Arlo Guthrie, Levon Helm to play anti-fracking benefit

Local News

Discussion

COMMENTING ON STORIES:

Welcome to our story comments feature. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including the unpopular ones. We only ask that you keep your conversations clean, civil and on the topic of the story you are commenting on.

Coinciding with our websites redesign, we launched our new story comments feature through Disqus.

Disqus gives users the ability to log into our story comments feature so that they may be able to track their conversations, receive emails when their comments get a reply or to even have your comments update onto your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

For the time being, our story comments feature will continue to have the ability to post comments anonymously. We reserve the right to require registration in the future using your name and verified email address.

Not all comments are deemed printable. Some are disqualified at the newspaper’s discretion for a number of different reasons. Please follow our Online Rules of Conduct at all times.

RULES OF CONDUCT:

We reserve the right to remove comments that are unacceptable, to wit:

1. False and inacurate statements.
2. Personal attacks. Explicit name-calling.
3. Harassing, harmful, vulgar, obscene and defamatory language.
4. Threatening statements or statements that suggest violence.
5. Hate speech of any kind.
6. Intolerant comments on religion, race, age, gender, sexual preference or disabilities.
7. Accusations of criminal activity.
8. Content that is harmful to children and minors in any way.
9. References to any type of sexual activity and other private matters.
10. Random and inflammatory statements that are off topic.
11. Advertising of any kind.
12. Typing in all caps.

WE ENCOURAGE REASONABLE AND COURTEOUS COMMENTS THAT:

1. Create conversation on issues of interest and concern to fellow readers and local community members.
2. Express opinions and contrarian views.
3. Stimulate debate with respectful language.
4. Stay within the boundaries of these rules.

WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SUSPEND OR TERMINATE ACCESS FOR:

1. Violating any of these Online Rules of Conduct.
2. Deliberately disrupting discussions with repetitive messages, meaningless messages or spam.
3. Misrepresentation of identity or impersonating another user.

WE WELCOME:

1. Flagging violations of these rules that you observe to our attention.

MONITORING:

We monitor comments regularly Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Approval of comments outside of this time (including weekends) will be sporadic.

comments powered by Disqus

April 23, 2011

By Tom Grace Cooperstown News Bureau The Daily Star Sat Apr 23, 2011, 03:30 AM EDT

Brewery Ommegang will present Levon Helm and Arlo Guthrie on May 13 in "The Concert to Fight Fracking." Helm, drummer and singer with The Band, and Guthrie, who rose to fame with his song "Alice's Restaurant," will play at the brewery on county Route 33 in Middlefield, south of Cooperstown.

Susan O'Handley, executive director of the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce, said Friday she plans to attend a meeting Monday to discuss arrangements for the concert.

The Chamber publicly opposes hydraulic fracturing _ also known as fracking. The process shatters shale beds with millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals to release natural gas.

Industry and landowner coalitions maintain that the process is relatively safe; opponents point to accidents.

On the landowners' side, the Central New York Landowner Coalition reports, "It has been a tough winter in the Northeast. Record colds and heavy snows can easily bring our expenses up and drag our spirits down. Despite the cold weather, we are seeing things heating up in our negotiations. We are doing all we can to bring a deal to you but we need your help to pressure Albany to remove the obstacles to drilling in N.Y."

Opponents also are mobilizing, and the concert is part of the local effort, O'Handley said. "I think the concert will be great, a good way to raise money for the cause."

Tickets are $45 in advance and are available at the brewery and other locations, including The Sound Garden in Syracuse, according to the brewery's website.

Helm, 70, who lives in Woodstock, is best known for his work with The Band in the late 1960s and early '70s, with hits such as "Up On Cripple Creek," "The Weight," and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

In recent years, he has staged concerts called "Midnight Rambles" in his barn in Woodstock and on tour. In 2008, his album "Dirt Farmer" won a Grammy as best traditional folk album of the year.

"He's great, but never one to hog the spotlight, so everyone loves to work with him," Ken Millett of Night Eagle Productions in Oxford said Friday.

Joining Helm's band is Guthrie, son of Woody Guthrie, the folksinger whose standards include "This Land Is Your Land."

"Arlo Guthrie was born with a guitar in one hand and a harmonica in the other, in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York in 1947," according to his website "He grew up surrounded by dancers and musicians: Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman and Lee Hays (The Weavers), Leadbelly, Cisco Houston, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee," it states.

Arlo Guthrie rose to fame, too, in the late 1960s. With the nation embroiled in controversy over the Vietnam War, he released "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," an 18-minute satirical song about the military draft and later a movie, directed by Arthur Penn, where the characters live in a former church.

"He was never mainstream, but he defined a moment in the late '60s" Millett said. "He spoke out then and it doesn't surprise me he's speaking out now."

Like his father, Guthrie has earned a permanent place in the lives of those he influenced, Millett said.

"He certainly influenced me. I'm living in a former church," Millett noted.

Also on the bill for May 13 are The Horseshoe Lounge Playboys.