October 2020 – Page 7

NBA observations

The endless NBA season has finally ended with the Lakers winning their (ugh) record-tying 17th title in six games over the Celtics-conquering Miami Heat. While seeing the Lakers tie the Celtics for most titles is daunting, especially since LeBron James and Anthony Davis can do it again next year, part of me was OK with that because if Miami had won there would’ve been no end to the local yakking over the Celtics’ “blowing” their opportunity.

But with the Lakers in control throughout, the same would have happened to Boston. Doesn’t mean they didn’t fumble away games vs. Miami; it just means that they’re not quite there, because their stars are young and they didn’t have enough pieces to get over the final hurdle. We’ll get to that in a bit, but for now here are some final thoughts as the post-season ended.

Said before the playoffs Duncan Robinson had to prove it to me that he was actually as good as he looked at times during the regular season. Well, I’m buying it now on the New Castle native. So is ABC’s Jeff Van Gundy, who called him “the most improved player in the bubble.” Hopefully there’s much more to come.

NBA 101: Who played the most NBA regular games without ever playing even once in the playoffs?

Markieff Morris has the same chippy attitude and play-alike game as brother Marcus had in Boston. Makes sense since they’re identical twins. But while they’re solid players, I slot them just behind Dick and Tom Van Arsdale as the NBA’s best set of identicals. The Lopez brothers are third, followed by Jason and Jarron Collins. And if you want to see something Twilight Zone eerie, go to basketball-reference.com and compare the Van Arsdale brothers’ career stats.

I wouldn’t call Russell Westbrook one of my favorites, but thumbs up for leaving the folks who took care of his hotel room in the bubble an $8,000 tip as thanks for their help. It’s also not the first time he’s done something like that. Nice Russell.

Scrawny Lakers bench guy Alex Caruso is a living version of the major Hollywood motion picture from days gone White Men Can’t Jump. That title describes the exact way every basketball person thinks until a white guy proves otherwise. So with his scrawny frame, goofy headband and non-tan (how does that happen while living in L.A. and Florida?) he’d be the last guy picked in any park in America. He’d then stun all with his spunky game, because he’s a lot better than anyone would think, including me.

Back to Markieff Morris. His 88 is the worst number in NBA history. George Mikan wore 99, but he’s an all-time great and was given it at DePaul to signify his gargantuan size for those days. I get 88 is a play on Marcus wearing 8, but ditch it, bro.

Interesting comments from Charles Barkley on the Dan Patrick radio show the other day where he said Kevin Durant was a “bus rider” in Golden State and not the “bus driver,” which was Steph Curry. Throw in Kyrie Irving kicking off Steve Nash’s tenure as Brooklyn coach by idiotically saying it’ll be a “collaboration” because he and Durant don’t need a coach and it’s more ammo for why the Durant-Irving thing will never live up to expectations. Can’t wait to see how it goes when the NY papers lay it on the thin-skinned Durant and team-killing Kyrie.

Jimmy Butler turned out to be a lot better than I ever gave him credit for. My bad. I really like his mental and physical toughness. Philly should have paid him and traded Ben Simmons.

This just in: that Anthony Davis guy is really good.

NBA 101 Answer: While brother Dick played 34 playoff games for the Knicks and Suns, including the famed triple-overtime Game 5 thriller vs. the Celtics in the 1976 Finals, Tom Van Arsdale played in 929 games with five teams in Cincinnati, Detroit, Atlanta, Philly and Phoenix over 12 seasons and never made the playoffs even once.

I’ll save you the trip to basketball-reference. After starting together at the University of Indiana the Van Arsdales both played 12 years in the NBA and here are the stats, Dick first, then Tom. Games: 921 – 929. FG percent: 47.9 – 43.1. Reb: 3,807 – 3,932. Assists: 3,057 – 2,992. Points: 15,079 – 14,232. Do-doo-do-doo, do-doo-do-doo….

I guess any time you get close it’s an opportunity. But for those who think the Celtics blew one, compare them to the 2008 team. Are they remotely as good? The Big 3 comparison would be Paul Pierce and Jayson Tatum as the get your own shot scorer, Ray Allen and Kemba Walker catch and shoot three in the corner guy (at least Kemba should do that) and the third scoring option, Kevin Garnett vs. Gordon Hayward or Jaylen Brown. While Tatum someday might match Pierce, for now he’s 22. Kemba will never be the Top 5 all-time shooter Ray was, and Garnett scored over 25,000 career points, though his real value was his unmatchable leadership and killer defense skills. In other words the 2008 bunch was a deeply experienced team with a Big 3 all 30+, as each won their first title. Said another way, they’re not ready.

The biggest problem was consistency and grit at the end of games. So, even though Bam was a load, they need two things far more than an upgrade over Daniel Theis: a mentally tough, experienced leader in the vein of Butler, and a real point guard who controls the O in big moments to give scorers the ball when they can do something Rajon with it.

And finally since we all know I like saying I told you so, as I said when he signed with L.A., in recording the most playoff assists off the bench in NBA history Rajon Rondo was big in the playoffs.

Bring him back, Danny, ’cause what he does is just what they need.

Drought management

Why the drought will continue, and how to save water

According to the United States Drought Monitor’s most recent data on New Hampshire (released Oct. 6), 21.99 percent of the state is experiencing extreme drought and 73.07 percent of the state is experiencing severe drought. Stacey Herbold, manager of the Water Conservation and Water Use Registration and Reporting programs at New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and a member of the Drought Management Team, talked about how the drought has affected the state and what residents can do to conserve water.

What impact does a drought have on New Hampshire residents?

We see agricultural operations having to work really hard to keep their crops going. … [Residents with wells] may see their well supply running low or going dry, and they may notice that their water has some sediment in it. … [Residents using community water] have restrictions put on their water use, mostly for outdoor watering … and that can range from a total ban on all outdoor watering, to watering on only certain days of the week, to no lawn watering and only hand watering of gardens. … Right now we have 165 community water systems with water restrictions in place.

What caused the drought? Is it due only to environmental factors, or are people also partially responsible?

It’s the increased water use during the summer, coupled with [environmental factors]. … Spring is one of the most important times of the year for recharging groundwater. … We had a really low snowpack in early spring and below-average rain in the spring, so that started us off in a deficit as we went into the summer. In the summer, we continued not to get enough rain to make up for it … and when temperatures rise, a lot of water ends up going to evaporation. … Water use also increases during the summer months because of outdoor watering. … A lot of people turn on their irrigation system and leave it running even when watering isn’t necessarily needed.

