Category: Nightlife

Lewis Black keeps pace with the world

On Friday, March 13, 2020, as the pandemic’s wave crashed down on the world of live events, Lewis Black stepped onto the stage of a Michigan casino. The comic greeted his audience with these words: “Thanks for risking your life.” He ended his set with an analysis of what’s wrong with America, likening its two dominant political parties to ideological mystery meat. “They both sort of taste like chicken,” Black said.

It would be Black’s last performance for a year and a half, and his latest special. He returned last fall with a run of club dates that nearly wiped him out. “I was literally like a boxer who hasn’t fought in a long time [who] punches himself in the face,” he said recently. His new show, “Off The Rails,” will stop in Concord on Thursday, March 10.

Black has made a career out of sputtering fury and frustration — with the ruling elite, thick-skulled hoi polloi, and everyone in between, always with an ear to the ground. Every show is new and up to the minute. That night in Michigan, he sensed what was coming. He and fellow comic pal Kathleen Madigan played armchair epidemiologists as the news from Wuhan seeped out, joking that they were the Fauci and Birx of the comedy world. To them, the science was clear; but even he did not anticipate the willful ignorance of many.

“I was stunned by the way in which people are acting and thinking … it’s like going back to when I was 12,” Black said in a recent phone interview. The gulf between red and blue is a moronic chasm, he continued, and not just when it comes to fighting a virus. “In a country that doesn’t want to vote, you’re going to worry about voting? Banning books? You’re going to worry about critical race theory when most kids don’t know how to spell it?”

Though obviously fodder for Black’s act, the onslaught of absurdity wasn’t exactly welcome. “It’s difficult to satirize what is already satiric,” he said, aiming special ire at purported news outlets dutifully repeating every outrageous social media post instead of doing their job. “Read the tweet … what they were reading was pathology, not policy. It’s not what did he say, it’s what do we do now?”

It was almost too much. “To be more insane than what I see, that’s my job as a comic,” he said. “That took a long time to understand. Really, just before the pandemic, I got it — wow, that’s what I’m doing. And then I realized … I couldn’t be more insane than what I was seeing, or I’d be insane, literally.”

Every Black show ends with “The Rant Is Due,” an afterparty that finds him musing over complaints offered by fans online. Few comics go so far to connect with their audience, but he sees it as rage transference — why should he be the only one angry all the time? As he scrolls his iPad submissions, Black will echo their fury and occasionally offer a lusty rebuttal, as when one fan griped about mask mandates.

“It is a show written by the audience and where I add my f-ing two cents,” Black said of his web request for fans to take a moment in advance to unburden themselves. The segment always offers a local focus. He recently addressed legal weed generally and pot prices specifically with a crowd in Humboldt County, California, along with the region’s winding roads and poor internet service.

It’s anyone’s guess what the Granite State will bring to the mix. After a recent stint in the Midwest, Black is hoping for better weather along with fans’ homegrown winging about taxes, tourists and other topics. “I love coming back to New Hampshire,” he said, “but I need you guys to warm the state up a little bit.”

Along with performing, Black is involved in a few pet causes. He’s chairman of an Indiana museum dedicated to writer Kurt Vonnegut, and he also works on behalf of the National Comedy Center. “I’ve done a lot with them,” he said of the Jamestown, New York,-based facility. “What they have done is extraordinary, incredible. Museum doesn’t describe it; it’s a living breathing thing, and 80 percent of it is interactive. You can literally go in there for six hours and go, what? It’s gone — and you learn a lot.”

Lewis Black
When: Thursday, March 10, 7 p.m.
Where: Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $55 and up ccanh.com

Featured photo: The Brit Pack.

Brit Pack spans multiple eras

Among a trove of tribute acts, the ’60s British Invasion is well represented. What sets The Brit Pack apart is that their target isn’t one band or decade but a wide breadth of music from across the pond. Sure, they’ll crank up “Satisfaction” or “Twist and Shout” with alacrity, but a typical set list will also include Led Zeppelin, Oasis or Adele.

Consisting of four Berklee grads, The Brit Pack reflects not just the first wave led by the Beatles and Rolling Stones, but a representation of artists that came in the ensuing years — the British Occupation, if you will.

“You get a whole journey through all of these bands,” guitarist Mark Johnson said recently. “That same energy a tribute act would give you, but with every single band you might know from the British Invasion through the modern days.”

