Latest news with #Lowell-based
Boston Globe
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Is it art or just one big hoax? This rising AI band could be both
Of this year. How is it possible that one group of musicians could be so prolific? That's easy. The Velvet Sundown isn't a band at all; it's a cryptic product of artificial intelligence that has amassed nearly 1.4 million monthly Spotify listeners. When the band's brocade-wallpaper music first materialized on streaming services little more than a month ago, many listeners were intrigued. Who were these guys? Judging by a playlist image of the group on Spotify, four air-brushed looking dudes with middle parts in their hair and mellow vibes in their genes. Where did they come from? (Clearly a mythical, middle-of-the-road California from the era of the Ford Pinto.) Advertisement After a brief online campaign insisting that this was a real band, a man calling himself Andrew Frelon appeared to come clean, claiming that the Velvet Sundown phenomenon is an 'art hoax.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'We live in a world now where things that are fake have sometimes even more impact than things that are real,' Frelon, who called himself the band's spokesperson, Ironically, it turns out, we have to ask if Frelon himself was for real. After Rolling Stone interviewed the 'spokesperson,' the X account that claims to speak for the 'real' Velvet Sundown Advertisement 'Someone is attempting to hijack the identity of The Velvet Sundown by releasing unauthorized interviews, publishing unrelated photos, and creating fake profiles claiming to represent us,' the post read in part. It gets weirder. The self-professed spokesperson with the assumed name recently published a piece on Whoever is behind the band and whatever their intent, for Berklee College of Music professor Jonathan Wyner, the music is forgettable. 'My initial thought was, I don't really understand what the big deal is, because it's really not very good,' he told the Globe. A 'I generally approach this technology as a way to workshop an idea or create a demo,' Wyner said. 'I'm not so interested in representing that as the final version of something.' 'But I don't necessarily have a hard ethical or moral stance on that,' Wyner added. 'I'm not going to say that people shouldn't enjoy it.' So far it's likely the curiosity factor, more than any deep enthusiasm for the music, that has driven the kind of streaming numbers feeding the buzz about this 'band.' The project's most popular song, 'Dust on the Wind,' is typical of the plug-and-play Mad Libs quality of the lyrics: 'Smoke will clear/ Truth won't bend/ Let the song fight/ 'Til the end,' sings the band's gently drawling 'frontman,' credited as Mellotron player Gabe Farrow. Advertisement This is certainly not the first time the music industry has grappled with deception. Wyner said he was disappointed as a kid when he learned that Musician Nathan Richer is a member of the Lowell-based band Burp. and studied sound recording technology at UMass Lowell. In one class, he learned about the Like a lot of his friends, Richer listened to the Velvet Sundown's music when he first heard about it a few weeks ago. 'I feel like there's so much generic rock music already out there,' he said. 'The difference [between that and the Velvet Sundown] is pretty much nothing.' He said he has no problem with an AI user prompting a music creation platform such as There should be a disclaimer, he said: 'Hey, this is an experiment I'm doing.' In the studio, Richer sometimes uses AI-driven stem splitters to separate the components of an audio file. (That's the technology that was used to isolate the late John Lennon's vocals from a rough demo tape 'If you're using AI to influence your own creativity, then I feel there's almost zero wrong with that,' Richer said. 'But I do have a lot of worries about the sanctity of art. If you're convoluting what is truth, that's what I'm most scared about.' Advertisement The Boston-based musician and author Damon Krukowski has studiously avoided engaging with the Velvet Sundown's fast-growing catalog. But as an avowed critic of streaming services and their impact on working musicians, he sees the inevitability of computer-produced music as one more example of the mounting impediments to the creative sector's livelihood. 'AI is the least of it, in many ways — or anyway it's consistent with the anti-artist, pro-capital way that these platforms function as a whole,' Krukowski wrote in an email. 'I am very engaged with trying to establish regulation for these platforms through the Living Wage for Musicians Act, which would create a direct payment to human recording artists from streaming for the first time. It's insane that we don't have that already.' Richer said he recently listened to a podcast episode in which the hosts discussed a sitcom that was created by feeding an AI tool with thousands of hours of classic TV shows. The hosts, he said, were exasperated with the result, 'because it was good.' Previous attempts, he said, had been funny 'because they were bad. But when it has the ability to analyze millions of hours of human content, it can be so close that it's frightening.' That explains plenty about how the Velvet Sundown 'kerfuffle' (as Krukowski called it) has inspired such an outpouring of commentary. The music is not good… but it is also not altogether bad. 'The fire that Napster and then Spotify created has been building,' said Wyner, the Berklee professor. 'And AI-generated music is about to pour gas on that fire. In terms of flooding the market with quasi-listenable music, fast — from that perspective, I'm alarmed.' Advertisement
Boston Globe
08-06-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Will Trump's policies kill Massachusetts' life sciences leadership?