What kinds of water systems are used in New Hampshire, and what does a drought do to them?

Approximately half of the state is on their own private residence with well water, while the other half is on some kind of community water system. Community water systems usually have a diverse set of water sources. They may have wells in various areas, surface water sources and backup [sources], so they’re a bit more resilient when it comes to a drought. … Residential well owners tend to have either dug wells or bedrock wells. Dug wells are shallower wells that are in unconsolidated material above the bedrock. During a drought, they’re the first to run low on water, but they’re also the first to recharge when it rains. Bedrock wells are drilled down into the bedrock and receive water from various small fractures, and it takes longer for them to be impacted by low groundwater levels, but they take much longer to recharge. … It could take weeks to months.

How can people conserve water during a drought?

During the summer months, a reduction in lawn watering is the main thing, and not washing down driveways, power washing houses or washing cars with the hose constantly going. … As we move into the colder weather, people really need to focus on how to conserve water indoors. Do full loads of laundry and full loads in the dishwasher. Take shorter showers. Don’t run water while doing other things. Turn off the faucet while you’re brushing your teeth. When you’re doing dishes, fill up a basin rather than letting the water run. One simple thing that people don’t think about is that you don’t always need to have your faucet on full blast. If you’re just rinsing vegetables off, you could turn it on halfway. … Residential well owners need to space out how they use water throughout the day and throughout the week. You shouldn’t be showering, running the dishwasher and doing laundry all at once.

Should people be buying their drinking water?

Not necessarily. The percentage of the amount of water we use for drinking is so small, it doesn’t really make a difference. But if you have a well and you’re starting to see sediment in your water you may want to consider buying bottled water just to prevent yourself from drinking anything like that.

When is the current drought expected to end?

Different outlets are predicting that the drought will improve over the next month but not necessarily go away. We could enter the winter while still in a drought. Then, our next chance for a really good groundwater replenishment won’t come until next spring.

Is water conservation important even when there isn’t a drought?

Yes. It should be practiced every day. Water is not an infinite resource, and it takes all of us to make sure we have the water supply we need … One of the basic things homeowners should be doing is replacing their outdated water fixtures. … [Older] toilets and washing machines are some of the biggest water wasters. … This can also save you money on your utility bills, and [newer appliances] can save a lot of energy, which could save you money on your electric bills.

Featured photo: Stacey Herbold

News & Notes 20/10/15

Covid-19 update	As of October 4	As of October 11
Total cases statewide	8,645	9,143
Total current infections statewide	492	685
Total deaths statewide	443	456
New cases	437 (Sept. 29 to Oct. 4)	498 (Oct. 5 to Oct. 11)
Current infections: Hillsborough County	250	349
Current infections: Merrimack County	43	94
Current infections: Rockingham County	91	127

Information from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services

Covid-19 news

On Oct. 5, Gov. Chris Sununu issued Exhibit S to Emergency Order No. 29, which had been issued on April 9. Emergency Order No. 29 requires state agencies, boards and commissions t

o submit recommendations to Sununu if any regulatory deadlines should be adjusted in response to the state of emergency. Per Exhibit S, emergency waiver of attendance and leave rules previously adopted by the New Hampshire Department of Administrative Services’ Division of Personnel to provide flexibility to state employees impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic will continue for the duration of the state of emergency.

During an Oct. 8 press conference, state epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan said that public health officials will start to modify the way numbers are reported going forward, focusing “less on the extraneous numbers and more on numbers relative to the current situation in New Hampshire.” Even though the number of new positive test results of Covid-19 has continued to increase over the last several weeks, Dr. Chan said the percentage of positive results relative to all tests remains stable. “We believe that this is, in part, due to the large increase in testing that is being conducted statewide in many communities, both PCR and antigen testing,” he said. Dr. Chan added that there is also, however, evidence of increased community transmission, especially in Hillsborough, Rockingham and Strafford counties, likely due to a decrease in the relaxation of social distancing restrictions in some areas of the state.

On Oct. 9, Sununu issued Executive Order 2020-20, extending the state of emergency in New Hampshire due to the Covid-19 pandemic for another three weeks through at least Oct. 30. It’s the 10th extension he has issued since originally declaring a state of emergency on March 13.

Details of Sununu’s Executive Orders, Emergency Orders and other announcements are available at governor.nh.gov.

Voter alert

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office is alerting voters that an unidentified source has sent out mailers that contain an absentee ballot application form, a return envelope addressed to the recipient’s town or city clerk, and an allegedly handwritten note that says, “You are needed please fill this out and mail it in.” According to a press release, state law requires that such mailings include the identity of the entity mailing and distributing the form, which is not the case with this mailer. The Attorney General’s Office emphasized that these mailers have not been sent by any New Hampshire town or city clerk or by any state agency, and anyone who received this mailer who had already requested or submitted an absentee ballot does not need to complete another form. Anyone with questions can call the Attorney General’s Election hotline at 1-866-868-3703 or send an email to electionlaw@doj.nh.gov.

Opioid settlement

New Hampshire has joined a $1.6 billion global settlement agreement with Mallinckrodt, the biggest generic opioid manufacturer in the U.S., according to a press release from the office of New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon J. MacDonald. The settlement comes more than a year after the state filed a complaint in Merrimack County Superior Court against Mallinckrodt alleging that the company failed to disclose risks of addiction, misrepresented the abuse-deterrence qualities of its opioids and failed to report suspicious orders of opioids, all of which violated New Hampshire’s consumer protection laws. The state also claimed that the company allegedly created a public nuisance and that between 2006 and 2014 Mallinckrodt accounted for 21.81 percent of all opioid transactions in New Hampshire; in that time, the company “sold the equivalent of approximately 153.5 million 10 mg opioid pills in New Hampshire, with a population of roughly 1.35 million people. That was enough Mallinckrodt opioids to provide each man, woman, and child in the state with 114 pills,” the release reads. Mallinckrodt, which has filed for bankruptcy, will pay $1.6 billion in cash into a trust, and a large amount of that money will go toward abating the opioid crisis. How much each state will receive will be negotiated during the bankruptcy process. The global settlement agreement includes attorneys general from 50 states and territories and local subdivisions.

