“Aren’t you supposed to be quiet in a library?” Spin Doctors lead singer Chris Barron asked the assembled crowd of nearly 600 during the band’s Friday night concert at VersoFest 2024. “This is, like, the loudest thing that’s ever happened at a library!”
For five rollicking days, Barron was on the money. From April 3 to April 7, The Westport Library played host to its third annual VersoFest — a music and media festival like no other, featuring concerts, panel discussions, workshops, and so much more — and while it was rarely quiet, it was quite a show.
This year’s festival had something for everyone, including concerts with The Lemon Twigs and Spin Doctors, and Verso Visionary conversations with the legendary Chuck D (Public Enemy), renowned producer Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex), and influential drummer and musician John Densmore (The Doors).
In addition, there was a celebration of of Wild Style, the first hip hop motion picture; a fashion roundtable with Cindy Dunaway, Dennis Dunaway (Alice Cooper Group), and Tish and Snooky of Manic Panic, hosted by SNL Beehive Queen and rock 'n' roll treasure Christine Ohlman; a panel discussion on Connecticut, WPLR, and the birth of Buckingham/Nicks era Fleetwood Mac; and a Verso Book Club featuring Audrey Golden, author of I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records.
All told, more than 4,000 attended VersoFest 2024, with an additional 3,000 tuning in online, and capacity crowds filling the Trefz Forum each day.
“This is not your regular library,” Cindy Dunaway said in a radio interview prior to VersoFest. “This is what every library in every major city should be like because it is such a resource for the community and for all the towns around and so on. They do just a magnificent job of integrating music and the arts, books as well.”
To that end, VersoFest 2024 carved out space amid its stacks Saturday and Sunday for a record fair featuring vendors from across the tri-state area, a “Diamond Dogs” exhibit of David Bowie memorabilia curated by Paul Brenton and featuring pioneering stage designer Mark Ravitz, and a dedicated art exhibit (Thinking Inside the Box) built into the Trefz Forum’s grandstand. The festival also featured intimate workshops with resident experts covering podcasting, musician career coaching, video game music composing, the secrets of radio airplay, and the legal side of the music business.
The integration of concerts and conversations, panels and workshops, exhibits and more resonated with the assembled guests, speakers, and presenters, who marveled at the Library’s state-of-the-art facilities (TV studio, SSL recording studio, 18-foot HD videowall, post-production suite) and its ability to merge music, media, and creativity in celebration of the arts.
“We’re all students trying to figure out how to become human beings in this communication of life,” Chuck D said during the VersoFest opening night conversation. “I believe culture is a thing that equalizes us as human beings and knocks the differences to the side. It connects our similarities. It’s what makes music and art so strong.”
And it all came together at The Westport Library, all furthering the Library’s mission of being open to all and serving as a gather spot for the community to share ideas, learn, and grow — and sometimes, just to get loud and have fun.
As Densmore said after his talk, succinctly: “This the coolest damn library, ever!”
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Photos by Brendan Toller, Verso Studios, Westport Library, and Dave Dellinger, Dave Dellinger Photography
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VersoFest 2024 kicks off Wednesday, April 3, the first of five days celebrating music, media, and creativity with an array of amazing artists; panels where experts share their perspectives and vision; intimate workshops that provide creators the opportunity to deconstruct, improve, and hone their craft; and performances that entertain and inspire.
Now in its third year, VersoFest is The Westport Library’s annual music and media conference and festival where knowledge is shared and inspiration is discovered — a forum for media creators, artists, and fans to converge.
VersoFest drew more than 1,500 people in its inaugural year of 2022 and approximately 4,000 a year ago, with between 5,000 and 6,000 expected this year.
Headliners for the 2024 festival include Chuck D (Public Enemy), renowned producer Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex), and influential drummer and musician John Densmore (The Doors), in addition to Cindy and Dennis Dunaway, Tish & Snooky of Manic Panic fame, the Cold Crush Brothers, Tony Tone, Grand Wizzard Theodore, the author Audrey Golden, and so much more.
This year’s shows include the Thursday night kickoff concert with rising electric pop rockers The Lemon Twigs, with DJ HYSTERICA starting the evening, and the Friday headlining concert with the hit band the Spin Doctors, with Nick Depuy opening.
