ON AND OFF OF MASS AVE: the film

Years ago, while attending Vermont College, I began writing about favorite songwriters. This was my effort to keep focused on school when my heart and free time were so clearly devoted to experiencing local music.

Sitting at Toad one night, I looked around me and I knew there needed to be a preservation of the music community that I was so attached to. So much had already come and gone, and I had missed a lot of it. Still, I drew on the unending magic of the Somerville/Cambridge songwriter scene, I visualized capturing it in a way that documented a little of what had been, and what is living and thriving here today. That is how (along with my roommate, Brian Schwartz) I came to shoot tape after tape of video footage, and why people are still eagerly awaiting this film... we all want to capture our beloved corner of paradise.

It is the way you might fall for anything- one minute you are encountering someone or something, and next you are all swoons and devotion. I got to know local music as it lent itself to me. I connected the dots, then after putting myself in front of every dinky stage around, I discovered a community of artists who generously give their talent to one another, night after night, song after song. Many of them have been playing music together for decades, others are just discovering each other's music. To be able to take part in this as an audience, and often times a friend, is something I will never take for granted.

In fact, most of the recorded music I listen to from day to day is by local musicians- I own a lot of music that is great and that I love, only, nine out of ten times I simply put on the music of people who play around me. I could listen to Timmy Gearan any night of the week, and there's a good chance that if Sean Staples, Jimmy Ryan, or Duke Levine are out playing somewhere, I will want to be there. Same goes for the glorious ladies, whose voices can stop any fool in their tracks. It might be Lori McKenna, playing a half-secret show, or the magnificent Jennifer Kimball, lending back vocals that will make you shake your head in wonder- I am always shaking my head in wonder it seems...

*photo credit, Jon Strymish