NHDRA online

Last week, the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration launched Phase 2 of its new online user portal and revenue management system, for taxpayers of the New Hampshire Business Profits Tax, Business Enterprise Tax, Interest & Dividends Tax and Communication Services Tax. According to a press release, that equates to approximately 139,000 taxpayers who will now have a better online experience. The online user portal, Granite Tax Connect, allows users to file taxes electronically, schedule automated payments, and check on the status of returns, payments, and refund and credit requests. The first phase launched about a year ago, which made the portal available to those who pay the Meals & Rentals Tax, Medicaid Enhancement Tax, and Nursing Facility Quality Assessment. The department expects that by the end of 2021 all tax types will be able to utilize the online portal.

Social Security

AARP NH is hosting a free online discussion about Social Security on Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 1 p.m., according to a press release. Local and national experts will talk about how Social Security affects New Hampshire and its residents, and there will be an opportunity for people to ask questions. The discussion is free but pre-registration is required at aarp.cvent.com/SSProgram1021.

SEE Science Center

The SEE Science Center in Manchester has received a CARES grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services — the only award given to a New Hampshire museum, according to a press release. Only 68 projects from museums and libraries throughout the country were awarded funding out of more than 1,700 entries. SEE’s project, Creating Flexible Field Trips: Reopening Programming by Designing for Uncertainty during the Covid-19 Pandemic, is an effort to transition the Science Center’s in-person field trips to other formats so that teachers and students can continue to use the museum’s educational offerings during and after the pandemic.

The New Hampshire Food Bank will host a drive-through mobile food pantry on Friday, Oct. 16, from noon to 2 p.m. at NHTI in Concord, according to a press release. The food bank will bring the food to people in their vehicles.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was scheduled to visit Catholic Medical Center in Manchester on Tuesday to discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the state’s health care providers, according to a press announcement. Shaheen also planned to talk about providing more resources to providers through relief legislation.

There should be no shortage of golden retrievers in Amherst on Sunday, Oct. 18, as the town holds its Goldens on the Green event from 1 to 3 p.m. on the town green. According to a press release, there will be a kissing booth, pool diving and a parade of goldens. Donations will be accepted, with the money raised going to animals awaiting adoption at the Humane Society for Greater Nashua. Everyone is welcome, including people who don’t own golden retrievers.

Starting in the fall of 2021, Rivier University in Nashua will have men’s and women’s ice hockey, according to a press release. The school plans to launch a national search for head coaches this month.

Local independent business needs your support

Hippo’s annual magazine, Cool Things About New Hampshire, will hit newsstands next week. It highlights many of the local, independently owned businesses and nonprofits that make our corner of America unique.

The magazine pulls its cool things from our annual Hippo Best of Readers’ Poll (published this year in August). These people and businesses are part of what makes our community a community. On an economic level, they help keep our hard-earned dollars in New Hampshire. For every $100 we spend at a local business, $68 stays in the local economy; at a national chain, $43 out of every $100 spent stays here, according to independentwestand.org. I would guess even less stays local when we buy online from Amazon.

This sense of community that local independent businesses help foster requires lots of in-person interaction. Often, it’s that personal service that gives them a competitive advantage.

As one might imagine, the pandemic has been especially challenging for independently owned small businesses and nonprofits. Many national chains, such as McDonald’s and Taco Bell, have seen revenues trend up recently as consumers shift toward drive-thrus. Amazon, Walmart and Target too have all seen a rise in revenue as consumers opt for more online shopping.

Additional government support may be needed to save many small businesses, but with the political climate the way it is, it’s doubtful that any aid will be coming.

That leaves us, the consumers, to vote with our dollars, to make an effort to support the corner cafe rather than always heading to Dunkins or to shop at the local health food store rather than defaulting to Whole Foods. We get the community — with its cool, unique people and businesses — that we support.

Just as I’m asking you to support, as much as you reasonably can, local independent businesses by voting with your dollars, I also ask you to financially support the Hippo, which is also local and independent. For nearly 20 years we’d been completely ad-supported (99 percent of those being local ads) but that source of revenue has rapidly declined recently and we now need broader community support from readers.

We are so grateful to the readers who have already contributed (and we especially love the notes of support!). Please go online to hippopress.com to contribute or mail a contribution to: HippoPress, 195 McGregor St., Manchester NH 03102. We appreciate any amount (and we have some extra thank-yous for those who become members).

Thank you for reading, thank you for contributing and thank you for all the ways you support this community that is so important to us all.

What’s next for live music

What’s next for live music

Performance venues try to plan for the coming months as colder weather starts to prohibit outdoor performances.

Also on the cover, get your houseplants and herbs ready to move indoors, p. 12. Enjoy food trucks and fireworks at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium, p. 16. And it’s time to shift from the lighter brews of summer to stouts, porters and brown ales, p. 22.

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The next stage

Live music changes with the season Much to the relief of live music purveyors reeling from the hardships and challenges ...

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The next stage

Live music changes with the season

Much to the relief of live music purveyors reeling from the hardships and challenges of life during a pandemic, weather wasn’t a problem over the last several months. A festive mood, albeit with face masks on patrons spaced six feet apart, prevailed, and songs filled the air at pop-up venues throughout the region. The only real climate danger was heat waves.

Portsmouth Music Hall Executive Director Tina Sawtelle called it a “Covid silver lining” that not one of the downtown Under The Arch outdoor shows presented by her venue was rained out. Scott Hayward, whose Tupelo Drive-In in Derry was one of the first parking lot concert facilities to open in the nation, agreed.

“We didn’t lose any shows, we didn’t cancel any, and we rescheduled one show,” he said in a Sept. 18 phone interview. “We are one of the very few concert promoters that can say we actually had a successful summer; we made money, had all of our employees back, and that was partly due to the fact that the model we chose worked in our sleep.”

Other al fresco efforts included a series of local showcases in Fletcher-Murphy Park, behind Capitol Center for the Arts and adjacent to Concord Community Music School. Swanzey Drive-In, which boasted a huge 750-car capacity, offered top-level acts like country star Chase Rice and classic rock band Blue Oyster Cult. Manchester’s Delta Dental Stadium did a series of Socially Distanced concerts, with clear skies throughout.

There was another benefit from the awful season: Local musicians owned the spotlight for a rare moment. National touring acts mostly bowed out, unwilling or unable to navigate the morass of what Hayward termed “50 dates with 50 different sets of regulations,” allowing bands like Boston’s Neighbor to break out in a big way.

As temperatures cool, however, the music must move indoors, a transition that raises many questions. Paul Costley, probably the biggest booker of bars and dining establishments in New Hampshire, has a few.

The re-opening of restaurants for outdoor service in May, after two months of quarantine, was a bonanza for his company, NotSoCostley Productions.

