Author: Michael Witthaus

Restoration resources

Old House & Barn Expo returns

The Old House & Barn Expo at Saint Anselm College on March 14 and March 15 might at first glance seem like any trade show. There are more than 50 exhibitors, selling everything from wall stencils and paint to rugs and cabinets. Services for homeowners to help bring historic buildings into the modern age while preserving their history are also on offer.

Upon closer inspection, though, it’s much, much more. There are hands-on activities such as plaster repair, and one-on-one sessions with house doctors. An 18- by 18-foot timber frame structure will be built during the event, with ongoing hourly talks about its repair, assembly and disassembly.

There are lectures, 25 in all, held in the nearby Dana Center, that include topics both practical and inspirational, like “Mural Talk: When Walls Take Us Back in Time,” given by Lisa Curry of Canvasworks Design. More pragmatic is Justin Paynter of ReVision Energy talking about integrating solar power and heat pumps into old homes.

The biennial show is the creation of the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, a 41-year-old nonprofit that is focused on the rescue and revival of important landmarks, and supporting old home and barn enthusiasts in similar efforts. The show, they believe, is the largest of its kind in New England. It was launched 20 years ago; this is the eleventh expo.

“The Preservation Alliance loves this opportunity to get people together,” the organization’s president, Jennifer Goodman, who also helped launch the expo, said by phone recently. “We’re excited that there are a lot of new topics, exhibitors and presenters, in addition to longtime favorites.”

Other hour-long sessions focus on building a modern kitchen into an old house, understanding character-defining features of a dwelling before starting work, and sustainability in historic preservation. A session called “House Histories” is a guide to researching the evolution of an old structure.

There are two panel discussions on the final day, “Celebrating Semiquincentennial Farms: Stewardship and Legacy,” led by former New Hampshire Agriculture, Markets & Food Commissioner Steve Taylor, and “Details Make the Difference,” with a panel that includes a representative from the League of NH Craftsmen.

Speaking of details, there’s a session on architectural millwork led by specialist Brett Hull. “It helps you date a house … so people understand the history,” Goodman said. “What the evolution over time looked like, the different eras and architectural styles, how it was made and used.”

The expo is a multi-generational event.

“It attracts young people looking for their first house as well as older people who might want to find solutions for aging in place,” she said. They’ll find answers to questions about energy efficiency, how to lower operating costs, even paint color and garden design.

There will be experts available to help people figure out how to program new uses into old spaces, build an addition to an older property, or how to use new technology to help with old house care — though old tech isn’t left out. An “Artistry in Iron” session focuses on the history and reuse of antique stoves.

The expo happens every other year and alternates with the Alliance’s statewide historic preservation conference, Goodman said. “That’s more geared toward community leaders who are saving old farms and reviving their local meeting house or trying to find a new use for an old church.”

Goodman has been with the organization for more than two decades. When asked what drew her to it, she replied, “I love the people and places involved in the preservation movement, so it’s been exciting and fulfilling to get to work with people and work on projects that are really special to the character and economy of the state.”

The work is vital, she continued: “I really believe in historic preservation as a tool to save and revive beautiful homes, beautiful barns, beautiful places and communities around the state. I really believe in how the tool is a really important factor in resource conservation and keeping communities vital economically.”

Old House & Barn Expo
When: Saturday, March 14, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 15, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Where: Sullivan Ice Arena, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Saint Anselm College, Manchester
Tickets: Weekend pass $20 ($12 for students, seniors and veterans); day pass $12 ($7 for students, seniors and veterans)

Featured photo: NH House & Barn Expo. Credit Steve Booth.

Concord comedy

Three standups bring the funny to Barley House

There are laughs aplenty this weekend at a Concord restaurant/bar, as the Headliners franchise brings three comics to its downstairs function room: Jody Sloane, Dave Decker and Mystaru. Comedy shows are a bimonthly staple these days at The Barley House, across from the Statehouse on North Main Street.

Sloane’s entry into comedy began when she enlisted in the Coast Guard mistakenly believing it had amphibious vehicles. Upon discharge, she got a job as a Duck Tour driver in Boston. Tourists loved her humorous banter, and urged her to try standup. Though her first set was wrecked by a few of her Southie pals who were drunk, it’s been a great run since.

Decker is a 17-year veteran of the New England comedy scene and also performs in New York City clubs. He’s known for bringing “a distinct point of view to the stage in a way that both engages and charms audiences” and is a Headliners regular.

Mystaru is the performing name of Hampton comic Shawn Ruiz. It started as his rap name — he did that for a decade or so starting in the early 1990s. He’s also an actor who’s appeared on the true crime series Fatal Family Feuds a dozen times and is cast for a similar upcoming show on Oxygen TV called Accident, Suicide or Murder?

