SARATOGA SPRINGS — Country superstar Tim McGraw will perform at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) on July 25, Live Nation announced Tuesday. 

He’ll be joined by alternative country band 49 Winchester.

McGraw’s tour, dubbed The Pawn Shop Guitar Tour, precedes his new track “Pawn Shop Guitar,” which is set for release early next month.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Joel Moss, the Caffe Lena broadcast and sound technician who passed away last year, was honored during the Grammy Awards’ “In Memoriam” segment on Sunday night. 

Moss’ long and illustrious career in the music business earned him 6 Grammy wins and 11 nominations. 

“From working with music legends to championing artists and music education close to home, Joel’s impact reached far beyond any single stage,” said Caffe Lena in a social media post. “We are grateful for all he gave to our community and to the world of music.”

Moss’ final award at the Grammys came in 2015, when he won Best Musical Theater Album for “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.” His previous wins also included Best Musical Show Album for “In The Heights” in 2009, and Album Of The Year for “Genius Loves Company” in 2005.

Moss was a record producer, sound engineer, and mixer who recorded albums for artists such as Ray Charles, The Beach Boys, Little Richard, and Joe Cocker. His life and career began in Detroit, where he led a Hebrew folk quintet called The Hi-Liters that played at Lena in 1963. In the Saratoga area, he recorded and produced several albums for charity, including “A Saratoga Christmas Wish,” which raised $70,000 for Make-A-Wish Northeast New York.

The Maple Avenue Musical Club put on a dress rehearsal this week in preparation for its upcoming production of “Frozen,” which will be performed on Jan. 30, Jan. 31, Feb. 6, and Feb. 7 at Maple Avenue Middle School’s Trombley Auditorium. The musical features a cast and crew of 66 students. Tickets can be purchased at gofan.co/app/school/NY82277. Photo by Rob Spring.

Tony Serrano is a local writer who runs the poetry platform “Love•Hate•Heal,” which highlights and promotes some of his work. Serrano shared with Saratoga TODAY his thoughts on all things poetry, as well as how his day job in Ballston Spa helps to keep his creative juices flowing. 

Q: When did you create “Love•Hate•Heal” and why did you create it?

A: I’ve been writing poetry for as long as I can remember, from marble notebooks in middle school to Tumblr in high school. In 2019, “Love•Hate•Heal” was born as a way to give my emotions somewhere honest to live. The name reflects the cycle at the heart of the work: we experience love, we experience pain, and through both we learn how to heal.

Q: How does writing poetry benefit you personally, and how do you think an appreciation for poetry can benefit others?

A: Personally, poetry helps me slow down and understand what I’m feeling rather than pushing it aside. For others, poetry can act as a mirror, reminding them that even if a poem isn’t about their exact experience, their emotions are still valid.

Q: What is your day job, and does it help to support your poetry?

A: I’m a screen printer and manager at T-Shirt Graphics in Ballston Spa, where I’ve worked for nearly 13 years. The hands-on, creative nature of screen-printing—turning ideas into something physical—naturally supports my creativity and keeps me connected to the local community.

Q: Can you tell me about how your poetry is building a community?

A: Although “Love•Hate•Heal” only features my own work, it has created connection through shared emotion. Readers often reach out to say a poem resonated with them or put feelings into words they couldn’t express themselves. That exchange between writer and reader becomes its own kind of community, built on vulnerability, empathy, and understanding.

Q: What are some of your future plans or ambitions with poetry?

A: My main goal is to release a poetry book that brings the work from “Love•Hate•Heal” into a physical form. And given my background in screen-printing, I wouldn’t be surprised if a little poetry-themed merchandise finds its way into the mix as well.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The jam band Goose will perform at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) on July 3 and 4, Live Nation announced on Monday.

The group will be accompanied by two notable acts in the jam band world: The Disco Biscuits (on July 3) and Moe (on July 4).

2026 will mark the third time Goose has appeared at SPAC, after one show in 2023 and two more shows in 2024. In June of 2025, the band sold out Madison Square Garden for the first time (they’re scheduled to play at MSG two more times this summer).

SPAC is an important venue for Goose. In 2013, the band’s keyboardist Peter Anspach attended a Phish concert in Saratoga, camping out on the lawn with thousands of fellow fans. A decade later, when Goose hit the SPAC stage for the first time, Anspach told the crowd that “some of us have seen a lot of shows on that lawn right there and I’ll tell you what, it feels great to be on the stage. So thank you so much for making it happen.”

In 2024, several members of the band stopped by the Saratoga Spa Golf Course prior to their SPAC shows for “Goose on the Green,” a sold-out charity event that raised $7,500 for Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga.

Goose has also played at Putnam Place in Saratoga, opening for the Ryan Montbleau Band in 2018.

Moe was originally formed in Buffalo but moved to Albany in 1994. In the book “Sharing in the Groove” by Mike Ayers, Moe drummer Vinnie Amico described the thrill of performing alongside surviving members of the Grateful Dead at SPAC on July 6, 1997.