“A lot of the smart people in the early days got tents and then they had an outdoor venue,” he said by phone in mid-September. “In normal times, I usually have 60 to 80 events booked a week. … I was up to 135.”

That’s shifting quickly, a situation compounded when a hoped for Oct. 1 state decision to make playing indoors at dining establishments easier didn’t arrive. Currently, performers must stay a minimum of 25 feet away from patrons — easier for venues with a deep stage, but a rule that would eat up far too much space in most restaurants.

“Both Gov. Sununu and the Economic Reopening Task Force appreciate the eagerness of musicians to perform in restaurants again but public safety must remain the predominant priority,” D.J. Bettencourt, chairman of the Governor’s Economic Reopening Task Force, wrote in an email to the Hippo. “The task force has put forward a recommendation for consideration. However, Gov. Sununu, in consultation with state Epidemiologist Dr. Ben Chan, will determine the appropriate time to proceed based on a diversity of data points to ensure public safety comes first.”

Costley is crossing his fingers that the change will be come soon, as it affects so many performers in his roster.

“[If] that happens, it will be a game-changer,” Costley said. “Without it, everything’s going to come to a screeching halt.”

A few of the Lakes Region venues Costley books have suspended outdoor music, like Cactus Jack’s in Laconia. He expects most others in the southern part of the state will follow suit by the end of October.

While it’s tempting to add heaters to keep outdoor music going, it would only be for a few more weeks before winter cold really set in, he said.

“Everyone is waiting to see what they have to do indoors before they do things like heat their tents,” Costley said. “They’re expensive to rent and that’s money they won’t get back. … Anyway, what’s the difference between being inside a tent or inside a restaurant?”

Costley believes there are ways to make music work inside.

“I think they should put Plexiglas at face level for the performers,” he said. “Keep it small, see if the numbers change. Everything is going to be based on that anyway.”

Venues dedicated to live performances received a green light open at 50 percent capacity in late June. Some, like Hayward’s Tupelo Music Hall, are taking it slowly. So far, he’s only booked a Dueling Pianos show on Nov. 21 and two early December Gary Hoey dates. Other than those, he’s adopting a wait-and-see attitude.

“Being open is one thing, and being able to stay open is another thing,” Hayward said. “If we don’t have the capacity to do the shows we normally do, it doesn’t work. A good show for us is 500 people [and] a big show for a small club is 60 people. But I can’t live on 60 people.”

In the spring, Tupelo shows postponed by lockdown were optimistically rescheduled for October and November. Many of them are now pushed out until 2022, as artists “hunker down, taking time with making albums and other things,” Hayward said. “We need enough attendance to be open … national artists to be on tour. We can back fill a little bit with small local acts and stuff, but there’s not enough of it to have a full schedule.”

His popular Tupelo Drive-In shows continue, with Hot Tuna front man Jorma Kaukonen booked for the final musical performance on Oct. 25, closing after a Nov. 1 benefit auction for Derry family resource center The Upper Room.

The Music Hall plans a hybrid of outdoor and indoor shows through the end of the month, when Will Dailey of Barefoot Truth performs the final Chestnut Street show on Oct. 29. At that point, everything moves indoors.

“We must have gone through a hundred permutations of how we could do them, only to get down into the nitty gritty to find out it’s not going to be feasible,” said Monte Bohanan, venue marketing director of the outdoor series, which seated up to 108 guests at 24 tables set six feet apart. “The amount of work for the return on it landed squarely with Live Under the Arch shows, which have been hugely successful.”

The ability to draw from a large regional talent pool for the events proved “incredibly important,” Bohanan said.

“We’ve always had an eye to local originals,” he said. “Over the past decade we have been doing a lot and built some of those relationships. It has been invaluable during this time.”

With a pair of venues available, shows normally held in the intimate Loft are now moved to the larger Historic Theatre.

“The kind of performers that would come to our venue are on hold, hitting the pause button,” Sawtelle said, echoing Hayward’s comments. “So we’re trying to leverage what we have, but the artists that we can bring in for 250 seats is a very different level, much more akin to what we’ve been successful doing in the Loft.”

The Historic Theatre’s upcoming show calendar includes The Mammals on Oct. 9, Sons of Serendip on Oct. 17, Josh Turner the following Saturday, and a slate of Boston comics on Nov. 6.

Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord also runs a second, smaller venue, and the majority of shows will happen there. Similar to Portsmouth, they are leveraging regional talent, like young punk inspired Grenon on Oct. 17, the fun and funky Mica’s Groove Train on Nov. 14 and harmony-rich folk quartet River Sister in early December.

A few shows are set for the 1,300-seat Chubb Theatre. Johnny Cash tribute act Cash Unchained performed Sept. 18 in a shakedown cruise of sorts, according to Capitol Center Executive Director Nicki Clarke.

“We needed an opportunity to experiment,” she said by phone. “How does it work? Can we really have 300 people and do all the protocols that we need so people feel comfortable, so that we can do more of these?”

The days of big names returning look to be a way off.

“There are three things that have to move … before we really can get back to anything that’s truly more normal,” Clarke said. “We do have to have national touring acts that are out on the road. We need to have our capacity limitations lifted and we need an audience that’s ready to come out. Those three things are not really there at the moment. So we are going to continue to do small things down at the Bank of New Hampshire Stage for the next few months.”

Manchester’s Palace Theatre returned to live entertainment with a weekly residency from Juston McKinney, who also brought his Comedy at a Distance show to Portsmouth, Salisbury and Concord. He’s back at The Palace on Oct. 17.

Though none happened outdoors, many events were held at The Rex Theatre, renovated and reopened in 2019. A healthy slate is set for the near future at the city’s newest venue, including comic Kelly McFarland Oct. 9. Elvis and Billy Joel tribute nights are set for Oct. 10 and Oct. 17 respectively, and local Americana stalwarts Town Meeting perform Oct. 24. Matt Nakoa plays Oct. 29, and a Halloween acoustic Grateful Dead night from John Zevos is also scheduled.

Though the State of New Hampshire allows venues to operate at half capacity, most don’t plan to seat more than 25 to 30 percent. Thus, the short term is a money-losing proposition. But offering live entertainment is about more than moving to the music. The ripple effect is crucial.

“For every dollar that somebody spends at our venue, they’re spending $20 to $30 in town, whether that’s parking or restaurants or hotels or whatever. … Having an arts and cultural center in the heart of downtown that is thriving drives everybody’s business,” Bohanan said. “If we were forced to shut for even six months, it’s going to slow down everybody else’s ability to recover.”

