MoCA Features Songwriter's Stage Producation

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Singer-songwriter Terry Allen, Photo Courtesy of MASS MoCA
NORTH ADAMS - Visual artist and singer-songwriter Terry Allen will take a break from working on his newest stage production, "Ghost Ship Rodez," for an "alt cab" performance at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art's Club B-10. Allen, here for a residency at Mass MoCA, will perform Saturday, Jan. 19, at 8 p.m. He has recorded 11 albums of original songs, including "Juarez," "Lubbock" and his most recent, "Salivation." The albums feature Allen's Texas accent and attitude, with text focusing on bizarre characters and biting observations. He also contributed a song to David Byrne's only feature film, "True Stories." The Boston Globe praises Allen as "utterly uncompromising, profoundly unsettling even at his most cheerful, and one of the most important musical voices around." Allen spent his formative years helping out at Jamboree Hall, an old church turned nightclub that his parents ran, where he was introduced to a steady stream of blues and country music acts including B.B. King and T-Bone Walker. He also often accompanied his mother, a piano player and jazz and blues musician, to her performances in Santa Fe. These experiences, as well as being raised in Lubbock, Texas, Buddy Holly's hometown where storytelling was a way of being and the people had, according to Allen, "a different outlook on life because of the way the horizon threatened to swallow everything whole," shaped his later work. Surrounded by other artists and performers in high school - such as Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, Flatlanders' Butch Hancock, Jo Carol Pierce, and his wife, Jo Harvey Allen - Allen, as well as the rest of these characters, would eventually become pioneers of contemporary country music's most progressive movement. Allen has made a career out of creating art based on how things are, not how they ought to be. His experience includes theatrical performance, sculpture, painting, drawing, video, installation, radio works and, of course, writing and performing his own music. He's the recipient of numerous awards and honors - including Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, Bessie (New York) and Isadora Duncan (San Francisco) Awards for text, music, sets, and costumes, and induction into the Buddy Holly Walk of Fame. Based on the life of French theater visionary, poet, and artist Antonin Artaud, "Ghost Ship Rodez" will be performed as a work-in-progress on Friday, Jan. 25, and Saturday, Jan. 26, in the Hunter Center. Tickets are $14 in advance/$18 day of show. MoCA members receive a 10 percent discount. Tickets are available at the box office off Marshall Street from 11 to 5, except Tuesdays. Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413-662-2111 during box office hours or purchased at www.massmoca.org
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New North Adams Restaurant Approved for Liquor License

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — A new restaurant on Main Street, a provisions shop and a convenience store all got the nod from the License Commission on Tuesday.
 
Siblings Colleen and Sean Taylor are expanding their cuisine empire yet again with the establishment of Main & Mill in the old TD Bank. They were before the commission to apply for an all-alcohol license. 
 
The building is owned by Ginko on Main Street LLC, which has granted 20 years exclusive possession of the property to Latent Builds as the developer. Jack and Suzy Wadsworth, behind Ginko, are development partners with Salvatore Perry and Karla Rothstein of Latent.
 
The bank closed in early 2021 and purchased by Ginko late that year. Plans for the property unveiled three years ago envisioned a restaurant, retail, a park and rooftop bar. 
 
The building's hosted some pop-up eateries and is currently under construction for the new restaurant. 
 
Colleen Taylor said the restaurant will be open seven days a week serving lunch and dinner, and be open early for coffee. 
 
"It's not going to be a very big restaurant. It's about the same size as Trail House, except for Trail House has a bigger patio, so about the same seating," she said.
 
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