Economy
How A Piano Tuner Is A Barometer For Boston’s Battered Music Scene
Today we meet someone who’s something of a barometer for the battered live music industry in Boston. His name is Fred Mudge and he’s been a piano technician, fulltime, for about three decades. “Three things throw a piano out of tune,” he explained. “Playing it. Temperature. And humidity.” On the day we spoke Mudge was…
Read MoreAfter The Pandemic Shut Down His Recording Studio, He Had An Epiphany
The producer and musician International Show works out of a recording studio tucked at the back of a hidden storefront in Weymouth. It isn’t glamorous, but it has everything he needs: a computer, mixing console, recording booth and a little electronic keyboard that he plays when he wants to relax. This is the place where…
Read More‘Damn, I Have No Money’: Musician Sonni Mai On A Year Without Her Music
Chelsea-based singer Sonni Mai remembers her last real gig before the COVID-19 pandemic lock down in February of last year. “It was at Capone’s in Peabody,” she recalls in detail. “It was not as busy as it usually is — it was pretty dead. You know, sometimes we would get tips and stuff, but that…
Read More‘I Am Starting To Panic’: Family And Medical Leave Recipients In Mass. Face Delayed Payments, Uncertainty
Filipe Zamborlini and his wife were thrilled about becoming parents, but they weren’t sure exactly how they’d manage child care for their soon-to-arrive daughter. “My wife and I had some really hard conversations, talking about who would quit their jobs to be able to take care of her,” Zamborlini said. Both of them work for…
Read MoreTo Help The Hungry, Community Fridges Spread Across Boston
About a dozen refrigerators offering free food have popped up on sidewalks throughout Boston’s neighborhoods, the latest in Mattapan. The free-standing appliances are part of a national trend of volunteers acquiring a donated refrigerator, finding a host willing to share electricity and recruiting other volunteers to clean and stock the fridge. The food is available…
Read MoreFitchburg Sees A Flurry Of New Small Businesses Amid Pandemic
There’s a new bodega in downtown Fitchburg, stocked with a colorful array of hot chocolate and chips and beans that come special from Central America. Owner Carmen Mejía de Guzmán and her husband moved to Fitchburg from Chelsea in the summer of 2019. They could afford to buy a house here — but there was…
Read MoreRopeless Fishing Shows Promise, But There’s a Catch: Financial, Safety, Technology Challenges
The lobster industry could be getting a new sound. On a cold January morning, a lobster trap sitting on a table at a manufacturing facility in Wareham is rhythmically beeping. Two final beeps have a special meaning. “So that’s the release confirmation,” explained Rob Morris, who sells acoustic release systems for the underwater technology company…
Read MoreIs ‘Ropeless’ Fishing the Solution to End Fatal Entanglements for Endangered Whales?
Rob Martin has been fishing from the Sandwich Marina for 29 years off his boat, Resolve. “It’s only 40 feet. It was big when I first got it and now it seems small,” he said, while warming up inside his boat’s cabin on a cold January morning. Over the last few decades, Martin, 56, has…
Read More‘Time To Cut Losses’: Inside The Final Days Of A Boston Restaurant
In a lot of ways, it felt like a typical morning at The Kitchen Cafe. Customers trickled in and out. Music bounced off the walls decorated with chalkboards and Banksy prints. And the air was filled with a comforting clatter: crackling bacon on the flat top grill, the squeal of steam from the espresso machine, the thump of…
Read MoreA Third Of Maine Student Loan Borrowers Could Have Their Debt Eliminated Under Plan Floated By Biden
A significant number of Mainers with outstanding student loans could see some major relief under a proposal that newly inaugurated President Joe Biden will reportedly make to cancel thousands in federal student loan debt for each person, among other efforts. In addition to planning an executive order to “pause” federal student loan collection through September,…
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