2024 – Page 12

Mayor of Tender Town — 10/24/2024

You may have seen Nick Lavallee’s name in a recent New York Times story about Manchester’s chicken tender fame. Michael Witthaus talks to this Manchester booster about music, chicken tenders, his love of the Queen City and his pursuit of joy. Above and on the cover, Nick Lavallee poses with one of his Wicked Joyful shirts in Cat Alley in Manchester. Michael Cirelli Photography.

Also on the cover It’s a week of grown-up Halloween fun — find your party (parties?) in the listing on page 30. Or take the family to the Witch of Weston Tower attraction in Manchester (page 16). And Concord’s Street eatery explains its approach to french fries (page 24).

Read the e-edition

News & Notes 24/10/24

A graphic the shape of the state of New Hampshire, filled in with the New Hampshire flag made up of the crest of New Hampshire on a blue field.

241024 Featured Content News

Get in the vote NH Secretary of State David Scanlan is “urging absentee voters who plan to return their ballots ...

Halloween for all

241024 Q&A

S.C.A.R.E. NH wants every kid to have a costume S.C.A.R.E., Secondhand Costume Annual Redistribution Effort, brings Halloween costumes to those ...

C’s go for No. 19

Photo of assorted sports equipment for football, soccer, tennis, golf, baseball, and basketball

241024 News Sports

The Big Story – Celtics Return: Banner 18 went to the rafters Tuesday night to let the Celtics reclaim the ...

Quality of Life 24/10/24

241024 News Quality Of Life

Soggy library books Manchester City Library patrons are still feeling the effects of a water pipe leak that flooded part ...

This Week 24/10/24

two male and two female dancers posing together, arms out and legs stretched in modern dance positions, the words Ailey 2 added to the top of the image

241024 News This Week

Thursday, Oct. 24 Ailey II will perform at the Nashua Center for the Arts (201 Main St, Nashua, 800-657-8774, nashuacenterforthearts.com) ...

Mayor of Tender Town

man wearing yellow shirt and baseball cap, standing in alley in front of colorful mural painted brick wall, pointing to himself with both thumbs, big smile

241024 Cover Stories Featured Content

Nick Lavallee talks chicken tenders, action figures, music and joy For someone who’s never held office and does not aspire ...

Farewell?

man wearing button up shirt and suit jacket, standing for photo, smiling, holding conductor's baton

241024 Art & Theater Featured Content

Symphony NH conductor’s final season begins Roger Kalia’s last performance as Music Director of Symphony NH will happen next May ...

The Art Roundup 24/10/24

241024 Art & Theater Visual Arts

The latest from NH’s theater, arts and literary communities • Dracula comes alive: PUSH Physical Theatre, described as displaying “intense ...

Into the woods

woman wearing orange facepaint, dressed in black witch dress, striped purple and black stockings, and pointy hat, sitting in front of stone tower, bowl of candy beside her, one of her hands raised in spooky beckoning

241024 Fairs & Festivals Featured Content Outdoors

Fun, food and a little spookiness at The Witch of Weston Tower By Zachary [email protected] From Friday, Oct. 25, to ...

Kiddie Pool 24/10/24

241024 Family Fun Outdoors

Family fun for whenever Spooky Season Find lots of haunted happenings in the Halloween guide in the Oct. 17 issue ...

Treasure Hunt 24/10/24

stack of glass plates with two small cups sitting on top, glass tinted pink

241024 Family Fun Treasure Hunt

Dear Donna, Is this pink glass old? We found it in my mom’s cabinet while cleaning out. I don’t remember ...

Planting in October

stalks of garlic laying on stoney ledge in shady place in a row

241024 Outdoors The Gardening Guy

How many gardeners does it take to plant a garlic bulb? For some of us, planting time is long past ...

On The Job – Andy Vachon

man laying on his side on dead grass beside open tool box

241024 Q&A

Maintenance Supervisor Andy Vachon is the Maintenance Supervisor for the Parks division of the Manchester Parks and Recreation Department. Anyone ...

Trick, treat and shop

family dressed in costume walking down street in halloween parade

241024 Fairs & Festivals Outdoors

Concord holds its annual downtown Halloween Howl By Zachary [email protected] Grizzly ghouls from every tomb may be closing in to ...

‘Fries are just kind of the perfect food’

two cardboard plates of french fries, each covered in different sauce topping, with plastic cups of ketchup

241024 Featured Content Food

Street serves them up with kimchi ketchup According to Lynn Theth, the Chef at Street in Concord, the secret to ...

The Weekly Dish 24/10/24

241024 Food

News from the local food scene • New wraps: Wrap City Sandwich Co. (1525 S. Willow St, Manchester, 782-5838, wrapcitysandwiches.com/location/willow-street) ...

Honey dinner

black man standing at counter, ladling sauce onto rows of plates in restaraunt

241024 Food

Celebrating bees with a sweet menu According to Jeff Cole of Barr Hill Gin, Bee’s Knees Week — a national ...

In the kitchen with Caroline Arend

white woman with long blond hair, wearing black chef's coat, sitting in front of gray background, leaning forward smiling

241024 Food Q&A

Caroline Arend is the Chef and owner of Caroline’s Fine Food (132 Bedford Center Road, Bedford, 637-1615, carolinesfood.com) and The ...