Comedy is a newer development for Mystaru — though he always wanted to do it.

“I wasn’t going to try to be a rapper in my forties, so I needed a way to get back on stage,” he said by phone recently. “I figured I’d start writing.” So he enrolled in Tony V’s 24-week standup comedy course at Boston’s Laugh University.

The school boasts that it can get a five-minute set from almost anyone, but Tony V kept it real in the classroom.

“You can come here every day for the rest of your life, but I can’t make you funny,” Mystaru recalled him saying. “I can make you write better jokes and teach you what you’re supposed to do on stage, but once you’re up there it’s up to you.”

An initial class of 165 winnowed down to three still doing comedy three years later, among them Mystaru. Since then his success has grown to include a couple of appearances at Jim McCue’s Boston Comedy Festival, where both times he was chosen from more than 700 comic hopefuls.

He admires comics like Brian Regan and Jim Gaffigan. Like both, he works clean, and quite well. There’s a TikTok reel of him entertaining a church audience that’s worth checking out. The skill makes him a good Headliners fit, where shows can happen just about anywhere there’s a stage, in front of widely varied audiences.

That includes campgrounds. Mystaru remembers the first time he performed at one, a year or two ago. His good friend and fellow comic Matt Barry was there to watch.

“He went and got a beer because he’s like, ‘This is gonna be a spectacle,’” he recalled. “He was 100 percent right.”

He performed on a pavilion to 50 mostly empty chairs.

“For about 12 people under 16 whose parents just made them get out of the pool or off the beach,” he said. “The parents all sat along the outside, drinking in their golf carts. So I’m performing to 48 empty seats and a bunch of 12-year-olds that want to go back in the pool.”

The experience was among those that made him stop fearing playing to large audiences.

“You’re thinking that you don’t want to bomb in front of a big crowd, then as you get better you realize it’s really tough to do good in front of a small crowd,” he said. “When I can get 15 or 20 people to laugh in an 80-seat room, that’s the test.”

Comedy With Jody Sloane, Dave Decker and Mystaru
When: Saturday, March 7, at 7 p.m.
Where: The Barley House, 132 N. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $20 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Mystaru. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 26/03/05

• Roots player: Paul Driscoll, an alt folk and country singer/guitarist who’s played out in the region for more than a decade. He mixes originals with covers from artists like Tom Waits, the Steeldrivers and Colter Wall. Check out his spare cover of John Hartford’s “Gentle On My Mind,” a late ’60s hit for Glen Campbell — it’s a gem, and it’s up on his YouTube page. Thursday, March 5, at 5 p.m., The Local, 15 E. Main St., Warner, nhmusiccollective.com.

• Irish import: Mark the arrival St. Patrick’s Day season with music from Téada, a traditional band from Sligo, Ireland, celebrating 25 years together in 2026. The six-person group has toured the world, performing treasures like “Ríl Liadroma / The Green Cockade / The Mourne Mountains” and “March at Kilmore.” Their take on the timeless “Patriot Game” is a standout. Friday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m., Dana Center, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester, $29.50 and up, anselm.edu.

• Local lights: A four-band show leans into punk, garage rock and power pop with Fun City Fan Club atop the bill. The raucous quartet released a delightful debut LP last year, Yuck, recorded at Rocking Horse Studio with Josh Kimball, who’s also their drummer. They’re joined by Cozy Throne, a Patti Smith-channeling band that would have fit in at CBGB in the mid-’70s, Cape Crush and Donaher. Saturday, March 7, at 8 p.m., Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester, $15 at the door, 21+.

• Bach rock: With her pioneering trio Take3, violinist Lindsay Deutsch was way ahead of Bridgerton turning pop hits like Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” into string quartet renditions. Deutsch is joined by former Take3 piano player Jason Stoll for a show that takes works from “rock stars of yesteryear” like Bach and Beethoven and lines them up with music by modern performers. Saturday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m., Concord City Auditorium, 2 Prince St., Concord, $24, eventbrite.com.

• Piano man: At an intimate afternoon show in BNH Stage’s upstairs lounge, Andrew North will perform selections from Strider, a piano-forward “headphone album.” The lively calypso-flavored opener “Build a Fort” sets a mood removed from North’s jammy band The Rangers. The album, he writes, “occupies a quieter space, closer to a desk lamp than a spotlight,” that’s ideal for focused listening. Sunday, March 8, 4 p.m., The Cantin Room, 16 S. Main St., Concord, $20, ccanh.com.

