Category: Nightlife

Tom Dixon Band (briefly) back in New England

Music fans scanning upcoming shows recently did a double take when Tom Dixon’s name popped up.

The country rocker and his band were ubiquitous from the mid-2000s on, but in 2013 he moved to Nashville. For a few years he’d come back for an occasional mini tour. However, by 2018 he’d hung up his guitar and pen to become a dog trainer.

Dixon has been dipping his toes back in musical waters of late. A show with his band at a campground in Hohenwald, Tennessee, in June, a couple more at a Virginia brewery and a winery in Lewisburg. He even dusted off an old song of his, “Truckin’” — not the one by the Dead — and made a dozen ballcaps to celebrate.

He’s excited, he said by phone in early August, because now playing is a choice, not a job. Dixon is also stoked to finally be back in New England for a few shows with his old band mates.

“That’s what’s fun about this part of my career; I’m not rushing to have something new and stay fresh,” he said. “When I make music, it’s what I want, or what my friends want.”

He’s headed back, for the first time in two years, to play some shows in his old stomping grounds. There’s a sentimental trip to Salisbury Beach, Mass., where he introduced line dancing to a bar called Surfside over a decade ago, and a couple of shows at the Caledonia Fair in Northern Vermont, one with his band and another with Saving Abel’s Jared Weeks and Big Vinny of Trailer Choir.

In New Hampshire, he’ll do a full band show Aug. 17 at Stumble Inn in Londonderry, a roadhouse where Dixon spent a lot of time before heading south.

“We used to play Slammers out in Bedford, that was our place,” he said. “It disappeared, and Stumble Inn became the place … as many venues as I’ve played anywhere, that’s always kind of home. I go back, and I always go there.”

When his clients asked about him taking time off, Dixon joked with them.

“They’re like, ‘what are you doing, going on vacation?’ I said, ‘No, I’m going to go pretend to be a rock star again, get back on the road and play some music.’ We’ll see how it goes. I’m looking forward to seeing so many people. That’s the best part.”

Even if Dixon isn’t quitting his day job, he’s more focused on making music. Along with updating “Truckin’” he recorded a song called “We Used to Be Rock Stars” with Ben Kirsch. “It’s not about being a musician, but about getting older,” he said. It continues an effort that began with “The Weekend,” released in early 2020 — no, you don’t need to remind him of the timing. The song was an affirmation and actually got a decent amount of pandemic streams.

“Nashville kept telling me who I needed to be; I was trying to reinvent who Tom Dixon was for so long, but things slowed down, and I wasn’t listening to Nashville anymore,” he said. “I took a break from things … I decided to look at the history of streams and online downloads and stuff over the years and the top ones were all songs that were my style from before moving to Nashville. It was so crazy.”

Chastened, he wrote the new tune.

Now, with songs like “Rock Stars” and the voice memos on his phone that he’s spending more time with, “I can do this my way now,” he said. “I came from Manchester; it always was a rock town. I remember having to go into rock venues to get gigs, that’s where I had to be years ago. I should have just stuck with that melding of rock and country … versus trying to reinvent what Nashville was telling me I was supposed to be. Now, I get to be me.”

Tom Dixon Band
When: Saturday, Aug. 17, 8 p.m.
Where: Stumble Inn, 20 Rockingham Road, Londonderry
More: tomdixonmusic.com
Tom Dixon also appears solo at Stumble Inn on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 7 p.m.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Barefoot Festival returns

One doesn’t need to look far to find music and arts festivals that are struggling this year. Several have been cut back or canceled altogether. So it’s heartening that the Barefoot Festival, which started in 2023, is returning for a second time. The two-day event’s philosophy is back as well: It’s about both music and mindfulness, with local acts and movement classes getting equal billing, along with a strong visual arts component.

A key difference between Barefoot and other festivals is its scale, founder Jen Bakalar said in a recent phone interview.

“We’re calling it a micro festival, kind of the sweet spot where we’re hoping for a few hundred people, everyone feeling comfortable, safe and not too overwhelmed,” she said. “It does seem like an antidote to the big festivals, having been to a couple of those this summer.”

