Author: Michael Witthaus

Three comedy shows celebrate New Year’s Eve

Most years Headliners Comedy Club is a many-headed monster on New Year’s Eve, with shows all over New England. 2020, however, is anything but normal. Maine has a 9 p.m. curfew, and performances are banned in Massachusetts. New Hampshire is still on, though it’s scaling back to three socially distanced affairs at different Chunky’s Cinema Pubs.

Only one event, in Manchester, includes a midnight countdown.

Amy Tee, among a trio of comics appearing in Pelham, is glad for a chance to perform.

“I’m gonna look at the glass half full,” she said in a recent phone interview, “just embrace it, be appreciative of the people that are coming out to celebrate New Year’s Eve, and put 2020 behind us. I’m looking forward.”

Comedy began as a bucket list item for Tee over a decade ago, “something I’d always wanted to do since watching Stand Up Spotlight on VH1,” and grew quickly from there. “That very first time on stage I felt it in my soul … that’s what I was supposed to be doing.”

Tee’s career has two parts; for the last 10 years, she’s been sober. Soon after quitting drinking, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She found the news liberating and wove it into her act.

“By diminishing the stigma of what mental health looks like, I had an opportunity to show people that it looks very different from what people think,” she said. “It was also cathartic. … I created a lot of damage in my earlier years [and] confessing and talking about it felt almost like amends.”

This calling extended beyond the stage, becoming a second career for Tee with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, where she works with dual diagnosis patients.

“I do motivational speaking on behalf of mental health and substance abuse,” she said. “So that was kind of the trajectory. It changed drastically, and actually gave it more passion and purpose.”

Her act is honest and revealing, yes — but also hilarious. Dressed in a tie and suit jacket, she begins most shows by poking fun at her androgynous appearance.

“You’re probably wondering what bathroom I’m gonna use,” she said. “It’ll be the one with the shortest line, I guarantee you that.”

She’ll riff on married life — and being openly gay in her act has never been a big issue for Tee.

“Though in the last four years, I’ve had this sinking feeling of things being mean,” she said. “I’m able to make people feel comfortable about gay people on stage because I joke about it in a stereotypical way. Also, me being married is not a lot different than other people being married. It just happens to be two women. We still have the same challenges.”

Although it’s unclear how long live performances will continue, Tee prefers even smaller crowds to the Zoom shows she did during lockdown. Ever the optimist, she managed to find a bright side to those.

“I had no commute, I was dressed from the waist up, and nobody knew if I was wearing a bra or not. … I almost enjoyed it sometimes,” she said.

Tee credits Headliners CEO Rob Steen for keeping the scene alive.

“With the challenges he’s had, he’s done a really good job … letting us perform, whether it’s been outside this summer, or now as we’ve moved into some of the indoor venues,” she said. “Comedy is my passion and where I get my joy — I need it for my mental health. So it’s been nice to still be able to perform amongst the challenges. The audiences that are coming out are appreciative, and they also need it for their mental health and a night out.”

Amy Tee, Jim Colliton, Jason Merrill
When: Thursday, Dec 31, 8 p.m.
Where: Chunky’s Cinema Pub, 150 Bridge St., Pelham
Tickets: $30 at chunkys.com
Also: Drew Dunn, Jody Sloane, Paul Landwehr at Chunky’s Manchester – 7 and 10 p.m. (w/ Dueling Pianos & Ball Drop)
Kyle Crawford, Matt Barry, Tim Mckeever at Chunky’s Nashua – 8 p.m.

Featured photo: Amy Tee. Courtesy photo.

Dan Blakeslee celebrates Christmas LP with show

It takes real Grinch-iness to resist the ebullient charms of Christmasland Jubilee, the new holiday album from Dan Blakeslee. From the Dixieland-themed opener “Mister Candy Cane” and its story of a “boogie woogie Santa Claus … bouncin’ on the keys, makin’ you believe” to his sincere reading of the disc-closing “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” it’s irresistible, one of the best in the genre to come out of New England.

Blakeslee celebrates the release with an afternoon outdoor show at Stone Church in Newmarket on Dec. 19, backed by his three-piece band and plenty of portable heaters. Senie Hunt will open.

A big reason the new record works so well is the way Blakeslee created it. In mid-December 2019, the Seacoast-born and -raised singer-songwriter decided he’d waited long enough to unleash his inner Bing Crosby — and he wanted to do it during the season. Dover producer Chris Chase offered him five hours of time at his Noise Floor studio in the days before Christmas, and the project was set in motion.

“I came in the studio, and I decorated the place like crazy,” Blakeslee said in a recent phone interview. “I feel it reflects in the audio somehow; I get inspired looking at the stuff, it just makes me happy. Then my band came in and we recorded … throughout the winter, while there was still snow on the ground.”

Backed by his longtime group The Calabash Club they produced an ebullient mix of classics and originals that dated back to when Blakeslee began making Christmas songs as presents for his family. One of the first was “We Three Kings” — his version takes the line about “westward leading” musically to heart, giving the song a gentle twang.

The musicianship is stellar; keyboard player Mike Effenberger is especially good, and the vintage rhythm team of bassist Nick Phaneuf and drummer Jim Rudolf is in the pocket throughout. A guest list including Soggy Po’ Boys horn players Chris and Eric Klaxton, New Hampshire pedal steel legend Bruce Derr and string players Tim Moore and Dave Talmadge — among others — provided stellar support.

