Brian Dickens is a man of many words. This is evident on his new album, “You Can Close Your Eyes and Be True.”
His first release in almost a decade is packed with lengthy verses and clever wordplay that only adds to the strong storytelling and honest emotion in this fine collection of songs. For those new to the Turners Falls-based musician, the album’s 14 tracks offer a perfect introduction to his work.
You can hear some of this material when Dickens performs at the Ales for ALS benefit at Incandescent Brewing, located at 203 South St. in Bernardston, on Saturday, Sept. 19. Dickens will play from 1 to 4 p.m. and Wolf Swamp will follow, performing from 6 to 9 p.m.
“You Can Close Your Eyes and Be True” is Dickens’ fourth album and the first since his 2018 release, “Posterity Measures.”
Between settling in as a new resident of Franklin County and focusing on his work life, finding time for music was often difficult, which led to the long gap between projects. He enjoyed his work, including at the Erving State Forest, but he also wanted to get back to music, so in recent years he started writing more and playing at open mics.
“Last year I said to myself, ‘I’m doing an album soon and just have to figure out how to do it,’ and then this year cracked it,” Dickens said in a phone interview.
The solution was to record at home, just him and his acoustic guitar.
“I recorded 25 or more songs, and then I just cut, and the songs on the album are what floated on top,” Dickens recalled.
The album was released in August. Its title came from a comment a patron at The Rendezvous made after one of Dickens’ performances.
“He said he liked my music ‘because I can just close my eyes and be true,'” said Dickens, who immediately knew that had to be the album’s title.
Musically, these songs range from classic folk to the broader genre of Americana. The lyrics, be it the sadness expressed in the lovely “Little Eyes,” or the upbeat “Pollyanna,” with its infectious chorus of “I love my life, I love my life,” capture the feeling of experiences lived, not just sung about.
Dickens pulls from his own life, like in “Silence Lab,” where he sings, “The teacher said to try to put thinkin’ aside/And go for a swim inside our senses/See what we could find, maybe peace.”
“That was a story about an old science teacher who took a break from teaching science to talk about meditation and mindfulness,” he explained.
And then there is “Skippy (The Shop on Rail Road Square),” about an old friend who took his love of partying too far.
“That one had to be written because it’s a completely true story and needed to be told,” he added.
Dickens excels at writing lengthy story songs that are very wordy, with multiple verses and no chorus, often sung quite rapidly.
“I very much love the ability to spin words together for the wordy out there,” Dickens said of his writing. “I like doing inner rhymes with assonance and consonants. I like doing alliteration. I like metaphor and simile and all of the fun devices, and I like leaning on them hard at one time or another.”
He began writing songs a few years after picking up the guitar, when he was about 13.
“I always tell people I’ve been a singer-songwriter for 20 years and have been good for about 10,” said Dickens, 34.
Dickens grew up in Winchendon, in a home where music was always playing, be it the classic rock his dad favored, or the country tunes his mother liked. He also found music on his own.
“To tell you the truth, a lot of video game soundtracks completely changed my life because these soundtracks have punk rock, and ska and rock and all kinds of cool stuff,” he said. “I had a huge hair metal phase, which is ironic if anyone has seen a picture of me.”
He played in a band during high school, but it wasn’t really for him. Once he started focusing on acoustic guitar, he knew he had found his path.
Dickens frequently played in the Worcester area and released three albums before moving to Greenfield in 2020.
On his previous recording, Dickens worked with other musicians, and while he said he wouldn’t rule out playing with others in the future, he is quite happy as a solo artist.
“As Henry Rollins says, you’ve got to live at the speed of life and not sit around and wait for stuff to happen,” Dickens said. “So for me, living at the speed of life is, I write a song, I play it out, I work it out and if it sounds good, it goes in the stack. I’m just stacking the songbook; that’s what I’m trying to do.”
“You Can Close Your Eyes and Be True” is available only on bandcamp.com and will be released on CD later this fall.
One Love Reggae Festival at Peskeompskut Park
We have already enjoyed a couple of reggae festivals here in the Pioneer Valley over the summer, and now another is happening at Peskeompskut Park, at the corner of Avenue A and Seventh Street in Turners Falls. The free, all-ages One Love Reggae Festival will take place on Saturday, Sept. 19, from 3 to 9 p.m. It is sponsored by RiverCulture, the Montague Cultural Council and 253 Farmacy.
The festival will feature local musicians Mbo Lette (formerly the Wendell Warriors), Shanti Starr and the Afro-Reggae All Stars, Abdul Baki and Root Fiyah, and Ras Iba and Amandla Band. Nyjah Diorganizah, King Rhymez and Jah Rico are special guests from the Boston area.
That’s an impressive lineup, and with this many artists, you can expect a variety of sounds: roots reggae, dancehall, West African drumming, rocksteady and more. Richie Richardson will emcee the evening.
Family crafts and a DJ start at 3 p.m., while live music starts at 4 p.m. Rain date: Sept. 20.
Jesse Sterling Harrison at Element Brewing
Singer-songwriter Jesse Sterling Harrison of Easthampton has just released a new album, “Catch and Release Program.”
Although it just came out, the music was recorded back in 1998. At that time, Harrison and fellow musician Joshua Thayer were roommates. Thayer recorded Harrison playing the songs acoustically in their living room. They made a few CD-Rs for friends and family, and that was as far as it went.
“But the record still resonated with us,” said Thayer, who now runs Brave Tiger Records, and Harrison reached out a few months back looking for the files. “He has said that of all of his music over the years, the acoustic recordings are ones that people have continued to ask about, and he was keen to get them out through modern channels.”
“Catch and Release Program” came out in August.
“I’ve been happy to help get it out into the world,” Thayer added. “To me, it shows that you can make lasting art through whatever methods you have available, and it’s fun to get these 1998 recordings we made, and have continued listening to, out to other people’s ears.”
Harrison will perform at Unplugged and Unfiltered, a singer-songwriter spotlight series at Element Brewing & Distilling, 3 Sugarloaf St. in South Deerfield, on Friday, Sept. 18, at 6 p.m. Sierra Harrop, Dan Frost and JJ Slater are also part of the lineup. After that, Harrison is set to play at the Saturday Song Swap at Abandoned Building Brewery in Easthampton on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 6 p.m.
Sheryl Hunter is a freelance writer who resides in Easthampton. Her work has appeared in various regional and national publications. She can be reached at soundslocal@yahoo.com.