“I’m 19,” says Dylan Rhode, one of the three frontmen of Flower Shop, a music and arts collective based in Portland, Maine. Dylan drifted around New England, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey through his upbringing, finally settling down in the Greater Portland area he now calls home. “It all kind of happened organically,” says Rhode, who goes by the moniker Monk, of the advent of Flower Shop. “We didn’t have anything else to do except get in trouble and do stupid shit, so turning this common interest into a business seemed like the most productive use of our passion.” In nine months, that passion has flourished into a hip-hop collective, studded with rappers, vocal artists, producers, videographers, beat-smiths, and musical magicians—most of them under 21—who are pushing out unique content by the day. A quick visit to their Soundcloud gives a sense of their musical range.

Mhon Griot & Monk | Photo by Justin Hardesty

Passion doesn’t always express itself in a pleasant way. “It’s different up here,” Monk explains. “It’s cold, everyone has seasonal depression, and the summer is fleeting. The summer is almost like a feeling as opposed to a time. It’s a different culture—everyone is collectively sad. We’re trying to bring the essence of that culture to our music.” Since August of last year, Monk and the other two frontmen, Trevor Tucker (THT) and Mhondoro Richards (Mhon Griot), have been pushing out masterful products of visionary talent steeped in sadness. However, this tripod of hip-hop wunderkinds couldn’t stand without a thriving community of audiovisual colleagues to lift them out of the perpetual sludge. The most powerful manifestation of that is their first music video for their track, FACES, which features the work of many talented collaborators.

The concept for the music video was dreamt of and engineered by Flower Shop visual artists, Dillan Hodak and Charlie ‘Buckets’ Mayforth. The Champlain College senior and SCAD graduate, respectively, pursued futures in visual media and connected with the collective through Flower Shop’s multi-talented booking manager and graphic designer, Tim Dubois. “They really liked the song and we wanted to do a project together,” says Monk. “They have all the equipment and happen to be incredibly nice at what they do.”

The Flower Shop crew whipped up an audiovisual gem in a single day. “One of our sets was in Tim’s little Burlington apartment. We had so many kids jumping up and down in the room with all this heavy equipment, the downstairs neighbors came up and said their ceiling was flexing in. They said, ‘The song’s really cool, but we’re afraid you’re going to collapse our ceiling!'” says Monk. While they claim the video was “thrown together,” the polished outcome can only be credited to expert work. Note the spray-paint jumpsuits that make appearances throughout the video, created late night on a whim by Mayforth. Talk about whacking it out of the park on your first try.

THT | Photo by Justin Hardesty

The Flower Shop members are not without pleasure nor plight. “Living in Maine has shaped my art because people think that a rapper has to come from a hard place and a crooked, dangerous city,” THT says, “and when people hear about rappers from Maine, they think the worst. They call us soft, but it doesn’t mean a thing—we all have been through a lot. But ah well, that’s just another person we have to prove wrong.”

FACES | Still shot by Dillan Hodak

Flower Shop – Music and Arts Collective
Portland, Maine
Website
Soundcloud
Instagram

Monk
Soundcloud
Instagram
Twitter

THT
Soundcloud
Instagram
Twitter

Mhon Griot
Soundcloud
Instagram

The post Maine’s Hip Hop Flower Shop appeared first on Take Magazine.

After leaving New York City in 2013 for Burlington, Vermont, cartoonist Rachel Lindsay, like so many young artists, found herself stuck behind a cash register at City Market. Ironically, this job at the local co-op would lead to more work in the world of comics and eventually empower her to scribble a unique path to a book deal.

“Weston the Vampire,” Seven Days 10/26/16, Pen and Ink, Digital coloring

Lindsay moved to Burlington to finish the graphic novel she’d been working on since 2011, though she tabled this project almost immediately after moving to town in favor of a more pertinent one—a blog called Rachel Lives Here Now. It was this comic archive of her observations of daily life in Burlington that won her notoriety, a bit of celebrity, and more opportunities to escape the register and put pen to paper.

In addition to the popularity of her blog and key coverage from the local alternative newspaper, Seven Days, Lindsay credits mentorship by other local cartoonists with helping her find success. “I was fortunate enough to befriend some of these people who are, what I consider to be, some of the best cartoonists in the world.” says Lindsay. “They really motivated me to keep going and pursue more challenging projects.”

Relatable characters and witty jokes are not the only reason Lindsay’s work resonates with readers. Her comics work because she takes full advantage of the medium. A good comic, Lindsay says, creates tension between the words and images on the page, “There’s so many comics that are completely reliant on narrative and are essentially just an anecdotal image or an image that’s just an illustration,” she says. “It has to be a partnership. My favorite jokes are visual jokes, and it’s getting harder and harder to find people who do that.”

Rachel Lives Here Now, 53, Seven Days 1/18/17, Pencil

This layered tension and added meaning exists in all of Lindsay’s work, whether she’s re-imagining stoners buying snacks at the co-op or depicting a protester reckoning with their inadequate activism. Lindsay’s Hats of City Market series is just one of many pithy yet detailed showcases of the artist’s illustrative prowess, sharp comedic sensibility, and subtle political commentary.

