Author: Michael Witthaus

The Music Roundup 26/06/11

• Blue adieu: Celebrating a 60-plus-year career, Judy Collins is on her final Sweet Judy Blue Eyes tour, the name a nod to the breakup song that Stephen Stills wrote for her (his title itself a double pun). Collins is a legendary singer whose string of hits commenced with her cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and includes “Send in the Clowns” and “Since You Asked.” Thursday, June 11, 7:30 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord, $61.50 and up at ccanh.com.

• Bass man: Anyone who’s intent on eating all the yogurt in a container will get the title of Aaron Bilodeau’s new record Lid Licker. The Milford-based experimental bass player, who weaves live effects, vocal tracks and other groovy sounds into his sets, will mark the LP’s release at a Seacoast listening room. If the teaser song “The Passenger” is any indication, it’s good one. Friday, June 12, 7 p.m., Button Factory Stage, 909 Islington St., Portsmouth, $10, portsmouthnhtickets.com.

• All there: A pair of local favorites share the stage as the Faith Ann Band and J3ST perform. Now a trio, female-fronted TFAB is a raucous live act, with songs like the punchy “Say Less” and the slightly sinister love ode “Route 2” raising the energy. J3ST is an organ-forward band, with Tom Robinson playing a vintage Hammond, with guitarist Scott Solsky and Jared Steer on drums. Friday, June 12, 9 p.m., Penuche’s Ale House, 16 Bicentennial Square, Concord, thefaithannband.com.

• Dead ringers: Over the years, the unique tribute act Bearly Dead has been joined by everyone from Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers to Jerry Garcia’s Wolf guitar, which BD’s Nick Swift once played on Garcia’s birthday. The band does Dead songs and honors each member individually, while also performing songs from prominent artists like Talking Heads and Phish. Saturday, June 13, 7:30 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $40, palacetheatre.org.

• Engines roar: It’s Bike Week in the Lakes Region, and active rock stalwarts Leaving Eden are always a mainstay at the annual gathering. Their performances over the week — they’re there every day — include a couple by their alter ego Silver Springs, an excellent Fleetwood Mac tribute band. Lead singer Eve Gynan does a great job as Stevie Nicks, along with belting out powerful hard rock. Sunday, June 14, 8 p.m., Hawg’s Pen Café, 114 Route 11, Farmington, leavingeden.com.

Serious play

Learn art in downtown Manchester

For anyone who’s wanted to draw or paint but didn’t know where to begin, or lapsed artists looking for a new start, Art House Studios School for Drawing and Painting, located in a well-lit second-floor space next to the Palace Theatre on Hanover Street in Manchester, will fill the bill.

Run by an artist, Plymouth State professor and Currier Museum teacher, it offers classes in drawing, painting, abstraction, portraiture, and mixed-media assemblage, along with open studio sessions and figure drawing. Prices start at $35 for a workshop, materials included.

Jason Bagatta grew up a half hour away from New York City, later attending the Fashion Institute of Technology there. “But I didn’t study fashion,” he said while sitting at a table in the spacious studio, surrounded by easels, paint and other art supplies, along with a chop saw in a corner of the room.

Bagatta came to Manchester when an academic job called, and he’s been here ever since. He started Art House when the nearby college where he taught was bought by another institution. “That particular administration wasn’t doing it justice,” he said. Seeing a gap, he decided to fill it.

Bagatta’s teaching philosophy is built on three words. “A way in,” he said. “This is how we can start, then it’s up to you how you interpret it. I’m not looking for a cookie-cutter, copy-me. I show you a technique and you interpret it for yourself, and that allows people to bring their own personality.”

While in graduate school, Bagatta read Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why by social anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake, and found the idea that changed how he thinks about his work. “Art-making is biological, and it’s a response to existing,” he recalled. “It is the act of making things special.”