Occasionally they veer away from strictly British, playing “Go Your Own Way” — though Fleetwood Mac’s makeup is similar to theirs. Johnson and drummer Will Haywood Smith are U.K.-born like Mick Fleetwood and the two McVies, while Matt Nakoa and Bryan Percival serve as the group’s Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

In a joint interview with Nakoa, Johnson offered some logic-bending to explain the inclusion of “Boys Are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy.

“They’re a good Irish band,” he conceded, “but we figured they were close enough to the U.K. … there’s probably some English blood in that band.”

Since forming in 2011, they’ve gone where the audience takes them, even when that finds lead singer Nakoa channeling Johnny Rotten, as happened when they played one fan’s wedding. This led to a secret side project called The Sex Beatles.

“We deliver classics in the Sex Pistols manner,” Johnson said.

The bit was born in the days of playing late-night residencies in their New York City home base.

“Bleecker Street and the Village … there’d be beers flying over the drum kit and random people sleeping on the stage,” Johnson said. “These days it’s a raucous show, but you won’t get hit by a flying amp or anything.”

While covering well-known songs, the group tries to put itself in the mindset of bands like Led Zeppelin or The Who.

“We improvise and really capture the essence of the songs, but we’re not doing it exactly like the record, because they wouldn’t have done it exactly like the record,” Nakoa said. “We own the music as if it was our own; unfortunately, we don’t get compensated that way.”

When they first set out, “It was the usual suspects, ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Hard Day’s Night’ — but we were talking about doing Oasis and stuff,” Johnson said. “Through the years, people just keep requesting songs and we’re like, that’s a good idea, and there are times where we’re driving somewhere in the car and we hear a record and say, these guys are British — or at least somebody in the room when the record being made was British.”

“What’s so great is it’s a liberal interpretation,” Nakoa said. “We’re only going where the audience tells us we should be going. I mean, we go where the reaction is.”

Asked to name some favorite songs from their set, Johnson quickly answered, “anything Queen or Zeppelin, for the simple reason that it’s really fun to play.” He voiced gratitude for having a capable band of friends and singled out Nakoa, whom he also supports as a solo artist.

“When you’ve got a singer who can do this stuff as well as he does … as a performer, and as an audience member, it’s really a joy to be around,” he said. “It’s also very rare to get a chance where you can play it with a band this good. … I just enjoy playing with these guys, because they make it sound so cool.”

The Brit Pack
When: Sunday, March 6, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $23 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: The Brit Pack.

Green Martini memories coming to Bank of NH Stage

It’s Best of Hippo time again, and don’t be surprised if there’s a vote or two for the Green Martini as top bar in Concord — even though a kitchen fire closed the downtown hub 10 years ago. Its denizens were a family of misfit toys bound by smoke-hazed windows, funky furniture and a no-nonsense vibe. To them, the place forever remains much more than a tavern.

Musicians held it in special esteem, and several of them will gather at Bank of NH Stage on March 3 to celebrate the Green Martini and its role in fostering the city’s music community. Steve Naylor, who hosted the open mic sessions there from the mid-2000s through its demise in February 2012, will reprise the format for an evening full of memories.

A handful of former regulars, including Hank Osborne and Rachel Burlock (whose last name was Vogelzang back then), approached fellow musician Lucas Gallo with an idea. “They wanted to pay homage (honor it 10 years later) to the Green Martini,” he wrote in a text message.

Gallo and Burlock put together a list including Gary Banker, Scott Fitzpatrick, Mary Fagan, Alan “Doc” Rogers, Addison Chase, Blake Patria, Dusty Gray, Noah Brochu and Shelby White, Andy Laliotis and Rob Farquar. When contacted about the show, former bar owners Paul and Paula Lord were immediately on board.

“They just won’t let it go,” Paula Lord said recently with a laugh. “Literally for the past 10 years, it’s like a nonstop thing. When Lucas messaged me and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this,’ I was like, ‘Oh, that would be so cool.’”

Along with a fond recollection of the music, Paula remembered the community fostered by her husband’s and her oasis. Patrons lining up outside every day prior to opening, Sunday Fun Day board game events and Halloween parties.

“We always had the best, with smoke machines and all kinds of crazy stuff,” she said.

