Author: Michael Witthaus

Northlands Fest includes Twiddle farewell

This year the Northlands Music & Arts Festival’s two main stages offer established acts like The String Cheese Incident, Mike Gordon of Phish, Twiddle and Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, along with a few interesting side projects.

One is Goose spinoff Oreolo; another is Super Sonic Shorties, an all-female supergroup with Nikki Glaspie and Kanika Moore (who perform separately with Nth Power and Doom Flamingo respectively), Katty Rodriguez and Marcie Chapa of Beyoncé, Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio), Ella Feingold (Silk Sonic) and Amy Bellamy (G. Love).

A campground stage kicking off Thursday night is sold out, but area fans can see two of the acts next month, as Funky Dawgz appear July 1 at Jimmy’s Jazz in Portsmouth, and Bella’s Bartok play Exeter’s Word Barn the same day.

One big piece of news surrounding the festival is Twiddle’s plans for a touring hiatus at the end of the year. The Vermont jam stalwarts will do two Friday night sets. On Saturday their singer and guitarist Mihali plays solo, with surprise guests.

Mihali spoke with The Hippo in a recent phone interview (edited for length).

What does it mean to you that 2023 will be the end of touring?

It’s just a break mainly for reflection, for me to do some other stuff musically. It doesn’t really feel too much different … maybe some people look at it as like a closing of the first chapter, but I’m looking forward to the future, and the future of Twiddle when we decide to come back as well.

How does your solo music differ from what you’ve done with Twiddle, and where do you see that going?

The instrumentation and the type of players are different. I’m a lot more focused on the song rather than the jam with this next project, which is something I’ve been passionate about over the last few years.

The Distance Makes the Heart Tour is named after a track from Twiddle’s last album. Does its name reflect the song’s emotions?

There wasn’t too much of a direct correlation … I think I just liked the fact that we had the song out and we’re going to be taking a little distance. I think for me it was a little bit of a metaphor. I think I speak for a lot of people in our organization that a bit of a break is necessary right now. All we’ve been doing is Twiddle for 20 years, and I think it’s only natural to want a break, and, you know, distance makes the heart grow fonder.

When you started Twiddle, did you have ambition or were you surprised by how it took off and became so big?

When you’re in it you don’t really realize that’s what’s happening. To me, it just felt like growth, and it just felt like it would always just continue to grow. It wasn’t like now we’re hitting our stride or we’re blowing up. It felt like a natural progression … honestly, I didn’t pay too much attention to how fast we were moving. It’s just all we knew…. So it just kind of just felt normal for us, I guess.

And then one day you and moe. were selling out Red Rocks.

Red Rocks was a huge goal I had set early on for myself as a performer. So getting there was really a blessing. It’s always a blessing to play that stage. I don’t think that’s anything I’ll ever take for granted.

What are some of the other things that stand out for you?

Looking back over 18 years as a band, I mean, there’s been so much, it’s hard to tell. All the Lockn’s were great and every amazing opportunity we’ve had has been a memory we will all hold forever. It’s hard to nail down a few because there’s been so many beautiful musical moments. It’s been quite a journey. I look forward to what the future brings too. We’ve got a lot more to offer people; it’s certainly not the end.

How did this decision happen? Were you all just sitting around saying, wow, I’m tired, it’s time to take a break?

It’s just the natural way of things. I think that it’s only natural to have change in your life. Change is good for growth, and reflection. I personally just felt that that was necessary.

One of my favorite moments on Every Last Leaf was the jam with John Popper. What was that experience like being in the studio?

John’s great. He’s a buddy of ours. We’ve done a few shows with him over the years. I’ve sat in with Blues Traveler and opened for them a couple of times as well. John’s an incredible musician and such a great presence to be around always, but that was all recorded during the pandemic, so everything was done remotely. We weren’t actually in the studio with him when he cut his parts.

Is there anything that didn’t happen, any bucket list items that are still in the bucket?

No, just new music and more shows, hopefully some growth, it’s all you can ever ask for. We’re really blessed with such a great fan base and such a beautiful community around us. So, you know, just continue to move forward, healthy and happy. That’s all I can really ask for.

Anything I haven’t asked about that you’d like fans to know?

