Author: Michael Witthaus

Falmouth’s Crooked Coast hits Manchester

On its latest EP, Glass House, Crooked Coast turns in a heavier direction. Songs like “Hell in a Handbasket” and the title cut are as edgy and gray-limned as 2017’s reggae romp “Go Slow” was buoyant and bright. Some of the shift came with urging from producer Courtney Ballard (Good Charlotte, All Time Low), but much of it reflected the challenge of making music in a pandemic.

“There was so much uncertainty; it was just a crazy time to be in the studio writing with everything going on,” guitarist, singer and lyricist Luke Vose said by phone from his home in Falmouth, Mass. “It wasn’t a conscious decision. We just kind of followed the sound that was exciting us.”

Vose, along with co-guitar player and vocalist John McNamara, bassist Ben Elder and drummer Shaqed Druyan, worked hard to maintain the momentum of a band that had sold out their first hometown CoastFest in 2019 and had big plans for the following year before it was cut short. They played a series of shows in fans’ yards on a flatbed truck, and on the water for a Fourth of July concert, which was filmed for a documentary.

“Your limits were your imagination, because nothing traditional was happening,” Vose said. “So it was like, what can we do that’s totally out of left field? That was something we came up with, and it was super fun. We didn’t announce it or anything, we just popped up there for anyone who was in the area, in kayaks or on the shore.”

As with many independent bands, the music is only the beginning with Crooked Coast; branding and building buzz are vital, and their job. Uniquely, they also run their own retail store, an effort born of necessity when Vose needed to convert a second bedroom he used as a merch warehouse into a nursery. Fortuitously, a rental car agency had vacated the floor below their rehearsal space, and the price was right.

The shop has become a community hub.

“When we’re in town on the weekends, we open it up, we do special events, art shows; we did a book signing,” Vose said. It’s also a tourist attraction. “We have people come from out of town to visit the Cape, and now it’s like a part of their trip.”

On his own, Vose boosts the regional scene by writing about it in a column for the Falmouth Enterprise called “Listening Local.” When he took it over in the mid-2010s, Vose wasn’t a journalist.

“It definitely was a learning curve, but I wound up really enjoying it,” he said. “I really liked hearing other musicians’ stories, and every time I talked to someone I got a new perspective on something in life.”

Crooked Coast is expanding Glass House into a long-player they hope to release later this year. A single will drop in May.

“We’re doing what we can to line up business-wise and get the best splash the album can make,” Vose said, noting that the harder mood continues on it, “but there’s some more poppy stuff, and our bass player actually sings lead on a song that he wrote, which is awesome.”

If plans play out, the new record will coincide with Crooked Coast’s Memorial Day set at Boston Calling, where they’ll share the stage with Metallica, Weezer, Glass Animals and several other acts. In August they’ll appear at the three-day Beach Road Weekend festival on Martha’s Vineyard. The event includes national headliners like Wilco, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, The Avett Brothers, Guster, Dawes — and one that Vose is particularly excited about.

“I grew up a big fan of Beck, so that’s a little surreal … me as a young kid would have been very impressed to hear some day you’re going to play on the same stage as him,” he said. “We’ve been working on the Vineyard for quite some years now, building a following. To see our name on that poster is pretty awesome.”

Crooked Coast
When: Friday, May 6, at 9 p.m.
Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester
Tickets: $10 at the door;crookedcoast.com

Featured photo: Crooked Coast. Courtesy photo.

Friends and fans gather to help injured Tupelo employee

Just before dawn on April 8, Mark Shamaly was struck by a hit-and-run driver on the Everett Turnpike in Merrimack. He sustained multiple injuries, including head trauma, a fractured pelvis and ribs, and chest cavity damage. He’d stopped to help a motorist who’d been in an accident, something that surprised no one who knew Shamaly.

The director of security at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, Shamaly is a familiar friendly figure to patrons of the venue. Owner Scott Hayward and his crew, along with Mike Smith, who books comedy there, quickly came up with a plan to help — a benefit show to raise enough money for him to have at least six months without worrying about his bills.

“It’s one of those situations where you could see how an employee has affected everybody around them,” Hayward said by phone on April 20. He noted that most of the $50 tickets have been sold, and a GoFundMe page launched by Shamaly’s wife had raised nearly $30,000. “Everybody was just really struck by this, so there’s been a huge wave of support.”

Smith was hosting a Tupelo show when he got the news, and immediately wanted to do something for him.

“Mark is such a great guy,” he said. “He loves the comedy shows and loves the comedians.”

The comics love him as well; Hayward said Smith placed eight quick phone calls and received affirmative responses from everyone.

The Laugh-A-Palooza benefit will be held on Sunday, May 1. Comics performing include Francis Birch, Jason Merrill, Matt Barry, Kyle Crawford, Kennedy Richard, Joe Yannetty, Chris Pennie and Steve Bjork.

“You’ll never see this many comedians on one show,” Hayward wrote, adding that a few special guests may also stop by.

Many of the comics got on board out of fondness for the Tupelo community, even if they weren’t close with Shamaly. Steven Bjork has worked there since its days in Londonderry.

“I jumped at the chance,” he said by phone. “Though I didn’t necessarily know all the circumstances, I knew somebody at the Tupelo needed some help.”

Matt Barry was effusive in his praise.