Lindsay’s book, to be released September 2018, will marry all these sensibilities to tell a very personal story about mental illness. At age 19, Lindsay was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and, after working in advertising to help pay for her medication, “I ended up as a closeted mental patient being promoted to the Pfizer account [to] help advertise antidepressants,” she says. “I became manic as a result of my frustration with having to work this job I hated and being behind the curtain of this machine.” Lindsay was hospitalized by her parents.

Rachel Lindsay, Rachel Lives Here Now, Seven Days 9/7/17, Pen and Ink

“The second I got hospitalized, I was like ‘I’m going to make a graphic novel about this.’ And I am. And I win,” she says. “”Don’t get me wrong, I loved working as a cashier at a grocery store, but I’m ready to have a bestseller.”

Rachel Lindsay – Cartoonist | Blogger | Graphic Novelist
Burlington, Vermont
Website
Facebook
Twitter

Photos courtesy of Rachel Lindsay

The post Cartoonist Rachel Lindsay Still Lives Here appeared first on Take Magazine.

Western-Massachusetts-native-turned-fake-judge John Hodgman always says, “Specificity is the soul of narrative.” In other words, the more precise a story is, or the more unique the subject matter, the better. Through specificity of content and approach, artists can present audiences with unique characters, stories, and experiences.

The same logic applies to film festivals and the cinema they celebrate. In addition to the dozens of big film fests across the region, film junkies and industry folks alike have privileged access to niche New England film festivals in every state. Movie lovers can see everything from queer romance to cinema written, produced, starring, and directed by folks with hearing impairment. Some of these festivals are right around the corner, while others are still accepting submissions. All reveal subjects that are unique and satisfyingly specific.

AIP Film Festival
April 2 – April 8
Cinestudio
Hartford, CT

Hartford’s beautifully designed 1930s-era movie theater continues its yearly film fest for Francophiles, April in Paris, which goes beyond the French New Wave and into the realm of contemporary cinema. Prospective moviegoers have nine opportunities to see French films produced from 1982 to 2016, all of which examine the exceedingly relevant, “effects of crossing borders, from the political to the personal.”

Wicked Queer Film Festival
March 30 – April 9
Various venues
Boston, MA

Laverne Cox in Free CeCe! | Director Jac Gares, 2016

The 33rd incarnation of Boston’s film festival revealing and unpacking the queer experience through documentary, comedy, and drama will feature internationally renowned voices of the queer community and emerging artists alike. Queer film enthusiasts of all kinds have dozens of chances to see films across the city in a new neighborhood each night.

Maine Deaf Film Festival
April 28 – 29
University of Southern Maine
Portland, ME

The 15th annual Maine Deaf Film Festival is the longest-running and perhaps the only film festival of its type in the nation. Programmed and planned in collaboration with students and boasting content exclusively created by deaf folks across the region, MDFF skillfully solves some of the problems of underrepresentation of people with hearing impairments both in front of and behind the camera.

SENE Film Festival
April 25 – 29
Various venues
Rhode Island

With dozens of films ranging from experimental shorts to feature-length animated dramas, SENE provides attendees nearly endless opportunities to pick their vast or small corner of the world to explore. The Wednesday night screenings of experimental films and documentary features is both a can’t-miss evening and an excellent example of the range and specificity of topics explored throughout the festival.

New Hampshire Film Festival
October
Various venues
Portsmouth, NH

Still from All The President’s Heads | Director Adam Roffman, 2016

With the time for submissions still open, we can’t say for sure what niches the New Hampshire Film Festival will investigate. However, if last year’s programming is any indication, cinephiles will delve into some strange and specific topics. For example, All the President’s Heads, a film about a history devotee who saves two dozen, massive presidential busts from destruction after being displaced by the building of an Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Independent Television Festival
October 11 – 17
Various Venues
Manchester, VT

Okay. . .this isn’t technically a “film festival.” However, was True Detective (the charcoal dark, riveting serialized HBO murder mystery disguised as a police procedural) a television show or more of a seven-and-a-half-hour movie split into manageable 54-minute chunks? As the line between prestige television and film blurs more each day, so will our categorizations for the sake of this list. Anyway, ITVFest still counts because it’s a moving image festival celebrating a niche part of a hulking industry, a section of the industry that often gets ignored in cinema as well; the independents.

Global Roots Film Festival
April 7 – 9
Contois Auditorium
Burlington, VT

Still from Ladies & Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen |
Directors Donald Brittain & Don Owen, 1965 | Presented by VT PBS and RETN

This niche film festival is brought to us by the Vermont International Film Foundation which also presents the yearly Vermont International Film Festival. The Global Roots Film Festival endeavors to bring Vermonters, “great films from the countries of many of the New American communities. . .to foster a greater understanding of our diverse cultures.” This year, Global Roots turns the lens towards contemporary films coming from Quebec.

Top image, still from Signature Move | Director Jennifer Reeder (2017)

The post 7 New England Niche Film Festivals You Can’t Miss appeared first on Take Magazine.