The insight cut through the over-intellectualizing that he saw surrounding art education and replaced it with a simpler and more inclusive point of view. Dissanayake’s definition, he believes, opens up art’s possibilities. “Anything can be artfully done,” he said, tracing a line back to monastic culture. “A certain amount of integrity can be put into sweeping a floor.”

This philosophy also shaped how he thought about his students. A creative background, he realized, can range “from how you decorate your living space, to how you make a bed or a sandwich, how you garden … and then to more traditional drawing and painting and sculpture and poetry.”

Those attending classes span an equally wide range of ages and experience.

“I get the child prodigy, the 12-year-old who is way over-accomplishing and needs a creative outlet aside from academics,” Bagatta said. “But mostly it’s adult learners, people in their 30s, married people, a lot of people who have retired. The range is 14 to people in their 90s.”

What motivates them isn’t commercial aims, although artists looking to sell their works are referred to the nearby Mosaic Art Collective — who soon won’t be a next-door neighbor. On June 13, Mosaic will move from its second-floor space to a street level storefront at 410 Chestnut St., joined by longtime co-tenant See Saw Art.

Frequently, students are driven by a need to anchor a newfound urge to create, whether to fill in something that’s missing or return to an abandoned muse. Having a deadline, it turns out, matters. “For people who like to make stuff but won’t do it unless they come to a structured situation,” Bagatta said. “They need a time and a place designated for that.”

Among Bagatta’s favorite experiences at Art House is working with a New Americans ESL group, where the language barrier turned out not to matter. “It’s a visual interaction,” he said. “I can show them what I want them to do as well as explain it, and they can do it because they could see me doing it. The visual language transcends the verbal.”

In mid-June, Art House Studios will host a three-day art intensive for students ages 13 to 17. It’s a minicamp, with three four-hour sessions on consecutive days, 12 hours in all. Both drawing and painting will be covered in a collaborative framework, guided by an interactive discussion on day one. “I want to see what these kids want,” Bagatta said.

His academic approach, Bagatta continued, never loses sight of what he calls “serious play.” That the classroom can feed and inspire him as much as it does his students is something he’s sheepishly pleased to admit.

“Someone’s always doing something I wouldn’t have thought of,” he said with the hint of a guilty smile. “I’m open to receive as much as possible.”

Art House Studios School for Drawing and Painting
Where: 66 Hanover St., Suite 202, Manchester
More: arthousestudios.org

Featured photo: Jason Bagatta. Photo by Michael Witthaus

Stripped down

Jon Pousette-Dart plays intimate Rex show

As he walked into Quadrafonic Sound Studio to begin his band’s first album in 1972, Jon Pousette-Dart heard the strains of another session. Curious, he looked in to find Dobie Gray finishing up his classic single “Drift Away,” with a stunning group of players behind him.

Awestruck, Pousette-Dart made a mental promise in that moment to someday record with them himself.

Four decades and change later, it happened. His solo album Talk gathered together guitarist Reggie Young, who plucked the delicate chords on Gray’s song, Kenny Malone on percussion, bass player Glen Worf, and Clayton Ivey on keyboards. “All these original Muscle Shoals guys,” Pousette-Dart recalled by phone recently. “It’s got a really nice feel.”

With a roots-fueled remake of his band’s late-’70s radio hit “Amnesia” and “Invisible,” a lively rocker co-written with John Oates, Talk is also his best solo album. “The Story of My Life,” a Nathan Meckel/Blue Miller ballad that deserves to be a wedding dance standard, is another of the disc’s gems.

Alas, it’s the 21st century, where great records are born and disappear on the regular. As much as he enjoyed making Talk, Pousette-Dart wishes more people had heard the album when it came out 11 years ago. But industry economics got in the way, along with a streaming algorithm that punishes long players.

“I put a lot of work into it, and it was just typical with the way things are … it just sailed by,” he lamented. “Because the whole delivery system of records has really changed, you know?” He’s not surprised; after all, he named his 2002 album Sample This as a dare to the music business when it began to implode.

