If It's Too Loud...

I'm a huge supporter of early fall festivals. It's still warm enough to comfortably spend the day outside, but you most likely won't be profusely sweating all day. There tend to be less obligations on the weekends than there are in the summer. Considering how many festivals are packing the weekends this September, organizers are finally agreeing with me. Here are festivals we're curious about coming up next month! River Roads Festival September 7 Millside Park, Easthampton, MA Western Massachusetts has been a favorite festival destination for me from back in the Warped Tour days in Northampton. River Roads takes place in a park in Easthampton and boasts an amazing folk/singer-songwriter oriented line up. You get well established artists like Dar Williams, Iris Dement, Jill Sobule, and Paula Cole along with favorite up and comers like Haley Heynderickx and Sunny War. Listening to amazing artists in a park on the side of a river is one of our favorite things to do, and Ri...

The JP Music Festival was a free, outdoors, all ages music festival held last Saturday. Despite being eight hours of music, I only made it for the last hour since I was dragging my entire family along. Bands played quickie twenty minute sets, so I did get to see three of my favorite Boston bands: Hallelujah the Hills, The Sheila Divine, and Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys. It's pretty hard to write about a twenty minute set, and I've written about these three bands live fairly extensively, so we're going to keep this more as a photo gallery. It should be noted that The Sheila Divine busted out a cover of Echo & The Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" and Walter Sickert trying not watch his language might have been the highlight of the day. Hallelujah the Hills: The Sheila Divine: Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys:

Back in my younger days, Jamaica Plain wasn't exactly a hotbed of cool. It was kind of the neighborhood you never went to, and never had any reason to want to. Since the 90's, the neighborhood has completely reinvented itself, and there is nothing that proves this more than the 8th Annual Jamaica Plain Music Festival. The festival "...  assembles a convergence of musical genres, drawing upon the wide-ranging artistic community living in this part of Boston." You would think that might handicap a festival as to what kind of artists they could book, but the line up is bonkers great. It includes blog favorites/must see every time we can bands like Hallelujah the Hills, The Sheila Divine, and Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys. Those three would be enough, but then they include bands we always mean to get around checking out like Merrie Amsterberg (who I have somehow managed to never see), Andy California, and Sidewalk Driver. Plus, there are a ton of other ba...