That rumbling? It’s no earthquake, it’s a huge party, just over the horizon and headed this way: It’s “Western Massive: a Celebration of Music, Art, Community and Culture,” an all-ages event featuring more than 40 acts on three stages.
It’s happening at Gateway City Arts in Holyoke Friday, from 6 p.m. to 1:45 a.m., and Saturday, from noon to 1:45 a.m.
The two-day festival covers a galaxy of genres — Afro-beat, dancehall, reggae, ska, dubstep, electronic, funk, hip hop, neo-soul, R&B, rock, acoustic folk, deejays and more — though many of the participating artists don’t fit neatly into any one category.
An abbreviated alphabetical peek at who’s on the bill includes The Alchemystics (pictured), Jeff Bujak, Deejay Theory, Eavesdrop, Fear Nuttin Band, The Gaslight Tinkers, I-Ganic Sound System, Ross Jenssen, Joystick, Krewe Les Gras, Mammal Dap, The Medicinal Purpose, Outer Stylie, Danny Pease & the Regulators, Political Animals, Shanti Starr & the Afro Reggae All-Star Band and Wubson … but that’s just the tip of the talent from the 413 (and beyond) slated to appear.
Like a Hollywood movie so epic that it has to combine the heft of multiple studios to make it happen, “Western Massive” is a collaboration between three promoters — Spencer Lavoie (4Life Entertainment), Hugh Currier (Down Right Productions) and Tonio Sagan (an electronic/hip-hop artist, producer and performer).
In an interview with Sagan last weekend, he said he’s known Lavoie and Currier for years, but they first began working together at the Bella Terra Festival in upstate New York, which was an important step toward the eventual creation of “Western Massive.”
“My passenger seat experience with the production of that festival taught me a great deal of dos and don’ts in the world of event planning,” said Sagan, who is, incidentally, astronomer Carl Sagan’s grandson. “When I decided I wanted to start something up of my own, it only made sense to partner up with Spencer and Hugh.”
Sagan said the vision for “Western Massive” is “to spotlight an overflow of talent, paying tribute to the amazing diversity of musicians and artists we are blessed to so easily access in the Valley.”
“Between the three promoters, everyone on the lineup is a friend. Keeping it in the family is really what makes this special,” said Sagan, who will make a couple of appearances at the event himself, including a special set with his old hip-hop group, The Problemaddicts — a rare occasion, for which all six original members will appear.
The full schedule and ticket information is available at the “Western Massive” Facebook page. Visit www.gatewaycityarts.com for more details.
I first heard the music of Joel Thibodeau — who records and performs under the band name Death Vessel — 10 years ago, in a van, on tour, at night, rolling along a highway, hypnotized. (I wasn’t driving, I was a happy passenger, all ears.)
My bandmates had put on his new-at-the-time CD, “Stay Close,” and they were eager to see the look on my face when I was smacked by his otherworldly voice, a bright and lonesome and androgynous sound.
The song they chose to play was “Tidy Nervous Breakdown,” an old-timey sounding acoustic gallop, but the words took any traditional/Americana trappings and transported them into a surreal zone where meanings aren’t so obvious: “Big deal, big trouble, an unnerving kind / by ball and by powder / high tail attack,” goes the first verse, and the catchy chorus is just the word “tidy” stretched out over a sing-along stair-step melody.
Soon enough the buzz propelled Death Vessel into a record deal with Sub Pop Records, and the one-man band has remained there ever since. “Island Intervals” (from 2014) is his newest album, recorded in Reykjavik, Iceland, and as oddly alluring as ever. The jaunty and dreamy “Mercury Dime” was the first single, with Thibodeau dipping and soaring into both the lower and upper reaches of his uncanny range.
Death Vessel plays the One Bar & Grill in Northampton Sunday at 8 p.m. Singer/songwriter Rob Maher opens the show.
Ken Maiuri can be reached at clublandcolumn@gmail.com.