Visit our VersoFest webpage for more, and read below for the full 2024 lineup:
Wednesday, April 3
4-5:30 pm – Workshop: Hands on Hip Hop History Presented by TeachRock (register here)
7-8:30 pm – Chuck D in Conversation with Johnny Temple (tickets here; $50 presold, $60 at door)
Thursday, April 4
6:30-10 pm – The Lemon Twigs in Concert, with DJ HYSTERICA; Doors and DJ: 6:30 pm, The Lemon Twigs: 8 pm (tickets here; $20 presold, $30 at door)
Friday, April 5
6:30-10 pm – Spin Doctors in Concert, with Nick Depuy; Doors: 6:30 pm, Nick Depuy: 7 pm, Spin Doctors: 8 pm (tickets here; $50 presold, $60 at door)
Saturday, April 6
11 am-5 pm – VersoFest Record Fair presented by Record Riots
11 am-5 pm – “Diamond Dogs” at 50: David Bowie Exhibit by Paul Brenton with Set Designer Mark Ravitz (free)
11 am-12 pm – Workshop: Pitch Your Podcast with Connecticut Public’s Meg Dalton and Jack Hitt (register here; free)
1-2:30 pm – Tony Visconti in Conversation with Paul Cavalconte (register here; free)
3-4:30 pm – Verso Book Club: Audrey Golden, I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records; Moderated by Karen Ponzio (register here; free)
3-4 pm (Brooks Place) – Workshop: Musician Career Coaching: Know Your Worth, Set Your Rate, and Get Paid, with Matt Starr (register here; free)
4:30-6 pm – John Densmore in Conversation with Alisyn Camerota (register here; free)
Sunday, April 7
11 am-5 pm – VersoFest Record Fair presented by Record Riots
11 am-5 pm – “Diamond Dogs” at 50: David Bowie Exhibit by Paul Brenton with Set Designer Mark Ravitz (free)
11 am-12 pm (Brooks Place) – Workshop: Mind Your Business: Legal Workshop for Musicians, with Marcus Thomas (register here; free)
11 am-12:30 pm – Connecticut, WPLR, and the Birth of Buckingham/Nicks Era Fleetwood Mac, with Dick Kalt; Moderated by Dr. Jennifer Dauphinais (register here; free)
12:30-1:30 pm (Brooks Place) – Workshop: Video Game Music Composing with Tom Salta (register here; free)
1-2 pm: Glam to Punk, a Fashion Roundtable: Alice Cooper, Bowie, Blondie, and Beyond, with Cindy Dunaway, Dennis Dunaway, Tish & Snooky (Manic Panic); Moderated by Christine Ohlman (register here; free)
2-3 pm (Brooks Place) – Workshop: Unlock the Secrets of Radio Airplay, with Peter Gray (register here; free)
3-5 pm: Hip Hop Panel and Performances: Celebrating 51 Years of Wild Style; Hosted by Tony Crush and Rodney C. and featuring Grand Wizzard Theodore, Prince Whipper Whip (both Fantastic 5), Rodney C (Funky 4+1 and Double Trouble), The Cold Crush Brothers (Tony Crush, DJ Ultamite, Grand Master Caz), JDL, Easy AD, and Almighty Kay Gee (no registration required; free)
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In addition, there will be an art installation, Thinking Inside the Box, running all five days of the festival.
And EP Local will have a food truck on hand in the Levitt (back) parking lot from 12 to 4 pm both Saturday and Sunday serving a variety of sandwiches and craft tacos. Click here to see the menu.
Acclaimed actor Matthew Modine (Oppenheimer, Full Metal Jacket, Stranger Things) is coming to The Westport Library on Thursday, April 11, for a screening of his new documentary, Downwind, followed by a conversation and Q&A with Modine and his longtime producing partner Adam Rackoff.
The event starts at 6:30 pm in the Trefz Forum. The film and talkback are free of charge; registration is strongly encouraged.
“Even in the face of outrageous book banning at our public schools and public libraries, we are simultaneously witnessing a renaissance of attendance and curiosity about these vital communal institutions,” Modine said. “Perhaps people are coming back to libraries because we were kept apart and quarantined during the pandemic? Maybe it’s because of the detrimental effects and isolation associated with social media? Who knows?!
“For so many of us, going to the library has never been more wonderful and cool! That’s why, on Thursday, April 11, my producing partner Adam Rackoff and I are thrilled to be sharing our new documentary film Downwind at The Westport Library. This is our first public library screening for local residents. After the screening there will be a hearty question-and-answer discussion. I’m sure many people will be asking ‘Is Papa (from Stranger Things) really dead?’ Haha. Well, I won’t be at the Library to answer that, but I appreciate the question!”
Downwind tells the story of what happened after the events depicted in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, with a focus on Mercury, Nevada, which served as the testing site for 928 large-scale nuclear weapons from 1951 to 1992. Featuring members of the Shoshone Nation and the many people affected by the radioactive fallout from those tests, Downwind is, as the film’s trailer notes, “a harrowing documentary film … which uncovers the U.S. Government's disregard for everyone and everything living ‘Downwind.’”
Directed by Douglas Brian Miller and Mark Shapiro, Downwind is narrated by Martin Sheen and stars Michael Douglas, Mary Dickson, Patrick Wayne (son of legendary John Wayne), and comedian Lewis Black. Modine and Rackoff are the film’s executive producers.
Downwind premiered last year at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, to high acclaim. It currently holds a perfect 100% score on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.
“Documentaries like Downwind have an opportunity to educate people on our country’s mistakes and, hopefully, prevent them from making them again in the future,” said Rackoff. “The Westport Library is a great venue for local residents to see a free film and participate in an educational discussion afterwards.”
Throughout their careers, Modine and Rackoff have teamed up to develop narrative films, short films, documentaries, animation projects, apps, and environmental initiatives. In addition to Downwind, their many projects include The Flying House, Merry Xmas, The Brainwashing of My Dad, Heaven on Earth, Trump Bites, Matthew Modine’s Ripple Effect, My Love Affair with Marriage, Accidental Truth: UFO Revelations, and The Fuse.
Modine recently appeared in the critically acclaimed Oppenheimer, portraying American electrical engineer and administrator Vanneyar Bush. The film received 13 Academy Award nominations and took home seven awards, including for best picture and best director. In addition to his roles in Stranger Things and Full Metal Jacket, Modine has appeared in an array of movies including Vision Quest, Gross Anatomy, Memphis Belle, And the Band Played On, Short Cuts, Cutthroat Island, Bye Bye Love, Any Given Sunday, and The Dark Knight Rises. He has also directed multiple projects and served as an executive director on scores more.
Rackoff has produced upwards of 40 projects in his burgeoning career, including Jesus Was a Commie, Bill Plympton’s Cheatin’, Ralph Bakshi’s Last Days of Coney Island, Cool for You, I Am What You Imagine, and the upcoming documentary short, Sludge: A PFAS Uprising.