Apple Bars with Brown Butter Shortbread

plate with two square pieces of apple bar made of cooked apples on pastry back, with crumble topping

241024 Food

Shortbread 12 Tablespoons (1½ stick) salted (normal) butter ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt 2 cups (240 g) ...

Album Reviews 24/10/24

241024 Albums Pop

Sara Serpa, Encounters & Collisions (Biophilia Records) I’m sorry, I can deal with a lot of things — improv jazz, ...

Revenge of the Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell

241024 Books Pop

Revenge of the Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell (Little, Brown and Co., 368 pages) Malcolm Gladwell had never written a ...

Woman of the Hour (R)

241024 Film Reviews by Amy

An aspiring actress in 1978 Los Angeles goes on The Dating Game where one of the bachelors is a serial ...

The Music Roundup 24/10/24

241024 Music This Week

Local music news & events • Lyrical flow: In a tour that’s a throwback to his roots, Chris Webby stops ...

For grown-up ghouls

241024 Featured Content Nightlife

Halloween week parties and music events Next year will be simpler, when Halloween falls on a Friday and every nightspot ...

Hey, Ho, Let’s Go!

241024 Nightlife

Brad Marino Band does Ramones tribute Named after a seasonally appropriate Ramones song, a show devoted to their music by ...

Hey, Ho, Let’s Go!

Brad Marino Band does Ramones tribute

Named after a seasonally appropriate Ramones song, a show devoted to their music by the Brad Marino Band is an adult way to cap off the Halloween celebration in downtown Rochester. Pet Semetary is an event benefiting the city’s Main Street organization. It begins shortly after the annual Zombie Walk.

The civic charity’s hope, Marino said in a recent phone interview, “is that people out having a good time supporting the local businesses will want to keep the party going in their zombie outfit and come hear the band play some music.” Admission to the event is free, with donations encouraged.

Marino may be Rochester’s biggest celebrity, but he doesn’t draw a crowd when he walks down the street. When he was in The Connection, his music was heard frequently on the satellite radio channel Little Steven’s Underground Garage. As a solo artist, he’s done several successful overseas tours.

Since his old band broke up in the mid-2010s, he’s made several solo pop-punk records; the latest is the surf-centric Hot Rod Rampage. “I can go and sell out rooms in Spain and Europe,” he said. “It’s a weird dichotomy … I always joke with my wife, ‘you’re married to the most famous person in Rochester.’ It’s just that nobody knows who I am.”

The upcoming show at the Roberge Center is special for Marino, who made an EP called Ramones & Stones with a tribute title track and four originals that sounded like Rocket to Russia outtakes. “These songs are a part of my DNA,” he said. “I started listening to Ramones when I was, like, 14. So, more than half my life, I’ve been playing along to their records.”

Covering the punk pioneers is something he’s done more than a few times, including playing “Blitzkrieg Bop” with Clem Burke sitting in. His band was on a bill with the Blondie drummer, who was playing with one of his side projects. “We’re like, ‘Hey, you want to do a Ramones song or something?’ We just did the easiest one … kind of cool to have a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer playing drums in your band for a song.”

The band — Marino, drummer and ex-Connection mate Craig Sala and Bobby Davis on bass — will play as a three-piece for the Rochester show. “I’m going to be doing dual duty, Joey and Johnny, and that’s going to be challenging,” Marino said. “We practiced the other day, and it was, like, woof. It’s not so easy when you’re trying to do all the down strokes.”

The two-hour set will be mostly tribute. “The Ramones themselves played 30 songs in an hour and 15 minutes every night, so we’re definitely going to mix in some Brad Marino tunes. I’m not sure if I’m just going to do a Ramones set then take five and regroup as my band, or if we’ll just randomly throw in some of my tunes — we’ll kind of play it by ear.”

Down the road, Marino is planning to release a new album early next year. “It’s a compilation record of a bunch of songs that haven’t been on vinyl,” he said. “They’ve just either been digital or maybe a bonus track on a CD. There are at least nine songs that have never been on vinyl, and there’s a couple new ones as well.”

Next month, the Brad Marino Band will headline an afternoon show in Ridgewood, New York, part of Fear City Fun Fest. He’s not missing his old group, and has a positive outlook, even if relative anonymity continues in his hometown. Marino, his wife and two sons moved there a few years ago, along with other creatives who were priced out of Portsmouth.

“The Connection had a good run for sure, but I’ve been quote unquote solo for five or six years. Pretty much in a groove with that and having a good run, playing some good shows and pumping out records. I think next year we’re going to be hitting up Europe — Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and then probably back to Spain.”

Pet Semetary – A Ramones Tribute
When: Friday, Oct. 25, 8 p.m.
Where: Roberge Center, 6 Bridge St., Rochester
More: facebook.com/bradmarinomusic

Featured photo: Brad Marino. Courtesy photo.

For grown-up ghouls

Halloween week parties and music events

Next year will be simpler, when Halloween falls on a Friday and every nightspot in the state will offer costume contests. For 2024, though, it’s possible to parlay a wild and costly getup into multiple bashes. For those with kids, they can trick-or-treat without having to worry about when the parents’ Spooktacular event commences.

