For the Record

Author: Emily Temple

Welcome back to yet another year at Middlebury. After a summer away, everyone's happy to return to our beautiful and majestic home away from home - and, come to think of it, our home away from a lot of other things, too. Mom, Dad, Starbucks and non-shady hair salons are not to be found in our fair community, but what always makes me cringe most at the beginning of the year is the lack of concert venues - or at least the lack of good artists making their way to Vermont. It's a deficit that the college and MCAB try to offset, with varying degrees of success. However, I have found that anyone with a little imagination (and a car) can get their fill of delicious musical happenings in Middlebury and the surrounding areas this fall. Hey, two festivals and a handful of shows ain't bad.

The closest spot to some good tunes is of course the South Burlington, Vt. mainstay known as Higher Ground. They have their good seasons and their bad seasons, and while I've seen better from them than what we're looking at this fall, there are definitely some shows worth seeing. The Higher Ground season starts off with a winner in Baltimore art collective Wham City's Dan Deacon, performing on Sept. 27. Deacon's live shows are famously insane, demanding and sweaty. He performs from the middle of the crowd and has been known to involve the audience members in his shows in, well, unexpected ways. If you go to one show at Higher Ground this fall, Deacon is clearly the one to hit.

However, if you're hungry for more, on Oct. 6 you will have to make a choice - the Old 97s are playing in one room, while Dr. Dog (respected for his excellent cover of Architecture in Helsinki's "Heart it Races") is playing in the other with the Delta Spirit and Hacienda. Yummy sadster Mason Jennings plays the next night, and you can get a taste of Kaki King, who will be opening for the Mountain Goats on their tour later this year, on Oct. 9.

Burlington has more to offer than Higher Ground - most notably Nectar's, or even better, its upstairs room, Club Metronome, which has been known to throw out a great act on short notice, so keep a weather eye on the horizon there.

A little further away, but totally worth it, is Montreal, where something is always going on, even if the two hour drive home generally prohibits you from enjoying it fully. The first week of October is particularly good, as it boasts the Pop Montreal festival, during which you can take in Akron Family, Mother Mother, the Brazilian Girls, Chad Van Gaalen, Pony Up, Ratatat, the Dodos and a large collection of other bands that you might expect to see in Montreal. The shows are spread across many reputable (and less-reputable) music venues in the city, and are accompanied by other various art and lecture type entertainments. And hey, don't forget your passport. Montreal is like a whole other country.

And of course, there's always CMJ, the famed New York City new music festival. This year the lineup is as exciting as ever: Crystal Castles, Sepomana 2008 knockouts Ruby Suns, Lykke Li, Pit er Pat, Jay Reatard, Kid Sister, the Virgins, the Mae Shi, Takka Takka, Deerhoof, and more - the list goes on to an absurd degree. Anyone who loves music should really try to get themselves to CMJ, if not this year, sometime before you get too old and crotchety to really enjoy it. It's a mess, it's a scheduling nightmare, it's stressful and physically exhausting. Last year I almost died, but I highly recommend it.