The connection between song and literature is a long and complicated one. Look to Bob Dylan’s winning of the Nobel Prize and all the hand-wringing and chin-stroking that prompted. Many say that literature sprang from song—that rhyme, melody, and meter allowed the first bards to flesh out their material into longer forms. Cricket Blue, an acoustic folk duo from Burlington, Vermont, explore that place where literature, short stories, folk tales, mythology, poetry, and song all swirl together.

I spoke to the two—Laura Heaberlin, 27, and Taylor Smith, 26—by phone from their home recently. Heaberlin had just finished her shift working at a local bookstore. “I’ve got both feet in dying industries,” said Heaberlin with a laugh, referencing my comment about book selling and music making in the age of streaming and online sales.

Both Heaberlin and Smith studied literature in college. The literary bent of their material can be seen from the titles alone. The duo’s most recent EP is called Io, which you might remember from reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and there’s a song called “Angela Carter,” which is what Heaberlin calls a tribute to the style of the English author of novels that are like graphic feminist fairy tales at their core. Another song features a reference to Niobe, another tragic figure from Greek mythology.

The duo took shape after Heaberlin and Smith had shared some bills together as solo artists. Sometimes they’d do a couple tunes together, work on a cover, or practice an arrangement to stretch out their time on stage. “There were all these two-hour slots to fill and neither of us had that much music or stamina,” says Smith. The sessions made them realize that they liked playing and singing together more than being separate solo acts. Both Heaberlin and Smith write. They each harmonize on the other’s songs.

They do a lot of shows around the Northeast, heading out from their Burlington home base and fitting all their equipment into a Prius.

Like the myths and stories that Cricket Blue draw on for inspiration, the duo’s songs have a vaguely old familiar sound to them, but with unexpected turns and twists. It’s folk music in the sense that it is acoustic music, with stories that draw on a tradition, but it’s not the Carter Family. For one thing, Cricket Blue doesn’t seem to be especially fond of repeating choruses and refrains. Both songwriters convey the sense that they’d prefer to wedge more lyrical details into a song instead of spending valuable time going over words that have already been covered.

“I feel like if you’ve already said something, and you can potentially say something new, why say the same thing again?” asks Heaberlin, posing a question that many poetically inclined songwriters have asked themselves before.

Smith echoes the sentiment: “If left to my druthers, I’d have tons and tons of lyrics with no chorus.”

If many songwriters in their 20s find the experience of making their way in the world, navigating adulthood, relationships, work, independence, and the emotional and psychic ruffles that come with that to provide sufficient depths of feeling to mine for songwriting purposes, Heaberlin says that she tends to focus on narratives and characters outside herself for their songs.

“You can only really write so many songs about your life,” she says, “especially when nothing really changes in your life.”

Laura Heaberlin and Taylor Smith – Cricket Blue, Acoustic Duo
Burlington, VT
Website
Twitter
Facebook

Top photo by Sue Bibeau

The post Singing the Writing Life in Vermont appeared first on Take Magazine.

In a former lifetime in which the person inhabiting the Oval Office had an actual vision based on facts, the arts were recognized as an integral measure of our society. President John F. Kennedy, for instance, said this about the arts: “We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda. It is a form of truth.”

Truth, of course, has taken a hit since 45 took office. That whole “alternative facts” bit. But numbers, or so the saying goes, don’t lie. So with that in mind, we took a quick look at the potential math implications of 45’s federal budget.

First the overview:

• Number of programs and agencies due for elimination: 62
• Number of programs within the Environmental Protection Agency alone: 50

Other programs due for funding cuts—or outright elimination—focus on everything from literacy to low-income home energy improvements to investigating chemical accidents. The enormous breadth and scope of impact on those least able to manage without these programs is breathtaking.

But since we’re an arts and culture magazine, we’re going to focus our hyperventilation on the potential impact of these devastating cuts to art and culture in New England. The proposed budget calls for eliminating all funding for the National Endowment for the Arts ($152 million) and the National Endowment for the Humanities ($155 million).

What NEA funding means to New England:

For fiscal year 2017, New England states received $2.591 million in NEA grants overall, according to the NEA website. Here’s who got what:

• Connecticut: 15 organizations, $310,000
• Massachusetts: 62 organizations, $1,672,000
• Maine: 11 organizations, $242,000
• New Hampshire: 6 organizations, $120,000
• Rhode Island: 9 organizations, $152,500
• Vermont: 4 organizations, $95,000

But the math adds up even less when you look beyond straight grants. Ann Wicks, communications manager for the New England Foundation on the Arts (NEFA)—one of six regional arts organizations funded by the NEA and private donations—explains. Arts organizations can potentially receive NEA dollars in three ways:

• an outright allocation of a grant the organization applies for itself
• an allocation from NEFA through NEA dollars provided to NEFA
• from NEA dollars given to state arts organizations, such as the Massachusetts Cultural Council

Wicks says about 15 percent of NEFA’s annual budget comes from NEA dollars. Beyond grants, NEFA uses those dollars to support artists in other, less direct ways, Wicks says. The Creative Ground Directory, for instance, is a free resource that lists artists and other creators around New England so that it’s easier to find appropriate collaborators for projects. In FY2016, NEFA made a total of 462 grants equaling $3.4 million. New England states received $829,947 of those NEFA grants.

