Americana band Raid the Larder performs
Raid the Larder perfectly illustrates the intersectionality of Concord’s music scene. At its core are Taylor Pearson and Brian Peasley, two friends who started playing punk rock together 10 years ago in high school. When Pearson introduced Peasley to the Grateful Dead and its all-acoustic cousin Old & In the Way, he picked up a mandolin and the two morphed into a younger version of Jerry Garcia and David Grisman.
They called themselves Hometown Eulogy. The moniker came from a song by Tristan Omand, a local rocker turned folkie who inspired their rustic turn.
“His albums seem to come to me in certain places in my life where I need it the most,” Peasley said in a recent phone interview. “Me and Taylor were really loving that first album of his. We’re like, ‘Hometown Eulogy just sounds like a badass name.’”
A couple of years ago Peasley heard Ryan Nicholson playing with a band called Oddfellows Way at a craft beer festival. Learning the guitarist also played banjo, he suggested an impromptu jam session; the two clicked immediately. Later he discovered that Nicholson would soon be moving to Concord.
Peasley connected with guitarist Mac Holmes after watching him play in Plymouth, where he lived.
“I was like, ‘This guy’s amazing — I need him. I wanted a full bluegrass band,” he said.
Holmes ended up traveling to Concord so frequently that he eventually relocated to the city.
“The bass player was the hard part,” Peasley said.
He knew Scott Heron and his wife, fiddler Betsey Green, from their time jamming with singer-songwriter Will Hatch.
“Will was starting to get a band together when he moved back up here from Virginia and he found Scott and Betsy.”
As the two grew occupied with their own project, Green Heron, Hatch cast about for new players.
“Me and Taylor were playing in a band called the Graniteers with our friend Nick Ferrero from high school. … We ended up playing shows with Will,” Peasley said.
He suggested a jam session with Hatch.
“Will’s like, ‘Oh yeah, that’d be fun,’ and it ended up being a Pizza Tapes kind of thing,” he said.
They became friends with Heron and Green in the process. So, when an upright bassist was needed, Heron agreed to join. Raid the Larder played its first show in December 2018, with Green guesting on fiddle. Travel to and from Kingston made it too much for the couple. Heron left, and Nicholson recruited Adam Martin, who’d just left Oddfellows Way to take his place. The band’s lineup now consists of Peasley on mandolin, guitarists Pearson and Holmes, Nicholson playing banjo and Martin on bass.
For now they’re all about playing together whenever they can, and haven’t made a record — yet.
“I want to get together and play these songs that I’ve been covering for years, but with a full band,” Peasley said. “We do everything from old Carter Family tunes to Modest Mouse to Jimmy Buffett. I would love to do a recording because we all bring originals from the different bands we’ve come from; it’s a big collaboration. I think Mac doesn’t care if we recorded or anything. He just wants to play.”
Peasley also hosts the weekly open mic at Penuche’s, where Raid the Larder will perform two days after Thanksgiving. He and Pearson also appear regularly at another Concord hub for local music, Area 23. They two co-led a weekly songwriters night a while back, inviting local performers over to play their originals.
Pearson and Peasley always join in, and the evenings often provide a full flavor of one of the state’s most burgeoning and enjoyable scenes.
“Me and Taylor, learning people’s songs,” Peasley said. “It’s just what we do.”
Raid the Larder
When: Saturday, Nov. 28, 8 p.m.
Where: Penuche’s Ale House, 16 Bicentennial Square, Concord
More: facebook.com/raidthelarder
Featured photo: Raid the Larder. Courtesy photo.
