Everyone in Burlington seemed to know Kathleen De Simone, who died on Monday, October 12, at her Old North End home; she had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Kathleen's ever-present rose scent, her brassy laugh, her determined stride and rose topped cane were a fixture in town. She babysat the neighborhood kids, invited people into her cozy home and welcomed new artists to the area. Kathleen constructed fanciful hats for the Fools' Gold Art Auction, designed costumes for the Spielpalast Cabaret and sewed many intricate wedding dresses. She was a gifted artist, a talented seamstress and someone who loved beautiful things.

When Kathleen spoke to you, she really seemed to see you. She looked directly into your eyes, dispensing with artifice. She was genuine and strong-willed. Despite her petite height, she projected the glamor of a movie star; her personality was larger than life. Kathleen loved you madly and left lipstick kisses on your cheek and the scent of roses on your clothes after an embrace. 

Last night, Take magazine's Northampton, Mass.-based publishing squad took Burlington by way of an official launch party at ArtsRiot. The show was headlined by And The Kids (see their rad National Public Radio Tiny Desk concert here) with the Villanelles, Henry Jamison and DJ Disco Phantom. Branded as "New England's New Culture," Take is a booster for regionalism that offers stories about "people in New England who are making culture happen in the fields of visual art, music, design, literature, dance, food, fashion and theater." 

Free copies of the magazine's first two issues — for September and October of this year — were in ample supply. Just after the table of contents, there's a map. The six states that make up New England are dotted with the subjects of the issue's stories, from a successful Massachusetts sex toy entrepreneur (njoy) to a smattering of circus schools in multiple states. The magazine's social handles are printed over Maine, roughly just northeast of Baxter State Park. I should not admit it, but I immediately honed in on Vermont — an impulse, I believe, that founders Lauren Clark and Michael Kusek are striving to work against.

“I bought a fuckin' case of bagels, didn’t even get laid. I ain’t worried about the four dollars.”

— Two men smoking cigarettes

“I woke up with no clothes on and a wine bottle between my fuckin' legs.”

— Two men

 

One intrepid Burlington resident has been compiling random heard-on-the-street comments in a tumblr blog aptly called Overheard on Church Street since 2010. Every week, the blogger shares a couple of snippets with Live Culture. You can read more at the OOCS archive. Submissions are also welcome.

2012 File Photo: Rick Norcross by Matthew Thorsen

Burlington Western swing songwriter Rick Norcross is capping 50 years in the music biz in style. Yesterday, he announced that his band, Rick & the All Star Ramblers, have been named as finalists for the "Best Western Swing Duo or Group" award by the Academy of Western Artists, an organization based in — get this — Gene Autry, Okla.

The AWA's stated mission is to "recognize and honor outstanding individuals who, through their accomplishments, preserve and perpetuate the traditions, values and heritage of the American cowboy." We're biased, but we'd say Rick Norcross qualifies. 

Last year, Norcross celebrated a half-century of rambling by releasing and touring behind a biography penned by Vermont author Stephen Russell Payne and an accompanying album, both dubbed Riding My Guitar. The album, which we reviewed last August, has been garnering airplay around the world and serves as a fitting restrospective of the man's fascinating career.

BTW, said fascinating career includes palling around the London folk scene in the 1960s with "some guy named Paul Simon"; working as a rock journalist and photog for the Tampa Bay Times, where he covered the likes of Janis Joplin and Led Zepplin; and then later as a professional songwriter himself. And that's to say nothing of the museum-worthy stash of American Western culture memorabilia and ephemera that crowds his eclectic Burlington apartment. The place is like a Western Music Hall of Fame in its own right. 

Norcross is up against some stiff competition, including Al Dressen's Super Swing Revue from Austin, the Tulsa Playboys, Vince Gill's the Time Jumpers from Nashville and a Candian entrant, the Western Swing Authority from Waterloo, Ont. But, as the cliché goes, win or lose, it's honor to be nominated. And we expect Norcross to keep rambling no matter the outcome. The only real question is whether he'll be taking his famous green 1957 Starliner tour bus, the Pickle, to the awards ceremony in Dallas next month. 

 

 

Shannon McNally

On her latest record, Small Town Talk, songwriter Shannon McNally pays tribute to her friend and overlooked American songwriter, Bobby Charles. Charles, who passed away in 2010, was dubbed the "King of Swamp Pop" for penning seminal early rock-and-roll cuts such as "See You Later, Alligator" and "Walking to New Orleans," among many, many others.

To make that record, McNally enlisted the help of some heavy-hitting talent, including Dr. John, Derek Trucks, Luther Dickinson, Vince Gill and Will Sexton. When she plays the Skinny Pancake in Burlington this Thursday, February 6, she won't have that cast of all-stars behind her. But she'll still have a pretty crack band to help her flesh out Charles' tunes.

McNally will be backed by her old friend Brett Hughes and his Honky Tonk Tuesday band, the Honky Tonk Crowd, which includes Brett Lanier, Leon Campos, Pat Melvin and Sean Preece.    

In advance of that of that show, Seven Days caught up with McNally by phone. Here is an edited version of that conversation.