Since its inception in 2022, VersoFest has been building to become one of Connecticut's premier music festivals and conferences, featuring a diverse array of local and global talent that has included The Smithereens, Sunflower Bean, renowned producer Steve Lillywhite, Norton Records/Kicks Books/Kicksville Radio co-founder and original Cramps drummer Miriam Linna, Alice Cooper Group Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Dennis Dunaway, Aretha Franklin/Ray Charles songwriter Joshie Jo Armstead, Psychedelic Furs frontman and painter Richard Butler, and hip hop pioneer DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore.
Spanning five days for this year's edition, April 3 through April 7, The Westport Library's annual music and media festival and conference features Verso Visionaries: Chuck D in conversation with Akashic Books publisher Johnny Temple (Wednesday, April 3), and David Bowie, T. Rex, and Thin Lizzy music producer Tony Visconti in conversation with WFUV's Paul Cavalconte (Saturday, April 6, at 1 pm), both previously announced, and now adding music legend John Densmore in conversation with CNN's Alisyn Camerota Saturday afternoon at 4:30 pm.
John Densmore by Jeff Katz Photography
Densmore is the drummer for the legendary rock band The Doors, which has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and since then, he has earned a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Densmore's latest book, The Doors Unhinged, details his conflict with bandmates over the right to use The Doors’ name, revealing the ways in which this struggle mirrors and reflects a much larger societal issue.
Tom Waits said of the book, "There are some of us out there who still have principles and cannot be bought. John Densmore is one of them. He is not for sale and that is his gift to us.”
Camerota joins Densmore, returning to The Westport Library on the heels of her March 27 memoir launch event of Combat Love. While known for her reporting presence, Camerota came of age during late 1970s punk rock, forming close bonds with Red Bank, New Jersey band Shrapnel. The band's 1979 single "Combat Love" features backing vocals from Shrapnel confidant Joey Ramone and is being reissued as a limited 7-inch record with Camerota's memoir.
The Lemon Twigs, DJ HYSTERICA, Nick Depuy, and Spin Doctors: Concert headliners of VersoFest 2024
VersoFest 2024 concerts and performances include recent Tonight Show featured rockers The Lemon Twigs with DJ HYSTERICA on Thursday April 4, and '90s hitmakers Spin Doctors with singer-songwriter Nick Depuy on Friday April 5.
Audrey Golden, author of "I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women At Factory Records" with "New Haven Independent's" Karen Ponzio
Rooted in Connecticut's burgeoning music and arts scenes, VersoFest also features panels and workshops all day Saturday and Sunday. Highlights include a midday Saturday Verso Book Club event featuring Audrey Golden, author of I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women At Factory Records, in conversation with New Haven Independent's Karen Ponzio; a Sunday panel on the wild lore of WPLR's 1975 Fleetwood Mac broadcast from Trod Nossel Studios featuring an early incarnation of the Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham era with broadcaster Dick Kalt and special guests, moderated by singer-songwriter Dr. Jennifer Dauphinais; and a Pitch Your Podcast Panel by CT Public with CT Public Senior Director Meg Dalton and Peabody Award winning Uncivil podcaster and writer Jack Hitt.
L to R: Christine Ohlman and Cindy Dunaway, Tish & Snooky of Manic Panic
Sunday, April 7, features the return of VersoFest's popular live music oral history podcast with "Glam to Punk — A Fashion Round Table: Alice Cooper, Bowie, Blondie and Beyond" featuring Cindy Dunaway, Tish & Snooky (Manic Panic), and special guest Dennis Dunaway (original Alice Cooper Group bassist), moderated by SNL Band singer and frequent Westport Library collaborator Christine Ohlman.
“From a first-year participant in 2022, I’ve watched VersoFest’s super-cool evolution, spreading its colorful wings in an increasingly unique way to touch and enrich the artistic life of the community," said Ohlman. "And in the process, to offer some phenomenal, top-of-the line entertainment. I'm delighted to once again be a part of VersoFest 2024.”
Dunaway served as costume designer to the Alice Cooper Group from their formative Phoenix, Arizona, days to stadium shows. The band's Liberace- and Busby Berkeley-inspired glitter wear caught the eye of David Bowie and Elton John, cementing the style and aesthetics of the "glam" era. In a parallel universe, Tish and Snooky's gorgeously Punk’d costumes — self-designed, razor-bladed, safety-pinned and schoolgirl-skirted — lit up stages (along with their vocals, beginning with the earliest lineup of Blondie), in NYC and beyond, leading then to open the nation’s first punk boutique and found the groundbreaking Manic Panic cosmetic line.
L to R: VersoFest Record Fair presented by Record Riots; Paul Breton's "Diamond Dogs at 50" David Bowie exhibit with stage designer Mark Ravitz
Saturday and Sunday also feature a record fair curated by Record Riots, set up in the Hub on the Library's main floor. In addition, collector and curator Paul Brenton is bringing a "Diamond Dogs at 50" David Bowie exhibit, featuring the original stage models from the 1974 Diamond Dogs tour and other rare ephemera. Pioneering stage designer Mark Ravitz will be in attendance, having designed numerous Bowie tour sets (Diamond Dogs, Glass Spiders, and Serious Moonlight tours) as well as stages for KISS, Whitney Houston, and Backstreet Boys.
"Wild Style" and Fairfield County native Tony Tone of the Cold Crush Brothers
The festival concludes with a celebration of hip hop's first motion picture, Wild Style, featuring Tony Tone of the Cold Crush Brothers, the return of Grand Wizzard Theodore, as well as Prince Whipper Whip, DJ Ultamite, Grand Master Caz, JDL, Easy AD, Almighty Kay Gee, and Rodney C.