Flower power

‘Bloom’ pairs art and floral arrangements

A four-day event at Manchester’s Currier Museum of Art pairs paintings and sculptures with floral arrangements done by members of the New Hampshire Federation of Garden Clubs. “Bloom – A Floral Palette” also offers hands-on artmaking and tours led by floral designers. It culminates with a catered party and awards ceremony.

“Bloom” is something that NHFGC has long wanted to do, Winnie Schmidt, the organization’s President, noted recently.

“Many of us have attended this type of an event in places like the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and right now there’s one going on in Worcester, Mass., at their art gallery,” she said in a phone interview. “We’ve seen them all over, and for years we’ve wanted to bring it here.”

Arrangers include winners of past events like the Philadelphia Art Show and the Rhode Island Flower Show, along with some who are in the milieu for the first time but just as passionate. “These are ladies who absolutely love to do floral design,” Schmidt said. “From Salem up to Littleton and Ashland.”

Floral designers are tasked with addressing the question of how art and arrangements work together, Schmidt continued. They should, she said, “complement, harmonize, showcase or unite with a piece of art or in the theme [and] demonstrate creativity, originality, use of bold color choices, textures and unexpected materials.”

Museums are a brave new world for NHFGC, which is part of a national group of garden clubs. “Most of us are digging-in-the-dirt garden clubs, but a good number of us are also interested in floral design,” she said. “It’s a mixture of both outdoor gardeners and floral designers, so it’s a very eclectic group.”

Floral designers picked works from the Currier collection on a first-come basis, a process that worked well, Schmidt said. “You have to remember this, we’re inventing this as it goes — none of us have done this before. So our mantra is, ‘We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re having a good time doing it.’”

Attendees at the Bloom Bash on the evening of Saturday, March 14, are encouraged to dress in their favorite floral fashions in an early celebration of spring. The event will offer light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar, capped by an awards ceremony in the Currier’s Winter Garden to celebrate the designers.

Currier Director and CEO Jordana Pomeroy will choose the arrangement that she feels best represents the intersection of design and art. A Committee Award will be chosen by Currier Board of Trustees member Bill Stelling; Sally Shea, who organized a similar effort called “Petals to Paint” for many years, and a dozen NHFGC presidents, including Schmidt.

Finally, there’s a People’s Choice Award.

“Everyone who attends will be able to vote for the arrangement that they feel best exemplifies the show,” Schmidt said. “All those things will be given out at the Bloom Bash on Saturday night, so it’ll be like a culmination — ‘We did it, let’s celebrate and party and have a good time.’”

That said, it will be a party that’s more about marking an achievement for everyone involved, rather than to pick winners.

“It’s not a floral design contest,” Schmidt said. “The National Garden Club has a handbook on floral design arrangement that is probably 1,000 pages thick. This is not what this is.”

More than anything, the hope is that the long weekend of commingling flowers and arts inspires another one, and another after that, she stressed.

“It’s our inaugural one, but the one that we were at in Connecticut last weekend was celebrating their 44th, and I hope someday we will be celebrating our 44th annual here in Manchester.”

Bloom – A Floral Palette
When: Thursday, March 12, through Sunday, March 15
Where: Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St., Manchester
Tickets: Weekend pass $50 adults, $20 members (does not include Bloom Bash on Saturday, March 14, 6 p.m., $50)

Daily admission $30 adults, $15 members, includes museum access, arrangement viewing, artmaking and tours.

Featured photo: “Cross By the Sea, Canada” by Georgia O’Keeffe one of the pieces floral designers will take inspiration from for “Bloom.” Images courtesy the Currier.

Big stage night

Pointless Culture performs local showcase

The upcoming “Locally Sourced” show at Concord’s BNH Stage is a two-band affair. Granite Staters Pointless Culture draw from a range of influences for a sound that’s equally raucous, angsty and melodic. From Billerica, Cosmic Triumph brings full-throttled abandon to their energetic original songs.

The two groups have a history of helping each other out, Pointless Culture band members said in a recent Zoom interview. “Anytime they have a big show going on down there, they always call us,” guitarist Harrison Fantasia said. “So we make sure to call them. They go good with us, like cheese and wine.”

“We’ve played with them quite a bit,” drummer Harrison Hinman agreed. “So it was kind of a no-brainer to ask them.”

Yes, the two share a first name.

It’s something they bonded over the day Hinman walked into an Upper Valley guitar shop to buy drumsticks a few years back. Fantasia, who worked there, was strumming a tune he wrote and asked Hinman to check it out.

