Category: Nightlife

Griffin William Sherry returns to Rex

After his band The Ghost of Paul Revere called it quits after a dozen years together, singer, songwriter and guitarist Griffin William Sherry went solo. His debut album, Hundred Mile Wilderness, was greeted as one of 2024’s best. His live shows, sprinkled with Ghost songs, were equally lauded, and his fan base grew steadily.

However, as a recent phone interview got underway from Sherry’s home in Augusta, Maine, Sherry’s old band was top of mind. In mid-January, news broke of a fall reunion show and a reboot of Ghostland, the annual festival that ended with the dissolution of the much-loved band, amidst hopes it might carry on without them.

“That cat just ran out of the bag,” a laughing Sherry said. “Yeah, we’re getting the band back together, Blues Brothers style. Carrie Fisher will be exhumed from the grave and chase us down with a missile launcher…. We always wanted to play a show together and kind of kept that door open in case.”

He’s especially pleased that his band will perform at Ghostland, on Sept. 6 at Thompson’s Point in Portland, Maine. “That was something I really wanted to happen, for people that might not have been paying attention the last couple of years to see what I’ve been working on.”

His solo material is story-forward and personal, like “Roll Down Slow,” a hard-luck tale drawn from life on the road.

“As a touring musician, you tend to meet a certain type of people that tend to go pretty hard after the sun goes down,” he said. “That kind of flagrant irresponsibility was super interesting to me, and not something I was unfamiliar with.”

Written for his wife the morning after Roe v. Wade was overturned, “We Will Fight” is a defiant love song that resonates at shows. “I use it as an opportunity to platform both Planned Parenthood and also what I see as a civic duty to stand up for your neighbors and not let the times roll over you,” he said. “I think it’s pretty important right now.”

Hundred Mile Wilderness was recorded in Nashville’s legendary Studio B with producer Eddie Spear, who helmed Luke Bryan’s multi-platinum American Heartbreak and also worked with Brandi Carlile, Sierra Ferrell and breakout star Jesse Welles. Sherry played with a band of ace session players.

“My Juliet” is a breezy looking-for-love country song with a character highly informed by the studio band. Sherry allowed that many tracks reflect what he termed “the Nashville bluegrass [and] Americana sound that’s popular right now,” but his spirit, along with his original vision, still guides the effort.

“A lot of the stuff that I had brought to Eddie we ended up using on the final record,” he said. “The instrumentation we chose, certainly having Billy Contreras on fiddle, made it seem a little bit more like a bluegrass record. But that band … I can’t speak highly enough about all those guys.”

Sherry and his touring band, including guitarist Zachary Bence and bass player McCrae Hathaway, are at Manchester’s Rex Theatre on Jan. 30. He was at the venue around the same time last year, bringing filmmaker Ernest Thompson on stage to do “Cross The Bridge,” a song he co-wrote with Joe Delault and Thompson for the movie The Constituent.

Several new songs have made their way into sets lately, including the dreamy “Cathedral of Pine,” released in November, and “Moline,” a brooding ballad yet to be recorded. Sherry explained that he enjoys sharing his works in progress with an audience, and gaining insights from the experience.

“I don’t feel like a song is truly written until I’ve performed it in front of a bunch of people, to see where the reactions are and what needs to be changed or reinforced,” he said. “So I love playing songs for crowds before we put them on a record, so I have a little bit more of an idea what that song’s identity is.”

Griffin William Sherry
When: Friday, Jan. 30, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $40 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Griffin William Sherry. Courtesy photo.

Fox and The Flamingos hit BNH Stage

By Michael Witthaus
mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Female-fronted funk will be in the spotlight when Fox and The Flamingos perform at BNH Stage on Jan. 23, with additional grooves provided by opener Pocket Drop, a music collective that includes a few familiar Concord faces. The showcase is the latest high point for a band approaching its fifth anniversary.

Released in September, “Nowhere But Up” is Fox and The Flamingos’ most recent single, with a title that well describes the Milford quintet’s current trajectory. The upbeat, danceable track is anchored by a solid rhythm section, tasty guitar licks and swirling keyboard, with the soulful voice of front woman Maizy Rae at its heart.

Maizy is a lifelong singer who honed her craft at local gatherings.
“A lot of my friends would throw these parties, and it was always in a basement,” she said. “Just basically a big party that would turn into a big jam session.” At one of those, she met a bass player who invited her to audition for a funk band he and some friends were forming.