“There was an awful lot of stuff going on [at the time] that was kind of turning my stomach, so I made light of it,” he said.

So he’s adapted, releasing new music song by song. His most recent single is 2024’s “Cry No More,” with its virtual flip side, the NRBQ nugget “Only You.” His next one, “Gone,” is due soon. “It’s about the universal loss that so many people are going through right now in the world,” Pousette-Dart said.

“Gone” will have a music video, something he’s done since a film made with “Who I Am” went viral. That song, written with Dawn Young (Pousette-Dart’s wife) and singer/songwriter Jaime Kyle, addressed Young’s mother’s journey through Alzheimer’s. “That’s been in film festivals all over the world,” he said. “Because it just hits home to so many people.”

One thing he hasn’t grown weary of or cynical about is performing live. In its heyday, his eponymous band was a touring force, and since its dissolution in the 1980s Pousette-Dart has continued to play the songs that inhabited Boston radio and points beyond, like “Harder,” “What Can I Say” and “There’s Been a Mistake.”

At an upcoming show in Manchester he’ll be joined by longtime accompanist Jim Chapdelaine, who has an interesting backstory of his own. A true multi-hyphenate, Chapdelaine is an Emmy-winning composer and a producer. He’s worked with Paula Cole and Delbert McClinton, and mastered projects for Clarence Clemons with Bruce Springsteen.

They met at the Harvard Coop record store in Cambridge when both were starting out; Chapdelaine worked there, and Pousette-Dart had a deal with the store’s record buyer to trade in his used albums for new ones (side note: absolutely no one called them “vinyls” back then).

“He started a band called Mr. Right and got signed to Epic, so we were bouncing around at the same time,” Pousette-Dart recalled. “We reconnected many years later when he was playing with a friend of mine at a function. I really liked him, so I asked if he wanted to come out with the band … that’s how it started.”

Twenty-five years on, they have an easy rapport as they glide through Pousette-Dart’s catalog in a format that delights them both.

“You’re taking the songs back to where they begin … it always starts with an intimate, voice guitar setting, and that’s when you really know you have a song or you don’t,” Pousette-Dart said. “You can’t produce something into being a good song … it’s got to have it from the heart and soul.”

Jon Pousette-Dart Duo
When: Friday, June 5, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $40, palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 26/06/04

• Summer songs: A season of weekend music kicks off with Katie Dobbins, an inspirational singer-songwriter who also organizes the Hermit Woods Winery regional showcases. The summer series at a family farm’s outdoor beer garden welcomes solo acts like Amanda McCarthy (June 11), Dan Fallon (June 18), and Dakota Smart (June 26) Thursday through Sunday all month. Thursday, June 4, at 5:30 p.m., Beans & Greens Farm, 245 Intervale Road, Gilford, beansandgreensfarm.com.

• Metallic KO: For those who like their sounds on the heavier side, Martial Law tops a five-band underground metal bill. The Nashua-based groove metal band, fronted by bullhorn belter Brandon Benson, released the aggressively-minded EP A Means to Control a few years back. Rounding out the relentless night of rock are Art of Aggression, Overtime Fightcore, Fallen Monarch and Vauli. Friday, June 5, at 7 p.m., Jewel Music Venue, 61 Canal St., Manchester, $15, ticketleap.com.

• Musical kings: One of the area’s better-known Elvis impersonators stretches out for the Legends Tribute, an evening of country-leaning music from Johnny Cash, George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison and Neil Diamond along with the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. Robert Black is a Rhode Island-based singer who also possesses Presley’s distinctive Comeback Show sideburns. Saturday, June 6, at 6 p.m., Fulchino Vineyard, 187 Pine Hill Road, Hollis, $29, fulchinovineyard.com.