In other words, the loss of funding to New England arts and humanities organizations could be even larger. “NEA support is very important to New England and the creative sector,” she says.

It’s a point that is echoed nationally. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), a national nonprofit that assists state arts agencies, offers this math about how NEA dollars improve the economy at large:

• The arts return $22.3 billion in tax revenue to federal, state, county, and municipal governments.
• Rural areas, low-income communities, and schools would feel the effects of this funding loss disproportionately from reductions. State arts agencies (using state and federal funds) award more than 25% of their grants to rural areas, 54% to low-income communities, and 45% to arts education projects.
• Every NEA dollar leverages more than $9 in matching funds, meaning that the impact of the NEA loss is just the beginning of the potential financial loss for arts organizations.

Cutting the NEA and NEH seem especially confusing given this math offered by NASAA: The NEA receives 0.004% of the total Federal budget, which is less than ½ of one hundredth of a percent.

That math also doesn’t add up when you consider the numbers presented by The Guardian. The British paper reports the following expenses incurred by taxpayers less than 50 days into 45’s residency:

• $56.6 million (or a cool $500,000 a day) to protect Trump Tower. That was through March 1. Assuming that Mrs. 45 stays until June for Mini-45 to finish school, that dollar amount could add another $46 million, bringing the total to $102 million.
• $3+million estimated cost for EACH weekend jaunt to golf work at his Mar-a-Lago Resort (a place where he doubled entry fees from $100,000 to $200,000 the day after he was elected).
• $97,380 for hotels for Secret Service to protect Eric Trump (that would be his son on those business interests 45 still hasn’t divested himself of) while he visited a condominium development in Uruguay. This is just one trip.

And finally this statistic: 45’s proposed military spending increase in his federal budget? $54 billion.

Something definitely doesn’t add up.

Does this irritate you as much as it does us? Here are a few links if you want to #TakeAction. See you on the streets.

Pen.org
artsactionfund.org
Change.org
The Official White House Petition to Save Arts Funding
Contact Your Representative
Arts Advocacy Day – Washington, DC
#SaveTheNEA

Top image courtesy Royal Talens

The post #TakeAction: Doing the NEA Defunding Math appeared first on Take Magazine.

This article originally appeared in our September 2015 print issue.

Don’t be fooled by her colorful costumes and “anyone can do it” attitude—Abby is a serious artist. An adjunct professor at Columbia University who frequently spends time in her hometown of Burlington, Vermont, Manock takes complicated concepts and boils them down into publicly digestible but very personal archetypes.

In the Deitch Projects gallery’s 2006 Art Parade, Manock’s production Annie vs. Grease Soundtrack War had volunteers dress as either Annie from the musical or Danny from the film Grease. This wasn’t bio-sex-specific—people were just asked to identify as either character, dress accordingly, and then parade down the streets of Manhattan dancing to their respective soundtrack.

Annie vs. Grease Soundtrack War | Photo by Josh Tonsfeldt

“This whole project started because I would blast the Annie and Grease soundtracks in my studio,” Manock says. “People would just stop in to talk. They were so excited to tell me their stories surrounding these songs!

“When the volunteers—friends and acquaintances from every phase of my life—showed up [the day of the Art Parade], I asked them all to wear a bag on their head. At first I think people were like, ‘I have to wear bag on my head?’ But then something amazing happened. We took all of our individual experiences with these songs and became a collective. Annie and Danny’s worlds fused. It was almost surreal. It was like we created our own musical—something bigger than its parts.”

In another public artwork, Volley of the Nuts, performers dressed as either Wingnuts (more techy) or Acorns (more woodsy) and performed a set of tasks specific to their persona. The Wingnuts were like crows. Their job was to be fascinated by shiny things, hang out and taunt people, and basically mess things up. The Acorns’ job was to clean up after the Wingnuts. They would tidy and hide the shiny things by digging holes and burying them. The Wingnuts would then scratch at the dirt and dig the shiny things up, completing the circle. It became like a spectator sport. Onlookers would pick sides, mostly rooting for the Acorns. These two “sides” were essentially of the same coin. Through play, the teams demonstrated this symbiotic relationship.

“Ernie and Bert” from What Ever It Takes | Photo by Sam Simon

“I love the way things that are black and white play off each other,” Manock says.

In addition to teaching, she works as an artist’s assistant, a scenic painter, a muralist, a prop maker, and a visual designer. I met her in 2004 while she was conceiving Mastodon Cometh. The underlying goal of this work was to explore the idea of sustenance and how dramatically it has changed over time. It was commissioned as part of an on-site project for the band Phish’s “final” concert in Coventry, Vermont.

