Category: Nightlife

Legendary band returns to New England

Although it took a while for Little Feat to catch on with audiences in the early ’70s, other musicians quickly got their heady gumbo of rock, soul, funk and New Orleans boogie. Its members were frequently booked for session work, none more than keyboard player Bill Payne, whose resume of studio credits runs for multiple pages.

Beginning with Toulouse Street, Payne was a de facto Doobie Brother, and in recent years a part of their touring band, including a just-completed run of shows marking their 50th anniversary. That’s ending soon, however. The band he co-founded in 1969 with Lowell George and Richie Hayward is back on the road, beginning with several dates across the Northeast, including one at Lowell Memorial Auditorium on Nov. 19.

“I’m 100 percent Little Feat from here on,” Payne said by phone from his home in Montana recently, adding, “there’s just not enough hours in the day.”

Payne explained that Feat recently signed with Vector Management, a Nashville agency that also works with Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, Alison Krauss and Lyle Lovett.

“I want to give them free rein to really promote our band … having a conflict with the Doobie Brothers about when they can tour, that’s not a great way to run a railroad.”

The audience-driven By Request Tour will include new additions Tony Leone on drums and guitar player Scott Sharrard, who joined after Paul Barrere, a member since 1972, lost his battle with cancer. Leone and Sharrard’s quick fit with the band helped convince Payne and his mates Kenny Gradney, Sam Clayton and Fred Tackett that Feat should carry on.

“It’s about music, it’s about legacy, and it’s about musicianship,” Payne said. “Do we harm our legacy by continuing, or do we add to it? If we’re strictly going out and playing ‘Dixie Chicken’ or ‘Oh Atlanta’ or ‘Time Loves a Hero’ — I can do that by going out and joining a Little Feat tribute band.”

Part of moving forward includes making new music.

Released in July, “When All Boats Rise” is a gospel-infused tune that confronts the hope and despair of a fractious nation. Payne came up with the nautical-themed title and handed it to frequent collaborator Tom Garnsey, a songwriter he’s long admired.

“I’ve written songs with [Grateful Dead lyricist] Robert Hunter, for example,” he said. “His lyrics hold up with that caliber of stuff; he’s just excellent.”

The song is a clarion call for harmony in divided times; Payne knows some will greet it cynically.

“There’s a lot of people out there that will go, all boats rise, well, I don’t even have a boat,” he said. “It’s aspirational — liberty and justice for all is what we aspire to, and that’s what we aspire to with ‘All Boats Rise.’”

Fans have submitted a lot of requests for the upcoming tour.

“The Little Feat fan base is obviously a very knowledgeable group,” Payne said. “We’re just going to have to see how many of them we can learn, to be honest with you.”

Some, he added, won’t make the cut, and not for musical reasons, Payne said.

“I think given the state of affairs of the world, ‘The Fan’ is an interesting request, but it’s not exactly a song with a good view of women.” It’s true, the Feats Don’t Fail Me Now track’s misogyny is glaring in hindsight. “Look, we’re not going to sing that, OK? Let’s play some of the music … we’d be in a world of trouble if we actually got up there and sang it.”

Payne is receptive to focusing on Little Feat’s most successful album, the 1978 double live Waiting For Columbus.

“[That’s] been brought up year after year, and I’m like, I don’t know,” he said.

New management, and new blood in the band, however, encourage him.

“The weight of it is you’re going after one of the best albums we ever put out and certainly one of our most well-known. … I think it’s a perfect way to say, ‘Put it right down: the gauntlet has been thrown.’”

Little Feat By Request

When: Friday, Nov. 19, 8 p.m.
Where: Lowell Memorial Auditorium, 50 E. Merrimack St., Lowell
Tickets: $39 to $289 at event.etix.com

Featured photo: Little Feat. Courtesy photo.

Comedian Carolyn Plummer headlines Rex show

Of all the words Carolyn Plummer might use to describe herself, “lucky” isn’t one. As a teenager Plummer won a pair of Grateful Dead passes, only to see the show canceled when Jerry Garcia died. In early 2020, she had the best spring of her comedy career lined up, and everyone knows how that turned out.

Quarantine led to a lot of soul-searching, Plummer said in a recent phone interview.