She was the first and last singer to audition. The bass player, it turned out, wasn’t a good fit; he only lasted a month. Gary Smith, a veteran on the scene who’s played with Roots of Creation among other acts, was recruited to fill the vacancy. The other band members liked his affinity for what he termed “weird stuff” in a Zoom co-interview with Maizy.

“I’m a jazz nerd,” he said. The interview happened as Smith and Maizy were about to perform a duo set at Forum Pub in Concord as Vaudeville Vixen, their duo side project. “I do looper stuff with my eight-string guitar, and she sings. We do reinterpretations of more modern songs in the jazz vein — ‘Santeria’ and things like that.”

When Smith joined, Fox and The Flamingos included guitarist Tyler Moran, Ryan Pratt on drums, keyboard player Ryan Bossie and Maizy. Bossie left last summer, and Zach Sweetser, who also plays in the Dave Matthews Tribute Band, took his spot. Saxophone player Derek Adams began sitting in last year and is now a full-time member.

The band played its first gig in 2021 at Concord’s now-shuttered Area 23. Smith recalled Maizy as tentative that night, but that didn’t last. “Now, she’s bouncing around on the stage doing whatever,” he said. “Displaying that confidence helps us in getting gigs with the bigger bands. They see us and they’re excited to play with us.”

The group has been gathering fans steadily. In 2024 they beat out five other groups at StrangeCreek Battle of the Bands, and won a cabin set at the festival.

“That was really huge for me personally,” Maizy said. “I’ve been going to StrangeCreek for 10 years…. I think that was crucial to getting our name out there.”

The band released their debut album last year, Spirit Animal. It’s an axiom that a first record takes four years to make and the second takes four months; that looks to be true with this flock. To follow “Nowhere But Up,” the band recently began playing a new song at shows, “Can’t Blame You.” It’s an absolute banger, with more in the works.

“Songs come together pretty quickly,” Smith said. “It’ll either be Maizy saying, ‘I have this melody’ or someone will have a chord progression or a riff. Usually we can get a song together in a rehearsal. It takes us a couple hours to shape them up. We’re getting better at utilizing our time in the studio, but it’s a learning experience for sure.”

Maizy takes inspiration from Betty Davis, a mid-’70s soul singer with a cult following who mixed Tina Turner’s brashness with the style of David Bowie. A key moment happened when she saw Harsh Armadillo, now called Harsh, at their final Wild Woods Festival on a Croydon farm in 2018.

At the time, Harsh was led by Andrea Beladi, who left when the pandemic hit. “It changed everything,” she said. “I’d always been a singer, but it really put it into perspective — like … that’s a thing you can do? I hadn’t really thought about it, because I was just getting into the local live music scene.”

Fox and The Flamingos w/ Pocket Drop
When: Friday, Jan. 23, 8 p.m.
Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $18 at ccanh.com

Featured photo: Fox and The Flamingos. Courtesy photo.

The Wrong Hill to Die On is right for laughs

On an upcoming evening at Shaskeen Pub in Manchester, The Wrong Hill To Die On will feature a group of local comedians engaging in a kind of extreme debate, as they defend ridiculous premises, such as “traffic lights are a form of communist mind control.”

The event is hosted by self-described “open mic level comics” Nick Sands and Alex LaChance, with a panel of contestants that includes comics Matt Barry, Mona Forgione, Zach Remi and Tristen Hoffler. Derek Zeiba will open the show with a set, and comedian Ken Murphy will serve as a guest host.

Sands and LaChance are both fans of Story Warz, a weekly game show-themed event in New York City hosted by Luis J. Gomez and Big Jay Oakerson. They wanted to do something similar, but different from that show’s “guess who’s telling this tale” format.

“If you go back to the ’80s, when I was growing up, there were a hundred game shows on TV and half of them were rip-offs of other game shows,” LaChance said by phone recently. “So Wrong Hill To Die On is a kind of homage to that era, but also influenced by current comedy.”

Though LaChance and Sands are relatively new to standup, they’re both comfortable in front of audiences. Sands has a background in theater, LaChance spent two decades fronting rock bands, a few of which appeared at the Shaskeen, and both host podcasts. It’s new territory, but the two believe they have the tools to make it work.

Choosing topics, though, was a tricky proposition.“We didn’t want to put any comic in a position where they were defending something truly reprehensible, especially where we’re going to record it and put it out as a podcast, [so] what topics can we approach?” LaChance said.

