Author: Michael Witthaus

The Music Roundup 24/10/10

Local music news & events

• Throwback girl: On her 1987 debut “Foolish Beat,” 16-year-old Debbie Gibson became the youngest artist to perform, produce and write a No. 1 single, a feat that likely will remain unmatched in today’s committee-run pop world. She marks the 35th anniversary of her chart-topping Electric Youth album by stripping it down for an acoustic tour stopping in Nashua. Thursday, Oct. 10, 7:30 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, $39 and up at etix.com.

• Nouveau chapeau: Few New England songwriters have the clever wordplay command of Jake McKelvie. Take two lines from “Eat Around the Pudding,” where he rhymes homeowner, combover and organ donor while still delivering a jaunty tune that’s either a breakup song or musical self-therapy. McKelvie performs at a favorite area venue to celebrate his latest record, A New Kind of Hat. Friday, Oct. 11, 7 p.m., Union Coffee House, 42 South St., Milford. Visit jakemckelvie.com.

• Hard rocking: With a new album just released, Texas Hippie Coalition — THC to their fans — are back on the road, with an upcoming Lakes Region date. Playing a hybrid of Southern rock they call “red dirt metal,” the quintet’s latest, Gunsmoke, owes a debt of gratitude to John Wayne, the band’s lead singer Big Dad Ritch said. Its lead single “Bones Jones” is a scorcher. Saturday, Oct. 12, 7 p.m., The Big House, 322 Lakeside Ave., Laconia, $25 at eventbrite.com.

• Dynamic duo: A pair of formidable folksingers share the stage. Patty Larkin and Lucy Kaplansky have recently been part of the On A Winter’s Night reunion tour with John Gorka and Cliff Eberhardt. For Larkin, it was a miracle comeback; in summer 2022 she tripped and fell during a family vacation and suffered a near-paralyzing spinal cord injury that forced her to re-learn the guitar. Saturday, Oct. 12, 7:30 p.m., BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord, $35.75 at ccanh.com.

• String power: With a mix of funk, rock and blues, Ana Popovic has a few famous fans. Bruce Springsteen called her “one helluva guitar player,” and she was the only female guitarist on the all-star Experience Hendrix tour that ran from 2014 to 2018. Popovic also has magnetic stage presence, and she can belt out a song as well. She appears with members of her Fantastafunk big band Sunday, Oct. 13, 7 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $39 at tupelomusichall.com.

Witch hysteria

Powerhouse performs The Crucible

For a play that is set in the late 17th century and debuted on Broadway in 1953, The Crucible remains timely.

Bryan Halperin, director of an upcoming production opening Oct. 11 at Laconia’s Colonial Theatre, explained The Crucible‘s enduring quality in a recent phone interview.

“It’s a meaty drama about the seedier elements of human nature, a gripping, exciting, dramatic play about power, greed and lust,” he said. “It’s got elements of all the deadly sins.”

Because it deals with the Salem Witch Trials, Arthur Miller’s Tony-winning work is frequently staged in October, but The Crucible is far from a Halloween show. Rather, it’s about power, and how even a small taste can affect those who do not have it.

Throughout, Miller blends the historical record and dramatic license, beginning with the basic fact of four women accused of witchcraft after they’re caught dancing in the woods. In prisoner’s dilemma fashion, they turn against each other.

Tituba, a slave, claims to be a victim of a curse cast by two members of the group. She’s egged on by the men investigating, and the ringleader, Abigail Williams, goes along with her story, hoping to cover up that the event was born from her lover’s jealousy.

Approval from the town fathers changes the dynamic “They’re afraid of going to hell for sinning, they’re literally almost scared to death,” Halperin said. “Suddenly it gets turned around to, ‘All we’ve got to do is say what they want us to say, and we won’t get in any trouble; we’ll be praised for it.’ That’s a very powerful drug.”

Miller drew on a 20th-century “witch hunt” when he wrote The Crucible: the Senate hearings held to root out communism led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Some versions of the play are explicit about this element and include a narration comparing the Puritan era to post-WWII America.

Halperin sees the parallels. “Watching how society can quickly break down in a fit of hysteria when people learn to use the system for their own gain, at the expense of their friends and neighbors,” he observed, is “gripping for 1692, and it’s equally gripping for 2024 — as it was in 1954.”

The Crucible is Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative’s first stage play after a year and a half of doing musicals. Leading the cast are Kenny Aber as John Proctor, Laura Iwaskiewicz as his wife Elizabeth, and Amanda Wagner as Abigail, an orphan and former servant who was sent away after she had an affair with John.