There’s a bunch to do. Here’s a list.

Friday, Oct. 25

• Atkinson Resort & Country Club (85 Country Club Drive, Atkinson, eventbrite.com) 8 p.m. Devil’s Disco: A 21+ Halloween party. Main Event Entertainment’s DJ Joey Dion spins the hottest tracks. $45.

• Haluwa (45 Gusabel Ave., Nashua, 864-8348) 8:30 p.m. Night Owls play covers, $100 prize for best costume.

• Henry J. Sweeney Post (251 Maple St., Manchester, 623-9145) 8 p.m. Dance with The Raging Rockaholics Band. Costume contest, winners for first, second and third prize. Finger foods provided; members and guests.

• Intervale Country Club (1491 Front St., Manchester, 674-6811) 8 p.m. Eleganza Dance Company hosts its 4th Annual Halloween Spooktacular. DJ Lucia’s plays salsa, bachata, hustle, and cha-cha music. The evening begins with a bachata lesson, followed by social dancing until midnight. Prizes for the best costumes. $20 at the door.

• Jewel (61 Canal St., Manchester, 836-1152) 9 p.m. Hachi Halloween with Reaper, Rebel Scum, Extrakt, Kr3wl b2b Cowson, costumes welcome and contest winner announced at 8 p.m. $30 at posh.vip.

• Makris Lobster & Steak House (354 Sheep Davis Road, Concord, 225-7665) 6:30 p.m. Stray Dogs play classic rock covers and there’s a costume contest

• Puff Cigar Lounge (355 South Broadway, Salem, eventbrite.com) 9 p.m. Hallowhine with favorite dancehall records. Music from Ru, Lu, Styles and Turtle with performances from Nawlage & True’ly Young; hosted by Jakeera. $30.

• Red River Theatres (11 S. Main St., Concord, 224-4600) 10 p.m. Rocky Horror Picture Show is screened. Audience participation is encouraged, but no outside props please. Also Oct. 26 at 10 p.m.

• Red’s Kitchen & Tavern (530 Lafayette Road, Seabrook, 760-0030) 7 p.m. Redemption Band performs, with a costume contest offering $500, $250 and $100 Red’s gift cards as prizes.

• Roberge Center (6 Bridge St., Rochester, facebook.com) 8 p.m. Halloween parade after-party with Pet Semetary: A Ramones Tribute, featuring The Brad Marino Band; donations welcome.

• Rumors Sports Bar & Bowling (22 N. Main St., Newmarket, eventbrite.com) 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. Drag Me To Death Halloween drag show and costume contest with two shows and two casts. $25.

• Shaskeen (909 Elm St., Manchester, 625-0246) 9 p.m. Halloween bash with DJ Myth playing the best in Top 100 and throwbacks, Shawn Caliber on MC duties and prizes for best costumes.

• Stone Church (5 Granite St., Newmarket, 659-7700) 7 p.m. Two-day Grateful Dead party led by Stone Dead, a collaboration of New England musicians with roots and associations going back to the Stone Church scene of the ’80s and ’90s, from acts such as Percy Hill, Groove Child, Thanks to Gravity, Trade and others. $25 in advance, $30 day of show, $45 two-day pass.

• The Bar (2B Burnham Road, Hudson, 943-5250) 8 p.m. Ask Alice plays a Halloween bash with prizes for best costumes. The show is sponsored by Witch City Walking Tours.

• The Brook (319 New Zealand Road, Seabrook, 474-3065) 9 p.m. Guest DJ Sickick spins modern tracks. Prizes for best costume.

Saturday, Oct. 26

• American Legion Post 3 (11 Court St., Nashua, facebook.com) 7 p.m. DJ Bernie D of Perfect Entertainment spins, with prizes, food, dancing and fun.

• American Legion Post 70 (169 Walton Road, Seabrook, facebook.com) 7 p.m. Halloween party with costumes, contests and music from the Ghost Riderz.

• American Legion Post 8 (640 Central Ave. , Dover, 742-9710) 7 p.m. Stiletto, a tribute act dedicated to ’80s hard rock, performs at a 21+ event.

• Auspicious Brew (1 Washington St., Dover, 953-7240) 8 p.m. Halloween kickoff party with Tysk Tysk Task, 2000’s and Regals, $10 at the door.

• Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165) 6 p.m. Spirit to Spirits – Intuitive Medium Jessica Moseley conducts a group medium reading, offered with a wine tasting. Ticket includes a seat at the reading, calling forward anyone in spirit who would like to communicate with their loved ones in the audience. $45, 21+.

• Black Swan Inn (354 W. Main St., Tilton, eventbrite.com) 7 p.m. Experience the history of spiritualism and a Victorian magic show by magician Michael OJ. Learn about the era’s magic, turn-of-the-century psychics and the ongoing conflict between magicians and spiritualists. Hors d’oeuvres and spirits included. $70.

• The Castle on Charles (19 Charles St., Rochester, facebook.com) 7 p.m. Halloween Latin dance party with cash bar and light snacks. Cocktail hour at 7 p.m., beginner bachata lesson by Anita Augustyniak at 8 p.m. with salsa and bachata dancing from 8:30 until 11 p.m. $20.