Every night began with a family meal, and they regularly held holiday feasts for friends with nowhere else to go.

One customer, antique collector John Cook, wrote a book about the bar. Singer-guitarist Kenny Weiland immortalized it in a jazzy song containing the line, “cut loose and shake your monkey,” a nod to the large stuffed collection of creatures that hung from the ceiling pipes. Still a mystery is a series of abductions, each followed with a photo of a duct-taped monkey mouth accompanied by a demand of free PBR as ransom.

Furnishings — or lack of them — were one reason the place was special, Steve Naylor said in a recent phone interview.

“The Martini did not have a television or pool table, or any other distraction. … Everyone was pretty much focused on the music,” he said, adding that such undivided attention was unique and welcome. “I’ve done many open mics in just about all the bars in and outside of town. People are very sensitive to what’s going on around them when they’re trying to play their song, and I don’t think they need to hear a hockey game while they’re trying to play.”

Midweek open mic nights were acoustic affairs, though Friday and Saturday often got pretty raucous.

“It was like sort of an ‘around the campfire’ feeling,” Naylor said of the sessions he hosted. “That atmosphere had something to do with giving people an impression of how nice it was to be able to just be around.”

The Lords, along with former bartender Christopher Prescott, will have honorary seats for the show, where they’ll likely field requests to bring back their beloved funky watering hole.

“There are so many people that still say, ‘Would you guys open again?’” said Paula. “The neon sign is still sitting in my shed, but I’m not sure if the mice have gotten to the wires.”

Remembering the Green Martini – A Musical Celebration

When: Thursday, March 3, 7 p.m.
Where: Bank of NH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets:$15 at ccanh.com
Proceeds from the show will benefit the Concord Community Music School.

Featured photo: Rachel Bulock. Courtesy photo

Jim Norton talks comedy, cancel culture and more

After a pandemic-induced hiatus of over a year, Jim Norton returned to live comedy last autumn, then stopped performing in early October. He’s back on the road, with a brief Northeast jaunt kicking off at Laconia’s Colonial Theatre on Feb. 17. Norton spoke with the Hippo by phone recently, in an interview that touched on his edgy, no-holds-barred act, the state of comedy in an era of cancel culture, and how far he’s willing to go for his craft (spoiler alert — there are no limits).

Are you the same guy on and off stage, or do you turn it up when you perform?

You have to turn it up. There are times when I’m being 100 percent to-the-word honest, and there are times where I’m just being kind of honest, and there are times where I’m being just an a——. I don’t feel a need to be married to any one of those things if I’m having fun and I’m enjoying the jokes I’m doing. So, yeah, it is an exaggerated form of myself.

That a topic doesn’t have to be funny to be funny in a bit seems like kind of a guiding principle for you.

Throughout comic history things that aren’t funny are used to make people laugh. Go to something as benign as The Three Stooges. The way people literally look at comedy today, Moe would be canceled for slapping Larry and hitting Curly with a wrench. Those are physically violent things, but slapstick is never called out. … Most subjects on their own can be very sad or depressing or unsettling. I never need a subject to be funny to make fun of it.

You’ve observed that actors can play the worst people in the world without being criticized, but comedians are held to a different standard.

I think that’s because people are self-centered and they want their own personal comfort space with humor to be respected [and] they use your joke to springboard into the discussion. … People are too mentally lazy or stupid to start a conversation about the subject on their own. … I have zero respect for that, because I think the whole thing is a lie. … Lenny Bruce was technically a victim of it and Andrew Dice Clay in 1989 was the victim of it. So it’s not this … new soft generation; we’ve always been doing it.

One of your first big breaks was with Dice. What was the milieu like back then?

I expected it to be this wild sex fest on the road with all these hot girls. Meanwhile, after the show, all he wanted to do was hang out with his friends and lay in the hotel room and eat little chocolate treats…. But what an education as far as how to handle an aggressive audience … it made me a much stronger comic.

Is there a line that can’t be crossed?

No, no, no. … The problem is when people want something punitive to happen to the person who made the joke, that’s where it’s wrong. To have your own line is great, and we all have it. The problem is, we should never expect something to be done about it. Someone crossed the line; you didn’t like it. That’s the beginning and end of the conversation.

How about the Neil Young/Spotify controversy?