Performers dressed as cavemen dragged an enormous steel-framed mastodon out into the throngs of concertgoers. They then decapitated and split open the elephant-like creature, transforming it into a Quickie Mart. Instead of chomping on prehistoric mammal meat, the performers, now dressed in convenience-store uniforms, snacked on and dispensed packets filled with jelly beans, Cheetos, Life Savers, and all sorts of other highly processed “foods.” Ahhhh, progress!

“The Noodle Family Traveling Circus” | Photo by Abby Manock

Manock’s art is in a constant state of evolution, and she feels she is moving into a new creative phase. In August of last year, for example, she brought the Mastodon project to its knees. In a short film starring some of the original cast dressed in both caveman and Quickie Mart costumes, the mastodon was burned to the ground. Her next “mammoth” undertaking is a project involving good-luck charms and a string of glow-in-the-dark jellyfish.

“Most recently,” she adds, “I’ve been doing some murals. I’ve always used black lines to more clearly define my patterns. But I’m going for something more subtle now. I’m having the colors go right up against each other. It’s like I’m letting up on ‘total control.’ I’m not coloring between the lines. I’m just letting the colors speak for themselves.”

Abby Manock – Visual Artist
Burlington, Vermont
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

Top photo of Abby Manock by Tim Ireland

The post Black, White, and Abby All Over appeared first on Take Magazine.

This article originally appeared in our February/March 2016 analog-themed print issue. 

In November of 1994, the rock band Pearl Jam released its highly-anticipated third album, Vitalogy, on vinyl, two full weeks before releasing it on CD. If you’re too young to remember the days before albums leaked on the Internet, this was quite a novelty, if not a stunt. Although fewer than 10 years removed from an era when vinyl records were ubiquitous, by 1994 the compact disc had (supposedly) thoroughly banished the format to the Island of Antiquated Tech, where it joined 8-track tapes and rotary phones. Discs were portable, lightweight, slim, sturdy, and, most importantly, sounded goddamn amazing. No skips, no tape, no fuss, no muss. So the fact that Vitalogy sold 34,000 copies on vinyl in its first week was something of a coup, even if most people at the time shook their heads and smiled as if it was an episode of nostalgia or, worse, stubborn Luddism in the face of undeniable progress.

Burlington Record Plant co-owner Justin Crowther

Fast-forward (ahem) two decades later. The CD is all but obsolete, rendered so by phenomena with pleasant, natural-sounding names like “streaming” and “the cloud.” But tucked away in a garage bay behind a bagel shop just outside of downtown Burlington, Vermont, a new business, the Burlington Record Plant, creates actual physical media in the form of, yes, vinyl records. Helmed by honest-to-god working musicians, it’s no gimmick or retro flight-of-fancy, but a testament to the enduring power of a medium that has never fully gone away.

On the hottest day of the summer, I wander into the open garage bay to find Justin Crowther, drummer for one of Vermont’s most beloved hometown bands, “underground outlaw dirt rock” quartet Waylon Speed, hard at work test-pressing copies of the band’s 2014 album, Kin. He is surrounded by a phalanx of machinery and not a small amount of vintage radios and other sonic equipment. Within a minute of shaking hands amid stacks of traditional black platters, he proudly shows me a copy of Kin recently pressed on white, marbled vinyl. “I’ve just started experimenting,” Crowther says.

He is also quick to establish a running theme about the Burlington Record Plant—that it’s a labor of love. And both words, labor and love, are equally important. Gesturing toward the main piece of machinery currently churning out test pressings, he explains “I bought this from Germany, [where] it was totally just mothballed. We spent the better part of the year totally rebuilding it, like, five times over.”

Vinyl pellets that will be melted into records.

The “we” refers to the members of Waylon Speed (Crowther and his brother Noah, plus Reverend Chad Hammaker and Kelly Ravin); JD Campbell, who also works in the shop; a team of pipefitters who helped with the buildout; and two guys skilled in heavy machinery: Andre Bolduc, who works in hydraulics, and Davor Amrain, an engineer for a snowboard prototype facility just a few blocks away. “I saw [Amrain] was doing injection and compression molding. . .so I gained security clearance, went over [to Amrain’s workplace], and got a tour,” Crowther recalls.

“We took [the record-pressing machine] apart together, piece by piece, and determined what it was doing exactly, and redid it all with these electrical components. This is a custom design for pressing records, like ‘2.0.’” Crowther will later reiterate to me “how grateful I am for the crew.”

With only a few dozen record plants worldwide, there’s no training program or manual of best practices for starting up this sort of thing; it’s sink or swim.

“I put an international plan on my phone, and I called all over the world for a long time and talked to all these old-school guys,” Crowther explains. “And they’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, some kid from the States is going to press records, whatever’—because your respect is earned. It’s a very underground, very private kind of manufacturing process [to learn]. So I would take pictures after we rebuilt something and send it back to them. Months later I would keep sending them pictures, like ‘there’s no turning back, man. This is what we’re doing.’ And I just started to build relationships.”