Food trucks will be on site throughout the weekend in the library parking lot to supplement the many offerings of the Library Café.
All VersoFest performances, panels, and workshops are free or at market rates thanks to the generous support of donors, community partners, and Library programming funds. A selection of events will be recorded by Verso Studios Crew Call and available on-demand at a later date.
The complete VersoFest 2024 schedule and information can be found here.
"Two Princes" and "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" are just two of the '90s rock anthems that will be chiming through the Trefz Forum at Verso Studios in The Westport Library on April 5, as the iconic rockers the Spin Doctors headline the Friday Night Concert presented by Webster Bank at VersoFest 2024, the Library's annual music and media festival.
Local singer-songwriter Nick Depuy opens at 7 pm, with Spin Doctors taking the stage at 8 pm. Doors open at 6:30 pm. Tickets are $50 and available now.
VersoFest is The Westport Library's annual music and media festival and conference, spanning five days for this year's edition, April 3 through April 7. Converging local with global, previous VersoFests have presented concerts with The Smithereens and Sunflower Bean, as well as events with renowned producer Steve Lillywhite, Norton Records/Kicks Books/Kicksville Radio co-founder and original Cramps drummer Miriam Linna, Alice Cooper Group Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Dennis Dunaway, Psychedelic Furs frontman and painter Richard Butler, author and journalist Rachel Felder, and hip hop pioneer DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore.
VersoFest 2024 luminaries announced so far include legendary musician, activist, and author Chuck D, acclaimed David Bowie, T. Rex, and Thin Lizzy music producer Tony Visconti, and electric power pop rockers The Lemon Twigs, with the full VersoFest schedule to be released next week. All VersoFest performances, panels, and workshops are free or at market rates thanks to the generous support of donors, community partners, and Library programming funds.
Verso Studios present state of the arts concerts with a d&b sound system rivaling the finest venues in the state, an 18 foot HD screen, and multicamera recording capability. Standing capacity is 600-plus, providing audiences with an intimate and unique experience.
With more than 12 million albums sold, the GRAMMY-nominated Spin Doctors are rounding 30-plus years in rock 'n' roll with a seventh studio album and world tour on the way. The band's mythology began at New York’s New School University in the fall of ’88, when a fateful door-knock sparked the first meeting of drummer Aaron Comess and guitarist Eric Schenkman. Performing as the Trucking Company, Schenkman, John Popper, and Chris Barron were creating buzz. But when Popper committed himself to Blues Traveler, the remnants sought new direction. Having assured Schenkman that he’d “check them out,” Comess formed a ferocious rhythm section with Bronx-raised bassist Mark White. “When I first met them,” recalled White, “I thought, ‘These are some funky-assed white boys.’"
The nascent Spin Doctors lineup hit the Lower Manhattan music scene. Flexing their musicianship and announcing their elastic approach to live performance with jams that stretched to the outer reaches, the band’s glorious ability to supercharge a tune was in evidence on 1991’s debut live release, Up For Grabs, where some tracks stormed beyond 10 minutes. They didn’t know it yet, but the Spin Doctors — alongside peers like Blues Traveler, Phish, and Widespread Panic — would drag the jam-band ethos into the ’90s era, their DNA later dripping into the scene’s post-millennial resurgence.
The Spin Doctors' craft and originality carried them into a deal with Epic Records, setting up the Pocket Full Of Kryptonite album that defined early-90s rock. “There was a feeling of magic in the band,” reflected lead singer Barron, “and a belief in the air. That first record felt really innocent."
The success of Pocket Full Of Kryptonite blossomed at the height of music industry popular monoculture. The dominance over format (CDs and cassettes) and media outlets (MTV, print, radio) was the one-two punch leading to an explosion of album sales.
"When we were selling 50,000 records a week," Barron said. "I’d walk into a mall to buy underwear and 300 kids would surround me."
"Two Princes" rose to #4 on the Top 100 singles chart as one of the top rock 'n' roll radio singles of 1993. The band cinched a Rolling Stone cover and Sesame Street appearance.
The follow-ups to Pocket Full Of Kryptonite were 1996's You’ve Got To Believe In Something and 1999’s Here Comes The Bride, both of which featured lineup changes within the band. Just two weeks before Bride's release, Barron was struck with a rare acute form of vocal cord paralysis that affected him for a year.
In 2001, with Barron recovered, the Spin Doctors classic lineup reconvened to play the closing of Manhattan's legendary Wetlands club, where the band cut their teeth in their formative days. 2005's Nice Talking To Me found the Spin Doctors working with esteemed producer Matt Wallace (Faith No More, The Replacements, O.A.R., Maroon 5) at L.A.'s historic Sound City studio, and their 2013 release, If The River Was Whiskey, featured gritty blues songs harkening back to their origin.
Spin Doctors live, Photo by Krupek Paweł Krupka
All that sets the stage for what's to come, with a new album in the works.
“For the next album,” said Barron, “I kinda want to stay spontaneous. I’d personally like to make a quarter-turn and do a rock record. But I have a feeling it’s gonna get funky. Y’know, there’s that great quote from Keith Richards when he went to meet Mick Jagger at AIR Studios to make Steel Wheels. And he told his wife, ‘I’ll either be back tomorrow or in a month.’"
Opening the VersoFest April 5 concert is Connecticut singer-songwriter Nick Depuy, who boasts a unique sound rooted in old time folk, country rock, jazz, and blues. At 16, Depuy was mentored by Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note, Elektra, and Columbia Records, who called Depuy "the next James Taylor."
