comfortable living room from a bygone era — antique wooden furniture, large wooden window-style frames for artwork, tea in the corner and calligraphic flyers asking guests to “Make a proposal of something you would like to see or be a part of.” The space will always be open for community members to come take a look at artwork, observe community business development, or attend any one of its upcoming near-nightly events on a donation-based scale.

The founders held an opening party this past Sunday, where a show of Quinn’s travel-focused photographic works was hung, titled “Every New Place.” Beginning on Jan. 15, Mud Time will host Friday Night Free Theater each weekend, with performances of Mud Time’s acclaimed productions “Mildred Taken Crazy,” “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” “The Nine Questions” and “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Quinn will perform her “Tutti the Violinist” as a part of the series, and Modern Times Theater and The Plank House Band presents “The Jolly Banker.”

Says Quinn of the decision to found Meliora, “I’ve done these things (photography, theater, Opera House coordination, violin and acting lessons) in so many different places throughout the area and felt a bit scattered. I’m excited to do it all under one roof and have an anchor in Bellows Falls. Denny, Gary, and I plan to keep everything accessible — ‘a pay what you can’ kind of system – and build it up little by little based on how people react to what’s going on there. Meliora is a small, intimate space so even if five people show up we have already made it.”

Printed on its promotional information is, “The belief that improvement of society depends on human effort: you, me, us.” In the window hangs this same creed; a large white plaque announcing “You, Me, Us” is all that denotes the space’s identity — no name. As the three founders have been enacting their dreams separately and remotely, through home offices online, through Facebook and e-mail newsletters, and through the solitary pounding of pavement, they have ultimately decided that coming together and inviting the community they serve to pitch in towards communal artistic and cultural betterment would be well worth the effort. Simply put, they are enacting a physical manifestation of will, something more tangible than a handful of profile views on a computer screen.

Meliora’s is located at 17 Canal St. It is currently accepting submissions for business and creative endeavors.

If after visiting the new space this weekend there is appetite for more community arts, across the street at 7:30 p.m. at the Opera House on Saturday is Maria Muldaur and Her Garden of Joy CD Release Tour, showcasing the beloved songstress’ new jug band. For 50 years, Muldaur has mixed styles of blues, jazz, honky tonk and gospel, from Greenwich Village to Boston to New Orleans. Owning a career spanning several decades, record labels, localities and collaborators, it is the grassroots action of her fans that have kept the Muldaur vibration strong. What a pleasant punctuation mark on the argument for strong community. Let’s keep the notion going.

Clara Rose Thornton is a freelance cultural critic and arts journalist originally hailing from Chicago who now lives in an artists’ colony in Bellows Falls. She can be reached at clara@inkblotcomplex.com, or through her Web site, clararosethornton.com.

By GEORGE V. NOSTRAND – Published: November 12, 2009

The fellows from Bluegrass band Big Spike are not shameless in their plug that they play and sing this style of music “the right way.”

One listen to the sound clips on their Web site (www.BigSpikeBluegrass.com) will make a believer out of any Bluegrass aficionado. If you like sawing fiddles, trilling mandolins and that deep plunkin’ bass, this band has just what the doctor ordered this time of year. Not to mention some down-home four-part green mountain vocal harmonies.

Big Spike will kick off another year of the ever-popular “Saturday Night Coffee House Concert Series” at Unitarian Universalist Church on West Street in Rutland.

I want to put in a special plug for the Coffee House Series at the U.U. First of all, this is one of the best rooms I have ever heard music in. Churches like this were built to carry acoustically, and this particular church seems to have a nice warm sound.

Second, they always do a nice job in booking a wide range of acts. These musicians range from local to a little way down the road, and stylistically cross plenty of genres. Hats off to Boaz Cohen for consistently bringing high-class talent to Rutland, and to whoever makes the great snacks they always have there.

Getting back to the band, I had one of those “Wow, cool!” moments when I saw that Michael Santosusso, one of the founders of the band Smokin’ Grass was this band’s bass player.

When I moved back to Vermont after some of my earlier ramblings, Smokin’ Grass quickly became one of my favorite bands. I was glad to see and hear he was hooked up with another great band.

