Coffee house night brings music and beyond to the Northwest Corner

Alec Linden

Erin Ash Sullivan, the evening’s featured act, performing her music for a rapt audience.

Coffee house night brings music and beyond to the Northwest Corner

This year's first installment of the 12 Moons Coffee House open mic and performance kicked off to a packed house despite bracing weather on Saturday, Jan. 4.

“This is the best thing you can do on a freezing evening,” said the night’s featured performer, singer-songwriter Erin Ash Sullivan. Applause and murmurs of assent filled the vaulted interior of Falls Village’s Center on Main.

The event, which is funded entirely by donations, occurs on the first Saturday of each month and has, except for hiatus during the pandemic, been running since 2012. Since taking over in 2022, the night usually draws between 30 and 50 attendants, said John Nowak who organizes 12 Moons with his wife Nancy. “Tonight we have about 60,” Nowak said.

The evening’s structure followed the standard 12 Moons layout, starting with an open mic session which was then followed by the featured artist taking the stage at 8 p.m. Nowak explained that he sees the night as a showcase of the deep and thriving music community in the region, as well as a supportive platform for newer performers to showcase their work.

The event has a strong regular following — “We have people who come every month,” Nowak said — but continuously draws new participants. “There has always been somebody new for the open mic for two and a half years,” Nowak explained, referencing his tenure as the event’s organizer.

Saturday evening’s open mic showcased the varied and vibrant Northwest Corner talent pool, closing with David Capellaro reciting his own original poetry, a few lilting tunes from local legend George Potts, and a couple of traditional songs performed a cappella by South Kent resident John Milnes Baker, who runs his own folksong night on the second Monday of every month at the Bulls Bridge Inn.

One of Milnes Baker’s songs related an amusing tale about a traveler who unwittingly gets wrapped up in a strange barter system involving mink skins in Arkansas. When asked where he found the song, he said he wasn’t sure — he’s 92, and heard it as a teenager.

He said he grew up on the south shore of Long Island among a rich balladeering culture, and has a good memory for a tune. “I literally know hundreds of songs,” he said.

After a short break, it was time for Ash Sullivan to take the stage as the night’s featured act. “What we try to do is get local, professional artists to be our featured act — and we have,” said Nowak, noting that they now are exploring artists from further afield in New England.

Ash Sullivan, who hails from Harvard, Massachusetts, thanked the crowd and other performers before diving into the set. “This is like the best open mic I’ve ever been to,” she said to cheers from the audience.

The songs Ash Sullivan played stuck close to home, focusing on her hometown, friends, family, and intimate moments shared between loved ones. She sang about her grandmother, who was cast on the original Broadway staging of Oklahoma but backed out to marry Ash Sullivan’s grandfather, and how she wished she could have gotten more stories from her when she had the time. She also sang about motherhood, memories of going to the beach with a difficult teenage friend, and a difficult summer at home after college.

The songs were simultaneously tender and humorous, the vocals primarily accompanied by her finger-picked guitar except for one for which she played the ukulele. “Ukulele players are like vampires — they tend to sire other ukulele players,” she said, explaining that her husband’s ukulele playing had inspired her to take up the instrument.

She closed with a song about rejoining — and winning — a hometown pie eating contest as an adult after having won it twice as a preteen. The refrain encapsulates the air of levity and sentimentality that was consistent throughout her set: “Sweetness brings a sweetness that money just can’t buy.”

Latest News

Copake’s PICKLEMANIA tournament scores 2nd year

Sixty-four pickleball players from the the Tri-state region competed in an all-day tournament in Copake on Sunday, June 1.

Photo by John Coston

COPAKE — After a day of heavy rain that forced the cancellation of the second annual Copake PICKLEMANIA pickleball tournament, the games were back on Sunday, June 1, at Copake Memorial Park.


Keep ReadingShow less
Burial ground Mass at St. Patrick’s

Mass celebrating Feast of the Ascension was held May 29 at St. Patrick’s Church.

Photo By Christine Bates

MILLERTON — The sun broke through on a cloudy evening at 5:30 and a bagpiper played for a Mass celebrating the Feast of the Ascension in the graveyard of closed St. Patrick’s Church in Millerton on May 29.

The cars of about 50 former parishioners and town residents were parked on the side streets and lot across from the church. Some were clever enough to bring their own folding chairs.

Keep ReadingShow less
School budgets pass amid strong turnout in May 20 polling

With robust voter turnout throughout the region, proposed 2025-26 education budgets passed handily, along with their additional propositions, in the polling held on Tuesday, May 20.

Webutuck Central School District

By a margin of 173 to 103, voters approved the 2025-26 budget totaling $28,665,850, an increase of 5.96% over the current year. After expected revenues are factored in, the amount to be raised by local taxes is $19,403,307, a 5.27% increase over the current year.

Keep ReadingShow less
Amenia gathers at Fountain Square

A traditional Memorial Day observance to honor the fallen was held Fountain Square on Monday, May 26. The ceremony included an Honor Guard from the Wassaic Fire Company standing by the Veterans’ Memorial Wall.

Photo by Leila Hawken

AMENIA — The community gathered at Fountain Square under sunny skies on Monday, May 26, for a Memorial Day ceremony to honor the fallen who bravely served their country. Remembrances, tributes, prayers and music combined to create the fitting annual tribute.

An Honor Guard from VFW Post #5444 of Dover Plains presented the colors at the start of the ceremony that began promptly at 11 a.m. with a welcome from VFW Commander Nick Woodard to the more than 100 who had gathered.

Keep ReadingShow less