Depuy has shared the stage with legendary singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb, Neil Finn of Crowded House, and art-rock legends Procol Harum. Depuy's music has been featured on WPLR 99.1, ABC Channel 8, CBS WTIC 1080, and in performance at tri-state area venues including Fairfield Stage One, the Bijou Theater, Ridgefield Playhouse, the Gathering of the Vibes Music Festival, The Rockwood Music Hall, The Living Room, Arlene’s Grocery, Joe’s Pub in NYC, and the Connecticut Folk Festival, where he was both a “new artist” and “new songwriter” finalist.
Depuy’s debut LP, Don't Be Sorry, is available on streaming services.
All VersoFest 2024 concerts are co-produced with the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce.
Photo by Travis Shinn
Revolutionary, hip hop icon, social activist, author, film producer, and digital music pioneer. Few can hold these titles with the impact and influence that Chuck D has had on modern pop culture and philosophy.
The leader and co-founder of legendary group Public Enemy, and part of the supergroup Prophets of Rage, will discuss his life, work, and recent graphic novel STEWdio: The Naphic Grovel ARTrilogy of Chuck D on Wednesday, April 3, at 7 pm in the VersoFest 2024 Kickoff Conversation presented by Darcy Travlos.
Chuck D will be in conversation with Akashic Books publisher Johnny Temple, with media host, entrepreneur, and music executive June Archer introducing the guest of honor.
The event will be held in the Library's Trefz Forum. Tickets are $50 and available for purchase here.
VersoFest is The Westport Library's annual music and media festival and conference, spanning five days from April 3 through April 7. Converging local with global, VersoFest has presented concerts with The Smithereens and Sunflower Bean, as well as events with renowned producer Steve Lillywhite, Norton Records/Kicks Books/Kicksville Radio co-founder and original Cramps drummer Miriam Linna, Alice Cooper Group Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Dennis Dunaway, Psychedelic Furs frontman and painter Richard Butler, author and journalist Rachel Felder, and hip hop pioneer DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore. Initial VersoFest 2024 luminaries include Legendary David Bowie, T. Rex, and Thin Lizzy music producer Tony Visconti, and electric power pop rockers The Lemon Twigs, with a full VersoFest schedule to be released in coming weeks. All performances, panels, and workshops are free or at market rates with the generous support of donors, community partners, and Library programming funds.
"We are absolutely thrilled to have Chuck D of Public Enemy join us at The Westport Library," said Westport Library Executive Director Bill Harmer. "His groundbreaking contributions to music and social activism have made a profound impact on our culture, and we can't wait for our community to engage with his incredible insights and talent."
Chuck D first rose to acclaim in the 1980s with a string of critically lauded and commercially successful albums that addressed weighty issues about race, rage, and inequality. Present day, The New York Times has named Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back to their list of the “25 Most Significant Albums of the Last Century,” and in 2005, The Library of Congress added Fear of a Black Planet to its National Recording Registry.
In 2013, Public Enemy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., began curating its archive, the group was asked to donate iconic items from its history. In 2020, Public Enemy received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the GRAMMYs. This year, “Fight The Power” was named #2 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2021 list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (which also included “Bring The Noise”).
"I wanted to curate, present, navigate, teach, and lead the hip hop art, making it something that people would revere," Chuck D told Kelefah Sanneh of The New Yorker in February 2023. "I was educated in the arts ever since I was a little kid. My mother started Roosevelt Community Theater in 1973 in Roosevelt (New York). I was under Frank Frazier's tutelage as an art teacher [in] 1972. I go to Adelphi University to become a commercial artist. But as what? I had no idea. Hip hop as an idea got me through college."
In June 2016, Chuck D debuted Prophets of Rage, a new “supergroup” with former Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk, plus Cypress Hill’s B-Real and DJ Lord of Public Enemy. He formed Enemy Radio in 2019, the DJ-MC sound system component of Public Enemy and toured throughout Europe with Wu-Tang and De La Soul.
Ever the media polymath, Chuck D is also a visual artist whose work has been shown in galleries nationwide, a best-selling author (including 2017’s 300-page This Day In Rap and Hip Hop History), a highly sought-after speaker on the college lecture circuit, a prominent member of music industry nonprofit organizations MusicCares and Rock The Vote, and a record label founder of SpitSlam.
Chuck D also has served as national spokesperson for Rock The Vote, the National Urban League, the National Alliance of African American Athletes, and Hip Hop Public Health. In 2018, he was named the chairman of the Celebrity Board for the Universal Hip Hop Museum in New York.
In February 2020, Chuck D turned his gaze once again to the page and filled three 5x8 journals with his written and drawn reflections of a world beginning to unravel. STEWdio: The Naphic Grovel ARTrilogy of Chuck D recreates the format of his original art, combining three full-color paperback bound books into a beautiful box set. The box set is the inaugural offering from Enemy Books, the new Akashic Books imprint curated by the artist and author himself.
As Akaschic Books characterizes the volume: "Spanning the onset of COVID-19 through the first year of the Joe 'Bye-Don' administration, Chuck D lends his powerful artistic voice to one of the most tumultuous periods in American history, and puts it in a capsule. Like the neo-expressionist graffiti art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Chuck D’s energetic “Naphic Grovels” marry text with drawings, commenting on contemporary events with the same activist instinct that propelled Public Enemy’s 'music-with-a-message' reputation. His inventive, Amiri Baraka–esque language and accompanying art is also occasionally used as a tool for introspection, providing unparalleled insight into one of the most important cultural figures of our time."