• Castleton Banquet and Conference Center (58 Enterprise Drive, Windham, eventbrite.com) 7 p.m. Halloween costume gala, supporting Less Leg More Heart (charity supporting amputees), with dinner, dancing and silent auction. $100 and up.

• Chop Shop (920 Lafayette Road, Seabrook, 760-7706) 8:30 p.m. 15th Birthday Halloween Bash with Casual Gravity and Bulletproof.

• Derryfield (625 Mammoth Road, Manchester, 623-2880) 7 p.m. Mugsy is joined by D-Comp for the Halloween Monster Bash. Come in costume. Prizes for best overall, most creative and honorable mention. $30 at eventbrite.com. 21+ event.

• The Farm Bar & Grille (1181 Elm St., Manchester, facebook.com) 7 p.m. Spooktacular Halloween bash hosted by local rugby club.

• Feathered Friend Brewing (231 Main St., Concord, 715-2347) 5 p.m. Halloween party with Andrew North & The Rangers, all ages, free show.

• High Octane Saloon (102 Watson Road, Laconia, 527-8116) 8 p.m. Mugshot Monday performs at this bash, with costume prizes for sexiest, scariest, best group, funniest, and best overall ($100 for that one).

• Keys Piano Bar (1087 Elm St., Manchester, keysmanch.com) 6 p.m. Witches Brew & Booze Crawl, with a craft cocktail at each stop. Kickoff at Keys Piano Bar (wristband pickup), Wild Rover at 7 p.m., McGarvey’s at 8 p.m., Bad Burger at 9 p.m. and finish at Bar Code at 10 p.m. $15, costume required.

• Liquid Therapy (16 Court St., Nashua, [email protected]) 7 p.m. Souhegan Valley Rotary Club Halloween Party and Karaoke Contest with prizes for best costume and singer, $25.

• Lynn’s 102 Tavern (75 Derry Road, Hudson, 943-7832) 7 p.m. Done By 9, with one member dressed as Monopoly Man, performs, with prizes for best costumes.

• Marker 21 (33 Dockside St., Wolfeboro, facebook.com) 7 p.m. Small Town Stranded will appear in costume as the X-Men, playing an extensive repertoire of cover songs, and there will be a contest for guests too.

• McIntyre Ski Area (50 Chalet Court, Manchester, 622-6159) 7 p.m. Come in costume and join The Morning Buzz at the resort’s Hill Bar & Grille for the Buzz Brews & Boos Halloween Party (21+). $45 at ticketscandy.com, includes appetizer buffet, DJ, Halloween contest, games and prizes.

• Michael’s Bar & Grill (8 Stiles Road, Salem, michaelsmarketllc.com) 6 p.m. Halloween dinner with costume prizes, music videos, trivia. $40.

• MoJo’s West End Tavern (100 Albany St., Portsmouth, facebook.com) 6 p.m. 4th Annual Two Brothers Halloween Party with DJ NBD. Wear a costume to unlock drink specials.

• Newport Opera House (20 Main St., Newport, 863-2412, newportoperahouse.com) will host a 21+ Halloween Masquerade Dance with music by Last Kid Picked, from 8 p.m. to the stroke of midnight. Prizes awarded for best costumes in different categories. Cash bar. Tickets are $25 in advance, and $30 at the door, while they last.

• Mount Washington Cruises (211 Lakeside Ave, Laconia, 366-5531, cruisenh.com) will hold a Halloween Masquerade Cruise from 6 to 9 p.m., leaving from Weirs Beach. This 21+ costumed event will be a three-hour cruise with a buffet dinner, live entertainment, seasonal snacks and a costume contest. Tickets are $72.

• Par28 (23 S. Broadway, Salem, par28.com) 6 p.m. Halloween costume party with DJ, games and gift card for winners.

• Portsmouth Gas Light (64 Market St., Portsmouth, portsmouthnhtickets.com) 8 p.m. Halloween party in the third-floor nightclub with DJ Koko P, $500 prize for best costume, $25.

• Press Room (77 Daniel St., Portsmouth, eventbrite.com) 8:30 p.m. Skunk Sessions Halloween Psychedelic Circus with the Liquid Light Brothers and special guests Justin Lopes (keys), Henley Douglas (sax) and Yahuba Torres (percussion). $20.

• Rockingham Ballroom (22 Ash Swamp Road, Newmarket, portsmouthnhtickets.com) 7 p.m. DJ/KJ Magic spinning funk, groove, R&B, pop tunes and requests. Karaoke after 10 p.m. Costume prizes include cash for best couple. Signature Witch’s Brew drink included with ticket (21+). $15

• Saddle Up Saloon (92 Route 125, Kingston, 347-1313) 8 p.m. All That ’90s plays covers at a decade-themed costume bash.

• Sayde’s (136 Cluff Crossing, Salem, 890-1032) 7 p.m. Big Blue Sky returns to provide the music. Dress-up encouraged but optional; there will be prizes for best costumes.

• Shooters Pub (6 Columbus Ave., Exeter, 772-3856) 6 p.m. Tin Palace plays covers at a Halloween party.

• Village Trestle (25 Main St., Goffstown, 497-8230) 8 p.m. Halloween costume party with Bob Pratte Band. Contest and prizes.