Wagner is a St. Louis-born actress who moved to New Hampshire after 10 years working in Los Angeles. She said in a recent phone interview that portraying Abigail has been a goal of hers since reading The Crucible in 10th grade.“She’s a very complex person,” she said. “She’s a villain, but also a victim of her circumstances.”

She offered a take on the question answered earlier by Halperin. “This play feels so timely because groupthink and saying the truth in the face of what the majority is saying even if it’s going to get you killed is a terrifying thing,” she said. “It is strange to me that that’s a lesson that some people don’t want their teenagers taught.”

As a relative newcomer to the region, Wagner enjoys the atmosphere at Powerhouse and she is particularly grateful for its founders, Halperin and his wife, Johanna.

“Everyone is so supportive of one another,” she said. “Some of the actors have to go into some dark places, but Bryan does a good job of keeping things light. I always leave rehearsal with a smile on my face and feeling exhilarated, albeit tired. I want to give props to the company for doing some incredibly professional-level work.”

The Crucible
When: Friday, Oct. 11, and Saturday, Oct. 12, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 13, 2 p.m.
Where: Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia
Tickets: $18 to $22 at etix.com

Featured image: Abigail Williams (Amanda Wagner) begs John Proctor (Kenny Aber) to give her a kind word. Courtesy photo.

Native son

Juston McKinney returns to the Palace

It’s a long-accepted truth that any New England comedian who hopes to make it needs to move, either to New York or Los Angeles. Juston McKinney went west as a young comic. However, when he and his future wife began house-shopping in 2006, the Portsmouth native got pulled back to his home.

“It was the real estate market’s peak, and a two-bedroom in L.A. cost $500,000, so we started looking east,” he recalled by phone recently. “We went to Barstow, California, and then a little further to Nevada…. We ended up in Newmarket, New Hampshire.”

The forced decision turned out to be fortuitous. Nearly two decades later McKinney is among a handful of regional comedians who rarely need to leave town, though he did recently appear in Florida and Minnesota. The comic has two shows coming up at the Palace Theatre on Oct. 5. McKinney likes coming back to the venue in Manchester; he’s filmed two specials there. He describes it as an opera house with an intimate club vibe. “Everyone’s right on top of you and it doesn’t go too high,” he said. “Just the acoustics and the layout … there’s no room I can think of that I like more, let’s put it that way.”

The key to McKinney’s success is twofold: he’s relatable, and he never performs the same show twice. The comic draws from his life for laughs, talking about the relative absurdities of being a father of two boys who are now teenagers, and the ongoing bewilderment of married life.

As the kids have grown, his jokes have evolved. These days he’s a soccer dad who complains about having to drive close to Canada to play a high school team who’s lifted the New England Patriots name and logo. “This far north, trademark law doesn’t apply,” he said on Instagram, adding later, “If Robert Kraft gets an anonymous email … it didn’t come from me.”

Before he started in comedy, McKinney was a deputy sheriff in rural Maine. He had a rough childhood; his mother died when he was young, and his father reacted by retreating into alcoholism. Gratefully, dad’s been sober for many years now, and his past is a source of humor for the comic. “I once got hit by a drunk driver,” he said. “I mean, my dad reached over from the driver’s seat and smacked me.”

Last May, McKinney appeared at TEDx Portsmouth, where he talked about his personal life. “I stepped out of my comfort zone and talked a little bit about my story and my background,” he said. One of his memories was about a show he did in Portsmouth at a restaurant on Islington Street that turned into a humbling night.

“It went pretty good,” he recalled. “Then my dad goes up. He’s got a long gray beard and a red shirt on, and he tries to grab the microphone from the headliner on stage. Two bouncers have to come and pull him off. The headliner just goes, ‘It looks like Santa went on a binge this year.’ It got a huge laugh, bigger than the one I got on stage.”

McKinney took a serious tone at the end of the interview to talk about the problem of sketchy websites selling marked up tickets to his shows. “It’s one of the things that it’s so annoying right now for performers,” he said, adding, “Always go to the venue site, so you pay face value. I’m not worth $100 a ticket… $32.50 and you’ll get your money’s worth. The next time you go see me, it’s gonna feel like you got a deal.”

Juston McKinney
When: Saturday, Oct. 5, at 5 and 8 p.m.
Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester
Tickets: $32.50 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Juston McKinney. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 24/10/03

Local music news & events

• Clean comic: Along with eschewing profanity, Brian Regan assiduously avoids politics in his act. He does, however, have one woke joke. Growing up, his parents often made Regan and his siblings vote on playtime activities. With four boys and two girls in the family, it was inherently undemocratic. “I didn’t like that, so I voted for dolls,” the enlightened comedian quipped. Thursday, Oct. 3, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $55 and up at tupelomusichall.com.

