Friday-Sunday, September 8-10: The Meltasia Festival offers much to differentiate itself from ordinary music festivals: B-movies, a haunted mansion, wiffleball games, pool parties and goats, to name a few. Last year, Meltasia was held in the high-concept setting of the long-abandoned Catskill Game Farm. Great in theory, but this year they’ve upgraded the digs to the Blackthorne Resort in East Durham.
Friday-Sunday, Sept. 15-17: Basilica Hudson’s Melissa Auf der Maur and Tony Stone are working in collaboration with The Creative Independent editor-in-chief and former Pitchfork director Brandon Stosuy to program the weekend. Notable musical performers this year include Zola Jesus, Priests, Bing & Ruth, Jlin and many more.
It’s not everyone’s way, not everyone’s choice. And I resist offering advice now, more than ever. What might be a throwaway conversation to me could be a real curveball to you. My goal is simply to See You and to Hear You before sharing myself.
Friday-Saturday, September 1-2: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival takes Love’s Labour’s Lost on the road to Storm King Art Center.
Tuesday, Sept. 5: The Saugerties podcaster asks himself: “How do you tell a true story to an audience that’s hungry for a story better than their own lives?”
Scratch the surface of this film and you get much more than a detective thriller. Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation is one of the deadliest places in the Lower 48 states – largely because it’s among the coldest, windiest and snowiest. But the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho for whom the area is home face additional life-threatening challenges: poverty, drug and alcohol addiction and violent crime. Unemployment rates on the reservation exceed 80 percent; the average life expectancy is below age 50.
The scoop on Nancy’s of Woodstock Artisanal Creamery, Music under the Stars & fireworks at West Point and Erica’s cancer journey.
Through Sept. 4: The independent films on view are submitted from all around the world. Two air-conditioned theaters run each scheduled film simultaneously. There are countercultural exhibits to view and grounds to stroll in the daytime and a café on-site that opens at 6 p.m., one hour before the evening movie programs get underway. There will also be music, light shows with Jim C., a bonfire and, weather permitting, access to a swimming pool with underwater stereo speakers.
Friday, Sept. 1: You need to accept – acquiesce to – Sting’s default pieties and pretensions. That’s just him. Get over it. Once you’ve done that, be prepared to be impressed both by the musical craftiness of these new confessional songs, and ultimately, by their courageously awkward honesty.
Sunday, Sept. 3: The festival on the Rondout waterfront has bagpipers, food, libations, music, step dancing, storytelling, Celtic wares and more. Plus there will be a Gaelic football and hurling clinic the day before the Hooley at Dietz Stadium in Kingston.