"Paintings you can listen to": That's the way Robyn Hitchcock describes his songs.
One of England's most enduring contemporary singer/songwriters and live performers will grace the stage of Verso Studios at The Westport Library on Sunday, April 28. Doors open at 3 pm, and Hitchcock hitting the stage at 4 pm. Tickets are $30 and on sale now.
The concert is presented in partnership with Fernando Pinto Presents / East Rock Concert Series, a legendary, independent promoter who for 40 years has brought the likes of Nirvana, Alex Chilton, Bo Diddley, and many other foundational artists to Connecticut stages.
Verso Studios, a media resource and cultural center housed in a five-star library, is quite the fitting venue for rock 'n' roll's foremost literary gadfly. A surrealist poet, talented guitarist, cult artist, and musician's musician, Hitchcock is among alternative rock's father figures and is the closest thing the genre has to a Bob Dylan (not coincidentally his biggest musical inspiration). Since founding the art-rock band The Soft Boys in 1976, Hitchcock has recorded more than 20 albums as well as starred in Storefront Hitchcock, an in-concert film recorded in New York and directed by Jonathan Demme.
Hitchcock's most recent album is self-titled and marks his 21st release as a solo artist. He describes it as an "ecstatic work of negativity with nary a dreary groove."
Robyn Hitchcock has received rave reviews from UNCUT, Rolling Stone, Paste, Tidal, and more.
"A gifted melodist, Hitchcock nests engaging lyrics in some of the most bracing, rainbow-hued pop this side of Revolver. He wrests inspiration not from ordinary life but from extraordinary imaginings..." - Rolling Stone
"These 10 gems slither, rock, roll, glide and shapeshift, coalescing around Hitchcock’s typically anxious, strained but striking and immediately identifiable vocals." - American Songwriter
"Beloved of everyone from Led Zeppelin to REM, Hitchcock has only enhanced his status with this wonderful outing." - Hot Press
"Witty, moving and seriously catchy, Robyn Hitchcock is a glorious return for a man who wasn’t really gone in the first place." - Paste
“This is the greatest concert film ever, can we give it up please?! I’m going on record,” Spike Lee raved to the buzzing sold out Toronto International Film Festival crowd and IMAX audiences all over the world.
A24’s remixed, remastered, 4K, 40th anniversary rerelease of Jonathan Demme’s 1984 tour-de-force film, Stop Making Sense, has ignited a lovefest among original Talking Heads members David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, and Westport’s own Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. The publicity tour extended from TIFF to reunited screenings in New York and Los Angeles, with everyone from Late Night’s Stephen Colbert to Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon to Khruangbin’s Laura Lee paying reverence and tribute.
Now it's coming to Westport.
On Friday, February 9, A24’s rerelease of Stop Making Sense lands in the hometown library and venue of Frantz and Weymouth, at The Westport Library and Verso Studios.
This event is a benefit for both VersoFest 2024 and beloved freeform community radio station WPKN, where Frantz hosts his monthly radio show, The Talking Head. Tickets are $20, with larger donations to these grassroots organizations encouraged and welcomed. The night includes a cash bar with beer provided by nearby BBQ restaurant, Walrus Alley, plus wine.
Doors open at 6:30 pm with WPKN’s ReHumanize Yourself Radio host Herman Olivera and assorted WPKN DJs spinning vinyl sets before and after the film. Stop Making Sense begins promptly at 7 pm, followed by a question-and-answer session with Frantz and Weymouth, moderated by Verso Studios Marketing Manager Brendan Toller, who is an accomplished filmmaker (Danny Says, I Need That Record!), musician (Dust Hat, Hilton Valentine Band), and DJ (Shake ‘N’ Vibrate).
Stop Making Sense is the landmark film capturing the Talking Heads over three nights at Pantages Theater in Los Angeles in December of 1983. The extended touring edition of the band included Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir, Steve Scales, Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt for an electrifying, performative document that has enraptured generations of audiences in fervent screenings and parties.
Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth at VersoFest 2023. Photo by Chad Anderson.
VersoFest is the Library's annual music and media conference and festival linking local and global artists in performances, panels, and workshops. Taking place Wednesday, April 3, through Sunday April 7, the 2024 edition welcomes legendary music producer Tony Visconti and rising power pop rockers the Lemon Twigs, with a host of acts and names yet to be announced.
Frantz and Weymouth have been glowing supporters of VersoFest since its inception in 2022. In previous years, Frantz has moderated discussions with acclaimed music producer Steve Lillywhite and Psychedelic Furs frontman Richard Butler. The inaugural VersoFest featured Frantz in discussion on his best-selling memoir Remain in Love with WPKN General Manager Steve di Constanzo.
Celebrating 60 years of listener-supported, freeform, community radio, Bridgeport’s WPKN 89.5 FM (online at wpkn.org) is cited by The New Yorker as “the greatest radio station in the world.” Approximately 130 multi-generational volunteers support 24/7 non-commercial radio programming spanning rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, blues, hip hop, avant garde, world music, news, environmental reporting, and more.
Verso Studios is an ideal film forum, equipped with an 18 x 10-foot Digital Projection Radiance LED 1080 screen and concert hall grade d&b soundsystem. In recent years, Verso Studios has screened Connecticut premieres of Todd Haynes Velvet Underground documentary and Larry Locke’s Heaven Stood Still: The Incarnations of Willy Deville, as well as innovative screenings with Psychedelic Cinema and documentary trailblazer Sam Green's 32 Sounds.
With Frantz consecrating The Westport Library as “the hippest library in the whole damn country,” there will surely be dancing in the aisles.