• Special nights: A unique string quartet version of Five For Fighting (nom de guerre of John Ondrasik) performs two area shows. The artist behind the song “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” says the configuration, which includes many Broadway musicians, lets him go behind the music, tell stories and dive deep into his catalog. Thursday, Oct. 3, 7:30 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, $49 and up at etix.com (also Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Laconia).

• Funky music: Still grooving over three decades on, Moon Boot Lover, led by guitarist-singer Peter Prince, return to a favorite area haunt for an evening of their signature Rock-ET Soul. It’s a blend of Otis Redding and Al Green’s vocal grit and honey, Jimi Hendrix’s pyrotechnics and the classic rock swagger of Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk, all served up in a soulful package. Friday, Oct. 4, 9 p.m., Penuche’s Ale House, 16 Bicentennial Square, Concord, peterprincemusic.com.

• Granite sounds: New Hampshire native Cosy Sheridan performs with her trio. Sheridan came up in the early ’90s folk boom, winning Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Song Award and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Troubadour Contest. Kate Redgate rounds out this 603 Music show. Saturday, Oct. 5, 7:30 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $29 at palacetheatre.org.

• Brewery bash: It’s the time of year when beers get darker, as Weare cover band Speed Trap plays an Oktoberfest party to mark the release of one seasonal offering. For those still holding onto warm weather, there will be IPAs and lagers for quaffing while listening to the lively quintet, whose set highlights include a Clapton-esque “I Shot the Sheriff” and other classic rock hits. Sunday, Oct. 6, at 3 p.m., Henniker Brewing, 129 Centerville Road, Henniker, hennikerbrewing.com.

Spellbinding

Mosaic Art Collective celebrates October

An upcoming exhibit at a downtown Manchester art gallery will be equal parts harvest moon and hocus pocus, if the early submissions are an indication. Mosaic Art Collective holds monthly themed shows. In September, “Full Circle: The Speed of Light” offered works like the eclipse-inspired “Four Minutes of Totality, Twelve Hours of Light” and “Evil Eyes,” a kinetic piece made of metal and stained glass.

Mosaic founder Liz Pieroni hopes this month’s “Spellbound” will evoke the magical and mystical.

“There are a lot of artists that specifically only make creepy, Halloween-y kind of work,” she said. “There’s definitely some very witchy portraiture, a lot of skulls … and a creepy moon landscape pastel by Susan Markham.”

Also contributing is Jackie Hansen, known for absurdist takes on the natural world like “McChicken,” an acrylic on canvas painting of a barnyard bird peeking out from a McDonald’s fries container. “She does almost traditional New Hampshire art, but it always has a little bit of a twist,” Pieroni said. “This one is a chicken riding a broom with a witch hat on.”

Artist submissions will be available for viewing beginning Oct. 7, with a reception set for the afternoon of Oct. 12. In the spirit of the season, a tarot card reader will be on hand to tell fortunes at the event. These Second Saturday gatherings happen every month and in the recent past have included live music and comedy.

As always, the different works on display at “Spellbound” can be purchased and picked up at the end of the month. Mosaic encourages ownership, with prices befitting an aspiring art collector. Helpfully, each piece has its own QR code that links to a web page for interested buyers.

“In some ways it makes it more accessible,” Pieroni said. “People don’t necessarily want to figure out who to approach and how to purchase something, but everyone has a phone on them…. If you’re introverted in any way, this makes it a little bit easier to stomach.”

On any given day, Mosaic is abuzz with activity. Seesaw Art Gallery has its own space in the back corner of the second floor space, and artists work in individual studios. One, Hannah Cole Dahar, makes whimsical works like custom portraits of local women in saintly poses. It’s truly a collective, exactly what Pieroni had in mind when she started it.

Since graduating in 2005, she missed the art school vibe. Opening Mosaic “was about finding my own art community,” she said. “We all have our own separate spaces, but when we come into the gallery, it kind of automatically creates this swirl of conversation, which is comforting … it’s not just a big white room with art on the wall, it has a nucleus feel.”

So far, it’s been a good year.

“We saw a little bit of a slowdown in June, but I think it was just that people were kind of busy and out enjoying the weather,” Pieroni said. “We ended up taking the summer off and just recharging our batteries. September so far has been really great. We’ve seen a good amount of sales and a lot of new artists that haven’t shown with us before, which is really exciting. In general, I’d say things are on the up and up.”

There’s hope that growth is on the horizon, she continued. “We’re building out our program still. We’ve had a few little setbacks as businesses do. I think right now we’re just trying to get all our ducks in a row and find some funding … then build out a couple of bigger programs that hopefully we’ll see early next year.”

