JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION BRINGS PUNK-BLUES POWER ROCK to HELSINKI HUDSON
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Punk-blues power trio Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, which created the musical template upon which Jack White built the White Stripes and which influenced an entire subsequent generation of punk-infused garage rock, comes to Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, November 2, 2012, at 9p.m., in support of its new studio album, Meat and Bone.
On stage and in the studio, Judah Bauer, Russell Simins and Jon Spencer have destroyed and rebuilt American roots music with such ferocity and wild abandon that it’s hard to believe there is anything left. It’s been twenty years since The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion first pressed ‘record’, and twenty years since Spencer and his A-Team of sonic terrorists tore up the indie-rock landscape with fever and a visceral, untouchable vision of rock ‘n’ roll that did for a new wave of blues-punk primitivisms what Helen of Troy’s face did for the armada.
PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT EXAMINES FLORAL MYTHS and DARKNESS
From Eric Korenman’s ‘Proserpine Path’ series
(STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) – The Proserpine Path, a solo exhibition of photographic work by emerging photographer Eric Korenman, is on view at Sohn Fine Art Gallery in Stockbridge from November 2, 2012 to March 4, 2013. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, November 3, 2012, at Sohn Fine Art Gallery from 4 to 7. In the exhibit, which reinterprets the myth of Proserpine (Persephone), Eric Korenman metaphorically explores our present day culture of abundance and excess through hauntingly beautiful imagery. Looking into what he considers the darker side of flowers, Korenman began this body of work by creating shadowy photographs of figures, presumably dead, trapped under thousands of blooms.
BEN PEROWSKY’S MOODSWING ORCHESTRA BRINGS TRIP-HOP SOUNDS to MASS MOCA
TK Wonder
(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – Ben Perowsky’s Moodswing Orchestra, featuring emcee TK Wonder and singer Jennifer Charles, brings its dance-floor-ready trip-hop sounds to MASS MoCA’s Club B-10 on Saturday, November 3, 2012, at 8 p.m. Rounding out drummer and bandleader Perowsky’s funky combo onstage will be David Baron on keyboards and Michael Blake on saxophone.
TOOTS AND THE MAYTALS UNPLUGGED ACOUSTIC TOUR STOPS at MAHAIWE
Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals
(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, the reggae pioneer who verily coined the genre itself, brings the 50th anniversary tour of his Jamaican outfit, Toots and the Maytals, to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington on Sunday, November 4, 2012, at 7pm for an “unplugged acoustic concert.”
Earlier this year, the Maytals released their first-ever acoustic album, “Unplugged on Strawberry Hill,” in honor of Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of independence. The 10-track album includes unplugged versions of the Maytals’ greatest hits. Strawberry Hill is the property of Chris Blackwell, the record label honcho responsible for Island Records and in large part for popularizing reggae beyond the shores of Jamaica.
FILM DOCUMENTS EUROPEAN EXILES in 1930S HOLLYWOOD
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) — The European diaspora’s influence on Hollywood culture in the 1930s and ‘40s is the focus of Peter Rosen’s documentary film Shadows in Paradise, to be shown at Berkshire Museum on Sunday, November 4, 2012, at 2 p.m. Filmmaker Rosen will introduce his 2009 film and answer questions following the screening, which is co-presented by the museum and Close Encounters With Music.
Fleeing Germany and Austria as Hitler came to power, as many as 30,000 exiled intellectuals had poured into the Los Angeles area by 1939 — 80 percent of them Jews. These “displaced persons in Paradise” had a tremendous effect on music, art, literature, theater and film, giving the region the nickname “Weimar on the Pacific.”
Rosen’s documentary includes rare footage of some of these luminaries, including the author Thomas Mann, the composer Igor Stravinsky, the director Fritz Lang and many others. Shadows in Paradise weaves recorded interviews with the surviving artists and their friends and descendents with readings of the authors’ texts and performances of the composers’ work commissioned especially for the film.
BERKSHIRE SYMPHONY CELEBRATES CHAPIN HALL and JOHN CAGE CENTENARIES
Composer Robert Kyr taken from “Peace Work” (Portland Monthly). (Photo Stuart Mullenberg/courtesy Williams College)
(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – The centenaries of Chapin Hall and composer John Cage will be recognized in a free concert by the Berkshire Symphony on Friday, November 2, 2012, at 8 p.m. in Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus. The concert will also pay tribute to the late Williams College music professor Ernest D. Brown, with a new composition written by his colleague, Andy Jaffe. The concert will also includes works by Robert Kyr, Carl Maria von Weber and Paul Hindemith.