Performing on Saturday are Freakquonox, Danny Kemps, Ian Galipeau, Yoni Gordon, Superbug, Great Groove Theory, Party of the Sun, Princess Kikou, the Evocatives, and Hug the Dog. On Sunday it’s Matt Litzinger, Andrea Paquin, Tyler Allgood, Sara Trunzo, Saguaro, Deep Seize, Kendall Row, Modern Fools, Caylin Costello Band, and DJ Flex. The lineup reflects last year’s with several returning artists.

“We kept the music pretty local; I think the farthest act is coming from Maine, and we’re bringing in some new singer-songwriters and a few new bands,” Bakalar said, adding she’s looking forward to the jammy Saguaro. “We wanted … a good mix of genres and styles so everybody had something that they would want to dance to and listen to. It was nice also to have bands returning, because they kind of know the vibes and people know them.”

Organizers also want the festival to be substance-free. There are no alcohol sales, similar to last year, but this time around the message is more forward.

“It’s about connection,” Bakalar said. “We also want to stress that the venue is a wellness retreat. … We’re not telling people they can’t bring alcohol, but we would love for people to not make that the focus.”

Opportunities for “intentional movement” abound and are included with festival admission. Bakalar hopes this will inspire participation. “The spirit of the whole thing is we’re connecting and we’re sharing,” she said. “We’re presenting things that maybe people haven’t tried yet. Maybe they’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t really do yoga’ or ‘I don’t know what that is,’ but this is a way for them to get their toes in. Maybe it’ll be like, ‘Wow, that’s something that I want to do.’”

She expects a couples massage session led by Alex Lorenz to be popular. “That’s one I’m looking forward to personally,” she said. “I think that’s just like such a cool thing to share with people. That one is probably going to be full, we’ll have to squeeze people in, but you don’t have to sign up.”

A variety of art installations are planned, including Sophie Sanders, whose work will be a stage backdrop, a new addition to the festival. Video artist Albie will project his works on a nearby screen. Adam Schepker is back to create interactive works that hew to a playful philosophy stated in his festival bio: “I feel adults lose their childhood sense of fun and joy due to their adult responsibilities and some strange code of conduct that many adults feel tied to.”

Attendees should prepare for a few things, Bakalar cautioned. “Wear your sneakers, be ready to walk,” she said, adding that last year’s “leave no trace” policy is still in effect.

“If you didn’t pre-buy your ticket and you’re not spending the night, then you’re going to park probably a little bit farther. We heard from people last year that it’s not easy to find, so we’re going to do a lot more with putting up signs to get people to the farm. But once you’re there, you’ve got everything you need.”

Barefoot Festival
When: Saturday, Aug. 10, and Sunday, Aug. 11, at 10 a.m.
Where: Bethel Farm, 34 Bethel Road, Hillsborough
Tickets: $45 to $80 at barefootmusicandarts.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Live Free Fest offers music and more

Longtime music fan Dylan Williams is a DIY kind of guy, so when he became frustrated with traveling to Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont for concerts, he decided to launch his own festival.

“I always have to drive an hour and a half to go to any show I want,” he said by phone recently. “It’s really annoying.”

A New Boston native, he was also looking to draw attention to his favorite local music. Williams began last year in his backyard, with four bands performing. There were also games, including a pie eating contest, relay races and something called Beer Olympics. Sixty people, close friends or part of Williams’ extended social circle, came to the party.

The experience gave Williams the confidence to scale up to the local fairgrounds and stage the first annual Live Free Fest. It happens on Saturday, Aug. 3, with a dozen acts performing: Sotah, Just For Kicks, Somewhere In Between, Girlspit, Animatronic The Abolisher, Pointless Culture, The Forest Forgets, The Knightz, Lacquerhead, Cozy Throne, Mugshot Monday and Recession.

Williams is connected to his home state’s music scene through his work as a videographer, and he designed his festival to focus on the creative diversity that he feels is close to home and is sometimes overlooked. Thus, the acts on the bill range across the musical spectrum.