“I’d seen hundreds of concerts [at SPAC],” Amico said. “And here I am on that stage for the first time, which was my dream when I was 16…I mean, I saw everybody there. And that was my dream to play on stage one day, and here I am playing on that stage with one of my idols. We did ‘That’s It for the Other One,’ which the Dead hadn’t played in years. Had my career gone no further than that day, I would have been fine. My dreams were realized.”

Marc Brownstein, a founding member and bass player for the Disco Biscuits, wrote in an Instagram story on Monday that SPAC was his childhood summertime home venue. “I saw three Phish shows there this summer. I’m so excited my next time there will be with a bass guitar and looking out at the crowd. Thanks, Goose.”

Tickets for Goose’s 2026 SPAC shows go on sale Friday, Jan. 30 at 10 a.m.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — It was disgusting. It was horrifying. It was a shocking display of violence that any sane person would hope to never see in their life. But the crowd loved it.

The Saratoga Film Showcase’s special effects panel and demonstration, held at Saratoga Arts on Jan. 24, was a highlight of the three-day festival.

The discussion about all things hair and makeup on film sets included Clifton Park resident Annemarie Bradley, an Oscar-winning hairstylist who has worked with Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, and Lucy Liu, among others; Jackie Hughes, a Hudson Valley-based makeup artist who specializes in horror films (among them, “Terrifier 2,” which earned nearly $16 million at the box office); and RJ Young, a special makeup effects artist from Upstate New York.

It was Young who both grossed out and delighted the audience with a live demonstration of his work (thankfully, the fake blood squirting out of his volunteer subject’s facial wound didn’t make it into the crowd).

Below is a condensed and edited transcript of the panel discussion, which included talk of everything from Lucy Liu’s latest project to a 16-foot-long flesh tunnel womb.

Spencer Sherry (moderator): What is something that you find that directors sometimes aren’t aware of, that maybe you would like them to have a little bit more knowledge of before they call you and ask you to do an effect?

Annemarie Bradley: How much time it actually takes… A lot of times, they wrote something, but they don’t exactly have a vision of how they want that to happen. So, when you tell them, ‘It’s okay, this is great, and we can make anything happen, but sometimes it takes a long time,’ and they don’t really have the time or want to make the time. So, a lot of communication goes into that. I always tell people, it’s like boiling water. Just because you want it doesn’t mean it’s going to boil right away.

SS: What are some things that are more expensive than people think that they are? And then what are some things that are maybe a little bit more accessible?

RJ Young: Well, for example, the prosthetic that I have on [the volunteer subject’s] face is a foam latex piece. That’s usually a lot cheaper than, say, a lot of people now use silicone, which is a lot more translucent on the face. You don’t have to paint it as much in so many layers. But that is expensive. Silicone is a lot more expensive than foam latex. In the next month or so, I have to make a 16-foot-long flesh tunnel womb. The budget that they gave me is really low, not enough for what they want. They showed me an artist’s drawing of what they want. I’m like, well, the budget that you give me, you’re not going to get exactly that, by any means, but I try to make it out and make it as best as I can. I usually end up fabricating a lot of stuff out of foam, like the flesh tunnel would be mostly made out of foam and spray foam, mattress foam, stuff like that. And you just paint it and just add as much as you can to it, to make it look as organic as it can.

Jackie Hughes: I do a lot of low-budget things where I kind of get hired as the triple team of beauty, hair, makeup and effects. So that’s when they’re really trying to stretch a budget. But most of the time, I’m the first effects person that they’ve worked with. I was just recently on something, and I told them that blood is not cheap. Good blood is not cheap, especially if you want to spray it on everything and get it up and not have it stain… This production didn’t believe me. They showed up with a gallon of blood that was like 30 bucks when I told them I wanted a $200 gallon. And then I showed up with eight different types of my own personal blood, just to prove to them, you go use that and watch all of my expensive blood actually work. It’s things you don’t realize. Some blood has to be mouth safe. Some of it has to be safe if it gets in your eyes. Some has to dry. Some has to drip. Some has to come out of carpet.

SS: Where do you get your inspirations and pictures from?

JH: I have my friends and family, when they get injured, take pictures. People get really excited if you show up to a set and you’re like, ‘I have real reference pictures,’ they’ll always pull up some crazy gashed head thing that they did to themselves years ago. But Spencer’s favorite story that I’ve told is I was talking to a boy on Tinder, and he sliced his hand open at work. I was like, ‘Can you send me the picture?’ He did and then he stopped responding.

SS: Do [actors] call you when they book a job? Do they leverage that in their contract and say, ‘I’ll do a movie but I’m bringing Annemarie with me?’

AB: Yeah. I’m going to start a job with Lucy Liu that’s called “Superfakes” and it’s starting February 2 filming, and she asked me in August and invited me to come to her home and just talk about the movie and [she] wanted to make sure that I’m not busy or that I’m not going to take another job before that job happens. That’s normally how it happens. And if it’s someone new, it’s a recommendation from either another actor or a makeup artist that’s worked with them before, sometimes a producer.

SS: Is there anything that you haven’t gotten to play with yet or build, that you’re just waiting for someone out there to write a thing as an excuse to do it?

RJ: I would like to do a werewolf transformation at some point.

AB: I would like to do a really fun period piece. I could be the department head and design all the hair.

JH: I so badly want to break into sci-fi… I also want to make a mermaid tail.