On Monday, Oct. 5, Gov. Sununu announced the Live Venue Relief Program: $12 million provided by the state’s CARES Act Coronavirus Relief fund to benefit venues “hosting live theatrical presentations, musical entertainment, or sporting or racing events that are seated, ticketed, and open to the public,” according to a press release.

It’s a welcome gesture, Hayward said.

“We’re getting into winter now, so there’s no way we could possibly produce enough income to pay the bills,” he said, noting that this will provide a lifeline to venues that, unlike Tupelo, have been closed since March. “If they’re paying their mortgages right now, they’re generally taking loans to do so if they’re not paying rent. This really helps people catch up to their baseline.”

Outdoor events
Tupelo Drive-In
Saturday, Oct. 10 – Foreigners Journey ( 1 and 4 p.m.)
Sunday, Oct. 11 – Will Evans of Barefoot Truth
Saturday, Oct. 17– Comedy Fundraiser with Kenny Rogerson and Francis Birch
Sunday, Oct. 25– Jorma Kaukonen (noon and 3 p.m.)
Sunday, Nov. 1 – The Upper Room’s 19th Annual Auction
Music Hall Live Under The Arch
Thursday, Oct. 8 – Great Bay Sailor
Saturday, Oct. 10 – Clements Brothers
Friday, Oct. 16 – Dwayne Haggins
Thursday, Oct. 22 – Kelly McFarland (comedy)
Thursday, Oct. 29 – Will Dailey
Swanzey Drive-In
Friday, Oct. 9 – Badfish
Thursday, Oct. 15 – Smith & Myers
Thursday, Oct. 22 – moe.
Friday, Oct. 23 – Dirty Heads
Indoor events
Capitol Center for the Arts
Friday, Oct. 9, and Saturday, Oct. 10 – Bob Marley (comedy), five shows total
Bank of New Hampshire Stage
Saturday, Oct. 17 – Grenon
Saturday, Oct. 24 – Rob Steen, Robbie Printz, Paul Landwehr
Saturday, Nov. 14 – Mica’s Groove Train
Saturday, Dec. 5 – River Sister
Rex Theatre
Friday, Oct. 9 – Kelly McFarland (Comedy)
Saturday, Oct. 10 – A Night of Elvis (Tribute)
Saturday, Oct. 17 – David Clark Songs in the Attic (Billy Joel Tribute)
Saturday, Oct. 24 – Town Meeting w/ George Barber
Thursday, Oct. 29 – Matt Nakoa
Saturday, Oct. 31 – Acoustic Grateful Dead w/ John Zevos & Friends
Palace Theatre
Saturday, Oct. 17 – Juston McKinney Comedy at a Distance (6 and 8:30 p.m.)
Friday, Oct. 23 – British Rock Experience (runs through Oct. 31)
The Music Hall
Friday, Oct. 9 – The Mammals
Saturday, Oct. 17 – Sons of Serendip
Saturday, Oct. 24 – Josh Turner
Friday, Nov. 6 – Boston Comedy
Saturday, Nov. 7 – Nellie McKay
Friday, Nov. 13 – Combo Sabroso Quartet
Saturday, Nov. 14 – Patty Larkin
Sunday, Nov. 15 – Dan Brown’s Wild Symphony Benefit Concert
Sunday, Dec. 27 – Juston McKinney
Tupelo Music Hall
Saturday, Nov. 21 – Dueling Pianos
Friday, Dec. 4, and Saturday, Dec. 5 – Gary Hoey Christmas 25^th Anniversary Show

Featured photo: Dwayne Haggins. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 20/10/08

Local music news & events

Maine attraction: Five shows over two days allow comedian Bob Marley to perform for socially distanced audiences in a theater he routinely sells out at capacity. Venue management hinted that an extra show or two may be added — no word on how Marley will adhere to his well-known policy of never performing the same set twice. Friday, Oct. 9, at 6 and 8:30 p.m., and Saturday, Oct. 10, at 3:30, 6 and 8:30 p.m. at Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord. Tickets $46.25 at ccanh.com.

• Local light: Necessity is the mother of you-know-what as singing drummer Masceo Williams performs on a basement club’s outdoor patio, repurposed for the pandemic. It’s billed as An Evening With Masceo, which could mean an appearance from The Special Guests, an abbreviated reunion of his old band Jamantics with guitarist Freeland Hubbard and ubiquitous bass player Eric Reingold. Friday, Oct. 9, 8 p.m., Penuche’s Ale House, 16 Bicentennial Square, Concord, $2 cover; event is 21+.

• Piano man: An audience-driven night of piano cabaret, Mix Tape features Robert Dionne playing requests and engaging in a bit of stump the band, or, more precisely, the man behind the keyboard. Dionne is the founding and artistic director of the Majestic, a charming performer and ace musicologist as well; stumping him won’t be easy. Saturday, Oct. 10, 7 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 880 Page St., Manchester. In person tickets are $15, call 669-7460. Virtual tickets are $10 at majestictheatre.net.

• Rustic return: Weekly music, with singer-guitarist Carl Chloros kicking things off, is back through the end of November at a country store and eatery. Chloros, one half of Old Gold Duo, performs classic acoustic Americana tunes. Upcoming performers include Steve Haidaichuk (Oct. 17), Nicole Knox Murphy (Oct. 24), Lisa Guyer (Nov. 7), Paul Lussier (Nov. 14) and Henry Laliberte (Nov. 21). Saturday, Oct. 10, 6 p.m., Town Cabin Deli & Pub, 285 Old Candia Road, Candia, see facebook.com/towncabin.

• Barn burner: Proud New Hampshire native Gabby Martin plays outdoors at a Lakes Region brewery as the opportunities for such al fresco excursions wane with the falling leaves. Martin, a bright and vivacious singer-songwriter, had a busy summer. She fills her set with familiar fare like Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Put Your Records On” by Corrine Bailey Ray. Sunday, Oct. 11, 3 p.m., Twin Barns Brewing Co., 194 Daniel Webster Highway, Meredith, facebook.com/gabbymartinmusic.

Ava (R) & Vampires vs. the Bronx (PG-13)

Ava (R)

A lady assassin dealing with personal issues must keep herself from becoming the next target in Ava, a pretty amazing trainwreck of a movie.

Ava (Jessica Chastain) is an assassin who wears wigs and does some very stagey flirting to try to put her subjects at ease and then kills them totally professionally — she can make it look like an accident or natural causes or whatever because she is That Good. Except that she has developed this little quirk where she talks to them first, asks them why they think somebody wants them dead, what they did wrong.