Sunday, Oct. 27

• Rambling House Food & Gathering (57 Factory St., Suite A, Nashua; ramblingtale.com) will host Boos & Brews at 6 p.m. Tickets cost $20. “Join Rambling House & TaleSpinner Brewery for a night filled with frights by the fire. Enjoy an evening of storytelling by raconteur, humorist, and author Simon Brooks,” according to the website.

Monday, Oct. 28

• Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club (135 Congress St., Portsmouth, ticketmaster.com) 7 p.m. Scott Brown and the Diplomats perform an elegant Halloween soiree, with multiple costume contest categories. $20.

Wednesday, Oct. 30

• Brickhouse Restaurant and Brewery (241 Union Square, Milford, eventbrite.com) 6:30 p.m. Spooky pumpkin paint night; entry includes one free drink. $45.

• Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St., Manchester, palacetheatre.org) 7 p.m. Jeff Rapsis provides the music at the Lon Chaney Halloween Creepfest double feature, with The Unknown (1927) and West of Zanzibar (1928). $10.

Thursday, Oct. 31

• Alpine Grove Events Center (19 S. Depot Road, Hollis, eventbrite.com) 9 p.m. Halloween singles bash. Come dressed in your costume — prizes for the best ones — and dance to DJ music while enjoying a Halloween vibe. $12–$29.

• Auspicious Brew (1 Washington St., Dover, 953-7240) 8 p.m. Queeraoke with Lezhang Seacoast Halloween costume contest, no cover.

• Bridgewater Inn (367 Mayhew Turnpike, Bridgewater, 744-3518, bridgewater-inn.com) will offer Halloween karaoke on Thursday, Oct. 31, and Friday, Nov. 1, before the big party on Nov. 2

• Chunky’s (707 Huse St., Manchester, chunkys.com) 7 p.m. Halloween viewing party of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, $15.

• Downtown Nashua (eventbrite.com) 5 p.m. Unleash the Night: The Ultimate Halloween Bar Crawl, $14.99 includes two or three drinks or shots (offers may vary).

• Forum Pub (15 Village St., Concord, 565-3100) 7 p.m. Trick-or-treat options for all who show up in costume.

• Keys Piano Bar (1087 Elm St., Manchester, keysmanch.com) 8 p.m. A ghoulishly good time with live music, costume contests ($200 prize) and wickedly delicious drink specials that will keep you in high spirits all night long.

• LaBelle Winery ( 345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898) 6:30 p.m. Spooktacular Halloween party with DJ from Get Down Tonight Entertainment spinning Halloween tunes. Enjoy appetizers, snacks and desserts included in your event ticket, and a full cash bar will be available all night. A special prize will be awarded for the best Halloween costume. $47.

• Porkbarrel Productions (1324 Lovell Lake Road, Wakefield, eventbrite.com) 6 p.m. Backyard Boulderdash with The Boneheads and the Wooden Nickels. Come dressed in costume — grand prize of $300 and runner-up wins $100, as judged by the headliners. $15.

• Press Room (77 Daniel St., Portsmouth, eventbrite.com) 9 p.m. Dan Blakeslee’s alter ego Doctor Gasp performs with his band the Eeks. The 21st Annual Halloween Special with support from Soul Church begins directly after the Portsmouth Halloween parade. $15.

• Stone Church (5 Granite St., Newmarket, 659-7700) 7 p.m. Jimkata is a nationally touring electro-rock band blending heavy beats, hooks built on synth-pop sensibilities, and big anthemic guitars to create music with both modern and timeless appeal that combine the organic and the electronic. P(x3), a Connecticut duo, opens. $15.

• Stoned Wall Bar & Grill (37 Manchester St., Manchester, 698-2049) 8 p.m. Halloween party with drink specials and full menu, 50/50 raffle, bag raffles (six bags with values of $10-$5), costume contests. Best costume voted by customers, most original, colorful/pride filled, scariest, best clown and kinkiest.

• The Big House (322 Lakeside Ave., Laconia, 767-2226) 6 p.m. Luke SkyRocker Karaoke’s 7th annual Halloween party with costume contest. 21+.

• The Rugged Axe (1887 S. Willow St., Manchester, 232-7936) 2 p.m. Axe throwing Halloween party runs from 2 to 10 p.m., with costumes strongly encouraged, drinks specials and a raffle. Reservation at theruggedaxe.com.

• Wally’s Pub (144 Ashworth Ave., Hampton, ticketmaster.com) 9 p.m. 12/OC Halloween Hoedown with Nate Ramos Band and Michael Corleto, $30.

Friday, Nov. 1

• Saddle Up Saloon (92 Route 125, Kingston, 347-1313) 8 p.m. Bite the Bullet plays covers, with prizes for the best costumes in various categories.

Saturday, Nov. 2

• Bridgewater Inn (367 Mayhew Turnpike, Bridgewater, 744-3518) 8 p.m. Halloween karaoke and costume contest.

• To Share Brewing (720 Union St., Manchester, 836-6947) 7 p.m. Queen City Improv will be performing a Halloween-inspired show. $5 at the door (cash or card) gets you in. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Costumes are highly encouraged.