“I reassessed my whole life,” she said. “Like, why am I doing comedy? Should I have focused on a career? Should I have been a teacher?” Then, in February of this year, Denis Leary called with an invitation for Plummer to appear at the annual Comics Come Home benefit.

“That re-energized me to feel like I was on the right path,” she said. “Now I have a deeper appreciation for live shows and performing. I look at every performance now as an opportunity to meet more people and network and just enjoy it. … There’s a lot of sacrifice, but that kind of just brought everything full circle, that all the sacrifices made sense.”

Of course, the Nov. 13 Boston Garden show has been postponed for another year, but Plummer knows she’ll be on the next one. That’s a more tangible thing to hold on to than that Dead contest back when.

“They were will-call,” she said of the Boston Garden concert. “So I didn’t even have the tickets.”

A few comics mined the pandemic for new jokes, but not Plummer.

“I wasn’t very creative at the beginning. … My whole life just changed; it took a while to work through. I did a few things about contactless delivery; I don’t know why we didn’t have that in the past. I don’t need to have a relationship with the guy bringing the pizza to my house.”

A New Hampshire native — she grew up in Wolfeboro, a minister’s daughter — Plummer got into comedy after responding to an ad.

“This guy was teaching a class out of his mom’s condo in Manchester,” she said, adding with a chuckle, “That seemed safe to me at the time.”

It turned out well, and after a summer of learning, she began hitting open mic nights, eventually spending a lot of time in Portland, Maine.

“I met all the Boston guys; they would come up and do comedy,” she said. “I would watch them and go, ‘Wow, these guys are awesome’ — you know what I mean? Like Don Gavin, and all the greats: Lenny Clarke, Tony V….”

A big early break was the result of misfortune for Plummer.

“True story: On my 30th birthday, I got laid off,” she said. “Kelly MacFarland is one of my best friends, and she’s also a comic. She said, ‘I just met these guys, and they need another roommate, why don’t you go talk to them, and if it works out, move in there?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t have a job.’ She said, ‘That’s the best time to go.’ I ended up moving back to Belmont, Mass., which I could never afford if I wasn’t in a roommate situation. … It kind of took off from there.”

While she’s performed in New York City, ventured to California for the Burbank Comedy Festival and even thought about moving west once or twice, Plummer is partial to living in and working in New England, particularly her home state.

“What I like about New Hampshire is it surprises you,” she said. “You might go to this tiny town in the middle of nowhere and have all these highly educated people that you’d think wouldn’t be living in the woods, fixing cars, being lumberjacks, and all this other stuff. You can’t make assumptions like that. … All the different towns are different.”

Carolyn Plummer & Friends

When: Friday, Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $25 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Comedian Carolyn Plummer. Courtesy photo.

Halloween themed comedy show in Manchester

Open mic nights are a lifeblood for comedians, a place to hone their craft and work on new material.

For much of the pandemic, Yankee Lanes in Keene was one of the few to remain open, and comics from all across New England flocked to it. Seacoast standup Michael Millett inherited the weekly event when its original host left, and as the nightlife scene began reopening, he moved it to Yankee’s sister location in Manchester.

Millett’s Grey Area Comedy has become a hub for a growing alt comedy scene that includes Gone Rogue Productions’ events at Manchester’s Backyard Brewery, Tragedy Plus Time’s shows in Londonderry, Exeter’s Word Barn and the venerable downtown Shaskeen showcase, now run by Ruby Room Comedy.

The Yankee conclave recalls the now-defunct Monday open mic at Penuche’s Ale House in Concord — in both venues, audiences don’t always arrive expecting comedy, Millett said in a recent phone interview.

“You have to basically fight for the audience’s attention. … The stage is in the same room as the bar,” he said. “We bank off the bowling league that gets out around 8:45; our open mic is at 9. Regular patrons bleed in, sit down, and watch the comedians.”

A dozen or so hopefuls show up every week to face the challenging milieu.

“Every mic has a different energy,” Millett said. “People that work on their comedy come to mine, and I like that.”

Millett also hosts a comedy showcase at Yankee Lanes on the last Friday of every month with a headliner, feature comic and opening act. The next one happens Oct. 29 and stars the comedy team of Jai Demeule and Will Pottorff. The two ran a popular weekly event in Beverly, Mass., until it became a casualty of lockdown. Anthony Massa features, and Troy Burditt opens.