I get the sense pretty quickly how important relationships are to Crowther—relationships with other record manufacturers and with fans, friends, family, and, of course, bandmates. When I mention something about the recent, steady increase in vinyl record sales, he gently but firmly clarifies that money was not the primary impetus for creating the plant. Still, there’s a small but sure list of friends whose projects have helped launch the business.

Just how fast can the Burlington Record Plant’s custom-made rig turn the records out? “The cycle time’s the secret, the secret recipe,” says Crowther. “But I can, if we’re pushing it, in an eight-hour day, press 800 records.”

Justin Crowther, who is also the drummer for Waylon Speed, presses records.

That’s more than enough for the smaller runs desired by local bands. Crowther agrees, pointing to a sheet on the wall with a list of projects by select friends and compatriots. “We typically have [runs of] 500, a couple 100s, a 200.” All of the plant’s records are currently 12”, but there are future plans for 10″ and 7″ records. “Right now I’m trying to prevent a situation where we have to tell people, ‘Sorry, but we can’t do your record for six months.’ I’d rather it be like, these are the people I want to work with, there’s a couple records I’d really love to work with.”

And of course there’s Kin. Although released in 2014, Waylon Speed’s fourth album was recorded specifically with the promise of a future vinyl pressing in mind. Crowther puts the record on the house stereo and, so I can get the full effect, hands me a pair of headphones. Vinyl die-hards sometimes catch flak from audiophiles who say the oft-invoked “warmth” (read: superiority) of records is pure hokum. And it’s true that a lot of contemporary, digitally-recorded music, when put on wax, might as well be on CD or mp3. But to my ears, the sound of analog-recorded songs pressed on vinyl is distinctive. Crowther sums it up. For musicians, he says, “The romantic dream is you record to 2″ tape, you use an analog board, the whole analog set up, you get it mastered for vinyl, you get it cut and then plated, and sent. So we did that. It does offer a better spectrum of frequency and stays consistent.”

The physical parameters of vinyl with regard to album length have also played an important role in albums as an art form, and continue to do so, as Waylon Speed learned when cutting Kin. “It’s favorable to have the louder songs toward the beginning, because the grooves are deeper the louder [the sound] is,” says Crowther. I tell him that even as a lifelong music nerd, that piece of information blows my mind. “Same here,” he admits. “Every day is like a head-scratcher. All I’m doing is—and I know this might sound kinda cheesy—but I’m letting the record teach me what I need to do to it. I’m letting the equipment teach me what it wants to do.”

Justin and his brother, Waylon Speed bassist Noah, grew up in a house with a lot of music. “My parents were Deadheads. Lots of Zappa, King Crimson, Neil Young, and Little Feat.” As for his own tastes, “Punk and hardcore drew me in first. The first vinyl record I remember buying was Earth Crisis, Firestorm. Funny how those two genres seem to be so opposite but align in many ways.”

JD Campbell, the Burlington Record Plant’s first employee.

In my mind, what links together the styles Crowther grew up around and the music he makes today, which is partly influenced by the former, is a certain reverence for the past, the idea that you don’t just abandon something because it’s old, even as you’re evolving and pushing forward. “I believe vinyl has remained because it’s such a part of our history,” Crowther says. “Just like the automobile, it changes, but the principle and functionality remain.”

Within the past year, Waylon Speed even supported rock legends Lynyrd Skynyrd on their Simple Man Cruise around the Caribbean, further exemplifying a willingness to transcend generational bounds. And speaking of generations, just a few months after the tour, Crowther and his wife welcomed their son, Ezhno, into the world. “For a month or so, I was burning the candle at both ends,” he says, but adds that he’s figuring out the balance between the band, the plant, and family.

Before I leave, Crowther introduces me to one of his favorite records to listen to specifically on vinyl, Frank Zappa’s Sleep Dirt. It was the first entirely instrumental Zappa album, one he recorded just to fulfill a contract. It sounds fantastic. “You can tell that was made for fuckin’ vinyl,” Crowther says. For all of the convenience of sharing music digitally, there’s no substitute for getting an in-person recommendation where the five-star rating is entirely in someone’s eyes as they set the needle down.

Justin Crowther – musician and Burlington Record Plant principal
Burlington, Vermont
Website
Facebook
Instagram

Top photo Burlington Record Plant | Photography by Scott Pasfield

The post The Vinyl Revival appeared first on Take Magazine.

An orange sociopath was elected president, David Bowie AND Prince passed away, and Kimmy K may or may not have staged her own assault and robbery to stay relevant. Grab some hand warmers and booze, we’re closing the book on this collapsing star of a year and never looking back.

First Night Hartford, CT
2:00 PM – 12:00AM
Wristband: Adults: $12.00, Kids (3-5): $3
Downtown Hartford

This year will mark the 28th anniversary of First Night Hartford, and, as always, it’s promised to be a multicultural celebration with not one, but TWO fireworks displays—one slated for 6pm for you early birds out there. There will be a vintage 1914 carousel in Bushnell Park, with 48 hand-carved horses and two lovers chariots to revolve you and your boo into the new year. Enjoy ice skating, an Irish sing-along, and visit Butler McCook House to make your very own mask for the crowd-sourced Grand Procession.