• Wally’s Pub (144 Ashworth Ave., Hampton, 926-6954) 6 p.m. Prospect Hill’s 15th annual Halloween party also celebrates their new EP, Catalyst. Anaria, Red Crown and Chris Drake provide support. $25.

Featured photo: West of Zanzibar.

The Music Roundup 24/10/24

Local music news & events

• Lyrical flow: In a tour that’s a throwback to his roots, Chris Webby stops in town for a show that includes Grieves, Ryan Oakes and Suave Ski. On the Connecticut-based rapper’s latest effort “FSU” — the NSFW title is abbreviated — he samples CKY’s 1999 stoner rock hit “96 Quite Bitter Beings” with Ekoh, who called it “maybe my favorite song sample flip of all time.” Thursday, Oct. 24, 8 p.m., Jewel Music Venue, 61 Canal St., Manchester, $27 at aftontickets.com.

• Femme power: An evening of tribute music, Muse – A Salute to Divas of Rock showcases female singers from Janis Joplin to Paramore’s Hayley Williams. A power trio backs Jacyn Tremblay and Lauren Rhoades on classic songs like “Me and Bobby McGee” and Heart’s “Barracuda,” along with a healthy helping of icons including Pat Benatar, Joan Jett and Alanis Morrisette. Friday, Oct. 25, 7:30 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $39 at palacetheatre.org.

• Lilith returns: Before her song “Angel” helped launch the pet rescue industry, Sarah McLachlan broke out big with Surfacing, an album that garnered a lot of AOR mindshare in the grunge-dominated ’90s and would help the Canadian singer-songwriter launch the all-woman Lilith Fair. At an upcoming show she’ll play the record from start to finish, along with other hits. Saturday, Oct. 26, 7:30 p.m., SNHU Arena, 555 Elm St., Manchester, $49 and up at ticketmaster.com.

• Vocal sorcery: In a free show made possible by the William H. Gile Trust, Kitka performs a program of traditional singing. For over 40 years the nine-woman vocal group has traveled to Eastern Europe and the Caucasus to gather songs and learn about the traditions behind the centuries-old music, which resembles a more soulful version of Gregorian chant. Sunday, Oct. 27, 2 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord; request free tickets at ccanh.com.

• Midweek mirth: A finalist at last year’s Boston Comedy Festival, Jessica Levin headlines a weekly shindig that began in 2008, and these days is booked and hosted by comic Sam Mangano. The fortysomething Levin is a North Jersey/Philly hybrid who works regularly in New York, where she’s now based. Her comedy is brash and unfiltered; a bit about trying to get Ozempic is hilarious. Wednesday, Oct. 30, 8 p.m., Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester, $5 at eventbrite.com.

Woman of the Hour (R)

An aspiring actress in 1978 Los Angeles goes on The Dating Game where one of the bachelors is a serial killer in Woman of the Hour, a movie about real-life killer Rodney Alcala directed by and starring Anna Kendrick.

Cheryl (Kendrick) reluctantly accepts her agent’s offer to be a contestant on The Dating Game because it will get her seen and earn her a paycheck. Intercut with scenes of her preparing for the episode, we see scenes of Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) throughout the 1970s meeting and murdering women across the country. Sometimes it seems like he’s close to getting caught but — as you learn when you dive down the Wikipedia rabbit hole — aliases, moving and the general non-centralized nature of ye olde law enforcement means he is mostly free to kill again even after arrests and periods of incarceration.

The Dating Game episode itself isn’t terribly exciting — Rodney’s appearance on the show is just a weird footnote to his life. And a story line about a woman in the audience at the show who recognizes him doesn’t add the urgency that I suspect is the reason for being for the character. What the movie does do chillingly well is show all the times Cheryl — all the female characters really but especially Cheryl — has to negotiate what is happening in the moment between her and some man. Look too angry or act too brainy with some men, and it could lose her a job. Rebuff an advance and maybe she loses a friend or maybe the man in question becomes violent. It’s well done, the subtle shifts she tries to make to placate men whose anger could be dangerous — professionally, socially or even physically. The tension in this movie is all in whether the woman in any given scene can pull it off, can use self-effacing giggles and light humor to get away from someone she realizes could be dangerous. Can she pull it off and what happens when she has to acknowledge out in the open that she’s in danger — boo, there’s your depressingly real spooky season scare. B-

Rated R for language, violent content, some drug use and a sexual reference, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Anna Kendrick with a screenplay by Ian McDonald, Woman of the Hour is an hour and 35 minutes long and distributed on Netflix.

The Wild Robot (PG)

A robot gains heartbreaking emotions due to the “crushing obligation” of parenting a gosling in The Wild Robot, a beautiful and beautiful-looking animated movie based on the book by Peter Brown.