Demeule and Pottorff were known for raucous sets done in costume, as teachers, politicians, camp counselors and other characters. Their upcoming appearance will most likely have a similar approach, but when reached for comment, Demeule demurred on the details — while hinting at a potential exorcism.

“Without giving too much away, Will and I will be doing a Halloween themed set that might have some guests from our time running The Studio of Madness,” she wrote via Facebook Messenger. “Audiences can expect laughs, a healthy dose of insanity, and if all goes well, for the bowling alley to be cleansed of all ghostly presence by the end of the evening.”

Next month, local comic Matt Barry is joined by Tom Spohn and Tristan Hoffler, and in December, Paul Keller headlines.

“He’s a kinetic comedian who does comedy and magic at the same time,” Millett said of Keller. “He’s very good at magic tricks, but he’s also good at being funny about it.”

Millett has hopes for expanding to a more formal setting in the future.

“Yankee Lanes has a rec room that they don’t use for anything [and] I could easily fit 120 people in there,” he said. “I’m working toward getting enough draw with Grey Area Comedy to do that … it’s now been just over a year, between Keene and Manchester.”

His efforts are about more than just promoting shows, Millett stressed.

“I’m trying to build a community with everything I do, trying to get as many comedians involved in it as possible,” he said. “What I want to do is — I don’t want to use the word safe haven — but I want it to be a cornerstone, contributing to the rest of the scene. A place for people to work on their craft.”

Grey Area Comedy Club

When: Friday, Oct. 29, 8 p.m.
Where: Yankee Lanes (formerly Spare Time), 216 Maple St., Manchester
More: Free show starring Jai Demeule and Will Pottorff, Anthony Massa, Troy Burditt, Michael Millett (host)

Featured photo: Will Pottorff and Jai Demeule. Courtesy photo. Courtesy photo.

Triple bill leans to heavy sound

As a genre, mathcore occupies the intersection of punk, metal and jazz. Among its practitioners is Willzyx, a Manchester quartet with influences including industrial rock pioneers Ministry, late-stage John Coltrane, and modern exemplars like Daughters and French avant-prog trio PoiL.

Willzyx’s latest EP, i don’t feel anything, was released in September. With six tracks clocking in under 15 minutes, it’s at times relentless, as on the whisper to a scream “Feed Your Feelings,” and “Flexible Lies,” which echoes Red-era King Crimson. “We Can Live Our Deaths in Peace” closes out the new disc perfectly, with Ian Seacrest’s screamo vocals soaring over a progression always on the verge of exploding.

For the curious, their name is pronounced Will-Zee-Ack and comes from the killer whale character in a 2005 South Park episode that parodied Free Willy. In a recent phone interview, Willzyx guitarist Alex Hunt and drummer John Funk talked of plans to tone down the band’s wildness.

“When the pandemic hit, we decided to record stuff we hadn’t done yet … in between the next stage of where we’re going sound-wise,” he said. “What we’re working on is branching toward a more choreographed and organized effort, instead of trying to be heavy and chaotic for the sake of being heavy and chaotic.”

Though based in Manchester, Willzyx hasn’t done many local shows lately, with Boston, Providence or Portland, Maine, more frequently on their calendar, with an occasional New York City gig.

“I think we just kind of want to branch out, try to space it,” Funk said. “All of our friends are here, so when we play, it’s fun for everyone to come hang out, but we also want to share with people who don’t know who we are, so we try and go outward.”

The band’s formative period happened in its hometown, however. They’ve appeared at Shaskeen, and a key venue was the now-shuttered Bungalow.

“The whole thing started almost as a joke,” Hunt said. “It was … free experimentation and trying not to repeat riffs, things like that. We tested all of that at Bungalow; it was the main place for us at the beginning.”

They’re back home on Oct. 23 for a show at Candia Road Brewing Co., with two other acts joining in.

Tweak also hews toward a heavier, industrial rock sound.

“They’re kind of in a similar vein to us in that I feel like we listen to a lot of the same music and share a lot of similar kinds of ideas of why we make music,” Hunt said.

Rounding out the night is Doth, the latest moniker for an ambient band that’s gone by Cain Sauce and Sugar Potion, among other names.

“It’s all the same people; this is just one formation,” Hunt said. “It’s a more sparse, electronic kind of thing.”