First Night Portsmouth, NH
2:00PM – 12:00AM
Buttons: Adults: $15 ahead of time, $25 night of, Kids: $2
Downtown Portsmouth

Be sure to mosey on over to North Church to check out the ice sculptures, which sculptors have been meticulously working on since one o’clock. Starting at 5:00PM, Portsmouth community radio will be providing tunes for you to dance your 2016 sorrows away ‘til the ball drops. But don’t forget to take a break to visit the NH Astronomical Society for some star gazing—2016 was confusing as hell and I think we all deserve answers from the universe.

First Night Boston, MA
10:00AM – 12:00AM
Free and open to the public
Copley Square

Boston is celebrating over 40 years of First Night, an alternative to the traditional booze driven raucous debauchery of NYE. This year, First Night Boston will continue to be an inclusive, family oriented, art-centered celebration to mark the passage of time. Is one night enough to celebrate the end of a consistently backwards year? Hell No. The party don’t stop at midnight—reconvene on “First Day” for even more fun. Whether it be ice skating, taking ballroom dance lessons, or joining the People’s Parade in Boston Common, you’re sure to have a good time in First Night’s birthplace.

First Night Northampton, MA
12:00PM – 12:00AM
Buttons: Adult $16 ahead of time, $20 day of, Seniors $10, Kids 2-10 $8

If you missed the A2Z yoyo team last year, you have another shot at seeing them do a little more than just walk the dog. Not your cup of hot chocolate? Join the folks from Mad Science at John M. Greene Hall and learn how to make potions that explode. Looking for a more sonic experience? Catch the Northamptones, a high school a cappella troupe. Northampton often likes to take the path less traveled. Oh no, they don’t dare let the ball drop, they would rather see it rise. This year gather around the Hotel Northampton for the ceremonial ascent. You might not be able to tell when the ball gets to the top, but hey, that’s what iPhones are for. Smooch.

Sardine Drop | Tides Institute & Museum of Art, Eastport Maine | Photograph by Hugh French

New Year’s Eve Sardine & Maple Leaf Drop, Eastport, ME
11:00PM – 12:00AM
Free and open to the public
Eastport

Who needs a First Night when you can have a Sardine and Maple Leaf Drop?! Eastport, Maine celebrates the coming of the new year with two “balls,” so to speak. On the third floor of Tides Institute & Museum of Art, a giant maple leaf will drop at 11PM (Midnight, Atlantic Time) to honor the Canadian new year. Following the first finale will be a second, appropriately with the descent of an 8-foot long sardine at midnight ET, as a nod to neighboring New Brunswick, home to a booming sardine industry.  A maple leaf and a sardine—an unlikely, but decidedly merry, love affair. Prior to the “droppings,” pop in to Studioworks to make paper party hats and hit the photo booth in style or stop at the Eastport Gallery for hot cider and cookies. Oh, and don’t forget to kiss the Sardine for good luck in 2017…we’re gonna need it.

Polar Bear Plunge Newport, RI
12:00PM Sharp
Donations to benefit A Wish Come True
Easton Beach

The people of this port city don’t retire their swim trunks when the temperature drops. In fact, on the first day of the year, it’s all these folks wear. This chilly tradition calls on adventurous locals to submerge into the freezing waves in the name of charity, and of course, a particularly *extra* year. If you have too much sense to charge into sub-40 degree water that will surely lead to your demise, pop on a funny hat and support the brave ones…and be sure to donate! Everyone is invited to the Atlantic Beach Club post plunge for an after party and—pun intended—a cold one.

First Night Burlington, VT

11:00AM – 12:00AM
Buttons: Adults: $18, day of $22, Child Button (ages 3 to 12): $5, Student Button (age 13+ with valid ID): $10, Family Pack: $42
Burlington

In 1983, Burlington hopped on the First Night bandwagon and become the fifth city to join the tradition. The main event of this family-friendly celebration is the Dancing Dragons parade, in which locals march down Church Street in traditional, Chinese-style parade dragons. In addition to the carnival rhythms, First Night Burlington offers a bountiful lineup of local artists, a screening of animated short films by Vermont International Film Festival, and an instrument petting zoo for people, especially children, to explore lesser known folk instruments from around the world.

Top image by Hugh French

The post First Night New England appeared first on Take Magazine.

Hanlon Longboards – Brentwood, New Hampshire
Surfboad maker Dan Hanlon says, “I make custom longboards that are more durable, easy to ride, and stylish than Asian popouts that sell for hundreds more in your local surf shop.” He specializes in 9- to 10-foot boards modeled after the heavier longboards that used to be made in California and Hawaii in the 1960s. Hanlon Longboards also have “some modern features that work well on New England breaks.” Average price: $850.

Straws Noserider board by Hanlon

Grain Surfboards – York, Maine
“What started as a desire to build and ride our own boards turned into a bigger idea: classic surfboards that were completely new to an entire generation of surfers, an environmentally conscious generation with an appreciation for sustainability,” say Grain Surfboards co-owners Mike LaVecchia and Brad Anderson. Their surfboards are hand-built using boat construction techniques and local wood. Prices start at $1,000, and there are make-your-own kits and workshops, too.