• Get psyched: Sounds from the galactic zone take the spotlight at Souls of Psychedelic Rock. Four local bands perform, including The Whole Loaf, Vales End, The Cherry Fog and Lee & Dr. G. The latter is guitarist Lee Durham teaming up with Louisiana-born Brandon Gauthier, who fell in love with a 100-watt Fender amp as a teenager and has kept it turned up since. Saturday, June 6, 7 p.m., Terminus Underground, 134 Haines St., Nashua, $15, newhampshireunderground.org.

Hands on

NH Maker Fest celebrates creativity

A 3D printer hums a colorful plate into existence; handmade hula hoops and a DJ spin in tandem while hands get messy on a nearby pottery wheel. Those are just a few things planned for NH Maker Fest, the New Hampshire Children’s Museum’s annual gathering of builders, tinkerers and creators in downtown Dover.

Launched as the Dover Mini Maker Faire in 2012, the event is packed with engaging activities and is constantly evolving.

“It’s such a hard pitch to make,” Neve Cole, the museum’s communications director, said recently when asked to describe the upcoming fest. “Every year it’s such a different group of people.”

This time around, more than 35 makers from across the region, representing a dizzying range of disciplines, are on hand. There’s ceramics and coding, escape room design and entomology, bubble choreography, along with 501st New England Garrison cosplayers roaming about in handmade Star Wars regalia.

Among the fresh additions this year is Mud City Clay, with pottery wheel demonstrations and hand-building sessions.

“We haven’t had clay in a while,” Cole said. “That’s going to be super fun.” 3D printing company Flamingo Magic is also new to the fest, selling reusable plates that visitors can watch being printed on the spot.

A hula hoop dance party will also be interesting. “Three like-minded individuals got together,” Cole said — sponsor Unravel NH, as part of its Petals + People gardening activity, DJ Avery Sol playing house music, and spinning creations from SMart Circles that are so much cooler than the mass-manufactured Wham-O toys of yesteryear.

A scientist will bring his collection of elements to the festival and walk visitors through the properties of actual physical samples, some radioactive, some mundane, all fascinating. Young authors will be on hand as well, who’ve written books or created arts and crafts to sell and teach.

Another intriguing new entry is a husband-and-wife team in the middle of developing an escape room, allowing festival-goers a fun peek behind the curtain of a creative project mid-construction.

“They’re bringing some of their props and the puzzles that they’ve created that will eventually be part of their escape room,” Cole said.

Longtime attendees may remember the foam party, but this year the museum is pivoting to a bubble dance party instead. It’s still interactive, still delightfully chaotic, but with a slightly different texture. “It won’t be quite as foamy,” Cole said, with the conviction of someone who’s possibly thought through the foam-versus-bubbles paradigm.

Cole has been with the Children’s Museum for close to a decade, and part of each Maker Fest is in her tenure. When Covid happened, the events were done online, and the pandemic experience provided clarity for moving forward. The museum now runs structured morning and afternoon play sessions, separated by a midday break.

Before the shift, Cole recalled, popular exhibits were sometimes five families deep on busy days, with no room to explore. Now, everyone has space.

“We wanted to make sure people had their best experience … plus it’s good for staff morale to have a break in the middle of the day, reset the museum, and start fresh again.”

The museum is growing, with a major addition due this fall. A 40-foot Luckey Climber, the same kind of dramatic net structure as the one located in the lobby of Boston’s Children’s Museum, will open in October. The project cost $750,000, all raised by the museum, and includes LED-lit platforms integrated into the safety netting.

Cole offered a caveat for prospective visitors: Maker Fest is a different kind of day at the museum. Some exhibits will be open, but the galleries won’t be running at full capacity. The event has more of a block party energy than a typical museum visit — louder, more crowded, organized around doing rather than observing.

There are also extras like multiple food trucks for an event that happens both inside and outside. “So if you’re looking for a regular day of playing in a museum, this might not be the best one,” Cole said. “But it’s also really fun, and you’ll get a lot of unique experiences.”

NH Maker Fest
When: Saturday, June 6, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Where: Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, 6 Washington St., Dover
Tickets: $5, childrens-museum.org

Featured photo: NH Maker Fest. Courtesy photo.