These efforts include recruiting volunteers. “The program we’re hoping to put together is volunteering that is kind of educational at the same time,” Pieroni said. “You could learn how to hang a show and host events, stuff like that, then walk away with an understanding of how things function so that you can go and do something similar.”

Spellbound
When: Begins Monday, Oct. 7, with opening reception Saturday, Oct. 12, at 4 p.m.
Where: Mosaic Art Collective, 66 Hanover St., Suite 201 (second floor), Manchester
More: mosaicartcollective.com

Featured image: Mosaic Art Collective. Courtesy photo.

Troubadour

Peter Bradley Adams makes first New Hampshire appearance

In 1999, Robbie Robertson recognized the talents of Peter Bradley Adams and brought his band Eastmountainsouth into the studio to make a critically acclaimed album. Adams went solo a few years later and has produced a steady stream of stellar music since. In the pre-internet era he would headline summer sheds, but this is now and Adams is content to have a dedicated audience that fills up places like the Music Hall Lounge in Portsmouth, where he appears Oct. 2. It’s his first time performing in New Hampshire.

Adams has a storyteller’s knack for pulling listeners into his songs. The title track of his last full-length album A Face Like Mine is a hardscrabble portrait of generational regret, a Steinbeck novella sung like a James Taylor song. Miles Away, a four-song EP released in spring 2024, couples apocalyptic allegory on the title traack with the optimism of “When She Comes” — the latter has a lovely harmony from Ruth Moody of the Wailin’ Jennys and a haunting Mayuri Vasan outro.

One of the most appealing things about Adams is his voice, soothing and understated while also utterly engaging. Which is why it’s strange that he resisted using it for a long time, until the legendary leader of The Band nudged him. Born into a musical family, discovering his dad’s Beatles records at age 5 helped seal his fate as a musician. But at the time he met Robertson, Adams considered himself a composer, not a singer-songwriter.

“I was hiding a bit in the beginning behind Kat, the other half of the duo, and he was like, ‘Man, I really want you to sing more,’” Adams said recently from his home in Nashville. “I would get off the phone and be like, ‘f-ing Robbie Robertson just told you to do this, how can you not?’ I’m really grateful that he got what I was, could kind of hear what I was trying to reach…. We weren’t close friends or anything, but I do feel very connected to him because of that.”

Adams often goes it alone in the studio, building songs track by track, but lately he’s missing the spark of playing with other musicians.

“I realized that it was just killing me, that process, trying to construct something that felt like people in the room together,” he said. “Sometimes it works and a lot of times it doesn’t.”

He’s drawn to working with others. One example is the gorgeous “Rachel’s Song,” co-written and recorded with musician and director Haroula Rose for her film Once Upon a River. In that spirit, Adams reconnected with his longtime friend and collaborator Lex Price when he began to think about making a new album earlier this year.

“I’ve worked with him really longer than anyone…. He’s one of the reasons why I moved to Nashville,” he said. “We talked about it, and he said, ‘Let’s get an incredible band and go in the studio. And it’s not like it all has to happen live, but get as much as we can live so that all the elements are going down at the same time. I know this is how you’re supposed to make a record on some level. But it was just good for me to actually do it again.”

They went into Nashville’s Blackbird Studio, with Price on bass, Todd Lombardo playing acoustic guitar, electric guitarist Jed Hughes and Jerry Rowe on drums. “These are all the best guys in town, that straddle doing really interesting, creative, independent stuff,” Adams said, adding, “I’ve got almost a full record.”

As icing on the cake, Adams is heading out to his old hometown of Los Angeles to record Greg Leisz on steel guitar for one of the tracks. Leisz is a legend who’s worked with everyone from Joe Cocker to Sheryl Crow as well as Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. He’s also produced records by Jackson Browne, Greg Copeland and others. “For me he’s like a prophet,” Adams said. “I mean, he is just my favorite musician in the world … there’s just no one like him.”

World Music for Peace – The Meter Maids, Amorphous Band w/ Senie Hunt & EJ Ouellette, and Big Blue World
When: Friday, Sept. 20, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rockingham Ballroom, 22 Ash Swamp Road, Newmarket
Tickets: $20 at coastalsoundsnh.com (21+)

Senie Hunt Trio appears Thursday, Sept. 19, at 9 p.m. at Penuche’s Ale House in Concord, and Senie Hunt plays solo at the Concord Multicultural Festival in Keach Park on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 3 p.m.

Featured photo: Senie Hunt.Courtesy photo.Photo by Christine Torrey (Birch & Fern Photography)

Stay in the loop!

Get FREE weekly briefs on local food, music,

arts, and more across southern New Hampshire!