Category: Nightlife

The evolution of Slim Volume

Some of the most sophisticated and mature music in New England is coming from Slim Volume, a Manchester quartet that in four years has grown into a solid presence on the scene. Fans of lush harmonies, layered guitars and songs that suggest many influences but stand out as unique have a chance to see for themselves at an upcoming Pembroke City Limits show.

“Slim Volume is one of the most cohesive bands around,” Pembroke City Limits owner and regional music authority Rob Azevedo commented recently. “It’s as if the band members were all meshed together, sharing in melody and sound. Just a tight, tight band.”

Two EPs released over the course of 2024, Back To You and Big Plans, were both the result of Trent Larrabee and Jake DeSchuiteneer, who respectively play guitar and bass, coming to guitarist Mike Morgan and drummer Jonny Lawrence with mostly completed songs. Early this year, that began to change.

“We took a deliberate approach … to pull back on Jake and I bringing material into the band that’s already written and fleshed out, and we’re going to go toward just organic creation,” Trent said in a recent joint Zoom interview with Jake.

“It’s easier, especially when you have bandmates who are very eager to contribute something unique.”

Jake agreed. The old way, he said, “can deny the other members of the band a little bit of flexibility, and the ability to kind of put in some of their own creativity. Like if someone suggests in a bridge, ‘Hey, what if we went to this change instead?’ and I say, ‘Well, I’m kind of married to this thing that I’ve had since I wrote it.’”

Trent and Jake have a Lennon and McCartney thing going as a songwriting team — the first song they learned together was a Beatles song — but composing as a band lifted their overall sound to another level. Jake credits a big part of it to Mike’s contributions on guitar and the textured, atmospheric sounds that result.

“He’s a very prolific writer of guitar parts that lend themselves really quickly to becoming songs,” Jake said. “The kinds of things he writes tend to be of a different flavor than something Trent would come up with, or something I would come up with. It allows us to kind of run a little wild on it lyrically and melodically.”

This all happened as Trent switched from acoustic to electric guitar and Slim Volume started to move away from the folk rock sound of its early records.

“Electric is just different, it opens up so much more potential,” he said, especially with a second guitarist. “Mike and I are both very careful about overplaying … I think that comes through.”

One consequence of this new “all for one, one for all” approach is that the band is writing a lot of new music. Ten songs recorded from January to April should have been released but for what Trent termed “a series of setbacks with the mixing” that are now resolved. In the interim, they’ve written another ten.

The band’s name definitely doesn’t refer to the number of musicians that inform their sound. There’s a vast river of music packed into their songs. One of the best, “Talk It Over” came after Trent heard “a random boygenius” track Jake sent him, “and it blended with the Vance Joy that I was listening to at the time.”

Another, “Big Plans,” echoes a Beatles song, though not deliberately. “I didn’t instantly think of ‘Dear Prudence.’ Once we were recording it, I was like, ‘Oh, wait,’” Jake recalled. Heck, George Harrison cribbed “Something” from James Taylor, so it’s all good. “A lot of our primary influences are classic rock guys … it’s a pretty big stew between the four of us.”

The show in Suncook is the band’s last scheduled one for a while. They are booked at Concord’s BNH Stage next April. “That’ll be our first time there as a headlining band,” Trent said. “We opened for Modern Fools in January and Golden Oak from Maine the prior year. So we’re really excited for that.”

They also are looking forward to their third show at Pembroke City Limits. Trent encourages people to come out for it.

“If you haven’t seen Slim Volume in a while, this would be a great place,” he said. “You’ll hear a bunch of new stuff and hear how the songs have evolved.”

Slim Volume
When: Saturday, Dec. 13, at 7 p.m.
Where: Pembroke City Limits, 134 Main St., Suncook
More: slimvolume.band

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Acoustic duo Ryanhood performs Christmas show

The Word Barn in Exeter is presenting “12 Nights of Christmas” at Orchard Chapel in nearby Hampton Falls. The series kicked off Nov. 29 with Halley Neal and Sam Robbins. Upcoming shows include an Irish Christmas on Dec. 4 with John Doyle and Cathy Ryan, outlaw country band Juanita & the Hardliners on Dec. 6 and Harrison Goodell the next night.

Ahead of the two-night candlelight carol sing finale Dec. 20 and Dec. 21 are Cape Breton and Nova Scotia themed shows Dec. 11 and Dec. 12, guitar virtuoso Ben Garnett on Dec. 13, the Scottish Fish on Dec. 14, and Celtic favorites Lunasa on Dec. 14, playing an 8 p.m. show that was added after the early one sold out.

New England natives round things out. Vermonters Kat Wright and Brett Hughes, joined by Tyler Bolles and Will Seeders, appear Dec. 17, followed by New Hampshire fiddler Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki’s Trio’s Celtic themed show Dec. 18, and A Winter Solstice with Low Lily on Dec. 19.

There’s one more act amongst all this superb holiday talent. Ryanhood is a duo hailing from Tucson, Arizona, but Ryan Green and fellow singer/guitarist Cameron Hood, who perform A Winter’s Evening on Dec. 5, can credibly claim New England as their second home.

Green and Hood were high school rivals in the late ’90s, facing off in a few battles of the bands. After graduation, though, the two worked in the same music store and became good friends. Inspired by a Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds live album, they often jammed. “Acoustic songwriter meets lead guitar virtuoso,” Green called it in a recent phone interview.

While Green headed to Berklee in Boston and Hood attended University of Arizona, their collaboration continued. When Hood came to visit a couple of times, the two busked in T stations. After Green got his degree, he heard about a lucrative street performing gig at Faneuil Hall and invited his pal to audition for it with him.

Thus Ryanhood was born, a New England band.

“It was largely Cameron’s songs and songwriting, and myself as a lead guitarist, harmony vocalist, producer and arranger,” Green said. “I wasn’t really much of a writer in the beginning, and then as the years and decades went on, it became highly collaborative in all the elements.”

The duo went from earning solid tip money from tourists, along with an occasional CD sale, to touring the region’s college circuit.

“We’ve played Dartmouth, Saint Anselm, Franklin Pierce, Plymouth State, Keene State and Colby-Sawyer,” Green said. “We’ve also played Tupelo Music Hall.”

Ryanhood then took the spirit home, playing their first holiday shows at Tucson’s Club Congress. The efforts produced an original song one year, “What Is Christmas.” In 2017 they released On Christmas, containing seven originals, along with an acoustic “Sleigh Ride” and gems like Sixpence None The Richer singer Leigh Nash’s solo song “Christmas Falling.”

The events were fun — and elaborate.

“It was a hometown show, so we were able to do anything we could dream,” Green said. “We had easy chairs, trees on stage, a gift exchange, and toward the end a ding going off like an oven timer saying the cookies are ready. Servers came into the venue wearing chef hats, carrying trays, and everybody was getting cookies.”

The playful banter between Green and Hood affirms a bond seasoned over decades, both personal and musical. The duo just released Yes & No, its first LP since 2021’s Under The Leaves.

“It’s a bold, bright, harmony-saturated romp through the inescapable contradictions at the heart of each of us,” Green said.

Their area appearance, however, will hew to the holidays. Though freshly baked cookies may not appear, Green promises the essence of Ryanhood’s hometown happenings will make the trip East.

“All the fun, Christmas-y things you can think of … most of that does actually still happen on the road, and usually venues can help us track down the staging to pull it off,” he said. “It’s rooted in all the things that are fun about the season, and if it’s something we think could make people smile, and tap into that nostalgia, then we try to go there.”

A Winter’s Evening with Ryanhood
When: Friday, Dec. 5, at 7 p.m.
Where: Orchard Chapel, 143 Exeter Road, Hampton Falls
Tickets: $25 at thewordbarn.com

Featured photo: Ryanhood. Photo by Ehab Tamimi.

Model Airplane’s Funksgiving returns

By Michael Witthaus
mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Singer Lyle Divinsky has moved around a lot in the past 10 years, living everywhere from the West Coast to Nashville to Colorado. But every Thanksgiving he heads back to Portland, Maine, for a musical party with Model Airplane, the band he and childhood friends Pete Genova and Dan Boyden started back in 2004.

They call the annual bash Funksgiving, and in recent years it’s included a southern edition at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth. It happens on the flip side of Friendsgiving, Friday, Nov. 28, with the finale at The Aura in Portland on Saturday, Nov. 29. A crowded stage will also welcome Gina & the Flight Crew and Kenya Hall.

Hall and Model Airplane played the first Funksgiving in 2010, though it wasn’t officially named that until later.

“We got everybody together to play a show for our own selfish reasons,” Divinsky said by phone recently. “To create this moment after everybody hangs out with their family, while they’re still around. We all get to hang out together, we all get to be with the chosen family, not just the blood family that we have on Thanksgiving.”

When Divinsky left Portland to join The Motet in 2015, he took steps to ensure Funksgiving would continue.

“I knew that I was going to be on the road a bunch and wouldn’t be able to play as much with Model Airplane because of that,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that it didn’t go away just because I was taking this opportunity.”

So he reached out to Gina Alibrio, a New Hampshire native who’d moved to Portland after stints in Boston and Seattle. Conveniently her roommates were Model Airplane drummer Boyden and his future wife. He invited her to come by the band’s practice space after hearing her sing, and things moved from there.

“It was cultivated,” Alibrio recalled in a recent interview. A new, aviation-themed name was coined by keyboard player Tyler Quist, and the transition, she continued, “was hard, because everyone loves Lyle, but we managed to move in a bit of a different direction with the songs, lineup and the vibe.”

This year’s show will recognize two influential artists who passed away in 2025, Sly Stone and D’Angelo.

“We’re going to definitely give a little nod to both of them,” Divinsky said. “Then also drop classic funk that laid the groundwork, modern funk … and then originals as well, just to show how it’s all kind of influenced and seeped into our whole bloodstream.”

He bonded over the genre with his father, who sang in bands and frequently shows up to guest at Funksgiving. During the heyday of file sharing the two would swap songs. His dad would point out the source of sample, for example, and when the young Divinsky heard a Motown song, he might also recognize where it had been used in a newer track.

The influence of Divinsky’s parents — his mom grew up in Philadelphia and soaked up its sounds — shaped his taste.

“I was a slightly weird kid,” he said. “When all my friends were listening to Dookie by Green Day, I was listening to like Jodeci, Boyz II Men, Tupac and Biggie — way too young.”

Far-flung performers will arrive from many places, like keyboard player Dane Farnsworth, who tours with Keb’ Mo’ and others, who’s coming from Austin. Rehearsals happen Tuesday, and Wednesday before the holiday, but preparations have been ongoing for several weeks.

“The biggest thing that sets Model Airplane, Gina & the Flight Crew, Kenya and the whole family apart from other shows is — I feel I can say this because I look up to my friends so much — it’s some of the highest-level musicianship that I’ve ever experienced in New England, and in a lot of ways around the country.”

Divinsky and the rest enjoy the experience both as performers and music lovers.

“Everybody’s got, as I call them, Dumbo ears on stage,” he continued. “We’re all listening to each other because we love each other so much, and that joy spreads into the audience. Every show is two and a half to three hours of uninhibited joy that’s also musicianship.”

Alibrio is especially happy that everyone has the chance to perform their own songs. “I feel very lifted up by that,” she said. “This particular setlist this year seems super-focused on things that everyone is going to execute really well. Each person who’s soloing is going to absolutely smash it, so I’m really excited.”

Model Airplane’s Funksgiving
When: Friday, Nov. 28, 8 p.m.
Where: 3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St.,
Portsmouth
Tickets: $17 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Six decades on, Jim Messina still playing great

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Don’t do drugs. Jim Messina can provide plenty of reasons why.

Probably the most compelling one is the clarity of Messina’s singing voice, at a time when many classic rockers sound like their throats have been sandpapered. On his latest live album, Here There and Everywhere, Messina is in pristine form, his vocals identical to those that helped launch hits like “Angry Eyes” and “Your Mama Don’t Dance.”

The singer, songwriter and guitarist briefly delayed the start of a recent early morning interview to wait for a pot of coffee to brew. It’s probably the strongest substance he uses. From his days in Buffalo Springfield, country-rock pioneers Poco or top-selling duo Loggins & Messina and beyond, he’s steered clear of the hard stuff.

“The only bumps I got in the ’70s,” he joked, “came from falling off a horse.”

One turning point came when a fan overdosed on acid and was medevac’d in Poco’s limousine as they played the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, that’s a terrible thing to go through,’” he recalled. Then, at age 27, Messina had his tonsils removed. That’s daunting enough for a vocalist, but what came next was worse.

“I developed the most severe case of allergies,” he said. “My nose was all caked up, it was bleeding, I couldn’t breathe, I was wheezing. My tech, David Cieslak, had been a medic in the Vietnam War. I had to have these shots, so we’re carrying shots around to shows.”

Seven months later, cocaine was in the midst of its rise as rock’s drug of choice. At one show, Messina was offered some from another band’s crew and was appalled to learn they snorted it. “Get that stuff away from me,” he told them. “I don’t want to put nothing in my nose after what I’ve gone through in the last year.”

By abstaining, Messina was able to feed other habits. “The truth is that I took all my drug money and I invested it in real estate, precious metals, guitars and amps,” he said. “To this day I still have the very first Telecaster that I played back in Poco, and my Stratocaster. I just was so fortunate not to go there.”

The ultimate payoff has been health-wise, he continued. Ahead of a Loggins & Messina reunion show at the Hollywood Bowl in 2022, he saw an ear, nose and throat specialist who worked exclusively with professional singers — he’d caught Covid twice during the pandemic and wanted to be sure nothing was damaged.

“He almost pulled my tongue out, and he shoved this camera down my throat. He’s going, ‘Oh, wow,’ and I’m going, ‘oh crap.’ When it was over, he goes, ‘I gotta tell you, I handled most of the vocalists in the world, and your vocal cords look like you’re 25 years old … you have really taken care of them.’”

While he doesn’t need to tour to pay the bills, Messina has no plans to retire; he’s even making new music. A new version of Tommy James & the Shondells’ “Draggin’ the Line” is one song he’s finished.

“I love what I do and I’ve been doing it since I was 13,” he said. “I still have that same inspiration … to do better.”

Messina and his band The Road Runners have two upcoming New Hampshire shows, one in Plymouth on Nov. 20, and another Nov. 23 at the Nashua Center for the Performing Arts. He put together the group a couple of years ago, after he’d moved to Nashville, and found his old band was too far-flung.

“I have to rehearse, I have to be able to call people in and say, ‘Let’s do this arrangement,’ and it was getting to the point where that was going to be impossible financially,” he said. “My agent said, ‘Look, there are plenty of musicians here in town,’ and he said, ‘You know, they’re not all country.’”

First to join was keyboard player James Frazier. “He sings the parts now that Kenny would normally sing,” Messina said. Bassist Ben King, who also has a high vocal range, was next, followed by sax player/percussionist Steve Nieves, who was part of a couple of Loggins & Messina reunion tours and played in solo bands for both stars.

Drummer Jack Bruno has played with Elton John, Tina Turner and Joe Cocker, and when Messina found him on YouTube he was in Delbert McClinton’s band. Then McClinton retired. Messina loves working with the group. “They care enough about the music to perform the charts the way they were originally written and honor the musicians who originally did it.”

Jim Messina and the Road Runners
When: Sunday, Nov. 23, at 8 p.m.
Where: Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua
Tickets: $43 and up at etix.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

With new special out, Jay Chanoine readies the next

Six years ago comedian Jay Chanoine released a special and immediately got to work on his next one. It’s a comic’s creed that committing an act to tape is both the way to bury old jokes and incentive to craft new ones. Then the pandemic came, and Chanoine had to start again from scratch when things reopened in late 2021 — in more ways than one.

“Not only was some of that material no longer usable; I had to remember how to do stand-up again,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I ended up building up this body of work.” Chanoinigans, released as an audio album in mid-October and on YouTube on Halloween, is the result.

When Chanoine walked on stage at the Empire Theatre in Portland, Maine, in August 2024, the curveballs were still coming. First, his grandmother died a day before the show, which spurred “a whole new batch of emotions I was not prepared to have.” Beyond that, he’d written a new opening focused on a recent series of hospital visits.

“You’re seeing me at an interesting time in my life,” he told the crowd. “A little over a month ago, I went to see an autism doctor to begin the testing process. And that sentence can only go one of two ways. It’s either I feel like I’ve wasted a ton of money, or that my entire life has been a sham. Good news, guys. I don’t feel like I’ve wasted any money.”

Chanoine began reading DSM-V, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and had a series of eureka moments that made him feel he was cracking a code to his own mystery.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is me I’m reading about,’” he said, adding he quickly discerned a connection between the diagnosis and his comedy.

“You could draw lines from almost every one of those bits that I was about to record,” he said. “‘This is why you have a joke about how you did a bad job growing up and how people think you hate them. How you still love Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and you come off as abrasive….’ I was like, oh, my God, this is a special about finding out I’m autistic!”

He used the experience as fuel for that night up north.

“I think a lot of times, at least for me, when you have that much emotional abrasiveness kind of swimming around inside your head, you can channel it and just turn it into, ‘This is the thing I need to focus on right now,’” Chanoine said. “Divert that anxious energy into this performance.”

Since making the special, he’s spent a lot of time at the weekly Laugh Attic open mic at Strange Brew Tavern, each time doing five fresh minutes, slowly building a follow-up to Chanoinigans. “I try out new material in this safe environment where people already think they like me,” he said.

He’s looking forward to an extended set at Strange Brew on Nov. 21.

“We’re doing a Friday show, and I get to kind of do all the stuff that they saw me do for the very first time when it was fresh and unpolished and a little clumsy,” he said. “And I get to see it again after it’s been through a little bit of a rock tumbler and shined up.”

Fans can check out the new special on YouTube; Chanoinigans is his best yet. He talks about “coming aut” and having a realization about his New England school days; he may have misheard what sounded like praise for being artistic. “I love to draw, and I had no idea what my teachers were actually saying every time they went, ‘I think you are wicked autistic.’”

So the youngster took the kind words in stride; now, he’s reassessing.

“I’d just be standing there like, ‘Yeah, I guess that drawing is pretty good. It only took me 4,266 pencil strokes to complete it.’ That’s what happens when you start looking back on your life through autism-tinted lenses.”

Jay Chanoine w/ Troy Burdett, Arianna Magee & Ramses Rafael
When: Friday, Nov. 21, 8 p.m.
Where: Strange Brew Tavern, 88 Market St., Manchester
Tickets: $20 at eventbrite.com – 18+

Featured photo: Jay Chanoine. Courtesy photo.