Find out more about the rest of this band on the Web site, which has a lot of great stuff including a “Vermont Huma’” (humor) page with some corny Vermont jokes.

The concert will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $10 advance at Tattersall’s on Merchant’s Row, Downtown Rutland, $12 at the door, $7 seniors, $4 children. Call 492-2252 for more information.

I want to give three big cheers (hip-hip-hooray!) to the Paramount for bringing in and putting on a phenomenal show Friday night. Yes, I am still talking about Derek Trucks and he, and the fact that his band came to our town, are worth talking about.

A real rock show at the Paramount – how about that. I talked to several people who had traveled quite a distance to come for the show. Not only were they impressed with the band, but also talked about how beautiful the theater is.

We have to remember how lucky we are to have the Paramount here, and show our support. And with the economy always on the tip of people’s tongues, this is also proof of how the arts, and a creative economy can make a difference — even in tough times. Keep up the good work ladies and gentlemen of the Paramount.

While last week Carnival Hill had to compete with Derek & his boys, this weekend they actually paid him to stay away … Rutland’s own “Bad Boys of Rock-n-Roll” will be at Chaser’s on Friday.

Go on down for your dose of classic and slightly newer but not overly used rock. If you’ve eaten all your kids’ leftover candy, don’t worry — these guys are always a treat.

…and by George, keep supporting live, local music!

George Nostrand is basking in the warm November weather, thinking about doing one more show in Main Street Park before it snows…

Turn Up the Volume – I Can’t Hear You! Do you have a band, play in a band, know somebody who does or have any interest in live, local music? If so, let me know by e-mailing me at localspin@gmail.com. The deadline for submitting for the coming week’s column is Tuesday at noon.

Published: November 12, 2009

Rutland’s Paramount Theatre will host an cappella experience Friday.

Rockapella, an a cappella ensemble, will bring its noninstrumental musical flavor to the theater’s stage. The all-male quintet is known for its blend of R&B, soul, jazz and rock. The group performs original compositions as well as a cappella renditions of classics.

“They really are the world’s premiere a capella group,” said Eric Mallette, the Paramount’s assistant director. “It is stand on your feet, standing ovation quality-type stuff.”

The night of a cappella music also includes the University of Vermont’s Top Cats and Rutland’s own Curbstone Chorus.

Friday’s show at the Paramount Theatre starts at 8 p.m. and tickets range from $20.50 to $25.50. For tickets or more information, call the Paramount box office at 775-0903 or visit www.paramountvt.org.

Published: November 12, 2009

The Rutland Area Osher Lifelong Learning Institute’s fall lecture series is held from 1:30 to 3 p.m. on Friday afternoons at the Godnick Adult Center, 1 Deer St. (off Woodstock Avenue) in Rutland.

“American Art Since 1900 – The Rise to International Dominance” continues with Russell Housman presenting “The Abstract Expressionists — New, Fresh, Exciting, Imposing, Rising astride the World of Art” on Friday. Growing out of the previous 50 years of American art movements come the Abstract Expressionists. The new New York school looms over the world of Art and a new world of art business is born and thrives today.

Housman received a doctorate from NYU, and is professor emeritus of art at SUNY Nassau.

Memberships may be purchased at any session. Purchase of a $40 membership card entitles you to attend the 12 sessions during the fall term. Non-members may attend individual sessions for $5 at the door. Reservations are not required.

For directions to the Godnick Center or for program information, call 771-0184.

Published: November 12, 2009

The Women of Trinity Church will hold a rummage and bake sale from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, 85 West St. in Rutland.

Fill a bag of clothing for $5.

Featured will be children’s toys, books, Christmas items, trash and treasures.

Published: November 12, 2009

WEST RUTLAND — St. Bridget Church will host a Christmas Sale from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14.

Featured will be a bake sale, handmade crafts, specialty items and a raffle.

Lunch will be offered from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.

For information, call 438-2490.

Published: November 12, 2009

WEST RUTLAND — Gilman Chapter #88 Order of Eastern Star and Hiram Lodge Masons will hold a pancake breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Masonic Temple, 63 Franklin St.

The cost is $6 for adults $6, and $3 for children under age 3.