The event is a bit of a departure for the craft brewery, which frequently hosts solo singer-songwriters, and it’s also the final appearance of Tweak’s current configuration, as one of its members will soon relocate to Chicago.

“They’re definitely an experience I think people should come and see,” Hunt said. “It’s part jump-scare, part dissonant ambient, and part you can’t really follow the rhythms, but you know they’re there somewhere.”

Willzyx members Hunt, Funk, Seacrest and bass player Colin Ward are pleased to present a diverse night.

“There aren’t a lot of shows that cross genre boundaries,” Hunt said. “There’s the metal scene, there’s the songwriter scene, and they don’t really interact very much. Doth is totally not in the same sound as us, but they have the same mentality of bridging those gaps, exposing people to different things that they might not have known they were interested in. It’s cool to have those different styles on the same bill.”

Willzyx / Doth / Tweak

When: Saturday, Oct. 23, 8 p.m.
Where: Candia Road Brewing Co., 840 Candia Road, Manchester
Tickets: $5 – see facebook.com/WillzyxBand

Featured photo: Willzyx. Courtesy photo.

Q & A with Rick Wakeman

Along with his work with Yes and a large catalog of solo albums, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Rick Wakeman has made music with everyone from David Bowie to Black Sabbath. He even played A&R man when he steered theatrical rockers The Tubes to A&M Records. At his upcoming show in Derry, Wakeman will perform and reminisce about his life, often reprising the standup comedy skills that made him a hit at Yes’s 2017 Hall of Fame induction. Wakeman spoke with the Hippo via Zoom from his home in England.

How did things go for you during the pandemic?

Well, it wasn’t good, but having said that, it wasn’t good for anybody…. I played the piano every day, but there were some days I thought to myself, how long is this going to go on for? I’m just playing the piano and I don’t know why…. The thing that brought everything home to me was … I lost 19 friends from Covid. That hit home very hard.

Will these shows be your first live audience experience since shutdown?

Yeah, they are [except for] a few weeks ago. When restrictions lifted here, I phoned my great friends at the Ronnie Scott club in London and said … I need to play in front of an audience, however small. … I didn’t plan anything to say; I walked on stage, went up to the microphone and without thinking I went, ‘Wow, there’s real people!’ [And] somebody shouted back, ‘Yeah, and there’s somebody on stage — it doesn’t get any better!’

Are you really grumpier this time around?

It’s grumpy but actually funny. … It won’t offend. There are a lot of things to be grumpy about [but] I’m not going to make a meal of the whole Covid thing. I want people to have fun. There will be a moment where I remember a few friends. It’s just going to be so great to walk out and play for my friends — pretty much everywhere I go in America I’ve got friends.

Tell me about working with Black Sabbath.

When they were putting Sabbath Bloody Sabbath together, we were in the same complex of studios. … Ozzy said we’ve got some synthesizer, mini-Moog lines we want, would you come and do it? I said I’d love to. So I went into the studio just after midnight. The entire band and engineers were comatose, they were completely out of it, there were quite a few bottles lying around. The taper was there, and was looking terrified. … He said, ‘I can play you the track; Ozzy said you’d know what to do,’ [and] I recorded it. Then Ozzy opened his eyes and looked at me. I can’t repeat the exact words he said, but he basically went, that’s perfect. He actually went, ‘That’s f-ing great!’

How are you choosing songs for this tour? 

I’m at the stage right now where I’ve got a short list [of 20 songs, and] 10 will have to go. Having said that … sometimes I can throw everything out the window…. It’s happened on a few occasions. I’m certain there will be a few I haven’t played before. It’s a mixture of certain pieces that people in the nicest sense like to hear when I come along, a few they might not expect, and a few total surprises.

What’s the status of Anderson Wakeman Rabin?

I’d like to think something over the next few years will happen for sure, because none of us are getting any younger and we all love what we do … I mean, I love playing Yes music, it’s my life, so obviously if the offers come in and Jon and Trev are up for it, yeah, I’m sure there will be stuff.

How’d you discover The Tubes?