“They’re so out of left field in their songs. They don’t have any rules in their songs and that’s sometimes the way it should be. … Hey guys, I’m dying to meet you, keep making great music.”
-Elton John, on The Lemon Twigs
The indie rock/pop band the Lemon Twigs will lead the VersoFest 2024 kickoff concert on Thursday, April 4, in the Library’s Trefz Forum. Tickets are on sale now for $20. Doors open at 6:30 pm with WFMU and WHUS favorite DJ HYSTERICA spinning her all-vinyl oeuvre of power pop, punk, greasy soul, and yé-yé. The show begins at 7:30 pm with a forthcoming local opener.
The Lemon Twigs pull from a wide range of multigenerational inspirations, darting from twee chamber pop balladry to full-on glam punk, mixing plaintive singer-songwriter confessionals with an almost Syd Barrett sense of outré pop. Their sound has said to harken back to the vocal melody of Art Garfunkel and chamber pop of Brian Wilson, and they cite among their influences Moondog and Arthur Russell.
The New York-based group is led by the brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario and is currently touring behind its fourth full-length studio release, Everything Harmony. That follows their 2016 debut, Do Hollywood, and their follow-ups Go to School (2018) and Songs for the General Public (2020).
The Lemon Twigs are longtime friends and tourmates of Sunflower Bean, which headlined the Thursday night VersoFest 2023 slot. This past October, Local WPKN DJ Alec Cumming of Snap Crackle POP! (father of Julia Cumming from Sunflower Bean) produced a radio documentary of the Lemon Twigs, weaving songs and an exclusive interview with the D’Addario brothers.
The VersoFest 2024 kickoff concert date is preceded by 2023 California winter dates with legendary dB’s singer-songwriter/producer Chris Stamey. From VersoFest, the Lemon Twigs are slated to perform at Primavera Sound Barcelona 2024, one of the world’s premier pop/rock/underground electronic and dance music festivals, alongside Pulp, PJ Harvey, the National, Lana Del Ray, and Amyl and the Sniffers.
Recently playing numerous tracks from Everything Harmony on his BBC6 Iggy Confidential radio show, proto-punk icon Iggy Pop exclaimed, “Lemon Twigs, they’re over-talented, that’s all I can say about the Lemon Twigs. Wow! These guys can do a whole lot of things, and they do. They leave me scratchin’ my head always, but it’s always super fine.”
The Lemon Twigs have appeared on recent albums by Weyes Blood and Todd Rundgren, who said that the band has “a built-in appreciation for music that is of a couple of generations before theirs. I think they were bored by the music of their own generation, and since you can’t fast forward to the music of the future, you just start going backwards to music that was made before you were born.”
All VersoFest 2024 concerts are co-produced with the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce.
David Bowie, T. Rex, Thin Lizzy — titans of rock ‘n’ roll music, all connected by the iconic touches of legendary producer, arranger, and VersoFest 2024 keynote subject Tony Visconti.
Visconti will be in conversation with WFUV's Paul Cavalconte for The Westport Library's third annual music and media festival on Saturday, April 6 at 1 pm, discussing his art and career as one of pop music’s longest working and most influential producers. This event is free and requires registration, tickets are available now via this link.
Beyond music, Visconti has created moments blooming into cultural movements (glam rock), art linked to collective memory in T. Rex’s “Get It On (Bang A Gong),” “Cosmic Dancer,” and “20th Century Boy” and Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold The World,” “Rebel Rebel,” and “Heroes.” Lifetime achievements, GRAMMY Awards, film and TV soundtracks, and many other honors celebrate Visconti’s production and arrangement vision, which also includes collaborations with Paul McCartney & Wings (for their famed Band on the Run album), U2, Bert Jansch, Angelique Kidjo, Luscious Jackson, Alejandro Escovedo, the Strawbs, Fall Out Boy, Gentle Giant, Mercury Rev, Sparks, Badfinger, The Moody Blues, The Alarm, Kristeen Young, and D-Generation. In addition, Visconti recently arranged the strings on New Haven musician and former Verso Studios Connecticut Music Oral History Podcast guest Kelly Reilly’s “Happiness Lasts.”
“Now in its third year, VersoFest 2024 is shaping up to be another impressive and inspiring weekend for creators and fans alike. Announcing the legendary Tony Visconti, who has been at the helm of countless cultural touchstones is a tremendous launch for our 2024 program,” said Westport Library Executive Director Bill Harmer.
VersoFest 2024 is a four-day music festival and conference happening Thursday, April 4, through Sunday, April 7. VersoFest includes panels where experts share their perspective and vision. Intimate workshops provide creators the opportunity to deconstruct, improve, and hone their craft. Performances entertain and inspire.
Previous years have featured a diverse and eclectic mix of performers and subjects including the Smithereens, Sunflower Bean, Grand Wizzard Theodore (inventor of scratch DJing), producer Steve Lillywhite (U2, Talking Heads, Dave Matthews Band), Richard Butler (Psychedelic Furs), Dennis Dunaway (Alice Cooper), Miriam Linna (Norton Records, Kicks Books, Kicksville Radio), actor/producer Michael Jai White, Little Steven’s TeachRock Foundation, Connecticut Public, and many more.
Visconti is currently touring the globe celebrating the release of the new 77-track box set Produced by Tony Visconti. Visconti told popular music blog Super Deluxe Edition, “This boxset covers five-and-a-half decades of my efforts in the art of making iconic recordings. Some of it is familiar and some will have a eureka moment, ‘I didn’t know Visconti produced that one!’”