I’m going to spoil something right here: I thought that maybe this was going to be a whole long-game thing where she, a cog in the murder machine, was gathering evidence that she’d eventually use for something — power, a way out of The Life, something like that. Nope! It’s just a dumb character element that is supposed to show, I guess, that she’s fraying around the edges, psychologically, and that even though she’s a professional hit woman she needs to believe there’s some kind of morality to what she’s doing. But, whatever the intention, it really just makes her seem like maybe she got this job yesterday.

The big boss at MurderCorp (not really its name, sadly), Simon (Colin Farrell), is not cool with her being so chatty. He tells middle-manager Duke (John Malkovich, taking this stuff a little more seriously than it needs to be taken) to get her in line but we know, because we’ve seen TV and movies before, that Simon has already decided to off-board her from the organization and has planned an exit package that involves getting her killed during her next job.

But Ava is a real crackerjack at killing henchmen so she survives. Duke tells her to take some time off so she heads to Boston to reconnect with her family: her angry younger sister Judy (Jess Weixler), her angry younger sister’s boyfriend/Ava’s ex Michael (Common) and her mom, with whom she has a prickly relationship, Bobbi (Geena Davis). Ava is also dealing with the struggle to stay sober — she had struggles with drugs and alcohol — which the movie doesn’t really know how to deal with and just kind of throws into a scene when it needs to serious-up a situation. Also, Ava has some sort of past with a lady gangster-type called Toni (Joan Chen) — she was a mentor? A buddy? An employer? — and the movie super doesn’t know what to do with that. I think Ava just shoves that plot line in so that Chastain and Common can be in a fight scene together.

Ava has the building blocks of a decent action movie: a solid cast, a basically workable story in the whole assassin dealing with Stuff both personal and professional, some solid ideas for action set pieces. And yet this movie feels like, in every scene, with every wonky acting choice or stilted bit of dialogue, everybody involved got together and said “what are the worst choices we could make here” and then they did that, went in those bafflingly bad directions. Even the score is weird and terrible — it feels like a low-budget 1980s action TV show but in, like, a bad way (versus, say, the series Cobra Kai, which also uses 1980s action TV show music and it’s awesome).

When thinking about this movie, I keep wanting to call it Anna, which is the name of a different dumb, lady-assasin action movie (from 2019). But that movie knows what it is. It leans in to its accents and improbable fight scenes and general goofiness. Ava could have been that too, expect, yikes, is it trying to say something about addiction? No, movie, you are not the movie for that. This is not the sort of movie where we need to take anything or anyone seriously. This is the sort of movie where everybody should be having so much fun it doesn’t matter when elements don’t make sense.

All that said, this movie is basically what I set out for when I decided to watch it: a no-effort action movie where Jessica Chastain beats people up. So I guess, until this movie ends up on some place like Neftlix where watching it costs no additional effort or money, the question is, is it worth the $6.99 rental fee? No, but if you ever see it available for 99 cents and have absolutely nothing else to do … maybe? C-

Rated R for violence and language throughout, and brief sexual material, according to the MPA on film ratings.com. Directed by Tate Taylor with a screenplay by Matthew Newton, Ava is an hour and 36 minutes long and distributed by Vertical Entertainment. It is available for rent.

Vampires vs. the Bronx (PG-13)

A group of young teens must fight a coven of real estate developers who are also vampires in Vampires vs. Bronx, a cute action/comedy/horror movie.

Miguel (Jaden Michael), Bobby (Gerald Jones III) and Luis (Gregory Diaz IV) basically grew up hanging out at the neighborhood bodega run by Tony (The Kid Mero) in the Bronx. Now Tony’s landlord is trying to raise the rent as area building- and business-owners are selling out to a real estate firm called Murnau (a name that drove me nuts until some Googling reminded me that it’s the last name of the director of 1922’s Nosferatu). In come the people with the canvas bags and the kale and the expensive lattes and out go the neighborhood stalwarts — like the nail salon run by Becky (Zoe Saldana), whom we meet in the movie’s opening scenes. Miguel tries at least to save the bodega with a block party to raise money to pay for the rent increase.

While biking through the neighborhood hanging up signs for the party, he witnesses one of the people from a Murnau property kill a guy from the neighborhood — well, first put him in a trance and then lift him up in the air as he drains the man of his blood. Vampires, Miguel tells Tony and his friends, Murnau isn’t just a group of real estate developers, they’re also vampires! The kids don’t completely believe him but they study up on vampire lore with help from the movie Blade and set out to prove that the undead walk (and gentrify) among us.

Though I’d definitely peg this at PG-13 and there is a fair amount of death and threatening of children in this movie (Miguel and his friends are teens I guess but read as, like, 10-year-olds) Vampires vs. the Bronx is very cute. There’s a plucky “save the community!” spirit to both Miguel’s quest to save the bodega and keep his neighborhood together and to his quest to find and defeat the vampires. The movie has a light touch even when it’s making a serious point, and is funny and smart (smart all the way around — in its humor, in the way it uses its vampire special effects). And it is narrowly focused on its central story with all the details serving that one storyline, which makes it feel like the movie is doing more than just its hour and 25 minutes would suggest. B+

Rated PG-13 for violence, language and some suggestive references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Osmany Rodriguez and written by Rodriguez and Blaise Hemmingway, Vampires vs. the Bronx is an hour and 25 minutes long and is available on Netflix.

Welcome to the United States of Anxiety

Welcome to the United States of Anxiety, by Jen Lancaster (Little A, 239 pages)

Jen Lancaster, self-described reforming neurotic, is a little anxious these days. Specifically, she is “a bundle of nerves, swaddled in a blanket of panic.”

You might find this surprising, given that she is a wildly successful author (15 previous books) with TSA PreCheck and enough disposable income and time to routinely buy kale salad at a Whole Foods two towns away. Or maybe all that explains why she is so anxious.

Regardless, the author of Such a Pretty Fat and Bitter is the New Black is here to help the rest of us dissolve our pre-election nerves and be more like her father, a man so unaffected by encroaching disaster that he calmly kept reading the sports pages in the middle of a flight in which the plane lost an engine and the oxygen bags descended. (Which recalls a book by another Jen — Jen Sincero of You are a Badass fame.)

Lancaster didn’t learn about her father’s nearly catastrophic fight until decades later, in part because he’s not the sort of man to obsessively worry about things that might happen (“We had my mother for that,” she says), and in part because he didn’t live in age in which people had outsized reactions to virtually everything. By almost every measure, the world is a safer place than it’s ever been for large swaths of people. “So … why the hell does it feel like the ends of days?” Lancaster asks. “Why does it seem like it’s about to rain locusts? Why am I cuffing my pants for the coming rivers of blood?”