“You didn’t even introduce yourself, right?” Hinman said to Fantasia in the interview, who nodded in assent. “Eventually, we did. He said, ‘My name’s Harrison,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, my name’s Harrison. How can I help you?’ We didn’t know what to say. We’re like, ‘Wow, two Harrisons.’ That took us as a surprise. He played the song, and I loved it.”

The two ended up practicing together after hours in the shop — until Fantasia quit. “I’m a carpenter,” he said. “I tried working at a guitar shop and I didn’t like it, but I met this guy through it.” Sadly, they wouldn’t connect again for another two years, when he asked Hinman to support him at a festival in Acworth.

The gig went very well, as did a few jams after. In 2022 the two decided to get serious.

“We’re like, ‘We gotta make a band; I can’t believe we let that slip for two years,’” Hinman recalled. “I’d thought he didn’t like me anymore, but it’s funny — we just realized that we’re both really bad at texting people back.”

Fantasia “begged” childhood friend Ben Schultz to be lead guitarist, but it took some time for their schedules to line up.

“I couldn’t practice because I was always working at like seven o’clock at night,” Schultz said. Eventually he got a first-shift job and was able to join the band.

Guitarist Nolan Cota had played with Hinman in a “couple of failed metal bands” and really wanted to join his new one.

“I could tell he was jealous of what I was doing, and I felt bad,” Hinman said, but the multi-instrumentalist was undeterred. “Nolan was like, ‘You guys need a bass player?’”

Their first single, “Severed Ties,” came at the end of 2022, followed by “Breakfast Song,” a quirky ode to morning meal proclivities that helped raise their profile. Both were on Can’t Stand the Rain, an EP released in December 2023. Preceded by a few singles, the debut LP Better Off Dead came last summer, including the song Fantasia played in the store that day.

It’s hard to pin down Pointless Culture’s music. The playful “Little House,” from the new album, is sweet and brims with innocence, while “Warning Signs” rocks harder and comes off a bit darker, with a grungy angst, and the new “Squirrel Food” is, Fantasia said, “written from the point of view of an acorn.” Yes, the band delights in being a moving target.

“One of the biggest compliments I get at the end of the shows is people can’t compare us to anybody, and they really like what we’re doing,” Fantasia said. “It’s like classic punk and rock, but then we play a little bit of bluegrass. We play a little bit of everything. We just want to see people out having fun … come have fun with us.”

Pointless Culture w/ Cosmic Triumph
When: Friday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m.
Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $18 at ccanh.com

Featured photo: Pointless Culture. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 26/02/26

• Blues power: Though Willie J. Laws will be there, the 16th Annual New England Winter Blues Festival favors singers over guitar slingers. John Németh tops the bill, joined by singing harmonica players Kevin Burt, Darrell Nulisch and Nick David, who created the event. Németh, wrote No Depression in 2022, “is one of the best soul singers in the business, with a floor-to-ceiling range.” Thursday, Feb. 26, 7 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $40, palacetheatre.org.

• Eighties glow: Hearken back to the days of MTV with Neon Wave totally covering The Cure, Duran Duran, The Fixx, and others. Their letter-perfect redo of Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” is a set highlight, and they also do a banging version of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” The band recently added singer Natalie Turgeon to the fold, but it’s not clear she’ll be at this show. Friday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m., Stumble Inn, 20 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, neonwaveband.com.

• Glimmer twins: With Keith Call as Mick Jagger, and Bernie Bollendorf doing Keith Richards, Classic Stones Live™ are, writes Dan Geringer of the Philadelphia Daily News, “the spitting image Rolling Stones tribute band.” Their secret weapon, he continued, is their ability to “demonstrate the dramatic difference between a cover band that plays the tunes and a tribute band that lives them.” Saturday, Feb. 28, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $44, tupelohall.com.

• Sunday grass: Brunch and bluegrass combine with The Bottom Dollars, a harmony-rich trio that includes ubiquitous fiddler Betsy Green (Hazel Project, The Green Sisters), Dave Shaw (Bear Bridge Band, Newfound Grass) on mandolin and banjo, and guitarist Tim FitzGerald. The group performs originals and revives many neglected but quite worthy songs from the bluegrass canon. Sunday, March 1, noon, Chapel + Main Brewing, 83 Main St., Dover, chapelandmain.com.

• Roots master: In the course of a nearly 50-year career, Keb’ Mo’ has won multiple Grammys, performed at the White House and Carnegie Hall, and collaborated with a who’s who of the music world, including Jackson Browne, The Chicks, Bonnie Raitt and Willie Nelson. The singer, guitarist and arranger even has acting skills, appearing on The West Wing and Sesame Street. Tuesday, March 3, 7:30 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, $68 and up, etix.com.

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