Yo, I just got told by some 15-year-old that she’ll cut me if I touch her boyfriend again.

—  Two young men

 It’s a great day to commit adultery.

—  Two men

One intrepid Burlington resident has been compiling random heard-on-the-street comments in a tumblr blog aptly called Overheard on Church Street since 2010. Every Monday, the blogger shares a couple of snippets with Live Culture. You can read more at the OOCS archive. Submissions are also welcome.

Team Vermont's entry into the 2011 International Snow Sculpture Competition. (Photo courtesy of Michael Nedell)

UPDATE BELOW: January 27, 2014

By late January, many Vermonters have had their fill of snow. But one small group of Burlington artists not only loves it but needs it. Snow is their medium.

“I’ve been making big, strange things in my garage as long as I’ve had a garage,” says Michael Nedell, a potter and sculptor as well as partner and CTO of the Burlington-based company Localvore Today. When he saw some snow sculptures on the Burlington waterfront during the city's Winter Fest in 1999, he was immediately hooked.

Over the years since then, Nedell and three other local artists — Adrian Tans, Brooke Monte and Alex Dostie — won the state snow-sculpting competition seven times, and as "Team Vermont" have represented their state in national competitions seven times. They've consistently placed in the top six teams and came in second two years. Last year, they won.

Lindsay J. Westley interviewed the team in Seven Days just before their successful trip to Wisconsin.

Around the third week of January 2014, Team Vermont will travel to snowy Breckinridge, Colo., to compete in the Budweiser International Snow Sculpture Championships. They’ll be one of just three American teams in competition, and the only one from Vermont. (The other two are from Colorado.)

The Vermonters are eager to represent their state in the contest. Nedell says that their goal is not only to win at the international level but “to show the world that people from Vermont have a serious aesthetic sense and a serious skill set when it comes to crafting.”

Sixteen teams from all over the world have entered the competition; snowier regions are well represented, with teams from Iceland, Finland, Russia, Estonia and two from Mongolia. Curiously, several countries not generally associated with snow — Spain, Mexico and Italy — also will field teams.

Even if the competitors from warmer climes forget their fur-lined hats, the event is sponsored by Budweiser, after all, so there’ll be plenty of liquid body-warmer on hand. “And the Germans make margaritas every year,” notes Nedell. Go figure.

Each team is composed of four members, and they’ll have a total of 65 hours to carve a 10-by-10-by-12-foot block of snow into ... something. There are no restrictions on the artistic content of the sculptures (besides the generally accepted bounds of family friendliness), but teams are forbidden from using dyes, armatures or power tools. Only hand tools — saws, wire and carving devices of various types — are permitted.

And the only acceptable materials all have the chemical formula H₂O: snow, water and ice.

You may be thinking, Hey, I’ve been known to make a mean snowman — honey, let’s pack our bags for Colorado!

Not so fast. This competition is invitation only. The event’s committee sent out invites in July to 250 teams, who then have about three months to submit their designs as sketches. On the strengths of those sketches, 16 competing teams are chosen. 

Team Vermont's sketch of a sculpture called "Fugue" — of a conductor surrounded by a cylinder of swirling musical notes — is below.

 

 Remember Lori, Brian’s psycho ex? Well, she dead.

—  Woman to man

 

Quit telling me about gratitude! You and your gratitude can go fuck yourselves in the ass!

—  Man with tattooed face on cellphone

 

One intrepid Burlington resident has been compiling random heard-on-the-street comments in a tumblr blog aptly called Overheard on Church Street since 2010. Every Monday, the blogger shares a couple of snippets with Live Culture. You can read more at the OOCS archive. Submissions are also welcome.

 

Gimme a cigarette or I’ll kick your cock!

— Two bearded men

 

I don’t really know what they call it, but I call it Caribbean Dream. Three days of yoga on a beach in February? Hell, yeah.

— Two women

 

One intrepid Burlington resident has been compiling random heard-on-the-street comments in a tumblr blog aptly called Overheard on Church Street since 2010. Every Monday, the blogger shares a couple of snippets with Live Culture. You can read more at the OOCS archive. Submissions are also welcome.

The Burlington music community was saddened to learn that guitarist Bob "Beano" Parker passed away last night after battling an undisclosed illness for the past two years. Parker was best known as a founding member of the Wards, widely regarded as the first punk band in Vermont.

In a career dating back to the late 1970s, Parker penned some 200 songs. In addition to the Wards, he was a member of X-tractions — a precursor to the Wards — Nation of Hate, Roman Shades, Cut and, most recently, Gas & Oil. Parker was 52.

We'll have more on Parker's life and music in next week's issue, including some great stories from his friends and bandmates, info on a show planned in Beano's honor at the Monkey House for Thursday, January 23, and that time the Wards ran for mayor of Burlington against Bernie Sanders. Like, the whole band.

In the meantime, here's a video featuring the Wards' signature song, "Weapons Factory," from their seminal 1984 record — pressed on blue vinyl! — This World Ain't Pretty and Neither Are We. RIP, Beano.