The brewery on the campus of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is called Bright Ideas. It’s taken a steady stream of bright ideas to revitalize the once-bustling industrial city of North Adams in the northwest corner of Massachusetts.
This weekend, the brewery will probably sell three times as much beer as it does on a typical spring weekend, says cofounder and owner Orion Howard. It’s the return of Solid Sound, the three-day music and comedy festival that would have marked its 10th anniversary in North Adams two years ago, were it not for the pandemic.
More important than robust beer sales “is the vibe in the whole city” during Solid Sound, says Howard, who is an oncologist by day. “Every Airbnb is rented, every hotel room. Every business in North Adams benefits from what Solid Sound brings.”
Besides commerce, what Solid Sound provides is the bright idea that music can take you to countless new places. Launched in 2010 by the members of the enterprising rock band Wilco, this year’s edition features Sylvan Esso, Japanese Breakfast, the cult country legend Terry Allen and his Panhandle Mystery Band, and a release party for Wilco’s 12th studio album, “Cruel Country.”
For Angel Bat Dawid, a free-jazz clarinetist from Wilco’s hometown of Chicago, the city they share is “a citadel for improvisation and spontaneous composition.” Performing Saturday, she has become an associate of the long-running Sun Ra Arkestra, which plays Sunday.
“Chicago is the best place to build your sound, to find where you’re at,” says Bat Dawid. “There’s space to do it. There’s a lot of juicy music.”
In fact, North Adams feels a little like Chicago East each time Wilco sets up shop on the sprawling Mass MoCA campus. In addition to the usual sets by various Wilco-related side projects, this year’s lineup includes appearances by the Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist NNAMDÏ and the veteran Windy City rock band Eleventh Dream Day.
Bat Dawid, who grew up in a family of music-loving ministers, prefers to call her solo performances “services.” Embellishing her clarinet explorations with keyboards and beats, her music veers from hymnody to avant-garde explosions. It’s cathartic, for her and her audiences alike.
“If I am going to explore my emotions at any level, from love to hate to anger, the most appropriate place to deal with that is in performance,” she says. “In ritual.”
Ayo Edebiri grew up playing the oboe, but that’s not what’s bringing her to North Adams. The Dorchester native was invited to join John Hodgman’s Comedy Cabaret alongside Nick Offerman, Negin Farsad, Josh Gondelman, and others.
With her comedy career on the rise, Edebiri recently joined the voice cast for “Big Mouth,” the very naughty animated series on Netflix. She replaced Jenny Slate in the role of Missy.
It was a natural exchange, she jokes: “We’re two anxious women from Massachusetts.”
Prior to Solid Sound, Edebiri says, the closest she’d been to the Berkshires was Springfield. Her family often visited an uncle who lived there to shoot off fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Wes Nelson and Andrea Belair moved to North Adams to open Belltower Records in a mill building about four years ago. They bought out the contents of Toonerville Trolley, a 40-year-old record shop in nearby Williamstown that closed in 2018.
This year Belltower is serving as the on-site pop-up shop for record sales at Solid Sound. Nelson and Belair, an archivist for the Clark Art Institute, love the area.
“It’s an old industrial town that still has a working-class-type feel to it,” says Nelson. “People here are very unpretentious, but there’s still a lot of art and culture here you wouldn’t expect.”
Closed for three months at the beginning of the pandemic, Belltower reopened to brisk business. With music fans unable to gather for live events, Nelson says, “there was this voracious appetite for records. It might have been one of the few places people could hang out.
“Human connection in general — music is such a facilitator of that.”
Wilco bassist John Stirratt became so enamored with North Adams that he joined the investment team behind Tourists, a reimagined motor lodge on the banks of the Hoosic River, in 2018.
“All these musicians are following,” says Howard, the brewer, many of them relocating from New York City. The influx has helped make North Adams a model city for the creative economy.
Some growing pains persist, however. Howard is currently involved in a legal dispute with his former partners in the HiLo, a short-lived music venue that closed last year.
At Bright Ideas, his staff hosts intimate performances, mostly of the singer-songwriter variety. There’s a network of musicians who can make a living touring the brewery circuit, he says.
In addition to Solid Sound, local businesses get big boosts from other regularly scheduled events. Bang on a Can, the three-week program of envelope-pushing contemporary music, returns in July, followed by Freshgrass, a weekend of newfangled bluegrass and roots music, in September.
“There’s plenty of very clear sustainable economic development now in North Adams that’s transcending Mass MoCA and Solid Sound,” Howard says.
SOLID SOUND MUSIC FESTIVAL
At Mass MoCA, North Adams, May 27-29. solidsoundfestival.com
James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @sullivanjames.
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Solid Sound returns to North Adams, and that's music to everyone's ears - The Boston Globe
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