Roz (voice of Lupita Nyong’o), as the robot is eventually called, is a bipedal Siri-like entity meant to solve problems and do tasks for its human customers. After crashing onto a forest-covered island, Roz finds her only potential customers are animals whose language she eventually learns to speak but who mostly just think she is a death-bringing monster. And she does accidentally crush a nest housing a bird and most of its eggs, but one egg survives. After securing the egg from Fink (voice of Pedro Pascal), a fox looking for a meal, Roz also accidentally becomes the gosling’s maternal figure once the egg hatches. A possum mother, Pinktail (voice of Catherine O’Hara), who has seen it all with her regular litters of half a dozen or more, informs Roz that her task now is to feed the little chick daily, teach it how to swim and teach it to fly to prepare it for the fall migration. Fink takes pity on Roz/sees a way to get some easy food and a protector, and helps her find eats for the little goose and even helps her pick a name for him, Brightbill (voice of Kit Connor). They build a house and become something of a family, with Roz learning patience and how to teach Brightbill to swim and eventually how to fly. Along the way, Roz becomes increasingly attached to Brightbill, even though all her efforts are aimed at helping him live without her.

And though it isn’t particularly subtle, this portrayal of parenthood feels well-observed, blending the “crushing obligation” as Roz calls her new responsibility and heartbreaking preparations for independence with the moments of sweet cuddliness. Its jokes about parenthood are along this vein — and manage to be funny, for both kids and parents amazingly, without sliding into hokiness. This story of family and eventually community is told with some exceptional animation. It has a rich storybook look that plays up the beauty of its natural setting, with color and light helping to underline the emotions. A

Rated PG for action/peril and thematic elements, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Chris Sanders (based on the book by Peter Brown), The Wild Robot is an hour and 42 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Universal Studios. It is also available for rent or purchase.

It’s What’s Inside (R)

College buddies get together on the night before one gets married in It’s What’s Inside, a twisty dark-comedy thriller.

Longtime couple Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini), social media influencer Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey), punk-ish Brooke (Reina Hardesty), hippie-ish Maya (Nina Bloomgarden), goofball Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood) and groom Reuben (Devon Terrell) were all buddies in college and have stayed close-ish since. Forbes (David Thompson) was also part of that group but was kicked out of college after a raucous party that involved his high school-age sister Beatrice (Madison Davenport) getting drunk and aggressively hitting on Dennis. He went to California to become a tech bro but has returned to attend this party and brought with him one of his famous party games. As trailers suggest, the game involves a perception shift, one that would seem particularly risky in this group of people with past, current and unrequited romantic attachments, but then perhaps that is also the appeal.

It’s What’s Inside plays with the vibe, story beats and setting (the weird-art-filled mansion of Reuben’s late mother) of a horror movie but is solidly in thriller territory, injecting a sense of naughty humor into the movie inside of jump scares. The movie asks a little more of its cast than standard horror movie run-and-scream and I think they all deliver well enough, which is an impressive little accomplishment. B-

Rated R for pervasive language, sexual content, drug use and some violent content, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Greg Jardin, It’s What’s Inside is an hour and 44 minutes long and is streaming on Netflix.

House of Spoils (R)

Is chef Ariana DeBose going crazy because of toxic restaurant culture or because she’s trying to open a fine dining eatery in a haunted house? — is the central question of House of Spoils.

Specifically, the upstate New York-or-something house where she is living and restauranting is perhaps haunted by witches, including the ghost of the witch who used to own the property and tended a witchy garden. A witchy garden with some good greens, as DeBose’s character, who I think is just called Chef, discovers. She also discovers that, as she says, some garden items are tasty friends and some are foe that send her to the bathroom with digestive troubles. This new restaurant’s owner, Andres (Arian Moayed), grows increasingly worried about the crazy eyes DeBose is developing, especially since the last chef he tried to get to open the restaurant went bananas and ran off into the forest. But the more DeBose borrows from the witch’s garden, the more culinary success she has — though is she going to nurture people with earthy greens and roots or is she about to witch-poison all her diners?

Along the way, she is awful to her sous chef, Lucia (Barbie Ferreira), saying things as horrible and sexist as any male chef would say even though DeBose’s chef has also experienced the pressures of that kind of kitchen under her previous famous-chef boss. She is also tormented by rabbits (as many a gardener is) and by an infestation of sometimes real, sometimes not, bugs, and is maybe being followed by the witch’s ghost and also maybe just facing some really unrealistic expectations for her food. Certainly all of the fancypants high-end micro-green-placed-with-tweezers dishes are pretty unappetizing-looking, perhaps a commentary on food so elevated it’s lost all food qualities of nourishment and comfort.

Probably because I expected basically nothing of House of Spoils, I had fun with it. Some of the Points We’re Making are a little more spelled out than they need to be, but overall the movie has a light touch with its mix of horror and psychological suspense, all covered in flakes of a dark sense of humor. DeBose does a good job of riding the line between exacting, unjustifiably harsh and exhaustion-borne “going a little bit nuts.” I enjoy how, not unlike the holiday movie arms race between various streamers, this burst of October spooky-tinged movies pushes the ideas of horror off into weird and fun directions. B

Rated R for language and some violent content, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Bridget Savage Cole & Danielle Krudy, House of Spoils is an hour and 41 minutes long and streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Revenge of the Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell

Revenge of the Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell (Little, Brown and Co., 368 pages)

Malcolm Gladwell had never written a book when he began, with a mix of “self-doubt and euphoria,” the manuscript that would become The Tipping Point, published in 2000. That book explored the ways in which an idea or a product will languish, until suddenly it doesn’t — ultimately becoming a “social contagion” that spreads rapidly, like contagions of disease.

