Make Music With Steven P. West

Greetings, iBrattleboroans!

It’s me, Steve West, the former host of WKVT’s “Live and Local”. I’ve been laying low since leaving talk radio, and have been busy plotting my first solo record. I’ve been writing songs for decades now, but have never made a recording of just my songs. Some may remember Relative Strangers, a group I did here in southern Vermont with Clayton Sabine and Rose Gerber. I also played in a band in the 80s that some may remember called Miracle Legion (Rough Trade Records) out of New Haven, CT.


Dustbowl Revival w/ Laura Molinelli and Ben Campbell at Next Stage on Saturday, January 24

Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present Dustbowl Revival, a Venice, California-based roots collective that merges old school bluegrass, gospel, jug-band, swamp blues and the hot swing of the 1930’s, plus the Vermont-based Americana duo Laura Molinelli and Ben Campbell at Next Stage on Saturday, January 24 at 7:30 pm.

Known for their inspired live sets, the Dustbowl Revival boldly brings together many styles of traditional American music. Some call it string band-brass band mash up. Imagine Old Crow Medicine Show teaming up with Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens, or Bob Dylan and The Band jamming with Benny Goodman and his orchestra in 1938. It’s infectious, joyous music – a youthful take on time-worn American traditions by the “Best Live Band in LA” – LA Weekly.


It’s Fundraising Week At WVEW, 107.7fm

Hello Everyone. It’s pledge week at WVEW, 107.7fm. Those who are familiar with us may not know that our station is run and managed entirely by volunteers. Our operating funds come from memberships in our non-profit, fundraisers, underwriting, and donations from our listeners.

For only the second time since we started broadcasting on September the 1st, 2006, we are having an on-air fundraiser. If you listen to our station, if you believe in Community Radio, please consider making a donation. No amount is too small.


Vermont Asylum Ready For Patients As 1837 Begins

On January 20, 1837 the Vermont Phoenix published the following announcement regarding the opening of a new establishment in town. Read on to see how the Brattleboro Retreat was first presented to the public.

VT. Asylum For The Insane, Open

The Trustees of the Vermont Asylum for the Insane would announce that this institution is now ready for the reception of patients. The building is finished in a manner adapted to the classification and convenience of its inmates. The two wings are so constructed as to afford pleasant and commodious rooms, and that the sexes may be entirely separated. Rooms are prepared for the sick, removed from all annoyance, where the immediate relatives and friends of the patients can if they desire, bestow their kind attentions and sympathy. Experienced nurses and attendants are procured, and none will be retained except this who are kind and faithful to their trust. – No harsh treatment will ever be for a moment allowed.


BCTV Channel 8 & 10 Schedules for the Week of 1/19/15

BCTV Ch.8 schedule for the week of 1/19/15

Monday, January 19, 2015

12:00 am UVM Comm Med School: Knee and Hip Replacement

1:45 am Nonie Darwish Speaks to Jewish Group about Islam 1/29/13

3:00 am Energy Week Extra: The Top 20 Stories of 2014

4:00 am History Where It Happened: Bennington Battle Monument

4:35 am Conversations VT: Homelessness


Weekend Comedy Series – Ellen DeGeneres – 1992

Almost everyone certainly knows of Ellen from her current talk show superstardom. It’s not a bad gig, but she also had a period when she was paying her dues and working her way up. That’s where we head this week.

She was breaking ground in comedy with a unique style. She’d deliver a line, then digress, and digress again. Her humor comes in waves, and she has kid-like, almost-innocent revelations about topics. Audiences get layers of jokes piled on thickly.


Mary Wilkins Freeman’s Story, “The Long Arm,” On The Write Action Radio Hour This Sunday

This Sunday and every Sunday at 5 PM, the Write Action Radio Hour, brings ;literature to the air waves. This Sunday, I will be reading Mary Wilkins Freeman’s crime story, “The Long Arm” My mission is to give it a reading worthy of the story, and worthy of radio. If you are interested in reading this story yourself,

This story was printed in numerous publications, including Brattleboro’s newspaper, the Vermont Phoenix, in 1895.


Come to the Blue Dot for Open Reading Night

Write Action hosts an open reading every month on the third Friday. This month, Jan 16 is the third Friday.

Readers will have about 7 minutes to read their poems, short stories, excerpts or a favorite piece by another author.

WHERE AND WHEN The Blue Dot Studio in the Hooker Dunham Building.We start the readings at 7:30. 


Register For Classes At In-Sight Photography

We are open for registrations at the In-Sight Photography Project!

This semester we have a great selection of classes in both film and digital photography that are filling up fast. 