No, just come join us. Have a great time. I’ve got a lot of great friends playing with me at Northlands. Make sure you check that set out. I got a lot of fun stuff to bring for you. We have a lot of good shows left this year. We hope everybody comes out and checks them out. We’re playing really well.

Northlands Music & Arts Festival
When: Thursday, June 15, through Saturday, June 17 (camping pass required for Thursday music)
Where: Cheshire Fairgrounds, 247 Monadnock Hwy., Swanzey
Tickets: $25 to $299 at theticketing.co; lineup at northlandslive.com

Featured photo: Twiddle. Courtesy photo.

Dan Crohn’s comedy craft

On his 1977 live album Let’s Get Small, Steve Martin riffs about the wonders of the world, and ends by quipping, “the most amazing thing to me is I get paid for doing this.” It’s a thought that echoes during a conversation with Dan Crohn. One reason is he credits Martin for inspiring him to become a comic, but the other is that to Crohn standup isn’t just a job. It’s a way to hang out with like-minded friends and do what he loves.

That said, Crohn is a workaholic. If he’s not on stage, he’s home in Somerville writing jokes. During a recent phone interview, it’s Tuesday night and he’s booked to do 10 minutes at Boston’s Bell in Hand. Lately he’s spent a lot of time testing material at Modern Pastry, an 80-year-old North End Italian bakery. “I always feel like if I’m not doing new stuff, what’s the point?” he said. “My jokes get old, and I get tired of them.”

Crohn did his first set in 2004 — he still has the tape. Ten years later he quit a job teaching fourth-graders to go full-time. Now he regularly headlines throughout New England and often beyond, at places like Gotham Comedy Club in New York City. In August he’ll do two nights at Helium in St. Louis, and he’s performing on a Caribbean cruise ship in late December.

As a child Crohn was a comedy nerd, encouraged by his parents. Shows like In Living Color and SNL were appointment television. His father owned a record store that provided albums and VHS tapes; he remembers hearing Henny Youngman on the family turntable at a tender age.

“My parents would go in their room and listen to Redd Foxx with the door closed.” Crohn recalled. Though less adult, his own comedy fare was captivating in its own way. “I was listening to standup very early, and got obsessed with it almost immediately.”

A year or two after turning pro, he made his own album, It’s Enough Already. In May he recorded a second, to be released later this year on Virtual Comedy Network, a label that in 2019 included him on Best of Boston Standup, Vol. 1. His clip, “I Think About Death a Lot,” discussed true crime shows that keep him paranoid and always noting the time, lest he get called as a witness. My whole life “is preparing for police questioning that’s never gonna happen,” Crohn said.

He’s had the opportunity to work with many great comics and compare notes with them, like his favorite comic, Dave Attel, who he shared the stage with at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre. “The highlight of my career,” he said. “We talked forever about it, which was really nice.”

Crohn spent a couple of years supporting Sebastian Maniscalco, and he has also opened for Nikki Glaser, John Oliver, and Jon Lovitz. In 2013 he was a panel guest on a Boston-centric episode of Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast. Another great memory is a long conversation with Steven Wright at the prestigious Nantucket Comedy Festival.

“Writing is my favorite part of this,” he said. “My second is getting to work with incredible acts.”

For Crohn, the discipline of standup is part of its appeal. “A great comic, Nick Di Paolo, once said, ‘Oh, you’re funny off the cuff, well, that’s why you become a comedian — now go write some jokes.’ I believe that it’s a lot harder to write jokes and entertain people. When you’re just making stuff up, that’s improv. If you wanna do improv, go for it.”

To that end, he didn’t share the antipathy many comics had toward online shows during the pandemic. “I love Zoom,” he said. “I approached it as a way to workshop jokes, with cards and my notes out. I refused to let that muscle atrophy.”

On the other hand, crowd work — the comic’s euphemism for bantering with an audience — holds little appeal for Crohn.

“I hate it! I like writing,” he said. “The craft of standup, the editing and the refinement of material, is what I’m addicted to the most. I love how jokes work, and I love how my jokes work specifically. I love the creative process. It’s what drew me to it originally, and it’s what continues to sustain me in a business that shouldn’t be called a business.”

