I'm friends with the Pedal People, who live across from me. Their home is located behind this fence with holes in it made of bicycle rims and featuring their motto: SHARE.
By the side of the woodland way they have set up a place for people to sit and rest if they are walking and some free air if they are on bikes.
The Pedal People have rejected the internal combustion engine and do everything with bicycles, including collecting all the trash downtown, a chore for which they have a contract with the city of Northampton. However, the other day I saw Pedal Person Ruthy Woodring struggling to remove a cinder block some idiot had thrown away in one of the street cans.
Thoughtless people, whenever you throw something away, do you ever stop to think of where away is? Be nice to the Pedal People and make it easy for them to pick up after you!
Hipster fashions in a Hamp store window.
Who knew that the ruby slippers were in an apartment over a Chinese restaurant in Hamp?
Then when?
A big show is coming up on the 12th at the Northampton Academy of Music where a bunch of old rockers from the heyday of the Rusty Nail will reunite for a good ol' blast from the past. But where's Martian Highway?
The Rusty Nail was a popular music club out in Sunderland in the late 1970's and early 80's. I went there a number of times, but have only sketchy memories of the place. I recall that you could hardly see a foot in front of your face in the restrooms for all the pot smoking constantly underway. I also recall the ridiculous fashions of the times, which were a mix of high hippy and flashy disco, sometimes the worst of both.
But the place had a boogie til you puke good-time vibe that could be a lot of fun, and the joint was much mourned when it burned down under suspicious circumstances around 1986. I'm sure this reunion show will be a sweet dose of nostalgia for those who were there, and a fun-filled lesson in Valley musical history for those who were not.
In the catacomb like stairways of the UMass Library I came upon this pencil sketch.
A few weeks later I came by and saw that a tribute had been painted to the late, lamented UMass band leader George Parks.
Play on.
3 comments:
I think thats great that northampton contracts the pedal people to collect the trash. It just shows what a great unique town it is. Also i really enjoy your stories and snipits of the valley and pine point, i feel like im getting a history lesson.
Where is Martian Highway indeed?
For my money as an 18-22 year old Dead Head, the Highway was the best thing going in the Valley during those dark days of disco.
Carl where are you now when we need you most?
There is a former Valley resident, now apparently holed-up deep in Mexico, (see here for a blog thread from 2008: http://bohoworker.blogspot.com/search?q=martian+highway)
...who seems to have some Highway recordings...
Man Tom, I felt like I was always at the Rusty Nail. We called NRBQ our local Grateful Dead. When Tommy Ardolino passed recently, David Gans was on the Dead satellite station talking about NRBQ. He said essentially, if you think they're not a jam band, they could jam more into a 4 minute song that anyone. I can attest to that. The craziest times at "The Nail" for me were always with me and the boys and the "Q." RIP Tommy! You shoulda been at this thing.
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