There is a short answer, of course: social media. But that doesn’t make for a book. And so Lancaster dusts off the late Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” to serve as a sort of intellectual scaffolding on which to hang a collection of comical riffs about the state of American culture today.

Maslow, you may recall from high school, believed that human beings have to fulfill their most elemental needs, such as shelter and safety, before advancing to first-world accomplishments like self-esteem and self-actualization. In other words, you can’t worry about safety and security if you’re starving and cold; you can’t worry about love and accomplishment until you are safe. So, yes, this kind of fits into a conversation about anxiety. And it’s useful for dividing the book into five parts. But the structure seems a bit contrived and distracts from Lancaster’s comic gifts. We are force-fed Maslow when all we really want is vintage Jen, master of the bon mot.

After establishing her neurotic credentials (she says she is “actively afraid of bread”), Lancaster embarks on a tour of America the anxious, beginning with our obsession with having ethically grown, nutritionally complete and Instagram-worthy cuisine. Her grandparents, Italian immigrants, would scoff. They ate “whatever washed up on the shore in Italy” and later, “once they settled in Boston, their culinary repertoire expanded to include weeds they picked in the yard and the small animals they trapped in their attic.”

On the subject of clothes, another of Maslow’s first-tier needs, she brings us to an improv class she took at Chicago’s famous Second City comedy school, where she was told that clothes are a nonverbal announcement of identity. “My skirted leggings, tunic sweater, and matching scarf announced ‘I had a 20 percent off coupon at the Eileen Fisher outlet.’”

And so she goes, spinning through her own world and current events with a caustic tongue and just enough winsome deprecation to soften the edges.

One of her stories is one she’s told before, in another, shorter version in HuffPost eight years ago.

She was waiting in line for that kale salad at Whole Foods when a mother and child “cut in front of me with such grace and sense of purpose that I felt compelled to apologize for having arrived first.”

The girl, Margot, was about 6 and was wearing $300 jeans and carrying a Burberry purse. The mother was wearing jodhpurs and riding boots, “coated with a thin sheen of dust after she’d doubtless whiled away the day jumping rails in an indoor arena.” The child then proceeded to whisper questions that the mother relayed to the chef as if she was interpreting for a queen … about the quality of the sushi. Lancaster tells the story not with a keyboard, but a machete, and it is just perfect.

Less perfect are her many entreaties for us to live better, to reduce our paralyzing anxiety via platitude. Worst offense: “If your closet’s too overloaded to make choices, be ruthless. Purge and donate.” (May I suggest: if your editor lets you publish sentences like this when you’re a brilliant cultural critic, be ruthless. Find another.)

Toward the end, Lancaster pivots to an unexpected place: her fraught relationship with her mother, which has resulted in her having no contact with either parent. To use one of Lancaster’s own favorite terms, “spoiler alert” — at one point her mother threatened to sue her for libel. It is an unexpected airing of dirty laundry that, like David Sedaris writing about his sister’s suicide, is shocking and seems out of place, even as she explains, “While I was growing up, my mother’s behavior was so mercurial, I never knew what to expect, thus setting me on a course for a lifetime of anxiety.”

So, maybe it isn’t social media to blame after all. Maybe it’s our mothers.

Welcome to the United States of Anxiety is the perfect title for 2020, just not the perfect book. But it’s still a much better investment of your time than two hours on Twitter or another presidential debate. B

BOOK NOTES
Much is made of Amazon’s impact on bookstores, less of the company’s impact on publishing itself. But of course, Jeff Bezos would eventually get into publishing; he was married to a novelist, after all, and before it sold everything, Amazon sold only books.

Still, it’s a little surprising to learn that Amazon has been in publishing for more than a decade, not self-publishing as in CreateSpace or BookBaby, but publishing to compete with legacy players like Hatchette or HarperCollins. And it landed a big name in Jen Lancaster (United States of Anxiety, reviewed above.)
Lancaster’s new book, curiously billed as “observational comedy,” is published by Little A, one of 16 imprints that Amazon has established since starting a publishing arm in 2009. Its other imprints include Montlake, Thomas & Mercer, Lake Union, 47North and Grand Harbor Press.

Even more surprising, so far, the reach of Amazon Publishing seems relatively modest, at least compared to its outsized influence in so many other parts of American life. On its website, the company touts a handful of awards and says it has helped 36 authors reach more than one million readers. Note the word “readers.” It doesn’t say 36 authors sold more than 1 million books. One reviewer of Lancaster’s book on Amazon, that is marked a “verified purchase,” said she’d read it because she accidentally downloaded it as a free book she got through her Prime membership.

All this is to say, Amazon may be the largest seller of books in the U.S., but it’s clearly not decimating legacy publishers as it did bookstores. Not yet, anyway. But its website does one thing pretty cool: Each imprint, when listing current books, credits the title’s agent, agency and editor. For example, Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men by Harold Schechter (you know you want to read this) was sold by David Patterson of the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency and its editor was Vivian Lee (334 pages, Little A). That’s wonky publishing tea that is usually reserved for subscribers to Publishers Weekly, but it’s nice to see credit given, since so many people besides the author are responsible for bringing us books.

The biggest Amazon Publishing successes so far, at least when it comes to literary prizes, appear to be a collection of stories, Godforsaken Idaho by Shawn Vestal (210 pages, Little A), and the children’s book You Are (Not) Small by Ann Kang and illustrator Christopher Weyant (32 pages, Two Lions).