“I want to reflect New Hampshire’s sound the best I can, so everything about this is in-state, and we have something for everybody,” Williams said. “There’s alternative and indie, rappers, metal, punk and a cover band. It’s not a blues festival or a rap festival; it’s literally everything. I chose them because it reflects the state well, and I just think they’re good.”

One of the sets he’s looking forward to is The Forest Forgets, an edgy punk metal band that grew from the breakup of the Manchester group Afterimage. It’s fronted by that band’s former singer, Griffen Romprey. “They’re on the experimental side of things … progressive, longer form,” Williams said. “They only have demos right now, so I’m very excited to hear what they’re going to have at the festival. I think they’ve only played one show so far.”

Rapper Animatronic The Abolisher is another act that Williams expects the crowd will enjoy. He saw him open for The Knightz at a show he was filming in Manchester.

“I didn’t know him at all until he came up; I was shooting him anyway because I was already there,” he said. “And I was just really impressed. He’s got really good lyrics, he’s very quick with the flow and just a very humble guy.”

The Knightz are a favorite, and friends. “They’re a rap group that I’ve worked with probably for about two years now. And they’re just great guys. They flew me out to San Francisco one time; we did a video there. They have such good charisma, and they’re just really good guys.”

Finally, there’s Lacquerhead, “definitely the loudest and heaviest band we have,” Williams continued. “They have really good energy, and I would say if there’s anyone that I feel like is going to really maybe make it, I can see them making it in music in the coming years.”

With help from his partner Justin Kaminsky, Williams is going out on a limb to stage Live Free Fest — “It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done,” he said — but he has high hopes it will strike a chord and hopefully draw a crowd in the hundreds. After years spent experiencing and documenting area music, he feels it’s the next logical step.

“I don’t go to as many festivals as I’d like to, but I go to a bunch of shows, and a lot of them are in Boston,” he said. “So I [thought], let’s try something here. We don’t have anything like … a Lollapalooza or Boston Calling. Because Manchester doesn’t have a super big scene, we all know each other in a way. It just kind of worked that I was able to grab a lot of these people that I already kind of know. That was cool.”

For his New Boston Calling to be a success, Williams continued, “I would love it if for all the bands this was maybe their biggest show ever, and I want all the crowd to have a really good energy with them. Also, I want all the games to go really well. I want to walk around and feel like this is a big community … I just want everyone to have a good time, honestly.”

Live Free Fest
When: Saturday, Aug. 3, noon
Where: Hillsborough County Youth Center, 17 Hilldale Lane, New Boston
Tickets: $15 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Cozy Throne at Bank of NH Stage. The band is slated to play the Live Free Fest. Photo by Jaki Gerulskis.

With new music, MB Padfield returns to New England

It’s a quiet Monday for musician MB Padfield — she has only two shows. The New Hampshire-born singer, songwriter and guitarist is back for her summer sojourn, something she’s done since moving to Los Angeles a while back. This season, she’s booked 130 dates, including a run of 11 gigs over six days at the end of June — a personal record for her.

“I’m not far off from being an endurance athlete,” Padfield said by phone. “I’ve been doing a lot of physical training outside of music to be able to make these shows happen. Doing a lot of nutrition, learning so much about just the body and health and science and how it relates to live performance.”

Though Padfield plays mostly covers at places like The Goat, Wally’s and Margaritaville in Boston, such rigor extends to her original music. Take the video she made for “Waverider,” released earlier this year and part of an upcoming EP. In it, Padfield sang in an ice bath, and she had to repeat the process three times to get the right take.

At the end of the clip, she’s visibly quaking from what looks like hypothermia.

“Yeah, that was an experience … it was great and horrible at the same time,” she recalled. “I filmed over the winter in New Hampshire, in Bedford with my friend Ben Proulx, who is a really incredible videographer. He’s worked on some massive projects. He’s Grammy nominated.”

Impossibly, she managed to lip-sync all the song’s words. “That was a really tricky part … but I drilled it so many times,” she said. “I started with cold showers, and I did cold baths. Then I found a cold plunge in Los Angeles, and I’d sit there the whole song. I just tried to keep my head on straight.”

The song itself is a gem, an electronica-infused slow burn with bracing confrontational lyrics reminiscent of Taylor Swift’s recent work. It addresses the challenges of being an independent musician and facing a world where big acts have massive organizations behind them.

“It can be quite intimidating as an artist just getting started … that’s a bit of what ‘Waverider’ is about,” Padfield said. “It’s funny, everyone is asking me if it’s about a jet ski. It’s not, but I guess a jet ski wouldn’t be a bad analogy. I think everyone has their own Waverider. We all have our own ups and downs and do our best to try to navigate. It’s not necessarily about trying to keep calm waters, but just drive right in the waves where you’re at.”

Padfield’s latest release is “Into the Grey,” a song about letting go that became more poignant when her 96-year-old Meme passed away in May.

“We hospiced her at home, and I was there to the end; it was a wild experience,” she said. “There are people I’ve known who’ve had a hard time functioning through grief…. With the small experience I had, I learned that you have to pick the right memories to hold on to. That’s a big part of what ‘Into the Grey’ was about.”

Two more songs, “Lost at Sea” and “I’ll Be,” will be released in the coming months to complete a four-song EP. Padfield has a full-length album in the works as well and plans to make videos for the forthcoming songs.

“I’ve really come to see the value in communicating not only the music but also the visuals,” she said. “To explore not just what sound sounds like but also what it looks like … which has been a really fun creative adventure.”

In performance, Padfield is a one-woman powerhouse, using looping pedals and samples to produce a full band sound. It makes the most sense for her at the moment, keeping overhead low and her mobility flexible.

“That being said, I do love live looping, there’s such freedom in it,” she said. “I have my recipes for songs and how I make them. The cool part is, at least with the current setup I have, almost no two performances are identical. They’re similar for sure, but not identical, and that is a lot of creative freedom.”

MB Padfield
When: Sunday, July 28, 7 p.m.
Where: The Goat, 50 Old Granite St., Manchester
More: Full schedule at mbpadfield.com/tour

Featured photo: NB Padfield. Courtesy photo.

Lakes Region comedy show

There’s a limerick from a bygone time that begins, “there was a young man from Nantucket,” but this isn’t that kind of story. Brian Glowacki was born on the island off Cape Cod and found humor via Def Comedy Jam specials on HBO. When he realized there were clubs where comics told jokes, he decided to give standup a shot.

Glowacki soon found his secret weapon: a face that telegraphs mischief. When he pauses with a sly smirk during a joke setup, it’s like watching a Mento dropped into a bottle of Coke; audience laughter builds, anticipating what’s next. This sort of thing also happens regularly in Glowacki’s daily life. While he’s holding a microphone, at least he gets paid for it.

There’s a bit about repurposing his wife’s breast pump when their infant grows out of it, and it feels like he worked it out at the Kitchen, to let’s say mixed results.

“Everybody knows that feeling,” he said in a recent phone interview. “It’s like the next thing coming out of my mouth is either going to get me in trouble or arrested.”

The latter outcome is less likely than the first; his is a mostly “clean” set. That’s one of the reasons comedian Bob Marley picked Glowacki to open shows for him, something he did for a few years. It started when a Rhode Island club hired him to host for the Maine comic. The gig worked out, and he got the call the next time Marley appeared.

“By that time I had different material, and that showed them I could at least try to have a different set each time we came through a place, which was important to those guys,” he said. “It ended up some of their guys dropped out and I moved up the ranks with Marley. I ended up being one of their two main guys.”

These days Glowacki is hitting much bigger targets. He parlayed a successful run at Boston’s Comedy Connection into a pair of sold-out shows at the prestigious Wilbur Theatre. Glowacki attributes the event’s success to his relatability as a comic.

“I don’t scare anybody away, I don’t ever talk about politics or anything like that, I’m talking about things that we’re all living,” he said, adding that a willingness to bet on himself was a big part of it. “I say all the time, I take big swings … I don’t sulk in the failures, and I don’t get too excited over the victories. I just cross things off my list. Things that excited me as a little kid, now I do them as an adult.”

