Andy “A_Dog” Williams died of leukemia in 2013, but the Burlington DJ and turntablist left an indelible legacy in the community, one that’s stewarded by the Friends for A_Dog Foundation. Over the past decade, the nonprofit has hosted bone marrow drives, music and skateboarding programs and scholarships, and often free programming for local kids. And every year on the last Saturday in August, it celebrates Williams with the citywide A_Dog Day.
Some of Williams’ closest friends and collaborators are planning their own party this year by commemorating the day he died, December 26. Local hip-hop leading lights Nastee and Konflik are throwing the AfterLyfe Bornday Celebration at the Alchemist brewery in Stowe, which features performances from both rappers and some special guests, as well as cake and balloons.
“Konflik and I have wanted to put together a remembrance of A_Dog’s passing for the past two years,” Nastee wrote in an email. “This year we’ve finally put some things together to memorialize his life by recognizing the day he passed away, or as they say where we come from, ‘the day he went back to the essence.'”
They’ve also prepared two special releases specifically for the event. First up is Tribute Volume 1, a scratch DJ compilation featuring locals such as Big Dog, Kanganade and Cre8, as well as New Jersey’s Just Blaze and Texas producer Statik Selektah. The album features a remix of “This Is Me” by VT Union, Williams’ old hip-hop unit.
The final piece of the tribute is the music video premiere of “Itchy & Statiky,” a track off Tribute that features samples of A_Dog scratching over a beat provided by Statik Selektah. According to Nastee, the video includes never-before-seen footage of A_Dog. Editing it was an emotional experience for Nastee — a true labor of love.
“Some say it’s weird to have a party for somebody’s death day,” Nastee wrote. “But A_Dog and I always saluted people publicly on their death day, so it only seems fitting I do the same for him … We truly want to raise awareness of who Andy was/is and his importance to the Burlington music scene.”
I posted an online story last week about Hartford High School senior Macy Bettwieser competing in Next On Stage, Broadway’s biggest national competition for high school and college students who dream of becoming professional performers. At the time, she had advanced from a field of 250 hopefuls to make the semifinal round of 10.
Now Bettwieser has done it again, earning enough online votes to advance to the final five. The winner of this final round of voting will book a trip to New York City on January 17 to perform at the 54 Below Live Finale.
Bettwieser submitted several YouTube videos in November to Broadway World, featuring her performing hit Broadway songs such as “She Used to Be Mine” from Waitress. People can vote for Bettwieser by visiting the Broadway World website.
Her family and her music teacher at Hartford High School, Andrea Nardone, have been trying hard to get the word out about Bettwieser, urging the local community to support her and vote. They’ve even enlisted the help of New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult, who, as the executive producer for several productions by the Upper Valley’s Trumbull Hall Troupe, worked with Bettwieser on student shows. The final round of voting opened on Monday and closes on Wednesday, December 18, at 11:59 p.m.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment for Macy, and you can be part of it,” Nardone said.
Frequent readers of the column know how much I adore radio and insist on listening to it daily, despite all the streaming and satellite options. I love how weird and random radio can be: Tuning in is like stumbling into an unmarked library deep in the bowels of a city.
So I’m always on the lookout for cool new stations or programs. Enter 102.9 FM WEXP, a new radio station out of Westport, N.Y., broadcasting throughout the Champlain Valley. Formerly WCLX, aka Farm Fresh Radio, the new station is owned by Dennis Jackson, a former broadcaster on Burlington’s WDOT. Jackson is turning WEXP into what he calls “pop-up experimental radio.”
“Radio used to be block programmed like television, with different shows at different times of the day and week,” Jackson wrote in a press release. “So we had the idea to work with well-known local radio personalities and experiment with ‘pop-up programming’ to offer kinds of music that aren’t available elsewhere.”
To that end, WEXP currently spotlights eight genres that don’t show up on radio stations in the greater Burlington area. On weekday mornings, tune in for free-form album rock from Vermont Association of Broadcasters Hall of Famer Russ Kinsley, the original founder of classic-rock station WIZN the Wizard. “Country Joe” Loverro, one of the area’s top country music DJs in the 1980s at WDOT, hosts “Friday Night Gold,” a show featuring oldies and country hits. Former local radio rivals RJ Potter and George Goldring now cohost a program specializing in “great American standards” that puts the spotlight on big-band music and the pop of yesteryear.
WEXP is also only the second station in the country to feature “Groove Salad,” an ambient music and downtempo electronica program out of San Francisco. Saturdays deliver “The Squid” for all your R&B and soul needs before turning to modern jazz in the evening.
“We’d like to get an idea of what might catch on with radio listeners looking for something different,” Jackson wrote. “Meanwhile, we’re having some fun with it.”
Listening In
Playlist of Vermont jams
This article appears in The Reading Issue 2024.
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