All the while, the words of his wild and crazy comedy idol ring in his ears. “I continue to be enamored about it to this day,” Crohn said. “I still can’t believe that people give me money.”

Dan Crohn
When: Saturday, June 10, 8 p.m.
Where: Headliners Comedy Club, 700 Elm St., Manchester
Tickets: $20 at headlinersnh.com
Also supporting Mike Koutrobis on Friday, June 9, 8 p.m. at Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry ($22 at tupelohall.com)

Featured photo: Dan Crohn. Courtesy photo.

A multi-band, mid-week show

Helping to shake the walls at an upcoming weeknight show from Georgia metal stalwarts Dead Reckoning will be a sizable contingent of Granite State acts. Female-fronted metal band Sepsiss, raw power trio Abel Blood and hard rockers Edgewize all hail from New Hampshire. Deathcore quartet Mark of Wrath comes from close by; they’re based in Rhode Island.

Finally, there’s Dust Prophet, a Manchester four-piece that formed in the months before the pandemic and polished its sound through lockdown. In January they released a debut album, One Last Look Upon the Sky, that’s a master class in stoner rock, the gloomy metal-limned sound forged by Black Sabbath and later refined by bands like Kyuss and Electric Wizard.

Guitarist Otto Kinzel and Sarah Wappler, who plays bass and keys, came together around a love of heavy riffs. The two were previously in an industrial-rock band called Fiends of a New Republic; they wanted to try something different.

“I didn’t have a passion to get back into using a lot of electronics,” Kinzel explained in a recent phone interview. “I just wanted it to be guitar-bass-drums, more stripped down and straightforward … just focusing on being heavy.”

In bringing their shared influences together, “It was Sarah who heavily drove that train,” Kinzel said. “She wrote a huge amount of the riffs that are on the album. She really deserves to be credited. We’re all listed as songwriters because we collaborated on the songs and melded them all together, but she was nine times out of ten the one bringing the riffs to the table.”

With Wappler churning out one heavy chord after another, and Kinzel penning lyrics worthy of slasher films, finding a drummer turned out to be their biggest challenge.

“It was like a Saturday Night Live skit in some parts, I mean, it was just unbelievable,” Kinzel recalled. “Some of the people that answered the ad that would come to audition and have zero preparation.”

Finally a fellow guitarist pointed them to drummer Tyler MacPherson, and the group was complete, mostly. Jason Doyle, a longtime friend of Kinzel’s, had mixed and mastered Dust Prophet in the studio. When the group finally began playing out, Kinzel decided he wanted to concentrate on singing, so he recruited Doyle to play guitar at their early shows.

“I was singing and playing at the same time, and I was at 50 percent … not great at either one,” Kinzel said. “Jason already knew all the songs because he did all the postproduction on them, and he’s also a great guitar player. He played a couple of dates with us and immediately went from being a live guitar player to a full-fledged member of the band.”

Adding Doyle shifted their sound. “We’re still very much a doom metal band, but there’s a bit more of a progressive element,” Kinzel observed. “I’m working in more live audio samples for interludes, more synth. In the studio, we overdubbed tons of secondary drums … congas and other hand percussion instruments are layered in and out. With me not playing guitar live, it frees me up to do that, to incorporate some of that live.”

Beyond that, the plan is to go back in the studio and document their new musical direction. “Artistically, we want to keep moving forward, and we’ve already started recording material for the next album,” Kinzel said. “We’re going to do an EP with a couple of cuts from the first album reimagined, and then maybe one or two brand new songs…. Our goal is to level up with each release.”

Kinzel is keen to do a hometown show.

“This is the first time we’ve played Manchester in 2023,” he said. “We’re always jumping at the opportunity because we get a pretty good turnout. It’s one of the few times our friends and family can come to shows because it’s a relatively local event. We know several of the other bands. We’ve played with Abel Blood before, we’ve played with Sepsiss before. We’ll see some friends and just go hang out.”

Dead Army Takeover Tour
When: Tuesday, June 6, 7 p.m.
Where: Jewel Music Venue, 61 Canal St., Manchester
Tickets: $15 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Dust Prophet. Courtesy photo.