Coming home

Nashville story has a New Hampshire ending

Amanda McCarthy is back in New Hampshire, after living and working in Nashville for the past several years. The singer-songwriter is still following her dream of music success, but she’s returning with a clearer sense of purpose, along with something she found harder to hold onto in Music City: joy.

“I’ve just been very disenchanted by Nashville,” she said by phone recently, while packing up her husband’s and daughter’s things and readying for final shows there in mid-May. After a Kentucky date on the return drive, her first Granite State gig is May 27 at Fratello’s Italian Grille in Manchester.

McCarthy said she began thinking about coming home after a harrowing moment about three years into her stay in the city. A tornado tore through her neighborhood, leveling nearly every building around her. Miraculously, her apartment was barely touched. However, she was shaken.

A 17-year-old boy was pulled from a unit that McCarthy originally was scheduled to occupy herself. That fact haunted her.

“I kind of had an existential crisis,” she recalled. “I just started thinking … music is fun, but what really matters? When I’m 80, what do I want to matter to me?”

Along with missing the ocean and the mountains, she desired the freedom to be herself and stop worrying about industry expectations. Another factor was her daughter, now in grade school. “Tennessee education is going downhill,” she said. “Opening that door allowed me to be honest with myself about myself as well.”

Still, McCarthy is clear-eyed about Nashville’s upside. Her second album, Looking for the Light, is evidence of that. The sophomore effort is a confident, layered collection of songs that swings from Nashville-flavored rockers to personal and confessional songs.

A through line from her debut LP Road Trip is both clear, and deliberate. The first record was about escaping challenges in her home town. Life ultimately worked out in Nashville, but she realized, “I can’t go back to New Hampshire until I can tackle the things I ran away from up there.”

The move, McCarthy concedes almost grudgingly, was a success. She credits the city with sharpening her craft in ways that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else.

“Even the bad parts really helped me,” she said. The relentless pace of Nashville’s live circuit, with longer sets, fewer breaks and lower pay, built a stamina she now takes for granted.

“Now, when I go home and I do a three-hour show with breaks, it’s really easy,” she explained. “I’ve always compared singing longer gigs to running. You don’t run 3 miles overnight. You start with a half mile and work your way up.”

After Fratello’s, she’s at Washington General Store for its music series May 28, and Exeter Brewing on May 30.

Her craft also evolved. Collaborating with a bevy of talented songwriters, she absorbed new techniques — sometimes at the expense of her own voice.

“At one point, I was writing with other people so much, I almost forgot to write by myself,” she said. “So I took a step back … to get back in touch with that part of me.”

When she’s back home, McCarthy is eager to rediscover something Nashville’s music economy had slowly drained out of her performing life — the simple pleasure of making people happy. She’s also eager to leave behind the Nashville norm of demanding twenty bucks to play a song request.

“At home I would just take everyone’s request and they’d probably tip me $20 or more anyway,” she said. “It really took out the joy of performing. I love making money from music, but I want it to be natural, not forced.” She didn’t comment on whether her policy applied to playing “Free Bird” or “Mustang Sally.”

Regarding whether Nashville was worth it, and if she accomplished what she set out to do, McCarthy offered an answer that reflected the work she’s done on herself.

“A lot of my obsession around trying to be famous… was from wanting to prove people wrong,” she said. “Through a mix of therapy and reassessing … it’s like none of that matters.”

What does matter, she concluded, “is what I’ve accomplished.” McCarthy is returning to where she began having bought a home with money she made as a musician. Beyond that, she’s written songs that hold up, that are true to who she is. “I do feel like I should be proud of myself for that.”

Amanda McCarthy
When: Thursday, May 28, 6 p.m.
Where: Washington General Store, 29 Main St., Washington
More: Full show schedule, including a June 3 gig at Homestead Restaurant in Merrimack, at amandamccarthy.com

Featured photo: Amanda McCarthy. Photo credit: Phil Silverberg

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