The Tipping Point itself was something like that. At Gladwell’s first book event, two people showed up, a stranger and the mother of a friend. But after a while, the book “tipped” and went on to spend years on the New York Times bestseller list. At one point Bill Clinton called it “that book everyone has been talking about.”

Six other books and a podcast later, Gladwell is back to revisit the tipping point from a darker place. While The Tipping Point talks about how we can leverage the principles of social contagions to achieve a social good, Revenge of the Tipping Point posits that in this pursuit, there can be unintended negative consequences. We can tip over into something worse. Gladwell’s latest book is a cautionary tale that will appeal mainly to fans of The Tipping Point. As an author,he is something of an acquired taste. People seem to either love him or to doze off before the end of the last chapter. Let’s just say his books require an attention span.

Gladwell began his career as a journalist: first for The Washington Post, then The New Yorker. He still writes as a journalist, weaving together his own interviews and news accounts to tell stories in his own conversational voice and then to link seemingly unrelated events in the service of his own ideas. Along the way, he offers “rules” he invents to describe his views of how the world works.

Revenge of the Tipping Point follows that formula, from the quirky Gladwellian rules to the whiplash-inducing pivots between seemingly unrelated stories.

Take, for example, Gladwell’s treatment of “Poplar Grove,” a pseudonym for an affluent, homogeneous community that experienced a cluster of teen suicides (a focus of the 2024 book Life Under Pressure by Anna Mueller and Seth Abrutyn). Gladwell took his own tour of the town, finding a real estate agent who took him around and explained the dynamics of the family-oriented community. Then he linked the town’s tragedies to … a fertility crisis among cheetahs.

In this bewildering journey, readers are suddenly thrust from the leafy suburbs of domesticity to a veterinary clinic where scientists are grafting skin samples from domestic cats onto captive cheetahs, trying to figure out why breeding programs fail so spectacularly.

And then, before we even have time to get attached to our new cheetah friends, boom — we’re back in Poplar Grove.

And so it goes, while Gladwell gradually reveals the point he is trying to make, which is that in a monoculture — “a world of uniformity” — there are “no internal defenses against an outside threat.” In the case of both a “perfect” homogeneous community and cheetahs with little genetic diversity, “The best solution to a monoculture epidemic is to break up the monoculture,” Gladwell writes.

Gladwell then takes us to a community in Palo Alto, where a planned development on what was called the Lawrence Tract was supposed to solve the problem of “white flight” from American cities.

That community was developed with the stipulation that one-third of the homes be owned by whites, one-third by Blacks and one-third by Asians, in order to prevent “tipping” in the neighborhood — one ethnic group taking over the neighborhood. The word “tipping” had begun to be used in this way as neighborhoods changed by ethnicity.

“For a time in the late 1950s and early 1960s, if you used the phrase, people knew exactly what you meant,” Gladwell writes. Real estate agents would talk about “tipping a building” or “tipping a neighborhood.” They were demonstrating, as Gladwell maintains, that “tipping points can be deliberately engineered” — especially once you venture beyond “the magic third.” (Which is another Gladwellian rule.)

“People, it is clear, behave very differently in a group above some mysterious point of critical mass than they do in a group just a little below that point,” he writes. And people who know this sometimes act to manipulate the tipping in ways that aren’t in a community’s — or a country’s — best interests.

For the New England reader, there is plenty of regional interest in this book. For instance, in Gladwell’s discussion of what is known as “small-area variation” — bewildering differences in outcomes among otherwise similar areas — he examines research that took place in Middlebury, Vermont, and Randoph, New Hampshire.

Despite both towns having almost identical sociological profiles when it came to insurance, income and levels of chronic illness, there were notable differences in hospitalizations, surgery and Medicare spending, with much higher numbers in Randolph. Similarly, when looking at two Vermont towns — Waterbury and Stowe — the same pattern emerged. “The people were the same — except, that is, that the children of Waterbury tended to keep their tonsils and the children of Stowe did not.”

Gladwell also ventures into Massachusetts with his examination of why Harvard University has a rugby team — when hardly anyone goes to see the games, and the players have to be recruited outside of the U.S. — and, later, the infamous Biogen conference in Boston in February 2020 that turned into a superspreading Covid-19 event.

It is the opioid crisis, however, that Gladwell begins and ends with. He uses the saga of OxyContin and the Sackler family to argue that epidemics, both medical and social, have rules and boundaries but it is human beings who create the stories around them and it is human beings who are ultimately responsible for where epidemics go. “It’s time for a hard conversation about epidemics…. We need to be honest about all the subtle and sometimes hidden ways we try to manipulate them,” he writes.

Gladwell has said that for the 25th anniversary of The Tipping Point, he’d intended to simply update or “refresh” the original book, but decided to do the harder work of taking it into another place. That paid off for the established Gladwell fan, but it’s unclear whether he will win new ones with this complex and meandering collection of stories. B

Year: 2024

Mayor of Tender Town — 10/24/2024

Hey, Ho, Let’s Go!

For grown-up ghouls

The Music Roundup 24/10/24

Woman of the Hour (R)

Revenge of the Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell

Stay in the loop!

Get FREE weekly briefs on local food, music,

arts, and more across southern New Hampshire!