Oscar-nominated filmmaker and 32 Sounds Director Sam Green
Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Sam Green continually pushes the bounds of theatrical experience with live score/narrated documentaries like The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller with Yo La Tengo, A Thousand Thoughts with the Kronos Quartet, and Green’s defining tour de force, The Weather Underground, chronicling the rise and fall of the radical political organization.
On Friday, December 8, at 6:30 pm, the Lundberg Family Foundation Master Film Series welcomes Green’s latest Sundance and SXSW selected documentary, 32 Sounds. Green will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A with the audience. This event is free and requires registration.
32 Sounds is described as “a meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us.” In creation of a “wholly unique, sensory rich experience,” the film lives up to its promise. Each member of the audience is given their own set of headphones for a special immersive binaural audio experience (a kind of spatial sound technology that gives the listener a much clearer sense of space).
Ever the form and technology trailblazer, Green developed the film through a creative residency at MASS MOCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, with Stanford University, Arizona University, and NYU, among others, serving as film commission partners.
“Normally, we think of movies as a visual medium, and they are, to an extent. The sound is always seen as a second-class citizen,” Green told Seventh Row. “This movie was hard to make. It’s almost like that cliché of a sculptor who allows the sculpture to come out of the stone, which sounds corny, but there’s something to it. As you work the material, you start to realize why you’re drawn to this, and what it is that is getting to you. That takes a lot of time and struggle.”
The 32 Sounds filmmaking team includes, among others, Oscar-winning and five-time Oscar-nominated sound designer Mark Mangini, multi-talented composer JD Samson, and celebrated producer and Oscar nominee Josh Penn.
Mangini won his Oscars for Dune and Mad Max Fury Road and is also known for films like Blade Runner 2049, Star Treks I, IV, and V, The Fifth Element, and Gremlins.
Samson is best known as leader of the band MEN and for being one-third of the electronic-feminist-punk band and performance project, Le Tigre.
Penn has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, Outstanding Producer at the Producer’s Guild Awards, and has won a Peabody Award. He has premiered a dozen films at Sundance since 2012, garnering five awards from the festival. He has produced Beasts of the Southern Wild (Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Cannes Caméra d’Or, and four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture), Monsters and Men (Sundance Special Jury Prize), and the series Philly D.A. (Gotham and Peabody Award winner).
The Westport Library’s Lundberg Family Foundation Masters Film Series showcases films and filmmakers, celebrating contemporary masters, innovative new voices, and emerging artists. Previously the series debuted the Connecticut premiere of Larry Locke’s documentary, Heaven Stood Still: The Incarnations of Willy DeVille, followed by master class sessions.
L to R: The book cover for To Anyone Who Ever Asks, and a picture of the author, Howard Fishman
We are in the midst of a golden age of mid-century popular music, with expanded deluxe editions, lost albums, compilations, rediscovery, and reexamination. Enter Connie Converse.
Converse is redefining the narrative of singer-songwriter history, bridging the gap between traditional Americana (country, blues, folk, jazz, and gospel), the Great American Songbook, classical art song, and the singer-songwriter movement spurred on by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell—but Converse was doing it a decade before those figures arrived.
This revelatory subject is the focus of the inaugural Verso Book Club event, which welcomes author Howard Fishman, writer of the widely shared New York Times feature Before Dylan, There Was Connie Converse. Then She Vanished., and the critically acclaimed book, To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse.
The event is free and will take place at The Westport Library on Thursday, October 5, 7-9 pm, in Brooks Place (on the Library's main level). Registration is required.
Copies of To Anyone Who Ever Asks can be purchased through registration and at the event, where Fishman will be signing copies. The book is also available in The Westport Library catalog.
"Connie Converse was the ultimate cross-disciplinary innovator," said Fishman, "so I'm thrilled to be able to present a talk about her at a forward-thinking venue like The Westport Library/Verso Studios."
“With Verso Studios' vision to marry literature, music, and media, we welcome this inaugural Verso Book Club event as a forum for tri-state area writers and fans to see how writing and investigative journalism elevates and defines art," Westport Library Executive Director Bill Harmer said.
In the wave of reappraisal in Converse’s work, there are now more than 10 million streams and 80,000 monthly listeners of Converse’s songs on Spotify. Artists ranging from Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) and Big Thief to opera’s rising star Julia Bullock have covered her work.
To Anyone Who Ever Asks press release reads, “Fishman recounts what can be known about Converse’s life while offering readers insight into her work and why it was so far ahead of her time. The bizarre legend about Connie Converse that had become the prevailing narrative among those who had also discovered her music was that in 1974, at the age of fifty, she simply drove off one day and was never heard from again. Could this have been true? A dozen years of research, travel to the places she lived, immersion into the voluminous effects she left behind, and hundreds of interviews later (including many with her friends and family members), Fishman gives readers a compelling book.”
The Verso Book Club is a reading group engaging in discourse and discussion on new and classic books focusing on contemporary popular music, media, and culture, filmmaking, and artistic scenes. The Verso Book Club provides a forum for author talks on influence, craft, process, and approach. Author talks are recorded, archived, and promoted via the state-of-the-art Verso Studios.
Fishman is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, where he has published essays on music, film, theater, literature, travel, and culture. His essays have also appeared in Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, Artforum, San Francisco Chronicle, Mojo, The Village Voice, Jazziz, and Salmagundi. His play, A Star Has Burnt My Eye, was a New York Times “Critics Pick.”
As a performing songwriter and bandleader, Fishman has toured internationally as a headlining artist for more than two decades. He has released 11 albums to date, and is the producer of the album, Connie's Piano Songs: The Art Songs of Elizabeth "Connie" Converse.