Waka board by Nick Lavecchia

PowderJet Snowboards – Rupert, Vermont
The most-recognized brand of snowboard, Burton, is headquartered in Vermont, but the Green Mountain State boasts smaller producers as well. One of the latter is Jesse Loomis, who makes only about 150 boards a year. “I build PowderJets in the cleanest way I can,” he says, referring to his commitment to environmentally friendly, local materials and methods. He builds his snowboards from U.S.-grown maple and poplar. Average price range $550-$750.

Board by Jesse Loomis

Powe. Snowboards – Burlington, Vermont**
Co-owners Adam and Eric Vindigni use environmentally conscious, American-made materials such as bamboo, poplar, and hemp (for the outer layer on which graphics are printed). “Designed to be suitable [for] backcountry and all mountain disciplines, our snowboards are lightweight, flexible, durable, and made right here in Vermont,” they declare. They also work with their community to reduce the amount of trash on ski-resort mountains. Price range $275-$399.

Custom design by Powe. Snowboards

SHOREBOARDZ – Trumbull, Connecticut
Michael Shore, a longtime skateboarder and surfer, developed a line of skateboards to simulate surfing. He also created SHOREBOARDZ to “provide safer, more stable boards for those who had long since given up skating” for fear of injury, he says. There’s even an extra-long skateboard for stand-up paddle board training. Shore is a one-man show who runs his business out of his garage. Prices start at $150.

Custom skateboard by SHOREBOARDZ

Tidal Roots Stand Up Paddleboards – Eliot, Maine
Kent Scovill and Kyle Schaefer were searching “for a better way to chase striped bass on the mud flats of coastal Maine” when they traded their kayaks for stand-up paddleboards. Then, “driven by the desire to build a different board, one with a unique personality and constructed from materials found in [our] backyard of coastal Maine, [we] founded Tidal Roots.” Average price range of in-stock boards $2250-2750. Home-build kits also available.

Paddleboard by Tidalroots

This article originally appeared in our February/March 2016 Print issue.

**Powe. Snowboards no longer makes their boards in the U.S.

Top photo PowderJet Snowboard by Jesse Loomis | All photos courtesy the board-makers

The post Fast Take: All Aboard appeared first on Take Magazine.

The Burlington Parks, Recreation & Waterfront Department, Big Heavy World, and Vermont Community Access Media (VCAM) are collaborating to create a video they hope will preserve the legacy of 242 Main and the ideas and people that have made it an essential part of Burlington’s history.

242 Main was founded in 1984 as a project of the city’s youth office. The venue was largely supported by the mayor of Burlington at the time, Bernie Sanders. After Sanders was elected in 1981, he tasked Jane O’Meara, his future wife, and local youth organizers with finding a way to improve relationships between the city’s youth and the municipal government.

The solution was to help create a youth music scene, supervised by youth organizers, with programming created by the teens themselves. After the success of a show put on by the organizers at a local auditorium, they decided to build a music venue in the vacated office of the Burlington Water Division. Sprung from these efforts, 242 Main evolved into a vibrant youth center and hub of the northeast punk music scene. Until its doors close in December of this year, the venue will be one of the oldest standing, all-ages, and substance-free music venues in the United States.

War on Women performing at 242 Main | Photo by James Lockridge

242 Main is revered by many in Burlington and beyond, credited with creating a much-needed space for empowering adolescents through innovation, political involvement, music, and the arts. The venue gave voice to the city’s youth and gave them a space for community involvement and creativity.

Bill Simmon, artistic director and videographer for the documentary, says that the film “seeks to celebrate the history and legacy of the longest running all-ages punk venue in the country. The stories from that venue in the last 30 or so years are as thick as the layers of punk rock stickers that cover the walls of the place.” The filmmaker and his collaborators will be shooting interviews with staff, musicians, former youth members, city government officials, and anyone who feels that 242 Main impacted them.

“As the building the venue is in is set to close—maybe forever—we want to look back and appreciate what an amazing jewel the space is in the ‘Queen City’s’ crown. It is a fundamentally safe space. It is drug and alcohol free, all ages, no hate speech, homophobia or racism is tolerated. It’s a place where youth who sometimes have a hard time fitting in have a place to call their own. A place where young musicians can play their first shows alongside more seasoned pros, and cut their teeth as artists and self-promoters,” said Simmons.

Deferred maintenance has caused Memorial Auditorium, the location of 242 Main, to close until it is decided to either repair or redevelop the building. This makes the upcoming documentary, focusing on the impact of 242 Main on local youth throughout the decades since its incarnation, coming at an crucial time for the continuation of the venue and its social presence.

Poster image courtesy of Big Heavy World/James Lockridge

The final show at 242 Main will be held on December 3rd, 2016 – Lineup TBD
Top photo by James Lockridge of Big Heavy World

The post Documenting 242 Main appeared first on Take Magazine.