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FAB Passion Week, Spirits go Blah, Whiskey, and Rival Galaxies

Today we revel in entertainment delights of many varieties

In Northampton, a heady melange of visual art, music, performance, and personal experience have come together for a series of performances that center a current exhibit. How to Bear the Unbearable Body is on display at the APE Gallery and each Friday of the exhibit has involved a performance related to the piece and we speak with Visual Artist Emily Orling, and composer/director Cesar Alvarez of their performance incubator Spirits go Blah about the work, collaborating, and much more.

We also see how local can be haute couture. It’s FAB Passion Fashion Week here in Springfield bringing 13 local designers to the fore and crafting a unique experience of community with fashion at its center. We talk with founder Richie Richardson of Fab Fashion, and casting director Jerry Jordan Brown about the nuances of the event, and the importance of elevating local talent beyond their own expectations.

Live Music Friday brings the dance forward, LCD Sound System inspired sounds of Rival Galaxies to the NEPM studios before you can catch their set at Hutghi’s at the Nook this Saturday, October 25th.

And we’ll go adjacent to wine for this week’s Thunderdome at Provisions in Northampton much like they’ll do in their upcoming move into Thornes Marketplace as we taste wine influenced Whiskeys to prepare for a festival at their Amherst location this weekend.

Content warning: Our conversation with Emily Orling and Cesar Alvarez references suicide

Christopher “Monte'' Belmonte is host and executive producer of NEPM's The Fabulous 413. He was born and raised in Massachusetts and has been a radio host in western Massachusetts for the last 20 years — the last 17 of them as host of Mornings with Monte on The River 93.9/WRSI.
Kaliis Smith is a radio host and producer for NEPM's The Fabulous 413.