“I love the guys in my band,” Blakeslee said. “I’ve seen them in so many different musical acts through the years and I’m still blown away whenever I see them play. And whenever I play with them, I feel like I’m in awe the whole time. … I can’t focus sometimes on playing the songs.”

Blakeslee’s timing in making the record was ideal in more ways than his good luck having a winter wonderland to work in.

“We had two things left to record when the pandemic came,” he said. Thus, Derr’s contribution was done in his home studio, and backing vocalists emailed their tracks. “We got most of it, though.”

Other standouts include the whimsical originals “To Be An Elf” and “The Somerville Lights” — the latter provides a nice counterpart to “Silver Bells,” which also appears. The rollicking “Reindeer Boogie” is a nugget Blakeslee unearthed from a Hank Snow Christmas album made in the 1960s.

“Over the past two years I’ve been obsessed with that song,” he said, noting that an alternate take was his template. “It has such grit to it. … I was literally playing it every single day throughout the holiday season.”

A bonus track, “Let’s Start Again” is one of the record’s most endearing. It’s an optimistic ode to better angels, and though it’s over a decade old it fits perfectly with the times.

“Awaken with hope and forgiveness, surprise us with news that is good,” Blakeslee sings. “Together let’s move towards a difference, whether you work in policy or wood.”

The song was born after a painful breakup found him wandering around Somerville on New Year’s Eve in 2009. He ended up at the Lizard Lounge, a Somerville music hub where Tim Gearan was appearing.

“Every time he takes the stage it’s like it’s New Year’s Eve. He just has this delivery on all his songs,” Blakeslee said of Gearan.

Blakeslee taped the New Year’s countdown on a recorder he carried in his pocket.

“It was the most moving thing,” he said. “Sometimes you can listen to a song for two minutes and have your outlook changed; that’s what happened at that show. Then I walked outside and this girl shouts out, ‘2010, let’s start again!’ It just kinda happened. She gave me a hug, and I wrote the song that night.”

Dan Blakeslee & the Calabash Club Christmas Show
When: Saturday, Dec. 19, 1 p.m.
Where: Stone Church, 5 Granite St., Newmarket
Tickets: $60/table of 4, $90/table of 6

Featured photo: Dan Blakeslee and personally bedazzled stockings done for his crowdfunders. Courtesy photo.

Will Hatch celebrates new EP with release show

While the making of Will Hatch’s first full-length album For You might be likened to a marathon, his new EP Downtown was more of a sprint. With extensive studio time and a long back and forth between Hatch and producer Immanuel the Liberator, he spent over two years finishing the 2018 disc.

This time around, it took just one day.

Will Hatch & Co. — the singer-songwriter, guitarist Taylor Pearson, mandolin player Brian Peasley and a rhythm section of drummer Eric Ober and bassist Jon Cheney — rolled into Cambridge’s Bridge Sound & Stage in mid-October and knocked out Downtown’s six songs with alacrity.

Financial necessity was one reason for the quick turnaround. Money for studio time came from a single summer show, as the pandemic battered the music business. More than that, the band was primed.

“We’ve been playing together for the past few years. … The lineup’s solidified, we’ve become a tighter unit,” Hatch said in a recent phone interview. “Plus, nobody’s playing a lot of gigs this year so we were just practicing over the summer.”

The approach that day — polish a track, do the take and move on to the next effort — worked perfectly and produced a spirited, capable effort.

“We just wanted to do everything live and reflect what this band sounds like,” Hatch said, “rather than getting into a whole, you know, big studio creation.”

The title cut, an upbeat country rocker about relationship breakdown, illustrates the group’s chemistry, while providing a template for the album, Hatch said.

“While my solo performances are more melancholic, the band thrives on raucous crowds and barroom antics,” he said. “Late-night Concord is a theme that runs throughout the tracks.”

Another high-energy highlight is a cover of “They’re Red Hot (Hot Tamales)” — perhaps the most rollicking song in blues legend Robert Johnson’s catalog. Hatch calls it one of his favorites on the new record.

“We’ve been playing it a long time and it’s not an easy one, so I was pretty proud that we pulled that off,” he said. “It’s a fun song with a lot of weird changes and I was happy we were able to do that.”

The EP’s other cover is “Waterbound,” a traditional folk song. The band also enjoyed laying down the last track of the day, “Beer Bottle Blues.”

“It has electric guitars on it, so it’s a little more rock,” he said. “I think we were all happy with how that one came out; it’s real clean and nice.”

The anchor of Downtown is the ballad “Kid From Holden” is based on a real tragedy, the 2015 drowning death of Plymouth State University student Jake Nawn. Hatch describes friends leaving books by Nawn’s favorite writers with notes inserted in them to try and lure him out of the woods, and the frantic desperation of his family as the search dragged on. It’s a spellbinding story song.

“How many times did I pass him? / I never will know,” sings Hatch of Nawn, an aspiring writer beloved by classmates. “A poet he lived and a poet he died, but the river just came and it went.”

Hatch spoke of his need to “keep retelling stories about local tragedies and keep them alive through folk music.”

A release show at Penuche’s Ale House will have a smaller, socially distanced crowd. With the recent spike in cases, it’s still scheduled to happen.

“I don’t want to jinx anything, because everything is getting canceled,” Hatch said. “We’re just happy to have the opportunity to play out , even if it’s a small crowd. It’s just still nice for us to keep playing.”

Will Hatch & Co.
When: Saturday, Dec. 12, 8 p.m.
Where: Penuche’s Ale House, 6 Pleasant St., Concord
More: willhatchmusic.com

Featured photo: Will Hatch & Co. Courtesy photo.