Abby Wood's blog

Has anyone else noticed that two amazing shows at two of the best music venues in the Berkshires--Tanglewood and MASS MoCA--are happening on the same weekend this summer?

Some of us may be taking the phrase “I’ll be home for Christmas” for granted. What if your home was suddenly taken away from you, mere days before the holiday?

The Hillcrest Holiday Wish Program aims to make the holiday season a bright and happy one by providing gifts to the 150 boys and girls who spend their holidays at Hillcrest.

While most of us gorged ourselves on turkey and stuffing this past weekend, the city of Pittsfield offered me something a little different to get stuffed on.

is a band that defies definition. They’ve been labeled as gypsy-punk, Balkan rockabilly, and circus rock. But the effort to pin down their sound is trivial. You could call them an eleven-piece cacophony parade for all they care. Their goal is to spread the electrifyingly good time they’re having on stage out into the audience, until every last person is out of breath…in a good way. They’re here to have fun.

While I absolutely loved growing up in the Berkshires, thoroughly enjoyed going to school in the Berkshires, and consider myself extremely lucky to be living and writing in the Berkshires today, I have to admit that there is one thing I do NOT thoroughly enjoy about our little corner of the Northeast: winter weather. Alas, judging from the events of today, it doesn't look like it will be going anywhere anytime soon (global warming, please?).

Billy Keane has been taking the Berkshires by storm since his arrival in the summer of 2009, and with a debut solo album, The Pine Street Sessions, under his belt, and the recent release of an EP with his band, Billy Keane & The Misdemeanor Outlaws, it doesn’t look like he’ll be letting up any time soon.

Have you ever heard a song and wondered just how the songwriter came up with the lyrics? Perhaps they were especially meaningful to you or the song summed up your own life so eloquently that it was almost eerie. "What was the writer’s inspiration," you might have thought, "and how the hell did they get inside of my head and put all my thoughts into a great song?"

Start with three young women. Stir in a cup of love for baking and a spoonful of creativity. Add the zest of a glass of wine and a few good laughs to taste. Prepare for about as long as it would take to watch four episodes of Cake Boss on The Learning Channel.