Advertisement Although the industry is centered in eastern Massachusetts, there's a statewide benefit from all the tax dollars those businesses and workers pay. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up In all, Massachusetts organizations — including universities, research institutes, and hospitals — received $3.5 billion in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Massachusetts-headquartered companies raised $3.26 billion in venture capital funding. Among all drugs in the development pipeline in the United States, 15 percent were being made by companies headquartered in Massachusetts. But actions taken by President Trump and his administration — cutting funding for scientific research and universities, flirting with tariffs, fanning skepticism about vaccines — threaten to devastate the ecosystem. Today, the industry is at a precipice, and uncertainty abounds. Some companies are already feeling the pinch of terminated federal grants, while others are anxious about what might come. Taken together, Trump's policies could force some companies and scientists to take their money, talents, and products overseas. Advertisement Christopher Locher, CEO of Lowell-based Versatope Therapeutics, which develops a platform to deliver vaccines and therapeutics, said he worries the Greater Boston life sciences ecosystem is 'being flushed down the toilet.' For example, Trump is Trump's funding cuts are already having a large impact on some local companies. Part of the problem is the Trump administration isn't only cutting funding, but it's picking which technologies to fund — in some cases apparently based on politics more than science. Take flu vaccines. The Trump administration recently announced a $500 million campaign to fund the development of a universal flu vaccine, which doesn't require annual updates, using technology being worked on But simultaneously, he cut funding for other work on a universal flu vaccine. Versatope Therapeutics got $14 million in NIH funding and spent five years developing a universal flu vaccine. It had approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials when Trump terminated the contract's remaining $8 million, with the reason given being 'convenience,' Locher said. Trump also Advertisement Company executives say decisions by Trump officials to disinvest in vaccine-related technology — and concerns about whether government will approve new technology — means it's nearly impossible to find private investment funding to replace lost federal dollars. 'We're faced with bankruptcy in the very near future,' Locher said. Ironically, given Trump's stated commitment to bringing businesses back to the United States, one potential option Locher is eyeing is opening a subsidiary abroad. Conducting clinical trials would be cheaper in another country, whether in Europe, Australia, or China, Locher said, and some countries are offering financial incentives to American companies to relocate. Companies also face a potential workforce brain drain. There have been MassBio officials said China has less rigorous — but faster — safety and research protocols than the US. Australia allows a faster timeline for clinical trials. If regulatory approval of medicines is held up because the FDA is understaffed, companies may seek European regulatory approval instead. The loss of talent to foreign countries will be compounded if the pipeline of local university graduates dries up. One draw for life sciences companies to Boston/Cambridge is the presence of elite schools like Harvard and MIT, with their potential for faculty collaboration and skilled graduates. Advertisement Trump is trying to Chip Clark, CEO at Vibrant Biomedicines in Cambridge, said cuts to university research funding both 'shrink the pipeline of great ideas' that form the basis for many biotech startups and translate to fewer available scientists. Clark said the administration's policies 'seem like a deliberate attempt to try to cede scientific leadership to Europe and Japan and Korea and China. ... They will be delighted to capitalize on our talent, technology, and investment capital to make their robust biotech sectors grow and ultimately compete successfully against the US industry,' he said. Don Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, said he has postdocs with US visas applying for jobs in Europe, and others who were accepted to work at Harvard but are going elsewhere. 'The fact that places like Harvard and MIT and American universities are magnets for the best and brightest from around the world is what's driven our technology economy and certainly the Boston/Cambridge ecosystem,' Ingber said. 'With this uncertainty, I fear we'll lose a generation.' Ingber, who was forced to stop work on two government-funded projects on drugs designed to prevent injury from radiation exposure, compared administration policies to 'eating seed corn' needed to grow crops. Advertisement Trump's vendetta will undermine one of the most vibrant state economies in the country and set back American science by years. And it's not just eastern Massachusetts that will pay a price; the entire country will. As Ingber noted, it might take years to see the impact of medicines or technologies that aren't developed because of these shortsighted cuts. Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
State House Spotlight: Money matters
BOSTON (WWLP) – Early in the week, private attorneys who defend the poor–known as bar advocates–announced at the State House that they will no longer be taking on new cases until their pay is raised to match what attorney's make in neighboring states. 'The right to counsel, which is in the US constitution and the Massachusetts declaration of rights will only be words,' said Lowell-based attorney Sean Delaney. Meanwhile, Governor Healey announced that her administration will be cutting down on regulations to make it easier to own and operate a profitable business in the Bay State. 'Just getting their way through the red tape is something that really takes the owner of that small business' eye off the ball of serving their customers,' said President and CEO of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts Jon Hurst. These business regulations come as Massachusetts leaders are voicing their rising fears about federal policy changes. As Trump's 'big beautiful bill' passed the House and moved on to the Senate, the Governor joined Congress people to sound the alarm. 'These guys are actually out there making history by taking away from hardworking families, from people down on their luck, from seniors, from little babies,' said Senator Elizabeth Warren. Movement from the Senate on the 'big beautiful bill' is expected by July 4th. Back on Beacon Hill, the House and Senate will be busy working on their combined version of the state budget, at least until the end of June. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Walking (and T-ing) Boston's public art Triennial
Advertisement Only time can be the judge of that, and here, in the final days leading up to its official opening, I have only best guesses (a backhoe in constant use this week at the Charlestown Navy Yard, one of the Triennial's key sites, underscored the frantic last minute preparations). While we're waiting, I'm giving my imagination a workout to fashion a walking (and occasionally T-assisted) tour of some of what I think will be the most powerful pieces soon to pop up in neighborhoods near and far. A peek at New Red Order's work in progress, being installed at Faneuil Hall for the Boston Public Art Triennial. Luna Posadas Nava The Triennial, an international affair, makes a point of embracing artists actually from here, and you'll find a triumvirate of Boston-based artists — Andy Li, Evelyn Rydz, and Alison Croney Moses — at the Charlestown Navy Yard (another, Stephen Andrews, is in Roxbury; and Lowell-based Gabriel Sosa is in East Boston). Advertisement But to start in the middle of things, New Red Order, a 'public secret society' of Indigenous American collaborators will set up at Faneuil Hall with 'Material Monument to Thomas Morton (Playing Indian),' a satirical monument to the recalcitrant Puritan-era colonist's NRO's core trio of Adam Khalil (Ojibwe), Zack Khalil (Ojibwe), and Jackson Polys (Tlingit) have made waves in the contemporary art world in recent years with their sharp parodies of colonial history and Indigenous appropriation. Faneuil Hall, a site rich with a slate of ugly colonial history – Peter Faneuil himself owed no small portion of his vast riches to enslavement – makes it a natural target for their acidic social critique. It's a short stroll from there to City Hall Plaza, where Adela Goldbard's project is New Red Order's spiritual companion. Called 'Invadieron por mar, respondemos con fuego. Un presagio. [They Invaded by Sea, We Respond with Fire. An Omen.]‚' it's a large-scale replica of a colonial tallship fashioned by Native American weavers from local invasive reeds (get it?). Part of the point of the Triennial is to affirm in the minds of Bostonians that public art need not be permanent, going against the grain of our bronze, great-man-on-horseback affinities. Goldbard's piece is not subtle in its embrace of it: At the end of its run, it will be set aflame and left to smolder and be swept away – in part an act of revenge, surely, but also a stark emblem that nothing is forever. Mexican artist Adela Goldbard harvesting reeds in New England earlier this year for her "An Allegory of (De)Coloniality, in Two Movements,' her project for the Boston Public Art Triennial at City Hall Plaza. Robert Gallegos The theme of the Triennial is 'Exchange' – evocative enough to suggest, broad enough to not dictate, both good things. A stroll south to Downtown Crossing helps make clear just how how broad it can be. Here, you'll find Patrick Martinez's neon signs positioned amid the district's baleful cluster of empty storefronts, the most outward symbol of downtown Boston's post-pandemic struggle to revive itself. Advertisement I doubt Martinez's works will help with that, but they do make a relevant point: Community Service, Patrick Martinez, Boston Public Art Triennial, 2025. Yubo Dong of Of Studio It would make logistic sense to turn southwest here and swing past the Public Garden en route to the main branch of the Boston Public Library, where Swoon, a much-beloved street artist turned museum installation darling, has transformed an outsize planter in the building's lobby into a terrarium for 'In the Well: The Stories We Tell About Addiction,' a ramshackle cabin inhabited by a pair of puppets (it's already there, if you're keen to get started). But I'd be pulled across the water to East Boston, where the ICA's Watershed is presenting Chiharu Shiota's exhibition 'Homeless Home.' Shiota's work is a monument to absence – trunks and suitcases and random pieces of furniture, entangled in red rope and dangling, symbols of lives up in the air. A lament for the untold millions forced into migration, cut adrift by various disasters and left with nowhere to call home, its rootlessness speaks to the chaos of our current moment. Advertisement Swoon's installation 'In the Well: The Stories We Tell About Addiction,' at the Boston Public Library Copley Square. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Just down the street, Sosa's project works hard to find solid ground: Ñ Press, a storefront community print studio in partnership with Maverick Landing Community Services. Ñ Press roots itself in the city's Spanish-speaking community with a subtle growth mindset. Sosa, whose text-based work The Triennial concentrates a good handful of its pieces in the city core. But its mission to serve neighborhoods far-flung from downtown is in its DNA, an imprint on its soul from its formative years as the public art organization Alan Michelson's "The Knowledge Keepers" was installed at the main entrance of the Museum of Fine Arts. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston A cluster of pieces in the Fenway signal museum participation in the Triennial, a key to its visibility. Alan Michelson's 'The Knowledge Keepers,' a pair of chromium sculptures flanking the front steps of the Museum of Fine Arts, Nicholas Galanin's 'I think it goes like this (pick yourself up),' an eight-foot-tall part-Lingit Native American, part-Transformers bronze figure in the process of assembling itself is at the MassArt Museum, and Yu-Wen Wu's 'Reigning Beauty,' a photo-collage of falling flowers is fitted to the facade of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. But hop the T at Ruggles and head out toward Mattapan (this will also, alas, require a bus from Forest Hills; or backtrack on the Green Line to Park Street, where the Red Line offers a more direct route), where Lan Tuazon and Laura Lima honor the Triennial's formative history with a pair of projects rooted in that community. Advertisement Laura Lima's 2021 work 'Communal Nest #1." The artist will be creating a number of such structures/shelters for the Boston Public Art Triennial at the Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary in Mattapan. Laura Lima Studio/Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles Lima's 'An Indistinct Form (A Forma Indistinta),' at the Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, is a collaboration with the center's scientists to create 'sculptures for animals,' a poetic gesture with the practical purpose of building habitat lost to the urban wild — a metaphor, if you like, extended from the displacement narratives of Sosa and Shiota. Tuazon, meanwhile, has made 'Matters of Consequence,' an ever-evolving sculpture that doubles as a public space for the community to shape and grow over time; in many ways, its evolution, yet to be seen, is in fact the art. Evolution, it seems, is the watchword of the Triennial — or anything left in public to unfold over time. It's nothing without you. The Boston Public Art Triennial marks its official opening May 22 . For a list of sites, projects, and opening times, visit . Through Oct. 31 . Murray Whyte can be reached at
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Millions in federal funds slashed for violence prevention in Massachusetts
The U.S. Department of Justice is slashing millions of dollars in grants to Massachusetts organizations that work to decrease violence and support victims. Termination letters sent out to non-profits this week offered a 30-day window to appeal. Hundreds of grants are being cancelled nationwide because they reportedly do not align with the Trump administration's priorities. Organizations that received those notifications from the federal government are now grappling with the impact of major funding losses. 'It's a big blow. We believe our mission is perfectly aligned with the goals of the administration,' said Dwight Robson, Executive Vice President of Operations at Chelsea-based Roca. The DOJ rescinded $6 million in federal grants to Roca. Robson said the three termination letters he received this week directly impact his non-profit's work in Boston, Hartford, and Baltimore. Law enforcement in those cities has credited Roca with helping to decrease homicide rates. 'We're working hard to consider how we might close this gap. It's enormous,' he said. 'Community violence intervention works. The proof is in the individual stories of transformation we see every day.' Other non-profits in Massachusetts that also work to curb crime rates, prevent convicted felons from ending up back in prison, and combat gang violence are processing the immediate cuts as well. 'The message we got is this does not align with the agency's goals, yet I would firmly believe that the Department of Justice is about public safety,' said Gregg Croteau, CEO of Lowell-based UTEC. Greg Croteau's organization helps young adults who have been involved in criminal activity get on the right track. The termination letters UTEC received strip $2 million in federal grants. 'This is funding specifically under their program called community violence intervention that works in partnership with community-based organizations, law enforcement, and corrections,' explained Croteau. 'It provides everything from mental health services to childcare support.' Ruth Zakarian, CEO of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, sent the following statement to Boston 25 News: 'Community Violence Intervention programs are a critical to keeping our communities safe from gun violence. Any disruption in funding is a devastating blow to these programs and the communities they serve. If our government is truly committed to the work of stopping gun violence and keeping our communities safe, they will ensure that CVI programs here in Massachusetts and across the country receive the resources they need.' Boston 25 News reached out to the Department of Justice for comment and has not yet heard back. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