I would have respected Neil a lot more if he just left, but I also find some of what they’re doing to be a virtue signal. … Joe is a very close friend of mine for almost 30 years, but you know who I go to for medical advice? Doctors. I’m a grown man, and I listen to doctors that I know, so they may agree with Joe about some things, they may disagree with him, [but] I take responsibility for my own finding out of information. I don’t look to a podcaster or a comedian or a news pundit.

What other things are in the pipeline for you that fans should know about?

It’s more like just getting back to doing gigs. I would love to shoot another special but just getting back to gigs for me right now is the most important thing. I’m literally loving it. Like I’ve never taken a break before, and taking that year off was crazy. Going back on, I appreciate it like I haven’t appreciated it since I was in my first or second year, back in the early ’90s.

Jim Norton

When: Thursday, Feb. 17, 8 p.m.
Where: Colonial Theatre, 617 Main St., Laconia
Tickets: $32 to $62 at etix.com

Featured photo: Jim Norton. Courtesy photo.

Latest from Donaher a throwback time capsule

There’s a clear ’90s vibe to Donaher’s second long-player. The Manchester quartet signals its intentions with leadoff track “Fixer Upper” — with its angsty lyrics, floor-shaking guitar and a vocal that straddles the line between an angry growl and a heart-wrecked moan, it’s something Nirvana might have done had Kurt Cobain walked out of his Seattle garage.

That’s no accident.

“Kurt’s the reason why I picked up a guitar when I was 15 years old,” singer and main songwriter Nick Lavallee said recently. Though adulthood, sobriety and a bit of therapy have mellowed him, “I remind myself that I need to continuously do things that would make my 15-year-old-self smile.”

The mood of Gravity And The Stars Above veers from their sunny 2017 debut I Swear My Love Is True, though it shares its sheen — and then some. There’s “Lights Out,” a hook-tastic breakup song brimming with pain, and “Sleepless in New England,” with a protagonist who needs “to remind [his] lungs to keep on breathing.”

The latter track paraphrases a line from the movie Castaway — “tomorrow the sun will rise and who knows what the tide could bring?” — that Lavallee feels could reach the shipwrecked or the dumped.

“I think in many ways the character in that Tom Hanks movie was put on that island to almost slow down time… he had to learn how to be grateful for the things he had,” he said. “There’s some running themes like that on a couple of the songs.”

While there is more than a little romantic misery, a few moments of hope peek through.

“Worth The Wait” is a duet with Noelle Leblanc of the Boston band Damone that recalls both Iggy Pop’s “Candy” and the Foo Fighters’ wall of sound. Lavallee said he was reaching for layers of meaning in songs like Semisonic’s “Closing Time” when he wrote it.

“It sounds like a couple singing about each other, but it’s about [them] having a baby,” he said. “I was like, can I write a song that might be about one thing to me, and mean something totally different to the listener?”

Sweet and wholesome, “Circle Yes Or No” is another highlight, a grade-school romance laid atop a brisk power pop beat. “I basically envisioned, what if The Descendants covered The Lemonheads?” Lavallee said. “They actually backed up Evan Dando on a record once … that’s what I was going for.”

Another throwback move was how the new record dropped. One week prior to hitting streaming services, it came out as an oh-so-retro compact disc.

“I love vinyl, but we weren’t listening to records in the ’90s, we were listening to CDs and tapes,” Lavallee said. “I wanted the first image of this album to be a shrink-wrapped CD, and those feelings of ’90s nostalgia to hit hard.”

Donaher — Lavallee, lead guitarist Tristan Omand, bass player Adam Wood and drummer Nick Lee — will celebrate the new disc with three area shows. The first is Feb. 11 at Newmarket’s Stone Church, followed a week later at Shaskeen Pub, the band’s home court. Opening there is Colleen Green, a singer-songwriter signed to original Nirvana label Subpop’s affiliate Hardly Art. The final show happens Feb. 26 at Lowell’s Thirsty First Tavern.

A self-described “obsessive creative” who’s also a lapsed standup comic and creator of the Wicked Joyful line of pop culture action figures, Lavallee said the presence of two other songwriters in the band, Wood and Omand, helped steady him.

“I’m challenged by them. They don’t let anything slip by,” he said. “I’m doing some stuff that’s very different compared to the first record lyrically, and that’s definitely Tristan pushing me to not just repeat myself.”