Upcoming on his schedule are headlining shows at Mohegan Sun, and the comedy club in the MGM Casino in Springfield, Mass. The night after he appears at Beans & Greens Farm in Gilford, Glowacki will play his biggest gig yet, headlining at Cape Cod Melody Tent, a legendary 2,500-seat venue.

“I’m the first local that’s ever been crazy enough to even try to sell that place,” he said. “We’re doing it all word of mouth. I don’t have an agent or credits or any of that. We just spread the word from people having a good time at a show, and they tell their friends, which is the best marketing you can hope for.”

The Gilford show offers the chance for him to prepare for the Cape show and “make sure I’m all dialed in.” Fellow comic Gary Marino co-produced the BGlow & Friends event and will serve as its host. It will be Glowacki’s first time at Beans & Greens. “Usually when I do stuff with Gary, it’s been a home run, so I was like, whatever, I’m in.”

Brian Glowacki & Friends
When: Saturday, July 20, 7 p.m.
Where: Beans & Greens Farm, 245 Intervale Road, Gilford
Tickets: $30 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Roomful of Blues at Rex with new singer

Over almost six decades as a band, Roomful of Blues has seen its share of personnel changes, but the latest is a biggie.

“Basically, half the lineup is new,” guitarist Chris Vachon, who joined in 1990, said recently. Two members of the horn section and a keyboard player have joined and, crucially, the band has its first female lead vocalist since Lou Ann Barton was a member for a very short tenure in the early 1980s.

New singer D.D. Bastos and Vachon have played together in the Rhode Island band Sons of Providence since mid-decade, so “there’s some history there,” Vachon said. However, the departure of singer Phil Pemberton, who left due to declining health, means that typical set lists will be shifting dramatically.

“We don’t change front people too much, that’s rare…. Phil was in the band for 15 years,” Vachon said. “Having a new person come in as a front person, you’re going to replace a lot of the material to things that are more suited for them. That’s exciting for us, with a new show and all that.”

The RoB horns and drums backed Pat Benatar on her jump blues True Love album, and Bastos will offer a few songs from that when the band stops by the Rex Theatre on July 12, along with some tunes from the Barton era. The latter lasted only three months, ending when the Texas blues chanteuse realized she’d never acclimate to New England winters.

It’s a local show for one of the new members. Sax player Craig Thomas lives just a few blocks from the Amherst Street venue. Another new face on stage will be keyboard player Jeff Ceasrine, though he has a history with RoB, having played occasionally with them since 2008.

“Jeff is a natural to take over where [former keyboard player] Rusty Scott left off,” Vachon said.

The new lineup was in fine form during a recent Extended Play Session filmed at the Fallout Shelter in Norwood, Mass. Bastos shined on the Etta James classic “Good Rockin’ Daddy” and the burning ballad “Please Don’t Go,” while whipping up the crowd on the energetic call-and-response boogie “That’s Right!”

Vachon pumped out some hot licks on his Gibson SG during the cool groove number “I’m Tryin’” and the horn section’s latest additions, Chris Pratt on trumpet and Thomas on tenor sax, had a long stretch to show off, all in preparation for a big month ahead.

“We’re going to be full steam and we’re all pretty excited about it,” Vachon said.

The idea has remained steady even as players come and go, with a style that can feel like big band but find a rock groove when called for while staying true to its namesake and playing the blues. Their schedule has changed, however.

“My early years in the band, we were gone all the time,” Vachon said. “It’s mostly weekends now.”

Their last album is 2020’s In A Roomful of Blues, a fun effort with songs like the snarky “Phone Zombies” along with the B.B. King-esque title cut. As with a lot of records made that year, the band didn’t get many chances to perform it early on — it’s hard to be in a roomful of anything while staying six feet apart.

Eventually, they took it on the road, and Vachon said they’re ready to add to their 20-plus collection soon. Meanwhile, they continue to be the band that plays blues to make folks forget their blues.

“We don’t do too much of the weepy stuff,” Vachon agreed. “We do happy, swingy things you can dance to. I mean, we’re going to do stuff that’s uplifting and fun.”

An Evening With Roomful of Blues
When: Friday, July 12, 8 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $29 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.