In his final podcast of 2025, Nick Sands offered one position, that a McDonald’s burger tops anything on a holiday table. LaChance suggested another two: the casino age should be lowered to 10, and ducks should be allowed to go to school. “They range from silly to sexual in nature,” LaChance said. “I just don’t want to give them away.”

None of those will be used in the game, which will start with solo rants from each of the four competing comics, Barry, Forgione, Remi and Hoffler, with the panel — LaChance, Sands and Murphy — arguing back after each. Audience cheers decide who did the best job of defending the indefensible, and one comic will be eliminated at the end.

Round 2 is Audience Firestorm, where audience submissions are pulled at random; each comic has 30 to 45 seconds to defend them, culminating with another comic eliminated by applause. Finally, in Round 3, the remaining two comics are paired with two crowd members for tag team arguing, punctuated by occasional panelist interruptions.

A Lightning Inferno final round happens after the top comic is crowned. The winner will receive five to six “hot takes” to defend for 20 to 30 seconds each. The night ends with the winner receiving what’s promised as “a super-secret but very enticing prize.”

LaChance and Sands hope for continued success with the format; that’s one of the reasons they chose Shaskeen Pub as a venue, even though they make the rounds at several area comedy spots. In fact, LaChance announced a few days ago that he’s launching a Tuesday night open mic at The Moka Pot Café in Manchester, beginning Feb. 3.

“Nick was just at my house, and we were talking about it, and he said, ‘Do we want to keep doing it every year?’ and ‘I’m like, ‘If it works, I say we keep doing it,’” LaChance said. “I think being able to just have the same environment, just keep dialing it in, is going to make it better and better.”

The Wrong Hill to Die On
When: Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 8 p.m.
Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester
Tickets: $7.18 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Matt Barry. Courtesy photo.

Johnny A. brings Beck-Ola back to Tupelo

By Michael Witthaus
mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Growing up, Johnny A. had two favorite bands, The Beatles and The Yardbirds. In late 2024, he combined a love for both by reimagining John Lennon’s plaintive ballad “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” as a Jeff Beck instrumental. His is a soaring, ethereal version, with fluid fret-bending in place of Lennon’s voice.

He released it digitally, donating proceeds to the Boston Food Bank. In a recent phone interview the guitarist mentioned that one paid download meant two meals for those in need. He added that while studio work once was critical, beginning with his chart-topper “Oh Yeah” in 1999, he records mostly for his own pleasure these days.

“The music business is in the dumpster and you don’t make any money from it anymore,” he said. “I’m always writing, I’m always experimenting, but I don’t know if I necessarily have the interest in putting out recorded music in any kind of bulk form anymore. Because it’s just not financially feasible.”

Touring keeps him going, as a solo performer with looping pedals providing a backup band, or with the Johnny A. Trio — when he can. A New Year’s run on the West Coast offered that opportunity, as the other two musicians now live in the area, but the logistics sounded, well, arduous.

After flying to San Francisco on Jan. 3, he had four days of shows, with two Bay Area concerts bookending the mini-tour.

“It’s kind of a rough schedule,” he said. “Every day is a fly day … and I’m taking a red-eye home.” Fortunately he’ll have a day to catch his breath before heading to Tupelo Music Hall.

The Jan. 9 show in Derry is one of his favorites to perform, a Jeff Beck retrospective running from the Yardbirds to his jazz fusion years and beyond with a band named after Beck’s second solo album, Beck-Ola. The project is a near and dear one, not least because Johnny A. spent a few years playing Beck’s parts in a revived version of the Yardbirds.

It’s fair to say to Beck is his favorite guitarist, and definitely a role model.

“I’ve had the ability, the opportunity to see him probably a dozen times live,” he said. “He’s always excited me because he’s very unpredictable. He wears his emotions on his sleeve when he plays, he’s a take-no-prisoners, no-apologies type of player.”

Is that daunting for him as a guitarist?

“The fun part is the challenging part,” he said. “Beck is a guy that really can’t be reproduced, he’s really uncopiable. Aside from being fantastically talented, his playing was instinctual, and he’s the only player that I’ve ever experienced where his playing is really an extension of his personality.”

He loves Tupelo, a place he’s played for two decades, and its owner Scott Hayward.