I first saw them in the ’70s. I think it was Halloween and we had a night off in San Francisco. I went out to this club where the Tubes were playing. … There was a lot of drinking and noise. Not a lot of people were taking notice [and] I thought it was a shame that at the time people weren’t really listening to them. Fee Waybill walked off and I thought, is he gone? He came back on completely naked and sang the next song — yeah, that got their attention. He went, now you’re listening. And I thought, I liked you before, I love you guys now. After, I asked, who are you signed to? They said nobody will touch us, they’re all frightened of us. I said, I’ll get you a deal, I promise you. I flew down to L.A. and saw Jerry Moss [and] he said yeah, we know all about The Tubes. Everybody’s a bit frightened of them. I said they are fantastic, so so good. He said, I’ll tell you what, Rick, we’ll sign them, but the deal is you produce them. … Problem was, I’m solidly on tour with Yes [so] someone else came in. Of course, they had a massive album. We remain friends.

Rick Wakeman – The Even Grumpier Old Rock Star Tour

When: Thursday, Oct. 14, 8 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $55 and $60 at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Rick Wakeman. Courtesy photo.

Willy Porter back in NH for two shows

Though he’s a native of Wisconsin, Willy Porter feels a strong connection to the Granite State.

“I think I could easily live in New Hampshire,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I just love the pace of life there.”

Porter returns frequently for shows at The Flying Goose in New London, and this year he’ll be there for two nights to start their live music season.

Porter’s career began around the time Tom Mills opened the restaurant turned brewpub in 1993; his breakthrough LP, Dog Eared Dream, arrived a year later. His ties to the area include a long collaboration with musician and artist Tom Pirozzoli. The two have written together over the years and in 2020 made an album, Reckon by the Light.

“He’s got a great eye as a poet and a painter,” Porter said of Pirozzoli. “He’s one of the guys you want around.”

Porter has made almost a dozen records over his three-decade career. His most recent, mnemonic, arrived just ahead of the pandemic, on Valentine’s Day 2020. With its release, he played a trio show in his home state, then headed to Florida to start a tour in support of the new disc.

When he got there, the world shut down.

After being stranded for a bit, Porter flew back to Wisconsin. He didn’t perform again until June of this year, other than playing for a handpicked crowd last fall to help an Omaha, Nebraska performing arts center stay open.

“It was a strange sort of mummified show … everybody fully wrapped,” he said of the event, which was livestreamed. “I did get to play this extraordinary room; it was like going from my basement to Carnegie Hall.”

Now, beginning with a festival in Oregon and continuing in New England, Porter is finally back on the road.

“I was looking at my luggage and I saw the baggage tag was from the return from Florida on March 12 of 2020,” he said, and offered a baseball metaphor for emphasis. “It’s a gift to come off the Covid bench, get back in it and see some old friends.”

Porter drew from the pandemic and America’s pastime for a single he put out in early summer. “Baseball On The Radio” recalls a trip to Sears with his dad that’s more about time away from his mom than shopping, as the two bond over their beloved Brewers and announcer Bob Uecker calls the game.

“I asked him, ‘Why are we here?’ He said, ‘Because your mother’s not,’ … I just looked at him and then he kind of just smiled, and we moved on. I think that was a time when the garage was just not far enough away,” he said. “I’m lucky that I grew up in a house where my parents always worked it out.”

The hopeful, nostalgic song was also aimed at a reeling country.

“We’re coming out of Covid, and the one thing I’ve always loved is baseball, we can all rally around it. It’s an American thing, it’s not partisan, it’s just fantastic. It’s right up the middle, it’s where we’re from. I just wanted something that was uniquely positive … plus, it’s a lot of fun to sing about the Brewers.”

The song will appear on a new album Porter is working on with Dog Eared Dream producer Mike Hoffman.

“It only took us 27 years to do the follow-up together,” he said with a laugh. The forthcoming disc draws inspiration from his experience revisiting the 1994 record on its 25th anniversary in 2019.

“It was a very hopeful time,” he said. “Going back, you can pull some of that energy out of that music again and reapply it. Not that I’m trying to replicate it, but there’s a mindset, a psychology of hope in both of those records. I’m definitely trying to tap into [that] with this new project.”

Willy Porter

When: Wednesday, Oct. 6, and Thursday, Oct. 7, 8 p.m.
Where: Flying Goose Pub, 40 Andover Road, New London
Tickets: $25 at flyinggoose.com

Featured photo: Willy Porter. Courtesy photo.