Students can get their photography fix from the following classes…


Brattleboro Area Techies To Meet January 22 at 5:30 pm To Kick Off The New Year

Brattleboro Area Techies, the fast-growing networking group for technology users, will host its first meeting of 2015 on Thursday, January 22, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm, at the office of Mondo Mediaworks in Brattleboro. Everyone who works with technology in the Brattleboro area, from programmers to designers to makers, is invited to attend. There is no cost.

Brattleboro Area Techies was formed as a networking group to bring technology people and makers together in an informal setting to discuss common issues and provide people with an excuse to get out from behind their computers.


At Brooks Library: What’s The Use Of Stories That Aren’t Even True? A Live Streaming Event with Author Salman Rushdie

Join us for a free live streaming event on Wednesday, January 14, at 5 PM, in the library’s meeting room. Salman Rushdie, author of VHC’s 2015 Vermont Reads Book, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, talks about the importance of storytelling.

This event is part of the First Wednesday Lecture Series events scheduled for the Brownell Library in Essex Junction, VT. Presented with the Office of the President, University of Vermont.


The Vermont Jazz Center Presents: The Clarence Penn Quartet

Clarence Penn plays Monk and celebrates release of new CD

On Saturday, January 17th, The Vermont Jazz Center will present drummer Clarence Penn in concert with his Quartet, “Penn Station” performing the music of Thelonious Monk. The group includes the leader with young New York heavyweights Chad Lefkowitz-Brown on saxophone, Matt Mitchell on piano and Yasushi Nakamura on bass. This working ensemble displays a telepathic level of communication, a mastery of dynamics and a remarkable degree of facility while playfully navigating challenging tunes, often in odd meters.


BCTV Channel 8 & 10 Schedules for the Week of 1/12/15

BCTV Ch.8 schedule for the week of 1/12/15

Monday, January 12, 2015

12:00 am Efficiency Vermont Forum on its 3 Year Plan

1:24 am Community Acupuncture at Morningside Shelter

1:30 am UVM Comm Med School: Knee and Hip Replacement

3:10 am Freedom & Unity Film Planning Workshop: 12/3/14

4:00 am Burlington Free University- US / Cuba Relations


Book Report! If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote…

WHATS’ WRONG WITH THE WTO AND NAFTA?  THIS BOOK EXPLAINS! THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION IS BEING RIPPED AND SHREDDED!

This is a good book because it explains the problems with WTO and NAFTA.

Book Title: “If the Gods had meant us to vote, they would have given us candidates” Author: Jim Hightower


Weekend Comedy Series: Rodney Dangerfield

Is it the bugged-out look on his face? His nervous energy? The self-deprecation? Maybe we just don’t get the respect we deserve, and Rodney speaks for us.

Rodney Dangerfield is old-school, but hip nonetheless. Here we find him performing in 1995, reeling off nearly an hour of non-stop one-liners. Jokes about being ugly, the wife, sex, drugs, being old, and of course, getting no respect. Jokes like “My father wouldn’t take me to the zoo. He told me, “If they want you, they’ll come and get you.”


Great Board Training Opportunities in Brattleboro

T​his spring, ​Marlboro ​College ​will offer its first Board Leadership Institute​. ​The Board Leadership Institute is a series of skill-building workshops in March and April that, taken together, introduce board members to the most important knowledge and skills for successful board service. Board Teams and Individual Trustees should register here to reserve their place in the Board Leadership Institute.


Antje Duvekot, Hayley Reardon and Hannah Hoffman at Next Stage on Saturday, January 10

Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present a triple bill of contemporary folk singer/songwriters featuring Antje Duvekot, Hayley Reardon and Hannah Hoffman at Next Stage on Saturday, January 10 at 7:30 pm.

Antje Duvekot is a German-born, American-raised singer/songwriter whose songs have been critically praised for their hard-won wisdom, dark-eyed realism and street-smart romanticism. Her bicultural upbringing and relative newness to English have helped shape her unique way with a song, giving her a startlingly original poetic palette. They are the keys to the powerful, even revolutionary, empathy that informs everything she writes. She has won some of the top songwriting awards including the Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, the Kerrville Folk Festival Best New Folk Award and the Boston Music Award for Outstanding Folk Act.


Quintessential Brit {VictoriaRegina}

I say, old chaps, I wonder if you mightn’t enjoy this 52 minute Sherlock Holmes episode with the irrepressible Jeremy Brett.

It has all the elements of what any decent Anglophile who appreciates the late-Victorian period would enjoy.Should you accept this most sensitive assignment of the highest order of the Empire, this message will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

The Second Stain by Arthur Conan Doyle