Album Reviews 20/10/08

Tedy, Boys Don’t Cry (Sony Records)

This mononymed 28-year-old singer comes to us from Haiti by way of Montreal, where he’s most recently occupied himself with accumulating a gigantic flock of followers on TikTok and Instagram. He came out as gay on TikTok, which unleashed a tidal wave of attention from new fans, who readily took to his polite but somewhat dramatic triphop-tinged soul-pop; this EP is his major-label debut. The video for the title track isn’t a fun watch, which is the point, as he relives scenes of cruelty he’s witnessed and experienced in real life while making fine use of his Keith Sweat-ish sob-singing delivery. That track isn’t something I’d really ever need to hear again, but closer tune “War” is another thing entirely, built on the same sort of epic million-drum strum und drang theatrics as Toto’s “Africa” and such. In “Stuck,” he evokes a male version of Zola Jesus, sort of pining/not-pining for something that’s impossibly out of reach, the drama underscored by a chorus in which the reverb is pegged to a Himalayan level. Not wildly adventurous, but I’m in his corner, sure. A-

Body Double, Milk Fed (Zum Records)

Delightfully messy album helmed by Bay Area native Candace Lazarou, who handled singing for Pang and was more than happy to take on other roles within the structure of this five-piece (she’s a multi-instrumentalist, after all, and studied music at University of North Carolina at Asheville). For a no-wave joint, this is pretty darn near perfect, given the boombox quality of her vocal tracks and the buzzy, unwashed drone of her guitar (which tends to sound like early B-52s when she’s in jam-out mode). Her musical evolution is at a stripped-bare stage; she’s been occupied lately working out the kinks of something of a personal rebirth (she recently got off dope, which required that she delete her entire real-life-friends list and start from scratch). To state the shriekingly obvious, this isn’t presentable to anyone who can’t tolerate unprofessional-sounding stuff, but that’s why earbuds were invented. I’m pulling for her myself — she’s like a female Ozzy with no budget, fam. A+

Retro Playlist

My original angle for this week’s stream-of-barely-consciousness was inspired by a Yahoo Lifestyle article (yes, I know, how boomer of me, but really, there are days I just cannot deal with Google’s newsfeed and its bottomless pit of TikTok-ers of the Week, and since when did memes with short shelf-lives warrant actual news articles?). Headlined “The Pandemic Has Changed When, Where and How We Listen to Music: ‘A Break From Reality’,” the article had no meat whatsoever: “We’re not commuting much, if at all, so we don’t crank music in our cars/earbuds”; “Country music is family-friendly, so it’s become a staple in homes, because most people of all ages can deal with it”; “people are listening to music from their past, for comfort.” And so on.

Talk about paper-thin clickbait. I’ve talked about most of that stuff before in these pages, not that I plan on trolling myself into trying to write a piece about country music. In the meantime, I predicted a few months ago that some music trends “that may have been bubbling below the surface” would be “fast-tracked,” which seems to be happening, or something, the author didn’t really seem to know what he was babbling about, and he had statistics that made his point even murkier.

I do know that, as I’ve said, everything that came out Before Covid seems better. There’s no legitimacy to that nonsense, of course; if I like a record, I like it. In July 2013 I slobbered all over The Icarus Line’s Slave Vows, saying stuff like it made “Warlocks look like the accounting team at Best Buy.” The whole record is a blast, incorporating sounds from The Doors, INXS, Boris and White Stripes, and I gave them extra credit for tagging the Strokes’ tour bus with graffiti. Even if it had hit my radar last week, I’d still push that record. Pitchfork even liked it, which was of course a frontal assault to my sensibilities.

Timelessness is the key to any album, is what I’m saying, regardless of plague conditions, even if it’s diva-pop. In 2009 Joss Stone graced the world with Colour Me Free. I loved its “oldfangled ’60s girl-group” vibe and otherworldly hooks, including the one on the Nas-guested “Governmentalist.” I’d still take her over Ariana Grande any day of the week.

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Oct. 9 is our next happy general-album-release date, here in this weird, disposable month that only has two holidays, Halloween and my birthday. To celebrate the former, I should probably start with the new Brothers Osborne album, Skeletons, because, you know, skeletons. Do I have any clue as to who these Brothers Osborne are? No, I do not, but only a country band would call itself a “Brothers” anything, so I’m assuming this will be country music, and the titular “skeletons” actually — and here comes the difficult “artsy” part — refer to past loves that went bad when the brothers tried serial monogamy on for size and came to find out that their “womenfolk” didn’t take too kindly to having their men driving off in their matching Chevy Silverados to drink multiple cases of lousy American lager beer and get into fights with bear-wrestling auto mechanics and cheat on their girlfriends with belly-shirted bartenders named Tammy and Patty. Or maybe not, I don’t know, I’ll just stop this tangent right now and go see for myself what these Whatever Brothers are about. Yep, there they are, ha ha, one of the guys has a ZZ Top beard, and they have cowboy hats. They’re into honky-tonk “outlaw” country, a genre that should have gone extinct during the reign of King Ramses II of Egypt. They’re from Maryland, and they got their big show-biz break after appearing on The Voice. So I nailed it, as you just saw, but did I get it right about the skeletons? Let’s go listen to the title track and find out! Yup, I came to the right place, the YouTube has a pickup truck commercial that I can skip through if I can stand the suspense for 10 seconds, and there we go, the beat is awesome and muddy and gross, like Charlie Daniels with an extra shot of whiskey. But yeah, fam, I had it wrong, the lyrics are about how this dude is 100 percent sure his girlfriend is cheatin’ on him, like there are skeletons in her closet! How do these people even dream up this stuff, I ask you.

• Look over there, guys, it’s U.K. grime pioneer Dizzee Rascal, with E3 AF, his seventh album! The single, “L.L.L.L.” features some other cockney rapper named Chip. The beat revolves around hearing-test drone, pedestrian trap, and a throwaway Super Mario ditty, but you don’t care about any of that silly “music” stuff, you want to know about the video, like what kind of person would be flying around on a jet-ski in the duck pond of some quiet British estate. Dizzee, that’s who!

• Sometimes I gravitate to albums that don’t interest me at all. Mostly it’s an attempt to broaden my horizons a little, or maybe learn to like humans more, or something. And that’s why I’m going to be talking about Touché Amoré’s new one, Lament, next. Except, surprise, this isn’t some stupid hipster band singing off-key and irritating me to no end, it’s a post-hardcore/screamo encore troupe from Los Angeles! Do you like the word “troupe”? I do — it’s French-ish! The single, “Limelight,” is cool-ish; the singer sounds like a 17-year-old Tom Waits for 30 seconds while hollering over a U2-meets-Cowboy Junkies guitar part, then it gets (spoiler alert) loud, and kind of Helmet-like. I pronounce it “OK.”

• To wrap up the week, we have North Carolina’s Travis Stewart, better known as Machinedrum, with his new one, A View of U. One of the tunes, “Ur2yung,” alternates between trippy, progressive IDM and big-beat techno. Awesome and boring simultaneously.

Month: October 2020

NBA observations

Drought management

News & Notes 20/10/15

Local independent business needs your support

What’s next for live music

The next stage

The Music Roundup 20/10/08

Ava (R) & Vampires vs. the Bronx (PG-13)

Welcome to the United States of Anxiety

Album Reviews 20/10/08

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