“Tupelo is one of my favorite places to perform, [and] in comedy you don’t always know what you’re walking into,” he said in a text exchange. “To be on a stage that’s so high-tech, with all the lights and the curtains, is a real trip. It makes me feel like Axl Rose (in a good way).”

The Manchester comic was also grateful to Tupelo for being one of the first venues in the country to do outdoor shows when the pandemic hit.

“They were looking out for performers in a time when not a lot of places were … when a venue that’s taken such good care of me over the years asked for a favor, ‘Yes’ was the obvious answer,” Barry wrote.

Birch said via text, “It feels good to make people laugh supporting an amazing cause. Tupelo and Mark have always been good to me, set me up for success. This feels like an appropriate way to do my part.”

Photographer Jerry LoFaro said of Shamaly in a post on the Tupelo Music Hall Community Facebook page, “I know when I walk in the door he’ll greet me with a big hug and a smile. We always convene and pal around a few times throughout a show, and he’s usually my photographer when I get the chance to pose with a visiting artist. It’s no surprise that he would put himself in harm’s way to help someone in need, but what a cruel price to pay.”

The Laugh-A-Palooza event will be livestreamed to Shamaly in his hospital room. For those unable to attend, or if tickets sell out, donations can be made via a special $25 ticket link on the Tupelo Music Hall page.

Laugh-A-Palooza – A Benefit for Mark Shamaly
When: Sunday, May 1, 6 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $50 at tuplelohall.com
Donations can be made at gofundme.com/f/pefyfw-hit-and-run-please-help.

Featured photo: Mark Shamaly. Courtesy photo.

‘American Pie’ marks 50 years with Don McLean show

As Don McLean began a phone interview in advance of a performance marking 50 years since “American Pie” debuted, Dolly Parton had just asked the Rock and Hall of Fame to withdraw her nomination. The songwriter who’d cataloged the saints of rock in his iconic song was pressed for his thoughts.

“I will take any award that is given to me; I don’t have the kind of character it would take to turn [them] down,” McLean answered with a wry chuckle, adding that early on, “a certain religious quality, fostered by Rolling Stone, made for a very good Hall of Fame … but now they’ve run out of people. How many times can Paul McCartney get in?”

When “American Pie” hit the airwaves in 1971, it caused a sensation unlike any song that came before. Scholars analyzed it and fans obsessively pored over each line for hidden meaning. McLean gave listeners plenty to sift through, but said his epic tune began like any other, with him alone in a writing room.

Near the same time, The Beatles were working their way through “Let It Be,” but he didn’t have the luxury of tossing around ideas with bandmates.

“In my situation it’s all me,” he said. “My brain, my heart, my memory and my thoughts … I know exactly what I want to do. It’s very hard for me to work with people.”

In the studio, that became a problem.

“It was rehearsed for weeks,” he said. “The boys that did the record now brag about it, but they couldn’t play it to save their ass.”

Only Paul Griffin’s rousing gospel piano was able to transform it into the song he’d heard in his head while toiling at home.

The first line he came up with was “a long, long time ago” — to describe an event barely 10 years on. The rest followed quickly.

“I had a melodic concept, then I got a rock ’n’ roll chorus, then I figured out all I had to do was speed up the slow part and write the rest of the song,” he said.

He had fun burying multiple meanings in the lyrics. It’s one of the reasons he laughs at anyone trying to divine his intent.

“The problem people encounter with this song is that it goes along seeming like it’s rational, then it will reach a metaphor or a symbol of some sort that’s two or three things at the same time,” McLean said. He may be talking about John Lennon, or Vladimir Lenin. As to the identity of the jester, king and queen, “I could have said Elvis instead of James Dean. I say he lost his thorny crown, but only Christ had a thorny crown.”

McLean’s musical achievements extend beyond creating one of the 20th century’s most lauded songs. “Vincent” is a classic, a deep cut that leapt into the charts on the strength of “American Pie.” A cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying” as the ’80s dawned was also a hit.

Finally, McLean may be the only musician whose strength as a song craftsman inspired someone else to pen a hit about him. Lori Lieberman began writing “Killing Me Softly with His Song” after seeing McLean in concert.

He continues to make music, and his upcoming show will range across dozens of albums and hundreds of songs. McLean also has a new long-player coming called American Boys.

“I wrote some songs with my guitar player, and I wrote a bunch of songs by myself,” he said. “So that’s a brand-new album.”

The upcoming disc follows up 2018’s Botanical Gardens; he’ll also draw from 2009’s Addicted to Black in Laconia.

He’s aware many fans will be impatient for him to play favorites but said, “I treat every song with respect; I don’t trot it out like, ‘Oh, here’s the famous one.’ There’s no difference in my attitude toward ‘American Pie’ or something from a lesser-known record.”

“I explain stuff to people and talk about whatever occurs as I’m going along,” he said. “I have this weird ability to be able to sing a song like ‘Vincent’ and be completely immersed in it. At the same time I’m thinking about what I’m going to say next after I’m through, and then what two or three songs I’m going to play [later] in my mind at the same time … I’m giving it my undivided attention. … I’ve been doing this my whole life.”

Don McLean
When: Sunday, April 24, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia
Tickets: $40 to $99 at coloniallaconia.com

Featured photo: Don McLean. Photo Credit 2911 Media