“I’ve always said if there were 50 promoters around the country like that guy, musicians would be a lot better off. You get treated like an artist. You don’t have to run around and worry about if you’re going to get paid. It’s just a good experience.”

For Beck-Ola, he’s backed by an all-star band that includes Marty Richards on drums, bassist Dean Cassell, Steve Hunt on keyboards and singer Mike Gill. It’s an infrequent project, and Johnny’s not sure when it will be back to the area after the Derry show. He urges the curious to give it a look.

“I’d just welcome anybody that’s a fan of his music to come out; I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised,” he said. “We take you on a ride from the earliest stuff all the way through his whole career…. I call it a celebration of the music of Jeff Beck, because we’re trying to capture the spirits of different eras.”

Beck-Ola
When: Friday, Jan. 9, at 8 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $50 at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Johnny A. Courtesy photo.

Billy Joel tribute act returns to Tupelo

In a crowded milieu, there are some tribute acts that stand out — for their authenticity, an innovative approach, or a clear love of the music they’re recreating. Gloucester-based Captain Jack & the Strangers, who cover Billy Joel’s songbook, manage to tick all three boxes. Since forming in 2022 they’ve become a favorite on the New England circuit.

The group began after Jack Favazza and a group of musician friends traveled to see Joel perform. A piano player in his early twenties, Favazza was already a fan, as was his bass-playing friend Mike Parsons. The rest, all members of well-known North Shore bands, were curious but not as committed.

By the show’s end all were in agreement. Favazza and Parsons, along with percussionist, sax and keyboard player Mike Lindberg, drummer Steve Russo and guitarists Mark Pelosi and Jim Frontiero, were ready to start a Joel-centric band. They started crafting a setlist that included both well-known hits and tasty deep cuts.

They began with a swagger Joel might appreciate. Though veterans of the nightclub circuit, all wanted the act to work in big venues.

“Not that we don’t like the music in the bar scene, but we wanted to get on a stage, we wanted to sell tickets,” Favazza recalled in a recent phone interview. “We wanted to take it a little more seriously.”

A good instinct, it turned out. An early show at North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Mass., happened because Favazza knew someone at the venue who was willing to take a chance on a new band. They sold the place out in seven weeks. “So after that, she said, ‘We’ll be having you back next year.’”

Another high point came this year when they played Toad’s Place, a legendary New Haven, Connecticut, club where stars like Bob Dylan and Steve Earle have performed.

“It was kind of a short-notice thing and that’s OK,” Favazza said. “They gave us a chance [and] they loved the show.”

They’re building a fan base in New Hampshire, having appeared at Nashua’s Center for the Arts, and multiple times at Tupelo Music Hall.

“A lot of the other venues say, ‘Yeah, we’d like you to come back next year or in six months.’ That’s when you pick up the momentum and your confidence goes up,” Favazza said.

Though the song selection ranges across Joel’s career, the band maintains the exuberant energy of his mid-’70s to late ’80s prime. During the show, Favazza bounds across the stage for the in-your-face hit “It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me” and lays a tablecloth on his piano to perform his favorite, “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant.”

Even seasoned fans can be surprised by the mix of material, Favazza continued.

“After every show, someone comes up to us and goes, ‘I didn’t know that Billy Joel wrote all those songs. When we dive into the B-sides, they’re like, ‘I remember that song, it was in this movie.’ These songs are tied everywhere in our culture.”

Favazza plays solo gigs in Boston and around the North Shore. His sets include Elton John and Barry Manilow along with Joel’s material. He’s been doing it since a college friend helped him secure a gig in a Gloucester restaurant. After playing a couple of songs, he was invited to appear weekly.

“Billy Joel is the only tribute act I do,” he said. “I figured, who’s the No. 1 piano man? OK, I found him.”

He’s drawn to Joel’s music because he discerns a thread in it that dates back to rock’s beginnings. Many musicians were inspired in 1964 when The Beatles appeared on national television for three consecutive Sunday nights, like Joel. “You can hear The Beatles in his songs — that’s what I think makes it timeless, whether it’s lyrics or feelings or the music itself.”

Though Favazza enjoys honoring the music of one artist in his act, he has original songs, and their time may come.

“I haven’t published anything for the public, but maybe someday,” he said. For the time being, he continued, “I play these songs because I want to.”

Captain Jack & the Strangers
When: Saturday, Jan. 3, at 8 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $40 at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Captain Jack & the Strangers. Courtesy photo.