As with the first record and last summer’s Angus Soundtrack 2 EP, a favorite band from the decade still influences him.

“This album sounds like it could have been recorded between the Blue Album and Pinkerton,” he said, referring to a pair of Weezer CDs. “It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Rivers Cuomo and his songwriting, and people would expect our take on Pinkerton, but a little darker, a little louder, little messier. … I think some of those elements are definitely there.”

Donaher w/ The Graniteers

When: Friday, Feb. 11, 9 p.m.
Where: Stone Church Music Club, 5 Granite St., Newmarket
Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 day of show at stonechurchrocks.com
Also Feb. 18 at 9 p.m. at Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester with Colleen Green & Monica Grasso ($10 at door)

Featured photo: Donaher. Photo courtesy of Jessica Arnold.

A.J. Croce’s family crossroads

Fittingly, the first song A.J. Croce ever recorded from his late father Jim Croce’s catalog was “I Got A Name.” He’d done hits like “Time In A Bottle” and “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” during Croce Plays Croce concerts for a few years, and a bit reluctantly at that. The decision to truly embrace the tribute show after a long and successful solo career involved some divine intervention, A.J. said recently.

When Jim Croce died in a 1973 plane crash, his son was 2 years old. One way he got to know him was as an archivist, poring over reels of tape for clues about his artistic process.

A fourth-generation musician on both sides of his family, A.J. Croce was destined to perform, but his apple landed away from the tree. He grew up playing piano, not guitar like his dad, and his tastes leaned toward blues, jazz and R&B instead of lyric-driven folk rock. A.J. went on to make multiple acclaimed albums rooted in a style one writer described as “part New Orleans, part juke joint, part soul.”

One day a few years ago A.J. Croce stumbled upon a crossroads while listening to his father’s writing tapes. When he wasn’t touring, Jim Croce would record ideas into a Wollensak recorder, and one particular reel was filled with material his son recognized immediately — they were selections he’d been performing for years.

“It gave me chills,” Croce said. “It wasn’t just obscure old jazz and blues and early country artists, but the exact, very obscure songs. So it was Fats Waller, who’s not obscure; but it wasn’t ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ or ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ — it was “You’re Not The Only Oyster In The Stew,” which was one of the first songs that I played on a demo for Columbia way back in the late ’80s, early ’90s.”

Twelve of 15 were songs he’d done; Croce began to look at the connection to his father as more than biological.

“I’d probably been asked my whole career to perform his music, and as much as I love his songs, I was first and foremost a piano player,” he said, “and I was also more likely to play a song by Ray Charles or the Rolling Stones than something by my father. That really inspired me to look at the concert not just as a tribute to his music but to the connection that we have to music in general.”

Thus, the upcoming Croce Plays Croce concerts in New Hampshire and across the river in Vermont will blend selections from Jim Croce’s brief but prolific career — three albums made over 18 months in the early ’70s — and A.J.’s genre-crossing catalog, along with the music that inspired them both.

“The influences that we both share are so vast, it could be so many different things,” Croce said. “You can hear Jimmy Reed on songs like ‘You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,’ and Lieber & Stoller’s songwriting on many of the others, whether it’s ‘Leroy Brown’ or ‘Car Wash Blues’ — those sort of R&B influenced things.”

The show also celebrates Jim Croce’s innovative songwriting approach, which A.J. believes came into its own with his most enduring hit, “Time In a Bottle.” His dad wrote the song for him.

“It was sort of a musical epiphany that happened,” he said. “I think he felt like, ‘This is my last chance to do this for a living; I have a son now, I have a family,’ and he really went with it.”

Croce knows the foundational elements of his dad’s work, but believes it’s the relatability of hits such as “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels),” “Lover’s Cross” and character songs like “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” “Rapid Roy” and “Speedball Tucker” that ultimately set him apart.

“Being a record collector and sort of a musicologist, I think I can hear where those influences come from,” he said. “But what he does is so unique, different than almost anyone I’ve heard. He personalizes it from the perspective of not just him seeing these people, or being present around these people, but also making heroes out of sort of everyday folks.”

Croce Plays Croce

When: Thursday, Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Flying Monkey, 39 Main St., Plymouth
Tickets: $39 and up at flyingmonkeynh.com (13+)

Featured photo: A.J. Croce. Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins.