Processed with VSCO with 6 preset When Steve DelMonico (vocals/guitar) approached John Faraone (drums) with an impossibly unique band name, there was no way of knowing that 10 years later they’d be sitting at Nolan’s with...
Photo: Dave Rezendes. John Faraone: a man of many bands, many instruments, and one poetic voice. While John wouldn’t call himself a poet, I certainly believe that his lyrics are simply stanzas waiting to be printed....
Photo by James Brooks. Okee dokee folks… I have referenced the Jethro Tull song, “Too Old to Rock & Roll, Too Young to Die,” A few times in my 22 years of writing for Motif, and...
(Photo credit: Keith J.G. McCurdy, from the cover art of Vudu Sister’s Adynata; photograph of the art installation LO SGUARDO - Humanitas - Physis by sculptor Igor Mitoraj at the Neopolis Archaeological Park of Siracusa...
Mount Pleasant. Elmhurst. The Valley Arts District. These are all neighborhoods whose offerings I thought I knew well, having worked in and around Providence over the last few years. But you can certainly miss a...
Buddy Mott. Once upon a time, if you wanted a tattoo, one of the things you could do was traipse to Newport from any of the four corners of the world and get yourself a tattoo...
The actual declaration of Independence was first proclaimed to the people of Newport from this building in July 1776. (Photo by Maureen O'Gorman) It doesn't take long for a person new to Rhode Island to find...
The RI Department of Transportation (RIDOT) announced a major initiative to repair potholes caused by a harsh winter. A new Pothole Service Requests Dashboard site on the web – https://www.dot.ri.gov/travel/potholes.php – allows the public to...
The tattoo artist who goes by Mish, of Fall River, MA, created this month’s cover. “I got the nickname when I was younger, and it just kinda stuck,” she says. Also, it stirs a little...
On the “Weekend Update” satirical news segment on Saturday Night Live. anchor Colin Jost displayed a snapshot of an unhinged rant laced with profanity in the form of a Donald Trump post to Truth Social,...
Wednesday, May 276 - 10pmMyrtle, East Providence Join us for the 4th annual Motif Spoken Awards! We are excited to be returning to Myrtle to celebrate RI’s spoken word community. Want to see your favorite Rhode Island...
VOTE HERE! "May your tattoo ink never run dry," as the ancient Portlandian blessing goes, has rarely been more applicable. Motif is proud to partner again with Narragansett Brewery to bring you the RI Tattoo Awards,...
By Lillian MK Photography By Olivia Lunger By Izzy Cooke ...
The Music Awards went off without a hitch this year, and over the course of the evening more than 400 local music lovers dropped by to dance, listen, and cheer on fellow musicians. We'll have...
It’s often said (well, I definitely say this), that some of the deepest conversations and connected moments can happen while one is sitting in a car. This is certainly true for the duo, band, sisterhood...
Image: Olivia Lunger. Local Civil War re-enactor Bill Sherman was having trouble recruiting young people into the hobby, so he hit on a novel idea that is perfectly suited to Gen Z. He immediately telephoned his...
The Continental Congress, befooled. April Fool’s Day originated among the French a few years into the Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin had been pleading with them for any sort of assistance. The brand...
If you have been a craft beer lover over this past decade, you may remember when the first Rhode Island Brewery Passport was released. It was changed to an app in 2020. Six years later,...
After attending Chalumeau’s release party for their album BLUE at The Met in Pawtucket last August, I wrote that if you ever got the chance to see them perform live, you should jump on it....
On February 28, after 20 years of being a community staple for first dates, Super Tuesday regulars, and movie fanatics alike, CWTheaters (previously called CinemaWorld) was forced to shut its doors for good. The decline...
Last year, I had a blast and a half working on a fun commercial shoot. I landed the gig because the fella producing, Josh Kirk, asked around to find an actor to portray the client’s...
Photo: Jenn Lombari. @jennlombariphotography ssa lin has been making a local splash like a rockin’ rainstorm after a record-setting blizzard, since releasing her first single, “tallboys,” at the end of 2025. The feedback has been good,...
Here are some hot new local tracks to finish melting the ice. The Hopeless Romantics – “Quiet Kind” The third and final single from The Hopeless Romantics’ upcoming debut album, “Quiet Kind” is also a reworked...
Okee dokee folks… PLEASE stop using AI. The more it knows, the more it grows. We are feeding a beast that will someday destroy us. AI is not your friend, though it may pretend to...
Graphic by Olivia Lunger. ...
Hey idiot, why are you and your friends getting high indoors? Don't you know? We have a planet, a whole, big planet filled with trees, rivers, and critters. The outside world doesn't have to start...
Medical marijuana was legalized in Rhode Island in January 2006, and by May 2022 even recreational sales became legal through state-licensed dispensaries and authorized retailers. Yet it still isn’t safe for medical users to come out of the closet....
Cover artist Elliott Italiano of Jamestown is a self-made glass artist. As a young adult, Italiano's interests centered on fashion, inspiring thoughts of pursuing a degree in luxury marketing and design. He relates to his past...
MAD Magazine cover, Feb 2016: Donald Trump and Alfred E. Neuman We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process...
Cover artist Mina Miki of Providence calls her baby blanket her longest friend. “His name is Blankie, but now he looks less like a blanket and more like a piece of tangled silk,” she says....
San Francisco might be getting a lot of attention in the independent music world for its burgeoning psychedelic and garage rock adorned music scene these days, but Two Gallants is one duo from The City By The Bay has been kicking ass since the early 2000s with an exquisite mix of electrifying blues and heart-on-the-sleeve […]
Aftermath Well, Juno (the blizzard) didn’t turn out to be ’78 redux, but it did shake everyone up, and it seems a lot of those responsible for dealing with the storm did their homework and got Vo Dilun back on track in a day or two. It was bad enough to shut down RIPTA for over 24 hours, […]
If a crowded, beer-sodden pub is the last place you’d go to find Mr. or Mrs. Right, the arrival of online dating must have been a godsend. In a perfect world, it unites like-minded couples in a non-threatening virtual space, before having to commit to a physical date. On the weekend, you would NEVER find […]
If you don’t know who H.P. Lovecraft was, you’re probably not a fan of either science fiction or horror. In the 1920s and ’30s, Howard Philips Lovecraft was a Providence writer who specialized in what was, at the time, known as weird fiction. He wrote for several pulp magazines, publishing stories with a bizarre, alien […]
Okee dokee folks …”It’s hard to write a song with bitter fingers.” That line comes from the Elton John/Bernie Taupin song from the Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy album, and I’ve always identified with it. Writing songs when you are not in the proper frame of mind can be a difficult task. Writing anything […]
Fifteen hundred times a day on average, 911 operators ask callers if they have an emergency and whether they need police, fire or medical help. More than half a million calls last year came into the statewide E-911 center housed in the state police headquarters complex in Scituate, then were routed to the appropriate local […]
Music for Paws Benefit Show Music for Paws is a collaboration between Tracy Garrity from the band VulGarrity, Davey Moore and Mark Charron from the band Satellites Fall and Midday Records, and Chris Conti from the Providence Phoenix to raise money for area no-kill animal shelters by putting on killer shows featuring some of the […]
At Ogie’s Trailer Park, the West Side’s newest bar / restaurant, you can relive the zoot suit glory days of the ’50s. First impression: I was pretty floored by the interior decoration. I’m really not a stickler for décor; bars with puke from the ’80s staining the walls usually do just fine for me. But […]
1. Fri, Feb 13: Kool Keith, Party Bois, Medusah Black, Balam, and music by DJ Nook and Dan Tanner; 8pm doors / 9pm show; $13 advance / $15 day of; All ages; The Met, 1005 Main St, Pawtucket. My favorite rapper of all time. Greatest rapper of all time? No, but he is the most eccentric […]
